The Greatest Generation - The 400-Year-Old Virgin (ENT S3E6)

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

When Hoshi gets a telepathic cold call, her new suitor offers to help Captain Archer’s pursuit of the Xindi as long as Hoshi stays over at his creepy castle. But after she reluctantly agrees and finds he can’t take no for an answer, she has to threaten his crystal to get back to the NX-01. Which button shows true desperation? What’s the worst Star Trek food we’ve ever seen? Should Hoshi have just stayed in uniform? It’s the episode that enjoys a water polo paprikash.Check out the full video recap of Universal Fan Fest Nights on YouTube. 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

Here's to the finest crew in Starling. When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument 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 who are just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pranica and

We have something to talk about Adam because not at the same time Not on the same day you and I visited Enterprise D bridge actual Yeah, we did that thing where you know to, to preserve, what is it, like leadership continuity or whatever, we can't go to a place together. We got to go separately and on separate days and we're talking about theme park visits like this. Yeah, you were my designated survivor and I yours, sir. Indeed.

But yeah, I think if you're on social media and have ever like tapped a star on a thing to do with Star Trek, you probably heard about the Universal Studios Hollywood FanFest Nights event that they were doing that included an experience where you get to go on the bridge of the Enterprise that they did for Star Trek Picard. And we both got to do it in the last few days. Yeah, we both went in May. Tickets for this went on sale in January. And like at the time I wanted to ask what you were expecting then, because

like, because all you had to go off of was like a couple of pictures and then like a cast, not a, not a Star Trek cast member, but like a cast member of the park in a uniform, like gesturing. It seemed like it was going to be a live action thing. You'd be able to go to the bridge and hang out and see it. This being the enterprise D bridge that was made for the third season of Star Trek Picard, I bought tickets thinking like, holy moly, I'm going to be sitting in some seats, I'm going to be sitting in some seats.

I'm going to be hitting some buttons. That was what I thought this was going to be. Yeah. The level of expectation I brought to this was basically zero. Smart. Because I have not had many theme park experiences since I was a small kid. That was going to be my follow-up question. Have you ever been to Universal Studios? I had. When I was a kid, we did a family trip down to Southern California and we did Universal and Disney.

That's a big week. Yeah, it was a big week. I remember the E.T. ride was new at Universal and was like... I don't think my parents would have gone to Universal, but I'd seen lots of television ads for the ET ride. And I was like, we have to go to the ET ride. So, which I don't think is there anymore, but- Yeah, not at all. I mean, I think there was a section of it in the park

that was all gray. Uh-huh, yeah. Like gray and dusty. Yeah, they just have to express love for it and then it'll come back. But I went with a friend who happens to be named Adam, but not you. Wow. I went with my wife.

My wife would never. And he was a fun tour guide, because he's, like, done Universal so many times, that, like, his pitch was, this is going to be like horror nights in that there will be not haunted houses per se, but things on the model of haunted houses where you walk through and have an experience. And that turned out to be like a very strong prediction.

Yeah, that's well put. Because it wasn't just Star Trek. There was also like a couple of anime things that I wasn't as familiar with that had events. There was Dungeons and Dragons, there was Back to the Future, and you know, like a bunch of different like IP kinds of properties had events going on at Universal. Getting back to the expectation question, had you also gone to Star Trek The Experience in Las Vegas when it was going?

No, I never got to see that. I have watched the YouTube videos of the walkthrough of it. So I know a bit about what it was like. I think that represents the hope that I had for this going in. I think your friend Adam had a much more accurate prediction when he talks about the haunted house walkthrough. But I don't know about your night. My night was one of the hottest nights of the year. They should have called it FanFest nights hot. So hot. Oh man. I mean, it was, it was like a 90 degree

day in LA. Like one of those two day pops where it was like, we were in the seventies. What the hell happened? And then the park opens at 7 PM. That's the night element. They closed the park, get all the kids and folks out, and then they turn it over for this night's experience. And then they let you in at seven. And I got in pretty much at seven. Started walking around. We got in earlier than that. There was like a $20 add-on charge that you could do to get you in at 5.30. And we were so glad that we did that because they, like, everybody was getting kicked out,

but most of the FanFest nights, hot, people had not gotten let in yet. So there was like an hour where we could just, like, walk onto rides and walk into the experiences without having to wait in line really. That's great. So when my wife and I arrived, like the first thing we wanted to do was like go straight to what you could just call Star Trek land, like the area where the Star Trek stuff was.

Yeah. And the first thing that we saw was the Quarks Cafe setup, which was like a reskinned place where you could get food and beverage and cocktails. And then there was like another side bar where they sold just cocktails. And then in between those things, there was kind of a boulevard where there was

a command chair from the Enterprise D setup and then kind of a Boulevard where there was a command chair from the Enterprise D set up and then kind of a banner. Yeah, like a scrim that just had the back of the bridge printed on it. Yeah. I mean, they had the horseshoe. The horseshoe was represented physically. Did you get yourself a picture? I got a picture.

I got a picture in the chair. And yeah, so that stuff was actually not right near where the Star Trek Red Alert experience was. It was uh but it's the thing you pass first on your way there. Yeah and we stepped up to it ride closed due to technical difficulties. No! So we went over to the Dungeons and Dragons experience. Ride closed due to technical difficulties. What happened? I don't know. Then we went back to the Star Trek thing and it was open at that point. So, I don't know what they were doing, but they had to reset something.

Here's the thing. Once you go through Star Trek Red Alert, you wonder what technical difficulties there might have been to cause a closure. Like very few failure points to the system. Right, right. By the time we got back though, because it had been out of commission for half an hour or 45 minutes, some demand had pent up. And so we did have to wait in a bit of a line to get in. Eventually you do make it to the bridge of the D. And there's places that you can go and

places that you can't. Like you can go up to the horseshoe and be up there in the back section, but you can't go into the area where, you know, the helm and the captain chairs and stuff are, because that's where storytelling is happening and there's a bunch of actors. Did you feel like this was a deception to arrive at the bridge and realize that, no, this is just a place for cast members to be, like, you don't get to be in that part. You're prevented from being there from a railing. I didn't expect to be able to, like, sit in the captain's chair or anything like that. I didn't either, but I had hoped to be closer.

I will say I was also just totally blown away at how much smaller it was than it is in my imagination. Yeah. It is half the size of the space that I see when I watch Star Trek on television. And yet that's what it was. Like that is the set that they used to shoot those scenes. Yeah, these were average sized actors and everyone on our tour group

seemed like average sized people. Like the scale of the thing really felt different in exactly the same way. I think that changes if you're able to get into the middle of it though. Yeah, maybe so. Like being on the outer ring of it, I think matters than if you're inside looking out.

And I wonder if the number of people in the room also makes a difference, because there's probably 40 or 50 people in there, right? Like between the groups and the actors. It was pretty packed. So yeah, I mean, I was geeking out. I had a lot of fun getting to see it in person, but yeah, it's over so quickly.

Like you walk through the next door and you're just like back out into the park and you're like, whoa, that was just a, there's just a door into the bridge that is like unmarked that if you like could get by the guy with the windbreaker standing at that door, you could just walk onto the bridge at any time. Yeah.

Yeah, that was it. I mean, that was also my feeling, a real, that was it. It's over. It's over, but by the end of your Star Trek experience, Ben, at the end of Star Trek Red Alert, did you like it? Was it good? I'm really glad I did it. I think that like, I would have regretted the spend on the ticket if I hadn't had a full several hours of theme park hangs with my buddy on either side of it.

You know, we did the back to the future thing and we did the D and D thing and we did basically every ride that was open, which was kind of a surprise to me. I'm not like, I'm not much of a rides guy, but I had a lot of fun just like doing the whole thing and getting a little Star Trek experience in there was a real treat for me and made me think like a more fleshed out, like fully realized ride

is something that I would love to see in a theme park like that and would love to go to. It also made me think a lot about the Star Trek convention and how when you get those photo ops, like there's like a little 10 forward that you can go get your picture taken in or whatever. It's only ever that, you know, it's never like the actual set built out and like full service.

Like you can't step to Ten Forward and order a drink at the convention. It's just there for a photo op. And it was interesting to see them make a slightly more interactive version of the thing. I kind of wished we'd like gone on like one of the press days and gotten a slightly more boutique tour of it. I feel like we would have had a better experience, but... Yeah, they made it look fun. It seems like they had a fun time there. Yeah.

It was cool to see. How about you? Did you like Star Trek colon red alert? I think as with so many things Star Trek related right now, I'm glad that it exists and it is better than not having it. Yeah. But something that my wife told me as we were walking through all of this stuff

and when we finished with Red Alert was that like the enthusiasm that the fans had for this stuff was evident and everywhere and full of spending money. Yeah, it was so funny to see like a guy and everywhere and full of spending money. Yeah, it was so funny to see like a guy in a monster maroon Star Trek uniform, like wandering around in front of the clock tower from back to the future later on in the evening. But she said, you know, you guys deserve more than this.

You deserve better, Is what she said. And I don't disagree with that. Like they're so close to making this great. Yeah. But it's, it's like that last lap before the finish line of just like the final fit and finish, just a little bit more to make it be like an actual wow experience instead of

like, oh, it's over. Like the difference between those two things is the difference between something that you overpay for and something that you remember years afterward. And I wish Star Trek was a franchise that just had more of that, that like recognized its own value, that recognized that like making an investment in itself is worthwhile because people come out, no matter what it is, no matter how shitty your blue chicken burger is,

people buy it because they love the franchise. Yeah. And these things open and they close and they don't last. And even when they're around, they're just fine. Like, thank you for this, but like, please can I have some more? Is my feeling afterward. Yeah, I dig it. God, I don't know how much more I could talk about this here, Ben. It turns out you can talk about it a lot, Adam. We had a very long conversation about our universal experiences

and captured a lot of pictures and videos. And those are going to be available on our YouTube channel for those who are curious. Plus, it's more fun to look at than listen to, right? Yeah. So if you'd like to see us visiting the bridge of the enterprise and Quarks Cafe and crap like that, click the link in the show description

in your podcast app. Feast your eyes on a totally insane looking corn dog. You really want to see this thing. Yeah. Do you run into any friends at DeSoto while you were there? I definitely got clocked by the cool kind of FOD that was like with their own people. You know, like in Fight Club,

when they recognize the Fight Club leaders, You know, like in Fight Club, when they recognize the Fight Club leaders, like when they're in the restaurant, they kind of get the what's up. I got a couple of zups, but I didn't get any interactions. I had a couple. That's great. Yeah. One of which was somebody, I wore my, my Neelix in the Netflix logo font shirt. Sweet. And somebody was like, hey, cool shirt.

And then was like, wait. And then like later came back and was like, hey, you're not Ben Harrison by chance, are you? I don't like that your shirt was more recognized than you in that interaction. Yeah, I think that a lot of stimulus in that environment, you know, a lot to look at. Well, a lot to look at in our episode of Star Trek Enterprise.

What do you say we turn it on over to a review of it? It's Star Trek Enterprise season three, episode six. It's called Exile. And did you know? Hmm. This was the first episode of Star Trek to air in high definition. Whoa! Big moment, huh?

They really pulled out all the stops. Yeah. A Roxanne Dawson directed episode, no less. Yeah, she's getting a lot of reps on Enterprise. That's cool. She sure is. So we start with Hoshi in the bathroom doing like her evening toilet as she hears someone calling out and asking if she understands him. And there's sort of a whispering voice in

the dark scenario. There's a version of a ghostly voice, right? And these can take all kinds of forms. One of them can be spooky, like haunted house voice. Another version can be a ghost fucker candle voice. Sure. I would say on that spectrum, this is more ghost fucker, right off the bat, isn't it? Right. This is not Eyes in the Dark. We're expecting something horny to happen. Yeah. not eyes in the dark. We're expecting something horny to happen. Especially with the, you know, fair maiden alone in her chambers kind of imagery. For sure. There's a shadowy figure there and she reaches right out and pushes the call read button, which

is like, gotta give you a little bit of a bump, right? Like, is this really who I want to call to come save me from room invaders? Fucking Malcolm Reed. How desperate do you have to be to call Malcolm Reed? Holy moly. You're right about that. This felt to me like it could have been kind of a scanners moment too. Like is apparition of a person appearing to you in a room part of the turning inside out process?

Like, is this how it happens? Yeah, yeah. I see someone first. Oh man. I feel a special tingle. I see a person in my room, dot, dot, dot. Then I'm inside out. Like there's a third thing.

Right. We don't know what that is yet. Yes. But after that, profit. Yeah, yeah. And there's a third thing. We don't know what that is yet. Yeah. But after that profit. Yeah. Yeah. And that's our cold open. After the theme, we're in the command center and T'Pol shows Archer some information relating to two spheres. One is the sphere that they know about already, right? They visited that one.

And Archer's like, I know about two spheres. I fell in face first into them in a recent episode. Exactly. But there's this idea, a hypothesis about maybe another sphere that may be out there. And Archer's like, are you fucking crazy? Two spheres? No way.

And then T'Pol hits a couple of buttons that runs like a computer simulation that shows that all of the anomalies that they know about in the expanse happen to be from where two spheres energies are crossing. Yeah. There's sort of like irregular rays irradiating from each sphere and where those rays intersect in space is where anomalies happen. Yeah. And if you know where the two spheres are, maybe you can tell where the anomalies are

going to be and where you're going to run into trouble. But in order to see the two spheres, you've got to undo something that you can't see that's out of view. And if you aren't practiced at this, it can be a real awkward situation to reveal them. To reach the grappler around something and come in from the back that you can't look at while you're doing it. No. No, you can't look over the top either because that betrays that you may

not know what you're doing or have never encountered such a thing before. Right. I mean, there's something that T'Pol could have prepared Archer for here, which is that occasionally when you're very lucky, you encounter spheres where you can grapple right there in the front in between the two spheres. I mean, but that's, in my mind, that's just legend. Like people have said that that exists, and yet I've never seen it with my own eyes.

There's no evidence that that exists in reality. It's like, yeah. It's like ghost stories, you know? It's like, okay, I believe you believe that that happened to you. How huge would this be if you could construct a predictable map of where these anomalies would occur? It'd make it so much easier to navigate the expanse, right?

Yeah. And not only that, like this hypothetical second sphere, not far away. Close. So Archer's like, cool, let's go to there. Meanwhile, Reed is looking into room invader on behalf of Hoshi Sato. And he cannot find any evidence

that a person was on board the ship. There's nothing in the logs. There's nothing in the sensors. What do you make a Reed's vibe here as he like checks all the boxes here to Hoshi? I feel like there is kind of a strong undercurrent of sometimes communications officers be crazy. Am I right?

Yeah, but it's 2025 believe communications officers, you know? Reed does do one good thing here, which is like puts himself on Hoshi's level, like the whole, you know? Reed does do one good thing here, which is like, puts himself on Hoshi's level, like the whole, you know, you know, sometimes I feel crazy also. I occasionally hear things in my own quarters. I admire how quickly you called for backup because I would be into my third letter to an old girlfriend before I thought to do something like that. Yeah, Hoshi, I mean, this doesn't really do much for Hoshi when she hears this.

She believes and she wants to be believed. And right now Reed isn't able to do that. Maybe Dr. Flux can because in Six-Bay, she's undergoing an exam for what's happening, and Dr. Flux can't find anything unusual with her condition. Perfect health. Yeah. So basically this is all in my head? It appears to be.

Great. Hoshi, at this point, I thought it was curious, gives a little more detail about her condition. So doctor, these are sounds and images. You should know that it's kind of both things. And look, I'm stressed. Who wouldn't be? We're in the expanse. There's the constant threat of being turned inside out every fucking second.

Have you not felt this way? Yeah. But what she does not tell Dr. Flux is that she has not told a superior officer about her hallucinations and has no plans to. Oh well, back to work. Back to work. They briefly touch on the idea that she could have been high

but there's nothing psychoactive aboard. And Flax is like, hallucinating under stress is something that I as a denobulant have a great respect for. Yeah. And would never relieve you of duty due to that. Absolutely. Cause it's a gift in my culture. Yeah.

In the command center, Hoshi hears that man's voice call her name. And there's something even creepier about her name being called in this context. And then like some real fun haunted house stuff happens here. Hoshi's face is put up on all the screens. And then, like, the screens display a picture of a planet and her face. And it does, like, that infinity screen thing of, like, when you shoot someone in front of a monitor, like, there's that wippy, blurry thing happening.

Yeah. Real fun. Real, like, Wayne world, public access, TV effects, energy. This voice is attached to a man and that man is in the room, Ben. Suddenly he's here and it's like he's here and she's on the screens and he's saying,

you know, you're out here looking for something, I can find things. Like that's, that's what I'm good at. And now she's not even on the ship. She's in this like kind of move along home style hallway that's inside of a castle in the snow. He's basically like formally inviting her. Come check out my snow castle.

Do the words don't be frightened most of the time make you feel exactly the opposite? The close cousin of you can trust me, I would say. Yeah, didn't like hearing that. I am frightened when I hear don't be frightened. I'm just going to say that. I am suspicious when I hear you can trust me, you know? Yeah. So Reed wakes her out of her hallucination and in Sixth Bay, Dr. Flux still can't find anything, and Reed and Archer are there too, and they're concerned. But the kind of concern that isn't totally believing what Hoshi's saying, it's definitely

an undercurrent of that flowing through this interaction. Captain is involved now. They're in Six Bay talking about these hallucinations and how a person reaching out to her is not probably what's really happening. So she's gonna hang out in the Six Bay for a little while until they can get to the bottom of whatever this is. Kind of love that there's a hallucination protocol here. Archer's like, all right, let's pretend that this is real. If it is, we're gonna put security near the armory and engineering. That's sensible, right?

Yeah. Almost as if he's asking a question, like, so security around the armory? Like that uptalk thing? Like, and engineering? The food stores, maybe? You know? Yeah. I don't know. While that was totally sensible from Archer, the thing that is totally insane that he does in The food stores maybe? Yeah. I don't know. While that was totally sensible from Archer, the thing that is totally insane that he does

in this scene is tell Hoshi that she can sleep in Six-Bay. And this is a punishment that Archer knows a lot about personally. And what I believe is a cruel and unusual sentence to be giving Hoshi. Does this underline a failure of empathy that is at the core of Archer's character? Like, he doesn't give a shit if he is making somebody else do it? I wonder if he just doesn't remember. Like, he was just in there sleeping with his dog. Yeah. Like, going through that whole thing.

We can assume that that's what's going to happen to Hoshi. She starts feeding the fish once everybody leaves and she's talking to flocks about the experience of telepathy. Like having somebody else's thought in your head in a way that you can hear it is a unique thing. And she's kind of trying to describe it to a flocks who is now the guy and explaining that he's been in her head for several days. He's been, he's been rummaging around in there getting to know her.

Studying your mind, your memories, learning so many things about you. How good is Billingsley here in this moment? Absolutely skin-crawlingly creepy when it's revealed. Wow. Yeah. Did they do like a thing where he was like on one side of the frame and then he like ran behind the camera position to be on the other side of the frame or something like that?

Maybe. There's a lot of fun haunted house style in-camera trickery happening this episode that makes it a lot of fun. It's a fun one. That stuff only works in high def, you know? Yeah. They waited until now. If we change the words, then it's fair use all day long. He explains that Hoshi Sato has a unique mind that can process his strange brand of telepathy. And hey, he just wants to meet. Like the kind of mind that he can do this with

is very rare. So exciting for him to come in contact with one. And also like, look at what he really looks like. So handsome. No loaf. No loaf! The conventionally good- lookingness of this guy. I also found very suspicious. Hey, you can fuck me. You can fuck me. This guy is like modeling men's wear in a clothing catalog,

you know, like that kind of good looking. A Mervin's grade hunk, I would say. Yeah, absolutely. For the clothes you love to live in. So she talks this over with Archer in the clarinet rental closet. No word on how she was able to convince them that she could leave Sixth Bay,

but she's in the clarinet rental closet talking about this experience. And he's like, I mean, like I'm sympathetic. I want to help, but it's a tough pill to swallow. And she's like, well, let me just go visit him. Like it's close. It's also close. Sphere number two.

I know why you want to go to sphere number two. Listen, I understand that you want to go to sphere number two. Can you remember an episode I've been a part of the A story in? Like it's time. I think that's reason enough to meet with him. He's like, okay, okay. We'll give you a little of the A story in, like it's time. I think that's reason enough to meet with him. He's like, okay, okay. We'll give you a little bit of A story. We'll go to this planet.

We see it. It's just like the one that we saw on the monitors, take down a shuttle pod. And they're in that move along home hallway, just like in her previous telepathic encounter. And Hoshi really seems to know her way around this place. She's been here before. She has, yeah.

Weird, weird how many candles there are on an alien mountain castle world fortress. Yeah, cause this guy has to go personally light all of those we learned later. Yeah. I mean, it's something to stay busy, right? That's it, isn't it? When you're living an extremely long life Because this guy has to go personally light all of those, we learned later. Like... Yeah. I mean, it's something to stay busy, right? That's it, isn't it?

When you're living an extremely long life alone, like you just gotta come up with routines, probably. You need to construct a life worth living. And for this guy, lighting candles is a big part of it. Right. Ben, I thought this alien looked like a version of the parable of the blind man painting an elephant Except he's a blind man cosplaying as Coolio without actually knowing exactly what Coolio looks like I did my own makeup. Yeah

It's a me it's's Coolio. Yeah. You do look like you walk through the valley of the shadow of death. His name is Tarquin, and he starts out feeling pretty bad about the pictures on his dating app not exactly matching up to how he looks in real life. I'm obviously not what you expected. He is still offering to help though. He's like, I know you guys are here in the expanse looking for something.

And, uh, you know, I know from having rummaged through Hoshi's brain that- I just can't say it enough. Yeah. I've been in there kind of a lot. That thing is the Zindi and I want to help you find them. So if you can get me one object manufactured by them, because every species that has manufacturing capacity leaves their essence in the objects that they make. And

that will be a totem through which I can hunt these guys down and tell you more about them. I'm not going to say this out loud. I might only suggest it telepathically, but if this object could be in some way plug-shaped, that would really help me out a great deal when I'm left alone with it to do my psychic business with this thing. I could arrange to have something sent down. How much time would you need with it? No more than a few days. You don't know how it works for my psychic business. You're gonna give me something plug shaped.

I'm gonna go around this partition, do some stuff to it, and then by the end of it, I'm gonna tell you what its story is. I'm gonna go around this partition, you will see some garments of mine go over the edge of it and drape onto it. You don't need to ask a lot of questions about what's going on back there. Again, Ben, we must emphasize none of this was articulated verbally. It was all telepathically said.

Yeah. What is said is he's alone on this planet and he would really like some company while he's doing this. And that's kind of the price of his help. Like if they want him to tell them where the Zindi are and where they're manufacturing this weapon, which he can do, they're going to have to leave Hoshi there with him. And they're like, perfect, well, we're going to check out a second sphere.

So good deal. We'll just leave Hoshi here. She can camp. There is that tension though, of like the yikes of this being a condition of the help being offered and then Archer in the moment shuts it down, but on Enterprise, like Hoshi's growing comfort with the deal. I think the episode wants you to believe that this is something that Hoshi truly wants. Hoshi wants to stay in the A story. This is something that Hoshi truly wants. Yeah. Hoshi wants to stay in the A-story. This is a condition to staying in the A-story,

is what it is. Yeah. I can take care of myself, Captain. So they give him a piece of the Zindi bomb that cut Florida up. It's in like a little Pelican case. And when Hoshi hands it to him, he does that horrible thing where he drags his rotten dog dick finger across the back of her hand.

Oh God. We gotta talk about these fingers. This is clearly a tape job between the pinky and the ring finger that makes for one thick finger. Yeah. And then like three other like appendage fingers. It's not the lobster claws of a traveler, but it's like half a claw. It is.

It's like a pruner. Oh yeah. Like, you know how when you're like pruning a thorny bush, the pruner has got that half moon cutter part. And then the straight top part, that's what his hand looks like. It's really horrific. You can't believe that they cut right from this to a banquet scene where he's prepared a long table

with all of the delicacies of earth, such as Hawaiian pizza, macaroni and cheese, and a hamburger. I love that these are all room service meals. They're only notable for that. Like these are room service meals only available on the late night menu at a hotel that still serves food. Do you always eat like this? Only when I have company.

I thought it was also very funny that clearly they had three different scenic food stylists on staff. One for each dish because they were styled so differently. had three different scenic food stylists on staff, one for each dish because they were styled so differently. Like the burger is like the burger from a fast food commercial that looks like perfect and like perfectly composed on the plate. The pizza looks like it came out of the fucking microwave

and the mac and cheese looks like they ran over to craft services and just scooped some out of a dish over a can of sterno because they were like, ah, we need a third thing. I think the pizza is maybe the worst Star Trek food I've ever seen. Like the di giorno been sitting on a plate for two hours-ness of it was notably awful

and that she grabbed it first. You have certainly done your homework. I've enjoyed it. Oh, that burger was right there. There's no way that's the first bite. The burger looked good. I'm taking a fork full of the mac and cheese if I got to do a first bite here.

I feel like, yeah, like you're gonna be able to extrapolate from what the mac and cheese is like, whether the rest of it is gonna be edible. Also, would you trust the food from this guy? He says that he programmed his replicators based on her memory of the way things tasted. I mean, that power sounds pretty awesome. Like if you can go into a sense memory

of the best thing you ever ate and reproduce it for its greatness, that sounds fantastic. It does sound cool. But there is no way this slice of pizza is notable to Hoshi for its taste. It works though. She thinks it's good. And apparently Hoshi does not eat with her eyes first.

She chomps this pizza and he starts telling her about what it's like being him. He got kicked out of his home world for being a telepath. It's a rare condition this day and age and they are all subjected to isolation. And what he has identified in Hoshi is a kindred loner spirit. Like you're just like me. You don't fit in. You don't have any friends. what he has identified in Hoshi is a kindred loner spirit. Like, you're just like me. You don't fit in, you don't have any friends. And he starts talking about her in a like,

I mean, he's been rummaging around in her fucking brain for four or five days now. He's got essentially a super intense parasocial relationship with her, where he knows everything about her, including what gross ass pizza she prefers. And she knows nothing about him. This show came out before the concept of negging, I think was like in the zeitgeist, but he's

negging her, isn't he? Oh shit. That explains the huge hat with a feather in it that he's wearing. Not even your parents could deal with you. Your grandma was the only one that could put up with your shit. Like, Jesus, Tarquin, do you know how you sound? Somehow she's comfortable enough to go to sleep in this man's weird house. Tell you one thing, my choices in sleepwear

are a lot different from Hoshi's. If I'm in this circumstance. Probably wear like some hockey pads. I'm wearing a sleeping bag, like with legs and arms. Like Maggie Simpson. Yeah. Yeah. It's so awkward.

Like, like he kind of, he does like the walk to the doorstep that you do on a date that is instead walk to your room to go to bed. And he's like, all right, so I got a big work day tomorrow. You can just have a look around or whatever, or read this book if you're looking for something to do. Yeah. This language is dead anyways.

Just one last creepy thing to say before we go to bed. And then he's off. Yeah. the the rule is don't go outside Yeah, real windy out there. It's a gusty mountain peak that this castle has been built into so not safe You know what makes a great coffee shop, It's not the espresso machine, it's the barista who knows exactly how to make your morning brew. What makes a great song? It's not the guitar, it's the musician with something to say. And what makes a great website? It's your idea, with a little help to make it look its best in the background. Because Squarespace isn't the thing, it's the

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Actress Samantha Sloyan has played a lot of characters. Bev Keene in Midnight Mass, Miss Rohrbacher in the new film The Life of Chuck, Lily, the mother who diligently watches over her son in the hit medical drama The Pit. But what character really made Samantha Sloyan feel seen? That is Special Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks. When you see somebody swing for the fences

with almost like no sense of embarrassment or you know just with total abandon, I'm just captivated. Join me, Jordan Cruciola, for that and more on the latest feeling scene from MaximumFun.org. Hey there. Do you like books about various shades of gray? Maybe 50 of them? Or books about winged men searching for soulmates? Is your e-reader full of stories that would pair well with Barry White in the background?

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What? Let me cut back to the entrepreneur at Warp, heading off in the direction of Sphere. And speaking of spheres, Archer is hanging out in his ready room, bouncing the water polo ball off the bulkheads. And what was that? Uh, he was bouncing a water polo ball off the bulkheads at him.

Oh, Ben, you know, whenever there's a depiction of water polo on Star Trek Enterprise Does this count? It is time to play the hit game show within a podcast called polo polo Come on or boy. Oh, come on. All right I told you best sport in the world one for a basketball one part swimming One part wrestling. I didn't know it was such a rough game. Today's game is a surprise, as it has been many months since we've last played this game. And so this round we'll have three questions.

One each about a surprising aspect of horse polo, water polo, or a chicken recipe fact? Okay. Let's begin with question one, Ben. My body is ready. I feel like I'm about to fucking crush this. What unusual tradition do elite horse polo players observe before championship matches? A. They sleep with their mallets under their pillows for good luck. B. They feed their horses honey and champagne for extra energy.

Or C. They wear mismatched socks to confuse opposing team members. So this one is about horse polos unusual traditions. Ben? Okay, um, number one sounds too uncomfortable, like you get a bad night's sleep and therefore not be at your best the next day. I don't believe the mismatched socks thing would be that distracting because there's a whole horse in between sock A and sock B. Yeah, are you distracting the horses or the other riders? So I'm gonna go with honey and champagne being fed to the horses.

Cause this sounds like some rich people shit. Yeah, it does make a lot of sense, doesn't it? Wrong! Damn it! Elite horse polo players have been known to sleep with their mallets under their pillows for good luck. How superstitious is that? Very.

That sounds like bad luck to me. Here's question two. What bizarre training method was invented by the Hungarian water polo team in 1998? A. They practiced holding their breath while reciting their national anthem underwater. B. They trained in tomato juice to build resistance to chlorine irritation. C. They wore weighted belts while playing against other professional swimmers. Wow. You know, I love Hungarian food. I'm picturing this tomato juice with paprika in it. Oh yeah. Water poluring this tomato juice with paprika in it.

Oh yeah. Water polo paprikash, they call it. You want to throw away the towels after getting out of the pool in that session. Oh yeah. Bear Hotel has coated the walls and floors with Saran wrap. Yeah. That's just too fun.

I got to go with practicing in tomato juice. Lock it in. Locked in. Wrong! Weighted belts while they played against other professionals. It does make sense. Yeah, less mess that way. While playing against other professionals is,

I mean, that's gutsy. I know. Question three, what surprising secret ingredient is essential in the award-winning Festival Pollo dish from southern Mexico. Mexico? Mexico? Mexico. A. Chocolate and cinnamon mixed into the marinade. B. Coffee grounds rubbed under the skin before roasting. C. Crushed pineapple leaves soaked overnight with the meat.

I've done a pork chop with coffee grounds in the dry rub and that's really nice. Yeah, that's good. Could see it working for chicken as well. Of course, that first one sounds like a mole, maybe. Trying to remember whether Oaxaca is in southern Mexico. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I don't know my Mexican geography that well.

So I feel like there's probably some tenderizing properties in these pineapple leaves or something like that. So I'm gonna guess pineapple leaves. Final answer? Final answer. Wrong! Damn it! Fuck!

Chocolate and cinnamon mixed into the marinade, Ben, is essential to making an award-winning festival pollo. Famous in southern Mexico, Ben, you have utterly lost this game of polo, polo or pollo. Very demoralized. Let's just get back to the episode. I didn't know it was such a rough game. There's anomalies.

You can tell because the ball gets stuck in the ball kit like that one lady on TNG that fell through the floor part of the way. Do you think they wanted to put someone in a wall and they thought, I guess we'll just do the ball. Yeah, it's been done. It's been done. Can't bite our own rhyme.

They're not just isolated to Archer's room either. They're all over the ship. They're in the corridors, they're in engineering, they're on the bridge and they're like blowing hull plating off the saucer. These are raining bangers onto the ship. Kind of look like some hull plating boiled away into space in that one chunk. And yeah, they come to an all stop because these are much stronger anomalies than they encountered on that first sphere.

And they're just going to get torn apart if they keep going. They come up with the idea of, well, we didn't put the traillium all over our ship because T'Pol is here and we didn't want to like drive her crazy again, but we still have that trellium. So let's get a shuttle pod put together. Only take a couple of days for Tripp to reconfigure one of the shuttle pods with trellium. Yeah, this is not spray insulation.

This really sounds like it takes some time and effort to do. Yeah, but they're going to get started on that. And we cut back to Hoshi next morning, I guess, finding Tarquin in one of the many rooms in his ice castle. And he's got the plug in one hand and like a glowing crystal in the other hand. He's working the artifact. He's doing what he promised. Yeah. He's working the artifact. He's doing what he promised.

Yeah. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you. Knock on my door! Knock next time! What is that big blue crystal for? It is a telepathy extender, according to Tarquin, and she can play with it if she wants to. I was so glad he didn't tell her that he uses it instead of antiperspirant.

You know, it's just as effective and it's all natural. Oh, is it just as effective? Interesting. I think everyone goes through a phase trying out the crystal. You gotta learn by trying with the crystal, I think. You gotta learn by smashing against the rocks of romantic opportunity that the crystal does not work. Yeah, the crystal does not want you to bone down. Ha ha ha.

Yeah, so he doesn't have a location yet, but he's like learning things about the Zindi. He's like, did you know that there's like a bunch of different kinds of Zindi? And she's like, yeah, we had figured that much out. I mean, I would think that if you figured out Hawaiian pizza, you would have known that. This really felt to me like the magician or the futurist or

whatever doing crowd work and like asking a question that you could guess almost with complete certainty about the answer, but like in the room, it's like, whoa, oh, how did he know that there were five species of Zindi? Does he know what the fifth one is? Stay tuned to find out. I feel like you shouldn't just give someone the big blue telepathy extender without saying fairly clearly

that you were gonna get a rush of imagery. Cause when Hoshi holds onto this thing, she is zooming through some images of past episodes, Star Trek Enterprise. She's not scared by the end of it, right? She's just kind of done. Yeah, I felt a little bit similar at the Universal Fan Festest Nights. Hot!

Which was, we got out of there and there was no line anymore for Star Trek Red Alert. And my friend was like, hey, do you want to go again? I mean, we can just go again. And I was like, let's just think I'm done. That was the feeling exactly. We dissolve till later and Hoshi is still walking around Hoshi's castle. She finds the garden center and then, uh-oh, she pushes open a door and walks outside a

place she was told very specifically not to go. What does she find there? Graves and headstones and Tarquin takes great homage with this. He's like, hey, Hoshi, I told you not to go outside. Yeah. What are you doing? How'd you like to find out that all of the previous girlfriends of the guy you're on a Tinder date with are in the ground? Yeah, these are folks he's called his companions

and that doesn't help. We learn a lot more about him in this scene as she confronts him in the frigid cold while wearing her shift dress. He's over 400 years old. Which means that was a big blue pill he was messing with earlier, right? Yeah.

Yeah, it's a telepathy extender, I write. Yeah, you can try it too. I actually, like, if I crunch crunch this up and snort it actually, it works a lot better. Yeah, you know those ads you hear on some less reputable podcasts? That's real. Like those compounded ones are, they act quicker. We're going to have to be careful though.

If my telepathy is extended for longer than four hours, we might have to take a trip to the emergency room. So these were his companions and it begins to seem like Hoshi is sort of on deck to be the next companion. And he would like that to be a fair exchange. Like you become my companion and I help your ship. I will make good on my side of the thing, figuring out everything there is to know about the Zindi and giving them sort of a cheat code

to defeating the Zindi weapon. As long as you will stay with me. That seems pretty fair, right? Like seven million of your people died. This is a sacrifice you might actually wanna consider. Ben, I'm as ever willing to be humiliated by Wendy when I say this, but I'm almost positive at no point does Hoshi say the word no to this offer.

It is something like, we barely know each other. It's only been two days. I'm on this mission. It's important. But I have no intention of becoming your next companion. She is definitive, but not declarative. I already told you I'm not interested. And I wonder if that's like a Hollywood script trick.

Like, you can't say no because it's too definitive for the sake of drama. It may be that, but it's also just that, you know, women are socialized to deflect and defer rather than to specifically say no, oftentimes because of the threat of male violence. I'm surprised you didn't know that, Adam. It was not the first thought on my mind.

No, I'm glad you're here, Ben. I won't cease or desist cause you really think it's fair use. He goes back into hunk mode as he tries to like complete the hard sell on this. He's like, you know, like you're a linguist. You love making unique connections with other minds. What am I if not that?

He's like, look, Hoshi, we're kind of on a time crunch here. Like did you see the size of the telepathy extender I took? Like we got to go. Okay. Like I'm not going to sit here in this condition. I kind of thought you were sending signals, so I got ready. And if you're not ready, like, I don't know how to close the circle on that, because I am fucking ready.

Is my face a little red? Like, I kind of feel like a speedy heart rate. I kind of feel a little flushed. Is there anything, like, even if you don't want to go all the way, is there anything you can do for me just to, like, get us out of this little predicament? If the answer to that is no, do you think you could just take a walk around the castle

while I kind of take care of the situation? Pfft. Ha ha ha. Aren't there any errands you can run? Ha ha ha. I just, yeah, I just need this wing to myself for a little while. So we cut on this terribly suspenseful note of whether this guy's going to get blue

crystals or not back to enterprise where they're launching this modified shuttle. And I was so disappointed that the shuttle looked exactly the same. I wanted it to have blue armor or something. Now it's just your standard old shuttle pod with archer and trip inside. And they pass through an anomaly and nothing happens. Insulation works. It's amazing. I love that moment where you like hold your breath.

We're good. We're good. And so they head in the direction of the cloaked sphere and T'Pol is on the radio kind of guiding them in based on coordinates and so forth. Suddenly bangers hit. But these aren't anomaly bangers. It's what it feels like to go through the membrane. And then they're on the other side and then they see it.

Another sphere, it's real. It's real. Their sensor relays got cooked by going through the barrier though. So they decide to land aboard this sphere and hop right out in their EV suits on the surface of the sphere. And I guess Trip is gonna like try and fix the the sensors so that they can get the scan of the sphere that they came here for. But when Trip gets a panel off of the

shuttle and starts messing with it, he accidentally triggers one of the thrusters to fire and the shuttle takes off sort of like a kid losing purchase on the string of their balloon at the zoo. That's so funny you mentioned that. Like such a white hot sense memory came back to me of like a hot air balloon taking off and Bam Margera holding the rope as it like pulls him into the air. Bam, bam, bam! Let go, let go, let go, let go, let go, you ass! Hold on, don't you dare fall! Like a hundred feet high. I was like, this feels like that moment

where like, shouldn't you try to get on board? Because like, that's your ride out of there. Yeah, like it takes them a long time to come up with the idea of shooting the thruster. Yeah. So the shuttle is like pretty far from them by the time they do that. Shoot her! Shoot her! He's like holding onto it and Tripp's hand like slips through his arms.

If you were to guess how many attempts it would take to shoot the thing that they need to shoot on the shuttle to get it to fall back down, would you have guessed seven or eight shots as it is in this scene? How many fewer would it have been if crack shot Malcolm Reed had been on the OA mission? I mean, would Reed have shot or would he have gotten a right to work on those letters? As the shuttle lifted up. Hard to say. So it lands. Because of the gravity. I thought that was neat. Like you don't just shoot the thing and it keeps floating, it comes back down.

Yeah, and it kind of like bounces to a halt right in front of them. But it's nice that it didn't crush them. Yeah. They get their their scans and head back to the entrepreneur and it's time to head back to pick up Hoshi. In Hoshi's castle, Tarquin tells her that, all right, well, Enterprise is going to be here to pick you up. And boy, I've learned a lot about this indie weapon. Anyway, you're going to stay, right? Kind of presuming the affirmative here where he has

absolutely zero evidence that that's going to be the answer. I mean, the evidence that he's going off is the fact that she has yet another skimpy nightie. Like she packed for this trip with a lot of nighties that sort of imply a comfort and leisure in the environment that maybe is not a signal she wants to be sending right now. I mean, I'm not trying to blame her for what she's wearing. Yeah, I mean, shocking admission by your part, Ben, to suggest that she was asking for it. No, I'm just saying she made herself too cozy.

You know? Yeah, here's a little advice, Tarquin. Be honest with the next potential companion about your intentions, dude? Yeah. She can't be a lifelong companion. That's, you know, like when she swiped on his profile, there wasn't anything about lifelong companionship in his profile, you know?

She thought that they were looking for the same thing, but they're not. And he's got to just, you know, there's plenty of other fish. You just got to lead with what you're actually looking for, man. When Hoshi puts on her uniform, I couldn't help but think that this was like a chastity uniform. Why weren't you wearing this the whole time, Hoshi? Not that what you were wearing before was asking for it. Definitely not saying that. I'm saying like-

It was just cozy. It was like you were making yourself at home. To an idiot who doesn't sense the signals, like this 400 year old asshole, like maybe the uniform is a better choice. Oh man. 400 year old asshole was a mental image that just popped into my mind. Wow. Wow. So Archer's here now and he is very pleased with the information that a Tarquin has provided him. And he's like, man, this guy, this guy has the goods. And here's the thought Hoshi, this is just coming to me now, but, um, why don't we keep working with this Tarquin guy? He seems to really get along with you.

You seem to help him get results in terms of, uh, working with his blue crystal and whatnot. Why don't we keep doing the mission, you hang out here, and he can kind of forward information to us as it comes in. And you know, you can make a decision about long-term companionship down the line when the mission's over. I just need you to know as your captain, I think Tarquin's great, he's attractive, he's funny if you just give him a little time.

Some of his references are a little, uh, a little strange to someone who doesn't know him that well. But he's clearly got money. I mean, look at this house. Yeah, I know. And oh, she's like, all right. Well, I guess I'll just come like pack up my quarters and archers like not so fast.

We'll send all that stuff down to you. We don't want to give Tarquin the idea that you're leaving or anything. Jared If you want to write any letters, we'll just tell Reed to write letters to folks like Travis and so forth. And Hoshi's like, did you say Travis? The man I was thinking about, but not saying the name of? Pete She caught him dead to rights by bringing up the one member of this crew that no one would ever bring up. The one man who doesn't belong anywhere near the A story of an episode.

It's 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 some 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 into Mayweather up at night, I'm not sure what we expect to accomplish here. We cut back to Enterprise and isn't it weird that the signal's being jammed when they tried to radio Hoshi? Uh oh. What the heck? And then the power went out. And by power, I mean all systems on the entire

ship. The entire ship's power is out. And that's pretty dangerous. So Hoshi has realized now that she is not talking to her captain. She's talking to Tarquin, who's in her mind projecting images. And he's like, Hey, listen, I can't let you leave. Like if you agree to stay with me, if you, you know, I know it's under duress at this point, but if you agree to stay here with me, I will let your crew live. And she's like, you're taking my ship hostage? I'm taking your fucking crystal hostage. Yeah. And if you're 400 years old, you start to understand just how important a giant blue crystal of a telepathy extender is. I mean, even if you're alone,

like you just want the ability. Yeah, I mean, it's nice to feel young again. Hoshi says at another part in the episode that she has a phaser. I really wanted her to hold a phaser up to this thing. But instead it's held as if she's just gonna turn her hand over and the crystal is gonna explode once it hits the floor.

Right. And that's still usable if you're talking about that amount of blue telepathy extender, right? Right, like we know that this guy's got, you know, a Ralph's discount card in his wallet that he can use to chop that dust up and get it going. Yeah. But yeah, holding the crystal hostage works

and he's too desperate to keep his crystal. So he turns the ship back on and she hails them up. And that's that. No actual new information on the Zindi was gathered. That was all a ruse. Huge fucking waste of time. Yeah. It seems like of the two missions, the Archer mission on the sphere got a whole bunch more information that they can use than what Hoshi did. Cause T'Pol has made a nearly accurate map of the anomalies now, and she's started to

do the math on this and she's like, ah, shit, this means that there's not just two spheres. And Archer's like, holy shit, what do you mean? She's like, there's 50 spheres. And he's like, yeah, 50 spheres. So we're talking about like the belly of a pregnant dog, a mountain of spheres in the expanse. You're never going to let that go, are you? Wow.

Amazing to think about. Whoever built them must have been incredibly horny. Code over to Hoshi's room and she's reading that book that Tarquin gave her. I guess she's the type of reader that doesn't want to stop reading a book no matter how much she's not into it. Like, she wants to read to completion. I get that.

Guess who's there? Fucking Tarquin. To like, ask for a book report or something? Right. Give it a rest, dude. I thought it was just gonna be like, I heard Archer saw a second sphere. Do you know what was it like?

Did you hear? He's the 400-year-old virgin. Yeah, could you describe what it looked like in great detail while I turn around and close my eyes? Turned out to be not all bad in the end, right? I mean, he was willing to kidnap her or whatever, but ultimately he does give Hoshi a little bit of information and she takes this on an iPad to Archer.

And this has an actionable piece of Intel. They know now where part of the Zindi weapon is being built if they believe Tarquin, I guess. I mean, that's really it, isn't it? That's the end of the Zindi weapon is being built. If they believe Tarquin, I guess. I mean, that's really it, isn't it? That's the end of the episode, Ben. Did you like it? I can't pay. Couldn't be late.

Got no case. Tempting fate. Yeah, I mean, I think that we've been here before, like, especially like male telepath doing icky squicky things to a female crew member with his telepathy skills is an unfortunate Star Trek trope, I would say. But this one has done, I think a little better than average. And I thought they did a nice job with the like haunted house elements of it and the

never being quite sure whether reality was realness of it. Like, it wasn't all creepy dream sequences. It was creepy, like, wait, do we believe that this guy is who he claims to be or not? Kind of moments. And I thought that those were better, because it's more evocative of what people go through when they realize that somebody that

they're close to is monstrous in some way, you know? Yeah, that's a good detail to keep in mind. I think much like universal Star Trek red alert hot knights, a Hoshi in the A story is better than no Hoshi story at all. But I don't like that all of our ladies of Star Trek are so easily, I won't say easily because Hoshi never is seduced, but like the seduction methods deployed by our creepy aliens are so apparent to us as the viewer, but a little less so to our Star Trek women.

And I don't like that aspect of this episode. Yeah, I don't either. But I thought Linda Park did a great job with the script she was handed. I was just going to say that. Like the episode's direction is great. The performances are great. The set is cool and interesting. Like a lot of candles.

Like it's the story that falls apart for me. Yeah. Well, do you want to see if anything falls apart in the Priority 1 inbox? Absolutely. Priority 1 message from Starfleet coming in on Secure Channel. You need a supplemental income.

Supplemental income? Supplemental. Supplemental. Yeah, it's extra. By the interest alone, could be enough to buy this ship. Adam, we've got a promotional P1 here. It goes like this. Do you live in or visit the New England region?

Have you ever wanted to do something fucking spectacular? Boston Skydive Center in Smithfield, Rhode Island is an FOD owned and operated skydiving drop zone. BSC has been around since 2011, but new owner Brett believes in Trek so much he decided to form his own personal post-currency society by putting all his scarves into it. P.S. Ben Adam and Wendy, jump for free. Wow into it. P.S. Ben, Adam, and Wendy, jump for free. Wow! P.P.S. Shout out to my former coworker and cycling buddy,

Sarus Faravar. Whoa! Well, a friend of Sarus's is a friend of ours, and that's a lot of fun. I mean, I don't know how you get away calling it Boston Skydive Center if you're in Rhode Island. That's like a whole different state. I love the offer here. I don't know if I would ever do this. It's pretty high up there.

You don't want to pull a Tom Cruise and do your own stunts? I don't know, man. I mean, it looks cool and other people do it. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe it's like as I get older, heights are becoming more of an issue for me. Sure, sure. I don't know. like as I get older heights are becoming more of an issue for me sure sure no my mother who is reaching her 80s recently expressed an interest in doing this so maybe maybe my mom and I will hop on a flight and head out east and do a

skydive so she can cross it off her list yeah I mean I'm assuming this would be a tandem jump they don't just strap you up and shove you out. Yeah, I mean, I'm assuming this would be a tandem jump. They don't just strap you up and shove you out. Mm-hmm. I mean, I surprised myself and went on the Jurassic Park ride when I was at Universal. So like, maybe a late in life, newly found appreciation for scary things is in my future. Jurassic Park is like a fun little boat ride though. That thing is great.

Yeah, but it has a drop. That's scary. Yeah. Yeah, that's part of it all right Ben we got a personal priority one message here from Schmales it's to Tango Llama here's how that message goes thanks for always being willing to go to the live shows with me from the first time in DC when I tripped and fell on my face oh In the venue to the most recent Philly one, I had to miss as my birdie was riddled with pneumonia. Oh no! Still can't believe I missed my live show's P1.

Oh. Wow, so we did their P1 and they weren't even there. Jeez. You're my number one brother, not just because you're the oldest. O'Brien drop. I am Chief Miles Edward O'Brien. This is fucking spectacular.

Wow. I hope by the time our next tour kicks off, you're in good health and you and Tango Llama can attend, I don't know, our Baltimore show, which I'm presuming might be close to you given that you went to a Philly one and a DC one. And not have any Ben Harrison-like catastrophes happen to you along the way. Yeah. Yeah. Inshallah.

Our final P1 today is from Andrew slash son and it's to Chris slash father. It goes like this. Thanks for being the greatest father as an og Star Trek nerd You've been slightly embarrassed for a long time, but I'm not at all embarrassed to be your son Thank you for passing along all your nerdy proclivities to me I will pay it forward to the next generation as soon as my own son Kai aboard Is of age. I love you, dad.

Wow. Hey, that's pretty great. Ben, as a father yourself, does it kind of sting to hear other people get called the greatest father? Oh no, I believe it. If Chris slash father was able to raise an Andrew slash son that's as enthused about all of the nerdy proclivities

They seem to be I think Chris did it right, you know pretty great Yeah, I'm sure my son will be a total alpha and far cooler than me in all respects and very embarrassed of me to do If that's the case Everyone besides your your kids will know you as the world's greatest father. I certainly hold you in as high regard. Oh, thanks. Yeah, I mean, I have no practice. So that was great.

That was like a nice, timely Father's Day message. Pretty good. Well, timing or not, you can have us read your message over at maximumfund.org slash Jumbotron. Priority one messages are a great way to support the production of our show. They're easy to do. You just write a couple words and we say them.

It's true. Go a long way in supporting the production of our show. Hey Adam. Zap in. Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Incredible. Drunk Shimoda. You can't be Tarquin looking this way

and acting this way without being the Shimoda of the episode. I mean, part of it is there's just few choices given how many characters we encounter. Tarquin, my dude, you'd think in 400 years of companionship with different companions, he would have learned a thing or two about seduction. It does not appear to be the case. For that, you will be my drunk Shimoda. How about you, Ben?

Yeah. I mean, it's Tarquin. I also just love the kind of smoking jacket look that Tarquin has cultivated. Is that mind stuff or is that for real you think? Everything is a question, right? Like there's that moment where he's like rolled out the banquet for her and she's like, do you do this all the time? And he's like, only when I have company.

And like, does he do it ever at all or is it all being beamed into her head and she's really eating like, you know, a bowl of mealworms? You know? Eat hearty, brother. Weren't you waiting for that part? For the trick to dissolve and reveal the mealworms of all kinds in this castle? It seemed like it could. Yeah, like if if they wanted to go, like, hard horror, there could have been that moment, like, uh...

I don't know, for some reason, I'm thinking of the moment in, um, Minority Report, when he gets his eyeballs replaced and he, like, goes into the fridge, but his eyes have been wrapped up with gauze and he grabs the rotten sandwich on a plate that's right next to the not rotten sandwich on a plate. Who hasn't done that? Yeah.

Very relatable. Yeah. I mean, who doesn't have a fridge with one rotten sandwich on a plate in it where they don't just stick another sandwich in there right next to it without clearing out a future that Adam Pranica could never. I know. No way. But yeah. Tar know, no way.

But yeah, Tarquin, come on you silly goose. Get it together. Acting like you're some kind of Hugh Hefner when really you're like the galaxy's foremost loner. I would love to believe that I have gotten better at being a companion with every relationship I've ever had. Like you gotta get better at this stuff. You gotta learn where you're deficient, where you can be better.

Like, that this guy learned nothing for 400 years is very sad. Yeah. I guess we need to put it that way. Faith of the fart. Adam, let's start talking about next week's episode and how we're gonna do it. It is season three, episode seven, The Shipment.

After Enterprise arrives at a Zindi colony, Archer, Reed, and Major Haze infiltrate a facility that is producing a substance crucial to the Zindi weapon. I love getting a Major Haze episode. Gotta check in with Stephen Culp. See how things are going over there. Hell yeah. All right, Adam, our runabout is on square 89 at the moment. And it could go anywhere.

I hope it does. You're required to learn as you play. Roll. Wow, we just keep narrowly missing squares. We are on square 33 now. Chula! Did I win? Hardly.

One away from a Quarks bar. Amazing. That's just the bring whatever you want, drunk asode square. You don't have to drink anything in particular. You just got to drink. Well, I thought you might've tossed us to a brone zone. Would have been an interesting pairing

with the Stephen Culp-ness of it all. Sure, yeah. I think we're gonna have Stephen Culp for a little while in this season, so. They better not fucking kill that character. Oh man, if they take out Culp in this episode and we didn't brone zone it. Let's just hope that doesn't happen, Ben.

I'm not ready for that. All right, well, let's keep our fingers crossed and hope that next week's episode does not deprive us of future cult opportunities. I like that. Nice one. We got some thanks to give out here at the end of the show. Adam, we gotta thank our beautiful listeners, the

Friends of De Soto, who support the production of this very program. Got to thank Windy Pretty, who produces and edits this now very long program, edits all the Greatest Chen and Greatest Trek shows most of the time. Does an absolutely stellar job. Indeed. Got to thank Rob Ad Adler our social media director and chief author of our Newsletter of course Adam and I are always contributing items to the newsletter as well a lot of fun over there Bill Tilley out in the social media streets. Yeah sure making the trading cards

Well, the act greatest trek blue sky or Instagram accounts to check out the trading cards every week Yeah, if you're not on a discord yet, what are you doing? Get on a discord get on our discord drunk Shimoda comm Gotta thank Adam Ragusea for his remix the Diane Warren original theme for Star Trek Enterprise and of course the great Dark Materia for the original card song. Dark Materia, not a co-host of Wholesome, our patrons only podcast, but Adam Ragusea is.

Patreon.com slash Wholesome underscore pod. Every Wednesday. With that, we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise and an episode of the greatest generation enterprise that ain't no macrobiotic chemical colonic, it's political symphonic lyrical narcotic. Something much more potent that we plop in. Come and get some if you ain't got it. Word. Make it show. Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S.S. Stamping Prize.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S.S. Stamping Prize. Make it show. Make it show. Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S.S. Stamping Prize. Maximum Fun, a workaround network of artist-owned shows, supported directly by you.