The Greatest Generation - Duke Gingersnap (S4E20)

Episode Date: December 14, 2016

When Captain Picard’s vacation fling comes aboard, his carefully cultivated facade of paternalistic authority begins to break apart. Then, instead of us getting a series of events exploring the ramifications of that, Q shows up and ruins everything. Which early 90s celebrity was John De Lancie taking his hair cues from? Why did they give Geordi the guitar? What compelled the writers to humiliate their characters like this? It’s the episode where there must have been a free castle set, because why else would it have ever been written?

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 friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! You are listening to the greatest generation, a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed about this. Having a Star Trek podcast situation they've gotten themselves into, I'm one of your hosts,

Benjamin R. Harrison. I'm the other host, Adam Pranaka. How you doing, Adam? Doing all right. It's a snow day for me,aka. Hey, do an Adam. Do an all right to snow day for me Ben. Yeah, that's weird. Yeah, it doesn't happen too often. Snow in Seattle. That's a that's like once every few years kind of a situation, right? Yeah, feels good. Sort of shut the whole city down. No one's driving, no one's going to work. It's pretty great. With any luck there'll be a rampantly viral video of cars unable to obtain traction on a hill crashing into each other.

Well the Benny Hill people need their music money. Yeah. And you know it's not cheap to license that song when you're showing a viral car smashing another car on an icy street video. So I'm happy to support them. Yeah, Benny Hill's estate stays in comfortable clothes because of the occasional snow in Seattle. That's a cause I don't mind supporting. I mean ours is a show that supports the occasional cause. Yeah. I think we can put the Benny Hill estate on that list.

Adam, our contest is still going. Oh, yeah? Yes. The one we thought up last episode still happening, we are making a big push to 1,000 iTunes reviews in the US iTunes store before the year is out. And all you have to do is write a review, wait for it to show up on the GraysGen iTunes page, take a screenshot and email it to drunksamota.gmail.com and you could win a t-shirt and a

poster from our recent tour. A prize power pack. I was trying to summon like morning drive DJ host voice and I just I'm sorry I couldn't I couldn't click it there. Yeah that's why those guys get so much money is they can they can muster that kind of energy at like 4.30 a.m. That's not me. It's 9 a.m. my time. And I don't have that kind of energy. Yeah. Well, do you want to, uh, do you want to pour the small amount of energy you have left into this episode?

This episode that is not deserving of podcast fluid, it is season four, episode 20, Q-Pid. The entrepreneur is going to be hosting an archeology conference, which is, got Captain Picard pretty excited, but in his anhydonic way, it's he can't just enjoy himself, he has to stress himself out by working on his keynote speech that he's gonna make to the assembled dignitaries. And so he's toiling away on this speech in his ready room and Troy comes in and I thought this is kind of a cool scene because because puts on uncharacteristic vulnerability in front of her, you know. Tomorrow I'm gonna be addressing some of the greatest scientific minds in the federation.

Switzerland, Plakhton, DROF, McFarlane, giants in the field of archaeology compared to them, has an enthusiastic amateur. He kind of admits that he's stressing out in a way that I don't think he usually lets slide. Well, the last time that he let that slide, he made him go on vacation. So maybe this is sort of a, like, this is a reverse jinx situation where he really wants to go on vacation. They get out of this task and, uh, and Troy just won't send him there. Yeah. I feel like Captain McCard would be a really bad college roommate to have.

Like the overstudier, the stress case never wants to party. Yeah. Always making you feel bad for wanting to party. Right. When you put on some music, you just hear them do like a deep Beliegered sigh In the corner, you know just desk guys could you keep it down? Yeah If a big quiz in the morning, can we talk about how he's studying to

Like I think we need to talk about the size of his monitors specifically on his desk He has like the single 15 inch iMac. And then in his hand, he's got the tiny, he's got the big iPhone. He doesn't even have the mini iPad. Is that a really efficient way for him to be studying? Yeah, he's really hunched over too. I mean, he's squinting, I mean, he's not a young man.

His eyesight can't be great. I don't know if you've been in a corporate workplace lately, but they are all about the ergonomics. Like, they will fucking fire you if they catch you working non-erogonomically. Yeah, they're like, we're gonna need to chain you to a standing desk and make sure that you're... Here's a couple of bowling gloves for your wrists and we're gonna need you to get up every 10 minutes even though you're not a

smoker. Are you sure those aren't archery gloves Adam? Not sure. Well this conversation goes on perhaps a little bit too long. Are you talking about arms? This old podcast goes along perhaps a little too long. Oh, overstays it will, it's welcome. Doesn't leave him wanting more. And Picard heads back to his quarters where he dims the lights and he's about to put on his deep V and hit the sack when he notices a

Horgon sitting on the coffee table and is immediately gripped with a powerful erection. It's Vash. Vash is here. Vash who has somehow achieved access to what should be one of the most secure places on the ship. Well, there's no locks. Yeah, I guess not. Did you think that she brought the Horgon? I thought that was the captain's personal Horgon from the planet. I don't think he would ever be so crass as to have one in his quarters. As to display it openly. I think she brought that shit. The captain occasionally will host a breakfast in his quarters. You don't want the Horde gone out. It sends the wrong message.

Yeah. You don't want Bev getting frisky. You think Riker has tables held up by Horde guns? Like stacks and stacks of them? There's a whole cargo bay on deck 12, just full of fucking horgons. There's a poster on the wall of a horgon wearing a sweatshirt that just says college on it. A horgon leaning against the Lamborghini.

Yeah. Oh man. The scene ends with Vash ends and Picard kind of moving into or at each other. And then we get the title sequence. The title sequence of like the Enterprise going into a cave. Yeah. And like Warp C cores pumping. Yeah. We definitely, we come back and Picard has like, I don't know how Patrick Stewart did this, but his performance definitely has a freshly fucked. Yeah, this about it. Yeah, yeah, his, his, he's swinging his arms a little more than he usually does. Yeah, yeah, it's great.

And he's like real chill. Having a nice continental breakfast with Vash when the doctor in like a drop shoulder sweater comes in. I feel like she'd probably like pulled this out of one of the trunks that Wesley left behind. Yeah, all of the crushers really like a triple X sweater, don't they? They really do. It's a good look on a crusher. The Crusher collection.

The Crusher collection is just a model wearing a giant sweater basically around their waist. Yeah, Crusher comes in and she does not play this cool at all. I'm sorry I'm late. Oh. No. Yeah, Crusher comes in and she does not play this cool at all. I'm sorry I'm late. Oh? No. She is not pleased to find another woman sniffing around the captain's quarters. Well, who plays at worst is Picard, who plays the guilty party right off the job. Doctor Beverly, Doctor Beverly Crusher, this is, um,

Fash. She's a friend of mine from the Archaeology Council. I didn't mean to interrupt. The Captain and I often share more than any tea together. Yeah. It really makes me wonder, like, what their arrangement is, because it's- it's long been implied that it's a little bit more than professional and platonic, but

it's never actually more than head cannon, right? Like they never get to a smoocher or anything like that. Picard spends so much time with Riker over the course of his career. I can't believe that there's not a moment in 10 forward or whatever where a werpa card would turn to him and go like, how do you do that with Troy? Like, how are you just cool like that? Because I can't seem to hold us together around Beverly. Yeah, it's weird. She's super salty that Vasha's there. Vasha's pretty chill about the whole situation, but the deal is that Beverly has never heard word one about this woman, and I think it is offended that

you know, even if she's just a confidante of the captains, that she just walked into a room that smells like sex and croissants and this is a total surprise for her. I love that that late 90s song that Marcy Playground song. Sex and croissants. Yeah, I mean you know you know when that music queue drops in a movie you're you're in for a 90s treat. You know Julia Roberts is going to walk around the corner and Hugh Grant. All the colors are going to walk around the corner. And Hugh Grant.

All the colors are going to be saturated. All the lighting is going to be super flat. I'm not really sure how this works out, but somehow the way this scene resolves is with Beverly agreeing to take Vash on a tour of the ship. And so they go down to 10 forward. Bev goes off to snag a couple of glasses of tang for them to start their day with. And Riker is in there like drinking. He's in there like drinking his ass off,

and he walks up to Vash and tries to lay the mack down. He turned it, he never looked so lovely. Excuse me. Riker is drinking like the fruit punch of flirtation. Oh yeah! And this got me thinking like, have we talked about whether or not Riker's drinks might be telegraphing as mood

at a particular time the way that someone like crams a colored hanker chiff in their back pocket to telegraph like what sort of sex stuff they're into? Yeah. Oh Riker's drinking something yellow so he's in the mood for water sports. Right, exactly. Uh oh, Riker's drinking hot chocolate. Hey, spreck-in-sy-doit-tracker. It's the scene is hilarious because it plays off of what I think the viewer knows and wants out of a Will Riker in a scene like this, which is just an unabashed willingness to flirt

with anyone. The doctor gets called away and she's like, oh, Will will continue this tour. And with a raised eyebrow, Will is like, yes yes I will. I don't have any plans. I had plans to fuck. Let's start the tour by going down this hallway. Then coming back out of this hallway, then going back down it, then coming back out of it, and then going back down it again. Rakers, like should I get you a red beverage or should I just put down a towel? like should I get you a red beverage or should I just put down a towel? That's a keeper. We're gonna get some letters at him. We're gonna get some letters.

Gotta use that letters trap. Riker has fallen into the same trap as Dr. Crusher. Picard has not told anybody about the baby he met on Rasa. And so he takes her on the rest of the tour. And there's like an awkward scene where he walks her under the bridge and is kind of introducing her around. She curls up in the captain's chair like a sexy kitty and the card walks on on deck and it's like well enough of that fun and games time is over time to be a professional starfleet crew and a little bit of a boner lean out of him though. Yeah you see Wharf in the background though just going yes. And so, uh, you know, business continues and, uh, there's a, uh, brief scene in 10 Forward where Worf gives his Yelp review of Vash.

Nice links. The Four Human. Worf doesn't have much to do in this episode until later, but good God, like what few lines of dialogue he has, he just fucking crushes like that in practice. He is just the worst. Have we ever seen Worf comment on the physical attractiveness of anyone, let alone a human woman, let alone a special guest star?

Let alone how good the parking is yeah Yeah, like war if that's an HR violation buddy Yeah, he says that in mixed company too, right? Yeah, he does feel like it's like Troy and Jordy standing around who's like nice knockers shitty parking Even Jordy's like whoa dude Really Nice knockers, shitty parking. Even Jordy's like, whoa, dude. Really? Over the line! This is not the moment where he begins his speech, right? They're intent forward for another reason?

Yeah, it's like the kickoff party or something. And Picard winds up back in his ready room, back to toiling over his script for his speech and uh... this is like the 12 or 13 minute mark at him yeah this is a third of the way through the episode

we get a uh... we get a swish sound effect and who should be uh... who should be leaning in in the captain chair, but our good friend, Q. Jean-Luc, it's wonderful to see you again. How about a big hug? Did this surprise you, Ben? Did you think after 20 minutes, maybe Q wouldn't show up in a Q-tidal episode, and you might have gotten away with one? Yeah, I was excited. You know, I was especially excited because I was looking at this episode and I was like, this is shaping up to be a really interesting episode.

Like, we definitely haven't gotten to the inciting incident yet. Yeah. But I love the idea of the captain, you know, who cultivates a detached persona for professional reasons, having a woman on board who he loves very much and doesn't care about that persona and the damage she is doing to it. Yeah. And you know, I was like rewriting the script in my head the second Q-shade,

but I was like, what if instead of Q, they like, did anything? Did it, like, there was there was like I was thinking, so they're in orbit of this planet where there's this interesting archeological site, but they can't go to it because it's forbidden for outsiders. What if they crash landed a shuttlecraft near there and it's Vosh and the captain,

and like the captain wants to do the right thing and admit that they've been in this site and Vosh is like no, let's just slip out. Like, a difference of cultural values kind of thing would have been a really interesting way to take this. Like just, I don't know, there's so many, so many interesting things that have happened. And instead, you don't want to blow your budget on that kind of setup then. Instead the Q's aim here is to thank Captain Picard for whatever the fuck happened in the

last Q episode, and he decides that the thing that Captain Picard wants most is to do a heroic act to win Vasha's heart or something. And so... That checks out. Can we talk about Q's hair for a moment? I'm getting full, baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on baby, come on here, which is really like business in the front and casual Friday in the back. Yeah. It's a little bit poofy, poofyier than we're used to. Yeah, it's like early sign felt.

Where is this episode on the timeline of sign felt episodes? Like I wonder if it's, if it tracks. Like, is this episode occurring at the same time as season one or two Seinfeld? I guess maybe, yeah. We could do that research, but we won't. I leave it to the viewers. I'm hoping that somebody can look into that.

You know what, if you write, if you give us that information, that also qualifies for price back. If it's randomly chosen. Oh, wait. But please leave reviews. Because we want to get to a thousand. That would be really cool. So Q gets this idea. And there's not much else that happens in the first half or so of this episode. But the captain starts giving his hotly anticipated keynote address.

And as he is doing it, silly hats start appearing on the heads of all of the crew members in attendance. And eventually Picard appears before the assembled group in a deep V Robin Hood costume. And then they all find themselves in Sherwood Forest. One of the dumbest plot twists that has ever been conceived in television history. We're in mid-December right now, Ben. This is peak gift-giving season. We're talking about.

I feel like Hugh's gift is a gift giving season. We're talking about. I feel like Q's gift is a gift for Q. This is not a gift for Picard, you know? Like he's putting it out there that this is all about Picard and Q's sort of great gratitude for getting him back in the collective, but this is what Q wants. This is not what Picard wants. Bed gift. Very, uh...

I don't get it. It's very weird and also... like I feel like the executive producer is sitting in his office and one of the writers comes in and goes like, God, like I've been thinking about Robin Hood a lot lately. You've got the new Kevin Costner movie coming out. You've got, there's just a lot of excitement

about Robinhood right now. I would love to work it into an episode and the producers were like, all right, but you really gotta justify it. It can't just be some dumb holiday excuse and they're right or went off. And then the executive producer is like back in the office like three days later, extremely drunk

and just approving scripts without reading them. Looks pretty good to me. Like the writer began with Worfs, I am not a Maryman line reading and then wrote outward from there. with warfs, I am not a Mary-Man, line reading, and then wrote outward from there. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Kevin Costner could redeem a storyline like this. If Costner couldn't do it, what makes them think that this show could? It is so crazy. And it's like, the twist to it is like, what if instead of Robin Hood saving Made Marion, and you know, like, you know, they set it up where Vosh's Made Marion and Picard is, is Robin Hood and he has to rescue her. Don't forget data as Friar Tuck. Yeah, it's like weird circuit lines on his bald patch.

And I guess, instead of Robin Hood rescuing made Marion. It's the, the, the Mary-Man have to rescue Robin Hood and Made Marion is like the big fucking interesting twist they put on the story. But it's like, who gives a shit? Who cares at all about fucking Robin Hood? Well, their way of, of fucking forcing us to care is by Q repeatedly saying that the stakes are high and that people can get killed in the scenario.

Yeah. He's like, he's like, blood's gonna be spilled, real blood and I'm not gonna stop it. And that is supposed to raise the stakes enough for us to care about this terrible story. I wonder something in this. It's like, you know I hate the holodeck dress up stories. Yeah. But at least there's an element of fun there that I felt was just totally lacking in this whole Robinhood scenario. None of this was fun, or funny. It just felt camp.

That's something that occurred to me as well, and it made me wonder if if Becard had been written off of the show in the Borg's episode, and we were watching a series that was now starting Captain Riker, I wonder what those Q episodes would have been like, because I kind of feel like Riker as a character is more receptive to the appeals that Q makes. Yeah. Like, the thing with Picard is that he doesn't like fun at all. So putting him in a scenario like this,

he's just gonna like business out of it. Yeah, I think Riker, a Captain Riker, would take Q up on his offers more often than Picard certainly does. But that would also be interesting, right? Like it'd be like, cool, you're gonna give me a gift, red step on rake. This is also the problem that we ran into when Barkley became super intelligent, which was like, none of the crew knows how to accept a gift this big.

Like, a great gift that Q could have given Picard is another trip to the other side of the galaxy to see something amazing. Yeah. But that's not the gift he's giving. Yeah, meet some people from the dominion. Right. Can't do that. We would much rather burn up our budget on a castle set and a bunch of thrift store Robinhood costumes.

Did this castle set look familiar to you at all? Yeah, I don't know. That would be good trivia. Because the set's too good to just build and destroy. You know, it probably still exists. Yeah. I wonder if they wrote the episode around the availability of a set.

Like, hey guys, you'll never believe it. Stage 42 has a fully outfitted like castle and Sherwood Forest setup. They're gonna keep it up for like an extra week. They say we can use it, but we need to come up with a story. Right, it's a, it's like, it's story of convenience is what it is. Yeah, both bottle episode and not bottle episode.

Yeah. My love is a people long and chill about that, which long and thus has a busy, counting on your love for yeah. Anyways, the captain attempts to say Vash. Vash, I would say that Vash in this scenario is more interesting than anything else, which is not like a high part of clear.

Absolutely. And in one of the great surprises in Star Trek character writing history, Vash is self-sufficient and getting her own self out of trouble. Yeah. And it's great. Yeah, she's very confident in her ability to solve any predicament she finds herself in. And so she is immediately working on doing a con job

on the guy of whatever guy of Gallipoli character. What's the guy's name? I don't know, the Duke of Ginger. Duke Ginger Snap. Yeah, she's conning Duke Ginger Snap right off the bat. Like, she works out where they are and what's happening really quickly. Yeah. And, like, she's got her own plan. Like, essentially Picard is fucking her shit up.

The second he shows up inside the castle. And, and yeah, it's like, it's like, I don't know, she's ready to, she's ready to stay there and like fight it out for herself rather than get executed with Picard and his stupid crew. She's making decisions completely independently of Picard and anyone else, and I feel like if the crew wasn't there, she would be just fine.

Yeah. And she, you know, as they, when they have their big swashbuckling action scene at the end and they all go home safe for whatever reason, she's like totally impressed, Q. Q is as intrigued by Vosh as he's ever been by Picard and there's this final scene where Picard is hanging out in the ready room and he's visited once more by Vash and Q and they're in... They're in stirrups for some reason? They're in like colonial explorer costumes with pith helmets and riding boots and jodpers and uh... Back when you'd go to a banana republic in a mall and they'd have that jeep crashed in front.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of fake palm trees inside. Yeah. Boy, that store is so different now. The scene is like, is about trying to make this right early case that Vash and Q are like two sides of the same coin, like the things he loves in Vash are the things that he hates about Q. He's devious and immoral and unreliable and irresponsible and definitely not to be trusted. Remind you of someone you know?

As matter of fact, it does. And it's just like the most hollow, brain-dead ending to a story that started so strong. I'd say the first 12 minutes of this are as strong and opening as we've had for an interesting episode about character. And it is just a fucking, you're right. It's like a three-ring circus after that. And it ends on the kind of resolution that

somebody that's extremely high would make. I wonder if these were two separate scripts that got mushed together. I wonder if the beginning was written by someone else, someone different from the end, and maybe the person who wrote the beginning didn't have an end to their script and the person who wrote the end Did never beginning to it and they just sort of sutured them together Either that or one person was writing it the entire time and got bonked on the head when they got into act 2 People either love or hate this episode like the feelings are very strong about it People were talking about people were relishing the idea of us reviewing this episode before we got to it. So that,

that begs the question, Ben, did you like it? Was it's first half redemptive enough for you to push it over the top? No, I don't like it. I think it's a, it's such a bizarre misfire in a season that has had so few genuine misfires. And the, like, the goodness of the first act is so overshadowed by the badness that it just feels like a terrible opportunity lost. And I regret not having vetoed it. How about you? This episode makes me think about how intentional it is to portray people who do serious work in a fun light as an intentional thing. Must you make fun of your crew in an episode a season. Like, do we have to have one of these all the time? Because I really like serious sci-fi

and I like when the stakes are high. And like, I wonder if this is something that, I wonder if this isn't just a good story from their perspective versus like an actual story technology that they're deploying. Like, well, we have, we have to lighten the mood now, guys. We can't just do hard sci-fi for 28 episodes. Like, where are we gonna put the fun episode?

Is that a thing? I don't know. I mean, like in those earlier seasons, we joked a lot about them kind of challenging people to ever watch the show again. Yeah. Yeah. Like episode after episode was like, like, like, you're a fucking nerd and we know you're coming back for more, even though this is ridiculous. Like, this feels like that tone. This feels like a

fuck you. Yeah. And it's, you know, like we're getting toward the end of this season now. And I believe we still have a little walks on an episode coming down the pike, which is crazy to me. Like they, they're, like I think that the, like we talked also about how the highs maybe not are not as high in season four, but the lows are not so low. This is like a spike in the fucking ground. Yeah. Yeah, it's like the time to stop this episode from happening is when someone in the room says, but we are doing a yearly Lux on episode, right?

Like, we don't have to do this, you guys. Yeah. Oh boy. No I did not like this episode, Ben. Not that you asked. But that's the part in the show where we talk about things like that though. The only way I could possibly brighten my mood is by checking for a priority one message. Should we see if there's any coming in?

Sure, let's do that. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on it. A supplement? Yes, extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Adam, our first priority one message comes from Rita and it's for Craig. Thank you for being the best brother and for introducing me to this fantastic podcast. Aren't you glad I made you watch all that Star Trek when we were kids?

Don't forget your hot pockets on Christmas Eve and no matter what anyone tells you, on every Christmas tree, There are four lights! Love you lots. May we be gaming and nerding buddies forever. Ah. That's a beautiful, a beautiful message. Nice line reading on that four lights. Line. Well done. I can't remember. Are there four or is it five?

I guess we'll never know. Yeah. Do you have any fun food traditions on Christmas Eve? Or whatever? Holiday Eve, you celebrate? Uh, I do. I like to cook at Fine Fat Goose. Shut up! Yeah.

Where do you even get a goose? Oh, you're a New York City. They have those at Bodegas. They usually do Christmas in California. And there are butcher shops that will sell you a goose. Wow. They're a little bit pricey and challenging to cook because they produce a lot of fat when you're cooking them.

But the trick is you put potatoes underneath and the potatoes cooking that fat and they are so fucking good. Whoa! Yeah. Oh man, you just blew my mind. You gotta get them fall, dude. At least, short.

I already won. You're gonna get on that goose. Gotta get a fine fat goose this Christmas. Or Hanukkah. Wow. There's no teaching in Judaism that says you can't, you can't dine on goose for Hanukkah. Wow. There's no teaching in Judaism that says you can't, you can't dine on Goose for Hanukkah. Turkey is such a garbage foul that like I just want to straight up replace it with Goose now.

Well that's the thing at him. A Goose is all dark meat. Even the breasts are dark meat on a Goose. Oh my god. No way. Yeah. Yeah man. When Riker wants a goose, he's drinking that hot chocolate. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Kevin MC? Kevin MC on the ones in the twos.

Yeah. Who is this message for? Well, Ben, it's for you, me and all viewers. Whoa. Message goes like this. Thanks for the great show, guys. I'm sorry for never contributing dollar signs before, so. Here's a hundred scarves and an attempt at penitence.

To all viewers, I challenge you to make a resolution in 17 to support this show. Just think if we all pitched in $10 a month Maybe we could start getting some quality out of it. Oh Boy Kevin Mick you're not wrong He goes on to say I kid thanks a and b for all you do happy new year. Thanks Kevin Mick. That's really sweet That is so I Went on a little bum out about not getting a priority one message a couple episodes ago, and I think that this

Priority one message was actually booked and on the calendar. After I had recorded that, but before that episode aired, so Kevin like predicted something and uh, and has made a, a strong challenge. This is a Kevin that uh, that believes in a, a good kind of benevolence. He's doing the right thing and inspiring others to do something good. He's a man of special conscience, just like me. But doesn't like me, he uses that conscience for good. And not genius-eyed. Very true, Kevin. Well, if you're interested in joining the ranks of all Kevin's everywhere

wander on over to maximumfund.org slash jumbo tron personal messages are a hundred dollars corporate slash business type messages are 200 they help us run our show and produce it and it actually gives us an answer to the question our wives ask us every once in a while, which is like, you guys get paid for this, right? Hahaha. Occasionally we say no. More often than not we say no, but occasionally we say yes thanks to our the generous contributions of our viewers, so thank you very much. Yeah, thanks everybody. A Greatest Gen Live Show is something you don't want to miss.

Why? Well it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it. The Sherry Reembarishment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places.

Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's GreatestGenTour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Sherry Reembarishment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris, and I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests, and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds.

Pat Noswald. Could I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are open. Just pull it out.

Give Jordan Jesse Goat try. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Whoa, Russ. Hey, hey, hey. Oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line and boy, what do I?

These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short nacks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this off. We've got to get on the art. It is about terrain, it's about historic humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans.

We're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Carrie? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came to by two. What do you think?

Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFund.org. In my viewing of this episode, I thought that Wurf was the drunk Samota. This moment really stuck with me when Riker walks onto the bridge with Vosh, and he's like clearly giving her a tour. And he walks over and Jordi and Data are doing some science project in the corner and introduces Vosh to them. They're pretty polite. And then they turn around and Riker introduces her to Wharf. And Wharf just stands there impassively

without extending his hand to greet her. And turns to Riker and goes, I didn't know we were bringing these people on board the bridge. It's so fucking rude. He's a real tick. He said that like two links up the chain of command, to a guy that outrinks him by two levels of rank.

What the fuck is this problem? Doesn't Riker have leave to bring somebody on board the bridge? Yeah, exactly. Warf is fucking moody the entire episode. Crazy. Get it together, Warf. Ha ha ha ha. How much you, did you have a drink, Samota? Crazy get it together wharf How much you did you have a drink some out? Yeah, I did um

What we see in this episode is is a developed female character in the name of Vash She's interesting. She's smart and funny Multi-dimensional multi-dimensional. Multi-dimensional. This is her second episode that she's ever been on the show for, right? Yeah. And so we get her on the one hand. And on the other hand, we have our two female cast members who are in every episode.

We have Diana Troy and Beverly Crusher. Both of which get basically zero dialogue. Both of which in the major fight scene at the very end, the crescendo of all the action are not given swords to fight with. They're not given weapons of any kind instead. Dropping potted plants on guys' heads. Yeah, and the idea of giving our potted plant characters literal potted plants to drop on people is my Shimoda. It would be like if you had them go through doors by slipping through the crack rather than the door opening

because they're so too dimensional. Yeah. That is the level of metaphor we're working with here. It just felt unnecessarily cruel to two actors that we like. So that is my Shimoda for this episode, Ben. Solid Shimoda. Well, does it get any better from here? What are we watching for the next episode?

It does, Adam. The next episode is season four episode 21, the drum head. The drum head. A search for a spy aboard the entrepreneur turns into a witch hunt in which Picard is implicated as a traitor. Do you remember this episode, Adam?

Who could forget Dame Admiral Satie? I do remember this episode. I'm looking forward to seeing it. Yeah, this is one of, I would say, one of the top classic episodes. The best of the best. Yeah, can't wait. Wow. You know what else I can't wait for at him? What's that, man?

People to go and get a drunk Shimoda shirt or a West Hyde American summer shirt for their loved ones for this holiday season and people to go to MaximumFund out of their slash Donate to support the show on an ongoing basis. We had a real nice thread on Facebook the other day on the greatest Gen Facebook group about people talking about how good it made them feel to contribute to the production of this show. And I want to thank everybody that took part in that thread or took on a monthly donation because of that thread or increased their donation to Maximum Fund out or because of that thread.

It was a real treat and a bright spot on my week. Yeah, and look, viewers don't just have to do it for us. They can do it for them because by becoming a supporter of the show, they're going to get some special content coming up in the coming months. Yeah. So, that is always super, super appreciated. Another thing that is appreciated is Adam Ragusia for much of our music and dark material for our theme music.

Thanks, guys. much of our music and dark material for our theme music. Thanks guys and thanks to everybody that used the hashtag GreatestGen to talk to us on Twitter, Adam Zedkud for time on that Benjamin A.H.R. and we're also on redditgreatestgen.reddit.com. That's right! We will be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek, the Next Generation, and a drumhead type episode of the greatest generation. So tight. I can show.

I can show. I can show. I can show. I can show. I can show. I can show. I can show. I can show.

I can show. I can show. I can show. I can show. I can show. I can show. I can show. I can show. Maximumfund.org Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Yor-pikata-kata-kata-kata-kata. Maximumfund.org Comedy and culture.

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