The Greatest Generation - Gruffness Quotient (S7E16)

Episode Date: August 30, 2017

When Data crash lands on "Planet Renaissance," he starts performing feats of strength and sells dangerous cargo to the blacksmith there. Meanwhile, Counselor Troi studies for a test where her answers have life-threatening consequences. Who's ever seen Space Rangers? What is the loaf of the week? Should we change the show's logo? It's the episode that suffers from mechanical amnesia.

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, a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pryanaka.

Adam, I was thinking it has been an awfully long time since we cracked open our Bible. Oh yeah, but in so many, that's the truth, Ben. Ha ha ha. It's good to see you all in church. It's cool to the Bible. That's the way God wants it. I don't know why, dude. All these questions?

Is a little blind thing too much to ask? You got that red letter edition TNG showbible over there? Yeah, the King James showbible. Yeah, King Rod showbible. I have randomly selected another page from the what doesn't work section of the book. Is that half the book? Sadly no Adam. It's just a single line it's a season seven. These are these are points five through nine and they are there's some big headlines and some clarifications. First is we do not accept stories which are fantasy instead of science fiction. The difference between the

two is profound. Despite the fact that of science fiction. The difference between the two is profound. Despite the fact that both science fiction and fantasy can deal with unusual events, the science fiction story is based on an extrapolation of a generally accepted scientific fact or theory. Fantasy, which our format does not permit, need have no basis in reality. Yeah, I mean, I guess my retort for that is every holodeck episode ever.

It's funny how condescending the showbible can be sometimes. Yeah. In case you didn't know the difference you guys. Speaking of holodeck episodes, number six, we are not interested in swords and sorcery. difference you guys. For what purpose did the showbible serve? Like, was the showbible on a bookshelf in the writer's room and it was rarely referred to or were writers expected to observe the rules in it? Because it sure doesn't seem based on these last to bullet points that it was something that they took seriously.

Yeah, I mean there's definitely, I mean I guess all rules are made to be broken. Sure, number seven, don't treat treat deep space as a local neighborhood. Too often script ideas show characters bouncing from solar system to solar system, plan it to plan it without the slightest comprehension of the distance involved or the technologies required to support such travel. Find and even fun in space rangers, but not Star Trek. What's Space Rangers? Is that something?

You know, the very popular hit science fiction series Space Rangers. I have no idea what that is. Space Rangers TV series. Wow. That totally pokes a hole in my proposal for the Cannonball Run TNG episode. That we were so close to getting. Wow, Space Rangers is an American futuristic science fiction drama. It aired on CBS in 1993. Oh, you know how many shows are on CBS right now that I've never heard of?

I love that the show Bible for a much bigger television series is throwing shade. They're competition. Good stuff. Look, man, you want to write a dragon story? You could take that shit over to space Rangers No, do that a ranger We're in a very classy science fiction television program Point eight star Trek is not melodrama melodrama is a writing style which does not require believable people

believable people are at the heart of good star Trek scripts. The second part is true People are at the heart of good Star Trek scripts. The second part is true. Yeah. Melodrama is a perfectly valid genre. The fuck is he talking about? And by the way, I obviously mean God, who wrote this? Especially when the show came out of the blocks. It was almost entirely Melodrama.

Yeah. Number 9. Do not consider Klingon's Romulans or Ferengi the only villains in space. We are determined not to copy ourselves. If, as dramatists say, villains make the story, how about the other fascinating aliens to be found in a galaxy filled with billions of stars and planets? to be found in a galaxy filled with billions of stars and planets. I think this probably came from a... from a good place, but I think as soon as they wrote the Ferengi and saw them on screen for the first time, they were like, ugh, you know, I think we better just keep it in the alien neighborhood we're familiar with.

We are not good at this. You know what's weird is like off the top of my head I'm trying to think of the aliens they introduced in order and Ferengi was first as far as the new aliens go and then who came next besides like loaf of the week. Yeah there's been a lot of loaf of the weeks. I guess the other big ones introduced in this series are Borgs and Cardassians. Yeah, yeah, they did a good job with those two. I mean, Nossikens? Yeah, they don't really like to say that. I actually had some shit to do.

The Farmer Hoggets. Yeah, the Packed Lids. Yeah, the Packed Lids Yeah, the pack lids, the iridians. But to begin with the Ferengi and miss the way they did. They did to give some people some pause. Yeah. But they redeem themselves on alien creation after that. But they did a good job.

And they even redeem the Ferengi. Yeah, I think there's a lot of wisdom in this Bible. Do you? Well, here end with the lessonerengy. Yeah, I think there's a lot of wisdom in this Bible. Do you? Well, here endeth the lesson, Adam. Well, peace be with you, Ben. And also with you, Adam. What do you say we see to what degree this episode prescribes to those rules? It's season 7, episode 16, Thin Own Self.

And episode that begins with Beverly taking a night shift command spot and the return of Deanna Troy from a three-day class reunion. Ben, I have so much to talk about with regards to a three-day class reunion. What the hell is that about? Like that does not include transit time, I don't think. I think the event takes three days. God, I was out of shit to talk about in the first 30 minutes at my class reunion. I went to my 10 year and my 20 year was a couple weeks ago. I skipped it

been and it was it was local. It was like 30 minutes away and I didn't go. That's kind of shitty, right? You didn't want to tell people about your Star Trek podcast. The pause that I'm giving between the question and the answer I think says a lot. But what is a reunion if not a hundred times to answer the question what have you been up to? That's a question that I hate answering in general. I just didn't want to deal with it. Yeah. School wasn't great for me. TBH. No, it kind of sucked. I don't want to deal with it. High school wasn't great for me, TBH. No, it kind of sucked.

I don't want to reconnect with the person I was in high school either. Like, high school is a very dark time for me. And the cools in high school have gone on to become way less cool because that's what happens when you graduate. I don't want to start the motor on those egos again. Like I would rather not give them the satisfaction of my attendance, you know?

To give them the social standing that they have so missed. Fuck them. Fuck them. Anyway, I think Troy liked her classmates a lot more than we did because upon returning to the bridge, she's like, yeah, it was really, you know, she makes the case of everyone does at the end of her reunion. She's like, you know, it's nice to connect with people that I haven't talked to in many

years and see, you know, their ambitions realized. Speaking of Bev, what the hell are you doing on the bridge? Yeah, Beverly is like... The truth is, I like it. It's not every doctor who gets to command a starship. Even if it is the night shift. Bev is like, it's a good thing every alien in the universe prescribes to a three-shift rotation. And every other hostile alien ship is running their C team right now.

So like, we're not in any danger. Like what the hell is that about? This is almost as wacky as the rule of like all ships approaching each other from the same plane. Yeah. It's weird shift logic. I mean, one thing that like we kind of didn't touch on much in the last episode is that, like, aside from the very end, that was like one of the first times we've ever seen an episode

where the mission basically goes entirely according to plan. Yeah. Like, they go pick up the guy, they like get him in the shuttle and they send him on his way. And like, you know, it's obviously got a sad ending, but like the mission is not where any of the conflict or drama is coming from in that episode. And you have to think that like a lot of the time this ship is flying around, not encountering space but holes and stuff, right? Yeah, and a third of the time the C team,

like it's a bridge full of Barnabies are running the show for eight hours a day. Like outside of the episode disaster, which this episode refers to fairly directly, what we don't get is the cold open of the sea team getting bangers dropped on them and the senior staff like being asleep. And having to make their way to the bridge or whatever, I think that's a story that's worth retelling. That would be fun. Yeah.

I'd start getting knocked out of bed by a banger, getting on the communicator. What the fuck is going on up there? I got a sleep for 30 minutes and the chips getting bangers dropped on it. Barnaby's like, finally, I get to take command. There also waiting to hear from data who's off on a mission, collecting some radioactive material that landed on an uncontacted pre-industrial planet, and they've got some other, some other like shit to do, go to like pick up some medical supplies from somebody or whatever.

Yeah, and just as an aside, Bev is like, yeah, I mean, data hasn't responded to any of our communicates for like 36 hours or whatever. But. Jordi said that the radiation from the probe might interfere with communications. We're not worried about our most valuable federation asset going off the grid for like,

for like longer than an hour. Yeah. Bev like sort of supports it. Like even Troy is like you sent him a message that and he hasn't responded to any messages for a length of time. Isn't that weird and Bev's like yeah it's cool. We just send him messages even if we aren't sure he's gonna open him. I think that's not a good look for Beverly if she is on command duty. Yeah. Like this is basically a data amber alert here situation and she is not seeing it for what it is.

Yeah, she's much much more interested in talking about how much she likes being captain deep down. And you can see this sort of eat at Troy. She sees Bev in the big chair. She sees how satisfying it is to be there. I like it. Beverly sort of cops the idea of like, yeah, I didn't have to become commander.

Being doctor was the jam for me, but like new challenges, right? You get what I'm saying, Deanna. And like, she sort of looks at her, at her pips and is like, oh, I guess you wouldn't. Sometimes a plant grows too big for its pot, Diana. And credit to Marina Serdice, like, she seems a little crushed by this. Yeah.

There's a wilting in her, in her flowers. It's a nice, wordless performance. Yeah. Cut to renfair. This is a planet fully inhabited by people with the Mazda logo tattooed to their forehead. They just love that logo. They all live for the tattoo. They just love that logo. They all live for the tat. What is up with this season going with like planet Scottish, planet renfair?

Like I'm ready to see planet circus. Yeah. What are they doing? I don't know. They don't have the money for loaf. They burned it all on costumes. Like if you're gonna have this storyline, having the aliens be real loafy

is A going to be tremendously expensive and B gonna make it hard to explain why data does not have loaf. Yeah. Like you can have weird skin but if he doesn't have the loaf, they're gonna be like, there's something very wrong with this guy. Right, agreed.

So, data walks into this town square, looking like I feel, and he's like, he's got like a thousand yard stair and he's carrying a plastic lunchpale. And this man and his daughter are walking through the square and they're in like, you know, renaissance-y clothing. The man is like, who are you?

What do you want? And data opens his mouth and just like, seeing data with messed up hair evokes a feral riker idea, but it's far more acute like messed up data here is a really bad sign. He's got like scorch marks on him. Yeah. There's a big gash across where his communicator would be. He doesn't look great. No. And he's not sound and great either. He sounded like a broken fax machine. But he sort of puts it together, right? Like the guy, the father, is his name, Garvin. Garvin. Fred Garvin, male prostitute.

This guy who will get to know later is Garvin. It's like, hey, bud, are you okay? And data is like mimicking him. And slowly, like his voice is coming back, but only in the sentence fragments that Garvin is shooting at him. And so finally, at the end, data sort of like his brain comes back online

and so far as he can say, like, he's sort of putting it together. The CPU is in roll and it process a learning computer. He's fixing himself. That part is coming back online. But he's lost his memory and like, the first indication of this is that Garvin's like, I'm Garvin, this is Gia. I have a work order here, which specified that I am to Roger you, roundlyly till 615 tomorrow morning.

Data doesn't remember his name. And they're like, well, what's in your lunchpale there, buddy? Maybe your wallet's in there. And they're looking at it. And they're like, why does it say radioactive? What could that possibly mean? They're like, your case says Calvin Klein. Maybe that's your name.

It's a total back to the future thing I thought. I've never seen an Android and purple underwear. It's so like the way they frame this case, they frame it very ominously as they do with the radioactive box. But this is something that like contemporary science has thought a lot about like with regard to the caves where we bury nuclear material, for instance, like what is a thing, what is a symbology that you can use that looks like danger to anyone for the next million years? Yeah. Evidently, they have not answered that question.

Not at this point. Don't they do like an image of somebody barfing? Isn't that what they put on those caves? Yeah. That should be the logo for our podcast. For a lot of people it already is, Adam. That's the next t-shirt idea. Just greatest gen logo, Guy Barfing. So that is our A storyline.

Our B storyline is Troy, like, having talks with Riker about her newly crystallized ambition to become a three-pip. And she like walks into his quarters while he's practicing the bone. Ben, how not great would it be to live next to Riker given his prodigious bone practice? I mean that in every definition. I was really, we're seeing that the camera did one of those plunging shots through the floor and just showed like Ensign like hitting the ceiling with a broom handle, one deck down.

God, because you gotta believe that the deck that Riker is on is one of the great decks. Great condos, the floor plans are killer. But man. You gotta hope that there's Jeffrey Tubes on either side and above and below, because otherwise it's really gonna fuck things up for everybody else.

Living next to Riker is like getting the hotel room next to the ice machine and the elevator. You're not gonna be doing a lot of sleeping. That door's gonna be slamming every 30 minutes. Yeah. Ugh. Man. I do wanna be close enough to the ice machine though.

I hate having to go to another floor for it. Yeah, you want same floor ice, that's for sure. That is for damn sure. Riker's been playing trombone for so long that he has come up with a trombone language that he is speaking with Troy. This is sort of a wally language that he plays through the trombone. Is that the most weird question? They're having a lot of fun with this.

You know, this is a much better way of communicating for you. It's far less confusing than the way you normally speak. This is like the sort of relaxed phone that they have with each other that is just so comfortable. Yeah. I like, I think at some point he says like, my anxiety just came in to make fun of my trombone plank.

Yeah. Yeah, the self-referentialness. Yeah. The references to the ball breaking and progress. Yeah. The way open V combination that Riker's rocking here. Yeah. You want something loose fitting when you're playing that bone. Yeah, off hours.

You're gonna put on that loose V. And so Troy says that he wants that, that three-pip game. And he says, well, yeah, like I think you'd be great. But there's a test and you're gonna have to jump through the same hoops as everybody. I'm not gonna be nice to you just because you're my amzadi. Yeah, he makes that case that you have to make when you work with friends, which is like, this is the work hat. And this is the friend's hat. And I don't often wear both at the same time. when you work with friends, which is like, this is the work hat, and this is the friends hat,

and I don't often wear both at the same time. So, like, I'm the guy for whom the buck stops on these promotions, so, like, don't expect special treatment. The only hat I wear at the same time is either of these is my Jimmy hat. Which I just wear all the time. Just in case. My dick is not doing any breathing.

It keeps it nice and soft like a glove with lotion in it. I thought it was funny that Troy referred to her previous experience in command as a disaster. Like I love references to the title of the episode in the episode. Yeah. Rikers like, well, uh, to thine own self be true, Deanna, and then like looks at the camera. It's a tiny, pretty, well, what's off pretty face? Are you gone finding within yourself? Just stand up, tell the truth. You don't deserve to wear that beautiful. Back on planet Renaissance, a very officious local science lady has been brought around.

They've got data back to the house they live in. And this science lady, Talour, is assessing data, like she's like looking in his mouth and smelling his breath and trying, she's trying to get her head around what he might be because he doesn't look like them, obviously. And she determines based on the available evidence that she is talking to an iceman. Ice... Man. She does that thing where the most wrong people have the strongest opinion about how they're feeling. Like, she is positive that he is an iceman. You are an iceman. Data's ready to believe this.

Like, I'm an iceman. That's me. Cool. I'll take your word for it. You seem to be very sure of yourself. Um, yeah, I kind of wondered what the statement being made here was. Was it that like, scientists, like early scientists didn't know what the fuck they were talking about?

Because she seems to have like some, some grasp of the universe, but it is a primitive one. And like as he gets more plugged back into himself, he starts, he starts being much, much better at science than she is. But the message that it gave me was like true intelligence has a doubt component. Right. And she looks like a buffoon for not having that. Have you ever read about E prime? No. Is that when you get ecstasy delivered to your home on the same day?

You ordered it. Yeah, it's Uber, but for drugs. It's an idea of a version of English for scientists that doesn't have any certainty words. You can't, you can never say like the word is. You would always have to say like appears to be or I perceive something as X and I guess it's mostly just kind of a thought experiment like can can you can you get around in a world where you like are linguistically barred from certainty and anything but yeah this woman is brimming with confidence that every pronouncement she makes is true.

And there's a great scene where she's like teaching a bunch of little kids about the elements and she's like... If we expose the word to flame, we can encourage the fire within the wood to show itself. Because look at this! And she lights it on fire. And though it's very hard to see it's also filled with water And data does that smart kid thing where he corrects the teacher. I do not believe that is correct. Oh Yeah, she doesn't take this well. No. She takes it so not well that I pegged her as a threat to data right away in a way that later on does not that ends up being a head fake like yeah like she is not the threat to him that I presupposed she would be and she's sort of she sort of is redeemed as as the episode goes on like she as she realizes that

he has a lot to offer in terms of like understanding of the world around them, she becomes more and more friendly to him. There's a magic trick this show does, or this television series does from time to time, which is like accurately predict something that happens in modern times. And maybe the most acute way that the show has ever done it is predicted the popularity of the name Jaden.

Which is what they end up naming data in this episode for lack of any other name. They're like, yeah, let's make you Jaden. Jaden, of course, now, along with every other name that ends in EN is like the number one style of name that babies are named right now. I just picture all the parents listening, like, fuck, this is where I got it from, God.

We've been calling our kid. We've been calling our kid this for six years. I did not realize it was because I watched a TV show when I was nine. I watched a sea level season seven random episode on BBC America. Let's just slipped into my head. I think I'd rather have a child named Jaden than Garvin. A couple of months off, great lakes feeding grain. Or Scoran. Yeah.

Scoran is the town blacksmith played by a fairly legendary that guy, Mike Haggardy. Actually, I was thinking about filing agreements with the union. Yeah, Mike Haggardy's the best. Here really is. They take the the metal from Data's lunchpale down to this guy and they're like, what do you think of this? And he's like, well, this is some great metal. Like, I don't know how you even make metal this great. It's so shiny. So, so pliable.

Metal is slightly warm. And so he's like, let me buy some of this off you. I'm gonna make, I'm gonna make some jewelry. I know this is not how radioactive metals work, but when he took it over to the blacksmith's table and started whacking on it with a hammer, I was full on expecting like, cut to extreme wide shot of the town, giant nuclear flash, cut to currency coins. I'm just cut to view a planet and look a little flash under the clouds and then roll credits.

Oh, man, there's a version of this episode that's eight minutes long. That would have been great. Yeah. Well, you know, in movies, you can nuke the fridge, but in television shows, you can nuke the anvil. Yeah, it is definitely Chekhov's anvil. Why are guys that work with metal always so gruff? I think that is what you hire for when you're hiring blacksmiths. Gruffness? Yeah.

What is this man's gruffness quotient? Okay, he can work here. It says here on your resume that you're great at growing a mustache and sure as hell I can see that. Great job with the mustache. I have some doubts about your gruffness though. Well sir I'm willing to learn. I can I can you can train me on the job. Yeah. I took her advice and I went down to Kmart and got suspenders in a belt so got that part sorted out. I can't even trust his own pants.

I worked on a fishing boat for a couple of summers. That really made me gruff. One thing that would make me gruff is an anvil falling on my foot. And that happens to, uh, to, uh, Scorrin's apprentice. And, uh, you know, they're like, shit, like, it's gonna take 10 men to lift this thing off you and data comes over and very easily picks up this this anvil and rather than rather than pain at his crushed foot the

apprentice looks up at him in horror. One of the rare data feats of strength. I feel like we haven't seen one of these in a long time. They're fun. Yeah. There was a little bit of one at the beginning when he handed the guy the lunchpale and it was way heavier than it looked. Right.

But, yeah, this is great. Now, when you build in a blacksmith station, you're going to want to be sure to use timber that does not rot in as a base. We're using pressure-treated lumber that should stay nice and hard out here in the elements for a good long time. I like to give my blacksmith base a nice coat of varnish. Just a couple coats is all you need to keep your base looking glossy for years to come.

We're setting it on a couple of two-by-foys on the ground so that it is separated from the slate and therefore can drain on all sides. So the reaction from Shattered Ankle Guy, I I think becomes emblematic from everyone in town. They've gone from seeing him as a mysterious stranger to there being a little bit of threat creep happening. Right. It goes from... This iceman...

We feel weird that you missed the memo about getting the Mazda tattoo to... We're a little unsure of like how okay it is for you to be around. Yeah. And that also gets amplified by the fact that Garvin... Like, how many of you sent me? And the... and his daughter and the blacksmith are falling ill, slowly. once the blacksmith are falling ill, slowly. Where Garvin is in repose is the Subrosa house. It's a Subrosa house redress. Oh.

I noticed this with the door initially, and then when they did the reverse shot of Garvin on his fainting couch as he's sick with radioactive poison, the stairway behind him is also Subrosa stairway. his fainting couch as he's sick with radioactive poison. The stairway behind him is also sub-rosa stairway. Dang, I did not understand. So we got value for the set. Yeah. Suppose if you build a house, you're gonna wanna use it.

Yeah, but it's interesting, you know, how changing the light, changes how a set looks so fundamentally because they shoot very hot light into this set and it looks totally different from planet Scotland. Mm hmm. There's also significantly less. You took, they took all the Hummel figurines out too.

Yeah. And significantly less hazer in the air. Yeah. Garvin is not sitting on Beverly's jacking seat. Back on the ship, Troy is doing her tests. They've got her in engineering. It's warfin' and Jordy and there's like some kind of warp core malfunction happening and they keep trying the different things that she suggests.

And it's clear that she's kind of like trying to pull from memory, trying to remember how it all plugs into itself and she fails. The ship has blowed and it's revealed that she's been on the holiday the whole time. Congratulations. You just destroyed the enterprise. Participating in Kobayashi March 2. That one's better.

Riker walks into the scene like a guy who walks into a room that the ceiling is too short in. This is something I've started to detect in Freak's performance. His neck is always on a swivel. He sort of sotters in, his head's a little wobbly and then his head to sort of slumps over on his neck. He gives Troy a little bit of counseling here. Yeah, now he's doing the counseling. The council shoe is on the other council foot this time. And he's given her some tough love. He's like, you know,

a lot of this techno jargon is pretty important for the test. But like, you know, a lot of this techno jargon is pretty important for the test, but like, you know, it's not just about memorizing the book. Like, you got to start making some decisions. You got to start thinking deeply about some things during the test. And Troy's like, what are you talking about? Like, the book is like a telephone book full of things. You're encouraging me to think about things besides that. Like, give me a hint, and writers like, look, that it's not about hints, not that kind of teacher that gives open book tests. You're just going to have to keep taking the test, or like, maybe reconsider this whole

idea. It's not super dissimilar from the kind of bossing that Wurf was doing in the last episode, where it's kind of making the person rise to the occasion by being tougher on them than maybe they're used to. And in being that tough, like revealing something that the boss has, you know, realized about their potential. The tension here is played perfectly because I think a weaker show would have dialed them up into full-on open fight about this. But they never stop treating each other with respect and love.

Riker is being real with her and she is very frustrated by the process but she's never like, fuck you and fuck this test. Like I'm gonna go take it on the hood where I know I can pass. Just so do all he gives his open book test. Yeah you can bring yourself on in here. He's like flipping through his pad like feed up on the desk like not even paying attention to what's happening. Yeah, he gets on FaceTime with some frangies and he's like, uh, hold that thought and he presses mute and then he goes on like Wikipedia and looks up for angies. What the fuck are these guys?

Desotto is not a Mr. Hand type. I feel like the two, the A and the B story here have about equal weight. And I am equally invested in both of them. Yeah, they're both moving. You know, one doesn't seem like you're vegetables and the other like your dessert. It's all, they're very like disconnected, but they're both invested with tension and stakes and interest. The stakes in the town, the data is in, are getting pretty high, because Garvin is like really sick, and Talour is trying her best to figure out what the fuck is going on,

but like she just doesn't have a lot of context and data from first principles is like, has like invented a microscope, has determined that there is something non, that's not a, like, a cute, communicable disease, but something that is affecting the cells in people's bodies. Like, he's, he's done a lot. And, and he even shows her an experiment where he like, like, put lamp oil on a, on a piece of fabric in a frame and shows that, like, light it up by holding a candle next to it, but also by holding one of these metal pendants to it. Wait a minute, are you telling me that this sucker is nuclear?

He can make the light go away if he puts the lunchpale in between the pendants and the frame. It's a cool experiment. It's a trick. No, it is empirical data. He really blows to Laura's mind here. She's like, fuck, that's an awesome science experiment. I should try and do one of those. To Laura, up to this point, has been brimming with that false confidence that we refer to in the beginning. But as soon as she runs

her hand through Garvin's hair and a big patch of it comes out, all of that false confidence falls away and it scares her. And in the absence of being sure about what's happening, like she fairly instantaneously levels her site on data as the thing that may be causing this as the variable. Yeah. She's threatened by him because he is the variable, but also because he intimidates her with his intelligence. He's so fast and he's up to speed so quickly, he's basically taking your job. Yeah, but she's like, like that hubris has gone away. She's like really interested in learning something from him. And she realizes that she has something to learn from him.

Meanwhile, the like, the town metal guy is, is like, this guy made us all sick. We were fine and then he showed up and now we all have gross lesions all over our face. So I'm going to put on my angry villager hat and show up with my guy with a pick and punish Jaden for what he has done to us. This has happened to Riker a lot. Riker goes on away missions to distant planets. And by the time he leaves, it's inhabitants recovered in crotch lesions. But yeah, this is totally like, like, townspeople from Frankenstein style, like, like mob with torches. The guy with the pick takes a swing at data and it gets him on the side of the face and

a like terminator two level amount of skin is ripped away and the Christmas tree lights and machinery underneath is revealed. I wish we saw for just a half a second, the cut to the floor of that, that piece of face hitting the ground. Like the fully work is just like a half a pound of ham. It's so insane to think that if you took all of data skin off, he'd be like a Christmas tree under there. Like, why all the lights under the skin? Yeah.

Why can't you see the lights under his skin? Yeah, I guess it's like perfectly opaque. Pretty great complexion. Yeah, that's a very high sun protection factor on that skin. Yeah. So Troy is studying real real hard. She's like really hitting the book. She's like, I am gonna figure out this fucking engineering test if it kills me. And Riker, like kind of unannounced, just barges into her room and is like, hey, like you're wasting your time. You're not going to pass the test. So I'm canceling the whole

situation. You're not going to become a commander. This moment felt fairly cruel in a way that did not seem in character for Riker. Yeah. And what it does is it encourages Troy to go right back into the test. Like she turns on the holodeck and goes back in. It made me think that this was fairly similar to the lesson that Wurftot, Ceto. Yeah. This is that classic trope of she kind of got the answer from him, but like it took, it took him being really mean to her. Like he says, like, I can't let you on that bridge because my first duty is to the ship, and she's like, first duty is to the ship, that's it.

Right. And even though we know this is a simulation, the scene that follows is really intense because she basically has an eye to eye conversation with Jordy like, hey, can you go sacrifice yourself for the needs of the many? He would never survive the radiation. I know that. This was a great scene because of that. You get the moment. You get the moment that this whole test is about, which

is will you order someone that you know and like to their death. But where the test fails, if I were writing this test, you got to make Jordy fight this. Yeah, I think I could. Jordy's got to be like, don't do this, Deanna. Like, I've got so much to live for. Like send an exo-com, send data, but not me. Like, I wanna live. And then like, Jordy grabs Troy by the shoulders.

I wanna live. Like, that's the test on all madden mode. And that's what I wanted to see. Like, as it was, Jordy's like, I, I, and then like goes into the Jeffries tube and dies. This is a real bummer, Deanna, but I suppose. I would ordinarily say to take care of my stuff or whatever, but I don't have any stuff. So I feel I'm a feeling you'll turn over my condo pretty easily.

There's a darkness to the cold efficiency in which Jordy accepts the order and goes and dies, which is something that of itself is powerful. I wonder if they did toy with his reactions in this scene though, and like heightened the emotion of it. Like what you're talking about, like a lot of pushback is probably not something that they had time for in the end, but it is, it's like despite all of the shortcomings of how this is executed, it's still really rough and it's clearly affecting her a lot.

Like she feels terrible having to do this. There's a quick cut to Worf in this scene where he knows too, and that's fairly devastating. Like, yeah, like everyone knows what she's done. And to Worf's credit, he says nothing. He knows Jordy's about to die a warrior's death. Yeah. In a huge amount of pain being bombarded with radiation. He should be like, Jordy.

Awesome, dude. Awesome. Hey, hey, Jordy. That's an honor to be doing for you later. Give it give you one of those warriors is coming. You know how I do that right? You've seen season two right Hey, Jordy you may want to take off that uniform before going in there Those things are expensive. It's gonna get messy going in there. Those things are expensive. It's gonna get messy. Raker walks in and he's like, congratulations, you passed. I know that that wasn't easy for you, but I'm super impressed. And relief washes over her in an awesome wave. Yeah, it's another getting promoted because

somebody had to die in two episodes that's happened to twice. That's really the dark truth of serving aboard this ship is that's basically how promotions happen. We've seen it from the beginning. You don't get warfotactical without your. Yeah. Well, they just cracked the code and he's even come up with a medicine that he can give to fix

everybody's radiation poisoning. An anti-radiation syrup that also tastes good? Data, that's amazing. At least like the only way I can get everybody to drink this because nobody trust me is to go pour it into the town well Nothing suspicious about that. This is an insane plan Did it's like look because I'm so terrifying to at, I will cloak myself in this hood and robe, making me look like some sort of ninja. Hahaha.

I will stand dramatically above the well and pour the contents of this bucket inside. This, this unguarded well. Yeah. Not a great plan. Mew. Jaden. And sure as shit, the townspeople see him just about, just at the moment that he's ready

to pour. And they threw and threw him with a spear. Yeah. And he does like they shoot this from above so you get his fall under the ground. It's a super compelling action scene here. Like there's not a lot of shots and cuts, but it's the angle that sells it, and the sound of when he hits the ground,

that metal pipe hitting the brick. Yeah, I felt bad that, uh, I felt bad that Mike Haggardy grabbed that metal and got electrocuted. Poor guy. He doesn't understand what's going on. That's gotta be such a fun test for an actor. Act electrocuted a lot. Like don't worry about looking silly.

We'll cover you up with After Effect Lightning Bolt. Any Oscar-winning actor I'll tell you, you don't want to go full electrocution. I heard Mike Haggard is such a method actor that he wanted real lightning bolts. Anything we can do to increase the amount of danger to me personally? Oh, that Mike Hagrid is perfect. That's one of your best impressions. Oh, I love that guy. So the next day, or maybe like six months later, it's not really clear. Gia is walking around in the town square, having a sad, and up walks to her a bearded

man and a red-headed woman, and they say, hey, we have a weird looking friend who, uh, you may know as the ice man. Can you point us in his direction? And the direction he points is to a grave. It's like, yeah, he's in there. He's got a spirit. That's why the box is so big that we buried him in. Yeah, I know that guy. He did. He's dead, but not before he saved us all. Yeah. Anyway, he's got kind of like a hero monument grave, not just any grave. He relies Calvin Klein. They, they realize they can beam him up like out of the ground and nobody will ever know. I love the idea. If they do a lot of graveyard beam ups lately, this season.

I love the idea that like hundreds of years in the future, some like historian is looking into this and I was like, I wonder if that was a robot from another planet. We should, we should dig that up and look into it and they like, they like, dig down and there's just nothing there. Like, what did they make it up? What the fuck? I love the idea that they're, you know, buried in this series is another series that's sort of like quantum leap where data goes from planet to planet dies on everyone and then gets beamed out of his coffin at the end Like that could be a thing every time So they beam them up to the enterprise and they boot them up

Turns out he's gonna be okay Yeah, I was a little unclear about how his memory worked here. Because he lost everything from showing up in the town to getting killed, but he has back everything from before that. Like the mechanics of Amnesia are always so crazy on television, you know. The mechanics of mechanical Amnesia, especially. They had to cut out the part of the script where he lost his memory from getting bonked

on the head by a coconut and then got it back from getting bonked on the head by another coconut. Like, data's face was ripped off and they put his face back together, no problem. Did they have, like, like sort of like when you go to a fabric store, you've got those bolts of fabric. Do they have data skin, just like ready for patches,

whenever they need to, or does he have a boss scar in his chest where that spear went through? Like, there's data damage continuity problems here that like they don't solve for how they're able to do this He can make his hair grow maybe he can make his skin grow They have the technology on this show to to show that yeah They just show him eating a bunch of like chicken skin He's like yeah, I just need a little bit of this and then I can I'll have enough resources to I produce my own collagen

By eating bone broth uh that's fun did you like this episode Ben? I love this episode I think it's so much fun it's a great star trek is a place it's fun it's got a fun button where Troy tells data that he now has to call her Sir. Yeah, it's just, and it's interesting. It's very interesting to see them interact with see them interact with less advanced peoples in ways. And I love the trick that this episode has of getting around it just being another prime directive retread. Yeah. It's just that.

Yeah, they get around it by not bringing it up at all. Yeah, it's great. That's how you do it. Yeah. This episode had equal parts, equal parts things that I liked and equal parts things that I didn't. I really like careerism as portrayed on the show. I liked seeing the nuts and bolts of someone making a career and deciding that they're

going to be ambitious and all of the elements of that that make up choice decision. I thought that was really cool. I like the test. I did not like Renfair. I do not like, you know, just in general, people in period costume is a thing that I don't like on the show at all. But, and I don't like, like the doctor character

was a real caricature, and so that was a weak point. But the episode as a whole, like it exceeded the parts that drug on it and I really liked it. It was fun. Yeah. Ben, you know what else is fun? Priority and messages are always fun. Every single time.

Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on secured channel Adam our first priority one message is of a personal nature. It's from Kevin and it's for Ryan Goes like this Ryan Thanks for introducing me to this dumb podcast. Hey, this birthday message is arriving super late, and you're so far behind on the pod that you might not even hear it until Christmas. It doesn't matter! I want you to have a happy birthday now! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!

What a delight! That's good stuff. Nice callback. Yeah. Ben, our second priority one message is from Nick, it is for the letter J. And by that it just means J, like that's who it's for. Yeah. Message goes like this, everyone knows a juggling festival is a terrible place to meet your future spouse.

But what our marriage presupposes is, maybe it doesn't? I'm eternally grateful that you brave the Shuttlecraft trip to the anti-gravity conference, as even Kevin Oxbridge could not have envisioned a more perfect partner. PS, happy secret day my love! Awwww. The positivity of a Royal Tannenbaum's reference and the darkness of a Kevin Uxbridge reference all in one. Yeah, yeah, I got the bends hearing that P1 message.

It's a good reference sandwich, Nick. Well, if you're interested in making a sandwich of your own, of references or otherwise, you can go to Maximumfund.org slash Gembo Tron. Personal messages are $100. Commercial messages are $200. They're a great, great way to help the ongoing production of our program. Hey Ben. What's that Adam?

Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? I did. I think that the character having the most fun and being the silliest in this episode is Riker. The Trump own scene is just so great. Like it's just another like, freaks just fucking chewing up a scene. Yeah. And like, it's so endearing.

Like it's one of the Star Trek moments that I forget exists. And every time I see it, it's newly delightful to me. Yeah, it's the sort of thing that if you're just reading the script, this wouldn't pop. And it might feel in danger of being ham and cheese. But it's totally redeemed by their performance. Like, a frakes pulls this off and pulls it out of the heap in such a great way.

Mm-hmm. Indeed. Did you have a drunk Shemota Adam? I did, and my Shemota goes to the healer of the village to lore. She is, she is who I'd like to call like leech confident. Like back when leeches were used as a medical device, like the people- Hey man leeches are coming back.

They were so confident about the leeches back in the day. They're like, look, you clearly have leprosy, but I'm gonna stick 20 leeches down your pants and we're gonna get you fixed right up. I love that she decides that his fluidic temperature is too high when he has burn looks from the radiation. Yeah, like she, her confidence is Shimoda like to me and that read to me as a, as very emblematic of mascot here.

So give him a mind to Talour. Nice. 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, I'd 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 spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are already open.

Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Whoa, Russ. Hey, hey. Oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out.

I hate having to stand in line. And boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short nacks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this. We've got to get on the ark. 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. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. We're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Carrie? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end,

so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun and Outwork. Ben, what do we have coming up on the next episode? The next episode is season 7, episode 17, Mesh. Well, an alien archive transforms the entrepreneur into its ancient society.

Data is taken over by several different personalities from the extinct civilization. Do you remember this episode, Adam? That was one of your best kevans. Oh, thank you. That was really great. I remember data putting on a really stupid like headdress style, like the sort of thing you'd see someone wear it an outdoor music festival, like really stupid head mask thing that he can't exactly pull off. That's it, I remember from this episode, the titular mask, I believe.

Yeah, the titular mask. This is one of those episodes that the people hate. Yeah, people cite this in sub-rosa as the real bad ones from season seven. I kind of like masks, TBH. TBH, I didn't think sub-rosa was as awful as I was led to believe, though it was very bad. I think, I think when you approach an episode with a bad reputation,

like I think that's a good place to approach it from. Yeah. Like I'm like Chris Pratt approaching the Velociraptors, like with my arms up. That's why I'm approaching masks. Okay. I think this one can be trained. You think I can figure out how to open doors?

Yeah, I do believe that. Well, that's the next episode, Adam. If you would like to reach out to us in the meantime, there's a lot of great ways to do that. You can go to Twitter and use the hashtag greatestgen. Adam is on there, he's at Cut for Time, and I'm on there as at Benjamin R. A. HAHR. He also has a very lively Reddit and Facebook groups and of course there's the greatestgen wikia which has always got new and interesting information going onto

it. Leave us a nice review on Apple Podcasts. It really helps raise the visibility of the program and thank you to everybody who has left a review. We are really killing it in the Apple Podcast review game. It's like 1200 something. It's great. It's pretty great. Great to see. As we wind down the show, as it relates to the next generation. If you have not thought to contribute to

this show's production, now it would be a great time to do that. I'm going to max some fun-di-dork slash donate if this is a show that has meant something to you over the last few months. Indeed, we should think dark material for our theme music and Adam Ruggusia for a lot of other years here on the program. And with that, we will be back at you next time. Another great episode of Star Trek, the next generation. An episode of the greatest generation that is the keymaster, and we're looking for that gatekeeper. What qualifies as a TNG communion wafer. A cool ranch Dorito I bet. And it's a piece of chocolate cake. Yeah.

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