The Greatest Generation - Beagle Liver (ENT S1E3)

Episode Date: May 27, 2024

When the crew of the Entrepreneur is already bored, finding a haunted house vessel seems worth strapping up to explore. But when the horror show inside makes Hoshi’s bad day worse, the world’s smallest space explosion won’t save them from their globulin. Why exactly is Sluggo not well? In what way is Captain Archer like an aging relative? How do you play the America’s Test Kitchen drinking game? It’s the episode where liquid dog shit is a metaphor!Support the production of The Greatest GenerationGet a thing at podshop.biz!Sign up for our mailing list!Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Riker - Quantum LeapThe Greatest Generation is produced by Wynde PriddySocial media is managed by Rob Adler and Bill TilleyMusic by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFriends of DeSoto for: Labor | Democracy | JusticeDiscuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen and find us on social media:YouTube | Facebook | X | Instagram | TikTok | Mastodon | Bluesky | ThreadsAnd check out these online communities run by FODs: Reddit | USS Hood Discord | Facebook group | Wikia | FriendsOfDeSoto.social

The streaming CybOctacular is about to go away forever. You have until midnight on May 30th to watch it. This is your last chance. Go to greatestgentour.com for access. And we have news! Our sold out challenge coins are back! Just use your existing login credentials and grab one, but those are going away too, and Thursday, May 30th is your last chance to get one. Finally, we had so much fun at the meet and greets that we are scheduling one last session. On Thursday, May 30th, if you want to chat face to face with the Greatest Generation, this is your chance. The ticket link is at greatestgentour.com. All things come to an end, Ben.

Even Star Trek 5. Sad. That good Trek 5. Sad. That good? I think so. All right. Here's to the finest crew in Star Trek. When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument from me. This is a parody.

Paramount owns the song. Welcome to The Greatest Generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast. I'm Adam Pranica. I'm Ben Harrison. Hi. Have you recovered from last night? We ate a mountain of beef.

You remain impulsive carnivores. Yeah. Yeah, we did the thing we haven't done in a long time, which is go to a Korean barbecue together, which is one of the main forms of sustenance in Los Angeles. Yeah, just by like volume of calories, I think it is like probably 60% of all the sustenance in LA. What are the kinds?

There's tacos, there's burritos, there's Korean barbecue. Yeah, there's barely burritos here. Steakhouse. Those are all the kinds. Yeah. In-N-Out burgers probably count. That counts. But yeah, we did one of our classic KBBQ hangs, sort of a belated birthday celebration for you.

Had a great time. Yeah, it was special when the server put a little candle into the final beef that was being cooked on that grill. And boy, the exhaust fan just burned that thing right out. Oh yeah, it's just, it accelerates the amount of time that you have with that candle, right? Just causes so much oxygen to blow in at that wick that it burns extra hot and extra quickly. To answer your original question, I woke up feeling bad. I think I'm affected far more by food than I am by drink these days.

Wow. Didn't feel good. That's interesting. Yeah. Oh man. What about you? You're like a tank that drives through restaurants. I don't imagine you were affected in any way at all.

It did not affect me very badly. I was not affected as badly as I was by our recent outing to the Cheesecake Factory, which won't be hitting the bonus feed for a little while, but we have another episode of Factory Seconds that it's long and I think partly long because I was lying on the floor for a lot of the record. Our guest for that show may still be recovering from that experience. Look at all this beautiful food.

Can't wait for FODs to find out who that was. Yeah, it's exciting. Very exciting. I can't wait to find out what kind of not-premier episode Enterprise is going to throw our way, Ben. You want to see what that's about? Let's do it. It's season one, Episode 3? Fight or Flight?

We get a first shot in the cold open that is an extreme close-up of a Hoshi looking at a slug, and she's in there with Dr.. Flax and the story is they picked up this slug during an away mission and for some reason Hoshi thought it would be a good idea to take it with. I don't think there was enough scrutiny about just taking life from a planet up to the ship whenever you want. I wanted like slightly better understanding of what the decontamination chamber can and can't do.

W slash R slash T detecting pathogens. I mean, people are rubbing down their slugs inside the decontamination chamber, but not like this. Nonsense. Wait, maybe that's why this slug is sick. Maybe it had a bad reaction to the gel. Yeah, too much lube for the slug. Yeah, so the slug is not well

and has been brought to Six Bay so that Dr. Flax can see if he can help. I mean, I think the slug is just sad, you know? It's been taken out of its environment and the jar with the leaf and the stick isn't adequately reproducing the environment to which it has become accustomed. The slug's like, I can't fuck that.

What do you expect me to do with that? I don't know if this is like internet hyperbole or a real thing, but I saw some video at some point where a spider scientist was saying that if you take a spider and catch it under a glass and then go put it outside, that spider's going to die because that's an inside spider, not an outside spider. So you've doomed this spider to like a slow death rather than a quick death of just like hitting it with the back of a shoe or whatever. And I kind of feel like maybe that's what Hoshi has done here. You're, I think quite clearly advocating for the fact that Hoshi should have slapped this thing with her shoe. Yeah.

And ended it before bringing it to the ship. You're telling me Hoshi doesn't have like a strong flip-flop arm that she could have just squished this slug with, you know? You're not helping the slug, Hoshi. With how in her head Hoshi is this entire episode, I would have expected that to completely derail her in every possible way were she to destroy the slug.

LAUGHS Inwalks Trip and begins a thing I'm going to start counting, which is scenes in which Trip Tucker puts his face in extremely close proximity to someone else's. And that happened several times this episode beginning here. It really does. Yeah, Trip, you know, like it's cultural. Some cultures, the like distance that people feel comfortable standing from each other is very different from our own and Tripp is from Florida.

So who knows, man. Tripp just assumes Florida face rules are in play here. And almost cheek to cheek, he steps into frame and laments while looking at this slug. For all of their exploration, this sick old slug represents their only first contact. This kind of felt like the beginning of the third J.J. Abrams Star Trek film. Like, we're bored out here. We're sick and tired of how boring this is. It's episode three and we're already bored. I mean, so bored is Captain Archer that he is now freaking out because there's something squeaking under the floorboards

in his apartment and he can't locate it, making him look like a bit of a fool in front of T'Pol, driving him mental. The scans of the sector's ahead. Hear that? She's just there to do work, Ben. Like, this is another thing I'm starting to really pick up on is that most scenes involve DePaul just doing the work

that she's assigned to do and catching absolute strays from everyone else on the ship for it. What else is she supposed to do? There's Archer and they're going nuts about his floorboards. Do you think that's really important right now? It's very important to him because he's so goddamn bored. Interesting statistic we learn in this scene. One out of 43,000 planets supports intelligent life. So what are the chances as you're cruising around there at warp four that you're going to hit a good one? Yeah, there's a bit of a debate here because the humans have sent their shiny new Starship out to explore and like, you know, pick up the rocks and collect the slugs. And DiPaulo's like,

I don't know why you want to do that. We're not into that as Vulcans. Like that's not our bag at all. The boring emptiness of space is something that the Vulcans are just fine with. My people don't share your enthusiasm for exploration. Do you think T'Pol sounds weird? I talked about this in the first episode.

It feels like T'Pol sort of begins talking herself into sounding more Vulcan as that first episode goes on. I think I figured out what it is. She uses a lot of contractions in a way that the Vulcans we would get to know later on in Star Trek history would not. That's interesting. I wonder if that's like a reaction to more and more contact with humans. They're like, you know, we're gonna like

differentiate even more. She's kind of code switching a little bit, huh? Yeah. So Hoshi comes in, replacing T'Pol. Hoshi hates her quarters and wants to move to the other side of the ship. I should note that we do see the back of T'Pol's head when she leaves this room. Mm. It's good.

Am I going through a mental breakdown? Like, I just can't help counting these repetitive things that are happening on this show. We're three episodes in? ["T'Pol's Head"] I think I'm having a breakdown. Yeah. You're getting a little fastidious with your viewing of Trek.

Yeah. So, yeah, like, I don't know why, but we're getting a scene about Hoshi wanting to move quarters. The stars at night are big and bright! Wrong way. That's granted. I guess this scene is just about establishing that Archer considers having a translator aboard very important. Yeah, and he's willing to do whatever it takes to keep her comfortable, but she seems very

uncomfortable as she seemed throughout the entire two and one eighth episode that we've spent with her. There's a moment at the end of this scene that I think would suggest to most TV viewers that something bad is happening to Hoshi, perhaps even evil or possessed or whatever, because at the very end, she just stares at Archer in this weird ass way. And Archer's like, everything all right?

Is there something else, Hoshi? No, sir, thank you. She's like, yeah, fine. And then she leaves, and that's not, everything all right? Is there something else, Hoshie? No, sir, thank you. She's like, yeah, fine. And then she leaves and that's not the only time. God, there I go, counting again. Oh, I'm gonna lose my mind. How about no? We're gonna get you through this, buddy.

Yeah, you shouldn't just stare at your boss that way, though, is what I'm saying. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, it feels almost like as much foreshadowing as somebody coughing a little bit of blood into a white hanky. Yeah. Hoshi is having a day.

We cut down to the torpedo bay, where Reed is working on attempting to get the guidance system of the torpedoes going with Ensign Travis and I couldn't help but notice that they were doing simulation J6. I don't even like simulating J6. I don't I just want to forget it. Put it behind us. I like seeing torpedoes on the wall. That's fun. Yeah.

Where do you keep them? Might be a question you have. No, you just put them on the wall. And then I guess you hand carry them over to the launcher. What exactly is going on there? Yeah. What is this? Is that like a, is that a magazine?

Are we to imagine that that goes like far back into the bay? Yeah. There's like hundreds of torpedoes in there or 38 or whatever? I love how 80s cabinet video game the targeting system is on this ship. You'd expect, like you don't see it, but you'd expect the ball on the cabinet desk part, right?

Like that's how you aim whatever this thing is. You're using the ball in your hand. And all the like printing on the desk around the ball is all worn down. That is exactly what this looks like. And it should surprise no one that this thing is not accurate. When you use the ball, you're not going to be accurate. Yeah. this thing is not accurate. When you use the ball, you're not gonna be accurate. Yeah, it's something that like, I feel like they've done an interesting job with

on Strange New Worlds and Discovery. The budgets and technology and everything available to the set design departments on this show that is set before TOS are so much further along than they were in the 60s when they made the original Star Trek. And it's like, how do you make this ship look like it is from a hundred years before that ship?

It's ball. But also not shitty to look at, you know, for a modern audience. And it's ball, it's ball. Archer kind of styles himself as chief morale officer in this scene, cause he rolls in and he has a very Beverly Crusher kind of question. Like, well, maybe it's not the targeting sensors that's wrong.

Maybe it's your simulation that's wrong. What do you say we do some live fire stuff? We've got to find Mr. Reed something to blow up. Simulation J6 is bad. Does it make you think that, like that this is purely for morale's sake? He doesn't actually believe there's anything wrong with the simulation, right? I don't know. I do like the idea that he is taking it serious, that they can't fire torpedoes reliably.

I love that this is not the most important thing to Archer in this moment. He's more concerned about the squeaky floor plates than he is about a photon torpedo hitting its target. Well, you have to remember, like, the people that are telling them what to do and what not to do when they got into space don't really want them to go out into space. So when the Vulcans are like, I would not leave without an extremely good offense and defense situation figured out on your ship. They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You say that to everybody that you're trying to keep on earth. So we cut directly to that target practice and they can't hit shit. They can't hit any of the asteroids on the fence post here. And one of these shots even turns around and heads back for them. You would suspect that a scene like this would get

played for action. This torpedo would get closer and closer. Things would get scary. Nah. Nope. It's not scary at all. It turns back around and they destroy it at a safe distance. And Reed is going to need the entire episode to recalibrate the system. It does mildly bang the ship though. Like there's a light banger and I kind of feel like it's a scene that is there for Hoshi React more than it is a scene about establishing anything. How exciting do you think the moment is going to be

when these things start glowing? Like right now it just looks like a cruise missile with a fire behind it, you know, propelling it forward. Man, the first time they shoot a glowing photon torpedo, it'll blow some minds. Oh man. It's gonna look great. Can't wait.

I mean, it's, it already sounds right, you know? Like the torpedo exiting the ship has that Star Trek torpedo sound to it. I love how starting here, like they... There is no way shooting a torpedo is ever going to be cool on this show, up to and including the time when they need to defend themselves with it. We'll get to that a little later. Yeah.

So we cut down to the lunchroom. Phlox is enjoying his fake potatoes with Trip Tucker and expressing his desire to watch some humans fuck. And what's going on here seems pretty pervy, doesn't it? It's good to see you're enjoying yourself. There's a real great difference of philosophy here in this scene. Like, Trip is antsy. He wants to find something interesting on this mission, while Flox is satisfied finding the interesting in the everyday moments, right?

Including the raw red potato he is enjoying in this scene. Yeah. the raw red potato he is enjoying in this scene. Tripp should be delighted to be sitting next to a weird alien that wants to watch people fuck, you know? Like that's an adventure right there. Yeah. Flax is great. Yet another scene that makes that very clear. Flax is down for whatever.

Yeah. Also, misreading the signals, because when it cuts to the people that he suspects of being on the verge of nailing each other, they're just two people staring off into space, not interacting at all. Oh, yeah. I mean, it seems like they've been married for a number of years. Yeah. They're just one of those quiet couples that you see out at a restaurant. You're like, I hope we never get like that. So back on the bridge, T'Pol has found something weird on the sensors, a mystery vessel.

And when they roll up on it, they do some scans, but can't really determine anything about it. And Captain Archer's first communication, couldn't help but laugh at this. This is a great bit. It's basically like this. Hey, I'm new here. Here's how you find out where we live. And communication.

Yeah. If you joined a social network and the first thing you posted was your address. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's what we do. Yeah, he's like aging relative on a social network and the first post. If you'd like to call me on my landline telephone, here is that number.

I'm just here to make friends. Yeah, the like baby's first hail energy to this seat, I thought was really well done. Hey, maybe finish scanning the shit before you blow in a hail though. Cause like right after they get no response to this thing, they're like, Ooh, are those scorch marks? Yeah. This thing is looking pretty shot up and maybe the people on board are sick or dying.

There's some like debate about how deep of a scan to do. And T'Pol's like, well, it might violate their feeling of privacy if you scan inside their ship, but they go ahead and decide, since nobody's picking up the phone, to like peek in the window, I guess. And this is just too enticing a mystery for the humans to resist.

Like T'Pol is like, I do not want to fuck with these people. Like, can we just like leave this weird ship alone and go somewhere else? And Archer's like, no fucking way. We're sending a shuttle. This is great. I'm super excited about this. Not only can't he let it go, he can't resist skipping the line on all of the things you should do in a moment like this.

He does skip directly to board that ship. Yeah, Trip really wants to come on the mission, but we can't afford another horny Decon gel scene just yet. Yeah, give it a few more episodes, I'm sure. Part of these couple of interstitial scenes has to do with the fact that it takes a half an hour to prepare a shuttle to leave for a mission like this. So you get a lot of luxuriating and like not even prep for the mission. It's just like wandering around chatting with folks while I guess someone gases that thing

up. Geez. No, thank you. Just like the fact that we are reviewing episodes of Discovery alongside this where they're like, we're going to go on an away mission. And they like tap their chest and have appeared on the planet surface. Like before they've even completed the thought of maybe we should go down there and check things out.

It's outrageous. It's amazing. It's amazing how far they come in a thousand years. Yeah. That's how long the road is. A thousand years long. Archer's gotta feed his dog before they leave for this mission, and it is deeply unsettling that he's chosen a food that he knows will make Porto sick.

So let me get this straight. He's going to leave for a mission of an undetermined amount of time, and he's feeding his dog cheese before he goes. Andy has a floorboard situation in his quarters. What do you think is going to happen in there, Archer? It's just going to be an absolute, it's going to, you know, like that scene in Blade when he goes into the nightclub. Yeah.

It's going to be like that, but for liquid Beagle shit. Can't wait to see what you do with that one, Rob. Now we're just openly challenging Rob to do video for us. Openly challenging the sensors on the social networks to ban our accounts. It is time for another log in this scene during, and is the weirdness of these logs, does that have to do with we're finally seeing them again? I feel like for not just many seasons, many series of Trek television,

we're not seeing them being recorded. We're seeing them in an exterior shot of a space station or a ship. It's unsettling to watch them be recorded during, I think. Yeah, there's something very intimate about watching somebody try to collect their thoughts for the computer. Yeah. And the captain is being pretty brutally honest with his log about how.

How he's force feeding a beagle pieces of cheese, like he's making some fucking weird ass foie gras out of it. Yeah, you know, like people say it's cruel, but like porthos like the geese is begging for more cheese. Yeah, look, if I spread porthos parts on a toasted baguette, you're going to be a believer. on a toasted baguette, you're gonna be a believer. It's not that much. Fuck you, the state of California, I want Beagle Liver. Yeah, me and Christy Noem are actually getting into business doing that pretty soon.

She's a Republican. So yeah, he's complaining about how DePaul is really cramping his style and second guessing all of his ideas and also she's probably smarter than he is and is probably giving them good advice about what sleeping bears not to poke. Yeah. I mean, I wonder at what point we will be proven wrong about that suspicion. Like when Archer will actually do something that is smarter than T'Pol.

Not yet. Hasn't happened yet. So they're getting ready. Hoshi doesn't wanna go because EVA suit is not her thing and because she's slightly claustrophobic, they're like, you live on a starship. Hoshi's main character traits are being scared and uncomfortable at this point. And Archer's like, you're still a great communicator and that's why you're here.

So I'm going to say no to your request. You're coming with. You're coming with. Trip coming with trip cannot take your place Because we might need somebody to translate a weird alien language when we get over there. There is a mudroom Where the dust buster club prepares to board this shuttle? I think it's great and it makes a lot of sense, too It's just a practical thing to build into a remodel design. Yeah. They are preparing for war in there. The distribution of dustbusters has been authorized. Yeah.

Phased plasma rifle in a 40 watt range. Is this necessary? Just a precaution. Hoshi is getting nervoser and nervoser. I think especially when those weapons get passed around. Well, when, when Malgam Reed is like polishing his rifle in front of her, she's like, Jesus Christ, what are we talking about here? And then everybody's like, no, no, no, no, no.

We don't need to go in that strapped. You've seen too many science fiction movies. We just need the three-phase pistols. Put the rifles back. If I'm in this scene, I'm like, don't you polish the rifle before you put it away after the last mission? Yeah. What are we doing here? This is not Six Sigma at all. It's like your barbecue grill, right? You clean it when you're done cooking, and then you clean it again when you start cooking.

No one fucking knows this, Ben, except you and me. I feel like we're the only ones. You open up a friend's grill and it's an atrocity in there. I subscribe to the America's Test Kitchen rule. I dutifully put the ramekin of oil with the folded up paper towel next to my grill every time I do the grilling. Oh, I thought the America's Test Kitchen rule was to do a shot every time Bridget makes a sound

when something is delicious. Mm, mm, mm. That too. Or is that Julia? Mmm. That is really good. It's both of them. Yeah. I love that show. Oh, God. That show rules.

If you do a shot every time Dan Sousa says, "'Gorgeous,' you will fucking die of alcohol poisoning before the episode is over." Gorgeous. That looks very elegant. So the shuttle docks at the mystery ship and with just a couple of turns of some switches, they open up that exterior door. I love that Malcolm wants to use shape charges on the door and he's like, why don't we just

use the handle? Yeah. That's sort of why we docked here. Reed's the sort of guy that wants to go straight through the pants without unzipping. Yeah, he's my kind of guy. So yeah, they walk around. I love that they are observing like, oh, these people must be bipeds because they have ladders. They must have blood because there's blood everywhere

in kind of a splatter configuration. And there's like these weird machines pumping. It's a great haunted house scene. Like when Hoshi freaks out and their flashlight beams fall across all of these bodies hanging from the ceiling with like tubes coming out of them and going into these pumping devices. So gross.

I gotta say I have been done with Hoshi being scared until she pays it off with the scream. Ah! Ah! Ah! This is a scream queen scream right here. Linda Park fucking annihilates it. She does great.

Yeah, she does a great job. So we smash cut back to the decontamination chamber and Dr. Flock's giving him double thumbs up, like, you guys are good to go. Come on in. And the door flies open and T'Pol is like, okay, so like I said, fucking with this ship is bad and we should get out of here. Because whoever strung all those guys up and started draining them, probably coming back, right? Yeah. If you just look at the facts on paper, all they can do is wait and be attacked by whoever attacked that ship who are clearly coming back for whatever they're pumping out of those folks. I guess that's convincing enough.

Archer orders the ship back on course. Like, great, okay, makes sense to him. Faith of the fart. One thing we've been doing in my family every week is on Friday morning, my son and I get up together and bake a challah. And then at sundown, we eat that challah together as a family and it's just a really nice way to mark the rhythm of the week downshifting into the weekend.

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Flux gets in a bit of a panic measuring contest with Hoshi when she's talking to him about how much he hated seeing 15 bodies hanging from the ceiling on hooks. And he's like, I should tell you about the time I saw 17 dead bodies. We say this all the time on our show. Like the way to be a friend to someone is not to hear their pain and get into a measuring contest by volunteering your own. It's just hearing them out and being a good friend and listening. Maybe in Flox's culture, what he's doing is the right thing, but in our culture, it's

the wrong thing. 16 bodies strung up, connected to a pump, you think that's bad. Ha ha ha ha ha. Something completely unrelated. Ha ha ha ha. I like Phlox in this scene, obviously, because I like Phlox, but he's not just a doctor, he's also a therapist, and he's really good at listening

and offering judgment-free advice. If you set aside the whole idea of like, I've seen way more bodies than that, I'm a medical professional. Like, the other stuff you're saying I think makes a lot of sense. Yeah, but they're, you know, trying to feed Sluggo the Slug and talking through this stuff. Is this what you make Sluggo Cola out of? Drink Sluggo Cola. The Sluggo Cola in the galaxy. The fact that it's called Sluggo was-Cola out of? Drink Slug-O-Cola. The slug-o-cola in the galaxy.

The fact that it's called Slug-O was distracting to me. Yeah. And the color of it, like, you know the Ferengi are grinding up these slugs, aren't they? These are the ones. Yeah. It is a, I didn't sign up for this shit kind of conversation. I am an academic and I want to study alien languages

at a university. I don't want to be on a starship, like wandering into rooms where a bunch of people have been murdered and hung from chains. And Flox is like, that slug is experiencing something identical. You think he wants to be in a box with a leaf and a stick right now? And yet look at him. Look at him. He's adjusting.

Right. Look at him as I drop this thick white liquid inside of unspecified origin. Are you sure that's what she eats? It's close enough. And she's like, it smells like pineapple all of a sudden. It, it smells like uncooked red potato in here all of a sudden. Why is that? Speaking of dinner, it's dinner time at the world's smallest card table inside Archer's quarters. Yeah.

It's to Paul and Tripp Tucker who are seated on either side and Archer is not being very sociable or talkative. Archer, if you didn't want to have dinner guests, it's probably within your power not to have them. Captain's prerogative, right? Yeah. He's grizzled like an old ship captain, an old fisherman, right?

Yeah. He doesn't want to much talk about that mission on that ship with the dead barities, does he? Yeah. I like that T'Pol is like, I don't really understand your human emotions, but it seems like everybody's on a real bummer. So maybe we should go look at a cool stellar phenomenon to brighten everybody's spirits

a little bit. What's the matter? The tension bothering you? Not in the least. I love T'Pol here treating a child like a child because Archer is like a kid wanting to give a funeral to a dead goldfish. He doesn't know their culture or their customs. He just wants to project his own values onto them. Maybe they want to be strung up and connected to this tube pump. Maybe that's what they're into.

Maybe they're like the guy from Germany that wanted to be consumed by a cannibal and posted about it on Craigslist. I love the function of this scene, which is to remind Archer that he is the captain and he can order the ship to do whatever he wants. And he's like, he basically flips over the table and he's like, fine, I wanna take the ship back there and start poking around some pumps. Yeah, he flips out, he orders the ship back

to the wreck that they found, and we get a McLaughlin crew. Issue one. Where he is not really soliciting suggestions from his crew, but just barking orders and discussing what the layout of the away team is gonna be. He wants Hoshi and Trip to work on the technology side

of this computer, figure out like how to communicate with the people whose ship it is. And meanwhile, everybody else is going to go into the abattoir and do an autopsy basically. Where were you in the episode right now, W slash R slash T, these folks and whether or not this was like Where were you in the episode right now, W slash R slash T, these folks and whether or not this was like their special thing that they wanted to do or if it was an attack?

I felt like this was very ambiguous still. Yeah, I liked that about it because- Like I thought they were bat people, like the ship's dark. Maybe that's how they want it. Yeah, or maybe this is like, you know, when they die, they go be drained somewhere or something. I think that the episode does a really good job of leaving that ambiguous, but also giving you some clues.

Like the fact that the machine that the tubes are plugged in looks really different from the design of the rest of the ship. That's a key piece of this whole thing, yeah. And it's like just a great prop, like an all-time great prop with that like water sloshing around in it and stuff. It looked awesome.

Yeah. Hoshi is not psyched about having to go back, but at least she doesn't have to work in the body's room. So they board the ship again and Flax is great. He is observing and calling out all the different ways the crew people died. And he chooses to do an autopsy right there in the room of one of these dudes. Yeah, cuts him open and he spots an organ that he can like figure out what it does. And he's talking about how the machines that are pumping these corpses out are gathering a substance called triglobulin.

And the killers were clearly trying to gather it. And there are like a bunch of potential medical uses for triglobulin. Or you can just use it to, you know, like trick women into wanting to have sex with you apparently. Some of the descriptions are like, this sounds like a pill that you would see advertised in the back of a penthouse magazine. It's the name of a thing that no pharmaceutical company would use in a commercial either.

It just does not roll off the tongue. It does not sound positive. Trigobulin today. It does not roll off the tongue. It does not sound positive. Yeah. Try gobulin today. Ask your doctor about trigobulin. Triglobulin. No one's gonna do that. It's gonna be very unpopular.

How badly do you want an erection? Are you willing to trigobulin? Yeah. Triglobulin. See our ad in this month's issue of The Amazing Spider-Man in which he is coincidentally fighting the Green Goblin. Tucker gets the power turned back on in another part of the ship and he and Hoshi are hearing a pre-recorded message playing that they can't quite understand and they're trying at the same time to get a translation process going in order to send a distress call. That's their

part of the mission. They want to send something out from these people to get some help from maybe some living versions of what's on the ship. Some pre-pumps, if you will. I'm amazed at pumps, if you will. I'm amazed at what a genius Hoshi is, because she can have a conversation with Trip Tucker about how she doesn't feel like she is cut out for the demands of Starfleet and wants to go home, while also actively translating an alien language that she's never heard.

She's doing both at the same time. Well, I mean, we don't get much of a sample size here, but I do feel like you can do a lot of other tasks while also having a conversation with Tripp Tucker and feel like you're not going to miss much. She starts to get her arms around translating this language. She gets, I thought she kept yelling the word shit. She was yelling the word ship. Sure.

She was trying to find the cognate for ship, I guess. And yeah, she starts to get it and they send basically a distress signal out from this ship's radio. ["The Ships Radio Theme"] Radio. Back on Enterprise, T'Pol has blown in a call to Archer to say that the pumpers have come back, which is a term I'm using for the aliens that got those pumpers going on this ship.

Everyone needs to get the hell out of there. And before they leave Archer shoots the pump. I thought this was a great detail. That's it, get it. Fuck you guys you're not getting the trigobulon now. Trigobulon. You can scrape it off the floor with me! How far in the past am I now? I'm old! Something that you didn't maybe notice about each of was he was aging in reverse. And I, being the same species, do the same thing.

There is an essential question here, which is, if they're outgunned by this other ship, can Reed hit a moving target? The answer that Reed gives to Paul is no, not a chance. I can't even hit a stationary target. You want me to hit a ship moving through space? No way. Yeah. So it's kind of a race

because the shuttle's got to make it back to Enterprise before the pumpers get all the way there. And God, the pumpers are taking their sweet ass time, aren't they? They are being very slow and steady, but you can tell that they're bad just based on the design of their ship and the fact that the rays that it shoots are green.

There are bangers getting dropped on the NX01 while the shuttle is trying to come back aboard and it like knocks them off of the Canadarm that is mounted in the shuttle bay at one point. And it slaps the pipe right out of their hand. So they reattach and they go aboard and a couple of torpedoes get fired at the pumpers.

Boy, this is disappointing. This is like, this is effective. I think this is what the show wants us to think because like the music swells, we're ready to hit the button till fire torpedoes. And it's like that moment in Independence day, right? Like we're launching nukes and we're expecting things to blow big. And it is, it's so disappointing. Less than nothing happens.

The size of the little explosions relative to the pumper's ship is just like, oh, fuck. We are no match for these guys. There's a game that Pete Holmes plays on his show. His show is famously on video where with the guest, he plays a game called Smallest Smile. And it's great because it always makes them both laugh because whenever someone tries to make a very small smile, it's just very fun to do, fun and funny to do. Let's play a game called World's Smallest Space Explosion, where let's

go back and forth a couple of times doing the sound of this incredibly feeble torpedo. Are you ready? Okay. Do you want me to go first? Yeah. That's good. That's good. Okay. Okay. That's really good. See that's a fun game. That was a good game. So they're getting their asses absolutely handed to them. They get bio probed by this ship. And Fox is like, yeah, they were probably like looking

to see if you've got dragobulin or something else that they might want in your birdies that they could, you know, pump out of you. Yeah, start deciding where you want that hose to go. It's basically the vibe. Meanwhile. Where y'all want that hose to go? And they get like tracker beams by the pumper ship. And meanwhile, another ship shows up.

Would you have expected more pumping from the pumper ship in terms of technology? Oh, like everything that they shoot feels like it's pumping something back. Yeah. There's a lot of beam faced stuff. And also like later on when they dropped those grapplers on and there's a drill, like I would have expected some pumping going on there, right? Right, right. Well, maybe like once the drill penetrates is when the pumping starts,

but they didn't get that far. That is frequently when it begins, yeah. Yeah. The other ship that shows up, it looks like the original ship and they get on FaceTime. And this is a scene of great tension because initially, Hoshi is trying to like type in her responses to this guy, cause they don't have a universal translator.

And she is trying to like convey relatively complex sentiments that the captain is yelling at this guy in a language that she is just starting to get a sense of. And this guy is not understanding. She is struggling. Ben, do you think in October of 2001, texting people, like important information was a thing? Like I don't think they had any idea at this moment in time how true a moment like this would become. Like, you don't text something important to people that you're trying to convey,

especially if there's a language barrier there, you're gonna screw it up. You're gonna do bad. Yeah. Early in my relationship where I had like a text argument with the woman who is now my wife. And I was like, we shouldn't probably have talked about that over text.

Like that was kind of bad. We looked down at the screen of the things how she's texting and she's like, we need to talk. It's serious. I'm late. What are you going to do about it? And this alien is on the FaceTime going, yeah, so they're getting their hull drilled and Hoshi has to stand up and start speaking out loud to this guy. And the concept that she finally succeeds in getting across is

scan the pumps, scan the pumps. Scan the pumps on the other ship. You'll see that they are the same kind of power signature as this ship that is currently drilling us. And this works. This guy realizes who the bad guys are and who the good guys are. And he fires on the pumper ship.

And that breaks the connection so theXL-1 can get away. And it is right then that Malcolm Reed's like, hey, I think I can nail him with one torpedo. You know, just for our pride. Yeah, like it's a little bit better. And then this other guy like destroys the pumper ship. I was kind of surprised by this. Yeah. Yeah, but also like the pumper ship. I was kind of surprised by this. Yeah. Yeah, but also like the pumper ship killed all of that guy's buddies over on the other ship.

I understand why he did it, but like archers like, yeah, so we made a friend out here. Like we met the Axenar, they're androgynous and they live for 400 years and now they're our buddies. And now Flux lives with them. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, but you also definitely made an enemy. Like the pumper guys are going to be mad if they ever find out that you were part of that whole scene. Uh, yeah, but without a pump and without a trace, they were blown into smithereens, Ben.

Yeah. I don't think that's on them at all. And with Hoshi's great translation skills, I think she could explain their way out of that problem, right? Yeah. I don't think that's on them at all. And with Hoshi's great translation skills, I think she could explain their way out of that problem. Right? Yeah. So a button on the episode is her and Flox stopping on a planet that has a similar biome to the one that they picked up Sluggo on

and saying goodbye to our little pet. It's like a metaphor for like the, you know, the slug couldn't adapt to the starship, but maybe how she can. Metaphor. We cut back up to Archer's quarters and he is rolling up and throwing away the carpet in his room, having been completely soiled with dog diarrhea.

Metaphor. Yeah, I agree with you that that was a metaphor. Did you like this episode? [♪ MUSIC PLAYING FADES IN AND OUT OF THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOWERS THE WINDOWS AND TOW scary and weird, and they don't know what's going on for most of it. And I liked that the episode didn't tilt its hand at all about what was going on until pretty late in the ep. And I thought Hoshi's arc was also very relatable. Like that feeling of maybe I've bitten off more than I can chew, maybe this wasn't a good life choice by me

to like come on this ship felt really well explored. And I like that character a lot. Like she's already gotten a more interesting storyline than like Troy or Beverly got in like the first half of all of TNG. Yeah, I'd agree with that. I am, uh, I'm very glad that the Hoshi is scared storyline might have ended here. Or maybe at least the, the lack of Hoshi confidence storyline might be done. I'm clear with that.

Yeah. I also think I want to start a thing this episode, which is the Captain Archer likeability scale We're three episodes in I'm just gonna say it I don't like that guy I Don't like him as a captain. I like him fine as a person I'm gonna put him in a three on a scale of ten right now And I think we're gonna we're to come back to that from time to time. He doesn't seem like the guy to be sent out on this mission. He seems too impulsive. Like I shouldn't be siding with T'Pol on all of the arguments between them, but I am

because he's not doing this right. He's getting, you're going to get your crew killed. He's gonna, you're gonna get your crew killed. -♪ ROCK MUSIC PLAYING -♪ -♪ BASS MUSIC PLAYING -♪ A Starfleet captain on the first long-range exploration mission should be a little more careful just launching into alien cultures without doing a little more research

or being a little more careful. Yeah, I really agree. Like, there's something about him where I think that, like like they are trying to draw a bright line under this is a ship that is doing things that have never been done before. And these aren't just their first time meeting these aliens, it's their first time meeting aliens of any kind. Like they've never heard of Klingons, they've never heard of Romulans. All of this stuff is going to be new to them. But he doesn't feel like the guy that has the right, like, disposition to be the first to do all these things. In a space program parlance, I think the word you're

looking for is stuff. Yeah. He doesn't have the right stuff. And, uh, that feels intentional, right? Like it doesn't feel like they're like miss- mis-drawing the character. No, yeah, I think we're reading him correctly. I just wonder if he's on a track towards stuff, you know?

Yeah, will he get the right stuff? Maybe even double stuff. Yeah. Well, we will find out, and we will also find out what's in the Priority One inbox if we head over there. What do you say, Adam? Oh, I'm hoping for double stuff today. Wow. Priority One message from Starfleet coming in on Secure Channel.

Need a supplemental income. Supplemental income? Supplemental. Supplemental. Yeah, it's extra. By the interest alone, could be enough to buy this ship. Ben, we got a promotional Prior priority one message here. That message goes like this, Dear Ben and Adam, it's been a long road but I've caught up with TGG mid-seven season

Voyager and TGD. Wow. Pods have meant a lot to me and I wanted to chip in. I only made it through the first few episodes of Enterprise when it was on. I heard it gets better later. But I love your goofs, and I'm looking forward to hearing them. Hoping they will get me through these first few rough episodes and seasons as they've gotten me through hard times in life before. I'll end by shoving some scarves into the Drop Jukebox, calling up some DS9. David Simon's request is for the O'Brien trap and the

Odo interstitial. Wow. I am Chief Miles Edward O'Brien. This is fucking spectacular. To be quite honest about it, I was in a pale. A bucket? Mr. Bucket! I have to revert back to my dead state. Oh, no! I don to revert back to my state. Oh, fool!

I don't use the bucket anymore. David Simon made sure to mention that he was not the wire guy. And I'm glad that he said so, because I would have just assumed. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm sure that that David Simon is also a huge fan of our work. Yeah, likewise. So we have a couple of David Simons in the huge fan of our work. Yeah, likewise. So we have a couple of David Simons in the audience.

That's great. Our next priority one message is of a personal nature. It's from Jared's three daughters, Olivia, Rose, and Luna, and his wife Molly. And it's to Jared slash Daddy. Goes like this. Happy birthday to our hero, Jared slash Daddy. Thank you for dealing with a house full of silly gooses and for getting us ice cream more often than is reasonable.

We hope you enjoy hearing your fave podcast hosts read this message to you while you are either in the shower or at work with Jerome with love from Molly, Olivia, Rose, Luna, and the cats. Amazing. Looks like this is a little bit of a belated birthday for Jared, but happy birthday, Jared. And say what's up to Jerome, I guess. I don't know. Jared's got a great sounding family there.

Happy birthday. Happy birthday, daddy. Finally, we have a priority one message here. Ben, it is to you and me. It's from Jockum Vandeberg. All right. Message goes like this. Hi Ben and Adam. I listen to GGG often while on the go or doing chores. Last week, I had to stop halfway making the bed because I laughed so hard about a discussion between you two about sucking fingers It reminded me again why I listened to the show and I wanted to send some scarves to help you keep up the great work Cheers from the Netherlands Wow. I mean I'm having a hard time thinking of which episode that was there are just so many

Having to do with finger sucking finger sucking has been It's a light theme of our work I would say. Yeah. I've been trying to convince Adam to go, your wife is going on a work trip to the Netherlands, you should go man. I was really curious about how you're gonna pivot

the subject of finger sucking into something my wife was doing. You gotta go, it's the best finger sucking into something my wife was doing. You gotta go. It's the best finger sucking country. I've been to the Netherlands, all right? It's fine. Wow, I think it's great. It's the only non-English speaking country

I've ever visited where people thought I was a local. People came up to me and started speaking to me in the local tongue. Let me ask you a serious question. Is the Netherlands so great that it is better than staying at home alone for an entire week? Because I kind of have my decision made. You know? Chime in on the priority one messages.

Let us know what you think by going to maximumfund.org slash Jumbotron, where all manner of messages are communicated to family members and to us. And maybe one day they will have the opinion of whether or not it's best to do foreign travel or stay at home by yourself. Indeed. Well, that was a lot of fun,

but I guess I just have one question for you, Adam. What's that, Ben? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Incredible. Drunk Shimoda. It's gonna be Dr. Flax until it's not. Oh, wow. He is in his own show, doing his own things.

You just go to Six-Bay and you're on the Dr. Flax show. in his own show, doing his own things. Yeah. You just go to Six Bay and you're on the Dr. Flock show. Sometimes he's out of Six Bay, going on away missions and stuff, but he takes the show with him. He takes the Dr. Flock show with him, yeah. When he's wearing the suit, that's the Dr. Flock show. When he's wearing his robes or whatever on the bridge,

also the Dr. Flock show. Yeah, make mine Dr. Floch's make it a double. How about you? Uh, Hoshi is my drunk Shimoda. You killed Slego Hoshi like Slego dead. Like you took Slego out of Slego's habitat. You may have also done something terrible to the biome on the planet.

You dropped Slego off on, you know, who knows, like, how long-lived Sluggo is? Like, maybe Sluggo can reproduce asexually, and maybe you just introduced an invasive species that's gonna destroy everything. What a mess. I don't think anyone cares about that on this show yet. No. Yeah, it was like early days, then they're gonna... It's all gonna come back and bite them in the ass later.

They're really doing butterfly effect pretty often on this show, I think. Yeah, they're getting it started early. So, Hoshi is my drunk Shimoda. Good one. Faith of the fart. Adam, we gotta turn to the game of butt holes. Will of the Rikeriker colon quantum leap. That's right. Is that what we're calling it? Yep.

I'm gonna tell you about season one episode four of Star Trek Enterprise. It's called Strange New World. Crew members go on a survey mission to a seemingly uninhabited Earth-like planet where a mysterious alien presence sends them into a state of paranoid overdrive. Well that sounds exciting.

Wonder how we're going to experience it. Well to find out you're going to have to roll our D100 on this new edition of the game. You're required to learn as you play. Roll. We're just going to go to whatever square the D100 tells us to go, and all around on this board are brand new tiles. Let's see if we hit one. Phew.

Ben, I rolled an 87. Chula! Did I win? Hardly. It is an open space. It's a regular old episode for us coming up next. Awesome. We almost hit the temporal Cold War square,

which would have made us react to three old bad reviews of the greatest generation on the next Marin. What a fucker of a square. Wow. Of course, the vetoes are back, but if we use a veto on a modifier like that, it means we have to record a bonus episode about a quantum leap. You want to send us into a tailspin for a period of weeks?

That temporal Cold War square would do it. You know what I think would happen though is that people would hear the dunks and then maybe they would finally be convinced to leave a five-star review wherever they listen to a podcast that'd be great. That would be really nice yeah if you if you're hearing this and you haven't yet leave a five-star review it doesn't take that long. It's easy it's easy and then it's over. Okay Adam well I'm really looking forward to next week I'm so glad that we didn't hit that temporal Cold War square. Yeah me too but. But you know what is a hit? That theme music.

Theme music's a hit. Can't get it out of my head. Adam Ragusea helped us make that as he helps us make all the music on the show. You know, the music that plays underneath our credits is made by Dark Materia, though. That's not going anywhere. We love that song. We sure do. We love Windy Pretty, our producer and editor, who makes us sound good and coherent. Got to thank Rob Adler, our social media director,

and Bill Tilly, our Zindi War consigliere. I have it on good authority that Bill Tilly is getting back into the card game and is gonna once again become the card daddy. I am so excited about the return of card daddy. And relatedly, Rob Adler will soon be making a video filled with beagle diarrhea. So they are both very talented in their own ways. To that end, follow us on all of your social media accounts, at Greatest Trek.

Rob Adler's been doing great videos every week, you know, just pulling out a funny clip from the show and making a video about it. And you know, if you could repost that or like it or comment on it or whatever the thing is that works on whatever social media platform you're talking about. We'd sure appreciate it. We're also on YouTube. We're posting episodes onto YouTube now. If you want a subtle way to listen while you're at work or whatever, use that. It's right there. And with that, we will be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise, an episode of the Greatest Generation Enterprise where we are joined by a mysterious presence as well.

There's like a third mic set up and gosh, who knows, you know. Is that an alien or what? Creepy. Jean-Luc Picard, the U.S. 10th Santa Claus Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the U.S. 10th Santa Claus Make it so, make it so Jean-Luc Picard, car, car, car