The Greatest Generation - Chekhov’s Poké Ball (DS9 S5E1)

Episode Date: August 19, 2019

When Sisko recruits Odo for a dangerous mission in Klingon Space, he’ll have to try a whole new kind of shape shifting. But the all-night party at Gowron’s HQ takes its toll, and the whole team struggles to remember their Klingon lessons. What’s the flair minimum to work on Dukat’s ship? How’s Odo coping with all his new glands? How is Worf not a dead giveaway? It’s the episode where we’re off IPAs, and into a barrel of blood wine.  Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Prophets! Support the production of The Greatest Generation.

Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet! Engage! Welcome to the Greatest Generation, Deep Space Nine. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast. I'm Adam Pranica. I'm Ben Harrison. I was just talking to someone Other than me?

What the fuck? Who mentioned that it took them a long time to get into Greatest Gen because of that line. They actually counted it as a turn off. They were like, there are so many people out there who are like reluctant nerds

that i wasn't sure if the show was for me but i'm glad i stuck it out because i know that it is and uh in that conversation what i told this person was that it's not that we are embarrassed about being star trek fans it's about at one time having real careers and then pivoting into having a star trek podcast yeah i mean there was a time there where we were unpaid star trek podcasters and the worst kind that was i mean yeah i mean i i don't The worst kind. That was, I mean, yeah, I mean, I don't like, that's not to throw shade on anybody who's doing a podcast that they're not making a living from. Not at all. Most podcasters, but we're very fortunate in that respect.

But to like try and be a serious freelancer, but also have part of my twitter profile be that i have a star trek podcast was weird you know when i'm like when i'm trying to solicit work from a major international foundation so that i can shoot video for them in uh you know about some project they're doing in nigeria i don't want them to be like oh let's look into this guy wait what it reminded me of it just reminded me again how you know just because you say something a certain way doesn't mean it's being received in the way that you intend it I thought that was a good reminder I was like I was momentarily hurt by it i was like oh no really like i i uh i always felt like our show was a place for uh every kind of nerd yeah i didn't think that we were broadcasting

anything besides that so that was an interesting take yeah like i'd say a big percentage of our one-star reviews are people that are mad at us about specifically the use of the word embarrassment interesting yeah wow well uh we're not gonna change no it's it's about us that or anything else yeah i mean i think that it's it's always been true to us and it's been it's it's like evolved with us you know That is one thing about that sort of review that, like, I don't even take it that hard or seriously. Like, if a review of us is that we're not doing this the way you would, then cool. Like, we're not. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that is like the fallacy of the user review. Mm-hmm. And with friendly fire, like almost every one star review is somebody listened to a review, like one of our episodes about a movie they love and disagreed with our opinion of it. Yeah. You know?

And it's like, okay, so our whole show got one star because your one movie got criticized somewhat i think this is the foundation for a lot of what makes up the the pop culture criticism industrial complex right of which we are a tiny little part sure but i don't think i've ever been upset at someone liking something I disliked or disliking something that I did. Like, I just, I don't care about things like that. I'm not wired like that. It seems strange when people get so angry about that stuff. Like, I think that's what

makes these conversations fun. Like, tell me why you like the thing that I don't. That would be, nothing is more fun to me than that conversation with you. Yes, sell Battlestar Galactica to me because I tried to watch it and I did not care for it. I would say that getting us to watch or consider anything critically works, except Babylon 5, which we will never consider watching or doing a show about. So don't even try. Yeah. I,

I'll tell you that like one of the harshest box master just sits in the corner crying, wanting his greatest gen do. One of the harshest criticisms I've gotten recently was I was, uh, sitting on the couch with my wife the other night and we put it on an episode of cheers and we were singing along to the theme song and i said oh i just did a uh i just did a a parody of this song on my star trek podcast and she said you did

and i uh i i pulled it up and played it for her, and she's like, those rhymes are terrible. I was like, people liked my Cheers parody. I got a lot of positive comments about it on Twitter. I don't think liking song parodies was an element of your vows, as I remember. Yeah, I had to go check our ketubah, which is hanging on the wall in our hallway. Make sure she wasn't breaking our covenant with the Almighty. You must live in a great big place because I don't have room for a ketubah in my house. Well, it's not like sousaphone style. It's like the reasonable one that you don't see in a marching band.

I was not so long ago camping at a music festival, Ben, and not 20 yards away were the campers that made up a marching band. One of whom played a sousaphone

and played and practiced that sousaphone most of one of the played one of one of whom played a sousaphone and played that played and practiced that sousaphone most of one of the afternoons i yelled out at the guy like people were yelling requests and he was occasionally taking them and i yelled out curb your enthusiasm theme which i feel like legally if you play a trombone or a sousaphone, you should know how to play that. And he did not. I am predicting that you were just making Larry David face the entire weekend. Whenever I'm at a music festival and I'm forced to camp at one, it's permanent Larry David face. Absolutely.

Back in the day when I was making lots and lots of internet videos for my job, I had like a subscription to a needle drop music library and my editor was going through it looking for something to put against a video that we were working on and he found the curb your enthusiasm theme it was just a fucking like you could you could license the curb your enthusiasm theme for like 325 bucks for your web video it always made me satisfied when i would when i would watch tv and a commercial would use a piece of music that i had purchased for another project like it made me feel like my taste was good and modern a friend of mine at like mine at an ad agency was one time,

I think my highest aspiration is to become a music director for television and film and commercials. Yeah. And I had spent so many just soul-crushing hours sifting through that kind of music. Yeah. When you find the curb your enthusiasm theme it like gives you a reason to live because you're like holy shit that just came from this

yeah like they didn't have that somebody composed that or anything it's amazing happens all the time happens all the time yeah 300 bucks out the time. Yeah, 300 bucks. Out the door. It could be yours. I should have just gotten a general license for it for like $1,000 and used it on everything for the rest of my life. You know, I love working with Ben. I love his vision. Cost of doing business with him, not extremely high,

but God, it is the same song with him yeah as the soundtrack every time it's a oh here's a fashion show recap video here's a wedding video here's a video about kids with pneumonia in africa all the same curb your enthusiasm theme i love that you know of the handful of curb themes that there are, there's like act break curb themes. There's one I'm thinking of specifically for all of those. So fun. I love that show.

It's coming back, I saw. Yeah. We need him now more than ever, don't we? We fucking do man I feel like every time you and I have ever had a disagreement about anything what we needed to do was just stare it into each other's eyes Yeah. Yeah.

Every time you've metaphorically asked me to watch your laptop in a restaurant. Yeah. Yeah. I cannot believe that we are about to do an episode about season five of Deep Space Nine. I know. It seems like forever ago that we started the Deep Space Nine part of Greatest Gen. And here we are. Yeah.

With just a year and a half left to go. Yeah, wow. Which in itself is crazy to think. Three seasons left. Wild. Wild, we're here. So let's get into it, shall we's deep space nine season five episode one in what i think is a terribly titled apocalypse rising do you realize how incredible this is no of course you don't there was a lot of talk about how they did not want to end season

four with a cliffhanger they wanted to sort of like rinse and start all over for season five and so instead of getting a cliffhanger what we're given is a conversation constructed for the sake of exposition at ops. Yeah, it's interesting. We do get a little recap of the last episode. As if it were a cliffhanger. Yeah, which is weird, right? If your producers have legislated not doing a cliffhanger and you're given all of the ingredients of a cliffhanger, what is the difference?

Right. I think it is they are making the argument for this is a tv show with a story that is continuous from episode to episode and they are probably dealing with executives that conceive of television as a world where somebody who skipped season four needs to be able to just come back in and understand what's going on. Yeah, yeah. And this is a very different show at the beginning of season five from what it was at the end of season three, you know? We can talk about this more during review time,

but do you really get it up for the Klingon War as it's being portrayed here in Deep Space Nine? Because I think we are are in terms of story arc we are in the last quarter of it and it is a major thing like it's a major through line in deep space nine right but i care for it less than i do uh anything having to do with the founders right yeah this definitely feels like they're trying to write an episode that moves it to the side

so that they can focus on something else. Right. But I like that the episode really starts with Worf shitting bricks because Dax and Sisko are coming back from a conference in a runabout and he knows how fraught a situation that can be.

Yeah. They're a few hours late, and that's not a good look. They should have been back hours ago. There may be some recency bias here, but a runabout has returned not too long ago with damage that looks a lot like the damage here. So much so that if Bashir were at ops, like he's got to be asking for someone to be beamed inside someone else's body

on the inside of that runabout, right? Yeah, definitely. It's answering some questions that we had at the end of the last episode. Like, are we going to see the six months later at the beginning of season five? Or are we going to be seeing like a couple days later? And this is a couple days later. Kira is still pregnant. Not a lot has changed since the end of the last episode.

We do some of that vignetting to catch us up with our characters on the station. One of these locations is Quark's, and it sure looks like he's been made whole, right? Yeah. Quarks. And it sure looks like he's been made whole, right? Yeah. I mean, the poster is still on the wall about his exile from Ferenginar economic culture. But I mean, he's still wearing the coats he used to, everything he used to have in his bar is back. Right. Yeah. Quark's bar is in full swing. He's trying to pitch Sisko on participating in happy hour.

Do I look happy, Quark? But Sisko's there to see Odo. That's one depressed exchange link. Who, I would say, has undergone the most dramatic change since the last episode, in that he has become a beer nerd. So annoying.

God. Just shut up about the beer. Talking about notes and the window painting effect of the foam on the side of the glass. Like, fuck off. I'm glad that he's at least

drinking a Pilsner or a lager because I do not want to hear another asshole talk about all the character of their IPA. Fuck out of here with that. I like IPAs. I'm off IPAs. I've been off IPAs for years.

I know. And I agree that they got blown up too big. But that doesn't mean all IPAs are bad. I don't know. I think all IPAs are bad. I don't know. I think all IPAs are bad. I'm not going to equivocate.

I'm just going to say that's my position. And it's fine if you like them. I do not. And don't even think about filling a hoof of IPA and giving that hoof to me, Ben. I'm going to leave it in an elevator. I mean, you're a guy that thinks sandwiches are good, so I'll take that with a grain of salt.

Let me just sit here and enjoy the one thing that makes me a little bit happy. This fresh, delicious, tasty, meaty, turkey-filled, cold-cut combo. I eat three every day to help keep me strong. Odo is kind of shrooming out a little bit here on his beer. I mean, not to bring up this music festival again, Ben, but we went to see Mark Lanigan do a show, and he is someone that does a dirge-like selection of songs on his tour, and it's like dark and good and thoughtful.

And the people right next to us were were actually drinking mushroom tea and tripping out and like giggling and laughing during four songs about dogs covered in blood jesus christ like it was it was weird and that's the sort of uh anachronisms that that we're getting here with odo like he's uh he's really into his beer. He's a little fucked up, but this is an introduction to a story we see a lot, almost to the degree that it's a trope. Cisco is recruiting Odo for a job, and Odo does not seem like he's up for the task. No, Odo has lost his sense of utility. Like he conceives of his usefulness and his identity as his ability to change shape. And Sisko is talking about taking him on a big mission, a mission behind enemy lines into the heart of Klingon power. Because at the end of the last episode,

Odo fingered Gowron as a changeling. I think Rene Abrajanwa is good at sharing this pathos with Sisko. But do you believe what he's saying in this scene? I had a hard time buying it because it's telling rather than showing, right? Like he's talking about how he used to live for the job out of 24 hours and preferring to stare into the foam of his beer instead. Like he's he's putting it in terms that are more professional than they are existential.

And it would be it would be more meaningful if they were existential. Right. I really disagree with that i think that this whole episode is about that because he does change shape in this episode surgically yeah right and i think that this is setting the table for an exploration of that rather than trying to be the entire exploration of that hmm yeah that's fair not. Not necessarily. So they have a McLaughlin group. Issue one! And the mission is we are going to essentially

go for a heist in Klingon Fort Knox. It is probably the most heavily fortified installation in the Empire. We're going to take these thermal detonators from Star Wars. We're going to go to the most hardened Klingon military site dressed as Klingons. We're going to go to the most hardened Klingon military site dressed as Klingons.

We're going to set these things up. We've got one shot at this, but we're going to turn them on and they're going to expose Gowron for the changeling he is. They have some radioactivity field that will cause a changeling to reveal itself for a moment it's simple we uh kill the batman we have to do a lot of like techno techno babble about why this device couldn't be used all the time everywhere and it's basically like a dose of radiation that's bad enough that if you did it twice, it would probably kill you. If this device is a Pokeball,

which Pokemon do you believe Gowron to most resemble? I'm going to go with Jigglypuff. But I think you could also make the case for Gengar. What about Diglett? Yeah, he does look a little bit like Diglett, huh? You got those beady eyes like Diglett. Tyranitar? I'm up against my Pokemon knowledge.

I never did Pokemon. I didn't either. But these devices sure look like the Pokeballs to me. Golden Pokeballs. All I did when I saw this thing was go, yadda, yadda. Like, what?

Jabba the Hutt's at this McLaughlin group. Camera swings around and he goes, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh. Ha and he goes, They're analogous to a pattern enhancer, but they're much, much smaller. And by saying that, I'm saying, yeah, you get a box in your target inside the outer

space made by these things. You never see these actually work, though. They make such a big deal out of what happens, and you sort of, like, as a viewer, you're excited for the prospect. Like, what's it going to look like? The Chekhov's Pokeball.

Right. Really never, never comes into play. I would have bet anything that we would have seen. Like, I thought what we were going to get was a Gowron being inside the square and then walking out at the last moment. These things get turned on and they miss. Yeah.

That seems like a Star Trek thing to have happened. Right. But we don't want to get too ahead of ourselves, do we, Adam? No, but it's natural to guess it at what's going to happen during the planning stages of a mission. Gold to cotton. To cotton. Gold to cotton. So. Everyone's complaining about this mission, by the way. at what's going to happen during the planning stages of a mission. Everyone's complaining about this mission, by the way, like from jump.

The problem is like the site that they're going to is way too hard to get to. Like if they go through the asteroid belt that surrounds it in the little D, there's a tachyon detector net that will most assuredly discover them. So that's a problem. And also just walking around within a Klingon military site is a problem. And Cisco's got both problems solved because Bashir is going to put some loaf on them. And then he's going to call in a favor from everybody's favorite captain of a bird of prey, Gul Dukat. Do you think Dr. Bashir was tempted to lobotomize the four of them in a way that he has want

to do from time to time? Just once they looked like Klingons, he was like, ooh, it would be so nice. How many people would Bashir have to lobotomize in that way to command Deep Space Nine? Probably not too many more. No, yeah. You'd have to get Kira. Just Kira, and then he's the king. Yeah.

Boy, close call. Very impressive. They don't even bother to change Worf's loaf, which I think was a missed opportunity. But what do you think of the turtle shells on everyone else? was a missed opportunity but what do you think of the the uh turtle shells on everyone else i would say that i really felt bad for renee aubergineau because they probably were like hey renee guess what next episode you're not gonna have to be an otoloaf for the entire time and he was like oh great i'll be able to like eat normal food at crafty this is awesome and then finds out that he's going to be in klingon loaf the entire time the thing that i read about this episode is that uh is that he was

actually pretty okay with the makeup because it didn't cover his whole face the way that odo loaf does like he actually i think from the eyes down is pretty, pretty open. Mostly him. But it was Columini who like would not stop bitching about the makeup process or the loaf at all to the degree that the producers agreed that they would never do that to him again. He was just too much of a problem, which I love. That's smart on his part. I'm not dunking on Columini.

This is stuff Columini has said about himself. He's like, a huge prick about this they talk about it in that uh in that documentary right right yeah calamini maybe looks best of all yeah he kind of looks like uh it kind of looks like a lord of the rings dwarf as a klingon which is of course it is so weird to hear his voice come out of that face yeah that's the thing that that is really enduring about this episode i think is just like hearing their voices which are not masked at all and then seeing those weird faces i liked all the kardassians in this episode who are the ones that live on a bird of prey and have like clipped a lot of klingon shit onto their Cardassian uniforms. Yeah. Dukat's wearing a Baldrick. Yeah.

Some other guy is wearing a belt. Yeah. Pretty great. They've all kind of incorporated a few Klingon elements into their gear in a way that is really cool. Well, like Brian, for example, has 37 pieces of flair on today. There's a confused Cardassian that's just got like a pitcher like used for blood wine around his neck there's one that uh has like clipped off a a section of garden hose and is dangling it out of out of his uh out of his fly just to have a second he's like spinning it around his waist like hula hooping it

look at me i'm a klingon this is great this is a fun ducat episode he is a terror in it yeah like he he does some super fucked up things but this is almost exactly where you want him as a character, as a chaos agent, but a chaos agent you need to depend on. It makes the story a lot of time like dealing with that right like the like part of what they need to do is get their names entered into the like archery contest of of the Klingon military like they're kind of Robin Hooding their way in yeah and they keep like asking Dukat like hey you like put our names in the you know like you hacked the mainframe and put our names on the list, right? And he's like, yes, I did. But like it is so in character for them to be worried that he wouldn't.

Because he can just take care of the problem of these characters here and now if he wants to. Right. Yeah. And that's the that's what makes things so dangerous, having to depend on someone who is so untrustworthy up until now. Yeah. Like it wasn't long ago that Dukat was actively trying to kill these people. Like it won't be long until he is again. Right. It is this brief moment that they have an opportunity for him to not try and kill them. It is this brief moment that they have an opportunity for him to not try and kill them.

I think some of my favorite scenes in this episode are the Klingon drama practice scenes where Worf is trying to give them Klingon lessons. And the lessons do not go well, Enterprise. It is really bad. Worf is like a high school drama teacher just trying to get these kids to pay attention to anything he's saying and it is bad they it it sure seems like after a few of these scenes that they are going to be found out almost immediately it's cisco that is the best yeah he is relishing this yeah he loves it um and and like he's the most dramatic right right i i would say that like the chief seems like a supremely confrontational character but in this context just doesn't like the vibe and doesn't you know he's never he's never going outside of himself that much and that's uh i think really well written that it's really hard for him

to kind of inhabit another way of being you know it seems like a little bit of columnini shining through like that feels like actor wagging the character dog a little bit like his discomfort seems like it may be column and not uh o'brien you know i don't know because i feel like it's the same character thing that would have him be uneasy about trying the kind of food that keiko likes in in tng you know because he just wants to eat like cabbage and beef yeah that's not to go over well at the meeting they're headed to. There's a brief scene between Dr. Bashir and Kira to kind of check in on the progress of her pregnancy that I found very flirty.

Did you get that vibe? that I found very flirty. Did you get that vibe? Yeah, I mean, because at this moment in time, the baby inside the Navizator is Alexander Siddig's. This is still your fault. My fault? Is it really? Or is this a...

Wouldn't she have had the baby over the break? Or is this her actual pregnant belly and they were getting ready for it in the last season i think it's the second thing wow they really have a lot of fun in this in this scene but it really came out of nowhere character wise i thought yeah there's uh like there's the difference between screen close when two characters are talking to each other and real life close, the closeness with which any two people would speak to each other. And then there's intimate real life close, which is how these two actors are talking to each other in this scene. Yeah. It is very apparent.

Yeah. yeah it is uh very apparent yeah this is also intentional like uh like this is the first of many times that this show has uh has a stated interest in sprinkling and like doing that wink to the audience of of these two actors are together these two actors have made this baby right we have made a scene that has that kind of subtext well Well, and I feel like that butted up against the Klingon drama practice scene is especially interesting because a lot of what Worf is talking about is like how close you stand to somebody

and how you like, how you, like the vibe you bring when you address them. I called you a dumb beetle. I heard you. It's really interesting to have seen all of the things that Worf is describing before, but out of context, and then getting, you know, a Klingon cultural description for all of these behaviors in this episode to sort of underscore the reasons why things are the way they are. I really dug it. I did too. Like how you punch someone says a lot

about your intentions yeah front of hand versus back of hand is like it is language in yeah yeah uh both hands clasped together and then dropped onto the back of someone means something else means if you're kirk you want to fuck them i mean if you're kirk you always just want to fuck them right goes without saying yeah to be quite honest about it that is an appeal i have to revert back to my little state i don't use the bucket anymore odo is uh dealing with a lot of misgivings here and and this is the I'm not good at playing this part thing. And, you know, he invests all of his sense of

skill as a mimic in his changeling ability. And Sisko is making the case for, like, you can do this even without that. Right. Odo is, like, at a certain point a certain point even like trying to get out of the mission i'm not a very convincing klingon he wants cisco to see that he is going to be a danger to op sick and and the their ability to like see this thing through like one of the most dangerous

missions they've gone on in the show yeah cisco it's it almost feels like cisco has kind of like brought odo as like a management move like i'm gonna like make this guy build his confidence back up by having him do a really hard job one of the things this scene made me think of was the degree to which there are uh like endorphins in play for odo now that he's human like he's he's uh there's so many glands he never had before like he's demonstrating a fear response that i kind of wanted the episode to interrogate a little bit more like is this biological like where is this coming from is this purely a an interest in him totally divorced from what he might be feeling chemically because like we know he now contains everything that a human being does and that includes glands and a brain and and guts like the whole deal is now Odo. And it sure does make Odo's reluctance inside this mission as a choice instead of something that his body is forcing him to do.

And I kind of wish that there was a little bit more of a drill down about where this is coming from. And I would prefer if it were coming from his body a little bit. And maybe if the tension was him trying to fight his body versus his natural impulses as a professional security man. Yeah. Or an ex-gold, you know? Like there's a tension there that's unexamined that I think is really interesting. I think that's a great point. There's 10 pounds of episode in this five pound bag. Yeah.

pounds of episode in this five pound bag yeah that i feel like leaves this unexamined and i really hope that they can dig into that more in this season right do you know i mean i'm reluctant to even ask the question but like how many more episodes is odo a human being do you remember i don't i my experience of this poor you, the rest of Deep Space Nine is nowhere near as deep as my experience of TNG or early Deep Space Nine. Yeah. So, to some extent, we're sailing into waters that are uncharted for both of us. How long would you prefer that period to be? I mean, I think it makes for a very interesting character arc that I could see lasting the entire season or more than a season and being a compelling motivation.

Like, does he try and embrace his new status or does he try and get it back or what? I agree with you. I hope the runway is long with this it makes me wonder if the creators behind the show feel like it may be derivative of a data becoming human or using an emotion chip type of storyline though like i wonder if that is a reason to be reluctant to go in that direction right Right. For as long of a time. Yeah, I don't know. I wish I had something more specific to say about it.

I'm glad you don't. And I'm happy to not have the surprise spoiled. I think we're just wondering out loud about the possibilities here. Let me worry about that. The conversation between Sisko and Odo is cut short because they have to run up to the bridge of the Bird of Prey, where another Bird of Prey has kind of like pulled them over. And Gul Dukat is kind of bragging on his ability to trick Klingons into believing that they're talking to another Klingon when he gets on the radio. on the radio and uh turns out their hollow emitters have uh have busted which i thought would have been a really fun special effect to see ducat and damar like transmogrify into klingons right under under hollow emitters and and talk to these other klingons but uh in the broken down

condition of their ship ducat determines that it is easier to kill these Klingons than try to lie to them. This scene really hit me where it hurt because I feel like this happens most of the time. I try not to brag about anything in my life, but I feel like the few times that I have, it's always backfired or been broken. Like the thing that I'm trying to make look cool.

And this is totally what Dukat's doing. He's guys you're gonna love how we do this we've got this hollow emitter i look like a klingon we fake them out and the other guys look super stupid check it out watch this watch what ducat has just been in the ball kicking machine for a couple of seasons now right yeah in a way that he is he's great at like they're gonna give him his fangs back at some point right he is fun and funny to watch when he is super dangerous and also when he is on his knees like that's that's the strength of the character yeah yeah but they get to taigo core which is the uh the military we should mention that that when the hollow emitter fails ducat shoots first and just

removes the threat of being found out right then and there yeah the starfleets are not excited that he chose that. Worf doesn't even, like, yell to the sky. No, no. But, you know, he doesn't know if those are actual warriors over there or what. Yeah, that's true. They get to Tygo Corps, and they kind of say their goodbyes to Dukat. And in saying their goodbyes, he's like, hey, just FYI, I am not giving you a ride home like we talked about. And they're like, what?

And he makes a good point. He's like, hey, if you're successful with your mission, then great. Like the Klingon Empire will go back to being friends with the Federation and you have nothing to worry about. And if not, you're not going to be around for me to come pick up. So I'm not going to drive around the block a few times waiting for you guys to do this.

It's so stone cold logical. And it's airtight too. Yeah, nobody can argue with it. It's amazing. Like it's airtight too. Yeah. Nobody could argue with it. It's amazing because you were describing Dukat as great to watch either in a weakened state or at a powerful state.

But another element to him is that he's almost a genius at all times. Yeah. And this is an example of that. Yeah. Yeah. Dukat's always one of the smartest characters in the scene. Yeah. He definitely carries himself as that at all times too. That's part of what makes him irritating.

Yeah. His condescension. I haven't survived this long by being sloppy, Mr. Worf. So there's an exterior here that shows some space stations and ships, and then they arrive and they're in like a big a big hall with like braziers and and like barrels of wine and statues of klingon warriors and stuff did you did you get the sense that that was down on the surface of the planet or is that in one of the space stations until you asked the question i thought it was on the planet surface just because like wharf mentions that this is a place that

has been hollowed for i don't know like centuries like like he can smell the ancient blood on the floor of this place that just read to me as something that would not be yeah space station the space station would be too new for something like that yeah i guess so pretty awesome set with the uh with the hall of warriors statues and stuff yeah yeah i thought it was nicely done i thought it was well done there's uh dozens and dozens of klingon extras in this scene they're all slamming foreheads and singing malota and hanging out and uh the you know the gang has learned their klingon portrayal skills well enough to to blend in they they've all taken like some some like pill that helps them process the alcohol and klingon blood wine because part of the deal here is that there's like a challenge to being where they are, which is like drink and stay up all night and then be like sober and ready to receive the honors that the chancellor is going to convey upon you in the morning.

Worf gives the away team a pile of silver packets and And he's like, these are brode. You must take two pills at the beginning of your drinking. And then two, when you go to bed, that is how a warrior parties. what are you doing what are you doing what are you doing now they do that fun passage of time uh edits where they they uh they angle on the keg of blood wine and then dissolve to a lower level keg of blood wine. I know. That is so cheesy in most other contexts, but I just loved it here.

It was great. Yeah. Big fan. And the idea is that they are processing this alcohol at a superhuman rate. But by the time that the level is as low as it is, General Martok shows up at the party, and this is a big record scratch for the

infiltration team. Right. Because they've all interacted personally with General Martok, and he's actually a person who's in a position to recognize them and call them out for the infiltrators that they are. So we talk a lot in this episode about how Odo has been made a solid, but Martok walks up to the chief and says, like, don't I recognize you?

And I think if you listen closely, you can hear the chief make a solid. It's great it's a nice bit of uh it's a nice bit of trickery because the entire away team is is so afraid of galron making them they never imagine that it'll be martok that does i thought that it was like it it's a great scene and like and it's the right thing like the the all of the fear that it it provokes when they realize that they didn't consider martok but i just wondered like like wharf is has got to be like one of the most famous klingons right and he has not changed his loaf or changed his look in any way he's just got a lot more hair than we're used to seeing. It's insane. Worf is a dead giveaway.

Dead giveaway. Dead giveaway. Like, Worf was instrumental in Gowron's rise to power. He's like the eldest son of one of the great houses. His brother recently disappeared under very mysterious circumstances. Yeah. This is bad. Worf shouldn't even be there.

You can make the case that anyone would be better in this scene than Worf. Yeah. They're better without him. But they have to get their pattern enhancers hidden around the periphery of the room and they use these statues to do it so they're all kind of like trying to

trying to like secrete the little golden spheres in the like up high on the statues and Odo drops his and uh it like rolls across the room and bumps into the foot of a klingon warrior he's like what the fuck is this uh wharf's improvisation here is great yeah jumps right in the middle of the scene and uh and makes the case that this is

a vulcan toy that they that they took off of a vulcan that they murdered yeah earlier and odo has been kind of like frozen and then when he is given any premise to work off of he's like good enough to yes and it and like right and like and and see the deception through to its conclusion, which is great. He's a real not-Adam in that he will just... In the sense that he won't just ignore being pimped into doing Kern, for example. Right, right, exactly. Yeah, I mean, you know...

Odo is not going to disappoint the listeners at the only obvious Kern joke opportunity in the episode being ignored. You've seen this a thousand times in a thousand different movies. Like, there's always the weak link in any heist. And Odo is that and then becomes that in this scene. But you also know from those thousands of movies that that is a character that often achieves redemption yep it's martok that triggers both actually because martok uh after recognizing cisco arrests the group and throws them in jail

klingon jail the The worst kind. Yeah. I thought that it was like a little bit badly directed or blocked or something because Martok because Gowron walks in, right? And there's like they're playing like Hail to the Chief and everything and he's doing fist bumps with

everybody and it shows Odo going and like sticking the sphere up in the statue. And then there is like a solid three minutes of pomp and circumstance of Gowron walking around and like giving awards to people and shit. Well, we're like, what's going on? Like, why aren't they triggering it? And then they cut back to Odo and show him getting the the sphere up into the statue again yeah uh that's not the only time in this episode where sequentially shit gets a little

bit fucked and drags drags for time yeah like there should be a ton of tension in this part of the episode of like yeah like i know that this guy's getting his like bat lift on her or whatever. I don't care. Like cut back, show me what's going on with Odo. I want to see the thing happening. And like that, like that tension is not present. It feels like, you know, sometimes on SNL,

they will not have enough time to run an entire sketch. And so they'll cut it and then they will not have enough time to run an entire sketch. And so they'll cut it and then they will play the beginning of the credits music and then like hang on that with the, with the slate before going into the goodbyes. Like it felt like there are a couple of sequences here that are just placeholders because they couldn't quite fit the entire scene that they wanted to into the episode. It's weird. Sequences here that are just placeholders because they couldn't quite fit the entire scene that they wanted to. Yeah.

Into the episode. It's weird. It's really weird. I wonder what we're missing. I wondered as well. And Sisko drops the personal shaving device that is supposed to trigger the pattern enhancer. And then they're made, right? Yeah.

the pattern enhancer and and then they're made right like they're yeah gowron recognizes cisco martok has him in jail and martok they're in like a they're in like a bird cage and martok like kicks out the guards and he's like guys like what a bozo move like what are you trying to do here and they realize like oh like martok might have his own suspicions about Gowron. Right. And maybe we can work with him. And that turns out to be the case. Like Martok is like, yeah,

I've known, I've known for months that, that Gowron did not seem to be acting right. Like he was kind of, he was kind of a dove before and now he's really hawkish, but he keeps kind of getting us into military engagements that don't go well for the Klingons. And it goes a long way toward explaining why the Klingons would not just kind

of run roughshod over the Cardassians. Like in what world do the Klingons, the warrior race, not just like kick a ton of ass in any war they choose to get involved in? Yeah, it's interesting. The Klingons kind of have a two man rule here, don't they? Yeah. Interesting bit of restraint.

Would not have expected. So they're like, yeah, like here's the deal. Gowron is a changeling. And if you can help us get him exposed like we can we can get everything you know we can set everything right and he's like all right i'm gonna help you do it but like i'm not personally gonna kill him like that's not my that's not my way martok's like you know those props that we spent a lot of time and money creating, I destroyed those. So we're not going to be able to see that idea through to the end.

Yeah. I am a loyal officer of the Empire. Good one, Martok. Yeah, thanks, dude. But he lets them out. He shoots one of the guards with a disruptor. Sisko takes care of the other. There was a really exciting disruptor special effect

yeah with that one guard it really felt plussed up from what we've seen previously it felt analogous to like if all you have is a gore gun and if you could somehow set that to stun yeah like it did not completely gore the guy out that they were shooting, but you could see inside him. Yeah. That was fun. It was really well done. And then they like walk down the hall and he like just gut stabs a couple of guys. But then they're out back into the hall of warriors or whatever it is. And there is Gowron.

And that's the bad guy. Like, let's kill the bad guy. But we get a little bit of a twist at him. If this traitor wants a fight, I will give him one. It's fun and right that it's Worf, right? Yeah.

Like Worf is the guy that challenges him to a duel. Gowron is game. And they do the, uh, they do the Michael Jackson beat it video. Like they, they tangle it up. Yeah. Like they tangle it up. Yeah, like Klingons are really fun in that you can like go at a guy with a sword

and he'll tell all of his security to like back off. I want to like, I want to actually fight this dude. Yeah. But mid-fight, Odo slams Martok through the saloon doors of the Hall of Warriors. Yeah, because Martok has kind of like isolated Odo from the whole proceedings, right? Right. And off to the side, Odo, much in the same way that he suspected that Gowron was the

Changeling, has actually put it together using his detective skills, detective skills that have not gone away since he's become human. And I think that's crucial, right? Yeah. I think that that's kind of what the, the episode arc is for him is while you've lost a thing that you thought was crucial to yourself,

the thing like, like your central character trait as Odo is your investigative abilities. And that has not been diminished at all. You don't have to open a brewery, Odo. There are plenty of breweries out there. You don't even need to order a home brewing kit for your apartment. I insist. Do not order a home brewing kit.

No one wants to smell that. Morn. Morn. Morn. Dirty. Sweet. Morn. Morn. Morn. Evening, everybody. Morn. Stop. Hammer time. No one wants a closet full of your stinky beer. Yeah. So it turns out Martok is the changeling, and Odo kind of runs him into the room. and Odo kind of runs him into the room. Martok tries to tentacle Odo to death,

but the Klingons all turn around and whip out their pistols and unload like a predator amount of gunfire at the Changeling. It's a real communal execution right yeah and it really takes a lot of blast to kill a changeling like we we saw odo die in the uh in the mirror universe and it was just like one phaser to turn him into smuckers odo does not have a firearm in this scene, so he can't be accused of having a second body on his count. No. Well, that would kind of be double indemnity

in the changeling world, right? I think that's a record that would never be broken if Odo killed his second changeling. Yeah, just get a little insurance on the record. That would be awesome. Yeah, this changeling yeah just get a little insurance on the on the on the record that would be awesome yeah this changeling blows big pretty disgusting death scene here i think the low point in the episode and i'm going to say the low point in the season a season that's just started

is the most worthless line of dialogue ever being uttered by ben cisco in this scene really i don't know if you remember there they so odo pushes martok into the scene outs him as a changeling then they shoot him and then cisco says i guess but it turns out like the so odo had fingered gowron because he could tell that the changelings were trying to conceal something from him when he went for his swim in the piss planet and it turns out that they were tricking him into thinking gowron was yeah the the changeling when it really Martok, which is a fun trick for the writers to have pulled. I wondered if they knew that when they wrote the last episode of season four or if they figured it out when they broke the first episode of season five. Yeah, they were playing swim up piss pool chess when Odo thought they were playing swim-up piss-pool checkers.

Sometimes you just don't want to leave the pool. Yeah. Ben? Yeah. They have a quick conversation with Gowron where they say like, yeah, you know, like this was a great operation. I'm really glad we got the the changeling influence out of your government uh if you could stop the klingon war now that would be great and he's like no no no that's not how klingons roll like now that the war has started i'm gonna see it through

and they're like no seriously though because like it's exactly what the founders wanted and if you continue to do the war you're playing directly into their hands. He's like, all right, well, I'll see what the high council says, but I'm not making any promises. I'd appreciate that. This is another scene that makes me think that there's something missing and they're stretching for time because this denouement is super long and ambling, isn't it?

Like there's a lot of this persuasion of gowron to pursue uh diplomatic recourse here and then and then we cut to the makeup being taken off and that's it it felt like it felt like a minute too long it felt like there needed to be something else going on here. Did you feel that way? I think the way I interpreted it was they needed Gowron to stay as an unknown quantity for some reason. And this is how they explain that away. It's hard. holding this episode up to a standard that that is unfair because i guess i was i was hoping for a real like gavel throw into the ground like this is season five like this is how we're going to end the first episode of it like we're going to really like begin and finish strong and it felt like it ended like most other deep space nine episodes yeah it did not feel like a like a ended like most other Deep Space Nine episodes. Yeah, it did not feel like a big, like, everything is different now kind of ending.

Yeah, this was not Deep Space 9-11. I'm such a weasel. Did you like this episode, Ben? I did. I thought it was a good not great episode i agree there are such fun aspects to it like the makeup stuff with uh with cisco and o'brien and odo great fun i love a room full of klingons fighting and partying. That's great. I love the mythology of that, of like, you got to get drunk and then you got to hold it together for the ceremony the next day.

That's the whole point. Yeah. That is a very Star Trek convention kind of thing, isn't it? Totally. I just wish they'd all had plastic hooves. Yeah. Yeah, but what we don't get is a, boy, season five is going to be crazy, right? I just

don't get that sense at this moment in time, but maybe as season five continues that's something that we'll begin to appreciate. Yeah, perhaps. One thing we appreciate every episode are our Priority One messages. You want to see what we've got, Ben? I do.

Priority One message from starfleet coming in on secure channel need a supplemental income supplemental yeah it's extra but the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship ben our first priority one message is of a commercial nature wow it is from newtonpens.com, and the message goes like this. Okay, and in parentheses it says, I would love it if you did one of your impressions, but I don't know which would be funniest.

We'll just see what happens. I never had the current impression this episode. Message goes like this. If you don't have a singing stone for talking to your pen pals, or a fancy pen like Jake on DS9, then it's clear you need a pen of DeSoto. Whether you're writing your first novel or putting notes in the lunchboxes of your tiny little life forms, a handcrafted fountain pen

makes it all better. Visit newtonpens.com and order yours right now. And if you go to newtonpens.com to purchase a pen or help support the, oh, so there's a scholarship fund here too. So, uh, you can support the scholarship fund by going to newtonpens.com and you get 10% off through 2019 by mentioning pens for disco. When you get in touch with them, I guess there's an offer code or a field where you could enter that in and that triggers that 10% off. And it also helps out with their scholarship fund. So visit newtonpens.com,

get yourself those fountain pens, apply for high school scholarships or support someone in that endeavor. I'm looking at these pens. They are very eye-catching. I feel like that would be a great way to have a signature pen. Wow.

And support friends of DeSoto at the same time. They've got some video footage of this pen making. Looks like dirty work. You know, you put together one of these pens in the wrong way, they're exploding ink everywhere. Oh, yeah. You don't want that.

You gotta be careful. Yeah, they're turning these pens on a lathe, it looks like. I know. Now, when you're constructing your scholarship pen, what I like to do is take six feet of prime Douglas fir, put it in my lathe, and turn it for between three and four hours. You'll generate 40 to 50 pounds of waste material and one single pen at the end. We're going to rub some mineral oil on this pen to bring out the lustrous wood grain. And we're going to burn the waste material in a heap outside the shop.

That's newtonpens.com. Making pens and changing lives since 2012. Wow, that's super duper cool. Yeah. Just go to the website and check out the footage of making pens. It's really interesting. Did you know there was a pen show? There are

on the Newton Pens website, Ben, there is a schedule of pen shows. Wow. Pen shows. I mean, I knew that there was a Pen15 club. Right. But, uh, I did not know that there was a Pen15 club Right But I did not know that there was a There were conferences and expos

Boy you know Newton Pens Needs to make a Pen15 edition You know that would be a hot seller Yeah I guess now they would have to license it from that Hulu show Missed opportunity I really like that Hulu show Yeah

Well thank you to Newton Pens for supporting The Greatest Generation. We have another P1 here. It's from Mike, and it's to Ben and Adam. It goes like this. I discovered your pod last year while going through a layoff and a breakup. Fuck, Mike. You were like living inside of a country song.

While I'm still trapped in anybody canyon, I'm gainfully employed again and wanted to say thank you for keeping my spirits up. I'm also curious to know if Kevin accepts promo code SCARVS at checkout for Friends of DeSoto

seeking Jumaha Ran on a budget. Well, Mike, I do accept the promo code SCARVES. I provide a 10% discount, but even with that generous discount, I cannot say that my product is appropriate for a small budget type of operation. And not to immediately Not to immediately contradict what I just said, but there

is no offer code to fit my discount. I did not pay any attention when I took classes at the Groundlings. I was asked to leave on my third day. I kept advocating for the Herald to be called the Kevin. Zero traction for that idea. We're not working in an auto body shop.

We're working at a fast food restaurant. I was always my line when I came into a scene. If you want to pimp us into doing an impression or have a message of a commercial nature, you can go to MaximumFun.org slash Jobotron, where personal messages are $100 and commercial messages are $200, both of which are a great way to help the ongoing production of The Greatest Generation. Get that, get that, gold press action. Get that, get that, gold press action.

Am I right? Woo! Yeah! Am I right? Woo! I just finished recording an episode of our hit podcast and now it's time to unwind. But how do I do that when what it takes to do this show is so much energy and enthusiasm? Rambo had it right about a lot of things. You don't just turn it off.

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at Secret Histories of Nerd Mysteries, now on Maximum Fun. The following are real reenactments of pretend emergency calls. 911. My husband! It's my husband! Calm down, please. What about your husband? He loads the dishwasher wrong. emergency calls. There are plenty of podcasts on the hunt for justice, but only one podcast has the courage to take on the silly crimes. Judge John Hodgman,

the only true crime podcast that won't leave you feeling sad and bad and scared for once. Only on MaximumFun.org. Hey, Adam. What's's that Ben? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda This was a great episode for background acting

There are a lot of Deep Space Nine episodes Where you get that long tracking shot Over the promenade And you get maybe Six background actors In a shot like that But this scene over the promenade and you get maybe six background actors. Yeah. In a shot like that. But this scene in the hall of warriors has got 25 background Klingons.

Yeah. And there are so many of them making funny faces and like you're taught as a background actor not to do anything that attracts attention but i feel like the direction in a scene involving klingons is totally contradictory of that because what you want to do is headbutt and and make crazy faces and swill your blood wine like everyone is acting so big in the background of these scenes that it was hard for me to choose a specific shimoda but i know he's back there i know i saw him a couple of times uh that background actor who's having the most fun is my drunk

shimoda like i what a it is so great to just be given free range back there as a background actor i i know it had to be a thrill for so many of them to get that kind of license so that's going to be my shimoda this episode what about you my shimoda is general martok uh there's the hallway set that exists only so that there can be a spot outside of the hall of warriors where martok like holds Odo back and keeps him out of. And it's like, it's that moment of like, oh, we all decided to go to a nightclub and my friends walked right past the bouncer and then he stopped me. And I was like, I was with them. And, you know, it's like, it's like that kind of thing. Yeah.

Martok has odo uh under the gut in that in that and it's like oh like that's why this room exists because before that i was like why does this scene exist where martok is just walking down a hallway and sticking knives into the guts of

two guards so great so for uh for being double-knifes Martok, he becomes my drunk Shimoda for the episode. So much is made of the royal guard

for Gowron. Yeah. You could assume that these guys work for them. You would think that their armor would be such that a couple of

short-quarter stab wounds wouldn't kill them. Yeah. This would have been a fun episode to have a special looking Klingon. Yeah. Like those red guys in Star Wars that hang around with the Emperor, you know? Yeah. Give us a couple of Captain Phasmas or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you of Captain Phasmas or whatever. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm with you on that. That would be cool. Well, what is next week going to give us as far as episodes go? There's only one way to find out. That's by consulting the Game of Buttholes and Will of the Prophets. Yeah. The next

episode is Season 5, Episode 2 The Ship. A severely injured crew member's life hangs in the balance as Sisko battles for control of a crashed Jem'Hadar warship. This show is getting worse at titles, isn't it? It's not getting better. Wow. That sounds like fun. Let's see how we're gonna watch it ben uh currently we are on square 38 on the game of buttholes which as you can

probably tell was a regular episode of greatest gen yeah and uh and i don't think anything is in range yeah this is the rare safe square no matter what we roll we're we're doing a normal episode next time right you're required to learn as you play roll uh so here goes the roll did i win hardly and i have rolled a five which places us on square 43 which is three away from a Coco Nono episode. Wow. Alright. Yeah. There it is. Well looking forward to

next week's normal ass episode. In the meantime if folks would like to support the show you can head to MaximumFun.org slash donate. We really appreciate the monthly support that we get from thousands of friends of de soto you could be one of them it is just a click away they make the whole thing possible our best friends of de soto do and we thank you for

your support yeah and you get access to lots of bonus content if you do that hey guess what there's a free way to support the show. Couldn't be easier. You just go to wherever you get your podcast and leave a five-thing review. Yeah. Whatever mechanism by which you recommend a podcast on your podcatching app, do that. Use the hashtag greatestgen if you want to talk about the show on Twitter. Adam's on there at CutForTime. I'm on there at BenjaminAHR. You can also catch the hilarious trading cards made by Bill Tilly. You may have noticed the great music on our show. You know that's made by Adam Ragusea.

He uses source material made possible by Dark Materia. And he is one of the reasons why the show sounds so good. Indeed he is, Adam. You're the other reason, Ben. You're the other reason, Ben. You're the other reason. That golden voice. That golden pea-soaked voice. Glug, glug.

That'll just about do it from here. We'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. An episode of the greatest generation Deep Space Nine, nine which will seek to retitle the episodes going forward what what do you think about that is it what do you think about that as a regular thing maybe we'll title the episode fuck we'll both title our podcast episode and the title that it should have been for the show damn it. That's a lot of work.

Let's just try to do that next time. Okay. I don't want to make any promises for the rest of the show. Yeah, I mean, we wouldn't want to start a situation where we routinely disappoint our listeners. Yeah, we already do that every week. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so.

Make it so. Make it so. Jean-Luc Picard. Picard. Picard. Picard. Maximumfun.org. Comedy and culture.

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