The Delta Flyers - Warhead

Episode Date: August 8, 2022

The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch & recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang & Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at the very beginning. This week’s episode is Warhead. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Warhead:An alien missile with artificial intelligence terrorizes the crew after it links with the Doctor's program.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeillAnd a special thanks to our Ambassadors, the guests who keep coming back, giving their time and energy into making this podcast better and better with their thoughts, input, and inside knowledge: Lisa Klink, Martha Hackett, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran, Tim Russ, Roxann Dawson, Kate Mulgrew, Brannon Braga, & Bryan FullerAdditionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co-Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Eve England, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Daniel de Rooy, Chris Knapp, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Matthew Gravens, Elaine Ferguson, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, James Zugg, Deike Hoffmann, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Kelly Brown, Lee Lisle, Mary Beth Lowe, William McEvoy, Sarah Thompson, Samantha Hunter, Holly Smith, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey, Lori Tharpe, Mary Burch, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, AJ Freeburg, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Barbara S., Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Marcus Vanderzonbrouwer, Shambhavi Kadam, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Megan Chowning, Tae Phoenix, Nicole Anne Toma, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Daniel O’Brien, Bronwen Duffield, Brandon May, Andrew Duncan, David Buck, Jeremy Mcgraw, Jason Bonnett, Danie Crofoot, Ian Ramsey, Jack Fine, & Susan V. GrunerAnd our Producers:James Amey, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Ann Marie Segal, Chloe E, Craig Sweaton, Nathanial Moon, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Maxine Soloway, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Aithne Loeblich, Dat Cao, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Tara Polen, Jenna Appleton, Jason Potvin, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Amy Tudor, Jamason Isenburg, Mark G Hamilton, Liza Albright, Rob Johnson, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Jennifer Jelf, Justin Weir, Mike Chow, John Mann, Holly Schmitt, Rachel Shapiro, Eric Kau, Megan Moore, Melissa A. Nathan, Captain Jak Greymoon, David Wei Liu, David J Manske, Roxane Ray, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Cindy Holland, Craig M. Nakashian, Julie McCain, Will Forg, Max Wilson, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Carmen Puente-Garza, Russell Nemhauser, Chris Casiano, Lawrence Green, Jordan Marie Benko, Nicholas Vasilakes Thank you for your support!“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, distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail].”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

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are my fellow Trek actor who was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, who was born in Riverside, California, your favorite Eternal Ensign, Garrett Wong. you can get the full version of this podcast by signing up to become a patron at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers. Was that right?

Is it Raleigh? Raleigh, North Carolina. Yeah. Hello, hello, hello, hello. Raleigh. Okay. Yes. So today's the big day.

You're going to be bumping into, we're not bumping into. You have a tennis, tennis game schedule. I'm going to go play tennis with Jim Conway, the originator of, come on, Robbie. You're the one who wanted to, you're the one who wanted to go home early

that's the initial thing that was the original Ethan Phillips has now he has beaten that horse that horse is no longer alive he has he has repeated that that quote with various endings of things

that I want to do for the last two decades like go make pizza in Azerbaijan and you're the one that wants to knit a llama sweater from alpaca yeah You're the one who wants to go clogging in Latvia.

Yeah, yeah. Exactly. There's always something I want to do that Ethan Phillips is very aware of and annoyed by with his. Come on, Robbie. I've realized that you know how to golf, that you have golf clubs. I didn't even know that. Now, how many times? A tennis racket and golf clubs.

Well, how many times have you played tennis? Did you play tennis as a kid? I mean, I did play tennis as a kid. I did. Like I did. Okay. I started, took some lessons at a rec league, like, okay, the recreation center offered, you know, summer activities and my mom signed me up, and I really loved it. And then at summer camp for a few years, I was kind of obsessed. That was my favorite activity.

I got, you know, outstanding tennis player at camp. But I don't know that I'm that good. Having said all that, okay. I'm fine. I can, I can. You can generally get the ball back and forth. Can you can serve it? I can serve it. I can serve it. I can serve it. Overhead smash. Yeah.

Can you put underspin and top spin on the ball? Yeah, pretty much. I just feel like play. I'm happy. I feel like we need to start like a Delta Flyers charity tennis tournament. That's charity, charity golf tournament. Or in the very least, you and I should play against each.

other and we should record it we should record it i'm down for it i would be that would be so much fun i feel like with my golfing and my tennis and my daily hikes and walks and things i feel like such a retiree i feel like i ought to be down like in you know palm springs in a you know in a retirement community or something or florida somewhere you feel that way okay i will say i the one sport I have seen you engage in. Yes. Downhill skiing. Oh, yeah.

And you. Was I aggressive? I can't. You're very aggressive. You're Tom Cruise. You feel the need, the need for speed. And you do not. She don't care.

You just go down that hill without any care in the world. I used to. I used to until I tour my ACL. You're slower now. I am much more. Really? Yes. Yes. Well, I mean, I honestly felt like you, you felt that your butt was on fire like when you were filming Captain Proton, that you were trying to go as fast as you can to put the fire out. And I couldn't believe, I could barely keep up with you. I was like, oh, my God, there's no way. Isn't he even, does he even know that if he eats it now, he's going to be injured? There's going to, there's no way he's going to survive.

I used to have an attitude of like, if I didn't fall at least a couple of times that I wasn't trying hard enough. Oh, I had to ski. But you pushed it. You pushed yourself. I always did. Yeah. Yeah. I don't anymore because I went through a year of surgery and rehab on my knee because I tore my ACL in a skiing accident.

That's right. So that has changed everything, hasn't it? Yeah. It's not worth it to me. It's always interesting that there's an inciting incident that changes everything. And that accident was that in Park City as well? When that happened? Yeah, it was in Park City.

You probably remember the run and everything, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I remember the run. I was following my son. It was the first run of the year. Which son were you following? Carter, he was the youngest.

He and I came up to go skiing one weekend. And we were out and I had a new camera on my helmet. So I was filming him and I was thinking about that. Yeah. And it was like a blue run. It wasn't even, I did much harder runs than that. But I just, my skis weren't. tuned up. They've been sitting in the garage all winter in Utah, so frozen and cold and stiff

and, you know, so my, my boots didn't release when I fell. And I wasn't paying attention. And I should have had my skis tuned up before I jumped out on the mountain with them. Yeah. Yeah, I just, I took a random fall, but I heard it pop. I heard the knee. I felt it, heard it. HAL, MCL? What was ACL? ACL. Yeah. Full ACL tear. Yeah. Oh, boy. So you knew. The minute you heard the pop, you're like, nope, that was not good. Oh, yeah. Worse sound on the planet. So, yep. Oh, my gosh. Okay. But I am back. I still ski and I'm going to play tennis with Jim Conway today. So I can't wait. Come on, Robbie. You're the one that wants to play tennis with Jim Conway. All right. So today's episode is Warhead. Yeah, Warhead. All right. So Robbie, so Robbie,

and i will go watch warhead and we'll be right back and we will discuss the episode warhead for those of you who are our patreon patrons please stay tuned for your bonus material Robbie and i are back from watching warhead yes we are and it has nothing to do with candy clearly so it's not it's not sour warhead candy from the planet of Sauer. That's why they call them Sour warheads. They're from the planet Sour. Sour. Sour. Yes. And if they spoke German, it would be Zawa. Zawa. Yes. It has nothing to do with Sauer warheads. It has everything to do with Harry Kim.

Yes, it does. And the doctor. The hero. Harry's the hero here. Yes. Here's a question. Yeah. I want to ask you, why, why are there no credits for guest stars at the beginning? of this episode. Why would that happen? How could they miss? Well, guest star at the top, you only get a guest star credit if it's negotiated at the top.

Otherwise, it comes at the end as a co-star credit. Oh. So the actors in this episode are guest stars or co-stars, McKenzie Westmore and Steve Dennis, probably didn't get that negotiated in at the time because, well,

we'll talk about the actors, but both of them were relatively new. Obviously, McKenzie, not new to the business, but she hadn't done a whole lot when she did this role. No, but she was, she's been on our show before once, though, I think. Probably as a co-star. No, but as a, well, I remember seeing her name at the beginning. So it's, it's weird how the agent, maybe she switched agents and the second agent

didn't do as good of a job in the negotiations. That's possible. Yeah, maybe. Okay. Let's see. Mackenzie Westmore was in Next Generation as Rose, un-credited Extra. She was in Warhead. No, she wasn't in another episode.

Oh, so this is her debut then. This is her only episode. And only episode. Oh, my goodness. Huh. Yeah. Okay. I got you.

Why did I think that she was in another one? before this. This is so strange. All right. That's fine. While you're at it, you want to talk about our guest stars? Let's talk about our, our directors, writers, actors. So John Kretschmer directed this episode. Yes. And he has directed before. So this is only once before. This is his second episode. Second and final with us, which is a shame because we loved him. Yeah, he was great. I think he was great. I think John Kretschmer got a job producing because I stayed in touch with John. I liked him a lot and I was still shadowing a lot of directors and learning about directing. And so I really liked him.

And I stayed in touch with him. He produced a show for UPN. I forget the name of it. It was about like a bionic man kind of show. It was like some guy with a computer in his brain or something like that. Okay, okay. Yeah. But, yeah, John Kretschmer directed once upon a time.

before this, same season, season five. Yeah. And then this episode, and then that was it. He went on producing and directing other shows. I'm surprised he didn't direct more. You know, he I am too. He did a great job, and he is easy to talk to and deal with as a director,

from the actor's standpoint that is. Yeah. Do you recall my connection with Kretschmer? No. From one before. Oh, so he's married to my college classmate from the theater department at UCLA. Oh, how funny. Wendy Brokaw, whose father was the president of William Morris Agency.

Oh, okay. I thought you were going to say Tom Brokaw, the journal. The journalist. The newscaster. No. No, but still a very powerful man, though, the man who ran William Morris agency. So, yeah. Anyway, so that's his wife is Wendy.

Wow. Yeah. Very cool. Well, John was also a first AD, and he was Stephen Spielberg's first AD. and ended up directing. I think I remember John saying he got his first episode when he was an AD on what was that Spielberg produced show about a submarine? Oh, Sequest.

Cquest, yes. Oh, my goodness, okay. That was John's first directing was Sequest DSV. And then, so he was still relatively new, but he had been an AD for a long time. Well, you know, I'm sure he learned a ton from being a Spielberg It's A. Bielberg. Absolutely. That's a good place to go to work, to learn a thing or two, to become a director. Story by Brandon Braggar. So Brandon, I read a little that he had seen a documentary about the post-Soviet Russia and what they were doing with these nuclear warheads that it was kind of frightening that these warheads could end up in the wrong hands or be used for things, you know, by bad people.

So that was kind of the idea generator for this episode was the nuclear weapons in post-Soviet Russia. And what was happening at that time, which totally makes sense. Makes a lot of sense. Yeah, but the script was written by Michael Taylor and Ken Biller. And I thought they did a great job. It was really good script, good story. Yeah, and McKenzie Westmore, we talked about, I want to say McKenzie Westmore's very first job, Michael Westmore's daughter. I met her when she was about 10 years old

during First duty. No, Masters of the Universe. Excuse me? She showed up on set there. Oh, wow. She came by the set of Masters of the Universe and I remember meeting her

when she was maybe 9 or 10 years old. She made them even younger. Maybe even younger. I think so, yeah. But McKenzie Westmore's very first job was an uncredited role of Robert De Niro's two-year-old daughter. She was two years old, McKenzie. In Raging Bull. What? She was in raging. Yes.

Oh, my gosh. Basically an extra, I guess, or, you know, like no, no lines. She was two years old. Steve Dennis plays on Connie, the alien traitor. Yeah. And his very first job was in 1997, so not long before, you know, two years before. Yeah. He was on a show called Profiler, played Detective Jerry crews on profiler and he is now the artistic director of the pennsylvania shakespeare festival he's oh wow look at that i love it i love it um somebody else i want to point out one of our uh long time uh background artists and sometimes stand in sylvester sylvester foster plays crewman lang who goes down to the planet with you and the doctor that's sylvestre and he guarded me in 30 days.

He was a security guy. I didn't talk to him that much. He's like there's some extras, regular extras that I spoke to a lot. And I didn't talk to Sylvester that much. I remember. Sylvester Foster, yes. I just want to point him out. He went on the away mission with you.

Yeah, he deserves a shout out. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Let's do our poetry synopsis of this warhead episode. All right. Here we go. Here's my haiku.

smart bomb beamed on board Doc's program is commandeered Harry talks him down nice I love a good and it's creative I love a good haiku here we go with our limerick

poetry synopsis for Warhead Sleepy Harry finds a weapon of mass destruction. Doc wants to keep it. So they attempt deconstruction. The bomb inhabits the doc. Now it can walk and talk. But the weapon learns its mission is over with some memory reconstruction. Nice. That's tight. Very good. Was that you? I'm not. You know, you can't reveal. Every time when you say, I'm not, I know that it's not. That's your tell. That's your poker tell. You just give it to me. Well, good job, Rebecca. Rob Bianca. Yes. Thank you. Nice.

Teamwork makes the dream work, buddy. It does. It does. All right. Let's jump into this recap and discussion. All right. So the first thing we see is Paris on screen. He's talking to somebody off camera and he goes, he goes, show some mercy. I was like, what an opening. Yeah. And very dramatic. Yeah. I was like, very dramatic. He's panicking.

You were probably shocked to see that you were the opening. too. Yes. And then there's no one else on screen except for you talking to somebody off screen. Show some mercy. Basically, Paris is panicking. He needs Neelix's help with some replicator rations. Neelix is like your credit's no good.

You've borrowed. You know, you owe me replicator rations. He says, you know, not after that time with a pork rinds for the monster movie marathon. Yeah. So you haven't paid him back for the pork rinds. So the replicated pork

rinds, you must have replicated enough to feed the crew. I wanted everybody to enjoy pork rinds because with a monster movie marathon, you're going to need, you know, some good nutrition. And pork rinds are. I don't even think, do you think pork rinds exist outside of the United States of America? Do you think this is something that, because I just, I don't, I've never really seen it in a European or British grocery store. It's basically fried pork fat.

It's like little, you know, like super fried till they like explode and puff up into a crispy, delicious mouth-watering snack. Pork rinds are should be universal. That's what Paris is trying to do. He's trying to bring pork rinds to the Delta Grodron. Yeah. I'm very proud of him. Very funny.

Very funny. Turns out, though, Paris has kind of forgotten that it was the anniversary. for their first date. Their first date. First official date. Yeah. And he kind of forgot all about it. And then Neelix is like, oh, oh, I get it now. Balata is going to kill you if you don't have.

So he gives him a list of a bunch of stuff. And I got to say, I made a note here, great movement and blocking by Kretschmer for this first scene. We're kind of, you know, Neelix was bouncing around. The camera kept moving. We go from outside the kitchen, inside the kitchen, over. of the replicator. It was really good blocking, good coverage. And then Harry enters while Paris is getting some flowers. He's going to carry the flowers and champagne, I think, with him. A couple of things. You ordered a bottle of wine. And I was just thinking, like, goodness gracious, like, how, how do you,

can everyone order the same rare bottle of wine? I guess they can. You know what I'm saying? Like, typically, the rare it is, the more expensive. The more expensive. The more expensive. expensive it is. Yes, it probably, it's the same thing to replicate a crappy bottle of wine as a rare bottle. You know what I mean? Yeah, I do. But it's no longer rare if you can, if anyone can replicate it. Right. And for those, you know, there are some people who are not savvy to the world of wines. And I'm not a big wine person, but I have been to dinner with a producer who decided to order a, not a the most expensive wine bottle of wine on the menu and oh my gosh this bottle was 13,000 dollars and i what i just sat there and i was like why my god why would you do that i mean i i didn't you know i didn't sit there and judge him but that's his decision to do whatever he wants with his money i don't have any any call on that but i was shocked to know that you can spend thousands of dollars on a bottle of money. But isn't that interesting in the future where money is

not necessary? Replicator rations because of our situation are necessary. But in the end, the replicator ration is the same amount of energy to create it, to replicate it. I would think a crappy bottle or a $13,000 bottle. So then I guess part of me is like part of the prestige of that $13,000 bottle is that it's rare. Correct. And it doesn't have that prestige anymore in the 24th. It doesn't have that prestige because it's everything's the same. So like, is it better? You know, when you get down to that, like, is it? Like, there's a whiskey and we'll move on from food for a second. But there's a whiskey that, that I have never tried called Pappy Van Winkle's whiskey. And supposedly it is like the most amazing bourbon that you can possibly get. Yeah.

yet. And it is very expensive. Thousands, again, $10,000, $15,000 for a bottle of this, of this whiskey. Yeah. Part of the reason it's so expensive is because they only make, you know, 50 bottles a year or 100. They don't make that. Right. Yeah. It's rare. Once again, it is rare. That is why. It's rare. And, and obviously, good. So that combination makes it $10,000 a bottle. Right.

But in replicator world, there's nothing that's rare anymore. It's all the same. There's no distinction. No, it's an interesting. Yeah, and this is the thought dilemma that I had. And this is probably why it took me so long to review this episode because I kept having these crazy thoughts, like, wait a minute, and I would stop and tonder it. One comment that I have to say that Megan brought up,

but after you replicated the flowers and the wine, she said, boy, dating sure is lazy in the 24th century because you can just immediately. Yeah, boom, you got it right there. You don't have to go to the florist. You don't have to go down to the supermarket to grab that, that wine. It's all there with the replicators. So, yeah, okay.

All right, let's continue with our discussion. Harry comes in. Harry comes in and he needs some coffee because we realize he's on the night shift. Not a cup. He needs a pot. He says, give me a pot of coffee. He's pulling the night shift. He's got the bridge.

He's in command. And then Paris and Harry kind of have a little banter about command experience. And it's a cute. little scene. It is. I say it's my fourth night in a row sitting in the big chair. Neelix pops his head around the corner, you know, says something. And then you say, as I'm walking away, you say, you're not fooling anyone, kind of under your breath like that, right? Because you're talking about how much I like doing this, really. Right, right. But when you said that, again, I was sitting there going, who does Robbie's, his voice, because it's very low, but lower than normal, sounds like somebody else out there.

And again, this paused me in my review of this episode. I'm sitting here thinking, just racking my brain. Will Arnett. Will Arnett from Arnett from Arrested development or Murderville, Murderville, the show. Yes, I love Murderville. Maybe more his Murderville cop character, his detective character, is sort of gravelly lower voice. So you were like, you're not fooling anyone. You did the Will Arnett.

So I was like, oh, look at that. Robbie's actually doing voices. Yeah, I'm doing voice. okay it was nice nice opening scene it's a nice great it's a great scene really good very well blocked like yeah we go to a ship shot next we're on the bridge harry's in the captain's chair i know taking command very seriously yeah we get to meet in ensign jenkins that's mackenzie westmore yes um harry asked for a status support and she's like well it's same as it was 20 minutes ago so and then jenkins asks permission to speak freely and she says

we're on the night shift. Relax. Yeah. And then my brain would not relax. And I started thinking, wait a minute, wait a minute. This is kind of ridiculous because we're only seeing, if you look outside, it's a starfield, whether it's 8 a.m. or 8 p.m. It's the same damn starfield. There's no sun. There's no, you know, your circadian rhythm is going to be messed up because you don't get natural sunlight. And then I kept thinking night shift. It's different from night. If I had the graveyard shift, at a 7-Eleven, there's going to be less people filling up gas at four in the morning. I'm going to say than at 5 p.m. OK, or 6 p.m.

But yet night shift or graveyard shift on a starship, anything can happen then as much as during the day shift, you know? It's a 24-hour day. It is really, it's no different. It's no different. Could be action any time. No. It's interesting when you bring that up because, because to me, what that means is we have

recreated the the kind of day shift and night shift our construct from our our time period yeah right we've recreated that on the show on the shit okay so you you get me on that one i do okay jenkins picks up an automated distress call from an m class planet about 0.73 light years away so less than one light year but it does require a course correction and away from our course back towards the quadrant. And so there is a little bit of a debate between, you know, what Harry's kind of thinking, what should do we wake up, Chacote, do we get the captain. Exactly. And he's like, nope, let's just let him sleep. Let him sleep. Let's get over there. Let's head over there and see what's going on. Now, my notes here are when you're in the captain's chair, there's a lot to think about. Where do you

put your hands? Are they going to be on the thing? Are they going to be on your lap? But also, very important is the moment when the the distress when we pick up the distress call Harry has Harry actually walks down from the level that he's on down to Khan and you know the bridge has always been a three level bridge at the upper level where Tuvac and Harry's stations are then the center level which is where Chiquet and Janeway are and then the the bottom level the lowest level is where Con is the helm where Tom Harris sits So that walking, my natural reaction was to, as I walk, to look down to see where the steps were. Yeah, sure.

But the thing is, when if you do that on camera, it doesn't look that good. You shouldn't be walking. Oh, let me see where I'm walking. Oh, there's the steps. It has to be very captainly. You know, you have to sort of be like that should be second nature. It's funny you bring that up because I remember, especially early on, Kate loved to move around the bridge. She sure did.

She sure. And I remember her before we rolled on a take. she would often like count her steps yeah to the steps so that she didn't she didn't have to look down and that was constantly uh yeah her trying to judge okay how many steps three four steps and then i'll hit the the rail and then i don't have to look and yeah oh that's funny yeah and forgotten about how much she had to do that oh yeah so i recall so from watching that scene i remembered how nervous I was about just walking from one level to another without looking at the steps.

And again, the other memory I had was when I was filming, I was thinking, wow, this is really, this shows me how good Kate was at navigating the bridge geography. Because it looks, it looks, it looks, it looks effortless. Oh, my God, it looks, a lot of traps, a lot of little things that can mess you up. And you can stumble and, trip and fall flat on your face.

And then I kept thinking, when Kate does it, it's so, it's down to a science. She knows exactly how long it's going to take, how many steps it's going to take to get to here to there. And she did it so smoothly that it looked like it was second nature. And that's something that I remember, even a very short scene such as this, it still was very difficult for me to adjust to that because I, you know, let's face it, I'd never leave the operation station. I'm usually sitting at my station and that's it.

And so that was something that I truly recalled after watching this scene that I had to stress out a little bit and figure out how to, yeah, get down there without tripping. So Harry says alter course. We go out to space. We see a Voyagers approaching this planet. Kind of a red planet sort of looks like Mars a little bit or something. Or like the demon planet. Or the demon, yep. Or the demon planet.

Yep. We go back to the bridge. No answer from this distress call or try hailing it. Yeah. Jenkins says, I don't detect any life signs clearly. they're all dead and harry said well you know that's not necessarily we we need to look at all the different um angles to go to this we need to take go down there and take a look is pretty much what harry says so he leaves her in command of the bridge and yeah great great little uh reaction shot of yeah

of quick realization slash panic on the part of jenkins and he goes off to inform chukotay what's going on we now we are now in the corridor and there's a scene with chokote and kim and And Harry says he hopes he's made the right decision. And, you know, Chacote says about changing course or waking me up, you made the right decision on both. And now he's putting on the jacket top, which really did not exist. And the thing is, we all have that one piece jumpsuit. But it just doesn't, it's so awkward to put on to have him try to slide into that while walking. No. Didn't look good. So they gave him that little upper jacket, that top, which, you know, it doesn't really exist. No. It doesn't really exist. It's the magic of making a television. They were trying to suggest he just woke up. That's correct. Getting dressed. That's correct.

I get why they wanted the business, but yeah, it's not business you can do in the normal outfits. Yeah, and he tells Harry to lead the away team, which, you know, Harry's super excited. And quickly, it cuts, the next shot is still in the corridor, and this time, walking with the doctor. And really good scene, good walk and talk, went very, very smoothly. It floats super well. The doctor is surprised that Chakotay or Tuvok are not leading the away mission.

Harry's sort of like, well, I'm a senior officer, doc. I've been on this ship for five years. I think I can handle an away mission, very smooth all the way up into the transporter room. And Sylvester joins in. I guess he's already been waiting in the room. Very smooth. He joins in there. And, you know, the doctor talks about, well, lucky you, I'm here on the mission because I can make up for anybody that, you know,

for any loss of leadership or whatever he's trying to say. Harry does a nice eye roll to the doctor's comment and they beam out of there down to the planet surface, which looks exactly like the demon planet that duplicated us into the goo crew. I wonder if it's the same backing. I think it's exactly the same backing. It doesn't look any different.

I thought it looked cool, but it did look like that the other episode. Yes. I was waiting to see another Harry and another Tom pop up and going, hey, we're here. I do feel like Paramount had access to some, they had a library or collection of very old and really beautiful theatrical backings. And we used a lot of different ones.

And this one I thought was really pretty. But yeah, they get down there and Harry says spread out, you know, they start scanning. We cut to the doctor kind of alone for a moment. He finds something stuck in a rock. It looks like a torpedo probe or something. like that calls for harry harry comes over harry scans it this is the the source of the distress call

but when he scans it harry's like it's got bioneural circuitry in it which is very anew it's basically artificial intelligence in this this we don't know it's a weapon yet but yeah the scanner that harry's tricorder reads a peritrionic shielding dense energy matrix and like you said bio neural circuitry. At this point, the actual device lights up. It lights up and makes a sound. Harry jumps back like a scared cat. And I'm going to say that because I've been around a cat so now that I can see what they do when they get scared. They jump. And so Harry jumps back. The doctor realizes that it is actually communicating. Yeah, he says it's speaking to us. He's like, it's speaking to me right now. Yes. And he can understand it. It's using

duotronic algorithms to communicate. And he can understand it because of his, you know, all the knowledge that are that that is in his database he's able to yeah his database can translate this and so he listens i thought it sounded a lot like r2d2 d2 yes yeah i'll i'll go with that it was kind of cute it was talking to through the doctor to the doctor yeah the doctor says as the the weapon speaks to him he says it says it's injured yeah it says it needs our help right and it doesn't and then he says it doesn't know why it can't feel its arms and legs and he can't and it cannot see and it's terrified so now it has it has emotion and as it used to have vision and evidently it thought it was human or humanoid so yeah so now we're left on a mystery we go to

commercial break and we come back we're back on the planet surface and the device is speaking with the doctor it says that it doesn't remember its name because its memory has been damaged. I have a question. So I get how the doctor can interpret, I guess I can, because the doctor is hearing this, this, this beeping outside of his body. Yes. And then processing it in his program. Yes. And then translating to us what it said. But when the doctor speaks back, this is a bumfering. He doesn't speak in R2D2. He should be speaking in R2D2. You're right. Yes. He talks to it. The doctor. You're so right.

He tells the device that the crew, you know, will stay near and, you know, they'll stay nearby. They'll take care of him. He does say, Kroom and Lang will stay there. And I was like, oh, Kroom and Lang's dead. Right. And how does it know, how does it know that we were walking away if it can't see? You know, because you say, I was like, wait a minute. Does it have proximity sensors on it?

Like, what's going on here? So there are a little bit of some, yeah, there's some holes. They were cutting some corners on this a little bit. Yes, yes. But we do learn here that the probe, what we now think of as a probe or technology, we don't know it's a weapon. The AI, let's call it the AI, the artificial intelligence, okay. It doesn't even know it's AI.

It doesn't know it's artificial intelligence. No clue. Harry's like, let's explain, let's tell it. And the doctor says, no, no, Doc's like, no, we cannot scare it. That'll terrify it. It's already so scared. So he's very empathetic. Yeah, his words are he goes, I don't want to risk.

psychological trauma. And Harry's like, psychological trauma, it's a machine. And the doctor says, you know what? It's confused. It's asking for our help. So we should beam it aboard. And Harry says, I don't think so. Not until we know what it is.

Away mission protocols dictate that we, he gets interrupted by the doctor. Morality dictates that we help this, this being or whatever he's already designated this machine as. And we cut to the bridge. And we hear Tom announcing, make way for the day shift and income Paris and Janeway. Chiquet is already there. Janeway asked Chiquet. I feel like when Kate was walking in, that she was kind of finishing up a laugh or a giggle.

Yes. And I know when we would make these entrances from the, that I would screw around till the last second. Pretty much. And I must have said something. You were joking with her. Yeah. Because she came in with a huge smile on her face, like, yeah. I mean, much, much more happy than she would be to ask Jacote how Harry is doing.

Like, why would be she, why would she be so ecstatic, laughing about this? Giggling. So clearly, you made her laugh. Yeah, and then it bled into the scene, but pretty much that same emotion. I could not start a scene in the turbo lift in any serious way. I mean, unless it was a really, you know, intense scene that I didn't want to. to distract anyone else or myself if it was, but it was something like this. I was always. Yeah. And you know, you weren't the only one guilty of that. I think all of us to some extent

would really just be joking around and talking about our regular day until they said action. And that would, and then boom, we'd go right into the scene. And we would. Sometimes I love when you see a little, a little leftover from that moment. There is. Anyway, yeah, they come in. Janeway asks about Harry Chacote, Phil's a. in. She's very proud of Harry. You can tell him this thing. You know, yes, she is. Chacote says, well, he hasn't checked in like five minutes,

so it should be right about now. But that whole dialogue between Chacote and Janeway was like it was almost as if they were my, were Harry's parents. Yeah. And this is Harry's first day at school. And they're so happy that he was, you know, everything was going well at

school and it's just, it's, you know, it's a cute scene. You know, that's our Harry. Here he is. Yep. Well, this seems important because it does set up why she trusts him later. From the start, she really has faith in him. Yeah, she even tells Chakotay, you better watch out for your job. You know, Harry's gunning for it, seems like. And so Harry basically hails the captain Voyager and he says that they have found a badly damaged AI that the doctor thinks that this AI should be beamed aboard so that we can help treat this damaged artificial intelligence.

And Janeway asks in a voice which I felt like sounded like she had a cold when she says, you're in charge of the way, Mission, Ensign, what do you think? That exact line, the line before and the line after did not sound like a cold. So I almost wonder, did that line get looped while she was sick at the same time? I don't know. Maybe. I heard a bit of a cold in that one. Interesting.

Yeah. And Harry does respond to the captain saying that, yes, I think we should help. But if we beam this machine aboard, we need to erect a level 10 force field in an engineering bay and then beam it there just to just to have, you know, a precaution just in case something happens. Yeah. Captain agrees. And then we have a little bit of a scene where the machine starts talking to the doctor and asking who and what he is. And he talks about how that he's a, you know, a photonic, basically a projection. Yeah, he's a hologram.

Yeah, he's a hologram and then another question comes out and the doctor responds, oh, I suppose I am technically not a real person. So you have that little dialogue between the two of them. But really, you know, this is just setting up the camaraderie of between the doctor and the machine at this point. We go to engineering. What a wonderful shot this was. It starts from the second level and it just tracks all our main players as they walk through. So good job by John Kretschmer.

an angle that we didn't often see it was really good no and definitely if we did see that angle it before split second it wouldn't track the actors walking and talking yeah from above you know so that to me was super cool without any coverage it was just that shot and then Janeway then asked how our patient is doing Torres says it's complicated it uses bioreal circuitry to mimic humanoid synaptic functions Harry says its memory core has been damaged so it's suffering from from some form of technological amnesia. And Janeway asked, well, what do you guys think this might be? Torres says probe, communications device.

And the doctor says, well, whatever it is, it wasn't alone. It claims to be traveling or it was traveling with a companion. So that's the cue for Janeway to take off. She says, okay, I'm going to go to astrometrics. I'm going to scan the surface, see if I can locate this companion. in and the doctor lowers the force field and comes in and starts talking with the AI saying that telling the AI that it isn't actually an organic being. So now he's letting this AI down softly basically. He does say, well, we do have something in common that even though we aren't

organic, we are certainly not inferior. So he's just trying to let everyone know. But my question to you, Robbie, don't you think that our scanners are sophisticated enough, to scan that device and realize it is a weapon of mass destruction? One would think, yes. I mean, later on the trader does talk about the energy and the, but yeah, you would think. Yeah, and the shape of it, you know, what do you guys think this is? An ice cream maker? I mean, like, what are we going to say?

It looks like a missile. I mean, it's kind of, if I almost felt like, they could have constructed this thing to look the least missile-like possible and then maybe that would have helped the story a little bit more. Yeah, that's true. That's true.

Okay. Yeah, so we go to Astrometrics next. We join Janeway and Seven there. Seven is helping Janeway, you know, scan this planet, look for this companion if it exists. And then they discover that there's a crater. Yeah. 200 kilometer radius that has the same kinds of metals as this AI is made from.

And they determined that this must have been the companion device that caused this explosion. And this is where they go, oh, it's a weapon. So you're right. I think we could have done an x-ray of that thing, you know, some kind of scan. And we should have seen the way it was built. But here is where they realize, uh-oh. It's a weapon and it's a 200-kilometer radius of mass destruction. Mass.

WMD. Here we go. Yep. We go back to space for a minute. We see we're still in orbit. We come into the briefing room. And my big question is, where's Paris? Why isn't Paris in there?

Yeah. Everybody else is the doctor. You're not there. You're not there. You're not there. Nope. I'm just going to say that. But anyway, the doc is arguing.

keep this AI device, this warhead, the team, everybody, Janeway included, want to, want to beam it back. They want to neutralize the threat. They just don't, they want to get rid of it. But every, every suggestion that is made, the doctor debates it and saying, no, you can't just beam it off the ship and destroy it. It's a sentient being, it's a sentient being, yeah. The seven says, fine, we'll just beam it onto the planet and we'll leave, we'll deploy a warning

buoy to tell anyone else that comes by that this is a WMD. And again, Torres even suggests separating the bioreal circuitry from the explosive, which makes the most sense. You know, then Harry says, okay, so then we're going to store this intelligence? And the doctor says, that's easy. Just download the intelligence into a holographic matrix just like me. So then, and then I started thinking, this is cool. This is how you would get another crew member on, another series regular onto the ship, basically, by doing this episode. So I thought this is really cool that they're going to try to do something like that. Yeah, they decide we're going to separate out the artificial intelligence from the weapon part. Right. We're going to create a hologram or a hollow,

you know, use the hollow imagers to create. Yes, a new body for this body for this thing, just like the doctor. And then once he's neutralized, we'll try to find his people and get him back. Right. So that's sort of the plan. That seems to make sense. Sure does. So far. So far. We go to engineering. The doctor is, escorting a couple of crewmen carrying this weapon for engineering. And I'm like, I wrote down, are they insane? It's a bomb. They're two guys and a hologram walking around the ship with a bomb.

I mean, what if they tripped? What if they, like, I don't know, wouldn't they put it on a cart? Wouldn't they seal it up? Wouldn't they just transport it? Yeah. Anyway. And then they back in. And they get to the turblift, and they turn around and back in.

And the only reason they did that was so the doctor could be clear to continue talking to this thing. It was for camera. I understand that. But still, it's very funny to see this, though. It was funny. They were backing in. And I also thought, not only is it only two guys and a bomb and a hologram, but they're walking backwards. Backwards.

Slick, are you insane? Anyway, my note here for everyone listening or watching this is that the Asian individual background actor was actually one of two people who were, one of the final two that could have been my stand in, basically. So he was brought in and Stewart actually took over some of my stand in, the original stand in, I think was John Tampoya. And then later on, I think Tempoya took off. So they needed somebody else to be my stand in. And they brought in that actor that's holding the bomb backwards. And also Stewart, another guy, another Asian American. So yeah, so that's my little tiny little factoid here that probably don't know about it.

Yeah, yeah. That's right. All right. In the turbo lift, though, the doctor says we're going to sick bay. I did like the background actor's funny looks as the doctor is talking to this. machine. They're like, what's going on? It was very funny.

Yes, and we're back in the hallway. The doctor says, Harry is configuring your physical parameters. This is going to be awesome. Yeah. You're going to have a body. It's going to be awesome. And you're going to be very handsome.

He assures him to be quite handsome, which I think is. So he's really bonding with this bond. He is. This has become his kid almost in a way. It's very interesting. Sick Bay, are in there. They start to begin this procedure to separate the artificial intelligence from the

weapon. And the doc is continuing to reassure the bomb. But as Torres is working on this, the bomb, the device, what is she doing? Yeah, I want to play by play. The bomb wants to know every single thing that Torres is doing. What is she doing? And then she hands it off to me, okay, to Harry to do that. And then I wrote, how does it understand Harry? I mean, Harry is not the doctor, right? So Harry's talk. And it's, this brings up what you brought up earlier. Again, when the doctor speaks back to the bomb, he's not speaking in, in R2D2. He's speaking in English. And it's not, you know, again, a little bit of a hole in the script.

Because if you want to make this, if you're going to, if you're going to say, all right, the doctor is speaking English, but it's also, it's also projecting a duotronic algorithm. All right. So then the correct way should have been. I should have been doing the play-by-play. The doctor should have been repeating what I said to the device. And then that would have been the correct way to communicate with that device. But it was Harry. And when Harry talks about take, yeah.

By the way, if the bomb wants a play-by-play. If we didn't give the bomb this play-by-play, we would have just succeeded. Like the whole thing hinges on the fact that we actually said, hey, we're going to cut you in two. No, we say, we're going to take your program offline. The minute it heard that, it went cuckoo for Cocoa Pops, okay? So you were so right. We said nothing.

We just said, you're going to be fine. Just relax. You're going to be so handsome. We're fixing you. You're going to look like somebody called Brad Pitt from the 20th century, and it's going to be wonderful, but no. It would have been fine. It would have been.

And Bilan had the right instinct. She's like, this is too complicated. I'm not going to, I'm not going to, I'm not going to. do this. Oh my gosh. The alarm goes off. The device starts to arm itself. Harry alerts the bridge that the device needs to be beamed off the ship immediately. Chikote says that they've lost the transporter lock. How do you lose the transporter lock on a stationary object that's on your own ship? I don't know, but clearly, they lost it. Well, he's taken over the ship systems. Is that what it is at that point? Yes. Okay. All right. So that makes more sense. I think so. It's the only way.

If they can't get a lock, that means it's somehow. I think that it has not. taken over the ship systems yet though because upon the lock not happening janeway then suggests sending the em pulse through its power matrix to short it out and that's when everything transfers into the doctor's hollow matrix at that point but maybe you're right maybe it already had already taken over it maybe it took over the ship systems you know somehow or defended itself somehow i'm going to go with your reasoning that makes the most sense and and then yes the doctor is begging this thing not to destroy itself. Don't blow yourself up and everyone else. Don't blow us up. Yes. Janeways like use that e-impulse, Bologna's on it. Harry's doing a countdown. It's very dramatic.

10, 9. A, they're working. And bam, they send this thing. And it appears that it worked. Yeah, everyone's happy for a second. And then then you hear a very kind of an evil sounding voice from the doctor. You shouldn't have done it. Very Will Arnette from Murderville. Yeah. They should have done that. Yeah. He says, you lied. The bomb has basically taken over the doctor's program at this point. Yeah, pretty much.

Great moving shots throughout the scene, though. I thought Kretschmer again, I love his work. The bomb says that it must complete its mission. The weapon is rearmed. It says that Voyager will take the bomb to its target. And now we are in deep kaka at this point. What are we going to do? We're back on the bridge now, and it's with the doctor on the view screen, or should we just call him Dr. Baum? Dr. Baum.

Dr. Baum is on the view screen, and he tells Janeway that, you know, they tried to deactivate it. And Janeway says, you know, just the explosive component, not you. Dr. Baum says, there is no distinction. I am what I am. I am. I am the bomb. I am the component. I am everything. You know, I'm the AI, I'm the explosive component, alter course, or else I will detonate. And he won't negotiate. He won't negotiate, yeah. And I want sensors transferred to sickbay so I can see that you guys are following my commands. And again, everyone's just, uh-oh.

The big, uh-oh. The big uh-oh, Janeway says to Jigote looks like we're going to have to outsmart. A smart, smart bomb, exactly. A little passage of time on the bridge. Paris pipes up. He says, hey, somehow, if we can shut down this force field around Sick Bay, I can't beam it off the ship. And Seven says, you can't beam it far enough because it's still going to explode and it'll take us out. Chikote says, okay, best option, disarm it. Paris says, good luck with that. It has an internal sensor array. It'll detect anything. You can unscrew one

screw and it's going to know what's going on. And again, it will blow up and all of us too. So we're in trouble. Neelix interrupts. He shows up with a power node. He's got this little silver thing. A little round thing. He traded for it a week ago from a guy, a merchant named Anquani, Unconi. And he says, look, this thing has all kinds of little, you know, different types of tech to it.

And it has bioreal circuitry. And I double-checked it. I went back and looked at the schematics and I realized this is the same technology as the weapon. Yeah. So then, you know, Chikote's like, let's start scanning for the vessel of this merchant, uncanny, and let's see if we can get some answers. And maybe he can help us out. Yeah. So that's the end of that scene. We go back to Sick Bay and Balana and Harry are discussing their plans. Harry is very upset with himself. He's really depressed. And Belana shares the story when she made a mistake in command. Yes. He says they were in a cave that she thought was a

Cardassian military installation, but it turned out it was just unstable, unstable mineral deposits. And there were weapons signatures. I thought were weapon signatures. There was a rock slide. They were stuck for three days. And Harry says, how'd you get out? And they said they had to dig their way out by hand. And then Harry goes, wait.

And he heads over to talk. And she goes, where are you going? He goes to dig, dig my way out. Yeah, to dig us out. Yeah, it's a good. I love the dialogue. dialogue. It really is good. It's a lot of techno babble and a lot of good stuff in here. So, but yeah, so any plan that any crew members come up with so far is just not a good plan.

Pretty much, it's not going to work. So Harry walks over to the doctor and basically, Harry says, look, you do not have to do this. You're a sentient being. You don't have to do this. And of course, Dr. Baum is saying, This is my programming. This is my mission. I have to do this. And Harry says, you don't have to be a slave to your programming. Look at the doctor.

He utilizes the argument of the doctor has transcended his program. And this is exactly what you can do. Well, he says he's overcome his initial boundaries. He's made friends. He's floated to the starship. Yeah, yeah. Because he even sings. Yes.

So I thought that was fun. And so basically, Harry's argument is, even though he was programmed to be a doctor, He's become more than that. And then Dr. Baum says, okay, well, despite all of the achievements that the doctor has, you know, accomplished, did he ever stop being a doctor? And I say, no. And he goes, well, I cannot stop being a weapon. And so, again, this doctor, this section bomb is really good at debate. I mean, anything that you say to this bomb, it has an answer for it.

So then Harry switches his tactic. He thinks, okay, let me see if I can humanize or at least personalize the target and the people that are at the target. So he says, well, what about this target? What is it? Where is? And he's like, it's a military installation other than that. And well, good thing for you. We are on a starship.

We have scanners. We have sensors. Let me, let's type it in and let's look at it. So they both look at this one screen. And Dr. Baum says, there it is. military installation. I said, yes, but what about the people that are manning that installation? What about them? You know, how is this going to affect them, you know, when you go over there and their families? So he tries to show, you know, basically speak to his, I don't know,

get some sympathy or compassion. Just speak to its sympathy, if it has any sympathy or compassion. Yeah. And, you know, it doesn't really work. The, the weapon then kind of out debates Harry and says, leave or else I will harm you, Harry Kim. We go to the bridge next. Yes. They do detect a cloaked vessel. Yeah. We determine that it is Neelix's buddy and Connie, yes. Audio only hailed. Do you think that's because of budgetary concerns?

Yeah, I'm sure it was. They didn't want to pay for the green screen and the reverse. They don't want to show them. Yeah. But he asks about this weapon. He says it was created by a species named the Druida. Drewoda, yes. Drodas.

That's right. And he has studied them and he knows all of their technology very well. He wants to come aboard and find out more about this. Take a look at it. Yeah. Go to engineering and basically Unconi describes the weapon, how it's made, how it works, what it can, what is capable of. And it sounds nearly unbeatable.

It's like, it's a super weapon. By the way, I think the makeup for him for Unconi was really cool. I love that bony sort of forehead thing that came up and over. Yeah, I thought that was very cool. Yeah. You know, his technology or his, um, his ace in the hole is that he has a transporter beam, which is shielded so that it's got a dampening field. He can move it.

Yeah. He says, uh, he could transport this off of Voyager using his fancy dampening field. Jane was excited. She's like, sure. What do you want for this? He's like, the weapon. She's, well, I can give you everything but the energy, energy matrix. You can have everything else.

He's like, that's the most valuable thing. Nope, no deal. I want the entire weapon. And Janeway goes, well, I guess that's the end of our discussion. Bye. This is where I was thinking about Brannon's original inspiration, this sort of like, you know, when the Soviet Union collapsed and they had all these nuclear stockpiles, I'm sure there was value in the nuclear cores of these things. And, you know, maybe you could use the nuclear core for creating energy in another country that needed nuclear. energy or I don't know. Who knows? So I felt like this was the scene where when Connie is talking about the weapon that I really got that Soviet nuclear thing. That was really coming through. Well, after the disagreement, he beams back to a ship. Did you see two things? Yes. When she's like, nope, basically he loses this negotiation. She's not going to do it. Yeah. And he does a thing with his mouth. He's like, no. He does it.

He does a weird, yes. Yeah, his tongue came out. Like he licked his lip. Yeah, he licked his lip and then he turned and took a couple steps. And he had like a TV remote in his hand. It looked like a remote control to me. And he beamed himself out by pushing a button. And I was like, I tried that at home after with my, my remote.

Yeah. I kept pushing the button, but it was not, my remote does not have that feature. You didn't beam out. You didn't beam out. All right. So when he does beam out, within second, It is a ship shake. Yes.

He's knocked out weapons and shields. And then the next shot is on the bridge. And somehow magically, Janeway and Chakotay have made it back to the bridge within 3.2 seconds. Yeah. And I kept thinking, why didn't they film the engineering scene, the negotiation scene, on the bridge? And then the Janeway and Jokote didn't have to go anywhere. So really, there's a missing scene in between these two or just an undersight by by the writers.

Like, how do you get Chacote and Janeway back to the bridge where they look completely settled, like they didn't rush, you know, like they've been there for a while. And now they're on the... Unless they did site-to-site transport, but we don't typically do that on the ship. But within five seconds...

Although, clearly they walked around the whole ship carrying a bomb so that they could have easily transported from engineering. But anyway... And the bomb is not... even in engineering at this point. The bomb is in sickbay. No. Correct? So, yeah, because they were talking about, oh, that's why they were engineering, because they were talking about how he was asking,

is this place shielded? Is the comm system down? Because he wanted, they didn't, he did not want their conversation to be detected by the bomb. That's what it was. Oh, that's right. But they could have shielded the bridge just as well, I think. Yeah. I guess. So it's a little weird there, a little bit of a hole there. Yeah. But basically the salvage uncanny guy, he's attacking. our ship. Doc calls in what's happening. Dr. Baum. Doc bomb. Yeah, Dr. Baum wants to know what's happening as on Connie tries to transport with his fancy dampening field transporters. He tries to transport the bomb. Yeah. It sends, Doc bomb sends this antimatter surge back through the transport beam. And when we see a ship shot outside the salvage ship just exploding into pieces. Yeah. Look how far you're

fancy-pancy dampening shield beam, look what it did. It did nothing. It got you killed is what it did, essentially. The captain says that wasn't necessary. And Doc bomb says, they were the enemy. So he's a real, he's a, he's a, he's a, a bomb on a mission. Most definitely. We have a space flyby here, space fly by. And they did spend money on showing this ship exploding. So they do show his ship it was a cool explosion yeah back on the bridge seven tells janeway that her nanoprobes could be adapted to disrupt the bioneural circuitry yeah uh but she's going to need to get into sick bay and she's going to need 20 seconds to make this transfer and she needs direct access to the control the bomb yeah to the actual bomb itself jayway likes this plan though i think you know yeah but then

she also has concocted a plan of how to get seven into sick bay we have an exterior shot of more smart weapons she basically says do a scan comprehensive scan of any nearby minefields so she she wants to fly near some minefields yeah we don't know this yet but we'll get to it she wants to kind of fake an emergency and so that's injury yeah that's the plan that's the plan but when she does the scan I guess it alerts these other smart Right. And we see a whole fleet of similar warheads like that flying through space. And they're tracking Voyager at this point. You see inside their bridge, I guess, or inside the bomb, they pull up an image of Voyager. Yeah. And they head out at warp speed to towards Voyagers. Yeah. So now we're in

the briefing room. Yeah. And here's where the mission comes clear. It's crystal clear now. Paris talks about simulating, traveling through. Yeah, Paris says he's going to simulate, you know, he'll use inertial dampers and simulate hitting these, these mines, this minefield. It'll give false and sickbay is going to be fed false censor readings. Paris does say, you know, he is a virtuoso, but he will try and pilot a bumpy ride, basically.

He's trying to say he's so good at piloting that it's almost impossible. to do a bad job for everyone to have a bad ride. So kind of, you know, a little bit of Paris Season 1, a little cocky coming out here. We realize they're going to make up seven with injuries that look like plasma, a plasma explosion. Plasma burns on seven. Yeah. Neelix is the chief cosmetics officer. I wrote down.

He's going to simulate this wound. Tuvok's going to disrupt the holographic controls from a Jeffrey's tube. Yeah. to give seven time to wrap this up. Yeah, it's a whole mission that they're planning a heist, basically. And I love the line when you're walking out. It's Paris going, do well on this mission. And the captain might promote you to senior beautician is what you say to Neelix.

So very funny. That's funny. I like it. Yeah. We go to Sick Bay here and Doc Baum, Dr. Baum calls for some help. He says, assist me from the other room. Kim and Torres trying to reconstruct some of the memory files before the the crash happened and restore them to see what they can find out.

And Harry says using diplomacy, he's using diplomacy, just like it says in the officer's manual section 126, he says, he's really, you have memorized all the chapters of Harry has memorized it all, of course. Yes, he knows it all. Back and forwards. And Doc yells again, I said. assist me assist me so uh they do they walk over bala and harry and um one of the damaged files shows that the weapon was given instructions to alter course and head for the planet surface the weapon

thinks that this is uh this is some type of a trick or something yeah by the enemy the enemy was behind this and harry says that no this is i think from your people and the bomb doesn't agree dr bomb says no and harry goes the message was sent using the same duotronic algorithms that you communicate with. I mean, this is what it is. Yeah, the war is over. Yeah, the war is over three years ago. Three years ago, you guys, your people called off this attack, but there were 34 weapons

that weren't stopped, that were launched by mistake before they could call it off. Yeah. And actually, that information comes a little bit later because after the first message about this deutronic message saying, like, you know, go to the planet and just kind of crash gland. The bomb, Dr. Baum says, I no longer need your assistance. I don't need it. And that's when Balana runs over and says like, why? You're too afraid to find out that you were, you know, that this message is from your own people kind of a thing. And that's when the, that Balana and Harry convinced the weapon to allow them to restore the damage memory files to get the whole picture. And this is where

we hear. 34 weapons. Three years ago. Strategic command matrix is the is the is the is the, is the, who rescinded the commands and Doc, Doc Bomb recognizes this as his superior, basically. And he seems like he's almost convinced here. Yeah, he does. It does. It does feel like we're on track to like stop this problem and shut this down. And it was an accident. It was a malfunction that caused this launch.

It was complete mistake. So they're really, somebody hit the wrong button and sent these, you know, weapons. off. He says here, what about the confirmation? That's what it is. Yeah, Harry says, I guess you can disarm yourself now. And the weapon says, no, there's no confirmation code. But you're right. He seems like he's convinced until that confirmation code thing. The confirmation code, yeah. And the weapon and then when Harry says, he doesn't have the confirmation code, he hasn't done, they haven't restored the files that deep, all the files yet. And that's when he loses it, Doc Bomb. He loses it. He doesn't trust them. He's really pissed off. And is he, he has he.

He's losing it. The ship shakes again. He calls to the bridge. Janeway says, it's a minefield. Yeah. So this is their plan going in action. She says,

yes, it's a minefield. So Paris must be doing a good job. Yeah. He's doing it or a bad job. Yeah, he's doing a bad job. But she says,

we're going to need to adjust a just course. There's a minefield. He says, no. Yeah. He says, reinforce your shields. Yeah.

And they go back and forth. Basically, he allows them to slow down. He's like, don't change the course, but slow down. We go to the Jeffrey's Tube. There's Tuvok on his mission, climbs in. He finds the Holo Matrix panel, access panel. Isn't there a conversation about seven being injured and everything at this point?

Yeah, I think, yes. And they inform the doctor, Dr. Baum that crewman has been injured. An essential crewman, seven of nine is who has been navigating this minefield. And so we need her. We need her. Yeah. She's got such bad injury. She needs to be taken to sickbay.

And so Doc Baum agrees, Neelix brings her in, puts her down. Tuvok does what he needs to do. And while the doctor bomb is a little bit distracted, that's when Seven kind of gets up slyly, walks over to the actual bomb itself, the weapon itself, uses her little bored tubules to, you know, to interface. I always love when the tubules come out. Tubules are always good. We love those. People are good. Yeah.

So that's what happens. But the second that seven interfaces with the weapon, it immediately sends this shockwave back in. Shockwave, the sparks, knocks her out. He's electrocuted. Yeah, it looks like a big electrocution. Big time.

I took a, I paused to make a note. You know, I'm pausing constantly when we're watching these episodes. Same. And when I paused, it paused on Bob Picardo in a moment that I thought captured Dr. Let me see. So it paused on that. He's like terrifying there. He's really mad.

He's got a big mouth of angry words. And guess you had to deal with the brunt of that? Yours truly. You got to sit in your trailer on the bridge or on the bridge far away from Bob Ricardo screaming at me. Well, you know, I had an anniversary this day. Yeah, it's true. I had a big anniversary dinner plan.

And this sort of got in the way of it. Sure did. How dear. Thanks to you and you and the doctor. Doctor bringing the thing. How dare we? How dare we sidetracked your plans? Yes.

My, my anniversary meal. Anywho. Yeah, doctor's pissed off. He electricute seven. She falls down to the ground. He's furious now. And Neilick scans her, by the way. He says she's going into neural shock.

So she really is. She's like messed up. She's messed up. He tells Janeway, I want the entire crew to abandonment. Yeah, everybody. Everybody. Isn't this the second episode where we've had a talking about abandoning ship? It must have been a theme in the writer's room.

They kept talking about abandoning ship. Yeah, yeah. But she's like, no. No, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do it. He's like, comply or I will detonate. And I will kill everybody. And she calls his, she calls his bluff.

She's, go ahead, do it. At least you'll just kill us and no one else in no innocence other than us. And right then when the doctor, Bomb is about to, you know, I guess, kick everybody off. 32 vessels drop out a warp off the port bow, according to Tom Paris. And one of them communicates with Dr. Baum

and says that the target is still essential and that Dr. Baum needs to be reintegrated back into the... Yeah, basically, they altered their course to come get him because he's essential. Yeah, and they're going to tractor him. Tractor it. They say transport off of that.

ship and we'll attract you to the target with us. Gameway agrees initially. She does. She's like, okay. Yeah. And Harry quickly tells her that the launch was a mistake and that we cannot let these weapons reach their target. And that's when the face that you just showed me of Bob Picardo screams. Enough! Enough! And this is where I wrote that my hearing was messed up. L.O.L. after that enough was so loud. There was a lot of close. There was a lot of close talking. and it wasn't close talking it was close yelling is what it was close yelling i took a photo again when i got a pause that's you right up by his ear i can't tell that looks more like a that looks like a

that looks like i'm about to it's a romantic moment it looks romantic it looks like i'm going to give him a little love bite on his ear lobe but there was a lot of that both ways there was you talking up in his ear there was yelling in your ear all right but it was a really good scene yeah Harry basically talks him through this logic of, you know, he's making a mistake. He pleads with him to check his memory files, look for that confirmation code. Yeah. He finally does. He sees that it was confirmed, but he still doesn't want to go along with it.

And Harry says, you know, it's, you're just repeating. Yeah. I just thought if we had a missing scene where we talk with the Drodons, the people that have created this bomb. And all of their conversation is loud and yelling, if that's the way they spoke to each other. That would be quite funny, actually. That would be fun. The loud aliens.

Yeah, the loud aliens. Okay. The confirmation code, you were saying. Yeah, he does see the confirmation code, but he's still not convinced. And Harry continues to try to convince him that he's stuck in this propaganda, this old proper in the past. Yeah. And he says, you're a sentient being. You've been programmed to be able to make decisions.

make one now. Try to imagine the suffering of your victims, he says. Very convincing. Janeway is listening to this conversation. And as Dr. Baum is yelling, reintegrate me to my neurometrics. I need to go to the target. I need to do the thing. Janeway pipes in and says, you're going to do what Harry says or you're not leaving

the ship. That's it. Harry convinces the weapon basically to find the command codes, which it does, but it's still debates Harry. It's still debating Harry. then we get interrupted because the other weapons are now asking why Dr. Baum has not been reintegrated and beamed off the ship yet. Why hasn't that happened? Harry then convinces the weapon to tell them that their mission has been rescinded, which he does. And then quickly,

they come back with, well, we are within two light years of our target. We cannot be shut down. They've crossed the target. They've crossed the threshold. They cannot go back. Yeah. So then he says, Harry says, well, then just tell them that you received your message before the two-year, two light-year threshold, which Dr. Baum complies, but the other bombs are like, we don't believe you. And so then there's a realization on Dr. Baum's face that there can be only one choice of action here. And he very calmly, without yelling, thank God, says, reintegrate me, reintegrate my matrix now, because he knows what has to be done. He's going to join them, he's going to fly off and then blow up, blow himself up. Exactly. And kill up, you know, and destroy

Yeah, and Harry's not sure. Harry's thinking like, is this a means? Now Harry doesn't. Yeah, he doesn't know. And then Dr. Baum looks at Harry and says, you want me to see past my programming. You need to see past your doubts. And this is what convinces Harry that the bomb is sincere.

The bomb is sincere. I like saying that. Then he starts to reintegrate him and trust him. Yep. And Janeway's like, what's up? Yeah. And Harry's like, no time to explain, you've got to trust me on this one.

Right. We've got to reintegrate the, and then Janeway does. Janeway gets some, Janeway is on the same wavelength as Harry. Yep. She does exactly what's going to happen. Yeah.

So they do restore their weapon. And suddenly the doctor is back. It's not Dr. Baum anymore. It's Dr. Doctor, doctor. And he's like, what's happening? Yeah. Hello. He seems.

He doesn't he say, please take the nature of medical emergency is what he started saying. Yeah, he doesn't even finish. He's like, hello. Please take the nature of the medical. what's what's happening yeah they don't have time to fill them in but they do they beam into the swarm are the the fleet of of of his bomb buddies we see the tractor beam they take off they go to warp yep yep and he's tractored at warp uh or the bomb is and then we do see him

explode yeah and destroy all the other weapons a big explosion tovok detects the these subspace explosions. He tells that they have basically all blown up to Janeway. Janeway then informs Harry. And we sort of, we go to commercial with the look on Harry's face of relief. Sive relief. And also sadness that the,

you know, that the sentient being had to take, you know, take its own life. Yeah. Come back in sick bay first. Harry visits the doctor. But he's coming to check on seven.

That's what they wrote into the script. Because I thought, oh, this is a cool scene. Oh, wait. He's checking on seven. So he's checking on seven, Doc says, she'll be fine. She's going to recover. And then the doctor apologizes.

He feels horrible. Convincing Harry to beam the device on board. Yeah, beaming this device talking to it, you know. And Harry says, actually, you didn't, this wasn't your fault. You actually ended up helping. And Harry says here, I held you up, doctor, as an example of how an artificial intelligence can exceed its programming. And I didn't realize how true that was until today. And you also talk about the bedside matter of the bomb compared to the doctor,

made the doctor look like Mr. Congeniality. But Harry's going back on another night shift, and we cut to the bridge. He steps onto the bridge. And there's McKenzie Westmore again. Jenkins. Jenkins is there. He says, report. She gives him a little. little report he says as you were and then she says permission to speak again freely yeah and she says you know basically she was impressed yeah she said that was you and she says i i want to say thank you from the whole junior staff yeah thank you for keeping us in one piece yeah harry says you know not a problem that's my job yeah he basically ends it with no more distress calls at least not tonight yeah he He starts by saying, do me a favor.

She goes, anything. And then he says what you just said. Yeah. At least not for us. And then I started thinking, I started thinking, hmm, that would be a nice spin-off series. Captain Kim with First Officer Jenkins. That would be okay. The night shift.

The night shift take over, the day shift. Yes. Okay. All right. What is your lesson that you got from Minnesota? is to not be controlled by your past, by the past, that all of us have the ability to assess things with fresh eyes and make new decisions and don't be controlled by your past.

That's really the lesson for me. What about you? I think for me, it's really, don't follow blindly like a sheep. You know, don't be, don't be, don't be, really, I guess what I'm trying to say is, be careful of propaganda. You really have to do your own due diligence. And usually propaganda at its core, at its heart is based in fear. Of course.

Trying to create fear of something. Yeah, it's all fear based completely. So I guess my lesson is really don't succumb to the propaganda. Do your own due diligence, do your own research and then figure out what is the truth. Yeah. Great. Okay. Excellent. What was your rating on this? Oh, I'm going to say, I'm going to give it a 7.2. I'm surprised that you gave it a 7.2 because I really thought this was an awesome episode. I thought between the performances, the concept, all of it, I give this a solid eight. This is a, this one, I think, Picardo's performance, seeing, fresh eyes on Harry doing, you know, it's, it's not like some planet of women that he's being seduced by it's, he's on the ship, he's on the bridge, he's, he's interacting. I, we don't see Harry and the doctor very often. Yeah. Uh, seeing Balana in there, Neelix coming up with solutions.

I just all around thought this was a really good episode. So I give it an eight. I guess I went lower because some of the holes in the script really affected me. Like they really, they, they, they rubbed me the wrong way. But let's see what the fans. Let's see what our captain's say. An Admiral's average rating for Warhead is 6.9. Oh, closer to it. Have I been calling it or have I been calling it? The last few episodes. You have been calling it lately. I've been pretty close. I've been far, far off. Yeah. But I stick with, I stick with my eight on this one. Okay. This is a good, solid episode. Okay, there we go. Well, that is our recap review. memories, synopsis, opinions, ideas, inspirations for Warhead.

All right. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in to our discussion and recap of Warhead. Join us next week when we will be talking about the episode, Equinox, Part 1. Oh, okay. A two-parter. Well, look at that. Two-parter. All right.

Yeah. Thanks, everybody. Patreon and patrons, please stay tuned. You know, I'm trying to Thank you. So, you know,

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