The Greatest Generation - A Honda Del Sol-Type Starship (S4E12)

Episode Date: November 16, 2016

Now that we’re finally into the meat of the series, we can really start digging into what matters most about Star Trek: The Next Generation: O’Brien and Keiko’s weird marriage. Why have they never talked about what foods they like? What does the Chief even like about Keiko? Why is she marrying him when his career is clearly in the sonic toilet? It’s the episode where we keep up with the Cardassians.

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 friendsofdecisoto for labor.com. That's friends of Disoto 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 a Star Trek podcast by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed. I have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison

with your hosts. I'm Adam Pranaka, another host. We should get some more hosts. Yeah, my my intro sort of left it open to the idea of another host. Who do we bring in? Well Wheaton. Whatever decision we made, people would hate it. Yeah, I feel like it would either be hated or loved. People have gotten used to us, I think. I met Mark Gagley-Arardi the other day. Gags.

Of we got this. He was really nice. Those guys have had Will Wheaton on their show. Was this at the costume party that you attended? Yeah. It was Mark Gagliardi, trust us. I didn't ask him. I think maybe like a sweetie Todd thing or something like that. That's tough man. When you're at a costume party and someone is dressed up as something, you don't want to ask them who they are, right? Like you want the costume to be good enough to have told you itself. Well, here's the thing.

It seemed to be a very good costume. Like it was like real stuff. It wasn't the cheapest polyester thing imaginable. It wasn't a polyester suit with black and white stripes called juice demon because they didn't license beetle juice. It was like a real costume. So I feel like that's even more hurtful, you know? Yeah.

Like Stuart Wellington from the Flap House was dressed as a Jalian mate, you know? Obvious costume. Dan McCoy was there. He was dressed as Sherlock Holmes and he had the full beard, the data rocks. So I was like, are you data on the Holodic as Holmes or are you homes?

And he turned and walked away. Yeah, pretty much. If I hadn't, if I hadn't, you know, crowded him into a corner so that I could breathe on him, that's what it would have been. Well, Halloween stuff, super timely with this episode. Yeah. People are really going to appreciate that.

Should we get into this and get off this stay-alas topic? Why don't we? Let's turn it on over to season 4, episode 12. The wounded and Ben, this is the beginning of Star Trek O'Brien, a brand new show that we didn't know we started last week. The Enterprise is doing some mapping near the Cardassian sector and this is the first time we're hearing about Cardassians. Yeah, if they were so important, why have we heard about them until now? Yeah, exactly.

Another much like the last episode we did, there's a lot of retroactive continuity at play in this episode. And furthering of the storyline that O'Brien and Kiko never met before they got married, because there's an opening scene where O'ayan is like playing with his weird Japanese food, and he's like, what the fuck is this stuff? What about, and it's supposed to be breakfast, but it's like, you know, I guess her traditional food from Japan, and he's like, I don't like any of this stuff. I've never even heard of this stuff. What is it?

What about bacon and eggs and biscuits and gravy? Just like, what is that stuff? I've never heard of that. It's like really? The whole, this whole thing. You guys are in your 40s. You're not, you're not 20, you know? This isn't your first time in space. And not only that-

You live with aliens. This isn't the first time they've had a meal together either. This whole scene supports the arranged marriage theory because like, how many breakfasts have they had together before now? Crazy. I'd had breakfast with my wife 5,000 times before we got married. Also, Ben, like the... That's more days than we were together. I'd had that many breakfasts.

I feel like you spring the interesting food that you grew up with, trick. Like that is a date seven move. That is a, here's a deep cut for me and my family like like you hang Yeah, why don't you check this out? This isn't a thing you spring on someone after you've married them This feels like a trap. Oh Brian get out They just got married and all of a sudden he's eating like plankton Yeah

so yeah, I guess, I mean, I guess the... A lot of the episode is sort of about O'Brien, like, coming to terms with the other. But this is a very ham-fisted metaphor for that in the context of his own marriage. It's just like so fucking crazy. It's not a good way to tell that story because you would hope and assume that in the future,

like relationships won't be this fraught. Like, why did he marry a woman that he does not know? It's the mind boggles, the truly boggles. It is so fucking crazy. And it's not just that he doesn't know her. She's from a different culture and he is so turned off to the idea of experiencing any part of that.

My wife's cultural tradition is very slightly different from mine. And there's like lots of negotiation that went into like how we were going to deal with that in our marriage, you know? I think where it's as far as storytelling goes, we're two episodes in. I have no idea why he loves her. And I think that's really important. Like, all we see are their differences. We see her willingness to leave him at the altar. Like, what is this about? We love O'Brien because O'Brien's O'Brien. But this decision by him seems awful.

It seems like he's in hell right now. Yeah. So they're mid-meal when the ship starts getting bangers drop down. And they cut to a nice tight shot of O'Brien's face so he can drop the most obvious line in Star Trek history. He's just had breakfast bangers dropped on him. Now he's getting the real thing. Yeah. The captain gets on the radio and says everybody get to your battle stations. This is not a drill. And it turns out they're being fired on by a Cardassian warship.

Cardassian ship preparing to fire against increased power for his. and worship. And at Picard and Warf are talking to each other about how to address this. They're like, well, we're supposed to be, like, the peace treaties is still a thing, right? And they've started to look at each other like, yeah, I can't really explain why we're getting fired upon. And Picard's like, well, we should probably do that thing where we fire back, but don't try to destroy them. We fire back with the goal of disabling them. Yeah, which is nice when it works and happens to work this time.

They knock out the shields on the Cardassian ship, which has the effect of causing them to stand down, because they know they'd be taken out if they went any further. So I guess we're led to believe that this Cardassian warship is no match for a ship like the Enterprise. Which is always like a, if you think about what it would be like to be in a war in space, wouldn't the abilities of the ships be super critical to your decision on whether or not to go to war in the first place? If the enterprise completely outmatches one of your warships, don't you just not fuck with the federation? Because they have lots of enterprises.

Right? Yeah. Like, like, what's the, what's the level of technology here? Are they like, no match for the enterprise, but if the hood was there, they would be able to go toe to toe? I don't know. There's a lot about this that doesn't quite work neatly. What's wrong, Adam? You look sort of defeated. I don't know. You can feel like this is a choice, right? You can choose to go along with what they're giving you or you can just full stop it. Yeah, okay. All right. Fine. I'll just, I'll, I'll just spend my disbelief. I'm not criticizing your lack of belief suspension at all. Okay.

Because it's so easy to do on this show. Okay. Well, the Cardassian gets on screen and he's looking real, real fugly. He's got like a weird cage around his face, and he's just completely drenched in loaf, like lots of loaf in all the wrong places. And he and the rest of the Kardashians

appeared to have giraffe necks, like really long necks. They got long necks with weird veins coming off the side of them, big thick veins. What an interesting thing to cast for. We need an alien, but what we need are long neck people. Measure your neck from the base to the chin. No cheating. Make sure you start at the shoulder. Yeah, when people are measuring for length, they often take one end of the tape and put

it a little further back on the body than they probably should. Yeah, you got to be honest. When we bring you in for casting, we'll be able to tell. When we sit you down on that black couch and that nondescript white office, we're gonna know. Yeah, so the Cardassians are upset because a federation ship called the Phoenix has been going around blowing up Cardassian transport vessels. and this is Gullmaset and he's like, listen, if you want to act like we have a treaty, that's fine, but you

shouldn't be sending your ships around killing us. So as far as I'm concerned, the treaty is over and Picard is like, hold your fucking roll, dude. Like, let me get to the bottom of this. I'm gonna talk to the boss. Like, give me an hour. And, which is like, you know, the Cardassian doesn't have much choice on this, right? Like, he's gonna get blown out of the sky if Picard feels like he needs to stay in flight.

So, he's like, all right, you got an hour. And, I will give you an hour before I allow you to destroy me. Like great strategy guys. I will give you one of your earth hours before I am vapor in space. So yeah Picard calls up the admiralty. Was this the same guy that we called admiral regional devel Johnson? It was the same, yeah. Yeah. He really does look like regionalville Johnson. He's great. I love him. Yeah. And really like this was kind of a performance too. Like they gave him more to do like they gave him some some

emotional stress to sink his actorly teeth into. And he totally police captains him at the end. He, you know, he delivers the news that he needs to deliver. And then he does that thing where he leans into the face time. And he's like, look, look, John Luke. When you go to, when you go to, when you go to focus briefly and then like goes back and forth a little bit to find, find how to crisp up on his eyes. Yeah. You know, when, uh, when an admiral calls someone by their first name,

it's time to be real. Mm-hmm. And this admiral's like, looks you on Luke. Shit is about to get crazy. You're the only guy out there who can solve it. You're welcome to take off your badge and go street justice on this if you have to.

Yeah, do what you got to do. We cannot afford a war. Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds sort of like the federation is in the opposite position of the enterprise here. Like, their shields are down and they can't take a hit from the Kardashians.

But I don't know, the whole timing of this war seems so weird, because they say it was like a year ago. But we've been following this ship for like three and a half years now and have never heard about it. Like you would think that the flagship would be involved if the Federation was at war, right? You would think, but if the enterprise is across town, like in a totally other area,

they aren't in the stadium district where these Kardashians are, they're like, they're uptown. They're in the stadium district where these cardacias are. They're like, they're uptown. They're in the financial district doing their exploration. Yeah, they're more than one subway line away. You know, they would have to transfer and that's just too much hassle. Yeah. It's as if the writers were like, I'm not sure if we can hold a viewer's attention

with just this cake-o and O'Brien conflict. I think we may in fact need to introduce a new alien character. Yeah. So they beam over Goma Set and a couple of his buddies and um... Hey, Ben. What's that Adam? Did you notice that one of gulmoset's buddies was played by Captain Rice of the Drake? No.

Same guy! Dang! This time they covered him up with some meatloaf. Yeah. Which was a good idea. You remember Captain Rice, right? From the... The Starship lollipop?

Yeah. From Dildo security. Yeah. Yeah. I guess that guy's best buds with Echo Pop, a 6.07. Right. This loaf is, let's talk about it. I mean, the Kardashians are in very cool uniforms.

They look like kind of tough, you know, like battle uniforms. They've got these weird grills around their faces, but the loaf, it just looks sunburned and fucked up. Like, it's definitely like, they built on this a lot in later Cardassian episodes, but these guys look like they just rolled around in some loaf.

I think they look great. Like real solid and Goma set, like the lead Cardassian guy, he's got sort of like trucker stash a little bit, but it but the middle part is shaved. The part that's under the nose is gone, but he's got like, like the parts around his lips continue to grow in kind of a fun way. Yeah, I think it's the only time I can think of where we see a Kardashian with some facial hair. Yeah, I dig that. Yeah.

It's a good look. It's a good different look. It's not one of those throwaway aliens with a little bit of nose, nose putty. Like this is a real thing. Yeah. So they're off to find the phoenix the Phoenix is pretty far from them, and they don't have any other ships that they can spare. But there's a lot of tension between Picard and the Cardassians as they attempt, Picard

is like, listen, we are trying to put your mind at ease, and we're trying to do the right thing about this Starship Phoenix blowing up your ship's shit. So, like, I am going to keep you in the loop on my decision making process, like you are my honored and respected guest. Like, I'm here to preserve the peace, but the Cardassians are having a very tough time extending trust to the Federation. Cardassians are having a very tough time extending trust to the Federation. And this is mimicked in a small way by every time Chief O'Brien is around them. He grumbles and looks off in the corner and just is very uncomfortable. Like there's a scene where they leave the room and Troy's just looking at O'Brien as he like clearly goes through some personal shit about the cardassians. He fucking hates them. He hates their guts.

This was one of the great uses of Troy, I think, on the series. This, this 10 seconds where O'Brien beams on the cardassians, the cardassians walk past as Troy escorts them. And as soon as they leave the doorway, Troy looks back at him like shocked. Like, oh my god, O'Brien, really? Yeah, I just picked up some hate in your heart, dude. Yeah, and so often they go verbal with shit like this, but this was like some nice nonverbal character building that was effective and good.

It was great. It's a great moment that you've really had to build too. You really have to know what Troy is about, and know what O'Brien is about. And if you look down at your phone in this moment, you would have missed a really great little moment in the scene in the episode. Mm-hmm. So the idea is these cardassians are gonna ride Shukun on this mission there on, which is to go find the Phoenix and shut down whatever

rogue mission there on. Phoenix isn't responding to their hails, they're too far out to really do anything about it, so they got to beat feet and get out there before Phoenix and their captain doesn't be more damage. Yeah, so they're on their way, but they're still like very, very far from the phoenix. They're like hours and hours away when they start picking up the phoenix closing in on a cardacian transport. And there's a cardacian worship nearby and Picard is presented with this Sophie's choice where he's got to either give the Cardassians the transponder signal for the Phoenix or allow the Phoenix to destroy this

civilian transport and Picard chooses to give the Cardassians the Phoenix's phone number, you know? He's like, yeah, like this guy is acting outside of the law. So, you know, we gotta do whatever we can to stop him. And he, like, there's a lot of dissent on this decision, like, especially from war. Forfe is like pretty freaked out that the card orders him to do this. We lay the prefix codes of the Phoenix to the goddess in worship. Sir, they will be able to dismantle its shields. The Phoenix will not have a chance.

Cannot allow Maxwell to ambush that supply ship. I was kind of on Worf said on this. Were you? I don't know. I mean, it's a tough call. I definitely don't envy Picard having to make it because it's like a whole starship lies in the balance. But it turns out to not make a big difference

because the Phoenix winds up destroying both the Cardassian ship and the transport. And Gullma said is like fucking beside himself. He is so upset about this. The way that they watch this happen is so oddly sanitized, right? They look up on the viewer and it's like the Pac-Man version of a video game.

Like it's- Yeah, it's very like eight-bit sound effects and just like little dots blipping around. Phoenix is firing photon torpedoes. We are told that hundreds of people have died because Goma said, tells us so, but the only representation of that we see on screen is one dot disappearing. It's an interesting bit of how they demonstrate this tension. Around this time, Picard is informed that the only person on board the enterprise that's ever served with the Captain Maxwell of the Phoenix is O'Brien, who used to serve under him on a ship called

the Rutledge. And so Picard goes and talks to him. And O'Brien's like, listen, that Captain lost his family to the Cardassians, and we were in some pretty nasty shit together. We went to defend some colony colony and it was pretty ugly. They killed a lot of women in children. He's like a great captain, but we saw some shit that we can't unsee. Did you think it was wild that O'Brien was Maxwell's tactical officer? I did. What do you have to, how do you get on the tactical

to transport or achieve career track? Yeah, I mean, it seems like a real backslide, right? It really does. Like, was there a ceremony where they took his sword and broke it over their knee and took a pip off his uniform? He's sort of on that Steven Segal from Under Siege career track, where Steven Segal is the chef on the battleship. Like what you want if you're precarious

is Steven Segal on the transporter detail, right? Like someone you would never suspect. Yeah, except for, I mean, he's not, he doesn't ever use his his hardened battle skills You never see him break an arm into a compound fracture Yeah, if there's like a super soldier beaming up who starts to take out every security officer in the room like you would want O'Brien to have a cotta that is gonna completely

rip this guy apart, right and they don't specifically say it, but I mean a couple of times O'Brien refers to some pretty fucked up shit that he's been through, some pretty fucked up shit that he's seen. And are we to understand that that's the reason why he stopped doing tactical, why he chose transporter duty because the worst thing he'll ever see is a transporter accident. That's interesting. I mean, I feel like a transporter accident could be pretty grizzly. I would agree.

Like, I'm not sure that's much better. Yeah. I mean, and the thing about being a transporter chief is it's sort of like being a mover where like you're never getting credit for all of the transports that go right. But you're in big trouble when everyone goes wrong. Yeah.

It's like, oh, like you scratched the arm war that my grandfather gave to my mother, the cheek gave to me. I'm not paying you. You're not, you're not getting tipped on this job. You know, maybe that's why O'Brien married Keko. Maybe the end game for him is, is working in the Arboretum. Maybe he just wants to get out of this shit. Yeah, sorts de plough shares, man. Yeah. But what we're talking about is roughly 10,000 times the amount of character development that O'Brien's actually given. Well, there is that scene where he goes and like sits down and ten forward with the

spindle-year of the two Kardashian glens. Yeah, he apologizes for a blowout he has in a turbo lift earlier where he's just a real dick to the two visiting Kardashians. Later on he runs into one of them at 10 forward and he's like, look bud, sorry about what happened back there, but you gotta understand. The first thing I ever killed in my life was one of you people. Yeah, it really is a scene that really does a head fate. Like you think that it's about O'Brien kind of turning over a new leaf, getting more conciliatory toward these guys,

and it ends with him storming out of the room, like coming just sort of like dumping his beer on the guy's head, and saying, it's not you I hate Kredasian. I hate what I became because of you. Yeah, real dark intense. Do you think he's talking about his marriage though? Like, you made me do this. All I want is a fucking good breakfast I could have married a woman that I'd met before but now this No oatmeal

Never again They finally catch up with the phoenix and the phoenix is a nebula-class ship which I guess means that it's very similar looking to a galaxy class ship, but it's got this huge weapons platform on top of it. It's like, it's like a worship, right? It looks like a Pontiac fiero. You know, it looks like a, it looks like a rear engine two-seater, like, like Honda Dell Soul type starship.

And those are some two percent or so. I don't think so. I think people are going to love those references. Okay. All right. If you love those references, be sure to write in to Jordan Jesse Goe at the Maximum Fund Network. So they beam over Captain Maxwell and he's just all grins. He's like, hey, Will Reiker, that a boy. Hey, look at that. It's Miles O'Brien, one of the best tactical guys you got in the fleet. Like a man who did not just murder 700 people.

Right. He's living with it. Yeah, he's like high five and given people backslaps and he maintains this jovial mood until he gets up to Picard's ready room. And he's like, hey John Luke, great to see you buddy. And Picard's like, hey John Luke, great to see you buddy and the card's like, why don't you sit down? He goes in for a four step handshake and Picard's like, no, you're in detention pal.

Maxwell is showing up with a pizza and a two liter of fanta and Picard is in full chris Hanson. He's like, I have a seat right over here for me. Picard's like, is that Mike's hard lemonade? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Like, no, what are you talking about? Everything's fine, right? There's no trouble here. Yeah, and this is an interesting scene because Maxwell is very much presented as being from the like fact-free community where he's like, yeah, that space station that I blew up,

that was in a science station, that was a war station. Those transports, they're transporting arms. The cardacians are getting ready to launch a new attack. This piece treaty is bullshit. It is a pretext so that they can rearm themselves and get themselves ready for a new line of attack. And Picard is just like, show me one scrap of evidence. It's like the anti-immigration people

like saying that immigration is out of control and then you find out that illegal immigration has been net zero for the last decade. And you're like, right? The fuck have you been talking about this entire time, dude? They do a great job of illustrating his true- true through thinking, but the part that I was missing was how difficult it would be to go rogue if you're the captain of one of these starships, because in a lot of,

in a lot of movies that tell stories like this, you know, like the rogue commander, the rogue ship, there is the conflict between the crew and its rogue captain. And I would have just a moment of that conflict, just to see that, you know, instead of that, what you get is the cult of personality that Maxwell cultivates, right? Like, he is so great to be around that, that of course his crew falls in line behind him. Right. But man, even a moment of a first officer going, uh, like, really, I would, I would say our third, our third comic book is going to be the, like hunt for red October that took place on the Phoenix. Yeah. Where Maxwell is your ramias. And like, let's see what is his first office or down with this?

Is the rest of his crew in or out? Like, yeah, this looks like a big ship. It looks like it's probably got as big a compliment as the Enterprise, maybe a little smaller, but like, they've got as much saucer and as much drive section as the Enterprise. They're just missing a little neck, you know? They've got just as much saucer in the game as anyone.

Yeah. So I wonder, you know, what their conversations were like, you know, was there a, was there a secret chef who was a party stooge, you know, spying on all of them? And I get it like it's expensive to shoot another bridge scene to cast an entire other bridge or whatever. The only part of the phoenix we see is Maxwell's Ready Room.

Like, I understand that, but man, I would have sacrificed breakfast with Kiko and O'Brien for two lions of dialogue that illustrate that conflict. It's like, literally, like like he's alone on the ship. Like that's how weird it is. But again, like this is also in keeping with everything we've seen about how the Enterprise operates, too. Every time Captain Picard gets taken over by an alien, he is able to take the ship and command it wherever he wants.

Every time when Data's beacon was activated, he stole the ship. These ships are very steelable It's a very They're like a 1997 Corolla, you know, just like the most steelable ship Yeah, there's a there's an imbalance in like the command structure of how these ships operate that no one seems to learn from Yeah, this scene ends with the card sending Maxwell back to his ship saying like I'm not going to like I'm not going to compromise your dignity by throwing you in the brig now like you can go back to your ship and command it as we go back to starbase and then we'll deal with you.

But you know the writing is on the wall, but Maxwell is probably going to get court-martialed and they're on their way back when the Phoenix veers off course and goes and starts Start flexing like it's going to destroy another transport from the Kardashians and this is like another scenario where some stuff from

This is like another scenario where some stuff from past canon would have come into play. I think like why didn't they wrath of Khan the Phoenix at this moment, like send in the command code and shut it down, you know? Yeah, I was with you on that as well. And this is another, this is a very subtle blip that Picard takes note of when he's like, hey, wharf, what's on that ship? And wharf's like, I can't really tell. Like, there's a bunch of static. It's weird. Maxwell's like, you gotta believe me. It's, it's, it's full of weapons. It is full of serians. It's on its way to Iran.

Yeah, oh, this is a, this is a post election episode. We don't even know. We don't even know what, what the fuck is going on. We could have been shut down by now. Yeah. Jack Boothugs could have come and taken our podcast away. Yeah, that would be how we go out, huh? Yeah, in a blaze of glory.

Not by cease and desist, but by new president. I heard what you said. So O'Brien's on the bridge at this point because Picard has brought him there. He's like, look, you know this guy, right? I don't have anyone on the bridge who can tell me what this guy's thinking and he sort of like, does the head thing over a shoulder at Troy? Like, you're the one who can really get inside Maxwell's head.

Is this guy gonna throw down on this cardassian ship and O'Brien's like, hell yeah, like he's a guy who means what he says and does what he means. And O'Brien's like, look, I happen to be privy to some transporter technology that here to four, I have never disclosed, which is that I can beam people through their shields because I know how the shields, what is it, there's some sort of shield regeneration

that happens every certain amount of time. Yeah, and he's like, look, I can beam myself through that half a second blip and get on that ship. And cards like, if you think you could talk them down, go ahead and do it. So he does. Yeah, Picard is looking for a way to not have to blow up a very valuable piece of federation material here.

And even though he has the ability to do that by hitting their email password. Right. So, uh, Brian comes through through like there's a very intense scene where he talks Maxwell off the ledge and and they it's like it felt like the end of like an off Broadway play a little bit like they sort of you know admit that they're they have some some undelt with frailties surrounding their experiences in the war, and Maxwell has been sort of still at war despite the fact that it's over.

And he has that line that goes like, I'm not going to win this one, am I? Yeah. I feel like that's a resting thought for me more often than not. Yeah, I feel like I really felt Maxwell at that moment. Yeah, every time my wife gets mad at me, pretty much goes through my head. You just wish someone would disarm you in that moment? Yeah, I wish somebody would beam through the shields. Give me a heart to heart, you know. Yeah, sing some songs with me.

Sing a couple of songs. Yeah, that'd be nice. Yeah, if I could just have a dark night of the soul before it all ends. Yeah. So yeah, they put Maxwell in the podium. This has been Star Trek Relationship Cast. They put Maxwell in the Pokey and they turn him around and head back the Cardassian ship

remaining unblowed up. And Picard has a final McLaughlin group with Gullmissette in the conference room where it's like, listen, like, we stopped the disaster here and I think we both really want peace, but I think we also both know that Maxwell wasn't totally crazy about what he was saying. Like those ships definitely were concealing arms movements and that science station was not in a place where anybody has any science to do. Like you guys were up to some shit and now we know that and I'm glad we've averted a war, but now we also are going to have to keep our eyes on you because that was not cool.

Would the conflict and the story have been as strong if Maxwell didn't have the past with the cardacians? Because I feel like they kicked off the episode with Maxwell is one of the great captains. Like in the fleet, O'Brien's like, I've had the good fortune of serving with two of the best. Like, why didn't... Like, it shades in the characters and the story to get all the PTSD backstory, which is good, but man, if he didn't have that and he still went rogue, I feel like it's almost more intense that way. Like, it's a great captain who is making a decision that he thinks is right for no other

reason than that. Yeah, I mean, the episode is called The Wounded, and I think that it's sort of about the damage that's been done to O'Brien and Maxwell and some of the other characters. I mean, some of the Kardashians, I think, are sort of damaged as well. But you have a point that it would have been an interesting, I don't know. I mean, maybe we'll get that episode also. They can, if we can retroactively have a long bloody conflict that we've never heard of be written into the universe

like this, like what's stopping them from having that episode also. Yeah, yeah, that's true. We're playing the long game here. This is sort of like the Klingon storyline that was introduced Last season like this is a this is another thread. We're throwing out into the distance that we're gonna chase down Did you like this episode Adam? Yeah, I did I totally did I was I don't know why I had a pained look on your face for a second there

I don't know why I had to think so long about it. I think, I think because, because the frame around the episode was O'Brien and Keko, and that was so weak, it's like taking a great painting and putting it in a shit frame. Like the main, the A story here, I thought was first rate. I totally dug it. I'm a little confused about how much Keko and O'Brien

we've been getting the last two episodes as if they are main characters, which I'm almost positive they are not, you know? Yeah. I mean, we're spending time with them that used to go to Commander Riker. And he's been a total no show. I don't even think Jordy was in this episode was he? I think he like I heard him

on radio I don't remember if we even see him yeah. Yeah so it feels like a real inflection point in the series that like last episode wasn't a fluke. Like we're really, we're really going to do this O'Brien thing, you guys. Yeah. Buckle up. And this also reads to me as like, this is when the whole show changed. This is when the whole, this is when Star Trek changed for me. I feel like because we're now, we're doubling down on character and away from, from whatever shoot them up and conflict that we used to get. Like the A story on this episode was the conflict, but we're working on character doubly from here on out, I think, both on this show

and on the other Star Trek series that follow. Do you think that this anticipated deep space nine? Do you think that they know that they're getting another series at this point? And they're like, let's set this character up to be like more interesting so that we can pass the hat to him when the time comes. I'm so rarely interested in doing any research for this show, but that is something that I so that we can pass the hat to him when the time comes. I'm so rarely interested in doing any research for this show, but that is something that I am interested in chasing down is like the behind the show production stuff about,

like, you know, Kalamini better be on board for this, because all of a sudden we're throwing him phone books of scripts, like that he him phone books of scripts. Like, yeah, that he's got to read now. Like, how far ahead of this does he know he's going to be, you know, a featured player versus a real cast member? Like, do we know at this point that we're going to write another series at what point does pre-production on that show begin?

Yeah. I mean, that is still, that's still like four years away, right? No, I think that might start in season four. Man, I don't know. I don't remember exactly when, but I think it's, I think it's not as far away as, maybe it starts in season five, but. Well, if that's the case, then it would make sense

that they would write him, they'd punch him up a little bit before sending him to another series Yeah, well, I mean they change a lot about him in deep space 9 too like they make him like an enlisted Unlisted man and not an officer like he's a lieutenant right in this but in deep space 9 he has no his he's he's like He's an inventory man essentially boy O'Brien really gets his revenge on Kako like she goes from an Arboretum to a fucking flower shop on the promenade like Like all of a sudden he's eating a potato Corn beef breakfast and and she's working at a flower shop like he really leveraged that move back into his favor

Seriously, hey, do you want to check our messages Ben? Yeah, it's see if let's see what's going on on the old message machine Priority one message from star fleet coming in on secured channel Need a supplement on top of the supplement coming in on Secured Channel. You need a supplement, won't you? A supplement? A supplement? A supplement. Yeah, it's extra.

By the interest alone, could be enough to buy this ship! Our first priority one message is of a personal nature. It is from Captain Ryan, and it is two chief engineer, Allercon, and Inteno Riley, it goes like this, to my intrepid crew. Although I have transferred command to a lesser captain, it is not a reflection on you. I look forward to serving you again in the future, even though I was clearly the most likely to be voted drunk Shimodo on a daily basis. PS!

Nemesis is greater than Star Trek V. I would agree with that. I mean Nemesis isn greater than Star Trek V. What a group, that. I mean Nemesis isn't good. Am I prefer Star Trek V? Really? Yeah. Yeah. I just think Star Trek V probably is the one that I enjoyed the least on an ongoing basis.

This is another one where I don't know whether we're talking about people in the future or time travelers or like a D&B group or something in between. I think what we're missing in the form is like the, I mean, we have a two and from field, but we really need a, what is this actually about field? That'd be really helpful. Yeah, although I do really enjoy having ones that I'm a little bit mystified by. I think we're mostly mystified by these.

Yeah, yeah, generally speaking, yes. So we have one more today from Tom Reagan, Reagan, and Clayton Cowles, their arms open. And it is for Sarah Arnold, her birthday approaching. Hm. Temba, his arms wide. Sarah at D-Street, Mr. President at Madison Square Garden. Soaketh, his eyes uncovered. Sarah, discovering Pekasbi. Picard and Wesley in a Gimpshoot. Sarah and Ivan, in his, Shemota, his eyes on your chips stacked.

Tom and Clayton writing this message I Get it I get it to metaphor. Yeah It's like their whole way of communicating is based around metaphor Adam. This isn't a shirat at all We talked at some point very early on about trying to do a a at some point very early on about trying to do a Darmak episode that was all that and just reading that makes me realize how difficult that would be. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Way more fun than the clip show I think. Oh man, Darmak, it's coming.

Sarah, happy birthday. Happy birthday, Sarah. Or Sarah, again we were not given phonetic pronunciations on these names. Yeah, it could be the cursed and cursed and problem. Yeah, and we were dead wrong on that one. Yeah, yeah, they followed up. So if we've gotten this one wrong. But it's no.

Yeah. Thanks to everybody who left a priority one message today. If you'd like to do a priority one message, you can go to maximumfund.org slash jumbotron. It's 100 bucks for a a personal 200 for a commercial. He keeps lights on around here. Lights are on. 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 Share Your Embarrassment 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. Can I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. 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 Goat try. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, rats. Hey, hey, hey, oh, I'm glad I found 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 nacks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this off. We get on the art. Yeah, it's about terrain. Got us 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 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?

O'Neil Ross and Kerry, available on MaximumFun or dot org. Hey, Ben. What's that, Adam? Did you find yourself a drug should know that? Incredible. Drunk Shimoda! Yeah, um, who's gonna try Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Renemoo! Drunk Shimoda! Yeah, I was gonna try and like, change it at the last minute,

because you sorta stepped on it, but, oh my. Drunk Shimoda was definitely O'Brien's career trajectory. Yeah. Yeah, I love, so I guess it's just O'Brien. Like, I love that, like, I love that we have just found out that he was like a warrior and was the tactical chief of a starship and like has done like hand-to-hand murder.

Cause like, like I just think of the John Adams cartoon, Chief O'Brien at work when I think of Chief O'Brien, you know? I just think of him as like a totally even keeled, like boring man that stands in a room by himself all the time. And thinking of him as this like, wharf guy is just madness. Yeah, and it's been long enough ago that I haven't really, that I'm not clear on how this plays out

But man, it would be fun to sprinkle that in every once in a while like O'Brien's rage Because he is he's just like a tub of mashed potatoes to me like he's just he's cuddly and to me, like he's just, he's cuddly and innocent, and this dark side of him, it's one thing to say it and have him describe it. It's quite another thing to have him like fully demonstrate the PTSD that he's describing. So maybe we'll get a little bit of that. Who's your Shimoda? My Shimoda is going to be given to Commander Riker who had so little to do in this episode, but there's one scene that I thought was That just made me laugh. So O'Brien's on the bridge. He's been brought there He's been brought there to sort of talk but card through the Maxwell incident. Yeah, and

O'Brien's O'Brien discloses, the magic that you can do with a transporter. And he's, he's going through all this techno jargon. They do a two-shot of Picard and Riker at like 37 minutes and 30 seconds. And all Riker does is stare at Picard in a, oh really? Are you fucking serious? Kind of way? Like his face is like stone. And they hold it, like they cut, they do a cut back and forth between O'Brien

and the two-shot between Riker and Picard. And Riker just stares at Picard. In a, you're not really gonna let him do this. Kind of look right? Yeah. Shut up is in, close your mouth and stop talking. It's just a strange expression to me and it seemed incongruent with the rest of what was happening. That was the only real outlier to me that was Shimoda worthy.

That is what Shimoda is for Adam. Yeah, that's what we do. Yeah. It feels like kind of a flimsy Shimoda bin. No, it was good. It was good. Somebody actually like kind of ripped into me a while back about my Shimoda's not being as good as yours.

So, we could- Really, who would do that? I don't know, man. It's just some guy. He's like, he's like, good better Shimoda's. Your Shimoda's are no good. Well, I really let know, man. It's just some guy. He's like, he's like, get better Shimotas. Your Shimotas are no good. Well, I really, I really let that guy down. Yeah. What I did with that one. He's your biggest fan and now, now I am the captain.

Well, maybe I'll have a better Shimota in the next episode. Where do we watch the next time, Ben? The next episode is season four episode 13. Devils Do. Picard fights to save a terrorized planet from a powerful woman who claims to be the devil. Do you remember that Adam? He's talked about this one a little bit. Yeah, only in the context of us just talking about it because we opened a card that had it. Yeah. Well, we don't have any way to veto it, so. That's not the one with Fumpka, though, is it?

I'm confusing you. No, no, no. Okay. The lady does look a little Fumpka-ish, but she's no Fumpka. She's Fump-guess. Fump-guess. Ha-ha-ha.

That's linguistically difficult to pull off. Yeah, I'm not gonna even try to say it in another time. Well, we're gonna watch it. Sorry. If you have an issue with that or want to support the ongoing production of our show, you can either contribute or withdraw support of our show by going to Maximumfund.org slash donate. Yeah. Where you can get yourself connected to a plan.

Plan that supports us month to month even. Which is probably the best way to do it. You can also do a one-time t-shirt purchase. I don't know why someone would buy multiple shirts, but you could buy a whole bundle if you want. Yeah, buy a t bundle if you want. Yeah, buy a t-shirt every month. Yeah, you know what? You can do that thing that I didn't Victorville where you just buy underwear and then throw them away.

Buy t-shirts, wear them once, and then donate them. Yeah, I like that. If you want to communicate with us online, probably the best way to do that is Twitter by using the hashtag GreatestGen. There's also a Facebook page, a subreddit. And there's now a podcast wiki. Some of our viewers have been collaborating on a wikia page. It's greatestgen.wikia.com and it's great like they're going through and they're making pages of like running jokes and repeat segments and stuff and they've got little Little bios for each one of us. It's really cool. I feel like a good, a good, a good, I haven't read my bio, man. Is that, is that going to be a mistake?

No, I think maybe yours just links to like your Twitter account or something. Mine, mine they asked me to fill in and I obliged them. So, oh boy. And yeah, I think a great resource for anybody who's like listening to this and is like, this seems like something I would like, but I don't understand any of the jokes. And doesn't want to go back through the last 84 episodes to get caught up. Go check this out. It's like a foreign language phrase book.

Yeah. So there's that. We should thank Dark Materia and Adam Ruggusia for our music. And if you want to email us, it's drunksamota at gmail.com. If history is any clue, we'll respond to those emails within two to four weeks. Yeah, we get a lot of them, so it does take a little while to slog through. But every so often, one of us will sit down and just like peel off like 28 replies. You know, like check your personal account and like, you know, we get C.C. Donum, so it's like oh

shit what the fuck is happening oh Adam just replied to a million emails yeah what did I do I'm definitely not on the toilet when I do that well with that we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek the next generation I mean evil episode of Star Trek, the next generation, I mean, evil episode, the greatest generation. Evil, like the devil. Make it sound. Maximumfund.org Comedy and culture, artist owned Yolo, pecada, cada, cada, cada Maximumfund.org Comedy and culture, artist owned Listener supported