The Greatest Generation - Couldn’t See the Forest for the Ropes (VOY S4E12)

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

When Neelix dies in the cold open and comes back to face life after no afterlife, a dubious trip with Chakotay only pushes him closer to the ledge. But when looking inside himself isn’t the answer, a more holistic approach helps him see his value through the eyes of Voyager’s crew. How far west will Trethewey travel? Do you wait a day before replicating memorial flowers? Is Neelix the one who’s guilty of Hollywood bullshit? It’s the episode that knows what it has to do.  Support the production of The Greatest Generation. Friends of DeSoto for Democracy.Friends of DeSoto for Justice.Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Caretaker!Music by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFollow The Greatest Generation on Twitter, and discuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen!The Greatest Generation is now regularly streaming on Twitch.Facebook group | Subreddit | Discord | WikiSign up for our mailing list!

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 friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdisotoforlabor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Hey, on the show today we are reviewing an episode in which Nelix becomes suicidal and we just wanted to give a heads up if anyone is sensitive to that as a topic and I would like to encourage you if you are in a bad place right now to give a call to the National Suicide Prevention

Lifeline. It's 800-273-8255. World is better place with you in it. I really mean that and I hope you enjoy the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet! Engage! Watch your back shot, come loose! I'm Captain Captain Brinjane, where the U.S. is. For the... Captain Captain Captain Brinjane, where the U.S. is. For the...

Do it, Captain The Cat! Welcome to the greatest generation. It's a Star Trek podcast. By a couple of guys who are just a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pranaka. Hey, you do. The weirdest thing happened to my pipes yesterday. Is it just putting into a blooming podcast? Yeah. Our Marin is gonna be nothing but home-out-of-issues. So you used to live in a very densely populated New York neighborhood where you had many

neighbors in one building, sharing what I assume is going to be many pipes. My last apartment was in a building where there were nine other apartments. I live in a place where there are four other town homes. Uh-huh. And we're all connected, all the walls touch. Yeah. All the sewers flow together. Your turds, co mingling with your neighbor's turds. Here's what I don't know about, man, we just got back from a weekend away. We took a long weekend out of the house. We get back yesterday afternoon.

And I'm hearing a gurgle. And the gurgle I'm hearing is not my own tone. It's coming from the kitchen sink. I'm like, oh, that's weird. And I don't see anything. I'm just hearing a gurgle below. Is it like the kind of gurgle that you get when you turn on the dishwasher? Yes, yes, but the dishwasher was not on.

And I just note it. I'm like, that's interesting. And then I check the bathroom that's on that same level. Nothing untoward in the sinker the turlite. There's a gremlin taking a shit in there. I pay it no mind. I take off, I go walk the pupper and when I come back, my sink is half full of brown water. My kitchen sink, it is so gnarly. It is gross as hell. Keep in mind, it's like 530. I should be thinking about what I'm making for dinner and now I've got a problem. And this is a problem that

makes using the kitchen impossible. It sounds like fuck. Things are going far worse for your kitchen than it's generally known. Flip on the disposal, start running some water. It sounds like fuck. Things are going far worse for your kitchen than it's generally known. Flip on the disposal, start running some water. The water goes down. The water goes down. Hey, that's good. That's the direction you want that water to go. It goes all the way down.

Turn off the water, turn off the disposal. It comes back up. What? Even higher than it did before. Whoa. Whoa. That has never happened before. Like if there's a stoppage or your disposal's blocked, like you could just take out the trap and like empty the blockage and you're done. I've never seen the water reappear. Yeah. I think if it's me at that

point, I get a sheet of steel and a take welder. I just like encase the sink. And we just don't have a sink in the kitchen anymore. I woke up and I chose fix it. So I go and get you got to get a bucket if you're working under the sink, Ben. Yeah. So I grab a bucket and I get a bunch of towels,ows and tarps out of the bedroom. How much stuff? Just a tidy guy. I bet the underside of your sink is like completely organized and squared away. It totally is, man.

I've got... This is a product that I should hip you to. There, I think it's the people who make the weather tech mats for your car. Have you seen these? Like they're hardened plastic rubber. Yeah. Like I had these up in Seattle where it's very wet. You bring your muddy ass feed into the car instead of putting it on a soft carpet, you

got something you can hose off. That company or companies like it make and under the sink version of that, that purportedly can hold like five gallons of water, just based on its height of its ridges. So I'm like, oh, this is a great idea. I got one of those and it's where I set all of my cleaners and garbage bags and all that under there. And it also acts as a like stopgap if there's a leak. It's going to hold some gallons. So that's the answer to your question. Of course, it's super sorted out under that sink. Take everything out, put it on the counter, get ready to operate. Like, hands are going in to the body. And then I hear the sound. The sound of my next door

neighbors garbage disposal going off. And then all of the water drains out of my kitchen sink. Hmm. And then all of the water drains out of my kitchen sink. What? Our kitchen sinks are connected somehow. They must be connected within the walls. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, because that's not coming from the sewer then. So I shoot them a text and I'm like, hey, is your sink stopped up?

And they're like, hey, yes it is. They're like, where are you? What are you looking at? But we just fixed the problem. And I was like, I know. And they were like, how do you know? And I said, I think our sinks are connected. And they're like, that seems impossible.

How is that possible? Yeah. So then I shoot a text over to the longest living resident of our complex who's lived here for like 30 years Wow, have you ever heard of this our sinks being connected and she's like yeah all the time your unit in your neighbor Weirdly connected kitchen sinks could never figure it out. So that's just That's just the situation over there every once in in a while, your backup will be there, backup and their backup will be your backup. And that's how it is.

Wow. I could not believe that. Yeah. That doesn't seem like a thing. Seems like it wouldn't pass, you know, when the inspector comes, they're gonna have a problem with the thing that sinks from two different units in a connected.

I wanna get rich. Dude, this is what I should ask. This is your house. This is the house. House question for Rich Tretui. Damn, yes. I'm going to do it. Do you think they'll come this far west? Can you get Tretui all the way out here? Tretui has been in a lot of hot utility rooms underneath houses, but the heat doesn't turn him off. Yeah, you can deal with it. He was also in an extremely hot Motown Museum.

Yeah. Dancing that one time. And it's a must stop for any tourist in Detroit. Also, Richard Thuy, super comfortable being sweaty on camera in a way that I find admirable. He's totally coming to LA. I almost just want to buy a Roku so that I can watch that episode again

where he goes to the Motown Museum. It sucks because the PBS app only has the most recent Season or two you can't go back in time the way you used to because Roku bought it all that would explain Why sometimes when you go to an Airbnb and you get a TV without cable? It's just like the baked in Roku cable. You get the this old house station and that's all they show on a loop. That's all they got.

I love it. Yeah, that's perfect Airbnb programming for me. Don't you love having vacation sex against a loop of this old house playing at top volume on a flat screen TV? What'd you find up there? Well, a bit of a surprise. That is back, Guana.

You know what? I'm so glad that this Marin was more than a story and was a course of action. I am going to send that in to ask this old house. That rules, that rules. If you get connected with them, I'm going to come over and watch the production. I would just be so fucking thrilled.

How are you? Is my question disqualifying because I'm not in a house and instead in a townhouse? Like you never see them go to places that aren't free standing, right? Yeah, but I feel like they're trying to kind of like undo some of that lately. The single family home stigma. Yeah. They did like a, the doorchester triple, you know? stigma. Yeah. They did like the doorchester triple, you know. You'd know that that is a sex position

suburban Massachusetts. I convince Maddie O'Srottis that they do a doorchester triple with me. Trust me, you don't want to open up a relationship like that too early. Well Adam, do you want to open up an episode like this? I really do, thinking a lot about death lately, Ben. I don't know about you. This episode really hits at the right time, doesn't it? I don't know why are you sick? No. You okay?

It's everything all right, Adam. I tried to give it a little bit of intention going into the episode. Sometimes you just pivot in and it's like falling into a hole in the street. Oh, yeah. It just happens to happen. Yeah, so instead you just want to like

drop a massive bummer on our list. It's all right into the episode. But thinking a lot about death lately because mine is imminent. Who knows, Ben? It's Star Trek Voyager Season 4 episode 12, mortal coil. Reaver course. Unless you've got something a little bigger in your torpedo tubes, I'm not turning around. Nielix is freshening up Ens and Kim in a good way. Yeah. Poet and stuff. Yeah.

Thanks. He gets topped off. Yeah. The way you want to be in any tinder environment. He gets hot coffee that isn't making his face warp and blood come out of his nose. I can't remember a scene on Star Trek Voyager where a character was happy with what Nelix was giving them to consume. Can you? where a character was happy with what nilix was giving them to consume can you it felt noteworthy it felt

like you know a character winning the lottery in a movie and you know that they're gonna get run over by a car in the next scene you know this is that isn't it it's totally that yeah nilix is walking on sunshine at this point enter to kote with even better news nilix how would you like to come on a shuttle craft mission to go up inside of a nebula filled with proto matter? And Nielix is like, I don't know, are you driving the shuttle? That could be kind of a problem. You have a reputation. And Cote is like, well, I'll just be there to provide moral support.

Paris will be in the pilot scene. Right. And he looks as like, all right, I'm in. My presence may not be a signifier of any imminent danger that I know. I was like, you know, all about proto matter, right? And he looks and he's like, yeah, great stuff, you know? Never caused a problem as far as I know.

Unfortunately, I am the leading mind in the field of proto matter on this federation starship. Also, I'm doing prep for dinner tonight. Yeah. Do you think that they're considering setting off a Genesis device in the cargo bay or seven sleeps? Turning it into a cave full of apples and grass? What would a Genesis device do to the alcove?

I don't know. Would her implants just fall from her body? Wow. From her birdie? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, but also her birdie would too. They'd be replaced with apples. It just resequences all of the matter, right?

Yeah. That's why it's a super weapon from the Klingon perspective. Neelix is like, look, Tukote, as long as I'm back in time for pricks him. Yeah. It's all it's a super weapon from the Klingon perspective. Neelix is like, look, Chico-te, as long as I'm back in time for prixim, it's all good. All good. Prixim, the most important holiday in tilaxian culture. Right. It's also food-centered, which is not unlike every other tilaxian holiday that we know about, right? Yeah. Speaking of food, seven of nine, not interested in the shit that

Nelix is cooking out for her. Boat Apigee. It's just another one of these like the food is bad scenes, but Nelix never picks up on that. He only hears the compliments. He never hears the slights. I mean, I wish we were more like Nelix in that way. Yeah. Nelix reads the comments and doesn't feel a thing. He's like, these guys love this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Look how many listeners we got. It's too pecan for seven, right? Yeah.

I'm pungent. She's into the bland food. Yeah. You know, she's new to taste. That's the problem. You got to ease your way in. You know, like kids are like interested in limited amounts of flavors, right? Then when you get older, you're like, ah, I like the spicy mustard.

Not the yellow shit. There's like five separate drags on Nelix's attention in this cold open. Seriously. Finally, Ensign Wildman is one of them and she's like, hey, your goddaughter can't sleep. You know what you need to do is take off your apron and do that thing you do all the time. Read her the bedtime story or what have you? We haven't seen Naomi Wildman since she was a little baby. I have to say I had forgotten about her existence. And I did not recognize her when I saw her.

She's like, I do not know how old a kid looks just by looking at them. I looked at Naomi Wildman in the scene and I'm like, how did they get to be like three? And then I read in the notes that like due to her being a half caterian, that like she ages a lot faster. And so she's supposed to look like a seven-year-old. I could not tell the difference between a three-year-old and a seven-year-old. She's supposed to look like a seven-year-old? Yeah, I have age blindness. I'm about to be a parent and that is rocking my world right now. That's what seven is. Yeah She's No, Naomi Wildman's eight

How did the Wildmans get such a great setup on the ship, too? She's just an Ensen. Yeah. I don't think BLT has windows in her quarters. If you have a kid, though, you know, startfully take care of you. It's pretty messed up. I think it's anti-Makewee sentiment. Makewee? Yeah.

At play, they're the makewees don't get windows. Yeah. I mean, BLT should think about having a kid. That's the solution to the problems. You're gonna weigh better quarters. I think Paris think about having a kid. That's the solution to the problems. You'll get away better quarters. I think Paris brings that up a lot. Hot screen. Am I making any sense here?

So the bedtime routine with Naomi Wildman is all about clearing the space for monsters and then Nielix is telling her about this like great forest that you get to go to when you die, when you're a tolaxian and all your friends and family are there and Naomi's like, wow, that's where you go and you're dying. He's like, no, well, when you're a tolaxian, and all your friends and family are there. Naomi's like, wow, that's where you go and you're dying. He's like, no, well, not you. Me. You're not tolaxian. You're not really, you're not welcome in the great forest.

I don't know what it is your people are into in the afterlife. I can only tell you what minus like because stories of death and what happens when you die or like really the best ones before bed because they don't invite any follow-up questions. Right. Seven-year-olds love this shit. You look to be seven to me. It seems like you could take a story like this. You're growing up, you're getting a little more sophisticated.

Here's death. This isn't Neelix's last stop for the evening either. He walks on over to the cargo bay, chats up seven. Gotta find that containment vessel for the proto matter. He finds it while talking to her about the case on. Boy, the biggest slam yet on the case on is that the board pulled up on a Kazon ship and said, hmm, not for us.

They're like the assimilation equivalent of being an in cell. Are you in in a simulator? If you're the Kazon, they're super butt hurt about. And project all of that out onto society. It's their fault, not mine. Just a ship full of chiquitis and stevens. I really don't want to do it. Coffee, black, make it yourself. I'm trying to help you see this as an opportunity to grow.

Make it yourself. Is there even a night before the shuttle mission? I'm just blown away by how much Nelix has to do in this cold open because we cut to the shuttle and he's on it. Yeah, maybe it's the next day, but I loved the effect of this nebula. It looked cool as hell.

And the shuttle looked cool driving toward it. I really love all of these scenes. Yeah, it's very post-hubble space telescope design on these images. Something about the Nebula's construction makes it feel very close in a way that the gasi kind feels always very in the distance. Right. Yeah, like everything that's close to the shuttle feels like it is like dangerous.

Yeah. It turns out it really is, because they're going to beam some proto-matter into his Nalgean bottle that he brought. And they start beaming it in and a bunch of warflighting starts shooting out of this tendril of the nebula. And one of them goes right through the front windshield of their bunk bed and catches Nelix in the chest. This nebula didn't secure its load. It went right through. RSVP Nelix. He's dead.

Paris and Chicoetay's expressions here are not exactly sad. I replayed this scene over and over again, just trying to grab onto any sort of expression of shock or grief or whatever. None of that is present in this moment. So sad. Well, it's a good thing, Nelix will never be able to see the faces that they made at the moment of his death.

Yeah. Paris is like doing whatever the tricorder equivalent is of pounding on Nelix's chest, telling him not to go into the light. And Chico Te is like, look, man, you got a shuttle to pilot. I clearly can't be the one to drive this thing around. Bad things happen when I'm at the wheel.

I thought this scene was so weird, because Chicoate is like telling Paris a bunch of medical things to do. It's like, Chicoate, you don't work in 6 Bay. Paris does. Like, what are you even doing here, man? Like, you're fucking useless when it comes to piloting the shuttle. You're getting in his way with the medical intervention here. Get off the shuttle.

I thought the same thing. I thought maybe the page in the script was mislabeled and the character should have been swapped. That makes a ton more sense. Yeah. They swapped pages. Man. They swapped sides.

Right. It's a real changing sides situation. Yeah. Nielix looks really dead. Yeah. And when we cut back to the ship, it's like, the shuttle is like missing. It's not like they headed right back and got him into six bay. It's like, we've got a missing shuttlecraft issue.

They had to fire a communication buoy. I mean, they say beacon on the episode, but you and I know what that is. It's a boi. Prepare a boi and launch it when ready. Warning boys. An emergency boi. A warning boi. Do they really have two different things?

No. Yeah. They're all bois. Oh, you shot a beacon? No, no, no, no. You should have shot a boi. Yeah. They're two... Come on, give me a break, Star Trek. Does this show think we're stupid or something?

It's like calling them deflector screens, you know? It's like, we know what shields are. Yeah. You can't treat those terms like they're interchangeable. You can't have a lot of hope of recovering this shuttle, knowing that your coat days on it, right? Right. Voyager doesn't know what happened over there, but geez.

This is a pattern of shuttle behavior here that is suspicious. They get everybody beamed directly to six bay and fortunately the EMH did not leap into an autopsy on Elix because they're standing around his body and he's like, so he's super dead and he's been dead for a long time. What should we do about that? And they're starting to like put plans together for honoring the death traditions of his culture when seven is like, um, that sounds like a drag. Why don't we just bring him back to life? I love the rye kind of attitude in this scene of like, this one lumbed motherfucker,

she did mean a lot to people. Let's, I don't know, give him a week long mess hall event. Yeah. It's what he would have wanted, because he rarely left the mess hall. He sort of planned it already, and we can just convert it from being a thing about the pricks in celebration to think about him.

And then we never have to talk about pricks in again. What's great is that he already did all the me's like it's ready to go. It's all in the fridge with saran wrap over it. We just pull it out and get it going. Yeah. Seven's idea is nanoprobe transfusion using her own blood. Yeah. Is this just cruelty to the rest of the crew?

To wake him up again? To get Nielix back. I don't know. I don't know, man. Everybody's a little bit suspicious of this, but Paris is in the corner and he kind of goes, I say we let her try. And everybody goes, no! There's a little bit of scrutiny about like what would happen

if you stuck Seven's nanoprobes into Nelix and I think it could have used a few more beats of like, so we're definitely sure he's not gonna turn into a borax, right? And I feel like the person to ask that question is Jucote. Jucote should really dig into that because he's been one before. He would be a great

person to put that fear into, but that's not where this episode goes. It's really an episode on a mission. We want to get back to Nelix being alive after death pretty quickly because the story is about that. I love that Jane Ways is like, is this a pet cemetery situation or do we get Nielix actual once you wake him up? He's made look like that person. What do you think, son? Yeah. That was a question I had too.

Like his brains are turning into pudding in there. Yeah. The longer we talk about this. This is another moment where I wanted to know like, what's the smell situation like at this point? Is the body starting to go off? Yeah go off like how far gone is he? Is it going to be like a Frankenstein's monster situation where like his face is always going to look like that? Which I was hoping for.

Yeah, no it would have been nice, but the next scene is like the image and seven doing the procedure and they're like worried It's not working working on a computer away from the bio bed and turn around and Nielix has set up and is like How did I get over here? Well, I mean he's flopping around for a while too It's not just a straight line between death and life. Yeah, like they've got to mess with the Ingredients a bit to get them there. Yeah, it sort of seemed like it was failing when he came back, you know? Kind of a weird misdirect. The triumphant moment of like, Nielix, congratulations.

No one's been as dead as long as you have. It stuck out to me that the doctor said world record. Yeah. World record is meaningless in Star Trek. It should be like a federation record or a galaxy record or something. If you could only hear yourselves. I was learning about this medical procedure

that's like named after the American that discovered it. And it was like, she learned it from a Guatemalan woman. It was like, okay, so why did they name it after her? Like, why didn't they name it after the Guatemalan? Yeah, that's some shit right there. Yeah, some fucked up shit. Anyways. So, no one anywhere has ever been as dead as long as

Neelix has been before being alive again. Except for the people that figured out how to do it, that the board has assimilated that seven borrowed the technology from. Now that he's up and awake, he's ready to go back to work immediately. Am I good as no? He is not super psyched about the nano probes element of the treatment that he's been subjected to, but he's like, well, I guess, I guess if that's what it takes. This sequence was confusing to me because Janeway walks off

screen with Nielix and he's wearing his gown, like his six-bay gown. And then we get an exterior interstitial and then we're in a corridor, but Nielix is fully clothed again. Yeah. Did Janeway cloth him? I'm afraid so.

Like a tailor helping you get a jacket on? Yeah. I don't know. I mean, she didn't want to walk down the hall with that weird hospital gown that shows your butt if you're not careful. Right. Well, Jane Ways, like welcome back to life. Your mission was a failure.

Yeah, we did not get the proto matter. He's still like, you know, eager to solve for proto matter, but also like he's got a lot on his plate like Prickson's coming up, man. You're still doing Prickson, right? I mean, I know you were dead for longer than anyone's ever been dead before being woken up again, but I mean, there is kind of a lot of prepped food. Yeah. And the mess hall refrigerator. And last year, some of it didn't agree with me personally, so if you could kind of rework some of your recipes, that would be great, Neelis.

Janeway's sitting in a shuttlecraft outside a voyage or watching Neelix prepare for pricks him. Shut this place down! Your walk-in is growing mushrooms! You're poisoning people! This dress test is the biggest failure we've ever had on the show! So she drops him out, he's like a, it's like the end of a date where they get to his door and he's like, well, this is me.

Yeah. Do you wanna come up for coffee and she's like, oh, it would keep me up. No, thank you. So she keeps walking. I don't want coffee. How much did you wanna see a little makeshift memorial outside of his door?

Oh, like, I mean, he was dead for 18 hours, right? Yeah, I probably don't replicate flowers to like 24 hours the past though. I mean, here's a dark question, Ben. Replicator rations are precious. Do you choose good meal for yourself or flowers for the dead? Damn.

I mean, I feel like Nielux would have wanted me to have a bad meal. So out of respect. Replicating in flowers. Also as we learn in this episode, there is no afterlife and the dead won't care anyway. So I think I'm gonna choose good meal. Yeah. I'm not gonna choose flowers. from Nielix's doorway. Put them back. He gets into his quarters and it becomes clear that he's kind of been putting on a brave face for everyone else's benefit. This is a real dark scene, but he says one thing to the space in the scene in his quarters,

which is he talks to his sister and asks why she wasn't there. And it's pretty clear that he did not have the afterlife experience that he was hoping for. Now, that's legitimately disappointing. Really sad. Now, I mean, he's had a bag over his head and a belt to the doorknob a bunch of times, and he's felt more than he felt in that 18 hours of death. He didn't get the big poppy he was expecting. Yeah.

It sucks. Well, sometimes death is better. Elsewhere, 7 of 9 and 2 Voc are discussing death. He couldn't see the forest for the ropes. I'm glad we went back for that. We needed that. That needs to be in this. Do not cut that out.

How could this be locked in? What? Did this one to mean that I'm careful? Because I'm going to see this once. Do it. This is an interesting conversation between two people who don't have a lot of strong feelings about much. Yeah.

And by the end of it, you get the sense that seven does have very strong feelings about this. Fear of death as a topic. Maybe the two characters, least likely to discuss it. And yeah, like one of them is like, yeah, well, I'll wind up in a contra cave somewhere. It's going to be fine for me. Seven is like, these memories will be lost, but the good ones from before I was de-assimulated, those live on with the collective.

When I was hearing seven describe how our consciousness would live forever, it made me think about how similar it would be to our show. As long as there's an internet. As long as anyone pays the host, these shows will last forever for time in a myrriam. That must be a great relief. That's really kind of horrifying. Right. Yeah. It's going to outlive us both for thousands of years. Yeah. Those aliens from arena, you're going to be the only ones familiar with what we do.

Yeah, they're gonna be like your culture is too primitive. You can't join us. You are still half savage. Yeah, but there is hope. This last moment with seven, I thought was really great. Jerry Ryan doesn't get a lot of opportunities, I think, to express complex feelings. And this is one of those moments that really made me sit up

and an appreciator is an actor. Yeah. The next scene is Chicote and Paris working with BLT on like, they're going to take another crack at getting some proto matter. And they want to run a simulation in the holodeck to like try and figure out what weren't wrong the first time. Like they think and maybe it was the transporter beam itself that like ignited the proto matter on fire or something. So what they've got is basically the black box recording

of the accident and they booted up in the holodeck and Chicoete and Nielix go in there and watch it and they erase the character of Chicoete from the recording but don't erase the characters of Nelix or Paris. So it's a very funny composition of Chico De Paris and a couple of Nelix's experiencing this again. I couldn't stop shaking my head. Like you see this car crash coming from a mile away. And it is so awkward. I was like, what are you doing Chico? He doesn't have a lot of empathy in this moment. Yeah, I mean he wasn't there in the dark room with Nielix when it was revealed What's eating him? So maybe he didn't want the recording of himself to be there because he knows that his face will betray how excited he is when because he knows that his face will betray how excited he is when he looks gets rocketed across the room by a bolt of lightning.

That is really funny. He knows he was insufficiently emotional at the time of Nielix's death and he's like, well, I need to place to sit, so I need to remove the hollows from me. Nielix, you're fine there, right? We're definitely going to keep the Paris hollow. Yeah. We need to see what happened with those two guys, but I wasn't really involved in this. Just to be clear, Paris' reaction is hyper-realistic, and what you see on his face is exactly what he went through.

Yeah. So when the Neelix character in the simulation gets killed. This is a big sad moment for Nielix and he goes and crouches over the body and confides in Jakote that he was very disappointed that when he was dead for 18 hours he did not find himself in the great forest and he didn't see all the family members and stuff. He did not experience the great rope. Yeah, there was nothing. Check out days like Nielix, in your religion, how many people do you need to give diarrhea before you're disqualified from going to the great forest?

Yeah, there's so much that's strange about this scene. I think it clangs intentionally. Yeah. I mean, like, Neelix is not a jester, you know, but he is the comic relief, so it is kind of, there is sort of a tears of the clown element to the way this feels, but it feels like super intense in a way that I felt like this scene was so weird. Yeah, I mean, I'm not being articulate, but I feel like I sound like an idiot saying that. No, you're right.

Like when the emotional core of your show is made to be the subject of some sort of trauma and everyone else is revealed to be like not as emotional as the person experiencing those things, the effect can be kind of monstrous. Yeah. Everyone else just seems very uncaring. Yeah, I think that might be it. And like, nobody seems to have noticed really. Like even after this, like they have the big bricks in party.

For some reason, two vach is the one doing the toast. Yeah. And Nelix is doing that thing where he just keeps himself busy in the kitchen during a thing that's supposed to be for him. It's his big day, it's his big celebration. Chico Te looks like he's wearing a tweet couch. Hahaha.

All of these costumes are incredible. Yeah. Everybody has like one civilian outfit on board and for some reason, these are them. They look so thick Yeah, they really do. Yeah looks sweaty They they really had to crank the air conditioning in the studio and they shot these scenes two-vacs toast includes a real old testament style begat runner Hmm, yeah, everyone finds very funny. Yeah. Two-vox, like,

Prickson is normally something I have to tell to Pell when we are being intimate with each other. But in Nielix's culture, it's also a hot la day. That kills. Thank you. They love that stuff. Yeah. I mean, Nielix can't even give a speech

when he's solicited to do one. Instead, the simple thanks is what telegraphs how bad he's feeling. Yeah. This is the worst pricks in ever. Let's just admit it. Yeah. I mean, it's tough when you go into a pricks in with your expectation. So high.

Classic mistake. Yeah. That's setting it up for failure, you know? Yeah. It's funny that the thing that serves as comic relief here is Seven mingling with Ensign Wildman and the doctor and regaling them with the story of what happens with yeah, borax children It's big fun. I like that. Yeah, it's just like intrigued and excited by this. Yeah They should have been talking the whole time.

Ensign Wildman, it's like just walks away going, hugh. I love that the suggestion here is that sevens the drunk person at the party. Kind of is, yeah. You know, who does the big mistake? Yeah. So she and the EMH are just often running

with that line of inquiry. And Ensign Wildman goes over to Nielix and is like, um, so I know you've like been dead and shit, but the kid is like cannot be convinced to go to sleep without you clearing the room for monsters. So if you could kind of get back on the schedule with that, that would be great for all of us. Only Nielix can tuck me in. I want Nielix.

It sounds familiar. Hey, Ensign Wildman, how dumb is Naomi to be believing in monsters as clearly a seven-year-old? When in Star Trek, you could forensically scan her entire bedroom to prove without a shred of doubt that there are no monsters there. Yeah, she doesn't trust tricorders. Wouldn't you sleep so great as a little kid if you were afraid of the darker

whatever if you knew that the computer was scanning for monsters at all times? No entities detected. Yeah, that'd be great. You're in detected. Damn it! Fuck! It's scanning for monsters and you're in? Damn it! Fuck! It's scanning for monsters and urine?

Oh man. Mom! Objection noted, we'll do this without you, do it. If you do it. If you do it. Objection noted, we'll do this without you, do it. If you do it. If you do it.

Do it. Nail me when it really gets back to Tucker in, really forces the great forest issue, which is, you know, another character just not being sensitive to what Nelix is going through right now. I was also wondering like, is Ensign Wildman cool with her daughter sort of being raised in the Tlaxian religion? Like, very open-minded, Ensign Wildman. It does sort of seem like Nelix is kind of pushing a belief system on her.

Maybe the Caterian belief system is so crazy that Nelix's Tlaxian version is like, it's like a nice issue. Yeah, like, you know, when she's a teenager, God help us if she looks up Caterian religion and the ship's computer. So I'm gonna do everything I can to just get this like

lovable forest imp to impress his religion on her Yeah He does not have the spirit of the story and him at all in its retelling It just about puts Nielix to sleep in doing that and because Nielix is so busy This isn't the end of his day He pieces out of the Messhall party to go do the bedtime story. And then he has to come back and clean

up his own party. Yeah, it sucks. You tell me, Ensign Kim wouldn't stick around to help clean. Come on, Ensign. He's considered it. Tell me, tell me, and your mom, Barry Brown, Harry Kim. Who are you? Harry Kim. The one person on the crew, I give a pass is Paris because he's got like double shifts, you know, he's working as the helmsman and as the nurse. Yeah. Everybody else throw a couple of things in the garbage on your way out, you know?

Like when I was a kid and we had recess sometimes and they're like yard attendance would be like, everybody pick up five pieces of trash and throw a boy. Oh man, I bet you picked up like 40 pieces of trash, didn't you? Yeah. That's like the new, I was such a good boy. Hey, Ben, that wasn't a playground attendant. So while he is doing this cleanup, seven comes to wave a light over him and check on how the nanoprobes are doing in his body. He is a little worried that they may have stolen his humanity. When very name is racist.

Yeah. And he is a... He fucking flips out, man. Pretty animated in his feelings at seven here. I didn't ask to be brought back. You were dead at the time. Do you think that it's his flip out that causes the nanoprobes to stop working?

It sure seems that way. I was thinking it was like gonna be a, he's starting to assimilate because of the high, like the high amount of emotional hormones in his system, but I don't think that's quite what it is, but it did kind of look morgue when he starts going necrotic. This is a great, great Ethan Phillips episode. And for many scenes, that's the truth.

But for this one specifically, I think because this is a meltdown that is, I think, so often associated with a substance abuse thing, like the energy he brings to it. Yeah, that lashing out and being really mean. Yeah. If that's something our Star Trek characters typically do, and it really stands out. Yeah. And when given that energy, it feels so different for Star Trek and dangerous, and when Seven takes care of him during,

like, it just makes her seem like all the better as a character. Like it was a good moment for both of them. It wasn't a good moment for Nelix, but it was a good acting moment for Ethan Phillips and it was a good moment for Seven in keeping her composure and being compassionate to the extent that she could be toward him in that moment. So in Six Bay, it's explained that like the probes were like not calibrated right, but they fixed it and it seems like it's explained that the probes were not calibrated right, but they fixed it, and it seems like it's working.

And they're explaining all this to the captain. Yeah, he's stable, but he's going to need to recover a little bit longer. He may have to wear a thing to inject nanoprobes into him from time to time. Like a patch. Yeah. To put a nanoprobe patch on every morning. Yeah, like nanoprobe's insulin. Is this suggestion here? And Nelix, like the sucks, because they're talking about him with him

in the room, but he's all by himself. And finally, he calls to Chicoate and he's like, look, man, I heard you get some buttons. Yeah. I think I'm ready for the buttons. That's what I need. I need to look inside myself. Will you be my vision quest, Shaperone, and Shukote gets in close and he's like, almost into his nook. I was going to say like he is nook adjacent in the real estate parlance. He gives him a warning. It's not about the buttons though. He's like, look man, this is a pretty flimsy backstory for me, something that we haven't really talked about for like a season or a season and a half. And if we do this, you have to promise not to look into how we came up with this idea.

You can't do any research about this. And he looks just like, all right, I promise. And never, no matter what, ever try to look at what we're doing here through a modern lens. Sounds great. A very nice friend of DeSoto came up to me after one of our recent live shows in New York. And he was like, Hey, man, I'm Native American. And like, I know that it's like a little bit gross and weird. What's going on with the Chico take character, but like he all we've got so like go easy on him. Yeah, I was like that guy was cool as hell. I appreciate your perspective

I mean like how sad of a position is that for so many people like I know this character born from such Troubling information yeah from some weird guys imagination. This is all we've got. Yeah. Need more, more of it. But also like what a sadly great attitude to have about it. Like I'm not going to let Chico Te Ruyn start trek for me. I mean, yeah, that's, I think what I admired about it was the perspective of like, you

know what, it's not perfect, but it's also not like, it's definitely not the worst thing white people have ever done to Native Americans. That makes me feel a little better. That's... And then you guys laughed and laughed. Uh-huh, yeah. And high-fived.

Chico tastes like, look, Nelix, get some junk. You get some junk around your quarters. Bring that junk over to mine. Put it in a bundle, bring your bundle, we're gonna get you high. Drugs can make you feel good. I thought it was weird that they chose to do this in Chico Tei's quarters,

because I feel like if you're doing buttons, you wanna be in a place that's familiar and safe. Yeah, right. But the Nelix's quarters are kind of busy. Right. Chico Tay has got the Atari DMT unit for Nielix to touch. Yeah. And when he does, Chico Tay begins the prayer.

He does. He's like, all right, so here's your challenge, Nielix. Let the ship fall away. Like the only thing that exists in the universe are the objects on the spindle in front of you. What you want to do is some box breathing. Yeah. And Nielix is like, I got one lung.

Like, I can basically only breathe one kind of way. Yeah. And check out, he's like, all right, we'll forget the box breathing. But okay, let the ship fall away. This is the only stuff in the universe. Now, go somewhere not the ship, somewhere far away that's a safe, happy place for you. And Nielik shows up in the mess.

This point bastard. It's like when you've been playing Tetris all day and when you close your eyes to fall asleep, you just see the Tetris again. He can't not think of the mess hall. Yeah. And it's not think of the mess hall. Yeah. And it's that fun dream logic where place doesn't really matter and the way you move through it.

Yeah. Also, cast is a little bit unusual. Alexia has deceased sisters here, talking a Janeway. The dead girl. Oh, yes, very charming. But then she disappears before he can get across the room to get over to talk to her. And he's chasing her through the hallways,

all over the ship. Everyone's just got like enormous junk. And it's a cool dream, in some ways. Just big floppy dicks and boobs everywhere. Nielix, is this your idea of sex. Is this why you keep going to the mess? Why is your sister here? I can see the family resembling.

Alexia rightfully runs away from Nelix. Yeah, and he catches up with her in the great forest. Yeah, it exists. I was kind of expecting a greater forest in appearance, to be honest. Yeah, I mean, it's fine. Yeah. The forest that is fine is a little bit more cumbersome

to say out loud, though, you know. Yeah. Right. Got tickets that knock them, get them. All better, large, rich, rich. Yeah. 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, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info.

That's GreatestGenTour.com for dates and ticketing information for the 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 got stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the space weirds.

Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. 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. Whoa, rats, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line. 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 I hate having to stand in line and boy 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 side. Gotta get on the art. Yeah, it's about terrain. Got us about to destroy humanity Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. Oh, 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 boat. We came two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org. Boy, Alexia really burns it down with Nelix and his belief system here. What's the point of living?

There isn't any. That's what you're finally starting to realize. She's really shredding this whole thing, making fun of him for believing in this afterlife. Or any afterlife, really. Like she pivots from great forest isn't a thing and is down into nothing matters. Yeah, and you should be embarrassed for thinking it does. You've wasted your entire life believing lies. Yeah, this is pretty shattering for Nelix and the forest goes all like nightmareish in color. It goes from being kind of idyllic night forest to nightmare night forest. Yeah, he finds his own self like covered in

lesions from getting killed by that lightning bolt. Yeah, he sees himself and even himself is talking shit. You died on that shuddy craft, Felix. Yeah, and then it's almost like a profit experience throughout the end. Everybody's telling him, like, you know what you've got to do. You know what this means, right? You're doing the math. Yeah. It's interesting how you know what you have to do. Everyone knows the code for that.

Yeah. How do we know the code for that? Everybody's watched a lot of samurai movies, I think. Yeah, guess so. Afterwards, like, we see the post vision, and Neelix kind of wakes up, and then we fade to black, and then we fade to the next day, I guess.

And Neelix is walking around like, he didn't just experience a huge trauma. Yeah. His first stop is the astrometrics lab where he talks to seven, and he's like, hey, so, uh, woo, I'm really fucking flew off with the handle at you the other night. up is the astrometrics lab where he talks to seven and he's like, Hey, so, uh, whoo. I'm really fucking flew off with the handle at you the other night.

So I owe you a big apology and so sorry about that. Uh, anyways, you've been great. And I think you're awesome. And you're going to fit in just great with this crew. Just give it some time. Anyways, nice knowing you. I was in my storage room recently, and I came across some old high school yearbooks.

And it's funny, like the tone that many of the messages take are often very positively interested in hangs or whatever, like so many people that I really didn't know that well in high school were like, hey, we should hang out this summer or whatever and it never happens. Yeah. And there's such a quality to that in Neelix's commentary here, like the fake hopefulness of a thing that isn't going to happen.

We should do something sometimes, Evan. Yeah. Yeah. It's just Hollywood bullshit, Adam. It really is. That craven, ladder climbing that Ne just Hollywood bullshit, Adam. It really is. That craven ladder climbing that Neelix is doing here. Next scene is in his restaurant, which is in between shifts. And he's just doing some cleaning up around the space.

And Chico Tei is like, hey, man, what gives? You missed your session this morning. Yeah. You're skipping therapy. That's not good. Vision quest is not a one time thing. You look, here's how they get you. Ben, you have to sign up for a membership at Vision Quest. Yeah. You move through the different phases and it gets more and more expensive as you go. And if you quit early, oh, the penalty.

Do not want that. Yeah? I gotta be able to communicate with your other friends in Vision Quest. Who might be some of your only friends in the world at this point. After Vision Quest taught you about how toxic all the other people in your life are. Neelix is faking it here. He's like, oh yeah, I'll totally go to the next session.

Later is when that will be. Once I finish up work here. After you get off shift. This is the second time in this episode, this happens when Chico Teo walks out, Neelix takes his apron off by like popping it at the neck. I think it's like a, it's like Velcroed behind his neck or something,

but he really has like a the knee licks maneuver when he takes this thing off. I like how it's a practiced service industry move that you're not thinking about. You're just subconsciously taken off your apron. Looks good. It's a good move. It's a nice character choice. As knee licks finishes his shift, he takes that one last look before turning off the lights. It's like last episode in cheers, right? As Nielix finishes his shift, he takes that one last look before turning off the lights.

It's like last episode in cheers, right? Yeah. I don't mean to ruin that for you. I know you're watching cheers right now. Oh, shit! Spoiler alert! They closed the bar at the end! Well Ted Danson turns off the light and then you see the cigarette lighter.

Start to ignite all the soaked uh, the soap tissue paper in the ceiling that he's caught the way because he burns cheers down for insurance money bending. Right. Right. Nielix goes to his quarters. He records the final episode of the Nielix show and then compresses the video file and sets it on a delayed email to go to Captain Janeway in an hour.

Yeah. There is something really unintentionally funny happening here. If you were to believe that the only two good bi-messages he records are for two-buck and seven, like the in-person one, and what that would mean for everyone else. Or else he's like, Jesus, not even for Naomi, like she's seven. That is a TNG alien style mystery that the card finds irresistible, right?

Why? Why would Nielix just talk to seven and record a goodbye message to Tuvak? Why those two? All the people. Gotta get to the bottom of this. There are many more suicides the day Nelix takes his life. It's people being unable to comprehend the two people he gave his messages to. Nelix heads down to the holodac and he boots up two Valkyrie programs 001. But he introduces two Valkyrie as a character and some tracks himself as a character

turns off the safeties. Yeah, that's how he does it and runs that program. He does his final rope in the holodeck. I've heard of going number three in the holodeck, but this is ridiculous. It's subtle. Up on the bridge, Ensen came as like, hey, Cap, somebody is in the holodeck, but this is ridiculous. Ha ha, it's subtle. Up on the bridge, Ensign Kim is like, hey, Cap, somebody is in the transporter room trying to beam themselves into the nebula, and she's like,

well, stop them. And he's like, I can! The transporter room continues to be the only place on the ship with basically zero safety protocols. Anyone could just step up there and do whatever they want to do. Like Nielix out Fox, Ensen Kim, unlocking out bridge controls, do not buy. I had a good look for Kim.

Yeah, not at all. Two Vock gets on his like, so do Vochet voice box to Dens and Kim. And he's like, that's really embarrassing for both of us actually. Operations and security really fell down on this one. There's Nielix in that nebula. Get him back. I mean, Nielix gets as far as to lights start to form in his body.

Like, he is mid-beam before Kim finally puts it together on the bridge and stops the beam out. And it gives Jakote enough time to arrive on the scene. Yeah. It seems like Nielix never expected Jakote to ask him the same question a second time, which is what did you see in your vision quest? Yeah. And that was supposed to be in the session. Yeah. I guess so.

Yeah. And what he's saying is like, yeah, man, like, of course, you had some uncertainty introduced into your worldview. And of course, your vision quest would be about that kind of uncertainty. That doesn't mean that it's like a literal truth. It's like a fucking dream. You idiot. It's metaphorical. In Shikote's defense, there was never a moment in this episode where he was like, one and done, baby, that's all you need. Like at every point, he was like, this is going to be a drawn out procedure. So you

need to get ready to sign a contract where regular payments are taken from your stack of platinum. Yeah. I mean, I think that this is like not a totally insane misconception for someone to have. I had a friend that went to therapy and she was like, I just want to get this one thing dealt with. And like the therapist kept like asking her to talk about the rest of her life and she's like, no, no, no, no, no, I don't want to deal with any of that stuff. I just want to deal with this one thing because this is the thing on my mind. Oh, interesting.

And I was like, yeah, that's not how therapy works. It's not about like tightening a specific bolt, you know, it's about, it's a holistic approach. Yeah, like everything in your life influences everything else. This depiction though, I found really affecting, like what Ethan Phillips is doing in this scene is like familiar to a person who can spiral. Like, I know what this spiral is like, you only hear your own voice. Yeah. And the voice is outside in the affirmative, like don't seem to matter as much. Yeah. And it takes a combination here to get him off the transporter pad. And between Chicoete and Enten Wildman,

both being on comms and then finally showing up. Yeah. There's a lot of different pressures to sort the situation. I think it's very interesting how much both Jakote and Ensign Wildman focus on getting Nielix outside of his own self too. It's all about his impact on other people on the ship. This is essentially a scene of trying to talk somebody off of a ledge that is ready to punch their own ticket.

Isn't it so interesting that like in the transporter room, you are kind of up at an elevated position? Like the blocking of this suggests it in a language that we are familiar with. Yeah. And it feels really strategic that they are not trying to solve his problem. They're saying like, if you go, it will be devastating for others.

And the rule that you play in their lives will be avoid, you know. It's going to hurt a lot of people, but most specifically, two-vac and seven-of-nine. For some reason. They will never get over how they were the only two to receive. Any kind of goodbye from you. I thought we were closer than that, Nelix. It says to go day. Yeah. So I want to go forward and then Nelix says to go day. Yeah. So I wanna go forward and then come back a little bit. Okay. In Naomi's room, Naomi tells Nelix that mommy says you were sick.

And I was wondering if that could have suggested a read on the scene that Ensign Wildman knew what was happening here and was not ignorant to what Nelix was doing by asking a bunch of like, hey, what are you, what's going on in here? You need to come read to my daughter. That she actually was in on it. Yeah.

Because yeah, she walks into the worst moment of his life and is like, what, what gives? You didn't come talk to my daughter tonight. Yeah, wait until she hears that she did not receive a letter. I think the very first thing Nelix needs to do after he's talked off the transport pad is tell the computer to delete. Yeah, now the next episode is Nelix's George trying to get

the tape out of the voicemail machine. I don't like coffee, I don't have to come up. Two-bugs door code is a really difficult to crack. And Nelix is not permitted to use site-to-site transport. Not anymore. Now, let's take a little while where you're not allowed to use tricorders. Yes.

Yeah. So they took a suicidal man and took him right into the bedroom of a seven-year-old and left him in there with her. Duty calls. Yeah. I mean, this is a retelling of the Great Forest story. Only this time, it really slaps. And the final moment of the episode is what it's like in Naomi Wildman's dream world and it is a terror filled

Nightmare Populated with only monsters. Yeah, it's really the cutaway in event horizon of dream worlds Yeah, and that's the note we end on. Yeah. Did you like this episode? Yeah, I mean, we had a lot of fun with it because I think it helps me deal with difficult and traumatic subjects to like go for the laugh. But like that moment in the transport room was really powerful to me. And it redeemed a lot of the things in the episode that I mean we're silly or weird. Like I'm thinking specifically of the holodeck recreation of Nielix's death.

Right. Like it's hard to think about that at all after the transporter room scene and that expression of what it's like to be spiraling the way Neelix does and Ethan Phillips' performance of that was really affecting. And it felt like honest in a really good way. Ethan Phillips is really amazing in this episode and he carries the whole thing in a way that is a nice reminder. Like, he can carry an episode and he's done it before.

And I hope he gets more opportunities to do it as the series goes on because this was just a really great one for him. Yeah. It made me think a lot about LaXana Troy, who I think shares some character DNA with Nelix in that she is sort of written to be kind of obnoxious, but winds up having a depth and dimensionality to her character that is not necessarily obvious when you're just annoyed that

the episode is going to be about her being obnoxious to everyone. Mm-hmm. And like Nielix is often the butt of the joke on this show. He's often the comic relief on this show. He very often is the schlamiel. But when he gets a moment of pathos like this, like Ethan Phillips has the goods to make that work. And I think that this episode is not perfect by any means, but as a showcase for his abilities,

as a performer, it really slaps. So yeah, I think overall I liked it a lot, so that reason. Yeah, me too. Well, you wanna see if we have anything in the priority one in box, Adam? I'm headed there right now. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel.

Need a supplemental answer. Supplement? Supplement. Supplement. Yeah, it's extra. But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Adam, our first priority one message is of a promotional nature, it goes like this.

I'm with ours Arcaneum, a Dungeons & Dragons themed metal band. By four guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Dungeons & Dragons themed metal band. Yeah, as you should be. But one thing we're not embarrassed about is our banging new album, Far From the Sun. It's all snarling guitars and huge drums and it tells an epic story about heroes and demons and killer mushroom people. FOTs can find two thirds of the album on Spotify right now. If you like what you hear, we'd love if you would back our Kickstarter.

Hell yeah. So for links to the music and the Kickstarter visit ours Arcaneum.net that's a rs a r c a n u m dot net. That's right. They should be halfway through this Kickstarter campaign when this episode drops because it runs from beginning August to beginning September. So like a lot of Kickstarter campaigns it's important to get in there early. Yeah. So that you're not stressing out the person running the campaign.

Like, let's make sure that they reach their goal. Yeah, let's do it. How does our canem sound really cool? I mean, I don't think it's like that unusual for metal bands to have some Dungeons and Dragons imagery in their music, right? I mean, what you're describing is Led Zeppelin, right? Yeah, that's basically what they did.

Yeah, so they're picking up the torch and continuing to run with it, and I think you need to support this stuff. Arjar Canem.net! Do it. Ben, our second priority when message is from Peter, and it's to Zach, and that message goes like this. We've been best friends since you dressed as data for Halloween in sixth grade. I don't believe this. You're going to put that thing on and parade around like what is that? I was like we're going to be best friends.

You're the Tom Paris to my Harry Kim. Congrats on your engagement. Lindsay, you're a great partner for Zach. I hope these scarves support Ben and Adam, like I will always support you. It's a hell of a combination. It says here that Zach's wedding is going to be on September 3rd. Hey, wow, coming right up, congrats, Zach. Congrats, Lindsay. Congrats to both.

And our gift is a drop filled P1 Peter sent in usually you only get to drop for a P1 but we're gonna throw an extra one in for free It's a special occasion. Yeah our final P1 tonight is from snow angel It's to Ben and Adam and Florida sunshine goes like this Thanks for the delightful DD pod in Austin. Ben was so lit. Congrats on Beta Bay to FS, my love. Thanks for traveling with me on a wonderful trip to Austin.

Where will we go for the next pod? I know it won't be Orlando, LOL, because Taint. Benterong, request Ben give it to us, bark bark. Ben! Ben! Ben! Man, that sounds like some warm, honeyed bosom folk. I was just gonna say, yeah. We haven't had the word Bintarong show up in a P1 in a long time but it's like a comfy pair of sweatpants. Always nice to get into. Always nice to hear from the booze again. Yeah. Still have my warm honey booze-mutee shirt. Here's how weird my memory is like just saying that you were lit at one of our shows and that it was in, like that does nothing for my recollection.

That feels like so many shows. How were you more lit for Austin than any other? Well, I mean- This person only went to Austin, so like that's- It also sounds like I was like notably more lit than you, which I don't really think was the case in Austin, but maybe I just came off that way, I don't know. I don't know.

Fun show in Austin, hot show. Good times. Well, if you'd like to get a priority one message on the show, head to maximumfund.org slash jumbotron and set it up. It's a great way to support the production of this program and get the word out to tens of thousands of friends of DeSoto. Go ahead and get the word out. tens of thousands of friends of Desotto. Hey, Ben. What's that, Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda?

I gotta say, like, if you're Ethan Phillips in this script lands in your inbox on the lot and you're looking through it, I feel like this has got to be an exciting, hey, like probably a little bit nerve-wracking too, because a lot of the episode is going to be on your shoulders, but I think he has got to be having the most fun in this, like getting to work out these muscles that so often he does not get to work out as an actor in this role. It's got to have been a fun time. I mean, as tough as it is to go into the kind of emotional places that he goes to get this performance, I think he's my drunk Shimoda in this episode. Would it surprise you if it was actually more difficult to be the day-to-day Nelix than it is the Nelix of this episode? Because I feel like at least in this episode there's an example like whether or

not you've seen this person in TV or movies or in real life like you know what this expression of frustration is like. Yeah. But no one is like Nelix day to day. Right. And how he is. And so I wonder just what is the most difficult type of performance for Ethan Phillips? Yeah. Who's to say?

Yeah. Only him. Yeah. Did you have a drink from out of Adam? I think this is not a good chicote episode. I mean, in many parts of it it is, but for him not to even turn to Nelix in that shuttle recreation holiday, I can be like, hey, are you okay with this? Like before I start in, we both know what we're here to watch, right? Yeah. For there not even to be a, are you okay, dude?

Yeah. There was a terrible look for Chico Te. Surprising that Nelix goes back to him for therapy after that. It seemed like a trust would be broken there in some ways that would make the scene that followed impossible. Yeah. That's a good call by you.

Weird. And it's such an easy fix with like a couple of words. Right. Maybe they cut it out. I don't know. Maybe they cut it for time. Yeah. Well, that was a fun episode, but let me fire up the game of buttholes. You will of the caretaker and tell you a little bit about the next episode, which is season

4 episode 13, Waking Moments. The crew is attacked, which is in quotes, by a species of alien that lives in the human dream state. It sounds like they may be getting schishards next time. I was just going to say, finally, finally we'll use that drop again. Yeah. Do you think that these aliens will call them bitch a lot when they get attacked? What is that in reference to? Freddie. Oh right. Yeah, yeah, the call people bitch I've never seen one of those I know that he lives in the dreams

That's like his main thing and he calls people bitch. Yeah, yeah, I don't support it one of the worst curse words in the 80s I think it's bad to call people bitch. You know you're in an 80s horror movie when they're throwing bitch around yeah Adam we're throwing our runabout around. It's currently on scurried 22. A couple squares ahead is a banger we could hit. And it looks like we could also potentially hit a naked now bath tub episode. Oh, shit. I hit the six. Please don't. I'm just going to say this. If you land on the bathtub episode I'm doing a cocoa doughnut episode. I'm not getting in that fucking bath again You're required to learn as you play

Roll I think it is unfair how often we've had to do a bath episode on this show It's not about right and wrong fair and unfair. It's about what the caretaker wants for us to do We should swap out that square. We should never do it again It's not about right and wrong, fair and unfair. It's about what the caretaker wants for us to do. We should swap out that square. We should never do it again. Ha ha ha. Adam, you'll be delighted to know that I only rolled a three.

Chula! Did I win? Paul Vanky. We jumped over the banger, but fell well short of the naked now. It's a regular episode next week. Great. Yeah.

I am so relieved. I don't want to fight with you, but I feel like that would be a fight. It's random, man. It's just a dice roll. You might did it next time. You might not. You might roll a six and jump all the way over it.

I never roll a six. My challenge to you is to do your go-go, no, no, that you owe the people without doing it at a different square that you also will then owe them. Yeah. Yeah. Then I'm just in constant debt. A lifetime of game of buttholes debt. You don't want to borrow from game of buttholes Peter to pay, Game of Buttholes Paul. Yeah. I don't want to be like you coming out of college with a lot of butthole debt. It took a lifetime to pay back. Well, if you want to get in a little bit of butthole debt of your own, head to MaximumFund.org

slash join. Instead of a membership to support this show, it's how we finance the production of it. Isn't it a miracle? The show comes out every Monday, like clockwork. It sounded great. Yeah. Your support makes it possible. Your support makes it feel good to listen to.

I've heard. Let's just think about some of the funny drops that we heard this episode. How much would you say those are worth? Five bucks a month? Oh, yeah. I mean, more, but five is a great start. It's a great way to get your toes wet, you know?

You know how Jacken it feels. That's like our show. But if you give to the show, if you support the show at MaximumFundOutworks. That's like putting a bag over your head during... Wow. The show becomes way more intense. Extra nice. Uh-huh. Adam and Ben do not support putting a bag over your head during masturbation.

If you don't have it like that, but you do want to support the show in a free way, hey, just recommend it to a friend or leave us a nice review. I've stars on Apple podcasts or whatever podcast app you use would be great. That's the best right there. Some F2F. Got to thank Adam Ragusia who made the original theme song of this show. He's over on YouTube, cooking up great meals, teaching all kinds of interesting stuff about the kitchen. Definitely give him a follow. Also got to thank Dark Materia, created the original Picard sign and was kind enough to let us use it. We got to thank Bill Tilly, the Card Daddy, who runs the social media account at greatest Trek on Insta and Twitter.

Come follow those accounts! What are you doing? Yeah, all the news goes into those accounts. Yeah, all the jokes. I mean, not all the jokes. You saved some of the jokes for the show. Yeah. Hey, if you want to sign up for our mailing list, goch.biz slash mail. Got to thank Wendy Pretty, the producer of this program,

editor of this program, the best. Best of the biz. Yep. Nick did more, made the artwork. Sure did. Buy something at PodChop.biz. Oh, yeah. gotta do that. Which is most definitely,

launched and active. Yeah. And with that, we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek Voyager. And an episode of the greatest generation Voyager that learns not to fuck with the wrong aliens, bitch. Does that look Freddy sounds like? That's almost exactly how he sounds. Like I just closed my eyes.

Does he do puns? Or is that the crypt keeper? Doesn't he do limericks? I think that's leprechaun. And once was a bitch from Nantucket! Maximumfun.org Comedy and Culture Artistone, audience supported

Got it, got it, got it, got it. Maximumfun.org. Comedy and culture. Artistone, audience supported.