The Greatest Generation - Munch Longevity (S6E5)

Episode Date: April 24, 2017

When Commander Riker can't get enough sleep, his stamina for duty is called into question. But after having his arm swabbed for DNA by a bunch of lobster-handed aliens, the Enterprise crew decides to set up their holodeck for a CSI-style investigation. What is the Nubbin campaign policy? How long will scissors be a thing? Are Picard and Lt. Jae dating? It's the episode recording from a Shimoda-themed keg party!

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 friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdisotoforlabor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. 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 Pryanaka. I am also your host Benjamin R. Harrison.

Ben how long has it been since we've recorded a show? More than three weeks. Yeah. It may not seem like that. It may not seem like that from the other side of the pod, but it's been a long time. If we've done our jobs right, that should be imperceptible.

Yeah. Yeah. It's strange, because I feel like some of the ones that we recorded in the Mad Rush to get enough coverage for my very long trip overseas, I feel like are some of our best. Yeah, I think so too. I think we need schedule pressure, clearly, to do our best. Yeah, otherwise our show is terrible.

I was thinking that it was also the longest layoff we've ever had since starting the show. It's true. Because even on my trip to Victorville, we managed to record pod while I was down there. That's true. Yeah. I mean, I was in a couple of countries that had incredibly poor internet. So it really wouldn't have been possible. And then like getting to watch episodes would have also been a challenge so I'm glad we did it the way we did uh yeah but man I was fucking withdrawing

I didn't not doing tgg I didn't like not doing the show but I also had a weird like I really missed watching the show too because, because I wasn't going to watch episodes unless we were going to record on them, so I took just as long of a break from watching as well. I missed it. Yeah, it was really nice to sit back down and get back into watching apps. I mean, while you were away, I just had to find my dick joke material elsewhere. Any hot tips? That's the terminology you want to use, Ben? I think I picked my words carefully at them. Yeah, thank think you did. Well, there's plenty to joke about in today's episode, Ben.

Why don't we just get into that? We could. Before we do, I have one little thing I wanted to take care of before we get in. I got a piece of mail here and it's probably been sitting in my apartment for almost a month. Oh jeez, so hopefully it's not food. Yeah, so I thought I'd open it real quick and hey, if it's funny, whatever's inside, you're hearing this and if not, it got cut from the show. Let's do it.

Captain, I'm sorry to disturb you. I'm receiving a code 47. Verify? It is code 47, sir. Stockly emergency frequency. Captions eyes only. So it's kind of like a pizza box looking box. Oh god, it is food. Well, I mean, it's like the shape, but it definitely doesn't have like a portly Italian gentleman illustration on the front This is from Navarro And it went through the mothership at MaxFront HQ who are kind enough to forward it on Into this

So let me get into this. This is like, it's the most absurd box because it's a pizza box format but huge, huge flaps on all four sides instead of just the one flap. What this is gonna be. It's a nice Oxford shirt. Okay. Here's the note says,

Adam and Ben, great show, can't wait for DS9. Please enjoy this 24th century wallet, NAV. What is, what this is, Adam, is a, Umbra brand pendant scarf hanger. Oh man, that's really good. It's actually a fairly lovely object in and of itself, but yeah, it's a, it's been free hanging scarves. It's been free hanging scarves. I'm sure you're just raging with jealousy right now Adam. Navarro, one of the great gifts right there.

One of the best gifts everybody talking about it. Wow. It's a very strange looking thing. I didn't know that was a thing. Wow. It's a very strange looking thing. I didn't know that was a thing. Yeah. I mean, it looks like it would be great for it. You know, maybe in the fourth century wallet. Maybe on our upcoming tour, we'll

have something that we can hang off of it and display in the merch booth. I feel like in the present, we're all about reduction, right? Getting the skinny wallet. Getting a wallet maybe where it's just a couple of cards or maybe a wallet that's clipped on the back of your phone. No, but in the 24th century we've blown it back up again. It's a closet size wallet.

It hangs in your closet. It's more than a foot on three sides. Wow fantastic. Thank you so much Navara. What a thoughtful gift. Incredible. Lucky you Ben. And now you got to move that thing across country. Back to Los Angeles where it was sent down from. Wow. It's like that scarf rack is like one of those, one of those gnomes people travel with and take pictures of, like, the city is around the world. Yeah, in front of the big shiny bean and Chicago

in front of Big Ben and London. Can never find that bean. Yeah, who knows? That might be fictional. Alright, let's get That might be fictional. Does it? Alright, let's get to it, Ben. Season six, episode five. Shishim.

This is becoming a speech. Where the cat comes to, very tightly. I'm gonna type a ramble on about something everyone knows. I'm gonna be sad to see this one go, because Kevin has made a number of appearances to say the name of it. Yeah. I always like to check in with Kevin.

So the entrepreneur is doing some charting and Commander Riker is having a tough time getting restful sleep. And this is, I think the first thing we see after our captain's log is Riker, like tossing and turning, and then, you know, wandering around the ship, doing his rikerly duties with the conspicuously bad hair of a Riker in distress.

They really managed to squeeze in a lot of fun scene and character work before the theme song here. Like, you get to see a Federation Clock radio. I thought that was fun. Like, it's right up next to the vanity. Yeah. I really appreciate Riker's choice in pillows. It's not the squared off pillow of a Jordy LaForge.

It's an actual proper pillow. Uh-huh. Yeah, it's interesting that they're options, you know. Because on a military context, you don't always have the, you know, you don't always get to pick what cut you're sleeping on. Yeah, I mean, Riker's not hot-bunking it, for sure. Right. Yeah. This is one of the nicer quarters on the ship.

I feel like if you're a writer on this show and you're tasked with, like, how do I visually show someone's faltering sanity? And everyone is supposed to be wearing more or less the same uniform. Really, the hair's the only thing you can do, right? Like, it's the only thing you can work with. And luckily, one riker, William T, has a particularly good canvas for this. The only other thing I feel like you could do that would be fun, and I kind of feel like maybe a missed opportunity is if you walked into a scene

and his uniform was only zipped halfway up in the back. He's just showing some pasty back. Do you think he has a lot of back hair? Ooh, that's interesting. I kind of wonder if Raker William T is a back waxer. Because I mean, we know he's got a great deal of chest hair because we see his deep V in this scene and he's all man in the front. But I feel like, you know, he takes his bedroom time seriously enough that I feel like he might wax it

up on the back and shoulders. There's little doubt that the carpet touches the trapeze There's little doubt that the carpet touches the trapeze and one long unbroken run. Yeah, that would be a fun scene with the bully and barber doing the wax strips off the back. She starts doing his pubes, I'm out of here. So data and Jordi are working on a scheme to bump up how good the sensors on the ship are because they're charting some space and I guess they want to be efficient about it as they wrap up a little morning meeting about this. Data reminds Riker that he's got a poetry reading this afternoon. And the poetry reading winds up being the last three minutes of this five-minute cold open. And man, this is a scene, man.

This is one of the scenes that people bring up when TNG comes up. I feel like. It's hard on a cringe per second basis to think of any other scene that rates as high as this. Yeah, and it's, I mean, in its defense, it is a scene that is meant to induce cringe. You know, the idea is that it's so cringy, but I feel like you can do this scene without doing the scene. Do you know what I mean? I don't know. We show Riker's face, we cut to close-ups of a couple of the extras, you know,

stick in their finger and their collar and going, yee, and I feel like we get the idea. Like, we have the idea 30 seconds into this scene and it drags on for three minutes. You know, what we're starting to get into more and more with these choices is like, this is making it fun in quotes where I think it could be more interesting if there are some stakes, you know, like Riker being half asleep at the wheel could really have some consequences for a lot of people and they don't go that route at all. It has more social consequences at least initially.

Other thing worth pointing out in this scene is that Troy has a new wig and it's a bad one. It looks like, you know how sailors are just really good at rope work. And I'm not talking about the kind that's being used, but when you hang out... You're talking about Marlon spiking. I'm talking about unused rope, coiled up nicely, hanging. That's what our hair looks like now. Holy shit, is this Lieutenant J sitting next to Picard?

It sure is, and I had a question about this, like they are sitting very close. Like, kind of looks like they're on a date. Right. Are they on a date? Can we be sure that they're not? Because they are the only people who are sitting so close as to be basically leaning

on each other. Yeah, and what's that about? Jury and War for the next closest to people. If the captain's going to be dating a crew person, man, like they say like you should never date someone from the office, but like it doesn't get any closer in an office context than the driver of your ship. Right. Like he couldn't find anyone who worked

with Kiko or anything. Right. It's definitely, it's also a weird episode because Picard's like not in it much until like, yeah. The midpoint, like this is, I think this is only seen until like 20 minutes in. So you have to do a lot of head cannon to explain what the fuck is going on with this Lieutenant J appearance. I don't feel like

it's something that in modern television you could get away with because people would see that right away and think that they were setting the table for something to come later. Yeah, it's check out. It's good. Like everything in modern television is check out. And nothing in Star Trek. The next generation is. Which is why, which is why as I saw it, I was like, well, yeah, like they're never going to pay this off.

And they don't. Yeah, this scene ends and it throws to title sequence and it's off of a fade. Yeah, it fades to title sequence. I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend. It is the most cold of cold opens. It doesn't set any suspenseful action in motion. It doesn't challenge, you know, like pose some challenging idea.

It doesn't, there's no inciting incident of any kind. It's just five minutes of riker being sleepy and data being cringey. If the design of a cold open is meant to hook, there are no hooks here. It's a drinking straw. Right. Yeah, I mean, it's sort of the time-zero of cold opens,

right? It might as well not bother coming back after the summer, because we don't have much. This is a season that is not gathering strength as it goes. I mean, it's funny, because I think that there's a lot of really cool stuff in this episode, and it's so baffling that they let this be the way it opens.

Right, especially because towards the climax, they're really cramming stuff in. They're like, we don't have enough room. Yeah, there's so much runway before the theme. Like, use it. Mm-hmm. It seems like an acting difficulty akin to acting drunk to act tired. I think and not be super ham and cheese about it. That freaks did a pretty good job throughout this episode of like being demonstrably tired

but not cartoonish about it. Yeah, that was so. He really looks like he's in pain and I think that's part of it. He does not play up the yawning and the stretching as much as he's like frustrated and And I think we've all been there when we've experienced insomnia like it's so not fun or funny. It's just like Painful in many ways and that's the direction he goes with it with the performance. Yeah, as someone who's been dealing with jet lag quite a lot for the last several weeks, one thing that has been a struggle for me is, I feel like I need people to know how impaired I am,

but I don't look that impaired. It's important to set people's expectations up front. Right. It's important to set people's expectations up front right Which is why this is going to be a terrible episode of the greatest generation So we come back and I think he's like getting Getting some six Bay action The doctor suggests that maybe he's not getting enough REM sleep Which is like come on doctor, that was a different episode.

Ben, if you went to a 24th century six bay, and Dr. Cresher was there prescribing a cure for insomnia, and it was- A recipe for warm milk toddy. Help history, would you be? Probably about as pistas raker seems. A hot milk toddy. What the fuck, man?

This is an incredibly imperfect future if they haven't solved for this yet. Yeah, doesn't Polasky prescribe chicken soup to somebody at some point? Yeah, seriously, go to hell. Ha ha ha ha. Why am I even in here? Yeah.

I wonder how capable the replicator is for stuff like that. Like, can you order something from the replicator, like, contextually? Like, hey, can you give me something for sleep? Or my tumtum's not feeling good. Give me a lunch that'll go easy on it. And it would provide something like that. Because it seems like you could get the doctor

completely out of it if you could order something that way. Yeah, I mean, and if there isn't medicine, there is just a, you know, a dab of brandy and some warm milk. Yeah. Yeah. Like, kick a gala off the ship, kick, kick, crush her off the ship, kick the other background doctors at the front-sips off the ship. We don't need them. Yeah, just a replicator with updated software. kick the other background stockers at the front sips off the ship. We don't need them. Yeah, just a replicator with updated software and we're good to go. So, data and dirty and some other engineers are hanging out in the Shimoda corner.

They're like patching the warp engines into the sensor array so that the sensors can be super powerful and They get it gone. They're really pleased and then I'm reading a massive EPS explosion in one of the cargo base and The ship says that there's people working up in that cargo base. So they're pretty pretty concerned about it and They leave the jumper cables attached between the sensors and the warp engines, though, which I think is fucking great. A huge explosion has happened a moment after connecting the two, and they're like, well, they can't be related.

Let's go triage the explosion. Yeah, let's go check the power line that just blew out. Yeah. So they call for damage control and a medical emergency team to go up to the cargo bay and damage control is wharf and a buddy. Apparently they all get up to the door of the cargo bay and they've got readings from the other side of the door with a tricorder that makes it seem like it may be somewhat dangerous. No one thinks to put the back of their hand up to it though. Yeah, well they say they say stand clear and everybody butt data stands clear. It's a good signal.. Suicidele thing, he's done this season.

Prepare for shrapnel. I'll make sure I take it off for you. Yeah, he's like the golly, the shrapnel wall. And the door's open and it's a great like shot reverse shot of them walking in and then like guys in Chamodokas dooms like That warning so great. They're like before we go in there prepare yourselves It's gonna be like Omaha Beach like just a fucking blood bath like Like we we might want to just put a bunch of kitty litter outside the door for absorbency

Yeah, yeah, it it's going to be gross. Yeah. It's like, it's like three guys carrying a keg. They like look like they're headed to a frat party. Like a Shimoda themed frat party. That would be our theme for our frat party. I feel like the only thing that I feel like I really am married to for greatest

Jankan is a Shimoda themed party. The thing about the Shimoda themed party is that you're gonna end up on the floor one way or the other. Yeah, yeah exactly. Stack in your vomit. You. But it's fun. It's like, it's a big like, and a false alarm. Ben, I think they just got... Shishim.

I'm gonna play the iced tea from Law and Order roll in this episode. Every time there's a moment of Shishim, I'm gonna call it like I see it. I want to play the iced tea from Law and Order role in this episode. Every time there's a moment of shishim, I'm going to call it like I see it. Oh, I appreciate that. I mean, it's appropriate because we know that Ice loves Coco and Tracy Coco is prominently featured early in this episode. So, I see that as being a great choice on your part. It's this new federation drug that combines warp core power and the sensor array. Kids in the cargo bay college.

Schisms. They were telling you about the time I saw I see on the street. No, but it seems like if you're in New York, it's gonna happen all the time, right? It's only happened once, but it was great. I was looking in the window of a shop on eighth street, kind of close to NYU, and I saw him like reflected in the window, and so I turned around,

and it was definitely him. And so I turned around and it was definitely him. And so I was really excited. I was probably like the first real exciting celebrity I ever saw in New York because I was fairly new to town. Back qualifies. Creepster that I am, I decided to like, amble down the block about, you know, four car lengths behind him, just to see where he went.

And where he went was the dashing diva nail salon. And I was like, what? What is going on? And then I looked in the window of the dashing diva nail salon, and there was Goko. Wow. Yeah. So you got two run-ins.

Mm-hmm. I later got to meet him at MaxFundHQ, because Jesse interviewed him for Bullseye. Whoa. Yeah. Did you bring up that moment? You know I actually ran into you before. I tailed you for about four blocks and followed you and do a nail salon. I used some police tailing techniques that I learned from your popular television program.

Yeah, you got to believe if AST does not want to be tailed. He wouldn't be tailed. What a career that guys had. Went from actual bank robber to famous musician with a notorious song called Cop Killer to most famous for playing a cop on TV. He's got some munch longevity, doesn't he? Yeah.

Pretty good stuff. I wish he would do the munch thing and show up in other shows in his character. Yeah, that'd be great. That'd be fun. Fuck the munchiverse, I want the T-averse. Yeah. I mean, I love munch. Is truck is in the munch of us, right?

I think it is. Yeah. It is a crazy, strange, romantic, reading space. Are you not finding within yourself to stand up, tell the truth? You don't deserve to wear that uniform. After all the excitement with nothing happening in the cargo bay, Riker and Jordi are winding

their day up and they're like heading home, walking through the hallways, Riker's like, hey bud, I got a favor to ask. I've been having a devil of a time getting up in the morning, and just not getting good sleep. If you could come by at like 7am, wake me up, I would really appreciate it. And Charlie's like, hey, no problem. And Riker goes into his quarters, makes himself a toddy, has a sip of it, lays down on his bed, and the doorbell rings.

And it's Jurti. And Charlie's like, the morning, time for work. Morning, I just went to bed. The read on Riker at this point is as much devastation as it is fatigue. He's like, oh God, no, no, not again. This was a real missed opportunity from a figuring out what's going on standpoint,

because they've got that hot toddy there. A hot milk toddy. And nobody ever checks it for what temperature it is. Yeah. You know, because like this is a universe where a lot of things could potentially be happening. There could be a like a stitch in time where he's jumping forward himself

or the ship is jumping forward but other objects aren't. You know, like I feel like knowing whether the Tadi had cooled off to room temp would have been a good data point for them to carry forward. When you go to sleep and you think you're getting eight hours but then your buddy wakes you up for work just a moment later, Ben. You just catch, you should. Ben, it's fun, it's fun hearing you bend yourself into the ability to do a on the fly transition to us bridge. What's going to be fun is to know if any of this stays, or if it's a bit that just dies in the edit. At this point, it's a total coin flip. Yeah. Well, speaking of dashing divas,

Orph is getting a haircut from the bullion barber. Do they recast this barber as at the same guy? I think it's the same guy. I have so many questions about a Klingon hair care though. Persistent, itchy, flaky scalp. Like, on a Klingon ship, do you cut your own hair? You have to, right? Or if definitely rocks a different look from most Klingons. Like, it may be the same hair, but he's definitely using different products. Neutrogena T-Jail.

It works. Because they're usually pretty like wavy, and they're not necessarily dragging a comb through it all the time. And Wurf has such an anal, retentive hair swagger. Yeah, it is really, there are no flyaways or split ends for sure.

No, yeah. Yeah, he's running a tight ship. And you never see him sleeping, do you? Yeah, only cowards sleep at him. He sleeps standing up in his weird balls chair. Well, Mott is going in for the, like, to give Wurf some bangs maybe, and Wurf grabs the the wrist on the hand that's holding the scissors. And he really, like, has to freak out looking at these scissors, man.

Real talk, Ben. Yeah, real talk. What do you think are the chances three to four hundred years in the future that there will be scissors. Like, period. I don't know, man. I mean, I guess the premise of your question is basically, is there some sort of ray

that can accurately cut hair better than scissors? I guess that, I mean, lasers can cut things, right? We've seen people use lasers and light guns and stuff in this very barbershop. Yeah, didn't Jordy shave with a light-based tool? He did. He did. So what is it about clinging on hair that requires scissors?

Maybe it's a wolf's preference. Because that's the most rugged way to cut hair. It would have been fun to see Mr. Mott pour some poison over the blades of the scissors just to like hop the ante a little bit like if I if I nick you with these you're dead. So I love like the stakes raising to every little every little bit of either self-care or domesticity from wharf has got to be like extremely dangerous. Yeah, he pours a bunch of like hydrophloric acid and the sink when he's gonna do the dishes.

So that if anything splashes up over the top of his dish doing gloves, the skin will melt off of his hands. His toilet brushes of blowfish. Yeah, he has spikes on either side of his bed. So if he rolls out of bed in the middle of the night, dead meat. Man. Warped, what's great about this sort of headcanon is like, Warf makes regular life so difficult, the his security job just doesn't hold his attention at all.

Which it clearly doesn't. It actually makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Would you say that Warf got shishimmed here, Adam. Yeah, I mean, when Wharf gets into the barber's chair and he's thinking it's gonna be a relaxing hang with the talkative barber and instead he sees pretty angsty PTSD style, scissor blades. You could say that Wharf in this case has been... Shishimed. You got shishimmed Wurf and then like a bunch of people jump out from the side like whew! Wapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapwapw Yeah, a punk-style like post-TGG reality show.

Shishramed and it's a shishram apostrophe D, right? I'm a man of very special sense of humor, especially a hidden camera humor particularly. You said you were being pulled over in a typical typical moving violation roadstep, but what's really happening is a stripper is portraying the part of a cap. And oh, so I've exterminated your entire race. You just got shit. It turns out the who's not genocide was just a part of his prank show pilot that we got picked up.

He didn't want to tell anyone about the pilot because it was too shameful. You said somebody in the restaurant next to you, we're saying outrageously racist things and acting like you were their friend You just got she's So yeah a bunch of a bunch of stuff happens where different characters are having different unexplainable events, and it winds up with Troy pulling together like a group therapy session. If you want. You know, one flew over the Kuku's Nest style. They all sit in a circle and talk about their experience. And they're all kind of like converging on

describing a vaguely remembered place and experience that they all have some kind of corroborative details of. And this leads them to a scene in the holodeck where they're kind of standing around suggesting some scenery to the computer and you know different different things appear and they kind of they kind of zero in on a scene that they've all they've all been a part of and this is like a just a great great scene in my opinion. This was so effective it felt like it came from a completely different episode.

Yeah, it is riveting. I mean, it starts with them just saying, okay, like put a table in the middle there. I mean, you get the most platonic ideal wood dinner table. And then they lower it and then they lift up one end. And it gets to nightmare dentist chair eventually. Yeah. But it's so cool to see them kind of puzzle through. Oh no, there was an instrument panel on this part. My feet were restrained.

They do that thing where they raise tension through the like everyone in the room offers another bit to the puzzle and then they add those bits at an increasing frequency and rate. Yeah. Until in totality they build the thing that they've all experienced in both, you know, a visual fashion and a, and like a sensory fashion, like they're even messing with light sources and sounds in the room and stuff. Yeah, I like that, I like that when Troy said, were there any smells? Yeah. Everybody's looking, not really. Yeah. And by the end, they give you like the wide shot of this this giant dark room with the small Table in the middle and them surrounding it. It's it is the spiritual opposite of the scene before the theme

Yeah, in this episode. It's great. It's great. It It's shot from a really fun angle, like the over-the-top holiday shot. I don't, I think that a lot of the time the holiday deck is just like a comp, you know, or they just kinda toss some yellow and black into the background, but they bring in a couple of flats and just let you kind of fill in that it's an entire room. I don't think that we get to see the whole damn room that much, and it's cool.

Yeah, it is. It's such a simple set. It's probably the cheapest set that they ever have to put up. And they definitely went with a way more complicated look for Holodex in the movies and subsequent television shows. I think this is so great. It's all it needs to be. In some ways, they're just, they're turning the Holodex into a CSI lab,

which is sort of its perfect use. Yeah. That they use it for so rarely in a professional context. Totally. Yeah, it's, I mean, there's a couple of comparable things, I think when Loll picks what she's going to look like and the data has a baby episode, it's kind of a similar idea. But yeah, this definitely makes me want more of this. I wish more often they were,

and I mean like the scene in the, Joradi turns into an invisible alien episode where he's kinda doing forensics with the holodeck is also super cool. Yeah. Why do we get LaWoxana all the time? And we get this like three times in the entire series. Because LaWoxana is cheaper So this combined with the like there's like a some kind of subspace rift forming in the cargo bay where they had the had to fake explosion. Greys abduct, you know, rural farmers in our time.

And so like when Riker feels like he hasn't slept, it's because he's been in this alternate dimension getting anal probed. And they've discovered that like his arm got chopped off and then reattached at some point. Like it's freaky stuff Yeah, it's not enough that they've been leaving the ship, but some of the details of what's been happening to them while they've been gone are Really terrifying. Yeah, especially the arm thing like uh Imagine the places that arm has been

Yeah, all the way up to the forearm too. Yeah. Yeah. They're like, when we form the fingers into a fist, this can be inserted into almost any body cavity. We've swabbed the forearm and there are 3,700 different kinds of DNA on it. And that's up to the elbow. Yeah. So yeah, they come up with a plan where Recker's gonna have some,

he's gonna get a, like a stimulant injected into him. And he's gonna go through the space time but hole into the, into the alternate dimension and maintain his consciousness. So they like, they tuck him into bed with like a tricorder and a sensor pack and a dust buster. And he flies through and he is in this like freaky ass alien laboratory. And the chair, the table he's on is like not precisely what's been worked out in the

holodeck but like you see you see why the thing from the holodeck is what they settled on. Yeah pretty close. And he sees the helmsman on the other table. Yeah. And she's got like some tubes hanging out of her arm. They seem to be really interested in the arms. Yeah, she's got like board tubes, huh? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I thought they looked like too. These aliens are freaky. Yeah, they're, they're a little fishy looking and they're clicking around with, uh, sort of like lobster claw hands.

They have the lobster-iest claws we've seen yet. They don't look very dexterous to be performing any sort of like lobster claw hands. They have the lobster-yist claws we've seen yet. They don't look very dexterous to be performing any sort of surgery, you know? Yeah, they must rely on the instruments for that. But yeah, and they all have hoods. Like, this is better alien design than we get a lot of the time. I don't know if I agree with you there

because you mentioned something a few episodes back about writing without conviction, and that being a real downfall to a lot of these episodes. I feel like an alien design, especially strong conviction can mean some really interesting results. And I think when you shroud the alien in a dark hood and make them barely recognizable, I think that might lack the sort of conviction

that I would want from some alien design. So I was a little bit, I was a little bit uninterested in what they did with these people. I see your point. I mean, the place is more interesting to me than the aliens themselves. There was something that I kept thinking about when I was watching the scene,

which was that I feel like it was a lot darker when I first saw it. Like I don't feel like you saw as much of them. And I feel like that was the, maybe somebody can do some research on this and tell us. But I feel like part of what was so scary about it is that you couldn't really see beyond the edge of the table. And in this, it's like kind of,

like, they got a lot of detail out of the darks in transferring this to HD. And I wonder if that was kind of a aesthetic mistake that they shouldn't have done that. Yeah. HD and I wonder if that was kind of a kind of a aesthetic mistake that That they shouldn't have done that. Yeah, but Sinus is freaky, you know, Riker has to like pretend to be asleep while they're Looking him over and then he he sort of serpitiously sneaks out of out of bed and grabs the grabs the helmsman

licks a shot at one of the aliens of this dustbuster and manages to jump through the space butthole, like just in the nick of time because to raise the stakes they've decided that they need to close that that hole up. He really gets a good action- set piece moment here like yeah, Riker grabs the grabs the crewman like hero Carries her to the door like shoot some people with a phaser. He's like lying leap through the hole Y'all just got schism And then he's through the hole schism this And then he's through the hole. Schism this!

Yeah. The Ensign does a fun little hand move with her, with her tube-deap arm. Yeah. And then kind of a fucked-out idea now, which is ball of light that was the alien invading their ship, swirls around the room and then like flies through a bulkhead and out into space. Yeah and like the whole

deal with them is that they are from a different universe like that runs in a totally different frequency from this universe. Right. So what these other scientists were trying to do was like well we can't study you by going to your universe. So we're going to grab a couple of you guys, set you up in a fish tank over here, and then do our weird science on you that way. But it appeared as though the thing, like the weird static thing on the panel inside the cargo bay, was their attempt to create a portal into their world that they could use as a place to exist. But there's a much darker line to the whole thing too, because as they're post-gaming the mission, they're like, you know, we can't be sure that these people are malevolent about this either. Whoever was sent that thing was more than simply curious.

This scene ends with the same kind of tone as like a terrible movie that the studio obviously thought was gonna have a sequel before they released it. You know? It ends the way conspiracy did, which is like, oh, we don't know where they are, they're probably gonna return and then what's gonna happen, we don't know where they are. They're probably going to return and then what's going to happen. I don't know. But you already tried that with conspiracy and you didn't pay it off at all. Orn people saying that the nubbins and conspiracy just didn't work out. So they knew that they were going to have some evil existential threat

and they decided to make it the Borgs instead. How could the nubans not work? The Nubans worked great. I agree. I'm just saying. I'm pro Nuban. I'm just saying that's what the showrunner class bought at the time.

I will vote Nuban all the way down. In the Borgs versus Nubun political contest, you vote Nobun. Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to see that bumper sticker. Got the bumper sticker and everything. Is it Nubun Remick 1988?

Well, you got one of those names, right? It's Quinn Remick is what it is. When you want your politics delivered to your face, Roundhouse style. I'm gonna get these regressive taxes, Roundhouse style. Oh man. I'm gonna combat homelessness by throwing it through a glass table.

I'm gonna feed the poor with a healthy bowl of mealworms. I'm going to improve education by giving a trapper keeper to all children. That's great. That's pretty much the policy for the Nuban campaign. Friends don't let friends vote Nuban at him. Did you like this one? I mean I liked the one scene. The one scene is the only reason to watch this episode. I mean unless you like... I think that the answer is in the end is... And if you like an increasingly unhinged riker, which is a version of him that I really like a lot, they sort of fuck with Riker, don't they?

They give Troy the love stories, and they give Riker the stories where he has to question his sanity. I said, shut up! And they give Wurf the stories about learning how to be a better father. It would be strange and fun to see them sort of turn that character wheel one click to the right and then realign all those things to different characters. I agree. Yeah, I mean, like I think that what this episode gets right is the holiday scene and the scene where where Riker wakes up in the

lab at the end. I think what it gets wrong is the entire first 20 minutes and several scenes after the holiday scene also. Yeah, it's like a story economy and how it's laid out. Yeah, what if there was more that had to be done in the other universe? Like, what if they had to shut down the way they were accessing our universe to make sure that they never could or something like that? Yeah. It's the whole drop the bomb down the well solution. You know, like, do they, instead of sending Riker back with a phaser, do they send him

back with something phaser, do they send him back with something more rugged? Yeah. Yeah. Like, like he sleeps in a torpedo. Very vampiric by Riker. Picard has a moment toward the end where he gets to sort of give Riker some of his own medicine because he has the choice here.

There's sort of a countdown at the end of, they can shut down the portal from their end thus leaving Riker trapped on the other side. And it really comes down to it whether or not Picard's gonna do this. He'd finally get rid of his Riker problem once and for all. Yeah, it's been nipping at his heels for far too long.

Throw away all that HR paperwork, finally. Blow it out the door, blow it up. Did you like this episode? It's fun enough toward the end that it kind of redeemed itself, but yeah, it was definitely a slog at the beginning. From this dimension or any other band, do we have any priority one messages? I believe we do, Adam. Wanna check those out?

Yeah. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on top. supplement on top? supplement supplement Yeah, it's extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship!

Ben, our first priority one message is a of a personal nature. It is four. PamExander, Pamilton of the clan. Pam! Oh, is it Adam? And the message is from the walrus that barks at midnight. Oh, is it Adam? It is your birthday and I thought what more would Pam fucking want than a goddamn message on this fucking stupid podcast I now love thanks to Pam Pam it Pam I'm so far behind I won't even fucking hear this message for months Pam

You are the drunk Shimoda of my existential crisis Wow that would really ask me to of my existential crisis. Wow. That would really ask me to be very specific with my line reading. Yeah, your performance, you know, it's like a Riley in a script, where the writer is trying to direct you from behind the typewriter.

Yeah. Not typically the right way to do things, but I feel like it kind of worked in this in this context. I don't know Walrus barks in midnight. I'd really like another shot at that. I mean maybe maybe we can do one for me Put your own stank on it. No, I guess not. Yeah, yeah We don't have to get one go. Yeah The the folks at maxfund.org will be very cross with us if we read somebody's priority one more than be contractually obligated one time on the show. We do have another P1

here, Adam. It's from Plevim and it's to Reaze. Ploving men. Oh good. Ploving men Raze have got to be stopped. I really like what we don't get to see, like just to, just to glimpse behind the pot a little bit. What we don't get is the actual time in which these messages are sent, like they come in and sort of like an automated style

from the network. But I want to know is like, if these razz and plebeian messages are coming in at like 248 in the morning, 352 AM, they're sitting next to each other at the bar, firing hundred dollar messages back and forth at each other, using their poker winnings on P1s. Uh, some casinos will let you have a free P1 if you play at the, uh, at the higher stakes tables. That's true. Yeah, a free buffet ticket and a P1.

Um, so the message from Plavim to Razz goes like this. Tell Razz that he can go fuck himself. He's like, you know what's great about this mess? Well a lot of things are great about this message bin, but one of them is that plevim does not capitalize raz and does not end the sentence with punctuation. It feels like it was very urgently sent. Yeah, the other

great thing is that he spent $12.50 per word. That's value. That's the greatest Jan value. Wow. Sort of a couple of messages there that couldn't be more different. Yeah. Well, if you have a message that is like either one of those or completely different, you can go to maximumfund.org slash jumbo-tron where you can craft something custom made, tailor-suited to your messaging needs and we'll read it down the air. Personal messages are $100, commercial messages are for $200 and they help the ongoing production of this fine podcast program. Thanks guys! Hey Ben? What's that Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda!

I did. I mean, it was kind of a hard episode for me to find a Shimoda in, but I did get a nice laugh out of a lady that is at Data's poetry reading. And the camera lingers on this lady for kind of a long time in a way that made me think she was going to have a part. And I think part of the reason that she's getting this Shremota is that she does not

have a part. They just needed more people to look awkward and weird while Tato is doing his poem. But she just looks like the kind of 90s mom who you'd go over to your friend's house and you'd say like, damn, and you'd get in like a hot mess of trouble because they don't allow swearing in their house. Yeah. So she gets my Shimoda for that thing I'm projecting onto her and also the fact that you got a ton of screen time for a character that has no lines. I feel like most of the time the Shimoda is a projection of what we're feeling or what

we've gone through at some point. Yeah, yeah. How about yourself? Did you have a Shimoda? From the same scene, the poetry reading, Kaki Pants Guy is in the background. Oh fuck he totally is he's over data shoulder and what he's doing is like making the faces That the viewer is making while listening to to the poetry. He's sort of the viewer proxy. Yeah, he's back there in soft focus kind of like He looks like he's by himself, so I can imagine him like

no one can stand being around him. He's like, he's like smirking and shaking his head like, what the fuck is this? Huh? Trying to make eye contact with people around the room and no one wants to look at him. Kaki Pans guy is accustomed to the poetry reading room being, you know, unused most of the time. So he was coming by, coming by to have a nice little solo sash, the door opens, and he doesn't want to back out immediately.

So he tries to play it off and cannot keep a poker face. Well, this poem is going down. He, he's like the open mic host that has, that has to be high energy, you know? Everybody give it up for data. All right, cats. Yeah, you know, I used to have a cat and then he does a little like chambered bit that he came up with in the five minutes before he had to run back on. Keep the applause going for Jay. Jay. Coming up next, very funny, very funny Android as I had appearances on Leno Letterman and and Fallon. I recently started going to open mics again, Finn, and the the closest

open mic to my house, they're they're doing two minute sets. Whoa. Which is something that I have not seen too much of. And the open mic MC is just like, cannot sit down. Like as soon as her ass hits the seat, it's back up again. The set's over. Like, it's totally frenetic and crazy. Is this all comedy or is it like a, you know, bring your acoustic guitar up or bring a poem? This is comedy at a club. Yeah. Yeah. I've been to very few of those, but I typically hate them because so many people that don't

have any business doing comedy are up there doing horrible humor. Doing their approximation of what comedy is, it's pretty breathtaking. that part hasn't changed, Ben. I can assure you. They just got schizmed. 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 Sherry Reembarishment 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 Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Non-Giani.

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, raps. 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 neck. But I'm hearing we need to get on this off. We've got to get on the art. It is about terrain, thought is about to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, 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 Ohno 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 boat.

We came two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun and Outdoor. What do we have coming up on the next episode, man? The next episode is season six, episode six, true cue. When an honor student in the medical field is assigned to the entrepreneur in an internship manner, she begins to demonstrate powers of the queue, prompting you know who to show up. I promise you that that is something I pulled off of a real website and not a joke description. I remember this is being one of the good Q episodes, Ben. I feel like this capsule is maybe written by somebody who is at Amazon Instant in an internship

manner. Yeah, no one's going to prove read these. You're rated on quantity, for sure. Only they had bylines so we could make them famous here on the greatest gen Well We have videos Ben you don't like you are you are you thinking about it? I don't like you I feel like I might give this one a veto reprieve because I remember really being sweet on the

on the internship manner medical student. When I was a young lad, I remember finding her quite fetching. I would hate to pass up an opportunity to look at an attractive lady. I will certainly not veto this episode, Ben. Okay.

I'm ready and willing to watch it, especially now that you've sold me on the potential for some nice eye candy. Yeah. So, episode safe. And we'll see if my memory serves or has done us a great disservice. There's always a potential with a Q episode. Well, one thing that has always served us well from the start, and has never done us a disservice has been our growing legion of viewers.

Yeah. They found us on Twitter using the hashtag greatest gen I'm on there is at cup for time you of course are there as at Benjamin R. A. H. R Yeah, as all we're talking about viewers I wanted to just give a shout to Mike and Just give a shout to Mike and Aaron, Mike of Reddit and Aaron of the Facebook group who built those groups with their bare hands basically. They were fans of the podcast and decided to make social spaces for people to talk about the podcast on Reddit and Facebook. And I really appreciate the fact that they did that and continued to shepherd those communities like actively.

They're making sure that it's a nice welcoming place for everybody to be. And that's a lot of hard work and I feel like we don't acknowledge it often enough. That is a great point and I completely agree. For a variety of reasons you and I cannot be on those pages as often as maybe we'd like to be even and where there have been instances of drama or conflict, Mike and Aaron have been like totally on the spot, making sure that they continue to be nice places to talk and gab. Yeah, and not turn into the toilets that so many internet communities turn into. Right, exactly.

They're not the receptacles for our viewers' darkest impulses. Every time someone says something to me about like, wow, that's so awesome that there's like online communities based on the show you do. I'm like, yeah, it wasn't us. Like, we've got some really great viewers out there who have put these things together. So thank you.

Thanks, guys. So those are the red in the Facebook. We should thank Dark Mater materia for our theme music and We should thank Adam Ragusia for our other theme music that are the themes of sub segments within the show and Thanks to all of you guys and you know, Razz and Poveem. We've probably Probably want to start putting them at the end of the show too. With that, we will be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek the Next Generation and an episode of the greatest generation that we will

record in a semi-professional manner. Make it sound. You'll be caught, caught, caught, caught, caught. Maximumfund.org Comedy and culture, artist owned. Listener supported.