The Delta Flyers - Workforce Part I

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

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 Workforce, Part I. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars. Workforce, Part I:Almost the entire Voyager crew has been abducted and brainwashed to serve as workers in a severely short-handed industrial alien society.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 Fuller, & John EspinosaAdditionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co-Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Liz Scott, Eve England, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Daniel de Rooy, Chris Knapp, Michelle Z, Janet K Harlow, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Matthew Gravens, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, E, Deike Hoffmann, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Lee Lisle, Mary Beth Lowe, Sarah Thompson, Samantha Hunter, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Jamason Isenburg, Adm. Bill "Seoulman" Yu, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey, Zachary Upton, Lori Tharpe, Mary Burch, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, AJ Freeburg, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Holly Schmitt, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Megan Chowning, Tae Phoenix, Nicole Anne Toma, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Daniel O’Brien, Bronwen Duffield, Andrew Duncan, Lauren Wolffe, David Buck, Jeremy Mcgraw, Danie Crofoot, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Michael Dismuke, Jonathan Brooks, Gemma Laidler, Rob Traverse, Penny Liu, Matt Norris & Stephanie LeeAnd our Producers:James Amey, Patrick Carlin, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Ann Marie Segal, Chloe E, Nathanial Moon, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Jocelyn Pina, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Maxine Soloway, Barbara Beck, Species 2571, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Dat Cao, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Tara Polen, Jenna Appleton, Jason Potvin, Cindy Ring, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Maria Rosell, Heather Choe, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Jennifer Jelf, Justin Weir, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Aaron Ogitis, Ryan Benoit, Rachel Shapiro, Eric Kau, Captain Jak Greymoon, David Wei Liu, Clark Ochikubo, David J Manske, Roxane Ray, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Cindy Holland, Will Forg, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Russell Nemhauser, Lawrence Green, Christian Koch, Lisa Gunn, Lauren Rivers, Shane Pike, Jennifer B, Dean Chew, Akash Patel, Cameron Wilkins, Michael Butler, Ken McCleskey, & Walkerius LogosThank 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

Hello, everybody. 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 Voyager actor, Garrett Wong, who in 1999 played Mike Wong or God in the indie film, The O'Tooer Theory. And myself, your favorite helmsman, Robert Duncan McNeil. Remember, you can get the full version of this entire podcast with so much more bonus material, so much cool stuff. When you sign up to become a patron at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers. So the O'Tooor Theory, 1999, what was that?

The Auteur Theory. Yeah, I did so many independent films while I was on the show. It was just one after another, after another. It was a film festival from what I recall. The movie was about a film festival. Yes. And these are all different people that had, you know, directors had their film at the film festival,

similar to when you did slam dance. Remember, and I was there and I supported you. So this is what it is. And I think somebody, he's going around murdering all the directors, I think, is whatever. Yeah. That's very funny. Yeah.

And so in the film that I'm in, the independent film that I am in within the film, the film, the film within the film, I play God. So I'm able to sort of like, I sort of snap my fingers and bring someone to life and snap my fingers again. And so in my scene, I'm like Q, I am. Oh my God. No one's ever made that reference or that parallel, that analogy. got to play Q. I got to play Q. And in my scene, it was with Jeremy Sisto, who, if you remember, he was in Clueless, way back when. So Jeremy Sisto was in that scene. And Jeremy Sisto's with his, I don't know if it's, if it's, if it was his friend, his brother or something. And his brother

has died in the movie. And I come in as God. And I sat my fingers and, and his brother is magically alive again. But then Jeremy Sisto is kind of rude. And I snap it again. And his brother dies. And It just sort of like, I'm cue back and forth, yeah, for sure. Oh, that's funny. So it was a cool, yeah, it was a cool little film that I worked on. I got to work with, they had a pretty substantial cast in this, in this little independent film, including Jeremy Sisto. Armin Sherman was in it.

I didn't have any scenes with Armin, but I did, I think I might have, if I didn't have a scene with Natasha Leone, she was definitely there the day that I was filming. Oh, and Natasha Leone is in Orange is the New Black with Cape Mulgrew. Yeah, with Cape Mulgrew, yes. I love small worlds like this. That's very cool. So there you go. That was Autour Theory, where I got it.

Oh, Tour Theory, 1999. Wow. You made a movie about a film festival a year before I made my short that you went to a film festival with me. That next year, you went to the slam dance film festival. Yeah, to support nine millimeters of love. Ethan Phillips is in it. It's a short that I made on the Paramount Backlot right around the time you made the O'T Theory, probably. John Campbell, who was the head of facilities.

I love John. He was awesome. At the time, I was smoking occasionally at work, for sure. And I would go smoke a cigarette out by the hair makeup trailer. That was kind of a good designated spot. Yeah. And John Campbell was also a smoker. And that's how you guys start talking from a smoke break. Oh, that's hilarious. And we became lifelong friends. I still talked to John Campbell, the head of permanent facilities. He was there for 30 years. I love it. I think I met John. Campbell in the same spot where I first met you right outside of the Hair American Trail. No way. That's so funny. Probably the same spot. Oh, my God. So did you show John nine millimeters of love? Did he see it then? Oh, yeah. I thanked him in the credits and he was. He came to the

screening, right? He came to the screening. John generously made it happen that I could shoot on the paramount back lot, the New York streets, for two days, a Saturday and a Sunday for free. I didn't pay a dime. You didn't pay it. And that back lot, I would guess for a daily rental is probably $25,000 a day. Yeah, I was going to say, we're talking like six figures to rent that, right? Oh, it would have been, yeah, $25,000 to $50,000 a day. Yeah, 25,000. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, it would have been a lot of money. And I got it for free. I couldn't have made the movie without it. That's so amazing. Yeah. And the whole experience with the slam dance people, the organizers, they were great. I mean, the programming was good.

Everything was running very smoothly. They put on a good film festival, for sure. So SlamDance had an amazing season that year. In fact, there's a couple of filmmakers that went on to big things that had their first films there. Olivia Wilde had a short film. Which one was hers? I can't remember, but I remember going to see the screening. Same time as your season?

At Slam dance. Yeah, the same year as I went with you, right? You probably did. I must have did. I can't remember the name of it, but it was. Her first, it was like an experimental little short that she had directed. Okay. And that was around 2000.

So, yeah. Oh, my goodness. Okay. Where are we? Okay. This week's episode is Workforce. Yes. Workforce part one.

We are going to, yes, we're going to go watch it. We are going to remember what we can remember. Yeah. We'll come back and talk to everybody about it shortly. Sounds good. For all our Patreon patrons, stick around for your bonus material. We're back from watching Workforce Part 1. And right off the bat, can I just ask you a question?

Yes. You remember the episode where the Herodian took over our ship and used it as a training ground? And the majority of our main players were all under the influence of a little chip or something that they didn't know who they were. Yeah. So you did not like that. episode because of that reason and that reason alone. You said, this is not my favorite episode because our guys don't even know who they are. Do you also feel that way in watching this episode? No, I don't. I remembered like the whole factory set. I remembered. I didn't remember

that I was a waiter. I didn't remember any of that story. I think I remembered more because, like I said, Craker and Roxanne were talking about so many of the production elements. of this that I remember that stuck with me more than my story more than that I funny yeah yeah unbelievable because it was a very different episode but I got to say back to your first question this episode is one of my favorites so far wow of all seven seasons I'm just going to say that you know in your in your closet you have two Tom Paris uniforms yes which are great but I really think you should have tried to go for that best that you as a waiter that funky I don't know what's kind of a, it was almost like a jacket vest.

Yes, but it had a crazy texture on there, which I thought, hey, that's what you should have taken. Speaking of having things from the show, I found, oh, no, it's like that. That's okay. It looks cool like that. Well, I found my script from the episode because the pages are folded back for my scenes and there's coffee stains and all kinds of things. Yeah, we know that's the real deal. Yeah, see, like, there's a folded back page there. Yeah, but where's the revisions, though? Were there any revisions?

Maybe there weren't. This says final draft, and this is the one with my scenes folded over. So I feel like this is the one, and it's bent here. And I found a pristine copy that, oh, there it is. I found a pristine copy, and I found that copy. I think that's the copy that you took on set with you to look at for lines. Like we didn't have little tiny sides back then. No, no, we didn't have sides.

But anyway, I found both of these scripts. Very cool. I think I'm going to throw them up on the store because these things have been gathering dust. So I'm going to throw it up on the store. Workforce part one, found my script, found another one. But back to your question, this episode is one of my favorites. The premise is so interesting to me. Yes, our personalities have been changed a bit or our memories.

have been changed. But we're, we are ourselves. We're not playing characters. We're playing Bala. Okay, okay, okay. On Paris and Catherine Janeway. And we just don't have any memory. We are still authentic versions of ourselves. We just don't have any memory of our prior lives. Yeah. And Tuvok, with his Vulcan blood, I guess, can resist it enough that he's, he gets those snippets of, yeah, he can get through the veil of whatever type of therapy that they were giving or whatever. Was it a injection? It was an injection? It was an injection of something. It had to be a combo package of an injection and there's that there's that drill thing and the headpiece. Yeah. The combo would you like the combo package? It's the

combo. Yeah. Let's start with our our synopsis. Poetry. Let's do. Yeah, we've we digress because we're so excited about this episode, I guess. All right, here we go. My Hiku for Workforce, Part one. Memories suppressed. F.O. Neelix. Kim. Okay. Doc likes to wear red. Nice, nice. You covered a lot of detail. Thank you. All right, let's hear this limerick.

Here's the limerick for Workforce, Part 1. Alien mind control allows Janeway to relax and unwind. Even here, Tom and Balana's hearts are intertwined. Tuvok's memory returns. Janeway and Jaffin's love burns. Chakotay and Nelix must work to break the spellbind. Oh, very nice. Let me ask you a question.

Can you substitute instead of intertwined and entwined? You could. You could. Does it flow easier if you said are entwined? I'm entwined. Yes. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Poetry is, you know, it's all in the eye of the beholder, really. It really is. It is. You hear what you want and the rhythms. and the poetry just speaks to you in your own personal way. Yeah. I try to have a little economy of syllables,

so that's why I went from intertwine to entwine, just one-off to help out. Even here, Tom and Bologna's hearts are entwined. Yeah, that would work. Yeah, see? It's nice. I just want to help out for our official poetry and our haiku and Limerick book

that we have at the end that we published. I just wanted this to be as tight as possible. You know, I love poetry. I'm a big poetry fan. We both like poetry. Yes. Yeah. We should send text to each other in haiku.

We should only communicate. We should do a whole podcast where we just speak in haiku. That's it. All right. So, hey, we were both right on writer. You had guessed Biller and I had guessed Brian Fuller. And it said Biller and Fuller on the credits. So we got that right.

I can't believe Brandon Braga is not. I could have sworn he was in this. Yeah. Didn't you say Biller at the end though? You did. I said, I think it was, I thought it was going to be a. Braga and Biller. Yes.

And I said, no, I'm going to go with, you know, Fuller. Fuller, yeah. So that was right. Fuller and Fuller, Biller, Fuller. See, that works out. Their names could be a haiku. And then the director, you were correct. It was.

I was pretty confident on that one. Yes, Mr. Croke. My memory sometimes does not fail me. You know what I didn't remember until I started watching it? And then I vividly remembered was you said something about, we were talking about my short film that got shot on the back. lot. You said, I think some of this was on the back lot. Yeah. I didn't remember any of that. Was I right? Before, but yes. Am I right? I am right. So much of that was shot on the back lot.

Thank you. Okay. And I remember some specific setups and the way they used the part of the back lot that is not intended for filming. They use the back. That's awesome. They use the staircases and the backs of the facades. Yeah. Right. And also of they use the parts of whatever, you know, whatever for the, the AC units and that, you know what I'm saying? Exactly. So you're exactly right. The pipes and everything. There's a facility that does all the heating and air conditioning units.

And they're behind the tank where we used to park. There's a tank that they would fill with water. And a giant sky blue giant. It's the biggest tank in Hollywood. But it was multi-leveled though in the back of that blue tank with stairs and everything. That's what they used. That was right. Oh, my gosh.

They have stairs that you would go up the backside of that sky facade. Yes. And the stairs, they could drop lights or different things. That's why it was all metallic and it was made for the weather and wind and all that. So it was very solid. Well, here, if you're looking on video, there is a blue tank. Yes. And you can see the lines for the parking.

Yep. That's where we parked. You and I both parked in the blue tank. That's right. Unless there was a film going on. Then they would fill that with water. Right. it looks like a drive-in movie theater screen is what it is that massive screen there and they would use that as the backdrop you would film yes they put sky on the on that little um um wall and it's the back of that wall is the facility of the and look see there's some stairs right there yes see yes that's where they filmed good call wow yeah good call okay let's go through some guest stars right now so yes we have uh james reed who played jaffin aka a very charming yes

a.k.a. Jane Way's dude in this episode. His very, very first, very first credit is a 1982 episode of the popular sitcom Cheers. Oh, wow. Which was one of my very first, because I did three days of 82. 82? I didn't know Cheers. Oh, yeah, Cheers did start around 82. I think that was the first year. That's what I'm thinking. I did extra work on Cheers. In order to get your sag card at the time, you had to do three days of union extra work. My friend's uncle was in charge of Cenex and central casting. So I was able to get three days of union extra work. One was on Cheers.

So this is in 1994-93 that I did this. Cheers, Sequest DSV, and a Michael Jackson music video. So, yeah. So Cheers is, I think, one of the very first sets that I had worked on. And Jaffin, the actor James Reed, who played Jaffin, also worked on Cheers. for his first credit. I have another, I have another connection to Cheers 1982. I had just moved to New York, 1982. Okay. And I got my equity, my actor's equity card, stage union, as a understudy in an off-broadway musical called Preppies. And the reason that show got produced in New York

was because the composers had written this song. Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. That's the Cheers theme song. Oh, they wrote that. I got my professional, my first professional union card as an understudy in Preppies, the off-Broadway musical that was written by them. Wow.

So these composers also wrote Prepe's the musical. Is that their only musical or they wrote multiple musicals? Boy, I don't know. But everybody, because they had won like Grammys, and Emmys for the theme song. It was a bit very popular. It was on the radio, that theme song for Cheers. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, that was, everyone knew that song. Everyone, yeah, everybody knows your name. Everyone knew that song is pretty much, yeah. That's great. Cool. Cheers. Okay, cheers. Who's next?

Cheers. Cheers. Don Most, aka, well, when he was younger, he was known as Dony Most. But then as he became an adult, he cut off the NYU and just went with Don Most. We all know him from Happy Days, as Ralph. mouth and yes he played kaden yes i remember meeting him in the trailer i didn't have any but i remember meeting him and talking about happy days yeah in the makeup trailer oh right over by uh tina my makeup artist's table and i come in for a scene and he was uh getting ready to go shoot

and i was getting ready to get ready yeah and he was in there i was nice with don most i talked about Anson Williams directing. We talked about that and their friendship. It was fun having him on there. Yeah, he was a nice guy. His very first credit, 1973 episode of the television show, Emergency. Oh, okay. 1973.

And then at that time, he was credited as Donnie Most, not Don Most. Yep. Next up we have John Aniston, the father of, you know who, Jennifer Aniston. John Aniston is Jennifer Anderson's father who played the question. Foreign ambassador. He's the one that's on the view screen, sort of telling Janeway that, yes, I've talked to your supposed crew members, but they don't even know who you are, right? 1962, an episode of a TV series called 87th Precinct, where he played Officer Number One. That was his very, very first credit. And I find it interesting as we have a similar, I mean, not similar,

but my very first credit was All-American Girl, where I played handsome Korean Man. Number three. Not number one, but I'm number three. That's funny. I'm just saying most actors have a number something in their early. Do you remember John Aniston being on set? Because I remember him. I remember him when he filmed.

And I remember saying something about his daughter because friends was huge. It was on the air at the same time. And I said, oh, your daughter is on Friends. She's awesome. I said I had done a movie with Courtney Cox. And so we had one brief conversation. He was a very nice guy. All right.

We also have some co-stars. We have Iona Morris, who is, guess what? Bill Morris's sister! Yes, playing the owner of the bar. Molly, who you, yeah, your boss. And Iona Morris, of course, Greg Morris's daughter from Mission Impossible, Phil Morris's sister. Iona Morris's very first credit is the 1966 episode of the original series Star Trek.

Oh, that's right. Yes, where her brother was in it too. It was the episode with all the kids. And we have Tom Virtue as the supervisor. He's the one that we've seen the very early scenes at this episode with Janeway. He's done a million shows. Yeah, he's done a billion shows. His very first credit is a 1982 episode of Kings Crossing.

I don't know if you remember that show, Kings Crossing. Is it a mini series or what was it? I don't know. It just looks like a TV series from the 80s. But we also know him from our show. He played Lieutenant Baxter in season one. Eye of the Needle episode and season two episode twisted. So he's been in two prior episodes as a human Starfleet officer.

Here, he's an alien with not much prosthetics. You can still tell it's him. But still, Tom Virtue is the supervisor. He's great. I could not find any credit or any listing for Michael Barron's, though, the coyote. So I couldn't find that. Same thing with Matt Williamson, security officer number two. Kimi Royer did show up.

MedTech. That's the one sort of saying to Tuvok in the beginning, hey, it's okay. These inoculations are meant for you. 1997 film Hang Your Dog in the Wind is Akimi Royer's first credit. We also have Robert Mamana, security officer number one. He's the one that walks up and says, hey, it's curfew. It's about over. Watch out, that guy.

1989 episode of Hey Dude, TV show called Hey Dude. Have you heard of a TV show called Hey Dude? No, but I would watch it. sounds great yeah yeah so there we go that's all our players a lot big cast big up big show let's dive in go seven okay so the first thing we see is this wide planet shot of this industrial kind of you know planet surface very cg i you like it you like yes okay beautiful we pan across a train is coming by and we see people walking downstairs and we cut in we see it's Janeway coming down the stairs with a bunch of workers.

Yes. All different races or species of aliens. We do see a bunch of our regular background in coming down the stairs. We do. So at first I'm like, oh, we've made friends with these people because a bunch of our crew is there with Janeway. And by the way, coming down the stairs, by the way, is the back of the tank. It's those things. I immediately was like, oh, yes.

I love it. Just to go back a little bit on that establishing shot showing the city, I love the waterways. It looked like a modern day Venice sort of with all the one, that big sort of river in the middle. So yeah, that was cool. Very cool. Janeway goes down these stairs. She goes off camera and we find her getting on this, this like elevator. So cool.

It's a high shot. Now, I'm going to say that shot is very hard to do because most likely I would put a lot of money on it. they had a very small set they probably had a platform that represented the elevator floor and then they had probably some kind of gangway that they stepped off of onto this thing it never moved in real life they had to shoot overhead and the camera was kind of moving what you would call parallaxing so the backgrounds are shifting as the camera moved over very complicated especially for that time business effect shot to have all of these shifting angles as the elevator goes down and then they got off, which became

digital people at that point, because they're them walking. Well, actually, very expensive, very expensive. Okay. So they, it goes from real to digital person at the bottom of the lift? When they're tiny, yeah. When they're teensy. When you see Janeway disappear at the bottom. Yeah. She probably was on one set that never moved. They've just moved the camera overhead. Right. And then they shrunk it down digitally. And then when she when she stepped off they converted her her body into a digital person because she kept walking it was very that was probably i would love to hear a vis-effect person describe what they shot because i bet it was very little yeah all of that was created virtually so it still looked great though it was super amazing looked very cool we go inside the plant we see janeway close we

kind of linger on her now. I made a note here that her hair is fluffier than I've ever seen it. He just went to the salon. Oh my gosh. Clearly. Yes. You like that wardrobe? Very smart looking. That sort of blue

Yeah, yeah, it looked great. A little V-neck thing she was wearing. It was very flattering on her, the color, the cut of it. It was great. Yeah, but she's working. She's looking for the supervisor and worker points her over to a supervisor and she goes in and she says she's reporting. And the supervisor looks at her authorization and license and sees that she's got a level six thermal dynamic authorization.

He's very impressed. She should have said, for some reason, I want to call you Baxter. I don't know why, but I just have that feeling. Exactly. You know, he's very excited to have a new worker and she apologizes for being late. And I love the energy that Kate,

had in this scene. It was almost like, like young girl. You know what? It was like a load was taken off her back. You know what I'm saying? It's like the weight of the world was gone. She was so effervescent and sort of just happy go lucky and just smiling all the time. Yes, it was very to work. Very lighthearted. And yes, I loved it. It was fun to see that. Yeah, it was great. Anyway, he sets her up and she's ready to start working she takes a look around and i think we go to credits at this point she's very smiley and when we come back um she's working away the place is is uh popping here and yeah there's this great steady cam shot of her bouncing from one console to the other i do have to say these consoles they had those you know those classic like almost from the 20s or 30s

static circles with the static electricity going out from the center. It looked very old. Yes. You would buy that from a place called Spencers in the mall, basically. It's like a round disk and it has a little thing that comes out. Static. It's just static, you know, low static electricity going out in a circle. And they had a ton of those on all of these consoles, which, well, the Borga Regeneration Unit has one of those.

It's excepting green. She knows a million. times you got they could have found something other than that for sure right yes she's got her specification she's she looks at a pad but it doesn't look like our pad it looks like um-hmm some kind of uh yeah alien pad alien pad different shapes yes almost in like hexagonal shapes or something and then she starts working and an alarm goes off and suddenly a stranger mysterious stranger appears that's after she tries to turn it off and she can't she's actually talking she's talking to the console she's like please oh which i love please don't do this to me i love that they wrote in it was the first thing

because i noticed it she's talking to it like she's on the ship yeah you know because we talk to the computer all the time right on this planet people don't talk to computers you got to hit buttons she starts talking and he sort of makes a a joke about it yeah when you see finger first because he he stops he pushes the right button right that's how you that's how you that's the reveal. It's the reveal of his finger first. Then he makes a joke about it. Yeah. Yeah. About talking to the computer, which was my first instinct of like, she's got a little Janeway in her because she's doing this instinctually, even though it's not going to work. Yeah. Yeah. Which I love in this whole episode, even though, yes, we've lost our

memories. There's a piece of us that's the real Janeway, the real Paris, the real balana, the real Tuvac. Yeah. I loved it. I mean, she's only been there for what, five minutes, and she's already got some guy banging on her door right there trying to be the suitor, Mr. Jaffin. And then suddenly seven appears. And Seven shows up. Speaking of, she's got bangs.

She does. Seven has bangs. Bad look. Bad look. I give it a thumbs down. Really? I thought it was all right. It didn't bother me that much.

You really, you're poo-pooing it? I'm putting the bangs on seven. My goodness. I felt like it. was just, uh, because they should have let her hair go all the way down or something very different. It was like basically, but then that would have been like Kate though. That would have been Janeway with the hair all the way down. They have to separate the two. And I guess she's a really uptight. She is, she's like the supervisor or something here. So that's that was

more uptight supervisor here, correct? I guess so, but the bangs didn't work for me. She's obviously the supervisor and she's saying no, basically says no fraternizing, no flooding. You don't need two people with this console. This is a one-person console. And it's funny because even her true nature is coming out in this other reality, right? She's very... Because Jaffin asks her, you know, what's your name? And she says, Anika Hansen. She uses her real name, which is fascinating. She hasn't used 7 of 9, her real name. She is the efficiency monitor we learn. Jaffin and Janeway sort of try to wrap up their flirting. And one thing occurred to me at this moment. I was like, I paused it.

I looked on their costumes. There's no Starfleet, Palm Badge. Yes. And I thought, wait, how are they speaking to all these aliens? They don't have a universal translate. Well, then, okay, hold on. Let me see if I can debunk this. Well, from what I can understand, I think you can,

if you have some type of broadband, Some type of broadband, a universal translator. I have two debunks. I have two ways to debunk. Either this alien species has a universal translator because they've got so many foreign workers here. They've got to have their own version. So maybe they've got one somehow that's wireless and you don't have to have.

It's wireless. Either that or when they're brainwashed, they're somehow implanted with an understanding of their universal language that they all use there. Interesting. But then, yeah, I don't know. A bit of a hole in the script. A bit of a hole in the script. Well, it's just a, it's a Star Trek conceit, this universal translator

conceit that can be problematic sometimes. And I'm sure there's been other times where it could have been a question. But for some reason, this scene, I suddenly went, wait, these are all people from all over the place and we don't have our com badges to be able to understand them. We're not on our ship. We're not, you know. Yeah. Good call, though.

Yeah. Anyway, I like that. We're at the bar, I think. Yes, we are. Now we see Tom Paris. Tom Paris, who's been fired from his prior job, is looking for another job. Yeah, and I vaguely, as I watched this, vaguely remembered any of this story. Really?

I do remember, you know, filming with the actress. What's her name again? Iona. Iona Morris. Did you talk to her? You must have talked to her. Yes, I remember. I do, I did, all of a sudden, I was like,

I don't remember much of this, but I remember having some conversations with her about her brother. Yes. And, you know, other stuff, just like actors do. Like, what else have you been on? Right, right. Talking shop. Right. And the alien race that she's a part of, doesn't it remind you of the aliens from ex post facto?

Oh, yeah. Early episode, the bird people. Yeah, because she had feathers up in her hair, too. It was the same type of hairstyle. So I thought, oh. those same aliens these are those aliens yeah yeah I didn't think about that the memory murder thing that Paris had to go through remember yeah yeah yeah okay anyway so you did once you saw her you realize oh my gosh I was a waiter and oh my gosh I did talk to I honor yes I did slowly remember some of this

and I do remember doing this story that back then I thought oh this is ironic because I was a cocktail waiter in New York. I was I worked at a restaurant called Ernie's on the Upper West Side which was one of the hottest restaurants in New York back in the 80s and I was you serve drinks only or you serve I was I did serve food some but I was much better at the bar cocktail yeah yeah I worked a bar in the cocktail lounge because people there were you know people waiting for tables you know 50 100 people always always always it was a it was like Studio 54 back in the 80s Ernie's restaurant. Oh my goodness. Yeah. A lot of show busy people came out of that crew because it was a

big staff there. So the minute you saw this scene, it made you think of Arnie's. I remember it made me think that when we were shooting this, I remember carrying around the cocktail tray and everything. I'm like, oh, wow, I'm back to this. I remember doing this. I had such, yeah. In fact, there's a shot in one of these scenes where I'm coming through the bar with a, with a cocktail tray. Yeah. I'm like, oh that looks good i got good yeah no man you did not look awkward at all so no spent many days and weeks and months i wish there was a time machine if there was i would go back to ernie's and i walk up to you i'm like hello robert duncan mcneill you're like how do you know me you don't know me but i'm from the future this job right here will prepare you for the time that

you will actually play a waiter on a on a sci-fi show in 1995 yeah five that you will book you know it's funny that Ernie's my job as a waiter just in the year or so right around the same time that I got my job there yeah so the whole crew at Ernie's used to go after we after the restaurant shut down around two in the morning we'd go to a bar around the corner called Cafe Central and drink because that was open until four right so after your shift you'd kind of wind down you'd go have a drink and a lot of and the bartender there was named Bruce Willis. No.

Yes. And while just as I got the job back in 82 or so, 82, 83, that guy, that bartender had gotten a job called moonlighting. Called moonlighting. And everybody was like, Bruce, the bartender, got a TV show. Oh, yeah. Anyway, I digress into. Bruce the bartender booked.

I love, don't even apologize for digressing. I think this is absolutely informative. and entertaining to know about this. I didn't know. That's why this whole story was so comfortable for me because I was like, oh, yeah, I've been in restaurants and bars. Yeah. All right.

Anyway, hey, Garrett, have you been traveling this summer? Oh, my gosh, so much already. I don't always travel, but this summer's been insane. Trip after trip. You've been doing your impersonation of me. Yes. You know what doesn't belong in everyone's epic summer plans, though? What?

Getting burned by your old wireless bill. So while you're planning your beach trips and your barbecues and your three-day weekends, your wireless bill should be the last thing holding you back. Well, that is why I made the switch to Mint Mobile. The coverage and speed are the same as I'm used to, but the savings, that is the difference. The savings are incredible. And now I'm saving all kinds of money for when my stepdaughter wants to go back to school shopping. She's currently at the mall right now as we speak.

Well, all the Mint Mobile plans come with high-speed data, unlimited talking tax, and they deliver the nation's largest 5G network. So this year, skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your three-month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash TDF. That's mintmobile.com slash TDF. Up front payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan.

Taxes and fees extra. See MintMobile for details. Paris comes in. he's kind of a little like old Paris his attitude and at first when I saw it I was like oh no he's they're going to take him back and write him like that but clearly they didn't it's it's a little bit of the old Paris but I I think you can see that he's changed and grown and yeah and I love that outfit I remember being very comfortable in that outfit so comfortable it looked comfy but he needs a job umali you know sort of reluctantly gives him a job he talks his way into it i do like the dialogue

here though just jumping back and forth you know you're like because you're trying to play coy you're like it's a long story and she's like i like a long story it just goes back and forth and i just think and oh the whole thing is where you say it look you won't regret this and she's like oh i'm certain i will so i thought it was really good writing so i'm going to say that this was uh this was brian fuller right here. Yeah, yeah, it's very well done. We go from him begging for a job to in the same spot later that evening. The place is filled with workers. Jaffin's there talking about some joke that he's making. Isn't that what this happens, right? Yes, Jaffin's talking. And Tuvok over at the bar, Tuvok sitting at the bar. Oh, my God. Starts laughing awkwardly, like so hysterically. So awkward

that I thought that this is sort of the behavior that someone who is unhinged and about to murder somebody like he's gonna he's gonna kill you after he or shiv you or something you know it's like he was a little manic and the it's smiling so much explaining humor yeah why humor is so funny yeah that you know irony is the source of all humor or something yeah oh my god and javan is like when you explain it it's not funny it's not funny any longer yeah because his vulcan ways are coming into play here and it is it is it is a funny scene to see him smiling that that much. It's so, it's so disconcerting because you're, you're so used to Tuvok not having any type of emotion or any smile on his face. And here he is beaming. This is hilarious. The awkward

Vulcan with feelings was, smiling was hilarious. They refer back to the scene later too. You know, because Jaffin talks about, oh, yeah, that Tuvok, horrible joke teller, you know, is what he said. Yes. Really good. Janeway shows up. She says, well, Jaffin thinks that he's come to hang out with him maybe, but she goes, no, I've got to stuff. these manuals. And she's there to get something to eat. That's it. Not to hang out with Jaffin.

So they have another moment, but she's a little, she's a little standoffish with him. And then Paris gives away some drinks to a couple of people. Oh, my God. Compliments of the proprietress. And then Molly comes over and like, hey, we don't give away drinks here. So you can see that Tom is, he's not, you know, he's, he's friendly. He's trying to do nice. thing. He is. He's not the old guy, which I again. No, but you did get scolded by the

proprietress. It did happen. I did. But at this point, we do have a pregnant balana that walks in, looks around and walks out. What was that moment? What was she looking at that made her say, was it just because it was too busy? And she was like, I don't want to deal with this. I'm out of here. Well, I think it's a little bit of, of she's pregnant. Yeah. We'll get to, you know, why she's feeling alone and isolated later in the story. but in that moment, it's a, it's a little bit of, uh, Balana's old, I don't fit in with anybody, but that's what I loved about this whole premise is it, it allowed all these characters to kind retain their fundamental, you know, nature and yet play it in a different way and a much looser way,

I think. Okay. We're back, I think after, after Balana takes a sad moment, looks around and leaves. we're back on I think the stairway here Yeah this is a sort of a walk-and-talk outside with Janeway and Jaffin and they're walking all you know they're walking out of the facility and then they're now in an alleyway

and this is when they come the two officers come up and say hey it's almost Carfew so this was that scene and we learned that we learn that they live in the same building the same building yeah yes the same worker housing building which looked like a one

It looked like it was one single narrow building that with, you know, using CGI, they just sort of duplicated it and pulled it further out. I don't know. Yeah. It had all these multiple segments to it, which I thought was maybe that already exists as it. But it was nice, this alley set. And I remember Craker and Roxanne talking about this. Yeah. That they had to shoot this entire giant planet on the back lot in a tiny little behind the facade. Like they didn't have much set there. No. And they were having to be very creative about how the different angles and where people came from. And I thought they did a great job. It felt, it felt huge to me. And I know it wasn't. It was not that big. Yeah. So that's nighttime, right, when they have this walk and talk.

And then basically they say good night. Janeway is like, look, I'm busy. She kind of turns down his offer. He wants to hang out with her longer, right? So they go to bed. There's an exterior shot, not together, but separately. There is an exterior shot of the factory. Did you like that CGI? Did you like that shot with that factory? I thought that looked good. Yeah, great. We then cut to where inside the factory.

She's bag of work. She's back at work again. Next day, it's the same thing, 9 to 5. Alarm goes off again. But this time, it's anoculation time. It's not a bad thing, but it's not well. I love, by the way, when the alarm goes off, she pops up, her head pops up from behind the console.

Yeah. It's just adorable. I found her performance really adorable. adorable in this. Yeah, I agree. A few moments later, they're still in that warehouse, but they're lined up to get their shots. Yeah. And I love terrified Tuvok. It's so funny. He's afraid of needles, this Vulcan who never shows emotion. And at this point, I thought, oh, it's just a funny, you know, angle on Tuvok being afraid of something in an unusual way. Right. But we start to realize that there's something more here. There's a little more as he tries to get out.

out of getting the shot. They start to give him an injection and he has a flashback where we see he's in a Starfleet uniform. He's being restrained and he's got blisters or wounds or something on his face. Right. And then he comes out of the flashback and they say, you're good. We're done. All good. Go back to work. And he runs away to a console and that's the end of that. But the flashback tells us we're going to learn how they got here. Oh, yeah. That's the foreshadowing. And that's not a good story. We have an exterior space shot. We have the Delta Flyer flying through space, and we have the first officer's log.

We have Chikote talking about what is going on. And evidently, it was, see, Chakotay, Kim, and Nelix. They are returning to Voyager after five days of trading with the Narshadan. I don't know who the Narshadan are. No idea. Never mentioned them before, but that's fine. Narshadon. Kim is not in good shape.

Yeah, we cut inside the flyer to the back, and Harry's lying on the bed. Yeah. And I laughed immediately. Did you? I thought this whole scene was very funny. You're having drank something that gave you an upset stomach. Right. And then the more you learn, the sicker you feel, you learn that it was.

Well, Neelik says you shouldn't have drank the fallen nectar. And when you hear the term nectar, you usually think it's made of, you know. It's a fruit. Yeah, tangerine, orange, whatever. it's a fruit nectar, but later we learn in the scene, it's a meat nectar. It was basically pureed, meat, bright, and it's not just meat, it's meat byproduct. So that means all the, you know, the undesirable pieces of whatever the animal it came from, that is the byproduct, yeah.

It sounds disgusting. And by the way, Neeluk says something in the scene. He says, Commander Chukotay is a vegetarian. He couldn't drink it. Yeah. And I was like, record scratch. Wait a minute. Chircote is a vegetarian.

They've mentioned that before. Didn't he have roast in Janeway's quarters? I don't think we've always played him vegetarian. I, okay, maybe he changed. She burned the roast. They were going to have roast. Yeah, you're right. Unless it was a plant-based roast.

It's possible. I feel like that's a detail that we have played fast and loose. Well, there's another fast and loose moment in here. Basically, Neelous comes over and says, hey, take a sip of this. It's Leola Bark tea. And Harry takes a whiff of that. And he's like, no, I can't take this.

So what's missing here is I think Kim has actually said in the past that he likes Leola Root. Like, he likes Leolour Root stupid. So I feel like this was inconsistent. I thought, okay. So now Harry's like. They make food jokes in this show a lot. And there's no consistency. No.

At one point, Neelix is a great cook. Sometimes he's a horrible cook. Right. Sometimes, you know, Janeway's a great cook. She's a horrible cook. Chacote calls Harry and Neelix. I need you up here on our way.

And we go up front and Chikote says, we're at the rendezvous coordinates. But no Voyager. I'm scanning. Can't find a ship. Yeah. And Harry finishes that scene with, oh, well, so much for my bed. My own bed. Yeah.

He wanted to sleep in his own bed. Very funny. I thought you did a great job of playing the poor. tummy sick guy made me laugh it made me laugh we go to a space shot and there's Voyager

floating in some kind of nebula or gas or something yes it was very cool yeah that was a cool shot it was then we go to engineering and the place looks destroyed we see the doctor crawling underneath things

and he's got on a command he's got command which is a little huh okay very strange very much so i love when engineering gets this way with all the smoke and the flashing stuff it's just our set looks great when it's being destroyed yes yeah the doctor's trying to reestablish the subspace transponder just all the systems he's trying to everything's broken yeah everything's broken and uh suddenly the computer says intruder alert Docs is where on the bridge, two humanoids, and the computer's not fixed enough to know who it is,

sensor resolutions below 20%. So the doctor's going to have to go to the bridge and see what's up. I love him sneaking on the bridge. Very funny. And then he's got a Sims beacon on his wrist, which is named after Alan Sims, our prop master. he turns that flashlight off to a corner and there is Harry and Chacote in the full space suit. Do you remember shooting that? You do? No, shooting that scene, no, no. That's rare that we're on the full space suit on the bridge.

That's very rare, right? You don't remember getting in that suit? I don't remember getting in a suit. I don't. I remember how snarky Kim and the doctor get towards each other in this episode. I remember that. but the actual suit on the bridge part, no, I don't recall that. Wow.

Well, you're on the spacesuits. I wore the same thing in, is it, Gravity, the episode with Tom? Yeah, yeah. And we've already talked about how uncomfortable those suits are. I think it's a memory that I suppressed on purpose because it was so horrible. I just, we were very claustrophobic in that same suit. We should have got a space suit. Yeah.

Do you remember? I don't know if you remember this, but it's got a fan. So you're hearing this like buzzing sound. You can't hear anybody. No. Then you start talking your lines and you start screaming them, which really shouldn't be that high. So yeah, it's, it's awkward and it's uncomfortable.

That's the basic. Yeah, but it looks cool. Message. It looks great. That's all they care about. Does it look good? Are the actor suffering? So be it.

They ask what's up. The doctor begins to explain that after they left on their mission, things started to go wrong. Well, they hit a mine. And that what they said? They hit a mine. Yeah. Yeah. And then all this radiation started to, you know, permeate the ship. They couldn't vent it. People were getting sick. Janeway says that they had to basically jump into escape pods and get to a habitable planet that doesn't have radiation. The captain activates the emergency command hologram.

Okay, let's just stop right here. I thought that was from the episode where the doctor has all these crazy delusions of grandeur. Tinker Tenor, Dr. Spy, or what of those things, where he made up, he made up a DCA. He did, but it's still in the computer memory. Right. Yes. But my point being, like, that was not for him to actually be the command, like, in command of the ship. I mean, it was to fool the aliens, you know?

Yes. And then Janeway, right. And then Janeway said something to the effect of like, what does she say? She says, oh, you wanted this chance for, long time now you've got it so it's like the doctor has been wanting to be the captain for a long time i mean i wanted to be like in the action that's why he created that program right so yes i guess she's in this situation kind of going all right we're screwed somebody's got to take care of the ship use your program you created and okay all right well then i'll buy that i'll buy that i just thought it's not

an official, it's not an official Starfleet emergency command hologram is not a thing. Right. It was, well, it's only a thing because he created it. Because he created it, but it was created under the behest of the captain for a prior episode in order to fool the aliens. Remember that? Like, that we were dealing with. I think at the, oh, it was the big overseer guys that were watching us.

Remember that? That you like those aliens. So, yeah. Okay. Anyway, that's why I was confused. I was like, wait a minute. Did they not recall that this was a made-up thing and not a real thing? I think they did, but she's like, what am I going to do?

Somebody's got to watch the ship where we're gone. It's just the way she delivered the lines. It was so official, like this was the deal. Like this was his sub-program from the beginning, but this is not. This was written in. No, yeah. No. It's experimental.

Yes. We cut out to space, and I love the escape podshot. All those life ships coming off. Yeah. Very, very cool. Still in a flashback, but we're on the bridge again. He's trying to assess the. the damage when suddenly another vessel shows up, locks on a tractor beam. And I got to say,

he basically tries to negotiate and then he starts firing at the ship. He's a one-man crew. I wrote, he does it all. He's a one-man crew. He evades this ship with a tractor beam. Yeah. Takes out their engines. You know, the logic is the alien says, well, no, you're just a you're a hologram where the humans, the live, the live beings have left, they've abandoned this ship. So clearly they don't want this ship anymore. It's mine. But what I found interesting is that when he starts firing on coyote, he basically fires

and this vessel has no shields. No. Whatsoever. Do you remember that? Like he takes out the targeting thing. He takes out their engine. Like there was boom, boom, boom. Either they're really bad or he's really good.

one or the other. But what aliens are shieldless? Yeah, but what aliens are shieldless? What aliens have we? I wonder if they're all part of the scam that will lay these mines. When they hit a mine, they're going to have to abandon ship. And then you can take, you can salvage these things with nobody there. So he doesn't expect.

So you're not going to expect any resistance. It was a little easy. I agree. The whole thing was a bit easy. Very easy. Very easy. Now we're back in normal time where the doctor finishes his story, talks about evading two other ships, hiding inside that nebula that I thought was such a cool shot. Yeah.

Well, Harry does ask about what about the rest of the crew and doctor says, not a word, no idea. And by the way, this scene at the end of his story is one shot. It is an amazing Alan Craker oneer that goes on for probably a page or something, which... Nice. Usually you'd have all kinds of shots. here, but he's got one shot that moves around with the blocking. If anybody ever wants to be a director, watch Alan Craker episodes. It is a masterclass in beautiful staging and shot design. He did a great job. So it was an Allen special. It was an Allen special. Okay. We have a flashback of when,

basically, when Janeway and company first arrive on the planet, the core and planet, basically, and they're being treated for their radiation poisoning. Janeway is just delirious. She's like, wait, who are you? He's like, oh, my name is Dr. Kaden. And this is, of course, Don Most. Good old Don Most. Yeah, Janeway's concerned about her crew. And he'd say, oh, everyone's being treated and everything's fine. Don't worry. Tuvok's in the background. He's like, wait, what's that medication? And he's concerned about Janeway's safety. Caden's playing it off. It's, oh, it's anti-radiation serum. That's what it is. It's fine. And Tuvok doesn't believe it. And he basically starts yelling and screaming and he gets restrained they have to restrain him and they

inject him as well same so he's he's remembering this we come back to real time and he's uh on that balcony looking down on janeway having had this memory yeah he goes down to talk to her and she's working very hard on this static circle thing that you get at spencer's gifts and she's looking with the static and punching buttons and I'm like, what does she see in the static? And I remember a lot of times we would

have these alien ships where literally they'd just be like shapes and symbols and we would look at I'm like, oh yes, I'm picking up the information. It's like this is the worst though. You're looking at a static circle. But when you're

talking the static, it just reminds me of ancient shamans that would take chicken bones and they would throw them down and read that. So maybe she was a new, new age, modern shaman reading the static from the Spencer's energy. She was pretending like it meant something. Yeah. It's a bunch of static. It's a stretch for me.

But anyway, Tuvok approaches. And he says to Janeway, I think we might know each other. And Janeway goes, oh, yeah, you're Tuvok. We met, you know, at the shift briefing. He goes, no, before. So he's trying to test and see if she remembers what he's remembering. Yeah. And he talks about the hospital.

He's kind of pushing her a bit. It's the awkward scene, too. Yeah. Jaffin shows up. Yeah. Tuvok decides, ah, no, no, push this. Yeah. So it's just a misunderstanding. Jaffin says, what was that all about?

Janeway says, I'm not sure. Strange man. And Jaffin says, and a terrible joke teller. That's where the line is. Yeah. But Jaffin basically says, are we going to have dinner again? Her response is like, really again?

He goes, you don't like my cooking? I love when she says, no, it was wonderful. Very funny scene. She ultimately says, let's have dinner, but I get to cook. And I'm thinking she's a horrible cook. Exactly. Not the right call. But they agreed to have dinner again.

And we cut back to the bar where Paris works now. And there's Bala sitting reading a pad. This is the first time he, yeah, this is the first time that Paris notices Bologna, correct? Yeah. Yeah. He immediately is captured by her beauty or drawn to her in some way. So, again, this is what I love about this premise is there's a piece of them that's true underneath. Yeah. And he says, you know, hey, have I know you've been in here before? And she goes, no, never been in here. And he goes, oh, I would have noticed if you had been in here. That's kind of an old Paris line. Yes, it is. It is. You know, Tom's really kind of pushing to flirt with her. Amali, his boss comes out. I need you.

He wants to get to know Balana a little better. And she's like, you know what? I just, I don't want to take a walk with you. I'm not interested. And she stands up. And he goes, oh, I get it now because she's pregnant. Balana says, well, you still want to get together now. And he goes, well, no, you're married.

She goes, no, I'm not married. And he goes, oh, okay. And when she leaves, I didn't understand my look because I turned in that close up and I'm looking off at her. And I guess it's just a look that he's trying to piece all this together. He's trying to piece it together. Yeah. He's not sure.

He's just trying to figure out what is her story. Yeah. That's it. We go to space. There's a flyby. Yay, the ship is working. They've gotten primary systems. We have a Chucote log again.

And primary systems are back online. They're looking for the crew. They've left that nebula. Kim's been running continuous scans to try to find our people, no sign of our people. At the end of this log, he says, with only four people on board, repairs are going slowly. And I went, wait, he called the doctor a person. He's considering the doctor a person, which is kind of a big deal. Wait a minute.

Who's there? Kim. Neelix, Kim, Chikotay, and the doctor. Oh. with only four people on board. He didn't say three people and a hologram. And a hologram. There you go.

The doctor doesn't have to fight for his rights anymore. Even Chikote thinks of him as a person now. Yeah. There's a montage of repairs. We see an engineering. The doctor has restored propulsion systems. And then Kim, yeah, Kim calls him to astrometrics. Harry and the doctor talk in there. Harry basically says, I need you to help me with my

stomach. Yeah, not with astometrics work. The doctor thinks that, yeah, that Harry's asking for help there and it's all about his sick tummy. That's it. Oh my gosh. And I love how Kim is so snarky. Whatever you did hasn't worked. Maybe all those command subroutines are compromising your medical abilities. And then, of course, the doctor fires right back. Maybe all all that sarcasm is compromising your natural charm. And so there's a lot of... The snarky, yeah, those two are at each other. My goodness, they're like brothers.

They're like brothers right now. We go to the bridge. The doctor shows up on the bridge with Chucote. He says he soothed Ensign Kim's upset tummy. No, but then he lists that at the end, that which is funny. He's like, I've repaired the deterringium injectors, brought secondary propulsion back online, and soothe Ensign Kim's upset tummy. So he adds that as the third item of his...

to-do list. Very funny. And then Chikote says, why don't you get started on the ruptured plasma conduits? And the doctor says, wait, can't you take care of those? I was like, whoa. He's starting to get a little cocky here, just because he's been called a person. Even Chikote says, I beg your pardon. Yeah. But the doctor says, well, I'm the emergency command hologram. Shouldn't I be in the command center? Oh, God. And then Chocote says, We've got to prioritize. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but we need to prioritize here. Can we just call him reality check Chacote?

Yes. Carrie calls to say, I found the crew. They're on an M-class planet. Yeah. I can be there. On the crew, exactly. We can be there. Yes.

So Chocote says, transfer the coordinates to the helm, and I'll meet you in Extra Metrics. And then he says to the doctor, the command center is yours. And the doctor sits and sort of enjoys. his command position. Yeah. Yeah. Nice little repair sequence. They found the crew.

Feels like we're on a journey to solve this. Yeah. Good scenes. We like these scenes. Yeah. Great scenes. Go to Jaffin's apartment. Very funny when they try Janeway's cooking and great face acting when she's like,

your cooking console is a little temperamental. And she says, once you cut off the charred part, it'll be fine. And he tries a piece. He does say, did you try talking to it? I'm making fun of the whole thing or talking to the console, right? Yes. But I loved when he took a bite and his face acting without any line, he's asking, you know, is it good?

Is it, it's good? Yeah. No, no, it's not. Very funny. They decide to leave, but Jaffin stops her and says, no, let's not leave. We'll stay here. He says, he's not really hungry. And he says, are you?

And Janeway says, no. And then when he says, let's stay here, okay, this kiss bothered. me because they honestly gave me the energy of two 13 year olds or two 14 like like teenagers it was like you guys are like where is this like awkward like fast kiss thing that they did it's just very very aggressive very aggressive but you know what I'm saying this is when you're 16 this is when you're 15 or 16 years old this is what happens I feel like this was not just this episode kiss this was Kate Mulgrew thinking Janeway has deserved a love story for seven years And every love story has either been cut off or, you know, she's distracted with her position or it's been a hologram or something.

Okay. So that would validate it then. That aggressive kiss comes from the fact that subconsciously she has been trying, trying to hold it together to bring this crew home. For seven years. For seven, no time for herself. And now she doesn't have all that pressure because she doesn't know she has those pressures. Yeah. But subconsciously, she's so hungry for affection.

She's so hungry for companionship, romantic companionship that this is immediately. Okay, well, then that to me, yes. Comes out after seven years. All right. Well, then I'll buy that. It was like a theater kiss. It was that big. It really was.

It was big. It was massive. Thank you for clearing that up for me. We go to space. We see Voyager entering kind of the orbit of this planet now. And there's all these satellite ships. Another first officer's log. We traced the crew's life sign to this large city on a planet called Cora.

Unfortunately, the local officials are not being very cooperative. And that's when we see John Anderson pop on screen on the view screen. He basically says, we've talked to these people you say are your friends, but they don't know you. And they've never heard of Voyager, so sorry. And Chocote wants to talk to them, and he says, nope, you. cannot, they're protected by our laws. Isn't that funny? Their law is to protect against other people trying to poach workers from them. It's like, wait a minute. Yeah. Yeah. But they basically run out of luck. The ambassador says, well, you should look somewhere else to increase your

labor supply, if that's what you want. Leave our citizens alone. Kim does report. There's no way to beam them through this shield grid that is interfering with our transporters, which which would be an easy out of this episode. We just transport everyone back on the ship, but no, no way. So Chacote does make the order. Let's get out of orbit. The doctor complains saying, wait, we're going to leave them behind. But no, this is what we have to show to these core and ambassadors.

He wants them to think that we're leaving, but he's got another plan. Yeah, the whole thing is we have to fool Jennifer Aniston's father, basically. That is the goal. Okay. But I believed in Chucote at this point. I'm like, he's got this. He's got some kind of plan. I believed him, too. I thought he could do it.

We go back to Jaffin's apartment after that big theater kiss, and clearly it's post-coital. It's post-coital. Jaffin's lounging. She comes out. He says, are you comfortable? And she says, the blanket's nice and warm. He goes, no, I mean, are you comfortable here with me? And she says, I can't remember being more comfortable in my entire life.

Wow. That's huge. Yes. What a statement. What a statement. I do, does that mean that she was unhappy being captain, like subconsciously? Well, she was not comfortable, not, not that she was unhappy. She was not comfortable.

I think she's happy as a captain at times, but she was not comfortable. Okay. I also have a question. Post-coital scene. She's bringing out hot coffee. It would not be my choice after. No. I don't know that people go, oh, we just had sex.

let's drink some black hot black coffee now i don't know i'd bring you it would not be my beverage of choice listen if i just had if it was post coitus between us i'd bring you a nice spritzer robby i'd say here it's a nice effervescent little spritzer with a little bit fine something refreshing light refresh you after i've had a hot beverage yeah i've had nookie with you rob i'm going to give you something refreshing after thank you that's all thank you thank you you're welcome you just walked around for the corner starts staring at me. She was like, what are you talking about? You're right. Coffee would not be the beverage of choice after that. Okay, we go to the bar next. Torres is sitting by herself. Paris goes to talk to her. And I just felt like, this is Paris good guy. Like, even if he doesn't know who he is or

who she is, his instincts now as the character he is, he's a good guy. Especially when you shock her with, you know, I was offering to introduce you to some people I met that are expecting a baby like you. I mean, she's like, what? I thought you'd want to get to know some other parents. She's very defensive at first. She apologizes. Yeah. She turns here in this scene.

Yeah. She does say, I can't be romantic with anybody right now, but, but thank you. And Paris says, what about a friend? Yeah. What? And he says, well, if romance is out of the question, could you use a friend? Yeah.

Very sweet, seeing. It is. We go just a nice turn for her, and then we go out to space, and we see Voyager hovering in space. We go in the astrometrics lab. Yeah. Neelix is working in the astrometrics lab. Everybody's doing everything they never do. He's never worked there before, has he?

No. Wow. But he's been speaking to captains of eight vessels who left Quora. he says they were all asked if he was looking for employment because there's a labor shortage in the entire system and there's a big competition for workers yeah so it's definitely starting to make sense what's going on yeah they talk about reentering the system going back and chikote says no we're going to have to find jobs that we're going to have to go undercover basically yeah and we can't take the ship because it might arouse suspicion and neelix goes what if we take my ship chikote

says we're going to have to go look for jobs and he says the doctor isn't reconstructive surgery one of your specialties so they won't be recognized yeah they won't so they won't be recognized we cut the sick bay and chukotay has had his reconstructive surgery with a whole different like his cheekbones are different and he doesn't have a tattoo yes neelich says in the scene you should have poses halaxian and chakotay says whiskered make me itch. But I wish we had been gone as a talaxian. Oh, my God, that would have been amazing. Yes.

We should all look like telaxians at one point. I know. That would have been cool. That would have been fun. The doctor asked for Neelix's hand to put a subdermal transponder in so they can maintain an open calm. Why don't we just do that all the time? Yeah. And you see that?

They dropped it in his palm first. and then he just scanned that thing over and that thing just sort of recesses into his skin I guess that was interesting. It was cool. As we wrap the scene up Oh, Cocote says

you know, Harry, you're in charge and the doctor's like, wait, I thought I was going to be in charge. Yeah. And Harry's very upset. Yeah. And the doctor says, well, I've got two million tactical subroutines that should outrank an ensign. Yeah, but you know what Harry should have said? I have two million hours on the bridge in the last six years.

You have, what, five minutes? That's what he should have said. So I have experience. He may have subroutines, but I've got the experience. Well, they start to bicker and Chakotay says, gentlemen, work it out. And they say, I sir, together. And then they start to, they're standing shoulder to shoulder. And they both start to walk out at the same time, Harry and the doctor.

they bump into each other like who's going to go first Harry ends up going first and doc rolls his eyes it was very funny this was this was Bob actually this is Bob Piccaro because he's great he said when we were filming this scene

he was like he was like Garrett I think this might add a little extra element of humor if we do that thing where we sort of both try to leave at the same time and we bump into each other I'm like okay you want to go for this

and I remember Cricker Cricker did direct this first one right so Cricker was like hey yeah let's try it So it was a Bob originated idea. Yeah, it was a Bob pitch on set, so that we did that. And it was great. It was cute.

It was funny. It was very funny. Very, very rom-com kind of a scene, you know, in a way. So, yeah, I liked it. We cut out to space. We've seen the Alex's ship exit the shuttle bay. Cool shot. Yeah.

Back at the plant. Seven is doing her job. Finds Tuvok. And she says that he's neglected to report for his last three. He knows what's up. That's why he's been avoiding it. And he is looking sweaty. He's looking, you know, like he's having withdrawals or something. Yes. He looks definitely like he's going through something for sure. And he even calls her seven of nut. And she's like, what are you talking about? My employee number is 8, 586. Stop right there. Employee number. Let's do numerology here. Check this out. 8 plus 5 is 13. 13 plus 8 is 21. 21 plus 6 is 27. Separate the two and seven. You get nine. So even her employee number is I got the nine in it. Wow. That's okay. I want to share that with you. Tuvok tries to mind melt her here. Yeah. She doesn't remember who she is. So he's going to mind melt her.

Yeah. She calls security. She sees herself stepping off of her regeneration alcove. So she he does have a moment where where she realizes or she has a flashback but then security grabs him and drags him away and Tuvok is yelling you know we don't belong here we don't belong here

I think we've all yelled that at one point as characters like I don't belong here I'm not part of this or something to that effect it was good though but he's planted the seed in seven she's now got some wisdom passage of time I think to the next day

Yes, we have the supervisor now interviewing Chacote talking about all his qualifications and he's impressed what Chacote has going for him so he's very excited to have him working at the plant. But during this conversation, Chacote does recognize one of our regular background actors, I guess, and sort of stops, the supervisor notices that and thinks that's a little unusual.

So when you know, Chacote goes, no, no, just a lot of unusual species and supervisor, you know, corroborates that. We have a diverse workforce. He then sees Janeway. Yes. The supervisor realizes that he's not paying attention. And so he covers with, well, I'm just excited to be here.

Sorry. And the supervisor says, okay, carry on, leaves. Then Chacote goes over to Captain Janeway and calls her Catherine, and she says, yes. So he thinks maybe she's going to remember. He goes, it's Chacote. Yeah, and she goes, what? I'm sorry. But he pivots very fast.

He immediately goes like, oh, I'm new here. He doesn't pull the whole Tuvok, like, you have to remember me. He's just like, I knew. I just was told that you would be. Yeah, the supervisor said you would be a good person to answer questions. So he covers perfectly. There's nothing she could say to that. So he just introduces himself.

And he says, my employment file lists my name as Amal Cote. Amal Cote. I like it. Cote, Amal Cote. Hey, he should have said his name was a Cucci Moia. He just sort of went with that. I know. That would have been so much.

By. Janeway says, well, happy to meet you, whatever you name is. And we cut into the medical facility where Tuvac is being held down. Don Most, our Dr. Caden says you're just having a relapse of dysphoria syndrome. And you need the shot. And Tuvok tries to fight it, but they finally inject him. and then we cut inside the bar and Neelix has

obviously met Tom before the scene starts mid-scene because Neelix has picked up on the same thing Chikote did that we don't remember the truth. He's talking to Tom about how he got this job. That one line. Although I love the one line

where Neelich says, Neelich says it's almost like serving on a starship, you know? And Harris goes, wow, have you ever done that? And Alex says, well, you're looking at the former captain of my own cargo vessel in Paris. Wow, must be quite a life. Alex goes, what about you ever worked on a ship? And Paris's responses, oh no, space travel makes me sick.

I laughed out loud. I did too. I did too. That was very funny. We see Balana's there and she's now with a couple that maybe the one that Tom introduced her to. Yeah. And she's starting to make some friends. Chiquote shows up and Jainway invites Chikote and Nelik sort of have dinner with her and Jaffin.

But Jaffin's sort of like, no, no, no, I was hoping we could eat alone tonight. And Janeway is a little, you know, confused. And she's like, that was rude. But he was like, no, I have an important thing to tell you. I must have you by myself, basically. Tom and Boulana talk briefly. He says, hey, I'm about to go on a break. I'll walk you to the transport.

and she's like, oh, don't worry, I'll be fine. And Tom's response is, I'm not worried about you. Yeah. It's not you that I'm worried about. And Bologna's like, oh, the baby will be fine. So cute. Moment. Yes.

And there's a sweet look at the end there. Like, she stops and looks back at him. Yeah. Neelix and Chikote, though, follow her out at that point. Yeah. And then we go over to hear what Jaffin was why he wanted. Janeway alone. And he basically says,

I think we should move in together. I know. That's fast. And she goes, they talk briefly, and then she's like, all right, let's do it.

Let's try it. She says, maybe I'm out of my mind. Let's try it. And I went, yeah. Yeah, you are out of your mind. You're out of your mind.

You just met this guy. Oh my gosh. We go out to the alley, Torres is walking by herself. Neelix is following her. Neelix is scary in the fog like that coming after her. I'd be scared with all that crazy. hair coming behind me looking back and then chokote bumps her from the other side yeah he apologized oh my

fault he tries to tell her that they were friends he's trying to get her to remember she's not really listening he grabs her and pulls her yeah into the side of the alley and she starts freaking out she punches him nilix grabs her from behind balana calls for security help help help um chikote calls Voyager, lock on to Nelix's signal, transport them both back. Harry says, acknowledged. We go back and, yeah, Neelix and Bologna beam out. Right, but I can't beam out, Chacote, though. He's running for his life, basically.

Yeah. She's rescued. Chacote's on the run. We cut back to the bridge, and Harry is flying the ship. Yeah. You're sitting in my chair. Are you upset? You're sitting.

You're sitting. How did it feel? Do you remember? I like sitting down there. I do. It's a good spot. The only thing I didn't like, I remember, I felt this from day one, everybody's behind me. And I have personally an issue with like people.

Like, if I go to the movies, I like to sit in the back. I don't like people behind you. I get a little paranoid. Yeah. No, we don't know that about trust people. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

So being down there, I couldn't see anybody's face. No. I could never see how, you know, I could hear. I think that's why you brought a book all the time to the bridge because you couldn't really see anyone. So you said, you know what? I'll be in my own world down here at Kahn. So, yeah, okay.

You're flying the ship. You're under attack. You had to raise shields. You couldn't bring, you couldn't bring Chukotay back on the ship. No. We have a space shot of Voyager leaving orbit. Two ships are trailing after him, chasing him. We go to sick bay.

Neelix is trying to explain. We're here to help you. she doesn't want help we see two vok in the corn medical facility uh he's being brainwashed again with this giant screwdriver thing headed towards his head not good yeah we go to we go to the bar janeway and jaffin are kissing we're just cutting all around the world finally we're back to our foot chase with chukote and uh the security is getting closer and he gets to like a dead end and i remembered when i saw this i remember specifically Craig are talking about how they would build this dead end on the stairs and then put a giant green

screen out there so that when you cut around to the other side you'd see that he was looking down at you know oh and how high up he was everything yeah the bottom of the factory sure I remember I may have even gone over when they were filming this or something okay okay because they did have to set up a giant green screen wow back in a really tight corner because like we said before this was all the backside of places that weren't supposed to be photographed. Nobody, no, but probably no one has ever filmed there until we did.

No. These are like utility. This is strictly for the tiny little, yeah. Yeah, it's just stuff that you don't film in. It's mainly for maintenance stuff or HVAC things that we were talking about. That's stuff that's supposed to be hidden

from public view. But we used it to film this episode, which is quite creative. to be honest. But he gets to that dead end. He hits a force field. There's like some kind of force field there. And all he can do is look down.

Securities on his tail. And then we have to be continued. That's, yeah. Yes. Yes. That's it. Wow. Okay.

Do you have a lesson from this first part of this episode? I do, actually. Okay. I do. My lesson is that even when the truth is repress. or suppressed that that truth will find a way to break through that's the lesson i got because even though all these characters had been brainwashed and their you know memories were were buried yeah uh somehow tom paris's true nature still came out balana's true nature still came out

janeway's true nature still came out yeah tuvox nature it's just you can't hide from reality is the is the is the real-life lesson. Okay. Reality is always there, even if you try to pretend it's not. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah, so I'm going to say my lesson from this episode is that we all need to work on

cultivating and practicing patients. Patience is key. The doctor had to evade enemy ship after enemy ship. And one person repairing system after system had to have patience. Finding the crew, Harry Kim, searching every. single sector in this quadrant practically had to be patient. So I find like this episode is all about just finding patience because that's the only way to get anything done is be patient, do it bit by bit. Don't expect massive, you know, results day one. It's all incremental. It builds

upon each move you do, each step that you make to get to a solution builds upon the prior step, right? So it's a gradual process and it's patience. I buy that. Your rating. for this episode. I know it's high. It's going to be a high one. What'd you give it? I like this one. Okay. You may be surprised, but I'm going to give it a 9.5. Good Lord. 9.5. This one had me. I was in every turn, every twist. Love this one, 9.5. Oh, my God. I'm shocked. What about you? I don't even know what to say right now. I don't even know. I don't even have a number because of what you've just said. You've just short-circuited my brain. Are you serious? You're going 9.5?

Yes, sir. I sure am. I can't do that. I can't go that high. Okay. Okay. 8.2. What? Only an 8.2? Let's see what you are. Let's see what our. Okay. Let's go. Captains and admirals average rating for workforce part one is 7.9. Thank you. Thank you. I was, I only went eight because you went nine. I said, because I was going to go seven. I said, no, Rob is going to throw a shoe at me if I say seven. Seven point nine. So close to eight point two.

Well, I'm glad you liked it. It's, you know, objective, really. And this may be a nine point nine for somebody else. Yeah. You don't even know. Someone likes even more than you do. Yeah. I like this one a lot.

You did. I mean, I do like the elements, but I thought, I honestly thought, The minute that you saw that people didn't remember who they were, you were going to just slap it down like you did that other episode. Normally I would. Well, the other one, because we were playing characters. Like, this is just they've taken away our memory, but we're still kind of the same people.

Yep. Just in a whole different reality. Yep. That we're unaware of our other reality. And so we're still the same people. I buy that. Yeah. That doesn't feel like a bridge too far to me.

In fact, that's a really interesting. premise to me yeah it is all right everyone thank you for joining us for this recap discussion of workforce part one join ravi and i next week when we will finish up this two-parter and recap and discuss workforce part two one of your favorites favorite episodes so far all right everyone see you next week yeah thanks see you next week bye You know, B. B.

B. B. B. B. B. B. B Thank you.