The Greatest Generation - Resting Grief Face (S5E19)

Episode Date: March 13, 2017

When Captain Picard returns to Earth to give a commencement speech at Wesley (The BOY?!) Crusher's academy graduation, no one stops to consider what happened LAST time he was in the Terran system. Meanwhile, Wesley's entire squadron is under investigation after an accident kills a teammate. Is it possible to hear embarrassment? Should you always start a speech with a joke? How much loaf are you allowed to bring through customs? It's the episode that's as comfortable as possible, at the expense of looking good.

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

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

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

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

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

I'm one of your host, Adam Pranica. I'm the other host, Ben Harrison. Adam, that embarrassment, I felt very keenly recently. I am in the process of prepping a shoot for a client that is a medical device company. And because they make a medical device, there are lots of regulations and rules and very serious people that make sure that they are following those rules. Right. I've been on a couple of conference calls now with this client where it's just very, very boring because so many little pieces of minutia have to be gone over.

I'm only involved in one part of a very large project. So often I'll have to listen to 45 minutes of stuff that has nothing to do with me before we get to something that I have anything to contribute to on one of these calls. How many people are on these calls? Is it like one of those rat nest conference calls? Yeah, yeah. This is like... Or like someone forgets to mute their phone and you're listening to them like feed their cat or something. Yeah, it, this is like someone forgets to mute their phone and you're listening to them like feed their cat or something. Yeah, it's it's rough and the other day we were on a call that went about an hour and a half.

It was like it was the mother load of boring conference calls. My portion of this call, the portion for which it made any sense for me to be on the phone, was about 20 minutes at the end. And fortunately about half the group had signed off at this point, but we're talking to a bunch of, you know, very serious professional people that work at a medical device company and a couple of colleagues at a couple of companies on the consultant side that hired me. So it's clients all the way down. And this woman at the device company has, we've gone over some materials that I've prepared for them. And one of the things I've prepared was a YouTube video that had some clips that I thought would... I'm getting to a punchline here, but...

Some clips... This is one of the longer walks through a forest for us. Some clips that we had to look at. And she said, right as we were signing off the call, Ben as I searched for that YouTube you sent I somehow came across your Twitter and I just wanted to extend my condolences that the failing New York Times has never mentioned your Star Trek podcast. In reference to a dumb tweet. That I did a couple weeks ago.

No idea how that came up in her. Like, I can't get to her finding that tweet in the process of searching for a YouTube clip. I'm exquisitely embarrassed and in front of all of these serious people that need to take me seriously as a an important contributor to the call. You know how you can hear someone smile

on the other end of a phone call? Like how there's that thing that happens? Like can you hear embarrassment if you can't see them? I think you probably can. Well, she could probably hear the sound of me literally crawling out of my skin. It's one of those things where it's like, you can't defend it because like, I do have a Star Trek podcast, but that is not necessarily evident in the joke as I wrote it, just I wrote like a Donald Trump style tweet. The failing New York Times has failed to, you know, has never mentioned my Star Trek

podcast, very biased and unfair, sad. And I didn't want to be like, oh, well, I do have a Star Trek podcast and they haven't mentioned. Do you have the relationship with this person where you can crack wise with each other or was this totally out of nowhere? I have never met this person. Wow. Yeah, this is the first time I ever talked to them.

Is it gonna be awkward next time? Oh yeah, come on Adam. Was that the end of the call? Like, okay, see ya. Yeah, that's how it ended. Ouch. I don't know how that the end of the call? Like, okay, see ya. Yeah. That's how it ended. Ouch. I don't know how you can make that right. I don't know.

I might quit the job over this. Ha ha ha. Instead of put myself in a position to face this person, will you eventually have to face this person? I don't know, like that's the thing. You're also, like I was so So far from having heard people introduce themselves at this point that I couldn't really keep track of who I was talking to So I might be

You know, I might know who this person is I might be in like a hotel bar in New Delhi, India in a month and This person may introduce themselves to me. And that would be like the second time we interact. You know what you need to do is chamber a castanza style comeback, and you can start doing the research for that now. Oh yeah. Come through her Twitter feed.

See if she's ever equipped anything similar to that. And then you throw it right back in her face. Yeah, the first piece of research I would need to do would be find out who that was. That's always step one, right? She... I don't think that there's a comeback. She's a comeback. She's a comeback.

She's a comeback. She's a comeback. Yeah. You don't know who it was. Yeah. Like, and I also don't know that there's a comeback, because I do have a Star Trek podcast, there's no denying that fact.

We chose not to do this anonymously, probably a big mistake on our part. Hey, lady, the failing New York Times called, they're not reviewing your podcast, or whatever. Whatever you do in your free time. Yeah, the thing that you're most embarrassed about. Serious person who probably has like an Ivy League

post graduate degree and does really important work. The medical community known for their sense of humor. She gave you a shot and didn't even have the courtesy to numb you up. Well, I'm like red in the face even talking about this incident, Adam. So what do you say we get on to something that I am also embarrassed to talk about. Star Trek the next generation. Yeah let's go ahead and turn the page to season five at the soat 19, the first duty. So the cat comes to very tightly.

A little type that ramble on about something everyone knows. So, entrepreneur is going to Planet Earth, sector 001 at him, because Captain Picard is going to be delivering the commencement address at Starfleet Academy. Big big deal. Who spoke at your commencement address? So at my university we had Wynton Marsalis, which was awesome because he said about five sentences and then just played trumpet for a while. Oh that's awesome. Yeah and he's like really good at playing trumpet so it was just like right on. I love the whole like you know, I don't really communicate emotionally through my words.

Instead of like to use my music. ours was Desmond Tutu. No way. And he fucking killed. Wow. He killed like in a stand up comedy parlance. He was amazing. That's pretty cool.

I loved him. I loved and loved him. He's great. Seems like a good get to get the card, right? Yeah. Do you think Earth people are still a little apprehensive about him and the whole Acutus thing? Like last year, that's literally the last time he was at Earth, right? Didn't go so well. Their memories of him might be still pretty fresh. Can you imagine that's his icebreaker? He steps up to the mic, up to the lectern, and he's like, you know, the last time I was here,

I tried to kill all of you. Eee, and then he pulls on his collar. Yeah, he completely misreads the idea of starting with a joke. I feel like Picard is good enough that he can be like Louis K, where he like intentionally loses the audience and then gets them back. Yeah, he digs himself out of the hole. He's good like that. I mean, I think he can do it. It's sort of part of when you turn yourself into lawyer Picard, that's sort of part of

the deal. Yeah. So the other thing that's going to be popping off is there's going to be a flight demonstration by a blue angels type thing that Wesley Crusher is in. Wesley the boy. The boy. Young Wesley Crusresher is in. Wesley? The boy. The boy. Young Wesley Cresher. My son.

And everybody's really excited about that. Yeah, it's sort of interesting that the idea of aerial displays are still done by people in the cockpit, right? And there's so much autopilot and airplanes already in our time that like what human error could even factor in three or 400 years from now? Everyone knows that the best drivers are the youngest drivers.

And so what Starfleet Academy does is they staff their flight unit with these young people, including Wesley and the rest of his flight team. And there's a little bit of an oopsie during one of their most recent practices. Yeah, so the captain gets called away from the bridge. He has to go take a private call from a blue haired old admiral in the, in the ready room.

And she gets up on the FaceTime and she's like listen. There's been an accident. And it's like I was like this is like a fake news like clickbait headline. Yeah. It's been an accident involving Wesley Crusher. She totally makes it sound like he's dead. Yeah, and then we smashed a theme song.

It's a little misleading. Fake news. Yeah sad Yeah, they come back from commercial and Wes is a little busted up Notably he's got a fractured arm. Maybe some bruising Hurt feeling certainly because someone on, one of the other pilots died. Right. So he was in this, he's on this team called Nova Squadron. They do, you know, close formation flying for,

I guess the Academy air show that is somehow happening in conjunction with the graduation. And the one cadet bought the farm in a flight accident that the other four narrowly escaped by using their emergency transporter beams. And there's like a... there's a lot of hubbub about this. There's going to be, you know, a memorial service.

There's going to be a hearing. They're looking into it. And the mood is really grim around Starfleet Academy, right? Yeah, it's supposed to be happy, fun, graduation times. And instead, it's pretty dour. Yeah, it's like getting caught plagiarizing your final paper right before you're supposed to graduate. Like, everything's called into question. Except someone dies in the process of that plagiarism. So Wesley is acting weird, like from jump, like Picard and the doctor go see him in his dorm room.

I was so worried about you. How are you feeding Wistler? First door we've seen in a long time that just swings on a hinge. And has a manual handle, a manual crank? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my crank is manual, but I just,

I live here in the 21st century, so. Yeah. I mean, frequently the dorms on campus of any college are the shittiest building on campus. So I sort of get that the manual door vibes are happening here. It's also a super tall door. Did you notice that? Yeah, it's like a good eight, nine feet tall. Do you think the tall door is sort of an ADA thing? Like, they're super tall aliens, so you want,

so in an adorm environment, you want a tall, a door that accommodates all comers. If there's a cadet from Mr. Homs' planet, you're gonna want to accommodate that person. Yeah, totally. Well, if that's the case, do you think they have a, they have a knee toilet? Like sort of like how, when you go to some countries

to get a toilet in a bidet at Starfleet Academy, you get a toilet in a knee toilet? You mean for that type of alien that Kurt kicks in the knee and can't discover it country? Yeah. I don't think those guys are in Starfleet. Yeah, they're pretty bad dudes. They're bad ombre.

Yeah, they're pretty bad dudes. They're bad ombre's. Yeah, they're bad ombre's. The arm is not the only thing on Wesley that has been badly injured at him. He also has maybe the worst haircut we have ever seen on the program. Oh, that's, it's the truth. I mean, he has, he has the most severe Star Trek sideburns. Maybe we've seen on the show. That that quality is shared by all of the Academy people that we see in this episode. But he also has like, did this was this ever a thing when you were growing up like the shaved sides and the longer top that would sort of drape over those shades, shave sides? Where the west is got it on the side those shades, shave sides. Where the sun's aren't shaved?

Yeah, he's just in the back. It's like he shaved the back of his neck halfway up his head. It's an undercut in all the wrong places. Yeah. Yeah, and it's unfortunate because so often in this episode, we see him in a one quarter shot over his shoulder and it's just in full relief. It's so fucking bad.

Yeah. Wesley is in no mood to talk to you, the captain and his mommy. So he kicks them out and incomes the guy that is the leader of his squadron. and there's kind of the ominous like we got to get our story straight buddy kind of conversation. Yeah and especially when it's right off the heels of Wesley kicking Picard and his mother out of his dorm room. You excuse us please. Nick and I have some things we need to talk about. And sort of a strange way, that sort of bang, bang really underscores that there's some shit going down.

So I think this is about when we get Picard wandering around the grounds of Starfleet Academy. He's like out on the quad and he comes upon a very old man. And this is an old man that he established in description when Wesley was like leaving for the Academy. This is Boothby, the groundskeeper of Starfleet Academy, who is like for some reason incredibly important to Patrick Stewart's character. And I think winds up being important to Benjamin Sisko and Captain Janeway also.

Like, for some reason he's the guy that ties all of the captains together. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, like Sisko fucking loves him some booth B. I'm pretty sure Janeway does too. If you want to be a credible Starfleet captain, does your career have to go through booth B? I think, yeah, like he's like the guy that you need to know. Yeah.

Like you don't know that you need to know that guy. He never takes any of the credit, but he's like, he's a kingmaker. Okay, this is the guy, behind the guy, behind the guy. I really like the concept of making people in insignificant roles, significant to people who go on to do great things. Like, in a perfect future scenario, you would expect starfleet people to hang out with starfleet people and turn into career

starfleet people and then that is like sort of their homogenous social and professional circle but right well we have this like I mean like we live in a society with very stratified class structure. Yeah. And it's very hard to like think outside of that. Yeah. But like, I guess if there's no money in the future, like there's nothing like Boothby doesn't necessarily have a lower status than Picard, you know? In a weird way, like they're kind of co-equal.

If Boothby is like doing his thing at the height of his ability, and also Boothby never caused a wolf 3.5.9 or anything like that. So in a lot of ways, he's like a better person. Yeah, I mean, I think you made my point for me. It's just, there's no difference between them. They're both doing the things that they excel at

in completely different areas and helping each other in the process. So there's some kind of oblique talk in this scene about some bad thing that Picard did when he was in school, gotten trouble, got over it. Yeah, the idea is that Boothby knows B knows, like booth B may only be the grounds keeper, but he's got his finger on the pulse of everything that happens on Academy grounds. And so Picard hits him up for Intel on Nova Squadron and he, he doesn't

really answer the question entirely, but he's like, yeah, I know, with squadrons, the shit, everyone looks at them as gods. But he sort of trails off at the end, like, but they, they have some issues. And then they sort of pivot into Picard's relationship with Boothby and how maybe he didn't have a super squeaky, clean academy experience either. Right. So Boothby, Boothby's given him some something to chew on and and also just like given him a little trip down memory lane. So we cut to the like inquiry situation and the deal is they've got this old lady ad brawl, the blue hair, and like a super rumpled

the blue hair and like a super rumpled Vulcan captain looking into what went wrong in this flight maneuver and the four surviving members of Nova Squadron are essentially like there in the hot seat. You also have the deceased father who has some real resting grief face going on. He really does. He's like cast for his ability to transmit grief without speaking much. He looks like he has just seen the video from the ring and just carries that vibe throughout. Yeah, so a couple things I wanted to talk about with this scene. One is why Nova Squadron's so white. Why is everybody in this episode white? They're not only white, but the most homo sapien.

The one person who has a little bit of nose bridge loaf is clearly half human half loaf. Like it's not a strong genetic disposition toward alien. He's got a dab of bejure in her right, her lineage, but not enough to wear the earring. Yeah, I think that even the Germans could look past this loaf. Yeah, you're easily getting through American customs right now. Just breezing on through. I don't even bring up the loaf. No. And what's the purpose of your loaf?

Yeah, it's a do you have any plants, animals, or loaf in your checked luggage? You only need to declare loaf worth more than $10,000. It's just a it's just a lily white episode at them. Like they made zero effort to depict Starfleet Academy as being anything but a rich white people place. That's tough because rich white people place. That's tough because anytime they have to cast a large number of people, for instance, on all biosphere, like most of the extras were white in this episode. It's just as white in the background. It's maybe whiter. Yeah. It's weirdly homogenous. Like kind of, it's upsettingly homogenous, I will even say.

Starfleet Academy is in San Francisco, one of the diverse cities in the world. Well, growing less diverse all the time, I should say. Yeah, but this is, maybe we are, maybe we're on the trajectory for this to become the reality. Like the rich white people in San Francisco are kicking everybody out, and they will build Starfleet Academy.

They'll build it right in the tenderloin. Ha ha ha ha. Well, so this is like the first hearing, and it's pretty like contentious because there's a lot of missing information but essentially they're getting the team on record with what their story is. And their story is like we were doing the thing

that our flight plan said and we probably should have said but the guy that bought the farm has been having, he's been getting nervous during training. Isn't it named Joshua? Yeah, he's been listening to a lot of Elliot Smith and like college rock music. Yeah, like when we go to parties, like he doesn't even party, like he'll just play

as a coup stick off in the court. He doesn't want to hang out in the kitchen with the rest of us. Yeah. And Picard cannot resist involving himself in this investigation, right? Like people are getting deposed, people are going on the record.

He asks the two-pip admiral, like, do you need any of my help? You get the flagship here, the admiral's like, nah, that's good. We got it. The card goes back up to engineering and talks to Jordy and Data, and he's like, Wesley's one of our own. I'm just dead, sir. We'll get right on it. Oh, I can't wait to help. They're having a trial down there. I gotta be a part of it. Let's dig up some evidence. Let's find some bullets and do some

simpleistic on them. Yeah. So Jordi and data like embark on the project of trying to figure out what the F happened. And his smash cut to like this secret meeting in Leslie's dorm room, which is very nicely appointed, by the way, with Robert Duncan McNeil and the other lily white members of Nova Squadron, like colluding essentially

to continue deceiving the board of inquiry. I didn't lie. Everything I said was the truth. The accident was not Josh's fault. Where are all the posters that are supposed to be up in Wesley's dorm room? Yeah, you should have like an ironic secret of the used poster, probably an unironic usual suspects poster. A really shitty record collection. Yeah, like half of them he took from the record library at the college radio station without really asking. But nobody's really looking for them either.

No. Yeah, it's as plain Jane as his condo was on the enterprise. It's almost as plain Jane as data is condo. Yeah. That gives you an idea. Clearly they're alluding to the conspiracy amongst themselves to cover up whatever happened. And the viewer at this point still does not know exactly what they are covering up, only that they are attempting to do so.

Right. And what comes down from the squad leader, played by Robert Duncan McNeil, is just like knock it off with offering any more information. They don't have any evidence that they can use to incriminate us, so as long as we just keep saying what we've been saying and stick to the party line, we're good, we're coasting. And so Wesley walks out of here, like just with a pit in his stomach, and who should want to meet up with him,

but the commander who's the father of the kid that bought the farm. And he pulls like maybe the most emotionally fraught move on Wesley that he possibly can, which is, my son borrowed your kooji sweater. He would have wanted you to have it. Oh! It still smells like him. I can't bear to have it around.

It smells like that really shitty cologne that everyone wears in college because they don't know how to wear cologne. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and they put way too much on. Yeah. It smells like CK1. You know, you only need to shoot a little bit into the air band and then walk through it. Yeah, you know, you don't want anybody to be able to smell it unless you are making out with them. Yes.

Hey, hey, hey, a roommate who used to use axe body spray and he would put so much on that I would be in the other room with the door closed and it would make me sneeze. Like, I would start sneezing. I would like, why the fuck am I sneezing? And then it would like register what was going on. So much ax body spray. Oh my God. So gross. Wesley kind of has ax body spray of haircuts. He does.

I am the cutest of all. There are all lights. He and Joshua's dad trade a couple of of personal moments. His dad's like, you know, he really loved being on this team with you and West is like, yeah, we are really liked him too. And there's like that tension, like the tension of the cover up has permeated this conversation with the dad. Like he can't turn the corner on being fully emotional with him because it's taking all of his resources to keep the wall up on the cover up, right? It feels like to betray

any depth of feeling about Joshua to his dad would mean the damn breaking and the resistance falling and then him not being able to hold it together? That's how I felt. Yeah, yeah. A tough scene, like great subtext in this scene. And I thought, I thought, Will Whedon did a really nice job with it, you know, like almost everything that is happening in this scene is not in the script. And that's when the show is the best. When they put it in the hands of the actors and they allow them to create in the room, which is good.

Yeah. So I think the next scene is the show, the black box recording from Wesley's cockpit, which cuts out well before the accident. It was weirdly taped on VHS. I think that's strange that they would go back to that technology this far in the future, but who might call into question the choice is that Starfleet makes in designing its cockpit recorders? There's a lot of VHS clips in this episode. Did you notice that?

Yeah, there are. This isn't the first piece of footage that they show. What's the angle on this? It's like over the top of the back of the head. Yeah it's weird that it's like interior right? Yeah. Like it feels like an exterior camera would be more useful. Well they always want to know if like the pilots were doing rails of cocaine or something right before right before the shit hit the fan. Yeah, yeah. That's gotta be weird if you're a pilot, right? Like, you've gotta kind of mind your peas and cues

because everything you're saying is being recorded and could potentially be the last thing anybody hears from you. Yeah, you ever listen to any of that? Any airline crash, black box tape stuff? No, F and way. That is as a airplane enthusiast, something that I have made the mistake of doing once or twice over the years, and that's some heavy stuff, man. I don't recommend it.

No. I'm not that smart at him, but I know enough that I will never do that. Well, I'm like, I'm really interested in what happens when incidents happen on commercial airplanes. And, you know, for a small fraction of them, that stuff is public record. Like during the investigation, they'll, they'll diagram stuff and they'll do wire frame video of what happens to the plane and then occasionally they'll include that black box audio and that's not fun times.

No, that's haunting stuff. You look like Joshua's dad listened to stuff like that. Oh! Oh! Oh! This is the scene where Wesley kind of describes what they were trying to do, Adam, and what they were doing before the accident, Adam, was called a Yeager loop. Adam, you'd have to ask Biff himself what that is.

And I can only hope it's something positional. I miss talking about Biffy-yager, Adam. Yeah. Feel like we used to talk about Biffy-yager a lot more on this podcast. Yeah, he deserves to remain a prominent part of our show. Make the greatest generation great again. It's just hard when you're only in eight episodes

in season one to carry that through. Like I get that. I don't even think he's in eight. Is he an eight? I think he's in three. He's in three max. If we can make Kevin. We talk about Uxbridge a lot more than we talk about

Yeager though. That's what I'm saying. If we can make Uxbridge a through line for our show, we can keep Yeager's memory alive. Yeah. Well, the Yeager loop is the last thing that Nova Squadron will cop to having done. And the rumpled Vulcan and the blue hair to Admiral

are like, well, it's too bad we don't have any other information. Oh, wait. We happen to have this grainy convenience door footage from a 7-Eleven on one of Saturn's moons. And then he pops the VHS tape into the top loader VHS player that they have with the dance. And it's, it's an episode of Nightcourt and he's like, oh, fuck, sorry. That is not the right tape. Yeah. And, and there's some fun loyering here because And there's some fun loyering here because the Vulcan prosecutor does that or the Vulcan investigator does that thing where he's like Mr. Crusher What is this?

How would you describe this maneuver and it is very clearly not the Yeager loop maneuver that we have been told about previously not the Yeager Loop maneuver that we have been told about previously. It's a, they do a good job of kind of getting the audience acquainted with the physical relationships between the airplanes that they're discussing here. And so this ends pretty inconclusively, right? It's just that they know that there's some contravening evidence. Yeah, they're all doing that thing where I can't explain what that is or what that footage is supposed to be. That doesn't look like anything to me.

It's basically what they say. Yeah, I can't remember what we were doing there. Yeah. So this really precipitates shit turning against Wesley. And I think data in Jordy like tell Picard about how the telemetry from the flight recorder about what was going on in the ship sort of implies that there was some strange stuff going on

and that's how Picard puts it together, that they were in fact trying to do this other move called the like, the call of wood stoppest. Which is a flavor that we don't have in our time. Right now we're limited to lemon, orange, cherry, and strawberry, right? Right, yeah, I think if you go to Thailand or Hawaii, yeah, the cold-virt fruit is very popular there.

And so that's a candy that you don't be able to get it there, convenient stores. Yeah, I feel like all that stuff comes from Japan. And they just have better and more interesting candy flavors than we do. Yeah, they really do. We're missing out. I just wonder how those companies can make any money with they have so many skews and

they're like serving the Japanese public and that's it, you know. Yeah. It seems like really complicated to be able to, you know, build a supply chain around something like that. Well, if Starburst could make a fried chicken sandwich flavor Starburst, that's what they would do. Because that's what Americans crave. Like, you're not going to get truckstab people in Idaho buying Lillicoi flavored high-choos, you know? Yeah, it's a tough sell for those types of people.

So, on the heels of this new evidence, Wes gets called into the principal's office, the principal being Picard. And this is a more formal meeting than they typically have in the Reddy Room, isn't it? This is basically Picard telling Wesley, you need to cop to your shit right now because you're a big trouble young man. They are not friendly in this scene. They are two professionals having a professional conversation. Mm-hmm. And Wesley kind of sticks to his guns, you know, like the leader character. What's his name? Lokarno.

Yeah. The leader of the squad really has Wesley and the other two girls wrapped around his pinky finger and has him dancing to his rhythm. So when Picard presents Wesley with this new, with this new finding, Wesley is not inclined to cop to anything. And choose not to answer, sir. And this really causes Picard to flip out on him. Like Picard goes, goes full, you know, disciplinarian headmaster and he embarks on this speech about how the first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth. Would that include the scientific truth? Right or like historical

truth for example? Right. or personal truth. Yeah. Like seemed really familiar to me, I couldn't remember where I'd heard it before. There are two parts of this scene that like, that really blew me away. The first was like the moment that Wes indicates that he's not going to play ball with Picard was like, oh shit. Like, like the first time you see a kid talk back to a teacher when you're young, you're like, oh my God, I didn't know you could do that. Like, there's that kind of chill, but then Picard just goes full big dog on Wes in a way that you never see him do to anyone.

They foreshadow it a little bit when Wesley walks in and Picard is first confronting him with this new information. They go to an extreme close-up on Picard's face and it's like he is so dominant in the frame and then when they reverse to, he's like, you know, at least- He's cowboy. Yeah, it's like a cowboy shot. And it's like, it makes Picard look 10 times the size of Wesley.

That's a good call. Yeah, the compositional choices help enforce that. Yeah. And like, I think even in Wesley's shot, it's like a dirty single. Like Picard is also in that shot. It's like Picard is dominating the whole fucking scene. Yeah.

There's not a shot without him in it. And it just, it serves to underscore that Wes is boxed in. The end of the conversation leads to a point where Picard says, if you don't cop to it, I will cop to it for you. So make the right decision. And so they have like the final hearing and they get almost all the way through it. I think they've even officially adjourned the hearing with Wesley having sat there with Marbles in his mouth and then everybody's about to stand up

and he's like, I have one more thing to add. Yeah, they smacked the bellgavl like like they're they're going to get off the hook. Is that like a is that like a naval version of a gavl? Is that what that's from? It seems that way yeah. Is if you if you get court-martialed in the Navy do they use that? If only we had a way to find out then. Well, we don't because we are a no research program. Indeed. Indeed. And that only serves to make, like, make Wesley's choice, even more pronounced, like he is on the cusp of skating and he does not allow

the skate. He goes right into the wall of the skating rink on this one. Well, it's the right move though, because this thing concludes with everybody skating and they would all just be, everybody would be suspicious of them forever. Yeah. You know, and in this scene, he, in coming clean,

he kind of forces the hand of Lucarno. Lucarno, in an off-camera scene, goes and like, throws himself on the mercy of the board of inquiry. He manages to keep everybody but himself in the academy. Like, they were going to kick everybody out, but he's the only one that kicked out. Wesl is going to have to like, earn his Spanish to credit all over again, but, you know, he's, uh, and he's got, like, some blemish on his permanent record, but what's a permanent record?

That's only something in school, right? A permanent record only matters to someone who exists in space and time, which soon won't be a problem for young Wesley pressure. Yeah, that's a good point, Adam. They had the good sense in that courtroom scene at the end to not do the foreshot reverse shots between Picard and Wesley, like, as they come to the end of the trial, like, and you don't get Picard about to get up out of his seat. And what that does is it characterizes Wesley's act as more brave

instead of Blackmail, you know? Right, yeah, he's not moved to stand up because he realizes that he's about to get burned. Yeah. I mean, he knows that's coming one way or the other, but it's not, I think he could have done that in private later, and he chooses to do it in the public for him, you know. Yeah, the sunlight's the best disinfectant.

The restraint of how that went down at the end, I thought was good. Yeah, it's a very well directed episode I think. Yeah. It's not as flashy as a as a frakes but it does a nice job. Did you like this episode Ben? I sure did. I thought it was a pretty cool choice

to bring back this character and bring him back in a way where it's not all fun and games and it's also not a you know after school special like it's not about how how bad drugs are. They're not throwing in many fun moves like getting to make out with Ashley Judd. It's like a heavy episode without being a cheesy episode. Yeah, I agree. I mean, it's more universal to have the message be about how hard it is to tell the truth sometimes than drugs are bad. You know, like the truth part is important for everyone. And it can be extremely difficult to say a difficult truth the way that Wesley has to here. Yeah. Especially, I mean, when someone dies,

like holy shit, that's the worst thing. And it's a buddy. And they're all at fault. This is a buddy that was close enough to lend a very expensive Kuji sweater to him. So you know they were close. There's a scene in this episode that I really liked and it was between Beverly and Wes, where Bev is like, look, I really think that we can

help your case. You know, a lot of this isn't making sense. I think we have the full support of the Enterprise crew to really dig into the evidence and make it stronger for your side. And Wes, over and over again, has to tell her that she can't involve herself. And in that moment, I think she finally realizes that things are so much worse than she realizes about what's happened here. And they don't revisit the consequence of that later, which felt a little bit missing to me. What you get instead is the scene in the ready room between Picard and Wes, but the fallout between Wes and his mom is not revisited. And it seems like that moment had just as many stakes,

because Wes is the golden boy. She believes in him so much. Yeah, the golden boy, her only son, her only significant family member, to have disappointed her in this way must just be earth shaking. But we don't get that. Yeah.

I would say that the one big, big problem I have with this episode is that they hired David Duke to be the casting director. Ha, ha, ha. I think that's a shame, you know? Yeah, a short-lived job for him. Mm-hmm. It's very not hard to do way better. Yep.

It's seriously fucking not a big deal to be way, way better about being inclusive. Yeah, it's not like they're shooting this in North Dakota. You know? Yeah. Yeah, this is a, it San Francisco not anchorage right yeah Do you want to check the voicemail messages Priority one message from star fleet coming in on secured channel Stop alone, stop alone. Stop alone.

Yes, extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. Ben, we have two personal priority one messages this episode. And the first one is from Plevim. I already won this. And it is for Razz. Message goes like this. This is a way better use of $100 than that crappy strip club

in Fort Lauderdale, though we did catch a lot of tuna. Oh, plefime. That's that. Come on, man. That's not a nice thing to say. Give me a break. Well, the second prayer card message isorn message is from Plavim, and it is too rare.

Wait, what? I'm noticing that the rarest that the first one was too was only with one Z, but the rarest and the second one here is with two Zs, so maybe a different rarez. Who knows? Let's see what it says. It says, wait, it was Miami Beach, not Fort Lauderdale.

Anyway, the strippers at Tony's bachelor party did dirty your stuff. That's where you told me about this podcast. Wow. Oh. Wow. You're hanging around with some dudes. There's some stripping happening. There's a couple of fellas from the Thunder from Down Under show up.

Yeah. Start taking their pants off. And that's a good time to discuss your favorite podcast. That's nice. So like, these Trippin' Dale dancers aside, Plaveme, I have a great recommendation in podcasts for you. Oh man, what do you think is the best stripping song to play while talking about a Star Trek podcast?

Um, geez. I think cherry pie, like, it just seems so fun. That is a fun song. Yeah. And a fun song. Yeah. And a fun message. I think what these two messages do is it underscores all the strange ways that people find out about our show. Yeah. I mean, that's like literally a situation that I cannot imagine.

Like, the only things I've ever done in Florida are traveled there for work so that's already pretty difficult for me to imagine like recreating in Florida and you add new men on top of that and I'm just I've never I've never experiencing anything like that. Oh you're saying man because of the tuna thing right? You're throwing that back at them? Yes. Okay, good.

Okay. I will brook no glancing massagerry on this podcast that we don't accidentally do ourselves. Sure. I have been to Fort Lauderdale for work. Not a great time. I would say in the recreational aspect God it was so fucking hot though

Jesus, yeah, I think it was I think it was June and like I Could not have been sweatier It's I don't think I've ever been sweatier than that That's gonna make it's gonna make the work of a stripper especially difficult I gotta look at our download numbers and see if we're uh, if we're ever gonna need to go Do tour appearances in Fort Lauderdale. Oh, yeah, so I mean if our numbers are super high in an FTL then I think I might want to delete that

For our for our friends and beautiful Fort Lauderdale, a place I've always loved. Yeah, one of the greats, one of the great American cities. Well, if you would like to share your podcast origin story with the world, If you would like to tuck a couple of scarves into the G-strings that Adam and I are wearing. Then going to a safer work website is the way to do that. It's MaximumFund.org slash JopoTron where personal messages are $100 and commercial messages are for $200. It is no joke.

That is a significant way that we are able to fund the ongoing production of this program and we really appreciate it thanks Thank you Hey, Ben What's that Adam you want to come over here and Jiggle me that drunk Shimoda Shake my isle an ear chip maker. Yeah um I got to give it to the Vulcan captain. There's a scene like in the scene right at the end when Wesley is moved to stand up and cop to everything.

He says when he says the phrase, when he admits that they were attempting a starburst, it's like a tight shot on the admiral, but you can see the Vulcan captain in the background. And I think he was supposed to be nodding like the truth comes out, but the way it reads in the take that they used is, oh yeah. Oh no. That's not the tone.

That's not the tone, dude. And it's like a fine performance otherwise, but I just, I noticed it and it really made me laugh. How about yourself, Adam? Did you have a drunk Shimoda? There were just a number of visual delights this episode when it comes to world building Starfleet Academy. That was like the most fun part of this episode to me. And one of the things that was seared into my eyeballs was the idea that Academy uniforms include cargo pants. Yeah.

And holy shit, like when was the last time you wore cargo pants? About the time that this episode came out probably. That's what I'm saying. I argued with myself a lot. Once I saw these on screen, I was like, the future has no place for cargo pants. And yet, their undeniable utility makes a lot of sense. Like in a future that maybe puts less of an emphasis on looking cool and more of an emphasis on utility, like I understand the cargo pants come back, especially in an academy environment.

So... Well, that said, Adam, this cadet uniform, while it is not really the same as the uniform that they transition to in deep space nine, it is every bit the crime of dumpiness that that uniform is. And the cargo pant is the dumpiest of pants, you know? It's like they made a decision like, we're not gonna have an onset jam around here. Like, there will be no sub 5,000 calorie lunches at our F services table. Like, no way.

Like, they are, they're like, we are gonna make our actors as comfortable as possible at the expensive looking good. And that's just how it is. And those cargo pockets are all jam-packed with tater tots. Like, that's why they're sticking out so much. They are not lay flat cargo pockets for sure. No, no, this isn't like the cargo pocket

on a 1997 era dress pant. Yeah, they're sort of teased out, like so much hair. Full of tots, Adam. Full of tots. Darmak, Angelad, and Denaga. 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.

FOD is from all over, gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post-show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it! The Sherry Reembarishment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's GreatestGenTour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment

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

And Camille Non-Giani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps already open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being, 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 arc. We got to get on the art. Yeah. It's about terrain. Got us about to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. Oh, we're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ohno 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 two by two. What do you think? Ona Ross and episode? Next episode is season five episode 20, cost of living, preparing for her wedding aboard the Enterprise. Oh no, Troy's free thinking mother.

Oh no, Adam, I thought this was next season. Troy's free thinking mother causes trouble between Worf and his son. Oh no. This, this is the moment. What have I done? This is the moment this season where you're looking way down the road and you see a car kind of weaving in the distance and it's getting closer and closer and you think you're gonna miss it but a plow is right into you, Ben. Oh. Our viewers wrote us.

It totally thought that that, when we counter vetoed each other, it doesn't have a fully on. It doesn't have a Troy pun, Adam. How could I have known? Yeah. Yeah, hiding in plain sight. A Laxana episode.

Fuck. The Perloined Laxana. It's my favorite at Duralin Poe? What do I favorite at Duralin Poe, or stories? Is it the story where there's some boobs buried under the floor? And they're like... They're just getting louder and louder. The set of... You're thinking of the Telltale Homb.

Oh! The set of thinking of the telltale home That was great the studio audience really appreciated that one Well We have to watch this then This is maybe the most vetoable episode of all Episodes in the entire series When people talk about the episodes they hate, this is one of two episodes that make that list every time. The top of those lists. Yeah, this is an amount, amount of an episode.

Fuck. Can we like just veto it anyways? That's not the rules. Yeah, but of course we make up our own rules. I don't think we can. I think we should try to record it and if we just can't get through it, maybe we maybe we put it on. Maybe we bail and we talk about Crimson Titan instead. Oh, oh, oh. You know, I like talking about Crimson Titan, Adam. Yeah. A submarine movie inside of a locks on a Troy episode. That's how you hide a submarine.

It's not a caterpillar drive, Ben. You put it inside of a bad next gen episode. That's how you sneak past the Russians. Well that's some version of what we just said will be our next episode. One way our viewers are not being sneaky at all is by Chatness up on the Twitter. He's in the hashtag greatest gen. I'm on there as at Cut for Time, Ben is there, as at Benjamin R, A.H.R. Our viewership is also super chatty over on Facebook. We've got a group and a page over there, and we've got a couple of really great reddit pages. Also, our slash greatest gen being one of them, and the official our-S-Lash Maximum Fun Red-A-Bitch.

Good times all around on all of those things. We've got merch to buy Ben. We've got, we still have drunk Shimoda glasses. Got a couple of great t-shirts out there. We are, we're coming up with new merch ideas all the time. The goose, Adam Rukusia, beds a bunch of our bits with his original music, and of course our main theme music and interstitial music is produced by the wonderful dark materia.

Yeah, search for the dark...search for dark materia online, and you can find other fun, trick-related stuff as well. Max Funcon's coming up. I bought my tickets, Ben. I'm going to both. I'm going to both. I'm going to both also. Nice. Maybe I'll see you there.

Maybe I'll see you there. Maybe we'll get too drunk again. That would be terrific. Hey, let's plan on really tying one on this time. Not like last time. We'll do better. You want to take a page from the Matt Howie playbook? Friend of the program, Matt Howie. I can only hope to drink as much as my friend Matt Howie. Let's get a tremendous thirst. Yeah, as I think you called it before, Matt Howey, when he goes to Greatest Gen Con, is truly on Nerd Rum Spring. Yeah.

As most people are, highly recommend going to Max Funcon, everyone. Well, with that, we will be back at you next week. Another great episode of Star Trek, the next generation. And an episode of the greatest generation that really is fucking unbelievable that we are doing. I feel like such a dope. Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture, Artistone, Listener Supported. Artistone.

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