The Greatest Generation - A Big Fan of Scarcity (S5E9)

Episode Date: February 6, 2017

When a burlap clad professor from the 26th century pulls his doorstop up to the Entrepreneur, they take a detour from rescuing an imperiled planet to fill out his questionnaires. But when he starts taking the five finger discount on all the ship’s tricorders, the previously credulous crew gets angry. Will Geordi’s tauntaun freeze before he reaches the first marker? Why couldn’t Guinan have cleared this whole thing up? Is this guy here just to do historical booty calls? It’s an episode that really asks a lot of us.

Priority 1 message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Hey friends of Disodo. Before today's episode, we just wanted to take a moment to talk about the historic labor actions being taken by writers and actors in the American Film and Television industry. If you're a fan of the work done by the people who make Star Trek, we hope you'll join us in standing in solidarity with the folks who actually bring these adventures to life. Over the past several years, the AMPTP, the organization that represents the American Film and Television Production Studios, have reduced the profit from movies and TV going to workers. And in so doing,

they've attempted to weaken the labor unions that represent those workers. They wouldn't even engage the unions on many issues in their negotiations. And so a strike was the only course of action to take. Adam, Wendy and I have been having a lot of internal discussions about how best to stand with the unions and we are continuing those conversations in a dynamic situation. We're doing our best to understand where the picket lines are in these digital spaces,

and we would never intentionally cross one. With the information we have, we feel like we can do more good talking about and supporting the strike and continuing our show as planned. We'll keep you informed about what all this means for greatest trek specifically. Today we're making a contribution to the Entertainment Community Fund. This fund exists to help all the people whose livelihoods have been put on hold because the AMPTP refuses to negotiate

in good faith with the unions. It provides financial support for writers, actors, and all the thousands of laborers who make the shows that we talk about here and without whom we wouldn't have Star Trek to cast pot about. Those folks are all out of work because billionaires, company shareholders, and the executives of these companies don't want to compromise on the length of their yachts. We hope you'll join us in supporting entertainment workers in a challenging time, especially after they've already endured several years of challenges brought on by the pandemic

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! Welcome to the greatest generation. Star Trek podcast by two guys from Reuben Bears to have a Star Trek podcast. I am your host Adam Pranaka.

I am also your host Benjamin R. Harrison. Ben, we don't often feel a great amount of FOMO on this show. But recently, I did feel that in great amounts from a few of our listeners who attended, boarded, and partied on the Star Trek groups. Oh, yeah. I saw some tweets about this. Yeah, me too. I really want to do this. They really awoken me. The great cruise interest feelings I didn't know I had. Wow. I wonder. They awoke the sleeping giant.

This pose is an interesting dilemma because we never want to, you know, even the appearance of an improper relationship between us and Big Rod. It would be intolerable. But, I would really like to get to go on the cruise and Especially if they were like hey you guys are the people's champion of Star Trek podcasters Come on this cruise You know the thought that I had was how much fun it would be to go on the cruise as Ben and Adam and not even perform But do sort of a pirate radio live podcast reporting in our

penthouse suite on the ship? Here's how I think we do this bit. I don't think it's any surprise to our viewership that we have a pledge drive coming up. I'm willing to dump pledge money into the idea of of Climbing into big rods pocket without him knowing about it Emission behind big rod enemy lines. That's what I'm saying. We put on some loaf We put on some bread boxes. We board the ship some Romulan beauty might take a liking to you Some wrong-yling beauty might take a liking to you. Like that paint right off your ears.

And we record on board without them knowing about it. Except our viewers would know. We would sort of get the word out to our viewers. And then we'd record a secret episode inside Big Rod's pocket. Wow. The call is coming from inside the pocket. That's what I'm saying. How much fun would that be? That would be really fun. Now, do we make that a donor-only episode? Shit. You know what? I think that makes a lot of sense. Like, I think that does make a lot of

sense. If you donate during the pledge drive and we use pledge drive resources to get on board this ship, I think it's only right. They reward those that make that donation possible with this special episode. Do you think we would get to party with Gauron because I heard that people were partying with Gauron? Gauron was at the bar wearing his own loathe. Yeah. They put his dress up. They loafed him up. That's that can't be comfortable in the Caribbean. Do you think he's like the hair transplant commercial, the guy like diving into the pool and they cut the shot and he gets

out of the pool and his hair looks perfect. Like if you're gal run you got to jump into the pool holding on right? Shaking off that main. Oh man, that's gonna clog a filter. Anyway, if this sounds like an idea that's good enough to our greater viewership, hit us up on the Twitters and on Facebook. Let us know if there is a substantial push for this because at this point I'm just putting a toe in the water on the concept, but I think this could be pretty cool I think we've wanted to do sort of a pirate radio thing for a long time And this might be a fun opportunity to do it. It's not until 2018. Yeah, well, we'll probably all be dead by then anyway

That's true. That's true. But if we're not, it could be fun. Here's another question, though, Adam, like what if what if big rod makes us an offer we can't refuse before such time as we have time to go on this cruise ship? Well, I think what if we've already been compromised by that point? I think our demand would be too great. Like we need, we obviously need to stay in a penthouse state room. So you're saying that this is an insurance policy against us becoming compromised by big rod. That's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah. We should be able to bootstrap ourselves into the on board into a penthouse with space enough to record a show on. A lot of our detractors have been silenced today

Adam and I think that that's pretty cool. What do you say we get into the episode which we came to talk talk about today Adam? Let's do that let's do less than a 20 minute Marin open on this one. Let's let's turn the page now. It's season five episode nine, a matter of time. The entrepreneur is on a two way to help a planet that has taken a hit from an asteroid and it's causing like it's cause it's like it's kicked up a bunch of crap all into their atmosphere preventing sunlight from getting through turn the planet into a real popsicle atom. I mean it's a real shit show down there and the scientists the old scientists which is the only kind we have on this show.

Back to Crotchety Old Scientist, man. They're really freaking out. Yeah, and so they're steaming with all deliberate speed toward this when they get a blip on the readout. There is something back there. We passed within 300 kilometers of it. Warf picks up a temporal disturbance in their wake. And Picard is like, well,

there's a planetary catastrophe looming, but I feel like we can take an hour to go investigate this temporal disturbance, right? And some bring the ship about. Let's take a look at Mr. Wolf's distortion. I, sir. Is it Wolf's wife? It's like a husband rushing a wife, a pregnant wife to the hospital who's about to give birth and he's like Did we pass a Dunkin' Donuts back there?

That's a good donut Honey, I'm a I just want to like I might get hungry Hey honey, how about I get you a Cruller? Joe Demasio don't his donut. See now. I know's not him. Joe Demasio could not be a dunker. Oh, he's a dunker. So they whipped the ship around to investigate and they find a little ship. Yeah, it's like a little... It's like a doorstop of a ship.

It's the least interesting shuttle that we have seen yet. It's like they literally took a doorstep off the floor, set it up on the miniature rig, and grabbed a shot of it. We've seen a lot of not interesting shuttle crabs, and this might be the least interesting about it. It looks like the corner Lego piece. The one dot corner Lego. Yeah, that's a good call at him.

Well, they're trying to scan this thing and their instruments cannot penetrate its hull. It's some super advanced material and they get message from inside this thing to move over and Picard does not like this as an opening and opening gambit does he? Yeah he doesn't really get it. He's like I'm not gonna move my ship for you. Fucking door staff. Yeah and he like starts walking toward Wharf because he's like outraged and in the spot that he was standing beams on Professor Burlinglingoff Rasmussen.

It's like we're not even trying with these names anymore. And it turns out that what he was saying was that he needed a Picard to move over the person of Picard. It was like the time the Borgs hailed and they meant Picard himself. Yeah. If you think that Picard would have gotten used to this by now. So Rasmussen Beams on and he's wearing a couple of coffee bags And he says he says look guys I'm from the future and

I just want to ride along with you a little while check things out because I'm a historian From the future, and that's what we do, even though you've never heard or seen any of me before, we're all around you at any given time. And you guys are in the middle of a really important mission. I just wanna watch. Like any scientist, he knows that observing the thing

cannot possibly change what it does. Right, absolutely. He has a good act here too, like he keeps taking in deep breaths, like he's looking at the fucking Grand Canyon for the first time, like this is exactly how I hoped it would be. This is great.

Oh, this is wonderful. Actually, quite a bit larger than I thought. Really? And the crew is really quick to just accept this man for who he claims to be, right? It is breathtaking how quickly they accept this guy's truth. They are like, the Enterprise crew is like an old person picking up the phone. Yeah, and the telemarketers on the other end. That's like, hey, you've got to read me all your credit card numbers. Otherwise, a really bad shit's gonna happen. Yeah, I'm from I'm from the IRS and the only way. Yeah. Yeah, it's like.

Yeah, it's like, I mean, yeah, it's like, it's like Bill Cosby having us all convinced for years and years that he was a super wholesome guy, you know? It's just like, how the fuck? Like, they just all go along with it real quick. Like, even Worf is disarmed by this guy in the, not like physically disarmed, but like, you know, the guy's like, Hey, do you normally sit over there and wharf is like, what?

Uh, normally, yeah, why? He does that deception that counts on you to provide the deception for him. Like he never offers any new information. He just plays off of the information that you're giving him. Yeah. Do you think that part of it is that they just look at the fucking jaw on this guy? And they're like, I believe him. I don't know what he's saying, but I believe it. He's one in the line of several strong jawed, strong jud guest stars on this show. They really cast for jaw, don't they? They really do. This guy has like super hero level jaw.

He has a pretty like wimpy frame and even like the upper half of his head is pretty wimpy but this fucking jaw! Yeah, it's like Baron Von Underbite a nice job here. Yeah, it's one of my favorite blue pictures Adam. Yeah, Lord.

Resmucin played admirably by Matt Fruer, who, as I believe I stated in the preview to this episode, on our last episode of Pod, is really Jim carrying around. Yeah. I feel like he is overplaying his character hand from Joe. Yeah, I mean, it's a bit like the outrageous Okana character that they had aboard that one time where his personality is so vastly different from any personality we normally get on the show that it is

just like amazing to see somebody this weird just weird around in the environment that we've come to be so accustomed to. It's that brings up an interesting point because it's interesting how you can portray alien as physically different and alien as physically different and alien as personality different. And this guy's human. I mean, I think they did a scan on him and they're able to understand that much, but alien as enculturally alien as portrayed by personality is, I think they're able to

do that a little better than they're able to work the makeup part of that equation. Yeah. Like this guy is really weird. He's super weird. They have a little McLaughlin group to get to know him. And his rap is exactly that.

I just want to be here for this amazing historic occasion of the mission that you're on. It's something that I study and I'm really curious to see like where you guys put all of the objects in your physical environment. Because that book is not supposed to be there as far as the history books are concerned. So they head off, right? They head to Penthara 4, which is the planet that they were trying to rescue before this. And they've got a plan to induce the greenhouse effect to stop the planet from getting too much colder. Cause right now, like you look out the window and it's like your ton tonne'll freeze

before you get to the next marker kind of a situation out there. Let's see you in hell. Yeah, they're cutting open horses to keep warm. And so yeah, the plan is they found some pockets of carbon dioxide under the surface of the planet. I'm gonna use the phasors to like turn the planet surface into Swiss cheese, let the carbon dioxide out, form a nice warm, cuddly blanket around the planet, warm it up, and stabilize it.

And you know, you get some nice throwaway dialogue about like what a catastrophe this is. Talk about New Seattle, Adam. And a couple of tropical rivers are freezing over there. Oh yeah, I think that was aptly named because it made me think of the tropical rivers that flow through Old Seattle. Yeah, absolutely.

It's famous for its tropical rivers. Beautiful. Yeah, especially this time of year. Ben, did you, right away feel like this plan might have been a little dangerous, the whole shooting of the ship's phasers into the planet's surface to release the gas. They could have just replicated a bunch of cows, right? Yeah. It would have been less damaging. Yeah.

Send a suburban to every household on the planet. So I just drive these back and force to the soccer practice. You guys will be fine. back and forth to the soccer practice. You guys will be fine. So we're gonna fill your seas full of container ships running on bunker fuel. Plan that's gonna warm up in no time. It's gonna be great.

You guys are gonna love it. It's gonna be nice and toasty. Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, they make a big deal of data and Jordi checking the numbers over and over again on this. 209 anomalies, all with unacceptable parameters. Never tell me beyond. Only to have their calculations have been radically wrong.

And it's sort of running away, right? Like there's the greenhouse effect is going in turbo mode and all the holes that they planche have turned into volcanoes that are spewing ash into the atmosphere, which is like compounding the problem that they had before. And all this, all the while, Rasmussen is like wandering around the ship going like,

it's amazing that you didn't see that coming. And like making little quips about everybody. He's starting to be a little bit of an annoyance, right? Yeah, and the first thing that seeks to annoy is the distribution of a questionnaire that he forces on everyone in the crew to take. And evidently, this questionnaire takes hours to complete. Yeah, I hate questionnaires. He's got like a bunch of isolinier chips that he wants everybody to take back to their quarters when they have some free time and fill them out. And this is like maybe the craziest part of his visit. There's a couple of things that I think are bananas about

it, but the fact that the captain is signing off on all of the senior staff of the flagship, just like answering whatever questions this stranger has for them, because it will be good for historical research in the time period he comes from 200 years in the future. Ben, you know how there's a choring test for robots To tell if they've achieved sentience. Is there a similar sort of test for someone who claims to be from the future? Because it seems like there should be, right? I kind of wondered why they didn't just head down to 10 forward and be like, Gainon. What does this guy seem like? He's got a credible story here.

What does this guy seem like? He's got a credible story here. She's not in the episode. This was a great moment for Gainon that that was missed. Yeah. They don't they don't there have been times when they've like had Troy not there or Jordy not there or some character not there that would have you know that character would have been instrumental in uncovering whatever, whatever subterfuge was a foot. And they make a point of having somebody toss away a line about why that character is not there. Or in the example of the butthole game episode, they turn data off and that's like part of the subterfuge in that episode.

They never do that with Gainin. There's never a Gainin is a way at a bartending conference on Riza. Well, Gainin's always turned out. That's one thing we know about her. Yeah. Love's flicking that bean. Love's it. The bartending conference on Pacifica. It's got to be a rager Oh, man, guidance there lady from that crappy Star Wars bar in the last episode's probably there. Oh, yeah The piano player I bet Gynan and she could party That that girl who does the cup song She's there. Yeah The internet's girlfriend.

I think that like there are a couple of times in the beginning of the episode where they say like, you know, we'll see, we'll see how far this goes with this guy, but they really, like they don't restrict his movements around the ship. Like you can go to engineering and the bridge without anybody stopping him, which would seem to be like probably a pretty bad security decision.

Ben, like you can forgive the plat holes. You know, like you were just saying, like there are instances where characters are turned off or made to be absent to further the plot because to have them around would break the story. Yeah. In a negative way. Right. But what's so much more unforgivable is for the cast to be made stupid.

Yeah. And that's what's happening here. It really is. And just not just stupid but weird. Like they are making decisions that are baffling. Like there's a scene where he's getting real close to the doctor and it's like a little unclear whether he's hitting on her or like he's like he's being a real smart dog. When I'm very traveled back I mean very interesting people, men and women but I've

never met anyone who gave me thoughts about not going home. And she starts kind of like baby talking back to him. You're not supposed to be influencing the past, remember? And I am beginning to feel just a little bit influence. And it's not clear that she's so much shutting him down as just like hitting the the snooze button on the on the advances he's making on her and it's like what? No, she would never go for this dope.

And because that scene goes without payoff at all, it just sort of hangs in the air a little bit. It really doesn't make any sense. Like, he's flirting with her and it appears as though she's flirting back but in a way that's like a not in your life kind of way. Yeah, and he's really like invading her personal space too. Yeah.

Very strange, very strange scene. And because it's not peed off later, and it's not referred to later, it just really doesn't have a reason for being. Yeah. Like I guess you could argue that it serves to further the point that Raz Musin is not trustworthy and if he's really a notable historian, like why would he be going back to Rudy Calls instead of doing real historical shit?

Yeah, but it's a little thin. My love is a piece of clothing to my back, which is longer than us at the PC. Tell me more, you're not the boy, yeah. The whole climax that we get to in this episode, and I don't like want to jump ahead, but I feel like you almost have to talk about it, is that Picard is at this point where they've got a potential solution to this runaway climate change problem on this planet. Oh, do nothing and thousands will die. Do something a million could die. That's a tough choice. Not if you were to help me. It's riskier than they thought that the first solution was, which is the culprit for this disaster.

And Picard is trying to appeal to this guy's sense of humanity, this guy from the future, to tell Picard what to do, essentially. Like, tell me what the right choice is is here because I can save this planet. If I do this, but there's a reasonable risk that it will kill every single person on the surface if we fuck it up even a little bit. And the guy is kind of making a prime directive argument with him. He's kind of saying, you know, like, it would be, it would destroy the future that I came from to offer information like that. And therefore I can't.

But the fact that he's there at all completely changes everything about how they're thinking about what they're doing. They're asking the viewer to suspend so much disbelief in so many areas. They might as well let the boom pull dip into frame. Yeah, the whole thing just sort of crumbles under its own weight. Yeah. So, what it does, it's sort of jangling the keys and of the stakes, right? It's calling your attention to the stakes of,

and those are the millions of lives on the planet. And if you can just concentrate on those, you can forgive the rest. But I'm not so sure. Yeah, I mean, it's like, it's an interesting conversation, right? Because it's like fairly conventional plot line for Picard to be on the other side of the prime directive argument. And it's only like a couple of times that we get to see Picard stand there and argue with somebody beg them to override a prime directive like rule. And Picard, like at this point, has kind of a rich history of violating the prime directive,

so he can cite some of that in his a rich history of violating the prime directive, so he can... He can cite some of that in his argument? You know of the prime directive, which tells us that we have no right to interfere in the natural evolution of alien worlds. Now, I have sworn to uphold it. But nevertheless, I have disregarded that directive. I'm all on one occasion, because I thought it was the right thing to do. Yeah, you really see him get desperate in a way you rarely see.

Yeah. Like, the only time I remember seeing him do this was when he begged Q to frisbee them back out of Borg space the first time they met him. Yeah, I guess yeah, I feel like there's one other time I can't quite remember when it was though. I wish I wish I could. Yeah, that would have made for some good pod. That would have been good pod Adam. What that would that we had done any research? Well, not that kind of show. We really got twanged by somebody on iTunes recently about that, by the way. Oh, really?

Yeah, got a real fun, a real fun one-star review about how we don't bring anything to our reviews of the shows that a committed Star Trek fan doesn't already know. Oh, really? Yeah. a committed Star Trek fan doesn't already know. Oh really? Yeah. You mean, you mean all these jokes are, are ones that any committed Star Trek viewer brings to their own podcasts? That's funny. This particular reviewer did not find our brand of comedy to be particularly appealing at them.

Well, it's a good thing that there are 10 dozen other Star Trek podcasts. Yep. Funny and not. Including even this week, new ones are launching all the time. They're all around us. Yeah. And they're... It's Star Trek podcasts all the way down.

Yeah. Look, there's something in here and it ain't us. We may not even be the people's champions for that much longer, because there's so many fucking Star Trek podcasts. There's a podcast calling from inside the house. Make it sound. The card begs, begs, begs, rasmussen to give him the answer to the conundrum and rasmussen. I would say that this performance is actually really interesting. For as tattered as a premise as we have at this point in the episode.

The actor playing Rasmussen, Matt Frueur, is doing an admirable job of taking this very silly character and playing him in a very serious scene. It's a theoretical, it's a hypothetical, it's real. Surely you see that. I see it all too well, but you must see that if I were to influence you, everything in this sector, in this quadrant of the galaxy,

could change. History. My history would unfold in a way other than it already has. Now, what possible incentive could anyone offer me to allow that to happen? And so Picard is defeated and walks out onto the bridge and says, all right, let's do this risky-ass plan and explains that the fact that Rasmusin wouldn't answer him sort of gives him

all the information he needs to make a decision. So the plan is that they're going to like, what they're like going to super heat the particles in the atmosphere and then use the deflector dish to scoop them off into space or something. Sure, that sounds about right. Do you know this episode get nominated for a special effects, Emmy? Really? Yeah. I thought it kind of deserved it because the planet like, I mean, we're looking at the

HD remaster, but like, all of the stuff with the like atmosphere of the planet like I mean we're looking at the HD remaster but like the all of the stuff with the like atmosphere of the planet changing looked really cool and it's pretty well done I thought. The plan is a little bit of a space ball's plan right? They're turning the enterprise into space ball one who then who then turns into mega-made. What they need to do is initiate back-you-suck on all of these atmospheric particulates. Suck, suck, suck! And then just sort of fling them back out in the space.

Yeah, and initiate they do. And it kind of reminded me a little bit of the Genesis effect where like they show the like the like effect of whatever they're doing kind of wash over the planet and then come back over the other side and They shoot everything off into space Uh, they cut back to Jordy down on the surface. Jordy risks his life for this by the way because he's got to like punch in Punch in risks his life for this by the way because he's got to like punch in, punch in numbers till the last minute and they cut back down a Jordy on the surface.

I'm breathing. There's like a lush, verdant landscape out the window. The hot like atmosphere has vanished, and in its place is a perfectly healthy environment. Ben, do you think enough is made about the potential sacrifice that Jordi is making here? No, not at all. Me neither.

It was totally gloss over that he's turned this into a suicide mission, and we can't pull this off. Yeah. Well, a very brave thing that Jord a suicide mission. I mean, he can't pull this off. Yeah. Well, very brave thing that Jordy did. And I guess, I guess it paid off because the plan is successful. And Rash Mucin is like, well, that was great. I really enjoyed watching you guys all do this. And I'll be heading off now.

And so he like heads to his, his state room that they set him up in and packs up his stuff, does one last check for bed bugs, and heads down to the shuttle bed. All those chargers? Oh yeah, looks under the bed, makes sure that he hasn't dropped any $500 memory cards under there. Oh God. You really, you want to avoid looking under a hotel bed,

but if there's a chance you've dropped a memory card, you get to do it. Yeah, especially if it's the only copy of a shoot that it took you six months to set up. So he hits the shuttle bay and the entire senior staff has assembled there and he Interprets this as a very formal farewell and Turns out not Adam Well, but don't look at this. Who would have expected a Terry farewell? They're there, I guess to bear witness to his deception cards like

So we noticed some of our shits missing and we'd like that back. If they were gonna have to take a look inside your vest. Yeah, so like they've been showing him kind of surreptitiously pocketing tricorders a few times. It seemed to be like a bunch of tricorders that he pocketed mainly. But his initial defense is like,

I'm not here to steal your stuff. Like, I'm not a relic hunter. I'm not a- That's not the kind of a story and I am. I'm not Lara Croft Tomb Raider. Look at me. I have zero sexual appeal. I'm no Indiana Jones.

Here's the thing. Why don't you let data go inside the ship with me? You can just order data and not to tell you what he sees. Yeah That isn't part of your stolen merchandise. Data's like potential suicide mission sign me up. Yeah So data and res musin pop on board the ship which has a sort of handprint Door lock sensor on it. Yeah, asucin puts his hand on the hull, it opens up the door, and as soon as they go inside,

the door shuts behind it. Well, it's not even a door. It's like a, it's like a, just a solid steel plate, and then there's a door in it, and then they step inside, and the door disappears. There's some, there's some pretty high level

tech at work here, and they get on board, and it's like, it's a, it's a little bit like boarding a jet blue or a Virgin America flight where they've got, they've really gone nuts with the crazy lighting. Yeah, and it's clearly like a 737, so the the the luggage compartments are really low. You just sort of have to crouch around in there. Yeah, and sure enough, there's a tray full of crap or there's like a couple of tricorders. There's a Jordi visor on there, a couple of odds and ends from around the ship and

It made me think how many visors does Jordi have? Yeah. And if you only have one or two, wouldn't wouldn't you really be missing that one? That had to be the thing that that tipped everyone off, right? Also, if you're stealing stuff, wouldn't you just need to steal the replicator pattern for it? Yeah. Yeah, why do you need the actual stuff? I don't get that. That's a dumb plan. It's really dumb. Well, anyways, one of the things he also has is a phaser, and he holds it up to data and

goes on a little monologue about what his real deal is. He is a man from the 22nd century who had the good fortune of being visited by a man from the 26th century. He killed that guy, took his place, and now he pops into the future from time to time. He gets objects, takes him back to his time, puts him out about one a year, and is very rich. If the auto timer is programmed the way I think it is in about two minutes, we should be on our way back to a place called New Jersey. Again, it doesn't make any sense.

It's a terrible way to get rich. I don't understand this plan. It would be... He could time travel to any time. Yeah, why? And he chooses to remain in the past as a rich person. Right. Like if he just took his ship to the 24th century, turned it into the scientist there and said, set me up as a citizen of the Federation, He would live in stupendous, unthinkable wealth. The whole point of the replicator and transporter technologies, you can go wherever you want and you can have whatever you want, whenever you want it.

That is an unthinkable amount of wealth for a guy who is trying to get rich. I think what we're saying here is that Raz Musin is a capitalist and he hates the the communist utopia that is the 24th century and he can't stand it. Yeah, he's a big fan of scarcity. What an asshole. What a fucking brick. Well, the, uh... So, data's like, uh... I'm not going with you.

I'm not going anywhere. Right after... And I know that that fucking hand sensor doesn't need you to be awake for it to work. So... Which is a super bad ass thing to say to him. Yeah. And Rasmussen attempts to phaser him, but the phaser doesn't click on and data takes him out, gives all the crap to war for something and says, yeah, when the door opens, the chip's computer turned that phaser off. So that was a nice try.

And the rest of you seems like, all right, you guys got me. But let me get back on board by ship. It's about to zap out of here. Yeah, and the urgency of the scene and out of him gets incredibly heightened. Yeah. I thought this was the moment in the episode where I felt something. Something, anything? Yeah, something, anything.

Yeah. Yeah, because he's watching the numbers count down on his finger watch and then the ship disappears. How he's fucked. Now he's going to go live in prison instead of just as a stupendously rich federation citizen. And so weird, like even though this scene is like the best scene in the episode, it's also really weird because why didn't data attempt to turn the timer off on the shuttle? Right. There are things worthy of studying on the ship, I'm sure.

And it's not like, I mean, like, the, you know, prime directive be damned. There's like worst case scenario, get it back to its rightful owners in the 26th century and have somebody that can travel to you that is way more advanced than you owing you a favor. You know? And why is everyone trying to Maddox data all the time?

This happens constantly. And it's a strange tension because as much as data wants to die, he definitely doesn't want to be deconstructed and killed that way. He's very specific about his form of death. Weird. Weird death. Did you like it, Adam? My memory of it was far better than the rewatch. I was, I had remembered it fondly and as I was watching it this time around, I just found myself picking it all apart. It ends satisfactorily, I would say, like that, you're basically only playing for that last scene. Right. And in that way, it works. But, scene. Right. And in that way, it works. But boy, it really asks a lot of you up until that point. This is the ninth

episode of season five. And I'm going to say it's our first Turkey, in my opinion. Yeah. And and that's pretty impressive. Like, like, I don't think it's a good a good episode, but I think it's good that we're at this point in the show able to make it nine episodes into a season before we take a shot and miss. If your plot is dependent on people we know to be smart being stupid, then I think you're better off shelving the script and just running a clip show. Yeah, get that clip show device out. Because you're undermining all of the work up until now.

All of the character building up until now has been about making these people competent and smart. And none of the decisions in this episode make any sense. Yeah, I mean, yeah. Absolutely. So by saying that, I'm saying I also did not like the episode. But is it not historically bad? It is not on my Mount Armas. No, yeah, I agree with that also.

I mean, like the performances are fun generally speaking, like a little bit of a shame that that scene with the doctors in there and the only thing Troy gets to do is say he's hiding something. Yeah. You see a little flashing later in a keyboard. Then no, Adam, my keyboard doesn't have any lights built into it. What the fuck are you talking about? Oh, must be this mushroom tea I've been drinking. Why do you see if we have any priority one messages? Oh, I do that by checking my email inbox. Yes and.

Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement only. supplement, supplement. Yes, extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship! Our first priority one message comes from Tania, when it is four Alex, it goes like this. Happy birthday to my husband.

You start-tracked joke made me first fall in love with you. When you said how Kirk always laments, I went to the Academy with his father over the body of a red shirt. That's all it takes to make someone fall in love with you. Hey, Jabba Alex. It's my real charming. Yeah, continues love always to my Kevin Uxbridge. And then parenthesis with the mr. Softie jingle behind

Your native New Yorker and I love hearing you say mr. Softie It sounds like Alex does a Kevin Uck's bridge impression also I would like to hear the the native New Yorker Kevin Uck's bridge Captain Picad I was going up to the Bronx with my real duel Check out the Yankees What the fuck the socks I don't know I don't know any New York things even though I live here God those are two tastes that do not taste great together

Yeah I kind of regret even trying it. Sorry, Taniaing. Alex, I'm sure you can do a better job. Uh, why don't you drop us recording? Maybe we'll play it on the show. That would be fun. That's good enough. Uh, and we have a second priority one message from Lauren from Massachusetts, and it is to Ben and Adam. I guess that must be us. Is Lauren gonna ask us to do a Massachusetts Kevin Uxbridge accent now?

Dear Ben and Adam, thank you for addressing the potted plant issue in regards to Troy and Beverly. It is such a shame that more wasn't done with their characters. Please continue with DS9 and Voyager and for goodness sake, order more women's medium shirts next time. You guys are the best. Oh. Are we sold out of women's medium? I don't know.

I think that those t-shirts are evergreen, so they replenish the stocks when they run out. So check again soon if you go on the max fund store and don't see something that's gonna fit. Are there are there just as many potted plants on the s9 and voyager I wonder like is it gonna get any better I mean she's she's imploring us to continue yeah she's also saying that she hates the potted planetness of this show so I mean she's, she's imploring us to continue. Yeah. She's also saying that she hates the padded planetness of this show, so. I mean, the, the first officer character and the science officer on DS9 are women that have fairly fully realized character traits.

And of course the captain on Voyager's, a lady. I've heard that. Yeah. My, one of my favorites of the, of all of the captains, Captain Janeway. Well, maybe we'll eventually do that program. That'd be fun. That would be fun. Well, thanks for writing in-learned, and thank you for throwing some scarves at us to send

us a couple of comments. If you would like to throw a couple of scarves our way, go to maximumfundatarchslashjumbo-tron. There you can fill out a form to obtain a personal message for a hundred bucks or a commercial message for 200 bucks. It's a great way to support the show and reach out to all of our viewers everywhere. Watch out to all of our viewers everywhere. A greatest-gen live show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post show hangs,

to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it! The Sherry Reembarishment Tour is coming in August 2023 and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's GreatestGenTour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Sherry Reembarishment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris and I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests, and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweards.

Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Non-Giani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are already open, just pull it out, give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard, be dumb instead.

Oh, raps, hey, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line, and boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short neck. But I'm hearing we need to get on this. So gotta get on the arc. It is about terrain, about a spout to destroy humanity.

Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. We're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Kerry? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end,

so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Kerry, available on MaximumFun.org. Hey Ben. What's that, Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda! I did. I think I'm going to give it to the writer of this episode, Rick Berman, who is, you know, a one of the bright lights in the firmament that is people who made Star Trek television a thing.

This episode is like, it forgets major parts of the premise of the series. It forgets to cover its tracks with all these crazy plot holes that are built into it. It's like a pool hustler losing his shirt at the fucking local dive bar. It's crazy. I can't believe how weirdly off this one is. And so for keeping the spirit of TNG alive, to some extent is based in its complete craziness. I think Berman gets it from me. Adam, do you have a schmoto that had a little bit too much to drink? Yeah, I did. And it sort of squicks me out to even call attention to it.

But I think it's sort of consistent with things we call attention to. And that is the unintentional racism of some things that I don't think we have gotten in a couple of seasons. One of the things that... That's an optimistic appraisal by the way. Yeah, that's true. One of the things that Rasmussen does to just sort of aggravate everyone is sort of be a weird cheerleader about their situation. Like he'll find a random crew member.

And like there's a scene in sick bay that illustrates this. Like this guy's on a six bay couch and his leg is just fucked up and there's no story about how it happens and he's like, buck up crewman, like you're gonna be back at him in no time, like to sort of be in real cheesy about his cheerleading. leading. Yeah. And the back end of this scene, he sees a small Asian boy sitting up on the six bay biobad. And he says, keep your eyes wide, soldier. I did not notice that. What the fuck? How did that like I could see that being on the page without having an actor there? But what the fuck is that about? God.

Not a good look. Thumbs down, Star Trek. So I think most of the time we keep our shimotas silly and weird. Yeah. But I don't know. This one, I had to use my Shimoda on something that had to have been called attention to before we got out of the show.

Fair enough. That's a fun note to end on, right? Well, it's not quite the end of the show. Does it get better next week, then? Not sure. The next episode is season five, episode 10, New Ground. Warp learned some painful lessons about parenting when his son, Alexander, arrives to join his father

on the entrepreneur. Do you remember this episode, Adam? Is this, this isn't hot walks on a hot tub, right? Oh no, is this? Well, thanks so. Now, I think this is the first one where Alexander comes back to stay for a while and then Waxana visits later

and that's when we get hot loaf time machine. Ooh, I really hope, because this is like, that is, I don't want to be in specific enough, are they? I don't want to tip my hand at him but I, I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to tip my hand at him, but I just really don't want to have had an opportunity to veto that and not.

Well, it's up to you whether or not you want to take that risk, I guess. Oh. What if it's not that, what the fuck, this, these episode capsules don't tell you anything? Yeah. Yeah, and I wish I could, you're blind and deaf. And you want to shoot your missiles right now?

You can't do that. You can't do that. I don't even, I don't think we have time to try and float the buoy, man. I think that we have to assume that the other subs got taken out. Well, I am positive that Lipin's honor stallions were i think that we have to assume that the other subs got taken out well i uh... i am positive that libyan's on her stallions were born black

and i'm stopping you from the video and this was it this was a good war we need to stage authentication why would you get in the exo must agree you don't have both locking you in the break why would you get on the exo must agree you don't have both i'm locking you in the break why would you get on the other side of me on this one

because the tensile side is the right side oh oh oh oh oh you know what's funny is that's is it's not even gonna be the episode i bet i bet we just wasted them on nothing and it's your fault. It's not mine. Because you didn't want to do the research. This is my fucking boat, Adam. See, see what I've done as I've, I've take, you've handed me your fucking whistle and

I've hooded on around my neck. I'm the captain now. I really like how in that movie they make all of the tension out of Denzel Washington standing there with a, a little like a stopwatch. Yeah. That's like, the most exciting stuff in the movie is him standing with a stopwatch, waiting to tell somebody to do something. Yeah, it's exciting. Almost as exciting as what just happened to us.

God fucking damn it. Yeah. I hope it's not the episode. People listening at home may have noticed that your audio quality just changed at him. Yeah. Don't distract the viewer from the truth of our moment just now. I'm just saying don't call me a bonehead. Oh, geez. Thanks, thanks for that.

Oh, all right, well, we're watching it. That'll be the next episode. In the meantime, if you'd like to tell Adam what a dope is for having the wrong mic set up on his laptop the last couple episodes you can use the hashtag greatest gen on Twitter he's at Cut for Time I'm at Benjamin R A HR there's also Facebook and Reddit groups that you can take part in let's see what can viewers complain to you about Ben maybe wasting a veto unnecessarily why Why are you banning Adam fighting again?

That's another topic. We should thank Adam Ragusia and dark materia for music. And we should tell you that we will be back next time with another great episode of Star Trek the Next Generation, an episode of the greatest generation that if it is floating Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it stop. I'm gonna make it stop. I'm gonna make it stop.

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I'm gonna make it stop. I'm gonna make it stop. I'm gonna make it stop. I'm gonna make it stop. I'm gonna make it stop. I'm gonna make it stop. I'm gonna make it stop. I'm gonna make it stop.

I'm gonna make it stop. I'm gonna make it stop. I'm gonna make it stop. you