The Greatest Generation - Dead Men Fix No Engines (TNG S1E7)

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

When the Entrepreneur’s Uber mission involves helping two species squash their beef, the ship flies through a purple cloud and crew members start blacking out. But after the ship’s physician gets very interested in helm control, Picard pulls an illegal U-turn to bring an alien being back to its home. What’s the easiest way to win at golf? How are exterior shots different in this era? Is there more than one way to make a dental dam sound? It’s the episode that celebrates a moment.Support the production of our shows Members get benefits including bonus episodes and an ad-free experienceSign up for our mailing list!Get a thing at podshop.biz!The Greatest Generation is hosted by Adam Pranica and Benjamin Ahr Harrison The show is produced by Wynde PriddySocial media is managed by Rob Adler and Bill TilleyMusic by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaDiscuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen and find us on social media:YouTube | Instagram | BlueskyAnd check out these online communities run by FODs: Reddit | USS Hood Discord | Facebook group | Wikia | FriendsOfDeSoto.socialSupport the production of The Greatest Generation Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to hear an ad-free version of this show? Go to greatest.supercast.com. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage. Welcome to the greatest generation, the next 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 Ben Harrison.

I'm Adam Pranica. Whoa. As we record this, we are tipping. over the line into the 5,000 supporters. That's pretty exciting. That's worth cracking a non-alcoholic sody pop over. You think that's what that was?

I dipped into my vault of spotted cow and busted out one of those only in Wisconsin boys to get me through. Yeah. Amazing. Congratulations. Every time I go to Wisconsin, I bring back a 12-pack if I can. And then I just, I have one or two at a time over the course of the year. This feels

like one of those times. Yeah, this is, it's a celebratory moment. That is truly the champagne of Wisconsin. That's funny to hear that. Complementary. I mean, so many beers call themselves the champagne of whatever. Yeah. I had a very fun bar experience at one of my favorite bars in the world, the Long Island restaurant in New York City. And it's a place. It's a place that styles itself as a Wisconsin bar. And I had already had a couple of drinks.

So at my party before arriving because there was like a two hour wait to get a table of six, which is fine. We posted up at the bar. Had a great time. So we get to the table and we start ordering food and drinks. and I need a buffer. I don't know if anyone else feels this way about themselves or about me.

But I go to the server and I'm like, hey, I think I just need like a buffer beer or water or something. And she's like, well, I can get you a beer and we've got these four. And I was like, which one of those is the most like water? And she, without even saying what I was getting was like, I got just the thing. So she goes and gets our next round.

She comes back, she starts setting down the drink orders at everyone, and sets down in front of me a pint of definitely not water, but what she calls water when she sets it down. And it was just the thing. It was a very fun shorthand to have with a server who knew what I was after without needing to interrogate it all, you know? Good moment. You said to her, I want a beer that's like having sex in a canoe. Fucking close to water. Right, exactly. I mean, I would never put it that way.

That would have ruined the vibes. That's bits on tips right there. Yeah, you can't do that. No, no, and what I did definitely wasn't a bit. We were trying to get to the truth of what I needed and what could be provided. And together we got there. That was great. I can't remember if it was in our recent Reddit AMA or some other context,

but somebody asked me recently, what constitutes a porch beer? and my answer was, you know, you and I famously got some beer cans backstage at a live show one time that advertised themselves as crushable, which is kind of a little bit of a paradox, right? Because, like, I think of a porch beer is one that you kind of sip, take your time with, but also you could totally fucking crush it if you wanted to. Yeah, I think there is a distinction there between the two. I think it's probably pretty likely that a porch beer has too much flavor, which is also a description I'll throw around from time to time when I'm really trying to get at a type of beer at a fucking brewery that doesn't have any recognizable beers

to someone like me who's just going after a good time, you know? Yeah. What I need is a beer that tastes like water and is less filling. Like that's what I desire. Give me some of that. Why are none of the big national brands? advertising in that way, you know? I know. Something served by the cooler or the bucket.

Yeah. Ideally. Yeah, those are great. You ever get one of those cans of cut water brand alcohol? It's like a cocktail in a can kind of a thing? You can fuck yourself up with one of those, my friend. Those are 12.5% which is like three beers in one can. Yeah.

I stay away from those. They sell them in a four pack, which has gotten me in trouble a couple. a couple of times. If you're ever gambling with anyone you're out playing golf with on a hot day, that is just a great, great move when you're ordering drinks out there. Oh, yeah. Have the other guy. Get a cut water.

Yeah, get this guy a can of hurricane. Yeah. For real. That stuff kicks. Well, a big, swirly cloud in today's episode of Star Trek the next generation, Adam, and it kicks as well. Should we get into it? Such a memorable episode to me.

Like one of the foundational Epps that I think is mostly for me or people like me than anyone generally who's into Star Trek. I think we're going to encounter these as we go, especially in the early seasons of TNG where it's like, oh, fuck. I remember how that episode made me feel as a kid. What is that? It's season one, episode seven of Star Trek, The Next Generation, Lonely Among... us. Beta Renner, not exactly a concept modern folks understand. Guys, an alpha.

You know, alpha if not Sigma, I would say. I mean, would an alpha get into a fist fight with a snowplow? Of course he would. Would an alpha launch a social media app that is centered around everyone liking him? I want to thank all you super fans on this app. Yes. These are alpha moves. These are alpha moves the entire time.

I love them. Well, this system has a couple of planets, and the people that live on these two planets have kind of become space-faring cultures, and they hate each other's guts, but they also both want to be in the Federation. And so there's sort of a, the first step is squashing the beef and then we will consider your applications kind of order of operations here. And the entrepreneur is picking everybody up and taking them to a third like neutral site planet called Parliament where they're going to do this beef squashing. So interesting to me that these two species just became space possible. and they didn't use their initial space flights to attack the other in a way that you would presume they'd have done based on the entire episode that follows?

Yeah. Also, we just watched the last outpost, and it feels like at the end of that episode, so much time was spent on, like, one species convincing the central species that they shouldn't include the other species in whatever they're doing. At no point to the Anticas and the Salaise ever, like,

talk shit about the other, they just want to kill him. They hate each other, but yeah, they're not trying to undermine each other in the eyes of the Federation. Yeah. There are a lot of things that I find very perplexing about these two species. We're in the transporter room at the beginning of this episode, in our dress uniforms, receiving the Salee delegation. They're the second group to come aboard, which we learn because the Soleil can smell that Antiquan filth has already been here. They're immediately stressed about where they're going to stay because they don't want to have to smell that in their quarters. And that's going to require some rejiggering of the sweet assignments because they were going to be right down the hall from them.

Is that all right? No. Unsatisfactory. You understand what it's like to get a hotel room that's been smoked in before. and just how uncomfortable that is. Yeah. I get having this preference. I think what I don't get is the way that it's conveyed.

As soon as these folks leave, Yara's like, I don't understand what kind of fit these two species are going to have with the Federation, right? Like, you'd expect them to be a little more diplomatic in our first contact with them. Not first contact, but like first impression, I mean. Yeah. I mean, like, these guys are clearly idiots.

He said he doesn't want to be downwind of them. We're on a fucking spaceship. There's no wind? What's he talking about? These folks are so new to spaceflight that they believe that like the faster you go in space, there is a corresponding like wind events happening on board. Yeah, they put like old-timey avi aviator goggles and leather helmets on so that their hair doesn't get must. They're the sort of idiots that wonder if you could like use a fan to blow yourself

around in space and like would ask on a podcast question to that end. Yeah, we don't we don't know anything about that kind of idiot. No. On the bridge, Picard and Riker talk about these two idiot species that they are taking to parliament. Were you kind of alarmed by what Riker says here in the whole like, I don't understand general hostility between two species, Captain. I tried looking it up once and I never got it. You seen this shit in the history books?

Apparently humans used to do this too. Can you fucking believe it? Yeah. I guess Riker failed that class at the academy. Picard kind of bemusedly remarks on the idea that we used to do that. You know, wars over religions and economic systems. We were just as stupid as these guys. Not that long ago.

And then he like, you know, makes eye contact with the camera. Uh-oh. Smoke cloud right ahead! And this thing is moving at warp speed. Not something that you can determine based on seeing it visually. It doesn't look like there are any star streaks going by this smoke cloud. Right. Well, yeah, it's like it's just that it is ahead of them and not, you know, whipping past them.

as they warp around. Picard's like, okay, I mean, you know, interesting cloud. You don't see clouds going at warp all the time. So we'll, like, go around it, do a sensor sweep, and then, like, really step on it because it's going to slow us down this slight detour around this cloud. But, you know, we got a schedule to keep.

The science can wait. You really want to be on the same level as the people around you if they're starting to look at clouds deeply and trying to have that fucking conversation about what it might mean or look like Oh my God! And they've also just been talking about

like how silly it is that we would have a war over like what economic system we're going to use. Like this is, the whole bridge crew is baked. Yeah. Man. Yeah, this cloud presents a very brief opportunity for study. Look, we got to get to this diplomatic parliament situation. So all we can afford to do is do a little drive-by censoring.

And Yard blows and I call to Jordy and Wharf to make sure that's okay because they're in the sensor maintenance room. They have a little patter about why they, too, are the people down in the center maintenance room. Our captain wants his junior officers to learn, learn, learn. Not just his junior ones. I feel like just with recent events in my mind and Captain Picard making such a big deal out of how much Wesley is going to have to study if he's going to be an acting ensign. Wesley doesn't do any active ensigning in this episode. It sort of felt like maybe they put Worf in a scene that they originally thought Wesley was going to be in.

Yeah, it seems like Wes is definitely back to being school edition Wesley Crusher. You think that they did like a camera test? Like, all right, well, just get in front of the camera and shows what it would look like if you were struck by light. and then they were like all right Michael now now let's see what you look like when you get struck by like okay yeah we're gonna go with Michael Dorn for this scene much better yeah yeah that was really good

I really love a set that looks so clearly made of other set pieces like the whole doors of the cargo bay cut in half and used on either side of this triangular booth in the middle like I love a kit bash set like this. It kind of felt like the inside of some shuttles that we've seen also, like the kind of weird angles of everything.

No one should be alarmed that the cloud has changed shape, right? That's what clouds do. Sometimes clouds just want to reach out and touch you, man. Yeah. When the scan begins, it's clear that a lockout, tagout rule has not been implemented in the sensor maintenance room. And Ben,

both people there are shocked. Warf is shocked by the purple lightning and Jordy is shocked that had happened. The guy that does the big fall when Warf gets shocked I think was maybe a white stunt man. I was looking at his hands and it really looked like they'd been like painted when he went down.

But yeah, Worf gets shocked. Jordy is stunned and calls in the medical emergency and Crusher comes in with like a nurse. And when Worf wakes up, he is like violent and raging and like tosses the nurse off him. Jordie has to like belly flop on top of Worf before Crusher can sedate him. And it almost feels like they're about to leave the room with Worf without even asking the nurse if he's all right. Like the dude got tossed. Dr. Crusher does ask him.

But he doesn't say anything in response, which I think suggests a head injury or a concussion or something. There's a whole C storyline with this guy that I just wish we could have followed, you know? Yeah. What Jordy reports in the Ready Room is that he saw a glow. And this is kind of interesting because, like, it didn't look like glow to us, but that's because Jordy sees really differently. And they're like, oh, you know, is it possible that Worf just collapsed in your visor? malfunctioned or or something. And Jordy's pretty sure that the visor's working correctly, but he can't like describe

the way something looked in a way that will be relevant to the person that's hearing about it. No conclusions to be drawn here. Over in the Antiquin suite, Yaron Riker have their hands full with this delegate named Bidar. You got Bidar from this? Bidar? Is that what his name really is? I thought it was Bidar.

Okay. I mean, I believe you. I believe you that it's Bidar. I didn't never hear a name check, you know? Not only are these delegates really unhappy to be there with each other. They have some specific food requests that were clearly misinterpreted. Didn't love how Riker sort of threw Yard under the bus here with regards to that? But in explaining away Yars' mistake, he's like, look, you know, everyone on this ship eats replicated food.

We're not like penning up mammals and feeding and butchering them for our nutrition. That's just not how we do things here. We no longer enslave animals for food purposes. This delegate takes great numbers with this with his country bear jamboree hands. He does a bunch of pointing and gesticulating. in a way that is unfortunate because when these are your hands as an alien species,

I think you should de-emphasize them. I think you should walk around with them behind your back maybe or like under a robe. Sure. Or something, I think the costume and alien department seems to be pretty proud of their creation here in a way that maybe is misplaced.

Why cover up Marco Lamo like this? Yeah. You know? Yeah. I want to see that face. It seems so hard to act not just through loaf, but through loaf that makes a snout, you know? What if this was the species that they selected to be the Kardashians and Gulducott had looked like this? You can't rule it out.

I mean, they made action figures out of these guys when the show first came out. I think suggesting that they didn't know if the Antikins and the Salé would be. an ongoing concern, right? This scene in particular strained credulity for me because he's like yelling at them about what barbarians they are. It's like, man, you asked the Federation

if you could be part of the club, not the other way around. Like, who are you to hurl that accusation at somebody in whose mutual defense pact you would like to become a member? I think this scene represents a feeling we get throughout the episode, which is like the audience as part of the scene and unspeaking part of the scene that is saying things like that without being said by actual characters. Like, because you're right, I would expect Riker to be like, what the fuck, man? Like, really?

You want us to turn this thing around and take you back? Your buddy's sleeping on the fucking floor in this, in this palatial hotel room we gave you. Give me a break. Yeah. In Six Bay, Crusher is working on the incapacitated lieutenant wharf and the lightning travels from him and into her. And Troy comes in and doesn't ask Grusher about like why she's acting so weird. Doesn't ask her why she's wearing that weird hat? Didn't this hat look like it would eventually be spray painted black and turned into a Borg's prosthetic?

Oh, yeah. I feel like I've seen a Borg's with like the half shell skull cap and I feel like that's what this is. Like Croesus wears it. Remember Derpy Croesus? It's part of what made him look so derpy. Oh man, I can't wait to get the Derpy Croesus. Uh-huh. The lightning having gone into Crusher has made her seem kind of distracted and aloof,

but it is also cured wharf of what ails him. And he doesn't have any memory of anything in between doing sensor maintenance and waking up on this biobed. I think waking up restrained is a terrible feeling that I don't think is unique to Klingons. Ben, when you woke up in prison, what did that feel like? to you when you finally came to. You know, it's patchy, right? When I was in that rumble with the 5-0. Were you chained to a metal toilet when you finally woke up?

What was that like? You know, once you're in holding, they take the metal things away because they don't want you using them as weapons on anyone else. Yeah, understandable. But on our way in, there were 11 of us chained together. They changed 11 people in a row, which was pretty wild. I only bring it up, Ben, to remind you how badly we need your mugshot to be made public. That is a good point.

I should try to get my hands on that. I love Dr. Beverly trying to act natural. It doesn't work for us, but it seems to work for Troy and Wharf. We go to Data and Picard on the bridge, and they, have the scans of this cloud and they're very curious about it. I love a mystery data. I mean, humans can't resist a mystery and data just wants to be as human as he can possibly be. But here's the thing. We got this schedule. Clock is ticking. So we go to Warp 8 and zoom off. We get a little scene in the crusher quarters where Dr. Beverly

comes home a little early to find her son working on his physics class homework. And for once, she's curious about what he's learning. I really like Gates McFadden as an actor. And this by no means, I hope we'll come across as any sort of criticism. But I do find it fun how there are some similarities between her reaction to getting shocked by purple electricity and a certain green gassy candle, you know? Like, as if she has sexual responses to, like, non-corporial stuff? Because you can't tell me when you watch this scene that Beverly doesn't read is a little bit horny.

Not for Wesley, but just in a, like, maybe she had just done it before coming back home or something. Or maybe she was coming to her apartment hoping to find it empty and she could, you know, put on a little mood music and, like, scroll through a couple of semi-elicit websites, you know? Yeah, she'd keestered a hypo spray, and now it's like, damn, I guess I got to wait for whatever this is to be over. Yeah. It's tough. Mom?

Something wrong. What a mood killer to get told about, like, recrystallizing dilithium more efficiently when all you want to do is blast. I love how Wesley calls this out right away. He's like, Mom, you usually are. never interested in whatever it is I happen to be doing. And she's like, you're right. I'm not usually. And then she leaves. It seems like he jogged her memory that the helm is on the bridge. So that's where she goes next.

And she kind of wanders onto the bridge from the forward turbo lift. And Picard's like, oh, hey, great. What's up with Wharf? How's he doing? And she describes it as a temporary mental aberration and just wants to leave it at that. But Picard is like more detailed. Like that doesn't sound satisfactory. Like I want to know why it happened. All of those kinds of things. And she's like, oh yeah, I got to probably like look at a computer to do some more reading about it. And he's like, okay, there's one in the back. I haven't read the script for this episode, but I got to believe that somewhere in there, uh, the camera direction or, um, the camera direction or or like the description looming was a part of what was described here,

because when you shoot Beverly upwards the way you do in several of these scenes, she's just kind of floating around. She's floating around Jordy. She's floating up the horseshoe to the back. Yeah. She's even floating around data, even though you wouldn't expect that to be possible. And what that does to convey, like, her gassiness, right?

Yeah. Like the idea that this thing is somehow involved. She like sits down at the research station right next to the one that data is using to go over the sensor data about the cloud. And he oversees what she's working on. And it doesn't look like anything to do with temporary mental aberrations. It's all about helm control. And he's like, huh, why are you looking that up? What does that have to do with what happened to Wharf?

This would be so upsetting. I would so want one of those privacy screens that business people use on airplanes. Sure. You got to, but like this is like the science station on the bridge. So like you kind of like, I mean, there's plenty of scenes that look like me editing and a edit bay and all the creatives from upstairs at the ad agency coming and hovering over me watching the latest cut. Like you don't want them to all have to get in direct line behind you to see it. I mean, I think that's when you would just take it off. Yeah.

Yeah. For all of the overseeing that data does about the computer research Beverly is doing, he does not see when the lightning leaves her fingers and goes into the panel. The most important part. Yeah. She downplays what she feels at the end of this moment in a way that is really unfortunate. If you feel something, you've got to say something, right? on Star Trek?

Yeah, one of the most consistent Star Trek tropes is somebody has a major noticeable lapse in memory and like keeps that close to the vest for at least a little while. Do you think that's human nature though? No matter how many hundreds of years this is into the future, you still want to behave as if you know what you're doing at almost all times. And like, if something's fucked up about how you acted, you want to address that later, not during. I think that's a very human instinct. I completely relate to it. I am maybe the worst in the world about that exact thing. Like, people do a joke and everyone laughs and I don't get it. I'm like,

ha ha ha ha. Like a friend of mine texted me a picture of a vanity license plate the other day, and I just said, ha, great. And then I was like, I don't have any idea what the significance of this vanity plate is. and I looked it up to see if I could like brush up on whatever the fuck he was trying to communicate to me. And I couldn't do it. And I was like, hey, I got to admit something to you. I don't know if an alien presence took over my birdie, but I have no idea what this vanity license plate means. The most been part of that story to me is that you would think it would be important enough to circle back on. to apologize for?

Like, like, no one's thinking about the vanity plate anymore until you bring it back up again. Then you got to let that go. I wanted to see if there was something to it, though, that I was like, like, am I not getting something or, you know? Yeah. I think there's also another part of human nature that wants to understand all the things. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, like, who are the members of Starfleet but people who want to? want to understand all the things, you know? God, if it's a fleet of bends, holy moly. Holy shit. Might not ever get out of Dry Dock. Starting to have glitches all over the ship. First, it's the science station, then we hear from engineering and the transporter room that there are outages happening there.

And Picard smells a rat, or maybe it's an antigen. Hmm. There is a really beautiful dorsal shot of, the ship that kind of like at warp kind of like flies toward the conference room and then we cut into the inside of it. I feel like this is a rare exterior that they don't use all the time and I really loved seeing it. I'm really appreciating this time around, really recognizing the stuff they're just trying and then they never return to like shots like this. Yeah, but it feels really special. Like, I don't think New Trek has as many constraints on the way they can show the

exterior of the ship, but... Oh, no, you're obligated to do like three spins of the camera before entering an exterior window on any new Star Trek show. Yeah, and the camera goes right through the window. Yeah. But, like, the lack of constraint, I feel like, means that they don't spend as much time just, like, letting you kind of sit with what the ship actually looks like. You're, always spinning and moving around. There is no up or down or left or right on a new Star Trek ship. Because you're just spinning too much. Just, yeah.

Constant spinning. So in the conference room, having a McLaughlin group. Issue one. Engineer Singh has come up. they mention Argyle in this scene, but he is not the one that has come up to the upper decks to talk about what's going on with engineering systems. Did you notice the Picard kind of Tin Man's Argyle

and his name here? Have you spoken with chief engineer Argyle about this problem? Tin Man. I think that's what Flummox is saying here most of all. He's like, did you just say Argyle? What? I'm fucking glad I'll never a monosyllabic last name. Captain, you heard me say his name first, right?

So, like, you had that as a model. Right. You heard it pronounced correctly so that you could then pronounce it correctly. It's not like when you called that guy broccoli. Poor broccoli. Which is such a dream and especially a workplace, Ben, is like, okay, I've only read this guy's emails. Like, I've never met them before. How do I say their name?

Oh, thank God. Singh said it first. So I won't fuck it up by saying Argyle. He is saying that it is really crazy, unlikely that all of these systems would fail at the same time because they're not all linked. And so some kind of cascade failure wouldn't jump between these particular things. It just doesn't make a lot of sense. I love the captain as dissatisfied car buyer here in a couple of scenes, which is, like, I think previously he's like, Data, what the fuck, man? Like, like, Galaxy class, flagship of the Federation, like, really? And even Data's like, impossible.

And in this scene, too, it's like, what are we dealing with here? This is supposed to be shit that we don't have to worry about. Like, he's doing a lot of delegating, you know, work the problem, like go back to engineering, see if you can come up with Helm control fixes. But what he is doing while everyone else is doing that is like looking up the Lemon Law in the Federation, seeing what kind of recourse he has as a consumer. Certainly, it has been within the 90-day window. The 90-day window for flagship. ship returns. We got another confrontation with the Antican chief delegate.

What did you call him, Badar? I did. I did. And yet I'm wondering whether or not I read that or heard it. Yeah. No one's calling him Badar. Yeah. Are they?

Bad are they? Bad are they? I like it. Yeah. They found some weapons on some of the Antigant dudes. And he's like, no, no, we just use the... That's like a... That's basically a butter knife to us.

And they're like, well, why were they lingering in the hallway around where the salet are staying with the butter knives? Like, that just doesn't really hang together, buddy. We're taking them. And you can't have them back until you're off the ship. We did scans of your birdies. These didn't come up in our scans at all in the Antikins. Like, well, we eat so much meat that our digestive systems can take on quite a bit from either end. They are rendered opaque to censor scans.

This fucking guy with his excuses about tools and so forth, he's not very receptive to the idea that enterprise is a violence-free place. Sort of like a school zone. They should probably put up signs that look like that on the transporter room walls. He basically tells them, don't start none, won't be none. And they leave. And it's very like ominous. when they leave, like, oh, fuck, like, they are setting up like a civil war breaking out

in the hallways of the ship, basically. Part of this is conveyed through lighting. Both of these species are almost always in rooms where the lights are turned way down low, I've found. The lighting in this episode is really dark. Like, the hallways are not as bright as they tend to be in later seasons. Yeah.

It's a very moody show at this point. And with the like hard fill light of a late 80s, early 90s video production, like, I remember like this one coming back at the interview subject being as hot as possible for a time. Like that was just the way people were shot. Got to get like rim light that is completely overexposed. Yeah. Is the goal. Yeah.

So warp goes out. The ship is now coasting. and Picard is now really quite pissed off about this state of the art vessel. You never buy like the first model year of a car, right? You're like wait, wait till they work some things out in the second or third model year. He's also captain punctual, right? Like he hates the idea of being late to parliament. And he's like, okay, well, like at least call them and let them know we're going to be a little bit late for our table reservation.

and data's like, phones are down too, Captain. That's tough. That's a tough thing to take. When it's not only your top line thing that's broken, it's the response to the broken thing that's also broken.

In his office, Picard solicits theories about what is going on from his first and second officers. And data is like, I think that we have some unknown adversary. The stuff that engineers Singh was saying about these systems not being interrelated enough for them to be breaking down in this way suggests that this is being done on purpose by someone. Riker translates this into the much simpler, we have a saboteur. I believe I said that. Gentlemen, the question is, who?

And they speculate about whether the Ferengi could be puppet mastering said Saboteur. Like if one of the salae or antigens is under the thrall of a like a more advanced parent species and the frangy are doing this, you know, to kind of proxy war the enterprise. No one ever checked their luggage for wooden shoes, though. I know. Hard to confirm. That's the kind of thing you would think would show up in the pattern buffer. But again, their colons are opaque to scans. The conversation turns toward the idea of a larger investigation, specifically done by an investigator, maybe even a private one even.

And this name Sherlock Holmes is evoked. And Data does that thing when he has a little bit of a twitch when he hears something interesting. Like that? Yeah, a little. Yeah. Planting something that's going to pay off big time a little bit later. But now we've got to go to engineering where engineers Singh and Wesley are apparently the only engineers working the problem. Ben, I want you to think about this scene from a very specific perspective, okay?

Try not to be certain that Wesley Crusher did not murder Singh. Just leave open the possibility that that's happened here and then play the next 15 minutes of this episode going forward. I think it's creepy as hell that no one suspects Wesley at all. Or that the episode doesn't present an idea that Wesley has also been inhabited by the Purple Lightning and is doing things separately from the first creature. He learns so much in the engine room. He does not want to go to class. That's motive right there.

Singh is kicking him out of the engineering section. That's basically Wesley's home. That's where he really shines. He's a warp theory Mozart. Do you need to know what class looks like? to get on Wesley's level, because I think a lot is made over Wesley's character being kind of annoying and always wanting to go to the office instead of school and so forth. I really wish there was more of a counterpoint presented here, because without it, I feel like we're just

this fucking kid is just annoying the adults. Like, go to school. Like, that's the only angle we're getting here. We cut away to onboard school. in session with like Lieutenant Ben Stein teaching Earth history. Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Wes goes and complains to his mom about having had to go to class. And he's like, you know, it's just like, it's like that theory that I was telling you about from earlier,

about the dilithium crystals. And she's like, what are you talking about, kid? This doesn't seem too, too unusual for Wesley to refer to a conversation he had earlier with his mom that she doesn't remember. I mean, it's a little bit of a bump. Sorry, honey, I was looking at a magazine at the time. Remind me? Yeah. When we cut back to engineering, the murder of Mr. Singh has happened. And when Worf finds the body dangling over the warp core shaft, like, by the neck,

Like, am I describing that right? When your body, when your head is dangling, but your body is on, on like a surface. Yeah. That's how he's posed. It's a really brutal looking death. Yeah. I want to call your attention to a theory I have, which is that maybe the same stuntman performed the death of Singh and the lightning shock of Wharf because in both scenes, there is this pure. move where they turn all the way around before collapsing on the floor. It was just delightful to me

to see two different characters go down hard in almost exactly the same way in the same episode. Are you going to say this is a white stunt man again, Ben? I don't know. I don't know. I could be wrong about the stunt man. It could be not a stunt man. And the guy that played Sig and the guy that played Worf made the same choice. And, you know, it's not that dangerous a stunt. It like fall on the ground. So maybe it wasn't a stunt man. I was really hungry for one extra thing to this stunt, which was like, you know, there's the carpeted area of engineering and then there's the glassy, glossy part that surrounds the warp pump and the core and the shaft. I wanted him to hit the slick part and slide. And slowly like his head goes over. And then like,

Worf gets on the scene just too late to catch him. That's pretty complex. Yeah. Nobody realizes how far down that goes. Like, that is a deep hole. It isn't until Jordy says those exact words many seasons after this that you really understand how long the way down is to the bottom of the warp core. I am the cutest aboard.

You will respond to my questions. I am le cutus aboard. You are bored. Picard has ordered an immediate investigation into the death of engineer Singh, and they've somehow let Wesley inside the police cordon. He is. They're helping Jordian Wharf speculate on how this guy bought the farm. This is another scene that kind of supports the, are we sure it wasn't Wesley?

Hypothesis. What's he doing in there? So you're suggesting he, like, rigged the panel up to. to shock someone. Either that, or he was controlled by a different purple lightning entity. Hmm. There's more than one. He's like the shooter on the grassy knoll kind of purple lightning.

But it is more fun to think about Wesley and his thirst for violence. Mm-hmm. Maybe just simmering under the surface here. He is the wonderkind that no one. one suspects is also like extravagantly murderous psychopath. Mr. Singh, I don't think you understand exactly how much I don't want to go to school. I don't think you're hearing me, Mr. Singh. They're looking at the panel that did the shocking.

And I was a little confused by this because, I mean, maybe this goes to support your theory, because Wesley had been talking to Singh about, all we need to do is this and we'll get warp power back. And Singh was like, cool, I'll take care of that. You get to class, kiddo. And now Wesley's going like, like there's no way he could have repaired the engines based on what I'm seeing here.

But we have warp power. Wasn't your initial reaction? The whole like, whatever, Wesley. Yes, you're smarter than everyone else. There's no way Singh could have solved this problem. He's too much of an idiot. was sort of the sauce put on that line, I thought. Yeah.

I mean, given that he's dead especially, like, you can't fix something when you're dead. Yeah. Dead men fix no engines. Yeah. Right? As the pirates famously say, Picard's quite happy to hear it. They go to Warp 6, not Warp 8, which was the speed that they had to go earlier to make up the time for scanning the cloud.

Suspicious, huh? Strange. Get another scene with Bidar and Yarr. Yarn Bada. God, these two could never get married, could they? Of course they could. That's not how taking names works. Maybe.

Maybe in the future, Bidar Yard could be a thing. Yeah, a better future, huh? She takes his first name as her last name and makes her last name her first name. and he just takes her last name as his last name. Here's how evolved we are in the 24th century. We're putting little slips of paper with first and last names into a hat. And then we're going back and forth

and we're just drawing names. And guess what? Once we're married, that's your name now. And if you pick Badar Yar? Yeah. Tough titties. You're stuck with it. What do you make of the alibi of a big,

buffet being Badaar's excuse for not being involved in the Singh murder and yet the Antikin's beards are bright white constantly like wouldn't you think facial hair like that would constantly get if he's saying they had a feast many hours long wouldn't you presume some food in the beard anywhere maybe they put like a they put some kind of prophylaxis on the beard when they're when they sit down to eat. Like a dental dam? Like your dental damn up, so it's just... Only mouth.

He did say it was a very interesting animal that he was eating. I just made a sound that will make windy throw up. Like the... That's terrible. I regret doing that. You got to hit the cough button before you do shit like that, Adam. Yeah. But when you're making dental dam sound,

there's only one sound you can make. right? There's really only one way to go on that. Yeah. The alibi is thin, let's just say. Almost just thin as a dental dam. And Troy has this idea that she can hypnotize Wharf and Dr. Crusher because they're the two people on the ship that have lost some time. They don't remember little spans of time. Ben, over the years, I know we've come up with like rules of greatest gen. And I think it's time to add another one to the list, okay? Okay. If anyone ever proposes a workplace hypnosis session, you must decline. I want to try hypnosis on both of you. How about new? Only bad outcomes, right? Yeah.

I've been to one hypnosis show. Have you ever gone to like a stage hypnotist show? I find them troubling, even when they're supposed to be funny. I'm uncomfortable by it. There's always the like, oh, like, are we going to like? have her get her top off. Like, no, we're just playing with that as an idea. We're going to make her cluck like a chicken instead.

Yeah. There was a kid on my dorm floor at the, it was like a freshman orientation thing for some reason. There was a stage hypnotist that you could go see. And the kid on my floor that like went up on stage and got hypnotized said that he had like jet lag from it. Like he couldn't sleep that night. And he was like completely thrown. off for like a week. Doing things in college that you're inhibited by, that's what the alcohol is for.

What are we doing? Doesn't make any sense. In the observation lounge, Yaron Reiker talked to Data, who has replicated himself a totally fucking ridiculous pipe. And we're doing Holmseian language and talking about whether things are indubitably or not. Something was afoot. A foot? Data has concluded

that the delegates are not the culprits, like Singh did not get killed by a Soleil or an ampicane. Ben, I think everyone would agree that of the two hosts of this show, you're probably the more book smart. That's very kind of you to say. Let's just take that as law. I would say I'm also

the more street smart, but go on. Given your time in prison, I would agree. Here's what I want to ask, how did we all get on the same page with how Sherlock Holmes acts based on what's written about him? Like, can we really get through his dialogue that he was really kind of a twerp? You know, there are many depictions of Holmes because Holmes is in the public domain, I think, so you can just do whatever you want.

I guess, like, Mickey Mouse will become this soon. is like anybody can have their interpretation of Mickey Mouse. But Sherlock Holmes is always kind of an asshole, right? Like in every depiction? Yeah, I think he's kind of a smug dick about being smarter than everybody. Like, uh, kind of makes you wonder if he would like murder an engineer who made him go to school. It doesn't make you wonder that, huh? The upshot is that the delegates would much rather murder each other than anybody in Starfleet.

Yeah, I buy that. We get the hypnosis scene for Beverly, and she describes leaning over Wharf to like take a specimen and feeling somebody else there. And somebody else she did not like being there with. Like she was taking a specimen from an area that she's usually used to one thing, you know, being there. And in this case, she felt the presence of a second thing where she was only expecting the one thing when she was drawing a specimen. Huh. And Troy's like, Worf,

you said the same. Weird. I thought Beverly was entirely human. You know that thing that you said off camera? Yeah, this is a corroboration.

I like that Worf went first. I like that Troy's asked, like, why did you not say anything when you were sensing this weird duality in key bridge officers before? And she's like,

well, the like, duality of man kind of confused me on that one, to be honest. Duality of Klingon is a far different thing isn't it? Yeah, that's just about redundancy. Right. I know about redundancy, Mr. Honor.

We cut over to the ready room where Troy presents her conclusions to Captain Picard and the entire senior staff, which is really crammed into this room in a way that I don't feel like they do very often again after this. It's

a small space for this many senior bridge officers to be in. I feel like you want to leave a designated survivor in the Star Drive section or something, you know. Yeah, yeah. The hypnosis revealed a form of invasion. And to data, if we exclude everyone on board the ship, the most likely invader is going to be something having to do with that space cloud out there that they saw earlier. Some being of pure energy may have come aboard. And with that, the helm goes down again. And they can't even radio engineering to talk to them about it.

We're back to Impulse. And Picard gets the lightning. That comes out of the thing onto Picard's hand now. And this time, Jordy kind of like catches it in the corner of his visor. Like it's happened so many times that nobody else saw what was happening. happening. Jordy is the only person who like sees it like one and a half times, but he can't describe it in a satisfactory way to anybody. So nobody has believed him. I really feel like this is a great opportunity not taken for Patrick Stewart to give us the Beavis with his, with his react

to lightning. Like imagine he touches the panels, the lightning shoots up his arms, he's like, Damn it, damn it, Captain. Jordy's like, what's up, Captain? He's like, he's like, he, he, ha, everything's fine. My love is a people long in jail for that which longer a nurse has the disease. He also makes Jordy look like a fucking idiot. Like in this moment where Jordy should be feeling so vindicated, like, see, there's glowing and it goes into people. No.

It's sort of a magician's flourish there Because Jordy's like, there's nothing in my hand I don't feel it. And Picard's like, open it up now. And like 14 pigeons fly out. Oh, I didn't feel those. And then one of the pigeons shits And he picks up the wad and he's like,

Is this your card? And he unfolds it. And yeah. Anyways, Helm is working perfectly. The ship is fine. And Picard, very well, weirdly announces that they're going to be going on a new heading. Into the next episode.

And then the credits roll. And that's where we leave it. Jordy's like, I'm pretty sure that's an illegal U-turn, Captain. You're not supposed to do that over a double yellow line. And he says, you heard the order. And they really whip the ship around in space. Is this a first season thing? Or is this the first couple season thing where you get like the discordant, weird,

harmonic score relating to things that are supernatural or alien or whatever because you get a lot of that in this episode and I really love it. Yeah, cool music in this one. Riker wants to know what is up and Picard is like, hey, really a ship of science first and foremost and there's some great science to be done with that very interesting energy cloud back there. I think that that's what we should be doing. And nobody else on the bridge really agrees. Get a brief scene of O'Brien trying to break up a squabble between the delegates in the corridor. Really nice to see O'Brien like just there doing some shit. Yeah, this isn't the shit that he should be doing now. I know. But like fun that he had a different job before he was transporter chief.

Yeah. He kind of bounced around to different majors, didn't he? He really did. There's an improvised McLaughlin group in someone's quarters. Is you too? Whose quarters is this? Was this? Like, I don't think Dr. Crusher has, like, model of a shuttlecraft and model of a spaceship in her quarters. Is this Riker's quarters that we're in? All I know is, everyone is here except Picard?

And they're like, is this guy acting to the level where we can mutiny and feel good about it? Troises Picard is dangerous. That's the word. That seems to make it possible to do some sort of secret medical scan of him. Or at least ask him to submit to a medical scan in order to determine if he should be relieved of command. They're going to go approach. And I love the scene where Riker and Dr. Krescher go in. And Riker's kind of like pushing Crusher forward.

Like, you do it. Not me. You do it. I'd like you to come to six. for some examinations, Captain. Oh. It's such a terrible look for Riker. Because when Picard not only denies

the request to take a medical exam, but also throws it back in their faces, like, why don't you and everyone else on the ship take a medical exam? Why don't you? And then orders them out of the room for their bullshit. They didn't have a plan for him saying no, Ben. How could they go in there without a plan for that?

That's on Riker, I think. They just leave with their tails tucked between their legs. Did they really think he was going to go along with this? He orders them to do it instead. Yeah. Bad look. Riker is, I guess, walking to his psych exam, maybe,

when he gets caught in a salet snare. And they're like, oh, we were hunting antichens. I actually like this sequence coming after the last one, because if you, for some reason, are wondering what the fuck is wrong with Riker and why can't he see a couple of plays ahead? He can't see a couple of feet ahead from his face because this neon animal control collar gets him somehow. Oh to be a fly on the wall when some onset PA was told, hey, cut open a bunch of these glow sticks and pour the liquid into this length of clear tubing that we got down at the hardware store. This is as cool as most effect shots of its day. This thing was awesome, I thought. It was cool. Yeah. Crusher comes back with the results of her and Riker's medical and psych

exams, and Picard doesn't want to inspect them. He just wants to read whatever he's reading on his laptop. It was busy work, clearly. He reveals that John Luke is in fact here. We wish you could understand the glorious adventure ahead. and basically mask off. Like, yes, an alien is puppet mastering Picard. And we're going back to the cloud because that's where the alien comes from. No one's happy about this plan, Ben. They're going to do it anyway.

They don't feel like they have the legal clearance to unseat Picard, even though he's admitted that he is not Picard. And he comes out out of the bridge and he makes, an announcement. Yes, we accidentally carried a sentient being away. It was so scared. Can you imagine how scary that would be for me getting carried away from Cloud? And I tried to ask for help, but you didn't understand.

It wouldn't understand. You shouldn't understand. I don't understand. Really great Patrick Stewart work here, making the case for Cloud Thing, as the grieved party, you know? And Picard can't really talk right now because Cloud Thing is doing the talking, but just to calm your nerves, let me assure you, Picard thinks this is a great idea. Picard is coming with me, Cloud Thing, and we're going to Cloud.

And that's just the plan now, man. Picard has sort of a brain cloud thing happening. And for an impression of Brain Cloud guy, here's Benjamin R. Harrison. We're going to be combined energy pattern. And Crusher, like, tries to do her medical relieve you of duty way too little too late, Dr. Crusher. He already resigned, Dr. Crusher. Like, you blew it.

You blew it. You're way too late. Fuck are you talking about. He turned in his papers. He shocks everybody on the bridge and then heads to the elevator, goes to the transporter room. I guess everybody on the ship maybe got shocked because the transporter chief is lying on the floor here. Yeah, everyone that was touching a panel looks like they might have gotten it. I guess so. And he beams himself into space and we get a Riker's log.

It's been an hour since Picard beamed his energy only out into the cloud. So he's just floating around out there? How can we settle for that? They are scanning around, trying to pick him up. and the bridge raker's like, all right, well, we gave it a good college try, but we do have to get to parliament eventually. So let's head out of here. And that is when Troy picks up the captain. And she expresses that he's alone and feels like he's in trouble. And data postulates, well, we went through that cloud and the energy being got into the ship somehow.

We don't exactly understand the method, but if we pull the ship into the cloud a little bit closer, maybe Picard will be able to get back up in the ship's guts. So little of what happens from here into the end made much sense to me as someone who professionally watches Star Trek. So we beamed just energy out there, and somehow just energy can just, like through touching the ship, reboard the ship.

Yeah. And then we can use the pattern that was in the transporter buffer to recombine them. Did I interpret this right? There's that theory that like every time you get transported, your body is killed and a new version of your body has made somewhere else. Yeah. And they like have the corpses. Maybe they like downloaded him back into his own corpse.

This is actually the first time Picard becomes. a golem. Everyone had forgotten the burial in space that they did for Singh, and so they accidentally combined Picard's energy with Sing's party. And Picard is played by this guy, the rest of the series. Well, but Patrick Stewart does the voice. They like dub him in. Yeah, you have to.

Great voice. His physical pattern is in the transporter, and they energize, and it's like one of those energizes that takes a little while, But then it works. And Picard is back on the transporter pad and has no memory of going out into the cloud. You should hurt when you arrive after a transporter sequence that takes that long. Yeah. You should be like, not that you're cold, but you should be like rubbing your sleeves and your skin.

Yeah. It should tingle weird. It should feel fucking crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I love that Yarr barely gives a shit that the captain has been found alive. She's like murder outside one of the Salaise quarters. We're pretty sure that the Antikins are trying to cook one of them.

This is a TOS-style ending to a TNG episode, Ben. When we're talking about murder and desecration of a body played for laughs before the credits roll. Picard's like, I don't have time for this shit. I'm going on lunch break. That reminds me I have not eaten since breakfast Reptile you say That sounds delicious right about now

This is becoming a speech You're the captains they're entitled I'm entitled Well Anna that was a great episode of Star Trek The Next Generation I wanted to talk to you a little bit about What tone they were going for here

Like we've got this murder at the end of the episode. The sale are depicted hunting the antichens. They mistake Riker for one of them, indicating maybe they have terrible eyesight, which no doubt they make

up for with their keen sense of smell. Sure. But like, these are species that, as we've discussed, hate each other's guts, see each other as food, but also want to be in the Federation, and don't seem to mind that the other will also

be in the Federation with them. This is also the episode where Data's interest in Sherlock Holmes is unveiled and he is like hamming it up with that pipe. Data, let's proceed without the pipe. We also get that

crazy expression on Worf's face when he gets shocked, unlike anyone else in the cast who also get shocked. Like, why did it hit Worf so different? It's kind of the silliest episode we've gotten so far, and yet I don't really feel like they're playing it for laughs much.

It really reminded me how much power the show has in insisting we feel a kind of way about aliens we just meet, because I think there's a version of this where we can take the Antichens and Sillet pretty seriously as a threat to each other and to the folks on the ship. but from jump, from their very arrival, it's eye rolls about these people in a way that like serves what the episode is trying to do, which is turn this into B story, the A story's the cloud,

everything else is kind of a whatever. But I wonder if this episode were to take place in like season six, if it isn't played more seriously in a two alien species have escaped aboard the ship during a time when the ship is compromised and its systems are needing to be restored and like these stuck in a haunted house vibe that you often get in a science fiction episode

where like you're challenged by the technology and by the strangers you just met and you're trying to land the plane at the end that solves all your problems. Like this just never seemed like an episode capable or interested in that kind of storytelling. And it was, as you say,

surprising how early it telegraphed that to the viewer. Like, at least reveal it at the end. Like, at the end, oh, you shouldn't have been so worried about it. But from jump, it was like, do not worry about these people. The darkness of the lighting in this episode, the, like, intensity of the music are so at contrast with how fucking silly everything going on. is. Like, even like Beverly's fucking hat that she wears when she's scanning

like, everything is so silly. Quite agree, quite agree. Silly, silly, silly, silly. Right. Get on with it. It is like one of the most disjointed episodes of Star Trek I can remember watching in a long time. I really love the episode, though, and the most serious part that goes kind of unanswered by the end is like, what do you do when your captain goes crazy? and remains the kind of all-powerful captain figure you've always known.

Like, what does it take to medically confine him to corridors or mutiny him or whatever? That things happen in this episode that seemed to rise to that level, and yet no one was willing to do it, is an extremely bad look for the crew of the Federation flagship, I thought. But it felt prescient. Like, that is kind of like the way we truly. leaders in human society and like no trip to Walter Reed is going to cause anybody to convince themselves that maybe this person should not be entrusted with our safety. I wonder if there is a version of season one where this is the pilot episode where it's a

we don't know Captain Picard very well. And is this strange behavior from him? We don't really know. Or is it normal? Because I think there's a bit of that in this episode where it's like, we don't know him that well. He's acting unusually, but he's not acting crazy because we don't know him enough to know that. Interesting stuff. Well, let's see if there's anything interesting in the priority one inbox. What do you say? I'm touching the spreadsheet bin and no lightning is coming from it.

Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on secure channel. Need a supplemental. Supplement. Supplement. Yeah, it's extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. This first message is a promotional priority one. Goes like this. Attention. Friends of DeSoto. Are you a person who is slightly embarrassed by how much you know about mutant history?

Or would you like to be? Then set a course for five minutes of X. I'm reviewing and archiving every single Marvel mutant appearance. Five minutes at a time. Okay, more. It's the same kind of obsessive deep dive you love here, but with more spandex and fewer flutes. Search 5 minutes of X on YouTube to join the archive. Don't be a knuck.

Subscribe today. Kim drop. Something about it reminds me of being in the womb. Get up, Harry. Who are you? Harry Kim. Parents must be very proud. Who are you?

They come as a pair. Who are you? Harry Kim. Who else is she supposed to get chummy? with Harry Kim 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. I'm constantly saying that five minutes of X is enough for everyone involved. And clearly, Jordy believes the same.

Sounds exhausting to me. I mean, how do you do it for that long? You take a little break in the middle? Drugs, Ben. Drugs. Ah. So, uh, subscribe to Jordy's YouTube channel, Five Minutes of X. Yeah, I like this ideal up. I do too. I could use a little more spandex in my life.

Ben, we've got a personal priority one message here. It is to my dearest filber. It is from your favorite coworker. Here's how that goes. Are we Jordian data? Guyin and Picard's Beyond friendship. Beyond family is a good depiction of us, too, I think. I have said that we are such kindred spirits that I felt we shared the same soul. What my theory presupposes is that we have actually been friends since time in a merium. Perhaps Imzadi is the best description of our relationship. Happy birthday. Oh, happy birthday, my dearest Philbert?

It would be impossible to, you know, background check, priority one messages. So I'm just going to assume good intent, good relationship intent, and not think that Philbert's coworker isn't putting this on them in a surprise, in a surprising way. Imagine you're just at the workplace with your earbuds in and suddenly you're Philbert. You're wearing Philbert's name badge. You know, you're doing your Philbert work. You're looking around the open office trying to figure out which one of your co-workers sent this.

Exactly. That's what I'm saying. I'm not presuming anything bad here. I'm saying these coworkers know each other and know each other very well. And Philbert's coworker really likes them a whole lot. I think that's a safe assumption, Adam. This one's two, you and me, and it's from a possibly satisfied patient. It goes like this.

Dear Doctors, I recently received my prescription for you. your prescribed slash advertised microdose jazz gummies. I'm more familiar with the effects of blood wine, and I'm not sure what to expect. I'm not feeling anything so far. Should I power hour these to feel something? Try 47 at a time. Listeners to your men's health podcast may appreciate more info. I cannot believe we're being asked.

Specific dosing advice. Ben, we cannot possibly answer, right? I think everybody's got a tolerance level that is their own, you know, whether your high tea or low tea is not for us to decide as a Ben's Health podcast. And I think the nice thing about microdose gummies is if you try one and you wait an hour and you don't feel anything, try two next time and find your dose. Yeah, I think that's good advice. Whenever anyone Whenever anyone offers me drugs, Ben, I kind of say I'll do half of what they're suggesting

And I think that advice may work here If you're trying something new And there is a prescribed dose to it God, we're going to get so fucking sued, aren't we? Do less than is advised at first Just to see how that hits you. I think that's good advice and everything, right? I just put it in my mouth and chewed up

And then I asked them what I just had. What's wrong with Ben this time? Or you can do that, but what you can definitely do is get a Priority One message at greatesttrecht.com or at Podshop.biz, where we now sell them, right? Podshop.com. Sure do. They are a great way to get your message out there,

get the Greatest Gen Bump, pump, and also support the production of this show. We only sell a whole Priority One. though. You can't start with a half. Gotta do the whole thing. But you could do all three if you wanted. Take the hero dose of Priority One messages at Podshop, that's up is. Yeah. Priority One power hour. That's an exciting idea.

Well, Adam, blinking you miss it. But today's exciting episode of Star Trek The Next Generation took place in a star system in which two planets host sentient space-faring species. Those species hate and want to consume each other,

blissfully unaware that they share their home system with a third intelligent form of life that takes the form of an anomalous energy coursing through a warp-capable cloud of gas. Those three species live in the Beta Renner System. Welcome to the first ever hit trivia game within a podcast, Beta Renner or System, where players have to answer questions about things named Beta in Star Trek, Jeremy Renner, and System of a Down. I'm so fucking suing you, man.

Our contestant today is Adam Pranica, a Star Trek podcaster residing in sunny Los Angeles, California with his wife and puppy. Welcome to the show, Adam. How dare you? How dare you take this and modify it and use it against me? Your task today. will be to properly guess at least two out of three answers correctly, or you will have to write and release as an audio file in the bonus feed,

a work of original slash fiction involving members of the Antiquan, Saleh, and should you so choose, gas cloud species? Question one. Which of the following is true about things named Beta in Star Trek? A, there are over 100 locations in Star Trek that include the word beta. This includes colonies, planets, star systems, space objects, etc. B. Captain Will Decker of Star Trek the motion picture famously inspired the character of Will Riker.

In the first draft of the script, Decker was gay, and rather than a female Delton love interest named Ilya, he had a male Baden love interest named Joseph. And C. The fish in Picard's Ready Room Aquarium was originally a beta fish, but producer David Livingston felt it was too effeminate for Picard, insisting they get a lionfish instead. He was reportedly such a dick about it that they named the lionfish after him. A is my answer. You are correct.

There are over 100 locations in Star Trek canon that include the word beta. Question two. Celebrated actor Jeremy Renner has never appeared in Star Trek. But much like Wesley has a knack for warp theory, Renner was considered a child prodigy in which sport. A. Fencing. B. Bowling. C. Archery. God, the archery thing is just so perfect because of the Hawkeye thing. It is, isn't it?

I feel like you're trying to trick me with that. But no one is a prodigy at Bowler. which could only leave whatever it was the first one that you said. Fencing? Fencing. God, could it be fencing? Which is less likely, a bowling prodigy or a fencing prodigy? How did I say it out loud, bowling?

Prodigy, such an interesting word. And yet he does look pretty good holding a bow and shooting an arrow. I'm just going to choose the obvious one. I'm going to choose C. Ro! Jeremy Renner was a very talented bowler as a child. Get out of town. Gave him his competitive winning attitude.

I mean, he certainly wasn't a prodigy snowplow driver. Right? Could have come in handy later. Yeah. Question three. The Armenian-American metal outfit System of a Down released the album, Toxicity in 2001. The album's producer Rick Rubin says they nearly broke up during the recording over which lyric.

A, pull the tapeworm out of your ass on the song Needles. B, I cry when angels deserve to die on the song Chop Sui. Or C, Ariel's in the sky. When you lose small mind, you free your life on the song Ariel's. I really like this band And I really like this album And I have read a lot about how often they've broken up And in fact, how they are broken up right now

Can you very quickly reread just the lyrics A, B and C A, pull the tapeworm out of your ass B, I cry when angels deserve to die C, Ariel's in the sky When you lose small mind You free your life I think it's the ass one

Final answer? Yeah. Correct! Woo! They had a knock-down, drag-out fight in the recording booth because the line was originally pulled a tapeworm out of my ass, and some of the band members thought that was too gross. Yeah, I could see that. I mean, God, would you ever get into a fist fight with me over something to be put in one of our episodes?

I think there is a line. Maybe if Rick Rubin was producing the episode, you know, the stakes would be so high, you know? Yeah. Paying like hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour for his presence. Yeah, I mean, there's just no way. There's no way he could improve what is so good already. Well, Adam, you have won this installment of Beta Renner or System,

thus depriving the Friends of DeSoto. of what could have been a truly gross piece of slash fiction. Maybe you'll get me next time, Ben. Well, Wendy is going to take this show over from here, tell you a little bit about what's coming out in the future from us and tell you about all of the talented folks who helped make this show possible. Thanks, Wendy. Take it away, Wendy.

Bye, bye. The Greatest Generation is an Uxbridge Shimoda podcast. It's hosted by Adam Pranika and Ben Harrison, and it's produced and edited by Wendy Pretty. Next week, we'll be back with another episode of Star Trek The Next Generation, so stay out of the flower beds, because we're visiting the Edo in Season 1, Episode 8, Justice. Until then, thank you to all the members who support this show.

If you want to join them and get an ad-free feed, plus a lot of great bonus episodes, sign up at greatesttrecht.com. You can also just click the link in the show. the show notes right there in your podcatcher, and we thank you for your support. Music for the greatest generation is by Dark Materia. Social media is managed by Bill Tilly and Rob Adler, who also puts together the greatest newsletter every month. Visit Podshop.biz to get signed up for that. You can also book a P1 there and find yourself

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Uxbridge, Shimoda.