The Greatest Generation - The Pudding Button (S5E4)

Episode Date: January 18, 2017

When the glass pinecone that Data’s brother has been hanging around with makes an unwanted reappearance, it dashes Riker’s hope of post-curry coitus. Starfleet is quick to dispatch a rare old lady-scientist to debate everybody about the relative merits of revenge. Is Captain Picard turning into Burke? Who should shampoo Adam’s crotch? Will she turn Data into an even weirder real doll? You don’t need to be an empath to know that this episode is not in its right mind.

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

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

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

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

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdecisoto for labor.com. That's friends of Disoto for labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! The greatest generation, that's what you're listening to, and I am one of your hosts, Ben Harrison.

I'm Adam Pranica. We're getting right to it, aren't we Ben? You just skipped all the fruit-frueness that we typically begin our show with. I wasn't going to skip it. I was just playing with the order, but now, but now I feel self-conscious about that decision. I think our viewers expect and have gotten used

to a certain formality with the open. And I'm a little apprehensive about disappointing them. I was going to be perfectly formal. I was just going to do it in a different order, Adam. I'm looking at you in the camera, and you're not wearing the suit that you typically wear when you record this pod, so I know you're being informal. Yeah, I've upgraded to a white tux.

I'm, it's cruise formal, Adam. It's a different kind of formal, but no less formal. You're not going to be able to eat chicken wings wearing that thing, Ben. It's a bad idea. I trust myself. The most dangerous wing is often the most delicious. That's how you're going to keep beating them. They keep underestimating you. Yeah.

That's Bruce Willis in pulp fiction. Yeah. That's Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction. Oh, right. Okay. I'm glad you explained the joke to me. It's like being on Twitter, Ben. You say something funny and then someone out of the mist comes out to tell you exactly why.

Yeah. They either repeat your joke with slightly different wording or just say what the premise of your joke is to you. There's a viewer out there that thinks we're talking about them, but I promise we're not. You're doing great out there, random viewer, who plays with us on Twitter. Yeah. I think our viewers really don't fall into that trap as much as almost all other people do. Yeah.

Most people are the worst. Not our viewers though. They're the best. Adam, I did something really weird, which is I watched a bit of the episode we're going to discuss today on the airplane and I didn't take notes and then I came back and took notes. So I feel like a really deeply steeped in this episode. Do you want to get right into it? Yeah, let's do it. This is season five episode four, Silicon Avatar.

The episode starts with a situation that is almost impossibly on the nose for Reiker, which is he's overseeing the creation of a new Federation colony and getting the Macklade down on him and he is laying the Mack right back down on this lady who is the head of the colony, I guess. It's a beautiful place to put down roots. Somehow, Riker, you don't strike me as the kind that puts down roots. Yeah, the idea is Carmen is setting up this planet for population and she sort of wants Riker to help. It's exciting to find a new world, but the joy comes in making it a home. Building houses, having children. Very interesting.

Yeah, she's like, you know, this would be a lot easier if I, if I couldn't shit a baby out in nine or so months. She's proposing a little curry for insemination trade-off here. Pretty standard deal, really? It took a very nicely with that bottle of wine I happen to know you brought with you. The sounding better all the time. And as you know, I provide the most memorable desserts. My favorite part of dinner.

I can never remember feeling amorous after curry. You know? Well, she said it's dry curry, so who even knows what that is. Are they going to dump half of rakers wine into it to reactivate the curry. Sounds awful. In less, man, in less, they aren't actually talking about curry. And raker isn't actually talking about his bottle of wine. Oh man, I wish we knew the answer to that.

People who talk in metaphors are to shampoo my crotch. Can you explain that joke to me, Adam? That's a movie reference and when you edit this episode, the clip will come right up. Oh, oh it will. Yeah. Well I just magically know what movie it is. If you Google search shampoo my crotch, you'll get a Jack Nicholson scene from a movie called as Good as It Get.

And probably a little poor now, but mostly the Jack Nicholson scene. Okay. They both sound great. To write people a talking metaphor is out of shampoo my crotch. So Rikers do in the meat cute with Carmen, and they're making plans for later. And that, that in a cold open is sort of a death sentence, right? You can't be making plans for later if you want to live through the entire episode. Yeah, no, that's a character coughing a little bit in the second act of the film. So the sky darkens, and we get instead of like day for night, we get day for blue. Everything gets

sort of a blue cast on it and it gets windy. It seems really hard to do practical wind on a scale like this because I was looking in the background and some giant trees are shaking. I wonder how they did that. You really must have wheeled out the wind machines big time. I was picturing like guy wires with grips like hauling on them just off camera. That makes way more sense. Yeah. But it is like, it's very well done. Like all of the effects in this sequence are awesome.

Yeah. Will? What is it? It's the crystalline entity, and so they have to run to some caves for cover. Initio people like sprinting on mass across fields, and there's like trees in the foreground, and the trees get like raised. And that's like not an easy cop you know this is well into the territory of I

don't know how to do that with special effects where the trees are vaporized and smoke is kicked up and there's people still running behind it yeah and as far as like the size of the production goes they're working with like 40 extras like this is a real big shoot. Yep, Commander Riker in a cast of thousands. Yeah, and so Riker yells at data, he's like, we got to get out of here, where's our best chance to do that? And data's like, well, there's some caves down the way. That's probably our best shot. So they start evacuating the surface and running towards the caves.

Remember those caves a couple episodes ago? Right. We still have that set. So let's go to that. Remember that set we occasionally use as a catch-all for storytelling? That's a lot of styrofoam. We're not throwing that away. Yeah. Yeah. It's just past the castle. So they run to the caves and they're using a strategy for getting all of the people to the caves that I think they probably borrowed from our friend of the show, John Roderick, which is watch your step but keep moving. Yeah. So a corollary to keep moving but get out of the way.

Right. Yeah, so a corollary to keep moving but get out of the way right and And and it's like it's one of those classic things where there's like a kid that goes down and Riker has to carry the kid but then an old man goes down and he passes the kid to data and runs back But Carmen has run back for the old man and man and... CUMMERS! There are both cowering and fear on the ground as the crystalline entities eat them up ray, passes over them, and they are...they and the ground below them are replaced by pillars of salt essentially.

Yeah, it's a real lack of gore, which made me think, like, is it more horrifying that it is so sanitary, the way that the crystalline entity eats up all life? Like, it's really clean about it, right? It just mows everything down and absorbs it, but if Carmen had been shot with the Gorgon from the Ginger Jesus episode, like how different would Riker's reaction have been? He's still heartbroken and horrified at what he'd seen. It's so mute though. He sees it and he has to turn and run and then you know, it's almost worse for that is what I'm saying. Like it's worse to just have it be so neutral. It's almost worse for that is what I'm saying. Like it's worse to just have it be so neutral.

Yeah, and then he has to explain what happened to her to the doctor and she's just like, blue, sorry. She's real, pretty cold about it herself. Right, there's like the last one in the cave and they seal up the door behind them with a couple of phasers. They knock the rocks under the doorway,

which creates such a good seal that the next concern for them is running out of air. And also not enough light, so they like heat up some of the rocks at the top of the cave, which seems like it would make it really unpleasantly warm in there. Yeah. Like sauna level warmth.

Yeah, it's true. They create a ceiling sauna in the cave against really anyone's asking for it. They just sort of do it. Yeah, nobody's like, oh, I, you know, I brought some textbooks and I would love a little light to read by. You know, my skin hasn't been great lately. What I could really use is some nice heat to just sort of open up my pores. Yeah, and I want like Russian baths level heat. And if somebody could whacking the shit out of me with a birch branch, that would be great.

Yeah, so the refugees are enjoying sort of a spa day, you could say, inside the caves. This is a net win. I mean, outside of Carmen's tragic death, I think everyone's enjoying the circumstance. Uh-huh. The entrepreneur is off doing something else and they start picking up that there's something amiss at the colony, but they're too far away to really get a sense of what it is. And because there's no communications with the colony, they decide to step on the gas and get their post-haste. Picard does that weird thing where there is an emergency and he only incrementally increases

the speed of the ship. I think if Captain Picard had seen what was going on with Riker's hair, he would have gone to warp 9.5 right off the bat. Right, it doesn't seem like the crew is hip to what the viewer knows right now, which is that you can determine the level of danger by how unkempt Riker's haircut is. Yeah. So they're there for like hours and hours and everybody is sweaty and kind of passed out. For some reason the starfleet people are less affected by how

bad the air is down there. But they're still in rough shape and and and They're like getting worried that they're Basically at the end of the amount of time they have with the air in there But they're not sure if the crystalline entity is moved on or not and they're getting ready to make the decision about what to do when about what to do when, uh... A matter, a matter-racker! Are you there? Warf has finally found a door that he can figure out how to open. Yeah, he sort of incredible hooks his way through the rock pile. And I was thinking like he... Yeah, if the entrance to the cave had been blocked by a real enterprise door, there's no way

Warfoot would have been able to get in there. No way. They would have died in there. Yeah. They do this joke that is like at this point, like a running gag in TNG, which is that Warfoot is a sight for sore eyes. It's like, oh, ha, ha, ha. Glengons are so ugly.

Yeah. Why is that okay? I think it isn't keeping with the late motif of no one really likes Warf or is actually his friend. Yeah. They really mean to him. Yeah, they sure are. So the raker and data step outside the cave for the first time since the attack and the crystalline entity has turned this planet into anybody can. Anybody! I was like, if raker says anybody right now, I will fucking die.

Yeah, I really wanted it. I wanted it so bad. So they decide that this is when they need to start taking the crystalline entity seriously. It's raised, it's raised one too many colonies at this point. It took a fuck opportunity away from Commander Riker, which may be a bridge too far. That's the last draw right there. Yeah, we're not putting up with this any longer. It's doing a sort of Borg's amount of damage to these planets. Yeah, and the same kind of damage too, right?

Yeah. Well, they tell Starfleet that that's what they're going to focus their energies on, and Starfleet dispatches a rare old lady scientist. Right. Usually get old white dudes, and this is an old white lady, which we haven't seen since one the talk to Dr. Polasky back in that episode with, what's his face, with George Baxter in it. Yeah, I feel like as a viewer, you can't help but be a little bit off-balance by this. You're used to an old white man doctor with a young attractive lady,

accompaniment. Not quite sure what to do here. If I had to characterize this lady, Kyla Marr, I would say that she's about 50% Dr. Polesky and 50% Missy Van from Peewee's Playhouse. Yeah. Would you like to sit on me, Missy Van? Oh, I can't think of anyone I'd rather sit on. And she is very quickly identified as being obviously racist toward data. Yeah. Like they have this McLaughlin group.

If you're a walk where they're talking about the strategy for a finding the crystalline entity and be figuring out how to deal with the fact that it just flies around killing people. And data keeps speaking up and she keeps tugging at her collar and not wanting to make eye contact with them and stuff. If I'm out of data, you will have come into the doctor to the surface. Yes, sir.

If you don't mind, Captain, I prefer to choose my own team. And in one of the all-time great Troy lines, like another thing in this episode where they wrote the character saying exactly what the character should have been saying the entire time. Yeah. She walks up to Captain Picard and goes, I don't think you need an M-path to sense that woman's feelings. Yeah, like she accidentally has read the script

note as dialogue. She's, yeah, exactly. And Picard's response to her here is pretty interesting. He's basically saying, yes, I know that she is clearly racist against data, but if that's going to, if that's going to compromise how she acts on this mission, I need to know that now. So like, he's aware that she might be totally unhinged, but I feel like he never really follows up with that. Like, he definitely puts her and data together at the beginning to test how crazy she is, but then never checks in with data.

And I feel like they could have had that scene. She plays it cool enough for long enough that they could have had a scene where data goes like, yeah, she seems pretty uncool at first, but now she's chill. It's sort of like about team building here too, right? Kylamar wants to assemble her dodgeball team of scientists to go study this thing, and she doesn't want data under team. But Picard is like, actually, data is the best guy for the job, and you're stuck together so make it work.

So they go down to the planet's surface together where you get a little bit more of their conflict, laid bare. Yeah, it's, this is like a fantasy almost. Like when somebody says something racist or sexist or whatever, getting the opportunity to just kind of like thoroughly debunk the basis for their bigotry. Because, Lord, betrayed the colonists on Amcran Theta, you believe that I am capable of the same behavior. You are mistaken, doctor. My programming is distinctly different from lore.

And she's just trying to, she's trying to go to data by saying all of the horrible things she believes about him. You don't understand, I am accusing you of collaborating with that monster. I do understand, and I am attempting to explain to you it is impossible. And you can't hurt my feelings, so sorry. It's such a strange position to take, like that her interest at this point is to be racist directly at the target of her racism in an effort to do what exactly.

Irritate him? Like, what was her desired reaction? That's what I didn't understand from this scene. Like, she's needling and needling and needling and then she sort of blows up at the end. She's like, you aren't even getting pissed off at me right now. And that frustrates her more than anything. Yeah, so she's got a two pronged Rewenge that she's trying to prosecute here. One is that she wants to destroy the crystalline entity because her beautiful baby boy was on Amacron Theta when it was destroyed, which is where

they, which is where data comes from. She also wants data to be held to account for what Laura did to lure the crystalline entity to that planet. She thinks that data and Laura are identical and should be deactivated. She's very open to about threatening data with disassembling him, which is another thing that, like, we've had a million episodes about how data has all the rights of anybody else. So, threatening him with disassembly is a totally empty threat. It's weird to think that racism can also be micro-racism, like racism against only two things. The only two of a certain kind that there are,

like that's also racism, right? Yeah. Or is it not? Is it just not liking a type of thing? Like at what point does it become capital R racism versus just a preference or a reticence to work with a kind of thing that also killed a family member? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, one of the kind of baffling things about racism is that race has no basis in science,

but racism is still a problem. You wish that having no logical underpinning would be enough to take its fangs away, but it doesn't. Yeah. My love is a people long and chill for that, which longer than us at the busy. Tell me more, you're not bored. But yeah, so data kind of fact checks the racism.

And over the course of the episode, Mara kind of turns around on data, because she discovers that he is chock full of journal entries from her son, who was like 16 years old when he was killed. And she had been away for years and years doing her science. So she you know She as a mother feels like it's somehow her fault that he was killed and that the only way that she can Make things right is by

devoting you know throwing herself into the project of exacting revenge on the crystalline entity. What does it mean? It means a matter. It means Ray Wang-Gay. At this point you start to perceive some Pamela Voorhees vibes from her. Oh, what monster could have done this? Her obsession becomes a little strange, like, and not just this, not just the brand of obsession

that comes from great emotional loss, like that anyone would feel, you know, through the death of a family member. There's sort of a, a tinge of unhingedness to her. Yeah. It's starting to play out. And she becomes the hub of attention wheel that draws a line between her and data for her. There's like the tension between her robot racism

and her desire to reconnect with her dead son through the logs that live inside him. But there's also a sort of attention between her and Picard, who is expressed the idea of communicating with the crystalline entity instead of destroying it. And this is what I'm going to call the Burke problem, right? Picard wants to be Burke from aliens. This is clearly, clearly an important species we're dealing with, and I don't think that you or I or anybody has the right to arbitrarily exterminate them.

He wants to somehow work with the crystalline entity and Kyla Morrow wants to be Ripley, she wants to destroy it. I say we take off and nuke the entire site for morbid. Not to steady to destroy. Yeah. This installation has a substantial dollar value attached to it. They can bill me. Yeah, like this is the scene where Picard would say,

like, all right, lady, like you've had your fun, but you're not on this project anymore, because they're halfway through discussing the fact that they've figured out a way to find the crystalline entity and choose, like, oh, and here's the programming you're going to need to do on the photon torpedoes to obliterate it and regard as like, wait a second. Yeah. We should talk about the scene where they figure out how to track the entity,

which is they're all down in Shemota Corner, Data, Jordian and Kylo Mar. And data's like, hey, have you thought about looking into the gamma radiation signature of this thing? And she's like, no, why would you do that? Frankly, I just don't see what that would get us. And before she's even done talking about what a dumb idea it is, data and Jordi have run the scan and discovered that it's a great way to figure out where the crystalline entity is.

Yeah. So we know the entity leaves anti-protons behind. If it also deposits anti-protons in space as it travels, can we detect them? Sure, we can set the ship's lateral sensors for gamma radiation. Well, let's get to it, shall we? It just really like undercuts her authority as a scientist, because it's like, oh, these two guys that haven't devoted their lives to this came up with the the linchpin of crystalline entity studies while you were talking about how irrelevant of an idea it was. So her hate clouds her scientific judgment.

Yeah, I mean, either that or Jordi and data are just way better at science than she is. Could be. She said gamma radiation deniers, which she is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Then why is it so cold in Shimoda Corner, Kylobar? She is not the only one that wants to pursue revenge though, right?

Like, Riker is definitely interested in treating that as a viable option. Hey, maybe I'm been keeping up on current events, but we just got our asses, Chick-Pow. I felt like that was kind of yucky, you know? Yeah, there's a scene where Riker meets Picard in the ready room and Picard's like, look, we gotta gather Carman's things and send them back to her family.

And I know you guys were close, so maybe you'd want to include a letter in that package. And Riker is fucking pissed at Picard for barely insinuating that they wouldn't just destroy this thing. With all due respect, sir, I'm not a rock of dead. I've lost people on missions before. If we take time to try to communicate with this thing, we may lose our chance to destroy it.

It's real weird, right? It seems off-character. Yeah, it felt really strange to see him, like, just dripping with hatred for his commanding officer like that. You never see that. Yeah, it's not something that would have ever happened in, like, the first three seasons of this show. Yeah. And it still feels weird even now. Not something that would have ever happened in like the first three seasons of this show. Yeah, and still feels weird even now and

I don't know. I mean it also just doesn't add up, you know like I'm sure Riker is feeling bad about this lady buying the farm and Feeling bad about the sex that he's missing out on as a secondary consideration. But like, he's not that guy, you know. He's not like saddle up and go get blood, you know. He's not an eye for an eye type of character. Like, wharf maybe that would make sense from, but not riker. Yeah, and not only that,

but like Picard and Riker are very close. This doesn't seem like enough of a reason for Riker to hate him the way that he does in this scene. Yeah, real weird. Yeah. Really, really weird. Yeah. Well, the episode gets pretty tense when they have a radio com with the next victim of the

crystalline entity. It's like some alien transport ship. They're listening to the captain of that ship yell terrifying things into the radio as the crystalline entity eats them alive. Keep a lot of faith to faith, exit faith. A lot of event horizon callbacks this season. Yeah, a lot of AM radio static. A lot of Latin being sinisterly read into the radio. Yeah, a lot of eyeballs being held in the palms of hands.

Yeah, what else would you do with eyeballs? Not use them. Certainly not. I am a cuter's a ball. You will assist us. I am a cuter's a ball. You are a ball. This is a good reason for Picard to increase the speed of the ship.

Once again, Picard has found reason to step on the pedal a little bit harder. The card's the sort of driver that just stays in the left lane with his starship, like going slower than the rest of traffic. Left lane's a passing lane Picard. He's going at a sensible 63 miles an hour. Yeah. When I drive around your neck of the woods at him, that is something that drives me absolutely crazy is how many left lane drivers are not using passing speed.

Worst drivers in America, Seattle, Washington. Yeah, that's what I think. I mean, it's complicated because there's so many left freeway exits. Like, you know, like the exits are often on the left side, so it does kind of throw the passing lane math into a little bit of confusion. But yeah, like that drive between Portland and Seattle, it can be very frustrating. It's mostly pre-uses, so I understand the lack

of a lot of get up and go there, but it's no excuse, like you can still do a lane change in a pre-us. Yeah, yeah, I mean that car max is out at 72 miles an hour. Yeah, real comfortable. In transit, the doctor is becoming more and more intimate with data in the sense that she's fishing for these logs. Like she wants to get to know her son through data and she's willing to look past the idea

of her racism in order to get a read on these journals, in order to turn data into a sort of real doll with like, life like, sun voice action. And this is the thing that I feel like, Kevin Achish. I have created something that I think you are really going to enjoy. My normal work is much closer to the kink end of the spectrum, but I think this is almost a kink end of itself. I feel like this is even a bridge too far for Kevin. Kevin doesn't want to put voices in his real dolls, Desi. It's like one of those reality shows where they make like, they

make like doomsday bunkers for people and they have the consultation ahead of time about like what doomsday scenario are you particularly afraid of? Yeah. And the person's like, well, I live, you know, four and a half miles from a nuclear power plant. So I'd like it to be radiation hardened. Yeah. They're like writing it down. Like Kevin would be like,

I realize I do something that is pretty strange, but I try not to take advantage of people who are clearly mad. I remember any special conscience. The only other real doll I've made with a life like voice, wish my way for Shen. Usually they have a little bit more Siri to them. So what you get is data talking in Kaila Mars son's voice as a sort of puppet. In a couple of weeks a bunch of us are going on an archaeological dig in the mountains.

The walls is said it would be all right as long as we had a adult supervision. So don't worry mom. And I think that she has a great scene when they talk on the radio with the other ship that's getting attacked. Like you can really see her break in that scene. Yeah, that's the moment. And from then on in, like the closer they get to this confrontation, the more she is going into the heart of darkness and the less she has her right mind, you know, the less she has access to her right mind, she is, and hearing her son's voice just fans the flames of whatever's going on with her. So they finally get to wherever in space

the crystalline entity is. I guess they're like trying to stop it before it gets to another inhabited star system. And they've come up with this idea that if they do some graviton pulses, they'll be able to get its attention and attempt communication, which is, you know, Picard's goal is, you know, let's see if we can talk to this thing and see if we can explain to it in the same way

that those little shimmering lights from the bottom of the hole in that terraforming planet explain to us, hey, we're alive, stop eating us, stop destroying our environment, you know? Yeah, they're sending out pings in the form of these pulses. Emissions, now at 30 pulses per second. Captain, I'm reading a transmission from the entity, a series of graviton pulses. It's working. That's a response to our signal.

And it's starting to work. Right. But Kyla has different ideas about what they're there to do. And she has, like, I guess programmed a little situation ahead of time where she can set the resonance pulses going to Maybe it doesn't like what we're doing. And everybody on the bridge is like, well, oh, wait, maybe we should stop this. Doctor, return to the intermittent signal.

And she's just in like a fugue state at this point. And everybody's like, uh, okay, well, we'll turn off your computer for you. She has lacked them out of the controls. And they can't move fast enough to turn the thing off before it Explodifies the crystaline entity Yeah Pretty intense end to the crystaline entities rain of terror

Yeah, it shatters sort of beautifully too, like a ballroom chandelier. And in the aftermath, Kyla Mars, sort of like her hands have like grabbed onto data's shirt sleeve. Like, yeah, that was a great bit of business. Yeah, she's sort of locked down to data in the aftermath of her full breakdown. Yeah, this is her motherly attachment to the thing that she perceives inside data

as being her son resurrected. Yeah. And it seems like maybe she's also a little bit confused about whether she is talking to data or her son. Pachard is just fucking disgusted with her. Mr. Wolf, you scored the doctor to her quarters. Yes, sir. So is Riker in a weird way?

Like Riker moments ago was ready to destroy the thing but because it happened not on his terms because there was an opportunity at communication that it seems like he turned the corner in a nonverbal way. Yeah, and Picard is like, get her out of here, wharf, book him Dano. And date is like, well, you know, well, she is grabbing my sleeve. I might as well take it. Yeah. Yeah. And he takes her down to, down to her And in like one of the coldest things he's done since he broke up with Canadian cute,

he explains to this very damaged woman how the son that, you know, in whose memory she just did this would have been disgusted with her actions. Yeah. And it's cold as ice. Disgusted with her actions Yeah And it's cold as ice and it's sort of a double heartbreak Like yeah, she sort of she sort of comes out of her fukes date enough to recognize that Before diving back in It's pretty awful. She just commits career suicide

It's one of the saddest endings to any episodes. Yeah. I think it's interesting that Kaila Marm murdered something in front of everyone, and then she gets to go back to recorders. Is that fair? Yeah. Well, I mean,

Do they know she's had a mental breakdown, and that's why they're not going to throw her in prison, because you should never throw mentally unstable people in prison why they're not going to throw her in prison because you should never throw Mentally unstable people in prison. That's not going to reform them Yeah, I don't think that they have any concern that she's gonna do any other murdering like she had pretty single-minded Agenda with her murder Her murder is a lot like her robot prejudice or her racism in that it's very micro murder and micro racism.

Yeah. Who are those kids that killed their parents in the 90s? Are you talking about the Menendez brothers? Yeah. Like it's like that where it's like, like nobody thinks that the Menendez brothers are gonna kill somebody else. Yeah, like it's like that where it's like, like nobody thinks that the Menendez brothers are gonna kill somebody else.

Like their beef was with two people and they got their man. Yeah. What were those guys' names? Kyle and Lyle. Yeah. I'm sure it was something like that. Curtin, Dean Menendez, Derek and Jared, Menendez. Let's see, Lyle and Eric.

Lyle and Eric. Yeah. Lyle and Eric, soon. Did you like this episode, Ben? I did. It's a sad and weird episode, but I loved seeing Reicher lay the Mac down on a lady in a way that wasn't like the stars are not never going to be as beautiful as your eyes, type of schmoozing. I liked the, you know, the villain here

is mental illness unrecognized. And Kylo Mar is such an interesting character. And I think that it's another, you know, it's an example of an episode where there are characters doing things that are very uncharacteristic of the world that Star Trek, the next generation, has built. And it's fun to see how people who are not used to this kind of behavior react to it. Yeah. It's interesting that this, the future is not a post-Vengeance world. Yeah. It's interesting that this, the future is not a post-Vengeance world. Yeah.

To a certain degree, that will always exist. Yeah. How about yourself? Did you like it? Yeah, I did like it. It was, it was interestingly moody. It was punctuated by some strange scenes like that scene between Riker and Picard. You don't get a conclusion to that. Like, you never see Riker Soffin, his hatred, his real hate for Picard. All you see is his expression in the aftermath of the crystalline entities' death. But you get that. You get that ending with Kaila Marr. Is it a little dark button? Yeah, nice dark button. Contrasty button. Yeah. Well Adam, do you want to check in and see if we have any priority one messages? Yeah we

should. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on that. A supplement? A supplement. A supplement. Yes, extra. How do you interest alone? Could be enough to buy this ship. Couple of priority one messages, aka Jumbo Trons here at him.

First one is from Uncle Jerry and it's to James Boone. Happy birthday to the best work trip roommate ever. I'd also like to thank you for the drunk Shimoda shirt and getting me hooked on the greatest generation. You sure are a great dude. What? Cool. Sometimes you get a roommate that just introduces you to

all sorts of things. Yeah. Good job. That. Good draw. That is for Jerry. That's a great draw. And, uh, James sounds like a real class act, by, and, uh, by, and his buddy, a greatest generation t-shirt.

This is a very generous co-worker. This is super generous co-worker. I, I feel like we're beneficiaries of his generosity and also his co-worker is great I have no qualifications to apply to reading out a jumbo tron for this nice nice dude Ben I'd like to turn to camera for a moment and address Uncle Jerry and James Boone's bosses if I could hmm. Hey Uncle Jerry and James Boone's bosses

Hey, Uncle Jerry and James Boone's bosses. What do you do in saving a couple bucks by sticking your employees into the same hotel room on a work trip? Yeah, that's good. So what's that, man? Yeah. I think on a work trip, it's important to have your own space. And especially with a team, like you, like having a good team as a business owner is worth its weight and gold.

And this is a team that has already shown the solidarity of buying a novelty t-shirt from a podcast for each other. Yeah. So like, you know, treat him right. Tell you one thing, whoever this boss is, is really lucky that Uncle Jerry and James Boone are as close friends as they are. You imagine if James Boone weren't a viewer of our show?

Yeah. Uncle Jerry ends up rooming. That guy on a work trip? Be awful. Yeah, that'd be no good. Speaking of Uncle's Adam, our next priority one message is also from one. Do you want to read it? Oh, well, this one is from Uncle Donald and it's

for Dan McGee. Here's the thing Ben I don't know if I could do this one because this one asks specifically for the Pikazby voice. Well you do that as much as I do. Oh god. Alright if you want me to do it I'll do it. I really would. I feel like my Cosby's terrible compared to yours. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh Happy birthday! I'm your father! Put! See, you added the best part of that, Adam. Don't sell yourself short. I added the putting button. Yeah. Is that the title of this episode?

Yeah. It's never come out of a priority one before. You don't have to be an uncle to purchase a priority one message. I have to do is go to maximumfund.org slash jumbo tron where you can find either the personal or professional option of messaging. Personal messages are $100 business messages for two and they help us produce our fine program. They sure do. Thanks to everybody. Thanks to all, thanks to all uncles everywhere.

See you snuck one in on ya. Good times. Yomok and Yalat and Tanagra. A greatest-gen live show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre- and post-show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour.

Let's do it! The Sherry Reembarishment Tour is coming 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 Sherry Reembarisment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris and I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds.

Pat Noswald. Can I get a ball-rock burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Non-Giani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps 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 mine. 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 necks.

But I'm hearing we need to get on this. We've got to get on the art. It is about terrain, about a spout to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, 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 seem like something for us to check out We would love to be on the boats. We came to by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie available on maximumfun.org Hey band did you find yourself a drunk shmoda? I did. Adam, I cannot help based on the way the scene in question unfolds, then think this was entirely intentional on the part of the filmmakers. In the scene where Riker and Carmen are negotiating their soon-to-come sexual encounter, they're

having this chat and it's just shot reverse shot, you know, it's it's a nice medium shots of each one of them and And then data in the doctor walk up, and it cuts to a wide shot. And Riker is standing at an angle to the camera with his phaser at such an angle that it is very evocative of a huge erection. If you scrub to a minute and 59 seconds in this episode, you will see what can only

be Mison's sand that is designed to evoke a raker boner. And that is just such a beautiful, beautiful thing. And I actually had to run her up, but I'll let you tell me your drunk, Shemota, assuming you have one before I reveal that. Riker's dustbuster is not for cleaning up messes, it's for making them. My Shemota is within this very same scene, but I heard you characterize the flirtation between Carmen and Riker as being pretty solid.

I don't know, man, I think Riker's done a lot better as a Flur, and I felt like this was sort of like store brand flirtation out of Riker that... that I don't know. It felt like Carmen was carrying more of the flirtation weight than Riker. Oh yeah, she's definitely the one that's laying the Mac down. Yeah, and I dug that quite a bit. It felt to me like Riker was, Riker was a little off balance

and sort of struggling to hit the flirtation ball back at her in a real fun, interesting way. Like, you don't often see that out of him because he's a black belt. Yeah. So I'm definitely giving my Shimoda to Riker for this scene. Like, he's clearly having a ton of fun. Despester, Bone, or not withstanding. Yeah, I just I choose to believe that Riker is so good that he is able to modulate his schizzles of a of a coxman to to fit the scenario. And if somebody's kicking it to him, he is he's good for that. Yeah, it's sort of a flirtation a keto or like that that Bruce Lee cone about how water is the strongest thing

because it flows over and through rocks and the water and the teapot is actually the strongest thing. So we extoll as you to be a teapot. That's what Rickard is doing. My friend. Yeah, Rickard is the teapot in this scene. A teapot of flirtation. Yeah, he wants, he wants Carmen to fill him up. Yeah.

So you want to hear my, my runner up? I do. There's that scene in the Styrofoam cave with Dr. Kylo Mar and, and data. She's clearly very distracted with trying to go to him because the camera cuts away briefly and cuts back and her tricorder is upside down. She is just scanning the wall with an upside down tricorder which I thought was really fun. I had that moment in my notes. I just didn't have an opportunity to to bring it up but yeah I totally spotted totally spotted that. What is she doing? You dope. Why didn't everybody on set go, no, that's not how those are held.

I'm detecting a sizable quantity of senior strength vitamins in this area. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, This rock outcrop appears to have scoliosis. This cave has had a hip replacement recently. These jagged rocks appear to need an early bedtime commander. Oh boy, that's fun. What do we have coming up on the next episode, Finn? The next episode is Season 5, Episode 5. Disaster.

The lives of the crew are in Troy's hands when a natural disaster forces her to take over his captain of the seriously damaged entrepreneur. Do you remember this episode, Adam? Ben, when there is, when that, when, when something has happened to the ship that is imparaling the lives of the entire crew and you place a woman in charge, what do you call that episode? Uh, penicence on behalf of the writing staff. Yeah, you could only ever call it disaster, couldn't you? Goddamn it guys. Well, I do remember this episode, we go spelunking in turbo lift chefs. Yeah, do you feel strongly enough about your disgust here that you want to invoke your retot atom?

Now I'm ready to see it. I'm mentally and emotionally prepared to see it. Okay, let's see it. Fine. Adam, one thing we have to do here at the end of the episode is encourage people to connect with us on tweeters using the hashtag greatest gen. I'm on there is at Benjamin R.H.R. and Adam of course is one of the funniest tweeters around at Cut for Time. We've also got great and lively Facebook community and a great and lively

Reddit community if you can believe it. Those are both pretty easy to find. Just look for greatest generation. And what else is there? We should thank Dark Materia for our music and Adam Magusia for our other music. Thanks guys. And I think that's about it. Yeah, I think you've done a great job doing the full conclusion to our show, Ben. With that, we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek, the next generation,

and a disastrous episode of the greatest generation. You could call them all a disastrous episode, Ben. Yeah, that's not very specific, is it? Yeah. I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna make it sound like I'm gonna Listener supported.