The Greatest Generation - Act-Drunk Adjacent (DS9 S2E14)

Episode Date: May 28, 2018

When O’Brien comes home from a security conference hosted by warring Gamma Quadrant aliens whose names are hard to remember, he falls victim to the classic dangers inherent to all Starfleet convention goers. But when his relationship with Keiko gets back into its old groove, he realizes that something is very wrong. What’s the exchange rate of Vanderpump To Trek? Shouldn’t the the Chief’s first step be to check for nubbins? How can one confirm when Uxbridge is authentic? It’s the episode that trades the promise of success and responsibility with a toilet plunger. Come see us live on tour with Greatest Gen Khan🎉🎉🎉! Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Prophets!

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

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

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

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

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdisotoforlabor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Welcome to the greatest generation Deep Space Nine. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison.

I'm Adam Pranaka. You love that little pregnant pause. Yeah. I edit it out every time. yeah, I'm sure you do Yeah, no one knows about that politics of you and me. Yeah, that's it. Well, well this time I'll leave it in just just to give them a sense of what I'm cutting out. Wow really Let them see the the pod behind the pod there. Yeah the secrets of our success Success is a relative term I guess. Yeah, it is. Adam, we've put out an episode of Greatest Discovery already that talked a

little bit about the tour, but I wouldn't have to give people an update. The tour is off and running. It is. Going great. This is greatest Gen Con and greatest Gen Con is coming to you this year. That's right. Greatest Gen Con has already come twice this year in in and to Austin and Dallas. It's really insatiable.

How much coming it can do. No longer allowed to go to Austin or Dallas Yeah, after our tour. We had a lot of fun in those cities. I had never been to either So it was super fun to go there and to go there with a couple of buds in you and Rob's Rob's Rob's And and Rob's did a great job producing the shows he makes it a little easier for you and I to just focus on doing show. He makes it easier for me not to in the it's an industry term, Ben. Fall apart. And he's a big reason I was able to keep it together for those few days. So good job

by him. It was an interesting and pleasant surprise to see you keep it together for those few days. So good job, I think. Yeah, it was an interesting and pleasant surprise to see you keep it together for many days in a row. So yeah, like we've got a bunch of shows already on sale and we're I think working on four or maybe even five more shows that haven't been announced yet. It's true. But yeah, this tour is maybe double the size of the one we did last year. So. It's bigger than a lot of people expected.

Yeah, and that's always a pleasant surprise when you unzip. It's a new tour and you pull it out and it's, you know, hey, that's a little nicer than I thought it was going to be. A little bit bigger. It's both a shower because of all the tour dates we've announced already, but it is also a grower due to the future tour dates we have yet to announce. So get on GreatestGenConKHAN.com to see the ones that have been announced and we'll see you out there all year long. Can't wait to continue greatest Jankod. Are you drinking a beer?

No, I'm not. I'm drinking a fizzy water. Oh, okay. Adam, you mentioned to me over TXT that you've received a large number of packages at our P.O. box and I heard from your wife over TXT that she is interested in suing me in the court of Judge John Hodgman due to the number of boxes that are now entering your house on a weekly basis. Yeah, it is a large, large S. And it's a, it's really a pile at this point, Ben. It's sort of an emergency situation, I think.

Yeah. I think what we should do is tear into these boxes. Let's stack them and rack them. Captain, I'm sorry to disturb you. I'm receiving a code 47. Verify? It is code 47, sir. Starfleet emergency frequency. Captions eyes only. I've stacked these in such a way that they could fall over and fall onto my dog. So I think it's best if I start from the top with the tube. This is a tube sent to us from Allen V from Memphis, Tennessee.

Alright. Looks like we got a couple of posters here. Alright. Ooh. Oh, Ben, it is a Star Trek cutaway enterprise E-Poster. Woo! I have never seen this poster. It's a lot like the D-Poster we were talking about at that ballad consignment store. Yeah. Oh, it is beautiful. Cool. And, uh... I want to know what the E looks like on the inside.

Wow, it is, uh, it's gorgeous. Oh! And the, uh, there's another one. It is a cutaway of DS9 Wow, and it and it shows you where everything is This is this is great. This is great geographical orientation of the E of DS9 and wait for it

the Voyager ship from Star Trek Voyager Cool Wow Alan incredibly kind and thoughtful. Occasionally we will get poster sent in that were clearly on someone's wall for years and years. Yeah. These are crisp, brand new, beautiful posters. Yeah, that's a good nice. Yeah, like suitable for framing.

Wonderful stuff, thanks Alan. Thank you Alan, once the divorce goes through, I'm gonna really look forward to putting one of those up. I mean... That's the only context in which I can imagine my wife being okay with it, if we're no longer together. Right, it's the reason I'm currently being litigated against by my own wife. So, Ben, our second package is from our Eglstone from Tucson, Arizona.

Okay. Oh boy, what we have here is a Trek the next generation crew book a bunch of bunch of stickers on this clearance stickers to be Specific been this is this has been marked down from six dollars 96 cents To four dollars 96 cents to finally 50 cents it's like the hula hoop in HUD Sucker Proxy. You know, for kids. Yeah. Just can't convince anybody to buy this damn thing.

I mean, just in the brief time it's been in my hands. It's a little difficult to ascertain what this is. It looks like it has a bunch of writing about the actors and not the characters, so we've got a Freak's chapter and a Patrick Stewart chapter and a bunch of really fun photographs, like photographs of Michael Dorn at Marina's services wedding. If you like that stuff, so that's part of it. The other part is a set of pez dispensers. Oh!

25th anniversary TNG pez dispensers, Bennett's the whole crew. It's Beverly, Data, Jordy, Riker, Picard, Wolf, and Deanna Troy. I have a, I have a, that exact set of pez dispensers myself. I think somebody brought it to us at our Toronto show last year And it wound up coming home with me That's that's one of the few gifts that you've been able to take home Ben it comes with a letter the letter goes like this greetings from Tucson

Greatest gen has me laughing out loud and spreading the gospel to all Turkish peoples I know and even some that I do not One of my jobs is that of bartender All right, and a fellow came in wearing a self-made Federation shirt to I asked so I asked him if he was a friend of De Soto He did not know what the hell I was talking about When being a friend of De Soto backfires when being a bartender ends up walking someone out of your bar When being a bartender ends up walking someone out of your bar. So, uh, after turning my brother's Zach onto greatest gin, you discovered that not only to Jonathan Frank's grow up a few towns over from us in Pennsylvania, but Zach and Frank's share the same birthday.

Whoa, cool. So, it's a riker birthday gift from here on out. As thanks for the joy and laughter I'm sending along a few things that friends have passed along to me over the years to add to your ever-expanding trek collection. Thanks, Ryan. Ryan also says we should come to Tucson. Ryan should keep a look at on possible future tour dates. We are trying to make something happen in the southwestern part of the United States. Yeah, your state is definitely in the crosshairs.

That's a great way to put it in these days. And it's trying times, Ben. Okay, box number three looks like it's coming from Las Vegas. Hey, we're going there. We can confirm that Las Vegas is, we've already released the torpedoes. And it's a Morn Action Figure. Yeah. With Spring-loaded hammer action. Yeah. Dear Ben and Adam, I hope you enjoyed this Morn Action Figure. Morn Hammer not included. Thank you for all the wonderful content and I can't wait to see you in Massachusetts in August.

From Joel Nectar Line. Thanks Joel. Oh, I've seen Joel on the, I think on the Facebook and the Twitter. It includes a gift for Seat Ben. So if my wife, if my wife decided to sneak into our largesse, she could just start returning some shit. How does that work? She could return it and get the money herself. That would be wrong. That would be really fucked up. That's not what Joel was intending. No, no, no. Ben, our next package is from Zachary P. Oh shit. You know who Zachary P is. He's the guy who designed our this old enterprise tour t-shirts.

Oh shit, those were a big hit. We didn't take t-shirts on our last tour and I am now regretting that. People seem to like the t-shirt. Oh, Zach has hooked us up big time with four this old enterprise coffee mugs. Cool! Just incredibly kind of Zach, we got to meet him after our Dallas show. Just as good of a pal as you could possibly hope to meet. Alright Ben, More boxes. Ha ha ha.

I'm a boxes dude. After this one there's three more. Ha ha ha. Alright, uh this one is from Ash G from Long Beach, California. Looks like we have a book here. These are the voyages, a three-dimensional Star Trek album. Oh, it's a pop-up pop-up! Cool! Whoa! This is great! Oh, there's even a Borg's pop-up.

Whoa, does it...it cubes when it pops up? It does. Look at that. That sounds kind of rad. Very exciting. We've got the pop-up book. There's a few more things in here. There's a letter. Oh boy, it's a long one. Let me, uh, okay, let me read the letter in a bit. It looks like we have a Star Trek Generations official hologram movie magazine. Whoa. Morty. And a bunch of newspaper clippings. Just a Star Trek newspaper clippings. Buffalo Bill skins fifth. Yeah.

Is that one of them? And then at the bottom, it looks like we have some tiny ship models and standings. You know what we need Adam is for somebody to send in some models in case we get to that starship mine square on the board game. Oh yeah, that's what we can do because models aren't small. I don't mean to solicit more things to be sent to your house. Ashtray, thank you for all your wonderful work on the pot. I became a maximum fun donor during the last drive

Thank you Ash included with this letter are some Star Trek relics of my youth It's not that I'm trying to get rid of them. Duh duh duh. Okay. Maybe I am God damn it Ash This is exactly what your wife is afraid of. Speaking of donors, new app in the donor feed from the greatest generation. I were one paying only Hunt for Red October episode is in there right now. Very proud of that app and the work you did to edit that one.

It's, I think one of my favorite ones. I think the music by itself is worth the praise of admission because Adam Rekusia made basically the greatest podcast theme song that has ever been recorded. That is the truth, that is the objective truth. All right, Ben, next package is from Thomas J from Naughthwick, Virginia. All right, Ben, next package is from Thomas J from Nothfuck Virginia. Oh, we got a, we got a mirror broken graphic novel, famously drawn from our pal J.K. Woodward. Oh, yeah. Famously drawn by our pal J.K. Woodward.

This is a great, great graphic novel. It's a collection of all of those mirror broken comics of the last year and it is fucking great. If you haven't read this... He's the one with Picard and the... is that the Stargazer? Yeah! On the cover? Yeah and it's this. I haven't read it yet. I'm I'm really looking forward to reading it. Mirror Picard and his attempts to steal the Enterprise D. Pretty awesome. It is great and our pal Jake Woodward is the artist behind it and he does great work. I think we're looking to have Jake Woodward come on the greatest discovery at some point, right? Yeah, yeah, I hope so. That guy's great. That would be cool.

Letter and closed to Benjamin R. Harrison, John Roderick and Adam Pryanaka and closed in this package or a few items from my ship. N-O-A ship Thomas Jefferson. It's the S-222. Please take these as a token of my gratitude for all you do on your podcasts. I have said in earlier emails the Gator's Generation kick my butt into gear to pursue the life I have always wanted. That being some kind of Star Trek life. I hope to see you live someday and thank you personally. I do apologize for this

package taking so long. It has been a weird few weeks for me. Thanks again for giving me the inspiration to pursue my own greatest adventure. Wow, very nice of you to say this is from Instant Taylor K from the NOAA corpse. Yeah, he's emailed us a couple of times about like what this is like. He's like stationed on a ship and like where's the uniform and does and does like you know kind of scientific research and it sounds super cool. He sent a headshot also. Oh cool.

Oh shit, there's a I didn didn't mention, uh, he sent us some shirts. Looks like we got a- we got a blue- we got a blue NOAA shirt. Oh, and on the back it's got the, uh, the ship Thomas Jefferson, like a picture of it. It's awesome. So we can identify it, uh, through our, through our binoculars. Oh shit, he sent us challenge coins! Nice! So we can identify it through our... ...through our binoculars. Oh shit, he sent us Challenge Coins! Nice!

Challenge Coins and a foam dome hat. That is awesome! Thank you so much, Taylor! Challenge Coin Collection Growing! Moving right along, Ben! I'm so sorry. This box comes to us from L Decker from Lafayette, Indiana. There's a card.

Oh! Oh, Ben, it is a... it's a cross stitch. It's... It's... It's two cross stitches. On one of them it says what happens on the holodeck stays on the holodeck. And on the other one it says Hoch! Chik! Bach!

May they always dwell here. So I guess that's home sweet home. Cool! Wow, there is a card. The letter goes to your Ben and Adam. Thank you for the show and the laughs. I hope this reaches you safely and that you are all doing well. Lots of people, more eloquent than I have,

told you how much the show means to them. Think of something nice here and pretend I wrote it. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. What a sweet sentiment. I think you did just great on your own. Thanks so much. Thank you. One final box, Ben.

One box only. It's the biggest box. It's from Haslabs in Monroe, Washington. I'm familiar with Monroe, Washington. I spent a lot of time there working on my documentary. What the fuck? Okay. Oh my god, Ben. Ben. What the fuck? Okay

Oh my god, Ben. Ben, do you know what this is? I have no idea. This is Odo's bucket. And it is filled with oatmeal. Oh my god. It's just, it's a, it's's a it's a bucket full of oatmeal dry Oh liquid oh no dry yeah like like oats it's very fragrant man yeah no kidding

There's a picture of nog and a and a subtitle to it that says, it's oatmeal! Hahaha! That was the weirdest gift we have ever received. Hahaha! Wow, oatmeal is everywhere. Hahaha! Holy shit! Can you, like, can you describe the bucket? Like, is this, is this an actual on-screen proper?

Is this a homemade facsimile? What's it? One of the materials involved. It looks like a rubberized, like if a Halloween store made this, it's like Halloween store rubberized painted rubber bucket. Amazing. Oh, there's a letter. Hey, Ben and Adam, I just set up a website using squarespace.com slash scars for my prop shop

just outside Seattle. By the time I got through all your backlogs and you got to DS9, I knew then I just had to make something for you guys. Well, I haven't been to one of your live shows. I figured you just might enjoy some prop comedy. So if you find gentlemen I give you your own changeling bucket full of oatmeal. That's great. Stay just a little bit embarrassed. This is Josh. Josh. I will never forget this gift. That is so great. What a haul. Literal buckets of fun.

I am covered in packing material, Ben. We have overshot our Marin runway by miles. Yeah, I don't think anybody is still listening, but do you want to get to the episode that we came here to record today? We really should, because I think the episode is great today. It's season two episode 14, Whispers. So we start with O'Brien. This is fucking spectacular! Solo mission in a Winnebago, and he's kind of doing a...

When did it all go wrong? Kind of personal log. So we know this is going to be one of those episodes that is sort of a pistol area where he said he's recording the log and then we're flashing back to his memories over the last couple of days. Star Trek doesn't do this very often, this story format, so this excited me right away. It's a little bit datas day. Yeah, it's a little like it's a little bit, you're probably wondering how I found myself in this situation from O'Brien, that's a little bit, you're probably wondering how I found myself in this situation. From, uh, O'Brien, that's fun. Yeah.

He's been doing some prep with an alien race, the name of which I did not write down. What are they called? Pradas. Pradas. The paradas. Tell me about the paradas. The paradas. Paradas.

They love parades. The parades. Parades. They love parades. Yeah. You want to show up early when you get to the parada system. You want to put your lawn chair out first thing in the morning. Yeah, yeah, because it's just a crush of humanity. You'll get a terrible view if you're not there early. There's something pretty special about this episode, Adam, which is that this is the first, and probably will be the only time

I have ever convinced my wife to watch an episode of Star Trek with me. Whoa! Yeah, I had a shoot yesterday, and I was just like out all day, and I got back, and I said, I need to watch this episode. I'm recording first thing with Adam in the morning and like I either have to get up super

early to do it or watch it while we eat dinner and I talked her into it. All of the... I've earned one episode of Deep Space 9 via three seasons of Vanderpump rules and six and a half seasons of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. That's the exchange rate. When we get to that point in the episode and I'm going to ask you if you liked it, I'm also going to ask if your wife liked it. I think that's a fair question. Yeah. So, O'Brien orders double strong, double sweet coffee bin. Yeah, I can get behind the double sweet. Yeah?

Double strong I'm okay with, but I never had sugar to my coffee. I don't either. It's not my way. But I could see it in the afternoon being fun. I would never have something like that in the morning. Yeah, it's gonna, you're just gonna crash later, you know? Yeah.

Sitting yourself up for a crash. Homeboy wakes up, he's like in the flashback. He's thinking about when he started noticing things were weird back on Deep Space 9. And he wakes up to find the triangle pillow next to him. Without a caco on it, reaching around for a wifey in the morning and she's not there. And he gets up and she's not there and he gets up

and she's like, she's gotten up at the crack of dawn and is just trying to get out of the house without much interaction. And Molly has being weird and cold with him. And my wife turned to me and said, their relationship is really fucked up. Ha-ha-ha. She has no idea.

No idea. And like I didn't want to like pause the episode and say like, I know like this is supposed to be the show depicting their relationship as being weird, but it's also just kind of depicting it as it has been for much of the run, except for like maybe the last two episodes that Rosalind Cha has been on. Yeah, like for a moment you think that O'Brien is flashing back to season one. Hahaha.

Yeah, like, I mean, the architecture is definitely not the enterprise, but this kind of feels like when they were back on the enterprise. Yeah. Yeah. She did really like Molly, though. She was like, who's the kid? She's cool, like her. Molly's great. Rosalind Chow here does a special kind of acting and it's really,

really great because it's sort of like act drunk adjacent. Because when you're acting drunk, the trick is almost acting sober. Like that's how you sell the act drunk. But acting like you've got something to hide is that kind of meta-acting, where you're acting like a person, which is in itself dishonest, but you're acting like a different person that is acting like they have something to hide and being dishonest themselves. Right, it's too late. It is great. It is great.

Yeah, and it is great and unnerving to see this, which I think if you're feeling unnerved by it means it's accomplishing something. Yeah, it's really working. She's very closed off and short with him. And I mean, like only so much of this is in the script. script. And I think you can see that from Molly, who's like a child actor who doesn't understand what we're doing here and just has to be told like what to say and how to say it. But what Rosalind Chow does here is

answering a higher calling. And I think that both Kalimini and Rosalind Chow are like really, they both got a fun, challenging episode to do. And I think they both had a lot of fun with it and did a great job with it. I agree. When you talk about how much weight these actors have to carry, Kalamini carries all of it because he's in every single scene.

There is no B story at all. It's all A. It's almost bottle A story. Yeah, my wife is now under the impression that Deep Space 9 is a show about an Irish mechanic that works on a space station. That would be great. You know, like Nicholas Meyers talking about making like three Rath of Khan series. Like, it would be great to just have spin-offs for O'Brien. Nicholas, my air is talking about making like three wrath of con series. Like it would be great to just have spin-offs for O'Brien.

Uh-huh. It's just spin-offs all the way down. I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford. What are you doing, what are you doing? What are you doing now? I'm a rain, come to a Ford. I'm a rain, come to a Ford. I'm a rain, come to a Ford.

I'm a rain, come to a Ford. Exactly. Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, like when the camera is on O'Brien, he's often, like you'll often find him kind of framed within the frame. Yeah. Like the objects around him kind of close him into a space visually. Yeah. And that's like a subtle thing to do, you know? Like sometimes it's just that there's a character in the foreground and the shape of a door in the background, but it draws a circle around him. Yeah, all that mindful composition right there. Yeah, it's a cool directing technique. It's a similar thing to that meta-acting, as a director, first and foremost, what you need to do is get coverage and get shot compositions that convey the story.

But then within that, it takes it to the next level when you can get shot compositions that convey the story, but also layer on the emotional gravity of what's going on. Yeah, yeah. And if you're making a subtle box or a subtle target on your character, you're going to build that kind of tension. This episode uses a lot of lingering close-ups, too.

More close-ups than I feel like we usually get. And they stay on shots a little longer than they usually do. And that all serves to make things uncomfortable. Like you're used to an editing pattern on a show that clips along. But this one lingers and it helps build that paranoia in a really fun way. Yeah. So O'Brien is fresh back from the parada system and the paradins have been at war with each other. I guess they're a gamma quadrant alien that is attempting to have a peace talks on a neutral ground in deep space nine. And so O'Brien has been

out there getting to know them and getting to know what the security requirements are going to be. And he comes back and like he finds one of his Starfleet engineer guys like already working on it and he's a little miffed because it's kind of happened outside of his purview. Cisco gave you permission to start this without asking me first? I don't think so. And he's the one that went and learned all the all the particulars so he starts his day kind of on an uneven footing because somebody's gone over his head in the

chain of command and like he goes up to ops to ask what the fuck and instead of getting a satisfying answer, it's like, hey, like all three upper pylons are down chief and also before you do anything about that, you've got to go, you've got to go do your checkup, the doctor has been, you're like long overdue for going and having your annual physical and the doctor is none too pleased. That inciting incident is low key really important here because I think if you're building a story surrounded by this paranoia, the inciting incident is him having succeeded at passing this test and the expectation being that he's going to be intimately involved with the mission at hand. And when you begin his story right away with that rope a dope, it puts him off balance as a character from the start.

And it has him questioning everything from that point forward. Like the promise of success and responsibility is replaced with, yeah, why don't you go plunge a toilet? The restrooms on all the pylons are down. Yeah. They're backing up and overflowing and they're just running down the pylons. down. Yeah. They're backing up and overflowing and they're just running down the pylons. The other thing that he has encountered here

is he was going to see Keko at work and sees Commander Sisko like talking to her in the hallway in a way that fills him with weird suspicion. Compositionally, this does something important because you, like I think we'll keep hitting on this as we recap the app. You stay with O'Brien.

No, I think this will be the last time. You stay with O'Brien. Like you never see what this conversation is. You view it from a great amount of detachment. Right. They're like, I'm out of detachment. Like they're like, out of your shot, you never get to, like you never get the context from anybody else's perspective.

So when he asks about it later, he just has to take people's word for it and when different people are saying different things about what happened, it starts to drive him nuts. I think when you narrow the perspective down to one, you can do this with a lot of stories. I think if you take most episodes of any series and never cut to someone else and just remain on one person,

I think other people's actions kind of vogue that kind of feeling when you don't know their motivations. Yeah. So this, we kind of come, come back and forth to O'Brien on his, on his trip back to Parada. And that, I think his idea is, at some point at the end of his time over the last couple of days, he concluded that everyone on Deep Space Nine was compromised in some way. And he needs to head back to the parod system to warn them

that the peace talks are in jeopardy because people are acting super weird, and he can't, he doesn't have any way of explaining why. He's just out to save his own skin and warn the parodons. It kind of throws back to the schism episode. ["Skyzum Deppasod"] We're like the nubbin bugs episode of TNG, where things are strange, but it's unclear why or for what what reason. Like he's never, he doesn't go

around like checking people's back of people's neck for nubbins, but maybe he should, you know. Maybe that should be the first step. What this moment in the episode really boiled down for me was just how few friends O'Brien has, and I don't think that's unique to him, but he really doesn't have anyone to confide in with Odo being off the station especially. His perception of this being a security threat and people acting strangely and for one of those people to be his wife, where does he go? Who does he tell? Like it narrows his world down to a degree that escaping the station becomes eventually his only option. And it's just kind of a series of vignettes where things are weird

and he's very uncomfortable. Like we get that the scene where the doctor is doing the physical and- Has a sex life. I don't have a sense of humor. It's very closed in like the camera is like always very close to a brine and you just kind of see the doctor buzzing around behind him. They're never standing face to face. The doctor's always behind a brine. So he's always uncomfortable turning around to like get eye contact and stuff.

There's references to orifices being probed. And that's not fun, unless it is. I mean, yeah, you know, it sort of depends on what you're into, I guess. Gold to cotton, the cup, gold to cotton, so. He passes his medical exam with flying colors, but after enough kind of like obvious subterfuge taking place that he suspects that this is just like happening to distract him from something else. Yeah. He's been told by Cisco that the conversation between him and Kiko was just about how Jake's

grades are fucked up and he needs help at school. Jake catches up with O'Brien on the promenade after his medical exam saying like, hey, by the way, my grades are great. Also, can you help me do a radio for my school science project? Which he's all too happy to help out with. I used to build them when I was your age. I'll be glad to help. This is a character building moment for O'Brien because as stressed out as he is, he's still very fond of Jake and is willing to help,

like even in a stressful situation. This is the first clear sign that something is very much not right. He's had a lot of hints, you know? Keko being closed off and weird, that seeing the commander and Keko talking, the weirdly long physical that he passes with flying colors, despite the doctor being like incredibly intensive. But Jake is telling him a different story than Cisco is telling him.

Like the evidence is starting to pile up that in fact he is being deceived in some way. And in some unknowable way, like it's very unnerving that they're not trying to deceive them about anything in particular. They're just being weird with him. Right. And keeping him away from the work that he would normally be doing. That's the best part, right?

That's the most exquisite tension is the lack of clarity about why people are acting weird and how exactly they're doing so. Like, we get to see him where he runs into his engineer buddy, like finishing off security in the hallway outside of one of the guest quarters, and he's like, oh, let me go in there and check it out. And like, it gets really tense where like,

he tries to get, he tries to go in there and Cisco and Kira shut him down and then he like walks down the hallway and like peeks back and sees the guy go in himself. Like, so obviously there's something to do with the paradins but that doesn't explain why like Kiko and Molly would be super weird to him, right? Yeah, there's a fun balance between professional distraction and the distraction at home. Like, everything professionally happening to O'Brien seems to serve to draw him away

from where the paradins will be. Like he's working way out there on conduits. He's finding sabotaged conduits that have nothing to do with the parodons. Like, it's like he's been given busy work to do that takes him away from a mission that he thought he had trained for. And also, none of this explains why Dax is barely in the episode. Right. The stuff at home is maybe the creepiest stuff. I mean, you could make the case that, you know, professionally, Commander Cisco has all sorts of reasons

to delegate him to a different task than he thought he'd be doing. But at home, there is no fucking reason why Keko would make her least favorite meal. But you don't like freaking those two. For O'Brien, and then be super weird during dinner while they both drink the blue beverage of marital conflict. What was the, from a story standpoint, the motivation for that.

She made something that he theoretically likes and she theoretically doesn't to like test him, like the newlywed game or something like that. Well, I mean, I've got a theory, but I don't know if I want to share it until the Dinnie Mu. I mean, like, it plays for many things in this scene. Like, it's a very tense scene, like, when he's like bringing the fork up to his mouth and you're like, is, did she poison the stew? Is that what is happening here? You're just stalling now. You'd like to fake that, wouldn't you? O'Brien makes a pass at Keko during the scene and it does not go well.

It's that moment where he finds out that Molly is not home for the evening and I think they were both very familiar with this phenomenon of not tonight, honey. I think that we're both very familiar with this phenomenon of, not tonight, honey. I don't want to cast a spursons atom, but that's definitely something that I've experienced a few times in my day. Sure, well, we get as a scene of a real Adam and Ben. So, my honest about it, I was in a pale,

a bucket and a pale. Mr. Bucket, I have to revert back to my dead state. Oh, I don't use the bucket anymore. I think from there, it really starts to go off the rails. He does some listening to the station logs, and at a certain point in the record chronologically, like he stops having access to them. His security clearance does not appear to be valid anymore. He catches Odo coming off of a transport back from Beijor

and is like, listen dude, shit is not right here on the station. And I think we need to start looking into this from a security standpoint. Yeah, and this moment feels very invasion of the body snatchers because O'Brien finds someone that he can finally trust. He thinks that Odo is trustworthy and is on his side and all it does is serve to set up the

double cross that comes later. He thinks he's finally made it. He's finally safe. He has an ally. has an ally, but with the combination between the logs being locked out for him and Odo bringing him into an office meeting that does not end well. O'Brien is on the loose at this point because after this conversation draws to a close, it's Kira and Cisco come in with holsters filled with fasers, ready to take O'Brien into custody. Well, and it's such good Star Trek logic too, because it's like, we've seen enough episodes where something's loose on the ship or some alien influence is taking place

that somebody that wasn't there, wouldn't have been exposed to it yet. So, Odo is very plausibly trustworthy. And when it's revealed that it's not, you're so relieved that O'Brien has planned for the possibility that even Odo has a nebbing, because he made it to himself a little Batman device where he he made it himself a little like Batman device where he can throw it on the ground,

and it stuns everybody but him for some unknowable reason. And he runs out and he like gets in a very badly, like there's a lot of great directing in this episode, but the the phaser fight on the promenade where he like dodges one phaser and shoots a guy. It's just incredibly bad. I'm kind of a keystone cop's operation you guys run in here. Yeah, that's not a great moment. But what's great about this scene is that like so often in TNG,

we got scenes like this depicted with data, especially who perfectly crafted his escape from pursuers. And it's fun to see just basic competence, like basic O'Brien able to get himself out of a trap like this in a way that, you know, isn't perfect and occasionally has some mistakes, but like, how does just a normal dude try to do this? And he does it pretty well. This is a situation that he's still got unfucked right now. Yeah, he's like, all right.

Well, if you're turning on force fields, I'll use my engineering knowledge to turn on all force fields everywhere. Yeah, that was fun. And then if you want to come get me, you're going to have to turn off all force fields everywhere. Yeah, that was fun. And then if you want to come get me, you're going to have to turn off all force fields everywhere. G-Fo'Brien. Much like one of those Amazon Alexa units. Anytime, anyone, anywhere says the phrase all blank everywhere it summons me Kevin

Huxbridge and so I noticed your shield units activate right away was there anything else you wanted well I'm here I'm a man of special conscience so I can do a lot of things for you from an ethical standpoint. Perhaps you'd like a subscription for Toilet Paper. We could ship you a button that you could put inside of a cupboard to order more multipurpose cleaner. The Kevin Oaksbridge family of Brad Exo shipped with prime speed in two days and for no extra fee for shipping. We can have a very plausible fuck toy delivered to your house. In very discreet packaging might I add.

Frustration free. It's actually just a body bag with a zipper It's never frustrated anyone it is only tiddly-ded Because once you hose out a body bag with a Kevin X Bridge brand product inside You know you've received an authentic X-bridge. I can confirm X-bridge is authentic. So he makes his escape. He's disabled the tractor beams and he manages to beef up his shield so that the station's puny phaser fire

can't destroy his runabout before he goes through the wormhole. But then he's kind of like, he's in a tricky spot because he's heading for the parada system and he knows he's been, he's being pursued. Like he, you know, he blows in a call to an admiral at Starfleet who's like, you know, turn your ship back and he's like, fuck, everyone's got an up and in this goddamn episode. That was a scary scene. Yeah. It's also just gotta be scary when you're like a non-commissioned officer and you call up, you like blow in a call to whoever's in charge of your entire region of space and they're like,

I know who you are. Yeah, when the mail room guy calls the CEO, that's big trouble. Oh, chief O'Brien, good to hear from you. What? I'd like to think I have a nice layer of anonymity to protect me from people like you. Yeah, in that situation, it's the executive secretary that's in trouble. Yeah. So he gets to the parodid system. He has to kind of go into stealth mode to disguise himself from the other runabout that's pursuing him. He uses the polar region as a distraction, and it really scrambles some sensors.

As the polar region often does. It's like you go into the polar region and the eyes on the runabout get crossed. It can't focus on anything. This the moment that this scene happens is interesting time wise because O'Brien loses the Mekong and then the Mekong once losing O'Brien adjust course for pirata too. This happens with 4 minutes left in the episode. Like as soon as this moment happened I was like how are they going to wrap this up? This is fucking crazy. 4 minutes left. So O'Brien beams down to pirata too to see what the hell is going on. He, I think of this point he sort of has

nothing to lose. He's through running. And he finds himself in a familiar Star Trek cave. Fortunately, doesn't run into Picard, Wharf, and Beverly running around in their in their ninja pajamas. Right. But he finds a mysterious door and he opens it. And there is Commander Cisco and Major Kira and a couple of paradins. And these guys kind of look like those time-traveling con artists that Captain Picard met on Rysa. They really do. You yourself said the U-Tot belongs to the future. He's come in there with phasers out and he's got extra phasers in his cat basket. I guess he learned from dropping that one phaser down the Jeffries tube.

You gotta have a cat basket if you're gonna be scrambling around the way he is. Yeah, definitely. And he's trying to get them to surrender, but they won't do it. And they're like, we really insist that you look at what's going on behind this door and he's about to shoot somebody when one of the parodins like quick draws on him and Takes him out and the door opens like simultaneous with this and they're inside is Julian Bashir with another chief O'Brien

How much dirtier chief O'Brien with more abrasions on him, so you can tell them apart. And O'Brien who's been through some shit. Had a little bruise makeup applied. All of these O'Brien's have been through some shit, but this one really is really showing it. And he gets up and like, though Brian we've been following the entire time

is like shuffling loose this mortal coil while they kind of talk about him like he's not even there like oh man this is the guy he was going to be the killer. It turns out it was a big evil paraden plot. Their technology being so good that they created a perfect replicant O'Brien, which, like, this is a great moment in the episode if, because, like in a film, it's different, right? You make the sort of reveal at the end, it's a little more difficult to go back in your mind

to all the little parts that now suddenly add up and click into place. But in a 40-minute TV episode, what have we got? We've got the weirdly thorough physical, which is clearly now Bashir trying to figure out how this paradenyriplicant works. All of the upper pylon failures that served as a distraction for him.

The weird treatment that he received from his own wife as well as everyone else, like bang, bang, bang, like they don't flash it back, but the viewer is easily able to because it's such a small portion to process. It's like a great episode of the Twilight Zone, you know? Yeah. Just the second you get this new little piece of information that is like, you know that like something is going to be wrong with somebody,

but you know, you don't quite know like how it's going to work. And like once this clicks into place, it makes a lot of sense. Something is going to be wrong with somebody, but you don't quite know how it's going to work. And once this clicks into place, it makes a lot of sense. Double mint O'Brien ends up dying from his wounds with his last words being his love for Keko. And we hear the single brass instrument of watching your replicant die in a pretty short order. Yeah. It's a very satisfying and very unusual episode.

And then bang credits. Like it ends in the cave. Did you like the episode? I did, I really liked it. And for my wife, I think this was a weird place to come in on the series. Right. Having never seen an episode of the next generation and never

seen an episode of Deep Space 9. She's like, is that what it is? I mean, I will say I think she held her interest, but there were a couple of points where like we come back from commercial and she was like, fuck, there's more show, give me a break. Oh no. Yeah, but I think on balance, she thought it was a pretty entertaining episode of television. How about you? What a great episode to start with for her. Ben, I love the episode and I would say that it is my favorite DS9 episode that we've seen so far.

Wow. Really, really fun. Like I loved its film noir aspects. I love the creeping paranoia. The revelation at the end was well done. Its insistence that it stays with O'Brien throughout. Like, one of the good fun characters on the show. Like, I'm glad it was him. It could have been anyone, but I'm glad it was him. It's a fun creative constraint, you know, like you have to write good app if you're gonna be, if you're gonna keep yourself to one story and one perspective on that story.

I think it could, it could only ever be about O'Brien because every other main character on this show is compromised in some way In terms of how much we like them like I don't think we root as hard for Bishir or feel as bad for him when people treat him poorly for example, you know, like there are There's something about O'Brien that makes you root for him and there's something about him that's always been that way and so That it's him makes it even better. The thing about a serialized start track show the way this was, though, is that this is extremely powerful tech that they've revealed. And they are no closer to solving the problem of it by the end of the app.

Like, Bashir even says like the copy was so perfect, there was nothing to distinguish it from the real thing. Other than behavior that never presented itself, but they sort of surmised that it would at an inopportune time. Like, yeah, they tell O'Brien to play a game of solitaire and pretty soon he's killing the candidate or whatever. Yeah, it's such a terrifying problem that's, I mean, my having not seen much DS9, I don't know if it ever comes back, but I'm going to guess that it doesn't.

I think these parodons are an alien of the week. I don't think we ever see them again. That's too bad because this is a very dangerous threat. If everything you've set up to secure your station and your people is based on identity the way that it is, then I think it's a pretty dangerous time to be on GS9, but it's a shame that they go through all this work and it doesn't come back. A shame indeed, Adam. One thing that's never a shame is the priority on messages we receive from our viewers. Do you want to check those out? See what folks have to say? Let's open more received from our viewers. You want to check those out? See what

folks have to say? Let's open more things from our viewers. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. You need a supplement on top of the income? A supplement. Yes, extra. But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Adam, we have a couple of personal priority one messages here starting with one from

Liz and all the Ankylo soar which have come before me as that is ankylo soar the plural of ankylo soar ankylo soar You're saying that word so many times and so many different ways. So many incorrect ways. It's for Madame Mare, the Dith. It goes like this. While prepping my Horgons for your three-year-olds birthday party, Kora, the girl, I realize there's no other friend whom I love more than Deanna loves chocolate. Riker loves consent and LaWoxana loves being fucking obnoxious.

Let's put on our Klingon Yoga outfits. Watch some trek in high-dith-inition. Enjoy some coffee. Perhaps a Ractagino. That's a, that's true friendship right there. I wonder what Dith means to them, because Madame Mare is the Dith, but also they're watching Trek and High Dith Inition.

We may never know. All of these are in code. We're triggering Manchurian candidates left and right. Yeah, we're triggering Manchurian O'Brien's. Ha ha ha ha. Ben our second priority when message is for the warm hunting bosom. Oh.

It is from Jillian. The message goes like this, hey nerds. Ha ha ha ha. When I suddenly found myself thrust into the Mirror universe, this spring you all absolutely floored me with your support. Even Councillor Troy needs help sometimes. How can I thank you? Right here on this very podcast that brought all of us together of course. You're the ducking best, all of you. Same goes for Adam and Ben. PS Benterong. Can confirm messages authentic. Without the bentarong, we might not have known. Jillian sent us a nice note to the drunk

Shimoda at gmail.com inbox a while back. And we were happy to hear from her. We're glad things are looking up for her lately. Yeah, and glad that the warm honey bosom was there for her in a couple of pretty challenging moments. It is something that I don't think Adam in a couple of pretty challenging moments. It is something that I don't think Adam and I ever envisioned for what this podcast could be when we started it,

that it would like form like real community and real friendships for people. And that is like one of the awesomest things that has ever happened for either of us. And we're so glad that we get to share that with all of you guys. I didn't think it was possible for the internet to not be a shithole and yet the friends of DeSoto in their many online communities have made a great so thanks to all you guys. If you would like to send a priority one message to the greater listenership of the greatest

generation, you can go to Maximumfund.org slash jumbo-tron, where personal messages are $100 and commercial messages are $200, but the effect you can have on someone's life been priceless. 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 Share Your Embarrassment 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 call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Can I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you.

And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are already open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead.

Whoa, Ross. Hey, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line. And boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they have such short nacks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this off.

We've got to get on the art. It is about terrain, about a spout to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. but we're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Carrie? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that.

And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so same like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came to by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org. What's that been? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Yeah, I did and it's a little bit of like a a cat's cradle style Shimoda like it's very thready. So here's here's where I'm at with this. We know a couple times throughout the episode that Jake needs help on a science project, Jake has arranged to have a science date with O'Brien where he helps him build the science project and then Jake calls him sick.

So there's a timeline here that is everyone on the station knows that O'Brien is a replicant and they're taking steps to keep him away from the the parada situation, but evidently, Cisco does not disclose this to Jake at the same time. And so Jake is walking around the station for most of the episode feeling like O'Brien is O'Brien. Yeah, I mean like, and you think about what like how fucking terrifying that situation must be for Keko. Yeah. She finds that out and like presumably has to share a bed with this man that is not her husband one night and then yeah boy she fucking is asked a lot is asked of her. It is pretty crazy that she's got great creep face too like when he comes up behind her. Yeah.

that she's got great creep face too like when he comes up behind her. Yeah. Like, she is real squicked out. So yeah, my Shemota is is given to Ben Cisco for just the timeline that he chooses to disclose this to Jake. Like, this is not the first time Jake and O'Brien have had a conversation. Like, they are, they're pals. I think you need to tell Jake the same time you tell everyone else. So Ben Sisko, my Shemota, what about you? Well, you know, this is not the real chief O'Brien, but he doesn't know that. And for that reason, Replikant O'Brien is my Shemota. Ben, do you think there's an action figure of Replikant O'Brien that is exactly like the regular O'Brien except the word Replikant? I'd be a great piece of merch, right? that is exactly like the regular O'Brien except the word replicant.

I'd be a great piece of merch. Yeah, so like the text on the bottom of his shoe is a little bit different or something. That seems like something that Bill Tilly could make. Like just taking a regular chief O'Brien action figure and then like carefully printing replicant above his name. and like carefully printing replicant above his name. The reason I gave him my Shemota is for a bit of, a bit of wordless acting that Kalimini gave us

in the scene where he gets home and finds out that Molly is sleeping, having a sleep over at a friend's house that night. The camera goes close on a Brian's face and you just see him do the math on, hey, alone with my wife. And then he like puts the moves on her. But that just that little moment like spoke so many volumes and was so funny to me. Like I laughed out loud, my wife laughed out loud. It was a very fun little performance by Kalimini and I enjoyed it immensely. So great. What do we have coming up on the next episode?

And I'm the next episode is season two, episode 15, Paradise. Cisco and O'Brien are stranded on a planet inhabited by humans who have rejected any form of technology. I think O'Brien should maybe take a break from trips. He's what I'm going to say. Reconnect with the life, like, like, calm it down a little bit, you know? He does not take any time off, does he? No, no breaks for O'Brien. Do you want to hear the Netflix description of this episode? Sure do.

Well, surveying nearby star systems for M-class planets, it's just going to O'Brien locate a planet that already supports a colony of humans. What a mistake! Fun stuff. Well, Ben, we're on square 44 right now of the game of buttholes. The will of the profits. And with Quark's bar, just two squares away. Uh, why don't we see if we're going to do the next episode in any particular way? Get behind that course of action.

You're required to learn as you play. Roll. I'm gonna roll these days now. You click those clon peaks at them. Clicking. I've rolled a one. Shula! Did I win? Obviously. So we advanced to square 45. Another regular ass episode. That's great. Well, I'm looking forward to that one bin,

another tale of O'Brien family woe. Looking forward to it, Adam. I mean, I feel like a drunka said almost is called for, given the ringer that O'Brien has been through lately. But yeah, we'll see. We play by the rules here. Yeah, well, that'll be next week. And in the meantime, you can use the hashtag

greatestgen to talk about this episode online. Adam is on Twitter at Cut for Time and I'm at Benjaminara, A-H-R. And yeah, what else do the people need to know? They need to know about the Facebook group. They need to know about the Reddit group. Yeah. I think there's a friends of Dysoto.com internet forum.

Is that right? There is. There's a Slack channel. There's Jim Shimoda, GYM. Oh yeah. The workout community. And there's a second edition of the Jim Shumota T-shirt available in the store.

Right. Come see us live on tour this year. We're going to like, I think, 20 or so cities in the US and Canada. And most of the dates are already announced and many more will be announced soon. It's greatestgencon.com. It's greatestgen and then con is called khan.com.

We really want to see you show up at that Vegas show during Star Trek Las Vegas. I think it would send a powerful message to the big rod industrial complex if we were able to do a sold-out show just outside the pocket. Yeah, broadcasting at the pocket from just outside it. With like giant, Victrola speakers aimed at them. That's how podcasts work.

Right. We should thank Dark Materia for our OG theme music and Adam Ragusia for our brand new theme music and a lot of the original music you hear on the program. Hey cards for every episode are made by the great Bill Tilly 1973 on Twitter always good for a laugh weekend week out. That guy works a ton on his own brand of comedy, bolted onto our brand of comedy, making a form of super internet comedy that I've come to appreciate every week. So, I like to build silly. And with that, we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek

Deep Space Nine, and an episode of the greatest generation Deep Space Nine. That's marooned. I'm a fan of you. Comedy and Culture, Artists Don't. Listen or Support it.