The Delta Flyers - Unity
Episode Date: June 14, 2021The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch and recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at ...the very beginning. This week’s episode is Unity. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Unity:Cmdr. Chakotay is attacked after trying to answer a distress signal; Janeway and her crew find a Borg ship.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise and Rebecca McNeill, and our Post Producer Jessey Miller.Additionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co- Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Chris Knapp, Michelle Zamanian, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Matthew Gravens, Brian Barrow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, James Zugg, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, William McEvoy, Sarah Thompson, Holly Smith, Dominic Burgess, Amber Eason, Lucas Shuck, PJ Tomas, Nicholaus Russell, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Ariana, Marcus Vanderzonbrouwer, and Shambhavi KadamAnd our Producers:Chris Tribuzio, Jim Guckin, Steph Dawe Holland, James Amey, Katherine Hedrick, Eleanor Lamb, Richard Banaski, Eve England, Ann Harding, Laura Swanson, Ann Marie Segal, Charity Ponton, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Craig Sweaton, Nathanial Moon, Warren Stine, Mike Schaible, Kelley Smelser, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Crystal Komenda, Maxine Soloway, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Elaine Ferguson, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, John Espinosa, Dat Cao, Cody Crockett, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, James Cottrell, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Daniel Owen, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Liz Lowe, Ming Xie, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Kevin Selman, Heather Choe, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Justin Weir, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Peter Lucas, Michelle Maroney, Rickard Fahlander, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, and Scott J. MarkThank you for your support!Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hey guys, welcome to the Delta Flyers.
I'm your host, Garrett Wong, and my co-host, of course, is Robert Duncan McNeil.
Robbie.
Robert Duncan McNeil.
Yes, three names.
That's me.
Do you know, Third Rock from the Sun?
Yes.
Which I've been watching with Megan, like doing a rewatch of, is about a family of aliens.
posing as humans.
And in that family, there is a Tom or Tommy, and there is a Harry.
Really?
Yes.
I just realized that.
I've been watching, this has been our ritual.
You know, Megan and I, I haven't been in Canada for a while.
So our ritual is to kind of like watch a show every night.
And so we watch a couple episodes of Third Rock.
So we're already in the third season.
And I'm sitting here thinking, wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
There's a Harry and a Tommy.
And of course, we are Harry and Tom, too.
Yeah.
I never made that connection until now, and you clearly did not make that connection.
No, I didn't.
Okay.
I heard it's a great show.
I would love to, I'd love to watch it.
I hear it's really funny.
Yeah.
You definitely should check it out.
Cool.
Well, this week's episode is Unity.
And let's just say that you should probably know a little bit about this episode.
A little bit.
Yeah. Yeah. So why don't we, without further ado, why don't we go watch this and come back with our recap?
All right. Yeah. And all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus segment. What do we remember?
Hey, guys, we are back from watching Unity. Yes, we are. Robbie's second episode. Do I know? It was a real flashback for me because I didn't remember a lot of this, but as I watched it, I had.
had so many memories coming back.
Oh, I'm so excited.
We get to, we get front row seat here.
Let's go ahead and start with our typical poetry synopsis.
Yes, always good to start with some poetry.
Yeah, let's start with a little haiku for unity.
The Borg Collective, Chakote linked and kissed.
Janeway will be pissed.
Short and sweet.
Okay.
Here we go.
here is my limerick for unity all right chocote kaplan heed the call of distress no one to help attacked by ex borg no less
an ensign extinct commander is linked riley and company use one to suppress oh oh nice extra poetic there you like that yes it was yes it was yes it was
Yes, this episode was written by Ken Biller and directed by Robert Duncan McNeil, who I vaguely remember.
Who is that?
Robert Dunton, Robert Dunton, McNeil?
Okay.
I don't know.
See, we could hardly remember him.
Did you talk to Ken Biller a lot before this episode or during this episode?
Do you recall?
I actually don't recall talking to Ken a lot about this.
Okay.
Um, some. I'm sure I did. I mean, he was the writer of the episode. So he was there for all the prep meetings and all the decisions and conversations. But, but I can't recall like some in-depth, you know, conversation about issues with the script. I do, I will say like my takeaway after watching this is if I could do this all over. Yeah. I realize now how profound it was that we met the Borg for the very first time. Because we didn't know.
know seven of nine was coming along we didn't know that you know this could have been and with
the information that we had as actors even as a director on the show we could have just been meeting
the board this one time for this one episode and that would have been it correct for for voyager
we may never have dealt with the board ever again so i wasn't i my memory is i wasn't given
the profound responsibility that i think as i watched this episode i kind of think
wow, this was a big responsibility to kind of bring the Borg into Voyager's story.
Yeah.
And I didn't, I don't remember having that kind of sense of responsibility.
Okay.
I didn't realize, you know, how big they would become in our story.
So no one relayed to you how serious this was going to.
I mean, no one came to you and said, hey, this is a huge deal beforehand.
You were just said, no, you were just told, okay, you're going to direct this.
you did pre-production and nobody really pulled you aside.
Okay.
I don't think they knew, honestly.
You know, I don't think they may not have known.
They may not have done.
I don't think they had any idea that they were going to introduce seven of nine.
Right.
That the Borg would become a big part of our story.
There wasn't a lot of, you know, digging into the big picture mythology of the Borg in Star Trek lineage.
No, there weren't a lot of conversations.
Okay.
So, you know, my approach.
And having just rewatch this, my approach was more like,
all right, I'll treat the board as sort of a horror movie side of things.
And the other story, this Riley story, will be a very personal story,
obviously for Chikote.
It ends up making some very risky decisions based on his feelings about Riley
and this cooperative, this collective.
Right.
Okay.
Well, before we jump into the recap of this,
I do want to talk briefly about the general feeling you had before directing Sacred Ground
and the general feeling you had going into direct this because you had a completely
different excitement level and you name it.
So can you just talk about that?
I think with Sacred Ground when I first directed, I was super excited and particularly excited
that Kate was the focus of the episode because I really felt comfortable with Kate.
I felt like I could trust her that she trusted me,
that I felt like I was in a in the right script at the right time.
It was the perfect first episode for me,
even though it came up by accident.
Jonathan Brakes was supposed to direct that.
And he had to back out of sacred ground
because of getting the first contact feature job.
Even though it was an accident that I ended up directing that,
that sacred ground episode,
it was the perfect first fit for me.
This one, I remember when I got it,
you know, you and I've talked about it.
I think I felt a little bit less comfortable.
Not that Robert wasn't a great friend and actor and colleague.
I felt very comfortable with him,
but I just didn't connect to the script in the same way.
I was trying to find a way in,
as you and I talked about,
like this whole Soviet Union collapse thing to me made sense.
It was topical at the time.
And so that was sort of the way in.
And I made it more of a character personal story in my mind,
you know,
that she was sort of seduced by this relationship.
so okay all right good so let's just dive right in um the very first scene we see chiquotay and
Kaplan are in a shuttle and i had forgotten about this character Kaplan yes played by
susan patterson who was also in futures end standing i think at your station in future's end
is that right oh my goodness i think she was established in that episode okay okay and i think she may have
had a line up at the at the at the at your station okay i feel like there's another actress that
resembles her that you may be confused about possibly but maybe you want to look it up you want to
look at i did look it up after and it said futures end i was like where did this girl come from
yeah said she was also in futures end so okay she may not have been at your station she may have
been somewhere else maybe in the mess hall or somewhere right right she she had a moment that
she was established in future's end just a few episodes back and now we're
We see her in a shuttle at the top of this episode.
They're on a scouting mission, they say, and they're looking for a faster route home.
Through the Nekid Expans.
The Nekid Expans.
Some of us like to go out the Nekid Expans.
The Nekid Expans, yes.
So Kaplan and Chakotay, they're lost.
But all of a sudden, they pick up a Federation hailing beacon, which is, you know, clearly an
indication that Voyager is reaching out to them. But then they discover, wait a minute,
this isn't coming from space. This is coming from the surface of a planet. And it's
kind of weak. So it's not Voyager, because Voyager did not land on that planet. And then it's
interesting because they detect 80,000 humanoid. Yes, 80,000 humanoid signs. Right. But
later we've realized who these people are, but is that how many, is that how many people are
are populating one Borg cube, that's a lot of people. Holy, holy, 80,000. Yeah, but they don't
know this at the time. They have no Borg, you know, premonition here. They just think 80,000 humanoid
life signs very strange. Right. And they get this, so they approach this planet. And as they get
close to the planet, they start to hear a broken up message. It's very, you know, distorted. Yeah.
And it's from a federation signal that they pick up. So they, they hear,
there's distress and they go down to this planet and we find them in some caves and as the
caves open up they're in this kind of trash-filled wasteland you know it's it's a very dark and
scary place i didn't remember by the way shooting this scene my memory of of directing this
episode was the was the one set where where chikote was sort of uh he was recovering
in a bed later on we'll talk about that and where a lot of things happened in that one set
but my memory was it was a really tough set to work in because it was basically sort of a cubicle
off in a corner and then this sort of narrow hallway room and that was about it it wasn't much to shoot in
yeah but when I saw this first scene as they come through the caves and the planet and they step
into this place where there's trash cans burning basically and you know industrial kind of
scaffolding and all kinds of stuff, I remembered this shooting the scene. And it's this opening
scene where they're sort of attacked in this trash-filled wasteland by these robed, mostly
bald, by the way, interesting little detail that will make sense later. But, you know,
they're mostly bald people shooting at them in these robes. They look like monks. They look like monks,
basically. Yeah. Right?
They look like monks. They're all kind of bar.
you can't really tell if they're an alien life form or humans or you know they're humanoid looking
but but yeah there's a great action sequence to open you know as they get into this planet
yeah this shootout starts kaplan is is shot and uh we don't know if she's alive or dead and as
chokote goes to defend her he's also shot and falls down unconscious right right i just want to
rewind for a second and go back to when you said that they received
a federation message, a federation signal.
I think it was Riley saying,
Federation vessel, come in.
So instead of, you know, there wasn't a Federation signature.
I think it was her saying, you know, hey, Federation vessel,
because there's a, there's dialogue between Chacote and Kaplan, like, you know.
Oh, yeah, they say, how do they, how do they know, how do they know we're a federation vessel?
Exactly.
So this is the, you know, that's right.
That's right.
And then the other thing is that Chocote launches a message buoy.
for Janeway, for Voyager to know that they are answering the distress call before they
know the planet, right?
Yes.
Okay.
So flash forward, Kaplan's out.
Chocote's down.
And now Chocote weeks up for the first time.
And this is when he meets Riley Frazier.
We have a last name as well.
She explains that she was attacked by aliens, put in stasis, and brought against her will to
the Delta Quadra.
And she also says she was a science officer with the Federation.
Yes, so we know she's human.
She was a science officer on a Federation vessel, but attacked by aliens.
But she's very vague about that.
She doesn't really say, yeah, we were putting stasis.
Yeah, yeah, Chocote's got some questions, but she goes, yeah, we were just, we were put in stasis,
basically in stasis, and then we woke up here.
Yeah.
And so we were grabbed, and then we woke up, and we were dumped here, and she says there's
dozens of races and species that none of them trust each other.
So that explains this little gang.
war that just happened. Right. Right. She says it's anarchy. Since everybody woke up started real,
you know, since everybody woke up, it's basically anarchy. And she says that about a hundred people
have established a peaceful cooperative. And that's where he's at right now. Chiquotay has
basically stumbled upon West Side story, you know, with the gangs. And do you recall,
myself and Chacote
on the bridge
singing West Side Story
I do
you remember that
instead of the song
Maria
like Maria
I sang Chacote
I just met a boy named Chacote
I sang that in place of Maria
yes so these are the hijinks that we
we had
and in this episode it's the real life
kind of an alien West Side story in a way
it's gang warfare
it's anarchy on this planet
everybody's out for themselves
And she basically says, you're lucky. You woke up in this cooperative where we have decided to
work together. And he's very weak and very disoriented. And she ultimately says, you need to rest.
You need to get better. That's an order. She gives him an order. Yeah, you see the veins that the makeup
department put all that stuff on the side of his head to depict the serious neural trauma that he
endured from that one. I don't know if it's a phaser blast, but let's just say the
whatever energy weapon that they had, right?
Well, the energy weapon they had, if you noticed, was a green color.
It was green, but then when Riley's people came through,
it was an orange, like, almost like a flamethrower or something.
It was really, it was a different type of a color beam and type of beam as well.
So, yeah.
Yes, so the green color.
But little, little details like that bore green.
Bore green.
Yeah.
It definitely, you know, yeah.
That jumped out at me, which was a nice detail.
So she says rest.
And then we cut to the bridge and we see Tom Paris down front saying this is a really
boring part of space.
So clearly they're not worried about Chukotay at this point.
They're waiting.
They knew he was out of calm range and they're just waiting for him to connect with them.
And they even say, like, they have a rendezvous point in a couple of days or something.
So there's no urgency to this on the bridge.
We cut to them.
Paris is bored.
The captain says something like, well, you know, you can clean the warp conduits if you're
that board, lieutenant.
And he's like, no, this is actually a very interesting place to explore and study.
And no, I'm good.
Did you notice when she says you can clean the warp plasma filters or whatever,
did you notice her voice sounded, she sounded sick?
she sounded sick on that exact yes and this is the episode where multiple people there's
different scenes there's a scene when balana's talking later on and gosh it sounds like she has a
head cold um so jane way when she specifically when she says the warp plasma filters are due
for a thorough cleaning that line right there to me sounds like she's dealing with a cold
kim sounds like he has a cold in a later scene so all throughout this episode i made a note this is
like everyone got a cold during this episode i wonder what time of year because if you look at our
episodes. We started filming in June. We usually broke, you know, a little past the halfway point of a season by Christmas. Right. And that's usually... This is right now. This is winter right now. Yes. This is, I think, you know, January, February or something. I bet everybody was fighting a cold. Which is interesting. I'll say in the pandemic world that we've been living in. As I've been using hand sanitizer and mask wearing and all of those things, I have not been sick for a year and a half.
And I get sick, sorry to sidebar into this, but I usually get sick five or six times a year.
I get a cold, or I'll get a big flu.
I always get one or two, like knock me out.
I've got a fever and I'm sick every year at least once, usually twice.
And I have not had a single anything in a year and a half.
So the upside of this pandemic, at least for me, is I have not had to suffer through any of those small, little annoying.
sicknesses and I think I would imagine a lot of people feel the same because you know like you said
we used to always get sick the cast and the crew of Voyager usually starting around December
Thanksgiving December going through February just have everybody who would be passing
something around and this was definitely in that time so interesting yeah because if you think
about it man like we're so aware now of touching things door ham
handles, you know, anything like that. But back then, there's only one door. Well, there's more than
one, but one main door to go into stage eight, one main door to go into stage nine. Everyone
grabs that same handle. And so, yeah, one person, one crew person, one actor who's sick is going
to pass it to every single other person that's working on that project. That's over a hundred
people working on one television show getting sick because of the door handle. You and I recently
were talking to Roxanne Dawson. Yes.
we did some bonus interviews with and she reminded me that I had got I had been patient zero for
the chicken pox on our crew I forgot about that oh remember that yeah I right before the Christmas
holidays my daughter who was in an elementary school at the time got the chicken pox and
must have given it to me but I didn't realize it but I went to work and I had a fever and I wasn't
feeling good and I worked anyway because that's what we did and I ended up passing it on to
a bunch of crew members, a bunch of important crew members like Billy Pete's, our gaffer and
a number of people that got the chicken pox as grown-ups because of, yeah, because of...
Were you never vaccinated as a kid or you never had chicken pox as a kid?
I was.
I didn't know that, but clearly I wasn't because I got it.
Huh. Okay.
I forget what season that was.
I forget exactly when it happened.
Yeah, it didn't affect me because I had as a...
I had chicken pox as a kid, so I was never, you know, infected by your patient zero germs.
I'm sure Billy and those guys are really, really.
But that kind of thing happened on our show all the time.
Yeah, that's true.
You know, what I'm saying is, you know, this, this pandemic has definitely changed people's thinking.
And I hope in a long term good way about washing hands, about touching, you know, handles of doors, just about all that stuff that, you know, without being paranoid, just being smart, you know, so that we all stay healthy.
So we're still in the bridge, Paris was bored, and then at the end of this bridge scene,
we pick up something on sensors, we magnify, and oh my gosh, it's a board cube.
Yeah.
It's a board cube, the first board cube that Voyager has seen.
What are they doing here?
Right.
Come back from a break, and they realize there's no life signs on this board cube.
It's just a drift.
It's just a drift.
And Janeway says she wants to.
go aboard this BorgCube and study this technology. She's like, we could learn something.
Oh, Janeway, stay off it and let it stay adrift. You see Tuvok's face when she makes that
suggestion. He's like, come again? I mean, he's just, he's not happy. He's like, are you
insane, Captain? But yes, Janeway wants to learn about the Borg technology. And that makes sense.
I get it. I know sometimes I'm tough on Janeway. I'm like, she keeps, you know, pushing us into
dangerous situations. But it does make sense. Like study, you know, look at this, but be careful
because you're walking around on a time bomb that could, you could, you could reactivate.
But I do admire that move because most starship captains would be on defense only. They would say,
let's shields up, let's get away. Whereas Janeway is like, wait a minute, hold on. Let's go
investigate. So she kind of goes on the offense in a way to get the advantage or see if
If there's any advantage we can get, if we come across a board cube that is functioning,
we can maybe learn a few things that can help us turn the tide in a battle.
It does make sense.
Yeah.
So it does make.
But by the way, not to spoiler alert, but do we learn anything?
Like, do you actually learn anything about it?
Well.
I don't want to give away the ending of this episode, but I don't think we do.
Like, I don't, I don't, you know, her whole logic of let's go on this.
Borg Cube. I don't think we learn anything.
Okay. Anyway, we'll come back to that.
We do, we flash over to the X Borg cooperative and we learn that Chacote is a
vegetarian, which I don't recall that at all. I'm like, whatever.
You're a vegetarian. What? Didn't he? Okay.
Eating these fresh vegetables and he says, yes, I'm a vegetarian.
But do you recall, there's been times where he's had dinner with Janeway and they talk about ordering, you
know, from the replicator, I'm pretty sure they ordered some meat dishes back then.
Yeah, I think that was a stupid detail that didn't, he didn't need to say I'm a vegetarian
because he's not. I don't think he is. I don't think he is. While they're talking, by the way,
he says, he says, you know, maybe I could talk to the captain and we could bring as many as we can
of, you know, your group on board with us. And, um, and bring you home. That's right. And she goes,
no, you know, this is like home now. Yeah. She says, Riley says, this,
feels like home it's like she and she talks about we were Texas homesteaders right it's like we feel
I feel like we're Texas homesteaders and she's from Texas she talks about that a number of times
she sells him basically on the value of this cooperative she sells him but it's kind of a red
flag as well it's sort of like really you don't want to go back to earth it is because she she
comes off like some weird cult member yes yes like it definitely a number of times and it's
interesting, you know, looking back at this as the director of this episode. I think that there were
a lot of times where she felt like a, where Riley feels like a cult member. I wish that I had tamped
that down. Okay. Okay. Because, you know, as a director, I wish I had, I had said, you know,
don't make it so obvious. And obviously, just throw it away. It's just, you know, lighten this up a bit
because it's feeling, you know, it's feeling like a cult and kind of creepy.
And I don't think that Chocote would be as naive to not notice that.
Correct.
Correct.
Yep.
So that would have been a good adjustment for sure.
By the way, in that scene when they're, you know, they wander around, they eat some
vegetables.
He says he's a vegetarian.
They talk about this cult.
And then she says she's got to go and he should rest.
And he watches her leave and sort of watches her go into this bright doorway.
It seems very mysterious and he's kind of suspicious
and he clocks her pushing the buttons
which will come back later on.
Anyway, right.
Okay, now we flash over to the Borg Cube
and it's Tuvac and Torres
and I think maybe one or two of the crewmen
that they are there to investigate
and they're looking all around.
We have that one moment where
they're kind of looking through some conduits or cables
and that one Borg corpse falls forward.
So that's your little horror movie moment there.
Exactly.
made the same note i was like you know i did that i had forgotten about all of this that we were on the
board cube i didn't remember yeah but i wanted to treat as it as the director i wanted to treat
all of that stuff on the board cube like it was a haunted house like it was a scary horror movie
and so as i recall that scene in the script seemed very short it's like they're basically it was like
one little couple of lines you know yeah walking around they look at some creepy stuff
stuff, and then a dead board guy falls out.
Yeah.
It was not a very long scene, but I wanted to amplify the horror movie style.
Yeah, and it worked.
You know, it made me jump.
And I think that dead borg, I think that's Keith.
I think that's Sue's boyfriend Keith.
I think it was, too.
I know he was a board for sure.
Yeah.
We ended up having a few, you know, later in the episode, there'll be a few borg appearing.
But at this point, just the dead board falls forward.
Right. Then we cut into the briefing room and they let us know that they brought that dead
Borg on board. Janeway, come on. And they're going to do an autopsy. Right. And they talk about,
well, why, why, who defeated the board? Like, why are they dead? It makes no sense. And I think
Torres says maybe the board were defeated by an enemy more powerful than they were. Yeah.
Which is very ominous because the board are the, you know, pretty much the most powerful
bad guy in Star Trek mythology at this point.
Up until this point.
Yeah.
But the Borg drone that they bring on board, and we're not to that scene where they're actually
doing the autopsy, that's not Keith, though.
That guy is somebody else.
But the one that falls forward is Keith.
So I'm thinking, yeah, there's other Borg drone bodies that they probably could have,
they probably came across.
So I'm guessing that's what it was, right?
So now we jump over to the X Borg cooperative.
That's what I'm calling it, the EBC.
So they're back at the ABC
And Chacote
He gets out of the building
He figures out the right code
Yeah he goes to like that game of Simon
He watched
He watched Riley push some buttons
And he's trying to remember
What was the sequence she pushed
He eventually does
Figures it out
Opens the door
He sneaks into this
What looks like a workshop
Like a I don't know
Like they're workers
carrying stuff around
And yeah
You know
Building things
And it's part of this cooperative
And he finds Riley
well he finds a group of people gathered around someone a bald person
and they're working on some technology in the back of that bald head
suddenly that you know the bald person turns around and it's Riley
and she had hair she had long blonde hair in the earlier scene
now of a sudden you realize oh she's bald and there's tech in her head
and there's amputees around yeah and we we talked about the whole
amputee thing that you guys had essentially found some
amputees to use as background actors to sort of show the, you know, X-Borg, maybe without an
arm or whatever. And then we also talked about how some of these amputees were used in a prior
episode, The Shoot with Tom and Harry and the Prision Ship. And I have some interesting revelations
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fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Should I just tell you right now? I'm going to tell you right now.
The amputee that shoots and kills Kaplan is the same amputee that stabs you, Tom Paris, on the
shoot. Really? Yes. Same background actor. I swear to God. I'm citizens.
there going, that can't be. And I, I rewounded and I actually went and looked at the shoot. And I got
to that scene where the guy stabs you. I'm like, same guy. Yeah, so he got to use quite a bit. So
there you go. That's a little trivia bit for you. So, you know, Chucote is stunned and shocked
that Riley is bald and has tech in her head. And so we come back from break. And he says,
says to her, are you a Borg? He asks her straight up. And she,
she tries to explain things.
And she says that the link to the collective
was severed by some kind of
electro-kinetic storm.
That damaged the cube.
But her response is, we were Borg.
We're not Borg,
which is, that's a very important
distinction to make.
Were past.
Yes.
Right.
But this is really the first time
we've seen a Borg cube
that's disabled like this.
In all of Star Trek,
we don't really see that, you know,
happening.
So this is a big deal.
She does introduce,
this character named Orum and Orum has a Borg arm still. He still has that technology arm and he is
their medic, she says. Yeah. And he says he's a Romulan. And she talks about in this moment,
she does basically tell him the truth, which is they were Borg, that there was this storm, this
electromagnetic storm. And they were disconnected. The link to the collective.
was severed and they became free and everything was new again and she said you know uh species and
races that that hated each other before now looked at at each other in a whole new light and orum says
you know i was romulan i should hate these people but i don't i'm here to help and he seems
very smart he's a medic he's the doctor and and a scientist and uh as as chikote is hearing all
of this he ultimately is starting to you know get sicker and sicker from his injuries
and he faints, he passes out.
And Orm actually catches him in that moment,
which I thought was an interesting detail that, you know,
they seem to be very sympathetic and very, you know,
they're obviously sharing all the details a little slower
than maybe Chukotay wanted,
but they're telling the truth so far.
So, yeah, so Chacote passes out,
and that's how we go out of that scene.
And then we go to Sick Bay.
Right.
So now we're in sick bay,
and we have the doctor and Kess and Torres.
So they're examining a Borg drone, which is not Keith.
And inadvertently, the doctor activates a backup neuroelectric power cell.
And this thing just kind of sits up and starts moving all over the place.
And I just love Roxanne's reaction.
It's like, turn it off.
I mean, she's really freaked out.
Because even though, even when they were on the cube in the first scene, first time they're on the cube, they're investigating, she's very nervous.
She's, this is, you know, as brave as Torres is, when it comes to the Borg, she doesn't want, she doesn't want any bit of it.
She's like, no, thank you.
No.
After this accidental, you're right, this, the cortical probe sort of reactivates the neuroelectric power cell accidentally.
And the doctor doesn't think it's a big deal.
But Torres knows that, like, if you reactivate this cube, they will, they are impossible to fight to defeat.
You can't stop them.
Yeah, you can't stop them.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
We go back to the planet, and Orum is explaining to Chakotay that the board collective consciousness has inherent medical benefits that, that, you know, he says, look, you're getting worse, but let me, let me actually let you in on something.
Like, when we link up, you know, when we were linked as a collective, we could help each other through these things, through, you know, medical challenges.
right the neural link allowed them to repair injured board you know that that was a benefit of this
collective consciousness yeah they could repair organic and inorganic matter you know and just that
whole concept is pretty interesting they say they explained to chikote like it's almost like a
transfusion yes imagine like if all of us got together and donated to to you know a trend in a
transfusion to you we could help you not just one of
us helping, but all of us helping.
Right.
So instead of a trans-
Powerful concept.
It is.
And instead of a transfusion of blood, this is a transfusion of energy is what it is, right?
So a healing type of energy, which really, that concept is pretty forward and kind of cool,
actually.
That'd be amazing.
It's a very cool, exact idea, yes.
If you could gather the energy, the healing energy of a group of people and put it
together.
And Oram also explains, and Riley explains that they have this neural,
transceiver that could be temporary for Chukotay, and there's no lasting effects at all,
and we could help heal you, that you're going to die if you don't let us kind of pull you into
our cooperative, our good version of the Borg, our little good version, and put this temporary
neural transceiver on you and heal you. Otherwise, you're going to die. They say you've got to decide.
He's got to decide, and he's got a line here, which I was just like, oh, it was
just such a uncomfortable line for me he goes well it's either that or the happy hunting grounds
oh i made a note you were going to be bothered by that yes you were like oh boy really it was the
90s we got to let it go right okay it's just it was the 90s okay so i was like oh poor poor robert
has to say the happy hunting grounds to make some cliche native joke yes we hear yeah yeah uh but he
does agree and they place the transceiver on him and suddenly he begins to hear all of them and so that's
played in sort of this this audio track that that we can hear what he hears inside his head that's right
and it's all of these voices and they're speaking in unison and and and it goes from the voices to
images he can see all of these memories of every single person in the collective yes because what's not only is
viewing all these memories. He is hearing everyone's thoughts as if they are his own. So that is
where it becomes extremely acid trippy right there, right? Because he's, he's not just kind of being a
fly on the wall and observing this. He is watching other people. It is as if he's experiencing it
firsthand, which is so, you know, absolutely incredible. And he talks about when he comes to that he is
amazed by this experience. And he's alone with Riley at this point. Yeah, yeah, right. He's alone with
Riley, wakes up, and he's improving. It seems to have worked this collective healing that went on.
Yes. And he goes, it's incredible. It was this incredible. He says, I know you like blue bonnets.
And, you know, all these things that Riley loves and things that matter to her.
They talk about an old man. She says, that's her grandfather.
something. Yeah. So he is, you know, without ever having gone through, you know, conversations about
all these things and sharing as separate people, he has experienced all the things that Riley has
experienced. Yeah. And then at one point, she touches herself. And he touches. Yes. She touches her
hand, her wrist or something. Yeah. And he says, I can feel that. Yeah. And then he does the same.
and it gets into this like she says yes that's a residual effect just a just a residual effect it's
not going to last because we promised you it was temporary but anyway she says yes that's a residual
effect of neural transmitter and and they and they start to get close and he's touching his wrist and
she's touching her wrist and and it gets very sexual and and and intimate and I got to say
it was kind of creepy this collective set basically you realize we're going into oh you're going to have
some weird board connected collective sex situation but you cut away though you cut away from that you don't
really they don't even kiss they kiss each other they kiss their own hands i think but they don't
kiss each other's lips so yeah but kissing your own hand is like kissing the other person's hand right
yes it basically it's i mean i get it intellectually but when you know now that i'm looking back on
directing those scenes, you know, 25 years later or whatever.
I'm like, oh, that is, this is just awkward.
This is a creepy, awkward, bored collective sex theme about to happen.
Yeah.
So that's, that's the end of that scene.
Do you remember directing them on that scene?
Did you say like, okay, guys, you're going to be touching your own hands and
pretty much experiencing pleasure from that.
I mean, what did you say to those guys?
I don't remember to take a step back.
I got to be honest,
like my first experience was amazing,
but this one,
I just never felt on my A game with this one directing.
And it was a sophomore effort.
Yeah,
I feel like,
and in the rewatching of it,
I've got to be honest,
there's so many moments in scenes
where I'm like,
oh, I wish I'd staged that differently or shot it.
You know, I was definitely trying some new things.
I was feeling a little bit of confidence as a director.
Yeah.
But trying things and making mistakes in some ways and not knowing enough to correct other things.
And so it definitely felt like a real sophomore experience for me, this directing this episode.
If I had to say, if I had to sit back in judgment of how well this is directed, I would say not great.
Okay.
It's okay.
Yeah.
It's okay.
There's some moments.
All right.
So the parallel in the world of sports is this is your sophomore slump right here.
Absolutely. And that's human of all of us. I mean, that happens. I think you came out with
sacred ground as kind of the Wundekind. It's like, whoa, look at that. He did it. Woo-hoo. And
everyone's all excited for you. And you were excited to do that job too. And you had a connection
with Kate that was really very strong, a bond before you even started directing her in that. So
that was a good episode for you. And then you hit this one and you're just kind of like,
and it was a bit of a miss, right, in terms of...
It feels like a bit of a miss.
I mean, I feel like I feel like I never quite got deeply inspired by the script.
I was trying to state some scenes that were, in my opinion, awkwardly scripted sometimes
and, you know, make them more interesting than I felt like they were on the page,
trying to amplify moments or, you know, I was trying to do too.
Sometimes I tried to do too much.
And other times, I didn't do enough, I guess.
That's, that's the, that's the lesson.
I hear you.
I hear you.
You're only human, Robbie.
You're only human.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And just to jump even forward, my next episode that I directed, I think, was someone to watch over me in season five.
The Doctor episode.
The Doctor in seven episode, Doctor Teaching Seven out of date.
And I just got to say, like, that's one of my favorite episodes of television out of hundreds that I've worked on now.
Yeah.
Since then.
150 right
something like that
I don't know how many
I've directed
but it's probably close to 150
but someone to watch over me
my third episode
I am deeply proud of
on every level
I'm so proud of that episode
and we haven't recapped it yet
maybe I'll change my mind
but it's really one of my favorite episodes
of Voyager in all seven seasons
whether I direct it or not
I think it's a really good episode
yeah so you know
that's the life of an episodic television
director is sometimes you get the scripts that you connect to, sometimes you don't. This one
definitely is lower down on the scale of my connection and my satisfaction. Okay. Well, I think when
you reach the same number of episodes you filmed on Voyager, which is 170 whatever, when you
reach that number as a director, that's when you stop. That's what I want you to stop and I want
you to become a contractor, a landscape contractor, a house contractor, whatever, because you love
doing that kind of stuff, too. I love doing that film. Yes, you don't. You don't. All right.
But I love the directing. Okay. Anyway, so, all right. So, yeah, they have the creepy sex, the
board collective sex. And we cut to the bridge after this. And we realized the bridge has,
has picked up this message buoy that Chukotay left. That's right. And so,
now they're on his trail. At first, they couldn't, though. They couldn't locate the shuttle.
Chacote or Kaplan couldn't find anything. And then boom, the message buoy shows up.
So very smart of Chocote to leave that message buoy. Yes. And we go back down to the planet.
And Chocote's working in the co-op. Yep. And Orm is very grateful. Great to have, you know,
another energy in our, in our cooperative and have your energy. And kind of cultish.
Yeah. A little cultish. And Chacote even says, you know, I'm feeling a little bit of a let
down here because the link is gone.
Yeah.
I need that high again, man.
I need that high.
Yeah.
Yeah, he had a buzz off of that.
And he's starting to feel the letdown that he, so he's basically saying he feels
like the link is gone.
Yes.
Little do we know.
Maybe it's not.
They detect Voyager also.
They know the Voyager's coming.
That's right.
Right?
Okay.
They know that Voyager's close.
Mm-hmm.
So now Voyager comes, picks, picks up Chikote and Chikote is on the ship with Riley now.
in the briefing room.
And Riley's trying to sell Janeway.
She basically says, look, here's the proposal.
We need some help.
We need a transponder.
We need something turned on on the Borgube
and directed towards the planet
so that basically we can bring all these warring tribes together
and become one and become, you know, one happy family.
And of course, Janeway is very, very hesitant to acquiesce
to this demand,
slash proposal because she's thinking well what's going to happen we turn on the board cube that all
the board drones yeah what's going to activate the board are you kidding me are you kidding me yes yeah and
riley's like you know we just need a bigger neuroelectric field generator right and then we can link
everybody back together yeah and they're going to feel the love and feel the connection and all of
this chaos and anarchy will stop right and jayway just says this sounds dangerous i got to think about
this. Yeah. Riley understands and she leaves. And, and this is, this is one of those scenes coming
up with Janeway and Chacote, where I felt like as a director, I was trying to do too much.
Okay. Okay. There's too much blocking and movement and. Oh yeah. There was a lot of extra
movements there. Yes, I do recall a lot of movement in the scene. You know, Janeway comes over and
hovers around Chikote. And, and by the way, Janeway is jealous in this scene. She is. I noticed.
that it's like she's like she almost she doesn't say a thing about it but boy she definitely played
that car she says something she's got a line where she says something like well you got to know them
very well yeah she doesn't even seem to trust trust chukotay in the scene well she asked for his
advice right she goes what do you think i should do and through that conversation basically
it turns out that she's not going to accept that
So she declines Riley's request.
She says something at one point that I think is interesting.
She says, you know, because he says, I think we should do it.
And she's like imposing a connection on thousands of people who have no choice in this matter is not right.
That's right.
Yeah.
And I thought that was a great detail because, you know, basically Chakotay is saying, yeah, let's do this.
It's a good idea.
We'll connect everybody and they'll feel all this love that I felt.
And she's like, no, we're not, there's 80,000 people here.
You can't just do something to them without them agreeing to it.
I mean, it's basically a violation of the prime directive is sort of just saying,
look, we're going to interrupt your lives and force you to join our crew because we decided this.
We didn't even consult you.
So it is definitely something that Janeway is not happy about.
She doesn't agree with it.
And then Chikote says, okay, I'll let Riley know.
Like he gets it.
You're not going to do this.
I'll let.
So that's how we end that scene.
Right.
It was a big shift in the Chikote Janeway love story.
Because this is the first time as we've slowly progressed and they've toyed and teased
with the Janeway Chikote relationship and love story.
Yeah.
That something has happened outside of that love story in a way, at least for a while.
And Janeway gets it.
Like, she's not happy about it.
I think there's a subtext here for the J.C.
shippers that, you know, this relationship is not all, you know, all good. And Janeway's pissed off
about what's gone on with Chucote here. So we go back to EBC and there's Nelix and Balana mingling
and chatting it up and laughing with some of the ex-Borg and the cooperative people. And Chichote
again says, you know, Riley, come with us. Yeah. And he says to her, I've never understood anyone
better in my entire life. That's pretty tough with the J.C. ship.
For the Janeway Chocote shippers to have a moment in this episode where he says to someone, another woman, I have never understood anyone better in my entire life.
What?
Oh, Janeway Chikote fans are so upset at this point.
They're so upset.
And by the way, even Torres, even Bologna, when she comes in and says, we got to get out of here.
Yeah.
She sees it.
Like you see it in Roxanne's performance there.
Oh, yeah.
Whoa, I walked in on an awkward lover's goodbye.
Yes, yes.
She sees the chemistry there
She played that well
Yeah
And the last moment is so weird to me
Because
And I directed this
So I should remember these things
But I don't
But the last moment is so weird
Because Chikote
goes over to Riley
And he just sort of caresses her face
There's a weird face touch
Well it almost looks like
Robbie that he's
He brings the hand up
Maybe an inch
Away from her face
It doesn't touch her
Yes
No it's a weird
and non-touch moment.
Yes.
Directed by yours truly.
Yes, directed by yours truly.
Anyway, so we go back to the shuttle
and there's Chakote and Torres heading back.
And she's like, you know, what you could use
is just a real hoverball thrashing.
Like, let's go back on the, you know, on the holodeck
and play some hoverball.
And you just get back to your old routine.
Like, just let's shake all this off.
Yeah.
She's worried.
She even says, you know, you sure you're okay?
And then Chacote starts to hear voices.
Yeah.
We need your head.
help. We need your help, Jacote. It's so creepy. Can we say that together to see if it sounds like
a word voice? Okay, on three. So we'll go one, two, three, we need your help. Okay. One, two, three. We need
We need your help. We need your help. We are so not. Wait, come on. Let's be Borg. Let's be Borg collective. Okay, here we go.
The APC, one, two, three, we need your help, Chocote.
That's not bad.
That's not bad.
We're not bored.
We're not borg.
All right.
So then he thinks that Torres says something.
He's like, excuse me, did you say something?
And she's like, what?
No.
And then he hears it again.
And that's when he goes into like secret agent mode where he's, what do you call that?
when you activate the cell agent or something that doesn't know that they're an agent.
So he then pulls out his phaser and shoots your future wife.
Yes, he pulls out his phaser and stuns Torres.
And now he's on the run.
Here we go.
We go to the bridge and they're like, what the?
He has altered course, huh?
Yeah.
Altered course.
Let's go chase that mofo.
Yeah.
So off they go after Chikote.
And then you cut back to the X board.
planet and they're all standing in a circle.
Yeah.
And they're talking to him and you realize, oh, the link, this neural link still is there.
They live.
It's not severed at all.
It's still there.
And they're talking to him and he transports over to the board cube, this dead board
cube.
And they're telling him you've got to look for this particular thing.
You've got to reactivate the cube.
If you reactivate the cube, it'll help us all, you know, these 80,000 people get along.
Just to clarify, though, Rob.
I mean, the whole reason why they're talking to him now
is because the other gang is about to break in
to their headquarters, right?
Oh, yeah, the...
Anarchy, the other gang on the planet,
the bad ex-borg are trying to take them down
and they're losing, you know, it's a losing battle.
It's a losing battle.
It's crunch time right now.
That's why they connect with him.
And so that's why he goes to the Borgube
to try to activate this neural electric generator.
Janeway sends Tuvok.
along with Kim and some other security personnel to find Chacote.
The firefight ensues.
Chacote actually knocks out stuns Tuvok,
and then Kim stuns Chacote.
So it was Kim that shoots Chacote.
And you saw that really cool move that I did with the,
I had the phaser,
and then I tapped my com badge while I'm holding the phaser.
It was kind of one.
Nice.
I probably directed you to do that.
You might have, yeah.
Probably not.
So we basically take out Chocote, but as Chocote is passing out, he activates the neural electric generator.
As he's collapsing as he's collapsing.
He's got a couple of seconds and he looks at the button and he basically like slides his hand across the button and activates the Borg cube.
Right. And we see the first Borg drone to kind of activate and start walking.
And it's John Tampoya.
That's right.
my stand-in
da-da
yeah a bunch of the regular stand-ins
and background on our show
got to be Borg in this episode
yeah
Keith and John
and a number of people
yeah yeah
yeah so the Borg are reactivated
thanks Janeway
yeah great job
hanging out by the Borgue
why didn't you just blow it up
I know and they almost grab the
away team but Kim calls
for an emergency beam out
and foo they're out of there
in the last nick of time
in the last second they're out of there
And now the X-Borg collective, the Raiders are stopped.
They're completely just stopped in their tracks.
They're breaking in.
And then, of course, once the generator is activated, they're all linked.
So they stop.
So it is right.
And if you look, when they stop, the guy that kind of is focused,
the guy that is in the center of that frame of that shot is the guy that stabbed you in the shoot.
So.
Oh, how funny.
Yeah.
How funny.
We jump back and forth between the bridge where we see the Borgube self-destruct and explode.
And, of course, there was major craziness that happened before that because we think we're about to be attacked.
But no, the Borgube explodes.
And we jump to Sick Bay.
Chacote and Janeway have their little chat.
You know, she sort of kind of gives them a little hall pass.
Like, hey, yeah, I know that you weren't acting on your own volition.
You were sort of coerced to doing that.
Yeah.
And there's a little bit of awkwardness between those two because, yeah, I think Janeway senses that
he did have this crazy connection with another woman and that was Riley. Right. And but Chacote
feels pretty cheated by that though. I feel like, you know, at the end, he's kind of like not happy
that they used him to start the generator. I'm not sure if you directed it that way or if the script
is that way, but it definitely is that sort of like feeling of unsettledness in Chacote. Yeah. Well, he even
has a line, I think, where he says, you know, how long will their ideals last in the face of that
kind of power? Yeah. Now that they've reconnected, even though he does agree that Riley, what Riley said
and Orham said about the collective makes sense in theory that their intentions are good right now.
Once they reconnect this collective, this 80,000 people all connected, they have this medical
regeneration technology. They've got all kinds of power.
that how long will those ideals last?
And that's a part of,
to go back to the kind of the,
for me, at least the inspiration of this,
the fall of the Soviet Union,
which was happening and had just sort of happened
as we made this episode
as Voyager was starting to film.
You know, that's a big question.
You know, a lot of people would say,
well, in theory, communism
could be a good thing,
but in reality, it isn't.
Because all of a sudden
there's this collective power
in the hands of a few.
Yeah.
And so I thought it was an interesting, you know, political statement and social observation
and just a great character moment for Chakote to say, yeah, I feel like that connection
is an amazing experience.
I've personally experienced that connection.
It's amazing.
But yet it has a dark side too.
And his concern about that, I thought was interesting.
So is that your, what is the underlying theme for you, the underlying lesson from this episode?
I think the underlying lesson is about, you know, the collective power, you know, can be a dangerous thing that even though the intentions may be good, that when you amass together that sort of connection, that collective connection and everyone is sort of uniform, whether they chose to be or not, you know, like Janeway said, that now that there's a power that will overwhelm any good intention.
and good ideas.
Yeah, and power corrupts, you know?
I mean, too much power, for sure.
Okay.
Well, thanks, man.
I'm glad that you were able to share your insight of, yeah.
And I'm sorry you had a sophomore slump.
And you definitely picked it up after this.
So someone to watch over me was an excellent, excellent episode.
We often give a, you know, one to ten.
I would get this a five.
Okay, okay.
I give it a five, maybe a six tops.
Okay.
I'm going to fall at about a six myself.
This was fun.
Yeah.
For all our Patreon patrons, you stick around.
We've got some bonus material for you and for everybody else.
We'll see you next week.
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