The Greatest Generation - The Ultimate Redshirt (S1E12)

Episode Date: March 2, 2016

When Captain Picard has a big linguistics test to study for, he decides to procrastinate in the holodeck instead. Disappointing everyone, he chooses a program about a 1940's-era private detective, so Data, Dr. Crusher, and a random crew member join him. Turns out, there's a malfunction and people in the holodeck aren't shooting blanks anymore, which would be a real problem if Picard had been able to get Beverly up on his desk like he wanted to. Will the Enterprise ever fix the door problem? What does holodeck gum even taste like? It's the episode where we give everyone a little dusting of Drunk Shimoda.

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, a podcast by two guys who are more than a little embarrassed to have a podcast about Star Trek the next generation. I am Adam Pranaka.

I'm Ben Harrison. How embarrassed are you today, Ben? Oh, you know. let's show the normal. Really? I'd fun with this episode. I have a baseline level of embarrassment that would shock. I think that I go through life feeling a little bit embarrassed about just about everything. So you know, like having this show has not amplified my embarrassment that much.

Yeah, except like no one knew who I was before this show. And now they know me for all the wrong reasons. I think that there's something to living your truth though. Like, like being a dorkasword out in the open is somehow it eats your soul less than being a dorkasword in the shadows. You know what? That makes a lot of sense. And I think that's a good goal to have. I need to live my truth. Yeah, go out and buy some cargo shorts and Super Nintendo entertainment system t-shirts and You know some back issues of Nintendo power. Yeah, and brush up Yeah, and and and you know people will know you for who you are and you're gonna be a happier person for it

Yeah, I think so I'm feeling a lot of like inner conflict about this whole thing You gotta let it go. Just let that shit go. Ben, why don't you take us through the Peabody award-winning episode The Big Goodbye? Okay, so the Enterprise is heading for Tarona 4 to talk to the Herodin, who were told there are an insect-like race that are fanatically devoted to issues of protocol. greet them in their own language perfectly in order to satisfy their incredibly exacting standards. So he spends a lot of time in his ready room at the beginning of the episode working on the pronunciation and he's apparently looking at some pronunciation guide that doesn't actually illuminate it because there's all

these little technical rules, like if there's a squiggle after the Z, then you hold the Z, but if there are three lines, you know, it's like- Three wavy lines? Yeah, they've managed to apply techno babble to linguistics, showing the true prowess of Star Trek writers. Did you notice the Bacard? It was so like hunkered down in his studies

that they covered up his window. No, I didn't notice that. Yeah, there was a big silver panel over the window that looks out in the space. Wow, it does want to get distracted by them, them nebulae. Guess not. So Troy is like, cat, then you're stressing,

why don't you blow off some steam in the holodeck? They've just been refitted and upgraded. And you're just gonna, you just need to, you just need to get your mind off this, stop stressing about it. So more rocks than ever is the upgrade. Now with better rocks. Now with more plausible rocks.

So now it's waterproof. So Picard wanders down to the holiday deck and we get like a captain's log explaining what the holiday deck is. Kind of a weird choice given that we are now 11 episodes into this and holodeck has come up on like a good many of the episodes so far. But he fires up this Dixon Hill program, which is a hard boiled private detective, Dashal Hammett type story, set in San Francisco in the forties and uh... he goes into his office and his

his you know brooklyn accented secretary uh... is very amused at his bellhop uniform which is what she interprets his starfleet uniform to be and uh... they're big and big're pretty good. There begins to be a running gag that he lost a bet

to all the characters in the holodeck. So he's gonna play this detective in this leaky-dame, hires him to find out who's trying to kill her. And he's about to start his adventure when he decides to pause the program and check in on their progress, getting to Toronto 4. So they have like a conference where it seems like it seems almost as though Captain Ricard has convened a conference to tell his senior staff about how much he enjoyed his little make-believe holiday experience. Yeah he's going on and on about how real it is.

And meanwhile like he's been walking around with lipstick on his face. Yeah, his, his, his cool, let's him stand there telling them all this shit. Well, he has a lipstick kiss on his mouth from one of the hot characters. Rikers like fully leaned back from the conference room table, like looking at him over his nose, like I've had way worse things stuck to my face after a session in the holiday. Like you fucking Rube. I have bruises under my uniform right now.

Well, Riker and the holodeck jokes ever get old, I think not. So Picard decides to invite Dr. Crusher and this 20th century historian who's for some reason stationed aboard the Enterprise to join him on the holodeck. And that invitation is so awkward though. Yeah. Beverly is like inches away from his face, wiping off another woman's makeup.

She's like, can I come along? And Picard's like, sure, sounds great. Oh, you know who else we should bring? Is our 20th century expert? And Beverly is like, like she's been punched in the stomach, crushed. Yeah. Like that was another instance of Beverly again, like making a pass at Picard. Picard just, just, just, just, just mischievous. Yeah. Like he's not even turning her down at this point. He just doesn't understand. Yeah, you have to wonder about what type of game he's playing with her.

R.F.E. is genuinely oblivious. He may be only interested in childish games. He just kept talking one long incredibly unbroken send and moving from topic to topic. So that no one had the chance to think the traffic was really quite hypnotic, not hypnotic, not hypnotic. Picard and Whalen, the historian, prepare to re-enter the holodeck this time in period appropriate costumes. And data pops off of the nearby turbo lift and asks if he can come too. And Picard's like, all right, come along.

And they go in and they discover, they're sort of walking around like an exterior scene and they purchase a newspaper and discover that the lady that had hired Dixon Hill has been killed. And then, no sooner do they find this out than a couple of plain clothes detectives come and pick them up and take them down to the police station. The scene where they enter though, I thought was pretty awesome from a technical standpoint.

Like, this is the first time that they open up, you see the ship from inside a technical standpoint. I think this is the first time that they open up, you see the ship from inside a complex set, a complex holiday set, typically, when we're inside the holiday, we're seeing a bunch of rocks and a psych, and the door looks like it could be practical. It looks like it belongs there anyway, but this is the first time we're actually

in a totally different scene. And this is like a Hollywood back lot of like an urban place. Like it probably is used to be New York on more TV shows than anything, but this is being set up to be San Francisco. Although I guess every character they interact with has a New York accent, which is a little, a little bit stupid, but they might not even know the difference though in the 24th century,

like an accent and accent probably. That's a good point. Given that they consider French to be an ancient language. Anyway, I just thought it was really cool. It was cool. There's like a wide shot with like, you know, period costumes and cars. And then in the background you see like the hallway on the enterprise just beyond the door to the hall. Yeah, the differences

the depth. You usually see it like sort of in profile or in three-quarter, but you can actually see like all the way down. And it's genuinely awesome. Yeah, and it holds up to like this is 1988. FX aren't usually this good. Yeah, I mean, I feel like if it was now you would like throw in some sort of motion controlled camera movement and, uh, and like really, really revel in the fact that it's two spaces that shouldn't be connected, being connected, but, uh, look, this is this is Peabody level effects work right here. I think we can agree. I agree. I agree. I mean that's what they give the Peabody for.

If I know the Peabody, that's what they give it for. Back in the real world, the Enterprise is kind of entering herodin space and they are scanned at long distance by the herodin. And this is like a very invasive scanning technique because there's like pink light traveling around the ship and it causes the ship to shake. And as the pink light passes over the control panel for the holodeck, the panel flickers and you can tell that something has gone wrong.

So when Dr. Crusher shows up a second later to go into the holodeck, like the door opens halfway and then closes, surprising her before it opens all the way up and lets her in. Yeah, it's going into a supermarket in the bad part of town. Like the automatic door is just not working right. Mm-hmm. It's a lifelong goer into of supermarkets in the bad part of town. You've gone into for years, haven't you? Hashtag can confirm.

That checks out. I guess a riker kind of gets on the radio with the Herod, and the Herod and they're saying, like, we're expecting to be addressed by the captain and we're going to be really insulted if it's anybody but the captain. And I guess we know that they've like destroyed entire starships for insulting them in the past. So there's some, there's some stakes here.

The crew starts trying to call the captain up to the bridge, but find that the holodeck is in Communicado at the rest of the ship. The doors won't open and the Herod and Signal has affected the holodeck's functions. The people inside the holodeck find this out when they head back to Dixon Hill's office after the police turn him loose and a bunch of gangsters show up and one of them shoots the wailin guy, the historian character and it actually draws blood and his life is actually imperiled. It's like a holodeck usually has safeties and somehow this herodin probe has disabled them. This was a really surprising scene I bet because to me,

Whalen was like the ultimate red shirt. They didn't even introduce him properly. He just sort of glommed on to Picard as he's going into the holodeck. He has no introduction at all. a glom down to Picard as he's going into the holiday. He has no introduction at all. Right. And then he shot moments later, like that figures. Yeah, and like, I mean, you would have been a red shirt anyways, because if you're the captain of a ship

and you're like, who do we have? We have to beam somebody down that's almost certainly going to be in mortal danger. And we have a thousand people on this ship. Why don't we beam down the guy who's an expert in 20th century history? Like how fucking expendable are you

if that's your expertise in this environment? He thought he was safe. Yeah. You think those holodeck bullets aren't gonna kill you but they clearly do. So Dr. Crusher starts trying to care for this guy's wound and Picard and data realize that the holodeck is malfunctioning because they can't you know call up the door or pause the program or anything and They're in this kind of standoff scene with these gangsters the boss of of which is Cyrus Redbock, a bald, you know,

mean, but obviously a very smart villain who's demanding a certain object. Every time one of these characters brings up a certain object, you can feel the finger quotes that they want to be doing around it. And it's obviously like supposed to be like a multi-spell and like a MacGuffin, but they never even name. It's like they don't give it different. They don't give the MacGuffin an interesting name. I was so happy when Syra showed up because he's played by one of those classic that guys. Yeah, it's Tierney. It's Joe Cabot from Reservoir Dogs. Yeah. And that made me real happy.

He is just the greatest at chewing up scenes. Yeah, a ton of charisma and there's a lot of fun stuff where like data doesn't, they can tell there's something is wrong with data, but since they're holiday characters, they won't be able to wrap their mind around him being an Android, but they do a lot of trying to explain what the holiday is, and Red Block is like, yeah, enough of your bullshit. He's got his so great, his voice is so awesome.

I feel like if Robert Logger drops a script, Lawrence Tierney is gonna grab it before it hits the ground. If you need a gravelly voice, tough guy, Lawrence Tierney is it. If you can't get Logger. Yep. So outside the holodeck Wesley and Jordy are working for Antically to figure out how to save the folks inside. And Wesley has used this diagnostic tool to figure out

that the holodeck has turned the crew into holograms themselves. So if he turns off the system, it might just restore them to being people, but it might turn them off as well. In effect. That seems like a bug that they wouldn't really allow. Yeah, you wouldn't want that to leave the factory before he figured out how to avoid that little problem from arising. It's great that the way West figures this out is through like looking through a microscope type, type, to f-

A greatest gen live show is something you don't wanna miss. Why? Well, it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, that 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 spaceweards. Pat Noswald. Could I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which

is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Sorry, open just pull it out, give Jordan Jessie Goat try. Being smart is hard, be dumb instead.

Oh, rats, hey, hey, hey, I'm gonna 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 necks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this. We gotta 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 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 boats. We came two by two. What do you think? O, no Ross and Kerry, available on maximumfun.org. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ like miniature little circuit boards in there that they had. I mean, see, I thought for a second, he was actually looking at the scene. Like, he's looking at what's happening in the holiday. Oh, that's interesting. No, it doesn't really talk about what's going on in there. There is no way Riker would allow that either.

Yeah, yeah. If that device was was in that wall panel, Riker has, Riker has confiscated all of those. Yeah, that's what he puts his sock on before he goes in. They decide like, you know, there's a risk definitely that everybody in the holiday is going to die, but the herodin are going to kill us all if the captain doesn't make it up to the bridge pretty soon. So it's sort of do or die and riker orders them to attempt a shutdown of the holodeck

and for whatever reason, the way this manifests itself from the perspective of the characters inside is that the doors open. And then they're like, yeah, see Mr. Redblock? You are on a holiday. Like you are on a spaceship at space and that's the door to our world. And he gets like really excited that he's going to be able to commit crime on a whole new level in a whole new environment.

A whole new world of plant. And he and his henchman, Mr. Leach, walk out into the hallway of the enterprise, which is for some reason empty, like, Jordy and Wesley and Dranker are not out there. That's a great call. I didn't pick that up. I guess it must just be a different door. It doesn't make any sense that they're not there. Yeah. Yeah, they should be there. There's only one door in and out of the holodeck, right? As far as I know. Yeah, so that's a weird little...

That's a pretty big continuity error. That's a pretty big continuity error. But anyways, they walk out and they slowly start to disappear and there's some pretty funny like, you know, 1940s complaints about the fact that they are vanishing into thin air. What are they doing? start to disappear and there's some pretty funny like you know 1940s complaints about the fact that they are vanishing into thin air. What are they doing? I can't do this to me. I don't know who I am. At no point did they attempt to walk two feet back into where they came from though.

Well they're feet disappeared. How could they walk? They're pretty content to just stand there being slowly chewed up like the photograph from back to the future, right? Yeah, it's definitely like the way they disappear is definitely in the same order and the same direction as the photograph from back to the future. It's a timeless effect. So despite the fact that time is of the essence, Picard walks back into the holodeck after

releasing the doctor and data to get wailin back to the sick bay and has a little, like, sort of deep briefs with the detective character that's also been part of this whole stand-off situation. And the detective character is, like, clearly pretty sad to be seeing Dixon Hill go and doesn't really understand the fact that he's going to the real world where he's the captain of a spaceship. And they have this really weirdly emotional goodbye scene where the character says, I guess this is the big goodbye. And then they both turned to camera for a beat.

There's definitely like, there was definitely a moment where I thought they might lean in and and just tenderly kiss each other on the lips. They had exactly like six lines with each other the entire show. But they there is a gravity to that scene that we're supposed to really appreciate and I didn't. I sort of feel like they might have come up with the title of the episode before they came up with exactly what happened and then they wrote it back. Oh shit, there's not like a love interest character really so we can't have have him say that to her so we'll just

We'll just tack this little scene on to justify Is that the unrecoited love? Is that what we're meant to understand? Yeah, it's very strange, but so God everyone wants Picard's junk, huh? Sure do Except for the one person that keeps getting it. The boy? So Picard runs up to the bridge of the enterprise. He says the nonsense that he's been practicing. And Claixson, Ries, Blas Blanc, Arnick, Karnick.

And Tressula. Tress, Tress, Tressula. The Herod and accepted saying that it will be the beginning of a new era of peace and diplomacy between their people. And then that's it, like the enterprise just leaves. Like that's all they came to do. It's so weird and you never see them either, which was such a fucking tease, right? Like they're described as being scary insect things.

Yeah. And look, if they were never going to look at them, They're described as being scary insect things. Yeah. And look, if they were never going to look at them, why don't you just have data use Picard's voice and say the greeting perfectly and then nail the test, right? Totally. They could have totally cheated. There was one thing that I really wanted to talk about, which is in the end, I was going to say, I was going to say, I was going to say, I was going to say, I was going to say, I was going to say, I was going to say, I was going to say, I was going to say, I was going to say, I was going to say, I was going to say, I was going to say, I was going to say, I was going to say, I was going to say, I was going to say about, which is in the, as they're

like leaving the police station, the doctor is in her period costume and waiting for them to leave. And she's kind of washing a holographic woman do put on some foundation makeup and check her hair and her little compact mirror. And the doctor's kind of like imitating this because it's all very new to her as a future woman. And then like the captain comes out

and like they definitely like make plans to go back to his like to Dixon Hills office for sexy time before you know, day goes like, can I come too? You know, which is the second cock block that that data does in the episode. Yeah, they're totally gonna desk fuck, and data blows it. Data blows it for them. And it's the first, you know, maybe this would have been the way that Picard, re-equaints himself with the pleasures of adult

consensual sex. Okay. Okay. Okay. Beverly gets hit on in that scene also. Yeah, by the desk sergeant. The sergeant, what's funny about this scene is the sergeant offers her a piece of gum. Beverly knows enough about what gum is that she takes it out of the wrapper, puts it in her mouth and chooses it, but the punchline is that she swallows it.

Like, oh, silly Beverly, doesn't know what to do with chewing gum. But how did she ever get that far? If she knows enough about chewing gum to know that you want to wrap it and put it in your mouth, why is she swallowing it? Adam, I just want you to reflect on the fact that you are totally recording. It makes me so angry. Recording a podcast where you're complaining about a character not knowing quite how chewing gum works in a sci-fi television show from the 80s.

I would like you to edit out the last 90 seconds, please. My future depends on it. My social future, my professional future, everything. I'll see what I can do. That was not a Peabody Award-winning comment right there by me. It was a disaster. If it's gonna make the episode any worse, I'm not gonna edit it out, but I promise you that I will do my best to reduce how embarrassing this is for you.

Well, thanks. I am a beautiful, There are four lights. Hey, Ben. Yeah, Adam. Who's your drunk Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda? I'm the right one. Drunk Shimoda! Well, I think mine in this episode is Jordy. And my reasoning is they're radialing to get the captain up to the bridge and it turns out he's on the holiday deck

and they can't reach him. So Riker tells Jordy, like, go down there and figure out what's going on. Jordy tries to get in and can't, and basically becomes useless for the rest of the episode. Like he, like he, he radio's back up like I can't get in here, there's nothing I can do. It takes Wesley insisting to riker on going down there and, and trying to, to figure out how to get the doors open before anybody is really proactively working on this problem.

And we know that Jordi is like technically savvy, but he fucking just stands there and doesn't do shit. Like his visor's gotta be at least as good as that diagnostic tool that Wesley is using to scan the circuit boards or whatever. And he's like literally just standing there. Like he's like precious time is being wasted because Jordy just doesn't really step up and try to fix the problem. I mean, those are the actions of a man who,

I mean, I'm not thinking of him for chief engineer at this point, that's for sure. I mean, if this is a job interview, you can forget it. Like, that's not demonstrating potential. That's not going above and beyond. This is, yeah, I guess he's kind of lucky that Picard wasn't really around to observe this bullshit. My drunk Shimoda is data, actually. And the reason for that is he is the guy that doesn't pick up on social cues. Yeah. He crashes Picard's party twice. And, you know,

I'm going to give a half Shimoda to Picard because they just let it happen. Like, you can say no to data, you're the captain. Hey, data, why don't you sit this one out? And the great thing about data is his feelings aren't gonna be hurt. Yeah. He can hear, he'll take that shit at face value. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And he won't do it for some reason. This happens over and over again. The card is too nice. Yeah. And that to me, that to me, earns them a little bit of a fractional Shimoda for each of them. Oh, dusting in that matter. Yeah, just a little sprinkler of Shimoda. I am the cutest aboard. You are bored. I am the cutest aboard. You will assist us.

The next episode we have coming up is episode 12, Data Lore. Data's Android look alike formulates an evil master plan that could destroy the enterprise. What do you remember about this episode, Adam? This is the one where they find like junk parts, like data junk parts, right? Yeah, it's like that.

And then data puts them all together. The laboratory where data was constructed, and they had no idea that there was another soon-type Android in the universe, but it turns out there is, and it's a dead ringer for data. Because, in fact, he is played by the same actor, is that why? No, I think it's like an Olsen twins type situation. Oh, oh yeah. because in fact, he is played by the same actor. Is that why? No, I think it's like an Olsen twins type situation. Oh, oh yeah. It's Brent Spiner and Fred Spiner.

I love Fred Spiner. Oh, he's the best. You know, he never got the big break like Brent did though. Yeah. Uh, the reception of this was pretty unkind. Have you come across an episode that hasn't had unkind? I guess the last, I guess this, uh, the big goodbye was the, uh, yeah. I mean, this one's not getting the pee-bitty, that's for sure. Uh, Laura seems to lack any motivation for what he was intending to do

and makes the crew look pretty stupid. I feel like Laura's just a sociopath though, right? Like that's the reason that he wasn't the final final model is that he was he was a moral. I mean, now we're getting into an area that where I just don't remember that level of detail about the episode. So, sure. where I just don't remember that level of detail about the episode. So, sure. Well, I'm excited to see this one.

Even if I had a detail, I wouldn't use it. Yeah, I don't think I would either. I'm excited to see this one. I like all the data backstory episodes. There's not that many of them, but I think they're always pretty good, right? It gives Brent Spiner, I'm gonna be be clear, I'm not just going to use Spiner a given what we know about his twin brother. I'm going to give him a lot of credit. He tends to do

a great job when he's given a lot to do in an episode, so... Yeah. Looking forward to it. Yeah. All right, well I think that is all the time we have for this episode and I've had a lot of fun talking about Star Trek the next generation with you Adam. Yeah, yeah, that was tons of fun and the best part is No one heard it. Yep, just a private conversation between you and me Indeed indeed Well, I've been Ben Harrison. I'm still Adam Pranaka. See you next time Make it sound, make it sound.