The Greatest Generation - My Neck, My Back, My Reproductive Sack (VOY S2E4)

Episode Date: June 21, 2021

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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,

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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. Hey, before the show starts today, we just wanted to let folks know that this episode of Voyager depicts a failed pregnancy, and we know that that can be a tough subject for some people, so just adds up it does come up in this episode. Welcome to the greatest generation, it's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are just a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison.

I'm Adam Pranica. Boy, it has been such a long time since we've done a Bible study, Marin Adam, but we now have the show Bible for Star Trek Co-in Voyager. Ben, you're always trying to cram the Bible down my throat. Greatest Gen's Ned Flanders over there. Mm-hmm. Give it a rest man. I'm gonna give it a thump and let's just see let's just see how it sounds. All right That's very impressive. It's it's just a packet of paper inside of a weird cardboard box. Just the important stuff It's good to see you all in church.

It's cool to the Bible. That's the way God wants it. I don't know why, dude. All these questions? Is a little blind thing too much to ask? Alright, so this was sent in by a friend of DeSoto. It's the writer director's guide for the first season, so it's a little bit out of date at this point. What are we looking at, like 20 pages? Is there about...

15, a mere 15 pages. The Deep Space Nine Bible had like the first page was like, here's what the show is about, and then the rest of it was just characters. Is that what you're looking at? Yeah, it's kind of... It's kind of... We've got a section on show premise and backstory, and then we've got a section on the Voyager itself, and the Mayquees, and then character descriptions. Huh, continuing characters, they're called. Wow.

Well, after watching this episode, I think I could use some knowledge about the Kess character because I think I'm more confused about Kess than ever. And when you're confused about any subject, the one place you should turn to is obviously the Bible, right? Right? The answers to all of your questions are there. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Especially about reproduction. Right. Uh, this is a section on Nielix and Kess. They're one section. They're, uh, they're so much an item. Kess doesn't even get her own section. What a bummer. Yeah.

It's like, it's like they don't even treat her like a whole person. I mean they don't treat Neelix like a whole person either No, that's fair. More understandable choice Neelix is an alien male unlike any we've ever seen in that he comes from a part of the galaxy that has been here to for unexplored He's a strange one, small, squat, and charming. He's part scavenger, trader, con man, procurer, and sage. His life has not been an easy one, but he's tough to doubt. Surviving by his wits and instincts in a dangerous part of space. He looks as developed the capacity to be all things to all people. You want a guide? I'm a guide. You want a weapon? I'm an armistrator. You want a guide? I'm a guide. You want a weapon? I'm an arms trader. You want a cook? I'm a gourmet chef. He's the ultimate

inflexibility and a jack of many, many trades. He's kind of like Steven Seagallan under siege, except none of the things that makes Steven Seagall cool in that movie. Yeah, the thing that is surprising is that there isn't like parenthetical hold for laughter after each one of those descriptions. Kess is his Ocampa lover. She's delicate, beautiful, young, and has a lifespan of only nine years. Nielix adores her, is protective of her, is insanely jealous of her.

Kess doesn't give him any reason for those feelings. She loves Nielix and his loyal to him, but she is inquisitive and eager to absorb knowledge about the starship and its fascinating crew. She is an innocent who sees humanity through a fresh perspective, and the crew avoidger never cease to fascinate her. Nelix is the quote, cook in the officer's mess. It's a job he wrangled to get himself and cast a comfortable life on this luxurious starship.

Because of the huge power drain that replicators place on the ship's systems, the crew must for the first time in years eat real food. Elix knows where to find it and how to prepare it, and before long he's invaluable. I mean, I wouldn't go that far. He also enjoys being right in the heart of things, and where else is that but the officer's mess. He knows when to listen, when to keep quiet, and when to speak up, and the crew find that he can be a valuable repository of information.

Cass helps him cook and serve, but she'd much rather be roaming the ship, getting to know the people. Nelix can never seem to find her when he needs her, and he's always sure she's standing up in a closet with a sailor. Yausa! Whoa! Oh! What a way to put that.

Right. Yeah, somehow like a 1930s guy added into the writers room for this one sentence. Who's the author of the show bible? Random grandpa? Their relationship is offbeat, rye, and funny, and allows us insights into a uniquely alien relationship. I will co-sign to that. Nielix and Cass, a truly odd couple, become oblique commentators on the human condition. And that is the last page of the showbible.

The last page of the show Bible. Whoa! So, Verily it's the revelations of Star Trek Voyager. The horse of the apocalypse written by Nelix. It really ends on a very gloomy note of the show Bible.

So ends the reading and a piece of the quadrant to you. And also to you. Wow, I'm not sure that illuminated much of anything for me. It really does not feel like the thing that we'll get into it, obviously, in this episode. There's some stuff that they really needed to do more about to make it either seem less gross than it seems, or to make it clear that they condemn how gross it is. And from that show Bible, it doesn't feel like they really grapples with the ramifications of her species aging and maturing on a much different timeline than her used to.

That's a possibility, and it just doesn't seem like they did it. This mistake gets made all the time in all kinds of ways in so many areas of our lives, which is like, when you choose not to take a position on a thing, often that vacuum gets filled by people speculating on what your position might be. Right. It forces many people too often to just like take a position on everything. But in the case of character development specifically, I think the show suffers for not taking a position on Kess and allowing

this vacuum to be filled by snarky Star Trek podcasters of today and maybe anyone who watches the show in the mid-90s. Like, I've got to believe that like, it's not just us. I think it was weird in the mid-90s that this was happening. And it's just just us. I think it was weird in the mid 90s that this is happening and it's just so easy It feels like with a stitch a dialogue You could have really given yourself some help here. Yeah with the whole Kesney looks thing a stitch is literally what it would have taken like in episode one or two you've got time just like whip and a Paris. Oh, so she ages like a dog, okay I'm just like with panda Paris. Oh, so she ages like a dog.

Okay. I'm I making any sense here? It would have been very wise, but they didn't do it. Well, I feel a renewed sense of purpose at him now that I've consulted my Bible. Do you want to get into the episode that we came to talk about? We have no choice than to dig on into

Star Trek Voyager season two episode for allosium. A word that I'm glad you pronounced in the last episode of Greatest Gen and I'm glad we get several runs at it in this episode. Illusion revert. Unless you've got something a little bigger in your torpedo dudes, I'm not turning around. I went to a Dodgers game over the weekend. Oh yeah, how was that? And I sat, I sat in what I thought was the lodge section,

which is the second deck. That was not the lodge. The, the fucking guy corrected me right away. Oh, you're talking about the loge. Yeah, that's where you go for that. I actually recently lost a lot of money because I've been investing in logeacoin. Right.

And I'm sure you know that my favorite actor ever, Robert Logea. This episode opens with your boy, Chico Tei, catching a starfleet and a make-wease making out in the turbo lift. We're just up. Yes, I can see that. This begins Chico Te's metamorphosis into principal skinner from the Samsung. For the entire episode, he is Skinner. Because why does he care? He walks in on a turbo

lift make-out sash with a couple of randos and he takes great umbridge with this. I haven't seen such unfettered, hurly burly since the fall of Saigon. I think that the why he cares question is actually answered in a later scene, but this does kind of feel like him acting on something that is policy that is later revealed not to be policy. You know on a make-wee ship, any fraternizing was totally prohibited. That's probably what he's got such a hard time with. Punishable by death.

He's just restraining himself from choking these two. The make-wee were celibate. That's why they were so upset. Well, we don't get a ton of time with these people because Paris and Kess come onto the turbo lift with him. Then how'd you like to be one of these actors? Like no dialogue.

Actually, you do get dialogue, because one of them says sorry, right? Yeah, I think the the fellow gets a line and the lady does not. Oh, that's rough for the lady. You get in the costume, you get in a makeup, you get your turbo lift make out with some rando. Yeah, and you don't get a line.

And you're not even paid as a U5 or any, like you're just as an extra. Yeah. Yeah, I mean mean the guy is a Pretty handsome. He's like main cast handsome, I would say Yeah, I mean if the moot strikes and you're in a turbo lift with him. I mean Why not you'd probably throw him some of that. I would that's a that's a sailor I would stand up right in a closet with

What's the term? Yeah, this is such a pecs bad boy. We run into this every time we read a show Bible, just some weird turn of phrase that some old puts in there. He's always sure she's standing up in a closet with a sailor. She's standing up in a closet that a sailor has just been in. But she's got the box from the farm share as this Paris, and they bring these into Nielix who, as discussed, goes off on one of his big jealousy trips. He's the cabbage you asked for. Is something wrong? And I mean, I think that it's interesting that they've started to imply that the doctor

holds a bit of a candle for cash, because I really don't get the feeling from Paris that he does anymore. But all of Nielix's jealousy is laser focused on Tom Paris. He starts ripping into Casp. They find a bug in the lettuce, and she's admiring the striations. Nielix is totally preoccupied. And it's like one of those Twitter memes that's like, say you're an asshole to women without saying you're an asshole to women is basically what Nelix is doing right now. Yeah, not a good look for Nelix.

Not a good episode for Nelix, really. Yeah. Like, great episode for this beetle, though. Yeah, beetle like great episode for this beetle though. Yeah, beetle. Great episode. Yeah. Yeah. Nielix does not like his cabbages handled by another man. Yeah. And just can't stand it. And poor, I mean, the thing is like Paris is always suspect number one for fullandering, which just means that the social experiment run by Harry Kim has been 100% successful up to this point.

No one suspects him. The Tom Paris smoke screen is in perfect sporting order. Yeah. I keep going back and forth on this because Nielix says like you're innocent, you don't know how men think, which is an incredibly condescending thing for a man to say to a woman. But we find out in this episode that Kess is not even two years old. Yeah, so it's not. It's parenting a child. It's so fucked up. If they'd just given us a mental framework to work with, that's the least they could have done for us.

The least. So senior staff to the bridge, Paris, says Tata to Kiss, which, you know, Nielik starts ripping these leaves asunder. And we cut up to the bridge where Paris and Chicote meet Captain Janeway and Cam and TuVac, who have discovered an interesting energy reading in space. There's coffee in that. Strange energy configuration of the port five. They've got an A story off their port bow.

Yeah. I mean, it seems like an A story as they scan it, but it kind of winds up being the B story, which is one of the many things that is interesting about this episode. The wonder of this scene is shattered by a chicoate who sees this as an opportunity to become even less popular on the show and with the crew

by choosing this moment to propose an anti-fraderinization policy aboard the ship. Yeah, it's interesting. The, I mean, it is a dilemma, right? Like what, like, what, what are we gonna do? And Janeway gives some voice to that. Like, we never planned on this. So, you know, it means something different to have fraternization on a ship that nobody

can like easily leave and go live on Earth. Yeah, but Chicoate needs to mind his own bindle, because implementing social policy to a workplace never works. All that being said, like, I am glad that they're having this conversation on the show, because I think that this is one of the many interesting dilemmas of the Voyager, and I feel like there was so much just like this nebula turned out to be a person in season one that we didn't get these conversations. I want to be clear, like I'm not anti the question.

I think I might just be anti its articulation or who it's coming from because there's such a mismatch between the proposition from Chicoote and how Captain Janeway interprets it and works through it both mentally and through her dialogue. Like she's so compassionate about the different sides of this argument. While Jakote is like hostile in a way that shows very little humanity. Why the very name is racist. I thought it was very interesting because they're kind of having this conversation

just off in a corner of the bridge and it's kind of a hushed conversation, but they're right near the op station where Kim is sitting. And Kim actually has a phaser that he puts up to the maximum setting and just kind of has under his desk. Like a good bartender at a rough edge of town bar. Yeah, and he's kind of watching this conversation to see how it goes.

And then when Chico take kind of gets shut down, he turns the phaser off and puts it away. I thought that was very interesting. Yeah, this policy would affect Kim the most, clearly. I mean, like, I think you're making a great point, which is like, if this was Riker, what would he be advocating for it in this way? Like, one of the sexiest star Trek characters would maybe take a different tack on this. And I think that part of the problem is that Tricote has gotten such a disservice from the writers room in terms of it. Like, I don't know if he even has a relationship back at home.

Like at least with Janeway, we can make mention of Tom Mervins and her intention of seeing him again. Whether or not there is that person waiting for him, there just isn't as a baseline for his character, a sense of empathy for anyone else. And so to hear the idea of this policy coming from Chicoate, it feels like he's projecting a weird hostile in-cell energy to the conversation, and I don't like it.

We were working together to solve a problem in a crisis situation. Not cool. Well, if he'd won the argument, Kim would have wasted him and it would have been a moot point. Yeah. Yeah. So the ship gets taken to bioscanner range,

which I didn't know was a thing, until this very moment. It's close, but not too close. Yeah. And space is full of sperm. It is a true gross out out those windows. I'm just going to say it doesn't look great out there. Not a good effect. It remains not a good looking effect throughout the episode. Yeah, I wonder if they ever do the HD remaster of this show, if they all, because this is just like early CG, like they tried to make creatures. I mean, it's the same. It's the best they could do.

It's the best they could do. It is very evocative of the Galaxy's child CG, which is also notably not that great. And, you know, looks better in HD, but isn't great, you know. They punch in into one of these little beings and sure as shit, it's got Commander Riker's face. Even out here, he blasted so far and so long that even the Delta Quadrant. It's a you shine a blue light in the Delta Quadrant. You're going to get some right. You're going to get a riker, riker DNA.

Yeah. I like the cut though from the creatures on the view screen to the creature in a cast's hand. She's got the bug. She puts on a leaf down in the hydroponics bay, she's tending to some tomato plants and just kind of absentmindedly sticks her hand in a bucket full of bugs

and takes a big ol' chomp like she's relishing in her body. Right on the news, take two wonders with a body. Yeah, I mean, you get a bunch of these beetles and you see them with some lime, some chili. Some chili, you get a handful of those. That's a delicious snack, protein filled. Makes a good taco.

Yeah, makes a good taco, makes a good ballpark snack if you're up in Seattle. You can get one of those at a baseball game up there. You get a bowl of them. Well, it's a nice low carbon protein source. But in the context of Star Trek, you get a checker for an oven at this point, right? Because anytime you're eating bugs,

you're either a forangi or you've got an oven. Right. And in this part of space, the oven bugs may be running things, you know. God. Don't answer this question, but wouldn't it be great if we saw nub in the Delta quadrant? It would make sense. It would tie the whole story to your question. Yes, it would be great. Yeah. Yeah, I don't want you to confirm or deny it though. I'm just going to live in my disappointment. Nice turn to camera to theme song here by Jennifer Lee and that's a big fun physical moment.

Yeah, turn to camera in horror. Yeah, because she sort of absent mindedly been eating the beetles until she's present mindedly doing it. Yeah, she kind of like a lot of us over this past year notices what she's been eating and is horrified. Yeah, I mean, before you know what the entire bag of beetles has gone. Yeah, you fuck. Yeah. I guess this low level persistent trauma really is affecting me. this low level persistent trauma really is affecting me. After the theme song, they can't really get their arms around why they're still moving, like the helm is an answering their stop and reverse order. It appears as though they're being sucked into this swarm.

This happens every time there's a creature in space, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it should just be like standard starfleet procedure that if there's a creature in space, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it should just be like standard star fleet procedure that if there's a creature in space, keep your fucking distance, they're like, they're either too dimensional and pulling you toward a black hole or a nebula that wants to eat you or something.

Ensign Wildman is the Zeno biologist on the bridge crew and I would have bet you any amount of money that she'd be dead by the end of the episode, but she manages to survive. And I feel like she may have recently lost a parent because one of the things we know about slickbacks is that you lose a parent, you slick back your hair in honor of the character that you're modeling your behavior.

Yeah. From Aniston Wildman has the hairstyle of a Captain Janeway. She's one of Janeway's orphans. And she'll have what she's having at the salon. Yeah. Do you think that that's like a seven habits of highly effective people move? She's like, I'm gonna like move my way up in the ranks.

I'm gonna get some lines on this show. But it's not dressed for the job that you want. It's get the haircut of the job that you want. Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna flatter the captain by kind of jacking her swagger. So she's the reason I can't get an appointment. Ha ha ha ha ha ha looking at these creatures, you know, trying to wrap their minds around it, and we cut down to Kessas' quarters where she is just binging. She's scarvin' down food, left and right, anything she can get her hands on.

One of an actor's greatest challenges is eating this much, this fast on camera. Yeah. God, this looks tough. It looks fun, but it looks so difficult. I mean, this is in the script. Like Jennifer Leigh doesn't even get a choice here. The problem with mashed potatoes, on screen mashed mashed potatoes is that they can really only be a heavy starch like you can't. I feel like with a lot of foods you could fake it with a with a less than dense type of food.

Yeah, but if you do and take after take with starch mode. It doesn't get any better. I mean, I think fortunately this is a pretty short shot with a cut and there's no other actors in it, so she doesn't have to rely on anyone else to nail the take. But it's got a camera move and it's either on a steady camera or on a boom or something which can be tricky. You need a few runs at that usually. And she's definitely swallowing the food too. So there's like at least,

I mean, there may be a spit bucket, but there's, you know, she's getting a meal on set that day. You're not gonna see Jennifer Lee and at craft services later. God, that is rough. Cass is going to eat the fucking shit at him. Yeah, she's got a hunger on big time. And it's a shameful hunger because when Nelix arrives within Apology bouquet, she hides

all of the food in a coat closet type situation, a coat closet that Nelix searches while looking for a vase. And it's like when someone hides, like when a child hides the mess in their closet, like you give them the chore and they stuff everything in the closet and then the parent opens the closet door and then all the shit falls out.

Yeah, classic blender. Yeah. This scene devolves into him physically removing her from the room while she tries to eat the bouquet of flowers. I'm not going. We are going to sit there. No, security, unless you come at me. She's explaining all this stuff she's eating.

And it's like, it's not even good stuff, right? She made mashed potatoes, but she dumped a bag of dirt in it. She's going absolutely crazy. She's just trying to get as much matter in her body as she can. Is that called pica? That thing where you eat like dirt and detergent and stuff? I've not heard of this.

It's like a, I think it's like a thing that happens to pregnant women sometimes, which I am guessing is what they're going for. I thought it was a sort of thing I'd have to listen to the savage love cast to know. It's where you cram a bunch of dirt I'd have to listen to the savage love cast to know. It's where you cram a bunch of dirt in your reethrah. It's the only way I can blast and it is extremely messy. He's living Southern California, straight cis male polypica.

Anyways, I had a question for you. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. No, no, do not. If you had to power our food and do shots of it, how many shots of mashed potatoes do you think you could do before you had to tap out? That is a tough question. I feel like I can eat kind of a huge amount of mashed potatoes. I think so too, but it looks like Kess is doing a shot's amount of potatoes, like spooning it in, like in a shot dosage. Yeah.

Bring me think of it that way. Can I get gravy? Is gravy available to me if I'm... You know how much fun it is to do oyster shooters of where the oysters like in the tomato broth? Like, I feel like if you coated the inside of a shot glass with gravy and then put your dollop of potatoes in it. Wow.

How fucking great with that shot, you dude. That's slide right out. Do we need to add an allosium square to the game of buttholes? The will of the caretaker that forces us to. We should never own a bar. Because that would be wildly unpopular. So Nilek's carries Kess to six Bay. He kind of picks her up in his arms and walks

her out into the hallway. And we cut away to the bridge where do you think that Ethan Phillips intentionally missed the combat on the call to six Bay and they kept it anyway or this was an intended miss. Oh, he did not have his call combat John. He misses it with the first swipe and then because he so he so fucked up by the scene. Oh well. It's a great choice if it was a choice by Ethan Phillips. I thought it was great. I was doing something else during that part of the episode, so I didn't notice it. You're cramming dirt into your eerie throat. Yeah, rich, rich... 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 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 greatestgentour.com to get more info. That's greatestgentour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris and I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweards. Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org.

Look, your podcast apps are already open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Whoa, raps. 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, 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. We've got to get on the art. It was about terrain, got us about to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. We're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters. So it's different.

Have you heard of Ono Ross and Carrie? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org. on MaximumFun.org. I've got to get that nut nut. Are you selling a heist? Back on the bridge. Not only is the ship being pulled into the swarm, they can't raise shields. Yeah, it's really falling apart.

They're starting to get power fluctuations and stuff. It's no good. They can't raise the shields because Kess has used all the power on the replicator, making all those mashed potatoes. The swarm has control now. Yeah, BLT has this great idea. Like if they're going to be going into the swarm and they don't want to hurt the swarm, maybe putting a cow catcher up front of the ship would work.

And her terminology is a targ scoop. Cling on to put them on the front of ground assault vehicles. They emit a high frequency tone that disperses targ hurts in that path. It's a thing that they can use the deflector dish for to sort of nudge these beings out of the way so they can escape without hurting them. It's a great idea. It's an idea that is planted here and paid off so much later in the episode I was shocked. Yeah, you sort of forget about check-ups, Tark Scoop.

You really do. Till it drops. We cut down to six pay where the doctor is trying very hard to help cast and Nelix is making it so much about himself that the doctor winds up having to red card Nelix and eject him from the game. This is a scene you see a lot in a medical drama. The parent of a child or the partner of a patient.

Yeah. Like just flying off the handle and being the problem at the front. Focus on me! Focus on me! Yeah. The doctor is trying to focus on the patient. You are making it impossible for me to think much less treat my patient.

After being thrown out, I love the cut to because we cut back to the bridge where Nelix has gone directly in order to snitch on the dock. And then what's funny in like throwing the scene back at Six Bay, the dock summons kept in Janeway to Six Bay. So Nelix is racking up a lot of steps, on the pedometer. He really is, yeah. He's psyched that he put his Apple watch on that day.

The trouble is, Nielix should be wearing a different kind of pedometer, if you know what I'm saying. Mm. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. You get it. It's weird that they put Peto right in the name. Shh. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha us to describe this, but like an escaped animal from a zoo. Yeah, she said, is that Nell that movie? Tay in the wind, Nell. She's gone feral as basically what has happened. Not so feral that she doesn't know how to erect a force field behind her, but feral

enough that she is almost nonverbal as they try to discuss... The magic of the TNG episode where everyone de-evolved, a part of the story was also that they all still knew how to use the computers in their de-evolved state. Yeah, like Razerback, Gorilla Warf is crushing it at chess down in 10 forward. But he's also super dangerous and spitting poison his acid on everyone.

How much scarier is spider barkly when he's wielding eight phasers at the same time? He's really general grievacing. Yeah. The doc runs down the diagnosis as as he was able to get done a kind of an incomplete diagnosis is what he's able to do. And he tells yeah, definitely a way that she's gone through some changes. One of which includes a backstst, which we never see.

I wanted to see it. I wanted to just make sure it didn't look like a nubbin, you know? Hard to agree. I mean, for all the great makeup work we get here on the cast character, like the weird, the weird palms, the constant sweat. Yeah, the rings below the eyes. The contact lenses and stuff. You got to show me that backpack. Show me the sack. Yeah. My neck, my back, my reproductive sack. This is a great moment for Captain Janeway because like a hostage negotiator, her essential humanity and goodness shines through here. We've got a crew person in danger who's going through a thing. There's no way to co-decade could have done this. No.

Co-decade doesn't have that essential element. He would have just been reading inspirational calendar quotes to cast. What Janeway says works and it gets Cass to lower the force field. And she runs to Janeway like a daughter running for the embrace of their mother. Like there is something very maternal about this moment that isn't mind for anything further, but it's something I definitely noted. It's a very sweet moment. One distracting part of it is that when Cass is like, hey, did he tell you about the weird thing growing on my back,

Janeway, like, feels it up a little bit. And recoils in, like, it's a real gross out for her. Yeah, she's like, ah, okay, Cass, I'm gonna come back in a, I just need to recover. Cass explains to Janeway that her body is going through a lot of changes. And one of those is that just kind of a lot of body hair. Mm-hmm. More than you think, more than you can see given the uniform being worn.

Yeah, this is another thing that they chose not to show us with makeup that I wished that they had. Yeah. But a low-jum is basically Okampa for puberty. And it's like a one-shot deal. I guess because they are so short-lived, you go through the a low-jum. And if you are a lady Okampa, this is your chance to become a mother. Like, you got to thread this needle at this moment. There's, there's a lot to it. It's like even more complicated than giving

birth as a pejoran. Yeah. As we come to find out in this episode, if no one blasts in the back sack, then that's it. Then the back sack goes barren and no children for cash. So it's sort of, it makes it an urgent situation if she ever wants to have kids. She's got to decide right now. I gotta say like between the previous episode that we reviewed and this one, they, the like captain respect I am developing for Janeway

is so big at this point. Because like the sperm cloud in space situation has not chilled out at all, and she is able to compartmentalize and focus all of her attention on Cass in this moment. And in a way that is necessary for the moment, she knows that her crew is on it with the sperm cloud, they're working through that,

there's not much she can add to that process. And her ability to spin both of these plates at the same time is really cool. I think it's important to note that both quote-unquote problems in the episode are scientific in nature. And because she's a scientist at her core, I think she's attracted to working out problems to both of these things in a way that many other captains might have delegated a subject matter expert towards, you know. She checks in on the bridge with the process and then checks in with Jakota and she's like, well, the conversation we were having earlier about reproduction and and what we're gonna do about this crew is being

thrust upon us a lot faster than I thought we were going to need to have it. It seems your concerns about fragmentation were prophetic. I think this conversation is fascinating like if this is a generation ship, like, can we live with ourselves bringing children up a board a 75 year journey back to a place that isn't their home? Yeah. They don't never say the word slavery, but it almost feels like that's kind of the tension that Janeway is considering. Like does it, does it sort of, there's an indenturedness to the idea of a child growing up in this circumstance, the assumption that they would have to participate in the job and the culture available there.

Yeah, and that's something that Chacote gives voice to you also. He's saying, if we're going to do this, if that's the plan here, we need to start having these kids now, basically. Yes, ma'am. I actually have a couple of forms on this pad that I drafted up. Like we could start giving the crew. If you want to if you want to check these out, they're just first drafts. And I did really like also that they cut to the just outside the door to the ready room where Kim is again standing there with a phaser, you know, set to kill. Yeah. Just ready to take the entire ship hostage if he

needs to. I don't know how either of these characters could concentrate during this conversation when there's just a cloud of Mongolian beef outside the window. Yeah, it's very funny the way that like the lighting in the scene is like super pink because of what's outside. You know they couldn't do like the classic two shot of them with a window behind it's just too distracting. So they pick up singles for the rest of it because like yeah, I know I couldn't concentrate on what they were saying if that was going on in the background. I mean they can barely concentrate. She turns to Chico Teo on point and says listen, I know I couldn't concentrate on what they were saying if that was going on in the background. I mean, they can barely concentrate. She turns to Chico Teo on point and says, listen, I know the irony of having this conversation while the ship is literally engulfed in sperm, but we have to do it right now.

Kess has to decide on a baby within the next day or two. And this is the thing that has spurred Chico Teo's restarting of the procreation policy as a thing to talk about. But this is how it starts. And how it ends is Chicoete pushing on a butt like towards the end of mid-summer. Like he's going to get too involved. Yeah. I don't want Chicoete in my bedroom. I don't want him grabbing my bundle. Chico Tei, I'm not going to be a child. Coffee, black, fake it yourself. I'm trying to help you see this as an opportunity to grow. Make it yourself.

Chico Tei has to kind of pitch her situation to Nelix, though. She's got basically two days for her and him to decide whether or not they are going to conceive a child. The suggestion here, both in dialogue and in body language, is that they have not been physical as a couple. Because Nelix gets very awkward. Because I would want you to mate with me. Super awkward.

Like more awkward than the idea of whether or not he has to have a child is the procreation of that child. Right. I don't know, because it, like, I mean, like, it seems like her reproduction is so complicated with sticking your hands together and the foot massages and stuff that there's no, like, there's no unplanned pregnancy among the alcompaa because it's such a Baroque operation. There's a really fun bit here.

It's not so serious that it's without bits because Cassis, look at my hands. I've got the Opassa on these hands, and he looks at us like, what's Opassa for? And Cassis, like, Bingo. I want to know how all this shit worked. Like, when she talks about this stuff being on her hands and that they need to be connected for six days,

like, is that because this is sticky stuff and you're like physically stuck to your mate for that long? That's sort of what I took away from it, which is really intense. Yeah. I don't think my wife would be interested in me if that was necessary. This is like a home economics class.

Gotta arrive. This is very uncomfortable. Neelix is like, you know, I'm always on the road, baby. I don't know if I can be around for a kid. I'm a, you know, I'm a rolling the road, baby. I don't know if I could be around for a kid. I'm, you know, I'm a rolling stone. Here's your thing. She's making the case that like, you're now a rolling stone on a board of luxury starships

that you don't need to. Your stone isn't a much bigger stone. You don't even have to roll it all. Yeah. What Kess is too young to understand is human language is what you only learn after making this mistake a couple of times, which is like if you have to convince a person into going out with you or getting married or having a kid or moving far away or doing a podcast with you. A person convinced isn't a person that will bring their best to that

situation. And you're just going to end up getting hurt because of it. Yeah. Kess made the classic mistake of showing up under Nielix's window late at night with a boom box to try to win him over to the idea of having a baby. Right. Yeah. That's not how it works. I mean, Neelix should probably take some time off to think about what he wants to do during the next 50 hours, but now he clocks in at the commissary

because we cut back there right after this scene. There was actually a deleted scene where he goes to the doctor and he says, like, what would you do if you had something like extremely stressful that may like up end your entire conception of your life happen to you? And the doctor would be like, I would just start annotating samples or do whatever work I had to do.

Yeah, but what do I do with this? And he unzips and like the grossest penis falls out of Nielix's pants. This is why we're five layers of fabric, Doc. I don't want anyone to see the outline of this. Yeah, I'm not gonna rock this knock. And then like, am I supposed to like get on her shoulders, like someone at a rock concert wanting to see better over the crowd like

how does it actually work? It's not so much 69ing as it is like 87ing? Yeah, that's actually an upcoming episode of Star Trek Voyager. It's called the 87s. Right. The unfree use a bunch of bunch of festival galars. Yeah. These people were attending an ancient earth festival called Coachella. The menu has suffered at Nielix's, which is hard to believe, really, given with the baseline. effort at Nelix's, which is hard to believe, really, given with the bass line. It's really positively Soviet mess hall in there. The customer that comes in for us to experience this with is TuVoc.

And we get one of our classic Nelix and Tuvac to ask him to talk him out of it. And Tuvac kind of and bojitsu's Nielix into talking him into it. He kinda both sides. Yeah. The answer. He's like only commit if you can commit.

Doesn't seem like you're ready to commit, so... It's probably not for you, but also... It's pretty cool being a dead it is rather the cult and not only if you have a son you asshole it's kind of a lot happening here yeah like Nielex's misogynist is really fully realized in this episode but I guess it's also sort of torn down toward the episode and episodes end have we seen a lady tilaxian yet I don't think we have I'd like to also sort of torn down toward the episode end. Have we seen a lady tilaxian yet? I don't think we have.

I'd like to see one of those. Sounds great. I mean, any tilaxians better than Nielix at this point, right? That's where I'm at with him. Part in a tilaxian storm. Yeah, so this scene ends with two vux, not the only one, enjoying Amil because Nelix is going away from here with some food for thought. It's like these two characters,

they're two sides of the same coin. Yeah. Two sides of the same dinner plate. Yes. Maybe one of those like platters, and then there's like two parts where the two different courses can be. Mm-hmm.

I like it. Back in the bridge, BLT is ready to implement the deflector dish cow catcher. I was like, oh right. Oh right, there's an idea for how to get out of the thing that is threatening everyone's life. It's not working because these little things are attaching themselves to the ship, and then

something very bad happens. The giant version of these little things wanders out in front of the view screen. It's physiologically similar to the smaller creatures, just a lot bigger. And it's not scary looking. Like I sort of wish this thing was Apex Predator looking a little bit, but it's just a blown up version of the littles. Yeah, I mean, I think that I got a guess that the production design was trying to throw us off the scent a little bit.

The dilemma turns to, how do we get this thing to leave us alone, basically? And if it's Apex Predator, it's like fight or flight. And that simplifies the conflict too much. You're right. I mean, but like the conflict is really interesting, right? Like, at a certain point, like, BLT starts saying, like, let's start fucking shooting our way out of this because everything we've tried has not worked. And we've tried to be nice to these little space berm, but it's at this point, they're like

consuming our ship. How long would Jane way of let this happen before she decides to shoot? Is it question that I think is goes unanswered here? And it's a very make-wee's position to take because it isn't long before Chicoetay and Tuvac take BLT side here eventually, that they need to start shooting to survive the incident. It's very interesting like the way the advocacy shifts around this idea, because there's the captain and a few other characters that are saying like,

we need to be nice to these interesting creatures that we were just trying to study. And then a lot of them are like, no, like, we are big, like, this is a hostile situation and we need to treat it as such. Right. We don't get a lot of time to puzzle through that in this scene because we cut down to Kess's quarters

where Nielix has showed up announcing that he's done the work. He's really worked on himself and he's ready to have a daughter. Not so fast, Nielix. She's got to get a foot massage first. Yeah. It's not something that the husband can do. It's got to be done by her parents, which is... I mean, if you're nominating parental figures for Kess, I mean, the fucked up answer is Nelix, but the correct answer is the doctor. The doctor, sort of a professional parent for Kess. Yeah, although as we learned in the last episode, also sort of romantically interested in Kess.

So kind of a weird moment. And they did get a guest director for this scene. Quentin Tarantino came in and directed the foot massage with the doctor scene. There's no one on the ship who could give you a better foot massage than the doctor, right? The doctor knows all the points. Oh? The doctor knows all the points. Oh, yeah, he knows all the points.

How much pressure to apply? That's got to be great foot massage. He has no carpal tunnel symptoms at all, so he can just keep going for hours and hours and hours. Yeah, if I'm Kess, I'm sticking around and I'm going back. Do you ever think about buying one of those foot massage devices or one of those chairs that you see

in the airport lounge sometimes? A couple of years ago, I visited Costco with a buddy just a random regular Costco trip with a towel. And they were doing one of those road shows there where they, I know you don't go to Costco very often but sometimes they'll have events there where the maker of an item will demonstrate that item to the people around they do this with blenders and cookware and all sorts of things but the day that makes soup in the blender it'll get

it hot enough yeah yeah yeah and on the day that we went they had the 20 thousand dollar massage chairs. With it, you get in and they're so poofy that your limbs sink into the things. They're like channels for your arms and legs to be inside of. I've had a sports massage or two from a professional. And this chair was the best massage I've ever had in my life. The thing that made it that was the cymbal tenaity of everything. It is your entire body getting worked at once, not just one part. And it was, we couldn't help but start laughing. Like it was incredibly pleasurable. Wow.

And it, like I'd never had my forearms massaged, that hard. Yeah. And this chair, I thought that, this chair had the power to break my limbs. It was massaging me so hard and I fucking loved it. It was great. So, I've never been able to relax enough

during a massage to enjoy it. So, and I think that, and I think that if it was a chair and not a person, I might be able to give up some of what holds me back. Highest possible rating for $20,000 massage chair is what I'm saying on the show. That is, it is a wonder. I recommend it. Do you think that the Uxbridge Shibata Corporation could put one of those on layaway or something? that the expert shoe bed corporation could like put one of those on layaway or something. What it's made me do is like very passively when I'm looking for Airbnb's or something

to stay at. Like every once in a while I've come across places with that massage chair in it. And I'm like, oh, oh, like maybe this is the one I haven't been able to stay in a place with one. but like what a benefit. Yeah, I'm kidding. I'm not leaving that chair. You got that chair in a glass of tequila and soda in your hand. And a long straw because I'm keeping my arms in those Yeah, that's a good time. Of course, it's locked in. You're it. This one didn't make any careful, because I'm only going to say this once.

Anyway, the doctor probably is good as that chair. Yeah, and Cass is, you can tell she's really enjoying it because she's got data eye at this point. We were told that her tongue was going to get swollen by the foot massage, and I'm sad we didn't get like in the middle of you to speak I've got a shroren tongue. I'm really feeling a lot of big feelings It's probably the hormones but and then they need to be a parent

It's nearly a bit of a parent. I mean, he's much more so than me. He's literally ten times older than me. It's not more, but he's also fucking idiot. Yeah, you really get it to foot in past. But they don't tell you this. You're really kidding. Have you ever saw about us going together? Like, seeing a fat wolf work. I may have never thought about it about a hologram I don't know compact little cuz it worked. Maybe I'll go Maybe a second one go. Lada second thought's happening here. It's expecting Can't wait to hear what describes does with that. Oh wow. Yeah

All the dot can do is offer kind of a tour of Star Trek species, unique cultural, child-rearing philosophy. So it's not like the doc actually has advice. Really. It's Kess more or less coming to this conclusion on a round. Yeah. My wife recently had, like, work advice question to ask me. And I was like, I don't work with anyone.

It's like me and Adam and like a couple of other people. Like I don't have, I don't know. Me and Adam hates me. I don't know how to do office politics. I've never done it. Yeah. I mean, the scene ends ambiguously because Cass admits she has some more growing to do.

But in the context of her statement, I couldn't be sure that a decision was made here. Like growing to do could mean that she still has 30 hours left to decide. It's going to be go time very soon. And we're getting like late in the episode at this point. I think we've got six minutes left or something like that. And not much has been resolved to go. in the episode at this point. I think we've got six minutes left or something like that, and not much has been resolved. Chico Tase kind of figured it out.

He looks at the view screen and he points at the big one and he's like, that big one over there looks like it's trying to fuck. And I think we may be getting in the way of that. We look at this place. This is a fully functional Bay Blair. We are being treated as a sexual rival. and so let's just get out of here. If we bug out, if we can find a way to clear the swarm, the little guys will just want to fuck the big guy and they'll leave us alone.

He's like, I know what I'm talking about. My animal guide loves to fuck. We are frequently in competition. My animal guide is, this is a bit embarrassing, but it's a sperm. It loves swarming on big objects. My animal guide is all animals for that reason, so... The ship full on gets tail whipped by the big slug guy. Yeah, they did. Not a trade effect.

They're fighting this thing, and like more and more senior staff are falling into the let's start fucking shooting camp. And it's Chico Te, it's too long, it's everybody. And they're like, this is an emergency captain, we need to get out of this shit. Captain Janeway pushes in a VHS copy of Galaxy's child and she's like, we cannot ever let this happen again. According to George Lucas, Galaxy's child shot first.

According to George Lucas, Galaxy Child shot first. They decide that maybe what they need to do is kind of like a more aggressive posture, like fight the creature. And so they start ramming it. And this is when Chico Te comes up with the like, like, ramming, it's not working, it's running, it's not working, it running is not working at what we need to do is like the golden retriever technique. We need to show it our belly, show it where a submissive creature, and it's a dominant creature. And so they like, they wind up coming up with the idea of like dumping plasma to make the ship look blue and then like turning the ship's belly over.

Yeah. They blew the ship. They blew the ship. Blow up the damn ship. Paris isn't used to being the beta in situations like this and neither is Kim. Yeah. You can tell this revs both of them the wrong way. Yeah, they hate it.

But it works. Two Vox says it would appear we have lost our sex appeal captain, and I've never encountered a line in Star Trek that more succinctly describes you and me since we started a Star Trek podcast. It's also so clearly the line of dialogue they began with and then wrote outward from there. Like this is how you pitch the episode. It's great. It's the line of dialogue in the preview, you know? Yeah. I was pretty surprised by this next moment.

Kess comes down to the restaurant and announces no baby. The same happening. Yeah, I mean, there's been a passage of time here, clearly, because the cold shoulder she's getting from Nelix is the result of him having known this for a while. Kess is like, what's up, big guy? You're hardly talking to me anymore. Is it because I made that decision

about not having a child? It's a very interesting scene, I think, both because of how the characters are set up, but also because of how much we didn't get. There wasn't the part where her symptoms started to recede and the doctor was like, wow, it seems like something, something field from aliens has stopped interacting with your reproductive system or whatever. Right.

Right. It's all retrospective. And she like tries to cheer him up. She's like, hey, like maybe all a lugeum again. It's totally possible based on what the doctor has been telling me. I think there are a lot of good things happening in this scene. And part of it is like just the conflict between how selfish and selfless parenthood can be. Right.

Because like, Nielix is obviously bummed about missing out on his opportunity to be a parent. While at the same time, you know, in a couple scenes previous, like getting psyched about the idea of having a child to imprint on, you know, to have a relationship with. And I'm sure Kess, though not given the chance to articulate this in dialogue, but like, you can feel both ways are about the idea of parenthood. And in this very short scene, I think we're getting a couple of different runs at those feelings. There's over simplification, but if I'm like, we're getting burritos for dinner, hell yeah,

and then like something changes and we wind up needing to get filophils for dinner, I'm going to be disappointed a hundred times out of a hundred. Yeah. Just because not that I don't like filophils, once my button gets pushed for burrito, I'm like, yeah, I'm looking forward to burrito. Once you scoop a bunch of dirt in that hog, you got a blast. Yeah, exactly. And that's kind of what Neelix is going through. He talked himself all the way in. And yeah. And the second he was all the way in, the thing he was talking to himself in for, went away. And irrespective of its relationship to parenthood, like the great disappointments of one's life,

I find are often just after the expectation of getting what you want or the success that you feel like you're about to achieve and not getting it, like, that's what makes the pain so acute is being so close to the thing, and then not getting it. The thing I wanted though in this scene was Nelix

honoring how painful this must have been for Kess. Like, she's the one that really went through it, and he, I mean, he does this all the time. He makes everything about himself, but she went not only through the emotional journey that he did, but also through an incredibly challenging physical journey, you know? It's not an either or, but I feel like so often on the show we're made to interpret it that way.

That because Kess is an empathic alien, her only ability is to show empathy for other people. And it's okay for some reason for Nielix or anyone else to not show empathy for her. But like, there's enough of that to go around. You don't have to make the empathy street one way. Yeah, and we would like Nielix more if he was considering her position more

Yeah, and I'm not against a shitty character on a show I would just want them to be interesting and this is the problem with Neelix that's getting solved I feel as we go he's becoming more interesting to me But that isn't getting solved with Shikote. Like at least make them interesting. Yeah, at the very least, make them interesting. So it may not be Kes' last chance at a back bag. Yeah. And that's sort of the hope that we hang on to

if we're thinking of making a child, if you're Kes' and Nelix. Yeah, I mean, that's the other part of it too though, is like it is merely a hope. Like, they just have their fingers crossed that she can allodium again. And she may not be able to. They don't know. And that's like, that's another thing that he should be like really, really trying to

be there for her on. And yeah, be the sort of partner that someone would want to allow Jim with. Yeah. Yeah. Don't make it about the other person. Be a better person yourself. There is a very interesting button on this episode Adam. Captain Janeway admires her framed picture of Tom Mervins when who enters recorders as Ensign Wildman and she's got an announcement to make. She wheels in and improvise explosive device and says, I've got an announcement to make, Captain.

And you're not gonna find out until I light this fuse. And then we cut to the exterior. You're not gonna find out until I light this fuse. Hahaha. And then we cut to the exterior. Half of the ship is blown apart by this. A massive explosion in space with pink smoke trailing out of, I mean like, like, and it's you can tell the center of the explosion is the captain's ready room and just like a huge plume of pink smoke comes out of it. You know, Ensign Wildman could have solved the problem 10 minutes ago if she had lived this thing off inside the swarm of these beings because that blue smoke would have come

in handy back then. So yeah, Ensign Wildman is with child, and her man is back on deep face nine as far as she knows. So, she's going to be doing this solo parent style for the time being. That quality of a person on this ship feeling like it's all I have of the person I left behind, like, oof, that's a killer, that's so rough. And it's so understandable that she would be grieving the partner who helped create this life. And now it's so much heavier of a thing.

Very interesting that they just kind of use all of the dialogue at this point from the scene where data walks in and tells Picard that he's had a child quote unquote. Janeway is none too happy and you know says like you should have reported this to Starfleet cybernetics. What are you doing? It's weird like Captain Janeway throws a ball at Ensign Wildman's belly and she doesn't catch it. Yeah, she puts her hand up like three seconds later. Yeah. Yeah, so this is going to be an ongoing story, right? It seems like it's we are going to meet a baby Adam. Now might be a good time to bring this up. And Son Wildman is played by Nancy Hower, and this name is not just a writer coming up

with a name. Samantha Wildman was the name of a little girl who died in an accident, and her parents donated their daughter's organs to the writer of this episode's wife. Wow! She received one of the girl's kidneys and so as a way to honor the girl, the writer Jimmy Diggs named this character after the little girl and because the little girl was so fond of a little animals, the character is a biologist, is endobiologist specifically. So that's like a little behind the character. No kidding.

To Samantha Wildman. It's, you know, you think all the time it's just a writer matching a first name and a last name that sounds good when spoken and that's just how a character name is made. But every once in a while you get some intentionality to it and that's just how a character name is made, but every once in a while you get some intentionality to it, and that's the case here. That is really interesting. I had not noticed that. Did you like this episode, Adam? Objection noted.

We'll do this without a word. Do it. Do it. Do it. There were so many fun things to talk about with you about this episode, but just like doing the math on it, the effects are worst of breed terrible. It elevates Nelix into a primary story-forwarding role for the IEP, and he does a terrible job with it.

He's very unlikeable throughout the episode. Shikote just just as unlikable, if not more unlikable, than Nelix in their race to the bottom. But the essential question, and here it is again, like the question is so interesting, and only half of the time is it articulated in a way that is interesting to me. I'm gonna say I didn't like the episode, though I am hopeful that the questions raised

here will be chopped up in a more elegant way going forward. I just, this is not a strong app, unfortunately, in my eyes. I did like the episode. I, I think like last week's episode kind of felt like it started to grapple with things that I wanted the show to begin considering in season one. I mean, we've seen four episodes in the season. And I think three of them should have been season one episodes, not season two episodes. Like, this, this stuff feels like it should have been developed a lot earlier. But that said, I did like the episode. I thought centering it on Cass was really interesting.

I mean, like, I, I think that it's possible for them to be writing me like as a piece of shit. And I don't think he comes away from this looking great but I don't think that that's necessarily unintentional and I really liked the kind of like inverted a b story thing where where Kess's allodium dilemma becomes the kind of main focus of the episode and the existential threat to the shit like that that feels like like some of the best TNG episodes do that. Right. And now it's so it's so hard that Nielix's affection for Kess is self-centered. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. The week is part of this and it's unfortunate that that's like, I mean, I think that that's just like something about the way Hollywood thought about

boys and girls hugging and kissing relationships in this era. And it's unfortunate. It clings harder and harder the further away we get from this time period, you know. I feel like the only viable outcome to save Nielix's character for me as if he were to let her go in a if you love something let her go kind of way. Wow. Because his possessiveness of her is just a really ugly trait, especially when combined with all of the other attitudes he brings to bear. Right. With any with anything involving her, like if you're Paris and you're not trying to fuck us, you're just a pal. Eventually, you're going to pull cast aside and be like, are you okay? Like is everything all right over there?

Because from his perspective, from Paris's perspective, I would wonder, I'd start to be a little concerned. That would be a nice thing to start seeing in some of these episodes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know what else would be nice to see? Is some priority on messages in our inbox. You want to go over there and see what's going on?

You're two for two on Pivot's, Ben. You pivoted us into the show and then you pivoted us into P1. So good job. Last week's episode, you really like hit a, hit a dinger on the P1 pivot so I'm just I'm just trying to live in your exact time. That's why I'm not trying so hard this episode. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Stop a minute. Stop a minute. Yes, extra.

But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Then our first priority when message is of a promotional nature. Message goes like this over the summer of 2020 I recorded an album of instrumental music that I thought sounded like video game soundtrack. Not like a jazz horse or sucked-is game. One of those independent video games, maybe, one of the ones where you run and jump, but don't murder anyone. I also got really cool album art commissioned for it, but I think it's worth looking at.

Kind of a Blade Runner meets Legend of Zelda. Anyway, check it out at redskyphenomenon.bandcamp.com or your favorite music streaming service. So this is an original album of Instrumental Music by Redskyphenomenon. I'm on Redskyphenomenon's band camp right now and there's also an album called The Bottle Episode. So, uh... Whoa, so Red Sky Phenomenon has gotten prolific because we're already up to two albums, yeah? Yeah. Check it out. To Red Sky Phenomenon.bandcamp.com,

it's where you can hear it. Adam, we have another priority one message here. It's from Zander Boutel. It's the Sam Knits. Hey! That's a Sam Knits. Hey! That's a buddy of yours. That guy. It was like this.

Congratulations on your engagement to Ben Takai. Sam, you introduced me to TGG in 2016 and my life has been far better for it. Thank you for all your work to help elect progressive women candidates and your limitless warmth and wit online, Mazel Tav. Yes, if Ben and Adam also have congrats, maybe it could be in the voice of Kern? He's my favorite.

I find myself at this wedding. Yet I do not remember being invited. I wish I remembered being asked to get up here and deliver this speech because I would have written something down ahead of time. Instead I am at a loss. I have a feeling though I am not positive that I prefer a feeling, though I am not positive, that I prefer a buffet style meal time and not a seated plated meal. But I forgive Ben and Sam. Ben, Sam, congratulations on this most auspicious of days. I would say the one thing I can remember is when I found out about Jan Mahoney.

Wow, hey any friend of Sam as a friend of ours, so thanks for the P1's andr. It was really cool. Yeah, and Mausel's Sam and Ben. Ben, our final priority when message is from a friend of DeSoto, period. There's a period at the end of that. Oh wow, there sure is. And it is to everyone. The message goes like this. The internet is both fraught and valuable. It allows individuals to speak freely to a wider audience than ever before, but it also has a dehumanizing effect. Creators may forget the diverse experiences of their audience. The rabble may forget that content creators are nuanced, flawed, and ever-changing.

All must work to remember our shared humanity. Well said, friend of DeSoto. Yeah. Good message. Yeah. Good to remember. Well, if if you remember,

one of the many ways to support the greatest generation, priority ones are a great, great way to do it. You can put yours on the hopper by going to MaximumFun.org. Slash jumbo tron. And they really help with the production of the show. You know, I'm really easy to get along with most of the time, but I don't like bullets, I don't like friends, and I don't like you. I love this too.

Hey Adam. What's that been? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda! Here's what the doc got to do. He got to massage some feet, and he helps Kess realize the mistake of a lifetime in committing with Neelix to parenthood. So, I mean, little Akala May, little Akala B, the docs might drunk Shimoda. What about you?

He's my drunk Shimoda as well. The thing we learned in the last episode is that he may sweat cash a little bit. And I mean, I think he's the kind of person that can set that aside for the interest of, I'm massaging your feet and your tongue is going to swell up and I'm interested in that from a scientific standpoint. Right.

But let's see how big we can make that tone. That really like, that really like hung over every interaction he had with him. It's too big. It's too big. There's no such thing as too big, baby. Flyer apart then. Say, well, yeah, daily double. Wow. Yeah. Heart then. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha and then Harry Kim awakens on Earth. He's shocked to learn that there's no record of his assignment on Voyager.

It was all a dream. He used to read Word Up magazine, Salt and Pepper and Heavy Deat up in the limousine. Wow. I'm gonna pick Chris on as well. Every Saturday, rapper tacked Mr. Magic Mallymall. This is another one of those, like you can see it, right? This is another one of those cold opens.

Oh yeah, a bit. Harry Kim rolls over, hits the, hits the snooze, on his alarm, but wait a second, that's his bedroom clock radio. What's he doing back here? San Francisco, what the hell? Wow. I am excited for a Harry Kim centric episode. I'll tell you that much. I am too

Not enough that is for my taste. Yeah, I'm ready to do a rail of that. I'm ready to cram some of that into my urethra But first we got to find out how we doing it at him of course we go to gach.biz slash game where we keep the game of buttholes the will of the caretaker Hey Dan my name is Adam from Seattle cis male 40s I'm really into cramming Shadra characters into my re-threat. Is there a name for this? My partner just doesn't understand. But it's the only way I can blast. How do we even do that?

We are on Square 86th Adam. We are in the doorstep of a measure of a man episode and not too far from the traveler episode, which would, that doesn't affect the way the episode gets done, but it moves the run about five spaces forward. Oh, yeah. So, uh... And five spaces forward off of the traveler would put us six away from a more enamored episode. So yeah, that puts it in play. Put it in play. What would happen

if the traveler met banjo man? This is sort of the the Star Trek royal rumble I've always wondered about like if you put the apex God-like characters together, like a Kevin. Kevin versus Q, traveler versus caretaker. Who even gets thrown over the top rope in that match? I don't know. Like eventually Star Trek will be a big enough franchise that there will be like an HBO Max original film about traveler versus caretaker, right?

Yeah. But until we get to the scene where they both find out their mom is named Martha, we just have to review the old town that we've got. They found my wife's body, jumped in the water. All right, I'm going gonna give this thing a roll. You're required to learn as you play roll. Oh, Loverage! Drink the antidote!

Wow, Adam, I didn't even call this out because I didn't think it was possible that I would roll a six, but we have landed not on the measure of man, not on the caretaker, but on the Nielix's galley. What? We're on a square 92 Nielix's galley in which we drink Tlaxian champagne. Hey, that sounds like a delight. And by that, it's just a bottle of champagne. That's all. That's the thing.

Yeah, we call it tilaxian. Love it. Hey, listen, you can't legally call it tilaxian champagne if it's not from the champagne region of talax, all right? Right. Ah, yes. It's a lot like Star Trek, the next generation. In many ways, it's superior, but will never be as recognized as the original which unfortunately was subjected to a

Weapon of mass destruction and no longer no longer produces the grape Yeah, yeah, it's a real shame if you can get yourself a bottle. Yeah, it's a delight one of the last remaining bottles in the universe Yeah, well this this is not the last remaining bottles in the universe. Yeah, well this This is not the last remaining episode of greatest Jen and we keep on rolling. We do and it's thanks to the help of our many friends at a pseudo Yeah, we really appreciate everyone the heads to maximumfund.org slash join and sets up a membership This is not a bad time to say that one thing we observe every year is that after the Max fund drive there is a fairly steep drop-off of monthly support because unscrupulous people join for one month and get the bonus content and then cancel their subscriptions and it's the fucking tea enthusiast man I knew it they just wanted to offer up

enough money to get the tea glass of with the special orange tea and then they're gonna fucking bail cancel their membership yeah fuck you tea people don't do that don't game the system system! Don't game the system like nobody is getting rich here. We actually do need the support and we really appreciate the folks that support the show and stick with the show once they set their support up. So, MaximumBland.org slash join is where you do that. We also really appreciate everyone that leaves a nice review on Amel Podcasts. If you ask a question in your review, we may answer it in a future Marin on the show. Yeah, we want to keep doing that. We want to keep a-ing those cues.

So make them some good ones. And a five-star review is a great way to do it. Yeah, great, great way to do it. And we got to thank our buddy Bill Tilli, who is our social media director. He has, of course, running the greatest trek, Twitter and Instagram accounts, really fun follows. Great way to dip your toe into the broader greatest gen community. Yeah, if you're online and a fan of greatest gen, you know who Bill Tilly is. Yeah, getting involved.

You should also join some of the other great communities. There's communities on Facebook, Reddit, Discord, at DrunkShimota.com. There's a wikia about the show. Lots of great places all over the internet to hang out with friends of the Soto and goof around and be fun and positive. Yeah, things have really gotten better online. I say that ominously.

Like it won't be played back at me in a courtroom environment. Hey, how long has it been since you've made a lasagna? Too long! How would you like to know a great way to make one? Hey, how long has it been since you've made a lasagna? Hmm, too long. How would you like to know a great way to make one? I don't know this for sure, but I'm almost positive that that recipe and more are available on the Adam Ragusia channel of YouTube, a place that I go personally to learn how to make great things better than I've been making them over the years.

Maybe learn how to grow tomato while I'm at it. He's just great and like the reason the Adam Ragusia became wildly popular as a YouTube chef is because he's great at making the videos that he does. Like best of breed stuff from them. Easy to follow recipes that are like inventive and will give you ideas about stuff to do and other food dear cooking that aren't just the recipes that he's showing you. So you're gonna learn a ton. We are very lucky to have Adam, who you see as a buddy.

It's right. We're gonna go visit his compound to play with that. We will be back at, yeah, next week with another great episode of Star Trek Voyager and an episode of the Greatest Generation Voyager where we are shocked to learn that there is no record of our podcast. Oh, it's finally happened, hasn't it? The powers that be have deleted our show. Why did you guys start a Star Trek podcast with Season 2 Episode 5 of Voyager?

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