There's a story I heard as a child, a parable, and I never forgot it.
A scorpion was walking along the bank of a river, wondering how to get to the other side.
Suddenly he saw a fox.
He asked the fox to take him on his back across the river.
The fox said "No, if I do that you'll sting me and I'll drown".
The scorpion assured him "If I did that we'd both drown".
So the fox thought about it, finally agreed.
So the scorpion climbed up on his back, and the fox began to swim,
but halfway across the river the scorpion stung him.
As the poison filled his veins the fox turned to the scorpion and said "Why did you do that?
Now you'll drown too".
"I couldn't help it" said the scorpion "It's my nature".
I wasn't an ardent Trekkie, to tell you the truth, uhm I'm a, I'm a reader by nature,
so I don't watch a lot of television, but I watched a lot of the Q episodes.
Do you know who John De Lancie is?
No.
He's a great pal of mine.
He plays a guy called Q, eh, and eh, eh, if you weren't watching him, you know you can't
go to his dinner parties, so I *laughter* I watched his episodes.
But I don't enjoy doing uhm guest starring roles on shows, because you walk into a family
set and squabbles are happening, and you're like if you talk to somebody and they go "Oh,
he's of the so and so faction" you know.
Q and Janeway in bed.
Q, not, not Janeway, but Q finds himself legitimately attracted to, to her.
Uhm because it can be kind of brutal, especially if they don't like you, if they decide they
don't like you, you know like the lead doesn't like you, uhm.
The issue of, of life.
Of the inability to find more pleasure in life.
Describe what it was like working with John De Lancie.
It took me a while to uhm warm up to John De Lancie *audience mumbles* N.. no, because
he's, I didn't know him that well first of all,
but he's not that different from Q in real life.
*Laughter*
I need your help.
But once I got to know John he's a great guy, and uhm he, he's son actually did an episode,
and I don't think John De Lancie quite warmed up to me at the beginning either because uhm,
I don't know he must've thought I was some kind of monsieurly jerk or something you know,
but uhm, but he's son came on and worked with us.
I, I, I helped him out a little bit, because eh, he was a little green, and he's son said
"That Robert Beltran is a nice guy", so the next time I saw John he was like "Robert".
Where he got this english accent I don't know *Laughter* From Idaho or something.
No, he uhm "Robert thankyou very much for uhm helping my son, he said you were wonderful
and uhm I really appreciate it".
And so we became friends, and he's a great guy, great guy, very talented.
But I'll tell you who I adored.
Guess who I adored?
Let's see how smart you are.
Who did I adore working with on that series?
Neelix?
Wonderful no, but there's one outstanding.
Who can guess?
Who?
The Doctor.
Well you know, I remember early on, before we really, we really got to know eachother,
people would, journalists would ask the actors "Which one do you like working with the best?"
And I remember Kate always answering "Oh I love the doctor, I love working with Bob Picardo"
*laughter* and I'm like sheez *laughter* You know because I was brought up with manners
you know, so you don't, you don't like, and even though I may have had a favourite,
I would never say that you know, to make the other guys look feel bad, you know but uhm
she's the captain, she can do whatever she likes. *laughter*
So uhm just, just uhm I, I, really I have,
had equal amount of fun with each and every one of them.
*Aww* *claps*
The Canadian answer?
The doctor *claps* A great actor, and believe me ladies and gentlemen those days were hard.
I left my house in the dark at 4.30 in the morning, right.
They didn't pick me up, I drove to Paramount which was 45 minutes away in the dark, I got
into make-up in the dark, and I was on the sound stage in the dark by 5.30 quarter of
six, and I left in the dark, that's what the week was like.
No, It wasn't like Bob Picardo would sit up late at night and would lose sleep thinking
about "Hmm how can I steal the scene, how can I get them to write another scene for
me".
*laughter* "I've got a scene with Mister Beltran", *laughter* "I have to find a way to steal
that scene".
*laughter* I mean 'cause I decided I would rather get some sleep, I you know, but, but
Picardo was like "Hmm".
*claps*
I started by day in the dark, and I went to bed in the dark, but always I was greeted
in the medical lab by Bob Picardo "Good morning Captain, let's try to make this a great scene.
He was always prepared, he was always full of life.
He made it so much easier for me, because that is a grind, and if your fellow actors
are not with you and they're not on top of it, and they give up caring it makes it a
burdensome and very difficult experience, so I loved him for that, he was right there,
they all were.
Oh you're saying that, that it got mostly revolved around Kate and the rest of us kind
of faded into the background.
Did you feel that?
eh uhm hmm *laughter* That comes, that comes from, yeah the you know, Brannon and eh Rick
Berman.
Let's, let's bring a Borg on the ship, let's make her a babe, but how do you do that without
immediatedly getting that negative response of like "Oh this is just for ratings, this
is just for sex"?
You don't, and you welcome the controversy, because it gives you free publicity and that's
exactly what happened.
But then don't you have to work your butt off to make her a smart character?
We were very, very confident that we, we had written a good character, and it helped the
show, and we were very, very confident in the actress.
Mm hmm.
Jeri Ryan was so good, and we knew it.
So we just weathered some of the negative backlash knowing once this airs people will
see.
See there's a thing that people think that Jeri Ryan, and, and she's lovely, and I really
love her, she's a wonderful, I loved working with her, she's a lot of fun, but people have
this misconception that she saved the show.
Well it's not true, because from the 4th season on to the, down to the 7th our ratings actually
got worse and worse and worse.
So that when we started the show we were averaging maybe eh between 5 and 7 , and then by the
time we finished we were in the 2's, the 1.9's, the, we were happy if we got a 3 or a 4 by
that...
So it's uhm, it's not true that she saved the show, the show was going down the tubes
around the beginning, middle of the 4th season.
So uhm your question was?
Who did, it had to be uhm Brannon and Rick Berman, yeah they made those decisions of
where each episode was going to, who, what they were going to focus on in each episode.
You know that, those last 3 seasons was the Captain and 7 of 9 having the same scene "Go
do this", "No", *laughter* "Yes", "Noo", *laughter* "You will do that", "Noo", *laughter* "I insist",
"Noo".
*laughter* That was like the whole last 3 seasons of Voyager, the rest of us were kind
of going "Anytime to go home now?
uhm".
I had a hand in the creation of this eh final episode.
Really?
It was edited.
Seven years in eh the Delta Quadrant for Captain Janeway.
I went to the producers and I said "The only way for uhm Captain Janeway to die a noble
death is for Admiral Janeway to die.
And Captain Janeway was the first female Star Trek Captain.
Big deal.
Well let me ask you, how many of you were disappointed with the ending of Voyager?
A good 20% maybe 15% Uhm yeah, yeah, I was, I was like beyond uhm, we all were, except
for Kate *laughter* She got to play 2 roles, and old Kate and old, and young Kate you know,
and so eh she was having a great time, and the rest of us were kind of going, we couldn't
wait for the show to end, because that whole season, the whole season the producers were,
they couldn't wait for our show, the Voyager to finish the 7th season so they could now
start working on their baby Enterprise *laughter* Where they wouldn't have any Gene Roddenberry
influence at all, they could do whatever they wanted.
Brannon Braga and so you see what happened with that *laughter* eh little experiment.
So yeah eh we were all pretty much uhm just disgusted with the whole final season.
I would say.
Eh well no, let me, let me go back even further.
What sold me on the Chakotay character and made me want to, want to do Voyager?
Honestly it was the fact that uhm Genevieve Bujold was the Captain, she was the original
Captain, and I, I wanted to work with her you know, in a, in a dog show I would've worked
with her.
Uhm so that was the main thing.
I wanted to work with her.
Mister Paris.
Chakotay.
Oh no Chakotay wasn't there yet, this was the beginning.
Engage.