The Greatest Generation - Apropos of Nothing (But Sort of What We Were Talking About) (DS9 S2E13)

Episode Date: May 21, 2018

When an alien race that REALLY doesn’t like Shake Weights decides to liquidate their gym, Dr. Bashir and Chief O’Brien are there to help. But when those in charge want to change the scope of the project, it’s up to Commander Sisko to take a break from his buffet long enough to investigate the matter. Who are the “Geordi & Data of DS9”? What is Colm Meaney’s “Con Face”? Why is there so much implied gluttony? It’s the episode that shares the hosts’ favorite Judith B. Raskin park bench quotes.

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 friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the greatest generation. The Star Trek Podcast by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed of the Star Trek Podcast.

I'm Adam Pryanaka. I'm Ben Harrison. How you doing, Adam? I'm trying to reach a greater consciousness, but what's happening is that everything else that in my life or what I concentrate on has fallen apart in the process. What stage of the galaxy brain meme would you say you're at? Oh, I think it's just the little twinkles. Oh no!

First stage, yeah. Oh, honey! I think the reality is I'm at the little twinkle stage. And I want to be laser beams shooting out of holes that don't exist in my head yet. Uh-huh, yeah. You want to be multiple arms on a god coming out of your forehead. I want to be like a morning pea where it just shoots everywhere.

That's how I want my consciousness to be. I thought I'd give you a little update on what's going on in my life, Adam. Oh yeah, lay it on me. So, I live very close to Echo Park Lake in Los Angeles, California now. Yeah. And that is a favorite place for me to walk my doggy. And as of this recording, it is goose reproduction season. So the the geese have all paired off down at the lake. And there's about five or six geese families and you would be fucking shocked at how much variation there is in

how many babies a pair of geese can produce because there's one pair that's got two babies and there's another pair that has like easily 15 babies. Wow. And there's pairs with everything in between. And the one pair with the two babies is like fucking crazy because they'll, like I'll walk around that lake with my dog and one of them will like go out of its way to harass the dog, like the dog is a threat to their babies. And I don't know if you've ever had,

if you've ever been menaced by a goose atom. Oh yeah, they're, they're real fuckers. Yeah, like, like Darwin would for sure lose, even though he's got probably 20 pounds on this, on this beast. Swan levels of asshole patina are close. Oh man, I was so excited I was watching real housewives with my wife the other day and Lisa Vanderpump Referred to the swans that live in front of her house as her two gay swans. I guess I'm like the old lady with a lot of cats I have a lot of animals And their names are hanky and panky. Oh, sure That yeah Jesus that really made my day.

My favorite Judith B. Raskin quote on the park bench is that I go partically because would you look at all these fucking geese? They poop everywhere and I mean everywhere. The estate of Judah Thraskin might be my favorite estate. What a delight. That is a great lady. She just wants people to enjoy scenery and birds. She was clearly the type of old

that would just point things out as a mode of conversation. Edge tropical aquarium. Yeah, yeah. Like the someone who went a car ride who would just read the signs of businesses to you. Matru city. You want to yes and that but it's not really clear where you go after. Yeah. Donuts, donuts, donuts. You go to the next sign is what you do. So is young Darwin totally on point there? Like does he want to attack and eat little gozzlings?

Or is he pretty good about the leash walking around there? No, he's definitely curious about barking at a goose. I just don't think he realizes how much trouble he'd be in if he actually did get in a scrape with a goose. Yeah, a goose had really fuck him up. That really mean, and they do that thing where when they see him coming, their heads go, like their next ghost straight up,

and they open their beaks, and they're like, their little tongues are sticking straight out. That's like, I don't want any part of that beak, but that tongue just looks silly, guys. Come on. Those tongues really come in handy when they're having gay sex. Yeah, that's another thing that, like,

I routinely see is like duck and goose banging. Like, I just had to give that when the full nor McDonald's line read. Is it they don't even save it for the nighttime or the shadows? There's a openly copulating and and ducks are into some rough sex stuff man. Like a lot rougher than I've ever felt comfortable getting. You'll see one duck just walking another duck around on a leash and shame.. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like I never thought a duck could get tinked out as dressing like a horse. But that one sure did. There's a great laundromat on Capitol Hill called Lather Daddy. Like apropos of nothing, but sort of what we were talking about.

Good times. Good times. Well, this has been update from the lake. This is sort of like a Judy Raskin mirror in open. Just observational humor from the minds of Ben and Adam. Let's bring this back as a bit. That's fun. The raskin open. The raskin open.

Oh man, when we go on tour, do you think we'll find ourselves doing raskins and not marins some of the nights? I think so because I think that's a lot of fun to do when you're out on tours. Just share your pithy observation on the city that you've been in for only the last six or seven hours. Yeah, what weird animals are walking around What weird animals are fucking each other in broad daylight Our tour of animal sexuality. Yeah, yeah, that's what the people want to see, you know Yeah, that's obviously what we're experts in. We're also experts at this point in deep space nine, right? Does it take one and a half seasons to get there? Probably not.

Boy, that was a mission-log level transition at him. Yep, the great experts. I don't feel like you're really getting it yet then, but maybe you will later, after we discuss season 2 episode 13 of Armageddon Game. We open on the one of the runabouts. It's kind of doing a close formation orbit with a big nasty looking alien spaceship. And Chief O'Brien. I am Chief Miles and we're no Brian. This is fucking spectacular. And Dr. Bashir have been dispatched to help a couple of alien species to dispose of a nasty

biogenic weapon called harvesters. Sort of a a tepid name for a dangerous bioweapon. These aliens are known as the telani and I sort of feel like if the Voyager spacecraft only took the Pippi long stocking VHS as its only piece of media and these aliens found Voyager, they appeared to have taken it very seriously. Yeah, it's the telani and the Kellorin. And I guess they've been at war for a really long time. They look like they're the same species, but maybe, you know, like they have the same earloaf, but they do their hair a little differently. Yeah, they have very strong feelings about hair styles.

Very divisive in that way. Yeah, this is like, this is really like season one, TNG, alien shit that we're dealing with. The Tullani really don't like the calirons and they also really don't like shake weights, which is what the harvesters are contained in on sort of like a free weights rack situation. Nobody that has owned a shake weight has ever had a rack for weights.

The thing about shake weights is you only need one. Yeah, that's the great thing about shake weights. I one time was on set and we were shooting in some office somewhere and there was a shakeweight in the office, you know, we were like, in the middle of setting up another shot so I had five minutes to screw around and I picked up the shakeweight and was doing bits with it.

And the client was like, you know those things are actually really hard to do. I bet you can't do that for a minute straight. And I was like, fuck you. And I started doing it. And it was super hard. And I was like 30 seconds in, totally exhausted and had to stop. And then like another time I was on a different shoot with a different set and a different

shake weight. And I like made the same challenge to somebody. And they're like, yeah, sure, I'll do it for a minute. And it was like, no problem at all. And I was like, fuck, now I have to pay this guy $20. Oh no. Yeah. I think it was like a lighter weight shake weight.

I think there were different grades and I was not aware of that. Yeah, that's not fair. I hoisted myself on my own shake weight. Ha ha ha ha. The flesh light came after the shake weight, right? I got to believe that Donald Flesh, the inventor of the flashlight, looked at the shake weight

and was like, there's got to be a way to sexualize this. And then the flashlight was born. Boy, I feel like I became aware of fleshlight before I became aware of shake weight. But that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Anyways, flesh lights got to be destroyed, Shake Weight got to be destroyed, not an easy thing to destroy. I've never seen an anabhyogenic weapon so resistant to broad spectrum radiation.

And Bashir and O'Brien being experts have been dispatched by Federation to help these formerly warring alien races like put to bed the most devastating weapons they had developed during their war. It would be like if nuclear disarmament actually took place or something, I guess. I feel like if this were a TNG episode, this would be a Jordy in data mission. Yeah, for sure. Are we made to believe that Bishir and O'Brien are the Jordy and Data of DS9? It's like chucklehead fun time buddies

that kind of think that they are. Yeah. Like they haven't gotten there yet, but I think that eventually they're like, they are like good time buddies that are always hanging out. Socially, I feel like they are, but in terms of expertise,

they might not have chosen them for this mission. Yeah, it's, you know, so they've been doing a lot of testing and a lot of attempts have been made to destroy these harvesters. And they finally hit on something that works right at the opening of this episode and then Ambassador Exposition comes in to explain all of the stuff we just explained.

This is a symbol of the new future we have embarked upon. Yes. I've got an idea about how to destroy these shakeweights. Why don't you shoot them into the sun? I literally wrote down. why not just shoot into sun What is their fucking problem like do they need to do some sort of weird accounting of the shake weights? Even if you had to do that level of accounting you could still write down Sample 49 shot into the sun

sample 49 shot into the sun. Check my hair. Sample 50 shot into the sun. Here's head care. Anybody could beam it out of the trajectory to the sun and be able to verify necessarily. Right. Yeah, I guess so. You got a trusted verify at him.

In all ways, yeah. I mean, at least this time when the inspectors went, there were actual chemical and biological weapons. Right. So, ambassador exposition clears out. And I guess it's a celebration that they figured out a method, but they still have a lot of these canisters to go through before their work is done.

Right, and that's got to be why Bashir's temperament is not celebratory. Like they figured out, they figured out how to destroy the harvesters. But that's just the first step. Yeah, yeah. And it's nearly time for celebration after a little elliptical edit where they're, you know, they've, they've cut from lots of shake weights on the racks to very few shake weights left. To one left in the middle of the rack, which I guess means they aren't going in any kind of order. No, nobody with OCD deployed to this particular contingent of scientists.

Yeah, just grab whatever. Boy, did you and I notice this part? I started shaking. They blow a call into Cisco and they're like, hey, bud, good news. We're almost done destroying all these bad, bad weapons. And so we're gonna head to home early and this goes like, why don't you guys stay for the party?

You earned it and it's clear, like it's kind of like when my wife tells us about like a party that we have to go to for somebody in her family, I'm like, all right, but like let's think about ways we could not go. That's kind of what O'Brien is reading as. I think Bashir is up for it, because he wants to get down with a woman

with a really fucked up haircut. Yeah, and because these telani are in the background, they can't talk about what the code's gonna be for leaving the party early. Like they're sort of put on the spot. Yeah. You guys have a code for leaving a place early? I have worked so hard to establish one

and my wife will just willfully ignore it in a way that is really troubling. God, that is almost cruel. Yeah. Like, to be deploying the code and have the code not read. It's not even that she's ignoring it, even, it's that like she doesn't even consider the possibility that I might be extremely uncomfortable and want to run for the hills.

I think that is that is my problem with life in general. No one considers the possibility that I may be extremely uncomfortable in any given moment. Why don't they consider that? You've sort of built a life around the idea of considering that everybody else might be extremely uncomfortable. And nobody does use the same courtesy. I know. That's the problem.

This kind of empathy is untenable. Okay. So plans are made to party hearty. It's party party. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the last canister gets put on the canister killer.

And no sooner has that happened. It's like a trash compactor. No sooner has that happened than this turns into an active shooter situation, Adam. Weapons aren't allowed up here. And that may be think about just how many people have died whose last words were those. Hey, is that a gun? Not great. And in pretty short order, people are getting shot, left and right, leaving basically Bichiro and O'Brien to do some crawl arounds, like army crawls, dodging these laser bullets. Yeah, and it's amidst all of this excitement that we see a droplet of red stuff land on chiefo brands forearm.

Yeah, because the gunfire blew up the dumb waiter that they were using to destroy the shake weight. Right. And O'Brien's pretty heroic in this scene. Like he, uh, he, like, body checks one of the Kellerins, uh, who's about to waste the doctor and they manage to beam out of there, but they can't go back to the runabout for reasons. So they wind up beaming down to the surface of the planet below. Yeah, luckily for them, they beamed right into a hut. Like, have all the places to go. Good choice, guys. Yeah, so like, I mean, one of my problems with this episode is maybe like how information is revealed.

I felt like it was kind of out of whack because like, they revealed that O'Brien and Bashir make it to this like bunker full of war fighting equipment. And then they cut to Cisco like getting bad news from the ambassadors that they're, you know, the two Starfleets that he sent are dead. Please extend our sympathies to their families. And I felt like it would have had more impact if we like, like make me believe that they actually died, you know, so that it's like a relief when we see that they don't they didn't die. Let's workshop this. Like, where do you cut the scene? Like, do you cut the scene at the point where the people come in and start blasting? And then we cut to Tiscus' office where Shira and Etyresha come in with their condolences? I think that might build some tension. I think so, yeah, like maybe even don't show

the active shooter situation till later, just have Cisco like get called up to his office, show what happens in the doctored footage, because they get like, we get to see the doctored footage of a radiation pulse that vaporizes everyone in the room. And like we get to see the whole crew reacting to it. I think that's a fun thing. And then like this episode does have good scenes

about like them having to arrange funerals, like arrange to get the message to Bashir's mom and dad, like Cisco has to go down and talk to Kiko about it and it like the weight of their deaths is real for the characters but because of the sequencing of the episode I feel like the idea of them actually being dead never quite hits us. The utility of the snuff film is so interesting to me because when the two Toulani talked to Cisco about the accident, they almost immediately asked me. It's a Toulani and a Keller in Adam,

just to avoid getting 10 million tweets. They pivot from condolences into, you wanna see how it went down? And then they show the snuff film to everyone in Ops. Yeah. And then and then Kiko wants to see it too. What my question is, is that like they know before offering the video up that the form of death

is pretty sanitized looking, right? Like if this were a Gore-based weapon, would they still be sharing the video of it? Yeah. I don't think so. I mean, like, I was really surprised at how interested everyone was in watching this video, I guess is my point.

If one of the ambassadors had been Werner Herzog, like, would the tape have ever been showed? Yeah. You must never watch it. You must destroy it before your death. They stick the video back into the PD150 camera and then like hide it in a desk drawer. Like they would have with this footage

the same relationship that O'Brien had with the information about how to make the weapon. Because that's the other thing is like they're trying to like clean the slate of any information about how the weapon was made or how it was destroyed. Like it's like anybody that wants to make this again will have zero information to start with. Right. And this whole plan was fairly transparent in that first scene, where as soon as the ambassador leaves, like the door hasn't shut for

longer than a moment before it opens back up to to gun wielding people with the same haircut. Down in the bunker with O'Brien and Vichier, I mean, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, the cup, those are going to start moving around. They're going to know where we are and then we'll be super duper dead. This is like, it's going to get very expensive. If we leave this hut, we have got to stay here. We cannot add another set to this budget. There's only so much budget between TNG and Deep Space 9. We already stole 80% of their budget for this week, for this show, building that spaceship.

So if we add another set now, we're really fucked. We got a hunker in this bunker, dude. Yeah, and it gives us a nice odd couple episode between Bashir and O'Brien. And what's especially motivating in what happens with them and how close they become is O'Brien's condition, right? There's nothing like an illness to hasten intimacy between two used to be enemies. Yeah, it's kind of a trick trope, too. Putting Wesleyan Picard in a shuttlecraft for a long time, or in a cave for a long time.

For a really epic card. Right, and just like, see what comes out. It also felt like that episode where Row Laren... ...and then Jordy were thought to be dead when they were phased out. Right. And the crew is left to like, do funeral arrangements and whatnot? Yeah, absolutely. And the dynamic between these two characters

has a lot of things that are interesting about it. One of them is class, which sort of shouldn't exist in the 24th century, but it does because O'Brien is just a petty officer or whatever, and Bashir has actually got a commission. O'Brien is kind of a blue collar guy, and he's got a wife and kids, and is kind of a blue collar guy and he's like, got a wife and kids and Bashir is a little condescending to that as a life choice initially in a way that Oh, Brian is rightly kind of offended by. Bashir is kind of married shaming him.

And then Oh, Brian comes back with kind of a not all career officers make the same choices that you did this year. But that conflict is really interesting to me because it just serves to illuminate what Starfleet life is like. And it's a subject that they rarely dig into in Star Trek in a weird way. Like it's sort of hiding in plain sight

what this life is like and what it costs people in terms of their families or their friendships. It's not that, like, I disagree necessarily with Bashir's reasoning on it. Like, it's this conversation that arises out of O'Brien saying, like, yeah, you just wanted to go to that party so you could crush a ton of alien push. I'm sure we're minding some more of the Victorian pool, though. And Bashir's saying, like, yeah, I do like crushing me some push, but the idea of actually getting serious with somebody and marrying them is a position I don't want to put anybody in.

It's sort of false to portray this as like a mutually exclusive idea. Right. Yeah. And also also there's a certain falsehood in the idea that to marry somebody they necessarily are not part of Starfleet. Like that's the other like kind of thing that goes unspoken. And I think that that that is more normal in, you know, 1994 or whatever when most people in the military are men and their wives are almost assuredly civilians, I guess it's a metaphor for that. And I guess the military is probably still overwhelmingly male, but some progress has been made there.

But that's, I think, the situation, this conversation is a proxy for, right? Like, people who go overseas for the military or whatever, like leaving their families back home and asking people to take on the emotional baggage of worrying about you all the time is a thing. At the very end of the scene, Bishir recognizes some symptoms that O'Brien has that cause him to whip out his tricorder, and upon tricording him, it is revealed that O'Brien has been infected with harvester juice. That is a problem. It's weird, like this is the scene that I think leads right into Cisco going down to tell Keko that O'Brien has died. That was an accident.

And I feel like it's again, like kind of the reverse of what it should be. I'm down to have that revealed that they're alive and okay. But then like Cisco going and telling Keko that they've passed away is like a great scene and very well acted by Ivory Brooks and Rosalind Chau, but it's a little undercut by it's like, oh, he's dying, but not of that other thing, but of this new thing that neither of them is aware of, you know, it's like a little distracting somehow.

I'm totally with you if they flip the order of this scene and it was Kiko being told O'Brien's dead and then O'Brien gets the death sentence on the planet surface. I think that hits a lot harder. Yeah, it turns it into a double punch instead of kind of like a half punch. I thought this was a great scene for Boshisko and Kiko. I think we've seen Picard give this kind of news before in a way that does not betray as much emotion as Cisco shares here. Like I think Cisco's willing to trade emotional currency with Keko in this moment.

And I think that's what makes the scene great. Keko in her own right does not, like this news does not shatter Keko. She instead is, is hurt and curious. She also wants to see the video right away. Right. And also like is riding hard for like not spending this time with Commander Syska. Like she's like, she asked him to leave very quickly. Yeah, which is I think pretty real, you know, like I don't, I don't know you that well. Like I know you've worked with my husband, but I, I got to be alone with these feelings right now is basically what she's saying.

I've got to believe that that's a relief to Cisco too. Like I don't even mean that as a joke, I just mean like that's gotta be the hardest thing for someone in this position to do and to be asked to leave I think would be quite a relief. Yeah. I mean who better knows the death of a loved one than Ben Cisco? Also, there's a certain credibility that he has in matters involving death of a partner that I think is unspoken here, but I think is understood between them I like that it's unspoken. I think it's yeah It would be weird for us to come up in this moment because it's not about him

It's about her, but when you watch it, you know You can really feel the complexity of what he's feeling that you are so right about that because I know we know people like this or we've been in situations like this where you share the bad thing that's happened to you and then it immediately turns into a shared currency of everyone's similar experience versus the discussion of the original experience. And like, good on Ben Sisko for not going, you know, I lost a loved one myself. I don't know if you remember that anniversary we had.

Recently, that was a pretty big day for me. Yeah. Good job by him. It's not about him. It's like that time that Brandy Glanville was super mean to Kyle Richards. And Lisa Vanderpump is like, yeah, I know. She was super mean to me on the last season and Kyle Richards is like, that is not comforting right now, Lisa Vanderpump.

Gonna be playing a lot of crickets this episode's been. I have to revert back to my dead state. Oh, I don't use the bucket anymore. So in the bunker, the chief is not doing great. He's really just turned into a puddle of flop sweat. And he's not seeing that well. It's my eyes, though. It's fuzzy. It's fuzzy. It was fuzzy.

So the, the doctor has had to take over the radio repair duties and like the doctor was talking a lot of shit about taking engineering extension courses at Starfleet Medical. There's so much opportunity in the workplace today if you have the right skill. But yeah, it did not impress Chief O'Brien at all and sure enough, like the doctor is, you know, not capable of repairing this radio without a lot of help

from the chiefs. Kalimini is a talented actor, but I don't know that he does anything as well as you've got to be fucking kidding me face. He has got a great one of those. Yeah, yeah, like if you ever are casting a part where a character needs to have that emotion, look no further. Yeah, top of the list. If Colin Meaney is ever at a con and where at that con and where somehow able to take a picture with him That's what I hope his face looks like

Oh, it will it will Adam I won't even need to have You guys have a what about what? You guys have a what about what? It's a weird scene because they spent a lot of time with him just talking us through like fake techno babble about how a subspace radio goes. We also get a nice around the horn of like grieving on the station. Like we got a really good scene with Kira and Dax and Quark, you know, talking over missing O'Brien and Bashir and like in his in his way winds up finding a way to be kind of touching. They were good customers.

They always paid their bar bills on time. This is a great Quark episode too for this reason. They're writing him with a great amount of confidence in knowing who he is at this point. Yeah, it's the highest tribute I can think of. Because instead of writing him in a scene that shits all over those who are grieving, like he really does trade emotional currency with Dax and Kira in the scene. Right. To the degree that he's able. And he grieves them in a way that is like sincere and true to him, but it's not true to them, you know.

I can be thought. That's some real shit. I wonder if they would get plaques at the bar, like on the bar stool. Oh yeah, while they did always pay their tab on time. Yeah. Like, what is that about? They have some kind of credit at Quarx Bar. Sure, seems that way. They get the Quarx Bar Platinum card that only certain customers are invited to apply for.

I've got to believe you're not doing your own accounting there and you're just charging it to the Federation, right? You must get some kind of stipend as a federation that is living on the economy, you know, like, oh, we're outside of a starship where we never need to think about money at all. Well, if that's the case, do you think Cisco is making more than anyone? Because anytime he's in a replamate, he's ordering like 18 things. I know. Yeah. Like, there is a certain wastefulness that total abundance would lead to, would logically lead to, right? Like, you never, you never have to pick just one thing

from the replicator. This isn't making fun of people with eating disorders, but do you think that that's what this is for Ben Sisko? Like, why is he eating so much? I don't know. I had a friend who was a personal assistant for a while. Uh-huh.

And she told me one time that like most of the time if he's hungry, he will find a menu from a takeout place and just say get everything and I'll pick what I want. Wow. And then just throw the rest away. Maybe we shouldn't put his name out there like that. We shouldn't include that.

But you know, a famous actor who most people have heard of, not necessarily the most famous actor, but a famous actor who has the means to do that kind of thing. And yeah, I think if replicator is no object, like you never have, there's no incentive to make controlled decisions at that point, right? As a card carrying member of the Clean Plate Club, I just believe for all of those menu items.

That's no good. She told me one time, like one of her first days on the job, he took her down to the home gym, where there was a wall with like hundreds and hundreds of bottles of Fiji water and he said this water has all Past its expiry date. Please pour it out and then recycle the bottles And so she spent like three hours just dumping water down the down the drain and then recycling all the water bottles Oh, no

Yeah That's making me sad dude. Let's pivot back to show Yeah. That's making me sad, dude. Let's pivot back to show. Nothing happier than the show where Chief O'Brien has a life-threatening bio-weapon illness. I think it's interesting in this around the horn that we experience grief with a few

of the other main characters. And we also experience a type of loss from Bishir, because one of the subjects that Bishir and O'Brien commiserate about on the surface is this continued idea of whether or not marriage can be viable with a career in Starfleet and the lost loves and a specific lost love that Bishir had back at the academy.

And so it all starts when O'Brien asks Bixir like, have any of you ever had a serious relationship and Bixir stopped to think about it and he's like, yeah, I think I've had one. And then he tells the story of this great girl he used to date and how there was a fork in the road of his life and career. And for a moment, he thought about not joining Starfleet and instead becoming a civilian doctor and creating a life with this person and how that was the road he didn't take. And he still thinks about it all the time. Yeah, what do you think about the decision he made? I think you can

drive yourself crazy, relitigating every little decision like that in your life. Like every decision you make can put you down a different road. Like, of course, I think the product of a flexible mind allows you to sort of daydream where your life would be if you had made different decisions. Like, for example, a couple years ago, you made a career decision to go whole hog on podcasting and you've never regretted anything more. It's true. I'm not sure I believe that Bashir regrets it. I think there's an ache in him about loving someone and then not being with them anymore. Yeah, I think he's more like he regrets his career decision. No, I think I think he he followed his bliss and I don't think he's so much regretting it as exploring the idea of regret through that memory, you know? Exactly.

What's really interesting about his exploration here is that he never mentions that what he's looking for is another her. You know, like he's not trying to replace the memory with anything or anyone else. Like he's not chasing the dragon. No, he's riding the snake. And... His solitude is similar to Picard's, I think. Except, you know, like Picard is not quite the lethario

that Bashir is outwardly. Yeah. But I think there's an ache in him that is familiar to what we came to know from Picard. He's not convinced that there's another Lego piece for him. It's sort of a self-imposed romantic exile, I feel like. Yeah, you don't think he's an in-sell? That's not a thing, Ben.

And I refuse to use that word. One development that's taken place is that Keko has discovered something that she thinks is a miss in the death footage, which is that Obrion is chugging a coffee, and this took place in the afternoon, and Obrion is very caffeine sensitive. She's like, Do you never has a second cup of coffee at home? You keep them up all night,

and they're like, well, shit. I wonder if this footage got doctored, never even considered the possibility. Yeah, it seems pretty clear that the the shooter film has been altered. So, uh, that's all I deserved. I think I gave you a little bit more than you deserved to be honest. I'm an easy laugh at him.

If you look at his coffee cup, it goes back into the left bin. I gave you a little bit more than you deserve to be honest. I'm an easy laugh at him. If you look at his coffee cup, it goes back into the left bin. God. Back into the left. Yeah, why did Tillani open up that umbrella? Why didn't you take your umbrella film and go somewhere else? So the team piles into a Winnipego and head out to the scene of the crime. And it's Cisco and DAX.

And Cisco beams over to check out the room where it all went down. Meanwhile, DAX beams over to the Winnebago that Bashir and O'Brien went out there in and inspects that. And she discovers like a gap in the in the logs that like somebody came on board and deleted something from the computer's memory, which concealed that their emergency transport to the surface got a got edited out of the computer records. And now they've really got their teeth into this mystery. Yeah. There's too many fucked up things happening here for them to take, uh, Bashir and O'Brien's deaths at face value. Here with seven minutes left. Yeah. They've discovered that, uh, that something is a miss. And so

they bring this up to the ambassadors And no sooner have they done that then Chief of Brian and Dr. Bashir get a little visit from both ambassadors and like a mixed set of guards who you know Some Kellerins and some Talani when you're looking for a couple missing people you really want to bring a firing squad with you, right? And that's basically what's about to go down here. They're like, they sort of exposition university them. They're like, hey, part of the idea of our technology hygiene is using Lysol on everything and everyone that has ever known about this technology. And so I know you'll understand this. We've got to kill you so that no one will ever make these high-riskers again.

But at least you have the consolation of knowing that your debts will be for a noble cause. And there's sort of a poignant moment where Bashir picks up O'Brien because he wants to die on his feet and O'Brien pays Bashir a great personal and professional compliment about it being an honor to serve with him. Yeah. And a compliment that Bixir does not reciprocate in this moment, which I thought was again totally true to his character. Yeah, it's like, it's a real drawn out moment though like when O'Brien has like helped

me up, that it's nice of the T'lani later be like, let him speak. He's going to be dead in five seconds anyways. Like, let's hear what he has to say. It's like zero hour and just at the last minute they get beamed up to the runabout. And the doctor is able to stabilize the chief. They do a little shell game with the two runabouts to trick the tolani cruiser into shooting down the backpack runabout. And in fact, they're on the none backpack runabout.

RSVP backpack runabout. We hardly knew you. And they get home. Was it the Yangsy? Is it the real grand that they switch over to? I'm just gonna go we hardly knew Yangsy. Oh God. Hey we might want that. Yeah, so the head home turns out it is not super challenging to cure this bioengineered disease that they had so much trouble destroying. And the chief gets to recover. This year finally reciprocates the compliment, which I thought was another elegant way to do it, like by giving him time to consider what had happened,

it changes his character in a way that seems realistic. Yeah, and like Kiko is there also, and she is thrilled to have her man back. I feel like her character has really, really noticeably in the last two episodes we've seen her in undergone a noticeable change. Agreed. Yeah.

Like her tons now, however, Ben, the end of this episode. Real slide whistle. I drink coffee all the time. What are you talking about? And then, like, Kako looks into the camera, like, what? It is like the end of a matlock episode. Miles, you never drink coffee in the afternoon sure I do you do

Also no resolution to the Talani Collarion thing is there what happened there? Yeah, and then nothing it's weird like Like there was that interaction where they were like, well I saw their ship blow up, so they're dead, right? Well, yeah, I guess they're like, like they know that they're not dead, but they're like almost agreeing to agree to not pursue it. They're like, hey, we're kind of a garbage one-off alien. Like, we're definitely never coming back, right? No, we definitely aren't For their own good there they choose to stay out of it and and pursue the matter no further Are these people in the Gamma quadrant or are they just like neighbors of Bay, Georgia like who the fuck are these people? I don't know who they are, but they're pretty fucking dumb

Like that that ruse with the two with the two winabegos. I saw it coming from a mile away. Yeah. I was like, this lady is an ambassador and not a tactically sophisticated captain. No wonder she didn't see this, this coming. As soon as Dax and Cisco arrive on the scene, you know it's Chekhov's winabago. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Did you like this episode, Ben? I kind of did. I felt like it was fun and positive character development for a lot of characters. I think structurally it had some problems, but I felt like you could almost take every other scene and just switch them, and it would have been like a little bit stronger of an episode. Aside from that, I enjoyed it. How about you? I agree with you on a couple of points. I think this episode is incredibly sceny, and those are the best parts in just considering the scenes.

It's a great O'Brien app, it's a good bishir app, but I don't think it's a good app of the show. But I really enjoyed many of the scenes and the work that this episode does in building and advancing these character arcs and these characters, I think is strong and good. Yeah, that's the level upon which I enjoyed it. Yeah.

You want to see if any of our viewers have enjoyed our work to the level of sending out a priority one message. I would love to do that. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on it. A supplement on it? A supplement. A supplement.

Yeah, it's extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Ben, our first priority one message is from Matt. It is for Austin area FOD, but really just Josh. The message goes like this after months of gentle probing. I finally submitted and decided to give this stupid pot a try. Now I can't stop watching. The FOD are an amazing group so I really can't complain but my work productivity is taking a shit. Oh well

anyway really looking forward to the live show in Austin coming up for this new addiction jerk. So you in Austin Josh. This will have come out after Austin. So we saw you in Austin, Matt and Josh. Thanks for being so cool and not at all creepy or weird. You're hoping for that to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Right. Much like we recorded before the pledge drive. Matt and Josh give great high fives and no end to end a conversation. They no one to disengage and embrace. Our second priority one is another personal one. It comes from Imperial Moe and it is for Carro, the best sister.

It goes like this. Happy birthday! I couldn't be prouder of you. May this new year bring you an abundance of gold press Latinum, an unrivaled stack of iselinier chips, and a shiny new pip or two on the collar. Hope you can celebrate with some cocoa no-nose or some hot chocolate thick enough to satisfy even Deanna Troyes' refined taste. Love ya! What's the thickest hot chocolate you've ever had? Oh man, I've had some thick hot chocolate buddy.

That's a very Spanish way of drinking your chocolate. When it's thick like that, you dunk a churro into that, that drinking chocolate. It's real nice. That's all I really want to eat ever. It's a churro dip. I was thinking about this the other day. Most Spanish desserts I don't particularly care for.

And I also don't particularly care for donuts. And yet, churros, I love. Hmm, maybe you just need to be dunking more of these Spanish desserts into chocolate. Yeah. There's a coffee shop in the West Village in New York called Joe. Used to be called Joe, the Art of Coffee. And I think that they simplified their name a little bit.

Right, because like the logo was just a hand doing a jack-off motion. Ha-ha-ha-ha. Early days when they first opened they were like, they were kind of one of the first third wave coffee places in New York and they had a European drinking chocolate on the menu which was I think just like cocoa powder in a espresso mug and then spray steam from the espresso machine into it until it was sludgy enough to sip. It was so fucking good, man. What is a, how would you define a third wave coffee shop? Like a photo description that's that's new to me. Like I maybe the kind... The kind of coffee shop that has the beakers and the, like the verticality of glassware.

Yeah, if they're doing a pourover, if they're doing a, like, if they can achieve foam art in their milky drinks. Yeah. Like, if their iced coffee is delicious without milk and sugar in it, I'd say that those are kind of the earmarks. You know, the specialty coffee movement that assholes like me are totally obsessed with. Friend of ours, friend at the show, Mike Squires is a professional coffee man, and he ruined Cold Brew for me not too long ago by saying that most of it is made in the janitor's closet of whatever coffee shop you're in.

And that said me deeply. Thanks for that image, Mike. Now thousands and thousands of friends of DeSoto also have that image. And thanks for these priority one messages. If you'd like to get a priority one message, you can head to maximumfund.org slash JumboTron. It's a hundred bucks for a personal message and 204 commercial message. They really help us produce this show. A show that should be produced in the janitor's closet.

I have a coffee shop. Hey Adam. What's that been? produced in the janitor's closet. I have a coffee shop. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh Shocking as soon as Kiko to sort of looks up and gas and then we cut to the exterior of the station I Gas I was like there is no fucking way they just ended the episode like this sure is shit. They did I thought Like much in the way that that a gym Shimoda Was just stacking chips in and and seeing where they might fall. I have a feeling that when they edited the show together, they were like,

why don't we just try this out? I know this is going to be weird. But I think you can end the show here. And then they did. And it played in the room. And then that's how they did it. It just felt very unorthodox. What about you, Ben? I'm giving mine to Cisco this episode for that totally lavish order that he made at the quarks. It's clear coming in that we're like in media race. These are the last three things he's ordered, but he's probably ordered a dozen things before it.

And picturing a, like, lost boys in hook level spread that Cisco is ordering for himself. And I really laughed at the idea of that, the implied gluttony that was about to go down. I like that in the distant future, they have not removed service industry from it, you know? Some restaurants are doing that iPad on the table thing. Right. In Quarks, the Ferengis carry the iPad to your table. Right. That's nice.

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'm Jordan Morris and I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer.

My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Can I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. Noswald. Can I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Camille Nangeani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org.

Look, your podcast apps are open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, rice. 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've such short nacks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this all. 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. 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 two by two.

What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org episode is season two episode 14, whispers of Brian returns from a security mission to notice that the entire crew has seemingly turned against him. Oh man, this is a familiar feeling. Back when I had a square job, I would often come back from vacation and feel like everyone hated me for it.

What does Netflix say? The Netflix one is basically the exact same description. It is after returning from an assignment in the parades system of Brian notices that everyone on the station is treating him differently. Well, this is fun. Yeah. The playing with paranoia.

I think they can often make a good episode. I agree. Speaking of feeling paranoid, Ben, why don't we roll to see if we land on a square that determines the fate of us while we record the pod? Oh yeah, let's do it. The fate of the furious. We're on square 41, which means that we have our nearest Whammy Square is five away and it's a quirk's bar. Why don't you roll them bones at him? You're required to learn as you play roll I'll sit here and click these clown pigs together. I'm feeling pretty good about my chances here and I like I like our streak of standard issue episodes.

I think we do a pretty good standard issue episode. Hey, we're not too bad at that. I rolled a three. Chula! Did I win? Harvey. Which puts us on square 44, which is two away from Quark's bar, but a standard issue, greatest gen episode from you and me. Alright, looking forward to it, buddy.

You mean me both? Alright, well, that's just about do it for this episode of the greatest generation. If you'd like to get involved in the conversation online, use the hashtag greatestgen on Twitter. Adam is on there as at Cut for Time. I'm on there as at Benjamin R, a. H. R. Have you heard? We actually have another podcast out. It's called Friendly Fire. It's a war movie podcast that we do with our pal John Roderick. If you haven't checked it out yet, we've seen some really interesting and fun movies and we've done a bunch of cracking wise about them.

Yeah, that's a good show. Yeah, so if you haven't tried it out yet, check that out for sure. We've got a bunch of, I think by the time this is our bonus red October episode will be in the donor bonus feed at MaximumFun.org. If you would like to hear the greatest generation take on the hunt for red October, and you're not already a member, you know, to do, you go to MaximumFun.org slash donate,

get involved at the $5 a month level or up, and you'll get access to all the donor bonus content. Hey, guess what? Your support keeps the show going forward. It makes sure that we can go out on tour a couple of times a year. It makes the show possible. And so, everybody's support really helps. Thanks for that.

It really does. Thank you. We should thank Dark Materia for our original theme music and Adam Ragusia, who has made all of the other original music on the show. And with that we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9 and another episode of the greatest generation Deep Space 9. It's my eyes. It's my fuzzy. Infosie. Infosie. Infosie.

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