The Greatest Generation - Soft Foods and Laxatives (S1E16)

Episode Date: March 16, 2016

Admiral Mark Jameson has one last job before he gets out of the Federation for good: negotiate the rescue of some hostages from his arch enemy. Jameson's just got one problem: he's weighed down by tons of silly putty that's been troweled onto his face. Fortunately, an alien de-aging drug has him getting younger (and sweatier) by the minute. Will the despotic Karnas believe that Jameson is who he claims to be? Can Picard and the crew ever trust Starfleet if their top brass is made of melting strawberry yogurt? And what's it like to go a little too hard with pills at a hipster dance party? We answer these questions, plus Adam tells a shameful story about the time he invested in Star Trek trading cards.

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

I'm Adam Pranaka. And we're still doing this, episode 15. This is sort of the second beginning of the second half of season one and it seems like episodes may be getting slightly better. I don't know. What do you think? I mean, I'm not talking about us. I'm talking about Star Trek the next generation.

Did you hear that really long sigh? That was my answer to that question. I was talking over it. I was trying to qualify my question. Oh, boy. over it. I was trying to qualify my question. Look, I guess if we're talking about, like, what we finally got into one of my favorite episodes, which I think is a good moment for the first season, the show in general. We're talking about episode 15 right now, right? That we are. Yeah, so 15 out of a possible 68 first season episodes. There's so many, man, TV used to make so many episodes of seasons.

It's a miracle that they worked at this pace. Yeah, I mean, I guess the magic number back in the day was if you had 100 episodes of a series, then you could syndicate the repeats. And they're going for that in one season. That's where all that mailbox money comes from. Right, right.

That's amazing. Good for them. Yeah, I mean, they're really trying to go for it fast, though. Yeah. I heard that Patrick Stewart didn't even unpack his suitcase for the first season of this show because he thought it was gonna canceled like at every turn. I don't know man if you read the first three scripts I think you'd have a hard time unpacking too. The episode title is too short a season. I think the title has something to do with the fact

that there's a guy trying to cheat death, but it is a weird, yeah, it's not a great title. It sort of sounds like it's supposed to be an idiom that everybody knows, but it's not. Yeah, I sure didn't know it. I don't think I'm an idiot. No, if you search, if you search too short a season, the only thing that comes up is this episode. Like that's, yeah,

unlike the last episode where you just type in a bunch of zeros and ones, a bunch of things come up. Oh, yeah. Deep web. Not least of which. So the enterprise is trying to solve a hostage crisis. They bring aboard this old, old admiral, Admiral Mark Jamison and his wife Ann on the request of Karnas, who's the governor of this this planet that has diplomatic relations with the Federation, but is not in the Federation. has diplomatic relations with the Federation, but is not in the Federation. Carnus is telling them that terrorists have taken the Federation ambassador in a staff hostage and the only person that they will talk to

is Admiral Jamison, who is super old. And everybody's like, why do they even think Jamison is alive? And- Was either the only one who expected Karnas to be a magician? Karnas just sounds like a magician name. It does. It's just like a barrel chested dude

and a kind of bad, like, common-dunt military outfit. But I think we should definitely spend some time talking about the old man makeup that Admiral Mark Jamison is in. Before we do that, I'm sorry, it should be known that you might recognize Karnas as the guy who played Droggo's trainer in Rocky IV. Did you get that? It's the same dude. Oh, man.

I am not as familiar with Rocky IV as I am with some of the earlier and later Editions to that franchise You know what you you're gonna have plenty of time to acquaint yourself to that franchise when we begin our Rocky cast Podcast at the conclusion of our Star Trek the next generation podcast Mm-hmm. Yeah You're gonna enjoy the shit out of that. What's it called? Jumping on the art museum steps?

Now, we'll come up with something better than that. Yeah, on the fly. So you're right. We created naming things. We have got to, we're gonna spend half of this podcast talking about Jameson's makeup, which can only be described as an Antican mask from one of the early episodes,

just spray painted a flesh color. Oh my God, it is so bad. It's like, and it's like, this probably looked bad in standard definition, but we are watching it in high definition with 1080 lines of horizontal resolution and wooo, it is hard to look at this old man makeup. It's like, it's like a burlap sack that's been dipped in in plaster, flesh-colored plaster, and then just sort of tucked into the neck of his uniform. It's horrifying. My student film when I was in film school had an old man character in it and I cast one of my friends in that part.

One of my film school friends in that part. And he did a great job in the performance of it, but the makeup artist that came and put him an old man makeup Had one option for me to choose from and it was the It was like an appliance that was meant for making somebody look like an evil wizard and not like the Chairman of the board of a major company, which was what the part was So we just had this unintentionally insane looking character. I mean it was like a comedy script, so it kind of worked, but I'm going to say this was a student film that had a budget of about a thousand dollars and my old man looked ten times as good as this old man, and it was not really old man makeup that we had him in.

How'd you get a thousand dollars to make a student film back then? You know, that was selling my ass. Oh, God. That's really got dark. You know, that might, no, that's not as embarrassing as the West Hot American Summer Story. No, not even close. That's still more embarrassing than you selling your ass. You've been talking a lot in text messages to me about us putting a West Hot American

Summer t-shirt out for people to wear. We've got to do that. If people that like the show enough to wear a t-shirt, I'd be curious for people to weigh in on Twitter. Use the hashtag greatest gen. Let us know if you would wear a t-shirt that says Wes Hot American Summer in reference to the time I went to summer camp and went around introducing myself as Wesley to everybody because I really liked the character Wesley

Crusher and I was like seven and I thought that that was an acceptable thing to do. Yeah it's weird that you got exactly no sex out of that deal. I know. I know. I'd still look back baffled over that. A greatest gen live show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post-show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it! The Share Your Embarrassment Tour is coming in August

2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to greatestgentour.com to get more info. That's greatestgentour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level.

We got stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Could I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org.

Look, your podcast apps are open, just pull it out, give Jordan Jessie Goat try. Being smart is hard, be dumb instead. Oh, rats, 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 set short nacks.

But I'm hearing we need to get on this. We've got to get on the art. It is about terrain, about a spout to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. We're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different.

Have you heard of Ono Ross and Kerry? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boat. We came to by two. What do you think? Oh, no Ross and Kerry, available on MaximumFun.org.

After that little diversion, maybe we should return to our classic fountaine of youth, a ran-contra sci-fi story. That we're in the middle of summarizing. I was thinking more like a Benjamin button. I ran contra, but that's very tough. If you're gonna mash up two storylines in the first season of a sci-fi show. Those are the two that you pick right there. So we get the notes on this hostage situation and it's not good. So they get a take the ship to this planet to meet up with Ivan Drago's trainer and also deliver our super old man who is in a weird wheelchair, like a motorized scooter, but it's like the size of a shopping cart, it's huge.

It's like for better X's wheelchair in the X-Men comics where it covers his legs and it's like totally motorized. But every time you see it, all you can do is think about like two teamsters having to schlep it up onto the transporter pad. Oh yeah, that transporter pad is not ADA compliant. No.

I think that's why you don't see him get off of there. Yeah, there's steps down from the transporter pad. And I guess you have to assume that this wheelchair has got a hover function this being the future, but they don't actually show that. Right, right. So sort of away from the situation, the doctor is talking to Picard about his condition

and he's got this disease, this Iverson's disease, which up until now I thought was associated with a bunch of tattoos and a gambling addiction. But oddly has nothing to do with Alan Iverson. Missed opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. This trip as they travel, Jamison gets stronger and stronger. Initially he just kind of doesn't look any younger but he goes from being wheelchair bound to doing some walking around, which is very poorly carried out by this actor who cannot for the life of him plausibly look frail.

Yeah, he does in what's supposed to be a real triumphant scene. He's toward the back. He's like at the engineering station, the bridge, and you sort of get himself out of the wheelchair and sort of swings his legs in front of him and walks down. What we understand now to be a very ADA compliant bridge space to have a gentle slope toward the con. Yeah, and so we come to understand as he gets less and less old looking that he has taken some alien de-aging drugs to reverse his aging process over the last two years. And it's,

you know, it's initially quite baffling to the doctor because this disease has no cure, but suddenly he's appearing younger and more energetic. So I think we see three or four renditions of this makeup that are supposed to look less and less ancient as time goes on. I put in my notes that Jameson's medicine should have been called a makeup de-radiculizer. Yeah. Because that is the side effect to taking all these drugs. Yeah, you sort of wonder how they arrived at the decision to do this the way they did, because I mean, you see, like this has been tackled in so many different ways over the years and so

many different movies and television shows where how do we show that this character is older or younger in different scenes? I think about the old lady makeup that they have in Edward Cicero's hands on Winona Ryder. And, you know, it's, I feel like it's good makeup, but she's not really, like the voice doesn't sound right, and it just doesn't, it doesn't quite hang together. And yet is light years ahead of what's going on in this episode.

And then other shows where they just have different actors play the different phases. And I feel like that could have been like, this guy is not that great an actor. So why not just have three actors play the part? It's not like they were like, oh my God, we've got to get this guy. And we've got to have him play all the parts. He's so amazing. That is not the case here. No, this might be like, I would say this might be the weakest guest performance of any actor

that has come on the show for a featured part so far. You know what's interesting about that is that the lady who plays his wife is an actress named Marsha Hunt. And she was an actress of note from the golden era of Hollywood. Yeah. And to see her, there's three different kinds of acting happening in this episode.

There's Jamison's poor physical and actual acting that we can agree has happened here. There's any talks in that arch actor voice? I am acting. Yeah, you know. There's 80s acting, which everyone else on the show is doing, to some varying degree of success. And then there's Marsha Hunt's Golden Era,

sort of inflection acting happening. It's a weird stew. And I think what happens is Marsha Hunt just sort of takes the heat off of Jamison, the actor who plays Jamison a little bit by being real Golden Era with her line delivery. I think it actually helps out his terribly acted part a little bit in your way.

I do wanna talk about the character of Jamison's wife because I feel like one thing that I really appreciated about this episode was that they took her story very seriously, like she's a real character. Her reaction to this choice that her husband has made is very authentic feeling and, you know, like she, like they wrote a real part for this, for this character. And I thought that like, I almost thought she was a more interesting person for

the episode to focus on in a way. The part had to be what attracted her to doing the show because the first day she walked on set and she saw Jameson's man. I know she had to be thinking about leaving. Wait, this guy is supposed to be the same age as me. Fuck you guys. This is what we think an old person looks like. What do you think, Varsha?

We stocked your Starwagon full of soft foods. Soft foods and laxatives. So back to this plot. As they're heading to this planet Mordan, Jamison is communicating with Karnas, the military governor of the planet, and Jamison comes to understand that Karnas is, in fact, the one that took the Federation citizens hostage and there isn't a terrorist situation at all, which has been puzzling everybody because they had no prior indication that there was any dissent on this planet. We come to understand that Karnas is in fact doing this as a revenge plot against Jamison for a

a previous negotiation that he felt in which he felt Jamison fucked him over. And he's not wrong. Nope, not wrong. So it was something to do with like Karnas hijacking a federation vessel like decades ago and that he killed a bunch of previous Federation negotiators and the way that Jamison got the ship back and freed the hostages was

by secretly providing Karnas with weapons that he was demanding as his ransom, but what Jameson did in his own private interpretation of the prime directive was to provide an equal number of weapons to Karnas' enemies on the planet. And it set off a four-decade long war that took millions of lives. So we come to understand that essentially Jamison is trying to get the blood off of his hands by going to free these hostages in a legit way.

And the only way he feels he can do that is if he's not so frail as he was going into it. Yeah, so by the time they get to the planet He's in pretty bad shape. He's he's basically like a 20-year-old dude with chess pains and he's really really sweaty Like as sweaty as any character has been on the show up until now so you know he's in bad shape Yeah, he is he is guy in the hallway with the fire going sweaty. Nice callback. Yeah. I hope that makes sense to anybody.

I don't know that. We're doing this show for us. Yeah, fuck you listeners. So they get to the planet and negotiations are about to begin. So they decide to transport down. And Picard decides to accompany the away team. Right, and it's not going to be a negotiation. Jamison is planning a raid.

Like, they're going to go just like guns blazing, kill all the security personnel and leave with the hostages. And you know, he's like, no, I know how this guy thinks it's gonna, they're gonna be in the tunnels under his house, like no big deal, he transports down, data's like, this guy is leading us to a dead end and he's completely out of his mind. But cards like, yeah, let's just see this through.

Let's watch him be an idiot for a while. And so, you know, they follow this cuddle around the tunnels. Yeah, he is fully dripping all over these tunnels and they cut through a wall with phasers and getting a firefight it gets too hot. So they beam the entire way team back up to the ship. And Jameson is really on the brink of his body shutting down because he reveals that he

actually took a double dose of the anti-aging drugs and his organs just can't take the stress of getting younger as fast as they are getting. I think people are often tempted to take that second dose when they haven't let that first dose really take hold. Yeah. One thing I wrote down that sort of dovetails with that is that the young admiral, the early 20s actor that has been playing this part all the way through, looks like a guy who would be like losing

it on pills at a hipster dance party and would be like trying to offer people pills that didn't want them. And yeah, like he can't maintain man he can't maintain he reminded me of a sort of a sweaty bill packed in i got i got some got some packed in vibes from him there's a little bit of packed and he's not quite as like he's not quite as media is packed in well yeah i mean and i should i should say that like that really is probably insulting to bill packedxton on a number of levels.

I'm sure he's listening. That's the least which is acting. Yeah. I met no offense, Bill. Just kept talking one long. It credibly unbroken sentence moving from topic to topic. So that no one had the chance to interpret it was really really quiet, not ignore it, not ignore it. So Carnus is now like, you know, even more pissed off than he was before because of this

raid. And he demands to see Jamison or he's going to start fracking hostages every 15 minutes. So Picard, Dr. Crusher and Admiral Jamison, who is even sweatier now than he ever was Beam directly to carnus's office and carnus is like You know stop Stop this ridiculous ruse. I want to see Jamison not this kid actor I'm not buying your bullshit at all. Who the fuck is this sweaty guy? Yeah bullshit at all. Who the fuck is a sweaty guy? Yeah. How about you, how would you beam that guy up and mop up under where he was standing? But like he's, he would be kicked out

of any gym looking the way he does. Yeah. Picard satisfies Karnas that this is in fact Jameson by showing a handful of screenshots from earlier in the episode when he was in more makeup than he presently is in. And then... Another classic moment of showing someone in a scene parts of the episode that we're watching, which I just saw. Right. And then Jameson shows Karnas a scar that was like some kind of blood bond that they made back when they had their original negotiation, and that satisfies Karnas, whose decides instead of killing Jameson in revenge is just going to allow him to die. The painful death that he is already dying because of his decision to take

these alien drugs. Yeah, just a bunch of chest pains and a pool of sweat. That's his death sentence there. He had way to go. Yeah, so he dies in his wife's arms, she beams down and Karnas agrees to let the hostages go and seems to be really affected by the story about hubris that Jameson has told him. So the episode more or less ends with Jameson dying in her arms the ship Then sets course for ISIS 3

So they go from one they go from one terror situation to the next yeah choosing not to explore the planet with With fountain of youth properties like they've basically've basically been told that there is a medicine that can either stop aging or reverse it. And they are not interested in all, in finding, exploring it or using it. Is that this planet or is it some other planet? Where did Jameson get the anti-aging medicine?

I thought he found it on another planet. I don't think it was a place that was related to this thing at all. That's what I thought they got it. I thought he found it on another planet. I think it was, I didn't think it was a place that was related to this thing at all. That's what I thought too, but yeah, yeah. Well, Picard probably has orders, you know, and orders is orders. Right, right. I gotta be honest with you, man.

I think, you know, we've reviewed a lot of, quote unquote, bad episodes. But this one was, this one wasn't bad in the ways that, that bad show has been so far this season. Right. This one was just really cold feeling to me and not fun, like in any way, there was no storyline, either the A or the B storyline, neither of them were fun. They didn't really connect you emotionally

with the hostages, so you didn't really, it didn't really feel like a real threat there. And then like you have, there's no, there's no appealing part of Admiral James into hang your hat on. So he just seems like a dickhead that you kind of don't want the best for, you know. Right, right.

Like from jump he comes on the ship and starts bossing Picard around, saying like, I'm in charge of the mission, you're a piece of shit. And Picard is like, all right, fine, geez. Like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Of course, Captain, you command the ship. What the mission is mine.

I trust you are in full agreement. Yes, sir. Of course. Right. And we also never really get the stakes of it. Like if there are hostages, we never see them. He makes a threat to kill them. But because we never see the hostages,

we aren't emotionally attached in any way to that possible outcome. It just felt real flat to me. And I don't know, like for me, I think we laugh a lot at the terrible racism of a couple of the episodes, at a couple of the plot choices in a few others. But I think for, I think this episode is the least favorite

episode I've seen so far in the season because it's so flat and because there are no stakes and there's nothing really likable about anything that's happening. I don't know, I just came out of the episode feeling real, like not bummed, but just like, what was that? Like this is supposed to be sci-fi. They're supposed to be an element of adventure and intrigue, but I just was never invested in anyone. The closest it got to interesting for me was a sort of

it really just grazed this, but the idea of a distinction between vindication and atonement, like Jameson definitely doesn't seem to feel much guilt for the kind of criminal act that he did to resolve the earlier crisis, you know, 40 years ago. And but he does seem to want to go to make sure that his good name will ring out in history. That was interesting. There's the kind of hubris of that. I don't want to undo the harm I did so much as make sure that that harm isn't seen as a blight on my record

But like that like as it as interesting and chewy an idea That is they don't really dig very much deeper than that And like that's definitely like where the moral of the story is like Picard kind of like moralizes a bit at the end of the episode But it's like I don't feel like moralizes a bit at the end of the episode, but it's like, I don't feel like you really made an episode about that. Yeah, it just, I mean, typically I should say frequently Picard's moralizing

is effective, you know, like he'll help a viewer understand, you know, the greater message or the moral and I just didn't care. I don't know. Maybe I just watched this episode on a bad day or whatever, but it didn't work. It didn't work and I'm looking forward to another different episode. Because anything's got to be better than this, right? Yeah. Need a palette cleanser. Make it sound. Make it sound.

Make it sound. Make it sound. It should surprise no one that the same makeup supervisor who who trawled on Jameson's mud face was the same makeup supervisor who did who did the premiere episode who aged deforest Kelly in similarly terrible fashion. It might be the same piece of prosthetic face makeup, actually, come to think of it. That wouldn't surprise me at all, just wow.

I mean, they brought him back to do more makeup. Bad. I mean, hopefully he gets more reps and can sort of figure this out. Doesn't even look like the kind of wrinkles that old people have. Like, it's not wrinkled in the right places. Can you imagine they spent four hours

on this guy's makeup? Can you imagine, like, you're in the chair for four hours and they do that reality show spin you around so you can face them here, like, for the big real. Can you imagine? You're sitting there for four hours reading People magazine, like, just dying, like, oh, the sucks, like, getting ready to go on set, they flip you around and that's what you look like. I mean, is it really any wonder why this actor, like just sort of acted like he didn't give a shit at any point?

I think we'd act the same way if that's what we ended up doing. Perhaps we have been too cruel. Yeah, yeah, I think I'm willing to give the guy a break if that's how he spent every morning before the shoot. Fair enough. Hey Ben. What's that, Adam? At any point, did you discover a drunk Shimoda?

Drunk Shimoda! Well, drunk Shimoda is our award at the end of every episode for an achievement in character development. A character doing something silly or that just doesn't make any goddamn sense or having the most fun or having the most fun stacking up important shit if you'd like to find out more about our special friend mr. Shimoda that's back in episode two you know I I didn't write one. I guess because the only real option here for me would be the Admiral. You know, he's really drunk-shamotting at the entire damn episode. Can you give the Shimoda to the actual actor and not the character?

Well, given the fact that you gave me a drunk Shimoda one time, I think that is fair game. Yeah, you can break that fourth wall. Yeah. I actually, I wrote this down. I am not giving a drunk Shimoda in this episode because I think to me, that recognition involves a character who is having fun to me more than anything. And this was just the no fun episode. Yeah, everybody is really trudging through this episode, aren't they? Yeah, yeah, it's a real

slog. So no Shimoda for me. Well, I feel embarrassed to have even awarded one. I think you're right. You have more to be embarrassed about than that, my friend. to get right. You have more to be embarrassed about than that, my friend. Which reminds me, you said that you were going to tell some embarrassing stories at some point and you have not done that yet. So I challenge you to tell me something real embarrassing about your childhood relationship with the Star Trek, the Next Generation television program. I can do that.

I can do that. I'll make it a hostage situation. I want I want five more five star reviews and then I'll let the hostage go. I like that. You'll have to call again. I'm just leaving. I'm not dressed properly. What do we got coming up next for what you called a palette cleanser? God, I hope so. This is episode 16, When the Bow Breaks, Wesley and several children from the Enterprise are kidnapped by a sterile civilization which hopes to use them to rebuild their race. So, I guess it's sort of a children of men type a deal. I guess I remember this as being like, they're kind of all in like weird rooms with weird

like pairs of adults that are gonna be their parents and they're like, oh you should learn to sculpt or you should learn to play in instruments. It's the kind of only thing that vaguely comes back to me about this one. How about you? Nothing again. Like, this is another episode that's sort of in the fog for me. I don't remember it at all. I think your episode summary sounds weirdly like a repopulation story. Like, they're going to grab all the kids and then they're going to make a bunch of babies. Is that their plan? Yeah, I think that they stop being able to have children, so they help themselves to the ones that live on the enterprise.

And that's gotta be a, that's gotta really burn Picard up, because you know, that's a, that's a stable, that's his harem. I think, I think we've learned anything from this season, it's that they're really cool with kidnapping on board the enterprise.

Like, they just let that shit slide. Yeah, Daji, Daji Yar doesn't have any specific procedures designed to prevent it because it's honestly not seen as that big of a crime. No, no, that's diplomatic relations. Yikes. This episode was reviewed as a mostly harmless episode that lifts quite a bit from the cliche handbook. Do you have one of those? Ben, a cliche handbook? I think anybody listening to this show knows that I do. I think when I was little watching the show for the first time I had the Star Trek technical manual, I wanted the cliche handbook. I just didn't have enough allowance money to buy one. Yeah. Yeah.

You were wasting that money on magic, the gathering cards. Now I never played magic. I was too nerdy for that. Oh, you know what? I got a nerdy story to tell you. It's a short one. Okay. So one year for my birthday, speaking of magic, the gathering cards, one day for my birthday, my grandma sent me a birthday card with a crisp $20 bill in it as she did. She was a great lady. And with this $20, I went to my neighborhood sports card store. I don't remember what it was called, but you know, one of those stores that sold a bunch of baseball and football cards,

they'd have the glass cases with a bunch of their most valuable product out front, and then just sort of behind the cases they'd have a wall of cards of all kinds. You got your basketball, your football, your what have you. At this baseball card store, they had Star Trek cards. Like, as in, like, what basketball cards are to basketball,

they had Star Trek cards, like, I'll trade you a majority for a warf. Kind of, kind of be. Exactly. Yeah. So, 11-year-old me, uh, saunters into thiscers into this baseball card shop, really excited to spend this $20 bill on Star Trek cards.

That's an investment that's going to pay off in the future. It's like a Saturday morning, get one of my parents drive me down there. They're like down the way shopping for groceries. I'm in there by myself. I weighed in the line of a couple people to interact with the shopkeeper. The other people in there like sports fans. I'm a sports fan too,

but they're in there by in sports cards. Finally, get the guys attention, like a guy getting a bartender's attention at a pub. And I'm like, hey, how many packs of Star Trek cards can I get for $20? And it was like, it was like I had taken a dump on the dance floor. And like the DJ, like the record, the record doesn't just skip, but like the DJ table just flips over and the lights come up. It was, it was a reaction I'd never gotten before. Like I'm, I'm a young kid. I had never

up to this point and bearist myself the way I did in that moment. Yeah. I think I really realized how other people thought of Star Trek when I was a kid. Right. Right. And there's a wall of cards and there's like one single box of Star Trek cards that I saw. So this is an adult. This is like a 50 year old man and you can tell that he wants to curse at me in a son. Why the fuck would you want to buy Star Trek cards? That is ridiculous. Much in the same way that one of us now could say, sir, why the fuck would you open a retail store to sell baseball cards?

Right, exactly. He didn't see the hypocrisy of his statement at the time. But he's like, like a guy wanting to talk a suicide off of the railing of a bridge. He's like, son, do you really want to do that? He sort of looked down at the 20 and looked at me like, initially he was upset at the idea. But, you know, he's a businessman. He wants to make some money too, but he does his best to be like, you know, we got a lot of other cards here. It's sports cards that actually have some value. Are you sure?

Are you sure you really want these Star Trek cards? And I'm like, yes sir, I do. Big fan. So he grabs the box of Star Trek cards. I believe there were two boxes actually. There's original series cards and next generation cards. I think one was silver and one was like a different color silver. I'm sure a thousand nerds are listening to this podcast screaming at the radio going,

saying that I'm wrong about that. But my memory is that there were two different versions and I got the next gen version because I was and still am a next generation person. Empty the box. That's what $20 gets you. That's a whole column, huh? That's how fucking cheap these cards were.

And like a bank teller who had been held up at gunpoint, he slowly stacks the packs on the table. He's giving you every opportunity to rethink your purchase. Yeah, he's really slow-rolling me. There's still a chance here that I could make a good decision. And nope. 19 dollars and 92 cents. Like gave him the 20, took my Star Trek cards and walked on out of there. Really, I was super ashamed the entire time. It wasn't like I was proud to do this. He did everything he could to shame me for my decision and I just sort of slunk away from there. He offered me a bag which I definitely took so that no one would see me walking out with my arms full of Star Trek

trading cards. Utterly delighted at my purchase, which I should tell you has not increased in value one time. This is not an investment on any level. And in fact, it was an investment in shame. Well, it's part of the foundation that you built in your childhood to enable you to erect the house that is the greatest generation in your adulthood. That's about the only erection I can achieve associated with the show. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha want to reach out and maybe share in your humiliation with us. You can find us on Twitter. My Twitter handles at Cut for Time. Mine is Benjamin R. That's Benjamin EHR.

We've also taken over a hashtag hashtag greatest gen which we share with some of our countries greatest heroes. Yeah. And we're proud and even more humiliated to share that with them. and we're proud and even more humiliated to share that with them. Yeah, you will see like nine, nine Trek jokes for every one man lying in state in his dress uniform. So it's a pretty bleak area of Twitter, but if you can stomach that, join us. Yeah, please do. Our website is goch.biz. And one thing that we need to be doing a little better job of that we haven't been is giving a shout out to our friend, Dark Materia, who has graciously and generously

approved of our use of his music, both for the beginning and for our interstitials. So Dark Materia is the engineer who makes all our music. And you can find this track and many others on the internet. Yeah, just search for the Picard song or dark material and it'll take you down a very amusing techno rabbit hole. Yeah, the guy is awesome. And we did that thing that you shouldn't do, which is we grabbed the track and started using it, thinking no one would listen to this podcast. And then it blew up real big.

And then we had to sort of go hat-and-hand like, hey, Mr. Dark Materia, we've been using your song and we didn't ask first. And we're sorry, can we still use it? And two is credit. He was like, yeah, go for it. So our great thanks to him, we're glad we didn't have to go back and retroactively change all the music out for this show Yeah, I guess we don't do we know if dark materia is a dude or a lady? Have I been referring to him as as one or the other I think like I think like riker. I should probably yeah casually find that out

Whoever it is. Dark Messiah, maybe a Binar for all we know. Right, a Binar with a Walkman. All right, well that's all I've got to say about that. Hopefully we'll do a better job in shouting him out, as well as all of our other administrative information toward the end. Yeah, I don't think we ever planned for this show

to have any reason for us to handle administrative business at all. So we need to get in the habit of that now that we do. Well, if anyone is still listening, thanks for that. And we'll see you next time on a real exciting episode of Star Trek, the Next Generation. And by that, time on a real exciting episode of Star Trek the Next Generation. And by that I mean a real exciting episode of the greatest generation. I can tell.

I can't tell. I can't tell. I can't tell. I can't tell. I can't tell.