The Greatest Generation - The Fart Cave (S4E8)

Episode Date: November 2, 2016

When Riker inhales the wrong gas, his memory of the last sixteen years is wiped. He is the captain now, but he has no idea how he got there! Da fuq is Riker asking this turbo lift? Why is Worf so hunchy? Did they get that mask at the Halloween store? It’s an episode with one of the all time bad buttons.

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

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

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

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

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in a Star Trek podcast by a couple of fellas who are frankly a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Benjamin R. Harrison.

If we're being completely honest with ourselves, I'm Adam Prandtica. I think about that fact almost every time we do this. Yeah. I was gonna suggest we open some baseball cards. What do you think? Yeah, I could do that. Tid it. Alright. The game is five cards. The game is exceeding the circle. Where does it just start there? Time to pluck a pendulum. I feel like we're due for a special card. I know, yeah. Peeling back some plastic. These five card packs.

Spirits anything there. Yeah. All right. Looks like I'm starting to hit the point where I'm inevitably getting some some repeats in every pack which hadn't happened once until the last one and then the last one was just a bloodbath of repeats. Hey question for you. Yeah.

How many packs do you have left? I have Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. I have ten. Nine packs. I'm gonna open up a second pack so that I'm even with you. Well, I did get a special. Oh shit. I did get a special. Oh shit. But I'm gonna talk you through the four repeats that I got first. Okay opened. Now my special card here is

an image of Captain Picard and he's like standing behind something orange. And this card is literally two layers of cardboard because there's like a mat around the outside. Like if you were to frame this as a photo, like there was already a mat on it. Oh! And it's a different layer of cardboard. Around that mat is a gold embossed work that just starts with the next generation.

The back of this card, it says, this card contains an original comic book panel from volume 2, number 79. And to me that just makes me think that we are perhaps destined to ultimately add to the Star Trek comic book universe. There's nothing I'm more sure about than that. Yeah, we gotta do it man. Well Ben, I hate to do this to you. Except I secretly enjoy it. I am only gonna talk about one card. One card in the two packs that I just opened. The rest, the rest I'm sure you're familiar with.

And even if you aren't, it doesn't really matter because I want to talk about my third and final autographed card. Uh-oh. It is JC Brandy from that episode tapestry, the Foxy Academy cadet that went into that bar with Picard when he got stabbed by the Nosecans. Yeah. She was there when Picard was like, oh my god! I got a knife poking through the front of my uniform! Rudy! What am I going to do?

JC Brandy really had an effect on me as a young person watching this episode. She was quite foxy. Yeah, she's kind of your type. I mean, based on having met your wife. Yeah, big fan. And, uh, did you know that she was 18 in that episode? No way. Yeah, that's a little bit of trivia about JC Brandy.

Does the card smell like flowers? Did some of her perfume make it onto it or anything? God, I wish. I wish but no. I wonder how rare this is. I'm gonna do a quick ebay search on this one. Yeah, see it. See if it's selling ahead of the yager in terms of price or have you completely jacked the price of yaggers up beyond? I haven't been able to find a yager since I bought them all. of Yagers up beyond. I haven't been able to find a Yager since I bought them all. She's so brandy. It looks like a... Since you bought all Yagers everywhere.

It looks like the market for Brandy's is a little softer than the Yagers. I'm seeing cards anywhere between 7 to 21 dollars. Mine, of course, being a mint brandy, so right? I would expect it would be to the higher Spectrum of those two I'm gonna look up Yagers right now. This is a great pot. It's not all beat up and used the way The the $7 brand. He's are Indeed Oh Brandies are. Indeed. Oh man, I'm not getting any Biff Yeager's on eBay right now.

None. You've successfully cornered the market. Yeah, there's a lot of Chuck Yeager signed cards. Just how I wanted it. Just how I predicted. I want to talk about those, because people know we're going on tour. It's true. It's a sad fact.

I think that we should give a yager away for some achievement by the viewers that show up to these events. You're spending someone else's yagers, Ben. That's what I hear you're doing right now. Well, I said we'd go even, go in Havzies on them. OK. You just send me an invoice. No, but what I'm thinking is like,

I don't know if we want it to be like an audience participation thing or like a best cosplay. I mean, I don't want to be in a position where I'm asking people to cosplay and rock some knockout to the theater on a Tuesday night. Yeah, I got to say like if we're sitting on stage and someone is sitting down in the theater on a Tuesday night. Yeah, I got to say, like, if we're sitting on stage and someone is sitting down in the audience wearing a scant, that's not going to be an uncomfortable,

or that's not going to be a comfortable situation for anyone. Ben, you're going to have a bad time. So I think we could do like maybe a drunk Shimoda moment or people say who their drunk Shimoda is and we tell them, we award the yager to the funniest Shimoda maybe. Oh, like they're telling us Shimoda stories? No, like from the episode. Oh, okay.

So the thing that we review live before we name our own Shimotors, we throw it to the viewer. I think we name our own. And then, you know, within reason, you know, maybe like four or five people can come up and tell us their charmota. Which everyone makes us laugh the most gets a yager. What do you say? That's a natural yager. I want them to do more than that, Ben. But the trouble is I don't have a better idea. All right, well, we can put a pin on this and come back to that. I think what's clear though is that if you buy a ticket, price TBD, chances are, you could take away one of our 30 signed Biff Yaker cards.

I want to go to the event with one of those silver aluminum briefcases that I hand cuffed to my wrist. Yeah, I think it's only right. We should have one of those banking companies deliver them to us. Yeah, Pricewaterhouse Cooper has confirmed the viability of these yaggers. Oh, they're viable. You don't want those yaggers to fall on the wrong hands. Sure, don't.

You really get some mutually assured acres if you did. Pretty happy with our collection. I'm really surprised to go on eBay and find that there are none on there. I think it sounded pretty benign, the idea of buying the world's stock in this product. And now that it's done, I have to admit I feel a little guilty. I barge all the Yagers. Yeah, old Yagers everywhere. I mean you're a bad man. It's true. And the way I'm dealing with my guilt is by giving them away to our viewers. That sounds pretty fun. I mean you can never fully atone for what you've done. We have no law to fit your crime. It's a perfect crime.

Well, actually, you could call it an imperfect crime, couldn't you, much like the title of our episode. Wow, that was almost a pivot. That's like the, that's like the Walter, like running straight into the vault at the Olympics and then just falling backwards. Yeah, they all they all can't be perfect. It's season four episode eight, future imperfect.

It is Raker's birthday party but they are having it in dangerous waters. The ship is cruising near the neutral zone, doing some security sweeps. And so Raker's down on 10 forward with most of the crew, having a blast. He's playing some sloppy jazz trombone, cutting into some cake, y'all getting it up with all his buds. And now- It's hard to make a muted trombone sound fun. It just sounds like a cartoon sound effect.

Yeah, Picard and Data are trying to get down there, but- They know better. You know, they're missing out and they seem to have rebuilt 10-fold or two after that giant fight. Yeah, they finally put it all back together. You don't want to walk their barefoot though, it's like breaking a glass in a kitchen. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Like even if you think you've swept all the pieces up all those glass tables of still left remnants I'm sure yeah, you got to go over it with a wet table cloth I feel like a lot of people listen to our show for domestic advice

Yeah, I think we do a good job. Yeah Yeah You want to you want to get some seltzer on the red wine stains, ASAP. So, Picard and Data are about to go down and join in the fun when Ensign, one-line actor, calls them over to the science station. Captain, I am detecting some unusual fluctuations in subspace frequencies. This is a weird moment. Just like the guy, he calls them over and it's like all you can do is notice that this is a guy we've never seen before with a speaking part. Yeah, and he slowly steps out of frame. Is this guy gonna be in the episode? Yeah, and then they get over to

the, to the science station and he's just gone. He like slowly backs away and he's out of there. And I just thought that that was so funny. Like sir, we can only pay you for a single line featured appearance on this episode. And in the context of the scene, it's really weird too because he's like, hey, I found something crazy. And then he backs away and walks out of scene completely. Like he spilled a drink on his table

and then he just left his dinner. Like, I'm out of here. If you're editing something for a client and you're like, hey, do you want to come check out the latest cut and they come over to the edit bay and you hit play and just hit the bricks. You get in your car and go home. Just that sound of spinning tires out in the parking lot.

But yeah, this reading is weird enough that the card decides to put the Dustbuster Club into action. And what it is is they're getting scanned and the planet that they're near isn't supposed to be inhabited, but there's an energy signature and a cave and they're like, hey, let's poke our nose into this business. See what's going on?

This could be no bueno, you know? And so I think it is Jordy Worf and Riker that beam down to this planet. Alpha Onias 2 or is it Alpha Onias 3? Let me see your Alpha Onias face, Ben Ben. So they beam down and they're like, well this is a fucking dump. And you know, it's a way team job you got here. This place is a dump. Just wait till you see the pool. No water.

And then, uh, Jordy goes on and it turns on the water to the pool and it becomes a beautiful backyard of Wazis. They're poking around this planet and they're like, yeah, nothing's here and also this smell is becoming more and more terrible by the second. They're picking up some methane. And it's kind of a funny moment, right? Because it's like, it's sort of like when they were trying to gas that super soldier guy. And they like injected gas into the cargo bay. It's sort of like that, but for underground caves. And so like, they think this is a, I think this is a naturally occurring phenomenon, but suddenly the transporter not working so hot, and you see the materialization

like try and fail a couple of times, and riker passes out, and there's like a beautiful dissolve into white. And the light moves away, and he's looking up at the ceiling in Six Bay. And... Dr. Crusher, he's awake. The doctor has gone for a school-marmed makeup rapidly.

Will, you remember me? That's good. She's really excited, he's awake. What else do you remember, Captain? Raker comes to you in a biopad that is for some reason surrounded by mirrors. Like, that's an interesting choice. Like, I don't think we've ever seen vanity mirrors in a sick bay before. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I also think this might be the first appearance of Nersel Gawa. Oh, yeah. Cause she's like kind of a regular, she's on the show after this. Yeah. They're like, she's a bit of all right and she can come back. That one guy in the bridge, not so much.

Yeah, that guy who had some energy readings, total garbage line reading by that guy. But Nersogawa saying he's awake, tremendous. Just the best acting. I'm looking at these mirrors now but Nurse Ogawa saying he's awake, tremendous. Just the best acting. I'm looking at these mirrors now, and I think maybe they're like mirrors but can be displays, cause they have some lines and lights on too.

It's sort of like when you stay in a fancy hotel, you'll have the TV inside the mirror. You ever stay in one of those? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's pretty fancy stuff. Interesting that this is Nurse Ogao because she is the age that she is in subsequent episodes.

But this is supposed to be 16 years later. And the deal here is that Riker on the planet contracted a virus that like I guess it just starts a timer and then at some point randomly in the future that timer goes off you get super sick and when you recover you can't remember anything that happened to you before this virus took hold. This has got to be really disorienting for Riker because most of the time he's in sick bay, he's experiencing flashbacks and lots of them. Yeah, and a burning sensation and that's not there. So he just doesn't know what to make of this. He's like, what am I watching right now?

I don't remember this episode at all. The other thing we should point out is that he's got a very distinguished streak of white in his hair and a little bit of gray in the beard. A touch of gray? If you will. He's got some touch of gray going on. And I think that like they may have had the B team from Heron makeup on for this episode because that was basically their approach to making every single character look a little older was touch of gray.

Here's a couple of things that this show cares very little about. Plosible aging makeup. Plosible aging makeup and any transition to commercial that isn't Riker squinting into it. I think he gets four go rounds isn't Riker squinting into it. I think he gets four go-arounds on the Riker squint. If you're keeping score at home. This is a pretty full blown Riker app. So yeah, they start to explain the situation to him and he realizes that he has lost 16 years of his life.

And in the intervening six years, he has become captain of the Enterprise. And the majority of the crew is still there, but no Troy, no Picard. And Starfleet has seen fit to update the uniforms a little bit. They've dispensed with the pips I guess her pleasure not such a big deal for them these days They've they've moved the rank insignia to the back of everybody's combat

They you're gonna like they went pip to bars which if you know anything about genital piercings Yeah, it is is a pretty stark difference of opinion. Yeah. That's... Some people prefer the PIP, other people go for the bars. It's just a personal preference. They say that politics atom is kind of like a pendulum, it swings back and forth. Oh, does it?

It's a direction over-corrects. A pendulum that you can occasionally pop it into a wristwatch. Uh-huh. Yeah, exactly. Pinchalum that is inappropriate to bring out at a picnic by recently discovered. The surprises don't stop there though Adam. Riker is, you know, just trying to wrap his whole mind around all this shit. And he and Dr. Crusher head to the elevator and she's like, well, why don't we head to

your, head to your apartment and he says, no well, why don't we head to your apartment and he says, no, no, my life is on the bridge. We're gonna go to the bridge and he says, main bridge and the computer kind of shits itself a little bit. Main bridge. Repeat command. I said main bridge.

TurboLift is like DEFA. Ha ha ha. Yeah. TurboLift gives a major side eye, and he's like, no, I'm really serious. I want to go to the bridge. And so to the bridge they go, they step out onto the bridge. Some things have changed. There's some new Tupperware glued to the wall in a few different places. Now when you're portraying a future enterprise bridge, you get a want to take some spare

Tupperware and mix up some epoxy resin in 50-50 proportions. If you were a non-latex final glove while you're applying the epoxy. You can avoid having a messy cleanup later. I like to use a spare buttolyd as a place to mix my epoxy. You can keep the other side of the tab to hang on to any loose nuts and bolts you might take down. As yet, disassembling the walls so that you can find them later. Wurf is taken over at Ops. A hunchy wharf. Mm-hmm.

Wesley has transmogrified into a Ferenci. Yeah. And they've got a new lady with no speaking parts at Tactical, but she looks like she can handle her shit. Yeah. Wurf is not looking draping. Camera pans over. Yeah, Wurf's got a,

Wurf, he looks like uncomfortable at the seat. He looks like, you ever get into a car after your wife has driven it and the seats all forward, like scrunched right up against the steering wheel? It looks like Wurf has gotten into a car after your wife has driven it and the seats all forward, like scrunched right up against the steering wheel. It looks like Wurf has gotten into a car and the seat hasn't been adjusted for him. I was going to say it looks like he's gone for flush number two and he's still stuck. You know, he's like considering going to another chapter in whatever his bathroom reading of choices. You can't have that second prune juice.

You got to stay with the one. Yeah, yeah. You got to slow your roll there, but... You're going to be regular, not super regular. And the camera pans over in data is rocking a red shirt, which doesn't, he doesn't look great in it, you know? Not his color. Yeah, it's a little bit clashy with his robot makeup, isn't it?

Yeah, so they're standing round. Riker's kind of getting to know everybody again and they get the word that a Romulan warbird is decloaking and Riker's records like hit the deck He's got a gun And they're like dude chill chill We're like this close to being friends with them. Stop it. Yeah And so they they open up the FaceTime app.

And who's on FaceTime? But El Vira and Captain Picard. Captain Picard, I think we're going to ring this bell quite a few times on the makeup front. I feel like the writers gave the makeup artist for this one. They're like, okay, we have a really specific vision for Picard's future, physically. And they just slide across a table, a picture of Pat Marita from Karate Kid. Yeah.

Well, they spent hours and hours in the mocap room just capturing the back of pat marita's head and then comping it Lovingly onto the back of Patrick Stewart's head. Oh, man. Yeah, his His ring of hair has grown long into a sort of curtain and they've given him bad guy facial hair Like he's got a little bit of a fumantiu situation going. He's got Mirror Universe Spock Goatee. Yeah. Yeah.

And he's rocking an admiral costume as well. And Troy is in regulation uniform. And it's weird, because they're on a Romulan bridge. Yeah, and they're like, cool, great to see it. We'll be right over. We're just over here sampling toaster pastries. Yeah, and so they beam over and they put a little impromptu and McLaughlin group together. If you want.

And it just explains to record that there's a very delicate negotiation of foot between the Federation and the Romulan Empire, but they're really really close to a formalized detente that will presumably mean peaceful federation and cling on type relationship where they're not the same nation, but they are on good terms. And this is all due to some heroics that Riker can't remember from his missing 16 years where he and his crew saved a Romulan ship. It's a bit like the yesterday's enterprise plot, but for Romulans. Yeah, yeah, they do that thing where they're like, uh, remember that awesome thing you did? That's the whole reason that we're here.

It's sort of like, uh, my friends and I have this concept of the apparently story, which is like, if you have too much drink on a particular night and you lose track of a buddy and you talk to them the next day. If their story begins with the word apparently, a great story is to follow. And it's sort of like the riker version of that. Like apparently you're the whole reason that we're so close to peace with the Romulans. Yeah, you missed all the fun, dude.

I like that a lot. So, yeah, the McLaughlin group concludes and it's decided that Riker is going to go back to his apartment with Diana. And when he gets there, she asks him if there's anything there that he recognizes and perfect comedic cue. There's a young man playing bad drum bone just like his daddy off in the corner. And this is the first riker has heard of the fact that in the 16 years that he's lost, he took a wife, had a kid with her, and then she passed away. Yeah, and this was intentional from Deanna Troy. She's like, well, I thought a shock to the system in the manner of you seeing your son

might bring back the rest of the memories that you've lost. This is a theory that Beverly had before you left Six Bay. She's like, well, you gotta go out into the ship and see some stuff because the only way your memory is gonna come back is if you're just out at work, doing the things you usually do. And Riker's kinda pissed at this moment. He's like, yeah, because he's like,

you can't all play this long game. You can't even want to tell me that I was going to walk into my quarters, I could have gone in there and just taken off on my clothes. Yeah, and this used to be my messed up quarters. I like to shit with the door open. You think my son would have enjoyed that in a way. Yeah, they're playing this long game where they think that this is going to knock something loose for him and it'll all come flooding back.

But you know, that's not there's no guarantees. The reveal on the kid is like is it's pretty late in the app. It's like at the one third mark, right? It is. So, so before we break into Act 3, like, there's a lot of time spent between Riker and this kid bonding, but also Ambassador Tomelock has beamed aboard and is like mintsing around being the inscrutable Romulan villain that he is. He's on the Enterprise walking sideways through the corridors because he can't walk with his shoulder square.

Yeah, he's got a lot of a lot of koozy in effect. No major changes to the Romulan uniforms in this episode, despite the 16 years in the future that it's supposed to be taking place. We can't be sure, but I think the writer of this episode watched the premiere episode of the show and was like, you know what was a really effective way to do storytelling? Was to have Riker watch the episode. And so in addition to being like sort of dropped into situations where he has to interpret what the circumstances are on the spot, he also watches a lot of show. He's calling up visual records with the computer and the computer's still jacked like the

computer's given him some sort of fucked up Google feedback. Yeah. Well, one thing that's really fun about this episode is kind of anytime Riker is about to get to the core of something or every time he's about to like find out some new shit, it gets interrupted. And every time he, you know, every time he like tries to do some research on the computer, the computer spits back a 404, you know.

There was something really troubling about every scene he watched between he and his kid. I don't know if you noticed this, but like- What about rough housing? It's like he's cat and captain tickle like it's the only It's the only thing he ever does with his son on video like like son creeps up behind him while he's napping Oh son surprises dad dad starts tickling son like there's four different versions of that that we get in the episode Yeah, I think that's just shorthand for good times between, between parent and child.

I mean, like that's basically what minority reports, like home video shit is, right? I don't remember it being tickle report the way this episode is. Oh yeah, but it's so much more fucked up because he's like watching it and doing drugs at the same time. I love the idea of the writers' room going like, okay, so one of the things we can show

to demonstrate the intimacy of their relationship is just a bunch of tickling, and then we'll have three more examples that we can just come up with later But like stick a pin in those and then we'll come back to it later like yeah, and they never do Well, they sent that they sent that like that note card to the to the second unit like shoot these shoot these five scenes Yeah, that don't really have any dialogue in them and They were working off the wrong color pages, maybe. The watching previous episodes isn't the only thing that's disturbing about this.

I mean, there's a scene where he's sitting there at his desk, and the kid comes in, and there's a horde gun, very prominently, on the table in there. So I just don't think you keep that around a young boy like that, right? Yeah, I think we all know that. I just don't think you keep that around a young boy like that, right? Yeah, I think we all know what a horgon on display means. Yeah, and you don't want to like... You don't want to...

I mean, he's too young to start asking those questions, right? Like, that's a very awkward conversation. It's like walking around wearing a wreath of mistletoe around your junk. You don't just display the horde gun. Yeah. At some point the kid gets injured playing parisi squares and he's in a pretty fun bit of costuming and riker has to go down and be the kind of like the dad that is feeling bad for his kid. And I this seems like such a perfect moment to like dig up a little bit of Kyle Riker stuff because. You know Riker and his father have a very notorious blind jujitsu-based conflict in their relationship and this kid was doing some kind of dangerous sport himself.

And you know, Ryker has big time daddy issues. And I feel like it would have been good in this moment for him to be like, you know, like I don't really remember what kind of a father I've been, but I hope I haven't been like my father was to me. Like, can you tell me about that a little bit? I can't recall what kind of father I've been to you, but I'm almost certain that I haven't fucked your doctor. Yeah, and so this leads to them like going back to the quarters and pulling up some footage of the deceased mother of this kid. This is when Riker starts to smell something fishy because...

The squints get pretty intense at this point. Yeah, they're watching this, you know, the tickle fight and the camera pans over and Minuet is standing there holding a birthday cake. You know, it's like one of those moments where the music goes all tense and Riker gets real pissed. Look, looking, I mean, doesn't have time to to explain why he's so pissed before it gets called up to the bridge. Hey, Minuette, what kind of birthday cake do you like? I like all birthday cake except yellow. Why is that? Because you can't dance to it. My girl. I feel like that joke would have been funnier if she said confetti. The confetti cake. How about this? I like all birth date cake that you can

jump out of. My girl. Fair enough. Yeah. Just punching your stuff up at him. I appreciate that. Yeah, you guess what needed to punch up this episode in a number of places. Yeah, so it gets out of the bridge and he's he's onto them now. So he starts being pretty abusive to to Picard and Tomlock and Wharf and everybody. And there's-

One of the great meltdowns that I think you ever see on this show is Riker basically standing in the middle of the bridge, pointing at people, going, shut the fuck up. You shut up, you shut up. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. It is so great. He's totally unhinged.

And he tells, he tells at this point, Admiral Picard. Big your pattern. I said shut up. As it close your mouth and stop talking. This was a thing that me and my friends took from the show and used for years and years. One of the ultimate lines of dialogue. Yeah, it's a good bit of business. So then Tomlock walks out to the middle of the bridge and

you can tell a special effect is about to start happening because Tomlock is completely different lighting and different color tone from everything else in the frame. All of the characters start to disappear and then the bridge itself vanishes and it is revealed that they are in a Romulan holodeck. Ben, I think I know the answer to this. You watched the remastered version of this episode, yeah? Yes. Due to the weird internet outages that we've been experiencing lately, I was unable to watch this on Netflix. And so instead I watched it on Hulu, which was an SD pre remastered version of the show.

Wow. And I mean, it's got the CBS logo in the corner. It looked like garbage. I've been really spoiled watching the Netflix remastered versions. Yeah. And it made me wonder, like, how does CBS who owns the rights to this show? How do they let that go?

The version that you should be watching right now is the remastered version. And the fact that there is an alternate version that looks as garbage-y as this, I thought was an atrocity. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of viewers that want us to do Deep Space Nine and Voyager after we do TNG.

And I would say that my primary hesitation is having to watch like more than 300 episodes of standard definition television, potentially. And the version I saw this moment of Tomlock walking into into frame differently lit was incredibly bad. It was brutal. And I'm not looking forward to ever watching another episode of the show on Hulu, because that is not how it should be enjoyed. On the other hand. Sponsored by Netflix. Yeah. Hulu, if you would like to sponsor the show, I'd be happy to make just a real easy edit to this episode. I've been watching on Amazon Prime myself and you got the good stuff there. All the HD over here.

Oh good. I am a Qtus of War. Look faces on that vessel. I am a Qtus of War. There are four lights. So the next scene is sort of like Riker being de-olded like they wave a scanner over him and the touch of gray goes away and his combatge goes back to normal and his pips come back. He goes from bars to pips again.

Yeah. He kind of adjusts how he's sitting in the chair as a result. I thought he gave up a lot of information to Tomlock in this. Like it seemed like, you know, Tomlock was sort of monologuing in the Bond villain way. Totally. Which didn't make a lot of sense, but seems like something Tomlock would do, but then Riker was like telling him

how he saw through his plan. And it's like, dude, like what is stopping Tomlock from killing you and just trying this on the next crewman? Yeah, we learned a lot from that writer guy. Version two is gonna be a lot better. Yeah, crazy. Yeah, Raker states that the things that didn't quite work out for him were the computer being slow.

He's like, yeah, computers, it's super fast. It never makes mistakes. Top shelf computer. You know, the deal with cyber is very, very, very tricky, but we have a 10-year-old that is great. The version of the computer in this holodeck program, it was clearly made by a fat guy in a bed somewhere. So 400. Definitely not Russians.

Russians had nothing to do with this. Yeah, and then also the meaning- Is the election over by the time this episode comes out? God, I hope so. I don't think we're like really, really close, but not quite over. Yeah. Yeah. Man.

And the other thing was that he cops to his men. He's like, yeah, check it out. Minuet wasn't even real. And Tom Locke is like, whoa. Well, that really comes as a surprise because we were burrowing into your brains pretty deep. And the part of your brain that Minuet was in was definitely in the real love part.

The part that you typically reserve for non-holiday program people. Like we would believe this if you were Jordy telling us that you were in love with a holiday person, but you're riker man. What gives? I must know the secret of this holiday program. If it's show real that riker is these true feelings for, I must apply these principles to my Reel Doll. I have nearly unlimited power as a doubt, but I never expected to be shown up and quite as bad as this. I'm aware of the binars, but I had no idea that they could simulate a female quite so effectively. Well I enact physical love on my real dolls. I've never actually felt emotional love towards them.

The way that Commander Riker feels towards Minduette. Come to think of it, not quite sure what an emotion is. Yeah and Tomlock is really blown away and to to Tomlock's credit, he doesn't make it weird, because basically Riker has Barclay'd Tomlock in this moment. And Tomlock could be like, whoa, dude, that's kind of fucked up, right? Like, you clearly took some liberties with the holiday program, That's kind of gross.

But he plays it pretty cool. Yeah, and he's like, listen. And Rikers is proud of it too. He's like, yeah, very realistic. You got to just be on this. This is some top shelf holiday. Dalmok and Jaland and Tanaga. 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. 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 Non-Giani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org.

Look, your podcast apps already open, just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goat try. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Whoa, rats, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line. And boy, what do I, these giraff I found you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line and boy These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not and they've such short neck

But I'm here and we need to get on this side. I gotta get on the art. Yeah, it's about terrain. Got us about to destroy humanity Hey, oh, sir, sir, 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 seem like something for us to check out.

We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on maximumfund.org. Tom Lack goes and throws Riker in the space Pokey. And who is in there, but the the kid that was supposedly Riker's son. We didn't even talk about the fact that Riker names his son in this in this theoretical future, Jean-Luc.

This was the moment that my wife walked into the room as I was watching. And her eyes couldn't have rolled harder. Like they, she always fall backwards. Oh, yeah, she lost her balance a little bit. Hmm. She was like, I feel for is so stupid. I definitely hello, Led at that moment. Yeah.

You know, for there were some real good writing in this, I mean, I think, what would you have named your son if you're Will Riker? Warf, right? Obviously. Warf Riker has a great name. Warf Riker, I dig that. This might be a good time to talk very, very briefly

about this child actor. Yeah. How'd you feel he did? I thought he did really good. He's now playing two characters. He's about to play a third. I thought he was... What is wrong with this episode is not him.

I'll say that. No, yeah, yeah, absolutely. He seemed to have more gravitas than I gave his age typically does if you're casting the series though I I think it's interesting the roles that they gave the slick back kids to like clearly this guy was the best of the group and And those that played the slickback trilogy characters were not as strong, actor wise to me. Yeah, well they're a little younger.

And I was like, there was a moment where I thought this might be the kid from slickback part one. Yeah. Because it looks a little similar and he's definitely got some pomade going in the pre twilight zone moment twist. Yeah, stuff. In jail, he's got like kind of a Caesar cut. Like they go to a much more unkempt look with his hair.

Sure. And so he and Riker affect and escape from the cell. Like they do, they do some classic Star Trek, beat him up, sound of Romulans, and steal a phaser pistol, and there's some fun running through the hallway, shooting bad guys, and they slip into an air duct, fire a shit behind them, and they're like,

they're doing the girl from aliens, you know? They're like slipping into the tunnels and getting away from it all. Yeah, they're getting nudy. Yeah. Nude-esque. Yeah. They're like, let's get away from here, you bitch. They've become nudists.

Riker starts talking to this kid and he's like, what's your actual name? And it's like Ethan. And Ethan starts like giving Riker some backstory on the actual situation. And he slips up and refers to Tomlock as ambassador and Riker catches him in this slip up and realizes that this too is a simulation. He's inside Russian nesting doll, Holodex. Yeah, he has to go less deep. Yeah. And, yeah, so he calls Ethan on this and like the much better effect this time, the system

of Romulan storage tunnels disappears and they are back in the cave from the beginning. The fart cave. And they talk it over and Ethan explains that he is the last of his race and his mother left him here so that he could be safe from their enemies whoever they are and left this life. The Hushknock. The enemies are never named but we can assume that when an enemy is not named it's the Hushknock. never named, but we can assume that when an enemy is not named, it's the who's knock. Yeah, the rangers like those guys don't you worry you're pretty little head about them.

I'm almost positive they're not coming back and the guy you killed them is a little bit distracted. He's wearing out a pocket pussy and a brig somewhere. He tells, Ethan tells a pretty interesting story of like, holodeck as babysitter, right? And it seems pretty realistic. Like if you're a parent and your family's under attack, you want to keep the kid safe and protected and happy and not bored, you plop them down in front of the TV and make sure he's got plenty of cartoons to watch and it's basically like the

holodeck babysitter story is the yarn that he spins here. I found this utterly believable. Yeah, well I mean in the universe it totally is. It's like a holodeck that can read your mind and the kid was with it for a while, and then he started to see the pattern on the walls of the cave and realized that he was in this limited reality, and this was like his escape plan. So he reveals his true form to Riker right at the end of this. And this is like a total unintentional slide whistle on the episode because his true form is that he's a gray.

This is one of the like this comes 20 years before the contemporary version of this happens, but he totally, my name is Jeff's, this scene, like from 21 Jump Street. Riker's like, what should I call you? And he's like, my name is Jeff. And turns into a gray. And then Riker in one of the all-time insults, like he's now disclosed his true form, his true name, and Riker's like, now, that's not the name I'm going to call you. To me, you'll always be a shone book.

Yeah. Like, what? That was really fucked up. It's like they gave like an insane 12-year-old the opportunity to write the last 10 lines in this script. Ooh, and we've seen some rubber masks before, but... This is like Halloween shop. Yeah, like this is not like a pro hair and makeup, you know, creature effects shop came up with this. This is Halloween city.

Yeah, yeah, this is like like oh there used to be a fucking Payless shoe source here For right now it's a Halloween store and will be until November 1st when it turns into a Mad Max-esque wasteland Oh boy, it's rough and and I think they might have gotten this costume from the wasteland, you know It is it is a succession of of show-stopping bangers here like it is it's the name it's the costume it's Riker calling him a different name it's them beaming up like it stumbles towards the finish line so badly here that it really, I like I told

you before we watched this episode how much I loved it, but I had forgotten how badly the button ruins it. It is one of the all-time bad buttons. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, and it's it's a pretty damn solid episode up until literally, literally like the, like if it's a 44 minute episode, the 42 minute mark is where they completely lose it. It's crazy because they didn't, like they sort of overrode it, right? If it could have had a neutral ending if they just didn't tack that button at all and it was just like the guys The guy turns into his real form says nothing and then a riker goes to to beam up like that That amount of neutrality does not ruin the episode in the way that this scene does

Or not even turn into his form. Yeah, yeah, yeah beam. We can cares. Yeah, who cares what he looks like? Yeah into his form. Yeah. Yeah, beam Ethan. Like who cares? Yeah, who cares what he looks like? Oh, yeah. This is really bad. Like if it's possible to put a scene on Mount Armas, like maybe under the waterfall is where you keep just the scene armises, this is where they go. Sure. Did you like the episode though as a whole? I think it's a whole, it's definitely

on the positive side for me. I can forgive that slip up at the end given how many fun ideas and the twist is like a genuine twist when Riker smells the wrap and you know, like the twist is like a genuine twist. When Riker, you know, smells the rap and, and you know, like that's some shaman shit right there. Yeah. And no one is better equipped to act out his rage at that point than Riker. Right. Like, I couldn't buy anyone else doing that for him.

He was great. Yeah, you didn't ask him, John. How about yourself? Do you like it? If it's possible to love an episode and exclude the last 90 seconds, then I love this episode. But I'm so conflicted about it because the end is so bad. I can't remember another episode that ended this poorly after such a great beginning.

And it's not just a great beginning, the entire episode's great except for that. Yeah. Yeah, just a real weird moment there. Absolutely. Hey Adam, there may or may not be something coming in on subspace. Should we check that out? Yeah, let's do that. Let's see if it's Pips or bars

Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on secured channel Supplement Supplement Yeah, it's extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship Adam what we got here is a personal priority one message. It is from the BBB crew to Jason Boyer. Here is how it reads.

Happy birthday Jason. We couldn't think of anything else to get you. And with greatest GenCron 2017 tickets not yet on sale, we figured that this was the next best slash most embarrassing. It's the truth. Also, what better way to have you get birthday wishes from your favorite immortal being Kevin? We will see you out in the barrego, the BBB crew. Did someone shame my name? Hey, I'm a little bit like beetle juice, where you say

my name to invoke my presence, except for me, you only have to say it one time. I have a red overgations birthday wish list on his Amazon website. I couldn't help but notice that there were no real doors on this list. There wasn't even a pocket pussy and I just feel like that's a major oversight unless it has some kind of huge collection that I wasn't aware of previously. I'll have Jason and his friends know that my prices are reasonable. They are commensurate with the quality of my work. Take this very seriously. I consider myself the jupetto of Reildos. Ask me about my new line of mail Reildos

that picture interest. Happy birthday, Jason. Happy birthday to all birthdays everywhere. If you'd like to get a priority one message, you can do it. You go to Maximumfund.org slash Jemlo Tron. It's a hundred bucks for a personal message. And it is 200 bucks for a commercial message. Isn't that right, Adam?

It's true. It is a thousand bucks for a Kevin Hux bridge message We're upping the price do to the demand the demand for Kevin Hux bridge people love the bridge. It's true Hey, Ben. What's that, Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Incredible. Drunk Shimoda!

I did. This may be just projecting, apropos in this episode, but the the Ferengi Helmsman doesn't have any lines. And I just looked at, like it was all I could focus on when that character was on screen was that guy's face and all I could see in it was like I can't believe I spent four fucking hours in the makeup chair for three fucking days. Yeah. I don't even get to speak a line. I'm getting scale at best. They give that fucking Jake guy at the science station line and they don't give the one

person on the bridge crew who had to go through the most makeup anything. Yeah. What the fuck? Yeah, that just doesn't seem fair. Yeah. So that that Franky got my drunk Shimoda. How about yourself? Mine also got a little out of the episode a little bit. It just gave me something to think about, which was, so Ryker has just finished screaming at everyone on the bridge about how fucked up everything is and how he doesn't believe what's happening to him And then he walks up in front of the view screen and he says What do we end the charade?

Anytime a character besides Picard says that word I what I want is the cut to Picard and him like not understanding what that word is like Like I'm sorry. Did you mean, Sherad? So, yeah, that to me, like, it took me out of the episode a little bit. But yeah, my, my Shimoda goes to Frakes and his line reading of that. And I wanna know maybe if he was tempted to give it the Englishman read.

Yeah, that could be Captain's prerogative, you know, could be. What do we have coming up on the next episode? Next episode is season four, episode nine, final mission, after being accepted to Starfleet Academy, Wesley, a company is becard on a final mission, only to find himself struggling to keep the Captain alive. Wesley's 18 years old, he's like, I've been in the game too long and I'm ready to retire. Wesley Crusher.

Oh man. Yeah. Is this another road trip? I remember a couple of things about this. I remember there's a scene where they have the Cross at Desert and Picard tells everybody to breathe through their nose to preserve water. And is that a thing? Yeah, I guess you exhale more water through your mouth and through your nose. Is that real science? I think it is. Wow. But that made a big impression on me as a kid.

And I definitely remember a couple of times where I was on a camping trip with my family where I was like, I've got a breath through my nose to preserve water. Oh, that's awesome. It actually changed your behavior. I don't remember this episode at all, Ben. At all. And in fact, my head can't and is screwing it up with that last

road trip episode where Wesley and Picard ate finger sandwiches in the back of the Previa. It's kind of like that episode combined with the Echo Papa 607 episode. Right. They're in a cave. There's some caretakering going on. Kind of shit. There is an interest in disclosing some personal information, but then they get interrupted. Are we gonna get some of those scenes?

I can't imagine that that would happen. That never happens on this show. You know what does happen on this show, Adam? People disclosing their love of our show through their support at maximumfund.org slash donate. That's what I was gonna say. They also disclose it by going on iTunes and leaving nice reviews.

They disclose it by wearing our legendary merchandise around in public. They even wear it in public. I'm gonna let you in on a little secret, Adam. I have exclusive to the tour poster and t-shirt available if everything goes well. So if you come to one of our live shows, it's the only way you can get a couple of priceless single run merch items. You know, I think you and I are both acutely aware of how valuable a signed item is. Yes. I hope I get to sign some posters.

I'd sign your poster. I'd sign your shirt. It doesn't even have to be one of our shirts. I'll sign any shirt. I'll sign your knuck. Oh, God. Does he would have to be one of our shirts? I'll sign any shirt. I'll sign your knuck Oh god, I don't know if I could all right, I'll sign some knuck too Yeah, the next signing booth will be next to the bar

We're gonna we're gonna come to regret this. If you want to tell us what a terrible idea that is, you can go to Twitter and find us there using the hashtag greatestgen. You can also reach out just directly using our handles. I'm at Cut for Time. Ben is at BenjaminRAHR. I would also encourage you to take part in our subreddit, which is reddit slash r slash greatest gen, or our Facebook group, which is the greatest generation. Like our Facebook page, sign up for our mailing list. You can find the mailing list on the Facebook page and subreddit and everything else.

That's how you find out about greatest JNCon and other live things we will be doing. It still sounds unbelievable to me that there's enough interest to make that happen. It's certainly not because we want to do it. It's not coming from us. It's coming from the interest of our viewers and we're happy to do it. We're givers, Ben. I think it's going to be really fun, but yeah, we're doing it for you guys, so you guys got to come through. Yeah, you get us you get to do your end of the bargain which is show up, please. Yeah

We got to thank Adam Ragusia for our priority one music and dark material for our theme music and Why don't we throw a thank you to the great folks at Maximumfund.org who give us a lot of support on making this show happen each and every week and we uh... we've really come a long way with uh... under their tutelage I think. Yeah we've been in more and more contact with them about a bunch of different stuff and it's just great to have their support and to not be ignored on an email or laughed at on a phone call those Those guys are great, and they've become great friends too. So, love them. With that, we will be back at you next time. They're a great episode of Star Trek,

the Next Generation, and the final episode of the greatest generation. Really? It's probably not going to really be the one. I thought you were talking Armageddon here. Like, yeah. Like I was calling it quits. Yeah, like it's over. If you were to retire from the show, Ben, I would expect a personal letter at least.

Yeah, you would find a letter of resignation on your desk with a knife through it. Or you'd stuck to your wall with an arrow. Yeah, yeah. But one of those arrows with the suction cup on the end, very non-threatening arrow. And then you're like, how does this stick to the wall when there's a piece of paper in between it and the wall? Oh, that's because there's a knife underneath the suction cup. Oh, that's a good invention.

That's a very dangerous Spencer's gift, gag gift right there. Yeah, if you get right through TSA with that. Maximumfund.org Comedy and culture, artist owned. Listen or supported.