The Greatest Generation - The Banger of Progress (VOY S5E22)

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

When Captain Janeway unearths some uncomfortable truths from a genealogy search, the myth-making of her family tree makes the branches grow all weird. But after the owner of an ancient bookstore has a section for everything besides romance, Janeway will have to decide just how important her heroine’s reputation is. What was the last book you sold? Do dick mistakes run in the family? Is there anything worse than an oatmeal cookie opinion? It’s the episode that’s really good for a Tuesday afternoon!Support the production of The Greatest Generation.Friends of DeSoto for Democracy.Friends of DeSoto for Justice. Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Caretaker!Music by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFollow The Greatest Generation on Twitter, and discuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen!The Greatest Generation is on Twitch.Facebook group | Subreddit | Discord | WikiSign up for our mailing list!Get a thing at podshop.biz!

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

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

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

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

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! Watch your back shot. Hello. I'm Captain Captain Bringengwe. The U.S. is for Victor Captain Captain Captain Bringengwe. The U.S.S. Boardhead jerk, captain, captain, Bringengwe the U.S.S.

Boardhead jerk, captain, captain, captain. 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 and Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pranika. We're drinking today Adam. It's a quarks bar. Yeah. My desk is covered with the accoutrema of a drinker.

Did you put like a tarp down in case you spill? Have you ever had a tarp party? I've had a tarp party. What is a tarp party? Is this some kind of shock website? Well, when you are as fastidious as I am about your home. So, so the answer, you know the answer is I already know.

And you decide to have like a throwback to college style party and invite a bunch of friends to do like beer pong and shit. And crucially, you have wood floors underneath the ping pong table you have set up. You may, if you're me, lay down a tarp. Wow. So, I mean, this being Seattle and it being very cold, we figured no one would want to play beer pong outside. So we brought the court indoors, put a tarp underneath and protected the old wood floors of our very old house.

So that's a tar tart party, Ben. That's tart party. Tart party. Tart party. Tart party. It sounds so much dirtier than it probably actually was. I mean, my definition of tart party probably very different from others. Yeah.

From like Dan Savage's definition of tart party. Right. Yeah. What are you drinking today, my friend? from like Dan Savage's definition of tart party. Right, yeah. What are you drinking today, my friend? Well, I went and grabbed an old favorite. You may recognize this bottle of f***ing affectionately called Pudding Tequila by you and me. We'll beep that out in case they want a sponsor.

Yeah, I made some soda water and I cut a lime off of my own lime bush. Wow. Got a big old ice cube with my own personal limes and I'm just going to enjoy some tequila and maybe tequila soda and maybe tequila again and then maybe a tequila soda, you know, back and forth at a bit. Yeah, I like it. You sound like a real genuine Californian with your own line bush.

I can't believe I'm finally here. I've lived in LA for a couple of years now, and I feel like I'm finally legally a resident. You didn't really have the right light for it in your old place. I didn't. Now, now patio lines don't really work when you don't get direct sunlight.

Yeah, well, over the weekend, we were both invited to a party that our friend Chuck Bryant threw. He is here for spring break and rented a house with a pool, threw a little pool party. I was like, I would like to bring a cocktail, a batched cocktail to this pool party. And I made one, put it in the fridge to chill before we left.

Oh, no. In the chaos of getting my baby and my wife out the door, neglected to bring it. So I have an entire 750 mil bottle of pre-batched cocktail here. It's just a decorate, it's nothing special. But, I just don't do that. bottle of pre-batched cocktail here. It's just a decorate, it's nothing special, but... And don't do that.

Don't sell your pre-made cocktail short. I had the darnedest time balancing it because I started making this. I poured all of the rum and squos all of the limes and then realized I didn't have any simple syrup. So I had to make it, but I didn't want to pour it hot into everything else, because I was like want to pour it hot into everything else because I was like, how maybe it'll like mess up the lime juice. Sometimes I'll just go out to

the hummingbird feeder and steal from them. Wow. I'm a little sure on the syrup, you know. Well, that's pretty instructive about how you think of our hummingbird friends and how much you value whether or not they go hungry. Right. But anyways, I put ice in the simple syrup. I made like a heavy simple syrup with like a high ratio of sugar to water. And then I dumped some ice into it to cool it down.

But it tasted very weak to me. So I had a hard time. I didn't really have a ratio to work with in mixing this. So it's I was just kind of adding stuff back and forth until it tasted about right. Ben, like hot sauce, why wouldn't you ever make your syrup super heavy and just use less of it? I do. I don't mean you. I mean, just generally,, like when you make simple syrup for home recipes, like why wouldn't you always just make super concentrated? When I have the foresight to make some that I'm going to let chill down naturally, I do

a two to one ratio. I do two cups of sugar to one cup of water. And then add a little shot of either white rum or vodka. Got into that. Helps it preserve in the fridge, basically, indefinitely. That's how I keep the hummingbirds in my neighborhood. Come back again and again. That's a syrup we both can enjoy.

Mm, yeah. Little grenadine, little booze. No, grenadine is bad for hummingbirds. Oh. Vodka's fine as far as I know. You get that grenadine is bad for hummingbirds. Oh. Vodka's fine. As far as I know. You get that grenadine out of there. Give a hummingbird a Shirley temple?

No good. Nope. Now. And I don't want the kind of hummingbird that would enjoy a Shirley temple. I don't want that anywhere in my garden. Mm, yeah, that's for the neighbors. Yeah.

Yeah. Man, it's not even warm in my garden. Yeah, that's for the neighbors. Yeah. Yeah. Man, it's not even warm in LA yet. I went out in my backyard to throw a ball for my dog the other day. My fucking ankles got bitten up by mosquitoes. Never used to be that way. Yeah. It's a damn shame. Yeah, it finally got sunny here and with the sun came the Santa Anna wins or something. It's like born 40 miles an hour outside. It's great. Yeah. I had power outages here yesterday due to the to the wins.

Wow. Well, I hope we keep the electricity on for this show, Ben, because there's no do overs on a drinking episode. This is a quark spar episode. The spot was hit at the end of the last episode. And here we are. Gonna enjoy these cocktails as we recap. One of the great episodes of Star Trek Voyager, right?

Yeah, here at the threshold of the millennium. Yeah. It's Star Trek Voyager season five episode 22, 1159. Reaver course. Unless you've got something a little bigger in your torpedo tubes, I'm not turning around. 1159. The cold open is Janeway just minding her own fucking business completely innocently when Nelix sees us upon her in a corridor, hitting her up with some bullshit. She doesn't have time for this? The partner, the great wolf chandel on earth. Who built it? Cosmo, it's Chinese.

She doesn't have time for this? Yeah, I've not worked in a lot of offices. I haven't had a lot of square jobs in hierarchical work environments of this kind. But the more I watch this show, the more I realize that the kind of office worker I was when I did have those types of jobs is Nelix. Yeah. Like super thirsty for the boss's love and affection. When we first started watching Voyager, I think we both went pretty hard at Nelix as being

just the boob of the show. But the longer we watch Voyager, I think we've both come to realize how realistic the depiction of Nelix is in so many ways. Yeah, he's really less the boob of the show, more the Ben Harrison of the show. Yeah, sure is. I'm not as merry as New York's though. He is merry, I'll give him that. Yeah, almost completely devoid of mario-man.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe today, maybe on a Quirks bar in merry, weionment. Yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe today, maybe on a Quirks bar, I'm Mary. We'll see. Yeah, yeah. Hopefully we both are. The Great Wall of China, Ben, what do you know about that? Uh, I know that it's one of my favorite screen savers on my Apple TV. One of my favorite Matt Damon movies.

Oh, yeah, yeah. We're, uh, it posits a world where the great wall of China was built to keep like dinosaurs out of China. I think that's what that movie's about. And like somehow still a white savior is needed to help defeat them. I'm sorry John, I don't remember. Initially I was really annoyed by this scene because I think we've been set upon before by people who are asking you questions with answers they already know. What is this about? Ben, you have to roam. Eventually, this will be your life. Yeah. Just a person who lives in your house asking you questions that they already know the answers to to, I don't know, impress you, earn your

love or something. I'm guessing the neelix won't fall far from the tree. And Janeway is delighted by this. Why? Because the trivia that he's interested in is of her home world. There's a, she's kind of, kind of delighted by the interest he's taken and things having to do with Earth.

But very flattering, he's getting ready. I mean, what does Neelix know that we don't? Like, he's preparing to be at Earth like it's tomorrow. Yeah, very exciting. They also talk a little bit about one of the more contemporary wonders. The balance. No, I'm afraid not.

Of the Earth, the Millennium Gate. Sort of America's Great Wall of China, a thing that's also visible from space, a thing that's also meant to keep other people out, like townspeople who used to live there. And Janeway is quite proud of her own family's history, W-slash-R-slash-T, the Millennium Gate, because she has an ancestor that helped make it happen,

who is also a cool astronaut. The first of a long line of Janeway explorers. Tell me more. You'll have to call again. This is a great moment for both Neelix and Janeway together. As a collector of this type of trivia, Neelix is enthusiastic about the idea of knowing someone who's,

I don't know how the genetics work, like eight degrees of separation from the Shannon O'Donnell, one of Jane Ways' ancestors who gets a ton of the credit for this thing. Yeah, it's a little point of pride for her and it's just rubbing off on Nelix because he's right there in the same room with her. Rubbing off with Nelix is something that Cass used to do.

Like across the room though, right? They would just sit on opposite couches with the lights out. Yeah. She'd freshen him up with her mind. So we flash back to around the millennium, I guess, hence the name, right? Right. This is the year 2000. We get Kate Mulgrue playing the part of Shannon O'Donnell.

I want to talk a little bit about this transition, right? Because you don't get a super title. You don't get even the suggestion of like a wistful captain Janeway leaning back and then like a dissolve to her doppelganger as Chanin O'Donnell like this is a show that trusts you to get on the level that During this flashback. This is not like a holodeck program. This is we're seeing history Q did not snap his fingers. Nobody booted something up. We haven't gone through a time butthole.

This is the actual past. There's no back to the future like shimmery music Q either. We're just there. And it's almost like a captain's log. Yeah. Janet O'Donnell has a Nordmick Donald style note to self machine.

I was not confused by the flashback. I got on the show's level pretty quickly for that. But where I immediately became confused was the technology being depicted for the year it's supposed to be. Most of the cars are 70 style cars and the tape recorder is maybe an 80 style tape recorder. Is this meant to evoke the feelings that we get later on in the squishy accuracy of storytelling as it relates to historical figures and the things that they had available to them? Or is that something else? I was kind of interpreting it as this is a woman who is of meager means in a town that is kind of rusting out and subject to the kind of bombing out of the small town that was

a big storyline around them. People's jobs are picking up and leaving and going overseas or going to big cities or whatever. I wonder if they were seeking to avoid a kind of a Sarah Silverman episode about it, you know, like you can set it in a moment of time and make it look different in some specific ways based on right these artifacts, but I'll say, like when you put a woman driving alone in a 70 station wagon in a town she isn't familiar with, like that's a horror movie.

That's... It does have some horror vibes. Those are all of the ingredients of that. So you gotta be sure what you're saying is what you're trying to say with all of these things. Well, the like super chilly dude that she asks for directions out the window. But like if that had been like Ned Ryerson,

we wouldn't have been in horror movie mindset. But the like, if that's what you want, keep on moving down the road, Missy. Energy is definitely making this town feel a little bit haunted. When Shannon re-rends the car in front of her by having this interaction with someone walking on the sidewalk, this is not a scene that to me turns Shannon into the hero of the story. She's oblivious and bad from job. I just didn't see it. I'm sorry. Are you okay? This made her the villain to you. Well, I mean, this poor fucking guy is just trying to get through his dead ass town.

Yeah. He gets re-rended by someone who doesn't have $200 to cover the damage. And then when your car won't start, she just kind of leaves it in the middle of the street for other people to deal with. Not a good look, Shannon. I mean, I sided with her as a slightly oblivious driver, as a person who probably wouldn't have put the tarp down in his house. If he was hosting that type of party, as a person who would just leave their car

in the middle of the road and to wait for the tow truck. Yeah. Yeah, we were on opposite side to Shannon in this scene, but how many like bales of stuffing material did they use to make this Hollywood back lot look like it? It had like heaps of dirty snow everywhere. I mean, New York street has never looked better, and it is for the realistic, terrible looking snowbag, right? Yeah.

It's piled high with all the gray fixings. And these people are really look cold. And there's a that guy that pops out of the car that she hits. It's Christopher Curry, who's like a, you know, a working character actor in Hollywood has been in a million movies that you've seen. He is like the same level that guy is Kevin Taihi, and kind of a similar type, like I sort

of feel like they probably saw each other at the casting. Oh, no. For Henry Janeway. Oh, no, band. So much so that I was like, I finished this episode and I was like, wait, was that Henry Janeway that she re-reended at the beginning of the episode and I had to go back and re-watch? Ben, you're a character actor racist and I think you better prepare the quad box apology. Well, I will work on the quad box apology, but what I'm saying is the like poking her head into the bookstore and like asking for somewhere

to warm up really means something different. If it's the same guy that she just rewended. No, it absolutely does. Yeah, it changes the whole story. I'm going to be like, what? What? What did this one to me?

I'm very careful. Because I'm going to see this once. Do it. I recognize the rear ended guy as Rico's dad and starship troopers. You're going to Harvard and that's the end of it. Yeah, that's totally Rico's dad and starship troopers. Absolutely is. And the bookshop owner is the guy from Roadhouse.

My name is Tillman. Frank Tillman. There you go. The guy who wants the double-duse cleaned up. But I didn't know that the guy from Road House wasn't. I know. Rico's dad, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. Like, I thought he wanted the double-duse cleaned up and for his son to go to Harvard. Sounds like a reasonable combination. Those are two priorities most people have. Yeah. Anyways, O'Donnell cannot get her car back going. Those are two priorities most people have. Yeah. Anyways, O'Donnell cannot get her car back going. So she abandons her car and goes into a bookstore.

There are lots of like, stop the tower signs everywhere, save downtown signs about this, this millennium gate. It seems like she's probably the first customer that this place has had in quite a long time. The horror movie vibes haven't stopped yet because I mean, she wanders into this bookshop and there's a creepy old man there. Offers her coffee.

I'm suspicious because it's decaf, man. Just keep a pot of that around and your bookstore, I guess you do, if you're him. There's coffee in the last holdout. Yeah, and the bookstore is like very dusty and doesn't like even though it seems to be the only thing still in business in this town, it doesn't really seem to be in business, you know. The art direction on this location is fucking great. This bookstore, you can practically smell it through the screen. You know exactly what this bookstore smells like. Right. And I wanted to be there.

It doesn't say it's a used bookstore, but it definitely smells like a used bookstore from the from the show. Yeah. He's got a son though. And his son is not like a haunted child like in a horror film. So let's start to throw us off the horror film scent, I think. And onto the bookstore scent. She's like, why does your town look like it's about to close?

And she notices some leaflets that are asking people to save the downtown. That's because Old Man book store and his son are anti-millennium gators. And he is the last holdout. He's like the Old Man in the house from up, except it's a bookstore instead of a little house. Right. Oh man, his son is the kid from Jumanji. Yeah, sure is.

Wow, what a cast in this episode, huh? Isn't it? Yeah, he's anti-gate, anti-molennium gait, you know. They're just nice, small town folk that are, you know, a little bit standoffish at first when a stranger wants to warm herself in their shop and not pay for any coffee. Do you think the scandal that happened

around the millennium is sort of glad that the millennium gate is a thing a year later, just kind of like changing the definition of that, you know, maybe the heat to alpha. This is no longer Y2K. This is now like there's construction projects that there's not in my backyard, curmudgeon doesn't want to have happened. I mean, there was an awful scandal around the millennium, millennium gate.

Right. I was in the papers forever, but now millennium gate, much like Tin Man, Tin Man is now the headline. Yeah, the thing I'm really excited for at him is when it's almost gonna be the year 3,000, you know what don't call it? Millennium Gazi. That'll be a different scandal.

Shannon O'Donnell sees this as an opportunity. She sees this old man and this kid as a couple of marks because with their broken down car she doesn't have any way to pay for the repairs. And this is a dad that doesn't know how to use computers and a kid that just wants to play video games and know where to play them. Maybe if she can, I don't know, suggest a value that she can provide, maybe she can earn her keep and get that car repair paid for. She's got to fix it up. And this guy is apparently printing up

these save downtown flyers the old fashioned way. And not even using email to his advantage. Yeah. Like one of those drum-turned, kachunk, kachunk, kachunk, kapiers. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, she says like, we can email everyone within a hundred miles a year.

Like really? How do you do that? I bet before email became as popular as it did, that was one of the main ideas, right? Like could you just email everyone in a location? Yeah, in a radius. Yeah. You know, our bitter rivals Jordan and Jesse of the

Jordan Jesse Go podcast have been having people tell stories about their like embarrassing early internet experiences. Uh-huh. You know, in like the early 90s when people were just getting online and they were recently were talking about like a white pages for the internet, like where you could like look up, so let's see, mail address in a paper book. Whoa. Maybe that's what's going on here. Maybe this guy sells that book. I mean, if the book exists, I would imagine it's gonna be in this old man's store.

The stacks are really high. Yeah, back in those stacks. Yeah, so she's like, ah, I think the Millennium Gate sounds kind of cool. The scientists will learn so much about the self-sustaining environment that will be built inside of it. And he's like, it's a fucking shopping mall. It's like, this is a joke.

Like you've totally bought the propaganda hookline and sinker. You gotta be ashamed of yourself. Shannon O'Donnell accidentally shares something that doesn't sound like total hate for a progressive value it Thanksgiving. And Old Man bookstore like comes over the top at the table at her. No! You broke your little gravy boats. Yeah. So in spite of their very clear differences, W slash R slash T,

the Millennium Gate, bookstore dad reluctantly hires Shannon to teach computers or to maybe rent her computer. Yeah, yeah, no, it's like a, it's a day-rate and a box rental. Yeah. She gets from him. That's how you really make money in production, you know? Elsewhere in town in the bar of my dreams. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Shannon O'Donnell and a bookstore dad drink and talk. And he's sad because he's the last holdout against the Millennium Gate and that means consequences. He's like, I said and did a bunch of shit that splashed back on me and my neighbors and they lost a lot of money as a result and I never apologize to them. And if I look hurt and speak really softly, you'll see me as a victim here, right? We're living in a kind of pre-quad box world where mistakes can be looked at from multiple different angles.

Right. It's so interesting how Shannon is with him because by not explicitly sympathizing or attacking him, she's just kind of there and is a perfect neutral foil for his gripe. What a pleasure. Yeah, and they kind of come from opposite ends of some intellectual divides. Like there's definitely all through this episode, a theme of the tension between the past and the future and how much Henry Janeway values and wishes

he could live in the past and how much she thinks, you know, antibiotics are good. Yeah. Henry bookstore definitely dies of COVID, right? Yeah, he's like, as much as Star Trek is a fantasy idealized future, this is a fantasy idealized present when this came out. Yeah. Like the idea that in the year 2000, a bookstore owner would have enough money to like spontaneously hire some lady that walked in the front door.

This is the part of the episode that begins to almost too subtly. Now, I would say definitely too subtly introduce the idea of a romantic tension between them. Because when Grandpa Bookstore asks Shannon O'Donnell like, what's going on with you on the New Year's Eve, you doing anything? And where you headed? What's in Florida, Faria? She doesn't really have any answers for him. And you kind of wonder why he's asking the questions. Like, she's doing that thing where she doesn't give him answers because I think part of it is like a natural, not wanting to tell him all those details about yourself

because maybe it's a little too soon. She's like, I'm actually an astronaut and I'm wearing a diaper right now and I'm trying to get to Florida as fast as I possibly can. I may change martial artist and my purse is full of brass knuckles. I'm on my way to a brass knuckle convention. But this guy is, he's a provincial rube. I mean, as much as, as lettered as he is, as much of a rich life of the mind as he leads with all of his special books.

He's never left Indiana. And so like they this is a real opposite to track kind of thing. Yeah, except he's really a two steps back and then two steps back kind of guy. I know you don't want to do it. Coffee, black, make it yourself. I'm trying to help you see this as an opportunity to grow. Make it yourself. They get a banger in this bar, Ben. And that's coming from the parade of construction vehicles driving outside. Yeah. The banger of progress is what it is.

You can tell he's a hologram because he doesn't shake when it happens. Right. Yeah, I didn't realize that this was a downstairs bar until they come outside and they like come up the steps. That's one of my favorite parts. Like, I like bars that you can fall into instead of out of. Right. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, like the bouncer's gonna have to work a little bit if he wants to push you all the way back out onto the sidewalk, right? We get to a new story where we meet Gerald Moss, who's being interviewed by Action News. He's the spokesperson for the Millennium Gate, and this piece is about how much cooperation he's gotten from the town except for Old Man Bookstore.

Ha, ha, ha. Yeah. Did you recognize the guy you plays, Gerald Moss? Yeah, he's recognize the guy you plays Gerald Moss? Yeah, he's another that guy. He is an absolutely everything. Yeah, a still working actor. Like he was in the handmaid's tile and deep and shit. Did you ever see that movie, The Invitation?

Oh, that doesn't ring a bell. Kind of a psychological thriller where like, a bunch of friends are invited over to this house for dinner. Okay. And it ends up being like a cult recruitment thing. Cool. And this guy, John Carroll Lynch, who plays Gerald Moss in this episode is like kind of the cult leader.

I like it. And him as a cult leader. And I felt bad about my story is carrying her. He just has that carriage. He's so fucking sturdy looking. And his eyes are so like, I don't know. Like he's got those cult leader eyes, you know what I'm saying? I pegged him as the prison guard from face slash off.

Great call, yeah. Yeah, yeah. One of my faves. the prison guard from face slash off the... Great call, yeah. Yeah, yeah. One of my faves. And yeah, like just another kind of like very high caliber that guy character actor that this episode has just in total abundance. Can you imagine how upset you've got to be if you are a law and order or a matlock

shooting, shooting this month and you're like, all right, well, call up the usual people. Let's, let's get one for our show and none of them are available because they're all doing Voyager. Yeah. Like God fucking gave it. We need a fucking dead bon Middle-aged man to fucking be on a mechanics creeper while talking to the cops and don't like doesn't stop working Even though they're there because of a fucking murder and they're all fucking taken They're all a fucking voyager. Why? We did a character played by a stumber white We just need one guy who believably has zero fear of the police And there's nobody available not one person

Oh, man old man bookstore does that thing or already interrupts the news story? And the camop, you know, he's got a whip around and pulled this guy into focus. You got to get angry guy in the street involved. Yeah. And the reporter is also like totally taken in by this. She's like, oh, here for comment is Henry Janeway, the cranky holdout in the town. Because every other store owner has sold out for 20% of the market to the Texan interest that is trying to put up the Millennium Gate. But they're mad at him because they don't get their money

until he sells and he's here like ranting. He's a time holding up a dollar, isn't he? He really is. And yeah, like Henry Mosk would just be like, hey man, haven't you heard of the internet? You're gonna be out of business in five months anyways. Get your bag now. The sickest Bernie could possibly do is,

hey man, what was the last book you sold? Yeah. And when was it? Yeah, would you say you're in business as such or like in how many different ways And when was it? Yeah, would you say you're in business as such or... Like in how many different ways do you have to be a holdout? This is going to sound like stomping the independent bookstore and it's not. I love independent bookstores. I just, at this moment in the episode,

I find Howard bookstore pretty unlikable. Who said he will on it? We get an important piece of information in this scene and that is if Henry bookstore continues to hold out, they're just going to build this millennium gate somewhere else. Can't know how or somewhere else in the Rust Belt, but yeah. The clock is ticking and if they don't get a deal by midnight on New Year's Eve, they will be forced to move on, even though they've brought all this heavy equipment into town already.

Yeah. Like an invading army, if they don't get to build the Millennium Gate, they're just going to leave all of those vehicles there to rest. That night totally seduced by the erotic power represented by Henry bookstore. Shannon O'Donnell sits down for a date with him where they sort of larped that they're in Paris because that's as much traveling as he's willing to do. They just like open a book with a picture of the Louvre. Did you get any Marty Fuxx's mom and back to the future vibes here?

Like, I was praising earlier how not explicit the flashback is about, you know, who's playing Shannon. If this is a holotic thing, if this is just us watching a story where Kate Mulkrew plays the main character. But like, one of the things I, I think makes this feeling weird is that like, do you want him to hook up? I wish he was hunkier. Like, this is not a slam on Kevin Tai-E.

No. He's not the guy you cast for like powerfully seductive male lead. And but I mean, all types of people can be that, but they also have charisma in those moments that make scenes like this kind of crackle. And Henry bookstore kind of styles himself as like a phrasier type in his interests and in his manner of speak and stuff. Yeah. And it seems like Shannon is charmed by him, but not wooed by him.

This is a scene that is written about two characters falling in love, but only Kate Mulgrugh is smoldering in this scene. And I think that the scene doesn't quite work because of that. Like I wanted to want them together more. Right. Shannon is sad that her car has been repaired, and that means that she can leave whenever. But she tells Henry bookstore that she's willing to push out her departure date a little longer. And that makes him real happy. It was a cute scene. And his son is going to be happy too. Jason Janeway. Yeah. Big fan of Shannon O'Donnell. By the way, where is my laptop? Is it with your son behind the closed bedroom door? Why the last time he gave it back to me

was it slightly difficult to get back open. And what's going on here seems pretty pervy, doesn't it? Oh, it's a very bracing transition when we're back in the future. We're in the ass lab and Janeway's looking at the Millennium Gate on the big screen, when Seven walks in. Seven notes that it has a flared base, which is something you want in a giant

archeology. When seven says that it's impressive to her, she's making fun of it, right? Like, I just don't believe seven is impressed by anything given what she's seen or what information is available to her. Like this is a twig built on earth compared to the things that the boroughs have ever constructed right. It's impressive in the same way that like I don't know the pyramids are impressive it's like wow like yeah amazing that they could do that back then. Right, that's the kind of impressive it is, like impressive for you. Right, it's what she doesn't say.

Yeah. It's the silent for you. You guys really tried. Neat. I'm not gonna get that. Not gonna put your life number, your mouth. I'm not gonna get that. Not not not, it's just trouble.

But I'm not to get that not not not it's just a goal. A greatest gen live show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it. The Share Your Embarrassment Tour is coming in August 2023,

and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's GreatestGenTour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share your embarrassment tour. I'm Jordan Morris and I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries.

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Be dumb instead. Whoa, Ross. Hey, hey, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line and boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short nacks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this off.

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Janeway is asking Seven to help reconstruct the lost and damaged information about the Millennium Gate. And why would she do that? Well, it's because Janeway was inspired by Shannon O'Donnell, and the longer she thinks about it, the more she thinks that there might be some holes in this story. And it would feel a lot better if she could confirm some of the greatness that she already assumed by this inspirational figure. I like this a lot like I wish more people would arrive at adulthood and think like man let me think about like the figures that inspired me throughout my life the stories that I heard when I was a kid about. Great people from the past let me look into those and make sure that that's real. great people from the past. Let me look into those and make sure that that's real. Sevens like there are thousands of pages on an explorer named Christopher Columbus. Would you like me to? And Jane was like, no, no, I am just fine with him. He is a great reminder, everybody gets Monday off.

In honor of him, wonderful guy. So it seems like seven's gonna jump in and help here. There's not like going on on the ship at this point. It's a little bit like the time that Janeway ordered seven to look into her own parents. Yeah. She's like, you've done some genealogical research before. Do that for me now. If you're a crew person and you just happen to be transiting between two interesting

things, I might just stay in my quarters. I don't want to be given a random job like this. It's only going to turn out bad, right? Yeah. Do a little research as a staggeringly open-ended order from the captain. Over in the mess hall, Paris is quizzing Nielix on the wonders that you can make in the video game civilization. Well, seven works on the laptop in the cafe where you've got to order something, seven. You just can't sit there at your laptop. You've been here since, ironically, 8 a.m. If you like King of Kulma, you haven't had anything. You took a massive shit.

What do you think Neelix's bathroom key looks like? It's not like a clipboard or like a ladle that he has it on. I encountered a bathroom key at a diner, not that long ago, that was like, can I do a wooden spoon, not unusual? But it said, turl it, written in, in Sharpie, on the spoon,

spelled exactly like that sounded. When I worked at a restaurant, the, all the bathroom doors had been, they'd hired like a carpenter to come in and make the the locks on the on the stalls be just a wooden spoon that you slide in that's and I asked the GM like two or three days into my employment they're like why what's with the wooden spoons as the latches on all the bathroom doors and this was like a open-till for a

Restaurant that had a bit of a reputation as a party hotspot. Uh-huh, and he was like yeah like people OD sometimes and we need to be able to break into the bathroom. Oh shit That's not fun. Fuck that's not a charming story at all. I thought I was like fanciful like all like it's a fun restaurant detail Janeway asks Henry bookstore. What's the most interesting thing that happened in your bookstore and Henry bookstore? I was like, yeah, sometimes guys coming here to shoot up Got a kick him out. I don't want my son Jason to see that Got to kick him out. I don't want my son Jason to see that.

Yeah. David Foster Wallace took a really big dump here one time and he was doing a signing. I don't know. Yeah, it took him like 50 pages to describe it after. So seven can't find any references to Shannon O'Donnell in her laptop. And that's weird, right? How are not or not?

But good thing Nielix hits like the advanced search terms on the ship search engine and finds a picture of very old Shannon Janeway is the subtitle. And a bunch of children and grandchildren kind of gathered around her. When we go to the close up on this picture, it's actually the close-up in Janeway's Ready Room where Seven has brought this laptop. And this is really exciting news for Janeway.

Yeah. She's never seen a picture of Shannon O'Donnell. These must be her grandchildren. I mean, look at her. She's old. It was found in a forrangi database of all places. Yeah. The Ferengy we're getting into nostalgic family history business. I mean, everything is a commodity, right? Like, when I went to the Vatican, they had, they had like baseball type cards for all the popes. Oh, cool. I got to, got to collect them all. And that was like the incongruency of that is like what this is, like a foringy database full of earth pictures that may or may not have a value.

I have all 13 leos. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, so, you know, the excitement of like getting a little bit of visual information about her past is big for Janeway and starts to fill her with nostalgia. But we cut back and we're finding out that it turns out Canton, Ohio may be considered for the Millennium Gate now

because this bookshop has just not budging and it's not looking good for this town. What's the town called? Oh, the town that they're in. Yeah, you go up the town, what's called? I don't know. I don't think they care. Is it Lancaster?

Well, it's got a name. Oh, Lancaster is the name of the bookstore. But is that also the name of the town? No, it's not the name of the town. All right, you look it up then. I don't want to. We're back in that awesome bar watching the news, and I could just be here forever.

Yeah, it was fun to see like the same bar, but now Gremlins are swinging from the chandeliers and making popcorn and... They're doing movie references. Just for the joy of it. Gerald Moss comes in and invites himself to take a seat next to Shannon who's got like a big fold out map open. She's like figuring out her route to Florida from here. Moss does that thing where he just sort of starts saying things he knows about Shannon factual things. And in saying...

Simply, accurate factual things. In saying those facts, that's all it takes to make yourself a real creep show. Among these facts are that Shannon used to work for NASA and lost her job in the aerospace industry recently. She sort of flunked out of the astronaut program and is not going to get to go to Mars. Yeah. Or the space station or anything like that. Moss for some reason is able to order a popsicle from behind the bar and Tells Shannon O'Donnell if you can possibly convince old man bookstore to leave town and then he like eats the popsicle in a very like suggestive way There may be a job in it for her

At the Millennium Gate Foundation or whatever and she's like is is the popsicle supposed to be a symbol for the Millennium Gate? Are you just hungry for popsicles or what is this? Why is everyone always eating popsicles around me? Why did you also have a popsicle in the prison fight scene in face off? What is it with you? It's such a bizarre deal. Like, talk the old man off of the volcano and I'll give you a job. That's the offer on the table. And absolutely zero more information is given here. Right, no paperwork is signed, no rate is agreed upon.

Now. No start date, no offer letter. It's why I don't believe him. I don't want Shannon to get taken advantage of by this guy. It seems awful. She shouldn't. You don't have to to get taken advantage of by this guy. It seems awful. She shouldn't. You don't have to live like this. How's your drink going there, buddy?

Uh, I'm almost out of ice. Oh, boy. I should have brought more ice and that was a big mistake. My ice is getting pretty melty as well. Pretty soon I'm going to be drinking warm tequila and that's fine. I've done it before. Nothing wrong with warm pudding. We cut to grainy moon landing footage, which is actually a Shannon Janeway dream. Yeah. She gets up and finds Jason on her laptop. Uh-oh.

You know, that's prime time for Jason on a laptop, right? Like everyone else is asleep. Yeah. The lights in the bookstore are down low. Well, she's definitely also sleeping under like kid bed sheets. Yeah. Oh, is she sleeping in Jason's bed? Yeah, so probably he's up just because he has nowhere else to go. Oh, that sucks. Yeah. That's one of those like old-timey things.

Like if there's guests in from out of town, they get the bed and the kids have to suffer. I mean, you'd think Old Man bookstore would be the one giving up his bed. That's chivalry. Yeah. Giving up your kid's bed? Not chivalry.

That's nasty. Yeah. You can break those bed sheets over your knee, like a board. I have a hard time sleeping when my pillow isn't triangular. This isn't Captain Janeway though. This is Shannon. Yeah. Shannon O'Donnell. She's got tricks for beating the video games that he's discovered on her

laptops. Oh, he's beating some video games. All right. There are three instruments about being in standard shape kept. Keep your shirt tucked in. Go down with the shift and go through it. Jason is a teenager with a lady from out of town staying in their bookstore and he's got a laptop all to himself. What do you think is going to happen? And she's staying in his bed. So is he staying in his dad's bed? I think I've seen this video before, Ben.

And I think Jason's seen this video before, Ben. And I think Jason's seen this video too. Well, yeah, and he's also like old beyond his years because his dad is such a basket case that he doesn't know how to pay the bills or answer the phone, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we learn a little bit about Jason and that he is a slick back, at least a half slick back anyway.

Yeah, just one half of his hair is slick back. The other, the other's kind of puffed up, but. I guess there's no good way to say your mom's dead in a conversation. He just comes out and says it. He don't mind me asking, where's your mom? She fell off a cliff and died on impact. He also comes out and says that he thinks

that the Millennium Gate isn't the worst idea he's ever heard. He's broken in that way that you can tell. He just sort of parrots his dad's thoughts and lines a bunch throughout this episode. And like those aren't a replacement for a person's personal opinions or like a personality or whatever, but like because his dad isn't around, you can see that kind of programming kind of break down in him. Right. There's nobody policing the appearance he gives voice to.

Yeah. He's having a great Thanksgiving right here and now. Wish you had a... We start to have this thing where, whenever we get to the outside of the bookstore, it's like a live, like news camera shot of the outside of the bookstore. Like, like the local news has just set up a live

feed of what's going on at the bookstore because that is like the only thing anyone in this town cares about. I definitely noticed this too as if he's like Puxitani Janeway and they're just like waiting for him to come out and say like in six months they're going to start construction on the Millennium Gate, you know. Right. He is not back down at this point. It turns out this out of town trip was him going and getting provisions from stores and businesses elsewhere where people don't have a stake in him. So this book store by provisions, you mean three newspapers and two books. Yeah. Oh, man, the store is dying, man. Yeah. Oh, man. This store is dying, Ben.

Yeah. I mean, you should have gotten some Chef Boyard D or something. Yeah. It kind of seems like Shannon is spoiling for a fight in this scene. She takes a pretty pro-millennium gate position in front of Old Man Bookstore.

And it's hard to tell in this exact moment if those are her true feelings or if she's doing this for the job. Yeah, and I wasn't totally clear about like what her intentions surrounding the Millennium Gate were at the beginning of the episode because she like blows into town asking about it specifically.

Mm-hmm. Like was she going to here because she wanted to get involved? That is very muddy, yeah. But she comes out pretty quick with the idea that, like, this is something that Moss proposed. Like, she's, if she can get him to flip, she's got a job and that would be good for her. Right.

Like, her having a job like working on engineering, the Millennium Gate would be cool for her and not as bad for Henry bookstore as he thinks because, you know, like it's an interesting project that will bring lots of interesting scientific, you know, knowledge to into the world and also like he can still have a bookstore inside of it or whatever and his like insistence on everything always being the old way like may not actually be that great an idea. The episode comes really close to making Jason a sympathetic figure and maybe like the energy behind wanting

to do this project. Because Shannon is so central to this story, she kind of makes it about her feeling stifled in this town. She's only been there for like two days. Like she's bored there or there's no place for someone with ambitions to go. And like, their Jason sits as like the embodiment

of those feelings. And so little is made out of him in that way. I think it would have hit harder if this was more about Jason and people like him in town. Right. And this obviously dead end place, you know? He runs out of the store having kind of panicked when Shannon O'Donnell leaves to go commit herself

to the Millennium Gate job. I think he's upset about the laptop being taken away personally. Right, right. Like, he took the joy of sex off the shelf years ago. Don't leave. took the joy of sex off the shelf years ago. Don't leave. But they kind of like flirt with there being a storyline

about Jason seeing her as a potential mother figure and this nuclear family that he pines for, that he doesn't have because he lives in a dusty bookstore with his comregionally old dad. And he like is quite obviously a tragic figure, but the episode really doesn't center him at all. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And especially like the moment he runs after her feels like that moment where he will eventually catch her

and they will have that moment where he tearfully explains that like he's going to end up living in this stupid town forever and nothing's gonna get better for him and he's never gonna fall in love and like have a great life. That scene is totally absent here. Yeah. Instead we cut back to the future where in Janeway's quarters, a bunch of people are just kind of hanging around, talking ancestors. Is this a salon? Feels like a salon. Jamie has a salon pose.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, she sure does. Okay, everyone, grab a wig. These candles aren't going to dip themselves. Sounds great. Harry Kim is like telling a story about how he, getting lost in space actually sort of runs in his family. Yeah.

His ancestor also had a extremely long sojourn in space. Lasted 22 minutes. His ancestor also made a lot of dick mistakes. The doctor comes in and like assumes that this is a briefing and Janeway explains that no, it's a salon. And he's like, oh, okay, I'll hang out. Yeah.

Everyone's telling stories about family members and the doc slides so easily into this topic in an unintentionally funny kind of way when he's like, oh yeah, an uncle of mine was Battle Chess, the video game. Everyone's like, cool, whatever happened to that game. That was kind of the first chess game I played on a computer. Awesome. That was fun. Paris tells another story, and this is maybe the most shocking one of all, a family member that doesn't hate him.

Yeah. A person who flew gliders on Mars and hold on a second. Mars, you say? This person must have known Shannon O'Donnell, right? And Paris is like, no, I collect this trivia. I would have known if I'd ever heard of a Shannon O'Donnell. And this seems very weird. Nobody that has ever set foot on Mars went by that name. Right. This really dumps a bucket of ice water on the room. I love the camera push in on Janeway with Seven of nine and soft focus in the background with her eyes darting back and forth like,

huh, shit, she's getting close. And if you're in this salon, you gotta be thinking about a way to get the fuck out, right? Like, well, all right, I should probably go to bed. Gotta get back on my charging mat down in the cargo bay. These nanoproves aren't going to turn themselves. Later in Janeway's Ready Room Chico Te and her discuss, like the main thrust of this episode, right? Isn't it weird how warped history can become

like the further away from that historical moment you are and how history being written by the winners is kind of problematic for the truthfulness of what your history might be? And not only that, when you get a historical context being patched together by a bunch of different people with different backgrounds or ideas about things, it's hard to get anything coherent out of that. And Jane was like, alright, Chico, you've convinced me. We're going to ban critical Millennium Gate theory being taught anywhere on board this shit. You know, I really feel like a vision quest would hit especially hard right now. Now that we're in between missions to go day. Yeah. What do you say? You set me up with a blanket, a glass of orange juice, and a dark room. Bindle me, baby. This episode really rhymes with that episode about the doctor waking up in a museum and discovering

that a history of his ship is being sort of mistold in a lot of interesting ways. I thought this was an interesting alt on a story that's sort of about the same basic premise, which is that, you know, the past is a different country and we like just don't know what it was like. Janeway tells to Kote that old man bookstore and Shannon got married and that Shannon wasn't the firebrand that she'd grown up idolizing at all. And I was shocked by this because I felt next to no heat between Shannon and Old Man bookstore. Like I saw a lot of similarities between Old Man bookstore and Shannon

as there are between Chicoetay and Captain Janeway, right? Right, it doesn't seem like he really knows how to build the bathtub that you truly desires. Back in the world's greatest bar, Mosson, O'Donnell drink and kind of toast the end of the deal as they know it. It's not going to happen. Turns out one dude can gum up the works on progress for everyone. Yeah. And that's a real bummer.

It's, it's sad. Must tell Shannon that you know we could build this in Canton. Just a bulldoze, whatever else is in Canton, Ohio. Who knows? Build the Millennium Gate there. Yeah. Who knows? Build the Millennium Gate there. Yeah, but Jason runs in and explains that Henry bookstore is sort of rambling up in the bookstore, you know, trying to prevent the heavy earth movers

from bulldozing everything. We're down to the 11th hour, literally, Adam. Yeah. It's December 31st. It's 11 PM and Shannon O'Donnell is in her piece of shit station wagon fighting her way through a snowstorm to get out of town. You know, a snowstorm, right?

When you wanna get some construction started. Right. At night. At midnight. Especially. Portage Creek, that's the name of the town. There it is. Yeah, you're now leaving Portage Creek. Yeah.

Says the sign. She's recording a tape recorder log talking about a old man Janeway and some very affectionate terms. Yeah. Roofle. I'm hoping I can get my laptop repaired in the next town. And also my tape recorder, which for some reason, all of the buttons are stuck on. And also the radio in my station wagon,

none of the buttons work. I'm scared to shine and UV light on any of my electronics. Did you think Jason would be in the back of the station wagon? I thought there'd be a stow away soon. Oh man. And then Shannon's like, you can't go with me to Florida. I have to take you back to your dad.

Yeah, there's not a take me with you seen. Instead, it's a scrum of news reporters and protesters surrounding the bookstore. Yeah. Like it's a standoff. There's like police tape everywhere. And Gerald Moss is like doing media within the perimeter and tells the cops to let Shannon in.

And the cops are like, no, we're actually public servants. We don't work for just like business interests like that. That's not how this works. And he's like, who are you kidding? And they're like, oh yeah. Oh yeah. They've preempted the late night television shows for this local news coverage of this protest or of Moss announcing that they're pulling out of this project.

Yeah. People are very upset. Because they were like reruns of shows that they wanted to watch. And instead, it's wall-to-wall coverage of bookstore gate. Yeah. Inside the bookstore, Old Man Janeway has a shot up the ceiling, where he thought Moss would be. Doesn't kill him, but a pretty grisly sight up there

Yeah, he's walking around with his ghost fucker candle and he hears some knocking at the door and Comes down the spiral staircase to let Shannon in Shannon's like it's over and Henry bookstore's like nothing is over. And Henry Bookstores's like, nothing is over! Nothing! You don't just build the gate! And she's like, in order to defeat Millennium Gate, you have to become Millennium Gate. And he's like, oh, that's actually a pretty good idea.

So I could just like have a much nicer, better lit bookstore. Yeah. Inside this new thing. Yeah. Yeah, how about that? And you basically don't have to do anything, but cash a check. Yeah.

And she's gonna stay with him. That's the other, that's like, he's getting a check and the girl. She's gonna stay with him, but in the most chase way there is. Like, I can't emphasize this enough. Like, they are barely on the same side of the screen together in proximity.

Yeah. It just seems like they're, they are not romantically interested in each other at all. This, this feels like a business arrangement only. There is as much plausible erotic energy between Shannon O'Donnell and Henry Janeway as there is between Captain Janeway and the photograph of Tom Murphy. For the close you love to live in. You don't even have a dog in your bookstore.

There's really nothing for me here, is there? I took the sump pump out of my basement because it's never going to flood. You don't need to tell me you prefer oatmeal cookies. I already assumed. All of your opinions are kind of oatmeal cookie opinions. So with that arrangement in place, Henry bookstore goes out and capitulates to Moss, literally with like a minute to spare. He finds Colonel Trout went outside who puts his jacket on him and walks into the police

car. Yeah. And everyone cheers. Yeah. Progress wins. Yeah. It was foolish of the local police captain to disregard Trump. And when he said, you're going to need more men or whatever.

When they said Henry Janeway would eat things that make a Billy go puke, they just meant books, books and book bindings and newspapers and when Troutman said he made him what he meant was like he, he like, you know, took him to like a letterpress place and taught him book binding skills and stuff. and taught him book binding skills and stuff. Back in the future on Voyager, Nelix buzzes Janeway in recorders and he's like, hey, you gotta come down to the mess hall

and I can't tell you why. It's something personal. And in the mess hall, Janeway arrives to find a party for happy ancestors Eve. Yeah, but it's April 22nd. It's like, Nielix, that's Earth Day. You should be obsessed with Earth Day. Started this episode being really interested in Earth.

You're right. There's something a little empty about ancestors Eve as if it were just a made up holiday by the greeting card companies. Yeah. To get people thinking about those who have come before for some reason, no one wants to think about them.

Give me a fucking break, Hallmark. Neelix has framed that photo of old Shannon that they dug up earlier and the group kind of pressures Janeway into believing the central thesis of the episode, I think. And this is an interesting part of it to me, that it doesn't matter what the truth is about Shannon, because the best part of being inspired is the doing the thing that you're inspired to do, not necessarily the why, right? So if you're doing a thing to satisfy some need

to be like someone else, like that fuel doesn't burn clean. And this sounds pretty convincing to me. I like the premise of it. I think that it's a little bit mistated in the episode. Uh-huh. Like I didn't love Kuvak like shouting from the back of the room like, like he's all about sentimental, a historicity.

Kuvak, you get no dialogue in this episode. You shouldn't say anything. You shouldn't have said that, Kuvak. It's like against type for your character. Yeah, yeah. I think I agree with it in general, like the idea that the inspiration she took was much more valuable than whether or not the truth of the story that inspired it is accurate or whatever.

But yeah, that's a more elegant way to put it than how I did. But yeah, totally a drunker way to put it. Right. How are you doing with your with your babita? Are you on to warm pudding? Yeah, I'm drinking the warmtin. I'm feeling really good. Good. Really good for a Tuesday afternoon. We have a, we have a nanny here today looking after Daron. And I was like getting the pre-batched cocktail out of the fridge.

And she came into the kitchen and I like stuck it back in the fridge. Oh no. It was like, I don't want her to know what I'm doing right now. Ben, what do you think about getting a mini fridge out in your studio? Would that help things or hurt things? Well, we don't want the compressor kicking on during recordings. So. Don't.

But I do have a mini fridge maybe out in the shop. Yeah, my wife had like a college dorm room fridge that was sitting in her parents garage Since she was in college and it recently made its way back here So I got to plug it in and see if it still works, but maybe that's maybe that's the move. That's a good idea Yeah, it's important that your drinks aren't any more shameful than normal. That's an added level of shame that you shouldn't have to deal with. Yeah. It's terrible.

It's terrible that I would have to deal with shame surrounding my drinking. So the last shot in this episode is like punching in on this photograph. And we see a kind of crow magnon Janeway holding a brightened child. And that's the feeling we end on. They were like, we got Kate in the in the burlap to do the USS Lantery level old lady makeup. It is Lantery, isn't it? I guess we might as well shoot a little bit of this

for some reason. Look, we don't have to use it unless we're short. Let's just pray to God, we're not short. Did you like this episode, Ben? You know, how many of you used to get along with most of the time? But I don't like bullets, I don't like friends, and I don't like you, I don't like friends, and I don't like you.

I love you, too. There's a lot I think is very interesting about this episode. This came out in 99 and is set in late 2000. And I think in mid 99, I remember everybody talking about and like yeah, I grew up in a pretty like not crazy, you know like my parents friends up like Come over and shit weren't lunatics, but like it was just like in the air, you know like people were talking about Oh, man like this could be like a big deal. And I think that it's really interesting that this episode is so confident in that being a bunch of fucking bullshit.

I think that like right-minded people believed that that was bullshit, but you could still run across serious, seeming people who were like, yeah, no, like it's gonna be a massive society upending problem when the computers all go berserk and like train start getting into head-on collisions and nuclear power plants start melting down because the fucking clocks aren't set up correctly. I think for a lot of people, you don't feel like

you're living unless you're afraid to something, you know? And the themes in this episode are kind of about that. It's like about fear of the future, fear of change. The type of person who stays close to home and never ventures out into the wider world versus the type of person that is drawn to exploration and pushing the envelope that you know would sign up to try and be an astronaut that would drive a piece of shit across the country to Florida. Yeah, you know, this predates the the real story about an astronaut driving a piece of shit to Florida. Right. Wearing the diapers and so forth. Right. a astronaut driving a piece of shit to Florida, wearing the diapers and so forth.

Right. In many ways, previsages that phenomenon. I feel like this episode is more interesting than it is good. It's interesting as a cultural artifact. Those make really good greatest gen episodes also, that type. Really like Hughes to Star Trek values also, like the future is going to be better and not to be scared of it,

being the kind of the sort of moral of the story. Yeah, but you know, watching it, I was like, okay, like, you know, I don't really care that much about these characters. Do you think it would have mattered more if we knew more like throughout Voyager, I don't really care that much about these characters. Do you think it would have mattered more if we knew more throughout Voyager, what an important figure Shannon O'Donnell was to Janeway versus just being an introduction to a new concept here?

That's an interesting point. Yeah, I think that and Henry bookstore being a more compelling romantic interest would have been the two things that would have really punched this up. But as it was, I wasn't like really taken with the romance of the storyline. So it wound up sort of falling flat as an episode for me. I mean, you get the picture at the end and it's just O'Donnell with grandchildren and grandkids. Whatever happened to Henry Bookstore?

Like, wouldn't it have been cool if he were in that picture? It doesn't look like he is. He died of COVID. This episode comes so close to like, I think we talk about this all the time, like how Star Trek seems very comfortable in that space of like suggesting an interesting science fiction idea, but like without the conviction to actually take a stand on one side of it or the other.

And I think at the end of this episode, when you get a group of people coming together going like, look, we all mythologize people or things. And like, that's just what being human is about. And two bucks, like, yes, it's a very human thing, obviously, to make a big fish story about someone's history. Like, that is a good message. But that's also like almost, it's not articulated in the way that the episode kind of thinks it's doing. Right. I wish this episode was stronger in its emphasis on like, you can only do the best you can

for the reasons that you find valuable or inspirational. And you'll never know the truth of the ancestors that came before you. And if you did, you might be disappointed or sad or upset by it. So like try to have the confidence in yourself to be great in this life with the time that you have. And like, what is a more Star Trek message than that? And it can't even do that. Yeah. And like, what is a more Star Trek message than that? And it can't even do that. Yeah.

I think generally, like I love the idea of digging into Janeway's story and like what her inspirations might be in a way that I wished we got for all the main characters. Like I would love episodes about every bridge officer that was like this in this, in its way. And Kate Mulgrew is great in this, and that's maybe why I think that.

Like she can really do this really well. And I'd like to see all the other bridge officers like get that same crack, like to play a different character and to do this thing. I think that'd be fun to get like our one-to-season episode about like what a past Harry Kim would be or whatever. Like what door he closed onto his clarinet, you know, in the early 2000s, right?

Yeah. Yeah. But um, yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you on just about every criticism. It's a fun episode to talk about and laugh about and an exercise in Star Trek that is fun because it's a period piece, and it's trying to make that comment on something contemporary, but I don't think it's just quite forceful enough in whatever it's trying to say.

Well, Adam, do you want to see if there are priority one messages that are forceful enough in what they're trying to say? Oh, yeah. I'm going to get in there with some fires. Priority one message from Star fleet coming in on secured channel Supplement Supplement Extra for the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship

Out of our first p1 here is of a promotional nature and it goes like this I was surprised and embarrassed to fall in love with a Star Trek podcast. I was also surprised to find that a life coach was an amazing thing for me. Check out my incredible and nerdy life coach Blaze and her great podcast, The Self-Awarenist and Self-Compassion podcast, at blazeswaller.com.

Might be good to spell her last name. I agree. It's s c h w a l l e r dot com blaze has truly changed my life and business to work with clients all over the world. Love the pod guys. Listen every day. So if you're interested in a life coach, Blaze is the awesome nerdy life coach for you. It's B-L-A-Z-E-S-C-H-W-A-L-L-E-R.com. To meet Blaze, the awesome nerdy life coach. How fortunate is Blaze to just have a very satisfied client in gym to put in this P1 message for them. Man, I wonder if this was part of the deal?

Like, I'll pay you like up to the last 200 bucks, so then I'm gonna put that into a P1 or what? Yeah, yeah, Blaze, maybe a discount for gym is in order here. You're about to get the greatest Gen Bomb. Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. Ba, ba, ba, ba. Ba, ba, ba, ba. And I look forward to hearing whatever drop that is.

Then our second priority in message is of a personal nature. It is from Chris, Sarah, Nina, and Harrison. And it is to like a...like a buns. Our sweet dog. That message goes like this. You were named after the first dog in space. We will forever think of you whenever we look at the stars. Thank you for so many years of gentle companionship. We will miss you terribly. Ohhhhhhh. Poor Lika Buns! Oh, that was difficult to get out.

Difficult to croak out. By me. I know the pain of a missing companion and Like it sounds like a good good buddy for this family. Yeah. Oh I miss like a buns too. Yeah, what a sweet pooch RSVP Adam our final P1 here is from Johnny from Canada and it's too windy pretty goes like this Just listened to GG Boy season five episode 11 spare the battle spoil the child There's an edit of seven of nine where astrometrics lab was edited to a slab if possible drop that audio here You don't recall speaking to me in the s-lab one hour ago.

No. I laughed so hard I had to pause the pod and pull my car over. I then bought this p-1 to say, great job, Wendy, to Adam and Ben, best pod ever. Cheers. Boy, couldn't agree more with Johnny from Canada. That made me laugh out loud when I first started as well. Yeah. I love that Wendy found a way to have it. It's not said often enough that Wendy is a real world-class comedy editor and it is just being a great producer. Yeah. When the show's over,

like over over and 15 years or whatever, we should do the Larkin Awards for Wendy and like just all her best edit moments. Oh man. Because there are myrium of them. It's gonna be like an eight hour episode. Yeah, and she's gonna have to edit it. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha She will have moved on to bigger and better things long before that. God, I hope not. She's a great part of what we've got going here. Just as the friends of Disoto are. Look, prior to when messages, a great way to support the greatest generation and greatest trek, you can have us read one of yours by going to Maximumfund.org.

Slash Jumbo Trunk. Hey Adam. Zappin. Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda! Yeah, I'm gonna go with Old Man Janeway. There's just too much about him that I didn't understand. I couldn't understand that the episode wouldn't let me understand.

Like, kind of half a chaos agent was old man Janeway. And I mean, it's enough to be the drunk Shimoda this episode, but I feel like that is a character and need of a little bit of a punch up here to achieve true chaos agency. But that's all we got here. And that's good enough for me. What about you? I'm kind of surprised you're not joining me on the square of the guy driving the fast back

that gets rear ended at the beginning of the episode. And just sort of accepts, like as it, you know, he said just a little mausole that when he finds out that she's like too broke to pay him cash and doesn't have insurance, he just he's such a slow-mozzle that when he finds out that she's like too broke to pay him cash and doesn't have insurance, he just like gets back in his car and drives away. I don't know, man. 200 bucks versus the rest of your day.

That guy's doing the math. I don't think he's wrong. But this is 2000, you're 2000 bucks, you know? Yeah, I get that. This isn't the price of a commercial P1. This is like, his window louvers were not damaged though. That seems like the most unique aspect to his car, which looks like, what is that like, in 1980's Celica?

Oh, I thought it might be like a Z. Yeah. Maybe I don't know. I don't know. I'm not a car guy. Yeah. Somebody can tell us what kind of car it is. Yeah. We wasn't sure. Maybe I don't know. I don't know. I'm not a car guy. Somebody can tell us what kind of car it is. Yeah.

We don't know what we're talking about here. It's a handsome car. It doesn't look like $200 is going to cover it, but you know, as with so many things, the action is below the frame. Mm-hmm. You generally see what the damage is. Yeah. The fake frost that they put all over both cars to sell that this

was happening not in Southern California, but in frozen northern state. Probably higher amounts of damage than whatever this fender bender did. How are you doing on drinks, Ben?? I've nearly finished my bottle here. Good job, I you. I'm really sure if I'm going to go for the last bit though. Yeah. You little worth it. You know what, man?

Be good to yourself. Save it for some other time. I'm trying to do by right by the friends of the Soto, Adam, not by my body. We've got show to do here. Still. the Soto Adam, not by my body. We've got show to do here, still. So why don't we take it on over to the game of Buttholes, the will of the caretaker, and figure out how we're gonna do the next episode.

Well, the next episode is season five episode 23, Relativity. Seven is recruited by Captain Braxton of the 29th century time ship relativity to go back in time and stop an unknown culprit from destroying Voyager. Don't you just never trust time ship captains in Star Trek? They can't be trusted. Time ship captains are bad.

Yeah. They're all the way bad. They're never good. Yeah. I don't like this guy already. Yeah. I don't like this guy already. Yeah. Captain Braxton, more like Captain Braxton Hicks because he's a fake contraction. One love, Captain Braxton. All right. I am at the game of Budhuls. Of course, we're on

Square 18, that Quarx bar that we hit by going through the space butthole. Looks like we could hit a... ...ison covered square or a banger, depending on what I roll. You're required to learn as you play, roll. Really? Yeah. Wow, kind of a lot of action out there. Oh, wow, I hit the banger, Adam. I rolled the six.

Shula! Did I win? Harving. And it banged us back five squares. So, we're on square 19. One square ahead of that quirk's bar and still on the second row, where we've spent so much of our time.

So we basically went ahead one. Yeah, yeah. So we could have gone, oh, it's just five spaces back, but there's another square where we could go anywhere. That's not that. Okay. That's not that. The banger is just five spaces back every time.

God, we used to be so much further than this. I know. All right, regular old episode. Yeah, that's fine. I have the wrong with a regular episode. I want my mental faculties solid for a time travel app, I think. I think that's good. Sounds good to me.

Alright. Alright. And we have so many people to thank for making a show like this possible. Friends of the Soto, Thurson Formos, those that support the show at MaximumFund.org slash join. The whole year through, that's, look, if you like what you hear, think it's worth a little something. We could always appreciate your support over there.

MaximumFund.org slash join. We got to thank Wendy Priti, our producer, editor, person that keeps us on track, keeps the calendar over here at Xbridgeimoto, make sure everything is running smoothly. Not a comedy goalie, like the opposite of a comedy goalie. She's like, she's waving them through. The sixth person on the ice for us. She's a comedy base coach where there's like a grand slam and she's waving the runners in.

It's not even fair. It's not even fair that she's on her team. It makes Greatest Gen dominant in the Star Trek podcasting game and Greatest Trek too. Did you see the news? How Greatest Trek is like a top 20 post show podcast like the genre of podcasts that talk about TV shows. Yeah, isn't that nuts? A greatest track is one of them.

Yeah, wow. Yeah, if you're not hip to greatest track, which is our companion podcast that covers new Star Trek, you really need to get over there, especially with the season three of Star Trek Picard. Yeah, listen to our season three coverage of Star Trek Picard and then listen to, we've got seven weeks in between the card and strange new worlds where we're gonna be going into alternate histories of Star Trek actors checking them out and other shows, and other genres of shows,

and other kinds of television and movies. This is gonna be so much fun. Weird places where Star Trek actors have popped up in TV and movie history. It's gonna be the theme for seven weeks on Greatest Trek. I'm really looking forward to it. You're not gonna wanna miss a really fun offseason episode going on over on Greatest Trek.

Definitely subscribe. We gotta thank Bill Tilly, the Card Daddy, who runs the social media accounts at greatest trek on all social media. I kind of think Adam Ragusia, who made our original theme music on this show, at Adam Ragusia on YouTube to watch this show and listen to the Adam Ragusia podcast. Really smart and great food content in the Adam or Gucy Show. There is. With that, we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek

Voyager, an episode of the greatest generation Voyager that is just inherently suspicious of chronometric particles. It's time travel. Yeah, always am. Make it so. It's time travel. Yeah. Always am. I keep on wanting to call it the Millennium Gate. Isn't that what it's called? Okay. Maximumfund.org Comedy and culture.

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