The Greatest Generation - His Name Was Ensign Burrows (ENT S4E10)

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

When Captain Archer reunites with his retconned second family, the experiment set up by Dr. Erickson is a both a charade and a danger to the crew. But after Ensign Burrows is killed and Danica loses it at her dad, Trip gets suspicious and Emory finally has to let go of his son. Who ruined cupcakes? How does human slurry get removed from the transporter bucket? Which character is the Steve-O of pushing wheelchairs? It’s the episode that wants to check more backs.Support the production of The Greatest GenerationGet a thing at podshop.biz!Sign up for our mailing list!Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Riker - Quantum LeapThe Greatest Generation is produced by Wynde PriddySocial media is managed by Rob Adler and Bill TilleyMusic by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFriends of DeSoto for: Labor | Democracy | JusticeDiscuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen and find us on social media:YouTube | Facebook | X | Instagram | TikTok | Mastodon | Bluesky | ThreadsAnd check out these online communities run by FODs: Reddit | USS Hood Discord | Facebook group | Wikia | FriendsOfDeSoto.social Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Here's to the finest crew in starving. When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument for me. This is a parody. Paramount owns the song. Welcome to the Greatest Generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison.

I'm Adam Pranika. Ben, when this episode drops, it's going to be just a few days. until New Year's. And I'm wondering, are you someone who tends to make New Year's plans? Are you a New Year's guy?

There's definitely, like, New Year's Guy. There's people who live for this. Yeah. I thought I was New Year's guy for years, and, you know, I think that what I've learned is that I set myself up for failure when I try to make New Year's,

you know, a big, perfect event. event, and it just never is, you know? That's kind of the story with these winter holidays. It's on and on with the got to make a perfect or you're a failureness of the whole thing, and they just wallop you this time of year, don't they? They really do. I'm in a gauntlet that now includes my daughter's birthday in addition to Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year's, and my wife's birthday.

and I guess like sort of Valentine's Day as well like like the you know between December and February it is just chock a block with shit I got to celebrate so I need to like bring enough game to make it feel like I did some celebrating that each celebration got you know it's it's due but not so much so that I'm like leaving it all on the field I'm not saving anything for the swim back because there is a swim back. I need to have something left in the tank. Well, right. I mean, you need to swim back and then you need to swim back out again for the next one and on and on. There's laps and laps of celebration. This is an endurance game. This is a fucking marathon. Are you fortunate enough to have a person in your

family unfortunate enough to have a birthday on one of these holidays? Because my wife famously on some years has a birthday on Thanksgiving as it was the case this year. Yeah. Thanksgiving I feel like a little bit better than Christmas because you don't have that thing where it's like

is this all the gifts I'm getting? Is this it? Yeah. But my mom's best friend is a Christmas birthday and so there's always like a little moment in you know like my mom always host a big Christmas dinner and there's a little moment set of side for for louise yeah every time that's the story with my dad too uh his birthday is at night

on christmas specifically he gets that carve out okay was that the story with louise it's like a a little moment of observation and and one gift and it always feels a little i don't know a little like pat on the head you know i mean it seems to work for her so I shouldn't question it. It's tough you grow up with friends who have their own special day and you just never get it. Yeah. Yeah. I imagine that's a difficult thing.

I remember feeling bad for the kids with summer birthdays when I was in elementary school because they didn't get to be the kid who brought cupcakes to school that day. Yeah. God, those cupcakes hit. Yeah. They hit so hard. This is a very exciting day, you know? Yeah. My son has a summer birthday.

He's never going to get to know that joke. Do you think big cupcake ruined cupcakes? Because the way the boxed cupcake with the paper and the icing hit at that age, like, nowadays an adult cupcake is eight dollars, it's the size of a pumpkin. It contains like an entire stick of butter between the cake and the frosting. And it's like lime flavored or something. Like, it doesn't make sense anymore. And I kind of miss that plain simple cupcake with the yellow cake and the chocolate frosting and the super hard sprinkles on top. Like, that's a great cupcake.

And no one, I mean, you can't get that out of a vending machine or a specialty bakery. No, I think those you have to bake at home at this point. Yeah. Yeah, I should do that. Yeah, you should do that. When my wife is away on business trips, I will sometimes just make a box of brownies. Wow. As I did this last week and just eat them all myself over the course of a week.

That's good stuff. That is good stuff. Maybe I should do the same for cupcakes, is what I'm saying. I like that idea. You got big New Year's plans. You're going to go pop champagne with the swells? We try to get out of L.A. for all the fireworks holidays, and that's going to be our story again this year.

I think we're going to go up into the mountains, though. Nice. Wow. Get some snow hangs. Snow in a fireplace. Snow in a fireplace does sound really nice. Well, a cozy New Year's to you, my friend. Do you want to get into today's episode?

Absolutely. Why do you think I'm even here? Instead of up on a mountain, Ben. It's Enterprise Season 4, Episode 10. It's called Daedalus. So, Tripp is very excited to meet this guy, Emery Erickson, his engineering hero. Archer is, you know, excited for him. He's like, oh man, it's like the time I met Cochrane.

this is going to be that for you. Which is sort of like an awful comp, right? Yeah, I remember the first time I met Zephrm Cochran. Ye. You can hear the oobie-duby playing before anybody even materializes on the transporter pad. Like Archer stares off in the middle distance, and we get an entire episode of flashback to that day. And, like, the final moments before the credits of this episode, he's like, well, I hope it goes all right for you, you too, Tripp. Roll credits.

On the pad materializes Bill Cobbs, a beloved that guy. I love him in Hudsucker Proxy. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. He plays Dr. Emery Erickson, obviously, and then his daughter, Danica Erickson, also there. Emery Erickson uses a wheelchair to get around, and. I feel like I really thought about this with Deep Space 9 and how hard it would be to get around it in a mobility device.

And I feel like Enterprise has a lot of similar challenges, but I never thought about it until this episode. And they never, like, address it in the way that they did in Deep Space 9. There are a couple of moments where Tripp is like, hey, you want to come have a beer and a nash with your guy, Tripp Tucker? And Emery's like, no, I think I'll stay right here. no one ever mentions the probable reason

he's staying there is because he can't leave Giant pain in the ass for him to get over there It also brings to mind something that again goes uncommented on is that Emery's choice

of mobility device is a late 90s wheelchair Yeah And I wanted to know more about that Because there have to be advances Between the late 90s

late 90s and the time that Star Trek Enterprise exists, right? Because I feel like this has happened, right? Like where, I mean, like the beeping chair is maybe the greatest example of this where like a science fiction series has endeavored to depict the wheelchair of the future or medical device of the future and fallen flat on their face. Wouldn't it be fucking great? If Emery Erickson shows up with like a version of beeping chair that's like beeping chair

0.0. Like it's just it's sort of like the black Darth Vadery side pieces like the the wheel fairings. Yeah sure. There's maybe a couple of light bulbs there. I mean but those are for decoration. No one would ever use those for

communications. Right. Yeah. Emery just thinks those are cool. Yeah. I mean if he's not feeling it he might give you a couple of beeps but... Sure. Yeah. But those beeps don't like translate into or anything. It's like, hark, hark, like that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. It's like a bike bell. Yeah. He is really buddy, buddy with Captain Archer. They know each other well. And Danica, his daughter,

also very friendly with Archer. But I thought maybe a little chilly with Tripp. She gives Tripp a look that I was like, ooh, what's that about? Well, I mean, the comparison is kissing Archer on the mouth and kind of zapping trip Like There's a vast chasm Between those two greetings I think If you're gonna bust out words like chasm

You should have done it When we were talking about the forge Anyways Ben did you not think it was weird That they kissed each other on the mouth Well they're like brother and sister Adam He grew up chasing her around the yard With a plastic ray gun

That makes it worse Ben You know, maybe it's like that in their family. Okay. All right. I need to remind you, and I need to remind everyone listening of the Danica Pranical rule, which I established at a very young age. I could never marry a woman named Danica. Sure. For obvious reasons.

Yeah. I avoided them completely throughout my life. The risk that she would be willing to take your last name. I know. Just couldn't tell you. take that risk man because you know she'd want to

I sort of failed on that rule becoming an embarrassing dad kind of become embarrassed and Harrison oh shit there it is it's right there that's fun

that's fun to say that's like a garbage peel kid's card yeah bring those back uh huh one on me. Embarrassin Harrison sounds real. Sounds like something Drip would say honestly. Dr. Erickson is trying to put Archer out of a job with this new experiment that he's come aboard to conduct. But in a jokey way, right? Yeah, like once we can transport the way I'm hoping

we can transport, you're not going to be flying starships around too much anymore. I see you're kind of a taxi cab driver up here on the starship. I'm kind of working on a thing. Kind of an at-based thing. Yeah. He's trying to develop the waymo of Starfleet. When this test is over, Enterprise and all of Starfleet could be obsolete.

Sounds like you're trying to put me out of a job. Yeah. Ben, do you think as prestige black actors, do you think Bill Cobbs and Bill Cobb, Cosby ever hung out and, like, had to, you know, say what their names were when they checked into a restaurant or something. Then there was, like, some sort of comedic wordplay having to do with Bill Cosby and Bill Cobbs. You know, it also makes me wonder if there were ever, like, discussions in a casting context

where they were like, we, like, I don't know if we can get him, but we need somebody that's kind of Bill Cobbsy. And, you know, like, they, somebody misunderstood. what was meant by that Phil Phil Cobbs checks into his star wagon and there's like

kind of a lot of Benadryl around like do you think they confuse the riders What the hell am I going to do with all this pudding? After the theme Archer's log tells us

that they've diverted power from a bunch of areas of the ship so that Emmer could have all the power he needs to run his experiment. And speaking of diversions, Tepal is in the mess hall reading, the Kashara, doing that thing you sometimes encounter in public places, the performative reading of a book in a place that's meant for socializing. Trip notices this right away, and it's like, uh, what's y'all doing? What's y'all reading there? I was a kid in one of my classes in college

who would always have a copy of how to make friends and influence people. I mean, I saw an adult version of that guy in my college bar one day. What are you doing? Put your Kasharo away, man. We're here to hang out. I think the reason Tripp doesn't kind of go in

on the book reading is that to Paul's mom just died. And this is presenting as a kind of greeting. response to that she assures him she's fine better than fine good even right if they ask if you're grieving your mother uh you say uh you say you're doing great if they ask if you're doing great tell them you're you're having the best day of your life just leave them nowhere to go she doesn't want to talk about this and she really doesn't want him to link what she's going through in any way to his own grief about his sister like

Not interested trip. Like, take that shit somewhere else. And yeah, it's very dark in the mess hall when they're having this conversation we've been told in the captain's log that there's been power reductions all over the ship, which includes just like ambient lighting, apparently. Topal, you don't want to know what I read

after my sister dad. It was my backlog of issues of big naturals. Monthly. You know what? I just find it comforting. there's more nipples in that magazine than there are in my arms. You're never going to let that go, are you? So he fucks off, satisfied with the answers, she gives him.

Yeah. This is a weird cut. Like, she's in the mess hall, a place for eating, not eating. We cut over to the captain's mess where eating is taking place. It's Archer-Talpil and the Erickson's at this table. Too many people at this little table, I think. Yeah, this is like Thanksgiving at my house, you know. We just don't have the room for all the people.

were crowding around this table. How many people did you have this year? You know, not too many, but with the kids, it just feels like a million. Do you have a little card table for the kids? I should do that. Once the girl could, like, reliably sit in a spot for a minute. I'm looking forward to kids' table. Those old card tables never die.

No. You know exactly what I'm talking about, right? Yeah. A little vinyl covered, green-legged. Yeah. Card table. Amazing. Costco must have sold just a jillion of those back in the day.

Yeah. No, they're not going to sue. They got no case. Because parody and damnifies me. Emery is talking about this teleportation tech that he has, that he believes himself to be on the verge of inventing. It will transport across light years.

And we're talking like Earth to Vulcan. And he and Archer's dad Henry were pals and, like, debated what would be the revolutionary technology that would become the new way people get around. And he still believes that Warptech is going to take a backseat to transporter tech eventually. One thing that I'm sure you clocked in this scene that once I noticed I couldn't take my eyes off of is that Emery Erickson is rocking the shirt sweater and, like, light jacket combination. that is throwing strong turtle vibes at him

because he's wearing these things up, which means his head and neck is down in this thing. In a very old man fashion that I think is familiar to folks with old people in their lives. A very master of disguise, coated outfit. To Paul throws a little shade at him saying that the Vulcans have looked into this kind of, long-range transporter technology haven't been able to make it work so many people talk about

how 9-11 affected master of disguise the movie not anyone talks about how it affected star trek enterprise season four episode 10 dataless but here we are we're ready to draw that line yeah we're never forget you know this is a bumper this should be this should have been the bumper sticker, right? Look at what they took away from us. Datalus. Are you proposing a bumper sticker that says Never Forget next to a

picture of either Dana Carvey dressed as Turtle for Master of Disguise and or Emery Erickson from Star Trek Enterprise Season 4 episode 10, datalus? I think there's one on either side of the bumper sticker. Yeah, okay. Oh, like

sort of twins in some ways? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Book ending it. Yeah. The Vulcans have not been able to do what Erickson proposes. Like, to Paul, is like, I'll be really fucking impressed if you outthink the Vulcans on this one. And he's like, yeah, I mean, I know that they've been working on it. And I would have loved to see their research, but never got my hands on it.

And maybe that's actually a good thing because I was able to, you know, think my own original thoughts about how to solve the problems. And he starts reminiscing about when the transporter first became available and there were like protests and people were really worried about safety and the metaphysics. Like are we all just clones of the original versions of ourselves once we've gone through a transporter? Couldn't you have used a flashback for all this? God, I would have loved that. A bunch of picketers. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

my body my molecules oh god here we go you had to fight all of that nonsense I feel like there was like a semi-viral internet video about how the transporter must in fact be killing you every time yeah it works and I would have loved somebody to give voice to that like yeah I mean like we do have a tank full of like human slurry

on the ship from all of the body you know all of the bodies that we have transported before. I mean, every time we beam something, the filter gets sort of an angel share of the person being transported and eventually that bucket, I'm just going to call it a bucket. It's what we call it in the transporter community,

but it's really like more sophisticated than that. Once that fills up, then we have to empty it in kind of a shower drain or blow it out into space. I mean, I've done it a few times. I mean, we haven't transported that much on this ship, but getting some of the chunks down the shower drain can be challenging. Sometimes an old Vannegan that runs on biofuel will pull up,

and we'll give it to them. You know, usually get behind one of those, and it smells like taco shells or French fries, and then sometimes you get behind one, and you're like, what is that unknowable odor? Is that Draccar noir? Danica is like rolling her eyes at all this. She's heard all of this before.

Seems a little annoyed at the yarn that her dad likes to spin at dinners like this. They raise a toast to a successful experiment. And we cut to a little while later as the ship enters the Barrens, a part of space where no stars are present and it's all blackness. How great are these exterior shots in The Barrens? I was thinking about how they really benefit from that description of this being an empty part of space because they would look like unfinished otherwise. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. They look awesome. There's an episode of Star Trek that shoots a moment like this from the inside, right? And it's scary because you look out the window and you don't see stars. You don't get many of those shots in this episode. you just get the exteriors, but the feeling is very much the same. It just doesn't feel right.

Yeah, I feel like Voyager went through a place like this that was spooky. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking of. Yeah. Emery and Tripp, talk about drinking and the way you celebrate an amazing invention while they tool away on the transport or getting it ready for this big experiment. And the big challenge here is that the amount of power they're going to need to do it. much more than they originally anticipated. During their conversation, we learned that the first transport of a person

that Emery himself took was 90 seconds. Could you imagine just standing there for what I'm going to presume, do you think it's 45 seconds out, 45 seconds to appear, or is it 90 on this side and 90 on that side? Oh, man. Yeah, and like, do you feel like you're in both places for some of that 90 seconds? I mean, it kind of reminds me of, like, really old-timey photography technology, where you had to sit super still for a really long time.

I was just going to compare it to getting X-rays at the dentist. Yeah. And how it feels like forever, but it's really, like, five seconds. Yeah, yeah. You, like, look at your phone and your hand on phone don't materialize properly. On the other side, no, you cannot get bored. You have to just hold it. 90 seconds.

Good Lord. I'm sure he's fine. Nothing weird about that. There's also nothing weird about the power converter that he's brought. The trip is like, oh, let me plug that in for you. Let me help you out with that. And he's like, no, no, no, I can do that? The trip's like, well, can I at least look at it?

And he's like, nope, I'm going to install it myself. You don't need to do anything. and he really has to kind of pull rank on trip. Like, I got special dispensation from Starfleet to be entirely in charge of the transporter for this experiment. You're not going to touch my shit. This feels like two people arguing over the check and who's going to pay it at the end of a meal. Yeah. That almost always gets kind of bad feeling the more back and forth there is, which is why I kind of have an internal rule where, like, if the best.

If the bounce back goes back and forth once, like, it's done. I'm not going to keep bouncing. Like, I'm going to take it and you're going to let me or I'm going to let you, but we're not going to back and forth this, the way Tripp and Emery do. Oh, really? You're not going to do what my dad does, which is like get out a slide rule and figure out. Okay, so you got a glass of wine, but I did get a lemonade. So, and then like try to get it down to like the penny, who owes what?

Yeah, that would never happen to me I mean you know what the best move is The best move is getting up and going to the bathroom At some point during the meal and dropping your card And taking care of it That's the best That's infuriating Yeah, is what it is

I know you hate that Fucking ninja So Archer and Danica are having a little conversation And he's like, what are you doing still on Earth Like you're fucking great You should be in Starfleet You should be captaining one of these ships Beaming around

the way your dad intended these transporters to get used. With the way you kiss, you could really be going places, Danica. They got green people out here that love that shit. That's basically a form of currency for some species. Her dad has not gotten over the death of her brother Quinn, and it has been so debilitating to him that she's basically put her whole life on whole. to look after him and help him out

and Archer feels like that's a real shame, a real waste. Legally it's just a fart joke. You will never take the greatest chin alive. Ben would rather die. I think Leslie Silva's performance of Danica is really great in a lot of places. I think what I wanted from her character more

was the darkness of being a sibling that could not possibly be as good as the dead one, you know? Like, there's a little bit of that in this conversation where she's like, yeah, you know, Quinn died and I had to take care of dad, and that's just what you do when something like this happens. But it is so clear that Emery loves Quinn more than her that, like, I kind of wanted a little more pain.

Yeah. She seems way too adjusted for what's happening, you know? She does. Yeah, like... But this isn't about her pain. It's about Emery's pain. And maybe that just makes it too muddy and complex for a viewer. Is that part of the deception, though?

Like, I was thinking, like, because she's talking in this moment about, like, oh, maybe when this test is successful, it'll break him out of his funk. Does she believe that this is going to work what they're actually up to? It's a great point. And I think it just adds up to an episode that is maybe a little bit better if there's more of Danica in it. Yeah. Yeah, like if she was a little bit more

of the main character of it, I think. Like, all this B-story with Topal, scrap it. Scrap it to give me a little more of the dark Danica stuff. Because, like, the next scene is where she goes to inject something into his warped

and disgusting back. And the, like, horror of that moment is so, like, piqued. I want to know way more about what Danica's life is like. I mean, that she does not recoil in horror suggests that she has seen this atrocity a number of times. Maybe even scrubbed it with a sponge. Yeah.

Her main bad feelings in this scene are not about what she's injecting in his back, which is utterly blown out. It is this charade that they're perpetuating and the cold feet that she's experiencing about. it. She wants to be straight up with Archer. After all, like, if they can't be truthful with Archer, who can be they be truthful about? But Emery is not down with that. We can't trust anyone, not even Johnny. Do you think Johnny's a cooler name for Captain Archer? Like, should it have been

Johnny the whole time? Johnny Archer. It's really cool, right? It's cool, but it, like, it doesn't read, like, Bacula, it doesn't read as a Johnny, you know? But here's another angle. You already have a Trip, which is a cool name. Yeah. I don't think you could have Tripp and Johnny, right? Tripp and Johnny

are exploring the cosmos together. That's a different show. Solving mysteries? Going from planet to planet? You know what? I'm coming back around on the whole Johnny and Tripp thing. I think that's going to work.

All right. Maybe in season five we can like lean into that a little bit more. Oh, you don't have one of those? Bacula comes back to do New Trek, and it's the adventures of Johnny and Tripp. It's not going to be a political thriller set at Federation HQ. No, it's just two old guys going planet to planet, solve them mysteries, and occasionally

fucking. In the weapons bay, Reed is in there working with one of his buddies, and they have a power outage and, like, kind of immediately interpret this as an intruder, which I was like, why did they think that? This is real Ben on the bed shit right here. Like when Ben gets woken up at night, he goes karate stance. When the power goes out, Reed is ready to shoot. He's got a long gun, ready to go.

I thought it was interesting, too, how quickly they were on the side of intruder. They start poking around, and Topal radios down that there may be a spatial distortion, and this crewman, this other guy that was in there with Reed, talking about Burroughs? Burroughs. Yeah. Gets it from some swirly distortion energy. And when they flip his birdie over, he's all scrambled.

In death, the Inns do get a name. His name was Inson Burroughs. They're talking about this whole situation with Dr. Emery. And he's like, yeah, man, I know, I know how it is to lose someone. Like, we've lost people on these missions before. How can I help? Expressing lots of feigned sincerity. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, you have to ask the question. And I don't know if it's to Paul or a trip that does. But one of them is like, have you ever seen anything like that in the experiments you've run? Or in this part of space? In the barons. Yeah. and he has not claims not to

but he kind of overnows doesn't he like a suspicious no like a little too emphatic there's a reason this is called the barons captain there's nothing out here a little bit of why does your voice always get that way when you're denying something yeah is in fact true

the temperature's getting turned up a little bit right because in Erickson's quarters Danica is coming off the rails about what's just happened. She doesn't want to do the charade anymore. She wants to admit the truth. And context clues between them suggests that this whole experiment

is about bringing back her dead brother and his dead son, Quinn. And Archer's dead best friend. Right. So, yeah, if we leave, if we don't do the experiment, if we drop the charade now, we're condemning him to death. And, you know, Dr. Erickson is brimming with confidence that nobody else will die.

He's like, that was like a total freak accident. Like, it's not going to go down like that again. It's sort of like making the first pancake, you know? Like, you do these transporter experiments. You've got to throw the first one away. Yeah. It's the Angels chair, you know? You put the first one down the shower drain.

The first part of this test is to beam a probe. to some target coordinates that are very far away and Emery gets helped up to be at the controls to do this personally. This is kind of his move. You'll see this a number of times this episode.

He wants to be the one danton his fingers across the panel. And sure enough, this probe has been beamed further than anything that has ever been beamed, which is a distance I still can't quite comprehend. 40,000 kilometers. That's like to the mailbox, right?

I don't know. If not a little bit less. Yeah, yeah, probably. But like high in the air, right? Yeah, like that's also a part of kilometry. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's like the X-axis or something. It's always the X-axis, isn't it?

I should always guess the X-axis if I don't understand a concept on Star Trek. I think it's a safe bet. All right. Trip wants to celebrate. Like, we talked about getting super fucked up when this works. How about do that thing? that kids do with shopping carts where they like push them real fast and then hop on the end and ride them around until you go spinny, spinny through the parking lot.

Emery's like we'd go 10 feet before we hit like a bulkhead thing. He turns his trip down. He wants to watch the telemetry data come in and trip I felt like really took this brush off well like better than not getting to see. the power converter he's like all right man i'll i'll let you have your moment this entire episode i feel like is about trip taking bad news well yeah it really is he's good like that he reports to archer that he has some suspicions about what just went down because all of the power demands that we've been told over and over again are the main challenge of this experiment are fucking bullshit In fact, this beaming technology needs less power than conventional beaming technology.

The thing that that tipped me off, or like, you know, what I like to say is trip me off, is no one ever turns me down for a shopping cart push. I'm like the steve-o of pushing wheelchairs. You'd be nuts to miss out and on an operative. opportunity like this. What you don't see in that scene with Tripp and Emery is that he's hidden a sack of flower behind him that he's about ready to wing at Emery as hard as he can before pushing him down the corridor. I'm Tripp Tucker, and this is humiliating a Nobel laureate.

Welcome to Jackass. So, yeah, he thinks he's being deceived. He doesn't really know, like, for what. reason he is being deceived. What's going on here seems a little deceptive, doesn't it? There's also something like the disturbance that they've experienced in the logs of an experiment from five years ago on a research ship that Emery was in charge of. So he fucking lied about that also.

Yeah, this is the part, I mean, a lot of things have felt weird up until this moment, I feel like this is the tipping point where you need this much evidence to convince a best friend that something ain't right with the other friend, you know? Yeah, yeah. I won't cease or desist because you really think it's fair use. Very conveniently, there's another such disturbance right now, and they go to check it out. And I don't know why they bring phasers on this. Like, I don't know what leads them to believe they can shoot a spatial anomaly, but that's...

Wouldn't you rather have one than not, though? I guess so. I just feel like... Give me two. Like, the TNG version of this story, they would be doing tricorders initially. Yeah. Like, this is their second time. Topal is the only one that gets a scan of this thing, and her hand gets mangled for her trouble.

Yeah, she gets old lady hand. In Six Bay, Dr. Flax tells her. she's lucky she's not dead or that it didn't hit another part of you like your back. Could you imagine if it hits you in the back? Oh, awful. Could you imagine if it hit anyone in the back? That would be the

worst. I mean, you could never wear a scalloped dress again. She's doing that really annoying thing that I'm sure medical professionals hate where she's in the exam room getting treatment and she just can't stop looking at her phone. And Flux is like,

you cut that out. Turns out she got footage of the disturbance and they put it up on the big screen and the disturbance looks like a dude. Yeah. Can you slow it down? They run the Decker protocol on it a couple of times. And it turns out it's Quinn in there. He has a name's today. It's Quinn. My son. Unmistakable too. You don't forget those eyes. and those lips that Archer kissed hello every time they were together. In Emery's guest quarters, Archer confronts him with his evidence and he finally admits to the charade. And he tells the story of how Quinn wanted to go through the sub-quantum transporter first like his old man, even though I think the darkest part of this story is Emery knew it wouldn't work and still let him do it.

That's bad dad stuff. Because he was so desperate to have another win after having invented the transporter in the first place. This to me is where Emery became irredeemable and nothing that could ever happen from now until the end of the episode would change my mind about it. This is awful. So consumed was he by his crazed ambition that he allowed his son to slip into being some kind of subspace ghost and then had to, con Starfleet into giving him the entrepreneur for this trip because they would never authorize the mission

as a rescue only as a test of a revolutionary new transporter technology. And Archer's like, man, I'm so hurt that you just didn't tell me, you know, right off the bat. We're boys, right? Like, you're basically my dad. You're my other dad

that isn't dead. Emory's like, you think you're hurt and he like pulls up the back of his shirt. are just like, oh, God, oh! He, like, sight to site to site transports him into space to put him out of his misery right then and there. Mr. Reed, fire.

And then, like, read misses many times. Sorry, Captain. Let me load up another torpedo. As long as it's not on screen, I do not want to see that back again. He's now begging for help, Dr. Emery, is. And Archer's like, all right, well, I mean, we've already gone to the trouble of coming out here and reconfiguring everything. Once again, begging works.

So he goes and tells Trippin to Paul, like, okay, you guys are on, help Dr. Emery do this, save his son mission now. And they're like, what the fuck? He's such an asshole. And he lied to us the whole time. Like, we don't want to do that. We don't want to help him. I love that Burroughs' name was dropped here. Burroughs would be alive if we knew about this whole thing before shoving off for this mission.

Archer seems to care about Burroughs a lot less than anyone else. I mean, I guess he's like a little cheesed off with Dr. Erickson about it. But I'm very much on Tripp and to a lesser extent to Paul's side, who I believe agrees with Tripp here. But like for Archer to argue that. The memes were shitty and bad and lethal for burrows. But they are already out here. Yeah. And we have a chance to make it right with the ends.

As being the reason to stay? Oh, man. I don't like that. Well, we can't just turn the ship around and leave a man to die. So they're going to get to work. And the next scene is Emory and Tripp working in the transporter room. And Tripp being a little testy with him. And Emery's like, I liked you a lot better before.

when you thought, like, I was the greatest that ever was and ever would be. What happened between us? This fucking passive-aggressive bullshit. It's incredible. It's a real don't meet your heroes kind of coming to Jesus for Tripp because, like, you see it all the time in modern society. And I think women in creative fields especially are victimized like this, right? Like, you try so hard to do good work with somebody that you admire. and then you learn that they're a fucking sex pest or something.

Right. Yeah. Or their back looks like a bunch of meatloaf piled up on a buffet plate. We need to, and I mean this metaphorically, we just need to do a better job as a society of checking out people's backs. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

God, that was nice. I also really did not like that Emery pulled the sun card out. Like, you'd understand all this if you had a dead son. And Tripp's like, I got a dead sister. That's way worse. Was he accusing Tripp of being jealous that he had an opportunity to get his dead loved one back? Are we really playing that whole what's the best poker hand? Is it dead sister or dead son in this scene?

What are we doing here? At this point, Ben, I want to ask you. Yeah, yeah. Do you want this experiment to work to justify all of this? Because I think the episode does want you to want at work, but I could never get on that level. I think that the thing that there maybe needed to be, since we don't know Quinn, is Quinn has some piece of information that we need. Yeah. Yeah, there has to be more to get.

getting him back than just grief. Right. Or like, yeah, if Archer had ever mentioned him one fucking time, or, like, it is retconned that this character existed and that he was Archer's childhood best friend and that this family is super important in Archer's life. But, yeah, like, that's all told to us and not really shown to us in any way that matters. No one ever says this And I only think I ever felt this

Very, very subtly But the way Quinn died Was also very stupid And I think that's a part of The emotional math you're doing When you're trying to figure out What the episode wants you to ride for And what you're rooting against

Like, I think that's a part of this too Like he shouldn't have done that And it was bad and dumb Well, yeah, I mean I feel like there's also like a way out of this in the next scene because Danica's talking about like I wonder what it's been like for him

these last 15 years because it seems like he may be alive in some way is he aware like what is he what's he going through if that had been fleshed out a little bit more like

if it was like Quinn is in like purgatory essentially he was like trapped conscious in like the torture of nothingness that I feel like

there might have been urgency to the process. It's interesting that they talk about that after the fact, like after the experiment fails later, about that being a motivation for this, like limbo being worse than

the finality of life or death. They should have said that before. Yeah, yeah. If we change the words, then it's fair use all day long. Triven to Paul Talk as they finish their work

on the prep for the attempt. They're alone in engineering. And he's like, well, anyways, like, once all this is over with these assholes, I'm going to put on another movie night and I can't decide on which movie. You coming? And she's like, no, I'm prioritizing Khashara

over all other things now, not interested in humans that much anymore. Definitely not interested in your dick. I may have found new priorities. What's that supposed to mean? I really got PTSD from this as someone who was dumped for a religion. Oh. Seeing Tripp get dumped in this way, not fun.

Yeah. I did love the moment at the beginning of the scene where Trips, like, his inner monologue goes something like, do, do, do, I'm just doing engineering. Oh, here comes to Paul. And she's going to hand me, oh, my God, what's wrong with her hand? I can't let her know it's so horrifying. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, if deformations on extremities are going to be something that preclude us ever having sex, let he was, who is without sin, cast the first arm nipple. I no longer find her attractive. If only there was a way to break off the relationship that didn't make it seem as though it was because of my feelings for her physically. And then like she goes through this thing with their religion. And after it's over, he's like, oh, what a religion.

leave. Best possible outcome. Trip Tucker M. become George Costanza in terms of 3D relationship chess he's trying to play. Yeah. So they're getting ready for the experiment and they're in the shuttle bay and my antenna perked up when Archer repositioned Emory's wheelchair right over the shuttle bay doors. Like Mr. Burns talking to someone in front. front of his desk. There's a light bulb on a

level P2! Oh, good Lord. I was like, oh man, Archer might be really mad at this guy. The anomaly appears, Emory calls out to it like his long-lost son, but this thing does not want to talk. Instead, it wants to ram itself

into a wall panel that then explodes. Yeah, Archer has to like throw himself across Emery's body and knocking him to the floor as this explosion goes off. And then, like, a moment later, we're with Archer and Tripp, and Tripp is talking about how close this came to being way more destructive because the manifestation nearly hit a stack of torpedoes.

I'm not sure how, like, would that actually blow big? Or would that have been safer in the context of Star Trek Enterprise? It almost hit a stack of grapplers, which it's like if you go to a magic shop and you knock over a pallet full of peanuts, like... All those springs come undone? Just a real mess getting them untangled and packed back away. When this thing hits the wall and it explodes, I thought Quinn had some hard feelings about being a ghost for 15 years, and I thought he turned evil. Did you think this? Quinn is pissed.

Yes. Wow. I didn't go there. So I thought immediately Quinn would become the enemy that they need to, like, Amory is going to need to try to kill him or something. Yeah. Archer is pissed at Tripp for being insubordinate and for suggesting they do anything but devote all of their resources to saving Quinn. He should a mutiny dear. He'd have every right to, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. Archer goes to see, Emory, who is very optimistic that they can get a good transporter lock on this thing in three hours when it is scheduled to reappear. Like, he's somehow figured out when the manifestations happen. All you got to do is put all of your torpedoes into kind of a floaty and then tie it to the back of the ship like you're floating a river. Okay? That way, you're going to be completely safe from Quinn if you bump some. the walls. So the next scene is three hours

later and we're waiting for the manifestation and Topal picks it up on B-deck section 8. But Adam, Tripped something up from B-7. Ugh. He

beamed something from B-8 though. Oh, shit. Got that wrong. So they need more power. There's like, you know, This is one of those, something is there on the pad, but it hasn't materialized yet. And then there start to be little like red sparkles in there. And that feels like that's got to be bad, you know, when the sparkles go from blue to red.

Yep. Vox is scanning and calling out vital signs, which are getting worse and worse. And Emory is trying like every techno babble thing, like tie in the other EPS conduit, like reverse the polarity. all of the things. Anular confinement. Trips like, what? No. This is like one of those scenes where it's like

you got to stop doing the CPR eventually. Like you're doing CPR to a corpse. With the way they described it, I thought it would just be strawberry oatmeal hitting the pad. Yeah. But we get a full body. A full non-scrambled body.

Like, we've seen two, three examples of bodies that have had, like, cellular cohesion undone. And yet, when Quinn materializes, he is a normal-looking man who then collapses on the transporter pad. I guess the reason you want this is so the great Bill Cobbs doesn't do the, like, hand-drawn over the eyelids to a couple of grapes in a bowl of... and a bowl of chocolate pudding because he has a moment here that's meant to be like emotional and good and it would have been chocolate pudding

if they'd gotten Bill Cosby not if they got somebody that is Bill Cobsey I scrape the pudding into my lap and then I do the hand thing through the grapes RISVP Quinn the ship warps home

Amory feels at least he saved his son from this like maddening nothingness of purgatory at least they have a body to bury I think is a big part of this you can get closure with a body

you know yeah you can get a lot of things with the body man Starfleet's pretty pissed off about this whole situation and he's like talking about maybe my punishment will be teaching at a university or something. I fucking laughed out loud when I heard this. Hey, Emery, you're going to jail!

You're going to fucking genius prison and you're probably going to get a cell next to AI soon, all right? Yeah. Get ready to write a lot of equations out longhand on sheets of notebook paper. The fucking hubris of thinking you're just going to go teach community college now. At least Danica will have opportunities in life. and won't have to take care of him anymore.

That is the happiest part of this ending, I think, is that she's finally free. Yeah. Kind of an interesting, like, ends to the episode that is way before the actual credits rolling, because we just kind of pick up on some, some, like, story stuff around the ship, like Topal is no longer suffering from Panar syndrome.

We learned in, seen in Six Bay between her and flocks, that in the kind of spiritual awakening or whatever that's happening on her home planet, people are getting cured of this left and right. They're coming out of the Pinar closet and getting cured. And this thing that's happening with her where she's, you know, rebuilding her identity around reexamination of her core beliefs is something that a lot of people are going through. This is another one of those scenes where Jolene Blaylock is taking some,

something like good news for her character, but she appears kind of shaken and wet-eyed in receiving it, you know? And the next scene is between her and Tripp, and it's, it's, I felt like this was pretty well established in the previous scene about this between them, but it is a, like, unequivocal, I'm going to need you to back off. Like, I'm reexamining beliefs, not penises, right now. Tripp looks down at her old hand and then back up into her eyes, and he's like, I'm already there. Sorry, I didn't mean to look at it while I said that.

I have accepted this outcome. We rendezvous with the Sarajevo, which will be returning the Erickson's to Earth. And on his way out, Emery gives Tripp like some handwritten notes about ways to improve the function of the transporter system. And we're out. You can tell that things will never be the same between Dan. Anika and Archer, because they greeted each other with a kiss on the mouth, and they leave each other with a sturdy couple of hands on shoulders. That's pretty cold.

I see. Well, did you like this episode, Adam? I can't pay. Could for late. Got no case. Tempting fate. I think for the first time in a long time, in many, many episodes, I feel like this is a real clunker. this one didn't work for me on a lot of levels.

I want to start off with the stuff that did. I thought the direction of this episode was unique and good. It was shot like a horror movie in a bunch of parts because it was dark in many places first. Like the Barrens is a dark place with not a lot of light on the exterior, but also on the inside is very dark aboard the ship. But the compositions of a lot of familiar places

were different too. I found corridors were shot differently. Archer's quarters was different. Really liked all the new spins on a lot of the shots of the locations that we've come to know over four seasons. But like, it is a failure on the part of the episode to get a viewer to not care about Emery at all, which I didn't. Like, I tried to get on this episode's level with that. This is a great guest actor playing a new face. on the episode, and I just couldn't get on the level of being on his side. And the tacked on

to Paul stuff, too, I thought should maybe be on another episode to bulk up the Emory parts, to like give those a chance of hitting a little harder than they did. So yeah, I think this one just kind of missed for me. Yeah, I think I feel really similar. Really fun to see Bill Cobbs. And I think he definitely ate with this part. And yet I think it may be, maybe they're like relying on him being like kind of famous in a way that it would have worked better if this character had been established in earlier episodes as somebody who was great and we didn't have any like weird misgivings about and then this is a a surprising end where we realize like oh man there's the like he is more complicated than we thought yeah yeah

Yeah. I mean, in a writer's or a writer's room's defense, these kind of nuances are really hard to create. Even when you have the advantage of a Bill Cobbs, like, I don't know. I still think they had the chance to make this better. And for whatever reason, I just couldn't get there for me. Do you want to see if there's anything that can get you there in the priority one inbox? Almost always happens, Ben. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. You need a supplemental income. Supplement. Supplement. Supplement.

Yeah, it's extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. This is a promotional message and it goes like this. Priority one message from Starfleet Command. Just kidding. It's from don't resist the travel.com. Your number one travel agency in the Alpha Quadrant. tired of leaving your shore leave to chance, ready to boldly go to new destinations,

the experienced agents handle every detail so you can focus on the really important stuff like perfecting your riker maneuver into a beach chair. Don't let your vacation become a Kobayashi Maru set course for adventure and actually book it right this time. So that's don't resist the travel.com because resistance is futile when you actually want your shuttle to make it to your conference. Man, written like a true blue F-O-D. I love the copy on this.

I do too. And I think that for a lot of people, you think travel agents are for old folks, booking cruises or whatever. But the last few trips I've taken with my wife, we have actually worked with a travel agent on things like booking tour guides and stuff. And I really found the experience positive and good and worth it,

especially when you're going to a place that you have no ideas about or have never been to before and don't know anyone who has. Like, it's nice to get to a place and, like, do a tour on the first day to kind of, like, get the geography in your head and then go do your independent stuff later. What I'm trying to say is, like, a travel agent can book the whole thing for you or, like, do little parts of it. And I think it's nice to have that expertise. And how much fun would it be to do that in the context of doing bits with an FOD?

Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, keep it in the FOD family. Don't resist the travel.com. Ben, we got a personal priority one message here from Phil and Gina, and it's to you and me. Okay. So that message goes. We're way behind, but we wanted to thank you both for the great entertainment as we made our way through both TNG and DS9 during the years since the pandemic.

You're way in the future on some newfangled trek while we're jumping off the terrible Voyager. Geez. Wow. And avoiding the guilt of supporting Paramount. Cappla! Boy, Phil and Gina, you kind of lost me toward the end there. Had me in the first half, Phil and Gina. I mean, we appreciate the support, but don't doggone Voyager.

That's good quality trek right there. Some of our best work is reviewing Voyager. I feel. Phil and Gina are entitled to their opinion. I just so happy to disagree. But here's the thing about our show. Even if you hate the source material, you're going to love us. We're just so fucking charming. Yeah. All right. Last personal message, this one's from Ryan from Sacktown. And it is also to Ben and Adam. And it goes like this. I'm guessing that this is going to come out Far enough from the episode, so this title may be a faint memory. However, I did want to thank you, too, for a very skeptical look I got from my wife

about why something titled Ass Riding Centipede was playing on my car audio. Not sure the explanation made it better. Harry Kim drop? Something about it reminds me of being in the womb. Get up, Harry. Who are you? Harry Kim. Parents must be very proud.

Who are you? They come as come. is a pair. Who are you? Harry Kim. Who else is she supposed to get chummy with? Harry Kim. And your mom?

Very proud. Who are you? Harry Kim. It lasted 22 minutes. And your mom? Very proud. Harry Kim. Who are you?

Harry Kim. Hey, I blame Wendy. Lots of times I feel like as we're talking through an episode, we can kind of hear a title happen in conversation. But we don't really know that that title is decided upon until we QA the F. and that decision's often made by Windy. Yes. It's always a delight for us to see what got the nod.

Yeah. And apologize for the side eye you caught from Wifee, Ryan from Sackdown. Ryan from Sacktown, quickly becoming one of the most frequent P-1ers. Yeah. I don't apologize, Ryan. You get what you get when you listen to our show and that includes a really fun show title. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Well, I apologize because that is one of the things you get when you listen. to our show. Well, thanks to everyone for throwing in on a priority one message, whether or not you have a promotional thing to promote. That's how people describe that, right? Or a personal message for a friend, a coworker, a partner who just doesn't get our show titles. Maximumfund.org slash JumboTron is where you go to support the show with messages like these,

and we really appreciate it. Hey, Adam. What? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Incredible. Drunk Shimoda! It pains me to say that it's Emery. Yeah.

But it has to be Emery Erickson. He is pulling Isoliner chips out of all of Starfleet over, you know, guilt over past hubris, just an ugly situation all the way around. Yeah. I mean, and crucially, like, a very Shimoda-like aspect of this is that he has, like, taking control of some ship systems that that leave people in a very dangerous place when you're in the barons. He's getting people killed. You think you've got a fucking professorship at some university out of that? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they'll let Harvard professors do all kinds of

things, but probably not this. I guess that's true. Faith of the fart. Then we got to find out what we're doing next week on the show. For that, you're going to tell us what kind of episode it will be. I'm going to tell you about the next episode. It's Season 4, Episode 11, Observer Effect. Non-corporial aliens study the Enterprise crew as they respond to a fatal viral infection brought on board from an away mission. Oh, it's interesting.

Yeah, that'll happen. Sure. It happens to everybody. I wonder if Topal's hand will be better by then. We didn't really get closure on the hand, did we? I don't feel like we ever saw it again after what happened. They never shot it. Like, it was always obscured by a pad she was holding

or, like, some piece of gear. Yeah. Yeah. They were doing that Austin Powers thing where they were... That was an Austin Powers gag. Yeah. You know.

Well, our runabout is currently on square 58, right next to that, Moor and Hammered. But it could go anywhere, so... Yeah, yeah. We both know that. Hold on to your butts. You're required to learn as you play. Roll.

Holy shit. I don't think I've ever done this before, Adam. I rolled a Nat 100. Whoa. Chula! Did I win? Hardly. We're on square 58.

I don't think either of us have done that before. Same square. Yeah, same square. Regular episode next week. Looking forward to it. That's like the double zero and roulette. You did it. 100.

Natural 100. Ben. Does that mean I could just like pick a square? What does that mean in Dungeons and Dragons terms? Do you ever roll a hundred-sided die in that? Uh, you don't roll a hundo, but it, I mean, it's a critical hit, so usually that means like a, you can't, you know, if there's a saving throw, there's no saving. Kind of a deal. It's been a minute since our party has been able to get together. Too many conflicting schedules. There's inertia to these things, man. Don't let it go. I know, I don't want to Well, looking forward to next week

Me too Gotta thank Wendy Pretty Our producer and editor Happy New Year Wendy Rob Adler Our social media director Happy New Year Rob And the editor-in-chief

Of the greatest newsletter Which you can sign up for at greatesttrecht.com Got to thank our peacetime consigliary Bill Tilly, the card daddy Happy birthday And New Year, Bill Got to thank Adam Ragusea

Our music director rector over here made the original parody song of Diane Warren's Enterprise theme Happy New Year's Gotta thank Dark Materia for the original Picard song

And most of all I've got to thank the Friends of the Soto who support this whole Yeah Situation over at maximum fun.org slash joy Another year in the books Thanks to the FODs Indeed, all made it happen

With that we'll be back at you Next week, next year Another great episode, Star Trek Enterprise, an episode of the Greatest Generation Enterprise where, boy, I hope somebody's observing us, making sure, you know, we don't die of whatever this situation is. I don't want any observers for what I'm doing. You can have them. All right, they can come here. I can show.

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