The Greatest Generation - Emphatically Vaginal (S7E17)

Episode Date: September 4, 2017

When Data’s attempt to become a sculptor coincides with the ship encountering a rogue comet, eldritch emanations from the heavenly body cause him to take his exploration of an ancient art form way too far. Now the Entrepreneur is in ruins, and the only way to save it is for Picard to go incognito. Did we just witness an ice life genocide? Did Worf and Geordi doom the ship by leaving a torpedo next to an open flame in engineering? Should Picard just blow up the damn ship? It’s the episode that pauses at vag on its way to treble clef.

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! Welcome to the greatest generation. Star Trek Podcast by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek Podcast.

I'm Adam Pranica. I'm Ben Harrison. Ben, this is the first episode we are recording since returning from tour. For real this time. How do you feel? I feel good. It was a really fun tour. You want to talk about it? Yeah, let's talk about it. I'm about to crack into a John, a juicy ale with nugget that was given to us by Arnisha in Philly at the Philly show. was given to us by our niche in Philly at the Philly show.

Yeah. The show I was afraid to use the word John at. I think you're allowed to use the word John. I just wanted to know that I was using it right and to use a word for the first time on stage without knowing that. Yeah. Just concerning to me. Well, you should have talked to somebody beforehand.

Sure. Yeah, it was a great tour. It was so amazing. I feel like every show, I have really individual and different memories of, but I also don't really feel like I remember much of any of them. You know?

Yeah. I have specific things in mind from each one, but I don't remember like how any of them went particularly past that. Yeah, I have a lot of memories of before the show and after the show, but during the show it was almost an immediate blackout of what had happened on stage in a weird way. Like, my feelings were positive. It feels like, by and large, the live shows were good and fun and funny. But like, I cannot remember any of our show titles, for instance. Yeah, somebody asked us, which Ding took the day, and I laughed at that because I was

like, I can't even remember one. Yeah, yeah. Weird sensation. I mean, did you? Oh, this John beer is quite tasty. Thank you. Oh, good.

We didn't really talk about a lot during the tour about how we were feeling about how it was going. I think maybe in an intentional way, like we just sort of wanted to experience it day by day as its own individual process, but maybe now that we're on, now that we're at the end of it, we are after the tour. How do you feel like it went? I feel like it went great. I mean, I don't know what we did to deserve a viewership that is as bought into our bullshit as we have, but like, it's so fun to go do the jokes

that we do on this show in person and have them really like land for people. We are recording this in between our tour and Max Funcon East where we will take the stage and do a version of the show we just toured. And I have a good amount of apprehension of at least know, at least half the people in that room probably will never have heard our show. Like does this mean the same thing to them? Or, or not?

No, clearly not. I mean, this is like, this is the stand up comics version of the corporate show we're about to do, you know? Right. And I'm filled with the same amount of apprehension about whether Kevin will be welcome at such an event for instance.

The good thing is we've gotten really good at, you know, explaining jokes and making that be the joke. Yeah, that's a lot of fun. So hopefully it will work and we'll have our friend, Jen Roderick there to sit in and be the proxy for the people watching it. And we can explain all our jokes to him. He'll love that.

You can do no better for a proxy than Jen Roderick, I think. No. Top proxy. Yeah, I feel, I feel positive feelings about the tour also, Ben. I, uh, you know, like halfway through it, I was like, good God, man, what have we done? In terms of like the so much, so much travel and setup and show in two weeks, like the pace of it was a real thing, and it had a real effect on me in a number of ways. But like after the halfway point, once we were over the middle and then we were running downhill toward the end, like that was euphoric and fun, and I got used to the life in a way that

like revealed itself when I got home like the tour is over so suddenly and then you're back to your old patterns again and That was an unexpected sort of whiplash to me. I Came home after we spent like the to me. I came home after we spent like the the morning and a bit of the afternoon in DC the morning after our our last show biking around and seeing the monuments and stuff and I came home and basically like dropped my bags changed my clothes and my wife and I went to a bar party with some friends, which then quickly devolved to going back to one of their apartments and hanging out to like 2am. Oh boy.

I basically, you know, the scene in Gattica where you don't save anything for the trip back. Sure. Like the next two days I was like, I mean, part of this was the party. Part of this is the tour, but I am useless. Like I like looked my wife in the eyes and I was like, the only thing I can do today is to sit in my office and play computer games. I'm so sorry. Goodbye. It is a it's a strange adjustment. That's for sure. I have most definitely been sleeping a lot since we've been back. Still very much on East Coast time, and then getting ready to go back to the East Coast tomorrow. Yeah. Where we'll get to do it all over again. Yeah.

Rinse repeat. How did your wife feel about seeing the show for the first time? Like her first experience, like having never listened to the show even, was seeing our show live at the bellhouse. Yeah, there were a bunch of, I mean, there was a lot about that that was totally bonkers for her and also friends of mine that I invited out. People who have been aware that I'm doing this show, but might not listen per se and... Right. Like Sean and Amita from Maximum Funds inside Pop Podcasts came out and I think Sean has probably listened to our show a couple of times but like they were they just I just listened to their most recent episode and they talked a little bit about coming out and they're

Not so much talking about The jokes as like how into it people were and I think that that was the thing that really made an impression on my wife, is like she doesn't know, like she knows like the origin of many of the jokes, because many of the jokes she invented. Right. Right. But also like didn't know what any of a lot of it was.

So, most of the time it was just her being amazed at the community that has grown up around this and not really having any context for that having happened because she hasn't been participating in the Facebook group or the Reddit or whatever. Like, it's not her scene, so she didn't even know that it was happening. It's such a strange bit of nuance, like depending on who it's coming from and what exactly, how exactly it's being articulated,

but the whole idea of, I can't believe that you do that, that feeling can really cut both ways, depending on who's saying it and how it's being said. And like that is a piece of feedback that we received many times for many different people. And it always feels a little bit different depending on its source. And yeah, there's just a whole spectrum of emotions that can come from, I can't believe this is happening, type feeling.

Yeah. I mean, it's still like that first show in Minneapolis, when we walked in to do our sound check and set up and everything. And I saw the size of the room. And I was like conscious of the fact that this was one of the smaller rooms we were gonna play. Yeah.

I was like, are you kidding me? Like, I can't believe that this is a sold-out show. Like, who am I? Who are we? Yeah, there was that fun moment of like, we have enough chairs for every ticket holder and then like, we had a, we had two people to add to the guest list or whatever. And they're like, oh, we got to go get more chairs. And that moment was hilarious to me. Like, oh yeah, we've got to get more than 200 chairs. So stupid. Yeah. Oh man, it was also just really cool to meet people.

Like a lot of people would stay after the show and say, I do us. And it was really cool to put faces to a lot of the names that we've seen on Twitter and Facebook and Reddit. And we got to meet people that have that are worth the rest of our- Yeah, some of the celebrities of our fandom, I guess. Like people who are who are the greatest gen famous that showed up.

We got to meet Bill Tilly. We got to meet Raz. We got to meet Brass, we got to meet Plevim. Brittany Brown, all the great. It was really cool. I also just have like a huge pile of Star Trek memorabilia downstairs. I need to go through. There's that thing where it's like a blind date, right? Like, you've corresponded over Facebook and Twitter, you feel like you have some idea of what people

are like and you hope before meeting them that they aren't like monsters, right? Like, I know I had that in mind. Like before meeting Raz and Pavima, I was like, oh, well, this has been a fun joke up until now but this could turn into not a fun joke in an hour. And I was sort of bracing for the idea of these people that we've met online being like not as great as we hoped, but across the board. Like everyone was amazing and sweet and nicely delivered. I came, I was like, I think running to the bathroom in between walking off stage with you and going out to, you know, sign posters and stuff in

our Cleveland show and I, there's that venue had like three different bars in it. And I was walking past the back bar to get to the restroom and Bill Tilly was standing there and we just locked eyes and were like, oh my God. And Bill Tilly was the greatest. Bill Tilly was every day of this funny in person as he is online. I was just gonna say that,

like sometimes people are just funny online. Bill Tilly's funny in real life in a big time way. So great. Yeah, man, I wish we had had more time for hangs with Bill Tilly, with all the piece. That may be like, if there are any regrets to be had about the tour, it's that there was so little time for anything besides travel or show. Yeah. How about Cleveland

chicken wings though brother. Oh man. It's still thinking about him. God I I'm telling everyone I know about those Cleveland chicken wings. Yeah. It's a great wing. I think we what we ate at a place in if you. I think we ate at a place in, if you're in Cleveland, we ate at a place called the greenhouse pavron, I want to say. Yeah. And they have a, a con-feet chicken wing on the menu that is really next level. Oh man. There is probably no limit to the amount of those wings that I could eat. Like, if there was a punch bowl of those wings, I would need to sit down to them wearing a diaper and I would just go for hours. So good.

Yeah, I would use those bones. Like the glenysine and seven. I would use the bones of those chickens to make the world. Oh, man. Well, Ben, we're going extremely long in our mirror and open because there's still a lot of to me Ben. So what do you say we talk about one of the bad ones at season 7 episode 17? Mix. This episode starts with Troy teaching a clay class. I guess she's not teaching it, but she's hanging out and trying to get the...

She's auditing a children's ceramics class. So is data. Which is fun. She has a little chat with a kid that's making a sculpture of a bird about the goal of his art should be about connecting with the emotion of flying if he's making a bird today. And then she goes and talks to Tata

who has made a high tolerance replica of a Tata pad. The dimensions are accurate to within 1.3%. She's like, well, that's great, but that's not really what the assignment was, Tata. Does that count as modern art? I just wanted Riker to lean his head through the door and go amazing. A terracotta pot teaching an android to sculpt. Aww. What are they doing?

What are they doing in this class? What is Eric trying to do with that stupid bird? Eric should be discouraged from sculpting. That's what I think. I'm sure he's a great kid and he has a lot of interests. He's no Alexander, that's for sure. He's no dolphin polisher. Where's that dolphin kid?

He should be teaching that class. He's great at that. Yeah, he's probably like 10 or 11 at this point. He's got a couple of years of sculpting under his belt. Should be able to teach the class. This, uh, the child actor who plays Eric, really trying hard, Ben. But Mrs. Nonsense said we should try to make garg sculptures as realistic as possible. Being given the direction to look quizzically at his teacher does the whole, like, touch your ear to your shoulder and raise an eyebrow type acting, you know, like

He is just he is not equal to the task here In an unfortunate way some people follow the Stanislavski school. He follows the Inquisitive pug school of acting. Yeah Yeah, I mean it less is really more when you're a child actor and so often more is more is the direction. Yeah. The discussion between drawing data is like, if you're gonna sculpt something in this class today,

like sculpt something that is emotional, sculpt something abstract, sculpt music and data is like, sculpt music, that doesn't make any sense. And he starts, starts sculpting pauses briefly on badge on his way to treble clef. And she's like, well, that's a start. Anyways, and then they'll like phone rings and they all have to run up to the bridge. There is no way that anyone could look

at the intermediate sculpture and not see Lebia, right? Like, it's dramatically vaginal. They do that fun cut to Marina Serdice as she like regards it, which may be the greatest acting challenge she's ever faced is like regard this sculpture of female genitals and don't act like it's female genitals. You know when they have somebody playing piano in a in a film or television show and then they cut two hands and it's clearly like the hands of an expert pianist. Yeah. They do a lot of showing data's sculpting hands in this episode and

they're some different looking fingers. Yeah, he's got like he's got like And they're some different looking fingers. Yeah. He's got like, he's got like, truck stop beef jerky fingers. And it's really weird. It's like, I mean, like you can get a long way toward data hands by just putting the makeup on them, but they're weird looking. Yeah. Well, up in the bridge, they are chasing a comet

that has never been logged or charted. And the shirt... This shirt is a great effect, isn't it? Yeah, it looks good. Yeah. Really amazing. I would kind of like to see what the SD version of this look like. I bet it doesn't look half as good.

No, not at all. It's like a dry ice sphere, I bet. This has got a lot of texture, a lot of gas flying off of it. It looks great. And they shoot it for scale in a fun way too. They're scanning it. And as they scan it, all of the lights on the bridge

kind of flare, get a little over-exposed for a moment, and like, well that was weird. Seems like something is like feedbacking on the scanner, and Beverly and Troy are like getting ready for a hang of some kind and they like stop in Troy's room and there's a mysterious sculpture that has appeared on her table. It kind of looks like a, like, you know, gray stone of three cubes with an apple set on top. And, uh, I love how Beverly's like, maybe you've got a secret admirer giving you many stone temples and... Troy's like, yeah, that'd be nice. And then they go to class, like her condo has not just been broken into. Like, they give this so little thought. Yeah, I mean, I would like to, you know, I know that we're almost out of

app in terms of TNG, but I would have liked to have more exploration of what privacy standards are like in the 12th century. Because I think that part of privacy is about modesty, and part of it is about protecting personal property and personal space. Like when somebody breaks into your house, personal property and personal space. Like when somebody breaks into your house, they're often looking to steal shit from you or whatever and you don't really have any like, there's no objects that are irreplaceable in this time period. You know, you just, oh, somebody broke in and took a dump on my bed. I'll just replicate a new bed. Yeah, there's the idea that personal space is uncoupled from security. Where I feel like everyone on the ship is safe from each other, it would seem.

And so the idea of them living in a town where they don't have to lock their doors seems reasonable. But it also seems reasonable. But it also seems reasonable to expect that people wouldn't walk in and out of your room any time they wanted to. So that seems weird. Yeah, I mean, it's the idea that like, Worf came by and like rang the bell and she didn't answer

and then did security override to leave this thing for her. I don't know. Anyways, that is the push to theme. And when we come back, we are back in sculpture class. Data has gone ahead and sculpted a pretty wild looking mask. And we see those fake data hands again, just putting the finishing touches on it. I followed your advice counselor. I used my imagination. That's an understatement. Why don't you ever see like,

This is all stuff that's made out of clay. Is this a clay that just dries hard or are they ever going to finish it in like the kiln or whatever? They take it down and leave it in the Portness cell for a few hours. That's what I'm saying. I want to see the last part of the process. I think that'd be fun. They're hanging out and a little kid from before's like, hey guys, not for nothing, but my school terminal, my little computer here,

has a bunch of weird shapes and images floating around on it. Could you take a look and take a look at it, and sure enough, it has these weird glyphs. And they start to investigate. So they're like down in engineering. They're glyphs in the engineering computer. They're all over. And LaForge is like, yeah, this is shit

that is coming out of that comment we were scanning. It's like climbing up the scanner beam and getting into our computer and rewriting code. And I don't really understand how or why or what's going on, and data's like, well, I seem to know what all of these symbols mean. Do you think it could have gotten into your computer system to data? Do you think you could be dangerous data? Do we need to lock you up immediately, data? Jordy, like, wheels around with whatever tool is used to remove limbs.

And it's like, we could do that thing we talked about data where we put each individual limb in separate parts of the ship. Yeah. They just cut to a jeering crowd full of people going, lock him up, lock him up, lock him up. The alien screensaver effect does not look great. That would argue. It's really clearly like floating, you know?

It does not look like it's in the graphic, but instead floating over the top. Yeah, they're just these glyphs buzzing around, but eventually they make like a plus symbol on the screen, and they're all kind of lined up with each other. And like, well, maybe we need to melt all the ice on this comet. See what's going on under the surface. So they take a phaser to it and as the surface of the comet melts sure enough it is revealed that there is a design structure within it and they begin to call it. What do you wish shocked as I was that they melted the whole thing? You have to be very vigilant when you're eating ice cream cone. Look there's a little chip. Get it. I thought they were

just going to like oh another chip got it. Shoot a hole into the core. I didn't know that the plan was like, melt it completely. It's weird because it seems like, seems like that phaser just like starts kind of a cascade effect on all of the ice. Like they shoot it for a bit and the ice just all kind of goes away. Like we know that life lives in water and frozen water.

Like, I can't imagine that they didn't just genocide. 60 million years of like ice life that this comet has flown through. Like, what a terrible thing to have done. Yeah. Yeah, but there's this thing in there and data's like, What a terrible thing to have done. Yeah. Yeah, but there's this thing in there and data is like, this is an information archive. It is the records of a civilization.

They're like, how do you know that data? Things are like, well, call it a hunch. Also, the musical score contains pan flute. So I can infer that this is an intelligent, aged form of life with some semblance of wisdom here. Wisdom, mysticism, you name it, they got it. What, you don't hear the pan flute? Raker comes into Picard's ready room

and Picard has assembled all of the weird objects that have apparently been just showing up in people's quarters all over the ship. And there's the sculpture from Troys Room and like some, some pots and some, some little figurines. Did he just go around room to room being like, hey, are you gonna eat that? Like, like, did he go and gather that stuff or was it given to him? He did that. Just like Captain, if anybody has any weird pottery in their room that they can't explain, you can just bring that up to the ready room.

Thanks very much. Captain's orders, and he's like, he is like a kid in a candy shop here. He is totally geeking out. He's like looking at the symbolism. He's talking about, you know, like this, this symbol's really cool, but it only shows up in a couple of places. And this symbol, you see it everywhere, you know?

This styrofoamness of the samples though is super apparent. I don't know, it's so hard to like make something realistic looking out of styrofoamness of the samples though is super apparent. I don't know, it's so hard to like make something realistic looking out of Styrofoam and yet make the handling of that thing look wady. That seems like a really great challenge for an actor. What you got to do if you're the prop department and you're making something out of Styrofoam is like hollow out the base and put something really heavy in there. Yeah. So that it has some heft to it.

Because yeah, the, like the, the totem that was in Troy's room looks ridiculous when anybody thinks it up. Yeah, like you almost throws it across the room. Yeah, it's like, it's like picking up a carton of milk that you're expecting to be full and it turns out it's empty. Or you remember that one beer we got at the bellhouse? We got a six pack of cans of beer. This great beer I think was called Happy Hour. That was like eight, that was the crushable beer wasn't it? Yeah it was the crushable pilsner. One of the reasons it's so crushable is because one of the cans in the six pack was half filled, which was super weird to pick it up.

And it was all squishy. The aluminum was squishy. Neither of us wanted to try any of it. Of that kind of thing. So the house manager picked it up and she's like, something is really weird about this can. I think it was happy hour the day that they filled those cans. Damn, this thing I've ever seen.

Yeah, but free plug for happy hour beer, a delicious, crushable beer for sure. Mm-hmm. Yeah. One thing about going on tours that you definitely make really different food decisions, like taking a lot less risk with what you eat. Because of reasons.

Yeah, like if I get down on some oysters here on the second day of the tour, I am really putting the entire a favorite risk. Man, I was so stupid with that. I had a bad oyster in Europe that basically ruined half of a vacation I took with my wife. And here I was, like halfway through the most important thing that we have done for our podcast. And I'm like, yeah, let's crush a dozen oysters in a place we've never been before. Sounds great. Those are great oysters though. Yeah. Yeah. And to be fair, that was the, you know, that was like the penultimate show. Yeah, yeah. And to be fair, that was the, you know,

that was like the penultimate show. So, I feel like we could have powered through at that point. I could have done that show over a bucket and been fine. Yeah, we would have gone through it. Down in engineering, Jordi and Data have plugged Jordi into the computer and they're like, they're doing some diagnostics and they're trying to figure out what's going on with him

because he's been knowing things he shouldn't know about this alien archive and feeling weird. And while he's plugged in, he's like, hey Jority, have you ever lost your mind? Can you explain to me what that feels like? And Jordy is like, uh, do a fuck. It's such a dark question.

Oh, it's a very dark question and it is, and like it really like highlights how far past the point of get data like isolated from the rest of the ship, they really are. Like that is not the question you want to be hearing from guy who could rip anybody's arms out of their socket. Like immediately, Jordy should have initiated limb separation on data. Like that should be the protocol. They should at least like lock out his command cuts, right? Yeah, I Agree it is insane He basically tells Jordy that he is dangerous like because when the strongest

smartest person on your ship says he's losing his mind You are in mortal danger person on your ship says he's losing his mind, you are in mortal danger. Right. And data has taken himself out of the chain of command a couple of times, because he was worried about the situation. Yeah. But I maybe he, maybe he would have, but before he gets to it, like his, the inset of his head turns into, into an artifact and he like turns to camera. And suddenly he's got one of the symbols from the objects are finding all over scarification on his forehead.

Thus begins the one-man show by Brent Spiner, portion of the episode. The card comes down to engineering and he's like copped a seat on the warp core. I've been waiting for you. You should be a loner. Didn't they refit the warp core recently and it looked really different? Yeah, they did. When I saw him do that, it also made me think if you are an enemy to the ship sitting on the warp core is a great place to be because You wouldn't want to fire your weapons at the warp core, right?

Resistance is It's filled with steam But you could also just like eject it and be like all right later buddy. Yeah And that is a great point because what begins here is a sort of, Borg-style assimilation of the ship, right? That no one treats as an existential threat until just about the end. It has really run away from them by the time they are treating it as dangerous as it is. Slowly but surely the ship is turned into a rainforest cafe.

And that's a wild place to shop and eat. Yeah, it's so overpriced though. Never been. I haven't either, so I'm just talking about my ass. Never been I haven't either so I'm just talking about my ass. I Gotta believe that rainforest cafe has just got the mister on right? It's a very humid place to shop and eat probably you mean they're very formal when they address you Oh Yes, yes that too

Yes, yes, that too. The character that has inhabited data in this first scene is named E-Hot, and he's like, he's kind of a kind of a trickster character, got kind of a high voice, and he's warning them that a Masaka, which is a delicious Mediterranean dish, is coming to kill everyone. The card rubbed his belly, he's like, looking forward to it. Will this be the Greek kind or more of the Turkish kind? It just becomes an eating feats of strength from here on out.

What is it you want? Osaka. His wing. Masaka is like a kind of female god of death character as we gather and a real zoo type. Yeah, a real zoo type. And we gather this especially because Troy walks into engineering and data like drops to his knees and like kind of like begs her not to kill him because he has mistaken her for Misaka.

Brent Spiner is playing this as an existential threat. Like the fear he emototes here is real. And yet, like, the thing that he is afraid of, no one else is afraid of. Like, it's hard to articulate how uncoupled Dada's portrayal is from everyone else's, and it's not just that he is like full Brent Spiner, like totally powerfully playing all these characters. Everyone else is just sort of standing around observing. They're not really feeling anything and that was what I felt watching this episode, like just sort of furrowing my brow. Like, what is this?

When, what it is is really dangerous. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where it's like, I mean, we read the show Bible about things that don't work recently and they kind of make a point of prohibiting any like magical explanation for things. And this is like one of those, this is a technology sufficiently advanced to be indistinguishable from magic. Right. And and so like, I don't feel like the writers felt a need to flesh out the logic of it that much. And because of that, like the rules of it are a little unclear and the the threat that it poses, the stakes that it's

that it poses are kind of not evident to most of the characters. Right, but it seems like there should be a process much like a first contact process in place here and they just play it super loose. Yeah, look at one point they're like, all right, well, this is like, this has gone on long enough. Like, data is 10 characters at the, you know, the archive has got us in some kind of tractor beam. Let's go ahead and take it out. And Worf is like, uh, too late for that. We don't have any access to the weapons and like, fuck, well, okay, let's shoot a torpedo at it manually. And there's a scene where Jury and Worf have a torpedo on the floor of main engineering,

which seems like the dumbest possible place to take a torpedo under any circumstances. This is such a bad idea. Like, they not have a torpedo bay that they can do this in. I don't know why they need to use a torpedo casing as a vessel for snakes. Like why don't they just beam a bunch of snakes over? The Enterprise B had a torpedo bay where they could do surgery on a torpedo. Yeah, I remember. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene.

That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene.

That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene. That's a great scene see that it is on fire. And instead of putting out the fire, they emergency beam away. And don't tell anyone about the fire later. Like, what are you doing? Is there fire? There is a fire extinguisher nearby. There is a fire next to a torpedo in engineering. Well, that's the thing.

It's like the the magicness of everything has kind of has kind of taken over the logic of the episode. Could they distinguish the difference between magic fire and real fire? Is that why they didn't treat it as the emergency it was? I don't know. I mean, it's a very season one set of decisions that get made there. And yeah, it's never given any kind of like underpinning

that we can wrap our heads around. No. No. You just kept talking one long. It credibly unbroken sentence moving from topic to topic New I had the Trickster character is One among many there's also an old man character Also an old man character. Who is also pretty freaked out about this whole Masaka is waking scenario.

There's also a small child character alone. No one left to help me. And you can kind of, the characters are distinguished, not just by the performance, but also by a different brooch that shows up on Data's chest. And Picard gets the gang together on the bridge. They're like, they can't have a normal McLaughlin group. If you want. Because the observation lounge has turned it to a swamp.

Hmm. But they discuss the scenario on the bridge and it's decided that what they need to do is get into the programming of the archive. And Picard is like, yeah, that's cool. But I think we also need to be like actually playing through the scenario that is being discussed by data. And everybody's like, yeah, that makes sense Everyone does that thing when a when a leader makes a Decision that doesn't make a ton of sense whether like are you sure and the captain's like, oh, yeah I'm sure and then they're like, okay, I feel better What in the fuck blew up the

damn ship Picard? No! Yeah I mean the seeds for that moment are probably planted in masks right? He does not want to blow up the ship under most circumstances. Well they get any circumstances after season three, I guess. Yeah, they get the symbol for Masaka's temple from partly from Ehaat and partly from the old man character. And they put it into the computer and like a hallway that they're standing in, like kind of magically turns into a like a ancient looking temple setup with a like a high altar with a with a throne on it for Musaka. And they are they're like looking around, looking at all the symbols, and one thing that they keep getting from everybody is that the only person that can talk any sense into Misaka is Korgano.

And Korgano has not revealed him or herself at all, but there are symbols that they've in here that they think may be Corgano related They transform this hallway into what a room with a 40 foot high ceiling like what happens to the people living on the deck above Or the deck or like on the other side of the wall they were just in. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, there's also just like a very noticeable lack of anybody else from the crew in this episode. Like, there's never anybody else in engineering.

There's never anybody else on the bridge. You don't really, you don't really get any story revelation about what's happening to them and nobody ever talks about them and you never see them. What happened to poor Eric? Eric and his stupid bird. Where's that big story? Like, did they ever think about turning his bird into something terrifying? Give me the Eric B story. This is a Johnny into sound.

It would be nice. They come up with the idea that if Bessaca is the problem and Corgano is the only person that can talk to her, maybe they need to put the Corgano symbol into the computer. And so, they've got the symbol, so they put it in, and onto the science console appears a different mask. And so now, data in the guys of Massaca in his clay mask that he made in a sculpting class

is sitting on the throne and Picard comes in in this like chromed out, Corgano mask. And like they have a little like, like right before Picard goes and does this, he and Troy have like a little, a little like last minute conversation. She's like, like, we don't know anything about these people. And he's like, yeah, but I've studied a lot of similar civilization, so I'm just gonna wing it. Hold my beer. Well, don't lie, fuck it.

This is so insane. Ben, I wanna talk to you about masks a little bit. Like, masks up until now are like, are the things for children or sex parties? It is so hard to make great actor, Sir Patrick Stewart look not funny in a mask. He looks fucking laughable in this thing and so does Brent Spiner. Like, the mask as a thing is a terrible idea. He looks like the kind of superhero you would have referenced in a television show that

can't license a real superhero to reference, you know. He looks like a guy who couldn't get into the eyes wide shut party. This mask also doesn't fit him super well. Like the shots where it's on him good, but there's also other shots where it slipped down his nose and is very clearly covering his eyes and he can't see that well. They really gave him a ton of ribbon for the for the back tie because when they cut to him from the back, like the ribbon is basically halfway down his back.

Yeah. Was he supposed to go around his head a couple times with that before tying it? I don't know. I feel like they had to have it loose enough on him for that one shot so that they could get it off him and have him stand perfectly still in the same place so that the effect would work.

And that's the scene where it's really covering his eyes, so it just slipped down his face. Captain McCart, one of the things that I like to do when I'm wearing a mask is use blackout cream around my eyes. It gives me a fearsome look. Helps me blend into the night even better than before. You merely adopted the mascabin procured. I can never take mine off. Ha ha ha Spiner is acting the shit out of this. Yeah, his mask is pretty cool.

Look, he's got the better of the two masks, but neither the masks look cool. TBH. Who should I make a mask that look that cool at him. I don't I have no need for that Well, they uh I Say as I regard my box of toys that people have sent me Who would want to look that stupid I say gesturing towards a Price customized shuttlecraft. Pocard has Corgano debate data as Misaka.

I mean, it kind of comes out through this conversation that Korgano is the moon god and is represented in this culture as a hunter who pursues Misaka, the sun god, and that their culture is all about balance and having Korgano and Misaka continue their hunt. And so, Masaka is like, in the end, persuaded that she should knock it off with all the taking the ship and turning it into a city because Corgano is going to get back to hunting her. Yeah. And that somehow kind of like undoes the whole simulation. Like the matter of the ship has been like bit by bit put back together in the shape of this ancient city.

And suddenly it's just all back to normal. This thing is incredibly powerful, yet no one regards it for that. You know? Like, it does a super complex technological feat of like transforming the ship into its image. Yeah, and using only the ship to do it. Like it's just a program that got into their computer and somehow it's able to reassemble the matter all over the ship. It seems exceedingly difficult and yet when it's all over,

they're like someone dispatch a scout ship to study the archives for its information. But there is like, there's sort of like a weaponized potential for this that I think they should treat carefully. Yeah, definitely don't let the Romulans get their hands on the archive. No, not at all. Like, are they just going to tow that thing to a starbase? What do you even do with the symbolizing this thing? What do you think would happen? The Borgs get assimilated first or would they assimilate?

That's a great question. I mean, this is certainly a technologically distinct form of life, I guess. Yeah, but they definitely are not coming up with the, like, put on our own mask and go down there and talk to Borg's Musaka. I think as soon as you inject your weird ancient screensaver into Bork technology, they probably start plugging the toilets almost immediately, right? It's probably the hue effect all over again. Yeah, this could be the greatest thing ever. Just shoot that thing toward the Delta Quadrant and hope the Borks run into it sooner or

later. That's a great idea. Repurpose it as the weapon it was designed to be. Did you like this episode, Adam? The thing I liked most about the episode was the lighting. They got really weird lighting the ship. And by that I mean the bridge especially. Like they used a lot of up shooting lights in ways that made locations that we've seen

for seven seasons look fresh and new. There was a camera shot in that scene where they transformed the hallway into the temple that starts overhead looking down and then Picard walks up the stairs and the camera rotates, like rotates and tilts back up into a profile three shot. That was like that actually made me say, whoa, in the room because like that was a, that was a shot that you don't get on the show very often if ever. So there was like, there was stuff for me to enjoy from a production standpoint, but there was next to nothing for me to enjoy from a story standpoint, but there was next to nothing for

me to enjoy from a story standpoint. Like it was as bad as I had heard this episode was to see it all over again was confirmation of that. What about you, Ben? I agree that there are some real logical shortcomings to the story in this episode. But that being said, I find it a fun story just from a, I kept moves and it like, it doesn't interesting high wire act of having this be

like a very ancient civilization and also a civilization far more advanced than their own at the same time and having that never feel like it's in conflict. And yeah, I agree. Like the directing and the lighting and the camera work in this episode are all like totally top notch. Like one of my favorite shots is there's like a scene when data is eyes pop open and he doesn't have the scarification on his forehead anymore and he like gets up in his quarters and picks up his his mask and then like smash cut to him like coming out of the door of his of his union and just like beating the shit out of two security guards that are there.

He gets in a fun Star Trek fight. Yeah. And it just opens. That's open palm punches for your Star Trek. Like there's a lot of, uh, there's a lot of really fun stuff in this episode. And that shot that you're talking about where he rises is so great because it's framed so tightly that you can barely tell that he's standing if not for the changing shadow position behind him in relation to the fire. Like, I thought that was super fun.

Yeah, it's great. Yeah. I like how fucking weird they got. Like, they really doubled down on weird this episode. And it's like, let's swing for the weird fences. It's hard for me to hate an episode that tries that hard to do that. Yeah.

I think that the script could have used another pass, but given the script, I think it's pretty great for all of the, like the script is the foundation of an episode. And it's pretty hard to save an episode from a bad script. And I don't know that they necessarily did, but I love how great it is in spite of its script. Speaking of that script, Ben, I read that Brent Spiner received it the night before

day one of the shoot. No shit. Which is something he pushed back on pretty hard. He's like, look guys, like character development actually takes an actor some time. And you're asking me to prepare for disparate character performances in like a day. And so I think all that does is show what a Titanic effort it was for him as an actor. And like, cartoonish or not, like he pulled it off. These are four separate characters that he plays very differently and very complexly.

Like, I really admire his work here, especially given the circumstance. Like, this was a super huge challenge that he rose to. I heard that the entire rest of the cast never even got a copy of the script which is why they do no character work. I'd believe that. Hey Ben, did we get any priority one messages? I believe we did at him. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. I need a supplement link. it at him.

Ben our first priority one message is for Ben. It is from your loving husband's sack with an ancient Justin, not with an H. Message goes like this, Ben, 10 years ago. We three became common law husbands. Since then, you fritzed every cigar, shaved your head for JLP versus Q versus Quirk erotic cosplay, and always accepted Zach's wrongness and Justin's IBS. Whoa. We love that. So if this P1 isn't on time, please violate our pleveem holes. Oh, happy 40th from your lover Zach and Justin and our sexy friend Warren.

Whoa. This is our first threpple doing a P1. Sounds like it. I stand in solidarity with Justin's IBS. We are where IBS brothers, my friend. Haha. Cool times, man. That sounds like a fun gang.

Happy 40th, Ben. Every group needs a cigar fritter. I don't even know what fritting is. Is that, isn't that the thing where you like, uh, you like, you make the hole in the cigar? For a- You clip the little end part off? I'm just inferring that's what fritting is. I don't know, man.

I don't know either. I'm not a cigar person. I like a cigar from time to time. I was walking downtown yesterday past a guy like just a businessman smoking a cigar. Oh yeah, he just closed the the do-punt deal. Like a guy on the street smoking a cigar in the daytime. That would I I totally like stopped and regarded him. Like, good job, Titan of industry. I walked by two guys and flight suits smoking cigars, so I assumed that they'd taken out a bogey.

Wow, that's how you wanna do it. That's the whole picture, flight suit and cigar. Yeah, that's good times. Also, Bunkmoreoryland smoking a cigar, so I assumed he had just found a dead body. I love Bunk. Gotta love the Bunk. Adam our next P1 is from Steve at Rockingham Park and it's for Barry at South Point. Goes like this.

Thank you for everything. You put me up when my locks on it went nuts and I had nowhere to go. You introduced me to this pod which helped keep me going during a tough time. You helped me deal with the forangi that run Crab Tree. You and Heidi are incredible people. See you in September.

Hey, boy, that's a tough time when your Laxana is on the loose. Yeah, when Laxana goes nuts, that's just, man, like, that's really doubling down, isn't it? Yeah, it is. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, locks on to the locks on a power. Yeah, it's that, Adam. Well, if you have a message of support for a friend who's going through a time, or merely wish to celebrate your threple, or whatever that's called, wander on over to MaximumFund.org

slash JemboTron and type out a message that we will then read on our fair show. Personal messages are $100. Commercial messages are $200 and they are a great and powerful way to support the ongoing production of our show. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Dominic Angelade. And Denard. Denard.

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 Share Your Embarrassment 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 ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Non-Giani. 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 already open, just pull it out, give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard, be dumb instead. Oh, rats, hey, they don't know 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 neck. But I'm hearing we need to get on this alright. We gotta get on the art. Yeah. It is about terrain, about a spout to destroy humanity. Hey oh sorry sorry sorry are you Noah? Yeah I know we look like humans but we're actually we're podcasters. Yes, probably. We are podcasters so it's different. Have you heard of Ohno Ross and Kerry? 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 MaximumFun.org. Hey, Ben. What's that at him? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? I did. I'm going to give mine to Picard for his kid in a candy shop like performance when he

gets all his artifacts in his office. I just, I felt like the, like he really takes his eye off the ball in that scene where their ship has like a totally unknowable, mysterious process that is converting its matter into something else. And he's like, look at these symbols! This is great! Where is Warfin' all this? Like, the security of the ship is at stake.

He has, he has either wanted to or actually destroyed Where is Warfin' all this? Like, the security of the ship is at stake. He has either wanted to or actually destroyed things for doing less in the past. And he just sort of like, coasts as a character through this episode. He's saving himself up for the next episode. Yeah, I guess so. Ben Maishimota goes to both Jordy and Wurf for leaving the scene of a fire. Like, I think the most fun Shimoda's occur in engineering most of the time. Yeah.

The spiritual home of the drunk Shimoda and just sort of backing away and beaming off. Not great, not a good look. Yeah. You got at least pull the alarm, right? It's a very alien thing to me to just like what? Like one of the most keen memories of shame from my adult life is the time I got like my face laughed in. I was in Kenya shooting some video and we were driving from one location to another through a fairly rural

part of Kenya and we were just driving along a hillside and there was just a grass fire going and I said oh my god there's a grass fire going. And I said, oh my God, there's a grass fire. We should call the fire department and like everybody in the truck just turned to me and laughed in my face. Like what an idiot to think that that is a thing that happens here. And like, I still think about like what happened

with that fire? Like did that do damage? Did like, did it like burn people's houses down? But I'm also like totally ashamed that I thought to voice my opinion that we should perhaps alert the authorities. How dare you try to help? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Yeah. Wow, well I'm sorry you were fire shamed like that been. Thank you Adam, that feels good to hear.

What do we have coming up on the next episode? The next episode is season 7, episode 18. I of the beholder. While experiencing empathic visions after an officer's mysterious suicide, Troy becomes romantically involved with Wharf. Do you remember this episode, Adam? I remember this episode as a very special episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation, which is a type of TNG episode that they stopped doing after the Drugs or Bad episode.

So this is like a deep call back to, to some themes, right? I heard what happened was they, they had some, some painters come in and refresh the paint job in the writer's room. And they took down the sign that said, no very special episodes. And then they forgot to put it back up. Can't do that. They left the blindfolded Roddenberry. But they removed the sign.

Yeah. It's ever quite the same. Well, that will be the next episode of the program, Adam. In the meantime, if you would like to get at us online, you can go on Twitter and use the hashtag GreatestGen. Adam is on there at Cut for Time. I'm as Benjamin R. A. H.R. There's also great and lively Facebook and Reddit groups for you to join. And a wikia for Greatest Gen that goes into excruciating detail as to what all the jokes are.

And one of my favorite things that's ever been made W slash R slash T the show. We had the pleasure of meeting the person who made the wikia, we met so many people from our online communities who are who are great and fun and funny. So, like, there is a whole community waiting for you that has set up shop around this show. So, if you're looking for a laugh or an online pal, and you haven't been there before, I would strongly recommend checking it out.

It's great. If you like the show and you want to help us spread the word, go to Apple Podcasts and leave a nice review. If you don't like the show, don't go to Apple Podcasts. Yeah, just forget we ever said it. Yeah, we're not there. Turns out. But that will be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek the next generation and episode of the greatest generation that is hanging out in the nisels the entire time. Make it sound. Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture, Artistone.

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