The Greatest Generation - The Takeover (S1E18)

Episode Date: March 23, 2016

Terraforming hasn't had this big a PR problem since the Genesis Project! The Enterprise crew arrives at Valera III for a science lecture, but wind up mounting an investigation into murder most foul, with the chief suspect being a brilliant scientist (whose resemblance to a Bond villain is more than skin deep). The shocking truth is revealed when Geordi and Data look down a deep hole without Riker there to show them the ropes. When the indigenous life form of Velara III gets to set trippin' with the ship, it inspires your micro-brained hosts to air out their frustrations about Internet commenters mentioning other Star Trek podcasts. It's the episode where Adam and Ben start a rap feud with another show!

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

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

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

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

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! Welcome to the greatest generation Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. How are you doing this week, Adam? I'm doing great. I shouldn't say this week. We're releasing these twice a week. That's

a silly thing for me to say. Well, strike it from the record. We have that kind of power. We can make each other say whatever we want. I'm doing great though. Sunday morning. I'm in the basement of my home. A home I share with my wife. I've had to escape and come down here to record the program. I spent all morning watching Star Trek episodes. Is this what it's like to be a single man? You know, I'm married, but my wife has been out of town a lot lately, so this Now she's back. So this episode I am recording While my wife is is here with me in the apartment. I am squirled away up in the lofted area.

So she's listening to one-sided conversation? Yeah, bless her heart. Wow, she's amazing. I can't believe that. My wife could not stand to be in the house or the state, even. She's on a trip to California, so she's not even here. She's a wise woman.

You know, like the project of this show made me think of that John Hughes quote. Are you familiar with what he said about the hardest thing about being a writer is convincing your wife that lying on the sofa is work. And the hardest part of having a podcast about Star Trek is convincing my wife that watching Star Trek is work and talking about it is work. I don't think she'll ever Yeah, yeah. We've got a doozy this time around though, home soil. Season one, episode 17. Correct. So, the Enterprise is, I think they're out doing some other stuff, but they're close enough to this terraforming colony on Vellara 3. And communications have been a little spotty with this colony, and so they're going to

go poke their heads in and check it out. It's not a Starfleet project, but it is a Federation project. And they get on the radio, and there's a little bit of silence until the director curtain mandal pops on FaceTime and he's, you know, he's kind of blustery and you know, wants to get off the phone as soon as he got on it. Basically tries to blow him off and Troy keeps kind of whispering to Picard like he's hiding something. Yeah, he's not like most old people when you get them on the phone and they just, like, they just want to talk for hours. This one.

They don't have any off-sets, yeah. So you can tell something's up. Just based on the little. He's no my uncle. He's no all grandpa's. He's no all-gampas. This sort of interchange did make me wonder kind of how the microphones work on the bridge because the first time Troy leans over in whispers and Picard's ear, it's like he's hiding something, which is kind of her typical thing that she says about somebody that is on the view screen. And then they have another little interchange, and then she leans over again

and Picard hits something to mute his audio. So I sort of wondered, are they implying that the first thing that she said was audible to him or was her voice low enough that he wouldn't have heard it. It hasn't worked. Did I lose you? Hello? No, I'm here. I'm just trying to come up with any kind of answer for that. I'm sorry. I can usually participate in a piece of minutiae like that, but I'm just totally stumped. I don't know. I mean, and you'll see this, you'll see this all the time, like Picard will be face timing with someone and then he'll turn around and go like mute communication.

But wouldn't the other person have heard him say the words mute the communication? Yeah. I think this is another example of that. There are a lot of things about how communication works in Star Trek that doesn't ever really get explained like if you're on the bridge and you say riker to Lieutenant La Forge Like no matter where he is on the ship Lieutenant La Forge is hearing riker to Lieutenant La Forge

Yeah, but that's not going out on PA for everybody to hear. It's like the ship is anticipating who he wants to send a message to somehow. Well, there's a couple of things at play. Like I don't think you can just walk around saying Riker to LaForge. I think you have to stop if you're walking. You have to stop in place.

Yeah, you do have to stop walking. That's step one, stop walking. Step two, you need to look upward. That is, that I think is critical. Yeah, you do have to stop walking. That's step one, stop walking. Step two, you need to look upward. That is, I think is critical. Yeah, yeah. Once the computer sees that you've stopped and that you're looking upward. Not like up, but your eyes have to be higher than eye level.

Yeah, yeah. Just a, maybe like a, you're playing in the back row. Yeah. And the computer's gonna detect this. I mean, it knows what everyone's doing at any given point. So the computer's gonna see Riker. He's stopped in the background. Yeah. And the computer's gonna detect this. I mean, it knows what everyone's doing at any given point. So the computer's gonna see Riker.

He's stopped in a hallway. He's looking up. I think that's the point where it starts recording. Maybe, yeah, maybe his, if he tilts his hips in just such a way, the computer knows he's trying to reach Deanna Troy. If he kind of lets his voice drop a little bit. If he starts thrusting, he's talking to Deanna.

If he drops his voice a little bit, the ship knows he's trying to talk to Wurf. Yeah, I mean, I think you'll find, I think you could probably count on one hand. How many conversations happened while someone's walking? Never happens. Yeah. It's a strange, strange little part of the Star Trek universe. I think we solved that mystery just by talking it out. Yeah, it's pretty good. Good job, us.

Show it up your ass mission log podcast. Yeah, seriously, God, I would, I'd really be curious how many people listened to both Mission Log and this. I bet that, I bet those Venn diagrams has like one circle in one spot and the other circle is like across the street. Yeah. There is no overlap. Yeah. Mission Log is a very serious Star Trek podcast that whenever somebody mentions our show on the internet, people go, well, actually, there's already a show

that does that, and it's this. And it's just, it's the most tired thing we see in any comments about our show. It's sort of like how any mention of Wesley is followed by the boy. Any mention of the greatest generation is followed by some guy talking about Mission Log. So great, we know about Mission Log. Congratulations. If you like

your Star Trek, serious and unfun, go help yourself. If you like a 18-page academic research paper on this program in podcast form, that's the one for you. If you want a bunch of dick jokes, this is your show. We got them. We got them in spades. Oh, yeah. This is going to be our two-pack biggie. Yeah. Start hitting up.

This is our hit-and-up. Yeah. You know what? God, the thing is, we aren't both on the same coast. You're East Coast and I'm West Coast, so it isn't a coastal thing. It's not a coastal thing when it came to the Star Trek podcast wars, but... Do you want to be the biggie or do you want to be the two-pock? We could just choose which rapper we're affiliated with and then we can make them the other.

Oh, I am in Brooklyn, so I think that obviously I'm biggie. Because I'm in Seattle, I want no part of Maclamore. So I will gladly take Biggie as my guy. So fine, it's biggie. It could be the butz guy. What's that guy's name? Oh, the butz guy. You're talking about, at the I like Big butz,

and I cannot lie. Yeah, what's that guy's name? I can't believe I'm blinking on that. Oh my God. This is gonna require some heavy editing. Sir Mixelat. Sir Mixelat, you know, a story came out in the Seattle paper recently where Sir Mixelat changed his cell phone number.

And some Rando got his old one. And the shit that came through on that phone number was as you would expect. Yeah. Booty calls. Oh man, so many butts. Party invitations? Yeah, people constantly wanting to party with him. People constantly wanting to show him their boobs.

People telling him that their posse is on Broadway. Just, I don't know why you'd get rid of all that. He had to start all over. He was getting too many butt shots. I mean I guess there's something to be said for turning over over New Leaf for terraforming your cell phone. Oh geez. Yeah that's that's a championship transition right there. I was trying to get us back into the episode. And I really regret it. I feel like Mission Log is probably the podcast that you should be listening to.

I'm sorry, everybody. If you like professional broadcast quality transitions, by all means, go check out Mission Log. Do they actually do that? Or is it, I don't even, I haven't really listened to the show. I haven't been able to get past the first three minutes before falling asleep. Do not listen to that show while you're driving everyone.

Yeah, oh, yeah, very dangerous. Consult your physician. Yeah, if you want, if you want transitions that sound like someone falling down the stairs, this is your show. Welcome, your monk friends. You will respond to my questions. I am the cutest aboard. You will respond to my questions. I am La Cue des Abords. You are Bords.

Anyways, Mendel is getting a little panicky and that's all the reason that Picard needs to send an away team down to see what the fuck is going on at this terraforming station on Valar 3. And the image of the surface is amazing. Like they cut to the structure and the mat behind it.

And they probably spend less time on this image than any other that we've seen up until now. It looks like you remember the eight-bit video game boxes that Nintendo games used to come in? And they were like three color treatment. Yeah, yeah. That's what this looks like. It's real bad.

Yeah, it's rough. So anyways, the team is met by a babelicious babe who is a terraforming. I think she's like a terraforming designer. She does something sort of downstream in the process from what most of the others do, but she's personable and takes them on a little tour of the facility shows them what terraforming is For those who don't know it's the process of taking a planet that is inhospitable to human life and changing its environment to be more earth-like

Can we assume that the Genesis project was a failure at this point? Because that seems like the way that they would do it, if it were successful. Right. I guess they decided that the Genesis bomb was too fucking dangerous. that the Genesis, the Genesis bomb was too fucking dangerous. Because I mean, you know, it fell into a cling on hands that one time, right? Or, no, I guess it was con-con-shotted at that planet, right? I guess if you're, if your terraforming device can be used as a weapon, I guess that's a reason not to use it.

Yeah. Which, you know, this episode has similar themes in certain ways. They give this engineer like 20 minutes to discuss what terraforming is. I was shocked that she got to go... she got to go over the terraforming story beginning to end. It was like the beginning to Jurassic Park. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you're blood. First, we take a planet that's dead and cold. I'm sad! I don't have any life on me! Oh are these uh, auto-erotica?

No, no, no, no. These are real scientists. That's my favorite joke in Jurassic Park. Nobody ever talks about how this guy says, are these auto-erotica? Yeah. I need life to make me happy. First we take the bill and then we put it around our neck. If you don't have a belt, you can use a plastic bag. Like dry cleaning comes in. The other scientists there are, I will describe it as bald guy and mullet guy. And they are...

Oh man, can we, we're gonna make this hair cast again. Yeah, yeah, another hair cast. Thor Benson's power mullet is amazing. It is, it's like a bike helmet stuck to the back of a bike helmet. And I got so excited my voice cracked during that description. But a bald guy wanders into the drilling room, which has like an automatic laser in it, and he's off screen for about 45 seconds before we start hearing him scream and You know riker and data and Jordi all run over to See what's going on and it's a sort of screaming you only hear behind the door of a holotech

Mendel can't get the door open, but when they finally do, it's clear that the scientist guy has been fragged by this drilling laser. Yeah, he's smoking on the floor. Yeah, and they're still not even sure if they can get into the room because the laser might be active, finally get it powered down. Yarr runs in headlong, beams up with the body to sick bay, and they're pretty freaked out. They're pretty shaken by this whole, this whole sitch. Yeah, it's a scene of robot murder.

Yeah, and they don't know like who was controlling the laser or what was controlling the laser. And this sort of turns into like a cool like detective episode like Bacard kind of determines a series of things that he once looked into, starts delegating tasks. Data, how do you enjoy the return for more careful inspection? What are we to look for, sir? Evidence of tambourine, negligence, sabotage, whatever, the answers there on the planet.

Tasha, I want you to provide counsel, try and be with complete personnel record of our three guests, psych profiles, training, everything. I'm looking for motive, intent, the psychological capacity to commit one murder to attempt another. I see. Seems we are becoming detectives number one.

It's a real detective story without any of the ridiculousness of data dressing up like yeah, Sherlock Holmes guy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's one of the great benefits of him playing it straight is you don't get that smirking pipe situation that you got from him a couple of episodes ago. So they start this investigation and wouldn't you know what? They recreated the situation that caused that murder to begin with. So data is in the laser room, hitting the buttons, setting things up again.

And shit starts going crazy again. Yeah, the door slams shut. Yeah. And I think one of the things that's hilarious is data is talking to Jordy from behind the door, telling him that the lasers trying to kill him. Yeah. And Jordy's like, it's not working again.

Like you remember that thing that happened five minutes ago that killed the other dude? The exact same thing is happening. Yeah. Wouldn't you know what wordy I know when you do the exact same thing two times in a row, the exact same outcome happens. It's bizarre. Yeah. So data uses is super speed to dodge the laser,

but it turns out the laser is learning. And he finally basically tears the laser off the ceiling to disable it and the door opens. Yeah, and the mullet guy is like, dude, what the fuck did you do to my laser? Yeah, he's pissed off about the laser, whereas they almost lost the one-of-a-kind robot person to the laser.

So I think his priorities are a little messed up. I kind of wish Jordy would have backhanded him for that little comment. Jordy's soft. What are you nuts? Jordy's way soft. It's not gonna do that. He's a nice guy.

Nice guy's finished last. Data could have just punched his head off. You ever think about that? Like how we could basically tear anyone limb from limb? Yeah. He's really the Velasa Raptor of the show. Yeah. Just imagine if you can learn to open doors.

He wouldn't have to dodge that laser. Yeah, it's true. But everybody clears out majority Jordi and Data, and they're like looking around this room and Data notices something down one of the shafts that this drilling laser has been boring. And that is enough to have him call over Jordi and Jordi uses his supervisor site on this thing

and is totally blown away. Like I love Jordy's reaction in the scene. Jordy, I need some visual assistance. Whoa. What is it? Basically he's looking down a well at a single Christmas light. So he really sells it. Yeah, well he does sell it because he's like, it's looking down a well at a single Christmas light. So he really sells it.

Yeah, well, he does sell it because he's like, it's like music. It's, you know, there's complex rhythms and different wavelengths and stuff. And he's seeing a lot of things that we can't see. Yeah, he took a tab at acid before he headed to the transporter room. My love is the people long until my back which is long than us at the PC. A greatest gen live show is something you don't want to miss. Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all.

FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it! The Share Your Embarrassment Tour is coming in August 2023, 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 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 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 open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry.

Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Whoa, Russ. 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 horse. We've got to get on the ark. It's about terrain, it's about to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. Oh, we're actually, we're podcasters. Yes, totally. We are podcasters, so it's different.

Have you heard of Ono Ross and Carrie? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boat. We came two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org. Not knowing what this thing is, but suspecting it may be a part of the story of what's going

on with this terraforming station. They beam it up to a medical lab on the enterprise. Dr. Crusher and data do some analysis on it that sort of starts to indicate that this is a non-organic life form. It's a silicon based life form. It's like, I thought that this was actually pretty well done and interesting. They kind of arrive at this as a hypothesis, and then they spend several plot points gathering more data on it before they're totally sure that it is a life form.

Yeah, you get a description of the scientific method there if you didn't know it before. They're pretty informative about that. And it's too late to do anything about it, because by the time they're totally sure, it's pretty powerful. And I thought that that was, I feel like that's kind of science works like that anything about it, because by the time they're totally sure, it's pretty powerful. And I thought that that was, I feel like that's kind of science works like that sometimes.

You can't just come off half cock, drawing some crazy conclusion like this, but by the time they're confident enough to say for sure, this thing has divided and divided again until there's several of these molecules and it's essentially a computer intelligence that is naturally occurring. I mean, we're praising how the crew has science the shit out of this out of this situation, but I mean they did take something they didn't understand and beam it on board the ship like in one of in another example of just great security protocol. Yeah, and then when the quarantine beam didn't work on it the first time, they didn't just immediately beam it back off the ship.

They were like, well, I guess the quarantine's not going to work. We'll just quarantine the whole section of the ship. Yeah, is there anything they're doing in that lab that they couldn't do in that piece of garbage station down on the surface? I mean the laser is already destroyed most of it. Why not just do the test down there? Seems safer.

Yeah, yeah, it doesn't make sense. I do not love me with my eyes, baby. I was a bearer, she was my- It doesn't make sense. They're doing this test and they slowly come to realize that by some measure, this qualifies as a life form. It doesn't check all the boxes of life, but it checks enough of them to where they're willing to believe that it's a life form. Right, and probably this planet should not have been zoned for terraforming by the zoning board of the Federation Council because they're supposed to completely establish that a

planet is dead, barren, and won't ever support life before they start this process. Right, and Picard really gives Mandel the what for about this. Basically, climbs all over the conference room table, basically accusing him of going forward with the terraforming, knowing that life was there. And then- It's a lot of fun for Mandel to resist these accusations because he obviously was a traveling Vodvilian

before he became the leading scientist in terraforming. He is so arch. Yeah, he really is. He was a Bond villain, right, this actor? He was, yeah. You know, if you see a character actor in any of the first couple seasons of this show, and they're like to sort of barrel-chested anonymous,

anonymous dudes, you can bet that they were in a James Bond movie at some point. Absolutely. What do you mean a life form? What life form? Federation of Recon Expedition certified a Lara 3 lifelets. Understandable, given this particular life forms, novel nature. What is that nature? Dr. Crusher is still making her determination, Mr. Mandel.

You know the prime directive. Are you saying that I'm knowingly defied it? He's fun to watch. He's definitely doing a different kind of acting than everybody else on the show though. It's like, I resist all of your accusations, sir! I really enjoyed the sweatsuits that they wore. Yeah. I really enjoyed the sweatsuits that they wore. They were like gray, rustle, athletic sweatsuits with like a big belt around them.

Yeah, that like whatever the terraforming equivalent of Starfleet is, their uniform, is like, I feel like it was like teal on the back and gray on the front. Also, they're a weird color combination. Yeah, they really let themselves go down on that planet surface, I think. Yeah, except for the babelicious babe, she stayed babish. Yeah, speaking of the babe, she's pretty distraught over the whole idea of possibly terraforming over a life form.

Like, she's really troubled by it and emotional. And so, so Riker and Troy are talking about it. Troy's like, you know, Riker asked Troy, you know, maybe you should go and talk to her. And Troy, Troy looks at Riker's like, and it's like, you might do better than I. It's such a... It's a pretty amazing...

It's a prison scene. Basically, she's like, I think she wants to fuck you. Maybe you'd have better luck talking to her than me. Why don't you go see what happens? So, Riker goes into her quarters to do some diplomatic relations. She essentially sticks Riker on this poor woman. Yeah, and Riker walks right in, the door's unlocked. Again, the door's unlocked.

And Comforts her, tells her that it's not her fault. Riker basically goodwill hunting her into believing that it's not her fault. She had no idea, she couldn't have known that this Christmas light was a life form. It's ultimately kind of a disappointing scene because she is a little too upset

to get down with with Riker and he's you know that usually doesn't happen. He's a sexual animal but he's not he's not he's not a monster and he he he takes off before and he kind of smooching take goes down and I thought that was a nice move on his part. He let her deal with her grief. So meanwhile, like the doctor and data discovered that yeah, the crystals pretty much alive. They 100% alive. Yeah, they know it at this point.

And the crystal go figure doesn't really like the humans that have captured it and enslaved it on the ship. And it manages to connect to the universal translator and start. It starts talking shit. It's opening, it's opening salvo is ugly bags of mostly water. It like literally leads with fuck you, you're ugly.

Pretty great. Yeah. I think the lights are able to interface with the computer with just a simple USB connection USB powered Christmas lights. Are you sure it wasn't a Thunderbolt cable? I don't know. I don't know, but I think this is a this is another effect that is not helped by the HD reimagining of the show because you can straight up see the mount of the lights in frame. It's unfortunate.

Yeah, I could have cleaned it up a little bit better. I feel like. So anyways, this thing is getting more and more dangerous and starts to mess with ship systems. They attempt to beam it off and it and it dispels the transporter beam just as it dispels the confinement beam earlier. And they realize they're up shit Creek because this thing is justifiably really mad. This terraforming process has been killing these life forms under the surface of this planet. Yeah, it's been a Christmas light holocaust down there for as long as the terraforming team's been. So Picard has to put on his diplomat hat and talk this entity into not killing them essentially.

And I think Troy helps. You know, this entity has been calling them ugly the whole time. And Troy says that the crystal is beautiful to them. All life is beautiful to them. All life is beautiful to them, which is a sweet sentiment and may go some way toward smoothing over the misunderstanding. They say this right before turning down the lights to show it that they mean business. Yeah, so they realize that some of the compounds

in this thing indicate that it is photoelectric. So if they turn off the lights, it's going to start to lose power. And the second they dim the lights, this thing is like begging for mercy, crying uncle, and it's a crazy stilted language. More light, please. Only if you will talk to us. more life, please. Only if you will talk to us. We die thanks of water.

Kill us. You are life others. It sounds like the universal translators a little bit of a CNC vice. Like the ship's computer sounds like a sophisticated voice. It's a major bear at, you know, like talking like a normal person. But the universal translator is, I guess, quite a few generations behind in that respect.

Yeah, well, I wonder. Like, when they talk to biological aliens or organic aliens, it doesn't have this problem. So maybe it's just because it's like such a different way of life that their communication is challenged. But this thing definitely like it sucks at talking. But they aren't gonna tell it that. No, or they're also not gonna tell it that they've just taken to calling it the micro brain. Yeah, again, not nice.

Yeah, wildly insulting thing to call a species that you just discovered that you didn't think was even theoretically possible. But anyways, once the lights are down, the thing is big and commercially and they say like, listen, we don't want to harm you. We just want to end this war. We're not going to fuck with your planet anymore. It was a total mistake. We didn't to harm you, we just want to end this war. We're not gonna fuck with your planet anymore. It was a total mistake. We didn't know that you were alive. We're gonna beam you back down, and we're gonna like put a quarantine

up around this planet, and the life form, not really having any other option agrees to the terms of this treaty. This episode ended maybe more abruptly than any other. Like, they beamed down to the planet, and then we get an exterior shot of the ship cruising away, and a snippet of a captain's log and Picard's like, we've learned a valuable lesson here about the sanctity of human life.

On to the next adventure, and that was it. It was like, it was a generic show end that they recorded. Right, good, it could have been any. That they could have used for anything. And I think that speaks to, I was reading some of the production notes for this episode and they were like doing re-writes on the set for this.

Interesting. Like, I wonder, I wonder if they just shot all that they could and there wasn't, anyway, they could shoot an ending and that's all they could do. Yeah. Well, for all the failings in terms of, like, I didn't think that the Silicon Entity was well characterized, the microbrain. I didn't think that was a great character. I didn't think the terraforming station was that well designed as a set. But for all of the failings, I think this episode had gripped me more than some of the previous ones. I felt really engaged in the story. I felt like there were interesting twists and turns.

I felt like it was a great use of the kind of scientific abilities of the crew and you know like Walpacard is doing kind of detective stuff, data in the doctor, doing detective science stuff. It was fun. It was fun for me to watch this episode. Yeah, I mean, sci-fi does one of two things. I mean, it's either cool space shoot-em-ups or it's discovering alien creatures and this check the second box. And they did

it really well. It was definitely like a fiction of ideas in the best sense. And it is a shame that when we finally get to meet the micro brain, it's just like stilted speech and slinging insults and kind of stupid. It looked like one of those, you know, outside of a pizza parlor, you stick your quarters in and you get that little plastic ball with a prize inside. Yeah. And sometimes that prize is like a jelly ring that lights up.

Yeah. That's what the microbrain looked like to me. Yeah, yeah, definitely look like a, something that could be had for 50 cents outside of a drug store or pizza parlor. It's weird just because a couple episodes ago you see the crystalline entity and it is amazing and brilliant looking and all CG and the CG holds up.

It like they just did an awesome job with that effect. And they really like they just grabbed something out of the prop department. It seemed like for this one. So... Yeah, I think that yeah, it was like the kind of thing where it's going to be so small on screen that that they're like not that concerned with what it looks like. It's just supposed to be a point of light, but HD resolution is not so kind to that choice. Yeah, I mean, this episode was as strong, story-wise as it was weak visually. Yeah, absolutely

Hey Ben what's that Adam? You have a drunk Shimoda for this episode? Drunk Shimoda! Sure, um, drunk Shimoda is of course our award for a character who is acting drunk silly or just having a great time. For me the the drunk Shimoda in this episode is the micro reign. I mean, I guess you can forgive it since perhaps it is never encountered in another intelligent life form itself, but hey, like if you're pissed off, like the best way of getting what you want is not leading with an insult. Like this thing, it's so belligerent and shitty to them the whole time.

Okay, that's a good one. Who's your drunk Shemota? I didn't have one until maybe 10 minutes from the end when she revealed herself to me, like, like, Kismet. So the, the microbrain has taken over, you know, the, the lab and people are trying to figure out how to, how to get in, they're locked out. They can't, they can't affect any change to it.

And in one of the scenes, they cut to engineering. And there's this old lady in engineering who is relating some vital information about what's happening. She is, she is maybe 55 years old. She is an Ensign. And she is... She's joined up late in life.

She, you know, has a place of prominence on the engineering team. Like she's a part of the team and she's doing stuff. Yeah, she is on the radio with the bridge. I saw her and I'm like 55 year old, double de forcey, Ensen in engineering 55 year old, double de force, a incident in engineering, starting her life over. I wanted to know everything about her.

Like, maybe she's doing the steps. She finally gets a ship, she's off exploring the galaxy. Who knows what her life was like before this, but that sense of adventure, that willingness to try new things that feels very... I would love to see the vision board that got her this far. Yeah. I just, I was really excited for her and happy for her circumstance. And to me, what could be more Shimoda than that than living your dream, living your truth?

So, so anonymous lady, anonymous 55 year old lady in engineering, I salute you. My, my drunk Shimoda. That is such a good call at him. I think, I think you're dead on with that one. There are four lights. What do we have coming up next? Next episode is episode 18 coming of age,

while Wesley endures the grueling, Starfleet Academy entrance exam. Captain Picard faces an investigation into his competency as a commander. Oh, you know, I think I remember something about this episode. This is the first time that we get a really angry admiral coming to the ship and accusing Picard of being a bad captain. We get this through the whole series, right?

Yeah, Captain Picard is constantly having to defend his command of the star ship of the, of the star, excuse me, of the flagship of the Federation. I remember there being like some interesting like testing stuff going on with Wesley in this. I think this is the episode where like they make him think that he's making kind of a Sophie's choice about which person to save in a disaster at the testing facility. And in fact, they're just testing his ability to cope with unwinnable. It's like his Kobayashi-Maru type deal where like they make them think that uh that some choice he's going to make is going to lead to

one person's death or another and they want to see how he deals with that. Hmm. I don't remember any of that part of it. I just do remember the parade of admirals who were just very cruel to one cap of the card. The reception said that this episode represents the ultimately Shay of the Jack Ass Interrogator. So I think that I think they mean that in a, you know, asshole interrogator, not in a like the Jack Ass interrogators like stapling his balls to his inner thigh and snorting wasabi I think that's a different kind of jackass interrogator somebody who's interrogating a jackass Oh right. Yeah, there could be that version two and neither of those though I think I think we can be fairly certain well I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, that'll be great that'll be

on the next episode of The Greatest Generation. If you ever want to reach out, talk to either of us who are spending entirely too much time on Twitter, having conversations using the hashtag GreatestGen and my Twitter hashtag is at Cut for Time. And mine is at BenjaminR. R. Our show music was created by the great dark material. If you want a copy of that track, you can find it in about a dozen websites on the internet. Do that. Yeah, so go get it. Go get it. And drive around in your car listening to it at top volume. I think you made a war for song too. I haven't heard that one yet.

I don't know. The Picard song is the only one for me. Yeah. to the top volume. you through it. I've been Adapranica. I've been Ben Harrison. Later. See ya. God.