The Greatest Generation - Excitement Panic (VOY S2E15)

Episode Date: September 6, 2021

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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. Bringeng what the U.S. is for Captain Captain Captain what the U.S. is for Captain Captain Captain Captain Welcome to the greatest generation The Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast I'm Adam Pranica.

Could I be any more Ben Harrison? A lot about today's episode making me question things I thought I knew, or new to expect in a Star Trek episode. Yeah. I'm so rattled by the experience of watching Threshold Band. I feel like I've got to clutch something

to make me feel safe. Mm-hmm. Oh, can I thump something on you and you can use that as an audition for whether or not you wanna clutch it? I think it something on you and you can use that as an audition for whether or not you want to clutch it? I think it's the only thing I can do at a crisis point like this Ben. Well, I have great news for you Adam We have a copy of the Star Trek Voyager first season

Showbible. Look at that. Is that the red letter edition? No, it's not the King James' show, Bible. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, know, I know, I know, know, I know, know, A whole ton. It drives me crazy. How much does it cost to photocopy a stack of papers, staple them together? It's like a $200 kinkos gift card amount of investment into a myriad amount of laughs. Yeah, yeah. So many laughs they could have gotten and they didn't. Adam, this is the chapter on Tom Paris, the second character discussed in the show Bible. He's ahead of Chicote in this. I'm going to read you chapter and verse. Okay. Paris's career in Starfleet was expected to be exemplary. He descended from a proud

lineage of Starfleet legends. A lineage of legends, Adam. I like that. I like that alliteration. His great-grandfather, grandmother, father, and aunt were all admirals. Everyone assumed the Tom who was bright, capable, and charming would achieve those same heights. No one knew the Tom felt a tremendous pressure to live up to the name, his family had carved, and had graved out, whether that was possible. No one suspected Tom Paris would be a fail son. He fared well enough in Starfleet Academy, his grades were not dazzling, or decent, as

greatest skill was as a pilot, and he often said he'd rather pilot a ship than sit in the captain's chair. After graduation he joined a unit of Starfleet's SAV division, a small attack vessel, where his piloting skills would be put to good use. But there was an accident during a wargames demonstration, a pilot was killed in Tom Paris, fearing his reputation might suffer and derail his career, lied and placed the blame on a dead man. The fault was actually his and had he simply owned up to that, he would have been disciplined. But he was young, dumb, full of come, and terrified of bringing disgrace under his illustrious family.

Is this the official showbible you're reading from? What is this rag? Come emphasis mine. Did you find this showbible you're reading from? What is this rag? Come emphasis mine. Did you find this showbible in a hole? Um, with some plates in it? Yeah, there was a log in the woods that uh... Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha the lie was revealed, he was discharged. His worst fears had been realized. He had sellied the family man. He sank into a severe depression, wandering the next few years aimlessly, piloting freighters

and tankers just to be behind the controls of a ship again. The only place he even felt vaguely alive. At one point, he landed in a port, or he fell into a game of daba with some members of the Maki. The end of aaba with some members of the maki. The end of a long night. He ended up joining them. Oh, that'll just that. You're, you're tying one on and some CD port of call. And you wind up joining a dissident movement. He woke up the next morning after having been stood up in a maki's locker. morning after having been stood up in a Makkees locker. He was like right next to Cass and he was like, oh what are you doing in here?

They offered him the one thing he wanted the most to pilot a sleek starship in situations which would require extraordinary prowess. He wasn't much interested in their cause but it did provide a fight which took his mind off the fight with his own soul. He was with them barely a month when he was captured, and in his mind, that was another, quote, failure. When Captain Janeway contacts him in prison, there's the gift of a new chance at life,

and he has always credited her for that opportunity. He would stop a phaser blast for her and is determined to make her glad she gave him a chance. He, of all the crew, is not dismayed by the cruel fate, which has befallen them. What does it matter if they're at the ends of the galaxy? He's flying a ship and having adventures. That's just what he wants to be doing. It doesn't matter particularly to him where it happens. He has an affection for Belana, seeing in her a soul at war and reminding him

of himself, and Lake Belana, is drawn toward rock-like steadiness. It's Tuba. Yeah, there is something very turgid about Tuba. And his constitution. Yeah, I mean, if only there was a way, I mean, I'm a institution. Yeah, I mean if only there was a way I mean I'm I'm I'm a purf and so like my mind naturally goes to the one way I feel like Paris could repay Captain Janeway for kindness. And boy, do we see it in this episode? What do you do? Is it the end of the reading? That's the yes so end of the reading, Adam. Wow, well a piece of the dilithium with you. And also with you, it always feels good to get through the liturgy. But do you want to get into the episode we came to

talk about today? I don't know if I'll ever be allowed to take Star Trek communion after watching Star Trek Voyager season two episode 15 threshold. Reaver course. Unless you've got something a little bigger in your torpedo tubes, I'm not turning around. We start in media warp, Adam. The shuttle is really rocking. I don't know. I don't like seeing shuttles in danger anymore. Too much of that lately. Yeah. And they are pushing it past the trans-warb limit. They're talking about the trans-warb drive being online.

He's on the radio with BLT and Kim. Did you buy that this was a real shuttle in real danger? I felt caught up in it. It was fun. It was fun. I felt simulation vibes on this immediately. And I was wondering how it was that it felt like a simulation to me. It's easy to say now after the fact after you have it all figured out. I think maybe the part that that allowed me to keep the magic going is because it did not seem dangerous for so long. It felt exciting and fun.

Yeah. They have a crack in one of the pylons. They got to shunt all this power into the structural integrity field. And it just doesn't work. He flies her apart then. We cut to the wide shot, and instead of a streakily exploding shuttle, it's a wide shot

of the interior of the holodeck. And Paris is on the ground in the fetal position. You're dead. I always want to see the exact transition of holodeck program to holodeck and program. Like, yeah, especially if somebody is like sitting down, you want to see them collapse onto the floor. Yes, I would like to see that.

I think that would be really fun. So it's that moment to theme, and after the break, it's post-gaming in the mess hall. It's Kim, BLT, and Paris talking about what happened. BLT says, we require more pylonsons and that's the problem they've got to work out. The the the cells that are doing the warping are breaking off of the shuttle every time they run this sim. And ordinarily I like a server that I can you know have a bit of rapport

with who can maybe like be a part of the conversation from time to time. Right. Fucking Nielix here is like just elbowing his way into this situation and a way that you know he does all the time. With every conversation, anytime he freshens up someone's coffee, he's going in with some unsolicited advice or some questions that just derail the conversation that he's interrupting.

Great. It's like I like a personable server and I like having an enjoyable interaction with the server, but I don't want the server to sit down at the table. The few times that that's happened, the sit down server, I don't know what to make of that. I don't know what to do. I admire the boldness of it, but mostly, it's helpful for everyone. I used to go to a restaurant occasionally in Brooklyn where there would be like a brown butcher paper on the table and the server would sit down at the table

and write the menu down on the paper. Now, yeah. That is so Brooklyn. Didn't really care for it. But Nielix is doing that thing where he doesn't quite understand what's being talked about and starts asking questions and then does that thing that feels a lot like

a parent wanting to help you with an internet outage. You don't know how this works. So the help you're offering is actually anti-help. It's actually a drag. On the problem we're trying to solve. But Nelix doesn't have that kind of self-awareness. I'm going to have to explain so many fundamental concepts to you. Yeah. All I need to do is unplug and re-plug. But this is a script technology. You introduce a dumb into a scene with some smarts. So the smarts have an opportunity to explain the problem of the cold open to you and the scene after the cold open so that we understand what happened. Yeah, Nielix is really the Luke Skywalker of this episode.

He's just a bright eyed nafe who comes into every situation and needs it to be explained to him a little bit. The blast shield down, I can't even see. How am I supposed to fight? It's been a long time since we've seen a scene between him and Kess. Are they not a night-o anymore? Kess wasn't in the last episode. Is she in this one? Wait a minute, where'd she go? Bring her back! Yeah, I mean, she's the doctor's assistant. Oh yeah, I guess she is. And then there's when she kisses Paris, Neelix gets so fucking pissed,

when she kisses his dead body. Uh-huh, yeah. He's like, he's like, I knew it, I knew it. So what we learn in this scene is that they're using a new kind of dilithium to run this warp speed experiment. And when they treksplain what's happening to Neelix, he takes it as an opportunity to describe a similar problem,

to achieve a sort of common cause with the group. Right, I've fucked up ships too. But quite accidentally stumbles into a comparison that serves as an inspiration to Kim and Paris. They, in this moment, are able to hypothesize a new solution to this problem. And this would be a great problem to solve because if you can bring the warp 10 barrier,

you can go anywhere in the universe instantly and that would really help them get home. Wow. Can you working on this? In real basic terms, they have been driving so fast that the tires are pulling away from the Previa, but how they need to look at this is that it's the Previa pulling off of the tires. Am I making any sense here? They've been

thinking about it upside down and backwards and Nielix, like from the mouth of babes, Nielix kind of presents them with the conceptual framework that they need to solve the problem. Right. And they're really excited. They slap them on the back and then they go back to the simulator. And Tom Pair's gets to experience simulated warp 10. And we see this from like the end of the the keynote presentation in the McLaughlin group. Is your want? Like the camera slowly pulls out from us watching a bit

of the episode that we wouldn't have gotten to see otherwise. I love transitions like this. They're not super flashy. They're that subtle flash that it really appreciate. Yeah, it's nice. So we can try a man-to-test flight? I love this moment. Like, depending on the year you're listening to the show,

and I know that's crazy to think about. We're in a year that is doing a lot of space experimentation. You got your billionaires doing billionaire things, but you also have some real science happening with respect to sending capsules up to the space station, and a bunch of companies bidding their services for that. And we got our first helicopter on Mars. Yeah, and what's so interesting about the context of that when thought about in relation to this moment is that the Voyager crew has gone straight from Holladek Trials to Man

Trials. It feels like they skipped out on the unmanned trial part. I think it like a Russian street dog and put. Or the part where they could put a hollow emitter inside the shuttle with maybe the dock inside or maybe some sort of programming that makes the shuttle do it. No, they're going straight to a person. The person's going to be Tom Paris.

He's going to join the elite ranks of Orville Wright, Neil Armstrong, and Zephram Cochran. Yeah. Big names. Some of the biggest names in the industry. Yeah. Just a bunch of white guys.

Having been given this awesome responsibility, Paris gets some rope time before the mission ahead. You gotta do that. Yeah. Just lounge around, get your mind right. I love that he has like a piece of patio furniture in the middle of his quarters. Yeah. Yeah, this is Paris in Repos.

And Captain Janeway interrupts this moment to say that she has some bad news. Doc Holliday has recommended that Kim make the test flight for medical reasons. And Paris is like, Kim always gets to go where no one's gone before. It was not fair. It was weird, like, Kim really rode for the Delaney Sisters going on the mission. I didn't quite get it,

but he talked about morale being a huge, huge part of mission success. Yeah, I mean, there was an earlier version of this script where the whole thing was just about whether you could get with both Delaney Sisters and that the speech from the captain was like, Mr. Kim, if you make this happen, you will join the elite ranks of Neil Armstrong,

orville Wright, by getting with both Delaney Sisters, you will make history. Paris has been grounded at him. There's coffee in that slight enzymatic imbalance in your cerebellum. There's like a 2% chance of brain damage and and Paris is like you don't know what I did in prison. That's nothing to me. I drink pruno for 10 years. What do you think the

percent chance of brain damage from that is? Yeah. I mean if we're talking about percentages, Ben, there's a 2% chance of brain damage here, but I 100% loss of historical credit. So he's got to do this to throw this in his dad's face and all those kids at school who didn't believe in him. I mean, there are reasons. Why this is worth the risk for him. I mean, we read the Tom Paris Bible entry just earlier in this episode, and this like really speaks to that in a way that feels like maybe it's been hinted at before, but this really speaks directly to the pressure he felt was on him as a kid and as a cadet. I really like B. Dunx performance here.

I think he takes it in a direction that is consistent with his character. I wonder if there were other takes here where he went in the direction of like being sad and crushed versus being aggressive and crushed and defensive, you know? Yeah. Like, when we see him interact with his fake dad in that one scene where everyone's going and saying, that was a version of Paris that I have expected here. Right. Especially when he evoked his family as reasons to do it I know what my dad

will say he'll say wow you could only get to work 9.9 that adds up so it's shuttle launch time Paris was was given permission from Janeway he's the guy and so we pilots the shuttle Cochran, named not for a great man, but just a man. And letting history be the judge. What sucks about flying the shuttle Cochran is that you can't turn off the UB-Duby song. Cochran Defoyager. All systems are nominal, increasing speed. Keep up with you as long as we can.

It just plays on a loop over and over again. No one likes to fly the shuttle cocker in for that reason. No. They say that they are depressurizing the shuttle bay. And that surprised me because, you know, on the enterprise, D, the shuttle bay has a force field and you just fly the shuttle through it. What's up with that low rent shuttle bay on the Voyager?

It's like going from a luxury car to an economy car. Yeah. Going down to this crappy Voyager. It's like going from a luxury car to an economy car, going down to this crappy Voyager. BLT is monitoring the status of the shuttle from engineering. She's shoulder to shoulder with trader guy. Yeah, I don't like it, but it's sort of a great sort of damacles here that just doesn't fall the way you would expect. No, and like if you missed last week's episode and just see this guy in this scene You wouldn't even notice it. It's something that is there to like be an

Extra story element for the people that are paying close attention. I really like that. So Paris looks into the camera and goes I'm Tom Paris and this is breaking warp 10 And then like puts on a a stars and stripes cape and like a weird oversized helmet. This is a slightly different model of shuttle than the bunk beds that we had on the Enterprise D. Should we call this the race car bed shuttle? It's very sleek. Very sleek.

And it works. It's sleek enough. Very sleek. And it works. It's sleek enough to get him to work 10. Yeah, but as soon as he does, his voice gets warped too. I love this moment when we're like momentarily celebrating on the bridge. And then you hear like excitement panic on the call from Paris.

That very strange combination of happy having accomplished the goal, but also what now? Things are fucked. Yeah. And he disappears after this. And they're like, shit, he could be literally anywhere. Like the universe is the search radius for finding Tom Paris. He could be in your tax documents folder right now. There he come. But just as they are starting to grapple with the ramifications of that, something comes out of subspace,

and it is the race car bed. Yeah, they don't milk this moment very long, do they? No, Paris is unconscious when they get him to six Bay. Can you wake him? Wake up lieutenant! When Paris wakes up, he's kind of in a post-warp threshold refactory period. He's feeling good. He's kind of blissed out. He was a being of pure energy for a minute. There's that moment though, like as time goes on, he's he's talking excitedly about all the places he had been, which are all the places. Yeah.

And as he describes these moments, they start to fade away from him in a way that makes him very sad. I mean, he was all the places, but also he kind of only lists places that were familiar, which is a little bit sus. It's a little bit of episode misdirection though, because this is the moment where I was like, well, this is gonna be a story about Paris doing anything to get back to Warp 10 the way they want to get back to the island and lost, you know? Like chasing the Warp 10 dragon.

Yeah, so that's where my head was at in this moment, but it's not exactly how it goes. So in Wax BLT stoked about the success first, and secondarily happy that Paris is alive. And like, third on the list is, thanks for not banging up the shuttle. Like, glad we got that one back. Yeah, that's one of the cooler ones and we didn't want to lose that. Yeah. So the trouble is like after Paris went through this adventure, he's going to be on bedrest for the time being.

So Kim's the next man up if they do more experiments is the idea. Yeah, but first they need to get the logs and download the data in the shuttle. And when they start downloading it, they're like, wow, like true to what he said. Like this shuttle has navigation data from every square inch of this sector which is kind of a lot of

space. It's over five billion giga-quad of information. It's sort of more information on the quarters that the Delaney Sisters live than you would expect though like there's a general sense of of the area around them in the quadrant, but then like a very specific amount of data about those two quarters. It's every inch of the sector, but every millimeter of the Delaney sisters quarters. It's like a much higher resolution just to have one little particular part. And as they're doing this, a trader Guy is often the corner, like literally like putting wax into his curly mustache. Yeah, because what we're getting here is value. Yeah, I'm sure that this

will develop over episodes. But if I was Trader Guy right now, I'd be like, wow, we may be able to go home. Like this fucking rules. And maybe I was wrong about the captain in the last episode that I was in. It is extremely weird that he has assumed mission failure here. Yeah. And assumed that like the best path forward for him is to deal with the case on.

The case on to my knowledge are not trying to go back to the alpha quadrant. Correct me if I'm wrong. Like, what is exactly his play there? Doesn't seem to be their primary motivation as a species, but also, yeah, like I don't know what his motivation is as a character. Like, it seems like it is mostly about fucking Captain Janeway at this point. Strange motivations. Mm-hmm. So in the Messhal, Neelix is pouring a Paris delight, which the subtitle on the beans

says, a thick and ropey blend. Thicken ropey because despite all the braggadocio, it doesn't actually get shot that often. Right. And mid-convers conversation with BLT, Paris kind of bluffs for a second. And the two of them think it might just be some indigestion. And it might just be an acid reflex thing with the Paris delight.

Yeah. But I don't know, the symptoms come on pretty strong here. Yeah. And when Paris collapses, he looks like a man who has had fish for dinner. Tourists to transport a room to medical emergency. He sure does and they rush him to six bay and it is determined that he is having an allergic reaction to the water in the coffee. It's shocking. Shocking. How could that be possible? He's never had an allergic reaction to the water in the coffee. It's shocking. Shocking. How could that be possible?

He's never had an allergic reaction like that before. I thought it was interesting that BLT called for an emergency transport and they couldn't get a lock on him. I thought that was an interesting tell about what may be happening to him too, right? Like they said something about the reason for not getting a lock. I don't know, it seems consistent with someone who's going through some crazy biological changes, maybe.

Like, your head goes to like, oh, maybe he's like phasing in and out of reality or something. And the doc is like, I mean, the doc gave him a clean bill of hell when he got health when he got back. He's fine, he's just sleeping. There's nothing that was anomalous then. And what's anomalous now is that he's having an allergic reaction to something that would be very unusual to be allergic to. And then it seems like he can't breathe

the kind of air that normal humans breathe and they have to replace the air in the ICU with something else. This is a great doctor episode. I like his quick thinking. place the air in the ICU with something else. This is a great doctor episode. I like his quick thinking. I like the idea of a force field lung that he's put into. Yeah, well, after losing a patient last episode, he's really got to fight back into the

good graces of the crew. Right, we're running out of torpedoes here. I know we technically have one torpedo for every crew member if we need to shoot them into space. The dock really cuts to the chase here. Paris is dying and in order to try to save his life he's going to need all of the intel from what happened to him on board the shuttle so that is going to be running in the background for a little bit. We do a cut to exterior of the ship and back into the 6-bay to establish the passage of time. And Paris is getting worse and worse. Paris has heard this, clearly.

He's heard that he's dying. And also establishing the passage of time is that Paris is starting to have like flaky skin on his face. Solution, Neutrogena T-Jail, it works. And it's pretty, it's pretty sanguine about the fact that these are his final moments. He's mutating. This is a really solid B-Dunk's performance here. He's, he's talking about his childhood and pizza and kissing casts like it's sort of a mania happening here on screen

And I found it really affecting and and like look at B. Dunks here acting with all this shit on him Increase the dosage to 85 rats per second. I don't even want to be around anymore Big funeral. Yeah. He's affecting. Talking about like his childhood and being a real a kid that was prone to crying and crying and losing his virginity in the same room. Probably at the same time.

Uh-huh. Yeah. There's a lot of fluid coming out of him that thick ropes of tears. Yeah, that's the Tom Paris way. I mean, we only get a couple of examples of his major grief moments in his life before he flatlines and it's RSVP Tom Paris. He did. Doc Holliday somberly removes the gas from the room and lowers the force field. That's when Kess enters. But she should get a good night's sleep before they cut up the corpse, according to the doc. The doc does not let 10 seconds go by before he's like, you know, you better rest your sawing hand for the morning. Yeah. Listen, I know that you're, you, you're not, you don't have as firm a grip on

this ability, but he did want to, he did want to be cremated and have his ashes scattered. So if you could work on getting, getting up to a place where you could freshen him up. Yeah. After the autopsy, that would be great. You know, hollow Disneyland is the only place you're allowed to spread kermans in the future. Don't even try it, the real one. Kesk kisses Paris on his very sweaty cheek in just a very generous act, I thought,

given how gross Paris looks here. Yeah, pretty gnarly. Later that night, the dock is like working with all the lights turned off in 6 Bay. At his laptop, and here's spooky noises from the other room. Say, a real spooky scene where he goes and pulls the sheet off of Paris's face, and Paris is back. I'm back baby!

You're alive! The doc is justifiably surprised by this. Medically and personally. He does that thing that I feel like is usually something in like a movie about radiation or poisoning where he reaches up to his hair and pulls away a big chunk of hair. I mean, Paris is plausibly scared and confused by this moment. And Doc, gizatoum straight.

Hey man, you got two hearts. Yeah, you're turning cling on maybe. So I mean, kind of good news bad news I guess When we come back from commercial we get another facetime between trader guy and That same case on that he was talking to you in the last episode. Yeah, I don't know if we ever hear his name on screen But it's redic. Yeah, and I love the, there's like some spy craft that goes totally unexplained, which is that he has to keep like rhythmically tapping these three buttons,

and he has to like, he has like only a certain, you know, number of seconds before security will detect the transmission. I thought that was fun. Like I don't have any idea what it was, but it just made it feel like this is some really sneaky shit going on. And he is talking about selling this technology

to the K-Zone. What are the K-Zone gonna do with this tech? Come on. Yeah. They don't even have water. They don't have any good ideas of what to do with it. Yeah. You know, use it to make bigger, more pine-coney heads

for themselves, probably. Yeah, unclear about where this is going to go at this moment in time. Reddick, again, not extremely helpful. In a way that I admire. This should prove my worth to you, Reddick. We'll see. Captain Janeway comes down to Six Bay to visit her pilot. And he's really starting to look like Gold member here with his pealy skin.

I really like this sequence and it's reveal because Janeway sees the doc first. And I feel like there's a lot of medical dramas that do this kind of trick. Like tell me about my beloved friend or family member in the doc's like, I should probably my beloved friend or family member in the ducts, like, I should probably let you know before you go in there. It's just like 50 pounds of burger. Nothing can prepare you for what that's going to be like. And like we walk with Janeway into

the room where Paris is. And like,'ve learned that like organs are being added and removed to his bodies like on the cellular level and his brains are being rewired on the fly. And so you're getting the imagination picture of what he's going to look like. Yeah. And then she walks past Kess and Kess has like resting disgusted face while she does work. I love Jennifer Leon's work here. And then when we like cross the threshold we see Paris. And he looks like Conan O'Brien dipped in Vaseline and Kettle Cook potato chips. He is gross and his head is like throbbing. Yeah. In and out like his skull looks like he's got soft skull. So it's like it's it's breathing on its own, it's nasty. Yeah.

She tells him there's only two things she hates in the galaxy. People who are intolerant of other cultures and the Dutch. He peels off some of this skin and saves it for later. You do get pizza the hut vibes from Tom Parris here. Yeah. It's a very creepy, weird performance. He's like very erratic and self-contradictory and like gets angry at her.

We're all concerned about your time. We're here to help you. It's too much fucking shit on me, I can't breathe. Who didn't, you know that's not true. I'm so hot. Smashes himself against the force field at one point. I know before in that earlier scene, I was like, well, why didn't B-Dunks

like get more emotional earlier? But what's happening is he left himself more runway to get weirder and for there to be more mania involved. And I like that he left himself room to add the amps here. Yeah. He starts to lump her in with the thing that he's been fighting his whole life of people telling him that he's great and he's doing a great job when he knows that he is like actually not equal to the challenges that are presented to him.

My dad told me that I could never get this gross. Well, how do you like this, dad? I took my tongue off. It is so gnarly. Like, second time in season two that I feel like Voyager has approached the apex of grossness for Star Trek. I've wade spoke too soon about adding season two episodes to my Mount Gross more. This is way on there and this seems specifically. Oh my god, it's so upsetting to watch.

I mean, just the makeup is upsetting but but then when the tongue thing happens, it's like, wow, I looked away from the TV, I couldn't deal with it. It's really well done body horror. And I think that the mania helps that, like there are moments where it really feels like Tom Paris and a man we sympathize with for his plight, and then other moments where he is terrifying. And I think if it was all terrifying and aggression, he wouldn't be as repulsed in a way.

The part that was the most upsetting to me wasn't the jittleatonousness of the tongue. It wasn't even the color of the tongue. It was the cruel intentions amount of saliva that hung between the tongue and his mouth. Yeah. And I love how they pay this off later too, like there's tongue continuity where Paris is talking without his tongue. Yes. Gross as hell. Yeah.

I love the little giggle when it comes out. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So we've got a safe Paris. The dot comes up with a plan. He wants to irradiate him with a certain kind of protons that can only be gotten from the warp core. And what they want to do is bombard all of the parts of his body that have mutated already with this type of radiation. And so the only the original DNA will be left and his body will have to rebuild using that. I mean, that's like the blueprint that it would use, right? So that kind of makes sense.

When we see the chamber he's put in, none of the chamber covers his face. So I guess I guess they're going to leave that alone. They're not going to do anything about the tongue. Yeah. He's like almost looking the way Jordy did in the episode where he turned into an invisible man. Oh, good call. This point. He really looks like that. Good thinking. It's funny how Paris goes back and forth, like his lucidity is really ping-ponging back and forth, like, and how, like this is a scene that made me think about Picard

in all good things, like people trusted Picard when he was talking that kind of crazy in a way that Paris doesn't command that kind of respect. Like way that Paris doesn't command that kind of of respect. Like, because in a certain context, you know, Paris is wanting to leave the ship for reasons. And I think if Picard were in the same circumstance and he wanted to leave the ship for reasons, he might be listened to for a moment in a way that Paris is not getting. Yeah, people are more deferential in that context.

We get to see the scene where Paris breaks out from the standpoint of the FaceTime camera. I love this perspective. We attended a funeral for a family member recently over Zoom and it was like one of the worst Zoom things I've seen so far since the pandemic started, which was they opened a laptop at the back of a church and Then the the fishiant walked all the way to the to the like pulpit at the other end of the church to deliver at the other end of the church to deliver the funeral. It was just like, this is the, like nobody needs to see the audience. We need to hear what you're saying.

Like this is the worst possible positioning for this laptop. And someone's not muted out there during the service. And it's just like, I shit you not Adam. There was a guy that had Fox News on full blast watching it on his television while he was also watching the funeral on Zoom. And could not figure out how to mute his mic.

Wouldn't turn off Fox News, couldn't figure out how to mute his mic. That is not fair. I was fucking insane. Right, got tickets that nothing gets that old, bit large. 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 Share Your Embarrassment 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 spaceweards. Pat Noswald. Could I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries?

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Be dumb instead. Oh, raps. 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 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 all Gotta get on the art. Yeah, it's about terrain. Got us about to destroy humanity Hey, oh, 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 And so same wipe 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 MaximumFun.org. Music I've got to get that blackboard knot. Are you selling a horse? Gold.

So the dock and cast watch as the gun fight goes down in engineering. And it becomes clear that that lizard man Tom Paris has broken out. Lieutenant, what's happening? I can't believe you died! Shining! What's happening? What's happening? What's happening? What's happening? What's happening? What's happening? What's happening? There's one of those decisions that I think, when you and I talk about the constraints

of independent film and video production, like it's inspirational to say, you know, like the constraints of budget or whatever, it just forces you to be more creative. Right. But often, like that's just like a fucking jack-off hand motion to that. You know what, I would 10 out of 10 times,

I would rather have more budget and time to do the things that I wanted to do. But this scene here is an example of a constraint creating a great creative decision because I don't wanna be an engineering seeing this happen. I wanna see the beams cross the screen and I wanna see Kes and the doc watch and horror guessing about what's happening

and hearing a potential monster nearest the most sensitive part of the ship. Like this is great. It's great. And then I love just like the world building moment that happens next of Tuvac getting over like a all ship broadcast saying that they have a level three security alert. Like, I feel like we are always on the bridge

or wherever the security alert is getting announced from or never in the corridor or in 6B hearing that announcement. And I love that. Yeah, it's a very lower deck's perspective that I wish we got more often. Yeah. So, Janeway is alerted. She's like on her way down to engineering and pulls a phaser out and gets the download

from Ticote, but she gets body checked into an elevator by Lizard Boy. And up on the bridge, like he shot something crucial enough that they don't have sensors and they don't have a bunch of the things that they would use to solve a problem like this. So by the time he is in the race car class shuttle and out of the ship, they're unable to even grab him with a tractor beam.

I think one of the other comparisons to the Jordi LaForge episode where he turned into glow in the dark LaForge was that I mean they showed full body compositions of him in that episode. Yeah. Almost to the detriment of the episode. And I think this episode does a good job of just keeping it at a cowboy type of shot with him. Like they don't show his entire body in a way that could read as comical or weird. Yeah.

And I think that that was a good choice. I do too. I think he kind of stays aliens, you know, morph in that way. It's, it's, and the fact that he's also changing like every third time we see him makes it like what, what he is scarier and, and weirder. And they don't have to show his giant wet crank flopping around as he gallops around the ship. Well, they had the, they had the budget to do some puppetry in this episode and they considered it for that,

but they took that in a different direction. Yeah, they spent all the puppet money a couple episodes ago. Well, they spent it in the last... And the last act of this episode. Yeah. So he takes Janeway into transwar they she wakes up in the shuttle and they've already they've already gone to plan I Love the hopelessness of the chase

You know like the Voyager isn't fast enough to pursue yeah, and this baby is gone Gone baby gone and we come back to Starship Voyager and it's like days later. Captain Chicoetay has been making a lot of changes on the ship. We come back and everybody is in Mayquees uniforms. They've even reprogrammed the doctor to be wearing a leather vest and a sash. Can I do this? They've changed course.

The doc has a lot of face tats and a couple of tears to represent crew members. He's lost That's the end of the episode No, what really happens is that they find the shuttle on a wet-class planet We're already going to a bog planet which is like the worst kind of planets as far as planets go The doctor's like you know that thing we tried that didn't work to fix him? It's gonna work this time. We just gotta turn it up. As long as you can find him, we can fix this situation.

Right. And they beam down to the bogs of a jungle planet and find like the captain and had Paris have turned into really big axolotels, basically. What is that word? You know the axolotel? No. An axolotel is a weird kind of salamander, native to Mexico.

Look at that. Axolotel. Ankylisor. I think it's an Aztec word. I was not aware of that. Axolot used to be my screen name on like AOL Instant Messenger. There you go. That's how you know it.

Yeah. I worked in a biology lab when I was in high school, and they had axelotls there, and I thought that they were really neat. These two axelotls are big as hell. They're like two rolled out sleeping bags. They're that big. What we've come to learn is that they represent

a evolutionary end point for humans. Like the going to transwarp kicked the process of evolution into overdrive and the doctor explains that. Yeah, but Ben, before we find that out, Chicote shoots both of them, which I think is a great order of operations. Like, we don't, I mean, we're sort of assuming that it's Paris and Janeway,

like there's the joke about, you know, which one is which based on their genitals. Yeah, we gotta flip them over. But this is like, like Chico Te just beams down and shoots. Yeah. He's got to get him back to the ship. And, but before they do, we get to see the offspring of these two salamanders. What? They come up out of a hole in the sand and then slither into the drink.

I don't know how I'm going to enter this into the log. I thought Chico today was gonna shoot these things too. So three of these things get left on this planet. They're like, we'll just let them do what they're gonna do. And we cut back up to Six Bay where the captain and Paris have been restored to their human stage of evolution. Is this the craziest elliptical edit Star Trek has ever dropped on us? I was so upset by this. I love it. We need to have a point to all this and and now is the time. This conversation is that. Yeah, she doesn't know how she's gonna explain all of this to Tom Mervins.

I never wanted to have children. Yeah, he's very embarrassed that he's sired offspring with her. They kind of do some bits about like maybe it was you that kicked it to me and maybe it was me that kicked it to you. We'll never know. I mean, the way Paris puts it is like, you know, sometimes you fuck around and get turned to do a salamander, fuck your captain and have lizard babies with her. And find out that it was really all about having a healthier self image in the end. Maybe not putting so much of yourself worth into your career. Yeah. Paris like almost literally says, see, I learned something today.

Woof. It's a real schmaltzie button on this episode, Adam. Given how wet and glistening so many things are in this episode, the schmalt at the end still surprised me. Shouldn't have given all that, but it did. Did you like this episode? You know, I'm gonna use it to get along with most of the time. But I don't like bollies, I don't like friends, and I don't like you. I'm just stupid.

I like this episode. I like it a lot. It's fun. To me, this episode achieves fun first. I think it's ending is weak, but also I think that Star Trek does best when we can expect a few episodes like this in a given season. Like I want weird shit that is like, what? What? That's an experience I really love having

when I'm watching an episode of Star Trek. Hero is my honest experience of rewatching this episode for the show today, Adam. I rewatched the episode for the show, and then I looked it up and discovered that it was an episode that uniquely inspired fan outrage. I was shocked. Oh, I never experienced it like that.

I mean, I think I watched this when it aired on television and thought it was like a B minus execution of an interesting and weird idea for an episode. But I never thought it was like a dog shit episode or like an offensive abuse of Star Trek Canon or anything. It's just a fucking weird episode. Like I read that like the showrunners like decanonized

this one. It's considered to like not have happened in Star Trek Canon. Can they even do that? I don't know. They can't do that. I mean, you hope they can and I think it's called the Code of Honor Rule. Oh, right.

Yeah, it should be possible, huh? But I don't know. I kind of ride for this episode. I know it's not great, but I kind of ride for it. It's my position on the matter. How about yourself, Adam? I mean, you're very persuasive with your point of view here. And I really am inclined to agree.

For this reason specifically, like, I really like when the show takes big swings and gets weird. What I didn't want was another episode where characters get space drunk and accidentally fuck. I feel like we've gotten eight episodes that are basically that. Give me a new spin on that. And that is utterly what this was.

Yeah. I laughed a ton in this episode just at the audacity of those big swings that it took. Totally. I like that this episode signaled toward a kind of Star Trek lore, the Warp 10 rule. I like that this episode spoke directly to that and fucked around and found out why we never talk about or experiment with Warp 10. Yeah. And why we probably never will again look the difference between a bad episode like on the on the charts of four squares the difference between like the

the unenjoyable bad episode and the enjoyable bad episode is so extreme to me. I would rather watch an enjoyably bad episode over an unenjoyably good episode even most of the time. Yeah. And Threshold is emblematic of that. It's greatest gen canon. I'll tell you that right now. Hell yeah.

No one's uncannonizing Threshold from greatest gen lore. I'm happy I watched it. It's crazy as hell. Mm-hmm. There's no way season two is going to get more crazy than this. That's what I'm saying. Like, not a chance. You can eat the rest in Weirdas Hell. I'll stake that claim right now. Wow. Wow Adam, well, do you want to see if we have any weird as hell priority one messages in the inbox?

How fitting would that be? That would be great. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on it. A supplement? A supplement. A supplement. Yeah, it's extra.

But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship! Ben, our first priority one message is of a personal nature. It's from Julia and it's to Robert. The message goes like this. Robert, you are a truly rad dude. He's a great friend, husband. And soon to be father, wow. I can't wait to raise the boy with you. And if this shout out is at or around April 1st, happy birthday. Amazing boy. Julia going for the April 1st birthday date. Who knows when the birth date of Robert and Julia's child will be. Yeah. But, wow, so Robert and Julia could be way on down the road of this thing. Yeah, they could already be

Oh, but now totally sick of being parents Yeah, wow Totally in love with being parents either one is possible. It sure is one or the other though. There's nobody that's got neutral feelings about that No Congratulations to both of you and And happy belated birthday Robert. Yeah, happy birthday you and happy belated birthday, Robert. Yeah, happy birthday, Robert. And happy birthday to your son.

Adam, our next priority one message is from Lulu, and it's to Pluskina. And it goes like this, well buddy, we are finally here. The episode that defines Voyager. There are three salamander youths that will grow up alone in a cold world never to be remembered by their parents. I wanted to give you a thing those poor and fibicids will never have. Love and birthday wishes. You were one of my best buds and I hope that all of your birthdays are the very best. I think Lulu is totally right here. Like in the same way that giant Spock is just out there somewhere.

Or like the idea was to go back to the Genesis planet to check up on a torpedo they shot there. We've got to go back. We've got to go back to this planet and visit those kids. We've got to find out what's going on with the nubbin bugs. There's a lot of untied threads in Star Trek. We've got to grab those three salamanders. We've got to imprison them in jars until we can find out what's happening, Brent.

Yeah. Well, if you would like to wish somebody a happy birthday or tell us what the defining episode of Voyager is, you can leave a priority one message by going to MaximumFun.org slash JumboTron. We really appreciate it because it helps us continue to support the production of this program. Hey Adam! Is that Ben? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? support the production of this program. I already won, is it? Hey Adam! What's that been? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda?

Incredible! Drunk Shimoda! One character we didn't talk about very much is the character that takes over this episode to me, and that's Doc Holiday. Yeah. He has a couple of line reads here that are hilarious to me. I'm glad you had a good time. Oh, oh, oh.

And. It's a miracle he's still alive. Real laughs out of me this episode. To go along with the probably unintentional laughs that I got out of other parts of the up. Yeah, Robert Bracardo doing strong comedy work here. So I'm gonna make the doc my drunk Shimoda. What about you?

Good call. I think I'm gonna give it to Instant Trader, whatever his name is. The guy that like sees that they have crossed the trans-work barrier and is like, I am still gonna betray these guys to the local gangster aliens in this quadrant who have never been shown to be trustworthy.

That's my plan. It's a show, right? Yeah, Michael Jonas. Yeah. Just a real bonehead move by him in my opinion. To deal with the devil, Jonas. Mm-hmm. And the devil, you don't even know that well.

Gotta do better. Yeah. Yeah, you gotta be doing deals with devils you know at least. With the very minimum. That's just good business. Objection noted. We'll do this without you. Do it. If you do it. If you do it. Do it. Well, we gotta be dealing with the next episode of Star Trek Voyager, Ben.

And for that, we gotta figure out how. Yeah. We fuck around and find out how by going to the game of butthole tour of the Fairtaker where we are currently on square 19. Adam, our next episode is season two episode 16 meld, unable to come up with a logical motive for a shipboard murder, Tuvac performs a mine meld with the perpetrator that brings out Tuvac's killer instinct. Just a terribly written capsule,

it uses Tuvac twice in the same clause. This sounds a lot like the DAX episode, right? Where DAX gets to know the murderer inside. Yeah, the suppressed inside? Yeah. The suppressed murderer within her. Yeah. That sounds like that kind of story. I wonder if it'll be like it.

Talk about your all-time mind-meld backfires. I know. Can't do that. Well, Adam, why don't you warm up that bone and throw it here on the board. Tell us how we're gonna be doing this next episode. You're required to learn as you play, Role. Alright Ben, I've got the die in my hand. We are, like really in danger from a lot of different

squares here. We've got his eyes uncovered, the Tamarion style metaphors episode two squares ahead and then we got a banger, a few squares after that. That banger. We didn't hit that banger last time is what we hit last time so see what happens this time around this bone a roll and what I did is I rolled a five hit the banger and we're right back on the very same square. Shula! Did I win? Wow this is never happened in the history of the game of buttles. So I got us nowhere.

That's my job on the show, kind of always. Much like Tom Paris in Six Bay, you just ran at the force field full speed and bonked your face into it. I bonked us into it, Ben. Wow. We're both inside that runabout. That's true. I Often forget that that I'm trapped in there with you. Yeah, but you know what Ben?

We're not alone in here either. We have we have the Friends of Disotto Support us and so many of them make the show possible by going to MaximumFund.org slash joint. Yeah, we're not Trapped in the runabout with the friends of Desoto. They're trapped in here with us! We really appreciate everyone that supports the show or recommends it to a friend or leaves a nice review on Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast app you views. Yeah, I really, really love all of that stuff and it helps us grow the show and That is great for everyone Maybe you're not a friend of DeSoto and want to find out how you can become one

Well, you can meet friends of DeSoto just about anywhere on the internet on on all of the places people do social media That's true. We've got the Discord group at DrunkShemota.com. We've got so many Facebook groups out there. You can talk to a friend of Soto on Twitter using the hashtag GreatestGen. You can talk to the Card Daddy Bill Tilly on Twitter. He's our social media expert.

And he's at Bill Tilly on Twitter. He's our social media expert and he's at Bill Tilly in 1973. He is, did I call him a social media expert? I would say no one's a social media expert, but he's our social media manager. And he makes being a friend of DeSoto so much fun on the internet. Yeah. I think next week or in the next week or two we're going to do a big mail call episode and if you've got something you'd like to send in get in touch through the greatest trek Twitter accounts and at the end of that and we've built Tilly thinks the thing you are going to send in sounds like it passes muster who give you our PO box. The Greatest Gen Twitter account officially is at Greatest Trek, and that's the same handle used for the Greatest Gen Instagram account.

And our Twitch account, which we are occasionally having fun and goofing around. Yeah. We got to thank Adam Ragusia, who made the Janeway song, the theme song of the greatest generation Voyager and Dark Materia, who made the Picard song, the original theme song of the greatest generation that you hear. Potted down below our voices right now, thanks to both of you. Catch up with Adam Ragusia on his YouTube channel, where he will teach you how to cook. Yeah, it cooks with music for us, it cooks with food,

with the internet. And with that, we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Dark Trick Voyager, an episode of the greatest generation Voyager where Adam and I try and fail to have a killer instinct. She's not really in us. Yeah, passive instinct. Yeah that's my biographical movie title right there. Yeah fuck around and find nothing out. The last episode of Voyager, they cruise back into sector 001, like the fanfare plays.

They've used Breaking the Wart Barrier to do it. So they can go anywhere instantaneously. They're like, you made it home. It's great. You want to go back and visit your kids, which you can do instantaneously. No, we're good. We're good.

I'm sure they're fine. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Autistone. Audience supported. I'm sure they're fine. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and Culture.

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