The Greatest Generation - Mad Pleating (S6E1)

Episode Date: April 10, 2017

When the Enterprise crew is hot on the trail of some inter-dimensional murderers, they can't help but dress for the occasion. But when the second in a two part episode (which could really have been three, or only one) devolves into an incoherent mess, we decide to rewrite it ourselves. What is the one impression we refuse to do? What do Data snitches get, if not stitches? How much less is less, and how much more is more? It's the episode that does not lack conviction!

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

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

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

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

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! Welcome to the greatest generation. Star Trek Podcast by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Adam Pranika. I'm your other host, Benjamin R. Harrison. Adam, we had our little cliffhanger of our own

on the last episode. Oh. Told you I would look into whatever happened to that weird gun my dad found. Yes. And like I said. I'm so glad we're actually doing the callback here. This is unlike us. To actually follow through.

Uncharacteristic callback. I called my father up. And as I predicted, the answer to the mystery is not particularly satisfying, but I thought it was worth relating because it was unsatisfying in a very, in a very like dad kind of way. It was a pretty dad core conclusion. So at the time, my father is an architect and at the time he was working on a county jail project, and was working at the jail on this project.

So he actually like knew a sheriff, and was like, hey, I found a gun, and like told him about it and asked like,, oh, do you think it would shoot? Or like, what do you think about this gun? And the guy knew enough to know that, it probably wouldn't shoot without some elbow grease, but he was like, I'd love to take a look at the thing. See, if you have anything special,

it sounds like it's pretty regular like officers gun from the army a While ago type of deal where there's like a million of them and it's not worth anything but Love to take a look and then It never happened because they couldn't figure out a way for my dad to take the gun to work and have it be okay for my dad to take the gun to work and have it be okay. He couldn't, he couldn't just put it in a briefcase, right? No, because it's a jail, so it's a big problem. And then like, he was like, I couldn't even take it like onto the site in my car.

And there's no parking around there, so we just give up after a while. Wow. That makes a ton of sense. Yeah. Yeah. So. So where did it go then? Did you just throw it off of a bridge then? I think it is in the back of a closet somewhere. Wow. Yeah. That's pretty fun that I mean at least so presumably little sure it's in this possession Yeah, presumably someday I will inherit this gun and then I will have no idea what the fuck to do with it also Yeah, I mean It seems more and more there You can take it gun anywhere these days

Yeah, but wow those those salad days where you couldn't just bring a You can take a gun anywhere these days. But, yeah. But, wow, those salad days where you couldn't just bring a gun into a jail. Yeah. Wow. And, like, did you talk at all about the money or anything? Or was this purely gun talk? I was mainly curious about the gun. Did you think at all about recording the conversation

with your dad? Uh, that has made good pod. No, not particularly. I also made the classic East Coast calling West Coast mistake of calling him at like 11 a.m. my time and he was like, what? He's like waking up out of sleep. Oh no. That's how you want to be woken up by your son asking about a gun you haven't thought about in a long time. Was he alarmed at any point that you were asking about it? You've met my father Adam. The man. I don't he seems unflapable to me. He has a very a very even keel. Have you ever seen him flapped? No, it's funny, like my mom will sometimes talk about something that's got him really excited or something that's got him really upset.

And I just like look off into the distance and try and picture that. And like I'm sure that internally he may be excited or upset. But you know, like outwardly he's just like walking around in a weird hat and dad shoes That's great That's that's the kind of dad you want right there steady dad. Yeah steady as he goes top to your dad. Yeah Well, I'm really glad that you followed up on that story I can't imagine how many other stories are just out there dangling. Waiting for us to conclude them that we don't even know about or don't recall.

Yeah, yeah, or care. Yeah, that's true. Much like the episode that we'll be discussing today, hard to tell if many people cared about the cliffhanger at play here. Today's episode is the beginning of season 6. Did you ever think we'd make it this far, Ben? No. Every day.

Kind of amazing. Yeah, yeah. It was just a joke originally that the two of us were making a Star Trek podcast and hoping people wouldn't listen and now Here we are. We stand astride season six Feels like just a month ago. We were but a glimmer in your father's eye Let's do it, man. It's season six episode one Times zero part two Adam this episode starts with uh

My least favorite character from the last episode Talking to a reporter Mark Twain I've decided that Mark Twain in this two-parter is my least favorite impression I've ever heard or seen. It's so bad. What's so bad is like you and I love doing impressions. I have no interest in doing this Twain. It is like anti-foney to me. Yeah, it's not anti-comedy, it's anti-foney. Yeah, yeah.

So he is telling this reporter about, this is like as low as the last episode stooped. Maybe this is the lowest, this two-parter gets. It's depicting Mark Twain, walking down the streets of San Francisco with a newspaper reporter telling him his theory about how time travelers from the future are here in, I guess, like the late 1800s and they're here to like fuck shit up and as soon as I have the necessary evidence, I intend to expose them. Mark Twain is gonna blow the story wide open.

If you recall correctly, Ben, all the way back to season five, episode 26, time zero, part one, Mark Twain was caught eavesdropping on Geinen and Data. Tommy? That was a baby. And I guess like, got away with it? Like, like, they saw him listen to their conversation

and they did nothing to dispute what he heard or anything. Talk me, talk me, talk me, talk me. Like, they just let him go. Data's having no problems lying in this arc. So he should have just been like, Mark, we're talking about a book we're working on you dope. If this were a back to the future movie, you would have hit them on the back of the head

with a two by four and then like throw them in the trunk of your car. Right. You can't let this lay the way they've done. Data especially has no comprehension of like time travel paradoxing. Yeah, but it's also just crazy that Twain's first act is go tell a newspaper reporter, Sons evidence. He's like planting the story and he's promising that he'll have evidence to prove it

later. But it's like no newspaper reporter would take a call from, I don't know, like who's a big novelist? Dean Coons. Yeah, Dean Coons calls up newspaper reporter. Or like maybe Hodgman is a good comparison. Like a humorist both of the written word and a comedian who goes up on stage. Like if John Hodgman called up like Adam Nangorny

from The New York Times with a big wapper of a story, like there are time travelers here from the future to fuck shit up for everyone. Like they don't print that, they don't take that meeting. It's such a like a writer's room fever dream, this concept. Yeah, and it made me feel bad about Mark Twain. Like, I didn't know he was such a snitch. Yeah.

He doesn't have a stitch on him. I have a feeling data doesn't dull out stitches. He jolt out ripping you limb from limb. You have to suspend basically every shred of disbelief you have to go along with this. Yeah. Twain seems a little bent on doling out some Mark Twain-style justice too. He's really worked up on this. Yeah.

And he's embarking on his own sort of investigation in a way that's, I don't know, was he particularly sleuthy in his time? Was he known for this? I don't know. He's sort of been matlocking around. They are not welcome here. Yeah, the thing he was known for was being a legendary wit and he's so unwitty as written. It's like, I don't know, like, I had a friend in film school who made a film based on the Marx brothers and he wrote a ton of great like Marx brothers style jokes for it.

And it was like, it was amazing because it wouldn't have worked if there weren't lots of Marx-brothery jokes in there. And this twain comes off as so flat because it's so unmarked twainy. Well, I mean, the counterpoint to all of this criticism bin is like, can't you just have a fun sci-fi start track episode? And to you, I ask Ben, is this fun? Because this episode feels like a mud bath to me. Yeah. A mud bath with edible cups, Adam. Yeah, indeed.

Well, we catch up with the entrepreneur crew, all of the senior staffers that don't have loaf have transported themselves back in time. And unlike data, have seemed to have no problem getting, you know, period appropriate clothing and, you know, renting out an apartment and like Rikers in drag as a cop. We're missing the awful stereotypical Native American and the rich guy losing at poker. So bad over and over and over again they're like what the fuck is going on in this poetry cave? Can we stop inviting strangers to play with this? This is terrible. I guess their cover is that they're a band of traveling shake

experience. Oh. Which we get because there's a delightful performance by an old lady landlord who wants them to pay up. Maybe they shouldn't have spent all their money on that period wardrobe. Captain, you're still the captain in 1800s and Francisco, why don't you make a budget? Like, you've got to maintain a reputation, right? Like, their next landlord isn't going to want to rent to them if they can't provide references. Plenty of apartments, I mean, aren't gonna rent to eight roommates either. Yeah, and they go for a fully furnished eight room apartment,

which is, that's spending, right there. Could you imagine just sharing that single 1893 bathroom with Beverly and Jordy and Riker and Picard, like all of them. Can you imagine how much toothpaste Jordy puts on the mirror? You know it's going everywhere. Jordy's got to wipe the seat after two. Jesus Christ, Jordy.

Jordy together. Yeah. He's pissing in the tub. It's a bigger target. Rakers doing his bed sheet laundry like every other day. It's what he's accustomed to. Yeah, but that washing machine is always occupied. How interested is Raker in the brothel in this town? I'm only very, very interested. Why don't we get that C story?

I don't know. And this is bringing us back to our point, like as Star Trek as a place. You know, there is a lot of fun stuff to do in 1890s San Francisco, then. But instead we're doing Shakespeare again. You know, like we're doing Shakespeare again. We've done Shakespeare.

We sure have Adam. Why not have a guy fall into a covered wagon full of hay? That's fun. See that happened. And then he spits some hay out and says, I hate hay. Yeah, I hate it. Oh. So they work out that the evil aliens are stealing bioenergy from people and using the cover of a cholera epidemic to hide the spike in deaths that they're causing. I mean, here's the problem with this plan, Adam. epidemic to hide the spike in deaths that they're causing. I mean, here's the problem with this plan, Adam.

It makes some amount of sense if you have to steal human bodies from a very particular moment in history where it might have gone noticed that lots of people are dying. But they're time travelers. Why can't they just like travel back to the paleolithic and find a band of hunter-gatherers, kill all of them and then move on to the next band? You could make the reason for being there,

go for making zero sense to making a hundred percent sense by changing only a couple words in that explanation, which is, which is they need human bodies who have been infected with cholera. Right. In order to, like, in order to achieve their nourishment, like, that's all it needs to be, but instead, to use cholera as a cover for what they're doing and they're taking perfectly healthy bodies or whatever, like...

What if cholera was an alien invented disease and they sent that back first? Yeah. That would be, that would be such an awesome plot line. Yeah, they look at that guy in the writer's room and they sent that back first. Yeah. That would be such an awesome plot line. Yeah, they look at that guy in the writer's room and they're like, go get us some fucking coffee. Shut up. Take my punch card. I want to get the free one next time.

Yeah. There's a long scene where Mark Twain pays off the bell boy to get into data's fancy hotel room. I wouldn't do this for just anyone with your clenches. And it's revealed that the Bellboy is in fact a young Jack London, which is a, it's treated like a big reveal, like a, like, oh man, cool, but it's like, it comes off as so flat. And it's also hard to believe that this Bellboy would fuck data over as big as he does because data has been paying him very richly

to do favors around town. Like, when the guy got tipped by data in the last episode, he basically couldn't believe how much money data gave him. Yeah. He's like a guy that's handing out hundos. Is this canonical London? I kind of feel like this is kind of retconned into the character.

Like maybe they wrote the character for the last episode and they're like, what if that guy turned out to be Jack London in this episode? I don't know. It's a weird choice for sure. Like what if the Bellboy was like, had more of an X to grind with data, like, data really didn't understand the tipping thing, and so the Bell Boy is like much more apt to fuck him over. Yeah, it's almost better if he's just an anonymous Bell Boy.

Yeah. But instead, we got to wink at the camera. This scene is where Twain explains, you know, a little bit further, like he has this idea that he is going to, like because he's the only person that knows that there are future people around, he's protecting their time, protecting the present from the future. And like given the information Twain has, he's not exactly wrong to want to do this, like, he doesn't know about the evil aliens that are stealing souls.

He's just concerned for his time period. And I thought that was like, that was all right. That's a point of view that makes sense, I guess. Well, a little charity for the episode. So he's like still poking around in there and gigning and data come back. Well, a little charity for the episode. So he's still poking around in there and gining and data come back and they're like platinum scheming and data notices that his magical Macuffin machine has been tampered with. The Transceiver Assembly has been removed.

Without it, I will be unable to track the time shifts. And they discover Twain hiding in the closet with a stolen part off of it. Did they ever really explain what this McEffin was for? It was my understanding that it detected the bursts that the time travelers left. Oh yeah, right, it draws a little squiggly line on a roll of paper if there's a time travel happening.

Not unlike earthquake technology. Yeah. I thought like there'd be a little, on the drum head, there'd be a squiggle and then you'd go out and find it. A Richter scale of time travel? Yeah. I like it. I guess it's no bobbet, Ben.

Yeah. It's definitely a, you know, like the sad, the sad version of the Boppet that you can create with late 1800s parts and a phaser. You could argue that Boppet's always sad. That's not a fun game. I had to watch so many videos of people doing Boppet on YouTube to edit the last episode. That's one of those great 10 to 1 SNL sketches too. Did you see that one? No.

The research. The Boppet always wants to be jerked like so. So you'd play the Boppet in a party and then the guy would play Boppet and he'd play it like normal. But then you'd hand it to the hot girl at the party and the Bob it would always ask to be jerked. Right, or would not be into that Bob it? No. No.

So the entrepreneur crew show up at a Colorado ward in a hospital and I guess Picard is like a fixing a evil alien detector to one of the lights. He's placing the burners, city ordinance. Kind of gets told to clear out by a doctor. Beverly is in drag as a period appropriate nurse, but she's doing a lot of like seroptitious trichordering. I feel like not a lot is made of how much seraptitious tricordering Bentley has done over the course of the series. Like she's always got a little like secret scanner going.

She can hide a lot of tricorders in those frills. Frilly dress, really hides a lot. There is mad pleating in this time and place. Ben, would you have accepted a third part to this story if it meant bulking up, you know, how a bunch of stuff happened here? Because to me, like, the Enterprise crew is running around with all this gear.

These parts that they've either created or purchased. Like, I want a few scenes of how they got all this stuff. Where did Picard get the little flashy leg? Yeah, well, and also, I'm- How do they get into the hospital ward? Like, all that fun, like, intelligence gathering, like spycraft of like talking your way past people, you only get one scene with that happening. Well, it's like one of the greatest things about the voyage home, like that scene in the hospital where they're like running around and McCoy just is just like horrified at every turn.

Like they could have had some fun in games like that. I mean, not necessarily doing it in the hospital and warming over something that's already been done, but like, but yeah, there's no fish out of water stuff at all. Yeah, that's what's missing. And like if you don't be afraid of being derivative, like this is a different time and a different crew. It's okay. I mean, it's the same city and the crew comes from the same shift, but... Sure.

To me, the most fun part about time travel are those misunderstandings. Yeah. That makes the back to the future franchise so fun. Totally. But without the misunderstanding, you've just got a crew doing science and spycraft in a place that they're not familiar with. So you sacrifice all that. Right. The evil aliens are in there in that hospital room and they like do a little phaser fighting. The police come in. They've got to split. And when they do data comes around the corner with like a horse-strong buggy and

like data has detected that they're there in time and is like come to save the day. And it's great. He's like the wheel man that they didn't realize they needed. Yeah, like the horse-john bank robbery situation. And he's got like a team of horses Yeah, and he's sort of skidding around a corner Fun times. It looks great It's it's the high point of the episode for me. Yeah, it does

Force you to look at a bunch of wide shots of the universal studios back lot, but Other than that, it's pretty fun. It's a well-enough shot, you know. I wonder how horses interact with data. Like, have you heard of this form of therapy that involves horses where if you're going through some shit, it's good for you to be around horses because horses have a preternatural ability to like see through your own lie. Like they can detect, like this is not a joke. They can detect your intention whether or not you're declaring that intention or not. So like they'll have you walk horses across fields or like ride horses and stuff and like

be around horses because to the degree that you can communicate clearly and honestly, like that's a way to get sort of a mental breakthrough into like whatever's blocking you. Are you saying horses would be awesome at poker, Adam? I am saying that, but I'm also wondering like, what sort of read a horse would get off of data if horses have like this mental

acuity to like see through your bullshit. Yeah. I wonder if he would scare the shit out of those horses. Would it be like me walking my dog around during Halloween and my dog barks at all the like displays people have put out in front of their houses? Yeah. It would be like you walking your dog around on a combination of Halloween and Fourth of July.

Dang. Yeah. That's no joke. Freaky. Yeah. So they've, they've reunited with data. They mostly find data to get money. Yeah.

Data, she's gonna kick us out of our apartment. Hahaha. Could I, could I have a low to zero interest loan, please? Yeah. Data's not alone, a loan shark, you know. He's willing to give a fair rate of interest on, on any loan. Yeah.

There's that bad mid-Summer night's dream scene. Yeah. I like that Jordi has the book upside down. That was a fun little site gag. Yeah, they do some fun stuff with Jordi's visor and glasses and going back and forth between them? Yeah, he's got to go incognito when there's normals around. So he sticks the visor in his coat pocket and puts on like blind man sunglasses that have convenient little ornamentation around the red glowing pips on the sides of his head.

Yeah, they look a little snap glassesy. Who do you think looks the best in period gear? I think it's Jordy. He looks fucking great. Jordy always looks good when they put him in a suit. I mean, Picard looks very at home in this clothing. Like Picard looks like this is what I wear when I'm not captaining.

And I'm not wearing a deep V to go to sleep. Which police officer did they murder to give that uniform to Riker? I know. There's so much that goes on told here. I've fit some great. Yeah. It's one of my favorite things in movie and television

when somebody steals somebody else's clothes It's always like magically a perfect tailoring job Yeah, and Riker's hair is just varnished down until like a deep part. Yeah, good hair in this episode. Yeah, very good So they go check out the cave with data and they're like all right So this cave has has been specially set up to allow the aliens to come back through it. And so this is the site of our problem.

We need to close the portal but also get back to our time and Twain comes down the stairs and he's got a gun and it's that gun that they discover in the first episode. I suspect that even time travelers are vulnerable to the cold 45. He's got your dad's gun. He's pretty sure it'll fire.

Yeah, and he didn't have any problems driving on to the, uh, onto the sight parking lot. He gets so close to data here, I kept expecting data to just bend the barrel into a pretzel. Yeah. But we know for a fact that it doesn't get bent into a pretzel because we've seen it already 500 years later. It's true. But like, why doesn't data incapacitate him?

I have to feel like data wants to be captured by him. The ease with which Twain could have been knocked out at any point along this entire journey is hard to overstate. He's such a minimal threat to them and yet they just kind of allow him to be. I feel like they tried to give him a little bit of that Moriardy juice, like turning him into like some sort of threat to them. Yeah.

But he never is. He's just sort of bumbling. Like, why do they let him get one up over on him? I don't get it. Because they need to waste enough time for the evil, Davidian aliens to come and jack the snake cane back, which, you know, starts off with Tussle and Data then steals the cane. His head pops off and a time portal opens up. And everybody including Twain, Minus, Geinen and Picard run through the whole.

This is another moment to interject, Ben, that give us a third episode because as soon as they get through that time portal, like I want to see the enterprise has been saucer separated. Warf is just trying his damnness to figure out a problem up there. Like, it's paradoxes aplenty for, for Warf. Like, his mind is just completely melting with what's happening around him. I want to see him working with the D squad on the bridge

trying to triage the situation. Yeah. There's a ton of shit to go over here, but they return to the ship and everything's cool. Yeah. Wurf doesn't even regard them. Like there's not even the transfer of command back to Riker when he returns.

We didn't even get that soon. I would have just loved to hear Wurf when they get into the cave on the other side on the radio going, oh, thank fuck, you guys have been gone for a day. We had no idea what happened. Yeah, and we also don't get how much time has passed, right? Like, it's not instantaneous. It's not, it's also interesting to know.

Like, this is one of those things with time travel scripts where it's like, you know, there's a lot of like hand waving to get you to ignore that. But like, like, is it real time? Like, have they spent several days away or is it like instantaneous? They never address that. Yeah, and they have a little bit of a stowaway in this portal, don't they've been? Wouldn't it be fun if Mark Twain went to the future? I think so. I don't need to see that. It's like Hall of Presidents. That's the effect that we get when Mark Twain's walking around the

enterprise, do you? For some reason, Troy offers to be his tour guide of future, and she changes back out of her hockey pads and into regular Troy costume. Did you notice how tan Marina services all of a sudden? Really nice post-vacation maple syrup tan. Yeah, she definitely went on a cruise over her summer break. She got married over the break. That's what I read. Oh really? Yeah, married in a honeymoon. That'll get you nice in tan. She has a rock solid tan. Yeah, nice tan. I was, I had some tan envy. Yeah, that much. Do you tan much at him? Well, I I've got a burn to tan then the process. Yeah, otherwise I remain pretty fair. Yeah, it's like I have to sign up for cancer in order to not look gross

Sign here, please and we'll we'll give you a few of these melanoma, and then we'll give you some nice brown sugar. Yeah, it seems worth it. Every summer it seems like, well, one more melanoma's not gonna hurt. Yeah. Oh hey, you know, Ben, while we're talking about updates to callbacks, you get that chest thing dealt with? No.

And I'm going, when this episode comes out, I will be in Africa and we are recording a bunch of these before my trip. And I like, I'm really annoyed at myself that I didn't get it dealt with before I went to several developing countries where there's lots of possibilities of getting infections.

I'm a big time idiot at them, I think is the lesson of the day. My love is your people longing to my back which longer than us as the busy. Tell me more, you're the boy, yeah. All right, back to the show. We just cut out several minutes of really inappropriate humor.

So, they've got a body of data from more or less recently, and then the head that has been rotting away in the cave. And so, Jordy's like, well, I guess we could try putting them back together. And so there's a scene where Troy takes Mark Twain into the Android lab where Jordi is like poking away on date his head and they're getting ready to like nuke the site from orbit. It's fucking it. It's kind of a tough choice,

but they don't have any way of getting the captain back from the time period that he's in, and they're like, they're not sure that they have any choice, but to nuke the site from orbit, to stop the bad aliens from stealing past people. Did it bother you at all that the threat was never made explicit about this whole thing. Like, it seemed like the sample size was so small that they were like doing these trips to the past. They were gathering a couple of souls coming back with them

and then injecting them into the heads. But like, but no one ever comes out and says, they are going to kill everyone on earth if we let them keep doing this. And that's why we need to stop them. Are you saying you don't care about the lives of the homeless Adam? Of course I care about the lives of the homeless, Ben.

But- You're just up for worth like acceptable losses. Well, I think my problem rather than what losses are acceptable or not is just how total the threat is. Yeah. And no one seems to state the size of that threat in a way that could be deemed acceptable or not.

If they had given a scale to the threat. Yeah. I mean, it's what they do in first contact, right? They have like a view of the earth that has been borgafied over 100 years briefly before they go through the time portal. We neither see the borgafied earth or the disappearing people from the photograph.

We see no like paradoxical evidence. Yeah. That's a problem, Adam. It is. It's a big time problem. That sucks. You know what doesn't suck is, like, one of the evil aliens is still down in the cave and like, she explains to Picard, like, if you guys try and nuke this site from orbit, it's just going to make it stronger.

Your weapons will only amplify the time distortion. And you'll really have egg on your face. And so Picard has the genius idea of sending a message through the data head to the future. Yeah. I thought this was like one great idea in a script full of terrible ideas. This felt really loopery to me.

Like in that scene where that guy's being tortured and he looks down on his arm and scar tissue is like spelling shit out to him. Yeah. Like it was really well done, I thought. Good thinking about beef stew. Tasty. Tasty thinking beef stew.

So, uh, so, Jordy's like jiggling the head on this neck trying to get it jump started. And he's getting these messages from Captain McCard. He's like jiggling the head on this neck, trying to get it jump started. And he's getting these messages from Captain McCard. And I guess the messages are like punched into data's memory. Yeah. And like there's like a little, he stuck like an iron filing in between the battery and the contact so that it wouldn't connect over the years. Data manages to spit out the idea

that they cannot fire photon torpedoes at the site. It is imperative that we do not. I will explain later. That would be very bad. It does another one of now, dozens and dozens of examples of data saying, don't do the thing you're about to do, I'll explain later. And Riker never thought he'd have a second shot at Picard,

but he's ready to take it. Yeah. Like how many times has he fired on Picard or attempted to fire on him in an attempt to kill him? I think he's getting more and more comfortable with the idea. Yeah. It's a reflex now. They've got to get Picard back through the gate, and they're like, well, we can only send one person back,

and Data's ready to jump back through the gate. He loves it. Yeah. He's ready to bop his way through it. Samuel Clements, who has bridge credentials at this point. It's like, you know what? I have the perfect solution for you. The plan should actually be for me to go back.

And remain there so your captain can return here. Because I don't like it around here. Clemens has been kind of getting schooled on how much better the future is than the past. Yeah. Very surprised to learn that the Enterprise crew don't have hordes of impoverished people to thank for their life of luxury. Good job by Clemens also to not ask about his bank balance or anything.

That's usually the first thing that 19th and 20th century people want to know about. Well, given what a terrible investor Clemens is. Yeah. You would think he people want to know about. Well, and given what a terrible investor climbers is, yeah. You would think he would want to know, like did I ever make a good bet? He's bankrupt enough to buy the ship. Ha-ha-ha.

Yeah, so they send him back, gets Picard, Picard expresses how much he regrets not getting to hang out with Mark Twain more Finally Picard radios up and he's like hey I'm back you guys can come get me as Torpedoes are in the air though. Yeah, yeah, the birds are in the air the last second transport. Yeah, and I guess the last scene is a twain deciding to leave his pocket watch behind in the cave and there's some like ambulance boys taking Gainin out of there. Because I guess we kind of glossed over this, but she got injured when data stole the cane

and made the time portal open back up. Yeah, her contribution to the plot ended about 30 minutes ago. Right. But it's clear that she's sticking around that timeline. And she is who everyone thinks she is. The ambulance boys do not seem to notice that there's a severed data head on the ground about five feet from what they are.

Yeah, and in showing that we are reminded that data forever more is walking around with a 500 year old head. Right, his head is aged. He aged way past the rest of his body. You think there'd be like a tan line around his neck or something, you know? That'd be kind of fun. A little bit of dino damage here and there on the... Yeah.

Yeah. His hair just never quite right ever again. And here's the thing, like, so they swapped heads. This might be a little paradoxical, but like, there is a data head back on Earth now, still, right? They did the swap. There's now a second data head. Can data not touch that old head?

Can Maddox perform any... Yeah, they should call up the... Any experiments on it? They could call up to the Daystrom Institute and see if Maddox wants a hot tip on a fresh data head. It seems extremely valuable. Yeah. Not only that, like this whole thing

gives me a lot of respect for Dr. Sum. Like that head. That's built to last. Yeah, really is. And I think data's got to feel good about it too. Like his body can really put up with some shit over the long term. Hahaha. Indeed, Adam.

I'm glad Dr. Sume sprung for the rest protection. Mm-hmm. Really holds up. I am a cute, disaball. There are four lights. We didn't talk a lot about Gynon in this episode, but she's... I mean, like, this is the episode where you get to see Picard meeting Gynon for the first time. She's in it a bunch, and I just felt like she wound up being treated

like a potted plant. Like, she doesn't get to like move the plot much, she doesn't, like the meaning between her and Picard isn't momentous other than just like we have heard about it happening before. It's a it's really just like, oh, hey, what's up? Do you know me? Yeah, kind of, do I know you? Not yet. Right. Bye. It's hard to know what the stakes are when no one ever talks about what the stakes are with her. Like if she's if she's the Yoda of the series that we're sort of making her out to be, that we're supposed to understand that she is, and yet there's no supporting argument for that, there's so little of it, like I wanted there to be so much more gravity to that moment.

But the gravity is the sliding doors gravity of an opportunity that might be missed, and two people who might not be able to ever know each other. Those are the stakes, and those are large stakes, but I wanted a little bit more out of it than that. It too, dude. And the button on the episode is Picard going into 10 forward and seeing her again, wordlessly, and, you know, there's like an expression of gratitude or satisfaction at having preserved the timeline that preserves their relationship. Yeah.

But, man, even one line of dialogue out of Geinen or Picard could have given us another book's worth of backstory on them. And it made me wonder like, is it because the writers don't know? Like, are they not saying it because they don't know? Or are they just withholding it, knowing that they're planning on giving us more later that they, and they just never do it? It's like, it's writing that lacks conviction. Yeah, it's lost writing.

Is it what it felt like? Yeah. Like, Geinen is the polar bear of the series right now, and we're just, we're sort of chipping away at the explanation for why she's there. Right. And, and we think as if you were going to get a payoff that never comes. Yeah. Did you like this episode, Ben?

No, not really. I mean, it's not terrible. There's like some good parts. It's not it's not an armist. I keep going back to the need for a third episode. Like less is so much less here and more is so much more. Yeah. And also it would have been a fucking mindblower to get another to be continued. Like how long is this going to go? Yeah. It really would have benefited from a little longer runway. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like either, either make, collapse it and make it a one-up arc and like be like efficient and exciting and fun, or like get into it and don't paper over all of the holes. Have the courage of really establishing

some new shit about Gain and Unprechaun. Yeah, especially because, I mean, what's the break for, right? I've got to assume that you had some time to put into breaking this second part of the story. Right, I mean, like, who's the main character of this story? Like, who do we identify with?

Because I think that like, you could make the case that Mark Twain is the only one that really has an arc of any kind. Yeah. And like, he repents for being so suspicious of people from the future. But who cares? If that was the writer's head canning, some interesting thing that changed about Twain's writing.

That would be cool as fuck. But there's no legendary thing about Twain that that plays into. It's just like, uh, well, I guess we don't really have a protagonist, so we'll put this here. I can't recall a bottle episode where Gainin is the center of it, outside of the one where they turn into kids. So what if you re-broke this two-part story from the perspective of Gainon? Yeah. Like, you open the show in 1890s San Francisco.

Right, she's kidding. What the hell is Gainon doing there? She's giving up a Clipper ship. Yeah. Yeah. You have the Titanic opening, you know, to Gainon's arrival in the New World. You follow her to San Francisco. She's sitting on these salons with Mark Twain,

suddenly data shows up, like 10 minutes in. And then you go to theme song, and then data's explaining his presence there, like, and then you slowly introduce more enterprise crew people into that story. Like, you could really dose the story in an interesting way, only by changing the main character's perspective. Right, and it would have so much more emotional impact for the viewer because this is about Gynon meeting Picard for the first time, and we know them to be these great friends. And there is something about meeting a great friend

for the first time that is mythical. Our friendship, I think about the first time we met all the time. That spark that I was like, I know that Adam and I are gonna be friends after this for sure. Yeah. And mythologizing that is something that we do inherently. And so the specificity of Guy and in Meeting Picard, which is something that we do inherently. And so like the specificity of

guy-in-meeting Picard, which is something that has been referred to before, would be an amazing storyline. And instead, it's like not really a storyline that anybody has a hat to hang on. And the moment where they meet is so like there's no weight to that at all. Yeah. They're they're meet cute queue ended up being totally flat. Bummer. Yep. Did you like this episode at them? I like the episode that we just wrote in our heads.

Five more than what we got. I would love to see that episode. Yeah. Maybe that's what we do when we're done with TNG is like, is like the rewrite like draft too. We start from the beginning, Ben. Yeah. We do every episode.

The next generation of rewrites. Yeah. That's heavy. No one would be interested in that. No. No. Ha ha ha. Got to know your audience.

Yeah. That sounds like it would require some research too. That, uh, that ain't us. Hey, do we have anything on the old P1 box, Ben? Yep, there are messages sent to us through an Android head from 500 years in the past at him, and they are coming in on subspace now. Priority one message from Starfle are coming in on subspace now. He bent our first priority one message of a personal nature specifically requested for time zero part two.

Ben, there's some, uh, there's some time zero part two fans. Turns out, you're out there. It's from Phil, it's too John, it goes like this. To John, from Phil. Oh guys, you just, you just blew like 20 characters You don't have to include that in the best in the message body. All right To John from Phil. Thank you for sharing my love of Star Trek and whoopi Yeah, is that a clipper ship also for doing the marriage thing with me and signing up for the next 0.68 seconds.

We really love the show. Keep it up. It's a lot of fun. Oh! That's great! You know what? I would like to retract the tongue-in-cheek times-eropart-two fandom thing. I think there's an episode for every viewer. Yeah, it just so happens that this one is for Phil and John. Maybe we should rewrite our episode that we just recorded to make it more praising of coming to our part 2, because Phil and John sound like really nice peeps. A celebration of a great marriage.

Adam, we have another priority one message here. It's from Ken Jeff and Spencer, and it's to Matt and Chris, to our favorite twins, Matt and Chris. You are each the best of both worlds. We should get together soon in Shurbota Corner and share some Belcher Town water while we reminisce about our adventures with the hated Hussnock aka 450b. If you are a pooch and do not enjoy your birthday in this matter, you should prepare to experience beech. I don't know what either of those words are. I hope I did just say some like made-up I hope I just say some like made up... ...epithit. Heh heh. I'm not familiar with Pooge or Beach.

It kinda sounds like something like... ...like, let me try this again in a Pachaz beef place. If you're a pooch and you do not enjoy your birthday in this manner, Rudee, you should prepare to experience BITCH, Theo. Heh heh. experience bitch, Theo! Normally we're able to sort of contextually figure out what anything is. Yeah, this is really like picking up an episode of our show at this point in its run and trying to figure out what we're talking about. I'm googling Belcher Town Water and Belcher Town Mass.

Oh geez, I think we should probably have done this in the this old enterprise voice. Now when you install a new kitchen faucet, you get a one to include a water pressure, vaguely in the vice. That way your water bills. Yeah, I don't even know what to do. I don't know much about plumbing then, that's my point. We've connected these pipes to a manifold down in the basement that mixes hot and cold water, so it comes out the right temperature every single time. You turn your left valve in the pooch direction. It gives you hot water. You turn it in the beach, it gets cold. Man, we may have just defended scores of people and not realized because we have no idea what we're talking about Adam.

That's fun. We may have just initiated ourselves into some gang. Yeah, we're now Ewoks. Well, if you have a coded message, a birthday message, or a message that initiates Ben and I into some criminal organization we're unfamiliar with, doing that is easy. Ben, you go to maximumfund.org slash jumbo-tron. Full out a little form go ahead and just put the two in the from stuff and the two in the from Lion that'll free up some more characters for your customized message. Yeah Personal messages for $100 commercial messages are for 200 and they help with the ongoing production of our show

Hey, Ben. What's that, Adam? Were you able to connect your 500-year-old drunk to your modern day Shimoda? I don't know. Drunk Shimoda! So my Shimoda in this episode is Gifo Bryan, because he is in this episode in name only

when they get word that Captain Picard is down in the alien cave and the torpedoes are raining down from the sky. Raker Shouts to O'Brien to get him out of there. And I just thought it was so funny. So it is so Chief O'Brien to be in an episode in name only. He didn't, he doesn't even reply. Like, I kind of wonder,

like just, just call me and you get like a $25 check for having his name under. For any references. Yeah. Well, that must, God, is that a thing? I don't know. Because as many, many, many people told us, what's his name from the Colvard Starburst episode shows up in Voyager and they wanted to,

they had to rename his character so they didn't have to pay the guy, the writer of the episode. Right, the writer that created the character. Yeah, so maybe character references are a part of that. Yeah, who knows? Adam, did you have a drunk Shimoda? I did, and I think we talked around this earlier.

But just warfs lost days are something I can't help but think about. Like, we may not see warfs struggle, we may not see warfs having a town of fun or becoming supremely frustrated by circumstances. But I know he's Shimoda- he's Shimoda-ing it up there in orbit, on board the Enterprise. And I may only need head cannon to realize that, but it's good enough for me. I couldn't find another suitable Shimoda. I love the idea that it just turned into, like, Lord of the Flies on the Enterprise. Ha ha replicators only dispense gawk.

Ha ha ha ha ha. Also, like there's no cut back up to Geinen. Like you'd think Geinen would be in the bean flickin' room like tenting her fingers, like hoping shit's going okay in the past. Yeah. And like what's happening to her? Like is she phasing in and out as stuff's happening to her?

Like, is she's meeting people or not? Where's that? Who knows Adam? I don't know. The season six episode one excite you about what's to come in season six. Mm. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, well, I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. Alright, well, I guess we'll see. Yomok and Jalat and Denarga. 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 Sherry Reembarishment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to greatestgentour.com to get more info. That's greatestgentour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris.

And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We got stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you.

And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are already open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead.

Oh, rats, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line. And boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short nacks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this. We've got to get on the art.

It is about terrain. It's about historic humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, not, and they've such short nests. But I'm hearing we need to get on this arc. We've got to get on the arc. 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, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Carrie? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal,

stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Ona Ross & Kerry, available on MaximumFun and Outdoor. What's coming up on our next episode? The next episode is season six episode to The next episode is season six episode to Realm of fear a young entrepreneur engineer is forced to confront his paralyzing fear of being transported

Do you remember this episode Adam? This is the episode where Where Barkley sees the beans inside the the transporter beam,? Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know the app. Yeah, I'm pretty hip to this app. It seems like one of the most rerun episodes whenever you like, yeah, when you like, you change channel to America. Yeah, it's always on BBC America. Yeah, I don't hate this app. Yeah, I don't think I do either. I'd like to find out if I still do though. Maybe you and I can talk through our hate of it together. No, I'm saying I don't hate it.

But what I'm saying is sometimes it takes a conversation with you. Oh to realize to get the hate on. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. to get the hate on. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so sounds like no veto. Not for me. Not either from me Adam, so that will be our next ip. So let's spend some time now doing the part of the show that nobody ever listens to, but we do it anyways. We could say anything right now, Ben. Yeah. There's no more payoff left, but we're here still recording. And I think the first thing I want to do is thank Dark Materia for our great theme song and Adam Ragusia who's always coming up with new music to for us to use on the show. You should use the hashtag GreatestGen on Twitter to discuss the program, and you can follow Adam Atkut for Time or me at BenjaminRAHR.

Hey, if you guys get Max Fundrive pins, why don't you show us them pins? Yeah, tweet up those pins! Yeah, I want to see those pins. Yeah. I wanna see them pins. That's what I'm saying. Use the DrunkShimota at gmail.com box to send in your complaints. Use iTunes to send your five star reviews. Use Reddit to go on the Reddit discussion group. And there's also a Facebook discussion group,

both very lively communities and there's also a max fund of all of that stuff and those are great places to go hang as well. There is no shortage of places to complement or complain about our fine program. Well Adam, I think we should probably hang it up and regroup and come back next time with another great episode of Star Trek the Next Generation. An episode of the greatest generation that's got like little, puffy turd guys. Like a disemembered snuff-a-love-a-guess nose That one won't make the show bad, it's okay. More and more of those, Adam. Yeah, have I started to horrify you with how bad I've been getting?

Don't act like you're so much better than me.