The Greatest Generation - Cancel the Coin (VOY S7E19)

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

When it’s take your nepo child to work day, the lil’est De Lancie shows up on Voyager. But when Aunt Kathy’s new curriculum doesn’t set the boy straight, continuum-level consequences finally get through to him in the end. How did this episode affect Keegan De Lancie’s career? Is there a Cal Hudson scale for disappointed dad? Who does LeVar Burton need to avoid at a conference? It’s the episode where no one died on a toilet!It's MaxFun Drive! Support the production of The Greatest Generation.Friends of DeSoto for Democracy.Friends of DeSoto for Justice. Friends of DeSoto for Labor.Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Caretaker!Music by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFollow The Greatest Generation on Twitter, and discuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen!The Greatest Generation is on YouTube.Facebook group | Subreddit | Discord | WikiSign up for our mailing list!Get a thing at podshop.biz! MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

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Greatest Gen and Greatest Trek is such a great idea. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage. Watch your backs, Luke. I'm Luke. I'm Captain Captain James. a great idea. 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. Special Epp today. Special Epp.

Usually people tune in. You know, like they tune in to hear about the Star Trek and all that shit. But in some ways, it's about the hang. It's about Ben and Adam's friendship and sitting in on that for some reason. Not today, my friend. Today, we are at Star Troggerheads. Hmm.

It brings a sense of order and stability to my universe to know that you're still a pompous ass. The courtroom is a crucible. And it be burned away, irrelevances, until we're left with a fewer product than truth. When people of good conscience have an honest dispute, we must still sometimes resort to this kind of adversarial system. Hopefully we can make some good law out here.

And for good measure, sit on this. Yeah. Watch as I clip Pinocchio strings by taking away Ben's desk bottle of mezcal. I should have one of those, man. He just slumps over. But that would be great. That would be a great addition to the home office, desk mez. What are you doing out there?

You've got no booze in your outboard office, far away from the eyes of a wife. I have a little bar cart, but it's all like mixers and stuff. You know, it's nothing like I could really like use. So that's where you're at, right? Out in the office, you're down to mixers. Pretty much, yeah.

I guess I have like Irish whiskey back here. I just don't, that's not really one of my go-tos, you know? Hmm. Hmm. What are you drinking? You drinking a beer over there? No, I'm just having a fizzy water. Oh, okay.

Yeah, we rolled a square on the game of buttholes. The will of the caretaker. Last week that has determined that we are going to pick a side. One of us is going to argue the pro, and one of us is going to argue the con of today's episode. Which will be painful for one of us, because this is a episode directed by LeVar Burton. Why does that make it painful?

You don't think you can be honest about your opinions if LeVar Burton is involved? I mean, it would be hard for me to stomach endorsing anything that that particular individual got behind. He's doing it. That's the whole idea right there. Ben, I'm going to flip a coin and the coin I have in front of me was given to us by the National Security Agency.

Oh boy. Presented by the director of the National Security Agency. A coin that I'm almost positive does not have a listening device in it or a tracker. Yeah. Someone in the deep state knows whether this coin is heads up or tails up at all times, right? I feel like if I touch this coin in a specific way, it could turn into a weapon. And that makes it fun.

So is it like heads, you're arguing pro, tails you're arguing con, is that how we should do it? I think we should make it a little more aggressive than that. I'm gonna flip the coin and then prove to you if it's heads or tails. And you're gonna call that coin flip in the air. If you win the coin flip, here's what happens.

You get to choose what side I take. Oh, shit. See what I'm saying? All right, all right. Whether I'm the pro or the con, you get to decide if you win this coin toss. If you lose the coin toss, I get to choose for you. Okay. All right.

Okay. So here's the heads. Looks like the eagle, the tails. It's got a star on it. And a bunch of symbols. Yeah. And, uh, and we'll go eagle or star to decide what happens next, Ben, you ready?

I am ready. One, two, three. Tails. I've covered up the coin. You did that great thing where you catch it and you flip it over and smack it onto your hand. I did not look at it. I don't know what it's gonna be.

I'm gonna hold my wrist up to the camera. Oh, we're gonna both make history together live on video tape. Here's the big reveal. Wow, I win. It's tails. Adam, you will be arguing the pro of this episode. Wow, I was not expecting that.

Wow. That just felt like the most interesting state for us to be in. And I will be vehemently arguing the con. So I'll be the Picard in the courtroom and you will be the Riker taking arms off of characters and cutting strings. All right. That's the plan.

I am ready. Are you ready? Yeah, I'm ready. And I like a little gamification for our last week of the Max Fun Drive here. Oh yeah. The Greatest Gen Drive itself being a game, a game of survival. Yeah. Where if we win, we get to do the show another year. If we lose, we go back to freelancing.

Ugh. Please don't make us lose. Yeah, that'll put another bottle in your desk drawer, right? Oh, no kidding. All right, Adam, what do you say we get into it? It's season seven, episode 19, a terrible episode. Q2. Rebirth course. Unless you've got something a little bigger

in your torpedo tubes, I'm not turning them out. Hard! Our cold open comes straight out of one of the best movies, The Whale. Ha ha ha ha. Where Egypt's oral report about early Starfleet history is Captain Janeway's favorite essay in the entire world. Gives her great comfort. Why would they have to encounter so many hardships?

Great essay, great moment, I thought. I am super down with any time they treat, like, old Star Trek episodes as ancient Star Trek history. Uh-huh. But what is Janeway doing to this poor guy? Like, she has no poker face for this. Like, he's going on and on, and she cannot not roll her eyes. This was supposed to be a 20-minute presentation.

I was trying to be thorough. That's so fucked up. It's such an interesting observation, because I think what you're saying is that Ichab is sophisticated enough to understand what nonverbal cues might be. Do we know that yet? Like, maybe around Ichab, you could just be open

with how nonverbally you react to everything that he does, and he just isn't gonna get it. Right. I guess that sort of... I mean, I rewatched the Re-Encounter at Farpoint video the other day, because it's one of our bonus content things that got released this month for the Drive. And we were talking in that episode about how Commander Data has both risen through the ranks in Starfleet to the point where he's the second

officer on the flagship. Like he went through the academy, he presumably had other commands. He has excelled in his career, but he's also needing to, you know, cite dictionary definitions of basic words in the pilot of Star Trek The Next Generation. We went on a little jag about like, which is it? Is Data like completely new to the world or has he been around a long time? And that's sort of a question in my mind with Ichab. Like how messed up did his Borg experience make him?

And also, has he been around the Voyager crew long enough to, like, catch social cues in an environment where they are an important part of, you know, day-to-day life? I mean, that's the thing about Ichab. He is what you need him to be to further the story. Guess you could say, I too am what you need me to be to further the story. I'll just be back here doing the stuff

nobody else wants to do. Hey, Egypt, does anyone want me to be anything else? Cause I will be that. I will. So yeah, Janeway rolls her eyes through this whole presentation, cuts him off before he can get too far into it. Because this was supposed to be a short book report and she has heard a small fraction of the beginning of the book report, but has satisfied herself that he knows enough about Starfleet history that he does not need to go any further.

Ben, how many times has this happened to you? I would bet, and I am a betting man, I would bet almost anything that you've never turned in a book report shorter than the required amount of pages. And in fact, most of them flew far over. Would that be a correct assumption? I definitely played with font size and margin a little bit in my day. You gotta do that. I knew that Garamond looked a lot like Times New Roman,

but filled pages up bigger. Ha ha ha. But yeah, I think that, um... Especially when I was, like like interested in the subject, I would like actually opine in a way that some teachers found charming and endearing and others found extremely tiresome. They're like, I have to give this kid a good grade, but like, Jesus Christ. Were you able to interpret the eye roll of a teacher with any accuracy? Or did that quality come much later as an adult, as a married adult specifically?

Are you trying to like sneakily do a neurodivergence test on me right now? Hold on. I just have a couple more questions. I have 79 more questions specifically. The camera reveals after Echeb leaves who this other voice is in the room saying, I would have failed him. It's a young Q as played by Keegan Delancey, actual son of John Delancey. I looked up Keegan Delancey and was delighted to find that he has four acting credits.

Two of which are Choir Boy. In two different things he has appeared as Choir Boy and then he had one appearance as Q and then like, oh, he was in Ally McBeal, I think. Are all four performances alongside his father? Is that how that worked for him? Oh man, I don't know. Was, was Delancey in Ally McBeal?

American former actor is what Keegan Delancey comes up as on the Google. How about that? Oh man. Betty White was also in the episode of Ally McBeal that he was on. That's cool. Huh. That's so interesting. You know, you have the chance to be a Nepo kid and he didn't take it.

He's the meme where the sliding car does not go toward the exit. Yeah. It keeps going straight into a legitimate career as a someone in the diplomatic service. How's that? No kidding. He's in the, he's in the foreign service. Yeah.

Wow. I wonder if he knows our, our listener who's the ambassador to Lesotho. I think they all know each other. Do they see each other at like work parties and stuff? I'm sure. Yeah. That's a big part of it. Amazing.

Um, good for him. Was this an introducing credit to Keegan Delancey? I didn't think he had this. This couldn't have been first, right? Yeah, I think that this episode came out in 2001, and maybe the Drew Carey show, which is one of his choir boy credits, was his first at-bat as an actor.

I think one of the things Keegan Delancey does really well in this episode is physical acting. When he appears sitting on the corner of the couch, when he gets up, he's kind of got the confident wiggle of a walk, the saunter, if you will. He's really got it. The it's that a Q has, you know, that sort of grating, annoying confidence of someone who has seen it all, has been everywhere, who can't wait to tell you about it. He's been to Barcelona and that's what he calls it.

Barcelona, you're fantastical. Every second of every day. He's gonna talk about Africa, is that what you're saying? Fuck you, Adam. He's just that guy. I'm talking about Q2 now. Q2 is his father's son. Yeah.

I had him as Q Junior in my notes. And I kind of wish that was what they called the episode. I just feel like Q Junior is is so much more, you know, evocative. It could have been a huge argument about what to name him. Right. Shouldn't he want a name? Isn't it confusing for him? I don't know. Do you think they gave any consideration to naming him R? Do you think they gave any consideration to naming him R? Lowercase Q. We learned that lowercase Q is on the ship because Q senior is kind of overwhelmed as a father.

He has arranged for lowercase Q to be on Voyager during what is called a vacation, but quickly like has kind of revealed to be like, this is going to be Q senior dumping his problem child off on Janeway to whip into shape. I am flattered that you would entrust me with your first born, but I really don't have time. OG Q is overwhelmed, not because his son is aged so fast. The last time he was on the ship, it was four years ago

and now he's a teenager. That's not part of the problem at all. Problem is that the continuum has sort of enforced a kind of, I mean, punishment would be too big of a word, but they're like, you got to get this kid into shape. He's a real piece of shit. Yeah. OGQ is at like pains to tell Janeway to keep his son away from Neelix though. Cause he's like, I just know how he is. Like if he finds out that there's like a four-year-old that looks much older on the ship, he won't be able to keep himself off of my son.

And I just, I'm not into that. At no point is there like the inherent condescension of like, this is a human safari that they're on. Like it's presented as like, you're going to get to be around humanity and to experience that. And something about this experience will be enriching and make you a more well-rounded person. But like when the humans are trapped on a ship in the middle of a 70-year journey back home or whatever, this is a zoo. This is not enrichment in the normal way, I don't think. But the curvature

of that kind of darkness isn't a part of this. It's Q walkabout, it's Q rum springa. Q springa? Yeah. Once the older Q fucks off, Janeway tells lowercase Q that there's going to be rules for this vacation and lowercase Q snaps his fingers and nopes out of that conversation. Yeah. I make my own rules.

There's a real power imbalance here and it is not in Janeway's favor. Lot of eye rolls this episode, starting from jump. Yeah, it's like the episode kind of knew how I was going to be feeling and kind of got in on the action of all the eye rolls. I'm going locked in. Do it. to be feeling and kind of got in on the action of all the eye rolls. Over on the bridge, Tuvok can't find either of the cues on the sensors, but that doesn't

mean he's not there. Lowercase Q appears and does that thing where he just describes everyone he's seeing and then at the end of it comments on how bored he is already. When are you going to do something interesting? Say hello to Q, everyone. He proposes a bunch of dangerous shit to Janeway. It seems like there are possibilities for fun. Possibilities she's not interested in.

Yeah. I wonder how much, you know, when you read about like, you know, actors playing like the same character two different ages, you know, like Young Forest and Tom Hanks working out the character of Forrest Gump and famously Tom Hanks did the accent based on the kid that they cast and not the other way around. I did not know that. Yeah.

That's great. I always wonder like in situations like this, like was Delancey on set like giving, here's how I would do it kind of line reads to his son? Was his son like a big fan of his previous work on TNG in the character and I'm gonna turn you into an amoeba you got boiled amoeba amoeba scampi baked amoeba grilled amoeba? Grilled amoeba? That's interesting. Yeah, they don't have that here. Because John Delancey's been playing cue for decades at this point.

Yeah. So I just wondered, like, because it doesn't really feel like Keegan Delancey is doing like an impression of his dad. No. Per se, but a lot of the mannerisms are very heritable, you know, for all of this episode's flaws. I thought he did a nice job kind of making a new Q character. So lowercase Q blurbs away, and just a second later,

BLT radio's up telling Janeway she's got to come to engineering. And in engineering, it is an absolute rager. There's a bunch of burlesque aliens there, a bunch of loafy dudes grinding on them, and the warp core is glowing in this really fun way. It seems like the sort of thing, like, if you were gonna have a work party in engineering, it would look kind of like this Yeah, it doesn't seem safe that the work core is doing this now We've never seen this color in the work for the LT is pretty stressed about it

I mean they all seem like they're pretty down for this party initially, but then the sprinklers go off and just like blood comes down. What's wrong, baby? They start to realize that this invite was, you know, there were some strings attached. Lowercase Q is as ever not concerned because he's filled with the confidence of someone who could stop a warp core breach at any time. He snaps his fingers and kicks all the drips out of his party. So Tuvok, Chakotay, Janeway and BLT appear in the hallway.

They're like, yeah, like there's not really anything we can do about this, right? Like we can't raid engineering and stop him because he will just God power us back out here every time. So the strategy is going to have to be, don't give him the satisfaction. Like don't let on that any of this is annoying or off putting in any way. Everybody's just going to have to be on the same

page, W slash R slash T, not encouraging him. And probably the biggest ask of all of the members of the crew for this is Seven, who has to endure the indignity of lowercase Q snapping her shirt off while she's trying to work in her vestibule. It's a reminder that seven doesn't really have all of the emotional traits of a human being. Like modesty is absent from her altogether

because when her clothes blurp away, fortunately she's at a standing desk. I think we should make that clear. Like, like she's not sitting in a leather chair during. She doesn't even look over her shoulder at lowercase Q. I think that's part of it. Like, she could not care at all. So he only sees her back, right? At least there's that. But yeah, like, I don't know, man, like not a scene I loved for Star Trek just as a thing.

Like, treating a character's dignity as a play thing feels yucky to me. I think it's a great scene because I think it's important to depict a bad person doing a bad thing. Like, this is a hateable action that he's done. So yeah, like, I want to see this in order to hate him. Why did you fill up that gym sock during the scene then? I filled it up with my foot.

Ew. After? Janeway goes into the mess hall, orders herself a coffee at the replicator. This is a clip that Adam Ragusea used in the Janeway song. Mm-hmm. Coffee black. Make it yourself.

I have an embarrassing admission about this clip in the Janeway song. OK. I have thought that that was Seska saying, make it yourself, this entire time. Wow. And like, Seska is not on the show anymore, but she does pop up very occasionally, so maybe we just haven't gotten to the episode where she says that yet.

Or maybe she's saying it about something else and I didn't pick up on it at the time. But where is that clip coming from? It's just weird to hear the Majel Barrett voice spun this way. Yeah. I get that. She's doing a little Seska with this read, but yeah, I never, I never didn't know that that was the computer voice.

God, I feel like an idiot. Do all women just sound the same to you? I don't know. Do Seska and Majel Barrett have similar voices? Oh no. This replicator has a lot of lip. And to Janeway's credit, I think what a lot of people would do in this scene is try to order again and a third time and maybe bonk the side of the replicator.

Right. To get it to work. Janeway just disengages completely goes goes to sit down, and that's when Neelik Saunders over with some analog coffee. She has to speak to the replicator's manager is what she does. Right. Neelik suggests himself as an ideal candidate for lowercase q's mentorship. And she's like, eee, why why are you asking, Neelix? Did you hear about the age thing?

I think the ideal mentor would be someone who didn't want it so bad. When the question was asked who's going to take the Cub Scouts on a camping trip, your hand flying up first only made us all suspicious of you. Well, I am good with children. We cut over to the ass lab where lowercase q is sitting in what looks like a space beanbag chair. That's a beanbag. Are you kidding? Yeah, that lamp thing.

Where did this thing come from? It's like a gamer chair fucked a beanbag chair because it's got like that high back to it. Yeah, it looks very comfortable. I tried finding one of these on the Star Trek auction. You know what happened. What always happens. Garrett Wong, highest bidder. He was stating the obvious again. He's got everything.

Did he get the one that was authentically Keegan Delancey sat in? Yeah, the impression of Keegan Delancey's butt cheeks preserved in the stuffing. So what lowercase q is doing in here is watching a space battle and it's not, it looks like you might be watching like a movie or something initially, but it's revealed that this is an actual dog fight in space between two species and Neelix is kind of horrified to see them back at it because when Voyager left, those people had been, you know, left in peace. Now they're at war and Lower uh, lowercase Q is just, is stirring up drama left and right. It's just a bad look for him. It's so weird to think about the inner lives of the people that he's manipulating because like on the screen, you see a couple of ships dogfighting and then he

conjures up a third ship to join the fray. What's going on on up a third ship to join the fray. What's going on on board that third ship? That's gotta be very, very surprising for them, right? Yeah, like they were just pulling in to like refuel and get some snacks and stuff. And then suddenly they find themselves in media dogfight. That's terrifying. Neelix is as gentle as possible with his suggestion.

He's like, look, you know, the Wingari, you know, that ship over there, he points to one of them fighting. He's like, you know, they got a famine on their planet. Maybe instead of using your powers for war, you use them for food. Except lowercase q is only interested in using his powers for good in one specific way, which is making it so that no one will ever have to hear Neelix's voice again. One on country, country, country. Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it We smash cut to Six-Bay where Neelix's mouth is like a smooth, has been covered over with smooth skin. And we hear from Dr. Mark.

Oh, hi, Mark. That his jaw has been fused shut and his vocal cords have been removed. They really had a choice here, right? Because I think we all remember the scene from The Matrix where Agent Smith closes Neo's mouth. You know, that's horrifying, that's body horror. But like this scene gives us basically the same framing on our character's head.

We're super close up to that mouth. It is absent the horror, even though the doctor's like, yeah, his jaw has been welded shut and he doesn't have vocal cords anymore. Like, didn't you want a little bit more gross in this scene? The description is super gross and upsetting. Yeah, but in description only, like I wanted just a little bit more.

Yeah. I agree. Like it's a bad part of a bad episode that they didn't get any grosser with it. What I'm trying to say is the restraint was a great idea. Well, I couldn't disagree with you more, Adam. The main takeaway here is that like Dr. Mark can fix a lot of what's going on with him, but like only young Q can undo the damage. Right.

Meanwhile, Janeway gets called up to the bridge where lowercase Q has made their problems even worse. Now there are three Borgs cubes chasing them and shooting them. A bunch of drones materialize on the bridge, and it's a big standoff where they're shooting drones, and it looks like Janeway's about to get thwipped with tubules, and just then, OGQ shows up to put everything right and sell, not just lowercase Q, how disappointed he is in him,

but also Janeway, how disappointed he is in her. I love how little Chikote is in this episode. He's sitting next to Lowercase Q, like you'd think he's gonna punch him in the face or something. Nope. He's a passenger. Sounds great. What would have made this episode a little bit better would have been like camera swings over to Chakotay

and a huge pencil has magically bent around him, so he's wrapped in pencil and he can't break his arms free. Prisoner of his own pencil. Oh, that's dark. Yeah, that would be fucked up. That would bring back the horror that the Neeluk scene lacked. A pencil the size of the giant fork and spoon kitchen decoration that... Exactly.

...Meneh a home in the Midwest has enjoyed. I have a huge problem with this scene because OGQ barks at his son, Don't provoke the Borg! What is Q, if not the main provocateur of the Borg? Like... Q was invented to bring the Borg into Star Trek and make them a problem for Star Trek. I mean, I know he was invented to be like a, you know,

humanities judge, jury, and executioner, but his second function was to bring the Borgs in. If only they'd had this argument in Six-Bay, it could be both hypocritical and Hippocratic. Mmm. That would have been nice. Right? Yeah. So, in Janeway's office, he explains, like, I put everything back, and he looks can talk again. And Janeway's like, well, don't put everything back. You didn't have to go that far. I mean, I think eventually we'd fix it.

Yeah. I mean, it's supposed to be like a scared straight, right? Like he was like hoping that by dropping his son off, he would come back and have a son who was a man of character now. And he's just very disappointed that Janeway has not threatened lowercase Q for his shoes or anything, you know? Do you think when we cut over to seven, wherever she is, she's wearing two uniforms at the same time. Like, like Q goes so over the top in repairing the damage that was done earlier.

While also like clearly not having really paid a lot of attention to what had happened. Yeah. She's just pressing buttons in the ass lab and suddenly she's wearing, like, overalls and a winter coat. Yeah. So Janeway's like, you don't parent like that, Q. Like, that, I understand, like, what you're going for, but the way you're going about it is stupid and here's why. You can't just dump your child on someone and hope he learns something. I can't.

Well, it's the sort of thing you see all the time out in the world. Like it isn't parenting at all. It's just observation. Right. And the issue is that she is not really in a position to impose consequences on lowercase Q due to his godlike superiority. And also OGQ is not being a good example. He's not, he's not the exemplar of Q that he wants his son to grow up to be in the first place. What is time and how much is enough to spend together?

These are a few of the questions that have got to be rolling around Janeway's mind when she proposes just spending more time together as father and son. Like, have you tried that? Yeah. But like, it's so crazy to conceive of, like, if time isn't really a thing for you, what does that even do? It's not really explored in this conversation. Q is happy to snap his fingers, happy at the suggestion, and they go off. Happy to unconsensually kiss Captain Janeway.

Again, just really makes you uncomfortable about the cue overall this episode. Yeah, I'm not so sure Janeway doesn't want it. I mean, you see what she's wearing. Jesus. Wow. Wow. Wow. And during the Max Fun Drive.

Two crew members were killed in the breach. Amazing choice by you to get canceled here and now. The physical relationship between Q and Janeway has always kind of been there. And yeah, it's not great, but in the spectrum of terrible things Q could do being an all powerful omnipresent being, a closed mouth kiss.

It is like on an infinite list of bad things he could do. Like, I guess. That does show a remarkable restraint. Right. Look, I have to That does show a remarkable restraint. Right. That's... Look, I have to be positive about this moment, Ben. You don't have a choice. The coin flip says so.

Yeah. You can't cancel me. Hahahaha. Cancel the coin. Yeah. I mean, I find it hard to control myself around anyone with that many pips on their collar. Yeah. So on the bridge,

the coast appears to be clear of both the Borgs and the Q-boys. The boy is gone. And with the matter settled, it's bath time. Calgon, take Captain away. The soft, luxurious, frequent world of Calgon. I love a bath. It's my favorite way of relaxing. I wondered if this was the tub that we saw Neelix in in the pilot.

Like it looked very familiar to me. Except the tub in the pilot was up against like a bulkhead wall and this one's got window over the top. A very pleasing configuration. Yeah, it's got nice lighting. I took a bath yesterday. For the first time in a long time. I drove from Portland to LA. Oh yeah. I'm conscious of the fact that you have not taken a bath recently.

Yeah, I know, right? Isn't that a sick irony? It's fucked up, man. Two days of like 11 hours of driving, I needed a bath in the middle. So I did it, I drew the bath. Too hot, Way too hot. I got in for like three minutes and got out.

It was a waste. Wow. Couldn't deal with it. Were you driving some kind of vehicle that had a bathtub in it? How did you take a bath while on the road? This was during my halfway break. Oh, okay.

The break I took in the two days it took to drive from Portland to LA. Amazing. How do you draw a bath, Ben? Oh, okay. The break I took in the two days it took to drive from Portland to LA. Amazing. How do you draw a bath, Ben? How do you get it just right for temperature? I'll never figure it out. I'll never take a bath again.

That's what I promise. I hate to hear that promise, but I think the deal is it's just really hot when you first get into it. Yeah, that sucks. So Q appears fully clothed in Janeway's bubble bath, and he tells her that in the 10 minutes that he was gone, he spent years together with his son, going all over the place, learning from each other, spending time, the time that Janeway suggested that they spend together.

And now lowercase Q hates him. Yeah, didn't work. Yeah. He's also just dissatisfied with parenting overall, he doesn't like this like teenager Q that's embarrassed to be around dad shit. Now the idea of imposing some consequences is like, if it wasn't clear before, it should be clear now.

And he's like, great, perfect, Kathy. And he leans in for a second kiss and catches some foot to his face. I wondered if this scene was on WikiFeet. I've never been on this website before. I've only heard tale of it, but this has got to be very exciting for a certain kind of person, right? Through the walls, they can hear Neelix having excitedly eavesdropped on this moment. Really doing it for him.

I've got to get that latinum, put your latinum where your mouth is. I've got to get that latinum, I'm not an existential goat. Now, Adam, earlier you promised that you would be able to persuade me that supporting Greatest Gen and Greatest Trek was somehow a good idea. You know, we flipped a coin at the beginning of this episode. I'm kind of taking the anti-stance on a lot of these things. I'd like you to defend your position. Wow. Okay, well, if I'm insufficiently able to do that, you're going to clip the strings on our show.

And it's gonna flop harmlessly out of a podcast feed onto the ground, right? Yeah. First, I want to say thank you to everyone who has supported the show over the years and during this year's Greatest Gen Drive. We couldn't do the show without you. Absolutely.

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So please give some consideration to joining, boosting or upgrading. Maximumfund.org slash join is where you go to do it. Thanks for supporting the greatest generation during greatest gen drive 2024. So the consequence that OGQ comes up with for lowercase Q is spend some time as an amoeba with no powers. And that is illustrated in the next scene where he's relieved of his Petri dish lifestyle. What's wrong? You didn't enjoy life

as an Apprentian amoeba? No. He hated it, and he also does not have any powers now. He's made suddenly human. And, uh, I mean, we've seen the continuum do this to OGQ before. Now Janeway can actually compel him to do stuff and, uh, he's going to stay for a week and he has to stop being a brat by weeks end, or he can live the rest of his life as an amoeba.

That's the, that's the stakes. This has been decided by the continuum. Lowercase Q hates this and storms off, stepping on the Petri dish on his way out. Ben, I watched this scene 15 times. Do you know why? You wanted to see if Petri dish goo was getting on the carpet? It doesn't. And the reason this scene was so interesting to me was because I think one boot steps on the Petri dish and another right leg and boot steps out to take that first step.

So as not to wipe Petri dish goo on the carpet on the way out because Ben if you play the scene over and over again you don't see any Petri dish goo get tracked on the carpet going forward that seems impossible wow wow uh yeah the bar? I know you're here to do press for something else, but I have a question. In Star Trek Voyager Season 7, Episode 19, Q2, when the actor playing Q2 steps into the Petri dish and then walks out of the Sixth Bay, is that a stunt boot?

Sorry for my friend. He's a huge fan of that episode and we all know it's not your finest work. Totally. Bullshit, man. It's just bullshit. I think it is really hard to tell if it is the same boot or not, such as the quality of this trick.

The timing of it is really tricky to do. It's too good. Yeah. It's too good for it not to be the same boot, but I, I still believe, damn it. So he gets walked down to his quarters. We get to see what, what bad quarters on Voyager look like. And, uh, they're not bad. They're, I mean, they're better than're better than bad quarters on the Cerritos,

you know? It's not like he's living in a hallway. Lower deckers don't end up in fancy rooms. She makes sure to take off his pips. It seems as though that is very important. Yeah. It feels like this is a ship with a smaller crew complement, but still, you don't want any four pippers

walking around getting any of that stolen pip valor, right? Right. So she's got a curriculum that she's come up with. There's coffee and respect and responsibility. And his first stop is in the ass lab where Sevet and Ichab are going to be showing him the widespread repercussions of his destruction. What a weird first lesson.

Yeah. The lesson that he wants is to be taught by a naked teacher. Right. And my question for you is, is this a show that is trying to make the case that Jerry Ryan's body is so beautiful that it's one of the most beautiful things in the entire universe if lowercase q wants to see it? Yeah.

Or will just any naked body do for lowercase q? He's just a perv. Which do you lowercase q? He's just a perv. Which do you think it is? Oh, maybe, yeah, maybe he's just a come one, come all horn dog, you know? Yeah. Yeah, that's unclear. He does say it to seven and not Ichab, notably.

He doesn't ask Ichab to dump them out. It's a good thing too. Our parents used to have to bathe us together. Gross. Let's just say our family is not gifted in that way. This mop handle is the longest thing I've held in my hands by far. What we get here is like kind of a montage of these vignettes, right? We get the ass lab scene, we get a diplomacy program scene that's run by Chakotay. Is this where Keegan Delancey got bit by the diplomacy bug?

Did he like this scene so much that he then changed careers? He was like, I don't think acting's for me. I think I've got a little something called it when it comes to working out problems between warring nation states or whatever. You know what I love? Angry people at a table. Always have. That's wild to think about. Uh, yeah. Big fan. So glad that Diplomacy Con came back to San Diego this year. I noticed that you were in a couple of acting roles

earlier in life, mostly as a choir boy, but notably in one episode of Star Trek Voyager, where you briefly got to be a diplomat. Did that inform what you've done with your career from that point on? I take my answer over there, but there's no food at this convention. And there's like four other people here.

Get a life. Chakotay breaks the mining rights in half and puts them in the center of this table and then leaves lowercase q to deal with it. Before we go into the corridor outside, and Janeway is really surprised to run into Chakotay out there. He's like, I got it.

Don't worry about it. Like, he's got to learn how to fail. That's part of growing up. And I stuck him with the Kobayashi-Maru of diplomatic missions. The problem with the Kobayashi-Maru as a test is that it can be cheated if one were to change the rules of the program. Got a commendation for original thinking.

What they don't know is that Lowercase Q has done that. When Chakotay walks back in, he's solved the mining rights problem and they've already like moved on to the party part of the diplomacy. The Cardassians and the Bajorans are hugging. It's great. You love to see it. How's that for order in the universe? The Cardassians and the Bajorans are hugging. It's great. You love to see it. How's that for order in the universe? In the mess hall, lowercase q continues his coursework as a server behind the counter.

And Neelix is loud talking in this scene because he can, and because he knows it irritates lowercase q. This is great. Too bad you can't just shut me up again, huh? My favorite scene! In an episode full of great scenes. Oh yeah, it was a real delight at him. I mean, it is hard for me to look past this one to drag this episode as I am required unfortunately to do by the coin. It is so apparent that this is the quinoa salad that we have had over and over and over again in airport lounges across the country. Lowercase Q asks Echeb's help in writing an essay, cause that's another thing he's

got coming up. in writing an essay, because that's another thing he's got coming up. Ichab was down there to invite him to do like recreational activities. Ichab's been really nice to Lowercase Q, despite what a dick Lowercase Q has been the entire time. It's shocking, right? I don't want what's best for Ichab,

mainly because of the guy who plays him. But it is really sad to see this character step on the social rake as many times as he does in this episode. Ben, if you don't want nice things to happen to each of you, wait about 20 years. -♪ WHAAAA! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAH! AAAAAAAH! AAAAAH! AAAAAH! A I love what happens in this scene because it reminds me so much of, not to place the episode in time in a specific way, but the latest Curb episode where Leon gets Freddy Funkhouser's jacket just by complimenting it. And it becomes a thing. Like, just noticing a thing and complimenting a thing can often mean that that thing is

given to you. I'll bet that works like 50% of the time. Right. And in this scene, that same thing happens, because Lowercase Q kind of shows some appreciation for how good Ichab is at the academics, and kind of gases him up into writing his essay for him. I'll get a pat. We find this out because he's, like, in the next scene finishing off his oral presentation of his essay to Janeway

and she's like, that is obviously chat GPT and by chat GPT I mean, Echeb's writing style. In the first scene, I was jacking off to the essay. It was so good. ["Janeway's writing style is so good"] This essay doesn't flood by basement at all. And then we, you know, find he changed the conditions of the test for the diplomacy problem that Chakotay gave him.

And unlike Kirk, nobody thinks that this is cool. They just think it's academic dishonesty. It's been a charade the whole time. Yeah. She is like, you know, you can go sit in your quarters and think about what you've done and you'll be living out the rest of your life as an amoeba. And he's like, no, no, no, no, no.

I didn't mean to cheat. I just like wanted to do really well. And this is the way I know how to do that. And it is in this scene that he realizes that to achieve the desired goal, he is actually going to have to apply himself and do his best without cheating. And Janeway is really glad that he was able to see his way through to that realization. I think it's great. He just gets chance after chance to blow it. I think everybody watching this show that is the son of a famous actor will really identify

with this character. We have 20 more minutes to fill in this episode. Therefore, I'm giving you a sixth chance. Step out of line again and I'm through with you, understood? Understood. Don't like this episode, but I do like the way Janeway enunciates dismissed at the end of this. She really puts all the mustard on that first syllable.

Dismissed. I did not notice that. Oh, it's so good. Janeway's dismissed is as good as Chacote's fire, I would say. It's like Lance Reddick saying the word, Lieutenant. Yeah. RSVP. We cut to four days later and he's really turned over a new leaf.

He's doing a great job actually participating and learning. Captain's log. Lowercase Q has stopped treating us like shit. That's basically the point. A pretty low bar. But he did redo his essay, so that was nice. In walks Egypt in the mess hall where lowercase Q had been performing this essay. And, uh, Egypt turned it into an invitation

for pilot lessons that Tom Paris is giving. Pretty cool invite. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing you could just invite whoever to come along on. I think it's so interesting that the B story of this episode, were there To Be One, isn't Ichab desperately wanting a friend, which like his behavior totally indicates. But there's never a point where he actually says that to anyone else or says it directly

to lowercase q or whatever. But it sure seems like that, right? It is very evident that that is a challenge for each ever since the rest of the Lilis Borgs left. But yeah, like he's giving lowercase Q as many chances as Janeway does. Do it. Coffee black. Make it yourself. I'm trying to help you see this as an opportunity to grow. Make it yourself. The next scene is on the Delta Flyer and they both get to like swap seats at the controls. It's a pretty fun ride. Paris is a pretty good teacher.

And on Voyager Q pops out of a turbo lift that Janeway is ready to get on and Janeway just kind of nopes her way out of that interaction. Going up. I'll catch the next one. But you can't walk away from a cue, can you? No. He just blurbs right in front of her and asks about lowercase q's progress. He does not want to believe that he's gotten any better.

And Janeway is like, I can prove it. And then the next scene we see another great essay reading. I love essay readings and we get three of them in this episode. Yeah, personally, I didn't care for any of the three essay readings and I kind of felt like they were just filler in the script. You got to rule of threes the essay readings, I say. And at the end of this reading, so ends the reading, Ben, and she is way more impressed than he is and lowercase q notices right away.

Ben, maybe for the FODs watching, you could demonstrate what a disappointing look in a father's face is. Oh yeah. So he's got the kind of arms crossed, but like up high on his chest. Yeah. The up high arms cross is like analogous to the Cal Hudson, Com badge situation.

Right. The higher the arms are crossed, like you don't want to go too high because then you look like you're in a B-boy stance with flip flops and socks and sweatpants. You do not B-boy those arms if you're in a b-boy stance with flip-flops and socks and sweat pants. You do not b-boy those arms if you're a disappointed dad. No. I've been practicing, you know, like so that Doron can toil under a father that never gives

him any validation. Yeah. A boy. That's going to be the parenting style that I kind of shoot for. Oh, it's very nice. And the cat's in the cradle in the super spoon. How is lowercase Q surprised by this? He seems genuinely hurt by his dad's behavior here and he leaves in a huff. And Janeway is like...

But it's not that OGQ is disappointed in him, he's disappointed in Janeway. He wishes that the instruction was at a higher level. What's next? Basket weaving? This is what you have to look forward to in every PTA meeting you're going to attend for Jerome. Like that tension between whose fault is it that Jerome is fucking up. Right. Is it his fault or is it the teachers? Let's just assume it's the teachers cause my little

boy, he would never. OGQ has to be honest, not impressed. And the continuum isn't going to be impressed either because exemplary Q-ness is what they're after. And guess what? Writing a great essay is not it. So Janeway goes and visits lowercase q and tries to comfort him a little bit.

She walks in without using the door chime, and he's just been jacking it. Knock on my door! Knock next time! Whoa. Lock the door, lowercase q. Did you use replicator credits to replicate a shoebox? Oh my God, what's in there?

Oh, what's in the box? Q's like, I have felt the pleasures of the universe that you could not possibly imagine, and yet, as a corporeal human being, jacking off is a delight. Our sponsor for today's episode is Manscaped. They're going to ship a razor out to you and it's going to be in a box that you can use for all kinds of things. She's kind of offering a safety net here, right? Like you can at least be a human and live on this ship

if you fail. Like I'll make sure that the continuum doesn't turn you into an amoeba. And he's like, that is not a satisfactory outcome to me. That sounds like dog shit. Like the distinction is basically meaningless in my mind. Because like what she's saying without saying it is that like, you can slam it with ass if you can't cut it with a continuum. And he hates this. He should hate it.

Yeah. He's got an amazing life out there. He doesn't want to be human. He's had that sweet, sweet Q Coke shoot up his nose and nothing else is gonna do it for him. Yeah. He goes and finds Itchy, which is Echeb's new name. Itchy is working in a Jefferies tube and he persuades him to go help him fix an engine problem on the Delta Flyer that they saw, like the check engine

light came on when they were having their flying lesson the other day, and they're going to go wrench under the hood and fix it. And no sooner have they fixed the check engine light on the Delta Flyer than Lowercase Q is jaking the ship, he blocks each up in back there at the back of the, of the bridge area. How did you do that? And phasers open the shuttle bay door and flies this ship out.

I love shooting the door off. Yeah. What a moment. I loved seeing it from the inside of the, of the shuttle bay. It looked great. That's the distinction exactly. Like so often we would have seen this from the exterior now. Right.

Or just heard it described on the bridge. We see the Delta Flyer go through something I don't think we've ever seen before, Ben, and I think we can just call it a space gash. He had me at gash. And on the other side of this thing, the clovary system. A place Yung Q has promised is full of babes. The Clovary system has got to be named after the cloaca that they made in space, right? Oh, sure.

Yeah. Egypt does not want to meet these women. He wants to go home to Voyager. Yeah. He's like, there's a perfect woman back on Voyager. What are we doing? You've wanted to see her naked constantly. How could we possibly leave that?

Yeah. I was very excited to see what the Clovary babes looked like after hearing them talked up so much. But instead they get rolled on by local police who are preparing to arrest them for, I guess, just being in the wrong part of space. I love how the ship looked. It looked really distinct from anything else we've seen. Yeah, it's kind of Romulan, right?

Yeah. Yeah, that Romulan green. It was Romulan green in a way that I was like, this should have just been a design for a Romulan ship. Like throw a different paint swatch on that, you know? Smooth lines. I dug it. I hated it. I don't want them taking ships away from the Romulans

that are rightfully theirs. I know you and I have been in this situation. The passenger in a vehicle is a teenager where the driver does not want to pull over and instead they flee. And this is the situation that Egypt is in. It's very stressful. They do lick a shot at this ship and then go back through a space gash, but not before

Egypt gets wharf lightning. And back on Voyager, the Delta flyer shows up and lowercase Q gets on FaceTime begging for Janeway to beam itchy to 6-bay to fix him up. Hey Ben, if I took my vehicle to a service station and damaged my car while fueling it, would that be a gash gash? Yeah, I think that's what that would be, Kevin. Okay. Bye. Later. Later. And just to expand on that a little bit, I think if somebody saw you damage your car in that context and made a noise, it might be a gash, gash, gashp.

If that person saw this incident and was moved to take pity on me because I didn't have any money, would they give me cash, cash, cash, cash? I mean, I think that they would give you cash, cash, cash gesh, ash, or gresh. Because no one rides for free in this context. We'll be right back. F***. F***. In Sixth Bay, Dr. Mark does not know how to fix

what has happened to Itchy. Itchy is hurt in a way that, you know, he needs to know a lot more about the, the weapon that did it to figure this out. So Janeway is like, lowercase Q, you stole a candy bar and you and I are going to go back to the store and you are going to apologize to the minimum wage employee and make them a part of my parenting moment for some reason. Yeah, this sucks. This sucks for everyone. and make them a part of my parenting moment. For some reason. Uh...

Yeah, this sucks. This sucks for everyone. It is no fun. But it's a great scene! It is a good scene. I mean, uh... I get to say that. You can't say that. Fuck! I shouldn't have smoked all that weed before we started recording. I can't remember which side of the thing I'm on.

Uh... So, yeah, he has to confront on FaceTime, the angry captain of this ship. And the captain of the ship is like, cool, well, you're off the hook, but Janeway, you are going to have to endure the punishment for the crimes of the child. That's just the way it works in our culture. I don't make the rules. I just enforce them at gunpoint.

Yeah. Unquestioningly. Pretty great. Lowercase Q is very upset by this. He kind of wants to throw himself on the punishment grenade and is, is begging for the punishment to be brought down on his head. And this is when, uh, this, lo-fi alien is finally broken. And he's like, I'm so proud of you,

and reveals himself to be none other than OGQ. In disguise. Surprise! Well, this is all great and everything, but what about Egypt back in Six Bay? Oh, he's fine. I fixed it. Just now is what Q says.

Yeah. Huh. Yeah. This was all parenting done by Q. Janeway's outraged because she was like, so this was just a deus ex machina. Like this, this was all done for his benefit and we were left to worry about the safety of our crew for no fucking reason and he's like, yep. And I feel like she's as mad at the episode as I am at this point for just being like,

what has this all been for? Like, what has been? At least there were stakes in early season Star Trek The Next Generation. You had the Borgs carve out a toilet area from the Enterprise. Many people died. You're saying none of that happened here? Yeah. No one died on a toilet on Voyager?

What kind of horrible joke? Everything gets undone. Lowercase Q is brought before a panel of encounter at Farpoint judges. Do Qs just dress like they're in the post-atomic horror whenever they're judging something? I think so. They left the forklift off screen though.

These judges are seated, unmoving. Yeah. They have decided that lowercase Q is not going to turn into an amoeba, but he's also not going to get his powers back. He's going to remain human. And we know that everybody in Star not going to get his powers back. He's going to remain human. And we know that, uh, everybody in the Star Trek wants to remain Klingon.

In fact, so this is not a satisfactory outcome for anyone. Not at all. I mean, lowercase Q seems to come to terms with it pretty fast because in the ready room later, he's like, Hey, you know, if I'm going to be human, I might as well stay with humans. So can I stick around on the ship to continue the training? And like the moment Janeway asks about OGQ, OGQ appears to tell them that he appealed the judgment from the three Q judgment, The Q Tribunal, if you will. It is a literal tribunal. Yeah.

Is it a tri-cune-al? It is. All he had to do was threaten to leave the continuum. He's like, if you kick my boy out, I'm leaving too. We're a package deal. So they walked it back, and now lowercase Q has his powers again. And specifically the power to make flowers, which he gives to Janeway in this scene as kind of a thank you for the

week of work that she's had, which has been pretty tough. She also gets compensated in the form of a couple of years off of their trip. Not a huge thank you from Q, but I also wondered like how they're gonna get their monthly broadcasts from Starfleet if they jump forward kind of a lot. Cause isn't it predictive? Like they send the tight beam at the part of space

that they think they're gonna be in? Sure is Ben. Yeah. Yeah. That's really, it's gonna fuck them all up. Yeah, that's gonna be a disappointing development actually. Yeah. Yeah. That's really, it's going to fuck them all up. Yeah. That's going to be a disappointing development, actually. Starfleet is going to be like, why were you so communicative in the first year, and then you stopped talking to us for the next 60 years?

It's like, can't pick up the phone at all? Yeah. The case that OGQ makes is that this would make me like the Echib in the assignment. I can't write your essay for you. You need to do this one yourself. And in this way, Janeway approves, doesn't she? We've come full circle in a perfectly crafted episode. Ben, did you like it?

You know, I'm really easy to get along with most of the time, but I don't like bullying. I don't like friends, and I don't like you. I miss you. No, I did not like it. I thought it was extremely trite. It was basically an episode asking me to invest a bunch in both a literal and a character nepo baby who just gets life handed to him on a silver platter over and over and again

until he finally achieves one minor thing and that's good enough for everybody to be like, great, well, you get to be rich and famous forever. You get to have all power over time and space that you want. And yeah, I just, you know, like Star Trek at its best is, you know, they're little morality stories, they're little explorations of human nature. And so I don't think explorations of Q nature really move the needle for me. It's sad to me, you know, like I think that when we first started noticing LeVar Burton

getting directing credits on episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation, we really praised what skill he had as a director. It's true. And it's just kind of heartbreaking to see an artist get worse and worse as their career progresses. How about you? Wow, Ben. LeVar Burton catching strays out there for some reason. Amazing.

No one will ever know why you're going at him so hard in this episode. Kind of bewildering from where I'm sitting. Not just a great episode, Ben. The best episode of Star Trek Voyager, I think, was Q2. I think there are problems that omnipotent beings endure that we'll never understand. And maybe that's why we don't understand it in this episode. You're making the like, why do we get sick? Well, God works in mysterious ways, Ben argument.

Precisely. You see, Ben, we're too feeble-minded to grasp the challenges that they have to go through and, and like the episode tries to tell their story, but look, no episode could do that. And in its own way, it does tell that story. Right? Yeah. Pretty incredible. Loved it.

How so? I think I'm also going to love this week's Priority One messages, Ben. You want to see what we have over there? Oh, okay. Fine. Priority One message from Starfleet coming in on Secure Channel. Ben, this is the part of the episode where normally we do P1s, and P1s are a great way to support the show

week in and week out, but right now, what we're asking for specifically is monthly support made possible by our friends at Maximum Fund. You can go to MaximumFund.org slash join to set up that monthly support for as little as $5. It'll help keep us going and put you rich in the bonus feed shows we put in there every month.

Instant bonus feed wealth is yours if you support. And then other bonus gifts will come in the mail a little bit later if you're at those higher levels. I love seeing the enamel pins on people's jean jackets and stuff when we do live shows. I always look for them and I always tell people how much I appreciate the support when I see them. If you're curious about like how how this works, what the what the model is, where your membership dollar goes, it goes straight to us. Like we are the owners of the show and we use this money to you know cover all of the operating costs. Everything you hear is made possible

by membership support. Look, we fundraise for our shows once a year, and it's important for us because we get to figure out what we're going to do the rest of the year based on how we do in the drive. And it's your support that determines how many of our weird ideas we get to actually do in the year 2024.

We have a lot of great ideas, some bad ideas. We wanna do them all. And your support at the $5 level would really give us a chance to do that. Maximumfund.org slash join is how you can support our shows. You're just a couple of clicks away. Can't emphasize this enough.

It's very easy. You're not going to be run through a bunch of rigamarole. All right, Adam, I want to read a testimonial from a beloved friend of DeSoto. Lees says, even though my family is comically poor because he, who is my husband, has been in school forever. I've never considered stopping my support Pidley though it may be you guys are something me and my husband look forward to I want you to keep it up So I'm gonna keep paying up. We really appreciate that Lees, you know, I think that's a great illustration of

The fact that for most people five bucks is a pretty affordable price point to get in on something like this ad. I know that the internet, most shit is free, but it really makes a difference to support the kind of media you really like. And I don't know if you're like me, you may have noticed that a lot of podcasts have tons and tons and tons of ads now.

And it's a little bit like listening to terrestrial radio with a lot of networks out there. We really try to keep the ads to a minimum as much as possible because we really care about the listening experience. It's one of the reasons why Greatest Gen Drive this year is sponsored by BushTrimmers.com. Yeah, if you've got a great big bush and you want to whack that thing back without whacking everything BushTrimmers.com, you know, they've just been a great partner for us through the whole MaxFunDrive and we really appreciate them. If you want to make your lowercase Q look more like an uppercase Q, BushDreamers.com redirects from MaximumFun.org slash join.

So go there first, get in there at a five or $10 level of support. Watch your genitals become better looking after supporting both shows. That's what I think is going to happen. The scientists didn't think it was possible. But yeah, like very few people actually do support, but the ones that do, we are so, so appreciative of and they make this whole thing possible for everyone that listens. That's right. So if you wanna count yourself among that elite few, head to maximumfun.org slash join right now

and become a member today. You're gonna get that bonus content. You're gonna get the gifts if you are at the higher levels and whichever level you support at, you're gonna get discounts on upcoming streaming shows that Adam and I do. And listen, I don't want to brag, but we have at least a couple coming this year. And one of them I'm like over the moon excited about because I think it's such a cool idea. So make some fun.org slash join. Get your membership set up today. Hey, Ben. What's that, Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda?

Incredible. Drunk Shimoda. I'm going to give it to Keegan Delancey because I do really feel like this must have been a ton of fun to go to work with dad and like goof around. And like, I think that he does a really nice job with the character being a high status asshole in many scenes when that is what the character is doing and a kind of groveling whelp in other scenes and have it really feel contiguous, like that's one character doing those two status things.

When he is walking through Voyager and has, you know, full control of his powers and doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks of him, he is so obnoxious to be around. And then when he has nothing and like is really at their mercy, he like, he gets his shit together real quick. And I just thought he did a really nice job

with a pretty high-stakes acting challenge, I would say. I have to imagine it was fun to be, you know, like his dad was a beloved guy that they loved having back on these Star Trek sets. So, I mean, I think that this is the last Q appearance for a long time. So fun for him to get to go participate in that. Thought he did a nice job.

Now that the coin flip is not influencing what I'm saying. Yeah, hard to choose anyone else Ben. Such was the experience and performance for Keegan Delancey. This would be his last role, his last acting role was this. So what a way to go out. So maybe he actually hated it. He was like, fuck this. This is a hell of a way to get your child not to get into the industry, is to act across from them out of it.

Yeah. Yeah. I would love to buy that guy a drink and ask him some questions about what it was like to do this. Well, maybe if you were at war with another country, you could hire him. Mm-hmm. That would be great. Okay, Adam, it's the time of the show where we decide how we will be doing the next episode. Why don't you head over to gach.biz slash game and get ready to roll that bone while I tell you about season seven, episode 20.

Author, author, the doctor publishes a hollow novel based on his Voyager experiences, which scandalizes the crew. Is it true that there are only six episodes left in all of Star Trek Voyager? That is true, Adam. I can't believe it. We're running downhill. Wow.

Well, we're practically at the top of the mountain at the Game of Buttholes. The Will of the Caretaker, currently on square 87, one row from the top. Wow. Three squares ahead, got a traveler episode which would move us back five, and then two squares after that, New York's is galley. What do you think is gonna happen?

Hmm, you're required to learn as you play. Roll. It would take a five to do a drinking episode. Hmm. You're required to learn as you play. Roll. It would take a five to do a drinking episode. Hmm. We'll see. Here I go. I have rolled a five. Wow.

A labyrinth! Drink is the antidote. Only bad things happen to us anymore on our game board. Ha ha ha. Top row of the game, square 92. It's a Neelix's Galley episode, which means you and I are gonna drink Tlaxi and champagne the whole time. Whoa, okay. How about that?

Interesting twist. I hope we do really well on the drive so we can afford nice bottles of Tlaxi and champagne for next episode. Oh, yeah. If we don well in the drive so we can afford nice bottles of Tlaxi and Champagne for next episode. Oh yeah. If we don't, we get what we deserve. Swell. Carbell.

Grrr. Grrr. Well, we should do some credits, Adam. Gotta thank Windy Pretty, our beloved producer, editor. We gotta thank Rob Adler, our new director of social media. Bill Tilly, our consigliere. We gotta thank Adam Ragusea, who made the original Janeway song

and is hard at work on the Entrepreneur's Song for What We Have Coming. I hope so. That's all inspired by Dark Materia's original card songs. Hey, thanks to everyone who has supported already in the Max Fun Drive. You know, we're going into week two right now. This isn't a pledge break, but please support MaximumFun.org slash join. And with that, we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek Voyager,

an episode of the Greatest Generation Voyager, where Adam and Ben tell all in a way that upsets each other as well. I guess we just get a little loose-lipped with all that Tlaxi and champagne going down our gullets. Looking forward to that. Getting a little loose. Hey, before we let you go, it's your last chance to hear from us, asking you, pleading for you to go to maximumfund.org slash join to support this very program. Greatest Generation needs your help. This is the final week of The Greatest Gen Drive. Our costs are rising and we need the friends of DeSoto to rise up and help us meet them.

And we really, really appreciate the folks that do. Maximumfund.org slash join is where you go to do it. We'll see you at the end of the drive. Maximumfund, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows, supported directly by you.