The Greatest Generation - USS Dumpy (S2E17)

Episode Date: June 20, 2016

When the Enterprise answers a distress call from a ship full of Lennies, the crew's instincts are to offer assistance. Unfortunately, the Pakleds pet Geordi a little too hard as he's tending to their problems. Meanwhile, the captain and Wesley (the BOY?) go on a road trip in the Previa so Picard can have a "little procedure." Could Toto have improved this episode? Who are the rank pips really for? Can we do this show in a hot tub? It's an episode that's like a Sci-Fi version of "Of Mice and Men"!

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. Welcome to a very special episode of the greatest generation, a Star Trek podcast by two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm your host, Adam Pranica. I'm your other host, Ben Harrison.

Bill, it's weird. Bill, it's weird This is a very special episode because this is the first time we've recorded the show in the same room with Ben looking at my dumb face Yeah, we just we watched an episode of the shit. We're in my brother-in-law's bedroom We watched an episode of the show, we're in my brother-in-law's bedroom at my in-laws house in Los Angeles, California. We just opened up your laptop and watched an episode of the show. So we're doing an experiment here.

You know that thing where you catch someone doing something embarrassing and you just can't bear to look at that person and they're like, they're grateful that you aren't looking at them. Yeah. That's the intention I feel with what we're doing right now. Like I'm looking to your right. I'm not even looking at you right now because it just feels better that way. I feel though like it's sort of more analogous to when you avoid making eye contact with somebody because they have an obvious physical impairment.

And you're just kind of erasing that person from, and that's really hurtful. Yeah, that I think is more accurate in my case, because you now have my facial disfigurement in your brother-in-law's bedroom. Oh, we just came down from Max FunCon. Obviously, I think everybody knows we record these like pretty far in advance, but we were just up in the hills at the annual con of our beloved podcasting network maximum fun and yeah, it sort of gave me a lot of ideas for a possible greatest Jen con Yeah, they really know how to do it right. Yeah maximum fun. They put on a they put on quite the Quite the show a lot of great comedy a lot of great podcast stuff if you have it in it in the budget and you have the time to attend Max Funcon East, run, don't walk to get those tickets because they're going fast from what I hear.

Yeah, I think that might be something that you and I might even attend. I think we are going to do our best to attend. Yeah. I'm almost 100% positive that I'm going and it sounds like you are Interested so why are you looking at me like that when you say that? The place that Max Funcon East is takes place is called the in at Pocano Manor I believe my wife and I actually scouted this hotel for Jesse and Max one fun when they were thinking about putting on Max Funcon East. And we went out there and there was a Star Trek convention taking place. And I would say that I was not good.

I was not exactly out to my then girlfriend now wife as a as a fan of the show. When you go to a Star Trek convention that's at a hotel, like is it just a bunch of gawk in the chafing dishes? How much of the weird Star Trek food? It was a really singular experience. It's the only thing I've even been close to that resemble the Star Trek convention thing I've, like, even been close to that resemble the

Star Trek invention. I've never attended one, but this was a very, like, I think of, like, when I've seen those on the internet, like, what I think of is, like, a bunch of people, you know, like, oh, I'm dressed as a, as a, as a cling on and oh, I'm dressed as a, you know, Benz8. Right, yeah. I'm a real chaotic bro over here. I'm not a Benzate at all. I'm just outside the lobby, having a vape. But these people were all human officers in Starfleet.

And they had a very, like, they all had rank-pips on their, on their, like, uniforms that their moms made them and they like were None of them even had weird noses or ears. No, like they that was a step too far and like rank was observed so like we were at the at the bar at the hotel Which is like a towny bar where like people that live in this part of of the polka nose come to learn normal scale. Yeah, and it would be like, you know, 60% townies and then like 40% dudes and dudes and like, you know, TNG uniforms. And like, if a guy was a lieutenant and a commander came up to the

bar, he would like get up and offer his seat to the commander. And that's not even like differential treatment that actually happens on the show. Or in the military from what I understand. It was, and like, was it really about Star Trek at all? I'm wondering. I mean, I think it was probably mainly a ruse for some kind of sex thing, but yeah. Were there weird flaps in the uniforms?

Like weird openings that you don't remember from the show? I didn't get close enough to anyone, but we did drive away and my wife just kind of had a thousand yard stare looking out the front window of our rental car and she's like, what, what, what, what, what, what did we just see? She's like, I could never love anyone who has ended that Ever ever was like yeah totally I have no interest in any of the things that those people were doing

The prophecy was false So this is the same hotel mm-hmm. I'm sure they changed the sheets regularly. Were you trying to deter a possible stick of fire? I'm going to this. Because the people... I should have rethought this opening. Right now, there's someone who is at that event who also listens to our show. That was about to come.

And they're like, well, fuck these guys. Yeah. I was totally looking at this from an outsider who is also like, I was like a Republican senator who like votes against gay rights, kind of guy. Sure. I was like, fuck all of this. Because I was secretly like more like those people that I wanted to admit.

Yeah. So like, I would love to like get some context. If anybody knows what this thing is, like send us an email, drunksremotoegemail.com. I would love to know like what the fuck I saw, you know? Cause I didn't see all of it. I just saw like the evidence of it in the halls and like the conference rooms.

Like, I didn't attend any of the events. So yeah, don't, I mean, if you're guessing, I don't care about your guess. No, but if you know what it was, especially if you were there, yeah, drop us a line. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, and terrifying. This is becoming a speech. So the cat comes to very tightly.

I'm tight with a ramble on a lot of something everyone knows. Adam, we're gonna review on this episode, season two, episode 17. Samaritan Sner. Or as I've called it, sci-fi of Mice and Man. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha- This is very insensitive. The packlets are going to pet Jordy a little too hard. So Wes, the boy is going to go take some more starfleet exams and the enterprise is going to keep going and- Wes is like, can I borrow the car? I gotta go to school. Yeah. Well, this is funny.

Like, I feel like the captain's log that they opened this episode with, you know, like whenever Picard refers to Wesley and captain's log, it's young Wesley Crusher will be going to, you know, to stop Ace 155 to pursue his, and it's like, you really gotta do Picardmore, man, that's solid. But like while he says that, he then like, the next scene is him bumping into Wesley on the bridge and like telling Wesley

that they're gonna be going together. And it's so impersonal. It's like, like when Picard is around Wesley, he acts like they don't know each other really. But if he's like making a captain's log log, he brings about him all the time. Yeah, it's like what would happen if Wesley found Picard's diary?

He'd be like, wow, this dude is obsessed with me. He acts so fucking distant all the time. And... When the ship got infected with the computer virus, and they were thinking about dumping all the logs, like that must have been another angle that Picard had about, I don't want to lose all that juicy material. Yeah.

Well, we cut to a scene where Picard and Polas to go to the star base for a procedure. And this is also really, I don't know, I noticed in watching this that I was laughing at the scene and you were not. So I'll just say that why I was laughing was they chose to have Polesky not say what the procedure was so that it could be a reveal later. You do have an ego, don't you? But it just it just it will be inappropriate for you to count out the procedure. You could feel the finger quotes around the word procedure. Yeah. And my mind was racing in a million directions what the procedure could be. You're concerned about your image. Yeah, they were talking about elements of his confidence or manhood.

Yeah, yeah. It totally could have been penis and beginning that they were talking about. Sure. And I bet they do a great in the future. Great penis. The best penis. Really classy. One of the best penises in the fleet.

You could stick four pips on it. So the pips are for her pleasure. So the nature of this argument though is that Picard could be getting this procedure from Polesky, but he doesn't want to because he's like got appearances to keep up. And there's like something kind of particular about his character is like he really doesn't want anybody on the ship to think he has a personal life that doesn't involve like nerding out about archaeology and reading books. Like it really, to me, is about not having his shit out on the streets.

Right. It's a privacy thing. Yeah, it's a privacy thing. And I think he... More than it's an inventibility thing. Yeah. Well, I think that like he has this total aura around him. Stop looking at me. he has this total aura around him stop looking at me

He has this total I've just turned away in my chair. It's just you guys sitting in a house in It's just you guys sitting in a hot tub talking about start We could we could record an ep in the hot tub. They do have one here We could record an epinata. They do have one here. I feel like he maintains this aura by keeping himself somewhat mysterious to his crew. At the same time, every time a crew member talks about Picard to any other crew member, it's never about how invincible and rad he is, they're always talking about how what a great decision-maker

and reasoner he is. So like his perception of himself appears to be a little bit askew of what everyone else's perceptions are of him. But that's pretty interesting. I mean, like that's a really like subtle, like piece of writing if they're doing that intentionally. I think given how this episode goes, that might be giving it way too much credit. That might be the only mark they hit.

Ha, ha, ha, ha. So, a Picardan Wesley pile into the, into the Previa. into the into the Previa. And this is after Picard, like kind of like, kind of like, curtly announces to Riker that they're bouncing. And that Riker is going to have to do the science mission in Picard's absence. Back out of the garage on the Enterprise, pull off down the street.

And just as they turn around the corner onto the main drag, the enterprise picks up a distress signal. And it's kind of like a cryptic distress signal in that there's just not a lot of information. There's not a lot of meta tags on this distress signal. It's general distress. Yeah. Some dumpy little ship nearby is putting out distress. And they do all the classic.

But if we go like enter this distress call, we'll be very far away from the captain, which is a little misdirect because the captain is not really like, I mean, like if you said- They should have separated the ship. Like, do they only, are they only able to separate the ship in times of battle? I don't know.

Yeah, what's the rig, rigs on that? I don't know. It seems like a perfectly legitimate reason to fling the saucer back towards the star base. Yeah, I mean, why not separate the ship just in general? Yeah, all the time. Maybe like half of the science ship is on the upper half and half of the science ship is on the bottom half.

I don't know. Why do we have to come up with all this great stuff? So tweet at Star Trek Room, if you want head scratchers like this, not to be a part of the upcoming Star Trek series, because we'll make sure that should get straightened out before the script is finalized. I really do want people to tweet at Star Trek Room though. Like, a lot of people have and we really appreciate it. I want this to be like something that is a sustained like siege on that Twitter account where they're like fuck well at least let's

take a meeting with these guys so that when we tell them no they feel like they got a fair shake right that would be great yeah I would love a meeting so if you're listening to this and you're within the sound of our voice and you have a Twitter account please tweet at Star Trek Room we'd really appreciate it if you're within the sound of our voices or you're in some weird bedroom. So if you can help us out, this door locks from the outside right then. So they find this ship, they get the face time up and running and there's a guy with like real Marley vertical eyebrows Like he's they kind of look like they're wearing like the still suits from Dune Yeah

Moods a thing for cattle and love play not fighting the whole vibe felt very duney. Yeah They have the it's like it's like if the Baron Harconon was wearing a still suit and on a ship, this is what these guys look like. That's exactly where I was at, yeah. Kind of a ripoff. Ha ha ha ha. Not, not enough todo for my taste though.

Ha ha ha ha. But these guys are real, real dummies from the jump. We are far from home. We need help. They speak in very like, kind of monosolabic speech patterns. Much like I am doing now trying to characterize how they speak. They sound like a ship full of simple jacks. We look for things.

And like, data makes the point that like, maybe their speech is not super well developed, but they're like, otherwise smart. Which is like giving them so much credit. Like, what is your problem? Good guy data is like, yeah, maybe they're smarter than they appear in. And Jordi's like, these guys are fucking dumb. And in the way that Jordi always seems

to do that initially. Let me guess they're rubber band broke, right? Yeah, Jordi, maybe more than anybody on the ship is really sure of his opinions. Yeah. Like, maybe him and Worf, like, are the two that really, like, believe in where they're coming from. Like, everybody else kind of, like,

mulls things over and stews on these issues. Yeah. Jordy has a point of view and he's sticking to it. So USS Dumpy is broken. And the first idea that the Enterprise crew has is like, hey, let's send over Jordy. Let's send over our best. He can stick these guys back together, no problem. Yeah.

And he's like, oh, I'll fix this in no time. And I was thinking that this is like basically the same type of problem that they were confronting in the pen pals issue. You, man. Like, what's great about that is that we're in the same room and you just got double middles for me because that's exactly where I was going.

This is what I want to talk about. Yeah. Why isn't this a prime directive problem? What makes the prime directive applicable on the other planet and not here? These guys are idiots. Right. And as far as we know, pre-warp, right?

Yeah. I mean, maybe this ship is pre-warp and the packlets are, oh, I don't know. I thought it was weird programming like to put this episode so near to that one too this episode feels like it was scripted in season one and they like were like fuck wait a week yeah like it's like there's a lot about it that feels very season one yeah what's interesting about that characterization though is that characters are saying things like that too totally unsudderly. Like when they hatched the idea to send Jordi over, Warf is like What kind of idea is that?

It's a terrible plan. Yeah, like he's kind of indispensable. Yeah, we're sending him over alone And we don't know anything about these people. Rikers like just chill dog. It's all right a few people have probably sent us this at this point. The super cut of Times Wharf gets told to shut up and like disagree with. And a lot of the time when Wharf raises a red flag like this, he is predicting the predicament. Yeah.

Like always bet on Wharf, really. Wharf is not easy to scam, you know like if you were running a if you were running a short con Wurf is not a mark you would want to like try you know You don't want to try to sell him jewelry at the gas station. No, yeah You don't want to like have him break a 20 and then give you back three tens or whatever now like have him break a 20 and then give you back three tens or whatever. No. Uh, so, so. He's gonna flip over your three card mod two table.

Yeah. So, Jordy beams over there and like the pack leds. And they're all like big like, uh. They're all grimaces. They're all like, and it's a little unclear if like, they're all kind of cast as that or if it's like, if it's like kind of like a big fat suit that they're all kind of cast as that or if it's like, if it's a kind of like a big fat suit that they're wearing, but they're all just kind of

like big heavy guys and they like start like converging on and he's like, whoa. Yeah, because they're big, but they're also a little soft looking like. They're like hunched over. Like we're down in the fat video. Yeah, it's one of the alien species that we've seen. Like one of them more fully, these guys are all cast as like, they're cast for like, hairline,

they're cast for body type, and they're cast for like, resting duck face, because they all have the same weird expression on their face. It's like pretty interesting. They look like that Twilight Zone episode. Oh, I don't know the doctors performing surgery, like beautification surgery and all of the doctors are. Are pigs? Yeah. Once, once Jordi gets them to like calm down now, I felt like Jordi was like kind of at home. Like it's like the sociopath is on the ship full of sociopaths.

And yeah, not only that, but like he's super at home being the best around idiots. I think he's sort of got a kick out of that. Yeah, yeah. Like being real condescending. He's like, being condescending in a way that the person you're being condescending to can't detect. Right.

That's his, that he loves that. Yeah, if you ever hear somebody going, listen, fellas. My love is a people long and chill for that. Which is longer than us as a busy. How many more, you'll never know, yeah. Meanwhile, I guess we should talk about Picard and Wesley on their road trip.

Yeah. So they have six hours ahead of them in the, in the pravia. They took it into the Toyota dealership and had it tuned up for the trip. Picard is like, he's just fucking pissed off that he has to do this in the first place. And Wesley is really like catching feelings about that. Like, he's he's taking it personally. The Picard has pissed at him. Shut up Wesley. But really Picard has pissed that he's going at all. There's a couple levels of tension here though too. That is definitely the A story tension. The B story tension is like time alone with someone you really respect or like who has hero status for you for a long period of time. And like, we

just came from a place at this max fun con with like awesome comics and really cool creators. Yeah. And I feel like that's something that is relatable to me in the immediate term. Right. hanging out with people that you really like and admire isn't easy. And so I think Wes has some of that going for him too. Right, yeah. It's like you don't, you want them to come away from that,

thinking well of you. And hopefully like the next time you see them, they like wanna high five you or whatever, like, hey man, or whatever. But Wes Lee is like probably not playing it as cool as as one would want. Like, it's a lot of like Picard trying to focus on the one of the like many ancient looking books that he brought. And like Wesley kind of like, niggling him with little questions and and Picard like slamming the book and going into the back. questions and and Picard like slamming the book and going into the back and there's that but there's also that weak ass writing of well this happens in

real life too you'll be you'll be at a place with someone and they'll just say like goddamn it like apropos of nothing and then you'll be like what's going on what's on your mind yeah and Picard does that a couple times in these scenes too, in the shuttle where he's like, yeah, my stupid heart. You see, Wesley, sometimes a father has a heart condition, and he has to have surgery, Rudy. He's got a heart condition.

From time to time, after a no second sticks a knife through your chest, Theo, he sticks it through your leg, a popsicle stick. He gets to stick and then to stab and' and the beepin' and the boopin' Until your heart goes black I got you that time Uh, yeah, so the procedure is that Picard's heart is fake. And it is fake because one time he got in a bar bra with some aliens called Nosecans and one of them impaled him on a knife. And it was a pretty badass bar bra story. It was, I felt like a little weird about it because when he described like the

Nosecans coming in and he's like kind of picked a fight with them because they were Nosecans. Yeah, it was like damn Picard You did some some seriously racist shit like Oh, you were just in a small town bar and some guys not your race came in and that was enough to for you to like want to pick a fight with them. Oh man. I wonder if we'll ever see that story. I wonder Adam. Yeah, maybe maybe come up again. Yeah. Wesley is not super woke because he didn't call Picard out on his like race shit. But his eyes do, they do get pretty wide because I mean Picard's an older man, you don't expect him to be the type that picks fights in a in an outpost chile. There's no reason a star based outpost can't eat good in that neighborhood. Do you think it's a Chili's too?

Greatest Gen brought to you by Chili's. It's eating good in the neighborhood there. I was just thinking that it might be Apple Lees, but I don't know. I don't really know the difference between those two restaurants. I don't think there is any difference. I think the trucks go both places. Yomok and Yelad, and Denogre. A greatest-gen live show is something you don't want to miss.

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

in a lot of great places. Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's GreatestGenTour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment tour. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level.

We got stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweards. Pat Noswald. Could I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. 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 Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead Well, Russ These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line and boy

These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not and they've such short But I'm here and we need to get on this. I gotta get on the art. It is about terrain. Gotta spout to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like humans. Oh, we're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Carrie? We investigate spirituality,

claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came two by two. What do you think? Ona Ross & Kerry, available on MaximumFun.org. Is that enough of like a 15 minute break off of the episode?

Are we getting back in though? Try to run onto the Japanese, she's like, those guys aren't dumb, they're evil. And Riker's like, what really? And so they radio up, Jordy. And he's like, no, like I'm just fixing this stuff. They're not. They've been watching the episode though on the view screen. I think they have.

Like they've got, yeah, they put Skype on mute. And they're just like watching what's going on. Yeah. Either that or they don't care if the packlets are talking about. But there's some shenanigans. I think Jordi fixes the guidance or the navigation system or something. Jordi is the super at a diving rental apartment that's like coming in and like the packlets are like yeah my sinks something's wrong with my sink and then the sink gets fixed

and they're like well yeah I mean this outlet doesn't work can you fix that they're like just pointing at shit and Jordy's fixing it yeah and you know like eventually like the ship is back up and running and the pack lets grab his phaser and blast him before the Enterprise can be them back and they he's got the little card clicker phaser. Oh, yeah, is that what it is? I think so I didn't get a close look at the phaser because I was Drifting in and out of sleep. It fucking blew him across the room It was yeah, I wonder if they had him on a cable, because he really flew. He like got some air for sure.

Like, it's more violent than the stun setting usually looks, for sure. And they hit him with a few times in this episode. Yeah, a really close range. Yeah, so they put up a shield that data determines is similar to Romulan shielding, which is way past what this dumb little ship is supposed to have. It's like putting 30 inch rims on a piece of shit to yourself. Yeah, a lot of like fox racing decals in their back window. Don't make a lot of sense given their body shape.

Like I don't know how active a lifestyle you guys really have. What does a camera need with Nas? But they reveal their true nature, which is that they are taking, they're taking Jordi hostage, not to like get something out of the enterprise specifically, but like they, they'll, they're happy to just have Jordi as like a engineering slave on their ship. If that all, if that's like the best thing they can get out of it, but if the enterprise wants him back, like they're gonna need,

like daddy's gonna need to get his medicine, and that means like, like give us all of the files on your computer and give us technology and give us weapons, and they're like- They're leading through Picard's logs, like who the fuck is this Wesley? Delete. It relevant.

Um, this is a little bit of a conundrum for Riker while the captain is away. So, to be clear, Riker was given two chances to do the right thing. I don't know if you saw this shot. He's like draped himself over the captain's chair. Like, I think he's really like man spreading. He's really got some chill hangs on the bridge. Yeah. Warf is like, Do we truly need to send our chief engineer over to them?

Bad idea. Troy is like, Who can't afford to sing great danger? And Riker does nothing. Yeah. It disappointed me. Yeah. It disappointed me. Yeah, he really like ignored people

who have demonstrated themselves over and over again to give really good advice. Yeah, exactly. And this is, did you notice a couple of the interstitial scenes? Like, they actually show the enterprise as a ship, big dogging, the pack lid ship. The way they shoot those scenes also makes the ships themselves look totally yeah, like it's like they're really cool shots actually because like the the pack lid ship will be

like large in the frame, but the entire Background will be like the saucer section of the enterprise from below like it makes it look so tiny You get it practically in the space scenes, but you also get it like intellectually everywhere else that these people are less than and below and underneath. And missionary position. And but. I am a cute, just a ball. There are ball lights. So back on the shuttle, Wes and Picard are actually kind of bonding.

So there isn't, there's the cool bar brawl scene, which is cool. Well, the description of the bar brawl, the description of the lynching scene. But that just sort of leads to the idea of West recognizes the many sacrifices that Picard has made to attain the position that he's in, that begins to ask around about those and whether or not they are essential to the success of a star fleet. Right, like did you need to forego having a family entirely or like, is that like, did you make that choice for some other reason? And both generally and specifically Picard is like, but ambitious star feed offices there

are certain costs involved. And Wesley does that thing that I've gotten many times. I imagine you've gotten many times, which is the super awkward, sort of unwelcome question about when and how you're going to have kids. And it's adding me a little bit that that sort of social grace hasn't applied itself in the 24th century. Because it kind of sucks. Yeah, that's an inappropriate question to ask somebody at all,

unless they're your partner. It's the most intimate question. Right. And people play it off like, like, You're going to go see the game? Yeah, like, I feel like they treat it like buying a house yeah parents sometimes think it's okay to ask their children like one of you guys gonna yeah not even appropriate then no it's like like we will we will keep you apprised of any family expansion

opportunities that we are pursuing but for now now. It's weird. Yeah. Which is to say, they do get pretty personal. And unlike the very clumsy way, these conversations happened in the pen pals episode, which was just like an, uh, an antandra holocaust. Like it was brutal. Like this really, this like plays it straight, like the character building in these scenes I felt, I I felt were pretty strong. Yeah, yeah, I feel like we learn a lot about Picard, like for an episode that is as big of a turkey as this one is, like this actually winds up.

Yeah, don't get me wrong, this is a terrible episode. This winds up being like a pretty like formative character scene for Picard and to a lesser extent, Wesley Wesley I guess. Yeah. But anyways, they arrive at the planet and Wesley is like following Picard to the clinic and Picard is like, what the fuck are you doing? Like, go take your stupid test, idiot. And Wesley's like, sorry, the doctor kind of made me promise that I would actually watch you go into the clinic. It's like when you drop somebody off after dark and you like make sure they make it into their house even though they live in like a really nice neighborhood. Yeah give me a wave

from the doorstep. Yeah. But so Picard goes in and he is in surgery and his federation doctors in there like weird like Red Berca surgery uniforms. I thought they look like the full body condoms from the naked gun Are they go all the way up? They're getting ready to to Yeah, are they go all the way up. They're getting ready to to put him under the knife and you know He's really like he's in a real mood, but he's not a great patient in that moment But this this surgeon is just brimming with confidence. He's like well, I'll be home in time for dinner. Don't you worry? Mm-hmm and so we cut away from that and

Riker is hatching a plan to put a con job on these interstellar con men that are the packlets. And so what they do is they like, they face time them up and they start saying to Jordy, like, hey man, like sorry, there's nothing we can do. Our missions are always inherently dangerous and any of us could be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice. But here's a bunch of like super obvious, like coded information that we're transferring to you right now.

Speaking of time, this may be your time. Which is a bold move given the fact that they've been, it's like demonstrable that the backlets are more sophisticated than they let on. Yeah. So like, I don't know why they thought this would work. And like, like, like, like, Riker does not play at cool.

I shall personally miss you. Data does not play at cool. Goodbye, Jordy. Worf plays it kind of cool. Yeah. But like, Worf is the only one who knows what he's doing in those episodes. Yeah.

Like, like, he, like, totally gets gets the best actor award for this episode Any classified weapons knowledge you share with your captors will be considered treason because like when he's talking to dirty and like Transmitting code. He's not like winking and like Emphasizing it in a weird way. He's like you will never attain the 24th level of awareness Just telling him what he needs to know it It's, this scene played for laughs for me big time. Like I really enjoyed it. Like they're all sort of saying goodbye to him. Like well, Jordy, it appears that you're fucked.

Yeah. I think we need to leave you now. Yeah. Also, you may be a traitor and don't be surprised if we kill you. Worf's dialogue is so great here. 24 is the gateway to heroic salvation. It made me think that is Worf a part of some like weird Klingon Scientology cult?

Worf calculated the packlets would just assume it was some Klingonshit and not you know have a way of checking into it. I am such an idiot. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha assuming everyone is. That's how easy it is to mistake someone for being a Scientologist. Anyways, see I will make myself look stupid if it means having a bit. I'm willing to do that. You're ready to throw yourself on that grenade. I flatter myself that I am, but I just never come off looking that stupid. I don't know. Lord knows you try.

So the gambit works, they overcome the packlets and are able to beam Jordy back before the packlets know what's up and also like, I guess they like arm to them with photon torpedoes somehow. I guess. Yeah, they dazzled them with the Crimson Force field. Yeah. That's not just putting down a towel, I guess. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Oh, yeah. Getting a lot of, a lot of anger on the Twitter these days.

Meanwhile, the arrogant surgeon that is operating on Picard has lost the thread and is basically like, yo fuck, like, this shit is not going super well. This is the scene in every Grey's Anatomy where like arterial spray is flying around and a really sad song is playing. Yeah. Uh, yeah, if Shonda Rhymes had created this episode, it would have been far different. Oh, that would be good. I would watch that. Yeah, it would. She's not afraid of having like a lot of different television shows all going at the same time.

So anyways, they get Jordy back just in time to warp back to the star base and Picard wakes up with Polaski, like beaming down at him. If there's one situation you don't want, it's waking up after being sedated. And Polaski taking rubber gloves off. Well, all done. You, sir, were very difficult. Quite a bit of resistance. Didn't you know that's futile? Yeah, and that revealed that she was the only person, the only doctor, doctory enough to complete his procedure and keep him alive.

The card shows a Picard level of enthusiasm about that circumstance. How are you doing, yeah? Not really grateful, a little bit embarrassed. No. So they beam back aboard the ship and Picard kind of offhandedly announces to everybody that Wesley did really good on his tests and that the result of that is that he gets to keep being on the ship. I didn't know the stakes were that high, did you?

I didn't either. I mean, I feel like I should have... He fails the test as you stay on the planet? Yeah, like what the fuck was going on there? Yeah. I thought it was going to be like the same test as that episode where we met chaotic bro. Yeah. And like if he did well, he goes on to Starfleet, but we like don't see what he does.

It's like completely. We don't see him playing the Tetris. Yeah. Yeah. If the stakes were that high, this was a pretty foundational Wesley episode because he played it ultra cool. Yeah, he's like, he didn't go around asking 10 people for advice. Yeah, it's a whole new Wesley that we're seeing.

Yeah, good job by him. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. I think we've already made clear how we feel about this episode. Did you have anything else you wanted to go over?

Other than the fact that it was one of the worst episodes of the series, it was almost insulting how the problems that were set up were so easily solvable and how people on the crew were willfully trying not to solve them in a rational way. Right, it's like our friend Adam Ragusia of the pub podcast said that his favorite episode there were like the stakes are super low. And like it's just about being star trekky

and not about solving problems. This episode put the stakes all the way up at the top and then lowered everybody's intelligence quotient to make the problems seem tricky. They weren't. They almost blew up a board ship in the last episode if they wanted to and they weren't real danger by fucking a ship full of Lenny's. Yeah, I feel like we're getting like the bends going from that episode to this episode. Yeah, no kidding. At any point did you find yourself a

drunk Shimoda? My drunk Shimoda is the surgeon that works on Picard before they call in the Polaski big guns just the fucking arrogant confidence Just it made me laugh and like and then like the fucking panic in his face when they got back to him and The operation is not going super well. Like there's totally a smash cut to an extreme close up going, we need a micro-jumping something biologist.

Yeah, way to begin a medical procedure with the personnel that you don't need. Right. Or with personnel that you need, but don't have. Yeah, so that was my drunk Shimoda. How about yourself? My drunk Shimoda is Wesley, because there's a really fun scene in the shuttle where Wes and Picard are talking,

and Picard's kind of cautioning Wes on the dangers of being distracted by women and Wes like jumps all over this advice and is like oh no problem, we're women are concerned I'm in complete control like that is not an issue for me I know exactly where to put my dick and like every moment we've seen with Wes has been just a train wreck spinning into a power plant level of disaster. Like with all of his interpersonal moments with girls. Like if he didn't have chocolate moves on board the ship, like he would have never looked at a girl. Basically. So that level of confidence in the face of, of like pretty strong factual. Yeah.

We have a lot of game tape to the contrary. Exactly. That comes out as pretty Shimoda-E to me. So come on, Wes. Who do you think you're fooling? What do we have coming up on the next episode? Our next episode is season two, episode 18, up the long ladder. The crew's rescue of a missing Earth colony leads to the discovery of a civilization composed

entirely of clones. Do you have any memory of this episode, Adam? Is this the space Irish episode? This is the space Irish episode. Oh boy. I only remember this episode as being ultra-hokie and farmy. Like, do they build a farm on board the ship? They're like, straw around in the cargo bay.

Are there barnyard animals? Yes. Oh my God. I kinda hate this episode Adam. I was guessing all of the stupidest things I could imagine and you're saying yes to all of them. I actually am going a veto this episode. I fucking hate it so much.

Let's talk about the reception before I make up my mind about a counter veto. Terrible beyond terrible is what it's been called. That sounds about right. God damn it. The thing is if I burn a counter veto here, it's over. How many more episodes do we have in season two? Like another 30, right? I think this is a 22 episode season, so there's five more. You know what?

You got to experience the exquisite joy of counter vetoing me. It wasn't that joyful. I had to watch a terrible episode. I feel some amount of envy for that power. So I'm going to counter veto you. No, no, no. I actually get to watch you jump on some guest room bed. See, that didn't go well for me either.

Damn it Adam. And we shouldn't see that. Are you really fucking serious? Yeah. Let's watch it fuck you. You know the worst episodes of this show are the most fun to riff on. Well I'm not gonna veto a good episode. Yeah. Yeah.

Why would you ever do that? Yeah. So I just want to avoid watching a terrible one. The next episode is going to be the most flop housey episode of this podcast that we've done yet. God, your reaction to my counter veto is giving me a little bit of counter veto regret. Like a little buyers or more. I can tell that you're sincere with how much you just like this.

This is a terrible episode, and I'm pretty mad that we're gonna watch it. We should bust out some space Guinness for this. Spaciness and space Jamison. I'm excited to see it. Like, I don't think we've watched it. I'm gonna make some Irish Previa bombs. That's terrible. That is terrible.

Yeah. Um, I don't think we've watched an episode so far that has been panned this universally. Yeah. Maybe outside of Code of Honor. Yeah. Like, this is a Code of Honor level bad that we're santaing up to. Yeah. So, great.

Good job. Me. up to. Yeah. So, great. Good job, me. Race shields. Yeah. Right. I guess that's it. Yeah. Well, if you would like to reach out to us on Twitter, please use the hashtag greatestgen.

I accidentally clicked on somebody that was using the greatestgen and- Or people do, and I think people sometimes add the or finish it out as hashtag greatest generation. That's not us. We're trying to save you some characters by just cutting it down to hashtag greatest gen. Yeah, and, you know, like I think those other two

probably are more world war two-y and less star trekky than you want, so. I mean, play in whatever hashtag you want, but you would recommend hashtag greatest gen. We're probably gonna see it if it's greatest gen. Yeah. I am at Benjamin R. A. H. R. and Adam is at Cut for Time. We have Facebook group greatest generation.

We have a Reddit greatest gen and we also have the maximum fun Reddit, which is a awesome and lively place to go talk. Greatest gen Reddit's looking great too. Like somebody made like a theme for it. It's got a lot of funny pictures. There's a banner on top with pictures and stuff. It's great.

It's really like, I don't know who did that, but it's super on point and we really appreciate it. It's like, it's so like awesome to go look at that now like in like the Facebook group too, which is like getting really active because it's just like holy background. There's a lot of people on that group. One of the coolest and most unexpected things about doing Now like in like the Facebook group too, which is like getting really active because it's just like Holy backrope One of the coolest and most unexpected things about doing the show is how little work we have done and

Seen great shit happen. Yeah people are making stuff and putting together communities. I think that's great It's really awesome. We are we're tickled pink Well, don't say that while we're in the same room Well, don't say that while we're in the same room. If you feel like supporting the show, why don't you go to maximumfund.org slash donate and see what you can do there. And if you're already a member of MaximumFine, you can go to MaximumFine.org slash current members and add us to your list of shows. We really appreciate that.

That's super awesome when people do that. Well, with that, we will be back at you next time with a terrible episode of Star Trek, the next generation. No doubt. Hopefully something not so terrible on our side. This is the one episode where the podcast will be better than the show it's reviewing.

We will guarantee it. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. the show it's reviewing. We will guarantee it. Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture, Artistone Listener Supported you