The Greatest Generation - Jackoff Book Club (ENT S1E17)

Episode Date: September 2, 2024

When the Entrepreneur gets a hail from some unusual Vulcans, Captain Archer invites them aboard for some chicken marsala. But when T’Pol gets curious about their walk-and-chew-gum-at-the-same-time philosophy, a very hard sell from Tolaris lands her in sicksbay. Who wants to shoot ropes in Ben’s childhood bedroom? Is there a diet Riker among the crew? What does a trackball say about a work station? It’s the episode where Robert Pine didn’t stick around for a moral reckoning.Support the production of The Greatest GenerationGet a thing at podshop.biz!Sign up for our mailing list!Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Riker - Quantum LeapThe Greatest Generation is produced by Wynde PriddySocial media is managed by Rob Adler and Bill TilleyMusic by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFriends of DeSoto for: Labor | Democracy | JusticeDiscuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen and find us on social media:YouTube | Facebook | X | Instagram | TikTok | Mastodon | Bluesky | ThreadsAnd check out these online communities run by FODs: Reddit | USS Hood Discord | Facebook group | Wikia | FriendsOfDeSoto.social

Ever since we put tickets on sale for our special series of Second Contact live shows, we've been watching tickets sell like crazy. If you want to see us live at one of these few in-person shows this year, this is your chance. GreatestGenTour.com is where you can score tickets to our shows in London, Madison, Wisconsin, and Los Angeles. At these special Second Contact shows, we're celebrating and roasting three of our all time favorite episodes of TNG.

The survivors in London, Sub Rosa in Madison, and Conspiracy in LA. Priority One messages are also available, now with way fewer fees because we're selling them through Podshop.biz. Podshop.biz? So get your tickets at greatestgentour.com and your Priority One messages at podshop.biz. All of this stuff at greatestgentour.com and your priority one messages at podshop.biz.

All of this stuff is going to sell out, so don't wait. Greatestgentour.com. Hey, just a heads up. The episode we are talking about today includes a depiction of a Vulcan mine meld-flavored assault, and it's a tough thing in the episode and we talk about it in our recap so if that's an area that you do not like to go into this is just a little heads up for you. Don't get any arguments from me. This is a parody. Paramount owns the song.

Welcome to the Greatest Generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pranica. And it's Code 47 Day. It is. A banner Code 47 Day, Adam. Because I went to the post office this morning and got no lip, no sass of any kind from the kind workers there. God damn it!

I just- The streak is broken. I just made a what's wrong with Ben at the post office drop to use. And now you're telling me we can't use it? You're gonna have to save it. Wow. People are gonna be really excited for the next Cody 47,

which is probably when I'll have some sass to report back from a trip to the post office. An amazingly guff free visit for you. I can't believe it. It was a worker that I met at the window who I did not recognize from previous visits to this post office. Well, there it is.

I don't know if he's a new hire and he isn't jaded and disaffected yet, or if he's just a person whose schedule doesn't line up with mine normally and I don't see very often. You get this all the time when you start a new job, there's often, not like an official mentor, but just like someone who's been around the block,

who's gonna show the new person what's up. They're gonna point out maybe the employees you wanna stay away from, maybe the customers you wanna stay away from. Maybe this person hasn't been given the talking to yet. Yeah, like, I don't know what drives someone to be the disaffected person. Maybe it's when the new guy finds out

which is the good bathroom to go to in the building. Uh-huh. Like, maybe he's the new guy and he found out about the good bathroom, and so he's happy, and that's why everybody else is mad. It's amazing how much work a bathroom can do to a workplace. But we have a nice pile of packages here, Adam. I thought why not get into them? What do you say? I'd love to see what's in the shipment this time, Ben.

Captain, I'm sorry to disturb you. I'm receiving a code 47. Verify. It is code 47, sir. Starfleet emergency frequency. Captain's eyes only. All right, this first one is a postcard. We get one of these basically every time I go to the post office box. There's no postal employee that's going to complain about those.

No, these are the ships of Star Trek. This is a Federation scout ship, and it will surprise no one to learn that this postcard is from Cheeve. How about that? Who is behind most of these postcards. It says, Dear Ben and Adam, recently I was labeling some batch cocktails that I made, and to remind myself that I hadn't added bitters to one of them, I wrote down, no bits. In the spirit of no bits on tips, are there any cocktails that

you would discourage people from adding bitters to even though they might be tempted to? Thanks for all the great, Pod. Cheave. I've got an answer to this. On a visit to the Magic Castle I took recently. I went with some out of town friends and toward the end of the night, it is really nice for me to have a bitters and soda. You know, the nice off ramp to the evening, something that tells the mouth and the mind

that we're done drinking alcoholic beverages, but we still like to have something in the hand. Sure. So I asked my friends, like, hey, I'm going to go get some sodas for the end of the night. You want any? They're like, yeah, absolutely. And what I got was bitters and soda. And the expression that I saw in my friend's faces after tasting them made it clear that

this was a mistake. Oh, they weren't into the bitterness. You shouldn't spring bitters on people where bitters are not expected. And I just made an assumption there that like bitters would only be additive and good in any condition, not the case. Yeah, yeah.

I had a bitters and soda myself last night and went over to our friend Jesse Thorn's house and watched Spider-Man 2, starring Tobey Maguire with him and they offered me a bubble water and when it was poured they said help yourself to bitters and directed me to a part of their kitchen where they had like a dozen different options to choose from. Was this the moment when the family started talking about the Pussy Posse and they kind of invited you to leave the room during the more spirited part of the conversation? Yeah, the various children in the house wanted to get deep on that particular topic.

Oh yeah. I didn't have anything to contribute there, but I enjoyed having a wide selection of bitters. I would say like a daiquiri usually doesn't need it and I feel like that's a cocktail where like simple is better. Yeah. But you know a martini, it doesn't normally call for bitters, but I love a martini with some bitters in it. And what I'll do with that is I'll like maybe squeeze a little bit of lemon or dash some vermouth and bitters over my ice and then strain that out before I add my gin to stir it up. So the ice is like coated with a thin layer of those flavors, but we're not adding it in large amounts. It's a very subtle add.

Where do you stand on the flavored bitters? I mean, all bitters are flavored. Some FODs might not even know that for a time you were a bitters man. Tin man. I was. I used to be a part owner of a bitters company. I am no longer.

But yeah, I mean, the way you make them is by basically leaching the flavors of other things into grain alcohol and then like softening it by usually adding like sugar or water or a lot of both. This is why you were brought into that company for the large quantity of leeches that you kept in your tiny New York apartment. Exactly. Yeah, that was, that's what I brought to the table.

Yeah. So no bits is not usually my way, Chief, but I'd say any cocktail that you're curious about, give it a try. It's the salt and pepper of cocktails. It's not going to hurt, usually. I agree with you. You can get weird with bitters and with so many different kinds, you're bound to find a combination that agrees with you. Yeah. All right. Next package we have here is from our buddy, Sarusfaravar. And I've covered up

everybody's addresses on these with painter's tape. But- Good job by you. When I was looking at the address on Sarusfaravar's envelope, I was just like, same zip code I grew up in. Sarusfaravar lives right up the hill from my childhood home. I would be surprised if he didn't have eyes on your childhood home, like wanting to move in there. Shoot some ropes in your childhood bedroom. Yeah. Right down the floor vent. Who wouldn't want to do that?

Yeah. Nice piece of stationery here to Adam and Ben. Look at that. Sarus Varavar has his own personalized stationary. I really admired that. It says, to Adam and Ben, so stoked you made it to Enterprise. Still an FOD and a proud member with love from Oak Town, Sarus. Sarus, one of the best FODs. Indeed. And largely responsible for what kicked us off into the zeitgeist.

Absolutely. Look at us, now we're the top Star Trek podcast every year besides 2021. That's an amazing thing to be able to say. So Sarus has sent us something from StarTrekGoodies.com. Oh my gosh! It's the show Bible for Star Trek Enterprise! We've been needing that for a while. Thus enabling us to bring back the beloved Bible study segment.

I just need to describe this to the audio only folks at home. Bible be tiny. The Bible be very tiny. I think maybe could have been printed on a pamphlet. It looks like it's maybe three pages, including the cover. It might be those like really thin like onion skin pages of, you know, mass production Bibles. There's a good amount of material in here. Okay.

A little guide to the characters. Does it say anything about T'Pol having to leave rooms and the camera holding on that moment for a couple of seconds so we can see the back of her head? I don't know. We'll have to find out in a future Bible study segment. I'm already just in leafing through this, seeing interesting things that are not consistent from Bible to the actual show that we've got. So that's always interesting, right, when that happens, when somebody interprets scripture and it's kind of like not as the author intended. Yeah, funny you say that.

Well, that is a really great gift, Sarus, and you've already given so much to our show. For example, our first five or 10,000 listeners and many more things. Thank you, Saruus Farvar, for that. And yet he's gotten so little in return. It's really one of the poorer investments I've ever heard of. Thanks, Sarus. Alright, next package is from Joshua H. out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I never know how to open these little priority mail boxes. Word to the wise, don't send it priority mail if there's a

cheaper option because it'll probably take us weeks if not months to get to whatever your submission is. Alright right, a letter here. Hi, Ben and Adam. I've been listening since the fall of 2016 when I discovered your podcast while I was looking for something to entertain me while I drove hours and hours a day for my job. I loved your jokes of dick and fart while you poked fun at one of my favorite childhood shows. I always love the film knowledge slash theory you have from working for various unknown shadow benefactors in Ben's case and freelance for big aerospace company in Adams. I'm still angry at them for just turning off your key card one day and their questionable labor and management practices inherited by McDonald Glassdow.

Dick Monal Glassdow. That is a mouthful. That's fun. I don't remember calling them that at the time, but that works. Yeah. I thought I had the perfect chance to send you some swag when COVID was just popping off in the form of the fun Metro Picards when they were giving them out in NYC. But just as I picked them up to send, I listened to an episode where somebody had beat me to it and already sent them. Yeah. One of my favorite through lines throughout the shows has been your incorporation of other parts of your fandom, including and especially, but not limited to, Jurassic Park. That brings me to today. Having sent the appropriate

Compromat to your war and peacetime consigniary, I now send you these assorted pins I picked up on a work trip to Orlando, one for Bill and Wendy as well, as a shameless bribe slash plug to plead nay beg for a JP bonus episode. I also send them as a token as my most sincere thanks and appreciation for the hours and hours and hours of entertainment and joy you have brought to my life. The next time you're in Philly for a live show slash fun trip slash vacation slash etc. Let me know if you want to take a ride in a little plane. I'd be happy to take you up. Josh! Wow!

Thanks Josh, I hope that that airplane that you're offering to take us for a ride in isn't a dick-monel glass duh Whatever whatever the sag was close enough We got a ziplock bag in here You know the thing about going down in a plane flown by an FOD is that I think we're still the second Person noted in the article about the plane crash, right? Absolutely. We've got some Mr. DNA pins here. Awesome. Those are great. They're in your blood! And they've got little danglies, little fuzzy dangles on there. I mean, they are in your blood if they're pinned to you Navy SEAL style.

Oh, is that how the SEALs do it? They just jam it right in? I don't know if that's just a tall tale or what, but I always assume that. You take it right in the chest. That seems like a thing that a SEAL could get down with. Yeah. You probably want to work very hard to miss the nip on that pinning, right? Like you've gone through buds, you've gone through like one of the most hellish experiences the military can offer and then you finally get to the end. You think it's, you think the pain is manageable at that point until you take a pin to the nip. That's got to be terrible.

Especially if you're GI Jane, right? Extra sensitive. Hey, if you're an FOD out there who's also a Navy SEAL I'd love to hear confirmation or or a story about the pinning process Of course, we have we have Miriam folks in our armed services who are Adam Adam, there's a Navy SEAL right behind you She looks pissed. I can hear her pager going off. Oh man, classic Navy SEAL mistake. Classic Navy SEALs the movie reference.

If they sent them after us, they would send SEAL Team Sucks, right? I mean, if they sent a SEAL Team that primarily worked on land they would send SEAL team socks Yeah, and if they sent a Team that was a little bit peckish they might send SEAL team snacks I mean if they sent a SEAL team that was a little bit horny they would send SEAL team sex. that was a little bit horny, they would send Seal Team Sex. I am sure that they would. And they wouldn't be wrong to do so. Oh, Ben taps out! He's out! I'm just saying that there's nothing...

We're not gonna go past sex. What good is it to continue the bit? Past sex. You don't go past sex. I think that's a rule of greatest gen. Jesus fucking Christ. Everything is not a competition, Adam. It feels good to compete. Alright, our next box here is from Isaac B. out of Rancho Santa Margarita, California. Howdy. It's to you and me.

I've never heard of Rancho Santa Margarita. That sounds like the sort of place that would serve you a great tri-tip sandwich. It does. All right. We have a letter addressed to Uxbridge Shimoda in here. It's a thank you. Dear Adam and Ben, a few months ago I purchased a commercial P1 as a show of thanks to you for reigniting in me my love of Star Trek. I am now happy to say that while I am and always will be embarrassed to call myself a Trekkie, I now open my embarrassment to the public. Furthermore, I am happy to report that Starbase118.net enjoyed something of a greatest gen bump in that a number of applicants to our academy, where we teach our writing format, reported hearing about us through your show. Please accept the enclosed gift.

May it save you money, Busters. From Isaac B. in Orange County. Isaac B., I don't recall being a non-believer in this, but we've tried to tell you. The greatest gen bump is real. The Jaeger bubble is real. Everyone who does a commercial P1 on the show gets the bump. It happens all the time. Isaac has enclosed a gift-wrapped present featuring emperor penguins wearing Hanukkah sweaters and kipote. So I guess this is a little out of date when we're opening this up, as it is not holiday season.

But open it. Nevertheless, I shall. Look at that. It's a beautiful Brant-class shuttle model. Is this the Eagle Moss Corporation? I think it's just beautiful Brant class shuttle model is this what the Eagle Moss Corporation I think it's just Star Trek actual a branded Star Trek actual piece of merch about that cool recommended for ages 14 plus but I'll let Adam play with it anyways this is beautiful oh man it comes with a little

L cars like translucent readout oh I that. I want to back like the shit out of this Oh, yeah, and there's like a there's a little display base and everything Oh, you got a display it you got a shelf back there full of displays. I'm gonna I'm gonna put it on the shelf right now Yeah Ben is now devaluing a priceless artifact and putting it up on his gift shelf. All right. Look at that brat. God, the brat's so good looking. It's a handsome ship. And there it goes to a place of honor. It looks like right next to some Klingon paraphernalia. Yeah, there's a Kern and a Whorf and a Domjot edition.

Fuck, what are those guys called? Oh, fuck, the, with the Garamba and so forth. Yeah, with the Garamba. Who are the guys with the Garamba? Nasikins. Nasikins. Yeah, I've got a Whorf, a Kern and a Nasikin, like the Domjot kind of nasikin,

not the kind that looks like he would send in your tax return or whatever. I really hope Windy bails us out by fast forwarding the 10 minutes it took us to rack our brains for the nasikin reference. You wonder why we didn't host our own stage at Star Trek Las Vegas? It's because no one would want to sit through us.

Googling frantically. want to sit through us. Giggling frantically. Trying to remember trivial details. Wendy's got our back, right? Yeah. All right, last package of the day. This one is from Carter Kalchik of McLean, Virginia, who we've mentioned on the show in the past. Carter, of course course a book talk

celebrity. He hosts a channel on TikTok where he talks about books, primarily ones where boys do sexy stuff with other boys. And this one is addressed to me specifically. There you go. All right, my dearest Benjamin, okay, I won't make you twain. I saw on your smash hit book talk account that you once did a promotional campaign for Andy Weir's project Hail Mary, for which you were promised but never received a copy of the book as compensation. I don't mean to pry into the business practices of Uxbridge Shimoda, but what my theory presupposes is maybe you should have asked for money. I'm one to talk though as my online work is compensated entirely in books. In any event, I have a copy of that book, which I fear while I continue my own in-depth

research into butt stuff, I may never get to. So I pass this on to you, safe in the knowledge that it will have found a good home I have also included a copy of Andy Weir's The Martian which could you could give to Adam or Doron Whoever is mature enough to read it first Wow appreciate the hell out of all the great pod that you had a fucking strays over here Windy Bill Rob and anyone I may have missed make. This is no joke one of the highlights of my week. LLAP, Carter Kalchik, PS, hi to Ed, Sean, and Sam. Roll Aaron Drop.

I believe that that Sam is our friend Sam Nitz, Adam. Oh, I love Sam Nitz. Yeah. So yeah, Carter has included a couple of books here. I think we probably did get paid for that Hail Mary promotion, right? I don't know. But we didn't get books. So now I can finally read the book.

And the fact that Carter has released this to me leads me to believe that there is very, very little to no anal penetration depicted in the pages of this book. I mean that combined with its lack of pictures or drawings means that it's going to be a very long time before you get to that book in your shelf. Oh man, I love the look of the cover of The Martian. What a gorgeous cover that is. Really great. Really great. Man.

What'd you think of that movie? I like that movie. I like the movie and I like the book. I read the book before I saw the movie. Of course you did. So you got a copy of The Martian with your name on it, Adam. Jerome's probably still six to nine months away from being able to process this, but.

There is no way I'll read it before he's of age, but I'll give it a try. I'll highlight the sexy parts so he can find them right away. I have some other science fiction novels that I've been meaning to send you, so yeah. I don't know which order that you're going to put them in on your nightstand. Whatever keeps me off the streets.

Our thanks to everyone who sent something in on today's COOL 47 and everybody who tuned in on our YouTube channel. We have a ton of fun making these and put them out as videos now every time we do one. So if you're not already checking out our YouTube channel, go take a look. You can see all the stuff we opened today and on past episodes and throw us a subscribe while you're there. All right, Adam, do you want to get into today's episode of Star Trek Enterprise? I thought we'd never begin. But what a great Code 47 segment that was, Ben.

Yeah, let's get into it. It's Star Trek Enterprise season one episode 17. It's called Fusion. Ben, it seems rare that we encounter an episode whose director has only directed one episode of Star Trek, ever. And yet, Rob Hedden is one of those. Would it surprise you to know that this was it, as far as his Star Trek career goes. Kind of surprising to me that off of the success of Friday the 13th, part eight, Jason takes Manhattan. That's the one where like very little of it actually

takes place in Manhattan, right? That this would be where his Star Trek story ends. And with a this would be where his Star Trek story ends. And with a IMDb list like his, I kind of expected something horrible to happen in this episode. I mean, if they were going to let anybody go from this episode, the focus puller is who I would have liked to never see a Star Trek soundstage ever again. Oh! Boom! He did it! He did it! Yeah! You got banned! Yeah, yeah.

That's why I got the belt. Wow. You know, it's so much fun to like, to be an enthusiast of Star Trek podcasting and much like being a fan of wrestling, like you think some of the classic stars classic moves have been retired forever No, no, but God they played Benjamin R. Harrison music Well couldn't be The lights go out in my studio Who's that coming down the ramp?

Mean Gene is totally shocked. We begin in the clarinet rental storage room that doubles as Archer's ready room where he's showing to Paul his first astronomy book in a scene that I know you felt deeply, Ben, just as I did. The moment where you share your nerdy thing with an uninterested second party. Mm-hmm. Yeah, when there's a hot girl in your room and she sees something on the shelf

that you feel bears explanation. To any school-age folks out there who might, for some reason,, listen to this show, a word of warning. Should a possible romantic interest visit your room, they're not interested in your books. Assume disinterest. This is what I'm trying to say to you.

Don't try and show them a picture of nebulas you think are exciting. No, no. And this goes how you would expect it would go. She is holding back a yawn. This textbook is what you wanted me to see. On the cover of this book, she's been shown as the arachnid nebula. And to Jonathan Archer,

the potential to see this thing in real life is like meeting a Playboy centerfold in person. He has jacked it to this paper for so long. Now he's about to meet her at a shopping mall. She's like, did you get this astronomy book slabbed up? Like it doesn't open anymore. Were you like preserving it because you think it's collectible? And he's like, no, that's not quite why

it is the way it is. A, got it. I shouldn't keep bringing this up cause I know it makes you feel bad. But I'm gonna say it anyway cause it's germane to this conversation. I was close up magic by a magician where they gave me a card to like put in between both

hands. Yeah. And he was like, rub your hands together. And so I rubbed and he was like, all right, take the top hand off. And there was a deck of cards in there. Whoa. And then after the trick was over, he's like, yeah, let me show you what was actually going on there.

So he kind of showed me the trick. The trick was a lucite deck of cards that looked like a deck of cards in profile. Whoa. Like, so from the side, it looked like cards, but up top, it looked like glass or whatever. So he's just playing on your perspective of the trick. Exactly. And that is what Jonathan Archer's magazine looks like. Being effectively glued together by his sperm.

The conversation gets cut short when they get called to the bridge because somebody using a Vulcan code has shown up. But when they go out and look at the people that have pulled up in front of them, it doesn't ring Vulcan true because it doesn't have that hula hoop around it. It's like a weird looking ship. Yeah. It's like the person who rolls up to the car show, like for enthusiasts of J car racing or whatever. And they're like, they roll up in like a stock Corolla.

Like interesting and you're welcome to be here, but that's not kind of really the expectation for visitors. Yeah, no coffee for you, sir. No, and while the ship on screen doesn't look like what they've expected, the person on screen doesn't act the way they expected either. We've got Tavin here, played by Robert Pine, and it is so weird that the captain of this ship is so happy to meet Captain Archer.

It really put me on my back foot from here. I wasn't sure what was going on. The vibes are so different from enterprise Vulcan specifically, but Vulcan generally that it's real weird. And he's like, Oh yeah, you know, we're in an old ship, a civilian ship. The Vulcan high command doesn't know dick about us and we could sure use your help. Got some various engineering problems that we need dealt with. And if you guys wouldn't mind lending us a hand,

we'd sure appreciate it. What's so weird about the version of the episode that I saw streaming was that this scene keeps going long after I think that they were supposed to cut it because Robert Pine kind of looks off camera and he's like, so it's just this scene and the scene where I eat chicken, right? Like contractually, that's all I'm here to do.

Like this may be a surprise to viewers to like watch this episode and be like, oh, Robert Pine, he's like notable and interesting. He's gonna be a big part of this episode. That's definitely not what we're doing. I'm here to do this scene and eat chicken and then I'm out and the guy off screen is like yeah pretty much Hope you're hungry Rob had in his yeah, I

Think we should cut the very interesting scene with him late in the in the act three so that we just really focus in on This and the part where he eats the chicken. Nothing would be more, more terror reducing than a scene where Robert Pine eats chicken. And you hear like Brandon Braga even further off, Mike, going like, Hey man, listen, I know I just write stories around here or whatever, but I feel like that third act scene with the captain of the Vulcan ship is kind of crucial. Are we really keeping this

and also the part where he eats chicken? I feel like we got some sort of production cut of this episode, really weird. Yeah. So after the theme, we learned that this civilian Vulcan ship is just out there exploring. That's all it's doing and that's weird because Vulcans don't typically go out exploring.

And that's because these are not your typical Vulcans. And before we get too far down the road, we learned that this is a ship in need of some maintenance and if Enterprise could possibly spare a square of labor, that would be really great for them. And Archer's like, sure, you've been so great to deal with so far. I'd love to offer you some help.

It would be nice to offer help to Vulcans that weren't weird dicks about it. So he has this captain tavern and sort of the second in command presumably of this ship, Tolaris over for dinner in the captain's mess. And it's Archer and DePaul with these two. And yeah, the first thing that is totally surprising is that the captain is down

to give the chicken breast a try. And I loved what like junior varsity meat they chose for this. Like it wasn't, they weren't eating like, like Irish sausages or something. They were just eating chicken breast and they're like shocked that this Vulcan is gonna give it a go.

It looks delicious. Did you see the look that DePaul shot Archer when Archer was so effusive in his praise of the ship's cook? Like, yeah, we hear he does a great job with Vulcan dishes. And it's basically the visual equivalent of T'Pol spitting food into a napkin. I did not see this because I was so preoccupied in the scene with whether Archer was going to tell him that chicken is a kind of bird. Right.

Because he's like, let me try that. And he's like, oh, you want to try this? Are you sure? Well, I mean, I don't have a problem with it. And he's like handing it over and I was like, maybe he doesn't know what the word chicken means. I got to say that I didn't believe that Tavin liked eating the chicken because it was a big piece of chicken breast until I learned later that this was chicken

marsala. Maybe the best preparation of chicken breast there is. Like if you're going to eat chicken breast, you might as well slather it with some sauce and some mushrooms, right? Do you think that he wanted it because Tavon is daddy and daddy gets the big piece of chicken? I don't know. A man can't work 12 hours and come home to a wing? It's such a weird scene.

I mean, and central to Robert Pine's entire contract, like big fan of chicken marsala is Robert Pyne. And you can tell that he's barely acting here. He loves this. He explains that they've been in space for eight years exploring not the cosmos, but themselves. And what's going on here seems pretty pervy, doesn't it? I was immediately thinking about eight years in the context of Ponfar. Like nobody on this ship would know about it, but they for sure do. And like Ponfar does come up a little bit in this, but I wanted to know what

they had done for it, because my understanding was you had to go home and fuck, or you go absolutely bonk. I mean, there's a scene later when they talk about accelerating that process so they could do it more often. And there are other moments in this episode where they're like, damn, check out all the ladies on this ship. You never see a Vulcan lady over there. I know.

For all we know, it is a ship crewed just by Teleris Tavern and Cove, right? It's significantly smaller than the NX-01, which I believe has a crew of, what is it, like 125 or something like that? Maybe. They've got to be going crazy over there. There you shall salty long. T'Pol calls them Vitas Katur, and they're like, oh, whoa, you do not get to use the term Vitas Katur

unless you are Vitas Katur. So weird to have encountered Vitas Katur the way that they have, because Vitas Katur continues to release albums. Long after their supposed death death band, a death that I don't believe. Oh really? He's still out there somewhere. You're a Vitaash Kattur truth or? Yeah.

Yeah. You listen to the Machiavelli album by Vitaash Kattur. I think it's all in the lyrics. Yeah, yeah. It's coded in there. They can really throw shade with the best of them. They're shading the shit out of T'Pol for calling them outside their name. But is T'Pol not shading them first?

No, absolutely. I just think that they're better at it than she is. They're like, yeah, we don't reject logic. We just think that you're better at it than she is. They're like, yeah, we don't reject logic. We just think that you can do both at the same time. Like we're, we're the walk and chew bubble gum flank of the Vulcan species over here. This is something that T'Pol finds impossible. And later in engineering, Tripp Tucker works with a dopey Vulcan

who is distracted by all the women on board. This is a Vulcan that I called to Paul Wathler Hauser. I am here to kick some ass, sir. That's fun. This guy has heard a lot of stories about humans and how they live. Yeah. He has some misconceptions, as Tripp puts it. And Tripp is kind of like trying to help him fix his engines

and doesn't really want to deal with all these weird things that this guy has heard tell of. Um, this like reminds me of like a school trip we took to Washington, D.C. when I was in middle school. And when the kids from other schools around the country found out we were from California, we just heard the most unbelievable shit that they thought might be true about life in California.

Like, do you surf to school? And have you ever heard of peanut butter? And stuff like that. What better guide to answer these questions from basically, like, a Vulcan going through puberty, having questions about how humans do it, than Tripp Tucker, right? This is a good pairing.

Yeah, and I think that this scene exists purely for the function of establishing that Tripp has like a certain rapport with this guy for later. This is gonna sound like faint praise, but like, Trip is kind of diet Riker, isn't he? Ooh. Because of events that happen later and how much shame he tends to feel

about things relating to things of a sexual nature. Like, I don't know, I just don't feel like Riker would act the way Trip does in certain situations. Not a chance. Yeah, I feel that. I think that, yeah, Riker is 25% more confidence in his sexuality than Tripp is, but I feel like they're coming from a similar place.

So we learned that the Vulcans are requisitioning a bunch of stuff. This is like a brief scene between T'Pol and Archer where she's like, yeah, they want like this, this and this equipment and this chicken recipe. And Archer's like, man, that captain was such an interesting guy. Hope we get to spend a little bit more time together. T'Pol's like, I don't think that's going to be happening. Don't you know when you have guests over for a dinner party, you put the recipe on the wall! Right behind the dinner table! Yeah, Archer hadn't learned that. And I honestly think that the Captain's Mess is due for a makeover,

you know? Yeah. A rescue, if you will. T'Pol is like, I know you're charmed by these Vulcans, but they're fucking dangerous. Like the reason Vulcans are the way they are is to avoid the horrible shit that happens when you act like these guys are acting. Especially because of what happens to T'Pol. But initially, without knowing this at all, the intellectual incuriosity of Archer here to ask a follow-up question. What mean dangerous to Paul? He doesn't say shit. Yeah.

What are you doing, Archer? Just because they smile and eat chicken doesn't mean they've learned to master their emotions. Maybe I'm just relieved to finally meet some Vulcans who aren't giving me a hard time. This was so upsetting. Is it that he has asked her so many questions before and she's declined to give him satisfactory answers?

Is it that he's like, I'll just look it up in the Encyclopedia Volcanica later or something? Basically, your sort of second in command has told you, you have invited dangerous folks aboard your ship and you're co-mingling them with people. And there are no follow-up questions to this. Instead, he's like, I think you could learn a lot from these guys and I want you to spend more time with them and keep an open mind about some of their wild and crazy ideas. Yeah. So while T'Pol is alone in the mess getting her night tea or whatever, Teleris comes in and he wants to

be taught how to use the vending machine. There's always this moment in a workplace where the new person's like, oh, this one's a little different than the one I'm used to. Like, do I have to bonk it on the side to get it to accept my wrinkly bill or whatever. You didn't put instructions for the drink machine in a big foam core sign on the wall. New customers aren't going to know how to use it. This is like the Pepsi freestyle machine on Enterprise. And he's like very, very intensely wondering what she's drinking and he'll have what she's having. And he also will not stop staring at her during. Yeah.

It's real weird, the vibes with this guy. And I mean, her misgivings about them have just been stated prior to this. So they really prime the energy for this scene. But in a scene, like we're just coming off of a scene where T'Pol calls them dangerous, where in a scene where she's alone with one of them, you don't get the requisite danger music.

You don't get a person who is really in a hurry to leave. It's kind of a bait and switch tonally with how we're supposed to feel in this moment, don't you think? I thought it was interesting because there's like, he's, you know, he's saying good tea, nice mess hall to her and sort of kicking the tires, like trying to get her, her vibe and trying to figure out why she's on board the entrepreneur. And having just had that scene,

every like thing that seems innocent in this moment felt a little bit sus in a way that I thought might have been like overstated by creepy deep music. Uh huh. Yeah, that makes sense. There's just a lot of choices in this episode that DePaul makes after declaring these people dangerous that puts herself in danger in a way that I didn't quite understand. Yeah. I think that maybe this is coming from T'Pol just being curious after her

conversation with Archer, which I super don't believe. I don't believe that Archer would persuade T'Pol in that moment of like, actually maintaining an open mind about this. True. But that is the vibe, I think. Like, maybe a more charitable read is she's just, like, kind of, like, morbidly curious. Like, like, these guys are so fucked up. Like, I want to kind of see what they're all about.

In a way, a scientist would appreciate observing something worthy of their study. Yeah, you're right about that. But she doesn't want to eat pizza with this guy. Like that, she will dry the line somewhere. It is so weird to hear that word come out of a Vulcan's mouth. Pizza. And the moment that I really loved is Rob Headin had the good sense as like the new director on campus

to do the scene where, where like, T'Pol goes to leave. Oh, we're not gonna get a shop from behind T'Pol moment. No, she comes back, does the whole pizza moment, and then we get her walking out the door. It's just playing with your expectations. It's not taking anything away. It's just, you know, making sure you get it, but in a more interesting way than you're used to.

You had me in the first half, Rob Headin'. Not gonna lie. ["Legally It's Just A Fart Joke"] We pull up on this nebula. It sure is purdy. Tavon is like, hey, like you guys could scan this using our scanners. We'll just keep the ships clamped to each other.

And that'll save you a whole bunch of time because the entrepreneur has extremely shitty scanners that would generate the data in more than a week of work. And the Vulcans can help them speed that up. You can tell Tavin something's wrong with this guy. And it's because Robert Pine is in a scene where he's not eating chicken. Yeah.

He's so angry. He is looking at the door the entire time he's talking. Just put in a, just a little fucking effort, Robert Pine. I was very conscious of the fact that the scene with Trip and Cove fixing the engines on the Vulcan ship took place in the engineering conscious of the fact that the scene with Trip and Cove fixing the engines on the Vulcan ship took place in the engineering bay of the entrepreneur. And I was like, oh man, maybe they just cheaped out and didn't build any sets of this Vulcan ship and all of the scenes are going to be about Vulcans visiting them on their ship.

And no, we get a scene in the maybe bridge of the Vulcan ship all of a sudden. Yeah. DePaul is there working with Tolaris and she notices that they have a statue of Surak in there. And she's like pretty shocked that they revere Surak given how much they've walked away from his teachings. And they get in a like interpretive scripture conversation basically where Teleres is like oh yeah you must have read his book really differently from how I did because I didn't think it said completely

eradicate all emotion and devote yourself only to logic. And given where Surak is supposed to have lived like isn't it weird that he has blue eyes and light skin? What's up with that? I don't know, yeah. Ben, I gotta ask you a question. When you encounter a workstation with a trackball style mouse, is your initial thought advanced person,

someone who's really on the forefront of technology or not, because when I see a table like this on an alien ship's bridge, I just think trackball, like giant trackball even. And it does not look as sophisticated as I feel like they wanted to look. Yeah. This looked like maybe the design of the ship was originally intended for Ferengis to be in charge of it. It sure seems like it, yeah. I mean, what if the story had been that they took one of these over by force? That'd be rad! They accidentally encountered them seven years ago and just fucked them all to death and took their ship.

Death by Umoks. And you know Vulcans know their way around ears, too. They sure do. I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like,

I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like,

I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like,

I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, if you don't meditate, if your dreams are like real fucking wild, I think you'll be surprised. It is interesting how open to this, to Paul is in conversation. It feels a little bit more than just that polite thing you do with people you barely know. You're like, yeah, yeah, I'll try that. And then like, as soon as you leave,

you're like giving the jack-off hand sign like whatever like I'm gonna do that I Feel like every time I've recommended a book to you. Oh, yeah, probably the second my head is turned I'm getting one of those jack-off book club Those are all Ben's recommendations smash hit podcast remarks for Yeah, the openness again, is it curiosity inspired by what Archer said to her or is it morbid curiosity? Hard to say.

Over in the mess hall, we find to Paul Walter Hauser. Here to four, you can refer to me as Stingray. Talking with Tripp Tucker about football. This is not a euphemism. They're really talking about football here. Because if they're gonna talk about sex, they're just gonna talk about sex. It's true.

If you had never watched football before, you might have some of these misconceptions that DePaul Walter Hauser has. That death is on the line, that injuries often result in it. Those aren't the stakes. This is what Tripp is trying to convey. And lest you believe this is a conversation where the knowledge only flows one way, Tripp

has some questions too and he lowers his voice a little bit. He's like, hey, how do Vulcans do it? And it is practically a record scratch here. Ah, you mean sex? Does it involve the back of the head at all? Is that part of it? Do you have a loud talker in your life? Cause DePaul Waltherhauser is that guy where it seems like the more uncomfortable

the topic, the louder they become in a room full of people. And he goes on to say at top volume that the seven-year cycle of sexual interests for a Vulcan is something they're actively working on accelerating so that they can feel sexy feelings more often. I did like that Reid was sort of the inspiration for this coming up. I felt like Reid sat down at the table and suddenly the topic got way dirtier. Yeah, I like that too, but where a Riker I think could go sex story for sex story with this guy trip doesn't Like there isn't an exchange of sexual information here. Yeah, and also

again a lack of intellectual curiosity like the The eight-year thing and the seven-year thing are now both known knowns and no question about how that was managed, no question about if you're accelerating the seven-year thing, what do you do about the fact that you aren't around that many other Vulcans? I wanted to know these things.

If you were just the slightest bit sexually titillated by this conversation, here comes a bucket of ice water dumped on your groin because incoming message from noted heartthrob Admiral Forrest to Archer, which he takes in the clarinet storage room. And Forrest tells Archer that the minister of the Vulcan High Command has a son on that Vulcan ship. Did you know that? And it's to Paul Walter Hauser to be specific.

Oh, Stingray. Just one word, Stingray. And guess what? His father's dying and he has one of those last old man dying wishes to talk to his estranged son. And it is suggested that Archer kind of owes the Vulcans one for being able to keep T'Pol on the ship.

It's a bit reassuring that Vulcans can also have fail sons, right? Like if it happens to them, it can happen to anybody. I think the casting of T'Pol Walter Hauser is so specific and interesting for this reason, because without saying a word, he kind of conveys Vulcan Failsun, the way you've described. Do you think that the actor who played him gets typecast

because his name is literally John Harrington Bland? He does have a three-name name. And his last name is literally Bland. That's too bad. I bet he's cool as hell. He's cool. He's done a lot of cool movies. There's not really a definitive answer given, but it is suggested that Archer

would be doing them a solid, a solid that he is compelled to owe by sort of encouraging this to happen. So we cut over to T'Pol's quarters just before bed. And this is usually a time where she'd be meditating and she does not. Instead we get a glimpse of her dreams and they are a terrifying combination of jazz ensemble warming up their instruments

and a smoky nighttime street scene and a hotel room where T'Pol and T'Laris are getting down. This was such a vintage Star Trek TNG style dream sequence. I was flipping the fuck out. Like, it looks like she is on the holodeck in TNG when she's walking in that street scene. The vibes are exactly the same as they used to get in those TNG dream sequences.

And the basic structure of this is it's image, image, image, cut to a kind of reimagined version of a conversation to Paul had with Teleris, where a thing he said that seemed innocent at the time, now has a kind of horny tone to it. And she is clearly really creeped out by this. And she winds up in Sixth Bay getting her head checked by Flax who's like, yeah, something bad is happening in your head. That's for sure. It's not all in your head except for it is.

Paul explains to him that this is what happens when you don't meditate. You kind of get a non-meditation hangover and she knows exactly what kind of drugs to take in order to treat it. And she has to admit that this is an idea that came from Teleris and she regrets doing this. But Dr. Flax here is kind of encouraging. He's like the older, wiser person in college that's like, you know, one bad trip isn't a reason to stop taking hallucinogens. Like, look at me, I'm a nine year student.

I've yet to graduate with a degree of any kind. Maybe you do a half a meditation or something or a quarter meditation. I've yet to graduate with a degree of any kind. Maybe you do a half a meditation or something, or a quarter meditation. Try that on for size and see where it goes from there. Yeah. A micro dose, maybe. Yeah. A micro meditation.

Faith of the fart. Sure, it's Labor Day, but it's also Bell Riots Day, and all week we're going to be celebrating the Bell Riots of Star Trek Deep Space Nine when Gabriel Bell led a bunch of people in the Sanctuary District to throw off the shackles of our capitalist oppressors in two of the great Star Trek episodes ever by giving you a discount at Podshop.biz. Why not get a Brinner Information Systems polo with your 10% off using the code ATTENTIONBajoranWorkers. It's Podshop.biz. Have you been looking for a new podcast all about nerdy pop culture?

Well, I have just the thing for you. Secret Histories of Nerd Mysteries! Secret Histories of Nerd Mysteries is a weekly pop culture history podcast hosted by me, host Austin. And me, host Brenda. We've already tackled mysteries such as what happened to the puppets from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, is Snoopy Mexican, and why do people hate Barney so much? From theme parks to cartoons to 80s, 90s, and 2000s nostalgia, we tackle it all.

Check us out every Tuesday on MaximumFun.org and wherever you get podcasts. Hey, this is Mike Cavalon. If you want to wait. And Sierra Cato. The hosts of TV Chef Fantasy League. Where we apply fantasy sports rules to cooking competition shows. We're not professional chefs or fantasy sports bros.

Just three comedians who love cooking shows and winning. We'll cover Top Chef, Master Chef, Great British Bake Off, whatever's in season really. Ooh, you know chefs love cooking whatever's in season. We draft a team of chefs at the top of every series. And every week we recap the episode and assign points based on how our chefs did. And at the end of the season, we crown a winner. You can even play along at home if you want. Or you can just listen to us like a regular podcast

about cooking shows. That's cool too. Subscribe to TV Chef Fantasy League on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. And you will never take the greatest gin alive. Ben would rather die. Rather die. What?

We got a scene where Archer brings to Paul Walter Hauser into his office and when to Paul Walter Hauser expresses no interest in borrowing a clarinet to learn more about the ways of humans, Archer's like, well, listen, I got bad news and I do this every time I tell a Vulcan bad news. I front load it with a lot of apology and, you know, talking about how I feel weird about having to tell you this. But now I'm going to tell you.

It's like the dirty talk of bad news. I'm going to tell you what I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you and then I'm going to tell you what I told you. And that is, your father is dying. And then we will both be sexually gratified by the end of it. The offer is given, like, hey, you know what? We got a hoshi on board. She can set up a communications link for you if you wanted to blow in one of those sick dad by the bedside messages that I'm sure you've seen in TV and movies over the course of the year. You probably have a great DVD collection over there, right?

He's like, no, I'm actually not interested because the last time we talked went pretty poorly. Not looking forward to another conversation with that guy. He says to send a message back on his behalf that we said goodbye a long time ago and leaves it at that. Ice fucking cold. Yeah. Something that is thawing out by the moment is the relationship between Telerys and T'Pol over on the Vulcan ship.

It's the morning shift or the beginning of the shift. It's tea time, whatever it is. And he's brought her some. He's a little curious about, hey, how'd it go last night with the whole skipping meditation and so forth. Did you have some wild dreams? And it is revealed that he expected things to become disturbing. She doesn't want to talk about that at first.

She sure doesn't. But then she does begin to describe what happened in her dream and her walk through San Francisco and hearing the music and going to the restaurant. And she does everything, but tell him the part about them clapping it out in that seedy hotel room. And it's kind of a magic trick in this scene, how creepy things started in this scene to a version of Teleris being supportive in kind of an interesting way.

Like including the way that the scene is blocked. Like there's this giant roller ball mouse in the middle of the bridge set that is a barrier between them. And it seems like when Teleris is, like, going around it to talk to her, it's aggressive. It feels aggressive to me anyway. Yeah, he gets up in her nook in a way that his Star Trek shorthand for this guy is creeping. But by the time he arrives at two, it seems like

T'Pol has softened and is ready to share a little more detail about her dream life. Not all of it though. He wants to usher her further into his world of having your emotions and eating your logic cake. And yeah, she is surprisingly opening up to this after like starting the scene, seeming like really shook by her experience overnight. Yeah. So over in engineering,

Archer is wondering if Trip Tucker can convince to Paul Walter Hauser to talk to his dying father. This fucking manipulative shit. I don't, the fucking hubris that humans have for thinking that alien culture should do it the way they do. Incredible. Yeah.

Archer's like, uh, yeah, I mean, it would be great if, like, what I did didn't work. Clearly. Maybe you have some rapport with this guy that would make a difference. I guess he is doing it at the behest of said alien culture to some extent, but yeah, he's, he's like trying to take advantage of the fact that Tripp has,

has built a relationship up here. I mean, and also noted sexual icon Admiral Forrest is involved. Yeah. He's got some questions about T'Pol and T'Laris also, because he's like, isn't it weird how T'Pol didn't want anything to do with these people? And now they're having tea together and walking around all the time, taking breaks. What's going on there? Tripp brings up the idea that Archer is a little bit jelly here.

Yeah. It sure seems like it. Yeah. Ordered her to do idea that Archer is a little bit jelly here. Yeah. It sure seems like it. Yeah. Ordered her to do it, Archer. This was your idea. And he has to be feeling some jealousy for the idea that, uh, they've just had an encounter with what is effectively a new culture for them and T'Pol has hit it off in a way that Archer could not possibly understand.

Yeah, totally. We cut over to the extent to which T'Pol and T'Leres are getting chummy. They're sitting together in a dimly lit T'Pol quarters and they're candles lit and he's telling her about the technique of the mind milled, which is apparently a weird ancient ritual that is mostly forgotten in this part of history. That came as such a surprise to me after seven seasons of Voyager where Tuvok meld somebody like 15 times a season. I felt the same way and I also wondered how young is too young to talk to your children about mind melding, which seems an incredibly

dangerous practice in the wrong hands or for the inexperienced or someone who isn't expecting it. This guy is definitely inexperienced and T'Pol is definitely not expecting it. They get started doing it and he is fumbling around. He doesn't know how to undo a bra with one hand. Wrong side of the face. Yeah. It's the first time. Yeah. He puts a finger up her nostril and she's like, no, no, not there.

They are finally able to get in the sort of rhythm where some good feelings happen. We go back into Paul's dream world, San Francisco, nighttime, jazz music, et cetera. And we cut from what is the exterior of her dream and her quarters to them occupying the space together at the restaurant. Yeah. They're at a little table in the corner of the restaurant, listening to the jazz combo.

And he is doing this thing where he's kind of like trying to talk to her about like what it meant to her to go off campus and see this jazz combo and feel exhilarated by it. And he's like, you were loving being a bad little girl, weren't you? It's like kind of the energy of the way he's describing it to her. And she's like already kind of resistant at that point.

Like, I don't know, man. Like, I feel like you're kind of trying to put words into my mouth about what this felt like to me. It's really interesting how sexualized or sexually charged this moment feels for a scene that is largely absent that depicted on screen. You get the memory of the sexualization according to a previous dream, but like the moment where she doesn't want a pleasurable thing to continue because she is uncomfortable and for him to not disengage whatever that activity is, feels like a sexual assault. And it may just be that like there's something so intimate

about the mind that that's the charge that it gets. Yeah. I thought it was also very interesting that the costume they have her in, in the memory scape is like probably the least revealing thing we've seen her in in the 17 episodes of the show that we've watched. Anyways, this gets super yucky. Like, she asks him to stop and he ignores her initially, and she has to, like, push his hand off of her face. And he is, like, withering to her and... This fucking sucks.

Teleris looks down at his hand and it's... And he's like, you know, my hand is gonna hurt all night now. Yeah. Putting a guilt trip on her about what just happened. It sucks. Yeah. Very, very yucky feelings. And she like collapses on the floor after he leaves in a huff and has to call the doctor by like crawling across the floor to a keyboard. Yeah, one of those keyboards that's really loud, like the mechanical style that's so popular these days. Summers are all ordering the parts

and making them themselves at home. ["I Can't Do The Parody"] So we don't go to Sixth Bay, we cut over to engineering where Tripp and to Paul Walter Hauser arguing about his decision to not contact his father, which seems and I guess is pretty definitive. And it reminds me of that moment, like I think this moment in society happened well after this episode came out, but do you remember when the feelings about this thing kind of shifted?

Like, society collectively agreed that you aren't obligated to maintain social ties to a family that constantly hurt and disappoint you. Like that was a moment and it feels like it was like within the last 10 years, we all sort of agreed that like, you don't have to go home for Thanksgiving if you're hurt by Thanksgiving. Right, yeah. But I feel like that came so far after an episode like this where it was still very much an obligation.

Like you just gotta talk to your parents even though they fucking suck and they hurt you. I think that, yeah, that, like, feels really real to me. Like, this is an artifact of the time that this show was made in. But also, I do feel like, while that has become way more socially acceptable, probably largely because of the gay rights movement and the, you know, people just need to be able to, like, live a normal life,

even if their families are giant diaper babies about, you know, the truth of who they are. All that being said, like, it's still a super subjective and individual experience for each person that goes through it, and like... And I don't necessarily trust Tripp Tucker to be... the person to adjudicate this. Totally.

Yeah. Yeah. To Paul Walter Hauser is like, nah, man, like you don't know about this. It sucks. Trip, I think, correctly changes the subject, but not like you think. He, uh, grabs a non-Blu-ray edition DVD of the movie Magnolia, puts it in the player and cues up Jason Robard's amazing speech at the end when he's high on morphine

and he's talking about regret. And this is, I think, one of the best expressions of how much more painful the regret of not doing something is than the regret of doing something. And to Paul Walter Hauser's like, sure, give me some morphine. more painful the regret of not doing something is than the regret of doing something. And to Paul Walter Hauser's like, you sure give me some morphine. I'll dial up my dad right now.

Yeah. So it sort of seems like he might have been talked into the no regurts lifestyle. Yeah. Yeah, maybe so. Because of Tripp's weird story about the girl in middle school that he didn't dance with? I didn't think this is far off at all.

I still think about the epic non-asks and the crashes and burns that I endured in middle school. Don't you? I guess so, but it's not like, oh man, that girl I knew when I was 13 would have changed everything for me, you know? Right. I'm definitely not not like, oh man, that girl I knew when I was 13 would have changed everything for me. You know? Right. I'm definitely not saying like, oh, my life would be different if I got together with

her when I was 11. Instead, I think like the social trauma forms such a foundation in someone's life that like, I can't help but from time to time, those moments will visit me and I'll, I'll like shutter like, Oh my God, what an awful choice. Adam, you don't think I shutter? I fucking shutter. Oh yeah. I stay shuttering. I should start a fucking streaming service.

I shutter so much. People think you should take Parkinson's medications. You shutter so much. medications you shudder so much. Talaris pays Archer a visit and Archer is like, hey man, so, uh, scans all wrapped up, really appreciate your guys help on that. Um, have you bumped into T'Pol recently? He's doing it again, isn't he? The whole like, this isn't quite the butter up of the first scene, but he's definitely doing

a little bit of preamble talking before getting into the stuff. I mean, in this case, I like it, cause it's like, Talaris, is there anything you wanna tell me about that you did is kind of the vibe. The stack of clarinet cases behind him just feel like a stern music teacher talking to the third chair clarinet about missing the stanza in the fourth bar of the arrangement, you know?

I fucking loved Archer in this scene. He's such a real one for this because he calls Teleris what he is, which is a guy that groomed T'Pol from the moment he met her and then assaulted her. And he says like, get the fuck off my ship in more polite words than that. I don't think we're going to feel the same way about this, but how much further did you want Archer to go here? Because the moment T'Leris goes the, she wanted it actually defense, was the moment I thought this guy was gonna get

two clarinet cases clapped against both sides of his head. Like I thought it was gonna get physical and I expected it to get physical from Archer to Teleris first. Maybe I'm not making myself clear. Six days off limits. You're in my way, captain. Does Archer know about how much stronger Vulcans are than humans?

He must, right? He has to. They've been around for 90 years. Which makes this moment in retrospect feel heroic, because Telerys could have popped his head like a zit. It's fucking nuts how bad of news Vulcan with a temper is, and... I wish Archer shot him though. Like, like it all goes according to plan.

He gets thrown across the room by the chair. He squirreled away the phaser behind. How much did you like seeing that huge pyramid of clarinet cases go down when Archer crashes into it? I mean, the sound it makes, they didn't even bother to cover up the sound of a stack of clarinets falling. Yeah. Incredible. And he's got the strap right there. He like, he like grabs it off his desk and Teleris is like, you planned it.

Love Archer's clap back of like, uh, yeah, I wasn't exactly expecting to fly across the room over to here where my gun is. That's a, that's a miscalculation you made, sir. Do you think all Star Trek captains have a squirreled away dust buster in their ready room? You got to, right? It kind of feels like a good idea. You're constantly taking meetings

with strange aliens there. You never know when things are going to take a turn. Yeah. We never cut to the shot under Picard's desk of the double barrel phaser he has pointing at the guy's nuts. We cut to the exterior of the ready room gazing window, and there's just like arterial spray that hits it.

So yeah, the Vulcans get sent packing, and I was fucking dying for a taven scene. Like, why do you not bring Robert Pine back for this? Why is there no moral reckoning with the leader of this ship for a tavern scene. Like, why do you not bring Robert Pine back for this? Why is there no moral reckoning with the leader of this ship about what his radical ideas that he's gone off on this adventure with his friends have led to? We remember back to that very last tavern moment

of this episode where he's on the bridge regarding some bullshit after the chicken scene. After the scene's over, that's a wrap on Robert Pine. That's it. Thanks, Robert Pine. And that's how tepid the applause is. He goes over to Crafty and like absolute, you know, like the foil takeout box

that's like very flimsy until you put the plastic lid on for the structure. He's absolutely loading that up with chicken. And instead of putting the plastic lid on for the structure. He's absolutely loading that up with chicken. Yeah. And instead of putting the plastic lid on, he just folds it in half, makes his own weird metal clam shell of just, like, sloppy chicken marsala. God. You know what, I might go two plastic lids on that,

because at least the marsala sauce isn't going to soak, you know, the paper part. How dare you? Yeah, but is it, like, phthalate-free plastic or whatever? What are the things that you don't want? BPAs? You know, when you've got an insatiable chicken hunger the way Robert Pine does, you're eating that in the car on the way home. That's not lasting long enough to soak through the box.

Yeah, and Robert Pine's like probably like 60 years old by the time he shoots this. He's like, I'm on the down stroke. I don't need to worry that much about microplastics in my chicken Marsala. Hell no. To Paul Walter Hauser has a little follow-up with Tripp where he's like, hey man, great news. They put a to pacemaker in my father and he's gonna live a couple more years.

So, you know, chances are that I could eventually patch things up with him. He kind of buries the lead that he learned this from his dad in a way that I was like, like, is this guy emotional or just evasive? Great question. This description by T'Pol Walter Hauser made me think about just how chill Vulcan operating rooms would be and thus how soothing a hospital procedural would be on Vulcan television. Ugh. Ugh.

Like I'd fall asleep watching a show like that, but modern hospital TV is like, 30 cc's of blabla. And they're like, there's just someone pumping the whole time and screaming. Chest compressions and God like, oh oh we lost him on the slab it never gets any easier Meanwhile the Vulcans are like 30 cc's Of inaprovilane. I believe he has flatlined Someone notify the family he has gone to a better place

Someone notify the family. He has gone to a better place. Gratitude is what to Paul Walter Hauser feels for Tripp Tucker. And that's a good feeling to leave with. You don't want to leave with the feeling of the previous scene, leaving at the end of a dust buster. Yeah. We just see their ship leave. A couple of chicken breasts fall out the back of it as they go,

as they peel out. Just three Vulcans furiously masturbating and eating chicken marsala for the next week. When they said that they were going to go off and explore integrating their emotions with their logic, we did not know that this is what they meant. Yeah, just a good old fashioned chicken run for this Vulcan ship. integrating their emotions with their logic. We did not know that this is what they meant. Yeah. Just a good old fashioned chicken run for this Vulcan ship. Archer has a little final check-in with, to Paul, who sort of seems like he interrupts her meditating, but, uh, she is happy to receive the news that the creepy Vulcans have gone away and will not be a concern for her going forward.

They have a little conversation about why Vulcans meditate and how much Archer feels like he's learned about her and what makes her tick. And she wants to know about dreaming from him. And like, is that cool for you? Do you like it? This is the most curious either of them have been in a long time. Matthew 20 Archer gets a little bit uncomfortable. He's like, sometimes I like dreaming kind of a lot. You wouldn't believe what happens

towards the end of some of my favorite dreams. Alan When you're done meditating, is it ever inexplicably wet? Do you ever have to get up in the middle of the night to kind of change in a way you can't explain to the person you share a bed with? Did you like this episode, Adam? episode, Adam. It would be weird to say that I did, but here is the way that I did. I thought a lot about that TNG episode, Violations, when I was watching this episode, the one where Troy gets assaulted psychically by a telepathic visitor.

Yeah. And that episode was notably difficult to endure. I didn't like seeing that. Didn't like how that story was told. Didn't like a favorite character hurt the way she was. This is not that. This is like a half or one quarter violations. If violations is a scale of trauma, I feel like this one comes up way short in a way that I'm grateful

for. But in traumatizing to Paul, I think it does what a lot of modern TV and movies do. It makes me care deeply for the, for characters I might not otherwise. Like we barely know these people and we barely know to Paul, but I found myself like really caring for her wellbeing and getting really angry at Teleres for doing what he's doing. So while the depiction of an assault here was uncomfortable and the sort of sexualization that I think could easily be brought to it while you're watching it happen, like it's weird to say that it resulted in something good, but it made me care about the character in a way that may only be possible through like many, many more episodes of regular mission type shit.

Right. So it kind of sped that up in a way that may be useful in a storytelling sense. Of course, it was difficult to watch and I didn't like many parts of watching the assault happen, but like there's a result of this when you tell a story. I think ultimately as a writer, you want a viewer to care deeply about your characters. And this, this is a shortcut for getting there with a, with a main character and that's where I'm at with it. What about you?

Yeah. I mean, I think that like, it's like axiomatic in writing, like you come up with characters and then horrible things happen to them. And the way you create drama is by exploring how they react and respond to that adverse events. And yeah, like, you know, this does tiptoe up to a place where I feel like it's not actually that useful to depict a certain type of assault as like the kind of adverse event that a character is reacting to, and there's too much of that. That's the tension in my own feeling.

Yeah. Is like, ah, really? Like, we're back here again as a storytelling trope? Right. But I think that, yeah, there's like enough Star Trek window dressing on it that it doesn't get all the way into the like, I can't sign off on this territory.

And I think that that's probably pretty subjective from viewer to viewer. So I'm not saying that anybody is wrong if they're on the other side of that. Absolutely. But yeah, like I think that it's a pretty interestingly told version of this story. And I liked Archer's reaction a whole lot.

I think that the thing, the main problem I had with this is there just doesn't seem like there's a kind of like bigger reckoning at the end. You know, like, I wanted to see a captain to captain thing. I wanted it to feel like, you know, the shipmates were rallying around to Paul in a way that... Great call. You know?

Yeah. Remember that episode where Archer was so pissed? He's like, yeah, we're gonna take out all the repairs we did on your ship. Yeah. I'm so fucking pissed at you. That doesn't happen here. That doesn't rise to the level of undoing the help that was given. It feels like it should. It feels like a reckoning needed to be happening on the other ship.

Instead it was sort of a go away creep. Yeah. Kind of vibe. Take your Marsala and leave. Where they're free to go creep around unpunished from here in a way that also doesn't feel just. Yeah, so maybe in talking it out, like a little bit of a miss at the end.

But an interestingly told story up until that point, I think. Also, more Robert Pine. Yeah. What are we doing? We go through the trouble of calling Robert Pine and we give him one chicken eating scene? Fuck that.

Give me a break. You want to see if there's anything more satisfying in our Priority One inbox? Oh, yeah. Priority One message from Starfleet coming in on Secure Channel. Need a supplemental income. Supplemental income? Supplemental.

Supplemental. Yeah, it's extra. By the interest alone, could be enough to buy this ship. Ben, we got a promotional Priority One message here. That message goes like this. Hi, FODs. I've been listening to TGG almost since the start. It's a solid part of my weekly routine.

I am a tattoo artist based at an inclusive and queer friendly studio in the UK. It would really help me if viewers gave me a follow on Instagram or Facebook, or if you're nearby hit me up for custom tattoos and just to talk check. Thanks for the pod, Ben and Adam. Here's my favorite drop. I am Chief Miles Edward O'Brien, except I've got a disgusting cyst in the back of my neck. Damn, deep cut. This is coming in from Alex Ingram.

I'm looking at Alex Ingram's portfolio on their website and my goodness, really, really gorgeous stuff here. There's one of headphones that I feel like if I was gonna get a tat, I might get this, you know? Some sick-ass headphones to represent my podcasting journey. You know, our show at London Podcast is gonna be in about a week when this episode drops. I hope Alex is going to be there. Yeah. I don't have any sense of how easy it is to get from Birmingham to London, but probably just a train ride, right?

Yeah. And you and I have agreed to get matching Star Trek tattoos if Alex goes to that show. We sure have. It'll be special to show everyone at that London Podcast Fest in the audience. The two of us. Shirtless. Getting giant chest plate Star Trek tattoos. Yeah, and they don't really get the full thing unless we're standing right next to each other. It all kind of lines up.

I know. That's what's so great. Wow, that's awesome. I hope Alex gets the greatest gen bump. Bump, bump, bump. Follow them on Instagram, at Alex Ingart. So that's A-L-E-X-I-N-G-A-R-T.

Or check out their website, alexingram.art. A-L-E-X-I-N-G-R-A-M dot art. That rules. Way to go. Be an awesome Alex. Our next priority one message is from David from San Francisco. And it's to Ben and Adam.

And it goes like this. Long time Trek fans since back when the whales were new, but could never get past the theme song for Enterprise. Only series I've never seen, but you guys finally got me to watch the rest of the pilot and already on to the next. So, thought you deserved a few scarves. Wow! So David sat down to watch the pilot of the new Star Trek show. The theme song came on and David turned off the television

and walked away forever. I knew I could get you to try something that you thought you wouldn't enjoy. All it took was an open mind and a little bit of animal nitrate. This isn't the first time we've heard a message like this. A lot of people got off the Star Trek train when Enterprise began,

and look at all these Star Trek fans coming back. Hell yeah. Pretty fun. I love that story. Then we got our final priority one message here from Ira W. Gooch. Whoa. It's the Gooch, Ben, and it's to you and me.

The message goes like this. I wanna follow up on my P1. When I was 21, I last watched Enterprise. Now, watching the first couple of EPs, I want to add nuance. Archer is the worst. It is a crime how much T'Pol is over-sexualized. She is a great character.

Reed is a creep. Season one and two are okay. Season three is great. Season four, bad. But I still like all of it. GW is cool and Porthos is a good boy. It's the end of the Gooch's message. Well said, Ira Gooch.

I feel like we're jumping ahead by reviewing seasons two, three, and four. That's just your opinion, Gooch. We'll keep our own counsel. Are we sure Reed is a creep based on the number of episodes we've seen so far? I don't know. We don't know him like that.

He seems to have a pretty big body count, but that doesn't a creep make. No. Necessarily. To prefer pineapple-based beverages and food items. That's very considerate, some would argue. Also not creepy at all. Yeah. They took a call on the, I listened to an episode of Savage Love Today where they took a call on the pineapple for ropes question

and the person was talking about celery juice for ropes. You ever heard celery juice improves ropes? Don't love that. Would not enjoy the process. Yeah, pineapple so much more pleasant. Well, Ben mentioned consideration. Would you consider supporting the show with a priority one message?

You can. Go to maximumfun.org slash Jumbotron. Both commercial messages and personal messages go a long way to supporting our programming here. And if they're a commercial message, give you the greatest gin ball. Hey Adam. What's up Ben? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? I tried to do some research about this. I wanted to know everything about Robert Pine in what is effectively a cameo.

How little he has to do and how much he has to eat is just a delight to me. I want to know everything about this. I want the oral history of Robert Pine on Star Trek Enterprise Fusion. And there's just nothing out there. I think we're filling in a lot of blanks this episode in the legend of how that was possible, but kind of a lighthearted drunk Shimoda in an episode that was at times pretty dark. What about you? I'll give it to Paul Walter Hauser. I like a Vulcan that is down to talk about

fucking. He's probably the most down Vulcan I can think of. Yeah. Yeah. I love that he was just putting horny on main, you know? Sure was. Putting horny in the mess hall. That's Paul Walter Hauser. Faith of the fart. Why don't you head to gach.biz slash game and get the game of buttholes. The will of the reicher quantum leap fired up. While I tell you about season one episode 18, Rouge Planet. While exploring an uncharted planet, Enterprise crew members encounter a group of aliens who are hunting down indigenous creatures for recreation. Hey, this sounds like the most dangerous game.

It sort of does. Yeah. I'm very confused here because I have this open in the Apple TV app and I'm looking at the episode description and it gives a list of the like supporting cast at the bottom. And there's an actress named Stephanie Knitsnick in this episode, but the picture is of Garcelle Beauvais of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Oh yeah, that's, I would have clocked that too. Is Stephanie Knitsnick a Garcelle Beauvais lookalike or is this just like something going tremendously wrong with Apple's database of actor photos? You know, I was up on Hollywood Boulevard seeing a movie at a Grauman's Chinese theater and I ended up getting my picture taken with a Marcel Beauvais character.

Garcelle Beauvais, Garcelle. With a very loose fitting mask and costume combination. Oh boy. Don't let them take advantage of you that way. Oh yeah. Ben, nothing to take advantage of this episode where our runabout had landed on square 86. That's a regular old episode. Sure is.

To greatest gen viewers, I'm gonna roll a hundred sided die that will catapult us somewhere randomly on the board. And let's see where it takes us this time. You're required to learn as you play. Roll. Ben. Our runabout has landed on square 100. Whoa!

Did I win? Hardly. Which, in previous versions of the game, was a morn hammered square. I'm telling you today is not a special square of any kind. It's a regular old episode for square 100. It's no longer a special square? It's right up next to a Naomi Wildman episode, but did not hit it. Regular old episode for Square 100 next week. That's fucking wild that that's a regular square now.

What are we doing? Feels weird, huh? Yeah. Guess it's just pretty random. It's just a random thing. Yeah. How about that? Guess that's all the game is anymore.

Hmm. Low probability random episode generator. It's just a random thing. Yeah. How about that? I guess that's all the game is anymore. Low probability random episode generator. Anything can happen. Wow. Well, I'm looking forward to a regular old episode next week. And we got a lot of thanks to give in the meantime. We got to thank Windy Pretty, our producer slash editor, who does a great job keeping this thing on the rails.

We gotta thank Rob Adler, who will have edited the YouTube video of the Code 47 we opened this episode with. Rob is also running our social media accounts and making really funny video clips of us talking about episodes for those. If you use Instagram or tik-tok or YouTube or Facebook or Twitter or anything throw some follow He's a he's really making those fun accounts to follow. It's at greatest trek

Everywhere you go. Yeah, really really love his work I want to thank everyone who sent in code 47 packages and the postal workers who endure Ben's not frequent visits at all. Thank you for your service. And our favorite postal worker, the Card Daddy Bill Tilly, who screens all of those packages, makes the Code 47s possible to do in a safe and fun way. We just love that guy so much.

He's another great reason to follow those social media accounts, because the Card Daddy is back in business making trading cards. And we've already had a hologram card for this season. So if you're not following at Greatest Trek on social media, you're missing out on these hilarious trading cards that Bill Tilley's making. I'm so glad they're back.

Me too. We got to thank the Friends of DeSoto who support our work week in week out by making a monthly contribution at maximumfund.org slash join. You join today for five bucks you get instant access to our monthly bonus episodes and our eternal gratitude. And with that we will be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise and an episode of The Greatest Generation Enterprise where it's like, is Garcelle beefing with Kyle or is she beefing with Dereed?

Who's to say? Not me. I do not know what you're talking about. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show.

Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show.

Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. The end.