The Greatest Generation - Slathered in Middler (S3E6)

Episode Date: July 27, 2016

When the ship gets stuck in some mud, Geordi is the only person onboard ship who gets put to work on saving the crew. Naturally, he makes himself a virtual girlfriend to help out along the way. Will Picard try to steal her like he stole Minuet? Has Chief O’Brien found the best way yet to kiss Picard’s ass? Was Geordi just drunk the entire time? It’s the episode where Adam talks about an uncomfortable date he went on.

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 by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to be making a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison.

I'm Adam Pranaka. Welcome to the show Adam. Thanks Ben. Ben it's the week of San Diego Comic Con. Do you wish you were there? You know, I have been to the areas surrounding Comic Con a couple of times for work. I've never actually been in it. I tend to not go to things that other people are going to go to. I don't like large crowds.

Is that what you're expressing? Yeah. I was sort of thinking about this in terms of being an only child recently. Yeah. I really like going to a concert if I'm there as the camera guy or something, because I'm not like everybody else. I get to go into a special room that has restricted access. That really appeals to me. Yeah, when you shoot a show, it almost feels like you're defended in a way.

Like, when you're on sticks with a camera, like you have a natural defense, you are not in with the throng. Yeah. That somehow makes it better. Being a member of the throng is a very alien and upsetting feeling for me. Well, I wish, I wish I was there. I wish we were there specifically. And especially this year, like the 50th anniversary of the show,

like I think it'd be fun to be there. I wish we had merch done in time. Yeah, it seems like there's a lot of cool Star Trek stuff happening that isn't just that though. So maybe we'll get invited to, you know, appear somewhere else. Have you ever been to a Star Trek convention? Other than the weird, very specific one

that I talked about on our recent episode, no. And that wasn't even really being at it. I just saw it from a confused distance Well, they're very confusing Ben. I've been to one Wow, I went to I went to a start Shrek convention that happened in Seattle Wow, I was in high school Whoa, and if you were to see me in high school, you think I was in high school. Whoa. And if you were to see me in high school,

you'd think I was in junior high. Ha, ha, ha, ha, pretty late plumber. I have a very distinct memory of getting to high school and on my bus trip to like freshman orientation, seeing the dudes that we're talking about Star Trek and Babel on five and stuff, and being like, now this is a moment of, this is a decision-making moment.

Do I throw myself within this lot and, you know, school all of these nerds on knowledge that they purport to have but don't really. Or do I take myself into the closet and try to pretend I'm something I'm not. What did you decide? I chose the latter and it's... You know, I've been kind of a lonely dude ever since. Was that the road less traveled and it has made all the difference? less traveled and it has made all the difference.

It was certainly the road to not really having that many friends until like basically senior year. Let me tell you, Ben, I went to this convention with a girl. Whoa, was it a date? Well, no, is it a date to you? I really liked this girl and I was attracted to her very much. Uh, but I think it was one of those situations where I felt like I was incredibly out of my league at that moment. And I was just surprised and amused that a girl wanted to do this with me at all. And so like when you're playing with house money in a social way, like I was just there to enjoy the company and the time. But this also marked the moment where I actually met Marina

Certees at a signing. I got an action figure signed from her. Dang! She seemed very disinterested in having a conversation with any kind. And I completely like get that. Oh my god. Like the line for signings at a Star Trek convention is a thousand people long. Yeah, but you think that she saw, she would have seen you from across the room walking toward her. And the really cute girl I was with and going like, God, I need to give the Scasim help. Yeah.

Scasim real trouble. Yeah, she could have winged the shit out of that situation. She really could. She could have. If that cute girl had seen Marina's sort of teeth take a shine to you. It could have changed my life. Yeah.

You could have bloomed much earlier. I'm still a blooming bend. Anyway, I've wanted to go back to a convention. I think I'm emotionally ready to go back to a convention after that being my one and only time. Well, now that you've been thinking a lot about it, since the San Diego thing came up. Yeah, and now that you have an unaccountably popular Star Trek podcast. Right, maybe I'll be doing the signings. Maybe I'll be trying to hook up out of their league dudes with really cool girls who happen to go to Star Trek conventions with them.

You take a life moment like that. I can't really hold it against Marina. No, not at all. I do not. I do not. But you've learned something from Marina, Sir. Something that you personally would do differently is make sure everybody gets their dick wet after the convention. Show no. So Ben, we're talking about uncomfortable date, quasi date, or not date at all scenarios.

For a very specific reason, because the episode today is season three episode five booby trap and it's a theme that plays throughout doesn't it? Yeah it opens with a bad quasi date. Unclear if the I think that the girl in this scene agreed to this date before realizing that it was a date. She thought it was a chill beach hang with no strings attached. Yeah, Jordy did not get expressed written consent that it was a date. I think I've done this. I remember doing this all the time in high school and college. You think it's one thing and it's not. She thinks it's one thing and it's not, it's the greatest thought technologies I ever encountered toward

the end of college was when you want to go on a date with a girl, say, hey, do you want to go on a date with me? Pretty great because, because, because, I thought technology there. Yeah, it doesn't, like there is no ambiguity as to what you are inviting her to. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, if you're young enough to be going out on dates right now, viewer, I'm addressing the viewers right now. Yeah.

Go and call it what it is. Yeah, and it's also like, I think a girl will appreciate the funny directness of that question as being not like what they normally get. It's normally a lot of like, you like movies, do you want to catch some movie, you know? Yeah. So there's a number of problems right off the bat with this scenario that Jordi finds himself in. I mean, let's, let's, let's list them out. There is the first bullet, which is, Christie doesn't know it's a date. Right.

They're on the holodeck in a sort of moonlight on the beach scenario. Like, they've got coconut drinks with umbrellas. They've got cocoa no-nose. They've got a blanket. We gotta see if there's a recipe for cocoa no-nose. I mean, like Google that while you talk. There might be a hit podcast that could do a show, an entire show on the cocoa no-no. There's a cocoa no-no sounds like the thing you say when you don't want butt stuff.

There's a website called foodre replicator dot tumbler dot com Of course there is It's all Star Trek food That's great. Throw that up on let's throw that up on our Facebook group All right or page or whatever it is we'll do So or whatever it is. Well do. So, Jordy has set this scene in the most cheesely romantic way possible.

Like, he's trying too hard is what he's doing. He's got the violin player. But the violin player's so, like, tonally wrong, you know? Like if you're on a tropical beach, like maybe a guy with a steel drum or something, but not a fucking gypsy with a fiddle. Yeah, I'd, if I'm on a tropical beach, like maybe a guy with a steel drum or something, but not a fucking gypsy with a fiddle. Yeah, if I'm on a beach in the moonlight, I'd wanna find out about Christie's feelings about Ja,

right away. Yeah, exactly, that's a good point. But what are the chances in the 24th century? They're still calling them gypsies, which they actually refer to that character as, it's episode. Oh man, this scene was distracting in a couple of ways, What they actually refer to that character as, the temposome. Oh, man. This scene was distracting in a couple of ways.

One, because you're seeing a slow speed car crash of Jordy's hopes and dreams with, with, uh, fair Christie. And the other is, I'm also in love with Christie. She's a love interest from Tommy boy. She really? Yeah. No. Yeah. So that goes way back. That explains why you have such strong feelings about her. Yeah. Do you think that this gypsy,

put a gypsy curse on Jordy for telling him to buzz off at the end of this scene? And that's why Jordy is so bad with women for the rest of his life. Oh, it's a real thinner scenario? Yeah, yeah, he goes creepy, creepy, creepy. Men's rights activism is your future. So somebody tweeted at us, So somebody tweeted at us, we've got the wrong impression of men's rights advocates. I laughed and laughed at that. I think we have the right impression of men's rights advocates. On the one hand, I really wanted to hear him out for the roles, but on the other hand, I do not have that much time.

Yeah, or intestinal fortitude. No. It's be honest. So, so. Jordy crashes and burns in a pretty epic manner. And then we cut to 10 forward where Wesley is playing a three-dimensional chess with data and sees like the smoking ruin that was Jordy walk in.

This is such a cool shot too, because they're like playing on a table right in dead center, front window. It's the Stratagema Memorial Table, isn't it? Totally. And there are hundreds of asteroids circling outside the ship. It's a very striking image. I thought

like a really nicely a nicely done effect and they see Jordi walk in and Wesley has to like explain to date a why it is bad the Jordi's date ended early Which is what just cute. Oh Did you notice that in this scene, the way that Jordy brewed is by staring directly at the girl next to him for long periods of time? Like the wide shot that's supposed to be

from the point of view of data in West is Jordy like sitting perpendicularly to the bar facing the girl next to him, and just staring at her. Uh-oh. You're mad or dated to the bridge immediately. Technology. Data gets paged by Riker and has to run up to the bridge. And, uh, it's because they're picking up a distress signal.

And, you know how episodes be starting at them. There's always a distress signal. And ships being in trouble. Yeah, ships, ships be getting in distress. What they find as they, as they track this signal down is a battle cruiser from a race called the Prometheans that is a drift in this asteroid field. And it's like, this is like one of the coolest ship models we get, I think. Like, it looks straight out of alien. Yeah, and this is remastered candy right here.

Yeah, it is like a rotten looking ship floating in space and it just like it sells the shit out of that out of what it's supposed to be. Yeah. So good. And so the deal with this thing is that the whole asteroid field is like the remains of a planet that was destroyed in a like apocalyptic final battle between the menthars and the

promelians. And it like destroyed their two civilizations and it happened a thousand years ago. And this battle cruiser is like astonishingly in perfect condition. Like it's like it's a star drive is still there. It's everything is where it should be. And Picard is just like geeked the fuck out. Like he's like, this is a museum piece. I couldn't be more excited to have discovered this.

I'm gonna get my name in the paper. Like this is great. Yeah, he's giddy. As giddy as he's ever been. Yeah. And so he talks Riker into letting him beam over and like poke around on the, on the ancient ship. And Riker's arguments for him not going over there are totally valid.

He's like, the ship is a thousand years old, by the way. We have no idea if it's tin foil hull is going to breach at any moment. Like, you are being an idiot about this. And Picard's like, cool it, man. I build ships in a bottle. Like, I need to do this. I like the little ship in a bottle joke that they wrote into the script here. Yeah.

That Picard and Chifo Bryan are the only two people on the whole ship that know about ships and bottles. Yeah, and Chifo Bryan cops to the idea of building ships and bottles, but anyone else in that scene thinks he just kissed up to the captain in that moment. Yeah. Wharf does the opposite. He goes, I didn't play with toys, which is a crazy thing to square with the fact that a couple episodes together There was a scene where he was trying to put a model together and got like barged in on and broke the model

Like he got to playing with toys later in life. He does it as stress relief. It's something that Troy prescribed him. His way of building a model is like finding the tiniest model, requiring like the tiniest hands and instruments to put together. And then anytime anyone walks near his room, he takes the model and smashes it against his own face like it explodes in front of him. Oh man, that guy is not good at modeling, but he is good at reviewing restaurants at him. Oh my god. This is one of the greatest things that's ever happened.

restaurants at him. Oh my God. This is one of the greatest things that's ever happened. Yeah. This is maybe, I don't know, this is definitely top five best things that's happened as a result of this show. This episode is brought to you today by Warp Yelp Reviews. Some Kakai genius took a joke that we made on a on a episode a couple couple episodes ago and Registered a Twitter account of war reviewing Restaurants which mostly like the Midwest and Western state restaurants Like there's a lot of like Durango Colorado and Omaha, Nebraska represented in the war war Yelp reviews places you could really see him. Yeah. And head Canon. Yeah, he's a very critical of the parking at most places, but a couple of the eggs. It's in raging to not have

good parking. Oh, it's a lot of fun. It's so great. If you're on Twitter, I highly recommend you follow that account. I mean, we talked it out and we had that idea and we just gave it away. Someone took it in a ran with it. It's awesome. Yeah, so good. So anyways, they beam over to this ship. It is a real dusty mess and Picard is totally enthralled and the they beam on to like the bridge

and he talks about how cool the bridge is and like how well set up it is considering how old it is and they turn around the the command seat and there's a crispy cling on in there. There's like, it's sort of GUNI's vibes in there, isn't it? Yeah, they like, they definitely got a, like one of the corpse models that they bought for like the Royale or something like that. And just like put some, put some head ridge on there. They got, they had some rotten meat left over

from warfs makeup in season one and they just trailed it onto the, yeah, to that. Yeah, some believable loaf. And they find a, they find like a Johnny Nemanik memory chip. Yeah, and Picard's super geeked out. He's like, data, do you think we could actually play this thing?

I channeled some Kirk. Yeah. Data's like, yeah, it's a thousand years old, but like, let's use the tricorder and run some power through it. We'll see what happens. And on the screen, they're faced with a really sad captain talking about the responsibility he's taking for the death of his crew. Yeah, he's just a javelial green-cling-on.

And the loaf is looking fresh because he's alive. And he's saying like this tragedy is not their fault. They've performed badmrably and I have to take all of the responsibility for this as their captain. And Worf even mentions like this is fucking great. Everyone died at their station just how I want to go out. The way that Worf wants to die in a denny is reviewing some Burbank Sonic restaurant. Yeah. Worf is walking around this place going. Jackable? jackable.

Yeah, he's loving it. So is there going around? They're like, they're finding little artifacts. They're flicking on the power. They're doing all sorts of stuff to the ship. The Stausen-Eurold ship. It's exciting to be there. Yeah, but see in this captain on the screen,

like it feels like a period on the end of the sentence, you know? Yeah. Picard was really excited to be there, but he feels like they've kind of spooked the ghost and they had the experience that they came before. So he's like, let's get back to the Enterprise and fuck off. And they've been back and Picard is just like glowing, walking around the ship. He walks back to the bridge and Troy is like, you know, she can't help but absorb that and bounce it back at him. And he's like, why are you looking at me funny, Troy? And she's, she's like, I just don't get to see you this happy that often.

Yeah, Picard's nipples are like just shooting through his uniform. This is becoming a speech. You sticks the key in the ignition, fires up the engine, tries to start backing it out of the space, and the ship don't go nowhere. Yeah, and this is on the heels of like a couple of light flickers that have happened in the recent past. Like, you get the sense that everyone just sort of accepts the idea of weird electrical glitches on the ship. Right. Like when Picard beams over, as soon as he's over there, the lights go out in the transportor

room and O'Brien's like, huh, well, I guess I'll have to remodulate the derp's with the coolant suppressors or whatever. And the other guy in there's like, sure, yeah. She probably do that. Like the most sophisticated thing ever built is supposed to just have pretty regular light flickering. Yeah. It's amazing. It should have raised bigger alarm bells when it happened.

Right. So what's happening here is the ship is stuck. Like they can slam the pedal to the metal and the ship stays in the same place. And this has like happened a few times now. They get stuck in the mud. Right. And the space mud.

Those wheels keep spinning and the mud keeps flying up. That's why you gotta keep a couple of bags of kitty litter in Shuttle Bay 2. You know? A couple of bags of kitty litter in a 2x4. I don't really help in situations like this. And also don't have the four wheel drive engaged all the time. Like you need that to get out of a scrape.

You don't fucking drive around with it like on all the time. Look, this is simple stuff. Riker grew up in Alaska, he should know better. Yeah, this is kind of embarrassing for Riker. Yeah, do you think Wes floods the engine here? I think that's part of it. Yeah, Wes is just in the back of the boat, ripping away at the cord. I don't know what's going on. Oh yeah, yeah, and Leforge is an engineering like, I don't know what the

fuck is happening. Like, we should be cruising out of here and we got nothing. And not only that, but if we keep trying to peel out, we're actually going to do some damage. So let's chill for a second. The funny thing about that is that the last time we saw LaForge, who was about three drinks deep in 10-forward, trying to get Gainon to tell him how to talk to girls. And now he's like running around the fucking engineering section, like a chicken with his head cut off. And hard to avoid the conclusion that LaForge was drunk when they first tried to leave. Oh man, I have luckily not been put in this position, but as a freelancer, I could see it.

Like, you go to a baseball day game and you're like four beers in. I could see getting a phone call for a job. And this is fantastic. You need to edit something overnight. Yeah. And it's a nice payday if you can get it done. God, what a terrible position for Jordy to be in. Um, meanwhile, Christie's out there putting his name in the streets like you would not believe the hacky shit Jordy tried to put on me in the holodeck. Yeah. What a dope. What a dope. So they're stuck. They're stuck and they're like losing power really quickly. And the crazy thing is that whatever is stopping them moving is also slowly increasing the

amount of radiation the ship is being exposed to. And so that's a mystery and how to get out of it is also a mystery. And so they've got like a timer set. Like if they can't stabilize the ship's power and soon they're going to get irradiated. And if they can't get out of there, they're going to be irradiated also. So, Jordy is like put to work on this. Raker and data beam back over to the cruiser to see if there's any like notebooks lying around that say, here's what's going on and how to get out of it.

And what they find is like one of those CD binders that you used to have in high school. Some case logic. Yeah, with all of the CDs that you own in it. And then you take it on a family vacation to Hawaii and you leave it in the rental car and it's like your entire fucking music collection and it's gone. You try to process why your parents don't like Metallica's black album the same way you do. When the problem the whole time was you attempting to play the black album in a car with your parents? Yeah.

Doesn't make any sense. I mean, you're going to the beach in Hawaii. Like, why do you need that music with you? Yeah. And when you're... There's a guy with a steel drum right down the beach. He's gonna do great. When you're in Hawaii, it's all reggae all the time.

Yeah. It's big ship sailing on the ocean. Don't bring all your gypsy violin CDs. Hahaha. Hahaha. I don't know what kind of music Metallica is. I assume gypsy violin. You're not super far off.

Hahaha. You just kept talking in one long incredibly unbroken sentence moving from topic to topic. one long incredibly unbroken send and moving to the top of the top that no one had the chance to pick the traffic was really quite hypnotic. So Jordy's got the enterprise up on the lift and he's poking around and he's like he's like look this is clearly a warp drive problem this is going to cost like 1200 bucks and it's probably going to take a few days.

You're going to have to leave it here and get a rental while I go into the holiday and try to figure out how to fix this problem. Yeah, and so what he does, he jins this idea up in the Jim Shimoda Memorial Corner, which is very fitting. It's where all good ideas come from. Yeah. So he gets like the audio tape of, he goes on like audible.com and gets the audio for the technical manual for the enterprises warp engine, which you wouldn't think that they would make an audio book of that, but they

did. He pulls the technical manual out that you and I had in high school, like the exact technical manual. Yeah, available on Amazon and where it all find books are sold. And the woman reading this has a sexy voice, like undeniably a mega sexy voice. And the sort of voice you want to give your credit card number two. And so he turns, he transfers this over to Holodeck 3, where a simulation has been erected of the shipyard at Utopia Plenicia, where the enterprise was built. And this is like the, this is the warp reactor lab, where Galaxy Class warp design was brought into the world. And the computer

through a very dubious series of logical leaps decides that what what what Jordi has asked for is a simulation of the architect of the Enterprise's Warp engine. And she happens to be the megababe whose voice we heard on audible.com. Did you do that, didn't I? Now, Jordi wasn't specific about this, but the version of Lea Brahms, the engineer that the computer provides, has hair that looks like a cow's own. And wait till you try her pasta fun jewel.

Oh man, her hair is very ready. I just want to pull it apart and dip it in marinara. You know, I it's easy to blame, Jordy for this. Like it's a creepy thing if it was what he went into the holodeck looking for. Yeah. Yeah. But the computer totally did this. Yeah.

It's like the computer's making fun of him now. Like, Riker didn't get in this kind of trouble for minuet. Yeah. That's true. But yeah, the computer does what the computer occasionally does, which is make a perfectly intelligent simulation of a human that totally passes any tearing test you could throw at it.

And this is Lea Brahms, the brilliant scientist who wrote the book on Warpfield Theory. And they, like, go to town on thispfield Theory and they like go to town on this problem and it's like a love affair like they have that it's torrid they they work passionately together when they fight it's like a sexy fight that you feel like could could break out in make-outs at any moment yeah the sort of fight that ends with like one of them sweeping their arm across a desk and flinging all the shit everywhere.

Yeah, yeah, and laying down on it. Yeah. Yeah. It's like they have full blown chemistry. Ben, this episode reaches a total inflection point here, that is, 51% great and 49% totally soundtrack by like a bit middler music score? I thought the score for this episode totally knee-capped everything cool about what happens on the holodeck with Leo Brahms and Jordy. Dr. Brahms? Jordy, it's me, Leah.

Don't start calling me Dr. Brahms? Jordy. It's me, Leah. Don't start calling me Dr. Brahms, or I'll call you Commander LeFord. It was distractingly, trickly, and, and middlery. It was slathered and middler. I totally agree with you about these scenes.

Yeah. And I think that that is in such stark contrast to the music in the entire rest of the episode. I know. As good as Star Trek music gets. That's what made it all the more infuriating. It's like, you have them side by side like this. It's crazy.

Yeah. I have a standing debate with a friend of mine, Dan Cooper, technology writer at Engadget.com about whether Utopia Plansia is supposed to be in orbit of Mars or on the surface of Mars. In this episode, it doesn't really clear that up, but Utopia Plansia is the name of a geographical feature on the surface of Mars in real life. Do you have a take on that? Like whether this shipyard is meant to be a Mars surface place or an orbit place? I am almost positive like the depiction in this episode is in space.

I just, I never considered that it would be anywhere else, but space. Well, so they're in a lab and they're looking out at the ship, which is inside a huge hanger, but we don't know what's outside that hanger. Yeah, I guess. I mean, I don't know, is it weird that I just think it's appropriate for ships to be built in space? I'd never really buy the idea of these giant ships being built on the surface of a planet. And then either being hauled up on some sort of weird

space elevator or them like under their own power, leaving the atmosphere. Like, I don't know. I have no reason, I have no way to base that on anything that we've seen in the show so far. And it's just a personal feeling, but. But you're a guy that's been in the places where they build jumbo jets.

Yeah. And I've read a little bit about that. I know that one of the weird things that they do when they're creating a plane design is they have to like see if they can set it down on its wings and the wings will hold the body up. And it's like, that seems crazy. That seems like it's going to break the plane, but that's actually like what's happening

when the plane is in flight is the wings are holding the whole thing up. And I feel like the Voyager Starship in a couple series from now is capable of landing on a planet's surface. So you would want to build a ship that is to build a ship that is at least gravity resistant, you know. Yeah, I mean, until we get a real answer while watching the show, this is all speculation, but God, I just, I can't believe that the saucer can be held up engineering-wise. Yeah, that's a serious character. That's a serious character. That's a serious character. That's a serious character.

That's a serious character. That's a serious character. That's a serious character. That's a serious character. That's a serious character. That's a serious character. That's a serious character. That's a serious character.

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That's a serious character. That's a serious character. That's a serious character. That's a serious character. That's a serious character. with any sort of gravity because it would just pull itself apart. Especially if they can separate, like the the tolerances on those on those couplings has got to be insanely strong. Right. You got at least a quarter round. Hold on a saucer to the star drive. I don't want to go at 10 penny sinker into the star drive holding it on to the saucer section Yeah, you can find these at your hot local hardware store. Oh, I'll do them online That was a fun diversion. Yeah Anyways, yeah, we'll cut all that out. Yeah As they get closer like like they achieve an early, which is they figure out how to stabilize power

on the ship. And it's not like a permanent solution, but they're going to like rewire something about the warp drive, and it's going to give them some breathing room on figuring out how to get out of there. And that's, and that's a good deal, their deaths are not quite so imminent. And Picard takes this breathing room as a fun time to try shooting at asteroids. And so what they've learned, like data has sorted through the CDs and thrown out all the ones that had really bad scratches on them. Oh, the third-eye blind CDs. Yeah, that were real skippy. Oh the live CDs? Yeah. Everyone had that throwing copper disc, right? Yeah. Inescapable. And he finds a bit of the captain's log from this

battle cruiser where he says what the thing is that's keeping them, keeping them stuck. And it's like a kind of generator that is hidden in like thousands and thousands of these asteroids. And the generator is sucking energy out of the enterprise and then shooting radiation back at it. And so it's like, like the whole asteroid field is essentially a trap. It's both sucking and blowing. Is that what you're saying, Ben? I'm saying they've gone from suck to blow.

That's it exactly. Yeah, so what do they need to do? They need to figure out a way to expel enough energy to move the ship, but not like throw these things into overdrive. They've got to move the ship without expending any energy that can be sucked out and then used against them in a way that like increases the radiation

that's bombarding them. Like there's a couple of plate spinning right now. There's the increasing radiation that reduces the amount of time they have to leave. They're proposed solutions to the problem, all of which use energy that can then be used against them. It's a real tangled knot. Yeah.

And so, like, they're getting pretty close and and Picard starts having worth take potchats at asteroids. Nothing. Radiation levels increasing. 8% 10%. This really fucks their shit up because the generators like kick into overdrive start really like bathing them in radiation. And the ship goes into like automatic shutdown mode where it's like shields and basic life support only. Everything else gets turned off.

And that includes the holiday program. And Jordy's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And it gets turned off and that includes the holodeck program and Jordy is like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, and it gets turned off and he like talks the captain into making a special accommodation for getting the the holodeck turn back on and it's like it's like one of those things where like you ask your boss to like go to bat for you It's like one of those things where like you ask your boss to like go to bat for you and like you better be right when Your boss has to like stick his neck out on your behalf Sure, but they have like the solution earring McLaughlin group in the conference room is your walk and Picard very rightly is like where are you on this problem and

Shorty gives him incomplete information Yeah, he's like yeah, I'm in the holadick by myself working this out. I've got a model that is helping me see this problem from the inside out. I need your permission to get that should reinstated. Yeah, I think at that moment, Jordi knows what he's doing is creepy. He can't not know that. Because by not telling him the whole story, that's the only way that that works. Yeah.

So he gets it reinstated. He's down there working and Picard comes to check in on, like literally the only person at this point on the ship who's working on solving the problem is Jordi. They have a thousand people on this ship and Jordi is by himself in a holodeck trying to solve the problem. I thought this was insane. Meanwhile, like data is on the bridge, like basically playing mixed CDs of captain's logs. While Jordi's in the holodeckck getting blue balls with a fake engineer trying to solve the problem. It's incredibly the opposite of what should be happening.

Yeah, Picard comes down there and is basically speechless when he sees what J Jordy is doing. And he like confirms with Jordy that he is close to having a solution, which, you know, in Jordy's defense, he genuinely is. But Captain Picard leaves and we cut to Picard sitting alone in his ready room looking out the window, thousand yard stair, just like, boy, I thought I was the creepiest person on the ship, and I am not. He has seen some serious shit in that moment. He is so disturbed. He is shaken to his core. That's his own version of Riker's Leaning Wall, just the flip around of the chair,

staring like thousand yard there at the window. Like, oh my god, yeah. Yeah, and it's like all the lights are out now because like the ship is on like super low reserves of power and Riker walks in and like they, it's like a scene to just kind of like amplify the stakes one last time. Yeah. What Jordi has come up with is we're

going to turn control of navigation over to the computer. And the computer is going to be able to make adjustments to its course so fast that the satellites that are sucking its energy won't be able to react in time to counteract its movements. They're betting on the idea that their modern computer is faster than a thousand year old computer.

It's like, yeah, it's a pretty fair bet, I think. And they run some simulations of this. And this is actually like kind of a cool, like this is like something you can actually learn something about statistics from, where they run a bunch of simulations and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. In 30 or 40% of the simulations of this very complex system, the enterprise gets out and it's cool and the rest of the time it gets zapped to hell by the radiation.

Yeah, they run the Sim the first time and stuffed crust leo-broms is like, oh, this is great, we solved it! And Jordy's like, now let's run it again. And so what we're seeing is like basically a coin flip of a chance. Right. Because the second time they lose. Darmuk and Jalat and Denarga. A greatest gen live show is something you don't want to miss.

Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post-show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it. The Share Your Embarrassment Tour is coming in August 2023 and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places.

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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 These giraffes do not smell good. They do not and they've such short neck But I'm here and we need to get on this. I gotta get on the art. Yeah, it's about terrain. Got us about to destroy humanity

Hey, oh, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like human. 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 to by two. What do you think?

Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org. There's like a little too creeped out to let Steph Crest run the show. But what they work out is just as scary, which is they shut everything off, they gun it like they get some momentum going and then and then basically use Only a couple of thrusters to steer the ship past all of the asteroids and out of the debris field Who is at the helm for this band? That would be none other De ma main man Cap and John Luke Picard would be none other, De Ma main man,

Captain John Luke Picard. Yeah, so Jordi hatches the plan, Picard's like, good enough for me, taps west on the shoulder, gets him out of the con, takes a seat and decides to fly the ship himself, which I think is pretty badass. Pretty fucking sick, yeah. And this is like some of the closest

closeups we ever get of what the buttons on the steering panel look like. And there's like a there's like a D pad, like a plus shaped part where it's like that part goes forward that part goes backward. But it's a lot of like it's a lot of button tapping and recalculating. It's unclear if it's a lot of like, it's a lot of button tapping and recalculating. It's unclear if it's based mostly on a Xbox 360 controller or a PlayStation controller at this point. It might be PlayStation 3.

It could be partly like Dreamcast. Right. Like some, there's some throwback parts to it. Yeah. But you don't need to understand it to Really dig the gravity of the captain taking the wheel Hands on the wheel foot on the gas arm out the window Yeah, and gravity is the operative word because he uses the gravity of a large asteroid to like

Pull them in and then slingshot them out of the field. And it's like, it's fun. It's really played well for suspense and data is kind of talking, talking them through it and saying like when it's fucked up and when it's, when the day is saved. And then they are out. It is true hero status for JLP. Yeah. Yeah. This is the third season, not even halfway through the third season.

Has there been another time where the captain of the ship saved everyone on the ship? I'm sure it's happened a couple of times, but never, never as pronounced as this moment. Like, he takes the ship. I'm sure it's happened a couple of times but never, never is pronounced as this moment. Like, he takes the ship on his back and he just does the thing. Pretty great. This is a fucking sex scene and it's really love Picard. Like, in the pilot episode, everyone looks at Riker, like he's a goddamn hero by connecting the ship together while they're underway.

Yeah. By verbally giving commands, Picard saves the ship from a bunch of asteroids that have landmines on them. Everyone just goes about their business. Like, yeah, this is Picard being Picard. Yeah. Like, he's able to personally take responsibility for that, which is just so much more credit than he gets is what I'm saying.

They're in the clear. Picard has demonstrated himself to be the swinging as dick on the Enterprise, taking the belt back away from Riker. Yeah. And Jordy goes down to the hola jacket to have his like, Dixon Hill with the police detective moment. And this turns into a make out scene between him and Lea Proms. Dixon Hill with the police detective moment. And this turns into a make out scene between him and Leah

Brahms. When you kiss a Jordi, I feel like you're kissing a man with braces on his entire face. There's just no escaping the braces. Yeah. You don't want to get that haircut. What do you think Jordi does when he has? Not that that dude fucks, but when that dude fucks,

does he take off the retainer? I take my glasses off when I am doing, doing an intimate thing, because they get in the way. I'm so glad I know that. But that dude is blind when he takes his glasses off. Yeah, wow. I don't know. It's like he can never do it with the lights on.

Well, what we know about him as a character would seem to indicate to me that he keeps it on. He keeps his visor on and he keeps his socks on that's what I'm imagining Like it doesn't go all the way naked that's what I think I'm hoping we get an episode where we find out Yeah, I'm sure I'm sure there's an episode where they show it going in God this was, this is the moment where everything went downhill for Jordy as a character. Like, it's an inflection point for sure. I think we both read that character bio that went around, I feel like this went around a couple of weeks ago where there was a, there was a series

note, sort of a character capsule about what they were going to do with Jordy in season three. And the way they wrote it made it seem like this is the season of Jordy. Like he's going to get out there, he's going to be like, he's going to riker it up a little bit, he's going to, he's going to have some romantic interests, and he's gonna be a man about town. And the way that he is depicted instead is like an embarrassment. It sucks because,

I don't know, like who else on this show is the embodiment of the engineer tech type. It's Jordy, you know? And Jordy is cool in every other way. Yeah. He's creepy as hell with girls. Geinen fucking wants to like report him as a sexual predator after their weird conversation and tend forward. Yeah, she's looking for the phone with the blue light on top of it. Yeah.

Like the second he starts talking to her. Yeah. Geinen's reaching for the dust buster behind the bar. That's really troubling. You know she has that fucking super nubby crazy ass alien rifle back there. Yeah, yeah. Ready to go.

Yeah, I mean, there's a difference between innocently fucking up and being like dangerously a fuck up. Yeah. And he's not dangerous, but he sure is an innocent. I don't think. He's a weirdo. Yeah, maybe we should reach out to that men's rights act of his guy for some answers. I think that would really help us understand this situation.

Yeah. As a Jordy type, what do you think about this situation? So as a total Jordy, I imagine you know exactly what he's going through. This isn't so much his fault, this is the woman's fault. Hey Ben, did you like this episode? I did like this episode. It's directed by a woman, and that really surprised me when I was watching the episode this time. An interesting.

I had never considered who was steering the ship. It makes me think a little bit differently about the relationship that's depicted between Jordy and Leab Brahms. And I think that it's possible to watch this and not be totally unsympathetic to Jordy, but it is also not possible to watch it and feel like he's kind of damaged

in a pretty substantial way. And if we're like taking the character seriously as written, I think that that's like kind of a tragic flaw that he has. Yeah. Yeah. And so, like, I think that watching at this time, I kind of felt for him in a way where like before, maybe I would have just been making fun of him.

Yeah. The way we have been the entire episode here. Yeah. Yeah, I get that. That's interesting that it was directed by a woman. I wonder it's unclear to me like how much creative latitude the director has on a show like this. But yeah, and I don't think much. But visually it was it was lit spectacularly like it when

the power goes out on the ship it got really moody yeah the lighting effects on the on the premier on ship were spot on like I love it when they mess with light on the show like for the most part it's just like it's really lit hot flat. And whenever they can get shadows on the show, I just really dig it. It looks less like TV and more like film when they do it. The season three lighting is great so far. Yeah. Like, I mean, there's been a couple of

dippy episodes that haven't been that well lit, but like, so far, like, a mile ahead of the other two seasons that we've watched. Most death. I am a cute, disaball. You will assist us. I am a cute, disaball.

You are born. Hey, Ben. What's that, Adam? Did you see a drunk Shimoda in this episode? Incredible. Drunk Shimoda. I did. My drunk Shimoda in this episode. I did. My drunk charmota in this episode is Riker for a

thing he did when they first tried to pull out of the parking space and they couldn't. I think like Worf goes like, oh fuck, there's a bunch of radiation all of a sudden. And Riker just tries to slip into the captain. Oh, by the way, while you were gone, there was lots of problems with the power. Like, he definitely didn't bring that up when Captain Picard came back,

waited the entire time for Captain Picard to like walk around the ship in the top, the tip top of spirits. And then the second problem started happening. He's like, by the top, the tip top of spirits. And then the second problem start happening. He's like, by the way, you. It's like, it's like, Riker's the babysitter and the parents come home.

And like the parents give him the $20 bill. He's walking off of the front door. And he's like, oh, by the way, the bathroom is just full of vomit. Bye. Bye. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Um, my Shimoda, I think, speaks towards something we teased a little bit earlier, which was like,

why did Picard only put one dude on this problem? Like, there's a point where Jordy is in the holodeck, solution-earing the situation. Yeah. And it's getting down to crunch time. Like, the computer's calling out. Right, they're like 20 minutes from death. Yeah. And, and Jordi radios up to

to Picard in the bridge and he's like, look, I just need more time. And Picard is like, okay, I can give you a few more minutes or whatever, but what other plan does Picard have? What's his plan B? He's put all his eggs in the Jordi basket. There's no other engineers working the problem that we know about.

Yeah, there's a team of engineers on this ship. Yeah, there's a whole... Like, Jordi is a department head. He probably has dozens of people working under him And he doesn't involve any of them in his problem solving Project that is suicidal to me and so and so for and so for precarious to be like Yeah, you can have a few more minutes. I was screaming at the TV like yeah because Who else is doing anything right now like like you're not doing anything else with that time.

Yeah, you cut to the engineering section. There's a lot of folding chairs laid out. Everybody's sipping on a cocoa no-no. Yeah, everyone's sitting on a folding chair. Like, they're sitting on a toilet, like elbows on knees, just sort of like, waiting for the call. Yeah. Slowly heating up from the radiation.

Yeah. Do you think data survives that if like, let's just say they're in the booby trap and everyone dies. Like, data lives, right? I don't know. I don't know what his radiation imperviousness is. I guess, I guess if it's a, if it's that one type that they had on the planet with the lady with the cute bangs on Goshaven planet.

Yeah, planet Goshaven. Planet Goshaven. What does that mean? I don't know. That part's unclear I guess, but I like to think about the possibilities of that headcanon style. Yeah.

What do we have coming up next time? Next episode is season three, episode seven, The Enemy. After Jordi is stranded on a storm-ravaged planet, the crew attempts to rescue him and are hindered by an aggressive Romulan worship. Would that- Remember this episode, Adam? Would that be the enemy that they're talking about in the title? Yeah, I would assume so. Maybe it's about Jordy's broken heart as the enemy.

Mm-hmm. Do you remember this one? Jordy's only thing on that's Jormrae ravaged planet is like building, fashioning some sort of sex doll. I don't remember this episode at all. At all. It's, I think it's a dope episode.

All right. Memory serves. I'm down. I guess we have to see it anyway. Yeah. A lot of people after we talked about a top 10, one is to know about a top 10 Wanted to know what our top 10 was I feel like that's a maybe

Something we should start to think about is like how we how we build a top 10 and two into this show Yeah, I think that was a good time to start. I think we have a good sample size here to now that we've gotten most of the real Flagrant turkeys out of the way. Yeah. And they're starting to be some good episodes. I think it's the right time for a little cocoa moco and a top 10 list. Yeah. What was that drink called? Coco No No. Coco No No.

Oh no. Oh no no. This show is made possible by the generous contributions from our listeners. If you're interested in supporting the show, you should go to maximumfund.org slash donate. Yeah, we've just been so delighted to be on the maximum fun network.

And there's so many great shows on there that you should give listens to. You've got Adam Ruinsans everything, the adventure zone, Jordan Jesse Go, Bullseye, Minority Corner just started. That's a real terrific show. There's a wrestling podcast coming out that I'm really pumped about. Are you really? Yeah, totally. I don't know anything about wrestling but that sounds pretty fun. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I'll start to learn. I'm all in.

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