The Greatest Generation - Queen of the Slickbacks (S5E22)

Episode Date: March 22, 2017

When the ship drives some of its wheels over a wet lawn, things start to slow down. If that wasn’t boring enough, our focus is almost entirely on a couple of cherubic little girls running around sensitive areas of the ship. Why doesn’t Ogawa have a back-zip yet? How do you get to be a forty year-old ensign? Should Alexander be playing with his loaf like that? It’s an episode that Ben was very embarrassed to watch in public.

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 friendsofdecisoto for labor.com. That's friendsofdisoto for labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in a Star Trek podcast from a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Benjamin R. Harrison.

I'm Adam Prennicka. Hey Adam. Hey Ben, are you still in LA? Once again, recording from the, the, uh, the, uh, sweat lodge booth in Max Fun HQ. Oh, really? Yeah. You taking some ayahuasca in there? After, after there's been some, some pod being cast out of this room for a bunch of

consecutive hours all day, it does get a little, a little hot in here. You feel a little soupy? Mm-hmm. I turned on the fan and had the door open while I was waiting for you. So I cooled me off a bit, but I can kind of sense that by the end of this I might be... I might have a little beaded sweat on my brow. You typically like to enjoy a refreshing podcast fluid while you do pod. What's the... What's the maximum fun refrigerator stocked with?

I saw some some craft brews in there. I had something to drink. I have work later, so I didn't want to partake and then be groggy for the next several hours that I have to be on my feet and alert. You don't want to be beer breath guy. No, I've also got some fairly bad jet lag from this trip. Really? I feel like you travel to and from LA quite a bit and it doesn't really been too much

of an issue for you historically. I don't know if it's I'm getting older or if it's just a random bad trip for it, but I have totally bad jet lag. Like, you know, it's like, oh, I try to push myself to go to sleep at 10 and then I wake up at 3 a.m. That's brutal. When I got back from Japan, I think I had it as bad as I ever have.

For some reason, going west, I mean, I never go west. There's nothing west of us except I guess Hawaii and we've done that a few times. But like, I never go west. There's nothing west of us except I guess Hawaii, and we've done that a few times. But like, I always go east, when I go to Europe or New York or wherever, like jet lag going that way seems a lot easier to take. But going west, man, that'll fuck you up.

Well, fuck you up. Well, you wanna see if I can get through a pod on a very little sleep and I have to say I was watching this episode on the airplane and the guy next to me was like trying to do a spreadsheet was very distracted by it. I don't know man if I were sitting next to someone in the middle seat who was who was watching imaginary friend I might be disturbed by that too. I probably look like such a creep to that guy. Oh no. Are you an aisle person or a window person, Ben?

I am almost always an aisle person, but this was a rare window outing. And the only reason I did it was because it was the window seat right next to the door off of the airplane. Oh yeah. It's good sheet. It is on many planes and in this one instance, it was so close to the door that the like bulging door made it pretty uncomfortable.

Couldn't put your feet up on that raft. No, that's too big. I tried to and they, they, they, they pissed, pissed me. Yeah, I bet. Don't want to put those wing tips up on that floater. No. tried to and they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they episode of Star Trek. These girls get a lot of screen time. Let's get into it, Ben. Season 5 episode 22. Imaginary friend. Troy's having a little tea party with a girl. I don't know, what are we gonna say, like, six, seven-year-old girl? Yeah, that sounds about right.

But here's the thing about her who will get to know her Clara. Like, she's a, she's wizard, you know? Like she's a little girl, but she seems like wise for her age, you know. I like to cook all kinds of stuff. Like yogurt and raisins salad, chocolate chip pancakes, and perplomins. Perplomins. Well, she's got the precociousness of an only child at him.

Yeah, that's true. She's got her dad, AirSat's commander data, sitting in the background there. He's like trying to distract himself with some minesweeper on his laptop. But, uh. Claire's dad is 40-year-old Denson. And Ben, I have so many questions about that.

Like, how did you get to the enterprise as 40-year-old Denson? You remember, there was a Shimoda. Shimoda! 200 episodes ago, where there was a Shimoda 200 episodes ago where there was like a 70-year-old engineer lady like who had who had a couple of lines and I was like I was so impressed that that she was there you know knocking it around an engineering with the rest of them. Yeah she's the only character we've seen with those tan shoes that retirees wear. So comfortable.

Yeah, I like, I would love a bottle episode of 40-year-old Ensign. Like, how did you get there? Like, what led you to this place? Yeah. Maybe he was like a professional soccer player. And then he did like some broadcast journalism for a while after that But he decided that he wanted to really like try something genuinely different, you know not in the sports biz at all Yeah, he he tore a tendon as a star athlete then he opened up a shuttlecraft dealership Yeah, just sort of floated along for a while.

That why not join the military? Join the mobile infantry and save the world, service Guarantees Citizenship. Yeah, it'll be great. We live in a perfect future, there's no age limit. Sure isn't, and this guy's hanging around in her daughter's therapy. Did you think this is appropriate, Ben? No. I have struggled with mental health issues for much of my life.

And it was the most worst when I was a kid. Yeah. And having had a talk therapy available to me in a way that was genuinely private from my parents was incredibly important when I was a child. I imagine, like, you know, before I turned 18, it wasn't genuinely private, but just the idea that I could talk to somebody about this stuff and just trusting this grown up with like giving my parents what they needed and not my deepest darkest. Yeah. Was it an important part of that for me?

The reason I ask that is because like I don't think it's giving anything away to say that this episode is not the most intense in terms of what's happening here. But I think you could add a little tension by not having dad and therapy and having him try to figure out what's up with his daughter by going through Troy to get it. Yeah. I thought it was a strange choice to just like sort of have him in the background. It was unnecessary. Yeah.

The deal with this little girl is she is a military brat like her dad is obviously something wrong with him because he's been shuffled from starship to starship. Never gets a promotion. And he's landed on the entrepreneur and she doesn't have a lot of real-life friends, so she's got an imaginary friend. And he is super concerned about the idea that she has an imaginary friend. Troy does her best just sort of talk him down. She's like, look, girls are age, especially girls who, you know, get moved around from ship to ship because of their dad who can't seem to get a steady job. These things will happen. It's hard to construct a social group when you're going from place to place, from base

to base. Like, chill out, dad. And maybe why don't you go sit outside while we do therapy. There's some advice for you. Stop looming. Do you really think this is going to be good for your relationship when she's a teenager? I think this is the development of some pretty significant trust issues. Yeah, this is the dad that shepherds his daughter on her first date kind of guy.

Yeah. Did you ever have an imaginary friend at him? No, I never did. And I had friends who had imaginary friends and I felt oddly jealous about that. Even though it was totally within my control to have one. I was like, God, geez, why don't I have an imaginary friend? I think that that's kind of how I felt about it too. But I was like, is there something to it other than just walking around telling everybody you have an imaginary friend?

That was hard to tell. Yeah. And this episode, like, as light and silly as it is, is actually like a pretty, it's a pretty fun idea to toy with that as being like, what if there was something to it? Yeah. But yeah, so Troy is like, you know, you know, chill out and let this thing unfold. It's not like that famous New Yorker article from 15 or 20 years ago where the imaginary friend has too many scheduling conflicts to ever meet up. I would say just chill out and the kid will be all right. Once she learns to make new friends on the Enterprise, you'll probably find that she'll

leave her imaginary world behind. Isabella is the name of Claire's imaginary friend. She's fairly available for whatever. Yeah. The entrepreneur pulls into the con nebula with some nice color filtering on it to make it look like maybe it's a different nebula even though we know it's not. Looks good.

Looks good with the gel on it, I thought. Yeah. Yeah. It graded it all red. And they pull in and they're gonna like explore this nebula, which is an unusual formation because it formed around a neutron star. And as they like start driving through this bad part of town.

Take a seat and answer one quarter impulse. I see. A little glowing light slips into the ship, which is a thing that we've seen depicted before, right? Ben, like, not two episodes ago, the ship got hit with stripper glitter. And now it's happening again. Yeah, but it's also been like a ball of light that slipped in and then like floated around the ship, right?

There's that episode where, what were they? Like, it was like taking over Picard or something? The ball of light comp is something they've gotten tremendous value out of for the duration of the show. This is a good version of the comp, I wanna say. Like it's pretty like, I don't quite know how they did this.

It looks really good. Yeah. Like it's, there's definitely something practical in it, but I think it's also comped in. But like those are real lens flares, right? That's not an effect. Yeah, that looks really good. Well, anyways, this thing floats around the ship and we get sort of a fun tour through the ship, like getting some conversation in passing of different people. I really liked just getting to like be a fly on the wall for data, and Jordy talking over

how they're gonna explore this cool nebula. Will two hours be enough time to complete the high resolution series on the Neutron Star? No problem, we'll just double up the main sets that are bandwidth while they're freeing up the lateral units. Dr. Crusher, needling Nersogawa

about some new romantic relationship she has. He has surely next month. He asked me to go to Ryzen with him. No problem, Nersogawa. She can talk for you. Yeah, you play a little around the horn. They're really sort of doubling down on Ogawa right now and her backstory. I don't think I'm going to talk to her. Here, it's a very un-inhibited atmosphere. Personally, I don't think I'm ready for that kind of fun. Wasn't too long ago where she was in frame as someone who should have dialogue, but who was totally silent. It made me wonder why O'Gala still has a front zip.

Yeah. She's been on the show like five times now. Shouldn't she have a back zip uniform at this point? If you're an actor, that's a bad sign, I think. If you're still rocking the front zip, I think you're an actor, that's a bad sign, I think. If you're still rockin' the front zip, I think you're not long for the show. You gotta be nervous about that front zip. Yeah.

Like, if you can zip yourself into costume instead of having wardrobe do it for you, like, there's sort of a class system going on there too. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you gotta go over there, put it on yourself. Yeah. You picture her zipping it up and looking longingly as they zip

Beverly into hers. Yeah, yeah, zipper into her wig Well, this thing winds up slipping into Claire's brain and brain and Clara looks up and her imaginary friend Isabella has appeared in the Arboretum. Incarnate as a you know similarly aged little blonde girl. She appears as she was described in the therapy session to Troy, like, Blue Dress, White Buttons, Dollar, like, checking all the boxes. Like, this is the girl.

She's not interested in planning starts in the Arboretum for Kiko. No. She's got other things in mind. Like, from jump, it's pretty clear that Isabella is like the bad kid that's always roping you into some scheme and you fucking know you're gonna get in trouble. Isabella is the McColley-Colkian to clear his Elijah Wood in this story. And does not, does not pay off my prediction that she would have a deep voice.

Like, yeah, even though she's possessed, she does not would have a deep voice. Like, even though she's possessed, she does not have a possession deep voice. No, she is like pretty creepy though. She definitely has like a, an even keeled, neutral tone that kind of chills you to your core because children are supposed to be vivacious and silly. Even Clara calls her on it. She's like, you know, you haven't smiled since you showed

up and I think that's a little weird. And then she pulls into that robotic like data like smile with the dead eyes. Like the school picture smile you see all the time. Like where the photographer just tells the kid to smile and it's only in the mouth and not the eyes. Yeah, you gotta get it in the eyes. You gotta tell the kid a knack-knack joke or something. Get it. Get it do more than jingle your keys buddy. I'm sorry, I'm trying to get the landing right. You must finish now. You want to get the landing right? Go back to Sears where you belong. I think this is about when the ship starts getting like little micro bangers. They keep like kind of like, you know when you like drive over grass

on one side of your car? And it's like, ah, I hate the way that feels. Like it's a little slow on one side. Yeah. And they're like, what is going on here? And so they start looking into it and they're just totally stumped. They're like, it kind of feels like

the ship is hitting something and the shields are definitely registering. Like there's a dip in power, but the sensors are coming up empty. I don't have an explanation, Captain. We seem to hit something and we started losing speed. And that ends up being the B story. The, once again, the existential threat to the ship is put on the back burner in favor

of a couple of kids running around the ship unsupervised. And then it much like a couple of Ferengis getting beamed on board the ship and then completely unwatched. Like kids just have free reign on a federation starship, don't they? Like yeah, there are no areas, like they can, I guess, hop on a turbo lift, tell the lift to go to a deck that is, that has some sort of, like, significant defensive reason for being, and they can just walk around and be there. It's weird.

The power capabilities of American naval vessels that are powered by nuclear reactors are typically classified. Like they won't even tell you what they can do. Yeah. These kids can wander into engineering. Right. They bump into the chief of security and he's like, I'm gonna look the other way this one time.

Shouldn't wharf like kind of like, there's a thousand people on board, but wharf should have a good sense in his head of like who those people are, right? I think it's time to actually put a label on this. I think wharf is bad at security. And I think he always has been. We make excuses for him. We say, you know, he's struggling with this inner conflict of being a cling on in a human society. He's dealing with being a single father. He's always been bad at security. Do you think that Worf is an example of the Peter principle? Yeah. He's been promoted into

a job that he can never be promoted out of, but he's not good at it. He's bringing the whole organization down at him. He's been chat-eached up. The chat-eached principle. Yeah. Well, yeah, so... So, here's another question, Ben. Like, this is an alien possession that we're witnessing.

There's no doubt about that at this point in the episode. Why does this alien need to possess, like, why does this alien need to take the form of this girl to do her recon on the ship? I never understood the reason for being for this imaginary girl. Yeah, well, I mean, I guess we have to wonder, like, when it was a buckee sphere of light points floating around the ship. Did it know what it was looking at when it stopped in 6 Bay and it's a nurse o'gala and Beverly Kibbetzing over some date nurse o'gala went on? Did it know what it was looking at when data in Jordy walks by?

Like, what if it had gone into Jordy's head and then Leah Brahms was suddenly there? It's interesting to think about, like whether or not this alien made choices along the way. Like, she's like, she's like, no, boring. Right, because like, she's like, no, creepy. Cause like, I think that at the, like toward the end

and this kind of is a spoiler, but who gives a fuck, this is an old TV show. You know, it becomes clear that the alien consciousness has been seeing the world through the underdeveloped eyes of a child. Like it understands the world in a child-like way because it modeled itself on this imagined child within the mind of another child. So it's like, it's playing childhood telephone.

Yeah. So like, I guess that sort of excuses it, but it is dumb. It's sort of like that Star Trek IV problem, right? Like an alien gets a message that sounds like whales from Earth. Alien thinks whales are the leaders of Earth. It's sort of like what the sparkly guy tries to figure out by boarding the enterprise. Like what is a significant thing or being to communicate with

and who is the best conduit to do that through. If all you're doing is cruising around the ship and looking at people, you have no idea how to figure out who to embody to make that possible. Yeah, I mean, I think what you want to do at them is send somebody to Earth to figure out whether or not they're made of meat. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat. You got to do that meat, Rican.

It's ridiculous. Meat can't make machines. This turns out to be a Geinen episode, Adam. I was crushed when she showed up here, because I know we have a very limited amount of Geinen episodes to burn with her. And there have been so many really awesome episodes that she would have been such an interesting presence in. Especially this season, we've been like, this would have been a perfect scenario for Geinen to be in.

And instead, we get her on a kid episode. The first scene that she is in is a total slide whistle. It's like her and data looking out at the nebula and she's telling him what the different clouds look like to her. It's a mammalian coral fish with its fin unfolded. He's, you know, dating everything back at her. I believe what you're seeing is the effect of the fluid dynamic processes inherent in the large-scale motion of a rarefied gas. And then he does like a joke.

Besides, it is clearly a bunny rabbit. He pulls a piscopo, doesn't he? He really does, and it's like, so is data joking now or not? Like, what's this, what is this, what are we meant to understand from this scene? It feels like a wouldn't it be funny thing that happened in the writers room that made the script and they were like yeah this is never gonna make the episode but we'll just leave it until we come up with something else. It's really weak. Yeah. I mean I shouldn't't say weak. I mean, it's cute. It's too cute for data.

And it's too cute for a guy, and I know she's so much better than this. Well, they bring, they bring Clara down to 10 forward because, you know, They bring Clara down to 10 forward because you know What's the deal she comes so the thing with Isabella is is she's like she's like the cool kid in School that wants to do the best Adam look at this Guy n' was not originally supposed to be in the episode, but will be Goldberg became available Suddenly and they wrote that that stuff into the script a day before shooting. God, occasionally the research pays off, huh? Yeah.

It almost makes me think we should have done this show in a very different way at them. Nicely done, Ben. Totally redeems the whole episode. I mean, if you've got a guy in an opportunity, I got to imagine it's really hard not to take it. Sorry, Wuppie. We actually have a terrible episode that we're making right now, so maybe if you're

hanging back on this one. That hat's not going to wear itself. Why don't you walk past that actress. I don't even know who she is zipping her front zip into her uniform and go get in the wardrobe. So Isabela is like the bad girl of Child actors. She's like the bad girl character on on board the ship and she wants to go to all the places the kids aren't allowed to go She wants to go to engineering. She wants to go to the bathroom. Yeah Yeah, she wants to make out under the bleachers and she wants to go to engineering. She wants to go to the bathroom. Yeah. Yeah. She wants to make out under the bleachers. And she wants to go to the bar. And evidently, like we get some,

we get some world building on 10 Ford. Kids not allowed in 10 Ford without adult supervision. Warf wasn't at the door checking IDs like he's normally supposed to. Yeah. Inside right wrist. checking IDs like he's normally supposed to. Yeah, inside right wrist. You know, and this is a big liability issue for bars, you know? Yeah. In a lot of Western states especially. Yeah.

It becomes a, you know, a big fine for the bar and it can, it can put you out of business. But Gynon is like, hey, I'm cool. I'll add a couple of underage people in here. Maybe that's what Gynon and Trouble the first time. Maybe she sold booze to underage kids and then she got briefly imprisoned. Ha, ha, ha, ha.

Picard was her lawyer. She just won't learn her lesson. She's like, I'm gonna let you be my guest, Clara. Why don't you take a seat? What do you want Isabella want to drink? And Clara goes like, oh, like it's really cool of you to be accommodating of my imaginary friend. A lot of adults don't think she's real. It's weird that Isabella is the predator. Guynen has proven that she can see things that aren't there. She can see through time both forward and backwards But she can't see the predator that's right in front of her. Yeah, I mean maybe she can and she just knows it's not that big a deal She's like the ship of deal with these idiots. Yeah, maybe maybe she's seen the future and knows they'll be fine

She's willing to play Clara's game. Yeah. Guynen kind of like talks to Clara about her past as having an imaginary friend. And she's almost feel like she's just kind of like buying time for a responsible person to come get Clara and take her out of the bar. Sort of like a department store employee finding a last kid. Yeah. I'll get you a slurpee and sit right here. We'll get on the PA and try to get your mom for you. And Troy comes down and they get on the elevator and And, you know, they like get on the elevator and try, it's like, hey, you know, you've been getting into some bad shit lately.

And, you know, you need to know that that's not good. And Claire's like, oh, well, you know, none of that was really my idea. All of that was Isabella, who's totally real. And Troy does that super condescending thing of like, all right, well, I'll ask her not to get you in trouble anymore. And so she like turns to empty space in the elevator, she's like Isabella, knock it off with going to places you know you're not allowed to go. And Claire's like, she's not standing there,

she's standing over there, Troy. It's weird that this is this is some more convenient beta-Z powerlessness in this scene too like Troy can't get a read on anything else in the turbo lift with those two. Yeah, but this scene winds up being really creepy because she she gets an answer back from Isabella who is invisible in this scene. Isabella, like Claire, like leans forward and listens to the empty space and she's kind of scared to tell Troy what Isabella said. And Troy's like, you better tell me what she said. She said, you better leave us alone.

She said, you better leave us alone. There is no Isabella, there is only Zool. Step off, bitch. And they like, they play this for all the creepiness it's worth. I thought the child actor who played Cara did a great job here. In this scene specifically, but also throughout. She carries a fucking Star Trek episode, which is unique in and of itself. Right. It is so weird for them to introduce a character, like put an entire episode on their shoulders

and have that character be a small child. None of the slick backs could carry an episode the way this girl does. She did great. Yeah, queen of the slick backs. Try, try, uh, pulls 40-year-old and synoside and she's like, hey, listen, hey, listen, man, I got a load of your apartment and the fact that you have a bunch of action figures still in their packaging, stableed up to the wall is just super creepy. You gotta put that stuff on eBay, dude.

No wonder you've never been laid. No, but she does say like, this imaginary friend might actually be kind of a problem now that I think about it. So let's try and actively discourage Clara from chilling with Isabella. And so the next scene is, Clara's like hanging out with Isabella alone in the apartment and Troy goes down and she's like, hey, do you want to go do some pottery in the ship's school? She's like, yeah, can Isabella come?

She's like, how about a Isabella does not come? And they leave together and we get the most insane like push-in rage eyes on this little child actor. And they even go so far as to turn her cordious, like, purple. When she gets angry. It's a little too much for a show that is known for doing too much before going to commercial. Typically they stop at the push-in, not this time. Let's inflame those eyes. Yeah, let's kick it up a notch. So I think we've both really missed scenes inside the elementary school, and that's where

we go next for pottery class. And although some of the kids are doing pottery, Alexander is playing with the same type of meatloaf that his forehead is made out of. It's got to be so confusing for him. Yeah, where does the loaf end? He, I mean, to his credit, he is making a badass looking chalice.

Yeah, yeah, that's just like, no. It looked, it looked appropriate for a Klingon Pimp. Yeah! Yeah, he puts some Klingon lean in that, which I guess is like prune juice mixed with Codine cough syrup. Cough syrup, yeah. It's like the same thing.

And now, Alex Anderson is being a pretty cool customer here, right? He's like showing Clara how to do clay. This is the least annoying that Alex Andrew has been, so far, I think. And I guess he gets distracted at some point and invisible Isabella starts fucking with the situation and throwing clay at him and knocking over the chalice and stuff

It's pretty aggro I'm glad they didn't do the thing where like clearly the chalice is on a string and it's like floating around the room like Isabella has the good sense to just wing the mud from off screen. Yeah, I feel like Alexander's come a long way because Initially, he's like what the fuck is wrong with you Claire? Why'd you knock my shit over and then like he starts getting with mud And it's like clear that something supernatural is going on He doesn't go ape like I think he would have gone ape a couple of episodes ago, right? If he was more genetically cling on, I think a lot of kids would have been in danger in that room.

Yeah. He would have Wolverine that entire classroom. Yeah. Well, Isabella's just getting started with knocking things over. Troy goes back to her office and is like trying to go over her schedule for the next week and some chocolate gets knocked over. And this is starting to creep her out. That's one line you don't cross with Deanna Troy. Yeah, she's like, oh now I'm angry. You want to put those red eyes into Deanna Troy?

You knock over her hot chocolate. So I guess the, uh, the B-slash C storyline that we've been kind of ignoring has been developing a bunch and what they've discovered is that inside this nebula are these fibrous energy strings that have sort of caught the ship up sort of like walking through thick brush going through this nebula and it's starting to get like kind of stressful they're like it doesn't really look like there's a great way out of this nebula because it's thicker behind us than it was when we first came in. And they seem to have like kind of figured out what the deal is with the bangers that

they've been encountering. I mean, there's sort of like a jungle analogy here. They've gone into this nebula jungle and the brush has just grown thick all around them and the ship is sort of becoming entangled in something that they can't see. Right. So, yeah, like they figured out how to illuminate it, but it's unclear like what the solution is. It's sort of a fun scene when they illuminate the strands.

It's sort of like turning on, turning your lights on and fog. Or like turning a black light on in Rikers quarters. Hahaha. The card stands up out of his seat and he's like remarkable. Hahaha. Seeing him do this made me think a very serious question, Ben, which is is has any character in any episode said the word wow when when something happens I don't

think it's been said I don't think that word has been said I think that is criminal is it is ever said wow is is it in the show Bible that you can never be impressed by something that happens in that way? I didn't travel with the show Bible or I would be looking that up at him. Yeah, I don't know There's a there's a website with all of the scripts to the show I'm gonna do a word search for wow and see if it's ever been said I'm putting the over under at one and I'm taking the under. I don't think it's been said. I'll take the over. What's the bet? I don't know, Ben. Have to think of something. We'll think of something before the end of the show and then we'll never pay it off.

That's our way. Yep. Speaking of problems, they don't really know how to solve. Speaking of problems, they don't really know how to solve. Troy goes to 10 forward to bum out with some chocolate and Guynen comes up to her and she's like, oh, any space in the terracotta pot there? Let me slide in and talk to you. Troy in this scene is like that pot that you plant herbs in that's got like a bunch of holes on the side of the pot

in addition to the hole in the top, if you see that. Yeah. Yeah. She just nestles into one of those where the time would go. Right. Yeah. Gynon is over there in the basil section. And this is like one of those scenes where like Gynon stays super thirsty for

that counselor position, I think. Yeah. And she talks to Troy about the imaginary friend that she had and how she decided not to abandon it. No, that's just something that is a comfort to her as an adult. And I thought that was a pretty groovy admission, but it bugged me a little bit that Gynon basically tells the same story to Troy as she told to Clara at the bar earlier. And I think this just serves to underscore the idea that her dialogue was written the day before. Like, got a squeezer in there.

Troy is saved by the bell in reacting to this by the 40-year-old Ensign calling her down to his quarters where Clara is totally freaked out. And she like doesn't want to go into a room because she's scared that Isabella is in there. Like Isabella has turned into the monster under the bed. And Troy's like, well, I'll go in there with you and I'll look under the bed. And Adam, I was really disappointed

that they didn't just have Isabella be under the bed. When they left. I thought that would have been terrifying. Me too. Looking out from under the bed like that clown. With those red eyes. Yeah. Oh no, I would have been so freaky.

Why didn't they do that? Freaks would have done that. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, mean, I mean, mean, I mean, mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, in your life, like little cousins or like neighbors, friends or whatever, but there is no person of Clare as age. I know that has less than like 40 pieces of clothing. It's like on one of those stupid shows on HGTV where they like redo the master and they show the closets and they have just a laughably small amount of clothing in the closets to present them as being some sort of Amazing way of organizing your shit. That's not how closets are When Troy opens the closet door. I expected to turn to 40-year-old Ensign and be like seriously really This is abuse

There's not even a princess costume in here. You monster. Instead, she turns around and gets laser beamed by Isabella. Marina's service is still doing her own stunts. Still flying backwards. Her stunts is backwards, isn't it? It's always flying back. He likes she has so much so much wig hair in this episode that she can fly backwards as fast as she want and she will bounce off those curls. The hair really sells the move. Yeah, so

Troy wakes up in six bay and she's like, well, we've got a problem cap. Troy wakes up in six bay and she's like, well, we've got a problem cap. The imaginary friend, ain't so imaginary after all. And she's like issuing threats. She's behind all this shit with the ship being stuck. And there's more coming. She was 11, maybe 12, blonde hair. And you gotta talk to her. So he goes down to the arboretum with Clara.

And they have to convince Isabella to show herself. And she comes out. And her beef is basically life is really unfair for kids. And I hate adults. And that's why I'm being such an asshole and PS your ship makes amazing amounts of energy and I think that shit is delicious so I want to eat it. No, no, no, no, no.

She has that argument that kids have sometimes which is like if there's a father's day and a mother's day, why isn't there a kid's day? Adults are adults just don't understand. Yeah. Claire's got like a doctor, crusher level sleep get up in this scene. The cart loiter's the shit out of her. Out of Isabella, yeah. Yeah.

The cart's like, look, we know when you fly on the enterprise, you have your choice of bodies to inhabit. We're glad you inhabited one of ours, but. But when you choose a body and that body happens to be a little girl, there are different rules for little girls and there are for adult people. And when you see the ship through the eyes of a child, you see how they're basically no safeguards for the child whatsoever. A child can just wander up to the top of the warp core and dive to the bottom. Going into any door they choose, isn't it weird that the way Picard lawyers Isabella

completely ignores the idea that they have had free reign of the ship the entire time. Isabel is bitching about not being able to go anywhere or do anything that she wants to do. That hasn't been the case at all. Yeah. It's I mean a real testament to liar procard skills as an orator because he convinces her of this despite it being absurd on its face. If one of only four childhood dresses don't fit, you must acquit. They call off the bigger, scarier ball of light aliens. Isabella turns into a ball of light of her own and they fly out of there after you know Picard and

Clara have made their impassioned plea and all of the sinews in the Nebula vanish and the enterprise is free to go and as they're pulling out Picard is like yo toss them some nice tasty energy They earned it He's like aim these udders into the bucket Let's give these aliens some delicious energy milk Hmm Hmm. It's, it's, it was always so easily within his power. Yeah.

Let's feed the beast. I'd feed that beast. It seems to be what space aliens, like aliens that actually live in space, universally want, right? Are you talking about that teeth? That teeth though? That teeth. It's weird how like the frequency of aliens

to vengeful aliens that we get, it's so easy to get into these misunderstandings. And then when you get into a misunderstanding with an alien they wanna destroy you. Happens every time. It's pretty consistent at this point. Yeah. Pretty dangerous out there.

Did you like this episode Adam? As it was going on, I was thinking no. No because I don't like episodes that are put on the backs of child actors. No, because I didn't wanna see the elementary school anymore or Alexander. No for a variety of reasons, but by the end, I was sort of satisfied with its conclusion. Yeah, it's got like a button that's, you would never get with two characters that you didn't

care about. Yeah. It's Isabella, like basically saying goodbye to Clara. It's fairly gross. They're finally on this real basis where Clara is like you're an alien, but for a while you've were actually my imaginary best friend and that's pretty like that's pretty wild like I feel like that's actually earned you know. Do you think Clara like do you think the frequency of Claire's therapy like goes up big time after this, because holy shit, she was sort of crazy and then her craziness

was proven real. How does she engage with her own childish imagination from here on out without being totally freaked out? Baseline reality is going to be really hard to get her hands around for the rest of her life. Yeah, like I think she and her dad are probably gonna need to transfer to a star base to really like figure this out for a long time. Yeah. I'm afraid that the button we don't get on this episode is that we've ruined a child's life. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post-show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment.

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

And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We got stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Could I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you.

And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are already 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 nacks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this. We've got to get on the art. It is about terrain, about a spout to destroy humanity.

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

And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Oner Ross & Kerry, available on MaximumFun and Outdoor. Ben, did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda, imaginary or otherwise? I did Adam. I'm giving mine to Troy in this episode. I think the second scene between Troy and Gynon,

like where Troy is like, is a bumming out over a piece of chocolate cake, is my favorite Troy Gynon attraction to make fun of, because Troy has the most daggary of dagger eyes for guidance the entire time. She's like, tell me you want my job, tell me. I fucking bear you. – Bag for it.

– Any screen cap of Troy in the scene, you show it to somebody like, is this woman pissed? I'm like, oh yeah, she's fucking pissed. She's not, she's like, nothing she says says I? Oh yeah, she's fucking pissed. She's not, she's like nothing she says says I'm pissed, but she's clearly pissed. Yeah. Yeah. So nice nonverbal acting right here. Really good. How much you do you have a Shimoda? Yeah. Ben, I think one of the funniest things in comedy is someone who has confidence when they shouldn't have it. Like that's sort of a comedy trope, right? Yeah. And warf gets a moment of that when he stops Isabella and Clara in the hallway in a place

where they're not supposed to be. This area is not designated for children. And like has an interaction with a child that is not Alexander, that actually works. Like, he's sort of cool dads them a little bit into going back to their quarters. And we sort of pull back and push into worst face, and we get that sense of pride that like, yeah, I had an interaction with a child that didn't make them cry.

Way to go, me, I think I might turned on the corner here. This is great and that like That false confidence was hilarious to me. So I'm giving it to Worf Nice. What do we have coming up on the next episode? next episode is season five episode 23 I Borg episode 23, IBorg, Picard and the crew suffer from conflicting emotions when the entrepreneur rescues a critically injured Borg. Do you remember this episode, Adam? Ben, sometimes I'll have a Borg for like a year or two,

but at the end of that second year, my Borg starts glitching and turning off on its own. It starts dropping calls. I hate it. Oh, yeah. Forces me to buy a new Borg. Like before the contract is over. They tell you to upgrade the software and the battery last half as long.

Yeah, that fucking Borg genius bar too. Not helpful. Yeah, they're fucking crisp, brand t-shirts and they're weird implants. Yeah, yeah, really condescending to when they all talk to you at once. When they all talk down to you at once. Oh, I can see why that would be a really frustrating problem. You will transport your phone to the genius bar. Yeah, um, this is a foundational episode in the series. This is a big one.

This is like one of the two tent poles, I think, in season five. I think you're probably right. I'm eager to see it and we don't have any vetoes, so we will see it. I haven't seen it in a long time. I am curious about if it holds up. Me too. One thing that has held us up from the start has been the support of our viewers.

And this episode is coming out at a pretty special time in our show's lifespan, and that is Pledge Drive time. Yeah, the Max Fund Drive, you know, you've probably, if you are listening to this during the Max Fund Drive, you've heard a couple of break-ins about it. Let me just really appreciate everybody that supports the show.

I think that in this day and age, especially, I'm starting to get really keen on financially supporting the media that's meaningful to me. I really value Netflix for not being loaded down with advertisements and I really value great reporting in the newspapers that I subscribe to. And I think it's really worth putting a couple of bucks every month towards something if it really means something to you. And if you feel like we've added some value to your day, consider us in your monthly media budget. Yeah, I mean, we have a stupidly large viewership

like that I think surprises us every day. And I don't think it would take much at all. Like it would take very little from a lot of our viewership to make a really huge difference in the production of our show. And just the idea that we could continue making shows like this that we put out as often as we do with the production value that we give it. Yeah, I mean we've talked privately a bunch about how we each basically spend an entire day every week working on this show between episode prep, recording, and editing.

And if we were making our day rate, that would be really easy to justify. And I think we're trending toward that but we don't yet so it is really exciting to think that enough people out there might be enough people out there that really value this to make it just kind of a part of our careers as silly as that sounds. I mean a lot of our viewers have asked from the start if we had a patreon or any other Silly is that sounds. I mean a lot of our viewers have asked from the start if we had a Patreon or any other way that they could fund the show. And it's as easy today as it's ever been.

Max Fund Drive just happens to give away prizes and special content to people who donate at the maximumfund.org slash donate. Yeah, so donate now. You'll get a bunch of great bonus content right away. And if you are listening to this during the fund drive, you'll also get some sweet sweet prizes. If you've been putting off supporting the show up until now, now is a great time to do it, and we'd really appreciate it if you did.

We are overwhelmed with gratitude for all the people that already have, and we really appreciate it if you're considering it so thanks so much. Also have to thank Dark Materia who does our theme and interstitial music as well as Adam Ragusia who creates a number of our other music beds and is the guy we call when there are audio emergencies. Thanks Adam. Yeah Adam has been super helpful for this show thanks to the folks at max fun HQ who have been just busting their butts running the max fun drive it's a it's a ton of work and they're just a great group of people

who really throw their hearts and souls into this and I think they you know the content that max fun puts out is so good. I think we're both really honored to be named among the shows on the network. It was a dream come true the day we joined the network and it remains that for me. Well with that we will be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek the Next Generation and an episode of the greatest generation that you should probably kill but you named it and so now you're feeling kind of connected to it and it feels weird. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound.

You'll know the God of the youth. Make it sound. Make it sound. You'll know the God of the youth. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. You'll know the God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God of God. Do you write those ahead of time? They always sound so natural.

I just came up with that. God, you're really good at that. I'm glad you do the buttons on our show. I think I would trip and fall through all of them. I'd trip and fall through like 70% of them. Yeah. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture.

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