The Greatest Generation - Break The Internet, T’Kumbra (DS9 S7E4)

Episode Date: September 7, 2020

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Priority 1 message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Hey friends of Disodo. Before today's episode, we just wanted to take a moment to talk about the historic labor actions being taken by writers and actors in the American Film and Television industry. If you're a fan of the work done by the people who make Star Trek, we hope you'll join us in standing in solidarity with the folks who actually bring these adventures to life. Over the past several years, the AMPTP, the organization that represents the American Film and Television Production Studios, have reduced the profit from movies and TV going to workers. And in so doing,

they've attempted to weaken the labor unions that represent those workers. They wouldn't even engage the unions on many issues in their negotiations. And so a strike was the only course of action to take. Adam, Wendy and I have been having a lot of internal discussions about how best to stand with the unions and we are continuing those conversations in a dynamic situation. We're doing our best to understand where the picket lines are in these digital spaces,

and we would never intentionally cross one. With the information we have, we feel like we can do more good talking about and supporting the strike and continuing our show as planned. We'll keep you informed about what all this means for greatest trek specifically. Today we're making a contribution to the Entertainment Community Fund. This fund exists to help all the people whose livelihoods have been put on hold because the AMPTP refuses to negotiate

in good faith with the unions. It provides financial support for writers, actors, and all the thousands of laborers who make the shows that we talk about here and without whom we wouldn't have Star Trek to cast pot about. Those folks are all out of work because billionaires, company shareholders, and the executives of these companies don't want to compromise on the length of their yachts. We hope you'll join us in supporting entertainment workers in a challenging time, especially after they've already endured several years of challenges brought on by the pandemic

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest generation Deep Space 9. It's a Star Trek podcast from a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast.

I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pryanaka. Hey! Hey! Ben, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like today's episode is the first sports episode of Star Trek maybe we've ever gotten, right? The human drama of athletic competition. My very name is racist.

This is ABC's wide world sports. And I'm not talking about a fake sport like... Right. Parisi squares. Like, like whatever Bashir and Kira played in the Hala suite that one time. I'm talking about a real sport, a real earthly sport. A real sport that real people practice like Anbojitsu. I... I'd play Anbo Jitsu right now.

I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, feel like over the years, I've made some both thinly and not very thinly veiled remarks about your specific sports history and what I believe it to be. But I thought maybe for the open to day you and I could talk about just what our sports experience has been. Oh, sure. Growing up and up to now, I think that might make for some interesting chat. Yeah. Couple of high performance athletic machines here

on the mic. Ha, ha, ha. Tought sinewy podcasters such as ourselves. Yeah. Well, I played a lot of different sports growing up. I was always in team sports from Kenny Garden on. I played soccer when I was a little kid. And then, uh...

I think I played a lot of kids played soccer, right? Like that might have been the entry point into sport for most of the idols. Well, it's a nice sport for a little because really all you need equipment wise is for your mom to take you to the weird soccer store and get some shin guards and cleats. But I did like the feel of those shin guards, the spring to the sponge of the foam on the part that touches your shin.

I really like picking at that. I remember being fascinated at the like layer of dry skin, I really like picking at that. I remember being fascinated at the layer of dry skin that I could scrape away with a fingernail when I took the shin guards off. You know? So nasty. It was delicious, Adam. A little kid soccer, a great tucker out the kids sport too, right?

Oh, yeah, running and running and running. Yeah. Let's see, then I was after the smash hit motion picture, the mighty ducks got into ice hockey for several years. I can't believe this. Every day with your podcasting partner, you want to make sure it feels like the first time. Yeah, you wanna?

You wanna, every time you heat up the mic to feel like the first date. I love that I'm still finding things out about you. This is great. Hockey, you're a tall. I think a lot of people would call you that. Yeah. Were you a fast tall bloomer?

Like were you tall for the kids your age? I was always like one of the tallest kids in my class. I was never the tallest. Like never once in my entire elementary through high school experience was like the tallest kid in my class. But did you have crazy growth spurt? I did, but I didn't stop growing

till I was like 25. Like I was like 62 when I graduated high school and I'm 64 now. My wife and I have been watching the Jordan documentary. And one of the, like there's a lot that's funny about that doc, like there's comedy, peppered throughout. And one of the biggest laughs that it got out of me was like Jordan goes to college at like six three, goes away for the summer and comes back five inches

taller. I don't know how that happens. As far as I know, I stopped growing my senior year of high school. Yeah, I mean, I was, I was an awkward boy. I think my feet stopped growing when I was like 10 and a half. So I have size 13 feet, and I was probably like five, six when my feet got to size 13. Can I ask you a question? When I was growing, I sort of never thought I would stop. And so like at least in my household, you're buying for a size up to get that

product longevity and shoes and pants and shirts. I have, I stopped growing, but I kept getting bigger clothes, expecting that to happen. Was there a moment in your childhood where, where like, you outpaced the, the growth in growth in shoe and shirt size and that point, you were like, whoa, I gotta, now everything is too big for me and I look crazy. You know, it's like you saying this is kind of blowing my mind right now because I have always wondered why it took me so long.

Like I was in like my mid to late 20s before I figured out what sizes of clothes even fit me Exactly the same. Yeah, and I've always described that to the kind of late 90s Fashion of wearing too big of clothes, you know big big baggy pants and shirts where the where the seam is way down off the shoulder dress like that. You're all puffed up. And I never made the connection that it was probably also partly that as a kid, it was just,

like we were firing at a moving target every time we bought clothes for me. It was shopping for value every time. Every back to school sale was like, can we squeeze another year out of this? Yeah, that really influenced, that had to influence the style for kids our age. And like you, that was something that stuck with me

through college and into my first job. Like I shudder at the pictures of myself around those times. Like the don't be mall sweater that I feel like I had four of. That all of my friends did too. Yeah. So I got out of ice hockey partly due to that awkwardness because I was also kind of a late to puberty person and the kids that went through puberty early were like, it coincided with,

it goes from no contact ice hockey to full checking like, and these kids have beards ice hockey and I was just getting like, like seriously injured every single game. Like, like walking around at school, like, like working my jaw, because I'd like gone down so hard on the ice that even my full face helmet had not protected me.

It's incredible to think of all the undiagnosed concussions that you and I probably had. And you're sports. Yeah. So I got into Little League Baseball then, and that was, you know, like I hadn't done like a, you know, grassy field outdoor sport since I had done soccer. So that was kind of a refreshing thing to return to. And that was something I did, like kind of middle school and maybe early high school years. But I was always at schools that didn't really have much of a sports program. So this was all like the local park league or whatever. And eventually, I got into a rolling crew.

And that took, you know, that was like, usually a practice like every single day of the week. And many days, there were like, double ups where you'd have to be there at like, 4.30 a.m. to practice. And then you'd like, go again after school and practice more. Right. Right. to practice and then you'd like go again after school and practice more. So I didn't really have a lot of time for like friends or anything. That's doing that. Wow. So when did your sports career effectively end then? It ended when Lord of the Rings, the two towers came out. That is the way too specific. I had like achieved the thing that I had really been working hard on in crew, which was getting my 2K under seven minutes,

which means you're rowing, like on a rowing machine, but you're rowing the equivalent of 2,000 meters in less than seven minutes. And it's like a test that you do periodically and the coaches use it to SS who is gonna be in which boat. But I was never- Were you ever scouted by coaches

and were like, you know, this guy, this guy might have some potential. Like why not give him a scholarship or something? Like, was that ever on your mind? It was not, I wasn't scouted, but I did like, when I did my like college tour, I did like go to the boat houses at a few of the Northeastern colleges

that I was interested in and like meet the, like I would've had to try out for any crew team but and I'm not sure if I would have gotten financially because of it or not but I'm like built for that sport like being in like the middle of an eight man boat and just like pulling super hard. It's like the only thing that I was ever like actually that that athletically. But then that movie came out and I was like, I was doing that Larry David, like do I go watch this movie with my friends or do I go sweat for two hours

with a bunch of kids that I hate? And I, That's incredible that you had a specific moment like that, like a choice. Yeah. Because for most people I feel like the season's over and maybe I'll pick it up next year and you just don't register for the sport or whatever.

Yeah, well, it was one of those things where I'd like gotten my split down to where I was hitting that 2K in under seven minutes and I was still in the sea boat and I was like, you know, I'm better than the kids in the B boat, you know. I should at least be there. I bet you were fucked in the abode. It's not the abode. It's like rowing as a sport is like one of the best full body sports you can do,

where you just totally chiseled. It's not like a muscley sport though. It's like, because you're out in like cold weather, like in the mornings and stuff, so you never get like, you never get, you're very lean and you have good muscle tone, but it's not like weight lifting.

I've got some real back envy, hearing about this because I'm sure your back's never gonna let you down. Yeah, the back growing up like that. The back does get a nice workout. I've always thought if I ever have enough space for it that I would like to get a rowing machine as a, that is a workout that I would like to get a rowing machine as a,

like, that is a, that's a workout that I like know how to do pretty well. Yeah. What about you? What were your sports going up? Back when I used to go to the gym, the rower was, was a thing I like to do, but very difficult. Like, it's not the kind of warm-up that I felt like, invigorated for the rest of my workout after it made me tired. It made me tired for the workout that followed in a unproductive way. Oh, man It used to be like like if I knew I had a 2k coming up on Friday

It ruined my week because it was so scary to know like that you had to like work that hard like just it's You know, it's it's a sprint, but it's a seven minute sprint, so it really fucks your shit up. Yeah. Like literally everything else been. I may be the one making fun of you about a thing, but I'm the one that has less experience or like my stories aren't as interesting as yours. But I'm the one that has less experience or

Like my stories aren't aren't as interesting as yours like and and that would go in sport and it would go in filmmaking and it would go for For most things in life. I'm a time the I'm the the muddrower, but I But it's very self-deprecating. It's all bullshit. Here's my, here's my sports history. Little kid soccer, just like you. Very, very get out of the house and run yourself ragged. Kid was the message there. My family then moved to the Seattle area and I don't know if it's like this where you grew up, but it felt very different to me athletically to enter in a place that took Little League Baseball very seriously,

very seriously. And so I thought I was joining something fun and recreational, and what it ended up being was like coach dads instilling an amount of seriousness at the expense of fun that made it really difficult to enjoy for more than a season. And so after that first season, I stopped playing. It didn't. I mean, and this was, this is not to be confused with the middle school baseball league that I baseball team that I played on, which I don't know about you when you're in in the seventh grade in middle school.

Yeah. That's basically the best time for minds, bodies and hearts to be thrown into anything competitive. Yeah. And you know, you do your try out and then you get, if you're me, you think you did pretty well during tryouts, but instead are put on the not just the JV team, but the the JV, JV team, the A, E, JV team, extremely junior. The team that they don't even have enough uniforms for,

so you're wearing the girl's softball uniforms. And that's what we did. Wow. And some of my, some of my both favorite memories and most awful memories of middle school come from playing baseball around that time. I left baseball as soon as possible after an in glorious season went to play tennis in middle school, which ended up being great for

me. It felt like I played both singles and doubles and I felt like playing singles was good for the confidence, good for my athleticism. It was something I felt like I was good for the confidence, good for my athleticism. It was something I felt like I was good at. And it was fun too. That was like my first taste of being good at something. And like winning a game against a stranger is a lot when you were a middle schooler without a lot of confidence.

Oh, absolutely. So that was, and in a one-on-one context too, like that's crazy. Yeah, I never had that. I took like tennis lessons a few times and I went to tennis camp a couple of summers, but I never actually played in any like competitive context like that, and I can only imagine what that feels like.

It felt good. I remember playing baseball one last time in middle school. I never played any sports in high school, but there was never like I played Rec League basketball like you, the the Y league or whatever. And I played that for many years throughout middle school. So I do have a lot of wreck league sports experience, but none of it, like, I was, I was so bad at all of them. How bad were you? Like, you can be bad enough at sports

to where, like, love of the game isn't, isn't enough. Like, it does not outpace the love you have. And I really loved playing baseball in tennis, but it got to be the point where, like, I Peter, principled my, like, like, whatever sub-Peter principle is, where, like, you never rise to the level of anything in spite of how much you love what you're doing. And so, like, there was never a Rudy moment for me where my effort would inspire others. It was just like my inability to play didn't inspire anyone and then eventually inspired me to stop playing

sports. Well, Adam, do you want to put on our foreigngey sized baseball hats and get into the episode. So today. I feel like our marons running long if only because there's not a whole lot to talk about when we discuss the gem. When we discuss the diamond of season seven, right? Yeah. It's Deep Space Nine, season seven episode four.

Take me out to the Hollis week. Do you realize how incredible this is? No, of course you don't. The episode opens with Captain Solach of the Takumbra, paying a visit to Captain Sisko. Captain Solok is in command of a Dell Soul Class ship that's docked at the station, having comported itself with a great deal of glory on the front lines of the Dominion War. They're there for refit and repairs. And Solok's there to like deliver his list of repairs to Captain Sisko.

Every time we see an establishing shot of a Del Sol, God damn, best button starfleet. That's a hell of a handsome ship there. It's really an LA face of the Oakland booty on the Del Sol. Really, Bountaa roller-corders. How about the back of that thing? Ha ha ha ha ha. It's got a drink on it. You can see it from the front.

Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. Break the internet to Cobra. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I love the trivia of this being an all- Vulcan crew. There's a dark element to that kind of thing. There's a dark element to this whole story, which is that Captain Solak is a strident racist.

Yeah. I don't know why he has a commission in Starfleet when his views are as retro-great as this. He's got a Vulcan harp with a big blue string running down the middle of it. He's got a Vulcan harp with a big blue string running down the middle of it. He's got a under his uniform. He's wearing a t-shirt that says ZD-ZC, zero diversity and zero combinations. Wow.

I want to talk to you about acting in the establishing scene to get a sense for whether or not you felt the way I did. There is so much like two mountain goats like bashing their heads, their horns against each other in this scene. Yeah. There's a quality to solok and the Cisco's conversation here where I kept waiting for them to crack and hug. It feels like a performance aspect to this

that felt so 10 out of 10, that eventually they're gonna be like, ah, come on man, bring it in. Yeah, yeah, like, I mean, it doesn't help that the first thing Cisco says is you got a lot of nerve coming here after that stunt you pulled. Yeah, there's a weird expectation of how says is you got a lot of nerve coming here after that stunch you pulled.

Yeah, that there's a weird expectation of pressure release that never comes. Yeah, and it's an interesting scene too, because so like a standing and Cisco is sitting, and it's shot in two singles. It's it's cutting back and forth between them, but the camera is below their the island on both of them. So they're both shot in that like, like if you position the camera below an actor's eyes, it makes them look tall and imposing and powerful. And if like the obvious way to shoot this scene is to put the camera that is on Cisco above his island, like as though it is from Sylox perspective, but then it would yield some of the power in the scene to Sylox and I thought that it was a smart choice

to shoot it the way they did. It turns out Sylox crew is obsessed with baseball. And they're obsessed with the game at Cisco because as we learned throughout the episode, the Cisco has gone windless against Solok in every competition they've ever had. This is an episode about a Louisville slugger measuring contest that has been with these two men their entire career. It's so weird that the winner is obsessed

with taking Cisco down. So often in stories of competition, it's the loser that keeps trying to win over again until finally, maybe there's a chance. But in this story, it feels like the Cisco is just being bullied. And that's weird. Yeah. I mean, Solak has the axe to grind of any racist, right? He like needs to...

He... Like, racism doesn't actually hold up under any scrutiny, so racists are constantly trying to rationalize it to themselves. Well, I mean, to take the other side. Ha ha ha ha. Oh boy Adam, I don't know. Sure you want to do that. Well you just cut about 13 minutes out of that episode and we're back. I love this next scene in the wardrobe where it's clear that Cisco has personally vouched for the rest of the crew's interest

in having a little baseball game on the Holliswee and playing competitively against Sylvach's team of Vulcans. They all come in here expecting a McLaughlin group about some kind of war game or serious competition, but it's a slide whistle with a lot of good group right the deal is that Solach has like a hollow holodeck program that he likes to run for his crew and The competition is going to take place in the context of this program and they've got two weeks for Ben and Jake Cisco to sort of whip the crew of Deep Space 9 into shape. And this starts with book learning, and there's a lot of attempted comedy with the characters studying the Infield fly rule on iPads.

Fly. The term for a bedded ball while it is in the air we cut over to Demar and Wei-Yoon where they have both mutually agreed to take two weeks off of the war for no reason so this really fits nicely into everyone's schedule yeah I thought it was a nice touch that they're standing there in their war room and there's a guy that walks through selling concessions. Can I hear, get your canar here, ice cold canar. Canar, fine, all right buddy, five dollars. And then people pass the canar down the line and then the money gets passed down the line back.

I mean, people complain about the price of canar at the games, but it's fun because sometimes you get that giant novelty bottle with the logo of your team on it. It feels special. Yeah. It's okay to overpay for special occasions. Absolutely. And it can, you know, like that's what keeps these things alive, you know, that's the

lifeblood of the ballpark is the expense of Kinar. The dip and dots at a Cardassian baseball game coming to giant spoon don't they? So the crew like learns the rules by book learning first and say Bill they ring for a long time and over a number of scenes. Oh, yeah. It starts in ops, then it cuts to Quartz Bar. In Quartz Bar, ramen leader have caught wind of this game and are really interested in participating themselves. They want to try out for the team. Quartz is not, though. Now he doesn't, but he also wants to fit in.

Like, he doesn't want to be left out of moments like these. He should. He should be like, this is great. While everybody's on the hollow sweet doing that bullshit, I'm going to do crime. That is exactly where his mind should be on his money, but it isn't. Yeah, he's got his mind on this baseball,

and this baseball on his mind. Rather, there are tryouts is what the Cisco organizes as if he has any more players possible than the ones that he has. You're going to make the team if you try out for the Ninerspin. I would like to see Morn in the tryouts. This ball is crushed and And more on getting cut. Here he comes! On run! An aphistic cut!

There are a number of parts of this episode where I wondered why the focus was where it was, given the many possibilities that a story like this presents. Gold to cut. Gold to cut, to cut, to cut, to cut. So in the hollow sweet, Psysco gives a speech so inspiring we've never heard anything like it during wartime. I was like, where is this Psysco pin?

This is great, I'm ready to play for him. It's about courage, and it's also about faith, and it is also about heart. And if there's one thing our Vulcan friends lack, it's heart. He introduces the team to Jake for some reason, the slider Sisko, who's gonna be their secret weapon. It looks like to me that he's packing a secret weapon because I was very distracted by the giant bulge that was basically center frame. I was wondering about the athletic cup that a character like Worf might be wearing. Do you have to design it differently if you're a double-donged species? Oh man, I'm sure you're just coiling those up like cable inside there.

But pictures don't wear cups, but Sirac Loftin does. I never pitched in Little League. They never let me do that. Probably couldn't find a cup big enough for you. No, it's probably because I showed up in a cup and they're like, this guy can't pitch, he does not first thing about it. So we have two weeks of tryouts with Jake's giant bulge. The Cisco's inspiring speeches to carry them through.

And so we get again, I feel like this was already like kind of a lazy bit of writing though because it's like, I was like, is there a tryout day and then it's practice after that? Or is it all tryouts or is it practice that is also tryouts or something like the stakes that you could be cut from the team or not picked up on the team are something that I'm, as a viewer, wanting them to set up and then pay off. And I feel like they have set up and half pay that off, you know, because the only person to get kicked off the team during practice is Rob, who played by Max Rodancik, who ironically is apparently the best baseball player of the entire

deep phase nine cast. Did you read this? I did. Yeah. And he had to, he had to play left handed because he could not, as great of an actor as he is, he could not act like he didn't know how to play. He has too much game to play right handed. It would be plausibly bad. Sorry, guys.

I can't do anything less than my best. Yeah. They really lean on him for the physical comedy in this. Yeah. I feel like that's another thing that they could have spent more time with, characters being, like being bad at throwing a baseball is something everybody goes through when they first learn how to throw a baseball, and then you get better. And they had a cast of people that had a large variety of

level of skill levels so they could have done stuff with that but they leave all of that step to rom. You're taking this episode way too seriously Ben. I understand it. But I'm trying to engage with this episode on the episode's terms. There's so much meat on both the story and comedy bone because for some reason Ben Sisko recruits Odo as an umpire when he would be the most formidable batter and fielder on that team. Yeah. You could Mr. Fantastic the entire infield and have coverage of it.

He doesn't need to hit the cutoff man. He can catch a ball and tag the batter out at home plate from center field. In the event of a rain out, I can also be the tarp. I will form a dome over the stadium and continue to play my position. I mean, ideas like these seem to be coming from a place of this is what we can do instead of what might be interesting to do, you know. This feels like a story that is built from its constraints instead of its possibilities. Yeah, and, you know, there's a lot of fire in Cisco's belly early on about this, like, like, despite how, like, catastrophically shitty the team is at the outset, like, he keeps

kind of making proclamations, like I'm going to win this game. Like we are going to walk off that field victorious at the end of two weeks. We are going to beat them, am I right? Yeah. I really admire the pluck, you know? Yeah. I mean, that's what you want out of a manager,

is that kind of fire. Yeah. And to a person, I think everyone is bringing their best effort in spite of how little talent they have for this. Like they're straight up injuring themselves in order to do this. Or in Quark's case, getting injured. Knitting together a couple of bones is not major surgery, Quark.

It is the bones in the back of your skull. Yeah, I mean, Quark endures a skull fracture, somehow during practice. Yeah, because Ram was just swinging the batter round without looking to see if anyone was nearby. That's a lot of skull back there. I gotta believe he's going to be all right. So we know Ram can't hit the broad side of a barn. Right. Right. Cisco knows he needs a secret weapon. That secret weapon ends up being Cassidy Yates, who aside from being a baseball fan, is not the secret weapon that I thought she would be. You know, like I thought she would

be the pinch hitter, you know, one to win the game for you. It's not like that. No, but like she can field a ground ball, which is like not really something that most of the other players can do. She's like, you want to put one of your best players at third and I think that's where she is, yeah? I believe you're correct with that. Yeah, she's like, there's a lot, there's another thing that they like set up a little bit. Okay, like Cassidy's gonna be awesome and it's barely paid off.

It's barely, yeah, it would have been awesome if Cassidy had come up to the plate and pointed at the field with their bat and just dinged one. This is one of those, we got buried in a hole in the first inning kind of sports stories and can we can we get ourselves out. Yeah. So they don't ever like none of the players ever get to do something like totally awesome, which is kind of unfortunate I think. Like I think that it would have been really fun to see Wurf like hit the leather off of a baseball. It would have been really fun to see.

I guess Ezri's like one of the few characters that gets to do something like really physically amazing except for just like a man with a mustache that they got to be her stunt double for that one moment. It's like that scene in Spaceballs. Spectacular stunt, my friends. But all for naught. Yeah, that was bizarre, especially because we are aware of special skills that this crew

has. I mean, we got many, many episodes of Julian Bichier being great at darts, for example, and great at racket sports. Next two, I won't even say next two, there is zero reference made about Dr. Bishier's abilities in those areas, being desirable qualities for baseball. He should be great at this, and it's not a story. I feel like he should have been on the pitcher's mound given his dirt skills, right? Yeah, and like you don't have to win the game.

Like here's the thing like to make a bishier. It's just go a terrible coach. Like does he just look at this team and not see where their potential lies? I think that's the unintended subtext because like if you're making a story that's like, you know, the crew comes together and rallies around their captain and does something inspiring even though they lose, you know, it's a very bad news bears type story. Nothing about that idea is ruined by inserting a couple of really good players on your team. This is why really good players don't mean your baseball team is good.

Like I grew up watching the Seattle Mariners, which are, were like notably a team with one or two great players. They didn't go anywhere for a long time. I mean, like the subtext is that Cisco is a bad coach, but I think that like his failures are the writers' failures, right? Like the writer failing to see these, these angles that could be played in his own script. Ronald D. Moore gets the writer credit here, but I think you read this too.

Like this was a total re-skin of a script that Iris Diven Bayer wrote for fame. Like there are plot beats and story beats in this that were lifted directly from another episode of another TV show. Wow. And I think when you, for whatever reason, I think if you're stepping up to the pre-production of this show and you see an opportunity to be expedient or an opportunity to be interesting, it looks like they chose the first path. Yeah. There's a bunch of scenes of people trying and failing to be good at baseball, and they're getting closer and closer to the big game.

There's a scene where Captain Solok comes and sits in the bleachers and watches them practice for a while, which is like some real stone cold shit. I mean, Solok is definitely a villain in more ways than a lot, and they just like coming and mean-mugging the entire team for a while And they just like coming and mean mugging the entire team for a while because he's got that kind of free time on his hand as a captain of a starship. It is a great moment. But I'd say like the big bummer in the episode is when Cisco kicks Ram off the team for sucking ass. That's it.

You're done for. I mean, and kicks Ram off the team specifically for swinging a baseball bat and losing his grip on it and the bat almost hitting for some reason, Jake. I'll do better tomorrow, Captain. Low, you want your finish gone off the team. He's really like taking a wrestling amount of bumps. Like, I don't know how many takes you swing a bat entirely around your body and then hit the dirt with it. But I mean, there's no faking hitting the dirt the way he does. It looks

painful. Yeah. I really threw himself into this. As a real athlete, I admire his willingness to do that. Totally. The team really rallies around Ram here. They're like, yes, like Cisco was totally out of line. He was being a complete prick and we're gonna quit so that, you know, in solidarity with you and Ram is the one that is is like, no, I want to see these Vulcans get beat. Even if I'm only watching from the, do you stand? I saw this as a reverse psychology ploy and that no one wanted Rob to play on their team,

but they wanted to make it seem as though they did. Did you get a whiff of that in this scene? I didn't pick up on that, but I like the read a lot. Maybe my favorite part of the story on that, but I like the read a lot. Maybe my favorite part of the story is that O'Brien, unfortunately, has aggravated a kayak injury. He's going to be unable to play kayaking in the Holland deck again. You dislocated your shoulder. And thus relegated to Benchcoach slash first base coach duty.

It doesn't stop him from doing a little bit of a replicator research and he makes himself some scotch flavored gum. Did someone just fuck a clown in here? I mean, really? Doesn't that sound delicious? I mean, it's something I would try. It's like that licorice gum, you know? Right.

Yeah. I'll try anything once. Yeah. In Cisco's quarters, he and Cassidy sort of get into what grinds his gears about Captain Solok. And this is where we get the backstory that back in his Academy days, he and Solok were in the same year. And Cisco was like tying one on with a bunch of friends at a bar somewhere.

So that was like, you wrestle Starfleet. You talk and you talk, but you have no Roman human. I've got to say, wrestling a sober Vulcan sounds like a very specific masturbation technique. Oh yeah. Hey, sorry I was late. I had to wrestle the sober Vulcan. You know what I mean? But now I'm feeling very relaxed, unable to focus in a way that I couldn't before. It's actually a very effortful kind of anodism

because it takes three times the strength that I usually would. But the stakes are high for all non-volchan species here, because what he reveals is that Solak has basically had a hobby ever since this wrestling match of publishing psychology papers and things about what useless pieces of shit humanity are for having the capacity to emotionally overreact to somebody pushing their buttons the way so locked in. It's so strange to think about a Vulcan acting like this. I mean, for a long time, I think we've understood that,

you know, Vulcans are a very, do as I say, not as I do, type of people. But like the spitefulness of this solo character to basically be the adult bully of Ben Cisco for years. Yeah. Comes as kind of a shock to me. Amazing how little insight he has into his own emotional reaction to other people. But the scene ends with Ben Sisko, like begging Cassidy Yates not to tell the crew about what the real dispute is here. And it's a smash cut to a secret second Muglothlin group.

Is your two. In which she is spilling the beans about this wrestling match beef. Let's just do a show without Pat Buchanan. A secret show. Ha ha ha ha. Isn't this nice? I think. Here dog whistling.

It's really good. Cut to Pat You Can and reading all of the books that Solak wrote about racial superiority. There's some argument about like why not tell the team why this is so important. This is the Cassidy V. Benzisco conflict here. Like why keep this a secret that there's a personal grudge happening here? They don't understand why you're so caught up in this. Oh no, I'd rather they think I'm just caught up in some baseball game than pursuing an adolescent rivalry.

Also, it's not a secret. So Locke publishes these papers. It's a great point. I don't understand the choices being made by these characters in this moment. It's not great. And the game starts and like pretty soon there's a, you know, ball that gets called as a strike situation that gets Cisco to run out of the dugout and like tap Odo on the chest and get thrown out of the game. Rule number 4.06 subsection A paragraph 4, look it up but do it in the stands.

You're gone! And it's like well there, there you've got it. Like that is what Solak needed. Like, win or lose. Like whichever way this game goes. Yeah. So like got what he came for. So like can we pack it up and the episode early? [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, [♪ Music playing in background, The promise of Odo as umpire, I think includes a couple of things. One of them is that in an episode that has already given you montage after montage, we were going to get Frank Dribbon as umpire to baseball game style montage treatment here, where Odo does flashy founder tricks, you know, with it with his gestures. And like a foul tip goes through his face and he's backstopped. Like those are two that I just came up with off the top of my head, Ben. Like where is the flashy fun?

Like where's the science fiction to the space ball game? Where it is the scene where he shows up in his jersey and somebody says, like, oh, you're supposed to have like a face mask and a chest guard. And he like inflate his chest inflates to, you know, yeah, you know what? The move that he made with the belt a couple of seasons ago was so great. Like, we don't need to do that again. If you have a choice budget wise, whether or not you want him to inflate his chest protected during the baseball episode or make a belt, I mean, we know where the priorities

live. What the hell? Instead the montages we get in this game are just like the camera in a static shot on the scoreboard as the innings go on and the Vulcan score goes up and up enough. Shooting sports is hard, man. And I really noticed I felt like they did a capable job here, but what you get a lot of is behind the picture angle at a batter, a pitch being thrown and then a butt cut to a closer shot of the batter making contact with the ball, right? Because that's all you can do.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like mostly it's fine. And like you can follow the way each play is going. Yeah. Which it's possible to screw that up. Yeah. I like that they didn't do that thing that you see so often where they move the pitcher closer to the batter

to make it look like they're throwing faster. Right. Like, you see that a lot in TV and movies where they fake the distance. But that's not the case. Srirach Lofton looks like he's got some game here with his pitches in spite of giving up a first pitch dog. Come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, foreign, come to a foreign, come to a foreign, I wanted to jump into the screen. You don't roll up here. Yeah, that's your girl. Yeah.

I liked Ron being the only person in the crowd. I think this is Ron showing that he's the bigger man by still showing up for the game, despite being treated like shit by Cisco. And then when Cisco is ejected from the game, showing that he's the smaller man by not going and sitting next to Ram, going and sitting by himself in a different part of the bleachers. That was pretty withering, right? Yeah. That's not fun.

Pretty nasty. But everyone's wearing a batting helmet except for Warf. Did you notice that? And they have bigger size hats for the Ferengy, but only a slightly bigger size hat for Wurf. Right. It probably looked too cartoonish to give him a batting helmet going over that loaf, right? Yeah, they just give him his first contact space helmet. And they're like, this is the only thing we could do. Yeah. But Cisco realizes like this game is not going to be about actually winning on a basis of points. It's going to be winning on the basis of heart, something that the Vulcans could never win on.

No, it's true. And who's got the most heart on the team, Adam? It's Rob! Yeah, it's Rob. Put me in coach. I'm ready to play. Jesus. Pinch hitting for Jake is ROM and he is boyd by a loving crowd that is called for on the Holla Suite.

Computer, come on ROM! Rock, rock! Your attention, please. Now, pitch hitting for Jake Cisco, number 13, rock! Turns out that's what he needed. He didn't need the scrutiny of a quiet stadium. What he needed was kind of the distraction of a rock as audience. Right.

Maybe the best joke in the episode is Rob not understanding what the secret signals mean about bunting and accidentally bunting anyways. Right. And he bunts his own son home. This dive into home I thought was great. Yeah. This is so hard to make good and athletic, and between the angle and the actor and everything, the head first slide was great. Yeah, it's like Aaron Eisenberg, like a thousand percent goes for it, but also like just seeing the loaf in the slide and stuff is like it's just a fun and funny shot.

It's big fun. So they put one point up on the board that you know the team empties the dugout and goes and picks up Rob and puts him on their shoulders and Captain Soloq takes great umbrage with this and tries to get Odo's attention and insists that he brings some order to the game and continue and but by making contact with Odo's shoulder to do so Soloq gets himself thrown out of the game. The game is not over. Yeah, God. mildly satisfying. I guess.

Yeah. He's so angry that they've carried Ram off the field and the game isn't over. And I understand this. Yeah. I'm becoming more irate as I watch the episode. And I actually take so luck side here, you get to finish the game guys. Yeah.

Adams, Adam came to record today's episode wearing a logicians baseball hat. So. Yeah. Big fan. I mean, where else are you going to celebrate your big win in the wreck league game? I mean, there's no Apple bees on the station. You get to take it over to quarks. It was always round table pizza for us. Yeah. I mean, if we'd ever won a game. Yeah, that's a classic. But, yeah, the button on the episode is the big party. One thing I read about this scene is that Odo and Warf are in it, except for it's not Michael Torn or Renee Overshinel, it's their camera doubles. So they just put them in the deep background. That is going to be so terrifying

when you're at the end of schedule or the end of day and for whatever reason, like two actors are not available and you need to shoot your scene. Yeah. If you didn't get like a good look at the guy that plays Warf in this scene, I encourage you to go back and take a look at it because he looks like a deer in headlights, man. He's like, uh, on a hide.

I don't want to be here. I don't like this. This is not what I've been trained to do. Very, very funny. It's so locked. Doesn't get it. He doesn't get why the team is celebrating. And that's kind of the point, right? This is how he wins. Unclear how many books or papers so lock is going to write about this game or this incident in Quarks. Yeah. But I don't think this is going to write about this game or this incident in Quarx. But I don't think this is going to have the desired effect that Cisco thinks it does. So that is a very long memory and a unique attention on Ben Cisco that I don't

think anything is going to break. The final shot of the episode, the team signs a baseball and they give it to Sisko. He tosses it up in the air and in like a slow motion fade, it cross fades to the station and we go to credits. But did you like the episode, Adam? This may surprise you to hear, Ben, after the both of us just took our Louisville sluggers to this thing. I love this episode. Yeah, it's a good episode. I thought it was so much fun. I think it's a rare episode that can have a script this bad and still be really fun to watch. That makes it a miracle, I think. I think more than most other episodes, it really teases you about all the possibilities.

And in a way, many episodes are incapable of, like we've talked about episodes where we've come up with interesting alt that we kind of craved, but where is more in sitting in the stands, eating a bucket of seeds? Right. Where is the green gatorade that obviously the Vulcan's drink? Like, it would have been great. And between that and like Bashir and Worf, not being utilized like they could, what makes this episode fun is thinking

about all of the possibilities. And in a strange way, thinking about all of them does not diminish how much fun the episode is, because I think there's something in its pacing that is just pretty fast, pretty light, pretty low calorie episode. Yeah, it doesn't have a B story, like it's all A, and that's sometimes a recipe for an A that is, you know,

not beefy enough to span an entire 45 minutes of television, but this keeps your interest and stays fun the entire time. It feels like everyone is having fun on this episode in a way they can't suppress. Yeah, right. Yeah, and that fun is infectious. Yeah, and that fun is infectious. Yeah, yeah. Pretty cool. You know what else is fun, Adam? Is the priority one inbox of the greatest generation?

Do you want to see if we have any transmissions? As soon as you began that statement, I knew I'd made a terrible mistake by closing my browser. Yeah. I'm going to go find those P1s. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on it. A supplement on it? A supplement on it?

A supplement. A supplement. Yeah, it's extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Adam, our first priority on messages from Joe. It's to Ben and Adam. It goes like this. I started listening to TGG last year

while watching TGG as my first ever star trek viewing experience. I'm about halfway through Deep Space 9 now, so still about 19 months behind live. It's been fun to do my first ever trek viewing with you guys and this show. You've made me a trek convert. Can't wait to catch up to this message and keep up the great work. Wow. Hey, does that make Joe a gold star star Trek fan? Wow. If his first time watching TNG is with us, I mean, that's that's pretty special. I think that's the ideal way to get into Star Trek.

We've really corrupted Joe. Indeed. That's great. Ben, our second priority one message is from Vadim. It is too Vadim. The message goes like this, dear A and B is it selfish to send yourself a birthday wish. The answer is yes, but I don't care. Happy 40th birthday to me. Wow. Thanks, Gil, for introducing me to the pod and putting me within Kevin Bacon range of the host by way of your family connection to Razz.

Wow. Thanks to Gil, Mike, and Che Tanya for great hangs at SF Sketchfest. Thanks A and B for the amazing pod. Oh, that reference to SketchFest stabs me right in the heart. Yeah. I love SketchFest. I do too.

I'm good memories there. I'm anticipating that SketchFest is not a 2021 thing that will be happening, and that makes me really sad. You remember the time we accidentally ordered peaking duck for the table and no one else at the table wanted a whole peaking duck so you and I ended up just like gritting our way through as much of that as we could at like one in the morning. Yeah. Mistakes were made.

It's one of the many things that is great about SketchFest is the just total gluttony we engage in once we've done our live shows. We've got a lot of great memories from SketchFest and it sounds like Vadim and co do too. Can't wait to make it back there when we can. Yeah, well Adam, if people want to get a priority on message for the show the way to do that is by heading to maximumfun.org slash jumbo tron it's a hundred bucks for a Personal message and 200 for a commercial message and we appreciate it because it's one of the

few revenue streams we have for this thing. A greatest-gen live show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it! The Share Your Embarrassment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places.

Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's greatestgentour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment tour. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We got stupid with Judy Greer.

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Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Whoa, rats, hey, hey, hey, oh, I'm gotta count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line and boy, what a line. These giraffes do not smell good.

No, they do not, and they've such short nacks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this. We've gotta get on the art. It is about terrain, about a spout to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. We're actually, we're podcasters.

We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Kerry? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so same life, something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Ona Ross & Kerry, available on MaximumFun.org. Let them all pass your own to our Yamaxes. Hey Adam.

What's that been? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Redo. Drunk Shimoda! Man, there are a lot of Shimodas in this episode. It is. Oh, it's a real cavalcade of Shimodas. I mean, I can't give the Shimoda to the field.

The way I would like. Here's who I'll give my Shimoda to. I'm gonna give my Shimoda to Odo, because you never wanna be caught jacking out by someone. And that's what he's doing when Kira walks by his security office. He's practicing. He's practicing his calling people out.

And I think you get a pull to shades for something like that. That's something you don't want to do with your back to a glass door. Yeah, because all you see is shoulder roll and who knows what that could be. People are going to interpret that a lot of different ways. What about you, Ben? My Shimoda is Kira for a moment very early in the episode. It was my first laugh out loud moment of the episode. Cisco comes out of his meeting with Solak

and says to Kira, like, I need you to assemble the senior staff immediately. And we cut to the ward room and nog is in there. What? What? It's Kira think nog's rank is. That's hilarious. So for assuming that by senior staff, Cisco meant everyone including nog, Kira gets my

drink, Shemota. Cisco meant everyone including Nog. Kiri gets my drinks from Oda. Maybe Nog is sitting down after having done the catering for the meeting. Like he wheeled in the coffee cart. Yeah, I could see him like sitting in a chair that's like up against the wall, you know, like you see in a high level political meeting, like the the aids and assistance of the various secretaries in the meeting, but not at the table. There's always a log of these meetings, but there's also the need for physical notes to be taken and so nags rule is to do the minutes.

You've got to keep things on track. Yeah. Well, speaking of keeping things on track at him, how do you feel about me heading over to Guch.biz-slash-game where we keep the game of buttholes, the will of the profits, and figuring out how next week's episode is going to go. Game of buttholes, a surprise around every corner for us. That's true. No surprise is that next episode is season seven episode

five, chrysalis, this year becomes romantically involved with a genetically engineered patient. Hmm, he's genetically engineered. We both like the same beverages. Currently that runabout is on square 55, where one square ahead is a looking at each other during a square that you and I definitely do not want to hit. Yeah, we don't want to get coronavirus.

We were so committed to game of buttholes, we're with the profits that one or both of us dies. We break quarantine and actually buy it because of this stupid podcast. You know what would be so, God, we would deserve it too, is that it would just be nothing but RSVP, Ben and Adam on Twitter.

That's our legacy. Yeah, there it would be. Get it up by us. You're required to learn as you play, roll. And I'm gonna roll. Chula! Did I win? Hardly.

And I rolled the four. So I've jumped over looking at each other during onto square 59. Nice. And that puts us in range of a space butthole and a starship mine square for the next time we roll. But for the rest of the week, people can go check out the online accounts of the greatest generation. We're at greatest trek on Twitter and Instagram, and our buddy, Bill Tilly, is now running our social media accounts.

Yeah, Bill Tilly doing a great job on the social media ones and twos. Yeah, he's got two turntables in a Photoshop account. Music for the show created of course, but the help of dark materia, generously offering up his work to you, me, and Adam Ragusia for the theme and interstitials on our program. Can't thank them enough.

Yeah, and Adam Ragusia, of course, now YouTube sensation with the cooking channel to search Adam Ragusia. This episode and every episode of the greatest generation is made possible by those that support it financially. You can do that by going over maximumfund.org slash join. Get yourself on a program monthly style. It gives you access to a whole bunch of extra episodes and really helps keep the show going. It sure does. Lots of really, really fun bonus episodes up there.

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