The Greatest Generation - Impulse Champagne (VOY S2E5)

Episode Date: June 28, 2021

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Priority 1 message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Hey friends of Disodo. Before today's episode, we just wanted to take a moment to talk about the historic labor actions being taken by writers and actors in the American Film and Television industry. If you're a fan of the work done by the people who make Star Trek, we hope you'll join us in standing in solidarity with the folks who actually bring these adventures to life. Over the past several years, the AMPTP, the organization that represents the American Film and Television Production Studios, have reduced the profit from movies and TV going to workers. And in so doing,

they've attempted to weaken the labor unions that represent those workers. They wouldn't even engage the unions on many issues in their negotiations. And so a strike was the only course of action to take. Adam, Wendy and I have been having a lot of internal discussions about how best to stand with the unions and we are continuing those conversations in a dynamic situation. We're doing our best to understand where the picket lines are in these digital spaces,

and we would never intentionally cross one. With the information we have, we feel like we can do more good talking about and supporting the strike and continuing our show as planned. We'll keep you informed about what all this means for greatest trek specifically. Today we're making a contribution to the Entertainment Community Fund. This fund exists to help all the people whose livelihoods have been put on hold because the AMPTP refuses to negotiate

in good faith with the unions. It provides financial support for writers, actors, and all the thousands of laborers who make the shows that we talk about here and without whom we wouldn't have Star Trek to cast pot about. Those folks are all out of work because billionaires, company shareholders, and the executives of these companies don't want to compromise on the length of their yachts. We hope you'll join us in supporting entertainment workers in a challenging time, especially after they've already endured several years of challenges brought on by the pandemic

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! Watch your bad shot. Hello. I'm Captain Captain Brington. What are the U.S.s? What are the U.S.s? What are the U.S.s? What are the U.S.s? What are the U.S.s? What are the U.S. and Borthorac? Dr. Captain, Captain, what are the U.S. and Borthorac?

Dr. Captain, Captain, Captain, Captain. Welcome to the greatest generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys. It's a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Adam Pryanaka. I'm Ben Harrison. Adam, we are sitting on a live stream. Recording far into the future.

Recording from the past. Yeah. The last time we opened up a bunch of mail on the program, we did it on the live stream. And we are gonna open up a bunch of mail on this week's episode on the same live stream. This people are getting a double mail call on one stream. I can only imagine what it's like. Monday, June 28. The wonders and store for us.

Yeah, yeah, once we arrive on that date. So we're recording this on May 28th. That's a long ways off. I know. Man. We could be canceled ten times over by then. You want to just jump right in? Should we open some mail?

Yeah, I want to see what untold prizes you have and those still boxed up gifts you have behind you. Why don't you show me what you got out of the mailbox? All right. Captain, I'm sorry to disturb you. I'm receiving a Code 47. Verify? It is Code 47, sir. Starfleet emergency frequency.

Captions eyes only. The first thing we've got here is from JT Shug in Dublin, California. And this really caught my eye because my history teacher in middle school was Mr. Shug. And Dublin, California is not far from where I grew up. So I wonder if it's any relation to Mr. Shug. Here's the letter, dear Ben and Adam, I don't understand why they would make an action figure of J-Pipes as a ROM. But somehow, this ended up in my collection of things. I am moving to California,

so I must seriously lighten my load. So I appreciate you accepting responsibility to care for this important cultural artifact. Keep trekking gold medallion leader. Wow. Holy mackerel, it is, it is Romulan drag jail pipes. Wow. This is like...

Looking good. You can still tell he's jacked under those ropes. You can. He comes with, like, Romulan cat basket style phaser, Romulan purple briefcase, and a... Give me that soup bowl. purple briefcase and a that's super Romulan Picard standing plate but no soup bowl in the package and I don't understand that's like the main thing that they did on Romulus he's going on tour with us for sure

he's got a stand he's got the stand he's got the he's got the dustbuster can't pass it I hate the little phaser beam on those phasers. Lock those. Yeah, the new action figures have interchangeable hands. Yeah, that's like the... That's like the...

It predates that technology. The modern style. Thank you, JT. Okay, this next package comes from just like Amazon and doesn't have any identifiable information on the outside. There's a note in here. A gift for you. Loved the excitement and TGG quote disappointment of the killing of the Falcon.

Keep up the great work and try not to fight. Here's some Lego themed cups to help you prepare for the real hooves from Breelkey! Breel! Breel! Brees the best. Look at these! Brea has sent us Lego-shaped hoof-style drinking containers here. Oh, that's great.

These are like, if you can picture what like a boxer takes a drink from in in the middle of a match Oh, yeah, that type of sports beverage bottle with a straw Bribelkie sent me a birthday card. That's how thoughtful she is Bribelkie, she's the best one of the greatest in the business. Is Bribelkie in the chat? I don't know I don't Imagine that Bribelkie would lower herself to watching a thing on Twitch. Card Daddy says Bree is here and always has been. So fuck me, right?

This one is from Dr. Kayla I in Houston, Texas. It says, may this bring honor to your house on the package. Can't, does it? This is self-concerning. There's no note as far as I can tell. And then I'm like looking in the shopping bag and I see flag with red, white, and black colors. And I'm like, what?

Flag did we get sent? Oh no. It's not a swastika flag, Adam. Keep it folded up. It's the Klingon flag! Where are you gonna hang that? Is that gonna be a place of honor? I know have a- In your home? A United Federation of planets flag and the Klingon flag in my possession, and I wonder if I should start to like Fly them outside of my house. I don't think you can fly the to like fly them outside of my house.

I don't think you can fly the Klingon flag outside of your house. At my home, I permanently fly the Klingon flag at half-staff because I do not remember the great tragedy that occurred moments ago. As far as I can remember Praxis was yesterday every day is a tragedy for Kern All right, we have two more things to open these come from Bob M in Grand Forks North Dakota We got Star Trek the next generation the interactive board game. Oh, that's the one that's all about Bish, right? Experience Bish. Hey, I have a VCR in my box of ancient AV gear.

No kidding. If we got the VCR set up, do you think that's a game that we could play on the Twitch? I think people would love that, and I would love to play it. This is a numbered box. It says on the outside that it's a unique collector's edition, number 84,903. Wow. So, it's rare? The VCR is more limited than this board game.

Oh man, there's a letter in this second box. It goes like this. I've been an Adam, I've been enjoying watching you play Star Trek games on your Twitch stream and I think doing some Star Trek board games would make for fun Twitch hang as well. Please find and close a couple of Star Trek board games from my youth. I've been enjoying the pod ever since I learned about it from Sarousse Farovar's article in Art's Technica. Yeah.

Man was able to get my wife on board for DS9. Anyway, I hope we get to enjoy both of you experiencing BEGE BEGE. On the stream someday, sincerely Bob and Rain. Yes, if you're opening this on a Twitch stream, please say hi if I'm there. Twitch name to Tenacious B-O-6. What's up Tenacious B-O-6? Where are you? Show yourself.

Whoa, there they are! That's amazing! Wow! Cool. Thank you, Bob! That never happens! The second one is Star Trek Monopoly. That is almost the equal and opposite of the board game you opened up the first time, because no one wants to watch us play Monopoly on Twitch.

Yeah, no kidding. No one. They're fast and fun ways to play Monopoly, right? Not that I know of. Man, this is amazing. Good game pieces here. But we also have three more boxes to get to. But this... What's written on the side? Is it just fragile? It's just like... Yeah, it's just like...

It's just like... It's just like... It looks like what would be scrawled on the side of a cell that someone's been imprisoned in? Yeah, this is from Ramon LP4, I want to say, Houston, Texas. And this is box one of three and it says open me first on the outside. Alright, hey Ben and Adam, you know when you're in a quaint Irish village and all the villagers chase you with pitchforks convinced your spirit folk? Well, even when this happens to you, the last thing you want is your beer spilling and when you try to escape the horde. Trust me. So, I have provided each of you with your own coachmen glasses and anticipation of this day in your future.

Also included our two extra boxes, one for each of you, filled with my favorite Texas local beers, a fantastic dry meat from Austin, and my second favorite Icelandic beer. Texas may be batshit politically speaking, but our brew is nothing to be ashamed of. I hope you enjoy them. PS, special shout out to fellow FOD and Max Fun supporter,

April. You turn me on to the pod when you guys came to Houston for greatest Jencon before COVID. Do come again, cheers and glory to your houses, Ramon. Wow, thank you Ramon. I like meat. The first time I had meat, there was a snow storm in Seattle and I walked down to my local bar.

Yeah. And they had it and it just seemed like the right thing to drink in a snow storm that jumped down the whole city. If you're not in a holiday simulation of Grendel's raid on the mead hall That's the other context in which you want to drink a bunch of meat, right? Then you know the rule of twitches whenever we receive booze you need to take it to the dome on camera, so So let's see this mead. I don't I'm opening the the first box first and these are I guess these are like this is like glassware for us when we are running from angry villagers in Ireland.

I spent a semester in college in Ireland and I know how angry the villagers can get. I need to make a Ben's going to talk about Ireland so... Fuck you, clearly. Prick. One of the things I wanted to make as a stretch goal for Max Von Drive was the entire Africa song. Like all of it. Completely realized with all the verses and choruses, just couldn't get there this year. But next year maybe that's what I'll make the goal.

So this is the glassware that Rimon has sent us. It is a kind of a chalice- Nice! It's got like German and French, it looks like on it. It says, Up U, Gazante, on the top and Avotressante, on the bottom. It's basically just cheers in French and German, I think. Man, this is wild. There's two of these, so we each get a weird wooden handled chalice.

Holy mackerel. This is one of the wildest marons we've ever done. I can't believe how many boxes I've had to open. I'm gonna drink some of this fancy lawn mower refreshing outdoor beer out of this glass. Because I have to. So lawn mower lager that I used to drink from Seattle from a local brewery up there, that's good branding. Wow, this is great. It's really good actually. It's such a crushable drink that it is literally good at room temperature. It's like room temperature beer.

After drinking a cold cocktail, that's got to be a shock to the system. Would I keep drinking it if I didn't like it? Yes. You would? You would because you wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. This is who you are. I'm in a lot of therapy right now as everyone knows. I'm working through those kinds of issues. I've been a people-pleaser my whole life

because I try to avoid conflict. And I'm leaning into the conflict these days. I'm gonna just say, this is a good beer. I'm trying not to hurt you with my comments. I promise you that. Hey, man, we're here on the bridge of the Enterprise, drinking beers. I'm loving it. I like it a lot.

This is the good life, right? This is the best. All right, Ben. Most people don't like any of the squares on the game of buttholes, the will of the profits. There are some squares that you and I don't prefer, but there are some squares that we like a great deal. I think today's episode is one of them.

At the end of the last episode, we landed on it. Yes. It's Nielix's Galley. It's the square where the hosts drink, tilaxian champagne. Yes. And peak behind the pod, we recorded the code 47 at a different time as the rest of this episode. So no drinking during that portion of the episode. So we just have that much less time to get through a bottle of champagne each. And I have a, I got a rosé champagne because I thought

that was like a little weird. And in the tradition of Nielix being a little weird. I thought that was like a little weird and in the tradition of Nelix being a little weird. I love that. Did you go out and get a champagne specifically for this occasion? Yeah, I was picking up a burrito for dinner last night and there was a liquor store next door, so I... Anytime you can buy a burrito

and pick up an impulse champagne. Yeah, it's just... At the same stop, that's what you want to do. I just looked like a real class act. A guy walking down the street with a 8,000 calorie beef burrito, and a bottle of rosace champagne. Yeah, to watch that thing down. Of course.

I'm back on my Las Haras business. I got a bottle of the Old vines Mendocino County sparkling wine Non-filtered which I think is Is a unique property of it. I just took the the cage off the cork and the cork went flying It's never happened to me with a bottle of champagne a little scary if you're not ready for it I mean that's what the cage is for but I'm I mean that's what the cage is for, but I'm drinking out of a coop today, you know. Oh nice. I'm drinking out of one of those glasses that's made out of a wine bottle. Oh, fine.

Like a punch glass? Yeah. It's got the little dimple in the bottom. Oh, that's so effervescent and nice. I got a little ice bucket here from my bottle too. I've got the same. Yeah, and this is what makes these episodes so great. We get to enjoy a nice bottle of bubbly. Oh yeah, and I see that you have a little wedge of liola root on the edge of your glass for a garnish. As you do, yeah.

And I'm hoping this glass of sparkling wine isn't a pecan't. Hey, T'Neilix, Adam. Yeah, T'Neilix. Yeah. T'Neilix, really our favorite crew person. I know he gets my morale up. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty nice, Ben. Well, as we do today's episode, we will just be taking the

Spaddle to the dome, and I'm sure you can hear the difference. Get we go on? Get your brodes ready, folks. Yeah. Get your brodes ready for Star Trek Voyager Season 2 Episode 5. Non-Secondary. Reaver course. Unless you've got something a little bigger in your torpedo tubes, I'm not turning around.

Bann, we don't do research on this show. Hate it. I would never. And yet, the research found me because I learned that like we make fun of Star Trek Discovery a lot on the hit New Star Trek podcast, Greatest Discovery. One of the things that I make fun of quite a bit is like, how fucking nerdy the writers room is whenever they decide to use a Latin episode title. And I read that there are 14 episodes of Star Trek with with Latin show titles. This is one of them.

This is one of them. Yeah. This is Harry Kim waking up having a dream about a bunk bed in a regular bed. It's true. It's not a Delaney sister he's waking up with. No. And in fact, that's sort of the direction this episode goes. He's, he's woken up with Libby, who is the special lady friend he left behind. Yeah, have we heard the name Libby before? Or has he just referred to my girlfriend?

If he has, it didn't really stick with me. Yeah. But as soon as he wakes up, he starts apologizing for the Delaney sisters. Yeah. Over and over again, he asks forgiveness for all of the things he did with the Delaney sisters. He explains to Libby that if you can only see

the Delaney sisters, you'd understand they're the great sexual power. You would be as angry with me as I feel like you should be. And she's like, you don't need to apologize for each individual sexual act you performed with them. The transgression is worthy of an apology just globally. I'm turned with this conversation. Harry Kim, very organized with the note-taking about his sexual conquests.

Yeah, yeah. Produces the spreadsheet. He's assembled, just titled, The Delaney Sisters, two columns, one column for each sister. And just a whole lot of detail. Yeah, I mean, you see why he wound up in Ops, you know? Yeah, that attention to detail, real asset at certain moment, but not for Pellotock.

He is shocked to look out the window in the midst of his argument and see that he is in San Francisco and not oldie-timey San Francisco, but present day to Harry Kim San Francisco. Yeah, he is like what did I do last night? You ever wake up in a strange city? Yeah, I feel like that's it's happening to Harry Kim. Yeah, he went on a he went on a bender that took him all the way across the galaxy and back One of my best friends woke up on a plane to Vegas once. Yeah, I think you did tell me that one time. Yeah. That is both scary and exciting initial measurements. Yeah, I mean, it's something I really like about myself

is that will never happen to me. Oh, I wouldn't be so sure. I think I could probably make that happen. So Harry Kim is kind of trying to play along at the beginning of this episode. Like it's he's got his big meeting that Libby is telling him about he has to get ready for work. So he goes and gets dressed and you know she straightens his starfully dishoved necktie and sends him out the door, but he kind of will dip into under his breath saying, like, what the hell is going on?

What day is it? Is it the president or the past? Have I traveled in time or traveled in space? He's gotta be Sammy Jankus here by acting as if, but also Kim has no intermonologue. So at any given point, he's giving himself away. Yeah. Like this would work great as a novel, I feel like, but writing it for television

is super hard because you have to give the viewer enough context to to know these things, like what day is it? And he has to ask that out loud. Libby thinks that Kim is playing games here. I mean, you and I have been in long-term committed relationships before. One of the most fun games to play with your partner is the, I don't know who you are. And I don't know what's going on, game. Like always a big hit, I think. Yeah, love doing bits on marriages. Yeah, we should really put that on the list.

The rules have greatest gem. Nothing spices up things in the bedroom, like having a lot of doubts about your relationship. I mean, I think he's gaslighting me, but I'm not sure. Yeah, hot. Can we play this little game another time, please? This apartment is really incredible.

What a view. I'm pleased this apartment is really incredible what of you? It's it's the rare apartment in Star Trek where you see a hinged door I like seeing the like when he went into the bathroom to Get ready the the door is on a hinge looks like Maybe like an old apartment because he's in like he's in like the mission district it says when he comes down stairs. So, so maybe this is like, maybe this is like super retro for them. The apartment is cool, it's location is cool,

but I have a real problem with the layout of this place. There's clearly like rooms in the back, but the bed is just like in the living room and they have these two staves with candles on top, right next but the bed is just like in the living room and they have these two staves with candles on top right next to the bed. Like if you were trying to to figure out a way to make a fire hazard in a bedroom, you'd want to stick candles on top of staves in a place where you would get up and knock them over to get out of bed in the middle of the night. That's where these things are. I mean, you had to remember that this was, you know, filmed in the 90s when candles,

hunstabs, and flowing white curtains were crucial to any sex scene. And this, you know, this, like, this kind of like shabby, chic, loft lifestyle where it's like, we put the bed in like the biggest room in the place because like, this is the kind of environment we want it. They're thinking outside the box for our time. This is very friends or sign fell desk, right? And this is like, you see on the internet now, like Harry Kim and Libby's San Francisco apartment is impossible because they'll show the floor plan.

Yeah, what is this Buzzfeed article about one episode of Voyager? Yeah, yeah, real deep dive. Yeah. It looks like a lot of the location was shared with the Deep Space Nine episode where they go back in time to a very different looking San Francisco in those episodes. Right. And that's an earlier version of, but it feels like they're kind of maybe like in the same parts of the city, just in different historical epics. Right.

Kim has got to get out of there. I feel like the longer he stays in that apartment with Libby, the greater the chances that he blows his cover as it is. And so out on the street, he gets spotted by the coffee shop owner of the shop where he is clearly a regular, Cosmos. Yeah. Well, Kimmolka, extra sweet. Thanks. And Cosmo himself is out there to greet. I would love to cultivate a relationship

with the owner of a coffee shop in my neighborhood like this. It just seems so great to be like walking down the street and have the owner of the coffee shop go like, Hey, it's a Ben Harrison! Come over here and have a coffee! I made it for you! You were really close to doing that before you moved away, right?

I was, and then the fucking owner of that coffee shop got like, there was like an article about him like being a bad person to the women that worked for him and I was like I almost I almost formed a relationship with the owner of a coffee shop that is actually the worst person at that coffee shop. I did not know that. Yeah very disappointing. That sucks. Yeah. Unclear how Cosimo treats his employees. Cosimo seems like the only employee of his own company.

Yeah. I mean, like in this future, do you need a lot of help? Like the robots probably clean up. Like the replicator does all the heavy lifting in the kitchen. And like, this is sort of the question that Cisco's answers.

If you're the type of restaurant tour, like Ben Cisco's dad, you probably do want all your stuff made by hand and you want to be circulating the restaurant and greeting and stuff. Cosmo, it doesn't look like he's in their Poland his own shots or anything. I just loved this depiction of San Francisco. It's the mixture of the old and the new. There's like architecture from a long time ago and architecture from last year up against each other. And I just feel like so many sci-fi futures that we see depicted ignore the effect that they built environment, you know, evolves over time rather than just arriving fully formed as a future place.

Yeah, I like the suggestion of the permanence of some of the architecture. Yeah. Living on in the 24th century, it's neat. Yeah. Cosmo is nice, but being from Seattle, I definitely was feeling like he was a little bit too into Kim's business.

Yeah, Cosmo knows all about him, doesn't he? Yeah, Kim's getting asked about what's ahead for him at work because Cosmo knows where he's headed and why there's a big pitch meeting about a starship design. That he's been working on for precisely eight months and I like, like this is where the reality breaks, right? Because you'd be like, if you were the owner, you'd be like, this is where the reality breaks, right? Cause you'd be like, if you were the owner, you'd be like, God, yeah, I feel like you probably started that what, eight, nine months ago?

Not eight months. Eight months. Yeah. But Cosimo knows Harry Kim's drink order. Yeah. And sends him on his way. He's, I mean, Harry Kim's gonna need this coffee for where he's headed.

More terribly, maybe this is intentional because Cosimo has a secret. That's right. The secret is he does pull his own shots. Harry Kim meets up with his buddy, Lieutenant Laska, and they head to their big meeting with a bunch of front-sips, a mixture of captains and admirals, real high pressure situation for these two. You recognize the lead admiral, didn't you? I recognize the actor, but remind me,

do has he been in track before? Is this one of those weird situations where I was like, I know that admiral, and then I looked him up, and the actor, this guy, has played several admirals. In this scene, he's playing Admiral Strickler. Let's get this underway, let's end it last guy. Ooh, who is a character that just exists for this episode? Yeah.

But Jack Sheerer played the admiral that told Picard to stay the hell out of the Borg fight and start track first contact. Long-range sensors that pick you up. Yes the hell out of the Borg fight and start trek first contact long-range centers of picot Yes, I know The Borg same guy is this one of those situations like Tom Paris Not being the red squad guy because they would have had to pay the writer that came up with the character again It's I don't know if that's the reason, but it sure feels like that. Yeah I don't know if that's the reason, but it sure feels like that. Yeah. So this has like all of the feelings of like a dream where you show up to school, not

wearing pants or whatever, because Harry Kim is a big presentation to the brass about this new version of a run about that they've designed. And Harry Kim was supposed to make a presentation about how they've solved some engineering challenge with the Warp Core, and he has not brought his homework. Is there a problem, Ensen? Actually, sir, there is. Have you ever been fucked over by a partner in a school, in a group project? And then I went to film school.

Film school is 100% group projects. It's you are the sound guy, you are the camera guy, you are the director, you are the PA on this shoot. And then next week you will shuffle and everybody will be in the same group but a different like production class, junior, sophomore year of NYU is that you are in a group project with the same three

people for the entire semester and it is really challenging. I feel like you could tell the actor who played Lieutenant Laska to go as big as they want because you're on his side. Kim is really fucking him over and it sucks to watch. Usually Kim is just fucking but this time he's fucking someone over and it sucks to watch. Yeah. Usually Kim is just fucking, but this time he's fucking someone over. Right. There's no spreadsheet for the positions. He's in during this meeting.

It's bad. Yeah. He finally just sort of like calls out sick in the middle of the meeting, which was his only defense. Harry, he better be dying. And Admiral Strickler is, you know, he's one of these like, he blows into the meeting saying like he doesn't want to keep his next meeting waiting

after he's clearly kept this meeting waiting. Right, yeah, that big admiral energy. So he's like looking for an excuse to leave. And he's like, well, I'm going to, I'm going to be touring the Cardassia neutral zone for a month. So soonest we'll be able to get back to this is quite a while from now. After the meeting, Harry goes into what I believe is like his own workplace office, right? It seems like it's not his home. It's very different. It's very definitely the place where he does his work and his studying. And he reads his own file.

He is his own Murdoch here. Starship design specialist awarded the Cochran Medal of Excellence for outstanding advances in warp theory. Got around, didn't you? Incredible. I see that you've fucked the one Delaney sister and then the other. So how do the combination?

It turns out according to the computer that he was denied his request to be stationed on Voyager, and when that happened, he transferred to Starfleet Engineering. Yeah. You know, like the Seth MacFarlane 9-11 story. It's like Harry, Colin Voyager, Colin, Colin, Seth MacFarlane, Colin 9-11. He just missed it. That is going to be a very complicated episode title. But I think it'll be very rewarding

for anyone who's made it this far. Yeah, yeah, especially because there's a slash in 9-11. So there's just a whole salad of weird punctuation in that. I love how Star Trek this moment is. Like Harry Kim seems to be almost self aware that he's in a Star Trek episode at this point because he's like, alright, well this is weird. I have to have been Star Trek through a temporal anomaly or some orcued or some other weird thing. Like it's not that he doesn't believe what's happened.

He believes there's a very start track explanation for this and he starts asking the computer, all the many ways how this could have happened. You have to have this hierarchy of, like you memorize this hierarchy of questions when you graduate the Academy because you never know, right? Yeah, Kim is like,

did I accidentally light speed break away factor myself? At the same time, he's like kind of loving the life path that this suggests for him. Like, he didn't get to go on the starship that he wanted to, but he did become a brilliant engineer and like win an award. It's about my mental is it? Oh God, I can go home and get it. Like, it's kind of George Costanza trying to introduce himself to people as art vandalay. Like, I kind of want to be an architect. There's something tempting about this. The darkness that shades the periphery

of this new reality though is definitely like, in this timeline, the Voyager has gone missing as N has been presumed lost. Yeah, and there's been like a memorial service. And Kim has buddies who were stationed on the Voyager. One buddy in particular, Daniel Bird, was like the guy at his station. Yeah, tough. And it's a weird feeling of like that should have been me, but for a bad thing, you know.

You just grieve the Delaney sisters when you hear about this, right? Like all that unspent sexual equity just gone like tears and rain in the badlands. So, so he kind of like trudges home and Cosimo like runs out of the coffee shop and is like, Hey, it's a Mr. Hair Kim! You back so early, how the meeting go? Whenever a friend mentions your wife kind of a lot. You like to sleep late on Sunday, but if I had your fiancé, I'd sleep late too.

Like notably a lot. Coming up for a little visit with Libby, are we? Ah, to be young. And also knows a lot about where you live. Fourth floor apartment for G. Ha, ha, ha. I was suspicious of Cosmo at this point in time. Not the earlier part, where I think you were smarter and earlier to the game.

I didn't know what to be suspicious of, but like, he also- I think Kim's gonna wake up with Kazumo at some point. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and he's like, you're gonna go enjoy some afternoon delight with your fiancee, eh? And he's like, I'm actually still in a refractory period from the Delaney sisters like two nights ago. Like, and I'm still new to all this.

Give me a moment. I'll get there, I'll get there. Cosmos like, it's dangerous to come home early and surprise your lady friend, take this. And it's like four shots of espresso. And then Harry's like, oh, I. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. And then Harry's like, oh, I got a shit and run some. He knows Harry fucks.

That's the implication of this scene to me. This is another opportunity for Kim to either Sammy Jankus himself or just come out with his reality to Libby. And Libby is treating Kim like he's roleplaying here. Other Klingons will not accept me for what I am. It seems to work because after this moment we cut to above the bed, which has been totally thrashed by their love making. So he was able to make this work and that quad shot by Cosmo really carried him through the day.

I love the idea of Harry Kim getting stranded in the D quad as a as a rotic role play. Yeah, he wakes up in the middle of the night and steps down off of his bed platform. There's another funny part over the way this room was arranged. It's a raised bed. Raised to a position of prominence in the room. Yeah. And he starts like taking stock of the things he sees in the room. Do you think that this room is big enough that they could have an audience occasionally?

Is that what the bet on the platform thing is about? Is it's like their stage? For daily life. When you're into this sort of love making that you could call performative, I mean, that's how it should be, right? Yeah. Yeah. I'm shocked that Harry Kim's fingers aren't too tired to mess with the keys of this computer station that he finds in the

corner because he starts getting to work asking, and there's another thing, man, like you're sitting at the computer station in the middle of the night, your lover is wrapped up in the in the post, coitus blankets. And this is why you don't use Siri in the bedroom late at night, because this moment wakes Libby up. He starts, he starts going through the logs and he's,

he's looking at the crew manifest for the Voyager. And he's actually like put in his own access codes because the story with Voyager has been classified and he happens to know the access codes because he was stationed on Voyager. So he's looking through it. Were you a little bit concerned? This isn't the only moment in the episode where things about Voyager were a little bit ambiguous

to the extent that I was wondering, I feel like I had to fill in the blanks of what happened to Voyager and those blanks to fill, equaled. It went into the badlands and disappeared and Starfleet considered it a lost ship with all hands. I kept on wanting there to be an alternate reality to what happened to Voyager because of Kim's living in his own alternate reality. And I wonder if a stitu dialogue could have totally solidified that to keep my mind from Imagining something different that had happened because I know in the logic of this episode It's very clear that

these exact same thing happened to Voyager as What happened in Kim's timeline, but yeah, I feel like enough time had passed what where I'm guessing and wondering that I don't know It's interesting that it's eight months. Eight months is the amount of time that we are given. I think that an episode or two ago, we heard six months. I guess he graduated from the Academy eight months ago. Presumably, but also the memorial was two weeks ago. And so it seems like kind of a lot of time was given to the possibility of they will come back.

Because I mean, which is reasonable, this being Star Trek, like people go into time loops and shit all the time and then come out the other side and then the worst for where. Is that memorial service just the entire cruise holograms? Set up. Talking at the same time. Yeah, and Tom Mervyn standing down at the end in front of the Janeway one and going like, hey, can you turn it down on the other ones? Like they're all talking at the same time.

I cannot hear what she's saying. That makes me so sad. Tom Mervins and a sad dog. Yeah. Never gonna see Janeway again. Bomber. Bomber. If you're Tom Mervins, you just have to move on though.

It's what Janeway would have wanted. She wants Tom Mervins to date a TJ Maxxanista or something. Coffee, black, make it yourself. I'm trying to help you see this as an opportunity to grow. Make it yourself. One of the things that Harry Kim finds out on his late night serious session is that Tom Parris went to prison and was paroled. He's in Marseille, France now.

He's in Marseille, France. They do attempt a bit of who's on first style comedy when Libby wakes up and asks what's going on. He says, I've got to go to Marseille. That's where Paris is or something like that. Libby confronts Kim about why he's been acting so strangely, and this is like, unfortunately, a very writerly moment, because Kim's explanation to her is articulated in the worst possible way. Because all he needs to say is, I got a buddy out in France,

and he might be in trouble or whatever, but instead, what Kim says is, you ever like come to a moment in your life where, you don't know if you can go through with the thing that you thought that you wanted to go through and that maybe your love is a lie or like, like he says, like exactly the wrong thing to the one person you can't say this to.

All of this, it's not supposed to be happening. She definitely interprets this as you are breaking up with me, you're breaking our engagement. And I just... It's like my feet are so cold and there's just no number of socks that can make them warm again. There aren't enough socks in this quadrant or the Delta quadrant take it from me a guy who knows all about both Quadrants it's like I don't know if I can be a one pair of sock man Like I look around and I see other socks everywhere and I kind of want to know what it would feel like to try on that pair or

Maybe Maybe there's like some sisters who wear some socks and maybe you could like try them both on at the same time. They take them off and you put them on. I don't know. I don't know what they're into. I mean, I do, but I don't want to admit that to you right now. Maybe the socks are still warm from their bad heat.

It's hard to speak of love. I think that there's something very interesting about this moment though, because like, if you lived in a perfect future where you wanted for nothing, you would actually be kind of a social misfit to want to join a military organization like Starfleet. You'd be the weirdo. You'd be the weirdo. And this kind of exposes that Harry is the weirdo because he starts going into

The kind of thing like if you if he was talking to BLT or Jordy or Any Star Trek character they'd be like interesting. Let's like get us tricorder out and start working on the problem And she is like you're breaking up with me This is handled poorly but consistently given how Harry Kim seems to handle a lot of stressful situations. Yeah, so he heads to Sundreens, which is a familiar set to us, and meets up with Tom Paris, who is not also here from an alternate reality. We know this because Paris doesn't remember Kim when he shows up at the pool hall.

Tom, who the hell are you? Paris didn't get to go on the Voyager mission because that moment in the first episode of Star Trek Voyager played out a little differently in this timeline because Tom Paris was thrown into the brig by a combination of Quark and Odo in the very situation that Kim found himself in at Quark's bar by in those jewels. I loved that this referenced deep space 9 because I think without deep space 9 you could not

have a Star Trek scene like this. Yeah. That like references something deep in the past of the show. Yeah, that like references something deep in the past of the show I thought this was really great like it's it's part of this rewritten history, but This scene also is like very very long. I think it's kind of the centerpiece scene of the episode in a lot of ways and It's depressing as fuck because Tom Paris is just like like Harry says it. He says you're a loser and a drunk and it's it's really sad to see what a Tom Paris that doesn't like he is he is also the weirdo, right? He needs the structure of Starfleet in his life. It's what made the second back to the future movie so affecting was like

seeing all your favorite characters sad and destitute and desperate. You know, like this is not a totally desperate Tom Paris here, but this is a guy that did not get the breaks that he got in the in the main timeline here. And he's very cynical. And this is also the moment where Harry Kim has to go out on the limb. Like, this is the first time he actually speaks the truth of his situation to anyone. He tries to convince Paris that that what's happened to him is also affecting Paris, like Paris belongs

somewhere else. Right. He belongs with Harry Kim. He belongs with Harry Kim. He belongs in Starfleet and he's saying, hey, come to HQ, we're gonna run some simulations and figure out what happened to my shuttle and figure out why this reality is not the correct reality for me. And this like almost turns into a bar fight, but it doesn't last very long. Paris being the cynic that he is, being the hardened criminal is just paranoid, really.

He thinks it's a trap, and that's why he tries to punch Kim in the face. And in the background, watching the whole thing, there's Cosimo. Yeah. Vancey tasted bars for Cosimo. He's like finishes up his shift at his coffee shop in San Francisco and then transports across the planet to Marseille for a drink.

If it were just that easy though, wouldn't it be amazing to be like, hey, after we're wrapped here, Ben, let's just transport to France. Oh, man. Get ourselves a great meal and some champs. I've got the restaurant res. I'm going to make the restaurant res on my phone right now. That sounds amazing. And then no matter what, I just be myself back into my own bed. That would be the best type of vacationing, right?

You do the coolest shit, the most exotic activities, and then back in bed. God. Kim returns home after this to find a couple of dust busters waiting for him inside. What's going on? Starfleet doesn't like that he's been digging into the computers using forged access codes.

And this is like a callback to when he was digging in the computers earlier, his codes worked when he was trying to find dirt on Voyager. Right. Lieutenant Laska is there to say, like, hey, let's go down to HQ and straighten this all out. I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for this. Kim is like, hey, Admiral, I thought you were taken off for the fucking Cardassian

neutral zone. You actually made time to interrogate me, but you didn't have time to stay late after the last meeting for me to pitch you the whole runabout situation. We famously don't do research on this show, but I wanted to know when in the timeline this was relative to the Dominion War, because I think that it like, it must be, pretty close to when the DS9 crew was on Earth and they were like, fuck, there are founders everywhere. Like, this must be a particularly paranoid starfleet at this point in history. And for as paranoid as the moment is, it's also a very paranoid type of confrontation. Like, the interrogation that Strickler lays on Kim is like,

hey man, I'd love to believe this story, but your only explanation is Star Trek. And that's not enough. Like his actions are suspicious enough to make them think that he's a make-we-sympathizer. We're here to find the truth, Enshon. You can't handle the truth. Man, the fucking Swiss watchness of the fact that he went to visit Tom Paris. Yeah, of all people.

Yeah, that's so great. That's such a fun writing flourish. It's very damning. It's very damning. I mean, like, freedom of association, but also why you hang out with that dude. Right. And so they put them on house arrest. They give them an ankle it and they say, like, if you tamper with this, we're gonna know and you're gonna be in a lot of trouble, don't leave town. You're gonna wanna wrap it with some cellophane

before hopping into the sonic shower. You're gonna wanna wrap it in some sound foam before hopping into the Sonic shower. You're gonna want to wrap it in some sound foam before hopping into the Sonic shower. It does not appear as though ankle bracelet technology has really advanced very much. It does not. This must be an ankle bracelet that they can like find you across the star system or something.

Because yeah. It is just as big in cumbersome as a contemporary bracelet that they can like find you across the star system or something. Cause yeah. Just as big in cumbersome as a as a contemporary house arrest ankle it. Take it from me. A greatest gen live show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person. But that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment.

Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it. The Share Your Embarrassment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to greatestgentour.com to get more info. That's greatestgentour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne.

On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweards. to like full nonsense. stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps already open, just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goat try. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, rats, hey, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out.

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Gold. Kim limps home after this interaction and Cosimo interrupts him again and sort of insists that he stops for coffee in that moment. Yeah. Cosimo explains to Kim that he is, in fact, in a Star Trek episode. And that's why his life is so confusing at the moment. What?

Cosimo feels really bad because he is a extra-dimensional something-something that lives in a time space, something-something. We only know that an accident occurred. We don't know how or why. The techno-babbled gets really thick for a while, but it's basically just there was some freak accident that caused Harry to wind up in their realm.

And they feel rotten about it. They just wish it hadn't happened and they would love to fix it, but they don't have the science to do it. So Cosimo is kind of there, the representative of this alien species that lives on this like totally other plane of existence. And he's just kind of keeping eye on Harry and make sure he transitions into his new life in a new timeline with relativies. You could say there is no punishment to fit your crime, Kashmir.

Starts right Kashiv very spoutirty record with the old powerful beings If you would like to speak to people with regrets I don't remember mine, but I am told that I have many And my friend here also has some At least that's what I have written down on this note card This scene is almost totally incoherent. Like, Cosmo could be an all-powerful being from a dimension full of all-powerful beings,

or he could just be a guy who has a technology. And I think either one of those is equally plausible in this moment. And I just wish I knew what Cosmo's deal was. All Cosmo can do for the moment. It's just sort of apologize for Kim getting caught up in simple shit that he didn't intend to. Yeah, so the deal is like the fact that Harry came wound up

in this particular, like that he wound up in his same time, but in a reality, oh, I'm getting so burpy for this. I know, I wound up in his same time, but in reality, oh, I'm getting so burpy for this new game. I know, I was just, I got sympathy, sympathy burps just watching you. Ha, ha, ha, ha. This is the worst thing on the board, I think. I mean, no, I'm sure that the friends of Disota would disagree and tell us that the ends

to agree is the worst thing on the board, but for the person... For the good, the broad we should be taking a gas pill. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. He's saying like if you try to undo the accident, it would be like cold cocking Carl and jumping through his hole. Like no guarantees about where you would end up at all.

Right, and I wish that danger was emphasized a little bit more because this is something even Paris gives voice to later on when the chances of success are articulated toward the end of the episode, like it's insane, but this is worth going through with. I guess I'll have to take that chance. And Cosimo to his credit is like, look man, the odds are so bad if you're getting back to where you are, like, you know, there's a Libby up there. Yeah. Waiting for you again with the Libby thing, Cosimo. Yeah. And Harry like throws his Vulcan mocha at the wall and says, Libby is fine, but there are two Delaney sisters, Cosimoimo 2. Not one, two. Libby's only one person, Cosimo, get it together. Ha, ha, ha.

Libby, when Harry gets back to the apartment, is pretty bummed about what this means about the future of their relationship. And she has trained to express to him, like, you were basically like the dude I was going to marry, and in the last couple of days you've been acting like a total lunatic, and he's able to kind of draw on their personal history and say, like, you know, like call back to a time he remembers about them first getting together. And, and, you know, pitch it to her like,

hey, like, I need your help. Like, this is, this is not me acting strange. This is me not being in the right place at the right time. And I need, I need you to be like empathetic and, and ride for me in this moment because it's like a very hard time in my life. And she doesn't understand it, but action speak louder than words because she does ride for him.

Adam. I will remove the tracking device. Then you can go over the wall and hide in the jungle. He's been tampering with his auzarest blanket, some dustbusters, materialize in their apartment, and she blocks them as Harry jumps out the window and down the fire escape. Goodbye, Warp. This escape scene is pretty exciting. It's a great foot chase. I watched an action movie with a foot chase on Netflix last night that was less fun than

this one. Kim has had to make the case to Libby using the foundation of strong relationships. He's like, we've been through a lot, baby. And like the deal with our relationship is one of mutual respect and support. And I'm gonna need to take a withdraw from that account right now. And even though you don't understand what's going on.

Yeah. And that's kind of the miracle of the moment that permits him to escape here. Yeah. Well, and the other miracle is that he is like, he gets caught by Starfleet security out on the mean streets of San Francisco. And Tom Paris comes to his rescue. Yeah. Right in the nick of time,

and punches out one of his pursuers. Which really does not speak well of Starfleet security. Like we just saw Tom Paris like badly lose a bar fight. And now he beats up Starfleet security guy with one punch. Here goes my bank shot. Paris and Kim and Allie talk about this very thing. They're like, I expected better from Starfleet. Let's see how, how much we can press this bet.

What if we stole a runabout? What if we tried to recreate the conditions of my disappearance? And Paris is like, where are you gonna get a pilot? And Kim is like, that's you, idiot. You're a pilot. Let's go get this runabout. I'm willing to take my chances, Ensen. Before we go get this runabout. I'm willing to take my chances, isn't it?

Before we go get this runabout, let's go back to my office. It's the one place no one will look for us. The last place they'd expect me to go. Yeah. Yeah, so they have to get like the command codes from the office. Tom Parris has a site-to-site transporter with him, so he's able to get them there. Site to site chase scene should be a more frequent star trick thing. We got a lot of discovery.

Like that is a very useful use of it. Discovery season three is really, is really relishing in the site to site transporter stuff. Yeah. And that chase scene in episode one is fucking great. And like, like the clock is ticking every time they materialize in a new place because they're like, okay, they'll have detected that an unauthorized transporter beamed us into this room.

So we gotta, we gotta like get this info and then get out of here. There's a very funny shot of the Starfleet security guys like running across the room and looking behind the desk and they're too little like Transporter balls like fading out. Yeah, what would happen if you shot the balls? So they get to the runabout They had they narrowly escaped the space doors as they're closing and this looked like maybe the space doors from the Dyson sphere and TNG. I recognize them as well, including the rotation, like the barrel roll of the runabout on the way out. And it was, that was recycled footage, a bunch of the San

Francisco footage, were taken from Star Trek films. This is like, this is what I wish Star Trek would do more of. We make jokes about it being the most efficient and cost effective sci-fi franchise. But live in the world, use the stuff you've got. If you're gonna talk about the cities. Use the whole Star Trek Buffalo. Yeah, like season two episode one,

we talked about wanting to see those cities. You've got the matte paintings cut to cities, you know? Yeah. Yeah, that's why we're so incredulous about when they don't do that. Yeah, that's why I'm not going to knock this episode for using what they've got. I think they should be doing this more often. This episode is a great example of using what they've got. And another example is this Starship Chase. They're getting chased by a Dell Soul class Starship.

They've got the models. It's not like a complicated space combat scene, but it's. It's plausible what ship would be in the area is clearly a Dell Soul. It's not going to be one of the larger exploration class ships nearby. It's obviously going to be a del Sol. This is the moment though Ben. Yeah. I was like, Paris is going to have to die for this. Yeah. I knew at this moment what the score was for him. And like, there's some fun trickery of foot here. Like the runabout does that spy hunter trick

and drops a bunch of oil slick behind it to buy more time. And what's fun here is that like there is a bit, a little bit of deception. The runabout arrives at the spot where it should. Like the very last time that Kim hangs out with Cosimo, Cosimo gives him a challenge coin that's like, hey, this has got all the information you need to try to do this insane plan. And Kim thinks he's done everything he needs to do in order to replicate the conditions of his movement through dimension.

Yeah, it's like set up a sensor sweep, do this to the shield modulation. Like there's like a bunch of things that he has to like kind of recall we're going on on the ship at the time. But what he didn't do is beam during. Yeah. And that's like the last thing he's gotta do and he's reluctant to do it because if he fucks around with the transporter,

he's gonna find out that the runabout is going to explode with Paris inside and if it doesn't work, it doesn't seem worth it to Kim to sacrifice Paris's life. And he's also beaming into space during. So it's like, who knows what the odds are, but one way or the other, like, they don't know the odds, but there's a large chance that they both buy the farm in this plan. Right. And Paris is just grizzled enough and just unhappy enough about his life to find

these odds worth it. He physically takes Kim and throws him into the transporter booth as if it's a phone booth. Yeah. Did you buy it? Like this, I feel like the episode really relies on you believing that this version of Tom Paris would be this dejected an in need of purpose that he would do something that he knows is sacrifice of self for someone else. The rest of the episode sets up parameters that make it seem as though this is the absolute limit of Tom Harris' grisldness. So what I'm trying to say is that like I wish Tom Harris was more of a pirate. I wish he was more of an angry ex-con. I wish they like really dialed him up even more. But how he acts is consistent with the rules that the episode sets up throughout. And so while I'm disappointed that he isn't dangerous

seeming enough for me. Yeah, he has to fit into the episode and the episode's rules. And I think my criticism is that the rules for the episode aren't dialed up enough. Yeah, I mean, I think that the thing that worked about it for me is that this is maybe hard to see for this version of Tom Paris, but if this is the same Tom Paris just with a difference set of breaks in his life, I think I do believe it because I do think that Tom Paris is kind of a heroic and selfless person in circumstances like these. I wish he was just a little different, a little more different than Tom Paris Prime.

And maybe it comes down to after Paris throws Kim into the transporter, being in the shuttle a little longer with him, alone having to grapple with the impulse decision that he just made. Right. And maybe there being a beat where he's, he's like, oh, fuck Christ, I'm going back to New Zealand. Yeah. I don't think this episode believes he's interesting enough to do that for and I disagree. He is. He should be. Yeah. Well, he, he should be yeah well he he does it he throws Kim into the transporter energizes and then we cut to the wide shot of the runabout exploding and then we cut to the extremely close shot of Kim's eye and this is a very interesting type of shot they've like done an optical process

where they punched in on the film, on the piece of film itself, to get like a super, super close shot of his eye. And then they are both zooming out on the lens and also zooming out digitally at the same time to go from a shot that is like Kim's eye taking up the entire frame to Kim's entire body taking up the frame. We're with Kim so long throughout the episode that it's a little disorienting that after

he wakes up at his destination, we're on the bridge of the Voyager completely apart from him after this. And it's Voyager troubleshooting this issue of bringing him home. 10 seconds to haul bridge. He's just out of reach. I love the choice to not keep cutting back to the shuttle that much.

Like he feels so far away and in such danger. When you are stuck on the bridge with them, trying to workshop this problem. And they're trying to beam him out. He's got a like, drop shields. And they work out a way to do it. BLT routes the transporter through the deflector dish or something and they get him.

There's coffee in transport of room two. And Harry's question over the radio is whether Tom Parris is a board because he wants to make sure that this is the right reality that he got back into. Yeah. And he did. I love how he blows off Chico Te. In this moment, like this is a very low-key owning that happens here. Because Chicoote is of a much higher rank and, like, stops Kim to have a conversation and Kim double-middles him on the way to Paris. I've already been brief, Commander.

Welcome back. To tell him how grateful he is. Yeah, Chicoote is like, hey, remember that remember that time back on the day that you stole a bunch of Starfleet runabout technology and got it to us Yeah, it this whole moment confuses Paris in a very end of a TV show kind of way another thing that confused me in this moment was when Janeway Radio down and said boy to the transporter room to As though transporter room too is not aboard the ship. Oh, I didn't detect that. Wow.

Weird line. That's not good. Yeah. The button on the episode is Harry Kim slapping Tom Paris on the shoulder and saying, I owe you one, because I mean, this is such an interesting thing about their characters. Like, Kim will now know that Tom Paris was willing to sacrifice his life for him in a

certain context and Tom Paris will not know that. I mean, he might know it from a story, but like, like Kim lived it. Yeah. like Kim lived it. Yeah, I mean, the invisible button is Harry Kim being back in the voyage or having banged Libby. And now the Delaney Sisters are feeling weird and jealous? Yeah, exactly. It's weird all around now. Yeah.

You can't cheat on the Delaney Sisters? There's too much at stake. I think he's got kind of an open thing with the Delaney Sisters. It's more of like a F and S W B. The Delaney Sisters is like, so what happened on that mission? You're acting all weird.

Kim just jumps back into the Venice canal. Ha ha ha ha ha. That's just move when he doesn't want to answer a question. Yeah, it's like later dooses. Blue shh. Did you like this episode, Ben? You know, I've made a video to get along with most of the time. But I don't like bullets, I don't like red, and I don't like you.

I like this episode a lot. I think that this is a great way for a Voyager story to be told about what was left behind in a very like Star Trek way. And also a great, a great, here you came episode like he is, he's so much moxie, you know, like I think that Some of the episodes that we've seen have kind of felt like they are writing him to be a little bit Wimpy or whatever But he is like he is he is no nonsense. He is like Punching cops and jumping out windows and shit in this episode. I think it really it really makes him seem like a total badass and and super capable to like in another life he could have been an award-winning brilliant engineer

Well been hard hard hard disagree and here's why Harry Kim is And here's why, Harry Kim is presented with an opportunity to ask a all-powerful life form for help returning voyage your home. Like, there are very big questions asked in this episode. One of them when Kim is confronted with with Cosmos, you know, true nature. Like, the opportunity is presented for him to be like, all right, so I'm here and I get it. And like, there may be constraints about me going back to my right timeline.

Yeah. Cool. But like, Voyager is out there, man. Could you do anything about bringing them home? He's not selfless enough. It's interesting. But I think also a Cosimo doesn't seem to like understand what happened well enough. Like, if this is the other problem is that we get so little of Cosimo we don't have an understanding of what his his powers or liabilities are.

And it's the episode is so incurious about Cosmo. Even though the episode itself asks really big questions about how this happened, and maybe the greatest question of all. Maybe the greatest question ever asked in Star Trek is asked in this episode, Ben. When Cosmo and Kim are sitting outside the coffee shop, and Cosmo is trying to make the case of, you know, it's not so bad here. Maybe this is where you should stay. Maybe this is your fate. On Star Trek, that is an incredible question. Because what does anyone know about when and where they should be? I feel like we need more time to live in that question and all the possible answers of it This does feel like it could have been a two

Parter and yeah, and could have really chewed up a lot more of that stuff It breaks the Star Trek rule of making any episode set in San Francisco a two-parter You broke the Star Trek law here, guys. Yeah. But I also do feel like Cosmo seems so, like, so inept in so many ways that, like, I don't know if I would ask Cosmo for, like, favors that involve

flinging people across time and space. It would be so disappointing. Like one of the theories about, the reason we know Earth hasn't been visited by extraterrestrial life is that we wouldn't, we wouldn't even understand their technology. They could move them invisibly and we'd never know it. Yeah, there's all these like videos now on the internet

of like, of like Air Force pilots going, what is that man? What is that? And it's like, wow, why is it like always around Air Force bases that things that are flying in the air that we don't understand happen to be? Could you imagine if the reality was that it was like a Cosimo type person who's like, yeah, man,

like I can barely explain it myself. Kind of a kind of fucked up the day ended up here and I can't really explain it. That's the big reveal to extraterrestrial life is Cosimo. Yeah. What a bummer. The flight of the bad navigator. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So, like, lots of interesting stuff in this episode, but like, part of what makes science fiction fun are all of the questions that it asks, and this episode is full of questions. But it really muddies the water because it moves so quickly through what could be the possible answers. I was ultimately a little unsatisfied with it for that reason. Good writers ask great questions.

Great writers answer great questions. Indeed, great podcasters make fun of those writers for not doing that. Well Adam, do you want to see what we have asked or answered in the priority one in box? Yeah, just like poppin' bobs, we're going to go into the P1 inbox and pop the corks on these messages. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement? A supplement?

A supplement. Yes, extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship! Yeah, how are you doing on that bottle, by the way? I'm like, I'm down to my last class or two. I just poured what I think will be my penultimate glass. I'm pretty, I'm pretty down to the bottom of it as well. It is just an extremely gassy experience.

It's extremely gassy. Ben, our first priority when message is of a promotional nature. And the message goes like this. Unlike miles and kiko, some couples actually like each other. Some even podcast together. Oh! Oh! Oh, you haven't seen what?

We watch movies from the 80s and 90s that our spouse hasn't seen. We often discover that films we grew up with don't always appeal to our partner or even our adult selves. But sometimes we can't believe we missed it. You haven't seen what? A husband and wife podcast where we rectify the wrongs of our spouse missing culturally relevant movies available everywhere. Be kind rewind.

Wow. So, if this was... another great concept for a podcast, mm-hmm right here a concept of which I am jealous But if I did this with my wife it would just be her showing me clueless over and over again and they're going I've seen clueless. I like it. I like clueless a lot and Me me making her watch the first Tim Burton Batman movie over and over again, and her going, you showed this to me the first year we were dating, like every stupid straight guy in the history of dating, forcing his new date to watch some fucking dumb comic book movie with him. I love that you're actually pitching tap out the movie podcast

which is like you just show your partner the same movie over and over again and they show you their movie and one of you's got to tap out. I am sure that the host of oh you haven't seen what? You haven't seen what? You haven't seen what? Check out, you haven't seen what? Wherever you can find podcasts, it sounds like a great idea. It really does. Adam, our second priority on message is of a personal nature, it's from Carly, who is experiencing a birthday,

and it is too, Carly, who is experiencing a birthday and it is too Carly who is celebrating a birthday. Goes like this. Hello Carly, you finally realize no one is buying you a message on any of the podcasts you enjoy. So you bought yourself one. Hell yeah. Also, I'm Matt who is my only friend I can routinely make drunk Shimoda references to. I'm glad you are my friend. I think Carly's great. I think

I think when it's your birthday, you should give yourself some gifts. Take yourself out on a date. Go do your favorite thing. Yeah. Maybe by yourself a priority one message. And also like the like giving a friend a gift on your own birthday move. Real classy move. Like yeah, like Matt got a name check right in there. That's nice. That's nice as hell. Yeah.

Matt, you have a really cool friend. Carly, happy birthday. I hope Carly's having a great birthday. I use you. You don't need anyone else to validate your birthday greatness. Yeah, you did it. Ben our final priority when message is from Cassie it is to Addy. The requested date was Valentine's Day just to be clear. That's a long time ago. Message goes like this is telling the hosts of Greatest Gen about

our engagement before telling my mom a good idea? What my theory presupposes is. Maybe it is? I love you more than Bashir loves piss. Without you, I'd be more devastated than Worf when the barrel came. It's back broken. When the barrel came his back broken I Apologize if I still haven't found your ebook reader Wow happy valentine's day Cassie and Addy I can't I cannot believe that Cassie and Addy withheld the news of their engagement from any of their parents this long. Cassie is really one of us.

I really love Cassie's sense of humor here. I hope everything went well with this engagement. Yeah. And if they're... They might already be married at this point. I know. Like I know it's been it's been a long time since the since since the Valentine's No, thanks for hanging in with us Cassie and Addy. Congratulations and Give us an update Yeah, sure

Well, if you'd like to get a priority one message, head to MaximumFun.org slash jumbo tron. It's a hundred bucks for a personal message and two hundred for a commercial message. And we use the money to buy fancy bottles of champagne that make us super burpy during episodes of the show. Also, makes us pretty funny, though. Yeah. Hey, Adam. What's that, Ben? It also makes us pretty funny though. Hahaha. Yeah.

Hey Adam. What's that been? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? DRAWNCHIMOTA! What are the rules of drunk Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda is the character that's acting in a way you don't quite understand. The chaos agent that's having fun. I mean, the character I don't quite get here. and the chaos agent that's having fun.

I mean, the character I don't quite get here. Honestly, is Libby. On the one hand, I respect that she's in it with Kim and goes all the way as far as like the trust goes. She is confronted with a partner that she cares a lot about going through a thing that she has made to believe because it's Star Trek. She may or may not believe it, but she still acts in his defense in a way

that is noble and good. I don't quite believe that there is enough in the episode to make her actions believable and I think that's what edges her into Shimoda territory like yeah like blocking the window is a great example of this like wow she's gonna be in big trouble for for fucking with Starfleet security you gotta believe that and her defense of herself is not gonna be good you gotta believe that. And her defense of herself is not gonna be good. But I guess her entire timeline is going to be erased once Kim leaves, so it's not going to matter.

So the stakes are kind of wonky too. But up until that moment, I think there is some chaos to her and she is depended upon to make the thing go. Like as chaotic as she is, upon to make the thing go. Like as chaotic as she is, she's also instrumental in moving the story forward. And I think for that reason, she's gonna be my Shimoda. I'm gonna pick the Starfleet security dudes that materialize in their apartment

behind the like screening partitions. Behind the changing partition? Yeah, the thing that I have literally never seen in a real human's house, but there is in every fucking TV show and movie for a sexy lady to go change behind for some reason. Where would you even buy one of these? I don't know. But it's very funny that the cops show up in the apartment behind it. Like they're just like transport us into the room anywhere. So it's just like

a bunch of lattice and some hinges. And for some reason there's like an extremely directional light source behind it so you can see the silhouette of the person doing whatever they're doing behind it. Yeah, yeah, I feel like on earth, you can be so granular with where you're beaming. Yeah, you've got to be able to be so granular, right? Beaming in front of the window. That's the likely escape route. Beam one of the guys standing on top of the bed. You wanna get some triangulation involved.

Get Kim surrounded. Be more than two guys. Beam five guys. Come on. Starfleet security on earth is an inexhaustible resource. They should beam 30 guys into that room. Because what's the difference, Ben? They can just beam back to base right afterwards.

It's not a big deal. They should beam so many guys that Kim can't even move because he's just wedged between guys, you know? A rock concert amount of dustbusters in there. Yeah, and Kim can't go to the back bar for a drink. The fire marshal is not going to show up to complain because you're going to all be mad there soon enough, you know. Honestly, it's an idea so good that if they were to do it in an episode, I think it would break Star Trek because because it makes so much logical sense. This would be the episode, where do you remember that episode where they beam 50 security people

into an apartment in San Francisco because they heard? Hey, listen, I know that the people that write lower decks are cooler and funnier than us, but if on any off chance somebody that writes for lower decks is listening to this, do that, please. I'm going to go one further like if you are a writer for lower decks and you've heard this episode invite us in for a general. Let's just kick it for a while. Spitballing ideas. I think we I think we could do that. Adam and Ben. Take our ideas. Adam and Ben write the worst episode of season three of lower decks and the worst overall

episode of lower decks in one fell stroke. I would love that reputation. Make it so. The jokes really don't hit. What Gach.biz slash game, where we keep the game of buttholes The will of the caretaker, and get ready to roll that bone when I tell you about season two episode six twisted Voyager encounters a mysterious energy field that surrounds the ship and disrupts the crew's communication system. Communications always the first thing that goes. You're required to learn as you play. Roll. Well, Ben, our runabout is pulsing on top of Nielix's face. Why to learn as you play, roll. Well, Ben, our runabout is pulsing on top of Nielix's face. The reason why we're drinking all this champagne right now, I'm feeling great. This is a great decision by us.

I have killed my champagne bottle. I haven't. But a bit in my coop left over. Hey, this was big fun, man. Oh, man. You get some catching up to do like any drinking episode of the show. Fair.

Super fair. Ben, that square is square 92. It is incredible that we're at the top of the board. It was made possible by the caretaker. By the caretaker. Where we rolled a 100-sided die. But I've got a regular 100-sided die. Yeah. But I've got a regular 6-sided job in my hand right now.

Mm-hmm. And that's what I need to roll to tell us what kind of episode will be next. It looks like you could hit that space butthole that goes down to the end degree, which would probably cause a mass exodus of our listeners. Honestly. I'm fine with that. Oh, but unfortunately I rolled a four. Shula! Did I win?

It means we're on Square 96 and a regular old episode, sadly, without sparkling wine. Because I feel like it really improved our ability to do show today. It's a real vibe. That puts us in a... It's a real gassy vibe. You need in a dangerous proximity to that Mornhammer episode. Oh, you're not kidding.

I'm like behind the pod, you are going out of town for like a week and a half Right after we record this so I'm I'm glad that I'll have some time to recover from these bubble wines before any more enamored situation happens Yeah, I'm about to go back to Seattle for the first time since the pandemic. It's been over a year since I've been Back up there, so man. I hope you have a great time. I hope you visit all your favorite spots. I have only been back to New York like two times since I moved from there and it breaks my heart. It's a place I really, really miss.

Hey, man. Can and survived by the way. It's reopening. So just know that that's going to be there waiting for us. When they're ready to go back. Can I fly up for one crazy night? Absolutely. Do it.

Oh, man. You know what? We should actually make that happen. That would be super fun. Is that an expert Shimoda approved expense, the delta ticket that would get me up there. Let's see how our meeting with our business manager goes tomorrow and then I have a feeling that's going to work out just fine.

Okay. Great. Well, thanks to everyone that keeps us going. You're talking about the Friends of Disodo. The Friends of Disodo and especially the ones that go to MaximumFun.org slash join and set up on monthly membership or the ones that recommend the show to a friend or loved one or co-worker, you know, spreading the word really keeps us going and we really, really appreciate it. It's the thing that makes the show happen. It does. We can't do it without that kind

of support and we've just really appreciated it. You know what else we appreciate, Adam? It's the amazing music custom made for this show by Adam with Gusea, the YouTube chef extraordinaire who also occasionally slums it with the greatest generation, makes a weird music thing for us. He's really one of the best friends of DeSoto. He's done so much for us over the years. He's been a great friend.

He's made some great music for us. He makes us funnier with this work. Yeah, we don't deserve him. We also don't deserve dark material, who made the Picard song, the original theme song of this show, and we also don't deserve Bill Tally, our social media manager, who is running the accounts at greatest track on Instagram, Twitter, and modding the comments on Twitch when we do our Twitch live streams.

Yeah, meet a friend of the Soto today. Do it! In one of the many places you can do so. They're all over the place. They are. You can find them on Facebook and the greatest gen groups or in the many, many splinter factions that are dedicated to like cooking and parenting and working out and being gay and doing all kinds of awesome shit

all of the friends of DeSoto groups on Facebook rule as do the DrunkShemoto.com Discord group and the groups on Reddit and the people who use the hashtag raise channel. Twitter, just a bunch of fun awesome people. Hey, speaking of Jim Shimoda with a G. Yeah. If you want to go ride bikes with me, there are like a hundred hashtag Jim Shimoda Peloton writers. And it seems like every time I get on the video bike, there is someone with a Jim Shimoda hashtag in there.

Yeah, that's awesome. Ride in the bike, it's super fun. It's been one of the things to keep me sane during the pandemic. If you ride Peloton, add the hashtag Jim Shimoda to your profile and let's go riding sometime. That sounds cool, it's hell. I got a I got a I got to save up my money so I can get a space bike with you guys. Look if you're lucky enough to get through the pandemic Just joining one cult

Peloton is good. Okay, that's what I'll say. I have three or four and they're kind of taxing me financially right now. So... I mean, I'm not saying Peloton won't tax you financially, but... You're getting something back. And it's not just brunch on a nice patio. I went to... I was at a wedding once, and the CEO of Peloton was at it also. He's even nice enough, but his mom was really nice. Oh she was a proud a proud mama. I'm sure you're great with moms. Oh I'm also great with moms. Yeah. You and

I. Moms love us. We crush it with with mums. Well with that we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek Voyager and another episode of the greatest generation Voyager that Adam and Ben are fighting again. It's that we can't communicate with each other. We're just kind of missing each other, you know? You know, like the bad episodes of Greatest Gen, or we're not just quite hitting it comedically. It's like that.

Yeah, like I like bring a premise and Adam kind of instead of like yes-ending it just kind of shuts it down. So like a lot of episodes of Greatest Gen. And then Adam says something really funny and then I'm like really hurt about that premise from earlier and I'm like not really giving it back the way he deserves. Yeah that's it. Sometimes Greatest Jan B like that.

So that's gonna be kind of the 5 next week. So me and him, tune in if you want. Yeah, I might need another bottle of sparkly wine for that one. Yeah, why don't we do this every time? This is great. Every time. Yeah, why don't we do this every time this is great every time Maximumfund.org comedy and culture artist don't audience supported You'll be got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got