The Greatest Generation - Chiaroscuro, All The Way Down (S4E11)

Episode Date: November 14, 2016

When a Vulcan diplomat needs a ride into Romulan space, the Enterprise is her UberXL (if only to transport her giant Pope hat). Meanwhile, people are doing things that they think will make Chief O'Brien happy, with disastrous consequences. Is O'Brien in an arranged marriage? Is it hard to stay together when your ship is named "Divorce"? Does Data have "Incognito Mode"? It's the Nebuchadnezzar of bottle episodes!

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

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

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

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

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Star Trek podcast by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I am one of your hosts, Adam Pranica. Over here is your other host, Benjamin R. Harrison.

Then we did something this morning that might be a fun gag for the live show. Oh, yeah. Which is me just leaving you hanging for about 15 minutes after we were supposed to start. Yeah, I'm sure that our ticket holders, our paid customers would really enjoy that. Yeah, yeah. Fill time, Ben. Stretch, stretch. At Max Funcon East this year,

there was like a miscommunication. I can't even remember which podcast it was, but like one of the hosts couldn't, or didn't know they were supposed to be on stage and had to be summoned from sleep to being on. Oh, boy. That's almost like the nightmare of being in class without any clothes on, like the idea of being woken up

to be roused and then sent to class immediately. That's tough. Tough, tough stuff. We'll be doing our best to be on and great, you know, with a- And- and clothed. Yeah, and with a, you know, with a full night's sleep behind us. Hopefully. I'm getting excited about this. I'm not- I'm not gonna lie.

I guess, wait, what did these episodes go out? It's so hard when we record so far in the future to know what context this will be heard in. Maybe our live show has already happened, who knows? This episode that we're recording right now is coming out on the first day of our tour. This episode is coming out on Monday, November 14th. But we shouldn't say that because these shows are supposed to live forever. These podcasts. That's true. Yeah. Forget you heard that, Fair Viewer. Forget it ever happened. Should we get into this episode? Yeah, let's do it. It's season four, episode 11, date is day.

This episode felt like a totally different show to me. Before we even start, like it is as if the showrunners just left the set and someone wandered on and was like it would be fun to make a start track the next generation show. Hey look at this we got all these actors we got this set. What do you guys think should we make a show? Yeah I think we'll get into this idea more as we progress but wow this was a crazy diversion from basically every other episode we've watched I thought yeah structurally very different shows that they're willing to to take a risk at this point, you know So we open up and it is the evening shift or the night shift and

I really like this it was like it like a nice mood lighting on the bridge. Yeah. It's a, which I don't know if I would want if I was working the graveyard. Like, oh, it's not a normal time to be awake and also the lights are super dim. Like, I guess your circadian rhythm can really be whatever you want it to be on a starship, right?

When I have had the displeasure of working graveyard, it's always been in a retail environment. And so the hottest possible fluorescent lights have been on me at three in the morning. And lights have been on. Yeah. On me at like three in the morning, and I found that helpful. I don't know if I would be as productive if the lights were dimmed down low. That's why you have that thick, rich head of hair, right?

You've been under those glow lamps. Yeah, the whole time. That's true. Yeah, it isn't an accident. So the premise of this episode, which we get like right off the bat in a second officer's log, is that data is writing a letter about a day in the life to Commandermatics, Commandermatics is the guy that wanted to dismantle him and figure out how he worked and tell a lawyer

Picard stepped in. It's great that there's such good friends after he tried to kill him, right? I detected a little bit of shade thrown in data's letter. I agree that your study lacks any source material, so I'm going to do you a little solid, little buddy. Why would data help him get source material if all Maddox is going to do with that source material is use it to take apart data later on? I don't know, man. I think that data knows that he's like just out of

Maddox's league now, but he's like, he's going to send him a sexy pick just to tease him a little bit. Yeah. So this is a big episode. It introduces Keko, Chief O'Brien's special lady friend. And the first scene, once Commander Data is relieved on the bridge is him talking to Keko. And she's like, I'm calling off the wedding.

And so he's like, well, canceling the wedding, make you happy. Yes. And data takes that literally. Even though data has the sum of all human history and existence in his brain, like he does not understand that calling off a wedding, 99% of the time is actually a bad thing. Yeah.

And so he's like, arm swinging into 10 forward, like ready to drop the news to O'Brien. It's like, hey buddy. I have good news. And I love the way he phrases this because it's like he bakes in his misunderstanding into how he breaks the news to O'Brien. But then O'Brien just takes it like, fuck!

It's a great O'Brien moment. Yeah. This episode really, it's as much about O'Brien and Kiko, who become big characters on this show, and then main cast on Deep Space 9. And it from jump is basically about how fucked up their relationship is. Yeah. Like, they don't know each other.

It feels like an arranged marriage. Yeah. It doesn't. And I don't think we can be sure that it's not. We're never given any proof to the contrary. Yeah, but like, I don't think they have a single scene in this episode until spoiler at the end. But you know, like the entire time they're like passing messages between each other via

data, and it's very strange. It is totally alien to my experience of human weddings, you know. Yeah, I wanted to see their meet cue. And I imagine it's just Kiko beaming on and off the ship. You think O'Brien is just in the transport room and they tell him like, beam up this civilian botnist and he swipes up. Caesar, like goes like, grrr, like rubs his eyes, swipes down, beams are back down, swipes back up and is like, hop, hop, hop,rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr He's seeing everything. I've seen everything. You know, I've seen it all. Mm, yeah. We understand the context of Keko and O'Brien's relationship

from the context of conflict. Yeah. That's how we know them. Yeah. Which doesn't feel good, I don't think. No, sure doesn't. Because I want to like O'Brien I've wanted to like O'Brien from the start and here we are like 10 minutes into the up

It made me nervous for Calla meany because We're like in the middle of season four He's finally getting a shot. He's getting his battle episode and I want him to well. And he is just getting shit on as a character. It's not looking good for Chief O'Brien. Yeah. Well, you, you know, the characters you love most, you put them through the hardest stuff, right? Yeah, it's true.

So I guess the deal is, data works like an entire night shift and then because he doesn't need to sleep, he basically kills time for the rest of the day. So like a whole bunch of his day when he's not doing mission is like farting around, watching people get their hair cut and like standing creepily in the corner well, a pregnant woman gets her belly examined.

standing creepily in the corner well, a pregnant woman gets her belly examined. But his first order of business after dumping cold water on the chief's head is going and receiving ambassador to Pell of Vulcan, who beams on in full like ceremonial regalia. And, you know, kind of coldly says, Beams on in full like ceremonial regalia. And, you know, kind of coldly says, we're gonna go talk to your captain right now. I don't recall, but it appears that she needs

a cargo transporter to accommodate her giant hat. She has full Pope hat. Yeah. She's got kind of like, it's like if... Hey, T'pell, how's the Pope in? It's like if Darth Vader had a couple of pops of color in his robes and then put on a Pope hat, you know? It doesn't help that she's not nice to anyone.

Yeah. I think you can forgive a tall hat if under the tall hat is a nice person. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it's possible to be cool but nice. Like, she's cool and just confrontational. It is possible to be professional and nice. Also, like, I think we've run into these people a bunch in our adventures, Ben. Absolutely.

In the production community. Yeah, I mean, this is something we talk about a lot. Like, you know, people make all these accommodations for Vulcan culture, and the Vulcans never make any accommodations for human culture. Yeah. It's kind of fucked up. They think their green shit doesn't stink.

And in fact, it stinks worse. The whole deal here, we got two kind of storylines running in parallel. One is data has been assured by Jordy that despite all news to the contrary, O'Brien and Keko are gone get married, and he better sort out a gift. And meanwhile, they're ubering this Vulcan ambassador to the neutral zone because she is going to open up negotiations designed to normalize relations between the Federation and the Romulans, which is a big deal. The circumstance surrounding this Uber mission for the Enterprise seems pretty questionable from the jump, right? Like, it's a total secret. Yeah secret ambassador secret run to the neutral zone secret meet up with the Romulandship like if This was really about a coming piece like backing up a little bit like whenever there is

Some sort of peace negotiation is secrecy ever a correct strategy? Like I feel like in a conventional modern context, when we're trying to negotiate piece, the whole idea is everything on the table, above board, like out in the open, like this is good for piece. But it this sort of feels like some real back channel, red phone to red phone negotiating here, that seems a little uncharacteristic of what the federation does. Well, you know what they say Adam, only Tupel could go to Romulus. LAUGHTER

That's what they all say. Yeah. Uh, no, I mean, I know what you mean. And from a standpoint of just canon, inconsistent with many other episodes about the Federation trying to negotiate peace, they do what you're saying. Like, they try to be transparent and honest about it.

And Tepel is always like kicking data and rink her out of the ready room. She's very like, she's very cagey and clearly Captain Picard's getting pig-dogged a lot. She big-dogs data the second she beams up and it's just going around bigging all of the dogs she can find. And as secret as this mission appears to be, like data has no problem spilling that to Maddox in his log. He's like, we're transporting a very ass-holy Vulcan ambassador to some sort of peace negotiations. Yeah, maybe he is going to store this in drafts and then only hits end when he knows that it's going to be okay.

That never comes back to bite anyone. Yeah, I really think I would trust Data with a reply all function though, right? Like, he wouldn't mess that up. He would never hit the wrong button. Data messes up a lot of shit though. Yeah, but that not that kind of shit. If Dr. Sunk sent him a beacon message that caused him to send all of his drafts, it seems like something Dr. Sunk would do by the way. Like, that would be a huge disaster for everyone.

Yeah. I can't have it. Seng may or may not have bought the farm at this point. We don't even know. No. It's impossible to say. So, yeah. So yeah, so the meanwhile data is trying to get ready for this wedding. Somebody like drops into conversation that he's going to have to dance because he's playing

the role of father of the bride at this wedding, which I'm not clear if Kiko doesn't have parents or if just because it's on a starship, she gets to kind of pick someone. There's a lot of retroactive continuity going on in this episode also like. Well put. At one point O'Brien tells data like, oh, you've known Kiko much longer than I have. And he's like, O'Brien, you are on the first episode of this show. This is the first we've seen Kiko. It wouldn't have taken much to give us the first we've seen, Kiko.

It wouldn't have taken much to give us just a little bit more about Kiko. Like, why aren't her parents on board? Are they estranged? Were they killed? Yeah. Like, anybody else is an orphan. Why not her? But because Kiko is a woman, they give her the commensurate amount of backstory. She's really into flowers. She's in a relationship. You know who's great at dancing? Beverly. Yeah, so yeah, this is maybe the most fun part of the episode. As data goes and asks Dr. Crusher, would you teach me to dance? And she like shoves him into her office and slams the door behind her. She's like, what you teach me to dance? And she shoves him into her office

and slams the door behind her. She's like, what? Who told you that? He's like, oh, I looked up your service record and it says you won some dance awards. And so they make a holodeck program where they do this whole tap routine. And it's like, great, cool.

This is going to be awesome for the wedding. And she's like, great, cool. This is gonna be awesome for the wedding. And she's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, tap dance in a wedding. And my head was just filled with images of everybody in Starfleet uniforms at a wedding tap dancing. I feel like that's the thing that you don't see on viral wedding videos is the Gregory Heinz-esque fully choreographed.

Wedding tap dance. Yeah. The groom, the bride and a cast of thousands tap dancing in the sack. If I had to do mine all over again, I think I might have introduced some tapping. So this dance scene ends with the doctor getting called away because a baby is being born. And she's like, all right, you need to learn how to do ballroom dance or like a waltz. So program yourself a dance partner and just do do holodeck and data programs this up and Is it this moment that I realized that data holodeck is way creepier than Jordy holodeck

because He gets and he gets in in dance pose of this woman and they start waltzing and and as they turn around He turns to camera and he has the creepiest SEG on his face of all time. He's got that school dance photo smile where he's just smiling with his mouth and not with his eyes. Yeah. It's terrifying. It's what you call an SEG at him. I don't know what that is. It's a shit-eating grin. Oh, I get it now. The ship meets up with these Romulans, and they are... The Romulanship is called the Divorce. Did you pick up on that?

I didn't. Is that really what it's called? Kind of an ominous sign for Keko and our palo Brian. Yeah, that's a that's a bad start to be born under. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, so and and the the Romulan aboard this ship is a Mendeck and He's real uxbridgey, you know he's like He's just got like an even tone like like doesn't, doesn't emote at all.

And he's like hands grubber. Yeah, he's a little bit grubbery. Yeah, he's got some grubber to him. Yeah. You'll give me that much, won't you? I'll give you that much. What does it you humans say, yippee-ki-ye? His bread box cover seems a little bit more tailored than what we usually see. In the NFL shoulder pad parlance, like there's the giant pads of the linemen.

This captain appears to be wearing the kicking pads, which are just barely there. Yeah, he just has the one bar going across his face mask because he doesn't really need full mask, but regulations says he has to have one. Yeah, he's not really gonna be tackling anyone unless it's an emergency. Yeah, I wonder if they just put some binder clips on the back of his uniform and left it at that.

I think that's fair. I mean, when you're on FaceTime, you're only gonna be showing the front. One thing I noticed about FaceTime in this episode is when they're looking, I've seen this a couple of other times, but I don't know if we've talked about it. When they're looking directly at the view screen,

it's like eye to eye on FaceTime, which is like the camera's a little bit above what you're looking at. Like they're making eye contact with the screen. When you go to a side angle, they cut to a side angle on the view screen, which means the view screen is 3D. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty great. Which also means on a production level, they've got to shoot it in multiple ways. Like that is tricky eyeline to nail, I would say. Yeah, yeah. But they do a nice job of it. Who knows?

I don't know. I like the idea that it's three-dimensional though. You're standing on the bridge looking into this other bridge and it just feels like a room that's on the other side of that window. That's pretty great head cannon. Data has been pretty suspicious of Tepelle because I don't know, like I think it was suspicious over from jump. Like there's definitely a scene when she's first headed to the bridge with him,

or they're in the in the turbo lift, and he's just like peeping on her. Tommy? That was a fake thing. Like they're standing really close to each other, and he's just looking over like uneasily at her. And then there's this scene sort of right before they meet up with the Rimeelons, where she calls him into her quarters and attempts to apply him for like restricted information about how the shields work or something. And he's like, I must report any inquiry regarding restricted information to the captain. And she's like, oh no, I was just testing your security protocols. So...

She's like, can I ask you in incognito mode? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I thought it was weird that data didn't run that up the flagpole. And you're like, hey, Picard, just so you know, DePel was asking about the field integrity or whatever. Thought it was weird. I thought you should know. Well, this is like the contradiction of that rule that really blew me away, which is like, data says, if you request information like that, I must buy a rule alert the captain,

and she's like, okay, then I retract my request, and then data seems fine to be like, okay, then I retract the need to tell the captain. Like it doesn't undo the ask initially and the whole reason that he should have to tell the captain is not negated by her suddenly withdrawing the question. Yeah, it's like in chess if you like move a piece and then you take your hand off it and they go,

oh, never mind and you move it back and move another piece. Yeah, no, no bueno. She took her hand off and they go, oh, never mind. And you move it back and move another piece. Yeah. No bueno. She took her hand off of the piece. Yeah. And data should have to go tell. Yeah. One in a long line of weird misunderstandings

of how security works in this show. But so they beam to hell over to this Romulan ship. She's going to go start negotiating with this Admiral and the transporter starts like farting mid, mid, mid beam. I know Brian is like, fuck, oh shit. I'm losing the pattern. Trying to reestablish. He's almost a break up the wedding angry.

But I would argue a little less angry than that. He was angry year in 10 forward earlier. Let's just say O'Brien's Day is not going great. Ambassador's dead. Yeah. And yeah, so they're like, God, what was that even? They do this entire scene off camera too. Like all you see are the reactions

from Picard and Riker, right? Yeah, I guess so. And they mount an investigation where data is in charge. And it's one of those great scenes where Picard is like handing out assignments. And he's like, we're going to get to the bottom of this. And data's on like the overall investigation. Jardy and O'Brien are working on the transporter.

The doctor collects the little green dust that's been left on the transporter pad and says, like, yeah, there's some stuff. She's swapping for mist. Right, there's some stuff here, but it's not, like I can't do a Y incision on this. No autopsy. So yeah, they're like, God, I can't believe

that the transporter just killed like this super important federation ambassador. It's never happened before. Doesn't make any sense. And data has the idea to run a DNA scan on the material that they found. And it turns out that there are the kinds of flaws in the DNA

that you would get if you tried to replicate somebody's DNA. So they held a little McLaughlin group. If you want. And they basically have discovered that instead of there being a transporter accident, the Romulans beamed to pell off the ship while simultaneously beaming on some mist to make them think that she had been

destroyed by a transporter accident. They couldn't leave her hat behind though. That would have been fun. Yeah. So the way that the Farringis beamed out Troy and her mom and that one scene like right out of her clothes. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Before she can get a mic as on, I've seen everything. They're like, we've pulled that trick before, we can't do that again. Yeah. So the Enterprise pulls an e-break and also like the Ferranchi.

Heads back to the neutral zone where the divorce is still floating around and they're like hey What was that about like you guys? Picard like holds up two fingers that he is just like wiped on the bottom of the transporter pad He's like can you explain this? And yeah, you tried to pull a fast one on us, like what's the big idea? Vendek is a, he's a very different kind of guy than your Tomelock, you know? He doesn't seem to like relish the game of deceiving the Federation. He's far more robotic than any other Romulan we've run into before.

Like, with other Romulans, the things that they say are often very flat, but their delivery is menacing. The thing with Mendek is that his delivery is also very flat, as flat as what he's saying. And so there's just not a lot there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Should have gone more. Which I think serves the reveal that's coming. Right.

Yeah. I guess so. I don't know. It would have been fun if Tom Locke was there. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. But yeah, they call him on this bullshit and he's like, well, you caught us. And Picard is like, well, if you if you're holding our prisoner like, we're going to fight you for her, you this is this is uh... this is a pretty grievous blah blah blah active aggression blah blah blah blah blah blah blah fightinwards

yeah yeah blah blah blah you're slipping into a into a coma at this point uh... and he's like oh no like she's not a prisoner she's actually what was and uh... he like gestures off camera And he's like, oh no, like, she's not a prisoner. She's actually... What a boss? And he like gestures off camera.

The entire bridge crew drops their mugs right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, a lot of slow motion of T-Roll Grey hot going into the pile of the carpet. The stains are not going to come out easy. Yeah. Yeah, and she does like a, like a little grapevine on screen slides up next to Mendoch. And she was like, yeah, it turns out I wasn't an ambassador.

I was a Romulan the whole time. You're like, Jesus. We sure had you, fold. We look exactly the same. Didn't you? Couldn't you tell? It really made me wonder like how long she'd been an ambassador. Like had she negotiated treaties for the Federation in order to maintain this disguise? She's really terrible at keeping cover if she was so close to blowing it with data earlier

on the ship. I don't think she was a very great spy if she was willing to get caught asking a pretty benign security question to data. Yeah. And also just like, what would an ambassador know that the federation doesn't want the Romulans to know? Yeah. It seems like if you're trying to get info, like, is that really the place at the table you want?

Yeah. Any time they talk about security shit, you got to expect that you're going to be asked to leave. Also, the Romulans wind up having three warbirds in this, you know, like two more of them decloak, and that enterprise is pretty clearly outnumbered, outgunned. They brought piss to a shit fight. Yeah, so I was gonna say.

And so I don't know why the Romulans show their hand, you know? Like the enterprise has to fold. So why do the Rom Ramyeon show that they, that they were in fact spying on the federation? Like that's bad spy craft. Are you arguing that they should have kept the other ships cloaked and baited the enterprise into firing on the divorce? No, I'm saying they should have never revealed

that Tepell was spying. They should have just been like, yeah, well, we've got her now. Well, I feel like up until now, the Romulans have never missed an opportunity to give double middles to the Federation. Okay Okay fair enough. And I think they really enjoyed this even though they didn't have to. Yeah always a game of chess with them. Game of chess where you pick up a piece, move it, take your hand out the piece, and then

change your mind. So Picard basically just has to admit that he got his pants pulled down on this one and they head home. They turn heel and leave the neutral zone. And the end of the episode is a wedding scene where Picard performs a like a Japanese wedding ceremony between O'Brien and Keko, which is pretty fun, you know, data is the father of the bride. I guess Jordy is the best man. Fun to see O'Brien in his dress uniform. As an actor, when you get an alternate piece of wardrobe,

I think that's a good feeling as far as your longevity on the show. Especially when you know that those uniforms cost 3,000 bucks, right? Yeah. Ben, did we have any reason to think that that we would be here, though? Like, what was the cause for them to put the wedding back on? To turn it around? Yeah. Like, that felt very flimsy to me. Yeah., like where they left it was data visiting Keko and the Arboretum and trying to like talk some sense into her at O'Brien's request and her basically saying like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Leave me alone.

Yeah, like it, I mean, I guess maybe the idea is that since it's from data's perspective the entire time, there would presumably be a lot of stuff happening that he wasn't really privy to. Well, when you're planning or involved in a wedding, I find that being coldly rational about all the decisions surrounding it is probably the best strategy. And I think Kiko finally comes around

to this way of thinking. Sure. She sees O'Brien, she sees his wildly successful career. She's looking to climb up the professional ranks. She sees a man with two pips. Yeah, yeah, she doesn't have any pips. She wants to see it at the table. Yeah.

She's willing to marry into it. I mean, it's clearly not for love. They have nothing in common. The penultimate scene is a quiet one with data walking into six bay and Picard is standing looking at a newborn baby that was born while the ship was nose to nose with three Romulan warbirds. And I sort of feels like Picard turning over a new leaf on his thoughts about children being on board because he's like marveling at the fact that a baby was born while they were nearly pulverized by their enemies and

no misgivings about that situation at all. Yeah this feels way against type because he still reads to me as a guy who would hold a baby like with arms outstretched. Looking for someone to hand it off to as soon as possible. Yeah. So while the scene is very sweet and nice, it doesn't play for me as in keeping with this character. Yeah. And another example of how close a bunch of babies were to just getting killed. Yeah, exactly.

That's a subtext too. So last scene is data heading back to the bridge and taking over for wharf and putting the bridge back on night time mood lighting. And the ship heads off into the night. The first couple of strums of Bob Seagars night moves, plays them out as they cruise down the road. Yeah. And you are just looking for drops that can get us sued at all times. I don't know, would you want to work the night shift? I mean if I'm

data and I don't get tired, I feel like night shift is pretty chill probably right? It's cool to see the idea of night and day shift, but what I really want to see is like mid-conflict Like they have to do a shift change in the middle Hold that thought Tomalok. We got a swipe out some of our bridge crew here I've got to sign off on their hours. Yeah, and then we get to bring a new security guy in. I'm sure you understand this administration stuff. Yeah. I mean, the federation has furloughed a bunch of people and they've put a major restriction on over time. So literally, they cannot stay on the bridge. Just give us five. Don't let your torpedoes go before we get these guys swapped out. I mean, if I'm being

honest, you'd be doing us a favor by destroying us right now. I mean, it's just a disaster if people work over here. Yeah. Did you like this episode, Ben? I did. I liked it a lot. I think so much of the time we get to see everything that happens in the ready room, everything.

Like, we get to know what Picard is up against when he's making decisions. And it's really interesting to imagine being one of the little people on the ship that doesn't get to be privy to any of that stuff. And, you know, data is definitely not one of the little people, but he's not in the room every time that the shit is popping off and it makes for lots of fun thought experiments. Like, what does it actually like to live on this ship? Yeah, I agree. To me, like the whole episode's about perspective, right?

Like you've got data's, the perspective that data has on his life and his relationships, but also in a weird breaking the fourth wall way, the perspective of how a ship operates and it's sort of like it's super head canony, right? Because if you were to walk into the writer's room and just start flipping out story ideas, like I feel like a few of them would be like, is there a barber shop, for example? Like, we talk about the arboretum all the time. What does that look like? Like, it feels like it's like a tattoo, right?

There's like the dark lines, but then there's the shading. Like, we're starting to shade the world a little bit more with these different scenes and these additional characters in an interesting way. This episode is just charisqaro all the way down the light and the dark atom. Yeah, so I like to too and it felt so different from every other episode it it felt like it could have been made by completely different people. Yeah. Maybe the most bodily episode of all bottle episodes. It's the nebuchadnezzar of bottle episodes.

That's a big bottle. Yeah. Is that the biggest? There's a bigger one. I can't remember what the biggest is. Is it now magnum smarter than a net, right? Methusola? Is that the biggest? Oh, I don't remember what the biggest is. Is it, no, Magnum's smaller than a net, right? Methuselah, is that the biggest? Oh, I don't know. Okay, well, we'll save that for another time.

Yeah. Adam, I think we have a priority one message coming in on subspace. Should we go check that out? Yeah, let's do it. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. I need a supplement on.

supplement on top? supplement. supplement. supplement. supplement. Yes, extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Adam, we have a priority one of a personal nature. Feels extra personal because we are in the same room recording this priority. What? Hmm. I hate to admit that.

What is true? A virtue eyes. This one is from Josh K. It's two Adam and Ben. Now here's the message. Love the podcast. best banter around. I also love the McLoughlin group, and have been thrilled to hear it become a mainstay of this fantastic show, but please pronounce it correctly. I wouldn't want John McGlocklin to roll over in his grave. However, if your McLoughlin pronunciation is intentional like six bay. Please enjoy my money. Ben I I actually watched the McLaughlin group and I have for many years I was unaware that I

was pronouncing it incorrectly. I think that that's instructive of of your disposition with regard to pronouncing anything correctly. And what would Marina Cirtis have to say about this? Yeah, that's a great question. What would the boards do if they knew what we were doing to John McLaughlin? An accusation like this just wants me want to book some time in six bay. Yeah, I mean, this is, this all feels like it's just been a shurad from Jump.

Is that all of them? That's all only once I can think of it. If you would like to waste money on a priority one message, you can go to maximumfund.org slash Jumbo Tron. It's a hundred bucks for a personal message and 240 commercial message. We will gladly take your money and constantly continue to mispronounce this. I don't see it as taking money at all.

I feel like I've enrolled in a community college level linguistics class. Just now, yeah. And a phone. Eames. Yeah. And a phone names. Yeah. Feel good about this. I hope Josh K does too. Thanks Josh. Yeah, thank you Josh.

And thank you for being pedantic in a way that helps us keep the show going. That's the best kind of pedantism. Yeah. I really like how we do those. No one does them better. We're real cards, I would say. Hey, Ben.

Adam, what? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda! I did, Adam. My drunk Shimoda in this episode, and drunk Shim episode is the award we give for the character or scene or concept that is having the most fun or just brightening up the episode in the way that Jim Shimoda did in episode 2. My Shimoda is very early in this episode and it is Data's hairline.

There's a scene when he goes to tell O'Brien about how Kiko is calling off the wedding. He goes into 10 Ford, and there's a single of data, and his hairline moves back about an inch when he, you know, he like does some facial expression to explain how great this is going to be. So right at the three minute mark in this episode, there's just a beautiful shot of him saying, you know, breaking the news to O'Brien and as he puts an excited positive look on his face, his whole fucking head shifts. It was just, I like, I like, rewound and watch it like three times. I love it.

It's like, you know that trick that Eric Estrada does, like the fake wig thing where he grabs his hair and moves it around. It's like that amount of movement. Yeah, it's a full inch, if not an inch and a half, that his hairline moves back. It's like 10 years of male pattern baldness in one moment. That's an extraordinary Shimoda, Ben. How about yourself? Do you have a Shimoda? I did. I think this show

for whatever reason puts a great emphasis on the idea of like the tea ceremony. There's tea Earl Grey hot. There was Polaski and Worf sharing the tea. And then in this episode, we come back from commercial on Troy preparing some tea for data, because data's got questions about Kiko calling off the wedding. Data rules in there. Troy being a good host, brews some of her specialty.

And the composition of this shot coming out of commercial is three quarters like above Troy like basically down the front of her dress and like two little tea cups Yeah, it was wildly like in the decal attached like it was boob tea time Yeah, and Troy was making it Boob or gray hot. It was just like, we talk about this a bunch, but like, come on guys, really? Ha ha ha.

Like, we're not given the female characters, any character development. We're starting shots on their boobs. Like, please try harder. Ha ha ha ha. So to me, boobTee was my Shimoda for the episode. Damn, I think those are two really good Shimodas. A greatest gen live show is something you don't want to miss.

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

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

My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Non-Giani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are already open, just pull it out.

Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, rats, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in mine. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line. And boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good.

No, they do not, and they've such short neck. But I'm hearing we need to get on this. So gotta get on the art. It's about terrain, thought is about destroyed humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans.

We're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Carrie? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think?

Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org. It's really strong Boop T. What do we have coming up on the next episode? The next episode is season 4 episode 12, The Wounded. Picard must stop a renegade Federation starship that is making unprovoked attacks on a former enemy's ship. Ship. You remember that episode Adam? Ship. I do remember this episode because the captain of this renegade ship is the guy from Shawshank Redemption. Yeah he's totally one of those that guys.

It's a it's canonical redemption. I love this episode. Yeah he doesn't have the same accent, right? Yeah, to my knowledge, O'Brien does not do his taxes and accounting either. That's not part of their relationship. Have you seen the movie The Castle? Or The Last Castle? I think it's called. I don't think so, no. It's a Robert Redford movie where he gets put in military prison and James Gandalfini is the is the warden.

Oh, it's real Shawshanky and in a good way. And it's a lot of fun. Oh man, I'm looking at the movie poster and really makes him miss Gandalfini because a few people have a scowl like him. Yeah, it's a fun character for him because he plays this. He's like a very dumb. Oh shit, Delroy Lindo's in this.

I love Delroy Lindo. This movie's no joke. It's also, I think it's got Mark Ruffalo maybe. Kind of an awesome cast, but Gandalfini's playing this commander who is in charge of this prison and is like obsessed with status and his military regalia and stuff. And Redford comes in and he's like a disgraced general. So technically a higher rank than Gandalfini, but not in the context of this prison.

It's all about like their status struggle, because Redford is like a natural charismatic leader. Gandalfini starts losing his grip on things. You can't have that. Yeah, a lot of fun. You gotta have Gandalfini's ham hands wrapped strongly around his circumstances. That's for sure. Yeah. Well, we don't have any vetoes, so we can't watch the last castle instead of who we did. I wouldn't veto this anyway. I think there's one of the great episodes. Yeah, it's fun. One

of the ways that that our viewers let us know of our status on the network we're on is by contributing to our show's production band. Isn't that right? Yeah. Yes. They can go to maximumfund.org slash donate to make that passion known.

You can also go to maxfundstore.com and buy a shirt. We're working on some new merch, which'm hoping will be in there soon but there's gonna be some tour exclusive merch on our tour. Yeah according to our schedule this episode should be coming out on the first day of our tour. I hope we see you out there. Yeah and we should thank Dark Materia and Adam Ragusia for our music. Dark Materia made our theme song and Adam Ragusia made the priority one music bed and the wharf song that we sometimes use as well. Somebody emailed us and asked how they could find the

Picard song. It's really easy. You just searched the Picard song and it's all over the damn internet. Yeah, let me Google that for you. I even searched in duck duck goon and came up and that search browser never works. Well, people aren't listening to the end of the show because we say it every time. Yeah, another thing. Who wouldn't want to listen to this? Another thing that people won't hear because they've skipped past this is email us at drunkshamota.gmail.com. This guy also didn't use our email address. Email Jesse Thorn. Uh oh. Which is like every time Jesse forages an email, like my heart sinks because it's usually somebody complaining.

This guy was just like, how do I get that music? just an email like my heart sinks because it's usually somebody complaining. This guy was just like, how do I get that music? Like every message we get from Jesse might as well have the subject line long sigh like. Yeah. Thanks to Jesse and the folks at Max Fun for putting up with us. And with that, we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek The Next Generation, and an episode of the greatest generation that's suffering from a real gnarly case of PTSD. Maximumfund.org

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