The Greatest Generation - Cupboard Purity (ENT S1E21)

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

When Paxton’s ultimatum puts a lot of aliens on edge, Samuels insists there’s only one way to be sure he won’t fire the array. But after an away team makes it to the polar region of Mars, wooden shoes are flying in every direction and Phlox can’t save Tucker and T’Pol’s baby. What’s the garment of secrets? When is marinara sauce like water? Who on the away team is in violation of a restraining order? It’s the episode that might possibly trigger celiac disease. Support the production of The Greatest Generation Get a thing at podshop.biz! Sign up for our mailing list! Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Riker - Quantum Leap The Greatest Generation is produced by Wynde Priddy Social media is managed by Rob Adler and Bill Tilley Music by Adam Ragusea & Dark Materia Friends of DeSoto for: Labor | Democracy | Justice Discuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen and find us on social media: YouTube | Instagram | Bluesky And 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.

Today's episode is one that we wanted to warn you about because it is a breadstick power hour. So if you are a misophone, this one may be a challenging listen. Oh, also there's a suicide and a dead baby in this. So enjoy. 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. Welcome to The Greatest Generation.

It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys. Never more embarrassed to host a Star Trek podcast than this very moment. I'm Adam Pranika. I'm Ben Harrison. What the fuck are we doing, even? Many seasons ago, we saw Topal eat breadsticks with a knife and fork, and we were like, wouldn't that be a fun and funny thing to have as a square on the game of buttholes, the will of the Riker, Quantum Leap?

and you in the last episode got us here. You landed on it. I did. For the very first time, we're doing Breadstick Power Hour, Ben. I literally don't know

if it's medically possible to do what this is. This challenge. It might be a little easier using your fingers. Wilkins don't touch food with their hands. Grandma taught me never judge a species by their eating habits.

All it says on the game of butthole is bread stick a sowed. What does that mean to you? I'm so impatient. A breadstick A breadstick every minute for an hour is not possible. I don't think that's possible. With proper discipline, anything's possible.

There was a lot of trepidation by both of us in the last episode about how this would work, how we would structure it in a way that wouldn't be gross, full of mouth sounds, and that just didn't really, really seemed to be any good ways out of it, short of vetoing the square. But I think in the spirit of the game, we had to fucking get it on. I think you and I were facing off against each other. Breadstick in both of our hands. Yeah. Yeah. A breadstick face off. And neither of us wanted to back

down. So here we are. Ben, I got to ask you, I think you might have had the sort of breadsticks in mind that you wanted to use for this competition. I certainly do. Why don't you tell me about your decision on breadsticks? Well, I wanted to get something that was pretty close to what we saw in that episode. That was kind of part of our introduction to Topal, the fish out of water on the Starship Enterprise. How do you do this? Well, these people eat with fork and knife. So if this is on my plate, that must be how I go about eating this.

And they were notably crunchy breadsticks. and I thought to myself where I might find something like that. So I went to one of my local grocery stores. I shan't name which, needless to say, none of the foods they sell are partial. Oh. And I got a box of Jennifer's homemade original breadsticks. And they're exactly like the ones that we saw on the screen. I think they might be a little shorter.

These are, like, maybe eight-inch boys. Yeah. I thought maybe they were, like, 10 or 12-inchers that we saw in the episode. I like those, like, really long ones that you sometimes get on the table. So much fun. Red sauce, Italian eatery. But, you know, Jennifer's homemade seems to be a good company. Portion of proceeds donated to Help and Hunger, certified woman-owned, made in the USA.

So I've done my bit today, you know, to make the world a slightly better place. Great job, Ben. And I know you made that choice in order to receive the sort of compliment I'm giving you here. Thank you. Thank you. I deserve it. You did great. I could only think about my favorite breadsticks of my youth, Ben.

I love olive garden breadsticks. I think they're the apex predator of breadstick. the breadstick I measure all of the breadsticks against. And there are not many Olive Garden restaurants around. And so I was out running errands this morning, and I put it on my schedule that I was going to go to an Olive Garden and order just breadsticks, which they will let you do at their takeout booth.

So I rolled up there at 11 in the morning, as soon as the doors open, and I was like, hey, I would like to order 12 of your finest breadsticks. and some marinera dipping sauce. And they asked, would you like those baked or unbaked? And I was like, I will bake them off myself. That sounds like a good way to do this. So what I did is I took them home,

whacked them in a 450-degree oven for about 15 minutes, and I made six breadsticks covered in margarine, garlic salt, and a little bit of Parmesan out of the shaker, along with their supplied marinera sauce. for dipping. And this is easily the stupidest thing I've ever had in the studio. I'm not a big spiller, but I feel like if it's going to happen, it's going to happen this episode. And so in my mind, I'm thinking like six breadsticks, 60 minutes, I'm going to take down each of these breadsticks in 10 bites. That's how the math is going to work in my head. That's how I will accomplish

the power hour. Have you thought about your measurements for those things? I think that these are probably, would you say that's like three bites a piece? Or is that two bites? I would say so. What you're holding up is a stick-bred stick that is five inches long? I think it's eight. I don't have a ruler close at hand. I don't know. I guess so. The difference between those two measurements, not anything a man has ever known. No, yeah. We're not here to break new ground on the show.

Yeah, I think I'm going to go three bites on these. So I guess that means I'm going to put 20 of these in my body. Yeah, I've got the water on standby. I've got so much. water. I took a brod before this. Oh, interesting. Thinking that this would be a very dehydrating experience because of all of this salt and bread. I don't know. I just did it prophylactically. It's probably a smart move. I got my cough button at the ready. I imagine I'm going to be leaning on that quite a bit just so windy doesn't have too hard of a time. A windy that has started keeping score of our mouth sounds on mic and fucking destroyed us this morning on Slack. over it. So she's going to be keeping score. We're going to be keeping score as we do breadstick power hour

for Star Trek Enterprise Season 4 episode 21. It's called Tara Prime. Let's kick this thing off, Ben. Oh, how are we doing the timing, by the way? It's like the top of the hour right now, so we could just start. It is. So let's, yeah, let's just do that. Let's do it now. Cheers. Cheers. on, Robocop had the hybrid baby and revealed himself as the leader of Tara Prime.

Mayweather has like an old flame who may be a spy for that guy and Robocop has landed his spaceship mine on Mars and hooked it

into a killer weapon and is threatening all non-humans if they don't leave the system. Is this a power grappler they used? I just love grapplers on this show, and I feel like this is one of the best. It kind of canadarmed out there and just kind of clomped onto a pipe. I don't know how it works. There is no end now the conclusion for this package, which I really loved. Like, it ends with the FaceTime broadcasting out, the blackmail message far and wide. And like, we roll right into the episode in real time with this message.

still playing. Archer whips over to Hoshi and it's like, you get to shut this thing off, Hoshi, and she like slams her fists into her panel. I can't! Next, he asks Reed, he's like, hey, can't we shoot this ship? Like, that seems like a viable option here. But the thing about the moon base on Mars, which I know sounds confusing as a sentence construction, but if you understand the context of what I'm saying, I think it's abundantly clear what I'm describing.

Sure. This guy's plugged into a power source that would make a really big boom that would kill a lot of innocent people over there if he did that. The very end of the message is a kind of non-consensual, do you want to see pictures of my baby moment? And a threat directly aimed at Starfleet because that's going to be target number one if the aliens don't leave because Paxton thinks that that's where, you know, that's patient zero. for getting all these ETs down here on Earth. We cut over to that meeting hall where we've seen the interstellar coalition meet before. It's like a xenophobic sports bar

scene happening here. Pretty great, right? I like that the Terra Prime logo uses a Peters projection of the map, which is more correct to the actual sizes of the land masses. You know, they're like fascist lunatics, but they're slightly forward-thinking with that one. I love how Paxton has game this out.

He's like, look, I want to help you get all the aliens out of the system. So guess what? Safe passage, off of Earth, off of all of our worlds, where the humans live. Right. I'm not going to do anything at them. I'm not going to do anything at you. But listen, if there is even one fucking crumb of an alien left on any of these planets, I'm going to shoot this thing.

And I don't want to do that. be clear. Like, I love his, like, his ping ponging around of his own logic. It's really inner monologue said out loud. Yeah, he's nuke it from orbit edging. And he, uh, does a little demonstration shot to scare the entrepreneur away. He, he does like a warning shot that actually hits them. Like, it, it's such a wide beam that it engulfs almost the entire ship. Uh, and it fucks him up. Like, I think this crew has like a, a different. scale for, boy, that was fucking scary because, like, they've been through the whole Zindi arc at this point. But they're like, that was bad. And that was only 2% of the weapons output.

So let's get the fuck out of here. Cut to the meeting hall where Saval hits up Samuels for a word. Seems like Paxton's message has really whipped up some anti-volk sentiment around the embassies they have there. And the Andorians are complaining about the same problem. The diplomats kind of float the idea of getting out of there. and it makes sense too why are they trying to make a coalition of planets when this planet that they're on can't be a coalition of planet

you know Earthmen talk about uniting worlds but your own planet is deeply divided yeah they're very troubled by the fact that anyone is rallying around Paxton I mean it's like I feel like it's too early for them to have a sense of how divided the world is

to be making this case because they're saying clearly like tons and tons of people agree with this guy because of these spontaneous protests. But I mean, I feel like noisy cranks have always been able to get a protest together. On Enterprise, Samuels visits Archer in his clarinet rental closet and scolds him

for not wanting to shoot at the array right then and there. Archer's like, look, we got folks over there and this baby and also a bunch of innocent colonists nearby. Samuels is like, if you don't want to do it, we can find someone who will. Yeah, it's sort of like in West Wing when they kidnapped the president's daughter. Like, he can't be president right now when there's a baby involved, you know? Right.

So that's like the stakes for Archer is you're going to get taken out of the loop on this. But Archer's like going in hot from orbit is fucking stupid. Like there will be tons of collateral damage. What we need is a precision strike. We go in silently and knife. them from behind. That's what we got to do here. A covert op would be perfect. I love that the threat here is not just from Robocop. It is that like this array he's got control of also does a lot of work in the area of comet defense. Yeah. And without it, these comets are just going to rain down on the

planets in the system. So like one of the ideas that really exists in science for terraforming Mars is in order to get enough water and atmosphere is you would just like run bodies in the solar system that are full of water at the surface of it and like blow them up and just like explode water all over Mars and it would like heat up the atmosphere and add things to it so that it would thicken up. And this thing is like guiding those asteroids in. And so lots of them are already pointed at Mars. And if this thing is too busy shooting other things to guide. those, they could just hit population sites. Very scary. I'm a little bit more than a breadstick in at this

point. Feeling great. I think I can do this. It's not as challenging at the outset as beer power hour, I have to say. I'm feeling supremely confident at this point. Wow. Archer's assault team plan seems pretty viable, right? Yeah. So we cut to Trippin to Paul. meeting their baby. Topal immediately clocks it as a clone made of their DNA, which restates her argument from the last episode. Like, yeah, it may be from me and Tripp, but like my hole has not been blown out from childbirth.

This baby was made in a lab somewhere. And also, like, how'd they get our DNA? Somebody on Enterprise must have helped do this. There's Terra Prime on Enterprise. There's a mole. This seems to be a mole that must predate Mayweather's girlfriend, Gannett, because this baby has been around since before Gannett showed up, right? I wasn't listening too closely to, like, how they got the DNA. So I just thought Dr. Flax had a refrigerator full of, like, removed moles and skin tags from both of them.

Yeah. Like, this baby was made of moles. No, I think they, like, got some hair off of Topol. hairbrush and then like found a shoebox in Trips quarters and that was that was how they got it. Very exciting possibility here of there being an operative on the ship. Did you have any guesses about who it was? I mean, Kelby is like the obvious guess because he is new guy on the ship and truly and but hurt new guy specifically. I want to say though like the whole read section 31 revelation that we got earlier in the season left open.

the door to an idea of a crew person being involved, like, and even a familiar crew person at this point in time, especially toward the end of the series of this show. Like, I was, I was ready for that kind of fun reveal. I have no idea whether they knew or not, or didn't know that the show wasn't coming back at this point. And I feel like if you are going to make it turn out that one of your crew people is horrific, this would be an interesting bang to go out on, you know. Tripp made some sort of crazy deal with Paxson about like, if you let us see our child that you made out of our mows,

I will agree to do some work on your targeting systems. Don't worry about feeding the baby to Paul. I've got that covered eight times over. Oh, look at her latch right on my forearms. You're never going to let that go, are you? That's a good solid latch. No nipple confusion with this one. Just in case Tripp had thought about backing out of this part of the deal, a phaser is held to the back of DePaul's head.

Yeah. Do the work or she gets it. Because like the modifications that Paxton actually wants are to refine the targeting of his super weapon. And Tripp balked at that, but he's like, dude, like you have no leverage here. Because we need to do something covert, obviously we will need to involve 31. So Reed goes back to the part of San Francisco where none of the lines of perspective make any sense. Leather is the garment of secrets. I don't like it any more than you do.

He meets with Harris. And Harris is like, yeah, I heard you guys were probably going to Mars. You're going to need my help. And he hands read a chip that there's nothing on this chip that you don't get from just the dialogue. It's basically like the planetary sensors are like above a certain altitude. So if you go in low, they won't detect you and reads like, well, I already figured out the part about how we get into the atmosphere. So I don't need you for that. It's like a mixtape for the mission ahead from Samuels.

Like the camera like zooms in on it and it's like a piece of tape with some handwriting on it. Yeah. Samuel's super cool mission mix. I don't know This early version of Section 31 Not quite as alluring As later examples Reed seems pretty confident about figuring this out

Though he's not worried What Harris is worried about is not seeing Reed again I think he caught some feelings Yeah Toward the end of this conversation We can't keep meeting up like this Like can I at least get your phone number One last recruiting pitch from Harris

It's great No way says Reed And we cuts to a McLaughlin group Issue one, where the crew are pitching their plan to Samuels. And what they're going to do is tuck in behind a comet. That's one of the ones that they have already aimed at Mars and hide in the tail. And this thing is going to hit Mars in like 14 hours. But that's going to make it pretty tight turnaround wise on getting the kills that they need to get before the super weapon starts taking out chunks of San Francisco.

Francisco. Do you think Santa lives on every planet with a North Pole? Because that's where this comet's headed, the North Pole of Mars. And I immediately thought Santa, Mars Santa is in trouble. What is Mars Santa deal? Like, I think he's a very male-coded Santa because men are from Mars. Oh, yeah. So he's like got like a super duper squared jaw and lots of like secondary sex characteristics associated with men. He's like J.K. Simmy. from Red 1 or whatever. Yeah. Fucking strong, Nick.

Paxton comes a knockin when Tepal is a rockin' the baby. And he says, you know, you should be freaked out by this baby too. Like, this is also polluting your gene pool, just as much as it's polluting mine.

And they get in sort of a philosophical argument about xenophobia and whether it's good. And I thought it was interesting that I dick doesn't come up here. And that it wasn't ever put in conversation with the way that Vulcans have traditionally been and depicted to be pretty against mixing their genome with alien genes. Like, sometimes it happens, but, like, most of them are total dicks about this.

I wonder how much of that comes from Topal being, like, wanting to live through the day. Yeah. versus being a loud and proud voice for her position of anti-racism. Like, she's got a baby to live for now. And maybe she's not going to pipe up the way she normally would in order to give her and the baby the best chance of living. The point she makes is, like, you cannot possibly argue for fixing the state of human evolution right here in this moment. Because a million years ago, humans weren't the same as they are now. and a million years ago, Balkans weren't the same,

and in a million years we'll all be different. Like, that's just how this fucking works. Yeah, you will be fucking shocked at how different the Klingons looked not that long ago and how weird they will look 800 years from now. He feels like she is just arguing for extinction. So he, like, leaves and slams the door, but she gets a little scan of him on his way out.

Hey, Paxon, maybe back out of every doorway, like facing the person. Like you should just back out when you leave all the time. She hates to see him go, but she loves to scan him leave. Ben, I'm now two entire breadsticks down right on schedule. Amazing. A breadstick every 10 minutes. I kind of wish I'd lined up my 20 so I could see because I just have a bowl of these here

and I'm just like taking a bite every time I see that another minute has elapsed. Line them up. Put the breadsticks on the table. Dope on the table. Bread sticks on the table. would be 15 left if the clock can be trusted. When Tepal scans Paxon,

she reacts to the scanner like a check hitting the table that was more than she was expecting. Pretty great take by Jolene here. Indeed. On the Enterprise Bridge, we learned that Kelby is still working

in engineering. And look at him go. He's the fucking boss in there. I was actually feeling really proud of him. I was feeling proud of him and also like wondering, Is he overcompensating for having betrayed all these people? Is that what's going on here?

If he was overcompensating, he would work with his sleeves up. Tripp never does that. You always showing off those smooth forearms, Kelby. It's why I hate you so much. Once they're ready, Mayweather steers the ship toward the Burt Comet. And in the next scene, Mayweather's got something to do before he goes to the shuttle bay. He visits Gannett and the brig. and I think he looks pretty great in his comic kit uniform

that we see the rest of the away team wear later. He's looking great. Gannett, looking a little disheveled from being in the brig so long. When you are wearing a dress shirt for too long, it is like the worst feeling in the world. Like there's nothing worse than like shot dress shirt. Like, oh, like I wore this on an airplane,

but we got ground delayed for three hours because of weather in Houston and now like I'm like sweating out in it oh fuck that the brig is her Houston and she is denying

pretty strongly ever working for Terra Prime instead I'm not working for Terra Prime I'm working for Starfleet intelligence actually I'm good Mayweather Mayweather treats this fairly incredulously

right like call your boss like what are you talking talking about. You wouldn't be in here if that was true. And she's like, I can't blow my cover. It's weird that Mayweather walked into the brig with like a sub sandwich cradled in one arm and like a box of tissues in the other as he absorbs this information. It's strange. There's not a lot he can do here, Ben. Yeah. Hands are tied now. You shut me down. Actually, she is here to smoke out the Terra Prime mole. And because that mole is still on the loose, she thinks that Paxton might know.

that the special ops team is coming, which is a scary thought. So you're revealing all of this because you're worried about me? Yes. I'm touched. It doesn't turn out to be true at all. It has no bearing on the rest of the plot. Cut over to the launch bay where the Dust Bester Club preps for the trip. Archer fairly ceremoniously leaves Hoshi in command while they're away.

Gives her a little compliment on the way out. door too. I really like this. I think this moment pays off what we saw from the mirror universe episodes and the revelation that Hoshi is strong enough to be captain, strong enough to be a fucking killer if she had to be in any universe. And like she's ready for the chair in this one. And that she tremendously enjoys sex. What did you call her in the last episode? A sex person? No, a love person, Adam. to believe Trip chats with his buddy

Greaves who's one of the top goons in the Terra Prime organization and he's kind of probing like test in the waters like what's what turned you into such a xenophob Greaves like what acts do you have to grind with the Vulcans

and Greaves is like a historical Vulcan hater he's like in our grandparents generation when they had World War three, the Vulcans could have stopped it because they were floating around up there, but they didn't. And that makes me mad because they maybe thought that a devastated Earth would be an easier punching bag or something.

We were talking about on our hit New Star Trek podcast, Greatest Trek, about how much more interesting it is when antagonists present their side of things in a way that could plausibly gets you on their side. Like, it's more interesting to have an argument between two sides that you could agree with. Right. Reasonable people could hold both opinions. And it's a matter of argument, for instance. But this is not that kind of argument.

It doesn't feel personal enough. But his description of the Vulcans floating around during World War III and not doing anything is like the sort of argument I want five more bullet points on. in order to contain the entire anti-aliant argument. Like, that would make me upset to be fighting World War III and knowing that Vulcans could have stopped it or saved a bunch of people's lives. Well, Tripp uppercuts this dude.

Nice sucker punch. Great uppercut. I feel like uppercuts are not a common sucker punch to dole out. I know. But this one really hits, and Tripp knows that he can't beat this guy, because this dude is just a stack of muscle meat. And so he just uses the fact that he got him with the one punch to do something to fiddle with the machinery and then like takes the rest of his beating.

And Greaves is like yelling traitor at him as he beats Tripped down. In my version of Rocky Balboa, they wouldn't be able to show it on network television for all the nipples. I'd look like I was covered in fuzz, a robe of fuzz. Every time they went to a close-up, they'd have to tile out half the screen. It doesn't make sense. The shuttle launches out of Enterprise, and it slips into the rear of this comet with Mayweather at the controls and Reed and Archer and Dr. Flock's ride in the back. Pretty rough ride happening here.

Good thing Dr. Flax brought a barf bag. I love that Reed has already taken all of the drama mean you can, without O-Ding. I love the bit. Good bit. Is one barf bag for a crew of four people worse than no barf bags? Because if you got to share a barf bag, I can't imagine anything worse than that. No.

Yeah. It is not Puff Puff Puff Pass with the barf bag. I always think about this when I look at the one in the seat back pocket on an airplane. I'm like, this is so much smaller than the smallest barf I've ever. done by volume, this bag. Like, I don't feel like, like it will do some, you know, some

harm reduction to the upholstery, but it's not going to save me. It's not going to contain the whole thing. I have to admit something that I'm ashamed of, which is from time to time I have taken these barf bags and put them in my carry-on

luggage just in case. Like if I need one in the cab, away from the airport, port or something like I'm not caught out. Like because you already felt bad, like you're getting off the flight feeling bad like you might go. Yeah. And you shouldn't take one of those if you don't need it because what if you leave someone hanging without one? Oh man. On the flight after yours. They got a check, right? I'm a bad person, Ben. No, they check because they're like restocking the Sky Mall and stuff. All right. Anyway, that's my philosophy on barf bags. Trip is recovering from

his beat down and Paxton comes in like hey man you really got what was coming to you and also why did you throw wooden shoes into the machines when I specifically threatened you not to hence the word sabotage the swallowing is becoming a little harder that at this point I'm three breadsticks in and I'm not too full for this but there are some physical side effects starting to take shape here. It's drying me out and I'm drinking a lot of water. I don't know. I'm looking at how many breadsticks I have left

and it's like kind of brightening, honestly. What do you think? Is the mariner sauce a good idea? I feel like it is the cup of water that a hot dog eating contest person uses to wet the bun. I think it's useful, but it is a lot of acid I'm introducing into the system.

It's lubricant for sure. It's also like more food, you know? in a way that water isn't. The Olive Garden Marinera? Pretty good. I like it. Here's the thing that I'm going to say that will shock all of the Friends of DeSoto

and you most of all. I've never been to an Olive Garden, so I don't know what any of this stuff tastes like. But when I picture it in my head, I'm picturing the marinera being kind of a necessary component. First of all, I'm not surprised that you've never been to Olive Garden.

a place where literally everyone has gone at some point in their life. Not me. I've been to a macaroni grill. We'll have to do a factory seconds where we take a drive to an Olive Garden so you can experience it. Community Garden. You have a mom. How have you not taken her to Olive Garden? It's like the ultimate I got my first job and like I can finally like do something for my mom for Mother's Day or something.

And like we go to a nice dinner. And that dinner is Olive Garden because you don't know any better. I knew better and my mom knows better. My mom would never go to an Olive Garden. Wendy played the Royal Tenenbaum's theme under that description of Ben's family. Tripp learned that Paxton is planning to shoot Starfleet first. But he's like, dude, this thing is, it's shooting a cone. It's not shooting for a targeted strike.

It's going to hit a lot of San Francisco if you don't refine the targeting on this thing. That's going to be on you, man. I don't want to do it, but I kind of want to do it. But I don't. I don't want all those people to die needlessly, but it's on you. It's your fault if it happens, even though I'm going to be the one doing it. Tripp, you know what happens when lasers shoot at Earth, carving large scars into it. I need a scalpel, not a bludgeon.

I don't care what you need. You know, the funny thing is, if it happens, to a blue state, I don't really care that much. I love Robocop's take on the word millions because in this scene he very specifically says millions. Millions may die. And I wanted so badly for Tripp to be like,

oh, what? Did you just pronounce that word, millions? That's some country shit that I would say. Trip is, gets locked the fuck up. And we cut over to Tepal, who is trying to connect with her little bambina. She's like, this baby's not latching,

almost as if it's reaching out for phantom nipples that aren't there. It's like used to something else. I only have two. We should discuss that with your father. We got over to the comet where it's starting to enter the upper atmosphere of Mars. And there's a very suspenseful sequence where we don't know if we're coming in too hot. We're coming in too hot. You know, all the inertial dampers are off, and, like, they cut to the exterior a couple times.

The shuttle is just moving crazy. But Mayweather's in control of this thing. It's just like being back in the womb. Who are you? Insom Travis Mayweather. Parents must be very proud. When I was a kid, we called it the sweet spot. Who are you?

I'm the helmsman. Think I'm getting a feel for her. I think I found reverse. And your mom, very proud. That's true. Takes practice. Other than keeping Inson, Mayweller. weather up at night. I'm not sure what we expect to accomplish here. It looks like something a flight

demonstration team would do, you know, at an air show. It really does, yeah. It's pretty fun. Well, what do you know? Mayweather saves the day. Yeah, by switching to manual. Good job by him. He uses the thrusters to stabilize things. He gets things under control, but like this impact looks pretty hard, pretty bad. It does. And it's right into the polar region. It fucking destroyed that ass. At the moon base on Mars, Tripp is trying to escape his cell. Yeah.

And he does that thing where he pulls his tool belt apart and takes the little circuits and bits and boops out of there and, like, assembles them in a very McGiver kind of way to work on the wall outlet that's keeping the door shut. He's making lifesaving inventions out of household materials. Magrower! There was some talk when packing. and got really mad at him in the previous scene of, like, him being put in a cell but, like, made to watch what happens. And I kept wanting, like, a guy to push a roly cart with a big

CRT TV and a VHS into the room with him. There's no TV in here. It's a great description because this moon base on Mars seems like a past place. It does. In a way, like, like the technology there seems beneath or below anything else we've seen on this show. Like, there was also something about the music in the scene when we like see the cell like the music cue. I was like, oh, this is music coming from a TV that we're going to cut around to. I was very surprised that we never got to see like the coverage from Earth of them like waiting for the nuclear blast from the heavens. This shuttle didn't crash in the previous scene. We cut to it zooming toward the moon base on Mars at a very low altitude. They set down the shuttle and we learned that this is rediscovered.

32nd and Flox's 248 planet that they've set foot on. Amazing that like the one right outside his doorstep had eluded Reed for so long. The big revelation is that Olive Reed's ex-girlfriends

moved to Mars and we're never able to receive his letters. He tells Flux, technically I'm in violation of a restraining order going on this mission. I'm not supposed to get anywhere close to the gravity well of this world. Legally, it's just a fart joke.

You will never take the greatest gin alive. Ben would rather die. They get out and they're wearing, you know, like how there's a uniform for a workplace and then there's like a casual Friday version of that uniform. These are casual EV suits they're wearing from this point on. There's enough atmosphere down here that they need. We need oxygen, but they don't have to have a helmet on. Right.

A little chilly, but nothing they can't handle. DePaul is brought before Paxton, and she suggests that he dismiss his goons. And he's like, my goons and I have a very trusting relationship. They can hear anything you have to tell me. And she's like, no, seriously, you don't want them to know the secrets that I'm about to talk to you about. Paxton's like, have you been to the men's bathroom in this facility? Like we don't even have any partitions between the urinals. We don't even have any stalls for the turlets.

You know what we do have in abundance in those bathrooms is rulers. And we know the difference between six and eight inches. As soon as they're alone, Tepal's like, listen here, Buster, my baby's sick. And I want the three of us. And by three, I mean, me and the baby and trip, to be taken to the utopia colony for medical care. And Paxon's like, the fuck? That's a lot of lip. Coming from a prisoner and an alien, two strikes against you, Tepal, but Tepal fires it right back in his face.

I know you got Taggart syndrome, Paxon, and you've been using Rigelian gene therapy to fix it. This is like an anti-vaxxer who is vaccinated themselves. You're not only a terrorist, you're a hypocrite. Fucking hypocrites. I hate them so much. I'm also realizing that I myself may be a bit of a hypocrite. I thought it was 429, but it was 439. I am way behind on breadsticks.

I should be much, much further along if we're already 40 minutes into this power hour. So I'm going to start just chomping like crazy. I've had four Olive Garden Breadsticks up to this point. I am right on schedule. My God. In a way that I never am for any other power hour. I think you know this. I didn't think that this would be the thing that broke me.

Yeah, this might be it. He doesn't think that this is the gotcha that Topal does. His defense is so fucking classic modern times. Just be like, uh, nobody's perfect, right? I'm not the first significant leader who failed to measure up to his own ideals. You're not significant. Even though my whole ideology is about racial purity, you know, I'm just a human being capable of making mistakes. And I don't give a shit about what you know, Tepal.

and I don't grant your request to take your baby to the doctor either. And then he like walks out the door, but this time facing her. He's learned. He's learned how to leave rooms. So Samuels steps onto the bridge of the USS entrepreneur as the deadline ends. And he's like, okay, Hoshi, time to nuke the entire site from orbit. Fucking A. I know that we didn't want to have to go to plan B, but that's what it is.

and she's like, no fucking way. Like they, it takes two minutes to turn that thing on. We're not going to do that unless I have no other chance. And he's like, then you're relieved of command, mister. And she's like, nice try. You can't do that. Only someone in my command structure can do that. And he's like, well, let's get him on the phone.

And she's like, no, we're radio silent right now. Ha, gotcha. I love Samuels here. It's such a reach for him. I feel like there's something. in him that there is a plan B and that plan B is mutiny, but he doesn't go through with it.

I think there's a beat here where he's like, who's with me? Who's coming with me? This is embarrassing. I would have fucking died. Shit, I didn't make enough friends on this ship before I tried this. There's a smarmingness to the way

Samuels is portrayed that helps Hoshi's command presence just to be in a room with this guy. And I think she's also physically up on the step where the bridge chair is and that also, the way the shot is composed, makes her seem very strong

and in command at the moment in a number of ways. This is the kind of Linda Park episode I wish we had gotten all along. She is such a fun character when she gets shit to do like this. Yeah, it's true. She's a good captain. The covert ops team

enters the compound or is it a facility? I actually think it is a moon base on Mars Felicity. Okay. That makes sense. A string of words that has never been said together.

Paxton doesn't know that they're there yet and he's like, the Vulcans haven't left yet? This is so great. We get to do it. I got to tell you what's happened here. Okay. I'm going to do something for the mic. It's not, it's going to be okay for misophones.

I'm going to hit two breadsticks together. Okay. They've gotten hard, Ben. They've gotten hard in the 43 minutes since we've started this. Are they like really hard or like just hard on the outside, still soft and chewy on the inside? Hard on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside, but not as soft and brettie as they began,

the way you want them when they're fresh. I'm having a very interesting experience. now that I'm trying to like blast through a lot more breadsticks than I was before, which is that I'm taking sips of water as they're in my mouth. And it's, I like it almost as much as I like cookies and milk. Like, it's like, it's giving the same like sensory pleasure as that in a way that really surprises me. I know you have no idea what I'm talking about when I talk about Olive Garden breadsticks and marinera. But if we're talking about this and this, like the,

ampersandification of foods. Yeah. Where do you feel like breadstick and marinera matches up on a list of what you were just describing, like cookies and milk, marinerara and breadsticks, chocolate and peanut butter, like these combinations? I have probably had marinera outside of a pasta context, like a number of times that could be counted on one hand. And you've never had a Reese's peanut butter cups.

so you don't know what I'm talking about there either. God, why do I even make references at all on this show? For FODs, that's why. Yeah, a lot of people are nodding. A lot of people are nodding off. So, yeah, like, we're just kind of cutting back and forth of them getting ready to fire and Samuels and Hoshi arguing about whether they should nuke the site from orbit or not.

Ooh. Ooh, that was a surprise. Are your breadsticks filled with helium? No, man. They're vegan and they're from a woman-owned company. They don't do that. That's the kind of mistake like Dan's homemade breadsticks company would make. You've achieved a sort of cupboard purity.

I could never hope to, Ben. Yeah. It's really nice over here. Everything I eat makes the world a better place. There's no moral, literal concern. and capitalism. So there's like a firing sequence, aborted moment as the

special ops team storms the control room. One of the windows gets hit and Reed gets shot and Tripp gets shot. And like most of the special ops guys go with Reed. And it winds up being Paxton, a

compromised trip, an archer all stuck in the control room together. And everyone else is locked. out. I love the way the big glass window cracks in such a dramatic fashion. Like, there is a race against window here taking place. It's like walking out on too thin of ice. Yeah. And Paxton talks about his ideology even more, if you can believe it. And he has like a colonizer's mindset. He's like, we shouldn't be like making friends with these people. We should be going out

stomping on them and using the galaxy for our benefit at the expense of everyone else. And Archer's like, that's not how it works. Like, everybody out there is like already at our level of technology or past it. Like, there's no way to do that. That's stupid. The galaxy's a lot more crowded than we thought. That's not our problem. It's an opportunity.

But we could like learn from and enjoy company with these people. Paxton's like, no, man, I'm just going to do my thing. and he turns the array back on. I wasn't expecting this. Yeah, I kind of thought that the jig was already up, but no. Archer puts a gun to his neck and it's like, turn it off, dude, and he's like, it's already done. Yeah, yeah. The target is the Golden Gate Bridge, which it narrowly misses.

Yeah, it hits the ocean, not the bay, crucially. Like, it's out there, you know. Yeah, yeah. Ferillon's probably got taken off the map. The miss suggests that Tripp Tucker's sabotage actually worked. Like there was a high-level sabotage that was visible to Paxon that he knew had taken place. But what Paxon didn't know was that there was more subtler sabotage. And that's what made this happen with the miss of the target.

Mayweather finds Tepal and the baby. And the baby is dying. So to head back to Earth And DePaul hangs an idick on the incubator And she and Tripp talk it over And they decide to give the baby a name They call her Spockette Do you think Vulcan

NICUs have idicubators In them Oh man Yeah I think they probably do Do you think Adolescent Vulcans Who are particularly horny are called? Yes

Yes Okay Same And I've got faith Of the far Toffertial Flocks has bad news though The Vulcans and the humans

DNA That are in this baby Are at war with each other Maybe Paxton was right We're just not compatible As species and he's also like, I don't know how to treat a patient whose biology has never been studied. Like, I can do my best, but I'm really like flying blind here.

You know, there's actually where I start to understand Paxton's whole point. Like, my job is a lot easier if my patients are not so alien. Like, let's maybe bring it a little bit so that I can solve these sorts of problems. Yeah. Yeah. One breadstick left for me, Ben. Fuck. Really?

Yeah. Okay. I'm going to make it. I have five and three halves. How much is that? Six and a half. I am feeling full. I don't think I'll be eating dinner tonight. I feel like I ate a pillow.

In the launch bay, Mayweather and Reed have the shuttle pod up on the rack, and that's because Mayweather can't figure out how things got so bad so simultaneously on their mission. That was kind of suspicious, right? He's used to systems overloading and breaking kind of one at a time. But the whole simultaneity of these two critical systems breaking has got him wondering. And so Mayweather's like, well, there's my problem right there, this panel that was intentionally left open.

Yeah. What the fuck? And they like, I guess looked at the maintenance log and Kelby's name is all over it. And so they go find him in his quarters. And it's very funny because he's a command. So they have to like call him sir. Yeah. But they accuse him of doing this.

And he's like, no way, dude. I would never. It was probably Mousaro. His rank is so interesting in this moment for both the reason you describe and also like blaming an ensign for something you may or may not have done seems like a great defense strategy. Yes. Ensign Missarro is the guilty party here.

It's kind of a one bad apple thing. I was nowhere near it. We cut over to the mess hall where Hoshi gets a radio call from Archer asking if she's with Samuels, which she is, and if Enson Masaro is around, which she doesn't see. And Archer reads her into the situation that this guy might be out on the ship and armed and dangerous. And Reed leaves his quarters to go join the hunt. But Masaro intercepts him at the turbolift doors and he's got a dustbuster in his hand.

I was shocked that this was true. Yeah. Like, who cares about Kelby? Make him the bad guy. Redemption for Kelby? I won't say it wasn't on my bingo card. I'm saying I didn't care. I wasn't thinking about that at all.

Yeah. Just make him be the bad guy. That's so interesting. That's so much more interesting than this guy we've never seen. Right. Right. Archer tries negotiating with him. And the energy to the scene is like, you don't have to shoot me.

Right. That's what I got out of the scene. But, but like, it's not what he's there. to do it all. He's there to publicly kill himself in front of Archer? Yeah, that's why he was so nervous. The baby is not doing well.

And Flox is sad as hell about it. You can tell because lightning crashes is playing on a portable radio in the Six Bay. It never gets any easier. No. Dr. Flux pulls a

phaser out of his medical gown, holds it up to his own head. Like, whoa! Hey, man. Not again. No copycats. You know what?

I've already been through one of these today. It's actually, seriously, a really touching moment from Dr. Flax, where he talks about how meaningful the relationships are that he's developed on this ship and how the pain that his friends and coworkers are feeling for the loss of their baby is something that he's feeling very acutely. What a fucking roller coaster for Tripp into Paul to like learn of the existence of this child. Be satisfied that it is actually the product of them connect with it in a parental way and then have it snatched away from them like so fast. Like over the course of like a few days maybe like two days? Is it two days? Yeah. Did they go through all that?

Mm-hmm. Anyways, we're not going to let this all be in vain. There's been a lot of about maybe the league of Spatians being off, but it's back on. And we have a redo of that big meeting from before. Don't you wish Samuels was better at this? Like there's something about him kicking off the meeting with a like pretty bad week, right? I think we can all agree. This was a tough one. But let's move past all that. And I think the best way I know to do that is to yield my time to Archer for a speech. Much like Hoshi, Archer can't help but look way better whenever he's in a room with Samuels. And I mean, I like that Samuels, like, rose to the occasion a little bit and gave the

Enterprise crew their flowers and, like, brought them over to the table and let them be part of it instead of just standing up on the stairs awkwardly. But, yeah, Archer gives a really impassioned speech. about the way that all of these species, like, despite their differences, are all explorers. And maybe we could join up and do explore together, dudes. It was a little cute in that way that you want your speeches to be, like the very memorable speeches, I mean. Like, he's like, I know we all want to go out there as far as possible and see what's on the outer edges of our imaginations. but what if I told you that no one's ever entirely explored?

What's in here? And he taps on his heart. So, Ball, so moved by this, starts the standing ovation. We get the slow clap. I wanted to cut over to Samuel so bad here. Samuels having been diminished utterly by Archer's speech. Like grudgingly joining the applause. Like you remember in Star Trek 6 at the,

end when Kirk saves the day and you get another group of aliens clapping and one of the aliens is like and I'm holding my arm straight out doing the clap thing. This is some high proof Star Trek man. Yeah. When you're talking about like diversity and exploration and working peacefully together, God damn. I fucking love this shit. It's the sort of shit that would never work nowadays with new Star Trek. People would hate it. Mayweather and Gannett are on better terms, it seems. And the conference worked. We're going to get together.

We don't know exactly the outline of what that's going to be. Maybe we'll add another Laurel to the logo. Who knows? You know what? If Samuel's campaigned on that and that alone, he's got my vote. Yeah. No fucking kidding. He's going to take her home on a shuttle, like a gentleman.

Yeah, the slow way home. and we know what they like to do on shuttles, right? Yeah. Do you think you use the shuttle that just got in that scrape on Mars because it looks cool as hell when you pull up to Earth? Yeah, I mean, I think you like, you also know that like Sabo doesn't strike the same place twice. So once that thing is fixed, you're probably good.

Like if Billy Joel was a Star Trek fan, I feel like that's one of his album titles. I know you've never listened to Billy Joel. Trip finds to Paul having an Idick bum out, the delegates would like to come to Spockett's funeral, which is like, I mean, that's kind of a lot right now. We just learned that she exists. We didn't really have anything saved up for this kind of thing. On the one hand, it's a nice offer from these folks.

On the other hand, I'm afraid we don't have enough food. The baby could have survived. if Paxton and his scientist hadn't screwed up something about the way they did the cloning. So maybe we could get it on? Let's pull the goalie, DePaul. For Tripp to hear this, and a moment later be like, this is why a lot of parents have two children for a backup. The sooner I get it dumped in you, the sooner we can have one back.

Is this the most tearful proposal for sex ever? You know what? You bring up a good point because like we joke about the awful timing of Tripp's proposition of, you know, trying it again or whatever. But Connor Treeneer, I found very affecting in this scene. In a in the same way that I like a Southern man's tears on screen, like often kind of gets to me. Yeah. Like there's something about that. type of character breaking down that it's super effective.

It really is. Well, breadstick power hour has now come to a close. Oh, I got to eat my last bite. I managed to speed through my breadsticks at the end, and I landed the plane on time. I still have, like, I don't know, a third of the box left. I feel like I could have been two biting those and not three biting them. I usually go into extras, Ben, take them down. No fucking way.

That is plenty of salt for me and plenty of mouth noises for Wendy to edit out. Did you like this episode of Star Trek Enterprise? I can't pay. Could for late. Got no case. Tempating fate. I wasn't sure if the episode was going to successfully make me care about a baby that I had only met, you know, the previous episode and that the parents only knew about. just as recently.

I feel like the degree of difficulty for that was really high, and I felt like the actors achieved it. Like, wouldn't have expected to Paul to be able to convey the emotions of a parent grieving the discovery and immediate loss of a child, but she did.

So did Tripp. It made me want them to be together in a way more powerful than I've ever felt on all of the episodes up until now. Like the will-lay-walt-ness of their workplace relationship is like fun and cute. And in my mind, I was like, yeah, it'd be fun to see them hook up or whatever. Right.

But like a situation like this galvanized that feeling in a way that made me feel like, yeah, they were parents for two days in the Christopher Pike parlance. Like, here's a retake on trips on what trip tells Topal. He's like, now, Tepo, we were parents for two days. I dare us to do better next time. Zip. I think Peter Weller is so great. His greatness is evident when it comes to embodying a shitty antagonist. He still made this guy interesting in a way that usually they aren't.

Right. So I think for those reasons, I did really like this episode. How about you? Yeah. I think you said it really well. Really fun episode. great adventure, a lot of banger on-brand Star Trek moments. And yeah, just a very interesting good time.

I can't believe we did a breadstick power hour. I can't believe that happened before the end of this series. I can't believe we did it and that I'm not dead. I did not expect Sifiel as not compromised by the end. I would not have bet that breadstick power hour was easier to do than a beer power hour. But it was. Maybe I'm going to feel terrible in a short time. Is this like the type of thing that can make you celiac?

Like you trigger it by having so much gluten in one sitting? Let's find out. Let's also find out if we have any priority one messages in the inbox bin. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on security. Channel. Need a supplemental. Supplement. Supplement.

Supplement. Yeah, it's extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Ben, we got a promotional priority one message here. And it goes like this. It's two years since my first P1 aired. Wow. And got us our TGG bump.

Since then we celebrated 30 years as a fleet. And I rose from Ensign to Commander. Now this week, I assumed command of the USS Kittimer. Whoa. With at least one other FOD aboard. To Esten, who is listening, thank you for being awesome. To Quinn, who isn't. You are the Picard to my Jellico,

and I wear my com badge on my belly button in your honor. Thanks always B&A for the excellent pod. O'Brien drop? I am Chief Miles Edward O'Brien. This is fucking spectacular. And this was it written in code. This was written about Starbase 118, which you can find out more about at Starbase 118.net.

Exciting. Which if you were to go to there, is a fan-produced Star Trek play-by-email role-playing game. You remember Play-by- Email games? Yeah, bringing it back. I love that. Amazing. Yeah, go check it out. XP1 is also of a promotional nature, Adam.

And it goes like this. Greetings from Washington, D.C. Metro Region, where things are looking bleak. Ben and Adam covered TNG ones. We enjoyed it. But one go? For a show of this magnitude? That is not enough.

I paid this latinum to make a simple but urgent request. Go back. Ensure they cover TNG again. Ben and Adam have grown. The audience has grown. The discourse has evolved and TNG has only gotten more relevant. A light that continues to shine through the bleakness. Help the light shine through.

Vote TNG! And this is a, Dan Gallagher, undersecretary of TNGPAC 2026, urging people to vote in our email poll of whether we will move on to TNG or Baywatch. I believe we've already revealed the results of that. Yeah, we're going back to Star Trek the next generation. A P1 that came in, sadly, too late to move the needle.

But fortunately, the PAC money won, in this case, finally. It's true, yeah, if you haven't following along. Star Trek the Next Generation, the series will be covering after Enterprise concludes. And I hope you're also following along with March Greatest Gen Madness, which is determining a lot of things about next steps, I think. You and I have been brainstorm a number of ideas to make this new go-around distinct from the first. The greatest generation, the next generation, is not just going to be a retread, I don't think. No.

It's going to feel new and fresh. So hot. So fresh. And it's going to be a lot of fun. We hope you circle back around with us. I do too. There's a personal priority one message here, Adam, and it's from Guy English. Guy English.

And it's to Ben Adam, the crew, and all FOTs everywhere. Ten years. And we're closing in on the singularity that is the end of Enterprise. You've done it. You've made the trek. The stars are yours. During your five-year missions, you've met strange new people, sought out new ways of living life,

and have boldly forged a new federation of Friends of De Soto. Thanks for the laughs. You're our Shimotas. Hey, thanks, Guy English. You know, it's actually a little easier to process, a little less embarrassing to think about what we've done as two five-year missions. Yeah. That goes down a little easier, don't you think?

You're like the French guy that ate the bicycle by breaking it into little teeny tiny parts. Almost exactly what I was going to say. Yeah. It's like that. Always nice to hear from Guy English and thank you so much. Yeah. What a nice message. If you'd like to leave us a nice message or get the Greatest Gen bump. Or give us a bicycle to eat, I guess. Or urge people to vote for Baywatch, I guess. you can go to Greatestrek.com and you'll find the links

for Priority One Messages and all of the other stuff we do. Yeah, because it's a great way to support the shows. Hey Adam? What? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda! Yeah, I gotta believe there's an amount of time you want to wait after your baby dies

before you promote the idea of another one. Right? A statute of limitations. It feels like was destroyed here by Triptucker. Yeah. Yeah. Marched right through. I agree, Adam.

I cannot help but agree. That is an insane time to propose getting it on. A horny reaction, sometimes a person's reaction to a traumatic event. Mm-hmm. Human beings are weird. Yeah. We're all wired differently and weirdly. I mean, was this not Paxton's...

essential message, the nobody's perfect message. Yeah. In death, that's how we can remember him. You can forgive anyone if that's your defense, right? Like Pol Pot is like, ah, some people screw up sometimes. Nobody's perfect. Anyway, Faith of the fart. Well, Adam, you have a very important job to do, which is roll some bones over at gach.biz where we keep

the game of buttholes the will of the Riker, quantum leap. And I have a role that is also somewhat important, which is telling you about the next episode, which is episode 22 of the fourth and final season of Star Trek Enterprise. It is called These are the Voyages.

Six years in the future, an emotional Captain Archer and the crew return to Earth to face the decommission. of Enterprise and signing of the Federation Charter. Amazing. The series finale. An episode I've heard is great.

No controversy surrounding that one. Let's see if the place we land on the game board will match its greatness, Ben, and roll for the last time this 100-sided die. You're required to learn as you play. Roll. Currently, we're on square 47, the breadstick power hour episode. I hope to roll a 100 and land us here once again. That would be fucking crazy.

Because I could only buy these breadsticks in a package of 12, meaning I have six more left. I will now roll this die. Ben, I have rolled a 34. Shula! Did I win? Hardly. We've landed on square 81.

It is a regular old episode of our show for, the series finale of Enterprise. Looking forward to that and really appreciating all the people who support the show on a monthly basis at Maximumfund.org slash join. Got to thank Wendy Pritty, our producer and editor. Got to thank Rob Adler, the editor of the Greatest Newsletter, which you can sign up for at greatesttrek.com. He co-runs the At Greatest Trek social media accounts with the card daddy Bill Tilly,

who's posted hilarious trading cards. every week. Hey, I really want to encourage you to sign up for the newsletter. If for no other reason, then that is the way that we can have direct contact with you, the people who enjoy our show. And it's also something that we take really seriously and make fun to read. And we work on it every week. And it's good.

We've got to thank Adam Roussa, our co-host on Wholesome, which is a great podcast that we make for patrons only at patreon.com slash wholesome underscore pod. Thanks to Dark Materia for the original Picard song. With that, we'll be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise, an episode of the greatest generation enterprise where we feel like we're being watched. Always do. Since we switched a video so long ago.

Oh, yeah. Now everyone's watching these episodes. That was like episode two of this show. We're both chewing. I timed that terribly. Yeah, there's been some good alternation up until now, but that was a simultaneous red stick chew. Sorry about that. Anyway.

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