The Greatest Generation - A Thousand Bottles of Baby Oil (ENT S1E23)

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

When the Entrepreneur gets an Uber mission that delays their trip to Risa, the Vulcan Ambassador who comes aboard is a pretty cool old lady. But when her rap sheet puts the ship at risk, Archer finally gets need-to-know status just in time to learn a not very salacious secret. What should Reed do with the ship’s torpedos? Where are new Greatest Gen conspiracy theories popping up? Is there a beauty standard for Vulcan eyebrows? It’s the episode that starts a campfire in engineering.Support the production of The Greatest GenerationGet a thing at podshop.biz!Sign up for our mailing list!Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Riker - Quantum LeapThe Greatest Generation is produced by Wynde PriddySocial media is managed by Rob Adler and Bill TilleyMusic by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFriends of DeSoto for: Labor | Democracy | JusticeDiscuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen and find us on social media:YouTube | Facebook | X | Instagram | TikTok | Mastodon | Bluesky | ThreadsAnd check out these online communities run by FODs: Reddit | USS Hood Discord | Facebook group | Wikia | FriendsOfDeSoto.social

We've saved the grossest for last on our series of second contact shows, Ben. We're doing Conspiracy in our hometown of Los Angeles. Yeah. If you are in the Southland, come to Los Angeles on November 2nd to Dynasty Typewriter, a legendary comedy venue here in LA where Adam and I are going to be performing a live Greatest Gen about conspiracy. The best popcorn in Los Angeles can be found at Dynasty Typewriter. I'm so excited to be doing a show there with you, Ben.

I am too. They have a very delightful beer selection at Dynasty Typewriter if you're into sampling beers that have notes. It's just one of the great places to see comedy in all of LA. I really love it. I'm so excited to do a show there. If you can't make it, the stream of the show is gonna be available for purchase, just like the stream of all of our second contact shows

are available over at greatestjintour.com. Go get tickets right now, and we'll see you either in person or in the chat. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument from me. This is a parody. Paramount owns the song. Welcome to The Greatest Generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast.

I'm Adam Pranica. I'm Ben Harrison. Those watching along might have noticed what I've just noticed. It looks like we get a different angle on you today. Oh yeah. Moved my camera once again. How about that? I keep moving it around.

You're keeping the door behind you. That's good podcast feng shui, right? Like the door exactly behind your head. I'm doing the same thing. See? Door behind me. That way if somebody walks in, they can easily catch you podcasting. Right. Or in my case, I can look at the camera feed and notice whether or not Ripley is having extremely bad diarrhea on our guest room bed. Oh, bud.

What is it about dogs and diarrhea? They love it. They're so furry. That's the worst part. Yeah. I mean, the diarrhea is the worst part, but diarrhea on fur, a very close second, I'd say. Yeah, it's like getting gum in your hair, you know?

Stinky, stinky gum. You're just fresh back from a Europe trip after our London live show? Yeah. I stuck around a little bit afterward and went and had noodles with my wife for a week. It was great. That's beautiful. Big fun.

I imagine you're just cross-eyed with jet lag right now. I feel weird. I won't say weird, but good. Just weird. Just weird. We'll see like a seasoned pilot, you know, doesn't even have to think when they operate the controls. Maybe that's like me doing the pod with you. Like, how naturally is this going to come? Let's find out together.

You've got so many little miniature liquor bottles in you, but you still know to turn the plane upside down in a situation like this. Yeah, I'm talking to you and I'm reaching behind into the galley to fix up my OJ. We have a bunch of packages here. What do you say we open some stuff sent in by friends of DeSoto? That sounds really nice.

Captain, I'm sorry to disturb you. I'm receiving a code 47. Verify. It is code 47, sir. Starfleet emergency frequency. Captain's eyes only. Okay, first thing I've got here, and I should say we're doing this also on our YouTube channel if you're just listening, so give that a subscribe.

But first thing I've got here is from our buddy, Sarus Faravar, out of Oakland, California. Hasn't Sarus done enough for us already? He's just the best. What I feel especially bad about is that I picked this item up from the post office several weeks ago and I didn't even look at it. I didn't realize Sirus had sent something in. I should have sent him a text to say thanks again.

Nah, you just leave him, sweat it. Wondering. Yeah. I'd say that we have like a Slack channel on the Uxbridge-Shemota corporate Slack for keeping track of stuff being sent in, part of how we vet items. And I'd say that about half the posts are Bill saying, you're going to be getting something from this person. And then the other half are Bill going, hey, this person asked if you ever got the thing

that they sent, because it's been kind of a long time. Yeah. People want to know. They want to know. That's why we do the segment. It means a lot to folks. So Roos has wrapped this in a shopping bag from a popular grocery retailer here in California. Like a school book for an elementary school kid. I never had to do that. You never wrapped your books?

Didn't. Wow. All right. That was the law in my school. Did your school provide the books? Because and then you're wrapping it to keep it nice for the next person? Yes. Exactly. Yeah. So I had to buy my book, so who gives a shit? So like, How I Play Tennis by Rod Laver would, like, you just own that book and then you'd have to sell it back to the school library? Right, yeah. Yeah, school bookstore will buy it back for a tenth of what you paid for it. What a racket that is. Yeah, incredible. I'm not seeing a note anywhere.

But you're pretty sure it's from Saruus, yeah? It said Saruus on the outside, and I believe it. You don't think it's anyone impersonating Saruus? If they are, they've gone to the extent of putting Seeruus' real address in Oakland, which is in the same zip code that I grew up in. It occurs to me that that's not what they call themselves anymore. It's tribute Seeruus'. Hmm.

It's what they'd be. What Seeruus' sent is some more treasures from Star Trek past. We have some ASCII art printed out on a dot matrix printer that I think is supposed to be Captain Picard. And maybe that's supposed to be, is that Spock? Does that read as Spock to you? Just imagine the nerd that waited for that printer cartridge to go back and forth. Oh man, this is amazing. Somebody named Steve Quinn has forwarded these in some, I don't know if this is email, like a very early form of email or some sort of internal comms system at a university, but there's also a list of episode names and titles for Deep Space Nine.

I guess this is the first season of Deep Space Nine, I'm guessing. It's got the date it aired, the star date, the show title, and a brief synopsis for first season episodes of DS9 on this dot matrix printout. Is Sirus just going dumpster diving at colleges who don't get the benefit of great funding? Like colleges that don't have the funding for laser printers even? It does kind of seem that way doesn't it? Yeah. We also have a 1994 Star Trek calendar, TOS calendar to be specific. Ben you probably know this off the top of your head. When does the 1994 calendar come back to work again as a modern calendar? Does that ever happen or am I just

making that up? My best friend growing up, still one of my best buds, Michael Hoffman's father is a mathematician. And I have a memory of going over to their house and having dinner with their family one time when I was a kid and idly wondering about that. Do the dates wind up lining up on the right months the right way again? Can you reuse calendars just with shifting the date forward?

It seems like a great question. His dad, actual mathematician, just whipped out a notebook and worked it out, worked out the algorithm that you would need to apply to figure this out from first principles. It was the most boring dinner conversation I've ever had, you know? I'd be asking that question backfired in a big way that night. What a terrible middle you were at the time. So did you get the answer or not? Yeah, but I don't remember what it was.

Oh, God. Great story. 31 years. I don't know. Okay. Oh man, I didn't know that there was an aged Scotty episode. We gotta watch that. How about that guy? The deadly years. You know what you should do is you should hang this calendar up behind you, like under your little hat rack back there. Oh sure. Really throw some people people off this calendar includes the birth dates of cast members And Gene Roddenberry and then some key Jewish and Christian holidays Oh and like Independence Day and Labor Day looks like the bigs. Yeah How do you celebrate Gene Roddenberry's birthday in your home? We observe it by fasting

Wow, I don't think he ever did that Godberry's birthday in your home, Ben. We observe it by fasting. Oh. I don't think he ever did that. Then last thing in this package is more of these sheets for somebody sent in this binder of Star Trek trivia. Some great episodes in here. We've got All Good Things, Doomsday Machine from TOS. City on the Edge of Forever from TOS. That's one we've watched. Sure is. The Inner Light. Look at that. Speaking of aged characters. That's not the picture I would have gone with for that episode. I mean, I would have gone with the

one where Picard's playing the flute, but it's some other strange guy's hands working the holes. Picard's playing the flute, but it's some other strange guy's hands working the holes. That's the one. Here's one for the D, and this one is a, all right. Damn. Save that one for later. I think I will. Thank you, Sarus. Thank you for sending more stuff in.

The Bible was plenty. I mean, just writing an article about us was plenty. I mean, the Bible is more than we deserve, really. This next one came from Lightning Source, just a commercial shipping label. It didn't come from a person. And I looked up Lightning Source, and it seems to be a print-on-demand book publisher.

So I'm guessing this is somebody's own book or something like that. They sent it to the right person. Oh! It's the 90 prettiest county courthouses in Texas and the 10 ugliest. Hey, that's a follow-up to a commercial P1 we got a while ago. That's great! Oh man. What a delight.

Beautiful photography in here. Damn, is that the centerfold? These are all quite pretty. I haven't gotten to the ugly ones yet, I suppose. Ooh, check out the backside on that courthouse. This is great. Kevin Miller, the author and photographer of the 90 Prettiest County Courthouses in Texas

and the 10 Ugliest sentienten Deeply appreciated. I want to visit all of them. I want to use the bathrooms and every one of them. I Want to I want to jurisdiction shop a intellectual property case in Just the right County Court house in Texas got to find the right one. I move for a change of venue, Adam. It's fairly unorthodox, but I'll allow it. I want my cornpwn country attorney to feel right at home in the venue.

That's why I'm making this motion, before the court. Yeah, comfort to priority. This last one is from Josh H. out of Rochester, New Hampshire. There's a Rochester, New Hampshire in addition to Rochester, New York? That must be confusing. And it's an N blank state. I bet mail gets mixed up all the time. What a mess. I opened it up from the right side because the note is right here on top.

Dear Ben and Adam, or Adam and Ben, I can't decide. Long time listener, first time sending a code 47. Please find and close some awesome Star Trek items my great aunt and uncle shared with me. Please share the items to the best of your ability so you can both enjoy everything here. The jacket belonged to my great uncle and when I visited him this past spring, he gave me the jacket to pass on to another trekker. She who is my prodigy is too big to fit into it, so she who is my wife and I thought to

Roan would be perfect to inherit the jacket. Thank you both for the years of entertainment with both pods. We are looking forward to hearing your views on the rest of season one of Enterprise and our really loving hot Cylon summer Josh and Christian from New Hampshire and Transmission. Alright this is goodie box is what we've got here. Alright. Oh shuttlecraft to Enterprise shuttlecraft to Enterprise Spock here happy holidays live long and prosper. That's what that button says. I hit it a thousand times as a kid.

A Shuttlepod Galileo Hallmark keepsake Christmas ornament. Wow, Adam. One of the best. I'm surprised that another one of these exists. We have the Marshmallow Dispenser from Star Trek V with seems like maybe working mechanism inside. I'll be there. A Marshmallow. Look at that mechanism. Wow, I was looking around the studio for mine.

I think, I don't think it's on display in my studio museum. That's a shame. That's a damn shame, Adam. You know what happened to it, Ben. We took it out on tour. It famously broke. It really got fucked up, yeah. It was filled with marshmallow leavings. And I put it in my studio, and the ants got to it. Oh no! Ants. All over. And I think I put it outside for the ants to leave and...

They just carried it away. They were like this thing's worth like 60 bucks on eBay man. This is my house now and now it's in a bush. Oh man another hallmark keepsake ornament Adam, this time of the enterprise D. I'm gonna come over and scoop up all those Christmas ornaments, man. Yeah, we are not a Christmas tree household, so these are yours for the taking. Some Star Trek magazines here. Oh yeah, perfect for the top of a toilet tank

in any home. Imagine being the photographer that took that picture. Hold up that one again. You see that picture of the cast everywhere. It's one of the best pictures. You know if you're the photographer, you got it with that. We recently had a little photo sesh with a friend of De Soto who actually does those types of photos. He did the analogous one for when they got them all back together for season three of Star Trek Picard, spoiler alert, and gave us each print of that photo. And I coveted it.

To have a print of that photo? Amazing. Yeah. Shout out to Denny Den, friend of the show, who's just extremely talented. Also would love to have this, a print of this one, the Picard and Riker with Gene on the bridge. That picture is on the cover of both of these magazines, look at that. Yeah, uncredited. Yeah, who knows? Who knows who took that picture?

Dr. Star Trek knows. He sure does. that guy knows everything What have we here why it's a commemorative plate with the Starship Enterprise D on it I've never seen this particular commemorative plate before it's not one of the like weird sort of Uncanny Valley paintings of the cast, you know, like where especially Troy and Beverly look super strange. Yeah.

I mean, I don't think Data looks particularly great on those plates either. He doesn't. For the audio only FODs, that plate was the size of a coaster or like a tea coaster or something. Is that... what are we talking about here? It's a porcelain mini plate with easel. I would guess yeah like three inches in diameter. Mini plate? Yeah. That's the size of all of them should be.

That's... yeah. Reliably at the Star Trek convention in Las Vegas, there's one table in the merch hall that is like pretty focused on the commemorative plates. And it is amazing how many of those got made over the years. Like when I think about like how hard it is to make money as a consumer packaged goods company or just like a company that like, you know, we sell like one or two t-shirts every day on PodShamp.biz. If we're lucky. If we're fucking lucky, right. Like a company made plates that you can't even eat off of Star Trek shit and made hundreds and hundreds

and hundreds of variations on what that plate could be. And like they still are collectible for some reason. The work of someone who toils within the Star Trek economy is great effort, but I think about the guy who schleps those plates from convention to convention. Of all the things, of all the things to schlep, those plates. Like having to put the like little slip of foam rubber in between each plate as you load them back into the

like rubber made tubs that you put in the back of your van to go to the next convention. All right, spool up the Sarah McLaughlin style background music as I begin what I'm about to say here. FODs, you've gone to Star Trek conventions before and you've seen them. The person behind the banquet table covered in the black duv piled high with collectible plates. Plates like this need your help now more than ever. Don't just walk by these tables and chuckle to your friend about what a pain in the ass those who've got to be to schlep from convention to convention.

Buy a plate. Take it off of this person's hand. Make it less of a job for them. They need your help. Now more than ever. FODs, at the next convention you go to, I'm asking you, I'm begging you, buy a terrible porcelain plate. Operators are standing by at 1-800-555-PLATE.

If you can't make it to a Star Trek convention, I've been told operators are standing by at 206-984-4-5. If you just call that number, you can request whatever plate you want and leave your billing and shipping information after the beep. For the cost of just five or six cups of coffee a day for a year, you too can make sure a plate with wharf on it

has a loving home. Have you not made a terrible purchase lately? The terrible-est could happen to you today. You want to do an episode, Ben? Let me just show this one last item. There it is. That is child size. Sick ass Starship Enterprise Original Edition bomber jacket,

like schematic bomber jacket. And it's got like cuffs. Look at those cuffs. Yeah. Look at that. Oh, man. That is too small for a Benjamin R. Harrison. Is it big enough for a Doron?

I think Doron will grow into this. It's a size 14. I don't know what size 14 means, but... Ben, you're gonna have a incredible decision to make when Doron, finally old enough to dress himself for school, puts that thing on for the first time in the morning. Are you gonna jump on the social grenade that that represents?

Is a social grenade that could ruin his reputation forever? Were he to wear it to school? The amount of shame that I carry through the world with me that I could save him from. Spool up that Sarah McLoughlin music one more time. No, no, no, We don't have time. Spent for the cost of a pair of scissors. You could destroy this thing before it

has a chance to hurt your son. What do you think? Don't let it hurt anyone else. Something I'm going to have to give some consideration to. I think I have at least a year or two before he fits into that. So. All right.

That's fair. A lot of time to think. Thank you, Josh and Kristen and Kevin Miller and Sirus Faravar for all of the great stuff you sent in today. Adam, what do you say we get into the episode we came to talk about? Can't wait, Ben. It's Star Trek Enterprise season one, episode 23, appropriately. Michael Jordan's 23. Because I think we've got one of the greatest guest stars here in this episode. It's called Fallen Hero. The opening of this episode, again, in the Captain's Mess, has Archer and Trip kind of like choking down food because of something that has just been uttered. And it turns out

what the topic of conversation at the highest table on the ship is that the humans are not fucking often enough to stay sane according to Paul. She has a very specific reason for bringing this up. Efficiency has fallen behind in her mind. And maybe the humans among the crew would do better if they roped a little bit more or got it knocked out a little bit more often, as it were. I was trying to remember what is and isn't a secret about Ponfar, because she seems pretty open with the I fuck once every seven years thing with them. Yeah. I don't know if that's just because she in particular is forward or if that, like,

if that aspect of it isn't part of what Vulcans are so weird about? We do not discuss it. I think if you and I were in this scene, there'd be very little to talk about, because she'd talk about the once every seven years bonfire thing. You and I would be like, yeah, same.

Once every seven years. That often? Wow. We're fine. That's a hell of a dry spell. She has gone ahead and spent some Bonvoy points on behalf of the crew and set up a shore leave on a planet called Rysa. This should be a fun episode. Cannot wait to go to Rysa. Basically like a sexual Jurassic Park.

Basically like a sexual Jurassic Park. Captain Archer, my dear Triptaka, welcome to sexual Jurassic Park. We're going to make a fortune with this place. Push in on a mined chunk of amber coming out of a cave and then there's like a pineapple rope... LAUGHS ...shooting through the middle of it. You can't see it because amber and pineapple ropes, uh, like, don't look completely dissimilar. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Once they're fossilized. But when the guy that played Escobedo in Clear and Present Danger has all the miners show their helmet lights on it, and he says, Que lindo eres. You can just make it out. Why does this cave smell like the cum plant?

It's fucking gross. This is resolved pretty quickly and they start heading there. Archer expresses a desire pretty early on to not go on the vacation and stay back and do nerdy shit, like looking over documents or whatever. And T'Pol's not having any of this. She and Tripp kind of bully Archer out of it. A trip that has decided that it's casual star date day on the bridge? Hey, it's not vacation time yet, Tripp Tucker. Yeah.

Save that for the shuttle pod down. Like you're not even in orbit yet. Think about this with me. Okay. This predates a moment where there are clothing printers on a Starship. Sure. Because the first time we saw one of those is on Discovery. Sure.

Many, many years after this. Yeah, I don't think they have matter replicators on this enterprise. So TripTucker, we both recently had to do this when we went to Europe for our tour show. TripTucker chose to pack a Hawaiian shirt on this mission, not knowing if he'd ever get a chance to wear this? I like the optimism of that move, you know? He's gonna be the only one with one of these shirts, right? No one else would have thought to do this.

Well, I took notice. Yeah, how could you not? I mean, T'Pol absolutely clobbers his nuts over this shirt, though. If you're wearing that to impress the women on Ryza, you may as well stay on board. She noticed. Yeah. It's not working for her. The captain gets a priority communique

from Admiral Forrest and goes into the clarinet storage room to take this FaceTime. You know things are getting exciting when you see Admiral Forrest on screen. Yeah. Did he have a new jacket? His jacket looked, like, new and crispy. God, he... What a hunk. Ha ha ha.

You know shit is about to go buck wild if we get an Admiral Forrest on the screen. Yep. Uber mission! This is gonna be a crazy episode! And because it involves a Vulcan, that's all you get to know. Yeah. Well, this may come as a shock to you, John, but the Vulcans aren't talking.

Imagine that. There wasn't a moment that I felt like they really processed the vacation being canceled. And I couldn't tell if that was because the vacation kind of kept getting delayed, like when you are told that your flight is gonna be 15 minutes late departing, and then they keep adding 15 minutes to that. I wish we got that moment, Ben.

I don't prefer the sort of criticism that's like missed opportunity to blank, but keeping TripTucker in this shirt for the rest of the episode would have been great. Yeah, that would have been solid. Keep him in the shirt! Keep him thinking that, like, once this next thing gets resolved, we're dropping her off and we're off to Ryza.

Don't change. LAUGHS So in Hoshi's cabin, we learn that that's where this person's going to be staying. Her name's Valar. Yeah. And T'Pol is the one to break this news. We skip over the news breaking part straight into the Hoshi getting her shit and getting the fuck out part.

And with how hard Hoshi worked to even get this cabin, I expected her to put up a little more of a fight. Didn't you? Like the stars are going the right way. She's gonna have to go to a cabin with maybe even no stars at all, and that sucks. Yeah, where is she gonna be? Like down in the belly of the ship where there's no light? How could you not make them roommates either?

Yeah, that would have been fun. Kind of a, you know, Tilly and Michael Burnham situation, a little odd couple. I mean, they probably couldn't have Tripp Tucker as the roommate because of the frequent pregnancy scares that occur when he's involved in a mission, right? You're never going to let that go, are you? Yeah, indeed. Anybody that's ever slept next to a pregnant person also knows they're just getting up multiple times a night to go pee. Can be a little bit disruptive, you know?

I bet. So they're off their path toward Risa and on their way to the Maserite home world where this ambassador is going to be. They arrive to pick up the ambassador. And they're like, hey, so like, yeah, we heard we're picking up this ambassador. We'll get a shuttle down there pretty soon. Should be no problem.

And the niceties are cut short. They're on FaceTime with like some Maserite official. And he's like, nope, she's already on her way to you. She's being expelled for criminal conduct. We don't want anything to do with her. These Maserites have a very Polly Walnuts from the Sopranos kind of look to their hair. I thought, what is going on here? That's all we got to do to make an alien anymore? I'll tell you what, Tone. When I heard the term Maserat, I kind of thought about my buddy Hazmazaro and his Karma Barge.

Wondering if these guys ever hang out there. You don't have to come down here. We'll bring her to you. So yeah, we are meeting this ambassador very, very quickly. And this is the, uh, the Lar, of course played by the great Fianna LaFlanagan. Or did we find out that it was pronounced like Fnula or something? Oh God. Somebody probably corrected us at some point. Oh no. Oh, isn't that just the worst by us to, to endure a correction and then forget the correction?

Hey Don, you forgot the correction! A nice pronunciation of an Irish name that you got there. It would be a shame if something happened to it. Did you get the sense that Velard drove herself up to the station, given what we learn about, in what proximity to danger she is or whatever, and that at this point, maybe they're trying to obscure the idea that she's being chased and this is kind of an escape, but no one wants to tell anyone anything about that at this moment in time. If she did drive herself, that sort of implies that she brought a cool craft that they could

have mentioned and they don't. Yeah, I mentioned. Yeah. Anyways, she seems really neat. She like comes aboard shaking hands and being personable in a way that, you know, Starfleet officers who have only interacted with a certain type of Vulcan are not expecting. Old lady Vulcan sticking out her hand to do a handshake is as surprising as like you or I doing a four step handshake greeting situation.

Sure. You know, like, wow. All right. Cool. She is so fucking chill. So much chiller than they could have ever imagined she would be. What'd you make of this? Like she holds her hand up almost at head height.

Yeah. I mean, she's not that much shorter than Scott Bakula or whatever. I think it emphasizes how unusual the moment is. And it makes it really more delightful that she does it like that. They are expecting her to be... I think we've sort of been primed by T'Pol expressing what it's going to be like to have a very important Vulcan aboard to everyone. Like don't plan on her being super social and out in these streets.

Like, she's not going to be coming around the mess hall and hanging with people. She's going to like probably be meditating the whole time. And it's about like minimizing how stinky that experience is for her for the next three days. But I wanted to show her my nipples. Strangers get a kick out of them. If Trip had still been wearing the Hawaiian shirt and he had done the high arm handshake, it would have been about showing those nips, right?

Can you imagine what a hit Trip Tucker would be on the surface of Ryza? Wearing a Hawaiian shirt arms full of nipples. I'd dump them out just by wearing short sleeves Don't make me the server in beach volleyball Ouch, honestly don't make me the bump setter either. I'm only good for spikes. No nipples on the palm of my hands. She wants to thank Hoshi for inconveniencing herself. That is also a thing that comes as a surprise. Yeah. A consideration for other people.

A big surprise where the Vulcans are concerned. And look at this. She comes to dinner. She comes to the captain's table and, uh, you know, he's being super cool. She is putting it away too. Wow. When you see, when you see a veteran actor make a choice like this, you got, you got to respect her, right?

Like, yeah, she's eating eclairs like the scene at the end of Van Wilder. Like, she's going two-handed. Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. Our buddy John Hodgman, right here on the Max Fun Network, who we've done some bonus episodes and stuff with, has a story in one of his books about, like, being kind of new to acting and being in a scene where he's, like, his character is eating cheese doodles,

and he thought it would be funny to eat like a lot of cheese doodles in the first take and then realized that that meant for the rest of the day, they'd be shooting coverage where he's eating shit tons of cheese doodles. You know? Like, Fionnuala Flanagan and or Fionnuala Flanagan, a seasoned pro at this point. So this choice by her is a powerful one, I think. You a puffy or a crunchy cheese doodler? Oh man, I think I'm crunchy.

I think I like the crunch. I like the crunchy, but I tell you one thing, I love these guys, the pops. Oh yeah, the biggins. Yeah, yeah, those are good. The planters cheese balls. Yeah. Back are good. The planters, cheese balls. Back when you used to be able to get them. I'm just trying to stay away from anything puffy these days.

Good luck. You know, it's funny you say that, Ben. I just, I was able to buy a thousand bottles of baby oil very inexpensively on the used market. It's not the obvious topping for a bucket of cheese balls, but it's actually pretty good. I mean, if you're speed eating them, it is. So when we learn that Valar is not just your standard run at the male diplomat, she's also got a record. Things like abuse of her position and criminal misconduct.

It seems like this is going to be less of an Uber mission and more like con air. Right? She just wants to bring a bunny back to the Vulcan high command. Yeah, incredible, right? Yeah, and it's like there's sort of a need to know thing. They're like, what did you do? Did you piss off the Maserites or are you getting away with something? And she won't tell them whether, she won't even admit whether she thinks she's guilty of these crimes or not.

Vulcans are terrible middles. They don't keep the conversation ball in the air for shit. Yeah. Dinner ends in kind of a weird energy and T'Pol takes the ambassador back to her quarters. The ambassador is kind of like, do you want to like do some Vulcans only hangs? Being that we are the only two of our people here aboard. And T'Pol is not really open to or available for this type of experience.

I think because the last time she had Vulcan on Vulcan hangs, she had Vulcan hands all over her face. So there's a trust issue. Yeah, in a very surprising and shocking way. Much in the way that the Maserites have started to wonder if they can trust the Vulcans, T'Pol has as well. Indeed. Jyn is, in fact, disappointed with one of her heroes. And she goes and talks to Archer about this in the hallway and he's like, yeah, it seems like this is really bumming you out this mission

and you weren't even going down to Ryza to fuck. Like, the disappointment should be less for you, not more. should be less for you, not more. It seems like Velar is such a rare case. This constellation of like her weird social behavior and that she's got a rap sheet. Yeah. It's crazy.

Yeah, and it's bumming to Paul out. Yeah. To Paul met Velar long, long ago. Is she more disappointed at the rap sheet or that she wasn't remembered when they met when she was a school child? Yeah. Unclear. Um.

Couple of ways, probably. Yeah. I mean, they both survived a diplomatic conference in Star Trek a long time ago. So it's like, it should bond them, you know? Hard to do. Yeah. But instead, uh, yeah, it seemed to go unremarked on. So this is a slight variation on Never Meet Your Heroes.

It's Never Meet Your Heroes for a second time and have them kind of not seem to really remember you. I was bracing myself for another heroic water polo story here because this is the angle Archer tends to take in conversations like these. You know, one time I met, you know, like name of horse polo horse. He bit my hand when I tried to feed him an apple. It sucked. So this conversation is interrupted by a message calling Archer to the bridge and on the bridge we see they're being chased by another ship. And on FaceTime, there's a Manzanite there.

Manz-erite? Something like that. Manzanite sounds like a stone you put in a ring when you don't want to buy a diamond, you know? Manzanite. Maybe she won't notice. No, I mean, she'll notice all right. She'll notice when she tries to get it insured.

Yeah. Man tonight. Don't ever get it insured. Yeah, they're like, hey, we kind of jumped the gun on giving up that perp and the magistrate has a lot more questions for her. So, if you could just hand her back over, we will take her back to our home world. And Archer kind of stalls. He's like, I'm not in a position to just give this person up. I've got to go ask Admiral Forrest. And you can tell that that is not a believable bluff, just based on the other captain's reaction. We get several scenes between this captain and Archer

having conversations about the situation. And I wish they were all a little more like this, because this Manzanite captain's bluffing a little bit. He's like, yeah, you know, I'm just a freighter ship captain out here. Palace Intrigue doesn't float my boat at all. I'm just out here pushing tin or whatever. Dup de derp. And, and Archer does the same thing.

Like, yeah, I'm just out here on a warp five starship taking orders from, uh, extreme sexual icons, Admiral Forrest. You know, I'm, I'm just taking orders myself. Like I wish there was more gamesmanship. This is the only game there is in the entire episode between them. More aw shucks. I'm just a lowly captain in this here Starfleet.

This turns into a shoot and fight really quickly. And this other ship is jamming their broadcasts. And wouldn't you know it, the torpedoes that the entrepreneur has do not have any effect on the shields that this ship has. Why are they even shooting them anymore? Get rid of the weight and just like put that much less strain on your engines, right? You know what would really have an effect?

Like venting all of their waste material out the back of Enterprise. Get this guy back on screen and he's like, oh, oh, it's awful. While the humans have solved most of the social ills, they still have a terrible food waste problem in the 22nd century. It's pretty good for shit. Yuck. We also learned that we can't fire phasers at warp. So Reed is like still working on that,

but they have to drop to impulse to successfully defend themselves. What would you say you do here, Reed? Given these two details. If I were Reed, I might just go to engineering and make myself busy there. Like not much to do shooting the weapons. No. Don't got to have whips. No.

That is not the key. No. But he does, he knocks out the other ship's propulsion and while the ship is still shooting at them, it can't pursue. So they go back to warp and Archer goes down and confronts the ambassador again. Faith of the fart. Squarespace has approved the contents of this message. Are you tired of website building

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Soul Reader, limited edition, available now. and even official state muffins. Plus we'll hear from guests whose lives have been inspired by the state's iconography and from residents who call that state home. Bring some snacks, a map, and your travel journal because this podcast is a virtual journey like no other. Au di nostrum e pluribus motto quae li batalia luni di maximum fun. And for the Latin challenged among you and us, listen to e pluribus motto every other Monday on Maximum Fun. Well, some of them. But if there's one thing we can't change, it's who we are. I'm Ify, a comedian who was on strike last year in two different unions. I'm Dreya. I've been a producer and film festival programmer for decades.

And I'm Alonzo, a film critic who literally wrote the book on queer Hollywood. You can listen to us talk movies and the movie biz every week on Maximum Film. We may not be straight white guys, but we love movies, and we know what we're talking about. Listen to Maximum Film on Maximum Fun or wherever you listen to podcasts. And you will never take the greatest gin alive. Ben would rather die. Rather die.

In Valar's quarters, I have no answers for you. Sounds a lot like the Vulcan version of a lie, right? Right, like I'm not gonna tell you the truth, but I'm just not gonna tell you anything. Yeah, I mean, this is familiar... in a, like, Star Trek 6 context, when a Vulcan character in that movie famously, like, sort of lied, but kind of didn't.

It was like that kind of semantic thing happening here. A lie? An arrow. Yeah. It's like a, this is all going on way above your pay grade. Like you were kind of talking shit to that other captain. Like decisions needed to be made by people more powerful than you, but that wasn't in fact totally untrue. Like the diplomatic concerns here are, are more than, than you can probably manage. And, uh, Archer kind of calls her bluff.

He like, radio zipped to Mayweather, like as they're talking and it's like, all right, turn it around, we're dropping her back off with the Manzanites, Masonites? Masons? I've never had an altercation with a rideshare driver that I can recall. I think, I think I'm a pretty good passenger,

but what if on the table at any point, if you weren't locked down, that driver's going to turn it around and drop you off where he picked you up. I bet behavior would be a lot better if that were one of the options. Lot more people would have a perfect five stars on their app. I think so too. Yeah. That's the threat here.

So yeah, like she is pretty upset about this, but not a lot she can do, and it still doesn't persuade her. Like, you know, Archer still doesn't know what the charges are against her, so he's like, you know, like, whatever, you know, I'm gonna take you back and drop you off. I'm not gonna get everybody over here killed over you. I don't know you. I don't know her.

Right. Especially because death is not on the line for Velar at this point, in Archer's mind. Like, Tripp was trying to get his dick sucked on the line for Velar at this point in Archer's mind. Like Tripp was trying to get his dick sucked on the beach right now. Work my arm nipples. Don't ignore them. If you could line your fingers up, you can pinch and tweak a lot of nipples at all at once. It takes a little practice nipples at all at once. It takes a little practice, but you can do it.

Cut to Archer and Admiral Forrest doing a FaceTime where Archer is showing more emotion than I think maybe he ever has on this show in this scene because he is super frustrated about being in the dark again. Admiral Forrest is like, look, he's eating the sandwich and like wiping his fingers with tissue paper. He's like, look. They never give you any napkins in this place. My hands are tied just like you.

I'm going to go talk to Admiral Saval and see if I can't get more information. Yeah, but not super helpful. Like it, and unclear if Admiral Forrest knows more than he's letting on, or if he's just as in the dark as Archer. Great point by you, Ben. Because in an episode where you're just getting blocked

at every turn, at getting any information at all about what's actually going on here, there's a limit to this, right? In a Star Trek episode, you're like 20 minutes in and you're like, am I ever gonna know what's actually happening here? Are we gonna just end this episode with just it being like why did we even watch any of that? There's that angle, but because the Vulcans are involved,

you're also feeling like, okay, who else is keeping information from me that is vital to my understanding of the situation? Yeah, Yeah. So we get a little scene. I loved the scene with Trip and Reed just like walking down a hallway. And Trip is like, Reed, you got into this for shooting, right?

Like, you do what you do because you're about that life. And Reed going, yeah, I love the violence of it all. I need something to do with this shit, come on. Fair enough. Also not to be missed is the conversation about the six-fingered folks on RISA. An even number of fingers would suggest if nipple tweaking was what you're into,

a sixth finger would be vital. Because then that's three nipples per hand. The happy ending to the massages provided on Riza? Much happier now that I have this body modification. So in the mess hall, Hoshi and Valar are having a chat, and it looks like they're hitting it off pretty fast. And that's because Valar is getting absolutely hammered on passion fruit ice tea. If you aren't used to having any beverage

that isn't water. Yeah. Uh, this is going to knock you on your ass, right? A lot of caffeine in the passion fruit ice tea on entrepreneur. You want to take that again? Sorry. How are to take that again? Sorry.

How are you the tired one? I tell you about my neighbor's alarm clock. That's like, my neighbor has this like insane alarm clock for people that can't get up in the morning and they've been sleeping with their window open and this alarm goes off at like 5 AM and they don't turn it off. They won't turn it off till like 8 a.m.

What? It wakes me and my wife up every morning now. It goes up for three hours straight? For three hours and it is so loud that it's coming out of their window through the wall of my house and waking us up. How long has this been going on? Apparently it happened when I was in London,

but then like it's happened twice in a row now. And I actually went over and knocked on the door this morning and they didn't answer. The TV was on super loud. I could hear that blasting through the door. Then you got to make contact with these neighbors. I know. I know. I went and yelled through the open window to see if I could raise them that way.

But there's a tree trunk right by that window that has a beehive in it. And there were like bees swarming around my head so I couldn't stand there. It was really insane. It was, I had a very insane morning. I mean, from their perspective, they're looking out the window,

seeing a tree yell at them. In that weird liminal waking sleeping state. Yeah. That's very confusing, I bet. Yeah. So anyways, T'Pol comes in and tries to get Volar to spill the iced tea about what's going on back at the Maserites. Hey, you think that's going to happen? No.

No. Volar's a tough nut to crack. Yeah. But we do learn that she has a memory, like a steel trap. She does remember T'Pol from way back in the day. She remembers the specific instance that T'Pol came up and asked her some question that was impudent and the question of a young upstart who thinks they know everything about how the world works, but it caused her to reevaluate something. And-

Was impudent part of the dialogue? Because I wrote down that exact word too. Oh, man, I think it might have been. Your questions about my negotiating tactics were quite presumptuous coming from one so young. I apologize if I acted inappropriately. That's too weird of a coincidence. What do you think of this sequence? Like as soon as it's to Paul V. Vollard, it's soap opera style singles back and forth and

the camera's just pushing in on both of them. Yeah. It's soap opera style singles back and forth, and the camera's just pushing in on both of them. Yeah. This is intense. I liked it. This is a one and only episode director on this one. That's why I brought it up. Yeah. This guy.

Patrick Norris. Yeah. Who looks like still directs TV from time to time. Yeah. What's a good Patrick Norris joke? Remember? Remember those? Oh, yeah, like, uh...

When Patrick Norris calls action, the whole world begins their scene. Yeah. When he says, print that one, they print the entire reel of film. What's underneath Patrick Norris's beard? I don't know. What? They print the entire reel of film. What's underneath Patrick Norris's beard? I don't know. What? A director's chair.

He doesn't not look like he could be related to Chuck Norris. It's weird, right? Yeah. Whoa. He directed Nash Bridges episodes. Pretty fun. Fun stuff. Hey, he directed Friday Night Lights episodes. Isn't that your favorite show? One of my favorite shows.

Cool stuff. So, the scene ends with Volar being willing to confide something important, and again, we don't get to stick around to hear it. How long is this episode going to jerk us around? I don't know, man. We got to watch these commercials so these people can sell us these things. So over in Archer's quarters, T'Pol interrupts Portho's time to tell him about the conversation that she had with Velar, and T'Pol tells Archer that the charges against her were bullshit, and they're just fabrications to distract her

from the real mission, which is classified. T'Pol is not going to share what she learned, but she is going to cache a chit. She's going to ask Archer for a favor for the first time ever, and he is willing to grant it on those terms. Whatever the secret mission is, Archer determines he is going to help with. So, I guess they turn the ship around again, and now suddenly there's three Maserite ships chasing them and shooting at them. And I guess they caught up with the Enterprise just because the Enterprise spent so much time

backtracking toward their planet. Yeah. I thought it was funny that Archer wasn't on the bridge during this attack. Like we're on the bridge and then he arrives there after. Yeah. That's fun. What were you doing?

Give him a heads up before they're in weapons range. Like... Archer needs all of his porthos time, not just some of it. Yeah. Porthos had diarrhea right in the middle of the guest bed in Archer's quarters. He spent a lot of time cleaning up before he could attend to the attack on his ship. Centropy seen in the episode is the warp speed measuring contest that Enterprise has against these Man's Arrayed ships.

They punch it all the way to warp five. Yeah. We've been told that this is a warp five ship, but turns out that is an on paper warp five. Your mileage may vary. It's kind of like how the internet service provider told me that I was getting gigabit internet, but it never quite gets there, you know? There's a moment here where top speed isn't warp five though, and they're pushing it to the limit. here where top speed isn't or five though, and they're pushing it to the limit. And Velar, you know, Velar's felt the bangers in Hoshi's quarters. Nothing falls off the wall in Hoshi's quarters when the bangers go off though. So it's just the rumble that gets to her.

She gets to the bridge and she's like, Hey, what's up? And once she sees in what kind of danger the ship is, this compels Velar to talk to Archer and in his ready room, she once again tells him that he's on a need to know basis and she doesn't need to tell him anything. In the very same scene, she finally comes out and says that the Manzanites are criminals and her job was to go undercover to root out their organized crime. Crimes that I can't describe to you in any way. She's like the cue of Manzanite society, right?

Like there's like sickos in the deep state of the Manzanite government that the, like the good people in the Manzanite government contracted with the Vulcans to have her investigate. But now the sickos are after her. I think so much depends on what exactly these crimes are for this episode to be interesting. And this moment, this moment wants you to believe that this is good enough because I feel like Archer

in this scene feels like I do. You kept this is the secret? These crimes are barely interesting enough for a Star Trek episode. That's why your character is here to make them more interesting. Have the Manzinites be the proprietors of a comet ping pong or something like, like have it be horrific,

but also like, you know, the kind of accusation you can't just make without like really good evidence. Just like boring ass corruption doesn't feel like it would be, it would warrant all of this, right? Ben. What if it were salacious? Ooh. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. Like, yeah, make it dirty. Right. Like why did she come aboard with an evidence locker with 1,000 tubes of baby oil in it? Who needs that much baby oil? The way Velar is weird should be associated with these crimes somehow, right? Right. But it's just that she's weird.

Just that she's weird and she, like, knows too too much. And like the bad guys in the Maserat government want to take her out before she can like Jacque's them. So there's all this brinksmanship surrounding getting it up to Warp Five. And then, you know, I thought that they did like a pretty good job with building the tension in the scene. But when the campfire breaks out in engineering, I was like, no, that can't be what the warp five engine looks like when you push it past.

It's it's like spec limit. Like it can't just be like it's barrels and mesh. Then we're like pushing sometimes smoke out of that mesh and sometimes, uh, just a little bit of flame, crackle little flickers of, uh, of, of flame, like, no, it's got to be explosive. It's got to be sparks. This is Star Trek. Give me explosions or sparks. Give me girders. Yeah, no girders.

Yeah. So they're trying to close the distance between the entrepreneur and this Vulcanship that they're going to meet up with. And there are eight minutes left, uh, best case scenario, if the Vulcans even received the message that they like tried to send through the scattering field. But then they get hit and they dropped the impulse. And now it's 10 minutes before they'll meet up with the

Vulcans best case scenario, because they're not at warp anywhere, which I. Which means the pressure is on Archer to have a conversation with the captain of another ship that lasts as long as 10 minutes. A man who has never had a conversation with any captain of any ship for longer than 10 seconds. And this is who you're asking to stretch the taffy? Yeah.

These scenes are pretty fun to me though. Yeah. So Velar gets sent to Sixth Bay. Sixth Bay. I'll explain later. They're told to like prepare to be boarded and they go receive the boarding party. But the boarding party is not like guys with guns

like hustling into the ship and locking it down. I was like, why wouldn't it be? Wouldn't it be like rifles and like swat gear kind of energy? Just because you've disabled a ship doesn't mean you've disabled the people inside. Yeah. You're exactly right about this. They sent three people. Enterprise is full of crew people and phasers.

Just stun those three people and be like, hmm, what? You're hailing again? No, your captain's over here. He's doing stuff. Yeah. No, he's too busy to talk to you right now. You can buy 10 minutes easy doing that. The Sherad is putting Velar in Six-Bay in a dermal regeneration chamber.

Yeah. And so the boarding party goes to Six Bay. They talk to Dr. Flax. Dr. Flax defends his patient and goes, we can't yank her out of there. She's getting new skin. New skin because she was fucked up during your attack on our ship. Yeah.

You blew up our shuttle bay and the deck that she was on. This is all your fault. You want her back? You blew her up. You blew her up. So they shoot the MRI machine over flox's complaints and then the Vulcans show up and.

What do you think of these henches? I love the henches doing the dirty work here. Yeah. Good henches. Pretty good henches. The Vulcan ship is enormous compared to the rest of them. And it starts licking shots and disabling all the Maserite ships. I love a long ship, don't you? Yeah. Check out this long king. I love the way that Vulcan capsen kind of flexes some muscle, like that unspoken

yes-and-ing going on between him and Archer. Like, you look like you need some help, Archer. I think he has especially vertical eyebrows too, for a Vulcan. Yeah. Uncommonly vertical. This is enough for Archer to convince the Maserite captain and his henches to drop their weapons and surrender. I guess they're going to get in a bunch of legal trouble for crimes. But from what we've heard about the crimes and so forth, at every level of their corrupt government are these

criminals. So is the idea to just bring these folks back to be tried for their many crimes by the same system that has been corrupted by people that are on the take from these folks? Was this episode written by Neil Breen? Was this a first draft that he then expanded into the feature film, Fateful Findings? I've hacked into the most secret government and corporate secrets. I mean, I don't know about any of that, but but it does seem like this needs a second draft. Yeah. Turns out they didn't shoot Volar in the MRI machine.

All they did was destroy a multimillion dollar piece of highly sensitive medical equipment. Is that why Dr. Flux yells no the way that he does? Incredible no by Dr. Flux! No! Barely in this episode, he really steals the show. Amazing. Yeah.

And Valar reveals herself at the door of Six-Bay and kind of gloats. She says her goodbyes and sort of acknowledges a cool friendship that she notices budding between Archer and T'Pol. And then a little moment of respect nucks between her and T'Pol before she departs. And that's our episode. Adam, like this episode of Star Trek Enterprise. I kind of want to double down on my observation just then. Like this is a good, this is a fine idea for an episode, but it just needs more polish. Like make the crimes more criminal, make Velar even more interesting.

She was so close to being all the way there as a character. Yeah. And I think it's a really important moment when Valar calls T'Pol and Archer friends, or whatever, but my mind goes back to that scene where T'Pol asks Archer for the favor. Please and thank you. And he gives like the smallest nod. Did you notice like the take is like, we just did it. I'm not sure if our cameras could pick it up.

No, the resolution is not quite there. That was a significant moment for them, but I don't know if at the time, like that moment's only important in retrospect because up until that moment, we've had 23 episodes of DePaul absolutely crushing Archer's nuts any chance she gets. Why would he do her a favor? The only reason he would is because a writer might think that we're projecting a friendship onto them that doesn't exist yet. You know? I think that's where my head is onto them that doesn't exist yet, you know? I think that's where my head is. Like, I think they kind of skipped ahead

into a relationship that isn't actually at that level. Like, they gruel with their faces together. And I guess that's what bonded them. I don't know. I guess in conclusion, I just wanted more detail. It's the detail that makes things interesting. This was just too generalized in terms of character and story. What about you? I think when you build this much tension into what the mystery is going to be,

it just doesn't work for the reveal to be... Tax evasion. Right. Right. Yeah. Like, uh, you know, maybe you can use it to put a violent criminal that you couldn't otherwise convict behind bars, but, uh, it does not a sexy storytelling move. I mean, this is, there are Miriam episodes at The Wire that go just like this. Like it's not worth bringing them in for something this bullshit.

Yeah. Let's wait until we got them for something good. Yeah. And it's not worth shooting this episode until you have something good. Yeah. But I think that when you're in the 26 episodes of Season Era of television, like, you do have

these kinds of episodes sometimes, where it's like, oh, this is like three quarters of an idea, but we got to shoot something this week. Sometimes buttered noodles are the meal. Sometimes it's a full-on feast. Sometimes it's popcorn for dinner. Yeah. That's all you got.

Yeah, sometimes that gets the job done. Mm-hmm. Well, do you want to see if there's something in the P1 inbox that gets the job done today, Adam?. Well, do you want to see if there's something in the P1 inbox that gets the job done today, Adam? Popcorn for P1s. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secure Channel. Need a supplemental income.

Supplemental income? Supplemental. Supplemental. Yeah, it's extra. By the interest alone, could be enough to buy this ship. Ben we got a priority one message here of a promotional nature. Okay. Here's that message.

Do you watch Star Trek 6 and think, sure, the Federation president looks awesome with his cool ass streams of white facial hair, but how did he get elected? What is his political party? Will he get a second term? in each episode of the fake presidents podcast Two political consultants turn TV producers look at fictional presidents from pop culture To see just how much fiction there really is See just how much fiction there really is. Wow. From Kevin Kline and Dave to Harrison Ford in Air Force One to even Charlie Sheen in

Machete Kills, Fake President is the podcast that drills down into all of these. Wow. What a concept. I thought all the ideas for podcasts were taken. I did too. This is a great idea. It is such a good idea. The elevator pitch ability of it is so perfect.

Yeah. God, I'm jealous of this idea. And it seems like there are so many fake presidents. I mean, just within the work of Morgan Freeman alone. Oh yeah, they probably have like a Morgan Freeman season of their show. Yeah, that's like Morgan Freeman February. Yeah, like how did President Camacho get elected?

This is a great concept. Fake Presidents Podcast is the name of it. I'm going to assume that you can get it wherever you can get any other podcast. Yeah. And in this election year, what a great time to lighten the mood. Totally. By thinking about fun fake presidents from movies and TV.

I love it. Adam, I just had a great idea for a podcast. I was wondering if you'd be interested in starting with me. I'm calling it Fake Vice Pres presidents. We'll start with Glenn Close from Air Force One. I like it. They try to do 25th Amendment and make her president because they think Harrison Ford is compromised. Her character need in the movie is not amassing any more power around herself. We could talk about Christian Bale as Dick Cheney in Vice.

Actually, how would that work in your pitch? Cause that's a real vice president in a movie. But he's also kind of a fake president. Amazing. Yeah, I think that could be done. Interesting. Well, that's a great concept for a podcast. The call to action is just look for fake presidents in a podcast app.

Wow. What a thing. Adam, our next P1 here is from Your Nibble, and it's to nibble. And it goes like this. Happy anniversary to the man who made me keep trying therapists until I found one who gets my embarrassing DS9 references. trying therapists until I found one who gets my embarrassing DS9 references. I am so glad that we, like the 90s Trek industrial complex, decided we had more story to tell after our seventh season. Here's to new adventures, new cast members, and maybe even new paint on the set. I love you, Nibs! I bet Star Trek fans really get the seven-year itch, huh? Yeah, it's brutal. Hey, what a nice message that was, and it reminds me that Nibs sounds a lot like Nibs. Like the count on my arms. Ben, final message here from a listener to the hosts. Hey, that's us. Buckle

up, Ben. Longtime listener, first time caller. I'm throwing some cheddar your way for the Marin on episode 299 of the show, The Canar 3 Meeting Room. That was the title of it. I won't spoil the laugh for FODs who haven't listened to before but the turn and The drop had me rolling for several long minutes. Okay, thanks for all the pod. I Don't remember what we talked about on that episode. That was hundreds of episodes ago. Yeah It's been a while, but thank you, a listener, for that very kind message. I love a message that wants to talk about an episode and it's a fun, funny thing. Yeah, very cool. Thanks to everyone who got a P1 on today's app. And if you'd like to be like them and get your own P1 on a future app, go to maximumfun.org slash jembotron and set it up today.

I saw something on the Reddit today that there's like a conspiracy theory that we used to charge 50 for a personal and 100 for a commercial message. Uh huh. That has never been the case. That is a, that is a Berenstein Bears take. That never happened. We would never charge 50 bucks for something. Never, ever. Now, have we increased prices at all in any way across the entire network

over the eight or nine years we've been doing the show? No, no, we've never kept up with inflation on what like the entry level maximum fund membership is. We haven't kept up with inflation on what P1s cost. We haven't really kept up with inflation on what ads cost. In fact, that's kind of gone the other direction. None of these choices are up to us to make, but you can make the choice of getting a priority one message for the low low cost of $100 or $200 to go on MaximumFun.org slash Jumbotron. Do it right now! Hey Ben!

What's that Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda this episode? Incredible! Drunk Shimoda! Gotta give it to Fnula, Fionula or similar. Ankylosaur. She's great. She's definitely having a lot of fun in this episode.

I always love seeing her and stuff. Also, she's still working. She has three credits on her IMDB in 2024. Fuck yeah. She's in these streets. She is much like Malcolm Reed, about that life. Fucking Fiannula Flanagan, doing it. Yeah.

She rules. Uh, I think I'm going to make mine the Vulcan captain. His eyebrows were conspicuous. I just couldn't take my eyes off of him. I just couldn't take my eyes off of them. Makes me wonder if there's a social hierarchy of... Is there a beauty standard there to the angle of the eyebrows? I'd like to know more. Or it's like rich people have tall beds we've talked about.

Do rich Vulcans have tall eyebrows. I mean, on our true crime podcast, Tall Beds, you and I will uncover the truth of whether or not wealthy people have extremely tall beds for some reason. Like we suspect. We think it's the case. If we ever meet any extremely wealthy people, we'll let you know. Yeah. Well, it's time to meet what our next episode is going to let you know. Yeah. Faith of the Fart. Well, it's time to meet what our next episode's gonna be, Ben.

That's a great point, Adam. I'm gonna pull that up while you head to gach.biz slash game and fire up the game of butt holes. The Will of the Riker Quantum Leap. The next episode of Enterprise is season one, episode 24, Desert Crossing. When Archer and Trip are invited to a desert-like planet by an alien leader, they discover he is a terrorist who has lured them there under false pretenses. A desert-like planet.

What's the roundest desert? Is that B baked Alaska? I was going to say baked Alaska. Yeah, I mean, but that's a hemisphere. You know, you and I are really finishing each other's, uh... Baked Alaskans. In this episode, yeah. Clancy Brown in this episode.

Oh, what a treat. This is obviously a prison episode. Yeah, I don't know. Where he's obviously a prison episode. Yeah. Where he's, he's playing a hardened guard. Yeah, maybe. Uh, I mean, I'm looking at a thumbnail from the app and, uh, Tripp Tucker and, uh, Captain Archer are both pitting out in their desert camo Starfleet uniforms. So, uh, bucket of ice cold beer might be just what these guys need. I'm pitting out myself in my very hot studio, Ben. Let's find out if we will experience

this episode in any way that makes us sweat. Okay. You're required to learn as you play. Roll. Ben, I've got the enormous virtual 100-sided die in my hand. It barely fits. Hmm. I'm gonna give it a roll. I think it's like a pomelo.

Oh, Ben, I've rolled an 18. Tula! Did I win? Hardly. Which has catapulted our runabout into a space on the board that declares definitively, the next episode is just a regular episode for us. It's regular. It's regular.

Man, you had me going there. How would you like to do blood tests or something medical and it's not positive or negative, it's regular? I guess that's how they do moles, right? Like regular or irregular is how they do that. But I think that that's used in the sense of like, is it like, you know, roughly straight line or whatever around the circumference of the mole. So whether we're talking about moles or digestion or types of episode, next week will be a regular episode of The Greatest Generation. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's just gonna fall out with minimal pushing and plop in one solid piece. Yeah. A nice little splash that pleases the judges. Oh man, you'd love to experience that.

I would, yeah. One of the great feelings that I so rarely have. I have a great feeling doing the show with you, Ben. Every time. I love doing the show with you as well, man. It's a hoot and a half. Much appreciated to all the friends of DeSoto who support our efforts in doing this silly, silly thing by going to maximumfund.org slash join.

Your contributions are deeply appreciated. And especially thanks to any new FODs who have become supporting members in the last week or so during our little micro fundraising push. You know, never easy to ask for money, so it's always appreciated when folks step up. We've been meeting people at the live shows who have been supporters and it's just a great and heartening thing to meet folks who actually support the show financially. It's what makes it possible, really is. So it makes a live show possible too.

Indeed. Gotta thank Windy Pretty for the production and editing she does on every episode of Greatest Gen and Greatest Trek. Gotta thank Rob Adler, our social media director, and Bill Tilley, our temporal Cold War time consigniary. Those guys are helping run the at greatest Trek social media accounts all over the internet. Throw those a follow. Sign up for our mailing list. It's a ton of fun and gets you a discount at podshop.biz every time we send it out.

And it puts you onto all the fun projects we're working on. So many fun projects, Ben. Can hardly keep them all straight. It's really cool to like do something, you know, like we just sit around and like do our show and stuff and then like every month now we're writing a little newsletter about everything we've done in the last month and it's like hey we actually got kind of a lot done. I'm just confused by that description. Who's doing the sitting around? We've been working our asses off for months. Well, I'm sitting here. I mean, I know you have a standing desk, but I have a sitting around desk.

Yeah. Who knows if that's helping either of us, really? I don't know. Uh, they say it's worse than smoking, but uh... Smoking a desk? Sounds worse than smoking cigarettes. Yeah. My dad caught me smoking a desk one time, and he made me smoke an entire pack of desks.

Learned my lesson that day, brother. That was a weird day at the local IKEA. Hey, go check out DrunkShemoda.com and the Grey's Gen Wiki on Wikia. What else? The Facebook groups? There are many of them. Whatever you're interested in, whatever there's ever been a hobby magazine created about, so too is there a faction of Friends of De Soto who've made a group that has gathered around that specific interest.

So find a Friend of De Soto group that you vibe with, and if you don't vibe with that group find another because there are Miriam Groups out there. Yeah waiting for you And with that we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise And an episode of the greatest generation enterprise where Adam and I are Totally pitted out while recording I'm gonna hit the certain dry now. See if I can't get a little help. Strong enough for a man,

but designed for a Star Trek podcast. Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S. TIP SENSOR PRISE Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S. TIP SENSOR PRISE Make it show, make it show Make it show Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S. TIP SENSOR PRISE Oh god, there's not a third. Let's not rule a third this. Maximum Fun, a workaround network of artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.