The Greatest Generation - Pajama Bottom Dumpy (S2E12)

Episode Date: June 1, 2016

When the crew beams a big pile of ship aboard, they decide to beam down to a planet with a frozen fart-based atmosphere to investigate. The DustBuster club quickly find themselves trapped in a nightmare vacation to Vegas. Is Worf behind the lack of door locks on the Enterprise? Is Picard's love of trashy novels distracting him from mounting a sincere rescue operation? Is playing along with a bad book the only way to escape it? It’s the episode where we declare that we’re here to defend democracy, not necessarily to practice it.

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

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

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

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

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Star Trek Podcasts by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison.

I'm Adam Pranica. Something you're really rushing through that intro. I just thought I'd like take a different swing at it than I normally do. I love how we rush through the intro and drag our fucking asses over the end of the show. Like a dog dragging its ass on the carpet, we prolong the end of the show. It's like 10 minutes long. Yeah, we gotta get better at that.

How many credits do we need? We're a two-man operation. I don't know. Well, we're a two-man operation. I don't know. Well, we're a two-man operation with the brilliant folks at Maximumfund.org behind us. Oh, that's true. Yeah. You know who isn't backing us is Rod Roddenberry. You won't find any Roddenberry money funding this program, that's for sure. Yeah, we don't have the stink of the robber baron Roddenberry family on us This is a look editorially independent program. Yeah, and that's all I'm saying look

Rod Roddenberry is probably excellent Like I would I would love to roll with Rod Roddenberry, but I'll tell you one thing I'm not taking any Roddenberry money for this program because we want to be free to make as much fun of the show as possible, sprinkle it with as many dick and fart jokes as we can. I don't think you can do that when you're accepting raddenberry money. You know what else the raddenberry's probably wouldn't want us to talk about on our podcast is our personal stories of embarrassment surrounding Star Trek. And I was

recently at home in the Bay Area at home and I got to look through some of the pictures of me from my childhood and I found some pretty funny ones. I think I sent you most of these on text message, but my favorite one. Yeah, turn one into the image that shows up when you call me or text me. That was a good choice. Yeah. My favorite one is I'm standing in my parents house in a Pogs t-shirt with a like a marry

a net of a starship that I built myself out of like a of like foam core construction board and it's like it's a it's a it's definitely a federation ship maybe like a similar model to starship Voyager. And what I also found was a VHS tape that is labeled Star Trek 7 through 9. I'm almost positive that these are Star Trek films that I made with my friend Brian on his father's video camcorder after we saw Star Trek 6, the undiscovered country, and wanted to make Star Trek films in his backyard. Oh my god, are you serious? Yeah, so I have this tape in my house right now and I'm going to see about getting it digitized. And if all goes well, I will play you some audio from the imagined Star Trek's seven through nine that a young from the look of it eight

or nine year old Benjamin Harrison directed. Wow. Your first directorial credit? Probably not my first. We made a lot of, we made a lot of backyard movies back in the day. But yeah, you mean both. Yeah.

That is awesome. The evidence of my youthful filmmaking has been destroyed, but. Oh, that is such a shame. Like you. I was surprised that this tape still existed and it may be just like taping Star Trek stuff off television or something.

It's a little hard to tell. I used to love doing that. I would make action movies out of other action movies. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we were pretty unsophisticated. I think like we made ships out of cardboard and foam core. We edited everything in camera. So we had to shoot in sequence. Sure.

You know, if it didn't go well, we would rewind and then try to get it just right to record over that part. So pretty much exactly how we make videos now. Yep. Hope none of our clients are listening. I'm really impressed that you built these ships from scratch I was always a plastic modeler You know, I never really got into like model kits, but I've definitely built

My share of things from scratch like this. So I don't know like it's definitely like not to kind of fit and finish I was probably like pretty disappointed and how this came out, but it kind of looks like, um, you know, the sweeted movies from that please be kind and rewind movie. Yeah. Like that level of production value. Oh, man, I can't wait to see this. So I'll put a couple of these picks up on Twitter when this episode goes live and people can point and laugh at me. That's a great get.

I'm going to be playing these friends while we're talking to you, but are you going to find it within yourself? To stand up, sell a truth? You don't deserve to wear that beautiful. So shall we talk about our episode? Speaking of poorly made videos, that doesn't work. That's not a good segue. That's too cruel. Yeah, mission log. That's not a good segue. That's too cruel.

Yeah. Mission log would have done a much nicer segue. Speaking of a real gamble on entertainment, we've got season two episode 12, The Royale. Or is Sam Jackson would put it The Royale with cheese. Yeah. Pretty accurate here. Pretty cheesy. This is a tasty burger. Kind of a cheesy episode. The Enterprise is they've gotten a tip about some debris from some klingons, so they're going to go hunt it down and they arrive at what gets described as

a nasty planet to look for for this this debris. And it's like, and it's just like a it's a planet that you would never go to. It's a real bad part of town. It's another opportunity for Jordy to be disparaging about new life and new civilizations like the like in the same way you called in the Gellum and Ugly Motherfucker. He, like he's doing a scan of this planet and he couldn't be more negative on its qualities. He's negging this planet pretty hard. Do you think maybe he's trying to set this planet up for sex? Like he, he just read some, some books about seduction techniques. I actually do.

I think that's pretty on-brand with Jordy. Yeah. Has a real creepersoid during Jordy probably would be into the seduction community, wouldn't he? Yeah, I mean, this is like an uninhabitable planet, but they do something that's real classic for an early TNG episode, which is they go down to the transporter room and they go, we're gonna beam some of this stuff aboard. It's got some markings on it,

and Picard's like, what kind of markings? And Raker's like, I don't know, but here we go with whoever wants to be involved. Let the press say what they will. Yeah. But, uh, they beam this thing on board, and it is a whole section from a NASA vessel, which doesn't make a lot of sense given how far they are from Earth and given what the year this ship must have come from, given its 52 star American flag. And the current state of defunding of our nation space program also? Yeah, let's take a minute to talk about the current state of defunding of our nation space program also. Yeah, let's take a minute to talk about the current state of defunding of our nation's

space program, Adam. Yeah, I mean, this scene actually broke the spell for me. It really bummed me out. Like, see this piece of NASA ship in the 24th century just kind of made me think about how impossible the idea of a space program surviving that long. Yeah, this is the third attempt at sending a ship beyond the border of our solar system, according to the dialogue, and like, boy, we are not even close to trying something like that. And it's almost like a laughably far away thing to contemplate.

Like we need a hundred years of like normalized space travel before trying crazy shit like that probably, right? Yeah. Yeah, easily. So come on, bummer. Yeah, and what are those other two stars on the flag, you think? Yeah, I mean Puerto Rico, presumably. The moon. Yeah, well, it's already a protectorate, right? The moon and Uranus.

Nice. Well, if you're listening to this program and you're in the United States, write your congressperson and senator about expanding funding for space research. Yeah, see if that works. Probably won't. They find a building on the surface of this crazy, crazy planet. And this building is surrounded by breathable atmosphere, despite the fact that the rest of the planet is just a bunch of swirling farts, essentially.

And so they're like, God, I mean, this building and this ship, it may be connected. Like, why don't we send a little away team down, poke around on the surface? The same reasoning that results in them just beaming up random parts, like strange parts under the ship without any sort of security measures is the same thinking that gets them to just beam a dustbuster club down to a totally environmentally hostile planet

that just happens to have a weird bubble of atmosphere in it. Yeah, you know, like I feel like they would maybe start with like a test module, one of those things that they like, you test the transporter with, beam that down, see how it does. But uh, but it seems like a great mission for for data as the canary. Like, yeah, canary data down there. If, if all is well, then follow up with the rest of the dustbuster club. Right. Data can breathe farts. Yeah. Yeah, so they beam down there, and the visual is really weird. Yeah.

Did you ever have a win-amp in college? Uh, no, but I had the iTunes visualizer, which is more or less similar. Yeah, and like, that is the effect. Is the visualizer. It's like it's our Duhspuster Club is in black like in sort of a black Psych it like it's not a psych. It's just it's just a black background situation and up above them They beam down into jet blackness with the with the iTunes visualizer squirreling above their heads. Yeah, that's the look pretty weird Yeah, and These are squirreling above their heads. Yeah. That's the look. Pretty weird.

Yeah. And data comments that that storm is like, you know, less than a kilometer above them. And they're in contact with the ship. And there's just like, there's nothing there. It's like they're standing on the black floor of the soundstage. And there's just nothing, nothing, nothing except for a rotating revolving door, which has an R inscribed on it. And so, you know, the only thing to do is go through the door, right? I was pretty impressed that they knew how to use a revolving door.

There was a moment when they walk up to it where it looks like it looks like data is about to go in the same like section as Worf, which is that like awkward guy move where you're like there's not really enough room for two people in here. Yeah, Worf of all people seems like someone who would be totally confounded by a revolving door. When I was in Heathrow a couple days ago, this sweet old lady was totally confused by an escalator. Like she put her bag on it and the bag started to like drag her arm up. Oh no. And she was, she was real confused. I felt awful for her. And it seems like Wf would be in sort of the same scenario.

Warf has like struck a karate pose at the sight of the captain flipping his hat open. Yeah. So. And yet operates a revolving door with a plum. Maybe it's maybe the Klingons are fans of that particular design flourish. I mean, it's a very energy-efficient way to have a point of egress to your building. I love the idea of like a click on D7, old school battle cruiser, like with nothing but we're evolving doors in it. They're all super squeaky. I think the Polish Navy used to do submarines like that.

How dare you. How dare you, you know I'm Polish. So we're going to a guest host format, I read, which I am really looking forward to. Two Poles talking about Star Trek. That's a format I can get behind. I would almost quit just to hear that. So the Dust Buster Club goes through the revolving door, and on the other side is a pretty bang-in casino scene.

Real lively. Yeah. A bunch of actions. Yeah. It's a lot, it's like, I mean, it's like an early James Bond film level of casino where it's like a lot of, you know, beautiful people and, and, like, a lot of rollicking laughter and fun times going on except for the room seems a little too small and a little bit too cheaply art directed

to plausibly be a casino. Well, that and like everyone's entirely too happy for it to be a plausible casino. Like, casinos are desperate, disappointing places with... Well, they didn't have that one lady who was just like completely focused on the slot machine, which is accurate. That was the most real part of the entire scene.

Yeah. So like anyone going into a casino hotel, the desk buster club approaches the front desk. Sure. And there's a little scene playing out here between the Bellboy and the manager, which I feel like is roughly normal for any hotel you go into. Bellboy and manager having a general manager, having a heated conversation. They don't normally have to do with a Bellboy murdering some guy though, which is what this conversation's about.

Yeah, like this Bellboy is a, is real worked up about a guy named Mickey D. Is it Mickey D? It is. Which is, they didn't really think of it when I was watching this, but that's the name of a famous Scottish restaurant. Oh God. This is getting worse and worse. But so they get room keys. I'm gonna. I got to shoot the wapper. I gotta shoot the wapper. Hahaha.

Hahaha. So they get room keys and some chips to gamble with and they're like, uh, it's like mingle around. And I think it's like around here when we get back up onto the bridge and they're trying to raise the away team and the way team is not responding. And then we go back to Riker and he's trying to, he's trying to raise the ship and they're not responding.

Communications are out. Wes is trying to contact them, but it's just going to Captain Picard every time. Yeah. He's like, no, I didn't, I didn't mean the poo emoji right after the eggplant emoji. I didn't mean the poo emoji right after the eggplant emoji. Things putting in stuff that I don't mean.

But they go try the revolving door, they try to go out and they come right back in, which is almost an interesting effect, except for, if they had comped it so that it looked like the second your foot exited the one side, it's coming in the other side, it would've been really cool. But instead, it just looks like they're going through a revolving door and are too dumb to step out when they get to the outside.

Yeah, it's a total, it isn't even an effect, it's just a practical move. They just go all the way around. Yeah, it's a total, it isn't even an effect, it's just a practical move. They just go all the way around. Yeah. The revolving door. And I mean, I mean, Worf, Worf is upset by this in the same way that he was upset on the on the Yamato inside Nagellum's asshole like he does not like going into doors and then coming out on the other side in a place he isn't expecting. Yeah. I mean, he also doesn't like doors that don't let him through, which we found out in that episode, the Neutral Zone, when he and Data found all those frozen people. Unfortunately, this is the only warf character building we've gotten

in like 20 episodes. It's really sad. My main thing is I hate frustrating door conundrums. A revolving door, a warrior's door. Maybe warf is behind the whole no locks on the doors on the enterprise. He's like, listen, if I'm going to be chief of security, I can't have any doors that give me any kind of guff, even the smallest amount.

Oh, man. God, they just gave Warf nothing to do in this episode. Just kept talking one long, incredibly un go, go hang out in the casino, go knock yourself out. So after trying out the revolving door, they decided to do a little gambling. Yeah, there's a lot of fun in games in this episode, you know, data sits down and start playing Blackjack with a cantankerist Texan who looks enough like he would be a peripheral character on Walker, Texas Ranger that he actually was a peripheral character on Walker, Texas Ranger. Yep.

You knew around the arger. Yes, sir. Sit down. I'm going to teach you how this game is played more and a a, a character on Walker Texas Ranger. Yep. You knew around there, aren't you? Yes sir. Sit down. I'm going to teach you how this game has played more. And a, a, a, a, Bucksome curly haired blonde lady who's like really playing the like the, the dumb broad character, which I found kind of offensive and tasteless.

Yeah. Do I hit Texas or do I stand? If you've got to win, you've got to hear. Hit me. I guess you can kind of like make a case for it in the context of this, all of these characters being characters from a trashy novel, but yeah, that's why it played for me just fine. Was, was that it was, its source material was garbage. Right. But it's like why write an episode where the character source material is going to be garbage? I don't know. I couldn't stop thinking about like how great data was going to be a blackjack.

Like the poker scene in the episode that preceded this by a couple of shows. We have to assume that data is going to have some some real ridiculous card-based skills because you know he can hold huge numbers in his head and do like massive amounts of calculations on the fly. You know and and that's sort of what people who go into casinos and count cards are doing. You know? Yeah, but they can seeably watch somebody shuffle a deck of cards and know what the order of the cards was before they shuffled it and know what they were after if they shuffled it.

That's the kind of visual acuity data is working with. And it doesn't seem sure. Well, and he's got the physical acuity too. Like they allow him to cut the deck and like a skilled magician, you know, aligning the cards in a deck for a card trick. I'm sure he could set up a deck that would be ideal for him on every deal.

Yeah, he's got like, set up a deck that would be ideal for him on every deal. Yeah, he's got like... The scene doesn't pay off at all for that reason because they don't really draw it out in any way. It's an exhibition for the man in the cowboy hat, really. Do you think they put a little makeup on Ricky J's arm and put it in a data sleeve and did that card handling close up? Yeah, the legendary card, card'sman Ricky J. Yeah, that, that deck split was pretty great looking.

Pretty cool. Yeah. Can you do anything like that? Uh, no, I can, I can just shuffle many decks at a time. I could shuffle four decks in the four decks pretty easily. That's pretty cool. But I don't own a card tricks. Yeah.

I wish I did. I've got these real spindly fingers. I feel like they'd be good and dexterous for something like that. But yeah, if only you'd been like training your hands I feel like they'd be good and dexterous for something like that, but... Yeah, if only you'd been like training your hands since your childhood like Ricky J did. Yeah, I've been training my hands far differently since childhood. You've been doing a lot of the cum hither.

Extraordinary. extraordinary. Well, Commander Raker is getting pretty freaked out that they can't get on the blower with the Enterprise and Troy picks up on this. She tells the captain that he's getting pretty tense and the OA team decides to explore the rest of the hotel, get off the casino floor and see what else is going on. And so they walk over to the elevator and once again, Warf is confronted by a door that doesn't do what he expects it to do. And again, like the neutral zone,

data has to show him that there's a button just to the left that he could push and it'll open just fine. And they go upstairs and find a crispy critter in one of the hotel rooms. Yeah, that room's got a rig. Riker pulls the sheet off of them and it's an astronaut that's been dead for like 200 years. Yeah. And he's written his own little captain's log basically saying that they launched and everything was going great. And then an alien infected his ship, took the lives of his entire crew, and then realized what they had done.

You know, didn't really like realize that they were dealing with a sentient species. And so they attempted to like create a environment that he could live in. This is like a kid finding a bug on the ground and putting a leaf in a stick in a jar to recreate the habitat of the bug inside the jar. These aliens found this book and recreated the characters from this essentially pulp novel that happened to be on board the ship.

It's a weird kind of matrix story. At least that's how it read to me. The aliens kept him alive. That's sort of a guilt thing. Yeah, and it's like the last entry in this log, and I found it like a little bit implausible that there would be a coherent final entry of somebody who's lived in this environment for 20 years. Like it would drive you fucking crazy, right? I think I guess I wanted to know more about how that world worked practically.

Like, does he replay every day, like Groundhog Day, you know, to the beats in the book, or were those 30 years stretched, you know, like a period of day style over the over the end of his life, like either scenario I think would would be insane making. Yeah, I mean, I don't think I would have held on to my sanity the way Colonel Stephen Richie of NASA did in his final log entry. But what they basically, they find the book in the side table, in the bedroom, and they find his like astronaut uniform. And finally, like the ship, the enterprise finds a way to penetrate this crazy shield. So they start to get communications back up.

And they realize that the only way to get out of this situation is by completing the story of the novel, which is to me pretty much the craziest plot leap that we've ever had in the show. Ever. I mean, it just doesn't follow logically, right? Like, oh, we'll just do the rest of the book and then we can go. Like, what do they have to base that on? I guess what else can they do? I guess, but like.

There's nothing else to do. They can't leave. They've, it sort of forces them into that task. I mean, they're talking on the ship about like, phasering a hole in the shield that's holding this all together and then beaming them out through that hole.

And they'd have like 16 seconds to do it before Riker, Warfin' data were cryonically frozen by the crazy atmosphere on this planet. And it's a gambit there, like legitimately considering because it's like there are no obvious ways out. But they treat completing the story of the novel as the obvious correct solution, which I feel doesn't have any evidence to support it. Yeah, everyone is really, I mean, for as much effort as we're made to think that the Enterprise crew is putting towards rescuing the Dustbuster Club.

I mean, much of the time you see Picard just listening to the await team like a book on tape, like he's just in his ready room listening, occasionally turning the volume down when it gets boring. Like, it's oddly passive. Yeah, it's a real strange. I mean, like, what card is like, yeah, we'll stay here as long as it takes, but it's like, maybe, maybe don't stay as long as it takes

and like, get urgent about saving these people. Yeah, it's real weird. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound real cocksure and wearing just sort of a sartorial holocaust suit like It is the baggiest white suit. I think yeah, I mean good on television They definitely like Disassembled one of the Romulan uniforms from the last episode and reused the shoulder pad part It's it's a hot mess. It is pajama bottom, don't be. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I mean, it's sort of like the the suit in the mask, but not played for a joke. Oh yeah, that's a good call. You know, I actually had to look up the actor to make sure it wasn't Peter and Orth.

The decorator? No. I don't know who that is Adam. Yeah, it wasn't him. Um, I mean, he is bringing a similar level of a Thespian chops to the to the role, but yeah, he straight up murders the Bellboy. Yeah, shoots him in the back. You know, he's supposed to be kind of like a Vegas gangster type character.

As a murder scene would play out in any casino, like no one has phased it all. They watch, they watch a kid get killed and then they go back to the slats. Yeah, they're there to gamble Yeah and The away team decides that they are the the Foreign investors that get mentioned in the book so their plan is to Despite the fact that somebody's just been killed, uh, not give any

fucks about that storyline and gamble until they are rich enough to buy the hotel. And so, so. Like, uh, like a bunch of college kids who get it in their heads that they're going to play enough blackjack to win a comp total room. They're like, they're like, yeah, we can just win enough money at at craps to buy the hotel. So, yeah, and and boy, how do you do they, Adam? This is just like a scene for like a solid five minutes. Yeah, data, just main man's, the cap stable. Yeah. And like like they realize that they have like waited cheater dice when they first start rolling and so data like squeezes them real hard in his fist

to like rebalance them. And then he's just throwing rocks for the rest of the night. Yeah, and they win $24 million, right? Yeah, whatever. Like it's like, It's like, It's a writer of the hotel plus a little bit for, for,

for spreading around money, he calls it. The purchase price of the hotel is a little over $12 million. And data is really close to that number. And writers like, bet it all, man. And data is like, are you fucking kidding me? Like, like, I'm gonna bet $500 and then we're gonna get enough money to buy the hotel and rikers like, no man, bet it all. And so we does. And he wins. And then they buy the hotel for the 12 million. And they,

I guess, give the rest of the money away to the people in the hotel. That's what they're talking about. Yeah, they want to spread it around. That's extremely generous. The general manager is like, we can't pay you the money you've won and he's like, don't worry, just give us the hotel. We want to rikers, Lionsus.

When the train comes in, everybody arrives. Which is maybe one of the most sexually threatening things I've ever heard him say on the show. Like if he had said that to Geinen during game practice, a couple of episodes ago, I think Geinen just would have hopped over the table on him at that moment. Do you think that Riker, when he first set foot in the casino was like, oh, when he first set foot in the casino,

was like, oh, weird. I was just in this holiday program. One of the great scenes to me was, was so the club is up in the hotel room and they find the dead astronaut. Yeah. And Riker's like, all right, dude, and Wurf, you guys need to go back to the lobby.

I'm gonna stay up and keep checking these rooms, these hotel rooms. And date and wharf find that a totally plausible plan. Yeah, and he's like, leave your ultraviolet lights behind. I'm gonna need those. None of these doors are locked, clearly. Okay. None of these doors are locked clearly

So they so they buy the casino They're able at that point to leave through the revolving door and then they get beamed up That's the end of the episode yep all is solved and Total bottle episode. Totally, yeah. It just lives in a special place in my heart. What'd you think? I mean, it's very dorky and silly,

and there is a very bad plot hole in it. But I don't know, it's just like, it's like, you've read Save the Cat, I'm sure. The screenwriting manual. Oh yeah, I have, yeah. So there's a, this is like one of the big books that you read if you want to learn how to write screenplays. I think the guy's most famous screenplay that wrote it is that one about the kid that

gets a blank check. It's just called blank check. And he like, he like, somebody gives him a blank check and he fills it out to cash for a million dollars. It actually gets it. And one of the guys like big things is the promise of the premise, delivering on the promise of the premise. So, like, if you're going to have a movie about a kid getting a blank check, you're going

to show that kid in a crazy mansion with all of the dumb toys that a kid would buy for his crazy mansion. And if you're going to show an android and a sex fiend in a casino in Star Trek. I feel like this mostly delivers on that. It's just fun to watch like data throwing dice and like shuffling cards and stuff. For a guy who's not supposed to have any emotions at all, he seems extremely proud of his good fortune.

Totally. Data is like a data is tiptoeing right off to the line of having actual fun. I think it really speaks to how good of a person data is that he chooses to be at Starfleet. Instead of going to a world where gambling is allowed and actually like has the potential to to earn real money. Like he could be a very wealthy person

in this galaxy if he made some different decisions. Right, but that's not what drives data. I know. He seeks to better himself. Learn about humanity. What do you seek at him? Yeah, I'm making like the jerk off motion on Mike over here. Yeah, he's great.

Can't fault him for that. How about you? What'd you think? I believe it belongs on Mount Armas with code of honor. I guess this is one we'll have to disagree on. I'm just, I have like a nostalgic funness for this one. I don't know why. It's, it's cheesiness could not redeem it for me.

Royale, that's right. Also, like the whole deal with, with, so the away team beams down and they're in communication with the ship. They go through the revolving door and they immediately discover that they can't communicate with the ship. Rikers like, that's cool. Let's have a look around a little while longer.

I think it seems pretty chill here. In this 70s casino on an entirely hostile planet, Riker deems it as not really a threat at that point. Like, whatever man. Yeah, and on the ship they're like, while Riker would have followed procedure and headed back to the beam point if they weren't in trouble. And Troy's like, yeah, the reason you didn't do that

is because he's so amused. Like that's a viable reason for him to do that. 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 Sherry Reembarishment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's greatestgentour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne.

On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We got stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweards. Pat Noswald, could I get a Balrog 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 open, just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, rats, hey, hey, 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 have such short nats. But I'm hearing we need to get on this horse. We've got to get on the ark. It is about to rain to start to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. We're actually, we're podcasters. Yes, totally. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Kerry? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that.

And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boat. We came to by two. What do you think? Ona Ross & Kerry, available on MaximumFun.org. Did you find a drunk Shimoda figure in this episode? I wrote down data because of gambling, but then as we were talking about it, I realized that my

real drunk Shimoda is warf for a moment that I'm just just struggling thinking about now, which is where they realized they're trapped and war Wolf goes and like moves a slot machine aside from a wall and just tries to like push the wall over. And then Riker comes over and he's like, wow, that must be a pretty tough wall. You couldn't even push it through. And then he starts phasing. Poor Wolf in this episode, like they couldn't even give him a fun scene where the people are terrified of how he looks, like they couldn't even give him that much. No, it's all just Wharf trying to get through various doors and non-doors and having no

luck. It's all or nothing with his exposition. They either give him an entire episode of backstory or he's just... Or his apotted plant. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. That was that bummy out a little bit. They could have had really had some fun with him, but they overwrote data as a result. Like they could have they could have thrown a little bit of war if I thought. Fair enough. My Shimoda was Colonel Richie, the dead astronaut. My Shimoda was Colonel Richie, the dead astronaut.

Because I think a lot of people have had the experience of booking a trip to Vegas for just a day too long. And that last day, it's real dark. Yeah. You know, you outstay a casino. a casino and the Liberace Museum is not open anymore So like what are we even gonna do with that extra day? Yeah, like he he stayed at the casino too long and I cannot imagine Staying in a casino hotel for as many years as that guy did I think that is that's very clearly a drunk Shimoda decision on his part to stay there that long.

I would have killed myself after five days. Just as I've considered, most times I've gone to Vegas and stayed any longer than four. I think four is your limit in Vegas. Can't do any more than that. I've only ever been to Vegas for work as an adult and I've been there for like eight or nine days at a time where you like Oof are literally like staying in the hotel that the thing that you're there for is in yeah

That shit will nuts you up man. That's real rough I I have been fortunate enough to not have to to endure it that long, but I can't imagine. Yeah. Short doses, it's all it's good for. Colonel Richie found out the hard way. Yeah, poor guy, RIP. What are we watching for the next episode?

What are we watching or vetoing? I should say. The next episode of the greatest generation will cover season two episode 13, Time Squared. The USS Enterprise discovers a Federation shuttle containing an exact double of Captain Picard from six hours in the future. Trying to put a little more stank on my reads of these Amazon descriptions. Are they gonna do that thing where it's a very crudely made split screen as the Picards interact with each other?

Like he hands himself a drink and across the split a like a Sean Claude Van Damme in double impact. He's the man with a silk underwear. That might be the the most narrow two percent or reference ever dropped on this show. I'll tell you how narrow it is Adam. I have not seen that one. I've seen a lot of Van Dambe, but that's what I missed. Did you ever see JCVD? No, I've heard that's really terrific though.

It is legitimately terrific. Definitely see it. I don't wanna say anything about it until you do, because two, it would just ruin it. I don't want to say anything about it until you do because it would just be, it would just ruin it. It's awesome. I will not be vetoing Timesquared. I do remember this episode as being a real creep show. There's something a little off about the other Picard. Like when they open up that shuttle and he's in there, he looks like a, I don't know, he looks like a guy in a coma. Hmm, I don't really have any member of this one.

It's a rare one where I don't remember it and you do. Yeah, I mean do it, let's watch it. Okay, we have to talk about this veto poll because we're recording this episode again ahead of when we find the results, but I mean, there's a pretty clear front running option going on right now. Do we want to like decide what our veto policy is going forward or do we want to save that for the next episode?

Let's decide it and put it to bed now. I have not been current on the poll at all, so this will be a surprise to me. Okay, so the three options, option A, keep it the same, which is we each can veto an episode. And if one of us vetoes before the other has used his veto, we can nullify. Option B is book report where if you veto the episode, you're just vetoing it for yourself. The other person has to watch the show and report back. And option C is book report with a guest where one of us gets replaced by a special guest when we veto an episode we don't want to watch.

And that is the clear leader in the clubhouse. I haven't actually really in a bit but it's like way, way out ahead of the of the pack when it comes to how people are voting. And I think the runner-up is the second option, the Bookerport option. And a lot of people seem to like the idea that we have our wives on as the special guests. Is that about? I don't know. I think they're curious how a couple of dorkas'oids like us

manage to trick human females into marrying them? They actually want proof of life Yeah, yeah have your wife on and hold up a current newspaper I don't think I'm willing to do that No, that is actually like the results of this poll are exactly the opposite of my feelings of what we do. Yeah. Well, I think that, you know, like the chain of command on the enterprise, like we're not running a democracy here.

So while it would be nice if we agreed with the people, it sounds kind of like we don't. Yeah, I don't. I appreciate everyone's interest. Yeah. It's kind of like we're using a veto in a way. I mean, not like, not the same veto that we would use on an episode,

obviously, but we're, sounds like we're kind of talking about vetoing a popular decision-buyer listeners. All right, man, let's keep things as is. I think it works. Why miss with the good thing? Option A. towing a popular decision by our listeners. All right, man, let's keep things as is. I think it works. Why miss with the good thing? Option A.

Look, I hope this isn't a huge turn off to a lot of people. I think people were very passionate about what they voted for, and I can appreciate that. However, look, there are, this I can promise you, fair listener, there will be opportunities for guests. Those guests may even be wives, but I don't believe that they are going to occur in the course of regular programming. One of the cool things about joining Max Phon is that they encourage the shows to record special editions of the show during pledge time. And that is something that I think

you and I are embracing fully. So I would look for weird special editions to occur, maybe even a couple of times a year. But I think during the normal course of the show, I think you should expect things to work as they've worked before. Right on Adam. Well, I hope people don't turn on us, wildly undemocratic decision we've made, but I think the threat of a real veto is kind of a fun thing to live with, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. If you want a Star Trek podcast that respects the voice of the people, uh, maybe go over there to Mission Log. Check out their deal.

No, they're, it's all cooked, it's all, uh, red, they're a rotten, very mouthpiece. It's just, it's propaganda, man. I know, I know, you want the straight dope. You've come to the right place. This is where it's at. I am La Qt is aboard. You will respond to my questions. I am La Qt is a board. You will respond to my questions.

I am La Cute is a board. You are a board. All right, if you want to talk about this episode or any other, you can find us on Twitter using the hashtag greatestgen and you can find me there at Cut for Time. Ben is at BenjaminRAH. I want to shout out Twitter user at Bill Tilley 1973.

He's been making like a trading card I want to shout out Twitter user at Bill Tilly 1973. He's been making like a trading card per episode of our show, like the greatest Gen Star Trek card collector series. And there's just like the greatest thing ever. He's got like a card for you, a card for me, a card for drunk trimota, and a bunch of others at this point. I think they're like, it's like the coolest thing ever. If you just, if you search the greatest Gen hashtag, you'll, you'll see these cards and the one he made for the

scientist that just says the balls. It was like the funniest thing. Was laugh out loud, funny. I think, I don't know where you got the picture for me for my card. I am the least fan of my own personal card But I am the biggest fan of the balls card and also the the hologram card for Shimoda like that. That is seeing his face just makes me happy. Yeah Well Thanks Thanks Bill for that. We should also thank Dark Materia for the music that we use on our show. And we should thank the kind folks at Maximumfund.org where our podcast is networked.

You can go to Maximumfund.org slash Donate if you want to support our show. Please do. They made fun of us for how little money people are donating. But we never really promoted the donation part before the last episode. So we got an email from Jesse Thorn today who said that the amount of money that we've raised for the network is so little that it's not worth him cutting a check to us. like, it's an entirely different form of embarrassment that we're in right now. Yeah.

We thought that this would be a beneficial relationship to everyone. It turns out that we are a parasite. Yeah, which is not a good look for us. So if you have any hope for our show, staying on this network, which is like literally a dream come true for both of us. Please, please go donate.

Yeah, even a dollar will make sure that we are fed and housed is the way I should say that. God, so full of suit of it. All right, we'll see you next time. Yeah, we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek, the Next Generation, and also this. Just another car crash of an ending. You'll get to Yolk the God of the Youth and the Death and the Christ. Make it sound. Make it sound.

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