The Greatest Generation - Diller Hoof Soup Company (ENT S1E6)

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

When the Entrepreneur goes looking for a long-lost colony, they find a group of cafeteria Novans living in real Star Trek caves. But when the dumb-dumbs can’t understand why they’re slowly becoming irradiated, moving them to another continent soothes Captain Archer’s vanity. When does Malcolm Reed win? Why is the Hungarian rec basketball team so fragrant? What’s going to be good for the health of the ship? It’s the episode with a pristine polar region!Support the production of The Greatest GenerationGet a thing at podshop.biz!Sign up for our mailing list!Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Riker - Quantum LeapThe Greatest Generation is produced by Wynde PriddySocial media is managed by Rob Adler and Bill TilleyMusic by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFriends of DeSoto for: Labor | Democracy | JusticeDiscuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen and find us on social media:YouTube | Facebook | X | Instagram | TikTok | Mastodon | Bluesky | ThreadsAnd check out these online communities run by FODs: Reddit | USS Hood Discord | Facebook group | Wikia | FriendsOfDeSoto.social

Friends of De Soto, we've got some exciting news for FODs Across the Pond. Tickets are officially on sale for our show at the London Podcast Festival. That's on September 14th, 2024 at 4.30pm. You heard that right, 4.30pm. It's an afternoon matinee show. Now I know what you're thinking. Who does a podcast show in the afternoon? Well, we do. And it's going to be brilliant. And remember the amazing crowd we had last year? We sure do. That's why we have to go back. As for the topic, that's going to be a cheeky little secret for now.

But don't wait. Head over to greatestgentour.com and snag your tickets because this one's definitely going to sell out. That's greatestgentour.com for tickets. Hurry up and get them before they're gone. Here's to the finest crew in Starling. When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument from me. This is a parody. Paramount owns the sun. Welcome to the Greatest Generation Enterprise. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys

who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pranica. Adam. What? We talked about it for years that this show has ruined us for the real world and for other jobs. And it may have come the closest to home

that it ever has for me recently. And you were there for it. I had a bad bit moment, my friend. ["Bits and Beakers"] Bits and Beakers. All I do is bits, bits, bits. No matter what. You're always doing bits, bits, bits. No matter what. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. Bits. B about. I must have been drunk.

I don't think you were drunk. You came over to visit. I think it was for the streaming CybOctacular, actually. We watched the stream together, and then we did one of our meet and greet sessions here in my office. And then I walked you out to your car, and we are getting ready to do a little bit of a home renovation project over here. And this is a home renovation project

that will involve pulling permits. And some guy that we have working with us on this told us that if we're pulling permits, the city is going to require that we show a survey of our lot to get the permits to do the thing we want to do. And it's really not a big deal. We're not like building a new structure. I don't really know why we have to pull this permit, but.

I mean, but if some guy tells you to. Yeah, some guy said we had to do it. A new homeowner is encouraged to consult that guy for advice on doing any sort of home renovations. So just to get the scope of this, this is a guy with a laser beam that shoots to a post that sprays some paint down and gives you the geometry of your lot, like specifically. This is all we're talking about. Yeah, and I mean, there is a dark art to it.

That's what they'll have you believe. I don't know all the ins and outs of it, but one of the things that they do when they do the survey is, I guess they don't always do this, but they can mark your lot corners. And when they marked the front corners of our house, the way they did it was they like kachunked a little brass washer and nail or something into the sidewalk out front.

And in the record, it's like the lot starts, you know, two feet this way, you know, because we don't own the sidewalk, but it does show exactly where the lot is orthogonal to that. So you and I walked out of my house after the streaming cybock tackle and I was like, hey, look, I got a new brass like lot corner marker. And look at that.

It's to the other side of the retaining wall between my neighbor's house and my house. so I can knock all this shit down. I'm bracing because you had some confidence there in that hypothesis. You walked to your car said your farewells and then... I got out of there pretty fast. And then I heard a... Because a Benjamin with that kind of confidence is a very dangerous man.

No good for anything. I heard my neighbor let a little cough go. They are gardeners, part of excellence, and they have lots and lots of plants at the yard. So this was not just a yard decoration of a bent over ass that you see sometimes. This was ass actual. This was ass actual.

I don't know for sure that my old sweet neighbor who has been nothing but kind heard everything, but she and her husband have, I've waved at them several times since that moment and just gotten stony, scowly faces. I have... Oh, they heard, Ben. They heard. They heard. They heard it all.

I've been like lying in bed at night looking at the ceiling, like, why, like, what a stupid bit. Like, so useless. Like, it wasn't even that funny to Adam, who is like the only person that really thinks I'm funny in the world. And even then, I mean, it'd be hard to tell by listening to the show. Bits, bits, bits. You probably scared the shit out of him, Ben.

Yes, exactly. Like, English isn't their first language. There's no way I'm going to be able to explain. I was doing a bit to my comedy partner for jokes about knocking your property down. All they know is that recently a survey team discharged a weapon into the sidewalk that fired an official looking washer into it. And they got a neighbor laughing about how he's going to drive an excavator through the side of their property. I am sick. I'm sick. I've been sick for weeks about this.

Why haven't you talked to them, Ben? They won't talk to me. Ben, it's time to, you're gonna think this is a confrontation, but it's not. It's just a conversation. You just gotta, you know what? Here's what you do. Maybe you take one of those pies that your parents send you. You bring it next door as a peace offering and you say, Hey, neighbor, just wanted to say, hi, think you're great. And I'm not going to knock over your fence and destroy all of your property. Yeah.

What you've done is you've left, like, there's a, there's an information vacuum here, Ben, that's just being filled and you gotta, you gotta stop that vacuum from exploding. I, yeah, like I'm, I'm sure that they're sick too, right? They're like, they're worried that the guy that they used to think was a nice guy that lived next door to them is scheming on knocking their shit over. I'm sure as soon as you pulled up in the U-Haul, it was there goes the neighborhood for those folks. Is that a podcast mic?

Yeah, yeah. Oh my God, that's two SM7Bs? That means he's got guests. Oh, oh God. You know that Paul F. Tompkins is gonna show up at some point if he's got two SM7Bs. It's time to go permit only on all the street parking. And it's time to raise the fences.

Ben, you know what you have to do. I do. I know, I know. It's hard. They don't speak tons of English and the interactions that we have had up until this point, extremely pleasant but extremely surface level slash them giving us like culturally decontextualized tips about how to raise a young child. I'm sure that's welcome.

Oh, okay. We'll give some consideration to that. You put potato in, uh... You put potato in cream. Yeah, so... Boy grow up strong. We are very worried about our reputation with Mr. and Mrs. Putin. I can do a fucking Polish accent. I'm Polish, okay?

I can do a fucking Polish accent. I'm Polish, okay? Yeah, I'm worried. Because they were like our preferred neighbors of the, you know, we've got neighbors on either side. Not anymore. Not anymore. I think we're team... Now it's the other neighbors, huh? The other neighbors.

Yeah. You blew it! You blew it! I'm so fucked. What does your very nice wife think of this situation that you've ruined? She's basically taken the same position you have. It's just that I am too much of a coward to actually take this very good advice for action,

or so far have been too much of a coward for that. You know what? As much as the information vacuum has been filled by your neighbors, you're filling your own vacuum with dark thoughts, man. It's not as bad as you think. That thing where you have the conversation in your head a million times. Oh, you got to get out of that business, man. Yeah, that's no good. Those are the psychic wars. You got to lay down your psychic firearm, turn it into psychic plowshare.

Beat my psychic sword. Yeah. That's what you got to do. Yeah. Yeah. You first. I mean, work in progress. Well, as much as I want to just move to an entirely different planet, I do not have that option, Adam, and I'm not sure it would be a great option, even if I had it. Do you want to get into the episode that we came to talk about today?

Yeah, guess who else isn't very interested in talking to their neighbors? The Novens of Star Trek Enterprise Season 1 Episode 6, Terra Nova. So we start looking through like a photo album of old photos of an Earth-like planet. And this is Travis Mayweather and Hoshi Sato like doing some archival research on this lost colony. You got to have good tab management, I think, when you got an open office workplace like this. Can't be sure when Archer walks on that they're on a lot of alt tab keystrokes happening here.

That's going to be a trip if you're a manager, right? You know, when you're walking around the cubicles, you're hearing a lot of click clicks. You know? Yeah, yeah. Oh, there's a spreadsheet in this cubicle as well. Wow, just look at how productive everyone is.

Ha ha ha. Nobody's listening to The Greatest Generation on the YouTube page in their headphones. Nobody. Travis has been digging through the archives. There's tons of data here. We learned a little bit about what they're looking at. This is a lost colony. Whatever happened to Terra Nova?

Is anyone still there? That's what this mission's all about and Enterprise is gonna arrive in three hours. Fortunately, dinnertime is in between now and then. So the captain convenes his captain's table, has a little conversation with TripTucker and to Paul. I love, love, love this moment for TripTucker when he's like, oh yeah, like, I mean, I'm surprised Vulcans don't know about early space colonization efforts by humans because we learn about that stuff in elementary school. And she's like, name one Vulcan survey mission

you learned about in elementary school. History was never my best subject. This is what happens when T'Pol drinks a little too much lemon infused ice water. Right. She just starts talking shit. Yeah, it's very rude. I mean, there's like a whole genre of this on the internet, like the video of

somebody going to a political event and asking someone who showed up there and is very excited for politician about some reason that they're voting for politician and then they like can't go any deeper than the talking point. Yeah. And that's sort of where Tripp Tucker is. Shallower than the talking point. Yeah. And that's sort of where TripTucker is. Shallower than the talking point. That's TripTucker. Archer gives the assembled dining companions a what's up.

What's up with Terra Nova? This was the first manned expedition outside the solar system, so it was a pretty big deal 70 years ago, at least up until the moment when communications broke down. Turns out, as soon as this colony set up shop, they didn't much like the idea of more colonists ever arriving. The colonizers do not want to be colonized. I love the idea of this many people. You only find this out later, this is an enormous planet. And by colony, boy, are we using that word liberally. There's like a couple hundred people on this little dot in the Northern hemisphere, a great big planet remains.

Yeah. They felt like this was their land, their birthright. Yeah. And anybody else that Earth wanted to send out was not welcome. And they just stopped picking up the phone at some point. I love that the mystery was permitted to remain. Like the conversation goes from that to Archer being like, yeah, and then, you know, I mean, it's seven years back and forth. No one's just gonna do that for nothing.

What if, what if they're not home? And so Paul's like, you could have asked us, like, we're in the neighborhood. And Tripp Tucker and Archer kind of agree that that would have been just too much of a pain in the ass. You don't want to ask favors of the Vulcans. So they didn't. And so here they are. They pull into orbit. The planet looks great. Really does.

It looks just like Earth, but with different shape of continents. And classic Archer hailing frequency message here. He's like, hey, we're from Earth. Here's what we're all about. And the code to our weapon systems and anything else you'd like to know. code to our weapon systems and anything else you'd like to know. He just starts taking books off the shelves and like opening them at the view screen and throwing them behind. My social security number is 642. You know that something bad has happened on the surface when they don't respond to this message. Yeah.

There's no biosigns downstairs and they're also picking up low levels of radiation and they're like, ugh, radiation seems bad, but it's not bad enough that we can't go down and like knock on the front door of their colony. So the shuttle heads down and lands in a classic, like Firefly by Joss Whedon level old west town. Like right on down to a wagon wheel or something. Yeah, yeah. I know it's a bike wheel, shut the fuck up.

That wasn't for Yeah, yeah. I know it's a bike wheel, shut the fuck up. That wasn't for you, Ben, that was just like to the person in their car, like what? Yeah, we heard you. A lot of people don't think podcasting is a two-way medium, but it is. Yeah, podcast goes both ways now. Surprise motherfucker. Kind of a great shot composition. I like this, Reed spinning that wheel. We're Greek, we're Greek, we're Greek. That wheel just spins around. It's dusty. Yeah, but there's nobody home in this town. We learned that the radiation 70 years ago,

which is a number we've heard before, would have been lethal. Yeah. How much, at this this point were you looking forward to the idea of yet another classic old west Star Trek episode? Because this kind of had all of the trappings of a old west town Dust Bowl shootout situation.

Right. I wanted to find out if Malcolm Reed is as comfortable with a shooting iron as he is with a woman's heart. I don't think we'll ever know anything about Malcolm Reed at this rate. They kind of split up and he sees someone or something running through the forest and makes chase and like, you know, radios up to everybody that he may be onto something. And he finds the opening to a cave. I really love the moment here that goes like, we're at a cave. We can't go in until we get flashlights and Archer radios for their flashlights to be brought for them.

This is not a scene we get to watch, but it is a scene I really wanted to see. Like just the chilling outside the cave. Yeah. Waiting. We're just waiting for Mayweather to get back with those flashlights before we go in. I hope there's not another way out of this cave, or that guy's probably long gone. Yeah. Once they're inside the cave, the music really says fight, right?

But the action inside says mystery. Yeah. We get a little description from Malcolm about the guy he saw, that he was scaly. And the cave is a lot tighter quarters than your average Star Trek cave, at least at the beginning. They have to kind of, like, belly shuffle

through their initial passageway. tighter quarters than your average Star Trek cave, at least at the beginning. They have to kind of like belly shuffle through their initial passageway. Did you get the idea that Reed wanted to go first because he was the wee-est of all of them or because he was the security guy? I think he was protecting his captain as a security officer should. But he's rather wee, isn't he?

Yeah. Would you also say he's Juan? I mean, he gets Juan later. I think later in the episode, he's both Juan and we. Yeah. When is that though? Later when he's Juan and we? Yeah.

He wins when he's Juan and we. Finally, they arrive at someone's underground home base. Yeah, we see like an armadillo puppet shimmying around. There's writing on the walls. It really seems like an exhibit in a museum that's like, this is how ancient people used to live. And it's like skin drying and wicker baskets and hand tools and stuff.

Yeah, and the shells of those dealers. Yeah, lots of those. There's nothing more alien looking than a cauldron of purple soup. Am I right? What do you think was the most shocking soup you've ever seen in movies or TV? Because I bet you got an answer for this. This might be it. I mean, there's definitely some ones in like your Indiana Joneses of the world that are like- My mind went straight to hand soup from Conan the Barbarian. Sure.

Hand soup. Who could forget hand soup? I mean, there's so much collagen in hand, so it's got a great like velvety mouth feel. You know what? You put the hand soup leftovers in the fridge. You can skim off that hard piece of collagen from the top. Leaves yourself a nice clarified broth down below. Yeah. I went to a Hungarian restaurant once and had a cold pig foot soup that was jello texture.

It was just like a clear gelatin that tasted like pig foot. You know, on a hot day, I mean, put that in a fucking sports bottle, man. Just get, just get finished doing an absolutely rim rocking slam dunk. Go back to the bench, like spray your face and chest with that cold pig hoof soup. Pig hoof soup. Is it in you? That's what makes the Hungarian rec league basketball so amazing.

Yeah. And so fragrant, I think. Are the Hungarians gonna hate us after that? Like that's not an anti-Hungary position. I liked the soup. I know. I was eating it and I was like surprised when I found out what it was. Cause you know.

Oh, you didn't know before. They're like, his hand, hand of pig. Here's what it was. It was in Pennsylvania. So we'd left the bag that we brought all our wine in because most restaurants in Pennsylvania, I don't know if this is still true, but they used to be like BYO for the booze. And we brought a bunch of wine and left the bag that we brought it in. And then when we went back the next day to get the bag, the chef was there and he's like,

"'Oh, you need to try this.'" And I was like, eating it out of a bowl, and I was like, "'Damn, this is really good.' Like, it's not a flavor I would ever associate with this jello texture." And he's like, "'It pig hoof.'" And I was like, "'Oh, cool. And I was like, oh, cool. Maybe tell people that first. Amazing.

And that is how you developed a taste for a very special kind of soup that your wife can never know about. Yeah. FODs. Shh. It's just between us. That's our little seeky.

Shh, it's just between us. That's our little Seekie. ["Sweet Home Alone"] They aren't alone, Ben. They're inspecting all of these skins and shells and wicker baskets and so forth. But up above, the residents have gathered and they don't seem happy about their visitors. Archer steps out to do that whole, like, I'm the captain and I mean you no harm thing. And here's my address.

Those are feelings that are not shared by these villagers who come out weapons hot. Yeah. And they have like, it seems like kind of a variety of guns. Like some of them are machine gun with bullets and bang, bang, bang noises. And others seem to have either like a ray gun like property or a, I don't know. There's some kind of pew pew in a less bullet-y way. Weren't you surprised that in an environment that looks like these folks would be using melee weapons of like, you know, sharpened turtle shells or whatever, like throwing them like frisbees that they have firearms.

Yeah. Surprising. Yeah. Archer gets winged and he and Reed are running away and they get lost in the cave and T'Pol has to be the, you know, the ops person on the computer telling them which way to turn left and right. Uh, Archer gets out and Reed does not.

Reed gets got. You think he's going to make it. He's just hobbled a little bit, but then when, uh, Archer just sees a flashlight and nothing else, that's it. Bad news bears. He's gone. Shit is getting really real really fast because everyone's in full retreat mode. Everyone besides Reed makes it back

to the shuttle and Archer orders them to take off. And while they do, T'Pol drops a knowledge bomb on the group. Those weren't aliens. They're humans. And Archer's like, what? Their soup was purple. How could they be human? And why were they shooting at us? We gotta go back for seconds. Timpall's like, yes, but also Reed is down there as prisoner. Archer's like, I know! But also, I can't get that soup out of my mind. You didn't try the soup, DePaul. It's amazing.

You wouldn't think something that color would be that delicious. It looks like reduced grape soda. But it tastes like armadillo feet. Do you remember those old Sunny Delight commercials? Yeah. This is purple stuff. I didn't mean to 300 that line reading, but...

It kind of works for this episode. Yeah. So, Reed is alive underground. Oh, you're drinking purple stuff too. What do you got there? I've been kind of hooked. This is not branded content. I've been hooked on prebiotic soda. Oh. So I'm drinking one of those that's supposed to taste like a Dr. Pepper.

Interesting. I tried one of those the other day at a children's birthday party and found it revolting, but it might've just been the wrong flavor. They have a million different flavors and I've never had the same flavor twice. I'm just trying them all. I cracked it open expecting it to be that type of seltzer that has a hint of fruit juice in it. No, this is not that. This is like melted popsicle.

This is strong stuff. So I think part of my bad reaction was that I went in expecting Jello and I got Pig Hoof, you know? Yeah. Yeah. That'll happen to anyone. Yeah, so Reed is alive underground. They can tell that much. And they start to speculate about what's going on.

Why are these humans so weird and hostile to us? Why are they living in these caves? What exactly was in that cauldron that was purple? What gave it that amazing color? It seems like they went underground to escape the radiation. And we go back up to the ship and they're working in that kind of area at the back of the bridge where they seem to be having more and more McLaughlin groups. Issue one.

They've got a screen that's on the table and they're looking at kind of a cross-section of the underground colony. And I loved this image. They don't show it very much, but it's kind of like the ant colony view of where these underground Novens live. This made me miss SimAnt, the game.

SimAnt was awesome. I loved that game. Here's a hot take. SimAnt, the best Sim game. Wow. Yeah. So exciting when you get to move from the backyard to inside the kitchen. Incredible.

What a reward. And it's like, you're always fighting the red ants and they're, they're a little bit OP, like you're, you're black ants are nerf. I know. Ugh, it's fucking reds. Anyways. Over and over again, the timeframe 70 years has dropped and we learned that, that the folks who live on the planet are like many generations have risen

up in that time. I think three generations is what's mentioned. And that, oh yeah, that's the reason why they're looking at us modern humans all askance and not really getting on our level. But like, do you think if someone from the 50s or the 60s were to see us today, they would try to attack and kill us for our differences? It just seemed to me like that, like they're trying to use the time as a reason. Right. Like, what could explain why they are so hostile and so primitive by comparison and have no living knowledge of the other humans that are in the universe.

And I think that that is a wonderful tension that runs through the script and is paid off later. And if I had one wish, it was that they had talked about this more in this McLaughlin group, like how upsetting it would be. Cause it sort of just becomes about Archer saying like, I need to be able to make for contact with humans at the very minimum. I know I'm blowing it left and right with

all the other species that we found out here. But with humans, this should be a layup. I think we're now six episodes into a supercut that goes like me saying some version of, not a great Captain Archer episode because he makes this about him personally. This revelation that these folks are human and he can't get it together with the negotiations. Yeah.

T'Pol is pitching them on a, here's where we need to beam in to just like shoot these three guys and then we'll grab Reed and get out of there. Classic cave rescue episode is what you think you're gonna get here. And Archer does not want to go in hot. He wants to do it the diplomatic way. So we smash cut to him and flocks back down on the planet. And I love the detail of Archer's uniform

still being super dirty. Like this is all happening so fast that they did not have time to like shower and change. There's kind of a resting wisdom face that Phlox has in most situations. And it's definitely apparent here in this scene. I don't get the sense that Phlox agrees with what Archer's doing,

but is more than happy to just kind of be his second here in this situation. Like at the moment that Archer raises his hands and starts yelling into the woods, like there's kind of a reluctance of Flox to be like, all right, I guess my captain's a dope, but he's still the captain. Not without considerable personal risk to Flox. Yes. Yeah. Which is the thing that is most amazing about how nonchalant he is with like, you know, I'm here to observe, you know, you tell me what we're doing and I'll do it. This strategy works as advertised. The arms go up

and then they are immediately captured by a couple of forest folk and taken into the caves. And they find Malcolm there pretty quickly and also an Eric Avari. Yay! Guess who I found in the cave, everyone? It's Eric Avari! Human? That's right. His character's name, Jammin. He assumes that they are here to finish the job. And they're like, what do you mean finish the job? Like, you mean, I mean, like, kill all of us.

And I love the kind of like, bronzone level, linguistic specifics these people have. Very vory, huh? Yeah. They are very, very suspicious of Captain Archer and have never met an alien. So they're also really tripped out by flocks. But Archer gets to work, like trying to convince them to let Flax treat Reed. And we learn about

the poison rain that the humans sent to kill the Novens. The Novens hate humans and don't consider themselves humans because humans sent poison rain. This is when the truth bomb that DePaul dropped on Archer earlier now gets transferred over and dropped on the Novens. Bad news for you human haters, you are humans. All-star character actor team here between Eric Avari and Mary Carver here. And how would you define character actor? Simply put, it's actors whose faces you can remember, but names you cannot. The acid rain hypothesis to the people

seems like it's gotten a lot of traction among the nobans. This is universally believed, yeah? Poison rain. Radiation comes before the pain. Among the objects they were able to save from the ship that brought them there was the TV VCR combo and the VHS cassette of Scrooge that only plays the previews of the television events.

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of effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics, taking into consideration each animal's true strengths, like a pigeon's ability to tell a Monet from a Picasso or a polar bear's ability to play basketball. Guest experts like biologists, ecologists, and more join us to share their unique insight into the animal's world. Listen with friends and family of all ages on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get podcasts. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington.

I'm Elliott Kalin. And together we are The Flophouse, a long running podcast on the Maximum Fun Network where we watch a bad movie and then talk about it. And because we're so long running, maybe you haven't given us a chance. I get it. But you don't actually have to know anything about previous episodes to enjoy us. And I promise you that if you find our voices irritating, we grow endearing over time.

Perhaps you listened to one of our old episodes and decided that we were dumb and immature. Well, we've been doing this a while now. We have become smarter and more mature, and generally nicer to Dan. But we are only human, so no promises. Find The Flophouse on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get podcasts. And you will never take the greatest gin alive. Ben would rather die. Rather die. Flox also lets Nadette know that she's got a case of lung cancer.

No big deal. Yeah, easily curable. I love that they try to negotiate bringing her back to the ship to cure her. And Jaiman's like, cool, yeah, like you can have her, but we're keeping Reed as collateral, as if Reed has any value to anyone at this point in the show.

I don't know this guy. I love how Archer is like about to speak up on Reed's behalf and Flax is like, no, no, no, this is fine. We can afford to leave Reed. Don't worry about me, sir. I was just getting used to the place. You know what? I may be more interested in doing that if you give me a thermos of some of that soup I saw around the corner.

Smelled great. Still warm, huh? Is that some of that D I saw around the corner. Smelled great. Still warm, huh? Is that some of that Diller Hoof in there that I smelled? Hello I'm Phyllis Diller for Diller Hoof Soup Company. I've been dead for a long time, but toward the end, I preferred soft foods and foods of moderate temperature. That's why I prefer Diller Hoof Soup. Before it was even technically feasible,

I sold my likeness to be used in AI recreations of me endorsing Diller Hoof Soup. Advertising revenue has been so poor for podcasts lately that my likeness has been purchased by the Greatest Generation podcast. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. What a slap in the face to me, Phyllis Diller, a member of the greatest generation.

So on the shuttle toward Enterprise, we get kind of a version of a gazing window scene here. Nadette is shown the ship as they get close to it. And just for the briefest moment, she looks kind of impressed. They all are, aren't they? All past people are impressed looking out the window. If a past person has a gazing window to look out of, a past person is going to be impressed. They put her in that MRI tube and Phlox gets to synthesizing some drugs to treat her ailment. And Archer shows her and her son jamming some old pictures

from the USS Conestoga and its crew and the colony. And they keep using the term shale every time they think the humans are fibbing. Shale equals fib in this context. Jared Sarkiss. Sure does. And, you know, they're admonished to bury their drawings, but these are starting to persuade them that maybe some of what the humans are saying could be true. These Novens have a real, I've done my own research kind of quality to them. Like, sure, they'll accept the help for some things, but they're not ready to believe the other things, even though the source of both is the same. Right. They're kind of cafeteria novens.

Yeah. Yeah. They think Archer's trying to trick them. And it's another in a long series of scenes where Archer is deeply frustrated by his inability to get through to them. So, T'Pol figures out that the radiation, the poison rain came from a radioactive asteroid, and it is just a weird coincidence that this asteroid happened to hit this planet at the time that all of these communications were going back and forth between them and Earth about whether or not Earth was gonna send more colonists. Are the little armadillos in the cave the the remaining dinosaurs? That's what that made me wonder. Interesting. Yeah, let's go ahead and say yes.

It's easy to get paranoid when you don't know exactly what caused your problems, right? Like if you're on the surface of this planet just trying to figure out your deconstruction of your ship into the construction of a town square and all of a sudden the sun gets blotted out by an explosion, you know, right as you're in the middle of an argument with Earth, ergo, you can kind of figure it out. You can speak to us normally. We cut down to the Star Trek caves where a now rather one Malcolm Reed. There it is.

He's trying to talk shop with a Novan Heavy who's, you know, they're guarding him like, oh, like I recognize some of your old like antique guns that you guys use. Ben, when you look at Reed eating digger guts, which is what this meal is called, that the guard gives Reed, what do you make of his expression when he eats it? Is it safe to say that that is a Ben eating cold pork foot soup expression?

Do you recognize this look? This is the look that I have when I'm told that we're breaking for lunch and lunch is sandwiches. Yeah, yeah. Reed looks like a guy who's eating chapulinas in front of his friends and everyone's like, oh, they're amazing. And inside his mind, he's like,

this just tastes like seasoning seasoning and bugs not bad i don't get it it's weird because the meat is so disgusting but the music that you can make by blowing into the digger's skull is so plaintive and haunting that really is you get the sense that chikote would have loved this moment sounds great were he to be a past person, which he is not. I like this moment too, because it felt like a unique and specific music to these people. It didn't feel like it was the pan flute that they used to play for Chakotay. It feels like whoever was tasked with making up whatever the Novin music was going to sound like actually went and came up

with something pretty unique and interesting and beautiful. To me, it sounded a little unfinished, Ben. I think you need some percussion in here, especially if we're looking around at these little armadillos and we see their hollow bodies. Let's start hitting them, like drums. You wanted to yub nub, that's what you wanted. God, I did want yub nub so bad. That's what the scene was missing for me.

Well, we didn't get it. I often want yub nub and am unable to get it. That's just a problem with life in general these days. Yub nub is gone. They took yub nub away. Never to return. Yeah. So one thing that has been kind of a project

since they first put down on this planet is getting something out of the comms buffer from the old colony, because there's still a broadcast tower. And finally, the last transmissions from the comms buffer are uncovered. And we do learn that the Nova colony interpreted this asteroid impact as an attack by Earth. And this was a broadcast by the captain

of the USS Conestoga going like, what the fuck, guys? Like, I know that like some of these people are nuts and have threatened to kill anybody new that you send, but this was like a total overreaction. It kind of seemed like, like we get some names here. We get that Captain Mitchell name, but we also get the Mark Logan reference.

And he is identified as the rabble rouser of the bunch that was opposed mostly to the idea of more colonists arriving. And it seems like Logan kind of got to Mitchell, got in his ear and made Mitchell the paranoid that he is in this scene. Yeah, it's really interesting. How much did you want to see face?

I did want to see- Like audio is interesting, but I want to see my captains, you know? Yeah, like that episode of TNG where they finally dried out old body of the ship's captain, but then they get to watch his last captain's log. Yeah, I like those scenes. Would have been nice.

Yeah, we learned that the young children were the only ones that were like enough okay with the radiation that they were able to survive, and they survived by going down in the caves. And I love this revelation. This is why the Novans are such dumb-dumbs. Yeah. It was all little children.

You got kids teaching kids, like the worst. It's a Lord of the Flies situation down there. You don't have a conch, doesn't matter what you say. Yeah. So Archer gets summoned to Sixth Bay and Nadette has been cured of her cancer, but Phlox has some bad news, W slash R slash T, her health and the health of jammin.

And that is that the water supply on Terra Nova has become contaminated and they are starting to break down on the molecular level and there's nothing Phlox can do. It's a, like you've got to start drinking water that isn't this. Not even a purple stuff will help them at this point. Yeah. Archer tries to tell Jamin and Nadette all of this

about their immunity to the radiation running out. And they're not really trying to hear that. And then Archer decides to show Nadette more pictures of what their society looked like before the acid rains and specifically a picture of her and her mom. Her mom, Vera Fuller, whose daughter was named Bernadette. So Bernadette shortened to Nadette. Yeah. And Nadette is like, I mean, that's so weird

cause it's just like, it's like one of those like old lady names. You don't expect somebody to name like a young child Bernadette. Jamin is like ready to fly off the hook here. He's getting more and more agitated. And finally he's like, take us back to the planet. Not, not trying to look at any more of these pictures.

Is he supposed to be Benjamin to the same way that she's Bernadette? Wow. You know, my first college roommate was named Jamin and it was not short for anything. Whoa. That's why I keep calling this guy Jamin. Yeah.

As a way to honor my first college roommate who famously tried to piss on me in the middle of the night after an evening of terrific partying. Well, speaking of that, Jamin is pissed about their continued pressure campaign to change everything about his society. And we get a McLaughlin group... Issue two. ...where T'Pol suggests taking them by force and just like knocking everybody in the caves out.

This has got to be a plan that Reed would approve of, right? Seems like it, but Archer is like horrified. T'Pol's like, have you seen Francois Truffaut's The Wild Child? You can't bring these folks into polite society. They'll hate it. And we'll end up hating them. It'll be like a real thing you have to watch in film school and maybe even write a paper about, and nobody wants that.

Everyone I know had to. I sort of interpreted this moment as T'Pol sort of using reverse psychology almost on Archer to convince him of a specific course of action. Like she advocates for a take them by force in reacting against that. He comes up with the thing that she was actually riding for, which is a like get better at your first contact skills and persuade them to move to a non-poisonous part of their planet.

I mean, I sure do love the idea of T'Pol's forearm right up Archer's ass and him just being puppeted around by her. I mean, we might get better mission outcomes if that happens more often. Seems good. Seems good for the health of the ship. Yeah. In the next scene, Archer meets up with Tripp Tucker and together they look at a map of the settlement. And this time the map has an overlay to it. One of those like a clear plastic encyclopedia pages that has the debris cloud superimposed on top. And this is the scene where you get the idea of how we, their settlement is and how large the planet is.

There's a Southern hemisphere, there's a polar region that's completely untouched. That's how you want it, right? Oh yeah. Like pristine, untouched polar region. Ooh. Could there be caves down there? Could there be little armadillos that live in those caves?

Let's find out. So they pitch them on it. They're like, going to take them back to their colony. And they're like, just like, talk it over with your people. Give it some thought. And they land and twist. They land on a sinkhole. And the shuttle plunges into the cave system.

What a twist. Did not see this coming. It was really fun that a new dilemma popped up this late in the episode. And I think kind of necessary for the trust bonding that happens between Archer and Jaiman because he's now the only one that can save them and he like leads them out through the tunnel system.

And then they hear somebody yelling. There's a guy down in a pit that fell under a tree. My God, it's acury down there. I'm leg broke. Yeah, they have to do like a fully like corporate trust building exercise style cooperation to get down there and free this dude. How sure were you that we wouldn't have a 127 hours situation down there?

Because when Jaemin doesn't want to trust Archer with the phaser that just moments ago Archer trusted him with, I was like, oh shit, shoot the leg, Archer. Let's get this guy out of there. Shoot leg. But that's not what he shoots. He shoots the log and slices it up and that allows them, uh, Archer and Jamin, I mean, to free Ackery before the water rises above his face. Yeah. I did not like those scenes where you see the water rise right next to Ackery's face.

Yeah. This is a fear for me. It was, it was well done. So they free this guy, he's okay. Reed is okay. It seems like there's a trade, right? Ackery for Reed seems pretty even. And then Nedette is like,

Jamin, you made a promise to Archer. You got to say the thing. And Jamin's like, okay. Say the thing about the Southern Hemisphere and the Polar region. Don't leave the Polar region out. Jamin's like, okay. See the thing about the Southern hemisphere and the polar region. Don't leave the polar region out. Jaiman's like, mom, don't talk to me about the polar region. So he tells everybody about the islands to the south and we cut back to the captain's table and Mayweather has been admitted to the captain's mess for this

this final hang of the episode. It feels like a special treat for him and he's like revealing that he's a bit of a lost aviator enthusiast. Like he's talking about like, oh, like there's all these other like missing things and we never thought that we'd find the answers to any of these mysteries, but we found the answer to the mystery of Terra Nova, us. In this scene, Archer becomes the bad manager at every workplace because Mayweather shows an interest in a task and Archer's like, "'Cool, why don't you write up the whole report about it?

That'll be great.'" You're stuck with the paperwork, Mayweather. I think that sucks. Fuck you, Archer. I wish they held on Mayweather's face a little longer as he goes through the stages of realization of what this is. Wait, I only get invited to these dinners if I leave having taken some new bit of business to do. And there's a credits. You like this episode, Ben?

I did like this episode. I liked this episode a whole lot. I thought the Novens were interesting characters. I thought the mystery of the Novens and why they were so dumb and had like not retained any cultural memory of what they were or where they came from was good and interesting, fun guest performances all around. Yeah. I love a Star Trek episode with not just one, but multiple great character actors here. Yeah, and I thought that, so Paula in particular

had some great and interesting subtext to her. I'm sort of in the command structure under Archer, but I'm also sort of the hall monitor for the ship. Yeah. Energy, like you could have just called us. We could have solved this problem for you decades ago. And then she's kind of steering him in the right direction whenever he's, you know, in the grips of a dilemma.

I thought her character was very interesting in this. And, you know, loved revisiting some like actual Star Trek caves, by which I mean fake caves. Not those real caves, which are not actual Star Trek caves that they went to before. Get them out of here. Yeah. Fuck that shit.

I like the original. Yeah. Ben, I'm with you too. Paul, uh, keeps getting better and better. It feels like Captain Archer keeps getting worse. Going to revisit the heat check scale for Captain Archer keeps getting worse. I'm going to revisit the heat check scale for Captain Archer. I think we're down to like a four at this point. Not really feeling his behavior this episode.

It's funny how ultra emotional he becomes in scenes specifically with T'Pol. I think that only makes him seem worse if she's around to be the witness. This episode reminded me of that movie Room with Brie Larson. You remember that movie where it was Brie Larson and her kid and they're like a prisoner in this dude's shed? I did not see that movie. I did not. All this kid is ever known as that room.

And so like the Brie Larson character is great for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that like she's created a great life for her kid and all he's ever known is this place. And these Novens made me think of that. Like all these folks have ever known is the inside of that cave. And so that's why they hold onto it so tight. And it made me understand them a little bit better and in a good way. I mean, like they're dumb as hell because they're kids teaching kids. I've already said that. But I guess the part that makes me laugh about it is that it's somehow treated as a revelation that this is a great big planet and resettlement is possible.

Like this was, as asteroids go, not a planet killer. Could have said that early on, I think. So I think that was an example of the facts of the story being intentionally obscured for the sake of expediting a very specific type of plot. Right. I've got those minor quibbles with it, but a fun ep. Fun ep. You want to see if there's anything fun in the priority one inbox? Oh god, Ben. An asteroid is heading toward the priority

one messages. We got to get them underground. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on secure channel. Need a supplemental income. Supplemental Supplement. Supplement. Yeah, it's extra. By the interest alone, could be enough to buy this ship. This first P1, Adam, is from Rachel Kazez. And it's of a promotional nature. Goes like this. Do you want help finding therapy? Have you been trying to find a counselor

by opening Google and yelling, Anybody! Check out All Along. Therapist and FOD Rachel Kazez will talk to you about what you're looking for, research options, then send you some good matches who are actually available and take your insurance. All Along clients live across the US and beyond. When you need therapy, that's the hardest time to find it yourself. Let Rachel help. AllAlong.org. PS Ben and Adam, is there a Troy drop? Wow. Oh yeah, there

is a drop. I'm recording it right now by holding my microphone up to my plant. The call to action here is visit allalong.org and reach out to Rachel for consultation about mental health care, including finding the right therapy for you. That is a great service and one I think honestly like the insurance companies should just be providing it, but they aren't. I have quite good health insurance because I'm lucky enough to be married to somebody with good health insurance.

And my insurance company's website, it lists a whole bunch of therapists that don't take my insurance or aren't accepting new clients or whatever. And it's very frustrating and hard to wade through. So allalong.org sounds like a terrific resource and definitely a thing I would recommend. If you are out there looking to get into therapy, make it easier for yourself. Don't give yourself any excuses not to get into that chair

and talking to that person. What Rachel said about the hardest time to find one is being when you're like in the middle of some shit is something that makes a lot of sense. Don't defer your mental maintenance for the moment you have a breakdown. Get a situation going and Rachel can help. Hell yeah. Ben, we've got a priority one message here from Darkest Time Britta from the Discord and it's to Ben and Adam. Okay. Her message goes like this, Dear Ben and Adam, we met at SketchFest. I was the 46 year old lady who was a little bit embarrassed

to ask you to sign her lunchbox. You were both so kind and generous. And one of you said something that meant so much to me that I still think about it daily. I'm gonna stop reading the message here and just say, why didn't you say which one of us said that great thing? What are you doing? Ben and Adam are fighting over which one of us said that great thing.

Broke a compliment pool cue over her knee and dropped half of it in the floor between us. Wow. For my 47th birthday, can I please have a birthday message from Egypt's brother? Live long and prosper. Hey, Egypt, I don't know which one of these greatest gen hosts gave that compliment I think these guys are gonna fight hey each of darkest time Frida really lived up to her name of being from the darkest timeline because she just do this podcast to ending bitterly because Ben and Adam can't agree who is the nice one of the two of them.

Hey Ben, I've got plenty of fluid on the floor to hold Adam's face into until the bubbles stop. Why don't you drag his scrawny ass over here? Our final P1 today is from Matt and it's to Ben and Adam. It goes like this. Just discovered this podcast and wanted to send a few bucks as I work through the back catalog. I'm on season one of TNG and I can't

wait to listen to every episode and see which episodes you veto along the way. I'll try to drop a P1 at the end of each season. As I listen through, keep up the great work. Wow, that is a lot of P1s. How about Matt in the deep, deep back stacks? We should see if we can get a bank loan for $2,100 based on this promise that Matt has just made.

Amazing, yeah. That collateral right there. Sure is. See you when you catch up, Matt, in the year 2047. Wow. If you'd like to get a P1 or several P1s, you can do it by going to maximumfun.org slash jumbotron. A hundred bucks for personal and 200 for a commercial message. And we really appreciate folks that get them.

Hey, Ben. What's that, Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda this episode? Incredible. Drunk Shimoda! Oh, it's gotta be Mayweather for catching a face full of paperwork right at the end of the episode, just for expressing enthusiasm. He was so sweet all through this episode. Like, he was, like, really curious and interested at the end of the episode just for expressing enthusiasm. He was so sweet all through this episode.

Like he was like really curious and interested at the beginning and like, I felt like he just had a couple of moments in the app to do anything. It was like, go get the flashlights, fly the shuttle down for the third time, kind of missions for him. And he like, you know, worked a line in here edgewise

once or twice, but just for all of his trouble, get stuck with all the paperwork. I mean, that's what you get for being a tryhard, right? Yeah. You get punished. That's why Mayweather is my drunk Shimoda also. Different scene though. That moment when they're in the shuttle and they're going back to the surface together,

Archer tries again to make the case that, you know, we can make this right. Humans aren't so bad. We could be good for you. The composition of this is just a little loose. We cut over to the captain's chair of the shuttle and Mayweather wheels around and it's like cowboy shot in the chair. It's almost full body and he's like, yeah, we only want to make you feel good. And then he wheels back around. Like that's all he says. He's so sweet. Like I can't help, but really like Mayweather and I can't help, but feel like it's

Star Trek malpractice the way they're taking an enthusiastic crew person and using him in this way. Yeah. Where's our Mayweather episode? There better be one. Got to get a Mayweather episode. Faith of the fart. Well, speaking of that, let's take a look at what our next episode shall be.

It'll be season one, episode seven, the Andorian incident. When Archer and his crew pay a friendly visit to an ancient Vulcan monastery, they stumble into an interstellar conflict between the Vulcans and their militaristic rivals, the Andorians. Oh, the Andorians. The Andorians. Hmm.

Excited about this one. And to find out how that episode is gonna go, I'm gonna go over here to the Game of Buttholes, The Will of the Riker Quantum Leap. Ben, we could go anywhere on this game board. That's part of the fun when you roll that 100-sided die. You're required to learn as you play. Roll. You know, we just had a regular old episode this time,

and this roll will determine if we do a thing next time. Oh, boy, and we are doing a thing, Adam. I rolled a 69. Nice. Which took us up to square 88. That is a temporal Cold War square. We must react to three old bad reviews of the greatest generation in the next Mary. Amazing! Wow!

I am, I've never been more grateful to have a great producer on this show because I know that's not gonna be my job. She's gonna have a lot to dig through because we just got over 5,000 total reviews for Greatest Gen on Apple Podcasts. A monumental achievement in my mind and I'm positive only a couple thousand are negative. Well Adam, Wendy is not going to have to do any of that, because I'm going to invoke the first veto. Shut up! Of this series.

I really wanted to do this! Oh, are you just nodding a mental head space to read a negative review, Ben? Come on. I'm gonna admit it, I'm not. I'm on an emotional life edge right now, and I don't wanna read mean things people have said about me. Ben, I would be both a hilarious

and the worst kind of asshole to make you endure three old bad reviews of The Greatest Generation. And here's the thing, we've gotten very few bad reviews of this show. One of the things I'm most proud of is that we've gotten 5,000 mostly great reviews of this show. And thanks to all the FODs who have made it

the most and best reviewed Star Trek podcast on Apple podcasts. It still blows my mind that that is a thing we can say. Maybe we'll get to those bad ones in a moment you're feeling a little better. Because I'm curious. Yeah, that sounds nice. I want to roast those people. Yeah, one day.

Maybe we can marshal the FOD support to flag some negative reviews as offensive. That'd be nice. Yeah. I'm offended. I know that they offend me. Yeah. My delicate sensibilities. We got a bunch of bullshit bullshit a couple years ago from some people who would regret their review

if they knew the truth. So get those out of there. I really appreciate all the folks leaving the nice ones. And appreciate all the folks that support us who are going to get a cool bonus episode out of this. Let's get this done. Alright. Let's read some credits. That bonus feed is getting absolutely stuffed. It really is. We gotta thank Windy Pretty who produces all of that stuff and edits most of it. She got anti Mayweather done this one for a moment

It looked like she was gonna get some more work No work Doesn't have to go to those reviews We got to thank the great Adam Ragusea for the music of this Podcast and dark materia for our original theme song got a thing Rob Adler for running our at Greatest Trek social media accounts on all social media. And the great Bill Tilly, our temporal Cold War time, Consigliere, I almost said sommelier.

Oh yeah, he could do that too. Their wartime sommelier and Consigliere. Gonna need one of those. Thanks to everybody participating in all the great communities on social. Look for them on Facebook, Reddit, DrunkShemota.com for Discord people, and greatestgen.fandom.com to check out the Wiki.

And with that, we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise, an episode of The Greatest Generation Enterprise where our antennas are fully erect. Hmm, sure there isn't a little bit of a bend in yours? That's uh, some would argue that that only helps, you know? I'm gonna figure out who would argue that?