The Voy Cast
Join TNG fans Audrey & Terri in the Delta Quadrant as they watch Star Trek Voyager for the first time!
The Voy Cast
S2E17 - Dreadnought
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Today we’re watching Season 2, Episode 17: Dreadnought.
B’Elanna Torres faces off against her very own 2001: A Space Odyssey–style HAL… except this one is a Cardassian missile she personally reprogrammed, with her own voice by the way, back in the Alpha Quadrant.
I have fully committed to the theme — drinking tea from a mug that reads: “Well well well… if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions.” Because honestly? It has never been more appropriate.
We also tackle an essential Voyager question: “Exactly how bad is Ensign Wildman at naming babies?”
All this and more in Dreadnought.
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Come hang out with us in the Delta Quadrant!
Hey listeners, I'm your co-host Audrey, and I'm your co-host Terry. Welcome to the Voicast, your home in the Delta Quadrant for all things Star Trek Voyager. Today we're watching season 2, episode 17, Red Not. Ilana faces off against her very own 2001 Space Odyssey style howl. Except this one is a Cardassian missile. She personally reprogrammed with her own voice, by the way. Back in the Alpha Quadrant. Yeah, I had to pause too. I have fully committed to the theme, by the way. Drinking tea from a mug that reads, Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of mine own actions, Matthew. Exactly how bad is Enzan Wildman's I can't even say her name without laughing.
SPEAKER_01I'm glad you went with Wildman and not Manbear, which is I didn't even put it in my notes.
SPEAKER_02Manbear. I didn't say Wildman, I said Wildman, which is so much worse. We also answer the question exactly how bad is instant Wolfman and naming babies. All this and more in Dreadnought.
SPEAKER_01I loved that. I think the quip about your dating life actually just makes it very juicy. I also really enjoyed this episode.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it wasn't bad. It wasn't bad. I thought that it was a really interesting character study for Balana Torres for that character. And I the the pacing felt fine. The one thing that felt, and maybe this is because I was like working it out the whole time I was watching the episode and like in pain, it felt like there was a lot of um like building momentum with Belana and her being on the missile and her trying to figure all of this out. And even though the uh the captain is like on the verge of sacrificing the sh the whole ship and evacuating everyone, there's all this drama. I I felt like the I felt like I wasn't in that moment with the rest of the ship. It was just focused on Balana, right?
SPEAKER_01It's kind of on purpose. Yeah. That was the main story there was Balana and her missile.
SPEAKER_02But it did feel like the scenes we see with Janeway are a little like almost Shakespearean level drama. Not like. But then if you think about all the times Picard was gonna blow up a ship, it was like even more dramatic. Maybe that's when I'm missing Terry. Like we come full circle. Maybe I'm just missing the like Sir Patrick Stewart. Just I mean, with Janeway, she does this like super tense, tight jaw, all serious, um, very calm, and then she gets a little um stressed at the end. But like I feel like when the Enterprise D is about to explode, all shit breaks loose. Like everything is insane, everyone's freaking out. Stuart is like yelling at people. Uh maybe I just missed that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was a very controlled sort of chaos that was happening on Voyager.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, this this episode, um, they encounter this missile called the dreadnought. It it's a Kardashian missile that um Balana, when she was a Maquis, reprogrammed um to serve as a weapon for the resistance. And it also got lost in the um what's it called the space tornadoes, and ended up in the Delta Quadrant with them, and it's just been kind of flying around, and it ends up finding this target planet. Um and it thinks that it's a Cardassian target, so it's gonna go blow up this planet, and they have to stop it, basically. This episode was written by Gary Holland and directed by LeVar Burton. Yeah, interesting.
SPEAKER_01It did not have the same feel, I feel like, as the other LeVar Burton episodes.
SPEAKER_02I think he's just playing with a different um style. And I actually did do a deep dive because I agree. I was like, wow, that didn't feel like his past episodes. Not in like a bad way, it just didn't feel no, yeah. I still enjoyed it a lot, but not, yeah, not the same feel. So he said a few things about this episode. He said he talked about how this whole episode kind of relied on Roxanne Dawson's like solo acting, carrying all these solo scenes on the missile, and even in engineering, it's basically it's her show, this episode. And she did a great job. Burton wanted a handheld documentary style feel. So to make that possible, the entire missile set was designed to be fully self-lit. They didn't have any other studio lighting in that set. And because of that, 85% of the episode was shot on a steady cam, which is not what they usually use, letting them move fast and get dynamic shots inside the missile.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Now now that you've described that, I definitely saw that happening in the episode. And the lighting I actually really liked inside the missile. Because it was very cool. All the panels, yeah, ambient different colors, all the panels lit up. That was a cool set inside that missile.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's just a few other fun facts about the set because I haven't done a deep dive in a while. I was like, oh, sure. A lot of the interior components and like panels and decorations are repurposed Deep Space Nine set pieces. Yeah, so um they used set pieces from all the like Cardassian stuff and other things in the missile, which I thought was cool. Even some of the costumes, like Kellyan, the um premiere of or president, whatever, of the planet that's about to get nuked. His costume is a reused DS9 costume. I haven't seen most of DS9, so I don't know what episode second sight is, but that is the episode that that costume is from.
SPEAKER_01And does that include like the mask or makeup, the the whole alien bit, or just his clothing?
SPEAKER_02Just his clothing. Okay. The outfit itself, yeah. Good question. Yeah. Um and then the last thing I just thought it was really funny. The executive story editor, Ken Biller, he really liked the directing, but he thought the missile like model itself just looks like a box floating through space.
SPEAKER_01I kind of agree. The outside of the missile looked like a taser that was just floating through space. It was not very impressive, and it didn't look very missile-like. Didn't hate it as much as everyone else, I guess.
SPEAKER_02That's good. Someone's I love it. I didn't think it was oh, I didn't love it. I didn't think it was creative. I just I didn't hate it. I didn't, I wasn't like, ship's so stupid.
SPEAKER_01It just it did feel like it was missing a little bit of creativity and a little bit of intent. It's a missile. Yeah, but did you see the inside of that missile?
SPEAKER_02The inside looked like a Cardassian cathedral.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I was gonna say it looked like a church, like a like a little Cardassian chapel to their god.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I want to say, I want to say Abis because that's the name of the god of the Cardassian adjacent race in the Orval, and I've been re-watching that. It's great. You definitely should watch that show, it's fantastic. They they like infiltrate using these cloak scanners to make them look like the krill, which are the Cadassians, and they're trying to figure out more about their religion, and because it's a Seth with McFarland show, it's really funny. And he turns to his partner, Gordon, who's like they both infiltrated together. The god's name is Abis. Yeah, do you think we should tell them that their gods named after a 21st century car rental service?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I should tell them that.
SPEAKER_02All right, anyway, enough of the deep dive. That was fun. We can do more later. We can do more later. I'm into it. Let's let's talk about all the bad names, baby. Let's talk about bad names, baby names for a minute. How about that? That's really what I walked away with after this episode.
SPEAKER_01Really? This tiny little side plot.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So I really, really just personally I love the baby name Gress Grendrik. It's Gress Gress.
SPEAKER_01Grendric or it sounds like Grendrick. The um foun it sounds like the villain in a old children's story. From Finland. Quite possibly, yes. Some sort of rumple stilt skin type. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So Ensign Wildman is He did it.
SPEAKER_01You did it without laughing. Keep going.
SPEAKER_02This podcast has completely ruined everything about my life.
SPEAKER_01What?
SPEAKER_02Hold on. Good good God. Fun fact, I read a little bit. I think it was the last episode with uh Inton Wildman in it. I forgot to bring it up. Her actual her first name, which we like have never heard. Have never heard until this episode is Samantha. I still haven't heard it. Okay. But originally her name was gonna be like in early scripts before her first appearance in a previous episode was Karen. They changed it. Yes. They changed it to Samantha.
SPEAKER_01Thank goodness.
SPEAKER_02Because no one could remember what the original name was, which is amazing.
SPEAKER_01I mean, that is like the most basic white person name that could happen. And I guess this was before Karen really got a bad rap in general. I thought it was funny. That's great. They were like, your character's not super important.
SPEAKER_02Your character sucks. But sucks enough that we like want to keep them on for multiple episodes.
SPEAKER_01Well, this interaction did allow us to talk a little bit more about the doctor's hunt for his own name, which we haven't talked about in a long time.
SPEAKER_00So in a very round way.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah. So that terrible name that you mentioned, Krustgrundnik, is the name of her husband, who is not on Voyager. Um, but he is so he is not human either. They didn't mention what species he is, but I didn't write it down. Me neither. So when she said she was thinking about naming her baby after that, both Kess and the doctor kind of just look at each other like, oh god.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, maybe she's like, oh, maybe, maybe Cameron would be better. She's like, oh, oh my god. I like that sounds so great. I love that. That's are you sure I shouldn't call my baby Chris Kernger Crick? She's like, no, love Cameron. And then the doctor calls out, like, Cameron was the name of a fascist dictator that was famous for beheading people. And then she's like, How about Frederick? And like, oh yeah, that'd be great, except for. And then he names out a few others, just shooting them down. And this woman, Karen slash Samantha, is just like so she so like I don't know, what's the best word? Kind of absent minded about it. She has zero opinions. She's like, oh yeah, that'd be great.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, maybe that maybe this name that's fully different from the others and has no reason for coming out of my mouth. Right.
SPEAKER_02And then Kess is like, how about naming the baby Benaren after my father? And she's like, Oh, that'd be great, and then walks away.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love that. Bye. But we start to see why the doctor has had such a hard time picking a name for himself. Like he's gone through all of history. He knows that there's been someone bad with every name that's ever existed. So yeah, he's having a hard time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But we do get a little bit more of that backstory about him and this search for identity. And I remember the early days in season one where I actually thought we would get a name. I know. And now you can see, like, yeah, that's never gonna happen. They're gonna keep entertaining it like in front of us, but he will never not just be the doctor, which is fine.
SPEAKER_01We'll accept it. But he gets a little good.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say, I think it's probably the safe choice from the producers because if they had picked a name that everyone hated, then Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You can't please everyone. No. But the doctor does get a little bit hurt, I guess, that Kess mentioned her father's name for this random woman's baby and not for him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I don't think he had access to uh what is her race again? Kess is a shit. Anyway, he didn't have access to their cultural records, which is what he's been using. So it makes sense.
SPEAKER_01So he hadn't heard that name before, but she's kind of apologetic and is like, well, what about my uncle's name? What about my cousin's name?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02They like block offset. It was fun. So some stuff like they're hinting at some stuff with Paris. It's kind of annoying though, because they're like trying to indicate that something's up with Paris and he's acting kind of rebellious, and it's kind of weird because he didn't have any reason to do that. And he has this like conversation with Bellana, and I I was like sensing some not like sexual tension, but some kind of relationship developing where she's asking more pointed personal questions to him and almost trying to like be someone he can confide in, and he's being Paris. Tom Yeah, and then Chicote comes up to him and says something about like, you know, do better.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, Tom, they're having a meeting, and Tom arrives very obviously late to the meeting. So after the meeting, Chicote pulls him aside and is just like, I expect you to be on time to meetings. And Tom kind of takes a breath in like he's gonna talk back, and then he just goes, Yes, sir. And just like I said in in the last episode, like it feels like Tom is acting out for some reason. And so they're continuing that theme here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and we don't get any more out of that interaction in this episode specifically, but it very quickly shifts to we found this weapon of mass destruction floating through space. And Balana walks in and has obviously been doing some research on it, and they're like, What is this weapon? Who could have sent it this way? And she's like, dun dun dun, it was me, dun dun, commercial, um, which I thought was fun. That was definitely a worthy, like, what do you mean it was you? And then cut to credits. Right, what the hell? How? And for the first like 10 minutes, I was like, How like it does make sense the way they explained it, but I was like, this is absurd.
SPEAKER_01It does make sense, but it also implies that like she spent a lot of time reprogramming this missile when she found it. Like a like weeks she spent on it, which just seems like you wouldn't have that kind of time when you're fighting the Cardassians, but sure. Yeah, whatever. We also learn that she she did the reprogramming without Shikote's blessing. And he does not tell the rest of Voyager this because that's something that he was upset with her for doing. So this is all fully falling on her.
SPEAKER_02I don't understand why that was a necessary plot point because it it doesn't make sense. How would he not know that she was working on it for weeks? Yeah. And also, why why do we need to have that in the story anymore? Why do we need to have any more Lana is rebellious and does what she needs to do and Chicote disappoints a senior officer? Chicote does the same bullshit with Janway. Mm-hmm. Like the exact same thing. And I just I it makes sense the way they wrote it. I just don't know why they included it as like a story point.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, to me, it was just trying to like make things fall squarely on Belona's short shoulders and make her feel more guilty about it because she already felt bad for betraying Chicote. And then when he said he disappointed, she disappointed him. She's just like, ooh, ouch. And so that makes her feel super bad that they find this missile out here in the Delta Quadrant. And it destroyed something, right? They came across wreckage that it had shot up. So it's already doing some destruction out here.
SPEAKER_02I started thinking about so Gene Roddenberry had this rule in early Star Trek, which was there could not be any conflicts between main characters. For the most part, because Gene was very much alive the first few seasons of Star Trek Next Gen. I feel like Next Generation, with obviously there's a few exceptions every um every season, but for the most part, they follow that rule. And I feel like Voyager and in some of the episodes of Deep Space Nine that I've seen, but especially Voyager, like throw that out the it's like almost there's maybe a few episodes where they don't have conflict or drama. Most of the time they do. And maybe that's why I get annoyed. I get annoyed because I'm like, this is unnecessary drama. I don't mind drama and moments and conflict and whatever. Great, but sometimes it feels contrived. Yeah, I can totally see that.
SPEAKER_01We uh anyway. Um so they're following this missile, and Balana's thinking maybe she can get back onto it, maybe she can disarm it. It's running an evasive pattern that she recognizes and says that she programmed into it so that they aren't able to like really catch up to it. She mentions that she had programmed it to reach out to any Starfleet vessels to say like stay away, and that she had done it in her voice. And this was while they're chasing the missile. I was like, shouldn't it be reaching out to them and telling them to like lay off? But it doesn't at that point. It does. Yeah. Yeah. So she goes on board. Yeah, they well, they they calculate that it's headed towards this populated planet. Obviously, they don't want it to do that. So yeah, they are able to beam her on board because she says she still has all the access codes.
SPEAKER_02But the name Dreadnought is um it's named after a famous British battleship. So this they talk about this a little bit. It's named after this battleship from the 20th century, and Nelix is asking um how the Maquis stopped the missile in the first place. And Chicote says that um they didn't at all. Um made it through all their defenses, and the whatever detonator that the Cardassians had programmed this with, it failed to go off. So. That's the only reason they have it.
SPEAKER_01And it's been just out here searching for a target this whole time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the the same target, it's just very confused because the likelihood of it cannot wrap its little robot brain around how it ended up in the Delta Quadrant. So Right. Yeah. It assumes it's a it's faked or something.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Belana beams on board and asks where it's going, and it it thinks that it is targeting a Cardassian planet based on, I guess, the population and the weather and the planet class. And she's like, okay, that okay, that's not true. You're in the Delta Quadrant, and it's just like, no, I'm not. That's so improbable, I'm not even gonna consider it. So she tries reinitializing its location sensors, I guess, and finally agrees, okay, I'm in the alpha quadrant. That's not the planet I'm looking for. And it deactivates its target lock and she tells it to power down, and she beams back off, and we're like, cool, we've stopped the missile. They haven't stopped the missile.
SPEAKER_02It like almost immediately starts, it just goes in a bingo. Yeah. And we had heard the voice a little bit, and it does kind of sound like Balana, but it also when you're on the missile, it also sounds it sounds like Balana plus the computer voice of the ship.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's not quite Balana, but it's Balana adjacent.
SPEAKER_02Right. And the the computer voice of the ship is voiced, I forget the actress's name. She plays Troy's mother in Nexgen. It's the same ship voice as Next Generation as well.
SPEAKER_01So I guess there are a lot of scenes where Balana is talking to the missile and it's talking back. And I guess if it had been the same voice, that would have been kind of hard to follow, maybe.
SPEAKER_02I I think they just add, they add some noise to it to change it a little bit. But when they call the missile, they're like, oh shit, the missile warped out of here. That's not good. And it calls, they they call it or it calls them. I don't know which it calls them, and Harry is calling.
SPEAKER_01We're being hailed by the missile. The way he said it just made me laugh.
SPEAKER_02He's just like, this is very weird. Hey, he's like, should I patch it through? I guess. And that is when it sounds exactly like Balana. And it's so creepy. It's Balana, but with like a how-esque, like creepy inflections, stilted, slow. AI Balana.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, terrifying. And it says that the likelihood, it still is not willing to consider the likelihood that it's in the Delta Quadrant because that is nearly impossible. So the only other option is that Balana is trying to reprogram it because she is under duress and is trying to trick it into stopping. And I was just like, damn, Balana was thorough. She thought of like literally everything that could happen to this missile and like thought up a plan, including telling the missile what to do if she was captured and being coerced. Yeah. Big yawn. And at this time, Janeway is glaring at Balana. Just like, what the hell are we supposed to do now, Balana?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think she's just frustrated with the whole situation and also, like I would be, extremely confused still about what was happening.
SPEAKER_01And sh she has no control over this situation. They're like super relying on Balana, and that doesn't seem to be working.
SPEAKER_02Right. They they follow it, but they end up they end up getting in kind of a a fight with this missile where um you know they're chasing it because it's it's about to blow up this the continent on this planet.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Balana says that she thinks there's some vulnerability. If they can get it to fire at full force, then there will be an opening in its shields, and they should be able to disable it. So they start shooting at it.
SPEAKER_02They start shooting at it, which you know, that's what humans do. So it ends up having these super advanced shields that's able to change the frequencies and address things. And Janeway thought that it was going to be something that she could. She's like, well, this was modified before we had the Voyager commissioned. And the Voyager has type six photon torpedoes, so we should be fine. And she kind of like excitedly sits down, doesn't work, and something happens, or like they send out a beam, and the missile sends another beam up that beam into Voyager, and something, something, something, all the relays all over the ship have burnt out. Correct. It was bad for the Voyager. So they come up with another plan to penetrate the missile's shields. Honestly, did it work? I forget.
SPEAKER_01I mean, from what I wrote down, the next time they try this, it's to get Balana back on the missile, which they try multiple times and fail, but do eventually get her back on. But during this time, Jane Way is talking to the head of the planet again. And when she first calls them, it does definitely sound like a threat. Like she does not start that conversation well. She's like, This is Jane Way of the Enterprise, and I'm sure you've seen the missile that is flying in tandem with us. And he the minister is just like, Yeah, is that a threat? Like, yes, we see it. What are you doing?
SPEAKER_02And the minister was like, Wait, I thought you were the Voyager, not the Enterprise. Did I say Enterprise? I would. I would. Terry. Terry's on the East Coast right now.
SPEAKER_01It's sleepy time. It's 11, and I've been drinking with my coworkers. Come me some slack.
SPEAKER_02I'm hey, I got stoned before this, and I've had two beers, so that's my name.
SPEAKER_01All right. Okay. We're on a similar playing field.
SPEAKER_02Uh right. Yeah, it should be great. But we're gonna be editing this episode, and it's gonna be like everything that actually has to do with the episode, we'll just cut it out because it'll be too boring.
SPEAKER_01Uh this well, this episode wasn't boring, but um but we are. Hey, yeah. Whatever. Um This plays again into the whole theory that everyone has heard of Voyager and thinks it's a bad ship. And he and this guy's just like, yeah, we know your reputation. You're here to destroy us. And Jane was just like, ah, cat, not again.
SPEAKER_02You remember episode two or three or whatever, where I was like, I wonder how many times they're gonna run into people that are like, oh, Voyager, right? This has gotta be like, I think it's been almost every episode.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. They're they're not well received. The planet says they're sending out ships to meet the missile, and Jane was just kind of like, we've analyzed your capabilities and you guys suck. You should not expend your energy. You're gonna die. Which is totally fair. But I was yelling at the screen at this point. I'm like, you should evacuate the planet, dumbass. But they don't do that, they do send ships out to meet the missile. This is while Belana's on it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Balana's on it. She's hitting a bunch of firewalls, again, getting in. She's like getting shocked and she's getting locked out of stuff. And basically, this fight with Voyager and the other, this like alien fleet is distracting the missile, which I have a hard time believing.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, this seems like a super smart computer. I think it can divide its attention. But it can't. Nope.
SPEAKER_02It's basically the ADD version of the AI, which would be hilarious if I had that, because then we'd get nothing done. And she's able to actually make progress. So she Janeway's like, get off the missile. You're about to get attacked. And she's like, actually, this is great. This is helpful.
SPEAKER_01And Voyager tries to provide cover fire, Janeway says, for these ships that come in. I was just like, I'm not sure what that means, but I guess she meant basically distract or draw fire from the missile, which was a good, a good thought on her part because the missile just kind of pulses and three of their ships just cease to exist.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they like disappear off this little radar screen, which I love. I geek out about the little graphics. This one looked like this one looked like an arcade game from the like the 80s, which I love. I love that.
SPEAKER_01It was just like very like space invaders looking. Yeah. But that was just the guy from the planet had been like, we have some really good pilots we're gonna send up there, and we just watched them just get disappeared. And that sucks.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Uh it does. It really does suck. I, you know, I pray for their little alien families.
SPEAKER_01A little Rekosa, Recosan family. Raccoons. The yep. That's what I said. Um yeah, I just wrote oh fuck in my notes when they disappeared. I was like, this is bad.
SPEAKER_02Totally an aside, I was on Hinge today, and one of the other profiles was like, dating me is like, and then her response was because they give you these prompts, and then her response was dating a raccoon. And if you read it without reading the tiny little prompt text at the top, because it's like much smaller, it just dating a raccoon. And then there's like texts after it that I was like, message me to learn more. And yeah, I was just scanning through Lay Pass. I was like, picture, picture, text, dating a raccoon, picture picture.
SPEAKER_01Hold on. Reverse. See that I just imagine running around a house going, no, no, no, no, no, stop all the time. It doesn't sound like a good time to me. Get your little hands off with that. The missile the missile cuts communication between Voyager and Balana, so they can't talk to each other anymore. So now it's just Balana and the missile, and they're just chatting. This is when she has her howl moment. Yeah, I yeah. And I love this interaction. She asks to start just playing. She's you and me now. Exactly. And it's like she says, Remember how we used to play hypothetical games? And she asks you Belana toys. She asks it to assume that everything she is told it is true. And it's like, it's not. And she's like, hypothetically, damn it. And hypothetical. Yeah. So it accepts those. And it's like, okay, I could end up in the Delta Quadrant if some of my logs were compromised. And so Balana's like, oh, let's look at the logs. And they find a Cardassian file in the logs, which Belana thinks was there before she reprogrammed the missile. Which is interesting, but I don't really understand how that happened or what it did. Because then the missile gets angry and it's like, we're not playing this game anymore. I'm shutting off life support.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. So oxygen is getting thin. I think what this log allowed her to do is to start overriding the overwrite that she did previously. And she says something like, Oh, looks like you're having a personality crisis. And because it's like two different voices vying for right. Like control. It's a little dominant. It's a little confusing how they present it, but it seems like they're it's it's kind of like a stuck in a circular, stuck in like a loop.
SPEAKER_01Yes. I kind of thought I was gonna short circuit just because it was so confused. So it seemed like Balanak basically turned back on the old missile, which has a male voice. And so that missile is trying to fix things that she did to the the female missile. And at every turn, one of them is like stopping what the other one said, and it goes faster and faster and faster until you can't quite keep track of it. And I just I really liked that it was fun.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I did too. I thought it was very, it was a really fun. The writing was really, I thought the writing was good, and Roxanne Dawson really did a good job. Oh yeah. She always does a good job, but she really, really crushed it. And I mean, how many hours would she have had to record all these voice overlays?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, true. I just liked it because it was like a it was a verbal sparring this whole time. And it was like she was facing off with something that was as bright as her, but also knew her. So it was a very like internal struggle that she was going through. That the missile says some things that Belana's like, damn it, I taught you that, didn't I? Yeah, it was just super fun, very fun.
SPEAKER_02But okay, so back on Voyager, they're still trying to stop the missile. It's about to hit the eastern continent of this um planet. And Janeway has essentially decided that she's gonna run into the missile with Voyager.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. The the guy from the other planet she's talking to is like, we're projecting two million in casualties if this hits. And Shaneway's like, okay, I'm gonna stop it with my ship.
SPEAKER_02And the guy's like, well, then you're my friend now. I was waiting for her to be like, uh, that's not so bad.
SPEAKER_01Only two million? It's all right. You might be underpredicting the I thought they at some point said that this this missile could implode an entire moon if it hit it. Like, this is a really bad deal.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I try not to overthink Star Trek math. If that makes sense. Fair. She decides to, okay, we're gonna attack the missile with Voyager. All hands get to your evacuation pods, and then everyone evacuates. She pushes. Um, she asks all the senior staff to leave as well. She gets um Kim and Paris leave the bridge.
SPEAKER_01There is a tense moment between her and Tom when she tries to get him to leave. He doesn't say anything. He just kind of like he stares at her. He just stops and looks for a minute. Are you gonna kiss?
SPEAKER_02I was actually kind of hoping he'd do the like stereotypical, I'm not leaving you, Captain, you know, and just stay at a station. Yeah, he just says thank you for everything. It was like, that's the mother of your children. Your three salamander, extra smart salander salamander children are out, are are still only light years away.
SPEAKER_01But Tuvok is still there and he requests permission to remain because it is logical for her to have a second in command in case something happens to her, and she says permission granted. So he's just sitting behind her in the chair while we've gone to red alert. The ship is saying warning, self-destruct sequence has been initiated. We've only got a few minutes, like they it's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I love it.
SPEAKER_02I love a good like eject the core, or like the core's overloading, or abandoned ship. Like I love it, like self-destruct sequence has been activated. Self-destruct in two minutes.
SPEAKER_01So tense. And Belana is on the missile panting. She's almost unconscious, but she's like drug herself into this side panel and is firing her laser at this panel. And she's like, I'm gonna cut through it, I'm gonna overload it. I just need a few more minutes. So now there's just a race between is Balana gonna disable this missile or are they gonna have to run Voyager into it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was a really cool tension thought that yeah, Balana is laying in this tube and she has a phaser, and she is slowly losing consciousness because the air is so thin. She's talking to Jane Way back and forth. She's talking to the missile herself back and forth. The missile is she's she's shooting the phaser at the ceiling for like non-stop for I don't know, five minutes of the scene. The missile's like, maybe your theory about the Delta Quadrant is worth re-examining.
SPEAKER_01And she does this like sly, like, nice try. Nice try. Yeah, try to trick her to stop her from shooting. And it's like running calculations on like how quickly she'll lose consciousness versus how quickly she can breach its core and yeah, very tense.
SPEAKER_02I was just getting flashbacks to 2001 A Space Odyssey where Hal is like, I'm sorry, Dave. I can't do that. I'm sorry. This whole episode, which I love. Yeah. I bet I bet Lavar Burton and whoever wrote this episode, I've forgotten his name already, is that's really mean here. Hold on. I'll go back and find it. Hold on, just give me a minute.
SPEAKER_01Gary learned that name. Okay, Gary.
SPEAKER_02Uh are like huge 2001 fans.
SPEAKER_01Oh, sure. Definitely inspired by that. Bellana does finally breach this panel she's shooting at one minute before Voyager self-destructs.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And Janeway immediately, like, she's like, she doesn't even say anything. You just see this thing start to like explode. And Tuvok says something about um the core is unstable, and Janeway immediately transports her over to Voyager. Yes. And I was thinking about the next scene with the doctor, but I know I want to stop and recognize how awesome the the explosion was so cool. There's this awesome view of this planet that it was about to hit. There's a view of Voyager kind of scooping like a jet fighter off to the left in this missile just huge explosion.
SPEAKER_01I don't remember the explosion very much. I think I might have had my face stuffed full of pizza at that point. So I'm glad it was pizza. Were you watching it during my house party? No. I had pizza in bed last night in my hotel room. Oh, pizza in bed.
SPEAKER_00That's so cute. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I was gonna go out, but I was too tired. So I I ordered pizza to my room and watched Star Trek in in bed. This is why we're such good friends. So that's the condition I was in when I watched this episode and when Balana got beamed back onto Voyager. It exploded.
SPEAKER_02The missile exploded, but exploded. I just want to note that I really wish it had exploded like the asteroid in Armageddon. Cause when they blow that thing up with just like a normal nuke, not this like mega missile the size of a ship, but with the interior like a weird Cardassian chapel, it's huge and dramatic and whatever. And this was cool, but it was just like Ping.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. And especially for his big a deal they made out of this missile and its destructive capabilities. It should have been grand. Grand. Grand. The doctor calls Janeway on his little screen and she goes, Oh doctor, I forgot about you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, she's in she's so wrapped up in the moment, she says the most insulting shit to him. It's like how flattering. I was like, Yeah, wow, I feel that.
SPEAKER_01But I mean, I guess she didn't have to like make sure he got off the ship or anything. He's just a hologram. I mean, they could have tried to save his memory bank. Yeah, they should have. He's so valuable. But he's just like, I just won't let you know I took the liberty of beaming Balana Strike to sit. And I was like, well, gosh, he is on it. Even when they forgot about him, he's doing his job.
SPEAKER_02He beamed her from the transporter room. The transporter room for like a couple of seconds. I imagine a unconscious, slightly fried Bolana was just laying alone, just smoking.
SPEAKER_01And she is she's unconscious on his bed, but he he's just like, she's a little crispy. That can't be the word he uses. He does sing around the edges. Oh my gosh, he does. Right. That's fantastic. We're gonna go with it.
SPEAKER_02That's what he says. Let me double check. Hold on. Here it is. She is somewhat singed around the edges.
SPEAKER_01Somewhat singed. So good. But she's gonna be okay. And Jane Way immediately is like, let's go get our crew and bring them home. Which I was like, dude, can we just take a breath for a second and just enjoy that Voyager isn't exploded and Balana's here? And like just yeah.
SPEAKER_02Let me ask you this. When you drink coffee nonstop, is it possible to take a breath when you're on adrenaline as well? That is a fair point. I think that's probably the most realistic thing about this episode.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I guess I don't know how you stop at that point. She just gotta keep going. Right. She's a little engine that could just keep going. Just keep going. Just keep swimming.
SPEAKER_02Swimming through that big, beautiful space. It's a finding Nemo joke. You realize that is like now a 20 plus year old movie.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god. Yeah. Feel old yet? Every day.
SPEAKER_02All you have to do now is start mountain biking. Feel extra long afterwards. Yeah, no. That's me at all. You feel young while you do it, and then afterwards, you feel old for a minute because your body hurts. And then after that though, after you hurt your body more when you're like stretching and foam rolling, then you feel like you don't like feel young, but you feel like a super capable person your own age. How's that sound? Huh.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, not terrible, but my body already hurts. I don't need to do more hurting. It's also just a lot of work.
SPEAKER_02Hey, you're the one that does yoga.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01That's kind of painful. Less work than mountain biking.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it's so funny.
SPEAKER_01I can stop at any moment. Unlike when you're on the side of a mountain on your bike. You can't just be like, I don't want to do this anymore and walk away. You gotta get down with your part's the fun. That's true.
SPEAKER_02Climbing is the the shit part. Yeah, I mean, sometimes honestly, I really enjoy it because uh I like get it all out. Mm-hmm. Some people obviously really enjoy it. Uh yeah, I mean you have to enjoy it if you're like, oh no, I have to stop spending thousands of dollars on mountain bikes like every six months.
SPEAKER_01Yoga's a lot cheaper, also. Fun. Um That is the end of the episode.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's the end. They're like, oh, we're alive. Yoga We don't even we don't even like talk to the planet. We don't see them excited or relieved. We're just out we're just out of there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that's I feel like that's a bummer because I kind of wanted to see I kind of wanted to see this like planet side experience, you know? Like sometimes in the next generation you'd have like we have to stop this planet from, you know, collapsing because of some earthquakes, because the moon came too close, and you get these like they're like in a lab or something on the planet, and you're there with them. Um I wanted at least like a Morgan Freeman presidential speech after a birding disaster kind of moment.
SPEAKER_01Maybe maybe we'll get some of that in the next episode. I I remember Jane Way um after the guy from The Planet says that she's made a friend because she's offered just to blow her ship up. She's like, I'm still hoping that we'll be able to celebrate this new friendship together. And so maybe we'll get maybe we'll get them sitting down for some coffee or something. That would be fun. That would be I bet not, but that would be fun.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I bet not. We're we're gonna find out. I gotta look what happens next. Alright, while I look this episode up, I my friend asked me if I wanted to enter a one of a million mountain bike races that are happening everywhere in Colorado. And I said yes, because so many people try to get in, you have to enter a lottery to even register. Uh it's a hundred kilometer race.
SPEAKER_01And I was like, I was like, How many miles is that? How long is that in America? 65 miles. Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02And I said yes because I didn't think we would win the ladder.
SPEAKER_01But you did.
SPEAKER_02But we did. Um so I'm doing that and doing, and I was like, shit. Why did I do this? And she's like, don't worry, we have time to train. I was like, fuck you, I am so trained right now, I don't want to do it.
SPEAKER_01You're gonna feel so invincible afterwards. I might die. Yeah. I'm probably gonna collapse. If that happens to you, you will not be the only one. There's gonna be other people in the same situation. But how long does the race take?
SPEAKER_02I bet they restrict it to like 12 hours.
SPEAKER_01You're gonna have a date, like hang out for 12 hours? Wait, no, Terry, that was a joke. I didn't get it. Sorry.
SPEAKER_02I was on a date over the weekend though. And I'm gonna do it.
SPEAKER_01Did you make her wait 12 hours for you to ride your bike to her?
SPEAKER_02Yes, I did. She she and I are both fairly sarcastic, and I was joking at the end. I was like, as sarcastic as I am, 50% of everyone else's sarcasm goes right over my head. She's like, Yeah, I kind of noticed that.
SPEAKER_01So she might be more sarcastic than you thought. You just aren't picking it up.
SPEAKER_02I'm naturally filtering out the really bad sarcasm.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01The only like top-tier sarcasm. Right.
SPEAKER_02Ooh. This next episode looks interesting. Mmm. It's called Death Wish. Nice. A member of the Q continuum. No. Comes aboard Voyager. If it was Q, they would have told us. Already. It would have been like, it would have just said, Q comes on board Voyager.
SPEAKER_01I guess this is less frustrating than it being Q, but at the same time. Q is a father figure. The most fucked up fuck figure.
SPEAKER_02Oh my face was incredible.
SPEAKER_01You like, you looked at me as I was like, what was Audrey's life like with her father? What happened to her?
SPEAKER_02I mean, you yeah, you like went blink, and then you oh you like fell towards the camera, and then you took like this massive inhale of breath, and then you said, what the f Anyway, anyway. See he comes on board, Voyager, seeking asylum, so he can commit suicide.
SPEAKER_01Wha okay, that actually does sound fascinating, and also was Q the one that drove him to suicide? Because that's understandable.
SPEAKER_02No, but Q does come on board to stop him committing suicide. Can I just Captain Janeway a moral dilemma? I am so excited. I have never been more excited for an episode of Voyager. I've been waiting for the first introduction of to Voyager and um now it sits before us. So we are gonna celebrate it. It's gonna be full Q, all the Q, all day, all time, all the way around. We're gonna circle back and talk more Q next week. Uh Terry's gonna love it. I'm gonna love it. It's we're gonna wear Q hats. We're gonna sit on level Q seats. We're gonna have Q backgrounds. You have a lot of plants! You know the little like plush couch throne thing he sits in. Mm-hmm. We're gonna sit in that.
SPEAKER_01Uh I kinda like his chair.
SPEAKER_02It's a nice chair. Royal red.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Cool. I mean, I hate the cues in it, but that's a very interesting topic, I think. The morality of suicide. And don't know why he has to run away to do it, but yeah, maybe I'll find something good in this episode.
SPEAKER_02I am I'm really curious. Maybe this is one we like watch the episode live. Just want to see your your in-person reactions.
SPEAKER_01That would be really interesting. I feel like we'd still have to record an episode afterwards.
SPEAKER_02Well, we'll just like we'll watch the episode, and then we'll do an Instagram live version of the podcast, and it's just gonna be this episode with Q.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, other than I've heard people have issues with their Instagram lives actually like saving. That could be fun. We should just put a reel together about all the things we talked about that weren't started.
SPEAKER_02I'm so excited to talk cute next week, and I'm not. And Terry's not. Alright. See you next week on the voices. Bye. Bye.