The Greatest Generation - Pubescent Combadge (DS9 S3E7)

Episode Date: October 8, 2018

When Chief O’brien trips DS9’s security system, the station’s car alarm triggers a very hostile form of lockdown. But when the crew get covered in “buts,” they may have to collaborate with an unlikely ally. Are there ANY new poop euphemisms? Why would anyone wear their communicator in an anti-Hudson configuration? Is embarrassment lethal? It’s the episode recorded with back-turned confidence!

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

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

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

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

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdisotoforlabor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! Welcome to the greatest generation, Deep Space 9. It's a Star Trek podcast. Two guys who are just a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast.

I'm Adam Prandtica. I'm Ben Harrison. You know, Adam, we sit down. We fire up our internet voice IP program, so we can talk to each other, we hit record, and we were lamenting before we recorded. All of that is potentially content, you know. It's a real shame that we ever talk to each other

and don't attempt to monetize it. But you also asked if I needed a moment, and that reminded me of a time in film school when we were working on somebody's student film. And you know, when you're shooting in New York and you have access to like the wealth of talented actors that are in New York trying to find work, you can actually cast like grown-up actors in your projects. Yeah, people who will actually get nude. Right, so we kept having shoots where like, you know, we were a bunch of 20-somethings or

whatever, and then, you know, a bunch of 30, 40, 50, 60-year-olds would be amongst us saying... How do you do fellow kids? Saying whatever dumb words we wrote down in our dumb scripts. And so we just met like so many wild characters through that. But one memory that I will treasure from that time forever was a friend of mine and I were on set and we were shooting in a bar. And we both needed to take a piece.

So we were heading to the bathroom and one of these older gentlemen that was acting in the movie and question came out and said, I wouldn't go in there right now. Somebody's having a moment. Do not go in there. Woo! I think about that once a day. I'm a collector of poop euphemisms. And that is one, hold on, I'm just flipping through my card catalog.

Having a moment doesn't appear in there? No, I went from, I went right past the ages. I have nothing in that. Yeah, it's interesting, because like when you say, do you need a moment, that is what my mind runs home to the way the The computer on the American sub in red October runs home to thinking something as a magma displacement I always run home to this is a euphemism for shitting It's as constant as your northern star. Yeah, that was not a film school story I expected to hear from you Ben.

Yeah, it was just a silly older man warning us that somebody was shitting the bathroom up. You ever go back and watch those film school videos and how does that make you feel? I have not watched it since I made it. It's in the past, Ben. Yeah. You're a different man now.

I have different sensibilities. You have a different aesthetic, certainly. You're more of a frankophile than you've ever been. One thing I remember about it is that the main character is an ninja, and he always has his ninja mask on. And at one point, he falls in love with a girl and they make out through the Ninja mask. Oh, really? As in like Sam Raimi bit that rhyme from you for his Spider-Man movie.

Didn't he pull it up though? Cause he was like, that's the scene where he's upside down making out, right? You know, sometimes, Ben, you just want to pull that off to the side. And not, and not even dispense with it. Not even take it off. Yeah, that can be fun. Yeah, it could be fun, but it can also ruin all the elastic, you know. You are very elastically minded in an amorous moment, aren't you? I just don't, I don't want to have to pay to replace something, you know. There's a, you know what, you could argue that there's no replacing an amorous

moment. Sure there is, come on. That's why masturbation exists. Well, you've convinced me, Ben. Let's see if you can convince me if today's episode is a good one. As we discuss, Deep Space 9 Season 3 Episode 7, Civil, Defense. Do you realize how incredible this is? No, of course you don't. And we get a brand new playset, Ben, Deterium refinery. This feels like a set of deep space nine that would be best suited for a playmates style, plastic, like castle gray skull type situation. Like you could stick your action figures

in the little shoot. You can have them crawl around and escape the gas. Like this is a fun playset. Yeah, there'd probably be something spring loaded in there somewhere. I love it. And it's high too, right? Like, like, there's a lot of verticality to it. I dig it as well. Um, yeah, the, uh, the chief, I am chief miles and little Brian. This is fucking spectacular. And Jake Cisco are working on converting the ore refinery from back when Deep Space 9

was a mining station into a deuterium refinery. Or are they? That just undid 10 instances of me pronouncing a French thing. Is that the equivalent? I don't think so. Oh yeah, that's the exchange rate. The chief is like overscanning a pipe and Jake is doing the computer side of the business and he's trying to reformat one of the hard drives.

And this is one of many moments where reformating the drive is a catastrophic problem. Well that's odd. I'm sure you're familiar with this as a fellow videoman, how terrifying it is to click the button that says initialize disk or whatever. I mean yeah because it comes down to that equation that you and I both know by heart, which is, which is two is one, one is none. Like what you need are backups upon backups, and it doesn't appear that anyone is concerned about that in this case. Like I guess they've assumed that all of these files have to do with a refinery technology that they clearly don't need as they transition to a deuterium-based refinery method, but still, like, I gotta believe that some of those might be useful. One thing I thought about in this episode is why haven't we seen the set

sort of progressively change over time? Like, why? Occasionally, somebody will shoot a beam and it'll like take out a replicator or something, or something is broken and they have to fix it. Why are they not replacing Cardassian objects with Federation objects over time? So the station starts to look more like a patchwork. And that's sort of what I thought here. Like, why wipe this computer?

This has been here for 10, 20 years probably. probably get rid of it put in a good new one You know, yeah, I agree. It seems like they're putting up with a lot more shit than they have to I know this is usable space here rip rip that console out and fire it into the sun Ben I want to ask you about Jake Ben, I want to ask you about Jake, generally, his uniform specifically, and super specifically where he's wearing his combat badge. Because I think I'm at a point now where I could begin to outline my research paper, having to do with size, masculinity, and where you wear that combatge as a choice.

He's definitely wearing his combatge in an anti-hudson configuration. That's what I'm saying. I think pubescent combatge is like a full hand width above the nipple. Yeah. And that's where he's rocking it. I think if you want to evoke a feeling of childhood

or whatever, you're wearing that combat high. You're wearing it like a kid. That's what Jake's doing. But I think a better move for him, if he's trying to get his dad's attention, if he's trying to convince his dad that he's grown up and should be treated as such, I think he's gotta pull that thing down.

Put that thing down low, Jake. Yeah. Well, he's also got, like, he's got something that we saw in Wesley Crusher a lot. Wesley? The boy. The boy. Young Wesley Crusher. My son.

Which is a uniform that sort of suggests some of the parts of a Starfleet uniform, but isn't a Starfleet uniform. And that, like, extra burnt umber band across the chest really fucks the combat up because you put the combat right in the center of that. It's going to look weird. It's going to look like it's calling attention to itself in a weird way. So they get to this last file in the computer and this goes like what the fuck just delete it? Like easy. and O'Brien's having a problem with that. I've got a set on the side for now.

I can transfer it to the central database and I'll have to analyze it in the morning. And as soon as he does, Tassetern computer voice comes on the, on the blower and it's like, unauthorized computer entry detected in or processing unit 5, enter access code. Like, the door's shut, there's a recorded message from Gold to Cot. You're attempt to seize control of this facility is going to fail. And there's like an eight minute countdown.

It's like shot in the head office there. So it looks like Gold to Cot is like running the station. And surely that was the idea, was that they just pre-recorded all these messages so that Gilducat could get his coffee and hang out while the worker revolts are going down. He doesn't actually need to take like an active personal stake in it. They're given five seconds to enter the code. They don't know the code. They try and all the things. And then just the

doors slam. This is a great moment. People are in triage mode right now. They're still in communication and we're going around the horn a little bit between what's happening in the refinery set. Everyone in ops is in full engaged with the situation mode, which is a little ridiculous because before this happened, it should have just been business as usual, right?

But when we cut the ops, it's Kira, the doctor, and Dex, all war-rooming the situation. We're gonna get three different perspectives on what's happening here. We're gonna get the perspective from Jake, Cisco, and O'Brien. We're gonna get the ops perspective, and then we're gonna get the Odo-

on Quark perspective, which is where we go next. Odo still has some codes left in his back pocket from when this was Teraq Noir. And like the people in ops, he seems to have just been monitoring the situation actively from before it started. Yeah, and not even Odo has access privileges that Quark has. Quark has level seven privileges and Odo merely has six. Yeah, Quark is an operating feet and at an even higher level than Odo. I mean, Odo needs to cross the bridge clearly. Yeah, why is what is holding an Odo back from going clear? It's probably something from his past. He's got a, what he needs to do is cut ties with the founders, cut ties with everyone.

Yeah, yeah, just isolate yourself. Maybe Maybe get on a boat Maybe go down to clear water. I don't know. Maybe get yourself chain to a radiator in a crawlspace for weeks. Yeah Are you giving enough of what your income is so to to really feel like you have a chance to go clear. There's a thing that happens here, Ben, that I really love.

Like, as a viewer, I think you're trying to piece together the situation and possible solutions to it. And almost as soon as I, almost as soon as do Cot comes on the screen and asks the bejorn up rising to surrender. This goes like, great, cool, we surrender. Like shut this thing down. It'll be fine.

Right. Which is a great moment. It's a little like Kirk signaling their surrender every time. The ship gets a drop and everybody's going like, no, what? But yeah, it's like the obvious right thing to do. The problem is in the theoretical situation that this program is written for, the Cardassian thugs that are running the ore processing unit come in and punch the passcode in. And since nobody's there to do that, the system does not believe

that the uprising has surrendered. This is the first instance of several throughout the episode that does that thing that Trey Parker and Matt Stone talked about in that documentary about South Park that I think we've referred to before as but or then when they're Outlining a story they're always trying to use buts or then as connective tissue between story beats and this episode does that so well like Initially, you're seeing like an eight minute countdown and you're like, well, we're not even at the opening credits yet. Like what's gonna happen for this episode?

For the rest of the app, all we're getting are solutions to short-term problems and then either a butt or a then that creates a whole new problem for them to solve. It kind of reminds me a little bit of disaster also where it's kind of isolating unusual pairings or groups in a situation that is deteriorating and at a certain point they stop even being able to communicate with each other.

So it's kind of well-true star Trek space, but the twists and turns are not obvious. It feels like something TNG did a lot, and I don't know for sure, but I feel like this is the first time DS9 has sort of played in that story of space. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Gold to cotton, the cup, the cup, the cup. So, one of the things that the computer announces to them is that if they don't punch in the all-clear in the

or processing unit, the system will start pumping gas into the room. And this was something that I feel like maybe chief should have dealt with in year one on the station, is like, go around and find all the poison gas tanks. Why did they buy this car without giving it a pre-purchase inspection? Like they don't even know what's on the station. This seems really dangerous. I was at a party at my in-laws house and a friend of theirs, Saidol loved to me and started chatting me up and told me about a time when he was in his 20s and like signed up to help a guy sail a trimoran

to Fiji from San Diego or something. What? And the guy had not like cleared this boat for sea worthiness. So they set sail and they were like out of port for like a week and stuff just starts to fall apart. And he actually had to like arrange a mutiny among some of the other like crew on the ship to convince this guy to go put into

port somewhere so that they could they could fix the boat. And they they wound up doing it. And he just like, you know, like the second they tied the boat up, he just like grabbed his bag and hopped off and walked away never to return. Wow, good job by him. Yeah, but this feels a little bit like that. This is something, if you're taking over a space station, maybe do a preliminary scan, see if there are any caches of Neruzin gas just secreted around the station. I hate to say this because I love the character so much,

but I kind of feel like this is O'Brien's job, and I feel like he blew it. Yeah. He should know every inch of that station. I agree. I firmly agree. So, as the nerve agent gets deployed, it hangs low. It hangs low, a lot like a dry ice type of gas. And so, Jake has to go into the Shawshank Redemption pipe

and climbs through 10 feet of shit smelling foulness. Are you sure it's not the aliens pipe that Bishop crawls through? I mean, it could be. I mean, I'm not saying you're wrong. I just want, I think we shouldn't cover our bases in terms of what movie to reference here. Are you Twitter replying to me, like verbally right now?

In a why didn't you kind of way? Because then I should have you know that I mute anything that starts with why didn't you. Yeah, I got a very itchy mute finger these days. Oh Brian says something here to a to what has to be a totally blinded Jake in this dark pipe. Feel around inside for a handly, it should be shaped like a stirrup. How does Jake know what that is? Is that what you put your foot in when you're riding a horse? Yeah.

Maybe they've had some hollow sweet hangs that we don't know about. What's great about this moment is that not only are we dealing with a countdown, but we're dealing with a more unhinged doot-cat as the minutes go by via recording, who is just like excoriating people about like, I'm going to be forced to kill everyone here if you don't lay down your uprising. I give real money if you shut up. The funny thing is like he's just in his office with like a handicap and like an intern and he's actually like committing to the emotional truth of this pre-recorded message.

He's except he's doing like every YouTube video. He's like, hey guys, I'm gonna need you to stop doing the uprising or else I'm gonna have to nerve gas everyone. I like and subscribe. Tell me in the comments whether you like this video and I'll do more of them. So Jake finds the stirrup. They're able to help Ben Sisko and then finally O'Brien, who looks like he might at the last

moment fall into the gas. Like, his fate is not secure here in the scene in kind of a nerve-wracking way, but they finally get him up to the top. Did you think it was strange that Cisco went first? I kind of did. Like, isn't it Captain goes down with the ship or Captain's the last one off? Is it because he's a commander that he gets to go first? I agree that those are things.

Those are pronouncements that leaders prescribed to, but I don't know. I think if you want to get out of the situation, I think you're going to need O'Brien. And I, it had been from Benzisco, I might push him up by the butt first. Well, they're escaped from this room, kicks the computer into a new level of histrionics. Initiating station-wide counterinsurgency program. And the doors all slam in ops and they're slamming everywhere. Like the station is basically on lockdown. Dores are locked from the outside!

And it's like, even if you push a door open, there's going to be a force field behind it. And some of these force field are even weaponized. Right. At one point, Dax is trying to fiddle with computer chips and gets a pretty gnarly burn on her hands. My first hand burn was from a cast iron skillet of cornbread that I was cooking in the oven. And the towel slipped on the handle. So it just peaked a little bit of the handle out and it palmed burned me.

Ouch. A hand burn, I mean, I don't have a lot of burns to compare it to, but God, a hand burn feels like just about the worst thing. And I think Dax emotes that pretty well here. Like, it's pretty sput up. Burns seem like more painful and more intensely painful than cuts, you know.

At this point, there's sort of been an Agatha christification of what's happening here because everyone is cut off from everyone else because the combat just don't work. And every character seems to act in terms of their peak character self-interest, right? And that's a very Agatha-Christy thing to do in the context of a mystery? And that's a very agatha Christie thing to do in the context of a mystery. It's also a very iron ran thing to do, acting in your own self-interest.

Hey, wait a minute. You've never seen agatha Christie and iron ran in the same room at the same time. Who says iron ran is dead? Is agatha, she's probably dead too, right? I don't know. I love that not only is Dax punished here, but DuCat comes back on the screen again. It's like, hey guys, it's a gold DuCat back on the screen again.

Just wanted to let you know that... If you do not surrender immediately, I will be forced to kill every Basharren on this station. Bye! And, like, almost as soon as this threat is leveled, enter Garek. Yeah, Garek is free! Like a magician is like walking through walls, basically. He has the codes.

It's like Arby's having the meat. He has the codes. But they're a little bit impotent, right? Because the codes allow them to move, but they don't really give them any more power than that. I mean, the code seemed to be linked to his cardassianness and not necessarily to who he is or what he knows, because he didn't have like root access

to the computer mainframe. Garrett comes on the scene and they hypothesize together that, you know, if the nearest scene gas is deployed through the life support system, what would happen if we just destroyed the vehicle for the nearest scene gas? What are you trying to do, Garrett? Get us all killed? And so they do.

Here pulls a phaser out and gives the two Bedorin workers that are sitting at the life support console like a tenth of a second to clear out of the way. It's a pretty bad-ass moment for her. I think she's been wanting to do this for a long time. Yeah, and she's like, Eric, honestly, if you fucking just stayed there, I might even be happier. The thing about this moment is it really ping-pongs between, okay, if we destroy the life support system it will give us 12 hours to just lay back in the cut and strategize what the next

move is. Right, the 12 hours while they use the remaining air in the station, but 12 hours is like a lot of time to actually solve this problem. As soon as the life support system goes down, initiating counterinsurgency program level three. DoCott comes back on, he's like, hey guys, I saw you destroyed the life support system. Turns out we're just gonna turn on the self-destruct system

on DS9 and set it for two hours. So see ya, like and subscribe. And Kira, they sort of like rack into Kira before commercials like, ee, have you ever had a bad day at work? Yeah, she's thinking to herself, how many chefs does this goddamn game have? Ha, ha, ha.

We get these sprinklings of Quark and Odo in this episode, but they are very functional. Yeah, because they're just locked in one room together and there's not much they can contribute at this point. So they're just kind of there to be like the comic relief in a way. Like they're almost statler and wall door thing in the situation. Force field. More like force joke. the situation. Force field, more like Force joke. Yeah, it kind of feels like in that TNG episode when Picard is stuck in the Turbulent with the kids, like the rest of the crew is triaging the situation and

he is babysitting. This seems like tonally that kind of thing happening here. Yeah, I also feel like we kind of get distracted from O'Brien and the Cisco gentleman at this point in the episode. We check in very briefly with them a couple of times, but the story is really happening in ops at this point. That is a great point that you bring up. They aren't doing anything functionally to help solve the mystery or get the station out of trouble. Right. They're just tunnel, tunnel crawling like they're, they're moving from A to B and B is proximate to the true solution to the problem. Only you don't know that yet in this part of the story.

Right. Like I guess the one exciting thing is when they, when they like pile all the, all the rocks against the door and I guess these are whatever they were refining before, and are explosive if fire is introduced to them. I felt like the explosion was kind of weak sauce, though. We've seen some pretty fun interior explosions on Deep Space Nine, and this one is meant to blow a hole in an armored door, and it blows like a perfect rabbit hole for them to crawl through, but as an explosion, it is like pretty forgettable. There is one thing I really like about this scene,

and then another thing I really don't. And the thing I like is how crazy good that bright light cable looks in a dark room. Yeah. It looks great. Because of the exposure in that room. Like it's super dark and so anything bright is just gonna blow out. And you almost can't see any detail to it at all. So it looks really futuristic and trony.

I thought that was a good job by them. But the fully work in all of these scenes is like, I was kind of laughing out loud at that. Like there's a scene where Jake pushes a mining cart away And it sounds like an eight-bit video game sound of a mining car being moved like it sounds impossible heavy and big What are you doing? What are you doing now? Not be guard, not be guard, not be guard, not be guard. Exactly. So around this time, they trigger yet a third level of security program.

Initiating counterinsurgency program level 4. And that this is the replicator makes it a phaser exocomp that starts just ripping shots all over the op section. Pretty hot rat gujino in there, huh? A starfleet red shirt gets vaporized. They're trying to get cures phaser, but it's just on the main table and ops, and it's too scary for the doctor to reach over the table and get it. And just when this is all at its peak,

none other than Guldukot beams into the op section. And he's like downrange of this exo-comp and not getting shot. It is choosing to avoid hitting him. It's such a great scene because Alducat has back turned confidence. Yeah. It's like the action movie trope of having your back turned to the explosion. Yeah. And because both things are facing the camera, it looks even more badass.

I was so worried in this moment that this was just gonna be do-cott X Machina I think it's something about the effect that makes him look unreal. Yeah at one point do-cott like replicates himself a cup of tea Which gives them a a brief window where Where phaser fire is not ripping through the op-section tearing everything up But the second he grabs the tea that that thing reappears and starts shooting where phaser fire is not ripping through the op section tearing everything up, but the second he grabs the tee that that thing reappears and starts shooting, so not long enough for them to get the drop on him.

And he's here to to make a deal. He has a little leverage to negotiate something that he wants in this situation. And he at a certain, turns off the death ray and takes Kira into the office and proposes that the Cardassians install a garrison on Deep Space 9. And in return for this, he will turn off the thing. Well, you know, I'm never gonna agree to that. I'm not sure you have much of a choice here. I love that Kira is given the chance to speak for her people,

and doesn't even think about it, is like, fuck no. Her reaction to this proposal is great. It's a weird proposal to give to the second in command of the station. Is she really in a position to make a deal like that? Great scene for both actors, great scene for both characters. Yeah, there's some fun. I mean, it's not just Kira's dog against DuKat's dog There's a ton of garrick dog against DuKat dog here throwing haymakers about like Garex talking shit about his dad And like bringing family drama into it in a really fun way. I love that

They were they like know each other that well. That's pretty surprising. And it goes from zero to personal so fast. Yeah, and you know, also DuCott saying like, oh wow, if you had been here on the station when we put this program in, I would have set it up specially to fuck with you. Like they just have hated each other's guts forever and so do cats like all right

Well the self-destructs gonna go in a half an hour. I'll be back in 25 minutes or so and you guys can tell me whether or not you accept my terms all right Bye and As do caught attempts to beam away, Ducat want to transport, energize, a new problem presents itself. Another then. A recording comes on accusing Ducat of desertion.

Yeah, it's like a react vid. It's some legged that reacting to Duc Cots decision to give them 25 minutes to thinking it over, but he totally misinterprets it. This is the system assuming that Ducat was attempting to flee the station and leave it to self-destruct. That's the computer's final straw. It says all fail-s safes have been eliminated and like DuCott's access codes are now wiped out everything is fucked and and DuCott is just as fucked as any of them and like

That's like maybe the most fun moment in the net in the episode is like how embarrassed he looks Even your own computer program turns against you. Right, he's got to stay there and just sit in it, and it forces a fun bit of collaboration between people who hate each other. Yeah. The problem at this point is these force fields been, and they sort of come up with a solution to the problem, like the way that the station self-destructs happens in a specific way that is solvable,

but as long as the force field's are in place, they won't be able to remedy the issue. They just can't close the distance between ops and where the place is that they need to do whatever techno thing. Right. To fix the problem. But fortunately, this is when they come up with some solution to take out the dampening field that is causing all the communications blackouts. And I guess they just can't not try something at this point because every time they've tried something, it has led to further increase the speed with which the system is going

to kill all of them. But they do keep trying things. And I guess what they come up with is that they've taken some of the lethality out of emitters, which might have unplugged them from the counterinsurgency program, so they can use this set of emitters to turn the dampening fields off or something like that.

It's really like, the episode gets ultra-techno-gabbly here in a way that is like a little, I've had a lot of fun up until now, but I do feel like the writers are using nonsense words to solve problems that they've made for themselves. Right, I noticed that too. Another thing that I couldn't help but notice in the scene is how different Garrick is now than he was in the second skin episode like

Garrick goes on that mission and he is serious and lethal and like calculating and he's an asset but as soon as DuCott comes on the scene, Garrick is totally unhinged and his eye is off the ball the entire time. There's a scene where he accuses DuCott of making a passive Kira that feels so like in the context of that moment, I have no idea why that happened. It comes so out of nowhere, I didn't the garrick was making a pass at Kira, but garrick does and calls him out in front of everyone. Garrick, this isn't helping. Ben, I make this promise to you, to you and to the viewers that I will only ever do research if I think it's absolutely necessary. And I did. I did

for this moment because it felt too strange not to look into. And here's what I found out. This is the first episode that we see DuCott express a desire for Kira. But in this episode, his attempt to impress her is treated as a joke. Kira! And Nenaa Vizator found this very upsetting because, and I'll quote her, I would have liked my character to make the point that only a few years earlier to Cots wanting me would have meant that he could have had me,

and I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it. So it shouldn't have been seen as a cute moment. It was actually a horrifying moment. One that would make Kira feel disgust and panic. To Kira, to Cot is Hitler. She's not ever going to get over that. She can never forgive him, and that is important to me. Kira may have started to see Cardassians as individuals, but she will always hate Dekata.

Fair point, and obviously tour. Wow. She has a pretty great grasp of her character's motivations. Unsurprisingly. Yeah. But the garrick thing is the thing that almost clangs as much as the humor between Ducat and Kira. Like, I just don't understand how in the span of two episodes, garrick can turn into punchline

guy. Is it something that he puts on, like, because he does wear different masks around different people? Yeah. Like, is it because Ducat is there that he's so weird and different? It would seem that way. Yeah. They get the comms back. They're back to being able to talk to people and just so happens that the Sisko's and O'Brien are on the 29th level and they're pretty close

to the 34th level, which is where they need to get some people to stave off the self-destruct. And it's the idea is that they have to like, like there's going to be an energy discharge, but if they can direct it away from the fusion reactor or whatever, the station won't go boom. This is another techno babble description of a possible solution that I feel like just rings differently

than we normally get in a start to the episode. It feels like this episode just kind of falls apart toward the end. There's a nice little moment where Cisco is trying to get Jake to go, you know, save his own skin and Jake insists on on coming with them which winds up being momentous, but... Jake's like, hey dad, can I come with you? Ben's Cisco's like, no, and then Jake grabs his combat and moves it down two inches. Can I come with you now? No, Jake moves it down to like nipple height. How about now?

Alright, do you talk to me and do it? You become a man today! I'm so proud of you! Hey, speaking of Cal Hudson, I read that Bernie Casey recently passed. Oh man, that makes me sad. Alright, Pete Bernie Casey, one of the greats. Yeah, most definitely. Hopefully our Bernie Casey love fest for two episodes. We'll stand as a lasting monument, saluting a great man in a great career.

Do you think that somebody came in and was like, hey Bernie, check this out. A podcast talked about you and he listened to it and just fucking keeled over. Oh wait a second, are you applying that our show killed Bernie Casey? Yeah, he died of embarrassment. Ha ha ha ha. If embarrassment were something you could die from, Ben, I think we would have died long ago. Ha ha ha.

We would have died at our very first live show. A protracted exposure, you know, it's like, it's like you like, you can be exposed to radiation in one big dose and that can be lethal, but also just being exposed to low levels of it for a long time can be lethal. In the way that iodine capsules can stave off radiation poisoning, it's the alcohol I think that staves off the embarrassment poisoning that you and I have. Yeah, I think that's probably true. Well, there's some little adventures where they have to, you know, go down a hallway, but all of the girders have collapsed into it. They got to, they pull some stuff aside and find a jeffries tube that they can climb down. This jeffries tube

has just fires down either side of it. Don't space stations have systems to identify when there's a fire going on and maybe put it out? Yeah, it wouldn't seem that way in this moment. I do love the like sock hands that they have to rock going through these Jeffries tubes. Yeah, it's a... What are we to believe about what their uniforms are made of if their shirt sleeves can be used to prevent burns? I don't know. I'd imagine it's some kind of advanced technical fabric. Like the fabric that professional golfers wear? Yeah, yeah, it's wicking. It wicks,

it wicks moisture away. That's why gentlemen and stirruply don't talc up when they put their trousers on. They're on an even shorter timeline here to solve this problem. And I know this is when the tension should just be ratcheting up and up and up. And I think the score in this part is slow and doesn't enhance the tension at all. The action feels slow. like there's dolly shots

of O'Brien crawling along this tunnel. Like he gets at explosion and like flips over and passes out. And even that isn't that exciting or intense feeling. I thought how strange it was that you don't see people really hurrying in this episode when time is extremely short. I think a fast army crawl is what you want to see O'Brien doing through these Jeffries tubes and you never see that. It's just like a standard speed crawl.

The clock does not feel like it's ticking and it should feel like that. It should feel like I don't know if they're going to make it. And also just like the way they designed the set pieces, like Cisco gets the end of Burning Tunnel, like having left the chief to die back there. And what he has to do is pull honey sticks out of the wall and then just put them right back in the same holes that they've been in. Like it doesn't feel like he's doing anything. I really thought they were gonna pivot to a O'Brien having to blindly tell him in what order to do thing sort of solution to the problem.

Yeah. But Cisco knows how to do this. And so he ends up saving the day, which feels less satisfying. Jake gets his little heroic moment where he realizes that the chief is in bad shape in there and crawls in and pulls him out. And then the last scene is Quark and Odo in the office. Finally getting released. Quark finds the way he's described

in Odo's security computer. A self-important con artist who's nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is. They take a walk down the promenade like trading barbs and it's a real slide whistle. We don't check in with ops. We don't see like what happened up there with the people we've been following this entire time.

How did DuCat say goodbye? Like when did Garrick pick his moment and leave the command session that he's not technically allowed to be in? What we do get in this last scene is a fairly significant one or using a crane. Yeah. So we start outside Odo's office and then we rise and tilt down

and shoot over one of the overpasses, pedestrian bridges in the promenade. And it's like a 10 second shot. Yeah. It made me think that they came up short and they needed to fill time. It's like a longer Coda than I'm used to seeing at the very end of an episode.

Like that last shot takes so long to get to be. Yeah. And combined with how not frantic characters are in acting in their own interests to solve these problems, I wonder if they had to stretch to make their 44 minutes or whatever. Yeah, that must be what it is. It's like if we put the exciting end of this episode

at the pace that it appropriately should be at, it's gonna be like a 41 minute episode and we need it to be 44 so Let's just take our time people when I did that bit of research before it was very clear that this episode was a mess According to those that made it it was in rewrite hell for a long long time, huh? and No one was particularly happy with With how it was produced the writing process turned out as painful

and disgusting as we thought it would be according to Iris Stephen Baer. Wow. So there was a lot of Michael Pillar versus Iris Stephen Baer conflict happening here. You really want to do this here. Now, okay, okay, let's do it, do it. Did you like the episode Adam?

I love episodes like this. Like, I really liked Arsenal of Freedom, or Booby Trap or Starship Mine. Like, I love bottle episodes where there's like a specific problem to solve and there are people working to solve it in interesting ways. And like, where life is on the line.

Like, this is a type of Star Trek episode that I'm predisposed to really loving. And I wanna say like 80% of this episode is really good and I liked it for all those reasons. But it just, it came up short a little bit when it came time to wrap up the story. And so I can't give it a fully-throated love, but I did like the episode.

What about you? Yeah, I had similarly mixed feelings. I think that the first two-thirds or three-quarters of it are tight as hell and really good. The twists are never predictable and they're really fun. Then, yeah, that end, I was really struggling to stay focused on it toward the end because it got boring, you know? Yeah, in a story where there are so many butts and thens, there are so many cascading timelines.

It shouldn't ever be that way. Shouldn't. Well, you know what? What should be a certain way? Ben, we should have priority one message in every greatest gen episode. We should. What do you think we do?

Why don't we see if we have any? Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on? supplement on? supplement? supplement? Yes, extra. in on Secure Channel. You need a supplement on top of the month? Supplement. Supplement. Yes, extra.

How do you interest alone? Could be enough to buy this ship. Ben, our first priority one message is in all caps. It is from Holly. It is for Steve Crane. And the message goes like this. Attention, Steve Crane and the message goes like this Attention Steve Crane I value your friendship, but I have still poison to your wine enjoy

Oh, no Steve don't do it. Don't drink that wine Steve never go up against Holly when death is on the line Maybe Holly also poised in her own wine so that Steve Crane would think that she thought that he thought that she would poison her wine. Yeah, but what you don't realize Adam is that Holly has been developing an immunity to wine poison for years. I had done capsules again again. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha delivery than that. I don't- I haven't practiced in a long time. It's like you drove your sitch row in over a very cobblestone road there in that pronunciation. Uh-huh. Dear Ben and Adam, thanks for helping me through a recent long depression relapse. For my mental health, I had to quit any podcast discussing the news and having your pod to turn to was a lifesaver.

Hearing Ben discuss his own mental health issues has also helped me hope for better times. I'm doing better now. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Oh man. Wow, that's nice to hear. That is great to hear. Yeah, I think that that's like something

that I wish more people knew is that like mental health, if you have a mental health burden that you carry, like you can find your way out of it, it does like hang over you a little bit. Like I have a depressive personality and I have anxiety and like there are times when I am like more depressed and less depressed, but if you are working with mental health professionals and have a good system, you can totally manage that stuff and live a happy life in spite of it.

I'm glad John Francois is doing better. Yeah, you and me both. Well, if you would like to send a priority one message, there's only one way to do it. You go to maximumfund.org slash jembo-tron. It's a hundred bucks for a personal message and 200 for a commercial message. And we really appreciate people that use that service.

Hey Adam. What's that been? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? The mortal danger of naked now, it feels like that's present here in this episode, doesn't it? Like, like tonally I thought it felt very, very similar. But is there a Shimoda? To me, I think the Shemota corner is apps. The Shemota figure is

garrick for taking the opportunity during like a solution-earing style McLaughlin group. Is your one to like chop the knees out of Ducat by accusing him of crushing on Kira like in public in front of everyone. Like, so unnecessary. Yeah. Like, he wasn't, he didn't do anything in that scene that. Also just like the hubris of coming up and being like, I've got a great solution to the problem that you guys are facing and here's what you need to do.

And it's like, no, wrong, totally incorrect. I think I would have appreciated like dog on dog for that entire scene just fine without the Kira part. Yeah. Because it also hurts Kira too. Like it doesn't make, it doesn't empower her or make her feel any better. She's just as ashamed.

Yeah. And if, and if Garek really cares about Kira, I think I don't think he would have done it like that in that scene so My Shemota is gonna be Garrick for those reasons. What about you Ben? My Shemota is the doctor There is a critical moment when DuCott replicates himself some tea and we see we cut back to where the doctor is cowering under the table and

It is only when the exocomp rematerializes and starts shooting phasors that the doctor realizes that he could have gone for cures and phaser Like that should be the focus is get that phaser like get the phaser so you can take out the replicator and not have the thing that's shooting killer death rays into the op section. Like, like, all you are doing is looking for a window. And like, you can start making that move when DuCat walks over the replicator because he's basically occluding where the beam can potentially fire during that moment. Like, you don't even need to wait for the tea to materialize. And for that reason, the doctor is my drunk Shemota. 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 get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. 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 Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, rats, hey, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line. And boy, what do I?

These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short necks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this. We've got to get on the art. It is about terrain, about a spout to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans, we're actually, we're podcasters.

We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Kerry? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal stuff like that And you have a boat and say the world's 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 Carrie available on maximumfun.org I'm gonna get that gold brush like that Gold brush like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock, rock, like a rock, like a rock, like a rock,'Brien are shocked when a planet appears where none existed before. Or, as it is described by the smarter people that write blurbs for Amazon, Dax falls in love with a man who will soon disappear with his planet into another dimension for 60 years. Oh, so a little bit of a bodice ripper.

Yeah, very different episode from the sound of it. It's a reappearing, disappearing planet. Well, as we turn it over to a game of buttholes, the will of the profits. Why don't we see if we are doing this next episode in a particular way. We are currently on square number nine. Just ahead is a Coco-no-no square. A few squares away from that is a fuck it. We'll do it live episode. I have got the die in my hand. You're required to learn as you play, Role. I'm checking my die for lumps.

Are you doing that thing that data does or you squeeze them to make sure that they're properly aligned? Well, your mom sent me a handy leaflet about rolling dice. And... God damn it. And I rolled it too. Chula! Did I win?

Harvey. Which puts us, it has hopped us over Coco No No and put us on square 11, which is another standard issue episode. Dangerously close to a fuck it will do it live though. Yeah, yeah, so right on the doorstep. Alright Adam, well that will be the next episode, a CLEAN JANE episode of the greatest generation Deep Space Nine. If people like all the different types of episodes we put out there, what can they do

to help the show out? If they feel like that just listening isn't enough, what can people do, Adam? Well, they can support the show by going to maximum fun.org slash donate Where you can support the show on a month to month basis. What how many shows are we given the people? Every month. I mean, I guess if you count friendly fire, we're giving them like Ten or close to ten ten or twelve per per month. Yeah, your contributions really mean a lot in helping us to produce this show, which is not cheap and certainly not free. So maximumfund.org slash donate. You know, so leave a nice review on Apple Podcasts. We really appreciate that. Or recommend the

show to a friend. You can recommend it to an IRL friend or if you go online use the hashtag greatestgen. There's also Facebook groups and Reddit groups and all different manner of socials, medias. And we are on Twitter. Adam is at Cut for Time and I'm at Benjamin R. slamming the mute button left and right. So you know, come correct if you want to talk to us on there. Hey, you know what's free to do? You know what's free to do that really helps the show? Yeah. Go tell a friend about the greatest generation.

Go into our slash Star Trek and talk about the show. There are many, many, many, many Star Trek fans who still don't know how great greatest Jen is. Still have not joined one of our many social media groups that people know and love so much and who have told us have changed their lives. Spread the love. Spread the knowledge. Spread those bentarongs. And we should, we got a couple of thank yous. We always got to do at the end of the show. Of course, dark material who made our original theme music and Adam Ragusia, who has made a ton of original theme music for us

and continues to, continues a pace. I got to thank our card, Daddy Bill Tilly, who makes trading cards about every episode and he posts them on his Twitter account. Best on the biz. Yeah, they delight me every week. And with that, we'll be back at you next time with another great episode to start Check Deep Space 9 and an episode of Greatest Generation Deep Space 9 that is really laying on the moves pretty thick

Too thick I guess I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, all those shades of grey that we have to deal with all the time. It's a difficult thing when we have to forever test the terrain to see what is acceptable and amenable. That gets in the way of the creative process. If we have the courage, and it takes a lot of courage to be a creative person, to be committed to it, to be unyielding, and your need to do it, to do what it is that you do, to the best of your ability, even if that ability is not great, but you are committed to do it.

How many in culture are to turn? Listen or support.