The Greatest Generation - The Most Suggestive Instrument (S4E5)

Episode Date: October 24, 2016

When an old friend of Dr. Crusher's bails on their plans, she thinks he might have fallen on the ship and can't get up. But as her story begins to unravel, squints of suspicion abound from an unbelieving (and shrinking) Enterprise crew. How difficult is a three-finger handshake? Are scarves a good substitute for grass? How old is your oldest friend? It's the episode that came back from the dead!

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 friendsofdecotoForLabor.com. That's FriendsOfDecotoForLabor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Last time on Star Trek, the next generation. The next episode is Episode 5. Remember me. Wesley's experiment with warp fields results in the mysterious disappearance of the crew. I like real weird Twilight Zony episodes and this is one of them for me.

Well, I don't, so I'm gonna veto. Well, fuck you, because we're watching it. How do we can't keep doing this? We can't keep burning veto. You insist? Do you insist? Fine, fuck you. You burned your veto. You did it again. Why are you saying I'm burning my veto? You're the one that burned your veto first. This is episode is a turkey. No, it's not. It is not.

It's a total turkey, Adam. And now the conclusion. Welcome to the greatest generation! Star Trek Podcast by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Pranica. I'm your other host, Benjamin R. Harrison. Now Adam, this is a podcast where we watch an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation and then we tell the people what happened in it and we crack a few jokes along the way. I'm familiar with that format. Yeah.

We always end an episode with Drunk Shemota, our beloved signature segment in which we call out the character who's being the silliest or just having the most fun. It's right. I was listening to a recent episode of our show just to a quality check it and I was like, man, I feel like if you'd never listened to this show and you just jumped in midstream,

you wouldn't know what the fuck was going on. So I just thought I would toss out some broad strokes about what the format is. What do you think are some other good notes to have if you're a new viewer of the program. Because occasionally we'll get notes to the hosts. Yeah. From people who are like, why do you call us viewers? Why are they the Borgs? What did Six Bay come from? Well, they don't say why are they the Borgs, they say,

they're the Borg singular. Get it right, jerk. Oh yeah, they're much more forceful than that. I feel like we might need, not that we need this. I'm gonna need and quote, but we might need kind of a show handbook, huh? I was thinking, yeah, that would be cool. I was also thinking it would be cool if people maybe out on the Facebook and the Reddit wanted to put together a list of like what are the three or four kind of must-listen episodes. If you're not going to go back through the whole catalog, like how do you kind of

get up to speed on the dumb repeat jokes that happen over and over again on our show. Some people feel very rewarded to get those jokes and then come from episode one. Other people are just totally mystified by them. We'd have to quit our jobs and do nothing but explain the jokes if we had to explain the jokes to everybody that asked. It's already ruining a mirror and open that we're in the middle of. Yeah, I'm sorry.

It's not your fault. I think it's good from time to time to open a show with a warm welcome to our new viewers. Yeah, and a big FU to anybody who's been confused by our inside jokes. Speaking of FU's ban, I gave you a big one at the end of the last episode. Things got too hot for pod. The double V2 throwdown? Right. That led us into this episode? Do you have any regrets now?

I don't. None at all. Really? I don't. Oh. Let's get into it so I can tell you Not at all. Really? I don't. Oh. Let's get into it so I can tell you why. Okay. It's season four, episode five. Remember me. This is becoming a speech.

Where the cat comes from, very tightly. I'm going to type a ramble on, I'll have something everyone knows. So the Enterprise is pulling into Starbase. And that is like, maybe the one part of this episode that's worth watching, even though it's just a shot that they borrowed from another episode. Always fun to see the ship pull into Starbase. With how often the ship gets stolen out of Starbases,

I think they should go in on Red Alert. Like, highest possible alert setting when they pull into the garage for now on, I think. They go in on Red Alert, like highest possible alert setting when they pull into the garage for now on, I think. They've got to be terrified. Is 133 the same starbase they were at when the binar's hijacked them? I don't know, it looks exactly the same. So I think we can assume that. But who's our guy from that episode?

Kenyones. Commander Kenyones. They fired him after the Biner incident, because he doesn't make an appearance. That's one way of putting it. Let's see. Starbase 74. So, do you think that that means that they're at least 133 of these huge orbital star bases in the Federation.

Seems like quite an investment. Damn. So they're basically on Uber duty. Beverly's got an old friend. They're not really, like they have some other mission, but this guy is heading the same way. This guy's sort of got his thumb out at the star base, and the enterprise is going his way. Like we can get you as far as Stockton.

It's ass, cash or grass. Adam, there is a car that is often parked on the street outside my apartment that says ass or gas. No one rides for free. And I'm like, you'll leave it out. A whole third of the potential kinds of currency I could want to use to get a ride in your late model Mustang.

Oh, is that what it is? Oh, yeah, surprise, surprise. Oh, yeah. Even if you aren't into the grass, I mean, there's still value to that. Yeah, that is fungible, you know. It is. You can exchange that with lots of different people

for lots of different goods and services. You know what the greatest gen version of that bumper sticker is? It's ass, cash or scarves. No one writes for free. It's slapped on a Previa bin. You just see rich guys driving around in their cars with scarves piled up.

A Previa and that bumper sticker. I would take that as our new show art for sure. I definitely usually am hesitant to get into strange people's vans, but that one I would feel perfectly safe in. No question. Could you help me put this piece of floor nuture in the back of the learn? I injured my arm. That sounds a little bit kevinny.

I have thought a couple of times that my kevin slips a little toward the buffalo bill. Yeah. From time to time. There's not a lot of light in between those two impressions. That's for sure. Captain Picard, is she a great, big, fat person? Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha.

Captain Picard puts the lotion in the fish. Ha-ha-ha. Or else it gets the hose again. Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha. I gave the hose to every who snuck everywhere. The Hush Nuck regret big fitchy. So they pull into the starbase to pick up one of Beverly's friends, Dr.

Dalyl and Quase and Beverly describes him as one of her best friends. Mm-hmm. Ben, Dr. Dalyl and Quase is, I think, generously 70 years old. Yeah. How old is your oldest best friend? That isn't a relative. Is it my oldest close friend is maybe 10 years older than me? Yeah. I was thinking the same thing.

What's up with that, Bev? I don't know. Yeah, well, I guess she like did some doctor work with him. Yeah, there's like a mentorship relationship here, right? Yeah, this is a man that is being portrayed by legendary and deceased actor Bill Irwin, who graced the screen in such classics as Home Alone and Plains, Trains, and Automobiles. But he just looks genuinely confused in this role. He's like, why am I wearing a billhop uniform? All right, well. Yeah, he looks like someone who doesn't know where he is and they just keep the camera rolling

and all of his dialogue is just played off of Gates' dialogue. Right. Yeah, he is blessedly not in much of this episode because he really grinds the caliber of on-screen acting to a halt. He's no see more castle, that's for sure. No. Why didn't they bring him back? He would have been great. Oh yeah, that would have been fun. Castle was in a Polesky episode, right? He was that was the crash zoom episode right One of the great crash zooms we've ever gotten on this show. Yeah, so they're walking through the corridor and Beves-Jatinum up. He's like she's like oh, it's so great to see you again really sorry to hear about your old wife and Quaces like yeah, I mean she was sick for a long time.

And it's kind of a bummer being an old person and being a widower. It makes you think about like the slowly disappearing sphere of people you have in your life when you become an old. Yeah, it's like, it's definitely like a thing that they are starting to do, which every cold open has to be kind of a metaphor for what's about to happen in the episode. It can't just be a way to get you into the episode. It has to be somewhat separate but metaphoric.

And it's the reverse of the Brothers Forgive dialogue. It's as if they use Brothers Forgive as the first line of dialogue instead of the last and it is Yeah, it is like the first it's the original scene of this episode is like they They wrote this this character in as like as this beloved old character and they make it the most generic depiction of an old of All-time which is literally a guy walking around saying, you, the worst thing about being old is all your friends start to die. There is no reason to care about him at all. And I'm glad he's gone.

Because a moment later, he disappears. Yeah. So crush, crush, crush, her, her momentary could buy us to quace and goes down to engineering where Wesley the boy is doing an experiment on the warp reactor and Jordy is fucking pissed. Wes, time for the experiment is over. I want my warp engines back now. Because Wesley is taking his sweet time. You want to be the one to explain when the captain says engage and we just sit here?

They're trying to make a new kind of warp bubble. And he finally gets all his equations punched in and he hits it and there's a big flash of light. And they're all like, huh, that's weird. And Jordy's like, all right kid, you got to clear out. I need to get the warp engine back online so that when we take off from starbase and uh, Wes is like, all right mom, let's head out and looks up. No mama. She got. This is the point that, I mean, there are so many parts of this episode that don't make

any sense. Yeah. Oh, I noticed that too, Adam. If you are conducting an experiment and an unexpected flash of light goes off and then someone in the room isn't there anymore, that's kind of a reason to maybe hit your communicator and see where mom is. There's just a long list of things about this episode that make it seem not quite up to the standards that are already pretty low for this show. There's a moment in every episode that asks you to suspend some amount of disbelief. This episode asks you three minutes in to suspend all disbelief everywhere.

I should spend it. I did not just suspend my disbelief. I should spend it dog disbelief everywhere. Ha ha ha. Oh. Don't interview me, Ben. I'm not happening. Ha ha ha.

All right. Well, so Bev heads up to, to have, I guess, breakfast with the dailin' quice. And she like, punches she like punches the, she punches the doorbell on his quarters a bunch of times. He doesn't answer. So she like overrides the door and- She's kind of expecting a stinky guy in there.

Yeah, well there's a great crash zoom, but wouldn't she keys into the room because Wharf is peering out from around the corner, watching her do it and he goes, do how did she do it? What are those buttons? So she goes in, nobody is there. She asks the computer, hey, like.

Current location of Dr. Dalen Quays. And the computer comes back with a very perplexing answer. There is no Dr. Dalen Quays. And the computer comes back with a very perplexing answer. There is no Dr. Dalen Quays aboard the Enterprise. And so she calls Wharfdown, and there's like a very funny awkward moment where she's like, yeah, and I just can't find this guy. And so then he does the thing that she did. Computer, where is Dr. Dalen Quays?

There is no Dr. Dalen Quays aboard the Enterprise. It's like when you call tech support and the first three steps that they walk you through are ones that you've tried before you even called in. So you just like sit on the phone and be like, okay, now I'm unplugging it. Yeah. Okay, now I'm plugging it back in. Yeah, no, it's still not working. Yeah. It's just two people looking at the ceiling, asking where quaces.

Yeah. So, yeah, so the, and it becomes clear pretty soon that nobody even believes that quaces came on the ship. They're going to give a lot of benefit of the doubt to the doctor for some reason, but there's no record of him having come on board, there's no, you know, Picard doesn't remember clearing it. She's the only person that remembers anything about this guy, and, you know, the further they look into this, the less she has to go on. Like, the starbase doesn't have any record of him, the medical facility that they trained at 15 years ago

has no record of him. It's like, it's real perplexing. At this point, beginning with Riker, everyone starts giving her the squint of suspicion. Like she sound a little crazy, everyone's humoring her. This is also, this is the second point in the episode where I felt like, we know you can watch the episode inside the episode. This has happened before on the show. Why don't they just go to the security camera footage?

No one thinks to do that. That's only used for docking and undocking the saucer section. Right. So, let's just establish what ways they have attempted to help the doctor on this so far. They had security combed through the ship deck by deck on the assumption that maybe his communicator got damaged and he's like a crispy critter somewhere. Like he fell down, fell down a Jeffrey's shoe shaft. They totally copped to the idea that if he's dead the sensors won't pick him up.

Right. That's being explored. They do a lot of searches on, you know, with other places that he might have been like, oh, maybe he walked back off the ship and went to the star base, that type of thing. They turn every stone over to look for this guy. And at some point, Captain Picard is like, you know, obviously we're going to help you find this guy, but this is pretty fucking crazy, Doctor. Yeah, he talks to or like someone talks to a drunk person who's acting a little weird. Like, real gentle, not wanting to spook her, but still very clearly not taking what she's

saying very seriously. Yeah, and people get more and more condescending to her as this happens. Like, she goes out and she tells data. She's like, data is like, yeah, like they goes out and she tells data, like data's like, yeah, like they didn't have any record of them at the star base. I searched every different spelling of his name and she's like, it's spelled quays.

Q-U-A-I-C-E. And data's like, yeah, I know. I know, I actually entered a thousand different versions. And so she starts going back to Six Beta, you know, conduct the rest of her business. And I guess she wants to scan Chief O'Brien. Because Chief O'Brien is the only person she can say definitively was in the room when Quase beamed aboard. And she straight up thinks he's lying.

Yeah. She thinks it's one of Chief O'Brien's tricks again. Yeah. And he's like, listen, I'm not even in my wetsuit. I shouldn't be here right now. But yeah, so she starts, starts in on it and realizes she's gonna need some other doctors and starts radiating up other doctors. And they have all disappeared. Yeah, as she radiates other doctors,

O'Brien looks at her like, who are you talking about? You're the only doctor on this ship. Yeah, this is where it starts to be like a I don't know like a Vegas crime show like someone's killing doctors Beverly Crusher's got to find out who it is. You can't handle what's really going on here I don't want to hear it because in this department we go by the book So I think this is kind of when they start to like Explore with just depicting the ship as being uncharacteristically empty They do a nice job of this from time to time Beverly's like well Four of my medical staff are missing and not only only that, like, hundreds more are gone too.

Right, what's up? Can't really explain it. The line for the buffet is practically empty. Right, the wind jammer cafe is usually popping this time of day. Yeah, I mean, all the pineapple chunks are usually gone by the time she goes through the line. Yeah.

She's used to just getting the honey-do, fuck honey-do. I grew of 148 couldn't possibly eat this many cocktail weenies. So why do we have them? It's a tiny, pretty, one-stop-ready-base. Are you wrong, Mighty, within yourself? Stand up, tell me truth. You don't deserve the wealth that you never- So yeah, the frustrating thing is that every time somebody that she remembers disappears, people look at her like she's stupid, and don't remember the person,

act out of other perplexity, and conveniently, people are disappearing at a rate of 10 per minute of this episode, but the circle is shrinking in on the most important characters on the show. So, so you know, they keep saying like, oh, the ship's complement is a quarter of what it normally should be, and none of the characters that have speaking lines on regular episodes have disappeared. It occurred to me that this is maybe the cheapest episode they've produced yet at them. Yeah. Because they're just whittling down the number of speaking roles. They get tired. It's sort of an interesting tension between high concept and big cost savings. Like you don't typically get high concept and savings. High concept is typically expensive. Yeah, and they've borrowed shots from another cell

to get the only shots that are not just interiors of the ship. Yeah. And yeah, it's, it's... Don't need a higher bunch of extras. Yeah, there's two extras in the whole episode. At this point, they start introducing a little mini hurricane that pops up from time to time and its suck force is pretty strong. It is not so strong that it

pulls the wig off of her head. It's not wig strength wind. No. We're not talking about a flow bee here. No, it is strong enough to sort of pick her up off of the ground. Yeah. I feel like maybe more than any other character, the doctor is confronted with like explosive decompression and situations where she's being blown in the air. They kind of ripply her a little bit, right? Yeah. They do a lot of it. There's definitely other episodes where she gets, she gets blown in the air like this where like her feet are off the ground and her hands are gripping onto some stationary object. This might be a good moment as the crew is being whittled down to double or even single digits to ask, at what point does a crazy person feel like they're crazy?

Because you could say that this episode is weak because of its concept or because of Beverly's response to the conflict that you're putting or like me you could say it's weak for both of those reasons right But the thing that irked me more than anything was Beverly's reaction to her circumstance. They all have been the living breathing heart of this crow for over three years. They deserve more than to be shrugged off. And that's just such a bizarre reaction to what's happened for a scientist to have. to what's happened for a scientist to have. Like, she reacts completely emotionally

to what could be a scientific problem. Well, yeah, and it's also just for as much as this is a crazy problem that she's dealing with the entire episode. And it is suggested fairly early on that there might be, have been a warp bubble involved with Wesley's experiment, and the traveler might be somebody that they want to consider bringing into the mix.

It's all suggested very early. She starts doing deductive reasoning around the 35-minute mark, which is, you know, like the entire rest of the episode, she's just running around declaring that she's not crazy and that, you know, there are people that exist, that other people don't remember. I don't think I've ever missed Dr. Polaski more than I have in this episode,

because could you imagine what her response would be and how different it would be from Beverly's? Like Polaski would go to 10 forward, she'd pull a cork out of a bottle with her teeth. She'd spit it out and she'd get to work. Yeah. End of episode. She totally kick ass and it's disappointing that Bev just isn't up to the challenge of this.

It is. And I really like Dr. Crusher. I think that a lot of people malign Dr. Crusher. I think she's a great character. I think this is an episode, to me, is a disservice to her. Yeah, I agree. Just kind of why I didn't want to watch it. I feel like it's, if I could remove it from the canon, I would.

You know there's a way to do that, Joan. Now, do you want me to take you up on that conversation? Or am I not allowed to? You just call out my name. And you know that I will be there. Kevin Huxbridge can't sing, Ben. I don't know if you've ever tried to sing doing Kevin Huxbridge can't sing, Ben. I don't know if you've ever tried to sing doing Kevin Huxbridge. It's impossible.

Yeah. Kevin Huxbridge, karaoke. Can it be a big hit at greatest Gen Con 2017? Yes. I'm looking forward to. Perhaps more than anything. Yeah, and so, like, at a certain point, like every single person has disappeared and there's a pretty funny scene where she comes onto the bridge and it looks like nobody's there and then Picard's head like goes, And, uh, Dr. Crusher goes and sits down in the op-seat and walks him through all of the character descriptions like the one-line character descriptions for the casting

casting notices You got raker with the beard. He sexes everything. You got place from bone the most suggestive instrument You have morph with his loaf hates doors You got Troy she's a woman so that's all there is to that You have Wesley the boy. Yeah, she gives you your box. She gives a perfect delivery of Wesley, my son. Wesley, my son. I almost want to like, re record the Baker Street drop including this one.

It's so impassioned, it's great. It is like the writer of this episode was like, I'm gonna write a bad one, but I'm going to write it with something just for Ben and Adam, two guys that are going to make a podcast about this show in 30 years, and they are really going to enjoy this. Yeah, it's a perfect line reading. It's great.

And Picard looks at her like, yeah, I don't know who you're talking about. It's always been me from the start, driving around the ship alone. I guess with you, I guess, but for the most part only me. And she's like, well, based on how things are going, you're about to go too. So there's one thing I really need to tell you, Jean-Luc, which is something that's happened before. I think it was in the Echo Papa... Yeah. Something something...

Echo Papa 607. Echo Papa 607 episode. She had a special thing she needed to tell Picard, but didn't quite get a chance. And she has it again. She's had a couple of years now, probably to get this out on the table. I don't know if it's ever going to happen, Ben. Yeah. And wouldn't you know it right before she spills the beans? He gone.

This was a real spooky scene. Like, there are moments in this episode that are effective and I thought this was one of them. They hook up Picard's vitals to the main computer. And so the computer is reading and playing his vitals signs out loud. And as cool as that is, it's also incredibly frustrating because you're telling Beverly the whole time, do not break eye contact with the last person on board the ship.

And she looks away for a moment and sure enough, the vitals go away and so does Picard. Yeah. And so then the hurricane reappears and she narrowly avoids getting sucked into it. And we cut away to a silhouette stepping in front of the hurricane.

And it's Wesley the boy in engineering with Jordy, who's who are all supposed to be gone by now, and they're struggling to get the doctor through this through this hole in space. But the thing collapses and and Wesley is like totally dejected. He thinks that they've blown their last opportunity when who should appear, but the traveler. Ray, I'm useful. The first depiction of a one piece costume that doesn't have shit tons of knuck.

Finally, I look as pretty as I feel. It is knuck emphasizing though, because it's got two lines that go down the chest and basically end in a point. Right, but there's no knuck there. It's a no-knuck costume. It's true. It's true.

The fabric is very thick. Yeah. It's more a polster than is original costume. Yeah. Last time we saw him, it was back in the kooji sweater era. So yeah, they've come a long way in terms of costume design on this show. And I feel like his hands look grocer too, because his hands are real like bruised looking. And he's got those, he's got like, I think he's got three fingers instead of five. So he's got Zoidberg hands.

He could give a really upsetting set of double middles. I feel like. But he's never that angry. They also really look wet to me. Yeah. You ever shake someone's hand and it's just moist. I can't imagine getting a three finger handshake that's that's damn. Yeah, so he's gonna he's gonna help them. He's gonna help them get Crusher back and he does some exposition about what

happened, which is that it wasn't And he does some exposition about what happened, which is that it wasn't everybody else that was getting sucked into the war bubble. It was crusher that was sucked into the war bubble. And, and so I guess like the universe of her mind has been contracting. And, and so like along with everyone watching the episode, right? Yeah, slipping into a fugue state. Yeah, and so that's why people have been disappearing, I guess, because they're like home planets and histories have been erased as the as the universe

shrinks. It's weird that their solution to the problem is to pop up the hurricane. Yeah. Without like no one shouts into the hurricane to signal Beverly that they're from the correct timeline. Like, no one sticks a pole into it. Like, like when you rescue someone from drowning, like, no one tries to reach into the other side

to signal her in any way. Yeah. It's a... It's real laid back hurricane. Yeah, they could have thrown a probe through or just a rope. They could have stuck data's arms through it. Yeah, he's willing to do that. Are you kidding me? He'd love that.

Yeah. He'd hokey-pokey that hurricane. Mm-hmm. Um, so this is when Dr. Crusher decides to start thinking like a scientist and her first assumption she announces is that she's not crazy, which I love. Like she is dedicated to the proposition that she is the most sane person on the show. You know? That's cute.

Like it's great because she's like all crazy people, she thinks That's cute. It's great because she's... Like all crazy people, she thinks she's sane. Yeah, but like a couple of times now, she's had to threaten Picard with removing him from duty. And he always fires right back at her. She's like, nah, nah. And he never turns the tables on her. Yeah. hurt. Yeah, so she figures it out. The traveler has to kind of be the OB-1 to Wesley's Luke Skywalker

and talk him through this supernatural process of messing around with the warp field. This scene is super fun because Wesley's really frustrated with the process of getting this Whartbubble to expand and keeping it stable long enough for his mom to run through it. And he's like, he's like, I just can't do it. This is fucking bullshit. And the traveler's like, close your eyes, man, and feel the buttons. And meanwhile, like, Jordy the blind chief engineer is like watching West close his eyes and do something amazing. And then he starts disappearing. Yeah. And then

the traveler starts disappearing. It's crazy. It's like magic going on in the engineering department. And again, whenever anyone sees magic happening on this show, no one says, well, no, yeah, it's, it's just like seeing anything else happen. Oh, yeah, as you do slightly, slightly disappear, no big. Dirty also wasn't the chief engineer when the traveler was last around, right? Yeah. So they mentioned Kaczynski in this episode too. Oh, they do. I missed that.

As a callback. Yeah. Yeah. Wes is like, I've tried everything to keep this bubble open. I've even called up Kaczynski in this episode too. Oh, they do? I missed that. As a callback. Yeah, Wes is like, I've tried everything to keep this bubble open. I've even called up Kaczynski. He was no help. Oh, shit.

Nice. That guy was a dick. Of course he was no help. He really was. Yeah. I bet that guy's got a signed card in the portfolio Prince Trading Card Series. But guess what?

We're not buying that one. All Yagers. All Yeagers. All Yeagers all the time. So after doing it with his eyes closed, Wes is somehow able to erect the bubble in such a way that Beverly finally gets the hint that she's got to run through it in order to get back to her universe. She, uh, she flies through it like slams into a wall on the other side. Picard runs over and helps her get up and she gives him a big hug and then she turns

and she sees Wesley, like on the verge of death slumped over the engineering console and the traveler and she's and the traveler. And she's like, the traveler! Hey! One of the weirdest moments is her son is clearly in distress. And she's like, but first, let me say hello to you, sir. How do you do? I feel like Wesley Crusher's only emotional response this season has been either like stupification at the sight of his father in the holodeck or just utter fatigue and collapse,

which is what it was in engineering in this episode. Yeah. Well, we've furthered the storyline that Wesley is some sort of special relationship with. Warpfield manipulation and that he has sort of got the force. He's good with bubbles. Yeah. We ended up nice shot at the ship, parked back at Space Duck, and we're out. You got through it, Ben. When was the last time you saw this episode?

Because it's so hated for you. Have you skipped it every time? No, I watch everything. I just, I think this might be a mount armistice episode for me, man. I just think it really doesn't, like, the doctor didn't need to be kicked while she was down in this way. It really, it really, like, doesn't do a great job of down in this way. It really doesn't do a great job of depicting this character. And I like the character, you know?

I know you do, and I like her too. This episode didn't move the needle for me about how much I like her just like her, and I really struggle to articulate why I like this episode so much, given its many, many flaws. It is a profoundly flawed episode. But there's something about it that's just Twilight Zony enough that makes it really enjoyable for me. Like it's really, it's just a bubblegum Star Trek episode.

And I just really dig it. It's entertaining. It's not armacy for me in the least. Well, you have terrible taste. I want to know that. Hey Adam, why do we check in and see if there are any priority one messages on our subspace communications relay? Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on secured channel need a supplement on top of the month

supplement supplement yes extra the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship just one message coming in over priority one subspace at him this is a from saygin m is to saygin space atom. This is from Sagan M. It was to Sagan, Kama Kurt's son. I guess this is a

priority one message in reference to a prior priority one message. With some Sagan on Sagan right here. Yeah. Sagan on Sagan action. From one Sagan to another, welcome to Planet Earth. For the past 36 years, I've been the only Sagan I've heard of, and was thrilled to hear your father's name choice. We share the same namesake, Carl Sagan, and this vision and passion for space has influenced me greatly, as I hope it will you. Congratulations, Kurtz Family, Sagan M, in Philly.

Wow. Cool. Philly Sagan is sort of the OG Saganem in Philly. Wow. Cool. Philly's Sagan is sort of the OG Sagan, isn't he? That is an OG of Saganhood. One time I was walking around New York City with a friend and he decided to score some weed and we went up to a pot dealers apartment and they had a cat that they explained to us was named Carl after Carl

Sagan. But Sagan is better. It really is. I feel like we know a bunch of Carl's. In 18 years, the the younger Sagan is gonna hear this and be tickled pink. Sagan the younger. I still love the idea of people naming other people Sagan. Yes. And Katz. Sure. But the idea of one P1 message being sent in response to another, I think, is especially cool. So if you have heard a priority one message that you would like to respond to directly... Or rebut. Yeah, you can go to maximumfund.org slash jumbo

tron and and type in some of your own words that we will read for you. Yeah, it is $100 for a personal message and $200 for a commercial message. And that is what you got to do. Maximumfund.org slash jumbo. Hey Ben. What's that Adam? Did your drunk Shimoda disappear? Drunk Shimoda!

My drunk Shimoda was the last to disappear. My drunk Shimoda is Picard. Just because you actually kind of described this moment when, uh, when Wesley and the traveler are sort of like phasing in and out of, of space time, there's just, there's a couple of shots of Picard just kind of hanging out at the engineering console watching this. And he's definitely got a woe, like body language, but it goes uncommented on, it is hilarious how little it appears to move the needle.

That this is happening. That's a great one. Yeah, how about yourself? Ben, I say this in complete honesty, we never pre-share our shimotas. These are improvised on the spot. And my shimota is exactly the same as yours. What I wrote down was, it's Picard in engineering who has given his ship over to magic, just standing there. Like, like he's watching magic happen in front of him in the most scientific place on the entire ship.

And how defeated must you be as a man of science to watch this go down? Like everything you thought you knew about how your ship worked is basically gone at this point. All it takes is a guy with lobster hands and the boy to create magic and engineering. I mean, Picard up to this point thought he was creating magic with Wesley. Right, but a whole other kind. Yeah, not like this.

So yeah, I think what we've done is given this scene and Picard specifically the drunk Shimoda. I think when we have a simultaneous Shimoda. 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. FOD is from all over, gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre- and post-show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment.

Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it. The Share Your Embarrassment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's greatestgentour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris.

And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We got stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweards. Pat Noswald. Could I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you.

And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are already open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard, be dumb instead. Oh, rats, hey, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line.

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

Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans, we're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Kerry? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that.

And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so same life, something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boat. We came to by two. What do you think? Ona Ross & Kerry, available on MaximumFun.org. Ben, do we have a better episode coming up for next time? We sure do. Our next episode is season four, episode six, legacy.

A rescue mission leads the crew to the birthplace of their late comrade Tasha Yar, where they encounter her mysterious sister. Do you remember this episode, Adam? I remember Sarah Connor vibes. And basically it's a planet full of Sarah Connors, right? Yeah, it's a, it's very post-judgment day terminator world kind of situation.

You know who has the hots for Sarah Connor vibe women? It's one right to William T. Why what is this attitude on? Yeah, I wonder if I can't remember if the attempts to initiate diplomatic relations with this woman, but it wouldn't be against type. I'll put it that way. We'll see if Riker has indigenous clothing in his closet for this one. Hopefully it does. You know, what I'm pretty sure it's not, but what this episode should be is like a

sex competition comedy between Riker and Data to see who can bed her first, right? Because data already slept with her sister. It's like sexual stratagema. Riker and Data have the cow milkers hooked up to them. Like on both nipples and on like the testicles. And it's like a rising score like hour after hour She's she's just sitting at the bar watching this rolling her eyes Who would you bet on I

Could say like I think data would be a a very short favorite but not by much. Yeah, I think I'm with you on that. We'll see what the Vegas odds-makers have to say. Yeah. When we come back, well, you know what there aren't short odds on, Adam. There's our listeners going above and beyond to support our show. They do it all kinds of ways. They go to maxfunstore.com and buy our t-shirt. They go to Maximumfund.org slash donate and commit to a monthly contribution to support the show financially.

And some of them even go to iTunes and leave us a nice review, which we just crossed the 800 mark and hugely appreciate everybody that was involved in that push. That was really cool. We were like 799 and I put out a tweet that somebody could claim 800 and we were at like 808 the next day. So, very cool. That was pretty cool. Yeah, if you haven't reviewed the show yet,

it's easy to do. Yeah. It's just a couple of clicks away. If we had half as many reviews as we have listeners, we would have like one of the most highly rated shows on iTunes, I think. It's true. Yeah.

That would be great. Yeah. It's like, it's literally the easiest thing in the world and helps immeasurably. It's almost as easy as contributing to the show. Mm-hmm. It's an equal amount of clicks, I'd say. Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough.

Well, we should thank Dark Materia for our music and Ed and Margucia for the priority one message music. Thanks both. We are reachable on Twitter using the hashtag GreatestGen. I'm on there as at Cut for Time. Ben is on there as at BenjaminR, a.h.r. There are pages set up on Reddit at our slash greatest gen and also at our slash maximum fun. Interesting thing about the Reddit been is I was I was cruising the Star Trek Reddit. Our show is never mentioned there. I know. And people over there people over there

are talking about other podcasts. Other podcasts I've never heard of yeah having to do a Star Trek and I think they'd be they'd people over on Reddit would get a big kick out of our show we can't do it ourselves no if anyone would like to go over there and spread the word about greatest Jen I think that'd be awesome that would be great maybe we should do an AMA on Reddit sometime Adam. You and me. I'd be happy to do it. I just, I don't know. I would be happy to do that. That's like the one time on Reddit where posting something that you made that you're

proud of doesn't get a million people going, fuck you! Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna do it. Let's do it. Yeah, let's do it. Well, we'll do it someday coming up soon. Yeah, go to Facebook, page and a group. You'll enjoy them. I promise very lively. And with that, we will be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek the Next Generation and a post-apocalyptic episode of the greatest generation. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you.

I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you.

I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you.

I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you. I'm gonna be you was a thousand percent more emotional than any's on the episode. Yeah, instructive. Star Trek Writer's Room, reach out. It's okay to be impressed if you're a character. Maximumfund.org.

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