The Greatest Generation - One Terrible Element (S3E2)

Episode Date: July 13, 2016

When a race of Hefty bags wants to tarp over a planet with 15,000 humans living on it, the Enterprise has to consider taking them on a Kid Rock cruise. The only crewmember immune to the local radiation is Data, so he beams down only to find an obtuse demagogue with a weird voice is running the place, and the guy doesn’t believe that the Hefty corporation even exists. Is Data a secret practitioner of rave hand jive, or does he just have invisible balls to play with? Why is Gosheven sounding so thirsty? Are Lenny and Carl on loan from The Simpsons? It’s the episode in which we award some T-shirts.

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. Last time on Star Trek, the next generation. It sounds like data is going to engage in some sort of limb for hostage exchange. This is probably in my top 10. Whoa!

I like this episode a lot. There's a cool alien threat, and I think the episode is interesting. I don't know, man. That sounds pretty talking. Yeah, really kind of a shameful description. Sad. Yeah, fuck this episode. I'm gonna feed to it. Fuck you! Why are you serious?

Are you seriously vetoing? I kinda wanna see what's gonna happen. I can't allow you to veto this episode. Because I will have to burn my veto. And then we have an entire season in front of us that... No! I counteract your veto! What do you think about that? You fucked us again Adam.

Cut, damn it. As now the conclusion. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage. Welcome to the greatest generation of Star Trek Podcast by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to be recording a Star Trek Podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pranaka. You know Ben, that is the highest rated Star Trek Podcast out there.

Yeah, the number one Star Trek podcast on the internet. According to reviews, it's true. Yeah. It's us. You can't argue with reviews heavily cajoled out of their audience by the podcasters. Like some kind of hostage situation. Yeah.

Somebody was threatening us on Twitter that if we ever veto an episode, they will one star us on iTunes. I tweeted back at this person and I will repeat that here. We do not negotiate with star terrorists. It's true. And the subject of vetoes is fresh in my mind because we don't have any for the rest of this entire season. And we're only on episode two. Yeah, that was, that was my doing. That's me. That was a, a real like the Joker kind of moment.

Some men aren't looking for anything logical like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Yeah, it was, wasn't it? That was, that was some sick shit. It felt great. Try to top that next season. I doubt you could.

I don't know, yeah, like, I don't even know, man. Like, you know what's great is next season is so far away. Like, this will just be a very distant memory, but- Yeah, but it's also like, it was so fucked up that I don't- Like, don't even know what to think about the world anymore. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha I think that this is also an episode that people have been waiting for because we are going to reveal the winners of our contest. That's right. We read 109 reviews, Ben.

It's pretty awesome. Was it 109? I thought it was more than that. Could have been more. I counted 109. I think you may be a little bit low. But we read a lot, we paired it down to five faves in the Funniness Department. So I think, well, how should we do this?

I think we should do our funniest podcast review first. And for those just tuning in, we've been running a contest to get us up over the threshold on iTunes whereby the t-shirts supplier for our podcast network maximum fun will print t-shirts for us. And we are, we blew past it in a big way. And we just wanna say thank you to everybody that helped out on that really awesome.

We narrowed it down to like our five funniest and we'll reveal the one that we thought was the funniest at the end. Sounds good to me, let's do it. So I think we should probably make clear that this was a pretty difficult contest to judge. We had a lot of great entries. I think any one of these five,

especially could have counted as our favorite one. Absolutely. This is rare fight air. Do you want to kick it off? Yeah. So the fifth in our funniest is from Jake L. titled Harrison and Pranika at Chamoda. Edo, when the knuck rocked,

Quinn and Picard, his dog bigged, data in YAR, fully functional. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Uh, I like his dog bigged. Yeah. Yeah, it's a, it's a Darmock and Jolod style construction, but with, uh, with all in jokes from our show, which probably not going

to make somebody who's on the fence click subscribe, but definitely tickled my funny bone. Or someone who hasn't watched that episode, like TNG before? Yeah. But I don't think we've ever let narrow comedy stop us from dropping a 2% or like that, so. No. Good job, Jake. On brand. Our next iTunes review comes from Jessica T. Headline Great Show.

I listen to the show while making dinner. I get excited when it downloads and clap giddily before playing it. My husband rolls his eyes and asks, what the hell are you listening to? And then I hear him stifle after as he pretends he's not listening. This, uh, it sounds like we gave some poor woman the clap. I just also felt like a lot of kinship with this one because I kind of feel like it jibes with our wives relationship with the show. Yeah.

I feel like there's a lot of spouses that are being pulled into this situation against their wills. And I love the picture that Jessica paints here. Yeah, it's sort of a hostility that gives way to like grudging acceptance. Yeah. That's our show. Really beautiful. Thanks Jessica. Number three, Anthony S.

left a review entitled, years are for listening. We look for things. Adam and Ben are smart. We look for things to make us go, ha. We are listening. Years are for listening. make us go, ha, we are listening. Years are for listening. Make us go, ha. Well done. I just, it really ends on a down note.

I just, I'm picturing a guy, like I don't know why, but in like an empty loft, like an abandoned loft building, just standing alone in this room, saying, make us go, huh? No, moody. Except for the critical mistake of calling them listeners instead of viewers.

I thought this review was fantastic. And that might have been the little thing that gave it the edge, wouldn't it? Yeah, yeah. Still a great review. Solid. Solid as seers. Thanks Anthony. Number two was submitted by Nathan R. Headline changed my life for the better. Since listening to Greatest Gen, my wife and son are staying with the in-laws,

and my friends won't return my calls. But now I rock righteous moose-knuck. Five stars. So we've gotten this guy to hike his pants up a little. Yeah, it's not all bad for him. It's not all bad for Nathan. Yeah. Real funny. It is family leave him because of the knuck. Like, it's sort of an order of operations issue that I'm thinking about right now. Yeah, I guess we'll never know. But that is a really funny,

that's a really funny review and made me laugh a lot. Yeah, yeah, good job. All right, drum roll, please. Our number one funniest review sent in by John S. And it is entitled Best Biff Yeager Centric World War II cast. This has slowly become my favorite Biff Yeager podcast, beating out Biffcast, Yeager lore, and even the sadly cancelled WearingarGyle. The fact is, none of those shows really talked about Biff Yeager as much as they should.

And I'll admit, I don't quite get the World War II tie-in, but I trust Adam and Ben, who are professional documentarians. Adam almost made a documentary about the long winters. Five stars, it's great. That knife twist at the end is solid. And thanks, Sean. And he just, like, the amount of nonsense that he managed to fall in.

Yeah, that's really well done. Big fan, John, nice work. Well, Adam, we talked about this a little bit before we started rolling. Nathan R is getting the honorable mention. John is getting the gold star. I think both of them deserve a t-shirt. I think so too. Let's do it. We're going to send Nathan a triple XL size shirt that he can then tie at the bottom,

like in between his legs to achieve maximum knuck. Yeah. And just to set some expectations, we are literally doing this t-shirt thing for the first time. We have no idea how long it's going to take to get set up. It might be like weeks, it might be a month or two. So this is happening.

It's just we can't make any promises about how fast yeah We're really motivated to get it done Quickly that's for sure. It's just not it's not only up to us is sort of the issue Now we're working on graphics though So we're getting closer on choosing those and I think it's gonna turn out great Yeah, do you want to move on, Adam, to the random chance winner? Sounds good. So we have 114 entries.

What I'm going to do is use a random number generator to choose a number between those two numbers and including those two numbers, Okay? Are you ready? Yeah, I feel like we should have some suspenseful music here. Maybe I'll just, we've got all those cues from who wants to be a millionaire that I downloaded. So. Great. I am about to hit the button. The button has been hit.

The number is 45. Our 45th review in this contest comes from Joshua R. Who writes, headline, sexy Mormons. It was when Adam referred to the Edo as looking like filthy porn stars, but they're really like sexy Mormons that I knew I was hooked. These guys have amazing chemistry, a great sense of humor, and say the most ridiculous and intelligent things that leave me in stitches. This is not your mom's Star Trek podcast. It's way better than anyone could have hoped.

Not a Star Trek fan who cares. Listen to these guys for Smart Hilarious Banner. Hey, that's a great review. This guy might be listening to a different show. Star Trek fan who cares? Listen to these guys for smart, hilarious banter. Hey, that's a great review. This guy might be listening to a different show. Yeah. Yeah. A little too nice there.

Fredably flattering. Josh. Wow, thanks, Josh. Sorry about lumping your name in with people who vape. Josh gets a shirt. Yeah. Good job, Josh. Cool. So we will send emails out to those lucky folks and lucky

and talented folks. And so everybody else, thank you so much for entering. And we will announce it as soon as they are available when the Max Fun Store has West Hot Americans Emmer shirts for purchase. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, guys.

It's a crazy experience. What was the leading face? Have you gone blinded within yourself to stand up? Tell the truth. You don't deserve the wealth that you've never owned. Let's turn our attention to season three, episode two, Entons of Command. Ben, you said this episode was in your top 10 ever.

Yeah, I stand by that. Huh. He just agreed. Yeah, kind of do. Well, let's start talking about it. Okay. This is an episode that opens on a classical music concert that's going to pop off and tend forward. Data comes in with his violin and notices that Picard and Dr. Crusher are on a little bit of a date and yeah sure looks like it huh? Comes over and asks them to fuck off because he doesn't think he's very good at violin. And so they, oh. Go ahead, go ahead, I'm listening. Now, just so everybody knows, we started in the AM your time.

It's recording this show. The clock just struck noon, my time. Okay, so that's what this podcast has driven you to. So this episode has driven me to. And the captain, as is his want, turns data's admonishment into a little teachable moment on leadership. And the upshot that data, the data gets is that excessive honesty when he says that he's not a great violinist is often not the best thing. Especially if you're trying to be a leader.

Yeah, data does that like that level setting of like, look you guys, you're, you're going to hate this because while I'm a great technical violin player, I'm someone who also can't feel any emotions. So if you're here for emotional violin playing, you should probably go somewhere else. You should probably pay attention to Chief O'Brien who is playing the cello, right? Right. That's kind of fun.

Yeah, that's like a character trait of Chifo Brian's that I feel like never comes back. I could be wrong about that, but I don't feel like he's the cello type in deep space nine. Yeah, I don't know if they ever return to that, but I like that they're sort of trying to shoehorn him into episodes. Like, we need another string player.

Who can we use? Yeah, we write two lines for him every other episode. Let's flesh his character out a bit. No wonder he's so sad. So Picard does that thing where he takes a call in a movie theater. Like the quartet starts playing. The card takes a call and then he just walks the fuck out of 10 forward. And and for a man who has zero emotion, data

just looks so fucking destroyed by this. He stops playing. He is crestfallen. He can do a billion computations a second, but Picard walking out on him during a recital, like, just destroys him. It was kind of sad. I think that there's a lot of overstatement of how little emotion data it has in the field. I think that there's like, at this point, a long track record of data having feelings. Not like, it's not like his emotions don't rule his existence the way they do the human characters, but he fucking has them. You can have feelings about things without having emotions

attached to those feelings, right? Like, would you say that feelings and emotions are mutually exclusive? Or can we? We did not come in here to split hairs like that. We came here to make dick and fart jokes, okay? Sure thing, boss. Which all of a fucking hefty bag aliens.

All of which that is to say data looks like sad enough to stick his dick into a dimensional portal. Yeah. Yeah, if we thought his death wish was bad before, all he needs is a solo mission on a planet where he can be by himself, which is the thing to come. What's happening here is the shelliac are hollering at the enterprise to say that they've got this planet scheduled for shelliac colonization.

The federation seeded this planet to the shelliac in a treaty. There are some terms in the treaty that force the shelliac to notify the federation that there are human colonists on this planet. If this treaty wasn't in place, the Shelliac wouldn't think twice about exterminating the colonists without telling anybody, but they're following the rules. And the Shelliac are kind of one of these inscrutable, powerful, and xenophobic races that we encounter,

or they don't think that human life is worth anything, but somehow it's been convinced to play by the rules with humans when it comes to this treaty. So the enterprises on mission to go see if they can scare up what humans these shelliac are talking about so that they don't get melted. Their impression is that it won't be a big deal to scoop up these colonists and take them somewhere else.

Like fine, we can observe the details of the treaty. These bag people have every right to have this planet. We'll just swing by, pick these people up and move them somewhere else. Yeah, and like, there's no record of there being humans there. So they picture it being, you know, a small renegade type of operation. But when they show up, they find that the, I guess it's the atmosphere of the planet is full of hyperonic radiation, which is like not something that humans are supposed to be able to survive, but somehow there's evidence of a colony below.

Yeah, and the radiation is the reason that they've got to send data down in one of his bunk bed shuttles. Right. Yeah. Like no human being could survive, could tolerate the radiation except for the settlers who have managed to survive it. Right. And unclear like what their work around was, but it's not available to the enterprise on

short notice. This is becoming a speech. You're the captain, so very entitled. I'm going to type a ramble on about something everyone knows. Data flies down there, lands, and a couple of local goofesses happen upon his bed. They kind of remind me of the two guys on the Simpsons who drink at Moes with Lover and Carl. Yeah, they're totally Lennian Carl. Hey, watch the skydower here. I don't know. His shadow looks like a bunk bed. They're like, hey, like you must be from the Federation. This is really cool. Why don't we take you take you to our leader? And so they

take him back to the colony and there he meets a man named Goshiven who is the elected leader of this colony and is like basically like reflexively tells Dated a fuck off with his evacuation mission. Yeah. The most sensible course of action is to prepare a contingency plan for the evacuation of your people. We're not evacuating. Doesn't take it seriously at all. He's like, we're not going anywhere.

Go fuck yourself, Android man. And his reason seems like, he's like, I brought water here. I think we're gonna be sticking around. Like he's obsessed with this whole water situation, which I mean, he's basically created Las Vegas in the desert, right? Right.

He's like, he turns the data and he says, I've brought amazing water down here, some of the best water on the planet. It's very little hyperonic radiation. People love my water. Let me tell you, when you taste my water, you're going to be sick of other water. Yeah.

The thing about Goshavin is he establishes his assholary right away. Yeah, early and often. There's just no doubting it. Was there something that you noticed about him that was a little weird to you? Are you talking about his voice, Adam? I am. I am.

Yeah, this is the one truly black mark on this episode in my opinion, is the man that is acting on screen is not the man whose voice you are hearing in this episode. Like I guess the actor didn't didn't love his performance and also his voice sounded weird. It's unclear who didn't like what. Right. But what is what is clear is that his voice was not appropriate for the role and so they looped someone else's top of it. Maybe he sounded... From what I read is that he sounded too much like John Wayne.

Really? Yeah. Wouldn't you like to hear that version? I would love to hear that. It'd be great if you could hit the SAP button on your own and suddenly get the John Wayne version of Goshavin. Yeah, that'd be cool. Another thing about the guy who plays Goshavin is that he's married to Michelle Phillips.

The blonde lady who is married to the time scientist and will always have Paris. Oh, really? Yeah, so it's a real like incestuous actor thing happening on the show. Yeah, wow. Kind of great. I like that. Data discovers that this is a colony of 15,000 people. It was like a colony ship called the Artemis

that landed there almost a hundred years ago. He ran 80 years up and Picard's like, okay, well, if it's 15,000 people and we can't use the transporters, how long is it going to take us to get everybody onto the enterprise? And Warf does some calculations, it's like months. And it's, but they like totally leave aside the fact

that they're talking about 16 tumbling the number of people on the enterprise. Yeah, how do they think they're actually going to do this logistically if they were to do it over those over those months? It really makes me wonder how big the enterprise is supposed to be. Are they expecting people to sleep in bunk beds and in hallways? I think that's the expectation. Have you ever been on a cruise ship at them? No, no, I haven't. Is it like that?

I have been on a cruise ship at him? No, now I haven't. Is it like that? I have been on a cruise ship that had, I think, well, I've been on two cruises. I think they were basically the same size of boat each time and they had 2,500 people on them. And it is, it's a lot like a floating hotel, but like you get the sense of the space fairly quickly. And it's not a huge space. Like I feel like less than half that number of people, like is the kind of number of people where you know everybody's face, it's not like a city in space. It's like a small town in space. How long does it take you to walk completely around a cruise ship?

Like if you're on one of the upper decks and you just wanted to walk around it. Not more than like 20 or 30 minutes. Huh. Like. And is that like through the walls of shit that are like raining down on everyone or is that like avoiding those walls of shit?

Yeah. I'm factoring in the number of times you have to stop and barf over the edge. These are the Kid Rock cruises that you attend, right? Yes, but you know it just makes me wonder like is the enterprise have a thousand people on it and it can accommodate 15,000 more? Or is it, are they talking about stacking and racking these people? I don't understand how it's a choice of sticking around for months and doing this versus, I mean, our other ships, months and months away from the enterprise at this point. Yeah, we never know that the answer to that kind of question.

Yeah, it's weird. Anyways. Anyways, this is a real problem because the shelliac are on their way and they want to colonize this planet with the quickness. And I guess they've given a four day warning. When you're a hefty bag alien, your idea of colonization I guess is like laying down a bunch of that weed tarping that you put on a lawn before you plant over it.

Is that what that looks like when you're in a hefty bag? Yeah, I think so. They are going to kill whatever is left at the planet. Yeah, they made that pretty clear. Right. So, the other person Data meets is a Lovely young woman with really fetching bangs Named Adrian, Adrian

Adrian God, Adrian is super foxy except I think she's an HD casualty. She's got sort of a Rauho Julia mustache going on. Did you read any of that on your TV? Because I definitely got I did I thought it was for that. Oh, okay. It's nice So she's like obsessed with data from jump she expresses early and often that she has a major Robo crush on him Because she's a robot robot crush on him.

Because she's a robot person. Like she builds them and like when he goes to her apartment, it's like full of MST3K representations of robots. Like, that is not a joke. Like I think Tom Servo is in that apartment. Yeah, I think you're right. And unclear if that's a sculpture or if that's like a work in progress of some kind of sex bot that she's making for herself.

But... Or did she get a bowling pin? He just kept talking one long incredibly unbroken sentence moving from topic to topic to that no one had the chance to think the topic was really quiet, if not, if not. So here's the tension is, Goshavin is not down with a rescue of any kind and is leaning heavily on the people of this colony

to disregard the warnings that data is giving him. All that being said, the enterprise couldn't even beam everybody up if they wanted to. They don't have enough time. And so there's a hilarious sea storyline where chief O'Brien and Jury are tasked with coming up with a way to make a transporter beam's work despite the hyperonic radiation

that this planet suffers from. So they kept they just do you think that was a punishment for O'Brien's poor cello playing. Picard's like, this guy fucking sucks. We need to give him a job so that he never plays again. Why did Jordan get the back splash just to provide legitimacy for it? I guess. Well, he's the chief engineer. Just to provide legitimacy for it? I guess. Well, he's the chief engineer he has to be involved.

I guess so. So there's just a bunch of scenes where they're like, they've got like test cylinders that they're beaming back and forth from the planet and they come back all, all meltified. They're beaming them down and then beaming the back and they're bloody for some reason? Yeah, and Picard will come in and be like Now are we progressing, Mr. Lefort? About like you'd expect, so splendid, splendid, carry on

Just bad Yeah, you can't really be sure that he's not fucking with him Yeah, it seems like the engineering equivalent of Riker and Geinen teaching Teaching smooth talking to Wesley Riker and Geinen teaching, teaching smooth talking to Wesley. Yeah. And data, I mean, this, this is now the second time the data sort of loses confidence in this episode. He, uh, he tries to convince Gochevin and the townspeople that they got to leave. Gochevin's not having it. And so he radios up to Riker and he's like, look, man, they're not really here in what I'm saying.

And Riker's like, do a better job. Yeah. Like he doesn't really have practical advice other than do more. Seriously. And so data is in this crazy situation where he asked to sort of be a diplomat and a politician, like more a politician really than anything, he has to convince these people that the guy that they elected to lead them is wrong and is not just wrong, is putting their lives in danger. Yeah, and like the thing with Goshivan that makes him a fucking idiot is that like he's got his own set of facts that don't, they don't match up with reality at all. Like his assumptions are just wrong.

Data is saying that a ship is coming that's gonna kill them all. And go shaman's like, yeah, we can fight them off. Look at all these people in robes. Like we can do that. Like he just doesn't, he's not listening to reason at all. And the other people not listening to reason are the shelliac.

They are, you know, Picard is like, we need more time, just give us like a couple of months, we'll get these guys out of here, you'll have a clean human free planet. And the shelliac are quite insistent that they are going to start colonizing in four days, whether the enterprise likes it or not. And so, and they keep like hanging up on Picard, you know,

they keep, Picard keeps getting on the FaceTime with the Shelliac and begging them for some leniency with regard to the treaty and they just they just hang the phone up on him. It's mad disrespectful. Yeah, really like underscores how little the Shelliac feel about human beings at all. Like they just really can't be bothered with that. Ironic that the trash bag people treat humans like trash. It's like, come up and... There's a great scene with Troy and Picard talking about how they can talk to the shelliac in a way that is going to be persuasive. And they have this really interesting speculative fiction conversation about language, where she holds up a cup of coffee and she says some nonsense word,

and he has to guess what she means by it and he says, Bloss. Are you sure I may have meant liquid, clear, brown, hot? We conceive of the universe relatively similarly. The shelliac are a totally different thing. We cannot project ourselves into their minds. We have no theory of mind for these guys. And I think it's like, this is a great moment that crystallizes something about what's so good about season three and beyond that sucked about seasons one and two. It's like, this is what the Haradun episode

should have been. Yeah. Like instead, Picard goes and goofs around as Dixon Hill for the entire episode, but there was like an actual interesting idea to explore there. Yeah. Yeah, that was way more interesting than Picard putting on a fucking hat. Totally. And this also, I feel like really presages the Darmac episode. Like, it's, I think, a really like important and cool scene. It seems like, instead of ubering a bunch of people around,

the show should be about this more than anything. Talking to weird people that you don't understand and trying to come to some sort of agreement on a conflict. Yeah. Like this is the show. Totally. But it rarely is. Yeah, they get there from time to time.

Yeah. And this is like a brief moment in this show, you know. But I think it feels really special to me. And I think it was special to me when I was a kid watching it. Like it's something I've always remembered about Star Trek. My love is a people longing to my back, which long does not let me see. The clock is running down and data goes to this big meeting that they're having with the colonists and attempts to basically scare everybody into agreeing with him and it doesn't work. So he winds up essentially forming a resistance cell with

Ardrian and her pals. And they're having their first meeting about how to convince more people about data's point when Goshirvan shows up and tasers him. Well, let me tell you something. and Goshavin shows up and like tasers him. Well, let me tell you something. Data gets like knocked out on the floor. Yeah, and I don't know if Goshavin thinks he's murdered him or not. Yeah, it's pretty like a complete...

It's kind of cold-blooded. It's a pretty ruthless move and it's brutal, but you know, I guess you can see where he thinks that data is a threat to his colony because data is creating unrest and instability and discord among the colonists. Like Tegoshaven, the threat of the Shaliac is totally untrue and unreal. I don't know, I guess he really only can deal with the problems that he has directly in front of him, if that means anything. I think this really plants the seed of rage in data. Totally.

Like, data gets chaos, and then I think the gloves come off as far as what he's going to do to convince these people. And I think part of it is like, you know, everyone's going to die if they stay. So there are really no limits to what data can do to convince them to leave. Because like the sum of the game is everyone dying. Right. So data wakes up, he does some rave, hand jive to test that he's in working order.

Were you ever friends with people who enjoyed electronic dance music? Ben? Yeah, that's why I called it rave handjive. Oh man, I had a roommate in college who was into the rave handjive. And would just randomly drop that. Like he'd be having a conversation with you and he'd make the invisible ball. Yeah, I was writing a subway in New York one, so the friend of mine who's a big burning man guy,

and there was a kid on the subway that was doing that kind of stuff to impress a, like he was like a high school kid and he was trying to impress a girl with all his crazy hand jive, and my friend leaned over and he was like, this kid is fucking sick. Oh no, he was impressed by that. Yeah, because he's like a big burning man guy and that's an important part of their culture.

When you don't have a vape pen to impress people, it's important to like conjure invisible balls to play with. Yeah, but I think this is the first time we see the new phaser. This is the post Dustbuster 1.0 phaser that data goes and gets. Geez, I didn't get that. It just looked like a dustbuster to me. You gotta go back and look, man.

It's a distinctly new form. I mean, it's still a dustbuster format, but it's like, it's a sleek modern dustbuster for the housewife on the go. So it's like what the Previa is to the bunk bed, the new dust buster is to the old dust buster? Yeah, I think it's a little bit more tactical and a little bit meaner looking. It's a rounder, you would say?

I think it's actually more squared off. I think the old one is rounder. Okay. So not as easy to insert then. Yeah, it's a little bit, you need a little bit more lube with the new model. That's what Goshiven's waters for. Data takes some like pieces out of his body to modify this phaser so that it will work in the hyperonic radiation, which I guess would have normally scattered the phaser so that it will work in the hyperonic radiation, which I guess would have normally

scattered the phaser beam. And he tells them to warn Goshivan that he's going to go blow up the water supply. And he shows up in the town square and starts like, like they've got like a bunch of guys with like rifles standing guard over the water supply, which is like the central important feature of this town square. And we should also talk about how this town square is like the prototype for all exterior town sets

that we come to see in the show. Like, everything is like a covered walkway and a courtyard. Like, there's never any long sight lines of any kind in an exterior set on this show. Yeah, it's like Colonial Williamsburg a little bit. Like, everything's covered so that tourists can still come visit in the rain. Right.

But is it pretty like a fun combat scene where data guns down a whole bunch of guys on the stun setting? And then he like turns the dustbuster up to full suck and blasts the water system. And he cuts you like a wide matte painting as this explosion ramifies out through the entire plumbing of the colony. Data murders their water. Yeah. This might be the most badass scene that data's ever been in.

It was pretty badass. He takes out three guards and then blows up a water supply. And then he starts talking shit, which is great. He's like, look you guys. I'm just a robot man with one phaser. You think these fucking hefty bags are even gonna come down here to kill you? No. They're gonna stay in orbit and they're gonna bombard you with their ship weaponry.

And you won't even have a chance to fight back. Game over man, it's game over. Yeah. Yeah. Game Over, man! Game Over! Yeah, yeah. Dabok and Jalat and Denarga. A greatest-gen live show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre- and post-show hangs, to make friends,

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

We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We got stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Naswald. Could I get a ball-rog 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 Goat try. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, rice. Hey, baby. Oh, I'm about to count you in mine. 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. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah?

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

We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org. against the shelliac. So he and Troy beam over to the shelliac ship. And it's like the dark and evil version of the fortress of solitude. Like there's a lot of crystals everywhere, but everything's dark and gloomy.

And there's like an inflated garbage bag squishing around in the center of it. And the debate is over a loophole in the treaty, which is that he says that there's a dispute and any dispute in the treaty, you can call for a third party arbitrate arbiter and you can pick whichever species you want to arbitrate. And he picks a species called the Grusellas. arbiter and you can pick whichever species you want to arbitrate.

And he picks a species called the grisellas and I guess they're a sentient race that all hibernate at the same time. They're an hibernation for the next six months. So he offers the Shaliac corporate guy a choice. They can wait for the grisezzelas or they can give him a few more weeks to get a colony ship out to the planet and pick up these colonists. I like the idea of like there's the Shaleiac

and then there's the Shaleiac corporate. Yeah. Which are even worse to deal with, I imagine. Mm-hmm. I've been listening. Like so much red tape. Listen. I've been listening. Like so much red tape. Listen, I've been dealing with the Shelley Act for years. I make the best deals with the Shelley Act.

They've been screwing us for a long time, and when I'm captain of the Enterprise, we're making Trump be every character in this episode. I guess. Yeah. The hefty bag guy just sort of snaps his weird hand and flings them back to the enterprise, right? Yeah, he summarily beams them back to the bridge, but they eventually get the Shelley Act to realize that that's like if they're if they're going to be such dickheads about following the rules, this is what following the rules is.

if they're going to be such dickheads about following the rules, this is what following the rules is. So they give them the three weeks. And it's just in time for data to actually convince Goshevon to back off and agree to the evacuation. And Goshevon is confronted with the fact that he's been holding on to power on behalf of what is essentially an object. And data speaks very passionately about the fact that things can be replaced and human lives cannot. Yeah, interesting line of dialogue coming from a thing. Yeah. So Ben, I got a question for you.

Sure. What do you think was the limit on what data would do to get the people to evacuate the planet? Do you think you would have gone as far as murdering Gosevin? I don't think he would have gone that far, but I think that's more about his other feelings than, you know, the calculus he's made about how to go about this. But it's, I mean, he's, he's definitely pushed to it. He's coldly calculating, like, needs the many needs of the few fart noise. Like, if he's, if he's put that together, I think Ghaven's got to be on the table as far as people to take out.

But at the same time, who knows if the colonists would be convinced to go with a man who just came down and assassinated their leader? I don't know, if he assassinated Goshaven in a really fun way, I think that could really make some people fall in line. Fair enough. God, we're just staggering to the end of this, aren't we? The Enterprise successfully arbitrates their dispute with the Shaleiac. The last scene on board the planet's surface is Ardrian saying goodbye to data. And at this moment in time, Ardrian's feel pretty lustily towards her departing robot man and lays one on him. The response that she gets from data is not exactly warm.

No. Yeah, he's perplexed. Let's put it that way. That doesn't do well for her. She kind of takes it as an insult for moving along. Yeah, and so when he's leaving the shoes on the other foot and he tries to comfort her with a kiss, and it's, I feel like another example of data being more, having more feeling than, than he'll cop to.

It's in keeping with the motif from the very beginning, right? He's saying one thing, but he's, he's feeling another, or at least he's feeling things differently than what he's describing to other people. Yeah. And I think that she being a roboticist kind of gets it. You know, she doesn't, her feelings are not hurt. Like she kissed a ton of robots in her apartment. Yeah. I think this was probably expected. Yeah. You saw the, you saw the remnants of slumber on that one that, that one that she had hanging, hanging up in the corner, right? Yeah. The one that looked like a Hattachi magic wand.

So the, the last scene is data reporting back to Picard after his long soldier and on the planet surface. And Picard is listening to a tape of data's performance that he ran out on. And Picard is very complimentary of it, and they have a little back and forth about whether data should feel proud of the selection of performances to imitate that he made. Yeah, the idea being that, you know, data might not be playing with any emotion because of his perceived in capability of that. But the idea that any one or anything could put together,

the playing style of several musicians and like combine them in a way that works. And it's pleasant to listen to. Yeah, it's totally creative and cool. And Picard calls them on that. Totally. I think that anybody that listens to this show knows that it's really just us stealing our favorite parts of a few podcasts and putting them together. Right. You combine a couple of elements into one terrible element, which is you and me. Yeah.

It's just a terrible element. Are there any other scenes you wanted to discuss? Yeah, I just wanted to call out one little detail that I thought was real fun. With the HD upgrade, you can actually read what's on screen when they're looking at the treaty. And there's a couple of, like, one of the, the first couple of sentences are sentences of the section that they're referencing are, we can do search and replace. Come to think of it, that's what the Shelliac want to do with the colony on the planet.

This section deals with the right of each party to confer with the other in the event of something screwy happening with the treaty. I love it when the art department throws in stuff like that. Like you could never have read that at standard definition, but that's so much better at so much better than Laura I'm Ipsom bullshit too. Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, I if people want to check that out, it's at 38 minutes and 22 seconds into the episode. Fun fun little easter eggs in there. As you were watching, did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda! Drunk Shimoda is our award we give to a character who's doing something silly in the episode,

it's named after Assistant Chief Engineer Jim Shimoda from episode two of the series. And my drunk Shimoda for this episode is Commander Riker. We talked about this a little bit that he's really pissed at data when data doesn't just phone up and report his unqualified success the first time he calls back to the ship. He tells data to use that fancy positronic brain of his to complete his mission. I just think that Rekker really showed himself to be like pissed off that he didn't have any sexy babes to Smarmon in this episode. Like it's only a rare episode where he's stuck on the ship and the hot babel on the planet's surface is not in his crosshairs.

Yeah, real missed opportunity for him who would love to be on a planet surface by himself the way data is. Yeah. Ardrian basically would have no chance. Gochivan probably wouldn't either. I mean, Lenin Carl would be walking scruely for days. If there's one man who enjoys wearing an open robe,

it's a roller-wrecker. Yeah, how about yourself? Did you have a drunk remoda? I kind of did and but I went outside the show like Ben we've seen now 49 episodes of this fine television series and I just don't know how this could make anyone's top 10 So my drunk tomato Shemota is you. Woo. Because, uh, well, I think it might have been built up like to hear you, you proactively put it into the top 10, I think might have informed any opinion that I went into the episode with that maybe I shouldn't have had and

that made me scrutinize it a bit more. But man, this is definitely not in the top 10 for me. This may be number 10 of the bottom 10 for me. Wow. I just didn't feel it. I apologize if I improperly hyped it for you. I didn't say it was my number one. It's definitely not my top five, but I think that it's an episode that I remember very clearly from watching it as a kid and I think it's

an episode that more fully realizes a lot of the show's potential than has been done in the past. And you know, we talked about that a little bit like the the level of depth into which they go with thinking about what communicating with an alien is going to be like. And I think data's journey is actually interesting in this. I think for those reasons you're totally right. And I think this is going to happen more often to us on this show as like the feelings in retrospect are squared up with the feelings we get when we watch it.

Yeah, like I can't say by any means that it's a perfect episode and there's like some very glaring problems with it, but I think that I have a fondness for it that is based on the merits of it. Yeah, I mean, the same thing happened to me when we watched peak performance. Like, that I recall as being one of my favorite episodes of the series. And then to watch it again, I was like, eh, that's not great. So I'm sure I'm going to go into a plenty of these with top 10 feelings and then come out of it feeling like, yeah, that was pretty good, but I don't know.

Well, I stand by it, but I will take my Shremota. Yeah, I apologize for Shemota-ing at you, but there you go. You're crawling up the Shimoda rankings. That's one of our great listeners has put together a graph of all the Shimoda awards throughout the seasons. That's fun stuff. What do we have coming up on the next episode? The next episode is episode three of season three, the Survivors. The crew travels to Rana 4, a remote colony, where just two of its 11,000 inhabitants have miraculously survived a devastating attack.

Do you remember this episode, Adam? I do. Remember this episode. This is the episode where a couple of olds are the only ones left on a planet that was destroyed. Yeah. And they got this weird house, like this Malibu house. Total Malibu house, yeah. And they, and they like dance. Those are the things that I remember. I don't remember why I don't hate this episode.

It sounds awful. Yeah. If, I don't have like a knee jerk bad feeling though. If instead of the preview, like it was just that description. Yeah, I think that'd be a skipper for sure. Yeah, well, neither of us has any vetoes so you can just shut up about that even being a possibility. Yeah. If you would like to discuss the show with us, there's a whole bunch of ways that you can do that. You can go to the hashtag GreatestGen on Twitter. I'm at BenjaminR, AER, and Adam is at Cut for Time.

You can also go to Reddit, where we're on our slash Maximum Fund, and our slash GreatestGen. flash greatest gin. It's right. We also have a couple of places on Facebook. If you search Facebook for greatest gin, we've got our page, which is sort of the official page of the show. And we've also got a group where a whole bunch of horrible things are happening, with respect to people posting pictures of themselves, wearing uniforms, telling embarrassing stories, editing together tribute videos

to engineer Shimoda. Like, there's some really great stuff over there. It's pretty solid. Yeah. And so the pages, like just kind of the official mouthpiece of greatest gen, and we'd appreciate a fave It was like just kind of the official mouthpiece of Greatest Gen. And we'd appreciate a fave, or whatever you call it on Facebook, if you like the show. A thumb up?

Yeah, we'd appreciate a thumb if you like it. Yeah, and then if you want to join the group and... In any context, I think if you like it, we'd appreciate a thumb. Yeah. Thumb it. Thumb it. Thumb it to us. We should thank Dark Materia for our music. Yeah.

And the best ways to support the show are either reviewing us or going to MaximumFund.org SlashDonate. Yeah. And soon enough, we will have swag on the on the max fun store on topataco.com But in the meantime go get to be a huge fan of all the other shows on max one fund out or which is our beloved network That's right. I'm sure they're happy to have us No comment. Well, thanks again for listening.

We will be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek, the next generation, and also whatever this is. Make it sound. You'll be got it, got it, got it, got it. Maximumfund.org Comedy and culture, artist owned Listener supported.