Investigations

Tune in this week as we revisit our greatest… and cringiest 1990s amateur filmmaking memories, grade school announcements, candid camera moments, and the tiny screens we absolutely squinted at back in the day.

A very serious briefing with Neelix gives us a peek into the day-to-day life aboard the starship Voyager (because nothing says journalism like a Talaxian with a cooking segment). Meanwhile, an unlikely reporter rises to stardom, proving that in the Delta Quadrant, anyone can become a correspondent if you just believe… and maybe borrow a camera.

And finally, we answer the question we’ve all been asking: what alien virus has infected Tom Paris… causing him to act out for months, eventually leaving the ship?
All this and more in S2E20 Investigations! 🚀

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:13

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 two episode 20 Investigation. Tom Paris does a James Bond. And Chicote gets probably what was coming to him from Jadeway after that one time we stole Chuck. And Mila starts the podcast. Let's dive in. How is that? Fantastic. Great. Good to hear. So this is, uh, as we all know, Susca Arc, five of nine. We see Suska for a brief moment. She looks like Chucky, who's super creepy. The teleplay was by Jerry Taylor. The story was by Jeff Schnoffer. That's a hard one. S-T-H-N. Yeah. Those are hard syllables. And Ed Bond. Bond. Bond. Hey. Directed by Les Lando. So in this episode, basically, it starts with Neelix doing his best kind of elementary school chipwide broadcast. Uh, I just wrote gross Neelix has a cooking show. Yeah, it was pretty cringy. Not gonna lie. It was, I mean, he wants to diversify and make it more than a cooking show. He goes to the doctor, he's like, hey, like, um, I want to do some doctor segments. And the doctor's like, really? He's like, gets all into it. He's like, I could do a whole thing on Madeirin mucus glands or whatever the hell. And doesn't that sound great? My my overall opinion of this episode is I thoroughly enjoyed it. We get to see so much more of the ship than we usually do. We get to see all the crew, we get to see most of the villains at some point. And Tom Paris is like total badass in this, and I loved it. And I loved that we get the end of all the bullshit with Tom acting up.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

So much happened in this episode. We wrapped up at least two continuous side stories that we've been having. Through all of it, Neelix is just kind of there giving us information through this show, which I at the end was like not so mad about.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

It actually evolved into something I didn't mind. I just thought it was so random at the beginning. Like you get a bunch of like crew members just standing and staring at their console screens, watching Neelix's shipwide broadcasts, like talking about fava beans and he has an ensign on that does like juggling, and then he gossips about some people going on a date.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

I'll at first I was just like, oh, this is terrible.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

He's talking to like Harry Kim later in the hallway. He's just like, What do you think, Harry? And he's like, Well, it's a little more dessert than I like. I want some meat and potatoes.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

It's like that's probably fair. I agree with Harry. This was just a bunch of garbage. And Harry kind of gives him this little speech about how important it is to be a journalist, because Harry was like in journalism, was it even in college or was it like before that? It was in Starfleet Academy, and I was like, of course it was. Of course I was. Yeah, of course. But he he requests that Neelix do something with some substance and kind of have have some integrity as a journalist. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Conspiracy theory here at the end of the episode, when we kind of find out all the answers. I think that Janeway had someone put Nelix up to this whole video thing.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

It would not be hard for her at all to do that. If she just had someone like whisper in Nelix's ear, he would have just gone full force with this.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

She's like, How can I increase the gossip around this?

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Fair. Yeah. And then we get the big scoop. Yeah. Neelix is called to his quarters to take a call, and we see another Talaxian, his old friend. It sounded, yeah, very frenemies situation between the two of them. It was lighthearted banter. And he's saying that they are actually gonna rendezvous with Voyager because they're gonna pick someone up off of the Voyager crew. And we're going, what?

SPEAKER_01 4:51

What? Yeah, so they're rendezvousing, and someone on the USS Voyager crew is going to leave the ship and join the Talaxian crew.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

So Neelix goes straight to Janeway with this information, which was interesting because I just felt like Janeway knows this information. I'm not sure what I guess Neelix was just journalizing.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

He thought he was getting this exclusive information from his friend. He's like, I have to tell the captain. Which to be fair, immediately.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

I mean, how is he supposed to know? Exactly. I guess, but like who would organize, who would reach out to them to have someone leave? But I get it. He wanted more information. He wanted to know who it was. He wanted to gossip about it. So he went right to Janeway. And they're in Janeway's ready room. She and Tuvok are like, I guess we can tell him. And we find out that Tom is leaving.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Yeah, it's Tom Paris. I I honestly was still in the dark. I wasn't like, wow, I know what's going on. But I was like, there's no way like he's in the rest of the season. So I was at least like, maybe he like had a kid and had to take leave for a few episodes. I was like, at the most. But we obviously know Tom doesn't actually leave. So I was like, well, I'm not sure what this is, but I know it's not forever.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

I didn't even think that far ahead. I just kind of was like, how does this, how does this make sense? Because to me, this is like really scary for someone to leave Voyager. They're still in the Delta Quadrant, they're still so far from home. There's like not even humans out here. To leave this ship is so it puts you in such a position of just being completely separated from everything you've ever known and kind of doing it permanently. So this felt like a really big deal.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Well, Neelix goes to Tom's quarters, gives this really sweet speech about him having become a friend. He immediately starts talking about it on his show, shipwide. And then Tom leaves without much fanfare.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

He doesn't even say anything to actually leave.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Yeah, he doesn't even say anything to Harry. He just like, gay bye.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Yes. See now, my not so much conspiracy theory, but my thought is that Harry probably knew what was going on during this.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Yeah, Harry was pretty reserved. And I'm like, you guys would be like hugging and crying.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Yeah, or at the very least, like Harry would be actively trying to talk him out of this up until the very end.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Yeah. I was like, that's kind of weird, but okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Yeah. And Harry was there in the transporter room when he left. So were Neelix and Kiss. I did note that Tom has a lot of clothing.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

He's like holding clothing that entire scene with Neelix talking in.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

The entire time. He's going to his closet. He's pulling out all this stuff. I'm like, when have we ever seen him wear anything other than a Starfleet uniform? Why does he have so much clothing?

SPEAKER_01 7:59

I know he even wears that in like the Bordello, where I'm like, dude, aren't you off duty?

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Yeah, but I guess he's not gonna wear a Starfleet uniform wherever he's going.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

I was hoping to catch like what was on the clothing, like funny little like Star Trek merch shirts and sweaters. They all seemed like it actually looked like he was just packing sweaters to me.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Yes. Yes. Seems like he's a very sweater person.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Do you do you judge? I'm sorry, do you judge people like sweater people? That guy's a sweater guy.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

I actually think it's a good thing if I call you a sweater guy. Okay. Is that like, was that on your hinge profile? I would like a sweater guy. Uh it wasn't. I tried not to be that superficial. But it's apparently it's a big deal, I think, for you. It sounds like it. Tom does have a reasoning for leaving that he tells Neelix.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

And um it's fine, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. It was what's he say he can't advance on the only starship in the quadrant or the only Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

He thought there'd be more more options for advancement elsewhere, but also he says it was a mistake to try to fit in with Starfleet again. Um, which I could kind of see that logic. He says that he always messes things up wherever he goes and considers himself a drifter. So yeah, he had reasons, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

I mean, it's the only excuse that the audience would buy, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

So he leaves the next day. We have all this stuff happening to the warp core that we knew was gonna happen from the previous episode. They orchestrated this like plasma overlord or overload in the warp core. And Bellana and the rest of the engineering team, including that little shit, you know, Michael Jonas asshole. Uh Mike. God damn it, Mike. So they're like venting plasma through the nausea cells and like trying to contain quote unquote damage.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

We don't actually get all that many details, but no, although several people do get injured, they get some burn, which I believe includes Mike, which just makes it all look more convincing. Like he didn't have anything to he did it on. Oh, yes. Yeah, we all know.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

We I love it too, because Bolana was like, get away from that console, idiot. I can do it from over here. And then the console blows up and she's like, ew, dumbass.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

And Neelix, of course, is there in engineering the whole time because he's like, Oh, this sounds like a good scoop. I need to figure out what's going on. He's journalist on site, he's press. And at this place point, I'm actually going, like, okay, this could be fun. Neelix is being really nosy and he's getting into everyone's stuff. I'm like, maybe he'll actually uncover our saboteur. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

So they go into sick bay after this happens, and he's like interviewing patients, and the doctor's like, yeah, let me, I want to be interviewed. And then he's like, Okay, fine. But I really want to interview the Jonas guy that's like super injured. And Jonas says something like, I was just doing my job.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Huh? Cool.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah, sure you are.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Could have come up with something better than that.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

He was doing his like saboteur job.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

So job, Mike. Exactly. So the engines are down now until they can get a specific substance. And Neelix is called to the bridge because they'll they want help finding whatever this stuff is that they need. Do you want to know the name of the stuff? I wrote it down. Yeah, please. Especially if you wrote it down, because I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

We all know what it's called, Terry.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Don't forget this again. Viterium cortinite. Viterium cortonite, yeah. I I knew that actually. Uh everyday material. Uh, which Nelix identifies a system with a class M planet that is rich in these minerals?

SPEAKER_01 12:15

The Hemakek system, which is both a very believable yet absolutely terrible name for a star system.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Agreed. So lots of Nelix being helpful. He's directs them to where they can find this, but then they get hailed by this Tallaxian ship.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

This part I was like, so same guy that talked to Nelix at the beginning, he's like, we got attacked by the Kazon Nystrom, and no one's dead, but obviously the ship is like blown to hell. Like, there's like smoky pipes and stuff blown around. And he's like, I don't know what happened. They just came in and took Paris and left everything else. It was super weird. And I was like, okay, that is weird, but also did later in the episode I'm like, did Janeway straight up like sacrifice an entire innocent trading vessel to this plot? Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

The the the idea that the Kazon would attack this ship and not kill anyone else or completely explode the damn thing is I I couldn't believe they left it one piece. I don't know how she could think they would.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

I was like, you know, I I didn't know the whole thing at the time of watching it, but like after that was like the first thing I thought about the episode. I was like, did Janeway just like Patsy an entire vessel?

SPEAKER_00 13:39

That's a great point. I mean, she kind of did. And is very lucky that it didn't turn out that way. I was like, oof, man, that could have been bad. So the K's on have Tom now, and it's appears they were targeting him especially because they didn't touch anything else.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Yeah. And he is like so cool, cucumber on the ship, right? He's like so cool, and he's wearing one of his cute sweaters, and he is, and and it says, like, you know, Picard is best on the front or something. Of course. And he's in the dark, dimly lit, stupid Kazon vessel set. And Saska, like sultry, like opens the door, and she's just like leaning up against it, and she like kind of walks like this. She's like, Hey, Tom. Mm-hmm. Good to see what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Well, she's also like rubbing her obviously pregnant belly.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

And he says it's like the best quote in the whole episode. He's like looking very matronly. It's like, oh boy.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Well, see, that does Tom that kind of begs the question. Has Chicote told everyone that Sesca is carrying his child?

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Well, I couldn't remember. I thought that she told like the entire bridge crew.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

I guess she, yeah. I guess she was on the view screen with everyone there.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

Ugh. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Yeah, so they all know.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

That's very awkward for me. Yeah. What a situation. She's trying to like get some information about Voyager out of Tom, but it's kind of clearly this back and forth of like, I I don't like you, I don't trust you, mutual feeling type thing that's happening. And she's also knows he has like a few plays up his sleeve. And so he's pretty chill about it all. He's being pretty cocky, but I would say that's also just n kind of normal behavior for Tom. So Cesca does leave the room and and leaves him alone there, and he immediately starts like trying to hack into their console.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Yeah, he uses, he has like a it looks like a fridge magnet, and he puts it on the It's exactly what it looks like. He puts it on the the awesomely designed, as we've talked about in the past, control uh console, and he's able to start access things. Oh, Tom maybe meant to be here. Seems very prepared to break into a Kazon system.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Yeah, right. Well, that was also part, I was like, I didn't know this was a skill that Tom had. Achievement.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

New skill unlocked. Yeah, well, this is also when the James Bond theme song started playing, so I was like, hmm, yeah, this makes sense. I didn't notice that. Maybe that was just maybe that's just the prime version. Maybe that's just in your head anytime something is afoot. I think it's the prime, the like Amazon Prime version, because they do own Bond now. So why wouldn't they just start inserting that into put it everywhere? Right. Absolutely. Yeah. So yeah, he gets caught and then is that what? Yeah. I couldn't comment on what was happening in this scene. They like walked in and they had guns, and Saska was there, and she's like, she's like, should have known you'd be trying to access our console, and he's like, joke's on you, and then something blows up behind him and he escapes with a gun.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

The console blows up. So this fridge magnet that he installed not only helped him hack into their system, it also exploded it, which is wild. But while he was on this console, he did hack into the call that Sesca currently had going on. So he saw her talking to Mike on Voyager. So he now knows who the traitor is.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

He hacked a Zoom call and and so he knows, no one else knows. And what we're back on Voyager, and Neelix is investigating in engineering, right? And he's talking to Jonas, right? Hogan. No, he's talking to Hogan. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Hogan is the other guy. He has started to suspect that someone on the ship has something to do with this because how would they have known that Tom Paris was on this ship and they were obviously targeting him? So he's like, the only thing that makes sense is that someone on Voyager told them.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Yeah, well, they also he finds somehow, I forget how he finds out that some of the logs are like there's blank spots.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

That's and that's what he does now, is he's down there trying to find the logs.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

And they they confirm that there's pieces missing, but they can't see what's missing because they used like some insane explanation. Like they they used the garbage energy release system to like send like a message in a bottle out to like another ship. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Yeah, instead of using the calm arrays, I wrote it down because it was pretty interesting. Like the normal way that you would send messages, they used the energy grid of the ship and basically just let the messages leak out in its waist. Yeah, like I thought that was fascinating. Yeah, just like Audrey said. Yeah, there we go. They didn't use the antenna arrays, which is where you would expect it. So this guy, Jonas, helps him to find that these messages came from deck four, section C three. And that's kind of an area. It's not specific, but Neelix is like, I'll go find it. I'm gonna go room by room until I know where they came from.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Yep. And this Jonas guy is like creeping behind him the whole time. And at some point, he has like their little, like little hand welder things that they use. It's just like a little flame. He's like, he's like, I'm gonna go light some cigarellos.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

And he like gets it's like a plasma cutter, but he's he's getting up behind Neelix, like he's gonna take him out.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Yeah, and then the doctor like randomly calls him.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

He's like, Hey, why wasn't I on your today's segment? You know, you forgot about me. So he saves Neelix in that moment, which is fun. Yeah, it was fun. Neelix ends up in Tom Paris' room at his computer and starts to go through it looking for messages that have been sent. He uses the security clearance that he heard someone else use in engineering.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Okay. Yeah, but like there's gotta be some voice recognition stuff.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Exactly. Those have to be voice-specific. Nilix should not be able to use that security.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

And I feel like we've actually seen, and someone can correct me, the like 10 people that watch our podcast. Um, I I swear we've seen this before where there was like voice recognition in Star Trek. So I'm like, Yeah, maybe, maybe Janeway and Tuvac disabled that just to give him access to it. Because they're obviously manipulating the shit out of Neelix, which I find hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Yes, me too. But I've got I feel like that's readings. I think you're giving them so much benefit of the doubt to say that they had that backstory for it.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

No, I would never, but that's you know, sure. I would never read too far into it to justify something. Uh-huh. Right, because the the writers are definitely working from like science and basis of fact, Terry. Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

That this is all history. He finds the Messages on Tom's machine, which is really disappointing to him, obviously. And to me, I was just like, I'm so confused. Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

And without confirming anything, he immediately goes and just tells the whole ship.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Immediately, I have an announcement. Tom Parris was a traitor. Like, oh my God. I at this whole time I'm like, how is Janewee letting him do this? And then we find out that she wants him to do it, basically. But um I oh, at this point, I was kind of like, okay, maybe Tom had his own thing going on. Maybe he did reach out and maybe he wanted to be on the Kazon ship or something not as like a traitor, but like maybe he's taking things into his own hands. I was, there's all sorts of possible storylines.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Yeah, I was kind of in the same spot. I was like, maybe I think it's really dumb that he orchestrated this on his own, but okay, like maybe he's doing the whole like Chicote free agent thing and getting off the ship and like going on this solo run. But I was like, I was also starting to suspect something was up with Geneway and Tuvok specifically. Cause I'm like, they're just kind of chummy.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

They're very they're always together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

This whole episode, they are together, except for one time Tuvok is alone talking to Neelix. And yes, they're both literally every time Neelix does like a shipwide announcement, they're both sitting there, like yes, standing stoically next to each other with like they're in cahoots. This kind of serious expression. Kind of an analyzing was that the same scene that they just repeated the same footage of them just like standing there staring at a screen, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:53

Every time Neelix's show goes on, it's just the two of them staring at the screen. So they bring Neelix in and tell him that Tuvok had already looked for these messages and didn't find what Neelix had found, which is crazy. Like obviously Neelix wouldn't find something that Tuvok couldn't find, but that's just not his thing.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

Yeah. No, it's Neelix is just being so used.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Yeah, well, and now they kind of start to let him in, though, on the whole ruse.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

And the rest of the in the rest of the audience. When she's there, she like walks around the table. You might be surprised to hear that there is a plant. There is a saboteur, but it is not Tom Paris. We don't know who it is, but Tom is actually one of our agents. And she just like does this whole expose in her like very like edgy, gravely, like putting on a performance voice.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

True. Yeah, this was it was fun. So we find out that not only did they want Tom to leave and to make contact with the Kazon, that his behavior up until this point was all a ruse to convince everyone that he actually wanted to leave. And I don't is Chakote in the room now? Is this what he learns too? He's so pissed. Yeah. I would be too. Holy shit. The Chakote versus Tom side plot was a heavy one, and it was annoying, actually.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

It was so annoying. And he is so pissed at Jane Way, but Janeway, like, is like, yeah, I use you. What you gonna do? You're already messed up like a few episodes ago, dude. Like you messed up back in like episode eight or whatever. So you and your sister baby. You know, I'm not gonna say anything, but he doesn't really react after this because he's he's probably thinking the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

He's like, Yeah, he backs down because he's like, This sucks. Like, I was used, I wasn't, I wasn't let in on this secret, but also he deserves it. So yeah, yeah. So I felt for him a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

I did too, but it worked, and all their plotting worked because the next scene, Paris is like running in a stolen Kazon ship, and he beats up several Kazon that come at him with guns, wrestles one and wins.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

I was like, man, this guy's gotta been training for this for weeks.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Yep, and uh, and it's like you know, Golden Eye music is playing, and he escapes in the Kazon fighter and is being like relentlessly attacked. Yeah. And he's not within transporter range, so there's this whole drama that plays out where Jonas is down there, he's like, Oh, I'm trying to fix the transporter. But Neelix is like looking over his shoulder. You're not working on the transporter, dude. You're just you're like staring at plant enzyme analytics or something.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

Yeah, you're just you're just poking buttons. What are you doing, man?

SPEAKER_01 27:33

And he so he's like, get out of my way, Neelix. You don't know what you're doing. And he puts a force field around Neelix. And he's like, What are you doing? Why why is there a force field? He's like, just a precaution. I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Which none of this, like Neelix is just in disbelief. His brain is not moving fast enough at this point. But also, at least Mike isn't killing him, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

No, Mike is initiating some sort of core meltdown or something. I don't know what he's doing. There's like it's like Chernobyl in there. There's like green gas and lights and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

And but he's also working to disable the weapon system so that when the Kazon get there, Voyager will be dead in the water.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

So he's disabled transporters and weapons, but at this time, Paris reaches comms to Voyager and says, you know, like static. He's like, It's a trap. It's a trap. Don't come. They've got like land troops and more ships, and it's trap.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Yeah, at this world that Neelix wanted them to go to to get the materials they need, which to me was like, man, Sesca's so smart. She thought I was so far ahead. She's like, if we have this specific problem with the warp core, they will have to go to this planet to fix it. Just wild. She's smart. Yeah, she is.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

And no one accused her of not being smart, just kind of being a bitch. Fair, you can be both.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Usually you are both. I mean, take it from me. That's actually might be true, honestly. Not just in your case. Okay, thank you for it. In general, Mike has taken Neelix's calm badge.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Rude.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Sure. Yeah. I mean, I guess so that Neelix can't tell anyone he's down there, can't tell him what he's doing. Smart move. But Tom is able to tell them now that Mike is the traitor. He's the saboteur.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

It's Mike Bombkiss or whatever, and she's like, noted. Contact engineering.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Uh yeah. I she had just talked to Mike and was like, send more power to the transporter room so that we can get Tom Paris back on this ship. And so when she heard he was the traitor, it was like, oh shit. I literally just told this guy that Tom Paris was on his way back. So Janeway immediately is calling to the transporter room, and he's like, she's like, lock on to Mike and transport him out of engineering.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

So Tuvok goes down there with a team and they're like, we can't get in. And yes. Okay, this is when this is when Neelix turns into a badass and goes all like MacGyver on him with a wrench.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Well, okay. With a space wrench. They tried, they try to be Mike out of engineering, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

But he's not wearing his com badge.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

And I'm like, can you deal with it without your com badge? His comm badge out of engineering. And that made me so mad.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

I know. I was like, I swear we've seen you guys transport anyone and everyone and every living random thing or object in the ship somewhere else on the ship.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

They can lock onto him without having a comp badge. Absolutely. Maybe.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Okay, maybe if we're gonna like dive into the whole like Star Trek cannon, maybe it was like, oh, the force field or that he had enacted, or the like the green gas of whatever he was doing interacted weirdly with the transporter signal and they couldn't get in without the con badge.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

Sure, they could have tried to explain it that way, but they didn't. It very much just looked like you can only transport things with comm badges on them.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

But we needed this fight scene.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Absolutely, you're right. The fight scene commences. Helix is a gladiator.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Fighting him. And he he like tackles him and then he goes upstairs, which I was like, I don't think we've seen upstairs yet. So that was cool. Or maybe we have, but we haven't seen it in like such a sequence.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Yeah, we haven't spent much time up there, and this was an interesting perspective. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

Yeah. And they're like fighting up there, and Neelix like he like charges, Jonas is like, waah, you know, and like charges at him, and then Neelix like shoulders him off to the side, and he just like falls into the warp core, whatever it was.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Some green mist down there, and Mike goes over the edge and just disappears. And I'm like, so wait, he's is he dead?

SPEAKER_01 32:25

And he just there's like a little acknowledgement later. That's my assumption. I assume he just vaporized. For sure he was. But then later, like Tuvok and Neelix is like, yeah, I'm okay, but like, I don't know about that Jonas guy. And then they both like turn and look towards the warp corps. Like, are they looking at like this bloody gnarled, like, oh, maybe sorry.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Not the best image. Got it. I thought that it just was not really well addressed because Neelix is just like, yup, he's probably dead. I gotta go start my show now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Yeah. Well, okay, so let's back up a little bit. The Neelix saves the day, gets transporters and weapons working, because they get Paris on board, and he's fine. And then they somehow fucking transport him without his comm badge. And then imagine that. And then the weapon system, maybe it was the sweater. Like the weave of the sweater was like Yeah, they probably planned for this.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

He's probably got a comb badge up his butt, actually. Just in case.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

It's like the watch in Pulp Fiction. Just like that. So, and then they get weapons working and they disable the enemy ship like very easily. The Kazon ship.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Which I thought they had had problems doing previously.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

It's called Episodic Convenience. It sure is. But I'm not gonna lie, the pacing of this episode was spot on. It was a thrill ride. And I really loved it. I loved it. Like all of it was great. One of the best episodes of the season so far. Unexpectedly, too. Because it started out of like, shit, this is gonna be rough.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Yeah, that's exactly what I thought. This one's gonna be rough. But no, it was, yeah, it was good, but it wrapped up so many things so quickly, too, that I was like, what are we trying to move on to? Like effectively. Like it did it effectively.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

It wasn't like one of those episodes where it like ends so quickly.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

You're like, wait, what just happened? It did kind of read to me like the end of a novel where it gets like faster and faster towards the end as you're hitting the end. But now that this is ended, I'm just really excited to see what we're doing next.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

We're getting very close to that. I don't think it's the next episode or the next two, but we are very close to the episode where Melix and Tuvok get combined into one entity by the transporter. It's like one of the most famous episodes. It's probably the most famous Voyager episode ever. It's the only episode I knew about going into this show. Literally. I don't think I knew about this. You didn't know about it? Spoiler. Uh, that's coming.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

Dave, what?

SPEAKER_01 35:30

Uh at least they don't have salamander babies. This is the famous episode where our friend Chris reached out and was like, Janeway's a murderer. That's I'm not gonna reveal anymore.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

It's very controversial.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

I I yeah, I'm excited to have controversy. Neelix has Tom on his show when he gets back.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

And his show is now called something like The View. I think it's called The View. Whippy Goldberg's on it.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

That is what it's like.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

Gaynan is leading the show recently.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

They're just sitting on a couple of couches facing each other, and Tom's apologizing for generally behaving like a jerk, which is nice. He particularly shouts out Chicote.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

And then he's like, but it was kind of fun.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

He was kind of fun. And I was like, oh my god. I don't know how I would feel if I was Chicote right now. Because Tom just did a really cool, like, yeah, I mean, obviously pissed, but how do you feel about Paris? Because he just did a really cool thing for the ship under orders.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

My love of Paris increased tenfold in this episode.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Yeah, this is so cool. And I because I think I was I was really disappointed when he was acting a fool in earlier episodes.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

This is there's something up. You knew. I knew something was up. I didn't know it was like a spy plot. I thought it was, you know, an alien worm virus or something.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

Yeah. But you were like, this is not the t the Thomas that we know and love.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Yeah, that was a fun episode. That was honestly really fun. Agreed. There's only six more episodes. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

And then more seasons.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

I thought there were seven seasons.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Am I five more seasons?

SPEAKER_00 37:22

Okay. It's like that doesn't sound like enough seasons.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

Math is hard. Agreed. The Tubak Nelux episode I was speaking to you is episode 24. The next episode is 21. Oh shit, this looks crazy. Man, it looks crazy. Okay, it's called Deadlock. Spoil it so bad because I'm looking at the picture. Don't do it. Hey, do you want me to read the brief synopsis or do you want me to make something up based on the image I'm looking at? Oh, I mean the second one sounds more fun. Okay, on uh season two, episode 21 of Star Trek Voyager called Deadlock. Janeway fights the evil clone of herself with slightly messier hair.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

Fun.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

This is not at all what the synopsis. This is a fun game. The synopsis is while trying to avoid Vedean territory, Voyager is nearly destroyed by Proton Burst coming from an unknown source. Snorm.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Janeway's evil clone.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Oh, an instant wild wolf man is in this one. She finally give birth. No idea. I'm sorry. Okay. Uh look forward to some clone wars. Wait. We are unbelievably stupid. Thank you so much. What? Thank you for bearing with us through this entire journey. You can be stupid and bitches. With a slightly lower IQ than you started with. And we'll see you next time on the voices. Bye.