The Greatest Generation - Diminished in Ways We Can't Even Imagine (S2E18)

Episode Date: June 22, 2016

When Dr. Pulaski covers for Worf, he returns the favor by showing her what sex is to him. Meanwhile, the ship rescues some Space Irish from some kind of Space Blight before heading off to find their long lost cousins. How dangerous is a Klingon toilet plunger? Why is the transporter beaming people up with the ground underneath them? What are the downsides of phasering your own clone? It's the episode that forced us to bow to the absurd!

Priority 1 message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Hey friends of Disodo. Before today's episode, we just wanted to take a moment to talk about the historic labor actions being taken by writers and actors in the American Film and Television industry. If you're a fan of the work done by the people who make Star Trek, we hope you'll join us in standing in solidarity with the folks who actually bring these adventures to life. Over the past several years, the AMPTP, the organization that represents the American Film and Television Production Studios, have reduced the profit from movies and TV going to workers. And in so doing,

they've attempted to weaken the labor unions that represent those workers. They wouldn't even engage the unions on many issues in their negotiations. And so a strike was the only course of action to take. Adam, Wendy and I have been having a lot of internal discussions about how best to stand with the unions and we are continuing those conversations in a dynamic situation. We're doing our best to understand where the picket lines are in these digital spaces,

and we would never intentionally cross one. With the information we have, we feel like we can do more good talking about and supporting the strike and continuing our show as planned. We'll keep you informed about what all this means for greatest trek specifically. Today we're making a contribution to the Entertainment Community Fund. This fund exists to help all the people whose livelihoods have been put on hold because the AMPTP refuses to negotiate

in good faith with the unions. It provides financial support for writers, actors, and all the thousands of laborers who make the shows that we talk about here and without whom we wouldn't have Star Trek to cast pot about. Those folks are all out of work because billionaires, company shareholders, and the executives of these companies don't want to compromise on the length of their yachts. We hope you'll join us in supporting entertainment workers in a challenging time, especially after they've already endured several years of challenges brought on by the pandemic

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdisotoforlabor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Last time on Star Trek, the next generation. Is this the space Irish episode? This is the space Irish episode. Like, do they build a farm on board the ship? Yeah, they like, strew straw around in the cargo bay.

Are there barnyard animals? Yes. Oh my god. I kinda hate this episode Adam. I was guessing all of the stupidest things I could imagine and you're saying yes to all of them. I actually am going to veto this episode and I fucking hate it so much. Ooh.

God. Oh. Goddamn it. The thing is, if I burn a counter veto here, it's over. How many more episodes do we have in season two? Like, another 30, right? So I'm going to counter veto you. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,

fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, Yeah, let's watch it fuck you. Welcome to the greatest generation of Star Trek Podcasts by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek Podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pryanaka. Stop looking at me. I still in my brother-in-law's bedroom. You may hear some sounds of people doing laundry and various house chores outside. That seems to be what's going on here at the house today. Yeah. You might hear a leaf blower at some point. Yeah. We are in, we are smack dab in the middle of suburbia here, but Adam behind those white picket fences

It's not all as positive as people present it as Now it's pretty dark. You know that is the star of blue velvet. I do. Yeah Oh the stories I could tell you about that shoot I could tell you about that shoot. Well, you know, people might be complaining that we don't have any cards to open up here, but I kind of wanted to talk to you about the Bill Tilly greatest gen trading card collection which as of this recording just had about 15 new cards pop up on Twitter. It should be called the Tilly Collection, right? The Tilly Collection.

That's on the shelf right next to the Riker Collection. Right, yeah. Totally jackable. He's doing great work. Yeah, like ever, like, I keep waiting for it to stop being like the biggest thrill ever when he posts something. It hasn't stopped yet. Like he totally picks out like the funniest things about every episode and makes captions

about them. I mean some of these captions are quotes from us but some of it is just like stuff that he noticed is like hilarious. And I think he has a greater knowledge of our show and it's inner workings than even we do. They're so good. Yeah. If you want to check these out, go to Bill Tilly 1973 on Twitter.

I don't think it's any secret to discuss the idea that we've thought about printing these out. Yeah. On a little bit of a run and offering them up to our listeners. So I think that'd be pretty cool. That would be really cool. From what I can tell, this is the only thing Bill Tilly is doing with his Twitter account. So that's a lot of fun. I love that single serving Twitter right there. It's awesome. You don't need anything else. No.

This is an episode that I really wanted to veto Adam and you got me back for my overriding your veto on the last Troy episode, look, Loxana Troy episode. This is season two episode 18, up the long ladder. It became immediately clear when this episode started that I'd made a terrible mistake. This is like, this is like the Star Trek version of the Quiet Man, but you don't get to see anyone punch through a wall. Like, you don't even get that satisfaction from it. Yeah, I mean, I don't think that I'm going to surprise anybody by saying that when we

finish watching this episode, you just said, well, there's another one for Mount Armour's. Yeah, totally. Spoiler alert. It has been fun watching episodes with you, like in a mystery science theater kind of way, but at the end of this episode, I definitely just wanted to go to bed. Like, it just broke me down,

and sort of disperioded me a little bit. Right. We try to watch the episodes within 24 hours of recording. Yeah. And occasionally, that's not happened. I famously hadn't watched the episode that unveils the Borgs very recently when we recorded that episode, which is probably why

I seem half insane during that episode. Yeah. But this one, we watched it it and we were like thinking maybe we would just turn the mics on and rip out an app like once we were done watching and I think it had just killed our spirit. We were, we'd lost the will to live when this episode was over. Yeah, when I woke up this morning, I was a little disappointed to be alive. So the episode starts, there's like some tense music playing. The camera kind of like pans around the bridge and lands on a

wharf who's just sitting there grumbling and growling to himself. He looks like a guy who needs to take a shit. Yeah wharf is holding in a big boom boom and there's nobody to relieve him at the tactical station, so he's just got to hold it. But Picard comes onto the bridge and calls Riker into the, into the ready room. And this might be the most, the driest cold open that we have yet seen, because... Try like a muffin. They do. I'm gonna say five minutes of just computer research about a ship that

went missing a couple hundred years ago. Yeah. And the cards like, what do you think this sounds like? And Rikers like, it sounds like a fucking cheap ass car alarm, which is what it actually sounds like. No, Rikers like it sounds like an SOS, right? It's an older code, so, but it checks out. Yeah, so it's like a some type of Earth code, but super ancient, which is kind of an interesting thing to think about, like, ancient radio transmissions and whether we'll have records of those kinds of things

in the future. Yeah, ancient to them, but future to us, as the future. Yeah, ancient to them, but future to us as the viewer. And this is a fun, like, I mean, they give you a little like, like, here's how the earth progressed from World War III to one-world government type stuff because they like talk about the European hegemony, which is not how I would go about pronouncing that. No. It's like a, it's like 1.21 gigawatts kind of a pronunciation. It's like did you guys not like run this by anybody?

Because I'm pretty sure that's pronounced hegemony. But, uh, but, uh, yeah. So this is a ship that left Earth a long time ago and they don't have any record of its launch. They get to do a little bit of research to figure out where this thing is coming from. Yeah. But the research pays off. They pretty much set a course towards the planet where they find its destination to

be and they start heading in that direction. But before they can do that, they walk out on the bridge and Worf has collapsed in a heap and Data like calls down to Paul Aske Medical emergency Dr. Polaski to the bridge one of your pretty standard crash zooms to a guy on the ground and then throw to theme song Rear opens theme song opens. So you might think like okay the thing about the missing ship from a long time ago is going to be the B storyline and what's going on with Wharf is gonna be the A storyline but they really the the ship was wharf really like runs its course in in the next five minutes of

the episode, and then it's not really a subject matter after that. It's just a dab of War of Character, which is maybe the first time we've had a little bit of War of Character building that was a little dab of War of. My little dab will do you. Yeah, Polasky puts him up on the examination table and is like... War of Takes Up That Whole God Damn Biobad. Yeah, Polasky puts him up on the examination table and is like... Warf takes up that whole goddamn bio bed. Yeah. He's just running over the side of it.

Polasky's like, yeah, you just had a little fanning spell. I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with you. And it appears that you have the measles. The Klingon measles. Yeah, which is a real slap in the face to worth like he doesn't want to be diagnosed with anything like he does a lot of like Klingons push through their illnesses and he makes it clear that it's a child's disease also Yeah, and it makes me wonder like is warf himself a vaccine truther like oh before he went out is Warf himself a vaccine truther like before he went out onto the ship you think uh...

a full panel of inoculations is part of the deal jenny mccarthy has a lot of good things to say about medical science a warrior scientist somewhere on uh... the klingon home world like Lurse and Batur are like the the famous anti-vax truters. So dumb. But Polesky keeps Worf's secret when Picard radios down to sickbay to check in on him. Worf was just observing Klingon ritual involving fasting.

She played it off as the big guy just didn't eat enough for breakfast. So I'm just gonna give him an orange juice and send him on his way. Like it's some sort of blood sugar issue, is what she played as plays it off as? Yeah. Which kind of makes him Warf look real dumb. Yeah. I feel like he wouldn't look dumb if he was just like sick. Yeah, it's okay for him to be sick, but it's kind of not okay if he's just not taking care of himself in a way that could have an impact on the crew or its mission. Yeah, so that's a little bit strange.

Let's just Holaski and Wurf sort of bond over her interest in keeping his secret. Yeah. They sort of, there's a quid pro quo here in that in exchange for Dr. Polaski keeping the secret, she asks him to perform a Klingon T. ceremony. Well, she doesn't ask him. He like shows up with it and she is like so honored.

Like, I think he showed up thinking she might need to like talk her through what this is and she's like, the T-Sharmony nobody's ever done it for me. Yeah. And the whole conceit of it is that it's basically analogous to pufferfish tea. The tea is very dangerous. It's supposed to kill humans if they drink it. It's supposed to really fuck up klingons if they drink it. The ria is probably incredible. Yeah. Afterwards. Yeah. Yeah. The toilets in worst quarters are going to need a damage assessment crew. A warrior's plunger.

The handle of a Klingon plunger is just all covered in sharp, barbers and wrapped in wire. It is a test of one's will to plunge his own toilet. It's a painstick with a plunger on the bottom. Take that thing right down the throat. I thought the funniest part of this scene though is that he starts performing the ceremony and he tells her like, you must not drink the tea. And she's like, oh, hold that thought.

And she runs off screen, runs back, has a hyposprae and hits herself with it, announces that she had the antidote. It's like, what, you had the antidote to some poisonous cling on tea, like lying on a shelf nearby? Ready to go. What the fuck? Yeah. This scene was everything that's good about what the show does to respect another culture. and it's just really

too bad that everything that follows this completely kneecaps that sentiment. Like, it just destroys all that goodwill almost immediately. Did you perceive the end of this scene to be the cross-fade to space shuttle taking off, train entering a tunnel, implying that Polasky and Worf got down after this. The oil-dairy pumping? Yeah. Yeah, the, I mean, who knows what's in that tea? Ship flying into a Nagilaum.

A gaping Nagilauilla accepting a ship Throbbing ship entering a sopping neguilla um Yeah, it really seemed like Worfin and Palazhi bangs to me which I think is great I think that that's like that's a couple that I can really get behind Absolutely a speech. Instead of cross fading to them banging it out, we instead cut to what we realize will be the only story we have left the entire episode. Yeah, they've left us the scraps. And what corn beef scraps. They arrive at this planet that's called bring, bring Lloyd V and their star is about to go Nova.

It's about to start licking the planet with solar flares and they have detected humans down on the planet's surface, but these humans don't have any technology to respond to hails with. So, riker beams down. We never see the surface of this planet because I guess they're like underground. Yeah, it would have been really fun to see how they live, but we are soon

that's not in the budget atom. Yeah. Riker radios up to Picard and he's like, hey, like there's just some stuff that I need to run by. And Picard's like, we don't have time. Get these assholes on board. And he's like, yeah, but, and Picard just kind of like

steam rolls the conversation. And Riger's like, all right, you asked for it. So Picard walks down to the transporter room to see the first party of bringing a loyalty, get beamed up. And it is like a total beam up for comedy moment because it's like a bunch of peasants with various animals like chickens flapping around, pigs running around, ducks and cages. They beam up with straw on the transporter pad,

which is the only time I've ever seen the transporter beam grab some of the ground underneath. Somebody, it doesn't make any sense. And the Irish jig music is playing at top volume, which made me wonder, like, did they beam the music with them too? Right, because it sort of implies that Picard is hearing it before it cuts for commercial. And he gets this look on his face like, what have I done?

This is the beginning of an episode that makes me think that it was written by someone who's only knowledge of the Irish is by watching Lucky Charms commercials. It is a very offensive stereotype. Yeah. It also made me feel like it came from season one. Like the last two episodes have really felt dusty.

Like these weren't good enough to make season one. And they're filling time in season two with the cast-offs. They're like, we've established something important with the Borgs and now we're gonna rest on our laurels a bit and catch our breath from that achievement in Star Trek making. We don't want too much goodwill around here. Let's manage some expectations here, people. Yeah, this is kind of a fun moment

because I guess they put them in one of the cargo pays and they go down to check that out and Picard just like has a big ol' belly laugh about how fucking absurd the situation is. Yeah. Sometimes, you just have to bow to the absurd. That's pretty fun. Like, you don't see him break his serious demeanor all that often.

Yeah, he's pretty self-aware about how ridiculous it is that his cargo bay is now just floored with straw and filled with barn animals. We're introduced to the daughter of the leader of this bringloidy people who is like your classic brassy redhead who is just sick and tired of men like walking around like the entitled assholes that they are. You don't offer us a vitaler supper and when we build a fire to cook a little something the whole place goes mad. She comes from an even more patriarchal society than the patriarchal society in TNG,

which is not supposed to be patriarchal, but nonetheless is. And her dad is trying to marry her off to everybody. So there's two like main characters here that we know throughout the whole thing. There's the lead bringloyty, who is Danilo O'Dell, who is the worst caricature of an Irishman ever. When O'Brien beams him on board, he is like,

wintzing in shame at this guy. He's just a total abomination. Yeah. So there's a, there's him and then there's his daughter, Brenna and Brenna is like the hot Moreno here character in the show. Yeah, and it's not, not long before Riker is, is, uh, inflicting his charm on her and, uh,

she's just like, very receptive to that, I would say. She's and uh... she's like very receptive to that i would say she's uh... she's pretty hot she's she's not just irish hot yeah and uh... and rechern notices rechern notices she notices him i mean she's like she's like barkin and and complaining and belly aching and then she notices him his male gaze upon her

and uh... and what are you staring at you've never seen a woman before I thought I had which always works right all you need to do is just stare down yeah girl just just be an ogling monster yeah yeah further evidence of the writers of this show not understanding what a post-patriarchy society might look like. But they do get down. This really does cut to a terrain entering a tunnel in an oil-darek pumping. It's pretty hot and heavy between them.

Yeah. Riker wants to give her a tour. And I think we all know what that's code for. A tour of his dick and balls. Just kept talking one long. Incredibly unbroken sentence moving from topic to topic so that no one had the chance to think the traffic was really quite hypnotic, not hypnotic.

The other thing that happens in here, which is like the, it's like, I feel like there's an anachronistic television trifecta, which is quicksand things happening, souffle humor, and guy taking a drink of alcohol and having a insanely strong reaction to it. A cartoonish reaction, Like a Jerry Lewis reaction. Because Worf shows the, shows a, Danilo how to replicate some Klingon booze

and it's the most ridiculous take. I think we have seen yet on this, on this show. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Oh, go touch what I call the reed up of the creature. Yeah, I feel like the director instructed him. You can't go too far with your reaction to this. Like think cartoonish and then multiply that by 10. Yeah. Like, he basically turns to camera, crosses his eyes and wags his tongue around.

It's so bad. It's so dumb. And so the thing that drives the story to the extent that there is a story in this episode as he goes to Picard and he says, did you see anything about the other colony? And Picard's like, oh, so they find another class M planet nearby. Yeah, like the idea is, was there one ship or there were two ships? There was one ship, but it had like a totally insane cargo manifest. Yeah. Which is how they found it. It was all like, like, yarn spinning equipment and advanced computer technology. And they're like, why would you need both of these? Yeah. Yeah. And so the idea is that the ship was split into two parts that settled on different planets

in a totally different way. Yeah. And one group had this like ideology about back to the land movement, type shit, and the other was like a kind of techno scientific mission. Right. So they find this other planet, which is going by Mariposa, which is the name of the ship. And the prime minister of the Mariposa colony, it's like one of those things where like,

we're gonna tell you how this is going, but you have to come down here in person. Like nobody's gonna tell you, give it to you straight. He know when you were a kid, and maybe you got trouble in school. And like a teacher had to tell you to tell your parents about it. I always felt inclined to be like,

I never wanted to have that conversation in person. I was like, I got sent home from school early. Why? I'll tell you about it when you get here. That seems to be this guy's deal. We'll tell you what happened once you come down. Yeah, so they go down and it's like a long walk through a lot of hallways and they keep seeing people that are identical twins, triplets, quadruplets. One of these groups is most definitely party all the time,

era Eddie Murphy. Yeah. Like, he's got the close crop to mustache. Yeah, and he's always going, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, I don't think that guy has any lines. I think almost nobody on this planet talks, except for the lead guy. The lead guy and the health minister who's played by the same actor. Yeah. So there are only five people that survived

the Mariposa crash and they've been cloning themselves and they've gotten in a bit of hot water with like generational decay in the cloning where it's like they've photocopied themselves too many times to still be able to read the text on the page. Yeah they don't look melty and weird or anything we're just told this later on that the end of their genetic line is coming. Yeah their thing is like they were expecting to be in touch with the earth but the earth basically forgot

about them so they've been assuming that the earth was trashed a long time ago, and that they're like the only humans left. So, they're pretty surprised when an advanced starship shows up, but they're like eager to reconnect, and they're like, hey, this is great actually. You guys can help us continue our beautiful clone society by giving us some tissue samples. And Raker takes exception to this rather forcefully and immediately saying, I don't want clones of me. I prefer to inseminate personally.

A tissue sample won't be necessary. Yeah, yeah. Clones of me diminish me in ways I can't even imagine. But I'm not against diminishing a lot of you in ways that you can't even imagine And so they're like well, we can't help you with that but we could like fix some of your broken Computer equipment or whatever and you know, we'll try and think about like what we can do. Like we'll send the doctor down so like look at your cloning technology.

See if she can spot any problems that are obvious to fix. Yeah, and once again, you have seen your bridge crew sent down to a planet that they don't know if they can trust. Right. And what do you think's gonna happen? This is like the episode after Jordy gets taken hostage by the dumb fat people. They've seen a bunch of warning signs and totally ignored them.

And I think Worf was a little less vigilant maybe because he's in his refractory period this episode. He's finally... He has measles and he's just popped. Yeah. He's really beat. Yeah. I am the cute is a ball. You will assist us. I am a cute disaball.

You will assist us. I am a cute disaball. You are a fool. Polasky and riker wind up getting stunned. And there's this really creepy scene where they're lowering super long needles into their bellies while they're... Their eyes are open. Yeah.

And they're taking stomach cells, which Polasky says are the best ones to use if you're going to do cloning. And so they discover that this happened because when they beam back up, Jordy's like, hey, I was looking for you guys and they're like, what do you mean? And he's like, well, I went to the prime minister's office. He said, he hadn't seen you. And they're like, well, we were there. And he's like, were you? Were you?

Why don't you sit down over there? Do you think the readings from Polaski's stomach are really bizarre to them because like, they're getting cling on in with the stomach samples too? Yeah, well, she doesn't show the the tricorder too. Her raker, her raker, her raker. She doesn't show the the tricorder to our right girl. Our Jordi. She doesn't know. It's all this cling on DNA doing in her. I know DNA.

Welcome back, Mr. DNA. First we take the clones and then we make more people out of them. They discover that there are in fact Polaskian riker clones in the cloning facility and they do something pretty intense which is without like announcing that they're there or what they're doing. Riker vaporizes them with his garage door phaser. This is a great scene because they do this almost wordlessly. Totally. Like they go down there, they look at each other, they look at the...

Like this scene and the T ceremony scene are like the scenes of the episode. And it, it like, I mean, it's like, why did we have to watch the rest of this episode to get these two scenes? Right, right. It's not quite as chilling and terrifying as the scene in alien resurrection when Ripley destroys Oliver Clones. That was like those were monstrosities. Yeah. And that scene I thought was really affecting. This is these clones at their stage of development are sort of blank looking. Yeah, they're like, if you've ever seen those videos about the guys and the Department of Defense that are figuring out how to like make replacement organs that are actually yours

Yeah, they like wash all the genetic material out of an organ and then Pregnate it with your own. Yeah, it like it's like gooey jelly people that haven't developed into Full humans yet, right, but it's a cool scene and a really cool like the the props are like super awesome looking It's one of one of the better better sets we've gotten this season too. Yeah, pretty solid. And maybe they were so focused on getting that right that they forgot to like actually have a good rest of an episode. Yeah, they had a singular focus.

I mean, the props of the tea ceremony were really awesome too. They really thought that out and made it look cool and like kind of alien and unique and interesting. This, I mean, the set dressing of the entire episode was rad beginning to end. There was a lot of work done. Yeah. The caretaken. I guess that's probably why we didn't see the Bring Lloyd planet because they spent so much time on the Mariposa planet. Yeah, had to buy all that hay.

Yeah, so the Mariposans are pretty fucking pissed off that their clones got tagged and the enterprises like, we're gonna go down and like make sure you didn't jack any other tissue samples, cause like we are super nut down with this. And then Picard and like a riker and pelaski got Picazbid didn't they? Yeah I mean in a way. Like when they go down to that meeting the lead guy shoots him with a with a stunner he's like here have a glass of orange

juice. Yes, he. That was just so transparently me setting you up for Pekazvi. Yeah, I was gonna leave you hang in there. It's your turn, me monkey. I was gonna leave you hanging, but it's fun for me to do too. So Picard and Poleski come up with the idea that the Mariposans and the Bringloidi are actually kind of a match made in heaven because the bringloidi need a planet and the meriposans need genetic stock. So they decide that what's going to happen is they're going to they're just going to like drop the bringloidi off and bounce. The negotiation is like look I know

this is a struggle for you to even consider, but. Right. Because the many... The opposins have like, they walked away from sexuality centuries ago. It's not a part of their society anymore. Yeah, they have a conversation about this and Rikers sitting across from him, like physically disgusted by the idea that the man sitting across from the table is like, yeah, we think sex is gross.

Yeah, I think that might be the third scene that makes this episode worth the paper it was printed on. Because that one shot of Riker, like meanwhile, Riker is just stinking of cabbage. Yeah. But they, uh, don't send letters Yeah The the the maripotans are like pretty resistant to this arrangement, but the bringoyity are Are pretty down with it, I guess so the beam of down and the are pretty down with it, I guess. So, they beam them down, and the maripotions like,

oh, I guess we'll just go to the depth, and then that's it. It is the outshot of this episode is extremely abrupt. Yeah. The... They basically smash cut to exterior, planet, and ship, and then that's it, more credits. I think Danilo O'Dell says, send in the clones, which is like the dad jokeyest joke that has ever been on Star Trek the next generation.

Buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh. Yeah, and then the fucking enterprise just leaves. Yeah, yeah, great. That's great. Yeah, very strange episode. And. Definitely like. Skipable.

Yeah, no question for me that this is on Mount armus yeah if you're watching from home no reason no reason to watch this uh... uh... a greatest in live show is something you don't want to miss well it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FOD is from all over, gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment.

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I mean, getting back to the idea of your veto, it occurs to me that in burning both a veto and a counter veto, we've set ourselves up to watch Shades of Grey. We haven't just set ourselves up to watch Shades of Grey. We've set ourselves up to watch the next episode, which is LaWoxana episode. Oh, great. And a legendarily bad LaWoxana episode. How great. And a legendarily bad Waxana episode. We really screwed this one up.

I think you screwed this one up, Adam. I think it wasn't as bad a burn last time around. When I overrode your veto last time, we watched some turkeys willingly in that season, but that was the one to veto and we watched it. This season has like three VTOWable episodes and we could have watched two fewer of them. Yeah, I feel kind of empty about my choice. I don't feel good about it, certainly. Yeah. I don't mean to lecture you about the use of your VTOW, but...

We get enough of those. Believe me. Speaking of, then, did you like this episode? I don't believe you said. I did not like this episode. Okay. I don't like it at all. I like those three scenes we talked about,

but it's cold comfort in the face of this monstrosity of television. This episode was a cancelable offense to me, I feel like. Right. Like, can you imagine the studio execs checking this one out and going like, yeah, let's write him a check for the next one. I would like to see where this storyline goes. No one is saying that. Insane.

Yeah. As you were watching, did you find yourself a... Trunk Shimoda? Trunk Shimoda! Trunk Shimoda! When it goes Polesky for the T and a antidote move, I think that Polesky knew that she was going to bang Wurf and I think she kind of made a pass at him by covering for him in the way that she did and I think she like wanted to get down like

she was in the club looking for that one night stand and she found it and that's like I mean like I think Jim Shimoda goes and gets what he wants, fun-wise, you know? How about yourself? That works for me. I did not write down a Shemota. I didn't either. I'm just pulling this out of thin air. But I think I'm inclined to go in this direction for it. I read some reviews of this episode that were unkind to put it mildly. And then I read some production notes for this episode. And the Shimoda for me are the production people and creatives. That still maintained that this was a good episode.

And there are a few. Really? Yeah. The writer, Melinda Snodgrass, is like, oh yeah, this was a super fun episode. Like even in retro, even in retro-respect, she's like, yeah, totally, like I went for this sort of immigration message. That part of it wasn't as strong as I would like, but yeah, really fun episode. The director was, the director, Winery Colby's, like I just told everyone to like turn it up to 10 and it was a super fun shoot. Jesus.

And to his credit, Ronald Moore is like, this is a fucking atrocity. This is an embarrassing episode and I'm ashamed to have been involved in it whatsoever. So to me, anyone involved in its production, even when given the gift of retrospect, who feels like this was a good choice creatively or otherwise, is a Shimoda, because that is totally misplaced confidence for me. You have a chance to reject it. I think you and I have made a lot of creative mistakes that we wish we could take back. There's nothing wrong with admitting those mistakes. There's things that we can distance ourselves from that we wish we could take back. There's nothing wrong with admitting those mistakes. There's things that we can distance ourselves from

that we ourselves have done. Right, and the stubbornness with which people involved in this episode are hanging on to me is like, let it go, guys. Whoa mama. Yeah. I am the cutest aboard. You will respond to my questions.

I am the cutest aboard. You are bored. What do we have coming up for the next episode that we have to watch no matter what? Our next episode, unfortunately Adam, is episode 19 of season 2, manhunt. In her search for the perfect mate, Troy's mother beams aboard the enterprise and sets her sight on Captain Picard. Just like two minute fart noise. Yeah. Well, I did this to us. I'm sorry.

I mean, I could have saved my veto for this, but I really didn't want to watch the last one either. Yeah, well, that's what we're going to watch next. Sorry. I don't think I'd fault you if you wanted to skip that episode of our show too. That's not the rules though, Adam. Oh yeah, our listeners have to listen to every episode. That's part of it. All right.

Well, I have many apologies to give. Yeah. You can follow Adam on Twitter at Cut for Time and you can follow me on Twitter at BenjaminRAHR. You can also tweet a better show using the hashtag GreatestGen. GreatestGen is also one of our Reddit groups along with the official Maximum Fun Reddit group, which is sort of a best behavior place for you. And greatest gen can be sort of an awful sandbox for you to be your worst self. Let your freak flag fly.

Put our reviews of the shows on Wikipedia. That's really fun for us. Somebody started doing that and that's like the awesomeness thing ever. Yeah, we don't deserve that at all, but we appreciate it. You can also go to our Facebook group, greatest generation, and there are other places online, I'm sure, but I can't remember them at the moment. If you feel like supporting the show, go to maximumfund.org slash donate.

And if you feel like helping other people find the show, go to iTunes and leave us a nice five star review. Really helps. Yeah, we're really in the weeds in season two here, Ben. So, I guess we'll just get through. The only way out is through, isn't it? Yeah. And they really piled up the end of this season with a bunch of shit.

Hey, what are we going to do with all these shitty, what are season one scripts? Make people really think twice about coming back for season three. Everyone's already signed a contract, so I guess we gotta make them. Well, with that, we will be back at you next time with an episode of Star Trek, the next generation that we really wish you could skip. And also, an episode of whatever this is. See you then! Bye! Music Maximumfund.org You'll be got it, got it, got it, got it. Maximumfund.org