The Greatest Generation - Metamucil and Printer Ink (S1E23)

Episode Date: April 11, 2016

When Counselor Troi's driver puts their shuttlecraft into a ditch on planet Vagra II, it's up to the Enterprise to play the part of AAA. It's just too bad that Armus is there, blocking their way and being a real jerk about it. Did Worf hedge his bet on Tasha Yar? Why are business trip conferences still a thing in the future? Did Leland T. Lynch "Argyle" himself off the show? It's the episode where we turn tragedy into comedy!

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 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 Pranaka.

I'm your other host, Ben Harrison. Ben, I think we've been looking forward to this one for a long time, right? This is a big episode. You could say just as important to the next generation, this episode is to our little podcast. Sure. If we can just pull this off and make it funny, I think it'll mean we can do this thing for the long term. Yeah, I mean, you might think of us as incredibly detached, ironic assholes, but I got a little misty watching this one. Oh really?

Yeah. I can't wait to know when. You know when. Alright, let's get right into it. I'm excited to talk about season one, episode 21, skin of evil. I think skin of evil is what Riker calls the bowl of condoms next to his bed. Yeah, I mean, he'll use it if you insist, but he is not into strapping it up. Don't expect him to feel anything. Yeah.

Yeah, he's feeling as little as as I was toward the end of this episode. episode. So the Enterprise has received a distress signal from a shuttlecraft that's returning Diana Troy from a conference. I feel like this becomes a real late motif in the in the series that they're always sending tertiary members of the bridge crew off to conferences. It makes me sad that like a vision of a perfect future still involves people going to some version of Orlando and and sitting in a fucking conference room. Yeah putting on a shitty plastic name tag. Yeah I thought this was supposed to be a utopian, perfect future, but I guess they still have holiday ends in the 24th century.

I'm Deanna Troy. I enjoy chocolate, and I'm stationed on the Enterprise. Oh, God. Poor Deanna. Poor gal. So they're getting distress signals from this lieutenant that's piloting the shuttlecraft, and then he gets too busy to talk to the captain, so Troy gets on and things are falling apart rapidly on the shuttle. I think at one point he asks for his position and

Jordy reads it out and asks if he can confirm. He's like, I can't confirm anything man, like I don't know where I am at. And it's not too long before this shuttle balails out onto the surface of a planet. And the situation is complicated by the fact that the enterprise is traveling under impulse power. The warp course offline, well, new chief of engineering, Leland T Lynch, dicks around with the dilithium crystals. You know, you see the enterprise from the outside and you see it under impulse power

without the warp engines on. Yeah, I like. It's like murdered out, right? I know. It's murdered out with no glowing lights and the warp engines. Yeah, it's like a dunk. I loved this new, this new chief engineer

because every time he gets on the radio, he gives out his full name with middle initial. Lieutenant Commander Leland T. Lichier, sir. He's really are giling it up, trying to establish himself as a character that we're knowing the name of. Yeah, he's gone right around the idea of nail-in-fan pieces and instead just going straight to the viewer with this. Yeah, yeah, he's, he's making a direct appeal. mail-in fan pieces and instead just going straight to the viewer with this. Yeah. Yeah. He is, he's making a direct appeal. Leland T. Lynch. How can you not want to guy like that to be a main cast character?

Yeah. He's really appealing to the dukes of hazard set with a name like that. Yeah. So, Picard is like, get, get me my warp engines back, Buster, or, or you're through. And Lynch gives a 20 estimated 20 minutes before he's going to have warp power back online. Yeah, he does that thing that Scottie did, which is like he names an arbitrary time that seems a little bit further in the future. Right. So we can make himself look like a

miracle worker. Right. Because five minutes later, the engines are back online and they're and they're cruising to where this crash shuttle is. Five minutes and a commercial break. I mean, sure. So the ship pulls into orbit around Vagra to and they're like, well, we got to get down there. We've got Diana Troy and some anonymous shuttlecraft pilot. Yeah. Oh, old red shirt McGillicat is down there with her and he's in dire straits. That poor guy, I mean speaking of that character, like you only hear him. Yeah, he never has an on-screen line. If they probably just recorded somebody else, right?

They cut to him and the shuttle and he's slumped over the controls of the shuttle, but you don't see his face. Like, it couldn't have been good for his career. Yeah, when he puts that on the back of his head shot, it's like back of head in episode 23 of Star Trek, the next generation. Holy shit, that was you. Great back of head.

Yeah, oh man, straight out of central casting for a guy with a great back of his head. So they're able to beam down after a little while. I think it's that they can't beam anybody up but they are able to beam down. And it's due to there being some kind of field around the shuttle itself, that they can't explain because as far as they can tell,

there's nobody on this planet to be operating any kind of technology that would mess with their systems. Right, so Enterprise sets down a dustbuster club that includes Riker and Yarr and who is the third? It's data. It's gotta be data. Yeah, so they roll down there and they're like, oh yeah, the crash shuttle is over in the corner.

Let's go get it. And so they're walking along in sort of a setup that looks like it's in between the early episodes, planet surfaces, and it's a little more sophisticated cousins that follow. Like I don't know, man. I think this is the crappiest planet we have seen yet in the show. Really? Yeah, that's my personal take on it. I thought the rocks looked a lot more life like on this one

than in the early episodes. Well, the site is still really bad. They're still doing that. The site is no more than three feet away from the back of the actor's heads. It is, like, they shot this on a stage that is the size of my apartment. Well, they did the best with what they had.

They did. So anyway, the Dustbuster club sees the shuttle craft and they're like, okay, it's over there. Let's go walk toward it. And there's an oil slick in the way. And this oil slick moves around. It squishes its way around the ground to block their path. It's like doing, they're trying to neon deon around it.

And it's just, it's playing excellent coverage and keeping them out of the end zone. We can't really spend a lot of time talking about what this looks like because that is exactly what it looks like. It is an oil slick. What I read, it is a pool of metamusel colored with... Printer ink. And that's the truth.

That's not a joke. When it moves, it looks really bad. And I mean, like when it's like shifting around on the ground, it's a terrible effect. But when armus actually reveals himself, it looks pretty awesome. Sure. Like this, this brings to mind something I wanted to talk about a little bit, which was like this first season has some effects that I'm choosing to call I can do this special effect. Like, I think you know my abilities as a video editor. I feel like I'm a fairly competent editor.

But your specialty is not in special effects. Right, and I have very rudimentary knowledge in motion graphics and stuff like that. I can do some pretty basic shit. When I see the armus effect sort of roaming around on the ground and also covering the shuttlecraft with itself, I look at that effect and I go, I can do that. That's not outside of my ability. That is some really simple keyframing and after effects, basically.

Right. So anyway, armus reveals himself by rising out of this pool of oil. Alright, and Armas! It's kind of the head and upper torso and arms of a humanoid shape, which, you know, it's unclear if that's like what Armas really looks like or if he's kind of doing that to look into the eyes of the away team or whatever. Did you notice when he first rises up, that's a reverse shot? I did, because he's dripping up.

But it only serves to make him look more, yeah, like in some horror movies, how the practical move will be someone walking backwards, but then they'll reverse the speed and it'll make someone look creepy and wrong when it's played back that way. That's sort of the effect that I got from this. Exactly.

So, armors is like speaking through a vocoder the whole time. And just a petulant bitch to the OITM from jump. Yeah, he's like a troll under the bridge sort of personality. We have injured crewmen in the shuttlecraft. We need to get to them. May we pass? You haven't given me good enough reason. Yeah, we're like a grade school bully. Yeah, he calls data Tin Man over and over.

She's like, how do you know about Tin? You live on a planet by yourself. Yeah. No technology. But anyways, the person who is hottest headed and gets fed up with this, the quickest is Lieutenant Yarr. And she's like, I'm done. Like I'm going over to this shuttle,

whether this gooey blob likes it or not. And she attempts to jump the pool of ooze and is flung all the way back across the garbage planet set that they are standing on. She's in rough shape. So, yeah. Her evil canevil was a real failure over getting over armus.

And she is super fucked up. That mark on her face, I couldn't tell if that was supposed to be blood or was supposed to be the pattern that Armas' energy weapon left. Right, because it's not like black like Armas. It's like a, it's kind of bruised color, but it's got like very hard edges. It looks like the Amoeba Records logo to me. Yeah, it kind of does.

Yeah, it is a very strange choice on the makeup department's part, because it really doesn't look like one thing or another. Yeah, if it were me, I would just have a bunch of blood coming out of her mouth. Right. Yeah. Or black stuff. Yeah, totally.

So Tasha's down, and a minute later. Dr. Crusher report. She's dead. She's dead. She's dead. Yep. This is 11 minutes in the episode. Very unceremonious. Yeah, kind of amazing.

I remember being pretty shocked by this when I saw this the first time as a kid. Yeah, you know, as a kid you could be forgiven. This episode opens with Wurf and Yar shooting the breeze on the bridge. And Worf says that he's betting on her in the ship wide martial arts competition. I guess they have some sort of MMA, MMA bracket that she's competing in. Sure.

Worf confides that he has placed a wager on her winning it. But Worf bet 10 scarves. Yeah. But yeah, it's a real weird like, like, you know, Denise Crasby wanted off the show and they wrote her off and they wrote her off with a quickness and early in the show.

So the rest of the show, like Captain Brecar gets all the, all the heavy hitters on the ship in the observation lounge and says like, we are obviously all going through some shit right now with y'all being dead. But to the shuttle crew has safely beamed aboard this ship. Our feelings will have to wait. Is that understood?

Yeah, we've got Diana Troy and some anonymous crew member down there. We get to bring them back. And then we can deal with our grief. Yeah, I think Worf is the one that is most ready to deal with grief. And this is the scene in which Worf is promoted to the tactical and security position. Which makes the loss of his bet, like sort of softens the blow, right? Right. Yeah, he's like, damn, damn, I'm out, like,

a lot of scarves. Like, I'm out in the first round in this bracket, but I've got to, got to kick gas promotion. So, I'm not sweating it either. Yeah, what did the odds makers on the ship have on, y'all are buying the farm on this mission? I'm just wondering if he, if he hedged it all. I don't think a warrior hedges. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I mean, like he, you know, Rikers like putting together the B team to go back down there and see what they can do about Armas.

And Wurf was like, I'm not going down with you guys. Like, we're not trying to attack this dude. We're trying to reason with him. And I'm going to be a lot more help, you know, working on the tactical situation. A very human choice by Wurf. He was probably tempted, right, to go die with honor? Sure. Get down there in that drowning pool. 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, I'd make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it! The Share Your Embarrassment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places.

Go to GreatisGenTour.com to get more info. That's GreatisGenTour.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.

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Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Whoa, Russ. Hey, hey. Hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line and boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good.

No, they do not and they've such short nacks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this. We've got to get on the art. Yeah. 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, but we're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you

heard of Ono Ross and Carrie? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Owner Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org. It is a crazy, crazy, fun, stop-ready space. Are you gone, find me within yourself? Stand up, tell me truth. You don't deserve the worth of that beautiful. So the B squad beams down and...

Jurydy is on the team now replacing YAR, and the idea is that Jurydy's visor might help them out. And that winds up being a total canard, like it doesn't come up at all. Other than Jordy like standing in like, I'm looking at things intensely pose, which he does occasionally, you know? He gets in like a half squat.

Well, there's this thing that happens where they're interacting with Armas, and Armas is just being a dick to him And then Armas does that thing where he holds Jordy up to his locker and then smacks his glasses off of his head And Jordy is all feeling around on the ground trying to find him and Armas is continues to make fun of him He's really playing a shell game with Jordi. He's beaming the glasses back and forth. Yeah, Dr. Crusher has joined this away team also, and that is important because one of the games

that Armist plays is forcing data to wave around his deskbuster phaser at people. Yeah. And then for Beverly to choose which one should die. Right. And in one example of the Enterprise crew being completely selfless, she responds almost immediately that she would prefer that she die herself versus choosing someone else to die for. Right. And we should say, every time the await

team beams back up, Armist goes and smushes his ooze around the outside of the shuttlecraft itself. And Troy is in there, conscious but injured. And Armas, you know, amuses himself by taunting Troy when the OATM is gone. And through these taunts, we learn that Armas is the physical substance of evil, that an ancient race that used to live on this planet, like found a way to secrete from their flesh and it created a skin on top of their skin, dank and vile, a skin of evil. He's like a popped zit from the people who used to live on the planet. Right. And they just sort of pooled all the pus together and made armus. And he is real butt hurt about the fact that they left him behind whenever they abandoned this planet.

Yeah, wouldn't you want to leave him? Yeah, no, he's a total dick. It'd be like if Donald Trump was on Gilligan's Island, they'd be like, let's like rescue everybody but this guy, you know. Yeah, they'd murder an item item just like Gilligan's Island. But Troy has put in this weird position of sort of being ship's counselor to the worst of an ancient race of aliens. Yeah, she's sort of the Clarice to his Hannibal Lecter, right?

Yeah, absolutely. That's a totally great analogy. And I'd say that the way it's written is interesting enough. Like she really, really talks to him with respect, but also like still condemning what he's doing. And is very clear with Armist that the Enterprise crew will not have their spirits broken by him and that whatever upside he thinks he's going to get out of this interaction is not gonna happen. Like, he's not gonna win any battle of wits with the Enterprise.

She communicates that there is a form of solidarity that all of the crew members share, which is like, they're not gonna let you push them around, they're not gonna let you steal their pride, they're not gonna let you hold them down. Oh no, this Enterprise will keep on moving. I did not prepare that at all. That just came to be spontaneously That's the best that's the best stuff on this show. I'm profoundly troubled Up on the ship Worfin Wesley the boy Long and chill, but back, which longer than us at the busy. How we going? You're up for it. Up on the ship, Worf and Wesley, the boy, are teamed up doing some scans of what's going on

with the shuttle craft. And every time armist goes over to the shuttle and is talking to Troy, they're detecting a dip in the energy pattern or whatever. It's like a completely meaningless techno babble, but it's like going to widen up being the key for saving the day and at the end of the episode, they're tracking this energy fluctuation, and if the energy goes low enough, they'll be able to penetrate it with their transporter beam essentially It was it's like one of those episodes where Wesley shows up like a little bit past the halfway point

You're like you're almost like oh is he not even gonna be in this and then he is he's still dealing with the grief of his haircut He's grieving in his own way. Yeah, also a little bit miffed that he didn't get picked for security chief Maybe next time. Can you imagine? I'd watch that show. Torpedo is ready, Captain. Full spread. Shields up.

So back on the surface, Riker's talking shit to Armas. He's really like, he's not playing his games anymore. He's ready to show him who's boss. But Armas turns the table on a pretty hardcore by dragging him into his goo. Yep. It's a really intense scene. It's like Riker gets pulled in and like we see all of his body and then just his hand sink into the goo, which is an awesome effect.

It's so scary looking like to think about being submerged in oil like that. Like I have no idea how they shot that, you know? You see his face and his eyes and his mouth are open and that's the scariest part. Like the idea of the goo just going in your mouth like that. Like gross. I'm trying to imagine what it's like as an actor to like read ahead on the script and

go holy shit. Like, I'm going to have to take a dip in some goo on a couple of these shooting days. I'm going to have to be full body submerged in the lop. I read in the production notes that Frakes gets pulled into the pool and then he gets completely submerged, but they surface a plaster resin head modeled on Jonathan Frakes' space. And so they sort of push that up through and then drag it back down. So that's the effect that we see in the cut-to close-up. It really works great. It works so much better than any other effect in this show. Yeah, because it's practical, right? It's figure.

I've worked as the camera guy on a music video one time where we were using some black goo, and it was like coming out of a character's mouth. And it was really like deeply upsetting, even when I was there, when they were like mixing it, and there's something so fucking upsetting about what that looks like. Yeah, there's something instinctual about that color coming out of a person or a person

being covered in that color. Because it's so unnatural. It's this otherness. Yeah, but Friggs just fucking goes for it. Like he's dragged into the pool, he's screaming his head off and he gets submerged and he gets real dirty. Yeah. Raker finally knows what it's like to be on the receiving end of being drenched in goo.

I do. You're just like, I'll take that joke there. So Picard eventually realizes that Armus is playing games that are not going to be resolved until a grown-up is in the room. So he beams down and he trades himself for the rest. He's he's it's a full party swap and and you know, Reiker gets spat back out and he's dazed but okay. And Picard's mission here, because they've kind of worked out, worked it out by getting a brief little bit of communication with Troy, is that when Armas is confronting his feelings of betrayal and anger over being left alone on this planet. He is not able to maintain

the field that he has erected around the Shuttlecraft. So if Picard can... If he can only goodwill hunting armors long enough, they'll have time to beam away Deanna and her random Shuttlecraft pilot. Yeah, too bad he didn't bring down a paint by numbers for Armistu insults. ["Domok and Jalat, and Denarga"] They basically set the ship to do an auto beam out once the instruments detect that Armist's energy level has dropped below a certain point. And all Captain Picard has to do is a excellent,

Shakespearean dialogue condemning armist, while also provoking armist to confront its feelings. Yeah, and like you would imagine, it works to a T. They end up beaming off both the injured shuttle pilot, Diana and Captain Picard. I'm not taking you anywhere. Leaving Armas to just scream to himself. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

They pull a very similar directorial choice with this scream as they did when Wurf was crying out to let the dead noel warrior was coming. It's like a zoom in on armistice head as it screams out an anger. Yeah, I mean, they've really missed the opportunity to go planet wide and add the echo to the scream. That would have been my artistic choice, but maybe that's too much. So we still have a lot of episode left,

which is the memorial service for Lieutenant Yarr, which opens up like it's going to be the tackiest thing in the world, like the holodeck opens and it's like the most sugary sweet green hillside with a tree and like bright green grass and bright blue sky with puffy clouds floating in it. I have so many questions about this setup. Yeah, like was it her idea?

Why is no one wearing a dress uniform? That is also strange. Perhaps also her dying wish, we can never know. Oh yeah, that everyone goes dressed as they would for work every day. It's a very, yeah, it's very strange. And the strangest part is that they have a hologram of Lieutenant Yard, presumably something she recorded before she died to make people feel better about her death.

But if you think about that, like you would have to update that every like year or two, right? Every time a significant life event happens between you and one of your friends, you'd have to update your will. Yeah, it'd be weird. Every time there's a new crew member that might be present for something like that,

seems like a crazy thing to have to keep track of. Yeah, the type of diligence required to keep something like that up to date, I think might indicate a pretty serious mental problem that we never knew about Daishi Yare. Yeah. Like, she spends all of her time updating her will. Yeah, pretty fucked up. Yeah, so she basically goes around the horn with the entire bridge crew and gives everyone a little chocolate kiss of her memories of them or their relationship. And it's like, it's pretty simple writing. It's basically like how you would describe each character in two lines, you know, like Troy, you're capable

of such love, writer, you're the best, you know, Warf, you're a warrior just like me. Data, you really fucking knocked it out. I've never been a wreck like that before in my life. Data, I didn't walk straight for a week. She looks over to Riker. She's like, Will, you could learn something for that one. When she finally gets to Picard, So we're the riker, she's like, Will, you could learn something from that one. When she finally gets to Picard,

I think that was the moment that became really sincere and good. And I think when I heard you talk at the top of our pot about it, like, that's the part that actually worked for me. It really did, yeah. And was actually emotionally affecting, was when she talked about him.

If there was someone in this universe, I could choose to be like, someone who I would want to make proud of me. It's you. I genuinely got a little misty in that part, and I think that's partly a testament to just like what I feel about the character of Captain Picard. I also feel like it benefits from what we know about him for the next six years. Like, I don't know. Yeah, that's one thing I wanted to bring up.

Like, does this scene work in the context of only 21 episodes? Yeah. Or does it, or are we projecting onto it in a way that makes it better than maybe it actually is? Yeah, I don't know. I think that it may get more justified as the show goes for it. And I definitely thought about that. Some of the characters that she talks about are characters that I don't remember her having

many scenes with. It's a very strange scene and in some ways feels tacky but ultimately really like talked about heartstrings. Sure. I mean the one thing we know for sure is that we'll never see Tasha Yara again. Ever. Why do you think she didn't rock her special occasion hair for this? Also, not to get too star Trek hair cast but like she should have brought out her special occasion wedding hair. Yeah, poofed up. What do you think they do with her body?

Um... They had a chance to shoot her out of torpedo to your right? Right, but no Genesis planet to aim her at, you know? I don't know, I had a lot of questions having to do with the end of life issues. Yeah. Those are unresolved. I'm sure that this is like totally forbidden in my wife's cultural and religious heritage, but if I could be shot out of torpedo tube when I die,

I think that's the option I would go for. I am the cute as a ball. There are ball lights. I think we both agree that the character of Tashiyaar has had many highlights in her career on the Enterprise. Unforgettable highlights from a fully developed character, I would say. Absolutely. I took the liberty of putting together an in-memorium reel of some of her greatest moments.

Oh really? Yeah, I think sort of like the Academy Awards in Memorium montage, I think it's only right that we take a moment and remember our fallen bridge officer Tashi are I don't believe this you're going to put that thing on and parade around like what of them I'm in a penalty box data you are fully functional aren aren't you? Of course, but- How fully. It doesn't feel artificial until the drug wears off. And you pay the price.

She's dead. Aww. Oh. That was like basically everything I can remember about DashiR. That was every highlight of her enterprise career, complete and comprehensive. Oh, good job. Good job. And it fit into Spain of about 30 seconds. Yeah. Rest in peace, Tasha.

Wow. 30 seconds. Yeah, rest in peace, Tasha. Huh, wow. So that was a pretty big moment in the show, killing a major character, a very very joss weed-in thing to do in a sci-fi show. Yeah, this is, you know, this really pre-visaged game of thrones in a big way. I didn't choose a drunk Shimoda, did you? I did. Drunk Shimoda! Drunk Shimoda is the name we give any character on the show who appears to be just having the most fun or doing something we don't understand or just being ridiculous. We do this once a show and we each find someone that is the most deserving of being called

Drunk Shemota. We've talked about him already and it's Leland T. Lynch. Lieutenant Commander Leland T. Lichers. Temporary temporary temporary temporary acting head of engineering in this episode. I just thought what a dope like this guy comes on with, I can't imagine that they wrote it like this for the actor, but he says, Leland T. Lynch, every time he gets on the radio.

And it's like, what the fuck are we establishing here? Like, why are we spending any time with this dope? Can't we, isn't there something that one of the bridge characters can be doing that's slowing the ship down or that helps build tension. Like, it's such a stupid device. And it's like, just everything about Leland T. Lynch. Lieutenant Commander Leland T. Lynch, your sir.

Is ridiculous. He's gonna realign the Dylithium core by hand, or something, and it's like, what the fuck are we talking about? Like, you're doing, you're gonna power up the whole ship by hand? Like, that makes no sense. Nothing that we've ever learned about the Warp Corps lends any credibility to that whole part of the storyline

and Leland T. Lins- Lieutenant Commander Leland T. Lichers, sir. Just trying to work his name onto our brains to become a real character, which he is not. So, a couple episodes ago, his name onto our brains to become a real character, which he is not. So a couple episodes ago, Wesley Crusher's taken the Academy entrance exam. And one of the questions is like, what's the mixture of matter and anti-matter required to make warp drive? Or, you know, a question like that.

Do you remember the ratio? As far as Leland T. Lynn. So, Lieutenant Commander Leland T. Let's hear, sir. Thinks it is, it's 25 to 1? What? Yeah, that's some fucking bullshit. I think Wes would flip out. No one would, Leland T-Linch.

So, Tenet Commander Leland T-Linch, sir. Is trying to do to the workhorse. Wes needs to take his repeller device down to engineering and lock Leland T-Linch. So, Tenet Commander Leland T-Linch, sir. Behind a force field. The guy is a menace. Yeah.

Ridiculous. God. Shoot him out of torpedo tube. He's terrible. Yeah. Do you think he comes back? I don't think he does. I hope not.

I need to leave him at a starbase. I need to leave him at a starbase. I'm quitting the show after that. Ben, I was too distraught to find a Shimoda in our episode here and I didn't I didn't nominate one. Well, we'll raise a glass to y'all and get drunk Shimoda ourselves. What do we have coming up next week? Next week's episode is called, We'll Always Have Paris. Captain McCart is unexpectedly reunited

with his first love in the midst of an investigation into lethal time warp experiments. Do you remember this at all, Adam? Because I do not. No, I don't either. Not at all. It seems like a, from your episode description, this is an episode where Picard's gonna get

to speak a lot of French, right? That's always fun. Mm-hmm. Like ancient language. Sure. That is dead. Language of love. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, in my like later in life rewatches of the series, I have often skipped season one entirely. And why would you do that? Hard to say. It's fun to have videos, huh? It is. Any of control over the episode you get to watch?

Do you think this is a vetoable episode though? Like if we don't know anything about it, like why would either of us veto this? No, I just don't recall what that's like. I was just ruminating on that idea. Mmm. Yeah. I think if we can't remember it, that's a great reason to watch it. Yeah, I think so too.

I think we should revisit our veto discussion when we start season two, because, you know, I think that having done every episode, as painful as watching that LaWoxonotroy, one was, I feel like we start to build a podcast that is very definitive in goofing around while talking about Star Trek the next generation. I guess if your goal is being definitive about it, then that's something I can get behind. Well, we'll think about it. We'll talk about it on an upcoming episode.

Why don't we end this shirad? Yeah, let's adjourn for now and we'll come back with we'll always have pairs. You can follow me on Twitter at BenjaminRHR. And you can find me at at Cut for Time on Twitter. Also, a chicken on the hashtag GreatestGen. It's a great conversation between Star Trek fans and our country's veteran community. Yeah, there's been a lot of fun stuff on there lately. I've been having some fun conversations.

Yeah, not the least of which is our ongoing Twitter war against the Mission Log podcast. Yeah, our rap beef that they have, hmm, have heartedly taken us up on, not really. A rap beef that they have, half-heartedly taken us up on, not really. A rap beef that they really don't understand. It's like when you try to start a rap beef with a couple of dads, I honestly think they're confused by the whole thing. Yeah. One of the latter day elements of a rap beef is,

you often hear no mention of the subject of your diss tracks name in the song. Like, if 50 Cent is gonna diss Rick Ross, he might not say Rick Ross at all in the song. He might say Officer Ricky to make fun of him, but would never say his actual name, and that's like, seen as, you know, if you're famous rapper and you're saying the name of your rival, it's seen as like making them more famous. But I think that one of the biggest ways that the Mission Log Podcast has insulted us is by barely being aware of our Pip's Week show.

I think that was a fairly predictable outcome. Not just. Well, with that, we will be back at you with another episode very soon, where two guys who are a little bit embarrassed talk about yet another episode of Star Trek the next generation. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pryanaka. See ya. Bye. Get it, you'll look at the car of the youth Get it, get it, by you Get it, you'll look at the car of the youth Get it, get it, by you Make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it, make it,