The Void

Hey, Joe. Hi. So, we're back in season seven of Voyager, which is very close to where we began on untitled Star Trek project, and this is season seven, episode 15, The Void. And it's an episode that we've talked about a little bit because it is for me, I think, at least, an episode about Voyager as a TV show more than anything else. I know that Voyager did not have a writer's room in the same way that DS9 did. DS 9. They all sat around. They were on a whiteboard and they were putting stories together and making a season. Now, I know that didn't happen with Voyager, but I like to think for this one week only that the Voyager writers all sat down and went, oh, we really fudged this, didn't we? I'll tell you what, let's write an episode about what this show could have been all along and put it out towards the end on a run because that's exactly what this is. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a show that seems to critique the approach that Voyager has taken. And, and, you know, like, I've joked a couple of times about Star Trek Voyager being Star Trek, the Next Generation, only more right wing. And part of the reason for that is that Voyager turns up in the Delta Quadrant and is immediately beset by alien adversaries. And throughout the run of the show, we get new aliens introduced from year to year, you know, we start with a Kazon and the Vedians but we end up with things like the Hirogen and the Vardoir and the Melon and the Borg, and each time a new set of aliens is introduced, they're our enemies. You know, they're the people that we're fighting against. And so, we're as Star Trek, the next generation, was sometimes wordy and worthy and a bit boring because it was about negotiations and, and, you know, like embassy stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was about building and maintaining a federation and assisting people. And Voyager could always have been that in a more hostile and difficult space. It could always have been a show about forming alliances and assisting people. You know, like just the fact that voyages in the Delta Quadrant there isn't a federation, there's no one to give them orders or send them on missions. That doesn't mean that they couldn't turn up at a planet which had a problem and help them. But overwhelmingly, Voyager is constantly raising shields and issuing threats and things like that. And we see that a bit here, it didn't need to be like that. They raised the issue in an episode we've already done in alliances where Janeway did start building bridges with races and trying to, you know, help them get over their conflict with each other and then it all blew up in her face and the conclusion she drew at the end of the episode is, well, fuck those people. We're not going to have any alliances with anybody. We'll cling on to the principles of the federation and just head for earth. And then we never spoke about it again until now. Yeah, and that's not really the principles of the Federation anyway. There's no federation principles. We said at the time when we rolled and watched that episode that that was a weird characterisation of what the Federation was about because the Federation was all about making alliances and coalitions and reaching out and forming relationships. And we don't really get that in forager, but we do get that here. But it leans into something that really irritates me about this show, and that is Janeway's inconsistency. Now, don't get me wrong, I think Kate Mulgar is a wonderful performer. She can do no wrong. But unfortunately, she can only say the words that she's given. And in alliances, she said, no, no alliances. And then the 2nd she's pushed into this very dark region of space and I don't mean dark as in scary. I mean, dark as in dark. She goes, quick, we must make alliances with lots of people to try and pull our resources and get out of it. I want someone to say, excuse me? Do you not remember before when you lectured us all on the bridge and told us we weren't doing this sort of thing? Very, very strange. Yeah. I think she's not the only character who suffers from that sort of weird inconsistency even in this episode. But saying all of that. I do think the void is, it's not top tier Voyager, but it is an episode it's full of incident. It is grabbing hold of that idea of thrusting Voyager into a dangerous space and them having to cope with what is going on there. It manages to reach a conclusion within 45 minutes of how to do that in a way the show hasn't managed in 7 years. So bravo to what's the fella's name? Raff the writer. Raf Green. Bravo, Raf Green. you should have been showrunning the entire show. We would have got home a lot quicker. And weirdly enough, for us, episode has to do a lot. It has to establish this space, give us all these different aliens that are fighting each other and then do some surprising things with, um, you know, tricks and people beaming onto each other's ships and action and all of this. It doesn't feel rushed. I felt as if it had a nice measured pace. It had moments of conflict between characters on Voyager, which is always really nice. My only real complaint about this episode was I couldn't see much of it. Yeah. What's that, Nathan? I have to agree with you. I think this is a good solid episode of Voyager. It's not spectacular, and it does some things that I like a great deal, but fuck it looks miserable. It looks so dreary. doesn't it? It's really weird. I've never felt more like an old man watching the telly. I said to when I was sort of saying to my rough. I can't really see what's happening on the screen. So I turned the contrast from 50 to 100 and I could just about see people's outlines. I'm like, what are you thinking? It's bad. And just because it's dark. Like, some people, I think, found the lighting on board the Titan in Picard series 3, they found that a bit dark and a bit tiresome but the secret was having a heap of black in the frame, but lighting people and lighting their faces, and having some visual interest, everything in this is so muddy. In fact, the one set that works is the bridge because there are things lit up behind them. But it doesn't help as well that all the sets on Voyager are great. You wait till we press play. All the aliens are either brown or gray. So that doesn't help. So there's no light coming from anywhere. There's no nothing's popping. It's so weird. I got halfway through this and I was like, you know what? This isn't a bad episode, but I really wanted to end. I want to watch something. That's gonna excite my eyeballs a little bit. Yeah, yeah. You know, like in a way, this does do the Star Trek thing that I always want Star Trek to do, which is to put weird things on screen. Um, but it certainly doesn't do impressive visuals at all. It looks really bad and really boring. But I think that is a big complaint because we are watching television. we do want to we do want to see nice things. That aside, you know, if I was jammer, I'd give this a healthy 3 stars and say this is a this is a good stab at showing what went wrong with the series. effort. I think we should watch this. What do you reckon? I think we should. Let me count us in. Five, 4, 32, one, and we're off. Okay, establishing Voyager Shop as usual. I think we're in CG now though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So this scene's clearly here to kind of contrast with the scarcity that we get once we get into the void, so this is a lavish dinner cooked by seven. And I kind of like the surprise that it's 7 because we get, you know, my compliments to the chef and then everyone looks over to 7 and seven. 7 makes clear that the only way she can get decent food is to cook it herself. And Neelix kind of adorably goes, I should be insulted by that, but the food's too delicious. I mean, when you see what Neelix serves up later, I know things are pretty bad by that point, but it doesn't... It looks like they've got a sort of vol au vant case with a bit of beef jammed inside it. It doesn't look too lavish. No, no. Is it a sort of very modern beef Wellington? don't know. Yeah, it's your favourite thing though. Nathan, isn't it? Voyager banter. Yeah, it's what you come to the show for. But I mean, 7's doing the Voyager banter. It would be kind of nicer if the other actors were kind of being more scared. Do you know what I mean? Like, and certainly that line, but, you know, where Tom Paris is going, I need salt, and she says, I'll replicate you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you fucking Philistine. No, it's awesome. My favourite bit was Chester saying, could I have some of the Pinot Noir, please? And she goes, no, all the points have been perfectly paired by the courses. You get what you're given. You're ungrateful shit. And then look, and then they all go. I know. That happens twice this episode. But one of the things I think that this, this does is, you know people talk about the fact that Voyagers in space, but we never get any sense of any scarcity, you know, there's the, you know, the replication. Every now and again. They'll lean on lean into it every now and again. Oh, we have to go and find some deuterium. We have to go to the planet and get some scrubs for Neelix Kitchen. Yeah, something like that, you know. It's not very clear how rare deuterium is, is it? Because in demon and course oblivion, it was impossible to find but in the dialogue, this episode we get told it's absolutely everywhere. So. Well, sir, are you suggesting Voyager might be a little inconsistent with its details? Perhaps they should have a whiteboard in the writer's room. Maybe they should have a ride, is it? Now, we just went to the bridge there for a second, which is the least gray of our very gray sets, but it's still pretty gray. Yeah, so that, I think that that's the most successful set. Once they properly turn the lights out, because we just ended up in the void, you know, in this opening sequence, and the 1st thing that happens is we get fired on. And then we go back to Voyager and we start firing back immediately. And, you know, it just reminded me how different that approach is from Star Trek the Next Generation. We wouldn't automatically fire back. We could, we'd find some way of communicating, but we don't do that here and we generally don't do that on Voyager. I couldn't help but notice that the enormous orifice that sort of sucked us into the void was in fact gray as well. Yeah, it's boring. And then when we go through, there's not even gray. It's just black. There's not even stars. Now, what but why couldn't they have made it a dangerous region of space? You know, lots of rocks and asteroids and things. It just looked really interesting. I like the idea of the void, and obviously the title has something to do with a moral void that exists there as well. No one can afford to do the right thing. Yeah, yeah, don't you think? And the fact that it's scarcity because there's literally nothing. There's absolutely nothing. There's no resources. Whatever reserves you have on your ship. That's it. That's all that's being taken from one ship to another. That's why they're destroying each other, why they're all betraying each other. Yeah, yeah. That's an interesting idea. Yeah, that's a good dramatic idea. Visually, however, it's absolutely disastrous. So bad. And because we can't see out the windows to see how dark it is just turn all the fucking lights down on the ship. I mean, this is sort of standard red alert lighting, isn't it, for the bridge, do you think? I'm sorry to look like an old mound again. I'm like, what's happening on the bridge? I can't really see. There is at least some blue and red in the bridge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm very happy. displays and stuff. and you can see people's faces. Do you know what? We should, no, actually, you and me, we should take a lesson from this, Nathan. Because we complained so much about those overlit bridge sets in TNG. Now they've turned all the lights off. We're still not happy. But, you know, the Titan is very dark in Picard series three, but it's not... I don't remember it being a problem, though. No, no. Yeah, no, no, I agree. No, you had a fabulous bar. Remember that bar they had the whole episode in where they were having the long dialogue too. And the bar was all lit up, so everyone was lit from below. Yeah, yeah. Oh, beautiful. Uh-oh, all the supplies are being stolen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is really great. I love that guy walking back from his computer terminal, which has completely disappeared. It's got to go, well, one of my favourite things about watching Voyager episodes is the Rando extras and their sort of dramatic reactions to things. Nothing will ever stop the woman beat the woman who goes, seal those doors. That's our one line and the whole thing. She's wonderful. Display shoes in. So apparently the only things they've got a value are on decks 57 and 8. The rest of the day. Yeah. Although engineering isn't on any of those decks, is it? No, oh, they could have stolen the warp core. No, they stole one of the terminals. anyway, so I don't quite know what's happening. Did they steal all the food? I can't remember. It said they said 90% of our food reserves went. Oh, that must be Neelix's, you know, vegetables grow real. The airplane is on the root. Yeah, that's awesome. When you're desperate, all right, Leona? It looks very enticing. But I mean, I think instead of telling, and I think that it is deliberate that we go straight to this red alert scene, see, this is normal lighting, isn't it? This is absolutely normal lighting. What do you think of this guy? So one of the things that we said last week was that we'd be doing lots of ratings on the Beaumar scale. Where do you think Valen comes on the bow mask? I mean, he's not ridiculous enough to be on the Beaumont scale really? It's just sort of half sort of Cardassian, a little bit Jem Hadarish, and is, you know, just Matt Gray. Well, no, he's a bit shinier. Like he's actually shinier than a Cardassian. He's not the same colour as a Kardashian. He's a little bit bronze there in that light as well, a little bit brown and a bit shiny. And I, you know, this is an incredibly good performance. This guy has been in a bunch of stuff. He doesn't do any other Star Trek, but... He's sort of slimy, isn't he? I bit... Gold Ducashir. you know, you're very aware he's a bit villainous. But it's charming enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's quite reasonable. I mean, he is proposing an alliance kind of of his own here, isn't he? You know, he comes and approaches them because they've managed to fight off the other ships and he wants some photon torpedoes and you know, like he wants to exchange things and then they refuse. I think he's okay. I think he's okay. And I guess mostly because the shape of his face is still visible in his mouth and stuff. I think the best. alien species we get in this is the return of the Melons that look like a massive pooze. Oh, just because they're so ridiculous. And they're always sort of comic performances. So they stand out a little bit. This guy's all right. Maybe it's a 5 on the Bomar scale. Nothing too outrageous. A five? A five? Yeah, 4 or five, I think. Well, rate them all as we go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's basically his ridges and things are whatever they've had in stock. They just called out the stock and shoved it on his face. Well, the same with the nose looks like a bit of a male on nose as well. You know, the sort of weird nostrils and stuff. But yeah, he's not too bad. He's... is absolutely morally clear here. We do not trade weapons. And that's been that has been a standard thing. Do you remember? Like they tended not to trade technology at all, but certainly not weapons. Um, Yeah, yeah. So, so she's already starting to demonstrate that she has principles. And it, really, it's Valen here who, where it's about the void, you know, you can't really afford to have these principles. Morality won't keep your life support systems running, is what he says. She says, and her wonderful voice. There are compromises. I am not willing to make. Yeah, but he just says not yet. You know, this is a moral void this place. Do you think this has legs beyond a single episode? No. I do. I think they could not a season, but maybe maybe like the DS96 part arc. I think they could have done something tasty with 6 episodes. But I think what this exists to do is to kind of contrast with the rest of Voyager. And so I like it doing that, just a little parable about people. Do you know what I mean? Like the reason I think this works is within one episode we see them arrive. We get the situation explained because one of the things he does so deftly, and I think you kind of alluded to it before, is it has to explain this world and its rules, and it does it really well. It sets up the kind of moral conundrum. We make the right decision and we watch people learn to cooperate and it falters and there's reversals and stuff, and then we escape. And so telling that story, I think, in 45 minutes. You could have done, you know, like a 6 part thing, but I think you lose something, maybe. You know, the individual parts would be less interesting than this as a whole, I think. Which is interesting, but not all that interesting. No, but like it does tell, it does tell a Star Trek story, which is kind of rare. And you see, even this, I think, is really good. The 1st failed attempt works really well to illustrate the stakes to show how close they are, how they're not stupid to imagine that they could escape. Is Voyager there in that black cloud? Oh, yeah, there's a little light. I think in terms of plotting, this really shows up a lot of other Voyager episodes for what it achieves, because they're, like, we have the scene with, was it Galen? Is that his name? Where he explains what the void is. Then you have the scene in Astrometrics, which explains how they get in and out of what they're going to have to do. Like you said, then you have the scene where they try and get out and then another ship comes along and tries to take their supplies and it does it all so efficiently. In a way, the forger episodes rarely do, you know? Yeah, this is really good, isn't it? At that moment, you're about to see stars through that sort of... Oh, my God, stars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we're totally there with so close. Yeah, yeah. It's good. It is true. does Harry get a line in this? I just saw him there at the console. Oh, maybe. I can't really remember. Yeah. What would have been very unfortunate, Nathan, would have been if they had been stuck in this voyage for the rest of the series. to be lost in, you know, a dangerous reach of the space once was unfortunate, but this is just taking a piss now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now we lost inner space withinner space. Did you think somebody should have said the line, though? Someone should have said, this is just like our situation. in the Delta Quadra? No. If it was cursewood trick, somebody would say it. Oh, look at that. Look how fucking dreadful that shot is. To be honest, Nathan. I can't see anyone. Who's in the shop? I wear my glasses. I'm wearing a glass. It's so dark. Is that Janeway walking around? Yeah. I shouldn't be asking this question. Oh, I can see Neelix. Okay. Oh, I love that line where he goes, I used to be a scavenger. Let me go off in my little shuttle. And I thought she was going to say, yes, yeah, go on, go and find. And then I thought maybe that was going to be the answer to the episode at the end. Like, that would be how they'd get away. Then she took a punt, but she goes, no, your little shuttle. It wouldn't stand you know, 2 minutes in the void. stay here with us. I'm glad they mentioned the shuttles because the shuttles have their own warp cores and stuff like that and they don't forget that they do actually mention it. Oh, that's a good line. The vultures are circling. No, but her line. Vultures eat the dead, Mr. Paris. We're not dead yet. Like, that's great. That's tremendous. That's classic Janeway. You give Kate Mulgra a line like that. She got to chew up and spit out, isn't she? Just tremendous. Oh, now the bridge seems very dark as well. Will someone put a fucking light on, please? That's great. That sort of flaming ship. You know, they kind of reckoned the ship, but it's got sort of smoke coming off it. I'm just saying that because you can see something. Yeah, yeah, that could be it. That could be it. Oh, Harry Kim did get a line, but it was all terrible. Unless the episode's about him in series 7, I think that's basically all he does. That's all he does. Same with Tuvok. Tuvok gets some stuff to do. That's a genuine waste, though, that is. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I do like I love the line when they both go to her quarters and she goes, it doesn't take 2 people to deliver a pad. What do you want? Yeah, yeah. I've seen, well, talk about that scene when we get there? Because I think that is a good line, but I think that scene is a problem. Yeah, again, this is not great either. What's happening right now? I can see with a sort of torch, but it's not actually lighting anything up. No, because all we can see of the torches, we can't see their faces. You know, we can't really see anything. We see this and so it's the casing that the warp core for that ship came in, but it's got a character in it. Like it's got a new character in it. Oh, it's Fantome. Yes. So he's played by Jonathan Del Arco. Is that Shuborg? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's played by Hugh Borg, who is in descent, part two, which we've already done, and Iborg, obviously, and he does come back in Picard too. We're doing sort of painted body stockings for Fantome's people which is a look, isn't it? Well, part of the problem is we've already done night and didn't night have those glowing people in it? Oh, I can't really remember. I can see much of that episode on. semi-visible, semi-visible sort of glowy people who seem like they live in a void like that. Here, yeah, the body stocking and the thing and everything's brown. This is the attempt, I think, for this episode to show us how we could have done weird Star Trek as well. Part of the show's premise is being new. Conceptually, this alien race is the most interesting of the episode. little scavenger people, they hide away on people's ships nick their food and things like that, and that's how they exist and communicating via music, which is such a great idea. We learn to communicate with them over the course of the episode too. So all of that is absolutely what we should be doing. I was praying. I was praying to whoever's up there that my other after did not walk in the room when they were all playing their music on the pads because I would never live that down. I thought that was really good. It's weird that it's fun, but my God, yeah, you don't want a non Star Trek fancy in that. Look, can you see your Voyager there? I can just see the tiny round pit of the Nacile. Yeah, yeah. I think the whatever it is at the beginning. here we go. Is it because they're conserving the light string? Is that what's going on? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're conserving my entertainment values as well. Yeah. So Valen has their deuterium, and so they're going to go and take that off him. So and again here, right? So this is this is another time where she's given the chance to do something that will help them to survive and she says no. So the 1st time is where she refuses to enter an alliance with Galen because she doesn't want to give their weapons technology to him. Here, she retrieves some of the stuff that's been stolen. Valen didn't steal it. It was on that other ship, but he's got the staff. And so they steal it. And then, and then Harry, Tom says there's more food, we could just take that. And she says, well, it's not ours. So no, we're not going to do that. And what I think is weird about this is that everyone seems to think that Janeway's being crazy. Excluding me. But aren't they members of the Federation and Starfleet? I get away with that because I'm not. Yeah. So they're members of Starfleet. Like, why are they surprised by this? And so that's this scene now? We've got Janeway in her quarters already room or whatever. she in a ready room? And the boys come in, Tuvok and the medium, Robert. It reminds me of that putting course oblivion. Do remember where Tom Paris was like, well, we haven't got a bear anymore. Just, you know, just because their circumstances are now different you can behave however you want. That's how everyone on the ship seems to be behaving that way this. So both Chakotay and Tuvok and Tuvok, for me, that's the most baffling thing. It does say it's logical. Logic dictates we may have to be more opportunistic to survive. Okay, but that's, but that just isn't him. Do you know what I mean? Like he's been in Starfleet for decades longer than Janeway's been alive. You know, he's her old friend. He's a Vulcan, and he hasn't really read the Federation charter. Do you know what I mean? Like, he doesn't, he thinks it's okay. I just don't get it. We've seen Tuvok make morally ambiguous choices before. Remember that time when he took that technology to spare Jade away from having to nick it off that species and then justified his action because he's her friend and he didn't want her to make that choice. That made sense. You're right. This is just like, okay, well, I'm just gonna abandon all my principles. Because we're in a tricky situation. We need 2 characters to come in and 2 kind of they're on opposite sides, aren't they, in a way, to Vulcan, not anymore, but originally. And so they both need to express scepticism. Do you know what I think the problem might be, is we're not seeing this situation as desperate as it could be presented because they're still in their nice comfortable ship and they are deleting and all this. And if things were really desperate, then maybe this scene would make more sense. If this was Battlestar Galactica. they show this void to be a truly horrific region of space and half of shit would be torn off and then maybe them coming to a quarter saying, you know what you're a nicely nicely approach of alliances with people, maybe that's not the way to go. But, but, but, there's something different normal. We're just in the same sets with the lights down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's true. It is hard to sell it. And he's just the lights down. And once the lights have turned down, we start to make... Things are truly decisions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but this, you know, Voyager could always have been about this and the characters could have been committed to this. and this is Star Trek and maybe that should be their their basic approach. It shouldn't come as a surprise that we come in here and decide to make alliances and create relationships by helping people and working together. Everyone goes, well, that's crazy. Why would you do that? You know? Is it a problem then that Voyager is always heading home? So it's heading away from whatever alliance they would be making. Maybe, but you can imagine them like appearing at a place or being in a region of space and meeting people. Yeah, yeah. and sort of turning up, and trying to work together to reach out to people and stuff, and they're almost never doing that. Like when aliens come along, they're usually sort of just intransigent fuckwits who, you know, won't let them through space or whatever. Do you know what I mean? They're always an obstacle. They never someone to reach out to. I, you know what I mean? such a terrible old cynic. I love the idea of Voyager heading into a region of space and doing what you said there, making alliances and trying to do the right thing and then making a massive fuck up of it and going, shit we're just going to have to go and then just leave him. Well, I mean, that's drama. I work all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that should be what our guys represent. I think this guy is... I think that's what they do in Dragon's teeth, actually. Do you remember Dragon Steve with the Valdoir? They're the ones that wake them up. And then they literally, the last shot is Voyager walking away as they're all in a massive battle. Sorry for waking them up. Like the scene in the opening credits of Lower Decks. This guy is pretty good. This guy, Garren, and he... I can't see him. I'm sorry. No that again. Do you know what I mean? Like, he is, it's it's a bit of a 7 or an 8. It's kind of like a fucked up Klingon, isn't it? Like with that stupid face thing. It's... I think that's the same uniforms that the creatures in captive pursuit wars. you remember Tosk? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The people that came to get tossed had red jumpsuits with something going all the way along die like that. I realised that's a very geeky detail, but that's what I'm here for. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, absolutely, it could be. I like Neelix's line, and I like, I love Janeway's reaction, where Neelix says I tried, and she just looks at him with kind of love and thanks in just a little look from Janeway. I thought that was great. Somewhere in the last 2 or 3 seasons. They really started to get the edix, right? And I'm seeing it now. I think they pushed it away from all the being jealous of Tom Paris. You know, all of that. Oh, no, my uselessness is coming to an end all that bullshit. And they just had him as a godfather to Naomi Wildman, as a gentle advisor to Janeway, and yeah, just there to be the moral compass of the ship, you know, the morale of. It works though. And because they all love Ethan Phillips. I think those scenes are all really gentle and play really well. Yeah, yeah. I'm sort of coming round a bit with Nick. I agree. I like this scene as well. And again, 7 is the right person to be doing this because that's her role, isn't it? But Janeway... No, but also for Janeway to explain to her what it means to be human. you know, like what, why we make the decisions we make. And the fact that that previous scene had ended with a striking moment of her ordering some of her replicator rations to go to Fantomi, which is a striking moment and then having Janeway call her out on and saying, you did that, you know, that wasn't rational. That was not an official decision that you made. Yeah, yeah. Also, as well, it shows you how much things have softened between them two. Because back in the day, 7 would have acted against her. And at the end of that scene, she just sort of sighs theatric go oh, she does and walks off. Which is very nice. Oh, is this the bit where they're playing their music? Apparently, you know, they put in deliberate bits from the original series theme tune in there. I couldn't really hear it, but no, I couldn't either. I did try and listen for listen for it. So I quite like Seven's line. You know, you've come up with a name for this guy, but in 6 years you haven't come up with a name for yourself. I think you're fine, though, Fred. He comes up with a very small name eventually. low effort name at the end. Oh, you bitch. And so, but that's kind of adorable. He doesn't pronounce the guy's name correctly. I don't know why he calls him Fantomi. Um, because it's Phantom of the Opera. French, it's Fantomme. That's the word for ghost. I don't know why he's not called Fantom. you know, like why is he called Fantomi? Robert Picardo is a well-red man, you know? I'm sure he knows so that must be a deliberate choice. Oh, it's wrong, but it's a mistake. I think it's a mistake and no one's corrected him. And if the in Italian, it's Il Fantasma, it's not fantastic. Maybe they're just trying to give it a sort of science fiction. Oh, fantastic. Fantome is a good name. It's better than usual for Voyager. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, remember the Beaumar, Nathan? They had an apostrophe. Yeah, you can't turn the line, can you? Partly for life. You can't see anything. That's why. That's it. Oh, no way. This table is lit up, so we can see the miserable food they're about to be served. But again, you know, there's this thing, and I said before, that Voyager is scarce in resources, and we occasionally mention it, but we never see the crew kind of emiserated by that particularly, and they still have social occasions, and they still go on the holodeck, and they still enjoy food, you know, they sit down and Neelix cooks for them. And so even here when in the midst of the worst imaginable scarcity where there's literally nothing outside, they still have that meal. And I think that that's the reason for that scene, don't you? Because you've got Ethan being warm, you've got, uh, you know Bellana being appreciative. This is a thing that he's saved up, like he's got a few of these dried fruits. He's saved it up. She's appreciative, she thinks he shouldn't do it. You know, there's a warmth and humanity to this. It is a nice scene, but the food as presented, which looks like awful, which is odd, I think, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm surprised Tom Paris even put one in his mouth if I'm honest. He eats it and he doesn't say something snarky and shitty. That's a win, Voyager, isn't it? Exactly. Yep, I agree What's happening now? Yeah. So a new ship has just appeared in the void and they're trying to recruit him and Valen's trying to steal all of its stuff. And so, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think this guy's a good antagonist. He's good, don't you? I think he's... I love her line there. Just some people in a bad situation. Like the rest of us. That is a good line. I've been practising my mom. How am I doing? You're doing well. Thank you. Better than I do, though. Oh here they are. I love that. They look they look so like the Santaras from Doctor Who, don't they? Yeah, don't they? That's really nice because they 1st turned up in night. Another very dark episode, as we've already mentioned, deliberately so. And then they're in the Juggernail, at the end of five, they're in Tinker Tenor, Doctor Spy, and six, and then in this, in seven. So we can only assume Mailon space is quite large. They travel quite a lot. Well, they're scientists, aren't they? So maybe like the Federation, they just go out to all regions of the Delta Quadrant. I thought that their thing was that they had a really garbagey warp drive that polluted everything that it went through. They saw abandoned that now. It suited one episode. Right, okay. But they do look quirky. I do like that. I'm glad it's great to see a female cast member just be pregnant on Voyager. I know that we've had it on Deep Space 9. Um, And is she pregnant twice during the run of the show? Well, that they're high. She's behind one of them. And she's doing the Goth McFadden thing of being behind console. And she's not really pregnant now or is she? She's not really pregnant. It's just her and Tommy. No, they've gone the other way, yeah. She only have one kid. She's fake pregnant here. Nothing will ever be in the darkness and the light when Kira literally about to pop. She's enormous, goes into the corridor and beats the shit out of the man in the corridor. heavily pregnant. So these guys joining them, which is kind of great. is joining them. So Janeway's methods are bearing fruit. Yeah, and like he's seen her try and rescue the new guy who's just arrived in the void. How many ships on there now? In a little coalition. I can't really see them Maybe. One, two, three. is really bad, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I shouldn't have to work this hard to understand a simple thing like ships travelling together. Now, I love this scene, and this guy is a solid, like, 9.9. He's virtually... Oh, you say that? Oh, I would share. The Beaumar scale. He's really bad. He looks like a turkey. don't you think He looks very like very like the alien that comes onto DS9 to kill Quark because he spent loads of time in prison because he's got the same sort of ridge going down the middle of his head, but that alien. joined up the mouth and the nose. Whereas here they've cut a hole in between the 2 so he can eat something. But I think he looks like a turkey. Like, in profile, he looks like a turkey. There was that line about there was that line about vultures in the previous episode. And so this guy's horrible. I would see this conversation too, where Tuvok has a conversation with Fantomi and the doctor, which I think is really nice. I like Fanti Ray... hiding behind the doctor, you know, he's learned to trust him. So there's a lot of action. There's a lot of activity happening on the ship. There's new people. meeting new people, they're joining alliances. Yeah, you don't feel going on. shortchanged in sort of alien races and things, do you? But Voyager could always have been like this. You know, it could always have been a place that reached out and brought people together and things that could have been its role. Now you've got all these different, right? 3 different races as well as our crew on Voyager now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really quite excited. He looks... It's the same makeup as that man who came after Quark. I'm telling you. Did he have the bad hair? Oh, he's got gray hair. Oh, no. It's like gobble, gobble, gobble. Yeah, he is. He's a fucking turkey. It's amazing. Maybe this was the one where Kmart grew where this fella came on the set, all right, and I tried very hard to keep it together when I had scenes with him, but... What's a lie? They were testing me. Oh, now she's clinching. She's flinching in the face of that. She's fucking hero. I think Michael Westmore's going, do you know what? We are going to have much Charles to do aliens in Enterprise, so let's just go to town in the last few episodes of Forager. Please order in 5 times as much latex as usual. you very much. Fuzzy hair is really upsetting as well. Like it's he's just awful. You do look at some Star Trek aliens and just wonder, how did this evolve? No, no, no. It's Mike Westmore. Never goes to me at all. But he's clearly a bird. Leg isn't got a beak or whatever. Okay, so it looks like she's got a few more ships in her coalition now. And it's nice that we cut back to that, though, isn't it, to show that the... And this guy's working with them. See, the alliance or the Federation, the alliance, the alliance. So I like this as well. I think this is really good. Um, and it's a costly decision that she makes because some people lose their shit and in fact, um, the turkey guy, whose name is Basal, uh, goes off to join Valen, uh, to be their sort of antagonists and Janeway has a great line about that. Oh, meanwhile, the maelon are spying on them from astrometrics. So if you said, it feels like lots is happening, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. like the price. Remember the price when the Enterprise is hosting all of those different people, including the Ferengian stuff? Like it just, they feel like part of something. It's fun, you know? There's activity. But then they are spoying, but then they figure out an important plot point, don't they? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. right. They resolve a thing. I think it's really good I remember sort of getting to about 4 minutes before the end, and they're still in the void, and I'm going, how the fuck are they going to wrap this up in 4 minutes? And then you realise it's Fantomi and his people that actually solve the problem. And then just being kind to them is what's actually the real solution. So Janeway was right. Of course she was. So here's the thing that you're embarrassed. So the camera's sort of dancing around them, and there are all sort of playing their little pazs, going... I think the music is good. Like, it's really strange. So this is Jay Chattaway. And I actually noticed the music for once in this episode and as I was watching it just this afternoon for the 2nd time. Like the battle sequence music was much more ominous and odd. It was different from what we normally get. And that's what Jay Chataway brought to the show when he joined TNG. I received a message in a somewhat baffling tone from Nathan saying, is it my imagination or is the music really quite good in this? I didn't notice it at all, though, I've got to be honest. Well, we're about to have a montage coming up, and the montage is set to the music that these guys are making. Like a better more orchestral voyager version of the music that these guys are doing. I thought that was great. We needed that montage for the climax to make sense. We needed to see all these preparations happening. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes a montage on Voyager can be really terrible. Do you remember the montage of Chewvoc on all of those people that are behaving badly running around the ship? Oh my god, a training montage. They're all in tank tops. is terrible. No, so this is a preparation montage that we're going to get in a minute. So, yeah, this scene is really great. Now we have a Polaron modulator, which, you know, I don't know why you wouldn't have one lying around. I've got 3 or 4 now I can see is makeup and close up there, look. He's standing right in front of a light. Yeah, he's a bird. Look at him. Yeah, so, and so he's got the Polaron modulator by killing, by like, destroying a ship, by killing a, you know, the crew members and taking their Polaron modulator. And so she says, we're not using it. You know, you go, we're not going to use it. And I'll confess something to you. You thought that was crazy. No, no, when you say things like polar on modulator, I'll get a little bit hard. honest. I'm just here to hear you tell me what the ships are, what the technobabble is. babble. Yeah, yeah. I'd say Mistress B. R. as well. That's my new favourite. Yeah, so this does seem like a kind of virtue signalling thing. Like, why are we doing that? We've got the Polaron modulator not using it. Isn't going to bring that crew back. So what are we going to do? And I think she's right. She does the right thing. It's about our reputation. The only reason that people join the alliance is because they think we're going to do the right thing. And that does pay off. And I do think you're right. And I do think it was the right direction for the episode to take because it's a Star Trek episode. So it should be about doing the right thing. I just don't think in real life any of this would pay off. I don't believe it. think it does. It does because it's in this episode. Star Trek and we're in an optimistic show. But I think that people don't have to compete. I think people can cooperate. I think we do it all the time. But I think people want to rip on another off all the time. No, but I think the majority probably are more selfish than that. That's why, like, the DS9 approach. you know, that's it's not an approach. I mean, the, the, you know, the thing that that dumb Star Trek is 4 is to show us that we can be better. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. But then does it all feel a bit simplistic or just being nice has allowed us to escape this horrible thing? Yeah, but it isn't just being nice because, you know, they've helped people, they've exchanged technology, you know, there's that line where Neelix says we can now feed 500 people a day on half of the, and that's three, you know, that's the crew, isn't it? More than the crew. Um, we can feed 500 people a day on, on, um, you know, half the power. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like all of that stuff makes sense. You know, they can work together and that's how they get out. The line that shocked me the most was when they said at the end we're only 30,000 light years away from earth. I like bloody hell, you've covered some ground. for a gift and various other things. I love this line from Janeway, um, where they've, so now this is um, this is Basal, the stupid fucking turkey and Balen, and we go we'll take Georgia's food and weapons, and she kind of, if we work together and she goes, oh, you know, thank goodness we taught them the value of corporate. I'm so glad. I suppose that's a bit of payoff for me then. The cynical side of me, but actually some people are just are out for themselves. That's so much fun But yes, and then this, you know, just the kindness and the reaching out and the, and, you know, the, you know, Voyager gives them asylum from Basal's ship. there's more than one of them. They're the ones that are plaguing bassaars. Oh, she goes, if you want to get rid of your firm in, then send them all this away. And that's what saves the day. Yeah. I mean you know, I don't know. It might have been nice if like Valen at least had got through with them and had perhaps learned something. But, you know, the way it ends is fine as well. If you don't, if you're not kind, you do not escape, if you are you do. Yeah, that's that's the sort of information this. That's fair enough. Do you know what I mean? Like that's what it wants to say if you compete and you you betray people and you attack them and you do whatever you have to do to you know, prosper, he's out. I thought this was quite... Yeah, quite a languid montage. Actually, the way it fades from one scene to another quite laboriously. The music actually as well is sort of fairly languid. urgent or anything. I'm not quite sure why we have the montage. A little bit astonished, though, this doesn't feel rushed. Given everything it accomplishes. It's really good. I think it's not bad. It's almost like the, you know, he's had this idea and he's like well, how do I pace this? How do I pay this so it all makes sense and it all pays off satisfactorily? Yeah. But like a lot a lot of Voyager episodes with halfway decent premises. I don't know, they just have extended dialogue scenes. They feel really, I don't know, slow. A lot of thought, a lot of voyager feels like. has a lot of incidents, so it just feels like it, it goes by like a lick. Okay, we're ready to go. It's about something. It's so refreshing. This was the point now. 4 minutes and 27 seconds from the end. I was like, we're still not out of the boy, Jeff. So I pretty much knew it was going to be get out of the void, blow them a kiss. Goodbye. Yeah. Thanks for the alliance. It's been fun. We'll never see you again. Actually, a bit of a shame because Garren says, yeah, sorry, we're going in the other direction, which is a bit of shame. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And will never mention them again. No, no, but we have learned a valuable lesson about what Voyager could have been doing all along, and we've learned that it would have worked as television. And, you know, instead they shy away from any sense of scarcity and they, you know, they make them reach for their phases and things just far too readily, I think. So the lesson we've really learned from this is that Voyage is a big fat failure as a television show. With regards to its potential. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This shows us a more interesting route that we could have taken in something that is very, very clearly intended to be a microcosm of the show. You know, here we are in a situation, which is like the situation where you find ourselves in at the end of the caretaker. It is kind of frustrating though, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I just don't think Berman is interested in Star Trek's kind of moral vision at all, and he just wants to tell stories about spaceships and phaser phaser fights and stuff like that. that's a shame. Is there a loin in this about, um, you know, keeping power to the weapons because they seem to be able to far off a lot of shots when they're conserving their power. Did you notice throughout the whole episode they've been far in the phases? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I suppose if you're in a hostile region of space. That is where your energy should be going. To protect yourselves. Yeah. Yeah, they're sort of, again, it's a moral void, isn't it? They have to, they have to be beware of being under attack all the time. Here we go. I think we know now 2 minutes and 16 seconds before the end of the episode that they're probably going to escape. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's not really much time for anything else. Is there? Wahashi's sign the ships. That old ship looks like a pineapple. So 2 of the ships have gone, so we only have 4 or 5 ships because 2 of them were disgusted. You would have just warped off straight. See you. See you both. Oh, thanks for the help. No, but we're still going to say goodbye to the mail on. Of course we are. I wish they'd kept a mail on on the ship, you know. Can I stay? You only got half a season left. I think it's possible that the actor playing Karen is actually really good looking and they've just fucked him up by putting this stupid makeup on him. you think? We know that's the case. Casey Peaks, you know? We know that is the case with a lot of actors. That's a man. It's a man. I mean, Markalemo doesn't even need to wear the makeup. he still looks scary. That's exactly right Okay, the real Federation's just 30,000 light years away. Off we go. What are we saying? What are we standing around for, message, Code 8? Let's go. So great. And we all learned our lesson the end. They all go off. Why does we not get the scene? Now, forger is usually quite good at this in these sort of moral dilemma episodes of saying, you know, I was right all along and you was wrong. But we didn't do none of that at the end of this. There wasn't time. Yeah, and I'm glad that we didn't because those things are tedious too. Shit, Nathan, workforce part one has just started with that amazing train going across the city skates. and you go right through scaffolding and then into live action. It's amazing. Yeah, I remember that shot. light on the screen. Yeah. I have fond memories of work for us, actually. I remember... yeah, yeah. It gives Kate Mulgrew a childhood in the last season to actually play something a bit different and have a romance, which is lovely. Yeah, it's a kind of lotus eeders thing, isn't it? It's kind of like, well, we have a life and it kind of works here and so why are we trying to get home? It is a little bit like the lotus eaters at the beginning of the Odyssey. It's actually enough episode of, we could have done more episodes a bit like this. You know? For not starting on Established Voyager, starting in a situation. Yeah, that's always good, isn't it? I'm wondering if I should revisit a bit more of season 7 of Star Trek Voyager because maybe they were just going, right, what haven't we done? Let's do it now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe. No, there's some shit in there as well. We've already watched lineage, if you remember. Yeah, that's true. That's true. And the conclusions they draw in endgame were passable at best. Yes, I think that's fair. But that, that as a lesson in what Star Trek should be about, how to place an episode and to explore for 45 minutes what this fucking show should have been about from the start, I think it's a success. Yeah, I think that worked really well. I was surprised by how much I liked it. I thought it was really, really enjoyable. I just wish they'd turned the lights on. Yeah. All right, it's the end of the episode, and it is time for us to work out what we are going to watch next time. This was a good episode of Star Trek, which means that you rolled at Joe, and it's time for me to roll a bad episode of Star Trek. Right. So I am going to include my 2 least favourite versions of Star Trek, my 2 least favourite series, and they are Star Trek, the animated series and Star Trek Enterprise, inevitably. We can almost guarantee we'll get something terrible then. Okay, good. All right. I am going to press the button. You love putting enterprise in, don't you? It's an obsession of yours. What about this one? So this is season three, episode 16, which is not very far away from where we've been reasonably recently. doctor's orders. Oh, it's a flux episode. Of course it is. It's sort of the inferior version of the season one flux episode that they did, but it's a flux episode. So it's very watchable. I kind of don't want to cut short the rolling process quite so early though. Okay, let's keep going. Let's do another one. Oh, season 3 of Enterprise again. Season three, episode seven, the shipment. Sounds riveting, doesn't it? No, I probably should again. All right. Could you get us out of season three, please? Yeah, probably, but not before we get to your random Star Trek, the animated series, the magics of Megas 2, season one, episode eight which could be absolutely fucking anything, couldn't it? The magics of megas 2. That is amazing. magics with a K, can I just say? I'm half tempted, you know. So he's his jammer's summary of it. The Enterprise travels to the centre of the galaxy where they find the known laws of reality no longer apply and are instead governed by magical beings, and I want you to guess how many stars Jammer gives it. Oh, half half a star? One. He gives it one star. Oh, let's watch it then. Come on. If he hates it, it's bound to be watchable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, he does have a, you know, jam is very literal and he there's certain things that he likes Star Trek to be. He quite liked the last one we did, didn't he? Remember when we were in that weird region of space where space was white and stars were black. Yeah, yeah, he didn't mind that one. always worth mentioning, I think, that he gave Bem 2.5 stars out of four. So, um, but I think the magics of Megas 2 sounds absolutely magnificent and uh, I'm willing to go to the very centre of the galaxy long before Star Trek 5 was even dreamed of. There's something I will say about the animated series, right? I mean, it's usually Drek. But boy, oh boy, can they put a title on these episodes? The counterclock incident? The magics of Megas 2, you know? Do you know what? The 1st one that we ever did was called the time trap. And you remember that it had more or less the same premises, the void? You know, they're all stuck in a region of space and no one can escape. I think the void would have been improved immeasurably if we'd had a scene where Jway had to run through the ship with a bomb and put it out the ejector plane. Like Spock did in that episode. Or if they'd been a lady with no nose in it, that would have been great as well. No, no, she only appears in that one. Yeah, okay. All right. The magic's a... God's sake, God help us. You've been listening to untitled Star Trek Project with Joe Ford and Nathan Bottomley, where online at Untitled Star Trek Project com, where you can find subscription links and links to our social media accounts. Our podcast artwork is by Kayla Ciceran, and the theme was composed by Cameron Lamb. This episode was recorded on the 25th of June 2024 and released on the 5th of July. We'll see you next time for Star Trek, the animated series, the magics of Megas 2. Two recordings. I only just have one, just in case I want to listen to it before the finished result comes out. Now we're ahead. I have to wait quite a bit to hear these back again, you know, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Although Angel one's finished. So I have to finish this one tonight. Otherwise I won't get the chance to not tonight, tomorrow night tomorrow night. So will we have a gap? Yeah, we'll have what, one week out then? Yeah, yeah. So you're away next week, are you? Angel one comes out this Friday, and then the void comes out next Friday, and then there's a gap, and then we have to record when I get back. Well, let's try when you're back, let's try and do 2, and then we'll make up for I'll be on holidays too, for a week. Still. Okay, I'm ready. All right. Hey, Joe. Hi.