The Greatest Generation - Planet Scorcher (S6E19)

Episode Date: June 12, 2017

When Captain Picard falls for a pointy coworker, the harmony of their relationship reverberates throughout the ship. But when things heat up on a nearby planet, Picard must make a choice between saving some lives and extinguishing their romance. What's the least Kevin-y impression? Is the Hood the only place you can be truly safe? Who's had the worst life on the show? It's the episode with a decidedly non-Naked Gun love story.

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. Welcome to the greatest generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed. They have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Adam Pryanaka.

I am Ben Harrison. Ben, I felt lately that my spirits are a little low. I've got that for no reason to drink hangover today. You ever get that out of nowhere? I didn't drink enough to get this hangover. Yeah, I don't deserve this. And so my heart feels a little empty and I'm hoping that you could help to fill it

with a little Bible study. Oh, I would love to crack open the show would love to crack up in the show Bible. Ben, it's been infinity since my last confession. Ha ha ha ha ha! It's good to see you all in church. It's cool to the Bible. That's the way God wants it. I don't know why, dude. All these questions?

Is a little blind thing too much to ask? Questions? Is a little blind thing too much to ask? Are there any chapters about Captain Picard's Love Life or rules about it? I could read you the Captain Picard chapter, which is two pages. That's sort of a lot. It is two pages. That's sort of a lot. It is a lot. Alternately you could just do the spin the globe and point to a chapter situation. That's always fun. That's where we'll travel to. Oh, okay, I've got one called Script Style. This is page 7. The headers are format, the tag, and star dates.

The under format it says we need a teaser and five acts. The teaser can run as long as five pages is necessary, but should not be shorter than three. Each act should be approximately 10 to 11 script pages long. Total length of the first draft script should not be more than 58 pages. 58, uh, sounds like a ton if you're using the standard issue page per minute ratio. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if, I don't know if television scripts have a different rule of thumb on that, but in feature film scripts you estimate about a page a minute. So 58 seems fat, and maybe they want it that way so that they can like, lean it up.

What was the episode with the record for shortest cold open? Because there was one that was like 40 seconds. I feel like five or six episodes ago. Yeah, I don't remember That did to be really crazy to read through that one and be like you're flipping through the pages like this is it There's there was a script with a bar napkin staple to the front of it Star Dates has some interesting stuff. It says a star date is a five digit number followed by a decimal point and one more digit. The first two digits of the star date are four six. The four stands for 24th century. The sixth and indicates sixth season. Whoa! Wow! Yeah, the following three digits will progress consecutively during the course of the season from 0-0-0-0-0-2-9-9, and the decimal point counts tenths of a day. Weird. Wow. I never knew that. I never knew there was a math to it. Yeah, I always assumed it was just a fake number that they pulled out of their asses. Yeah, that was like vaguely chronological. It's weird that they never depend on that

as a storytelling unit of measurement. Right. Like, you never need it to understand the story that's happening. And I feel like in a lot of modern television time is so important in the storytelling. Yeah, there's never- It is never a crutch here. There's never a 24 style star-date counter. Yeah. Taking up.

Huh. That's interesting. The- I think that's all that's interesting on this page. Wow, well, um... I guess I feel a little better after that Ben. Peace be with you. And also with you Adam, I hope you're bad fee fees and you're sick, tum tum, get better. Well, we'll get back on the horse somehow. Let's start by talking about today's episode, Bennett, season six, episode 19, lessons.

This is becoming a speech. Where the cat comes to, very tightly. Hmm, I'm tired of ramble on about something everyone knows. We get our start with Picard kind of like, kind of pulling a late nighter. Like he's like up on the bridge and data is trying to give him status updates and Picard's like knock it off, man. I'm just like night outling here.

I'm gonna go hang out in my office and like throw this tennis ball at the wall and think some thoughts. And he's gonna try to blow a call into Somebody of his and they can't use the communications He tries to replicate some T. Earl Grey hot the replicators can't be used He tries to flesh a toilet Nothing goes down. Yeah, he tries to Look something up in the enterprises porn banks. He thinks maybe that'll help him get to sleep the up in the Enterprises porn banks, he thinks maybe that'll help him get the sleep, the porno library is closed.

He keeps wanting things that he can't get because the stellar cartography lab has opted to take control of tons of ships resources. What could they possibly be doing down there? We know at this point that the Enterprise runs a three-shift rotation. Like, if you're working swing right now, what are you doing? There's nothing to do, right? Like, nothing works. Yeah, I guess you just have to like hope that no Romulans come around,

because you don't have the ability to sense them. Yeah, the entrepreneurs' pants are just floating in space right now next to the ship. Dicks out. This is all because of this experiment and stellar cartography and it may be wonder-bend. Like do you feel like Picard may have some latent animus towards the science officers on the ship since his experience with Q as You know when he was made to experience the science life Um, I don't know. I mean he definitely like he's he's definitely like irritated enough that he goes down and like opens the door to the dark room

You're out just close that door and It like flashes all the photos that the still ourer-cartography people are trying to develop. He walks into a, basically, a full-on planetarium scene with a narrator and that globe in the middle of the room that shoots the light on the ceiling. Our solar system is truly a marvelous place. That might be the worst morgan-freeman than anybody has ever done. It wasn't so bad that I didn't know who you were doing, though. Really?

That's a nice floor to an impression. I feel like I forgot who I was doing halfway of it in that impression. You may have found the least Kevany impression of all the impressions, which is good also. Penguins live in outer space. They love each other. All winter long. There's a musicality to the more-can-freeman impression that I really. Like, you know just where to go down for that note. Haha. Yeah. When the sisters found Pluto in the laundry room that day.

Haha. I don't know how to finish that reference to Shasha and Gritempi. What did the sisters do to Pluto, Ben? Haha. I think you know Adam. You just don't wanna say, because you're too chased. He goes, it's kind of a funny scene, right? Because the door opens and shuts, and the kind of doctor-crushery-looking person that is there sort of barks at Picard without turning around and realizing who she's barking

at. Have you ever had this happen? Or you like are talking shit about somebody and they're like standing right behind you? It's a terrifying experience. Yeah, it's it's like the holiday office party nightmare that I feel like everybody's had it happen once. I had it happen with a roommate one time where I was like My roommate's so terrible. He got punched in the face right in front of me. What an idiot. Was it that roommate? Uh previous roommate to that one Yeah, and I was like I don't know complaining about like him not straightening up or something and the other roommate who I was talking to was like is he right behind you and I was like no

And I just hear him kind of walk walk right by going I heard what you said I heard what you should banterman Because I hear old things I should have been queued off by the ice cream truck music. By the distinct smell of soft swirl. Allow me to introduce my party date for Sharon. She cannot hold up her own weight because she is a duel. Ben, have you ever had a good roommate experience? You're sort of painting a picture here of a lot of roommate bodies in your wake. I have.

I can think of one in particular. My wife. She was my roommate before she was my girlfriend. She's not listening, Ben, you can be honest. This scene does an interesting thing with this lieutenant commander because you hear her before you see her. She's got a real Ann Bancroft voice. Yeah, she does.

Like real raspy and fun. Like she's got sort of a half a pack of day voice and I like it. Yeah, it's almost, like I got a little whiff of Janeway even. Yeah, but yeah, it's a little reedy. Yeah, and she's got, she's definitely like going to the same wig maker that Beverly is. Because that's the other thing is when you see her with her back turned in the lights

down, you could kind of read her as Beverly. That's a great point about that wig because there are a number of things sticking out from her. And only one thing sticking out from Picard. She's sort of sputnik-shaped. Yeah, it's that tone that really puts a panic in Picard's cold-war drawers. When this lady turns around, she was, she's a little surprised to see the captain there. I assume that you must be Lieutenant Commander Down.

The reason that Picard has come down here is that he wants his tear all gray. And this lady is like Earl Grey tea. That's some disgusting shit. She's like, why are you drinking that late at night? Aren't you a warm milkman? I've heard about you. Your aunt's legend has traveled far and wide.

And so she orders up the tea recipe that she has programmed into the ship's replicator. Computer bring replicators back online and give me a cup of darren herbal tea, blood number three. And she gives him some of this tea. He has like, he does like the same wints that Scotty does when he drinks the green stuff. It's a little bit Romulan soup wints also. It's like strong stuff. He's not, he doesn't quite take to it like a duck to water. It's, maybe it's mushroom teeth.

You think he's gonna be high as fuck after this? He needs to find a safe space after this. Yeah, he needs to get some orange juice and like... Do not look into any mirrors, Picard. Yeah, make sure that you have a very good sense of morality and are in a good mood when you go on this journey. But like you can tell that there's some, you know, this may be the stellar cartography lab, but you can tell that there's some chemistry

right off the bat. I try to with authority figures, like in a workplace context, to both respect the authority, but also make it totally clear that I am not going to be uncomfortable around authority figures. And Darren's sort of like that. She's like, yeah, the captain's in a room, the captain's irritated about stuff on his ship not working, but it's okay to be friendly.

It's okay to like offer the guy T. Like, we're just normal people doing a job out here. I don't have to be afraid of you. Right, like, there's a chain of command and if like, you know, the buck stops with you and what you next day, but not before he has dinner with Beverly. And this is kind of an interesting C story in the episode. I mean, to the extent, I don't even know if there's a B story.

I guess there is, but the idea that like Beverly is going to have some feelings about Picard getting a girlfriend is very much introduced, but is never really dealt with in a way that like, let's Beverly go through any character development. Like, we see the scene where they have dinner and Picard is in this kind of coded way talking about Lieutenant Commander Darren. I met the new head of Stella Simes last night.

Beverly is not picking up on the fact that Picard is talking about a girl, but he is. And then we get a later scene where Beverly is doing some six bay on Commander Darren. And this is presumably a couple of dates into Picard and her relationship. And Beverly looks a little like stunned and even maybe a little bit embarrassed about it. But that's kind of the that's kind of the extent of what happens to Beverly with this. I think anyone would be embarrassed if the lady friend of your love interest came into sick bay with like a sore and fatigued arm. Yeah, yeah, is that like, is that an H.J. injury? You can draw so many conclusions from that.

Yeah. That's typically an injury that Riker comes to sick bay with. Well, Riker gives the best HJs around. Riker gives so many HJs, they've had to remove his arm and replace it with a new one. Yeah, those weren't sinister aliens. That was the Starfleet equivalent of Oshia. This show teases the interest that Beverly hasn't pecard out so long and so thin that it sort of depends on the viewer to fill in the gaps when all you get in this episode is a stair off into the distance from Beverly each time she's confronted with the idea of maybe losing

her breakfast date every morning. Like that's all they're willing to pay off on it. And I think it's too bad because you get so little of Beverly to begin with as an interesting character. She is still only Wesley's mother, only a widow. Yeah, it's a shame. This concert is intense. I think it's like a data and a cellist and then incomes Darren, no, Darren, and she sits down at the grand piano. And she starts playing and she notices that he's like really feeling it.

And she starts to like kind of like step her game up. She puts on a little show for him. She plays the piano with like a data like ferocity. Her fingers are a blur. She's kick ass at this piano. Yeah. She's like, you know, like if this stellar cartography gig doesn't work out, she has a career as a concert pianist. Why does data need sheet music? Maybe it's like the same reason he like pretends to breathe, it's to make people think he's human or whatever.

Yeah, good call. Bring low people to a sense of security before he hijacks the ship. He would draw people's attention to his differentness if he didn't, I guess. Was that Lieutenant J in there? I think it's safe to say that Lieutenant J and Picard might be on the out, because she is not rubbing up against him during this recital as she was in previous concerts.

There's a noticeable gap between them. Yeah. That's seat a gap though. The reception at the end of the recital finds Picard and data and Beverly having a chat and Commander Daren comes up and Beverly, ignorance of what's going on at this point, excuses herself when data walks away to talk to somebody, leaving Picard and Darren to like get to, you know, licking each other's assholes about music. I thought Beverly knew exactly what she was doing.

Really? Yeah. Because if she does, then why is she so fucking stunned when Darren comes in with her hand job injury later? I think that's her essential conflict is like she wants what's best for her friend. In spite of the fact that she truly believes that she is what's best for her friend. Yeah. And those two things create attention in her that based on the scene could take different sides. Anyway, the point of their conversation, of Darren's conversation with Picard is like they figure they should jam together sometime

because Picard kind of betrays an interest in music that is a little more than just dude watching music being played. He's like dropping music science on her During the second half of your the first movement I noticed that you played an F minor chord instead of a diminished D Picard's like I used to play tenor saxophone in high school like but I but I stopped when it when it's step being fun He was in the marching band. Yeah She's like we should jam sometime.

That'd be cool. No, no, no, I'm just an amateur. I don't show people my flute. Keep that to myself. Darren is, you know, getting comfortable. She's like new to the ship, right? That's something we maybe didn't mention, is that she's newly assigned to the entrepreneur.

So the rest of the crew is getting to know her at the same time. And Riker kind of winds up in this weird position where she keeps kind of coming to him and asking for shit. And initially, it's like, can I get some more sensor array time and he's like, maybe tomorrow. But then sensor array time and he's like maybe tomorrow But then eventually like it becomes clear that she and Picard are knocking boots and so when she asked Riker for favors

Then he's like, well, what the fuck am I supposed to do about this? And rightfully so I really like seeing Riker work Like it's easy to forget sometimes how much how big of a job he has. Like everything funnels to him. And it's hard. Like he's got to juggle the needs of everyone on the crew. And this is like, I mean like this is I think where Picard shows what a good captain he is is that like, he's really deeply conflicted about this relationship. Like he talks good amount to Troy about it. He talks to Riker about it. Like he's like, you know, I see that this is like something that is not bad for me, but

it puts me in a weird position as captain. Like, I really want to make sure that nobody's playing favorites with her. Because of that, I want to make sure that I can be the captain and do the right thing. W-slash-arts-slash-t commanding the ship without this like playing some weird role like this new variable like it potentially complicates that a lot and I don't want that to be the case. You know there's two parallel things happening during the course of the captains romance with Darren. There is the idea that a workplace relationship could complicate matters for the other crew people doing professional work, which is the conversation that he has with Troy.

And then there's also just like seeing happy Picard sashay around the ship and Darren like wearing his action jacket around her shoulder like a varsity jacket in high school. Like there's when you see like Picard is the kind of happy that makes people paranoid and suspicious a little bit. Like it's weird how discomforting that is. Like because it is so, like, and this isn't to say that Picard's playing it big because he's not.

But I think it says a lot about how neutral Picard's carriages at all times, when even a little bit of smiling makes him seem like a crazy person. It's very unusual to see him get good feelings as often as frequently as he gets them in this episode. And this episode is also really interesting because like there is no no rising tension at all, aside from

the kind of like concern she's having about the way he can work this into the fact that he's essentially the king of the ship. For like the first, I don't know, three quarters of this episode. Like she, she, she winds up being kind of a pivotal character in a, in a tense thing that they have to solve. But that takes about seven or eight minutes to get through. And it's just like the last thing in the episode. It's just them like, you know, sneaking around and playing music together and finding a Jeffries tube to smooch in and stuff like it's not. Yeah.

There's like they, this show has an amazing ability to have not that much go on, you know. Like you would never see a modern television show spend 30 minutes just building a romance without any rising dramatic action of any kind to accompany it. It really worked for me. I don't know if it worked for you, but I was totally wrapped up in their relationship, and I was fully invested in Picard's happiness. He is so laid bare for her. Like, he tells her the crazy probe story. He hasn't told anyone that story. The story about living an entire life and then learning how to play the flute through it. Like, that is the sort of story you tell someone only if you're absolutely sure

that you won't be committed afterwards. It is bunkers. That's like a first month of dating story, not a second date story. Like, yeah. That's like, hey, this seems like it's getting really serious. So there's something like pretty intense you should know about me.

He is so happy. And like, she is a great match for her in a way, a lot of the other women in his life haven't been. Like, I think Vash was maybe my favorite before Darren because Vash was also very comfortable around someone for whom most people are not. She would sit in his chair and throw shit back at his face. Darren has a lot of those qualities too, but she also has a career ambition that I think Picard finds familiar in appealing. She's also age-appropriate, and that's nice. Yes, she's not 17. Yeah.

Yeah. Could I ask you that question ago, though, Ben, did their relationship work for you? Did you find it credible? Were you invested in it the way I was? Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think that that's a real testament to the strength of this show and this era of the show is that I was thinking as I watched this without the the kind of like

special effects of fire at the end. I don't know how you make the you know 25 second promo reel for next week's exciting episode of Star Trek the next generation with a bunch of footage of like Picard getting the warm and fuzzies and like and like getting complemented on his skills as a musician Like it's a tough sell, but it's so good like it it totally works I don't we hammer the writers of this show quite a bit and I think rightly but the way you described like You have a you have the middle 25 of the show to establish without

question that this is the most significant romantic relationship Picard's had on the show. And to do that without dissolving into the, like, something good montage from the naked gun movie, like to make it feel real. And, like, not chased and wholesome in the way that Romance is on the show can sometimes be, but to like make it, you know, a wavy, adult, romantic relationship, I thought was was done really well here. Under circumstances that seemed profoundly difficult.

Like, this is a show where like, what was it like the last episode that Warf declares his love for a girl that he saw naked in the grotto one time? Yeah. Like we've come a long way from that in a very short time. Yeah. So we have established that. We have established that this is a real romantic relationship between two characters who have agency that are not, you know, cardboard cutouts of their gender and they connect on an emotional level, on an intellectual level. It consent level. There's a lot to like about this situation and you know perhaps most of all is the fact that she did him the treat of putting on some very tight pants and going up a ladder ahead of him

Nice beaver Thank you. I just had it stuffed. Let me help you with that You've just given me the gift of the nice beaver Thanks, I just had it stuffed Drop that I don't think we've used on the show so thanks. Yeah gonna be a lot oh naked gun in this episode. The ship gets a distress call from a Federation colony that's got, it's on a planet that catches on fire every seven years, which seems like a rough neighborhood

to try and build an outpost in. This planet is like if the Tropic Thunder fake movie trailer for Scorcher was a planet. It's planet Scorcher. Yeah, there's an Ian and Banks novel where there's a planet that has a ring of fire that just travels around it. And it's basically just a jungle that constantly is getting burned down and replenished.

And so like every whatever cycle like that happens and it just moves across the planet until it goes all the way around and comes back the other side. So that's kind of what I'm- It makes for some very fertile soil. Yeah. That's sort of what I was picturing here. And they're, you know, like the storm is coming early.

It's like they've got global flaming going on on this planet where the storms are stronger and more frequent. And- There's a planet that's pulled completely out of the Paris climate agreement. Right. And they are paying the price at them.

You know, but anyways, they're gonna rescue these colonists, whether or not they deserve it. And the idea is that they need to, they need to buy themselves some time because this firestorm is gonna make it hard to transport people out. So Commander Darren has some experience with the type of like damping fields that you would use for this kind of thing, and she actually comes up with this idea of like linking a bunch of them together and making a big energy wall to protect

the colony while they beam everybody else out. So because of her expertise, Riker puts her in charge of the dozen crew members who are going to beam down to the planet and operate this thing while they rescue the hundreds of other people that are in harm's way. It's a real needs of the many outweigh, the needs of the few type of deal. And it's like a, you know, he has ordered some of these people to their death. They do the thing and there's like, there's like this moment where Picard like radios down to everybody and says, you guys are going to be the last off the surface. There is a shot composition choice here that I wanted to discuss with you, which is the

moment he makes this decision. We go really wide on the bridge, like super wide from the view screen position, and it just makes Picard look as small as can be, as small as he must feel at the moment he's got to make that call. Yeah. I think they rarely do literal compositions in the way that they do here, and I thought that was an interesting moment in the episode. Yeah, I mean, because he feels helpless.

Like he is doing exactly what he was hoping he would be strong enough to do, which is be willing to put this person in harm's way despite the fact that he loves her very much because that's what he has to do as captain of the ship. And, you know, like, it's still hard. And you can see it in the actress that played Commander Daren's performance.

Like, a lot goes on in her face when she gets that radio message. You cast her for her ability to do that scene. I think that is so critical. Yeah, and her ability to fit in a back zip that you've already made because you don't want to make another one. Right.

So they get all the colonists saved. They get most of the teams that were operating the walls saved, but they watch on like a computer monitor as the fire advances and they've not gotten everybody out, and among the teams that they haven't saved is Commander Jaren's. So Picard gets this news from Riker down in Six Bay, where there's quite a lot of people.

And he basically goes back to his room, and this is another super wide shot composition where he's just like deep in the frame sitting on one of his couches not doing anything just like feeling feelings basically. And then the camera drops as Picard approaches his glass table with flute on it and Ben I feared for that glass table with flute on it and Ben I feared for that glass table. I thought it was going to chop through it but instead he closes the flute case. He's lost his music. He doesn't have the will to play anymore. It's a really evocative scene because it's like this, this flute represents a very intense memory for him.

And now it's also going to represent this woman that he loved and lost. I'm glad this episode was able to give us this moment and did not rush immediately from we think everyone's dead to there are survivors. Like, we have to sit in this moment a little bit, and I think that's crucial to feeling all the feelings that you're supposed to feel when you watch this episode. The grief, you have to sit in that grief in order to feel the joy that comes later. So it turns out they end up finding survivors of, you know, these teams down there that set up the firewall were able to use their phasers to erect some sort of like emergency blanket shielding for them.

I mean, a few of them died, but several of them end up coming back. And because, I guess, the transporter was set for maximum emotional manipulation, Darren is the last to transport a board. And relief wash is over a card in an awesome wave. Yeah. And so they talk about it like she explains the like Technobabble explanation of how she survived the storm and Then they start talking about them and she basically says the feelings I was feeling when I heard you radio down in the end I was more afraid that you'd blame yourself if I died and I don't want to put him in that position and I don't afraid that you'd blame yourself if I died. And I don't want to put him in that position

and I don't want to be in that position myself. And so I think we've got to not be an item. I think I've got to go be on a different ship. I thought if there was one moment in this episode that failed, it was this one. Because it's hard to make a rational decision in an emotional circumstance. But how dangerous is stellar cartography to begin with?

The only reason she was down there was because she had like a specific experience setting up these shields. Like, it had nothing to do with, I think, her career, really. And so if she remained on board, I don't know how much danger she would be in going forward. Like, and not only that, if her reason, if the Borgs ever take like a core sample of the ship out again, like the chances are, she'll be on the toilet, not bad that she's on that toilet. Yeah. And like, if what you're trying to avoid is dying, then like another captain is

going to is going to put her in harm's way way before Picard ever would. And I suppose the only place she could go where she could be truly safe is the hood. And so that's what she proposes. And Picard kind of accepts this logic. she proposes and Picard kind of accepts this logic. I don't, like, I guess I just didn't understand the decision. I think they could have made it work on the ship. I thought the reason for her leaving was super flimsy if this is Picard's greatest and best shot at love. Yeah.

Picard almost goes full vineyard on her too. Like they kiss goodbye and they embrace and you see Picard's face and he Almost goes down in that mud again It takes an extreme force of will to hold off the tears. I thought it's weird that he has that mud bit in his quarters, too Why are fires always trying to kill the people that Picard loves? Yeah. And Jordy's parents. Yeah. So that's the button, huh? That is the button.

Picard's left in profound sadness, yet again. My love is a piece of longing, still for, which longed a nurse has to be seen. How do you love the boy there? Did you like the episode, Adam? I do really like the episode, and boy, after sort of a rocky start, season six has a bunch of strikes and gutters, but this is a definite strike for me. This is great app, I thought. Yeah, not a mountain app took me but um

mountain adjacent Yeah, and I think that maybe if the end was a little stronger It might have been But like I don't know where you could have taken the end either There's that adage in writing that you put your characters through really tough situations, like if you, if you want to have good characters, you should be cruel to them as a writer. And the cruel choice here would be to have her die a heroic death in the line of duty

and then have Picard have to deal with it that. But like Picard has been through so much fucking shit. He had the single handedly save his ship from a heist last episode. He's been tortured, he's been turned into a borg. He's had the worst life of anyone on the ship and it's not close, right? Right, and like, if that flute becomes a symbol of his dead girlfriend, like, that's the last thing he has. Besides the horses, I guess. So, I don't think that that is justified,

and I'm glad that they didn't take it in that direction, but I agree glad that they didn't take it in that direction. But I agree that the that final scene is the weakest part of the episode. I remembered so little about this episode that I was fully prepared for the idea that Darren had died. I didn't remember that she had survived. Yeah, I didn't either. Which is what made the transporter seem so manipulative to me. Yeah, it was like transporter scene directed by Steven Spielberg.

We really need O'Brien back there again. It's been a while. I think he's off the ship. I think he's been assigned to Deep Space 9. He gets a good buy on the show that I remember. He- Oh he does? Yeah, he has a fairly emotional good buy with Captain Picard, and Picard beams him off the ship. Or maybe, God, I hope he doesn't do that on Deep Space Nine, the show, like an episode

of that show, and we just miss it. Hmm. I wonder if that's what it happens. I don't have any remembrance of that scene, so I can't help you buddy. All right. Do we have any P1s been? We sure do Adam. Wanna go check them out? Check them out!

Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on? supplement on that. supplement on that? supplement. Yes, extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship! Ben, we have our first commercial message in quite a while, and it goes like this. Ryan Burke and Steve Rowe are the host of 60 Cycle Humb, the guitar podcast.

They're also lovers of all things Trek and are big fans are the host of 60 Cycle Humb, the guitar podcast. They're also lovers of all things Trek and are big fans of the greatest generation. Each week, Ryan and Steve discuss the used market of the guitar world, critiquing ads from Craigslist and eBay, and often going off topic into pop culture, food, and geography. Check out 60 Cycle Humb, the and geography. Check out 60CycleHum, the guitar podcast. The show that applies all 285 Firingy rules of acquisition to buying, selling, trading, and flipping guitars. Man. Ben, I'm friends with quite a few musicians and guitars on the secondary market is a

real fraught thing. That is like fairly difficult to know what you're getting. Yeah, that's such a cool niche to play to. I mean, like I hear our friend John Roderick talk about that kind of thing on his, Roderick on the line podcast sometimes. And man, it just sounds like such a rabbit hole. It sounds like getting into aged rum or something where you could just like never not have new things to learn about it. I'm fairly envious of this show's concept too because it is so evergreen. Like there are 10,000 different types of guitars to talk about. You could do a show

every week forever and not have a reach red. I think this is an awesome concept. If you're a musician, if you're into buying guitars or interested in learning about them or I think this sounds like a great show. It sounds great and I didn't even have any idea that there were that many rules of acquisition. So check out 60 cycle hum. 60 cycle hum, not a competing podcast with our own show. And we have another prayer, one message here. This one is of a personal nature. It's from Whitney and Roberta and it's to Zandor.

Goes like this. Happy belated birthday from Australia. Hope you had fun and managed to pull a few drunk charamotas. Don't know when we'll be in the States again, too busy enjoying this universal health care, but we'll raise a glass of ginger beer and leechy vodka to you at Naked for Satan.

Guys, please do an Australian Kevin Usprich to a sand or a happy birthday. A spritz to a sand or a happy birthday. First use Australian for beer. I didn't kill wooden crocs. I killed all crocs everywhere. Yes, she's Kevin Oaksbridge. I like blueuman onions. I said onions.

Who's not destroying the Great Bury Arif? Also, if you're in Australia, you have no excuse for belated birthday. You exist a full day before everyone else. Unacceptable. Maybe our show doesn't fall perfectly onto Santa's birthday. Oh, okay. Maybe that's what the issue is. Well, happy birthday, okay. Maybe that makes sense. Maybe that's what the issue is. Well, happy birthday, Zander. If you'd like to leave a message for our viewers,

you can go to maximfund.org slash jumbo-tron where it's a hundred bucks for one of those personal messages and 200 bucks for a commercial message. I gotta say, if you've got like a company that you wanna advertise and you're tempted to buy a commercial message like that rate is really competitive and far more competitive than what you would get if you like went through a traditional advertising channel so give it a you know ponder it consider it. Hey Ben what's's that, Adam?

Did you beam your drunk Shimoda down to the planet surface to be consumed by an angry hellfire? Drunk Shimoda! I didn't get an opportunity, Adam. My drunk Shimoda in this episode is Troy. There's a couple of things that kind of add up to her being my drunk Shimoda in this episode. But the scene that I wanted to give special citation to

is in the concert. They kind of like, it's kind of like the ultimate Troy-potted plant scene of all time because She doesn't do anything in this scene, but be seated behind Captain Picard and The aperture on the camera is wide enough that she is in very very soft focus like she is essentially just recognizable as counselor Troy essentially just recognizable as Councillor Troy.

But you can see as he starts to get kind of like thrilled by watching Commander Daren's performance, you can see that she's like picking up on it big time. So like when she comes in and realizes that he is not slick at all about the fact that he's been dating this woman later, it's like, it's just fun to know that the tro has been on to him for this long. She puts it so beautifully too.

I think he asked something like, and she says, I thought that was a very eloquent way to say that. Yeah, and I just thought, I don't know, I think Marina Serdice got very short-trift in this episode in the same way that Dr. Crusher's character did, but she did a lot in this scene where she had nothing to do and got my attention for really playing her character when what she could have done is just sit there and listen to some piano music, you know.

Yeah. So she's my direction motive. How about yourself, Adam? You know, as we're going through the story of Picard falling for Darren, they play a lot of music together. And in one of the scenes, they find the most acoustically perfect part of the ship buried in its jeffries tubes. And they're doing a little duet there. And the result of their recital in this part of the ship is that the music is echoing throughout the tubes. And one of the places that it echoes is engineering. And Jordy's working on something and he notices

like the Doppler affected, you know, duet coming through the pipes and he's like, what the hell is that? And he's like, looking at the ceiling and squinting and like, he finally chases it down to the tube where there are a few other engineers wandering around doing like the universal sign for trying to hear something and then giving up on trying to figure out what that is like the upturned hand of huh you know the tilted puppy head of what's that and it's background acting that was so flimsy that it brought to my interest a brief story. I was asked to do the same acting. Not sure if I told you this, but I was a child actor, a child commercial actor, or just

a few commercials when I was very young, mostly local car dealerships. So in one of these commercials, I was asked to do what this background guy was asked to do, which was like listen to something and dismiss it physically. Like dismiss it in an off-hand way. And in this case, a literally off-hand way by like turning your hand over and going, oh geez, I'll never figure this out. Like grind your

fists into your hips like, oh jeez, like that sort of thing. And this is, this is a child actor move this guy pulls. Not great. So he's my Shimoda. We kind of, we kind of really went a lot of places with that one. Yeah, I feel like we kind of went right on opposite ends of the acting spectrum. Background acting that was great and background acting that was hilarious. Indeed. 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 Reembarrasment 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 to like full 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 space weirds.

Pat Noswald. Could I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Non-Giani. 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 Goat try. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, rats, hey, they're gone.

I've gotta count you in line. These clouds are really friggin' me out. I hate having to stand in line. And boy, what do I, these giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not and they've such short neck. But I'm hearing we need to get on this hour. We've got to get on the art. It is about to rain, about to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans, but we're actually we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and 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 boats. We came to by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Kerry, available on MaximumFun.org. The next episode is season six episode 20, The Shoss. Picard finds himself in a race with Cardassians, Klingons and Romulans to solve a four billion year old genetic puzzle.

Do you remember this episode, Adam? Everybody's Puzzan. Puzz three. Yeah. I do remember this episode as being like, well I don't know if I want to give too much away in my discussion of it now, but this show occasionally makes alien choices that are fairly repetitive. And I will just say that that an alien reveal in this episode felt that same way. This alien belongs in a bucket. This is an episode that as seasons one, two, and three went by. I kept being like, where the fuck is that episode? Because it smells like a super early episode in the series.

But, yeah. Yeah, I guess that'll be the next one we watch. The Shays. Well, one way our myriad viewers never lounge on our particular show is by talking about it all the time everywhere been. On places like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, we enjoy reading their theories, their encapsulations of our jokes on places like the Wikia page. They have built a community around the show and for that we are forever grateful.

Indeed. Yeah, we've also got great moderators on there who like really go out of their way to make them like positive places. Our moderators are like the people down on the planet surface that is about to be consumed by fire. Our moderators are down, they're setting up shielding so that our fun and nice community doesn't get cooked by a couple of trolls every once in a while. Yeah, like the other day I was like, I had like a very busy work day. I didn't really have time or energy to check in on our social media.

And I saw on a, you know, push notification from Twitter or somebody saying like, look, the Facebook is over. And by the time I actually got to look at the Facebook, it was like totally chill and it was mostly threads about how Austin, the guy who moderates it, has been doing great work, making it a fun and safe space. So, you know.

Thank you very much, Austin, for all your hard work. And Mike over at the Reddit one, like, same deal. Yeah, totally. You know, like, it's like anything online. There are dingolings who want to come ruin the fun for everybody. And unlike everything online, those people get kicked out. Look, without good moderation, those places could be just inundated with goatee picks.

We can't have it. We can't have it. Ben, we still have merch available and hopefully another shirt or two coming quite shortly. Yeah, go get our merch. It's good stuff. Support the show going to Maximumfund.org slash Donate where you're able to help the ongoing production of our show. Yeah, and we just thank Derek Matieria for our theme music, Adam Ruggusia for a lot of

the other music here on the program. With that, we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek the Next Generation and some really surprising loaf reveals. I can tell. You're a big god, god, god, god. What was the name of the dog in that first Russian satellite? Oh, Lika. Yeah. All right. See, I'm trying to tie Lika into his dick, and I...

I don't have the joke-connective tissue for that. Yeah. Let's workshop that a little bit, Ben. It's a joke-syn-you that my dear art to come by. culture.