The Greatest Generation - Amish Makeover (DS9 S7E5)

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

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

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

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

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

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdecisoto for labor.com. That's friendsofdisoto for labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in space nine. 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 Pranika. I'm Ben Harrison. Ben, is that one of your famous cocktails and a Zip Black bag?

I saw you bring it to your face. No, I'm just having a little gin and celtzer. That sounds nice. Little tangare and topo. I mean, that should have a rap lyric associated with it. It's nice. Yeah, it's a nice drink. It's a nice refreshing summer afternoon beverage.

I've been kit-batching the off the shelf, Costco margarita jug. To be clear, again, this is the one made with tequila and not the one made with wine. Oh. Which I find to be a pretty solid choice, but I'll always over-proof it a little bit with a shot. So what is it, it's like bar mix with tequila pre-loaded?

I think you'd be impressed and surprised by the quality of this beverage. I do not like pre-mixed cocktails off the shelf by any stretch, and I gave this one a try because of the proud Kirkland name, and it did not disappoint. This is not one of those wine cocktails that you get at a music festival either.

Like, Wheel Tequila. And it's not too sweet. This is the crucial aspect of it. It's actually got some good proportions, but dump another shot in there and then tap with some club soda. That's how I like to take it. That's the way to go.

Yeah. I have found myself in a situation where I've run out of a lot of key spirits in my repertoire. I'm usually a Gave spirit or rum guy. Everyone knows this about you. And I'm out of tequila right now. I have one bottle of mezcal, but it's like an extremely special bottle of mezcal that was smuggled illegally into the country. What?

I bought it at a liquor store where I was friends with the owner in Brooklyn, and he was like, Did you do that with me? Do we have the same bottle? Yeah, I think we do both have the same bottle. So I don't wanna like make a Wednesday night cocktail for myself with that.

That's not what that's for. That's for special occasions. You don't mix with the good stuff. And I have no rum on hand except for another like equally special thing that is like almost out and I can't just tap into that. My wife and I did a party with a bunch of our friends before moving where we drank as much of our bars we had.

Yeah. So we wouldn't move it. And are you in that position right now ahead of a move like you're not buying bottles because you don't want to move them? Assuming this move happens, the buying bottles thing does feel a little bit silly to do right now. Although I don't know when the move will happen if it does. So it might be like a month and a half.

And like I can get through a bottle of tequila in a month and a half, and like I can get through a bottle of tequila in a month and a half. Here's the thing, Ben, you're gonna need some tequila to get through the move. I think this is where I come in. I think a gift bottle of tequila is just what I'm gonna get you to help get you through this thing. Well, this conversation with exactly as I hoped it would. Oh, no.

I've been played. Oh no. I've been played. I've been played by a confidence man and here's the thing I never would have suspected you as a confidence man. You've been played at him like a deck of cards. Which makes me want to play with a deck of cards. God just a fucking professional quality pivot to game by Benjamin R. Harris, and like he hasn't done this for years on the greatest generation, let us have a card war.

Where more? There's been no formal declaration of war. And this took your brand of some luck. That nonsense is centuries behind us. Why? that nonsense is centuries behind us. Quiet! On the mark! Oh! So we're doing a mismatched war today, right? This is a asymmetric card war. Right, I'm gonna be red coats all lined up.

Ready to shoot a fuselage, and you're like in the jungle. Yeah, yeah. They did a hit me from the darkness. And by that I mean I'm playing with Star Trek Deep Space 9 memories from the future trading cards and long time listeners of the show will recognize these cards as the ones that stick. Oh boy. I am playing with customizable card game expansion packs for the mirror universe version of the Star Trek customizable card game. Before we play, I must loosen my cards.

So here is that sound. Oh. It sound never doesn't suck. It sounds like what it sounds like when I twist my back. It's like, which I do all the time. Do a little back cracking. Somebody in the greatest gen subreddit posted a photo from an antique shop that they were in of customizable card game

expansion packs that I had never heard of before. There is a deep space nine expansion. of customizable card game expansion packs that I had never heard of before. There is a deep space nine expansion. Really? And there's a holodeck adventures expansion, and there's a trouble with tribbles expansion. We've never played this card game, and I think that's fine.

I don't regret that. I don't think it would make a good episode if we were to do that. I think war is a better way to play it. Yeah. So with that, do you want to flip over a card? Before we begin, does my piece of card count as a playable thing? I'm going to hold this up to the camera for our viewers at home to see as well as you? That's just like a scrap that was included in the package. It was between a couple of cards.

It just fell out as I was giving them the loosen up business. Is it possible that that is what uniforms were made out of? And that's your scrap of uniform fabric? That would be great. I keep opening these cards, hoping I'll get a uniform piece. But yeah, I'm not going to play this. I don't think it would win, but I do have some cards here that I think have a good shot. So what do you say? We go three two one?

Okay Adam, the first card I have is a dilemma. It's a quantum fissure fragile intersection of countless parallel realities Quantum Fischer, fragile intersection of countless parallel realities, an attempt to scan one using a subspace differential pulse was interrupted by a pejoran worship with disastrous results. My card, Ben, is also a disaster. It is, together at last, one of Deep Space Nine's greatest moments, it's the romance between Odo and Kira. Something you've long railed against.

My feelings are being sucked into a quantum fissure, even considering this. Which is more powerful than the love between Odo and Kira or that gap in space. That gap though. Or space gash. I think your card wins. Wow.

Mostly because I think it'll piss you off that your card wins. The power of love. I'm too cynical to believe that, but if you insist, one to nothing. Me. Three, two, one. One to nothing. Okay me three two one Mr. Andrews civilian former Terence slave on Tarak nor in the Mirror universe liberated when the Rebellion sees control in 2372 I do not remember this man What I love about the customizable card game is that if you have been on camera, you have a card. Yeah, totally.

They are looking for content for the customizable card game. Ben, my card is another greatest moment. And the title of it is Odo a murderer. Odo spotted Yubu John on the station and recognized trouble immediately. Years ago, Odo had sent the Bajoran man to prison for murder. Yeah, the bloom comes off the Odo Rose in that episode. It's episode three. Wow.

Wow, that's really going in the way back machine. It does make me feel better about my dislike of Odo after that first card, though. It's Kyra doing fallen for our murderer. I'll never know. Who do you think won this one, Ben? I mean, Odo is a murderer and my guy is just some doofy white dude. What's great about that episode is that Odo is a murderer.

And I'll always believe it. I'm gonna take the win. Two zero. Fuck, I'm in a hole here. Yeah. You gotta figure this out, man. Fuck. I'm in a hole here. Yeah. All right. You gotta figure this out, man. Yeah.

Gotta start flipping better cards over. That's what I gotta do. Well, this be it. Three, two, one. There's no way that I'm gonna win against whatever you've got. Even though this is a special card, it's got some special foil on it. Oh.

It is a greatest legends card. That is positively glossy. It is for some reason Jake Cisco. Yeah it's a card in honor of a main character and for some reason it's an honor of him. It looks like one of the specials. It's got a special number and everything. Srirach Lofton, he really grew up before our very eyes. He was such a cute little kid. I mean, such a handsome young man at this point in the show. I like his work.

Yeah. I mean, we make fun of his character quite a bit, because I think there's a lot to make fun of. But that's the writing, not his performance. Yeah. What do you got, Ben? I have the Cavort class, Klingon Bird of Prey, the IKC Catang, this Bird of Prey, fought in the Dominion War to immune to the brain energy dampening weapon due to a fortuitous, tritium intermix adjustment.

Wow. So, take that, brain. Cervort class. Yeah, I'm pretty sure a bird of prey shoots J. Xisco out of the sky every day, right? I'm always gonna respect a Cervort class because that's the type that took out the big D. You are right.

That's the ship of choice by the Durace sisters. That's true. They had the code to the shields because of Jordy's visor, right? Yeah, it would have been better if it were a missile or an exploding star that took out the D. Yeah, but instead it was just a fucking dumpy cavort class Piece of shit. All right. So it is a it's two to one. Yeah. Yeah. Do we go? Do we go best of five? Let's do that. Okay. Three, two, one.

Adam, I've got an equipment card, and this is a piece of equipment that is less a piece of equipment than a running, not funny joke on Deep Space Nine. It is self-sealing stem bolts. Man. Used in the product in producing reverse ratcheting routing planers, Jake and Nog traded 5,000

rapages of Yamak's sauce for a hundred gross of stem bolts which they sold for seven testipates of Bajoran land. That was the no-j-consortum. It did that. Sure was. I've got a card for one of Bichiers' first loves. It's called Good Bye, Malora. Malora was the guest crew person that had a hobby of turning off the gravity in her order. Oh yeah. And floating around. She was like semi-avian person from a low-grav world.

semi-avian person from a low-grave world and she she she wheelchared when she wasn't chilling in her bounce castle of an apartment. Sheer always fallen for the wrong women. Yeah. Malora it didn't work out. Well she didn't have any staying power at him whereas the self-stealing stem bolt sure did. Yeah I think it's easily the stem bolt. It wins this battle. Let's go to a fifth and deciding card, Ben, what do you say? The next goal wins. This is it.

Three, two, one. You're not gonna believe this. No one is going to believe this. But my card is today's episode. No kidding. It's Bishir and Serena. It's two in a row, two Bishir relationship cards. Wow. It's the card for a crucialish. That is a really, a really adventurous pronunciation of Serena's name too. Was it? Serena. Yeah, there's a thousand different ways to say interesting blocking of the card though.

Oh yeah. Like the faces are really down at the bottom in a weird way. Yeah, a lot of headroom in the way they cropped that image. She's really looking on him lovingly. They kind of float down into the title safe space that you don't want to be if you're shooting faces. Yeah, his chin is like resting on the lower third there. Yeah, what do you have?

I have an incident card and my incident is agony booth and this is an image from the original series episode about the Mirror Universe. I don't understand these directions. I don't think I'm smart enough to play the customizable card game. I think you and I both know that Agony Booth is one of the most powerful cards in the deck and I think what you did as you came from behind. Wow. After a two-zero deficit, I think you've won three to two thanks to that agony booth card. Well done. Well played. I kind of feel like this is the kind of victory that they were celebrating in Quarks after their

Hollow Sweet baseball game last episode. We didn't really win. Yeah. We're celebrating as though. Maybe we will go back andscore this after talking about today's episode, Ben. Maybe at the conclusion, we will in fact have agreed that the Bashir and Serena card is the winner. It's certainly possible. Let's find out as we get into Deep Space 9 Season 7 Episode 5. Crucialish. Do you realize how many... What about this series? No, of course you don't. It's also possible that we will forget that we thought of that idea.

Oh, it's probable. There is scene after scene of tragic solitude that Bashir experiences the head of this episode. This guy's social life is a fucking disaster. I know I grew up like this on occasion, like if your best friend isn't available to hang out with, you come to realize that your best friend may in fact be your only friend. Yeah. And if O'Brien is taken, I think that's sort of the situation that Bashir's in. Yeah, that's sort of the situation that Bashir is in.

Yeah, that's not a good feeling. He's kind of like a pinball bouncing around the promenade from friend to friend asking if he can tag along and whatever they're getting into, like Odo and Kira heading to a hollow sweet date if they're racially segregated Las Vegas slown. Well, have a great time. They've really taken a hard right turn in their politics, apparently. You know, I'd bring you, but you're not exactly... You're a bit swarred here than not what the doorman typically likes to admit. It's pretty clear to me that the hood is docked on one of the rings and I feel like it's always good on the hood if you're looking for something to do.

It doesn't seem like an angled up a sheer take here. Yeah, the angle he winds up taking is going home and like doing homework. Straight jacket seems to have mad cream. Yeah, he goes home and punches one out and by that we mean he continues to work. Yeah he goes home and punches one out and by that we mean he continues to work on projects and like stays up late working on projects I don't get this like if I've got a night at home I'm either going to enjoy my night by myself at home. And like watch a movie or you know make myself an elaborate meal, but I'm definitely not staying up late to do either of those things. Fuck that. Oh God, Ben,

I understand now the awful truth about myself. I'm a bishier. Oh no. You're a stay-up late for no reason? I mean, I'm a stay-up late and work on shit person. Wow! That sucks. Yeah. The sheer is just about to fall asleep when he's aroused by an incoming call from Nog. For some reason, Nog is the one to wake him up. Nog is on swing to the biggest. I like it. This is a powerful course correct after the last episode,

posited a Nog as member of senior staff. Yeah, not as where you should be now. This is exactly what Nog should be doing is being ensen hospitality on the overnight shift. We've reached a level of Nag equilibrium there, then it feels right. Yeah, they've got an admiral that is asking specifically for the doctor. He's in Dr. Gerani on duty. Not anymore. And that means jump out of bed, get in uniform, and run, don't walk to see what this is all about.

When Bashir arrives in the infirmary, it's clear that Nag has fallen for a bit. And a bell buckle opens a lot of doors. Yeah. If you're to wear one, unfortunately in this case it's Patrick wearing the belt buckle. Yeah, and it's the return appearance of the unauthorized X-Men In full, Starfleet uniform. Yeah, they are stealing valor. I think we need to call in the Sentinels, Adam. Yeah, it's wild. I don't get the sense that Nog ever gets it. Like, no.

He's in the scene the entire time. Like once we get it, I don't think Nog does. Nobody ever stops to explain it to him and I think that's a really funny pregnancy in the scene. Yeah. The three verbal, inauthentic X-Men have put on these uniforms to bring Serena to the station. And she's in the, you know, the drab green outfit that we are used to seeing her in.

But Bashir has actually been like trying to arrange for her passage and the others kind of took matters into their own hands. They sort of refer to a conversation where, and this happens a lot, like this is a case of a busier saying, well, yeah, I mean, there's a chance that I could have some capacity to work on this problem medically. And then what he didn't recognize is that the people that he was telling that to would take that in a totally different way. Right. In a bring serena here immediately kind of way.

Why are you so upset? You wanted serena brought here? Well, here she is. You know, after the opening credits, we get the scene where Bashir is being chewed out for having allowed a misunderstanding like this to take place. I mean, Cisco has freaked out that somebody posed as an admiral and like, waltzed onto his station. They meant well. They meant well. Very understandably.

The camera pans over to Garex and the exterior has one of those like temporary vinyl signs that says like your source for Halloween costume. And it's like full of starfleet uniforms. He's doing a pretty good job with the very similar to it. Garek goes totally uninteriegated here for his responsibility. Yes. With the, would they have gotten the uniforms on,

were they coming from Earth? Where'd they come from? It feels like this is a thing that sort of like, you can't put money in a copy machine and make credible looking money. You shouldn't be able to replicate a Starfleet uniform for some reason. Yeah, I think that it's interesting that in real life,

you kind of can't. Like I've never seen somebody in cosplay that looked right. And I would love to. It's the pursuit that's meaningful. It's a great point and it's not shade against cosplayers. It's just for whatever reason the way things are made and tailored. Yeah, like I would love to see somebody walking around at STLV in a uniform that fit them the way

Cisco's uniform fits him, you know, I Wonder how much of it it has to do with carriage like an actor has a certain way of wearing a costume That is really specific to the craft. Yeah, and when you're walking around Las Vegas Casino floor, a person wearing a uniform like this is just not going, like they're not gonna have it. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, what I'm saying is Patrick has it. That's a stupid question.

Yeah. He has it in spades. He has it in belt buckles even, because there's a power that the belt buckle gives that Yeah, that is really great for his character. I love that he's able to inhabit a role too like he is like we spent an episode with this character before and we know that he is like a kind of silly and somewhat emotionally needy guy and Yeah, the point of these characters is that they're not really capable of taking care of themselves, but when he gets into character, he can really plausibly give admiral realness, you know.

And that's a credit to the actor, like he's playing Lenny one second and then like abruptly switches course to asshole admiral and it's great. And I think it's credit to the writing too, because to give a Lenny character like an ability like this is really fun and clever, I think. So the project here is Serena, and he's motivated by a kind of survivor's guilt, isn't he? Yeah. Like he has survived his circumstances in a way

that these X-Men have not. And it inspires him to forgive an instant like this, to encourage Cisco to forgive it as well. Yeah. And to work his best to cure Serena of her problem. Right, the thing he's discovered is that like her being nonverbal is the primary side effect of her genetic resequencing and he may be able to solve for that in a way

that would enable her to live a relatively normal life. And I think this episode, like a couple of times, Hughes close to something that is probably more controversial now than it was then, which is the idea of making somebody who is like, neuroatypical, behave more like somebody who is not. More normal. What's normal? like, Nuro A typical behave more like somebody who is not. More known. What's known?

And to my mind, it doesn't really like cross a line into making an offensive statement about people who are Nuro A typical or anything. But it struck me in this episode in a way that it didn't really the last time we saw these characters that, like, this is somewhat chewing on the idea of, like, autism spectrum disorders or whatever. I mean, it feels like it is suggested, but characters themselves, through dialogue, make

clear that this is a locked-in syndrome sort of thing instead of a... Yeah. ...instead of what you're describing, and I think it allows them to be off the hook for that. Yeah. I also kind of wondered what they were trying to optimize for, and especially in the other three characters, like what they were trying to... Because like Lauren, it seems like all they did was turn up the potentiometer of sexual innuendo.

Like, everything she says has to have like a sexy lilt to it. But that's it, right? Like that's the only thing she does. Yeah, it's a strange group. Luckily, Cisco arranges for the cargo bay to be set up in exactly the same configuration as it was. We kept your bedroom just like you left it. Yeah, it's nuts.

It's the kids coming home from college and realizing that they're going to be staying in their 13-year-old-style bedroom. So Bashir has an idea for how to work on Serena and it's a procedure that he explains to O'Brien, but really us. There's a device that he can use for the procedure. It looks suspiciously like a clip show device.

It's very word. It's going to be insufficient for his needs. And O'Brien tells him, I can't fix this piece of shit. Like, I'm the best on the station, but there's nothing I can do. Fortunately, the undeterred X-Men get their hands on this thing and get it working like it should. Yeah, they are not trying to break the laws of physics, but they're perfectly willing to bend them. And so they've augmented this thing, but it's a bit of a cable nest issue. Like, they've taken what looks like a nice clean piece of kit and really kit-bashed it to hell. There are grips on this production that are getting my grains.

Looking at how this thing is cable-ed. Oh yeah, I'm sure that the art department just stationed a set dresser next to this thing to keep the grips away from it because they would just come reflexively try and neaten out the cables. You want me to inside, outside, wind these cables when I put it away, right? And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, make sure that these cables, I can get a memory to them. We wanted to look like shit. This is a hot prop.

Do not touch. Gold to cotton. Gold to cotton. So. Surgery day comes. And the clip show begins. We throw to the greatest moments of Serena's time on Deep Space 9.

And at this point, I think you and I will play a couple of those. Great stuff. Oh yeah, that's nice. The surgery does not go well, Enterprise. Yeah, they're kind of expecting her to wake up from this and just be a chatty, Kathy. You'll be swell. You'll be great." And when she wakes up, she is still doing the thousand yard stare with the dark spots under the eyes.

And Bashir is like really disappointed himself. More as hell. So disappointed that he seeks the advice of a professional psychologist in Esri Dax. And her psychological approach here is basically fuck your feelings, Bashir. You're going to beat up on yourself. I'll beat up on yourself for you. I think we can be sure at this point that Esri is not a competent therapist. I liked it. I liked the tough love of this of it. I think she read him in a way that he needed to be read in that moment. I don't know, man. I feel like at this point, after five episodes, that there is a sense that there is no need to write Ezri any further than how we're getting her because there's a little bit of short time or syndrome in character development happening.

Like, what's the point? I suspect that this is all we're going to know about her going forward. Well, this scheme ends with them kind of cutting their shredding each other emotionally short because Serena has left Six Bay and is wandering around on the promenade. And Bashir walks up and asks her if she's okay and she starts responding to him. You hurt me. And is like totally blown away that when she responds to him,

he can then respond to her. It's like a whole new technology for her. It really shakes up the episode. We cut to black, and then the Star Wars scroll appears, and it says, The mute speak. Hahaha. Her manicure is really on point for somebody who's been checked out of society for as long as she has. Because she does that thing where she reaches up to her mouth in awe of its power. In awe of her mouth's power? Those nails though. Yeah. The makeup department did a lot of heavy lifting

for the character development side of this episode because as a nonverbal person, Serena had the Halloween store dark shadows, painted under her eyes and around her eyes. Yeah. And was incredibly pale. And what she looks like after becoming verbal is a lot more life-like, especially in the face.

It's nice. You're right. One thing I commented on the last time we saw her on the show, was that I thought she did a lot with a character that didn't have any lines. Yeah. And one thing I read was that they were taking the script into production and they had faith salient come audition to play this part again because they didn't know if she could handle

it or not. And I was shocked by that because she carried some of the scenes in that last episode without lines. And it was obvious to me that she had the talent to pull off a second round with this character, but apparently not so for the producers of the program. I wonder how emboldened you are when you're casting a show by the idea of casting Z-All with a couple of different actors or Qu-All with a couple of different actors or

Quarks mom with a couple of different. Like you get used to the idea of casting for taste in a way that I think makes bit parts like this subject to to that kind of thing. Yeah, but this is a part where she's not in loaf. I was really surprised to read that. I thought that was really remarkable. And I think that it is a real credit to Faith Salis Talent, how she plays this role going forward. Because there's some really subtle stuff that she does.

The way she decided to portray somebody kind of being unused to having a voice, like it is a very unique take on that idea that I thought was really good. And like the way she kind of like suddenly backed off of how strange her voice sounded over the episode to where she had like some confidence with it. Yeah. I thought was really great. Why are you talking like that?

Quiet. I wanna give the director Jonathan West some credit for this because like so many actors are given direction that involves backstory and motivation. And if you're method like finding areas of your own life that corroborate with a character need. And what's so interesting about Serena's character is that she has no such thing.

And so the direction as given to her was to be totally receptive instead of telegraphing anything as if you have a backstory. And it influenced her performance in a really unique way in a way that really worked. It's very cool to see it. I mean, I say it is mostly a radio personality now,

but I think is a super, super talented actor and I really liked her performance in this. There's some real emotional whiplash that happens after she becomes verbal and kind of comes alive. She gets reintroduced to the group, which is a moment where she's made fun of by her so-called friends for being tone deaf, and then we get a two-minute accapelicine with the Barbershop X-Men. Boy, this scene has to work if it's gonna work. Like, you cannot be plus this.

It has to be nailed. Don't rain me fa-sola-t-do. Don't rain me fa-sola-t-do. I think the reason that this sequence worked for me was because of how it was shot. There's a lot of physicality to it, the way characters move in and out of frame, that I don't think you get if you back the camera off wide and see where Bashir is in relation to them, like your proximity to them is a big reason why this is meaningful. And you only ever see Bashir, I think, toward the end. And I really like that about it. I had goosebumps watching the scene. I mean, it's like a very... I don't know. It's like... It's one of those things where I was like, God, this is like a corny Star Trek moment, except for it is humming, like it is so good. It's got that quality of an SNL sketch.

So many SNL sketches begin like with the idea. You like it to juice, eh? And then they just start hammering it over and over and over again, and the comedy dips for its frequency. And then for some reason pulls out of it for its frequency too, in like the third minute. Would you mind ending this sketch?

And I feel like the sincerity of this scene works in the same way, because in the beginning, I was like, this is cheesy and bad. But the longer it went, the better it got in that same way. They're harmonizing is actually really, really sweet and I don't know if they dubbed everybody or if this is their actual voices or whatever, but it works.

However they made it work, they made it work. And that's a real accomplishment. The trivia about it is that Jack was the actual tone deaf one. And everyone else could really sing. And and faith saly did not know she was the singer that she was before the scene. Like she discovered that she had great pitch, which is a discovery. I've never made about myself.

That's fascinating. Like, can you imagine being asked to re-addition for a part that you've already played once? You get to set and they're like, here's the script for today. It involves a lot of singing. And you don't know that you're good at singing. It's the cliff jumping of acting challenges, so.

Yeah. Wow. I'm frequently reminded of how awful a singer I am every time I karaoke. And gets the cold, very late at night. The singing works in the scene, but the thing that really works is how she goes from starting the scene being dunked on and made fun of and made to feel less than. And by the end, she is confident, she's engaged with them, she has won them over.

And it's that emotional arc that undergirds the whole thing. It's like the scene in the episode that I care about the most, by far. Well, we can't be here forever, Ben. We get Bishir's heart eyes emoji at the end of it into a scene at Quarx where Bishir is excited eyes emoji at the end of it into a scenic quarks where Bishir is excited about a day he's at at work and he wants to share that with his best bud.

And O'Brien is clearly bored of the subject. Yeah. And you should have seen him, Miles. How could I? I've been sitting here all night. Bored to the extent that he's rolling his eyes at Bishir. It's not like Bishir falls in love every season. It's kind of a rarity.

Yeah. It's actually kind of a twist of the knife that Bishir is this excited because what he has done is blown off an established hang that he was supposed to have with miles and miles sat there with his dick in his hand like a chump. Yeah. So he's trying to be happy for everyone, but he is is primarily concerned with himself. So they go their separate ways having had their mandate blown.

But she goes back to his quarters and discovers Sarena inside. She had no problem with the six digit access code that it takes to break into his apartment. She was like, oh yeah, the face ID, I have made this mask that looks exactly like you out of clay. The alpha numeric keypad code for his apartment is PIS, M-A-N. Ha, ha, ha, M-A-N. Hahaha. I was looking at those, those like combination code door locks the other day.

And I feel like those, like if you use that to get in and out of your place, aren't the numbers going to wear out eventually and just it's going to be very obvious, like, oh, these are the four digits that they use. Before I moved to L-A, I used to stay at an Airbnb, not far from your play of spin, and it had one of those keypad locks, and you're exactly right. The numbers used for that location were like they were worn. Yeah. Can't do that.

That does not work. So she's there, but it's not, it's not seduction like you might expect. Serena's there because she can't sleep. Again, not seduction. She's got a very real feeling concerns about like, what if I go to sleep and I wake up and I'm the way I was this morning? Like, I don't want this ride to stop. Yeah, it's that anxiety of like, I got to a thing that I have wanted to my whole life and

What if it goes away? What if it all suddenly goes away like I mean I Think about that with getting to do this show with you like what if something happened where we had to stop? It's terrifying. Yeah, it could happen any day now almost every day I think about the possibility this since the distinct and real possibility It's a real goodwill hunting scenario every time I turn on the recording feed and I I wonder if this is the day that you're not there And you know what Ben that's the best day of my life. I think this is a very high degree of difficulty seen to do and not make look pervy because she falls asleep on his shoulder and he is content to fall asleep sitting up in a chair

and there is no suggestion of physical He's not like... There's a whole romance here. He's not like putting his arm around her shoulder and putting a hand on a boob or anything. Yeah, it's very chased in a nice way, in the way that you hope it'll be. But then the next morning, she's getting him his breakfast and stuff in a way that was like, is she a 1950s housewife now?

Like, what? Where does she get this idea? Is a great question. Yeah. I mean, I think that like they explore that in the episode that she feels like she owes him so much that she could never repay. And her ideas about how to go about starting our very rudimentary. This is such an interesting direction to take her character in the story, I think, that

she's motivated by Gilt or maybe Owing, the sheer, for what he's done for her. She doesn't want to be confused with being an ungrateful X-man. Yeah, she should hate that. So he goes off to work and she goes back to her friends who are working about on the problem of the inevitable collapse of the universe on a millions of years kind of time span. This is the curse of great intelligence, right? It's the curse of empathy. It's the curse of so many ways of being that like a person only has a certain amount of capacity for concern. And so this group of very smart people have become concerned about something very, very, very far into the future. And it feels very present in the now.

It kind of feels like they got hooked on the idea of everything falling apart in their last episode with their prediction that the Dominion War would go far worse for the Federation than is generally known. Now they're on to an even bigger scale of looming catastrophe that they're interested in. What the scene does intentionally is to make Serena different in a different way from the group. She's not fitting in in the way that she used to, and it's something that she feels and the group does. Yeah, because when Bashir finds her in there later, like she has kind of fallen back into

old habits sitting by herself in a corner staring off into the middle distance, and he's really worried that like the spell has been broken and she's turned into a pumpkin or whatever. It's consistent with how she behaved in the scene before, right? She's doing this for their benefit. They're more comfortable with her acting a certain way. And so that's the way she chooses to be. Yeah, which I like.

I like the writing of that. But she invites her to a social hang. And to her credit, Lauren understands that this is not an invitation to the group and and help Serena get ready for the evenings hangs but Patrick and Jack are pretty rip shit about this situation. Figures. That doesn't seem fair. If you'll very insulted, very slighted. If this is Serena's rum springa, I feel like she got an omesh makeover. Here, right? Yeah, the...

She clearly looks, she looks really pretty and she looks cared for by Lauren, but also like that dress goes all the way up and all the way down. Yeah, the Empire Waste dress is a very specific choice, I feel like. Yeah, I think this is an example of costuming telling us that this isn't a sexy thing. Like get that out of your head. Right, and it's like a social hang at Quarks where everybody else is in uniform too. Yeah, even Odo is like, boy, she's pretty uptight, isn't she? And I'm me. She could stand to loosen up a little bit.

This is a scene that ends with her and Bashir kind of wandering down the promenade together and her kind of psychoanalyzing all of the not Cisco senior staff. Bishiers like, you know, you're doing your job better than Ezri could ever do. Have you ever thought about a career in psychology? This is kind of the pivot though, right? Like what is her future going to be? She had such a great experience with Bashir's friends. The possibilities are endless for her.

She's got this great big universe. Bashir's like, what do you think about sticking around maybe? You don't have to go anywhere. Yeah. The idea of picking a star- It's like I start of the run. And heading off to it and making a life for yourself is great, but Bashir is starting to reveal himself

as an unethical X-man. And the scene ends with him making out with his patient. It's clear that unlike the group and the shuttle bay, she's not an unwelcome X-Men. But what Bashir does is break the news to these unhappy X-Men that they have to go and she gets to stay, and that's how it's gonna be. They bring up a great point in response to this. Could you make us normal like you did for Serena and then we could all stay together? And I wish this was

interrogated a bit more in this episode and this and I had wished for this to be a stronger point of conflict. We've known these characters now for a couple of episodes, the why her and not us if occasion of how they feel about Bashir. I feel like could use a lot more juice. of how they feel about Bashir. I feel like could use a lot more juice. Because if I'm Patrick or Jack or Lauren, I'm looking at the success story play out, and I'm like, well, I'm next, right? Yeah, and I think that the problem is that

whatever it is that makes them incapable of taking care of themselves has never been very clearly defined. Like they're obviously eccentric and weird. They're undiagnosed X-Men. Yeah, but like, if Lauren had like stabbed three people. Lauren does take out a four-inch clip and is like, this is my problem.

Thump. I would say that my main problem right now is that I'm an unfucked ex-man. I could have used a little more of this, is what I'm saying. Like really stick it to Bishir, like he gets off a little easy here. Like if we all are roughly contending with the same problems, why can she be fixed and why can't we? Yeah. Is a great indictment of what happened here. And I don't feel like what's broken about them has ever been made entirely clear. It also gives the story cover too, because if you don't know exactly why you're assuming

there's a good reason. Later in Quartz Bar, Bashir and Serena are hanging out and she's kind of reigning the Davo table. Explain how you try the dependent variables. It's really not that interesting. Davo! And that is always an anxiety trigger for Quark who does not like to lose money to people

who are capable of doing better math than he can. I would have loved to see her play some tango with him though. Like after that episode where Bashir was bested by Quark, the case being made here is that like she has retained all of her genius, all of the advanced abilities of her genetic enhancement and lost all of the disadvantages. I mean, nothing cures a bum out of the previous scene more than a winning gambling streak.

And everyone's super jest in the scene, except for Quark, who strongly encourages them to go to the bar. He's acting as the cooler here. It's in this scene that Sarena begins to feel a little frazzled by the noise. The suggestion here is that her cure may not be permanent. Right. There's a sensory overload thing happening that she can't really handle, so she wants to clear out of there.

When Bashir walks her home, Ben, he floats the idea of Risa, and this begs the question, how soon is too soon for Risa if you're dating someone in the 24th century? Yeah. I think generally everyone knows what a third date means, you know, contemporarily. But like in the 24th century, I think a lot of thought needs to be given for, when is Ryza right for you? Yeah, I mean, the question everyone asked themselves

early in a relationship is like, this seems to be on a collision course for us being an item. And if that happens, then we will need to start like planning things around each other. Like trips, holidays, all of that stuff. And raise a, like it's one thing to meet and fuck somebody at Burning Man. It's another thing to go on a first date and on the second date,

be like, hey, what if we went to Burning Man next week? It's so great. There's no other use for a sex toy in a way that Ryza only means one thing. Yeah, he brought his jazz horgon on this date. She seems game, even though she shouldn't know what Riza is. Yeah. I'm clear how much she's absorbed over the years. I feel like but also like in the 24th century, like the, the sexual morays have got to be much looser, a lot less like, like Bible thumping lunatics running around trying to enforce their weird

puritanism on everybody. That maybe people are just like more... Yeah, hope so. You know, like maybe there are fewer venereal diseases, you can wave a light over your junk and get rid of your conorrhea or whatever. More. More. Stay sweet.

More. More. More. Stay sweet. More. Later, Bashir gets another crack at O'Brien. This seems to be their relationship right now. Bashir, excitedly telling O'Brien about a thing in O'Brien, just not trying to hear that really. But unlike the scene before, O'Brien I think really has some good tough love style advice for him. And this is the hardest part about being really good friends

with someone is like the obligation to see two trains on the same track heading for each other and seeing if you can do something about the impending crash. Yeah. And O'Brien in this scene makes a pretty credible case for this being too soon. Oh, and genetically engineered. We do everything fast. And also that it's his patient. I thought this is a great scene for O'Brien because he says the thing that I was screaming

at the TV the entire time, like you are peddled to the meddling your summer love with your patient, you're a fucking doctor, and this is a bad episode for Bershear, makes Bershear look like grotesquely unethical, but also I feel like it's very true to his character the way they write this because he's engaged in what Dan Savage calls, dickful thinking. And he's a very arrogant man. Like he believes in his advanced abilities. And he's like, well, I've like had the other doctor take over supervision of her care.

She's no longer my patient. That's no longer an issue. He rationalizes in a way that is like authentic to the way he's been written. I think that's a great point and it's destructive because the measures he takes are retroactive. Yeah. He does a bunch of unethical stuff before ethically making some decisions here that insufficiently retroactively could get him off the hook. And it's a great O'Brien episode for Bashir's failings. And O'Brien also knows not to push him too hard either.

Like Bashir's saying things that are big red flags for any friend who is close to someone who's making a mistake. When you start using language like this person is who I've been waiting for my whole life, the idea of a person's ability to complete someone else, like this is not rational thinking. Yeah. And it's dangerous. As my dad's cousin said to him dangerous as my dad's cousin said to him when he was 11 years old and visiting North Carolina and walked out on a rail road bridge dangerous as far that's wisdom right there it's just like that Adam so that night the candles are lit the the table is set. Here's what you want to do when you're

unadating the 24th century. You don't want to replicate the meal before your date arrives. And so these plates empty for what seems like hours and hours because Serena never shows. I loved the shot that established that she never showed because it cuts around the room a couple of times and then cuts to a like camera pointed straight down at the table

but on a dolly and It like pant like dolly's over to to find Bashir just like Collapsed on a couch just like bored of his fucking mind. He's got to find out what happened He asks the computer where she is. The computer says that she's in her quarters. So there is where Bashir goes. And using his medical access, he breaks into her apartment and sees her

staring out her staring window. And in this moment becomes the unforgivable axe man. I don't know. I think I want to argue the other side in this specific moment. I think you could believe that there has been a medical emergency if she's not responding to him being at her door. I think that's that is fair, but it can't be him to go through the door in that in that context. You got a call for backup. There is too strong a chance that it is him that has driven her to whatever medical crisis is taking place. And the infirmary is where they discover

that there's been a little bit of a backslide in her progress medically. It's something that he can't figure out on his own, and no one in the infirmary can, so he appeals to the unhelpful ex-men for their assistance, who seem unenthusiastic about this kind of work. Why should we help you? You just want to steal her away from us.

Given that a few scenes ago, we were shown just how unhappy they were about all the attention being paid to her and instead of them. Right. They still resent him for the idea that he's going to be breaking up their quartet. But despite that, out of loyalty to her, they go talk to her. And they have some debate, right? Like they talk over whether they want to admit

to be sure what's really going on. And they decide that they have to. So they come to his quarters and say, like, listen, like she has not backslid. She shut down because she is fucking overwhelmed, basically, by what's happening to her. And it's his boner that's overwhelming her. If he allowed her to adjust to her new ability to engage with the world without turning it into fucking candles and single roses and vases and champagne on the second date and

Riza on the third date. The problem is she's she's been given no breathing room. Healthy relationships are ones where both people remain their own separate identities and then they bring those together while keeping those identities and what happened here is that Serena's identity was subsumed it became all about Bashir in the payback and She lost whatever hope she had of Becoming her own person very quickly. Yeah, I mean, I think that like the thing that I didn't but didn't hit me

While I was watching the episode, but hit me as we started to discuss the episode, is that scene where she shows up at his apartment and sleeps on his chest, or he sleeps while she lies on his chest and looks at his virology research. It plays so powerfully into Bashir's primary sense of weakness Yeah, that she wants to connect with him on a human level and that he has never been able to connect with anybody on a human level In this show retroactively because of his augmentations, but also because of just like what a creep he was written as for the first season and three quarters. He is unforgivable for having responded to that out of weakness because he should

be a professional and should be able to, you know, yeah. I mean, what's hard to forgive is that this was not a secret to him. Her desire to repay the debt was on the surface. And that was specifically the moment that he should have disengaged and gotten some distance. That was the moment. Right. But he's also, this is a guy that is authentically lonely. That is, this connection is so, it's such a powerful temptation to him that he violates himself to be receptive to it. Doesn't it feel a lot like data? Like data's loneliness and Bashir's loneliness seem very related.

Like Bashir's desire to find an equal or a semi equal, gets him into a lot of trouble. Yeah. The way it did for data. Honestly, I've been watching the sopranos lately, and there's a character on that that has kind of a in and out relationship with drugs, where he's like sometimes doing tons of heroin. He goes to rehab, he's an AA, he relapses sometimes, he's on the straight

narrow sometimes, and those moments where he breaks and somebody offers him a key bump of heroin. Two days later, you catch up with him and he's like shitting himself at the fucking feast of San Gennaro because he's so strung out. Great sin. This felt like that. Like, Bashir not engaging his higher functions to do the right thing in these moments. Where's Bashir's cleaver as a film project?

I bet he'd make a fun horror film. I bet Bashir really loved Cundoon. That's the line of the episode, Ben. Fuck. That's great. So in Quarx, O'Brien, here's about the aftermath and the unemployed ex-Men are heading home. Meanwhile, Serena is headed for a research project. This is sad stuff.

What's cool, I think, is that Serena didn't backslide back in an unverbal. I think a lesser episode would have had her go back into Catatonia and then rejoin the X-Men and then go home and then what was it all for? Right, yeah, oh, but sheer your skills are not as great as you thought they were and also you're a bad person. Right, and this episode is just about one of those things,

which is I think better. I agree. And I also think that the position of Ryan Takes is exactly the right one. The, it's like, the subtext is, I told you so, And I also think that the position O'Brien takes is exactly the right one. It's like, the subtext is, I told you so, but the text is, hey man, I love you and I'm sorry that this hurt you. You didn't want to be lonely anymore. Nobody does.

One of the things that I feel like we've brought up before is just how much O'Brien has been through as a character and how reluctant he is to bring that up as a form of currency he's willing to trade with the characters around him. O'Brien has been through this with Molly, just a few episodes ago. A nonverbal character, He tried to get through to. Yeah. And all of the fallout from having an emotional connection to someone and then having that confused with how you want to help them medically and how there might be a conflict between those two impulses. Like, who better than O'Brien to to hash this out with, but that is not part of the conversation here. It's just over.

It's just O'Brien being a good conduit for a conversation and offering to like O'Brien offers, you know, come over for dinner and like get your mind off of things. Bashir wants none of that. Instead the button on the episode is Bashir walking Sarena to the ship. She's going to board to leave him and this life forever. And what you're left with, what I was left with at the end of the episode was that Sarena is not damaged for this relationship with Bashir, though I think she could have been like an alternate versions of this. I feel like things go very bad for her on her way out the door and it affects her negatively in her life

going forward, but instead it feels like a mutual agreement that this is what's best for her and so she goes. It feels like an episode of Bashir falling off a cliff and catching himself on a vine on the way down. Like he almost completely destroyed himself. And if she had been seriously harmed by what happened between them. I think he would have. It's that like learning medical ethics the hard way kind of thing. Right. Like he sees how close he came to total destruction. And I think it's a good episode that is bad for Bashir as a character. But I think the most fucked up thing in the episode

is the fact that they kiss on the mouth before she goes. I thought a lot about this kiss in that in exactly the same way. I thought about the women in my life that I am close enough to to give this kind of physical affection. Yeah. Our few. Yes. And it is incredibly meaningful to know that that is all it is.

And I'm not sure that one of these two kissers feels the same way. No, yeah. I think that's well put. The fact that she is kind of, I mean, she's a galaxy brain and she is stupendously capable, but she is also inherently naive. She is new to the world. And there is a power imbalance in this moment. And there's a power imbalance all through the episode

that Bashir consistently fails to rise to the occasion of being the better man about. Mixed feelings about that moment. Did you like the episode, Ben? You really want to do this here. Now, okay, okay, let's do it, do it. Did you like the episode Ben? You really want to do this here. Now, okay, okay, let's do it, do it. I did like the episode. I mean, I think that like the,

I mean, we talked about the sopranos. Like in a series like the sopranos, if a character had an episode like that, it would haunt them for the rest of the series. You know, and I'm guessing that this will not haunt Bashir based on the track record of Deep Space Nine, in the way that I think it should. But I think that this is also,

like we talk about, Deep Space Nine is one of the early TV shows to kind of come up with the idea of breaking away from the, it's always reset at the end of every episode. And I think that in a vacuum, this is a really good episode because it is, is showing a guy failing himself and the people around him in a way that is really realistic. And as a viewer, you can like think about the times in your life when you've been around something like that or if you yourself have made similar failings. And I also think it's just like a really well, it's a well structured story, it's well acted. I think that Faith Saley is fucking amazing in it. I think Alexander Siddick is really good in it.

And it's such crazy whiplash after taking me out to the hall this week to have an episode as serious as this, too. It's really true. But overall, I thought it was a really strong episode. I think scrutinizing the differences between how something is intended versus how it is received is really important in an episode like this. And I think depending on who you are and what your life experience has been like is going to put you all over the map on how this episode might work for you, I think what's interesting is Faith Saley sat for an interview about this episode fairly recently and she thought it was good Good in a post me to environment even that Bashir was able to keep a professional Remove with a patient in the way that he does in this episode was something that she approved of and I mean if the actor portraying

Serena thinks that, I mean, who am I to project what I think is right onto her and that character? Yeah. But I think an episode like this is emblematic of so much of the potential of a doctor bouchir that has up until this point gone unrealized. I think his character as a tragic figure is something that could be mined to great effect. I think he could be more tragic even. Why are we so narrowly confined with him and his stories when like what I want to feel is real trauma and real heartache

with him. Instead of this middle ground stuff, and I don't know if this is just a quality of late 90s television or what, but I did like the episode, but this is one of those ones where there's a little bit of meat on the bone and we're running out of time in the season and the series. And maybe we'll get another crack at Beshear going forward. I hope we do, but it's clear that he has been relegated to the sidelines as a major character, and he's getting one episode as an A story not very often. So if I were a betting man, I don't like his chances of getting a send-off that I would hope it that he would get. I mean, regardless of his actions in this episode, which depending on your perspective,

could be negative. One more thing that I didn't say was this. Our X-Men here, I feel like had they been introduced in season two, could have been our lone gunman of the series. Oh, yeah. And this is it. And this is it. This is it for them.

They got their two episodes and they're out. I would have liked more of them sprinkled through. I mean, this is a way to give a greater foundation to the Bishir characters is returning to this well. So yeah. I wish they'd done that. Totally. Also, where's the Nagby story here?

Lauren is talking all about fucking Nagg. Let's just give me one scene between Lauren and Nagg. Oh, man. Like, how tasty is that? Oh, man. What's he gonna do with all that woman? I feel like she would really love Umak's. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, and I feel like Nagg would be a giving lover. Yeah. Absolutely. I thinkog would be a giving lover. Yeah, absolutely. I think that'd be a good fit. This episode made me wonder, is Nog like 23 now? Like, what is, what's going on with Nog? Nog's ready to fuck, I think we can agree. He's a commissioned ensign in Starfleet, right? Like, he, this isn't a field commission, it's not provisional.

He's a commissioned ensign. I feel like an undone subtext to the Vali episode is not looking around at that crew and going they're all fucking each other And I'm like I'm like virginal nog at the at the academy. What is the Federation pie episode of deep bass 9? Now like Noggin Jake making a pact. He's on fire with passion and love. Adam, do you want to see if we have any priority one messages? Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on top?

A supplement? A supplement. Yes, extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Need a supplement on top of the month couple couple. Yeah, it's extra The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship Then our first priority one message is of a promotional nature Here's the message do you find yourself with lots of time and not enough awesome sci-fi to read may I suggest Caitlin Morcos, Interplanetary Marshall Service. Wow.

Or more formally, she who is my fourth novel. Written by a guy who is a little bit embarrassed to write about starship battles and space crimes, Caitlin Morcos is a young Marshall trying to chase an assassin while dealing with smugglers, slavers, and maybe even a traitor. She's a badass like Row Lairon. She's not really like Ensign Roe, but I do love that drop. So here's what you can do. You can go to mhquestus.com. That's mhqust.com for links or search for mhquestus on your local Amazon websites.

So here's a direction to go if you want something fun to read. I like a sci-fi now. I'm going to see if I can get this. Caitlin Marcos. Caitlin Marcos, Interplanetary martial service. And this is like, this is like Star Trek as a place, right? We're telling martial service stories and science fiction. This is a hell of a combination.

Wow, I like the design of the cover. Yeah? Yeah, like an aircraft carrier where the other people on the deck are wearing spacesuits. I think when you're riding science fiction, you gotta have that cover done tight. You gotta have a great cover. MHQuestus left behind a career in physics for science fiction.

Yeah, physics is a dead end, man. No one cares about science anymore. No, but honestly, I do like the authors of my sci-fi to have some grounding in the sigh of their fai, you know. It's what makes greatest gen so great. It's the professional experience of the toast. Adam our next priority one message is from She who does burlesque And it is two bento box and adamantium. Oh, that's us. I like those nicknames That's a great name. I'm bento box and you're adamantium Great names it goes like this. Hey guys, Tizai your girl. SWD beasy

Hey guys, Tizai, your girl, SWD Beasy. I just wanted to contribute to the show with a P1 purchase in return. I wish you to have a discussion about who is the sexiest character on DS9 and why the answer is Garrick. Julian can come too if he keeps the water sports to a minimum. I hope you guys are having a safe apocalypse. Wow! This is an episode where I thought a lot about how much it would have been nice to have Garrick there, because we have a lot of Bashir trying to understand the world from Garrick's unique and strange point of view. And I thought it would be really cool

in an episode like this to have Garrick, you know, like maybe one of those scenes with O'Brien, like rewrite it with Garrick. Cause like all the ethics stuff when Garrick is in play, change a lot. You know, it's funny, medically, it's so important to get a second opinion. Yeah. You think Bashir would know better, and actually seek one out.

And also, like, what are you doing making fake, sarfly uniforms? All of these things are questions we have. Right. Yeah. Why are we so thirsty for you, Garrick? Yeah, it's true. Anyways. Yeah, it's true. Anyways, if you'd like to Cause us to talk about what a snack garrick is or

You know, which somebody well for their birthday or sell your novel I'd do maximumfund.org slash jumbo tron. It's a hundred bucks for a personal message and 200 bucks for a commercial message and we appreciate it Because it helps us cover the cost of this production. Hey Adam. What's that been? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda in this episode? I'm gonna give my a drunk Shimoda to Patrick. I think the way he snaps into an out of authority is, uh, as this thing, I really crave. Uh, he doesn't overdo it, which is a good bit of restraint by the episode. He does this magic trick twice. Yeah.

And both times it fucking kills. So Michael Keenan, the guy who plays Patrick, he doesn't have a ton to do, but what he does, he just fucking crushes. He's great. So, uh, it's going to be Patrick for me. What about you? My drink, Shemota, is an alien that I saw a few times in this episode. I feel like there are loathed aliens in the background on this show all the time. And some of the most interesting loath you see in this in this series you see as

just background characters that will never meet we will never know what their species is about if they're a merchant species or a warrior species or their iceberg aliens bin. Yeah, we'll never know what's going on beneath but they imply a richness to the tapestry of the Federation. Indeed. And there's this one alien that's got like, I don't know if they're like tentacles or hair or what, but they're like three or four of them coming out the back of this alien's

head and one of them coming out of the front. And I saw this alien at least two times in this episode in different scenes. And it's such a distinctive loaf that it caught my attention every time I saw it. And what it made me think it was probably what they do is if there are going to be extras that they are going to the trouble of putting in loaf. That's all scheduled for one day. And so, any time they're on the promenader in Quirks and they need a bunch of loafy people buzzing around in the background. That's one day of shooting. So, any scene

over the course of the episode that has background in it is gonna be that day. And I think that there's like a tricky needle you have to thread as the costume department. Like, okay, like we want these aliens to like look like interesting aliens like that make you wonder what else is going on on the station, but we don't want you to be distracted by them, we don't want you to be like wondering,

like why does that guy keep showing up in the background of shots? And this guy is like one, honestly, the rare example of a failure in that respect, because he is in the background of a bunch of shots, and it's just such a distinctive loaf. It's gray makeup, but then the tentacles are like red and white, like Christmas, licorice sticks. I just kept clocking this character, and I wanted the episode to be about them.

Always working hard are the costume and makeup departments on this show. This seems to be an episode that we gave it a ton of attention. And I think attention that you could give every episode, but this one specifically really merits that. Gotta get that, get that gold press, that, get that, get that gold press, that's gonna be my right, oh yeah, I'm gonna be my right,

oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. A greatest gen live show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post-show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it!

The Sherry Reembarishment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's GreatestGenTour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Sherry Reembarishment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense.

We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweards. Pat Noswald. Could I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Non-Giani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Mail non-giani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are already open, just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goat try.

Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, rats, hey, they don't know I'm about to count you in mine. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line. And boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not and they've such short neck. But I'm hearing we need to get on this art. We gotta get on the art. Yeah. 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. Yes, probably. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ohno Ross and Kerry? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org. We've gone pretty long at him, but we need to get to how and why we will be doing our next

episode of this show. The Y is as follows. It's season 7, episode six, treachery, faith in the Great River. Odo is thrust into a violent showdown when a dominion war leader defects. Remember the war? Yeah, that was weeks ago.

Is our break over? The war break? Yeah, it would appear it is. Guess we'll find out. No breaks built into the game of buttholes. Will the profits were currently were on square 59. Nice. And a couple squares ahead. We got a space butthole. A couple squares after that. The Uber unpopular starship mine square. Yeah, we've never hit that square, have we? So we'll see what we get for what is definitely going to be a shorter episode for Ben to edit. And then today's episode, my task.

You're required to learn as you play. Roll. I've got the die in my hand and I'm gonna give it a roll. And sure as shit, I've hit the space but hold on. We're back down to square 18 and a quarks bar episode Ben. Not going to be a short episode in that case. No. You deserve this. You son of a bitch. Why is this my fault? I've had a pattern of very long episode at its lately. I suppose that's been your pattern too. What we're really like jury-ating

in the recording of our show lately. Yeah. Maybe because there's just not anything else in our lives. Yeah. So there we are, square 18 next week. And the Mornhammered episode has never looked further away. Jesus fucking Christ. Yeah.

Wow, well, that will hit it by the end of the season, and therefore by the end of the series at this point. Right, pretty wild to think about. I mean, there's a chance we roll a bunch of sixes we could get there. I guess so. It's only episode five of the season. We've got 21 more episodes, Ben. That's 21 more roles.

That's crazy. Well, that will be next episode, a drunk episode. Yeah, a couple of good time charles will be us. One of the biggest good time charles in all of the greatest Gen universe Bill Tilly. He's the guy who's taking care of our social media needs lately. He is. One of the biggest good time charles in all of the greatest Gen Universe Bill Tilly, he's the guy who's taking care of our social media needs lately. He is.

You can find him at greatest trek on both Instagram and Twitter. You know, find lots of fun content that he curates in both of those places. Yeah, the thing that I have always hesitated about with my own social media since this show became a thing was I see a lot of interesting Star Trek things but I don't want my personal social media feed to just be fun and interesting Star Trek stuff and that's like the thing that Greatest Gen has become. It's like it is a fun thing to follow that will remind you about a funny character or tell you that it's Alexander Siddick's birthday or whatever and it's a fun thing to follow that will remind you about a funny character or tell you that it's Alexander

Siddick's birthday or whatever and it's a fun thing to have pop up in your feet. I really enjoy what those do with it. When you're one of the two hosts of Greatest Gen, you don't want Star Trek to be your identity. Who would want that? Anyway, speaking of people who have changed identities, has anyone done it better than Adam Ruggusia? He pivoted right out of legit collegiate work into food YouTube and that is a tube that will never deflate. He's got so many episodes about making great things to eat and growing plants and all sorts of things related to food making. You can find him at Adam Ragusia over on YouTube. Speaking of things to follow and enjoy, check out our other shows.

We've got a greatest discovery, which is following all the new Star Trek programming that's coming out as of the release of this episode Deep in the thick of the 23-week run of brand new Star Trek episodes airing on CBS all access in the US and various other platforms outside of the US And also friendly fire our hit war movie podcast that we make with our buddy John Roderick. Big Hit is Strenley Fire. A support for the show comes from those who go to Maximumfund.org slash join and support us on a monthly basis. There, support is crucial to the ongoing production of this show.

It's the only thing making the next episode possible. And the only thing making our wife allow us to keep doing this. And with that, we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek And the only thing making our wife so loud as to keep doing this. And with that, we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9 and an episode of the greatest generation, Deep Space 9, which I would bet everything has a shorter title than the episode it's based on. But my entire life on that, Ben. Interesting, Ben, given that I have the control over what that title winds up being. I know, it's not going to happen.

And also we will forget about the bet by the time we record that episode, and by the time it's released, we won't remember any of this stuff. Hey, one thing we did remember at the end is that you still win the card game, I think. I don't think my Bashir and Serena card is gonna win. Wow, the card war should dug. I forgot. Like a steel trap, baby. Amazing.

I think so. Make it sound. Make it sound. Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture Artist-Ode Audience-supported