The Greatest Generation - Creamsman of the Night (ENT S4E11)

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

When Hoshi and Trip return from a Klingon garbage dump with a life-threatening illness, Reed and Mayweather start acting like aliens while Captain Archer and Dr. Phlox try to work out a cure. But after watching the virus take the lives of two crew members, Archer convinces the Organians to try out compassion instead. Who is the Night Stocker? How might Archer suck Klingon dick? Which character is the Harry Kim of Star Trek Enterprise? It’s the episode that’s out of the testicular woods!Support the production of The Greatest GenerationGet a thing at podshop.biz!Sign up for our mailing list!Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Riker - Quantum LeapThe Greatest Generation is produced by Wynde PriddySocial media is managed by Rob Adler and Bill TilleyMusic by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFriends of DeSoto for: Labor | Democracy | JusticeDiscuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen and find us on social media:YouTube | Facebook | X | Instagram | TikTok | Mastodon | Bluesky | ThreadsAnd check out these online communities run by FODs: Reddit | USS Hood Discord | Facebook group | Wikia | FriendsOfDeSoto.social Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Here's to the finest crew in starving. When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument from me. This is a parody. Paramount owns the song. Welcome to the greatest generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast. I'm Adam Pranica. I'm Ben Harrison.

Boo-boo-boo-boo-bull-bull-bull-ball's update. Oh man. I was just watching an episode of Seinfeld last night and somebody asked George for a pen and he says, I can never carry a pen. I'm too worried it'll puncture my scrotum. That's been my week. I've been thinking about that line for like 24 hours. I have to give the FODs an update because, as we've said many times, this is a men's health podcast primarily. Sure. It is also sometimes a Star Trek show. Here we are exactly a week out for my procedure. Almost exactly to the minute I'm looking at. Oh my goodness. Exactly seven days. Just want to thank all the FODs out there who sent in letters. Yeah. Who sent flowers. Completely like, and not just women either.

Oh. Every gender and neither gender wrote in concerned and with a lot of nice thoughts about my genitals. I couldn't help but notice that when I had my procedure, this didn't happen. You're kind of the, you're the beloved co-host of the greatest generation, I think is what we're starting to understand. I think Bill Tilley doxed me. I think that definitely happened. I don't know how I crossed him. But what I did is I crossed him and I left him alive. And that's my mistake. That's your mistake. Anyway, many people, including you, halfway through the week we're like buckle up man you think you're good after a couple

of days and then there's like the spike the spike in pain be vigilant against it and in the middle of the week I'm like waiting for this awful thing to happen didn't happen oh that's good I feel like I got away with something like I robbed a bank

I'm waiting for it to happen seven days after all those free bouquets and like sexy nurse telegrams And you didn't even really need them. I know. Yeah. Yeah, not at all. I'm not saying it was fun or comfortable the entire way, but I feel like I'm out of the woods, out of the testicular woods.

Yeah. And I'm feeling back to normal again. Oh, that's great, man. Yeah. I think that it was you that said on the show that we know this to be far worse than childbirth in terms of pain. Oh, and it absolutely was. Yeah. So I just want to say, like, your fortitude.

against that pain. Remarkable. I mean, you as well, Ben. You were the first one through that door. You taught the rest of us that it is possible. Yeah, we can do it. And it was personally inspiring to me. Men are strong, too, Adam. Yeah. You know, really good to be reminded of that, I think. It shouldn't be controversial to say. Yeah, yeah. And you got to shave yourself twice. That's fun. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe I'll just keep the hands. haircut. Maybe this is just a regular thing going forward. This is how you look now.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I shaved up my beard for my Halloween costume this year and my wife was like, no, no, no, no my gusto. That's, that is coming back post-haste. I am seeing too much of this. Yeah, yeah. I like a little mystery. I wish I could grow a beard the way you have so it could cover up my adult acne. It would be really nice to have a face covering for that on the occasions when it happens. Yeah. Well, I don't know, man. It's no picnic when you've got a beard hair growing through a zit, you know.

It can really backfire. Is that on the scale of, I'm going to put these in order, okay? Vasectomy, childbirth for a female. Right. And then where on that scale does just beard. Beard hair through a zit all the way up at the tippy top, yeah. Oh, yeah. Wow. I mean, consider yourself lucky. That's what I'm going to say. Has this ever happened to you? Like, speaking of faces, I think here's what I'll say. We're a men's health podcast. We're also a men's grooming and beauty podcast on the list too. Have you ever gone into your bathroom that you share with your special person and found a night cream there that was especially for you? Like basically a, hey, this is for you as a suggestion. Like, you should start doing this.

Oh, man. Because that was my week. Yeah. Like, do better, and here's how. You could take this two ways. You could take it as an insult, or you can take it as someone caring about your long-term good looks. It's like somebody offering you a breathman, you know? It's a little bit embarrassing that you needed it to be offered to you, that you weren't aware.

It's such a great point, and it's a great comparison. If a breathman is offered to you, you should always take it. because that's always the implication. Yeah. If I'm eating a breathment around other people, I'm saying other people around me have awful breath. I'm not doing this for my own. I mean, it's like masking for, you know, communicable disease.

Like you protect yourself first and then you're protecting others. It is true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess I'm a creamsman of the night. Mm-hmm. Oh, okay.

he'll moisturize because he can take it he's not as lubricated as the hero we deserve but he's as lubricated as the hero we need right now you merely visit the harbor aisle of the pharmacy

I stalk it I'm the guy with the key that comes around when you push the little butsy. I'm the night stalker and that's spelled ST O-C-K

Well, I'm glad you're feeling good. I'm glad that the pain hasn't been too bad and... Hey man, I just need a little bit of 401 from you.

Season 4-1-1, that is. Wow! That was right there. Good job. called The Observer Effect. Got free speech and guitar. Benar, cold open is in the mess hall. A moment that immediately felt weird.

Reed and Mayweather, hanging out when they don't have to be in the mess hall. Talking on screen? Like, that's a surprising development. Yeah, I feel like... You start an episode this way. You know it's going to be a little weird. Yeah, yeah.

They're playing chess, and Mayweather is learning from Reed, but this game is so fucking easy. Yeah. It's so two-dimensional. Yeah. This is for babies. They do that thing where they don't even have to finish the game. Like, based on a few moves initially, they know.

They can extrapolate how the game ends, based on that. Chess is so predictable. I'm surprised anyone bothers to play it. God damn, look at the big brain on Mayweather. We have been sleeping on his prowess as a brilliant genius this entire time. What is going on here? I often wish I could just do this in other games in my life. I just picked up SIV again with my wife.

So you get the new one or you're back on iPad Siv. I'm still playing iPad Siv. But like you know pretty early if it's going to happen for you or not, I think. at like the 50 turn mark I'm still fighting barbarians like my life depends on it like it's over for me I feel like that's what Reed

and Mayweather are doing here like they've seen the barbarians on the chess board and they're like all right we know let's let's have another game you stumble into one too many native camps and they turn on you

instead of deciding to join your civilization and become a free fucking city yeah you know you play sieve probably very differently than most people where you like, you don't want to colonize the barbarians. You want to let them flourish and become their own deal. Like, they want to be self-actualized out there.

The cool thing about it is if you go pretty deep in the setting, there's a way to turn off international borders. And it's just, it's, it's utopian, you know? It's really fucking beautiful, man. That should be a wind condition in Siv. It's Star Trek Utopia style as a condition. How do you even get there? What?

I've never done that. It's like winning on culture. I've never won on culture. No. Nobody has ever won on culture. Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah. Yeah.

No, it is space race or world domination or get the fuck out. Yeah. Read and Mayweather seem a little, look, this is going to sound like a put down. They seem a little smarter than usual, wouldn't you say? A little sharper. They know something also. Like, that's another thing. thing that it's like, Reed and Travis are never like ahead of the curve on anything.

What are the, what is going on here? Because there's like rank and file people over there in the other corner and they're like, boy, they don't even know what's coming, do they? This episode is so dense with like moments and near misses and stuff. I thought for a moment about how like, did you want to save the pod peopleness of it for at least after the theme? But I was thinking about that. I was like, no, there's actually.

no time after the theme. Like, we got to get this out of the way now. So with the way that they're talking openly about this secret mission they're on and the bodies that they now live in and the planet below, like, oh, and also like the fact that they're, they've basically, to a certainty, predicted that a crew person is going to die. Yeah, somebody always dies when it's a physical species. What an efficient table set going into the theme. Tripp and Hoshi come back on shuttle pod one and they are dusty and we learn that they've been sifting through a cling on garbage dump essentially they're definitely going to be slathering on the gel when they get to the decon chamber trip is broadcasting their condition to the ship and signs off and immediately starts to sound

like adam pranica before he had his cough button i got a cough button hey hey i want to try it out you ready okay let's hear it did you hear it wow did you hear it i heard nothing i didn't even hear the button clicking but you saw me do it right oh incredible i know i i only got it six weeks too late now i'm going to use it for my occasional sniffle okay that's nice i mean i wouldn't you appreciate that yeah cling on garbage site what a what a terrible bit of duty here for hoshian trip Of all the crew people, I'd be insulted. That's what we got the Jensen's for.

That's what we got the fucking Makos for. Yeah. Can you imagine what that smells like? Yeah. The long hot shower's looking pretty good. The thing about Klingon garbage is what Klingon not garbage looks like. Like, it already looks garbagey. Like, how much worse can it get?

Oh, man, so many rusty chains. Yeah. Why do they keep producing them? Well, I can see why they threw this away. So, yeah, he's not feeling good. Hoshi's going to have to pilot the shuttle in, and there's a little gag about how this is not really her specialty on board the ship, pilot, and shuttles.

Like, she's trained on it, but this will be her first non-simulator docking experience. The way that the shuttle bay is configured on Enterprise on this show is kind of unfortunate in the way, like if you were to compare it to all other enterprises that follow, where you can like ram it in from behind. If you're a bad pilot and you just want to aim for the whole, like you can do that on the other enterprises, but you can't do that to this one, right?

If a hostile brother of Spock happens to be aboard your shuttle, you can fly it in dirty, crash that motherfucker, get an opportunity to take the initiative back. It seems much harder to do with this ship. It really does. We don't see the docking procedure, but we do get Travis and Reed exchanging quite the significant look. Like, oh, is this when somebody's going to die?

Like, somebody always dies. Maybe it's because the pilot has a coughing fit during their landing procedure. In retrospect, that's very funny to think about, like, them getting the death out of the way here and them learning nothing about the treatment for the disease. You just cut to like disembodied alien energy space and an alien marking off Lenny species on a form. Yeah. Wow. Too bad about them. We cut over to the decon chamber where Dr. Flax and Archer are outside looking in on Hoshi and Tripp inside. And now it's Hoshi coughing as well. And barfing. Hopping into barfing is so rough

You hate it when those two things are combined I can't think of a time where that has been combined For me personally That does not seem great Like of all of the things that diseases suck for They're actually pretty awesome For keeping those two symptoms

Pretty separate most of the time Yeah You know shout out to diseases I have barfed and shat Simultaneously multiple times but I've never coughed and barf. Maybe it's the same hole of it all, right? How are you managing the logistics of a double ender like that?

Oh, I'll tell you why, in college, in the dorms, you know how there's like the round toilet and the long toilet? Oh, yeah, sure. You scoot yourself back on the long toilet and then you just barf between your legs. Oh. You try not to hit your junk on the way down. Because you're in such a coordinated frame of mind, you can finesse something like that. I've never barfed on my own junk.

I've been pretty out of it. Other people's junk, sure. Not my own. It's like a great pilot landing the plane, like in all sorts of situations. I got that one on the ground. he's like the sully of problem drinkers yeah instead of yelling birds at my co-pilot I just yell junk

junk if we change the words then it's fair use all day long so Reed and Travis are keeping track of all this and they're comparing how the Klingons fared and how when crewmates start

dying like you isolate them on the ship and that's a little bit you know that's a little bit of a phenomenon that they're keeping track of here yeah real chain-based approach to uh the beginnings of uh the onset of symptoms over on the klingon ship i wish we knew more about exactly what they did early on yeah i'm guessing a decon chamber would be without honor like that are they just like there's an opportunity to die an honorable death every time somebody comes back from an away mission on a Klingon chip, so why would you rub gel on yourself, like a ptach? Klingon

decontamination gel is alive, right? It absolutely squishes around and moves. It's like leeches and stuff. Yeah, yeah. So, because of this strict quarantine thing, the

reed alien is like, okay, well, like, we can move on. Nothing more to see here. Like, they're observing pretty careful quarantine procedures. These two are going to die in this box and everybody else will be fine. So let's

go. We talk a lot about how much enjoyment we get out of an episode where actors portraying characters we've lived with for a long time, suddenly get to change gears a little bit on the performance. And I really, really like

the detachment of Reed and Mayweather just dispassion watching this scene as if this was a thing that they've seen a million times before. Like, this is how they're doing it. Okay, whatever. Continue to fill out the form. Because we learned that Reed's character has been doing this for 800 years.

Like, the Mayweather guy is a little bit more new to the project. He is a sort of the rookie cop on this beat, I guess. They're getting ready to pack things up. But Travis stops by the Decon Chamber to ask some questions. and they're not the kinds of questions you would be asking if you were like a friend of these people so Trip and Hoshier are like

what the fuck are you doing man what are these weird ass questions you're asking us have either of you face serious illness before it's such a clang that it's like we have the joke about the bedside for a person being a significant escalation to an illness sure this is like

Hey, do you guys have like a will or a trust or something? It's like unintentionally serious is the direction they've gone here. I was curious to know how you compare this experience with other illnesses you might have contracted. Travis? Thanks for stopping by. I love the idea of just closing the porthole

because the question's got too heavy. No man, not in the mood for that. Close. Why doesn't Six Bay itself have any privacy partitions, I wonder. I would want to take all my treatment over in the decon chamber because of this. Yeah. Speaking of Six Bay, Reed goes there pretending to have a headache so that he can, you know, break all kinds of hippo laws and see what the blood tests are looking like.

Dr. Flux is like, hmm, normally it is always your romantic partners who complain of the headaches. Mr. Reed. Are you sure this isn't something far worse? Imagine injecting Tylenol directly. Give it to me. That sounds fucking great. I'd love that. I don't have a problem with needles, though.

I just wanted to be faster. Yeah. I was listening to a podcast where, you know, like there's been a proliferation of like, go get an ivy if you're hungover sort of places. or like go for wellness, like get it full of vitamins or whatever. And this guest was like, have you ever gotten one of those? And then like had Benadryl put in it?

Oh, shit. And I didn't know this was a thing. The hosts were like, what? No, what? What is that like? And she's like, it fucks you up. The reason I thought of this is like when you were talking about like, could you take a headache medicine faster? Like if it were somehow dosed in an IV,

something happens to it and its strength in a way that makes Benadryl hit especially hard. It's like taking an edible instead of smoking a joint. Right, yeah. Yeah, wow. So that's a thing that I don't think I'll be doing. We stayed in a hotel on tour one time that had that as like an in-room perk of this hotel was they would send someone with a bag and a needle to a room.

Yeah. But I didn't try it. Too rich for my blood. It was like $500 or something. That's what it is. Yeah, me neither. Have you ever had a $500 headache, though? I've had headaches where I'd pay anything to get rid of it.

Oh, yeah. I used to make a podcast with John Roderick. I know that feeling. Hmm. Yeah. Flox is equally intolerant of the weird probing questions that Reed is asking. And we cut over to the Decon Chamber, get to know Tripp and Hoshi a little bit better as they suffer. through this.

Get a little Andromeda strain name check, which I thought was fun. No Sphere name check. No. They don't go through who was in Sphere,

for example. Who could possibly know? Yeah. It's impossible. I mean, most people don't remember that movie that well. Not well enough

to remember that Queen Latifah was in it, for example. I honestly feel like it's a Mandela effect movie and it never existed, maybe. Hoshi, we learn,

was kicked out of Starfleet when she was in training. and she broke her Cio's arm over a poker game. You're a gambling man. Have you ever broken someone's arm over the poker game? I sort of, I think, saw Hoshi as a kind of whatever character. Like, interesting at times, mostly there to be put into danger and then saved. Yeah.

Holy shit. Why didn't they lead with this? Hoshi Sato, okay. She's like the Puck's bad girl of Starfleet. I love this for her. Yeah. Yeah. Her linguistic skills were so valuable that they had to let her back in.

Is she kind of a secret Starbucks in this show? And we just haven't known? That's what I thought. Well, I have a black belt and a keto. Damn. Bad conduct discharge is what they gave her. Yeah. So her whole deal on Enterprise is probationary.

And with the symptoms of this illness, they might be getting a little bit more bad conduct discharge from somewhere else. I like it. Yeah. What do you make of the cot situation in the decon chamber? It's probably for hose reasons, right? And by that, I mean, using a hose, not like a place to get down with hose. I mean... Oh, I don't use that term, Adam. Of course not. I feel like if you're in there, because you have some sort of bad... bad virus, you could explode into a bunch of bad conduct discharge and then they go in there with the squeegees and the hoses. Yeah. And then they say hose mad because we have to spray out the inside of this decon chamber. It doesn't look comfortable, is my point.

No, it's pretty Spartan. It is bunk quarters on a clingon bird of prey level Spartan. We learn in Six Bay from flocks that this is a silicon base. waste virus, something that they have not encountered before. Archer is like, okay, well, you've got to, like, invent a novel treatment for this totally unencountered by science pathogen. And we have five hours or less to accomplish this task. I like this amount of time.

I'm not a medical professional. I don't know shit. But it seems like to someone very smart, like Dr. Flock's, with all of the technology available to him, it seems sporty, but it doesn't seem impossible. Travis and Reed are pretty impressed with this. This is something that only happens 37% of the time. I wanted them to talk a little bit more about lucky that the humans had a denobulant on board. By themselves, maybe they wouldn't have figured this out.

And that denoullin was not distracted by five or six wives that they have on board. Constantly putting upon him for different things. I mean, talk about headaches. That guy. Up top Yeah Legally it's just a fart joke You will never take the greatest chin alive

Ben would rather die So yeah They're having their soup and their croissant sandwiches And you know everybody's gonna die Like they've I think they've Upgraded their estimate of the likelihood of everyone on board now. Why don't they talk about the food?

They are such strict professionals. They're not on a field trip. Like this business trip is all business. Yeah. Yeah. Like use the expense again. Like eating the captain's dining room. Like see some of the finer things that this starship has to offer.

You know they're getting found out if they eat in the captain's mess. They are too weird. Archer comes to chat with Tripp. How about this sweatiness of Tripp in this take? Holy moly. I feel like they got the glissorin out for this episode in a big way. They did a great job in making them look sick. Yeah.

Both Hoshi and Tripp's characters. Archer does not admit like how fucked the situation is to Tripp. He's like, you know, we're like working on it. I'm pretty optimistic. So there is no cure. Not yet. He betrays himself a little bit, though. by going a little higher with the voice

just a little bit like not all the way high like not all the way like oh Ben hey hey man how you doing like you drop it down a little bit to cover up how concerned you are like hey man

what's going on like that yeah situation's not hopeless not hopeless yeah exactly but you that highness to the voice that we're talking about a constellation of things we're talking about being by bedside, a highness to the voice. Hoshi would call that a tell.

Yeah, yeah, she would. How about Archer hanging tear at the end of this scene? That's also a tell, I think. Yeah. That's why I usually lose in poker. It's like I'm looking at my low pair and I'm hanging tear. But I'm also like, I re-raise. And the guy across from me, it's like, don't bullshit a bullshitter.

That's known as Hollywooding at a poker table when, when you're kind of overdoing the opposite of your intention it's been crying we're playing for quarters yeah pod read and pod mayweather

are together again in a corridor which for how much time they're hanging out together should be really more suspicious to other people than it ever is in this episode and they're growing incredulous about how long Archer is choosing to keep the infected crew people on board the ship.

And Pod Mayweather's like, well, maybe we should jump bodies because we can do that, right? We can go to anybody we want. We could hop into Dr. Flox and to Paul because Archer's decisions will largely be based on their input. There is this thing that they're trying to figure out, which is like, it would be really interesting at this point if somebody did something rational. Like that would move the needle for us if Archer made a rational choice. But we're kind of boxed out because these two characters don't get to, like, sit at Archer's knee and see his decision-making process. In dialogue, they do a lot of talking about the show in the episode where they're like,

these bodies we're in don't really get to do much ever or get invited to things or have a lot of dialogue with the captain during meaningful circumstances. They're both stationed on the bridge, yet neither plays a critical. Pod Reed is like, watch this. And he, like, reaches for like a fork on his table and he misses by a few inches. And Pod Mayweather's like, that's remarkable. What's wrong with him? Pod Mayweather's like, I feel like I've already said too much. Like, something about this doesn't feel right.

What if we switched birdies to see Archer make his decision? We cut away to the decon chamber where Hoshi and Tripp are now awake and they are now both really sweaty. gotta believe that the ventilation in that decon chamber working overtime here two bodies in close proximity in a very small room the way they are can't be great yeah it seems like the air must be close humid yeah smelly some real professional admiration between them shared here in a way that i really liked i think that when you can smell someone it is hard to express professional admiration for them in this way. They're really patting each other on the backs about how good they are at their jobs. But not actually, because if they did, it would be like, pat, pat.

Yeah, ugh. Oh. And then you wipe it on yourself, but you're also so sweaty that you like draw a streak across your chest. Yeah, it doesn't help. It's not like something's coming off. No.

Trip tells the classic engineer story about taking shit apart when he was a kid. And then there's like this jump scare where they realize that flocks has been listening the whole time. Yeah. And Topal is right next to him. And this is now PodFlox and Pod DePaul. Another great moment of shifting gears as actors here.

Also, the conversational course that this takes, not especially welcome or comfortable for Tripp and Hoshi. How would you say you feel? Go fuck yourself. Find a cure. This is absolutely how, are you feeling about this flat tire as a

as a medical conversation we'd be a lot better knowing you two were back in six way working on the cure for this they walk away and we learn that this is in fact all of this is in service of determining whether humans are ready for first contact with

their species they've been doing this shit for 10,000 years they've found this one planet where if a species happens upon it they definitely die and if they don't, I guess that means they're smart enough to get first contact. I mean, that's really the dream, right? Find something you love to do, and then you don't feel like you work a day in your life for 10,000 years.

That's the gig they got. Pretty good. On the bridge, Archer and Reed review some of the sensor data from the planet. And this is the moment in time where I was like, does Reed feel anything about what has happened over the last few days? And there's so much tension in this scene Because I could not take my eyes off of him Trying to see if you would give it away at all The way the scene like steadfastly does not address the question of

Is Reed losing time? Like is he aware that he has been compromised in some way? I love that. It's just a regular-ass scene with Reed Where Archer's like figure out about these these clingons that crashed here. It made me wonder if there was going to be a room with multiple reeds in it. Like the reed body being a duplicate itself. Oh man. And this being like read actual for some reason? Like I don't know. Like there was a lot going on here. I thought really good.

We learned that like maybe we can irradiate this virus in Six Bay. So that's like promising territory for flocks to start researching. Hoshi has this bad dream about Brazil. And then back on the bridge, Archer is working the Klingon angle and gets like a spectrograph that he wants to show Reed and Travis. We learned that this is a cloud of debris in orbit. This is the rest of the Klingon garbage site, I guess. Their ship blew up and it's just a cloud. And so like that sort of starts to indicate that like if the Klingons came here and something similar happened to them, they probably didn't solve the problem. The way that this scene plays off of the scene that came before in this location,

like where both Reed and Pod Mayweather are present here, where it was just Reed before, and how weird they act in this scene compared to the last scene where they don't. Yeah. Really, I think, underscores how distracting the idea of what happened to the Klingon ship being destroyed is for Archer, because Pod Reed and Pod Mayweather are acting weird, as fuck and archer just does not get that in this moment they're like so like would you like

suck a clingon's dick to get the cure if you thought that they had it and he's like yeah probably how would you do it would you just like stuff both of them in your mouth or would you like jerk off one and put the other in your mouth how does that even work and archer's like yeah like i mean i never really thought about it but he's so fixated on this uh this destruction that he doesn't doesn't even, like, pause to think about what a strange question it is. No. Amazing. It's good made to believe I can do parity.

Down in the Degon chamber, Hoshi has really taken a turn for the worst. She's speaking in tongues and starts to beep away on a control panel trying to break out and declares that a computer code is just a kind of a language. which I feel like is kind of the opposite of what she protested to the Zindy when they were making her hack the weapon a few episodes ago. Hey, Dr. Flox, how many times does someone have to bust out of the decon chamber before you maybe, like, change how that whole thing works? Because we saw Topal do it not that long ago also, right? We also know that they have

at least one like Shakunk thing that they can put on a door to lock it from the outside on the ship. That's on Daniels's quarters. If they have that they probably have another one of those. Put that shit on the fucking Decon chamber. Two Shikonks is one. One

Shikonk is none. Exactly. I'm with you on that. We've been saying that for years. So anyways, she breaks out. Deacon is unsealed. Huge emergency. I love the shit. She's wrapped in a blanket and kind of, you know, teetering down the hall the way sick people do. I love that Tripp is like, come on, Hoshi, come on, knock it off.

But he's like way too tired to get up and like trying to stop her. It's really great. Unintentionally funny is this scene, for sure. Yeah. So she's overriding the safety locks all over the deck. You remember the game where Wesley's trying to escape from having a suck disc put on his head and they're like putting up force fields all over the place to to box them in this is like a slow speed car chase version of that because it's just hoshi's slowly waddling through like through

the corridors and them just going like i guess we'll just turn the power off to the entire deck like that's the only way right i mean she's sort of sleepwalking because like among the many doors she attempts to open is one to space and that's the moment where they're like okay we got to turn off the power so she doesn't get sucked out trip talks her into going back to the decon chamber and flocks has him give her enough some nambutril to drop a horse honestly uh it sounds fucking great yeah where do i sign up there's the s and l sketch i think it's called hybranol right where you just sleep through cold and flu season chris farley's the star of that sketch Feeling better, honey?

I feel great. Did I miss anything? Not much. I see that and I'm like, fuck yeah. I like the other shoe dropping in the scene also where Archer's like, okay, Tripp, now you. Yeah, that's tough. And also like, hey, lay down fast.

As soon as you do it, Tripp, time to lay down, buddy. Yeah. So Fox has figured out like a dose of radiation that will kill the pathogen. There's just one problem. it will also kill the patient and there's like some question like could we josh it so that it's like just enough

to kill the pathogen while leaving the patient alive that's the next step that Vlox is going to work on. Travis and Reed start talking and Travis is like okay like I feel like we've learned what we can from these humans

and now like we don't really need to like let this run its course like these people don't need to die just because of our like morbid curiosity and Reid's like that's not the protocol we have to we have to see this through tool 10 which is very interesting considering he was the one that was like we have nothing more to learn from these people like 10 scenes ago yeah I really love the moment where pod read is like hey hey keep your fucking voice down dude maybe we should go somewhere to have this conversation in private and when they jump into the decon chamber into tripp in hoshe's bodies

bodies that are supposed to be knocked out from horse tranquilizer. It's a fun moment. I like the logic of it. I like the logic of it too because they didn't know about the horse tranks. So they're like, oh, we'll just jump somewhere like nobody could possibly overhear our conversation. Where would that be? There's two people isolated on the ship. That's fucking perfect.

And Flox is like looking at his little video feed of what's going on in the decon chamber from Six Bay. And it's like, da fuck? Pod Tripp Tucker looks down at his forearms and he's like, oh, this body is different from the others. I wonder if that makes the pathogen more effective or less. I keep referring to other Star Trek episodes. You remember the episode with McDuff and everyone being mind erased and... Yeah, Wharf is also decorated. That's what I'm saying.

Trips like, my arms are decorated. that must make me the captain in some ways. God, it's funny, Ben, that line of dialogue is so specific. I am decorated as well. I think about that line all the time. What a perfect line of dialogue. Well, you think of that episode in terms of what it sounds like more than any other episode of Star Trek.

Yeah, yeah. My grounded episode. So they're aware that they're being listened to in DeCon. and flocks like sees them seeing him and is like oh shit in a horror movie this would be like the camera would be that like ring camera style footage of like night vision and they'd look into the lens and their eyes would be yeah all glowy yeah it's kind of a horror movie moment when archer and topal show up and they are pod archer and pod to paul yeah yeah so this is a fun conversation because they're like mask off yeah we're aliens and we're like studying you

and you know like we're not physical but you are so that's kind of weird but we're like we have like a prime directive and everything so we're not going to like help you save these people's lives and in fact we're going to erase your memory the second we're out of here like you're not going to remember this conversation i think sneakily this might be my favorite of john Lingsley's work on this show. Whoa. Because when he clocks them for the pod people that they are, he doesn't go broad at all with the React.

It's so subtle when he gets on the level and gets it. And when it's clear in what kind of danger he's in and that there's nothing he can do about it because his memory is going to be erased, that he doesn't go big there either. Like there's a weird acceptance to his circumstances here that I thought was just such an interesting choice as an actor. Totally. I love that the feeling of moral outrage

coupled with impotence to do anything about it that he gets across here. So, I mean, like very relatable. I mean, good for Dr. Flux, you know, getting in his outrage before his

memory is wiped. Like, he makes the case in a very powerful way here. And not only that, that what they're doing is wrong, but that, like, they have the power to stop and save, and they're just choosing not to, really gives what he's saying, some heft. We cut to a McLaughlin group. Issue one. And this is Paul Archer and Flax talking about a plan to transfer the patients to Six Bay to do this cure that Flax is trying to do because they're,

they need to use the medical scanner to bombard them with radiation. in a way that is like finessed enough to maybe be survivable. We got to grab them with the grapplers and then hold them out in front of the deflector dish because all Star Trek problems can be solved with the main deflector dish. Yeah, I mean, as long as you reverse the polarity.

Right, yeah. It's going to involve EVA suits. Hoshi is dying, so they got to hurry. And we get another reassurance from Reed to Travis, It's like, someone always dies. This is, uh... I think this is it. This is what it's going to happen.

Yeah. I love this part. Travis reaches for like a bucket of popcorn. Yeah. I won't cease or desist because you really think it's fair use. So we get the outbreak suits for this move and the bridge crew monitors the progress.

And when they get to Hoshi, like, God, the way the way she does body flop. Yeah. Like the way you can, when you trust fall, like you're still a little bit trying to save yourself

even as you're falling. But like this is even more trustworthy by her to just be like flopped in those arms. Yeah. Yeah. There's a moment where like the fine motor stuff

with the gloves isn't working. And so Archer heroically takes off his glove to do some medical procedure and the argument is I mean very like a very spock construction enterprises needs a doctor more than a captain right now

yeah this is very impressive to Pod Reed who's like wow like he's gonna die but he's doing it anyways that's that's really something you know you don't see that on every single one of these missions I'll say that could this ship

do without a dark archer though Which Archer do you think is dying? Oh, that's definitely not Dark Archer. Yeah, this is Light Archer. Dark Archer's unkillable. Yeah, it's true. And uncontainable.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you compare this to the second Star Trek movie. Also, a fair bit of Pulp Fiction happening here where you've got to stab Hoshi directly into the heart with a giant syringe. Yeah. And then there's a shock paddles moment. More great physical acting by Linda Parish. here to not only flop earlier, you know, on the bring-in, but just be flopping around on the table

during the shock paddle scene. Yeah, that rapid fire defibrillator? Yeah. Very fun. I've ever seen that before. She's not waking up. And, you know, they've got to do that thing where they up the voltage or the amperage. Which is it? What are you up being in this moment? Oh, no. One is the amount of water and one is the speed at which it goes, right? I still don't know the difference between them. I took a CPR training where they taught us how to use that thing and I never asked about cranking it up. That's because you got to listen to the little robot voice tell you what to do, right?

The robot voice tells you everything you need to know. That's what they basically said. You don't really even need training on this. There's like hold music and stuff to it. Like, stick stickers on victims chest. Do do do do do do do do do do do do. The incident is not over, according to Reed, but Travis, Pod Travis is like, come on, man.

Like, we have, we've seen enough. Let's, like, staunch the bleeding and let these people get back to whatever they were doing. Reed's like, I'm going to shoot. I'm so close. They put Tripp into the scanner, trying to do him. Yeah.

But it doesn't work. Yeah. I really enjoyed Sky. Scott Bacula's performance in this moment specifically. Like, we've always known that he and Tripp are close. Archer has now seen his friend die multiple times on the show. Kind of getting used to it. Is Tripp the only character in this series that has died multiple times?

I think it's just him. Yeah. Amazing, right? He's kind of the Harry Kim of Star Trek Enterprise in a lot of ways. Something about it reminds me of being. in the womb. What up? Harry.

Who are you? Harry Kim. Parents must be very proud. I fought the bore. Been transformed into an alien. Who are you? Harry Kim. Help defeat the Herodian.

Hell, I've even come back from the dead. And your mom? Very proud. Who are you? Harry Kim. I lasted 22 minutes. And your mom? Very proud.

Harry Kim. Who are you? Harry Kim. It's been a wild ride. Good call. Yeah. So they're like, well, you kind of took your glove off for nothing, Archer, because the cure didn't work on either of these guys.

But, you know, the good news is you're not going to die for like a few hours. So Fox can keep working on the cure. He's going to get out of his EVA suit and do this work on the bridge so that there's less risk of cross-contamination. Archer, like, looks at his ungloved hand, looks at the clock, looks at Dr. flocks and excuses him and he's like, I'm going to go for the record with my remaining time. and this hand. I'm going to go out on top flocks.

Recorded in the log, Dr. Flux. Hey, Flux. Before you go, can you loosen the sleeve on Tripp's shirt and just pull it up a little bit? You're never going to let that go, are you? Dr. Flux, you're going to have to tell me where you keep the lubricant in here. I don't want to accidentally reach into a cage

with some sort of scary reptile looking for it. Archer radios to Paul and kind of passes the keys to the starship to her. What a moment by Tepal here also. Such great reacts by a bunch of the crew here. And Tepal's is definitely one of the best in my mind. Just that it's trip that's died, that she is told that Archer is about to, that it's going to be her ship soon. And that fucking Archer doesn't really give her a bunch of advice,

like actionable advice I mean like helpful advice that's it aren't you're not going to tell her where the captain's bottle is you know I've often thought about like what I will tell Doron when he takes over my seat on the greatest generation things I've learned over the years and the ensigns of command what are a couple of those off the top of your mind

oh you know like Adam is a very grumpy man but you can't let it get to you Yeah. Just got to kind of kill him with kindness. Jesus. Yeah, Trip is dead, but then he, like, wakes up and has some stuff to say. This is one of the pod people going into Tripp, and he can, like, reanimate a corpse and explain, oh, yeah, I'm an Orgonian. We're non-corporial, but we can, like, you know, puppet master, you guys, and we do that to study you.

We can be in anybody we want. But the one thing we can't do as Oregonians is pump our own gas. For thousands of years, we've been doing this weird shit. Still can't pump our own gas. That's not our deal. You might visit our part of space and just out of habit, get out of your car and start. Nope. You will get yelled at by a guy who is like, wow, I can't imagine him doing any other job than pumping gas.

When Archer gets hip to this whole charade. he is pissed he's so pissed yeah there's like you know like I realize that you're only saying this to me because of a game recognized game feeling that you have like you saw me do something that was

remarkable this entire charade could have been prevented this scene like builds into a crescendo like there's a lot that Archer is pissed about but maybe the part that tips it over for him is that they're just going to discard the bodies like they're garbage

once the pod people are going that seems to be a step too far and the pod people are like what would you like what would we do other than this this is how we learn about people and he's like you could have fucking called you got to just called talking would have been fine

phone calls are hard though I kind of get it they're like we're millennials we don't like it talking is a limited form of communication for us how about Archer lawyer precarding the hell out of these

pod people. Yeah. Really getting in there. For all of your vaunted, non-corporial, advanced stage of evolution, you've lost your compassion and your empathy. And maybe that's too big a compromise to become as advanced as you. Yeah. He gets through to one of them. It is not Pod Hoshi, who is inhabited by the leader. Yeah. It's the rookie that is inside Podhoshi. That is inside Podhoshi. Tripp that is moved. He's ready to save. This is like a new area for them to study, the idea of compassion. So you can do your first study of the art of compassion by practicing it yourself. And so Hoshi and Tripp, you're back. And Flox tells Topal the good news. Nobody has the virus. What a weird couple of weeks for Topal. Tepal married to someone she hates and now isn't

anymore. Topal almost loses the true love of her life in TripTucker. Not anymore, he's alive again. The whiplash for her. Watches her mom die. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty stone cold of Archer after learning how these aliens study others to drop a warning, blah. It's like, nope, you're cut off. Prepare a buoy and launch it when ready. Warning boys. An emergency buoy. A warning bully. Are we certain that that's going to do anything? against what I'm going to presume are very advanced alien intelligences. Oh yeah, I guess they just

fly away and those guys like take down the sign. They're like going to swat that boa away. It's going to let go flying into the sun. Yeah, I guess you're probably right. But Pod Mayweather wants to change the rules on how they do this and maybe they will let the

bwa stand. Yeah. We think you guys have a lot of potential. Maybe we will make first contact with you. This doesn't count. This doesn't count. No. Yeah, and that's the end of the episode, Ben. Did you like it? I can't pay.

Could for late. Got no case. Tempting fate. I did like it. This really felt like a premise very much like one that we would have gotten on TNG, but well-written, like fun performances, and very grounded in the reality of Star Trek Enterprise, like using the decon chamber and like the layout of the ship. and the smallness of the crew for maximum effect in a really cool way.

I liked it a lot. Well, I mean, I'll do you one better. They did this almost exactly in Voyager with that scientific method episode where they stuck needles in Janeway's face, right? Yeah. Sorry, these lab rats are fighting back. Except their visibility was the thing that was different. Like, we're actually getting the aliens in, like, walking around instead of...

Yeah, yeah. In a different reality. Man, that was so cool. a good ep. Yeah. How about that episode where Riker had a straw in his head? Do you want some? It's delicious. Will someone please get that? That was kind of a similar idea too, right? That's a kind of Star Trek episode. It's a whole genre. It really is. You know what it made me think is that, like, isn't there a little bit of hypocrisy about this? Like, the umbrage that Archer takes is really ironic given the decade.

of Star Trek we've watched, where it's just okay for our Star Trek heroes to do it to other alien species with their watching and occasional meddling and they're studying and so forth. But it is very not okay in this case. One is forced to ask, who watches the watchers? I know. Yeah. Who is the Picard? I really like this episode too, man. I love how this type of story invites the different looks and compositions and angles that we got this up like they all work together to make you just feel

like something weird is happening visually you don't even have to listen to the dialogue to feel that way I thought that was really cool I agree you know what I think

is really cool Adam what shit in the inbox the priority one message inbox specifically that's the one I'm talking about okay priority one message

from Starfleet coming in on secure channel need a supplemental link Pop-a-mil un-popped? Supplement. Yeah, it's extra. By the interest alone, could be enough to buy this ship. Ben, let's begin with a promotional priority one message.

Here's how that goes. Warriors do not craft. But needle-velting, shaping wool by stabbing with a needle sharper than a targ's claw has honor. Wow. Much blood has flowed. Cajun of House Terra Felta asks you to support her Kickstarter. There you'll find glorious felted mushrooms.

And dishonor will come to those who do not browse her shop. Cajun's rooms, coral reefs, and holiday items bring glorious. Glory to her house. Lastly, Ka'adlo to Facebook group, Make It So, which keeps Kajan company while stabbing stuff every week.

Kappa! Wow! I'm over on Kajan or Kijin's website. This is really gorgeous stuff. I kind of went back and forth between K-JN and Kijin. I like these coral reefs. Yeah. Really pretty.

There's something, as Jennifer at Terrafalta describes here, something kind of ironical about the creation of soft goods through the stabbing of needles through those textiles, you know? Truly. Really something. It's delightful stuff, so there's a call to action here at him. Do you want to read that? Visit Kickstarter.

And search Tiny Worlds Year 6 to support Kijan's project or shop now at Tarafelta.com. That's T-E-R-R-A. F-E-L-T-A dot com. Really pretty stuff. I encourage you to check the website out. I had no idea what to expect based on all that stuff Karn was ranting about. And it's gorgeous. We have a personal message here. This one's from her mama, Aaron. And it's to my soul dog, kitty.

It goes like this. January 5th would have been Kitty's 12th birthday, a silent but true FOD since 2016. She viewed the pod on thousands of walks, watched every episode from my lap, attended the Madison Live show while snoozing in the hotel. Kitty just crossed the rainbow bridge, so what better way to immortalize my grief and love than with a P1? She was the best dog I ever had. Oh, man, Aaron! I am so sorry to hear about the passing of Kitty

RSVP to a real one. Yeah, that's how we honor the beloved dead. A sturdy RSVP there. Yeah, Aaron, going through the worst of it right now. Yeah. But it doesn't get better. It just goes on. So, yeah.

She'll be missed. And if you'd like to immortalize something or promote something, It helps with the cover in the cost of this show And we sure appreciate it You go to maximum fun.org slash gembo-tron To set yours up today Hey Adam What?

Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Incredible Drunk Shimoda If you've been doing something for 10,000 years Mm-hmm It kind of sucks how ingrained Always doing it the same way becomes And I think for that reason

I'm going to make it pod read. Like, come on, man. Like, you're here to look at different ways. Things are getting done. And there it sits. Like, different things are happening all the time, and it isn't sufficient to change your way of thinking or change your way of doing the experiment

after that many years and that many repeated experiments. I don't know. That, to me, read as kind of an insane Shimoda type of non-react to things. Yeah. So Pod Reed is going to be mine. What about you? I got to give it to trip in this episode for the not really having what it takes to intervene

when Hoshi is deliriously hacking the door control codes to break Quar. Like, come on, don't do that. I'm going to get everybody sick. Just way too tired to get up. I think, fortunately, I can't remember ever being too tired to get. up. Like if there's an emergency situation, like to just be not able to get off a cot,

that sucks. There was not enough adrenaline to get him up in that moment. But then he gets up later. Come on, Tripp. You could have saved everybody a lot of trouble, I think. You caught me. I was just lazy. You know, once you get under the covers, it's just so hard to get out of him, you know?

I had my dick out under the blanket and I didn't want to expose myself when I got him. Sometimes I'll drag that dick across the nipples like a nipples aliphon Faith of the Fart Adam let's talk a little bit about what we got coming up next week Why don't you head to

Gach.biz slash game I tell you a little bit about season 4 episode 12 of Star Trek Enterprise Babylon Babble one? Babble one. What? Babel one.

Hmm. Enterprise journeys to Babel with a tellerite ambassador on board for peace talks with the Andorians when a distress call from Schran is received. Wow. All right. Hell yeah. Give me more Schran. I'm psyched about this.

Let's see how we watch this episode, Ben. Yeah. Currently, our square is just on the other side of a mourn-hammered. Boy, this being like a first episode after New Year's situation. I'm really glad we didn't hit that one, right? It's a hell of a bang, bang. That means we're on square 58, but at the end of this roll, we could be anywhere, even 58. Amazing.

Let's hear it. You're required to learn as you play. Roll. Ben, I've rolled a 37. Tula! Did I win? Hardly. That means we're on square 95.

Again, narrowly missing a special square. We're right next door to the Brown Zone. But as it is, a regular old episode next week for you and me. Looking forward to it, Adam. Hey, we have some very important thank yous to get out of the way at the end of the show here. Really should be at the top of the show. Nobody would listen if we did that. So let's thank the Friends of DeSoto

who go to Maximumfund.org slash join and become members. Hey, thanks a lot. And thanks to all our new members at the turn of the year who hopped on in support. Indeed. Got to thank Wendy Pretty, our producer and editor. Rob Adler, the editor of the greatest newsletter,

which I sure hope you'll sign up for, greatesttrecht.com for all of the links to all of the things. Got to thank Bill Tilly, the Card Daddy, making trading cards at Greatest Trek on all social media, which he co-runs with Rob Adler. Got to thank Adam Ragusea for our original theme music and dark materia for the Picard song. Hey, check out some communities of FODs online. A lot of fun places to do that, drunchromoto.com, greatest gen.reddit.com. There's a Facebook group, thriving community. communities on Blue Sky and Mastodon.

FOTs are out there and want to hang out and post dank memes about Star Trek with you. Really dank lately. I've been enjoying them. Well, with that, we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise, an episode of the Greatest Generation Enterprise in which Adam and I are trying to outgruff each other, inspired by those tellurites. My mind went to Rolf for some reason. How am I going to out Rolf Ben?

He's got one of the best impressions of me in the business. As a teller right, nothing I love better than playing on an attuned piano. There it is. That's just me taking the wrestling bump, the comedy wrestling bump, just falling flat on my back. I know your Rolf was really good. on that one. That was good.