The Greatest Generation - Thrift Store Data (S5E11)

Episode Date: February 13, 2017

When Data rescues the only survivor from a wrecked starship, his feats of strength are so impressive that the boy can't help but want to be like him. But when his android burlesque goes deeper than just getting a new haircut, the story about what happened on his ship gets called into question. What do you do about blown sideburns? Who wrote an insult in Troi's yearbook? What is the capitol of Nebraska? It's the episode the final chapter of "The Slickback Trilogy."

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

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

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

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

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! Welcome to the greatest generation Star Trek podcast. So nice we've got a recorded twice. I'm your host Adam Pranaka.

I'm your other host Benjamin R. Harrison. Ben I was just referring to a cold open re-recorded moment to go. That was going through the computer mic again. When I record out of the podcast studio battle bridge. Can we see the battle bridge? No, I'm afraid not. It is just fraught with danger. Yeah.

Well, if you had put another episode up with the computer mic. I think that that would both strain the goodwill of our viewers, but also the goodwill of Adam Ragusia and we need him Adam. We need him. We cannot burn that sound bridge. A lot of people are like, how the fuck you're like over a hundred episodes through this? How is it that you're just now fucking up your audio? Like these are things that should be that you should have have dealt with in the first 10 episodes. Yeah, but the thing is Ben, I'm in studio B. Yeah studio B For those of you who aren't clear on what that is is my bedroom. This is the battle bridge that you referred to in the previous episode. Yeah. This is this is where you go when you separate the saucer section.

When people imagine the glamour of having a hit podcast been. Yeah. I think you of them imagine a man, a grown man, a grown man that looks like me. By what you mean to say Kyle McLaughlin? Yeah. I want you a fair viewer to close your eyes and imagine Kyle McLaughlin. And if you're driving, open them right back up again. Kyle McLaughlin, a bit. Hey, no, do you? Come on.

Don't tell the people to drive with their eyes open if they don't want to. I've got the mic arm clamped to my bed frame. I've got a laptop and my lap as the name canotes. I'm chillaxing the most in podcast studio B here. Yeah, that was... And I'm not using my main computer and that's the issue. That's the issue with the audio as it has been for the past few episodes. I keep setting the settings to good mic and the computer is like, no, fuck that.

We're using shitty mics. Well, you have a desktop computer in your main space and that doesn't have a built-in microphone for the computer to run home to every time you set up a new project. So when you have the Apple garbage can computer, you don't have these concerns. But when you have the MacBook Air, MacBook Air wants to use its shitty onboard mic. Yeah. Despite my many protestations. So what we did is we recorded a show open, five minutes ago. Oh, it was such a good show open Adam. Oh, God, the tragedy of losing that great show open. I was about to tell an anecdote about a time I saw Jesse Thorn use a microphone. Hey, maybe for our viewers and myself, you might want to regale us with that story again.

It's a story so great. I'd like to hear it twice. It doesn't even bear repeating. It wasn't a story. I was trying to make a polite conversation at him. I think that what people really care about is Star Trek the next generation and more specifically the Slickback trilogy.

Yeah, let's get right into it, Ben. It is season five, episode 11, hero worship. This is becoming a speech. Where the cat comes from, very entitled. Mm, I'm not typing You're the captain, so very entitled. Hmm. I'm not going to type it. I ran along about something everyone knows. Ben, before we kick this one off,

I just want to say that this is the second episode in a row that features a primary school setting, like that's one of its main sets. And I think when you're trying to make great and exciting sci-fi, I think it really starts in the schools, doesn't it? Interesting that it's a different teacher this time, right? Did that lady lose her gig? I think Worf might have murdered her. They just ended the last episode with him raising a batlet over his head and swinging it down into her chest.

He's murdered people for far less. We didn't even talk about the fact that Alexander got into Worf's holiday program in the last episode. It's probably the safest holiday program for Alexander to be in, of all of the senior staff. When, when Wurf asked, you know, what, what program is running in the holodeck spitback, Wurf calisthenics? How fucking relieved was he that it didn't spit back Riker calisthenics?

Oh, man, that is, that is so much worse than finding porn in the woods. Yeah. I mean, Alexander's gonna have a hard adolescence to begin with. He is up for that challenge though. Yeah. Well, the entrepreneur is looking for a disappeared vessel. The Viko, it's a research vessel, and it was exploring the black cluster,

and it's missing. It went missing. So they kind of pull up to this black cluster, and it's apparently like one of the most ancient formations in the galaxy, Picard's pretty taken with it, and it's not long before they find this ship, and this ship that they're looking for is in real bad shape at them. It's like a car with a broken window that got left in a bad neighborhood. Yeah, it looks like it was tipped forward and then put on a bench grinder for a while.

It looks like it was dragged. It's a really cool model, right? They've got the, you can see the decks inside the ship that have been exposed to the hard vacuum of space. Yeah, I think it's one of the best models that we've seen on the show so far during the remastering. It's really great and you see it up close. Yeah, and it's really like, it's beaten up really well.

I think that I heard the guy from Mythbusters, Adam Savage, talk one time about, because he worked in a model shop on Star Wars and on Star Trek stuff. Yeah. And one of the anecdotes I took away from it was that if you're making a ship model for Star Trek, you can have like three objects repeated on a hull. And if you're doing it for Star Wars, you do two and then the like shape where one of them used to be, but broke off. Yeah. you two and then the like shape where one of them used to be, but broke off. Because Star Wars is kind of a more like beaten up lived in type of ship. Yeah. Typically.

Star Wars is more thrift store. Yeah. Looking. A little bit more rusted out, a little bit more, you know, whacked back together. And this ship definitely like, it feels like it, it, it feels desecrated for that reason. It's obviously a model that used to be really pristine. And the pristineness of the ships in the Star Trek universe makes it all the more upsetting when you see one that's in this bad of shape.

Right. So they scan for life forms and they don't read any. And what their sensors indicate is that the ship is extremely dangerous. Like a bunch of it is exposed to space. The walls are barely holding up. But riker and data and Jordy, like they're sent over there to eject the computer and bring it back. And this brings up a question, Ben, which is like at what point is information recovery worth the lives of your crew? I don't know. I also wondered, I mean, we know that they have spacesuits in this universe. Like why not put them in environmental suits for this?

Even if they know that there's atmosphere still in the part of the ship that they're going to, wouldn't it be nice to just have the safety of, you know, being in a spacesuit for that, just in case? Because like the entire time they're there, they're worried about, you know, a beam shifting and it causing the collapse of the seal you know. This cold open depends entirely on data and what data does so we don't need Jordy and Riker like data could just go alone. It have it be more practical and reasonable for him to do so and it doesn't affect the story at all if he did. Hmm.

Yeah, he would also just kind of love to go on a suicide mission every so often, right? Right, I think he would relish that. It's an itch he likes to scratch. Yeah. Well, um... Yeah, and the other really weird thing is they don't seem to consider the possibility of survivors until they hear one. Stay here, Jordy.

When they're on the ship, right? Yeah, it's made sort of quasi-clear that their sensors don't detect life forms, but it's unclear as to whether it's because they're none there or it's, or because their sensors just aren't working properly because of their proximity to this thing. Yeah, but after they find the one, shouldn't they like, there's other decks of the ship that aren't exposed to the vacuum, right? Exactly. Yeah. So they rescue one kid. And it's a kind of a classic rescue scenario where the kid is pinned under some metal that's making it tough for the transporter to lock on. They've got kind of a hunky guy standing in Chifo Brian's place attempting to be...

Hunkyer than Chifo Brian? I know. Can you believe it? This guy is attempting to beam the kid to six bay and there's a really funny shot of a bio bed and Dr. Crusher's standing there waiting for her patient and the kid is like fluxing in and out. And it's clear that they had him like pose on a green screen

or something in the position that he would be in if he was pinned under a bunch of metal girders. That's a fun shooting day for a child actor. Yeah. This is not the first time that they've beamed over to a ship full of dead bodies and no one mentions the smell. Like they basically beam inside a Katrina refrigerator

and no one mentions the odor. It should be awful in there. Adam is a man who is sitting in a bedroom surrounded by milk jugs full of his own urine. I can imagine that that's an issue that's exquisitely approximate to your lifestyle. I don't smell anything. Maybe you've got nose blind at him. The decision is made that it's too dangerous for a Jordi and Riker to be there, and they've got the computer files that they came for.

So, Jordi and Riker clear out and data explains to this kid, I have super strength. I'm going to move this metal thing that's on top of you and then we're going to run over to the hallway so that we can beam out together and the kid is like, Data seems more excited about telling someone about this strength than he ever has been before. He's really embracing the big gym slade part of himself. He's ready to Hulk out and prove it to this kid. So he does what he says he's going to do and they scramble over to the beam out point. And...

And data carries them like a suitcase. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty fun. It felt like data didn't get his hand up to his communicator quite as quickly as he probably could have if he really cared. Yeah, he didn't. He gave it a beat just for the sake of it being extra suspenseful. He gave it a beat just for the sake of it being extra suspenseful. Well, this is one take Stewart. This is a Patrick Stewart directed episode.

That's true. He probably saw what he wanted in the scene and then just moved on. Yeah, that's an interesting point. Yeah, it's a weird episode for Patrick Stewart to have directed. And I feel like at this point, we have a bit of a track record on Pistue and Frakes in the chair. What do you think? Can we do a comparative otter seminar at this point?

I don't know if we have enough of a sample size yet to do that, but... and this isn't cutting ahead into the episode, but I just think you notice when Frex is directing an episode, and it feels like this episode looks like many others on the show. And that's not saying... that's not favoring one director over show. And that's not saying, that's not favoring one director over another, it's just saying that I think that Frex is a little more flashy with shot composition. Yeah.

Then Stewart is or is comfortable being at this moment in time. Like Stewart will go on to direct far more episodes than this, but at this point, it seems as though he's a little conservative. Right. I mean, I sort of wonder, like, is Frank's trying to make the case for himself as a director in a way where he says, like, let me put my fingerprints on it a little bit more and Stewart is kind of satisfied to direct shows in the style of the show.

I've seen everything. Yeah, directing for audition versus directing to the project. Yeah. I get that. I kind of think that Freak's based on what we've seen and nothing else. I don't actually know how either of these guys think about this, but I kind of get the feeling that Freik's saw himself as potentially having a career as a director, and he wound up having a career as a director, whereas I kind of get the sense that Patrick Stewart is an actor first and

foremost and all these will be. I think when you talk about them in terms of how they self-actualize, I think that that's a great indicator for what sort of director you're going to get. And if Stewart is primarily an actor and he's primarily focused on acting, then you get the episode that we have here with Hero Worship, which is a character piece. Yeah. First and foremost. That's an interesting distinction.

Well, so they get the kid back over to the entrepreneur. He's in Six Bay, and he's really upset, right? Like, he's dealing with shit in a way that all of the slick backs that we've encountered, whether they were, you know, canonical slick back trilogy or just your average slick back and longer. And it's hilarious slick backs. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, second string slick backs. Uh huh. Like this kid's trauma is much more present, I feel like. He is dealing with the pain of loss and terror in the moment. And, you know, like I think that we've had other kids that kind of shut down or dealt with it in kind of peculiar ways.

This kid is upset in the way that you would kind of expect the kid to be upset. It's strange because the slick backs that we've gotten in previous episodes have been a little older. He might be the youngest slick back we've gotten, and that might be the reason for this description. What's interesting? He is young playing old in a way that feels a little

discordant. Yeah. Well, he starts telling them about the attack that ended with the ship being destroyed. And he tells them about this alien ship that came out of the cluster and they had like a boarding party, purple helmets, they describe phaser rifles, he describes,

and they're like, Jesus, fucking Christ. Like, I can't believe some aliens actually did this to a Federation starship, so they start to look into this and they're like, who could it even have been? Because they don't see evidence of phaser fire on the hull, so they're thinking it's got to be disruptors, and they're pretty sure that it wasn't the Romulans or the Klingons, but they think it might have been a cloaked ship, so they're thinking maybe the Breen. What was the Breenuring inside the black cluster?

It's just kind of a it's kind of a who'd done it. Like they they don't they don't have enough evidence to form a theory, you know, but the but the kid, dealing dealing with it and telling them like the couple of things that he remembers, like winds up, you know, kind of sending them off in a particular direction with their investigation. And, uh, data winds up kind of spending a lot of time with the kid because he was the one who rescued him and is the, you know, like, so the kid feels the most safe around data. And this isn't necessarily because data wants to do this. This is another, this is two episodes in a row of just Troy manipulation.

Troy sees what the kids going through and she's like, well, data, you know, since you were his rescuer, there seems to have been some sort of imprinting going on. And I think it would be good if you just hung around to him a little while longer until he gets his bearings. And data didn't really think to do this until Troy urged it. Right. And I think that that as much as anything speaks to the fact that data doesn't have any instincts to speak of. And like, yes, Jordy at one point one point like did you ever have like anything scary happened to you when you were a kid and

Jordy describes it being caught in a fire as a as a blind five-year-old Which is a really scary story like maybe the most humanizing Moment that Jordy has had in the last couple of seasons. Yeah, it really is and And it you know, I think it affects data if, if not, if, if nothing else. So, yeah, and like Troy, like conveniently can't read this kid. If he's lying, I haven't been able to sense it. Like they're, they're a little bit suspicious of his, of the information that he's giving them. And she's like, I don't, yeah, like I don't know if he's lying or telling the truth or what.

I can't read him right now. And she never read Alexander either. In the last episode. For being such a primary character in two episodes in a row where her job is so crucial to figuring things out, it's odd that her greatest gift goes unused. I mean, I think it just also highlights how conveniently a Morpheus, her gift is. Yeah.

They never, you can never pin them to exactly what the extent of her power is. Yeah, and in that way, it is a great utility for a writer of a show. Yeah. I wonder what the show Bible says about Troy. It's just a picture of a low's home and garden center. Ha, ha, ha.

Ah, it's just actually a, it's a, it's a, it's a pinup of a four-breasted woman. Oh, that's nice. Good one, Rod. So they're trying to like figure out what's going on with this mystery and also help the kid go through the, you know, like the Kubler Ross stages and eventually he gets to the Android stage of grief, right? Right. I think we're all familiar with the eight stages of grief. Yeah, you've got denial, anger, Android, bargaining, going on. Orange cable, Vest is one of the stages.

And acceptance. Yeah, that's it, right? Yeah, that makes sense. I think you just designed another t-shirt. I don't believe this. What is that acronym? That is a terrifically complicated acronym. Yeah, who could even say it?

The kid is putting together a model in his room. He's playing with blocks in his room. And I guess he's living alone. It's another child who's been through a horrible experience who's been given an apartment of his own to live in. It's really cool. I remember watching this episode for the first time going, oh my God, that's the dream, right? Get your own condo and like some cool model building supplies.

Yeah, nobody is ever gonna tell you to come to dinner, right? All I ever wanted to do at that age was be alone and build models. Yeah, there's no bedtime for me. I live by myself. It almost goes without saying that I was terribly cool. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, of this kid and he's like, hey, that model is not great. Hey, a nice model you got there. It's actually fucking sucks. And Slickback does not take this criticism particularly well. You hate it.

No, until data kind of clarifies, he's like, I wasn't making a judgment, a personal judgment. I just say whatever's on my mind because I'm an android and I don't have feelings. And he's like, wait, that sounds amazing. You don't have feelings at all. I can't see the benefit of this. Yeah, and the kid is like, he's really taken with data at this point because what he has seen of data is that he can lift super heavy objects

that normal people wouldn't be able to. He doesn't have to deal with emotional trauma and he can build models like a boss. Big Jim has satisfied women throughout the world and the capital of Nebraska is Lincoln. He can eat all the dessert he wants and not feel sick. Yeah. Like to this kid, data's got it figured out.

And so, like, they come back to the kid, I think Troy, like shows up at his apartment that he lives in alone by himself, like the next morning, and he- Who puts him to bed? I have so many questions. Who tells him to take a bath? Wesley had more adult supervision than this kid.

And Wesley was like twice as age. Yeah, it's amazing. Wesley was probably 18. Like, this kid is dealing with the 20 stages of grief. We need to give him a wide bird. But Troy shows up and the kid has replicated like a B-data costume. Like, yeah, he's totally thrift store data.

Yeah, yeah. And like when I think we've all been there, you don't have the cash for a good Halloween costume, so you just sort of scround some things together. That's what he's doing. It kind of looks like he got a black sweater and a yellow sweater, and he like, safety pin the yellow part onto the black part.

Yeah. Like he fucked up the arms, not being the same color as the body, but he's got as close to a data uniform as he can get. And he's like twitching his head, and he's talking about how he's functioning with in acceptable parameters. He's an Android.

He's doing data burlesque. And if your Brent Spiner and this kid is acting like you're supposed to act in every episode, do you find it a little bit insulting? Like it's that easy. Like, hey, I'm doing you. And it's just sort of a shit impression. It's sort of like our impressions that we do on the show.

Yeah. Except directly to the people. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if all I'm saying is if I were Brent Spiner, I might have complicated feelings seeing this kid do the head twitch. It's sort of like, well, telling me,

this is what you look like. Like when my wife, you know, I'm kind of a heat miser here in our apartment. And my wife makes the case for putting the heat on. And says, I'm cold and I go, I'm cold. and says, I'm cold and I go, I'm cold. Like, I feel like the amount of shit I get is what I would expect for the amount of shit this kid gets for imitating data.

I feel like this is probably the right point to confess this, Adam. This in some ways is more embarrassing than my West Hot American Summer adventure. There was like a brief, like a much briefer moment in my childhood, where I remember attempting to convince some kids that I was an Android.

I'm designed to exceed human capacity. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and I don't know if this episode particularly inspired it, but I definitely was feeling, you know, that like getting a little hot under the color that you get when you think about an embarrassing episode from the past, like watching this kid do this was like kind of viscerally embarrassing to me.

Yeah. And it's a funny, it's funny because the episode kind of deals with that, right? Like, I don't want to jump too far ahead, but like when the kid is looking back at the fact that he was walking around mimicking an android, he cops to that being kind of a boner move. That is correct. Yeah.

That really was affecting to me. I definitely did that. Had you also killed thousands of people and we're trying to face it through the 14 stages of Star Trek, the next generation grief? Because I could understand, Ben, if that's how you were processing it. Yeah, I don't remember what inspired it, probably other than just like thinking I was a special and unique snowflake that needed to be treated as such by everybody.

I think the answer to this question is critical, Ben. Was this before or after the West Hot incident? That is a good question. And I really wish I knew the answer. I don't, I don't think I could say definitively. Because I could see like learning a lesson about doing an impression and and not wanting to do it again. Yeah. But, well, like introducing myself to Wesley, there was nothing implausible about it. Yeah, that's true.

I would just tell people. No one had any reason not to believe that. Yeah, I just say, like, hey, my name's Wesley. You know, like telling kids that it was already playmates with, like, hey, I don't know if you knew this about me, but I'm actually not human, I'm an Android. That is a certain kind of madness. You know what, a bad haircut is gonna make you do

a lot of things that you regret. Well, that's another thing about this episode, Adam, is that this kid's haircut is the haircut that I had as a kid. A bad haircut will spin your life out of control. It's haircuts all the way down. Yeah, man. Adam, I was in a barbership the other day. And I told the guy that was cutting my hair.

Listen, the last time I got my haircut, about a week later, I took a look at my sideburns and realized that they were about a quarter of an inch off. Like, whoever it was. Was that insignificant? That cut my hair last, like, fully blew it on my sideburns. And I almost wondered if it was a practical joke, it was so bad. And we like had a nice laugh about how bad my sideburns had been the last time. I'd gotten my hair cut somewhere else.

It wasn't like I wasn't like blaming anybody there or anything. And I fucking got home and I was shaving the next day. And the guy had blown my sideburns like by the same amount. There's no way that was an intentional, right? I think I had a barber play a prank on me, Adam. It just doesn't get any better, does it, Ben? No, when my parents were in charge of what my haircut looks like, I looked like that kid in this Slickback episode,

which is probably why I thought it was a great idea to fucking walk around at like Sunday school, introducing myself to people as an android. Haircut is really one of the primary things in your life that you just give up total agency about. Like, you are really giving it over to someone else to decide. Yeah and I mean it was a major revelation in my life when I realized I could pay $15 and really play Russian roulette or I could pay $40 and have somebody just do me right, you know. It's an emotional bangar when your sideburns are blown. Yeah. It

fucking sucks. Well this has been not even Star Trek Aircast. It's just been My love is a piece of long and chill for that which long and thus has a busy time. Troy takes this newly Android kid to 10 forward and orders him like some ice cream or something. And I thought it was a pretty artful of her not to order any chocolate around this kid. It's pretty inappropriate for her to show this kid what it looks like when she eats chocolate, right? Yeah, yeah, that's, he is not quite 13. But yeah, like he is sticking to his guns on this, I am an Android thing. And so like the next scene is like a parent teacher conference with Picard and Data and Troy.

And like Picard's got a lot on his mind because he's like, there might be a hostile enemy force in this nebula with us. And this kid has the only working knowledge of what we might be up again. So we need you to like, apply him for as much information as we can get. But also, like, he is dealing with some pretty major shit

and has chosen to identify as Android American. And so, like, and so... When he fills out his census, and so like, and so. His, when he fills out a census, he's checking other. Right, and so like, he, he, he, like, we have to, we have to be sensitive to that

because it's like part of his, his Kubler Ross, but also, like, can you please find out who our enemy is? Yeah. So, so the choice is made to let data like, can you please find out who our enemy is? Yeah. So the choice is made to let data like really bring this kid into the fold, like make him as Androidy as you can make him. And he really starts from the top down. This is like the slick back scene from which the series gets its name. It's sort of like a karate kid style montage of Daniel, you know, working that wooden

martial arts dummy and like sanding the floors and like waxing on and waxing off, except it's just data with two hand brushes. Really bringing it back. Yeah, it's like in the bull cut all the way back. It doesn't look like it should be possible to turn a side part into a slick back with just two brushes, but he does it. This also, I feel like maybe, like there's there's many scenes in this episode where I thought this kid did a pretty remarkable job carrying the Fairly large task he is given as an actor but

This perhaps more than anything because I don't know if you've ever been around a kid who Had a parent running a brush through their hair kids hate that Yeah, and this kid like stays in character, like has a moment of general genuine pathos. Well, data is like really going to town on his hair with two brushes. He's experiencing some hair pathos for sure. For sure.

And as you've said before, something something pathos and a bulkhead. I guess I have said that before, I don't know. We get these vignettes of data and him together where, you understand that Timothy's deal with this is like, it serves as a coping mechanism for him, but it also just seems incredibly boring. Like, one of the scenes is them sitting in data's quarters painting together. Yeah.

And data's painting like this verdant countryside. Yeah. Data is gun full bob Ross on this painting. Timothy's painting is like a festering hemorrhoids. Like with which in and of itself is like a projection of his emotional state. But it's kind of awesome, right? Like it's like it's kind of an amazing painting as like it. It's a way better painting than I ever did as a kid. It's not bad. But... No one studies the painting for clues, though.

Yeah, nobody is like, what were you feeling when you painted this, Timothy? Yeah, so they really, there's some transference here between Troy and Data, where she's like, okay, go be a robot with him. And then give me a report later. Right. I think that it's like after this, that Troy kind of prevails on Data to start to bring the kid back,

you know, like, she's like, like, now that he's been Android-ing around for 16 hours, it's time to start like the process of you talking to him about why you Want you want to be more human why Humanity has such a pull on you and this is step nine. This is post Android. Right. Yeah, like This is like the Pinocchio step. Yeah. Tell them why you want to be a real boy. And like, they, you know, they go to the like malt shop and have some, have some sodies

and data expresses that, you know, drinking a soda will never like be as delightful and experienced for him as it is for a human and that I would gladly risk feeling bad at times if it also meant that I could taste my dessert. And like that kind of adds up for the kid. Like, and I think that it's starting to, it's starting to, like, like, the fact that he's starting to reconnect with his emotional life, foreshadows the fact that he is starting to feel some, like, real, full-blown guilt about what happened to the Vico. Yeah. And this is happening concurrently with the study that the enterprise is doing

into the whole quote-unquote attack on the Vico. And things are just sort of not adding up. They have a little meeting in the ready room and Jordy's like, look, guys, I can't find any sign of a boarding party. I mean, the entrances and exits are unused. All of the points of egress and ingress. Yeah, they're all sealed up tight. There's no like phaser scorch marks around the interior of the ship. Like, I can't figure this thing out.

And so they sort of press Timothy. They sort of interrogate him a little harder. Yeah, and he really breaks like it's like because what he's been dealing with, we discover in this scene is that he feels like he is personally responsible for the destruction of the entire starship. It was me. I did it. Because they got a banger dropped on them and his arm flailed out and hit a computer panel and it was like right then that the ship started getting torn apart.

And they're like, hey, listen, like that is what we call the biz a coincidence. The damage to your ship might have occurred at the same time your arm touched the panel. But it was only a coincidence. It's not like that far side cartoon where the guy is fumbling for the seat recliner and he accidentally hits the wings fall off button instead. Yeah, so you know, and I think that this like, the kid is still having feelings about it, but has gone through like the worst of it and is somewhat persuaded by their consolation that it wasn't his fault.

And so they tried a goodwill hunting him. I know. No, no, no, it's not your fault. But yeah, so they go back out on the bridge and like the enterprise is getting shredded by this nebula at this point. Like they're getting hit harder and harder by bangers, and he's like, this is just what it was like. And the crew keep kind of like checking in status of different systems, and he's like,

I heard that on the bridge, I heard that, I heard that. And conveniently, this kid was like in the command center when the starship that he was on was being torn apart. So he knows what stuff they were dealing with. And data starts using the terms that Slickback is recalling from his misadventure on the Vico. War power to the shields. They said that to data, I'm positive.

The entrepreneur, they keep trying to increase power to the shields. They're shunting work power to the shields, boosting the shields every time they get hit. And they're about to get hit by the biggest banger yet. And data's like, turn them off! And I feel like data is the only character that does this, where he'll give an order that makes no sense and will not explain it until you do it.

He did this a bunch in the Rom Yarlin battle. And it always works out, right? He's always right, but he doesn't use the plenty of time that he obviously always has to explain why. For someone who does not feel emotion, he sure has a sense of drama. Yeah. So it turns out there was like an inverse correlation between all of the, like they're throwing all these logs onto the shield fire. Yeah.

And the hotter that that shield burns, the more powerful the bangers are, they're getting dropped on them. Yeah. I feel like this is like not the, not the first time that's been a thing also. Yeah. But you know, you know, Picard. Yeah, booby trap was all about that, right? Yeah, it kind of was.

So Picard says make it so, they drop the shields, the banger dissipates before it hits them. And the irritation that riker feels. That's suicide data. He's so disgusted by this plan. It's almost like this is how I'm going to go out. Data, you fucking asshole. Yeah.

And like, suicide data is really the perfect thing to say to data too. Right. It has like a master's degree in suicide. Every, every climactic episode that data takes part in, you could say that to him. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they... Lake Rakers not talking to the smartest thing he's ever talked to.

Right. Raker has the confidence of a cisgendered white male who has sex with whomever and whatever strikes his fancy. It's true. Yeah. Too much confidence. whomever and whatever strikes his fancy. It's true, yeah. Too much confidence. So the button on the episode is data and Troy looking

through the like weird one-way interrogation room glass into the school room, which is like, of course, they would have that on this ship. Yeah. And Troy is saying like, of course they would have that on this ship. Yeah. And, you know, Troy is saying like, yeah, like he's at step 48 of the Kubla Ross now. And Data's like, well, he doesn't seem better. And, you know, the kid is not taking part in the round of ro-ro-ro-your-both that everybody else is singing.

Which is how you know he's not all better. Yeah. Because when you do the round robin row row row your boat that's just fun. Yeah you need everybody to get in on that. Yeah. What is it with that? No Alexander to be seen. Oh. What's it with that with that tune on this ship? They're either singing row row Ro your boat or friar azhaka like all the time now. Are those two songs that go across every language language and culture? Like when you are when you are too overdub this for Spanish language or whatever like does that? I was. Yeah that's a good point. Maybe it's maybe it's for the international syndication market. Yeah, you gotta make those syndication bucks.

Yeah, so a little bit of a sad button on this one. Sounds like he's gonna be okay, but it's gonna take some time. Yeah, so date is fine though. It's gonna be like at least a couple of Sonic showers before he has all that pom aid worked out of his hair. Yeah, takes, you know, man, I don't know if you've ever like gone to a wedding or something and tried a new palm aid or hair stuff. And then like you take your shower and it's like not really out the next day.

Yeah, it's going to take multiple washings. Yep, I think. And those brushes are fucking ruined. And brushes that data used. I was like, not the right kind of brush for that project. Because teeth are gonna be jacked. Yeah. I am a cute little ball. There are four lights.

Did you like this episode, Ben? I'm a sucker for a slick back episode, Adam. Have you liked every slick back episode? I may be wrong about this, but I feel like I have. Yeah. What I'm going to say is I felt real personal shame watching this one. Yeah, if we're about what moves the needle,

emotionally, this episode sure does it. It packs emotional bangers. Yeah. I don't know that it's the strongest episode, but it did what it set out to do, I think. I think it is successful on its own terms. Maybe. You think of the other two ways that this plot could have unfolded. Like if Jordy's the guy to save him, does he imprint on Jordy? And then get some weird lady vibes.

If he imprints on... It's like, you know, like fathers are really badly biased against in the in the in the in the courts when it comes to custody concerns. They're like, why are you talking about this kid? You're nine. This is the future. Why are we letting women into the turbo lift before the men? Yeah. And if he imprints on Riker, like, I'm not sure that's a show that could even be shown. No, definitely not.

Yeah. It had to be data. It could only be data. I think I liked it too. I mean, I liked it for its needle moving, and I mean, you can't just help it, wins at everything that this Timothy is doing throughout. It's profoundly embarrassing.

Yeah, but I feel like that is, as an actor, one of the hardest kind of parts to play So as a child actor like this like this character at the ends aware of how how embarrassed Like a kid might be about having done what he did and And that's I mean, I don't know, like I think that asking a kid to lean into experiencing

embarrassment is maybe harder than asking them to lean into experiencing sadness. Yeah, because like, I don't know, someone said that that part of being an actor is like suspending the ego, that has to be the most difficult thing for a child to do, a child of his age, especially because that's almost all that you have. Yeah, we don't have to talk about this too much longer, and I believe we have some, some sort of indication that subspace has information for us, Adam. Do we want to move on to priority one? Let's do it.

Let's check our messages. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on it. Supplement? Supplement. Supplement. Yes, extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship.

Ben, we have a commercial message this time around. Yes. And it is for another podcast. Ben, we have a commercial message this time around. Yeah. And it is for another podcast. Message goes like this. Ask yourself this. Do you have spiky hair? Well, this is a great episode for hair references, no? Do you carry a sword that's twice as tall as you are?

Are you imaginary? And is your dad a whale? What the hell is going on, Adam? It's a bunch of questions. Do you have a soft spot for classic RPGs, like Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, and Baldur's Gate? On square roots, we play through the best RPGs, one chunk at a time. Vanessa, Matthew, Jim, and John,

take a look at the highs and lows of your favorite games from memorable villains to insane translation errors and terrible mini-games. Subscribe to Square Roots today. So it's an RPG podcast. I really liked the game Chrono Trigger a lot when I was a kid. So I'm kind of curious to listen to that arc of the square root by guess. That sounds really fun. I played a lot of the sort of D&D adjacent RPGs that were like, I played TMNT, a lot, I played RIFT. I was very young and very cool, sounds like the target audience for for something like this square roots classic RPG podcast

Yeah, I want to I want to check it out sounds great. Um I really admire anybody that can get four people together for a podcast also Yeah totally scheduling a podcast is tricky enough with two people Yeah, the degree of difficulty on the square root show is far, far higher than ours. Absolutely. And I admire that greatly. Well, relive the glory days of Classic RPGs with the square roots Classic RPG podcast. It's like, let's play for your ears.

Sounds fun. And we have a personal message as well. This one is from Dumpling. And it is to Marshmello. Happy Valentine's Day to my flatulent Marshmello boyfriend. Thank you for introducing me to Star Trek and this awesome podcast. I love you more than Diana Troye loves her chocolate sundays and more than Riker loves consent. You're the best you're dumpling. The form of love that dumpling is describing here might be the greatest combination ever described.

Yeah, it's a sincere form of love at him. More than Riker loves consent. More than Troy loves chocolate. Together. Yeah, I wouldn't think that possible. Nobody loves consent as much as Riker. And, and dumpling loves Marshmello, even though he's totally flatulent. Yeah Gassy Marshmello

Loves him anyway. Yeah, that's pretty that's a Marshmello. I hope you I hope you realize what you've got there Yeah, yeah, hold on a Dumpling tight. Yep And don't let go. Two hands. Two hands, Marshmello! If you have a message that you want to tell the world, our world, our sliver of the universe, made up of our viewers of either a professional

or personal type, you can go to maxmoofun.org, slash jumbo-tron, fill out a little form, you'll have this read your message on air. It's a fantastic way to support the show. Personal messages are $100, business or advertising, style messages are $200, and they help support the show. They sure do Adam.

Hey Ben. What's that Adam? Did you find yourself a slick back drunk Shimoda? Drunk Shimoda! They did find a slick back drunk Shimoda Adam. My drunk Shimoda is in fact, Timothy. There is a, we talked a little bit about the scene where he and data are having a paint together. And they're having kind of a perfunctory conversation at first, talking about yawning and this and

that. And then data really kind of starts to open up and have a heart to heart. And he turns over and Timothy has fallen right to sleep. So I just asleep in his paint. Yeah, like the second data embarks on anything longer than a one sentence question or answer, it puts this kid to sleep immediately

We're deprived of the face and the acrylic scene that I was really hoping to get yeah, it would have been fun Yeah How about yourself? Do you have a drunk Shabata? Yeah, it's the scene where things are at their most Intense where the bangers are really getting dropped on them when the banger amplification is happening. And Timothy and Troy are standing behind data. Troy looks down at Timothy and she's like,

Timothy, perhaps you and I should go below and get out of everyone's way. And Timothy's no, fuck that, I'm staying. That moment where Troy says that line pretty much encapsulates her character and reason for being up until now. Like, maybe I should just get out of the way is Troy's is Deanna Troy's yearbook quote. You know, you wouldn't know it from the last few episodes where she has been very much in the plot all up in it.

But it just hurt getting that line. Maybe it's something that somebody writes in her yearbook, but she doesn't know who wrote it. Like, she's passing the yearbook around at the last day of school and she gets home and discovers that somebody has left an unattributed insult in it. Hey, have a good, so have a good summer. Stay cool. Maybe you should stay out of the way. Yeah, sad. Sad. A greatest gen live show is something you don't want to miss.

Why? Well it's a great opportunity to see me and Ben in person, but that's not all. FODs from all over gather at these shows to cosplay, to do pre and post show hangs, to make friends, and share their embarrassment. Hey, let's make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it. The Share Your Embarrassment Tour is coming in August 2023, and we've got a bunch of dates in a lot of great places.

Go to greatestgentour.com to get more info. That's greatestgentour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer.

My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweards. Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rog 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 open, just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goat try. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, rats, hey, hey, oh, I've gotta count you in line. These clouds are really frigging me out. I hate having to stand in line and boy These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not and they've such short neck, but I'm hearing we need to get on this

I gotta get on the art. Yeah, it's about terrain. It's about to destroy humanity Hey, oh, 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 MaximumFun.org. maximumfun.org. What's coming up on the next episode, Ben? The next episode is season 5, episode 12, violations. Troy, Riker, and Dr. Crusher fall into unexplained comas while the entrepreneur plays host to an alien race.

Do you remember this one, Adam? So gates, serdis and freaks are going to some sort of acting conference. They get this episode off. I feel like this is the one where Troy is being like sexually violated in her sleep by by mindwaves and it's like it's like an after school special about rape but is deeply inardful and not a actually good exegesis on a very hard to discuss topic. If we're not going to get a Denise Crosby turn to camera, how am I supposed to... how am I supposed to understand the issue at hand? Without that kind of inartful explanation. Without being beaten over the head by it.

I don't know Adam. I barely remember this episode. I really wish I'd known that this episode was this season because I would have saved my veto. Rape dreams sort of jogged my memory, but that's about it. Yeah, it's gonna be it's gonna be a tricky one to make jokes about I think. The one of the aliens has bright a Frankenstein loaf, right? That sounds familiar. Like a temple loaf? Yeah. You might be right about that, Adam. Well, we could do research on that,

but we will not. Gotta watch it anyway. We sure do. All right, well, if you'd like to discuss the show with our legions of viewers, use the hashtag GreatestGen on Twitter. At Cut for Time to talk to Adam and at BenjaminRAHR to talk to me. We've also got Facebook and Reddit groups which are lively and hilarious communities.

And what else? We got to thank Adam Reggucia for many many music tracks that he has now made for us and dark material for our theme song. We have an EP amount of music tracks for our show now. Yeah we should like put it up on band camp. Yeah send the proceeds to our friends at the National Center for Science Education maybe. Right? That would be a good move, right? That would be a bad move at all. Sounds right.

Feels good. Let's talk to the goose about that. Let's have a discussion or then. If he's not into it, we'll cut this part out. That's fair. Well, thanks to everybody. Thanks so much to the great folks at MaximumFund.org for all the help and support they give us. I'm really excited about our new Drunk Shemotas Spartan Grill pint class.

And with that, we will be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek, the next generation, and a very special episode of the greatest generation that you'll want to watch after school with your mom and dad around so you can talk about some important issues. Make it sound. Make it sound. Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture, Artistone Listener Supported

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