The Greatest Generation - The USS Lenny (VOY S5E19)

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

When Jason Alexander shows up to galaxy brain Voyager’s paradox, Captain Janeway doesn’t know what to make of his chill energy and dubious moral character. But when he tries to barter his solution for Seven of Nine, Janeway sets a trap that puts the Think Tank under fire. How far would Sesame Street go for ratings? Is there a blackout period for enjoying puzzles? What kind of debacle can kill a car company? It’s the episode that added another word to the list of muted terms!Support the production of The Greatest Generation.Friends of DeSoto for Democracy.Friends of DeSoto for Justice. Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Caretaker!Music by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFollow The Greatest Generation on Twitter, and discuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen!The Greatest Generation is on Twitch.Facebook group | Subreddit | Discord | WikiSign up for our mailing list!Get a thing at podshop.biz!

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! Watch your back shot. Hello. I'm Captain Captain Bringing with the U.S. and Fort Hector. Captain Captain Captain Bringing with the U.S. is for the captain captain Bringing weather the U.S. is for the captain captain

Welcome to the greatest generation Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast I'm Adam Pranica I'm Ben Harrison I feel bad Adam Why do you feel bad this time? Ben? Yeah, we do a little synchronized clap at the beginning of an episode to give Wendy a nice, easy spot to line up the audio file from your side

and the audio file from my side. And what it does is it creates a waveform that's very obviously the hands coming together, very easy to see in the waveform. Yeah. Makes it easy to spike. Just make a visual alignment and then you can fine tune it a little bit if you need to, but yeah, we did a you whispered the countdown and we both did very subtle class.

So I'm looking at this waveform here. It's that an obvious hand clap. It's not the spike that we normally give Wendy. I'm looking at great spike. I'm looking at a turquid spike on my levels. You got good spike? Yeah. Oh man, my spike is nothing.

I did my little baby whisper clap right next to the microphone and I got barely any spike. You wanna reclap? Would that make you feel better? Okay, let's just reclap. People can hear for the first time ever, maybe not for the first time ever, but how we actually synchronize here.

Sure. Three, two, one. I got a nice sync mark. That sounded just as quiet as the first one. I don't know what happened, but I got barely any waveform. I got no bird on that first one. I got a nice bird on this one. Okay, all right.

You got hard bird then. Yeah. I'm glad you did. Got big bird. Yeah. You get snuffle up, I guess. His big bird based on an actual bird, like, have they determined his species? Hmm. He kind of looks like an ostrich, right? Right. You want, you want like the terminator eyepiece point of view to like identify what species of bird. Oh, hey, D.

The reason I say ostrich is because both big bird and ostriches have just big old dumpers. They do, man. Yeah, they do have enough in the trunk that you could put a red solo cup on there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We're in the VIP section doing bottle service,

but the table is Big Bird's dumper Is it time for Big Bird to get old also or is Big Bird doing the Simpsons thing where no one ever ages? I think Big Bird exists outside of time I don't think that you can really put a time on Big Bird kind of feel like Some kids out there would benefit from the knowledge that people and things age and die like Big Bird. Try to imagine the ratings on death of Big Bird

as an episode of Sesame Street. They got to shave his feathers like in the chest to like get the paddles in there because his paddles aren't going through the feathers. Right. Yeah, that's, I have heard that the defibrillators that they have on set at Sesame Street do have giant razor blades included in the kit. What if that was a thing like if you were Stanley Tucci and you had a heart attack on set,

you have to shave his chest before you do the defibrillator, Jay. Yeah. If I were a great risk of heart attack, I would have my chest shaved, except I don't need to have my chest shaved, obviously, but you know what I mean. Right, yeah, but that's just prudent, right? If you were walking around with like a, you know, Robin Williams like, thatch on your chest. Yeah. And Austin Powers. If I'm at a greater risk of a hairy chest heart attack, I'm gonna do some things. What would take Big Bird out

Adam in the death of Big Bird episode of Sesame Street? What would, would it be like a... A fail son with a hunting rifle? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha the way that all childish things become darker versions in the reboot or in the modern version. Uh-huh. SNL did this with Oscar the Grouch, not that long ago, right? They did a dark, super heroic movie preview of him and it was great. I missed that one. That sounds fun. The beloved resident and successful street luck you've never seen them before. Part of what made it great was that you could see it.

You could see it happening. Right. Yeah. Warners has this IP now because the deal between children's television workshop and HBO. Yeah. They're bringing Oscar into the DC film universe. Almost like tickle me one more time, motherfucker. Yeah. What's fucked up is that that means it's like a continuity, you know?

So like, almost in the continuity, Bert Nernier in the continuity, like when Batman and Superman fought and like destroyed Metropolis or whatever, like that really was hard on the people of the Sesame Street district, like in the burrow, the people on the ground. I think we're starting to construct a story here, right?

Like Sesame Street as a burrow has started to fall into decay. Right, yeah. The income disparity, you used to be able to afford an apartment on Sesame Street. Right, but now it's all like shit hole landlord assholes. Right. And all of this all kind of links up to Wayne Enterprises somehow. Like they own a lot of these buildings like through shell companies and stuff. And maybe the cold open of this movie is like, God big birds is trying to get to work.

And it's like, he runs to catch a bus, but that bus isn't stopping on the way to Sesame Street, but God, he's too old to run like that. Oh no. Oh no, Big Bird's doubling over, and he's grabbing his chest. Why won't anyone help him? Yeah. Why won't they help him? And one guy finally shows up with the paddles.

Yeah, like I've got the paddles, but look at all this fucking fold, these feathers. How are we gonna get through? You were gonna say foliage, right? Yeah, I was gonna say foliage. That works. Yeah. There isn't enough conductive gel in the kit to get through all the fucking feathers. You, sex worker, give me your loop.

And there's like four sex workers on the corner, like they just a rough neighborhood. Yeah. Plumage, I think is the word I was looking for. But then yeah, so Oscar becomes the kind of unlikely, like he's not the hero we want, but he's the hero we need right now, kind of. Yeah, like what's gonna get him out of his can?

Like, are we finally gonna see his legs? Oh yeah, what, how is Oscar the Rouch doing on wiki feet? That's the Hun Zimmer burr moment. It's like super close up of like one foot stopping next to a garbage can and then another green foot landing next to and it can and then another green foot landing next to and it walking away from camera. Holy shit, Oscar's walking. He's walking.

Yeah, and then it's like, la la la la. Buh. La la la la la. And every time that hits, it's like it's him hitting his can with a baseball bat. And like, he's like destroying his own home so that he can't go back to it. Oscar Corman.

He goes into Mr. Hooper's store or does it pack a new port and, uh, yeah, honey nut. How did Mr. Hooper get those scars? Well, uh, that's a universe I want to live in. I know that there's only like three media companies, and they're all just recycling the same IP over and over again. But that's a direction they could take it that I would actually be enthusiastic about.

I've always considered as a creative think tank, man. You and me. Think tank Adam. What makes you say that particular phrase? Well, it was a home economics teacher pulled me aside while I was washing dishes in class. This is my senior year in high school and she was like, you know, I think if I were going to predict your future career, I think you'd be great in a think tank.

Really? And I had no idea what that was. And I was like, that sounds great, thanks. And secretly in the back of my mind, I've been attracted to the idea of being in a think tank ever since. Yeah, yeah. Adam Parley's his successful Star Trek podcast into a fellowship at the Cato Institute

where he publishes vaguely academic-seeming papers that are really just pretext for the justification of relaxing industry regulations and lowering taxes on the wealthy. Well, I mean, most of my papers written in college were kind of pseudo-academic anyway. So. Well, let's see if we can rise, if our academic skills can rise to the occasion of reviewing

this particular think tank at them. It's right, Bennett. Star Trek Voyager, season five, episode 19, think tank. Reaver, of course. Unless you've got something a little bigger in your torpedo toots, I'm not turning around. There's a blue man here, not as part of a group, Adam, just by himself. And he is looking for anyone who will answer. He's clearly in a waiting room of some kind because of the fish tank.

Yeah, jellyfish does not have a lot of room to move around. You know, you hear about this, like, people putting their animals that they keep on a cage and a cage that they can't turn around in. I just felt really bad for this jellyfish. This looks like the sort of aquarium prop that they used in the aliens universe. Like, this was always the thing they kept the chest birster in. Right. Yeah, or like- Or the very hairy Ripley. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When they were cloning Ripley's. Yeah. When they walk into that room and it's like versions

one through 19 when they were trying to dial it in. And two through 19 were like Ripley from the movie The Ring, just like all wet hair. Yeah. This instead, I mean, it's less troubling. It's not not troubling though. Who doesn't like looking at a jellyfish? I've floating around. I love a jellyfish. You know, go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, go to the jelly's hall. Fascinating.

Yeah. There's a pickup truck driving Oceanografe, Oceanografe, Ankylisor. Professionanographer. Ankillus or. Professionals there. Doing the good work. Show you extremely grizzly videos about killing whales and then they lead you on a tour. This blue guy, he startled.

And he startled by someone who doesn't look like him. They don't speak the same language either. It's very confusing for both of them, it seems. Yeah, just a lot of like clicks and bleep blurps. There's like a kind of crappy like low rent R2D2 rolling around. There's a wide screen TV in the background with a whale in it, much like the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Indeed.

I really like loaf that looks like it was cut with a razor blade. Like the intricacy of these two species, I think is great. And then like when George stands up pops out from the side stage, you're like, oh, yeah, not all aliens get that kind of fit and finish. Yeah, you know, when you've got a Jason Alexander, yeah, you don't cover it. Yeah, you don't cover that up. And also you probably, there's probably negotiation, right? Like this is a Jason Alexander at the peak of his stardom and probably does not want to

sit in the makeup chair for like 10 and a half hours, right? I don't know. Like, he's a fan of Star Trek and he has been forever. Like, if you're a fan of Star Trek and you're a famous, do you want all the loaf or do you not want the loaf? I don't know. I'd probably want to be in a storyline where I begin in loaf and then through some sort of procedure, I walk down the stairs and I am revealed to be a beautiful face like this.

And then I go to work without needing to hit the chair. Right. Well, you get the loaf and like the overalls flexed with paint at the beginning of the episode. Right. Right. Who knew? It was such a hunk under all that.

I never pictured my tenure on a Star Trek episode being long enough for there to be any character development like that. I just pictured myself walking down a hallway and then a torpedo hitting the ship and a hull breach sucking me out into space. Yeah, no one is fitting us for love, but they are fitting us for jerk cable. Exactly. You don't need a lot of time in a makeup chair for that.

No, no. You know, you'd be able to bring your own harness probably. I have plenty of harnesses. I mean, one harness won't be missed from your nightstand. Yeah, I was one time planning a weightlessness scene in a music video that wound up getting canceled before we were able to make it, but I like bought a rock climbing harness

for shooting that scene before the video was canceled. So I do have like a real rock climbing harness around here somewhere. So I think I could, I think that would attach to a jerk cable. When you see the rock climbers dig in the little pouch of dust, you know, for their fingers. Oh yeah, a little rosin bag or whatever.

How much of that dust is going up in their grondole to keep the thing from rubbing? Oh. It's rubbing all over the place. So you're saying that this is talc that they're using and it's dual purpose talc, it's for gription on the rock face, but also just for keeping it dry in the harness region.

Wouldn't talc be best? I don't know. I don't know what the fuck they do. I thought it was like chalk that they use in the gym. I don't know if it is chalk and talc the same. We'll never be in a gym to know that. Hey mister, mister, that stuff you're clapping in your hands Mr. That stuff you clap it in your hands and in your joke What is that this blue dude cannot pay I'm sorry. This is all we can offer you You are lying. He's an Alexander's character, and I wrote his name down here. Oh Kura Stanza mm-hmm is Ready to accept payment for services rendered from this blue man.

They save his planet. And if the guy doesn't pay, they're ready to like turn off the stasis field or whatever that's stabilizing their planet. This guy wants to give him like a museum trinket as payment and he's like, no, fucking way, dude, that's not going to cut it. It's a great scene because you think that Kura Stanza has this guy over a barrel full of earthquakes. And it's not cool. What are you doing to the blue guy? But the blue guy kind of tried to fuck him over, right? Yeah. Like, like, there were net 30 terms on holding his planet together. And this guy's both late and trying to barter

for something else. That's not what they agreed on. There's a contract. Yeah. Butch as my rougher is about to find out. There's a contract with a five year warranty on labor. Yeah. Which makes the the decking screws they used.

An interesting choice. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Then, Karis Stanzas politeness is really unnerving throughout the episode and it really starts here, right? I was raised to say God bless you. Yeah, I wondered how much that is just like, this is the curse of a Jason Alexander, right? Like he is so, and he's talked about this a lot. Like he is so fully associated with one very specific character that is just based on the creator of the show he was on.

Yeah. That he like kind of can't get out from under it. And it is very unnerving to see him not like, this is a negotiation about payment, but it is not petty and it's not like... No, and he doesn't raise his voice. Yeah, it's like he's not afraid of anything in the scene. Yeah. Like all of these things turn George Costanza on his head.

Yeah. Corostanza is nothing like George Costanza. It's very true. Solving problems is what we do. After the theme wherein Janeway's ready room, where seven catches Janeway puzzling, and it feels like Janeway is too young to do puzzles for fun, right?

Is there two older, two young? She's like in the middle period of your life. When you're a kid, you can puzzle, and when you're an old, you can puzzle. She could book the holodeck whenever. Right? She could jump the line and be in the holodeck, but instead, she's doing silver Rubik's cube.

Right. I've wasted two hours on this thing, and I'm no closer to solving it. And this doesn't even look like a particularly effective masturbatory aid, like some of the gadgets in her favorite holodeck program. It's subtle. Leonardo would have no use for this. Seven interrupts with good news, actually.

They've found a planet that's like just a great big pile of dilithium. That's something that they always need more of. So they're pulling up to that. They're like getting ready to start scanning it. And or I guess they do scan it. And because they scanned it, the planet just goes full praxis. Like, it seems like it reacts to their scan by exploding.

This was so effectively shocking to me. Yeah. Because it happened so fast, do you do when all the Star Trek things you're supposed to? You roll up on a planet, you have to scan it. Yeah, that's what you do. I just love scanning for life forms. Boom.

Big explosion, like an explosion that knocks the ship off of its, you know, even-killed placement. I wondered was this all part of the setup? Did the Hazari rig the planet? Did the Thing Tank rig the planet? Did the think tank rig the planet? I wish we got a definitive answer to this because I also, as the episode played out, kind of assumed that it was like that.

But, I mean, if anyone was to rig it, it would have to be the think tank and their technology, right? Because it doesn't seem like the Hizari while formidable tactically have planned it to exploding power the way the think tank probably does, right? Right. So yeah, speaking of the Hizari, this is when they show up.

This is a species that seven explains are really well known as like bounty hunters. They always get their man and they're not to be fucked with. Yeah, they sound mean as hell. Yeah, and they're like going down the list of like who hired bounty hunters on us? Like who could it have been? Let's see, who hates our guts in the D-Quad?

And this list is really long, actually. Turns out. Why don't you read me the list of allies in the de-quadrant? Yeah. And it's just crickets. Janeway gets on FaceTime with their would-be chapter who is trying to play hardball, and she comes back over the top in the hardball department with such devastating

ferocity, I could not believe it. We're far from defenseless. Why don't you save yourself some trouble? Janeway does not want to fuck around with this guy even a tiny bit. And she comes very close to blowing up the damn ship in service of not letting this guy get his quarry today. This is old school Janeway rules right here. Yeah.

Like, come and take it. That would be a good shirt. Right. Like a silhouette a voyager and then come and take it. What is the, it's like in Greek sometimes on the back of people's pickup trucks. Yeah, and there's like a cannon or something. Right, yeah.

I think it means something bad, but we could take that and make it mean something good. Right, yeah, I think it's for like second amendment assholes a lot of the time, but it's like the the gatson flag, but it's like pieces of Harry Kim's clarinet. I'll I'll broken up into its different parts that you need to separate it into before you put it in the clarinet case. Don't honk on me.

Anyways, so they blow up the gas cloud of the expanding debris of the dilithium planet that they just blew up, or that they just accidentally blew up or got blown up on them or whatever. It got blown up on them. Yeah, yeah. I like that. That's what she says.

We don't get the answer, but if it literally did just react to being scanned by blowing up, then they did blow it up, right? It's true. Anyways, they get away from this one Hazari ship, but then we're down in the Aslab and they're like, oh yeah, there's like tons and tons of Hazari ships

all around and they're like, they're just kind of making a cloud around us. So this is not gonna be quite as easy to escape as all that. Chico Teiz Harris swept back up again, which I guess means the wet Caesar was only temporary and sports related. Yeah, this one is a lot more lightly dressed. He's already on pace for more dialogue than he's had the entire season. Yeah, this is, it seems like there's been a bit of

a Chico Tei reset. I like it. I'm down with that. Yeah. Like one episode that felt like as kind of feels like earlier season Chico Tei in an uncomfortable way, but now we're back. Yeah. Like one episode that felt like as kind of feels like earlier season chicote in an uncomfortable way, but now we're back. Yeah. I like how things doing things. Hair is puffy and dry, back and better than ever. This path ahead that they're looking at in the ass lab is absolutely dotted with his already ships. Yeah. And they are getting closer. It doesn't look good. So it's a bit of a puzzle. And Jane Wei is up burning the midnight oil in Nielix's restaurant. He like pours her a cup of coffee and knocks off for the night. I like the suggestion that she could be doing this with a hyposprae,

but she likes the taste. Why would I mainline it when I can enjoy the flavor? There's coffee in that quartist. I don't think the hyposprake keeps you regular. Either. Oh, yeah. Yeah, if you injected coffee, that's not gonna get you poop in, right? No.

It's not the same. What are you gonna do in the morning in between that 20 and 45 minutes? Yeah. Well, imagine all that unstructured time. Banking your hands. Janeway doesn't want that. Yeah. So Nielix fucks off and Kira stands a Who appears uninvited like the red baron a man. Yeah. Sitting in her spot.

Who are you and what do you want? Kind of the opposite of every guy you've ever met. I noticed something kind of troubling about his hair. He's got this kind of ill-defined fuzz of blonde hair. And he's there saying, I alone can fix your problems. And I was like, oh, I alone can fix your problems. And I was like, I don't like the comparison my brain is making right now. He looks like an aging guitar player for a band that's going back on a reunion tour. Like a band that was very popular in the 70s.

Right. Right. Yeah. I left my hair like this. Yeah. So yeah, he says like, you know, you and I, we're not so different. I mean, I mean, I mean, I'd be wearing the robes of a monk, but I too, in an explorer of all of space and time.

She at first takes great umbrage with the idea that he is an intruder on her ship. And then he does that thing from lost highway, where he's like, I'm not actually here and to prove it I'll have you call me on my think tank ship Any hands are the phone and it's him on the phone Yeah, it's creepy as hell, but he can also taste the coffee. Yeah, what is this man? I'm fucking freaking out here. It's the sort of David Lynchy an episode that really begs to be rewatched over and over

again to try to figure it out. See if you could puzzle through it. Yeah. It's a puzzle episode, Ben. Yeah. He's a puzzle dork. He explains this. The way we explore is by finding little challenges, little brain teasers. And you've got a Thursday, Crossword puzzle level issue here, you know. You're not going to figure this out by yourself. It is the best kind of puzzle. Every day of puzzling, every day of puzzling, every day of puzzling, every day, every day, every day of puzzling. I'm puzzling every day. Every day. Every day. Puzzling.

Yeah. He pulls out his iPhone and shows her that he's put an all day event on every day of his calendar app that just says puzzling. Uh-huh. And she's like, that's cute. That's cute. He's pitching her on helping with the Hazari problem. She's like, what do you want in exchange? And he's like, well, you know, what do you want in exchange?

And he's like, yeah, we'll leave the details for later. Come pay us a visit. You can come in person. I left my address on your computer along with a bunch of interesting information about the Hazari. I Fell for this all the time. Like the girl would always say I left my number on your phone. And then when I went to call it, not the number. Fake number and also she'd venmode herself $1,000. Yeah. The number somehow connected to me and it was me on the other side.

Yeah, and it was proving that you weren't there. And you were like, how does this work? And how can you taste the coffee I'm holding? So he has a couple of caveats on this visit. He's like, you can bring one other person and you can't bring any scanning equipment. Right. So who is Janeway gonna bring?

Yeah. Who wants to be picked first? Yeah, there's not, doesn't seem like a lot of hands are flying up, right? It's not like an ooo ooo pick me, pick me. Yeah. Kind of situation. I was surprised that she picked seven. It's a beautiful name for a boy or girl,

especially girl, horrible. It's not a name, it's a number. The moment where there is the conversation about the price of the help and the selection of a crew person like back-to-back in sequence. I did really feel some of the most toys vibes from this episode, and it really starts here. Definitely. And they sort of have their collection of weirdos, but also when they talk about different types

of payment they've received, then it's like a kind of soup is one of them. Yeah. It's like, oh, you guys are just like, you have strange taste and you live in a post-scarcity future where something being rare and weird is more interesting than it being like valuable on like a monetary assessment. You get that kind of the most toys feeling again when seven and Janeway beam over, they're in the same location as the cold open took place.

And Kurostanza steps out to greet and he does that thing where he shows off all of, you know, like in the most toys, it was like a rare and valuable items. But in this, it was a baseball card. It was a weird gun. Yeah. And now it's like, here's a jellyfish. And that's a bean bag or whatever. He's like feeding the jellyfish going, Lulu Lulu. Yeah. Yeah. A floor light in the middle of the room is what allows this crew of very different species to communicate telepathically with each other. And a banger announces to everyone that Bevox is ready to meet too. Yeah.

He's the giant thing in the Bioplasma tank outside the window. The whale guy is the founder of the think tank and founded it over a hundred years ago, but is very sensitive about, you know, never ask a whale their age. That's considered very rude. If he's sensitive about this, imagine how sensitive he is at the end of the episode from the Hizari just rain fire on his fucking tank. You're not supposed to tap the glass of a tank. You're not. Yeah.

How loud are those torpedoes, you think? Objection noted, we'll do this without you. Do it. Do it. Objection noted, we'll do this without you. Do it. Do it. Do it.

Do it. Curstans are like rattling off the list of problems they've solved, which is curing the Videan Fage. Yeah. Exciting, isn't it? She's going to have a whole new fence. Like, we'll never see the Videans again, but that's nice to know. We get so much more time with Karastanza in this scene.

And it really makes me appreciate how great Jason Alexander is at this gear, at this slow down, very chill, very polite kind of way about him. You got a trusted guy like this, right? He's just here introducing you to his friends. That guy losing a take. We're all coming up with ideas here. We're here to help. I believe we can solve the Hazari paradox without firing a single weapon. That's just what I'm looking

for. It really feels a bit like a TOS throwback, like the energy he's throwing into the character. It's sort of the room that does that, right? Yeah, and I feel like that's where his fandom starts. So it's probably also like just part of like what's informing. What he wants to do with a star trick character when he gets a chance at one right but yeah like also just a scene where an alien like spends 10 minutes explaining their deal. Yeah, the idea. The weird sentient robot in the middle of the room that looks like he attended Randall Peltzer's Inventors Convention on Chris O'Zeeve is a great touch. And that I think supports your theory about what inspires a scene in a setting like this.

Is that robot kind of looks like a past robot too. Yeah, yeah. That robot speaking of which comes into play later in the scene, but Janeway also asks like, hey, so like we got this prime directive thing. You guys get anything like that. And he's like, well, you know, we wouldn't do like an entire genocide. Like we, you know, we'll take out a plan. We'll take out a star fleet, but we wouldn't kill. Like everybody in a species, like not all of them everywhere. Yeah, I mean, we're more like arms dealers types. Can you bring me the gun of rumble?

Part one, two or three. You know, like that. I love how this does not shake Jane Ways interest in Kurosdanz's help because when she is back in the voyage where she's like, well, I do have some doubts about their moral character, but if we are to survive this trap that's closing in, dot, dot, dot, Captain Jane Ray, I have, she has some concerns about the moral character of the members of the Thin Tank.

I think if you're going to do genocide, you should do it, and if you're not, you should not. You should not do medium genus shed. Genus shed or get off the path and also if you genocide only flesh paper We are very sensitive filming on Delta Rana We're on a septic system Which I found very insulting when we bought this house because I don't want my personal in shelting when we bought this house because I don't want my personal,

specific impediments to come into play every time I talk about how we deal with waste here. A contractor came out and said, you know, you could run your septic system further out than the grass. You know, into the burnt stuff. And I said, no. Keep it within the one acre by one acre learn.

Anyways, when I tried to join the Think Tank, they said I wasn't Think Tank material. And then I found out about their genocide policy and I was disgusted. It turns out going independent was great for me. I'd gennestated better than they ever did. Look at me now, think tank. So they're going to like invoice Janeway with like what they want to be paid in compensation for solving this Hazari problem. But the robot is really curious about 7 of 9 and wants to know about incorporating biological with mechanical parts and proposes a little mind

link. And it seems like this is established before 7 of 9 has an opportunity to like thumbs up or thumbs down it. I wish I knew more about this little robot and what it was really after because initially, like, there's a couple of concepts here with no connective tissue between them. And I was like, well, does the little robot want to have some flesh on it? Like, is that its intent for wanting to speak with seven? And if that's the case, then like, I can get with that as a concept. Yeah. Maybe he wants to do some walking around.

Well, that's the pitch. But then later, Janeway realizes that it was more about like getting a load of what sevens got going on in her noggin and seeing if she, unlike Kevin, is think tank material. Right. Right. Later on, we learned that among the list of demands that Kura Stanza has, at the bottom of the list, good job by him not leading with the top thing. Right. It goes soup, slipstream drive technology, and then seven.

Right. Yeah. It's like checking out at a grocery store and trying to hide the embarrassing item with a bunch of other stuff. It's like, you know, I got a pint of Ben and Jerry's, a couple of apples and newspaper, box of condos. Hell yeah, export. Gimme Seval. Just to cheat eight.

If you like King, you come not us, bring it on in the rain. Yeah. So he's hologrammed into Janeway's office to give her this list and she's like, well, this is not really what we had in mind when you suggested trade or whatever. We're definitely going to have to give it some thought, but I'll get back to you basically. You know what I like about how this isn't like the most toys. Is Kura Stanza isn't going to take seven by fours. Yeah.

He's going to create all of this subterfuge. Like he's going to, he's almost a little bit of a Dracula about it. He doesn't want seven unless seven wants to be there. He wants to do invite yourself over of her own volition. I think that is really interesting. It's really interesting in the context of their ship being so much more technologically impressive than the voyage. Or like every time they scan it, they're like, oh, you should. It's made out of this material that's only theoretical. Yeah.

So the next scene is Janeway kind of like telling seven what the pitch is. She's like, yeah, so like they said, if you go join their think tank, they'll for sure help us. You know, it's like a bunch of useless trinkets and you, I don't love it, but it's kind of your call. And that's a, feels like a big step, right? Like Janeway's talking about how it doesn't seem like something she would have left up to seven a while ago, but now seven has kind of come far enough

that Janeway is prepared to extend that kind of latitude. Well, like, Karastanza later really leans into the idea that, you know, at the think tank, we're a very prestigious institution where you can be a sort of goodwill hunting figure. You know, you'll win the fucking fields metal every quarter if you want. And even in this scene, Janeway is like, yes, they have very interesting things over there that we don't, but we have us, right, our relationship, which hasn't always been good.

And kind of a cap on your ambition professionally. So... Many would argue that that's almost a disincentive of staying. So it's up to you. Would you like to join them? I am intrigued. I like that it's up to her. And Seven is in.

She's loyal enough that she wants to say voyage her. She wants to tour the campus at least. Right, yeah, go over there and kick the tires. Yeah, go through the Frisbee on the quad. Yeah, on the ship that Kerr stands a lives on, which do you think they think of as being the think tank? The one that the whale lives in or the one that the jellyfish lives in?

I mean, what I noticed above the frame of the tank was kind of a needle point that says whoever dies with the biggest tank wins. And knowing that, I believe Bevox is the lead thinker, the lead tank. I liked when the camera panned up and showed that. And then it panned over and showed a, if this tanks a rock and don't come a knockin' right before, you know, one of its kind of whale songs shook the whole ship.

Yeah, if this takes a slashing, we're not joshin' about how much sex we're havin' in this tank. That's a bumper sticker available by TopGip is right now. It's a little overwritten, a bunch of tips is right now. It's a little overwritten, but I think it conveys what we're trying to say. So the next scene is a visit from Kura Stanza in the cargo bay. I guess maybe he's probably brought like a tape measure to figure out how much space they're going to need to make for her recharging pad

over on their ship. I love that. Yeah. So are you gonna be packing up all of this or you would just wanna start fresh? I noticed you've got four or five bays here, but you really only need the one to recharge. Do you need all of this or?

You know, the thing about staying in the dorms is they have those long twin beds. You never see them outside of that context. They require special sheets. So we'll give you one long thin alcove. That's what you get. That really fucked me over in college because I got to the bedbath and beyond on campus late. And those sheets have really been picked through.

So I got really shitty bed sheets. Oh, yeah. Shitty bed sheets in the dorms is really going to limit your sexual potential in college. I was limiting my sexual potential plenty without the help of my bed sheets, Adam. 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 Share Your Embarrassment Tour.

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Be dumb instead Well, rats. Yeah, I'm about to count you in mine. These clouds are really freaking me out I hate having to stand in line and boy These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not and they've such short But I'm here and we need to get on this. I 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'Neil Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org. You have to do it! You have to do it! You have to do it! This is an interesting conversation that crux of Carastansis pitch is basically, everybody on voyage here is pretty dumb

and your job here sucks. So if you come work with us, you're gonna be around a bunch of smarty pantses, you'll be able to live up to your full smarty pants potential. You've got a lot of inherent talent on top of all of the stuff you learned as a board that makes you very unique and very interesting to us. This made me sad because he's not wrong, right?

Seven has reached the ceiling on the USS Lenny. And it doesn't seem like there is a path to things getting better for her. Right. In any way. Yeah. I wonder if we'll see her at all in lower decks, like in the context of a galaxy where the packlets are doing a lot more active stuff around, because I really would like to see seven of nine interact with the packlet.

Whatever lower decks wants to do is what I'm here for. But I thought it was interesting because Janeway being the messenger of this pitch had seven convinced that she wanted to do it. But Kerr stands are being the messenger of this pitch kind of changes seven's mind. There's another angle to the pitch to that Karastanza has that I thought was really interesting. He's like, you know, if you don't believe in your unlimited potential over here, you should also know that I was a form of payment once

to the Think Tank and look at how great I turned out. Actually, that's way louder than he would have put it. He would have been like, you know, I too was payment to the think tank and things have been great for me ever since. You might say George is pretty happy with not having had to grow up around his parents. I didn't like us. Why wouldn't I like us? Seven's like, what are you doing? And Kyrgyz stands just like, I am eating my dessert. How do you do it? With your hands.

So he ends this meeting, leaving a recording device in his briefcase and walks out of the room, and then walks back into collect the briefcase to find out if Seven was talking shit. Yeah. Boy, he really does have that energy of trying to put off getting dumped. Like, look, I know your answer for now is no. And it seems like it may be no for a little bit. But what I'm trying to say is keep thinking about it until it's a yes. Yeah.

So they go up to the bridge because seven has to help with a hasari attack and Kerestan's decides to come with and observes and actually gives some pretty Crucial tactical advice to the captain about how do you deal with two hasari ships coming after you? Yeah, how do you deal with two at the same time, kind of a lot to concentrate on? I can't. I'm not an orgy guy. Are you crazy? It's just kind of like, you know, as long as you kind of like keep judging the one, you

can focus on the other as much as you want. Right. Right. Right. But if you're closer to one of them and too much attention is paid to the other, then all sorts of bad outcomes could happen later on, like after the battle. That Hazari is going to be like, what was that about?

Or are you still in love with me? And he's like, no, I was juicing. Was I not juicing? I liked in this scene, they're like getting hit, but I guess because he's a hologram, he's not reacting to the bangers. So like every time all of the other actors like do a big shake to sell that they're getting hit by inbound his arie fire, he's just standing there like calm and not bouncing around like everyone else.

That's such a great detail. And I mean, I kind of wonder if you're a big Star Trek fan and you get to be on the cast. If that makes you sad, like I don't get to, I don't get to go through the bangers. You guys don't get to do it and I don't. God, fucking damn it. I fucking do like 11 preceases.

It's like the fucking star of one of the most popular sitcoms on television and I can write my own ticket and I can go on my favorite fucking TV show and the one thing I wanna do, it's a banger and I can share fucking still for it! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU You know, this whole situation is like a metaphor, you know, like me, Jason Alexander, I'm from the Think Tank. I'm over here on Star Trek. You guys need to respect the game and give me a banger. He gets bangers later, all right. He sure does. On the think tank ship. Yeah, he's gonna enjoy those. Yeah. But for now, Seven announces like,

hey, really appreciate the pitch, but I think I'm gonna stick with these guys. And he's like, well, by my calculations, you're not going to actually, you're gonna change your mind. But, you know, for now, you feel the need to not come over. You're fucking funeral, you're gonna die.

No exterior shots of this little battle. Kind of bum me out. They did an entire planet explosion and there's a huge fight with like 15 ships in it at once later in the episode. There's no fucking way there's a middle space fight. Don't get that. Yeah. The budget cannot bear something like that and pay Jason Alexander's day, yeah. Jason Alexander is fine with those terms. So when the battle is over, Karis Danza tells Janeway,

you know, you could just order her to my ship. That's a way we could make this clean, right? Yeah, we could be done with this. No. So as you're not getting seven, get out of here. Please, I have so little. And then he leaves to go back to the think tank ship

and it cloaks. Yeah. And they have a quick conversation about like, okay, like we just have to let the scenario keep running itself out. But we'll get her eventually. 96% chance is a pretty heavy favorite. Yeah. Yeah.

Although if you've ever played XCOM 2, you know that that's far from 100% chance. Very far. So when we come back, Hazzari ships seem to have found like the debris of the Voyager, like they talk about like Cuban organic residue and duranium hull fragments, it looks like they blew up a Voyager here. This is like a submarine shooting its junk shot. Yeah, this is great.

Yeah, and they've loaded up the junk with with bombs and this disables the Hazari ship for long enough for them to pull it into their shuttle bay and beam the crew aboard. And finally they get to talk face to face with the Hazari. I love these guys. I love the alien style to them. Yeah. great loaf. Really good loaf. Great like armor. They really do look like bounty hunters in a fun way. Yeah. We don't get to see the mind meld interrogation that Tufak does, but we do get to hear his report of it

after and he's like, yeah, it didn't work. I mean, it worked in some ways. I blasted big. Right, right. It worked for me, not for them. They said sometimes it's hard the first time with a new person. How about Janeway joking about torture? No. That one kind of like hangs in the air.

No one plays joke baseball with Janeway. No. In that exact moment. Everyone's like, yeeeh. Everyone's like, is she serious? Do we have to agree to torture? Yes. And? And guess we'll wait until that opportunity comes. They're on the Huzari ship looking through their computers and what they find are records that may indicate who hired them because they still don't know who put the bounty on the Voyager's heads. And so these are medical records, I guess, so they take it down to Six Bay where the EMH shows them a hologram of a melon. And I felt so bad for this melon extra because he's just there for five seconds to get replaced by Karastanza. I really love this scene in Six Bay

because it really demonstrates the doctor's new interest in the dramatic. He's like sitting up there with a Manila envelope and he's like, I've got the results of the bio readings. Yeah, brace yourselves. And the bio readings say, it's Malin. Ha ha ha ha. Malin is the father.

Like, Brown goes absolutely crazy. I love this redirect because it's unbelievable. They're like the Malin. Those guys? We haven't seen those guys in a long time. I mean, we have a lot of enemies in the D-Cloud. Don't get me wrong. And the Malin definitely qualifies, but they don't,

who gives a shit? They don't give a shit. What's the upside for them? They barely spend any money on the maintenance of their own ships. They're gonna, like, pay a bounty to get us. It doesn't track, so. Now, two Voc goes into the EMH's computer and like checks his work. And

Tuvac's like, I too have a Manila envelope. And he's really dramatic or that he kind of goes up over the top of the EMH because he got that kind of Manila envelope. Like the EMH's Manila envelope was just like taped across the top, right? But Tuba got the one with the like a little piece of red thread that wraps around the brown piece of paper with the bread.

Kind of gets used in like inter-office mail. Right, and you cross off the last adressy and you put the new one on, there's like space for 30. Yeah, it's reused. So good. Yeah. Brace yourself. And it's Kuros. Oh, so good. Yeah. Brace yourself. And it's Kuros.

Kuros is the father. Kuros' dancing is the father. This is no surprise, right? Like, we kind of saw this coming. Like, he wanted, he wanted 7 of 9 so bad. What did the chances he didn't hire the Hazari to lay this trap? With my personality in this set of hair, you know what I am now? I am in the game.

Of course, it's locked in. Do it. This one to me, very careful, because I'm a man who's seen this once. There is the suggestion that like both Voyager and the Hazari have been taken advantage of by Corros. I don't think that's an even amount of advantage being taken, right? No. But Janeway has this like private meeting with the main Hazari guy where she's like, Hey,

listen, like pretty humiliating for you, life threatening for us. So about the same. That's what I'm saying. Like, it's so funny. Like, we've all been done wrong by Kira Stanza. I think we can all agree. We have a legitimate gripe. And we smash cut to a McLaughlin group.

If you want, that is so big that they've had to move it down into the mess hall. Yeah. I've never seen an episode of the McLaughlin group where the table wasn't a little roundy on the bottom. No, this is like an eight foot table that they brought out from the back and put draperies on. I love a, let's think of an idea as montage. Yeah. How do we capture them?

The goal of this meeting is like now the Hizari and the Voyager are going to team up and try and trick the think tank. The think tank think that they're solving us as a puzzle, but we're gonna solve them as a puzzle. Yeah, the ship of Lenny's and the ship of bounty hunters. We'll put their intelligence together, try to come up with an idea. And after this montage concludes,

we understand just how difficult to task that is. Maybe we can't, I'll think some. Cut them. Yeah, the montage is about like, it shows them like breaking out into groups We understand just how difficult to task that is. Maybe we can't, I'll take some. Captain. Yeah, the montage is about like, it shows them like breaking out into groups and like forming little ad hoc committees and stuff and eventually... nominating a speaker for your group

and that person not really being interested but then being like a really gifted speaker in a way that makes you wonder why they resisted doing it in the first place. Right. But yeah, that has already dude is pretty pissed that they're like wasting his time. Three hours, no progress. He's like, I'm not even in Starfleet. I don't want to participate in positive, healthy, group problem-solving stuff.

A good meeting starts on time and it ends on time and I don't even know what this is. For some reason they break for puzzle in the middle of his rant. And the Rubik's Cube gets thrust in front of Seven who said that it would be easy to solve. It's not that she's got the solution figured out, it's that she scanned the device and knows the like math of solving it.

It's like she took the stickers out the Rubik's cube to solve it. Yeah. That's not fair. That's cheating. Cheating is often more efficient. But not fair might just be the key to solving their bigger problem. Exactly. This is the inspiration to their new plan, the new plan being

a Trojan 7. Yeah. So it's like there was like sort of a no-win scenario facing them. And what they're going to do is change the conditions of the test. So they're going to beam seven over there and a lot of apples. Step one, beam seven over. Step two, beam the apples over. Step three, bunch of question marks. Equals profit. So I really like the way they chose to do the rest of the episode because it is not really clear whether the Hazari are doing their part for a lot of it. Yeah, you think for a while it could be a Hazari double cross. Oh my god. It's a Hazari double cross. Oh, and now they're coming back and helping the Voyager. It's almost like a sorry triple cross. Ah!

Ah! Oh, man! So beautiful. Hey, thanks to all the friends of DeSoto, the dozens and dozens who told us Rainbow Guys Dan. Yeah, that was just a really great message to read multiple times per day over the last week. Yeah, fun. Really really nice and uplifting.

Two friends at the Soto told me he's dead. Oh, here comes the third. That's what I mean. Woo! That's what I mean. Woo! That's what I mean. Woo! That's what I mean. Woo!

That's what I mean. Woo! That's what I mean. Woo! That's what I mean. Woo! That's what I mean. Woo!

That's what I mean. Woo! That's what I mean. Woo! That's what I mean. Woo! That's what I mean. Woo!

That's what I mean. Woo! That's what I mean. Woo! Wow! You've seen some wild view screens in Star Trek. X-shaped is by far the wildest. Yeah. It's the card company that gets a little too weird with how a view screen works. Like for one model year, they do X-shaped view screen. Debacle. Yeah. Yeah. It's a wonder why Sion isn't a going concern anymore.

So they're like, hey, we know that it was actually you that hired us and that you appeared to us as a mail-on, but our contract is really with you and... You fuck around with us, the price is going up. We want to renegotiate, and so they talk him into tripling the bounty. Yeah. Hell yeah.

It's a triple bounty. Oh my God, a triple bounty. Oh We roll of three the jokes is to dance three times Oh my god It's so funny That is funny. It's just once but fire for years and twice! Oh! Hey, you know what else is dead, Ben? Hmm. That joke.

I don't know if you know this, but that joke is dead. The joke's dead, Ben. Yeah. You should have seen that on the internet like I did, and if you missed it, you're bad. Yeah. You just made my list of muted terms on Twitter. Adam Prenica, the disgraced podcaster, was found to have muted the term rainbow on Twitter. When reached for comment, he swore that it was not out of...

I swear I'm an ally It's something else Don't cancel me no cancel So they start the has already started attacking Voyager and Curtis Danza shows up on the bridge for like the puffs of smoke and the Voyager and Curtis Danza shows up on the bridge for like the puffs of smoke and the sparks flying around and the shit talking Yeah, everybody stays in character And they find out that seven has Jake the shuttle. Yeah What the hell is she doing? He sort of glutes at this point. He's like, wow, what a shame I guess well she's shaved your ship. So that's nice for you. Old school shuttlejaking. I love it.

So he disappears and she goes over there. And, uh, you know, we know that she has to like connect with their dome in the middle of their room. She has to like hack the... She has to give dome. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, she... She has to give them dome as good as they give. Yeah, like hack it so that they can't communicate with each other. They have to give them dome as good as they give. Uh-huh. Yeah, like hack it so that they can't communicate with each other.

And it sort of seems like the jig is up because Kurosdhan's, uh, sort of smells a rat. He gets suspicious before this goes down. I instantly recognize this moment as too good to be true, right? Yeah. Cause like, hey, uh, you suddenly really like me. Yeah. No one suddenly really likes me. Yeah, and then his area like,

Okay, quick, pay us, give us the money. Quick, quick, quick. And he's like, why do you want it so quick? Don't you trust us? It's 4 a.m. in a casino. Someone very beautiful is talking to me all of a sudden. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Talking about money pretty fast.

So he's like, I don't trust you. Like, let's get inside her mind and see what's actually going on. And it turns out the EMH is monitoring Seven's dolphin and throws a switch when they start to try and monitor her mind. And that's exactly what they wanted. This happens to seven a lot. Seven's implants have made one of the dudes in the room just start mumbling unintelligiblely. Like, short circuits is brain.

Right. I mean, even that jellyfish is having a hard time concentrating. Yeah. Cara Stanza can't disconnect the link. This is bad. And then bangers start getting dropped on the link. This is bad. And then bangers start getting dropped on the think tank ship. Yeah, they come at a cloak, the Hizari, or helping Voyager fire at them.

They get to beam seven away. But before they go, Carastanza tries to kind of lay some seeds of doubt in Seven's head. Yeah, I mean, give it up. Karastanza, one last pitch. Right. Really? A, always, B, B, K, Karastanza. Yeah. Seven is like, God, give it up.

I said no, like a thousand times. You know, looking back on Seinfeld, maybe it wasn't that great about that kind of thing. I love this last shot, the last shot of the think tank ship just being totally swarmed by the Hizari. And Voyager's just sort of tilts him up and rolls out of there. Yeah. You guys can sweep up after us. Yeah, leave me out of there. Yeah. You guys can sweep up after us.

Yeah. Leave me out of this. Yeah. Off to the next dilithium rich planet. Yeah. But we're going to skin from a slightly further remove this time. Uh-huh. Yeah.

Did you like this episode, Adam? You know, I'm maybe even to get along with most of the time. But I don't like bullets. I don't like friends. And I don't like you. I'm just even together long with most of the time. But I don't like bullets, I don't like friends, and I don't like you. You're not the stupidest dude. It feels like this is a genre episode and Star Trek, right?

I brought it up earlier, the most toys type of episode. Sort of mashed up with a, what was the episode with data playing the Cal milking machine with the Col Rami? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Word games, peak performance. Peak performance. And this is like a mashup of those two.

Like I love seeing a two smart person get kicked in the nets like this. And so that's what makes the episode so satisfying. This dude might have all the money in the world, but he can't get what he wants. Yeah. Or whatever. And he's left to get shot by the very people that he manipulated. So I really love a come-up and type of story.

And this is definitely one of those. Even right on down to Janeway, like having the last little verbal knife twist into Caristanza, like Honor Way Out. felt good. So I did like it. What about you? I liked it a lot. I thought the character was super fun,

and I thought the setup was really interesting, the way we kind of start in their perspective, before we go to the Voyager's perspective, and it's not a breathless episode. Like, I think that the third act is pretty pacy and pretty like action-packed, but like, it is the rare episode where you really get to like live in these moments for a long time and

Jason Alexander is just such a fun actor to watch do a weird thing and especially do a weird thing that's like so against type for him Yeah, yeah, there's a reason it was end with Jason Alexander on Seinfeld, like he is a absolutely world class performer. So it's really fun to get him in an episode of Star Trek. And I thought he did a great job with the character. And I just had a ton of fun overall. And like the Hazari, you're like a really cool character design, really interesting character design.

Yeah, a plus all around. I don't get nearly enough of non-George, Jason Alexander, acting. And one of the things I wanna do now that I live in LA is like he does random, improvised Shakespeare company sets or whatever, like, he does shit like that around LA and I really wanna go see some of his work because he's as you say just really, really funny and talented. National treasure. He has a new podcast, right? Oh no. Why do you have to say that? I don't want to hate

him. Stop with the podcast. Our friend and agent probably has something to do with it. So we should ask about that. Well, the more podcasts there are, the less time our agent has for us. That's true, too. This is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. That it out. I mean, not that much less time. I went to the zoo with him this weekend. Did you miss the part where he fired you? Yeah, I couldn't hear him because the elephant was making really loud noises. Yeah, at the exact same time. All right, well, it's time to read the screaming elephant sounds from the priority one message in box. I'm gonna go see what we have over there.

I do. Priority one message from Starflet coming in on Secured Channel. I need a supplement on it. supplement on it? supplement. supplement. Yes, extra. How do you interest alone?

Could be enough to buy this ship. Ben are first messages of a promotional nature and my message goes like this. Ben and Adam, I wanted to show some support and shout out to friends. My parents would be FODs, but they don't listen to podcasts. Brothers and sisters, not this podcast. So the only two I could think of who might fit this Venn diagram are former co-workers.

They considered Voyager, date night level TV, when we worked together, and there's a request for the Jackie and Laurie thing. It's the Jackie and Laurie show. The Jackie and Laurie show. It's the Jackie and Laurie show. The Jackie and Laurie show.

So this is a personal message masquerading as a promotional message. Yeah. Because, uh, what are Jackie and Laurie the former co-workers? I don't think that Laurie Kilmartin would have watched Voyager. Jackie Cation, I buy. One of the things about a promotional message is that it's a little bit unclear about the who. Yeah.

Or the from. The call to action is to candy via Jeremy. So maybe this is from Jeremy. Maybe. The via is throwing me, man. Right, yeah. But whatever the case. I like the message.

Thanks for doing a commercial message. And yeah, like what makes the workplace better than a shared interest? Yeah. And hey, if your parents have a smartphone, just make sure that their podcast app is downloading our show. They don't have to listen to it.

They don't have to know. Adam, our next priority one message is from past Josh, and it's the future Josh goes like this. Hey future Josh, you hopefully no longer fat fuck. Now you're obligated to keep listening to this terrible terrible podcast at the gym. Ben and Adam, thanks for the hundreds of hours of entertainment. The pain of

working out pales in comparison to that caused by listening to your cut-offal jokes. Keep it up. Wow. Yeah. And that was targeted to this episode. So, uh, it seems like past Josh had this idea of when the workout goals would be completed. Hey, future Josh, send us your address. I'm going to shoot you a Jim Shemota headband. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. And join Jim Shemota, the the lifestyle group on all of the internet. They're friends of DeSoto who are interested in living healthy. I love it. Get an exercise. Whatever. I love it. Get an exercise. Whatever.

Ben, our final priority when message is from an embarrassed friend of DeSoto. It is two Friends of DeSoto Message goes like this. I assume Adam and Ben as video production professionals Can appreciate good editing when they see it. So I encourage all FOTs to look up Star Trek, the sex generation on YouTube. It may be the ultimate Star Trek Dic-Jo. Best video I ever saw. My drunk spending is helping the pod, so I can live with it. Kapla! Didn't we review that?

I think the Sambarist friend of DeSoto is referring to the clip, the sex generation. Everyone wants a while floats to the top of the Star Trek consciousness. Oh, this isn't the pornographic parody of Star Trek with all the adult parts edited out that we reviewed. It's about 10 minutes of edited together out of context clips to suggest hot fucking action to the max, Jack. Yeah, well, I mean, it was a very horny show. Yeah. As his Voyager, I mean, as are all Star Trek's ultimately, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, Adam, if folks out there would like to get drunk and leave a message or send a cryptic promotional message that doesn't seem to be promoting anything. It's very easy to view. You had to maximumfund.org slash jumbo-tron. Hey, Ben. What's that, Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda?

A drunk Shimoda! I did. It's a double Shimoda. I'm gonna give it to Paralyse and Nielix, who I noticed were one of the groups in the breakout session portion of the brainstorm. There's a lot about this like extra big McLaughlin group that I thought was really funny.

Like I was thinking about how frustrated the bounty hunters would be in a context of like, let's get together and think of some, you know, no bad ideas, guys. Like, like that, that kind of hang. Culturally, how much that would be grading to them? I thought it was funny that they had it in Nielix's restaurant, and I wondered where everybody else on the crew was getting food when they were spending so much time in there, because it didn't

seem like people were like coming in and helping themselves out to Leo LaRouche or anything. Right. But I really like that Paris and Elix were a both there and be teamed up together to try and come up with stuff. It calls. So each gets a half or one full portion. They get a portion. They get a, they get a, okay.

Yeah. I mean, we got to be clear about that when it comes to the metrics. Right, right, yeah. I don't want anybody working on the leaderboards to get it twisted. Those are full Shimotas, both of them. How about you, Adam? I'm gonna make mine Janeway.

Wow. She's got a lot of sass this episode. She does. In the very beginning, it seems like she's done with any form of diplomacy for the rest of the episode. She just sort of like establishes that she's gonna be talking some shit, and that's how she's gonna be the whole episode, get on her level.

And I loved every time she had an interaction with Karastanza, it was like loaded with that kind of freight. I loved it. And it wasn't so much to call attention to like, But Karastanza, it was like loaded with that kind of freight. Yeah. I loved it. And it wasn't so much to call attention to like, God, what's wrong with Janeway? She's really a short fuse. It's like, just not really going to put up with your guff, Janeway. And that is a form of a character that I really like.

Good Shimoda, my friend. Why don't you head over to gach.bizslashgame. And I will tell you about the next episode of Star Trek Voyager. It's season five, episode 20, juggernaut, after encountering a damaged melon freighter, a repair crew from Voyager tries to contain a toxic chemical leak that threatens a nearby inhabited planet. Are we sure it's the Maylon or is it Corridor's Danza again?

Yeah. I also am just wondering if there will be any kind of heavy-handed ecological messaging in this episode. Oh, I hope so. That would be cool, right? Then our runabout is currently on square 55. Okay. That's right next to the Christmas tree

looking canar with demar square. Uh huh. Dead ahead. One square ahead is the caretaker. That's the square that randomizes what square our runabout lands on next. You're required to learn as you play, roll. Those are the only two nearby

and only one of them possible. So I'm gonna roll this bone. Do it! Ben I rolled it too. It's hopped us over the caretaker square. It's landed to Sun Square 57. Wow And you know what that means. It's a regular old episode. The one time you don't roll a one. Yeah, okay. I did it. I can get with that. Roll a 1. Yeah. Okay. I did it.

I can get with that. Me too. Alright. Well, a regular old episode next week. Looking forward to it. In the meantime, hey, if you missed the Max Fund Drive, we always need your support. It's Max and the Fund Auto Group's last join to do that. We really tremendously appreciate the folks that didn't miss the Max Fund Drive and are

already supported. You are really the reason we get to keep doing this. It's the greatest job we ever had. Best boss we ever had is you cannot overstate the gratitude. Was that you for me? No, for the friends. You're the best boss too. The friends in DeSoto are the best boss

that either of us ever had is what I'm saying. Now they can be your boss. They're not my boss Ben Ben. You're my boss. Yeah, that's the hierarchy. It's friends in the soda of me, you. Uh-huh. Always has been. But yeah, we couldn't be more pleased

with how the drive went. It's a little size I haven't, making this for you. It's less stress for another year, you know? Absolutely. We get to make some fun plans and feel good about having the money to pay for them. So know? Absolutely. We get to make some fun plans and feel good about having the money to pay for them. So excited about that. We have a lot of people to thank in addition. We got to thank Wendy Pretty, our producer, editor. Wendy did Yomans work going through the drive.

So much stuff on her plate and she really just knocked it out the box. We really, really appreciate her hard work. Bill Tilly, our social media director, over here at the Uxbridge Demota Corporation, also working the midnight hours, getting social media posts queued up for the drive. Bill Tilly with a real job, and he does this on the side with what little extra time he's got.

And, you know, he does this on the side all year long, making it more fun to be a friend at a photo on a social media thing. So, we really, really hugely appreciate his work. Sure do. You'd like to get involved on social media. We're all over the place. It's at greatest trek on Instagram, Twitter, and a move on. Mastodon now? Yeah.

I've been really enjoying Mastodon. I feel like it's got a lot of the things I liked about Twitter and almost none of the things that I hated about Twitter. So, I think that might be my place from now on. That's a nice endorsement. Yeah, there's lots of friends of Disodo on there. There's a whole federated Friends of Disodo thing, which I don't know quite what that means,

but I'm figuring it out bit by bit. It's federated DeSoto. It's a completely different quality of product. We got to thank Nick Dimmor, who made the show art and helps us with podshop.biz. We got to thank the great Adam Rgucia, who made our theme music and teaches us how to cook every week over there on his YouTube cooking show and on his podcast.

I love you the goose. I just got a couple of messages this week about people who just got into the goose's podcast having for some reason not already heard of it. They're like, this guy's great! Where's the show bit on my life? I know. So yeah, check them out. I take goose the other day. I was like, you're a real genius goose. Yeah. Love learning things from you. Anyways. And then in classic Adam Rekousi a fashion no response. Precisely. Yeah. And with that we will be back at you next week

with another great episode of Star Trek Voyager and an episode of the greatest generation Voyager that is gonna chase polluters down to zero. Oh yeah, but Captain Planet did that one time. Plug those exhaust pipes, plug them up. It's just a Voyager beaming bananas into the exhaust ports of Maylon ships. Oh yeah.

Silly yeah. Fun stuff! Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show.

Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it show.

Make it show. Make it show. Make it show. Make it sound. Make it sound. Y'all look big, got it, got it, got it, got it. Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture Artist-owned? Audience-supported.