The Greatest Generation - Not Purple Sports Car Success (DS9 S3E12)

Episode Date: November 12, 2018

When Ghosts and Gimme’s team up to take over the DMV, initially only the Dims will support their cause. But when the Defiant starts to drain its supply of time travel particles, the Chief rolls a three-sided dice. What are good demands when you’ve got that big hostage energy? Are hippies weird or high? Where’s the soot? It’s the episode we recorded on our way into the eight figure club! Come see us live on tour with Greatest Gen Khan🎉🎉🎉! Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Prophets! Support the production of The Greatest Generation.

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

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

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

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

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdisotoforlabor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Deep Space 9, a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed but also tremendously proud to have served up well over 10 million downloads of their Star Trek podcast.

I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pryranica, 10 million. We started at the bottom and now we're here. We're in the eight figure club. Yeah, that's a pretty big club, right? That's a big club. I mean, it's not that big. Not that many people have 10 million downloads.

We can still walk the streets of a comedy festival, a group of podcasters or anywhere really and be unrecognized. So, I guess we're not that big. We have a delightful amount of anonymity. And yet the other day I tweeted a picture of a ridiculous car I walked by and said, and put a caption thinking about buying a car. And I was really worried that people thought I was serious.

Hahaha. Let them never believe the 10 million listeners equals success. Hahaha. Hahaha. Car success anyway. Not purple sports car success. Famously hate cars. I'm surprised that you walked by a car and regarded it in any way.

It was on my mind because we had to... we've had a loner car here in LA for the first year of living here and we... it was just not working for us. We had to bite the bullet and lease something that we could look at ourselves in the mirror before driving. And so I was like, I was really like dipped in automotive research. When a share lift becomes luxurious feeling, you know, it's time. Yeah, this episode will come out well after our 10 million download day. But I just want to say thank you so much to the Friends of Desotto who have made that happen. And everybody who has shared the show with the friend, I mean, it's really, it's really a resting to see that number sitting there

on the statistics page. And getting to do that with you, Adam, has been super, super fun. I mean, it's, it's a highlight of by week every week to, to sit down and do this with you. So the fact that it translates at all is stunning and, and very touching. Thanks, man. I am in total agreement with you. I think the most surprising part is like being disabused of the idea that our friendship is so unique that No one else would appreciate it like it's it's kind of Encouraging that I don't know how to articulate it, but I think my point is that you know like when we started we thought No one was encouraging that we're not the only two people that think this way.

Yeah, I thought that no one would get us, and it turns out that a lot of people do, and I think it makes me feel a little less alone in this life to think that my weird idiosyncrasies and how they align with yours somehow equal a source of comfort for a lot of people. And that's cool. Yeah, that's super cool.

Well, to everybody out there listening to this, thank you very much. You told me that we have some messages in the inbox, physical inbox. It's nice to read encouragement from our viewers. It's cool to have reached the 10 million download plateau, but the best thing then, is opening up our presence. And I just went to our PO box and

Retrieved some and retrieved some from from the box. So I'm gonna open them rip that shit open I'm sorry to disturb you. I'm receiving a code 47 Verify it is code 47 sir. Starfleet emergency frequency. Oh, Ben our first box is from the Gooch. The Gooch! We've got a lot of great friends at the Soto. Yeah. None of them with better names than the Gooch. I would argue.

I mean, maybe Plei Veeam, but tough, tough, you know, that's, that's rarefied air up there that those guys are playing. The contents of this package are wrapped in a blue gel. I believe it's a CTB minus three. Really? Yeah. So in, in filmmaking, the temperature of light is like a very critical thing. Sunlight is very blue and an interior light is very orange. Our eyes correct for them, but cameras cannot. So sometimes if you have light sources of different color temperatures, you put a gel up and they're literally color temperature blue and color temperature orange to correct for differences in the color temperature.

So it sounds like the Gooch. Yeah, maybe the Gooch is in the biz. Did you, did you, uh, did you a favor made the, uh, made this stuff look like it's out in the daylight? You know what's great about the Gooch? Is that the Gooch sent us matching pizza cutters? Wow! These are Star Trek USS Enterprise pizza cutters. They are beautiful and heavy duty and there's one for each of us. Hey that's tremendous! There's a

letter inside. To Ben and Adam, we are your faithful and ever-ready dishwashers, galley-cooked stewards and chefs of Starfleet. We will stir mashed potatoes even if the crew needs to vaporize the pot to prove a point. We make sure the Dustbuster Club has a full belly when they set off to explore a new planet and just maybe one of us is a time traveler from the future here to save Starfleet. Because of our appreciation of the podcast, you have created, documenting the adventures and lives of the crews we serve we want to give you a gift. Please accept these pizza cutters shaped like our favorite flagship of the great United

Federation of Planets. Hell yeah! Live long and prosper. Love the 282 members of the greatest exo cooks on Facebook These members include Ira the Gute Brittany Amanda Lenny Michael Nicole Vera Dan Ashley Mary Karen Brendan and Sarah Wow really sweet it even includes a a pizza recipe. The Gucci's whole wheat porch beer pizza crust. Whoa.

Yeah. I really like making pizzas, so I'm very excited to be receiving my cutter. What addition of the entrepreneur is it? It looks like original series, entrepreneur. No bloody A, B, C, or D. Great, fun. Yeah.

That's the one you want, because it's got the roundest saucer section. Yeah, you try diving into a deep dish crust with the Enterprise D pizza cutter. That's dangerous. Yeah. You're probably going to get some fingers and some toppings trying that. Wow, thank you Facebook group. What's it called again the greatest exo-cooks? The greatest exo-cooks, yeah.

So they can self replicate all the different kitchen utensils they need? That is an ideal circumstance for any cook. Ben, our second box comes from Adam Connor. Whoa. I'm saying his full name because he's a public figure. He's one of our best friends at DeSoto from Washington, DC. I mean, he should be ashamed of his associates from the their show, but I don't think he is.

Adam Connor has sent us action figures. Yeah? These are... These are the playmates action figures that we've come to know and love. We have a... Ram Yarlan. Haha, cool. We have a...

La Forge as the... Tarkin'in Alien. The glow in the dark alien. Fun. Which looks like a pretty rare figure and we have a Geinen I Love it. Yes. Also. We have a make-e-round starship Star Trek the next generation book. Oh, it's it's one of those You pop the paper pieces out of the page and then you uh and then you fold the pieces over and glue the paper together

and then you make yourself the entrepreneur. Well paper craft joint. Ben there is a letter. Yeah. And. Which I'm curious about the guy in before you get to the letter. What does she look like? She is wearing the reddish orange dress with the reddish orange lid.

This is amazing because I have two of those in-box here in front of me that a friend of the soda gave to us after one of our live shows. We are rich with guidance now. We might be cornering the market on guidance. This might be another... there might be cornering the market on Guinans. This might be another, there might be a Guinan bubble brewing. Yeah, a Guinan con gas. Like bubbly water.

So I mean that, we've got a letter in an envelope on Adam's very own personalized stationery, which is- What a class act! I mean, it's embossed, Ben, you can feel it. Raise lettering, pale nimbus, white, impressive. Ben, he's gonna do it, it's gonna be our buddy Adam and DC. Letter goes like this, Adam, and Ben, we bought these a while ago. Bro-teaking.

And in front of this, he says, when bros go and teaking. And a creepy craft place coming back from the Max Funcon East. But then my house caught on fire, and they were in storage forever. But enjoy these gifts because everyone needs a guy in an action figure. Love Adam, Brad and Sam!

Yeah, Brad and Sam getting in on this action are other two great great friends from DC. His house caught on fire? I feel like he would have told us of his house caught on fire. What does he mean? Adam and I have hung out in person multiple times. Never came up. So I guess we aren't like that close. I mean all I can think is that probably Brad burned down Adam's house to cover up some kind of pizegate evidence.

Wow. Well thanks guys. Thanks Adam Brad and Sam for brightening our day. Those are some of the best buds. Yeah. Some of the best friends of Disoda right there. It's not a competition, Adam. I don't know.

I mean, I might be willing to break a pool queue and set one in the middle of the room just to see. Just to see. We're holding auditions. Is that the last of the mailbag? I'm down at the bottom of Santa's sack. Okay, well Adam, we have a pretty important episode of DS9 to cover today.

Do you want to get into it? Yeah, really do. It's the second of a two-parter, a mid-season two-parter. Ben, it's a deep- space 9 season 3 episode 12. Past tense. Part 2. Do you realize how many cannibal this seems? No, of course you don't.

Our boy Biddle is harassing Bernardo social worker. We kind of come back in in media race, right where we left off. Commander Reichard had ordered Mr. Warf to fire. Now we're in the DMV. And yeah, it looks like these people are in some pretty serious danger because the ghosts, is that what they call themselves? Yeah. It's strange that they sell style as ghosts, but they do.

And the ghosts have taken over this DMV processing area. And Cisco kind of pokes his nose into the middle of it and starts advocating for a, you know, work smarter, not harder, kind of ethic around here. We need them alive. The only thing we have to bargain with. Make the hostages work for you, not against you. Right, yeah.

These guys are some great leverage, but if you start killing them, they're not going to be. And Biddle is like, I knew that. Duh. That's not like I didn't know that, just making sure. This is one of many scenes where Cisco as Bell establishes himself as the power behind the power, right? Right.

He never totally confronts Biddle directly. He's always like, conversationaly Akitoing him a little bit. He gets a little secratic with Biddle and yeah, and there's also like some give and take here, right? Cause like the older cranky card put by Dick Miller, like comes out with a pistol at some point. I guess he's been like hiding in one of the cubicles. And you know, this is like where Ben kills Biddle

if Cisco isn't there, right? Vin had to make a move, man. He made that exact same joke in the last episode. That's because Vin's always making moves. Yeah, for him, the action is the juice. For him, the juice is the juice. Yeah. The thing is always calling people boy and sport.

This whole Bernardo Vin thing is really, As I was calling people, boy, is there a sport? This whole Bernardo Vin thing is really, they have the same job, but they are most definitely made to emote opposite sides at the same coin, right? Like there's never a point when Bernardo isn't aching to get home to his family and we'll say or do anything to do it. Vin, though he doesn't say it, clearly doesn't have a family,

clearly lives alone and has an axe to grind. Yeah, he's angry at the world and is using his job to take it out on people with less advantages than him. And I think he's a great villain in that respect. You want a bunch of losers? Cisco gets the drop on Vin and gets that pistol away from him. And they've been kind of discussing what they should do, like using these hostages' leverage

and then trying to get things for the hostages. And Cisco, at some point was like, hey, let's put all those benches up against the windows so that we don't get shot by snipers. And they're like, yeah, good idea. And a lot of shit goes on before they actually get around by snipers. And they're like, yeah, good idea. And like a lot of shit goes on before they actually get around to doing that. There's like, isn't that like,

don't like maybe make the priority not getting shot by a sniper. Like there's not a lot of examples of people taking snipers casually and coming out, okay, on the other side. The tension they set up is fairly acute because they are being targeted by a couple of different factions in the episode.

It's not only the law enforcement community who has it in for them, but it's all of these ghosts that inhabit both the building and the section of town that they're in. Like, their targets for all sides. There's a riot in the streets outside this room. And this room is sort of a microcosm for what's going on out there.

Because there's plenty of decent people in the sanctuary zone who don't resort to abusing others to survive, but ghosts seem to be sort of avowed criminals in some way. Like, Biddle doesn't seem to be sort of a vowed criminals in some way. Like, Biddle doesn't seem to care about other people in the same way that, for example, Webb does. We're really lucky that the ratio of bad to good

is what it is in the processing station because outside of Biddle and a few anonymous street tuffs, everyone is fairly chaotic good. And it starts with the web guy. Right. I thought it was interesting that it wound up being called the Bell riots, given how web is like the public face of it in every instance. Yeah.

Like, it doesn't seem like how the media works, but... You know where else, Michael Webb was erased? It was from the previously on Star Trek Deep Space 9 reel. I watched that fairly closely because I always love those pre-rolls that they do. They show a scene between Webb and Cisco and Bishir, where all you hear is Webb's dialogue. I watched that previously on and felt that it heavily implied that web was because they don't say his name and you do get one brief glimpse of him. And it's like right before Cisco says that man that was just killed back there is Gabriel

Bell. And they don't show the guy that Gabriel, you know, they don't show the Gabriel Bell guy. They should web right before that. So it kind of implies that web died. And like if this was the first episode of this arc that you watched, it would be profoundly confused when web shows up.

Most of us agreed to live here because they promised us jobs. I don't know about you, but I admit I don't any job interviews lately. That man, we just got killed trying to help us. That man was just got killed trying to help us. That man was a capable Bill. I mean for a variety of reasons we recommend you turn off this show. But if this is the first you're hearing the show or watching DS9, you really need to

turn back now. Yeah, I would say go back to episode one, start there or don't, you know, probably best for you if you don't. Bit of also keeps calling everybody boy, and specifically everybody of color. We talked about this on the last episode, but like Bernardo starts to get it too. And not comfortable with that. I suppose it's realistic, right? Like a dead end kid that doesn't care about anybody

also being racist is realistic, but it doesn't seem like the episode is aware of how racist it is, you know? I don't know, I might take the other side of that argument and saying like what is the shortest path between not knowing a character and knowing a character is potentially a bad person? Like if you give him a slur to say, that's pretty efficient. But the thing is in saying that I don't ever really hate Biddle, even though he killed Bell on screen,

like stabbed him in the back. Why is that? They still like treat him as like a potentially redeemable character in this episode. Because every time he has an opportunity to kill somebody in part two, he's like, they're able to persuade him not to. There are depictions of vengeful yokels in film and TV in time immemorial. Like there's a long list of those portrayals. Their kids are legendary at Banjo. ["Banjo"]

And yet in most of those portrayals, like the threat seems so real. Mm-hmm. Why aren't we scared of Biddle? I think they've kind of painted themselves into a corner in a weird way, because in that first episode, the whole thing is about how the hostages don't die,

the guards don't die. Yeah. And it's all attributed to Gabriel Bell, like making sure that this was actually genuinely a peaceful protest and not just a terrorist situation or a riot that got out of control. For an episode with so many shotguns and so many people getting shot later,

like the one time you see Biddle kill someone in the first half, it's like in the dark. And I think that's gotta be a part of it, right? Yeah, check out would be disgusted. Back on the defiant, they've narrowed the problem down to 10 different timeline possibilities. But the problem is there's only a finite amount of cronotone particles to use for time travel.

I guess whenever they beam somebody through the hull of the ship, they must alter or use up the cronotone particles in the hull. I guess so. But I really love the idea that even in a universe without the federation at all they are still prescribing to the rules that O'Brien... I am Chief Miles Edward O'Brien. This is fucking spectacular. And Kira are the only ones qualified to go on this mission. I really loved that they had to just kind of pick some costume that seemed reasonably

in the middle of like everything from the 50s through, like the 50s through the 2050s. Yeah, I mean, if you could choose something out of your closet right now, that would work in 20-year increments going into the past. I mean, do you have that in your closet? I do. What's your choice?

I bet you have a choice. Tuxedo. It really hasn't changed that much in over a hundred years. Like, the chances that it's a big difference between now and 2050 are slim. I might get a couple of second looks if I'm walking around in the middle of the day wearing evening wear, but it's a slim dunk in terms of looking like basically the same as it would in any given time period. God. I am just sitting back in the joy of,

you know, like, will you ask a friend a question and you expect like a short throwaway answer? Like, it is so clear that you've thought so much about this. If I ever time travel, it's tuxedo all the way. God, that's great. That's the only choice. That's why they call me the tuxedo time traveler. Kira chooses a breathe-right strip as a part of her ensemble, and it fits any time period, I would say. She's kind of gone with the black head strip to Spucks headband in Star Trek 4. What do you do to obscure the fact that you're an alien if you can't explain it away as tattoos

the way Dax does. Go to Kotlin'ka, go to Kotlin'ka. So the Defiant stuff is just entirely Odo, O'Brien, and Kira. And the O'Brien and Kira stuff sort of turns into just a bit that runs through the episode. Like they, it's like almost exactly what you asked for last episode, which is just them like popping into a time period and being like, whoa, they're smoking some pretty strong reaper in that hippie van. Oh, time to get beamed up again.

It's a little camp, but I do really love the Warner Brothers Backlot. Same like, same brownstone set up shot at different angles. Production aesthetic to it. This time we put a studa baker on the street. This time we put a lava lamp in the window. I love that. Yeah, it's very fun. I mean, it does make Chief look like an asshole.

Well, the only thing to do is process of elimination. I mean, we talked about this again on the first half of this two part as well. Like, the tone is worth bringing up. O'Brien has talked about a diminishing number of tries he gets at this, but you never feel like death is on the line at any point. Well, you never go up against an O'Brien when death is on the line. Yes, so 1930 failed attempt.

Did you think this was the same, I mean, it must be right, the same play set that they're doing all the future for us past for Star Trek stuff? Yeah, no question. I think it's gotta be. But I thought it was interesting that like, they're beaming down, but not in the same exact spot that

You know like if they they built that like subway entrance thing, you know You're so right. It should have been the subway every time But the thing about the subway is is that you can't park a Ducenberg in front of it to Or a or a Volkswagen Microbus, you know. Yeah, I guess I can forgive it. I don't know.

You think that Ducenberg was from Jonathan Freak's private collection? Just Freak's have a private collection of Ducenberg's. I mean, if there was one TNG cast member that owned Ducenberg's, I would guess it would be Freak's. It's his ep though. Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't catch that as the credits rolled by starting to get used to him doing these

in a way that makes me a little sad because this would be his last DS9 ep. No kidding. He would go on to be a great big Star Trek movie director after this. Wow. And only Star Trek movie director after this. Wow. And only Star Trek movies. Do you remember that period of time? I guess this was like late high school for me, probably. There were all these shows on like the sci-fi channel

that were like, are there really aliens? We will explore whether there are really aliens by talking to a bunch of cranks that have assembled incredibly flimsy evidence and convinced themselves that there may be in fact be aliens. And he was like hosting one of those shows for a while. I mean, this is a Jonathan Frick's love cast, probably first and foremost.

Yeah. The guy hasn't made 100 out of 100 great career decisions. I mean, I think he would even he would say that. Sure. Yeah, like he did, didn't he host the magic show, like the show that gave away what the magic tricks were? Oh no, that was the X-Files guy, wasn't it? Oh, Duke Kavney.

No, the bald guy, the guy who pleads skinner. Oh, yeah, I mean, it was a weird time for television. Television wasn't really sure what television could or should be, you know, like that pre, like, cable is eating network televisions lunch money, but also isn't even really that good. Like peak TV had not started yet. Yeah. Kind of era. Our list was the best show on HBO. Still is. Still best show they ever made. God. Just reading through Jonathan Freaks as IMDB. Yeah, fucking works, man. That's that must be the thing. Like because he was doing those appearances on the, like hosting those shows, at the same time as he was directing television. And it must be an

easy day, right? Like you go in for a day or two of just like stand-ups in front of a camera on a green screen. And they put the like crazy lightning and clouds behind you digitally later. And you just have to like throw to 25 clips and that's one episode of a show. And then you like rinse and repeat all day and then you've got your entire season and you get paid like 10 grand and you walk away. We've got alien autopsy factor fiction. We have Roswell cover-ups and close encounters. We have Ghosts caught on tape factor fiction.

And also the World Magic Awards. Oh man. Of which he was a host. A guy gets around. At one point when I was shooting video for a tech website, went on a ghost hunt because there's a lot of like, there's a lot of weird uses of technology when, when people go ghost hunting, like tuning radios to a dead station and seeing if you can hear any like voices coming through and stuff like that. And like we spent all night in this like barn in upstate New

York shooting stuff and and I'd hired a free lay and sound guy to come with us. And I was just there the whole night like bored out of my mind directing this video that was basically just shooting a bunch of like night vision cameras in the dark. And we wrapped up and started driving home and I was like, well that was a bunch of bullshit. I guess I'll do my best to cut that into anything. And the sound guy was like, oh Jesus fucking Christ, I'm so glad we're out of there. And I found out that he had been like terrified the entire time because he had like personal

ghost experiences and stuff. Wow. Wow. Yeah, I didn't, I don't really believe in ghosts, but he like really does and had like signed onto this and just never told me or anybody else that it was a concern of his that there might be ghost activity that could be potentially harmful to him,

but he was like shitting himself for six hours in the corner of this room. Wow. Yeah. It's really intense. Felt terrible. Well, we found out when we got back to New York, you know, like, uh, I didn't receive an invoice from him. And I inquired like, hey, send an invoice so we can get you paid. And his girlfriend got back to me and she said, uh, that sound guy has been dead for 10 years. Which means the sound guy that you shot with must have been his go go go go go.

Yeah, and then me and my dog ran for a while with our legs just spinning in the air before we actually took off. Boy, speaking to people with interesting credits, you're definitely one of those people, Ben. Yeah. It's me and Frank military, Jonathan Frex. Biddle has a plan. Would you like to know what that is, Ben? Yeah, let's hear it. Biddle would like to. Would you like to know what that is, Finn? Yeah, let's hear it. Biddle would like to go to Tasmania.

Yeah. He's got those big hostage taking demands. He wants a helicopter, he wants... He's got big hostage energy. He does. He's asking for all the things, because I think that's what you need to do when you negotiate, right? It's kind of doing a die hard list of demands, though.

He reminded me of the Robocop guy, too. Sure, but like, like, these people know that the real crime is the heist, you know. Yeah. He's just watched too many, too many movies. Bittles on Edge also, because he's pissed that his riot team is recruiting more members and he doesn't have a say in who they are. It's Cisco that does. He's been quietly getting people to recruit non-ghost people that they can rely on to safeguard the building because of the aforementioned tension between the hostage takers, the hostages, and everyone else who wants to kill them in the world.

I'm sorry for laughing. I'm just, you, you, you Jackie, it lured me an amazing 90s picture of Jonathan Freig standing outside of a fairly badly maintained airplane hanger. Yeah. Probably telling everybody about some ufos that, that they think may or may not exist exist Michael Bay is looking at that airplane hangar like jacking it to the The possibility of exploding it on film filling it with barrels of gasoline and telling it up

Yeah, it's really ripe for the baying. Yeah, well because so web was a character that we met in the last episode and he It was keen on getting people organized and actually forming organized protests, not not riots, but just demonstrations about how bad the sanctuary zones are. And so he's kind of been infiltrated into the group by Cisco, and then Cisco's turn stem and says, I want you to go out and find gimme's. People you know, people who can be trusted to guard the hostages. If we leave it to the ghost, there's no telling what could happen.

As Biddle is going down his laundry list of demands, Cisco does a little bit of power behind the power on him. Which is like, look man, like a helicopter is cool and everything, and maybe Tasmania is a place to go at this moment in time,. Which is like, look man, like a helicopter is cool in everything and maybe Tasmania is a place to go at this moment in time. But you could do good for everyone here by including as part of your demands, dismantling the sanctuary cities perhaps, or reinstating this federal employment act. Like if you do something like that, all of a sudden, this becomes more than a thing about

you. Yeah, and also, Biddle, if you're reason for wanting all of a sudden this becomes more than a thing about you. Yeah, and also, Biddle. If your reason for wanting to move to Tasmania is Errol Flynn, that just doesn't line up. We know that you would have been born at like 1995 at the earliest, given your age and the year it is. What do you know about Errol Flynn? I really feel Biddle here in one moment,

specifically because this goes like, everyone should have a job and Biddle is like, I don't want to have a job, like having a job sucks. And if the only jobs you've ever known or the kind of jobs the Biddle has probably had, like I totally get that. That makes total sense. That is Biddle feeling himself there.

Yeah, and also the argument against it is like, they'll find us jobs. That doesn't really satisfy the thing he's saying, which is that he doesn't want to work anymore because the kinds of jobs you can get are not enjoyable or stimulating. Yeah, God, it's so hard to like, Cisco's got a tough job because he's trying to make the case for this, but all these people know is the shit version. So for Cisco to be like a chicken in every pot

and a job in every driveway or whatever. We're just picturing a shitty chicken and a shitty pot and a shitty job and a shitty driveway. He's not painting a picture. And so he doesn't do anything to discourage Bittles' desire for greater things, I don't think. I agree, I think that politically, so this go kind of fails in these moments.

And it's a little bit of a failure in the script because I think that you could write this scene in a way that would persuade you that Biddle started to kind of think along the lines that Cisco wants them to think on, but that doesn't really track from what we see. One decision they make that doesn't help is Pitting Biddle versus Vin, which are like the two most hateable of a group of not very hateable people. Going up against each other, I think if you put the hateable people against good people a little more, it helps the viewer hate.

It's a chaotic evil and lawful evil have a conflict and it's like whoever wins we lose. Right. To be quite honest about it, I was in a pair of fucking pays. Mr. Bucket, I have to revert back to my state school. I don't use the bucket anymore. They brought in a hostage negotiator to deal with them, Ben, and this is a detective Preston. They start to like try and get their demands out there and the initial idea is just, you know, basically go on periscope or go on a YouTube live or something and defend what they're

doing in there. And they put Web forward to do this because according to Cisco, he's got to look. He's got a little something called it baby. He's got the look. He's got a little something called it, baby. It's got the face. He's got the family. He gets going, you know, introducing himself and suddenly all the computers just cut out. We don't wanna hurt them.

All we want is it. What happened? Because the cops have snipped the phone lines or whatever. So they wind up needing to give their demands in person to this detective lady. I get the sense from this scene that Preston's a lot like the social worker in that she isn't necessarily evil, but she is in the machine.

Right, she's a cog in an evil machine and she may personally disagree with it, but also does her job, which perpetuates the social ill that we're talking about here. And so their demands are basically like, change a law. And she's like, well, I'm a detective, so I say check that doesn't exactly give me the power to change a law. But in the interest of friendship, I'll do what I can. I'll talk to the governor, see what we can do. And it does, you know, she kind of makes it sound like she has the governor's ear.

Like there is a reasonable chance that some of these things will be addressed. Like, and then the things are like put a law back into effect that arranges for people to have gainful employment and tear the walls down on these ghettos. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. We get a scene here where Bishir is able to practice medicine in front of people, and that's a pretty good look for him, because up until now no one believed he was a doctor because he looked like a hobo.

Yeah. Well, he looked like a clown before he looked like a hobo. Yeah. Well, he looked like a clown before he looked like a hobo. He just can't decide on a costume. And it's a good thing too, because Lee is hypoglycemic and she gets a nice scene here to chair. I mean, I guess it's a nice scene, but also it's another example of good people only doing the good up to the

point where it starts to become uncomfortable before stopping. That's what Lee does. She tells a sad story of a time when she helped out the mother of a young child by just not entering her shit into the system and then getting in trouble for it afterwards. And it's supposed to make Lee look righteous, but it doesn't in the way that, that I totally disagree. I don't think it's meant to make her look righteous. I mean, I thought it was meant to make her look like she's

for the first time kind of unpacking her own practiced naivete and complicity. Like she's, we talked a little bit in the last episode about how she, you know, is literally the last person you talked to before you go start your new life in the sanctuary zone and is completely oblivious to some of the truths of how bad it is in there. Where are we supposed to stay while we're here?

Anywhere you like, the buildings in the district are there for everyone to use. And in this scene, she's saying like, I attempted a couple of times to like do my best to not make this a miserable experience for somebody who really didn't deserve misery, and it blew back at me, and I've been making people's lives miserable ever since and I feel terrible about it That's a Healthier way to see it. I think I think my problem is a thing that I just tend to do in general that I'm trying to work on which is If I haven't done everything then I have failed and if other people don't do everything, then I have failed. And if other people don't do everything they can, they have failed.

And that's just not a healthy outlook or way of looking at the world or at people. And I think that was a moment where I saw Lee feel the grief of her decisions come home. And my initial reaction was like, there's one where it should have been the thing that you experienced was that that was a useful epiphany for her to have.

And if she were to get out of this situation alive, maybe it would be instructive in more decisions that she makes down the road. Well, I think that like she is set up as the person that is most sympathetic to the potential plight of people in the sanctuary zone. Of the people we meet in this time and place, like another person that we meet is Chris Brenner

of Brenner Information Systems. I'm Chris Brenner. Brenner Information Systems. You know, interface, operations, net access, channel 90. That Chris Brinner. Uh-huh. And how sympathetic do you think he is? He's like a medium, you know, he can be persuaded, but has not really interrogated this as a thing personally.

Yeah. personally. And then Vin, the nasty guard slash police guy played my dick Miller, is like, is hard mode, you know? It's like easy, easy, normal and hard on a video game. And Lee is easy. Like getting her to see the evil in this was known to be easy from the first moment we met her. If we can convince Brenner, we might be onto something the first moment we met her. If we can convince Brenner, we might be onto something, but if we can convince Vin, things might actually change in this society. So you wanna see if we can? Yeah, when Cisco talks to Vin, it's like talking to a wall.

He robotically sees the sanctuary city as like a place that he works without seeing the people as people there. And I mean, God, if there's ever an episode where you really want a lawyer Picard on the scene, it's this one. It's not that Cisco isn't good at this. He's just not lawyer Picard. Right. And Picard would have laid 20,000 rhetorical trap for Finn to step into and then like so many rakes. Speaking of Vin around this point, like it's it's like a night has gone by and it's the next

morning and a lot of people are still asleep. Cisco is up, but off on the other side of a room and Vin kind of sees that sees that people are not really paying attention and attempts to make his move for the exit and Cisco catches him everybody kind of leaps into into action and it looks like Biddle is gonna kill Vin, but Cisco talks him off the ledge with perhaps one of the greatest verbal threats in Star Trek history. You get on my nerves and I don't like your hat. I'll put the gun down.

And this is like kind of the start of Cisco really pecking the needle in terms of being just like a fucking Born-again heart badass He really does meet Bittles Aggression with a sort of like insane frenetic Wildness about him. Yeah, like Cisco is unable to credibly act threatening, but what he can do is act crazy

Yeah, and I think he is very effective at doing that in these scenes inside the processing center Like he's scary without being dangerous if that makes any any sense Right to the degree you could have one without the other Yeah, and that's something that Vinn specifically addresses is like, why are you acting so scary? And this goes like, I am trying to save you, man. Like, like you have no idea how much danger you're in. And you have no, like you have no conception of what a bad thing you're taking part in. And I'm here to save your life just so you can have that epiphany.

Doesn't seem like it sticks. No. We smash cut from this, like among the most intense dialogues in the episode two, O'Brien and Kira beaming into hippie bus 60s to Emeritus go, receiving some flowers from some flower children and then beaming away, but the flower children don't know that's unusual because they appear to be so high on whatever they're taking that that they just accept the fact that two people beamed away. I really wonder about this scene a lot because so much is implied and so little is shown. Like couldn't they have emerged from the microbus in a cloud of smoke? Would that have been

too fucked up for Star Trek to do? The idea is that they're stoned when they see Kirin O'Brien beam away. Right. Like, or just do like the thing in that 70s show, like shoot it on a white ass lens and like do a weird camera movement and have there be puffs of smoke without any actual Refer, you know, it's one of those scenes where as a kid, you're just like, ha ha hippies are so weird. And then there's adult, you're like hippies are so high is the is the implication. Hi, is the implication. I feel like you look at Colin Medys face in this scene and he is making it seem as though O'Brien knows exactly what is happening here. Kira is confused, but I think O'Brien's pretty down. O'Brien is starting to confront

what a bad transporter chief he is. Did you think that the dude hippie looked a little bit like Bruce McCullough in a hippie costume? I did. Good, because I did too. There is so much that's good in this episode with respect to its set dressing and like how they do a lot with a very little bit of set.

Like I think production wise, they're really trying. There's a ton of extras. There's a lot going on here. I think the low point of this episode might be the Halloween store hippie costumes. Yeah. But these two are wearing. It's just a bit, you know, it's like, it's just there for jokes. Oh, that do it! It fits, fits, fits. No matter what! It doesn't really drive the story. It is like, I think from a structure standpoint, they're just like, boy, these scenes are so intense. Let's give a little comic relief, and we'll do that in joking about high hippies.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Come to the fore. Alvaray. Come to the fore. What are you doing? Come to the fore. What are you doing? Come to the fore. What are you doing now? Come to the fore. Alvaray.

Come to the fore. Not be guard. Not be guard. Not be guard. Not be guard. It goes around this time, like, the negotiations that they've been doing with this detective lady don't seem to be going well. Like, the...

there doesn't seem to be a lot of receptivity at the federal level for changing the job's act. So, all they're being offered is commuted sentences or reduced sentences or something on their criminality. And they're like, okay, nice talk. Anyways, back to hostage situation. But this corresponds with DACS actually breaking into the sanctuary zone.

She ninja turtles up out of a sewer. Excellent. Yeah. Still in her party get up, which I thought was interesting. She went through the sewers in high heels. There's an embrace when DACS and Bishir hug, you know, after finding each other in the next scene. Yeah.

That is, like, she comments on the idea that she made it in there through the sewer, but it really would have punctuated it well if Bishir, like, pulls away, like, disgusted by how she smells. You look great, but you smell terrible. Yeah. I mean, Star Trek never does smell though. We talk about it all the time. Yeah, it's too bad.

I mean, it's also a very fucked up scene just because like the ghosts spring her in like, hey, look at this hot piece of meat. And then they're like, oh darn, she's friends with those guys, which is weird, a weird amount of respect for the ghost to have for her and them. So after after they've been after they've more or less announced that they just want to have sex with her. Yeah, Biddle has really changed because like 16 hours earlier, he was through and throughing Belle next to a burn barrel.

And now he's like, it just sucks that all the cool girls are taken. But like what she's been brought there for is so dark. Like it's impossible to overstate how dark the implication of what this is. God Biddle really contains multitudes. It's just so fucked up. Like the fact of the episode can contain those two ideas in its head at the same time and not

be like, oh, weird. Not in the same episode. Not in the same act. Not in the same scene, but like second to second. It contains those two ideas. Right. Wow. Very, very far.

If you cast Biddle differently, do you think this is less veiled of a threat? And it's less cartoonish by him? I don't know. I mean, he does look like a dangerous white, you know? Like, like 1994 central casting dangerous white guy. You know, like if we were casting this guy in 2018, you would cast somebody that looks like Post Malone, but in 1994, you cast Frank

military. A casting agent misunderstood the request for what this person looked like, like, make him look tough, like he's seen war, you know, like he's a military guy. And the casting, the casting agent was like, I think I know just, I mean, you broke up a little bit on the phone, but I'll get... You mean a literal military guy. I'll get military. Yeah. Military.

I know as an agent. I can't get you guy military, but Frank military is actually a personal friend. So dumb. The rescue plan is discussed here, like the the doctor and Cisco and Dax head back into a private office and they they discussed their situation. Her combat has been taken away from her, but it's admitting a distress signal. So if they can all get near the con badge, there's a chance that the defiant can get them back. And they're like, okay, well, we'll have to meet you on the

outside. And then they just kind of like casually mention that they're puzzling through how to get back their internet connection, because they want to put a bunch of videos up on YouTube about how shitty life here in the sanctuary zone is and she's like, well actually handsome gentleman I know happens to be in charge of a printer information systems. You heard of him, Chris Brenner? That Chris Brenner! I couldn't help but notice you were having a problem with the information system. And you're quite getting channel nine on the setup.

We can take care of that. Have we ever heard about the ComBadge Distress Signal thing up until now? This seems like a convenient technology to be using in this step. She says it's like emitting something on subspace, right? Yeah. The person who has Dax's Combage is Grady, who is the Clint Howard character that we saw staggering around the streets earlier. Grady is maybe the dimest of the dims. And it's kind of an awkward portrayal because sympathy doesn't go a very long way behind these walls, right, and even less so for for someone quite as dim as Grady himself and it's weird the tone that the episode takes with him because like they sort of turn him into a slide whistle. I'm invisible. You say so. After part one of this arc establishes that Dim is a slur,

it seems weird that there isn't much empathy in the script for this character. I wonder how much of that comes from Clint Howard though in wanting to play big and weird, which is sort of his brand, right? Right. And he's like a long standing, big and weird character actor that Star Trek pulls from sometimes. A weird choice to have him in this part in this episode.

I don't feel like Star Trek's treatment of Grady is like a is emblematic of a of a larger mistake. Right. Like I want to see Grady as an isolated incident of like weird tone. Sure. I don't know. I'm conflicted about this because like I I want to I am prone to making fun of Grady the way that Dax does, but also it's sad because Grady needs help. Yeah, I think that that's exactly the tension in a moment like this in Star Trek. Yeah. And it's happened so many times where we're like, this is not really Star Trek living at stated values.

And that's upsetting to see. But also, we have a stack of examples of this. So like, which is it Star Trek? Like do you have the values that you claim or not? Yeah, that's well put. Yeah, and this scene kind of doubles down on a two because Star Trek makes fun of past people every chance they can get. And the Grady character is also a past person.

So there's every reason for DAX to humiliate him. And these past people are our future people, so we have no choice but to look up to them and admire every decision they make. Wow, we really have some dimness to look forward to, don't we? The two of us are the dimest of the dim, Adam. to look forward to, don't we? Hmm, the two of us are the dimest of the dim, Adam. You know who's not dim at all? It's Chris Brenner of Brenner Information Systems.

You know, interface operations, net access, channel 90. You can't be dim. If you're him, he's a brilliant man and he's persuaded by Dax's requests to violate federal law and turn the internet connection back on for the people in the DMV. And so we like cut back and it's, it looks like people are just kind of like getting in line to stand in front of the periscope and tell their story. Like the first guy we meet is named Henry Garcia. He was trying to become a brewery worker at a beer brewery in San Francisco. This is all tracks because he's wearing

a beautiful Pendleton vest, which is the garment of the beer brewer. And he is out of work because they did some automation stuff and that's how he wound up in the sanctuary zone. And he's one of a million people standing in that room, telling a story that we can all sympathize with. That's a long ass lion to use the real world confessional booth. Ben, when we go to Cardassia,

we see that giant video billboard of some fucked up shit being told to the populous there. Yeah. I feel like some gulzing that wore his peace and freedom of slavery and all that. I feel like we're missing the crosscut here away from this person or another person telling their story to someone who is actually experiencing that story for the first time. Yeah. You need the Truman show round the horn of the guy that works as like a gardener, in a garage,

and the Japanese chef, and the two old ladies on the couch, all watching it, and... I feel like you're having fun with me. Having a touch their heart. No, I agree. Because here's why I didn't quite believe that these messages were getting out Like and without any proof of it. I thought it was still like a trick Like we see we see Chris Brenner of Brenner information systems

sort of capitulate to the idea of breaking the law and allowing the block to be removed of the computer but like I still don't totally trust Chris Brenner of Brenner Information Systems. I'm Chris Brenner. And that his intentions are not only sexual. I mean, the only thing we conclude from the episode is that it wasn't only sexual. He was also a good dude.

This is the last scene we see of Chris Brenner of Brenner Information Systems. We never got to say goodbye to Chris Brenner. You know what? He never gave us a black album. DAX was a puddle on the fucking floor when her boyfriend disappeared on a disappearing planet to return 60 years from now. Who grieves for Chris Brenner of Brenner Information Systems?

Certainly not DAX. It was just a cheap conquest for her. Cut to Chris Brenner of Brenner Information Systems like at a tattoo parlor. Like getting the DAX spots tattooed on his arm where his Mayori arm band once lived. Hahaha. Silly way I can remember her. That's it man, no more square jobs for Chris Brenner. I'm gonna go work in a record store. From now on I'm Chris Brenner of Racious Waves. Hahaha.

You really want to do this? Here, now okay, okay, let's do it! Cura and O'Brien get back from 2048 and they look real wiped out, like holy shit, 2048 was not good. New, new, thank you 2048. You can tell how much Star Trek cares about these costumes because they were totally unwilling to disturb them in any way. They basically got back from an urban hellscape

and they look fine. What they describe is yeah, they had like a Rick and Morty adventure and what they look like is just exactly the same as when they went to 1942 or whatever. Where's the suit? Where are the shredded garments? But this is actually a useful piece of information

because they can take every time period off of the 10 time period list that isn't before 2048, which brings it down to three and they roll the dice. They literally roll the dice. There's a one in three chance that they're gonna go to the right time period because they have enough cronotons for one more attempt.

My head cannon is that Kira has made peace with the idea that she's the captain of the D now. And the commander of the phase nine. She's like, I mean, this isn't all bad. Well, I mean, if they aren't able to restore the timeline or whatever, like she is the captain of a single ship without a federation. Yeah. With a clothing device and a pretty advanced ship at that.

Yeah. Yeah. She could go marauding around the galaxy. Where's that show, CBSL access? We really need a marauding around the galaxy genre show yeah that's what i want so here's the thing just to catch you up on the whole like offer counter offer

precedent governor thing there was a moment where web and cisco chat up pressed and then they're like hey uh... here's our offer we'd we like you to, I mean, like ignore, please just ignore Biddle for a second and here are legitimate offers of what we would like. And Preston's like, look, the best we're gonna be able to offer at this moment in time is like a sentence

less than Fologius. And we promise not to kill you. And Webb is like, you're gonna have to do better than that. Except what's happened at this moment in time is the counteroffer from the governor is SWAT team siege. Right, so this is very similar to what went down when I attempted to buy a car the other day, you know? Like they wrote a number on a piece of paper

and slid it across the table at me and I said, well, I just simply cannot pay that. So goodbye and I walked out and a bunch of guys rappelled out of a helicopter and stormed my car and killed me. So I'm dead now, Adam. Boy, be careful at those Hyundai dealers. Yeah, yeah. They thought it was a negotiation tactic. I was just literally broke. Yeah, the laissez-faire attitude of a O'Brien, just like closing his eyes and hitting a button on a pad

to make his decision, made me think of, delete this if I have told the story on the show before, but I had a friend who worked in mortgages during like the inflation of the housing crisis bubble. Who told stories of them setting interest rates in conference rooms by like filling up balloons, writing percentages on them, and then throwing darts at them. What? Like it was that. Don't give a fuck.

Damn. So like, oh, Brian's, like, oh, Brian's inflation of balloons and they're just throwing darts at a time period. Like it seems like that. inflation of balloons and they're just throwing darts at a time period. Yeah. It seems like that. Highest possible stakes, lowest possible regard for like taking the choice seriously. And so a lot starts to happen all at once. The SWAT team breaks into the DMV.

There's just some shooting. One of the SWAT guys definitely gets shot gunned in the chest. Web gets killed, right? Yeah. There's sort of a lot of people getting shot in the chest in the scene. It made it sound in the first part of this two-parter that the hostage crisis was resolved peacefully and then, like, good political change happened. How does that not what happens here?

Biddle is the first to go down and so does Webb. And then Cisco gets shot taking a bullet for Vin. Of all people, fucking Vin. But it's just a flesh wound. And we've established that persuading Vin is the hardest one. And taking that bullet for him really kind of breaks the spell. And toward the end of the episode, he walks out with his buddy to take a look at the aftermath

of the SWAT team breaking in and they're looking around at the squalor of the Sanctuary Zone. How could we let this happen? The question is, how do we stop it from happening again? How could we let this happen? The question is, how do we stop it from happening again? Does it matter that this episode doesn't make a strong case for someone to make the change? Like, fundamentally, we're given so many different people to get to know whether it's like Lee the processor or or Biddle or

Bernardo or Chris Brenner of printer information systems, but you never witness them turn the corner in their thinking you you witness No one doing that the best that you get the best that you get is Vin in this scene and he's like, and it's a slide whistle though because like Cisco wraps it in a joke, which I wouldn't have expected, right? Like normally in subject matters like this, like you see someone make the change. Is that the point? Yeah, it's like it's that change is a process and that injustice is not quick to write. You can't just get shot in the chest and have your world view change. If it was that easy, everyone would be doing it. Yeah, me great. There would be a crime called World View Change by Cop, where people went and threatened cops

so they could get shot in the chest. But yeah, all as well, they agreed to swap IDs with some dead bodies so that Gabriel Bell and whoever busher was meant to be can kind of fade back into into society from Vin's standpoint and the death of Gabriel Bell can be Established in history as is important and get back to the Defiant and Bashir shows Cisco an iPad with the Wikipedia article about the bell riots and it's got a photo of none other than Ben Cisco in there.

Looking great. As if during the hostage crisis, like he had time to like sit down for a portrait. Yeah, yeah. It's nice. A little pancake makeup on. Bittles, like, all right. for a portrait. Yeah, it's nice. Get a little pancake makeup on. Bittles like, all right, now that we got the hostages, the first thing we do is take some headshots.

No, the sliny that we got, that we got in is mostly like a wedding photographer, but she can roll with the bunches and work in a dynamic environment like this, so we thought she'd be perfect. Did you like this episode, Adam? I think I was on the fence until that last scene when Bichiro and Cisco get to talking about their experience and Bichiro asks Cisco how they could let things get so bad and Cisco says I wish I had an answer. Like he does have an answer they just lived it.

I'm frustrated by an episode like this taking two episodes to give us this world. And I think we could probably agree like heavy-handedly prostilitize about, you know, the many failures of humanity in taking care of its least fortunate. And yet when it really comes down to articulate that, like, and you have your series's main character asked a direct question. This is a moment for Benzisco to become Picard or Picard's philosophical equal. And that he demures in answering the question, I think, is a real missed opportunity. I know we're gonna get many more seasons

of character building for Ben Sisko, and I have no doubt is going to grow into the beloved commander and then captain that people know him to be right now. But I feel like for all the work they put in, it was like sound and fury signifying nothing. Like, what was it all for? To sort of staggered at the finish in a way that was unsatisfying. It was super fun. Like,

the world they built was detailed and interesting. The direction was good. The pace was good. Like, the production value was totally there. It was totally unique looking and feeling, and I really love that about it, but the story failed the process to me, and that's how I feel. When you asked the question, did I like the episode, and I told you I wish I had an answer? Like, that sort of negates the entire episode we had up until now, right?

Yes, so, I mean, it's very interesting for an episode that did kind of indulge in being as didactic as this, as this two-parter did occasionally, to state the question that it asks again at the end, you know. And like I had a writing teacher in college who said, And, you know, and like I had a writing teacher in college who said, good writing poses interesting and important questions and great writing poses interesting and important questions and also answers them. And that can be a real challenge, you know, like when you sit down to write something like this where you have a puzzle in your head, like how do we all just walk around continuing to fail the poor people that take the stance that is some moral failing on the part of the poor.

They are wrong and they are assholes, but that's like an easy fiction for a lot of people to live in. I think we all do all kinds of different things ranging from denial to rationalizing to complicity occasionally in perpetuating systems that keep people poor. Yeah, like I think that we're mad at this episode because it shows us a thing that we live with and doesn't give us any answers or doesn't solve the problem for us. And I don't know that there is a solution to the problem that can be stated in the answer to a simple question like that. I don't know. Yeah. You know?

It's very hard to know how to feel about it. It's gut-wrenching to think of the horrors of poverty. And... Yeah. Not to make a joke about it or anything, but like... The answer could have been like not enough people volunteered or something like that, you know. People were too complacent. Yeah, I mean, I think I wonder if there was ever an answer in this scene.

I wonder, yeah, because like Lee, the social worker character, seems to sort of have the answer built into her character, right? She operates within a system that she feels great misgivings with, but is also sort of forced to by economic realities. And like that moment of discomfort when she gets in trouble for doing something that is actually good and perpetuate this bad thing that I know is bad or I choose to like sublimate that and just get by. Right. And that's a hard thing, you know, because she's not in a position to change the system. Something that she does by herself can't change it, but you you know, through collective action, change can happen. Yeah, I mean, there's something in the middle that I think we're both advocating for.

I mean, what I hope is that these comments aren't confused with why didn't Star Trek fix homelessness. That's not what I'm making the case or what you're making the case for at all. I think it's just so much more interesting when shows state an opinion Right, and I think that TNG was more willing to do that. Yeah, yeah You know like them in talking episode like had an opinion about the value of religion Right now you were asking me to sabotage that achievement to send them back into the dark ages of superstition and ignorance and fear, no.

Which I'm sure many of the viewers of that episode disagreed with, but it's still like fucking amazing in a lot of ways. Yeah. On that note, do you wanna check in on our priority one message as Adam? I sure do. Little palette cleanser.

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

Adam, our first priority one message is from Stephanie Powell. And it is to Mom. And it goes like this. You are as smart as data, as slick, as riker, and as badass, as Ensen Row. I shared this pod with you thinking, I hope the sex slave jokes aren't too much. And here we are now going to Minneapolis, GenCon 2018. Can't wait to fly the red eye out of the polar region. We call home.

And with the only person who gets my references, love you always. Oh man. Boy, Stephanie brings up an interesting point, is that we'd probably have 60 million downloads if we didn't choose to make fun of Wesley Crusher as sex slave for so many apps, right?

That is a real sorting hat of a joke, isn't it? Yeah, like if you see that as funny, then you may see the rest of this as funny. Yeah, useful. We'll continue it if we want to. Yeah, it's yeah. Useful. We'll continue it if we want to. Yeah. It's our fucking show. Yeah. Unfortunately, this P1 will air just after our Minneapolis show,

but I'm sure we will have had a great time in Minneapolis. I wonder which polar regions, Stephanie, and Mom are coming from. I don't know. It's going to feel like the polar region in Minneapolis. I'll tell you that much. You see the weather? Oh. I don't know. It's gonna feel like the polar region in Minneapolis. I'll tell you that much. You see the weather? Oh, I didn't.

I haven't checked it yet, but uh... Pack two coats. Pack two. I mean, Texas, Ben. I'm sure it will, uh, yeah, feel like, feel like home to anyone from either polar region. Ben our second priority when message is from Charlotte from Canada. It is for Ben, Adam, and Andrea. Message goes like this, guys.

This pot is the best. It's so entertaining and comforting. Aww. Thank you to Andrea B and Kitchener for telling me about it. I have travel anxiety and I listen to the pot on the road and feel safe and happy. Hey! Can you do an impression of Kevin giving a motivational speech that will inspire viewers like me to deal with our anxieties and build confidence? Well Charlotte, we know that one, at least one of the hosts, suffers from his own anxiety issues. Well, they're not traveling anxiety.

He is expressed to me deeply how much of a challenge those can be. And fortunately I eradicated them and all anxieties everywhere. You know Charlotte, I'm not really much of a public speaker. When I need motivation, I turn to the books of Tony Rabbinge. I may have the experience of creating and destroying life, but have you ever just really looked at that guy? I mean, what an amazing set of chapters on that man and boy The only thing more manicured I've ever seen is my house in that one by one Kilometers stretch of Malibu that I recreated on that planet

You ever see that the documentary on Tony Rabbans. He has a one foot by one foot ice swimming pool that he jumps into. What a weirdo. I mean, he seems like he's really helped a lot of people but also kind of an actual at the end of the day. I sincerely doubt that this has been helpful in any way, but I most definitely hope you get to where you're going with a minimum of stretching anxiety. The sincere tip on anxiety is that these are your feelings and your feelings are real. You should not feel ashamed or preoccupied with them. You are the sky, your feelings are the weather, and you are safe. I don't know how I feel about motivational speaker Kevin

Uxbridge. Is he redeemable? I don't know. I mean, we don't have any lot of fit his crime, and we certainly don't have any medical board to certify him. He, like, don't take his advice seriously. What we do have are our spots for priority on messages, Ben. Yeah. Those are available at MaximumFund.org slash JemboTron. Personal message is a hundred bucks and a commercial message is 200. And they support this program and they get your message out to thousands and thousands of friends of Disodium.

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 Sherry Reembarishment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places Go to greatestgentour.com to get more info

That's greatestgentour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour I'm Jordan Morris and I'm Jesse Thorne on Jordan Jesse Go We make pure delightful nonsense We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries?

Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are already open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, Raps. Hey, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out.

I hate having to stand in line. And boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short nacks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this. We've got to get on the art. It is about terrain, about a spout to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah?

Yeah, I know we look like humans. We're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Kerry? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's going to 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?

Ona Ross and Kerry, available on MaximumFun.org. I got that, got that. Go press, I got that. I got that, I got that. Go press, I got that. Go press, I got that. Do I have a chance? Hey Adam. Step in.

Did you find yourself a drug, Shemota? You're a drug, Shemota. Drunk, Shemota. He and my drug, Shemota is Chris Brenner from Brenner Information Systems. I'm Chris Brenner. Brenner Information Systems. You know, interface, operations, net access, channel 90.

That Chris Brinner. He gets so little to do in this app. He's basically asked a question about his abilities, W-slash R-slash T, unlocking a computer station. Yeah, he seems like he may be kind of a elite hacksaw, but that's only implied. He makes a pretty strong counter argument for losing everything he has and being imprisoned for doing this favor for DAX. And yet he comes around to it and does it. You never see him struggle

with the existential conflict that it really brings about in him. Like, this changes everything for him. Yeah, he's gonna stop being Bill Gates. I mean, that, to me, is as unexpected as anything else in the episode, like, you talk about chaos agents, like, I would have expected any answer from Chris Brenner of Brenner Information Systems. I initially expected him to say no no and rightfully, he never-

He's got a lot to lose. He never seems like the type that would put it all on the line because we don't know him well enough. We don't know anyone well enough in this episode and that's one of its many problems. But I think for Shimoda reasons, Chris Brenner takes the cake for me. What about you, Ben? I got a big laugh from Cisco in this episode. This is right before the throw-to theme. We actually get some pretty intense Cisco-ized to theme in this

episode because he didn't but sheer finally at long last get to the project of leaning the benches against the windows so that snipers don't kill everybody. And they're talking about the fact that Gabriel Bell historically speaking dies at the end of this. And Bersiere's basically like, aren't you worried about that fact? And Cisco's like, I'm not at all because I'm not really Gabriel Bell. And Bersiere just looks at him like,

that's not the point of the question. Like somebody's gonna have to die, and everybody's gonna have to think that's Gabriel Bell. And it's very clear in every Brooks' performance that he wanted this to be the first time that Cisco had contemplated that part of the issue. And I really thought it was funny. I thought it was intentionally very funny. I really, you really bring up a great point here,

and I wish there were, there just isn't enough time. Like, I wish there was more scenes between Bashir and Sisko where Bashir's like, do you kind of want to murder yourself here because you seem really excited about that? Because like the concern that Beshear displays for his boss and friend is Like it doesn't go that far. He's concerned about mission success and about finding DAX But like there is that third element that kind of goes unintegrated, which is like, what do you want to happen here? And I think that's an okay question

for Bashir to ask him. Indeed. What's the third part of this three part episode been? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha The next episode is season three episode 13, life support. And of course, this series is available on more than one streaming platform. And I'll tell you that one of the streaming platform or so we commonly use describes this episode the following way. When a serious accident nearly destroys a Bajurin transport

arriving at the space station. Vedic Bariol is critically injured. And the other streaming platform in question describes it this way. Bajorin must use questionable methods in order to keep Vedic Bariol alive long enough to help bring about a Bajorin peace treaty with Cardassia. So like an episode with stakes. I kind of don't see how that fits in with the Gabriel Bell storyline, but I'll give it a try. We'll have to see. Discussed this, like I think we have more than one listener

that actually works at Netflix. And also people with friends that work in Netflix. And I've seen some action online that would lead me to believe that Netflix has been made aware of the weakness of the episode descriptions that they're putting forth. So I will be very interested to see if that changes at some point. That's fun.

Well, shall we decide via fate and the game of buttholes, the will of the Prophet on what state we will be in when we do the next episode? I think we should decide via condios. Well, sorry, we only have this game board to hear at guch.biz slash game. So, unfortunately, that's what we're going to have to use, Adam. And I'm going to go ahead and roll it. It looks like we've got a naked now still in play as a potential thing we could hit. And the rest of the squares are regular ass squares.

You're required to learn as you play. Roll. We're on square 25, and I'm going to hit the virtual roll button here. Tula! Did I win? Harvey? We rolled a six, so we have jumped way over the naked now. We are on square 31 now, Adam.

All right, boy, that was close to being pretty awkward. Especially because the next episode we record would probably happen while we're on tour together, so. That is a... Might be the same bathtub. Yeah, pretty gross. Yeah, that's a soup that no one wants. Not even you on an airplane.

Yeah, Rob has to sleep in that bathroom. Ha ha ha ha ha. Well, another great plane episode from you and me. Vanilla is a flavor, Ben. Yeah, looking forward to it. Adam, when people want to go on the internet and talk about the show, we encourage them to use the hashtag greatest gen. It's a only very occasionally used by people talking about their grandparents and almost always people talking about this show and

making jokes and posting fan art and stuff. Of course, our card daddy built Tilly Post's amazing trading cards for every episode, every week. One of my favorite parts of the show. Also, JJ Lendle on Twitter is posting a really beautiful, like, old-style movie poster of each episode of Deep Space Nine every week on that

hashtag. So a lot of fun stuff to look at and fun people to talk to there. It's also Facebook, Reddit, and all kinds of other social media groups of all different varieties for folks to join. They're interested in joining. The show is made almost entirely possible by the contributions of our generous listeners, people who want to support the show can go to Maximumfund.org slash Donate to do that. We got to thank Adam Rekusia, who made our theme music, a lot of our custom theme music, and he was greatly influenced by dark material, who made the rest of our custom theme music and he was greatly influenced by dark materia who made the rest of our theme music and very graciously granted us

permission to use it. Thanks guys! Gotta thank everyone who's come out to see us on tour doing live shows. By the time this up comes out there should still be a few more left this year and as greatest Jen Conn winds to a close it's been so much fun to meet so many of you. Yeah, there's one last Greatest Gen Con show in 2019. I don't know if we'll have been announced yet, but we are really looking forward to wrapping up this tour and we are already hard at work thinking about what the next live stuff we're going to be doing is and

we're really excited about what an enthusiastic reception we've gotten from the friends of DeSoto this year. So thank you to everybody that's come out. Yeah, it's not possible to do without people coming to see the shows, that's for sure. Indeed. With that, we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Start Check Deep Space 9, and an episode of the greatest generation Deep Space 9 that brings back the weird Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so.

Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. I can tell. You're a big car, a car, a car.

A car? A car? A car? A car? A car? How could we let this happen? A car? A car?

A car? A car? A car? A car? A car? A car? A car? A car?

A car? A car? A car? A car? A car? A car? A car? at www.cometfun.org.

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