The Greatest Generation - Sub-Grappler Technology (ENT S2E21)
Episode Date: March 31, 2025When a group of Denobulan scientists needs rescuing underground, an away team covered in spelunking gear explores a different type of Star Trek cave. But when an injured Antaran refuses treatment by D...r. Phox, Captain Know-It-All forces them to take one small step toward reconciliation. What is the golden death triangle of sadness? How do you keep a tribble from reproducing? Which movie most honors Gene Hackman’s legacy? It’s the episode that’s got three of everything!Support the production of The Greatest GenerationGet a thing at podshop.biz!Sign up for our mailing list!Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Riker - Quantum LeapThe Greatest Generation is produced by Wynde PriddySocial media is managed by Rob Adler and Bill TilleyMusic by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFriends of DeSoto for: Labor | Democracy | JusticeDiscuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen and find us on social media:YouTube | Facebook | X | Instagram | TikTok | Mastodon | Bluesky | ThreadsAnd check out these online communities run by FODs: Reddit | USS Hood Discord | Facebook group | Wikia | FriendsOfDeSoto.social MaxFunDrive ends on March 28, 2025! Support our show now and get access to bonus content by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.
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We've added up all of the support after Greatest Gen and Greatest Check Drive and Ben, we did
it.
Whoa.
100% support was achieved.
In previous years it was 2%.
You're saying we got to 100%?
I don't think there's been a mistake there, but if there has been a mistake in the tabulations
and you for some reason have not supported the shows during the drive you can still do that maximum fun.org slash join
Sure but let's focus on the like huge number of people that actually became
supporters or boosted or upgraded in the drive and just say thank you so much
Thank you. You really came through big time.
This really means the world to us.
And it means the show to you.
It does and having you as our boss is just the greatest.
Thanks to everyone who supports us.
Thanks to the folks on the Discord at DrunkShemota.com for putting gift memberships out there.
Thanks to Wendy and Rob and Bill for the extra effort during the drive.
And thanks to our network partners for tabulating all the results.
I'm really happy that we get to keep making these shows for you for another year. I'm looking forward to getting some sleep because I've been
nervous as hell for the last two weeks so thanks to everyone. Thank you so much.
We won't hold you up from me. This is a parody.
Paramount owns the sun.
Welcome to The Greatest Generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast.
I'm Adam Pranica.
I'm Ben Harrison.
I'm sleeping in the studio right now, Ben.
Oh boy.
That bad, huh?
Can you guess why?
Uhhhh...
Man.
Let me see.
I don't think you're the type who would step out.
Though I do often give that kind of energy.
Mm-hmm.
Do you got sick, special lady?
Yeah, I mean, another back from a business trip,
another great big illness.
God damn.
Ugh.
It's kind of like clockwork, man.
Yeah.
It's really too bad.
I have always marveled at the fact
that our tours have never caught one of those
for either of us.
Like, it seems like it should, given that I'm on the team.
Yeah. Ain't that the truth?
What's wrong with them this time?
We should be canceling dates left and right.
Yeah, that's really a miracle.
Hey, is this our first episode back after the drive?
It is. Imagine that.
Wow. Hey, thanks to all 100% of you out there listening for becoming a member during the
Max Fun Drive.
Big success!
100% of listeners became supporters.
That was the whole idea.
All we had to do was make a vision board.
That's the key, right?
Yeah.
Isn't that what the book, The Key is about?
You just think about it being a thing that's going to happen,
and then all of a sudden you have 100% of your supporters supporting.
It's the key, it's the secret, it's the modus operandi.
You make a vision board, you make a very stupid music video,
step three, to be filled in later, step for profit.
Sure. Thanks to all the friends of De Soto who stepped up this year, Mm-hmm. Step three, to be filled in later, step four, profit.
Sure.
Thanks to all the friends of DeSoto who stepped up this year, who step up every year, and
making sure the show continues.
It's never a sure thing.
It really isn't.
Hey, I'm sorry your lady is not feeling good.
Do you like a little bit like the sleeping in the studio though?
Do you feel like you're on a camping trip or anything?
Well, fortunately, my wife doesn't listen to this show, so I'm free to say my sleep
tracking app would confirm that I sleep better in the studio for whatever reason.
And what's weird about that is like Ripley comes
and sleeps out here with me so that it gives my wife
the best possible chance of getting a good night's sleep
in her own right.
As folks on the network are fond of saying,
my wife also sleeps on her own in her own right or whatever.
Yeah, I sleep fine with Ripley.
And I would never tell my wife that because I cannot tell
her that anything is better without her.
And I think that's not an unusual way of being when you're in a committed relationship.
I mean, you're also taking on a huge amount of risk with Ripley given all the tummy troubles
she's been having lately.
So-
Oh, she's firmed it right up now, man.
Oh, that's great.
We're back in business.
Hey.
Yeah, we're dropping logs.
Easy to pick up logs, the best.
I'm really happy to hear that.
The other day, speaking of dogs with tummy trouble, I was out here working,
I think we'd just recorded two episodes together.
And I was in here in my studio in a pair of slippers,
which I don't like leaving the-
I don't love this foreshadowing.
Well, yeah, and I don't love leaving my house in slippers,
but like, I feel like, yeah, and I don't love leaving my house in slippers, but like I feel
like, ah, I'm just like walking. I'll be outside for 10 feet and then I'm back inside. I'm
not, I'm not like going to the grocery store in them or whatever, which.
Are these slippers with a, with a rubber sole or is this just like felt?
They have a rubber sole, fortunately, for what happened. Cause I walked back through the theater building that my studio is in and almost
ate shit, like almost did like ass over tea kettle, head cracks on concrete floor.
And, uh, nobody ever hears from me again slip on just a big slick of dog barf.
It was in the middle of the floor that I did not clock when I was walking back to my house.
You know, a lot of folks who are dog owners will shop for floor treatments that obscure
a previous mess or whatever. I see you've gone with the dog vomit pattern to the rug
or the flooring.
Yeah, yeah.
It was brutal.
This was so much that I have one of those like janitor
at a elementary school size dust pans
that you buy at the home center.
Probably a good like 18 inches on the front blade
of that thing and I
filled it up. I am going to presume that the reason you own that is because you
have a reason to own that which is to say that this has happened before. I got
it for raking because I always like when I rake up like dried leaves and stuff I
never feel like I get enough to feel satisfied
by just like holding a hand against the rake
and like putting it in the green bin.
You got a chode dust pan, don't you, Ben?
I have a thick daddy dust pan.
You know, some would call it a chode.
I think that's, you know, pejorative
in a way that is unfortunate.
Size 54 waist, 10 inch legs, fucking junk.
Yeah, I think most people don't like the word chode.
Heard that them as an epithet.
It's a thick king, let's just say.
And yeah, this dog vomit that nearly claimed me,
nearly ended the life of this Star Trek podcaster,
went out in the dustpan.
Would you want that story out there if that's how you go out? Let's figure this out right now.
Like, were you to go in an embarrassing way?
Yeah.
I'm happy to cover for you, but I want to know if you want me to cover for you.
Right.
Or if you just want me to say plainly what happened. Because Friends of
Desodos deserve that, especially the ones that support.
I think that there might be a behind the paywall explanation and a front of the paywall explanation,
you know?
Do you think the show pivots to a true possible crime show?
Like what really happened to Benjamin R. Harrison?
It's sort of like the stairwell except for dog vomit.
Mm-hmm. But could it have been dog vomit or was it an owl?
Yeah.
I feel like that would be the way that you finally get this thing profitable.
Mm.
Because on a scale of like, this isn't David Carradine embarrassing way of going out, but
it's in that direction on the number line.
Oh, I mean, I would definitely say that you slipped in dog vomit while masturbating.
I should have said that up top, that that was going to be a part of the story.
That was kind of the only way he could get there.
Yeah, yeah.
If I didn't say it, people would assume it.
Right, right.
It's not as funny as a banana peel, but it's pretty funny.
Pretty funny.
Yeah, go ahead and let people know.
It's a lot of funny and a lot of sad
in just the right way you want them
as the cause of your death.
I think for a Star Trek podcaster,
that's the balance that you need to strike, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah, I hope I go out funny or boring,
but definitely not sad.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
You know?
Yeah.
If I could choose, is that the golden triangle of death?
Mm-hmm.
Funny, boring, sad, choose two?
Mm-hmm.
Is that the triangle of sadness of death?
You know, it is.
Slipping on vomit's a big part of that, you know?
It really is. What a delight that film was.
Please.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Well, you know, some people confronted by the demons of their past
in today's episode of Star Trek Enterprise as well, Adam.
Yeah, some people making choices about their manner of death
in this episode, for sure. Let's get into it, Ben.
It's a B-Dunk's directed episode of Star Trek Enterprise Season 2 Episode 21.
It's called The Breach.
Flox is introducing Hoshi to some of his critters,
one of whom is a Tribble, which is like a, you know,
having like a special, like a big cat as a pet
in the state of California.
Very illegal in the Federation and many other places.
Yes, but if a big cat were also a feeder fish,
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
that the owner then feeds to reptiles,
which is what Dr. Flax does in this scene.
I love the sequence of,
Hoshi, check it out.
It's something you've never seen before, a Tribble.
She's like, oh, a Tribble?
Then he dumps it into the cage with
the lizard to get eaten alive.
Yeah.
Dr. Flax is like, yes, that was a Tribble.
I was struck by a number of things in this scene.
One, no mention of Edward Larkin.
And the fact that the fecundity of the Tribbles
is something that was genetically engineered into them
by a member of Starfleet.
But is that a timeline breaker?
Cause that takes place after Enterprise, right? Or does it take place before?
It's got to take place after, right?
It takes place after.
Yeah.
Fuck.
So they were already very fecund and he made them fecunder?
Yeah, that's what he did.
And if you take all the fur off underneath, it's all meat.
Like a scallop.
Okay.
all meat, like a scallop. Okay, the other thing I was struck by was
the beautiful homage to Jurassic Park that this scene was,
because the way the plants in the cage rustle
is exactly like the plants in the raptor pen
when they lower that cow in there.
Yeah, this is like the ship's chef.
We're never gonna see what's in those greens in the cage.
Alejandro has prepared stored fish.
Chilean sea bass, I believe.
Shall we?
Is there a great big pile of these tribbles somewhere having already reproduced?
Self-replicating feeder fish sound like a great concept if you're someone
who needs to feed a lizard.
It's a great concept.
And once you've got enough, do you put each one in a condom, just like whole Tribble into
condom to keep them from getting out of control?
You know, if you're in a prison, I bet a sock full of tribbles
would make a great improvised weapon, right?
Yeah.
You get an inmate to hold down the head part
and the foot part,
and then you just whip that sock full of tribbles
around at the midsection.
Right, yeah.
It's an unexplainable internal bleeding situation.
Yeah, and then you dump all the triples out of the sock.
They go off and go do their fucking
and you're scat free.
Right.
It's like stabbing someone with an icicle, you know?
Yeah.
Flox is feeding the reptiles
and Hoshi is feeding him some information
from the Denobulan Science Academy.
This is a classic soap opera look to theme right here because whatever news this is that
Dr. Flux gets, we push in on his face and it has turned.
It looks like a face we might not have ever seen Dr. Flux make on the show.
Yeah.
Troubled. Yeah, triples and trouble.
And I didn't even do the, like the reverse of the
denobulant smile is something I want to see, you know?
Yeah, you turn a denobulant smile upside down.
That's what I thought we'd get here.
Yeah.
No, instead we just get a classic Diane Wharton bop and when we come back the ship is at warp.
Yeah, there you go.
Rob, see what you can do with that.
I can't make it deeper. I'm doing it for the folks watching the stream.
Yeah.
Still pretty deep.
Yeah.
I look like, is it Bunsen or Beaker? It's Beaker.
Beaker, yeah.
It's got the mouth that flaps open from underneath.
Beaker's got permanent denobulin frown.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, if you were lab partners with Bunsen Honeydew, you would too.
Hey, here's a serious question.
Okay.
And I want you to take this as seriously as possible.
That's what I'm here for.
Is Beaker Bunsen's slave?
You think that they have chattel slavery in the Muppets universe?
Because he's miserable.
He's screaming all the time.
He's getting lit on fire and covered in acid and all this.
Like Bunsen Honeydew is a terrible scientist.
I think we can all agree on that.
If he could leave, wouldn't he?
Beaker doesn't...
Okay.
This is gonna...
This will be the thing.
This is what I want, Ben.
This is the thing that will get me canceled ultimately.
Okay, all right.
And I don't know, like Wendy might have to just edit it out
because I think it's maybe too prejudicial
to you being here in the room when I say this.
Beaker does not seem smart enough to be a scientist.
Oh my God, Ben, you think slavery is okay as long as you're a muppet?
Wow.
Wow.
That is not what I said.
I mean, I'm just, I just said the bleeped part out loud.
No, no, you mischaracterized what I said.
That's incredible.
In a couple of key ways.
That's incredible. In a couple of key ways.
So the ship is at warp and we come in to a McLaughlin group.
Issue one.
Where we learn about some caverns on the surface of a planet and we learn that some denobulant
scientists have been down in those caverns for six months and the science academy, the folks that were trying to get in
touch with flocks earlier, lost contact with these
scientists three weeks ago.
Normally losing three denobulans in the field would
only be a problem for the other three denobulans that
they are in a polyamorous relationship with.
But this is also-
The sexual nature of this working arrangement, a mystery throughout the episode.
Yeah, yeah.
But there's also kind of a xenophobic political uprising taking place on this planet, and
they are expelling all off-worlders off-world.
Correct. are expelling all off-worlders off-world.
Correct.
So the Da-da-bulan's gotta go
and maybe being dead deep underground doesn't matter.
The enterprise needs to go get them.
Ben, when you were a video professional,
I'm going to presume that you would occasionally
like write scripts for folks
to read.
Yeah, time to time.
Was that ever, okay.
It wasn't like a central part of my work.
When I worked in corporate communications, I did that a lot.
And one of the things that would occasionally pop up that I'd have to be very vigilant about is the appearance of,
especially when we're talking about products
or methods or processes, the same word popping up a bunch
is something that happens quite easily,
but something you want to avoid
if you're creating a video product
that's trying to convey something.
Like if you hear that one word over and over and over again, you're like, no, we got to
open up the thesaurus or like write in a different way or whatever.
I actually encountered that in an essay I wrote for Wholesome this morning.
But yeah, I know what you're talking about.
In this scene, there is a three that appears, I want to say three times.
We have three lost denobulan geologists.
We have lost them for three weeks.
And we have a three day deadline on this planet
for getting all the off-worlders off of it.
And in my mind, I kind of cracked a little bit.
Like, you got to change the number, man.
Am I weird for thinking that?
I just locked onto it.
A rule of three is like a key thing in writing, but it's also a rule that's made to be broken,
especially when this many numbers are flying around.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's like the number 47 in Star Trek, except across all of Star Trek we're talking
about one scene in Sixth Bed. ["Salt A Long"]
There you salt a long
So this place is super sketchy for a variety of reasons,
but it is also a call to adventure,
because these denobulant geologists are in a cave system,
and who do we have on board that
happens to be an accomplished rock climber or spelunker? There's some pretty
steep inclines here but I think I can handle it. Who's got the best abs in all
of Starfleet? Only one answer to that it's Ensign Mayweather. Yeah. Just like being
back in the womb. Who are you?
Ensign Travis Mayweather.
Parents must be very proud.
When I was a kid, we called it the sweet spot.
Who are you?
I'm the helmsman.
I guess growing up a boomer has its advantages.
And your mom?
Very proud.
That's true.
Takes practice.
Other than keeping Ensign Mayweather up at night,
I'm not sure what we expect to accomplish here.
He's going to be sort of leading the caving team,
and that is an interesting vibe,
given his, like, substantially lower rank
than either Reed or Tripp,
who are the other two people going on the adventure.
But, like, in the shuttle bay,
it is Mayweather, like, running the checklist
as they go through their equipment
and talk about how they're going to be pooping in bags and bringing everything back out with them, etc, etc.
Do you feel like Mayweather is a red-sherter in
the context as we know red-sherters? Like,
because Mayweather is a main character, that would be a check against this theory.
But because we know him so little, I feel like anytime he goes on a mission like this,
I think there's a non-zero chance that he dies.
Well, by that logic, was Tasha Yar a redshirt?
I feel like we barely got to know her, aside from her interest in Mecha Boom Boom. Is death on Star Trek confirmation of red shirt status?
Makes you think.
So like Prime Universe Philippa Georgiou, total red shirt.
She was the captain of the ship and she was a red shirt.
Yeah. So Archer comes in and he's like,
hey guys, I'm going to do the math for you
because of this three day deadline. Once you get a day and a half down into the cave, if you haven't found these
denobulants, and I understand a day and a half to be exactly the halfway point in three
days, I would like you to turn back around because were you to go further than a day
and a half's distance, that would be greater than half of three.
Therefore, you won't have enough time to get out
before the deadline happens.
Reed takes out like a little pocket calculator
that he got for setting up a new account at a local bank.
And he's like, yeah, that checks out, sir.
Mayweather like counts his abs down his abdomen.
He's like, okay, so I'm going to go down one
and then a half of one, and then we're going to cut over.
I'm just going to bring a pen with me to keep track.
And Archer's like, no, no, I think this, hold on.
What if each of those little raviolis
you consider half a day?
So like one, two, three, so that's a day and a half, right? And then you come back up the
other side and that's another day and a half. Perfect. The math just checks out. And then
Mayweather's like, oh, sorry. And he pulls his underpants down a little bit more to reveal
that it is actually an eight pack. And it completely throws all the math off.
eight pack and it completely throws all the math off. The fun part of this scene is that there was a pre
Dustbuster club meeting where like the plan was put together
and they're packing for the plan and Archer in all of his
stupidity is somewhere else on the ship and he's like,
I forgot to tell them about half of three days.
I better get down there before they leave.
They're never going to know.
And then he leaves, he leaves self-satisfied like, that's why I'm here.
That's why I get the big bucks.
That's that fourth pip shit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We also see a lot of ships leaving the surface of this planet, because this, I guess,
was a planet with a good deal of multiculturalism going.
But-
I like this sequence, right?
Yeah.
Like, so often you see ships going down in the atmosphere.
I like seeing them come up.
Yeah, it's cool.
One of these ships though,
is reporting a radiation emergency and radios up to the tower at the
spaceport that they launched from complaining about this and the tower's like, sorry, like,
can't help you, you guys got to go.
And so the Enterprise comes in and help and very quickly this ship is docked up alongside them and we're in Six Bay and Flox is
triaging people for like radiation burns. I like how dynamic this sequence is.
This is like a big long pan across Six Bay where Dr. Flox is triaging one
person and then doing some beeps and boops on a panel and then another
person's being brought in on a stretcher,
and oh no, what's the deal with that guy on the stretcher?
It kind of takes Dr. Flock's off of his game.
He does another denobulant frown,
and this time it's even deeper.
What I love about this moment is how it foreshadows
the culture that would follow,
I don't know how many years ago this episode was made,
40 years ago, whatever.
Like they wheel in the stretcher
and they accidentally dump the guy out
and as he rolls, it cuts into Dr. Flock's
talking directly to camera about all the things he can do
for sick people in Sixth Face.
I would say that his reaction to this dude's presence
is even worse than his reaction to the iPad
how she handed him at the beginning of the episode.
Well put, yeah.
So on the surface, the shuttle pod has landed
and TripTucker, Reed and Mayweather
are dressed like janitor's keys
as they make their way inside the cave.
They are covered in chains.
They really are.
I do not know how they can walk around in all these carabiners.
The mask with the flashlight on it on the top of their pack
also seems like it would be such a pain in the ass in a cave environment.
Like it would always catch on the stalactites and stuff.
On their backs, each of them are wearing, you know how there's like a version of a thing
you could put on the roof rack of your car that's a soft bag or a hard sort of plastic
torpedo.
All of them are wearing the plastic torpedo.
Yeah.
They all went down to the Yakima store before they departed on this trip.
It's very dark in the cave, Ben,
which is why they've got blue lights.
Yeah.
What does it do?
Turns blue.
And there's both stalagmites and tights in this cave.
It seems like a fairly sophisticated set design.
It's not just Star Trek cave.
It looks a little different.
It's a very different vibe
from the Star Trek caves we grew up with. Uh, and I thought it was so cool how much the beginning of this cave
exploration stuff was done with the flashlights being the only lighting
in the scenes.
Like they, they switched to some lighting later on, which I think makes
sense given like you need to see what they're doing and stuff, but it really like drives home like how dark and scary it would be to be in a cave
and your only light sources are the ones that you're carrying.
This is a choice.
It's a choice by production.
But it's supposed to be a choice by the characters.
And my question for you is, why the blue light?
Why not white light?
Why not any other kind of light?
Do you know?
Do you have any headcanon for this?
The only thing I could come up with was maybe
this was like an early use of LEDs as flashlight.
And so they just really spiked in the blue part
of the spectrum, and it just looked cool.
That's why I think it was just a production decision
for looks versus any other reason.
But I'm sure there are people in the military
who have a reason for why they use red or blue
or whatever color lights for spec ops like this seems to be.
But it seems as though like these are folks
who don't want to be caught doing their mission, which is why they're using
a different colored light than search light.
You know? Oh, interesting.
Man.
Yeah, maybe, yeah, like you have to imagine
that like an individual unit of the military
on this planet would not be necessarily clear
on the we have three days thing.
Yeah. And would just be like,
you gotta get the fuck out of here.
Right.
So yeah, back up on the ship.
Flox talks to Archer about this dude
that got dumped off the gurney.
He got irradiated because he was working
right next to the reactor when the reactor overloaded
on the ship that they are rescuing.
And he fucking freaks out when he wakes up and sees Flox. when the reactor overloaded on the ship that they are rescuing.
And he fucking freaks out when he wakes up and sees flocks.
What's he doing here?
And expresses that he would rather die than be treated by that monster.
He'd rather die than take his syrups and vitamins and compounding pharmaceuticals or what have
you. What a place to be in, personally.
You got to think he's in pain and yet, no way.
I would rather punch out than accept help from this person.
Yeah.
Yeah. There is a squishy kind of hate to the patient's face that reads as very different from Dr.
Flax's discomfort, wouldn't you say?
Yeah.
Like, I feel as though they are both deeply uncomfortable with the other person, but that is seen very differently
between the two characters.
Yeah, I was thinking about how it's gotta be
a little bit of a tricky challenge to get the things
across on your face that you wanna get across
when you're acting lying down like this guy is
for most of the episode.
Like, we're seeing his face from, like, an angle
that kind of obscures his eyes a little bit.
And, yeah, he did a really good job making it clear
that he is, like, revolted by the presence of flocks.
He just fills up his bedpan, just like,
he's gonna be a problem patient from here on out.
Like oops I missed the little plastic urinal pitcher with the little flip top lid.
I missed. I missed. Oh I spilled it. Oh man.
A lot of red shirts in this room are going to get stuck cleaning that up.
Flax isn't going to do it, come on.
Now, he delegates like any good manager.
Out in the corridor, Flax lays it out for Archer.
That sick guy, that guy right there, they're Antarans.
And Antarans are the traditional enemies
of folks like me, the Dandobulans.
They're Antonob's and they have been for 300 years. There's that three again.
The thing of it is it goes both ways for people. I'm a professional about things.
I'm not going to let it get to me. I'm still a healer. I still want to heal this guy,
but this patient, Captain Archer, he would rather die. And Archer is like, well,
I don't want that to happen, especially because these are my
values.
Right.
I would like to impress upon you, I am going to go so far as to order you to get over your
discomfort, the both of yous, and get this guy well.
And he won't do it.
Did you think when Archer said the thing about these are my values, it was funny when Flock
said, oh, are they?
Cause they're in an operating room.
Really strange Archer episode starting here.
I thought.
Cause he's like not down with the denobulant construction of medical
ethics, which are that the consent of the patient is paramount.
Yeah.
And like this guy saying like, keep Fcks away from me is a bright red line for
flocks that flocks doesn't agree with, but is forced to respect.
I mean, the other thing I was going through in my head was like, there
were a bunch of ships leaving the planet.
Like surely some other ship out there has a fucking non-denobulan doctor that could
help this guy, right?
Don't write yourself out of this story, Ben.
This is where we belong.
But yeah, they come to medical, ethical loggerheads.
Yeah.
I'm giving you an order.
I'm sorry, Captain.
But I'm afraid I can't follow it.
I found it bracing to see a Starfleet captain's order just denied.
Like, so quickly too.
There was not a moment of consideration Dr. Flock's ass.
He's like, no.
He's not like, hmm.
And there's always been a sort of air of invincibility
on Starships where it relates to captains and doctors,
right?
Like doctors do kind of exist outside that power structure
in a way to where maybe it shouldn't have been so surprising
that this happened, but you so rarely see it on screen.
Yeah, yeah.
So in the caves, Mayweather does a little bit of extra descending while
Reed and Tripp take a break.
They're exhausted, but they find some Denobulin Tupperware and thinking
about the fact that they are shitting in bags and packing it out, they're
forced to ask themselves, do denobulants shit rocks?
Because why would you fill a Tupperware with rocks if not?
It is such a great question, Ben. And a question that does not really get answered
by the end of the episode. I kept wondering why you would just fill a Tupperware up with rocks
and stick it in a hole as you go,
as if they're breadcrumbs or something along your path.
Oh, maybe that's it.
Maybe they were leaving them so that they would, like, know how they came in.
I don't know, man.
They've been down there for months, you know?
You might forget the layout of these caves.
I guess.
Or maybe they're just very forgetful denobulants.
Could be.
I mean, what it does for the story is tells you
that our characters are on the right track,
and you need that.
And absent the box of rocks,
how do you know you're going in the right direction?
No evidence that they are anywhere close
to finding these dudes.
So, back up on the ship,
Archer kicks it to this Antaren guy
and tries to talk some sense into him.
And the guy's like, I don't think you get it, man.
Like, 20 million of my people were slaughtered
by the Denobulans.
Just get to know him is not a persuasive argument for me.
Pretty wild that he's the first Antaren
to even see a Denobulan in six generations.
Yeah.
I was kind of surprised it wasn't three generations.
Sure.
But.
It's a multiple of three.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Archer, Archer's like the guy who read one
article about a subject and styles himself as an
expert in the field.
And he's like, you know, kind of a lot can change
in six generations.
How do you know it hasn't?
I'm just asking questions, that's all.
Maybe they're nice now.
Yeah.
But yeah, like, and Tarns are raised to hate denobulants
and vice versa.
But Archer in doing this, like, I think we can agree
that Archer's kind of being
a know-it-all when he knows nothing.
I understand there's a troubled history
between your peoples.
But he kind of becomes like the patient in that way
in a, we don't really know, do we?
And when you look at the patient and you look at Archer,
you can kind of consider them in the same way.
Like, yeah, six generations.
What does this patient really know about anything
outside of generational trauma?
Yeah.
I mean, the patient also expressing some things
with certainty that he couldn't possibly know.
Like, oh, the denobulans put it behind them
and how easy it must have been for them to get over this. Like, he doesn't know what kind of truth
and reconciliation has gone on on Flox's home world.
Like, whether they've, like, had a cultural reckoning
with what they've done or not.
Yeah.
And we also never hear, like,
whether there were any atrocities in the other direction.
Like, was this entirely denobulant on Antarin crime or was it like a civilizational conflict
that took place over the course of hundreds of years
and had, there were times when the Antarins were
the aggressors doing the horrible shit and vice versa,
you know?
Right. Right.
Anyways, back in the caves,
Reed spots some particularly sparkly rocks and determines
that this must mean they're on the right tracks because geologists love that shit.
So they keep going and they're kind of sidling down a crag in the rock and it's like reed
trip and then Mayweather bringing up the rear. And Reed and Tripp slip and go down this rock slide,
and they're all roped together, so it brings Mayweather along.
This was a very exciting scene, I thought.
They really sold that they were in this huge cave,
sliding down a huge, long face of rock.
Mayweather saves them by, you know, like getting
a foothold right at the last moment, but it very badly injures his ankle.
Yeah. I mean, Mayweather tries to stop their descent using one leg and that leg basically
explodes from the impact. I thought this was so dynamic, like you're saying, Ben,
the sequence so exciting,
especially when you consider
how little room they have to shoot it.
Like you're setting the camera up at different angles
and lighting things in different ways
to make it look like the length
that you're traveling on this slide
is much greater than it actually is.
And like, B-Dunk's really at the height of his powers
in a moment like this.
Really, really, really well done.
I thought it was great.
And then there's this whole secondary moment of tension
where now Mayweather is like holding onto the rope
and it's like slipping through his hands
and Trip has to get a peaton into the rock
just at the right moment to save Reed.
Like, so exciting, so well done.
Then they scan Mayweather's foot and they're like,
yeah, you're not gonna be doing any more spelunking
this episode.
Is it broken?
Yeah.
He tore a couple of ligaments too.
Mayweather's, hey, my leg is down there, Reed.
Why don't you keep that thing away from my ab.
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And you will never take the greatest gin alive. Ben would rather die.
Rather die.
Ben, I got a question for you.
I think very rarely we like to do the whole,
here's what I would have preferred
or here's what I would have liked better
as a story criticism.
Never happens.
But like this sequence made me think of that movie
touching the void.
You remember that movie?
That's about those rock climbers.
I think I saw that one.
This was an early 2000s movie,
like really great movie in my mind,
where the main thrust of the conflict is like,
you're in a snowstorm on a mountain and you're roped
to your partner.
And if you and your partner tumble down the mountain and one of them goes into a hole
and it's so loud and crazy outside the hole that you aren't sure if the person on the
other end of the rope is alive or not, at what point do you cut the rope in order to
survive yourself?
Right.
And as soon as they started sliding, I was like, oh, I bet you I know what the breach
is.
Like, what the story is actually.
Because there's no fucking way we're actually going to go on the search for denobulant geologists
or whatever.
I thought it would be like the awful decision you gotta make about whether or not you save
Mayweather or Mayweather chooses to save Reed or Tripp or whatever.
That's not this story.
But how interesting would it have been if you get another Mayweather story and you learn
about him in that way.
Yeah. Yeah. The Sophie's choice of a, like, an impossible challenge
in a life and death situation.
That's a new spin on that episode
where you go through command training
and decide whether or not Geordi dies
in the Jeffreys tube, you know?
Yeah.
Congratulations. You passed.
Which was surprisingly hard for Troy.
Typically, women going through command training have no problem sending him to his death.
Total bullshit, man. It's just bullshit.
Yeah, he goes into the Jeffreys tube and it's just, uh...
Like, the death is slow. Like...
I thought we were talking about, like, plasma fire shit.
This is, like, slowly turning up the thermostat.
Yeah.
Flox goes to this Antaran dude
and at the captain's urging tries to persuade him
like it will actually be good for you to like
not die from this treatable radiation exposure.
But the guy is like,
like they're kind of throwing shade at each other
a little bit. Like they're both being pretty shady with each other. And like the ultimate
accusation from the Antarin is that like Flax is here to assuage his own guilt as a denobulin
for all of the horrible things he has done. And it's like one of those things, like do we
done. And it's like one of those things, like do we bear responsibility for the crimes of our ancestors? And Flax is like, no fucking way. But there's an interesting twist in this, which is
that this guy suggests that maybe Flax's medical knowledge was derived by doing like horrible,
unethical testing on Antarin subjects.
And man, that's like a, that's such a fucked up angle.
And then the Antarin guy brings kids into it
and is like talking about like,
you probably taught your kids to hate me too.
Just gets real ugly.
Yeah, it's actually the patient
that's needling the doctor here.
What do you think about the weight of the cold open at work here?
When you see how casually Dr.
Flax would feed something like a Tribble to another animal.
Did you think about that at this moment as being a kind of a squish on the sanctity
of life for a denobulin or Dr. Flax as the representation of denobulins?
Yeah.
Dr. Flax is like, you should imagine the size of lizard I fed folks like you when I was
growing up as a teen.
Yeah, yeah.
An effigy.
Vlox goes and has a bum out in the lunchroom
late at night, it seems like.
How honest is this scene?
Ben, I fucking love this.
Yeah.
She's like, hey, mind if I sit?
He's like, yes, actually.
Yeah, this is something I fantasize about.
I mean, I don't think I would say it to T'Pol
specifically, but yeah. But that's just it. T'Pol's kind of perfect to be totally honest with,
because she's not going to take it in the same way as a sensitive person. She's like, okay, cool.
And then it's on Dr. Flax to be like, no, actually. Yeah. All right. They have an interesting relationship as the two aliens aboard.
And yeah, he tells her about the all of the beef between the Antarans and the denobulans.
He's not an especially delightful dinner hang at this time.
And yet he is the one doing all of the talking. Like he tells her about his grandma
who had some pretty strong anti-Antarion sentiments.
And those were feelings that he was able to nurture
out of his own children.
And then like it's through the talking
that Dr. Flax has kind of puzzled out the conflict he's having with
the patient and he's like, oh, I got to get over to Six-Bay. I think I have this thing figured.
Tupal's like, do you have a really big lizard or something?
Tupal's like, so you want me to pay, I guess?
You always do this.
Yeah.
I can, well, put it on my tab.
It'll come out on the wash eventually.
I'll pick up a couple and you pick up a couple.
So back in the caves, Reed and Tripp are on their own and they're on their bellies and
things have gotten tight because they're crawling through these tight spaces.
And my question for you has been, like, we know they're relying on the, on the tricorder
and these boxes of rocks to tell them that they're on the right track. Why haven't they called out
for these people? Not even once. Because when you yell in a cave, it goes everywhere. That shit gets
loud and it gets echoey and whatever. They don't do it at all. But they wouldn't be able to like,
and it gets echoey and whatever, they don't do it at all. But they wouldn't be able to locate where a sound is coming from.
But it's proof of life.
Proof of life. It's the cave equivalent of holding up today's newspaper in a picture.
Yeah, it is. So they continue to crawl and Ben, much like that sequence where they slid off of that slope, this is
all about coverage. What do you have here? Like 20 meters? I'm going to question. I don't
know how long of a cave section you have here, but you're shooting so much coverage of one
shot, two shot, like different angles up and around. Like you gotta believe that they're not crawling very far at all.
And yet you feel the distance from something like this.
Yeah.
And they're getting ready to give up.
They're like, man, like, let's give it another half hour
if we don't find these guys.
And that is right when the tricorder picks up
the denobulum life signs.
And they come into a much bigger cavern
where the Denobulans have a bunch
of geology equipment set up.
And they're like pretty nonchalant
about the arrival of two people.
Just like, we saw how far into the cave this is.
You know what I like about what this accomplishes visually?
It is like absolute contrast.
Read and Trip have been crawling through dust for a day and a half.
They show up looking at, they are bedraggled and shitty and sweaty and whatever.
And they've been crawling through darkness specifically, blue darkness, if it's lit at
all. And when they get into this opening,
it is bright and clean and the denobulants are casual.
Yeah.
Like you couldn't be more different
as two types of people in the same place.
Maybe that's why the blue light,
like maybe it feels close and spooky.
And then when you're in this room, suddenly it's like, oh man, this is a relief.
We found them and they aren't even surprised to see us.
Were you like me, where you just couldn't take your eyes
off of the female Denobulan?
How fucking cool she sounded.
If the academy knew the progress we were making,
they'd never have sent you.
She gets a few lines in this episode and I'm like, I'd like to know a little more about her.
Oh, man.
Do you have a, you had a little bit of an Enson Roe react
to her?
I think I was putting myself in the position of Trip Tucker,
which is to say, like, oh, I'm gonna stand behind Reed
while we do this negotiation,
because things can get pretty slippery when I'm around
a Denobulan lady.
Yeah.
I need something to do on this ship, come on.
Fair enough.
They are unwilling to leave.
They feel like this is the discovery of a lifetime, the rocks that they found, and these
are going to be key discoveries for them to understand their own planet better, and specifically like seismic activity.
So they're like, yeah, we just need like a couple of weeks
and then we can come.
And Tripp and Reed are like, you don't understand.
You don't have a couple of weeks.
If you stay that long and then come back out
onto the surface, you will just be killed.
So eventually they are persuaded to come,
but they want to bring all their samples with them.
I mean the way it works is like the Denobulans could explain their reasons until they're out
of breath. But like Tripp Tucker's got orders. Tie you up and drag you out by your ankles if
that's how you want it. And this is a scene you get in a lot of military films or like disaster
films where a military presence comes in and is like,
you gotta get out of here. Or like Dante's Peak, where they're like,
Grammy, you gotta get off the mountain. Like, there's just no negotiation to happen here.
Yeah. Your legs to dissolve off in a lake?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're underground. There's probably acid lakes all over the place.
We're lucky we didn't fall in one.
Like, we didn't meet those guys from the descent in here.
Come on.
Yeah.
It's fucked up.
Finally, they agree to leave as long as,
I love that it's like, yeah, as long as you help us move.
Did you guys bring a pickup or what do you got?
Yeah, so schlepping the rocks is what
Reed and Trip will have to do in order to get these guys out of there and
that's the deal.
Back in Sixth Bay, Phlox pronounces to this Antaran guy that he's just gonna go
ahead and do the procedure
whether or not there is agreement,
which is a pretty remarkable turnabout for Flax.
This scene needed gas, I thought.
Oh, like a little mask.
Uh-huh.
And the guy's like, no, no, no, no, no.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Like the patient wakes up, he's like,
oh, why are my wrists in restraints?
It's like Extreme Measures, isn't it, Ben?
It's a lot like Extreme Measures, the hobo killing movie that you and I and nobody else
have seen.
You know what?
In order to honor the life of Gene Hackman, we should watch that movie as a bonus episode.
We should, yeah.
That's the one he wants to be remembered for, right?
Yeah.
If we could find it, I don't know if it exists.
Do you think we sort of like joint imagined
that that movie exists?
Like...
Yeah, it's the Mandela effect for two people.
We come from a different universe
where there's a movie about Gina.
I've been doing horrific medical experiments on bows.
You can cure cancer by killing one person.
Wouldn't you have to do that?
And also they're called the Berenstein Bears in that universe.
Yeah.
So, we had heard in a previous episode about this child oflox's that he is not on speaking terms with anymore.
And I thought it was really interesting that they call this back and flesh it out
with the idea that this is a rift based on a hateful attitude his son has toward
Antarans.
Like Phlox and his son have parted ways over bigoted attitudes that his son has adopted.
And he tells this to this Antaran guy as a way of saying like, like, there
are still denobulants that are as horrible about your people as they used to be.
My son is one of them.
They're in my fucking family.
Like Thanksgiving is whack for me, but I'm not like that.
I mean, Thanksgiving doesn't bug me for the last 10 years
because that guy hasn't shown up.
You know, 10 years is how long it's been since we've spoken.
That's three times three plus one.
And the guy's like, oh, I get it.
Oh, that's what we're doing this episode.
Okay.
Well, when it comes to whether or not I want to accept your medical interventions, three
is my answer to that question.
For the folks just listening at home, Adam had three fingers up, but then he made a swastika
out of them?
What the hell, Adam?
So the tone that this scene ends with is like, yeah, the one kid I've got would fucking love
it if you turned down my medical care because he thinks all Antarans should die. But you
know, there is another path you could take, patient. You could be stubborn and get the
medical care you need in spite of that guy, even at that guy. And what do you think about that?
Living is the best revenge, I guess.
Yeah. I found this very compelling. Yeah. That's, you really Adam
Jujitsu'd this argument. So back in the caves, the group now with denobulans, crawls and crawls
and crawls. And as they go, a denobulant scientist finds more rock samples in that
plastic drill bit box.
What is the deal with these boxes?
Everywhere.
You're just about to learn the deal,
but no, bangers get dropped.
And now the group has got to hustle out of there now
because they're speculating that what's causing the bangers
is weapons fire.
Yeah.
We thought the weapons fire was going to be in the cave
when Tripp threatened to shoot that guy in the butt.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm going to take my face pistol and shoot you in the ass.
Instead, it's outside the cave and it's explosives.
And so rocks are falling. They get to like the bottom of the pit where they need to start,
you know, hooking up ropes and climbing up. And the Denobulans don't have any climbing gear.
They're just free climbing this, which seems insane to Trip and Read. A huge rock almost crushes the entire group,
but they managed to make it out unscathed. How great of it is the choice not to show the great
free climbers immediately. I love the pregnancy of like, what, you don't have any gear?
Hell no, we don't need it.
And then like the rock falls and you're like, huh, I wonder what that's going to
look like instead of just immediately answering the question or satisfying the
curiosity.
I love that.
It was great pacing by my bee dunks here.
Archer has an argument with the governor of the planet.
Captain Archer, I thought I made myself clear.
Man, that voice sounded so familiar on the radio.
I was like, is that J.G. Hurtzler?
I'm like, I don't think it was,
but maybe it was no stockade guy from Star Trek 6.
Work well and you will be treated well.
Maybe, yeah.
That voice just sounded so familiar, but I couldn't figure out who that was.
How mad is Archer here?
You rarely see this gear out of Captain Archer.
He is very, we had an agreement, angry.
And I guess that's the way to piss him off the worst, is to renege on an agreement.
And it pushes Archer all the way toward targeting weapons and getting ready to
open fire.
And I love, I love the math that he's done in this moment.
He's like, these Xantorans are a frothy mix of xenophobia and weapons.
And weapons. And it seems like they have their hands full getting these aliens off world and stuff.
If we involve ourselves, that is just going to be too much for them.
But the threat is there.
And by threatening to involve themselves, it finally gives the leverage to the situation
that's necessary to get the ships called off
from firing on the caves, but not really all the way.
Yeah.
It's still dangerous.
So back down in the cave, we finally
get to see why these denobulants didn't bring any safety
equipment for their spelunk.
This is actually my ground. And the gang starts ascending out of there.
I love how the Denobulans don't help.
No, they don't have backpacks or anything.
They're not carrying any of the shit.
Drip and Read are such punks for accepting this deal.
It's really breathtaking.
There's a quality to Star Trek prodigy that we've noticed lately on our hit
streaming Star Trek show, Greatest Trek, where like, it's sort of like the quality
of not saying bye before hanging up a phone, like characters are just leaving
each other without offering rides where it would be very convenient to offer that ride.
Sure.
And this is like that.
It's just like that.
Catch our coverage of Star Trek Prodigy Season 2 on Greatest Trek, right
here on MaximumFun.org.
Flax got to this guy and he's going to accept treatment.
So that proceeds on the ship and back in the caves, we're struggling to get to the surface.
Hoshi is trying to get them on the radio and they're not picking up. And Archer is getting
ready to take a shuttle down when Trip finally answers the phone. And they get all of the
Denobulans into the shuttle and leave orbit and are even harassed by an attacking fighter jet
a little bit as they're leaving for the entrepreneur.
Do you always get a little chuckle out of any species
that doesn't have better weapons than Enterprise?
I love the vibe here, like when the ship opens fire
with weak ass particle weapons, it's like, get out of here nerd.
I ain't got time to be distracted by your worthless chime in, it's gone.
This is fucking sub-grappler technology.
You guys took over an entire planet with webs like that?
It's almost like an around the horn on the bridge, Everyone looks at each other like, Oh, that's cute.
Yeah.
Oh, they're safe flocks and Archer kind of rebuild their, their mutual
esteem after their fracture.
And after this Antar and dude got treated for his radiation thing.
And then Archer goes to talk to the, the patient who is going to be getting back aboard his
now de-irradiated ship.
He seems pretty happy to not have to check out with Flax at the counter in front of Six
Bay.
Yeah.
That's one nice thing about Six Bay.
There's no waiting room part of it.
You just walk right in and get treatment.
I mean, you can avoid Dr. Flax, but what Archer tells this guy is like, hey, you're going
to have a ship with three denobulant geologists in there.
You going to be cool with that?
And the patient's like, I could be cool with that.
I think I learned a lot today about being cool with.
And off they go, and that's it. Except that's not it. We get this really interesting
scene at the very end that I feel like could have been cut for time.
Yeah.
But I think actually punches way above its weight. It's dark in Sixth Bay and Dr. Flax
is writing to his estranged son about the episode that we just watched.
A reach out to a red hat about like,
hey, I'd like to talk to you about a thing
I just went through and maybe
this will soften your heart a little bit.
Well, when you put it like that,
it sounds like it's a very special episode, Ben,
but was it a good episode to you? I thought it was a really good episode. Yeah. Like, I think that Star Trek has spent a lot
of time in caves, but has done very little, like, the mechanics of actually, like actually traversing caves stuff. With the gear.
With the gear. If you would have said,
hey, there's a Star Trek Enterprise episode where they do
a lot of the gear of spelunking stuff,
I would have been like, I bet that's corny as hell and badly done.
I have to say this was not that corny and it seemed very well done.
I mean, I don't know shit about like pitons and cave rock climbing, but whether or not
it was actually like a credible representation
of what that's like, it was very interesting
and well executed from just a like,
teaching you the rules of it for the sake
of watching this episode standpoint.
Yeah.
The Fox storyline was also like really interestingly done. And like,
like, I think that those moments can be easier to write without as much heart as these ones had.
Like, I feel like that episode had a ton of empathy, both for this guy and for Flock's,
when the challenge that they were confronting was kind of a vacuum of empathy by both of them.
And I thought it was really nicely done in that respect.
How about you?
I really appreciate how this wasn't that sort of episode where two characters changed their
mind completely.
Because that seems to be like now, like forever, the hardest thing to do is to change someone's mind
about something that they feel very passionately about.
And at the conclusion of this episode,
it was not all the way, like it was partial.
It was for even convenience, if you want to say it.
This guy needs a lift home.
He's going to tolerate the denobulance.
But there's like a crack in the sensibility
that I found so much more satisfying than just like a,
I learned something today and me and Dr. Flax
are going to be writing letters.
And the final scene of the episode is Dr. Flax
writing a letter to me, his patient that he just healed.
Like, I'm so glad it wasn't that.
The restraint to keep it messy is what makes it feel real and realistic.
It made for a better episode in making that decision, for sure.
Do you want to see if anybody made any good decisions in the Priority One inbox, Adam?
Always a good decision to support the show with a priority one message, Ben.
Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secure Channel.
Need a supplemental income.
Supplemental income.
Supplemental.
Supplemental.
Yeah, it's extra.
By the interest alone, could be enough to buy this ship.
And we got a promotional message
right off the top.
Here's how that goes.
Hi, B&A.
I'm back with another P1 to toss some scarves at the pod and
to let all FODs everywhere know that I
have a new sci-fi book coming out.
Oh, boy.
A greater puzzle.
Part one of the retrograde
cycle by Robert C.
Murray.
My friends call me Rob. Is a new adventure in the Titan Run universe
Amazing
For those who haven't read my OG books
The Titan Run universe has Trek vibes and the expanse level tech
As an FOD myself since 2016, I know you'll all enjoy the read. Get the pre-order link at
titanruntrilogy.space. So this is a message from Robert C. Murray, who's the
author, and he's telling you, me, and everyone else, go to titanruntrilogy.space.
You know what he's going for, Ben. The greatest gen bump.
you know what he's going for, Ben.
The greatest gen bump.
Bump, bump, bump.
Come on.
Let's go.
Come on.
That's the bump you want when you're writing fine science
fiction products as Robert C. Murray does.
I'm going to pre-order.
I hope other people do, too.
I don't know if authors do this intentionally.
I've got to believe someone like Robert C. Murray
knows exactly what they're doing
But like when you put part one in the title of your book like there's gonna be more parts
You can't just do the first part, right? This is like Star Trek section 31 like this is
Clearly setting up a whole bunch. of subsequent parts. Yeah. Yeah.
You hire Robert C. Murray to write the first book.
You're gonna have to do it for the sequel.
Yeah.
That's just math.
There's gonna be three, Adam, specifically.
I mean, that's what I'm hoping.
There's three of everything.
All right. Next P1 here is from Joshua, it's to Caleb, he who is my husband.
And it goes like this.
You're the sacred chalice of reeks, the hidden phaser in the hilt of my kerleth, the deuterium
to my antimatter.
You're like Isolinier chips to my drunk Shimoda or a real doll to my Kevin Hart's fridge.
Thanks for 13 years, Imzadi.
Peace and long life.
Live long and prosper.
Oh.
Amazing.
Happy anniversary.
13.
Very sweet.
Yeah, lucky 13.
What's the 13?
I just made my 11th wedding anniversary and that's steel.
That's steel, wow.
I've never known what the materials of the various anniversaries are, but if steel is
11th, 13's gotta be like bronze or something.
Lace!
Ben, it's lace!
It's lace?
Wow.
Traditionally it's lace, but but like there's a version for like modern times
Mm-hmm textiles or furs
Wow is what it would be. How about if you just like lace a doobie with some you know
Like with some angel dust. Yeah. Yeah, or you know crush up a pharmaceutical and I didn't know Caleb liked to get wet
Joshua and Caleb you decide what it what lace means for you
Okay
Ben our final priority one message is from Tony the 70 man and it's to Ben and Adam. Here's that message
Since the November 6th return of the national noisemaker, I've had to revise my attitude
toward factory seconds. It reminded me that we join unions or become Max Fund members
not for ourselves, but for others. Wow.
So you go, you normal age cheesecake boys. Besides, I'm about to send in a promotional p1 and I've pissed off Adam quite enough already
Wow
This is a really like the arc of Tony the 70 man is long
But it bends towards cheesecake factory being okay
And it's incremental in the way we talked about when we were reviewing the episode. Like, Tony's not changing.
All the way or all at once.
No.
Little by little.
Tony gets there with every priority one message.
What did we find out that Tony eats every day?
Like a tin of sardines or something like that?
Yeah, it's oatmeal and sardines.
Overnight sardines.
I mean, you know what else, Adam?
I think this is the third P1 that Tony has sent in.
So everything comes in threes.
Oh my God.
I don't think the episode was wrong to do this.
If you'd like to bend towards justice,
you can send a P1 in as well by going to maximumfund.org
slash jumbotron and ordering yours today.
Hey, Ben.
What's that, Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda?
Incredible.
Drunk Shimoda.
Yeah, I got to give it to my boys, Tripp and Reed, for getting stuck schlepping the rocks.
Clearly, they were the least well cut out
for doing that of anyone present in those caverns.
Yeah.
Including maybe the guy who broke his ankle
saving their lives on the way down.
I think that's what makes May and my Mayweather.
Okay.
Oh, can't let him get too close to an A or a B story.
Gotta get that guy out of the episode as soon as possible.
Yeah, we already did that once this season.
It almost destroyed us.
Yeah, yeah.
Too much for you, Mayweather.
Yeah.
Faith of the fart.
Well, that was a lot of fun.
Why don't you head over to gach.biz slash game, Adam, while I tell you a little bit about next week's
episode, which is of course a season two, episode 22 of Star Trek Enterprise, Cogenitor.
The Enterprise crew makes first contact with the Viscions, a species with three genders. Trip meets one of the species' third gender,
knows as a cogenitor,
and learns how badly Visians treat all cogenitors.
Trip attempts to help the cogenitor,
even though it interferes with Visian culture.
Seems like we're gonna learn a little bit more
about their cogenitalia this episode. That's what Trip's gonna do. Ben, I'm gonna learn a little bit more about their kajenitalia this episode.
That's a trip's gonna do.
Ben, I'm gonna learn a little bit about how we're going to experience next week's episode.
For that, I go to gach.biz slash game and the game of buttholes, the Will of the Riker
Quantum Leap, currently, strangely, our runabout is on square one hundred.
Yeah.
And at the end of this roll, we will be anywhere else but there.
Or there, if you roll a clean 100.
You're required to learn as you play.
Roll.
And I have not done that.
I've rolled a 49, which means we are on square 49.
Okay. Chula! Did I win? Hardly. I've rolled a 49 which means we are on square 49. Okay
And that also means there'll be a regular old episode for us just two squares from the breadstick power hour episode
You're miss
Yeah, I'm scared of that square if we ever get to breadstick power hour, I'm getting Olive Garden breadsticks.
The best breadsticks in the game.
Are those a crunchy or a soft breadstick?
I think they're soft.
Yeah, I feel like soft is the way to go for that because-
I have no idea how long they are.
I feel like they're like 18 inches, right?
Or I don't know.
It's been a while since I've seen one there
at least 30 centimeters if not yeah many more than that yeah or less yeah well
this has been a lot of fun Adam we got a lot of gratitude over here for all of
the members of the greatest generation and greatest track especially our new
boosting and upgrading members from
the Max Fun Drive, which is 100% of you.
Yeah.
Thank you so much to everyone who got involved, which is everyone.
We also want to thank Windy Pretty, our producer, who edits these episodes and keeps all the
plates spinning at Uxbridge-Shamoda HQ.
Gotta thank Rob Adler, our social media director.
Follow at Greatest Trek all over the place.
And if you slide into the DMs
on one of our Greatest Trek accounts,
you might just encounter the card daddy, Bill Tilly.
Ask him if you got something you'd like to send in
for a future Code 47 episode.
He'll tell you what the mailing address is.
Bill Tilly has spelunked to the bottom of the DMs, for a future Code 47 episode. He'll tell you what the mailing address is.
Bill Tilly has spelunked to the bottom of the DMs,
wearing the backpack, the blue light.
I know he's on it.
Broken his ankle a couple of times, probably.
Both legs completely exploded.
And yet he works.
Yeah, nevertheless, he persists.
Gotta thank Adam Ragusea for making our beautiful theme song for this show based on Diane Warren's
original and Dark Materia for the use of the card song here under our voices right now.
She may not have ever won an Oscar, but she's won our hearts and inspires us every day.
Absolutely.
With that, we will be back at you next week,
another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise
and episode of the Greatest Generation Enterprise,
where we're like, man, maybe we should do some more Babylon 5
stuff.
There's a guy from Babylon 5 in next week's episode.
Oh, looking forward to that.
All right.
Weird hair and vampire teeth, is that going to be the character?
Make it so.
Captain John Lupicata, the U.S. 10th Enterprise.
Captain John Lupicata, the U.S. 10th Enterprise.
Make it so.
Make it so. John Lupicata, Carter, make it so. Make it so. Make it so.
Jo-pe-cotta, cotta, cotta, cotta.