The Greatest Generation - The Cal Hudson Altitude (DS9 S4E17)

Episode Date: June 17, 2019

When Worf stands trial for bad aim on the battlefield, he lawyers up with Captain Sisko. But when it’s clear that the prosecution is making a target of Worf, it will be up to Odo to discover the evidence needed to exonerate him. How fragile is an iPad? Who is “the pippiest admiral”? Shouldn’t a violent witness be handcuffed? It’s the episode where we confuse the Dabo girls’ names.

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

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

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

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

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdecisoto for labor.com. That's friendsofdisoto for labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the greatest generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys. We're a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast.

I'm Adam Pranika. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm caught out because we did not pre-discuss what we might be talking about for the show starts. And only now have I recognized that mistake. It's not that we do that every time. No, not at all. Sometimes our best Marin opens are the ones that are total surprised.

Maybe this one will be that. I think odds are pretty low. Yeah. I think that's what you need to do though. You keep your hopes low at ground level. Under promise and find a way to nevertheless under deliver. It's the greatest gen promise. One of them, I feel like there is many

greatest gen promises as there are rules of acquisition. Yeah. We had that thing of like the rules of greatest gen promises is there are rules of acquisition. Yeah. We had that thing of like, like the rules of greatest gen for a while, then we forgot to keep doing that. Whatever happened to that. We got four and that was it, right? I think it was just too many fucking rules, you know? People also didn't like our rules.

They disagreed. Yeah. Which I don't care about, I want to be clear. I'm righteous in the construction of those rules. Yeah. I thought of another reason not to lean your seat back on the airplane. Yeah. Because somebody did it to me recently and the TV was just at a weird angle.

Yeah, it's a bad angle. We've been on tour with friendly fire. Yeah. Yeah. Right. You know, when we're recording this, we just finished our New York Chicago leg. And I had a layover in Minneapolis,

and I got on board my flight home from Minneapolis. And every single seat in my section had already been occupied, but mine by the time I got on there. And this is like, I have a lot of anxiety around this because I used to, not as much anymore, but I used to travel with film equipment all the time. And so it's a fairly high priority for me to be

on the plane as early as I can because if I can't put my roller board in the overhead bin, I'm, you know, handing a bag with extremely expensive camera equipment to a guy that is going to then throw it eight feet in the air, they get it into an airplane, you know? Right, yeah. So my feeling is just like get on board

and get your stuff squared away as early as possible. And if you've traveled often enough on the same airline, you like get high priority onto the plane, and it's not usually an issue, but I had kind of a tight connection. So I was laid onto this plane. I was in a bulkhead seat. So I had to put both of my items in the overhead compartments and I was astonished to see a very wide open overhead compartment with one narrow like tote bag like upright tote bag separating two

Spaces that were like exactly enough space to put my roller board in my backpack. And the guy that was sitting on the seat immediately next to mine said, hey, please stop that, please. And I turned around and I was like, what? And he said, there's a very delicate item in that bag and you're just cramming your bag alongside it. I would be very angry if you broke it. Whoa, those are the words? Those are like almost exactly what he said to me.

This was a blue haired man with, like, not sketchers, but like the came art version of that type of shoe, you know? Well, I mean, we don't need to be classist right now, Ben. Well, I got upgraded to first class, which is probably the only reason I had any space at all to speak of in the overhead compartment. This is an interesting detail, I think. But yeah, like weird shoes, given the fact that he seemed like the kind of person who probably paid for his first class seat, unlike me. It was just there because I'm lucky.

He wasn't wearing Sebo. That's a coach shoe. Unlike me, who's just there because I'm lucky. He wasn't wearing Sebo, that's a coach shoe. Yeah, well, you get in the bag. TSA won't even let you through security with Sebo anymore. Right, yeah, they break the X-ray machines. Yeah, but so he goes and gets his bag out. Let's me put my backpack up before he puts his bag back. And the thing he takes out, the

delicate thing that he shows me is an iPad in a case. Wow. He sits down with the iPad and proceeds to watch Fox News for the entire flight on his iPad. Cool. Wow. That checks all the boxes, Ben. Past Ben before I was calcified by life would have apologized and meekly gone to my seat.

And what I said before I even saw the iPad was, I was not cramming my bag up there. I'm putting luggage up in the bin. That's what you're supposed to do. Good for saying something. That fucking guy. Yeah. That's what you deal with in VIP. That's the level of person you often get. And look at you, Ben. You're destroying it from the inside, where we're putting good people in those places. I'm no longer observing the rules of engagement Of course you're talking about to you space 9 season 4 episode 17. Oh, yes The rules of engagement

Do you realize how incredible this is? What about this? Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! No, of course you don't. Benetilla, Vare Burton directed episode. It feels like he has been in the big chair

for quite a number of episodes this season. Bullshit, man. It's just bullshit. Yeah, he directed a lot of deep space now. I think he like, I think maybe nine or 10 episodes. Yeah. He and Freaks and Avery Brooks are all in the top, like five, I think maybe nine or ten episodes. Yeah. He and Freaks and Avery Brooks are all in the top like five I think. This is a very flashily directed episode.

It really, really is. There's this scene in Clockers that uses... It's a combination of like the Spike Lee signature shot, which is the actor on the dolly with the camera. Yeah. But it's Harvey Kytel, kind of like, like going into a memory that he's kind of like fabricating for a kid who he's interrogating in a police context

a kid who shot somebody, like a minor. And Harvey Kytel is kind of like inserting himself into the memory and talking to the camera, but in talking to the camera, talking to the kid, not the audience. Right. And they just like totally homage that in this episode. And I wondered if that was, I mean,

it does not seem unlikely that that would be a love, love, art, and choice, but it's interesting to speculate about how that technique came to be a part of this episode. To be love, art, and to be inspired by Spike Lee and then put that inspiration into practice here, I think, is pretty great. If you have not seen clockers

and you're not familiar with this technique, you may be more familiar with a far, far lesser film that does it, that film, of course, being one of the worst films of all time, Boondock, St. and Willem DeFoe's retelling of a situation wherein he's narrating a gunfight while he's in it. There was a fire fight!

Why does somebody as great as Willem DeFoe agree to be in something as garbage as Boondak Saints? Why don't you let me do the thing in on Genius? Yeah, I mean occasionally an actor, even of Willem DeFoe's pedigree, will have to demean himself with Ralph from time to time. And that's a shame, because he's great. Yeah, just as long as Ralph doesn't watch my motherfucking television!

This is the second episode in a row where a dream life is big part of it. Yeah, we have warf walking through the little D and it is fucking shredded. And it is full of warriors. Sure is, warriors of all stripes. And even non-warriors, you get little kid klingons in there. I don't wanna be a warrior. Stroon about and they're wounded, bloody. It's showing the bridge and, you know, cutting from him to, like, different close-ups

of people on the bridge and then like a bunch of Klingon warriors with bat laths raised over their heads and then he's outside the door to the bridge. And I think that that's the moment where you start to realize that there's some dream logic at play. Right. But yeah, it's a pretty upsetting series of images and then he kind of starts awake and he's pretty upsetting series of images. And then he kind of starts awake. And he's in the jailhouse. You remember that episode where someone asks, what is dreams you're like?

And he says, you know, that's just something he can't talk about with other people. Is this what it is all the time? I always pictured that his dreams were just like whatever that place was in the holodeck that Loaxana takes Alexander. And that's why he didn't want to talk about it. Like, no, it's too embarrassing.

I don't want to talk about it. I love stories that just drop you into the middle, and then they depend on you to sort of get your bearings. And this is that kind of story, because when Wharf wakes up, he is in a holding cell. He's on the wrong side of a holding cell, the prisoner side. Have we ever seen Morph on the wrong side of a holding cell? I don't know. He's been

on the other side a lot. And Odo sees that he's been rousted and is like, you better get some more sleep, man, because you've got a big hearing today and you're going to need your rest for that. And there's some information being given to us, but out of context, we don't know what he's talking about, and this is parts of an interesting beginning, like a mystery that we're going to have to solve after the theme. Yeah. This is like what a tease is.

You're not giving us all the information. This is a fucking banger of a cold open. You think the bangers are over, but they've only just begun, because maybe the biggest banger of all is Ron Canada in Klingon Love. Yeah! Such a delight. He is great in this episode. Yeah. Don't ever talk about great supporting cast members of Star Trek episodes without putting Ron Canada in the list. If Ron Canada isn't on your list, then I don't really

respect you as someone who talks about Star Trek. This is fucking dope, Ron Canada episode. There's something about his performance throughout that really made me notice the teeth of a Klingon and how difficult it must be to articulate yourself and Ron Canada like sort of uses the teeth to his advantage. He really makes a unique way. Strong Klingon teeth choices. Like he doesn't smile but he's often mouth open. Talking in a way that is very, very interesting.

Like, an interesting choice as an actor for him to do that. He lets that like one thing kind of stick out sometimes. Yeah. I wonder how long it takes to like, you need to get from uncomfortable to comfortable to making a choice. And Ron Canada goes from A to C, like he's making choices, which is great. Like, think back to middle school, when kids started to get retainers, and how like their speech would be slurred for a few days,

while they got used to having the retainer in. Yeah. Like, that must be a concern when you're having prosthetic, clinging teeth put in your mouth. I Think it's one of those things that's different for everyone too Like until you get Ron Canada in the loaf and in the in the dental prosthetic who knows what he's gonna sound like right? Fucking great. That's what yeah as if there was any question here is the the basics of this situation Here is the basics of this situation. Warf has been accused of wantonly killing a civilian ship,

like a transport ship, basically shooting down a jetliner in the midst of defending a Cardassian and aid convoy from a Klingon attack. And the hearing that is being overseen by Admiral Talara, a Vulcan Admiral, is going to determine whether Worf gets extradited to the Klingon Empire to stand trial for this thing that Chippok, the Ron Canada character, is saying is a war crime.

So this has all the feeling of like a pretrial hearing, right? Like a determination is going to be made about extradition, but not about his guilt. And he will be extradited if it is determined that he like did the thing intentionally, basically. And I think this is a story really well crafted because you don't see any of this until much later in the episode. You get people talking about an incident that you have not experienced yourself as a viewer. Yeah. I thought it was interesting that Talara had a full four-pip on, I mean, I guess a full

eight-pips, really. She is, I feel like the pippiest admiral we've maybe seen in the entire run of TNG and DS9. Yeah I mean the thing that makes me think that is that she had two pig tails sticking straight out of either side of her head and the longest stockings. This really feels like her role is a, is a Philip Louveau situation, right? Because this is a real measure of a Klingon type story we're given here. Because Ron Canada's character is less interested in the guilt of a warf than he is in his motivations. He makes that very clear. Right. The B story is that Odo is going to be doing some investigator work for the advocate that Cisco is playing. He's going to look into this transport and see if there

was anything unusual about it. If it was, in fact, the innocent passenger ship that is being presented as, or if it was something else, because the details of the case seem very strange. Like, why would Wurf go out of his way to blow this thing up? So the Starfleet argument is going to be Wurf was, you know, in a complicated three-dimensional battle scenario, and this ship unfortunately got hit when nobody meant to be shooting at it. It's just hard at this point in the episode to conceive of what they're describing.

Like, what the fuck is a transport ship doing in the middle of a firefight? Like, it's bonkers. How does this happen? They do a great job of kind of like peppering in that information and then slowly building up to it. Yeah. Like, I think that we kind of watch this all from the Tullara POV, like the camera kind of lives on her side of the courtroom, even. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which is kind of unusual for a courtroom drama, right? Like, the camera is almost always kind of behind the desks that the advocates sit at facing the judge and I think that it's pretty smart that the camera position is almost always from the opposite side, like from the Toulare side. That's a good observation. Yeah, that's really true. Go to Kotlin' Go to Kotlin' So, 441 Klingon civilians were killed in this incident. So, the consequences are both for war, but like the fallout from it is fairly massive.

Like, this is a scandal. Big time. Right. And, um, the part of attorneys' jobs where like outside the courtroom, they're just like colleagues with each other and not, you know, like that that's always like kind of mind-blowing to see. But like Jopac, when he, you know, catches Cisco in the hallways always like, hey man, like what's up? I just wanted to talk a little bit about the case. I don't really have that many like strong personal feelings, like just me as a lawyer slash warrior. Like this is my battleground and I really like winning.

So I look forward to fighting on your terms. I'm gonna do my best to really kick your ass, but no hard feelings about that. Hey, I just wanna let you know that I work hard and I play hard. Ha ha ha. And it takes his neck tie off and puts it up over, you know, around his head and heads into Corksbar or does he yard of ale.

Chipoc is great because he does this a bunch during the episode. He does not prescribe to the idea of like a professional distance. He chats up Cisco a couple of times in this app and he has no reluctance about it. And I like that, it keeps them in conflict in a fun way. Like it's that keep your enemies close kind of deal. Because he's also like, he's not not talking about the case. He's not just being a friendly guy. He's like, hey, like when your officer is-dated, it's gonna be great for the

Klingon Empire because we're gonna expand our, you know, like we're gonna keep annexing territory and fucking with the Kardashians because Starfleet will be kind of back on its heels. Like, it's sort of like he's going, after I steal your girlfriend, we're going to get married and have an awesome family and live in a giant house. It's going to be great. You fucking cuckstusco. You're gonna watch. You're gonna watch it all happen. So in parallel, Odo is sent on this mission. He's got to dig up dirt on either the transport ship captain or anything about its crew, like anything that will explain why this ship was in the middle of this firefight,

and Odo is given free reign to do such things. And like we never see him do it, he just sort of checks in with Cisco a few times in the ep to give him updates. And often those updates are not good news or just inconclusive. Right, like the first ep date is like, like, yeah, I looked into the captain, he's like

a pretty meek dude who really like plays by the book. I'm provoking a Norsegun, it's not a good idea. Like he is not the loose cannon in the buddy cop movie, he's the other guy. Yeah, the idea was that maybe this was intentional as the only explanation. And Odo was like, one of the great captains in Klingon history. He's actually very well liked. I really do like, because a lot of airline captains are ex-military.

And the idea of just being like, like, fucking, I'm going for it. and the idea of just being like, like, fuck it, I'm going for it. It's pretty, it's pretty, you know, it's tempting, right? Yeah. Hey, is that a, is that a battle over there? Yeah. Holy shit. Let's, let's get in it, guys.

I mean, we saw Goldicot do this several episodes ago. Like, a ship isn't a barrier to fun. Yeah. I read that the premise of this was actually inspired by a real incident where a US battleship shot down some airline from Iran and it was shot down like 220 people died and the US blamed it on like a computer malfunction. They basically said like our tactical system misidentified this thing as a bomber or a fighter or something

and we sent a bunch of warning messages, but they were on like a military frequency that the civilian pilot of the airliner would not have been monitoring. And it was like this horrible tragedy that was blamed on a computer error, but also was like, fuck, like let's try to find ways to not have that kind of computer error

lead to this kind of situation. Wow, how about a run seeing the situation for what it is and not using it as a pretense for war? Right. Not a lot of boltin types over there. Apparently not. That was in 88 and I guess one of the writers of the episode had been like doing research on that kind of like cascade failure in like, you know, computer and human interaction. This conversation that Chippok and Cisco have is interesting from another angle, which is Chippok makes the case that once the federation loses and they will, the federation will have

lost a moral high ground. And the consequence of that is uncertain at this moment in time, but it's impossible not to think that you don't get something like that back after an incident like this. So the damage could be far reaching and permanent. Warf was about to present us with something we never could have won in battle. Sympathy. Well, not up sides of this for the Klingon Empire

or something that they discuss at length in the episode over the course of a number of interactions. But, Worf is basically a symbol of defiance to Gauron. So, Gauron would love to have Worf just like totally taken off the board. And also, it's like two-bridge-one stone kind of thing. Like if we can fuck Worf's situation up, we also fuck the Federation's situation up. And, you know, assert a position of dominance in the quadrant. Do you feel like Worf and Cisco are low-badging it a little bit in a confident way?

I feel like in all these courtroom scenes, they're doing a little cowhudson. Yeah, because we don't usually see them in their dress uniforms, but they're always a little cowhide sin. Yeah, because we don't usually see them in their dress uniforms, but they're always in the dress uniforms in these scenes. So maybe they took that as an opportunity to drop it to the cowhide sin altitude. Yeah.

Yeah. He think Ron Canada saw that and he was like, fuck, I wish I had a badge. I would put it in my fucking belly. Ron Canada would have, uh, Prince Alberted his con badge. Where he given one. Super power move. So DAX is the first one to post,

and it's during DAX's testimony that were introduced to this different style of storytelling that we've gotten before. This style that breaks the fourth wall. Yeah, I thought this was a great cut because we've seen decks and wharf fight swords in the Hollisweat before. Yeah.

And it cuts to them doing that and they're not talking initially. So I was just like, oh, are they using a little bit of footage from a previous episode? And then she turns to the camera, like mid-grapal and addresses it. I know he could kill me if he wants to,

but that look always goes away. He knows when to stop. And I think it's the first time we've seen a character make eye contact with the camera in the whole series. It's shocking and I love it. It's great. It's Blancers. It feels in the beginning a little bit like a Canadian workplace safety PSA. Because I'm about to be an terrible accident. Especially because Dax is in the middle of a sword fight and it seems extremely dangerous.

Yeah, there's a sword at her neck. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Her testimony is fairly damaging though because she says that, yeah, a warp is really into some rough, hollusweet play. And one of his favorite programs is one that features the destruction of a historical cling on city and all of its inhabitants are killed including like women and children. So also that was a program that he used the day before the mission and question. It's sort of a like do violent video games cause violence kind of moment in the app. Yeah, it's interesting to think about.

I think the EP kind of comes down on no, as a side, but I happen to know that you're facing some animal cruelty charges for what you did to horsey thick and genuine. So it seems like we live in a reality where we really do believe that that's a problem. The horses kill themselves by running off of cliffs, Ben. Yeah. I want to be clear about that. That's the position that you and your attorney have taken, but I think that the government's case against you is pretty strong.

I'd love to tell you more, but I'm being advised not to. It's Cisco's testimony that is next, and we get a greater understanding about the mission itself. And it's here we learned that Wurf was assigned to the sixth of seven convoys. This is like an ongoing thing where federationships protect a, I was going to say humanitarian mission. The very term is racist probably not a way You'd want to describe this mission, but but these supply runs are are a tasty tasty tree for an attacking cling on and so These convoys have been subject to these kind of attacks

So the idea of like attaching a single Federation ship to them is a good idea for their defense and the defiant is one of those ships. The issue is that there's like a plague outbreak on a Cardassian world and unfortunately these convoys have to kind of hue pretty close to the Cardassian Klingon border. So hence the escorts and the humanitarian nature of the missions is why the Federation agreed to provide those escorts. What are you doing now? Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, And as a Klingon has a certain bloodlust, a certain need to demonstrate his prowess in combat and a willingness to do anything to really stick it to his enemies. And the character that he is trying to paint in war is one of a person who is driven by vengeance and anger and isn't in control of himself in combat situations.

It's a really interesting spot to put him because it makes War of Half to decide if he is a good Klingon or a bad Federation officer or a bad Klingon and a good Federation officer. By making him choose, he is sacrificing any goodwill for the one that he doesn't choose. Worf does not want to have to choose between soft tacos and hard tacos. I bet Worf is sort of wondering whether or not he should go see Dr. Bashir about the lobotomy. I mean, he knows of this family member that can adapt him.

Yeah. He can have a perfectly fine existence back on Kronos as a Klingon. I did not know that I had a brother and yet here you are. Really crazy coincidence that we both have the same amnesia. Our uncle is a very generous man to have adopted two orphans like us. Yeah, and so we like kind of run down the line, right? All of our main characters get this moment in the seat. And Quarks is the opportunity to inject some comedy

into the proceedings. Like, you love that quark is concentrating on the wrong things. Right. And his attempt to get a story straight. I love that. I love that quark has kind of a bad memory for things also. That's kind of a surprising character development.

I feel like, you feel like he's very calculating a meticulous, but the idea that he would have a bad memory for social interactions is it kind of tracks for me in a fun way. He's acting like someone for whom the stakes don't matter. And I think that's an interesting and realistic character moment for him, right? Like, wharf could be extra-dited and killed, but quark is not taking that part of it seriously at all. He's sort of having fun with the moment

because he's on stage. Yeah. Well, Pringius is a kind of a low margin item at the bar so. Yeah he's not going to lose anything. His testimony comes to a point though when he finally gets to describing Wurf and his dialogue during this moment and when Wurf tells him about the mission Quark asks him what happens if Klingon's attack the convoy well well, Wurf is commanding the defiant. And then he said, I hope they do. If Cisco was a better lawyer,

I think you've got to latch onto the obvious fogginess of Quirks' memory and just drill him for it, just everything it's worth. This guy doesn't remember shit. All of this might be made up. We might have talked about sports for all Quark remembers. As good as this episode is, it still falls prey to the problem that DAX had

in the episode DAX, where her stoicism, while being attacked in a courtroom, was not a strong point of that episode. And so when something like this happens, you're exactly right. Like you're expecting a more fully-throated defense, and instead it's met with that kind of professional stoicism. It's hard to watch. It's wild because it's a very worth centric episode.

It's about worth. And I read on memory alpha that the idea after Suns of Moe, like made worth, I have to kind of commit himself to his starfleet identity, was like, what if, like, what if then he was confronted with something that caused him to question even that? Yeah. Just like further push him into a corner. And for all of that, he's barely in the episode, you know?

Like, we see him in flashbacks, and we see him sitting there kind of wordlessly at the table, but he doesn't get much to do, you know? Yeah, so Odo has sprinkled in a little more intelligence like between all of these depositions and What's confounding to Odo is like how agreeable the Klingon government is like he's like so check it out Like the captain spotless, the crew and the complement are like normals, nothing out of place there, and check this out. Like, the government is answering all of my questions.

Like, they're really being helpful with this investigation. That's the problem. Kind of a warning sign, but I can't really figure out why. I'm always suspicious of people who are eager to help a police officer. And and this goes like, well, I mean, stay on it. Yeah. You're the B story. See if there was a passenger that had an axe to grind somebody that had maybe learned how to fly a starship but not how to land it. Yeah. Unborn. Yeah. Anything like that. We also get O'Brien's testimony.

I am Chief Miles Edward O'Brien. This is fucking spectacular. Which is the first time we actually see the battle, which is pretty fun. We got like a de- And it's a number of Cardassian, you know, transport ships and then a Couple of Klingon ships and they kind of the Klingon ships are kind of like trading Positions where one will be attacking the little D and the other will be attacking the Cardassians and the Klingon bird of prey goes to cloak and

Clean bird of prey goes to cloak and Wurf like has figured out the pattern and when what he imagines the bird of prey is going to be comes out of cloak. When did you realize it wasn't a bird of prey? As soon as it exploded. And you barely even get a look at this ship because it's mostly just an explosion and a bunch of ship pieces falling apart in space.

I thought for a moment it was DuCat's transport ship. It looked like a drain cleaner class starship. Did it look? I think it's a different model though. Also that ship was destroyed because DuCat destroyed it. Oh yeah, with all those klingons on board. He never got charged with war crimes or... Nope.

It's threatened with extradition. I guess there's no diplomatic anything in between the klingons and the Kardashians at the moment. Gotta say, it's great to see in Miles O'Brien and the big chair. Big fan. Yeah, one of the big questions that Chappac asks him is, like, would you have done what Worf did if you had been in the captain's chair?

This is the part of the episode where Chappac yields the floor to ABC News' John Canyonias for the, what would you do, portion of the examination? What if you weren't, command? What would you have done? We've positioned Miles O'Brien on board the defiant and now Major Cure is going to walk onto the bridge and say something racist. Ha ha ha ha ha.

It puts O'Brien in a tough spot because he's an enlisted man. Yeah. He never gets in the big chair. He fucking shows a career where he doesn't have to do this that often. Yeah. He's proud of that career. He doesn't want to, he doesn't ever, ever even want to dress up, you know, like the, he doesn't even like being in, in the formal uniform.

No nice dinners, no big chairs. The Miles O'Brien story. I like O'Brien, but I really don't respect that as a set of choices. Get dressed up, have some nice dinners, that's just fun! Oh geez, you can do whatever he wants in my book. I'm in a pale, a fucking pale. Mr. Bucket, I have to reverse back to my late state school. No, I don't use the bucket anymore. O'Brien falls prey to this thing where you don't get to replay the game with you as different game pieces. Right.

In retrospect, of course, you can make any number of different decisions. I thought this was the best written part of the episode. Like, obviously I can see that a mistake was made, but I have the benefit of hindsight, which Mr. Warf didn't have. Yeah. And that's the point. Like the job is about making choices on the fly

and sometimes you make mistakes when that's when that happens. Risk is part of the game you want to sit in that chair. The performances are all around great in this episode and I feel like when you center an episode around the idea of every Brooks and Ron Canada just fucking trading blows as actors just like like working at the top of their game. Everybody on that set has got to be excited about just bringing their fucking A-game, right? Because everyone loves a courtroom show and a courtroom scene. That's where it feels like if you're an actor, that's where you become capital A actor.

This testimony by O'Brien hurts, because even though he's speaking from the position of hindsight, it does not help for him to say he would have chosen differently. This is something that Chipak sees as onto, because when he finds Cisco in the rep, in the rep limit later, he's like, hey, so you just, you just want to like concede. Let me take him back to the Empire, and I'll make sure he's not put to death. It's kind of a waste of time and a foregone conclusion at this point. I've got a ship ready to go. Pilot is new, but he actually has a pretty recent health crisis.

He's actually suffering from amnesia, but he's ready to go too. How fast would you like me to fly? This shuttle back to Kronos! This is your captain speaking. You should observe the no smoking sign. When I need to go to the bathroom during the flight, the flight attendant will push the drink cart toward the front of the airplane, so that an attacker will have that much more material to get through if they want to storm the cockpit.

We know that you have your choice in airlines. Thank you to all the medallion members on today's flight. Ben, do you think a good, greatest gen shirt would be the word, Kern, written in Star Trek type, and then the K is just a little too far away from the ERN? And that's just all it is. Like the way the Disco shirt is for Star Trek Discovery,

just like one word across the chest. I kind of love it. I do too. Is it black on dark blue like the like the disco shirt? Yeah, let's do it like that. Let's make it happen. That's fun. We haven't done a greatest gen shirt in a long time.

Yeah, I think maybe by the time this comes out, there will be a couple of new greatest gen shirts. Right on. No. Cisco turns down Chipotle's generous offer, deciding to continue with the trial. But he sees what's going on here a little bit clearer, which is that, you know, by losing this trial, you lose a little bit more than Mr. Warf to the Klingons. What's clear is, like like the Federation loses ground because the Pentat system would easily

become annexed by the Klingons due to the lack of Federation involvement in the aftermath of this thing. And as the Klingons continue to chew up territory, it's not a very good, like, you can see the writing on the wall. Anxation isn't going to end there, and it could even include areas like Beijor and DS9. Right. So the one big scene that Michael Doran gets in this is his moment on the stand. And it starts with Cisco questioning him. And it's pretty straightforward.

It's like, was this in your best judgment, the command decision that needed to be made in the moment? And Dwarf was like, yes. Do you think that Chiefo Brian's shit he said is fair? And where it was like, yes, except where he has the benefit of hindsight, which I did not at the moment. And if I had to do it again,

I probably would do it the same way. That's just the truth of, you know, a battle like that. You're not expecting a fucking 737 with a lacrosse team on it to decalote right in front of your ship when you're in the middle of a firefight. Worf's testimony is about how surprised he was to see a decaloking transport ship in the middle of this conflict. And the question is really about like

anticipation versus revision Right in his mind like because you know when you're involved in a thing you put yourself in the moment of anticipation but when you're talking about a thing that happens in the past It's about the revision of that experience. So like this tension is playing out through Wurf's testimony, and Wurf admits that he would have made the same decisions again because he's someone who is sure about the difference between anticipation and revision. Like, he puts himself in the place that he was, knowing the facts that he had at hand, and he's like, that's what I knew the truth to be at the time. And so, it's irrelevant to apply more recent intel to a decision I had to make back then. And Chippac's cross examination after this, because it's Cisco that

puts him on the stand, Chippac's cross examin' him and totally takes a different angle. Why are you considered an outcast among clingos? Chappac is really the Kenya Moore to Warf's Porsche. He is just provoking him to get a big reaction, you know? Is this a real housewives thing? Yeah. Okay. That's great.

But like, yeah, like Chappac, just fucking goads, wharf into standing up and hitting him. Yeah, like a little while ago I was talking about like this is about making wharf to side if he is a good cling on or a bad cling on. And this is what Chappac is doing. It's like everything is about like your house has been disgraced. You're the son of a trader. Like, the empire has done you wrong. You have no honor.

And it's brilliant the way they write this, right? Because it's set up from the beginning to make it basically impossible for Wharf in the constraints that we know Wharf to live under, not to respond with violence. It's super well done and it's great loyering. Yeah. Really, like Chappac, this is expertly done by him. Every lawyer should be willing to get hit in the face

by a hostile witness. How does it feel to make a fool of yourself with the bad luck? Well, D. We cut to Cisco's log and he's like, things are not good with this trial. Like basically getting ready to put wharf onto this transport ship. Yeah, so Chipotle goes down and he makes the case like,

you know, you claim to be this man of honor and yet you hit me a comparatively weak man who's unarmed and I think we can extrapolate from your willingness to do this that you would be willing to do that to a people in the Klingon Empire as represented by the passengers of this transport in this specific situation. I rest my case. The Admiral goes to deliberate, and this is when we get a break in the case, but it's the kind of break in a case that you only get in television drama,

which is you don't know anything about it until you're back in the courtroom. It's elliptical break, right? It's just auto-handing Cisco and iPad and then the Admiral walking back into the ward room to resume the trial. And we come to understand that this is a bit unusual, right? Like she was making deliberations and this is an interruption.

This is not her coming in expecting to deliver her decision. She's been asked to suspend decision making to consider new evidence. You can imagine that Vulcan deliberation is super intense, right? Probably involves holding a difficult pose for a long time. Yeah. Fasting. A lot of candles. Yeah.

Deciding who the many are and who the few are in this scenario and what their relative needs might be. This is Cisco's time to shine. He's not going to get out-loyered by Chappac. No, he calls Chappac as a witness. As an expert on the Klingon Empire, gets Chappac basically to admit that it's possible that the Klingons would do something that is not entirely honest, given the current diplomatic scenario between the Federation and the

Klingon Empire. And then drops the iPad in Trapok's lap. And the iPad, as far as Trapok knows, is a list of the passenger manifest of the ship that got us bloated. And then Cisco turned around and was like, oh no, no, no, no, that is the list. The passenger manifest of a different ship that got us bloated a couple of weeks before the event in question. How dangerous are Klingon transport ships?

I don't know. I mean, like there's in late-stage capitalism, they're letting a lot of shit come off the shelf that maybe should have had more safety and regulatory oversight. Boy, you know one thing about a Klingon transport ship, and you know for sure that they still sound like chains on the inside. Yeah, they're not the post chain upgrade. Yeah, not at all. I bet that D7 in that fight was real chainy.

Oh, I bet. Yeah. I bet that D7 in that fight was real cheney. Oh, I bet. You know? Yeah, it was great to see a D7 in battle again. It was much greener than I'm used to them being. Yeah. It was like a Kelly Green D7. They're usually more of like an olive green. Different looks for different houses maybe?

Who knows? Yeah. So, this passenger manifest matches the one from the transport ship exactly, and this is the gacha moment. Yeah. And Chippac has to admit on the stand that it's possible that it was all a setup. Chippac being the expert witness on Klingon Affairs. Yeah.

Like, it is a leverage now that is working against him. Isn't it possible? Yes. It basically saves Worf's ass because, you know, like Worf physically assaulted the other attorney in front of the judge. You know, it's weird, it's like they don't put warf back in a holding cell either. Like, there should be a big trouble for that. Yeah, that doesn't appear to have any implication on his career as a Starfleet officer,

despite the fact that a captain and a eight-pip admiral watched him do it. They should give him the handcuff to the table treatment, right? I was really surprised that that was not a part of the subsequent scene. Yeah, yeah, that's weird. Or like put him in like a jump suit. You know, like the...

The Hannibal Lecter suit. Like, in course, like sometimes prisoners appear before juries in their prison clothing, and that's like seen as potentially prejudicial, like juries that see people that are dressed as criminals interpret them to be criminals, at, you know, like a measurably higher rate. So usually like the defense attorney will arrange

for a suit to be brought, but maybe like, maybe the judge goes like, all right, put him in the jumpsuit for this next part, or something, I don't know. But yeah, like the evidence basically gets him totally off the hook and the, and Trapok basically has to back down. Big win. Trapok has appealed to the Admiral's Vanity

a couple of times in the episode, which I thought was surprising because she's a Vulcan, and you can see her kind of reacting to that. It, you know, like, we are pretty rad, you know. Yeah. And maybe the reason Worf doesn't get in any further trouble is like it is really sticking it to the Klingons for this grand deception to just return Worf to active duty as the thing

he was doing before. The button on the episode is that while everyone else is extremely happy for the outcome here, Wurf is in no mood to celebrate because among all of the falsehoods that Chipoc laid out in the courtroom, one thing was actually true, and that is there is an engine for vengeance within Wurf, and he does have that chip on a shoulder where he feels like he's got things to prove and Cisco Is the man that he shares these feelings with and maybe wrongly because Cisco really dresses him down for how those feelings led to his behavior on the battlefield. Yeah, the thing he was accused of, he actually kind of did.

Like, he could have given it a beat and made sure that they knew what the ship was that was decloaking. Yeah, I think it's a case where War felt a little too familiar with Cisco because this is like a, there's like Ron Livingston sharing what his workday is like with the bobs. Maybe save that for a counselor or something. Yeah. But Cisco has some knowledge to drop here and it's really, really great because what he's saying is that like the responsibility of a leader is not only to make good decisions on the battlefield, but it's like knowing what the people in your

care need of you, and that not only goes for the battlefield, but it goes for after the battle, like at Quarks, which means you really should make an appearance at this party because that's part of the job. It's part of the job of wearing the pips. You got to take care of your people. And that means showing up to parties when you're not feeling like a party. Life is a great deal, more complicated in this red uniform.

Did you like this episode? I really like this episode. I think that the one shame of it is that Michael Dorn really just has one scene to really like go ham. I guess he really has two. Like he has the one with Ron Canada and the one with Cisco at the end. But it's a it's a war of episode that he really doesn't participate in as much as one would hope. And it's got to feel weird as an actor to like have major character

change being done where you can't actually portray your character going through it, you know? Yeah. So, it's either just the one knock against it, but just the scenes between Cisco and Chappac are fucking great. And I like that in Maltallara, I like the whole thing. You know, it felt like a really special episode, you know? Like having like a weird technique get used

like the address and camera really highlights that. And I think it's cool when a show is aware of the specialness of an episode. I really like the up to bin. The answer to this question doesn't matter because I like the technique regardless. But I wonder to what degree technique was wagging the episode dog here with respect to whether or not anyone wanted this episode to be compared to measure of a man. Because I mean it's hard not to compare storylines that involve a courtroom. And I thought this episode did such a good job in distinguishing itself and making it

a totally separate looking and feeling experience from that episode. And episode that everyone is familiar with and knows about, even non-star Trek people. However, that decision was made, it was the right one, and it added so much more interest to what could have been, like, just a really good courtroom story. I thought it was well done. Well, do you want to see if we have any priority one messages in the inbox? Yeah, I mean, we do priority one messages all the time, but maybe we can you know, maybe this will be one of a different technique Priority one message from star fleet coming in on secured channel Supplement alone

Yeah, it's extra the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship Yeah, it's extra. But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship! Ben, our first priority one message is of a commercial nature and it is from the SuperPod Hero Cast, which is now in its second season and here's the message. FOD! If you like superhero movies, check out the SuperPod Hero Cast. Guys with beers talking about movies with capes. A mix of humor and geeky film analysis that sometimes ends with the host being the drunk Shimoda.

Odin chooses whether to be kind or to torture them as each week. They randomly choose a superhero film from Thor's helmet. Whether you're a casual fan or a 20th level nerd, Todd and Casey, have you covered. Check out SuperPod Hero Cast Wherever You Catch Your Pod. Wow, SuperPod Hero Cast is all one word, just for those running a search. That's right. Sounds like a great idea for a show.

Yeah, give it a try. Our next priority one message is from Present Slash Past Travis, and it is two Present Slash Future Travis. Hmm, goes like this. Hello, myself. Right now, I slash you are enjoying yet another stellar episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation, and The Grey's Generation.

You're already wrong, uh, present-slash-pass, Travis. And this is your slash my way to think, Ben, and Adam, and Hillary, and Mark, for so much fun with fart jokes. But! And then, but has is a, is the word beauty, but then there's like a parenthetical extra T so it could be the conjunction, but also the word for Your ass and also like multiplication. Oh, yeah, it's but times T right But you have no clue when these cronotons will play so now I slash you can't veto any episode either

Mwah-haha evil time travel lab. Yes put scars on the Patriots. Oh wow So a present slash past Travis is going to attempt a Biff Tannen slash Akorum lawn kind of scenario where he goes back in the past and gets rich on sports bets. Yikes. Wow. I don't know Travis. There's a lot to own pack here. Stay away from Leah Thompson. Yeah. I'm saying. Yeah. I think as long as Travis does that, I'm fine with anything else he does. Sports betting. Anyways, if you'd like to leave a priority on message, I'd do maximumfund.org slash Jembo Tron.

It's a hundred bucks for a personal message and a hundred for a commercial message. And they're a great way to support this show. Hey Adam. What's that been? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Incredible. Drunk Shimoda! There is a lot to like about this episode, but one of the elements that clanged with me was

the use of the bell in the courtroom. And I feel like this is a thing that the episode didn't have a strong conviction about because they use it a lot, like as an establishing shot in these scenes, but then they cut away from it mid-bell strike at one point in the app. And there's just something about like it's insulting to the admiral character to stay with the bell ring for the, for the end to, but cut away mid bell strike on the outro. I thought a lot about this.

I thought way more about it than any normal person would. And so I think, like for some reason, I'm giving the bell my drunk Shimoda. The bell is it and it's use. Wow. Yeah. The bell gets my drunk Shimoda. The bell is it and it's use. Wow. Yeah. The bell gets a drunk Shimoda. Yeah, make a decision with that bell either either all the way in or all the way out is what I'm saying. What about you, Ben? Quarks testimony is it starts with him trying to remember what Bashir was saying to one of the dabo girls. And we get like four or five dabo girls

cycled in as he tries to narrow it down to which of them it was. But then it becomes clear that Quark misremembered Bashir for mourn. That's tough. That Quark is like, you could never accuse him of being racist because he had to distinguish between five different davo girls and between Bashir and Morn. That's insane.

Yeah, so for that reason, quark is my drunk Shabbat. He's just got that thing where you can't tell the difference between people's faces. Yeah, he's face blind. Yeah. If he knew Bashir was a piss freak, he wouldn't confuse Morn and Bash faces. Yeah, he's face blind. Yeah. If he knew Bashir was a piss freak, he wouldn't confuse Mornin Bashir. Yeah.

Oh man, Morn might be getting served the wrong beverages more often than he would like. Yeah, I mean, this quirk think Bashir has a great big crank like Morn does. Hahaha. Because that's how you know you get a moor on your hands. You just have a scene in the bar where moor is spitting his drink all over the bar. What the fuck is this?

And then Bashir is holding up a condom with a six inch diameter. Like, who could even use this? What is this? I didn't know they made condoms like this. Like it's the jacket of a fire extinguisher? You can fit a scuba tank in this thing. Oh. A greatest gen live show is something you don't want to miss.

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

Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's GreatestGenTour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris and I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We got stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani.

I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Whoa, Russ.

Hey, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line and boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they have such short nacks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this off. We've got to get on the arc. It is about terrain, about a spout to destroy humanity.

Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. We're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Carrie? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so same like something for us to check out.

We would love to be on the boats. We came to by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org. What is the episode of Deep Space 9 we're fitting into the next episode of the greatest generation. Next episode is season four, episode 18, hard time. After an alien race and plants false memories of a 20 year prison sentence into O'Brien's brain, this trouble readjusting to station life.

Oh wow, this is an ep with a reputation. It sounds like an episode where you really want to Deanna Troy involved. Yeah, no kidding. Wow, got it, we wish we were watching it right now. But it turns out we've got to wait until next time to discuss it. Let's see, in what way, we're going to discuss that episode, Ben. Let's do it.

As we turn ourselves over to gach.bizslashgame where we have game of buttholes The will of the prophets we are at present on square six where four Squares ahead we have a cocoa no no square and then two squares after that we have a fuck it. Let's do it live You're required to learn as you play roll Got the die in my hand and I'm rolling now And I have rolled a tube in Chula Did I win? Oh, that's almost twice as much as what you normally roll

Yeah, two gets us to square eight. It is a regular episode of the greatest generation. Fuck. I think that's probably good, right? This is a very special episode coming up. We want to give it the respect it deserves. Is this a very special episode? I think it is.

I have not seen the episode, but I've heard a lot about it. Is Ron Canada in it or something? God, I hope so. That'd be great. Just keeps coming back. He's just main cast now. Should be. That would be great.

Good enough to be. One of the greats. You know who are also among the greats. I'm gonna put them as Canada adjacent. Wow. Those that go to Maximumfund.org slash donate and support the show at a monthly level, they're the reason we're able to do the show. Yeah, fuck an A.

They're the reason we're able to make Ron Canada jokes. They're the reason we're able to do Kern. They're the reason for the season. They are. The other folks we have to thank are the folks who recommend the show to friends and family and co-workers. You see those numbers creep it up every month and we really appreciate all of the word of mouth marketing that our listeners do for us.

We scarcely deserve it. We remain embarrassed to produce the show, but many of our viewers, not too embarrassed to share its existence with friends and family, and that's great. That is great. We got to thank Dark Materia for the original theme music for our show and the great Adam Regusia for chopping and screwing that and creating a whole world

of music around our show that we really, really appreciate. Check out all of the work that our viewers do on behalf of the show. They being better at the creation of artwork than a major kira of the last episode. We've got among them J.J. Lendle who makes movie style posters ahead of every episode dropping and of course Bill Tilly who makes the comedy trading cards that drop week to week and they are both great. Head to Twitter and use the hashtag GreatestGen to find those. Adam's on their at-cut for time.

I'm at Benjamin AHR. There's a wikia all about the Greatest Generation. So if any of the jokes didn't make any sense to you, you can usually find the explanations behind them over there, as well as just like a lot of really funny stuff. There's a million funny things to laugh at over there on that wakia. And with that we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9 and an episode of the greatest generation Deep Space 9, which may derive a little too much pleasure from inflicting pain and suffering upon our friend Miles O'Brien.

Yeah, some some sadistic fux. That's a fucking bummer. Revealing themselves among the creative star trek community. You lay off Miles O'Brien. It's been through enough. Own! been through enough. OWN! at www.autistown.org Comedy and Culture

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