The Greatest Generation - Barely Legal (DS9 S4E2)

Episode Date: March 4, 2019

When Ben Sisko vanishes in a freak workplace accident, his son Jake is left without anyone to hug. But when a much older Jake jumps at the chance to change the past, he must be willing to o destroy his present, and with it the writing career he’s always wished for. Are costumes clothes? What rhymes with “gardener”? Does a television set need a geometry consultant? It’s the episode recorded and edited from podcast jail!

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 finest crew in a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison.

I'm Adam Pranika. What are you doing? I don't know. I just thought like, you know, sometimes, like we always record during the day for the most part, but maybe somebody's listening after dark and they want like a more smooth vibe. That was your smooth vibe. Pretty hot sounding, Ben.

That was my quiet storm, you know? That was your Delilah? Your male Delilah? Yeah, one of those backhanded compliments we get all the time. But I'm, you know, I think every podcaster here's this, is like, oh, I listen to your show while I'm going to sleep. Yeah, that one really cuts both ways, right? Yeah, it's like, they don't even know what drunk

Shimoda is because we've put them to sleep already. By the time we get to that part of the show. People who have never heard the credits before. Yeah, it must be such a trip. If you listen to this show to go to sleep and then you come to a live show and like you're in a big room full of strangers, but then the lights lower. And it's the thing that that is your soperefic. Ben, I'm drinking a double hot tady right now. Yeah, because the snow does not stop and Seattle evidently.

When was the last time you were in the snow? When was the last time it snowed in LA? Fuck you. One of the many reasons I'm preferring the warm climate of LA to whatever's going on in Seattle. We've got chocolate black rain right now actually in LA like days and days with rain every day It's it's weird like you can see downtown from on top of hills and stuff. Oh, you don't get to do that very often

I usually the case you're getting ready to go on a big destination wedding though. Yeah, it's true I had one earlier in the year and and you're escaping the snow. See somebody get married in a tropical environment. My wife did a great thing, which is like get on the phone with an airline and a hotel to rebook our travel to try to like outsmart the storm that's coming. Wow. And I just read that the storm might have,

might have outsmarted us because they moved the storm timing. Fuck. Ha, ha, ha. The storm is like, winter storms go up the upper hand now. Ha, ha, ha, ha. What's in the forecast? What's in the forecast?

Oh, God. Yeah, you know, something that, you know, I've always been an apartment dweller, I've always been a renter. You were saying that like you have to like consider the idea of what happens to your house when you leave it in a major weather situation. Yeah, we're,

we've already gotten about 10 inches of snow and we're supposed to get another maybe foot of snow on top of that and that's fairly unprecedented for Seattle, and it's certainly unprecedented personally because I've never been a homeowner during a storm like this, so. Yeah. A lot of the things that I feel like one should do

are lost on me. News like this is enough to make you like not even wanna to comply with the warp five restriction, you know? I I shoveled a sidewalk this morning. That's one of the things that you need to do when it snows. That's like a good homeowner thing. That's a good workout.

So if I wake up tomorrow, uh, bent into a claw shape, then, uh, yeah, that's the reason why. Well, hey, Adam, we don't have like any structure to this, Mary. And so I wanted to recommend this comic by our buddy, J.K. Woodward, because we mentioned this on the greatest discovery, but not on the greatest generation yet. We are actually in a Star Trek, the next generation comic book, uh, that came out, I guess as of the release of this episode, a couple of weeks ago, it's the Star Trek The Next Generation IDW 2020 issue.

And our friend, JK Woodward, who is a friend of DeSoto and has been a guest on the greatest discovery, like drew us into Star Trek Cannon as like guards of Picards and we get red-shirted on an away mission. There's frames of us getting shot in the back by nasty-looking aliens. I guess we live and work on the Star Gaser.

It's great. It is so amazing to see us in this thing. Yeah. And you're right, Ben, like the idea of being actual cannon. No one can take that away from us. Yeah. Now, I went down to my local comic book store to buy a copy of this, not knowing that J.K.

had already mailed us each several issues of it. And that, so I actually like put in a special order because they'd sold out. But I've been hearing on Twitter, a lot of people have been going into their local comic bookshabbing, finding that it's been sold out everywhere. So I don't know if we can take any credit for that, but it's pretty. Which one's my camera?

This one over here. Okay, I'm just gonna address the pocket right now, the Star Trek Industrial Complex. Do you think that they have like an intern that's just one of their jobs is to keep an eye on us? I'm gonna say this, Adam and Ben, good for business. I think we can be sure of that at this point. One thing for sure though, outside of that comment is that JK Woodward is especially good

to us. So, maximum thanks to him for writing us into this thing. I mean, he's mentioned that this won't be the last time, so maybe we will show up and then get gunned down again and again in the years ahead, which would be awesome. I also just want to recommend getting into the comics that he does for Star Trek, because his art style is like fucking beautiful. Yeah, it's really unique, I think. It's very much its own style and I really love looking at this. They're like beautiful full-color comic books and it is one of the coolest things that's happened as a part of this project is getting to see us getting getting shot in a frame right next to Captain Picard. Nice stuff. Yeah, so pick it up. Start

trick. The next generation, it's IDW 2020, and it's out right now. Go get it. Support your local comic book store. All right, Adam. You want to get into the episode we came here to talk about? Yeah, let's talk about something that came out at 9 October 1995. It's Deep Space 9 season 4 episode 3, the Visitor. No, of course you don't. Boy, it's a rainy night. As I'm sure you can relate to anum We're like looking out a window that's got

droplets streaking down it camera pans down to a photo of Ben Cisco and Jake arm arm and arm Hand reaches across picks up a baseball. It's an old man. He's hanging out his house. He injects himself with something. Maybe he's got the betas. Yeah, I don't know if that box he reached into said Liberty Medical on it. But could credibly be from that company.

Yeah. I would love to see a Wilford Brimley ad for a slow acting poison It's bad for you But he gets a knock on the door. Oh, and we should say this old man is a is a beloved that guy Yeah, he got it. Todd. Much love for Tony Todd. Probably most popular to Star Trek viewers is the guy who plays Kern, Warf's brother.

Yeah. But he actually pops up in a lot of different roles in Star Trek. Yeah, I think he's got a Voyager character as well. I loved him in The Rock. Yeah. It's one of the soldiers that takes over the prison in The Rock.

I want my fucking money. He's the Candyman. I think a lot of people would recognize him for that. Maybe Rob's, Rob's, Rob's would recognize him most for that. I'm not super familiar with The Candyman. Yeah, The Candyman was the horror film based around the idea that if you look into a mirror and say Candyman three times, he would then appear, right? And Tony Todd is the is the fucked up apparition that would do that. I think

at this point we might want to just drop in one of us asking Rob what the Candyman is about and then have him give his three sentence summation of that. I think he'd be a lot better at that than we are. Okay. Hey Rob, what's the candyman about? Helen's researching urban myths for her graduate thesis. A lead takes her deep into 1992 urban Chicago where she gets bonked on the head by a mob boss.

After that she murders her friends and blamesked on the head by a mob boss. After that, she murders her friends and blames it on the candy man, a delusion stemming from said bonk, and said graduate thesis. Also, maybe candy man is real, and now she's a candy person? And also, Rob is the candy man friends with Beetlejuice. They both will appear in Beetlejuice too. It sounds like a very Beetlejuice adjacent story. It does. In this episode, Tony Todd is playing old Jake Sisko. He's in love and he lets in a wet young woman from the outside.

She's like bonked her head and is lost in the bayou of Louisiana where old Jake Sisco lives. So this is way in the future. You know, you can't help but look at old Jake Sisco and how he's dressed and how he looks without thinking of another older ...older... ...problematic figure. Oh, no! Oh! F***!

Oh, uh... Hold on, before you finish that thought, Adam, I'm just seeing an email that just came in from the network, we're cancelled. And, uh, nobody listens to us anymore. I put the D into the box! Keep your eyes on the D very closely. Ben, no, we can't do this. This is a beloved episode in the history of Deep Space 9. We can't do Cosby on this one. Girls just come into my room.

They're strangers. I offer their auditions on my show. This is the problem, right, with Tony Todd wearing a Cosby sweater and having the Cosby hairline and basically just doing Cosby drag. Like, you can't unsee that, especially with young Melanie entering the scene. Melanie played by Rachel Robinson, the daughter of Andrew Robinson who plays

Garek band, did you know that? No shit. Yeah, keeping it in the family. Wow. I liked her. Yeah. Yeah, me too. She's no Andrew. No, she is not. But then again, no one is. Like, we're not throwing shade at Rachel Robinson. She's also, you know, like, Andrew Robinson had a 20 or 30 year acting career before he was on this show, so. Right, yeah. She seems pretty fresh, but she's good. Yeah. She is a big, but she's good.

Yeah. She is a big fan of author Jake Cisco. Your books, they're so insightful. His read all his work. All two of his books. Yeah. I mean, do you have any authors like this where you would just love to meet them and talk to them?

Hmm. No, I guess I don't have an answer to that question. authors like this where you would just love to meet them and talk to them. No, I guess I don't have an answer to that question. I don't know whether it's because I am not as well read as I wish I were or because I'm just not that kind of fan of creators of things. Yeah. Especially the sort of fan that would like walk up to someone's home. Like famously there was a, there was like a JD Salinger story of like a high school kid just walked up to his house and interviewed him, right?

Really? This feels like that kind of story, but... Like Judd Aputau tricking all those comedians into talking to him? Yeah, yeah. Feels like that. But I'm not the type to make that walk in the way the Melanie does. What about you?

I don't know. There's definitely authors that I would love to talk to. I feel like sometimes you read a novel and it just seems so original and brilliant that you're like, man, I would love to just like spend some time in the presence of the brain that birthed this world. Yeah, like, what would Elrond Hubbard order at brunch? Like, just love to pick his brain.

Yeah, I mean, what if Earth was the battlefield? Whoa. Yeah. But yeah, that's kind of what she's there to do. How do you write women so well? He says, like, normally, this would skeave me out in the way that it very obviously should. But not anymore, Melanie! Hahaha. I've got nothing to lose!

I'll be dead at less than a day! We can't do it, we can't. There's no way. That's a good part for a record scratch and a disclaimer. Adam and Ben continue to do Picazvy for another 20 minutes. That's been edited out. But we didn't edit it into the show because we feel bad about it. We're sorry.

I'm not going to do it anymore, but I think everything that's been in the show up till now should stay. Public apology. Written from podcast jail, where we rightly are now. Out of Don't Gun, Cosby, without apology. We're just to be clear we're making fun of Bill Cosby. Yeah I think that that's like that is really where the rubber meets the road with that is that it was never a loving no impression of Bill Cosby. It was always meant to make Bill Cosby seem as bad as he is. Right. But some people thought it was just like

all in good fun and we like Cosby. Yeah, those people don't like Cosby. No. Now. Separate the artist from the terrible impression of the artist, okay. We're on the right side of history here. Yeah, but yeah, he's gonna be dead soon,

or so he claims. This, he's gonna be dead soon, or so he claims. He's gonna be dead soon, I thought was pretty well handled in this episode. It's like something that he kind of rolls out slowly and he implies that there is something special about today, but that's not quite related necessarily to his imminent death and how imminent his death is is also vague initially.

Right. Melanie is there because she is not a writer, but instead wants to be one. And the wants to like sit at the foot of one of her literary heroes. She's an aspiring writer. She's an aspirate. Right, and old Jake Cisco is like, look, ordinarily I would not share my writing secrets with people, but seeing as how this is my last day on Earth, I'll make an exception for you.

And one of the first questions Melanie asks is like, what's up with your writing output? Like you wrote two classic pieces of literature. Why did you stop? Yeah, it's like, why did Lou Bega not release any more songs? After that one, great one. And Jake's like, well, once I learned that Lou Bega didn't release another album, I couldn't

no longer write. I couldn't go on any further once I found out that Mambo number six wasn't waiting in the wings. His reason for stopping writing is to do with the death of his father. I no longer have a little bit of my father in my life. That also is kind of strange and doesn't line up precisely because he kind of launches into a it's a long story but we've got time for it kind of yarn, where he discusses the death of his father when he was 18 years old. Barely legal. Is that important information?

Yeah, there's a working title for the episode. It's a very loose and weird show, Adam. But I like it. You're lucky the drugs in my lock. No, yeah. It's a it's a weird episode. I don't like pulling back the curtain on what we're doing today. But because of the change in your flight time, I was like outwalking my

dog and you're like, hey, so our flights changed. Do you think you could record the greatest gen? Also, I heard you'd home and here we are. And to think we were just going to spend the afternoon playing Jazz Horse together. I know. Oh yeah, get the Jazz Horse T-shirt in the maximum fun store. Yeah. Easy way to go is go to www.jazz.horse That is a real website that we spent money on. Ben, I've been thinking a lot about Twitch streaming some RDR. I don't know if that's something that our viewers would be interested in witnessing for some crazy reason.

Yeah, I think I'm going to start messing around with that. our viewers would be interested in witnessing for some crazy reason. Yeah. I think I'm going to start messing around with that. Could they give us tokens to take our tops off? I'm cut for time on Twitch, so I guess if you're interested in seeing how that goes, you could follow me there. Okay. Putting it out there. Look, good things happen if you just put yourself out there, Ben.

That's what I've been told. Yeah. And I've been humiliated over and over again. Hahaha. Go to costume. Go to costume. So. We cut to the contemporary Jake and Ben Sisko that we know and love. Yeah.

Not wearing any burlap sacks. No, Jake is back in his like European car upholstery costume. Um, he's back wearing his recaro. He's uh, working on, uh, working on a new story. And he's really like, he's like, he's in like a flow state where he's obsessively working on a losing track of time. Benzisco is having none of it. He's like, Hey, man, you're gonna,

you know, have you not seen Ferris Bealers Day off? Like, it's life, Jake. You can miss it if you don't open your eyes. Benzisco's like, this thing only happens every 50 years. Jake, it's a subspace wormhole inversion. It's when a subspace sits on top of a hot tub jet and gets their guts sucked out. You can also get it if you're a deadlifting quite a bit of weight. Right. Trust me. You want to see this before it hits e-bombs world.

What's been what was the video of that guy jumping off a pier mid-shit? Oh yeah. Was that on e-bombs world? Where did you get that? I found that in New York magazine. Good Lord. You cannot unsee that. I would not recommend that anyone watch that.

T-B-H. Yeah, so the video you're referencing at them. I think know your meme is the website that will give you the easiest access to it. And if you search poo flip video on there, I would recommend you not search for that. I would emphatically recommend that you do because New York magazine actually did a write-up of whether or not it was real and it's what it is is it's a reverse video where you see like the surface of a lake and then a nude man comes out of a splash in that lake and as he rotates up toward the camera you see about 18 to 24 inches of poop go back into his butt 18 to 24 inches of poop go back into his butt

Bad I'm just I'm just checking our email. Yeah, it appears that we've been let go from that home fun That's that's it What's strange about this message is that it wasn't the Cosby it was the wow it was the very detailed description of this video that you Yeah, I think it's a work of art. I think it's one of the best things that the internet has ever produced. Belongs to the news. When they take the little D out to the wormhole for a closer look, things are not great, because the wormhole inversion starts dropping bangers on the little D. The wormhole's gravimetric field is surging.

Such that it knocks out a bunch of people in asking for the girl to hand a matool to fix the situation. So, it's a real like Magroober asking for the girl to hand a matool to fix the situation. So, it's a real like Magroober asking for the girl to hand a matool to fix the situation. So, it's a real like Magroober asking for the girl to hand a gentlemen trying to fix the situation. It's a real like McGroober asking for the girl to hand him a tool to fix the problem, because Ben's Cisco is like, hey Jake, hand me a so and so, and Jake is like spilling tools everywhere and being a total spaz. Jake, I need an inter-facing compensator!

It's not here! Warning! McGroober! He did interfacing compensator. It's not here. Warning. The driver! The driver! Yeah, there's a lot of like dead bodies or passed out bodies or whatever on the floor. He winds up finding this thing under a dead guy who's just kind of like, I don't know if you saw this guy, but he really looked like he was chilling the most.

Like, he really like like he was chilling the most. He really went down in a way that looked comfortable and fun. But the tool that they need is kind of like a yoke that they stick in the top of this device in the middle of engineering. And Sisko gets the warp core cascade failure under control. He pulls the thing out of the device, but then like some war-flightening shoots across the room, hits him, knocks Jake down, and we watch Sisko kind of phases out of reality.

Yeah, it is not Gory. We watch as Cisco kind of phases out of reality. No! Yeah, it is not gory. He just sort of blurs away. Yeah. This is the first moment in a series of moments where Srirach Lofton, I think, makes the leap in this episode. He is great here.

He's great with the disappearance of his father, and this is a scene that gets repeated a couple of times in this app. Like the idea of him grieving a loss, but being unable to grieve fully because this person keeps coming back and then he has to reset his grief odometer all over again. They haven't had that many episodes that are Jake episodes.

Yeah. He's capable, isn't he? This is an episode that's a Jake episode that they give half of the performance to a different actor. Yeah. And I think that T'Arrakloft really makes the case for himself in this one, you know? It's like, it kind of feels like a Troy episode in TNG where Marina services like, no, I'm actually fucking amazing, give me some real fucking shit to do I wonder if they didn't think he could do it and that's why the whole Tony Todd storyline was created I like if this was speculative yeah, and then once they see this episode like this entire episode on Srirach Lofton's real

He's doing heavy lifting here, and it's great I hope it means that he gets entire episodes on his own, because he's that good. I do too. They have a funeral for Cisco, and I was a little distracted during this funeral, because this is the first time I noticed that Kira has a new uniform. Yeah.

It doesn't seem like they've changed anybody else in the Bajoran militias uniform. No. It's like Star Trek generations where like some people are in DS9 uniforms and some people are in TNG uniforms and it is never explained. It says in some show notes that Kira wears a new uniform for this episode onward and there was a lot of pushback because they thought they unnecessarily sexed her up in a baywatch babe kind of way. Wow. I mean, she always had a very form fitting costume, but this is almost cat suit level form fitting. I get the feeling that Nanna visitor wouldn't have done this if she weren't comfortable with it. Like, she had latitude with respect to her hair. She has had uniform

latitude before. Yeah. I wonder if this was a more comfortable situation for her. That other uniform seemed pretty stiff, you know? Yeah, costumes are not clothes. So. Boy, that's really the money line. I think a lot of people don't know that. Being in that all day, like having the weird, huge, swayed patches on your upper body all day might have been pretty uncomfortable. Comfer is a distant fourth thing. Yeah. This is a show where the costumes have a level of detail that I really wish we could see. And it's such a shame that it's in SD, you only see it occasionally because it only picks up in the resolution occasionally, but there's that diamond pattern stitched into the

suede on those costumes. And I think that's so great looking, but it's beyond subtle in standard death. Kind of a lot going on in this funeral scene. The idea that Major Kira grieves Ben Sisko as not just a higher ranking coworker or a friend, but as a religious deity is like compounding grief that we don't really get any more of outside of this scene. Yeah, that was interesting. We see wharf stepping off of the dais after giving

a eulogy that we don't hear or see. Yeah, like, well, I don't really know Ben Sisko that well seemed like a nice guy. Good commander, nice station. Jake notably does not eulogize his father here in a moment that I found fairly understandable. Yeah. They were so close that that's impossible. There's some like faith traditions where that's standard. Like if you have a eulogy, you give it to somebody else to read if you're in their immediate family of the deceased. But yeah, the one we hear is Kira's, and we really just hear it,

because the camera pans away from her very quickly, and I think that is very much the show relying on how strong the Navisitor is in her vocal delivery of things, because the emotional impact is, you know, the needle is just totally pegged. Yeah, you don't give this moment to any other character though, rightfully.

Like I think it's Kira and Anavisa Tor, who needs to carry this moment, and she does. It seems like DACS sort of becomes almost a surrogate mother to Jake. Mm-hmm. He winds up like kind of hanging around the station. Morn is drinking the green drink of there there. Jake, it's going to be okay, Jake.

The green drink of, well, this doesn't change anything about me or my life. But yeah, it's interesting to see all of these characters deal with this differently. Nog is going to invite Jake to the Hollow Suites and Quark when he sees that Nog's work might interfere with that Hollow Suite hang, gives Nog a break so that they can go do it. Really humanizes Quark in a surprising way. I mean, there's nothing quite like grief to reflect other characters. I want to say sense of humanity, but in a sci-fi show that doesn't really play. But for a character like quirk, like... Even the term is racist.

The federation is no more than a homo sapiens only club. Yeah, but grief is sort of a unifying thing. It sort of rallies the rest of the crew around Jake, but not in a way that like babies him. Yeah, they're trying to figure out what to do with him, right? Like, like, Nag has like excited about the idea that Jake could go to school on Earth and Nog would be at the Academy and they could be there at the same time together. All this stuff is happening at the same time as diplomatic relations with the Klingons

and the Cardassians are kind of falling apart, so it feels like a real transitional state on the station is happening at the same time. And also Jake wakes up in the middle of the night one night and sees Captain Sisko like slumped on the floor. Yeah, his dad appears in his quarters like the red And he goes like ghost dad Did someone say ghost dad? Like can't what like wait we don't even have a podcast anymore, yeah, we're we're broadcasting to no one Maybe we'll see if we even release this. I'm a rainbow. I'm a rainbow. I'm a rainbow. Catching 24. I'm a rainbow. Come, what are you doing?

I'm a rainbow. Can't you do anything? What are you doing now? I'm a rainbow. I'm a rainbow. I'm a rainbow. I'm a b-guard. I'm a b-guard.

I'm a b-guard. I'm a b-guard. Exactly. You mentioned the deteriorating geopolitical situation. Geo is not right. Space-o-political situation. Geo's not right. Space opolitical situation. Oh, Galacto political? Yeah.

We're really bad at that. Sounds like a bad Marvel character. The issues of Galacto political don't adhere to the comics code. Ha, ha, ha. It seems like DS9 is not that chill a place to be. And so like, they keep kind of pitching like, hey, why don't you like evacuate with all the other civilians, Jake. And there's like a very intense scene between him and Kira up in like one of the upper

pylons, which is a set that I feel like we used to see quite a bit, but we haven't in a long time, but it's just him and her totally backlit. So it's very, very dark because all you kind of see is the stars and like the edge of the window and just a penumbra describing their faces as they talk about how sad Jake is and how he doesn't want to leave the station because like it feels like his father like it it was a shithole when they got there this place is a dog captain siscoe made it a real place and leaving the station feels like saying goodbye for good. I wonder if they thought ever about Nanavisator going 10 out of 10 here because if we were ever to see Kira just break down This would probably be that moment and I'm not sure if I could handle it if I were to see it No, I mean I think it's pretty Critical that she's strong for Jake in this moment. Right.

So I kinda think that's why, but yeah, like this would be the moment, and that would have been pretty hard. Yeah, I really love the composition of the scene though. Yeah, one of the dopest compositions we've seen in the show. Jake finds Cisco again. Dad?

In a hallway. And they actually have enough time to get him to 6 Bay. And they discover basically that he's been kind of like knocked out of time because he comes back. But he is not experiencing the passage of time. And Jake is a year into grieving the death of his father and has to watch him disappear before his eyes again. Don't leave me!

And this is another like, Serok Lovten just dealing with an incredibly painful moment and doing an amazing job of putting the pathos of that up on the screen. This is the peak of the emotional mountain for me. When his suspicion is confirmed in this scene and there's the regret of thinking he saw him but not being sure and then being in a position to maybe do something but having not been able to do that, like it's guilt and grief all at the same time. And Srirach Lofton, like, this is where he makes the leap for me is this scene. It's awesome. It really is.

There's a profile foreshot in the infirmary scene that I think we need to call attention to too. That's wild. I don't really know how they did this. Yeah, it almost looks like a comp because everybody's in focus. Did they use a telephoto lens and just back the camera way back

so that it compressed the depth of field in such a way that everyone was in focus? That's the only way that I could think that they would be able to do this. It is like a cura-sawa level of use of frame. Yeah. Every inch of the frame has a character doing something interesting in it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that that must be it and just let the hell out of it and close down as far as they could go. It's really great and really unique

for the show. Like a shot that really made me sit up straight. Yeah. So, like, back to old Jake. Uh, you know, he's just like, unloading this like, really crazy yarn to this girl, and she's like, wow. I can't imagine what that must have been like for you.

It's tough because that line of dialogue is a hundred times out of a hundred delivered before a make-out scene in a rom-com, right? Yeah, yeah. I can't imagine what that must have been like for you. I swear by the moon and the stars and the stars. Zero times out of a hundred in real life and in a drama. I mean, this is not the first time we've asked it in this episode,

but like, does the Tony Todd story need to exist? I like the, I like picturing him looking back on a life like this. You know, I think you do it a little differently this day and age because Tony Todd is in Old Manloaf for most of this episode and there's like one brief part of the episode where he is not in Old Manloaf and I think it just it clings for me that they spent all the time making him look older and not cast an actual old man Who could like really sell the life of regrets? Boy, that's a great call

They thought about casting Srirach Lofton and they couldn't make the makeup work and And like I don't want a knock Tony Todd performance, but like if if this was Actually a very old man. man, I think this works a little bit better, and like maybe you old up Siracl often for the middle-aged scene, which comes next where he's like chilling out with Commander Nog and his wife in this house, but in a different time. It just seems like maybe that would have been

a better way to do this. This is an episode whose attention is on the burlap sacks in the production trailer and wants to use them all because it isn't long before we've old it up the entire main cast and put them on the little D to go back out to the wormhole because what this old Jake has posited is that if he can just create circumstances in the wormhole similar to those that took his father away the first time he might be able to took his father away the first time, he might be able to retrieve his father from the subspace dimension that he's disappeared to.

Yeah, and that's the explanation of why he never wrote any more books, because he gets a visit in his mid-30s from his father who meets his pejoran wife, who he's very happy with. And then upon Caps and Siskos departure, Jake throws himself into the study of quantum mechanics and Star Trek science and stops writing and focuses all of his energy on saving his father. So by the time the 50-year mark has rolled around and the space butthole is going to do its space butthole thing one more time, they can actually pull

the little d out of mothballs and fly it out there. It feels a little bit like a Star Trek film script because it's all the old versions of the characters from the show going out for one last adventure There was so much to like about this moment, but the visual is just really discouraging it's really rough Mr. Bucket, I have to refer to my name. Stateful. I don't use the bucket anymore. Did they just keep Alexander Sidig's old man makeup from a couple episodes ago and just put it right back on him?

It looks really different to me. What is the same is his old man voice. He falls right back into that pattern. I haven't worked a two-dimensional control panel in a long time. Daxes are pretty good middle-aged lady, I think. Wouldn't you assume that they take the trill out of her though before this age? I don't know. I mean, Kersan was basically like on the deathbed when they got the

Anchlessaur out of him. I guess so. Hmm. Who knows, man? Yeah. A lot of questions. But yeah, so they try to recreate the experiment and it goes well enough that Jake goes into the matrix with Captain Cisco. I brought the defiant back to the wormhole. We're trying to rescue you. So it is, like slightly advanced in age, Tony Todd, talking to contemporary Ben Sisko in a white nothing verse. And this is a really amazing moment to me, because it is still a father talking to his son,

even though the son is kind of, it is implied that Jake is older than, than Ben at this point. Yeah, and the magic trick is for Avery Brooks to evoke a sense of fatherly love playing against an actor who is made to look older than he is. I think that like an actor who is made to look older than he is. I think that like part of how that magic trick works is that Ben has no urgency about solving the problem. He just wants to be Jake's dad. Like that is his primary goal.

And Jake needs a dad really badly because he has basically sacrificed his marriage, sacrificed his career, sacrificed everything for this moment. And he's not even in the moment because he's so focused on like solving the puzzle. And Ben Sisko is like, hey, listen, like catch me up. Like, where's the wife? Where, like, what are you writing? What are you doing? That's such a great point like because Ben Sisko's mental acuity is so grounded and strong. If if you were ever to come close to breaking it would move the center of the story away from Jake where it rightfully should be. It changes the way

the episode feels entirely to have Ben Sisko tortured in this liminal space. And I think that was a great choice that this episode made in sort of peacefully depicting him in this place. He doesn't understand, but sort of out of time in a way that did not make him crazy the way a person would go in solitary confinement. It's Jake! If not for yourself, then for me! It's been implied that they only have minutes together every time they see each other in this weird scenario where Jake is aging and Ben is not. But Ben actually puts in a VHS copy of Ferris Bueller's Day Off and shows Jake the part where he says, you know, if you don't stop and look around

every so often you could miss your life. And and that was just so so powerful. Jake has been has thrown himself into the idea of writing this wrong to the exclusion of living a full and rich life of his own and Ben is against that. And so when Ben slips away one more time, Jake kind of changes course. And when we come back to old Jake talking to Melanese, like, yeah, twist ending, I actually have been writing. And there's a big old pile of manuscripts over there on the desk and you can have

them if you want them. Melanie flips through them and they're just like sex rap lyrics. Wow you've taken what sugar-free started and really expanded on it. There really is only one word that you can rhyme with Gardener. Can I ask you why you haven't published this? Maybe the most unbelievable part of this episode is that old Jake and Melanie stayed up all night until the morning light, all without coffee, just that little cup of tea you got him through. You know the beat down staff,

tolla break it down when you're writing sex rap lyrics. Yeah. But then he reveals a second twist, which is that the little insulin injection that we saw him giving himself at the beginning was a slow acting poison. And what he's come up with is that Ben Cisco is connected to Jake on some kind of subspace bungee cord.

And so every time the tether goes taught, they see each other. And Jake realizes that if it's that taught he can he can sever the tie and it will send Ben back to the moment of the accident and they'll have a chance to relive it. It's a great epiphany in the story. It's a great moment. It's a great moment and I think that my favorite part of it is that Avery Brooks mourns it, you know, like he's He wants Jake to just have

DIN Jake. You don't need me like live your life. Don't do this on my account. Yeah, he was never supposed to make his father his life's priority. And he did. And it's weird that that gives Ben Sisko this second chance. And it seems like he appreciates that, but it's also hard for him to watch Jake do that. And sad for him to watch his elderly son die, you know. Don't you see? We're going to get a second chance. The way the scene plays makes it appear as though the greater tragedy, the tragedy greater than the death of his son, is a wasted life. Yeah.

That's something that I can really get with. This is maybe the second most emotionally powerful moment in the episode, it's like that realization and that tragedy. Old Jake Sheffieldles loose this mortal coil. Cisco kind of comes back to the moment of the accident and ducks out of the way of the war-flightening, like Knox, Jake, to the floor. And I guess Ben, Cisco, like, has all the memories

of having gone through that. But young Jake has there and he's like, what the fuck? Yeah. Why'd you knock me over? Yeah. And then they just sort of fall to the floor in a big spoon, little spoon embrace that neither of them appear to have been doing for the first time. And then they head back to their quarters and put in a VHS tape of Ferris Bueller's Day off and the little D heads back home. Bop, bop. Bop, bop.

Bop, bop. Bop, bop. Bop, bop. Bop, bop. Bop, bop. Bop, bop. Bop, bop. Bop, bop.

Bop, bop. Bop, bop. Bop, bop. Bop, bop. Bop, bop. Bop, bop. Bop, bop. Bop. Bop. Bop. Did you like this episode, Ben? I did. I think it's a great episode. It's no that video of a guy flipping off of a bridge with shit coming out of his ass. Wow, we are the worst.

We are the worst Star Trek podcast. Yeah, somehow. That's how you do it. We took it from being the most popular, biggest Star Trek podcast to being one that nobody should listen to and nobody does listen to in one episode. In a way, it's going back to our roots. Yeah, subscribe and delete. The plaque on the bridge of our podcast says in Latin,

like totally worthless Nothing to listen to here Move along. Yeah Probably move along home Yeah, did you like the episode at him? I loved it a ton I think I I loved some scenes in it more than I loved the episode in its entirety. I keep coming back to, like I understand why you ensure the Sirak Loftin performance with the Tony Todd one. I totally get that. I wonder what it felt like to watch this episode after it was done and go like

holy shit. Like you have to do that, you have to pay for that insurance. Right. But to know all of a sudden that you have an extra main cast character here to create stories around, has got to be a great feeling. Yeah. And it's almost like as great as this episode is, it makes me look forward to more great episodes in the future that involves Suraq Lofton.

I agreed. Do you want to check and see if we have any priority one messages at him? This is the moment in the show where we do that, Ben. Thank you. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. I need a supplement. You need a supplemental link. A supplemental link? A supplemental link?

A supplemental link. Yeah, it's extra. But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship! And we have a couple of messages here. The first one is of a promotional nature, and it goes like this. There are plenty of podcasts about television, but only one about the best part of TV, the commercials.

Check out after these messages hosted by Genevieve Haas and Andrew Walsh, personal friends of ours, is the bearded Chevy Focus Group guy driving you nuts? Are you harboring a secret crash on flow from progressive? Andrew and Genevieve completely understand, which means after these messages is the podcast for you. Join them as they break down the good, the bad, and the truly appalling in this overlooked art form.

Subscribe to After These Messages on Apple Podcasts or the podcast app of your choosing. You know, a good first episode to try from that podcast is the one that you were a guest on, right? I've been on that show a couple of times, but I don't know if it'll happen or not, but we were talking to them about both of us becoming guests. So we may have already done that by the time this P1 aired. Yeah, it's cool you've been on that on that show so often given that they are like they live down the street for me and I've never been invited. You're invited, you're invited.

Glad you're in Genevieve. We've had dinner and drinks together, right on. Yeah, but I've been friends with them for years and years. Clearly. I just introduced them with them for years and years. Clearly. I just introduced them to you. They're great. They're great and so is their show.

That's a show that I know joke listen to every week and love. I don't have any kind of TV with commercials on it, so I don't ever know what they're talking about, but I love listening to them talking about it. God, what do you do on that show? I just admitted that I have not listened to the episodes that Yuri guessed on, which is great. But what kind of gesture are you on a show like this?

Well, one time I found an old tape from, I had a tape digitized that I thought had some old childhood, you know, movies made in the backyard with my friends on the handicap, but it wound up having like a TV movie or something. And so there were a bunch of, you know, daytime television, channel 44 TV commercials on it. So we watched like the best of 1993.

Cool. Yeah, but a fun show and highly recommended and go check them out. After these messages podcast. Ben, our second priority one message is from Danny from Minneapolis. Or Dennis from Minneapolis. It is for Adam and Ben. Message goes like this, W-Slasher slash T-Theorada Collosuite programs at Quarx Bar. Do you think the vibe is more Xalman King's Red Shoot Diaries or more cinematics after dark? Asking for a friend. Well Dennis, thank you for your question. I think we've mentioned this before.

I really like P1 questions. Yeah, I think that it's pretty obvious given the fact that David Duke Coveny is always hanging around outside the Holla Suites, which one it is. Which is the more hardcore? Is it shoe or is it cinematics? I think it's cinematics, isn't it? I never had cinematics.

I know that Red shoe diaries is definitely like like they'll show a little bit of pubes but they won't show anything more than that. I feel like cinematics shows thrusting though, right? It's just no, I mean, I think Red Shoed Diaries will show thrusting but the angles don't make any sense. What you need on set for those things is a geometry consultant. You need Ben and Adam to be there on set and be like, no, no, no, no, no, that doesn't, that's not how it goes. What would we know about that, Ben? I guess that's a good point. Just trying to get us some work. What do you think?

I think I'm gonna vote for cinematics after dark. I think my inclination is that that is the more explicit of the two and thus I would say I would choose that. I would choose whatever is the most explicit would be the Hollis Wheat Program possibility. I'm guessing that's probably it. And I can only imagine what cinematics was like, never having seen it myself. Yeah. But that seems likely. I want to say, send us more questions.

If you have a question you'd like to ask us or a message of any other kind, like for a podcast or a project, you can go to maximumfund.org slash jumbo-tron where personal messages are $100 and commercial messages are $200. Whether or not you have been a guest on a podcast in question, they are a great, great way to support the ongoing production of this show. Hey Adam. What's that been? Did you find yourself a drunk Shemota?

Drunk Shemota! I think this time it's gonna be a prop Shemota. Wow. I think toward the end of the episode, the Tony Todd makeup was sort of falling apart. And the one thing you can't do when you're working with a lot of burlap and like hair piece stuff is you can't allow your lighting to get out of control. Like you need to control the lighting in such a way that the magic trick isn't isn't given away. And so when Tony Todd turns into profile, he's lit for straight

ahead, but when he turns profile, what you see is the headband holding his hair piece on. Yeah. And it's like, it was the only thing I could see in a moment of emotional pain. I don't want to be thinking about anything else besides where their character is going through. And like for a moment to be so like jarring in that way, I couldn't help but call that my Shimoda. What about you?

My Shimoda is Melanie. She comes in initially with an injury on her forehead and that is either self-inflicted or she slipped and fell while looking around in the woods for this house presumably. This is way in the future, just beam over. She should be dirty too, right? If she fell over or got hit by a tree or like walked into a branch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe that makes me think it's self-inflicted which is

like a pretty intense way to go for like getting the attention of your favorite author. You're in luck Melanie! I have all of these painkillers! Oh boy. Oh God. I'm not even listening anymore. 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 Reemarrassment 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 Rembarrassment 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 space weirds. Pat Noswald. Can I get a ball-rock 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 already open, just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goat try. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, rats, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in mine. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line and boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short

neck. But I'm hearing we need to get on this off. Gotta get on the art. Yeah. It is about to rain, about 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'scasters, 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 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 MaximumFun.org. The chances are pretty slim, but maybe somehow some way we have a show next time. I mean, whether or not it's broadcast anywhere, the show will continue. So what's coming up on the next episode, Ben? The next episode is season four, episode four, Hippocratic of, held prisoner by a group of rebel gem Hedar, Bashir and O'Brien clash over Bashir's desire to help their captors escape dominion rule, Kind of an interesting premise.

Hey, that sounds like fun. Yeah, kind of a, kind of a Hippocratic oath comes up against Prime Directive comes up against Chief O'Brien's shit. Yeah, because Chief O'Brien definitely has some post-war shit. That's for sure. Ha ha ha. Why don't we see in what way we're going to be reviewing the next episode, Ben?

You're required to learn as you play, roll. We are on square 74. Out in the distance, we have an nth degree. That's the only square we could potentially hit, I think. You wanna blow on these bones while I roll them? You know I'll always do that for you, Ben. Oh shit, Adam. I have rolled a four.

Oh, love a rei! So this will be the first time we have ever been tasked with doing extensive research. Wow. For an episode. Our first academically sound episode of Greatest Gen. Yeah, we landed on the square of Lieutenant Barkley with laser beams going into his brain. I guess that means we're gonna have to read like memory alpha

and Wikipedia and... Listen to the commentary track. Oh man, is that available somewhere? I don't know. I don't know, but evidently we're going to have to do some work. Wow. We can't just step up to the mic and do cosby bits. We got to come correct Adam.

If we are going to win these people back, we got to come correct. All right. Well, if you hated us in this episode, the next one might be more your speed. Yeah, it's going to be the best episode of Mission Log Ever. And if you love the next episode, it's probably the last episode you should ever hear of ours. Yeah. Those that actually love what we do on this show are invited to give us a five star rating review wherever you get your podcast.

It's a big big help in elevating the look of our show. Yeah. Making it known to people who may not know about it. Believe it or not, there are many star track people who do not know of the existence of this show. And I think that's a shame. That is a shame. Tell them.

You can also support what we do directly by going to Maximumfund.org slash donate. It is a big big help to get your monthly support every month. And we are not far away from the Max Fund drive, I believe, as of this episode, right? Yeah, a couple weeks from now. So get ready to really come out in force and show your support for the greatest generation because starting March 18th, we're going to be doing the Max Fund drive and we really need the friends of the Soto to step up and make this real. Yeah, it may not have been clear from what you heard this episode,

but Ben and I are professional podcasters. And so we really do require your support to keep the show going. Friends of the soda that have supported us up until now include people like Adam Ragusia. The great Adam Ragusia. Makes all the great music on our show. He took the original music from Dark Materia and turned it into a theme and interstitial package that we know and love. I got to thank Bill Tilly, our card daddy,

at Bill Tilly 1974 on Twitter. He makes great trading cards of every episode of the show. Punches the jokes up in a lot of cases and makes things extra super fun. J.J. Lendle presages the episodes every week through the creation of a great retro-esque looking TV show poster. Something I look forward to every weekend before show drops great work by jj landl solid as sears so do all of that stuff check out the other shows on maximum fun that work

check out our other shows friendly fire and greatest discovery and if you like this you'll love those oh yeah greatest discovery now like mid season two so check out that show and also check out ours. 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, which probably just stories are the early research. You're still here? It's over. Go home. Go!

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