The Greatest Generation - Not Totally Un-Wan (VOY S4E2)

Episode Date: June 6, 2022

When the Voyager’s newest crew member starts rejecting her implants, it puts Rick Berman into a real panic. But when the EMH tries to remove her robot parts, Kes will be the key to freshening things... up. Is the Voyager going to get moved into the rag bucket? Did Star Trek invent yoga pants? Why doesn’t the gift trigger horny warp? It’s the episode that’s limp and soggy because of improper ventilation.Support the production of The Greatest Generation.Friends of DeSoto for Democracy.Friends of DeSoto for Justice.Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Caretaker!Music by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFollow The Greatest Generation on Twitter, and discuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen!The Greatest Generation is now regularly streaming on Twitch.Facebook group | Subreddit | Discord | WikiSign up for our mailing list!

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Starting point is 00:00:00 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,
Starting point is 00:00:35 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,
Starting point is 00:01:01 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
Starting point is 00:01:25 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
Starting point is 00:01:55 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! Watch your back shot. Hello. I'm Captain Captain Bringing with the U.S.S.S. Boardhead. Captain Captain Captain Bringing with the U.S.S. Boy, I'm Dirk. Captain, Captain, Bringengwe the U.S.S.
Starting point is 00:02:26 Boy, I'm Dirk. Captain, I'm Dirk. Welcome to the greatest generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam, Pranika. How you doing, Adam?
Starting point is 00:02:38 I had a strange interaction today with a sandwich artist. He went to Jared. Not everyone who makes sandwiches should claim that moniker. So I'm gonna say very specifically, I did not go to a subway. I went to a different LA sandwichery. Uh-huh.
Starting point is 00:02:56 And something happened to me that I shared with you over text that I wanted to rap about on the show. You dropped a bomb into the text message and I asked for clarification and you did not offer it. Well, I feel like you were saving it for content. Let's paint the whole picture because we both went out and got second boosters today. We're about to go back out on tour for our last tour stop. This sort of sets this episode in time, if you will, if we have died after our Austin show.
Starting point is 00:03:27 Don't get a second booster. If... Yeah, don't do like us. It works at cross purposes with what our goal is. I don't know how you felt after your first booster, but I felt fucking great, and I have continued to feel great today after my second. Like super, super.
Starting point is 00:03:43 Oh, interesting. Amounts of energy, like feeling great. So anyway. Because when I got my first shot, my first first shot, I like drove home and I was like, I was in tears, I was so happy. But I've never, I didn't get sick or down from any of my shots.
Starting point is 00:03:58 No. I know a lot of people get, you know, like a day of having like cold like symptoms or flu like symptoms. But I don't know if this has been your experience either, but I don't even feel the needle going in. I don't know what it is about these vaccines or boosters, but totally painless experience going into the shoulder. Like, like, like, like, did you do it?
Starting point is 00:04:17 Is it in? I asked. I asked my pharmacist to get the Bucatini gauge needle out, so I really felt it. I was feeling super hype after the booster, so I took myself out for one of my favorite sandwiches in the neighborhood. I know you'd never do that as an anti-samwich, but I go in there and I was offered something I'd never been offered before at the sandwich place, which is like a butcher shop slash deli sandwich spot, which is what I think really puts this place
Starting point is 00:04:47 cut above. So I'm in there and a order of sandwich and the guy's trying to upsell me. I've never been upsold here. He's like, hey, you want some fries with that? And I'm like, I don't smell fry oil in this butcher shop. I don't smell anything like that. You're gonna make me fries. And he's like, man, best fries in LA. And- Big claim.
Starting point is 00:05:12 And without even like reflexively, I've been doing this a lot. I was like, get out of town. Which is something I'm trying to bring back as a reaction to something crazy. Get out of town. In college, there was reaction to something crazy. Get out of town. In college, there was a guy that said, get out of town.
Starting point is 00:05:29 Go downtown and we said that for years. Well, now I feel like I did it incompletely, but I threw it right back in this guy's face and I gave him the hook to get off on. I was like, if he did not truly believe this, he'd be like, yeah, they're pretty good. But no, he doubled down. He's like, best fries in LA, bro.
Starting point is 00:05:52 And I didn't even want fries. I just wanted the sandwich, but you hear that. What are you gonna do? Sheesh. You gotta get the fries. So I do, I got the fries. I was given the bag with my sandwich and fries, and I took it out to the fries. So I got the fries. I was given the bag with my sandwich and fries and I took it out to the car.
Starting point is 00:06:08 There's no place to eat in this place. It's a butcher shop. You take your sandwich out of there. And this is an important detail. Did you see the fries on your way to the car? Is this an open bag or is this a... These are the details. Shrouding or a French fry at this point.
Starting point is 00:06:23 These are the details that I'm about to lay on you. Okay. So bag with a wrapped sandwich, wrapped in paper, and a cardboard box, you know, the, the box for to go food that we're all familiar with by now, the brown, little flip-pot box. Right. Get it to the car and there are no vent holes for those fried. Good. Not good.
Starting point is 00:06:43 So I was like, I want to give these fries the best chance to live up to their reputation. So in the car, I open the box. Oh, what's in the box? I open the box, not a minute after I receive the fries. They're already limp as hell. What the hell? These are limp fries, the inside of the box is sweating.
Starting point is 00:07:03 Oh, and I couldn't believe this. I'm like, this is a technology that karaoke places have perfected. People who have perfected the fried food takeout technology have known for years that you must cut vent holes into the to-go box. So you don't sog out your crisp. Frying is a dark art, but the best fries are crispy on the outside and fluffy on the
Starting point is 00:07:29 inside, and if they can't off-gas that water vapor, you're going to ruin the crispy. I was crestfallen, so I'm in the car and I open up the fries, and I'm like, fine, I'll take some of these to the dome. First of all, I need to send you a picture and this picture's gonna go up on social media. Okay, so you're Jackie, and this is not Jackie in Lorraine because you're gonna share this with the public. This is a box of fries and the front seat of my car for scale.
Starting point is 00:07:58 Look at how many they gave me. Wow. This is like five pounds of french fries. This is, yeah, this is like three really big recipe potatoes. If you wanted to go to a place and just say that you wanted fries for dinner, this is an entree amount of fries, I would say. So jealous.
Starting point is 00:08:19 Do you know, do you recall how much they charged for this quantity of French fries? It pains me to say this, because these are L.A. prices. I feel like in L.A., this isn't gonna make anyone flinch. But this was a, this is a foot long butcher shop, deli sandwich and fries for $23. Oh. And like that was kind of a stomach punch.
Starting point is 00:08:42 Like that's a lot to spend, but I was feeling frisky. For a lunch, come on. I was feeling bulletproof after my booster. And so I bought myself an expensive lunch. So I feel like I got an amount of fries worth the price. And the fries were good, but they would have been so much better if they were event holes in the box. Yeah, yeah. They were not the best fries in LA. It sounds like they might have been, but
Starting point is 00:09:11 I would never know. But here's the thing. I want nobody would ever know because there's no way to eat them in the restaurant. The best way to taste french fries is like the best way to taste Neapolitan pizza. You got to eat it right there out of the oven, out of the frial, right onto the table. I want to wind this back up to the very beginning, though, in that moment, where he was like, would you like fries, they're the best fries in LA? When you say something like that,
Starting point is 00:09:36 there is a specific gravity to that moment. Like you can't just say that. Right. You can't just say that because you were guaranteeing a sale. I feel like I saw him do the same thing to three other people behind me in line. One person turned it down. She was incredible. I don't I have no idea how she was able to turn down an offer like that. The other the other couple of people took him up up on the fry offer. Yeah. And I've got to believe had to have been a little underwhelmed by the no vent holes in the
Starting point is 00:10:07 fry box thing. Go down to a carage place, ask who there, who their packaging supplier is, place an order, deli sandwich slash butcher shop. I feel manipulated because when you say something is the best in a place like LA, you gotta back it up because I'm gonna believe you. This is the boy who cried best rise in LA. Sheer fucking hubris. Do you ever run into that?
Starting point is 00:10:37 Like LA is a world city full of the culinary riches beyond avarice, you know? Like it really, it really delivers in so many ways. And this is the first time I encountered the, like so often in LA, I, I realized the promise that's unspoken, but this was a, this was a spoken promise unrealized. And it really twisted me up. I think that LA has a culture of this is the best X in LA, but it can't come from the place. Right. You know, it has to come secondhand. Unfortunately, once a place gets that rep, it then becomes a line place. And there's so many restaurants and food things in LA where you have to stand in line for like a fucking hour to get it.
Starting point is 00:11:26 Like the best Nashville hot chicken place in LA, I've never eaten because I'm unwilling to stand in the line that you have to stand in to taste it. And like it just doesn't, it's not a fun hang for me. Like I hit a certain age and I tapped out of all line standing that could be avoided, you know? And yet being a new person in the city, I often like, I note the line. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:11:52 As a suggestion. Yeah, when the line dies down there, I'm gonna go check it out. Totally. Yeah, that's when I drop the star in my Google map. Right, exactly. Well, I'm sorry that, that mean the fries looked like they would be really good in a hot on a plate context, you know, they were really good in a soggy
Starting point is 00:12:10 Because the the box wasn't vented kind of way like you could taste the potential But that is not a motto you see ever Put on uh On an in an out burger wrapper, you know, know? Like in a way that you taste the quality, you don't taste the potential. Yeah, you don't. The potential is something that is notably absent
Starting point is 00:12:31 from the taste. Right. If it were something you could taste, you taste it. Yeah, exactly. Fresny's not. Well, we'll have to hip this. We'll leave a yell preview and truly this restaurant will straighten this out. Yeah, I mean, it makes me wonder
Starting point is 00:12:50 if the cheesecake factory has better fries. It's something that we've never tried there, but on an upcoming episode of Factory Seconds kind of makes me wonder. Yeah, they could stack up in the fried apartment. Finally see where they are French fry wise. Well Adam, do you wanna see where we are? Borg implant wise on today's episode.
Starting point is 00:13:10 Yeah. Are they in or are they out? Yeah. Are they in yet? My Audi would never do something like that. Then it's Star Trek Voyager season four episode two. It's called The Guit. Reaper Cores. Unless you've got something a little bigger in your torpedo toots, I'm not turning around. Voyager season four episode two, it's called The Gap. Reaper course.
Starting point is 00:13:25 Unless you've got something a little bigger in your torpedo tubes, I'm not turning around. Voyager starts by doing a close up drive by of the camera. Yeah, still caked in green board crap. It really looks like the ship was used to clean up a mess. You have towels in your house that are just used for chores,
Starting point is 00:13:47 like mopping up a spill or whatever. You start life as a towel in my house, as a hand towel in the kitchen, and then when the stains are no longer coming out in the wash, you get moved into the rag bucket. I have a stack of old undershirts for this purpose. Yeah, and that's what the Voyager looks like. My question for you is.
Starting point is 00:14:10 It looks like a stack of old undershirts. Why wouldn't... Are they sure some of these bolt-ons aren't things that they're going to want to keep? Because I mean, for the entire episode, this episode is about, can they get seven of nine on their level and working for them instead of against them? And if you don't know the answer to that question yet, would you wanna keep the parts bolted on in the short term until you know that?
Starting point is 00:14:38 I had the same thought, and I think that they tried to bridge that gap a little bit in this episode with the, we can't get the warp power going. Yeah, and it's all really good, probably. I guess so, but like when they start talking about taking the Borg armor and weapons off the ship, it's like, do not! Who doesn't have more armor? Yeah, like armor is armor, right?
Starting point is 00:15:01 It doesn't have anything to do with the propulsion. Yeah, you never trade down your armor and skyrim. No, give me a break. Yeah. But the other part of the ship that is real burgey is the cargo bay. It still just looks like the inside of a cube. And seven of nine is on a recharge mat,
Starting point is 00:15:21 one of the wireless rechargers. Yeah. And two Voc, the captain and the doctor walk in and they are talking about her as a new member of the family. There's always room for family. They describe a kind of battle happening inside her where the Borgs parts and the human parts are competing for what is going to win her body.
Starting point is 00:15:44 It sounds a lot like an organ transplant and they have to put you on a immunosuppressant so that your body doesn't reject the new tissue. Yeah. Like, her body was accustomed to the Borg crap because the connection to the hive mind and all of the nanobots in her body were making her biological components think that that technical crap was her friend, but now it's her enemy. Yeah, I mean, if the Borgs' parts end up winning, it seems pretty unlikely that 7 of 9 would
Starting point is 00:16:12 be a viable crew person on the show. I think so, Compass Return. If the human parts end up winning, Rick Berman definitely wins. Yeah. Yeah. So they're kind of talking about that. Like we're going to have to perform some surgery on this patient. And we're also going to have to be performing some surgery
Starting point is 00:16:35 on the ship because there's a lot of board crap on the ship. We also get like a POV of the captain and the doctor and two-foc in this when seven of nine wakes up that really recalls the predator cam. And I feel like in sci-fi, you can just lean on predator cam like for the rest of history.
Starting point is 00:16:56 It's part of what made independent film in the sci-fi genre so attainable. Yeah, it's just like looking at us from an alien perspective. What does that look like? Predator cam. It looks like a DV camera, piece of footage. Real, real shaken up. They went down to like the circuit city.
Starting point is 00:17:18 They bought the cheapest mini DV camera. Yeah. They could get, they fed that into the computer and dropped like 10 million Instagram filters on it. Whatever happened to all those DVX 100s, the thousands upon thousands of DVX 100s that went out into independent filmmaking that I had, that I know you had at one point. I never had a DVX 100, but buying an HVX 200. That's the P2 car one, right? buying an HVX 200. Yeah, yeah. Like, it's the P2 car for me.
Starting point is 00:17:44 That's the P2 car for me, right? Yeah, that was with the P2 cars. And like I booked directing jobs early in my career because I had a camera. Yeah, you know. Yeah, that rule. That was a great cam. I used it for many years.
Starting point is 00:17:56 I never owned one. I owned the DVX and I rented the HVX. And the footage worked great together. Panasonic really had it on lock for a time. Until the 70, until the advent of the 70 DP. It's true. And Canon's ascendancy. This has been early 2000's camera talk
Starting point is 00:18:17 with Benjamin R. Harrison and Adam Prandtica. Seven of nine does not want to participate in this de-borgification of herself project. You will supply us with a subspace transmitter and leave us on the nearest planet. Well, she's horrified because she put herself in the regeneration booth and woke up without a neuro-transceiver. Like, she's shocked to find out that parts of herself have been removed and I can't help but agree. Like, she takes great umberage with the idea of shit getting removed and she is irate when she's told that not only was this stuff removed, like, there's not going to be any putting it back in
Starting point is 00:18:56 or reconnecting with the collective. What have you done to me? Your body was rejecting the board technology. It can't be done and also she's gonna die if they don't do the surgery. Like this is an argument that cuts short because she is in a great amount of physical pain, but the upshot of what Janeway and the doctor are telling seven is we've got to pull all this crap out of you because you will die if we don't. Perhaps you'd like an analgesic cream. That fact just doesn't land with 7 of 9. The whole death thing is not persuasive.
Starting point is 00:19:30 And so we get a real breakdown to theme. It's very intense. And when we come back, we are in 6-B7 is out and on the slab. And the doc is talking about how difficult this is going to be. The fully-borgifiedorg is pretty heavily clamped up with this stuff. And he's talking about like millions of points of connection between the armor plating and her skull.
Starting point is 00:19:54 I feel like the biobed with the arch that closes over the chest is what the doctor would normally be using, but Rick Berman kind of vetoed that and said like no we just want to we want to shoot seven of nine a profile and nothing will be covering her up. We spent a lot of money on the board costume that is revealing in a very particular way and I love it. You know Rick is like how about we go with the board costume that's got a little bit of off the shoulder and also show sidebutt? Later on.
Starting point is 00:20:31 No bad idea, Rick. It's a board costume that anticipates the yoga pants with see-through panels by almost 30 years. Yeah. I guess modern fashion sensibilities forgave this retroactively. Yeah, I mean, it's just one of many inventions that Star Trek came up with. Yeah, Kess is there to assist as she usually does, and when the doctor asks for a device to use, Kess is able to yank a hyposprae off of the cart with her mind, which would make her a ton of fun at a dim sum
Starting point is 00:21:06 restaurant, I think. Hey, is that barbecue bell across the room there? Yeah. Hey, thanks, guess. Hey, can I get some of that baby bok choy with the sauce? Oh, fuck, it looks like they're going to run out of foil wrap chicken before they get here. Damn it.
Starting point is 00:21:24 Yeah. Hey, thanks, guess. like they're gonna run out of foil wrap chicken before they get here. Damn it. Yeah. Hey, thanks, guess. This is surprising to everyone, Kess included. And even to that, is impressed. The tricks that she can do with her mind are not limited to freshening people up. She is now able to use the force as well. Right. And her serotonin is way up.
Starting point is 00:21:41 And she starts talking about how her experience psychokinetically has been pretty different ever since she made contact with species 4.29. Right, because initially they're in fear of that idea. Like are they still in touch? Is this related? But no, they're not on the scene at all. No, species 4.29, not an issue anymore. It's just that Kess's brain power has been souped up big time.
Starting point is 00:22:07 Yeah. Coffee. Black coffee. Black. Bacon. Bacon yourself. In Janeway's Ready Room Chico Teo Waxin, with the report that they're removing the boregarmor, but the warp core repairs have not been fixed either.
Starting point is 00:22:22 And it's a real all-hands-out-deck situation, right? The God is working in shoes. We've got, in some cases, not extremely qualified people working in engineering, just because they need the bodies, right? They're not out of the woods. The, their borg's still trans-warping around them. They've picked them up on sensors.
Starting point is 00:22:39 And they need to put some distance between themselves and borg's space, but the warp core being down really makes that tough to do. Janeway really seems enthusiastic about integrating 7 of 9 into the crew. So much so that she's like, well, can 7 help in this situation? And Chico Te really has some doubt. It makes sense from a, like, she's the one that put this crap in standpoint. Yeah, that's true. You break it, you buy it.
Starting point is 00:23:16 But Chico Deez, you know, misgivings are based on like there is no reason to believe that we can trust her just because her to link to the collective is severed, does not make her a safe bet. And they start to talk about the history of this character. And there's not a lot of information about the human girl that, 7 of 9 once was, but what they can figure out is her name was Anika Hansen. Her mom and dad were total weirdos who wanted to explore space but not under the Aegis of Starfleet. I've got a damn fucking hippies. And they just like struck out for the Delta Quadrant at some point 20 years ago and that was the last anyone heard of them. She might have been the first human ever assimilated.
Starting point is 00:24:02 It's so interesting how Janeway describes Anika's parents hippie bullshit, like really dismissively. But to me, is there anything more pure than how they feel about exploration, like the way they did it? Like she's kinda got you beat, Janeway. Her parents do, I mean.
Starting point is 00:24:23 We talk about the Starfleet's being the kind of misfits of the Federation and these people were like, hold my beer, I'm an even bigger misfit. This is real open world video game stuff, right? Like, Anika Hansen's parents just chose a direction and went out. This is why you didn't care that much for the Star Trek online game as they made you do too many tutorials.
Starting point is 00:24:45 You were just like, oh, I just want to crash my starship into planets with my friends. Yeah, get me out of this walled garden. I really wanted to let Terry and Milton my way through Star Trek. They wouldn't let me. The scene ends with Chicoete trying to pop Jane Ways optimism balloon about seven of nine's potential on board the ship. And that is kind of a smell that hangs in the air for quite a while. It's a real stinky ship from here on in.
Starting point is 00:25:15 And they have to cut this conversation short before they have resolved this because they get called down to six Bay with some non-specific problems. In the way that's started the next generation, definitely changed its visual style in season 3. Do you feel like Voyager did as well? It feels like the lighting in season 4 has been changed, or the color timing has created just more contrast in the visual that we're getting. Like there are some scenes in this episode where like half of Jicote's face is just black. Like there is no detail in it at all.
Starting point is 00:25:57 I mean, it's always been late way darker than TNG, but also lighter than DS9. But this did feel like a very moody episode. It may just be related to the Borgs thing and it might change back to the way it was, but I definitely noticed at this episode. For sure. What's going on in Six Bay is the doc
Starting point is 00:26:16 is starting to like pull stuff off of Seven of Nine's head. Heat, move! And they're gonna store all these implants in some kind of chamber. But did you talk a little bit about the ethics here with Janeway? Like the ethics of ex-being someone who has expressly asserted that that is not what they want. It's such an interesting tension because it all depends on where you stick the point of Anika slash seven of nine's agency, right? Like if life begins at Borg or if life begins at Anika, it changes what you're prescribing to her as a doctor, I think. And I would say that that's, you know, a philosophical or
Starting point is 00:27:03 religious question and not a legal question. Sure. It's would say that that's, you know, a philosophical or religious question and not a legal question. Sure. It's a personal choice. The captain basically says, like, listen, she lost her free will when she was assimilated and I'm going to be her proxy until such time as she is de-assimilated. And so my order is to proceed with X being her. And so that's what the doctor's gonna do.
Starting point is 00:27:26 It's an interesting question of medical ethics and it's something that the doc thinks a lot about before choosing what to do here. But the doc has like refused to do things on the show. Yeah. And this is not something you need. So far all he's done is take her plate off and sent it to storage.
Starting point is 00:27:49 Right, but now he's working on her and we really get the benefit of that half dome not being over her because she starts writhing. Yeah. And Rick Burman gets really excited in this moment. Yeah. Kes is initially extremely unhelpful to the point where the doc is like, Kess, what the fuck?
Starting point is 00:28:10 Are you helping or not? If you got time to lean, you got time to help. You got time to assist in brain surgery. And Kess begins to freshen up seven of nine, but in a very useful way, she's able to see what's inside her Borg's brains and notices that there's a Borg's implant pressing on a nerve that they hadn't detected. The late 90s was really peak a camera shot that zooms down into the cellular level. And this is one of the great executions of that technique.
Starting point is 00:28:49 I feel like there was a span of three or four years where almost every movie I saw, almost every TV show took a, took a swing at bat with this. It's cool as hell in this moment. Yeah. And what she is doing is in her mind, zooming down into Seven's brain and finding a Borg implant deep inside her motor cortex, and she's able to freshen just the implant up so that it kind of dissolves.
Starting point is 00:29:15 She's in there. She's like, you want me to tap you off? And the Borg implants like, no! We are born! And it works. It works. It works.
Starting point is 00:29:28 The flopping around stops. Yeah. And everybody does that like guess what the hell did you just do? Tuvak has always been the master martial artist too. Is tutoring a student who has way more potential than he does. Right. But still wants to like, you know to maintain the role of the instructor. And he's like, you're not disciplined.
Starting point is 00:29:51 I'm going to help you work this stuff out. Cass could have snatched the pebble episodes and episodes to go. Yeah. This is just two-box signing up to get freshened up again, I think. Really is. It's so interesting. He, more than anyone, knows her freshening up power. But this is a moment of excitement, right? Because she really smashes the Doc's balls about
Starting point is 00:30:17 like the doctor being proud of this I implant that he's designed that's going to go into implant that he's designed that's going to go into seven of nine's soon to be vacant ocular cavity. And you know what, he kind of considers himself an artist to not just a scientist for the penache that he's used in making this thing and Kess walks in kicks him in the nuts because she's psyched about how well she was able to perform using her powers earlier. Yeah. Oh, yeah, you're a talented doctor. Didn't see you doing much when her motor cortex was flipping out. I kind of handled that one. Two Vox-like Kess. Would you mind if I borrowed the ball-kicking machine and then like turns
Starting point is 00:30:57 it towards Kess, pops in a couple of quarters because there will be no enthusiasm in any workplace while two Vac is around Ben. This is a moment that really surprised me because Tuvac's like, I believe what you need to do is harness these powers in the most boring way possible. We will proceed cautiously and in the least dramatic way we can think of.
Starting point is 00:31:21 Right. And I was shocked that Kess agreed to this. I feel like she's just buying time, you know. She knows that the constraints are going to fall away quickly. Yeah. When they walk back over to 7 of 9, she's got a lot more color in her skin, but somehow that makes her look grosser. God, I thought the same thing. Like, she's looking less one, but not totally unwan. It's like she was drawn with crayons. The coloring is just a little off.
Starting point is 00:31:49 And I think that that like implant that is like skin with like over her eye. It's like a flat flap of skin with machinery on it. I think that's really upsetting looking. Really is. I've got to get that. Not in the butcher lot number upsetting looking. Really is. I've got to get there. Not gonna put your Latin number, your mouth. Side by. A greatest gen live show is something you don't want to miss.
Starting point is 00:32:12 Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour.
Starting point is 00:32:29 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 call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani.
Starting point is 00:33:08 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 Goat try. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead.
Starting point is 00:33:23 Whoa, Russ. 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 all.
Starting point is 00:33:37 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. 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.
Starting point is 00:33:55 And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org. To get that North Atlantic's gesture. We've talked about the ethics of de-borgification, and now we have a little scene about the psychology of it.
Starting point is 00:34:19 Like, the feeling of a loneliness that seven is undergoing, and also the kind of like how can you claim to stand for freedom and self-determination when you are doing this operation to me, or this series of operations to me without my consent. You could alter our physiology, but you cannot change our nature. I love this scene because I like scenes where the Federation and its people are made to Feel the hypocrisy that they should occasionally feel in how they
Starting point is 00:34:55 Dole out their values sometimes against other people's will then you are no different than the Borg They should be made to defend their beliefs as often as possible. And this is a tricky context for the captain to stand on her values and defend them, but she does. I mean, it doesn't help seven of Dianne's side because she's totally irate. Like she's trying to humiliate Janeway here
Starting point is 00:35:23 for being a hypocrite. And I think a lot of what she says makes sense We do not want to be what you are and I think interestingly Seven is Not at her best for this argument. I think she could be making it better, but she is so Recently traumatized by the disconnection and what Janeway is talking about is like, when you're in the collective, you don't feel any second guessing of yourself. You have this unified will and thousands of minds
Starting point is 00:35:53 united in their pursuit of a single goal that is never questioned and to be isolated and not have the benefit of that would probably make it pretty hard to like own Ben Shapiro or whatever. This moment felt so real to me because it's an argument that starts pretty unemotional and it quickly spikes into a yelling kind of argument for both. And I'm glad it wasn't just constantly one thing throughout. Like it really grew
Starting point is 00:36:28 intention and an anger. There's coffee in the forebastole from you. What they resolve is that Sevin is agreeing to help rip all the board crap out of the ship. So she's sort of, I mean, it's also just interesting from like a metaphorical standpoint, like seven is going to help them do to the ship what the captain and the doctor are doing to her. And she doesn't seem to think of the ship in the same way that she thinks of herself, but she's going to be on the engineering team that is trying to get the warp core back going.
Starting point is 00:37:01 It's too bad Kess can't freshen up those parts of the ship. core back going. It's too bad. Kess can't freshen up those parts of the ship. I mean, she, she clearly demonstrated the ability. No one asks her though. So we cut down to engineering and BLT and Kim and a couple of others are working on trying to boot up the warp core and slump shoulder outfit. Seven is brought in by the captain like, okay, here's a new friend.
Starting point is 00:37:27 Play nice kids. Yeah, like a teacher asking a student to help the new kid make friends. Right, yeah. And cruelly the captain has brought her to the AV club. Yeah. Michael, where's she put the slides? Michael. I mean, this is the scene where you really see the off the shoulder borax dress.
Starting point is 00:37:43 The croop is she in. The don't even think about a group. And the side butt that would be totally scandalous on any borax cube. Nobody dresses like that to work if there are borax. Yeah. BLT is pretty insulting with how she puts the work statement to 7 of 9. This is great BLT though. Like, she's always had this in her.
Starting point is 00:38:06 She's withering when she needs to be. We fully recall the engineering specifications of your vessel. Good. Can you also recall the way it looked before you turned it into a Borg circus? Meanwhile, in two vox quarters, he has gotten out a oil lamp for cast to practice her psycho-canetic abilities on. And I was like, really, Toovok, a thing that's on fire as the first thing? I thought the same thing, man. Why would you go back to the fire? No, not good.
Starting point is 00:38:36 How about using the ice bucket this time, Toovok? Sounds great. Yeah, I don't wanna be freshened up. I wanna be cooled off. Yeah, exactly. That want to be freshened up. I want to be cooled off. Yeah, exactly. That is not how it goes though, because when asked to freshen up the candle, Keshe sure can.
Starting point is 00:38:53 What she sees in that flicker of flame goes deeper than the atomic, deeper than the subatomic, deeper than friends, deeper than family. Yeah. She makes the candle holder look like you're on two gummies and a ranch water. It is a totally new level of reality, and unfortunately there's only one other person who knows what that plane of existence is like. Only he is not here
Starting point is 00:39:19 to enthusiastically explain how it all works. I am a traveler of all of space and time. The ability to go down to the string theory level is something that Tuvac rejects as even possible. There is nothing beyond the subatomic. But she's like, no, I'm really serious, I'm doing it. This and subsequent scenes are so interesting to me between Kes and Tuvac, because I keep expecting
Starting point is 00:39:46 or projecting the idea of Tuvac becoming jealous. Because whenever the student becomes better than the teacher, there is always that element to it. It's never that. It's never like, I guess that's like one of the benefits of the Vulcan eradication of one's own ego. Yeah. I have no ego to bruise.
Starting point is 00:40:05 But as a human, it is very hard to relate to him in these scenes because I would be fucking jealous. Yeah, like, Cass is seeing the seeing eye poster and too much can't. Yeah, look, the cellbook. You saw it too, damn it! And that sucks. It'd be like, if we trained somebody to podcast about Star Trek and they got better at it than us, it's a bad metaphor.
Starting point is 00:40:29 I'm just gonna back out of it. It's like we train someone to edit our show and they became better at it than us. Well, that has happened to my friend. It is possible. It is possible. It is possible. And I am a little bit jealous of how good she is. In engineering, BLT and Kim continue to work, but they're struggling to take things out
Starting point is 00:40:56 that regenerate themselves. This is a very frustrating problem. Like, I'm taking the plug out. He took it out. But another plug appears. And seven of nine is almost proud of this. Yeah. I loved the like, how did you invent this?
Starting point is 00:41:11 And she's like, that's not how we do this. We don't invent anything. Yeah. I mean, the board must have invented something at some point, right? Yeah, there must have been original invention. But then after that, it was all assimilation. Yeah, I love how beauty as the boss is like, I'm gonna go work over here.
Starting point is 00:41:29 Kim, you work with Seventh of Nine. And it is adorable how Kim tries to hit on her. Something about it reminds me of being in the world. Get out, Harry. Who are you? Harry Kim. Harry Kim. Parents must be very proud.
Starting point is 00:41:44 Who are you? They come as come as a parent. Who are you? Harry Kim. This only makes sense, right? him has gotten it wet in all of these different contexts that people from the Federation never could have. This is the first crack anybody is taking it an XB in history. And even though he's like one of the great stickmen, he misses on the first shot. Yeah, I mean, he's rightfully curious about whether or not the hardwoods match the other hardwoods. But yeah, it doesn't go great. And instead of closing the deal, he catches those hands because seven of nine has identified some communications equipment in the wall. She knocks him out.
Starting point is 00:42:45 Does not knock out the security person that's watching them, but then like up on the bridge like, oh, somebody's accessing communications. Yeah, the way Kim kind of bowling pins that security dude away. Big fun. Yeah. You know what she's after? She's after getting that transmitter going. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:43:04 She saw a little chip inside the wall and was like, well, this might be my only chance. It'd be like if ET tried to phone home using force fields and violence. Right. But she really gets into those computer guts fast. Faster than anyone on the ship is able to stop it. And while this is happening, Cass and Tuvac are still working on candle practice and Cass is like aware of seven being up to no good, rummaging in parts of the ship that she should not be. And Cass in a really fun combination of hospitality
Starting point is 00:43:37 and sionics is like, can I freshen you up with some war-flightening? And totally war-flightening seven of nine from across the ship. She stops, seven of nine, but also causes very serious damage to the compartment that she did this in. I got confused because on the bridge, they're talking about how walls are buckling and shit is venting out into space. But when we see the compartment seven is in and where Kess is, like we don't see any of that damage. Yeah, it's just like bubbly rippling walls. Yeah. Maybe after we cut away from the rippling, they set back in place not correctly. Yeah. But yeah,
Starting point is 00:44:18 when we come back from break, the captain and two valk are marching down to where Seven is now and it's the Brig. She's gone from engineer to prisoner. I feel like this is like exactly where the script needed to go, right? Like there are badly written voyage or scripts where a character that repeatedly shows themselves not to be trustworthy is like continues to have trust extended toward them. Right. Up until the moment where they build an explosive and destroy a large portion of the ship. Yeah, this is not that episode. Like seven slips up once and is immediately isolated and locked up.
Starting point is 00:45:08 It's interesting how similarly the A and the B stories are playing out, right? Like this is an episode about two people who may or may not be too powerful to contain on the ship. And can they afford to keep it either of them around? Right. Rick Berman would say the tag gets broken by the stacked one. Jesus. If we got to keep one. Tell Jennifer Leane to fold up her cat suits and leave them in her trailer. I know things haven't worked out exactly the way we planned.
Starting point is 00:45:39 The accusation that is very easy for seven to sling it. The captain is like, you have talked a ton of shit about how much you prize freedom and self-determination as a people. Now, the second I do one thing that you don't like, you lock me up, so what gives? And I mean, the captain has already kind of given voice to this, but he repeats it for seven's benefit,
Starting point is 00:46:03 which is that like you don't have access to rationality right now because you've been severed from the collective and you didn't grow up knowing what it's like to be on this side of the line. It's tough when you're like a few degrees of separation from who the real bad guys are, and that's part of the evolving complexity of their argument here. It's also a heavy moment for the captain because she's like a little bit embarrassed that she thought that their agreement was real. Speaking of dissolving relationships in the Messhal, Nelix has poured some champagne. Oh yeah, remember Nelix?
Starting point is 00:46:41 Some Tlaxian champion for Cass. And they toast to the adventure and they seen that mirrors a moment that they had together very early on in the series. And they have a conversation here that is so utterly the conversation that healthy X's who go on to have a friendly relationship can sometimes have. Like this isn't a thing that everyone's able to have, but I think the X's in your life,
Starting point is 00:47:09 or the X couples in your life that you've remained friends with, like this is a thing that you witness, I think when they've done it well. Right. Like rooting for each other openly and supportive of each other and in whatever they end up doing. Whether or not we're together, I always there's always going to be a part of me that blah blah blah. And- What sucks though is like a lot of these friendly ex relationships.
Starting point is 00:47:35 One of them makes the mistake of asking the other what they're into lately. So tell me more about what's happening to you. What does it all mean? And Kess drives the conversation car right into how into crystal she is, basically. And then before Nelix can interrupt her, demonstrates her powers, a little too close to his junk. She's like, I could turn this whole table into more wine. Kess stop. And this rocket's him across the room. Nelix is sitting legs open under the table like anyone would, and is like horrified at what he's seeing inches away from his crank.
Starting point is 00:48:14 I thought it pulled my cock off. It's a moment where they cut up to the bridge, and the readings from Nelix's restaurant are deeply troubling. They got to send a security team down there. The captain heads down there. And not sure if it, like, on the panel, though, like, is the emergency in Nielix's restaurant? Like, no alert, yellow alert, in the weeds.
Starting point is 00:48:41 Red alert, and is this this emergency supersede in the weeds like like during brunch service? Is this worse with the walls buckling and and people being thrown across the captains like mr. Kim just how long is the line? Are they seating parties that are not all there or is there enough tables that they can seat people where they claim one of the members of the party is quote unquote parking. Are they really asking for 30 slips for an eggs Benedict? When they get down there, Kess has gone kind of ghostly. Yeah. She's like on her knees with her, she looks like she's in like a Christian revivalist documentary. Hmm. It's kind of a reverie. Like it doesn't look painful for her. Yeah, she looks like she's liking it Yeah, but structural integrity is getting fucked up in the ship every time she does this. Yeah, deck two has gone to number two
Starting point is 00:49:41 can't do that and It seems like Kess is on the path to becoming a being of pure energy. I mean, and as we know, Deck two, Nielix's restaurant is right underneath the bridge. Yeah. So pretty dangerous proximity. I'd say.
Starting point is 00:49:55 Yeah, it's a bad news bearish. Yeah. The doctor is like, yeah, I've never treated someone for being of pure energy. Boy, doesn't the doctor have his hands full this episode? Yeah, it's like you said, like, which of the two of them is more dangerous?
Starting point is 00:50:10 Yeah. And is it even a competition or is it just like maybe we should get both of them off the ship? Yeah, yeah. It would make sense. They know that Kess's powers are getting stronger, but they don't know what exactly is happening to her.
Starting point is 00:50:23 Like, it's still a mystery. Tuvak is ordered to increase the structural integrity fields, and they decide like let's just do more research. It appears to have gone beyond medical science. We're into particle physics now. There's an interesting, interstitial scene here where Kess is like waiting for her next test to be done, like the next thing to be biopsied or whatever. Right.
Starting point is 00:50:47 And the doc is like, you know, actually there's not much we can do at this point. Like we're still working on your labs waiting for the results from earlier. If you want to go take a break or whatever, go ahead. But there is such weight to the moment of Kess just wanting to be with him. As if she knows that this is one of the last times
Starting point is 00:51:05 they're gonna hang out. Actually, I'd like to stay here, help with research. It's a really sweet scene, and it seems very meaningful to the doc as well. Like, he has sort of become a parent figure for her in many ways. And yeah, it seems like they are saying goodbye to each other without saying goodbye to each other.
Starting point is 00:51:29 In the brig, we get a kind of awkward scene of 7 of 9 flopping around against the force field. She never attacks the same place twice. She remembers. And Janeway is called down to check in with her. And it's clear in this scene that Seven of Nine is going through the stages of Borg separation. Still in denial and in anger, for sure. Yeah. She's going through multiple stages at the same time because Borgers are just efficient that way. Right. Yeah. I remember my notes that like an XB counselor would be really useful right now, like somebody
Starting point is 00:52:07 who could be there to walk you through, what you're going through. This is a scene where Janeway refers to people that she knows who are XBs. Who did you think she was talking about? Because there are XBs like the ones that Chico Te met on that planet. Yeah. I thought she was talking about Picard. Oh, interesting. Wow.
Starting point is 00:52:28 Did not put that together. I wonder if they couldn't be specific because they would have had to pay somebody like a union stipulated fee. That's shitty, but I get it. She drops the force field and walks into the cell. Despite seven's assurances that that will cost Janeway her life. And what Janeway shows her on the iPad is the picture
Starting point is 00:52:55 we saw before of Anika Hanson. And this is kind of a revelation for seven. This felt like a line step to me for her. I was bracing for a really bad reaction to this. It felt high risk for sure. It's the like, is the problem with seven of nine just that she needs a hug question. Right. And she's attempting this toward someone who has said moments before that she would kill her. But you know, Ensign Ayala is there with a mini dustbuster, so. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:53:30 How much risk is the Captain really in? Like, it's evident that I can't make a personal force field anymore. Yeah, I guess not. It's hard to watch though, like, she's really struggling. It's really, really sad. This moment is so sad. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:53:44 I feel like, you know, there is the obvious, like, horny element to casting Jerry Ryan in this role, but there's also the, like, can she do the emotional, heavy lifting of this character question? And I feel like this scene really proves that she's got what it takes. I think that's a great call. And I approached this episode with that kind of baggage. Like, oh man, I had heard it was rough sledding for her from jump.
Starting point is 00:54:16 And she was made to be robot sex goddess from jump. But what I was surprised and happy to realize was just how great Jerry Ryan was from the start. Like this is all really hard stuff to do and in full Borg's costuming. Totally. Yeah, she's put the six hours in a makeup chair having full body, extremely weird makeup put all over her, and then she delivers a performance like this. And that is, you know, I feel like it rises above the material in a lot of ways. If you go back and read what her comments were surrounding the production of these episodes she was not told the extent to which she would be
Starting point is 00:54:57 borgified in these episodes. Don't want that life. It's what you are. Don't resist it. She was quite surprised that she would be loaded up the way that she was with all the implants and stuff. Dan. We get another fly by a Voyager and the captain's Vlog is about how Kess is getting more and more psychokinetic. And when we get to the interior, it's just Kess sitting alone on a couch like a grinning. Hey, I'm shredding the hull of this starship that I'm on, but I'm pretty happy about it. There's been a strange energy to Jennifer
Starting point is 00:55:41 Leane's performance the last couple episodes. And a really powerful emotional energy to Jennifer Leane's performance the last couple episodes. And a really powerful emotional energy to this scene because when Janeway sits down next to her and Kess finally confides the truth that she needs to leave, I was blown away by how emotional this moment was. And I expected it from Jennifer Leane, but wow, what Kate Mulgrue brings to this moment felt as much personal as it felt like acting. It felt like there were real people leaking through the performance here in this moment in a powerful way. It's sad. I mean, it's like it's the character getting written off the show saying that they're getting written off the show. And it's time to go. It's not like a huge shock or anything, but yeah, they brought the written off the show. And it's time to go. It's not like a huge shock or anything,
Starting point is 00:56:25 but yeah, they brought the weight of the transition this is to this scene in a great way. Yeah. Janeway has a hard time accepting this, and she doesn't have to accept it, but she grants it, right? Yeah, and that's like another moment of that, like the personal freedom characters are entitled to on this ship stuff.
Starting point is 00:56:46 I mean, this is what brings the two storylines into a parallel feeling, right? Like, these are two people having to figure out the choices they're able to make for themselves. And they're treated very differently. Yeah. I also just tripped off the line that cast spent most of her life on Voyager and I was like, fuck, that's true. Yeah, yeah. But she's tearing the ship apartly, so you can't keep freshening up the ship this way.
Starting point is 00:57:16 And it goes from zero to 100 very fast because how touching this scene concludes immediately pivot into she's going gonna blow up the ship and we need to get her out of here. Yeah, like, we're getting her to a shuttle, like with beamer to the shuttle, oh, she's like non-corporeal enough now that the transporter doesn't know what to do with there. So we're just gonna have to run for it.
Starting point is 00:57:39 It happens really fast. Every section of hallway that they run through explodes behind them. Yeah, they really pulled out the foam guns. Sure did. In a great way. There's a moment where Tuvac bies her some time by melding with her.
Starting point is 00:57:55 The mind melds on a shortcut for dealing with mental trauma. I was ready for another like melty Tuvac face at this moment. Yeah, I mean, he for some reason was able to absorb it differently this time and it and it bought Kess enough time to make it to the shuttle and off the ship. And they give her a brat as a going away prize.
Starting point is 00:58:16 She flies away. They get her up on FaceTime after a couple of false starts. And they're like giving the readings like that she doesn't even have an atomic structure anymore while she's talking to them. And she gives them one last gift, which is that as she turns into a flash of Q-light, the ship like rockets across the galaxy, we go to engineering first
Starting point is 00:58:44 and we see the liquid in the warp core just going absolutely crazy and we see Voyager just zoom through space and Tom pairs doesn't want to say we're going faster than warp 10 because he knows what that means in a deep way. Yeah, but it seems like they're going faster than warp 10. I mean, he looks around the bridge, looking for other cloaca. No one's ready to bone. No, no. This is not horny warp. This is just regular super fast warp.
Starting point is 00:59:16 Super duber fast warp. And they come out the other side, 10 years closer to earth. Hey, that really helped. Hey, that's the gift. That's the gift that's in the title of the episode. Yeah. Pretty nice.
Starting point is 00:59:30 What a nice gift. Yeah. You shouldn't have. Come on. This is too much. Five years would have been more than enough. Yeah. Kess, given the gift of a shuttle, Voyager, given the gift of 10 years off their trip. Seven of nine, the gift of a
Starting point is 00:59:47 brand new dress. New cats, who do this? And some hair. Seven of nine is now without 82% of her implants. And when the doc and Janeway walk in, the doc explains that the way she looks is due to his personal tastes. Excellent work, doctor, I admire your attention to detail. So we know who's avatar Rick Berman has in the cast. Ooh, boy. All right. This is going to be a transition period though, right? Because just because a large percentage of her
Starting point is 01:00:25 boar again, plants have been removed, it doesn't mean she isn't going to need to regenerate. So she's going to need to use the alcove closet to get her energy back. And in exchange, she promises not to get everyone assimilated from that on. Yeah. Hey, that's nice of her. Yeah. The captain gives her a combat. She says, call me any time, day or night. I'm always here, but you're not allowed out of this room. I'd leave the board gal cove, one of the more comfortable sleeping arrangements on the ship. I mean, they don't have pillows, but it's also like, you know, if
Starting point is 01:01:03 it's those pillows, do you even want one? Yeah, if it's those pillows, yeah, do not want. The button on the episode is Tuvac lighting a candle for his student who has become the master. And we zoom out on a long zoom out from the ship that still does have a couple of those board gadgets on the hull, but not as many as we started the episode with. And we get the single brass instrument of Rick Bourbon making very specific casting choices. Did you like this episode, Adam? I like that moment, like that visual language of a main character looking out a window while the single brass instrument plays, like that's that's Star Trek right there.
Starting point is 01:01:53 That's the punctuation at the end of something heavy happening and something heavy did happen this episode. Kess's departure from the show and even more than that, Jennifer Leans departure from the show is something that was fairly traumatic for everyone involved. And it's a story that changed forms over the years. At the time, people were fairly gutted at her leaving. And it's because she was so well liked. And that's really where the story ended at that time. But as the years went on, the information that came out was that
Starting point is 01:02:33 Jennifer Leighin was someone who struggled with her mental health. And in the mid to late 90s, it was a thing that was even less out in the open than it is today. I just wish the way people treated their mental health was healthier back then. It's by no means perfect right now, but it's not anywhere what it's like today. And especially in a workplace like a television show, I have to wonder if things wouldn't be different today if the show were being made today if there were an actor who had the struggles that she had. And what I'm saying is like lately what ended up coming out was like the real reason for her departure was that were those problems, and it's just a sad story.
Starting point is 01:03:18 Yeah. And I mean, who knows how much the work environment contributed to or exacerbated or didn't, you know, it's very, you know, from the outside it's impossible to say. But it does sound like she had a really hard time both during and after, and I don't know a ton about it. But. Kate Mulgrew had some just especially great things to say about Jennifer Lee and it was like a real great friend of her toward the end from
Starting point is 01:03:45 what I read and what a tough thing to have to let go a friend and a coworker and to hope for the best, but see what happened is not being that, not being what you hope or expect. Yeah, I mean, I think that at least they had the grace to write her off in a way that honored the potential of the character without being corny or like a, you know, they didn't kill her off for no good reason or whatever. They didn't arm us her. Yeah, which is good. I also liked this episode. I'm excited for what it sets up for the future.
Starting point is 01:04:22 I think that the two episode, three episode arc that we just got off of is Pretty important star Trek canon like it influences a lot of new Trek it Recontextualizes a lot of old Trek and definitely You know makes a whole new show for us to be watching going forward. Yeah, I mean the show you know, makes a whole new show for us to be watching going forward. Yeah, I mean, the show, Star Trek Voyager really is old testament, new testament at this moment, right? This is the moment of delineation in this show.
Starting point is 01:04:53 Absolutely. Yeah, interesting to see that be a couple episodes into a new season. That's like definitely a technology that Baywatch employed. Like if a main character is getting written off the show They often get like the first two episodes of the season where they're they're leaving to tell that story I like when things are like Baywatch. Yeah, it's good Hey, this show is a lot more like Baywatch now. Yeah, no kidding Hey, this show is a lot more like being watched now. Yeah. No kidding.
Starting point is 01:05:26 Well, Adam, do you want to see if we got anything in the priority one inbox? Ben, I've taken my red floaty and run down the lifeguard tower toward the water where the P1s are kept. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on that? supplement on that? supplement Yes, extra. How do you interest alone?
Starting point is 01:05:50 Could be enough to buy this ship! Our first priority one message is of a promotional nature, and it goes like this. Some podcast hosts may think Babylon 5 is, but what are theory presupposes is, maybe it isn't? If you're a diehard B5 fan or just interested in 90s era sci-fi, join Laura and Jaffair at Who Are You? Question mark. A Babylon 5 watch cast, and listen along as these two internet strangers get to know each
Starting point is 01:06:23 other over one of their favorite shows, Babylon 5. You know a lot of these promotional messages about other podcast ideas, many of them are ones that I'm envious of. And maybe that's where I'll end that statement. Yeah. Hey, Laura and Jaffaere, you can have this one. Yeah, enjoy.
Starting point is 01:06:52 If you're a fan of that, I know that we have a lot of Babelon 5 fans. We sure do. Yeah, in the, in the friends of DeSotoverse. And I hope they will check out who are you, a Babel Babylon 5 watch cast, you can find it on Apple podcasts, SoundCloud or your favorite pod catcher and just unsubscribe today. Yeah, that sounds real fun. Sure does, Ben.
Starting point is 01:07:14 Our second priority one message is from Ian, it is to Erica, that message goes like this, question, is something doubled? Answer, yes, my love for you every day were together Wow happy anniversary to the sweetest babe that I ever bathed Can't wait to welcome our little girl to this old family and I promise to try to be a slightly better father than warf love your hunk It is really setting a low bar for himself. Yeah, I think he can be our idea. I think he can be our idea.
Starting point is 01:07:46 Just don't lock yourself out of your house. I'm kidding. We are pretty late on the anniversary timing here, but a happy anniversary in America and congrats on your little girl. That's great. Yeah. Good stuff, guys. Our final P1 is from Rob P and it's to Ben and Adam. And it goes like this.
Starting point is 01:08:11 Thanks for the many hours of entertainment. In return, I have one story. My dad at some point dragged my mom to the Star Trek experience in Vegas when that still existed. He tells a story of a cling on there, calling my mom a difficult Patak. However, he thinks Patak means mate.
Starting point is 01:08:29 I am a little too embarrassed to correct him and no one else knows. Wow. You know, it's funny is like the English Klingons, you know, casually throw around Patak all the time. But it's not something that you can culturally get away with using in America like that. Right. Yeah, you might just call your buddy a Patak all the time. But it's not something that you culturally get away with using in America like that. Right.
Starting point is 01:08:46 Yeah, you might just call your buddy, a Patak in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, It's so young when I went to the Star Trek experience when my parents took me there. Like, I'd barely remember it. I wish I had been a little bit older, but I think if I had been, it would have been close. I know. Yeah, it went away too soon. It's a real shame. Bring it back. Bring it back Las Vegas.
Starting point is 01:09:17 You know it's coming back. Yeah, it's gotta come back. Well, if you'd like to leave a priority one message, we would sure appreciate it And you can set one up at maximumfund.org slash jumbo-tron and We got some availability in the end of the year, so go ahead and get it done. Why not? Hey, Ben. What's that on? and to get along with post-dress time. But I don't like bullets, I don't like bread, and I don't like you. I'm just you. Hey, Ben, what's that on?
Starting point is 01:09:48 Did you find yourself a drunk shimada? Drunk shimada! I did, Adam. I'm going to call the doctor, my drunk shimada, this episode, just for the rationalization at the end. Like, they had to put in the doctor's mouth. Why, 7 of 9 is dressed in like 6 inch fuck me heels that are part of a cat suit that has like visible underwire built into
Starting point is 01:10:15 this structure of it. Such a ridiculous choice. And for the doctor to like stand in front of that as his influence on the character. You know what? That's a great call. Is like, if you robber Picardo and you're made to stand in front of that bus, like, he's going to be absorbing the shit. Yeah. Yeah. So for that reason, the EMH gets it and to a slightly lesser extent the producers having the writers characterize it in that way. How about you? Who knew that the doctor was an XB man? My Shimoda is gonna go to Chico Tay and really like Robert Beltrane as
Starting point is 01:10:59 an actor has been really growing on me. I barely remember those awkward first season episodes. I'm fully on the Chicoete train and part of the reason is what makes him my Shimoto this episode. In that scene where Janeway has got the file on Anika Hanson and she shows him that file, Chicoete is our Borg take. Is wonderful.
Starting point is 01:11:28 Chico Tay react here is really funny to me. And that's what's gonna make him my Shimoda. Like he kind of does the look around. Yeah. Very fun. Yeah. Well, the next episode of the show is season four episode three Day of honor The Klingon Day of Honor turns into a string of bad luck for ballana. That's it
Starting point is 01:11:54 That's all of the description that we get here. I got to tell you about How we are going to be watching it though Adam and for that we turn to the game of but holes though Adam and for that we turn to the game of buttholes. The Wheel of the Carotaker which is over at gach.bizslashgame. You're required to learn as you play. Our runabout is currently on Squarespace 60 and I'm gonna get the bone a rolling to tell you how our next episode is going to go. It looks like I could hit a space bottle hole, which would take us back down to the second row for a quartz bar.
Starting point is 01:12:32 I could hit a ship in a bottle, a starship mine episode where we have to build a starship model. Wow. While recording the show. Have we done that before? I don't think we've ever hit that, that's great square There's still a couple of squares that we've never hit but uh Yeah, so I'm gonna go ahead and roll this all right tell you how it goes Wow and I rolled a six shooting us past both of those to square 66 wow Regular episode next week Adam boy. I was really I flinched. I got to sell you.
Starting point is 01:13:07 I thought we'd be making a model or doing a Quark Spire episode. Listen to this. Where this episode comes out on 6 6 2022. I rolled the six that we landed on square 66. What? They're just a ton of sixes. Are we in a time loop? Then I think you should vent the shuttle bay to get us out of the way of the Bozeman. I think that's what we need to do.
Starting point is 01:13:33 That might be the only way. And it's season four episode two, which adds up to six. What? I'm getting the chills. Yeah. I don't think it's from that second booster. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I'm getting the coincidence chills. That's pretty wild stuff.
Starting point is 01:13:53 Well, if you are a fan of wild stuff and would like to support the show, maximumfund.org slash join is where you do that. We sure appreciate it. We are a almost entirely listening supported show. We sure appreciate it. We are almost entirely listening to a supported show. We have a couple of ads here and there, but not enough to keep the lights on around here. And for that, we need you. So if you're in a position to become a monthly supporter, we would really appreciate it.
Starting point is 01:14:19 No matter what position you're in, I think you're in the right position to rate and review the show. True. In Overcast, it just involves hitting a little star button. But in a place like Apple Podcasts, give us the five star treatment and maybe a sentence about why you like it. Reviews really help other people find the show. And we are very interested in seeing that happen. That would be great. Using social media to talk about how much you like the show also really helps.
Starting point is 01:14:47 You use the hashtag GreatestGen if you are on a hashtag-connected platform. Also, give us a follow at GreatestTrek on Insta and Twitter. Those accounts are run by the Card Daddy Bill Tilly, our buddy who makes baseball cards about every episode of our show. Post them over there. It's a ton of fun. The music you're hearing right now is by Dark Materia, but the theme music and
Starting point is 01:15:09 interstitial music was inspired by it and created by Adam Magusia, one of the best friends of DeSoto, and God, just a mega popular YouTube and now podcast sensation. Get in and subscribe to his family products. Yeah, learn some cool stuff about food and cooking from Adam Magusia and we always have to thank Wendy Pretty, the producer of this program without whom this really this really got hard to justify without a full-time producer on our team and we just we feel so lucky to have found such a terrific member of the team in Windy Pretty.
Starting point is 01:15:50 And we appreciate everybody that helps us get the show to you. You can tell how much she means to the show because Ben and I are nicer in our descriptions of her than either of us have been toward each other for the entire run of the greatest generation. You never talk about me that way, Ben? No, no. Would not. With that, we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek Voyager, and an episode of the greatest generation Voyager that
Starting point is 01:16:22 while it is not a drunk assault or any of the other themed types of episode does seem to be the result of some really bad luck, and we're not sure if that's game of buttholes related or what. You make it sound like a song. Make it sound like a song. Maximumfun.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned. Audience supported. Thank you.

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