The Greatest Generation - It's Why You Join Starfleet (S4E15)

Episode Date: November 28, 2016

When Commander Riker gets injured on a first contact mission, his alien doctors examine all kinds of appendages they aren't familiar with. But while making sure he recovers as fully as possible, the leaders of the planet must decide if they want to enter an exciting, spacefaring future, or stay in the cold, microwave-less past. What is an "Implied Riker"? How many writing credits does it take to break a script? Does Riker "first contact and tell"? It's the first episode back from our tour and we have SO much to catch up on!

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 a Star Trek podcast by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm your host Adam Pranicka.

I am your other who's Ben Harrison. Ben we've returned from our first tour conquering heroes. Yeah, that was really fun. Kind of a lot has happened. Yeah. Since the last time we recorded the tour, the election, a town of ship. Yeah, everything you've heard up until now was recorded before the end of the world.

So we had no idea that we were sending messages into a bleak hellscape known as fascism America. We're also both equally distressed. Yeah. into a bleak hellscape known as fascism America. We're also both equally distressed. Yeah. I'm just unable to articulate mine. It was still. It was definitely a different tour than I envisioned before the election because I thought

it would just be like another time. And I don't think that I'm going far out on a limb It would just be like another time and I Don't think that I'm going far out on a limb when I say that like a huge majority of the people in our viewership Have been feeling very distressed and despondent. We've gotten a lot of emails from people Saying that they appreciated having something as dumb and non-election oriented as our show to to kind of escape into around that time and didn't feel like the most natural thing to be going and like filling a room up with people and doing our jokes for them. But people really came through and it wound up being a totally joyful handful of days. Like we had three great podcast shows, and then we had an awesome fundraising event with

Sirus Farivar for the National Center for Science Education, which now feels more urgent than ever. And I think we raised like a few hundred bucks for them, which is great. And that was, you know, money that our viewers gave out of the kindness of their hearts. Really thankful that people came out the way they did. I was really excited at the reception. Yeah. It was very grateful to the venues that hosted us against their own instincts. Many of them. Yeah. When our shows had ended and we had sold out all of them on weeknights, they were like, we had no idea what you guys were going to be about and we're on a Tuesday night selling hundreds of dollars in alcohol.

Like, thank you. They seemed just a little bit blown away by the whole thing. About as blown away as we were by how great things went. So thank you for coming out and seeing us and Yeah. And for being so nice in meeting us. That was a real big deal. Yeah, it really felt like the hassle of going on the tour was was worth it when we got to finally meet some of our viewers and and they're just all such lovely people and you know, really funny and touching and harrowing stories to us about like their relationship with the show.

And I think that like one of the things that Adam and I have both felt really grateful for is how much the people that listen to this show have kind of insisted upon forming a community around it. You know, we haven't done nearly as much work as we probably could have in fostering that, but people just did it anyways. And seeing that come alive at the shows was so cool. And I don't think I am speaking out of school at them.

When I say, I think we are, the bug has bit us, and we are going to do more of those. So if we didn't come to your town, or if you couldn't get tickets this time, for sure, we will be back. It was a great experience all around, both personally and professionally. So I can't wait to get back out there and see you. Hooray! Do you want to get back to Dick, Fart, and Trump jokes?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do some pod. It's season four, episode 15, Ben, it's the halfway point in the series. First contact. This is becoming a speech. The cat comes to very tightly. A little type that ramble on about something everyone knows.

Halfway point and potentially the high water mark. So this episode has like one of the great cold opens, which is a kind of an implied riker initially, getting pushed around in a hospital. And you never like look at his face for the first few beats and he's a patient in a hospital that looks not terribly dissimilar from the kind of hospital that we are familiar with in our time. And yet the people that are working there are alien people and they have a little bit of loaf and they got lobster hands.

And one of the first things they notice is that Raker does not have lobster hands and this really fucking floors them. Like they are shocked when they get a load of what his hands look like. It's interesting to me how contemporary this cold open is because I think I just sort of take this open for granted. Like this is a Grey's Anatomy open. Grey's Anatomy and hospital shows like it open their

episodes with this 99 times out of 100 and this is the first time we get a Star Trek version of it, you know? Like, yeah. And it could, it might as well be in a foreign language just like hospital speakers. Like get this guy 40 CCs of Dürper Dürper, and like bring those paddles over here, we gotta save him, like it's sci-fi'd up a little bit, but this is what we know from contemporary television. You know, my aunt was in the hospital one time and they put her on some Dürper Dürper,

and she developed a fairly crippling dependency at him. Not funny to joke around about duped, duped, duped, in my opinion. I think opioid addiction, like people's addictions to duped, duped, or it's not anything to joke about, Ben. Yeah, that's a hot potato. So the riker squint to credits is them pulling a mitten off of his hand and looking at all of his fingers. What are you?

While holding his hand in their crazy lobster claws and... Doctor, this man has dick fingers. It's sort of Twilight Don'ty two, right? Like there's a Twilight Don't episode where... Sure, yeah, the Piggy's. Yeah, this is Piggy hands. Yeah, speaking of beauty Adam, I can't help but notice you got a haircut since our tour. That was almost the first thing I did when I came home. Because let me tell you, nothing pokes a hole in your own sense of vanity, like seeing pictures of yourself on stage, a month and a half late on a haircut. I basically went from the airport to the barber's chair.

Dr. We've got to cut this man's hair, Stan. Get the Derpy Derpy Derpy Derpy. We see as part of the credit sequence a full page of credited writers been. I don't know if you noticed this or who buy you. I think when you get a phone book of writers on an episode, my hopes were immediately grounded for what was to come. That is a level setting move. I knew this in the past, but this looking at these writing credits made me look it back up because I wanted to be sure I remembered how it went. If you see an ampersand in between the names of two writers, that means they are part of a team. So a writing team gets like, is considered a single credit.

And then if you see the word and in between two writers' names, that's when it was a different draft or a different part of the process. So there are six writers' credits, and there are three ampersand and two ands. So I guess it was three different teams of writers touched this script at one point or another, just pretty wild. I think this is the most. It has to be the most because I don't remember an entire scene being covered with credits before the way it was here. Yeah, it's a little jar, but like, I mean,

there's definitely some weird writing in this episode, but I think that like, it's one of the most unique episodes and that's not necessarily what you would assume based on seeing a ton of credits. Like, they, you know, they got some script that was crazy and interesting, but they had to kind of put it back into the vernacular of the show with a rewrite.

That's not how this feels. It feels like an episode that's kind of from the perspective of the aliens, which is not the... Not the way it normally goes, you know? To me, I think what you've touched on is one of the themes of this season. It's like the changing perspectives of what we're getting episode to episode like seeing this crew and this world through the eyes of an alien seems slightly related to seeing the world through the eyes of data for example or seeing the world through the eyes of O'Brien and Keko. Like I think we're just sort of taking a tour of the universe at this point in the series and it's been pretty interesting. Absolutely.

So Riker is on this Delta Comfort Plus bed and the Dark Gats- We got to sew his fingers back together. Yeah, they keep coming in and going like, hey, like your loaf is fake and ours is real. What's up with that? And he's like, oh, I have a gruesome birth defect and I had it corrected cosmetically. And they're like, what's up with your, what's up with no lobster claws? And he said, yeah, that's, that's weird, right right? Well anyways, I'm from really far away and my doctor, Dr. Crusher, probably shouldn't have said that. Anyways, she's gonna be real hard to reach.

So I'll just be going and you guys don't worry, you're pretty little heads about what a strange being I appear to be because all of my internal organs are different from yours and all of my external manifestations of being an alien are either fake or missing. So I'll just be on my way and they're like, hey, what's this dustbuster? He's like, oh yeah, that's for a kid. Not my kid, I don't have a kid, but for a neighbor's kid.

I thought Riker would be better at lying than this. He's a poker player, Adam. Yeah. I mean, he does not hold up to interrogation as well as I had hoped. Yeah. He's like looking around the room for his hologram sunglasses and baseball cap that he would normally wear in competitive poker. Can't find him. So all of his tales just bleed through. So the B story line is where we do some world building here. We cut to what we come to know is

a chancellor's office and he's having a conversation with his associates, and they're talking about space travel. And this lead scientist is like, you guys are not gonna believe how close we are to space travel right now. Like, this is going to be amazing. We've completed our beta testing. We're gonna go to space soon, so buckle up. Like, it's happening. We are 10 months out from full warp capability.

Yeah, and they're not universally pumped about this. Like, Chancellor Durkins, like, well, that's interesting, but there's gonna be consequences because we have a world made up of both traditionalists, like the robairs of the world. And then we've got, we've got exciting science type people who are super stoked for this. Yeah.

So Chancellor Durkin plays the middle, but there's very clearly like two halves of the argument that are also in the room. The scientist, Marastra, is pro space. She's ready to get it on. If I get your approval today. And this other guy, Krola is the guy who's the traditionalist.

But perhaps we're moving too fast. He says, fuck space. We've got people on this world to want things the way they were. Yeah. We don't need any of your microwave ovens or your cable televisions up in here. Surprised me because Krola seemed like such a hipster. Like he had that hipster mustache,

he had the snapchat glasses. Like he had great glasses. He's just he's snapping away. You got to check out his snaps. Krola seemed really familiar to me and I put together that you remember in the movie Ghostbusters? That first Ghostbusting mission when they go to the hotel and that fucking asshole That's the man. I had no idea to be so much. I wouldn't pay it. That's the guy. Yeah, that's Krola. And so that's the tension. It's it's past versus future tension, right?

Yeah, and and we get a couple of story beats about the the people that live on Melcore 3 We get a couple of story beats about the people that live on Melcore III. That's about how they kind of think of themselves as the apex of evolution and the, you know, they're the supreme beings of the universe and their planet is in the center of the universe. I thought it was funny that they called their planet Melcore III if it's the number one planet. Shouldn't they have had a better name than that? We start counting the planets from the third. And then as soon as we get to the outermost planet,

we start over from nearest to the sun. Listen, we don't have a lot of digits on our hands, so our counting is really fucked up. Would you only have three digits on your hands? Three is the most important thing to do. We're going to have to count the other planets We don't have a lot of digits on our hands, so our counting is really fucked up. Would you only have three digits on your hands? Three is the best number.

Yeah, yeah, I never thought of it that way, but I think that must be what happened. Oh, man. So Marasta, the science lady, who is, you know, the one advocating for more space exploration is back in her office when Picard and Troy just kind of materialize in front of her and they're like, hey! So you know how you're like really interested in space? Guess where we just came from To her credit she really holds it together. Yeah, like they are dropping bangers on her like this is some fucking shit that they're

Explaining there we've come with some very important information. About what? About space. About the universe you're preparing to enter. And she's like, oh, word, like that's amazing. I really agree with Picard and Troy's decision to visit her at work. Cause man, if you do this at home,

like you might get shot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't know if this is an open carry plan or anything. Yeah. And yeah, she's like very receptive. Like they're like, hey, we can actually prove that we're from space if you're willing to go on a little ride with us. And she's like, all right, I'm game.

Picard does a little porn movie pause here that I thought was really fun. He's like, as you can see, we're physically quite different from our audience. Part does a little porn movie pause here that I thought was really fun. He's like, They don't ask her though either, right? They just say, we have ways to show you and then they fucking beamer up. So yeah, they go to the ship and she's like, this is great. They, I think, I feel like Picard was like,

hey, can we get like a blue guy to hang out and 10 forward for this? Because it would be great if there was somebody blue for her to like, you know, get a load of when she comes in. And that. The scene was great because Picard goes in and scouts it first. Why does he do that?

Just wanted to make sure that there was a blue in there. What else could he have been looking for? I don't know. What's the worst scenario he could walk into? That would be a cause for, well maybe we'll come back here some other time. It's probably a fist fight, right? We have seen a bar fight break out in 10-4 before. Given the frequency with which like mind control and other

terrible things before all this ship Picard's been away for 10 minutes he could be coming back to anything you know. Marista's like they have fist fights just like us except it's more beautiful up here. They basically lay this conundrum on her. And the conundrum is this. They would like to keep their first contact going smoothly, but because Raker is missing, they are in a tight spot. And they want to see if they can get some kind of, some chill people, high up in the ranks of power that are like,

down to kinda keep the secret and like, help them roll this out in a slow way, but nonetheless, you know, get their man back and make sure that Riker isn't, you know, killed or the secret isn't blown too early. Cause they're talking a lot about how like first contact is the most intense kind of mission that a Federation Starship can go on. And you know, there's fuck-ups all the time, but like they have done a lot of research and they even have like surface recon teams and that's what Riker was there for. So they're trying to like get a sense of this species before they lift up their kimono.

When you're on a mission of consent, there's only one man that you send down to the planet service, and that's one will Riker. Yeah, he's gonna get it. And at this point, Riker's condition is still in question, like he's been seriously injured in some sort of riot. Yeah. They're patching him back together, but these doctors have some questions, and they will just not shut up about these questions.

Yeah. And there's kind of like a similar vibe at the hospital. There's like a handful of doctors, and one of them is definitely like, this guy's an alien. I swear to God, He's a fucking alien And we got to do something about it and another is like hey like he may or may not be man But he's like our patient and like we got to take care of him That's like the first thing and then we'll figure out what to do and so they keep you know coming in and pressing him with questions and you know things are getting tense for him there

in the medical ward. And it's pretty clear at this point that Chancellor Durkin and Marasta don't know where Riker is or what has befallen him. And it seems a little bit like the doctors in this hospital are, it's like up to them to decide what to do about this situation. That seemed really interesting to me.

They didn't see the need to elevate this any higher than at the hospital level. Yeah, you think that they would at least call the CDC or something like that. Yeah, they saw fit to just keep them around and do medicine on him. Yeah. I mean, the story is pretty transparentlyarently like the Melchorians are us.

Yeah. And when I try to transpose these story beats into our own world, I'm like, well, if an alien were ever to be admitted to Cedar Sinai, like the government is going to know about it almost immediately. Yeah, there's going to be a lot of guys in white hazmat suits holding radios Suspiciously in a weapon-like way. Yeah, and they never give riker that treatment. Yeah, it's you know like at some point he's like attempting to make an escape and

And BB new earth walks in Everybody I'd like to meet my date Dr.. Lilith Sternin, MD, PhD, EDD, APA. And she's like, I love all the costumes in this hospital. They're all in like helmet laying, Dr. costumes, and her's just like by far the like most runway-ish of all of them. But it turns out she's got a kink and her kink is... I've always wanted to make love with an alien. And when he's like...

It's not that easy, there are differences in the way that my people make love. And she's like... I can't wait to learn. She's like, I've got an armpit. Baby Newworth fucking destroys this scene. She is so great. Yeah, it's really fun. And she is playing acting chess to everyone else's checkers.

I thought it was fun too because, you know, like, like, this is kind of goes a little deeper down the rabbit hole of Rikers fetish being consent. It's not just consent, it's like informed consent, you know. He doesn't want her to like sign up for something that she doesn't fully understand. So he like sets her expectations before he is willing to get down with her. But then he definitely fucks her. Like they definitely bang. I definitely relate to the idea of setting the expectations low. Like maybe even exactly the way that Riker does it here. Rikers like, well I don't

know how any of your parts work and I've never seen them before and I don't know if mine are gonna work with them. I feel like I said that very early on in my own sexual experience almost exactly. Yeah. So yeah, good job, I you, Riker. Yeah, I mean, it's a good job by him. Unfortunately for you, you don't have the genius level skill that a man who's let his imagination run wild on the holodeck who would have, but they could have gone full camp after this too.

Like, she does that thing that we've seen people do to distract security people before, which is like, she walks out in the hallway and is like, what is that over there? Is that the good year blimp? Yeah. And then Riker runs the other way. But she does not come out of the six bay with her hair tassled and her lipstick smeared. Yeah, she definitely gets her pants on backwards. Yeah, like she is very put together, which I think leads us to believe

that there was a beach involved, right? Just like a spit or swallow type of situation. Oh God, gross, Ben. Ben. My love is your people, loving you, my bad, which long enough to let me see. Tell me more, you're not the boy, yeah. So Reika runs out of the room and proceeds to just get his ass kicked.

Yeah, they really do not. They pay a lot of him in a hurry. They do not like the idea of him walking out of this hospital without their permission and they really beat the shit out of him. It's not like he was 100% to begin with. Like they kick him in the ribs a few times. Ribs that are pretty tender. Yeah. And he almost did.

So that's when Krola reveals to Chancellor Durkin, like, hey, we got one of these aliens. Like we got some leverage now. Now we can really like, you know, protect ourselves from these interlopers. Because the whole thing with the Maelchorians is that they're worried about the kind of colonist effect, you know. Like they don't want to be the Native Americans to the to the European settlers. They don't want. The enterprise to be the harbinger of their collapse as a civilization.

So yeah, and Krull is concerned are far less about tradition and far more about like extermination at this point. Right, and to his credit, like he's found like some evidence, like they definitely were like covertly spying on their culture and also Riker brought a dustbuster and he's like, why did you bring this fucking dustbuster?

If you're such a peaceful species, like what's that about? And so Picard is stuck kind of like debating all of these points with Derrick and he's like, just like let us fucking have our guy. He doesn't doesn't pose a threat to you like if you guys want us to go after this we totally will like we we just wanted to get to know you guys that was our entire motivation and we fucked this up we're gonna cop to that but you gotta do the right thing here and Dirk and is having a very hard time getting to that point. This actually does a lot to help their relationship. Durkin seems pretty impressed that Picard is willing to cop to making a mistake. Yeah.

He's like, he's like, you know, for all of your technological advances, like you're still, you're still fallible. Yeah. And that, that actually makes you far less threatening to me in a way that you were a moment to go. I think that Durkin is one of the weirdest characters because he's both a super moral and fairly wise leader, but he also has this security chief who is maybe a little bit more keyed up and hyper vigilant than, for example, Worf, but he is so condescending to the guy at the same time. Any time Krulla raises a concern, Dirkin does the same thing that Picard always does, which is like, all right, dude, sure it's a really big threat, ignore, ignore, ignore. And that's gotta be so frustrating if you're crawling, right?

Yeah, and it finally like pushes him to the edge, right? He's like, if the chancellor is really gonna entertain the idea of accepting these future space people here and it's gonna fuck up the whole world. Like, guess what, I'm ready to murder myself. So we rolls into Rikers 6-Bey room and it's like ready to interrogate. He tells the other doctors in there, wake him up.

I don't care how dangerous it is. Sticking with the syringe. Yeah. I want to ask you a bunch of questions. I want to have them answered immediately. Yeah. The doctor's like, fuck that. I'm the sort of doctor that believes and do know harm.

You're going to have to find someone else. Corolla does that pretty quickly. And then they wake him up. And then they leave Corolla alone with Riker, which didn't make a lot of sense at the time but it advances the story. Corolla finally gets to a point where he's like, look, mister. I don't really care for your answers right now.

Like you're being pretty honest, which is great, but check it out. I'm going to make you kill me and that's going to ruin any chance there is of there being any sort of relationship between our people. So he's basically gotten to the point where Riker, like he believes Riker saying that we're here on peaceful business and we are just trying to get to know you guys. And Krola is like, doesn't matter. If you guys get to be, well, if the public is made aware of your existence, my society ceases to exist as I know it.

And I can't allow that to happen. In fact, I'm willing to die for it. It never mattered what he said. Yeah. So Krola puts the dust buster in Reikers hand and puts his hands around Reikers hands and shoots himself with the dust buster. Yeah. And Reikers too weak to fight it off. He's barely there to begin with. Yeah. And I guess it's because the phaser goes off that the enterprise is able to establish a location for Riker.

Yeah, that moment is never established. I feel like it's gotta be it. Because they can detect phaser fire on the serviceable planet. So they've gotta be like, okay, that's something that's not supposed to happen. Where did it happen? What's being...

Either that or what happened in the Chancellor's McLaughlin group. If you want. Somehow, like, the end of that conversation pointed to Rikers' whereabouts, but we don't ever see it and don't ever know for sure. Yeah. Well, anyways, the team that beams down

is Wurf and Beverly and another doctor. And they beam up with Crolah and Riker and Picard's like cool I'll meet you guys back on the ship. So the episode gets wrapped up in the following way. Durkin is like leaning over Crolah's bio bed in 6 Bay and Crolah opens his eyes and he's like what the fuck I'm not supposed to be here Is this is this heaven and he's like no you sat yourself on stun you dope like You do not know what you're doing and

Despite that like you win you've proved your point that we are way too irrational as a species to accommodate the existence of other intelligent beings in the universe. And so, Durkin and Rikers, like obviously fine, they're like, oh man, moments later and he would have been dead, but we got him. And so Picard and Durkin and Maranastica go back to the ready room. And Durkin's like, well, I've learned a lot and I'm really glad I got to know you, but I just don't think my society is ready. And as it's elected leader, that's my call to make. So I'm suspending all of our space research and we're going to blow all of the resources that we would have been spending on that into education and cultural development so that we can get our people ready for the idea of not being the hottest turd in the galaxy.

And Maraas is pretty devastated by this. She totally disagrees with the call he makes. And so her solution to having whether or not to go back to this planet and know that the enterprise and the Federation exists, but not be able to tell anybody is like, just take me with you. Like, I don't want to go back to Melcore 3 and just like live the rest of my life with this secret that's going to drive me fucking crazy. And so Picard is like, cool, yeah, we'll get you a room. We have a huge ship This moment felt very true to me like It feels like the choice that I would make you can't go back to you. You're normal life after this. Yeah

You've seen ten forward. Mm-hmm. You've seen the blue guy at the bar. That does seem chill. I want to hang with him. You've seen how a replicator and a transporter work. You can't just un-unsee that. Yeah. And I thought it was a pretty humane decision of Picard. I think if he's following the rule of the law, I think instinctually he'd be like, sorry, you know what, it's all or nothing. It's either your entire planet or no one. But I thought it was a real humane choice not to ruin this poor woman's life by giving her a glimpse of this awesome future and then taking it away. Yeah, absolutely.

But that would have been cruel. I thought it would have been cool to make Burrasta like a repeat character even. Like she's presumably just going to live on the Enterprise now. And to have her, you know, come back up from time to time, I thought it would be cool. Because it's really interesting to see the ship through the eyes of somebody who is just kind of on the verge of being able to imagine it. Like, I feel like this episode has a lot of parallels with the Mentacans episode when they give when they give a lot of the tour of the ship. But like, in that episode, it's somebody who's so primitive

that it's very hard to put yourself in their shoes, talking to somebody who's so advanced that it's very hard to put yourself in their shoes. And this is like, somebody who is basically one of us getting to take a peak at 24th century life. And that's a really fun thing to imagine at least for me. Right up to the point where the chancellor chooses the past versus the future.

Like there was a very definite ache to that moment for me because that felt contemporary too. Yeah, contemporary to our times. We're gonna make Melcore 3 great again. Yeah, and you know what? Like dumping a bunch of funding and education and social development sounds Sounds like that sounds like science fiction to me. But pretty interesting timing on this episode for sure.

Ben, did this feel like a Roswell story to you also in that, like, this sort of seemed like a retelling of that moment. Like, alien crash lands gets injured, gets taken to some secret base. You know, like all of the paranoia that plays out. Absolutely. I mean, this almost has like an alien autopsy in it. Yeah. And I think that it is... And you better get your biggest scalples if you want a Y-incision Writers' Dick. You can have to change Blades Halfway through. Yeah, yeah, it's gonna wear out. I mean, that thing is rock hard.

Just choose that surgical steel right up. What's that cloth partition that they use for like pregnant ladies? Is there anything of a name? I don't think so. Yeah. They're gonna need a lot of those, Ben. I thought it was an interesting choice

to make these an alien, a type of alien that's got like pretty minimal head loaf. Like the main differences that they have lobster claws. And... Why is that the default? I don't know. I mean, I just think that like they had to make these people look super human, you know?

They had to look like people and not like aliens so that their concerns were relatable. You know, I think that when we flip it around and we have a Roswell story, the alien is always super alien and gross. And you know, like we don't sympathize with that creature as much in that. If it's a planet of fecklers.

Right, yeah, exactly. I am a cute, yeah, exactly. Did you like this episode, Ben? I really did. I think it might be in my top five. Whoa. How about yourself? I like to, too, but I don't love it enough to place it on my mountain, you know. I don't love it enough to place it on my mountain, you know. But I did like it quite a bit and I felt its themes were appropriate. So for that reason and a few others, I thought it was fun.

I just think it's terrific. It totally overcame the writing by committee problem. And... Boy, what a setup that was. This really exceeded those expectations, that's for sure. Yeah. Well, that is all about that episode. How do we usually transition out of this part of the show?

We hit the button next to the blinking light that says we have a priority one message. Oh yeah, we got to find out if that light is true or just like the check engine light in the Mercury Mountain Eerie I recently inherited, which is always on. Congratulations. I need a supplement on that. Yes, extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship.

First and only priority one message is from your devoted and loving husk. And it is for my pressur- It is for my pretheth pun. It is for my precious prun, which is not as easy to pronounce as you might think. That's a tongue twister. It goes like this. This message is from Bruce. To his beloved and precious wife, mother of his children, and love of his life, Chanda Russell.

Could be Chanda. We're getting another Kirsten Kirsten thing going on here. It will surely be surprising to be listening to the greatest generation with a husk, and hear your name. I'm happy to support an excellent podcast with the added benefit of giving an unexpected gesture of love to my woman, Chand. Is it possible that husk is a, uh, an abbrevi for Hussnack? Let me show you something, Ben.

Oh, Kevin, don't say my name. It's so creepy. If there's one thing that is most certainly not precious to me, it is the Hoosnac. But, Kevin, I thought you kind of regretted what you did to them. Wasn't that the whole thing that you were kind of... You felt really bad about the whole, the way it went down with the Hoosnac? There is no punishment to fit my crame. So but you've moved on from Rashan and now you're hanging out with Chan.

Is that how it goes? I prefer my real doors to sound very similar in name. That way when I scream them out they don't become offended if I confuse them. I feel like I changed the premise of the bit on you like midstream and I feel bad about that Kevin. You're making this comedically difficult for me. You know what happens when I become angry. Yeah, yeah. And in part of they call this pimping and I could see why it would make you angry. I wish to now destroy all improve

Everywhere A thousand yeshans screaming out in terror before going quiet I'm getting out of this bit. I'm walking away Ben this bit. I'm walking away, Ben. Our thanks to Bruce the Hun and his precious wife, Chanda, thank you for your message of love that we could then pervert with one of our favorite impressions. If you would like to send a message to your precious prun if you are a loving husk or with or anyone else be sure to go to MaximumFun.org slash Jumbo Tron you can fill out a handy form there that we will then read on the air personal messages are a hundred dollars two hundred dollars for a business-like message and it helps us

Produce our show twice weekly, which you're does Thanks, thanks guys and on to the rest of the show. What do you say? Hey, Ben. What's that Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda! I did. There's one scene in this episode that really makes me laugh. And it's, so my drunk Shimoda is Riker. And the scene is when he is about to, it's like right before BB comes in.

And Riker has like found a high window in his room. It's probably four and a half or five feet off the ground. And he picks up a heavy-ass bench that's sitting in front of it and it's about to chuck it through the window when she comes in and she's like, that's a terrible idea. And it cuts back to him and he is setting the bench down and doing nothing to see here, I was doing curls with that bench and not trying to throw a throw window. Though he tries to play off like this hilariously physical action is so funny.

It looks like the bench is too big for the window, right? Right, there's so many things about it that are incongruent and hilarious. And it's like, you know, seeing somebody slip on a banana peel and try to act like they didn't almost take a dive. And it's a beloved Star Trek moment for me. Dr. Lilith is like, why don't you try fucking your way out of this problem instead? I don't know why. why don't you try fucking your way out of this problem instead? I don't know why. I'm listening.

Why does no one station a security person inside a person's hospital room? We see this over and over again in TV and movies. Yeah. The security is always outside. Like, why are they all hung up on privacy in hospital rooms instead of security? Right. Makes no sense. This is an alien. Who cares? But rules are out the window. My Shimoda is occurs during the same scene. I mean, it's Lynelle the horny social worker. Like I just loved her whole deal. We never know why she's there,

what she's actually doing. This should be the most secure room in the world to them. And she just wanders in there with a clipboard ready to fuck. Yeah. And the scene just felt fun and light and and rikers, slide whistle, look on his face. You know, when he, when he knows he's gonna have to flick his way out of the room, like, I feel like it's why you join Starfleet is this mission. They in this moment, right?

They have to be a little bit judicious with how many times they do a scene like this in the show. Yeah. And like this, like it is so on the nose and yet so funny and well executed that it's like, I can't complain at all, you know? Yeah, it's real curky, but it's not, it's not ham and cheese curk. Yeah. It's real great.

That's great. It's as subtle as exchanging sex for freedom and possibly beyond the show. Boners for hostages. Yeah, that's the Peter North, not the Oliver North. Trial right there. Oh boy. 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. We've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's GreatestGenTour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris and I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense.

We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Could I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Camille Nangeani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use.

Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, Russ. Hey, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line.

These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line and boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short nacks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this all. We've got to get on the art. It is about terrain, about a spout to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. We're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, I know we look like humans, but we're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Carrie? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that.

And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came to by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on maximumfun.org. ["The Next Episode"] ["Domokrygich Angela, Henna, Denager, Henna, Denager, Henna, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager,ager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager, Denager Enterprise becomes surrogate mother to a huge alien creature. After Picard is forced to destroy its real mother. Do you remember this episode, Adam? That sounds pretty tragic.

Yeah. Is this the one that that one Riker video uses? The Gazora YouTube video for a show that was never produced just called Riker? No, I haven't seen that. This is the one episode. Wow. There's a fun video online by YouTube user,

Gazora, GAZO, R-A. And it's a fun little fake television show, including an opening and a conclusion. And the only thing that happens in the episode is a giant alien gets born with Riker's face. So I'm almost positive this is that episode. But either way we've got to watch it. Yeah we do, we don't have any more fitos.

I don't know if I remember this one especially with all of you there. I feel like I was thinking it was Tin Man or... I'm sorry what? Tin Man or... I'm sorry, what? Tin Man. Well, all right. Yeah. And then I was like confusing it with the giant space aliens

from the first episode of this series. My memory is cloudy. But I'm sure it'll snap right back into place. Well, one thing that feels like giving birth twice a week is editing and releasing the show has been. And one of the ways that I guess you could call it the monetary epidural that helps ease that effort is all of our viewers going to maximumfund.org slash donate and supporting that birthing process.

Hmm, sounds like you've been caught midwife. Uh, another way they can support us is by going to maxfundstore.com. We now have a second shirt in the Max Fun Store. The long awaited long overdue, drunk Shimoda shirt is available. And big thanks to our pal, Sean Cologne, for sending us a design for that. Sean directed that documentary about fat records that we did a priority one message for. And he's a big supporter. And sent us a, he's just kind of unbidden. Sent us in a design for the Dr. Shromoto shirt.

And we liked it enough that we were like, yeah, let's send it along to Pataco. Get that shit printed up. I like how we're doing that. Like, I like it when viewers send in T-shirt ideas. I really liked that we designed our tour poster using Ian at Illustration. Like, I like keeping it in the family like that.

So, if you have more T-shirt or merch ideas, send them our way using the email address, drunkshamo.itgmail.com. Yeah, see what we can do. I also asked the folks about getting drunkshamotat paint glasses printed up and they're cautiously interested, but they want to make sure that the shirt sell well. So if you want to see that happen, you know what to do. That might be a piece of our own merch that I would actually purchase.

Yeah, I need more of those. So, you should follow Adam on Twitter at Cut for Time or me at BenjaminR, EWHR and use the hashtag GreatestGen to joke around about the show. There's always lots of that going on. We also have a subreddit uh greatestjinn.reddit.com and there is a lively Facebook group as well both of those recently crossed the thousand member mark which is crazy and awesome it's a lot of crazy people a lot of awesome people we made a lot of awesome people on our tour yeah thank you everybody that came out and got a poster or a t-shirt that was just so much fun. And, you know, we really had no idea what we were in for. And we felt great about it and I hope everybody that came out felt as great as they made us feel.

And we will definitely be doing some more live stuff. Hopefully 2017 has another tour in store in addition to greatest GenCon. That tour financially crippled us Ben. We gave away three signed acres. So when you're $3,000 underwater like that, that's gonna be hard to recover from. But touring more will help. I'm sure, and I can't wait to run it on down the East Coast. Yep. The South, the Midwest, New Zealand.

Where else can we go? We've got listeners everywhere. Scotland. I feel like Ireland and Scotland? We've got listeners everywhere. Scotland. I feel like Ireland and Scotland. We've got a lot of viewers. Maybe the London, but that's an expensive town.

Well, we are going to sell out a giant theater there. It's going to be great. Yeah. Maybe we'll get invited to one of those podfests or something. That would be great. Well, it would be hard for us to turn something like that down. Point being, now that we've started, we can't be stopped. Thanks to you guys.

Yeah, thank you everybody and with that we will be back at you next time or with another great episode of Star Trek, the next generation, and a midwifery-oriented episode of the greatest generation. And after birth, slathered episode, we're gonna take num num num num. That's a T just gray hot. Perfect card. That's not Earl Grey. No. T Earl Gross. Alright, I'm hitting the stop. Maximumfund.org.

Comedy and Culture. Artist-owned. Listener-supported. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and Culture, Artistone. Listen or supported. Maximumfund.org, comedy and culture, Artistone. Listen or supported.