The Greatest Generation - Bad Hire (VOY S2E3)

Episode Date: June 14, 2021

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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 friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Bringengwa the U.S. is 4th. Dr. Captain Captain Captain. Bringengwa the U.S. is 4th. Dr. Captain Captain.

Welcome to the greatest generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys. Just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast. I'm Adam Pranica. I'm Ben Harrison. How you doing today, Adam? Living the dream of a Tuesday that feels like a Monday in every conceivable way.

Wow. We had kind of a conflict yesterday because not to let the viewers behind the pod too much. Yesterday was the third of a three-day weekend of a federal holiday, is what they're called. Or if you're my furloughed wife, the fourth of a four-day weekend. But yesterday was the most recent example of us not really having a holiday policy at Uxbridge, Shimoda. And so our collected employees were all over the place and whether or not we were doing our regular Monday stuff.

I felt extremely bad about it. We need to figure that out. I'm such an alien when it comes to like normal work life that I don't even really know which three-day weekends people actually get off. I want Uxbridge, Shimoda to be the sort of work place that is very generous with the day is off. And like every Monday is a day off from here on.

In Rob's defense, most days are days off for rob's so yeah He's chilling there's that but it would be good to have We should we should figure it out we should figure out which holidays are official experts from Oda holidays And I'm sure You and I could come up with many days that wouldn't automatically populate on a Google calendar for example We should be one of those cool tech companies that has four day work weeks. I don't see why not. We should do that.

Nothing happens on Monday. If you are editing an episode on Monday, you're doing it wrong. Well, I've been doing it wrong ever since we started this project. You remember when the dream was like taking an entire summer off, like teachers, like teachers? Well, like teachers used to, I guess. Yeah.

Yeah. We've never had that much runway, and never will. No. I'm just calling it right here. God. We're making another great effort. I feel like lately, you and I are doubling down on the idea of building runway there was a dream that was once called the greatest generation

you could only whisper it for it was so fragile and like the end of gladiator both you and I die in the middle of its construction with tens of thousands of people cheering at the top of their lungs that's how our show ends. Yeah. I don't know, man. I do feel a lot better lately about editing. We got kind of a new process.

You spearheaded a whole new post-production process for us. One of the few things I've suggested that actually worked for us instead of against us. It's just one of the few things you've suggested, period. Right. That usually falls to me. What if we blank is usually a bend sentence, not an Adam sentence? If it's a new tech thing, and I've recently learned about it, it's because Adam Lizzagore made a video about it, and that's how I learned about the script.

And so that's what inspired me to start using it. And after muddling my way through it for a couple of edits, it's now like my preferred way to edit the show when it's my turn. You and I famously edit every other episode of Greatest Gen, all the viewers know that. Yes, and the way this works is, it makes an attempted transcript of the episode that we just recorded.

It uses like machine learning speech to text. You'll know that this isn't branded content because the process started out with a software very rockily. It was a fucking mess early on. I was ready to throw it out the window the second time I used it because it was very frustrating initially. Yeah. the window the second time I use it because it was very frustrating initially yeah but also it's very funny because I think you know speech to text is a technology that has matured immensely we we recently for greatest discovery watched an episode of Star Trek the original series in which speech to text is depicted a an alien says a bunch of stuff to a typewriter

and the typewriter types it out and the secretary who's normally the person typing on that typewriter announces that she's quitting her job. It's so upsetting to her to see that process. But this software does have one Achilles heel atom and I wanna do a, I actually have been keeping a little buck slip at my desk writing down all of the different things

that it thinks we might be trying to say when we say the name Chico-te. Oh, fun! This is a new segment. Well, how do you expect me to type? Apple, your fingers. With my nose. We'll have definite advantages. Well, it's typing everything I'm seeing. Apple, your fingers. With my nose. We'll have definite advantages.

It's time for everything I'm seeing. And with your fingers. And with my nose. We'll destroy you. Do you see that? With my nose. There it sits. Stop it! Everything you have done.

Stop with your fingers. Stop with your fingers. Stop. How are you expecting it, type? With my nose. Stop. Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Chicota and Chicata. It's given me terracotta. Oh yeah. It's given me jacarta. Sure.

It's given me Chicago. You know you should never play cards with a person with a city name. It's given me Chico de Chuc Jose. Oh I like that a lot. It's given me to Cote. It's given me two Cote. Uh-huh. It's given me Dakota. Sure.

It's given me two go-to-a. That makes maybe the most sense of all of them. Yeah. And then my two personal favorites are check out day and Taco day. Wow. And if if Chico day translates to Taco day, I might just start calling him Tuesday I just might start liking him. I know right? How could you not like Taco day? Yeah, Taco day That's that's one of my favorite guys like if he's got tacos in that bundle

Invite me over, man. I'll get in your shuttlecraft and do some weird ceremony with you. How kuchi moya, though we are far from the solstices of my father. Yeah, so after like a very rough breaking in period where it took much, much longer to edit an episode, I feel like the time to edit has now been reduced. I'll say on my end, I think I've dropped a quarter

of the amount of time. Wow. And I think it's coming down more as I learn how to use it better. I got basically, yeah, I put in like a full day yesterday doing almost nothing but editing and I'm I'm about halfway through the second phase, which is after you do the, because like the advantage of this is you get the text of the episode and you can actually edit it by saying like, okay, this paragraph doesn't really go anywhere, so I'll just cut that out. This is yet another conversational dead end, the atom is leading us down. You can really drop some minutes that way.

I'm just saying we really value the friends of DeSoto's time. And so we cut out the stuff that doesn't work. We trim the fat and then we take it into our edition our audio editing software and put it in music and sound effects and stuff like that. Yeah. And so I'm halfway through that second half on the episode I'm currently editing, which is pretty quick, like usually that's, you know, two, three days of chipping away at it kind of stuff.

It really turns that second phase into the fun stuff, because once all of the filler words are out and the conversational cul-de-sacs are trimmed. What you're left with is just like, where would fun sound effect go to emphasize the comedy? The way it's worked out is that a lot of days I've done that text-edit phase and then like done something else and then like come back to it the next day to do the fun stuff phase. And I feel like having heard it once and also like some time to think about it, I've got like better ideas for that,

for like sound effects and drops and things. I agree with you because what it forces is a second review of the show, whereas before we were going through it in a linear way. People will be shocked to hear that this show gets more than one listen through of scrutiny before it goes out everywhere. Oh, there are some assholes out there

who would be shocked to learn that we work so hard on it. But fuck those people, they don't know. Yeah. I think those people, Adam, are projecting, which brings us to today's episode. There it is. You remember when we used to pivot that good all the time? Yeah.

I mean, that's a challenge that we should return to setting up for ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. It's season two, episode three, projection. Brewer, of course. Unless you've got something a little bigger in your torpedo toots, I'm not turning around. I thought knowing that this was a Jonathan Freak's episode, you saw the task coming up of having to watch it, and then for some reason just avoided watching the episode altogether,

even though it was the easiest thing you could have done. No way, I didn't want to bother him. So yeah, the doc, Doc Hollow Day finds himself alone in six bay, it looks kind of like night mode with the lighting in there. And he discovers that the ship is empty. Nobody's answering, combat, taps, nobody there. This is like if the TNG episode, 1-10-10-1-10-10-10-10-10,

began halfway through when Picard and Riker emerged from the holodeck to an empty ship, which is like one of the great moments of that season of Star Trek, I think. I love starting an episode with this kind of mystery. The ship's empty. Affirmative. This is a great cold open.

Yeah. And I'm so hooked. Yeah. And it's short, too, right? Like it is him wrapping his head around this. I think it's less than a minute that we get with him before we go to theme. When the doc asks the computer, you know, the status and where the crew is, the ship voice

refers to the ship as the ship and not Voyager. And I think one of the parts of the great TNG episodes is when the computer gives you a reaction that has to do with no longer aboard the Enterprise. And I wonder if that's because the name of the ship is so heavy in Star Trek, especially when that ship's name is Enterprise, that they specifically don't say Voyager, because maybe Voyager doesn't have the cache of enterprise. And so they choose not to use it as a way to ground a stressful moment. I kind of wish they had used it.

I think that maybe that's one way you build cache, but also I kind of wished they had used it just because my mind was in a lot of places as this mystery unfolds. And one of them was, what if this is a different ship? Yeah. Yeah. And it seemed important that the ship had not a name checked itself in answering Doc Holode's question.

That's so interesting. Like, it does emphasize the mystery by not naming the ship off the top. So maybe that was done with some intentionality. Yeah, it put the wrong emphasis on the wrong clue. After a very short cold open, the doc keeps asking his questions and the condition of the ship is pretty badly damaged. What information he is able to get is bad, it's bad news. But a lot of other information is simply not available. I love that his first question when he finds out that there's nobody on board the ship is basically, are they on vacation or are they dead?

Yeah. Yeah. Doc does what anyone would do in their position. He cracks open the last log entry from the ship. Yeah. And I love a captain's log entry through static when bangers are getting dropped. Like it's classic stress building in Star Trek.

And I love it. It works every time for me. That static looked very familiar to me. I wonder if it's the same static as they used in like the booby trap episode when they... It looks like the battle does not go well, static. Replay last log entry. Heavy casualties.

Find this on go well, Enterprise. It does, yeah. They must have like a, man, somebody should ship just like an aftermarket plug-in for Adobe After Effects that you drag and drop onto some onto a piece of footage and it gives it the battle does not go well Static effects. Yeah, I would use it all the time. Yeah. Where I still a video professional So this last log refers to a a warp core breach that they're trying to triage and then it cuts

off mid-log. That's not a good sign. He starts asking more questions. The escape pods have been ejected and there's nothing alive aboard the ship basically. So he just kind of is like, well, okay, I guess I'm alone forever now and it goes and kind of plops himself down at his desk. I loved that his first thought after realizing what's happened

and that everyone has gone is like, I'm terminating my program. Verbal suicide, no, let's do it. Yeah, he's leaving his diary when he hears some banging out in the hallway. And I thought this is so interesting. Like the doc is, unlike data or another synthetic life form, they haven't spent a ton of time interrogating

what he is. Like, there's been a little bit of the metaphysics of Doc Hollow Day, but not a ton, and I think that the fact that he's like really afraid when this banging starts, his is very interesting. It really, it really made him fully human in a way that I feel like, you know, he's been like nervous before, but this is like a new mode for him. It's consistent with the mystery that's being constructed throughout the episode, like, why is he scared?

That's weird. Like, anything coming through that door could just like move through him as if he were missed. So, what is the problem even? But I do love the idea of using a hyposprae as a way to knock out whoever's coming through that door. That's fun. But who's coming through that door is BLT,

which comes as a surprise to the doc after hearing that no one was on the ship anymore. And BLT tells him that the sensors may be a little bit screwy after this case on attack. Not all the escape pods had left. And those that did, like the case on beamed all of their occupants under their ship and then set out of there.

Yeah. So it's a mass kidnapping is what happened. BLT's got a shoulder injury. He's trying to help her with it, but his medical tricorder is apparently affected by whatever's causing problems with all of the other sensors. So he gets a different one, same deal. He cannot scan her. And so he's got a he's got a kind of resort to frontier medicine.

BLT is like forget about me doc. There is a captain on the bridge with a beam that has fallen on top of her and you know what that means. Somebody needs to get up there or we're going to be talking about how to abend her. Once the beam falls on you on the bridge, you either set off the Genesis device or you die before you can. Yeah, so what she explains is she's going to send him up to the bridge and he's like, well, I've got you there. That's not possible. We've established very early in this series that I can only be in Six Bay or on the holodeck. And she says, well, we've actually been working on this for months. We've been setting up holo projectors all over the ship and working on a way to beam you to other places. And he's like, when were you going to tell me? This is like that fun workplace scenario where a manager asks you to do a

thing and you think you've wiggled out of the job. Yeah. I'm not qualified to drive a forklift, so I actually can't do what you're telling me to do. They're not observing union rules with the forklifts around here, Doc. A lot of the details that BLT is laying on the doc on the one hand make it seem as though everything bad that could have happened went wrong before the EMH was activated. Right. And it's in totality, that makes it a little implausible. Like because the pattern that's going on in the conversation is like BLT's like, these five awful things have happened. And then the EMH is like, well, what about the sixth thing?

Can we do that? And then there is a perfectly configured reason why the docs suggestion can't work again. And this is the part of the episode that made me suspicious because things were just a little too neat. Yeah, it is a bit of a Swiss watch and my spidey sense is retingling all through it and I think that I think it's intentional. I think that they like the big theme of the episode is question your reality. And when that reality feels a little tailor-made, it starts to work on you. And I mean, that's why the ship name, not being in the report from the computer was like,

oh, what does that mean? It's gotta be meaningful. Yeah, so the last thing the BLT tells the doc before going to the bridge is, you can eat my food, you can sit at my dinner table. You can ball my wife and my postmodernistic bullshit house. But you cannot touch any energy discharges on the motherfucking bridge. I'll try it. And so with a pad on the ass he's sent over there and the bridge is in really bad shape.

It's like someone destroyed a couple of very large Lego kits there. The floor is just covered in debris. Yeah, some of that debris looks accidental, but at least some of it looks like it was done on purpose after the accident. Right. Oh! Oh! Yeah!

That girder is thick, man. Yeah. Yeah, it's no joke. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, being visually inspired by like the fallen samurai imagery. And Captain Jamey has that big urn at the end of Kingpin hair going on. Which I think is a related visual metaphor here. I worked hard with Jonathan Freak's on getting the aesthetic of that moment just right. Finally, Catherine Janeway is above the law. So he's working on getting her patched up. She's, she wants to, you know, the lights are still flickering on the bridge. So she wants to get the power fixed and that's going to be a yam conduit bypass situation. She's kind of telling the doctor what he's going to be a e-m conduit bypass situation she's kind of

telling the doctor what he's going to need to do to get that going while she goes and works on other stuff but uh... he doesn't get to crack into that project because they get radioed by nielix who apparently is the only person aboard with a working communicator he is uh... he is in a fire fight for his life down in the uh... in the restaurant. Here's a line of dialogue you'll never hear on Voyager. Nelix, thank God you're alive.

Also don't worry captain, this is Nelix, I'll handle it. Yeah. Nelix is the kind of guy that makes his problem everyone else's problem, you know for some reason Janeway Sends the doc over to where Nelix is rather than continue to triage people on the bridge There's coffee in the ms hall and that's where I was like this is a fang We bebed down to we beam with the doctor down to the restaurant where all of the furniture is upended and there is a case on with a gun and Nielix is is you know back in his

Galley area throwing fruits and vegetables at the at the case on and it is like it's so silly. It's almost cartoonishly silly You never see Star Trek get the silly but but for some reason, it really worked in this scene. Like... Oh, Ben, I get to take the other side of this. I think if you're putting together an episode that's meant to build tension and suspicion and intrigue, this is almost irredeemably silly. Like, the episode car is put back on the tracks after this, but this one really clanged for me. Like you don't need the silly. I really liked the silly. I feel like you have to be confident in your ability to get it back

on the tension tracks. And I think Freak's is that kind of director. But like it also really worked to really worked to make me question like, and like, this is so silly, maybe this isn't a simulation, like it seems like so, so cartoonish that all of the things that I had suspected might be going on felt implausible to me after this. I guess my note on this scene might have gone something like, why not just kill Neelix if this is, if you can bring him back later, and it's revealed later to be a holographic projection, but maybe if you kill him in this scene, it's the thing that, like by killing him,

maybe that's so unbelievable that it would raise your suspicion as a viewer. I mean, it kills his favorite... his favorite sa tae pan yeah rsvp the sa tae pan uh... the e-m-h ends up bleeding from this interaction uh... and not out of his ears because neilix is talking to him

yeah and that makes no sense because he's not even programmed to do that so back to six bay he goes to uh... to see if he can get to the bottom of what's going on. When he scans himself there, the tricorder picks up life signs, which isn't supposed to happen when you scan a hologram. And when he begins asking the computer, what's up? The computer IDs him as Lewis Zimmerman,

the chief medical officer of Voyager. We met Lewis Zimmerman in an episode of Deep Space Nine, right? Yeah, but he's not a medical officer. He's an engineer. Yeah. And a jerk. So it doesn't make sense. He's not able to ask too many more questions before BLT, Neelix and Captain Janeway enter the scene with the case on. And Captain Janeway kind of troubleshoots the situation with Doc. The Doc is like, okay, well an easy way to confirm whether or not IMA hologram is just ask the computer to turn off all the holograms.

And when he does that, everyone else besides the doc gets turned off. Yeah. And that's not the worst thing that happens. The worst thing that happens is Reginald Barkley appears. No, no, no, no, bring them back, bring them back. And that's when the doc completes his log and then holds a face or two as temple. Yeah, he just, he just trudges into his office. Yeah.

And he punches his own ticket and that's the end of the episode. Yeah. Do you like the episode, Adam? Barkley is there to tell the doc that his whole life has been a holiday simulation, which for Reginald Barkley would be the dream. And that radiation has affected the real human doctors' brain and memory. So that's why he's so confused about his circumstances.

Don't panic. The idea is that he is, in fact, Dr. Zimmerman, there aboard Jupiter Station, where the holographic research institute is based. And this wave of radiation is affecting everything on the station, including this simulation, which is meant to be like an experiment about what if... what if you put some starfleets and some makeweasts on a ship and flung them across the galaxy?

What would happen, man? Look, we learn by the end that this isn't actually a barkly in this episode. However, what is real is that barkly works for the holographic programming institute with a specialization in personality research and implantation in these holograms. Hey, a holographic institute. Bad hire. Not a good hire at all. I was asking myself, who would put

Barclay in charge of that? And then I was like, I think Zimmerman might be the one person I can think of that would put Barclay in charge of that. They're both really bad at this. Yeah. Yeah. They need a third person in charge of that work. This is another Swiss watch conversation happening here again, because there's like thrust and parry on idea and roadblock here.

Because the doc is like, look, I've been on the ship for years. And I've had all these adventures with these people and Barkley is like, no, it's been on the ship for years. And I've had all these adventures with these people. And Barclay is like, no, it's been six hours. It's the radiation dummy. And when the doc begins offering up solutions to the problem there, and Barclay has an answer that squishes it almost immediately. Yeah.

All of these ideas get funneled into one main course of action, which is the program needs to end and the only way that it can and effectively is if the program shuts down, shuts itself off, which is something that a program only does when it's, when it story ends. And the quickest way to do that is to destroy the ship. I'll tear you. I was really worried because when he started to set this up, it sounds like they are going to tell us that

it's a finished the game. And it's over, which is the way out of so many holodic disaster episodes. I was very, very worried that this was going to be another paint by numbers, warmed over storyline. But the destroy the ship dilemma is such a great twist on that. It's like make it a game over, not a you win.

Right. And we can get out of here. But it's a tough sell, right? It's like punch your own ticket is the way out. And what information would you need to decide that that was the right course of action? You'd need extraordinary evidence to believe that that was the way to go. What could convince you?

Barkley is such an interesting character from whom this idea should come from, right? There's a frenzy to his performance that is very stressful to be around because his motivation is suggested to be good. He's trying to save the life of a of a corporeal doctor and and and and boss figure that he has at the station. Yeah. And so he's working like that, but everything he's saying sounds a little crazy to the doctor. And because we side with the doctor naturally, the way it sounds coming from Barkley doesn't sound trustworthy. And because of how you and I feel about Dwight Schultz, nothing that he says sounds trustworthy at all. So he's bringing this, like the combination

of energies that play here, makes for a really stressful mix to be around. Late period, Barkley is the character that tells you not to panic while he is visibly panicking. And that is such a hard, like, leader to follow. 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 Thorn. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure delightful nonsense We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We got stupid with Judy Greer My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweards Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries?

Thank you and come here on Gianni. I've come back with cat toothbrushes Which is impossible to use come get stupid Stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are already open, just pull it out, give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard, be dumb instead. Oh, rats, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to 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 neck. But I'm hearing we need to get on this. We've got to get on the art. It's 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 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 to by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie available on maximumfund.org I got tickets that, black number gets that. Old middle-aged men change. I got tickets that, black number's not.

Are you selling a high-stay? God. The clock is ticking, right? Like, he's saying that there's about an hour before this radiation is going to kill Dr. Zimmerman, who is a real man and not a hologram. And so, we need to actually do this. We don't have a lot of time to fuck around

and debate the benefits of different courses of action. You just need to go set the warp core to self-destruct. It is extremely big fun when Barclay moves the doctor through time a little bit to prove his point. Like going back to the first episode of Star Trek Voyager and being able to turn off the Paris and Kim Simulations is the first example of this, but it's fun to replay earlier episodes through this doctor's eyes and get into arguments with those characters and then turn them off.

It's a very fun way to introduce like new characters too, because this has kind of the reverse, remember me thing where it starts with one character and we're kind of adding our crew back, member by member. And Harrison Kim, don't get a lot of time before they get deleted. Are you convinced yet?

I yelled at my TV, don't delete them, delete Chicote, as long as we're deleting characters, come on! The idea is to go to engineering and destroy the main holographic matrix. Surely, that will solve this problem. But when they get there, they run into Captain Janeway, who in the very first episode of the series is there to troubleshoot a problem before the caretaker beams her and everyone else off of the ship. And that happens just in the nick of time. It's really fun to like negotiate with someone and then have that person disappear before having to make a decision. One of my favorite things about Janeway is how sharp she is. Like she picks up on everything and like when Barclay and the DAC are like going like,

oh, the like, holotic matrix must be, you know, like, oh, the safety's must be off. She's like, what the fuck are these guys talking about? These guys are suspicious security. Get on these. I mean, I know that you would agree that I would make a terrible, Starfleet captain for Miriam reasons. But maybe the top most reason would be that these two guys would walk into engineering, and I wouldn't recognize them just because of my kind of face blindness.

Like, I'd be like, oh yeah, they're wearing the uniform. They probably belong here. Carry on. Those guys look like they belong. Leave them alone. That guy has a weird comb over, but I'm not judging. So they blow up the holo matrix, but it turns out that's not going to solve their problem to solve for this issue completely.

It's going to take destroying the ship and that means shooting the warp core with a dust buster and this, this shouldn't be possible. It shouldn't be possible to destroy a ship with a dust buster. They should be so incompatible for that use. Yeah, I mean, I take a lot of comfort in the fact that no one can fire an unauthorized phaser aboard a starship. Right, yeah. It does mean our mashed potatoes will be safe.

Yeah, I mean, like the warp course should have like concentric layers of bulletproof glass around it or something, you know. Yeah, yeah. You can just be naked out there in the middle of that big room. You should need a phaser bazooka to do it. Like there should be an order of magnitude required to destroy a warp core that the dust buster just couldn't rise to. The dock has basically been persuaded.

All of the evidence he needs has mounted up and Barnaby's basically got him convinced and he's about to do it when another member of the crew shows up. Blow up the damn ship! Ready? Stop! Yeah, I thought we were gonna wiggle out of this episode another member of the crew shows up. Blow up the damn ship. Ready, stop. Yeah, I thought we were gonna wiggle out of this episode without a ticote, but like, like, he hero shots his way onto the scene, right?

He really does. He really does, yeah. Frank gives him a pretty glorious entry. Yeah. And he is there to counterpoint, barkly with this circumstance cropping up while the dock was on a hollow vacation during which there was an accident having to do with some radiation.

And start track, start track feedback loop. And and pain is in the feedback loop. The feedback loop is the mind killer. The feedback loop is the mind killer. The feedback loop is the reason for all of this. And you just sort of gestures around wildly. It explains all of it. Because your memory circuits are being eradicated by the feedback loop.

And the doc just collapses in a feedback loop amount of pain. I had a question in my mind that I hoped they would answer in this scene and they didn't, which is if the holodeck's safeties are off, wouldn't blowing up the ship that is being holo projected in the holodeck be dangerous, wouldn't it kill you as it destroyed the simulation? The question is at what point does the program and does it? Yeah, does the program dissipate faster than the explosion can overtake you? Is the ship total? I guess what you'd need is an insurance professional to come out. If a holographic warp core goes

critical, could it destroy the ship that it is inside of? Like, could it like, could you make a simulation that is so kinetic that it would destroy the ship around it? I mean, that's a fascinating question. Yeah. You could make an entire episode about that. So speaking in 90s motivational poster quotes, Chicoetay tries to win the doctor back, saying, it doesn't matter that you're not a flesh and blood person.

There's a crew here that really cares about you. Got a bunch of people here that love you like crazy, but they feel like they're losing you. What is it you want me to do? And you gotta come back. And this is when Reg Barkley pulls out the big guns. He brings in Kess Zimmerman, the wife of Dr Zimmerman. And here is where the mind games really start being played.

Barkley plays a cruel game of, would you rather facing off with Chico Te, because Chico Te's made his case, but Barkley's like, wouldn't you rather be Kes's wife? made his case, but Barkley's like, wouldn't you rather be Kez's wife? Wouldn't you rather not live in a socialist utopian hellscape and instead live in a capitalist society built on unstopping the lower class? Come on, come on, Doc, yeah, I know which one I would pick. His brain is being damaged. The transition that happens here is really nicely done. Like on paper, it doesn't feel like this transition would work because the dock is kind of wrestling with this in the bed and the shots are all very close up.

But when we transition into six bay prime or the next version of six bay, I should say, with two. We believe to be six bay prime at this moment. Yeah, with two Vach Kim and Kess above his head, it's disorienting in a way that it should be, but it also feels grounded in the reality that the doc is expecting to find himself in, which only adds to the mystery of this story at this point. Yeah. The doc is kicking it to Cass as he comes to saying how beautiful he thinks she is. Too bad Nielix is not in six bay for this moment to make it all about him. Right.

But instead, Cass is very flattered and they explain like, yeah, we brought you back. The feedback loop is over. Like you were kind of the, like this, this was like, you know, the ship flew through some weird radiation and... Except for the computer problems. It has been an uneventful day. This is a classic technique for, is this real? Is this not real?

Because you never escape the haunted house. Yeah. The first house. Yeah. The first try. Right. And so that's the unsettled feeling we get here. Before it even begins to unravel, it's the, well, this is too easy. This can't be how this story ends.

And as soon as the camera goes to fish eye, that suspicion is confirmed. Yeah. Let's do him the reason. No! It's a great moment. Because you, like, even if you don't know a ton about like film and television story structure stuff,

at this moment, I think everybody goes like, oh, this felt too easy. It's almost like a, I mean, that's why a day of sex machina is not a satisfying conclusion to a story usually. Jennifer Leans performance here is terrifying in exactly the right kind of way too. Yeah. She starts to inhabit the character of the wife basically, right?

Yeah. In a desperate attempt to get Zimmerman to realize that he's a real man and and they're still trying to rescue him. The rescue the rescue is still proceeding. Yeah and Barkley is still there advocating for blow up the damn ship. We get our our our final transition though back into the holographic grid. Yeah. Where we get the captain of Jakote and Kim awaiting him. I could tell that we were back to reality because we get spider-cass in this scene. Here comes the Spider-Man!

And I just don't feel like she would wear that in the alternate realities that he's been experiencing. It's the same kind of explanation. It's the feedback loop. It's the radiation surge in the computer system thing, but this was them really getting him out. And everybody is double checking that he knows who he is, where he is, who the president is, how many fingers they're holding up. It seems like there is a real trauma associated to experiencing a life that you thought was real that isn't, or you're being told isn't, that you think is. I think this charade has gone far enough.

And if anything, I feel like we don't get enough time. Like, it's one thing for a human character to go through this. And I know it's quite another for the holographic doctor to go through. But what's a little unnerving about the doctor here is he's able to just go right back to work. And it feels wrong in a way that feels right for this episode. Like, you're just never meant to feel comfortable

at any point throughout. He does the thing that I wanted him to do, which is test his assumption, like, am I the simulation I imagine myself to be? Right. And sticks his arm out into the hallway to see it disappear. Yeah.

In the way that if I lived in Star Trek, I would be muttering, computer, and program under my breath, five or six times a day, just to be sure. Yeah. And so like, he satisfies himself, but maybe it's that thing of like, when you have like a terrible vacation, you know, and like you come home stressed out,

and it's like kind of a relief to kind of get back into your routine. Yeah, he's back at home in a way that feels much, much better. He's never going back to the holotic after this, right? Are you sure about that? Because only bad things happen there for him. Are the emitters real? Then the ones that project him around the ship? Because that's an end that is not tied up at the end

of this episode. Yeah, I wished that they had addressed that. It's such a great idea. It seems like the techno-babbling explanation for why it was possible felt probable. So I don't know, maybe he'll like suggest that in the next episode. Hey, while I was in that feedback loop, some really great stuff got discussed W-slash-R-slash-T,

putting hollow emitters elsewhere on the ship. What we don't get at the end of this episode is the finality of a data emotion chip, Epory takes the chip out, puts it in a box, puts that box on a shelf, and forgets about it for a couple of seasons. And I wish we got a little bit of a sense of the stakes here at the end, like, is the doctor changed by this experience?

And it's a little unsatisfying that we don't know. Yeah, it's a little unsatisfying, but were you overall satisfied by this episode, Adam? You know, I'm really easy to get along with, most of the time. But I don't like bullets, I don't like friends, and I don't like you. I love this too. I love a non-linear story episode. Like, I love how this starts, and I love how we're off to the races.

And I really love when science fiction asks that an answerable question of like, what is real? What is your reality? Yeah. And that's a version of the genre that I really like a lot. I also, I mean, the things that I didn't like were things that I tend not to like about Star Trek episodes before serialization, which is that it seems like the stakes were so high before they're just gone completely.

And it feels like this is an episode that could have a lasting impact on the doctor going forward. And it's just unclear whether or not we know that. I think Jonathan Freaks, being the director of this episode, had to be an asset for Robert Picardo because of the frame of mind and future and perfect episodes. Like those are really great TNG apps where Riker had to ask the same questions that the doctor has to confront in this episode. And I've I got to believe that they had great conversations on set about how to how to about how to confront those issues

during the story. So, like, perfect pairing of a director and an episode to me. Yeah, absolutely. And also, I think that one thing we've talked about a lot with Freaks is that it feels like he gets to be himself a little bit more as a director than some of the directors that come in and you know are just in the rotation. Yeah. Like this episode is so dark and so surreal feeling at times and having a director that

can kind of bend some of the rules of how you shoot an episode of Star Trek to get those really heightened scenes and compositions felt like the right choice. I really like this episode. I mean I think there's a couple of threads that I wish that it had tied up but overall just like a really great story and a very interesting character study and one that made me ask myself, what would I do in these situations? This is exactly the right point in Freak's career to direct an episode like this because I think if it were a couple years before, it may be too directly of him to take

on. But like all of the visual choices here are not crazy flashy. Like when we get the fish islands, it's not overdone. It's happening at the climax of our stressful moment where it's appropriate. Big fun. Totally. The climax of every episode, Ben,

is the reading of a priority one message. Wanna go see what we got in the P1 inbox? Yeah, let's go bust into our P1 inbox. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on top. supplement? supplement. Yeah, it's extra. But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship!

And if we have a few priority one messages here, the first one is of a promotional nature. And it goes like this. Do you like listening to silly podcasts where a couple of friends discuss some of their favorite sci-fi? Of course you do! So come give Stargatezing a try! Every other Monday your drunk charmota hosts Kathy and Mary discuss an episode an episode of Stargate SG1 as they work through all ten seasons. There's fun, there's quality drops, there's even some dick jokes. Find Starkgate Zing. Whenever podcasts are available, PSPen and Adam thanks for the laughs at these COVID times

and for inspiring us to give this a go. Hell yeah. Just two friends making a dick joke podcast about Stargate. Great idea. Yeah. I feel like, didn't we just have a Stargate podcast? P1, like, two weeks ago? Uh-oh.

Uh, yeah, it was... So, we may have set up the RAP beef Stargate podcast rivalry that we always wanted to have with a Star Trek podcast. Find Stargate's thing on your pod catcher and don't forget to hit subscribe. Not only is Stargatesing a competing Stargate podcast, it's also competing with Gates McVaddon's self-titled podcast so kind of a lot to argue with there if you're the Stargating show. They've got a rap beef triangle. That's what that's called. Ben, our next priority one message is from Matt and it is to you and me

and the message goes like this. The world can be cruel. When I've been at my lowest, your pod was there. You don't have to read this on air. I just felt like showing my appreciation and what seems like a trying time Thank you from the bottom of my heart for saving me from sleepless nights stress and worry you guys are great and hopefully all Will be well best pot I ever had wow. Thank you, Matt. Yeah, it's really kind of you Yeah, it has been a stressful time, but we're getting through it. Hopefully all will be well is really just kind of the refrain, isn't it? Yeah. Has been for me. We got one last P1 here. It's from Casey and Hambone, and it's the Tim goes like this. Happy 30th birthday Tim Tim. You inspire us every day with your gray man,

slash plaid man looks, your flock of seagulls morning hair, your comedic weekly accidents of hitting your shins slash toes slash knees slash head on something, your commitment to long showers and long sleeps and on a more serious note, your loving, funny and genuine nature. We love you. Wow. Tim Tim sounds dope. We missed his birthday by a lot, but he sounds like a great, great person. Happy dirty 30. Hey, good job Casey and Hambone,

not not taking the easy dunk with the long shower situation that Tim's got himself in. Yeah. Maybe, maybe you don't let Tim use the shower first. If you're going away on some kind of vacation situation. Yeah, yeah. Leave a lot of extra hand towels out, you know. You don't want that going down the drain creating a fat bird. Yeah. Yeah, happy 30th Tim. Yeah. Thanks to everyone who got a P1, I had to maximumfund.org slash jembo-tron if you're interested in getting one for yourself. We appreciate it!

Hey Tim's birthday was January 14th. Just want to say sorry for being so belated, but we're doing the best we can. Get these messages out there, so thanks for your patience. Hey Adam! What is that, Ben? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? I feel like Robert Piccardo is getting a lot of juicy episodes. Like not just this season because this season's too young, but when he's given an episode and an A story He has to do a lot of shit like this is not throwing shade at

at the Higher ups on the show your your Kate Mulgroves your Robert Beltrans and what have you? Like when when Janeway gets an A story it is a fairly conventional Star Trek story to carry. Right. But I feel like when you're first on the call sheet and your Robert Picardo, you have to expect something fucked up. Like either crazy costumes or a real psychodrama of a story. And that's got to be a great expectation, I think, if you're an actor. Like, it's not just

that it's your episode, it's that it's going to get wild. And that's got to be a fun thing to be associated with. So I'm just going to give my Shimoda to Robert Picardo for that. Like, who is, he's building a body of work here on Voyager that has that expectation. And what a fun expectation to have. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it give mine two freaks for kind of the same reason. I just feel like the way this episode looks and feels the way it moves, the way the shots are set up. And like for the wild swings in tone that it takes,

like going from Janeway, maybe dead on the bridge, due to Gerder, to Nielix is throwing oranges at a pine cone head, and Galley, it's an episode that just feels like he is fully confident in his abilities, and is moving through it. And he is having fun with these scenes and also nailing them in a way that feels really fun. It just feels that Swiss watchness stuff is there to make your spidey sense is tingle,

but it's also just incredibly satisfying when an episode clicks together in this way. Yeah. I feel like he really knocked this one out of the park from a directing standpoint. So he gets my drunk Shimoda. This is just hand in glove right here. This sort of episode and a Jonathan Freaks. Good fit.

Yeah. Indeed. Objection noted. We'll do this without you. We'll do it. We'll do it. We'll add. Well, what do we have coming up on the next episode, Ben?

Let's see. The next episode is season two episode four, allogium. The ship is surrounded by creatures whose presence accelerates Kess's reproductive process and threatens Vot's key operating systems. That was a Kess's super sweaty again in the little thumbnail next to this description. Take it from me, you do not want to ingest too much allodium over the course of a week. You might think you're doing yourself a favor, like if you're on vacation or something, you're gonna be at the mercy of your digestive system, but not worth it.

Don't do that. That's right and key operating systems. Yeah, and your ability to procreate. And do you wanna head to Gach, that biz-slash game, where we keep the game of buttholes in the will of the caretaker and tell us how we're going to be doing this one? I just logged in Ben and I have found our runabout on square 80. Two squares ahead is a cot in the nebula no-notes episode so

that's the risk we take. That would be risky. With the roll here. You're required to learn as you play. Role. All right, here goes nothing. Roll it. I rolled a six.

Shula! Did I win? Harvey. Big role by me. Put us on the doorstep of a measure of a man episode. Massive role. I like. Yeah. And that means the next episode of a measure of a man episode. Massive role. I like. Yeah.

And that means the next episode, a regular old episode that we will have the benefit of notes for. So, there you go. We enjoy those. We may get another Mornhammered episode here in the next handful. I hope you're ready for that. It's not looking good for us.

Nor is it looking good for anyone who lives with us. That would have happened. No, yeah, yeah. The eye rolls, I can feel them coming just over the horizon. Well, that will be the next episode. You know what looks good for us, Ben? What's that? The Legion of the Friends of Disodo.

It'll be great. Thousands, tens of thousands. Could there be a hundred thousand friends of Disodo out there? Maybe. Which is my B. Yeah. You can find them in so many places. Out in the belt.

On a patio somewhere. Yeah. Fully vexed and ready for shopping. My barber shop. Yeah. fully vaccinated. My barber shop. Yeah. Now you can find them online too. In just so many places, drunkshamotor.com is the discord where you can find tons of them. You can also go over Twitter. They'll use the hashtag greatestgen when talking about the episodes.

And you're on Twitter. You can also find the one and only Bill Tilly. He's the one who runs our official Twitter account using uh, the handle greatest trick. He also runs our Instagram handle of the same name and he's always posting great stuff to both. Yeah. Hey Adam, we gotta thank Adam Ragusia, the original music master of our program. He made the Janeway song.

The second best Adam involved in the greatest gen, I think. He's definitely in the top two. He, of course, based his work off of dark material, made the original Picard song. Now Adam Ragusia has a really respectable career. He's moved on from exclusively being a Star Trek musician and now has a cooking show on YouTube. But I really recommend. There's great stuff over there. That means there's hope for you and me. Van of a post-Star Trek lifestyle. That would be not.

Oh thanks. This is a life sentence. Well, with that we will be back at you next week with another Probably not. Oh, thanks. This is a life sentence. Well, with that, we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek Voyager and an episode of the greatest generation Voyager that threatens your key operating systems if you aren't careful when you play it on your device. So just know that ahead of time. Oh, geez. Maybe go incognito from the next episode.

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Make it so. Make it so. Make it. Make it so. Make it so. Make it. Make it so. Make it. Make it. Make it sound. Make it sound. Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture Artist Oat? Audience supported.