The Greatest Generation - Be Quiet, Grandpa (S6E26)

Episode Date: July 5, 2017

When the Entrepreneur investigates a trashed outpost, the Borgs return, and they’ve gone from suck to blow. Now the entire crew—and we mean the entire crew—has to go to San Diego to rescue their missing Android. Is Data’s combat program based on MacGruber? How many shift rotations do they have on Dennis Eckersley’s ship? Is Einstein just a frumpier Twain? It’s the episode with incredibly durable plating.

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 Starfleet. Engage! Welcome to the greatest generation. It's a Star Trek podcast hosted by a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast.

How you doing buddy? I'm doing great. I'm at a Pranika. Oh right, I'm Ben Harrison. I forgot to announce myself. You know, confusing that would be for our large viewership. To listen to a show and not know who we were. Yeah, I don't really know why we say our names.

Like, it's not like we have any fame to trade off of. I know why we say our names. The Star Trek podcast with Adam Prenica. Well, it's a professional restaurant style show open. That's why we do it. We do it because we should. And there are rules here, Ben. Bokey, this is not not. They're rules to recording good pod. And that's one of them. We do it because we want you to know that we have only local farm-raised beef that is hormone-free and certified organic.

You can really taste the difference in our pod. Yeah. Did you get any mail, Ben? I don't have any mail to open this week. I feel like we've been opening a lot of mail, though. Yeah, I got a box. Yeah. You've got mail?

I keep getting mail. Let's go ahead and dive into it, Adam. I don't see any reason why we shouldn't. Captain, I'm sorry to disturb you. I'm receiving a code 47. Verify? It is code 47, sir. Starfleet emergency frequency. Captions dies only.

Alright. This is a box from... Northfield, Ohio, and listener Ross. And uh... This isn't a knock on Ross. I want to be clear about that. This box appears to have gone through some shit. Alright, we have a note. A note that says,

may they bring you joy, luck, and plentiful gach. Love the show. Thanks for everything you do. Matt and Ross. I think I know what these are by their shape. And they are most certainly Star Trek the next generation. Hamilton collection plates. Oh nice.

Looks like there's a big stack of them here. Whoa! The one on top is for the episode, the best of both worlds. A very, very interesting looking Picard in a couple of different places on this plate. He looks to be wearing a lot of makeup. Is this the same line of commemorative plates

that you gave me a warp plate from? It is. Is this the same line of commemorative plates that you gave me a worth plate from? It is. It is the same. Oh! Okay, next episode is all good things. The plate. I've always wanted a plate version of that. The answer to the question, how many Picards can you put on one plate is three. Three Picards can you put on one plate is three. Three Picards. And a Denise Crosby that does not look like Denise Crosby at all. I feel like they have a tougher time capturing the essences of the female characters.

Alright, it looks like we got the third and final plates. Like, how many bad paintings of Troy have you seen? All of the paintings of Troy are bad, I believe. Yeah, okay, and the final plate final of third is encounter at far point. Wow. All of the Male characters on every one of these plates are Extremely effeminate looking like like eyeliner style effeminate.

Wow. And that's not a knock about, uh, about femininity and masculinity, it's more about accuracy. And uh, and also I don't remember pieced to having just a cavernous dimple on his chin as is, as is painted on the Hamilton collections encounter at Thou encounter at far point plates. Man encounter at far point would be a great hair metal band. Yeah and I would imagine that that band would rock a good bit of eyeliner so maybe uh maybe it's kind of like a a fan theory or or some kind of slash fiction in plate form. The thing I like maybe best of all about what the Hamilton collection is doing here is that

you know these plates are limited edition because they tell you that a number of times. But it's not an amount like limited to 500 plates. It's the amount of firing days they had to make them. So this is a plate made in one of the 28 firing days that were allowed. The Hamilton Collection in order to create these. Wow. So we have no idea how many plates there are, but we can be damn sure that there were only 28 firing days.

there are, but we can be damn sure that there were only 28 firing days. 28 firing days in which we made 1 million plates a day. Wow, well Matt and Ross thank you very much for these beautiful plates, another bit of merch that I will have to hide for my wife. A growing collection that is starting to become a problem, I think. I'm starting to look at all of the Star Trek crap I have in my house now and thinking about the fact that I have to move 3,000 miles pretty soon. I'm super pumped about the plates because I like the idea of putting them on a wall, like grandma's house style. Yeah.

Getting them up off of a counter and out of the way, I think is the move. And I think plates are, I think I've said this before, the most hilarious bit of merch that this show did. There's nothing better than a commemorative plate. And if you were ever gonna put up something to kind of offset how Observed our tour posters are It would be a commemorative plate probably

We should consider that I think that'd be fun. Yeah Matt and Ross really rolled the dice on that pack job by the way Matt and Ross really rolled the dice on that pack-jop, by the way, because the plates were just wrapped in paper and loosely packed on a cardboard box. We know a couple of things about Matt and Ross. One, the collectors of fine porcelain plates. And another is they have a great amount of trust in the United States Postal Service. So good for them. My thanks to Matt and Ross, very decent listeners, which gives me just the right pivot to turn the page to our episode today, Ben. The season finale of season six, can you believe it?

Season finale of season six, can you believe it? Season six, episode 26. Decent, part one. You're way too pleased with that joke. You could feel the pleasure, like, two sentences before I said it. Is that your review of the most iconic Star Trek scenes of all time. I think, which is data playing poker with Isaac Newton. Can we get this over with, please? Einstein. Perhaps we should return to the game.

And real Stephen Hawking. I raise 50. Blast, I fold. Is this one of the iconic TNG scenes? I feel like it is a powerful image that is remembered about TNG, you know, like the fact that they did this. I don't think that necessarily endorses it or whatever, but I feel like when people think about TNG, This is something that comes up. It's also a really fun dinner party question style answer here. Because data is kind of using the holodeck as a, who are the four people you'd love to have dinner with, a live or dead? And it made me think like, who are the three people that you would wanna play poker with, a Liver Dead? Ben, can you come up with those off the tap of your head? It's tough question.

I don't like gambling and poker becomes too boring for me too quickly. So I think my answer is nobody. Hahaha. I think my answer is nobody. Is that also your answer to the a live or dead dinner party question? Because that pretty much that would be so amazing. Chatting up a stranger. Yeah, I'm a bit like Larry David where I just don't even understand why it has to happen

in the first place. It seems like way too much trouble. Yeah. Even if you get it catered, it's like, you know, I always wind up talking to the person I will know the least well because I feel like I need to go out of my way to include them in everything. Are you into Moshe cashier at all, the stand-up comedian? Oh, sure.

Have you heard his brilliant Stephen Hawking impression, his brilliant and vulgar and awful Stephen Hawking impression? No. Oh my God. He was on Pete Holmes as you made a weird podcast a couple of years ago and like I will return to that clip from time to time if I want to laugh until I cry

It is really fucked up. Like that's interesting. There's no question that you think you shouldn't be able to do It seems impossible. I am a fans of a couple of I'm not like a huge fan of the felon Talk show, but I am a huge fan of a bunch of people that write on that show. And a couple of them had a vine gag that they would return to repeatedly when Vine was a social network that people mentioned. RSVP Vine. Where one of them would just sit limply in a chair and they would play like their computer saying a Stephen Hawking thing And it was a wrong but I'm laughing at that. It was exquisitely vulgar and very funny every time Yeah, as vulgar as our show is I cannot emphasize enough how

vulgar and inappropriate and offensive this impression is. So know that before going in. If you decide to search it out. Yeah, I mean, I think that it's one of those comedic premises that is kind of going, you're gonna have to look past the fact that it's a bit of a downpunch. So I guess data isn't allowed to play poker with the crew anymore. He's been he's been banished and decides to play with uh he decides to do a little bark leeing with some real-life figures. The bet is seven to me. The bet is ten. Can't you do simple arithmetic? Not a surprise Stephen Hawking wins. He's got a hell of a poker face.

It's kind of weird that he wins, right? Like he's like the one that's the real one. I guess maybe if you're Stephen Hawking, you have to just not be embarrassed by this, but if somebody's like, hey, we wrote a thing that's premised on you being as smart as Einstein and Newton. Do you want to come, do you want to come like have us say that about you in person and thereby like sort of implicitly endorse that statement? And then also we need a person because he's in this, right? No. Yeah, like we can assume that Stephen Hawking has a bit of a fucking attitude. No, yeah, like we can assume that Stephen Hawking has a bit of a fucking attitude like How long do you think data spent teaching Ike Newton how to play cards to?

We can call him Ike Newton can we I think playing cards existed in Newton's time Yeah, cuz they're like based on they're based on like medieval imagery right the spade spade is the surf. And the club is the clergy and shit. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I don't know. I just imagine that being profoundly frustrating to teach those guys how to play.

Yeah, but once you teach them like the kind of probabilities of any given hand like who better than those guys, right? Not only is the real Stephen Hawking not modest enough to turn this part down the part calls for him to big dog the other two great geniuses in history He big dogs Albert Einstein and Ike Newton He big dogs Albert Einstein and Ike Newton Yeah, I think that here's the here's the catch 22 though Adam like you can't cast somebody is Stephen Hawking Yeah Yeah, you can't get you can't bring in a young Moshe cashier Do Stephen Hawking pretty interesting that we get credits over the cold open. I found it fairly jarring.

Did you notice that? It was weird. There's a lot jarring about this episode. Yeah. This is one of them. I mean, it's weird that suddenly at the end of season six, they're like, hey, we had episodes before this. And things happened in them.

And now we can reference all of those things. Yeah. Like, they sort of did it with the War of Brings K-Lashback the Life episode and now they're like, holy shit, there is so much potential to the idea that an episode doesn't have to be a bottle episode. Early on in the series, I think we were both lamenting how binging the series really revealed a lot of its flaws early on and when you just consume that much of the show at once like it is in volume not rate and I think I think when you binge season six and seven, I think you're starting to see it cut the other way, which is like you're used to a show being a certain way and and prescribed to certain rules.

And now it's breaking its own rules. Right. And I don't think that that is something that I would have noticed had I watched the show weekend and week out. Did you notice that this is the same Einstein as Lieutenant Barkley was conferring with in the episode where he gets super smart? Oh, I did not know that. Yeah. Same dude. Just glad it wasn't the guy who played Mark Twain.

Yeah, I'm really glad that they were able to make an Einstein that wasn't a guy who really has one impression. they stick him in the Einstein wig and he's like Mr. Data! I can see you're taking three cuts! You must not like your hand! E! E equals MC square! Pretty sure Albert Einstein didn't smoke giant cigars either.

No, maybe he did. Imagineation is more important than knowledge! Look at you coming back around at the twain impression. I think it's funny if it's Einstein. Oh really? Okay. Try not to become a man of success, but rather become a man of value! Insanity is when you try a thing expecting different results!

Ha ha ha ha! Two things are infinite. The universe and humans stupidity! And I'm not sure about the universe! Oh, got a little Cosby creep in that one. The premise of this game is quickly squandered. And the winning hand is had by Stephen Hawking. Data gets called up to the bridge on important

actual ship's business. So he shuts off the holodeck and heads on up. They've gotten a distress call from an outpost and the away team beams down and like they beam down into a just kind of like totally generic starfleet room. And what seems weird about it is everybody died sitting at their desk. It's like, it almost looks like they got gassed, not shot, but they got shot, right? Yeah. As if they had all suffered aneurysms and then fell in place, but except they have scorch marks all over them.

Yeah. That's part of what they're trying to figure out. Like they guessed at one point that they could be a Ferengy weapons. These wounds were caused by a forced plasma beam similar to a Ferengy hand phaser. And no one laughs at that. Yeah, for rankings. Weapons. You mean the joke of the galaxy? I don't think so. You mean those idiots with the ears? Yeah, right. There's a great reveal when data does the

Hun and Leia trying to get the door open. Trick. get the door open. Mm-hmm. Trick. I think I got it. I got it. And instead of a second door closing, the door opens and on the other side of it is a BORG!

He's a BORG! Oh no! A single BORG is behind that door. And as soon as he is revealed, the BORG you don't see on either side, come at you from the side spin. I have a girl. The huntin' packs at him. Well, we come back from the title sequence, and we're in like, as hot a fire fight as this show ever shows. The thing that this episode is depending on is this level of shock, right?

It's sort of like a dawn of the dead reveal of fast zombies. You have up until now, expected slow boards. And to see fast boards running around and doing... What's that form of gymnastics where you're like jumping off a building and then like jumping off a walls and stuff? Jim Kata? I don't think it's that. Jumping off of buildings and then like jump enough of walls and stuff Jim cotta Don't I don't think it's that. But yeah, they're like that's the one that has gymnastics thrills and karate kills at him It's that kind of fight scene and they've got like mini torpedo launchers like what spider-man would have shooting the web

They're shooting little mini torps out. I don't know if I remember the Borgs ever doing much shooting, and it seems like they were always just kind of converging with their crazy tool arms. And these guys are like ducking and doing shoulder rolls and- And start-track fighting too, like they're going hand-to-hand. Licking shots in the atmosphere, and they don't seem...

they're not... there's a whole bunch about them that is off. Like, they're not behaving the way Borg's normally do on a whole bunch of levels. One of which is they're like, talking. One of them is identifying the ethnicities of everybody out loud, which seems really problematic. Biological organism, click on that. Biological organism, you with that. It's like when you go out to dinner in public with like an elderly relative who really shouldn't be out in public, or like a very small child who just learned how to talk

and they're like pointing at people and describing what they are. That's not polite. My wife was telling me about an indigent person who hangs out outside the subway stop that she gets off at to go to work sometimes. And he just sits at the top of the stairs and everybody that walks by, he goes, Mexican.

Mexican. Everybody gets that description or just Mexicans. Everybody. That is so dope. I know it's like, I feel terrible because I see the guy. Does he hold that R like, and spool it up the way you did? I've only, I've only, you know, I have it second hand. I feel bad because he's probably mentally ill,

but it is like a really fun bit of business. Like he's doing his own very incorrect senses. Right. Our, this is the episode where everybody starts to hate us, right Adam? Yep. We made it, we made it to the end of season six and then all of our viewers were like wow these guys actually are kind of assholes. This is an answer to the question why don't you guys just do a general subject free form conversation podcast? Well, it would sound like this.

Mexican. Mexican. Oh, be quiet, Grandpa. In this fucking firefight, and it is a firefight, Wurf and Riker get pinned down pretty fast and data being data is somewhat out in the open, grappling with some people. And he grabs some guy by the throat. He grabs one of these borgs by the throat and lifts him up like undertaker style before winging him into a wall.

Now Adam, we've gotten a couple of emails about this. And I don't know if you knew this, but it's not technically speaking, it's not actually Borg's, it's Borg singular because it's a collective conscience. It's gonna take a long time to get used to, man. Ha ha ha ha. Yeah, he's got this Borg's and he is like choking him out.

He does the Batman slash Darth Vader thing of lifting him up off of his feet to choke him. Yeah. I thought at first he was going to rip his throat out Roadhouse style. Yeah, I mean, Roadhouse invented that, but McGroober made it famous. Right. Roadmasters, you're gonna wanna take the whole box. Awesome, got another threat rear fans.

You know, my wife has never seen McGroober, and I- What, that's a tragedy. I, the thing about that is I love that movie so much that if I were to sit her down and we were to watch it together and she hated it, I think it would have relationship compromising consequences. I don't know if we could recover from that, so I've sort of put it off. I'll watch my guru with you any time, buddy.

God, I love that movie so much. It's so good. And so, data stands there, like, sort of after having murdered this borax is like Satisfactorily nodding his head and looking around like yeah, look at me Yeah, he does that like passes his chest and puts his arms out like yeah, what's up? Like come at me bro like Nick Cage in the commissary in face-off Yeah me bro like Nick Cage in the commissary in face off. Yeah. Fun stuff. Yeah.

Meanwhile, I think like while this firefight is still going on, the entrepreneur has engaged a very strange starship in orbit, a strange and huge starship. It's a ship you might recognize from the start track, the next generation pinball game. Yeah, I mean, that must be where they got the idea from. Yeah, that's what I think. Looks like there's kind of a central thing

that's like a hexagonal volume, but then there's like bits that come off of it. And it's clearly just a billion times bigger than the entrepreneur, because even though it's fairly far away, it's still dwarfs our beloved ship in frame. What do you think of the ship in? I mean, I have so many questions about this ship.

Like, why is it shaped the way it is? Like, does that have, because like the cube kind of has a, is couched in some ideas about what the Borgs are about. Right. And this ship seems to be just a random shape. And also like where did they build it and when? Yeah, I really could have used more story here.

And I and in the absence of story, it could have been sort of a kit-bashed Borg cube. And then they wouldn't have had to explain anything at all. You would, you would see it and go, well, yeah, there's like Borgship elements there. But it looked so foreign to what the Borg are that it almost didn't register at all to me other than just being big. But it almost didn't register at all to me other than just being big. I think that the thing that could have made this more borgie is if they had gone with fewer clean panels and more pipes and wires. Because there's some sections of it where there's lots of pipes and wires, but a lot of it is kind of like, looks like it's made

out of sheet metal. It's got a smooth exterior, and that just doesn't read as a Borg construction mode. I also didn't think that the remastered version did the ship any favors. I don't know if it was just my copy of the app or what. Yeah, you can see that the ship is kind of aging. Some pancake makeup on the ship is not concealing. Some of the blemishes quite as well as you would want. It digitally looked like it had some more A on it.

Like it didn't look right in the recump on my TV, but maybe that was just me. Hmm. Well, maybe you have a terrible TV. Who knows? Maybe I do. As this ship is jetting out of the system, the entrepreneur attempts to fire torpedoes at it. Depend the alien ship is breaking orbit. Plotting to set course and some fire torpedoes.

They're gone, sir. But it kind of like blinks out of existence. It doesn't go to warp, and so they're like, huh. Seems like they have found a way to travel without using warping, and that is a big problem for us. You are a ship 100 times bigger than the entrepreneur. You have transwarp capabilities and weapons beyond your competition. Why did they bug out other than to help further the story? Well, I think here's my head cannon it, and maybe I'm being too forgiving to the writers,

but I think that they're mainly fucking around with Federation Stations to attract the entrepreneur and thereby attract data and thereby put data under this spell that he gets put under. So their work is kind of done. Like blowing up the enterprise doesn't actually advance their, like it would actually slow down their plot because they need him to like follow them. Right, right. So that's a maybe two forgiving, but that's my little headcanon.

All right, I'll go along with it. Thank you. What are the choice do I have? None. I have a dustbuster at your temple right now. I am a cute disaball. You will assist us. I am a cute disaball.

You are the ball. So they have a McLaughlin group at him. If you want, they're trying to get to the bottom of what is going on here because they have met some boards that don't act like boards. And this is strange to Picard. Picard immediately jumps to the conclusion of, like, well, does he have anything to do with this? Like, he's the only board that we remember being separated from the collective and sort of constructing his own personality and identity. Maybe that, maybe the virus worked. Right, but it doesn't seem to have made them any lesser threat because they're still going

around killing entire stations full of people. Yeah, oops. Yeah. To some extent, the virus, you know, the virus did part of what we wanted, but not the other part. And, uh, and that like pretty precipitously at Admiral Nichev is on board, like barking at Picard going like, why the fuck didn't you kill all the Borgs when you had an opportunity to kill all the Borgs? the Borgs when you had an opportunity to kill all the Borgs. Admiral Nichev gets knocked around for not being super pleasant to be in the same room as, but completely right here.

Right? Completely right. Yeah. I thought that this was a pretty interesting scene. I mean, I, like, Nichev showed up for the chain of command are great. That was her first introduction. So that happened after I Borg, if my memory serves me. I've read the report that you submitted to Admiral Brooks last year regarding the Borg you called Hugh. So it's a bit of a retcon because she's kind of acting like

that happened after Jean Picard met. I mean, I guess, I guess they could have met and it not been, I don't know, it just seemed weird that the timing was the way it was. I'm sure Picard was just happy to get past the first 10 seconds not having been relieved of command. Yeah. Because that's sort of her move, right? She beams on board and relieves you. This also sort of foreshadows some stuff that happens in the movie First Contact

because she sets up like, okay, we're gonna start patrolling for Borgs. You're gonna be in charge of Battle Group number three and I will be reassigning flagship duties to the Gorkhan. Yeah, that's a fun callback. Yeah. How'd you like to be stationed on the crazy horse, though? Man, if you had to pick Gorkhan or crazy horse, which do you go for? Crazy horse does not sound like a chill ship.

I also cringed at Agamemnon because it reminded me of the time I played Agamemnon in the school play and they put dark makeup on me. Any chance you get to refer to your illustrious award-winning acting career band? This was back when I had any fancy that I could act. I didn't like Agamemnon with Brad Pitt played him either. That is one thing I have in common with Brad Pitt is not only are we both bad at playing crazy, but we also have both portrayed Greeks. He gets more tan than I do though. I mean, a little bit more plausible for him maybe,

fractionally more plausible for him. It makes sense here and it makes sense in first contact. Ben, like, not sure you want this guy leading the fleet, W slash R slash T, Borgs are involved. He doesn't have any reason to resist any of what Nichev is telling him. And he's basically just saying yes sir, yes sir, yes sir.

And one of the orders that she gives him before she leaves is like shoot another opportunity to Zena side. All Borgs arise. You are under orders to take advantage of it. Yeah. He gets another chance. I guess. What else is she gonna do?

I don't know. I mean, it's the best ship, right? Yeah. But they can't just, they can't, I suppose, I suppose they could have pulled Jelico out of, out of mothballs and put him back in charge. And it would be hilarious. Anytime the entrepreneur is called into something

like Heady, they just slap out captains Jelekos the all-time quarterback. He's like Dennis Eccorsley. He's in there to like clean up, you know Yeah Jeleko being the Dennis Eccorsley of Starfleet is the sort of description you could only get on the greatest generation. The B story happening here is that Data's trying to figure out through his black box recorder what exactly happened when he lost his temper and and killed that guy on the surface? I got angry.

In a very data kind of way, he does the exact same thing over and over and over again, trying to get some semblance of a different response. And he does. He's got some, some perhaps strange advice from the counselor, which is like, go do more of that. If you got angry and vengeful, like, take a deep dive. And so he's running this super kinky holodeck program where he just repeatedly kills the same board.

Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop, stop, stop. Thinking that is not a great draw for an actor is guy getting choked and thrown against a wall, 60 times. Yeah, do you think that that guy had to audition? It's a tough day at the office. What are the sides for that audition look like?

Congratulations, you've been given the role of 13 of 17. We're gonna sit you here in the Sparbers chair for about 14 hours of makeup and then we're gonna throw you against a wall about 40 times. I can only imagine what this guy that had to put on all the board loaf. It's not really loaf, I guess. But it works like loaf. A fun bit of like, holodeck trivia here is that Jordy walks in and sees this experiment run. And data has been jacking up the difficulty level to like past all maddened settings.

And he's like, look, I can't go past a certain threshold without a second senior officer okaying it. So if you could just sign underneath my signature, we can go into a level that here too for. I haven't been able to experience. And shorties like, even for you, this is a little much, man. Like, do you think it's worth dying on a holodeck to see if you can feel anger again? I don't think so.

Jordie, a man who has done some really fucked up shit on a holodeck has finally found his threshold. Yeah, he goes from am I interrupting something to like, oh, last person that held a phaser to my head and asked me to sign on this line was Riker and I'm still like, reeling from that. What happens at the end of this scene? So I think this is when they, they like catch this, this board ship again. They've been getting false alarm or emergency action messages and finally they're getting like a real properly formatted

message and the borgs have attacked again and it's like they are the closest ship again. Doesn't it seem strange to you that there have been two borg attacks and the enterprise has been the nearly shipping both instances? So they chased this the the borgs this time and the borgs ship links out of existence and the entrepreneur follows it through the hole that it's made in space.

And they're like in this space butthole for a little while. It kind of looks like the bad dream that Diana Troy had. Yeah. The eyes in the dark dream. Yeah, and they come out the other side and they're like super, super far from where they started. Yeah, scary far. Well, I think they say 65 light years

from where they started. So they shouldn't have been able to travel this far in this amount of time. And I guess this is where they like, they get in a firefight where the ship is, it shoots something at them and it, like when the thing hits, Borg's materialized on the bridge.

So it's like a transporter projectile or something. Yeah, that was neat. Yeah, they get two guys and they kill one of them. The other one survives and they put them in the brig and it's like almost like the Che of Forza this happening. They have another borgs to monkey around with in the brig. How about warf shooting from the hip at the top of the horseshoe? Like there's a lot of phaser fire on the bridge here and he just sort of like wings a shot down range. Yeah, you gotta be careful. Data's sitting right there.

Since they're first in encounter with the Borg's ship earlier on and the episode they've station security people on the bridge, which I think is probably a good idea. Henceforth. Yeah, I thought that was a pretty wise. Yeah. So this guy they have in the brig is named Crosis, who is notable because his eyepiece looks exactly like the brooch as Wurf has on a sash. And his six pack, like his Borg six pack that you get when you're assimilated.

Yeah. Instead of attached to his abdomen, it's attached to his cod piece. Did you notice how he was moving? Like he had sort of, like his six pack was up away from his body. And so when he walked, it didn't move, but his body moved behind it.

It was a really weird looking effect. It was weird. Yeah. This episode begins a two episode arc that is basically Star Trek statement of, it's not Batman abs, it's Borg abs. Right. And Crosis is in here, like, basically proselytizing. He's, he's, uh, he's talking to Data the way a religious missionary would talk to

somebody who's having a hard time in and is kind of vulnerable to suggestion. I was like you once, without feeling that the one helped me. He can help you too. He can help you find a motion. Data is especially vulnerable because Crosis reaches over and presses a button on his arm and this little green light turns on and suddenly data is having the same feelings that he was having when he was in that fight before. Crosis is proselytizing.

Is really like, sing-songingly emotional? Like, he sounds like, he sounds really Joel Osteen. But like, robot voice Joel Osteen. It's really weird. And to see him all made up as a borax and talking this way, the incongruency there is just bizarre. God wants you to be rich. Don't forget to give me 10% of your income.

Get a load of my crazy teeth. This is a weird scene, not least of which, because of the excessive use of a split diopter shot where data turns away from the Borg, and it is like a total telenovela frame where they've got a split diopter so that the Borg and data are both in focus. And data is like having almost like sexual reaction to the feelings coursing through him.

If it meant that you could feel emotions again, would you kill Jordi? Yes. I would. Brent Spiner is having a sexual reaction to the production choice of a split diopter. Real quick, a split diopter lens is a lens with where one half is of a certain focal length and the other half is of a different and either closer or further away focal length. So things that are closer and further away

can be in focus at the same time. You see it used well in things all the time. It's a totally like acceptable technique, but they really never use it on this show. So it stood out and then the kind of context in which they whip it out in this episode is just so fucking extreme. Yeah, I mean, ideally you want production choices

like this to help tell the story or help emphasize a feeling, but like I'm not sure if you need crosses literally crawling out of data's head, like visually, to sell the idea that he is getting in Data's head. Yeah, like it's definitely meant to evoke like devil on the shoulder, but the thing that it evokes, in fact, is telenovela. Yeah, agreed.

Crosis is like, hey, you should get involved with my new Borg's religion and succumb to the will of the one. And Data's like, no, no, senior, no poires. Why don't you get back on the one tin down to Simphe Sinté where you belong! I don't know why they leave him alone with any prisoner. Like, it feels like in modern law enforcement rules that leaving a prisoner alone with a warden or an officer or something is generally frowned upon right? Yeah, you're asking for trouble. You want there to be a lot of like eyewitnesses to anything that happens. Yeah So there isn't eyewitness in this scene and it is a bejorin

Brigg employee back there who guess just isn't paying attention to anything that's happening. You feel like they invented bejorins because they were like, God, I am getting sick of putting all this fucking loaf on everybody. I think they invented bejorins for Michelle Forbes, who is the greatest.

Gotta get Michelle Forbes back on the show. Too bad she's not in this episode. I know. She wouldn't put up with Crosis's guff. Nothing, nothing. Get to your new big body, you can fit in the box. Get to your new big body, you can fit in the box. Well, they figure out how to open these

Borg space buttholes and they go through one and they find the planet that all of the Borg operations have been launched from. And they beam down and it's planet San Diego. Yeah, this episode is sponsored by the San Diego Tourism Board. There's like California poppies in the background. It's just like Oak, Savannah as far as the I can see. It's real pretty. It is pretty. It's just like, come on guys, like,

fucking go to a different state ever. If you're a new alien race and you're looking for a home world, I don't think you could do much better than planet San Diego. A fresh start awaits you. Did data steal the shuttle already at this point? Yeah. Data. Did I gloss over that? Data encroased Jacob Shuttle and then they go through the portal and the entrepreneur follows closely. And they follow the path of this shuttle to planet San Diego, where they don't just send some away teams,

they empty the ship onto the planet. Yeah, they put all active Starfleet personnel minus a skeleton crew, captained by Dr. Crusher onto the surface of this planet, looking for data in the shuttle. Did you notice the data shuttle was the L bass the original Malibu Picard shuttle? Oh, I didn't notice that that's awesome. Yeah cool So that one's got some miles is what I'm saying

Picard's orders for Beverly are basically like get the fuck out of here if that ship ever shows up. And don't worry about us. Like, we are taking a calculated risk here, but your orders are to get the ship back to Federation space. Beverly's got that look on her face. It's like, gulp. OK. It's a pretty awesome scene.

Like, it's one of those like, who's gonna be in command of the ship? Smash cut to, to Beverly, taking this awesome responsibility on her shoulders. And then that is the last we hear of what's going on with the ship because we're down on Planet San Diego for the rest of the episode, like crawling around on the hills, poking around

in the shuttle. And they find this crazy building that looks like a church that was designed by a Stark attack in the 80s. And this building is like heavily shielded, so they can't figure out what's going on inside it. And they walk in and it's like the craziest religious temple type setup and in walk like a million borgs and out walks data in knitwear Batman armor. He's got like a generic Oakland Raiders uniform. They're like datat.

That's not datat. What? Turns out Adam. It lore. The iconography in this room I found a little bit problematic. Whenever you have some tapestries with black, red, and white symbols on them. Yeah. Little skin crawly. with black, red, and white symbols on them. Mmm, yeah. Yeah.

Little, little skin crawly. Well, they are bad guys, Adam. Oh, yeah, I guess so. I love the idea that new Borgs, like N.U. Umelout Borgs, like at some point when they were creating their, their race, like they chose a planet, they had to choose a symbol. Who was a graphic designer before getting assimilated?

Garrett? Garrett, you were a graphic designer, weren't you? Yeah, it was... I designed some like icons for a couple of different apps before I got assimilated. You know what? I left because they were going super skeomorphic and that just wasn't me, you know. Much more into the flat design aesthetic, you know, just admit that this is a different,

this is a technology that is distinct from physical devices. And so at the end of season six, the throw-to-to-be continued is a not veiled thread at all by data. The sons of Song have joined together, and together we will destroy the federation. Hahahaha! Did you like this episode, Ben? I think it's a fun episode. It's a little bit like... Like we've talked about this a couple of times with episode arcs where it feels a bit like it's doing nothing but set the table.

There's not a lot of arc to this one. It doesn't pay anything off. It just sets up. And like that can work, and I feel like maybe it doesn't work that well here, but it is exciting to watch and fun. And they do a nice job of having different board, different behaving boards be an exciting new way to think about them. So, yeah, I mean, it's not a mountain for me, but I like it. Yeah, it seemed like as an antagonist,

the only hope you had against the Borgs was, was the idea that you could somehow exploit the weakness that they had, which was their interconnectedness and their slowness. And when you take away those two things, you sort of make them into an unbeatable enemy. And that part really excited me. Like I was super down with that. But the thing about this episode that frustrated me time and time again was how awful of a captain Picard was the entire time.

He's supposed to be working with the fleet on this problem. Niche have beamed herself over and told him as much. Like, we got a bunch of ships out here, we realize you're going to be the closest one, but like at no point does he consider bringing in other ships? The idea of beaming his entire ship's complement down to a planet and then leaving Beverly in charge. Like that's what the saucer section is for, right? Split the ship up, send half of the ship back home, and then keep a well-defended ship in orbit to give you some cover fire for the people down below.

And a thing to beam back up to. Yeah, there's so many things that he chooses to do here that just make no sense to me at all. And finally, like, going into a building, he, Jordy, and Troy, like they don't tell anyone before they go in, it makes no sense. So you might think that I dislike the episode after all that criticism, but I still, like, there's enough good about it that it's a pretty tasty treat. And there was a little bit of sadness here too watching it. Like, this is the last season finale, last conventional season finale that we're going to get.

And so to see them throw to be continued one last time, like, with that sort of break that we're gonna get. And so to see them throw two to be continued one last time, like with that sort of break that they had built in, I don't know, got a little sad. Yeah, man. Bummer. Yeah. Well, should we cheer ourselves up with some priority one messages at them?

Yeah, do you wanna tell the rest of the fleet we're going to check our priority ones? No let's just do it without asking. Great. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on secured channel. You need a supplement on top of the supplement. Yes extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Yes, extra. But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship! Adam, we have a couple of priority one messages on the docket today. The first one is from your hubby. It is of a personal nature, and it's for Laurel.

Here's the message. I was on second shift and couldn't be home when the first season came out. So you put the TV on the folding chair and held the receiver up to the speaker. You narrated, commented, and explained the sound effects. Luckily, no one in the office noticed the long calls every Monday night. There's no doubt I married the right one. Happy 30th, darling. Wow! Man! That reminded me of the whole being grounded at listening to an episode on the radio trick. How cool is that? That's great. That is a... that's a true show of affection.

Man, it would be fun to hear those recordings. It's gotta be a little bit like book on tape, right? You're hearing show and then you're hearing someone describe action? Yeah, I just gotta say, like, Hubby has a solid one in Laurel, because my wife would never do something like that for me. How long would it take for your wife to hang up on you if you tried this? She would find a way to hang up before I even asked. Yeah.

Do we have a second message, Adam? Sure do, Ben. Our second message is of a personal nature. It is from the Chris who is becoming an in-law, and it is for Perry with an A. Silky Perry. Secretly jacked Perry with the foot pervert cat. Message goes like this, thanks for being at my Klingon Bar Mitzvah. Your wife has riker consented to us nerding out at family gatherings. Heh heh heh.

So I wanted to formalize our... ...battie bench status. I can't flirt like Razz and Plavim or afford a real doll, but with you there... ...my wedding will be more fun than a hoosnog barbecue here's to future adventures or attaching and all of the space buttholes wow chris and fairy really have some big plans yeah that's a list with a number of check boxes and they get some work to do. You've touched my heart. And well I normally charge quite hand-simly for my real dolls.

I've decided to give you one for free, Chris and Perry. The one thing that I can't give you are the bodies of the Hushnack to make your barbecue with. You see I've destroyed all of these bodies. None of them exist anywhere. That said, perhaps that is the most tragic part of all of this because a nice slow-cooked hoosnack. You do an offset cook on your barbecue with a hoosnack meat over some water and the coals on the other side with some wood chips on tap. bring out the smoky flavor. That's good eating. I like to take some of the tougher parts of the Hussnack body and mix stew out of them.

Take two cans of cannelli beans, a Hussnack hamhawk. Two cans of dyes tomatoes. It goes perfectly with my wife's tea. You take a loaf of crushed deep red. It'll keep you warm on a very cold day. Cold Malibu day. You know what it dips below 70 in Malibu? I'll put on a hooded sweatshirt and make sure my famous who's next to you. Well, the only way we keep warm at him is

through the large s of our viewers who go to MaximumFund.org slashjumbo-tron and by priority one messages the hundred bucks for a personal message and 200 for a commercial message and they help us keep the lights on around here thanks all you find yourself one of those great big fat hushnacks with a large ash. Those make the best stews. That's not what large S means. I know that. A greatest gen live show is something you don't want to miss.

Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it! The Share Your Embarrassment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places.

Go to greatestgentour.com to get more info. That's greatestgentour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure delight full 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 non-giani I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are open, just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Well, rats, hey, they don't know 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 arc. We've got to get on the arc. It is about terrain,

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

And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org. Ben? What's that Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk shmoda? Drunk shmoda! Take it, pour the stuff, stack it up. Doesn't give a fuck everybody's drunk and touch it yours.

Kidding robot, homf, bim bim bim bim bim. No! Get the drunk shmoda! Get the drugs, Shibota! Get the drugs, Shibota! I did add them if you set your episode to the 25-minute and 30-second mark. This is when they have the fight in orbit with the Borgs ship. They've stationed a security guard on the bridge and there's this like Erica Strata security guard

off in the corner. He takes a Borg torpedo in this fight and the second, the fighting has settled down, a guy comes from around the corner to replace him. I just love the idea that there were actually two security guards up there, but one of them was hiding until his friend died. What's the time code on this?

You're looking for like 26 minutes and like two seconds when replacement guy comes out. It's just a real fun but a business. Ha ha ha ha. It's so dumb. God, there is kind of a lot happening in the background at this scene. It's a busy scene. There is a real dopey looking guy back there, who I think is your Shimoto right standing over the downed comrad?

You mean the blue shirt? No, the guy next to the blue shirt, the guy in gold. Yeah, that guy is my drunk Shimoda. That's a great Shimoda. My Shimoda is Picard for basically making five terrible decisions all in a row toward the end of this episode. His decisions don't make any sense. At least in first contact, you could say that he was acting vengefully, and that was like

the engine of his motivation. I don't know what his motivation here is. He doesn't appear to be under schedule or mission pressure from the Chev, so that doesn't seem to be a factor. I think he's just kind of fucking up. He's in one of those like decision spirals where I know this happens to all of us from time to time where you make like five or six bad ones in a row. And it's called the greatest generation, Adam. Yeah. Yeah. The greatest generation, 152 bad decisions in a row. Yeah, so Picard, back on the board for me, my drug shaman.

What do we have coming up on the next episode, Ben? The next episode is season seven, episode one, decent, part two. Picard Troy and Joydie are held prisoner by data who has left the entrepreneur to join his evil brother, Law, as leaders of the Borgs. Do you remember this episode, Adam? I remember it as being part two of the cliffhanger to the end of season six. Decent, part one. But other than that, not really. I've seen best of both worlds 40 times. I think it says a lot that I've seen decent one and two maybe four or five times.

Is your episode odometer similarly skewed? Well, the thing that I kept waiting for in this episode was Hugh showing back up, and he didn't. And I remember him being part of this arc, so I am excited to see him in the next episode or be confounded by how wrong I was. Well, much like the Borgs being reloaded with little mini-photons, so to have you and I been reloaded with Vito's band, care to use one on episode one of season seven. Hmm, I wouldn't use it on this personally. Yeah, me neither. I would like to preserve the continuity of a to be continued. Man, I totally forgot about Vitas.

I feel like we had them, we last had them so long ago. Yeah, really quick burnout on those last time. Yeah. Well, we'll carry them on. We will carry them on. OK, that will be the next episode. In the meantime, you can chat with us using the hashtag greatestgen on Twitter. Adam is at Cut for Time. I'm at BenjaminR, a HR.

There's also a terrific Facebook group, a great Reddit group, and a Wikipedia page. All splendid places to kill a few hours of a day online. We should thank Jerk Materia for our theme music and Adam Ragusia for a lot of the custom music you hear throughout the program. If you like what we did here we would really appreciate you supporting the show in one of a couple of ways. You can go to Maximumfund.org slash Donate to support the production of our show. We also have merchandise items at the max fund store and we're also going out on tour so we'd love to see about as many of you as possible out there will be in the Midwest and the East Coast. So pick up a

ticket. Come say hi. Bit.ly slash gg2 or 2017 for that tour. It's almost here, Ben. We should probably start pre-production on that. All right, well, whatever you say. With that, we will be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek, the next generation and an episode of the greatest generation that I hope has you in it. Otherwise otherwise I'll feel like a real idiot. Make it sound. Maximumfund.org

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