The Delta Flyers - Waltz

Episode Date: September 7, 2026

The Delta Flyers is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Terry Farrell, and Armin Shimerman. In each podcast release, they will recap and discuss an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.This week’s episode, Waltz, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, and Terry Farrell. Waltz: After their ship is destroyed, Sisko is stranded on a distant planet with an increasingly disturbed Dukat. We would like to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Production Managers, Megan Elise and Rebecca McNeill.Additionally, we could not make this podcast available without our Executive Producers:Stephanie Baker, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Chris Knapp, Janet K Harlow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, Mike Gu, Tara Polen, Carrie Roberts,Tom Paynter, Sandra Stengel, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Alex Mednis, Holly Schmitt, David Wei Liu, Nicki T, Roxane Ray, Tim Neumark, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Jenny Cordina, Ryan Mahieu, Francesca Garibaldi, Jonathan Capps, Chris Dellman, Sean T, Cindy Woodford, Tamara Evans, Shawn Robbins, & Francis Our Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Elaine Ferguson, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Cindy Ring, Lee Lisle, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Elizabeth Stanton, Tim Beach, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Andrew Duncan, Randy Hawke, Penny Liu, Matt Norris, David Smith, Heath K., Andrew Cano, Robby Hill, Kevin Harlow, Jeff Allen, Londyn Henning & Risa EinsidlerAnd our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Jake Barrett, Ann Harding, Samantha Weddle, Paul Johnston, Warren Stine, Carl Murphy, Jocelyn Pina, AJ Provance, Brian King, Maxine Soloway, E & John, Brianna Kloss, Dat Cao, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Alexander Ray, Sarah Thompson, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Sara Junius, Renee Wiley, Maria Rosell, Dominique Weidle, Jesse Bailey, Mike Chow, Matt Edmonds, Miki T, Heather Selig, Steph Davies, Stephanie Aves, Seth Carlson, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, Annie Davey, Jason Eberl, Jeremy Gaskin, Sarah Dunnevant, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Eddie Dawson, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, PJ Pick, Preston M, Rebecca Leary, SnazzyO, Lutz Krebs, Karen Galleski, Jan Hanford, Katelynn Burmark, Cade Solsbery, Timothy McMichens, Cassandra Girard, Andrea Wilson, Slacktwaddle, Mo, Leslie Ford, Jay Furness, Jim Poesl, Gabystar, Daniel Chu, Scott Bowling, Michael Jones, Ed Jarot, James Vanhaerent, Nick Cook-West, Kilian Trapp, Kit Marie Rackley, Gordon Watson, Andy Bruce, Brenton Tyler, Andrew Golden, Damien O’Donnell, Michael Bourguignon, Corey Evans, Patricia Welsch, Shannon Gregg Lucky, Ken Guthrie, Michelle Fox, Jeff Schmedinghoff, & Kalena Rivera Thank you for your support!This Podcast is recorded under a SAG-AFTRA agreement.“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, or distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail] Sponsors:* Check out ElevenReader and use my code PODCAST for a great deal: https://elevenreader.io* Check out Omaha Steaks and use my code BEEF for a great deal: https://www.omahasteaks.com* Check out Progressive: https://www.progressive.com* Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/TDF for a great deal: https://www.quince.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Delta Flyers Journey Through the Wormhole with Quark Dax and their good friends, Tom and Harry. Join us as we make our way through episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Your host for today are my fellow Trek actors, Terry Farrell, Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, Garrett Wong. For the complete and exciting version of this podcast, please check out patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron today, you truly will not regret it. You won't. Well, you might regret it. When would you regret it? Well, you might regret it because you're going to have so much fun. Yeah. Well, no, you'll regret you didn't sign up sooner to have all that fun. Or I was going to say, if you join at the $5 amount, you're going to regret that you can't buy one extra Starbucks

drink that month is what it is. That's possible. But you know what? Why are you spending on Starbucks? That's true. That's right. When you can make your online. coffee and sit and listen to our podcast. Right. And if you, honestly, if you, you can buy Starbucks coffee,

pound of it, save a lot of money. Yeah. Yes. Versus going in. Or I have a curing. A curing. It's really a pain to try to take those things apart to put in

recycling. But it's kind of worth it when you're, it is worth it. Do you? Boom. Do your recycling with your curigs in your, yeah. I have a espresso and they send a bag when I order the coffee and they send it back. And you put your espresso pods in there and I'm shipping it off today.

Yeah, I used to have that. They send you bags? Yeah, like a recycling bag. Oh, it comes with the coffee pods. That's great. So you put the coffee pods in the bag and mail it back to them. I love it. Although then do you have to like calculate the carbon footprint for that to go back and forth in the plastic?

This is very stressful. Here's the thing about the carbon footprint is if you're, if you listen to our podcast, you don't leave any carbon footprint. You just subscribe to the Delta Flyers. And you save the planet. That's true. We're not out driving. You're not listening to us.

Literally saving the planet. Not just the planet, right? Because we travel through. Yes. The universe. Exactly. That's for those who are not. commuting. There are commuters who are listening to us. So there is carbon footprint.

That's true. That's true. Well, that's not their fault. They have to get to work. I know. It's true. And it would be really unsafe to ride your bike and listen to the podcast. As we've seen with Bob Picardo. It's Bob Picardo who rides his bike to work. Okay. I thought that was a you thing, Robbie. You always ride your bike to work in the old days. I do. But when Bob rode his bike and talked to us on the podcast, he fell over and cut his butt. And if you want to hear the whole story, subscribe. To the Delta Flyers. Exactly. I wanted to say, this is actually very important, that this week on September 8th is Star Trek Day,

and it's going to be the 60th anniversary of Star Trek. The experience that Star Trek has been for everyone around the planet, it's been 60 years. Generations of people have grown up on Star Trek, and it's been a part of their lives, and we're celebrating this week on September 8th. Star Trek Day. Now, was that the original date that the show aired? I think Bill Shatner. Wow.

And how about, let's a little shout out to William Shatner, because if he didn't come on and replace the other actor, we wouldn't have had Star Trek. And we all would not have had jobs. And we would not be sitting here talking about Star Trek. So thank you, Bill Shatner. All right. We get some birthdays to talk about, though. We do want to mention Luce. Luce R is having a birthday on September 9th.

Happy birthday, Luce. La Luz. Feliz Goupleaños, La Luz. Happy, happy birthday. Happy birthday, Luce. We also have Danielle Kaminsky on September 13th. Happy birthday, Danielle. Happy birthday, Danielle.

What? Lucky 13. That's right. Happy birthday, Danielle. Have a great day. There once was a villain named Duke. caught and he murdered Bajorans a lot. His daughter, Zial, was killed. Rage ignited his evil skills and his mind finally turned to rot. Wow. That was like in a limerick sort of format.

Yes. Limerick adjacent. Yes. Limerick adjacent. Well, I'm trying to put on my creative hat and I have. I love it. Thank you. Yeah, it's fun to do the poetry, isn't it? Yeah, it's super is because it doesn't matter actually what the format is. It's thank you for the opportunity to be creative in a way that I haven't done since I was a teenager. Exactly. Writing dark stuff in a diary. Yeah.

They were very dark poetry then. I mean, it was, right? It is our chance as creative people to be creative in the very beginning of our podcast. It's wonderful. Yeah, thank you guys. Speaking of which, Robbie, let's hear. Here you're limerick. Yes, I have a limerick today.

It goes like this. Gul Dukot was convinced he was right, but his evil grew clearer each night. He blamed everyone else while deceiving himself, but will evil or honor win the fight? Oh. Bada boom, bam, ba da boom. I like that. Boom. Robert Duncan McDeal.

Bam. Oh, yeah. Bam. Yeah. I like being creative. It's super cool. You can't not be creative. Yes.

We're creative people. Yes, exactly. Yes, sir. I just want to say, it's every time that I go to the gym with Megan, we, she'll say, okay, now we're doing RDLs, which are these little, you know, abbreviation acronym. And I go, Robbie Duncan McNeil's? Because to me, I hear RDR whenever she says Robby. I'm like, is there an exercise that Robbie taught us?

No, okay. Just non-sequent. What's an RDL? What is it? What is it? RDAO stand for? Oh, he has to ask him. Romanian deadlift is what it is. Oh, that doesn't sound like fun at all.

It's not the most fun exercise. I'll say that much. Got it. But we need to hear your... Here's my haiku. Your haiku. My haiku. My haiku.

My haiku. Ben visits Duquette. Hanshu destroyed. They're stranded. Ducaut loses mind. Mm. Love it. Wow.

Very nice. All right. We have a Patreon submitted poetry winner. It's a Limerick submitted by Scott Bowling, and it goes like this. There once was a man named Ducotte, and he praised himself quite a lot. It seems he saved Cisco just to stroke his own ego. Did he leave for good? I think not.

Wow. I like the first two lines. Scott and I were twinning. Yes, you were. Very close anyway. I shouldn't tell you that Scott actually had a meeting together and Scott, you didn't follow the rules. All right. So this episode is written by Randy Moore.

Yes. Directed by Renee, René, Obie Genoa. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Guest him. Jeffrey Combs as Wayune, Mark Alimau as Golda Kott, and of course Casey Biggs as Damar. I wonder how many episodes Renee has directed at this.

point. I don't know, but what would you, what would you, what would your, what would your, what would your, what would your, what would your, what would you, what would you, what would you, that's exactly. That's exactly what I put up. Like this is. Really? This is four. Yes. This feels like it's number four, but I don't know for sure. Feels like it. Yeah, but it's, it's, it's really well done. And I, I, I feel like I've seen his growth, you know, as a director. I've seen his confidence grow and, um, yeah, I thought this was really well directed. And we'll get into the minutia of that throughout this episode. Yeah, we'll get, we'll get into it. There's a couple of places where I think Renee made some choices as a director and the way he

photographed some scenes that I was like, well, I get why he did this for multiple reasons, but I don't know if it was as effective as the intention, but we'll get, yeah. Yeah, we'll talk about it. Okay. Let's talk about some trivia before we jump into this. Yes. So, yes. That looks long. This is a lot of stuff. This is the second DS9 episode in a row to use a light redress of the Star Trek Voyager Briggs set. So they jumped over to our Brigg for that scene. Really?

Yeah. Because it really looked like our set. Oh, okay. When they are, oh, no, no, no. I'm so sorry. I think it's just when DuCott's in prison. When he finds it. You know what?

No, no, no, I apologize. Yes. I watched the Quarks episode before this. this episode this morning. Oh, the magnificent Ferengi? Yes. I love that episode. And that was ops redressed.

I thought that was a fun episode. No worries. Yeah. But I'm sorry. Yeah, that's where my brain went. Okay. Yeah. Well, originally, this episode was to be structured similarly to the third season episode

Distant Voices with the regular crew appearing as different aspects of DuCotte's personality. According to Ronald D. Moore, Waltz began life as a story we called DuCott's head around the office. The notion was for Cisco to go visit Descartes in the mental hospital. And while Cisco was trying to engage the catatonic Cardassian in conversation, we would push in on DuCott's face and then go inside his head and show us the fantasy life he was living. That's quite interesting. And really ambitious. That'd be a cool plot for a film. Right, because you would have time to film it in different ways.

Yeah. Another piece of trivia, this is the eighth episode directed by Renee Obarginois. Oh, there we go. Oh, my goodness. Wow. Eight. So I guess four. Yeah, eight is very confident at this point.

Well, we just headed to add ours together, Robbie. Yeah, four plus four equals eight. There you go. Of this episode, Renee said it was a stage piece and it dealt with acting, acting, acting all the time. The challenging part was to keep it visually interesting, end quote. Of course. You're in a cave. Yes.

There were some long scenes, too. Let's make the cave interesting. Can we make the cave interesting? Got it. Okay. Next bit of trivia. Mark and Limo commented, quote, that is a really terrific piece. Stories like that are usually reserved for the regulars, and I was flattered that they wrote it for me.

They gave me a lot of responsibility, so I was glad to see that everything actually worked when it was all put together. They allowed me to take a lot of chances with a character like Dakot. I get to express so many different aspects of myself in him that I don't always get a chance to in real life. I'm very grateful that they trust me enough to write an episode like that for me. It means they like and respect my work, and that makes a huge difference. Oh, great. Yeah. Bravo, Mark Limo.

He is such a talented actor. He really is. And I'm so happy he had the piece for us to have this inside look into him. to his character. Yeah. Yeah, it was a big story, as he said, for a guest star, a really big story, which I love about your show. Yeah, I like shows that have character pieces where they highlight a character and you get

to know them more. Yeah. And including B and C, storylines that have other aspects. And I think the team of writers and producers really did a great job. Okay, let's talk about the episode. So the Honshu is flying through space. I just want to say the Han Shoe, have we seen the Han Shoe before? No.

From the outside? Weird looking ship, right? So weird. It reminded me of like air hockey tables or I don't know why. That's what came to my mind. I wrote down Air Hockey puck. I just didn't know what it was. Oh, the puck?

You thought it looked like the puck? Maybe a puck or the air hockey. I used to play air hockey when I was a kid. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Who did it? By the way, let's take a vote.

Who likes air hockey? I love it. I'm putting two hands up. Yay. I used to love air hockey. If I had a basement, I would definitely have one of those. Robbie, put an air hockey thing in your house. That'd be fun.

We need air hockey. Yes. You totally need air hockey. All right. So the Hanshu is flying through space. Very cool, very retro. But basically, Cisco's talking about he's on the on the Hanshoe. He's got a lot of sympathy for Dukot, who's locked up being transferred over to Starfleet station, where they're going to have a trial.

But Cisco's very sympathetic. He's like, I, you know, I feel bad for this guy. He lost his daughter. He lost an empire. He nearly lost his mind. Like aren't whatever his crimes. Hasn't he had enough punishment? So there's already out of the gate a lot of sympathy from Cisco, which I thought is very evolved of him.

Yes. Robbie, did that one bit in his captain's log kind of stand out? I mean, the part when he says as two. terrible as it sounds, there's a part of me that wishes he were dead. That part, to me, I was, oh, yeah. You never hear Janeway saying something like that. You just don't, and it was so real that it pulled me out of the episode. I was like, oh, did it? It's so real. Yeah, it did in that matter. What I liked about it is that, again, it shows the gray. It's the, he's not evil or good. It's the in between in this episode.

episode is so clear because I think that's the really compelling part of Ducaut is there there are moments we've seen him and you think oh oh he's doing something good or he seems kind and it's oh yeah masking all of these other thoughts going on which is yeah he's very upsetting we learn a lot about him in this episode that's for sure woo yeah and we cut inside the hansu hanshu brig this is the redressed voyager brig correct that's very cool yeah I love that we were over on your sets. You could. They probably moved.

They probably moved the brig over there. It was probably a set that they could, yeah, I'm sure. So it wasn't on your set all the time? No. I guess, yeah, we kind of had that in storage because we didn't use it all the time. Oh, okay. They'd fold it up and store it. Exactly.

Fold it up. Like it's just a, you know. It's like a pop-up book, you know. That's showbiz talk. That's production lingo. Imagine. Hold and hold. It's called fold and hold.

Wait, what are those little? Yeah, the Japanese paper. Origami. Yeah, it's an origami set, clearly. There you go. It's an origami set. They folded up. We're on the hot shoe.

On the origami set. Dukot is praying. He's down on his knees. Did you notice that? I didn't know that he prayed. I thought he was meditating. Oh, that's what I thought. Yeah, because he wasn't doing any, well, I don't know.

I mean, his hand, maybe that is prayer. The way he had his hands. Yeah, meditating would make more sense because I don't think the Cardassians pray. That's a pejorian. thing. Yes. I think it really meditates. I wouldn't want to be in that soup of a mind.

Yes. Now that. No. Back to one. Back to one. That soup of a mind. Yeah. We've had no indication that the Kardashians even have a god.

No, because he looks down on the bejorns because they do. Because they do have a god. That's why they think they're so much more evolved. Yes. Right. Yeah. All right. Well, Dukad is meditating then.

Cisco comes in. Um, when they start talking. Cisco seems very sympathetic to him, and Duccott seems very sane and contrite. And, you know, they talk about the trial that Duccott is going to be having when they get to Star Base Six tomorrow. And Cisco says he will tell the truth.

He'll tell what he saw, what he knows. When they talk about Zial, it gets kind of emotional in there. He can't even... I loved how Mark Alima when he got to the word death. He says, the good doctor encouraged me to talk about Zeyl whenever possible since it was her death. Yeah. He took this long pause.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was so painful to say excruciating. Right. Yeah. Right. It was great.

But I thought, I like that he said after that, that brought on my momentary instability. Yes. But he does seem sane in this scene. Yes, he does. He does. He did a great job of playing. like he's fine. Yes. Yes. He did. And he has to be sane in this first scene for the rest of this episode to even work, right? I mean, you have to have some point of sanity. And he also talented

actor, he's not going to telegraph the rest of the story. Correct. Yeah. I mean, the only telegraph was a big pause before death is, I mean, it was a very small. That was an acting choice, right? Yeah. Yeah. That broke his heart. True. I mean, look. What do you put her through to? I did want to say, though, Sisko's very kind. him. He's very sympathetic, offers to get him some canar. This is also extremely sensitive and empathetic Cisco in this scene more than I would have expected. Yeah, me too. Very sympathetic here. That sympathetic moment is interrupted when we hear a big boom. It's red alert. There's clearly an attack happening. And I was watching their shaking. And at one point,

they were kind of shaking opposite of each other. And I was like, wait a minute. Physics doesn't work that way. You both should be moving and wasn't in the same way. But that's okay. You know, it was a small boat. Yeah, exactly. They needed Kim Friedman, the director. Kim wasn't around. Kim Friedman was the shake expert. Yes, she was. She was the shake expert. She's good at that. Okay. Okay. So we have a little credits, opening credits. We come back. We're in ops. Kieranoto come out of the captain's office. Kira announces that the hanshu was destroyed. This is horrible news. Yes.

But we do learn there's a few survivors, so they're going to search until Worf has to take the defiant to go escort this Federation troop convoy. So, yeah, three escape pods, one shuttlecraft. There are some survivors, but it was bad. I just have a question. In this, would it not make sense that all the pods, or at least on the same planet?

it? You would think so, wouldn't you? Yeah, kind of going with the physics that you just talked about in terms of like being on a boat in the water. You're not going to go the opposite way. That's true. It did seem strange that it was so hard to search this vast, who knows where they could be. Like the star base is where the star base is. If it blows up, you're going to go, everybody's going to go to the same spot probably. And we're going to revisit this issue a little more down the line. But did you have to either of you have any concern that there was not the people reporting this, meaning Kira, everyone else, O'Do, O'Brien, there wasn't as much concern over the fact that Cisco could be dead. It just seemed to kind of very casual like, hey, you know, it's destroyed.

There was. There was lack of urgency. There was for me. There should have been more energy. I can see that Kira was calmly addressing it, but it, felt like she should have more energy behind sharing it. Yeah. And that would be a director thing, right? It would be.

Yeah. At the end, very important to say, Kira is really insistent on Wharf, you know, understanding how important it is to escort this Federation troop convoy. Got 52 hours to search, but not one second longer. So she seemed to have a lot of energy in that rule, but not as much in searching for Cisco. Yes, exactly. Seems like it should have been all about Cisco and, oh, we've got to do this thing. Yeah, yes, yes.

And why can't another ship escort them? Why we're missing our captain? Yeah. She did say why in the scene. She says something about the plasma fields and the badlands and they're hiding. They need the defiant there. But yeah, it does seem like there should have been a little more energy and stakes with their captain and somebody that was that they were so you know close to exactly we do see the captain in a moment

because we go inside planet hell in the cavern in the caves in the caves where there's always a fire got to have your campfire in the caves right yeah that's a rule with planet hell propane propane tank that's right that's right so we go cut into this this cave ducaut is nursing Cisco in the scene Cisco is very badly injured. He's got a huge metal cast, which I wanted to say about this is a metal cast. Why does it have to have a bar here? Like if it's metal, it doesn't need a support structure. It doesn't need another like beam.

Not really metal. Okay. Not really metal, I would guess. It's just a metallic fabric. Is that what it is? Yes. Or something. Plastic.

We don't know. But that does seem rather... It did feel like that beam going across was just decorative. Like it didn't look necessary if it's a metal cast. I almost feel like that whoever designed that thought, adding the beam would make it look more sci-fi. Yeah. You know, so that's...

And it didn't. And it didn't. No. No, it didn't. It actually made it look more old-fashioned. Which maybe in a kid it would be. Maybe that kid is super old because how many times do you go into your car and look at that emergency kit. The original series.

There you go. They got the kit from the original series. There you go. All the original series cast have this. There's a load bearing beam included in the cast. Yeah. Cisco was injured very badly. He got plasma burns all over the left side of his body.

Yes. Did anybody else feel disoriented when we? suddenly popped there. We saw the red alert and then suddenly were in the caves. I did too. I did. And I felt like, oh my God, how did they? I mean, all we saw was a red alert. Right. It didn't pull me out though.

I know how you're saying like we saw red alert and all sudden they're in the cave, right? It's like, what the heck? And nothing in between. Yeah, we kind of jumped a little bit. A bit of a missing scene moment here of how they even. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Cisco's very grateful to Duccott, Duccott seems to be very clear-headed in this scene, very responsible, very sensitive to Cisco's needs. Cisco's grateful. He even tells Duccott, thank you. We learned that Duccott landed them there in a shuttle. He doesn't know where they are. There's somewhere, he says. And he repaired the distress beacon.

And so hopefully the distress beacon is going to, it's a little box sitting in the middle of the cave that looks like it's working. to me at this point, you know? Sure does. And Dukot seems sincere. So. Sure does. You know that bit where he says, Lieutenant McConnell and I found you when the order came to abandon ship?

And Cisco says, where's McConnell? And Duccott says, dead. A piece of shrapnel hit him in the head is just as we're carrying you into the shuttle. I kept thinking, oh, you killed McConnell probably. That's my thought process. Well, I thought they were going to be best buddies at this point. So I didn't, I didn't doubt.

Duccott. I was along for the ride. I was like, oh, Duccott's being responsible. I was definitely questioning every moment. It did kind of feel like, oh, he's kind of a changed man. Yeah, I bought it. But I also believed it could be possible. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Anything's possible with Dukat. Yes.

But does it matter right now? No. No, because you know why? Well, Ducat walks into the tunnel. He says, I'm going to go. I'll be back in and out of I'm going to go look for some food, walks in a tunnel. Who does he run into? Jeffrey Combs. Wayune. Wayune. Yes.

Yeah, actually, if I say Jeffrey Combs, he could be a million characters. He really could. Brunt, FCA is who he ran into. No, he ran into Wayune. I like how at first it was like, is he really speaking to Wayune? Like, Wayune's in on this? I know, me too. Didn't like it's I didn't believe I wish we would have seen an opening or something because I

Just felt I didn't believe that Cisco couldn't hear him I thought that a few times When when goldicott screams it's like how could how could you not hear that I mean it's a cave sound echoes you know yeah well way in is there way in says you should kill Cisco he says you know tells duccott that he was was a pathetic cry baby back at the hospital. He's really winding up Dukot. Dukot gets super mad.

Like you said, screams, shoots at Wayun, but Wayune's disappeared. And I wrote down hallucination question mark. This is the first, I watched this twice. But the first time I watched it, I was like, oh, if this is where they intended me to start to doubt, this is where I started going, oh, wait a minute. He's not. Oh, I have to tell you. I knew it was imagining because we see a hole.

Not dead wound. Right. Right. Yeah. Yes. Yes. From the phaser fire. Yeah.

And he wasn't, like, it wasn't his, his body wasn't there receiving the shot. It's when he took the shot all of a sudden there. And I was like, wait a minute. Do we ever have vaporize on our weapons? Yes. Yes. We do. Yeah.

But usually you see the beam make contact and then the person vaporizes like a beam out or something. But in this shot, You didn't see any image of Wei Yun at all when the shot was fired. So that's why I was like. In the cave. That's right. Yeah, he hit the rock wall. No, no person.

There was nobody there. It would have been cool if it was like kind of red around that spot too. Yeah. Yeah. I thought effects, by the way, they did a good job with all these, the special effects department with all the phaser blasts later on. And there's a lot of cool. Yeah.

I thought this was good. All right. So he blasts. No way. We cut back in to the cave set, and Dukot is cooking, cooking over a fire or something. This is a very long scene, one of two very long scenes in this episode, this is the first one. But Dukot's cooking. Cisco makes a comment about too much of the leaves or whatever he's putting in initially.

Right? Doesn't he say something like that? Yeah, he just says too much. And then Duccott's like, I'm doing it. of cooking here. Thank you. So it's like a bickering little couple, I thought it was cute. Yes. Yeah. So Dukot says he's doing the cooking. Dukat does ask how he's feeling, how Cisco's feeling. And he references, he was really, really sick last night. And Cisco doesn't remember much from last night. But he did get very sick. And Duccott says, isn't it funny how,

you know, our change in fortunes, you used to be the one. you know, with the on top. And I was locked up in a brig. And now I'm the one that's got more, you know, power. And you're the one that's. I was your prisoner. And now you're a prisoner of your own body. Of your own body.

That's right. Yeah. I like that line. I do. Yeah. But he talks about changes in fortune, which we can all relate to. That's a very relatable. You know, I just had a realization.

Do you see, do we see a camera angle of what he's co? looking at all. Do we, I don't think that. Okay. So it could be in Ducat's mind that he caught some animal that he didn't even catch some alien animal. You know what I'm saying? And he's just throwing in leaves into just boiling water and that there's nothing in there. Yeah, maybe. Or I thought maybe he put those leaves in that that's what made Cisco sick. He's actually trying to keep Cisco. Oh. Like kind of weak. Hey, there you go. Love that plot point. That would have been cool. He does hear something, though. Ducaut's like, wait a minute, what was that? Yeah. And Cisco's like, I didn't hear anything. And he goes, maybe it was the wind. So he starts, so again, we're like layering in these little clues that. Not all as well. Or maybe it's sort of that did he really hear wind or he did it for the people that didn't catch on to Wayum not being vaporized. Yeah. There's, you know. Little hints, little, little hints. Yeah. Well, he does run into the.

He leaves Cisco and heads back into the tunnel and bumps into good old Damar now. So yet another figment of his imagination. And Damar is also like Wayune trying to convince Descart that it's time to kill Cisco. But Damar is not successful. Yes. Did you notice Damar, the lighting around Damar was almost like a German expressionist film or something. It was all blackness. And it was just his face.

Yes. It felt like Betty Davis. I like that it was different. I thought it was cool. Yeah, I thought it was cool too. It looked wonderful. Would that have been Renee? Yes.

Would Renee have asked for that? Renee might have said a little more theatrical. Let's make it surreal. Yeah. Yeah. And then Jonathan West. It's Jonathan West. Yeah.

Artistic touch on it. Yeah. Good job, JW. DeMars convincing does not really do anything because Descott really needs to know whether or not Cisco respects him. That's what he wants to get out of Cisco. He wants verbal confirmation that he respects him. Yes. That's crazy. It is. That's totally crazy. Yes. Of Dukat to think for one second. Why are we whispering? Why are we whispering? Because it just felt like a good idea. And then look, it got quiet. I don't want Duccott to hear us. No, I don't.

He scares me. Me too. I put leaves in our dinner. And he forgot the pepper. He did forget the pepper. It did not look like good soup to me, by the way. I did not get the indication from Cisco. This was good.

I think, honestly, that you're right. It was leaves and water. Yeah. And that's it. That was what it was. And that's why he was sick. Yeah. Well, that's why he didn't finish it, right?

He was sick the night before. Salt and pepper soup. Salt and pepper soup. Salt and pepper water. with unknown leaves. But then how does this make sense? How long did Golducat say they had rations for? Then why are they?

Just a few days, I thought, four or five days or something. I thought it was longer. Maybe. All right. So back to Damar. Damar says, kill him, kill him, kill him. It's very dark. We cut back in the cavern where Cisco is.

And Cisco goes over to get some water. He leans on the calm and the panel door opens up. and you know we see actually we see that the system is offline but Cisco doesn't see it so you're like Cisco look around the corner because he doesn't see that that oh he doesn't see it at this point I thought not at that point okay not at first right and then we go back to Dukot talking to DeMar and Dukot does say I'm tempted to kill him I see your point it's very tempting we come back to the cavern and now Cisco goes to he notices that the the door fell open he goes to shut it checks the on you know the panel and sees that it's offline right so that distress signal is not

being sent nope at all nope here's my problem yes it's Cisco why doesn't he immediately go to double check this thing and because it's a it's a generic stress signal. Yeah. With the intention to change it to the Federation. Oh, right. Because that's where my brain was going. I'm like, why isn't he taking advantage of this moment right now?

Why would he ever trust? But why would he trust Dukot? I don't think he does. I think he tests. No. I think he thinks through, all right, I have to fix this. But I need to know if he's going to be. But the first impulse should be, I'm going to switch.

it to the Federation so I know who's coming to look for us. But he's got to get a tool and break the fork and do all the parts. That's true. But it's not the first thing he does when Descott leaves. Right. That's the problem I'm having. Just thinking in my head, character Dax, same situation. First thing she would do would not be have a sip of water and do to do.

Well, I feel like I thought he felt like, uh-oh, I've discovered something. what do I do with this information? I don't have much time right now. I need to think about what to do. Like, let me think for a second. That's right, that's right. Yeah, he knows Dakot's going to return at any moment. So he can't actually start doing the work to say, let me put this on a frequency that Starfleet only can hear.

Let me think about how to do this. He needs to double check to make sure that Dukot is lying, right? Yeah, either Dukot lied and has been lying. I'm thinking of the next scene. Yes. When he does do something, but it's not. Oh, yeah, yeah. Right. Look at the split.

Hey, Gary, you know what I did this morning? What? I used an app called 11 Reader to listen to a script while I drove to work, a script that I'm prepping to direct. So you uploaded a PDF to the app and you were able to hear it while you're driving. That's a game changer, Robbie. Yeah, it's incredible. You can upload your own content like PDFs, docs, you know, fan fiction, whatever you want. Or you can listen to bestselling audiobooks with super realistic voices.

It was incredible. I had Bert Reynolds read my script. How would you compare this to other reading apps that are out there? Oh, I've tried them. I've tried the other apps. And you can pay $15 a month. You get one credit, one book. Or you could use 11 reader where they've got over 200,000 premium titles.

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first two months for only $1. But in this moment, his only two thoughts I think are, okay either Duccott is lying to me about this thing being working and that he fixed it and if he's lying then I really can't trust him with anything or he's not lying to me he fixed it and it's off and so he just needs to check it and refix it so I'm going to test him yeah how do I test him yeah how do I test Ducotte of course yeah I was jumping to the other scene

because I was also trying to find out how long okay you guys keep doing I'm going to look and see how much rations they have because I don't know why that's bothering me so much. Oh, okay. Well, go back and look for that. We can wait. Seriously. We have enough field rations to last us a few weeks.

Oh. That's a long time. That's a huge amount of time. Not a few days. A few weeks. So why are they drinking? Leaf soup? Water soup.

Yeah. When soup and rabbit tracks. Yeah. It's true. You've got field rations you could be eating. What the heck? Yeah. Right. And yet we don't eat any field rations during this period of time.

No, I never see any field rations. But see, now that kind of falls into Robbie's thought that he's being poisoned by Dakot right now in a way. But then also, why doesn't Cisco? I think it's a hole, ladies and gentlemen. It is a hole. A hole in the script. Okay. Okay. Well, when we cut back, Cisco decides he's going to think about what to do. we cut back to Ducotte and D'Amar, but this time D'Mar's not there. Where'd he go?

He's a figment of, of Ducott's imagination. So now it's confirmed. Hmm. Yep. Come on, Gawa, if all three of us do it, it's even funnier. One more time. A three. Hmm.

Hmm. Nice. So we're back in the cave. Duccott returns. He sees Cisco laying down on the floor. and Cisco acts like he can't move, like he's trying to get some water. He's kind of over dramatically acting kind of like the face that I've been making. Yeah, exactly.

It was that kind of what? It's like, oh, I can't get water from myself. I'm 13 and I don't want to go to school because I have a test. Exactly. Our current order. It gets into Cod. It's very nice, gets in some water. And then Cisco says, I think.

the calm system was beeping. You should check on that. Yes. And Ducaut does at first doesn't want to do it. He goes, it's fine. He goes, no, I think you should check on it. So DuCock goes, pretends to look at it, look inside and shut the door and says, no, it's fine. It's working just fine. Yeah. And Cisco's like, that's all I wanted to know. Which telegraphs. I know. That's, but that telegraph is what you were trying to say. I agree with you. It does telegraph. He should have said, oh, okay, great. Instead of saying, that's all I want to do. A little less spin on it for us. Yes. Thank you.

Yeah, now I know you're lying. And now you know I know you're lying. Exactly. Oh, no, no, no. We got to do that again. Don't telegraph it. Yes. Yeah, I agree.

Well, we get a little space shot and Worf says they've got 12 hours left before they have to go do that escort job. And they've picked up a few survivors. Oh, they picked up 12 survivors. and they have 12 hours. So the writers really love the number 12. They do. We go back to the cavern.

Cisco's working on the calm. He's using this fork. He breaks off this thing, you know, like a tongue. Did you see him break it off? He breaks the metal off, Robbie? Is that what he breaks?

It's a tine on a, isn't it called a tine? On a fork? Tong. Maybe a tine. Tong, time. Yeah, but whatever. It's a tooth. Okay, wait a second, though.

Wait a second. It's metal. We find out it. Yes, exactly. It's metal. He's not going to... Bent, yes. Broken off with what? With what?

His bare hand? With his teeth? What did he do? Yeah. By the way, he didn't need to break it off. Because when you see him use it, he literally just pushes this thing that he could have reached with the fork not broken. Why did he have to break off a piece just to touch something that he could have...

I get that he might need to bend it to get it in there. Right. He didn't even need to do that. You're saying he could just put one edge of it and move the thing. Literally, he could take the fork and just touch it. It should have been a little more complex, whatever he needed to break that thing off or bend it or whatever. I think the thought process was this. If he didn't break it off and he's just using the fork, if if DuCott walks in, he's going to see the big old fork in his hand.

So he's thinking, if I make it little, if I get caught, I can hide it easy. I don't know. No, bent fork, put it behind you under the blanket. Sure. So you have it as a weapon for later, too. And again, I don't even think a human being that's not. What's happening here? No human being can break off.

I mean, I challenge even this biggest strong man in the world. You have to bend it back and forth a lot and kind of weaken the metal. Yeah. And if it's titanium or Xantham gum, I don't know. Holy cow, you're going there hard. I don't know. Is that Zardum gum you got there? I don't know how that would make a metal thing, but it just sounded like a good word to use.

One thing that's very funny in the scene, after he uses that fork improperly, by the way, as we've discussed, he does wait for a second, doesn't work, and then he bangs it, like the classic sort of, like just hits it. Yeah, yeah. And then it works. Of course. You mean the way the Fonz hits the jukebox and it starts working? Yes, exactly. Yes, he hits, he bangs it a little.

But we cut over to the Defiant Bridge and Miles says, Commander, I'm picking up a distress signal. At this moment, we think they're picking up the distress signal that, that Cisco just banged, you know, into working, got to work. Okay, but here's another problem. Then why don't we see two distress signals? He turned it on. I mean, I think it's a storytelling trope that they're cutting from the audience knowing,

oh, Cisco got one working, and then they cut to the ship going, hey, we found something. And then later on they show us, oh, it wasn't what we thought. It was a different one. Yes, I understand that part of storytelling. But if the signals out in three pods, is this a different planet that we're on compared to where that pod was discovered? How close are these plants? Gawa, come on.

It has to be... Wait, Robbie, you first. Go. Hmm. Hmm. Wow, for a comedian, your timing sucks. So anyway, so there is a signal. We cut back to the cavern and Cisco hears a noise.

So he closes up the thing, turns around in his position. And Ducaut's coming in with a couple of foam pads. He's such a thoughtful and kind caretaker, Duccott. Duccott says in this scene, another long scene. He says they're like two old friends here, ask Cisco what he thinks. And before he can answer, Kira appears. Also, I would have liked the foam pads to have looked more like they came right out of the pod they were in. The escape pod, yeah.

I mean, they looked like they just picked him up at Walmart or something. You know what I mean? They probably did. They looked like they came from some patio furniture, honestly. It looked like, oh, yeah. Like if it were covered with silver or something, so it looked like it was a pulse tree. Like a skate pot. Yeah.

I think it. I think Tara Fair was more. Raw foam. Right. I think it was more of a comment that Walmart has reached every corner of the galaxy at this point. Yeah. And it was direct delivery. too. It really was. He just ordered it. It came within 10 minutes. It was quick.

Well, Duccott asked Cisco, you know, what do you think? We're like two old friends, right? And that's when Kira appears, or his hallucination of Kira. And she's laughing, thinks that's hilarious as Cisco agrees with her that you're a war criminal, Dukot. And then she disappears. Dukot kind of looks around. Cisco stays calm. He knows that something's weird. He's very safe, too, Cisco. He doesn't really answer he's very cautious in his answers. So he goes, you know, I can't judge you. You probably had good reasons that you did what you did. And that's when Kira appears again. She laughs hysterically. Good reasons. He's a murderer. Dukot gets really agitated. Cisco tries to keep him calm here. Sisko just says, let's let's, you know, pretend like the major's not even here. You know, just ignore her. Right. Yeah, just ignore her. Yeah. So he knows he's hallucinating.

Let's just you and me talk. Yeah. You know, I thought you wanted to talk to me. Crisis management. Yes. Mm-hmm. He did it really well. Mental health emergency.

Yeah. Very calm. Now we cut back to the bridge, to the divine bridge. They do get a distress signal. Yeah. And Dax says I'm picking up human life form. So we think, storytelling-wise, that we think they're picking up Cisco and Dukot.

Back in the cave, Kira's laughing hysterically. Finally, Dukot loses it. He shoots at this invisible Kira, right next to Cisco, by the way. It's a little bit of back and forth of the audience is supposed to think, oh, they're going to beam them up just as Dukot's going crazy. But instead, they beam up some survivors that are, it's two women, one with her arm in a slain. Yeah. I mean, and who cares about them? Yes. Right. We don't even see their faces. No one's even happy to see them. That's kind of sad. No one's like, thank God you're alive. You're not Cisco.

True. I didn't think about that. Right. We're just moving on. It's like, it's just us. Sorry. Sorry, we're not Cisco and do God. That would have been funny. And by the way, she does have her armies. a sling just like Cisco. But is it a metal cast? No, I think she just got, I don't know. She got the cheap version. She got the cheap version.

They got the cheaper. I do find it interesting that there's all these different hallucinations, but Halusacira, that's hallucination, Kira. Hulusa Kira is extremely posy. She's posing, like, these interesting, just, I don't, it just reminded me of the Bashir episode when she was the Russian. agent. Well, she's a dancer.

He is. She kind of naturally, Nana kind of poses often. Really? I would say. Okay. I would say, yes. Physicality-wide.

She moves like a dancer. She's just her physicality is a little. I get it. Refined and posy. It was extra posy for me in this episode, which I, it just, to me, it was interesting. I think also, I would imagine her, because she's a hallucination, she can be an exaggerated. Yeah, she can be.

You know, she's not really, Kira. She's the version that Dukot likes, and he's attracted to her. Oh, thank you. Right? Her doing more kind of. Yes. So Hulusakira is doing all the moves that Dukot loves. Okay, I got it.

That makes sense. It's Dekot's version of Cura. It is his version, yes, and he loves her. No, that makes perfect sense. Thank you. Tare Fair. We go back to the cavern. Ducat spots something on the ground.

He kind of digs under the blanket and the dirt there, and he finds a fork. That broken fork with a missing. What's it called? A tong? Twang? Tong, you said, right? It's called a tine. A tine.

Or a prong. Yes. One of the tines is missing. Yes, Duccott says that. I honestly was this day old when I realized that's what it's called. I've never known that it's called a time. Duccott finds the tines. Tine or the or the tinesless

Fork Oh missing a tine. Yes, the fork missing a tine And he figures it all out Sisko was doing something sneaky Hmm And he shoots He shoots at the calm

Destroyes it, phasers the thing And then back on the bridge Dax says, I got a quick signal But then it disappeared. Hmm. She goes, Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

Hmm. And we cut back to the cavern where Dukot is just really upset, feels betrayed, and he takes this metal bar or something. And you hear we just go out on the act with the crashing of metal. Okay. I don't know if it was, was he hitting the calm thing or was he hitting the cast? This is a missing scene for me. We should have seen the fight. Yeah.

And I think the argument should have ensued during the fight. and then the fight ends because it gets so intense in the conversation. Interesting. That would have been fun. I do like when he does discover the timeless fork that when he picks up the phaser, it looks like he's about to shoot Cisco. So it was played very well. And then he shoots the unit, the piece of technology.

Because he hasn't gotten Cisco to respect him yet. That's right. He can't kill them right. That's right. Well, we cut up to the bridge on Deviant and Worf was trying to call Kira. but it's all breaky-upy. They can't really hear each other. Worf says we've been a little delayed.

We just need a few more hours. And then Kira's all, big, big, big, big, big, techno. Yeah. Like that. And the transmission drops out. They all discuss, did we understand? Could anybody understand? Bashir seems to be on the, we didn't hear a word of what she said, team.

Yeah. Miles sort of plays a lot on with that. Wank, nudge, nudge. Dax is like we know what she was saying. Like Dax is pretty straight shooter. She's like, she was saying you got to go do your job. Yeah.

And reminding them and not to forget that wharf is captain right now. Yes. My husband is captain and you. Yeah. We're not married yet. We haven't. Yes. You know.

You're cordially invited. Remember that episode. Yes. Oh, yes. I forgot. That little episode. That's right. DeFair Faire,

your makeup looked really good in this episode, by the way. Didn't it? It did. I thought so, too. I wonder if Karen Iverson did my makeup that day. Oh. Because it was at this time, there were times when Michael Westmore could not do my makeup.

And it all happened because he got really sick once. Oh. And like he had to come in and like, he was so sick putting my spots on. So he trained Karen Westerfield and Karen Iverson. Yeah. And I think Karen Westerfield did it the first time. But Karen Iverson was my makeup person.

Okay. Turned into my makeup. Because I obviously need somebody on the set to watch me after Michael Westmore did my makeup. So then once she knew how to do my spots and felt confident, then she ended up doing my makeup and my spots for a while. Like when Michael was really doing Kate at the same time I needed to be done. Okay. Yeah.

It helped production a lot rather than them having to wait for me. So he trained both Karen's to do your spots. So both Karen's at one point were able to do that. Karen Westerfield did it once. Karen Westerfield was good with prosthetics and things like that. She was Armands. We left off at. Kira and the transmission.

Yes. And I said, you know, I could understand what she was trying to say. Dax could understand it, but Bashir kind of crosses a line. But sheer says, you will forgive me if I don't consider your honor to be worth Captain Cisco's life, which is very rude, very, very rude. Yes, it is. Yeah. So Worf sends him off the bridge.

Get out of here. Get out of here, doctor. And he actually says it very composed. Yes, he does. He does. And you're dishonoring me. Yes. But I think he should have said it. You may leave the ridge, doctor, is what he should have said. Get out of here. Get out of here. Yeah. They head for the third planet. So I guess they're still, they're not heading to the rendezvous yet because that's in the bad land. So they're still searching. So they're still possibly close by.

They're trying to eke out every second they can to look for Cisco, I think basically is it. Back in the cave, Cisco looks bad now. I know she was lit a little bit better so we could see a little more of the damage. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was very dark. Hard to tell if he beat Cisco up. I think he did.

I think that's what's implied there. And that's why I said what I said before we got to this point, that if they had had the fight. Seen some of that. Yep. Yes. Which also would be good for us. we would be like, oh my God, Cisco. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Well, the stage directions, that's already in the script, right? Robbie, where it says, Duccott is cleaning blood from the metal pipe. Do we actually see that moment? Yes. You see him. It opens on the pipe. Okay.

It opens on the bloody pipe and Dukot's cleaning it. Yeah. All right. So you know that, but it's sort of a, we usually have fight scenes. And if we're in a bottleneck show, why not? We come back from this beat up that Cisco's had, and Cisco finally loses it, finally stops being, trying to keep Dukat calm. And he's just like, he loses it.

He says he will never approve of what Duccott did when he was running the station. And Duccott says, great, I'm glad you're finally being honest. No more waltz, no more dancing around and pretending, which is kind of, you know, was the title of the episode, the waltz, the dance, that they've been playing with each other, not being honest. Now they're both going to be 100% honest. So Cisco kind of starts by playing a lawyer. He's like, true or false? And he asks him a bunch of questions. True or false? Let's do this. He says, are you responsible for everything that happened? Well, first he says, you were the prefect of Bay, Georgia, during the occupation. True false. Dukot, true. And you were responsible for everything

that happened under your command, true or false? Duccott says true. So that means you're responsible for the murder of over five million Bajorans on your watch. True or false? And this is where Dukak goes. Nope. False. False.

And he goes into his whole excuse about, you know, how this occupation had happened before he got there. It was much worse before he got there. And he wanted the situation resolved. He wanted to reorganize the camps. And he abolished child labor and medical care was improved. He goes on the list of all the good things he did, right? Yeah. And that was a new piece of information, I thought, that he says the occupation has been going on for almost 40 years before he showed up.

Is that right? Yeah. That's a long time. Yeah. Yeah. He goes through the whole history. Basically, his version is that he's a good guy. Yes.

He was a really good guy. Right. Yes. And that his superiors were the ones said, you must kill, kill, kill. And he's trying to reduce the number of killing. He blames the Bajorans. for attacking them. And then, of course, they have to kill the pejorans.

But he's blaming it on the bejurans. Well, he ultimately, yes, he blames it all. He says, look at all the good I was doing. It was much worse before I got there. I made it better. And then even when I made it better, they still bombed us. So we had to kill the equal amount because that's justice. That's not being a bad guy.

200 for 200, fair. Right. Like, why couldn't they calm down after I did these nice, things for them. Yeah. Yes. And then he goes even further. Then he loses it. And Kira arrives and Wayune and tomorrow arrive, imaginary versions of course. Helousa Kira. And yeah, Du Kott says, can you hear them? And Cisco's response is, I'm paying, believe me, I'm paying attention to everything. So he can't hear them, but he's paying attention. Yeah. And this is where Duq gets into how he was the superior race. Oh. Mm-hmm. Where it just

gets really ugly. Yeah. Yeah. He admits he hated the Bajorans, hated the Bajorans, that he was a superior raced. And Cisco finally smiles and knows that Dukata's being very honest now. And this is when Cisco walks up behind him, knocks him out with a pipe or that pipe that he got beaten with. Oh, does that what it was? I thought he picked a rock up, but, you know, it's so dark in that cave.

It was very dark. And I should have killed every last one of them. I should have turned their planet into a graveyard, the likes of which the galaxy had never seen. I should have killed them all. A metal bar crashes down on his head and Dukot Falls. And Cisco says, and that's why you're not an evil man.

He says that very ironically. That's why, yes. And that's why, yes. Long scene, big scene, huge scene. from Mark Alamo. Yeah, huge episode. We cut up to the planet surface. Cisco is trying to, you know, make his way out of the cave over to the shuttle.

Great practical effects, by the way. I thought the effects department with the wind, the lightning, the dust, all of that was really great. That's where Duccott should have been having the conversations with everyone so that we would believe Cisco couldn't hear him. Yeah. Or maybe watch him going through at least one time going through that tunnel. I have to be arm and Sherman have a little bit of a nitpick. When he comes out on the planet surface and all the dust in his face, there's no attempt to even, you know what I'm saying?

He doesn't even block anything. It's like it's still, I don't know. I get it on TV. We need to see your face. We need to see your face. I'm sure that's part of it as well. Well, also he's got one broken arm. Yeah.

He's got one good one. And he's just been beaten up. He's probably just going. It's almost like. having to open, you've lost your goggles and you're swimming. Yes. Would you care if it's stung your eyes if it was for your life? Okay.

Well, that helps you. Right, right. For me. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. Yes, well, he goes out in this, this rough weather. He crosses into the shuttle with the ramp is down.

This is the old style shuttle, right? This is the kind like we had with the hatch door that comes down in the back. Yes. It's supposed to be a pod. But that's not a pod. pod. That's a shuttle. That's what's so confusing. It's like they talk about three escape pods and all a sudden there's a shuttle. Yeah. So yeah. Very confusing. Well, it wasn't confusing. It was a mistake. It was an error. It was an error. Well, he gets inside. He starts to, Cisco's trying to get that

ramp door to come up and just as it starts coming up. Dukot leaps inside, jumps in with his messy hair. I do want to say. That was crazy too, right? The crazy hair. Bam. Yeah. It was like rock and roll.

It was. It was hilarious. It was kind of funny. It was. Perdocans have a lot of hair. You don't realize it because it's all like combed down. Because it's a wig. That's why you don't realize.

But when they do this, when they get in a fight and that hair's out to here, it's crazy. it's crazy hair and dude the man has a lot of product in his hair do yes it was like it was stuck it's kind of shocking what why products radacians take their hair styles very seriously yeah i keep i mean they've shown cardassian women in the past and they have really long hair that's kind of curled up in very elaborate style styles but i think the men should have they should allow the men to grow longer hair and just put it into some type of ponytail or something like that because it just looks so weird with it cut like a page boy cut it's flying everywhere it's just it's part of the look it's the look well he uh he jumps inside duccott does uh with his messy

hair and throws throws cisco out of the pod out of the ramp strong guy yeah back on the surface um he basically says well this was fun benjamin but we won't be seeing each other for a while I've got to get back to Bejjor. I've got him finished business. And he finally claims his true feelings. He's evil. You know, from this day forward, Bejor is dead. All of Bejor, every Bejura.

You know, and this time, you won't be able to save them. And then when he goes back in the shuttle, you see Dukhaka back in the shuttle. And as the door is shutting, you see there's Kira and Damar and Weyoun inside the shuttle. Imaginary. Yeah. He's clever. His troop is with him. Yeah, I like that.

too because he's in his reality now. Right. Yeah. He's not questioning if they were really there. They're there. They're there. Hulissa Kira, Hulissa Damar and Hulissa Wiyun. We come back to the Sipfayant. They're heading to a rendezvous, you know, for this escort.

O'Brien says he's picking up a signal from Dukot. And I'm thinking, why did Dukot do that? Yeah, that's weird, isn't it? Why wouldn't he just let Sissu die? This is what I was having a problem with. Yeah, it seems weird. It's like he's almost, like his ego is so big. He's like, I'm going to send the emissary back.

I'm going to save him, but I'm going to kill him later. It just seems like, why not kill him now? Right. I would think it would make more sense that the radar, Dax picks the impulse engines leaving the planet's surface. Yes. Say that, and then we have them. It just would attract better, I think.

If we saw the impulse, we go down or we can see in it that it's only one person, but there's a person still on the planet. There has to be a way to. Because if we can tell us humanoid bodies, right? Or if they said, I'm picking up bioredings, it's Golda cot, and not, you know what I'm saying? If they can say it was him. It's not human. It's not human. There you go.

There you go. But there is a human on the planet. There you go. It's just one of those. Hey, it's the end. We got to wrap it up. And, okay, don't everybody leave to go have a beer. Let's, like, really make sure it works before we leave the room.

Yes. Well, they, uh, Worf's got a, um, ship's log where he says they rescued Cisco, but could not locate Dukot shuttle. So now they're heading to, um, escort their convoy in the badlands. And the captain is in sick bay on the defiant. So we cut into sick bay in the medical bay. he's recovering. It looks like a Borg implant on his head, that weird thing. Yeah, did they use extra from the last episode when they had the Vorta, you know, that the Ferengi accidentally killed and they put all those things on?

It looked like me. It looked kind of like that. She was one of those. Well, we'll put two together. Yeah, that's what it was. It was two together. But that middle part looked like a tiny keyboard for a mouse to type on. It kind of had a little look like some keys on there.

So it was it was a little odd looking but Cisco's got this thing on his head and we learned that Starfleet is looking for Duccott. Cisco admits in the scene with Dax that you know that everything seems to be shades of gray sometimes. But if you spend enough time with a man like Dukot, you realize there really is such a thing as true evil. And he his last line there is I fear no evil from now on. it's him or me. And he's, Cisco's head turns. Like he's not looking at you for most of the scene.

Then he looks at you for pure evil. Yeah. And he looks back after it's him or me. It's very, and he shuts his eyes. It's a little theatrical for me. I got to be honest. It felt a little bit like,

and I had loved Avery in most of the episode. Yeah, yeah. Almost all the episode. He was actually very grounded and real. It doesn't seem very Avery. So you didn't want... It feels like he was directed by Renee. Oh, interesting.

I just don't see him doing that often. Yeah. This felt very theatrical to me. On the nose. Yeah. Robbie, would it have been better for you that when he turned a camera on, I fear no evil, he just went, I fear no evil. Like the end of...

That would have helped. Yeah, something like that would have been like. I knew it. Well, there we go. It's him or me. Him or me. It's Cisco or Duccott. I feel like now we've got the Dominion Wars.

Yeah. We've got this whole DuCot is going to kill everybody. Yes. He's pure evil. Yes. Jeez. So much going on. Let's talk about theme slash lesson slash moral this episode.

Okay. We can start with tear fare, I guess. You bet. Okay. People tell you who they are. Listen with both ears. And your eyes. And your eyes.

I mean, just listen. They will. It's that Maya Angelou, they tell you who they are. He tells you over and over again who he is. Yeah. Great. I like that. I want to jump to Robbies and then I'm going to go last.

Mine is not everything as shades of gray. I think that because I often have a tendency to go, well, I always want to make an excuse. I always want to say, well, yes. But maybe. But maybe this or. Yeah, they did that thing that, you know, I didn't like, but they had reasons. And I think that's wonderful for people. And I want to keep my open-mindedness.

Yeah, and benefit of the doubt. I'm going to echo that. I agree with yours better than mine. I had a problem with this one. I was like, what is it? Because I kept thinking, you know, should I just say PTSD is real? I mean, because it just seemed like we're just watching this just person to caught. Just go deeper and deeper down.

this rabbit hole of confusion and just everything just weighing upon him. So I'm going to go with yours as well. Not everything is a shade of gray. Well, it was really Cisco's. It wasn't mine. That's true. It was his lesson. I stole it from him.

Our Patreon poll winner for the theme slash lessons slash moral of this episode is submitted by Penaliel. And that is everyone is a hero in their own mind. History is written by the victors. And I have honorable mention theme moral submitted by Mark Lacey. A science fiction program set in the vastness of space must have many, many scenes in underground caves. Well, that is it. We have come to the end of our podcast.

Recap of this episode. We want to thank Ter Fair. As always. Thank you, Terfair. Thanks, Ter. Thanks, everybody for joining us. Thank you. Thank you. And of course, next time, join us next time when we will be recapping and discussing the episode, Who Morns for Morn with Arm and Shimmerman.

That sounds like a fun. What? What? Who mourns for Morn. Pass away? I don't even want to think about that. I don't want to think of that. That's what it sounds like.

Oh, my goodness. It sure does. Let's not go there. Maybe he's on vacation and they just miss him. Okay. They're good. We'll go with that. Okay.

He's on Riza. Finally, he gets to go to Riza. for once. Okay. For all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned to your bonus material. For everyone else, we will see you next week.