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VOY: "Coda" (s3e15)
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DADDY DEAD CARE. A shuttle accident puts Captain Janeway on death's doorstep and death is only too happy to answer, taking the face of her dead father. But that's not the only weird thing going on in this fast-paced, wacky episode that concludes The Captain is DEAD! Month on Trek Marry Kill.
The grades begin at (33:42).
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Goals
00:00:00
Speaker
Next on Trek, Marry, Kill, the dance, ghosts, dad, engage. I think we took a lightning hit. It's going to tear the shuttle read No bottle signs, no brain activity.
00:00:17
Speaker
Make a note in the log. Death occurred at 0320 hours.
00:00:27
Speaker
with ready Star Trek Voyager.
Captain Janeway's Deaths in Voyager
00:00:33
Speaker
The
00:00:36
Speaker
only made worse than death......is dying again. The captain's dead. And again. We have, in fact, lost Catherine Janeway. But these fatal encounters are just the beginning. Something strange is going on here. Of a terror which will never end.
00:00:57
Speaker
If you know what's going on here, tell me. Isn't it clear? You're dead on the next Star Trek Voyager.
00:01:10
Speaker
Trek, marry, kill.
00:01:15
Speaker
Hi, I'm Brian. Hi, I'm Sharice. Welcome to Trek, Marry, Kill, a Star Trek podcast that tries to help Star Trek viewers transition from fans to critics.
Exploring 'Coda' and Industry Gender Challenges
00:01:25
Speaker
Today we conclude the Captain is Dead month here on Trek, Marry, Kill with Star Trek Voyagers Coda.
00:01:32
Speaker
That's right. We've seen Picard die, Kirk die, Sisko die, and now it's Catherine Janeway's turn, Sharice. Bum, bum, bum. Bum, bum. Coda is the 15th episode of Voyager's third season. It aired on UPN, January 29th, 1997, written by Jerry Taylor, directed by Nancy Malone.
00:01:52
Speaker
One of the rare times in Trek history before Discovery and Strangely Worlds where women both wrote and directed the same episode. Memory Alpha.
00:02:02
Speaker
You know, it's weird. We have to make that exception, right? Because it's just assumed all of their TV. Well, men wrote this. and Men directed this. It's like 90% of all American television ever. it's like It is. And sometimes it's confusing because they'll have names like Mary or Sally or something.
00:02:20
Speaker
And you're like, oh, my gosh. And then you look them up. You're like, oh, it's nope. That's also a dude.
00:02:26
Speaker
Okay. And then you'll some ah very occasionally you'll have like a writer name like, oh, Carl, Carl ah Sergeant. And then it's like, that's a that's a woman, actually. yeah way she could get work.
00:02:41
Speaker
That's true. Is to name herself Steamboat Willie. And then people were like, hired. You sound like you got some creative genius.
Synopsis and Speculation on 'Coda'
00:02:49
Speaker
ah Memory Alpha describes the episode after her apparent death.
00:02:53
Speaker
Captain Janeway's journey to the afterlife, guided by her father, leaves her with suspicions. That's because what Memory Alpha doesn't mention is that Janeway's father is not her father, but an alien vulture parasite.
00:03:05
Speaker
Parasite. ah posing as her father in an attempt to lure her to the other side so that it can feast on her neural energy for all time.
00:03:16
Speaker
bu bu bu And so it' it's basically Star Trek's way of saying, like, what if all the recorded near-death experiences were actually ah the result of alien influences, aliens stepping in at the moment of death?
00:03:32
Speaker
And the interesting thing, too, is like in this episode, it's like a parasite or whatever. And they're like, yeah fight that fight the fight the entity inside your whatever. And my question has always been with this episode. At what point did you get infected?
00:03:42
Speaker
Right. Because it just stays latent until the moment of your death. So that alien could have been there since you were born. it's Yeah, so that's where it gets a little wacky, but it to me it seems like because they do two metaphors, they call it a vulture, and they call it a ah like a spider lu spider web, luring the the fly towards it.
00:04:03
Speaker
um And so to me it kind of seems like it's a... It's flying around. And then when it senses that someone's about to die, it kind of jumps in there at the last minute. So I agree It's just kind of everywhere. It's everywhere. Yeah, it's trying to the the argument that they're making in the final scene is like, what if anytime someone dies, these aliens are interceding at the last minute, which is, you know, that's different than the Tullock and schism.
00:04:28
Speaker
that Tuvok thinks he has in a flashback. That's where he is infected with some alien virus. That's been, he was infected with at some point in his life. That's been waiting.
00:04:39
Speaker
Yeah. So i'll I'll talk about this in a second, because that idea of like, what if all near death experiences are the result of aliens um is like a pretty big concept for a science fiction episode.
00:04:52
Speaker
um and But it's one of many big science fiction concepts in this episode that we'll discuss in a minute. um The alien influence is so intense that it makes Janeway feel think that she's hallucinating about a hallucination. It's kind
Personal Voyager Experiences and 'Coda' Creation
00:05:08
Speaker
of weird. It's a, anyway, ah do you remember the first time you saw this episode?
00:05:12
Speaker
You know, I don't remember the first time, but this is one of my favorite episodes. I say that about a lot of episodes of Voyager, though. Yes. To be fair. However, this this is one on the list of many, many that I enjoy.
00:05:24
Speaker
so I've watched it so many times. I don't remember my thoughts the first time. And there's nothing about it that's really like so shocking that it would imprint on me. um So no, do you remember the first time you saw this episode?
00:05:36
Speaker
I do, but because ah have a little story. So this was my 16th birthday was around this time. And I remember very clearly my 16th birthday because I don't know, my mom gave me a sweet 16, which I know is weird because I'm a dude.
00:05:54
Speaker
ah But it was a big party. why so And it was nice. But it it was an opportunity where I felt two years in high school, I went to high school far away from my hometown. So I had friends from my hometown. i had friends from this faraway high school.
00:06:08
Speaker
And I thought, okay, let's do the party where both friend groups get together. And, ah and that was a huge mistake. But it was a big event. I remember it pretty well.
00:06:20
Speaker
And and so that was what was going on with me. I was 16 and um and doing all that stuff. There was girl intrigue and there was the friends stuff realizing like, oh, my hometown friends and my high school friends are radically different.
00:06:36
Speaker
We're not going to be friends with each other. They're not going to be friends with each other. And this is a bifurcation happening in real time. And ah so there was that. And so this episode kind of fell off to the side.
00:06:48
Speaker
And I don't think this was because this was before DVR people and ah repeats were rare that I didn't i don't think I taped it. I think I watched it kind of live. I think my birthday would have been.
00:06:59
Speaker
around my actual birthday. So this was right after. this was when I watched off to the side and it has dead dad stuff in there. So I kind of like tuned it out a little bit. out Yeah. point in Voyager where I was kind of fading on it already because this is season three, halfway through season three.
00:07:17
Speaker
I was not a big Voyager fan for the most part. one Yeah. Yeah. Because it felt like I've seen it before. I've watched the next generation episodes over and over and over again. And then Deep Space Nine became my jam that was like, this is the Star Trek for me. So then Voyager came along.
00:07:32
Speaker
It was like, I've kind of seen it before. um So that's where that's where this one sits in my mind is like a half remembered thing. So it was actually really great to go back and rewatch this one.
00:07:44
Speaker
It's like a bonus episode, right? Yes, it was. All right. The development of CODA. as stated in Memory Alpha, began as an amalgamation of plot ideas that the writing staff had been considering.
00:07:57
Speaker
Executive producer Jerry Taylor explained, it was a combination of several threads of ideas that we had been kicking around. None of them seemed to be working on their own. Then we began cobbling them together And all of a sudden we had this wonderful, rich mystery.
00:08:11
Speaker
Some story elements of this episode, Janeway's reference to her own drowning and to other, or Admiral Janeway's reference to his own drowning and to other members of the Janeway family were taken by Jerry Taylor from Mosaic, her own novel about the life and career of Captain Janeway up to her time as Captain of Voyager. Have you read that?
00:08:28
Speaker
No, I didn't even know that was a thing until this moment. Taylor remarked, this is the fun of being an executive producer. I get to say what her backstory was. We have been having a good time, including some elements from the book into the episodes.
00:08:40
Speaker
That's really cool. And that's ah quite a power move. um There was a Elmore Leonard wrote a book. I think it was just called Raylan. And he wrote it specifically so that the Justified writers could strip it for parts and use elements of it in Justified in the TV show based on that character, Raylan Givens.
00:09:01
Speaker
And, you know Jerry Taylor, both does and does not get enough credit for her work in Star Trek. But, you know, she's the reason why Voyager holds together at all in the early seasons. And obviously Janeway, not quite like a avatar for her, but like a really nice, you know, she was basically the sole woman in Star Trek and guiding the the the woman captain,
Star Trek's Spirituality and Alien Influence
00:09:25
Speaker
basically.
00:09:25
Speaker
h So we've got that backstory information in there. There's obviously this idea of the aliens influencing you at the moment of death. You know, if you think about it, Sharice, it's kind of like an element that's echoed in Lower Decks when the guy transitioning sees the koala.
00:09:41
Speaker
This idea that between life and death, there's like an alien... Middle ground? Yeah, a subspace domain, perhaps. intercedes a subspace shard that's right that acts as a purgatory that's right by different aliens and then the other idea i think is is being frankensteined is monstered into or no frankenstein they're the frank the scientists that's being frankenstein into this is the time loop which is a very normal staple of ah all Star Trek. All science fiction, but yeah especially Star Trek. Right. So this idea that that someone's in a shuttle accident again and again, and they need to figure out how to get out of it, um makes a lot of sense as like ah an idea they couldn't quite pin down. Like, what if Janeway was trapped in this time loop? How would you get out of it, perhaps?
00:10:31
Speaker
So putting that all together into the stew really kind of misdirects you on what the whole episode's about. Mm-hmm. Which is, I think, what makes it nice. Exactly. Because we've seen time loops a thousand times. Don't get me wrong. I love it. And it's going to be one of my best Trek tropes.
00:10:46
Speaker
But the way they did it in this episode was like, okay, time loops. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. It's a time loop. Oh, good great. They've gotten rid of the time loop. Oh, wait. This is... Hold on a second. It's not a time loop?
00:10:57
Speaker
Right. Wait, what's going on? You know, and so it really... We get that time loop loveliness of, I know what's going to happen because it keeps happening over and over. And then they, like, bait and switch, which is which is such a nice twist and surprise.
00:11:08
Speaker
Right. And also we get to see that it's only Janeway. It's not Janeway and Chakotay. And then we get to see like how she interacts with things, given that the timeline keeps changing just for her.
00:11:20
Speaker
And we did see that in TNG with, I forget the name of that episode. You probably remember with when Captain Picard came back from the future and then like couldn't talk. Time squared? Yeah.
00:11:31
Speaker
Which was that less satisfying than this. Because he just stayed in sickbay the whole time, not yeah saying anything about anything. and then And then his old self, he's yelling at himself like, what happened? He's like, argh, argh.
00:11:45
Speaker
i But yeah, similar to that. We do get we do get that kind of a parent trap situation in this episode also. So maybe that was another piece of the inspiration. We'll we'll talk about the time element for sure later, but I want to ask you this question because obviously this is Star Trek veering into discussing spirituality in some way, right?
00:12:06
Speaker
So do you believe in higher power, Sharice? I do. Yeah, like ah the Judeo-Christian God or... Okay, all right. Yeah, was raised Catholic, so it's it's in my bones ah to some degree.
00:12:20
Speaker
So how did you feel about the thought that maybe it's just an alien tricking people? They didn't say for after for all afterlife. They were saying more for... near-death experiences when people come back. I keep backing way ah my belief system around college kind of backed way out being like, this is all religion is humans attempting to understand ah very powerful idea, but sort of like, where did everything come from? I think is a pretty reasonable question. And then you look at the world, the universe, and you see how life is arranged, how matters arranged. I'm like, it does feel like we're small cells in a larger body. Yeah.
00:12:56
Speaker
like individual, like within us, we have universes. We're part of a universe. Like it feels something. We are a part of something grand. And then you look at like all matter is recycled throughout the universe and all that stuff. So is it kind of like in men in black when they're trying to save the galaxy? and that' right we're on the cast I didn't mean to bring it to a cat thing. That was you.
00:13:19
Speaker
Sharice lobbed a very
Performance and Episode Analysis
00:13:21
Speaker
relevant and correct ah charge of being a cat. boy cat person before we started recording and she nailed it. Cause I have a wonderful cat, but I feel like that's drafting off that conversation. Yes.
00:13:35
Speaker
I don't necessarily think about it in that term. So clearly i just think of like, whatever, whatever, uh, created this force to happen that that's God there is some sort of higher power do we have a relationship with it I I don't know I I do think that religion there is a it's almost uh prayer is meditation i like I have both secularly meditated or whatever you want to call it and prayed when I was younger and the feelings is the exact same in my brain so um I think there is some element of like we have an idea what human behavior is
00:14:12
Speaker
I just think it's funny whenever Star Trek goes into it because it's almost always i had to go to church going as a kid. So I'm only going to you know what i mean? Like they're going only take the main concept of of these ideas and play with that dramatically instead of like sometimes in the ri in the alien cultures will get a little more like spirituality like they're like.
00:14:35
Speaker
Kind like a way that they'll explore a little more deeply. But when it's just like human of religion, it's always like, what if crossing over into heaven was an alien?
00:14:46
Speaker
what but That's really all it is. The white light is cute. Yeah, yeah, yeah. but Yeah, and also like the alien was all like... um It's going to be amazing. It's going to be whatever you want it to be and all those things.
00:15:01
Speaker
But this alien seemed pretty devious and manipulative. So then like, but is it though? Like, or is it, what, is are you actually going to give what you've promised? Or is this all just more manipulation to get her into your vortex or whatever he called it?
00:15:15
Speaker
Matrix. Matrix, yep. So... I don't know, just this, it always leaves me with questions. Like why this alien is so, he seems so benevolent and wonderful and nice.
00:15:26
Speaker
And then at the end he gets so creepy. I do remember that. I do remember being like, oh, like at the end when he was like, yo, come into my matrix. It was like, oh gosh, what happened? You were all like, I'm here to help you little bird.
00:15:38
Speaker
I want to be, you know, you're all like buddy, buddy. And now of the sudden you're creepy. So is your matrix fun or is it kind of creepy? Now I feel like I can't trust you at all, Aileen. The other thing I want to talk about conceptually before we get into the production notes and then the grades was Jerry Taylor also considered this installment to be an opportunity to explore the relationship between Janeway and Chakotay. No kidding.
00:16:02
Speaker
She also wrote Resolutions from season two, an episode that was such edging and ah ah getting them so close to being together. ah But anyway, without definite, but she didn't want to indefinitely...
00:16:16
Speaker
change the nature of the bond between them. Taylor noted about the episode, it was an opportunity to show feelings between Janeway and Chakotay in a safe territory because it was all inside her head.
00:16:28
Speaker
Sharice, are you a JC shipper? You know what? I am on team Janeway hookup with literally anyone for crying out loud. like what Including a holographic Irishman? Including a holographic Irishman. Like, delete wife all day long, Janeway. Right.
00:16:46
Speaker
Because running this ship and getting them home is stressful. Like, you need some kind of outlet. You need some kind of partnership. I, like, at the end of this episode, um Janeway's like, we need to celebrate a bottle of champagne and like a what did she say? Like a yacht ride or something like that on the holodeck. Let's go. And I was like, that sounds extremely romantic for a quote unquote celebration, like a bottle of champagne and like some lake it in the moonlight.
00:17:11
Speaker
So this always bothered me with the two of them. I want them to be a couple or not do couple stuff at all. Like just be buddies. But this whole, like we have dinner together every night, but we're just friends.
00:17:25
Speaker
I'm not a JC shipper because that was not, except for Mulder and Scully. That's the only time I've ever cared about TV characters, main characters getting together. How frustrating was that? But to be honest, it wasn't like I was wanting it to happen. I'm like, they seem like they're inseparable. Like, I really love Mulder and Scully. It was never front of mind that they get together, but...
00:17:50
Speaker
every step along the way I was very supportive they had some episodes where they would like look into each other's eyes know what I mean they would put it in front of you like hey I was never against it yeah I was never like why are they doing this I was always like great I like seeing them together yeah but like we just have fun And yes. And like, but you know, as a nerdy teenage boy watching Star Trek, it was, that's never a friend of mine. I'm never interested in, but now as an old man, I'm looking at it I'm going like, why are these two fuck what's going on?
00:18:21
Speaker
Seriously. So this is a key episode that I was missing in the whole, like, I never got it. Cause again, have paid attention the first time I saw it and I was, my head was swirling with suddenly being 16 and all this other stuff that was going on.
00:18:34
Speaker
And, but but i was I was missing the obvious signs. And I had resolutions I remember watching when it first aired and and when Kristen and I talked about it, being like, that was kind of like a big nothing burger of an episode. Like, it got us so close.
00:18:48
Speaker
And then they clearly pull back. This episode is like a grand jumping forward into that. And it's like shattered an episode we we went back and watched. I was like, it's right there.
00:18:59
Speaker
And it really does feel like Jerry Ryan's arrival really like... really pissed off Kate Mulgrew to the point where she was no longer, you know, playing acting like the full range of her acting palette was not on display anymore. Once Jerry Ryan got on the show.
00:19:15
Speaker
um And so it's just very strange to rewatch this episode. Now, when we did, um, shattered i was calling it chain was it called chainway or jacote at the time and there are some there are some very astute commenters being like where the where the hell did you get that from it's always been jc i think jacote or chainway is actually better but whatever so i've never heard jc but whatever yeah jc is shipping so uh i was not until this episode let me just say that
00:19:48
Speaker
Which is why I think Prodigy works so well is because somehow through these animated versions of the characters, it's still there. Like it's still cooking. So I don't know. It seems like to maybe just like some people on screen together, some actors, as soon as you yell cut, they don't like each other, but their chemistry on screen is really good.
00:20:10
Speaker
and it's kind of undeniable. Robert Beltran is, he wants to hook up with, Kate Mulgrew and Kate Mulgrew either because she's just a great actor.
00:20:21
Speaker
She's either playing the actual feelings physically towards this person, or she's just really good at conjuring it up. She seems like she's giving it back too. So it's, it's very flirtatious. It's pretty great.
00:20:33
Speaker
ah But I think I like what they do between them when it's, it's in private, right? This is never stuff that we see on the bridge and on the bridge. I think Chakotay has a completely different demeanor.
00:20:45
Speaker
Both of them do. They're very professional. And I think that's what makes it work so well. I think if you did it today, you know, it'd be a lot of lingering looks on the bridge and all stuff because that's what the fans want to see.
00:20:57
Speaker
But no, these are i like the two professional actors being like, no, right. Sip it up on the bridge. Right. I mean, it's an old fashioned value that makes sense. That was the same thing with ah with Picard and Beverly. Right. Is that on the bridge or with other people? They were always very professional despite their past.
00:21:12
Speaker
And I think we finally get some satisfaction of what that could look like on the Orville where you're like, oh, okay. Where you see what two people in a relationship look like and the dysfunctions it can cause sometimes if they're not professional on the bridge.
00:21:26
Speaker
That's right. And it's like, oh, okay. Like, so at least we get to see it because we're always like, oh, I want this. I want this. and then you see it. You're like, okay, actually that, no, no. I think being professional was that actually the right call. Yeah. That's a better way to run a ship.
00:21:37
Speaker
I mean, and then Picard and and Crusher are having breakfast together and then she's like sitting there very obviously, Penny for your thoughts. gee They did that on the bridge. That'd be tough.
00:21:50
Speaker
Anyway, some memory alpha notes. So I want to talk about the director real quick, Nancy Malone. Now I just put in the rundown some, ah her background was that she was an actor before she transitioned into directing.
00:22:02
Speaker
So much more than that. And I don't have to read that much to really lay it out there. ah She started acting at the age of seven. She was in commercials. She was on Broadway by the age of 15. So that's how she met. ah She met the guy who would play Papa Janeway, Len Carrioux, because he was a big Broadway guy. But anyway, in 1976, she became the first female vice president of television at 20th Century Fox.
00:22:25
Speaker
She won an Emmy Award for producing Bob Hope. the first 90 years and was nominated for Emmy awards for directing episodes of sisters and the trials of Rosie O'Neill. I know that's not stuff we've heard of. Although sisters, I think was pretty popular, very popular for its time. I don't remember the show, the trials of Rosie O'Neill.
00:22:41
Speaker
Anyway, she trained at the actress studio. So she was big on that. She was chosen by life magazine to appear in their 10th anniversary cover at the age of 10 as quote, the typical American girl.
00:22:53
Speaker
Wow. That's some pressure. but Yeah. I am the American girl. Yes. The typical American girl. ah Yeah. That's kind of tough at the same time. Right.
00:23:04
Speaker
It's like all the boys are after me. Cause I'm typical. Right. I suppose. Yeah. Admiral. And then in the history of Voyager, I mean, i don't know. I didn't do the research here, but there were not that many women who directed ah Voyager, which is kind of ironic then that Roxanne Dawson comes out of it as Roxanne Biggs comes out of as like one of the best TV directors we have working now.
00:23:31
Speaker
It's kind of interesting. Anyway, ah Admiral Edward Janeway, Papa Janeway, is played by Canadian Len Carreux, an American TV and Broadway legend of sorts. He's a member of the Theater Hall of Fame, which I didn't even know existed.
00:23:47
Speaker
ah He was on the long, long, long running CBS show, Blue Bloods, starring Tom Selleck. He played Tom Selleck's father in that show, even though he's only five years old. ah so like But he's basically always looked pretty old, i guess. um He won a Tony Award for his 1979 performance in Sweeney Todd. He was nominated for an Emmy in 2009 for his performance as FDR in a TV movie called Into the Storm, Churchill at War.
00:24:14
Speaker
ah He gives off very weird dad energy in this episode before the alien reveal, I think. And I don't know. I guess dads do have weird energy, huh?
00:24:24
Speaker
and Anyway. so Like, there's not a moment in this episode I ever actually feel like they're related. Like, I'm taking Janeway's word for it, but there's nothing unlike... was Yeah, there's nothing... Unlike Kate Mulgrew and Robert Beltran's chemistry together, there's no, like...
00:24:43
Speaker
paternal... More like Sisko and Jake. But I also felt like because her dad's an admiral, I just assumed that there was a coldness between them. Because every time we see... Like, Tom Paris's dad is also an admiral.
00:24:54
Speaker
And wasn't Kirk's dad an admiral in the movie? don't know if his dad was really an admiral in TOS, but... That's such a trope. No, his dad wasn't in Starfleet.
00:25:04
Speaker
Yeah, as far as I know, wasn't in Starfleet. But there' there's this kind of like, my dad's a very hard man and all this stuff. So that just... that seemed fine to me. i was like, Oh, they probably just always had this kind of a, um, I don't know, mentor mentee relationship more than a daddy daughter. That's a great point. But the way he was written, he was, he was playing it warm and she was, you know, I obviously she's in a moment the whole time. She's very suspicious. that could have contributed to it.
00:25:35
Speaker
But there, I think what was missing was that beat of connection ah So that then the betrayal or the twist hit a little harder anyway, because I'm with Janeway the whole time. Like something's fishy about this.
00:25:48
Speaker
Everything's been fishy for most of this hour. You know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of Devil's Due and TNG with Ardra, the woman who says she's the planet's devil and she's here to claim everything. yeah um Picard never believed that for one second. Literally everyone on the planet believed it.
00:26:03
Speaker
Everyone believed it. And there were so many convincing things. And Picard was like, no nope, nope, nope, nope. You're con artist. no It's one of my favorite Star Trek tropes is the captain's cynicism being aware of the plot even though it's like it makes them smarter and that's what tv is you are supposed to make your heroes heroic and make these leaps of logic smarter than a regular person who would like so we believe that right it's what soap opera writing doesn't do which is why i think a lot of like the cw drama stuff level writing that i'm sorry it's insulting i know that gets into the the newer star trek of like everyone's like
00:26:42
Speaker
credulous. You know what I mean? Like, no, where's the one person who's skeptical or ahead of things, but they think drama is everyone in their feelings. And it's like, no, it's conflict when it's like, it's this way. And someone being like, are you sure about that? I don't think so.
00:26:58
Speaker
Like that skepticism creates a dramatic boundary because, you know, Picard's crew is not going to like disagree with him. But if an entire planet is disagreeing with him, That creates a conflict in how deals with that. And it makes the entire crew side with the planet, too, to be like, are you sure? like but But they feel like... And then he's like, no, no, and no, no.
00:27:18
Speaker
You're absolutely right. right But it's also this thing where Picard can't, in that Devil's Due situation, being like, you all are stupid. Yeah. He's like, the card's like, let's investigate this and see what comes up because I'm skeptical of these claims. Like that is what, that's drama that, you know what I mean? Like how does the star the starship investigate something that they have a suspicion about? That makes a lot of sense.
00:27:44
Speaker
Janeway can't, doesn't have tools except her own it intellect right ah to get through this situation. But it's still, I think it's good and it's always best when it's the captain.
00:27:55
Speaker
because the captain- Right, it's to be the smartest one. Well, it's not so much, that's possible, but it's more like, usually when they cast these captains, they do have an authoritative presence.
00:28:05
Speaker
And so what really works in this episode is when the alien is like telling her to do something and she gets offended that, how dare you tell me what to do? And it's such a great line. Like Kirk is always like when Kirk's like, someone's telling Kirk what's going to happen or what he has to do.
00:28:21
Speaker
That's when they rise to the occasion. Like, no, you're not going to kill me or whatever it is. that It's just like that defiance ah is, is it shows their power. And it's interesting that you mentioned devils do because that was a phase two script originally.
00:28:35
Speaker
So it really was Kirk. And so if you think, if you like close your eyes and you try to imagine this episode being with the crew of the Enterprise, ah with the original series, it kind of fits as well. No bloody a B, C, or D. That's right.
00:28:48
Speaker
It wasn't going to be Data, who was the judge, obviously. arbiter, yeah. It wasn't Spock. It was going to be the ship's computer. So like, it's better what wound up happening that it was Data. But yeah, anyway.
00:29:00
Speaker
You remind me of two things. One was the episode Displaced. where this crew comes on to, these people come on to Voyager and every time one person shows up on Voyager, somebody from Voyager disappears.
00:29:11
Speaker
And they keep kind of swapping. that season seven? ah You know, I don't remember what season it is off the top of my head, but it's, again, one of my favorite episodes. It's just so, like, clever and interesting. But um as they're swapping, Janeway's like, okay, however many of these aliens have already come on board, let's say it's 20 of them or whatever, she's like, lock them down, put them in the cargo bay, I want security guards in front, da-da-da-da-da.
00:29:35
Speaker
And Chakotay's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, they haven't shown any aggression yet. They're just as confused as we are. They don't know what's going on. You know, should should we be so... Should we go at them like that? You know? yeah And she was like, I don't care what it looks like.
00:29:47
Speaker
All I know is from the first time the first one showed up, I've had a knot in my stomach and I don't like it at this rate. Our entire crew is going to be replaced in like 12 hours, lock them down, you know? And it's like what you're talking about where you're like, cause when you're watching as a viewer, you're just like, wow, they're so confused.
00:30:01
Speaker
What's going on. We don't know what's going on either. Right. But Janeway has to your point, that skepticism where she's like, I don't care what it looks like. I don't care what it seems like. Something is wrong. I know what's wrong. And we're going to get to the bottom of this and we're going to do it right now. And she was absolutely right. She was absolutely right. These people were nefarious and manipulative and they knew what was going on and this was their whole plan and they seemed all innocent and they weren't.
00:30:23
Speaker
And she's the only one who noticed. And it's like something you just can't see as a viewer. Like you don't see anything about them that seems untrustworthy. She just has an instinct. And it also, you helped me realize why I love Sherlock Holmes so much because it's the same idea where they're seeing things everyone else is not seeing.
00:30:39
Speaker
And so you're you're hearing all the descriptions or you're seeing all the things that they're seeing, but you're not making the same interpretations. And then when they say it, you're like, oh, and it's just such a pleasure to watch someone be so clever.
00:30:51
Speaker
It's what's so frustrating about Strange New Worlds. And this is like a criticism that's said in good faith, I think, is that they are credulous about everything. Like someone comes to them being like, this is your mission and they don't question any aspect of it.
00:31:05
Speaker
You know, I think about the serene squall in particular, like Dr. Aspen's telling them all these situations and they're just blindly following whatever she's telling them. Who is this? Or... blindly following whatever they're telling them. it's like, who is this person? What are they? You know what i mean? Like, so there Pike is never having an idea on his own. He doesn't use his experience. It's just like, or intuition or instinct to be like, ah this feels wrong. and Like I don't trust it or something.
00:31:32
Speaker
It's just sort of a way of like, we need to get from set piece to set piece in sort of like the most first, second draft, of way of dealing with it because the these are expensive shows and they expect that people just want to watch the spectacle and maybe they're right. But the point is, is like these older shows, which didn't have 10, $15 million dollars budgets.
00:31:51
Speaker
They're like, we have to create drama. That's interesting. Right. Well, what's interesting. where you That's right. What's interesting is an alien being like, this is the situation you're in. And the captain being like, fuck you. smell it's gonna happen yeah and That's Yep. And there's this line where Janeway's like, they won't give up easily.
00:32:08
Speaker
And ghost dad's like, but they will give up eventually. And it's like, a man, he's got her. Cause they will someday. They're not going to keep doing this for 30 years. And you're like, man, like he's going to win.
00:32:21
Speaker
i got I got to talk about Janeway more and later on in a trope, but just the last two production notes. This is, love memory alpha sometimes. This is only the third of five times in canon, as in on screen, that somebody uses CPR in the Star Trek universe.
00:32:36
Speaker
The other times were in Star Trek six when Dr. McCoy's trying to revive Chancellor chancellor Gorkon. ah Past tense part one, when Dr. Bashir is trying to resuscitate the real Gabriel Bell, who's been shot.
00:32:50
Speaker
or stabbed, uh, and scientific method in Voyager. Um, I don't, I think that's the crewman's blood is turned into a polymer by these invading aliens. And that was when Janeway's like, that's it.
00:33:03
Speaker
Ram this ship into the stars. Yeah. but doing I'm trying to self-destruct this ship. I'm crushing it like a can. We're done. our crew members are dying, you're all dying.
00:33:13
Speaker
We're all dying. We're going down together. And then Lower Decks, first, first contact. Tendi's trying to resuscitate Boimler after he goes into the Cetacean Ops tank to ah release the the the lock to get the last piece of the hole plating out.
00:33:28
Speaker
I just thought that was interesting. The episode achieved a Nielsen rating of 4.6 million homes and a 7% share of the audience. which means, which is good, which is, would be a hit today. I just like bringing that up.
00:33:41
Speaker
Anyway, all let's get into the grades. Sharice, great scenes. How many do you have? My answer is going to surprise the heck out of you. ah i I hope it really does. have three great scenes.
00:33:52
Speaker
okay um The first is the beginning scene with Chakotay and Janeway in the shuttle. I just love these little slice of lis slice of life moments um that we get on these different ships when they're not just like shield at 30%, but we just like see some normal stuff. And so I love them. Voyager put on a talent show.
00:34:10
Speaker
Yeah, Voyager put on a talent show and they're just kind of joking about it and teasing each other and just being like regular people, having a regular conversation. I just really loved that. I loved seeing just like the casual friendship between them.
00:34:22
Speaker
And then i love the memorial scene. especially B'Elanna's speech. It was so good. um And it's, and I wrote my notes. It kind of is like in TNG, the next phase, this is like the part we never got to see because everybody was working on their speeches or whatever about Jordi and Roe, but then it ended up being a big party with no speeches.
00:34:40
Speaker
And then Jordi and Roe came back to life. So we never knew what they were going to say about their friends, you know? So it's like, this is the episode. What great episode though. Yeah. Oh, so good. I'm not complaining. It was so good. And the way that they came back at their own funeral, wonderful touch. yeahp um But I'm just saying this is the side we didn't get to see is like, what did people want to say about their, the person that they've lost?
00:34:58
Speaker
I also had the memorial scene and I, my note was this is a speech that Torres would never give in reality, but it makes sense that it's from Janeway's psyche. ja This is what Janeway clearly wants B'Elanna to say.
00:35:13
Speaker
I guess that's true. I didn't think about it that way, that this is not coming from B'Elanna's heart. It's coming from Janeway's mind about what she hopes is in B'Elanna's heart. Also, it really shows that Janeway really thinks of Harry Kim as like a little boy from like a Miyazaki movie or something, because the story he tells is like, one time we found sweet fruit and we ate it till we got sick and we got stained mouths from it. Like that's the story he tells.
00:35:38
Speaker
It's just kind of funny at the same time. But yes, I think that was a great scene. It's very sweet. You know what really sells it? and The performances are all great, but... Acting is this is why I stopped doing it in college. I'm like, this is really hard.
00:35:52
Speaker
It's like you have to act when you're not talking and you're not moving. The acting also really the extra the the last mile of the race is can you listen?
00:36:06
Speaker
and and react in the listening. And Kate Mulgrew is a great actor. And she is clearly reacting to everything they're saying. It's not just tearing up. Like, I want to make it clear. Like, I don't just think, like are you able to cry on command or well up with tears on command?
00:36:20
Speaker
It's like, can you be present in the moment and make it appear on camera that you are reacting to what's happening in the scene is actually very hard to do. That's what separates the pros from the amateurs. Yeah, she's very in touch with all the muscles in her face.
00:36:35
Speaker
Because you can see all the emotions passing through it. Like my face doesn't do any of those things. It's got like I use like five of the muscles. So I couldn't emote with face alone. Like I'd have to say something. yeah and you know but her She's in control of her face muscles, but her facial, she has to be reacting. she has to be listening.
00:36:53
Speaker
yeah Like I can't, i' like only a robot could just like automatically do this. Like it's not like they planted her into the corner of the room. They put stuck a camera on her and they like make faces.
00:37:05
Speaker
Like she had to be playing off of something like that. And so she was listening to their performances and reacting to that, you know, and that's a magic trick. I don't know how actors do that ah because I'm so I'm personally who I was always worried about what's my next line?
00:37:23
Speaker
Where do I have to move? And they have to think about about that, too. yeah But anyway. and Impressive. oh yeah three great scenes was you Yeah. The last one was the final scene between Janeway and ghost dad. I just, I liked how we get her backstory and I didn't know about the book until today, like I said, um but I just love her backstory. I love her never give up attitude. And i think you probably nailed it. if What you said earlier that like the defiance for being like, no, I choose like, man, you better get out of here.
00:37:49
Speaker
I'm choosing, I choose in life. I choose in death. You it was just like pretty powerful and ah impressive. So those are my three. Okay. I think all of the scenes in Act 1 are great.
00:38:02
Speaker
I think the after they've crashed and they're in the shuttle and Chakotay's trying to revive her he's like, breathe, Catherine, breathe! Or then he carries her off the shuttle.
00:38:14
Speaker
He's so heroic. He's got her in his arms and all that stuff. It's so um intense and over the top, like the lighting, the the smoke, the music. The toxic glass filling the shuttle.
00:38:27
Speaker
Yeah, he revives her and then the Vadean attack. She's choked to death, which is very funny. ah But then when she seems to die, they're back on the shuttle in this time loop.
00:38:37
Speaker
Then they try to get out of the time loop. The shuttle is destroyed and it resets. And then we're in the act out. It's two shocking deaths, actually. Yeah. Because the choking is like, you could have just shot her. You literally have a weapon in your hand, but you want to feel her death? Come on.
00:38:52
Speaker
She dies three times in in the first 10 minutes or the first act. Because he revives her. it's right right then night And then I think every scene in act two is great.
00:39:03
Speaker
The doctor euthanizes Janeway because she's contracted the phage. And the way he euthanizes her too. Like the speech he gives her when he's like... The most humane thing to do is euthanize you. And she's like, what?
00:39:14
Speaker
No, there's got to be other options. I'm so sorry. Okay, go ahead and fill the bubble with gas. It's just like the most, it's like the nicest. It's just like, which makes it worse because he's not being mean. He's trying to be nice. It's just makes it all worse. And she's like, delete that doctor.
00:39:28
Speaker
Delete him. It's going so fast. You know what I mean? Like the prop it's so propulsive every yeah every scene. And it's just like there's no time to breathe if you're the audience watching. And then obviously Janeway. So you're you're feeling it with her. So I've got two acts filled of all great scenes.
00:39:45
Speaker
I am. You did surprise me. Every scene in act three, when Janeway is dead on the ship and she watches the crew try to hang on to hope. And then it ends with her father appearing out of this vortex and we're in the act out. And she goes, daddy. It's just like that.
00:40:03
Speaker
That is like the softest moment of connection in the whole episode. But like, it's a short act as well. And then I think to me, the the sort of momentum stops once, once, Tuvok and well, that's in Act 3.
00:40:14
Speaker
So then and then the last two scenes, you had the memorial scene. And then I think Janeway, yeah, Janeway's showdown with the alien, a simple war of words. I think we know how that scene would go today. It would be a kick punch fest.
00:40:26
Speaker
It would be great. They would just be fighting. Somehow so old, but he'd be so strong. That's right. That's right. It'd like conspiracy. Exactly. That's exactly what was thinking. Because he's got the same way here. Admiral Quinn is just like ridiculously strong, throwing around like a rag doll, kicking him through the door.
00:40:40
Speaker
ah yeah
00:40:43
Speaker
there's a scene there's a scene where he's doing that fight and he kicks like his leg he kicks in front of himself like a front kick but his leg goes like all the way like his ankles by his ear the kick goes straight up and you're like wow he didn't even tip over with that kick that was like a charlie's angel kick jordy gets thrown through the the door in the wire that was i do like i thought those doors were stronger than that's right uh ah i If this was season four, episode 15, or definitely season five, episode 15, because this is 315, I think Janeway would have fought.
00:41:19
Speaker
i don't even think the new shows would have done that. I actually think now two seasons later, a season or two later, the way that Voyager went, like if the script had somehow landed to then, Brandon Braga would have written a fight scene into it.
00:41:32
Speaker
that That's what it would have come down to. It could have because there was a scene where he grabs her and like pushes her. Yeah. So it could have gotten even more physical. Like he gets so frustrated. This episode had a lot of reshoots though, I was reading. And this is not, there was no indication that Nancy Malone did a poor job. I think the way it all hangs together is really evidence that she did a good job. But I think this is her only directing credit on the show at the same time. So there is that. But also maybe there was a fight scene and it just didn't look and they had to reshoot it.
00:42:01
Speaker
Because it is interesting that it is a war of words at the end. He's not trying more strongly to convince her. But I think what makes it work is Janeway's defiance. Like that's its own punch to the face. Yeah. It makes it work really well.
00:42:15
Speaker
All right. Best Trek tropes. I have so many. um The first one is using the calm badge as the homing signal. Like every time Janeway opens up a calm badge and like sticks a little hairpin in it, I just think it looks so cool.
00:42:29
Speaker
It just looks so cool. And I never get, I never get tired of it. They they do it a couple times in TNG as well, where they're like, we can use our calm badges. And then they open it and you see all the circuitry. I always love that. Similar to um like whenever they use the transporter. I always love it.
00:42:42
Speaker
I never get tired of it. I could see it all day. So that was the like when I saw that scene, I was like, oh, combat open. um Another best Trek trope we already mentioned was time loops. Love it. I put that as weird as part of the job, because what I love about that was how Jane Wayne Chakotay instantly recognized something's wrong and they're like up star trek's happening get it like they get into position they're like we gotta get into this they're literally like what's going on you're right we've done this before okay i'm gonna scan for tachyon beams great and i'm gonna it just was like it was like protocol 336 for when we're caught in a time loop yeah oh shit we're in a brandon braga script okay all right here we go we're gonna
00:43:21
Speaker
Let's just go ahead and disperse the Tachyon Wave. let's just Let's just get that out of the way. um I also like the how their shuttles are named after real people. So here the shuttle is Sacagawea. um Usually the shuttles, or at least in the deep dives that my co-host did on the TNG podcast, the shuttles were named after like physicists or astronauts or stuff like that, but not always. And so i I just appreciate that little touch.
00:43:42
Speaker
did Does Voyager do... I don't remember all the Voyager shuttle names because Delta Flyer, once that came in, that was like, that's, I was just like, all right, this is Delta Flyer, but I know they're not all Delta Flyers. Here's an example, but was there a consistency, a theme to the names of the Voyager shuttles? I don't remember having, in I don't remember hearing any of the shuttle's names until this episode. So maybe, but that's a, that's a detail that would absolutely go over my head a hundred percent of the time. The only reason I caught it this time is because my co-host always paid attention that sort of thing.
00:44:11
Speaker
Um, But I will say the Delta Flyer was like, that was a ship that they built to be like a sports ship, like a fast ship. So that was not like a shuttle, like their standard complement of shuttles for however many shuttles they had on board.
00:44:24
Speaker
that was a special thing. But I don't know. I don't if they had a theme. um And I didn't realize that DS9 had themes and all of that either. I did notice it on Lower Decks for the names of their ships. Yeah.
00:44:34
Speaker
But in any case, I put that as a trope because I think it's cool. I like that. I like that kind of, don't know. I don't know who that's for. Like, I don't know who those Easter eggs are for, but I just, I love that they exist. They're mainly for the writers because if you're like, okay, all the shuttles are named like this.
00:44:50
Speaker
So if you need to come up with a shuttle name i your whenard and you're dealing with the, yeah, it's like, all right, well, we can't do the Yangtze Kian. It was destroyed. Like Deep Seas 9, that was one of them.
00:45:01
Speaker
um They had the Ganges. Like, yeah, Deep Seas 9 runabouts with specific names and they said them a lot. And so that was what was always fun. That is fun. Okay, and then my last one, which is one we've said many, many times, which is like just the belief, like the just blanket belief. So when Kes was like, sense the captain, they all had a bridge crew meeting and they were like, okay, captain must be in some shifted reality or something.
00:45:24
Speaker
It's the same thing. It's like, we're in Star Trek, you know? Yep. They're like, okay, well, let's start doing some scans on different like phases or, you know, she might be in some subspace shard or who knows what. We're just going to like run some scans. um And Tuvok's like, cool, I'll help Kes hone her abilities, her telepathic abilities. And so she can resonate more with the universe or whatever. And everyone's like, and break.
00:45:44
Speaker
And they all like go and do their things, which again is like, wow, that's no one was like, okay, Kes, you're just sad. Actually, one person was like, Kes, maybe you're just sad. That Tuvok. But she was like, no, I wasn't.
00:45:55
Speaker
It really happened. And they were like, OK, well, in that case, I believe you. And we believe that Tuvok would, you know, raise the logical question. Right. But then pursue the perhaps illogical course of action because Janeway is his friend.
00:46:08
Speaker
Exactly. And at least try to prove it to himself. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, so I put JC the way he carries her, how desperate he is to save her.
00:46:21
Speaker
She is so horny for him, too. Let's be clear. Let's be absolutely. Clear about this, Sharice, she she is horned for him. and And he's into it. I think that's part of what's he's a tease.
00:46:35
Speaker
He's like, I know I'm good looking. I know you're into me. Let's just play with this. Let's just leave it here. Let's write this. ah Don't tell a starship captain what to do. So I'm bringing this right back up.
00:46:47
Speaker
So after the, specifically after the memorial service, the aliens, the but I put the Admiral Janeway presenting alien. Is that offensive? i don't know. It just was funny to word it that way. He's pestering Janeway to come with him. He's like, okay, everyone's accepted. You're dead.
00:47:02
Speaker
You should accept your dad. Come with me into this vortex. And, and she simply becomes more stubborn with every request. ah So I think all, like I said, all Star Trek captains react negatively to being told what to do, but Janeway's reactions are the best.
00:47:18
Speaker
Because they're the most severe. And I don't know if that's just a Kate Mulgrew thing. I don't know if there's some gendered aspect to it. Because, you know, women being controlled by men, you know, told that if there's like an extra oomph by it.
00:47:33
Speaker
But it's basically if I were to do the rankings of how a captain looks offended when you try to get them to do what you want to them to do. Janeway's number one. Kirk's number two. Picard's number three.
00:47:45
Speaker
And two and three are pretty close, but Janeway is still a cut above. It's why I love that interview with Kate Mulgrew and William Shatner. I'm like, they're not quite two sides of the same coin, but they get each other. And it's like a weird alpha alpha thing going on. But I just love how offended she is.
00:48:00
Speaker
She's like, I'll go when I want. She's like her faces. do you remember that Jamie Foxx, Denzel Washington interview? It's like it was a viral clip. It's on YouTube. but But like Jamie Foxx does an impression of Denzel Washington to Denzel Washington. And he's basically he has Denzel Washington participate in it.
00:48:19
Speaker
And Jamie Foxx slaps his hand. He'll get your hand away from me. And the way Jamie Foxx acts so offended as Denzel Washington laughs, but Janeway is almost doing the same thing where she's like, get your hands off of me. How dare you? And I love it. It is just like, yeah, you can't tell, especially every time you tell Janeway to do something like if this is the way it's going to be.
00:48:41
Speaker
I've watched enough Voyager now. And as I'm older, I get to go back and be like, you said the wrong thing, buddy. You should not have alter that. she if there's one thing true about Janeway it's she doesn't like bullies that's right that's right because Picard will always be like well be that as it may you know he'll do stuff like that yeah or Kirk will be like I see and then like you know then and then it'd punch you in the face but jane wait Janeway does not play around she's like what did you say to me and I love it it's great um
00:49:19
Speaker
And then I put my last two were Technobabble because thank goodness the doctor has the ability to implement a Thoron pulse to expel the vulture alien. He's got all these tools of around him. Like, is that standard issue? He has a device that can just institute a Thoron pulse? I mean, it's the doctor. Yeah, it's just...
00:49:40
Speaker
I guess we're screwed, Charisse, if this alien visits us in our moment of death. We really are. but We're screwed without the doctor because he's always coming up with something. That's true. And then the last one is it's a classic Star Trek trope from the original series. It's a Gene Roddenberry core belief.
00:49:58
Speaker
And that is God is a jerk ah because what is this? But you're being in the moment of death. You think you're going to heaven. no no no, Just a parasite wanting to feed on your life force.
00:50:11
Speaker
Forever. Yeah. And what's interesting is that that trope really only works I would, if this episode was just about, you know what Like if the father appears at the end of act one, I think this is a pretty boring episode.
00:50:27
Speaker
who Or it loses a lot of its energy. No, no, I totally agree with you. What makes it fun is the time loops. Yes. What makes it fun is the mystery of the time loops to find out they're not actually time loops. Like all of that is what adds to it.
00:50:38
Speaker
It's kind of the pulpiness of the episode of like, it's just a bunch of ideas and the emotional through line isn't really there, right? Because Janeway is like skeptical the whole hour. Like she's, she's all she really is is happy at the beginning. She's like, look at my crew. We're all bonding. That was a fun talent show.
00:50:55
Speaker
ah and then at the end, she's like, I'm so horny. Chakotay. Let's go celebrate a bottle of champagne. That's a lot of champagne for two people. Yeah, exactly.
00:51:06
Speaker
Not even sent the hall. Not even sent the hall. Yeah. So I just, uh, yeah, it, it works. It works the way it's structured. Anyway, worst Trek tropes. I have two. I also have two.
00:51:19
Speaker
The first one is not using technology. So when Chakotay is doing the rescue breathing, I was like, what are you doing? Don't you have hypo sprays for this? Like, what are you, I don't understand. and then And then like after he's done with the rescue breathing,
00:51:32
Speaker
He gets a hypo spray and sprays her and she wakes up. I was like, buddy. And it just was like, this was one of my main complaints when we were reviewing when we were reviewing the last season of Discovery, where I kept being like, why don't they just ask Zora?
00:51:44
Speaker
Zora could figure this out in one second. Why are they like, let me go to the ancient texts in this library in space. what Just ask Zora. Zora has the sum total of knowledge. From the last 300 years?
00:51:55
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Just ask her. yeah Do you remember this from 300 years ago? Cool. What planet was it? Great. What's the star map? Awesome. Can you chart a course? Thanks, Duke. Like, it's easy. So I just, that was a worst trick trope where I was like, although the drama of it is what made it spectacular, right? But I just was like,
00:52:11
Speaker
that That's what that hype was. There's a hypospray right there, but then he used it. So like, I guess I have to, that's like a half C's of worst track trope. And then um similar to that, another half C's is, is Janeway being choked when they have phasers. So that's the same idea of like, why aren't you using your tech? But again, so freaking dramatic where you're like, oh my gosh, is he really going choke her to death?
00:52:30
Speaker
And then he does. Yeah. But also it's like, this is a This is a dream or like it's a nightmare that she's living through. And that's pretty horrific way to go. It's horrific, but we don't know it's a nightmare at that point. We're just like, what is going on?
00:52:44
Speaker
And then the the second Trek trope, the second full one is poor security protocols. I put why the F is both the captain and first officer on an away mission together.
00:52:57
Speaker
I don't know. and is That's just, that's, that's the worst Trek trope. Like what are y'all doing? For sure. And I put shuttle crash as well. I'm like, why do they have shuttles? They always crash. Like,
00:53:11
Speaker
They beamed straight to the planet. No, they couldn't, obviously. But we don't know why they're going to this planet, right? Like, that it's all very vague. it's yeah It's a worse Trek trope because they're like, we just need to weigh into the story.
00:53:23
Speaker
Right. Fine, but that's... You're getting dinged for that. And then the other one I had was Neelix. What's his deal? That's just the worst trope, is Neelix? Yeah, Neelix.
00:53:34
Speaker
but and So Neelix loves Tuvok, and yet... He complains to Janeway that Tuvok performed at the talent show, which presumably Neelix set up.
00:53:46
Speaker
Of course Neelix that up. He's the morale officer. So why the hell is he going to Janeway saying, can you make it so that Tuvok doesn't do his poetry again or whatever was? Because he thought it was really boring. Yeah, but it's like, you're the morale officer.
00:54:01
Speaker
So you should be bothering Tuvok with this. Leave Janeway alone. You're not good at your job. So... So is the is the worst trope Neelix is not good at his job or is the worst trope Neelix?
00:54:15
Speaker
Neelix. Okay. Just got it top of line. I think I've used him as a best Trek trope before because sometimes- don't think you have. Maybe not. think he's always been a worst Trek trope, I believe. I don't think there's been a single time when you haven't been like worst trope Neelix.
00:54:29
Speaker
And talking about it a Voyager episode, at least. You it's you know what, though? Credit to ah the the performance and the writers. It's consistent. Yes, it is consistent. Yeah. ah Most cosplayable character or moment?
00:54:44
Speaker
I picked Janeway. I love her future bun. This is my favorite Janeway hairstyle of all the hairstyles they they use on her throughout the seven seasons. Her future bun? She's got like the way her hair is. It's like two French rolls on the side that go down into a ponytail. Yeah, it's really cool.
00:55:01
Speaker
who Is that the best Janeway hairstyle? Oh, we should talk about this now. Because we're not going to have another opportunity. The best Janeway hairstyle. So they do this for season three. And then after this, they just give her a bun, like a bob, not a bun. They give her a bob and then she just wears that forever. Doesn't she just in the end, she has her normal hair. Yeah. She has her normal hair from, I think season four to the end.
00:55:24
Speaker
Yeah. And then season one, she has, I call it the the pumpkin. They make her head look like a pumpkin and that's not good. These are kind of the styles. And yeah, geez, that's a great call.
00:55:39
Speaker
Kate Mulgrew has a very pretty face. She's a very pretty woman as Janeway here. So um it's tough to say. is What's weird was when she started doing her normal hair, i remember watching at the time being like, that fits.
00:55:51
Speaker
Like she looks more comfortable. yeah But I think you're right. This is the best one. I agree. ah what Will we say that the pilot the pilot bun is the worst Janeway look?
00:56:02
Speaker
Yes. I will say the pumpkin is the worst look. Maybe her most futuristic look, but a future we don't want to visit. I would say, though, personally, the second best Janeway hair look is the...
00:56:17
Speaker
the messed up hair. So after she's crashed and her hair is kind of messed up, kind of hot, whenever her hair is in distress, kind of when it's hanging over her face a little bit, that's hot. I remember in, um, deadlock, you know, you got the messed up Voyager, she's kind of hot there with the, with the, the dangling.
00:56:35
Speaker
So whenever she's in distress in distress, the dangling hair, when it's a little disheveled, that hot which is kind of hard to do, right? Because as hairstylist, you make the hair look pretty. So you have to know exactly how to make the hair look.
00:56:48
Speaker
purposefully disheveled, like, or not purposefully. You have to see it like, what would it kind of look like if it just happened this way? But you're carefully pulling out each hair, which is so impressive. So I don't know if you knew this, but there's an executive named Carrie McCluggage,
00:57:02
Speaker
who worked at Paramount at the time, obsessed with hair. Really? So but they would do reshoots. They had to reshoot chunks of Enterprise, the pilot, because of Scott Bakula's hair.
00:57:13
Speaker
He was obsessed with hair. That's why Terry Farrell's changing her hairstyle randomly in Deep Space Nine at certain points. hair, hair, hair. He was a big hair guy. And I read it. i remember reading about this for many, many, many years. I had never seen a picture of the guy. And then he's interviewed in one of these Star Trek documentaries.
00:57:28
Speaker
Perfect silver fox head of hair. Like, like, I'm like, all right, this guy's very hair focused. And, you know, television, there's a, there's a, there's an idea that there's hair actors that they're, they're really just television is mostly talking heads.
00:57:45
Speaker
one of the ways that audiences connect with people is like, do they have good hair? And so certain TV actors, because there is for a long time, at least a divide between like, well, that person is an actor. They can do movies and theater. This person just good for TV. And then on TV, it's like, are they a good television actor or are they just a hair actor? And,
00:58:04
Speaker
And Nathan Fillion is a, is a good actor, but he definitely falls into the hair actor category. And so you'll know what I'm talking about. Do they have is if you look at them, are they amazing head of hair?
00:58:14
Speaker
And that's a, that's a big thing. So they were obsessed with Janeway's hair. That was a big issue of contention as well. So I just want to point that out. So now it's time for the line must be drawn. Yeah.
00:58:24
Speaker
It's almost time for that. What's your most cosplayable character or moment? I'm with you. I'll go with. I didn't have one really. Cause I didn't like the Admiral's. I didn't like the Admiral's look. There wasn't many, there wasn't much to choose from in this episode. I didn't like that costume. It would be fun if someone could do like a Huckleberry Finn version of Harry Kim with rolled up sleeves and like no socks or boots and his pants are rolled up and he's got like purple stains around his all the fruits. Yeah. From all the fruits. Maybe that would be a fun one to do. So yeah, I thought you were going to say you wanted to be the matrix.
00:59:01
Speaker
The alien vortex. Oh, I forgot one of my notes. So remember when they think they're in a time loop and they look out and they see ah a spatial distortion? Yeah. That was a reused element. That was the the anti-time disruption in all good things that they were looking out the window, which is pretty crazy.
00:59:20
Speaker
So they just use the same scene? like They use the same effect. It might have even been the same optical overlaid on the shuttle view screen. I'm not sure. i didn't recognize that angle necessarily, but it was the same visual effect. they do Yeah, that works for me. I mean, like, it's space.
00:59:38
Speaker
That's right. but they We should see some repeats. Yeah, but that was because even in that scene, which was way at the beginning, Chakotay was like, I think we should fly into it. And Janeway was like, no. He was like, but it's there for a reason. We probably should enter it. And she was like, nope, that seems wrong. And I'm not doing it. Turn around.
00:59:54
Speaker
So that is television writing, right? So like people try to write, well, how would you really do it? And you might even do like Janeway might consider that. But because you need Janeway to be skeptical of everything that's going on, she can't consider it. like it So they're starting that and idea right there. Yeah. Where Chakotay's pushing, that's one tell.
01:00:14
Speaker
And then she's against it right away. And also who flies into a distortion? That's right. That's silly. Yeah. And you might see today, other maybe an earlier draft, they were because it's the same effect, maybe they use that same effect because Chakotay literally references it and they cut that. I don't know. You never know what, with these things, why they do certain things. But anyway, that's just a little writing thing right there that you can tell.
01:00:38
Speaker
ah Now it's time for the line must be drawn. Yeah. Great lines. I have a lot. ah what okay no The first one was when Jane, when they're in the shuttle and Jane was like, maybe I could stand with an apple on my head and you could phaser it off. And Chakotay is like, great idea. If I miss, I get to be captain. I just love that. Like that's just part of the banter that I just really enjoyed.
01:00:58
Speaker
um And we already mentioned this. We may have wandered into some kind of repeating time loop. I'm going to scan for temporal anomalies. Yeah. like Let's hit that protocol. um i This one's from from Papa Janeway.
01:01:12
Speaker
People have been looking for ghosts for centuries, but the technology doesn't exist to find them yet. I like that twist. like I like that idea a lot because people have been searching for ghosts using technology. And I love the idea of like, oh, well, it just hasn't been invented. like We just need different kinds of technology.
01:01:27
Speaker
And this episode was written just a few years before the ghost hunters appeared all over Cable. Oh, that's interesting. I didn't even think about the timeline of that. But like this, is but it's been a thing. Like when did Ghostbusters come out? Folks, we still don't have the technology to detect ghosts. I'm just saying the the the cottage and industry of all the ghost hunter TV shows that are out there that claim to have the technology to see ghosts because we have cameras everywhere.
01:01:54
Speaker
So I'm just saying like this episode is written before the explosion of those shows. And maybe inspired it. Who knows? That's right. um I like this line from Janeway from the memorial service where she says, we're too much a part of each other. I won't abandon them.
01:02:08
Speaker
I need to know what will happen. And then she says all these things. this This scene, I actually do remember, like that line I remember because she's like, what happens to this character? What happens that character? What happens that character? And it's like having seen the whole show, you know the answers to those things.
01:02:20
Speaker
Well, Tom and B'Elanna stopped fighting long enough to form friendship. Like, oh, do they? Yes. Yes, they will. Sort of. Sort of. They'll still keep fighting. That's right. And also having sex so loudly that Seven of Nine complains about it.
01:02:35
Speaker
so Seven Nine was so weird about that. Like, oh my gosh. And then also like, you know, I want to see Kes grow and develop. It's like, little do you know, this is her last season on the ship. You know, she's going to be out of the ship and you're not going to see her grow, but you will see her as a really bitter, angry old woman, but you're not going to see her grow.
01:02:51
Speaker
I mean, just like, I thought that was just, i don't know. I like that. And then the line where she says, my father never tried to shield me from life. Why would he try to shield me from death? And then she says, you're not my father. And I put in my notes, Darth Vader.
01:03:03
Speaker
You know, it's like, you're not my father. um And then that last line where she says, go back to hell, coward. It's like, that was just one extra jab, one last verbal jab that was totally unnecessary. He was already leaving, but she was like, I need to get the last, last word.
01:03:19
Speaker
Yeah. conversation so that line really kind of sets up like this episode is so surprising to me because it's like a key part of the jay jacote chainway good thing that i had never remembered but it also it it signals what the show becomes because janeway does become like john mclean where or like Tossing off these one line, like one line, go back to like, she's really selling it.
01:03:52
Speaker
um So i there's that. ah It's so weird because also this episode was very much. OK, one thing I did on on long haul flight. because I'm terrified of flying, but I did have the internet access and I found so much soothing in just reading through every episode, like Memory Alpha. If you scroll to the bottom of their episode pages, they have all these interview segments and snippets, stuff I read at the top of our show.
01:04:18
Speaker
But you can just read through like charting the course of Voyager of like everyone getting tired of doing Star Trek. And it's weird. And then like Brandon brought anyway, that's not the point. The point is like Jerry Taylor in next generation.
01:04:30
Speaker
And then early in, in, in Voyager was always talking about how ah much of a weirdo Brandon Braga was. And like, he'd give them all these interesting ideas and like in a loving way. And she's like, he's out there. And was like, it's and and another interesting idea from Brandon. And this seems like it was her attempt to do an, a Brandon Braga episode.
01:04:51
Speaker
of like with time loops and all this weird stuff uh and like touch on it and i wouldn't be surprised if what a lot of these ideas were things that he was kind of pitching around that they couldn't quite make work and this is her way of tying it all together but somehow that line go back to hell cow i can't imagine jerry taylor writing that line for jade wade season one you know what i mean like yeah that's This is like clearly the show trying to push it a different direction ah based on what Kate Mulgrew was giving them or what they knew she could do.
01:05:23
Speaker
ah The other lines that I had was for some reason, I love the I laughed the way that Kate Mulgrew says, Kes, can you sense me?
01:05:35
Speaker
And ah the last two I have were, let me tell you this, we could stand here for all eternity and I will never choose to go with you. I'm like, that is a quintessential Janeway line.
01:05:49
Speaker
300 years later, you know, she's going to be sitting right there in the galley. Do not challenge Catherine Janeway to a staring contest. She may not win, but you won't either. Exactly. Yes. Doesn't always win.
01:06:02
Speaker
but if she doesn't win, everyone loses. And then the aliens line, because this is the core idea of the episode. It's not like setting up a big bad, but it's, you know, something to think about.
01:06:13
Speaker
You're in a dangerous profession, Captain. You face death every day. There will be another time and I'll be waiting. Eventually you'll come into my matrix and you will nourish me for a long, long time. So creepy.
01:06:24
Speaker
Yeah. Would this episode be a fun hollow novel to play out? I put heck no, this would be so dramatic to die over and over and over. Although I also thought this is kind of what games are like though.
01:06:37
Speaker
Like you die, like you die a bunch of times, but when you die, you reset to the same place. You don't reset to like a whole different thing. And then die different way. Yeah. If my dad appeared, I wouldn't, there would be no warmth.
01:06:50
Speaker
which just people Well, there wasn't any warmth here either. So that'd be similar, right? But I mean, it'd be like dad, space dad, ghost dad. Who amongst us, if they saw their father appear through vortex saying like, follow me would be like, all right, dad, I think. ah Let's go. Yeah. If you pulled the nation on that, it would be a low percentage.
01:07:10
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:13
Speaker
ah The Anton Caridian Award for Best Performance. I put Janeway's dad. ah Really? I like Janeway's dad, yeah. I felt like he... Yeah, I don't know. i just I liked his performance. I liked how he was very... um Before he turned, but even when he turned creepy, I like how how convincing he was and just, I don't know. He just seems, he seemed sincerely to believe what he was trying to get her to believe.
01:07:38
Speaker
And then in the end, when he switches it over and he's like really creepy, he seemed sincerely creepy. Like almost like a serial killer. Like he was able to like flip the switch between like, I'm friends with you and now I'm going to eat your face.
01:07:50
Speaker
So yeah, that's who I put. It'd either be that or it'd be Janeway again, but I put Janeway for the Shatner. So. I put Cable and Gru for both. Oh, okay. Well, I can go for that too. Like um I see that having her be both.
01:08:01
Speaker
I think this episode doesn't work without her going from zero to 10. And she's over and over and over. She goes to 11 actually. and Oh, oh, oh.
01:08:15
Speaker
I put the Shatner for all of her death scenes. All of her death scenes. They were so dramatic. But all the scenes where she's being the ghost on the ship when she's flirting with Chakotay on the shuttle. And at the end, her scene, the opening scene where she's like walking through the corridors and she's like got a spring in her step. She winks at a crew member. She's like, Hey, I see you. That was great. And then she has time to put up with Neelix's bullshit.
01:08:46
Speaker
Total Neelix bullshit. Like that, doesn't let that ruin her day. so like, and then she's crying in the memorial service. She's defiant against this ghost dad that, you know, she's like, I'm not going with you.
01:08:58
Speaker
Get your hands off me. I thought, you know, the whole range, we got the whole thing. she She ate up both awards. You couldn't give it to anybody else. She sucked I'll agree with you there. the oxygen.
01:09:09
Speaker
um but a tour de force let's let's be clear as much as we talk about avery brooks doing it in far beyond the stars right this is like the fun side of that come on yeah it's all of it uh shoot to thrill most exciting image or sequence i put when um when the warp core exploded when the shuttle exploded.
01:09:34
Speaker
Like, I mean, when when she got choked out, I was like, oh my gosh. But when the shuttle exploded, I was like, ah like there wasn't even time. There wasn't time to see it coming for me. So that one for me was like very...
01:09:45
Speaker
Yeah. And then every time we saw the matrix, which I think we only saw twice, we saw the swirly vortex. I kind of, I was, yeah, I'm with you. It's the shuttle explosion, but I'm also like, is it really just act one? It's so propulsive. There's so much going on. Yeah. All of it. It's like, yeah. I mean, if we're going to do, if the sequence counts as like multiple, multiple, multiple scenes, sure.
Starfleet Academy and Character Dynamics
01:10:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
01:10:05
Speaker
yeah It's all of it because all of it's like mind blowing. What part of this will you teach at Starfleet Academy? Well, I put that the tachyon bursts will dissolve any temporal phenomena.
01:10:17
Speaker
So I feel like every ship, shuttle and combat should just just burst out some tachyon beams from time to time. just Well, tachyons are dangerous. Tachyons move faster than light.
01:10:31
Speaker
So that's what that's why they're able to disrupt temporal anomalies. Theoretically, um that would be tough to carry on your person, though. You'd have your cells, you know, you'd rip your cells apart.
01:10:42
Speaker
I mean, not if it's coming out from you, like oh out and away from you. Yeah, but you don't want to be too near Tachyons. don't I think doctor could figure it out. You want safety of a fake geranium alloy. I feel like the doctor could figure it out.
01:10:57
Speaker
But that's what I wrote down in the Starfleet. Tachyons would rip his matrix apart. He couldn't survive in Tachyon field. What did you put? That there's an alien that preys on on life on the moment of death.
01:11:10
Speaker
I mentioned Lower Decks, but we have at least two examples, and I'm pretty sure there's other ones that I'm not recalling immediately. But like clearly there are beings, aliens in the Star Trek parlance, that are able to detect when life is faltering or something and appear to like take that energy, which maybe that is...
01:11:34
Speaker
and impedes philosophy or helps with philosophical discussion of like, what is life? What is death? like When we say shed our mortal coil, is something there to pick up the remnants?
01:11:46
Speaker
you know like They could go in all these different directions, but like, so i I think it has something to do with like, there's when you die, it might actually be quite terrifying because something might be there to swallow you up um and you might be cognizant of it.
01:12:01
Speaker
could this episode have been hornier and would that have made it better? I think this episode was perfectly hornier and it is one of the things that makes the episode great. Yeah.
01:12:13
Speaker
So I'm going to mention a friend of the show, Laurie Ulster. She was on the Star Trek Salon podcast earlier in the year. don't you go check out that interview? But like, she was asked like, what's your head cannon about something that's just for you?
01:12:27
Speaker
And she was like, I think after resolutions, right? Janeway went to Chakotay and she was like, let's Do it. We do it one time. We came so close on the planet. Let's not let this center intervene.
01:12:41
Speaker
and I think that can't work in the face of CODA because CODA does not seem like two people who have consummated this thing. m This seems like the, this seems like the beat after CODA remarkably.
01:12:55
Speaker
And I think that if you've ever been in a situation where there's been sexual tension and then you do it, it diffuses the tension. Right. And I feel like, yeah, I feel like shattered,
01:13:08
Speaker
Somewhere between then and shattered. I can buy that Chakotay is lying to the season, the pre-pilot Janeway version, where it's like some lines we never cross. Like I could see him liner in that moment. Cause why not?
01:13:21
Speaker
But I choose to believe him. And, ah and I think that that relationship ah really does seem like two people who are like, we should do it. We should do it. Yeah. They never do it. Cause when he says that line to her, she's like, okay. Yeah.
01:13:36
Speaker
You know, she's like a little disappointed. Like, okay. Well, and then she like shakes his hand, I think. yeah I think she's like, okay, well, I guess we can't make out goodbye then. I guess it'll just have to be a handshake. you The life that springs out of Kate Mulgrew when she doesn't have to deal with seven of nine Jerry Ryan stuff in Voyager. That's what I'm to be checking now as I rewatch these episodes. Because unburdened from being the old lady on the show, she comes to life.
Episode Rating and Future Content Preview
01:14:04
Speaker
Yeah. um Anyway, so you don't have anything for that one.
01:14:09
Speaker
So Trek, marry or kill Coda. Oh, this is definitely a marry for me. This is such a delightful episode. What about for you? i'm goingnna I'm going to join you on Mary. i was If you had said this is a very strong trek, I might have joined you only because i don't think the ending biffs it.
01:14:27
Speaker
I just think the ending, that there's like two or three acts of like such intensity that the kind of like talking... ending to it doesn't quite do justice to it. And then like, let's just go in this catamaran and get drunk. doesn' it It doesn't quite feel like it hits it correctly.
01:14:47
Speaker
But where' i just said most the episode has great scenes. We were talking about it effusively. It has to be a Mary for sure. And i'm what a surprise. Yeah. You surprised me twice today.
01:15:00
Speaker
And what a way to end the captain is dead month. ah Who would have thought that we ended on such a, such a fun high note next week though. It's the official end of April.
01:15:12
Speaker
i just want to get it out of death stuff. sheri so Well, it's like spring, right? So it's like rebirth, new life, mixing it up. So as of this recording, there are 40 episodes of Star Trek Prodigy out there, a show that I don't have the heart to kill any episodes of.
01:15:29
Speaker
So they're all provisionally Treks. But I've got a couple of Prodigy experts joining me next week. We're going look at the 40, not like go through each one. but We're going to try to see which ones are actually Mary's.
01:15:42
Speaker
so that's what we're going to do next week as Star Trek Prodigy special. And then on May 1st, we're going to drop our monthly animated spotlight with Lower Decks. Two episodes, Reflections and Hear All, Trust Nothing. That's the episode where the Cerritos goes to Deep Space Nine and we get an a visitor, Norman Shimmerman, ah in there, potentially breaking canon. We'll find out.
01:16:02
Speaker
ah So again, just getting away from the nasty death business. Sharice, where can people see you outside of Check, Marry, Kill? You can find me on YouTube by typing in at the Sci-Fi Savage. And you can join us every week when we talk all things Star Trek in my weekly Savage stream.
01:16:18
Speaker
And we're Check Mary K Pod on social media, checkmarykillpod.com on the web. If you feel so inclined, drop us a review, rate us five stars, perhaps, wherever you listen to the podcast. So until next week, TMK out.
01:16:31
Speaker
Bye.