Heritage | With Dan Curry | TNG 6.17, "Birthright, part II" | T7R #375 - The 7th Rule -- A Star Trek Podcast with DS9's Cirroc Lofton

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
There's no room in Wolf's heart for shame. KALs eventually
found his father's sword, and the Klingon Hunt is a
ritual that reminds them where they came from. Hello, everybody,
and welcome to the Seventh Rule. Was Sir rock Lofton.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hello, Hello, My name is Ryan T.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Huskin.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Today we are doing a review of Star Trek the
Next Generation Season six, episode seventeen, Birthright, Part two, written
by Renee Etcheveria, directed by the Dan Curry. This was February, Sorry,
February twenty seventh, nineteen ninety three.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Where were you?

Speaker 1 (00:37):
And you guys, you will not believe it. We have
the superhuman, the legendary, the iconic Dan Curry with us.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
How you doing today, Dan.

Speaker 4 (00:49):
Not biologically functioning?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Very good, very good.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
That's really good to have you.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
By the way, stumbled a little on the date because
I on Paramount Plus it said March first, ninety three.
On IMDb it said February twenty seventh, ninety three, so
I went with IMDb.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Thank you so much, Eye, Thanks so much for hanging
out with us.

Speaker 5 (01:13):
Dan.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
This is such a thrill. We've had you on before
to talk about your VFX mastery your art department, mastery
your storyboards that are legendary, you know, for the board,
for the board qube for the interiors, for explosions, so
many things. But in this one glorious episode you were

(01:37):
the director. How did that come about?

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Please?

Speaker 4 (01:42):
Well, I asked Rick Berman if I could direct an
episode because I've been directing second Unit for for a while,
and they they let me direct one, and interestingly enough,
all directors get a tone meeting, but they forgot to
give me a tone meeting, so I had no idea

(02:04):
what the producers really wanted. And Rick Colby directed part one,
and Rick and I chatted a little bit about it,
but they were different enough that they were not totally related.
And it was a wonderful experience, and especially working with

(02:24):
Michael Dorn, who made it as easy as possible by
being super cooperative and instantly understood what I was trying
to accomplish. And looking back at it, there were so
many things I wish I'd done differently, but that is

(02:46):
the nature of any artists. They never really liked their
own work.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
So Dan, you know, first off, it's good to see you.
Always a pleasure to be in your company. I wanted
to ask you just a little clarification. They approached you
to direct this episode or did you approach them and
say I want to direct an episode.

Speaker 4 (03:13):
I wanted to direct an episode and they granted that,
and that was the episode I was randomly assigned to.
And it was interesting because it was not a visual
effects episode that was a character Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yes, but I didn't think it was that random. I mean,
this was just a guess on my part that apparently
is not right. But I was like, oh, perfect. Dan
Curry is good friends with Michael Dorn. He designed all
these Klingon weaponry, you know, so many things. Of course
they want them for the Klingon episode. But you think
it was random or do you think there was a
little something there?

Speaker 4 (03:48):
I don't know. I couldn't describe their mental machinations in
selecting that one. I had always assumed that was random.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Dan, how big is because you know one of the
things a lot of this is filmed on that in
that camp, you know, that prison camp set, and it
was pretty elaborate. I thought it was, you know, well
done as far as feeling big and elaborate and like,

(04:22):
you know, just architecture. Not usually what we see so
they did a you know, did a number on the
set design. I thought it was well done. Can you
talk about that set design? How big of a space
it has? I saw that when he jumped over the
edge of the wall of it, it seemed like it
was way up there.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
Yeah, it was a big set and filled up stage sixteen.
We had the prison camp set and the jungle set right,
and the one regret I have about the jungle set
is I realized I should have asked it to be

(05:00):
filled with fog so it was more mysterious interesting.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
And that was And speaking of that, that leads me
to my next question, which as you mentioned, talking to
Rick Colby about the episode prior to this one, and
one thing that stood out to me as a visually
was the lighting being a lot brighter in this second parter.
Did they was that something that you like, you wanted

(05:26):
more lighting or did they give you any notes about,
you know, matching the darkness or not matching it to
the previous episode. I did feel like it was brighter.
I don't know if anyone else about that.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
Jonathan West, the director of photography, he told me that
he wanted to make sure the lighting was consistent from
episode to episode, So I just assumed that that's what
it was because I hadn't really seen the previous episode yet.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Yeah. Yeah, Jonathan West is a legend in his own right,
that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
So you know, it's always fascinating to hear people, you know,
their stories about being on set. Did it feel like
a special moment for you, like something you've been waiting
for forever, or or were you like, I'm always doing
second unit directing, I'm doing all these other things. Nobody, Gil,
it sounds like you're saying, yes, it felt special.

Speaker 6 (06:22):
It was.

Speaker 4 (06:23):
It was a really special experience because.

Speaker 6 (06:28):
It was.

Speaker 4 (06:30):
A deeper probe into into character, and it also revealed
a dark side of Wharf where he was kind of
intolerant and one of the there's a scene where Michael's
love interest by El played by Jennifer Gotti. They're in

(06:54):
kind of a moody situation and she's kind of coming
on to him and he's enjoying the romantic interlude, and
then suddenly Michael or Wharf reaches up and reveals her
pointed ear and realizes that she's half romulin. So one
of the things that I wanted to do and Jonathan

(07:18):
was great about it was I wanted the light to
change with their mood, so that they're standing in one
kind of dark corner of the set and a big
very romantic and they're romantically lit. And then as Michael
makes the discovery, he steps into the shadow, so that

(07:40):
the rest of the scene we see a wharf and
profile as a silhouette, and so we can focus on
Biel's reaction to her shocked reaction to Michael's attitude toward
her because she was a romulant and having grown up

(08:00):
in an area where there was no enmity between the
rhyme villains and the Cleons that she just didn't quite understand.
So I wanted the light to reinforce the story.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
You know, Dan, because this episode had so many guest
stars in very little I feel like the regular cast
outside of Michael Doran was very you know, it wasn't
really prominently featured. And maybe you worked with them one
or two days out of this whole seven or nine
day shoot. What was it like having to work with

(08:40):
so many Klingons that have never played a Klingon before?
And was there a lot of catching up on the
actors and kind of directing them to be, you know
more clingonlike.

Speaker 4 (08:55):
Yes and cleyon dialogue is difficult. It's almost Shakespearean in
a way. And there was one ye forget her name,
the I don't have it here, the.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
I could, I could check. It's not Jennifer Gotti mentioned
her already.

Speaker 4 (09:19):
Who played her mother?

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yeah, Christine Rose, that's right.

Speaker 4 (09:25):
Christina Rose was I believe it was a New York
actress and uh. She had one moment where she was
having a confrontation with Wharf and got very upset because
of the awkwardness of the dialogue, and so she had

(09:48):
to walk off the set for a while. So I
went over to her and wanted to get her to
relax and be able to do it. So I told her, well,
it it's great that you had this reaction because it'll
get you in the perfect mood to do this scene.
And we're way ahead of schedule, which was a complete
lie to that pressure offer. As always, we were way

(10:13):
behind schedule. And got her a glass of water and
she was a real trooper and went back in and
I tried to explain that your feelings are exactly the
arc that your character has to do, and you should
feel like this at the end of the scene and
she nailed it and take one as in the show.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Wow, that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Well, Dan, you mentioned that there are some things that
you kind of wish you had changed or you wish
you had done differently. Can you tell us the opposite
side of that. Are there some things where you were
actually really proud of work? Besides it sounds like that
was a good story there, but were there some things
I don't know if you watched it again recently where
you're like, that was pretty good.

Speaker 4 (10:56):
I like that shot, yeah, I like to despite the
absence of fog. I liked the hunting scene. And I
liked a scene where the commandant of the of the
prison camp comes in and Michael is making his bed

(11:20):
up and they have a confrontation and Alan Scarf was
the actor, and I thought that was a really good
scene because it had really good dialogue as their relationship
revealed a little bit more about how they thought about things,
and their performances were great. I like the scene where

(11:42):
they're playing the game. We invented the Kligan hunting game
with throwing the spears and that was fun. And I
liked the scene where where talk is Michael Dorn. Warf
is starting to teach moch Brah to the young people

(12:04):
in the courtyard of the prison camp, and Tok comes
out and he's kind of challenging him, and uh so
Dennis Madalone, our wonderful stunt coordinator who remains a good
thread to this day, wanted to do a very elaborate
thing where Warf flips them, and I felt that Wharf

(12:26):
would be able to brush them off like a fly,
so I demonstrated a move where just grabbed Dennis's hand
and flip them over, and that became what was in
the scene. Another thing I wish I'd done where Warf
discovers them gardening with a gintock spear and other weapon

(12:50):
and actually that was inspired by the spears of the
Wicked Witch's Spears guards and Wizard of Oz and uh wow,
oh kind of a medieval halbrid across and uh, Michael
Dorn takes it out and explains what it was, and uh,

(13:11):
I thought it in retrospect, I kicked myself for not
having warped to a really cool spear maneuver and kind
of put it at TOC's throat and then uh to
show his powess.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
But because he could have done it. Michael Dorn could
have done it. You worked with him and kind of trained.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
Him in a lot of ways, right, Yeah, yeah, Michael.
Michael was super athletic and he picked up uh tai
chi and martial arts moves very quickly.

Speaker 6 (13:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
I also like the scene. You know, we're mentioning scenes
that we like. I like the scene where the young
king on it. You said, I think it's talk. Yeah,
when he was when they came back from the hunting
trip and he dropped the pig or whatever on the
desk and started to sing the song. I liked that
moment there. I thought it was covered well too, as

(14:03):
far as the coverage on it, you know, it seemed
really well. He was standing in the middle of the
dining hall. It was really good moment there for with
the song as well too, with everybody singing along. I
like that.

Speaker 4 (14:18):
Yeah, there's a there's one moment in that scene that
I particularly liked is a kind of way to Wharf
who just kind of looked.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Almost like a proud father. Right, He's like not quite,
He's not going like wow, he's not getting carried away.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
He's just like yeah, that's right.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
Well, and it also shows Michael skill as an actor
because uh, he could communicate a lot with just a
nod of his head.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
He did that again actually in one of the last
scenes where everybody actually this scene right here, they're they're
all gathering in front, and I'm expecting Wharf to give
a big like sigh of relief or not approval or
see I told you so, But he just gave the

(15:04):
tiniest TV reaction. It's like he knows the camera will
pick it up, and you know, I don't know if
you remember any of that, if there was any kind
of direction at all, or but it was really nice
to see him just give a tiny reaction because we
already know what he's thinking. He doesn't need to give
us a lot.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
You know.

Speaker 4 (15:25):
Well, there's a friend of mine who's an actor, had
the opportunity to work with Paul Newman on a movie
and he said Paul Newman gave him the best acting
advice he ever had, and mister Newman said, never act,
just behave Yep.

Speaker 6 (15:45):
Very good.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Well, Dan, I wanted to ask you this is something
this is something I've been thinking about since I first
started watching this episode. Is you know this is your
one episode that you've direct. Did you ever think, boy,
that was a lot of fun I want to direct again?
Or was it like or was it like, Okay, I

(16:08):
got that bug out of my system. Back to everything,
back to the other forty things I'm doing.

Speaker 4 (16:15):
No, I would have loved to have directed more, but
the taking me away from visual effects for that long
was turned out to be something that the producers were
unhappy about.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
You're very valuable.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
I can imagine like, hey, this guy is very useful
in these other things too. I wanted to ask you
about the Uridian because we saw the Uridian very briefly
for the pick up rendezvous point at some point. Yeah,
And was there more that was edited and left on

(16:56):
the cutting floor because it felt like it felt like
a lot to go through just to show that you're
Idian for like five seconds on the screen.

Speaker 4 (17:03):
Yeah. Well, one of the challenges was the episode was
timed as the script was timed as eleven minutes too long,
so eleven so that would have been about eleven pages
and that's a lot. So that's why it felt shopped
because we shot more than the show we needed, and

(17:26):
they they worked it in the editing.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
Okay, yeah, because I thought the same thing, but the
What I thought was James Cromwell is one of my
favorite actors ever.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
Loved the guy.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
And I was like, did they really pay James Cromwell
for this episode when he had no lines and he's
just going like this?

Speaker 3 (17:48):
So I thought the same thing too.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
I wonder if there was more to it, but they
had to cut some things out because I'm like, you
could have just gotten, you know, a stand in to
knock that part out.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
But I wanted to ask.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
You, speaking of actors, you know, love James Cromwell, but
Richard Hurd, who has passed away a few years back.
He was a wonderful man by all accounts. I knew
him and his wife pretty well. But you got to
work with him. Do you have any memories of him
or what he was like?

Speaker 4 (18:20):
Yeah? Total pro do his lines and I would describe
the mood I wanted. And only once did I suggest
a slightly different reading of a line, and it was
when he assigned talk to to guard moharph And and

(18:44):
I said, well, maybe try it this way. We're giving
a little bit more sense that he's selecting talk on purpose.
But instead of saying you guide him, you guard him,
You guard him. So that it emphasizing talks responsibility for
Wharf and that was and he was so gracious about

(19:07):
that comment, you know, coming from a newbie, and he
was just a wonderful man. And he told me he
was doing something on cruise ships, which was interesting where
he had come up with the one man show about
the great director Cecil B. De Mille and that and
he did one man shows on cruise ships where he

(19:30):
would performed a couple of times on the cruise and
get a free vacation.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
That's unbelievable.

Speaker 6 (19:40):
That's great.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
H Did you you didn't really work that much with
Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Fraakes in this episode.

Speaker 4 (19:50):
No, they were just in in the end when Wharf
gets back to the Enterprise.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah, so it was very brief and it might have
been like a half day. Like I was saying, it
seemed like Wharf got the the brunt of this focal point.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 4 (20:06):
Yeah, it was aye episode mm hmm.

Speaker 6 (20:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
It was strange though that they didn't the writers did
not revisit the data storyline at all that was in
Part one, unless that was in it and they just
cut it out. But that was a little surprising and
as you said, Dan, this is it turned into a
warf episode?

Speaker 7 (20:25):
You know.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
The first one had was wharf and data.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
The second one was very clearly all warf. Was there
anything about data at all in the second one they
got cut out?

Speaker 4 (20:34):
Not much. And one of the things I wish I
had known, uh before I started, was that they wanted
it to feel like a bridge on the river Kwai,
you know, with a great relationship with alec innoson.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
Cesso Hayakawa Obi wan Kenobi himself.

Speaker 4 (20:54):
Huh and so that would have uh change show. I
thought about certain scenes.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
But did you design the Jintok spear just for this
episode or was that something that already existed before this?

Speaker 4 (21:11):
Alan Sims, the prop guy, designed it.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Oh Balin Sims.

Speaker 4 (21:18):
And but one of the things I wanted to make
sure it that the spear was balanced and throwable, so
that at the balance point there's a gray section of
the of the spear, so that the actors knew exactly
where to hold it so they could throw it correctly.
And one things when we played the game and where

(21:42):
the young people were throwing the spears through the hoops,
I actually did the spear throwing.

Speaker 1 (21:48):
Oh no way, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Uh so, Dan,
we only have you for a few more minutes here. However,
first let's just go ahead and point out the elephant
in the room or the Emmys on the wall. You've
won several Emmys. It's enormously impressive.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
Oh my god, there's even more of them, Heiden back there. Unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
How did you get your start in Star Trek in
the first place?

Speaker 4 (22:17):
And Star Trek supervising producer Peter Lorison before that had
been VP of Paramount Television Post Production, and at the
time I had worked at both Modern Film Effects and
Cinema Research and done a lot of work with Peter,
both in designing title sequences and creating visual effects. So

(22:41):
at Star Trek, when they were thinking about it, Peter
decided to join Star Trek and leave his VP post.
And he had this idea that they needed forty stock
shots and that would cover the series of the Enterprise
entering Orbit, leaving or Bit. And so Peter asked me

(23:03):
if I could do on the side storeboards for these
forty shots. So I had some pictures of the rough
Enterprise model and Andy Proberts sketches for what the enterprise
would look like. And I did those forty storyboards, and
my background had been in film and I never worked

(23:27):
with video, and Paramount made a courageous decision to have
their final master in video rather than film, to be
able to do the volume of work within the time allowed.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
So, by the way, this is you real quick, this
is you on set on birthright part two instructing Michael dorn.

Speaker 4 (23:50):
Well artistic collaboration would be.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
The collector, right, of course.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
So I wanted to also point out this here, Dan,
you emailed this a couple of days ago, and so
casually you said, oh, by the way, here's a here's
a painting I threw together, no big deal, and I
was I was like, is this real? How did you
do this? And so you just kind of knocked this

(24:19):
out recently, right, Yeah, this.

Speaker 4 (24:24):
It started out as a detailed pet sils catch and
then I played with color.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
Oh is that it.

Speaker 5 (24:31):
Is?

Speaker 3 (24:32):
This is unbelievable.

Speaker 4 (24:35):
Yeah, these are These are what I would call stream
of consciousness paintings, where they had no specific idea I
wanted to work and would just make some random lines
and as they started to look like something, I drew
that too.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
Wow, it's got it looks like a scene from an
animated movie.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
And then you sent, just very quickly a few others
that I think our viewers would love to see. Unused
concept for Star Trek Enterprise.

Speaker 4 (25:13):
Yeah, so they wanted a habitat for an extinct species
of sentient avians. So here I thought it would be
really cool when birds attained sentience, they would evolve nest
building into architecture. So I wanted to make sure all
the ergonomics were proper for birds.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
Right.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
Kreb's psychotropic vision constant painting for a movie I was
working on in Africa.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
Look at this.

Speaker 4 (25:43):
It was a remake of Clan of the Cave Bear,
and this is the psychotropic vision of a Neanderthal shaman
who sees the clan totem in camp fire smoke.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
These are just unbelievable. Boardwalk oil on canvas. Oh, this
was nineteen seventy six.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (26:06):
I did that when I was living on Cape.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
God, and I think that Cape God. Wow, stillness at last, light,
beautiful reflection.

Speaker 4 (26:20):
Here done in the autumn on Cape God. There's a
moment when the sea breeze changes to a land breeze,
and there's about fifteen minutes of absolute stillness when that's happening,
And that's what I tried to capture. And I did
something with the sky. Instead of painting it with opaque

(26:41):
paint that absorbs light, I painted the sky with transparent
blazers so light would go through the transparent paint, bounce
off the white canvas, and it gave the illusion of
being a little bit more luminous.

Speaker 3 (26:54):
M hm.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
And this last one, cap men, do do you want
to tell us about this?

Speaker 4 (27:00):
Waiting for my trekking permit in Nepal. That was the
view out of my fifty set the day lodge, and
my mom had given me a little oil painting set
that was just enough paint to do that while I
was waiting for the for the permit.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Unreal, while I was waiting for my permitting, I know,
I know, I just got a little painting kit real quick.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
I knocked this out. This was just my view out
the window. You know whatever.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Well, Dan, we're always shocked and impressed by you, and
we're always extremely appreciative of your time. It's had to
be the thrill of a lifetime, well maybe not your lifetime,
but most of our lifetimes. To direct an episode of
Star Trek for you, it's just another feather in your cap,
but really impressive work. Really appreciate you, Dan, thanks so

(27:53):
much for hanging out with us.

Speaker 4 (27:55):
Well, I hope it was not too incoherent to.

Speaker 8 (28:01):
I love you, Dan.

Speaker 6 (28:02):
You're a legend.

Speaker 9 (28:03):
I still tell the story about how you made the
force field with that bomb pom so I. Yeah, I
will never forget the legend of Dan Curry. Thanks for
you know, giving us more to cherish about your accomplishments.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
But this was a fantastic, you know, opportunity to showcase
your directing skills on top of all the other skills.

Speaker 3 (28:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
And the good news is we got more Star Trek
coming somedays, So they have your number hopefully, and yeah,
you might get that second episode someday.

Speaker 3 (28:40):
That would be really fun.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
Yeah, thank you Dan.

Speaker 3 (28:44):
All Right, thank you so much.

Speaker 6 (28:45):
Dan.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
Everybody stick around. We got a lot more coverage of
this glorious episode directed by Dan Curry. Oh, Dan, whose
decision was it?

Speaker 3 (28:56):
Real quick?

Speaker 1 (28:56):
I saw Renee Etcheveria's name on one of the star
charts where they're like, oh, it's over on these two
planets over here, but in the corner one of the
star systems said at Chaveria, did you Well.

Speaker 4 (29:09):
There were a lot of those on all the call outs.
The art department designed those, a lot of Michael Kuda
and Herman and others in the art department. And for example,
behind the bridge there's a big cross section of the
enterprise And if you were on the set, you would

(29:29):
know that. In the shuttle bay there was a rubber
ducky and a Porsche and when they upreds to blu Ray,
you could read a lot of that stuff. So they
took it out. They had to change something because the
ones that were funny, they they just do audience. They

(29:51):
were not intended.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
All right, there's some good stories there anyway, Thank you
so much, Dan Curry. Everybody stick around, We've got a
lot more. We'll be right back on the Seventh Rule. Well, hi, everybody,
welcome back to the Seventh Rule with so Rock Lofton.

Speaker 6 (30:10):
Hello.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
All right.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
Here are the trivioids of the week. Not a lot
in fact, because it was just kind of you know,
second part of US two parter cut to the chase.
Not a lot of flim flam at the beginning. Here
they are there is no room in Wharf's heart for shame.
A gin talk spear is made for battle, not tilling soil.
It is a strange thing when a jailer concerns himself

(30:33):
with his prisoner's comfort. Kyals eventually found his father's sword.
The Klingon hunt is a ritual that reminds them where
they came from.

Speaker 3 (30:41):
All right, everybody.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
A quick note is that Dan Curry, when we were
talking to him on the break, he was telling us, boy,
you know David Jonathan West, thank you very much, the
director of photography Jonathan West, that we mentioned for just
a second in the first second, he said he really
was super gracious and empathetic to him and super nice

(31:05):
knowing that it was his first, you know, director job,
and he was just unbelievably helpful, patient and great as
anybody that knows Jonathan West knows like Sirock you knew
him for seven years.

Speaker 3 (31:16):
You know, he was a great guy.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah, and he knows what he's doing. So when he's
on your side helping you, you know, you really have
a tremendous advantage, especially if it's a first time director
and you know Jonathan there working with all the directors
who come in and out, so he is that you
know that steady pillar that really knows what the consistent

(31:39):
through line of the show is gonna be. But but yeah,
make sure that Dan wanted to get a shout out,
an extra shot out to Jonathan West and for his
you know, just complimentary work on the show. But it's

(32:01):
such an amazing dude. It's like, and it's crazy because
they would think they'd give him a special effects episode.
You know, I understand that as a a cling on episode,
and he does have the history there with the Klingon.
If if there was more weapon reinvolved, it would be
even probably more you know, up his alley. But you

(32:23):
would think that, you know, he'd have more visual effects
and stuff too.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
Yeah, I mean, or maybe it was just like they figured,
you know, he can't do as much double duty, but
the effects would be in post.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
But you know, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
I'm sure there was something that went into that decision,
though I don't think it was I don't think it
was random. But Dan is so humble all the time.
He's always like, oh, they just threw me a random episode.
Oh I just designed some guitars. Oh I just did this,
you know. Anyway, very huge thank you to Dan Curry
for always being so gracious with his time, and this
was a fun episode.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
I remember it well.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
I don't know if you saw that etcheverrhea thing in
the corner, but when I didn't like the startar, I
was like, you guys are so sneaky. We caught you there.

Speaker 10 (33:08):
You know.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
They loved doing stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
They wanted to be caught on that one.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
Right, So I thought of you a few times on
this episode. Before I get into that, I just want
to ask you straight up, what did you think of
this episode? You'd never seen it before, you know, you
might have been thrown for a loop that like Part
one was Data and Wharf, Part two was just a
warf story. You know, that's kind of strange, you know,

(33:33):
it's it's not always like that in a two.

Speaker 6 (33:35):
Parter, very weird.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
And that's why this episode it almost feels detatched from
the first part. The first part had Busher.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Right, it was it was a totally different that's true,
and Deep Space nine.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
And Deep Space nine and you know it was it
was about this medical device that Basher had that he
was trying to activate with Jeordi and Data and you
know which which eventually caused Data to have that dream sequence.
So I thought that device meant something for one, I mean,

(34:15):
why bring in this thing just zapp data? Data could
have been zapped on a power or surge or some
kind of you know anything. You didn't, Yeah, it didn't
have to be basheer working on a theme that he
found that zas nine. Yeah, Deep Space nine crossover, just

(34:37):
just to zap data into a dream about you know,
doctor Seuh Like, it's just like it's kind of a
weird place, weird way to get to a dream about
doctor Seung and some hero hidden neuropathways that were meant
to be activated at some point or later. Data was
showing a kind of robotic evolution of data, right, But

(35:05):
I just I felt like this episode had nothing to
do with the first one. I was expecting a follow
up on Basher's device thing. I was expecting to follow
up on what Data's dream would tie in back to
this other side of the story. And ironically, you know,

(35:31):
I guess in both cases, birth right means you know,
it means that you were born. Other than that, I
don't see that. I don't see what the correlation is on.

Speaker 6 (35:49):
All of that.

Speaker 3 (35:49):
But that's a good point.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah, Yeah, so I'm not exactly sure what the birth
right is? What was Data's birthright? What is WARF's birth right?

Speaker 3 (36:02):
Okay, I go whatever, I'm looking it up.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
It says a right or privilege in which a person
is entitled by birth two, such as citizenship acquired by
being born in a country. Yeah, shoot, maybe I don't know.
I think it was an historical concept of inheriting a
family's property and authority through firstborn son.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
So I guess it's.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
There's a loose there's a loose thread for that title.
There's something there, but yeah, less than I expected.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Okay, I mean the best, Yeah, the best I can
extrapulate is that it is the Klingons birthright, and that
is the actual young generation of Klingons that were on
in this romul In prison camp or whatever. It is
their birth right to be able to know who their
identity is, to be able to have freedom to move

(37:02):
and visit that place and some places.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
Some places it says use for organizations which provide free
trips to young adults to visit and learn about their
heritage or something like that. So maybe there's.

Speaker 3 (37:16):
Some kind of thing there, you know.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
We know Israel does that where they provide you know,
people that don't live there, you know, they provide a
free trip over to see their heritage or something like that.
So maybe that is where this title came from. But
then what's part Why would part one be called anyway?
But you make good points where, you know, because I
hadn't really thought of that, But it's it's interesting that

(37:42):
these two episodes do feel like they could just be
their own standalone episodes. There could be an episode of
just Data and Wharf going through thoughts of you know,
their fathers or something like that, and then there's this
episode that's just war on this planet.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Now.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
I mean, obviously there's a lot more to it because
the first episode tells us how and why Wharf goes
over to this planet.

Speaker 3 (38:08):
But yeah, very different.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
But that's yeah, and that would be like, okay, so
on DS nine, that would just be serial that would
be part of the serialized element of the show. You
wouldn't call it a part one or part two? Right
if if if in part one, this Eurydian comes up
to Wharf and says, hey, I got some infolders. You know,

(38:34):
your dad's really alive and this and that, okay, and
then then you get you know, birthright, which is the
second part episode. The first part could have just been
you know, the sheher and Data and working on this
science thing and the Remember Jason Oakin said he couldn't

(38:58):
figure out which was the A story and which.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
Was the B story in the first one.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
Yeah, in the first one, it was kind of hard
to figure out what's the A story was to be.
Is the A story the Data's POV and what's happening
to him? Or is it the WARF's pov.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
It's got to be Wharf because that's the one that
leads it.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
I mean, it gets carried on.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
Yeah, I would love.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
To know, honestly, I would love to know what the
writer's room meetings. How what was the genesis of this
two parter? Like if they said, okay, we need this
big Wharf two parter and then they were just kind
of like, well, the first episode needs something more. Let's
give it a B plot of like Data is also
doing this and that's our device that we use for

(39:39):
Wharf to kind of convince himself to go when he's
given the advice, you know, or if it was the
other way around where they started with the two stories
and then the second episode they're like you know, actually,
let's just drop the rest of the data stuff. Let's
just focus on you know, I don't know which direction
it came from, but it'd be really fascinating to know
how that story evolved, you know.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
Yeah, And I also thought it was funny because you
brought up the Cromwell getting paid for that one scene,
and I was thinking the same thing. I'm like, did
they bring this big time actor back to literally say
nothing for five seconds on camera?

Speaker 3 (40:15):
Yeah, but it was definitely him.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
But I think Dan confirmed that they that there was
more to it, but they just had to cut out.
But it's fun because you know, you got you see
him kind of pictured. He's just doing this thing, and.

Speaker 3 (40:26):
That that was it.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
I was like, Oh, poor James, that's all I actually forgot.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
I forgot about him. That's how That's how much the
second episode is different from the first episode. I forgot
about him and his rendezvous to pick him up in
fifteen hours or whatever he told them he had to
pick him up. Remember, I just thought, this guy's not
coming back. He's not the story roped. He dropped him
off and that's it. He's on you.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
You know who I forgot about was Richard heard he
lost himself from that character so well that I didn't
even realize it was him. You know, sometimes a lot
of times you can always be like, oh, I recognize
that actor even through all the makeup. Yeah I know,
I know who that is. But other times, like Richard Hurt,

(41:14):
I forgot it was him because he just he became
that old klingon to where it wasn't even I didn't
even realize it until I was looking at the credits afterwards.
I was like, oh, shoot, that's right.

Speaker 3 (41:27):
What was his name?

Speaker 1 (41:28):
LeCour? I think, yeah, Licur.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
Yeah, I like Licur hey, but yeah, he was fantastic
in this episode.

Speaker 6 (41:42):
So was the uh, the Romulan guy to cough.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
Yeah, I thought he was too, yeah man.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
And I thought that the Lady Byelle Byelle was really
really horrific as a lady who played yeah, sure, Jennifer Gotti.
You know, there were just so many great actors in
this throughout. Christine Rose playing Gyal, James Cromwell as we mentioned,

(42:17):
Sterling Macer Junior playing talk that was his last name.
I think his first name was Tick, and Alan Scarf
playing to cough, Jennifer Gotti by Allen, Richard Hurt as.

Speaker 3 (42:31):
LeCour, who Sarrock loved. Of course. All right, well let's.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
Talk about We're almost out of time here, so let's
talk about the home run of today. Since we're already
talking about people that surprised us and amazed us, let's
talk about the home run of today's episode. Sarroc, who
gets the home run of today's episode?

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Well, I'm gonna tell you who gets the home run
and the home run of the episode. My initial instinct
and thought was WARF's hair, because WARF's hair and all
the Klingon's hair was fantastic.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
But WARF's hair, by Elle's hair was I actually noticed
her hair was. I was like, whoa, I've never said that,
but I was like, oh, I got her hair is gorgeous.
I was like, who said that? I literally said that
out loud. I was like, what is it happen?

Speaker 3 (43:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (43:26):
The hair was taking.

Speaker 11 (43:27):
It was so much hair on the set, so much flowing,
lovely hair that I actually came up with spoofed shampoos,
the Star Trek shampoos, and one is the all Sassoon.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
I've also got well kyless spice. That's just you know.
To Paul mitchell ooh very good and then we also
have head and stoveacers, stove.

Speaker 3 (43:57):
And stuff accords. That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (43:59):
You know, some people once made the lorial because you're
war Fit.

Speaker 6 (44:04):
That's another Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:06):
I can't.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
I can't claim that one. That's that's been what's created
a long time ago. So besides the hair.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
But besides the hair, I'm going to give it to
my buddy Dan Curry, you know, first time directing, getting
a chance to you know, showcases skills. We love him
so much as all, He's done so much contribution to
the whole world of Star Trek and he just added
another notch on his belt with this one, you know.
And it's not easy to work with a lot of

(44:36):
guest actors. You're not working with the steady crew that
already knows what they do and they pretty much can
direct themselves. This requires some level of guidance on his part,
and so for first time directing, you know, I think
Dan Curry did a pretty great job.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
Yeah, I have to agree with you, Dan Curry getting
the home run of the episode, because whenever there's somebody
that's only directed one episode basically ever, you feel like
you might notice it, maybe there's a drop off maybe
there's a different tone, maybe there's this or that, but
he nailed it professional directing debut. It's definitely something he

(45:15):
can show off for the rest of his life.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
And say I directed a Star Trek episode. Check it out.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
It's beautiful, well shot, well paced, everything was great.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
No notes. Cool.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Secondarily, dude, as you mentioned Alan Scarf who played Tocoth,
the Romulan guy. From the very beginning, I was like, whoa,
this dude is good because he wasn't trying to act
like an alien or overdo anything. He was just saying
things in an interesting way, and each line was delivered

(45:53):
differently than I would have expected, in a good way.
And if somebody surprises you with how they deliver something,
but it's in a good way, you know, then you're like, wow,
that's that's really good. He made a lot of choices.
I think he took a lot of chances, or maybe
that's just how he is as an actor. Maybe he
just always delivers things in these interesting and different ways.
But really impressed by him. All right, here's some other

(46:16):
people that are extremely impressive and their names are doctor Anne,
Marie Siegel, Eve England. Out in Wales, you met Blackman
Tom t J Jackson, Bay Out in Missouri, Titus Muller,
doctor Mohammed Nora and you'll oh platte Joe Balsarati, Mike Goo,
doctor Stephanie Baker, Carrie Schwent, Faith Howell, The Matt Boardman,

(46:38):
Chris McGee, Jake Barrett, Henry Unger, Allison Leech Hide, Julie
Menasfi Jed Thompson, doctor Susan V. Gruner, Glenn Iverson, Dave Gregory,
Chris Sternett, Greg k Wickstrom out in Hawaii, Cassandra g
chuck A Chris Garrison of course, a man who may

(47:00):
or may not have loved this episode. We'll find out soon.
Jason m Oakin. All right, everybody, stick around. We've got
the free for all coming up next. We'll be right
back on the seventh rule. Oh and everybody, please make
sure you like this video. Subscribe to the channel. Hit
the bell icon for notifications if you're listening in. Give
us a five star rating and a nice Review'd really

(47:21):
appreciate that. Visit us at patreon dot com. Slash the
seventh rule to support the show and be a part
of the team.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
Well, Hi there, everybody, Welcome back. To the seventh rule
of sirok lofton. This is the free for all with
Melissa a lungo and her seventh Rule shirt. Also, Jason
m Oakin has thoughts everybody. Alison Leech hid this here. Oh,
she's wearing a Melissa shirt.

Speaker 12 (47:52):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
Chuck A has his Prune Juice and chill shirt that
is perfect for today's episode. Ye Palatte is floating outside
in space. Oh, and he's got a Melissa's shirt too.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
TJ.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
Jackson Bay is about a centimeter tall behind the grass.
Kerry Schwent regular size in front of foliage. Mark Zukoff
has a bunch of pictures around him, and Chris McGee
has a beautiful be kind shirt always great the mat board.

(48:29):
Everybody's got cool shirts today. The Matt Boardman's got his
USS Titan shirt and we are ready to rumble, all right.
Jake Cisco guesses the IMDb score.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Well, I think this might be around like a six point.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Six point seven. Sorock is livid today. Does anybody else
have any guesses that doesn't already know what the score
was on IMDb?

Speaker 3 (49:03):
And was?

Speaker 6 (49:04):
I mean?

Speaker 3 (49:04):
Is seven four.

Speaker 5 (49:08):
Seven to one?

Speaker 3 (49:12):
All right?

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Is that everybody that sound you just didn't hear tells
you that somebody got it right on the deflector dish,
Chris McGee, it is, in fact a seven point five. Wow, wait,
Melissa's frowning. Did I get that wrong? Oh so last
week's was seven point five. I'm so sorry. Nobody got

(49:35):
it right, not even me. Seven point three.

Speaker 7 (49:43):
Is did I an hour ago?

Speaker 3 (49:49):
That's amazing?

Speaker 4 (49:50):
Very good?

Speaker 6 (49:50):
Who did that?

Speaker 3 (49:53):
Who did that? That was great?

Speaker 6 (49:54):
Was that?

Speaker 3 (49:54):
Chris mc.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
Okay? Seven point three?

Speaker 13 (50:03):
Uh got close, right? Didn't you say seven point two?

Speaker 14 (50:08):
Seven four?

Speaker 3 (50:09):
Yeah? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (50:10):
And we had a seven five and a seven to
one in strock Throne shade. Uh just you wait, uh
breating non appearance mentions today, I didn't catch it. Okay, yes,
of course, very good, very good. Okay, what about uh

(50:38):
some kinds of or some sorts of?

Speaker 8 (50:40):
No, those we didn't have.

Speaker 15 (50:44):
That cling on vocabulary.

Speaker 3 (50:47):
Yeah, they mentioned us a ton.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
All right, Melissa, will you please get a start off
on the right track by telling us what you thought
of this particular episode, which is Birthright Part two.

Speaker 12 (50:58):
We're Right Part two. I thought it was okay. I
don't think it was terrible, but it's not a favorite.

Speaker 13 (51:11):
It was okay, I.

Speaker 12 (51:13):
I do like how proud Wharf is of his heritage.

Speaker 13 (51:23):
I do like that.

Speaker 12 (51:24):
However, ah, however, sorry. You know when you read something
and it gets to distracted and then you can't remember
what you're about to say.

Speaker 13 (51:44):
Anyway, see it went out the window.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
That's okay, Take two.

Speaker 6 (51:55):
It takes you.

Speaker 13 (51:59):
However, Yes, he's a bit of a racist. That was
where I was going.

Speaker 12 (52:05):
Wharf is a racist against Romulins, and I don't really
like that part about Wharf. As much as I love
Wharf and the complexities that his character has, I don't
like how racist he is.

Speaker 13 (52:21):
And this episode kind of.

Speaker 12 (52:24):
Was parallel to I feel like colonialism and how you know,
the Romulans kind of imposed their their way of life
on the Klingons. However, the Klingons kind of asked it

(52:45):
was kind of a self imposed colonialisms.

Speaker 13 (52:49):
I don't know.

Speaker 12 (52:50):
There's this this gray area where where they were put
in in a weird position. So the Klingons asked them
to stay with the Romulents, to stay with each other,
you know.

Speaker 13 (53:05):
To stay let's stay together.

Speaker 12 (53:07):
And there is this piece that was bored wonderful, and
then Wharf comes in and throws a wrench in that piece.
And there's like, ah, let's.

Speaker 16 (53:17):
Do it my way, and so that was a little
bit frustrating. And I feel like this is a good
episode that.

Speaker 13 (53:28):
Holds a mirror up to how people are in general.

Speaker 12 (53:32):
Because we try and impose ourselves and impose our beliefs
on other people and telling them how we think that
they should live our lives, live their lives, and that
they should live their lives the same way that I
live my life, which is bonkers. Nobody should be telling
anybody how to live their life if they're happy and

(53:52):
they're not hurting anyone.

Speaker 13 (53:54):
What's it to you? So yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 12 (54:00):
So yeah, mixed bag here, And I'm going to stop
there because my train of thought was blasted from the beginning, derailed.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
Thank you very much, Melissa f Longo. All right, Jason
em moke, and you teased some barbes, let's hear them.

Speaker 15 (54:24):
Well.

Speaker 5 (54:25):
I find this episode a little frustrating because I think
it could have been so much more than it turned
out to be. There was a lot more potential here
in terms of the story, in terms of sort of
a depth of character that didn't really shine through. I think,
you know, certainly for the character of warf we see
something it's actually consistent for him throughout. I know Malisa
mentioned sort of this racist undertones and that there's nothing

(54:46):
new for Worf there. He's displayed sort of this kind
of attitude toward the Romulans before, whether you like it
or not, that that's just part of his personality, I
think at some levels. Since this is sort of part
two of a two parts and there's no b story here,
it's just one story going on here, although there are
various parts to it. There are various relationships. I guess

(55:07):
there's a relationship between Warf and Talk, there's a relationship
with Biel, various kinds of relationships going on. There are
different kinds of stories. But I'm not sure the old
blossom in the way they should have blossomed, and some
of it, frankly was lost because I think the episode

(55:28):
may have run about five to seven minutes long, just approximately,
it looks like, and some of the things that should
have made it there and would have made the episode
better did not end up in the final version. I'll
talk about some of that later and why I think
that happened. But again, for something like a two parter
in this part of the season, you want the scope
to be larger, but obviously, you know, filming everything on

(55:50):
the sound stage, things did look kind of small and
confined and kind of resolved too quickly, and some of
the motivations didn't come through very well, and it bothered
me for a long time until I looked at the
script and there's a lot more there than me and
then meets CI. So I'll reserve a lot of that
for later. But again I find this a little bit frustrating,

(56:12):
just because of the potential the episode had.

Speaker 1 (56:16):
Good guess mister Dan Curry told us it was actually
eleven minutes over on this one, but you definitely you
can definitely sniff it out. Yeah, great stuff, Thank you
very much. Jason m Oakin, Alison Leech Hide, I d C,
what'd you think of this one?

Speaker 17 (56:32):
It too, is not one of my favorites. But what
I do like about this episode, I know, I know
it's amazing, is that it is fun to do it
like a character study of we have, you know, one
of our main characters going off to do something that
he deems very heroic and it kind of blows up
in his face. And I know we have all been

(56:55):
there where we have had our best intentions kind of
exploded in our face, and so it's interesting to watch
Wharf go through that and how he tries to kind
of like redeem his situation. So that's, you know, it's
interesting to watch. Was it the best episode?

Speaker 2 (57:12):
No?

Speaker 17 (57:12):
I also like the idea of for you know, we
are most of us here in America and our parents
or grandparents are further down the line immigrated here, either
voluntarily or not, and so a lot of us have
lost our original culture in a way, and seeing how

(57:36):
we were all Americanized and then you know, younger generations
coming back and going, hey.

Speaker 13 (57:42):
What was what was it like where we were from?
How was that?

Speaker 17 (57:46):
And giving our younger generations the right to know where.

Speaker 13 (57:50):
They came from.

Speaker 17 (57:52):
That's nice to see that this episode did explore. So
I liked that, and I really liked the costumes on
the Klingons.

Speaker 18 (57:59):
I will completely derailed from plot because I liked that
they were using like Romulan fabrics to make Klingon clothing
and I thought that was really well done and very
well thought out on the costume departments.

Speaker 17 (58:15):
So I like that, So I think I'm going to
stop there.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
But that's what I liked about the episode, great stuff,
Thank you very much, Alison Leech Hide. Time for a
TNG fanatic to jump in on this conversation, Chuck A,
what is your fanaticism tell you about this one?

Speaker 10 (58:34):
Well, I do think part one was much better than
Part two. There were some interesting aspects of part two,
with Warf trying to be the teacher to the younger
Klingons or half Klingons.

Speaker 15 (58:49):
I did pick up a couple.

Speaker 10 (58:51):
Things on IMDb and other sources that Richard Hurd's character,
the older Klingon went blank on his name, but he
was an original script was gonna actually play Wharf's father, Mogue,
and they rewrote the script, you know, to make him
that he that he knew Wharf and he knew Mog.

(59:12):
James Cromwell's character Shrek originally had more to do in
this episode, but he broke his leg in between the
filming of part one and part two, so they I
don't know if they filmed anything. I don't think so,
I don't know. Maybe that's that's good if you're on stage.

(59:33):
Maybe well anyway, the uh the Malissa mentioned the racism
with Romulans. He's always had that going all the way
back to the neutral Zone episode in part in season one,
and you know he they were at the end there,
you know they're gonna uh kill him because of what

(59:56):
he was uh teach, trying to teach all the kling
all younger Klingons there, and of course everybody came in
to de fed them, and then he survived. But I
really thought the episode could have done been a lot better.
But it might have something to do with the trim
scenes and like Jason said, there was no b plot,

(01:00:20):
was all one plot. But I mean I didn't dislike
the episode, but part one was much better.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Thank you very much. Chuck A wearing his wharf shirt
a Warriors shirt anil O palatte. What's up welcome back
two parter?

Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
What do you think?

Speaker 6 (01:00:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 14 (01:00:39):
I think I didn't like it, and the reason was
because when I was watching it, I was like, I'm
starting to like pick a lot of stuff and I
was like, oh, man, I think yeah, And I think
it starts out with we have all this build up
to move and then he warf shows up and they're like, oh,
your dad's not here. I'm like, oh, you're just kind
of like okay, so let's go to point two. So

(01:01:03):
it would have been nice if he if he went
to his father's grave or he had a conversation with
somebody about his dad, just to kind of close that
loop a little bit would have been would have been nice.
And also, yeah, Worf being racist is in line with
the character, but it would have been nice to see
him see something there that would maybe change his perspective

(01:01:25):
a little bit and go, Okay, maybe I'm wrong about
Romulin's or you know, maybe this culture that's starting here
is something not cling on, not Romulan, It's just something new,
and I need to go back and kind of revisit,
you know, my my beliefs. So it would have been
nice to kind of have a little lesson or or

(01:01:48):
a change in wharf there.

Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
But then there are two other.

Speaker 14 (01:01:51):
Small things that I noticed. One the card's reaction at
the end when Warf gets off the transporter. And I
don't know if it's you know, the way Patrick Stewart
played that it to me it was, or if I
know you're lying to me, I know, whatever it is,
I don't want to know, but definitely something happened right
like he kind of gave him that look. I thought

(01:02:12):
that was pretty interesting. And then at like minute twelve
or something. I didn't notice there was like an ensign
who I was like, is that an android? Like I
don't know if they'd over dinner, makeup or something, which
she was like Data's color. I don't know if anybody
noticed that. I was just like, huh, so I can
come back. So yeah, but yeah, it would have been

(01:02:34):
nice to have some of those things that they kind
of teed up to sort of had some kind of conclusion.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
That was great stuff, Thank you very much, anil O Palatte.
I actually read that that ensign that was Data's color
is because she had the.

Speaker 3 (01:02:49):
Shrimp for lunch. Uh T Sorry t J Jackson Missouri.
What say you?

Speaker 6 (01:03:00):
Was it grilled or was it right? Yeah? All right, Yeah,
this episode has Rodulins in it, but it's probably not
my favorite Rodulin episode because of some reasons that you know,

(01:03:22):
people have already mentioned, and we don't really dig into
learning anything new about the Nulins or you know, Wharf
doesn't go you know, have this journey of having a
better understanding of these people. Uh and he is racist,
but I also kind of see a little bit of why,

(01:03:43):
and I think that is kind of brought out in
this episode and maybe the one before it too, because
you know, he's come here and he's looking for his
father and he's expected to find Dishonor, and he's the
Ronulins are the blame for a lot of the things
that have happened in his life. You know, the fact
that he wasn't raised by Klingons, that he had to

(01:04:07):
be raised by humans, and all of that is because
of that attack from the Vomulins. So it's kind of
understandable why he does not like them. But I do
think that he kind of grappled with that a little
bit in this episode because of his love for Bayel
in the way that he felt about her, and then

(01:04:30):
to find out, hey, you have some romulant blood and
you know, so he kind of runs away from it
at first, but then he does come back and say, hey,
I'm sorry, I overreacted, you know when I saw your ears,
and I kind of don't know how to feel about this,
So he is wrestling with it a little bit. I
would have liked to have seen that go a little
bit further and maybe him get to know to Caath

(01:04:54):
or at least try to understand why the situation developed
the way it did, instead of just judging it. And
that goes into the thing that jumped out to me
the most in this episode is also something that Melissa
took a lot of the stuff that a lot of
what I was thinking. I was thinking about you, Melisa

(01:05:16):
when I was watching this episode, and I was like,
I have to channel my end of Melisa. But you know,
I was looking at this kind of balance between you know,
how much you know do you assimilate and how true
do you stay to yourself? And then when someone comes

(01:05:36):
along and kind of disturbs that balance, you know what,
you know, what is that like? You know, what do
you do? You remember? They remember what it was like
to be kling guns and they gave that up so
long ago, and they've been okay until now. And then
this guy comes and says, hey, you guys are supposed
to be clean guns. What are you doing? Don't you remember?

(01:05:59):
You know, hunt, we fight and we die. But also,
you know, in being true to yourself, you know, the
thing that I found uh to be in life is
in every relationship and in every situation, we all have

(01:06:23):
to sometimes give up a little bit of who we
are in order to get along with the world with
other individuals with other groups, uh, you know, whether it's
work or society. And you know, the question does become
how far is too far? And when someone calls you out,
what do you do? And so I appreciate that this

(01:06:47):
episode brings all of that out into the open for
us to think about. And I don't necessarily have to
agree with the decisions that the characters make, but it
gives me something to think about and talk about and
to look at in myself. You know, you know we
someone said it was Melissa. Yeah, we all in to

(01:07:08):
find ourselves judging people and trying to tell them that
they should be like us or do things the way
that you know that I think they should do them,
which is right? Isn't fair? Because if someone came to
me and told me I should I should be someone
else then and that's you know, that's happened. It's happened
plenty of times. It's how true do I be to myself?

(01:07:30):
I can listen to it. It doesn't mean that I'm gonna,
you know, just change because someone said that should be
a different person. But again, I'm grateful this episode brings
us out. Somebody threw out a what if scenario, and
this is what if scenario I would like to have seen.
I'm not even going to save it for things left unsaid.
I'm going to say it now, what if? What if

(01:07:53):
all this stuff happened? But and it's great. I love
that wharf meant someone who knew his father at least
and got to hear kind of a story or something
you know about his father. But I think it would
have been far more compelling if you know, even instead

(01:08:13):
of that, or in addition to that, what if there
was another child there, there was that Kennner, that that
grew up and gave up being Klingon, and so war
will be faced with this could have been me, but
instead I got picked up by the Federation and he
got picked up by the Mongulents. Shudder to imagine what

(01:08:40):
that would have been like the wharf Uh, to have
to confront that and realize that it could have been him,
I would have found out a lot more compelling.

Speaker 3 (01:08:53):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
All right, I feel like there's more to chew on
and things left unsaid with that one. Thank you very much. T. J. Jackson,
Bay Out, Missouri. All right, Carrie schwent Star Trek shirt
almost Star Wars.

Speaker 3 (01:09:07):
What do you think?

Speaker 10 (01:09:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:09:12):
Definitely not not quite a favorite.

Speaker 6 (01:09:14):
I do.

Speaker 2 (01:09:15):
I do love love Worf Wharf to death. I kind
of agree.

Speaker 7 (01:09:19):
With what Jason was saying about it, and I just
I think the story would have would have been better
if they had done both parts as just a Klangon
story and saved Data's for his own separate episode. You
could have gone even more into Data's dreams with that.
And I had to throw that in there since I

(01:09:40):
wasn't available for part one because I do love Data
Data story. And if you had done Birthrate parts one
and two with just Warf and all of that, you
could have gone into more depths on sort of things.
You could have kept all the stuff that had to
be had to be cut. You could have even included Wharf,
maybe mentioning that, oh, yeah, I'm from from Starfleet and

(01:10:04):
if I'm gonna they're expecting me in a couple of
days and they're gonna come looking for me if you
make me stay here, and oh it may be just
a casual, even just a casual mention of yeah, I've
got a son on that ship to who's waiting waiting
for me, waiting for me to come home. Yeah, it's
it could have it could have been I enjoyed it,

(01:10:25):
but it could have been a lot better. And I
can't not not mention that we don't actually see him
manipulating the manipulating them. We do come across one of
Wharf's major mortal enemies, the manual door handle. They were
everywhere in this episode, although you never actually see him

(01:10:46):
actually touching one. He had to have at least conquered
it briefly because there's a couple of times where he's
outside of his room and we don't see him actually leaving.
So maybe he actually maybe my head and says he
eventually eventually figure figured it out. Yeah, TJ mentioned the

(01:11:07):
the war work and work and buy out. I liked
I liked her. Her markings were definitely different, and I
liked that that I liked that they were, that they
were different. He he does apologizes his hatred of Romulin's
well documented, and he does suck it up and apologize,

(01:11:29):
even if that apology he just sort of dates himself
in a little deeper as he's trying to apologize. But again,
if this had been like the full two part, they
could have gone more more into into into their relationship
to relationship to perhaps and yeah, I agree with with

(01:11:50):
you know that. I think it says a lot about
Picard and worf relationship that at the end he's got
enough respect for Warf that all he has to.

Speaker 2 (01:11:59):
Say is I understand.

Speaker 7 (01:12:01):
You can definitely tell in his face that he knows
and knows why Worf said what he said, and he's
just he's he's content to leave it at that. Something
that Eric Eric pointed out when one of the one
of the few scenes in the episode on the bridge
and they're looking at the route that Trick's ship had

(01:12:23):
taken one of the three planets. It's edgeveria Na, named
after the runner of the episode, and that just know, yeah,
he noticed that, and then we were a wound and
paused it and just seeing that made me smile. I
love when they include little, little, little, little fun tidbits
like that. All all of the guest stars were great.

(01:12:45):
I had Chris Magee mentioned one from from the the
from the other day. But we've got the actress that
played Gayle or by El, Jennifer Gotti. She's in a
season two episode of Voyager. He's fantastic in that and
the the Rominy Commander guy he has been on previously.

(01:13:11):
Previously he was in Data's Day, So I've I've already
spotlighted him, but I love that he's got such a
cool voice. But Richard Richard heard his U. The characters
name was LaCour. Mart You said you couldn't remember what
his name was, but it was LaCour.

Speaker 3 (01:13:29):
He is, okay, you really did that.

Speaker 7 (01:13:37):
He's in a fantastic episode of of Buffy Buffy that
I enjoy. He's on twelve episodes of sequest As as
an as an Admiral. He's got four episodes of Star
Trek Forager as Paris's dad, the Admiral Paris. But of

(01:13:57):
course I wouldn't be me if I I didn't giggle
in delight when I when I when I saw that
he was in a fantastic two part of Doctor Quinn
Medic a woman playing a doctor in Boston when she
goes to visitor visiting her mother who had this doctor
misdiagnosed her mother and doesn't like it very much. When
doctor Mike points out that he that he was wrong

(01:14:18):
about about the diagnosis, I enjoy I enjoy him in
in that two part episode, but I very much enjoyed
the actual that played talk. I think I thought he
was great, his his his forehead bridges. I think we're
probably my favorite in the end the episode, they were
just very symmetrical. I love fun, fun patterns like that.

(01:14:41):
But he actually inspired my my limerick for the episode.
So I'll finish with that and few things awakening in
me now that Worf has opened my eyes. I see
we're a proud warrior race. There's a harsh truth, I
know face the time has come for the young ones

(01:15:03):
to leave.

Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
Thank you very much, Carrie schwent akakrafty bear. All right
up next, mister Mark zut Cough. We're all waiting with
baited breath for the home pun of the day.

Speaker 3 (01:15:19):
What'd you think?

Speaker 19 (01:15:21):
I didn't care for this episode when it originally aired,
and I'm afraid my opinion of it has not improved.
No disrespect to first and only time director Dan Curry,
but the episode is very slow paced. There's a lot
of tell, don't show. It's almost entirely set on a
planet populated mostly with characters I've never bonded with, although

(01:15:42):
I give kudos to Michael Dorn for a fairly nuanced
performance as Wharf. It's also a shame that there was
no follow up here to the data story from the
first part of the two parter. I had two big
problems with the story. First, I didn't buy the relationship
between Wharf and Biel. She seemed too young and inexperienced
for Wharf to fall in love with her. Though I
can understand how she might have a crush on him.

(01:16:04):
When they kiss midway through the episode, I felt it
wasn't earned. Second, in this episode, Wharf is essentially the
serpent in a manufactured Eden. He's also a less sympathetic
Victor Laslow from Casablanca, replacing the singing of Larmases with
a Klingon battle song that had been used as a lullaby.

(01:16:24):
Once again, his prejudice against Romulns gets in the way
of his character growth, though there are a few hints
that he might have been able to get past his
biases if the right things had been said. In this
two parter, he vacillates between a Klingon ideal of honor
and acknowledging that there could be mitigating circumstances. At the
beginning of the episode, he says there is no room

(01:16:46):
in his heart for shame, yet by the end he's
all in on Klingon ideals. Had the Romulins simply accepted
Wharf's word that he would tell no one about the
colony and let him leave. At the beginning there would
have been no show. But at the end and not
only does Wharf leave, but some unknown number of the
young inhabitants go with him. And I was a bit
surprised that Wharf does lie to Captain Picard, although as

(01:17:10):
Aneil and Carrey said, I think Picard realizes it did
bail leave the colony. The fact that she went back
to stand with her parents seems to indicate she did not.
And my home pun of the episode Wharf had to
cling on to his culture's ideas ideals, so he had
to bail on the colony.

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
Thank you very much, Mark Zutkov. All right, Chris McGee,
did you love this episode?

Speaker 3 (01:17:41):
Are you the one?

Speaker 8 (01:17:44):
I really liked this episode, probably more so now that
I'm older and can better appreciate a well written story.
So I get kudos once again to Renee Teveria, as
this is a pretty good story. I mean, it does
have its faults, which others have already discussed, what I
don't need to repeat them. As for what I liked

(01:18:04):
about it, well, like all well, written stories the audience
can see and even sympathize with both opposing points of view,
in this case, Wharfs and Tokoths. Obviously, Wharf wants to
escape and take as many Klingons with him as he can,
but Tokoth gave up his career and home and started
a whole new life and family here, so he will

(01:18:25):
do anything to protect it, including killing Wharfs, so you
can sympathize with both points of view. My biggest complaint,
if you can call it that, is that this two
parter is really just two completely different story these kind
of duct taped together with almost no connection between them.
It's as though they saw that the Data story was

(01:18:46):
a little less than an hour and Wharfs was a
little more, so they just combined the two to fill
two hours or something. After all, I can see why
the title Birthright was chosen for Wharf's story, but I'd
have to really stretch to find a way for it
to apply to Data's story in the previous episode. And
of course, as others mentioned, I would be incredibly irmormous

(01:19:08):
if I didn't call out the guest star. As we
brief we saw Richard Hurd, who plays LaCour at the
end of the previous episode. I've been a fan of
the actor since I saw him portray Captain Galaxy on
Quantum Leap. He's a fantastic character actor. And speaking of
fantastic actors, it's a delight to see Alan Scarf again,
along with his unique voice, playing another Romulan. As Caer mentioned,

(01:19:30):
the first was in Data's Day, and surprise, surprise, he
was also in Quantum Leap. I guess both productions star
Trek in Quantum Leap and well, for that matter, doctor
quin Metis a woman had connections with the same acting
agency or something, I don't know. Jennifer Gotti, who plays
by l also does a pretty incredible job acting, especially
when she goes to Wharf on the eve of his

(01:19:52):
execution and begs him to reconsider. I always tear up
a little at her words in that scene, and I
don't think I've ever seen anyone make the word go
and sounds so commanding and threatening as Girl did played
by Christine Rose. And yet she also has the wisest
words at the end of the episode. As for the

(01:20:14):
memorable quote, kind of a poetic one from Wharf and
is this is the moment where life and death meet.

Speaker 3 (01:20:23):
Great stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:20:25):
Thank you very much, dark Lord Chris McGee with the
Ukrainian flag as always the map boardman, what's up the Matt?
Isn't it cool that we had Dan curry on?

Speaker 3 (01:20:35):
What do you think of this one?

Speaker 15 (01:20:37):
I know, freaking Dan cray Man. That guy is. He's smart.
He's very smart and very talented.

Speaker 6 (01:20:47):
You know.

Speaker 15 (01:20:49):
After listening to everybody, I have to say that this episode,
if I look at it objectively, it was a success
in the sense that everybody had thoughts about it, right,
And I got thinking about because when I've watched this
episode before, I'm always like, yeah, Wharf, Yeah, Wharf, because

(01:21:10):
he's our hero, right, we wanna we want to root
for our heroes. But then when I was watching it
this time, I was like, what a jerk face weasel?
Because he comes in there and they have this like
thing that's like, you know, they're they're copacetic, right, They've
they've found a way for two races to live together

(01:21:31):
in harmony, and Wharf's like, f that noise, man, I'm
coming in here with my fricking kling on bat left.
I'm gonna cut some suckers up, you know, what I mean, Like,
it's just like, like it's I just thought it was.
I was like, I was like, man, I was kind
of put off by that, but I was like, you
know what, that's the point. That is absolutely the point
because Star Trek is there to hold a mirror to
the human race, and that's what this episode does. Now, yes,

(01:21:54):
there are definitely some things that could have been done differently,
and there are some things that could have been done better,
but you know what, Worf is a racist at this
point in his character development, you know what I mean,
Like I mean in the Enemy, he's like, sucker, you're
gonna die because I ain't giving you none of my blood,
you know what I mean. Like, I mean, he's laid
it out there for us. And and I think that's

(01:22:15):
the the thing about that. I love that about that
is that we want Wharf to be in our mind's eye.
We have a we have a visage of warf right
of who he is, and then when stuff like that happens,
it's a reminder to us that Wharf is not human.
He may have been raised by humans, but he embraces

(01:22:36):
his cling on culture and that's so different from ours.
That and it's and It's great that it is because
it helps us as the audience to realize where we
stand with those issues. And so I'm grateful for those opportunities.
For as much as they are uncomfortable and as much
as I don't like them, I'm grateful for those things.

(01:22:58):
So I love when stories have those bits that remind
me of, like, you know, what my humanity is and
where my values stand. And I also but I also
too love it because we see Wharf at this point
in time, right and we're going back and we're watching this,
you know, after having seen where warf ends up in
Pocard season three and the contrast, and I love that

(01:23:21):
that Wharf gets to have that that story arc because
I think that's kind of a resemblance of what a
lot of us go through in our lives. I remember
in my twenties, I was like, there was a lot
of stuff I was very like fiery about, and now
that I'm in my forties, I'm like, eh, you know
what I mean, Like why did I get Why did
I ever let that bother me?

Speaker 6 (01:23:42):
Right?

Speaker 15 (01:23:43):
So I love that about this episode. I do think
there are some things that would have been really cool,
and the fact that we could have had Mogue like
actually there that to me, that would have been powerful
and and and but the key would have been from
Mog to not survive, you know what I mean, Like
like that, I think that would have been like the

(01:24:04):
home run, right there is to just to have have
that moment with Wharf and his father, but to then
take it away and then to then maybe I'll open
the door for opportunities of how does Wharf deal with that?
Right anyway, So I don't know, it's it's it's it's
a good episode, but it's not a great episode. But

(01:24:26):
it could have been if there had been a few changes.

Speaker 1 (01:24:30):
Yes, thank you very much. The Matt Boardman Property of
the USS Titan, Jake's final take sorac Any final thoughts
on this episode.

Speaker 2 (01:24:44):
Yeah, there was just all around just not really a
big fan of this episode. I felt like I just
missed on a few things here and there. Most of all,
I didn't feel an element of danger at all. I
think they usually play into danger on shows where there's
like this eminent destruction or something that's going to happen,

(01:25:06):
and I just never felt that on this show. Even
Wharf's captivity didn't feel a sense of urgency. When they
were looking for him, they were like, yeah, you know what,
you know, Warf disappeared a little bit ago.

Speaker 6 (01:25:21):
Where is he?

Speaker 2 (01:25:21):
Yeah, let's go check it out. There was no eminent
sense of danger, and so I think that really took
away a lot from me.

Speaker 20 (01:25:30):
They had an opportunity to talk about biracial children that
I thought they missed out on, you know, having this
kid that's you know, of two races that dislike each
other and now being like, you know, one of the
few people born loved that.

Speaker 2 (01:25:46):
I think that was a great chance to talk about it.
If anything, Worf should have dropped Alexander off over there
because he's not doing any d dad. You guys, see,
you can help me raise this kid. Drop him over here.

Speaker 3 (01:26:06):
I'll send him a birthday card later.

Speaker 2 (01:26:08):
Yeah, I'll come back and visit. I swear. Yeah. When
Wharf says there's no room in his hard for shame,
I felt like he is kind of a shameless kind
of guy. When you really look at his character, he's
shameless and you know that's just what he is, and
then felt like he was admitting it. The girl, by all,

(01:26:33):
does she go to the pond and let everybody watch
her bathe because that seemed to be like a not
a big deal for her. She was like, I guess
I won't see it at the pond again, Like how
many people are at this pond and what's going on here?
Like a little background story on that wharf. Don't trust her.

(01:26:54):
But and then this is your idiot. He shows up
to get what to get paid, Like, like, you're not
getting paid, bro, You're an idiot? Is actually what you
really are? You're in the wrong place.

Speaker 4 (01:27:08):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:27:09):
And then lastly, I saw Wharf dressed up with the
all black on and I thought, you know what, Wharf
is my ninja.

Speaker 19 (01:27:20):
So I got.

Speaker 6 (01:27:27):
I got it?

Speaker 3 (01:27:28):
All right?

Speaker 1 (01:27:29):
Uh, that's it for us everybody, if you got it,
I mean, I guess comment in the yeah, let us
know what.

Speaker 3 (01:27:37):
Uh killing Allison.

Speaker 1 (01:27:40):
Thank you very much to the Matt Boardman, Chris McKey,
Marks dot Cough, Carrie Schwent, t J Jackson, Bout Missouri
and Neil O. Palatte, Chuck A, Allison Leech Hide, Jason
m Oakin, Melissa A longo for myself, Sarak, Melissa, and
mister Aaron Eisenberg.

Speaker 3 (01:27:57):
He got that joke.

Speaker 1 (01:27:59):
We'll see it next time and until then, always remember
the seventh rule

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Heritage | With Dan Curry | TNG 6.17, "Birthright, part II" | T7R #375

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Heritage | With Dan Curry | TNG 6.17, "Birthright, part II" | T7R #375