The Greatest Generation - Thinking About Baseball (S3E1)

Episode Date: July 11, 2016

When the Enterprise breaks down while conducting a science mission, Wesley (the boy?) is at fault. Unfortunately, he observes the Chaotic Bro code of silence, which forces the dumpy professor in charge of the experiment to take matters into his own hands. What does it mean to get "The Frakes"? Do we or don't we want to be in the pocket of Big Rodd? How many pips does Jame Gumb have? It's the episode where we do ALL the impressions!

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 a Star Trek podcast by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm your host Adam Pranaka.

I'm your other host Ben Harrison. Back at ya with season three. Buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, I really... You keep reappropriating that sound, Ben. Yeah, I should not be doing that. with season three. Buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, Greatest GenCon 2017. Very true. I have a couple of housekeeping things, but I was hoping we could open some Star Trek cards. Let me just burn through them. Okay. Number one, I am drinking alcohol. Good for you.

Number two, I think we'll have results from our contest to announce. Probably not this week, but next week. Yeah. to announce, probably not this week, but next week. And lastly, I have had the VHS tape of my childhood Star Trek movies digitized. And the quality is very bad, but I think we'll try to do something next week where we play some clips from it

and talk about what a nerdy kid I was. Because I watched it and I was like I like took a little bit of a lunch hour at work to try and watch this and it was like totally destroying my sense of self-worth too. Oh wow. To relive this. You really at a moment? Yeah. So it should be unbranded for this podcast for me to embarrass myself like that in public.

It's about time we get back to embarrassing ourselves on this show. It's been way too long. Last episode may have qualified as us embarrassing ourselves. What's fun is that episode hasn't come out yet. So we have no idea what sort of shit storm it caused. Yeah, that's true. Well, do you wanna open some cards? Sure, are you asking me if I want to or are we going to?

We could cross streams. Let's do it. I love that package opening sound. Yeah, it's real nice on the, sure, SM7B microphone. Come on, Yeager. Give me a Yeager. My first card is for lower decks. Did you, you got this card, right? Believe I did, yeah. Yeah. Kind of a cool one. It's like eyes on the palms of hands, which doesn't, as far as I can remember, have anything

to do with the episode in question. Yeah, if there's anything our podcast is about about it's about hair on the palms of hands. I wouldn't know anything about that. I got a counter at far point, which we've we've gotten. That's a repeat. Yeah. Samaritan snare. Eyeball on the on the enterprise and Fish Hook, we've also already gotten. Right, ooh, this is from episode 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1. And it is the Enterprise flying as fast as it can toward Minuet, which is probably what it would be doing if I was in command. What part of Minuet? Ah, the like Chestle area.

Yeah, one that go motorboat some Minuet. Ah, the like chestal area. Yeah, well they go motorboats of minuet. I've got hero worship which I think is another one that we already have in the pile right. It's got a it's got Picard up on a pedestal and a small child looking up at him. Yeah, I think it's pretty on the pedestal right. Yeah, that would be troubling if it were Captain Picard. I have one for a Rob Bowman episode. Brothers, it's like two data, I guess a data in lore, and they are either going to kiss or fight. I got the first duty, which is another repeat.

I got a pack full of repeats, dude, and then I got Masterpiece duty, which is another rep, I got a pack full of repeats, dude, and then I got Masterpiece Society as the last one. An episode I don't remember at all. It's some sort of a chunk of stellar fragment heading for a colony of genetically engineered humans, and then the enterprise offering to evacuate them. That sounds like a storyline we've seen time and time again. I feel like that happens we've seen time and time again. I feel like that happens every season. Yeah, yeah, some core is ejected.

It's flying towards a planet. The enterprise is on the scene. I have one for loud as a whisper, the ginger Jesus episode. I love ginger Jesus. This is a real weird one. It's like a hand making the peace sign, but they've superimposed a screaming mouth

over that peace sign. And then shot of the enterprise flying in the background, kind of a crazy one. And my last one is emergence, which I think is for that episode where they're all on like the train, going to some city, and it's like some computer system that's like becoming intelligent within the ship. They have to holodeck adventure

to confront it. Boy, it's becoming clear just how often a computer malfunction is a major storyline on the show. Yeah, if it's not a computer malfunction, it might be a brain malfunction. This is becoming a speech. Where the cat comes to brain type. I'm going to type a ramble on about something everyone knows. Well, that offers us a nice segue into today's episode. Yeah. Today's episode, of course, being season three, episode one, evolution.

And Ben, as we do most of the time when we begin a new season, might be a good idea to talk about some of the differences that we noticed right away as this new season begins. Yeah. What did you notice? Well, we open with a very awesome exterior shot of the ship in front of like a big red giant star.

I don't know if it's vastly better than the ship shots that we've seen so far, but it does really set a tone that this has got some cool ship shots in it. I feel the show's automatic deposit has just received more funding. Yeah. And after Shades of Grey, they're ready to spend money again.

Right. And I think that that holds like even throughout the episode and just in terms of just the cinematography in general. Like it seemed better lit, more interesting blocking and more interesting choices with the camera work and stuff. Yeah, a lot of dirty shots, right?

Yeah. And a major upgrade on the uniforms. Right. This is a pretty significant change visually. What you have here is a change from Spandex to a wool gabberdeen blend. Yeah. It's like suit fabric. Yeah, and it looks less shiny than the Spandex was. It's just a more matte finish of a uniform. Yeah. It looks thicker, like demonstrably thicker and not as form fitting. I felt like they did a thing in this episode right away,

which was a nod to this. And one of the first scenes we see is West relieving someone at the con. Yeah. And the person getting out of the chair is wearing the old uniform and leaving the bridge. And everyone else in the bridge is wearing the new uniform. Everybody with no speaking part did not, it got passed over for a, for new uniform duty. Yeah. Yeah, which is, that's like the one weird thing is like, I guess I don't really know like

what it costs to tailor something like one of these uniforms, but a really fancy suit, which I would imagine is on a similar level of complication, you know, can be like $5,000, $10,000 if you buy it in London. And I think that the kind of workmanship that you bring to bear on a show like this. You're not sending away to some factory in China to have these made. You're having them made by highly skilled workers. So it seems like they headed in the budget to get like the main cast recost doomed minus Wesleyan Troy.

And that's it. Hey, Ben, what's that? Adam, I have a number that's it. Hey Ben. What's that Adam? I have a number that's the cost of the new uniforms. Would you like to take a guess as to how much one of these new uniforms costs? I don't know if I'm gonna guess 10. I'm gonna guess 10 grand. We're gonna go under on that $3,000.

Wow. Per000. Wow. Per costume. Yeah. Seems like pretty good value. Well, yeah, I mean, you don't want to put every extra in a $3,000 suit. Yeah, that's true. I don't think they gave Troy any uniform. Do you think so?

No, it's the same. Yeah. And Wesley is the same, even though they claim he's grown two inches since last season. Yeah, they're still pouring him into that gray jumper. Yeah. The opening interior shot of this is the camera panning over a bunch of like snacks and science crap on a table to find a sleeping Wesley Crusher, the boy, with a galaxy of pimples on his face.

Oh. So one of those things where I'm sure Will Wheaton wishes they hadn't done the HD upgrade on this episode. This is so HD-unkind. Yeah. I mean, like in the wide angles, like it just doesn't show up that badly, but this camera is like inches from his face.

And he is, his complexion does not hold up. Yeah, I think they set up a fill like that's totally perpendicular to his cheek, and so it only serves to emphasize the height of the acne off of the rest of his face. It casts a shadow over the rest of his cheek. Yeah, it's like they set the bump map to 100%. I'm speaking to someone who still gets acne as a 30-year-old, so I'm not speaking disparagingly of to make fun of another guy.

I totally feel this, and it made me feel bad. Yeah. We're just pointing it out, we're not making fun. It's a real back to the future beginning, isn't it? Like Wes is sort of the Marty McFly character who's over slept as a alarm and he's late for class. Riker phone them up and forget to send you a alarm Wesley? I guess there's no there's no punishment for being super late to work on this episode. But he gets up to the bridge and they've got a science man, Dr. Paul Stubbs, who is there to

do a science experiment on this red giant star. There is some kind of stellar matter that's coming off of this star and then there's a little neutron star in the distance that this matter is like in kind of a descending orbit of, and it like spirals around it. And I guess this neutron star will build up enough of this stuff every two hundred years to cause it to explode and then start to cycle over again. So this is apparently like a great opportunity to get some kind of data. And that's why they're here. And this professor is like, he's like the perfect, I'm gonna call him space slumpy.

Like he's got absent minded professor clothes but updated for the modern 24th century gentleman. Yeah, it's a real dumpy tweed. He's got a lot of rumple in his clothing. Yeah. And it's a pretty great character, I thought. Yeah, he really plays a bastard well. Yeah.

Like, we get to know him because Picard comes out of his ready room and he's like, all right, let's do some science. And the professor starts big dogging him right off the bat. I have been inspecting the egg for the last 20 years. You may lay it when ready. So we're like, oh God, fuck off. Like, you really need to cop this fucking attitude right now.

Like, you're getting to do your damn science. Every scientist on the show up until now has been someone that the Federation has sent to a far away chunk of rock to sort of exiled. This is one of the rare scientists that hasn't been given that treatment and he's a total dick. Yeah, it's like, dude, you need to look around you and see what is happening to your kind because they're being shipped out left and right.

And you're about five years away from being dirty old man level scientists. So check yourself before you riggedy wreck yourself, sir. It is a tiny, friendly, well-installed, ready-based, have you run, find it within yourself? Just stand up, sell the truth. You don't deserve the wealth back in the uniform. So what they're gonna do, the science plan is they have this thing called the egg, which is a probe, like a specialized probe that's about the size of a shuttle pod. They're going to send it into the like vicinity of this explosion and gather data on this neutron star.

And it's gonna happen in 18 hours. Like it's coming up. The egg looks like a prop that was from that episode with Seymour Castle, right? It really does, yeah. It looks like the same deal. It's a bunch of bars welded together. It's like a structure that protects an inner structure. Like, we got a lot of tubular aluminum leftover from that sea more castle episode. This is the prop department guy. The prop department guy is definitely from Wisconsin. It sounds like.

And so they get ready to launch the egg and they are hit with a big banger. Yeah, totally big banger. Mm-hmm. And it throws stubs to the ground. Mm-hmm. Like he is rolling all over the bridge. And it's like one of those things where everything they try

doesn't work, you know, like hit the stabilizer, we don't have the stabilizer, hit the shields, we don't have the shields, you know, reboot the engine, sorry we can't do that. And so they're just shaking around for like a good 15 or 20 seconds. And it finally get control of the ship back. And the doctor is is Kind of hurt so they got to send him to sick bay and guess who's in sick bay Adam a very Very 90s hair Beverly Crusher. Yeah, she's like yo. It's it's the 90s now. I am rocking this hairstyle Well, I mean to be clear. We're gonna get letters about this It's 1989 since temper 1989, on this air date. However, this is a quintessentially 90s haircut

that she's rocking. Yeah, she knows. It's like the office lady from Dilbert, like it's a triangle configuration. I mean, we're getting a little Star Trek hair cast here. But I think for a good is, it's pretty epic. Yeah, unlike the office lady from Dilbert, she isn't there as a female punching bag for a gross men's rights advocate. Sure, sure. While we're on haircast for a second, can I talk a little bit about Wes's hair? Yeah, it's really bad, right? It's like he

saw what they were doing to Frakes. And he's like, I wanna get in that chair right after Frakes and I want exactly the Frakes. Yeah, yeah. If they were to stand side by side, they'd have the same haircut. Yeah, but it's weird, because I feel like it looks okay on a grown man,

but somehow on West, it looks like hair plugs, like it looks like fake. man, but somehow on west, it looks like hair plugs, like it looks like fake. It looks like he leaned over a hand dryer in a bathroom and just kind of blew it up. Oh, you think he did the flowbie? This is like, this is like prime flowbie era. He gets some nice verticality on the hair, like in a really impressive way. And it's something that is proportional to Riker's face and body, like it just sort of blends in at work and works for

Riker as a character, but it does not work for poor Wes. Yeah, he needs to go back to the... He needs to go back to PUE hair, big time. What's the significance? I don't know! Yeah, PUE hair was actually working a lot better for him. Uh, never been said before, but... Yeah, so Beverly's back and she explains that she was, uh, she was what? She was at the Academy for a year, teaching?

Yeah, teaching at Starfleet Medical or something. I kind of wished that they'd done something to explain it. Like, I wish that they'd sent Polaski off. Like, you know, Polaski had a tough road to ho, not being Beverly Crusher, and didn't start her tenure on the Enterprise in the best way by being super racist against data. But I think we can both agree by the end of season two has really won us over as like a totally valid excellent doctor character I Completely agree. I like Polaski and I am sad that she's not on the show anymore like I'm saying totally pro Polaski

Yeah, but they didn't send her off in anyway, you know like in she saved Reikers life right in Polaski's first, they explain where Dr. Crusher is. In this episode, it's like she might as well not exist. It's very polasky erasing. So I read that the story with Polasky's characters, there was a pretty sizable letter writing campaign to get her off the show. Really? That's like the reverse-dagger. Sort of like a reverse-yager. Yeah, exactly. And it once again speaks to sort of the awesome power of conjuring any sort of letter writing campaign. Yeah. Like it's sort of a powerful and dangerous thing to do. Yeah. Well, I think that we've had a little discussion about that recently with regard to tweeting

at the Star Trek Room account, and a lot of people have tweeted on our behalf that we should be writers on the new series. A lot of people are also saying that we've been yagering by doing that, which is totally correct. It's a good point. It's a point, a point that we, I think, are forced to take seriously. I mean, also the silence has just been really quite deafening. The silence has been enough to make me want to pivot that whole effort into what I think we would be better at anyway, which is the post show, conversation show that we're definitely going to do after this new Star Trek series launches.

Yeah, I think we should absolutely do that. I mean, I think that it would be nice to be an officially sanctioned post show, but I don't think that we should let that be the determining factor. We don't want to be talking about how we're out of the pocket of big rod, and then somehow talk our way into the pocket of the rod. I don't want that at all. I want to stay out of the pocket. Which contrary to everything we stand for, which is a totally independent assessment of trek. I want to be able to make all the jokes, both dick and fart.

Are there any other kinds? Probably not, but we'll never know. You can't do that when you're inside the pocket. Yeah, depending on which pocket it's either dick or fart. Right. If it's front pocket, it's dick. If it's back pocket, it's fart. If it's tiny pocket, like the emotium if it's back pocket, it's fart. If it's tiny pocket, like the emotium pocket,

that's real. It's real joke. Hahaha. We do not as yet have a title for this show, so if you have any ideas. Yeah, send them in. My love is a piece by floor and jail by bathroom, which long does not sound asleep. Tell me more, you're not bored yet. My love is your people long until my back, which longer than us at the PC.

Tell me more, you're not the boy yet. Anyway, goodbye Dr. Polasky. Hello again, Dr. Crusher. I miss Dr. Crusher. Well, it's nice to be together again. I wound up loving Dr. Polasky, but I love the shit out of some Dr. Crusher. I don't know, her overbearing mom vibes creep me out a little bit. There's a lot of that in this episode,

so I don't fully blame you, but yeah, so when the professor is down in sick bay, he... The professor is recovering from his banger. And kind of plants the seed in the doctor's head that Wes is developing weird because his mom is on the ship with him. And I think we both know that Wes is developing weird for other reasons also. But maybe he has a point, it really gets under her skin. So while the ship is completely in dire straits and getting fucked up left

and right, Cresher goes up to the the ready room and takes, takes 15 of the captain's time to talk about her son. Yeah, really, wait a make it all about her. The one person she shouldn't be asking about how, how he's developing is Captain Picard. I see no evidence that there is a problem. The line that made me laugh the loudest was, she's kind of like talking about how she feels, like she's really grown apart from Wesley

and doesn't even know certain major things about him. She asks Picard, has he ever been in love? And his reply is just, hmm. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. What are we to take a lay from that? He mentions that he's strong like his father. Ha ha ha ha ha. He's got the strength of his father, Rudy.

He's honest and trusting for you. Both resistance and accepting. And it does like to eat the pudding with this girlfriend. You see. He gives the chocolate to his girlfriend. put in with this girlfriend ASC. He gives the chocolate to his girlfriend. They dip the finger and they lick the pudding off the finger. ASC.

Yeah, that's how that scene happens. Yeah, we don't even need to pull clips from that because that's basically a photograph of what happened in that scene. So, Wesley wanders down to engineering and LaForge is like frantically running around the Shimoda Corner trying to figure out what's going on with the computer and he's like looking at a magnified section of the data core or something like that, and there's just like a big hole blown right out of the middle of it. And the camera like pushes it on Wesley

and he like comes just short of reaching his finger up into his collar and going, ggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg when your whole body goes, oh boy. LAUGHTER Real like a like child acting school right there. Like lower KSA acting for sure. Yeah. So he does what any he does what anyone would do who may be responsible for impending doom to the ship. Impending doom to the flagship of the Starfleet. Yeah.

With a thousand souls aboard. He tells no one about his potential responsibility. Yeah. Like, like, like he- You gotta give it to Wes, he's great at keeping secrets. He kind of mortars, he kind of, he kind of chaotic bros it, like he doesn't want to tell anybody

what's going on until he knows for a fact that he's right about his theory. But this is a lot of goofing around that he does. He goes back to his science room. He sets a bunch of traps in 10 forward and gets caught by Gainon. He promises her that he's gonna tell somebody if his theory bears out, but like, that never satisfied anybody when chaotic bro tried to pull it, right? Yeah, he's doing everything besides tell an authority figure what's happened. Yeah, and like the chaotic bro, like, he didn't have any responsibility for there being poopy on the ship right Wesley did this yeah Yeah, you put the poopy on the ship

Or else it gets the hose again I said put the poopy on the fucking ship now put the poopy in the basket Would you fuck me, Captain? Alright, fuck me. Oh man, coming out of the blocks in season three, hard, Ben. Ha ha ha ha. Darmok, Angela, and Denarga. Darmok, Kage, Angela, and Denarga. So eventually he does confirm what has happened is that he had some medical nannights that he was doing a scientist, like a school science experiment on.

And they got out of six bay, and they are tearing the ship apart, Lisa. And he goes about revealing this to the senior staff by having his mom do it. Oh, yeah, this is so emasculating to watch. It really is. Yeah, Beverly basically gives the senior staff the rundown on what the nannites are. And then she ends her comments by going like,

and then someone released them onto the ship. And then like whips her head around at Wes who was like staring out the window shaking his head. Yeah, he's doing all but a riker lean. And so this breaks out in a debate, which is the denonites are microscopic robots. Remember if it doesn't say micro machines, it's not the real thing. Doing something that they're not designed to do, which is multiplying and harvesting computer core parts for resources.

And they're like, well, this could be like the start of a civilization. And if it is, if they're, then they're potentially intelligent. And if they're potentially intelligent, that's sort of like core mission shit. We're gonna, we're gonna like try and figure out a way to meet new life and new civilization and Dr. Stubbs the

The rumpled professor is like no fuck that like I'm trying to do my science experiment here and this is a Science experiment run amuck you need to shut it down get rid of the nanites in the computer and let's do what we come to do Yeah, he's like, your computer has fleas. Like, let's gas them out of there and get on with our business. Let's put one of those tents around the ship and I'll go on like a vacation to Palm Springs for a weekend and when we come back it'll be nice and clean. We get a new set here, which I think is fun, which is what I think we're led to believe is the computer core.

Yeah. It's a place where the crew can actually interact with the main part of the computer. It's a cool set and we get kind of a fun reveal of stubs like walking along a catwalk and like down a ladder into it when we're data and and and maybe like, Jordi are identifying where in the system these nanites have gone. And they're trying to like, they're trying to encourage the nanites to go somewhere else by giving little gamma pulses and stubs is like,

have you considered a high level charge? That'll just kill them. And they're like, yeah, well, that's not what we're doing. I mean, obviously that would work. And he's like, I know. And he like, he like puts his gun sideways and like, blah, blah, blah, is at him. Like, he's, he pulled some real gangster shit right here.

Yeah, he does he use a gamut dustbuster? It's configured more like a pistol. Yeah. It doesn't look like a dustbuster. It's like, he has a nine in his belt and he just walks in and starts blasting away. Yeah. And data has to like grab his wrist

and stop him from shooting. Yeah, and evidently, Stubbs ends up murdering like a lot of these little guys. And they are not happy about it. They begin to drop bangers around the ship in a pretty aggro way. Yeah, this gets the nannites working overtime and Riker and Picard are having a little man-to-man

in the ready room and they start smelling something and they go out on the bridge and the air is dense with smoke. You smell a change. What? Riker runs over to the computer and figures out that there's... Like, stocks on it, toxic levels. Being pumped into the bridge, the NNIT are not just doing bangers.

They are actively fighting back. Right, and they seem to be able to listen in on conversations because like, I feel like any time Stubbs is brought up in a conversation, they drop a little banger or something, something bad happens on board the ship, they seem to understand their communication. Stubbs gets confined to quarters for being a big fat prick and What he wants to do in his quarters is

Just think about baseball. He's not doing it with anyone and imagining baseball games He's just skipping the sex part and thinking of baseball. Yeah, like he Here's this whole thing with with Wesley where he, like I love baseball, even though nobody knows anything about it anymore. And he's like, I've seen all the best plays. And Wesley's like, oh, cool, you do holiday. And he's like, no, I do it with my imagination. And it's like, it's like somebody going like,

I love jerking off, but I never watch porn. And it's like, like stingwood, too. Yeah. And yeah, I feel like Riker would have just thrown up if he'd been in the room when the conversation went down. You disgust me, sir. Yeah. Like, even worse than that guy that said that he didn't have any interest in reproduction.

I think Riker's more passionate about beating off than... Sure. ...than reproduction. I am a cute, more passionate about beating off than... Sure. ...than reproduction. I am the cutest of all. There are more likes. So, I mean, shit really comes to a head and Picard finally, like, realizes that they may just have to commit genocide on these computer fleas. Right.

And so they, like, ready the system to do that, to, like, flood the computer with this radiation that would kill everything. They tiptoe right up to it and then data kind of makes a breakthrough. He's typing away on the science station and some ones and zeros come back and start flashing on the screen. He does that like push back from the desk in awe, in the awe of somebody who's made a real Eureka moment. He has established communication. Well, I guess it's not a surprise

that the Nannites would use binary as their way of communication, but I think it's weird they're able to flash whatever they're saying to data, they flash it on and off. Yeah, somebody's got a, somebody's got a translate that binary to like, fuck you. Yeah, like bold and underline wasn't something

that was in their power, but flashing on and off is. That was fun. Yeah. So data comes up with this great idea in a very data kind of way. He wishes to sacrifice his body in all kinds of ways. And he's like, look, you know what might be easier, an easier way to communicate with these nanites is if I let them go inside me and puppet me around.

Like wouldn't it be great if you could talk to them through me? And for some reason, like everyone is cool with this except for Wharf. Like Wharf again is the only sensible person on the bridge. And he's like, uh, do you think it's a bad idea to let them wear data, like some sort of robot outfit? Like basically the most powerful thing on this ship, besides the ship itself. Do you think it's a bad idea for them to let them make a skin suit out of data? Right. Would you fuck me?

Yeah. I'd fuck me. And to a man, everyone's like, shut up, Wharf. So they go into the computer core and they shoot the nanites into data and sure as shit, like they drive data around and speak through his mouth. And unsurprisingly, he's a little pissed at stubs. Right. And yet, like, they are able to reach a diplomatic agreement very quickly.

And it's like, man, like if this is the kind of conversation that happened after the Gulf of Tunkin incident, you know, like it's so it's like everybody is like working in such good faith the entire time. Like data doesn't hide, like, man-night data doesn't hide that they are super pissed at the professor, but ultimately they're willing to look past the fact that he committed Nanai genocide. And it's like, wow, how nice of them. It's so fucked up. Like data gets up out of his seat and approaches stubs. No one gets in between them.

No one gets in between them because data would rip the head off of anyone who did. That situation is so dangerous. Yeah, seriously. That was an insane choice to make. But it worked. Yeah, it did. It did. Picard lawyers the nannites into peace.

And they even like got a planet set aside for them? Yeah, they kind of made out great on the deal, didn't they? Yeah, they make the best deals. They make amazing deals that really show the Chinese whose boss. Nothing wrong in my tiny robot department. Great tiny robot. I have totally normal sized hands for a very tiny robot.

Trump sounds a little JFK to me. We will go to the planets. Believe me, we are made of star stuff. The most incredible star stuff. This episode has all the impressions. All of our really solidly see-minus impressions. So the last scene of the episode is Beverly. It goes to knock back a couple of drinks and eat a couple of jelly beans and 10 forward.

Do you notice her plate of like Turkish Delights and jelly beans? In the future, that gets to be your dinner. Yeah, she had like a, like a Fernet bronca and jelly beans for dinner. God. And her tummy is gonna be really upset after that. Yeah, that's not gonna be a fun hangover.

But she's kind of talking motherhood with Geinen and Geinen tells her about one of her offspring that she had to whip into shape over hundreds of years and then Wesley comes into 10 forward with a cute blonde girl and goes off and sits down with all the like all of the enterprise teens. Is that seen canonical mighty more from power rangers by the way? Because all the kids at that table are wearing different colored neon clothes. Like good lord. That's a good call. They just they made a

production decision not to light them differently to emphasize Their presence they just cost to them in the loudest way possible Yeah, this definitely has a slide whistle, which is the doctor You know, go and like what do you know about this girl? Wait a second. Who is she? Who's her mother? Right does she come from a good family? Huh, yeah, and that was the button on the app. Interesting first episode for a season. Yeah, in good Star Trek tradition.

Yeah, yeah. Weird first episode, but I liked it. Yeah, I think I did too. I mean, it was, God, anything is good after a shade to gray. Yeah, but the writing was good. Like the... I mean, like the motivations of all the characters was pretty interesting. I think almost everybody in the main cast had an interesting role to play. There's all this stuff on the theme of being a young person with a lot of potential and the, you know, Dr. Stubbs

has lived a life as somebody like that and has some interesting, like, experience to relate to Wesley on that subject. Overall, I thought it's pretty solid. Yeah, and, I mean, not to get to Mission Log about this, but we would be remiss if we didn't mention like one of the reasons that the show pivots when season three begins is because Michael Pillars brought on as executive producer and When he came in he laid down the law and a couple of things and one of the one of the things he laid down was every episode has to show some sort of character growth

and every episode has to be about something. Like those were the edicts. And they're laughably thin when even saying them out loud. Like, oh really, the show's gotta be about something. Oh, do you think so, Doctor? Thanks, like that's helpful. show's got to be about something? Oh, do you think so, Doctor? Thanks. Like, that's helpful. That's like what you get told in, like, your first screenwriting class in film school.

Right. Right. Right. And this episode was very emblematic of the former, just the character growth element of this. Right. Wesley did a bad thing. Wesley learned that he needs to tell people when he makes a mistake. Yeah, I dug it.

Good, interesting start to a season, but it gives me hope for future episodes based on this, like the strength of this one. Absolutely. Hey Ben. What's that Adam? Did you find a season 3 drunk Shimoda? Incredible! Drunk Shimoda! I sure did. Um, Drunk Shimoda Award is an award we give to characters who act in a way that seems

incongruous or silly in the way that Jim Shimoda does in episode 2 of the series. An award we give out every episode because we thought Doom'simoto was such a great, funny guy. So my drunk'simoto for this episode is the crew members that were on the bridge when they started getting gassed by the Nanites, because right here at Picard are in the ready room, and there's like nobody

from the main bridge crew on the bridge when they're in there. They come out and there's like half a dozen people working the bridge, you know, there's somebody at Khan, there's somebody at Ops, there's somebody at Tactical, there's a couple people on the science stations in the back and they are just standing there going about their business coughing as they are being poisonously gassed. And it takes Riker running over to the computer to figure out what the fuck is going on

and changing the environmental settings to get rid of the poison gas. Guys, you can save your lives. You don't have to be at ops doing nothing while you get poison gas. And it's also pretty clear that they've been suffering through this for a while. They didn't radio anybody up and say, like, hey, just so anybody knows, Bridges flooded with poison as gas.

Yeah, they're really ready to ride this thing out. Yeah, so crazy. So that's my drunk Shimoda. Yeah, that's troubling. My Shimoda, I think that's troubling my Shimoda I Think has got to go to Beverly Who chooses the time in the episode where the ship is at the most danger just to have a heart to heart with the captain About how Wes is doing. Yeah bad timing bad form bad everything and Picard actually

Actually allows it. Yeah. Like he, he humor sir. Yeah, she's like, you got five and he's like, yeah, I got five. Yeah, I mean, bangers are getting dropped over the ship and at any moment, I feel like people could die. But yeah, sure. Well, I agree with you. I do think that this sort of speaks to something about Picard's captaining style, which is that like the ship gets in some fucked up situations on a fairly regular basis, and like he is nothing if not cool under pressure. And he is down to deal some personal shit with a crew member to like hash some shit out

despite a potentially critical situation. I don't think that it was like entirely clear how critical it was yet. So I think that was just a card being like, yeah, of course there's a critical or potentially critical situation. That doesn't mean I don't have time in the day to talk to my chief medical officer. I don't know. Is he the right person to ask how Wes is doing, though, also? No, I think Wes was the person to ask. Yeah, I think so too, because when they were doling out responsibilities for overseeing

him when Beverly left the ship, I don't think Picard got a job. Right. Like everyone sort of volunteered for duties and Picard was like, great, make it so. Mm-hmm. Yomok and Yalaz, and Denarga. 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. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer.

My friend Molly and I call it having the space weirds. Pat Noswald. Can I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Camille 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 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 mine. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line, and boy, what do I, these giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short neck. But I'm hearing we need to get on this off. We've got to get on the art.

It is about terrain, about a spout to destroy humanity. Hey oh sorry sorry sorry, are you Noah? Yeah I know we look like humans. We're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Kerry? We investigate spirituality,

claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boat. We came to by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Kerry, available on MaximumFun.org. What are we watching for the next episode? Next episode is season three, episode two,

the Ensons of Command. I keep thinking I'm gonna do, say season two. It's like when the year changes over and you sign your first rent check and you put, you know, 2015 on when it's 2016. This is exactly like that. Yeah, season three, episode two, the Ensens of Command. Data races against time to save a human colony

that's been marked for death by aliens. Do you remember this episode, Adam? I do not remember this episode at all. It sounds like data is going to engage in some sort of limb for hostage exchange. This is probably in my top 10. Whoa! I like this episode a lot.

There's like a crazy type of alien and there's a lot of like Picard Lawyering and there's a lot of great like data character development with like, you know, him kind of coming into his own as somebody who's comfortable as a commander. You know, like he doesn't do a lot of management in seasons one and two. In this episode, he has to like convince people to listen to him as a leader. And I'm excited to watch it.

I don't know, man, it sounds pretty talky. I can't believe that an episode that is in your personal top 10 is one that I don't remember at all. I think you'll remember it the second you start seeing. I think these descriptions kind of suck. Yeah. I think that's the thing. Here, all, not a great description.

Yeah, really kind of a shameful description, sad. Here's what I'll do for you, Adam. I'll do some Pekazbi to try and jog your memory. You see, Theo, when the Enterprise is trying to save this human colony, a alien race called the Shilliac are coming into wipe them out you see Rudy and The shelliac look like garbage bag people you see Ben Oddly enough that totally jogged my memory. Yes I do remember the shelliac and I do remember their garbage bag costumes.

Yeah. Like they actually hailed them, and the bridge of the Shelliac ship is just people covered in garbage bags, and some really hard lighting. That's the thing. There's a cool alien threat, and I think the episode is interesting in a lot of levels. So I will not veto. Yeah, fuck this episode, I'm gonna veto it. Fuck you!

Why are you serious? What? What? What? What? What? What? You're just mad about your last veto.

What? Are you seriously vetoing? Yeah, I kinda wanna see what's gonna happen here. I can't allow you to veto this episode because I will have to burn my veto and then we have an entire season in front of us that no, I counteract your veto. But what do you think about that?

You fucked us again Adam! God damn it! Everybody that hated the vetoes is gonna be so happy though because... Oh man, that felt amazing! That felt amazing. Ugh. There are queue episodes. There are Loaxana episodes at them. I just want you to confront that reality.

Episode one of a season. Fuck yeah. That feels great. I'm draped over my seat like a riker being given command. Feel awesome about this. Ah. Look at me. Look at me, sure. I'm the captain now.

I think only time will tell what kind of catastrophe you have inflicted on all of us today. Big video. Incredible video. The best video usage. But you just burned it. You're such a... You're... Ah! Alright, well. video the best video usage but you just burn it you're you're all right well so next next time we will be watching episode episode two the Ensign's of Command yes yes we will and every episode of season three henceforth well I don't know

why you would want to but you can follow Adam on Twitter at Cut for Time, and you can follow me at BenjaminR, a. H. R. You can follow. I don't know how this is happening because this episode hasn't gone out yet, but people are unfollowing me in waves, like right now. If you want to tweet about this travesty of justice, You can use the hashtag GreatestGen. I'm sure there will be a war room thread over at the GreatestGen Reddit sub. I'm imagining people on the maximum of fun Reddit will be lobbying to have Adam take-off of the podcast.

I would understand. And, you know. And replaced with Beverly Crusher. Tagging slash use slash Jesse Thorn trying to convince convince him to remove you from the podcast. Gonna replace me with a Maccaw Roy. I know. Yeah. Well, that is, this is an episode that really took a stunning left turn right up against the end. Oh, we can't forget to thank Dark Materia for the use of his beautiful Picard song as our theme music.

And if you wish to encourage us in any way, you can support the show by going to MaximumFund.org slash donate. They want to encourage us after that. I know. Well, with that, we will be back at you next week with a one of the great episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation.

If you say so. This. Make it sound. Make it sound.