The Greatest Generation - A Pun Hiding in Plain Sight (S5E8)

Episode Date: February 1, 2017

When Captain Picard finds Ambassador Spock on Romulus, he attempts to talk him into returning home before their next meal. Spock demurs, and instead chooses to visit a ramen place everyone's raving about. Meanwhile, Commander Riker goes to a karaoke bar with Worf, whose interpretation of an opera song is not a hit with the audience. Do Trekkers have to choose between "Old Testament Rod" or "New Testament Rod"? What is an HHHHJ? It's the episode where Adam messes up his audio!

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. Hey, this is Adam. I just wanted to chime in real quick before the show begins to let you know that I fucked up my audio on the next couple of episodes. And that is the reason that my track of the podcast sounds so terrible. Hopefully this will not affect your enjoyment of our stupid jokes

too much. But I wanted to let you know before you began that the next few episodes are not going to be as nice in terms of fidelity as they usually are. My perfectionist tendencies are so acute that I feel like I want to go back and record everything that I said properly. But my OCD tendencies are such that we've got to make a schedule. So these shows have to go out on time. So I'm not going to do that. We're instead going to put out the shows as they are.

So thanks for listening to the show, and I'm sorry. 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 to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Franaka. How you doing, Adam? It's been a long time since we recorded an episode together.

Yeah, it feels weird to get back on the podcast, Mike. Yeah, do you, uh, do you feel like you remember how this goes? Well, I'm glad you opened the show because I'm not sure if I would have been able to. Um, we, uh, it, because it has been so long, uh, a, a large number of packages have arrived for both of us. And I feel like us, and I feel like it's time to rip into some of these. What do you think? Yeah, let's do that.

I mean, at the expense of maybe turning this into a Dan Benjamin and John Radaric episode of road work where they just spend an hour opening packages, I don't think we have quite that many, but I think we definitely should. No, no, no. Yeah, let's do it. Captain, I'm sorry to disturb you. I'm receiving a Code 47. Verify. It is Code 47, sir.

Stock lead emergency frequency. Captions eyes only. All right, so the first one here is from, came from Maximum Fun. But I'm pretty sure that this is something that they are for rooting us from somebody else. Oh yeah so I've got let's see oh I've got two things in here it looks like a large envelope and a small envelope. Okay, so the small envelope has no return address.

It has two Star Trek cards in it. One of them is a picture of the aft stations on the main bridge, and the other is a picture of Picard and Wesley in the episode where they're Wesley Queen of the Deserting. Is the aft station card, is that just a aft station? It says the main bridge colon, aft stations. I love these cards. Thanks for pointing that out card. Alright and then the second thing in here is the larger envelope from an outfit called society

sixth and I don't know if this is from Society Six or from somebody ordering it from Society Six. Let's see what it is. This is... Oh, this is a beautiful art print of a Captain Jean-Luc Picard in season one spec uniform with the quote, My love is a fever, longing still for that which longer nurseeth the disease. Tell me more. You'll have to call again at him. Wow. How nice is that?

It's really nice and there's like a gift receipt in here. So I don't know if it's, I don't know if society 6 sent this to us or let me see if there's anything else in here to identify the sender. Well that is beautiful. If I'm missing some piece of information that says who sent this to us, shoot us an email at drunksamotagmail.com. I would love to, I would love to shout you out. Hey, Ben.

What's that, Adam? I also got a gift in the mail. Oh, yeah. What'd you get? That felt very Max Weinberg on the old cone show. You remember that when they would do like public service announcements and then Max would add. Sure. Uh, we get a package from Coke Comics out of Brooklyn. That's your

neck of the woods. Yeah. But whatever reason it was sent to me instead of to you, which I think is cool. I'm happy to get some. Yeah, why? I've gotten some, uh, some comics from them and I have, have greatly enjoyed paging through them. So I think it's fair that you would be the recipient of the next batch.

This one actually includes a return address and a letter, and I think that's very helpful. Lovely. Says Dear Adam. As I promised, here are some Star Trek, the next generation comics, plus a few extras. The Earth hasn't turned to flames when you receive this package, I hope you enjoy its contents. Good luck with whatever secret covert ops you do and we'll never give up, give up hope that you and Ben will be in charge of a Star Trek series soon. Equifart jokes coming, David from Brooklyn. Thanks David. Alright so what we have is sort of a stack of comic books and one magazine.

We've got a Star Trek Next Generation comic book titled The Modala Imperative. And it's a... If you look up the cover of this one... It's not just A Modala Imperative, it's The Modala Imperative. There is. Show some respect. You got your Riker standing this clenched, and then you've got a Troy doing a Vulcan neck pinch but the look on her face is like looking towards camera and she's doing one of those looks so that's fun yeah and then we got a

quantum leap comic book which I didn't know is a thing. Wow. It is a thing. Yeah. That's fun. We have a Star Trek Geek Space 9 comic book which is just as much of a surprise that it's a thing as the quantum leaf comic book is to me. Yeah. Well not much of a surprise that it's being sent to us for free rather than being sold right? Yeah, no street value. We got another one here that's a Star Trek unlimited the comic book. The title of the comic is Lieutenant Shelby is a Borg and is it all Rikers fault and then Riker's looking to the camera like clenching his jaw like Man talk about getting Shelby. Oh the next comic is a deep space 9 comic with Ensign Roe on the cover Wow and finally the last gift the gift of gifts is a

Happy of Star Trek the next generation the magazine with the Klingon family portrait on the front. It is a KLR, War and young Alexander. Ben, did you have a subscription to Star Trek the next generation magazine? Because I did.

I didn't. I had I had a uh, and I have, a Ranger Rick magazine. There was a Disney magazine that I got when I was a kid. And then there was like a, like, I don't know if it was three, two, one contact or something like that. Like a little science, science magazine. I never had, I never had Star Trek magazine. I don't think I knew it existed. I

probably would have had. We have one more package here at him and I kind of have an inkling of what this is. If I'm remembering the name right, this is this is from Matt B in West Virginia and oh yeah. This is this is something very special so met uh... i think i may be like confusing to people but i think met was like in a second hand store like a thrift store or something and came across the show bible for star trek the next generation and we got to look at the red letter edition

where uh... all of j Roddenberry's words are red. Yeah, yeah, it's like the King James show Bible. Yeah, this is, so this is the 92-93 edition. And we got to look at a copy of this when we went to the National Center for Science Education as part of our tour and and they I think like one of the guys that works on their on their team they're like used to write spec scripts for the for the show. And I don't remember if he got something on or not,

but he showed us his copy and I was like, wow, what a covered old treasure. So the fact that you and I now are in possession of such a thing is really cool. I mean, it goes through and it describes each character. It's like a dossier on all the characters. Um, like how to write them, like what they're, what their motives are and stuff. It's got... This isn't the same document that said that DNA Troi should have four boobs, right? That was, that was before the show launched. That was the, uh, a first half of the Bible, right?

launch that was the first half of the Bible right? I think that was the old testament. Right yeah and you know the new testament does a lot does away with a lot of the more horrific stuff. Right. The angry gene stuff is old testament gene. Yeah the angry vengeful big rod. I like forgiving rod. Yeah, yeah, it's everybody's favorite rod. I'm on page 10 here and I've got some typical missions. Do you want to give you a little core sample of some typical missions? Oh yeah. All right, we've got exploration,

transporting important passengers, diplomatic and trade missions, patrolling along marked or disputed boundaries, parentheses, Romulan, Cardassian, mediation and negotiation, responding to planetary emergencies, responding into ships and distress, the In terms of high-end that is in order. Yeah It sounds like we have what we need to contribute mightily to the new Star Trek show which is now on permanent hiatus Yeah, oh man. Oh man. I didn't even notice this Matt included a

little business card and and a patch from the law enforcement outfit that he works for, I guess. Oh really? So, if any of our listeners ever have any problems, W-slash, R-slash, T, explosives, fire arms, tobacco, or alcohol, not necessarily in that order. We've got a friend of the show.

I feel very fortunate to have a friend in that particular branch of law enforcement. Yeah, good stuff. Thanks, Matt. I think if we ever hop on one of those Star Trek cruises. We're gonna need help such as that. I don't know, man. That's international waters. Yeah, he probably doesn't have jurisdiction there. Yeah. Well Adam, we have danced for a long time here and we've got a lot of show to sink our teeth into. What do you say we get to the next segment of our program? Yeah, I could be behind that. say we get to the next segment of our program. Yeah, I could be behind that. Today we're talking about season five, episode seven, unification two.

This is becoming a speech. We're the captains, though. Very entitled. I'm typing a ramble on about something everyone knows. This is one of those rare episodes that is the second in an arc on this show and much like previous examples it like literally picks up the instant it left off which is Picard and data are in a cave and Spock has emerged and they're all

unromulous. So wouldn't you know what Spock is not happy to see Picard? And he's like, you need to get the hell out of here because I'm on sort of a personal project and you're kind of disrupting the thing I'm trying to put together here. Yes, Spock is, I mean, which is like a crazy sense of entitlement, right? I mean, I suppose he's earned it, but like, but he feels like he should be free to go to the

I suppose he's earned it, but like, but he feels like he should be free to go to the capital of the most hated enemy of the federation whenever he wants to. And Picard is like, no, you have to explain yourself like you're an important diplomat, and we've actually had Vulcan diplomats defect the Romulus before so this is not cool He's already been given a super wide latitude like I feel like with most other diplomats He would have been in cuffs and they would have been them off the planet. Yeah, and I like that Picard calls that this cowboy diplomacy and Spock is already fully versed in like Nixonian terminology. There's an old Balkan proverb only Nixon could go to China. They do a good job in the scene of dropping a whole lot of references to things that Star Trek fans know about in a theory.

And I want to ask you like how cute is too cute with that because it felt to me while I was watching it that it was a little bit Wayans brothers Scary movie-esque you are familiar with the idea of why those movies exist. There's a there's a great satisfaction I guess in people watching a thing and getting all the references and in people watching a thing and getting all the references. And this felt like a very, do you get all these references, sort of turned to camera moment, right off the bat? And it felt a little too... I don't know, I don't know Adam, if you and I want to sit here

and incriminate a thing for being mainly just about challenging people to get references. Goddammit. Yeah, that uh... Alright, uh, I asked an answer. I withdraw my question and my testimony. And I withdraw from the courtroom, you're other. I can definitely see the point you're trying to make,

but I am a fucking sucker for it undiscovered country reference. Yeah, me too. Not everybody keeps their genitals in the same place Captain. I just wonder if like, if as you're putting together this scene, if there's a limit. Maybe. I mean, I felt that was subtle enough and it serves a purpose that is not always served by this show, which is too really grounded in the universe. There's sometimes where TNG doesn't really feel like it's the same universe as TOS. And when you've got a character from the original series in the movies, talking about events that took place,

like much earlier in the universe history of the show. And that have implications on the, I mean, like the Kittamer stuff has implications for war that have played out, but they haven't referenced off of undiscovered country that much. But they have big implications for this. And to me, it's cool to lean into the cohesiveness of that universe. Yeah, I mean, I think I'm merely underscoring how fraught those moments can be if you're

too cute with the references or you're not using them enough. Yeah, so I mean, they have a pretty like strong, strong-willed dispute between Picard and Spock, and Spock keeps comparing Picard to Kirk and DeSeric, which has got to be so confusing for Spock, right? And I think that it's also really interesting because I think that you could make the case that Picard is Kirk if you gave him the same job but took his personality away and put Sarek's in in its place. And you know, Picard is mind-melded with Syrac and he's there to like, he's not just there to figure out what's boxed up to,

he also has to, has to break the bad news, right? It really gives him all the leverage. It's like almost convenient that Syrac bought the farm when he did. Right. Yeah, it's, there's an interesting bit of plot and character transference too when a character dies as he did. Right. Yeah, it's there's an interesting bit of plot and character transference to when a character dies as he did. Mm-hmm. After having given his intelligence to someone else, you don't get to do that on a show very often. So the mission that Spock is on, like let's talk about what what it's about. Like his his idea is that the the Romulans and the Vulcans, who are distant cousins genetically could be brought back together, like a cultural exchange could be achieved. And he's basically taken it upon himself, not as a member of the Federation, but as a person who

happens to be a Vulcan, to go try to cultivate a movement on Romulus of people that are interested in Vulcan culture and engaging with it. We meet a few of these people, there's a kid who is enthusiastic and wants to learn about Vulcan. I I guess on Romulus, like you don't get to learn much about things that are going on in the Federation because it's kind of a closed society. Right. And it's made to feel dangerous. All of this back alley commiseration, all of the pushed conversations over soup that these people are having. It feels very fraught.

Yeah. over soup, but these people are having it feels very fraught. Yeah, why do you think soup is such a key part of life on fabulous? I think one of the main ways you find out about another culture is through their food, except on this show they only go so far as to depict it. Yeah. Like it would have been nice to know just a little bit more about that soup, right? Yeah. Well, it's definitely a different soup in this episode too. It's like a ramen spot. You know, Ben, I tried to do some word play with ramen and ramen and it just it equals ramen. That's that's all it is. It doesn't work, Ben.

Yeah, that's a that's a pun hiding in plain sight. Yeah. See, now you name the episode. Good job, Ben. Was that the same soup lady, by the way? I replayed this scene a couple of times and I can't tell because you only see her at sort of a one quarter angle from behind You just see the side of her face. Yeah And not even the notes. She's looking away from camera. It's the same soup place though, right?

Definitely the same soup place. They didn't build two soup place sets at them Well, I understand that but I'm trying to figure out like the shift, the shift changes that might be at play here at the soup place. Maybe, maybe if you're the hiring manager, the soup place, you're only hiring old ladies, which I think could be problematic for a miniature perspective. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, kind of discriminating in, in the favor of crappy old women.

Yeah. There's a big problem on Romulus. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's why they're really seeking to conjoin the Vulcans and the Romulus again. They want to get rid of their weird soup, luchinet, hiring practices. And what we've done here is we've just written a Star Wars movie script because that's about as thin as they were a couple years ago. Well, let's speaking of Star Wars. Let's talk about the other plot that is happening in this episode, which opens on World's Worst Star Wars

Cantina. And it's the same like neighborhood that the Boneyard is in, I guess. So in the last episode, they had a run-in with a black Cadillac that ended with them blowing up this enemy ship that was kind of mysteriously there to steal parts from a Vulcan ship. And that kind of made for a cold trail on their investigation, but Riker walks into into this bar. I didn't go there that night to fall in love. I just dropped in for a couple of drinks. Kind of sweet-talking, a terrifying, forearmed jazz pianist in a bar.

I had to ask the guy next, we had to pinch me to make sure I wasn't dreaming. This lady is like, she's got like, she's got a nose that's like, like the nose was removed and they are like barely holding the flaps of skin on either side together with like jagged gold wire. I really like this girl.

She's really got matronly lunch lady vibes to me. Like she's very friendly and fun and she's willing to play the game. Yeah, she's like appreciates that the enterprise blew up that ship because her ex-husband was the captain of it. Yeah, that was what. So that puts her, like that puts her and Riker on a positive note right off the bat.

And so he's kind of applying her for information about where they might figure out who has been stealing and selling parts out of this boneyard. And she's kind of, I think she's kind of the pianist and an old west bar kind of character where she is around a lot of the riff raff and aware of a lot of the criminality that's going on, but doesn't really, you know, she kind of stays above the fray. So she's there to flirt with Riker and give him little tidbits of information.

Like any good bartender or old West piano player, like she's Switzerland, you know? Like you don't fuck with the bartender and you don't fuck with the piano player. Like they are sort of a conduit for Money and information in a really fun way right cuz who's gonna speed up the music when the bar fight breaks out? Exactly Yeah, and and he shows her like a blues riff, which is a really fun scene like she picks up on it real quickly

I also just like that she has four arms like I wish more of the aliens in like a blues riff, which is a really fun scene. Like she picks up on it real quickly. I also just like that she has four arms. Like I wish more of the aliens in this show were, like she's got loaf, but then she also has four arms. And it's a well-achieved effect. I just... Do you think Riker's titillated by the idea of an H-H-H-H-J? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha- ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha tell you something. There's a fat fucking forengie that is a regular at this bar and he actually is someone who can give you all the deeds. Yeah, and everything that's going on in this episode

atom is Stephen Root is still there. I guess the the Klingons are still chilling at Romulus. So I totally didn't expect this, but like when Picard and Data aren't doing stuff on the surface, they're back on the Klingon ship, and data is like, hey, I'm going to take my loaf off and get into some computer hacks that I've been wanting to do for a long time. Data's plan is to penetrate the Romulan security network, which is of all of the things that data and Picard have told this Klingon captain, this one comes across as the most preposterous to him.

Yeah, even more preposterous than Picard enjoying his sleeping quarters. Yeah, it's a funny scene because data just keeps telling this Klingon guy stuff that he plans on doing and the Klingon guy going, no, we've tried that hundreds of times, you can't even do it. And data going like, well, I'm actually pretty, pretty le at as far as hacks are going, goes, so I'm going to give it a shot. And if I do get in, I'll share whatever I find with you guys, the Klingons, which is another awesome

favor that Picard is doing the Klingon Empire after they treated him like a real piece of shit in the last episode. And that favor just goes completely Unregarded. I think Stephen Root just sort of grunts his approval, and that's it. Yeah. I think it's also notable for another reason, which is because we go from a two-shot with Stephen Rue and Data, having this conversation. And then we take Picard in a single, which feels like a totally inserted moment where he's like, I'll take this opportunity to remove my gears. And he pieces out.

Yeah. And then we're back on the two with Data data and Stephen root like what was that about? Yeah, it's like you might as well have him go I'm gonna go take a shit It was so oddly edited It really broke up the scene in an interesting way it was almost as if like Patrick Stewart's Union rules mandate that he he was coming up on his limit on set and he had to just leave. Yeah, like I've got to go return some

video tapes. The deal is they've got Part-Eck who is a very long-standing senator Have you gone blinded within yourself? Stand up, tell the truth. You don't deserve the wealth that you never bought. The deal is they've got Pardek, who is a very long-standing senator in the Romulan Senate. And he's been lending a sympathetic ear to this kind of pro- Vulcan underground movement on Romulus, but he's not really the man with the power to make a move toward opening a positive relationship between the Romulans and the Vulcans, but he's optimistic that this new pro-consul can actually do it. So there's this guy with this crazy jaw, who's the pro console of the Romulan Senate.

And he's eager to meet Spock who appears to be able to walk around Romulus, just like the second he puts on a bread box, everybody thinks Spock is a Romulan. So I guess- Why is that? That is insane to me. He's the most famous Vulcan ever.

Yeah, that seems strange, right? Like I guess that sort of implies how closed Romulan society is, the idea that like a normal Romulan walking around in the streets wouldn't be able to tell. Like do they look at Spock and they go like God the guys faces fucked up Because he doesn't he doesn't have that guy He doesn't have as much loaf as any of them God really makes you thankful for what you got

Yeah, like that kind of a rough industrial accident kind of situation with that guy his head must have gotten It's like you got his head cut in some gears. But yeah, so this broke console is like, yeah, I want to meet Spock. I'm excited about the idea of reunification. Spock has one meeting with this guy and walks out of there having had the guy just tell him everything he wants to hear. The door closes behind Spock and another door opens and out walks dun dun dun, Rom Yarlin.

Way to stick that diction. This is another classic bad guy move, hiding in the closet, really, Rom-Yarla. Yeah, and I think Picard and Spock, no Romulans better than the Romulans that they're working with, no Romulans better than the Romulans that they're working with no Romulans. Yeah. Because Spock and Picard know that it's always a game of chess and they get back to the cave and everybody's like cool. We won checkers. Yeah. And they're like, no, like they're up to something.

They don't like there's no fucking way like the head of the Senate is like, yep, we're just gonna like be super cool now. The Romulans never just give you what you want. No. They make you think you're getting what you want, but like, like Picard is like fool me once, shame on you. Spock didn't even have to ask for anything before he was given exactly what he was there to ask for.

Yeah. What, what does that ever happen? No, it never happens. Even if the person isn't trying to fuck you over, like usually a guy like that wants to get a little bit of a pound of flesh out of everybody he talks to. And yeah, so like Spock and Picard are not gonna eat the soup that this guy is serving without exercising

a little bit more caution. Right. Back in the B-star Wars Cantina, the fat forengie that we've been hearing so much about shows up with a couple of loafed-out showgirls and orders a bunch of food and I guess he like cuts off Wurf's Rivery of Klingon Opera. What is that dreadful noise? I don't know how this couldn't be your favorite scene of the episode. It was so fucking awesome. Yeah, maybe the best warfires we have ever seen

Workchats up the piano player and and like he's at a dueling piano as far as like do you know this one? piano players like yeah, it's been a while, but I think I can knock this one out Yeah, and they proceed to sing Klingon opera and Klingon opera this song is called Meloda and this is the Klingon Opera song that only Trent Resner could have been. Yeah it's like super industrial sounding. It really is and it's it is without without any kind of identifiable melodic structure. Like, if Warf is trying to hit notes, he is failing, but it's not clear that he's trying. Warf bakes cakes, Warf sings karaoke, it's fantastic.

We're really turning the corner on his character. Yeah, finding out so many things about the, the same guy that keeps open jars of poison in his room in case he ever has to commit suicide Yeah unique fellow Interesting guy. Well the the fat forangi gets a plate of fish dumped on his lap by Riker William T who wants to know what the fuck is up with this Vulcan ship.

The fat Farenci holds up about as well the Riker's threats as Chunk does in the goonies when the Fratellis interrogate him. Like, he basically gets thrown around a little bit and then cops to everything. The second Riker is threatening him. Hit Pyre. He's like,

No, I'm too young. And so what he cops to is there, they gave it to some other aliens that do a lot of trading with the Romulans. So it's just like, it's kind of pointing ever, ever more in the direction of Romulus, the missing Vulcan ship. And so the enterprise is off to their next spot in their investigation. What happens to be Galorenden Kor, which is where we met Commander Tomlock, I believe. We're really covering a lot of mileage with the entrepreneur in these two episodes. They're really crisscrossing the galaxy in a fun way. Well, and also, this is another example of reinforcing the universe. Galernd and Kor could have been one of the million planets that we've heard about once

and forgotten about, but it's come up a couple of times. It's a planet we know to be close to the neutral zone, and they can say galorendan core, and we know the implications of that now. It's basically tied with rice for most planetary references. Yeah, you might be, you might be right about that. I'd be interested to see some data science on that. Yeah, so the entrepreneur jets off the galorendan core. And when we cut back to the dispute between Picard and Spock and like Pardek and all the other Romulans because they're like, there's obviously something

like super fucked up going on here because there's no way that the Romulans would be this cool. And we get like one of those those archvillain reveals where it turns out that Ram Yarlin has known the location of the rebel base this entire time. She like, sonters down the stairs and a bunch of guys are like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

run out with their Ramil and Tommy guns and they take Picard and Spock and data into custody, which is no bueno. and they take Picard and Spock and data into custody, which is no bueno. They've also spent some time in this episode talking about like what would happen to Spock and Picard and data if the Romulants caught them, and you can use your imagination that it would not be good. My love is a people long and chill for that which is longer than us as the busy. your imagination that it would not be good.

So the Pro Console and Rami Arlin have been in Gooz this entire time and the plan is this. They're going to give Spock some crazy, you know, he's gonna like hold up the today's paper and and Speak into the camera and say that the Vulcans and the Romulans are now pals and there are a bunch of Vulcanships entering the neutral zone Coming from Romulus and they're like they're part of a secret a secret diplomatic mission that is establishing normalized relations. But the real situation is that those ships

are packed with a Romulan invasion fleet, and this is a surprise attack that the heads of the Romulan government are planning on pulling on the Vulcans. And Spock is like, since it is logical to conclude that you will kill us at any event, I choose not to cooperate. In Romulan, it's like, fuck! I hate Vulcans.

She has like a plan B, but she's like so pissed off that she didn't get to go with plan A. And plan B is just like, is just to have like a, a holodeck version of him, which, uh, it seems like, which seems sad because it won't be able to take questions from the press. You know, at one time, I experimented with hollow creations, but I found them unsuitable for my needs. Perhaps your chief engineer is simple enough person to find that kind of thing appealing but I like to have something pushing back on me when I get into me. And a hologram simply will not do. You should to me tell about warmth of the body against my body. Wrinkled old body,

pushing into my into my groin. You see for me it's about you can take But mostly give over and over and then she's like okay well we're off to do our evil plan now bye guys And she just leaves them in her office. Yeah, yeah This is a terrible plan. Do you get the feeling that Rom Yarlin is kind of dumb? Yeah. She kind of, well, the Romulans around her kind of shit themselves at a certain point when the evil plan that they were trying to get the Klingon Civil War to break up the Klingons and the Federation started to fall apart She seemed to kind of hold it together a little bit more than them, but you know, I feel like

the Way a team behaves together really comes from the top and she she didn't have a good team there. She didn't have the best people you know This is you're blaming the team and not not the leadership. No, I'm saying this was amateur hour and she picked the people on the team. Yeah, yeah. So there's definitely some like she she has some blind spot in her judgment, I would say. Like there's not one there isn't been one idea that she's hatched that I've been like, oh, Like there's not one there isn't been one idea that she's hatched that I've been like oh

That's interesting Like they've all been they've all seemed like the the chances of failure are extremely high. Yeah She's really sort of wily coyoteying her diplomacy Yeah, it's uh Yeah, she she ordered this from the Acme Diplomacy catalog. Yeah. So she leaves the room and ignoring the possibility that this room might be bugged, which I would not, if I were Spock and Data,

Spock and Data are like, hey, we can still hack their computer system from in here. This is great. Data has already beaten Romney Ireland before at this game of chess. And she leaves basically the most powerful figure she's ever encountered alone in a room. Yeah, well, she leaves the most powerful figure she's ever encountered alone in a room with like two of the smartest guys from his society. Right. Good plan.

Yeah, not super smart. So I think the first thing that they do is they fuck with the Spock hologram. So it puts out instead of the hostage message that they wanted, it warns the enterprise that the Vulcan ships that are heading into Federation space are baddies and not goodies. The enterprise shows up and attempts to take them under its custody when a Romulan

Warbird decloaks shoots all of those ships and flies away. That really stuns the bridge crew, right? Because they're like, they destroyed their own invasion force. Rather than let them be taken prisoner. Yeah, better to die by their own hand than get captured was the thinking. Yeah, I wonder how how bought into the suicidal, suicidal nature of their mission, the troops on those Vulcan ships were? What had been interesting to get one of those first five minutes of saving private

ryan scenes of their troops loading onto the Vulcan ships, like scared to shit, waiting to cross that line. What do you think a Romulan siege party looks like? Yeah, man, I don't know. I mean, there's gotta be like vehicles and stuff, right? Vehicles and like large artillery and like, what is that? Cause they needed to take over Vulkan.

I don't think that Vulkan has like a big standing army there like I don't know I don't know if I don't know Vulcan even has an army. I mean they must have some kind of planetary defense, right? I don't know if their pacifists may be not. Yeah, but they've got to be like defended by Starfleet. Sure. Anyways, it'd be rough either way, I think. So, Ram Yarlin runs back to the office with a couple of her security guys and they walk in and find that the people that they had thought they left in there as prisoners are no longer there. They turn around and who should be there, but Ryker and a little dustbuster club,

demanding that they drop their weapons. And they start firing. Their disruptor rays go right through Ryker. And out through the wall comes Sp Spock and and Picard and data and they and they do some beat them up on the Romulans folk and neck pinches they They turn the table and they've got Rom Yarland dead derites. She is a disarmed and and And trapped in this room with these three people who now have disruptors Picard puts a little button on this scene

by telling data that he got Riker's hair rob. Yeah. Riker's hair is pretty fucked up in this scene. Hollywood Riker is. Yeah. I wonder if that happened because because Frakes got a bad haircut and showed up on set and they're like,

fuck, how are we gonna deal with this? You're being due data. cut and showed up on set and they're like, FUCK! How are we gonna deal with this? You see, Theo, a man derives his sense of self-respect from his presentation to the world. If his hair doesn't look the way he likes, he won't have the confidence to be the kind of man he wants to be. Oh, D. I also like that, that data doesn't neck pinch on Rom Yarlin and Spock is like, hey, nice one. Yeah, he just sort of finger guns data on their way out the door. Yeah, Gizma. The last scene is, it's Picard offering Spock a chance to do a little mind meld get get a load of the last thoughts of Ceres before he bounces right? The card points to his own head and he's like yo before we go you want to hit this?

Spock's like yeah I'll hit that yeah Your Spock is going to stay behind so this is uh I don't know this this is a weird a weird way to end this episode because they're both pretty weepy and It's like I think they're trying to play it for a really like touching emotional Bow on the on the proceedings. What you get here been is one of the rare face buttons. Yeah, you shot reverse shot Get here, Ben, is one of the rare face buttons. Yeah. You shot reverse shot, Spock, and Picard doing the mind-melting, and then you get your end credit.

Like over card's face. Yeah. Really strange, tonally. Yeah, and it's also like, I mean, there's like a promised filter on the lens in the scene. So it's like, it's kind of dreamy. Yeah. It's a, like there's some creative decisions here

that I just don't get. It seems a little out of place for the show. Yeah. Well, I mean, once they used the promise in the Cantina, I think they probably used that same camera setup for the cave later. Yeah, they probably used that same camera setup for the cave later. Yeah, they just slid the camera over. It was two bays in the same stage. Yeah. You might be right. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't tonally wrong. I felt like it might have been practically

wrong. Yeah. But it was weird to see a credit on an actor's face to end with. And that's what didn't feel right to me. I think you're yeah that's pretty astute. I didn't I couldn't put my finger on why that stuck in my crop. I think you're right about that. So did you like this episode then? I did. I thought I thought it was so different from the last one. And I guess that's kind of a thing at this point, you know, like the couple of multiple episode arcs that we've gotten now. They really make aggressive tonal shifts from one to the next. Unification part one is so much about just setting the table

for all of the stuff that happens in this episode. So this one really feels like a tour to force by comparison. Yeah. Like, whereas Unification part one does a lot of world building, Unification part two does a lot of reinforcing of that world. And I think on balance, I thought it was pretty great. How about you? Yeah, I agree.

It feels like more than we deserve for a mid-season couple of episodes. Yeah. It felt real strong. Yeah, do you think that they pulled out the stops because of the passing of Big Rod? They were like, we gotta do something big to honor his memory. I don't know. This can be checked using research that we don't typically do, but I wonder

about what span of time passed between Roddenberry's death and the production of this episode and then the eventual premiering of the episode. Yeah. Oh, here's something interesting. This was aired before the release of Undiscovered Country. So I guess it was to get people excited for that. Really? Yeah.

That doesn't sound credible to me. Like it was like, it came out weeks before the release of Star Trek 6, the undiscovered country. Spock's makes reference to the events of the movie when he asks, Picard, if he's aware of the first piece of the chers with the Klingons. Wow. Yeah. That's pretty sophisticated. Yeah, listen to this. Leonard Nimoy had previously requested $1 million

to cameo in the series, but he took SIG minimum to pay to reprise the role of SIG to publicize the release of the undiscovered country on which he was an executive producer. Now that is pound wise right there. It is. That's like, yeah, like pay me the minimum you need to pay me, so that the points that I'm getting on the back end

are much more valuable on my motion picture. That's almost like Shatner deciding not to kill God. I'm not sure if that's the end of Star Trek V. Yeah, you know what's said, the butter is on. Pretty shrewd businessman at Leonard Nimoy. Priority 1 message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on top of the month. Supplement.

Yes, extra. How the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. So we got a couple of priority one messages here at him. And the first one is from Michael and it's to Katie. Here's how it goes. Congratulations on the birth of the boy, the boy. My son, the Ian Andrew Troy, the second memorial birthing chair worked great, and Doola Warf has been a huge help.

I'm so proud of you. That's like she bore that well. Yeah, I'm so proud of you and our growing family and I can't wait to bring it down a notch by introducing the boy to my favorite podcast. Love always your number one. PS, please veto Waxana Hatta. Oh, that is, that is some shit,

Waxana Hatta. I don't know if you remember that, Adam. Pretty hot stuff, what I remember. Well, yeah, congratulations, Michael and Katie. It sounds like you had a bouncing baby boy. Please don't share this podcast with that child once he learns his language faculties. Yeah, I would... I was just gonna say, like... I think it would be irresponsible to share this program

with a child of any age. Yeah, this is a 21 plus. It's not even an 18 plus. I would hide this like you're poor. Yeah, this is not an all ages show. No. Yeah, I mean, you hide your porn for one reason. You hide this because you don't want to see the look on your child's face when they hear

what you've been listening to. We got another one. Do we not? We do. We do. This message is from Mark, who grew up to be a giant crab, and it's for Stephen with a V. Message goes like this happy birthday from Shimoda Memorial Corner in Manila, Happy birthday from Shimoda Memorial Corner in Manila. Whoa. Where I'm stuck going through old isolinear chips. My everlasting thanks for introducing me to the true meaning of the greatest generation. And then the parentheses that says Tom Broke-All Voice, guys.

We don't have that voice. At least I don't. Have you heard of the flop house doing recaps of the plot of Dune in Tom Broke, Avoise? No, I haven't. Oh my god, it's like, it is the funniest shit I've ever heard in my entire fucking life. It's so fucking funny. Like the last two episodes, they pulled that out and it's like, I can't breathe listening to it, it's so funny.

So they haven't beaten that impression to death the way we've done to Kevin Oxbridge? I don't know if you listened to this Adam but while you were away in the Far East, I did a solo mission with Kevin that opened up a fairly interesting potential line of comedy for us to mind. Kevin Huxbridge waited on somebody's birthday message and what came up as I was just going off the cuff was that maybe Kevin Huxbridge made the hoos knock up and they don't in fact exist. It's just a spooky story goes around telling people to make them fear him. A lot like Geinen, Kevin X Bridge just shows up. Yeah yeah. Wow. Yeah I love to go back and

give that a listen. You and Kevin doing P1s, that's great. I suppose if there is a better substitute out there for me on the P1s, I can't think of it. Did we read the second half of this? No, we haven't. You know, looping Adam Ragusia's great priority one message music is something that happens fairly often these days. The second half of this message goes like this, hope your semester at seminary is going well. Just don't pull it Jordy and set up Jesus in the holiday to give you the answers. I am shocked that we have seminary students listening to our show then. That is... I'm shocked and delighted. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what sect Stephen is looking to be ordained and too, but I'd be

surprised to discover that this isn't grounds for excommunication from any church. Yeah, I think what we have here are two sets of people who should hide the pot. Well, Mark and Michael thank you for getting P1 messages, Katie, Steven. Thank you for receiving P1 messages. If you would like to send one, go to MaximumFund.org slash JemboTron, 100 bucks for a personal 200 for a commercial. And it's a great way to support this here podcast. I am a cute, just a ball. There I fall like it. Hey, Ben.

What's that, Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? I don't know. Drunk Shimoda! Oh, did I, Adam. I, it's very rare that this show has a moment in it that is written for comedy, played for comedy, and I actually get a genuine belly laugh out of it. I get a belly laugh out of this show, most episodes, but more often than not, this is

inadvertent. This episode had a great joke in it. There is, I think it's the scene when they first are taken into Romney Arland's office, and she's like, a little bit like my wife won't look up from the iPad initially. Yeah. And she says that she's been writing up the hostage speech for Spock. She likes writing and wishes she got more of a chance to do it. She doesn't get

to do it that much in this job. And data just interjects, perhaps you would be happier in another job. But, yeah. I just thought was so funny. I think data is, data gets a gold star direction motor for that. Real galore's humor. Really funny. Yeah, a chap I hear. And, God, I was a little surprised that Picard like plays its stone cold, too.

Like, in that situation, I think it's okay to chuckle. I would have broken, yeah for sure. Yeah, that's tough. How about you? My Shimoda goes to Commander Riker. The Cantina scene, I should say, are I think among my favorite scenes of this whole season. Riker doesn't even consider putting on a appropriate wardrobe for visiting the Cantina. He does not wish to blend in. He walks through the Cantina and does that

thing that I'm pretty sure no one has ever done, which is he grabs a drink off of a waiter's tray as a passing. Did you see this? That is the behavior of a man who lives in a society where nothing costs anything. It was incredible and the waiter gives him like a look and then keeps walking. Yeah. Where is he walking with an empty tray? I would be so pissed if I were that server. I can't go back to being with you. Yeah. Yeah. And while being very enjoyable, it was sort of an asshole move by Riker. Yeah. And check it out. Do you think they're serving real alcohol in that bar? I bet it is.

Yeah, yeah. Right. That's why the system is probably not used to it. Yeah. How much fun do you think that is to consume? Hmm. Yeah. If Picard wasn't such a square, he'd probably be trying all the cool Romulan ails that they

can't get in the federation when they're on Romulus, right? You might be missing out on something in that soup, too. Maybe the soup's alcoholic. There you go. Maybe that's why you didn't like it. Maybe. Tastes like gold slugger. 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 Reembarment 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 Naswald.

Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Camille Nangeani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are already open just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, rats. Hey, hey, oh, I'm about to found you a 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 necks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this. We've got to get on the art. It was about terrain, thought it's about destroyed humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah?

Yeah, I know we look like humans, we're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Kerry? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Kerry, available on MaximumFun.org.

Ben what's coming up on the next episode? The next episode of the show is season five episode nine, a matter of time. Picard's quest to save an endangered planet leads him to violate a prime directive, a prime directive, when he seeks advice from a visitor from the future. Do you remember this episode, Adam? I do.

I remember liking this episode quite a bit. Yeah? Yeah. We get a guest star who's really Jim Kareying around. Yeah. There's a big two-parter in Voyager that I feel like has the exact same premise as this. Oh yeah?

Or they like, go back to San Francisco now, or like, no, no, they go back to LA now, and it's like Star Trek Voyager's Voyage Home and Sarah Silverman is in it. But their enemy is a guy from the future who steals shit from their time and takes it to the past to profit off of it. I don't like that's about as much as I remember about that, but I feel like I get those two things confused.

What I mean to say is, Adam, is that I'm gonna be really disappointed if I hot 20-something Sarah Silverman isn't in this episode. God. Oh, I really hope she's there. I love Sarah Silverman at any age. At any age. She's's there. Yeah. I love Sarah Silverman at any age. At any age. She's the best.

Yeah. I sometimes express to my wife how much I like Sarah Silverman in the age and she looks at me about the way she looks at me when I tell her about how much I like Star Trek the next generation. When she looks up from her iPad, the way Rob Yarland does. It's very hurtful at him. Yeah, I know. I know what I'm feeling.

It doesn't sound like you would use a Vito on this. No, I'm not gonna. Neither will I. So that's our next step. And with that, it's about time to wrap this bad boy up. Yeah, you want to start our award winning outro, every viewer sticks around for? Everybody sticks around for it. So here are the things you need to know. Adam Ragusia makes some of our music.

Dark material makes our theme music. You can follow Adam on Twitter at Cut for Time. You can follow me at BenjaminRAHR. And everybody uses the hashtag GreatestGen to talk about the show. Great way to get a load of the Riker Collection VHS box art. And also the long running Bill Tilly baseball card collection, which recently had an installment that fucking destroyed me about dual war. It is so great. B-Tills is doing the work.

Yeah, yeah, made me last so hard. There's also a great Facebook group and Reddit groups to get involved with really sweet folks on there having funny and thoughtful conversations. Something that I think is really special about this show or the communities that have risen up around it. And yeah, so I think that that just about does it. Does it not add them? You didn't even need Kavanux Bridge's help on that one, Ben. Good job by you.

Well, with that, we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek the Next Generation. An episode of the greatest generation that is lost in time and we can't even tell what time it's going to or coming from. Man. That's just your idea of time, man. It's a flat circle baby. Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture, Art and Stone Listener Supported