Today I've got Tim Russ, who makes his
Trek return as the Vulcan Tuvok in this week's episode
of Star Trek: Picard, here with me
to break down the conspiracies
that threaten to destroy Starfleet from within.
We'll take an inside look at the costumes
from Star Trek: Picard's final season.
And we will uncover the dark truths behind Project Proteus.
It's a race to The Ready Room for all this, and more.
Hey, nerds! I'm Wil Wheaton, and this is The Ready Room,
your official behind the scenes hub
for all things Star Trek Universe.
This week's episode of Star Trek: Picard
sees the crew of the Titan set a trap for Vadic.
But, I don't want you to get ensnared in one of your own.
So, I am calling for a red alert.
We'll be conducting a literal symphony of spoilers, today.
So, if you haven't seen Season 3, Episode 7,
titled "Dominion" yet, lock yourself into
a hermetic force field, stream it,
and return to The Ready Room for the inside scoop.
Okay, I'm joined this week,
by legendary Star Trek actor Tim Russ,
who is known for his time portraying the Vulcan Tuvok
on seven seasons of Star Trek: Voyager.
We'll be exploring the Starfleet conspiracies
that led to his return to Trek.
Later, we'll take a trip back to the Dominion War,
from Deep Space Nine, to learn all about Section 31's
Project Proteus, the morphogenic virus
that set Vadic on her quest for vengeance
against the Federation. But before we get to any of that,
Star Trek: Picard's final season has brought updates
to many of the franchise's iconic looks,
including slick Starfleet uniforms and those menacing
Changelings. I am very excited for this year's cosplay.
Costume designer Michael Crow shows us what went into
creating such amazing 25th century style,
and how they reflect The Next Generation's heritage,
and legacy. Control room, engage.
This is
Seven of Nine's, leather field jacket.
Well, Michael was a genius costume designer.
Everything that's come out of his shop has been phenomenal.
It's just really cool to see it
up close and personal and know that, like,
"Oh yeah, this is mine. This is my Starfleet uniform."
Oftentimes our wardrobe is the final step,
or the first step, of discovering,
or waking up your character.
The costume is a hugely important part
of me finding a role.
It was definitely, a need for Jack to have this
element of swagger to him,
and I feel that in that opening costume,
that brown suede jacket, is sort of,
it lifts him away from what other people are wearing.
And the minute that costume goes on,
you feel like you're stepping into Jack. I really do.
The work that Michael Crow and his team have done on here
has been exemplary in my opinion.
It's kind of blown me away.
They've blown me away with the speed.
I came into this season with a very short prep period.
And we dove in. The exciting thing for me,
was bringing back the, the legacy characters.
We wanted them to harken back to their uniforms
when we first see them, but be separate from Starfleet.
A lot of Picard's costumes this season needed to feel
like a uniform, but not be a uniform.
As a retired Admiral, his costumes still needed to have
an official feeling about them.
I think we found a nice line with both Riker and Picard.
And you know, Beverly, in the first several episodes,
as we progressed, you know,
Beverly had to change clothes,
whereas everybody else was in a uniform.
So every time she had to change clothes,
there was a new iteration of a design.
We definitely wanted to echo her uniform from TNG,
but do it in a more badass female action hero kind of way.
So that she looked a little more rugged.
We started with this design, and then
we gave her a lab coat in a couple of episodes,
as she's sort of taking over in the medical bay,
to do a nod towards her lab coat in TNG.
So, I think she's got, actually got more,
costume changes than anyone else.
And Gates has been so much fun this season. You know,
I think she's had a lot of fun.
I've had a lot of fun working with her.
Mm.
Come on, you know he's not a hugger.
Oh, I know.
But it is just so good to see you.
Worf is meditating and trying to
ease his anger.
We took a lot of influence from traditional Samurai costume,
but tried to throw in a little hint of, you know,
his Klingon ancestry, because obviously that's
very important to the character,
and the history of Star Trek.
We also had to revisit his baldric from
The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine and all the films,
and revisited it in a way that incorporated it
into the costume. This was very flat when we got it.
It was all solid color, so we went in.
All of this has been brushed into the fabric.
Admiral on the bridge.
At ease.
We were inheriting the uniforms from Season 2.
I knew that coming in,
but we did want to create a different look and
give it a slightly different feel. We cropped the jackets,
we made them a little more form-fitted
than they had been previously.
Getting to put on the Starfleet uniform,
it's a special moment.
Just getting fitted for it was a special moment.
When they finally zip you up and they straighten the badge,
you are joining a club that is a wonderful elite club.
And it's, it felt great.
Putting it on. I remember looking in the,
looking in the mirror and, it was
one of those moments that you-
there's a combadge there, you're looking at,
and it's a very out of body surreal, moment.
My son's very young,
but he seems to have gone Star Trek bananas,
and he's mesmerized by the fact that
his dad's in a Starfleet uniform.
The first time I stepped on set in it, it was like,
"Oh my God, I'm wearing a Starfleet uniform!"
Like, not an outfit, not a costume,
not something I made myself, but something that
the costume department made for Star Trek.
It was, a huge moment.
They're also super comfortable.
The pants are like yoga pants.
It's so well constructed,
and there's so many hidden details. Like the piping
on the pants, are the same fabric as, on the shoulders.
It's silk screened with three-dimensional ink,
you know, it gets silk screened,
and then it sort of gets baked and as it gets baked,
as it gets heated, the ink raises a little bit.
When we started seeing some of our
legacy cast members, and I think Ro was the first scripted,
she needed pockets of some sort. So I said,
"Okay, well we'll make a dress uniform jacket, for her
that has pockets and
that'll just be the new dress uniform design."
As if that wasn't amazing,
they created these really fitted leather jackets
that are still the designated colors.
But there were a little, there was a little more
swagger to them.
We didn't want it to look like, you know,
a traditional leather motorcycle jacket,
but we wanted it to have that, action hero quality to it.
I don't know that the audience will be able to appreciate
all of the detail
that has gone into these garments. I mean,
the little perforations in the leather are in the shape of a
delta. The camera I don't think will ever see that.
There's detail there so that we feel like we are in an
immersive environment.
This is all from scratch. The solid black leather
has been, before the jackets are made,
they're de-glazed, painted, sanded, painted again,
so that the leather has the right texture to it.
These field jackets started out as a design,
that I did for Raffi, to sort of incorporate her
into Starfleet, but keep her rough and tumble.
Terry liked it so much that he was like,
"I think this could be everybody's field jacket."
So, we went to work, building multiples of all of these
jackets for all of our cast members,
and they've been a big hit.
I've worn a lot of spacesuits, in my day.
It was not the best part of the job.
I said to Michael, as I put on this fabulous
kind of a, biker jacket,
"That it is the most comfortable,
and coolest spacesuit I've ever worn."
Almost every time I see him,
he tells me how much he loves it, and the fact that he
he wears it between takes is a miracle.
And I don't think you'll ever find mine on the shelf.
I think it may just have to leave the lot with me.
I am joined today by another Star Trek legend.
Tim Russ is here to talk about this week's episode
of Star Trek: Picard, and his return
as his character from Star Trek: Voyager, Tuvok.
Tim, it's great to see you. Thanks for being here.
It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Tell me about getting the call.
You know, I was wondering if and when
my character might be able to appear on the show
because the timeline was
consistent with my character from Voyager.
So, sure enough, the the email came in from my manager
talking about, they're asking for availability.
And I thought,
"Oh my goodness, that's great."
Right?
And it was a while before I actually got
the actual booking date, but.
Yeah.
But when the call came in, I was very excited about it.
I thought it was great.
I have found that putting on characters
can really be like riding a bike a little bit.
Yes.
Involving falling off and getting scraped up
and then, like, kind of finding the balance again.
Yes.
Would you talk to me a bit, about finding Tuvok?
How close to you is he, always?
Well, according to my friends,
he's not very far away, ever.
And that has been ever since I
originally put the character together for the series.
There's a little bit of Tuvok, that's in me.
I certainly wish I had his patience on the 405 Freeway,
but that being said.
Don't we all.
But in terms of his logic and his craving
of practicality and sensibility and organized,
and that would be part of me. Very much so.
So, the logic aspect of it is, is definitely part of me.
So, when I have to resurrect this character,
I've had to do it for a voiceover for the game, as it were,
- Yeah.
- and such. It is, pretty much like riding a bike.
You get back on and you look at the dialogue and it's all
written like it should be and it's,
- Yeah.
- and it just happens. It's not too difficult.
When did you find out that you would be playing Tuvok as a
Changeling imposter, and how did that affect your
reaction to being in the character? Because it's kind of
like, well you're Tuvok-ish.
Yes.
When I got the script I was like looking at it, and I was
reading through, reading through and it doesn't happen,
you know, until obviously at the very end of the scene.
So I was like,
"Oh my goodness.
They're gonna play this gag on everybody,
that he's not really him."
Well, you got me.
It's gonna be, it's gonna.
And I thought, "Well, that's gonna be fun!"
And when working on it, of course,
we did it a couple different ways just to make sure that,
you know, there was to, to make it interesting and subtle.
But, but definitely I enjoyed being able to play that beat.
I imagine that there is a challenge inherent to,
for all actors who play Vulcans.
I would love to have you all together at some point
to talk about this 'cause it's deeply interesting to me.
You play kind of coldly logical characters.
Right.
And you have to explore a range of emotions within
- Right.
- those creative constraints.
Right
At the end of this scene,
you as an actor got to do something that I
really enjoyed watching,
which was dropping that mask.
[Tim] Right.
So, for someone who played Tuvok without the opportunity
to explore emotions, and played that particular,
like, musical phrase.
- Mm hmm.
- Right?
Talk to me about that. Was it cool? Was it fun?
We did try a couple of different ways
of actually making the reveal. And looking back
at the footage, I was wondering,
"Was that the first or second one I was trying?"
I couldn't remember of exactly which one it was
that they actually used.
But we did it several different ways just to see,
you know, she wanted a little bit more,
and then I did it more and then we did it, we pulled it back
and a little bit less. And I think there was a happy medium
in there as as my buddy, Bob Picardo, from the show,
- Yeah.
- always talks about.
The trick to playing a Vulcan is that
you basically are are doing King Lear with just using
an eyebrow. I mean, that's essentially what it is. You're,
[Wil] That is amazing.
[Tim] Everything is very subtle, very, very subtle,
but yet the range of emotion, whether it's,
you know, irritation at Neelix's character,
or whether it's something else, or flabbergasted about,
you know, what human has done at this day and time.
Yeah.
It's just a subtle reaction, that everybody is watching,
knows what you're feeling.
Yeah.
[Tim] You're just not showing it as much.
So it's just that, little tiny bit. So yeah,
they ended up using one of those takes that we did,
and it was great to be able to, at that moment,
to drop the mask, and I think it's just the slightest smile,
that he has on his face. Just the slightest.
[Wil] It hits your eyes first.
[Tim] Yes.
[Wil] You sort of betray it in the eyes.
[Tim] Yep.
- Right?
- Yep.
And then, it lights up the corners of your mouth.
That's right.
And we know.
And we know, he's no longer with us.
Yeah.
He's no longer who we thought he was.
Yeah.
Yes.
That's, that was intense.
Yes, it was. And the setup for it,
in watching the scene back because when you're, when we're
filming it, there isn't the, the gaps between the dialogue.
Right.
So, in watching it back, myself and Jeri are going
back and forth, and there's a lot of stuff going on,
on her end-
- Yeah.
that plays, that stretches that scene out.
And those beats out. And so it was,
interesting to watch that back
because when you're reading it and when you're,
when you're taping and you're filming it,
they're just reading off camera.
Yeah.
[Tim] And they're, and the timing is different,
than when it's cut together, because they're looking at her,
and she's getting information from over here.
When was your last contact with Admiral Janeway?
Not recently.
However, I assume she's preoccupied
with the logistics of Frontier Day.
And that really changes that scene,
a lot. Just the editing of it.
Have you spent any time thinking at all about
Seven's journey from Voyager to now?
Yeah. Remarkable transformation in her character.
'Cause obviously compared to when she first
came on to Voyager, you know, which is way, way back
in terms of time, she was almost similar to me,
in terms of, not having the emotion, not, you know,
being very mechanical and very straightforward and no,
you know, feelings.
We are aware of your designations.
What's your, designation?
Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01.
But you may call me Seven of Nine.
And to watch her, you know,
even past what she developed on our show
- Right.
- before the end.
She has come miles since that time. Just, you know,
even in the scene that we're playing together.
A Vulcan, would never go to to Aklion 7
after the anti-Kolinahr demonstrations.
And my neural pattern,
it was stabilized by a mind-meld on Voyager,
by my friend Tuvok.
She's fierce in that scene.
Yeah.
She's clearly not happy, clearly upset.
She's come a long, long way in terms of the,
of her character, how it's evolved.
You wouldn't even know she was Borg except for the tech.
Right.
Just in terms of how, what her emotional range is now,
and how she's playing. So it's very, cool.
You have played a bunch of characters on Star Trek.
I'm going to, I'm going to read these here,
Beyond Tuvok, you were a thief on Next Generation,
an officer on the Enterprise-B in Star Trek: Generations,
Mirror Tuvok in Deep Space Nine.
How much do you love the Mirror Universe?
I thought it was a kick in the pants.
Oh man.
I've never met someone who's not like,
"Oh please, don't send me to the Mirror Universe.
Oh no, it's terrible."
[Wil] No, everybody has fun there.
It was great. It was great.
You've been all these different characters in our world.
And when people think Tim Russ and Star Trek Voyager,
they think Tuvok.
Yeah.
Totally makes sense.
Yeah.
There are some actors who kind of like don't wanna be
identified with a single character.
There are some actors who think it's great to be identified
with a single character. Where do you land on that spectrum?
Given the fact that that Tuvok's character was
a regular character on the show,
compared to the parts that I played earlier on,
yeah, those are fun because each one of 'em
is a little different than the other. So you,
you got a chance to stretch out.
I mean I play a Klingon on Deep Space Nine.
I mean that, that's way miles away
from from Tuvok's character.
Yeah.
And it's great for that point in time,
but in terms of, you know, being in the Star Trek Universe,
you want to be able to land a character that's gonna have
that longevity and regularity is,
I mean you can't beat that.
I liked the fact that I got a chance to, as it were to,
fill Leonard Nimoy's shoes, in terms of being
a Vulcan on the bridge,
- Yeah.
- in a series, and boy that, that I can't, you know,
I can't say no and I can't say that that wasn't the,
probably the pinnacle of working in the franchise.
Yeah.
The reaction you get from this one series franchise,
is just simply very different.
I mean, it's again, about the lessons, and the stories and,
how they unfold. And you're sitting there going,
"Well wait a minute. Oh, I thought it was gonna be this.
And then it turns out to be that. Oh my God."
And those revelations, and those discoveries in this thing.
That's what people,
that's what makes, you know,
being part of this franchise so very different.
And it is an after the fact. It is 20/20 hindsight.
It's looking back,
and realizing what you've done.
I don't think we can, I don't think we're able to see it
when we're making it.
No. It's the.
- Only way.
- No. No.
- I think it's kind of like being so close to a pointil,
pointillist, you know, painting.
- No.
- And we have to get away from it.
- No.
- To see it to, so it can resolve into a picture.
- I, there was a day, and I can tell you, we obviously,
because you what we were talking about earlier as far as
being an actor on the set,
- Yeah.
- and 16 hours.
- Yeah.
- I was standing, I remember coming out,
it was fifth season.
- Yeah.
- For me, fifth season I came out, I was,
it was the first day back after hiatus.
Okay.
And hiatus was like, you, you clung to hiatus.
Of course this is the first day back to school,
- Oh, yeah.
- after summer vacation.
Yeah. It was like, if I had 24 hours before
I had to go back,
- I remember.
- Twenty-four hours of hiatus.
"Oh my god. 24 hours. I still have 24 hours of,"
- "What am I gonna do?"
- I was like, "What am I gonna do?"
- "How can I maximize these hours?"
Do I have to sleep?
Maybe I can not sleep, maybe I'll nap in my trailer."
Yeah, I know. I remember that.
- "Okay, it's 20 Hours, oh my God."
"And I gotta be there."
"And then Mike DeMeritt's on the phone,
and their Second A.D."
- Yeah. Yeah.
- "Hey Tim, I need you here at six o'clock.",
or whatever it is.
- Sure.
And I was standing outside the trailer, in my uniform.
I was standing outside the trailers, outside the soundstage.
Right.
And I was just standing there in the makeup,
and the uniform and everything and Brent Spiner,
comes rolling by, and I'll never forget it,
in a golf cart. He comes rolling up to me,
and he looks at me, he stops and he looks at me and he says,
"Fifth season, huh?"
- The, the only people,
- Exactly what he said.
- in the world who are laughing as hard at this as we are,
are other people who have been on year five of any TV show.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
You're absolutely right. It's great.
But it's the fifth season. I, oh man, that's so funny.
Yeah, it was, it was a moment.
I didn't say a word, he just looked at my face.
And he could tell.
All of that kind of goes up on a shelf,
- [Tim] Yeah.
- which can be described thusly.
- [Tim] Mm hm.
We are legacy Star Trek actors.
That's a weird thing for me to think about.
- Yeah.
Because, like, that to me feels like
we're, like, in a retirement home somewhere.
It's kinda like,
I kinda, like, unnecessarily feel that way about it.
Right?
Do you think about it?
About being a legacy Star Trek actor?
I can't very well forget it.
Yeah.
It's been 22 years, just about,
since I've finished working on the show.
One of the bricks you put into,
the foundation of Star Trek is being half of Tuvix.
Oh my God.
I will be flayed by Star Trek fans if I do not ask you
to just talk a little bit, whatever you want to say,
about this extraordinarily important moment,
in so many people's lives.
I was just recently up at Griffith Observatory.
I've been an astronomer for a long, long time.
Yeah.
And I was up there with the astronomy group
at the time. I had the telescopes up there,
and as I was just unloading my car with the gear,
the guy that was security, sort of managing the parking,
and the traffic and stuff like that,
he was working for observatory.
As I was away he said,
"You're Tuvok on Star Trek."
Yeah.
"My favorite episode was 'Tuvix.'"
That just, out of the blue.
Yeah.
That's what he said.
Yeah.
I have been approached,
especially in the last two or three years, consistently,
everyone asks me about that episode.
[Wil] Wow.
"Tuvix" is the most,
I think out of all of our shows,
one of the most controversial shows we've done
in seven years of Voyager.
They ask me about that show, that episode.
And as I was saying earlier,
I think that the thing that happens in that episode is that,
the responsibility of the captain,
and having to make that choice that nobody else,
Yeah.
can make, except her.
Is again, the lesson.
That's the lesson. Because in people's lives,
in their real lives, there may come a time
where they have to make a decision.
That decision on the scales, are very even like they're,
very balanced. So it's not like this.
Not lop-sided, it's like,
Yeah.
"Oh my God, if I go this way, this is good."
- It's the hardest decision,
you're going to face with.
- "And bad if I go this way, it's good and it's bad."
There's no winning.
And, that's what the Captain is faced with.
These scales that are almost perfect.
And she just has to find something
to give one of the sides a little bit of weight and,
and her responsibility as the Captain for her crew,
is important. And they ask me all the time,
"Which decision would you make,
or do you think was was the right decision?"
And I tell them,
"Yeah. It was the right decision."
You know, I can say,
I can say it from my perspective as, you know,
the character is a father, and he has children, and he is
going to go on and survive and live and and reproduce.
The Tuvix character cannot.
And it's only one of a species, and that's it.
And Neelix's character is also, part of her crew,
and she has responsibility to them.
So, she has to make that decision.
Yeah.
This was an accident, and she has to rectify it.
And that's it. And a lot of people,
sometimes they don't agree with that.
But that episode is really,
people are very passionate about,
having made that decision. And I always tell them, I said,
"The very last shot in that entire episode is Kate walking
down the hall when she leaves the medical bay
and we've been returned.
She walks out the door and she doesn't say a word,
but you can see it on her face.
She's absolutely devastated,
by what she had to do."
And that again is a lesson, because in people's real lives,
they may be faced with that situation
where they have to make a very difficult decision.
In a series, and in a franchise.
- Right.
- With standout episodes.
- [Tim] Right.
Memorable episodes.
- [Tim] Right.
It's really cool to be part of one of those, and to
kind of be the focal point,
Yes.
[Wil] of one of those.
Yes.
[Wil] That's pretty, that's pretty great.
Yeah it's,
I just want, I just wanted to,
I just wanna admire that for a moment, and be,
as a fellow Star Trek actor, just a little envious.
We're just about out of time,
so this is where I would love to sort of wrap up.
Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard, depending on who you
talk to, might really be kind of like the sunset of The Next
Generation era. The Next Generation timeline.
Right.
I think of Voyager is existing in this,
The Next Generation timeline, right?
Like it's that,
it's like us with Deep Space Nine.
[Tim] Right.
And, and then Enterprise a little,
but I feel like Enterprise kind of lives in its own world.
Right.
But like, you know, we have this, this sort of thing.
So if we accept, that Voyager exists,
- Right.
- because of Next Generation. And Picard exists,
because of Next Generation, Voyager, and Deep Space Nine,
and everything that's happened since.
You're part of something that was very close
to the beginning, and you're also part of something
that is, might be really close to the end.
Yeah.
I feel like there's a book ending there.
Have you thought about that at all? Has that,
the sort of, like, you were there, now you're here.
[Tim] Yeah.
Reality, do you think, have you thought about that at all?
Yeah, I mean I think, number one,
because my character lives for as long as he does,
that I can stretch, you know, across, you know,
one or two of these series as they go along
without any problem at all. It does feel like a bookend.
And having started that character where, where he began
and with the cast that I was in, and looking at it, I,
'cause I hadn't seen that until just recently.
Yeah.
They showed me the episode,
they sent it to me and I got a chance to look at it.
And it was really, I was really taken aback, because I-
compared to when watching
the series from the very beginning,
and how all the actors
have changed so much physically, that struck me.
What captivated me was the, was was watching the cast
from Next Gen, and seeing them.
- Man.
- [Tim] That struck me.
- Yeah.
- I told my girlfriend Deborah, I said I,
as soon as I looked at it, I was like,
I got done watching it, I told her,
"Oh my God. Wow."
I mean, I worked with them,
you know? I worked with them,
not only as Tuvok in some cases,
but way back when I began doing some of the
guest star roles early on.
And just to, and to see them in that way.
They looked like, they looked as though they,
they embodied the weight and the gravity of time.
It was all there. It felt so, evolved. It felt so,
epic in terms of how
that expanse of time had been crossed.
And you felt that expanse of time
had been crossed
just in those scenes. It is really remarkable.
I don't, I don't know what the fans are gonna,
how they're gonna feel about it and how they,
I can imagine what their reaction's going to be,
seeing that.
It's really interesting to hear you talk about
these experiences,
and your reactions, are the same as mine.
It says to me that there is something that ties us together
as Star Trek actors. There's a like,
different theaters in the same campaign, right?
Yes, yes.
It's rare that I get to talk with somebody about, like,
"Hey, we're on Star Trek."
Like, this is, like, to share that,
this commonality that we have, although
we've rarely been in the same place, and it's just
been really fun for me. I really appreciate you
making the time to be here today.
It's been such a pleasure to talk to you.
It's my pleasure Wil. Thank you.
Thanks a lot.
It's my pleasure
During Star Trek Deep Space Nine's Dominion War,
moral ambiguity was introduced to the Federation,
in a big way. Section 31 was revealed
as a Starfleet division that undertook
the questionable activities that no one else
in Starfleet wanted, including Project Proteus,
a lethal virus designed to end the war.
Slightly problematic.
Here's a look back, at the secret weapon that nearly
wiped out the Changelings.
Daystrom Station was my captive home during the war,
with nine of my brothers and sisters kept on shelves.
"Project Proteus" they called it.
Where is Will Riker? Is he alive?
Me, Admiral?
The Changelings, are these beings that live in
a lake of goo. That's what it looks like.
And they're all connected.
They're not a solid. And they can take the form
of any other life form that they want.
They were causing some trouble on Deep Space Nine,
and now they're back.
Solids like you ruin every world you touch.
[Picard] Name one.
Mine.
We were barely out of the gates of war and your
Federation turned to genocide.
This particular time period is really interesting.
We're in a post-Dominion War Federation and Starfleet,
and it felt like that would have ramifications.
Would you like to hear more about where my
appetite for your brutal, inevitable extinction comes from?
I got it from Starfleet.
Every good villain is the hero of their own story.
And so what was, Vadic's story? What is motivating her?
We know that she is reporting to
a mysterious boss,
but she's doing this for a reason.
The Federation took my family,
now I will take yours.
We early on talked about her past,
and that became Project Proteus.
If there is an entity that can look
and sound just like you, that's a fantastic weapon
to have in your arsenal. You'd be recruiting Changelings
nonstop if you were in the intelligence agency.
But what if they weren't recruitable?
You gave me the ability to mimic your blood,
pass every test,
and you did so while inflicting
more torment on me than any being should
ever be expected to endure.
It kind of originated from a place of positive intent,
but then as things in life can often turn into, it became
complicated and and kind of was misused.
Our official designation is Section 31.
And what does Section 31 do?
We search out and identify potential dangers
to the Federation.
And once identified?
We deal with them.
So we had talked about Section 31, which sort of
dabbles in more nefarious projects.
Attempting to make an even more, undetectable Changeling.
[Beverly] So, you evolved from the biological experiments.
And I'm able to pass it on.
They accept a shorter life,
eternal pain, for the ability to fool those
who took everything from us.
It's hard to call her a villain even though that would be
the easy way. She's not really.
Don't tell me I have no regard for love
or innocence.
There's a lot of contradictions to her.
I relished those 'cause I think there's contradictions,
in everyone.
She took the face of her torturer. Why?
To remind herself of her hate.
That's just something she experienced and it marked her.
So here we are. Where we were always going!
To bring Jack Crusher
where he most belongs.
Part of the big mystery of the season is figuring out
what they want with Jack, and why they're on the ship,
and what exactly their endgame is.
Jack,
my dear,
if you can hear me,
it's time you've learned who you truly are.
Look, I'm still shook from Vadic taking over the Titan,
and in case you are too, here is what I feel
is the only remedy: an exclusive clip
from next week's episode.
Enough is enough. Lore can't control, what he can't access.
I thought you unplugged him.
I did.
This is her.
She's locking us out from the bridge
[Vadic] Now. Take their ears.
Ensign Reese to bridge do you copy?
Dammit, coms are dead.
Move out!
Take the very road ahead of them
with nowhere left to run.
Can you access the ship's security coms from here?
[Beverly] I'm trying, but the bridge is locking us out.
Transport, security, everything.
There it is.
Vadic's in command of the Titan?
Talk about a changeling of scenery.
As always, thank you for passing some time with me
in The Ready Room. It was so wonderful talking to Tim Russ,
and I hope it was as much of a treat for you
as it was for me. Next week, we'll be diving even
further into Season 3, Episode 8,
the ominously titled, "Surrender."
And Brent Spiner joins me
to talk about the many roles he's played over the years.
Until then, I'm Wil Wheaton.
Live long and prosper.