The Greatest Generation - Untrustworthy Hair (ENT S2E6)

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

When the Entrepreneur stops at a deuterium mining colony, the very stressed out miners don’t seem willing to sell. But when Trip offers to help with facility repairs, Archer insists on teaching a man how to murder his bullies. Which cartoon character definitely has bodies? What could these Klingons use more of? Why is T’Pol keeping her badass-ness under a basket? It’s the episode that establishes a slickback timeline.Support the production of The Greatest GenerationGet a thing at podshop.biz!Sign up for our mailing list!Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Riker - Quantum LeapThe Greatest Generation is produced by Wynde PriddySocial media is managed by Rob Adler and Bill TilleyMusic by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFriends of DeSoto for: Labor | Democracy | JusticeDiscuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen and find us on social media:YouTube | Facebook | X | Instagram | TikTok | Mastodon | Bluesky | ThreadsAnd check out these online communities run by FODs: Reddit | USS Hood Discord | Facebook group | Wikia | FriendsOfDeSoto.social

Hey, before the show today, Adam and I just wanted to remind you that Second Contact, our three-episode series of live shows in which we revisit and reassess classic episodes of TNG, are still available through the end of the year. But after that, like the nubbin bugs, they'll never be heard from again. So let me tell you, these are beautifully produced video streams that are really fucking funny and fun to watch. The FODs who have already seen them have said such nice things to us about them. You're not gonna want to miss these shows.

It's $15 for a single episode and $30 for all three. Plus, you can get a further discount if you're a MaxFun member. Check your email for that. I'm so pleased with how they came out and I think you're really gonna enjoy them. GreatestGenTour.com and hey, they make a great gift. Stream these shows before they're gone by going to GreatestGenTour.com. Here's to the finest crew in Starling. When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument from me.

This is a parody. Paramount owns the song Welcome to the Greatest Generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast. I'm Adam Pranica. I'm Ben Harrison. I could have sworn it was my kick today, but you kicked. And I feel good about that. I did that thing where I waited a couple of seconds and I wasn't sure if the kick was gonna happen. So I just went and kicked it myself. Man, I a little bit feel like the show is the football. You're Lucy and I'm Charlie Brown. Lucy never kicks the football herself, does she?

No. Why don't you try kicking the football, Lucy? Why or why do I let her do this to me? Does Charlie Brown have the like, vindictive soul that you would need to pull the same shit on her if she, if the cards were ever in the other hands? Oh, Charlie Brown grew up and has bodies. I'm positive about that. You don't grow up the way he did and arrive at adulthood in any way well adjusted.

A failure face if I ever saw one. The footballs in his life are all around him. I mean, if that was true, then I'd probably have bodies too, because just like going through life being humiliated by all your peers is kind of all I ever did as a child. I mean, honestly, Ben, I wouldn't rule out bodies for you either. I'm starting to think about it.

I'm giving bodies some consideration. What you're doing is you're giving some bodies energy and whether or not you have bodies, I think you want to be the sort of person that could or could not have bodies, right? Right. You want to be a mystery? Like people will fuck with you less if they're like, it could be the bodies type. Exactly.

You look like someone who might throw your tray in a lunch room at a penitentiary, you know? Yeah. I'd be like the nice quiet guy who boiled over one day. Like Charlie Brown. What's it like when you snap? Uh, I've snapped a couple of times. I snapped on a, uh, not a real estate agent.

What do you call the guy that, like, opens the door for you to check out an apartment and then you have to pay him, like, two months rent when you get the apartment. Uh, landlord? No, because he was like an agent. Uh-huh. Uh, a broker. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. An apartment broker. Sure. I snapped on one of those guys one time. Wow. Yeah. Got him to cut his, his like completely absurd and unadvertised rate in half. RSVP that guy.

Yeah, yeah. Did you push him off a fire escape? No, I just yelled at him in the hallway of an office building where a management company was. Amazing. Yeah. I wish I knew that Benjamin R. Harrison. That Benjamin R. Harrison is dead.

Just under a simmering pot right now. Yeah. I mean, there's some pretty nice, like mild mannered guys in this episode that snap, but they only snap at the urging of Archer. You know, great pivot into episode, Ben, because that really is what we're talking about here, right? What's your limit before you start to push back? How much are you going to take from the Klingons?

How many leaders of Deuterium are you going to let them take from you? I'm fucking pumped up for this episode now. Listen to you. Yeah. Let's get into it. It's Star Trek Enterprise Season 2 Episode 6. It's called Marauders. I love that sting of the violins on the opening shot of this episode. We're in what can only be described as an oil drilling town in California. I do my own drilling.

Doesn't it feel to you like the sort of place that would be great for Ro Lallen to give her uniform top to little kid. Mm-hmm. I feel like that was a set they never took down. You'd be like, damn, she's got a tank top under the head. Hubba hubba. ["The Last Supper"] Way too dry to have an Egypt's family involved,

though I also did get a planet Egypt's family vibes from this place. No open pipes, no nothing. This is very dry. It's a dusty planet, a bug planet. Pretty good by my estimate. Yeah, he doesn't have a lot to do here. Some dudes are working with some wrenches.

Manual labor is what they're doing. They look up Skyward and they see something incoming. What is that, Ben? It's a shuttle pod. And one thing about this shuttle pod that I did not like was how quiet it was. Yeah. Why isn't it giving us any air over the whole whooshing sound? It's absolutely silent on the way in.

And I feel like you can see the burn on the back. You can see exhaust or something coming off of it. That doesn't make a sound. I've always wondered with this show why the shuttle pods are so dumb looking. Like, why that big bulbous shape with the, like, one bubble of glass for somebody to look out of in the pilot seat, but it seems like, you know, like some modern cars you get in and like the hood is just too high,

you can't tell how far you are from anything out the front of it because, and they have like tons of sensors to counteract the confusion that this causes, but like it just feels unnerving to drive a car where you have no sense of how far you are from anything. You're exactly right. I was wondering if there's ever a time when Tripp is piloting this thing where he'd do that thing that bush pilots do where, you know, you get into the low altitude. Sometimes you'll just kick open the door. Get some fresh air in there.

Maybe see exactly how high off of the water your floats are before you hit. Right. Like, I don't know, crack the window, Tripp Tucker. You don't get any of that. This thing is geared for silent running. Well, my theory is maybe it is so perfectly designed as an airfoil that it makes no sound. And it looks strange to us because our aircraft designers

aren't making these compromises, you know? No. They're like, it will look very stupid and be hard to see out the front of, but it will be perfectly silent. After the theme, the shuttle pod doors finally open, an action that should only take place on the ground, according to the passengers inside and out,

pops Archer and T'Pol and Trip Tucker. T'Pol in some whites, which I think is notable on a planet that looks very dirty and that also does dirty work. Right, I was stressed for her wardrobe. My wife left on a business trip this morning, like got up early, caught a plane, white jacket. And I'm like, I know and love my wife.

And I, emphasis on the first word, I know her. Yeah. This is risky. White jacket on an airplane. Risky behavior. I don't know. This is, this is to Paul. This is the, what's Paul's doing. This is white jacket on an away mission.

Cause like Archer and Tripp are in the desert away mission stuff that they wore when they were hanging out with Clancy Brown. Yeah. So like presumably this is the Vulcan analog of it, but I don't think it's logical to have it be this crisp and white. I mean, she looks great, but at what expense? Yeah. At what cost?

So yeah, they walk up to these guys who are like, oh man, we're so relieved we didn't recognize your ship when it came down. Because if it was the one we recognize, we'd be hyper stressed out right now. Anyways, what do you want? Uh, you should probably get out of here. And Archer's like, oh yeah, well, I was trying to hail you, but, uh, nobody picked up, so we just decided to come, come on down, invite ourselves in.

We scanned the shit out of you guys, and seems like you've got a whole lot of deuterium. I assume that's what the greasy stuff is. You're lifting up out of the ground. Can we get some? Tripp, like, wipes a finger on the other guy's chest and puts it in his mouth. Like, that's deuterium, all right.

Oh, yeah, Cap. 98.5% purify, if I'm not wrong. You know how so often, I mean, obviously, dialogue does so much to tell you how characters feel about each other, but I think this is a scene that's an example of the absence of certain dialogue telling you just as much. I think it is very telling that Archer and DePaul and Tripp Tucker are like, hey, I'm Archer and this is DePaul and Tripp Tucker are like, hey, I'm Archer and this is T'Pol and Tripp Tucker. And these guys do not introduce themselves.

I don't think they ever do. They don't want to do business with the Starfleets. And they're like, yeah, like you were right that you detected deuterium when you scanned us, but that is spoken for. You can come back at the end of the season and maybe we'll be able to sell you something, but odds is spoken for. You can come back at the end of the season and maybe we'll be able to sell you something, but odds are not good. No deuterium? This place is a dump.

These pumps are broken, Ben. Yeah. Even if they could spare some deuterium, they are running at a deficiency that would allow sharing any of their extra. Yeah. This guy named Mockley, played by Steven Flynn, who I've seen in a bunch of stuff, he's like, hey, if you could wrench on these two pumps that we have that are currently down, like we could get back on pace and maybe we'd be open to trading with you in that case. And Tripp is like, I'll go get my tools.

And it seems like there is a little bit of an opening for a deal to be made. Is this like that thing where you never hear someone say goodbye before hanging up a telephone? The end of this scene is like, oh yeah, Trip Tucker's gonna go get his tools. I don't feel like this arrangement is agreed to by both parties. No, I mean, it becomes clear that there's like further negotiations to be done.

But it was weird given how little trust they started off with that everybody was just on the same page about that without overtly discussing it. Like Tripp goes back and he's fetching whatever he needs to fetch and he meets Kel, who is a markedly less successful sketch comedian than his erstwhile partner, but loves a shuttlecraft, loves, you know, assessing the different types. He's a real nerd of this and Trip is like a little bit charmed by this little guy and says that, hey, if your mom and dad say it's okay, you can come back up to the ship and get a little tour, you know. Gives him like a little like plastic

wings with a little adhesive on the back of it. Kel puts it on his shirt. Very exciting. You want a root for Kel because he's not haunted. He's not a slick back. He has two living parents. There's some conversation later in the episode about some folks who have died. This kid seems pretty well adjusted.

At this point, you have nothing but optimism for Kel, given how voluminous and puffed up his hair is. Yeah, he seems to have freshly washed his hair and just sort of towel dried it out at this point. Looks great. He doesn't have that annoying kid affect that so many TV and movie kids have who are coded as smart. Like this kid's clearly smart and he's got an interest

in being a pilot or whatever, but he's not that cloying kind of, ugh. Right. That kind of kid. Like he's actually down to hang. He's not like precocious in a way that the adults writing for him just are like, why don't we just write him like he's a wise beyond his

years adult? Yeah. Yeah. We cut over to a tent where the aforementioned negotiations are happening and it's going really badly. These people want a lot for this piddling amount of deuterium that is being discussed and Archer is not willing to part with as many power cells as they're hoping to get. It's Camp McLaughlin Group.

Issue one. And it made me wonder whether or not they ever took that show on the road. Was there ever a McLaughlin Group road show? Right. Feels like there would have been at some point. They share like travel bookings with antiques road shows every week. They're in like, we're coming to you from Battle Creek, Michigan. You just, you bring the group a political opinion and John McLaughlin goes, wrong. And then there's no appraised value to it. There's like the sparkle sound and then wrong on the lower third and that's what you're hoping to get.

Yeah. There you salty long. This woman suggests like maybe we don't need all power cells, maybe we could also get some medical supplies from you guys. And they come to an agreement that feels like a really bad deal from Archer's standpoint. It's gonna be like four power cells and a bunch of medical equipment and you got to get it done in two days. Like you got to get these pumps fixed and be out of here or you do not get paid. I don't know much about mining miners or refinement or whatever, but this seems like more than a two day job.

Don't you think? Yeah, I don't know. You watch those gold mining shows on Discovery Channel and that's like half of the drama of every episode is like the huge barrel that turns around and sluices the gold has broken down and they only have three days left in the season. Can they get it fixed before it ices over? So you've got more context for this than I have. I've never seen a second of a show like that.

Yeah. I mean, they're terrible shows, but, you know, I'll watch anything. This timeline is hard and it's close and it's gonna be enforced. Like, that's definitely the feeling you're getting from this scene. Like, you got two days, you may be leaving here with Deuterium or not, but the two-day thing is gonna happen. That's the vibe. Ellis, the lady, goes up to Sixth Bay and is just kind of grabbing everything she can. It's a bit of a shopping spree in there for her.

She doesn't want Flox's weird starfish leech. Thank you, but I'll just take some vascular adhesive. She wants a lot of other things. She gets stuff that seems impossibly fancy and expensive to her. He's like a tiny bit suspicious of like, what's going on with these people based on her pick list because it seems like a lot of like wound treatment stuff. And he's

like, God damn, I didn't have any sense that mining for deuterium resulted in a lot of phaser burns. Kind of a lot of venereal disease treatment products here, Ellis. Like sort of a lot of creams and sprays and suppositories. And what's going on here seems pretty pervy, doesn't it? Should we take that kid with us and like see if we can rehome him somewhere a little safer? You were confiding an interest in a show you're not proud of. This felt like supermarket sweep to me. I love supermarket sweep. This lady is going through all the cabinets,

picking stuff out. And it feels like Dr. Flax is more than happy to provide, like this stuff doesn't have any great value to him. Where I think he would draw the line though, is if she reached into a cage where there was a weird animal or a squeaky plant or something, I don't think she'd be allowed to have one of those, right? He's like, it's easy to take care of,

you're gonna love it. And she's like, meh, I don't know. Ellis is like, what about this pile of freshly cut toenails? He's like, oh no, no, no. You can't tell me that that has medical properties. I need those. Yeah.

So there's a darkness in her that I think is clear, that Flox observes to, right? Yeah. And she denies it and then kind of hastily leaves the scene before anything could be said of it. T'Pol and Archer have a conversation as they're walking around this town. Really weird how poor these guys are, given what a valuable commodity they mine. What's up with how poor they are? And T'Pol's like, stop judging them. Hey Archer, I got a movie I want to show you.

It's called Blood Diamond, you stupid fuck. Yeah. Oh, it's weird. Look at how, look at how dirty and poor these miners are. Yeah. Look at how dirty and poor these miners are. You tell me the miners that still exist near Earth or whatever are living high on the hog? Not so sure. Anyway, it seems like a surprise to Archer in this scene. So Tripp is working with one of these dudes on fixing up one of the pumps and a ship shows

up. This is Korokrock we find out. It's a ship with 12 Klingons aboard and on the surface, everybody kind of starts to make themselves scarce. Like everybody needs to like stop what they're doing and get inside for safety's sake. And, uh, this is a bit of like a surprise inspection energy. They thought they had three more days till Korok showed up. Yeah.

It's a real urgent situation. I mean, what we know at this point is that this Klingon ship hasn't picked up Enterprise in orbit. Archer's like, cool, let's keep it that way. Hide behind moons or whatever. Stay off of their radar. Stay hidden. And when the Klingons beamed down to the mining area, I thought this guy

was Clancy Brown. And I think it's confusing when you have two episodes with characters that sound like Clancy Brown, one of them actually having Clancy Brown, like in such close proximity. My old friend. I feel like that sounds like Clancy Brown racism. I swear it's not. I mean, a lot of loaf involved in the second character, so you could be forgiven. Sure.

I had to look it up. Not Clancy Brown, but it made me wonder, has Star Trek ever had a very special guest star multiple times in close proximity, like two in a row or two spaced between a couple of episodes. Man, maybe. Strong move. A lot of people are surprised to learn that there are 900 Captain Koroks. More Koroks than a Klingon phone book. There's a moment when they're entering the town square.

They've beamed down and Tesik, the leader guy, is like talking to Archer and he's like, just stay out of sight, do not get involved. And those are two phrases that just mean absolutely nothing to Archer. Yeah, these guys aren't willing to accept the two pumps are down explanation. And then another deadline is given in this scene, right? Four days. Fix the pumps. Give us our deuterium and we'll be back then. He's like a shakedown guy who's like, I like you, you're my friend. I could go get this

anywhere, but I get it from you because you're so great. I like the way Korok was written. I feel like in a movie, he would be more charismatic. In this episode, he is not really, in a way that I kind of craved more of. Like, you're describing a character type that we run into in specifically like gangster movies. The gangster with the riz. You know, like, God, he sucks, but also, you know, like, I'm feeling this way when I'm, I've been watching The Penguin Show on HBO and damn it if I don't really love the penguin. Penguin's a monster, but like he's so weird and interesting and he's got this strange charisma. Like I was kind of hoping for a little more of that. Just like,

just a little more of that. Just like, just a little more spice. Yeah. It's a dab. A dab will do ya. Yeah. Mockley got kind of roughed up by the Klingons, so they take him back into the tent and start, you know, treating all of his wounds and it becomes clear why all of this medical equipment was needed. And Archer's like, man, what are you guys doing? There's like seven of them. There's so many of you. Why are you letting them like kick your ass around the, around the mining site like this?

Tessac is like, yeah, I mean, we tried to fight back three years ago and it went bad. Uh, just ask Kel over there and Kel like lowers his head. Turns out he is a slick back. He just hasn't, his hair's on like a delayed reaction thing. Maybe it's four seasons it will take for his

hair to slick back. This idea of a slick back timeline, I think deserves scrutiny, right? Like at what point does the hair slick back? You don't go to the funeral with slick back hair. I think you just kind of grow into the lifestyle of it. Yeah. It'd be weird to show up to your father's funeral with like a whole different look. Does he have any surviving parents? Like is Ellis' mom? Do we know that?

I couldn't quite tell. Like the way she was interacting with him felt a little ambiguous to me. I'm just wondering, like, you don't want to go to a funeral for one parent with a slick back, given the connotation, like if you have a surviving parent, they're like, what are you doing? I'm not dead yet. Don't slick back yet. No slick back. I'm going to step up.

I promise. Like I'm going to fill the gap. He was like, no. I'm going to step up. I promise. Like I'm going to fill the gap. He was like, no. I will never die. So now they just roll over. That's the big takeaway from this. They fought them once. It didn't go well.

And so now they just walk around with atomic wedgies multiple times a year. And Archer and T'Pol and Tripp Tucker walk out of camp, like camp like pointing behind them like what the fuck is up with those guys? Yeah. Like I guess we're gonna go back in a shuttle. What a bummer. But Trip stays behind he doesn't go back up to the ship because that kid from before needs an apology for the the Enterprise tour not happening and this kid has a very interesting point. None of this shit would be happening if Enterprise decided to go weapons hot against the Klingons. And the mood right now? Very disappointed.

You could have just shot them out of the sky and then this problem would be over. Or I mean, I don't care how bad of a shot Reed is. Shoot one torpedo at the surface? It doesn't even have to hit just like them seeing a huge explosion on the surface would. I think they'd get the point right? Sure. Faith of the fart. Can you hear the hunger in my voice? I'm so hungry. It's because I just got home from the dentist and I didn't eat before going. Because I think that's kind of considerate, right? To

someone rummaging around in your mouth. Look at the time. It's already after 6 in the PM. What am I gonna eat? Well, I could order takeout but that's so expensive. That's not a good way to feel good either. What I want is something fast and healthy and convenient. And for that, there's factor. Factor is cheaper than takeout and dining out. And the food is sure to satisfy with comfort foods like homestyle chicken and gravy, loaded mashed potato pork chops,

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All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show, let's learn everything. So let's do a quick progress check. Have we learned about quantum physics? Yes, episode 59. We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we? Yes, we have, same episode actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters? Episode 64. So how close are we to learning everything? Bad news, we still haven't learned everything yet. We're ruined! No no no, it's good news as well! There is still a lot to learn! I'm Dr Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum. I'm Caroline Boper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too. And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode. Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun. People say not to judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree. Which is why here on Just the Zoo of Us, we judge them by so much more. We rate animals out of 10 in the categories of effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics,

taking into consideration each animal's true strengths, like a pigeon's ability to tell a Monet from a Picasso or a polar bear's ability to play basketball. Guest experts like biologists, ecologists, and more join us to share their unique insight into the animal's world. Listen with friends and family of all ages on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get podcasts. In his clarinet rental studio, Archer's hanging out at the bum out window and T'Pol comes in, she's like, okay, we got all the deuterium we asked for.

And Archer gets up onto his self-righteous high horse and he's like, man, like I bet, I bet, like if we just like go talk to like the people in charge of Kronos, like they would, they would put a stop to this. Like we got Klaying back to them and like, we pulled those guys out of that gas giant. Like we're, we're solid with the Klingons.

They should do what we ask. Like if we ask them a favor, that should work. And De Paul's like, these guys are not operating within the bounds of the law. These guys do seem to lack a distinct honor. That's very true. Archer kind of trails off and looks to Paul up and down and is like, you were on that dusty, dirty planet with us, right?

Like I'm looking down at the collars around your pant legs, like perfectly white and clean. How'd you do that? Your boots, patent white leather boots, totally clean. What's going on here, T'Pol? Suspicious. Yeah.

And she's like, Hey man, I agree with you. Like A, it is improbable that I stayed this clean, but that's just part of the mystery with me. And B, like, what are we going to do? If we help these guys fight the Klingons, it's just going to scare the Klingons away for a minute, but then it's going to immediately exacerbate the situation. Like, they will come back in greater numbers or whatever.

The math of this drove me crazy, Ben, because like, once it's established that like, these seven Klingons exist outside of the purview of high councilness, doesn't that also leave them open as targets for enterprise to do with whatever they will without fear of high council retribution? To me, it feels like they're off the hook. It would seem as though they are off the hook without fear of retribution, but yeah, I think Archer's just too much of a goody goody

to do it that way. Yeah. He shows back up on the surface, and it's now nighttime, and Tessac is like trying to repair some piece of equipment. Archer offers to help Tessic wrench on this thing and they get to talking. And Archer's like, hey man, why do you just let them shove you around like that?

That sucks. Why, like you're just rolling over them, showing them the soft part of your belly to them every time they come down here? Like what, what's wrong with you? Why do you have no self-respect? It doesn't help that Archer's wearing a Starfleet Letterman's jacket in this scene. Why do you have no self-respect? It doesn't help that Archer's wearing a Starfleet

Letterman's jacket in this scene. And his hair is like, uh, like bleached at the tips. He's carrying a football around. It's a strange energy, right? Because I think what Archer thinks he's doing is given a little motivational speech, but what it sounds like in the moment is a lot of dunking. Like Tessac is throwing out this vibe, sort of vibe a person has where like they lost once and would rather not play if it meant risking another loss. And that's even though winning would change everything for him. It occurs to me that while the Klingon High Council might not have anything to say about

what Korok is up to, I bet if they talk to the great Deku Tree, he could put a stop to this. I don't... Any Legend of Zelda fans on the call today? Hey, listen. Man, you missed me with that, but I'm sure a ton of people will enjoy the reference. Oh yeah, cool. You know what? I enjoyed that reference about as much as Tessac enjoyed the teach a man to fish

story, which made me feel like that character in Airplane that Stryker keeps talking to that like I feel like that character in Airplane that Stryker keeps talking to that, like, dumps a barrel of gasoline on himself and starts to light a match. Are you fucking kidding me? Tessac is at rock bottom. You really think the Teach Amanda Fish story

is gonna be motivational at this point? Doesn't feel like that. Yeah. One thing I wanna talk about in this moment is so much of this guy's dark story is he watched people die the last time they, they resisted. Right. I think what's missing from this story is the

death because Tessac is a character just feels kind of a malaise instead of dark and haunted and brooding and angry even. Like it's okay to be angry and not want to fight, but it doesn't even seem like he's angry. You know what I mean? He doesn't come across as angry. He, he's more just stressed.

Like he's a stressed out leader who doesn't have a good solution to all the problems that beset his people. The, the check stands are getting slammed at the deuterium grocery store on the day before Thanksgiving. Like that's the vibe that he's got. Yeah, yeah. He's a stressic. Yeah, yeah, he sure is.

So they have a meeting about like strategy and they got a bunch of like dusty old rifles that these guys had around and at no point does it seem to be on the table that the entrepreneur would provide any like additional fire power to the to the project because this isn't really a firepower oriented strategy it's going to be a deuterium based trap what they're gonna do is take the whole town and pick up all of the pieces of it and move it 50 meters. So like really fucking far.

I don't know how far that is. Yeah. I mean, that's, it's, uh, it's impossible to say, but, uh, that's like a 30 minute drive. Yeah. Easy. Okay. If not more or a little less. Okay. Depending on the time of day.

They're going to like cap off the wells and disguise them and then like rig them to blow. And so they've got three days to do this because that's how much time is left before Korok returns with his men. We get a little like, it's a combination of training montage and town demo and reconstruction montage. We get to have a scene where Hoshi has now become the master at target practice. Do you mind, Lieutenant? She shows Mockley what Reed showed her. I don't like Hoshi's unexplained presence

in a scene with Reed. Like, come on Hoshi. You don't have to be there. This isn't your department, but once she starts kicking ass with the rifle training, it makes a lot of sense. It makes me wonder like, is Reed not good at rifle either?

If he was an instructor or an expert on this sort of thing, you'd think he would have noticed the finger stuff. Hoshi's all over what this guy should be doing with his fingers. And I think when you're told what you should be doing with your fingers, you better listen. Yeah. Listen to Hoshi on that one, not read. Yeah. No.

It's all going to be very academic coming from him. Anyways, Tripp has been setting up the traps and Archer has been reassembling the town and they have a little conversation where Tripp is like, wondering whether this is, you know, exactly what T'Pol was worrying about. Like, is this just going to put them in a worse spot when it comes to the Klingons? And Archer's like... I've never liked bully strip. Not on Earth. And not out here.

It was, like, not a satisfactory answer, in my opinion. Pretty great. I mean, this is clearly the sort of episode that is in that weave the show is doing, right? Like, sometimes the enterprise helps too much, sometimes too little. Like there's correcting and over-correcting. They're trying to find a consistent way to treat situations like this. And this is one of those imperfect middles that they're in where they're sort of helping, but they're not orbitally bombarding six Klingons to death like they easily could. They're teaching a man to murder a Klingon so that they can then go on to murder Klingons as many as they want.

I guess. Get a little sequence where T'Pol shows off some of her Vulcan Kwon-Do skills, but she's like, I don't have time to teach you any of this, but I can teach you how to dodge. So that is going to be like the entire focus of their, of their hand-to-hand combat training. I love the, the moment where T'Pol demonstrates is badass and she's great at this. And I love, like she's got real drill sergeant energy in a fun way. And you see her do her move.

What doesn't work is when you see this move exported to the entire class and it's clearly like dodge, dodge, roll. That's it. It's like, it's like playing Street Fighter or something, where that's what your character can do, the dodge, dodge, roll. That's your special move. That's it. Pretty fun.

Is there a movie Equilibrium with Christian Bale? The Gun Cata. It's like a way of shooting your guns so that bullets don't hit you. What? Ah, shit! Shoot him, shoot him, shoot him! Nothing can ever hit you if you dodge dodge roll. What's great about dodge dodge roll

is you don't need to hire a fight choreographer to teach a bunch of guest stars how to do this. It's dodge dodge roll. You don't need to be a professional. DePaul can teach them that. Yeah. So we're back on the surface and the camp moves almost complete and Tripp and that non-slick back talk about how much or little this dude's gonna be involved with the defense

of the camp. And at this moment, I was like, well, the kid really wants to fight and Trip is doing all he can to sort of discourage this from happening. He says he's a good shot with a weapon. In my mind, I'm formulating an ending to this thing where like the Klingons are going to have the upper hand and this kid is going to save them in a very like Rambo 3 kind of way, right? Like this kid is involved, he's discouraged, but he saves the day in the end. I'm thinking that's what's going to happen at this point. Preparations continue and Tripp's like, you know what you should do is go take that martial arts class from T'Pol. Learn how to dodge, dodge, roll. Dodge, dodge, roll.

I've heard that if your hair is like pretty greased up and slicked back, it makes it easier to do the roll part and it's a little bit more honest about where you're at in life, kid. Cause that's the one part that's making me not trust that you could be a part of this defense. You have untrustworthy hair. So Archer visits Tessac and they do the old captain's walk before the big battle.

He's been nervous before captain Archer and he's nervous now. Vizzy got, V Archer, and he's nervous now. Vizigot, vizigot, et cetera. -♪ HISSING AND LAUGHING CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINUES, LAUGHS CONTINU under that kind of bat-lift looking arch structure. They start walking around. Town is damn quiet. Too quiet, you might say. Their way of getting the town's attention is by licking a shot in the atmosphere. Love that sound.

How good was that sound, right? It was a good sound. Show yourselves! A guy like steps out from behind a tent and sprints for a berm and the Klingons give chase. I could not believe that the first thing that is done to the Klingons is just a classic rope clothesline. I had a problem with using bird calls to pop off the guerrilla style combat. I mean, are we sure that birds live on this planet?

Oh, man. Did they go over the tuky-tuky and so forth to get the sound code right? I feel like we're missing a scene here. I actually forgot how the code goes. That's why I did that. This pops off a bunch of moments that feel very red-dawny. You know, like there's some rock throwing, there's some Vulcan dodging, like T'Pol gets a badass scene of kicking the shit out of a guy, but it's all very bloodless, right? Bloodless

in a way that could have used a little more blood here, Ben. Yeah. Like, you don't have to show me death. Like I'm fine with people not getting killed here, but geez, a little weak. The Klingons get roughed up and are kind of collecting themselves in the middle of town and are like, well, that was ridiculous. We're going to make them pay. No more Mr.

Nice Klingon or whatever. And they start walking toward the hills where they suspect the towns people are going to be, but this is no good because they're not walking near the explosive parts of the ground. Uh, the whole moving the town part, uh, didn't get them positioned right where Arshur needs them. So the whole gang scrambles clandestinely over rocks and through these ravines and they get them right where they wanted and suddenly the Klingons are surrounded by balls of flame and Tessac comes down and confronts Korok face to face.

How'd you feel about this, Ben? Like this did not go the way I expected it to. In the tease of this being a trap, I thought, you know, hiding the flammables suggested to me that like a little more than just a warning flame or fire fence situation would be happening. I mean, I'm a red blooded American man. I like to see a stunt man staggering around on fire. That's just me. That's just what I like. And I wanted one of those in this scene. And instead it's like a wrestling ring that's framed by a wall of flames.

Right. And they're told that there's more right under them, so don't make any sudden moves. Yeah. But yeah, you don't get that guy stumbling around where his proportions are all wrong because he's got so many layers of clothing to protect him from the fire. That's just part of it. That's the part that I like. Yeah. Sometimes they have like a weird mask on to protect their face. Then you could just see it. Tessit goes from guy who barely raises his voice when talking about fighting and dying

a few years ago to barely raising his voice as he tells the Klingons what the new deal is. He's like, here's the terms, you leave and you don't come back. Otherwise we're going to turn up the flames here. And if you come back, we'll be ready is the warning. And these Klingons beam away after hearing that? Like, whoop. Do these Klingons, do they not observe the, what I'm going to just call the code of honor

among Klingons? Like, why would they ever beam out of a conflict like this? Every Klingon I know would have run through fire to cut off Tessac's head. Yeah. I mean, I guess Korok is without honor. Is that it? If you're gonna give Tessick the hero turn, have him raise his voice and puff himself

up. And then when these guys fuck off, have him turn back to the townspeople and like raise his rifle. Wolverines! Like Tessick needs to embrace how iconic this moment is, and I feel like he's just too dead inside to do that. Yeah, I mean, the half-life of stress is like, it takes a while to get out of your system, you know?

Yeah. So, yeah, they win. Kel has gone back to the shuttle. He didn't help. He didn't help. Like, weren't you expecting him to either fuck it up or, or win the day? Yeah. Neither was what happened.

And I lost a ton of money. Yeah. I thought somebody would go down and he would pick up a rifle and do something heroic or something. Kel, don't go near the flames. And then like, trip turns away. Like, oh, yeah. I mean that, that little boy didn't have a bunch of hair products in him

I regret tell him to slick his hair back It's what ignited first he wasn't even that close his poor little dome was full of accelerants That's that's not a nice way to go Least dad I no longer have to give a stranger these schematics to our entire ship. Which in retrospect, sort of a dangerous thing to give a small child on a planet we'll never see again. This is strange from an op-sec standpoint. Why didn't I just let him look at my nipples?

He'd probably be perfectly excited by that. You're never gonna let that go, are you? We have so many rolled up enterprise cutaway posters. Would have been perfect for his bedroom. Yeah, like he gives him basically an iPad too. Yeah. I mean, great gift. Yeah. They get paid, you know, 100X what they asked for or something, like an absolutely staggering amount of deuterium. And there's all these barrels getting piled up next to their shuttle.

And I did not understand how this episode ended with Archer and DePaul getting into the shuttle and leaving all the deuterium there. What was that? I think there's a way you could read this scene that goes, wow, you're being very generous with the deuterium now. And it's because they went above and beyond on the enterprise crew side to ensure their safety. That goes like, actually, we can't carry that much deuterium. Like we could only, like,

we put the nozzle into the gas tank and like the nozzle went click. Like thanks, thanks and everything. But like, we start overfilling the deuterium. It's gonna run down the paint. It's gonna make a big mess. My fingers are gonna smell. There's a little yellow sticker on the pump

that specifically says not to do that. Yeah, yeah. So they leave it. I can only hope they're like sending another shuttlecraft down with some grunts to like load it up or something, but. Haven't they done enough moving this episode? Like so much of this episode was like the discomfort of moving. Yeah. When you're asked to help move and also also like impending war after the move. What if that was the explanation?

Like Archer was like, what's all this deuterium? And they're like, well, you win above and beyond. So we decided to do that also. And he's like, you know what? My back is just shot to hell after schlepping that town 50 meters. You know, the thing is like at our age pizza isn't a commensurate reward for all the effort

we put in here. You know? Like I think we've grown out of that as being a payment. You got a six pack, but it was a domestic? Like what are you doing? Ben, some problems at the end of this episode, but how'd you feel about the episode in total. I don't know, man. I liked a lot of this episode, but the concern that T'Pol raises is like, what could we possibly do to help these guys scare the Klingons away once that would

work on them in such a way that it would scare them away forever. And I think you have to buy that whatever plan Archer comes up with it after that moment is going to satisfy the conditions that she sets. And I didn't feel like it did. I don't think that they can always blow up a bunch of deuterium in a perfect circle around the Klingons every time they beam down in such a way that The Klingons will actually be scared to come back. Yeah, these guys are dead within a week, right? All of them. Yeah It's kind of a bad episode because it just doesn't stick the landing for me like as much as I like all of the

it just doesn't stick the landing for me. Like as much as I like all of the, the setup stuff. And I thought the, the like dilemma was really interesting and like the place was interesting. Like, I don't know. I was also just like, is deuterium like that hard to come by? It's just, it's hydrogen with an extra electron, right? Like that seems like an abundant resource. Check out the big brains on Ben.

I just like, I wrote it down in my notes app and then just did like look up. And it was like, oh, it's just hydrogen. There's lots of that. I mean, as stated in the episode before where, where they had to go to the repair shop to fix their saucer. I like the maintenance business of Starship Exploration.

This feels like it's a version of that, but like I want a new spin on The Magnificent Seven or whatever, or like this episode reminded me of Karate Kid in a way. Like we're gonna train the bullied to repel the bully. And in the end, the bully will respect you and not try to hurt you anymore. But that doesn't export to Klingons

because for Klingons, it's death on the line and not you're standing in your high school hierarchy socially. Like I wanted a reverse Magnificent Seven. I wanted like a reverse cowgirl Seven Samurai. Like I wanted something else. Like it was too on the nose as a retelling of that. So, yes, I liked the biz part of it, but, like, if it feels like something...

I'm with you, Ben. This episode was missing something, and I think we proposed a bunch of ways that you could fill that up with something different. It's like, what doesn't work about this episode is also what doesn't work about the Rebel Moon movies on Netflix. It doesn't even have like a robot with antlers on his head to like sell you on it.

I appreciate that this series is doing that, that sine wave of like, get involved, leave them alone, get involved, leave it alone. But like, there is not that them alone, get involved, leave it alone. But like, there is not that epilogue of self-awareness that's like, well, we tried the middle this time, let's see if they live another week. But maybe that's just implied with what's going on here. I wonder if they'll come back and check on these guys and be like, oh man, what a tragedy. Yeah. Let's see if we've got anything scorched in the Priority One message inbox. What do you say?

Let's do it. Priority One message from Starfleet coming in on Secure Channel. Need a supplemental income. Supplemental income. Supplemental. Supplemental. Yeah, it's extra. By the interest alone, could be enough to buy this ship. Our first P1 here is of a promotional

nature and goes like this. I figured being a Trekkie wasn't nerdy enough so I started a freshwater aquarium service in northern Colorado. The Ichab's brother of aquariums if you will. Not local? Great! I offer digital consultation to anyone, anywhere. Emphasis on live plants and ethical fish keeping? Visit my website freshflowaquatics.com or look me up on YouTube for educational content. FODs get 10% off. Code shrimp-ropes. All capitals. There's no input for coupons since it's Squarespace site, so you'll need to casually slip it into the conversation. Get in touch to request services 970-430-6402 or follow me on

YouTube at Fresh Flow Aquatics. Wow, very cool. This is great. I just went to to fresh flow aquatics YouTube landing page a Ton of videos on here like instructional videos Shout over the course of several years and they're not like 40 minute long monologues on aquariums like these are these are tips and tricks and Maintenance topics and it's all like high spec stuff. Like it's not just dude on an iPhone. It looks and sounds like really good instruction.

I love this. I'm on the webpage and these are really beautiful tanks. These are like planted tanks. And I've recently, with the help of Adam Ragusea, gotten into the lifestyle. Folks watching on the stream at home can see my tank in the background. Are you a fish man?

Tin man. I'm a fish man and it is a freshwater planted tank. This is the thing that Fresh Flow Aquatics does. So I'm super psyched at the confluence of a new hobby of mine and an old hobby of mine. That's really cool. I hope there's people listening out there that could use some help and we'll get in touch with this guy.

Yeah, so the call to action, I'll just repeat here, is 9704306402 or visit Fresh Flow Aquatics on YouTube at Fresh Flow Aquatics. Pretty great. I think that might be the first time someone's given a phone number out on the show. I know, I was just thinking about that. Usually, we just give out 206-984-4FUN for any comments or questions or concerns about our show. But they're not going to be able to help with your fish tank.

You could try. Here's what I'll say. Call 206-984-4FUN, ask them an aquarium question, and then call 970-430-6402. See which one calls you back first. There you go. I would suspect Fresh Flow Aquatics would be first on the callback. Indeed.

Then we get a personal message here. It is from Natalie. It's to the doctors, Mr. and Mrs. Naomi. Oh, captains everywhere have enjoyed the happy privilege of joining together Two people with the burns of matrony Now I'm throwing scarves at TGG to celebrate me Marrying both of you whoa Thanks for being my friends and letting me get away with sneaking faith

of the heart into your ceremony. Brooklyn live show pilgrimage 2025 please. Ah. Ask Natalie. I like it. How about that. I've never had the happy privilege. I think I want to marry someone. I mean in the way that you know I mean that. To officiate. To be the officiate. I think that'd be fun. Yeah. My wife has done it. It's a lot of work, but it's a very special thing to get to do for someone. Yeah. Pretty great. And look, the pilgrimage to Brooklyn will happen whether or not there's a show. Sure. I love going to Brooklyn. You're there all the time. Our final P1 here is from Ben and it's to Adam and Ben or Ben and Adam and it goes like this.

I started viewing last year. I'm currently on DS9 season four, episode 20. Nice. I am in grad school pursuing my master of social work and work full time. This week I found myself burnt out and on a grippy sock vacation. Imagining what mental health advice K Kern would give kept me sane.

Kern impression? I do not remember any of my coursework when I got my MSW, but technically I still have the degree. I just haven't had the heart to apply for any social work opportunities on Kronos. Sucks? A Klingon does not wear socks. A Patak wear socks. I even put TGG on my discharge plan for coping strategies. Thanks for giving me something to live for. Oh wow. Well thanks for doing what you do Ben

and I wonder if you'll be a social worker by the time you catch up to this message. Yeah. The requested timeline is before the show ends. So congratulations to Ben. You made it! You barely made it. You got it in right under the wire. You can get your message in well under the wire by going to maximumfund.org slash jumbotron. Have us read your message. Doesn't take but more than a few words. We'll embellish your message. We'll do great things with it. We'll even give you the greatest gen bump like we have to fresh flow aquatics. And priority one messages go a long way in supporting the production of both of our shows. Hey Ben.

What's that Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? I did Adam. I'm not proud of this. It is a drunk Shimoda? Incredible. Drunk Shimoda! I did, Adam. I'm not proud of this. It is a drunk Shimoda that happened just because I laughed at somebody's name when I saw it fly by in the credits. One of the Klingons was played by an actor named Peewee Piamante. Mm. Yeah, I mean, I'm embarrassed to say that he is my drunk Shimoda just because I thought that that was a funny name. It's a funny name. Yeah. I mean, I'm embarrassed to say that he is my drunk Shimoda just because I thought that

that was a funny name. It's a funny name. Yeah. Mine's going to be to Paul, both for wearing white after Labor Day and on a Dustbuster Club mission to a sandy dirty planet. And also for just being the secret badass that she is. Like she does all of this combat training. No one says that thing that you get in most moments like this, which is like, whoa, it's a Paul.

What a badass. Like, oh fuck, she can totally kick ass. She's fast guessing a little bit, but you're not getting the vast guess react that you get in aliens. So like, I think it's okay to be impressed by her. I think it's weird that no one is, but in any case, to Paul's Mishimoto for like keeping the badassness under a basket.

Faith of the fart. Well, Adam, it's time to figure out how we will be doing next week's episode, which is of course, season two, episode seven. And it's called the Seventh. After T'Pol is contacted by the Vulcan High Command, Archer, Mayweather, and T'Pol travel to an Arctic world to apprehend a fugitive. We're going to check every igloo, igloo outhouse, further igloo outhouse.

Igloo fox house, igloo hen house. I want a hard target search. Yeah, that's what this sounds like. Sounds like fun. I didn't kill my penguin. I don't care. So you're saying, uh, you're saying Tripp Tucker plays the part of, uh, Absolutely.

Oh man. Bruce Davidson going to be in this episode. Looking forward to it, Adam. I'm going to go over to gach.biz slash game, where we keep the game of buttholes the will of the Riker quantum leap. Our runabout is currently on square 18. You're required to learn as you play. Roll.

And we have jumped up to square 43 for a regular episode next week. Chula! Did I win? Hardly. How about that? How about that? Feels like the show's going on location quite a bit lately.

Yeah. We're going to the sand level, we're going to the snow level. Uh, the way we do a show remains consistent. I think people depend on that. Yeah, indeed. They love that. In these trying times, they sure do. Well, that just about does it for this episode.

Our eternal gratitude to all the friends of De Soto who support what we do on a monthly basis. We really appreciate your support. We also appreciate the efforts of Windy Pretty, our producer and editor on this program and all of the crap that we do over at Uxbridge-Shemoda. We gotta thank Rob Adler and Bill Tilly for running our social media accounts at Greatest Trek on all of the places. Throw those a follow and repost something if you see it and think it's funny.

Or leave us a nice review on your podcast app. Where in December it means there's a couple weeks left to watch our streaming shows. GreatestGenTour.com is where you can get information on how to do that. Three of them waiting for you. If you haven't seen a Greatest Gen live show, do it from the comfort of your own turlet. Yeah, or give it as a gift to someone. Fun thing to do with your family, if your family likes incredibly crude jokes about Star Trek. Oh, and sign up for the mailing list. Mailing list is something we've been working really hard on for the last year to make a good and valuable thing that shows up in your inbox once a month, you

know, full of interesting stuff about the show and what it's like to make it, little behind-the-scenes things. You can get that at garh.biz slash mail or just sign up at podshop.biz. With that, we will be back at ya next week with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise and an episode of the Greatest Generation Enterprise that didn't kill my wife. It was a one-armed polar bear. Remember the end of Roadhouse when that stuff polar bear falls over hmm new one or the old one old one

I haven't seen the new one. Oh, you got to check out the new one. It's a lot of fun Really? Yeah, it's genuinely a lot of fun All right, I'll give it a try. All right Bye Give it a try. All right. Bye. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so.

Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so.

Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. Make it so. A polar bear fell on me. Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.

Hello listeners of the greatest generation and greatest trek. It is I, Ben Harrison, along with my friends, Adam and Adam. We're the hosts of Wholesome, a brand new podcast about three friends sharing what they like with their friends. I've known Ben and Adam for many, many years, and I can tell you that I am learning all sorts of new things about them

over just the first handful of episodes. If you're interested in knowing any more about us, I think the Wholesome program is for you. Yeah, to spell it out for folks, so normally one of us drives the pod car for any given episode and we will do sort of a written essay, you might call it, similar to what you knew and loved from the Friendly Fire program that the boys did. And it will lead to, via often rambling routes, a topic that we would like to discuss for that day,

which is something that we like, just something that we really love that we'd like to share with our buddies. Recent examples include, a sci-fi author I really like, the car wash, steak houses, auxiliary refrigeration,

and American football. This is a Patreon only podcast and once you've set up a membership, it'll give you an RSS feed that works in any podcasting app pretty seamlessly. So it's easy to do. It's a lot of fun. And I think a lot of people that enjoy these programs will enjoy Wholesome. And to get it, it is patreon.com slash Wholesome underscore pod.