The Greatest Generation - Nice (S3E22)

Episode Date: September 21, 2016

When a con man abducts commander Data, his only ways to pass the time are trying to smile and trying to sing to a hand puppet. The Enterprise crew’s only hope is to start taking Geordi’s conspiracy theory website seriously. What century has the best bubblegum smell? How anti-semitic is this whole deal? Is her chin messed up because alien or because surgery? It’s an episode that has fewer small hand jokes than it probably should.

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

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

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

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

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! Welcome to the greatest generation, a Star Trek podcast by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. Kind of said track at the beginning there.

Yeah, I'm Benjamin R. Harrison. I think you made a lot of people flinch with it. A lot of people are making stink face now. Yeah. Who are you? Oh yeah. I'm your other host, Adam Pranaka. And this is one of our rare morning shows, Ben. Yeah, we're recording it at the crack of dawn, at least for Adam.

Yeah. Just squeezing on in. Welcome to Mornings with Trek. You've got a bunch of road shoots ahead of you. So we're stacking them and racking them. uh... squeeze on in welcome to the mornings with trick you've got a bunch of road shoots ahead of you so or stack them and rack and them it's right i'm uh... i'm having a little coffee this morning or if i were like on one of

those morning shows that have a big glass of white wine yeah like it you like your catholic gift for it so i so are you catholic and I'm Hoda? Oh, yeah, yeah, I think so. I think that's only fair Okay That you get to be the cool one is co- is Hoda the cool one. Oh, yeah, hold this way cooler really oh Yeah, but really how could you choose yeah? I've seen Kathy Lee live in person once, and she seemed very sweet.

I don't doubt that at all. But I think maybe she's got like some really intense religious affiliation that she doesn't talk about in public that much or something like that. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, I can't remember what it is. Something up with Kathie Lee. Whatever religious prescription is all about drinking in the morning.

Probably what she's into. Yeah, we're shopping around rabbis until we find one that can sign off on all this. Oh man, speaking of things that evoke that which is rabbinical. Hahaha! Would you like to discuss season 3 episode 2, the most toys? The most toys, it's incredible how many toys I've got. You're gonna love these toys. You wouldn't believe that realistic bubblegum smell, it's amazing. It's the most realistic bubblegum smell in this century, in any century. It's amazing. It's the most realistic bubble gum smell in this century,

in any century. It's incredible, okay? You can't stop being obvious on the truth. Find the truth. Don't go through all the best, don't go through. The episode starts with the Enterprise crew loading up a race car bed shuttle with some pretty dangerous items.

Yeah, they didn't want to risk a Previa because they are transporting some real volatile shit from one ship to the enterprise and it's like two volatile to even risk transporting. It's too volatile to use those little hoverboard things that partly had to repair a little while ago. They keep him barkley way away from this mission. Yeah, they give him some time to the in the holodeck to himself on this app. Yeah, they've basically taken the most

suicide prone officer and given him the junkiest spaceship they have to transport this stuff back and forth. So data is piloting the shuttle and it is loaded up with the last load of, what's this stuff called? Tri-Sionate. I think tri-Sionate is the thing that there's like a water supply and some colony that's got hydradium. Yeah.

That's what it is. It's just, just pre-cursors of track cordrazine, right? Right. Well, what you do is you take a standard English root word up front and you cram that into a medical or engineering sounding word in the back and you get high tridium. Yeah.

High tridium, Adam. Up top. Can you use that in a sentence? What is the origin of the word? Do I sound like a musical robot? Oh man, we're heat-seeking the two percenters right now. So So yeah, the the owner of the ship that they're trading with is a Zabalian trader named Kivas Fajjo.

And we don't see Fajjo for quite a while, but we do see data like radioing up the enterprise. He says they put the last of the stuff in the bunk bed and I'll be taking off now and he's transmitting a lot of code and they, somebody comes around with like an iPad for him to, to touch ID on to prove that he's received the shipment. And when he puts his thumb on the, on the home button, it shoots some war flighting into him. War flighting is back. Yeah. That's like the best agent in Hollywood.

Data doesn't get to war scream though. No. He freezes. Yeah. And so from the bridge of the enterprise, you kind of see, it's one of these like rare moments where you just see kind of routine business on the bridge. You know, where they're just kind of officers kind of giving out status updates on various things. Yeah, I was struck by this too, that it's a little bit watching the episode for them, except they're watching it in real time. They don't have anything to do. They're just watching the FaceTime footage of the shuttle flight. Yeah, and it's more, they're more engaged

in the process than you would think. Like, you would think that these shuttles can basically fly themselves and they don't really need to like, sweat the details too much on getting an object from one spaceship to another. But the whole crew is has engaged in this process, and everything's looking a-okay,

which makes it all the more shocking for them when the shuttlecraft blows up. Containment field stable. Gravitational fluctuations with acceptable parameters. Flight pattern. Flight pattern. Yeah, and data, he did. At least from their perspective, you know, and I felt like this moment lost its punch a little bit because they just showed data getting shocked. So...

Yeah, if they didn't show that scene, it would have been far more powerful right? Yeah well I mean and what I was thinking was like this show because time travel and the way like some of the stuff that they do with the show with regards to time travel means that they could basically never show scenes out of order. Yeah. And you, they can't pulp fiction around at all and I felt like if they had just Shown from the bridge's perspective what happened and then gone back and showing it from the other side or something like that It might have been more interesting, but you know that that gets into very risky territory when they they want to be able to Talk about time travel and, you know, spooky action at a distance type shit.

Yeah, I mean, they do that in later seasons where they do some hopscatching around a story, but in season three, they aren't willing to do that at this point. And I think it's to the detriment of some tension here. Yeah. But that being said, I think that the performances in this scene are really top tier. You really get the sense that the wind is knocked out of the whole bridge crew,

and they see this happen. Yeah, it's a wharf that says it first. Like wharf's the guy that actually has the words in this moment. Like, he's really bummed out about, about his boy. Yeah, he's like, how the fuck am I going to get through any doors now? His entire world has, has collapsed. I'm going to be stuck on the bridge for the rest of my life.

Let's know death of a warrior. This is a bullshit. It's one of the great throws to opening theme song that we've gotten in the first three seasons. Like bridge officer did. Throw to theme. The data comes to in this kind of gallery room and there's one of those gallery chairs in the middle of it, like you see in the big art museum and there's lots of kind of obje, dart and paintings and things around the perimeter of the room. There's a guy in kind of a bad polyester sport coat

in the corner telling people not to touch the artwork. Like if you were ever invited over to a party and this was the scene, like you think the guy was really up his own ass. Yeah, yeah, and you wouldn't be wrong. Now, so in walks, in walks, Kivas Fajo played bubblingly by Saul Rubeneck, who just fucking like every priceless piece of scenery in this room,

he'd choose up and spits out This is gonna sound like a slam against our friend of the show Saul Rubenick But when you can't get Jeremy Piven. He is a great plan B Yeah, well this performance really reminded me of the cooked out movie producer and true romance Oh, yeah, that's a great call. I mean, it's like, you know, you cast Saul Rubeneck to kind of play a high status doofus. Yeah. And he fucking destroys this shit. Yeah, he really does.

And he's like not just in voice and dialogue, but like in carriage and physicality. Yeah. It was just very... Yeah, they shoot him in these very wide angle shots, and he just, he like uses the whole frame. His body is amazing. They've got a, I mean, I definitely take a little exception to the fact that they chose to put him in a Yamaka, but the rest of his costume is really terrific.

It shows kind of a maroon vallur But lots of little jewels and crusted in various places and it's clear that he really Thinks things highly of himself, you know, he's really got some big honking pinky rings, doesn't he? Yeah They're like plums right I guess his his hat is like as much Right. I guess his hat is like as much pharaoh crown as it is, Yamaka, but it definitely is hard to ignore the fact that this feels a little bit like an ugly Jewish stereotype. Well, that brings up a point that I had intended to bring up later, which was, do you believe that that is what this is? Do you believe that that is what this is? I think that the other thing in this series that is also an ugly Jewish stereotype that's

hard to ignore is the Ferenci. And I feel like that is less explicit but maybe more offensive. Yeah. I think that it, I don't know, and it's, there's so many Jewish actors that get cast to play these roles too. So it's really hard to tease out, but it is definitely like one of those things that makes me feel really uncomfortable. And I think that if it was a TV show

that was releasing an episode today, like people would fucking lose their minds about it. Yeah, that's really fair. I didn't know this before watching this episode, but this was actually a recast part. Oh, really? They cast and shot part of the episode with a different actor.

Whoa. And then that actor attempted suicide, and they replaced him with Saul Rubinick and then reshot all those scenes and then the rest of the show with him. So the original actor was like an Englishman and I saw like a production still of him and did not seem to have the soft reference to a Jewish man the way that Saul's Kivas is played. So they might have just accidentally walked into this portrayal a little bit and it could have been a complete accident that it turned out this way. Wow, that's a, that's real, that's a, that's a thinker. Yeah. We don't like having those on this show doing. The point being is that Saul is great as Kivas Fajio. Yeah, and let's just, uh, let's acknowledge

that it is kind of offensive and move past it. I feel like that should be something that runs right up before our show. Like the cold open is. Let's all acknowledge that our show is kind of offensive. Welcome to the greatest generation. Ha ha ha. Good. I was just before we started editing an episode and I edited a whole bunch out of us talking about people

that troll us online. So that, maybe that would help, you know, move some of those people. Those which we don't talk about. Yeah. Man, can you imagine if we like weren't too straight white guys of cis-gendered and head, you know? Oh, man. I mean, the amount of shit we take for like making naughty implications about characters on a beloved sci-fi show.

Oh yeah, it would be, it would be tenfold more shit if we were anything, but what we are. Stay woke people. I think it's important because like the bunk bed blows up. What do you do when you're the enterprise? Like Data looks to be dead. The shuttle is gone. Their mission with this ship is over because this was the last shipment Yeah, Kiva gets on the on the FaceTime. It's like, hey, what happened? And Picard's like, what do you mean what happened? What do you think happened?

Like, there's just sort of that moment after, after a disaster where they're just trying to figure it out. And no one knows what happened. And Kivas is like, well, I'm very sorry for your loss. We're going to get on down the road. Yeah. And they're also like, fuck, do we even have enough of this hydr idiom to neutralize the contamination? And it turns out that they like just have enough. And they're like, Hey, Keeva, do happen to know anywhere else because this is like a fucking emergency.

And he's like, I'm close to, close closest closest system we might find it is three weeks away so I think you guys are S.O.L. unless you can find a way to make do with what you got yeah and and that's where they part ways yeah it really feels like it feels final and bad when the enterprise cruises away from the scene. It's really over at that point. Yeah. For data, I mean. Yeah, so the two kind of storylines here are data in captivity in Fagio's ship and resisting in any way

he can think of. But Fajio has really planned this well. Like, data is in a room that has a door that is too strong for data to open. It would take a thousand dwarfs to try to open that door. Yeah. And it wouldn't just be, it wouldn't be worth pushing. It would be like you'd have to fill the room

with so many dwarfs that the pressure would build up and blow the door out. Yeah. Fajio is wearing a personal shielding device that is damaging to data's positronic net. So if data, you know, runs up to him, it like blasts them off and there's there's a real fun scene or data like tries to bum rush him and get launched across the room. Yeah, he sort of Velasa Raptors the protective fence, right? Yeah.

He does it a couple of times to see if there's a way in. And there's not. She's testing it for weaknesses. Yeah, which one thing I wanted to ask you was the way that Fagio describes his proximity shield is that to me it sounded like it was just data proof. Yeah. Could you have picked up a vase and thrown it at him and just decapitated him from across the room?

I think that. I could have, but then you'd have this tricky thing of he still needs Fagio to get out of the door. And he wouldn't be able to pick him up or move him over to the door. And yeah, I mean, it's pretty diabolical. And I think also data is so, so stridently moral that he wouldn't, he wouldn't bring himself to destroy anything in this room, you know? Because the thing about all of these things is that they're priceless and unique.

That it's all single instances of these things. That's what he collects. He collects things that there are only one of in the universe. Yeah. And data is like his, the crown jewel of his collection. And so all he wants data to do is put on this weird purple and gray pajama suit and sit in this chair and data, good starfleet officer that he is, stands in resistance to that. And so the whole storyline there is mostly Fajio attempting to manipulate data into doing what he wants to do and data trying to figure

out ways to kind of make this as unfun for Fajio as he can. Right, he's sort of a passive resistance guy. And along the way we meet Fajio's number one, which is a woman named Varia, she's the girl with the elbow skin face. And there's a point where she says that when Fajro's mad at you, the punishment can be really devastating. And she holds her hand up to her chin. And I wondered if her face was like messed up because alien or because surgery.

Yeah, that was hard to tell. But I get to say, like,erry has got a lantern jawn, her like, if Fajio tried to punch her, like, I don't know if he wins. Yeah. Yeah, we should probably cut that out. On the Enterprise, they're kind of going through the routine of fixing the contamination at this colony. The idea is they're supposed to load up torpedoes with this stuff that they traded for, and

they're shooting it into the water, right? Yeah, but Jordi has started this website called Stargate43872.2 truth.org and And he's going around the ship shopping this conspiracy theory that a Itradium doesn't melt bunk beds, I guess what happened to shuttle pod seven bin. Yeah, yeah, I mean It wasn't hit by it wasn't hit by hydradium, but it fell on its own footprint in a controlled demolition fashion Today of all days been Well people don't know that we're recording this on 9-11. No, they're not guess what I'm doing later today

I'm going to a wedding whoa Oh, man, I bet the I bet the rates on rates on an event place are pretty competitive on 9-11. Yeah, I think that is why this is happening. Wow, I don't think they'll ever forget their anniversary, huh? That was so hack, I'm sorry. Need those Jay Leno aliens to tell that one? Yeah, there's a bunch of scenes, like West and Georgia go into data's quarters and they

are looking through all these personal effects. They find the stuff that was introduced as evidence in the Command or Maddox episode that established data's legal personhood including his hologram Tasha Yarr. They find his butthole painting, you know. They don't find his Chinese finger cuffs, which that was interesting. Like those are canonical data. Yeah. That's interesting. But they they find Tasha Yars China Phillips dress. Balled up in a drawer. What is it sticky? Why is it just stuck in the ball?

I mean, we're making fun, but this scene was very effective. I feel like they did great, great work with dealing with the grief of warf and Jordy and Wesley in particular. Yeah, and Wresher. Wresher says it earlier, he's like for a being that didn't have the capacity for feelings on its own, like he sure did affect them and others. I thought that was a pretty great line of dialogue. Yeah, and Worf gets promoted to take over the second officer role at Ops, and that's real heavy for him, and Troy tries to kind of talk fee fees with him about it, and he's

like really not interested. He's like, people die on cling on ships all the time. Yeah, boy, at this moment in time Wurf has really seen some shit. He's gotten two field promotions because of deaths in front of him. He had he had that archaeologist gore just title wave down to him on that mission. Yeah. On that archaeology mission. He's gotten discomundation in the empire that he doesn't that he came from, I mean, it's... You could argue that he's seen the most shit at this point. Yeah. Um, I also want to just call out like the acting

that Lovar Burton does in this episode. Cause it is really no joke to act when your eyes aren't visible. Yeah. And I feel like Lovar Burton really gets his emotional journey across in this episode. I mean, I don't think it's said often enough what a challenge he's handed as an actor. Yeah.

I mean, it's sort of like, I mean, the same thing happened in, with the Cyclops character in the first X-Men movie. Like, kind of a lot of shit gets late at that character's feet And you never really feel it because you can't see his eyes. Yeah, and I think Lovar Burton Did an amazing thing doing seven. I mean, this is a This is a particularly heavy episode, but I just I really noticed it and Appreciate it. Absolutely, and I think what he does so well is not about like large gestures or anything.

He's sort of a breath and posture actor. And especially in this episode, like you can see him sort of weighed down by the loss of his friend. And again, I feel like we keep going over and over this, the best acting on the show is the stuff that's in the margins. Like real minor stuff.

Yeah, totally. So they get to this planet, they deal with the contamination. They're like, that's weird. This was really easy. And we had like exactly the amount of hydradium we needed Like you couldn't have you couldn't have planned it better And so they this was by the book. Yeah, they beam down into this like underground sister and

And this is a really a really extravagant Wetsit that they built for this one very short scene where they like scan a crystal that's embedded in the rock and they're like, yeah, these precursors for the traceyanate contamination don't have any organic compounds in them and they're definitely synthetic. They're like, what the fuck? Like, who synthesizes? They got us fougaisy. Yeah, and Jordi is like looking for new threads to include in his, his chemtrail theory. So he's only too eager to start arguing

that data is not as dead as they've all been led to believe he is. See? See? Hytriotium doesn't melt whatever's in this water. Yeah, it's just another piece of evidence that indicates that the deal they got with Fajio wasn't on the up and up. Right, so.

Even though, like, it's sort of, like, the evidence that they found indicates that they got a better deal than they thought. Right. Because this rock works better than they were expecting. Yeah, but they're expecting it to be like a natural contamination, you know? It's like when you buy heroin and it ends up being like really pure stuff that you were expecting. It doesn't have a lot of baby laxative in it, it's not all stepped on. Yeah, yeah.

It's like they got pure H and they weren't expecting to. It's really a tremendous value when you think about it. Yeah, it's excellent stuff. But you know, like the best stuff is like often what people OD on because they, you know, it's so pure. They don't know how much they can handle. And that's the danger here. The water supply almost OD'd.

So now they got to go back to the dealer, right? Now they're starting to put it together. It's the night right. Yeah, they take out a baseball bat and pound a nail through it. They're gonna go kick some ass. I am a cuter support. Lockpages on that vessel.

I am a cuter support. There are four lights. They figure out that Fajoship is like really not that fast, so there's not that many places he could have gotten and they put it out in subspace that they're looking for this asshole. And they turn him up like he just left orbit of some other planet. There's a great scene when Fajos isn't actually an orbit of this planet where he has a hang with some other thief slash collector guy. He's like really excited to show this guy that he got data because it's like the, you know, like anybody that's into collecting this type of shit would kill to have data. And data just

kind of like turns himself off essentially. They come in and data's just standing there totally inert. He's mannequinning, like from the movie mannequin. Oh yeah, is that what that's from? Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that you got that reference. Okay, thank you. Fudge, his friend is named Palin Thal and he looks like if Brian Deneny he was really in the rhythmic gymnastics

Like he's got that ribbon like going through his nose and around his head. Yeah This is a this is a fun little bit of alien makeup design. I thought yeah Yeah, he looks like the top of a wedding kick Yeah, and these guys are trying to measure dicks against each other. You know, he's like, I've added a belt and six idol to my collection. And Fajo's like, I got four of them. What do you ask all this talk about with each other? That's how it goes.

Yeah, and so Fajo is like fucking pissed about this shit, and he's so pissed that he basically makes it makes a deal with data that unless data Kind of dances when Fajou wants him to dance. It's going to it's gonna be various life like he has this terrifying gun that is incredibly painful when it kills somebody and he's like I will kill Varia when it kills somebody. And he's like, I will kill Varia with this gun unless you behave the way I want you to behave. And, you know, data is not gonna, it's not gonna allow that to happen.

So, that sort of, that sort of, the last straw for Varia. She's, you know, been with Fajro for a long time. It sounds like she's had a lot of good times with Fajro, but also some pretty rough times. And the fact that her life is so valueless to him that he would use it as leverage with data is the last straw. So she sneaks back to the gallery room one night and

proposes an escape plan with data. And it's a pretty bad plan. That. Yeah, it really is. She's like, look, I know the code to the wall safe with this, with this gorgon. Let's get it and get to the shuttle bay and maybe we can skip out of here. But the plan's super flawed because as soon as they get to the shuttle bay and start the launch sequence, the alarm goes off and they don't have time to launch the shuttle

before Fajos Goons run in. Followed by Fajos himself. A lot of guys with Mullets running are in there, in their pajamas and. There's a great scene here where data starts throwing them around, it's great. Yeah, and it's fun to see like how little effort he needs to just toss somebody 45 feet across this hanger bay.

I feel like if this show was made 10 years later, we'd see more broken arms. Like he'd Steven Segal, these guys instead of just whip him around. Yeah. And so this is this big showdown where Fajot gets into the room and Varia has lost the gun and Fajot has one of his own and and shoots her with it. And she, like, from the inside out, just gets torn apart at the molecular level, the very unpleasant looking way to go. And...

To the degree that it's sort of discussed Fajio, and he kind of drops his gun. And I can't believe I did that way. Yeah, which makes you wonder, kind of like, was he a sociopath? Or is he just incredibly ambitious to the point of blindness? Because I don't think he would have dropped the gun like that

if he wasn't, if he was actually a sociopath. Right, because being a sociopath involves not having feelings the way that Fajou demonstrates in this. Right, he presents himself as being a sociopath. And cultivates that reputation, like definitely very I thought he was a sociopath and told data to not trifle with him because of that. So having tossed the gun, he has exposed himself

to data picking up the other one and data tossed the gun, he has exposed himself to data, picking up the other one, and data raises the gun to him. And Vajro tries to law your data a little bit here. He's like, you're not going to shoot me. You have strong inhibitions toward killing organic life forms. And data is like, I do, but you are scum, and if I don't end this here and this now, they're, you know, like this will persist forever. Baseball cards around the galaxy will be in danger, unless I stop this here.

So data like raises the weapon and just then dematerializes in a transporter beam. And Chief O'Brien's like, oh, weapon going off in the transporter beam, but I'll take care of that. And he materializes in the transporter room and hops off and rikers there. He materializes pointing the gun at riker. Yeah. Kind of a close call. And he surrend the the weapon to Riker and Riker's like Were you shooting and did it's like who me now would never So you're you're left to wonder was data actually Going to execute this guy had he? Sort of extra judicially decided to kill Fahos just to prevent Fajos further mischief.

This is, you know, in a series that has had, let's face it, half of the episodes have ended on like a slide whistle, like Kazoo concerto at the end. You know, that sort of like comedy button. This was like an actually provocative ending. Yeah, totally. That I thought about well after the episode was over. Data says I do not feel pleasure at the end when he's confronting Fajio about the idea

that he could feel good about killing him. Like I am just an Android, he says. Yeah, the epilogue is that they take Fajo into custody and so data goes down and the kind of shoes on the other foot. Fajo is in the in the brig and data is standing on the other side of the the force field and it's good value on this brig set. Totally. Yeah. They are glad that they spent the extra bucks to give it lots of interesting lumps on the walls. We're gonna need more lumps over here. Do you guys have any more Tupperware that we

can turn over and glue onto the wall? Paint over. Now to make a proper lump, you want to take four hat boxes and use a 30 penny nail right through the center. Other things you can find at your local hardware store, a common silverware organizer, makes an excellent wall lump and a big type set. You know, I was watching the timecode on this episode and I was thinking we might actually do this up without any impressions. Not this time. A lot of people think that's a Peter Griffin impression.

It's not. It's not. I know that our impressions are very bad and therefore hard to guess what we're trying to evoke. I feel like when we do greatest GenCon 2017, like one of the panelists should be what impression are we doing, like as a game show, because our impressions are so bad. What are we doing? I love that.

Write that down. We do need to, if we're going to do greatest Gen Con and it's like not going to be just a silly joke that we have as a running gag And I think at this point people would show up with pitchforks and torches at both of our houses if we didn't do greatest Gen Con Oh yeah, it's happening. We gotta think of like what would actually happen You know, that's a good idea. It's not too early to program this event. No You know, it would be a great use of time and energy from our viewers as if instead of writing into tell us

what we missed or neglected to talk about during an episode, maybe if they had any ideas about what we could do at KDSTEMTONE, we could make a big master list or something. Yeah, that would be good. If that sounded more antagonistic, then I intended I'm sorry. I love our viewers. We love all of the emails.

Yes. Even the critical ones, I think, are appreciated. If you have anything you want to write in, send it to drunkshamo.daggmail.com. But especially if you have ideas of stuff we could do at greatest Junkum. Ah! Ah!

Ah! My love is a people long and still do it greatest gencom. So Fajos in the jail cell and he's like, what? You came here to gloat? Fuck you man. I'm gonna get out of here and guess what? I'm gonna put you back in my little collection. It's gonna be great. And Data's like, actually fuck you,

and your collection's being given back to the people who own all that stuff. Yeah, so they're like repatriating all the stolen artwork. And that is like a real existential kick in the balls. Like, that is another scene where we're cell rubinic, like, does some capital A acting? Totally. And Rubenick's like, so you just came here

because you're gonna get some delight out of the fact that I've been reduced to nothing. And Data's like, I get no pleasure out of it at all, but I'm an Android. And he like does finger guns and then walks out of the room. Do you think it's true though? Does data feel pleasure? I guess, so we talk about this a lot.

To let extent does no emotions actually mean no emotions? And I think it's clear that there are definitely things that data is going through that, you know, they don't quite rise to the level of passion of say a riker. Yeah. But I think he does have feelings. And I think that one feeling that he definitely has demonstrated himself to have in the past and in this episode is satisfaction. Right. I think he is deeply satisfied with the fact that this was resolved in the way that it was. Well put, I agree. Did you like this episode, Adam?

Yeah, I really did. I really did. Yeah. I think it might be one of the best of the season. I think so too. We did a little text message yesterday after we each watched it and I was like, man, this is like one of the apps that really makes me love this show because I mean, it's, and I feel like a big outlier. Like, data is usually so uncomplicated and this really makes you question, you know, was, I mean, you know, he wasn't wrong to attempt escape,

but I feel like I would never have guessed that he would have chosen to do a murder as part of his escape, you know. I mean, it's self-defense, and I think no court in the land would convict him, but a surprising turn. What would you think about this being the first episode that you recommend someone watch who had never seen the show before? I feel like this is almost a great place to hop in for the beginner, because I mean, with very few exceptions, every character gets painted.

Like, you know everyone's motivation. You understand how important data is. Like, he's more than just a robot because of how people feel about him. You could see data's powers and strengths. You could see the crew's powers and strengths investigatively and otherwise. It's just a real solid episode.

You only get a little dusting of Troy in the doctor. Yeah, yeah. What else is new? Yeah, that's par for the course. Yeah, I loved it. Great up. Adam, I think we have something coming in over subspace. That was that what that is?

That was that persistent itchy flaky scalp? It works. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on it. A supplement on it. A supplement. Yes, extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. AtomArt at today is a commercial message and it is from illustration.com. I don't know if I'm completely pronouncing that right, but just so everybody is clear

that is ILLUSTRATIN.com. Like, somebody that comes from illustrastan would be an illustration. So the message is this. I create portraits for people that reflect their love of slightly embarrassing shows, slash video games, slash roleplaying. They make fantastic and unique gifts for friends, family, or commanding officers. One. Adam, I just clicked on this link. This person is super talented. I get to tell you when we first got this ad, I was thinking, great, a caricature artist that you'd run into on a boardwalk of a tourist town has a website like good for this guy,

but I've got to tell you like I am going to be purchasing one of these illustrations for myself. They're so awesome. They're really cool. He basically, well he can commission anything, but he's doing album art work and sort of superhero style versions of Client 2, who write with special requests. He's done some for the Mackle Royes. If you click through his Client work, it's just awesome. Yeah, this one is super impressive,

and it looks like he kind of can break it down like if you just want line artwork that can happen for less money, but you want it really like lovingly colored and graded that can be more money and you can kind of you can kind of dial it into whatever whatever your budget allows and you can get like drawn as an orc or as you know like a mercenary from Star Wars or whatever. Hey Ben, I know I'm putting you on the spot, but if you had to request an image for yourself by the sky, what do you think you would request?

Maybe the guy with the Jerry Curl that rolls around with Ginger Jesus and helps him get laid. Yes! Oh, that's awesome. Ha ha ha ha ha it's a picture of me in the chair and all of the bugs are spilling out of my stomach. Oh nice, if they're like something bulging at your neckline. Oh yeah, I get a little nobid. Just to reiterate the website,

because it's hard to, it's one of those ones where you can say it out loud and it doesn't evoke how it's spelled. This is I-L-L-U-S-T-R-A-T-I-A-N. That's illustration.com. Illustration. Yeah. Nice.

Yeah, definitely check out their work. Dabok and Yaland. And Denarga. out their work. A Greatest Gen Live Show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post-show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment.

Hey, I'd make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it. The Share Your Embarrassment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's GreatestGenTour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share your embarrassment tour. I'm Jordan Morris and I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan, Jesse Go, we make pure delightful nonsense.

We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, 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, Ross. 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's about terrain, it's about historic humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah?

Yeah, I know we look like humans, but we're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Carrie? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out.

We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun and Outdoor. Hey, Pan. What's that Adam? Do you have a drunk Shimoda in your collection? Drunk Shimoda!

I do. So, drunk Shimoda is the award we give to the character that's having the most fun or doing something wacky that messes everything up for everyone else. And this episode, I gave my drunk Tramota to data for a brief little scene. I feel like my drunk Tramotas are starting to trend toward tiny little moments that I noticed. I think I know what you're going to say, and I'm angry that you stole my Shimoda. Well, you may have picked a different, there's a bunch of different little moments with data in this episode, but the scene that I want to highlight is a

scene where it, I think it comes back from commercial and the camera is tight on the Mona Lisa. It's a shot reverse shot to data trying to do the Mona Lisa smile. So great. Oh man, it's like it is a perfect, like, totally perfect little moment and just a lot of fun. That, that was not my Shemodan. I'm almost relieved, but that was a great moment in the episode and I Really want to know at what point that gets to the page like yeah

I know I know they're they're coming up with all the objects that are gonna be in Fajo's room and They're and like one of the things you do is you workshop potential interactions with those things right? I just think that is a hilarious idea. That's so good. Yeah, like the feeling in the room when night gets dropped, I think has got to be euphoric. Like what a great scene. Yeah.

He kind of does it. Yeah. I'd say he gets as close as anybody over the scene. My Shimoda is a sister to that one, because they do, I think they do this maybe four times is where they go from the A to the B story and back and they go back to data in the gallery and data is feeding a puppet. What is very clearly a hand puppet that's sort of a hairy bird and we learn earlier on in episode, it's the last one in the galaxy, this little hairy bird.

And it's like flapping around in there. And there's like a little bowl of food that Fajou just sort of abs and mindedly like feeds it. Like he just sort of flings some food in there and it's all flapping around. It's sort of fun looking. But we come back into the scene and Data's doing it. And he's making this sound as he does it Like he says Lulu Lulu Lulu Lulu as he flings food in

It is it is as funny to me as Picard's beaverson butt head laugh in episode two like It is the weirdest sound to hear a character make. And I loved it. I laughed out loud. It was awesome. It's a total Muppet Studios alien though. Yeah.

Like Star Trek aliens tend to be plasticky and gooey. Yeah. But this little hand puppet bird looked totally exotic. I thought it was great. Very well done. And the way that you get its attention is by doing that lulululoo thing Data knows this. Yeah Yeah, so the comebacks to commercials. I thought we were rock solid among the best. Yeah, good Shimotos Mm-hmm What do we have coming up on the next episode, Beth?

The next episode is season three, episode 23, Saric. The Enterprise is plagued by an outbreak of violence when it is visited by a renowned Vulcan ambassador. Do you remember this one? You know what I remember? It was the buildup to this episode where, you know where they typically had that preview package of the music and the scenes and the logo.

But this one. We had one 3D animated version of the logo. This episode got a special package, as I remember it, like holy shit, an original series, character is back. And there was like some gravitas about it. Totally. I also remember the seric stuff happening way later in the series. I did not realize that this was the season 3 thing.

But that's it. I don't remember anything specific to the episode other than its character gravity. Yeah. I feel like this is an episode that I remember sort of re-annointing the TNG cast with the blessing of the TOS world. Yeah, kind of, you know, a more serious and more thoughtful show

than TOS ever was, but still like kind of fighting for its own position in the world. At this point, in its history, and I think that getting a character as beloved as CERRIC back in the mix is an interesting move on the part of the producers. So I'm looking forward to it, and we don't have any vetoes, so there's nothing anybody can do about watching it anyways. Nope. Hostage season.

Well, Adam, one of the greatest things about the greatest generation is that it is a team effort. It's you, it's me, it's our viewers. They are going on maximumfund.org slash donate in droves and signing up to support the show. And it really helps a lot. Every time we get a check and the checks are not huge, but they make a difference and they're keeping you in podcast fluid,

they're helping cover our hosting costs and stuff like that. And we really appreciate all of the support that we get from our viewers. And if you would like to join the viewers that have already stepped up, maxiwimfund.org slash donate, you can also now buy our t-shirt at maxfunstore.com. Yeah, pretty awesome.

And it, I don't know when this... I don't know when the t-shirt is selling like hotcakes. I was gonna say, depending on when this episode comes out, like that t-shirt has sold out and is on pre-order now, and then by the time this f comes out, I imagine, they will be for sale again, and they will quickly sell out again. They're selling like hotcakes, Ben.

Yeah, I mean, they might replace hotcakes, and the new saying will be, this is selling like West Hot American summer t-shirts. Oh man, I can't wait to see one of these out in the wild. Yeah, I fantasize about just walking around somewhere and seeing somebody in one that I don't know and have never met before. Would you go up to them? I think I'd have to.

I don't think I could help myself. Yeah, I think I would go up to them? I think I'd have to. I don't think I could help myself. Yeah, I think I would go up to them. I want to say hi to people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's one of our beloved viewers, probably. It's true.

Or one of their ashamed spouses. Yeah. Yeah. You can help support the show by buying a t-shirt. You can review the show on wherever you listen to and get podcasts. Yeah, and you can chat with us about it. We're on Twitter. Adam is at Cut for Time. I'm at Benjamin R, a HR, and used the hashtag GreatestGen. And there's a very lively community there.

There's also a Facebook group and a Facebook page. There's a Reddit sub, greatest gen, and also the maximum fun sub, both places are great places to strike up conversations with like-minded nerd zoids like yourselves and us. Hey, you know, earlier in the episode we talked about, would this be a good first episode to like watch Star Trek the next generation with? I wonder like what is a good first episode of ours that would be right for sharing? Yeah let's have that convo. Yeah if any of our viewers have a

vote for that give that a share. Yeah throw that out there on the Facebook of the Twitter I'd be interested to see which one rises to the top. This might be a good one to do, to specifically do in the maximum fun subreddit because I feel like there's a lot of max funsters that haven't given our show a try yet. And it might be a cool way to just say like, hey, this might be a good place to dip your toe in the stream. See if you like it. Right. Right. Our thanks to dark material who makes our incredible theme and interstitial music as well as Adam Ragusia who does the music bed for our priority one messages. The goose. The goose. Gotta listen to his show, the pub on current public media. Let's see. Do you have anybody else to think? Lulululuuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluulu I wasn't expecting that. Yo, look at the color of the yukkotani. Yo, look at the yukkotani. Yo, look at the yukkotani.

Yo, look at the yukkotani. Make it stop. Make it stop. One scene that we didn't discuss during the show was we cut to Jordy's nightmare. Like we're in his room. We're in his cat, we're in his quarters. And he's chief engineer, Ben.

Yeah. He does not have a window in his quarters. Cat Warness Corders and he's chief engineer Ben. Yeah. He does not have a window in his quarters. Oh. Do you think that's kind of fucked up? Oh yeah, he's got like an interior, well. He's got an interior state room, like kind of cruise ship. The cheapest ones are facing in, right?

I wonder. I wonder if he doesn't really care, you know. He's a blind man, maybe looking at a wall is just as interesting to his eye as looking out the window. And the second thing I noticed was his world's most uncomfortable pillow. Yeah, I did notice that too. Big one foot by one foot, like tubular square shape pillow.

It immediately excused everything I'd seen of him in the episodes before, like this guy's not getting, could sleep at all. You sleepin' on a block. It's very strange. Anyway. It's choice, Jordy. It looked real uncomfortable. Maximum it's choice, Jordy. Looked real uncomfortable. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture.

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