The Greatest Generation - A Funereal Disease (S6E3)

Episode Date: April 17, 2017

When an important diplomat and his mother hitch a ride to a peace negotiation, her hostility toward Counselor Troi is palpable. But when the diplomat uses Troi's mind as his mental toilet, leaving the seat up is the least of her concerns. What attracts Craigslist roommates? How big is Worf's knife block? How much white-out did the line producer have? It's the episode that's "Apparently..."-level bad.

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 friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdisotoforlabor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Welcome to the greatest generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm your host, Adam Pranika.

I'm your other host, Ben Harrison. Hey Ben. What's that, Adam? Cards? The game is five cards, the game is exceeding. They're simple. Where does it just start there? Time to pluck a pendulum. Sure, now so are we on to a all competition all the time mode? Yeah, I like to make a competitive now I think.

Let me suggest something for the competition, because there's only three signed cards per box of portfolio prints, but we discovered in the last box that there are also lots of other bonus cards. Right. Do we want to call it a win if you get any hand of bonus card? Yeah, I think that's fair. It also prolongs the bit, so we don't have to keep buying boxes of these cards. They're fucking expensive! Yeah, they sort of are.

Yeah. Alright, you ready to dig in? I'm digging into my first fact. Me too. For those playing at home, these, of course, are the Star Trek Next Generation Portfolio Prince Trading Card Series 2. Hey, I got a good one! on tap. It's code of honor One of the great bad episodes ever. That's so much a good one as a horrible one. Oh

My god, I got a signed card damn it. Are you kidding first pack? Oh? First fucking pack are you serious? Yeah. I have biomelectular physiologist, Zee Ma, who is one of the Moroccan surgeons from Samaritan Sner. Really? Haha. Maybe the minorist of minor characters.

Did this person even have a line? Maybe the minorist of minor characters. Did this person even have a line? God, I don't know. I'd have to look it up. But I'm gonna dig into Zima's film biography here while you're digging for yours. Yeah, I've got a, I've got a, who watches the Watchers and I've got an imaginary friend card. So that's pretty exciting. Oh, I've got a code of honor card here too.

Alright, I'm on to the third pack at him. Holy shit, Zima is a guy with a career. Yeah? Holy shit, he's been in everything. Ma is a guy with a career. Yeah. Holy shit, he's been in everything. He was in a rival. Really? Which I thought was one of the great sci-fi films.

I believe that you and I saw that together with our wives. That's right, and when we came out of the movie, it was Fakes Knowing on S&LA. Yeah, we're in one of those weird malls in LA where they make fake snow during the holidays. That was real magical. I have opened my third package of cards at them, and I have a WAPER of a signed card. Shut up! This card has been personally signed by Spencer Garrett as Simon Tarsus in the drumhead. What? Yeah, I got the uh the guy with the lightly loafed ears. Wow, good get. That is a big card. That's a win. I mean I lost I lost the game but I feel like I snatched a stalemate from the jaws of defeat.

You did. Wow. Good get. Yeah. Good job, I guess. Yeah, this has been a... I like our modified card game. The thing is, the next time we play it, it's gonna take 40 minutes to get to anything special because we're getting these so early. Yeah.

Well, we should the bed at him, we've got to sleep in it. As is the rule, you must sleep in a chat bed. Yeah. Yeah. I think I have an instrumentable lead. That's tough. Like, cumulatively, I think it's four packs, two sign cards for me, and then what is it?

Like, 18 packs, two sign cards for you. You don't have to be a jerk about it, Adam. It all comes out even in the end, right? Does it sound like I'm being a jerk? Maybe I'm a little cranky because this episode made me incredibly cranky. Did it make you feel that way? Um, yeah, I have some feelings about it, Adam.

All right. Should we get into it? I think I would like to counsel you about those feelings. The feelings you have about season 6, episode 3, man of the people. This is becoming a speech. Feel the cat comes to very entitled. man of the people. Well, the entrepreneur starts this episode intervening in an attack that we don't get to see. There's like some bad ships attacking a good ship and the entrepreneur comes in flexing.

And that is enough to scare away the bad ships. They don't wanna take on the enterprise. But then we just cut to the like not moving outside of a fairly boring model of a spaceship. All excitement has been completely done away with. Never to return by the way, Ben. Right. Yeah, and so they've got the captain of this junker on the radio

and he's like, hey, listen. I'd like permission to transport two of our passengers to your ship. And it would be great if you guys could take him because we can't defend ourselves and people are going to keep attacking us. Again, this is happening via non-face time. This is like a standard.

This is like a Skype call without the video function turned on. It's FaceTime audio, which is almost a contradiction in terms. I'm a little surprised they didn't call this episode budget constraints. Because... Because the entire time they're making very specific choices here. Yeah, even the loaf is cheap in this episode. Some cheap-ass, diner loaf. Yesterday's loaf been.

So yeah, the deal is like this guy that was under attack is a negotiator. He's a bit of a ginger Jesus type. He's going to a planet to try to negotiate a truce between two factions that are on the verge of a hot war. There's been some kind of scattered conflict and it's a problem for the Federation because it's taking place in a shipping route that the Federation likes to use. So they're pretty keen to get this guy to where he's going so that he can talk some sense into everybody. I don't feel like Picard ever gets a fomo about these diplomatic missions, even though he's

shuddling around a bunch of mediators from place to place. Like, we're sort of told that Picard is the king when it comes to diplomacy. Right. Not even he wants to watch this episode, you know? He's barely in it. He doesn't want to take on this mission himself. He's pretty satisfied fearing a diplomat to and fro. Yeah, this guy beams on board with his mom, his aging mother, and she steps off the

transporter pad and is just immediately super, super rude to Councillor Troy. What did you say? Who has gone down there to greet them? She lights in the Councillor Troy, like from the pad too, so she's like really high and tall and has basically bent at the waist screaming at her. Sit down and shut up! Yeah. What's weird about this scene isn't so much

that the mom be crazy, but it's that the son like does basically nothing to explain away like what is really socially not a great scene. What? Or is I killed a bunny? You know, like he does not defend her, really? He doesn't explain away what she's doing. And that's the thing that got my antenna up.

It's like Mark's dad being a big time prick to Dobby at the Christmas table in a peep show. I think Dobby was totally justified in leaving. There you go, peep show and again. Ben, how's the Peep in? These aliens don't really have loaf. They just have some like henna tattoos on their foreheads. Yeah.

And it kind of looks like the costume department just took out like a brown Crayola marker and we're like, this was kind of what you would look like if you were a Klingon. Who is that kid from the Adam's family with the makeup to Widows Peak? It's sort of like Widows Peak loaf. It's sort of like a Paul Ryan amount of Widows Peak.

Yeah. Paul Ryan amount of political credibility. Yeah, yeah. So this guy is like, well, I think we better put mom to bed. So they just sort of shuffle off to the condo to be shown the food replicator by whoever's willing to show it to them. Yeah. We come back and Picard is having like a three-way meeting with the negotiator guy, Alcar, and then like an admiral who is, uh, who's face-timing in. And, um, I always feel like these meetings like are more awkward than is worth putting up with for them, you know? Yeah. Going to the, into the conference room and they'd like, insist on doing it as a video conference because like the LA office

wants to see what's going on You never get the first minute and a half of these which is like all right, can you hear me like yeah? I can see you but I can't hear you Maybe turn the turn the camera a little to your left. Yeah, actually just move your seat Just move your seat. That would be better. It would have been more realistic if they had like, Jordy, like crawling around under Picard's desk, like trying to unplug and re-plug everything. Maybe the computer shuts down because you have 32 megabytes of ram

and you're trying to run a program and takes 128th to function smoothly. X-lacks. If people come in here and they change things, they're not supposed to change things. Oh, by the way, you're welcome. The laptop that Picard has that he's using for this purpose is a real piece of shit. Like, they don't punch in on the screen. Instead, you see screen and side screen for this. And you really need to put the keyboard upside down and blow it out with the

air can. It's looking real crusty. Gross. Yeah. That's no bueno. Yeah. He's the captain. He should be able to get a new keyboard. Yeah. IT department on the entrepreneur is really not providing the latest and greatest to the staff. If Barclay was your IT guy, you'd put it off too. Well, the admiral takes the position that, yes, technically we could pass you off to any other transport ship, but that would have to be putting their life in danger too, because everybody wants you dead Alcar. So we're going to go ahead and take responsibility for getting you to where you're going, and the enterprise is going to be your Uber for the evening.

What's unfortunate about the evening's plans is that Alcar's mom dies in them. In maybe the least dramatic fashion. So Alcar goes to Warf yoga and it wraps up and he's having a nice hang with Troy. She drops him off at his quarters and his mommy comes out and Continues her campaign of rudeness And Troy goes to like kick it to riker like hey like she frightens me will and and the way that Troy describes his mom is like malevolent which is like way that Troy describes his mom is like, malevolent, which is like, you know,

when you have a disagreement with a relative or whatever, you'll say you don't like them or you don't get along with them or whatever, but that's a pretty big description of someone malevolent evil. One of my best friends from high school, I one time Took a walk with them and told them I thought that his girlfriend was no good for him and that I thought that should break up I should have used that term. I feel like I would have been easier to get my point across

I love the idea that your description was insufficient to get him to do it, but if you had only used malevolent evil, it might have stuck. Yeah, yeah, I mean, like, you know, he did it like six months later. I feel like I could have saved him a lot of grief if I had just, you know, had the courage of my convictions and used the words that I really meant. That's not a great line for your bio. 420 friendly, no drama, malevolent evil. It attracts a very narrow sort of partner, doesn't it? Yeah, or Craigslist roommate.

Yeah, I would argue it attracts most Craigslist roommates. Yeah, so they are, it's one of these like, now cliche, imzadi, courtesy calls, where joy is kind of saying like, oh, I kind of want to bone down with the ambassador. Just wanted to let you know also, I think, his mom is horrible. And they get a radio that his mom has bought the farm. Alcar's mom has died in a sort of mummy position

in which her four arms are just sticking out. Yeah, it's like did she freeze the death or did she just die? She's looked dead the whole time though. So they really have to run a tricorder over her to confirm that. Yeah, they cast a very old-looking woman. She is like the gypsy woman from the movie Thinner. Like, she is a real creep show.

Like, great casting slash great makeup on her. Like, I thought the whole deal was suitably terrifying. Yeah, and she performs it like beautifully. I mean, she is just as frightening as she needs to be. Yeah, at like the entire time I was expecting her to wake up and start screaming again. Like, that's how scary I found her. Alkar and Troy walk off and he's like, gosh, I'm really bummed out.

Do you wanna help me with something? Because you and me were at empaths. We're the only two people on the ship that can do this. There's an important funerial right that my culture would perform right now. And if you can do me a solid, you know, I can put this ugly episode behind me and get on with my work. So she goes into his condo and they touch rocks and in a moment later she's got a funeral

disease. I said a funerial disease. Ben. Ah, yeah, no. The studio audience and I heard you the first time and they chuckled and now they're not so happy. Now. They seem upset at him. Are you saying boo, boorons? Boor!

Yee. I don't know how they got in here with those pitchforks and torches, but I'm getting a little worried. You know, it sucks that we live in a society where a contemporary woman should not go into a stranger's apartment and do funeral things with them without suspecting that something fucked up is about to happen. And at the same time, shouldn't you not go into the Strangeman's apartment to touch rocks if you don't know exactly

what the funeral right is going to involve? Like she doesn't even ask really what it's about, but she's down. Yeah, it's just being very like helpful and accommodating and he really takes advantage of it. I don't wanna victim blame, Ben. Like it sounds like a victim blaming, but what a more getting at is like, shouldn't there be?

Shouldn't there be like a policy? Yeah, that's an option. Yeah, I mean, like a lot of things on this ship, I feel like there's some security concerns that are just never addressed. Because it sure seems like aliens in this universe are constantly trying to take over your body. Fairly constantly, several times a year.

You can expect an alien possession. I mean, Troy's been taken over just three weeks ago. Yeah, so they touched the rocks, and she kinda looks up at him in shock, right? Yeah, it's not like she was blown back or anything. No, she doesn't get a butt injury or anything, but she doesn't or anything. No, she doesn't get a butt injury or anything, but she doesn't say anything. It's like not entirely clear what that shock is about. Is she like, is she being taken over or is she like realized that something weird

just happened? What's the deal? What do you, what, how did you interpret that moment? Well, that's part of the fun, Ben. They, they, they don't show you very much, so they keep you guessing. The B storyline is that the doctor is very keen on cutting open Alcar's mommy. She wants to get in there, get up in them guts at him. She's real excited to give a Y incision to an old person. I feel like you could probably just use a plastic piece of cutlery from a takeout container. The tensileary strength of her flesh is pretty reduced, is that what you're saying?

That's what I'm getting at, man. Yeah, she's tenderized. Yeah, the doctor is like, she's like, this is just so weird. Like she died for no reason. What the fuck is happening here? And she was like. And what's another thing about her death

is did you notice that Alkar is in the back like hands tented just sort of watching her dispassionately? That was another weird thing like his mom just died in front of him and she's like well she was an oldie but goodie. They don't make him like that anymore. After my work. Yeah, he's like it it says, it says, it's kind of been passing like,

oh, she was super sick. I feel bad about having even brought her on board, but oh well. Yeah. It's your mom, dude. Her sickness manifest into just being a total B to Deanna Troy at all times. The captain is like, hey, like unfortunately,

you can't wine incision this old bat because Alcar strictly forbid it. We have no alternative, but to concur with his wishes. She's like, well, okay. So we cut to Troy and she's doing some like, some cling on yoga by herself. And she is, this is a wordless scene where she is just having a sexy time. Like she's checking herself out in the mirror.

She's like loosening up the neckline on her yoga key. I really feel like you could rescore this scene with a David Coverdale late 80s, early 90s, like synth rock song. Yeah. Like because it plays like a music video. Yeah, and she's, uh, this is maybe like the most sexiest stuff we've seen since the Edo planet. Like she's really getting a lot of skin on display. Yeah. since the Edo planet, like she's really getting a lot of skin on display. Like, and by the time she leaves, she's like, you know, like button popped off.

She's gonna give Lloyd Braun the wrong idea type of a situation. It's clear something's up with her. But what has it been? Will we ever know? Well, that's the thing. I think that the thing I wondered in these early scenes is how taken over is she? Is she feeling like she's Troy, but she's just got a real lady boner for Alcar? Because she does do some Troy stuff. She has a therapy session, and it's not totally acting like herself, but she's also not totally not acting like herself, she's not deep voice Troy.

She's a little meaner than normal. That seems a little out of character. There's a mom hair in there, but like a youthful mom hair on the couch. She's got some complaints about a coworker. It seems as though Lieutenant Pinder just doesn't want me in his section. And Troy basically gives her the, do you even know how boring you sound right now? Maybe this is all your fault. Maybe you don't belong here. Maybe you should transfer to the hood.

Maybe that's more your speed youthful mom hair. Yeah, and it really like takes her apart. But I love being on the enterprise. This mom hair woman is like, oh God, I had no idea I was this insufferable to be around. I think maybe I'll consider a transfer. And she like, I love that they leave this hanging,

like this is never resolved. I would love to have come back to her later. Just seeing her filing the paperwork for transfer. Yeah, she's packing up all of her shit She's the Simon Tarsus of this episode the kind of innocent innocent that gets that gets their career ruined by What's happening to the rest of the ship? You can tell that the burn is so sufficient because she thanks Troy for it, too Like she's so fucked up by it, by the end. She's like, thank you.

Yeah, Troy has become the dumb in their relationship. Yeah, pretty rugged. Yeah. There's a whole bunch of fun and games like this. There's the time when Troy picks up a 19 a 19 year old Ensign on the on the elevator. There's like, you know, Riker showing up at her apartment to try and get some work done. And she's in like the most outrageously sexy.

I don't know. Is that like a night gown with no back? Or is it supposed to be a dress or what? It looked like one of those impossible dresses that people buy but never wear. Like you buy that dress but I don't know what occasion you wear that dress for. Yeah. I mean, I do feel like at its core this episode is a little slut-shamey. Like it's like, oh like Troy is bad because she's being so sexy all the time and having having sex with people, like, and that's bad, bad, bad. Yeah, there's like a ratio of Troy weaponizing her job, and then Troy weaponizing her sexuality,

and there are far more weaponized sexuality scenes than there are with the job weaponization. Yeah, and that would have been a much more interesting episode, I think, if, if, I mean, she has this very privileged role in the ship where she counsels the captain and counsels the crew. It really fucks some people up as counselor. Yeah, I mean, she could, she could instigate some major morale problems on the ship by

just like, like planting little seeds. Yeah. Morale problems on the ship by just like like planting little seeds. Yeah, but but instead it's it's her slinking into 10 forward in the dress that Marty McFly's mom wears in biftonon's casino. Yeah, and you know like the effect is sort of the same. I felt like I felt sad when I saw Marty's mom in that dress. Yeah. In the second back to the future movie. And I felt, I felt a little sad in this scene because you know that she is under some sort of possession because she's treating her friends like shit.

Yeah. And she's acting all out of sorts. And I felt bad for her, especially because she likes this dingdong. Like she's totally obsessed with Alkar. She doesn't want him hanging around with other dudes. She doesn't want him hanging around with the one female associate that he works with. She's starting to turn into his mom. What did you say? Yeah, she's slowly but surely.

I mean, for a lot of people, that's what they're into. It doesn't seem like Alcar's down, though. Yeah, he's being a little cold over there. So we should talk about the doctor's little project. At some point, she's down in engineering and she's comparing the transporter logs to the readings that she got off of Alcar's mommy. And they like don't make any sense, right? She has aged a ton in the three days that she was on board before she bought the farm. But yeah, so she's like, well, this is pretty much clinches it. Like, something is up here, and I want to get to the bottom of it, and I want to do this fucking out topsy, and I wish everybody would stop like standing in my way.

Topsy and I wish everybody would stop like standing in my way. She gets like four scenes throughout the episode where she's like tangentially in conversations but inserting the Topsy thing into it. Like, yeah. God, I'd love to help you out with this engineering problem but I feel like performing in Topsy would also be useful. Yeah, she's like, you guys know how you have like tons of game tape on me being a very ethical doctor, right? Let me make the call in this one, okay? She starts wearing the Moroccan surgical uniform around just to be ready. Yeah, yeah. Oh, this, oh, this old thing.

Yeah. Oh, this, oh, this old thing. It's actually quite comfortable. More comfortable than you'd think. Yeah. It's very stretchy, breathable fabric. Mine smells like Polasky. My love is a piece of clothing to my back, which long enough has let me see. Tell me more, you're not the boy there. And then eventually, like, Alcar comes into, like, Skulltroy and, uh, and she's gone from, she's gone from Elvira to, like, Tapanca Canyon mom vibes.

She's like, she's like, uh, the kind of mom that cultivates some high grade marijuana in the backyard. I don't know how we were so simpatico on that reference, but I was totally gonna tag that joke with the mom who starts smoking weed and then starts growing weed and then starts selling weed. Like she's just retired from her schoolteacher job and she starts dabbling, but then she really likes it. Stop dying her hair. Yeah. Yeah. Why do we both know?

That's not for the pot, but it's funny that we both know them. It's a like, I guess they've like pulled up at this planet where this, where this problem is happening. So Alcar and his homies head off to, to do their piece negotiation and, um, Troy comes into the, into the transporter room as they're, as they're trying to leave and she has like full face burlap at this point. It's hard to see her like this. Yeah. It's hard to see her like this, not because she has aged,

but because she has aged this way, which is real cakey. Yeah, I mean, it's like, like there's something wrong with this show and aging people. I feel like they just reused the same loaf that they put on Deforest Kelly in episode one on her. They've had it in cold storage. And they're like, oh yeah, we've got some age loaf.

We'll put that on the bar beside us for. They just put the loaf in that liquid. Yeah. They take it out, dry it off, put it on, and paint it down to take on Troy's new tan. It really goes to show how much aging makeup technology has advanced over the years, because now it would look great, but good Lord.

Seriously, so she comes in with a knife and she's like, I won't let her have you. And Picard gets in the way, gets, you know, gets a little flesh wound on his shoulder and the lady transport her chief as to come, come out and put Troy in a full Nelson until the security team can show up. Where'd she get that knife? I don't know. That kind of looked like a wharf knife, right? It did. Picard's super lucky that it didn't have poison on it. That's what I'm saying. I would have loved to a senior swipe that off of his counter. She pulls it out of his kitchen, like wharf's knife block has got to be the size of a mini fridge. Like, it's just enormous. There's like a batlet in it. There's all the poison knives.

There's the knife where you hit the button and the blades pop out. That's a fun clinging on knife. That's probably good for fish, right? Orf is gotta like, like if warp gets up in the middle of the night and is like looking around in a drawer for something, that's some pretty dangerous shit, right?

Yeah. Victorinox by Vibrox. A warrior's knife. Gerber, a baby's knife. Yeah, yeah, God. a baby's knife. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha They sort of imply in this episode that he teaches a yoga class every day. Yeah, at 700 too. Like, that's a wake up and get after it's sort of time. Yeah, yeah. That's like a, like, warp really has a lot to prove to everybody.

Oh, yeah, I'm the chief of security. I'm also up at the crack of fuck every day teaching you how to do yoga. What we don't get in this scene is worth taking extra time with, with some of people like that's good Doris, but we need to do bandit your ways. Try to try to keep up ready. If this is too advanced for you, you can rest in child's pose and join us at the next cycle. Yeah, I feel like if Warf really taught yoga, it would just be all like, warrior one, warrior two, warrior three, reverse warrior, warrior two, warrior one, warrior two, warrior three. Yeah, and with just that bit of headcan and we know exactly why War Flubs yoga so much. Well, in the, I guess in 6 Bay, Beverly is like, I mean, with what has happened to Troy,

Beverly has convinced the captain to look past Alcar's wishes and let her do the Y incisions. She's been so keen on. So she's going to get up in them guts. So kicking them guts like the gardener. And the card beams down to the planet with Worf to tell Alcar, he's like on to him. And he's basically pulled Alcar out of the piece negotiations and is like, dude, we know you fucked something up with Troy

and we're gonna take you back to the ship and you're gonna explain to us what happened. And Alcar is totally unrepentant about this. He's like, yeah, no, I killed her. And usually my receptacle survived for years. Like she died so that this piece negotiation that could happen. His explanation is like breathtakingly dark.

He's like, yeah, so anyways, I gathered these women and I dumped my mental waste products into them. Like all of the negative energy and emotions that I have, I just take a great big dump into their brains. That way... Yeah, it calls them his receptacles. receptacles. Yeah, that just sort of frees me up to be a great diplomat.

I'm sure you've noticed sort of a great diplomat I am. Everyone says it. Everyone says I'm the greatest diplomat, but what I do is I shit on everyone around me, and that's what makes me feel so great. Ugh, he's a psychopath. Mental waste products is what he refers to them as. Yeah.

I think it also at one point in this little exegesis, he explains that the Trump grill makes the best taco bowls. It's interesting to consider like the catalog of mental waste products because if you think back to what came earlier in the episode, Troy's demonstrable emotions were sexual and sociopathic, I guess. But like jealousy, rage, and sex. Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of different negative emotions that I sort of wish that we had gotten. Right.

And also like, it is so telling that sex is a negative emotion in the world of this episode. Yeah, yeah, it's true. Raker would never dump sex into somebody else. Not unless they wanted it. I mean, this is an episode that shows basically nothing. It shows glowy stones touching and it ages Troy. But it asks you to head cannon a lot of this and it's some pretty terrible head cannon.

Yeah. Is this guy one of the most evil people on the show so far? I kind of feel like he is. He's eviler than he is played to me and I feel like that's a level of subtlety that we don't often get. Yeah, he isn't arch. Yeah, I mean, he's an antagonist that is not necessarily like designed as one.

Right. But the scene ends with Picard going like, you're coming with me, Bub, Bookham Warfo, and the camera like swings over to Warf and Warf is having his dustbuster removed from his pocket by a couple of tuffs from the planet. How did Worf let these guys get the drop on him? Like, you know how police officers have a gun holster

where the gun can only be removed by the person wearing the holster? Like that's modern technology. And Worf doesn't have that. by the person wearing the holster, like that's modern technology. And Worf doesn't have that. He's just, he's got a Velcro to his pocket. The continuing adventures of Worf Roshanko, not great security officer. Yeah.

I mean, you gotta know that if you don't show up to the drop at least an hour early, then somebody might get the drop on you. Yeah. And he does need, like, he's got two guys in perfect back fist range. Yeah. I was expecting him to do one of those, like, double back fist moves. Yeah. Doesn't do it.

That would have been good. Well, you know, they've basically been like, they've been 86 from this planet and you go back to the entrepreneur and Dr. Crusher has a pretty bold plan. Our idea is that they are going to medically kill Troy for up to 30 minutes and then that will force Alcar to like start dumping into somebody else. So as long as they can get him to do the dump within that 30 minutes, they can bring Troy back and then they can like arrest him or stop him from doing whatever he's doing. The crew agrees with this plan because Diana Troy's character has been in a persistent vegetative state for most of six seasons.

They're like, yeah, I mean, it's pretty much a lateral move at this point, right? Yeah. Well, they put the plan in action. Alcar's like coming out of the negotiation chest puffed out because he's like gotten, gotten the piece achieved. And he takes like a stumble. And Betty Draper is there with him and she's like, oh man, you're exhausted. And he's like, oh, something's wrong.

And Picard, my emotional toil, it's plugged. Do you, you don't have to have a plunger? So Picard radios down and he's like, hey asshole, I got your receptacle. Come and get it. And Alcar comes up, they do a, they do like a little stage to like, you know, mark down the time of death moment when he comes into Six Bay. Yeah. And he had Betty Draper head off to his quarters and he's like, oh man, I feel terrible about this. Do you want to do death ritual with me? The only thing that makes me feel good after seeing death is death ritual.

God attached these stones. Yeah. There's something so funereal about it. So he whips them out, whips out them stones, and he and Betty Draper are like getting ready to do it, and they're dialing Troy in. They're like cleansing her system of all the bad feces that he's dumped into her. They get her back to within range of normal and they revive her. And suddenly Alkar is in major distress.

He was so tantalizingly close to touching stones. And it's hard to tell if his initial distress is about being so close and being unable to finish, or if the trough switch being hit is the thing. But he is in a terrific amount of pain. Yeah. And the wharf that's been posted outside of his door, bursts in to find him in a progressively aging state. Yeah.

And then to wharf cut to him, cut to wharf cut to him and he's like getting older and older. They beamed Betty Draper out of there, like right before he could grab on to her. And, uh, and yeah, like Troy is, Troy is like morphing younger while he morphs older. He manages to stumble

and flail around this room a lot without going through any glass tables. That was a huge surprise to me. I know. Maybe the union has like really strengthened their position at the negotiating table. It feels like on this show, you don't fall over

and hit the ground without hitting a table first. Like if someone notices you falling, someone will push a glass table in front of you to break your fall. someone will push it glass table in front of you to break your fall. Yeah, his loaf is even cheaper and more upsetting than choice is because it's on screen less so they like didn't they didn't quite work it out Yeah in the same way

Boy, it's rough Yeah, luckily you don't see too much of him before he's off screen. I love Warf here, like making no attempts to save his life. No. Just sort of watches him fall, looks to the ceiling, taps his communicator and goes, Ambassador, all cars dead. So the button on the episode is a newly-youthified Troy in her quarters with Riker, having the conversation we've all had after we've been too fucked up, which is like, oh, I have a feeling I did some bad things. Tell me I wasn't too bad level bad. Yeah, exactly. And Rikers like, well, you are a real mess.

I'll be honest with you, but I'll love you till the end of time, till you're old and gray anyway. You could do no wrong in front of me, babe. Yeah, that was nice of him. Yeah, that's true friendship right there. Did you like this episode Adam? Ben before we

turned on the mics for this one I was convinced that this was my least favorite episode of the series. Whoa It was so bad But like talking through it with you made it seem like a lot more fun than it actually was. Uh-huh. Like, I feel like this is one instance.

One of the rare instances I'm sure, where the pod is better than the show. But good lord, was it awful. There may be an explanation for this though. Would you like to hear it? Oh, no. Did you do research again, Adam? I did. But this research is incredibly germane to this conversation. So relics, the next episode was supposed to be in this episode slot. But they pushed it back as Jimmy Duin had like a scheduling conflict or something like he had a he had a convention to do So they had a card table and signed people's headshots of him Yeah, so what they did is they played telephone on the episode they had five writers right five acts

And then they frank and scripted it together, which is why all the act breaks are so fucked up and then they frank and scripted it together, which is why all the act breaks are so fucked up. Like that's a major thing. Every act ends and begins in a totally fucked up way. Yeah. So that's why it doesn't feel like there's a lot of continuity, like either in story or energy that goes through it. Yeah, there's just a lot of continuity problems in general

with this one. Like the pips were all over the place on everybody's uniforms. Like, I feel like the design of the aliens seemed super rushed. Like, they came up with his costume and then they were just like, everybody has the same costume. Like, they all have the white scarf that's like tightly tied under a tunic. That's what they wear. Yeah. unsurprisingly

Brandon Braga said that One of his favorite parts of the show. He was enjoyable to see Troy acting strange and dressing in skimpy outfits class act Brandon Braga. Thanks Brandon Good job by you. What kind of name is Brandon? Someone undeserving of the D I guess That one won't make the show. Why not? Did you like the episode, Ben? No, I mean, I concur that it was a fun one to zing on with you, but watching it, I found, I watched it in three sittings. I got bored and took my dog for a walk

and then it didn't really hold my attention. We sure are getting a lot of Troy falls in love with the wrong person storylines. Yeah, we are. They are really going back to that well. She could be such an interesting character, right? Like, we talked about it before. Like, if she weaponized her job a little more, the destruction that would cause, that's fun.

That would've been real fun. But no, if you're Brandon Braga, you got to stick her into some dresses and sex her up. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Good times. Well. See if James Haherwood finds her missing button in the lost and found. Yeah.

Well, one area where we always get the D-bannis. He wants. You want to check our messages? Let's check them. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement only. A supplement? A supplement.

A supplement. Yes, extra. I need a supplement on top of the month. Stopp on the month. Stopp on the month. Yeah, it's extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. All right, Ben. Our first priority on message is of a personal nature. It is from Liz in DC. And parenthetically, Liz says, do a live show here, maybe. And it's for Ben and Adam Adam and the greatest gen online community. Ben, I think it's no secret that

we've talked about touring the show again on the East Coast this time. I think DC is definitely on that list. DC is one of our biggest towns. Come and see us Liz, when we get a date down, I think it's almost assured that we're gonna be there We're thinking like end of summer is probably our window for our next tour and We're talking about hitting a bunch of cities in the Midwest and on the East Coast and I think I think it's fair to Assume that we will be within striking distance of DC on that tour. Yeah All right, the message goes like this, it's for you, me, and everyone else.

Thank you so much for this podcast and the community that is sprung up around it. I literally loathe on a regular basis, and I need that. My grandmother recently died after a long illness and this podcast has helped me when I've needed distraction. Please don't do Kevin or Pekasbi in her honor. She'd be horrified.

I don't know what to do here Adam. Liz, I want you to know that I'm especially good at eulogies. Because you see, I've watched a great many people die. I had to give exactly 40 billion eulogies When my planet was exterminated by the hushnecks You see a father has to eulogize People that pass away and wouldn't there's 40 billion people to add in and you're the only one still around

Rudee the only thing you can do is stand in that position for all of them the whole Liz we're very sorry about the passing of your grandmother quite sincerely but um we hope that those impressions give you some comfort and some humor during this difficult time. Knowing your grandmother will not be hearing these awful, awful impressions we thought we take that anger with you. So hopefully that did not offend. Please come say hi when we come to your town.

Yeah, we'll see you at the end of the summer. And we have another priority one message here. It's from Jason with the good hair and a Y. That's Jason with a Y. And it is too, the only Sherry I've ever taken to. Ha! Is that a reference to something I said? I think so.

No, the Sherry enthusiast. Jason, Benjamin Ardharrison. Well, here's the message. Well, I guess you shot first, but I think it's a trap. This is not the P1 you're looking for, but may the Force be with you anyway. Wait, that's not Star Trek. Anyway, your scarf collection will be so valuable in the future. Why, you might have enough to buy that ship?

Let's hope for a Boston live show. Come up and we'll get you Shimoda-faced. Whoa. We don't have any control over the timing of these messages. Those are controlled by the mother ship at MaxFundHQ, but that's fun. Two different P1s were live show references.

I love Boston. I can't wait to go back. We'll be in both places and probably several others also. Yeah, yeah. Thanks, guys. If you have any tour ideas or any other messages you'd like to give to friends or family, you can go to maximumumFun.org slash.

Jumbo Tron, personal messages or $100 and bin, there's also a commercial option for $200 where viewers can bring attention to their various projects or works. Right, if you would like to get your message out to like literally 30,000, 40,000 people and you have 200 bucks to spare for it. We got you. 40,000 very specific kinds of people. Yeah. Called niche marketing at them. Yeah.

Yeah, narrow that band. P1s, maximumfund.org slash jumbo tron, fill out a quick and easy form we'll read it on the air just for you. Thanks guys. Thank you. Hey Ben. What's that Adam? Were you able to restrain your emotional shit enough to find a drug Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda!

You gotta hold it in Ben sometime. Hold it in, Ben, sometimes. Hold it in. I had a Shimoda in the hands of the dead, as episode, because I don't know if you noticed this, but the lady that turns out not to have been Alcar's mom, but one of his receptacles. When she dies, we talked about how her hands

are frozen in place. When Alcar goes down, his hands do the same thing. Yeah. Yeah, what's up with that? I feel like that was the one piece of direction that the director was able to give. But now when you die, don't get all cartoony, but I'm gonna need you to mummify those arms.

It's such a specific choice, and it is not addressed. Yeah, yeah. What's up with that? Weird. What do you think they do with those stones? They get a destroyum, right? Those are really powerful stones. Blow those fuckers out the airlock. That's what I'm saying. Give those things the alien queen treatment.

You think the next person who's that condo is like, uh, Hey, this is pretty nice. That's, that's pretty soft. Yeah. Replicator works pretty well. What are these things? Yeah, it's like, those little balls that you're supposed to twist in your hands for stress relief? Anytime you check into an Airbnb, you get the lay of the land. You definitely look in the cabinets and see what kind of a place it is. You definitely mess with the balls if they're available. Ben, my Shimoda definitely goes to Turbo Lift Guy, but not in the Turbo Lift scene with Troy.

Troy, well, experiencing her weaponized sexuality. She's been recently rebuffed by Alcar, and she stomps out of his condo into the Turbo Lift and finds another person for her to lay her eyes on. This man is an extra from the Inglorious Bastards movie. He is from like third rike central casting, like sort of troublingly rikish, I would say. She drags them back to her quarters and then we get a scene where Riker walks in and sort of comes upon him

as he was leaving and, oh boy, like, could you imagine following the act that is Riker? Yeah. That's tough, man. That's tough stuff. And he's like an instant. Yeah. Like, commander Riker walks in and you're with his ex. Now, this guy had some 90s hair.

This was like a beautiful time in the 90s for a certain kind of person. Because I think this is his real hair, but it looks like hair plugs. So there was like a window of like three years where you could get hair plugs and just be like, no, this is, this is the look I'm going for. You got to believe me. Sometimes I will wash my hair and not put any product in it and forget and I'll walk around all day and my hair will just be a fucking fris ball. That's what this guy's hair looks like. He's just owning the frizz. There's something going on with the frizz on this, on this show right now. Yeah. But the last episode, we had tons of barkly frizz, tons of column meanie frizz.

You could make the argument that hair and makeup is striking right now, and we just don't know it. Yeah. They're trying to get by. Hair and makeup is striking, but they've made a deal with the glass table people. You know what's great is when you go on strike,

you can have the glass tables do the picketing for you. Yeah. Because they'll work really long hours. Yeah. They do not complain at all. No. As long as there's no clingsons going through them.

Yeah. They're pretty happy. 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 spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you.

And come here on 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. Whoa, rats.

Hey, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in mine. 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 I gotta get on the art.

It is about terrain, thought is about 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 Carrie?

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 to by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun and Outdoor. The next episode is season 6, episode 4, Relics.

Trapped in limbo for 75 years, Star Trek's Scotty awakens to join the next generation in the 24th century. Do you remember this episode Adam? I do remember this episode. This is a this is an old timer Adam. It's supposed to be. I wonder if it holds up. I have very fond memories of this episode. I am excited to see it.

I wonder if it's one finger short of a whole set. That one's not going to make the episode either. I've been really talking for the edit lately. Yeah, we sure am. Yeah, I'm excited to see this. This has got some good, some good, trek science happening. It's like some peak sci-fi stuff. Yeah, it's very like, like this is what Trek can do,

kind of stuff. Well, that'll be our next episode. Ben, one thing that never gets old, is our chatty our viewers are on Twitter using the hashtag greatest gem, where on there is at Cut for time and and at Benjamin R. A.H.R. We've got Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram.

Yeah, I will probably not have been as active on all of those as I typically am because as you are hearing this, I am most likely just re-entering the United States for my long trip abroad. So, get back in there, get in the mix. I want to catch up. And I don't know, I just really enjoy our communities and engaging with them. Yeah, you're going to be gone for like three weeks. Yeah, it's going gonna be a long trip. I'll do my best to keep the light on for you. Keep the conversational torch lit.

Keep the talking stick moving around the room. Keep the motel six that is our online community. Open and ready for business. Keep my mental waste products from dumping on too many people. Well, that's something I'm looking forward to being back in the mix Adam. Yeah. I'm sure you'll do a great job while I'm a lot. I'll do my best.

We should thank Turk Materia for our theme of music and Adam Ragusia for all of the other music. I should thank the great folks at Maximumfund.org for their support. And everybody that donates through Maximumfund.org slash donate, everybody that leaves a nice review on iTunes. People who are nice enough to buy awesome glassware and t-shirts We're almost due for another t-shirt bin. Yeah, we should think about that Yeah, no, we've got some cool stuff in the works for our tour, but those will be tour exclusive joints right

It's gonna be fun. I'm excited to tour again Are you gonna get you gonna get back from being overseas and we're gonna take you right back on them in the road again. You're gonna be road weary. Well, with that Adam, we will be back at you next time. Another great episode of Star Trek, the next generation. And an episode of the greatest generation that is drinking green stuff. Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture. Artist-owned Listener Supported