Hey, Joe. Hi.
So this is, I think, the second time that we've done a two-part
series finale series opener.
So we've done, uh, we did Scorpion and Scorpion part two, which is
2 years ago.
Is that right?
That's right And now we're 2 years on, and we're doing equinox and
equinox part two.
And I think perhaps the troubling thing about that was that I had
virtually no memory of this and it seemed familiar when I watched
it.
I did sort of start to remember things, but this is not one that I
think made much of a lasting impression on me.
See, I did remember this one.
I remember when I reviewed this for my website, and I really like
the sort of moral areas that the episode goes into, and it does go
to show how your opinion can change over time, because I've got a
hell of a lot of issues with this episode now that I never did
back in the day.
What's interesting is scorpion and equinox both promise to shake
up Voyager in some way.
One with this threat that's worse than the Borg, and the other
with this 2nd ship, which looks like it's going to be towing
alongside Voyager for the rest of the run.
What happens is they flirt with the idea for 2 episodes, both of
them, then we just go back on our merry way of TNG knockoffs after
that.
It's a problem with this show.
Yeah, like, I think that they're really intentionally doing this
right?
I think that that's coming from the studio or whatever from the
network or from, you know, the producers that they just want to
continue doing Star Trek the Next Generation.
And Star Trek, the Next Generation, discovered that these big 2
parters were hugely effective, like best of both worlds and best
of both worlds, part 2 is incredible. you know, and no one
expected it at the time and this is a thing that we got.
And we're still doing it now 7 years later.
And TV sort of has moved on a bit.
I think that if you are only watching Star Trek, you would think
that this was kind of normal behaviour.
But we've got a big thing that happens.
And I think everyone by now must have suspected that it was all
just going to be resolved at the end of episode 2 and we would
never speak of it again.
And that is, of course, what happens.
I just, I don't understand why they would bring in those crew
members have that scene at the end of Equinox 2.
Right, you're staying on the ship now, but we're going to be
watching you, all right?
And then we never mention those people ever again.
They are just lost in the crew compliment.
Maybe they have one scene.
I don't know.
But they have no significant impact on Voyager. at all.
So what is the point?
Yeah, and I mean, that's kind of a thing, isn't it?
Like, that's what Voyager's doing.
And so when you're doing that, you have 2 ways that you could go.
You could just make sure that nothing happens that kind of shakes
the status quo up too much because we all know that's a cheat.
Or you can just go, no, you know, that's boring.
We are going to do some big things.
We're going to have a sort of giant game changing thing, and then
part 2 will be, well, how do we get back to the status quo from
here?
But that's actually also kind of boring.
And it doesn't make any sense.
Yeah, it's a look at what the show could be for a couple of
episodes before pulling back and saying, no, we're not going to be
that brave.
It's weird.
It's weird to sort of wave the flag of potential, every sort of, I
don't know, half season and then just go back to doing, you call
it TNG, but it's TNG light, really, isn't it?
Yeah.
But I think the problem here is that 2 years ago, we had Chakotay
contradicting Janeway's orders and having a sort of big conflict
with her, and I think we felt that he was in the wrong, whether
the show did or not is not entirely clear.
I don't think it was brave enough to even... sort of explore it
were they?
They were just, he was this side of it.
She was that side of it.
And then it was just happily resolved at the end.
Yeah, and then this time, of course, they have a conflict in
episode 2 as well.
And it's a much more serious conflict, I think.
And, you know, like it's resolved in the most half-assed way
possible.
And we just sort of go back and it's never mentioned again.
And you can't keep doing that, I think.
Well, we'll have some quotes from Ron Moore in episode 2 because
he's got a lot to say about that episode in particular as to why
he chipped off Voyager because he just couldn't work in a writer's
room where there were no character consequences or where nothing
meant anything.
That's just not the sort of TV he wanted to write.
But I said to you off, Mike, this 2 pastors, well, and I don't
think it's without merit, and I really quite like episode one.
But it takes a very odd approach of the writing suggesting that
Jane Weigh is 100% right in episode one and 100% wrong in episode
two.
And it's a very bizarre shift, and my issue with equinox now is I
don't think she's right in episode one, and I don't think she's
right in episode two.
So I think both approaches don't work for me.
Because I feel that she she comes across as somebody...
You know, like when you've been floating through the Delta
Quadrant on a walking armchair and living in the life of Riley, as
she has, to come down as hard as she does on somebody that says
you know, my crew was starving for 16 days and we were in a
situation of extreme peril.
No, no.
And so we decided to murder a whole bunch of people.
No, I don't think I'm completely on random size in that argument.
No, no, no.
And what annoys me is she doesn't even, she doesn't even
acknowledge what he's saying at all.
There's no there's no discussion.
She just cuts him down and says, no, you're wrong.
No, no.
But I think he's very clearly wrong.
And I actually am not entirely certain that when Janeway starts
losing it, that she's necessarily doing the wrong thing.
Uh, and I kind of, well, because we'll get there, I think, but
ransom is not someone who's done some desperate things.
He hasn't sort of boarded an Illyrianship and stolen their warp
core.
He's deliberately vivisected and intends to murder a large number
of people.
And I think that that's fairly clearly, however hungry you are. the
wrong thing to do.
You know, I had a nice steak last night and I wasn't in any danger
whatsoever.
No, no, no, no.
And the way the, I mean, the way this show works.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, yes, you know, morality around eating meat and stuff is very
complicated and the cow probably had plans for its day and all of
that sort of thing.
But here, I think, I think they're very clearly in the wrong.
And I think we're given a situation where they're as bad as they
could possibly be because they deliberately institute a program of
experimenting on these aliens and then they intend to kill like
dozens of them in order to use them as fuel and get home.
So I think that that's sort of super clearly wrong.
And I think that she has.
What does she say about me then?
Because I don't know.
Well, no, I think I think that, you know, murdering people in
order to get home.
Like, you know, I wonder, I just put myself in their petition.
And I'm like, how what would I do?
And I think I would probably do the same thing.
No, I mean, I think I think that the situation, that what's, I
think that what's, what's the problem here is that that is such an
extraordinarily, um, clearly evil thing to do, that how they all
come to agree to it, you know, and there's a bit of talk about it
in episode one when we hear his backstory and how many of his crew
are dead and all of that sort of thing.
So like whatever.
But I think Janeway's reaction to him is fair enough.
And I think too, that there's a lot to be said for just turning
off the force fields and letting the creepy alien things just deal
with them in their own way.
I mean, we were supposed to let the Edo execute Wesley when he
sort of, you know, fell into the flower bed and stuff.
He committed a crime according to their laws.
You know, we eventually decide to get him out of it because of
course we do.
But there is that thing, isn't there right from wolf in the fold
that they've committed a crime and we don't have jurisdiction here
but the people they committed the crime against do.
And so I don't think it's wrong necessarily for her to do what she
does to Rickworthy in episode two.
I don't think she's necessarily.
Yeah, I hate it too.
And I think there's reasons for it, but I think that they do their
best because at that point, remember, 3 Voyager crew members have
been killed as a result of their behaviour.
And that's the thing.
I'm not saying, yeah.
I'm not suggesting that they are in the right.
I'm just suggesting that they're put in an impossible situation
and they made a bad call that I would probably make myself.
And I think the point where the call is wrong is where Voyager
comes along and there is an option now to say, right, we did this
wrong thing, but we've got your facilities now.
We can get home in a safe way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then they, no, and then what they decide to do instead is no
we're not, we're not going to take their help.
We're going to continue to hurt these creatures and we're going to
get home.
And that's the point where I think they...
It's not just that too.
It's that Voyager ends up in what I think is one of the best
things about part one.
Voyager ends up in exactly the same situation that Equinox was.
What do they do?
They start pulling out their guns.
Yeah, yeah, no, no, of course they do.
They're under attack.
That's fair enough.
But remember, that's not how it started.
They're under attack because they've been vivisecting and
murdering people.
I think my issue with fighting back.
Slimers is that they are kind of portrayed as animals as well.
They're not they don't come across as a sentient life form with
intelligence or anything like that.
In the back of my head, I'm like, well, he's just, like, we murder
a load of pigs.
He's just killed a load of slimer creatures and to get home and
what's wrong with that.
We're doing the same thing.
No, no, no.
Yeah, and that is different.
But I think that they do communicate, don't they?
and they are intentional and stuff.
And I think, again, that's kind of interesting too.
Maybe they should have been humanoids.
Maybe they should have been like a race of people.
That would have made it far more explicit.
But there's something a little bit interesting about the ambiguity
posed by how different they are from us, and maybe they're so
different that it's impossible for the equinox crew to kind of
include them in their, you know, moral community because they're
just too weird looking, and that's how they manage to behave like
this towards them.
But you know as well.
There have been situations in Voyages run where Janeway has made
some pretty dodgy calls, you know.
She, technically, murdered tubics.
I know that's the one we all go to, but she committed murder and
probably should be condemned for the fact.
I don't understand how she can get on a moral high horse as much
as she does when she has made so many questionable decisions in
the last 5 years.
But it's not that.
And what it should be, what it should be is, she was presented
with that choice in Caretaker, where she had to choose between
getting her crew home and allowing the Cazon to kill all the
Ocampa, or protecting the Ocampa, who they didn't know, you know
they had nothing to do with them and strand themselves in the
Delta Quadrant.
And that's a decision that should have been visibly weighing on
Jane Way and doesn't really.
I mean, we get it in night.
We get it in the finale, but it's not something that comes up all
that often, I think, or anywhere near often enough.
And it doesn't come up here either.
That's the thing because the writers aren't doing any of the work
about letting us know why the people are behaving the way they are
and all they're interested in is the action that takes place as a
result.
And so I think that you get something that fills its sort of hour
and a half and is entertaining and has incident and things happen
and it's exciting and and all of that and there's some feels in
there as well.
But it's a bit empty though, I think.
Everything feels so black and white all the time.
It doesn't feel like there's any sort of muddy areas that we're
exploring.
And that's just not satisfying to watch.
Yeah, but the deliberate choices these guys are going to commit
mass murder in order to get home.
So there's no moral debate about whether they've done the right
thing or not.
They've very clearly done the wrong thing and, you know, all of
that.
But what we don't get is any of the debate that you and I are
having about this, no one really.
You know, we're doing the writer's work.
None of the writers are interested in examining the situation in
any way at all.
And how does Janeway react?
She just reacts in a way that gets Kate to do some acting and
that's really it.
So extreme though, isn't it?
I love it.
But the trouble is, we'll put it out when we get there.
She ain't convinced at all by this royal.
Yeah, I know.
And she's saying the lines, but she's not saying them all with any
kind.
She's going, yeah, hell break, you know?
I actually really like that scene.
And I like how sort of wet and pathetic Chakotay is in that too.
Um, you know, for goodness sake.
So we're goodness to a conclusion so we can skip in.
The trouble is, is, I don't think anybody is convinced by this.
I've got some quotes here from memory alpha, and you've got Joe
Manosky, our favourite, you know, masks playing and things like
that.
Quote, saying we were all really exhausted.
We didn't know what in the world we were going to do for the last
episode.
Branner and Rick Berman worked out.
Some of the episode.
We probably had a week to go before prep, but before Brandon came
up with the idea that was workable.
I just had no hope for it at all.
It had the feeling of elements stitched together without a driving
point of view, which we'll talk about. hazard and clunky structure
and story.
So the writer wasn't at all convinced.
Then you got John Savage in here. and he saw, he goes, I saw
wonderful possibilities and moments like in the relationship with
Janeway, a man and a woman and also as captains and as people.
I just felt like I might have unfortunately overcomplicated myself
and had to be pulled straight by Kate.
I didn't have to be.
She was generous and it was a good experience, but we both had a
lot of stuff going on.
So there was stuff going on between the actors as well.
And then there's quotes in now, I won't read them all, but from
David Livingston saying everybody was at the end of their tether
recording this, you know, like it was a punishing shoot where they
were having to do new sets, fill it with dry eyes, all right at
the end of the year where everyone's ready to go, you know, on the
holiday break or whatever they do at the end of the season.
So I feel like maybe some of that hits the screen.
Yeah.
Well, we're about to watch a part one that doesn't have a part 2
written when it's finished, does it?
Like, they haven't written part one, part two.
They don't know where it's going to go.
They were very lucky in best of both worlds because I reckon part
2 of that is only barely acceptable.
And they've, yeah, yeah.
I think they paint themselves into such a corner that part 2 is a
lot of standing around waiting for the situation to resolve
itself.
I can't wait to do that one with you.
Maybe it's better than I remember.
But there's absolutely no guarantee that you can pull a rabbit out
of a hat for part 2 if you haven't set anything up in part one.
And I think that's a problem.
It's not a bad part one At least we've part one of Econox.
Like I said to you off mic.
There's all this stuff going on behind the scenes that the voyage
crew don't know about, the Equinox crew are waiting to make them
move and then they do at the end.
And so there's a bit of free sort of like, oh, where's this
going?
And then as soon as I started episode two, right?
And he's on the run.
He's got 7 and 9 and all this is going on.
Janeway's gone on a mad psychotic hunt after him.
And I'm just like, oh, he's going to sacrifice himself at the end
and that's going to be the end of this show.
Like, that's how this is going to end.
Because now he's being portrayed as a slightly nicer bloke, you
know?
he's going to make the right call at the end of the story.
Well, should we go and watch it?
I don't think it's terrible.
I just think it is a huge missed opportunity.
And it's a huge missed opportunity in a characteristically voyager
way, I think, is the thing.
Oh, sorry, I thought we were talking about the series, not this 2
par.
Voyager, a huge missed opportunity.
Except when lower decks is taking the piss out of it.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
I'm going to count it in.
Five, four, three, two, one, and we're off.
You know, David Liverson is one of the best directions they have
you know.
So he does give this a bit of gumption, this pre-total sequence.
I don't think this is a very good scene for some reason, and I'm
not quite sure why.
And I think, look at all the rocks.
There are lots of rocks on the floor.
It's a decent set.
It's not a bad set, is it?
I thought it was just a decent...
Don't you complain?
He's doing overhead shooting look.
He's got the camera right above the actors. yeah, yeah.
No, no, I think it looks quite good.
I think that set looks sort of pretty great.
I like, why does Deep Space 9 have shitty phaser rifles and
Voyager has really great ones.
Look at those.
Well, this is just the spirit of mine is ending.
This came out at the same time as what you leave behind, remember?
Yeah, yeah, no I know.
I know.
But Voyages had these better phaser rifles all along and Deep
Space Niners had the Balsa wood ones for some reason.
Oh, that effect?
Look, that guy got killed and dehydrated.
I mean, it does look a bit like Voyager outside, doesn't it?
In the dark.
It does a bit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it's a different shape.
Can I tell you something really funny?
Bragger said to the special effects team.
I want the scariest aliens we've ever seen in Star Trek.
So the idea was that they were supposed to be presented as
monsters.
That's why the twist hits halfway through the episode.
No, they were actually the victims all along.
And that's what we got, those bloody CGI slimers.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. somebody's imagination did not stretch very far.
Well, I mean, they were trying, and this is 2 years after they
attempted the 8472, which again don't really work, do they?
But it's a, it's an attempt.
And I miss the days, you know, when a pre-tight, sorry, a title
sequence can be Voyager, just lazily, gracefully going through a
cloud of light like that.
Well, I think that the Strange New World's titles do this.
Only it's not as leisurely.
It a bit more kind of propulsive and stuff.
I think we've come to the conclusion that the Kersman title
sequences are superior to the noise one. in every single way.
Yeah.
I still think the best one's prodigy, though, you know.
Yeah, prodigy's great.
I really like discovery.
It's so strange.
It's so different from all of the others.
But I do remember 1st seeing this.
I 1st watched this, right?
Caretaker.
Someone bought the cassette in and we had like a premiere at the
school.
So we were all in the classroom and I remember watching this title
sequence and going, well, TV has never looked better than this.
At the time, it was quite impressive.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Look, did you see how its Nacelles went up just before it went to
warp amazing.
You're the bit where the camera goes through the rings of the
planet and there's all the rocks.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. pretty great.
That is pretty great.
Here we go.
We're in Astrometrics.
Yes, having another PowerPoint presentation by 7 of nine.
At least there's a bit of footage in the middle, you know, like
normally it's just a graphic.
Yeah, it's, it's really funny, isn't it?
It's because they've got such a tiny screen on the bridge and say
they have to go to Astrometrics or anything interesting.
So we have a few people here.
So John Savage is played, is playing Captain Ransom, and we have
Rick Worthy, who we have talked about before, because he's the
Zindi arboreal, uh, in series 3, uh, an ape.
But he's really good.
He's done a few Star Trek, I think, over the years and he's got a
great voice.
Like, I think his introduction is really pretty good.
Where do I know George Savage from?
I don't know.
Everyone talks about him in the quotes for on memory alpha and
stuff like he's a big deal.
And so he clearly is.
I think he's a bit miscast, actually.
Um, because like, did you hear that quote?
I think he does as well.
Yeah, don't you think, like, this is a science ship?
And I just think he reads his too military, like he's like a
xenobiologist or something.
And why isn't he a little bit more of a nerd?
And imagine if he'd been younger.
Imagine if he'd been just a bit less forceful, like, and then you
kind of get that he's behaving in this terrible way out of fear, or
you get the kind of idea, like, it's more shocking, I think, when
you discover that he's murdering you.
Just making him a bit likeable.
He's not very like what I want to see.
So if we've got to like him and then found out he's been murdering
these aliens and that might be a bit more confronting.
Why is Neelix on the bridge?
He's got lines in this scene?
said on the bridge?
It's the only risk.
Do you know, one thing I did I've become very aware of as this
episode played out was the very TNG style plotting of it, you know
that they present a bit of drama at the beginning.
They meet the ship, they go over to the ship.
They come on, we have a bit of shitty Voyager banter.
Then we get a hint that something's wrong, we do a bit of
investigation, they figure out that they know that something's
wrong, they make their move, the end.
I'm just like, you can literally plot this episode out from about
15 minutes in as to where it's going to go.
Yeah, yeah.
We've seen it before, you know.
Yeah.
And this is something that, like, he's going to go on and redo
this, isn't he, in Pegasus on Battlestar Galactica.
And there he has the ability to do it because the situation is so
much more desperate.
Oh, yeah, he...
Get it as well, isn't it?
Absolutely.
Yeah, so, well, you've got Michelle Forbes.
I thought the engineering set was pretty shitty and cheap, but.
I just, for me, I just love it when they turn the lights down and
pump in a bit of dry ice.
You know, we give us a little bit of it.
I know, it's the basic atmosphere, but it's an effort at least.
I guess so.
You know, what are those weird sort of curly whirly things hanging
from the ceiling?
You see that?
Yeah, no, I did.
Look at that terrible, desiccated gorse.
Yeah, yeah.
See that's pretty good.
That is pretty great.
Oh my.
We haven't mentioned, you know, we've got all these Roberts on the
screen.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
All the Roberts are engaged in this.
Oh well, not all of them are engaged in this away mission.
And so this is our 1st hint that something's wrong, isn't it?
There's some weird uh, modification being made to the, the
propulsion system, to the warp core.
Oh, I love, is this the, no, this is the woman underneath the boat
kid, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
There's a brilliant jump square that really got me.
I was watching it in the dark where the man comes out with the
phraser screaming his head off, firing the phaser.
I was like, that was a good moment.
So, again, I liked Mala for a while.
So this is this characters called Marla Gilmour.
I think she's like an ensign, isn't she?
Ensign Gilmore.
Um, And I kind of like, because she's the one who, when they're
kind of sprung.
She kind of says, oh, look, I'm kind of glad you are here.
In a way to stop us.
Well, she's one of the few that makes it as well, isn't she?
She joins the Voyager crew at the end.
Yeah, but he's never seen again.
Her and the Borg baby are...
They put her in sort of, you know, waste reclamation or something
like that for the rest of the trip.
She's shovelling shit.
Oh, no, no, come on.
That's wicked What?
That's why that's why Mariner and Boiler end up doing on the
Serenos.
You did something very wrong.
You're cleaning on all the cum off the walls, all right?
the rest of the journey.
And so here's Rick Worthy.
And so Rick Worthy is, so his character's called Noah.
I think he has the most beautiful voice.
Like, I thought this scene.
Like just just, you know, the silhouette of his face just lit just
very slightly in the darkness and the sound of his voice and the
calmness of his delivery.
I thought he was really good here.
The performance is good, but the character is just nothing, is
he?
There's nothing to hang on to.
No.
Look, I mean, basically, who do you have?
You've got 3 people on?
4 people.
So you've got Max, uh, um, Marla, Noah and Captain Ransom or Rudy
to his crew.
Um, and you've got time.
There you go.
There's your job scare.
Take cover.
This guy's called Thompson.
He's...
Oh, bless him.
He's got he's got Captain Decker hair.
He's been completely traumatised by the death of the crew.
But with those 4 characters, right, you've got 4 reasonably good
actors there, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So do you remember when Farscape had the 2 ships going side by
side and you cut between the 2 for like half a season?
I've never heard of it.
Oh, okay.
Well, it's a wonderful science fiction show made in Australia.
You know, you may have heard of Australia.land, I think.
And they did this.
Another ship came along and then the 2 ships travelled side by
side for half the season and you did half the episodes on one ship
and half in the other and split the regulars into two.
Now, I know Star Trek was never, it was never good.
No, just for story reasons and for character reasons, just
different mixes of characters.
Almost certainly for budgetary reasons.
Anyway, um, Star Trek was never going to do that.
But, like, we did DS9 recently, and they had 6 episodes after the
change in the status quo, where they played about with the ideas
they could have done something like that.
Yeah, and Battlestar Galactica does it, doesn't it?
Well, Pegasus travels with Battlestar Galactica for a long time
you know, and Michelle Forbes is in a few episodes and we discover
the crew have been doing evil things.
And then we get the Pegasus travelling with Galactica for like
half a season, I think, for quite a while.
Give these 4 characters, I don't know, 6 episodes.
Give them some time.
Give them some good carrots work.
But they could have.
Yeah.
So what do they do?
So the, the thing that, you know, look, the place that Voyager
goes wrong is somewhere at the suits level, isn't it?
Because with Star Trek the Next Generation, it has basically no
premise, doesn't it?
It's like we're on the Federation flagship and we're taking
delegates to Pacifica or whatever.
And it was okay because it was the 1st iteration and they were
just telling stories and we were grateful for the story.
Yeah, exactly.
Now, Deep Space 9 and Voyager differentiate themselves from that
by having a stronger premise, like a more particular premise.
And we've talked before about how much fun Voyager is when it used
to lean into that premise in series.
It never leaned into it to quite the degree that Ron Moore would
have liked them to do.
But they do do it.
But, but, but the suits are still saying no, no serialisation, no
changes in the status quo, you can't do a year of hell.
Everything has to be back to the status quo ante at the end of
each episode.
Ron Moore paints a picture of that writer's room that nobody is
convinced about what they're doing.
Everybody's depressed right in this thing because they've all got
ideas and they're being straightjacketed at every corner.
And you know what?
I bought a book, which was all about the 1st 2 years of Voyager.
Conception, bringing it to the screen and all this.
And you keep getting, one, there's photographs of these sort of
men in suits, in sunglasses.
It's like the fucking X-Files with the government coming in.
All on the set. all the time, just scrutinising everything.
And I think it's the death of creativity.
Yeah.
Yeah, you have to have a little bit.
So, I mean, deep space 9 gets away with it by being overlooked.
Yeah, so no one's looking in that direction.
So they say, right, we're just going to do it, you know?
Don't tell anyone, but we're doing a serialisation, all right?
Yeah.
But what's astonishing about Voyager then is that through the
sheer grit and talent of the actors and some of the direct, things
like that, that the television, that the episodes are as competent
and as enjoyable as they are.
And I think too, there is still something to be said for the sort
of serialised procedural version of Star Trek.
Oh Jesus Christ.
This is the scene I warned you about.
Belana Torres is meeting up with her old flame Max.
Tom Paris is jealous.
He calls her BLT because her favourite dinner was bacon lettuce
and tomato sandwich.
And of course, her name is... initials, but that is also a type of
sandwich, a BLT.
And but what's wrong with us?
Like, we need not only to have it explained to us that their
B'Lanas initials, we also have to have it explained to us, what a
BLT is when it's a type of sandwich that you can just buy.
Like, why are we doing that?
And think about the jumper, Nathan.
Oh, you still got my jumper from back in the end.
And then to top it all off. you get Harry Kim's line, which you
can't even deliver.
You cannot even deliver the terrible...
With any kind of shitty...
But somewhat another actor would try.
But he goes, no, no.
Try with what?
You can't make bricks without straw.
It's dreadful.
It's so bad.
Like, just absurd.
And so we're wasting time with this.
It's so weird.
I just don't buy any of that.
Friendships or their romantic relationship.
Always sounds so grumpy.
Yeah.
But, and like Max, like, is that humanising Max, what's
happening?
Because he's going to become the big bad by episode 2 for some
reason.
No, November.
It's the line at the end of this episode.
He's doing the maneuver that I showed him.
Do you remember?
Oh, that's right.
And she, but she, she gets, like, he says that about her, doesn't
he?
He says, odd, because it's when they're trying to beam the field
generator or whatever the hell off the ship.
You know what I'd find more convincing is if he came on the shit
right?
Yeah, beyond Tom Paris's back, they just fucked, you know?
And I'd be like, okay, I believe in the relationship here.
She's like, come on.
I've always really fancied let's go in the turbo lift.
Yeah, except I think that that's a waste.
Like, this is something, isn't it?
Like she's scared to go on the turbo lift.
There's something, but you know what's annoying is there is no
other point in voyages run where you hear electricity zipping
around the turbo lift, right?
At no other point, except for this point, where we need the sound
effect that sounds just like the slimers.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So, I mean, that, I don't know.
And she's sort of saying she's scared of the turbo lift, and then
later on, when they send her to crawl through a thing, they just
say, oh, you'll have to keep your claustrophobia in check and she
goes, oh yeah, all right, I'll do that.
She's like what?
You know, like, like, it's so...
And it's a tiny face, whereas that turbo lift was quite big, you
know?
Yeah, it's really, really in there, isn't it?
Where was you remember when we made a thing of that in By
Inferno's Light when Garak and Marcel and Wolf go?
It takes a brave man to face his fears, you know.
Yeah, but he's scared.
You know, they don't switch off the claustrophobic.
Switching, isn't he?
He's talking to him to do it for plot reasons.
They're just not working on the same level, though, are they?
In terms of characterisation?
No.
Oh, dear.
I knew we were going to have fun talking about this, you know.
I knew it was gonna be...
And so, so all of this stuff, like now that I'm watching it again
where they're looking really shifty, and it's 2 men looking really
shifty, while, you know, the, I mean, you know, naturally Tim Russ
doesn't have any lines.
So it's 2 women, um, you know, talking about it and they're
looking shifty and they're talking about how to deal with the
slimes and stuff.
Whereas these guys are clearly looking guilty because they know
what it is they're talking about.
Oh, and because Savage is ransom savage.
Ransom is lying here too, isn't he?
Yeah, it's... heartheartedly trying to cover his tracks at this
point.
Yeah.
No, he's trying to get them from going into the research lab.
So he says it's full of thermionic radiation.
Oh, I do like it when they blast the shit out of a set like this.
Look all that debris everywhere.
Yeah.
I actually like those the consoles that they're standing out there
sort of big and hefty.
I think that's quite a decent bridge set.
And I quote a line that I just heard.
I know it's going to annoy you a lot.
Yeah.
He goes, so how are we going to catch these fits, these fish, and
she goes, we're going to have to build a net.
I'm like, oh, gosh, really?
They did say they were exhausted, the writers, remember.
Yeah, yeah.
So here we get the thing where we're comparing notes on what's
happening and...
It should have been a lot more fun than it was, though, right?
She goes, well, you know, she should have said, oh, I came up
against a VR version of fear, you know, that was Michael McKeon.
Yeah, played by Michael McKean.
Yeah.
No, so he has 39 crew die in the 1st week.
So half of his crew are dead at the, at, you know, and not, not
like, you know, the medical officer on Voyager dies or whatever
the 2nd in command, but like half of his crew are killed by
hostile aliens.
Uh, and...
I don't know.
I just don't think the debate they end up having.
They've had such different experiences in it. regardless of what
he's done.
They have had completely different experiences in the Dow
Quadron.
So, she can't really condemn him.
I don't think.
Oh, she can.
It's it's a mess.
I don't like it.
You know, it doesn't matter where you're sitting.
It's a bunch of cows.
But it isn't, is it?
Like, that's the thing.
And that's a discovery.
They're not just, it's not that they're monsters attacking us
because they're monsters.
They are attacking us because we've been killing them, you know?
Do you think about the lesser species when you sink your teeth
into a lamb chop?
No, sometimes.
Like, I think that there's, look, I think that there's really
really strong moral arguments for vegetarianism, and I think that
as human beings, we kill 10s of 1000000000s of animals a year to
feed ourselves, and we don't believe that.
I just taste so good.
Yeah that's right.
They're made of meat.
Now, look, this sign's very important, you know, this sign.
He's picking up the equinox side.
And in the 2nd episode, we have a very similar scene, don't we
between JY and Chakotay?
A bad scene between Janeway and Jakota.
We'll get it.
This is where we 1st get them actually talking.
So this is when we 1st find out what the deal is.
This is the stuff I love, all this sort of clandestine
conversations, you know, we're going to make our move soon
Nathan.
All right.
The podcast audience won't suspect a thing.
But I actually, I like this episode for this reason.
You know, we get together.
There's a new ship.
The ship looks really great.
We discover some new things about the Delta Quadrant.
We're meeting new people.
We're getting to know them, all of that.
I think that's all quite fun.
And I like this as well.
Like, I kind of like this.
I just wish that the villains weren't such boring white men. don't
know.
This guy is pretty good too, Max.
He's got a kind of thing about him, don't you think?
In a sort of white bread way.
He's kind of cute.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So here's Rick Worthy.
And I think he's really great.
I did try and find out as much about his personal life as I
possibly could because I think he's a good looking man, and
there's nothing...
No, no, but I was kind of, you know, searching the internet for
any information about him.
If we were doing this now, private man.
If we were doing this story now, equinox, yeah.
I think it would run like, I don't know, half a season and they
would integrate with the crew and the shocks would come way
later.
Yeah.
Because it's Star Trek Border, John, we got to get to the point.
So we can get back to, you know, turning the crew evil or whatever
we're going to do next week.
Well, so I think, you know, given that we have these short seasons
now, I think that that it, you know, the season becomes about
this.
Do you know what I mean?
Like this could propeller season, I think, of sort of 10
episodes.
It's like what they did in Discovery with...
I mean, it's a different story, but it's they introduced a
character that was one thing, Vox, Tyler, in Discovery, you know?
And then they waited half a season before they dropped that he was
the enemy and then did shocking and interesting things with it.
Yeah.
Whereas, whereas I think that if we want to do something that can
just be watched on its own terms, and that, that isn't serialised
and all of that, that the right approach is strangely worlds, and
strangely worlds, isn't serialised, uh, at all, really, you know
like from one episode to the other things can be very different
indeed, but every previously on, is a montage of clips of the
characters interacting with each other because the things that
they do and say to one another have an effect and continue to
matter from episode to episode.
And that's what we're invested.
Yes, exactly right.
We're invested in them after what?
How many episodes have we had?
20?
invest myself and these people who reset every single week and
forget the lessons they learned right.
Exactly.
And they don't have to be referring all the time to what they do
what they did last week.
But it's absolutely indefensible that 2 years apart, we have this
massive leadership crisis between Chakotay and Janeway.
It's not, you know, we're not mentioning 8472 now because people
might not have watched that and so we can't mention it and we, you
know, like, and we never learn from this.
We're doing a huge giant thing that's just swept under the rug at
the end of the episode.
They want to sort of flirt with making the captain commander
relationship really interesting.
I just can't follow through.
But the DS1 approach was to have Cisco and Kira, so it's a man and
a woman again.
And she's his religious icon, you know, and that's, and so there's
so many interesting things and they do.
They explore it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, I was just thinking there, you know, like, you know, the
15th time that a wormhole turns up and Harry Kim gets really
excited.
Someone should just say, Harry, have you not learned from the last
14 times a wormhole came along?
And it went spectacularly badly.
That's the frustration for me.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, he's so obviously evil in this scene as well.
He's got his little pad there downloading from engineering.
In fact, in the foreground of that shot earlier, it just is
flashing download in progress in large red letters on the screen.
What he should have said is when she goes, oh yeah, it's Tom
Paris.
He should have gone, oh, you're going out with him.
Really?
Like your standards of drops.
So, and they're going to go out to dinner together or something
tonight.
Is that it?
Like a blah, blah, blah.
But like, I mean, it's just so shit as well.
An old boyfriend just happens to be one of the few surviving
members of the equinox crew.
Just to inject a little bit of character in this, you know.
But there's they've got that's the problem, isn't it?
Like this is kind of using up time. that could have been devoted
to examining what they had done, you know, and how they felt about
what they were doing.
We get a sense of that from Marla.
We get a sense from Marla that she feels bad about what's
happened.
But then when everyone breaks out of Voyager and heads back to the
equinox.
She goes with them, but we don't know why.
With no hint of like that she doesn't think it's the right thing
to do.
You know, she's like, right.
I'm there, captain, I'll be behind you.
Let's go.
So do we understand that she was bunging it on earlier?
Like she was saying all that for their benefit.
But then that sounds just interpreting it. not there in the text.
No, because no one's, no one's thinking about it.
No one who's writing this is thinking about any of this.
Straighting, isn't it?
And so we have that holodeck thing, which is being introduced
which will play a big part in part 2 and it's very bad, I think.
I think the part it plays in part 2 is very, very bad because
there's one interesting thing that happens in part two, which is
that ransom starts to regret what he's done, but he doesn't do
that for any reason as far as I can tell.
I think it's just because he fancies 7 of nine, you know.
In those very bizarre scenes where they're hanging out on virtual
reality beach.
It's ridiculous. very bad, I think.
I can just see Ron Moore tearing his hair out going, why are we
doing virtual reality with 7 or 9?
Oh, because she'll look pretty.
She'll look pretty on the beach, wouldn't she?
They look great on the screen.
Okay.
Here's Naomi.
Oh, Nathan, save me.
Hello.
I'm Ambassador Wildman. pleased to meet you.
And I think that's kind of cute and it humanises her.
Well, you would, wouldn't you?
Except, so, like, I mean, you know, like, I'm quite happy she's a
little girl.
It's nice having a little girl on the Enterprise, whatever.
But we have this conversation.
She says something about how she felt when she was her age.
No, or her nephew's the same age and you kind of go, the same
age.
Like, what?
How old is she?
She's 3 isn't she?
Like, when is she born?
We've been in the Delta Quadrant for 5 years, we say it in
Thailand. of course.
Yeah, that's terrible.
I didn't even notice this episode.
Remember, Nathan, they weren't exhausted.
Okay?
Yeah, yeah.
No, no.
We pull the same shit with Alexander who grows up like a soap
opera character because babies are boring and you can't write
stories about them.
And, you know, that's why it's happening.
But like it grows like a decade, you know, in one year.
But I'll tell you what, thank God we got rid of fucking Brian
Bosnell.
Yes, by this.
Yes.
I'll say, here we go.
The equinox crew now, in their dark, dingy set, you know, scheming
amongst themselves.
I like all this.
We can't let Voyager stop us now.
And so no one here is saying, actually, the people on Voyager are
well fed and uh, you know, uh, not living the way that we've been
living for the past 5 years.
You know, they're still far from home, but they have each other.
Maybe we could stop murdering people.
Yeah, that's exactly what she should have happened.
And there's no, but no, no one, no one even brings it up as a
possibility.
You know, like no one even suggests it.
All they're doing is functional dialogue about power couplings and
shit.
And this is the stuff that Ron Moore was complaining about, wasn't
it?
We're going to stand around and explain the plans which we're
about to see happening.
Like, it's not like we're going to be mystified as to why they
behave in a certain way in a little while and we needed this scene
but they're happy to write that sort of dialogue.
It's the one point where they could so easily have made the right
call and choose not to.
Yeah.
Whereas they do they do at least paint the picture that when they
did the terrible thing in the past, they were in a corner, you
know?
So they made a decision.
It was the wrong decision, but they made that decision because
there was, they felt there was no other way.
Well, here they can just say, do you know what, Captain?
I did this terrible thing.
I want to join forces with your crew.
I want, I will go into a sale because I did a terrible thing
against the prime directive and my crew can integrate with yours
and let's all go.
Prime directive.
Like, whatever is something... about not murdering.
This is where he basically becomes a supervillain because he just
decides, no, no, no, we're going to get home.
We're going to leave them there and we're going to murder a load
of people just because we can.
And and like, but like no one is thinking about anything beyond
the action that we want to have happen on screen.
And so no one's looking at the characters and going, what are you
thinking now, what do you want now?
What do you think of what ransom is saying?
None of that stuff is happening at all.
So you got to remember, Ron Moore's not involved at this point.
He doesn't come in until next series.
So he's probably flicking through this script and he's on his sick
whiskey bar now.
And he's got a load of notes that's longer than the script itself
going, why does that go?
Who's, I don't understand any of this.
So he has an idea of what to do with this.
Oh, here we go.
So we send the doctor in because he can cope with the thermionic
radiation.
Do you know what that works?
That makes the discovery now.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think the discoveries like it properly shocking as well.
I do think they shouldn't have been acting suspicious before this
point. to make this twist land.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
They were tired.
The writers, the actors, the director.
But there is a sort of Star Trek, there's a sort of
straightforwardness, like the fact that they're not doing anything
too interesting with the script.
And you, you know, so it's just being revealed to us in the order
that it happens or whatever.
But you're right.
They hold off for a while.
I mean, how far into the episode, are we, with 30 minutes in?
So they hold off to about sort of 20, you know, about halfway
through the episode and then we have that conversation in the mess
hall where it becomes clear that they're bad guys.
But we've spoiled it by having that big dumb conversation where
they all stand around talking and it would have been better to
have just waited, wouldn't it?
That's exactly it.
We should have just waited. half an hour of them being, you know
like, oh, thank God we found you. and the captain being charming
as hell and having lovely scenes with Janeway and all of this.
But just with a few hints that something's gone wrong.
Maybe a bit of dialogue here or there when something doesn't make
sense. and you can have music going, I can discover.
I couldn't help you notice you said about, da, da, you know
something like that.
And then the twist is.
Yeah.
But also, I think the techno babble in this scene is fighting
against it as well.
The more he talks about nucleonic energy and and, you know, fucking
cellular base pairs and all of that sort of thing.
And the less we hear, they're murdering people in order to get
home quicker.
Like it's never put in those terms.
We're left to kind of deduce that.
James says, doesn't she?
Yeah, but the doctor...
We we need to discover that.
We need to discover that and it needs to be talked about in normal
human English.
And because there's some weird CGI creature terribly rendered in
that set.
It doesn't have the visceral impact it needs either.
Yeah, but I do think that that makes it a little bit more
interesting as well.
You know, like, well, it's a bit weird, yeah.
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I mean, the thing is, you know, we're Starfleet.
She's got a bit of silly party on her desk.
She's going...
This poor creature.
Oh, dear, oh.
Oh, do you know, I thought this was the bear of the two, you
know?
Oh no, I think it is.
And look, he says he admits, how many lines would it take, does he
say?
Because it's like 63 or 71 or something like it's a big number.
63.
There you go.
Can I ask you, would you want to see Jamo put in that situation?
Like the situation that Ransom was in?
No.
Why?
No.
Um, because, uh, just because, uh, you know, like, I think killing
Senator Renak, who gives a shit, I've said that before, but, like
um, you know, torturing people...
The Gem Haddan at the end of the show.
Yeah, where they're forced to do it by the vorta.
Yeah, but I don't think this.
Do you know what I mean?
This is deliberately set up as, you know, maybe understandable, but
like, holy fuck, what are you doing?
Like, even this, we hadn't eaten in 16 days and like, so is then
is it okay to kill 63 people?
Like, like, it just seems, you know, it doesn't seem quite good
enough.
And why are we wasting our time with this?
Oh, look at the flashback.
Yeah.
Where do they how much?
How many?
I think it's probably a 7 or eight.
Yeah, we're around that part.
They still got big holes all over their faces.
I like the one who comes on board in the in the in the 2nd
episode.
God bless them, because they're doing both the exposition that we
normally get. you know, the dreadful story and we're seeing it as
well.
Actually, a flashback is actually a little bit unusual, don't you
think, Voyager?
quite nice.
Yeah.
And it's not just a flashback of the one moment they made the back
or anything like that, where it sounds like a small narrative.
Yeah.
Look again.
Look at that creature with his hands together.
Yeah.
I don't think we need this.
Don't you think?
We don't, we do.
No, I don't think we need to.
No, normally they would just tell the story, the tell, you know, it
would just be dialogue, and that would be fine.
Yeah, no, no, no.
I mean, I just don't think it, we, like, if the, even the dialogue
is going to be so long, we definitely in the flashback, that's too
boring, but we don't need a long speed.
No, because do you remember Decker in the Doomsday machine?
Well, we didn't see any of it and he just told us the story, but
the camera just straight into speech.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and like this, it's easy to cling to principles when you're
you know, when your bulkheads are intact.
And it's just like, well, but we're not just talking about the
prime directive or wearing our uniforms neatly.
We're talking about murdering 63 people.
You know, like...
Like, I think she's going to sharp during this seater.
Because you know we're awful.
I would like to see Janeway in that position.
I think maybe I could judge him then.
No, no, no, no.
Because I think just wouldn't dare to do that.
It wouldn't dare to her in a morally compromising situation like
that.
And I think that what they've done is too bad.
I think what they've done is too bad.
I wonder if it's the execution for me then.
Because it doesn't seem that bad to me.
What they've done.
So I think it's the execution because I don't want to keep going
like labouring the point.
It's just that those inoffensive little creatures like lambs in
the field, you know, like it just doesn't, it doesn't seem like
such a big deal, yeah.
If it was the Beaumar, you know, that they were collecting up.
I think Matt, what is it, he says again?
I get translators malfunctioning.
You know, and then he murdered a lot of them to get home.
Maybe.
Yeah, that'd be all right.
I think that'd be okay.
But one of the things about Star Trek is that you discover that
these strange creatures are more than you thought they were.
You know, all the way back to the devil in the dark where the
monster just ends up being a mother.
You know, Star Trek has always been about discovering, like
including more and more people into our moral community, into the
group of people that we are bound to treat well, and just because
these are weird looking CGI creatures, that doesn't mean that
killing them isn't murder.
If they were animals, yeah, sure.
But if, and maybe does it sell enough that they're sent in?
I don't know.
I was just taking it that they were people because that's what the
script seemed to be and what Janeway seemed to be saying.
I just, I, I just wonder if, if anybody in the position of kill or
be killed.
That you would just make that call.
Oh, yeah, but I think, I think when it comes to like kill or, you
know, vivisect a whole bunch of people and then develop a plan and
then put them in the thing, do you know what I mean?
By the time you're putting things into chambers to kill them.
I think it's not quite self-defence at that point.
I didn't show you the seller while you were here then, you know?
But it's also like, oh, this.
Sorry to interrupt you.
We're doing the evil doctor again.
And it's an episode.
I love how easily evil doctor fools our doctor.
Taps his arm, like this.
Look, look, look, no, no.
He just hits him with he just hits him with his pad.
Watch.
Whee.
Oh, there it goes.
And it's a chance for Robert Picardo to chew the scenery, but we
have seen it all before.
I think it's really shit.
And I think we've seen it all before in descent part two, where
you know, you have data torturing Geordie in exactly the same
way.
Yes, I think icky, isn't it?
What he does to say?
Yeah.
It's yeah, it's not fun.
And how that's hand waved at the end as well.
They have a scene at the end.
It's just like, oh, well, I think their scene is super off putting
and weird, but it's a lot better than the really shitty scene with
Janeway and Chakotay at the end.
I think I think the problem here is that You have people making
moral choices.
You know, is it all right for Janeway to torture Rick Worthy?
Is it okay to kill a bunch of people because you want to get
home?
And then the doctor who becomes evil for just space reasons
because ransom says Siri make the doctor evil and he just becomes
evil.
And so that just undermines everything, you know, like ethical
subroutines.
You know, like, and it's not even hard.
You don't even have to do something difficult to get the doctor to
like, why would you even have like a security issue?
Like, that would that would mean there is a there is a situation
where they're not needed because they need to be turned off.
Yeah.
It's just like, no, sorry, we don't those don't turn off.
They don't exist.
He just has epics built into his program, you know?
But what, you know, you never know, you know.
Maybe somebody just turned off Ransom's ethical subroutines.
I believe his name might have been Joe Manosky.
There we go.
Oh, I liked all of this, so now...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is fun action, isn't it?
I think it's really good And that's what they're going for.
Like, I think that the things that we like about this, um, these 2
parter, and there's plenty of them despite all the moaning that
we're doing.
The things that we like are the things that they want us to like
they're the things that they're kind of foreground.
That's sort of linear plotting I was winging about.
That sort of linear plotting.
We love that in Star Trek, don't we?
We like a little mystery unfolding before us, even though we know
kind of where it's going.
You know, they've got to learn though, right?
Because do you remember the Vardoir?
And they came along and they're like, we're innocent victims, you
know, and they were like, oh, well, don't worry. come on the ship
you be all right.
And then it turns out they're evil and we're doing this.
Do you remember the ones we watched?
Are the Vadweir in season six?
Oh, they are?
right.
Sorry.
Yeah.
So they should haven't happened yet.
They should have remembered this then.
When the good crew equinox came along and said, you know, we're
all victims and, well, do you remember in alliances when you had
who was it?
The Cazon's enemy?
Oh, the train.
The train.
I don't remember nothing, do they, of this show?
Yeah, and like having the 2 ships fight one another, all of that
sort of super interesting.
Yeah, this is very boring, isn't it?
He's using one of my tri-quadratic algorithms.
Is that euphemism?
I don't know.
It's impossible to say.
This is not very urgent though, is it?
No.
She was a failing.
You've got less than a minute.
Open a channel.
So we got out the bit where Janeway spits at him, you know, like
get back here and ransom, or I'll hunt you across the entire
galaxy.
And she does.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think, you know, like, I think she's right too, because what
we're going to get, Oh, Jesus Christ, he just called her BLT.
Oh, there was a few roles there. happy to see the rocks.
Yeah, yeah.
The end of this episode is like the final scene of this episode is
just a redoing the 1st scene of the episode, but it's happening to
Voyager.
And I think that's that's the best thing about it.
And it's part of the reason why that 1st scene is actually a bit
nothing because it's people that we don't know about and we don't
even know where they are.
And like we don't even know that they're in the Delta Quadrant, do
we?
How can we tell?
The problem with it is. is one, I think the execution is not great
because the slime of monsters just look shit.
But the other problem is, is I knew that the next episode was
going to start and there was just going to be some technobabble
reason as to why those monsters weren't there anymore or they were
just going to shoot them.
So it wasn't like best of both worlds where we were like, how the
hell are we going to get out of this?
It was just, well, you know, let's get to the next episode because
this danger isn't going to last very long.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
Sure.
But the function of a cliffhanger is to get you excited for the
next one, isn't it?
Yeah, but I think, I mean, I think that what's interesting is, and
it's the thing I think that, um, Ronald Moore picks up on is now
we're putting Janeway in exactly the position that Ransom was in.
Right?
So, like, literally, we see there it is.
In fact, we see a reenactment of the 1st scene, but happening on
Voyager in the 2nd scene.
And so now they're in the same situation, right?
And so what Moore wants to do is he wants to explore Janeway
losing her shit and losing her way morally.
And he wants ransom to kind of, uh, you know, like improve to kind
of see the error of his ways, uh, you know, because he's
interacting with the doctor in seven.
But no one else likes that idea, apparently. and it's certainly
not what we get.
And we don't get an examination of any of this.
And that's the centre of it.
I mean, if the big villain, the big series ending villain is us.
You know, that's what you should be doing.
You shouldn't just be doing the same shit as if this was the mail
on or whatever.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, if it's us, then, then it masses in a, in a way, and it has
to be a thing that we ourselves could have done.
And so making the crime so bad.
So obviously wrong is a mistake.
Um, because it should have been greyer.
And, and that's what the title offers.
Like, that's what the title suggests, isn't it?
equinox.
It's the day of the year where day and night are equal length
right?
It's half good, half bad.
And we don't get that.
No one can do anything sort of interesting or nuanced or anything
but they do decent action sequences.
Yeah, and 7 of 9 on a beach.
Do you know, do you remember Homefront and Paradise Lost from
series 4 of DS9?
And initially we're supposed to think the Dominion are evading
Earth?
they go there.
And then the big twist and that is, no, it was us all along in
that the admiral is so paranoid about the Dominion, that he's
staging things, so they can raise a military force and go out
after him.
So it is doing the same sort of thing, but it has protracted
dialogue scenes between Cisco and the admiral, where we understand
why he is so paranoid, why he's doing what he's doing.
It doesn't condemn him either like this does.
It's just playing in a different park, isn't it?
Well, look, we should probably watch episode two, you know, even
though I think we're going to complain a lot.
Yeah, I think episode 2 is worse and we complained a lot about
episode one, but I think a lot of our complaints were about
episode two, actually.
Like, this is a procedural thing.
I like hang time.
You know, we spend a lot of time just getting to know these new
people who've come on board, which I think is kind of
interesting.
There's an away mission, there's a bit of a mystery.
I actually kind of liked the discovery that something had gone
wrong, even though it wasn't all that well done.
But I don't think this episode, like, is a satisfying conclusion.
And that's often the case, isn't it?
Two parters?
So I have been in touch with Ron Moore to ask for some information
about the writing of Equinox, and he's got a one or 2 things to
say.
What I would suggest people do is go out, write Ron Moore, series
6 Voyager departure into Google, like I did, and there is a very
long, very detailed interview where he talks about the issues
behind the scenes of Voyager at the time.
But I want to focus just on what he says about, is it equinox or
equinox?
Both, either one, whichever way you want to say it.
Okay.
We sat down on approach equinox 2 and tried to find what the show
was about.
What was the point of meeting this ship and this crew and this
captain and what did it mean?
We finally landed on the idea that the 2 captains were going in
opposite directions.
Janeway was going to really feel the same kind of pressures and
stretches that ransom fell and watch how it could turn a good by
the book captain into what he had become.
At the same time, his interaction with the doctor in the 7 of 9
would rekindle his humanity.
It was this nice double track approach, but it just got lost in
the translation.
It has no coherence.
You're not really sure what's going on.
You've got some potentially good scenes.
The scenes between Janeway and Chakotay, had some real fire to
them.
And you kind of felt like she's going off the deep end a bit.
Then she released them with duty and there's this crisis of
command between the 2 of them, but at the end of the episode, it's
just shrug and smile and move off to the next episode.
I just hit the ceiling.
I remember writing in the margins.
This is a total betrayal of the audience.
This is wrong.
You can't end the show like this.
If you're going to do all this other stuff.
You can't end the show like this because it's not fair.
It's not true, and it just wouldn't happen.
But that's what the show is.
It became about action sequence is.
Brannan was very proud that the show was more action oriented than
the others, that is faster, stylistically a little more daring
than the other Star Trek shows.
That's great.
I give him a lot of credit for changing the look and feel of the
show.
But it has to be about something at some level.
The things that Janeway does in Equinox don't work because it's
not about anything.
She's not really grappling with her inner demons.
She's not truly under the gun and suffering to the point where you
can understand the decisions she's made.
She just gets kind of cranky and bitchy.
She's having a bad day.
These things keep popping around on the bridge and we keep cutting
to shots of people grabbing phaser rifles and shooting and hitting
the red alert sign over and over again.
It doesn't signify anything.
It's kind of emblematic of the show.
There's a lot of potential.
There's a lot of surface sizzle going on in a lot of the episodes
but to what end?
What are we trying to do?
What are we trying to touch in the audience?
What are we trying to say?
What things are we trying to explore?
What are we doing in this episode?
It's pretty damning, isn't it?
Yeah.
I think he's a bit unfair in some senses, but only because I've
read stuff into the episode and I think it's not there.
And I think that is the problem.
Like, I think you can make a good case why Janeway has sensible
reasons for doing what she's done and for going to the lengths
that she's gone.
And I think it does make a difference that these aren't the mail
on, uh, or the Vardoir or the Herogen or some monsters.
It makes a difference.
But they don't, do they?
In the episode, it sounds. don't.
She never gets to make her case.
Chakotay never gets to make his case.
She's just behaving in an ornery way. and he's being pathetic as
usual.
And so none of the moral stuff gets examined.
It's like the surface sheen of drama, isn't it?
We have no substance underneath whatsoever.
So it looks like a dramatic scene because you've got two.
Well, I've got to say 2 powerhouse actors.
Robert Belgian is in there as well.
Two actors going at it, hammer and tongs.
But it's just like, it's like you said, isn't it?
like a house about bricks, you know, built on straw. just nothing
there.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's a it's a shame.
Well, I'm excited.
Well, like we did say before, that I didn't hate watching this.
I didn't feel like I'd wasted an hour and a half and it's Star
Trek and I like Star Trek, but I guess it's a bit disappointing.
And it's funny.
Um, this week, although by the time this goes out, it will be last
week's episode.
But last week's episode of Lower Decks, did its big Voyager
episode the way it did its big Deep Space 9 episode last year.
And the thing that they remember most about Voyager is the crazy
ass, high concept, nonsense that they kept doing.
And that is a thing that's worth remembering Voyager 4.
You know, that's one of the things that we kind of like about it.
But what we don't remember it fondly for is how well drawn the
characters are and how urgent the moral delivers were or how
sparkling the repartee was on the bridge.
I think sort of more than any other example that I can think of.
Equinox is emblematic of Voyager itself in that it just has a reek
of unfulfilled potential.
And that's why, so like, you're right, from scene to scene, it is
perfectly watchable.
It's competently made.
It's well acted, you know, like I don't have any objections about
how it's being executed beyond our usual lack of shiny services
and cameras that don't move.
But it just always feels like it could be more.
This story does, the series does.
And yeah, I don't really like watching a TV show where I'm always
feeling like I'm not getting what I should be getting.
Yeah, that's fair enough.
Well, I count us in then.
Are we Star Trek fans really?
No, we are, we are.
We whinge because we care.
There'll be lovely shots of shiny ships shooting at each other in
this.
You know, we'll be happy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. awesome.
Okay, here goes.
Five, four, three, two, one, and we're off.
Please, God, choose topic we love next time is you've got a button
next time.
Here we go.
Major Al Barrett leads us into a reprise of episode one.
Yeah, she's she's the narrator.
See, it looks sort of super dramatic, doesn't it?
Oh, we can't communicate with them.
That is kind of what it is, though, isn't it?
We just sort of like trailer fuel, isn't it?
All these sort of scenes that you could just pluck out and say
right, this is going to be great.
But, you know, like, I think people who complain, you know, that
action or spectacle are meretricious.
I think that's ridiculous.
It's TV.
It's got to be spectacle.
That's one thing. and it's not the only thing because you've done
many things for me in my life.
If there's one thing you have taught me about examining television
is the vision part of television.
Yeah, and I've truly come to, to kick away from that, how well it
should just be, you know, a painted cloth backdrop.
A couple of actors declaiming in front of it.
Now I can sort of relax when I massively pretty set pieces are
going on around me.
Yeah, thank you for that. great.
Yeah, and Brague is right.
You know, like the action thing with this, trouble with the action
sequences on Voyager is that they all look roughly the same, which
is a problem.
Yeah.
It was when we got that sort of massive fleet of ships in
sacrifice of angels, you know, that 1st time with going at each
other.
We just never seen anything like it, had we?
We were like, whoa.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nowadays, you watch it and go, well, it's a bit pedestrian
actually.
Those ships are flying through very slowly.
Now, yeah, that's right.
Now, do you think I'm, I'm, I'm sort of bad cliche guy, but look
Chakotay's been hit by one of the things and he's got a scar on
his face.
And then naturally, because it's Voyager, we have time to go and
fix it in the next scene so we don't have to keep putting the
latex on him from episode to episode.
Why don't we give Jane a face?
with his usual skill.
Yeah.
That's what's happening right now in the transition between the
scenes.
No, no.
But why don't we give why don't we give Janeway that scar?
She had one.
Just a little off, but it's gone.
No, she gets attacked.
So it's gone.
We don't give her the scar.
You know, like, and that's cheesy.
Do you know what I mean?
It's like, I have his leg or whatever.
It's, you know, I...
I think that something personal happens here.
The reason why I think that it's okay for Janeway to torture Rick
Worthy is that.
She made a choice.
And that choice cost was costly, you know, that she made a costly
choice for the sake of people that she'd never met and had no
particular interest in.
And they're making the opposite choice.
They're actually actually choosing to ride home. that they don't
know.
They're not, this, that's right.
That's it.
So she makes and and you know, we get that in in the final episode
in whatever it's called, endgame.
I think is explained in that, though.
They actually do refer back to Caretaker, don't they?
Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
They don't hear, though, do they?
No, no.
But as an audience went back to it.
You shouldn't be expected to create the content.
Exactly.
I hate ways behaving the way she is.
Well, in a well-made drama, that would be part of the fun would be
kind of going, oh, yes, of course she's reacting like that because
of this, but they're not doing that either.
I'm just having to kind of head canon her weird behaviour, I
think.
Yes, don't you?
Even in a well-made drama.
They would give you some kind of dialogue.
Well, that makes the link.
And also, too, that so they're left in the same situation.
So he has not only determined to kill 63 things in order to get
home.
He's also decided to leave Voyager in the situation that he found
himself in.
So sorry. over the top shot of Jayway marching through the ship
with a massive fucking gun.
Yep.
Their subtlety, Nathan has left the building.
And that, why is like Neelix is just walking past the dead body
there?
They've got it on the floor, that's odd.
Or is that cool?
Because they're shooting them as they emerged. you know what I
mean?
Like that, I kind of like these.
Are they allowed to do that?
Yeah, well, they're attacking them.
I mean, they are attacking them, mind you, because they've been
being attacked.
Do you know what I mean?
But, like, shooting them in self-defence doesn't seem quite the
same as...
People aware you're in its home, you know?
Yeah.
Oh, look at this.
We're out of bed, so there's people lying on the floor.
I know because they've got this tiny fucking set.
No, so where he goes, presses the button, but he goes, please take
state the nature of the, Oh yeah, don't bother.
There's people all over the floor.
Oh, bless.
So do we, does Chakotay keep the scar?
I can't remember.
No, no, no. they get rid of it.
Yeah.
Because, you know, Robert Belcher is so pretty.
We wouldn't want him looking like that.
Well, I suppose.
I think he did have a certain something in those early couple of
years.
And then he had a bit of gray in his head, didn't he, for a little
while?
A little bit of gray and it, like, shorter hair.
Now he just sort of combs it back like any...
It's discovered just for men.
Sorry, it looks very unconvincing.
Oh, so here we are on this fabulous beach.
So here we go outside.
Well, we are, but we're not really, are we?
Well, we are because we are going to take Jerry out there.
I thought it might be just stock footage or something like that
but we actually take Jerry to that location and...
But you know what?
He's saying about how the doctor and 7 are supposed to teach him
to be a good human being and all again and how none of that
happens because it doesn't happen at all.
No, it doesn't happen.
It just comes across that he's perving on 7 and 9 in his sort of
porn virtual reality thing.
It's very old.
No, he literally changes his mind for no reason.
Like, I can't see.
No, no, there is a reason.
There is a reason.
The episode has to.
Season seven.
Yeah.
No, he sees 7 in the virtual reality, which is a thing that's not
supposed to have because it's only got landscapes and no people
and 7 has a conversation with him, but I don't know what that's
meant to mean or represent in real life.
Do you know what I mean?
Is it like I'm feeling bad about killing her in order to get the
codes?
You know how they should have ended this?
Do you remember that episode about Star Galactica when Gator and
that?
take over Galactica, you know, they stage a coup and at the end
they surround them and shoot them all in the head.
They should have ended in all this.
Janeway could have come in with that big gun and shot them all.
They execute them, don't they?
they execute them as a death penalty.
It's Gator and someone else.
I can't remember who else.
I didn't get wrong.
They would never do that in Star Trek, but you know, again, I can
tell you what's the more interesting show.
Yeah, yeah, but not because they wouldn't shoot people in the head
because there are plenty of interesting shows that don't have that
happen.
Um, I just think, yeah.
And that's super interesting because there are people we've been
with for years and we can understand why they mutiny and all of
that.
And remember that what Battlestar Galactica does is it does these
local storylines that last for sort of 3 or 4 episodes, the mutiny
is a thing that happens over a period of time, just like Pegasus
is a thing that happens over a period of time.
Not available to this show.
One of the things that Moore talks about in his interview is how
the Voyager premise is inherent for serialisation because they are
going on a journey.
So the fact that they don't do what you just described there about
Battle Star Galactica is baffling.
Why do that process at all?
Yeah.
Well, I suspect why they do that premise is so to get away from
the DS9.
Yeah, I think it's so that Deep Space 9 and the films are not
affected by any of the continuity that happens in vice versa.
It's a flawed reason then, isn't it?
Because it opens up possibilities that they're not willing to
take.
No.
And like that's unfair because initially they do, they do have an
ongoing plot.
And like plenty of people don't like it and whatever and they're
happy when it's over and we're just doing sort of standalones
again.
But like I guess, I don't know.
The sad truth there is, is when they did drop the case on and went
into standalones.
It's sort of, we're approaching series 4 where Jerry Ryan came in
and suddenly they're getting the productions, right?
So they're doing these big, juicy sort of standout episodes and
things like this where people are going, oh, Voyagers just got
really good because it's dropped all that Ks on nonsense.
But actually, it's just naturally a show getting better as it goes
along as well.
It's a shame.
I think so too.
And I think I think it's telling as well that there are only 7
people on this ship.
Like, and that wasn't always true.
You know, there's no.
There's no sort of semi-regulars or anything.
Yeah, which is, again, a shame because they started doing that
didn't they?
And then Jerry Taylor was like, no, we're going to murder them all
in one episode.
Yeah, except for the one that we bring back later and then... so
terrible, isn't it?
Well, it's period.
They're doing the best they can.
I think it's an attempt.
They were sort of proud of it.
I thought that shot was okay.
You know what?
In the end, in my head there, I was doing more parallels between
Voyager and Battlestar Galactica.
You could have a scene where Harry Kim has finally had enough of
his interminable journey home, goes into his locker, pulls out a
pistol and shoots himself in the head.
Yeah, yeah.
No, that wouldn't happen, would it?
Yeah, yeah.
Shame.
No, I mean, Battlestar Galactic is a completely different thing
and I think it's a great show, but I think it's not a great show
specifically because it's not Star Trek and it does things that
Star Trek can't do.
I think it's a great show because it's well written.
And yeah, and all those things that TV probably should be doing
all the time.
Yeah, yeah.
Did you hear what she said there?
We should be hunting down ransom, nuts, debating adverbs
Chakotay.
Yeah.
What was the adverbs thing?
Oh, because they're trying to communicate with the, I like the
adverbs line, actually, because they're trying to work out a way
of communicating with the, with the slimers.
She goes, we run into the Melon, the Hirogen, we've had our share
of bad guys.
We never lost our principles, Chakotay.
But she's saying the wrong thing.
She's saying the wrong thing because she's the one who should be
saying, no, the mail on, the Hirogen, the Borg.
They're bad guys, but this is different.
He's us and he's murdering his way through the quadrant.
You know, he's left us in with, you know, to clean up his shit.
He's killed 3 crew members at a point in the show when only like
20 something had died by that point.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, he's responsible for the deaths of these crew members, and
he's a person, and we're part of the same organisation, and I'm
going to put a stop to it.
You know, he's got to be punished.
He can't get away with it.
Instead, she's she's just saying, well, you know, we've met these
people. and we never went there, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
So it's less focus on here.
It's all about them.
It's very strange Do you remember, I'm going to keep doing this.
Do you remember the Cisco Eddington, you know, the episode where
he's trying to hunt him down, right?
I mean, they're never going to top that because it's so operatic
in a way that only DS9 can be.
You know, he absolutely adores Les Miserables.
He gets to say at the end, you know, Javert, I'll give you what
you want.
Me, you know, and all of this very over the top stuff that we
love.
But it does examine the characters. in the episode.
And a lot of people say to Cisco, you're getting obsessed and you
need to step away from this.
Yeah.
Oh, this is creepy.
Well, I just think it's boring, and it is because we've done it
before, and him singing and stuff, and like we switched his
ethical subroutines off.
It's so crap.
Like, what is that?
And then how do we feel about that at the end?
Do you know what I mean?
Like, do they need to reconcile because he tried to murder her or
is it he's ethical subroutines were switched off?
It's kind of like, what is this even like?
How do I feel about this?
Why is he doing a bad thing?
as well.
Why is he removing our memories?
So I actually think it's really good.
So she has encoded the things in engineering, so he can't use his
murder box to get home.
Oh okay.
Okay.
And and I actually thought it was pretty awesome when she said
no.
And he said, well, I'll kill you.
He said, well, yep, go ahead.
Like I really, I thought she was great.
And this, where she says, you keep saying you had no choice.
You know, you murder things and say, oh, I have no choice.
You know, like, I think that's, that's approaching being a
conversation about ethics, isn't it?
And about the way we justify what we've done.
And she's kind of saying I'm not going to help you.
I'm giving you the choice.
You can kill it. surface again, though, because he's not coming
back with an argument.
It's not a debate between 2 people.
She's just condemning you.
Yeah, at least it's a conversation about ethics, you know.
But I do think all this sort of focus on 7 because God forbid we
don't focus on her every week.
Because there's, you know, Pete, the 5 people watching might turn
off.
It does take away from the Janeway ransom things.
So they don't get any time together.
He has all of his time with seven.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What you could have had was a protracted dialogue scene with seven
with, sorry, with Janeway and Shakotay and Ransom at some point in
this episode where everyone gets to state their case and
everyone's given a reason why they're doing what they're doing.
Star Trek too.
The whole pursuit, they could be talking to one another.
While they, you know, there's no reason why they can't talk to one
another now because they're on different ships and they can hand
wave the fact that they can't detect one another who cares, but
let's have them talk to each other.
Do you know what the problem is?
It's the opposite of what we normally say about 90s trek.
There's not enough talk and there's too much action.
You know?
Yeah, yeah.
Stop being dynamic and start talking.
Well, but I mean, they are talking, but whenever they're talking
they're talking about the wrong things.
They're talking about Max and B'Elana's relationship and shit
about cat and mouse in the thingy nebula, being chased by the
Klingons.
Oh, crock.
No, this isn't one of these backstory scenes. isn't it?
Oh, bless her.
And yet all of these exchanges.
You could put in a trailer and people will go, things are far
enough on Voyager this week, you know, look at Janeway and
Chakotay round with each other.
I really like that little ship.
Don't you think?
I think it looks really cool.
I don't know why.
I think you've got a bit of a thing about ship designs.
It's been a few times on Star Trek project where you'd liked...
It's a bit pointer and a bit more angular.
Do you know what I mean?
Like it's little...
I like it.
I think it looks cool.
There's a lot of detail.
I wonder if they said, look, we've made it to series six.
We're going to have a beach shoot, all right?
But we're only taking ransom and seven.
Sorry.
Oh, yeah, we do take. we do take him, don't we?
But he only appears in the last scene.
I actually kind of like that once he's decided to die.
He, Then we see him on the beach.
This can't be doing the relationship between K Mulgrew and Jerry
Ryan any favours.
We're doing it as a favour for Jerry for saving the show.
She can go off.
So you can go to the beach.
No, wait, we are...
Rick Worthy's getting a go.
So Harry Kim's now pissed off that it's not him.
How comes all these guest characters get to go outside?
Oh, no, no.
Our guys are here too because they've got to capture them.
And this dialogue, again, what a fucking waste of time this
dialogue is.
Oh, this place looks like somewhere in Southern California.
There used to be squirrels and you kind of think, fuck, what are
you doing?
Are you pointing it out?
Yeah.
But it's so boring.
Now he's away from the sort of terrible light in a Voyager and
he's out in the sunshine.
Rick Worthy is very pretty, isn't he?
Oh, yeah, no, he's a pretty man.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Okay, so they're captured now.
Torture scene imminent, folks.
Content warning.
So, I think, I think that you're right that there's, you know, like
we'll talk to the black guy is a bit of a problem.
And I would have much liked Janeway to have tortured Marlowe
because fuck that woman.
Yeah, yeah, but do you know what I mean?
She's like the sort of, she's got a little bit of liberal guilt
about murdering 63 people in order to get home.
But she could have properly sort of gone, you know, you preyed on
our sympathies, martyr.
You deserve their sin.
It will, because that was the problem, wasn't it?
The thing about her feeling bad about it, but it was all a ploy.
You know, I don't know.
Are we supposed to ever think she was gonna go through with it?
If he didn't?
I didn't know.
Like, I didn't know, because I couldn't remember the individual
beats here.
There were bits that I remembered, but I should have gone the
whole thing once. had him sucked out into space.
They're not think Chakotay can say you're going too far, but just
taking a bit of the air out of the room.
We do that every other week.
No, no, that's not what they were doing.
That's what they were doing.
Oh, no, the aliens coming in, isn't he?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And like, in a sense, as I said before, it would be consistent
with sort of Starfleet protocols to just say, we're going to hand
you over to these aliens because we don't have jurisdiction here
and we're going to let them do what they want to do.
And like, having her rationalise it.
What if she was rationalising it in that way while seeming kind of
crazy and out of control?
Like that would have been interesting. you know, something
something other than this, would have been interesting.
But you, um...
You like her performance in that scene.
And I'll say it again.
I just don't buy it and I don't think Kate Mulgrew buys it
either.
Yeah, I mean, I love her being tough and muscular and scary and
stuff.
I think she's pretty great.
But yes, like, I don't think that she knows why she's doing it.
She just always sounds so confident with her dialogue and in that
sequence, she just sounds a little limb, like, oh, do you think?
Yeah.
Hell, hell, talk.
Well, we'll see.
Well, we won't hear it, but we'll certainly see our body.
Yeah.
I mean, I'll say as usual, watching these, um, you know, less good
episodes of Star Trek are made immediately better by talking about
them with you.
So, thank you.
Oh, that's my pleasure.
So it's really crap how easily fooled they are as well.
Like they just, why are they following them down into the
atmosphere?
I don't quite get it.
It's exciting.
That's why it's a nice and exciting.
Janeways out of control.
You know, they can put in the trailer now.
We've got a beach, we've got an action sequence on location.
We're going into the atmosphere of a planet and just pissed on the
floor.
What more do you need?
I mean, later in this season, you know, the only thing they need
in the trailer for the episode is the rock is gonna fight 7 of
nine.
Did you ever see a trailer for that one?
They did it like a proper WWE.
In one corner, we've got 7 of nine.
Anyhow, we've got the wrong.
I've seen them interacting on Twitter, which was pretty funny.
Well, they still think about it very fondly, don't they?
Yeah, yeah.
And he was showing her respect because she did beat him, you know
like it was...
I do think this is very nicely shot.
The camera sort of follows her around.
He's always in the foreground looking a bit.
It's a well directed scene.
But I like this too.
She does...
No, this is awesome.
She comes in a bit as if she's going to kiss him.
I'm gonna let your little friends pay you.
So good.
Some people would call it poetic justice.
Poetic justice, or just justice.
You know.
But Chikoto's so limp.
Look at him standing there.
I mean, he's kind of going along with it.
I kind of like the, there's no plan as far as I know, and like
that scene does 2 things.
It kind of like I'm not quite sure what the hell she's doing, but
it's also, I haven't decided to come in and rescue you either.
No, I think this is good.
I like how she underplays it.
That's absolutely what she should be doing.
And I kind of like, what are you going to do, hit me.
It's just like, no, no, I'm just gonna put the shields down and
let the people that you've been torturing and killing come in and
deal with you how they want.
You know, I think that, you know, If this was the right thing to
do, it would be so much more interesting than she's out of
control.
Oh, is Rick tearing up?
He is a bit.
I don't know why.
I just find when when Cisco goes psychotic like this.
I'll just believe it more, but that's just because he's generally
psychotic most weeks.
Well, I think she, I think she's smaller than him.
Like in this conversation, he's bigger than her in every shot
right?
And then there's another scene later on where she's at the back of
the room not talking to anyone and I just wish she had owned this
you know what I mean?
Whether like they kind of, you know, like he pulls a gun and then
sort of wanders off and I just think he's a bit pathetic, you
know.
This is not the same woman, you know, who came along dressed as
queen of the spider people and owned the entire set.
Yeah, again, she's just standing there pissed off because he's
spoiled her fun.
And she just sort of looks at him and walks away, doesn't she?
Yeah, excuse me.
You've spoiled my thumb.
Well, she doesn't push him out of the way or push him or anything
like that.
She just kind of sideways edges herself in between. this scene as
well.
Look at her.
Yeah, yeah, look at her.
She's standing there.
She's not standing upright.
She's leaning against the thing.
She's letting him do the talking.
She's smaller than everyone else in the frame.
She's out of focus.
You know, like, I don't understand what they're doing.
They're just signed up.
What she should do is, is what he did in rocks and struggles and
just go, this isn't a debate.
You know, we're going to do what I want.
We're going to go and get him.
Yeah, but we don't have that conversation, you know, like we don't
have the, yeah, and look, she backs down. doesn't she?
We're going to do it your way.
Oh, Janeway.
Janeway, you're weak.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, that's right.
I think that's a problem, isn't it?
Like, you almost killed that man.
And she wasn't intending to kill him.
She thought that it would work.
Like, she thought that when the thing came through, the thing, he
would have cried out and then, you know, like, she had to let it
sort of fly around him a bit, like, she sounds like she didn't
intend for it to kill him.
This is so shit.
They've gone from her saying we're going to do it your way to 5
lines later.
You're relieved of juicy.
Yeah, yeah.
What is this scene doing?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He just went, I'm not going to let you cross the line again.
Well, you've left me no choice.
I'm sorry, I'm going to throw you in the bridge.
This is a drama, you know?
Well, in 15 minutes it'll all be okay again.
Now there's nobody to stop her now going over the edge.
No, because she she threatens to put someone else in the brig in a
minute.
I feel like Harry Kim should be looking at her and like, 0 my god
like, can I be relieved, Captain?
I'm bumping these up.
So their mouths, these sort of floppy rubber mouths.
I'm giving them an extra one on the bow mask.
Oh, that case, like a swear.
Yeah, yeah.
They're like, are they supposed to be like snails?
Possibly. bizarre orifice they've got for a mouth.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's only a line you say in a Star Trek commentary, isn't it?
No, it's super upsetting.
I like their little ship though.
I'm wondering like this machine.
I always thought it was the Melon she was talking about when she
said they were testing us, okay?
Making us act with these strange creatures that I, it might have
been them.
No, but I think it was those.
She's not even looking at him.
She's like, I'm not looking at that mask.
Remember the frog guy in counterpoint?
Oh, shit, yeah.
Jesus.
Do you remember the book?
Do you remember the blue guy?
In the pale moonlight, you know, the one who's doing the program.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I think weird looking aliens can be really good, but that.
But you know, we always come back to the Beaumar.
Do you remember how much they weren't given a performance?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, no, they were just sort of intransigent aliens that we needed
for no reason, you know. which is another voyager kind of trope
isn't it?
Another staple.
I do think we don't see enough decorative cohangers, though, on
Star Trek, so I'll give him that.
I do.
I quite like the, you know, this light thing that he's holding and
it's the spirits that come along to guide you on your way.
Yeah, I like the spirits of good fortune as well.
It's kind of weird.
Well, because then it makes it appalling that they've been
captured and killed, doesn't it?
You know?
Spirits of good fortune.
Well, you didn't see your own good fortune, did you?
I yeah, that's right.
She's threatening to put Tuvok in the brig.
But again, is this wrong?
If she says, if you, you need to stop.
If everybody around you.
If everybody around you is saying to you, look, you're going too
far, please can we talk about this?
You don't just arrest everybody.
You go, okay, maybe this person who is my best friend of many
years, who sage counsel I've sought, maybe I listen to him and we
have a dialogue.
Or you say, I think that you're wrong and this is what we're going
to do, and I'm a captain and you'll just do it.
I don't have to threaten you with putting you in the bridge
because I'm a captain, you know.
And, and like if, if she's communicating with these things, saying
you need to stop attacking us because we, um, are going to deal
you know, we didn't do this to you and we're going to deal with
the people who did, I think that's okay.
I think it would even be okay to say, We're going to hand you over
to the, we're going to hand the people who did this over to you. is
not necessarily that bad a solution either.
That's curatum.
Just tie up the Econox crew, bring in the aliens and say, right
have your way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, off you go.
We don't want to deal with those people.
Well, I mean, you know, Tuvok says we're going to imprison them
and clearly that's kind of the right call.
But, you know, like, it is that thing where maybe they have the
right to make that call themselves as green squirmy aliens.
What is this shit?
The doctor's saying so ransom.
Oh, you know, when this is over, I'll teach you my repertoire
about singing.
I was like, yeah, like why are you wasting time with this?
When there's so much not being said.
It's not creepy.
You know, it's not like the guy in, what's that one?
Is it revulsion?
Oh, the hologram?
Yeah.
Do you know a hologram?
I cannot wait until we get survival instinct, which is the 2nd
episode of this season.
The next one.
It's the only script that Ron Moore wrote, the teleplay that Ron
Moore wrote for Voyager, and it is entirely character focussed
with no action in it whatsoever.
And you'll get a glimpse into what he he was trying to do or he
would have done here.
And look at this.
Brilliant.
I mean, she looks stunning on that page.
She's beautiful, you know.
I think she might have the fullest lips of any actress I've ever
seen.
Well, LaVar Burton.
What actress I said, you know.
Oh okay, fair enough.
Imagine a kiss scene between Levar Burton and Jerry Ryan.
Oh, man, it would be fun.
Yeah, you could hear it in his way.
So, I, what...
So this is, this is why Ransom decides to cut, cut it out.
Isn't it?
Is it?
Why?
He's feeling guilty.
His guilt is manifesting itself as 7 of nine, and she just turned
into one of the weird aliens.
So he's now guilty about as well. now, oh, do you know that?
Maybe I did something wrong, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, we did have all these conversations in the last episode
about it, but I'm just coming to the realisation now that killing
those people, that was not a savvy move, morally speaking, but I
mean, he does have to cross a line here, doesn't he, where he
actually kills another human being?
Yeah, you know, yeah.
But they they they need this now, don't they?
in order for the riveting climax of him choosing to sacrifice
himself to make any sense because if he just did that without any
of this, we'd be going, well.
But I mean, no, but this doesn't make it make any sense.
That's the problem because none of that, like, what is happening
there?
We're having to kind of do your archeology to work it out.
I'll say at least it's open to interpretation.
There's a crumb.
There's a crumb there that you can take and try and make something
out of.
But essentially he's doing it for kind of narrative reasons, I
think.
Lower Dexto, a line like that, you know, like, we need to bring
this episode to an end, you know?
Someone's... doesn't quite go as 4th wall as that, actually.
Someone's got to sacrifice themselves.
Who's it going to be?
Yeah, now Martyr's just...
Yeah.
No, she, so she, she's on his side. isn't she?
Like, she's losing her will to murder at this point as well.
There is no through line with her character.
She does what the plot needs her to do. doesn't she?
And that's a shame because I don't think the actress is terrible.
No, no, but that's it.
You only have 4 characters on the on equinox and you aren't able
to make them distinct or give them viewpoints or anything, you
know?
I kind of feel like the people who possessed our crew on PowerPlay
were more skilfully drawn.
They were certainly more fun, weren't they?
They were.
Oh, Marina service.
Everyone get down on the floor.
Oh, why are we watching Marina has a gun?
Well, you were bored during that one.
But you know what?
You watch a lot more Star Trek and suddenly you start to re
evaluate the ones you've already done.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so what does he do?
He transports them.
He saves them by transporting them on Voyager, which was always
the oldest.
Did you see that?
The cell blow up there.
Yeah, that looks great, didn't they?
Very good.
See more trailer fuel?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's good though.
The ship's limping along now with a smokiness cell.
Yeah, the smoke isn't quite working.
It's bad.
They try.
That's such a telling sign that we're not keeping the equinox
isn't it?
They just destroyed the nacelle.
It's limping along.
Nathan, I wonder who could possibly sacrifice himself on the
ship.
Oh, yeah, no, no, but aren't we already planning we're on the
equinox and Ransom and Marla are planning to beam everyone aboard
Voyager?
Oh, I forgot.
Maybe I chipped out at this point.
I do like Federation ship against Federation ship, but they don't
do it too often.
Yeah, that's what would have been great about this.
You know, that's what was really, you know, the thing, I think.
So who is it that ends up staying?
It's Marta Rickworthy.
Um, maybe, I don't know, there's some guy who has an Italian name
who we've just seen in the background, because it looks like
there's only 4 people, but there's probably about 10 different
people that we see, and like it was a crew of 80 of whom 39 of
them are killed in the 1st week.
And I think we see 3 or 4 people killed in that opening scene on.
Can I make a case for just how badly plotted these seasons are
right?
Then later on in series 6.
There's an episode called Good Shepherd, which features Janeway
having to take 4 unruly crew members away in a shuttlecraft to
teach them to behave themselves and, you know, to be better people
on the ship.
Why the fuck couldn't it have been these 4 from the equinox?
I mean, it's right for it.
It's raw.
So why are they doing that when they did exactly the same premise
with Tuvok?
It's exactly...
Do you know what's even more galling?
is they all look a bit like the crew before this.
I'm like, are you people talking in this writer's room?
It's funny too, isn't it?
It's because we had the McKee who came from another ship that was
destroyed. and they weren't totally on board with us for a little
while and then they all immediately got over it.
And then we have another ship where new people come on board and
they were the evil ship.
And, you know, they're never seen or spoken of again.
Apparently, one of them gets mentioned twice or appears on screen
twice later, an equinox crew member.
Okay, sure it's not in one of the books.
Is he actually in the series?
Yeah, I think so.
I think that's what memory Alpha suggested.
But like, you know, if this was GS9, that character, those
characters would have running storylines after this, wouldn't
they?
Yeah.
So...
You remember what was just saying earlier about, you know, watching
a lot of Star Trek and then sort of comparing it, the stuff we've
already done.
Remember when we did darkling and the doctor went evil when he was
sort of that hunched Jekyll and Hyde Evil?
I'm coming to reevaluate that after watching the evil dogs are
here because he's a bit dull here, isn't he?
Yeah, oh, it's so perfunctory.
It's so shit.
And like, you know, I don't know, Darkling wasn't a great episode
but it had an attempt to sort of have an atmosphere and do some
different things.
It had that fabulous sequence on top of the ravine.
Remember?
What easy?
I'm going to throw you up.
He's dead.
Oh, there's only one life sign left.
Oh, see, now they talk.
Does she get on the phone with him now?
Yes.
I'd like you to just say, are they doing this all along?
Between this scene while they're talking, I'd like you to notice
all the rock chippings that are on the floor behind Janeway.
Voyager.
They're going to have to hoover their mind.
I just wish one person would ask a question about those rocks.
Why are they here?
But I like how she wants to get him back.
She should be trying to get him back.
Don't you think?
That's not, that's it.
That's their dialogue scene in this episode.
It was about 20 seconds long.
Yeah, yeah.
And then a big explosion.
Crazy.
A bit of a shame. explosion happening on board, the thing.
Oh yeah, so, but I like, this is a touch, even though this is a
complete waste of time, the holodeck thing, where, like, I was a
bit surprised that the camera came across and we saw him, and
that's him, he, this is him, he's about to die here.
And of course, he's purified because he feels bad about all the
murder he did earlier.
Um, so it's okay.
Does he go to heaven?
Is he in heaven?
Look at that.
So it's okay.
Because he's in a pretty location wearing nice clothes.
He feels a bit bad about it.
Now he explodes.
Gosh, my, what a moral journey. explosion.
For no reason.
Can I very quickly just quote for the uniform again?
Because in the climaxic scene where they talk on the bridge.
You know, you've got like, you portrayed your uniform and you're
betraying yours right now.
The trouble is you can't, it's great dialogue.
What the hell was that between Janeway and Ransom?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it was nothing because it wasn't about what they'd done.
You know, nothing happens.
She seems to have forgiven him on no evidence.
I do, like he said, things didn't quite work out how I hoped.
That was pretty cool understatement, but, you know, I don't know.
I think boys is a little bit too embarrassed, you know, to push
the melodrama bottom as far as it should go.
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
But they're not too embarrassed to do that bridge banter thing and
they should be.
You got that right, turkey platter.
So, so it's like, 7 goes, maybe you should have security protocols
so that people can't just say, hey, Siri, make the doctor evil, and
then he becomes evil, maybe we should have some things that
prevent that from working.
That's fair, please.
So these 2 are friends again, because the previous thing didn't
matter, it wasn't a moral decision at all.
The doctor didn't turn evil in any sense.
You know, he just, you know, like it's dumb.
It was evil for space reasons.
And in an episode that's about human evil, that's pathetic, I
think.
I just think all of those Dr. 7 scenes were perfunctory, that
climax was just, okay, we're back to normal. just ridiculous.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Wasting time that could have been, yeah, more manually elsewhere.
Yeah.
Oh, I don't know.
They're quite cute, somebody's equinox crew, you know.
This one looks like a sort of rugby player of a second.
There's no settle, that's worthy.
Or do we see him again then?
Worthy.
No.
No, no.
He'll be back in Enterprise series 3 though.
Who does he play against Zindie number four?
Zindi Arboreal.
He's got a name. or something?
He lives in a tree.
He's a he's a monkey.
It's unfortunate.
He'll say, remember those exciting times of equinox when I had a
genuine character to play.
What is his name?
Yeah, this is so poor.
So this is them talking about getting together and neither of them
are making eye contact with each other.
Will I see you there?
They agree to make a salad together.
So that's something now they're making eye contact across the
bridge.
They bridge to make us.
Salad together.
They do.
That's subtext.
You know how I said that Star Trek never does subtext?
Sometimes they do shitty subs.
I'd rather I'd rather go into a cupboard like Odo and Kira did
just don't hear the dialogue at all.
They come out straightening their clothing.
Well, that's sort of how they were playing that, as if they
fucked.
And they were a bit awkward about it. they weren't looking at each
other.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That happened in resolutions in series 2 might.
Back when there was a bit of potential with this relationship.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
When the medium Robert was still bothering.
Yeah, here's some more subtext.
Let's put this sign together.
Yes.
I know.
But that's the thing, that dedication plaque.
Like, that's a kind of thing.
That's a Star Trek thing.
I'm not sure if you can see just in the background of the set
there.
That's Rob Moore off to the office to hand in his notice. after
this scene's playing out.
Yeah.
Look, but look at the handsome extra who's looking really busy.
We can only see the back of his neck, but it's a handsome neck.
That's the part of the set.
I never notice, you know.
I was noticing more while we're doing it, is that sort of side
console?
There you go.
Janeway looks a bit worn about what's occurred this week.
Yeah, like, yeah, but we're putting the that plaque hasn't ever
fallen down before, except 2 years ago when I was unconscious and
you just decided you would do whatever the fuck you wanted, despite
what my commands were, but we're going to put the plaque back up
and maybe it'll stay up there for another 2 years.
It was so sad, right?
Is, is these, um, the 1st 4 episodes, so the 4 episodes that Rob
Moore had involvement with in series 6, you get survival in
Sticknecks, which is a great 7 episode, Barge of the Dead, which
is a fantastic Balanatores episode, and then Tinker Taylor, Dr. Spy
which is probably the best Voyager comedy they did, right?
I remember watching these going out one after another.
I wasn't too impressed with this and I was like, Jesus Christ, DS9
is off the air and Voyager is up in its game. what's going on?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. and then run more goes and the next episode you
get is Alice.
Oh shit, all the talents left the building.
That was a thing.
That happened.
No, that was it was a perfectly reasonable 2 hours of television.
Yeah. that failed to take the opportunities that were so obviously
there.
Yeah, it could have been so good.
It could really have been good, but at this point, they're much
more concerned with spectacle, which is good, but the dialogue is
just functional, and they can't examine a thing.
You know, it's not about anything, as Ron Moore said, I think.
Well, it's been our, of the, voyager episodes that we've done so
far.
What's been the highlights for you?
Counterpoint?
Yeah, I like counterpoint a lot.
I think it's just got a really good guest performance, and it just
does sort of fairly standard Star Trek things, but it's just, it
does them very well, I think.
We liked a lot of Scorpion.
We had some reservations, but we did we did enjoy Scorpion a lot.
Yeah.
The heerogen 2 party. you really liked, didn't you?
Killing games?
Yeah, I think that's really fun.
Again, sort of big scale action and stuff.
So is that where this show's at his best doing spectacle rather
than...
I think so.
I mean, I think sometimes they do things that are quiet and
interesting, but what they don't do is character staff.
And I think they only ever examine sort of issues that are really
basic superficial level.
Like when you look at something like workforce or critical care.
There's clearly a political message, but it's a really obvious
political message that's made in a very obvious way, and it's
almost like they're doing it because they feel that's the sort of
thing Star Trek should do rather than because they have strong
feelings about particular political issues, but I don't know, I
can't read their minds.
It's fun and high concept Voyager is fun and, you know, even when
it's crappy, there's things to laugh at.
Can I give the final word of this episode then to friend of this
podcast, Tom Solinski, who once again plug his trekker days.
Now, we're very often at crossroads with our opinions of episodes
but he managed to, in a tweet, he manages to really sort of
encompass a solid argument for an episode.
And when he was reviewing Endgame, He did give it 4.5 stars out of
five, but he said, which can always be relied upon never to
confront the human cost of its premise.
Provided you accept that, there's a lot of fun to be had here.
And I think that's perfect.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think so.
All right, it's the end of the episode and it is time for us to
decide what we're going to be watching next time.
It's my turn, and I have decided that we are going to do an
episode of the original series.
Oh, you can almost guarantee wherever way the quality swings, we're
going to have fun with this.
Now, part of the problem with this is always that there are
episodes that I don't know what they are necessarily, and there
are some that I almost certainly haven't seen, but let's see how
we go.
I'm going to pull up our reference site, jammer reviews.
So we'll know what the episode is all about.
Okay, I'm ready.
All right.
Here goes.
Yeah, no idea.
Your random Star Trek, the original series episode is patterns of
force.
Season 2, episode 21.
Okay, just one moment then, please.
Patsons of force, investigating the disappearance of a missing
Starfleet officer, an enterprise landing party beams down onto a
planet, modelled on Nazi Germany.
Oh, that sounds absolutely terrible.
I think we might have to do it, you know.
No, I've already pressed the button.
It's the changeling, which obviously we did in episode 32.
Was that the fabulous one?
Nomad robot that was going around on the street.
It was great, wouldn't it?
pretty good.
How about this one?
Uh, the Galileo 7?
Season one, episode 16?
During a shuttle mission, Spock's 1st command becomes a struggle
of logical decisions when the team becomes stranded on a desolate
planet, which does sound like every other episode, the original
series, but Jamma kindly gives it 3.5 stars out of four.
I think it's a pretty kind of well-known one.
It is a bit of a classic and the Galileo is the name of the
shuttle.
And so it has them on a shuttle landing on a planet and things
instead of just beaming down, which is a thing, but it is a sort
of Spock episode and a fairly early Spock episode.
What do you think?
I don't think we've done too much of season one, have we?
We've done mostly later, TOS.
Yeah, I think that sounds great.
And to have one that's sort of really focussing on Spock as well.
Give me a chance to compare to all the latest box performances
I've been watching recently.
That sounds wonderful.
Yeah.
No, I remember watching this when I was much younger and I haven't
seen it for decades.
I'll be interested to get back to it and see what I think.
And we're going down to a desolate planet, so let's see how they
realise that.
Yeah, it's in the studio and it'll be fun.
I'll be I'll be happy then.
You've been listening to entitled 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 Lann.
This episode was recorded on the 26th of September 2023 and
released on the 29th of September.
We'll see you next time for Star Trek, the original series, the
Galileo 7.
Come on, inside.
Inside.
Come on, good boy.
Good boy.
Is it being a good boy?
Yeah.
He...
I don't know what was outside, but there was something that he
wanted to.
Chase around in the backyard.
So anyway, you realise something right.
There's a couple of little members of the Star Trek project
audience that just tune in for you ranting.
This will probably be their favourite episode, yeah.
Dave Freddy fucking loves it when you go off on one. and so does
Ross as well.
No, I do think it's a different sort of tone to anything else
we've done, which is good, I think.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah.
I know, I know we're being a bit, um, Critical.
But I don't think it doesn't deserve it.
No, like I think, yeah.
And if we're going to do the rum.
There's going to be episodes like this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think that's okay, though.
It is fun. and I like getting a good rant on as well.
It's funny.
Which one of water?
I can hear it, right?
I can hear how stressed you while talking because your voice just
goes up and up.
And then...
I didn't make Peter Davidson's squeaky voice.
Oh, wait, I need the wrong more quote.
It's not going to be massively long, but just a little bit.
No, no, no.
You introduce it.
See, I mean, it's such interesting reading.
It's way longer than what I sent you as well.
Like the whole interview.
It's way, way longer.
Um.
The one in memory alpha I thought was really good.
Yeah, okay, that bit.
Alfie.
It'll probably be a couple of minutes, but you know, it'll give
you loads of talking points.
Yeah.
Okay, I'm ready.
Do you want to introduce it?
Oh no, you always do that bit. at least you say like, oh, okay.
Oh, those times are just going, like, this will be, of course, yeah
yeah, okay.
So I have been in touch with Ron Moore.