The Greatest Generation - Magazine in the Woods (S3E21)

Episode Date: September 19, 2016

When a problematic engineer takes out his frustrations on the holodeck, everyone questions the protocol of recreating real crew members there. But after the ship's glassware is threatened, the fragility of the rest of the Enterprise systems are exposed. Why can't you just transfer your problems to the USS Hood? How do you responsibly dispose of your old pornography? Is Geordi not the creepiest guy on the ship anymore? It's the episode where "trouble always follows."

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. A Star Trek podcast by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm your host, Adam Pranika. I'm your other host, Ben Harrison.

Hey, Ben. Hey, Adam. This is podcast episode three of the day for us. Yeah. Have you ever done this many podcasts in one day? I'm having a very pod heavy week. Yeah. I'm going to be like five or six podcasts

now and by Wednesday. Wow. And then I'm off to Max one, Connie. So do you feel like you need podcast fluid for all of them? I feel like I need it for this one. There you go. Do you find you get better with more reps like that or you feel a little rundown? Um well.

It's hard to say. I think that we should leave that to the viewers to determine. Oh they let us know. But if I do sound bad at the end of this episode, please don't write me and tell me that I wasn't as great as normal. Everyone likes to hear that. Somebody said I said shitty note about hearing some faint noises in the background of a recent episode. Are you feeding the trolls, Ben? Let's have what this is. Yeah.

Every episode. Yeah. Yeah. We, of course, welcome and appreciate all the feedback we get. But I wonder sometimes, check your fucking tone. Just check your tone, you know. You can be nice about it. I'm fucking exhausting myself right now, doing this.

And I think you're doing a great job. Not many people could do what you do, as often as you do it with me. Adam, I think that, I think about this a lot, I think that the success of this podcast is largely based off of how funny you are and to a very much lesser extent me being here also.

That is incredibly kind and totally incorrect, if you'd say, but I appreciate it. I'm feeling a little rickery at the moment. I like a compliment, but I don't like it at anyone's anyone else's expense. So it's not a zero sum game. I mean, I think I do bring a couple of things to the table, but I just think you're I think you're a I'm glad that I get to be your podcast partner and not somebody else be your podcast partner because Me too, man. I feel like a lot of the a lot of the lulls I get to get at them first. Well, you make this incredibly easy for me, so thanks, pal.

While we're busy sucking each other's popsicles, why don't we turn the page very quickly over to some other popsicle-secking scenes from season 3, episode 21, specifically, Hollow Pursuits. Let's do it. This is becoming a speech. You're the captain, so very entitled. I'm going to type it around the lawn about something everyone knows. So Troy enters 10 forward and there is at this point unknown lieutenant chilling at 10 forward and he's kind of drinking and being kind of a jerk to everybody. His boo seems to be working, doesn't it? Yeah, this is no, this is no synthetic situation.

This is the real poop. I don't want any trouble here, Berkeley. And guy, it's like, hey, why don't you take it easy on that poop? You're getting a little out of hand here, Buster. Yeah, and then... Buster Brown. And Jordy comes up and he's like, hey, uh, Red, you're supposed to be a work right now.

You're in here drinking? Like what the fuck is your problem? And uh, and it gets to a point where this character, Reginald Barkley, gives Jordy a push. Get out of my life. And it sends him like flying across the roof. And then Raker gets up and intervenes. And this guy's just like, he's big dogging the shit out of everybody in here.

And by the time he's done big dogging Raker, Troy is there watching him and she's just like, oh, mama, that is what I call a man. I feel your confidence, your arrogance resolved. Yeah, she's feeling a big time. Yeah. We come to realize that this is a holiday program. So I guess Reginald Barkley is trying to give the writers

of this television show a run for their money and who can make Troy more of a sex object unless a character. Yeah, this is a pretty fun, cold open, I thought. Really, really playing with expectations a little bit. Totally. To see, uh, Reggers' arm pin behind his back. Yeah. And, like, cast aside, like, so much dirty laundry. Yeah, no one treats Riker like that Nobody

So you get the impression right away. What the fuck is up with this guy like this guy's an asshole He's a bad man because wherever you go trouble follows until he gets he gets a radio call Yeah, and then he's like, I'll be right there. And now. Yeah, and at that point, like he devolves into the Reginald Barclay that we will get to know throughout the episode. Totally. So he's a diagnostic engineer and he's been called down to the cargo bay. He's like showing up late for work and tries to sneak in behind some of the stacked up junk. And... If you ever do this, you show up late for call on accident

and you go to the grip truck or something, go help empty the grip truck. I am familiar with filmmakers that do this at them, but I know it's so play for call. Yeah, me neither. I'm just saying that that's a behavior I've seen before. Yeah. Ah.

So, yeah. I'm usually the director, Ben. Yeah, I know. I can start without me. Yeah. You're a big important man. I'm usually the director and I am usually the director where I have like one PA and one camera guy and that's it. Four lady. You got to get that truck. I know.

Truck really help you out. I love it when I have a crew. I know. Get the focus on story. I know. That's what that's what Barclays doing. He has the benefit of working on a team and he's hoping that that he can be invisible. And that's really a problem because on the enterprise, no one's invisible. Yeah. And, uh, Jority is having this conversation with Riker like, this guy is like, I can't believe he got stationed on the enterprise like This is supposed to be the hottest crew in the fleet and this guy is just He he fucking sucks like he's he's late for work. He Doesn't do his best work on anything

He's weird. He's hard to be around Ben this was as out of place feeling as the cold open to me. This cold open starts and you see a guy being addicted to everyone and being physically violent. And then in a different scene, you get Jordy kind of shit talking in other crewmen and it feels just as strange and wrong. Because you just never see a bridge officer talk about someone else like that. It's weird, right? Yeah, I mean, and this episode is a Barclay episode.

Like Barclay is the main character of the episode, and it spends a lot of time below decks with this kind of, you know, a guy that you would typically have as like a background character on the show. So it sort of starts to open up this idea like what is, you know, Jordy presumably has like dozens of people that work for him. Riker is the second banana on the ship, so everybody basically works for him. And like what are the command styles of all these characters who we normally just see being, you know, reporting to Captain Picard and being his and his. Yeah. Yeah. That group dynamic that you don't typically get. Yeah.

So the problem is that they've got some like floaty platform that they're trying to move some medical samples around on and it keeps like, unfloating and breaking the medical samples. It's a real problem when your floaty thing doesn't float anymore. Yeah, it's sort of like Luke Skywalker's car in a new hope. Oh yeah. Yeah, it just kind of like hovers slightly.

Yeah, this gurney has a bad invisible wheel. Yeah, totally. It gets some like ribbon wound around one of the axles. You always get the shopping cart at the grocery store in the wild. It's such a pisser. Yeah, and it's like not that big a deal when there's nothing in it, because it's so light, you can just push it around, you like barely consider a problem. By the time it gets heavy, it's like, it's like not that big a deal when there's nothing in it, because it's so light, you can just push it around,

you like barely consider it a problem, by the time it gets heavy, it's like the thing is pulling to the left like nobody's business. Right, and what happens here is this, this cart drops a can of pop, and it's spraying everywhere, people are pissed. Yeah.

These samples are important and they're cracking. Yeah, O'Brien's in there. He's like, give me a fucking break. I want to go back and be alone in my beautiful transport room. People have expectations in the car to go pay. Yeah. And I don't have any like crazy jargon to unload on people in here. Yeah. Speaking of fish out of water, you get a... You get a Brian out of the transporter rooms. Things start to get weird. So Barkley is a problem.

And he's a problem for Jordy and Riker has seen him pop up on, you know, a lot of, you know, he's getting written up a lot. And so he's a problem for Riker. And eventually they take this, this to the captain. They're like, Cap, we got this guy that just like, he is, he, he ain't enterprise material. And we'd like to explore options for maybe not having him there anymore. Why don't we call up the hood? Get the hood out here. Stick barkly on the hood. It'd be great, right?

Everyone likes the hood. It's all good in the hood. I mean, it's no enterprise. Even they'll tell you that. Captain DeSoto knows that the enterprise is a better ship with better people on it. He's hood material, all right. I always thought so. Yeah, you can take barkly out of the hood,

but you can take the hood out of barkly. Ha, ha, ha. Oh boy, yeah. Yeah, and Picard, like many leaders I've known, has taken the note about a problem. instead of solving the problem personally has gone Why don't you try solving the problem little harder? It's easy to transfer the problem to someone else Too easy Captain it's not like I haven't tried try harder Jordy right which is

Not always a bad management tactic. Not at all. I meant that as complimentary, like totally. But when you're the person asking for the boss to push the big red button, then makes everything better. It fucking sucks to be asked to like step up your own shit, you know? Yeah, yeah. Captain Picard's like, Jordy, you gotta make him your best friend.

Like really get close to the guy. That's how you'll make him into a better officer. And Jordi's like, I don't have any friends. And I don't know how to make them. This is actually a really great deal for Jordi. Like, because for once he is not the creepiest guy on the ship. Don't.

Jordi should be wanting to keep barcley around. Yeah, like a group of girls in high school that keep one kind of less attractive girl in their group. It's probably a horrible thing to say. Yeah, like in that SNL sketch, the gap girls were Chris Farley is the ugly gap girl. Totally. Jordy's chatting up a girl in 10 forward and it's like, look, I know I'm a real creep, but at least I'm not that guy.

Jordy, I'm starving! At least I know it a full sweaters. So Jordy gets some marching orders and he finds Barkley in the cargo bay, burning the midnight oil. He's like, hey, bud, how's it going? Barkley's like sitting there like cross-legged, like tinkering with this thing, which made me feel like he really is like working pretty hard.

Yeah, yeah. And Jordy's like, hey man, you're doing the best you can. Like it's a total about face for Jordy. Right, because he's been like chewing Barkley's ass up until now. It's interesting that in Barkley's form of I don't even know what you'd want to call his malady like how would you characterize him? Well, he's definitely got some social anxiety Maybe a little bit spectra me, but it's more just that he's somehow

unconfident of his ability to operate in this environment and it's like compromising him in so long. Yeah, what's interesting about this scene though and what I was getting at was like, whatever he's dealing with, does not have that paranoid or cynical component that would be, I mean, even to me, like if someone changed their behavior around me as much as Jordy did, I would be like, what's the deal, dude?

You know, like, like, you hated me two hours ago and now you're inviting me to tomorrow's staff meeting, like hang out, what's up? And Barkley never posits that. It's a crazy thing, but we're not really based. Are you gone blindy within yourself? The stand up, so I'm in truth. You don't deserve to wear that uniform.

Most of the episode is kind of them working on this problem that sort of starts to spin out of control. And it's like, it's sort of like in a detective story when there's like a second mystery that winds up being like part of the same case as the first mystery. Mm-hmm. When a murderer turns into some serial killing, you start tying and stuff together. Right. I'm serial killing. Yeah. You start tying stuff together. Right, so a bunch of the engineering team

is chilling in 10 forward and one of them discovers that his whiskey glass has a hole in the bottom of it. And this is a great scene because it's like Wes, Jordy, Data, and this no name engineer. I believe you're talking about Lieutenant Deffy. And they're like, what? There's a problem with your glass?

What? They're like outrage. They cannot wrap their minds around the idea that a mundane everyday object would have a defect. Yeah. Like that speaks so many volumes about what life in, you know, in the 24th century is like for citizens of the Federation. I mean, I've read about broken glasses in history books. Yeah. But this is incredible. Yeah. A real live broken glass. Like data picks it up and he's like, like, this merits more research

and they like run down to engineering with it and they're like scanning it and they're like there's no radiation on it. Like, Jordy's looking at it all visory like and he doesn't see anything structurally wrong with it but the molecular cohesion has broken down or something and they're like what the fuck is going on? And they're like maybe there's something wrong with the electrical system on the ship.

And the person that we have on staff that would be tasked with dealing something like that happens to be lieutenant Barclay. So they yell over at him and they're like, hey, why don't you check out the electrical systems on the ship and he's like, I was gonna do that. I'm like, why? And he's like, oh, I think it has something to do

with why that floaty gurney thing wasn't working also. So it's like, there's something wrong with the ship. Yeah, and it's pretty serious. What is not serious is the B story, which is the way that Barkley copes with his feelings about work and his relationships with the crew is by setting up holodeck programs much like the cold open where he gets to be the hero and everyone else are sort of cartoonishly inept based on the environment

that they're in. And Barkley, for most of these holiday scenes prefers a sort of nodding ham setting. Yeah, but like, there's kind of two sides of this. One is the sides where he's like buckling swashes with men that have ranks higher than him. But the other side is the ones that start like kind of pornos where like he's like,

supposed to be in therapy with Troy and she's like, why don't you let your hair down and loosen up that uniform. And let me help you work some of this out. And he's got a couple of different pull downs on the porn tube. He's got enterprise-like simulations and he's got Robin Hood. Right. Yeah.

Like bodice ripper, like fantasy novel setting, but for some reason the three musketeers are there. Right. But yeah, and he kind of like switches in between them. Like, it's like, oh, like this porno is not quite what I'm in the mood for. So I'll try this porno instead. Right. It's real.

It's like, it's like this chick, but different setting, you know. And wouldn't you know it? Jority ends up looking for Barkley, who is late for another shift, and ends up walking into one of these Holodeck programs. Yeah. And what's going on here seems pretty pervy, doesn't it? Jordy, of course, no stranger to being caught

doing embarrassing things on the Holodeck. Right. It's probably the best person to find him in that position, huh? Yeah, and really, to his credit, like, is, you know, he's like, put off a little bit at first, but then he's like, That was far as I'm concerned what you do in the holiday. Is your own business?

You know, like, I could see this being legitimately therapeutic, like having your boss in like pantaloons and like fighting him with a sword, like, there's in like pantaloons and like fighting about the sword, like there's nothing like objectively wrong with it and I can relate to the like following and love side of it too. I've spent a few hours on the holiday too, you know. But like let's not have it conflict with our like the task we have to do as starfleet officers. we have to do as starfleet officers and like we we stay dealing with this

problem that is causing the ship to slowly have more and more problems and and that's no bueno. Man it could have been so much worse if you're Jordy. Yeah. He could have he could have caught Barkley doing some crazy shit. Yeah. And the Hollywood programs are only suggesting the possible nightmare that happens behind a tree with any one of these characters. It is very, very heavily implied that this shit gets really off the hook.

Yeah. It's really off the hook. Yeah. My love is a people long and still for that which long and thus have the busy. Tell me more, you're not the boy yet. Gainin plays a big part in this episode. Yeah, I was just going to say, Jordy goes to talk to Gainin and it's like, have you seen this guy around the bar? What do you think of him? You seem to have a good grasp of time, space,

and oddities of the universe. Where do you classify this guy? And Geinen to regret it is like, no, no, like he's just different, you know? He's working out some shit. He mostly keeps to himself. He's not anything to be afraid of. He's just a creative, sensitive type. So yeah, and this is another, like, I would say, like the C storyline to the extent that there is one is like seeing the different ways that Geinen and Troy have to manage the mental health of crew members. And it's kind of interesting, because I think that Geinen is not like a competitor for Troy, but a supplement to her in this context,

because at one point, Reg has a non-fantasy porno meeting with Troy, where he's like supposed to be there for actual therapy. And he is like way too worked up and not in the right frame of mind to be unpacking his shit. And he bolts out of there. But I think that the pressure of Troy being the official mental health practitioner on the ship

is too much for him in that moment. There's nothing she can do to make herself as being that, you know. So, so, Gainin is there as the kind of like unofficial backup and provides a lot of insight that I think that Troy probably appreciates. Yeah, she's definitely the different taste in the mental health department. And look, I mean, if Gynon wanted Troy's job, she could have it. I think she has lifetimes, more qualifications to do it. She also has that sweet orange costume. Yeah, great costume on this episode.

That fucking orange costume is so good. It's great. It's real great. So, one thing that we probably should mention and that we haven't so far is that there's like a running joke of people calling him Lieutenant Broccoli. Young Mr. Crusher started that, I guess it's caught on. Let's just get that uncourt, shall we?

There's a big comedic moment when the captain comes and discusses this situation that they're working on with Barclay and slips up and calls him Lieutenant Broccoli to his face. And it's the first time anybody has actually done that. And boy, the look on Picard's face is... No one takes it well. Oh my God. So this scene is so perfectly uncomfortable.

And it's brutal and you stay on Picard's face for... An extra three beats just to really mush it in. Oh my God. He wants to crawl out of his skin. I think that's the moment where Barkley sort of amps up the hollow porn. Right. I mean, they're troubleshooting this issue

with the enterprises is becoming more of an issue, more of a catastrophic issue. Yeah, it starts to affect the transporters. There's a scene where they run a transporter test and it takes one of those test cylinders and turns it into a smoldering wreck. Oh, Brian, you can have to believe me when I tell you that this isn't normal.

And so there's something running rampant through the ship. We have no idea what it is. It's not any of the things that we would normally attribute this to and we don't have any way of predicting what's getting fucked up next. And so they're like, Barclay is the only one that seems to be able to work on stuff like this. So he's no showing for work, he's not answering his communicator.

Computer, locate Lieutenant Barclay. Lieutenant Barclay is in Holodec too. Who do we have? It's Riker, Jordy,gley. Lieutenant Bargley is in holodeck too. Who do we have? It's Riker, Jordy and Troy. Yeah. Jordy's a little bit prepared, and so he tells Riker and Troy, like, look, you guys,

you might see some fucked up shit. Yeah. Where we are going, no man has gone before. And Riker, to his credit, is like, who do you think you're talking to? Like, Riker's like, I've seen the sexual equivalent of attack ships on fire off of a Ryan's belt.

Like, there is, I promise you, nothing behind this door that could surprise me or shock me. Yeah, yeah. And Riker's like, Riker is fucking pissed. Like, Riker is in no mood in this episode. I've had it with him. And they go in, and so Barclay's characters that show up in this fantasy, bodice-ripper world are the following.

There are the three musketeers who are played by Captain Picard, Jordy, and Data. Shall we have at home? by Captain Picard, Jordy, and Data. There is, like, sexy Dr. Crusher, almost bare-brest goddess Troy, and there is Wesley the Boy in like fancy pants eating pie out like an entire pie slice by slice. Where do you want? This has got to be the moment when we can decide to leave the show. I think I'm convinced that this is it. Oh man, he's game for this though. Like, he really throws himself into this role. Oh, and the funniest character that Parkley has on the holodeck is Mini-Riker. Oh, God!

Yeah. Boy, we've seen just a little bit so far, but this is this is Jonathan Freig doing high comedy Running out like like a little boy enthusiastic for the fray and And you know, it's like a lot of green screen camera tricks, but they they make it look like Barkley has programmed the holodeck riker character to be about four feet tall. He's got a little bit of a helium voice too, like not full helium, but as the helium's wearing off, you get that little bit of high voice. I don't think Freak's gets enough credit as being a physical

actor, but this season he's done a lot of like, especially comedically. He's very physically funny. He doesn't over do it, which is good, but man, it always lands. So good job, Franks. And so there's a lot of brinksmanship of like, you know, Riker wanting to delete his character and Troy going like, no, this is therapeutic. And then her character appears and it's just like a total sex object and she's like, delete that and he's like, don't do that.

But there's a surprise around every corner. Yeah, and they're like very concerned that the next corner might be the one that they go around and see Barclay sticking it into something. And fortunately they find him passed out on Dr. Crusher's lap and you know, he gets scolded, they all leave the holodeck and this is when the situation starts to get really tense because the ship is speeding up out of control and Barkley and Jordy have to figure out tense because the ship is speeding up out of control and

Barkley and Jordy have to figure out what the fuck is going on and like they don't really have any time left to do it. They're looking at the ship starting to like break apart because it's going too fast in the next 15 minutes. I am looking beautiful. There are full lights. This timeline felt especially urgent. It really tells you how dangerous it is to go at high speeds in this ship. Like, they've got to get this brick off of the gas pedal, pronto.

And no one has any idea how to do it. There's like this. There's this tense scene where all of the engineering staff are the senior staff are like meeting around the big engineering table. And, and partly it's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, maybe we've been thinking about this all wrong. We're thinking about it like in terms of a system diagnostic thing. What about like thinking about who has been in contact with all the systems that have broken? Like, who was there when the gurney broke, who was there when all of the other shit broke?

And they realized that maybe it's a substance that the ship can't naturally scan for that is at play. And they start narrowing it down and they figure out that it's something that was in one of those medical samples that they, you know, it's like a material that the federation would never use for something like this, but a more primitive society might. Their ship can't scan for this material and it's like on all of the engineers and so

like everything they've touched has started to like melt at the molecular level. Yeah, it feels almost like a virus, right? Yeah. And like the scene where they like verify it is really great. Cause Barkley and Jordi go back down to the cargo bay and they like get one of these men medical sample canisters and they're wearing like Michael Jackson gloves. And they're like digging around in the in the canisters and then scanning the gloves and they get one of those black lights that you're not supposed to use in Rikers Cabin. Right. And it goes all sparkly. Yeah. The mystery has solved when they're able to confirm that it's

this leaky test tube that's been spread across the ship And what they need to do is sort of cryogenically freeze it, right? Yeah, and they're like, I mean, if we freeze the deuterium injectors and the plasma of manifolds, there's no telling what will happen to them at this point because they're pretty fucked up as it is. But there's not really anything else we can do. So they go ahead and try it and low and behold,

they're able to regain control of the warp reaction and get the ship under control, slow it down. And the day is saved. And it was Barclay's insight into what the problem was that saved it. Yeah, Barclay's the hero. Barclay wins. Yeah, overcomes his personal shortcomings to be a real Starfleet professional. So the last scene in the show is Bar a Barclay walking onto the bridge and Saying goodbye to the crew. He's like guys. I want to thank you for everything It's been a pleasure to serve with you

It's a it's a feeling that's shared by the rest of the crew and Then and then Barclay turns off the program. It turns out he's saying goodbye to his holodeck programs and not the actual crew Yeah the program. It turns out he's saying goodbye to his holodeck programs and not the actual crew. Yeah. He tells the, he asks the computer to delete all of his programs. Not so fast, save that one program with the butt stuff. Which I don't know if you've ever deleted a bunch of pornographic material or thrown away a bunch of magazines, but that that rang true You keep the one yeah, I

Thought it was interesting like in the future in the in the 24th century the computer never asks are you sure? The way it does now. Yeah, like the computer is ready to delete it will delete. Yeah Good for the computer. You should know what you want to do Barkley's like whatever the computer equivalent is of stashing a magazine in the woods That's what he's doing with this holiday program the one last one. Yeah, I think it's got to be weird though like so Barkley's a hero of the day, right? I mean the bridge crew quote unquote likes them again. I mean he still got to, quote unquote, likes him again. I mean, he still got to look him in the eyes and they're going to know that he's done,

like he stuck his dick in all of them. Yeah, absolutely. But I think they're used to that with Riker and they all like Riker. They, I think, is it Jordy or is it Riker that makes reference to protocol on the holographic images of real people and Jordy corrects him sort of a, it may be protocol but it's not an official rule and it's not a computer rule about what

you create there. I thought that was an interesting bit of fuzziness, you know? Like, yeah, well, you know, I can, but you shouldn't. Here's, you know, Rikers says, well, it ought to be. And I think that just plays into the fact that Rikers' whole shit is rampant consent. Is consent, you know? Like, he doesn't want to fuck a simulacrum of somebody because that doesn't smell right to him.

Yeah. Ultimate consent. Well put, that checks out. Adam, did you like this episode? I really did. Boy, it started out rocky though. It started really broad for me. And so I wasn't sure if it was going to work It started out rocky though. It started really broad for me.

And so I wasn't sure if it was going to work thereafter. And my memory of it was that it was real goofball. And you know, I don't really like the episodes where the bridge crew dresses up in costumes and plays on the holiday. Yeah, it's always like a weird period piece stuff in this show. Yeah, but you know, because there was a sexual component here,

I found that amusing. So it worked for me. How about you, Van? I really like it, too. I think it's a great little parable about, you know, the frustrations of dealing with anxiety and, you know, not being confident in yourself.

And, you know, like it's an interesting episode. There's not really any villain, and everybody really kind of wants the same thing, but it's a guy that's having a tough time getting out of his own way. And I can definitely relate to that. I think anybody can. Yeah, social anxiety or not. Barkley came to the All-Star team. Everyone knows each other and he's the new guy and everyone

is great at what they do and Barkley may or may not be. That's a lot of pressure. That's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of pressure. That's a lot of pressure. Demonstrating that. Yeah, totally. Adam Adam I think we have something coming in over the subspace want to check it out yeah let's do that priority one message from star fleet coming in on secured channel stop the moon stop the moon stop the moon yes extra the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship? Our first priority one message is of a personal nature and it comes from Trent Graham who is going by the name Sharat, SJURAT. I think it's how you might pronounce that if you were guessing the way I am. It's to all viewers. It's two all podcast viewers.

The message goes like this. Right now we've got a couple of words for some of our brothers and sisters in the occupied zone. Quote, the chair is against the wall, the chair is against the wall. Unquote. And then new quote, John has a long mustache. John has a long mustache, John has a long mustache, unquote. It's 12 o'clock American, another day closer to victory.

Wow. I think forces have been activated, the sound of my voice been, and I'm a little disturbed at the thought. Yeah, is this like some, some like, uh, some like covert terrorist communication shit? I don't know. Uh, nobody named Trent has ever been a terrorist though, right? Was I just giving a message to Ed Snowden? I don't know, man. I do kind of want to entertain the idea that maybe this is the drunken priority one message

that we've been fantasizing about getting? Oh, that'd be great. Wouldn't that be good? Yeah, yeah, I love it. More drunk messages, please. Well, thank you, Sijarat, for sending that. We got anything else? We have yet another personal priority one message, personal priority one like a personal pan pizza. Individually sized. Yeah, get it at the ballpark. Make everybody that has a hot dog envy you a little bit.

Made just for Leah and Dan from Joe. The message goes like this. Actually do you want to read this one Ben? Sure. Leah and Dan, I am so glad I finally tricked you into getting hooked on the greatest generation. Now we have more to talk about when you invite us over for dinner. Don't let Dan do any more smelting in the house. Your friend. Newkank.

Mukkank? Nukknack. Nukknack? Nukknack? Nukuckknack. Nuckknack? Nuckknack. PS Shoutout to Bill Tilly. It could be... Nuckknack.

Like the, uh, like the Tin Man. Tin Man. Shoutout to Bill Tilly. I love that. It's not just a message for Leah and Dan. Yeah. It's also a message to our pal Bill. Yeah, Bill Tilly.

I- Man, I was just thinking about how much value Bill Tilly. I, and I was just thinking about how much value Bill Tilly has added for free to this show. What a great guy. It makes me feel guilty that he's, that he's doing such a great job. Over and over again, on behalf of our stupid show. I hope he doesn't feel like obligated at all because not, it's just like the greatest thing ever. obligated at all because not it's just like the greatest thing ever. Joe, thank you so much for sending this priority one message to your friends. And if anybody out there would like to send a priority one message, it's real simple. You just go to maximumfund.org slash jembo-tron. And you sign right up. You can put in a personal message for $100,

or a commercial message for $200. And if you look at the conversion rate to scarves right now, I think you'll find that that is very competitive. So thanks to everybody who supports the show. You might feel like you'll forget about doing this when you're drunk. Here's what you do. You bookmark that page.

Yeah. You bookmark it. So it's always there, ready to go when your four drinks in. Mm-hmm. Call the bartender over and say, Hey, I want to keep my tab open, but can I just look at the numbers on the front of my credit card really quickly? And then give it right back to him.

And then go back the next day because you forgot it there because you were so drunk when you left. These messages are getting weirder and weirder, and especially over the last few weeks, I'm excited to see where this goes. Yeah, I like it. 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 get 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, Pat Noswald. Could I get a Balrog 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 open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goat try. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead.

Whoa, rice. Hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in mine. 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, 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? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun and Outdoor. Hey, Ben. What's that at, um? Did you find yourself a real or holographic drunk Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda!

There's a lot of holographic charmote is in this aren't there? Yeah. I'm going to take the cowards way out and defer this one to you because I snuck this one in on my lunch hour today and I did not remember to write down a charmote. Ludge charmote! Here's where I went with this. I gave the Shimoda to Dwight Schultz, who was the actor who played Barclay. When this cold open begins, I alluded to this earlier, I thought this was going to be a garbage episode. Because he's going real broad, like real John Wayne-ish on the in

the 10 Forward Lounge, like I like it really felt like Jim Carrey School of Acting. I thought it was going to be garbage. But as the episode went on, Dwight Schultz really nuanced up his acting quite a bit. Like physically there's so much going on, like with his hands and his arms and his posture and the way he walks. And all of these components made up a whole person with a lot of issues. And I feel like he pulled that performance out of the fire. And I don't know if they shot this episode linearly. I bet they didn't, but it really felt like two of you

were that he started out in a really bad place, character-wise and acting-wise. And by the end, I really appreciated his work as an actor here. I thought it was really solid. It could have been so ham and cheese. And there are times when it was a little ham or a little cheese, but it was never to the detriment of the episode of the character. So I'm going to give it to him just as a nod Shimoda. Yeah. This is the first time that I can think of where they've introduced a character that is going to be a recurring, like secondary enterprise character who can be like the central focus of an episode. Yeah. Yeah, the feature player on the episode.

Yeah. And like they built an episode around this actor and this actor, like, totally rose to this challenge. You know, like all of the other people on this show have had two and a half years to get into character. And he fucking, like, he like steps up to the plate and knocks it right out of the park in my opinion. Well that makes me think like how it works on set if you are Dwight Schultz showing up and you're just hitting batting practice fastballs into the bleachers. Totally. Like how does that make a column meany feel? Who's getting maybe one line an ep? Who has been like waiting, you know? Who is a great actor?

Who has been like just sort of in the chorus of the show? I wonder if there's any tension there between actors. I wonder, that's a good question, I don't know. Huh. Gotta re-watch this and see if column is giving Dwight like like the stink eye in the background. Double middles in the background. Yeah I mean in my in my blabbering on we're able to improvise a Shimoda. I'm gonna go with

what you said. Fair enough. What do we have coming up on the next episode? The next episode is season three, episode 22. The Most Ties. The crew leaves data for dead when his channel craft explodes during a dangerous mission. Our Android's are the most dead. Nobody's dead than our Android's.

A lot of people think they have some dead Android's. We're gonna kill our Android's and we're gonna make them pay for it. Believe me. Yeah. Oh man, so it sounds like Data's Death Wish is finally successful. Believe me. Yeah. Oh man, so it sounds like Data's Death Wish is finally successful. I guess so.

I feel some sense of relief about this. Yeah. Do you remember this at all? Not one bit, do you? Not for this description. Yeah, kind of a blank description, isn't it? Is this the one where he's like, it's like a con artist who's,

he's like a collector and he's got all this like weird obscure shit and he wants data? Oh, that totally brought it back for me. Yeah, I remember this episode. He's like, he's like, sit in the chair. Oh yeah. Data's like, I'm not gonna sit in your chair, just cause you tell me to.

And then the guy holds a phaser up to someone and he's like, if you don't sit in the chair, I'm gonna blow this woman's brains out. They just like, right? What do you do? What do you do? He totally speeds data. Oh man, yeah. Well, one hostage situation that our viewers don't have to deal with is the

choice between dying or contributing to the production of our program. That's a great point, Adam. People could go to maximumhunt.org slash donate and contribute to our show or not. And either way, they won't be murdered. Yeah, there are no life or death consequences to that decision. We really appreciate it. If nothing else, if you were to give us a nice review on whatever podcast provider you use to listen to our show,

that's also super appreciated. Yeah, we're like, we've, I think we've crossed 700 five star reviews at this point. Feels good. Thanks to everybody that's done that. Hey Ben, people can talk to us using the Twitter and the hashtag GreatestGen. Recently, we've seen a lot of pictures of old men in combat uniforms. Yeah. We've slowly but surely been infiltrated by the other Greatest Generation. Yeah, we've slowly but surely have been infiltrated by the other greatest generation. Yeah.

But people can talk about the greatest generation podcast and also the show and talk to other viewers using that hashtag. And they can talk to us directly using our handles. I'm at Cut for Time and Ben as at BenjaminR, A.H.R. We're also actively participating using our handles. I'm at Cut for Time and Ben as at BenjouonR, A.H.R. We're also actively participating in the maximum fun reddit and the greatest gen reddit. Both of those are lively communities and there's lots of discussion about our show and other trek and maximum fun related stuff, respectively.

There's also Facebook groups and Facebook pages that you should get involved with. And there's just like a wealth of ways to interact with the show online outside of listening to the pod. So get involved. Great group of peeps. People ask us all the time, where do you get that awesome music? It's the best music.

It's amazing. Everybody talks about how good it is, okay? That music was made by Dark Materia, and you can search for and find the Picard song, wherever free songs are found on the internet, which is everywhere. It was so free on the internet that we just helped ourselves do it.

And then after the fact, we were like, God, we were real dicks to do that. And we sent dark material and email. And dark material was kind enough to say, like, have fun. Enjoy using the song for your stupid podcast. So go get that song and everything else dark material does. Yeah. We're big fans.

Yes. And we should also thank Adam Ragusia, who makes the music that you hear when we play a priority one message. Adam Ragusia has a great podcast called The Pub that you should definitely listen to if you're interested in podcasts and public media. He's done just about everything to support our show. Five-star review, donation to Maximum Fun.

Talks about us all the time. Yeah, he's really hip for the cycle. Yeah. Love that guy. Thank you so much. Is that it, Ben? That is just about it with that. We will be back at you next with another great episode

of Star Trek, the next generation. And a episode of Star Trek, the next generation, and a episode of the greatest generation that is go under 55 miles an hour. Good one, band. Good pot. Later, buddy. Have a good night, man. Good pot. Good pot. Later, buddy. Have a good night, man. You too.

Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture. Artist-owned. Listen or supported. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and Culture. Artist-owned. Listen or supported.