The Greatest Generation - Puts the Chew on the Other Ass (S1E5)

Episode Date: November 13, 2017

When the station encounters its first Gamma Quadrant alien, they send the handyman down to make First Contact. But when the alien’s pursuers show up, starfleet is forced to relax its policy about gunfights on the Promenade. Is #MeToo going to still be a thing hundreds of years from now? Why does that beverage cart have googly eyes? Is the Predator canonical Flash Gordon? It’s the episode where we become each other’s extravagance buddies.

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

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

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

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

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdisotoforlabor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Last time on Deep Space 9. You know, every science fiction show needs a the most dangerous game episode. We've had some conversations, you and I I about what we should do in lieu of

vetoes. So it would be disingenuously. It's like I have an aphasia with respect to Deep Space Nine bin. One thing that has been suggested is some mechanic whereby we get drunk. I love the idea of getting drunk for episodes. If I smote you with getting drunk, I would want to get drunk with you. So, like, the idea would be that we would both drink for the episode. If we put it into a random number generator and we find out whether or not we are getting drunk for an episode. I love that idea. The randomization makes it sound like a landmine, like a drunk landmine, and I'm all for it. We need a random number between 1 and 15, and I'm gonna generate that number now and see if our next episode is the one for which we tie one on.

And I'm rolling. Oh my god, I literally got one. What? I'm not kidding. I'm just gonna send you a screenshot of this right now. No fucking way! Ha ha ha ha ha! Wow! And now for the conclusion. Welcome to the greatest generation, Deep Space 9.

Star Trek Podcast by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek Podcast and are ready to do some drinking. I'm out of pranika. I'm Ben Harrison. Ben, during the cliffhanger of our last episode, we had come up with an insane idea for a path forward through Deep Space 9, a path forward that involved the constant threat of drunkenness. We really couldn't have fucked this up for ourselves. We're saddened. We are now going to have to get shithouse drunk. And we didn't have any time to get used to the idea.

So here's how this is going to go going forward. Just to restate, I I guess the rules of the game Yeah, at the end of every episode We're going to fire a random number generator for the amount of remaining episodes that there are I don't think it can be the number of remaining episodes because then it would be like like you know by If we have two left then we have see that's what I was gonna say. Do we always do the finale drunk? If it's one episode left, how do we actually do that? Practically.

I think because we came up with this idea and have 15 episodes left, every single time we have a one in 15 chance of having a drunk a so next. Oh! And then for next season, it's like whatever the number of episodes, a one in that number. Okay.

And if we roll a one, it's sort of like a D&D, right? If we roll a one, that is a critical miss. And then we go straight to drunk will. Right. Okay. So what I was thinking we might start with is we bought some mezz-cale together. Last time we were both in New York, and my favorite liquor store in the whole wide world, Duke's liquor box in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

And they said that I don't want to get them in trouble, but they said that this stuff was maybe not exactly imported in the legalist of ways, and that it was also very rare. They produced like 45 bottles of this mezcal and 10 of them wound up in New York and two of them wound up in our possession at them. Which is, I love liquor with a story, and that was very exciting to me.

Yeah, so this is called, I think the producer is Faro Lito, and each bottle is personally signed by the mescalero that distilled it, so this is like one of my favorite things I've ever, like one of the most extravagant gifts I've ever gotten myself. Absolutely. I needed to do this. You know what you're doing?

There is an extravagant spotty to feel okay about doing it. Ben, I will always be your extravagant spotty. But this, I think we can say, like this is a bottle that the folks that came out to CS on tour really bought for us. This was our little gift to ourselves toward the end of our tour. Yeah, thanks, guys. Two things, actually three things that heightened the experience of a rare liquor bin. One, a great story. We got that from Duke's. Two handwritten label, which on the back of my bottle, and I'm sure yours as well, we have the Maestro Mescalero's name written in ballpoint pen.

Yeah. And three, contact information with a hotmail email address. That's how you know what you're getting is the good real shit. And I have had, I had a taste of this as soon as the bottle got to me and that was many weeks ago. I'm excited to try it again. So let's pour a good serving into our hikers and then start our episode today, Ben. Our episode is season one, episode five, captive pursuit. Choose to you, buddy. Chin Chin. A very upsetting open to this episode given all of the terrible stuff in the news about Harvey Weinstein. We get a complaint from one of the women that works in Quarx Bar about Quark v. Weinstein. When you just start to have trouble with Quark.

About five minutes after I got off the ship. And kind of true to the the darker nature of Deep Space Nine. Doesn't seem like Quirk is going to get much of a punishment. He wrote a sexual harassment, like a pro-sexual harassment clause into all of his employees' contracts. And the solution to this in Cisco's mind is, I'm going to go down there and get him to not enforce that part of the contract. There's a sort of word play happening in this scene, Ben, where, you know, Ben Sisko is like accepting the accusation of the dabo girl and then sort of referring to the contract as stated and then getting interrupted as he gets to the point that talks specifically

about what sex acts, she's supposed to perform on him. Yeah. Like, every time he's interrupted by her once and then he's interrupted later by a communicate from the bridge. Ben, I keep calling it the bridge, but it's not. What do they call it on the show? They call it Ops. Ops.

Which is just one desk on the bridge of a starship, but it's the whole damn They call it Ops. Ops. Which is just one desk on the bridge of a starship, but it's the whole damn thing on a space station. And on the space station, it doesn't recline. Well, I guess in the 24th century, as in the 21st century, women's complaints about the And women's complaints about the rapy advances of scummy men. Go ignored. That is like not something that we pick up ever again in this episode. After I talk to Quark, he won't hold you or anyone else to this provision concerning the exchange. Sensors are picking up elevated neutrino readings.

Sisko goes out into the op section and they're getting some indication that a an unknown ship and an UFO is coming through the wormhole and Ben it's so fucked up before we end that part that like we get we get coffee bookends in Babel with O'Brien got to tie up that coffee bookend in the last scene of the last episode and I was fully expecting the harassment thing to be, you know, quote unquote resolved at the end of this episode. Spoiler alert, it's not. Yeah, I mean, I think that like that is sort of the issue that people are trying, trying to get everyone to confront is that that is what passed for resolving a harassment issue for a long long long time. You know what's interesting to me is how little issues of this type are brought up in the Star Trek universe a place that is a melting pot of different cultures and norms and stuff. You would think there would be all sorts of

unfortunate, groping and masturbation happening on the station. Aliens are involved. How different can you be? I touched my knees and that's where I keep my genitals. He thought he was just putting a creepy hand on your knee. Right. Ben, as we get to Ops, it looks like the station has developed a real casual Friday vibe. The front zips are sort of zipped to where maybe your second shirt button would be. And a lot of people have rolled up sleeves and stuff. I never even considered the fact that this is a show with all front-sips. Yeah, it really is.

It makes me wonder if that's sort of a subtle nod to the looseness of command that Cisco may have over everyone, like, this is not a uniform dress, you know, to the letter of the code sort of place. Now everybody knows that backzips are the more elite members of any crew. What deep space 9 preases poses is, what if it was all frontzips? In the land of the frontzips, the single back zip is king. It's the bad news bears of Star Trek shows. Yeah, it really is. They get this guy on the FaceTime who's coming through the wormhole.

It is a starship design that is unfamiliar to them. And up on the screen comes a green alien. And I feel like I have a theory that we will have a chance to test over many years, but I feel like Star Trek gets its green aliens out of its system in the first season or two. Oh really? Yeah, I don't think that we're going to see a lot of green aliens after this guy in this series. I just think there were some green fish versus dog aliens in TNG, but then everybody's pretty much different browns and grays after that. If you're gonna make a green alien, I think you need to make a weird green alien, and not

just another Derivative version of the enemy mine alien, which is what this guy looks like He looks like halfway between enemy mine and the crocodile guy from suicide squad I would have to have seen suicide squad to get that reference back Tell me didn't pay full price to see that at the Americana. I saw that on the back of Airplane seat screen as the director intended the film to be seen. Zadjerid Leto is a thought crime. Also, also just a weird missed opportunity to have this guy look like a crocodile, but have an ostrich leather suit.

He looks, he looked for a moment like he wasn't wearing any clothes at all because his clothes look so closely like his skin. Yeah, they're very tailored. It's the equivalent of if you were to wear a bodysuit that was flesh colored. It's a little disturbing. Looks like he might be walking around naked. Well, old boy's ship is in bad shape, and they offer to beam him out before it as blowed, and he refuses categorically to abandon his ship.

I will not abandon my vessel. Sir, your ship is in danger. I will not leave! So they come up with what seems like a better solution that they may have considered first, if I was in charge, which is, oh, we'll do a tractor beam and shore up his structural issues and bring him in on board his own ship safely.

Like, this is the first time they're meeting anybody from the other side of the wormhole. So, like, I wouldn't necessarily beam that guy directly into the command center first thing. Not at all. I think the crew of Deep Space Nine has received different instructions on what first contact should be. They're really kind of winging it. Yeah, well they say at one point, like I think O'Brien is gonna head down and help him wrench on his ship. And they're like, show just like no first contact stuff this time.

Yeah, we'll deal with that later. It's so weird how the federation delegates resources in their territory because who are know, who are the people who typically make first contact? It's like galaxy-class starships on the furthest reaches of space. Categorically, deep space nine qualifies as that sort of importance because it's right next to this wormhole out of which any number of new species could come I could see there being like an officer that is Especially tasked with this job stationed on the station anything more than the eight Federation people who were there I think I think would be a good amount of manpower. Let's send the handyman down

Yeah, we'll have a Brian do this a man who is used to spending hours and hours by himself. Do you think they- He's not going to be socially weird. Do you think that they looked at this guy's loaf when he got on the FaceTime and they're like, that's a dead ringer for one-off loaf. We can send O'Brien to meet this guy. That's some pretty dangerous loaf stereotyping bin. typing pen. So he goes down there and he's like poking around in the ship and there's nobody there. It's unoccupied and up on up and up so they're like, um, yeah, I mean, since you just say that there's somebody there, chiefs,

so maybe you've got some aftershocks from your aphasia virus or something. Keep being alone on an alien ship, O'Brien. Yeah, keep like being alone with your head stuck through an access panel so you can't see if anybody's coming up behind you. It's so insane. Very weird, very, very weird.

I mean, nice to... Do you think they want him to die? Like, is this a subtle, maybe this is a way we can get rid of the Ryan situation here? Yeah. I mean, after the last episode, I feel like they would be really heartless

if they don't just take pity on O'Brien. Maybe they really, really like coffee, and they do not think it's funny that it's so bad at the station. Ha-ha-ha. Well, he is like halfway toward diagnosing the issue when this alien sort of appears out of nowhere behind him and starts making suggestions.

And O'Brien has a great like bang his head against the undercarriage of the ship take when he realizes that he's been snuck up on. The Colleen Mimico has been damaged. O'Brien is on the one hand the worst person for this mission, but on the other hand, like in a vacuum, just has a naturally friendly carriage about him that is very non-threatening, that like, you know, and his bumbling here is sort of works in a diplomatic favor, you know?

Yeah. This guy doesn't know anything about him but he's so much of a goof that like, you're not going to be threatened by him. He can make friends with anybody that walks into the local pub, you know. He's not picky, he's not, he's not a snob, he's just a regular guy down to have a conversation with anybody. And that makes him accessible even to an alien.

Right. We get to know that this guy is Tosk and that seems to be the like his species category and his name and Everything that anybody could care to know about him right O'Brien introduces himself and They talk over the possibility of repairing the ship his ship appears to run off of Blue Radio Shack police lights. Also. Which is like a form of power that has many, many years in the past to the crew of Deep Space 9. Yeah. Ben, did you ever get one of those police lights from Radio Shack and go driving around with it? I never would driving around with it.

I think I had one for a long time that I used as a special effects lighting in a music video, but I don't have it anymore, unforged. Gotta tell you, me and a buddy had one of these in high school and experienced its power on a drive one night in a way that was profoundly illegal in a way that I'm uncomfortable admitting on the show. Yeah. Like it, it really works. No one should have these or use them, FYI, like the caveat being,

don't do that, that's dumb. My parents are part of their neighborhood club that assembles items for earthquake preparedness. And I was at in high school. I discovered that a bullhorn was in the trunk of my father's car when I borrowed it to go to school one day. And I took it upon myself to stand in the parking lot after school for like 45 minutes directing traffic and like making ridiculous demands of people. And I have a very vivid memory of like the coolest kid in the grade ahead of me sitting

in his BMW like laughing hysterically and thinking, God, he thinks this is such a great bit. And then like realizing like many years later, like, oh, he was laughing at what an idiot I was. Right. Right. My high school buddy, Dan, was a really frequent shopper of Radio Shack. And he was the first friend of mine who had cobbled together a home theater system

in his bedroom. Like, he was that guy. He was the fairest buler of the group. I asked for a car. I got a computer. How's that for being born under a bad sign? Yeah. He got the blue police light and he also had the speaker mounted under the bumper of his car, which was an old early 80s 320i. Man. And one of the most fun things we did with the speaker was,

we really liked the movie True Lies at the time. Oh, sure. And there's a moment in that movie where Schwarzenegger having discovered the true goals of the antagonists announces that this is a bright point elit, a bright point elit. And the bright point alert was a thing that we used to announce all the time

on the car mounted PA system. Fun. Well, they walk into the Promenade area of Deep Space Nine and TASK is just as blown away by everything he sees as he is by O'Brien. He's inquisitive and he doesn't know how close to stand to people. If he's interested in somebody, he walks up and like, you know, chest almost touching them, like, head cocking to the side and back, as he explores their visage. Yeah, speaking of people with no boundaries.

Yeah, he cannot wrap his mind around what Dufase IX is. What is its purpose? Purpose. Defense. Surveillance. line is what is its purpose purpose defense surveillance cisco asks o'Brien for his take on him even though so brian has no professional qualifications and his judgment has no credibility like he's sort of he's sort of point man w slash r slash t task yes this is never like It's not a temporary thing.

It's not temporarily go go figure out what's rattling around on that ship. It's like figure out the ship but also be this guy's guardian while he's here. Like this episode might as well be like cutting back and forth between O'Brien showing Tosk around and repairing his ship. And Cisco sitting in his office playing solitaire on his desk.

Right, what is Cisco doing? This is the first alien you're meeting from the other side of the wormhole, 90,000 light years away or whatever. Great leaders delegate, but what isn't said in that statement is great leaders delegate well One thing we learn in this is that the wormhole has been super busy like like O'Brien is telling to ask about like the

The function that deep space nine serves as this hub between this part of the galaxy and the other and he's saying like like five six ships a week sometimes convoys go through thehole. Like a ton of traffic is going through the wormhole. And it is amazing to me that this is the first time they've encountered anybody from the other side. Yeah, it's weird. It's weird and I also want to see a convoi. Yeah, where's the convoi at? What are they doing? What are they, what are they conveying? Give me that sweet sweet convoi footage. Deep Space Nine, caravans are I of the Gamma Quadrant. What are they conveying? Give me that sweet sweet convoy footage. Deep Space Nine, caravans are I of the Gamma Quadrant. Yeah, it's an exciting time to be alive on Deep Space Nine.

Sure is. This incredulity and inquisitiveness that Tusk displays is something he maintains for days. Like, it's implied that like a bunch of time is passing as they like work on repairing a ship, diagnosing the problem, him researching where to get weapons on the station, him and O'Brien going down to Quark's bar and like everywhere he goes, everyone he meets is like weird, uncomfortable, too close standing, asking questions that seem insane. Fucking O'Brien, like, escorts him to his quarters and is like, well, I'm gonna go sleep for eight hours and Tosca's like, wait, like, that's not what I do. What am I supposed to do? No, Brian's like,

beats me. See, like, it, it is insane to me that he just leaves him alone. And sure as shit, as soon as O'Brien leaves Tosca alone, Tosca goes up to a computer and he's like, Hey, a computer, where the weapons at? Where the guns? Not great. No, not super, super great. This episode Adam, I feel like could use some B story.

Like we make one of these shows sometimes we're having like too many, too many layered stories. This really has like an A story and that's it. And I don't think that the A story has enough meat on the bone. Here's why that's important. Because without a B story to cut back and forth from, you're left with the time and the ability to pick apart the A story and why it's so insane.

In many ways, a B story does a lot of weight carrying because it's a distraction, right? You don't see the warts of the A story while you're in the Beast Story. And sometimes it can be a nice way to like, thematically counterbalance the A story. Right. And this, we, like, the only time we're away from Tosk, it's when O'Brien is like up in ops, getting asked a million questions by everybody about the guy that has become his best buddy. Yeah, and O'Brien is talking about him like he's a puppy.

Like, like, oh, he's clearly not a threat because he doesn't know anything. But what the fuck does O'Brien know? Yeah. O'Brien's exposure to aliens is 10 seconds after beaming them on board the enterprise and then what he's able to over here Is they walk out of the transporter room? Yeah, making a wise crack about their weird barrel of fish Tosca is a weird alien too like he doesn't need to sleep that much and he doesn't need to eat even and And he has no vices has no vices Like he doesn't need to sleep that much and he doesn't need to eat even and

And he has no vices has no vices Yeah, uh, quirky. We have tasks started smoking cigarettes like a lot of them I'm going to stand here and watch you smoke every one of those cigarettes Then maybe alert it would be great if he had picked up a vice. I think that'd be so fun I live the greatest adventure one could ever desire Tosk is trying to break into the weapons locker and the camera pans very intensely over to a painting that looks like a eighth grader did it and the painting starts melting and

It turns out that the constable Odo was planning a stakeout and catches Tosk red handed trying to steal phasers and such. Ben, I so wanted to pan over to the painting and have the painting have eyes like that old timey picture with the eye holes. What if it had pan over and it was that painting of the horse playing this axophone? And the horse's eye was was panning around. This leads me to another question like when he takes the shape of something else is the whole thing eyes? How is he able to see if he doesn't have eyes in the thing that he's become?

You know what I mean? He seems to have a sensory apparatus, but it's unclear how it works. It would be great if in order to surveil, he had to have eyes on whatever object it was. And so like in the last episode, Cork's beverage cart, like has Google eyes on the front, or the painting here has that saxophone horse with eyes. And Odo always just keeps a packet of self-adhesive Google eyes in his pocket and puts them on things all over the station as he walks around

just to keep people on their toes. Like, I know it's cool to keep us in suspense on the rules of Odo. But I think this is a pretty big, this is a pretty big thing to reconcile. Like how does he work functionally? People should know that on the ship. You don't wanna work with a guy

that you don't know where his eyes are. Yeah, can you not sneak up behind Odo? Here's an idea Ben. Like if you, let's say, your Ben Cisco, and you get assigned to deep space nine, and you're very dramatic in all of your interactions. Okay. And you're working with Kira and the constable

and all the pejorin delegates that work on the station. Don't you have to set up ground rules for Odo? Like, Odo, here's the thing. You cannot become a paperweight on my desk. Like, the rule is, the rule is you, you, you must announce yourself before being in my room or whatever. Don't there have to be rules like that for him? Like so. I mean, it'd be like, we're like going to date and come home and be getting into some, some intimate fun times. And then really it's like,

I don't remember having a potted plant in that corner. Odo is your condom. How'd you like to roll on Odo? No! Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! Gross.

That would be awful. But like, wouldn't you be paranoid all the time? I would be. Yeah. And I think there has to be some ground rules here. I'd be some auto ground rules. This is more fast and loose Ben Cisco as commander of the station. I think that the most ridiculous part of TASC is that anytime they ask him a question that would illuminate like what he was running from when he went into the wormhole or like why he's so skittish or why he was trying to break into the gun locker

as he just says I cannot discuss it and This winds up getting revealed to be like he took some sort of vow of secrecy with his with the with the other species from his planet and it's just like with the other species from his planet. And it's just like, this is like another example of why we need a B storyline. Like, or come up with a better reason for why he's not talking more, you know? Or a competent security man. Like, why does this shit fly here?

Yeah. Even Warfoot locked him in his quarters and interrog fly here? Yeah. Even Warfoot lock him in his quarters and interrogate him. Yeah. And Warfoot was terrible at security. Well, it is not long after TASC has thrown into the brig for trying to steal guns that another similar but different ship comes through the wormhole. And they take a lot more defensive of a posture with these guys, and they even like raise

the shields, but these guys have an ability to reverse the polarization on Deep Space 9's defense shields. And three guys beam onto the Promenade in bright red war costumes. They're dressed for 70s battle-start Galactica cosplay. Yeah, like if you gave the people that did the Flash Gordon movie, the task of designing the predator, this is what they would've come up with. That is spot on.

This is like an invasion force for all anybody can tell. They're walking around, they're shooting. There's an incredibly lethargic firefight on the promenade, where basically every character from the show is down there shooting phasers and trying to bolside these guys. Did you ever feel like the station was threatened existentially though. Like I didn't get the sense that these guys

were murdering people in a way that maybe they they should have been. Yeah, like the, well that's what's so weird is like they come in and there's a firefight where like all of the senior staff and the entire security detail are like shooting these guys and they're getting shot, they're fallen off of catwalks on the second level of the promenade.

Like, shit is getting torn apart. And yet, the way the shots are framed, the way the scene is cut together, there's like zero suspends, zero seeming stakes in this firefight and like conveniently, everybody that needs to be in the scene runs into the into the brig and discovers the one guy that made it past the firefight. Talking to Tosk and he takes off his helmet and he's kind of like Tosk if he had had a better dermatologist when he was 16. Ben, as soon as he took off his helmet, the first thought that went to my mind was he's got a

puppy nose. Well, Tosk does do. Like they have the same nose. It's just the task is way bumpier on the rest of his face One of the reasons I never felt like these guys were threat is because they look like college mascots for a college Whose mascot is a future robot or something like big giant metalhead Red suits big silver vinyl boots, like little blinky lights everywhere. They look cheap in a way that the rest of the show doesn't. You know, way that task doesn't. Yeah, that's so weird.

Like, task is not an inspired makeup job, but at least the makeup is like very well executed. The idea here is that these guys are hunters and they hunt guys like Tosk, but in every other depiction of a hunter-hunted race, the hunted looks less threatening than the hunters and these hunters don't look threatening at all. Yeah, like this guy's got like a beer get and looks like he's you know wasting a career in middle management and like hates his wife and kids you know. He just looks like a middle-aged shithead. Really disappointing.

These guys have beamed onto the station without permission, ripped a bunch of shots off at senior staff and the security detail. They should be just as locked up as TASC is, but instead the commander is like, well, let's discuss this with these guys. The conversation they have basically goes nowhere. There in Cisco's Ready Room and this hunter explains the deal. The deal that, you know, these task guys are bred to be hunted.

It's totally noble. Everything's on the up and up here, and also talk to the Michael Jackson Glove. I'm not trying to hear you anymore. Godfuckin' dammit, I have that exact same thing written down in my notes. Cisco is totally impotent throughout this entire episode. Like he does not make one good decision. It's like the thing where it gets overrun by everyone. It's like what we were talking about with like all the different like cultural differences that you would have to confront at the station.

like cultural differences that you would have to confront at the station. Like he is being incredibly accommodating of quirks wanting to take sexual liberties with his female employees, but well, I guess it's actually on brand. He's also being incredibly accommodating if you guys want to have a firefight on the promenade because it's part of their cultural tradition. I don't get how you get to be a commander while being that accommodating.

We saw the commander test that Troy took. Yeah. Like, like how does, how does, how does Cisco pass that test? He's like, maybe, maybe the warp core should blow up because that's what the warp core wants wants man. I don't know Jordy do you want to go fix the Warp Court and die in the process? Tell me if that's what you want to do you should go do it. But only if it's something you want to do.

Not here to make enemies. He's sort of like the cool substitute teacher guy. Yeah. He's like, okay, well, I'm not, I'm not gonna pass judgment about your culture, which is largely centered around killing sentient beings. You can take your guy and go home. And what we've gotten from these hunter guys is that Tosca's gonna go home to a life of ignominium.

Where children can make fun of you, toss you scraps of food, which is more than you deserve. He has shamed his entire species in allowing himself to be captured by the crew on Deep Space 9. Yeah, poor task. Doesn't sound great. He seems pretty understanding about this fate though. He's like, yeah, fucked up.

I shouldn't be in this jail. I blew it by going in the wormhole big time. Yeah, I think that the thing that they they don't count on is What good friends Tosk and chief O'Brien have become Because O'Brien takes off his badge and he's walking the hunter and Tos task to the exit of the promenade which is not really clear why they would be going there because these

guys beamed in in the first place but but they're going out one of the airlocks and the door zaps the hunter and like knocks him knocks him back and the chief even throws a punch and knocks the guy on conscious and he and Tosca are like racing through the station running away. And the hunter has one of those, has one of those great scenes where he like, he like gets off off the ground like shakes it out a little bit and he's, he gets on his communicator and says the hunt has resumed. I had to play this back a couple of times.

Did you hear the sound of O'Brien's punch to the hunter's face? Oh. It was the shittiest Foley punch sound I've ever heard. Was it like I stole a CD of Foley sounds like from my last job and this is the only punch on the CD? Like I can totally forgive the overly loud, fully punched. That sounds like a garbage can being thrown down some stairs. Like, I love a cartoonish, fully punched.

But this sounded like nothing. Yeah. It sounded like Play-Doh being dropped on the floor. Like, there was nothing there. Glass jaw. No, in a way, where a helmet. You got to give O. Good, good, good, good. Glass jaw. No, in a way, we're a helmet. You got to give O'Brien a better sounding punch, man. Yeah, this is one of the stars of the show.

He's got to have a great punch sound. So there's sort of a foot chase around the station. And the foot chase is more exciting than the earlier fire fight. I'll go on to say, like there's, like, crawling around in the Jeffries tubes and there's, and there's, tubes and there's shooting and there's punching and up in ops, they realize what's going on. They realize that Chiufau Bryan has taken off his combat and slapped it on a bulkhead

so that they won't know where he is. And Odo is like ripshit. He's like champing at the bit. He says like, let me add him, boss. Like, I wanna, I wanna nap these guys before they get out and, and Cisco's like, eh, maybe, uh, you know, take your time with that. Like, don't, uh, don't make a, make it your most pressing issue.

Turn yourself into something slow moving and then head that way. Ha ha may be interesting if they were taken into custody by a sloth and a durable three-toed sloth from the jungles of Costa Rica. How long would it take a tree to get there? I don't know. Let's find out. Let's use this as an opportunity for science. Yeah, and Odo just sort of slinks his way to the turbo list, waits for beats, and then hits the elevator button. They definitely are like, I could just see like the assistant director just off screen doing the stretch it out hand motion like like he's stretching out taffy like like like just just let it ride Renee just let it rush we could use as much time we do not have a B story to cut to so just

fucking milk this moment for all it is worth. Renee Abyssinois, a great actor. It killed millions of Germans, but yet we forgive him. So they're nearly escaped and they're like in a hallway and the flash Gordon Predators beam in. And the one that we've met, the one that's taken his helmet off, is still got helmet off. And they start licking shots and O'Brien is gonna return fire and toss, it's like, no man, it's gotta be me. I've gotta be the one that returns fire.

It like knocks us dust buster down, raises his airsatz, Chewy from Star Wars laser crossbow and takes out the hunter. is Erzatz, Chewy from Star Wars, laser, crossbow, and takes out the hunter. Yeah. All three hunters in one shot. Sort of an impossible shot if you ask me. How does he do it? Yeah, he's just that good.

He's trained his whole life for this. Yeah. And that's like, maybe the only interesting idea in this episode is like what if the prey is Genetically engineered to like show identify with being prey that that's what he wants to be Like it's kind of the thing that sucks about Saru in Star Trek Discovery is like

Like we've gotten like three really impassioned speeches from Saru at this point about how he is a prey animal on his planet and his people have fear boners for a reason. And he, like, and that's like all we've gotten. Like, that's all we know about at this point. Tosk like, likek presents an interesting question. They genetically engineered him to be smart, but also to want to be hunted.

And it's also like a job that gives him a sense of purpose in life. His being captured in Ignamini brings great shame on him. his being captured in ignomini brings great shame on him. And so, like we can... Well, Ben, the thing that really didn't work for me, and this is something I'll probably talk a little bit more at the end of the episode, which is like, I want it to be impressed by Tosk.

Like I want him to be really good at being prey. Right. As soon as he's captured, he sucks. Like, why do you want from him is the... Why did he escape from prison or something? Yeah, what you want is that like super soldier vibe from that episode. Right. Where the guy is like, like taking on 14 security officers

in the hallway and beating them all to a pulp. That's what I wanted. But instead, he acted like a guy in laser tag who had been shot and was like walking his way back to like the locker room area like because the game is over like the game should never be over to him and he gives up so easily that that was really that I think took a lot of the juice out of the episode his give up in nature if he was bred to be prey and to be sporting prey,

I thought he would be more sporting than this. Like he should be cheating and willing to cheat. It's like that kind of, there's like a span of like 20 episodes of TNG where Worf is living with this commendation and every time a Klingon comes on board the ship, he has to like put his tail between his legs and slink off. Yeah, and that's what Tosca is doing here.

He's pataking around. Yeah, he's really a major patakan at most points of this episode. Right. I really like that early 1990s show, starring Gerald McRainey called Major Patak. You like that one huh? I liked it. Everyone loves a Gerald McRainy reference. Welcome to the greatest generation deep space 9,

the foremost source for Gerald McRainey humor. I think there may have been some Gerald McRainey jokes on a recent stuff you should know. Oh really? They did like a two episode arc on The Simpsons that was great and it was a lot of fun to listen to. And I think they made a lot of fun of major tech. Well, that was an unintentional reference then maybe I was maybe they didn't actually and I'm just like imagining what when the mics are off Josh would check would say about major day. If you've ever ever wondered that you don't have to wonder any longer because you're here and Ben and I talk about it right now. I can see there being like maybe like a great max fun, max fun drive, a special episode would be us calling up

Josh and Chuck and getting their frankest opinions about major dad. We'll just cover a random major dad episode for the pledge drive. The majorest generation. And a major dad episode for the pledge drive. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha and moving from topic to topic. So that no one had the chance to think the public was really quite hypnotic, not hypnotic. Obran helps Tosk get onto his dinky little ship. Tosk tucks his crossbow up into the overhead compartment where I guess his sunglasses would normally go.

And they say kind of a, kind of a like a game-recognized game. Goodbye. Like respect knuckles. Yeah. There's a moment here where Tosk is like, hey bud, you come with, that was pretty kick-aspect there. The way you handled yourself in the hallway. Maybe you can come along with him. Yeah, he says like you're you're now a task also. And no, Brian's like, oh, that's cool. I you know, I got a I got a couple of tasks. The wife needs me to take care of back home. So he's sort of like that that husband who goes out drinking with the boys for the first time in a long time, and the boys are like, man, you gotta do this more often.

We're having a blast right now, and he's like, no, I really can't make this a habit, guys. I got a wife and kids. I got a wife and two girlfriends on the side, man, I'm busy, man. I feel like if O'Brien's being really true to his character, I think he gives this more of a thought than we really see here. Like, this is his chance to escape in.

What would have taken this episode from a solid C- to a solid A-plus? Is just one little cut in when tasks suggest this at the end, just like an ECU on O'Brien's face and just seeing the potential of that wash over him. It would have all been worth it. There's time for that. Just give us two seconds of an ECU there.

Oh my God. Odo taking a fraction less time to get on the elevator and you get that one little cut. It would have been amazing. The button on the episode is O'Brien in Cisco's office and he is getting a major ass chewing. It's a major ass chew until O'Brien puts the shoe on the other ass. By being... Oh, slip the title in Under the Wire Adam. Very nicely done.

Like, Bansisco, didn't you have the opportunity to send Odo down, to help wrangle the guy, so I wasn't caught out there, like by myself. Didn't you have didn't you have some delegating that you could have done to bring this guy to justice doesn't this station have a staff and then Cisco totally fucking cops to it yeah why does he cop to it like why make the show of chewing the ass if

you're gonna also admit that you were just chewing the ass for show. I know. And all this does, Ben is like, how does O'Brien ever respect Cisco's authority again after this? I'm gonna put a pin in that and also say, like the idea of bending and breaking rules is fully on the table from here on

out, right? Yeah. Because O'Brien does it earlier and throughout the episode and goes unpunished. Cisco admits to a subordinate that he's done so. Like, you got people unzipping their uniforms to the second button and rolling up their sleeves throughout the station. What is going on here? There are no rules on the station! The inmates are running the asylum! I truly believe that O'Brien could be a chaos agent

for the rest of the series. And I don't remember enough about this series to know whether or not that happens, but the possibilities are there. Yeah. I could get behind that. Did you like this episode, Adam? Here's the thing. I really like the episode if it is the introduction to O'Brien being the chaos agent that I have a feeling he will not become. Like, the idea of this station being outside of the grasp of the Federation, like sort of Federation in name only, is really interesting to me. And it's something that I hope that they pay off from time to time, if not all the time. But this episode, as it is, is fairly derivative of a number of stories of this kind, both in science fiction and, you know,

in a lot of places. Yeah. And it didn't do it in a particularly better or more interesting way than any of those other places that you could experience the story. So I would say that I did not like the episode. Like if you're gonna remix a song, you want it to be like either just a way better version

of the song or a totally interesting take on the song that makes you consider it a new and interesting way. This is not Colin Menez-Falt, it's not the guy who plays Tusks' fault. Like it's a very well-acted episode. Yeah, coldly. All the way around. It's actually pretty great in this episode. And I thought that he was a little weak

in the previous episode. For as much screen time as he got to, he's been a major focus two times in a row. Yeah, I feel like in the previous episode when he's speaking nonsense, he's great, and when he's speaking coherent sentences, it's like somebody has handed him a note card with what his line is gonna be in the next scene.

And he's like, fuck, like I have to memorize this right now. He's just really put off by it. And that informs us before. Yeah, exactly. Well Adam, one thing that never puts us off is priority one message is procured by our viewers. Do you want to check and see what we have in store?

Let's do it! Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. We need a supplement on it. supplement on it? supplement supplement Yeah it's extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship! Stop alone, stop alone. Stop alone. Stop alone. Yeah, it's extra.

But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship! Ben our first priority one message is from Paul. It is for Ben and Adam. Yes, you too. And I guess by that he means us too, Ben. Oh man. It's for us! Hey!

Message goes like this everyone. I always said a Star Trek podcast would be too embarrassing to be funny, but what this show presupposes is, maybe it's not? I grew up watching TNG and you guys have given me a new way to look at one of my favorite shows. Found the podcast in July, binge the whole thing, and wish I'd found it sooner. Keep up the funny! Thanks! That's great! Thank you, Paul! Thank you! Binge the whole thing and wish I'd found it soon. Or keep up the funny. Oh!

Thanks! That's great. Thank you, Paul. Thank you. I love it when people binge the whole thing. I really can't imagine what that's like. It's like the nicest thing to hear in the whole wide world. It really is.

I mean, that's not to say that I dislike hearing it at all. It's just that I don't understand it. I've heard my voice. I know what it at all. It's just I don't understand it I've heard my voice Can't be great and I've heard your voice too, Ben. Not good not winning any any awards for that one No Our next priority one message is from Yoki your husband your potato salad and it is for boo boo My husband my your potato salad, and it is for boo boo my husband, my macaroni salad. It goes like this Adam.

Boo boo and now you too have been schismed. With a P1. Thanks for introducing me to this pod for listening with me through the seasons. With a P1. Thanks for introducing me to this pod, and for listening with me through the seasons, even if we are listening at different times in different places. I wonder if Ben and Adam will enjoy all these carbs again. I love you. Happy birthday.

May all your Shimoda speedrun. I love being a part of a great couple's celebration. We're like the healthy part of a balanced breakfast bin. I feel bad because this is real belated. This was supposed to be as close to September 30 as possible. And in their note, they said, you can take a razor plevim message away for this one. Oh man, I wish we had. I feel like Raz and plevim would be cool with that, but it is like we go through enough like headaches just schedule it like scheduling these is like surprisingly difficult and and so anyway sorry for the very belated birthday message, boo-boo, but happy birthday. Hope it's a great one.

Yeah, it was happy birthday. That was one of the great PM, PM ones, right? Yeah, absolutely. It's practically tradition at this point for the salads of potato and macaroni. Yeah, it sure is. Well, if you would like to start your own tradition, you could go ahead over to maximumfund.org slash Jembo Tron. It is a hundred bucks for a personal message

and a 200 for a commercial message. And it really helps the production of our program. Thanks, guys. Yummok and Jalad and Janaga. A Greatest Gen Live Show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment.

Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it! The Share Your Embarrassment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's GreatestGenTour.com for dates and ticketing information for the share your embarrassment tour. I'm Jordan Morris and I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan, Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer.

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Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Whoa, rice, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line and boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short nacks.

But I'm hearing we need to get on this off. We've got to get on the art. It is about terrain, it's about historic 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? Owner Ross & Kerry, available on MaximumFun and Outdoor. Hey Adam. What's that been? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? I sure did. Ben, I think the most Shimoda moment of the episode is the fucking crack shot that Tosk takes at the main hunter guy.

That somehow hits the other two hunters. Like it's like he picks up a spare in that hallway with that single shot. It makes no sense that his single shot knocks down all of them. They fall down like so many bowling pins, like basically on top of each other, it is complete bullshit. Tasks should have shot three times. Why didn't he?

Yeah. Like that single shot doesn't make any sense in that context. Like can he not go, doesn't have to recharge like a disposable camera flash or something? Or like shoot twice and then beat the shit out of the third guy with the butt of your weird crossbow. Like like vary it up a little bit with the melee combat. It would have been a lot more fun if there had been some more compound fight scenes in this episode.

All the fight scenes, this is a much more exciting fight scene than the 18 person shoot out on the promenade. And still, it would have been 10 times better if it had been like, like, shoot somebody to cause chaos at the other end of the hallway and then bum rush them, or like, he had, he had a bright, like, criss-cross shooting and like, closing in, like, fucking Navy SEALs in a dark hallway at midnight. They seem far more willing to go hand-to-hand in next gen. And it makes me wonder if it's still like a division of resources thing at this point between the two shows. Yeah. Like if your, if your stunt choreographer is

still working across the street, like you're just going to be the pew-pew show until TNG ends, you know? Maybe that's how it went. Yeah. What about you, Ben? I forget what's the question. What's your drunk Shimoda? Did you already say? My drunk Shimoda is task also. Can I give it to him not for that fight scene, but for the level of inter-cordulity he maintains for days and days.

Like, I just found it very, very hilarious and shimoto-like that, like, they were like two days in with him and he's still close-talking people, asking ridiculous questions, and just like he maintains the same demeanor the entire time. Like he never relaxes into these are just chill people who aren't trying to hunt me. I feel like the core component to any fish out of water story is the unexpected interest in a thing that everyone else thinks is normal that they like, that they over consume, right? What they should have done is had him like love replicator coffee or something, you know? That's what I'm saying. Play with the thing from the last episode.

This is Deep Space 9. We can do these kinds of things. Tosk is like, you mean you can get bean dip out of the replicator, and as much as you want of it? Like Tosk was from the Delta Quadrant, and he had a hunger on for bean dip. What he didn't realize was that the Alpha Quadrant, a little so-and named. Chief O'Brien was ready to replicate up as much bean dip as Tosk wanted. Coming this summer. They seem willing to make fun with Tosk about his fish out of waterness without willing

to fully make fun of him in a way that I feel like is satisfying for a story of this type. They just sort of half-ass him a little bit. Like, if you're doing it, and I think the like, the like most storied example of this in sci-fi is stranger in a strange land. Like, have there be some things about his culture that are interesting and compelling? Like, like, blow our minds a little bit. Like, come up with a more or a word or an idea

that is like cool and new, that he can be like all about, you know? I just don't rock why they didn't do that. Yeah, I don't either. It's like they had a B story here that was just fully expunged. It's weird. Ben, what do we have coming up for the next episode? The next episode is season one episode six, Qless. The irrepressible... Yes!

Fuck off. The irrepressible Q and! ...talk off the irrepressible Q and the adventure is VASH! Arriving to Space Nine! Just a strange destructive forces begin threatening the Space Station. Wow! I am really happy to see Q again! This is great! I'm more happy to see VASH and very unhappy to see Q. VASH is great. Vash, like Vash is 10 times cooler than Q and really doesn't need Q.

Like, like she's so much better than him. Star Trek does the thing of sending a person with an omnipotent creature away, and we get so few check-ins with them. Yeah, where you at Wesley? How did you come to that? How did you come to be at that wedding at the beginning of that one movie? Despite the fact that you've gone on like the ultimate, ultimate nerd rum-springer with the traveler. It's like they forget about these characters, Ben. I don't understand it. Don't forget about their most interesting

characters. Yeah. Adam, do you want to find out if we are going to be drinking as much as we drank tonight on this next episode? Let's find out, Ben. I hope not, but I also hope so, in a weird way. Okay, I'm clicking Generate on the random number generator, and our number is four, so we will not be drinking. Bullet dodged with my last slug of Miss Gal. And mine is really good.

Absolutely great right now. Well, if you want to nerd out about the pod, you can go to a number of places Cal. And mine is great right now. Well, if you want to nerd out about the pod, you can go to a number of places online. We've got the hashtag GreatestGen on Twitter, which is a lot of fun. We've got a great subreddit and a great Facebook group that is close to 3,000 members, which is fucking bonkers.

And we really appreciate. Uh, I was sort of a drunkly zoning out while you said that. You were talking about the Facebook thing, right? Yeah. You can also chat us up on Twitter using the hashtag here to get in. I already said that Adam. I already took care of that part.

Fuck. Here's what we should say. We should thank Dark Materia for our theme music and Adam Regusia for so much theme music it is almost insane at this point. And we should tell people to go to MaximumFun.org slash Donate if they like the show enough to support us. You know, recently we lost a donor because we expressed some empathy to people who aren't

straight, white, cisgendered males. And that is really deeply impacted the bottom line. So if you want to make up for that short cut shortfall because you are a person who appreciates this program, you can get a maximum fund out of our excise donate. You know, like this is a, it is a miracle that anybody cares enough to contribute financially to the production of this program, but it also like really depends on that at this point. Like if we did not have the generous support that we do, the thing we are doing here would not be possible. It's clear that we are hemorrhaging supporters right now due to our very controversial stances on empathy and goodness for our fellow person.

So with that, Adam. Oh, jeez. So with that, we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9. And another episode of the greatest generation Deep Space 9, that is full of omnipotent power and a sidekick. And a very loud barking dog. Look at me.

Now I have the quiet dog. No shit. She's been the dogs on the other bark this time. Make it sound. Maximumfund.org Comedy and culture. Artists Don't Listen or Support it Maximumfund.org

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