The Greatest Generation - The Riker Collection (S1E24)

Episode Date: April 13, 2016

When Captain Picard's fencing match gets cut short by a bad case of deja vu, the Enterprise crew is forced to grapple with his romantic regrets, not to mention a temporal catastrophe that threatens the entire quadrant. Their investigation leads to a fringey German scientist, who married Picard's ex-girlfriend. Will Beverly's deep jealousy impact her obligation to keep the scientist alive? Is Data already old enough to need a reacher-grabber? Will the captain finally have a sexual encounter with a consenting adult? It's the episode where we discover that we'd be great future accordion players!

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,

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

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

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdecisoto for labor.com. That's friendsofdisoto for labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are a bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pryanaka and today we're not just embarrassed, we're also drinking.

It's driven us to drink. Yeah, I'm having a Miss Cow. How about you? I am also having a Miss Cow. The only Wohakian Star Trek podcast. It's true. We're really trying to break into that super valuable Wohakian demo for sci-fi fans. Yeah. There's just a huge, huge pie wedge that hasn't been, hasn't been pandered to yet. And we're here to do it. I'm excited to do a deeper dive into alcohol as we witness any kind of drinking at all occur on the show because we haven't really seen that yet, have we?

I think the only time I can think of is when LwOccsana Troy blessed us with her presence. Yeah, yeah I was drinking too. So we've got season one, episode 24, will always have Paris. Ben, have you ever been to Paris? I have. I suspect that the set design department has not. City of broad shoulders, right? The city of pastel hues and badly painted backdrops. This episode did not make me want to go. I've never been. But no. Good Lord. This episode did not make me want to go. I've never been but no good lord So we start with

some some more of the same bad Scoring as the last episode Bad music and what's going on is that the enterprise is Traveling through some sector and Picard is doing some Some fencing practice with a very handsome gentleman who I don't think we'll ever see again. I thought for a moment it was Jake. Oh yeah, like the older Jake. The further grooming of Jake.

Yeah, I thought maybe it... I thought it was maybe the guy that he took on the holodeck in his detective novel episode. Oh, right. But then I realized it wasn't the same actor. And I was like, oh, that guy recovered from a bullet. Nope, different guy, you know. Are we sure that this is or isn't a holodeck program

or do you think they have a full-fledged fencing setup like in real life on the enterprise? I don't know. We definitely see this again, because there's an episode where he fights whoopi Goldberg with a sword in there. Right, right, and she's great. Yeah.

So I don't know, I guess. Yeah, you sort of wonder if they have the ability to make a hologram of anything, why they would have any specialized rooms at all. Right. Right. And not only specialized rooms, but any other rooms, period, like you could do all your science shit

in a holodeck science room. If the whole deck of a ship was just a huge holodeck, you could subdivided any way you want, you don't need to have walls even, you know? Yeah, that's real efficient, open concept office building ship right there. That's what buyers are looking for. They like curb appeal, open concept, location, location, location. I think they've really fucked up the whole building of the enterprise given what we're talking about here. Like they're not going to be able to resell it for very much. With all these hard walls. Yeah, those are load bearing. Those are not going to be cheap to take out. You're going to have to put in a beam.

Yeah. Yeah. You just try, you just try getting the opinion of a federation contractor in there. When he starts poking around. Unless you got the property brothers or someone in there to work with you on this. You're just going to have a tough time. But anyways, as they're fencing, this effect happens where they're like saluting each other with swords and it doubles up in time. And they both sort of notice that something weird has happened. Picard and his opponent. And so, Picard wipes some of the sweat off his brow and goes over and radios up to the bridge and asks, ask what the fuck?

Picard to bridge. Captain. Number one. It's something unusual just to turn the bridge. And Raker says, yeah, we're, we're, we're feeling it too, man. You better get up here. So, Picard bombs up to the bridge. Did you feel that? Oh, yeah, I felt that Yeah, was this was that good for you to Riker?

Picard in his sweats rolls up to the bridge Which I think a very weird sparkly sparkly sword fight in uniform. I think it's a pretty hot look. You know, like why not take it easy? I think it's a little bit of a precursor to the whole Captain in jacket look that we get. I don't know, like season five or something. He's got the suit jacket on.

Definitely. And I think that whenever, like when we see Picard out of uniform, typically we're going with a real deep V, like he likes to show a lot of chests. Or shirtless. This is an occasion where he's a little bit more covered up, which I think is good, you know. Right.

Right. Just for variety, I'm not trying to sludge shame him or anything. No, no, you wouldn't do that. No, I'm very, I'm very Picard sex positive. So the captains on the bridge and they start to get a distress call. Right. And this is coming from Paul Mannheim and it's a tape. It's not a live distress call, but this immediately puts Picard in a mood, and Troy is picking

up on it big time. And he says, like, lay in a course, like we got to go figure out what's going on here. And as he's like heading off the bridge to go put on his real uniform, Troy stops him and says, like, hey, like, why don't we dip into your office for a second and just talk about all of the huge feelings that you just had. And he said, no, no, no, no, you can say this out in the open.

And then he immediately regrets saying that to her. Yeah, he is. Because she really puts his shit on blast, like right in front of all of the bridge crew. Pretty much the worst thing that can happen to you is when Troy gives you a zip and it's blast, like right in front of all of the bridge crew. Pretty much the worst thing that can happen to you is when Troy gives you a zip and it's like, hey, can we talk about what you're feeling? Yeah, it's like a teacher saying stay after class.

Like you're not gonna be able to focus in that class because you're just gonna be wondering what's going on the whole time. Yeah, that moment ends up being a little more benign than is sold because Picard immediately clams up as soon as the conversation starts. What's the game? I'm cool.

Yeah, I mean, but he's lying to her and that's evident. And that's like maybe not what he wants to be, like the kind of he he wants to be putting on around his staff, you know? Right. Like, ooh, Picard's got a secret. He's not like what you want, the people that work for you to be thinking. Yeah. So the backstory here is this, this Dr. Mannheim guy was ejected.

This is like the third or fourth, like nutty scientist with a German last name that we've countered. Not related to manheim steam roller. I was disappointed to find out. Oh yeah, his Christmas album is not anywhere near as good. Yeah, it's another shamed and kicked out science figure, whose experiments were deemed either unsafe or unauthorized or dangerous by the Federation. And like, like Newny and Sum just goes off and finds a planet somewhere to conduct his experiments in privacy. And in his case, a planetoid.

Right. Right. Which is a real piece of shit looking planet. Yeah. I didn't hear that the first time, so when they pull up to it, and it's like, it's kind of like backlit when they show up because it's an orbit of a binary star, I was like, what the fuck is this?

Yeah. Where are they? It's like something you dig out of a cat box. It's not looking great. Yeah. I thought it was like a mistake. I like, I literally wrote in my notes, what the fuck is on the view screen? But so there, there's going to be like a couple hours before they get to where manheim is at.

And Picard decides to take a little trip down memory lane while they're on route. And so what he does is he goes and hits up the holodeck and has it create a program to simulate Cafe Desartiste before he left several years ago. And I guess he spent some time living in Paris before he took a commission as a starship captain. And he goes into this simulation of a cafe that literally doesn't look... It looks like the set design department not only has never been to Paris but has never been to a cafe. It is such a... I don't know, it's like the dining room in a cruise ship or something. But it's supposed to be in Paris.

Yeah, great call. Like, it just feels a little off. It's like a Disney Paris situation. Yeah. But literally the only thing that betrays its location is the matte showing the weird looking version of the Eiffel Tower with some sort of subway tube crawling underneath it. And the French sounding accordion music, I guess future accordions look like cow-milkers

that you just sort of stroke like you're masturbating them. I couldn't take my eyes off of the new accordion guy. He was just walking around jerking it. Jerking his accordion music onto everyone. Yeah, get that thing away from me, man. I know this is Paris, but come on. Yeah, geez. God, do they have to sexualize everything? Well, no sooner has that sexual innuendo happened than two young, young women sit down and one of them is complaining that some boy isn't there to see her and her friend leaves. And the one that's left is basically as naked as it's legal to show somebody on TV.

She isn't a very revealing bit of costume. And she asks Picard if she reminds him of anybody, and we sort of start to pick up on the fact that long ago, Picard had sort of a fling in Paris, and the woman that he loved, and he did like had a misconnection on Craig's list and at this cafe. You think Craigslist still exists in the 24th century? I don't know. I found this scene really insincere and fake. Maybe the most science fiction scene that we've ever come across on the show because

these are supposed to be French people and here they are greeting a stranger like in a friendly manner and Not ignoring them or Or getting upset that they aren't speaking the language right no, I that was a that was a leap too far as far as Ancient language of French. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this season has already doubled back on French being an ancient language that nobody has heard of. They get to this facility and what is it called, Vandor 4? Something like that. Oh, I don't even write down

the weird names of the planets anymore. In my notes, I just, man. Does it really matter? Are we making a map here? Maybe, I mean, we can't rule out that somebody at home isn't. Anyways, Vandor 4 is this planetoid in an orbit around a binary star system.

Seems like a real intense intense hard place to live. And there's a couple of facilities. One of them is totally trashed. There's only two survivors left on in the other one. And they finally make contact. And a woman is on the view screen. And Picard declines to identify himself. In fact, he's almost going to identify himself and he doesn't. This is Captain, this is the captain of the US as Enterprise. Yeah, this is

the first instance of some real background acting happening to you because when he fails to do this, I think you, you get a close-up of Jordy and Tata like, uh, what? Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b Bay. And Dr. Crusher starts to go to work on Dr. Mannheim, who is in a bad way. Like he looks alright, but he's convulsing and he looks like evil John Lithgow. Yeah. Oh, that's a good call. Or like John Lithgow's evil younger brother. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So it's bald. Cliffhanger era, John Lithgow with a goatee. Wouldn't this episode have been amazing if they'd gotten John Lithgow? Yeah. I think that that might have been

what really broke this episode and made it so forgettable and dumb. Yeah, I mean, we hear a lot about the manheim effect as it pertains to what the character is going through. But, God, the Lithgow effect, I think we can agree, serves to make every show better. Anything that he touches, I find, is better. It's so entertaining, that guy.

So the other person that they have beamed up is Janice, who is the lady that Picard had his Craigslist misconnection with back in Paris. And she is really like delighted to see him despite how nervous he is and reticent he is to kind of open up to her emotionally. Yeah, she just drops power moves all over him. Like she she plays him like like one of those Kalmilka recordings

on the holodeck. Totally. She knows. And this is the first time it's, the first, like when you talk about status in character development, like, there's something you talk about in improv all the time, like which character has what status in a scene and like your body language plays into it and stuff.

I think this is the first time that Picard's status has been really noticeably below another character that wasn't an admiral or something like that. Right, right. You know? Like he's the fucking boss all the time and suddenly his, like it's great. Like he's like nervous to be around her. And suddenly his, like, it's great. Like, he's like nervous to be around her.

He's like, he doesn't quite know how to play it. She's like, she's so blithe. She's like, ha ha ha, the card. It's so great to see you. What else would have charged my risk? Because she's totally free. And in, you know, the thing that plays off of that is Picard is utterly not.

He's surrounded by people he wants to keep a secret from. Yeah. He's got this Dr. Mannheim guy who we figure at this point in the show is like the guy he lost or two. Like everywhere he looks, he's seeing like threats to his leadership in different ways. And so that conflict is super acute. For all of that acuteness,

I found the depiction of it. It's sort of a meat acute, isn't it? Oh, boy. All right, let me think. I think that every dad joke that I've ever made on this show has just been nullified by that. I'd like to apologize now. Yeah. What I was gonna say is that for all of the

interest that there is in the way Picard's character is going through this episode, I found it to be just like a stridently sexist depiction of this character Janice. I mean, she's like such a bimbo. And she's like, she's been living in this science colony for, you know, a remote science colony with nothing but scientists. And they're like, what was Dr. Mannheim working on? She's like, I don't know. I'm just a, I'm just a girl.

Like, she really didn't get that from her. Oh, man, she had nothing, nothing to tell them about what was going on. And like every time they had to get a piece of information about this time distortion that is going on, they had to like revive Manheim. She is useless. All she is therefore is to be an object of Picard's affection.

I don't know. I guess I just assumed because she was the object of affection from a person like Picard or manheim that she had something more to offer than just that. I found her to be sort of a, like, she was sort of Michelle Fifering a little bit. Like, she always, it always felt to me like she had something going on even though she never demonstrated that. And I guess maybe that's just me projecting onto the character in a way. But I don't know, like would she would she be there if she didn't have anything? Well, man, I just I didn't like it. I felt

like, you know, I think that there's, I think that there's definitely examples of women in history who have been sort of cowed out of their husband's intellectual worlds and have, you know, and like her back stories that she's been kind of isolated on this planet the entire time and like essentially fallen out of love with her husband because he's so devoted to his work. And I think that's realistic. But I just don't like. I think we both. We're trying to look into a future that's hundreds of years from now in which all of these ailments of society have been solved. Sexism, racism, hunger, want, all of that has been eliminated and this is like an ideal society.

And yet this woman is like unable to have a, like she has no agency and the fact that, like if her life is so miserable on this planetoid, she should leave. And if it's not, like she should make friends or get involved in the research or something, you know, she should join a club. She has as much agency as anybody, you know, like one of the premises of this show is that sexism has been defeated and I don't this character this this plot completely completely obliterates that I think I'm really getting on my high horse we should just just know you're not but I felt like in within the confines of the story she thought she was getting something that she didn't end up getting by the end

like I think she should have just been like, fuck you guys, I'm taking a runabout and I'm going back to Earth. Yeah, but there is no runabout. She's on the planetoid and everyone's dead. Like, you don't think they brought a runabout? I don't think so. Damn it.

I don't know. She was probably excited for an adventure on the planetoid and she thought she was going out there with a husband who loved her. I think you see this in real life all the time. Like you think you have a future ahead that's going to be one way and then it just ends up not living up to your expectations. I don't think that that is a necessarily sexist outcome.

Its depiction could be though, which I'm missing is your main issue with this character. Here's hoping that she had a holodeck to retire to and a lot of the the Riker collection of holoprograms to enjoy herself in. I imagine the box cover to the Riker collection is like hot pink cursive. Yeah, no, it's exactly like the sex in the city DVD binder that my wife has. It's like hot pink velvety cover

with the words inlaid. Oh man, I think we have a new t-shirt idea, Ben. The Riker collection. Let's put that on the list. She's becoming a speech. You're the captain, sir. Very entitled. Mm.

I'm typing a ramble on about something everyone knows. Basically, all that happens in this episode is that there's these time distortions that keep happening on a sort of regular basis, and they find out based on communication with other parts of Starfleet that they are happening across thousands of light years. And what they are, are the man-hime effect, which is that two timelines will coexist in the same space. So... It's like when your Christmas lights are synced up to the music.

Yeah. That is also the manheim effect. Yeah. At one point, like Picard, Data, and Riker, I think are like going to go get on the turbo lift to do something. And the doors open, and Picard, Data, and Riker are standing there. And they're like, whoa, that's us from a couple of seconds ago. Crazy.

Yeah, what's interesting is that both versions are aware. It's not just a replay from a couple of seconds ago, they can interact with them. Yeah, they're like, what are you guys doing here? High five, you guys are looking good. What would have happened if they touched each other? Would that have been a, like, what does that thing called? God, you can have to edit so much of this. The thing when if you go back in time and you meet yourself and you touch yourself, it

causes a temporal... A temporal rift? Yeah. Like a rift in the time space continuum? How close were they to destroying the entire universe in that moment? Yeah, man. And just think about what would have happened if two rikers had gotten together. You know, it's a real missed opportunity.

Like, this is ostensibly a time travel episode in a very small way. And this is what they do with it. Like, God, it's, it could have been so cool. I feel like we say the phrase missed opportunity in every episode talking about season one. Yeah, well put. Just kept talking in one long, incredibly unbroken sentence moving from topic to topic. So that no one had the chance to think the perfect was really quite hypnotic, not hypnotic.

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 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 Reembarishment 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. Could I get a Balrog 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 open, just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, rats, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line.

These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line. And boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they have such short neck. But I'm hearing we need to get on this off. We've got to get on the art. 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 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 Kerry, available on MaximumFun.org. Manheim wakes up long enough to kind of give some brief explanation that his experiments were involving gravity and time and universes and he's gonna give them some codes to get around the defense mechanisms inside the facility but he's really fucked up.

He's barely aware of his surroundings, and I guess he's drifting in between time lines or something, so he's really having a hard time focusing on helping them. All he's able to basically explain is that there's an experiment that's still running and it's running amuck, and the only way to stop this time crisis is for data to go down and shut down the experiment. But I guess he, yeah, he doesn't say data. The card picks data because data like isn't

confused by this like everybody else's. Right. He's somehow going to be more impervious to the mind-fuck that's got manheim all messed up in the sick bay. He'll be able to go down there and figure it out. Which he demonstrates the ability to do. He beams down there. He gets through their weird defenses. I mean, there's a scene here where data dadgers some laser fire. Yeah, fun, always fun to watch. They do that thing that I love, which is stunt man dives behind a wall and then real actor appears from behind to show the face. Yeah.

I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like clearly not an actor, super fit, like different body completely, like jumping on a tramp trampoline behind, behind some barrier, and then there's Brent's finer peeking around from the side. So great. So the way the data needs to shut down this experiment, when he finally gets there, he sees that there is, there's a big pedest pedestal and there's a bunch of mirror-looking things. Yeah, I love this whole scene.

It was really cool looking. All of the security stuff looked cool. The time-rift itself is a cool effect. The door made of fluorescent light tubes, that was it? Yeah. Yeah, it can set up here. And like, data is like patching the hole is, you know, he has to like use this gripping arm

to pick up a canister of antimatter and carry it. That was the worst though. That was like an old person's reach or grabber tool. Like, that was for grandma to get a can from the top shelf of her pantry. You know. Well, you know, let's just hope we never have to have our grandma's fixed temporal rift problems. Yeah.

So as we might have predicted, data's time kind of gets blown apart as he gets close to patching this rift. He splits into two other people and they're all talking to each other. They're like, well, which one's the guy? Which one needs to do this? And of course, it's the one in the middle. Yeah, middle data. Only one of us is in the correct time continuum.

Which one? It's me. It's me. It's me. Five, five, four, three, two, two, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, one, three, two, one, one, wow! Middle data hops up the steps, drops the little canister out of the Richard Grabber tool, and he seals the rift. I thought this was fun.

I had so much fun watching this scene. This scene stole the show for me. Yeah, yeah. And data just, like, he always has like the best action scenes because they can really go crazy with like, what he's capable of doing. They only have one stunt man and it looks like Brent Spiner.

So they gotta use him. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty easy to make any stunt man look like him though, right? You just put the weird grease paint all over the face and then... You stick him in the tan booth set to green. So I guess fixing this rift is is good enough to get manheim back on his feet and he and

Janice are very appreciative of the whole enterprise crew for their help. And Manheim apologized to Janice for having been so laser-focused on his work all these years. And I guess the federation is going to help them get their experiments back on track after everybody else died. And he's like, oh yeah, I'm ready to get back down to the planetoid and continue this very important work And you can see the light in Janice's eyes just sort of die Like like they got to go down to that fucking planetoid. Yeah

It was sort of tragic to me. Yeah, I mean manheim is doing a classic abuser Line on her where he goes like it's gonna be totally different this time. I promise, I'm gonna be better. Yeah, I just need to keep working. Stop bothering me. Right. And you knew when you married me,

that I was a cop first and a husband second. It's like when your wife wants to go out of dinner with some friends and you're like, not now, I'm recording a Star Trek podcast Exactly like that Adam. Yeah, but I think we can understand manheim's deal. Yeah, yeah, I really identify with that in a lot of ways in a lot of ways. Before we go, Picard takes Janice to Cafe des Althistes in holodec Paris and they one more time relive this moment from the past before Picard stood her up to go ship out and be a starship-captaining adventure man. It's weird to me that that was a choice, you know?

Like we sort of glossed over a little bit of this backstory, but like there was a fork in Picard's road where he gets to have the woman of his dreams at the time or he gets to go be a starship captain. And he's like, I'm gonna go be a captain. See ya. Yeah. Like he could not have it all, even in the future, Ben. Yeah.

You can't have it all. He should have leaned in. Yeah. That's where he went wrong. Yeah. So, and then the last scene is like one of these ones where they try to sort of end it on a light note where they're like, oh, now we're gonna go do shortly

if we're going to this planet. And there's some great place that serves blue drinks across from the other thing. And they're all trying to remember the name and Picard goes, called the blue pirate cafe, and you're buying. And it's like, ding, ding, ding, ding, like Picard is a jokester.

It's a very weird moment. It's weird especially because it comes right on the heels of Picard basically reliving his worst heartbreak. Yeah. In spectacular fashion. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if I'd be in the mood to party at that point.

I don't know. I think I'd want to go be alone. Yeah. I'd want to have Wesley beat me with fencing swords. Blue drinks are only for when you're having the most fun. Yeah. Ask any 40 year old double devor say in Vegas. And they'll tell you. Yeah, ask any 40-year-old double-devor say in Vegas and they'll tell you. Yeah. The blue drinks the jam.

Not to make excuses for this episode, but you might not be surprised to learn that this was written in five days because this, the production schedule, but it right up against a significant writer's strike. So they got this script that was hatched in five days and they started shooting and they very quickly realized that they didn't have an ending. Several parts were missing. It was super fucked up. It was one of those, like I know you know the feeling of getting to a set and you realize

like we don't have the materials we need to actually make something here. It's must have been terrifying. So what What the producer and the VisFX guy did is they called the writer Hannah Louise here. They called her up and they're like look this script is fucked We we need to like we need some pages here and you need to help us and she's like Fuck off like we're in the middle of a strike. I'm not gonna cross the picket lions. I'm not a scab. Yeah, seriously. And so they're like, look, here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna write this over the phone, me and Legato. And you just tell us whether you think this dialogue works for you. And she basically yes-node the stuff that Berman and Legato were pitching over the phone. So in a minute. Oh, that was fucking charitable of her. I know. I completely agree.

That sounds like a pretty sketchy end-around of the strike, but that's how they ended up getting a complete script and having something suitable. But once you know that bit of trivia, I think a lot of the slap-dash-edness of the story makes a lot of sense. Sure. Kind of strange. What did you think of it? I mean, like, I think that in the last episode,

neither of us remembered this episode. I think that when we press stop on recording this, I will forget this episode. I never want to see it again. No. I think you could really put this on the Mount Rushmore of worst Star Trek episodes that we've seen. And I don't know what kicks it off if it can't be top four. It's like, code of honor and this are a lock. And then there's like seven or eight other episodes from this season competing for the other two spots. Yeah. Yeah, it's, I don't know what could possibly knock it off.

It was pretty bad. Did you, as you were watching, find a drunk Shimoda figure in this episode? Yeah, you know, I mean, like, this is one of those ones where like almost everything is a drunk Shimoda. Yeah. But I'm gonna say just just to like because this episode like, really needs a hand, I'm gonna give everything the benefit of the doubt and give it to Picard as a character.

Because, you know, his whole backstory with Janice is that he dithered around and was supposed to meet her at the Cafe Days Artiste, and it was supposed to be this, like, big romantic moment, and he no-shodder, he stood her up. And I just think that that's such an insanely dick move in a highly connected intercommunicative world like he lives in.

It's so much more advanced than cell phones, as we've talked about, you can just say Picard to Jenice, and she will be receiving you loud and clear. And, and like, he completely ghosted her. Like, it's just such a drunk Shimoda move. Yeah, I think, I think my pick might be Jenice, the other side of that coin, because why isn't she really mad at him for that? Like, they had a future planned out together. They were gonna do the thing. And then he goes, sir, never sees her for, I don't know how many years have passed,

and she's oddly really happy to see him. I mean, setting aside the fact that she has saved her life and the life of her husband, but I would have expected a little more attitude out of her over that initial letdown, and there just wasn't. Like, she was more than willing to flirt with him. Yeah, I mean, and especially considering the fact that she is the type of girl who will go on a fucking On a fucking planetoid for 15 years. Yeah, because of who she married, you know like she's down to sit in the captain's quarters reading a book You know she's no reason they couldn't have been together and he you know like there's plenty of commissioned officers and starfleet that have civilian spouses and he, you know, like there's plenty of commissioned officers and starfleet that have civilian spouses.

Yeah, and she is, she's like objectively attractive. Like she is not, she's not a planetoid hot. She's like legit hot. She doesn't need to go with, she's nervous hot, man. Yeah, she doesn't need to go with fucking evil John Lithgow and hang out on the planetoid. Like she can make something of herself somewhere else. Yeah. I don't know, like that's not fun.

That's not fun in the Shimoda sense, but it's just Shimoda in the confusing behavior sense to me. Yeah, that is the basis upon which this episode is getting its Shimoda's awarded. Right, right, technical Shimoda. What do we get cooking next week's episode, Ben? Next week's episode is Conspiracy. Captain Picard and Commander Riker traveled to Earth

to investigate a conspiracy in the highest ranks of Starfleet Command. They go to chew gum and blow up people's heads and they're all out of chewing gum. Yeah, man. I'm so excited for this episode. When we hatch the idea of doing a podcast about Star Trek the Next Generation, this was the episode I was thinking of.

Nice. Well, I will see you on the other side unless you have some reactions, some critic reactions to throw at me. I'm not interested. I utterly do not care about any reaction. However, I do want to read a couple of these clips because I think they might offer a nice counterbalance to our excitement.

One reviewer gave it a score of four out of ten. That guy is clearly like the Russian judge at the Olympics. Certain parts of the plow were idiotic, and the admirals reminded him of a Bond villain convention. I guess that's not super off the mark there. Neither of those are crazy things to say. No, but other people are calling it a definite high point in the first season. And I would be inclined to agree. It wouldn't take much, but this one,

this one definitely is up there. Yeah, I remember this is being super fun to watch. Yeah, it's good to. Let's adjourn so that we can watch that next episode and make a podcast about it for next week's the greatest generation. Let's do it. If you want to reach out to us, as always, we're on Twitter. I'm at Cut for Time. I'm at Benjamin R. Yeah, thanks a lot to our DJ who has made both our theme music and our interstitial music.

He's dark materia. You can find the Picard song on both his website and about a thousand others. Go get it. Just Google the Picard song. You're going to find it. Yeah, great show, Ben. We'll be back at you next time with another great next generation episode, another terrible, the greatest generation episode.

I've been Ben Harrison. Evan Ande, Pranika. See you. Make it sound, make it sound Make it sound You're a big car, car, car, car