The Greatest Generation - The Hood Doesn’t Get Bangers (TNG S1E1-2)

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

When Captain Picard sets off on the D’s maiden voyage, his mission to open trade negotiations with the Bandi gets interrupted by the Q. But after Commander Riker realizes that Farpoint Station is too good to be true, Counselor Troi breaks out the thesaurus to help solve the crew’s first space mystery. Who is not at all prepared for this assignment? Which movie stills were on the mood board for the post-atomic horror? What exactly is wrong with the Lego D model? It’s the episode that hasn’t exactly figured things out yet.Support the production of our showsMembers get benefits including bonus episodes and an ad-free experienceSign up for our mailing list!Get a thing at podshop.biz!The Greatest Generation is hosted by Adam Pranica and Benjamin Ahr HarrisonThe show is produced by Wynde PriddySocial media is managed by Rob Adler and Bill TilleyMusic by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaDiscuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen and find us on social media:YouTube | Instagram | BlueskyAnd check out these online communities run by FODs:Reddit | USS Hood Discord | Facebook group | Wikia | FriendsOfDeSoto.socialSupport the production of The Greatest Generation Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, it's Ben and Adam with a message about the future of this show. We've been making Greatest Generation and Greatest Trek for over 10 years. And we just did the most significant thing we've ever done for our future. We've gone independent. This new era means we're starting all over from scratch with our listener support, just like we're starting from scratch with Star Trek the next generation. Here's what makes this feel not so risky. this is going to work if the folks who love these shows continue to support them and we need to rebuild back from zero and get to our first 5,000 members right away. These are folks that we're calling the founders. You'll be able to call yourself a founder for Time and a Miriam if you are among them. So we've made this really easy to do. Membership starts at just $6 a month. And that gets you an ad-free feed of both of our shows, all of our bonus episodes. No fast-for.

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Greatestrek.com is how you do that. Thanks a lot. We really appreciate it. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage. Welcome to the Greatest Generation, the next generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast. I'm Adam Pranica. I'm Ben Harrison. We are starting that loop back around. Big day for the show. Big day for us.

We're a rewatch podcast now, Ben. We are. Yeah, this makes us a re-rewatch, doesn't it? It does. My wife was trying to tell Daron, my little boy, about what my show is. Very hard for him to understand because, you know, his favorite TV show is like Daniel Stripe a Tiger. and doesn't really understand what a podcast even is. But he said, Daddy, I think you should name your show, Live Long, and Strawberry. God, what an idiot. I mean, as a parent, you can't just say what I said to your own kid, but you got to be thinking it, right? All I was thinking about was the T-shirt that I need to make now.

Podshop. Dot Biz is where you will find any old band idea that goes immediately from his brain to the store, passing directly through whatever approval process we used to have. Podshop. I love it, personally. It's a big surprise. It's just a good feeling to know that we're back in the saddle, friends of DeSoto, not abandoning us. No.

We hope. We've unpacked in our new home. I love unpacking. in a new home. I hate packing. Unpacking. Excellent. Putting everything where it's supposed to go. Deciding where things are going to go. Yeah. I love it. You get to do that cool thing where you step back in a room and kind of like

picture. Like, what if the couch was like there? Right. Right. What if we move a couple of the segments around? See how that feels. I don't know. We have also talked about this specific episode more than once. because we also did the re-encounter at Farpoint live show a couple of years ago. I mean, it can't be because there's so much there. Right? I was going to kind of say the opposite.

Like, I know that we have watched this episode a lot, and the first time we recorded about it, it was like a 25-minute little thing. But, like, I watched it this time, and I was like, I have so much to talk about. So many things I'm noticing this time through that I haven't in previous, watches. And I kind of think that that's what I'm most excited about with rewatching Star Trek the next generation. I think that's why people rewatch it. Like, I went out and asked a couple of

FODs. Like, why do you rewatch it? Do you think most people watch it one time or are they rewatching it all the time? And universally, they were like, I don't know anyone who's only seen this once. And they were like, I asked three people. Yeah. And the first one was like, it's comfort TV to me. and it feels optimistic in a way that a lot of TV isn't right now. And then the second guy was like, I catch things that I didn't notice the first time, new details and shit, and that makes me happy. And the third one was like,

I personally like nostalgia, and it's comforting to me to, like, wrap myself in the blanket of Star Trek, and it's like visiting old friends. And I thought all of that was super accurate. I think that's fair. Well, I don't think we should tarry any longer. I think we should get right into this thing.

Yeah, let's go back to September 28th, 1987. Ben, I was eight, you were three. Three, yeah, you're right. Amazing. It's the pilot episode of Star Trek The Next Generation, and it is called Encounter at Far Point. Ben, I don't remember this opening scene in first shot, and I've seen this episode of Punch,

but when I popped in the Blu-ray as I'm, enjoying these episodes this time through. We open on a star field, and for some reason a set of stairs, and when the Enterprise D walks down into the living room, it is beautiful. Get a load of this ship! We get our beauty shots right out of the way here, and what a hottie, absolutely bad from every angle.

Bad from every angle is how I described the Lego model, Ben. And I noticed you have that Enterprise Lego model behind you that the viewers can see. I honestly, like, watching this episode noticed some more things that are wrong with the Lego model. That's hilarious. So, yeah, we get our captain's log, and he's in his ready room. I noticed that this is the only shot of the non-Battlebridge ready room. that we get. But yeah, he's talking about how they're going to go out to Farpoint Station.

And after that, whole galaxy is their oyster. But when he walks onto the bridge, Lieutenant Torres says, something strange is on his detector circuit. Some real TOS language right at the beginning here. I don't know if I noticed the last time. It is incredible how poorly miced folks on the bridge are right off the bat. Yeah.

It kind of emphasizes how large the space is, because a lot is made of Picard's description of his brand new ship, you know, being so large, being so technologically advanced. The largeness is emphasized from Jump, I think. The characters that get emphasized from Jump are really Picard, Data, and Troy. Like, they get introductions in this opening scene

where, you know, we learn that data has a, feeble understanding of idiomatic language and a crazy encyclopedic brain. We learn about Troy being able to sense things on a level that we might not personally be able to sense them. It was interesting to me that like Yarr and Worf are there, but they are not really given any character development in this moment. True. It is breathtaking how bad of a data episode this turns out to be, I feel like right from the beginning, because I was really reminded about how unprepared data seemed to be for this assignment. Like, misunderstanding words and meanings of words right away, that seems to be kind of a crucial part of your job if you are serving at

his station. I also noticed the makeup on data is really inconsistent throughout the episode. Like all the stuff in the holodeck looks exactly like that camera test footage of data that goes around every so often. But it looks pretty normal here. And they come across this thing that they're detecting and it's a giant chain link fence in space. And onto the bridge appears Delancey as Q as like a – this is like not an age of sail captain. But he says like he's a captain so that Picard can understand. what kind of guy he is, right? Yeah, like Renaissance-era captain

and Renaissance-era speech. Yeah. Go back whenst thou camst. He should be eating a turkey leg or something. When he says, we call ourselves the cue, I was wondering, like, does that imply like it's the royal we? Like, did they know that there were going to be

other cues at this point, or is this just the three-dimensional expression of the queue in our universe? Torres talks so much in the beginning, Ben. I know you developed an attachment to this character. He gets frozen right away. Yeah, really terrible. He was just going to stun him, too.

Like, his phaser wasn't set to kill. You can tell Picard's kind of an awe of this power, the freezing power, I mean. And, I mean, they just got to use this effect again when I saw how good it was in the beginning, right? Yeah, so good. Q is like, yeah, I would never let you guys get the drop on me. That's just foolish, given what we know about humans. They rush Lieutenant Torres to Six Bay. I personally would have rushed him to Thaw Bay, but, you know,

maybe it's a little bit further away. The facilities on board a galaxy class starship don't include, like, the soaking tubs of a national football league team, for example. Right, right, yeah. So many things have advanced in the future, but athlete medicine, not one of them. We have talked a lot about, you know, future cryopod and wiping the frost from it in order to see what's inside. Torres is the pod.

Yeah, yeah. No one wipes his face like I might have expected. You could do that, right, without hurting him? Or is the risk that he's actually frozen and you could, like, actually rub off his face? Right. rub his face off. He doesn't shatter like the T-1000 when he like hits the floor, though. So I don't think he's quite rose in liquid nitrogen frozen.

No, he's definitely bendy. Yeah, a little bit of flex to him. Cube becomes like a World War II guy and also a captain in that case. and he's like just saying like humans are these are these brutes that he can't allow to venture out into the galaxy you guys got to go home and Picard is protesting we're not like that we used to be like the guy you're dressed as is is definitely not something we're proud of but we've moved on that nonsense his censure is behind us Q does another costume change and now he is drugs soldier I love the spin move he does, kind of like Vana Whiting Whiting, Wharf. Like, it reminded me of like Chris Tucker in the fifth element.

Yeah. It must be green, okay? Okay. The detail I really enjoyed this time was between all the costume changes, John Delancey's face also changes. Like, as drugged up warrior, his eyes are super sunken and dark. Yeah. He looks strung out.

He really does good work here in this scene. Lawyer Bacard just cannot help himself. he puts all of this argument about whether humans are any good and can be allowed into the galaxy in terms of make your case and Q just loves this idea. The whole thing was Picard's idea. And Q was like, okay, I got to go get my judging playset ready. I'll be back. Picard totally does that thing where Gozer asks him a question.

and Picard accidentally thinks of the staypuff marshmallow man and that is the trial that we end up getting. I couldn't help it. It just popped in there. You want that judge if you're going to trial. Super soft, right? Yeah. You're fucking tan ply, bud.

Warf and Yarr wants to fight the queue. And they're like, come on. This is not a time to cut and run. But Troy is like, you guys, like, you're not seeing this thing the way I'm seeing it. It is freaking me out the level of power here. Like there's no way we can do anything to damage it. We got to go. It's interesting that the course Picard chooses is a combination of those two suggestions, the fighting and the fleeing.

Yeah. I mean, this is the ship that is Porcadolos Dose the ship. Right. And he's like, yeah, we've got this galaxy class. We got to do it. He makes an interesting caveat, though. He's like, all of the orders from now on will be done by printing them out on the ship and we're not going to use any transmissions to do it. So we're not going to be using the intercom,

but get ready. We're going to go to high warp. And like, I just really wanted to cut around to the different departments and, you know, pieces of loose leaf coming off of the cop here. Because isn't there a quality to future paper that is interesting?

Like, it was Battlestar Galactica that showed us that, like, that their version of future paper was dot matrix printer paper only with the corners cut off. Yeah. Show us your future paper, Star Trek. Nobody likes right angles on Caprica. You got to cut those corners. Exactly.

So we're printing orders out all over the ship. A lot of recycling is going to have to get done at the end of this episode. There's a, like, just another beauty shot of engineering. Like, it's very clear that they're very proud of this set, but they haven't thought of anything to do with it yet. So there's just like a wordless sequence where Worf goes into engineering, like says something to a guy, you know, out of earshot and then comes back to the bridge and he's like, yeah, we're ready to go. There is a lot of fat this episode like that, I think. And I love how dialogue-free that moment is, too. It's so fun. Seeing engineering this way made me wonder about like, you know, all of the paper that's going to be generated by Picard's order. do you think there's a possibility that you can use the warp core as a furnace?

Like can you just throw your trash into it and have it burn with antimatter and matter explosions? But there's all this ash that builds up then and like the cool like blue toruai that stack are just full of dust and dirt because of that? But like when we finally see the inside of where the dilithium is kept, there is a sort of like, fireplace-style iron shelf in there. That reminds me a lot of a fireplace. Or is it like the paper tray in your office copy machine? Like you've got to like get it lined up just right. And you've got to look at the little diagram to see which side the paper is going to get printed on.

PC load letter. What the fuck does that mean? Nothing makes me angrier than my printer. Why are they so bad? They're all awful. They've had my entire life to make a printer that is any good at all, and they don't seem to have cracked the code. Yeah. So this becomes a race with the D being chased by Q's collapsed fence, which is now turned into a glowing marble that chases them from behind.

And I wanted to see through the legs. Like we've been watching a bunch of TOS on Greatest Trance. And my favorite shot in TOS is like behind through the nacelles. Yeah. This is Robinson. You're trying to seduce me. This was the opportunity for that and we don't get it. It's just a Starfield to the rear.

It's really too bad. Would this thing be called a cue ball, Adam? Yeah. Yeah, I can get with that. Okay. So Troy talks about, you know, this thing is, I mean, it's maybe it's life, but it's like kind of past that from where we're sitting. very, very different from us.

But fortunately, we've got this very, very fast ship, and they are really opening it up. Like, let's see what this engine's got. And they're up to 9.8 on the warpometer. And they're talking about how risky this is, like everything is being pushed past the red line. And Picard starts spinning out this. Let's get the ship separated.

Let's put all the kids and families and stuff in the saucer section Take the Star Drive. Let the cue ball chase that, you know? Orff immediately takes on bridge with this. So the Klingons and the kids go to the saucer section, right? And like the varsity team goes to the Battle Bridge. This is so humiliating for him. I'm a clean-off, sir. I'm sick of being on B-Squod.

Listen, you may be on B-Squod, but you're the B-Squod leader. They head to the Battle Bridge. and the separation sequence is like as long as we remember, because there's also, like, it is not just that they play the entire theme song, but they also have a huge montage of, like, thousands of extras walking around the ship. Not in a panic, but with a tremendous amount of purpose. They show, like, Vulcans and their children. They show men in dresses.

They show, like, very civilian-looking people. The actual mechanic of separating the saucer is, something that gives me chills every time to watch. Like, this moment hit 100% of the time for me. And it made me wonder, like, in retrospect, did they do this the right amount of times for you in this series? Was it more than you expected? Was it less than you expected?

It was definitely less than I expected. And I feel like it must have been so expensive to shoot because when you're shooting two models in the same shot and they're moving like you actually have to mount them on something that will move them smoothly like almost always when you're shooting a miniature spaceship

like this it's the camera that actually moves in the shot not the model the model is stationary and to get the illusion of movement you you dolly the camera past it but in these there's a couple of moments in here where the saucer is coming

away from the ship and it looks so smooth Like, that's got to have been just a tremendously tricky technical process at the time. This entire sequence is made up of the best angles of these two parts of the ship. Yeah. I think later on in the episode, like, there are bad angles of the Star Drive section that I wish they didn't show. I totally agree. I was watching, like, toward the end, there's a couple of shots of it in orbit of the planet. And I was like, if I walked in and I was like, this is the new Star Trek.

Fuck this. It's bad. It looks really bad. And I think it's a quality to the wide shot. The Star Drive section just looks insignificant. It really does. In the wide shot, that is kind of unfortunate. In a way that the saucer section looks pretty great, I think, from a lot of angles.

I was also thinking, like, this is kind of like a Greek philosopher, puzzler. Are there two enterprises now? Does the registry number of one of them change? Is it like when the president is on an airplane, that becomes Air Force One, no matter what airplane it is? I think that's a great call. Yeah, Enterprise is where the captain is. Yeah. So they go to the battle bridge, and Yarr is like so keyed up to pick a fight with this queue. And Picard is so mean to her. He's like, oh, you think we should fight it? I'm really curious to hear why you think that's a good idea. Will you please tell the group, Tasha Yard?

I'd like to hear your advice. I spoke before I thought, sir. I don't think it's mean, and I don't really feel like Picard does that mean throughout the episode. I think what we get here is a quality that we tend to get in New Star Trek, too, which is like a lot of random crew people piping up

in situations. And we also get this in TOS quite a bit, too. I think we asked this question on a recent episode, which was like, what are these Dust Boucher Club folks doing, like the background guys, what are they doing having interactions with the main threat in the episode for? Yeah, yeah.

You get that a lot here. Maybe not your place, Lieutenant Torres. So the Star Drive section turns around and stops. That's the plan. They're just going to wait for Q to get there. And Picard surrenders to a being whose only demonstrated power up to now is a space fence that they successfully escaped from when they saw it. It becomes a space fence again, and this time a spheroid that encircles them.

And Q is like, all right, I got the play set going, and we go to the post-atomic horror judicial playset. And the proximity of our bonus episode about this, I think, was the thing that made me think about it. But I have never made the connection at how time. bandit-y, the vibes in this are? Great call. Yeah. God, time bantus is weird. It's such a weird movie. And this feels so much like it in so many ways. Like, I feel like they got some, like, time bandit stills for the mood board when they were figuring out what these scenes would look like. There's a real quality of what the hell is this that I

expected to be more centered on the ship and the new crew. and everything having to do with this future technology, if you're watching Star Trek the next generation for the first time, that is instead right now, like, what the hell is this trial? The post-atomic horror courtroom? Okay. It is the era from which drugo army guys come. And so there's one of them, you know, yelling at them

and firing his weird arm gun here and there. He's playing Edward 40 caliber hand. right? Like there's no taking off that gun to go to the bathroom. You got to finish your clip. And then you realize you and all of your buddies have the gun and it's like, how are we going to get out of this? I guess we got to go somewhere and ask someone for help? There's no one to take the gun off your hand when you're that guy. He gets his ass kicked by Yarr and then his own guy comes over and pumps him full because he lost. But not before he's able to get one last snoot in. before going.

I saw this as like, man, what a lucky dude. He knows he's going to get it. Why not do the snoot first? Died doing what he loved. Yeah. This is like that character in Project Hail Mary that's like, give me all the heroin for when it's time. I thought of that myself.

Where does this dead soldier get pulled to when his foot is encircled with a rope and he is just dragged off screen? I think they use Q's floating band Like what they do is they tie a rope around the foot, run it back down the tunnel around a corner and then to the back of Q's bench. And as the bench floats out, what happens is the rope pulls the body in the other direction. It's very efficient that way, Ben. This is a society that is almost hell-bent on efficiency.

Absolutely. Yeah. So this is very clearly not the kind of trial anyone was hoping for. And Q is like, yeah, I mean, it's going to be fair. It'll be totally equitable. Look at how fair I am. I'm going to thaw out Tasha Yarr after her violent outburst just to show you that, yeah, I'm merciful. Let's start this trial.

I think Yarr is such an interesting character as a zealot of Starfleet. Like, Starfleet being such a soft, cushy, nice-coated thing. and she is like a, I will defend with my life, the soft cushy thing kind of person. This episode really, really wants us to understand her deal as soon as possible in a way that you could save for an episode later. You don't need this right now. And I think that makes it challenging to an actor.

I'm not sure if Denise Crosby knows who this character is yet. And yet in this scene, she's made to voice her position so passionately that it's super duper conspicuous. It's kind of the main scene for Yarr in a lot of ways. So, you know, a very, very tiny window into what she's all about. Picard calls Q on this bullshit. It doesn't use the term drumhead, but like that's the kind of vibe of this trial. And he's like, you know, you said the prisoners wouldn't be harmed.

Now you're icing another crewman of mine. like maybe you're scared. Maybe you don't believe truly that you'll be able to prove your point about us being worthless savages. And the racial connotation involved in this too, right? Like being a grievously savage race

feels deeply unfair for Deanna Troy to defend as a part of this. And I was thinking a lot about Worf being away on the saucer. Like kind of a good thing he's not involved either, right? Because there is no way he's innocent in a trial where that's the charge.

Here's another thing I noticed on this watcharound is when we learn about the Cardassian legal system in Deep Space 9, they talk about it being guilty until proof and innocent as the standard of justice there. And I feel like there's a lot of humans that are like, that is monstrous. Who would do that? And it's like one of those, if you're pointing at someone, you got three fingies pointing back at yourself, humanity. I was also thinking about

the angle not taken by Picard, which is like, we're not the only space-faring race in this galaxy. How did this trial go with the others that inhabit this area? Like you said, the Cardassians, like how'd they do? How'd they do?

We hear a lot about the Ferengi in this episode. Were they pretty successful here? Yeah. Yeah, none of that. So Picard, like, sort of under duress, pleads provisionally guilty. The grad filter on him when he does this. Absolutely insane. I think we've talked about that before.

You can barely see the top of his face. It's tough. But with the promise of no legal trickery or finding loopholes or bullshit, we play back like the the words that Q used to describe what the trial is going to be using tape recorder data. And Picard agrees like, okay, like use the evidence of the mission that we're about to do to determine whether or not we can reasonably be called Savage at this point in our development. Can we please throw out the entirety of human history? Can we start the recorder now? would be great. That would be more fair because honestly, I can't defend humanity up until now.

We can't change the past, man. Yeah, yeah. Q is agreeable again here. He's like, yeah, I'm not going to litigate past people, but present people, you betcha. How about we use the Far Point Station mission as that test? And so the group is sent back to the Battlebridge, and they are headed to Far Point Station. I love O'Brien being oblivious to the fact that that everybody else in the room got pulled away for reasons. What is present course, Khan? It's what it's been all on, sir. Direct heading to Farpoint Station.

Makes the case for his entire career in Star Trek in this moment, in my opinion. And we cut to Farpoint, where we get Rikers log. He just got dropped off by the hood, and he's waiting for the new ship that he's going to be on. And meanwhile, he's going to be talking to this Gropler Zorn character. With what we know about the hood and Captain De Soto, do you think Riker's making a mistake? Was he the first officer of the hood? Yeah. Or was he like the second officer of the hood?

And this is his exo bid. Oh, I always had it in my head that he was the first officer. Yeah. That's got to be so hard to leave the hood. I know, man. Man. you think they do that thing where they put his pickle ball paddle into a shadow box and put it up on the wall. Oh, yeah.

On the hood. I bet they do. Hey, don't touch that stack of quarters. We're leaving that there in memory of one of the best pool players to ever serve on this vessel. Riker can have a game anytime. Yeah. Anytime. You know those aren't falling down when a bangor gets dropped on the hood.

The hood doesn't do shit like that. Yeah, the hood doesn't get bangers. unless the ones it makes itself. You know what I'm saying? Speaking of bangers, this star base is really impressive. And there is low-key some withering undertones

in Riker saying that to Grappler-Zorne. Like, given what a hobo you and your people present as, amazing work. And Grappler-Zorne's like, yeah, just like so much geothermal energy. We just got it in droid. Anyways, want something to eat?

It's crazy how I'm not bumped by what Grappler Zorn looks like because future people wearing robes and being dirty and scrubby looking has been in Star Trek for a long time. The amount of chariscuro between TOS and what I think of as TNG in the first season is hard to overstate. Great call. Great call, yeah. the first strike against Riker, because we're just meeting him now, is that he likes red apples.

I don't like that about him, but the way they appear for him arouses suspicions, too. And when he leaves, Grappler-Zorne talks to the room about how it will need to be punished for doing something to make Riker suspicious. And the vibes are very much like when a kidnapper wants the kid to act normal when they stop for supplies at the gas station. It's that vibe in the room. And then you throw that kid in the fucking trunk and they start messing with the brake lights to send a signal to the traffic behind you. They can't do that.

I'm going to pull this car over and roll up this racing form and come back there and give you a what for? We meet Wes and Beverly out in the like shopping area of the Star Race and he's like, hey, so kind of a weird mystery afoot what with this being such a fancy star base and like have you seen the rags these guys are wearing on their heads and bodies this shot of them is hilarious finn i noticed something i've

never noticed before in this moment so we got the two shot with beverly and west and then we got like this this tree in the mall and the tree is like built up on this uh ring of cobblestones or whatever for some reason someone climbs up up between the tree and Beverly and Wesley to cross to the other side of the courtyard instead of going around like behind the camera. Yeah. What are they doing? You know, like New York, sometimes you're like on a sidewalk and there's a bunch of tourists that are just like, they're moving at the pace that they're used to and you've got to walk through the planter to get around them because you're like, I got, I got places to be. Yeah. That's what Far Point Station is kind of like, they start walking

around. Beverly's like, I'm not really interested in getting into an adventure. Like, I just want to shop. Lady doctors be shopping, I guess. But it's like they keep coming across things that are too good to be true. Like the station is perfect for the kind of needs Starfleet would have for it. The bowl of red delicious apples happens to appear right when Riker gets a hankering for, objectively, the worst kind of apple.

And when Beverly is looking at these scarves, she's like, you know, a little gold lame would have been nice. And then it's there. Every time I've watched this scene, I've always felt a little bit like Riker's hitting on Beverly. And I think I've come around to a different position on this, which is that Wesley becomes the kind of hang, like the third wheel that you want to get rid of immediately. And that's what I feel like Riker is doing. He's like doing that kind of adult conversation with another adult that's meant. to exclude the child from it. Yeah.

And Wes, it keeps just weaseling his way back in. Yeah. I am a traveler of all of space and time. He's, you know, describing this bolt of fabric as not having been there. I wish that this bolt had shown up, like, when Beverly, like, arranges to purchase it, I wish that it, like, we'd seen it another time, you know? I wish the alien spacecraft that's revealed at the end was also kind of dumb. And instead of a scarf, it just started making more and more red apples.

Where that scarf used to be. After the crushers walk away, Jordy walks up with news that the entrepreneur has arrived. I wondered, did Jordy also serve on the hood? Like, is Riker the only person that the hood dropped off? Because there's a lot of Starfleets walking around in this mall. The way Riker treats him initially suggests that that's not the case. Like, they don't seem to be familiar to each other at all. That's true. It's a bit perfunctory and maybe like overly professional in a weird way.

What do you think is going on in Jordy's experience at Farpoint Station if the station is also giving him what he wants? Like, suddenly all the women have very tightly quaffed cow's own hair. I'm guilty of a terrible crime, doctor. Hey, this drink has coconut in it. I love that. I can see! He starts, like, dancing a jig. And then he beams up and he's like,

ah! Oh, fuck! That's the only power that this spacecraft has is, like, the minor type of miracle. Not anything epic. Yeah, just, like, kind of Benny Hinn-style miracles. Like, so, yeah, the... Famous moment where Riker arrives on the battle bridge, like Yarr has brought him aboard, and he's like, yeah, this ship just looks terrible without the saucer section. Are you going to do something about that? If you're Riker, you don't see it from the outside, though.

Yeah, that's true. He doesn't know. He doesn't even know. So he gets to watch a little bit of the adventure up until now. not the courtroom part. I guess they didn't bring a handy cam for that. But he gets the gist. And we learn that the saucer is on its way to reconnect. So I guess they're just reconnecting because the saucer got away from Q for long enough

that they're not worried that the something, something, something. Yeah, I think that's the case. I really still, I just, there's so much fat on this episode that I would have have loved to replace with Warf's B story on the saucer section. You really could by just taking those fatty sections out and just putting in a couple lines of dialogue of him over there. Taking complaints like over the con.

This is so loud, this moment of Riker watching the episode right on the bridge without using headphones that Picard has to go to the ready room and leave him to do it. I love when Riker finishes watching it, and he's like, this guy calls that an adventure, Mama Pajama. The take there is amazing because there are six seconds of fat. It's so fun. That's how you make your time. So he goes to talk to Picard in the ready room. Humanity is on probation. Riker's like, Q didn't talk about me and what I've been up to, right? Just to be clear, like, he never mentioned me at all, correct? When he says savage, like, do you think that that includes, like, things outside of the realm of quote-unquote violence?

Like, like, not to say that violence doesn't factor in in certain kind of fun ways, but where's he drawing the bright lines around that? It's just my question for no particular reason. Picard doesn't want any part of that conversation. Instead, he's like, why don't you go redock the two parts of the ship? Yeah. Oh, and also, do it manually. Riker is a bit of an expert at putting it in smooth. You are qualified.

Yes, sir. Then I mean now, commander. It's a demonstration of procedure and not technique, because everything he's doing is verbal. It's not like he's got his hands on, you know, like the cranes that build buildings. Like, there's joysticks and shit that you use to, like, move the hook out. Yeah.

And swing the arm around. There's none of that here. He's just talking them through it. This is the scene where I realize that there is a problem with the Lego Enterprise D, which is that the neck of the Star Drive section, the saucer does separate on that model. Yeah. The neck of the Star Drive section is too short.

It is like too short by like two full brick heights, I want to say. Can you mod it? I mean, probably. Like, because I lit it, like there's wires running all through that model now. so there's, it would be very tricky to pull apart and fix, but, uh, gonna have to smash it, Ben. I guess we'll, no. I am the cutest of all.

Lock pages on that best. I am the cutest of all. There are all lights. Next in the conference room, Reiker has a meeting with Picard, where he's challenged on his working relationship with his previous captain, Captain DeSoto. I guess this does answer the question. He was the first officer to Captain DeSoto because he was in a position to say,

Nah, dog, you're not going down to that planet. No way am I letting Captain DeSoto go down there. With that being asked and answered, there's a subject change here. Picard's like, I'm a military captain, and also it's implied that I'm a cruise ship captain here too because of all the families and kids and stuff. And these white bermatresale.

Muda shorts that they put me in. It actually means that a fair bit of my job is going to be hospitality. I'm going to need help with that. And I'm hoping you can be the one to do it. It is such an interesting moment of personal vulnerability for Picard that is very, very rare in this series. And now that we know a lot more of his backstory, I think I understand why. Like, I feel uncomfortable with children because my childhood featured a lot of imagery of my mom being swung around on the noose that she hung herself with.

I was thinking the same thing about the mom. I'm wondering what this problem is with kids, even though we have confirmation that his real problem was with mothers. Becoming a parent just wasn't a priority for me after that. It seems like that's going to be a deal. Riker's going to help out with that. We cut over to Six Bay briefly for a little bit more with Jordi and his blindness. Dr. Kresher prescribed some painkillers

surgery for his headaches, neither of which seems to be anything that Jordy's into at this moment in time. It's funny, I was down on the planet and like I could see just fine. When I beamed up to Enterprise, suddenly I had this thing on my face. I think the thing we need to keep in mind after this scene going forward is that there were two options put on the table like surgery or modification of his eyeballs. He rejected both, despite the fact that, that this visor causes him excruciating pain all the time. And so I think going forward, let's just approach the Jordie character with a little bit of grace and keep in mind that he is in excruciating pain.

That he could correct at any moment by his choice. Okay. No, thank you, doctor. I understand. It's like he's walking around with a fucking hair shirt. Like, okay. That's your deal. I'm not going to feel too bad about it. The beginning of a little C storyline here where Riker walks onto the bridge and he's like, hey, anybody's seen data?

And Worf is like, no, he's not around. He's on special assignment. Ryker will be looking for data a couple of times in this episode. And this is where we get burlap bones walking down the corridor with data who is going to shuttle him over to the USS Hood because he does not trust the transporter beam anymore. Like, he used to. I like the idea of someone as old as McCoy wanting to hang out on the hood for a little while before he dies. Death seems so eminent for him in this scene. He's doing that old man shuffle that makes data have to, like, walk slow.

Yeah. To keep up with him in a very uncomfortable way. But he's, do you think I? I could get away with, like, getting this corn pone in my old age. Like, he is really, like, laying it on thick how country he is all of a sudden. I mean, when there's two syllables in the word boa, that's some country-ass shit, right? Some country-ass shit.

I don't see no points on your ears, boy, but you sound like a vulcan. He's like, yeah, I'm going over there, shoot some ski ball, and maybe see. if I can't beat my high score in Gallagher on the hood before I shuffle loose this mortal coil. You know they have the old ticket giver style pop a shot over there. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You know it's great. And the prizes are like surprisingly generous. Like you can get like not a Nintendo Switch 2, but you can get a Nintendo Switch to like, you know, an attainable number of tickets.

When my wife and I went to Vegas to see Nine Inch Nails, we went over to the New York, New York, for a little bit, and they've got like a full arcade there. Wow. On the ticket system, like you're describing. And we played space invaders, and they had a version of space invaders on a, just an enormous screen, and you sat in a pilot seat to, like, shoot the invaders. Yeah. And I go first, and I feel like I do pretty good.

Like, I live for a couple of minutes. Wonk, wonk, walk. My guys died. And my wife starts her game. And she got one of the high scores. in the entire arcade. Like, her initials were third on that list. No one knows how she did it.

She didn't look like she was doing that much better than me. I don't think she knew how she did it. She was like seeing the Matrix. She was, yeah. She was also wearing a power glove. When I was in college somebody, I was visiting a friend in Eugene, Oregon, and somebody gave me a brownie

that I did not know contained, like, a spectacular amount of marijuana. Hero brownie. I was, like, parked on. on a couch at house party, and I was, like, amazing at this, like, PlayStation basketball game that they had on the TV. And just dozens of people sat down and attempted to beat me. And I was like, I don't even know what's going on. I don't know what any of the buttons do. I'm just amazing at this.

What a moment. We get an exterior shot of McCoy leaving on the hood, and this feels like an important baton pass, because before this, I think anyone who likes Star Trek understands that the Excelsior-class ship is the best type of starship in Starfleet. Yeah. Oh, in God's name, would you want that bucket of bulls? And for it to pull away from the D as sort of a baton pass to what the new biggest and best is, is significant.

This is the future now. Yeah. Wharf almost punches a hole in the view screen when Q shows up on it. He's just there to remind them like this, you know, like the clock is ticking. You get 24 hours to prove that you don't suck. And, you know, summary judgment will be issued at some point. Once he blurps out of their Rikers, like, what are we going to do? If we're being spied on all the time, it's not like we can even talk about strategy without

him knowing about it. And Picard's answer is, we're just going to do what we naturally decide to do anyway. because what I want to have happened here is for us to be judged by who we are, not anyone we're trying to act like. We're not going to try and do the World War II version of this. We're just going to do the contemporary version of this. And so they start talking about Firepoint Station. Like, what's your impression having been down there a bunch now?

And Riker's like, yeah, it's just weird. Like they don't have the stuff that you would need to build Farpoint Station. on the planet, all they really have is this geothermal advantage. So like maybe they have found a way to like export energy off planet. And that could be useful for what we're trying to do and building star bases. Pretty exciting, actually. Card's like, I got to see this place for myself. Before he gets to do that, he walks Riker back out to the bridge and that's where Riker encounters Troy. And they are both surprised to see each other. I think if Riker did any

preparation before accepting the assignment to the D? A big part of the Exo's job is knowing the crew manifest.

How does he not know Deanna Troy is there? Maybe he is a cram the night before the test kind of guy

and he was cramming before leaving the hood. Tell you that. Oh yeah. Up top. They know

each other's abilities. And he does remember what she taught him. He can hear her thoughts, which I love the fact that that's learnable. Yeah. Like other people

don't know how to do it, but you can be taught. This is a very exciting element to Beta Z telepathy that I don't think I've thought about much. And so, yeah, that she's going to join them down there. They're going to talk to the bandy and they're like, yeah, you know, like maybe if you guys

can reproduce this star base like an in and out burger, like they're all built on the same basic layout just in different locations around California. That would be great. I love the sequence of scenes that we get here. We get the moment where Troy and Riker are speaking, only using their minds. And then we get some pretty hard pushback by Gropler-Zorne as soon as he learns that there's a Betazoid as a part of the Dust Buster Club. He's like, leave me out of that. I don't want any of that mind stuff happening here. I really like how subtle it is the way they reveal what Troy's deal is.

Like there's some bell ringing right at the beginning, like I'm sensing a thing that is very advanced and very weird. But she is not described as just like local telepath on board the ship. There's not like exposition around it in an interesting way. We made a big deal about Tin Man. Tin Man before. but this, I think, is the first instance of that, even before that one, because we get star bases elsewhere, which is just so unnecessary, more unnecessarier than Tin Man, I think. It's like he's really making a far point every time he says something.

Star bases elsewhere also. Troy interrupts the conversation with a great big feeling of pain and low loneliness and despair and whatever else the the thesaurus she has in her lap is giving her his synonyms. Not from Riker though, or the Grappler even. And no one knows what she could be referring to. Grappler-Zorn does look like the gif of Jordan Peel sweating bullets, though, when she starts talking about this. His defensiveness is a real turnoff for Picard. And like it's enough for him to just sort of cut the meeting short. because he doesn't give a shit about Grappler's threat to do business with the Ferengi.

Fine. Let's hope they find you as tasty as they did their past associates. He basically shit talks, Graplers, or, and he's like, it sounds like you haven't heard much about them if you think that I'm worried that you would be a collaborator of any kind with them. It's like how the network responded to us when we told them we were thinking about going independent. They were like, go ahead. You really think that's going to work out for you? And then cut to us looking like Jordan Peel, sweating bullets. Hey, Ben and Adam again, here to remind you that this show that you're listening to

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We come from there to Enterprise where Riker is looking for data and ends up finding him on the holodeck. I said before this is a bad data episode. And I mean that because if what you want is a super heroic robot crew person, what you get instead is a whistling, misunderstanding Lenny type. And his energy is so smarmy in this. When Riker comes up and finishes the tune, the way data reacts is like I instinctively put my hand over the top of the beverage I was drinking.

How easily humans do that. I still need much practice. That is a great description. If someone with this personality sat next to you at the bar, I would want to move. This is the scene where his makeup looks the weirdest. It's also, I think, the only scene we get in Star Trek where someone throws a rock and hits the wall of the holodeck. Here's what I don't understand about this. Is there a wall there?

Like, if Riker was like, oh, there's a wall there, could he have walked into it? Or would the wall have moved in relation to where he is? I think, like, the ground under you is being, like, created and therefore can, like, can be shifted by the holodeck. It would have to be that. But I like and understand how little detail they give to how it works functionally. Yeah. Like, the rock is kind of a spectacular trick to do. And that's all you're supposed to know about how this works at this point.

They really hang a lantern on what the data character is supposed to represent. to the audience by calling him Pinocchio. And they also show a little bit more of what makes him special when he pulls Wesley out of the drink. You know, he can just do that one-handed by grabbing the front of... You know, the thing that is most impressive about him lifting Wesley up out of the water by taking hold of the front of his sweater is like, that is a very loose sweater.

Like, you'd really need to like bunch a lot of that up to actually pick him up without him just falling right out of it back into the water. Yeah. Do you think he's got a little bit of his skin under there? Like he actually like gripped onto Wesley's chest. When you are lifted up in a way that you don't expect, that tends to hurt. And Wetly doesn't seem to suggest that he's feeling that way at all when he's marched toward the door and runs into Picard, who has that look on his face, like that expression he has. has when he sees Riker and he's like, is this your idea of keeping me out of trouble with

children? Yeah. I'm awkward around them maybe because they're always wet around me. Sir, maybe I should get something to wipe this water up. Good idea. Or I'm always delivering the bodies of their dead fathers to them. Like, that's another aspect to what feels so strange in our relationships. One time I dropped a bottle of olive oil in the aisle at the grocery store, like pulled it off the shelf slipped out of my hand shattered. One of the most obnoxious things to clean up. And the guy who would be like, you know, clean up on aisle four was restocking like right next to me when I did it. And the look that Wesley gives Picard when he's dripping on the deck of Picard's fancy new ship is the exact look I gave that guy.

When I worked at a grocery store, that was off on my job. I would clean that up. And I got to tell you, Ben, I would rather clean up barf a hundred times out of 100 than olive oil. It fucking sucked. Olive oil and glass is like one of the worst combinations there is. We cut over to Six Bay where I think drying Wesley off was a medical procedure that he had his mom do. They get into a conversation about how badly he wants to go to the bridge. And mom sort of sees trouble coming, tries to prevent it.

And it's a scene that feels like kind of a whatever, like kind of a throwaway until you consider like how great of a mom Beverly has to be to put up with Wesley every fucking day and not blow her brains out with a phaser. Yeah. Yeah. I have some friends that have like a teenage super genius only child and like it is a two-parent job. It's a lot. Do you relate to them really well? I can just like kind of talk them through what it's going to be like, you know, because I was such a smarty pants back in the day. Do not make up a fake name when you go to summer camp.

Just be yourself. So later the away team is a test with kind of like, all right, we've got the shopping mall aspect of this Starbase figured out. Let's go figure out the sewer part. See if that reveals anything. I love how Rikers suggests that like, okay, yeah, me and Dato will be topside. You, Jordy, Troy, and Yard, you deal with the sewers. You're going to be going down there. And Jordy is like, yeah, I mean, this stuff is just a bunch of very strange materials.

All the stuff upstairs is regular stuff. I've seen it a million times out of a million. But down here, like, I don't know what any of this stuff is. Riker's like, what about you, Troy? Anything unusual? And she's like, I guess doing the empath version of two fingers in the ears going, la, la, la, la, la, I can't hear anything. And he's like, maybe just stop for a second and like, let it in. And it really sucks for her when she lets it in.

The thing she's trying to prevent happens when she lets it in. And Riker and Data beamed to their position. and like do a little bit of triage with her. Yeah, Reiger's like, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I should have listened to you the first time. I'm so sorry. I think Marina Sertis is given a raw deal this episode with their dialogue because it is nothing but repetitive synonyms for what she's feeling.

Like I wish she was telling more of a story about how she's feeling instead of just using single words and words that are like those words as a way to describe what she's going through. I almost wondered if they, like, used multiple takes of the same script chunks with her, because she'll say, like, a whole phrase, and then she'll say the exact same phrase again, just with a different, a slightly different spin on it. The problem isn't just hers.

Like, Jordy in this scene says something, like, there's nothing in these tunnels that I recognize or have even heard of. Like, you only need to say one of those. Yeah. things are not going great for the away team, nor are they going great for Wesley, who arrives on the elevator at the back of the bridge, and unlike when Riker arrived on the battle bridge,

Picard does turn around, and he does yell at Wesley. What the hell? Children are not allowed on the bridge. Does Picard turn around every time that turbo lift door opens? That would be exhausting. Eventually, he puts like one of those rearview mirrors you can get for a bike helmet on, you know. That would suck.

Or the sunglasses and pack of cigarette combo from True Lies. Like there's just like up on the horseshoe, there's a pack of Lucky Strike with one of the cigarettes pointed at the turbo lift door. Picard is sitting there in the captain's chair with his sunglasses on. No, no. Don are wrong. Picard denies his true nature here because you can see him struggle with this. Like initially, he does not want Wesley there. He's surprised to see him there. But eventually invites him onto the bridge for a look. And this Picard and Jack Crusher connection, the only reason to not have a relationship with Wesley after he died is probably because

Picard had a thing with Beverly during, right? Yeah, it feels very much like that is the case and so much so that it almost causes like a context collapse for him when he sees her son. It's like he both knows that she is a single mother with the son of Jack Crusher in her charge, but he also knows her as a different thing. And he has to like put those two things together on the fly in a way that almost breaks him. and makes him much more malleable to the idea of Wesley getting to look around and say all of the things he knows about all of the different controls on the bridge. But Wesley's got to go when an unknown vessel approaches the ship. And he recalls the away team, but they do not make it back. They put the ship up on screens, this big flying saucer looking thing.

And something interesting about this is that Picard is doing almost all his kids. captaining to an off-screen, like, security person, like, I guess whoever Yarr left in charge, but he is not there. He's somewhere else talking about, like, the, like, unknown inbound ship. Seems like that guy should be on the bridge, you know? Yeah, it seems that way. Needless to say, they did not figure out exactly how this show was going to work in the pilot episode. The saucer that they have incoming scans Enterprise with a purple beam, and we cut to the tunnels below Farpoint Station

where they've been blocked from communicating with Enterprise. It's not just that they were prevented from being recalled. Like, they can't even talk to each other at all. Feels very suspicious, so they're going to see if they can make their way to the surface, the old-fashioned way. And back on the bridge, Wharf is like, You know, I'm looking through all of the, like, ship silhouettes we have in the logbook. There is nothing even close to this.

It's huge. It's, like, a very low detail model relative to the ship we're on. So that's kind of weird, but it's also way bigger than our ship. If Worf had access to a Toys R.S catalog, he would have drawn the equivalence to the Simon game that the saucer is obviously based on. You know what? He grew up on Earth. Yeah. With those human parents, he should know. He should know.

This saucer starts bombarding the old bandy city from orbit. And the sewer crew are like coming out and like kind of getting to the edge of the sewer. And they can they can hear and detect that something pretty crazy is going on on the surface. My God. Was that a phaser blast? Negative. But something similar. Riker and Data are like, we're going to go check it out. The three of you, back to the ship. Do you need North America's largest soundstage to show a city explode like this?

I know this doesn't look great, but I love watching a model train set explode effectively, which is what we get here. I don't even mind that they use the same clip a couple of times. Yeah. Like, it looks fantastic in HD. I love it. It just looks great. There's a quality to Grappler's Orne that I think we've gotten all the way up until now, but especially now, which is that he's so annoying with how he begs and how smarmy he is. Please, make it stuff.

You can drive it away. Drive who away, Gropler? I don't know. Unlikely, sir. You get more complicated bad guys later on in Star Trek, where you aren't quite sure what their deal is. And I think if this episode were positioned at the end of this season or in later seasons,

I think Grapler Zorn is a little more neutral of a presenting character than you get here. I think they kind of give him away early. Gropler Zorn seems like a betting man, and he is like on a really long odds bend right now, and really fucking hoping that it pays off because if it doesn't, he's ruined. But if it does, he's going to be like,

hey, man, I'm fucking Gropler-Zorn. I did the big thing, you know? Why won't the alien ship that they've enslaved create a bunch of weapons they can use to repel Enterprise and the other saucer in orbit, I wonder? Grappler's like, make me a weapon, you fucking flying saucer,

and it just gives him another bowl of apples. What exactly is the power they have over the jellyfish? Like if he like stamps his foot real hard, is it going to hurt? Hard to say. I don't know. He begs for help from the enterprise. And meanwhile, Riker and Data are like running around, phasering down doors and radioing up to the ship. Like, yeah, this is all, everything that's coming down from orbit is hitting the bandy city

and nothing is hitting Farpoint. But yeah, like those guys are getting absolutely torn the fuck up. And Picard is like, that Zorn guy has been suspicious as fuck from Jump. Why don't you go illegally extract him from his office and bring him up here and we'll figure all this shit out. Like we'll make him stand to account. In many ways, we will stand as the judge, jury, an executioner of all of the decisions that he has made. This is an interesting moment for Q to show up again because he's like, why would you need any more information about this? Why don't you just shoot it?

The way humans always do when they're encountering something they don't understand. The phasers are warmed up and ready to go. And Picard is like, hey, man, those are just there in case. You need to get the fuck out of here. I am in like a situation right now. And you're not really welcome on the bridge. It's funny how Q misunderstands what Picard's referring to because he's like, oh yeah, this is kind of a heated situation.

It's dangerous with both of you having your fingers on the trigger. And what Picard actually means is he needs to go to Six Bay to smooth things over with Beverly after their last interaction. Get off the bridge. Both of you. You have a perimeter alert, sir. As my son tried to tell you. This just shattered my brain

because we and everyone else have roasted Star Trek Discovery for all the times mid-emergency. Somebody has gone and said all of the feelings that they should have said in the earlier scene. And it is fucking amazing how much that is the energy here when Picard just walks down and he's like, hey, I was pretty harsh with your boy. And, you know, this is a very stretchy uniform. so I'm sure you saw my boner poking through my pants the entire time when I was looking at you. Like whole thing, something I personally regret a lot. And if you feel like this is not the posting that you're going to want going forward, I would totally understand.

This is another moment where I'm like, what are you doing, Picard? Like, do you not understand your crew roster and how they got there? He's very passive about the crew at this point. and his knowledge of them, just like Riker was. Yeah. Anyway, this whole thing could have been cleared up if they'd just talk to each other. The problem is they just saved it until now. If I had had any objections to serving with you,

I wouldn't have requested this assignment, Captain. His duty is both to please that booty and to apologize to that booty. I'm trying to be considerate of your feelings, doctor. It just made me feel out of like we got to give Disco a pass for every time that happened. Like, that is canonical track shit. I mean, I'm not going to give it. total pass, but I'm a little more understanding now, I'll say that. Yeah. So a dustbster club is formed and it's sent over to the saucership and once Riker and Data and Yarr and Troy make it over

there, it made me think that this should be the standard configuration of Dustbuster clubs for the entirety of Star Trek the next generation. I mean, maybe Worf sometimes. Sure. After Yard dies, especially. When you need a little muscle, but he slid, uh, he slid, uh, he slid, uh, The slider all the way up on strength and all the way down on stealth and lock picking. Yeah. I will learn to do better, sir. We have a long voyage ahead of us. And it's like Troy as emotional bloodhound is the thing that makes me wish she were involved in so many more missions of this kind.

Like she picks up a little hit. Right. Riker takes one of Grappler's Orne's rags and like and holds it under Troy's face. Like, find him, girl. Yeah. Another great example of Star Trek being the most efficient sci-fi franchise. They get to use the same set as they did for the sewers for the inside of this ship. And Troy is reporting lots of anger and reprisal-based emotions.

And they find Zorn. He is in this like column of purple light being tortured slowly. Do you feel like, like we've seen that, Agenizer booths and they're very much like a telephone booth. You're standing up, you're being agonized. Do you think horizontal agonizer booth is worse somehow or is it better because at least you're lounging during? It doesn't feel like he's lounging though. Like it feels like to be in the position he is, he's exerting ab strength. Yeah. Which I bet makes it even more agonizing if that's a word. It's an abanizer booth. Yeah. Which is also coming to Podshop.Biz. If you want to get absolutely toned, flat belly for the summer, you know? Hot shop.biz.

Get the avagonizer. On the bridge, Q arrives again, because time is up. That deadline is now passed, and Picard absolutely begs him for the chance to help his crew over there on the saucer. Interesting the way Picard has kind of put in a zorny position with Q, like, made to. mule and grovel. It's so disrespectful, too.

It reminds me of the scene in Pulp Fiction when Sam Jackson eats that guy's burger. Like, when Q is on the bridge and sits down in Picard's chair, like, everybody not Picard on the bridge, like, runs at him. Like,

we cannot fucking let him sit in that chair. And Picard's like, no, no, no, chill, chill. Okay, wait, hold on. Let me talk to this guy. Right. And like Q was trying to take credit for the way team beaming back over. Like Picard had begged him to save their lives. And Q was like, all right.

Hey, look at that. And that wasn't you, Q? That was the saucer. The Dustbuster Club is finally able to confirm. Farpoint Station is an alien that can convert energy in a matter. And it was trapped there by the bandy and forced to give it what they want. And Picard orders that trapped. alien to be fed with an energy beam sent from Enterprise. And once it's fed, it's able to like free itself

from underground. And Troy is able to feel its great joy and gratitude from being freed from this thing. And everyone is treated to an extraterrestrial gender reveal party in space. What a thing. This pair of jellyfish are going to be a good ally to have go. going forward in case you ever need like a being of awesome capability to back you up on something, right? It's true. We've done them a favor. Perhaps they will in turn to us a favor at some point in the future.

Q was like, I gave you too easy of a problem. I should have read up on you. I didn't realize you were a Dixon Hill fan. Like you know how to solve a mystery. You know all the beats, you know. Picard gets to kind of turn the tables and become a bit judgmental and say like you really got out of your over your skis like accusing us of that shit and like you know says similar to Zorn but Picard is a you know a more merciful judge than the stay puffed marshmallow man or Q. That's true. Do you think Enterprise could have destroyed these flying saucers? The Enterprise can blow up a planet, so I think probably.

I think that's what Q wants to see, and that's why he leaves in a huff. Yeah. Who doesn't want to see a show like that? Like Q is the kind of guy that's like going into the dark web to see like fucked up shit on the internet, you know. Yeah. So Q's out of there. Farpoint Station is going to be rebuilt using non-alien slave technology, I guess. Pretty much nobody in this that gets defeated by Picard is particularly honorable in their defeat.

And that feels like a real, like, statement. Like Picard is going to be honorable no matter what the outcome is, his adversaries will often not be. Yeah, speaking of statements, Picard gives us the show's first engage and the ship goes to warp at the end of the episode, Ben. Amazing. This is becoming a speech. You're the captains, they're entitled. I'm entitled to ramble on about something everyone knows. Ben, how does this modern era of new Star Trek change your perspective on re-watching this episode?

I thought a lot about starting a Star Trek series when I was watching this. And, you know, discovery being like, in some ways, like, I feel like you can think of the modern Star Trek shows, aside from the animated shows, like as almost all one thing. Yeah. And Discovery being like the first, you know, like the pilot of that one thing that is a new take on the Star Trek franchise.

And I think that in many ways, this suffers from the same pitfalls and achieves some of the same amazing highs as those series do. Like when, when we reviewed this episode the first time, there wasn't any new Star Trek coming. And this was like the beginning of the rest of Star Trek. Right.

And it's, I think, reassuring when you, like, look back in history at stuff and people making similar mistakes to know that, like, it's always hard to do the right way. and you don't always get it right the first time. But if your heart is in the right place, like you can at least build a foundation upon which the rest of the thing can be built. And, you know, pilots are like the hardest thing in TV because so much character introduction

and table setting has to be done. It's very hard to have an adventure that you're invested in without knowing the characters that well in television. Structurally, this is like, I mean, it's like the length of a film, but it is doing a totally different job from a film. And I will say, like, Q has really grown on me as an antagonist. I hated Q when I was a kid. And I think Q represents what was

the most creative about Star Trek of this era. The thing I think I grate on most against with modern Star Trek is that I don't think any of the aliens are that interesting of a new idea. Like even the 10C, which were like a very different kind of alien than we'd ever seen before, we're like, yeah, okay. Like, you know, there were a lot of fun episodes in that season, but like I didn't think that they were like that interesting. And I don't think that they did either. Like the 10C never come back, right? Like we're never going to hear from them again. Sure. There are aliens of the week and then there are the cues and the Borg. and the Romulans and the Klingons, you know.

So to come up with as banger of an alien as Q ultimately becomes in writing this episode, I think they achieved something pretty cool. Yeah. And a master stroke to Castelancy in that role. I agree. I thought a lot about how you have to nail the ship design to really create a sense of wanting to live in the future, wanting to be there and be all. on that ship and, you know, the fantasy of commanding it for yourself.

Like, if people wondered why the D played such a big part of the third season of Picard, it's because the ship is one of the main characters of this show. And it starts with this episode. And to have made it the focus right away and to make it so beautiful and amazing, I think is one of the main reasons Star Trek the next generation was at the time and retrospectively seen as a great television program. And I think subsequent Star Trek series did a good job in establishing the home base in a way that inspires wonder. Like Deep Space Nine is so interesting and weird and idiosyncratic.

Voyager is a beautiful-looking standard-issue starship, for example. I mean, Defiant, I think, is familiar in some very Starfleet ways, too. But, like, to think about how they rolled out discovery and that that initial preview rolled out a terrifically ugly ship. And the time that they took between the preview and the actual show hero ship improved it a little bit. But that was never a beautiful ship, ever. Even after the refit and, like, the problems are not just outside. Like, it's not just ugly on the surface. It's ugly inside, too.

It is a dark, unforgiving environment in there. Everything is hard. Everything is angled. Everything is shiny. It looks like a place that you would want to leave if you were in there. There are good new starships being made. Like, one of our FODs, like Thomas Morone, like designed starships for Star Trek Online. Yeah.

And has made. great ones. And I just think you have to nail that decision when you create a Star Trek series. And it has to be right. And I think so much flows from that initial choice of what your ship looks like. I really like the USS Athena for that reason. I think that that's like one of the modern Trek ships that I've connected with the most is it feels like a place I would want to go to. and interesting little bit of connective tissue trivia, Adam. The tree in the atrium in the Athena that's kind of always in the way

when people are looking up to hear the commandant speaking. Same tree as in the mall at Barpoint Station. Amazing. I'm not sure quite where I stand on the Athena as aesthetically pleasing. I don't know if I've made a decision yet. That is a show that doesn't center the ship in a way that this series does from Jump, I think. So maybe in season two they'll do a different and better job with that.

Adam, do you want to see if there's anything in the Priority One inbox? Yeah, and then after that, let's do a brand new segment. Oh, boy. Priority One message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplemental link. Pop a million. Supplement. Supplement.

Yeah, it's extra. By the interest alone, could be enough to buy this ship. Ben, I've unpacked a priority one message here. It's of a promotional nature. Okay. This message is from Erica. It goes like this. Please play your nub and bug commercial in its entirety.

That ad was comedy gold, and it deserves to be immortalized as an official part of this pod's legacy for all time. Right now, there's an embarrassed friend of DeSoto grappling with the most difficult decision of viewer can make. Do I live a life where my nerd shit is fairly anonymous so I can have a chance at being cool someday? Or do I get a nub and bug and put it on display and let the world know that I am a massive dorkas? Today you can make that choice, because this embarrassing Star Trek podcast you listen to has done. done something truly momentous. We've made nub it bugs, the alien parasites from that one TNG episode, where an old man

kicks Commander Riker through a glass table. And for the cost of a very expensive dinner with a romantic interest that includes appetizers, wine, and dessert, you can adopt your very own nub and bug and give it a proper home forever. These aren't just any nub and bugs. They're limited edition, handcrafted, from the original. molds used in Star Trek the next generation, and only 100 exist in the entire universe. They're rarer than a natural Yeager, and this time you don't have to buy a bunch of worthless Star Trek trading cards to get one. For the cost of hiring a plumber to fix a leaky toilet,

you can have the rarest, greatest gen collectible that there will ever be. Each nubbenbug is lovingly hand-painted and comes in a special collectible box, perfect for displaying on your shelf. or inserting into the base of an unsuspecting Starfleet officer's neck. And because each one costs roughly the amount of a spa day, you can relax in a way that only a nerd coveting a scarce science fiction-related object can appreciate. But wait, there's more. Adopt a nub and bug today, and you'll receive an exclusive meet-and-greet session with Adam and Ben.

You will never be able to explain or defend this purchase from your partner or family, but you can to us. will understand and absolve you. We will forgive you and thank you because the R&D and production of these nub and bugs was astronomical. A business crippling experiment that will only work

if we sell all of them. So don't wait. Don't let these parasitic wonders fade into obscurity. When they're gone, don't covet another FOD's nub and bug because you will. I know you will. Yeah, we really, uh,

Eight and left no crumbs with the whole nub and bug project. Gotta say. I love that spot. Thanks to Erica for a fun reminder about that project. Here's one from E.Wizzy, and it's urgent to Ben and Adam. It goes like this. I have a solution to the breadstick power hour dilemma. Kvass is a fermented bread drink.

Yuck. Don't veto it too quickly. You still get the bread theme, but without the chewing noises or the dry mouth, It's efficient, thematic, and classy. If you are lucky, Eastern Europeans might actually be impressed by your commitment to bread-based beverages. When I was in Poland, I never encountered Kavas. It really sounds like something Klingons invented, doesn't it? I'm looking it up, and it's definitely Slavic.

Yeah. Oh, man. Very fun, like the Cyrillic fonts on the... these cans that I'm seeing. Yeah. I mean, there are a number of great bottle shops around L.A. I'm sure we could source it and do it at some point. Sounds like fun.

All right. Well, something to consider, Adam. Ben, we got a final priority one message here. It is from Mark J. It's to you and me. And their message goes like this. I started rewatching TNG to escape 2016 and quickly found the most embarrassing podcast possible to listen to.

Road draw. Thank you for blazing through nearly all of Star Trek to keep the embarrassment going for 10 years. It's gotten me through COVID and moving abroad for work. Looking forward to the next 10 years of complete embarrassment. Cisco drop. Wow. Hey, Ben Cisco made the pilot. That's fun.

I mean, it's going to take longer than 10 years the next time we go through it. I hope you've got an appetite for that. Mark J. Yeah, I hope our bodies survive that. Thanks to everyone who got a Priority One message. If you would like to purchase one for yourself, you can follow the link at greatesttreck.com or go right to Podshop.biz and book it today. One thing that people who become supporting members can look forward to is discounts on everything at Podshop. dot biz including priority one messages. So if you want to become the plavim or the razz of the next

time through, this might be a way to, uh, you know, do that with a little bit more monetary efficiency, let's say. And it really helps the show. Yeah, priority one messages support the show. And, uh, now 100% of a priority one message goes towards that. So good job. Hey Adam. What's that, Ben? What happens now? We already. said who all the Shimodas were for all episodes of Star Trek, I feel so lost. Ben, it's time for a game. He's very interested in pitting his skill against yours. I'd like to see your neuroflex tear him down a pig. My deductions should be treated with skepticism. Ready? Begin. You and I have been friends for a long time. True. So what do you say we test out how well we know each other with a game of who do you think you are?

I am. That's right. Here's how this is going to go. We're going to take turns. First, I am going to choose a character from this episode that most reminds me of you. Okay. And you'll select a character from the episode that you feel like you most identify with. We're going to see if those two things match.

Okay. If our answers match, you will win. Okay. If they don't, you will lose. This is a game that you might feel like is familiar, like the newlywed game. Wrong! This is legally distinct from that. This is not the same thing at all.

Okay, good, good. Mainly because the stakes are different. Sure. Because if you get this right, Ben, I will have to write a sex rap song about Deanna Troy and Commander Riker. Okay. Because there's obviously still some smoke there, right? and if you get it wrong, you will have to do that yourself. Okay.

Which kind of means no matter who does it, that new song is going to get put into the bonus feed this week. It's one of those games where no matter who wins, the Friends of DeSoto lose. Are you ready? I guess I'm ready. Okay, so, Ben, I have written down the name of a character that reminds me of you in this episode. And what I want you to do is do the same thing. Who reminds you of you? Who do you identify with most in this episode?

All right, let me get a piece of paper here. So this is who do I think Adam thinks I am most like in this episode? Correct. Okay. It's a real theory of mind problem. And as a neurodivergent weirdo, I do struggle with these kinds of challenges. It should be said. Yeah.

Um, yeah. How do you know someone has ADD? They say it on every fucking podcast they record. Okay, Ben, I have written down who I think you are. And I'm going to reveal mine first and see if there's matches, okay? Okay. I have written Commander Riker. Oh, you little so-and-so.

You're not going to think that after I tell you why. He for some reason didn't do any prep before transferring to Enterprise. Here's the thing. In my mind, you are way more comfortable with winging it than I am. I actually admire this about you. That aspect to Rikers' character reminded me so much of you here. Like, yeah, I'm just going to go transfer over to Enterprise. I'll figure it out once I'm there.

That to me felt like Ben. So who did you write down? You know what I did? I wrote down the character that I aspire to be a lot more than the character I am actually like. That winging it thing has been my mode for a long time, and it is something I'm really trying to unlearn. And one consequence is that sometimes now when I sit down and start working on something, I work on it in the way that I would have if I was like cramming for a test or it was due tomorrow. Even if I'm doing it well in advance, I'll like stay up until one in the morning doing it. It's the groove in my brain that I've got to ungrind. But yeah, I went far more aspirational that Commander Riker.

I wrote Wesley. I think a lot of people out there would guess that. And he's not like that. He is an autodidact. He finds the time to do his projects and does them. You know, he may miss a social cue or two, which I identify with. but I'm trying to become Wesley. I think I currently am more of a Riker.

That's some kind self-talk, Ben. I guess that means I owe a dirty-ass rap to the Friends of DeSoto. Specifically about Troy and Riker. Okay. Yeah, look for that on the bonus feed. Ben, just for fun, why don't we do a second round where we flip the script? Okay. Why don't you write down the character that reminds you of me,

and I will do the same for myself? Okay. No stakes to this. This is just... Yeah. All right. I'm going to reveal my answer to you now, Adam. Picard. Picard. Why? Because of an interaction that he has with Riker.

We spend a lot of time in his other ready room in the Battlebridge, which I don't think we ever see again. I think that the Battlebridge ready room feels a lot more like. the clarinet rental closet that we've spent so much time in recently. Sure does. There are bulkheads. It is not a comfortable place to stand up straight in, especially if you're a tall drink of water like Commander Riker. And he has that brief meeting with Baccarre where he, you know,

he's come aboard, he's learned of the situation with the queue. He has not yet been challenged to put it in to the saucer. but when he leaves this conversation, which is the first real conversation he has with Captain Picard, they go to a high close-up of Picard as Riker walks out of the room, and it is so withering. It is like, boy, I hope this fucking idiot doesn't get us into so much fucking trouble is the energy. And that reminds you of me?

Yeah. Wow. Wow. I do kind of have a resting asshole phase. Not asshole, just concerned that this may not be the right one for you. All right. Ben, we're not a match here because I selected for myself the blue flying saucer. Here is why.

This thing is pissed about what happened to a being close to it and goes absolutely Charles Bronson on the old town as a result. I can be grudgeholdy against folks who are bad to my people and I definitely saw some vengeance in this

moment. The retributive justice practiced by space jellyfish is maybe a regrettable thing. You know, maybe Q should have focused his powers on the way they behave because it seems like maybe a little bit more harm reduction and restorative justice

would have been something that they would like to consider as a species. Yeah, I don't know if I'd go that far. Ben, that was super fun. I think we're going to have more fun ahead in next week's episode. Here is our producer, Wendy, to tell me more about that, along with our credits. Take it away, Wendy. Bye, bye. The Greatest Generation is an Uxbridge Shemota podcast.

It's hosted by Adam Pranica and Ben Harrison, and it's produced and edited by Windy Pretty. Next week, we'll be back with another episode of Star Trek The Next Generation. So grab some hair gel, get your favorite fully functional robot, because we'll be talking about season one, episode three, The Naked Now. Music for The Greatest Generation is by dark material. Social media is managed by the card daddy, Bill Tilly, and Rob Adler, who also puts together the greatest newsletter every month. You can visit Podshop.Biz to get signed up for that.

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Good. Because I feel like we can be a little more casual and talk privately now, don't you think? We're like Ferris Bueller coming out in the bathrobe and the Turby Towers. at the end, you're still here. Okay. You just listen to an entire episode of the greatest generation or greatest trek, which means you already know why these shows are worth your time, but they can't really exist without you. And that's why we're asking for your support. We're independent now, which means we have no network, we have no CEO, no safety net, and we've got to get 5,000 founding members who we're calling the founders as fast as we can. The first 5,000

people who sign up get to carry that distinction forever. That means when you say that's what you are at a meet and greet or something, that's going to mean something really embarrassing for us both. And I can't wait for that moment. We can share in the embarrassment and grow stronger from the sharing. Listen, when we decided to go independent, it was a scary moment for both of us because we are literally like shaking up the etch-a-sketch of all of the people who have supported. us in the past. So it is really important that if you have been a supporter in the past, or if you have never supported us, to become a member right now. These memberships start at $6 a month, and every single membership plan includes an ad-free version of both shows and all of our bonus

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