The Greatest Generation - They Had Oobie Doobie Thrust Upon Them (VOY S2E22)

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

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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 friendsofdecotoForLabor.com. That's FriendsOfDecotoForLabor.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.S. Forten. Captain Captain Captain Bringing with the U.S. is for. Captain Captain Captain Bringing what the U.S. is for.

Do it Captain. Hello and welcome to the greatest generation. It's a Star Trek podcast. By a couple of guys we're a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pranika. Welcome to the show Adam.

Oh thanks Ben. You ever think like, do you have a backup plan? Like if I don't show up? You have to have guest host in the back pocket, right? I think, you know what? Here's what I wanna say. You saying that makes me think you have a guest host in the back pocket?

I don't, but it is wildly irresponsible for us not to have that person, right? I mean, if you're a parent, it makes sense to have someone specified in your end of life plan to look after your children in the event of, I mean, I'm not going to care if I'm dead. And neither, and neither will you. But what I'm saying is if we don't die, and I don't want to leave you high and dry if I die at them. If one of us becomes sick like every other week, I

could fucking pass away immediately. What I'm saying is we need some sort of plan if one of us becomes a casualty and just can't do the show for whatever reason, isn't that responsible? If one of us is covered in raisins, what shall the other do? This is a business that we need to depend on. If one of us stays at his post, if Bill Tilly cradled you into his arms and took your body straight over to my place, I mean, which by the way,

it would be an incredibly great distance. Almost as great as the distance that Scotty took his nephew to the bridge and said to Six Bay. Like, in that moment, I would look at Bill, I'd look at the sausage coming out of your chest and I'd go, who's it gonna be? You know, there's a type of insurance

that you can get called a key man policy, which is that if there's somebody that's like, key man, is that what you're saying? A key man policy. If there's somebody that's indispensable to the operation of a business, you can get like special coverage to financially reimburse the like difficulty of navigating.

That's what we need. The loss of that person. We need a key man coverage. Yeah. We need umbrella coverage. Our guy's been telling us that forever, but our guy has never mentioned Kiman. You would think that he would have mentioned Kiman.

I mean, instead of just umbrella. Yeah, wow, this is something to bring up during our next meeting. Yeah. For sure. Hey, you know that important business recommendation you made to us? Well, we still haven't done it. But we came up with another thing we wanted to discuss. It's hard to know what exactly we are personally bringing

to this that would be irreplaceable. But it's a lot like Mary Hart taking out an insurance policy on her legs for like $10 million or whatever was a legit to happen there when she was hosting entertainment tonight. Like maybe there's a body part. If we're not doing key man, maybe it's just a specific policy having to do with the voice. Right. Or I mean, my flagging memory is I'm sure an indication of declining mental health. Like,

maybe is there some sort of mental health policy that I could take out on myself? My brain, my brain as with Mary Hart's legs. Not gonna stay perfect forever. If I had a policy on your mental health, naming me as the beneficiary, I would just, I would just work so much harder to drive your nuts than I already do.

That's just it, right? It's like an old-timey movie where there's a femme fatale and a, and a dup. Right. Like, we start taking policies out on each other. We're gonna, we're gonna be the, the first suspect in a crime. Right. Yeah. It's the first thing the police look at is who stands to benefit and it's like, Jesus, These guys basically, basically paying each other to kill each other. I mean, if I didn't know any better, I'd say they wanted out. And I'd call it a crime if I wasn't so sure they wanted it so bad. Right. Now they have us down here at the police station. they wanted it so bad. Right. Now they have us down here at the police station. Newmen is interrogating them. Yeah. They're crossing their legs suggestively. They're going back

through the recordings of the show for evidence. Right. And driving themselves insane as Rousseau. Oh yeah. They're doing that thing that some friends of Disoto come at us with, which is like, Hey, just found your show two weeks ago, and I'm all caught up. They immediately keel over. Like the person who finishes the marathon just legs covered in diarrhea. Right, right. You didn't have to do that. Put directly into an ambulance. It makes us feel bad. We have to do that. We put directly into an ambulance.

It makes us feel bad. I feel like this Marin was very productive. We came up with a plan of action, a professional thing to do after the show. That's always nice, right? We're always looking for more things to do. That's not the show. For some reason, we are. We're professionalizing every week. Every week we're becoming more professionalized or right and I think it just it shows in in everything we do

Yeah, and I'm looking for a pivot in that and I'm not I'm I'm I'm grasping I you know for me aren't as professional as we thought we were I used to be great at pivots for too long We've been treating the show like a bunch of children. Hmm, sent to a remote moon to die. Yeah. That's just a pivot that made itself, Ben. Let's get into the show. I've got so much to talk about here as we get into Star Trek Voyager Season 2 Episode 22. So many twos in this one.

The episode's called Innocence. Rebirth course. Unless you've got something a little bigger in your torpedo toots, I'm not turning around. You'd think you might run into an Echo Papa 607, given the Sears Garden Centerness of the planet that we are on. Got a crash shuttle or not a crash shuttle. I mean, it looks like it made a soft landing, but a downed shuttle. A lot of the set design work lately feels like it's been destructive, which is a fun kind of pattern.

Like I love the establishing shot showing us the shuttle. It's all fucked up. Yeah. Things aren't good down there. Show me the damage. It's very like X-wing distressed. Yeah, you know, yeah You tend to see them just spick and span freshly detailed and this one looks like it's been through a war Boy, you know speaking of crashed X-wing how much did you want this episode to not be about two-vox relationship to little kids and instead be

The story of him running into a some sort of spiritual advisor monk figure who teaches him how to be a fierce warrior or whatever. Drink some green milk out of the breast of a weird animal that's sitting on a beach. Yeah, that would have been weird as hell. What we get instead is two vox and unfit parent of five orphans who keep disappearing on them. In this episode, we'll find out what happens.

When the kids are revealed not to be growing older, but kind of growing older in reverse. Two fuck buttons coming to theater this February. Two act starts this episode saying goodbye to Ensign Bennett who has broken his back in this bumpy landing. I don't know enough about what stasis means, but I thought it kind of sucked that this guy got put in stasis after he died.

I get a big unintentional laugh of how interested Toofok was in using the stasis machine and then telling everyone about the stasis machine and why he was using it from time to time. Yeah. Here's a question. Do you feel like Star Trek is unusually reluctant to show blood? Because this is a scene that is begging for some blood to get coughed out of a mouth here. And what we get instead as the screen representation of a death is a guy giving a battlefield monologue, which is keepably delivered and fine. But it was missing that little bit of on-screen penache that I think blood out of the mouth really gives you.

You know? I mean, you'll love to see a little blood out of the mouth. I don't know if you get that when you break your back, or not, I'm not a medical practitioner of any kind. You're not a medicine man. I was just reading that this this actor Richard Kazanye. Also known for being on Dr. Quinn medicine woman. Oh wow. Richard Kazanye. It's lasagna. Zanya. Zah. Pizza. So. See? Another one of those names that really makes middle school uncomfortable.

So he does that thing where he looks into two vox eyes and he's like, I guess the one upside is that you don't have to tell anyone back home that I've died because no one there knows, no one there cares. I've got no one to hurt and two Vox like takes his hand into his and he's like, no man, there's that girl you didn't know liked you on the ship and he's like, oh man, what? Now you tell me, two Vac, you gotta fix my back.

I gotta get up. I actually always an instant Kim's room. I don't understand it. You're not making this easier at all. You actually just told me the worst thing you could have. And Toovac, neck pinch of him. This is like, shhh, sleep. How about that idea though, Ben?

You joke, but neck pinches morphine has got to be great on the battlefield, right? Yeah, maybe there's something about it that doesn't work if your spinal column has been severed. Yeah, it doesn't go all the way down. Yeah. It stops at the sever. You can't measure it from the base like you want to

You have to apply a second corresponding neck pinch to the foot which is very hard Because you gotta like stretch your arms out Yeah, your wing wing span really gets strained. It's too Valk as the Michael Jordan wingspan poster Vitruvian man. Yeah, so he sets up the stasis field. So indigenous wildlife doesn't eat the body bin. And we meet this indigenous wildlife right now. A young girl named Tresa is standing watching this from the

forest. She tries to run away from Tuvac, but he grabs her by the shoulders and is somehow able to persuade her that he is not a threat despite the fact that he is restraining her and gripping her super hard. That is a dead body, which I have also put under a restraint. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. She is satisfied enough that she gives the all clear Which I have also put under a restraint.

She is satisfied enough that she gives the all clear to her friends who are also hiding in the bushes and they come out and there's three Draen children making a weird kind of first contact with Tuvac here. They tell Tuvac that they are the only survivors of a crash ship. Just like you Tuvak, that's how we ended up here. They're kind of confused by this, like, what are you doing with this dead body? That's not what you do with a dead body situation. This is actually exactly what you want to do for a first contact. It's like find some common cause, some sort of like shared experience here.

This is much, much better than putting a quarter in the juk and playing the ubi-dubi song Yeah, sure is I do not have any quarters Do you think all shuttlecraft have jukeboxes like I think for the classically This is we're seeing what first contact looks like from the Vulcan side of Yeah, yeah, they didn't come down with their ubi-dubi song Basically, we're seeing what first contact looks like from the Vulcan side of it. They didn't come down with their UB-Dubi song. They had UB-Dubi thrust upon them, and that's not how two-Vog rolls. I'm sure Zephram Cochran looked like a fucking child to the Vulcans who visited that day.

These kids are nice though. They don't leave Lily back in the wings. No, yeah. They're equal parts in this thing. They do it together. They've taken out, what's the insurance policy you mentioned? Oh, they're taking out a key man policy. They've taken out key man policies on each other,

which demonstrates how vital all of them are to their mission. Yeah, right. This is a scene that ends with big hugs to theme song. Yeah. After the theme, we learned that Dre and two has some minerals to mine, and the Dre and are people who value their privacy. So that's the challenge to the thing.

Gotta get those minerals, but what about the people who live on top of them? Well we need some sort of fracking operation, where the Voyager can be off to the side, shooting their straw sort of at a 45 degree angle and drink a drain milkshake. They really do. Yeah. And not only is Janeway totally psyched about drinking the drain milkshake milkshake. I drink it up! She is down to make first contact here, and in talking to Jakote, they both are reveling in a kind of first contact nostalgia that you get to have if you are in the upper echelon

of Starfleet. Yeah, it's interesting, because I feel like being in the D-quad gives the Voyager a certain wealth in first contact opportunities that would be quite rare for an alpha or beta quadrant starfleet captain. You probably stop feeling it after a while. You do first contact so much that eventually you need more and more extreme versions of first contact to have it feel the way that it used to. Yeah, so first contact with an isolationist species has got to be really exciting. Yeah, I mean, Chico Tei thought about bringing a belt and a plastic shopping bag with them

down to this one, but instead, it's not necessary. This has got its own challenges. The drains beam up on the transporter pad and these aliens look like they are getting ready to rob a bank or at least that's what they were doing before they got called up to the Voyager. You know what's brave being the first contacted and making it in a way mission. I immediately had big respect for the Drayans. We've never heard of a transporter and we're going to try it out. We're going to have our, like, the leader of our government be the first person from our entire population to try it. Yeah. I love that the sequence starts

with hand on transporter. Perfect beam job here, Ben. The hand moves perfectly, the lights are simultaneous, no weird nail choices, nicely done. Very nicely done, they fucking nailed it. And we meet first prelate Alcia, the veil that they wear, like tucked in at the neck, almost like a beekeeper. Maybe that's the primary export of their planet is honey. These aliens are all wicker man. Tidin' mad. Ha ha ha ha ha.

They talk about why they are such a isolation of species as they get a tour of the ship. Janeway is showing them the warp core and kind of bragging on some of the cool things it can do and they're like, wow, you showed us like your high-tech shit first. That must mean that you're kind of earlier in the process than we are. Because we realized that this is not the path to happiness.

Yeah, you really have that kind of high schooler who just got a car energy. What's the show it off in the mall parking lot by doing donuts and stuff? Yeah, she's like, why is the VIN number filed off of your warp core? What did you pay for this thing? There is no way you can get an intrepid class starship for $2,000. It's just unbelievable. This car is worth $8,000 or $9,000, maybe more. You got taken for a ride, Janeway. This episode is silly and I'm going to argue with the very end bad. But a thing happens here that if you're going to take away one thing from this episode, I think there is something of value here and it happens in this scene. We learn in the scene previous that Chico Tay has been in the ball kicking machine before

during first contact missions. And what he does here is he's learned from those previous mistakes, right? The previous mistakes were him trying to greet other cultures using their customs. And what he does here is he uses his own custom. And that's and that's a great thing. That's what he should be entire. Yeah. Wooosh. Very exciting moment for Jakote. He does that thing where he pulls off a trick shot and it even surprises himself. He kind of looks around for approval. The Drayans have some complex feelings about technology and its place and society.

Do your people consider advanced technology to be their highest achievement? You might have guessed this by the Hojiri they wear over their faces. And that's as far as we get. It's not something we learned about them that ends in a dun dun dun. It just, the scene ends in such a way that it's not gonna be as easy as it began. They had something that they referred to as the Reformation, which caused them to withdraw back into themselves. It's like if they'd elected a Ron Paul in 2012. Yeah. You know. Nothing like a Ron Paul to make me withdraw into myself. Me and everyone else.

Yeah. So back down on the planet where two Valkyz stranded with these kids, he's held a dust buster to his temple. And he's like, I'm out. I can't do this. These kids. Yeah. The ship that they were on that was crashing had grownups on it. They say that the attendance protected them and made sure that they made it down to the ground safely. I wasn't entirely clear on how. Really wanted to see that other ship. Yeah, there was not like another crash site, but two vachas like, well, it's okay. You made it through and I'm going to get you off the surface of this thing. I just need to fix my ship. It is not beyond repair. There is a production choice here

that really makes itself stand out. And I think it has to do with the challenge of working with child actors. All of the kids' dialogue, I would say 90% of it is shot in singles. And I think that indicates some difficulty in getting some consistent takes from the child actors at the same time, right?

Like if you're doing a threesome and only one of them can hit it, like you're not gonna make your day that way. So we're getting singles out of all the kids for all of their lion choices in order to get like the best version of all of them. I can't help it. And that really stands out in a show like this

that is so good at obscuring that most of the time. Like the wide variety of shot choices this show takes generally makes a scene like this stand out. Knowing the M night Shyamalan twist that is coming made me wonder where the debate was on how old of kids to cast because I feel like the dialogue is kind of all over the place in terms of how old they're meant to seem.

And I feel like these kids sometimes felt like they were too old and sometimes felt like they were too young for the role that they're meant to play. And in a way that is like especially confusing, given the twist. The revelation wags the story dog a little bit and it's such, we can talk about this at the end, but like I think you could establish the kids characters in a way that helped yourself out a little bit toward the end of the episode. Instead of just having normal ass kids delivering dialogue in a normal

ass way here, I think you could betray a little bit of their secret here in a way that doesn't totally give up the twist. In a way that maybe shows a little bit to the audience without showing it to Tuvac or in a way that like plant something that seems confusing in the moment but makes sense in retrospect. Like I think that one of the problems with this episode is that it falls into the trap of if only somebody had just said something. Yes. Yep. And I think that there was a way around it.

I think the other trap it falls into is that it's like one of these Star Trek planets that seems to be about 25 square yards of area total because one of the things we learn in this scene is that there's a cave on this planet and there's a moroc. This is Marshall Lertock, he's in charge of special operations from Washington. It comes out of this cave that the kids are afraid of. Right. And it's like it's a full planet, right? Or like a moon. One of the chances that Tuvac crashed like within visual distance of the fucking opening of this nightmare cave. They couldn't just go in the other direction ever. Yeah, Tuvak is pretty insistent that while they may be afraid of the moroc and everything,

they need to stick around so that he can wrench on his busted bunk bed and get it back into working order so that they can make an attempt at leaving the planet. There's like something in the atmosphere that made them crash and he's still worried about figuring out a way to get back through that, but in the meantime, the goal is going to be fix the shuttle. 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. 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 got stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Naswald. Could I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Non-Giani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes which

is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are already open, just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, rats, hey, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really frigging 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 to by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on maximumfund.org. Tuvac's kind of the perfect character for this type of story, right? Because he is unusually incurious about the kids at all times. Like the kids draw two Vox out. Two Vox is never like, so where's your ship?

Should we go strip it for parts? Any spare torpedoes that might be there? What do you think? Or like, have any of you been in the cave? What other things should I know about the surface of this moon? He's single-minded in that two-vac way that is useful for the story. Right.

Back up on the ship, the captain introduces the visiting drains to Dr. Schmales in Six Bay, another impressive feat of technology, and the doctor himself, an even more impressive feat of technology, gives them an opportunity to discuss some shared philosophical ideas between their cultures. was Plato wrote the what we see around us are only poor shadows of ideal objects which exist on a higher plane. This scene really made me nervous because it made me hyper aware of how versions of medical care might be divisive depending on your culture, right? Sure. Like, if in the previous scene we learned that the the dry ends aren't down with tech. What are they gonna think about a medical facility

fully kidded out like this? Right. Yeah. You blast famers, you heal illnesses? Yeah, like advanced worlds would obviously believe in the necessity of good medical care while backwards dumbfuck cultures would question it and believe for some reason

that their own thinking would be superior to a professional. Well, I think crucially, these people are wearing face coverings until they find out the vaccination status of the Voyager crew. So I would say that while they have not made technology the centerpiece of their culture, they believe in it. Right. Alcia gets a call that she takes in the doctor's office. There's been an emergency and God,

I wish I could leave any party like this. Like she is not mean, she is just matter of fact. Hey, this is cool. I gotta go take care of a thing. Great to meet you. I wouldn't expect any more hangs. Yeah, don't let the door hit you on the way out of the system. Yeah, good luck on your 80 year voyage back home.

And finding the polyfaron I that you're looking for, it's not gonna be extracted from our system. I'll tell you that much. Right, right. The captain makes a hail marry at like, could you please entertain the idea of, and they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you must go, You really must.

I guess this frees the captain up to care about where her scout shuttles are. So she decides to maybe call them back because they're gonna be shoving out of the system here shortly. Yeah, the stakes get raised when two black learns from these kids that there were two other kids with them when they landed, and the morocard, he got a couple of them.

Are you saying the moroc is real? That's what the show's saying at this point, and it could be out there stalking them. Either that or they just got lost in the cave, like they were on some fucking alien Tom Sawyer adventure. There is nothing wrong with these child actors or their performances, but... God, couldn't you have used a little more newt from Tresa? Like, some real haunted, I've seen some shit vibes? The mora comes at night, mostly.

We should retreat into the shuttle. It won't make any difference. Toovac keeps telling him he's scanning and he's not seeing any evidence of other kids or a moroc on sensors. And they start, like, all three kids start making fun of the way he says sensors. Yeah.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I am sorry. Are you trying to say the word sensors? Because to me, you're saying sensors. Which is, you know, mean in the way that kids can be. Toovac teaches the kids imaginary monster coping techniques to me you're saying sense ores which is you know mean in the way that kids can be two Vock teaches the kids imaginary monster coping techniques and they work instantly in a way that nothing works for kids these age that fast do you think that he was

doing some of his like light extra sensory ability stuff on them got the thing to do if you're two Vock is distributeicorders to the kids and then just have them look at screens for the next 20 minutes. Just sit them in the back of the Chrysler shuttlecraft that he's driving. When you don't give the kids screens to distract themselves with, they're going to grab a plasma torch and almost tragically kill one another as is almost happened here. I wonder if he gave any consideration to neck pinching the kids and just, you know, taking

them off the board for hours at a time. Does he only have one stasis field? Because a few more stasis fields could be really useful right now. Yeah, I only saw one in that briefcase that he pulled out. Yeah. Too bad. That would be so funny if that were the point of the episode. Like, two Voc is always going to be two Voc. He's not going to brook any of this shit. Yeah. That begs the question, Ben, we're 20 minutes into this episode. Can you tell me what it's about? At this point in the up, I was like, God, we're almost halfway there.

And what are we trying to do here, guys? I feel like I usually know what an episode is about earlier than this. I mean, I think that the danger of the moroc having been implied is what they're counting on, but it's all just like the kid's word that we have to go on. It's not good enough. Yeah, it's not for a little while

that we actually like get the fearful moment. I mean, I feel like it's like another 10 more minutes before kids start disappearing. I think you gotta take the scene in the cave and move it earlier in the episode to inject that kind of intensity into the show, right? Like, I've gotta see the clothes without bodies inside earlier because I'm just not believing the kids

telling a kid's story here without that. Yeah, it's tricky. I mean, the other way that they try to raise the stakes here is hearing another ship entering the atmosphere and the kids want to hide from their people. But these are drains that are coming to collect them. And two of them is like, great, you guys are gonna be out of my air.

I'll fix my shuttle. We'll go our separate ways. You guys are safe. And they're like, we are not safe, dude. It's like you think the baby sitting job is over when the parents pull into the driveway and it turns out an awful secret has been told just before. This is an example of what you were talking about earlier, driveway and it turns out an awful secret has been told just before.

This is an example of what you were talking about earlier, Ben, is if Tuvac were just a little bit more inquisitive throughout, this wouldn't be the mug dropping onto the floor of surprises that it is meant to be here. These kids have been sent here to die, and so Tuvac now realizes he must protect them. And the next scene is of Drain's security like searching the back of the van while he and the kids hide in the bushes. And he makes like a scattering field with his tricorder to prevent Drain security forces from detecting them.

A few people know this, but there's actually an auto-destruct making it so on every shuttle craft. Security forces from detecting them. from this Oh my garden center setup. I'm gonna blow on it lightly. That's nice. The drain security satisfied that nobody is around, walk off, and only now just two of I turned to the kids and go like, so why do they want to kill you? Why did you guys do? Yeah. They bring kids for the final ritual. Yeah. And the morocke sorts them out.

Yeah, I mean, it makes it easier for the dryans. You know, they're just on carpool duty. What happens at school? Isn't any of their problem. It's described as an energy releasing ritual instead of death, which I think softens the blow of the reality here, right? Interestingly, they're like, hey, you know about energy, right? And he's like, well, like, Contras are a thing that a lot of people from my planet believe

in, but I'm not so sure. Hey, Tuvak! Contras are fucking real. Have you ever heard of somebody named Bones McCoy? He had one inside him. Remember? Maybe Tuvac just isn't into that shit, you know? I don't know, man.

Like, the kids demonstrated interest in like stones and stuff. Uh-huh. Tuvac's like, ah, Jesus, really? He's fucking serious with this? Perfect black, make it yourself. And I know you see this as an opportunity to grow. Make it yourself. Agon Voyager, BLT and Nelix have returned to the bridge.

Like the Voyager has called back their people. BLT and Nelix being a couple of them. And they're all like, it's like home alone, right? Where's Tuvac? Kevin! It's time to go to Paris with these first class tickets. But they lost touch with him. They haven't heard from him in a while.

We've lost Tuvac, and whoever that guy was, who went with him. Yeah. He's probably true. Tuvac is on the planet alone making traps and hanging paint cans from the second floor balcony. That would have been a fun pivot here. Put the kids to work. I'm on Perrymore on! Come on get me!

The first Prele gets on FaceTime and she is fucking rip shit. Yeah, they are pissed that there are shuttles on their moon. It is a diplomatic nightmare. This was not the moon to be scavenging on. Now. And the word desecration gets tossed into the mix. Yikes. Not really the first impression that Captain Chainway was looking for.

And these are like the first people that aren't subscribers to the ship of death theory of Voyager that they've met in a long time. Like any true capitalist Janeway It's like I understand we've desecrated your land. However, what if we as a form of apology built a museum there or something That would make it right right there's a single of Chico J and the camera pans down to his hand where he snaps a pencil. Yeah.

On the moon surface, things are just as bad because these kids won't go to sleep. They're scared of the moroc. Yeah, I loved this establishing shot of the shuttle at night time. Yeah. A really nice effect. I mean, it's clearly like on a sound stage

But they they do a great job of you never see the sky when you go to a sound stage Planet service and this is a shot that does that and it looks awesome They did a good job. It's weird that the Drayans aren't interested in their shuttle technology I guess that suggests an equivalence in tech, right? Like they left the shuttle behind. They don't care about that. They need those kids. Or maybe they're like anti-technology belief system is like, this is somebody else's tech and we don't want shit to do with it. I guess. I mean, they got a great big starship up in orbit. They have a bunch of little shuttles. Yeah. It kind of seems like there's a technology hypocrisy

at work here. I mean, they're gonna have to do a lot of atoning when they get home for using these startups. Yeah. They're gonna have to let the bees sting them finally. Too bad, because like, you will go to sleep or I will play the loot and you do not want the loot. They're like, what's a loot?

What's a loot? Hey Adam. What's happened? you heard of JL pipes what about TV pipes yeah two vox got pipes he does the kind you used to sing still unfulfilled he journeyed home told stories of lessons learned. He talks about a folk song with 348 verses. So basically it's like any rush song. But unlike a rush song, Tuvak song puts the kids to sleep almost immediately.

The Vulcan's love singing about 348 bottles of beer on a wall. The next morning we discovered the horrible truth that Tresa is the only child left in the group somehow. They slept through whatever it is that happens with a moroc. Yeah. Hey, two-vac, you had one job. One of the dinosaurs come back all over all the sleep. Huh.

I'll stay awake. Maybe you sit back against a tree trunk and just kind of try to stay awake with your tricorder out? Yeah, I mean, like, staying up all night to repair the shuttle seems like noble and all, but maybe let the kids sleep in there in that case. Like, if warmth is the major issue, maybe bring them inside the shuttle,

close the door, turn on the space heater. I mean, you have all these stasis fields. I don't want to suggest, you know, stasis fielding the children against their will. But it seems as though it might keep them safe from a moroc situation, perhaps. I don't know. Yeah. That is the bad news, the two Valkets, before we cut back to orbit and the LT and Kim have finally started to be able to penetrate the atmosphere of this planet with sensors. They found two ships on the surface, one is probably two-vacs, the other is probably drain, and they're finding lifelines and stuff, but it's all very big information.

We've also had some indications of life signs on the surface. A while ago, there seemed to be four of them. Now we can only distinguish two. It's a real Datsun screen situation you can just tell. We don't cut to the panel, but that's the suggestion here. No. The interference stops them from beaming down as they would do like in a conventional rescue situation.

So Janeway asks BLT and Kim to figure out a way around that kind of problem. They get to work and Tuvac has to go into check-off Star Trek Cave. Moorluck. I'm coming to get you. You know, you establish it in the first act, you've got to go into it by the third.

And he leaves Tressa behind, he arms her. How did you show this thing a hit gun? This may be the youngest person we've ever seen get handed a weapon in Star Trek. Or the oldest, actually, come to think of it. He gives Tressa a firearm safety lesson that's actually more substantial than what's required by our country Yeah, oh yeah, I'm trying to gun one time. I was curious. I went to a shooting range

I asked about it. They handed me like a bucket full of bullets and guns and said yeah, just don't point it at anyone And I was like it's incredible how I rented a car and it was way harder and had way more complicated rules that applied to it. What the fuck? It's not an exaggeration. It's amazing. It's really frightening, is what it is. Tuvak should not have brought the black light into the cave. Because what he sees in there horrifies.

It is a cave full of laundry. And some of that laundry is identifiable as having belonged to some of the kids that disappeared. Yeah. Although he finds, the last costume he finds is the same color as what Tressa is wearing. And I was like, oh man, did he turn her back on her and she got grabbed and take it into this cave

while he wasn't looking. That's funny. Seriously. Yeah. But now she's fine. This scene is difficult because what you want to feel is the terror associated with the possible deaths of these kids, but because it's too vach he doesn't betray any feeling close to that. So he walks out of the cave like he walked into an empty cave. Like there's nothing there. There's no concern. Tressa, I have found a cave full of laundry. I have no explanation for this. Back on Voyager they realized that the Dreyans have sent more and more shuttles down. They're flooding the scene with search parties, and this is going to put Tuvac in more and

more danger. They're like, man, this is such a good idea. Beams so many security people into the space that you can't even move. Yeah. It's an idea only a podcaster could come up with. Tuvac manages to FaceTime them to say that he's alive and he's with the child he believes is in grave danger. And this inspires Janeway to hail Asaya, who is unhelpful to the point of confrontation.

It's a blessed haven, sheltered and unspoiled, which is the very reason why I can't allow you to go there under any circumstances. And Janeway is like fine, if you're not going to give us permission, I'm just going to take a shuttle down there to the service anyway. And you know how desperate I am to do this? I'm going to go with Tom Paris. You know what happened last time I got into a shuttle with Tom Paris? We turned into lizard people and we fucked each other.

Tom Paris and I know from young ones on the surface of a strange planet, okay? Do you think they got into exactly the same shuttle? It looks exactly like the same shuttle they used to break the barrier Yeah, it's that race car bed shuttle that they take down. Yeah, Janeway kind of tells Alcia like I don't want to start a conflict, but I am willing to start a conflict here if that's what it takes. And so they've worked out some technology solution to the turbulence in the atmosphere and they've got a bumpy ride, but they're also being pursued by a dry-and-ship.

They check in with each other a bunch on the way down. Like are you feeling amphibious at all? Jane was like, no, what about you? Are you feeling a little clammy? I thought it was funny that when they hit the turbulence and the shuttle starts bouncing around, it cut to the exterior and went for a close up on the bumper sticker that said,

if this shuttle's a rock and don't come a knockin'. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, I know what kind of turbulence that is. Meanwhile, Tuvac is getting ready to take off in his own shuttle. He's got the repairs done enough that he's able to make an attempt. And it's a very star trek amount of tension being built here because all we have to go off is Tresa looking out a window saying they're coming.

They're coming right for us. They're coming all around as we've got to go now. The security people are closing in from all sides, but we don't get a shot out the window at what that looks like. Yeah, it's really an interesting form of tension manipulation, right? Like they cut to commercial in a very intentional way to heighten this tension because I think they know that there isn't much there on the screen right I really love the the Folia J outside to Vax shuttle as a way to suggest their inability to take off and then when they finally do

That's big for a Lowering the bamboo on a yeah like a scissor lift past the camera. I love that Yeah, so they take off the shuttle is not in great shape and they start to get bangers dropped on them by a drain security shuttle. And the first prelate, LCA, gets on the FaceTime with two-vac and says like, I'll explain everything as long as you just land and two-vac is like, no fucking way. I know what you're trying to do to this kid. Yeah. And he predicts that the computers are a little bit exploding too. One point. He's like

he's like back away that panel's about to go off. In the first scene in Star Trek history of someone avoiding being fresh and ducked by a computer panel, two vachs sees this coming. Yeah. You don't want to see a kid take one to the face though, right? No. That is, that is a bridge star trek will not cross. There's an age limit here and that age limit is Scottie's nephew. Exactly. 19 it up. She was warned to leave her post. Well, the other one stayed. The other one stayed. So they are forced to land on the surface and now night is falling. That's when the moroc does its thing.

And Tresa is real freaked out. This is the big confrontation in the clearing where the first prelate and two vach and Tresa meet up finally. And this is when we find out that Tresa is not a young, she's an old. She's an old lady, I mean, look at her, she's old. It's a science fiction storyline standoff between the three parties.

Wheeeee! What a predicament. Janeway is there, the Drayans are there, caught in the middle is Tuvac and Tresa. The reveal being that the dry ends age in reverse, and this moon is where the dry ends return at the end of their lives. And Jane was like,

I hate fucking up first contact, and I did it, fucked it up, big time. There's coffee and rice and syrup allergies for disturbing your traditions. I am so sorry about that. This is obviously a ceremony between you and this adult child. Didn't see that one coming.

I mean, I don't think anyone would. This obviously looks like a child. So I'm just gonna leave you to do whatever it is you're here to do. And Paris and Janeway kind of turn and walk away and two vach sticks around. Yeah, and Janeway kind of turn and walk away and two vachas sticks around. Yeah. He's been kind of, I mean, it's very interesting though.

Like, I'll see it really goes from being open to the Voyager's visit to an extremely belligerent actor to back to being like, oh, you guys are actually like really cool. And this was a totally innocent misunderstanding of my- As if there's any flexibility in like her brand of orthodoxy though, right?

Yeah. I was surprised by this. I think that that's something that's very interesting about her character is that it sort of implied that like her family were at the forefront of a revivalist movement to return to orthodoxy for their people. But she is also in the unique position of power of someone like a faith leader who can kind of like break the rules lightly

in the name of like, you know, defending their people and defending the faith. Yeah. And like, I actually think her character is very interesting and well-written for that reason. But only retroactively so, right? I wish she was as interesting throughout the episode without having to rewatch it. But that's a very science fiction sensibility, right? Because it's the big reveal. I guess so, but I think that it's sort of implied in that first visit that she's like curious

and I'm kind of breaking the rules to even like talk to you guys, but here I am. So yeah, I don't know. I think I liked her character a lot and the end of the episode is Tufak and Tresa like hanging out at the mouth of the cave waiting for Tresa to die. I was fairly surprised at how elegantly the episode came to an end. After the rocky ride that it took to get here, like I thought the dialogue in this scene was the best of the entire episode, and it took that to bring it to a close. And it also took the three credits, the intentionality of when the three credits come in,

add some meaningful punch to the thing. I think that there is a case to be made, that this is not that strong in episode, but the strong finish, like getting off the Pommel horse and landing it at the end does so much to complicate that as a view of this episode that I'm very curious to hear at them. Did you like this episode? I did not like the episode, even the end of it was very strong. Like I commend the episode for sticking the landing of what was just a bunch of flailing

and hopping around on the way to the little springboard. If I don't feel for the characters in danger the way I'm supposed to, then how could I possibly call this as an episode that's successful in telling its story? If the goal is to make me feel a thing, and I'm not, then it didn't work. And it made me wonder if this script wasn't first intended for non-kid aliens.

I wonder if they saw how weak the danger was and was like, well, how do we make these people feel even more in danger? Well, let's make them children so that you, like the natural instinct is to care for their well-being. I think the unfortunate part about that is that the dialogue for the child actors is so classically child-actually that it doesn't allow them the opportunity to shine. I think Star Trek has had moments with its child actors where a few of them really pop off the screen and are good and scary in ways that science fiction kids can

often be, and because none of them in this episode demonstrate that kind of hauntedness, the sort of haunting that I really wanted to feel from them in order to care about them, the emotional through line of the thing just felt kind of flat. And I'm saying that even though the ending was super strong, like it really digs it out at the end in a way that I admire, but the rest of the episode I found kind of forgettable.

What about you? Yeah, I mean, I admire, but the rest of the episode I found kind of forgettable. What about you? Yeah, I mean, I think I have a lot of similar feelings to you on this one. I really liked the character of the first prelate, and I liked a lot of the conundrum of this. And I think there's a little bit of that like Chicoetay written by people who are working with a consultant to is lying to them, lying to them stuff in this. But there's also some interesting Chicoetay

feeling weird about the way they are interacting with this alien culture stuff that actually felt like really authentic and good. It's an episode that I feel really, it's really hard to like come down hard on one side of the other because of that. There's so many things I like in it. And yeah, I agree though that like the kid performances,

if they were better, if they were more provocative in some way, this would feel like a totally different episode. And I feel like it's a really interesting and juicy script that was kind of fumbled in execution to some extent. Did you ever read or see the movie, the Benjamin Button movie or book? I saw the movie.

I have no relationship to either. I wonder if that colored your experience of watching the episode at all. That being sort of a notably good version of this story, as told, maybe? Yeah, I don't know. It's been a long time. I don't remember a ton about it.

And I feel like Voyager, maybe more than DS9 has some of that TOS DNA in it. Like this is such a TOS idea. Like what if you had age and reverse? What if that was a planet? But like it is it is such a more sophisticated Sensibility than TOS would have brought to that like germ of an idea Yeah, and I think that like TOS Approaching an idea like that would have done it in a wake corny or way

But it might have been more satisfying just because that would have been an easier and at the end of the day more fun way of treating it. And this kind of goes for a pathos that is hard to capture. Right. Well, one thing where more easily able to capture is a priority one message. We've been doing it for hundreds of episodes, Ben. Let's go catch it few more. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. for hundreds of episodes Ben. Let's go catch a few more. At my first priority one message here is from Jero Man, it's too any curious millennial. Goes like this, I'm hurling scarves at Ben and Adam because I'm too lazy to research something myself. As a child in the 80s and 90s, I have clear memories of an illusion on TV shows where car wheels appeared to spin backward.

At some unknown point, it stopped. Hoping these two can explain why this happened and what changed to make it go away. Also, happy retirement. Hey, happy retirement. Yeah, do you think that that's just Jeremy like imagining that it's going to take so long for us to get to the priority one message that we are retiring by the time we do? I mean, he's not far off. I'm flicking my way through all the P1s and there are a lot for this show to come so yeah they sure are. We're fortunate enough to have that kind of support

going forward. Ben do you know the answer to this? I have I have an answer to this. Is it a frame rate and spin rate issue? Sure is. Yeah there's an effect that happens when the rate of spin and the frame rate of frame is such that the effect is a object rotation looking like it's in reverse and you can affect this for yourself. If you blink really quickly looking at a helicopter or something or at Yeah, if you like turn off a fan and launch the blade, spin down, you can see like the refresh rate of your own eyes, make it look like the span of spinning backwards for a moment.

So that's why. I don't know why it would have stopped, I guess, in film production, you sometimes come across the problem of if you're shooting a scene and there is a tube television in that scene, you'll see the like these dark bars kind of sliding down the screen because of the way cathode ray tubes were writing the image on the screen with a beam that kind of starts at the top of the screen and goes to the bottom and then

starts over 30 times a second. And you can get like a variable speed control to adjust the speed of the film going through the camera to counteract that or you can adjust like a variable speed control to adjust the speed of the film going through the camera to counteract that, or you can adjust the shutter angle itself to counteract that. Right. And I think that it must just be the DPs on television sets got better at knowing when that would be happening and working

to not make it look weird. Well, luckily the absence of CRT monitors has made that less of an issue going forward. Now you can walk into an office environment and not have to deal with that kind of shit if you're shooting a wide shot, you know. Right, thank goodness. Yeah, which is nice.

It was a pain in the ass. Yeah, hope that helps Jeremy. Ben, our second priority one message is from your dang wife, Aaron, the message is to Maddie Lip. The message is from your dang wife, Erin. The message is to Maddie Lip. The message goes like this. Happy first anniversary. I'm writing this as we are finishing Deep Space 9 and can only imagine what delights we're

experiencing on Voyager now. I love sharing Star Trek and all the pod with you every week. Thanks for an amazing first married year and here's to many, many more. Wow, congrats, Aaron and Maddie Lip. I like their trajectory. If their first year of marriage was this year, and it was a great one. Wow, you passed the, it's only gonna...

It's a stress test. Yeah, exactly. Good job by you you guys indeed well If you'd like to get a priority one message on the schedule had to maximum fun dot org slash jembo tron Schedule it now well in advance the way your dang wife Aaron did It's the way to do it. Oh start listening to the hit new Star Trek podcast, the greatest discovery. Get yourself in that queue. You don't have to do that. You really want that show to die, don't you?

Hey Adam. What's that, Ben? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Incredible. Drunk Shimoda! I think you mentioned this quality earlier when you described an issue with the episode going something like, you know,

people not asking enough questions of the other person from scene to scene. And if one were to do that, the story kind of falls apart because you need to have established some sort of opacity to the problem, some some artificial opacity. And it's like every movie from before the 90s being like, wow, this would have been all fine if cellphones existed. Well, this was, this was my thought exactly. Janeway is the cause and the solution to and of the diplomatic problem they're in.

Because why are you doing this? Is a question that is always asked more in real life than it ever is on any episode of television? It's almost like it's forbidden. Question forbidden. You know, like why are you doing this can clear up a lot of conflicts and at no point in this episode do we get anything close? And if she is really the diplomat, she stows herself as, what's an easier way to get to

the motivations of who you're having a disagreement with? I think that could have cleared a lot up. And so I think Janeway is sort of the chaos agent of the episode by permitting this conflict to keep going by not asking a very core question like that. So what about you, Ben? Man, I had a hard time finding a Shimoda in this episode who was drunk. I mean, there isn't an Ensen Bennett. There isn't an Benet.

And his spotlight death scene. Like what if that had been skull cogan or somebody that we'd actually met before, you know? This was a pareed down episode in terms of its cast, huh? It really was, yeah. And like I feel like I wanna know what's going on with baby wild men, I feel like I want to know what's going on with baby wild men, I want to process some recent major shit that's been going on on the ship.

And this is a real adventure of the week that pushes all that off significantly. Yeah. I suppose the drunk Shemota I'm going to pick out is Al-Sia, is played by Marne McFale, who I think she has a speaking role in Star Trek First Contact.

Oh, really? Well, I think she is the one that is in the Jeffries tube, the first person to encounter a Borgs. Oh, are you okay in there? You know what, you didn't need to describe it to me before I got there a second before in my mind. That's totally her, huh? Her character is really interesting and juicy and also just funny because she is so fucking angry

at the Voyager for so much of the middle of this episode and then really like without much to go on. All is forgiven. Yeah. At the end. So I think I've talked myself into it Adam. I think she's my drunk Shimada. You did it. All right Adam I'm gonna head to gach.bizslashgame or we keep the game of buttholes The will of the caretaker so that I can find out how we are going to be reviewing season two episode 23 the thaw Thanks to a complex sensory system controlled by a computer,

Kim and others are literally held hostage by fear. I mean, I feel like every season or two we get an unfrozen caveman alien episode. And that sounds like that's what we got teed up here, huh? You got to have one of those again. I'm hoping for the appearance of another $5 carnival guitar in our future. That'd be delightful. Bring those guys back.

Yeah, those guys are the greatest. You think maybe the post script to that story was they decided to crawl back into Stasis and get fired back into space again? I'm gonna let some of my savings accounts mature a little bit more. Yeah. That interest hasn't accumulated quite yet. Get some more of that sweet, sweet, compounding interest. It's not about how much you save. It's how early you save. It's true. We are on

square 31 right now with our runabout atom and I'm gonna go and roll this bone see how things go. You're required to learn as you play. Roll. Looks like we could hit a Delta flyer or a Nielix's galley. Square, depending on how this goes. Don't like the sound of either of those. Tula! Did I win? Well, don't worry buddy. I rolled a four, which jumped us past the Delta Flyer, which would have taken us up to a measure of a man.

And now we're right in between that and the Nielix's galley episode. Wow, we're the meat and a Nielix Janeway sandwich. Hahaha. Are you sure our buddy? So, next week's episode will be recorded in a regular frame of mind, and with no demands on us, which is great. Wow.

Hitting that Janeway Square would have really tossed us around. Yeah, that would have changed the game entirely. Yeah. Good job not changing the game entirely. Haha. Wow, I'm looking forward to it. In the meantime, I hope folks will share this show with friends that they think would enjoy it.

It's right. Spread the word. As you're starting to get out in the world, IRL. Maybe share some of the things that got you through when you were quarantined up. Stuff like the expert Shimoda family of podcasts. Give us a nice review on your pod catcher app. That would be really nice of you. And check us out on social media. At Greatest Trek is where you find us on Twitter and Instagram. Those accounts are run by the Card Daddy Bill Tilly, our social media director. Yeah. We

like that guy. Sure thing. We've got new stuff in the store, Ben. Our store, PodShop.biz. Some really great stuff. We got to thank our buddy Adam Ragusia, who made the theme music for this show, The Janeway Song. You can find him on YouTube most of the time, where he has a really excellent cooking channel. I just watched his Pod Ty recipe. Oh yeah? It's a great recipe. I'm gonna have to get into that.

Yeah. I haven't had that in a while. Love me some pod time. Yeah. Also love dark material who made the Picard song, the original theme song for this show. You can hear low under our voices right now. Join one of the myriad friends of DeSoto all over social media. You got Facebook, you got drunktraumated.com, you got greatestgen.fandom.com, you got Reddit. Just try to drop a hashtag greatestgen somewhere. See what happens.

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, where Adam and I are both in clown makeup. I mean that's one of the secrets of the show is I'm always in clown makeup. We just haven't talked about it ever. Yeah we haven't revealed it until now. So I was a little late to the show today Ben I was applying my clown makeup as I always do. Maximumfund.org.

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