The Greatest Generation - We Are The Borgy Borg (ENT S3E16)

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

When there’s more unstable space queso on their path to Azati Prime, the crew has to go into stasis while Dr. Phlox looks after the ship. But after he starts hearing things and hallucinating Swedish ghosts, he almost kills Commander Tucker before finishing the mission all on his own. What’s different about dog walking in the future? Whose face is left-most on Mount Footmore? How is Trip like a long-haul truck driver? It’s the episode that compares afternoon coffee to no afternoon coffee.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

Every year, innocent Star Trek fans attending conventions suffer through painful, senseless moments that are so cruel, so inescapable, so awkward that attendees risk cringing themselves to death. And this epidemic keeps getting worse. I'm talking about terrible Q&A questions where someone stands too far away from the microphone, barely audible to human ears. Another begins with, I don't really have a question, more of a comment, or worse, someone tries to demonstrate their deep knowledge of something so obscure that even the cast members stare blankly into the void. But there's hope because friends of DeSoto are at the forefront of responsible Star Trek enthusiasm. We're calling you to do your duty and change how Q&A

sections work forever. How can you help? By speaking clearly and closely into the microphone. By having an actual question ready instead of trying to improvise. By keeping that question concise, not rambly. And finally, like the host of Greatest Gen and Greatest Trek, never, ever trying to be funny. You can change the future of Star Trek conventions at Creation Entertainment's upcoming shows. In New Jersey, September 6th and 7th and Chicago, November 22nd and 23rd, come meet William Shatner, Kate Mulgrew, Ants & Mound, Jerry Ryan, and many others. Ask them questions, but make them good questions. Go to creationenst.com, that's creationen t.com and save 20% off all admissions passes with promo code greatest.

It's up to you. I'm John Billingsley and you are listening to The Greatest Generation. John Billingsley, you know him. Here's to the finest crew in starving. When it comes to my crew, you won't get any arguments from me. This is a parody. 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. Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pranika. How you doing today, Adam? I'm feeling good. You look good. I'm doing that thing where I got back into afternoon coffee, and then I got off afternoon coffee for the last three days,

and today I was like, fuck it, I need the afternoon coffee again. Yeah. for many months I was like just the morning and that's it and then you get what you get when you record in the afternoon like whatever version of me shows up to record and and today I was like fuck no double espresso to the dome let's get it done wow let's be productive afternoon espresso martini why fight it the the birdie needs the caffeine if you're me at this point the birdie wants what it wants I don't usually go for one in the afternoon more because it would be very inconvenient to my lifestyle than anything else.

Okay. What exactly does that mean? Well, there was a long time where somebody gave my wife a Nespresso machine and the entire coffee situation. One of those nipple coffee makers. As a nipple coffee. And it was just like, I don't think anybody intended anything by this, but it was a torpedo right at the heart of like one of the key support structures of our marriage,

which is that my wife gets up, she puts on a pot of water, she fills up a pot of coffee, like does a pour over, she serves herself some, and then she puts that pot in the fridge right next to the one from yesterday, which is now cold. And I go for the cold one and pour that one over ice. And it's a system. It's a system. And then the, And then the one from this morning replaces that one tomorrow and so on. And this espresso machine shows up and she's like, well, I'll just make myself the nespressos because I like those just as good as the pourovers. I prefer nipple coffee. And I do not like it at all.

I think it tastes like shit. And so I'm not going to nipple coffee myself like every day and then put that in the fridge and wait for a shitty coffee tomorrow. So I went to a system where I was buying the like growler of cold brew for a while. Oh yeah, that's a fun system. Yeah, which like I didn't have any problem with that. But then... The thing with growler of cold brew is you can pour pretty heavy with that. Like I'll just grab a beer glass and fill it up with cold brew.

That's not the right dose. No. That's the wrong dose. No, your butt is going to be mad at you if you do that. I mean, my teeth are going to be mad at me. when I fucking grind them to powder. Yeah. In that era, in the growler of cold brew era,

there was a afternoon coffee lifestyle that was developing for me because it was like, oh, who gives the shit? There's enough in the fridge. Because before, it was like, there's enough in the fridge for tomorrow morning and no more. So if I have some in the afternoon, then I also have to brew some more coffee for tomorrow at some point. You just can't depend on anyone anymore,

Ben? Well, here's the thing. There were group chats and an article was circulated about how nipple coffee might have heavy metals in it. Like the aluminum packet that it comes in might not be pure aluminum. There might be other shit in there. And whether this is real science or a scare tactic, it worked. And we're back to the original system of the pour over. So was this AI slop? Did you go and create this article for a fake online news org and like make it look very official. I wouldn't put this past you, Ben. You can be very constructive. I can. I wish I could take credit. That's the kind of conniving I would love to be capable of. Yeah. There's conniving Ben again. This happened organically. So we're back to the original system. But what that means is, you know,

too much trouble for afternoon coffee. you could. I could. I would have to grind more beans. I would have to heat up a kettle, you know. Those sound like things you have to do, and that is too much. There's so many more tasks involved, you know, now that we're out of Growler of Cold Brew era. I think it's probably for the best, right? Like, I don't need that afternoon cup of coffee, do I? All of this is to say that I am afternoon coffee, Adam, and you are not afternoon coffee, Ben, for the purposes of this. this record. For the purposes of this record.

Let's see if the FODs can tell the difference. Let's see if they can tell the difference. I don't think they can. Yeah, man. Let's fucking do it. All right. Let's get into the episode. It is season three episode 16.

Doctors. Orders. Where is everyone? Ben, we get long, luxurious camera moves over departments of the ship that we're usually used to seeing full of people. Is the mess a department? I'm going to call it that for the purposes of this montage. We're seeing all sorts of places, all of them deserted, and also some spooky music.

Yeah, this is good stuff. Like your classic haunted house, empty ship. open until cute puppy comes down the hallway. Morthos, now we'll come back here. Chased by flocks. This is why

when you see lost dog signs on lampposts, you'll often see, in big, bold letters, do not chase. Because a lost scared animal is not going to just sit there while you run to catch it. It's naturally going to run away from you,

and that's what flocks is doing. That's what Flux doesn't understand here. dog skittish i don't know if porthos is lost per se but uh porthos is not well trained i'll tell you that much not responding to command no porthos uh making a lot of poopies in the hallway that flax doesn't know about picking up i'm guessing you know i bet dog walking in the future once a little bit more technology is possible has got to be great there's not a leash there's there's probably a force field type thing that it's probably like shields

like shields keep the dog within five meters or however much of a size that is and you're like polytraties and you've got a little thingy on your belt that you you click on totally you do have an electronic frontier

how great would that be that'd be good because I was thinking about like dog pooping in the hallway that's no good because you're like picking it up you're never going to get all of it with the little plastic bag that comes out of the dispenser on the handle of your leash. But you've got a phaser. You could phaser the turd on vape mode.

No must, no fuss. What is a pile of dog shit but a pile of mashed potatoes on the Enterprise A and Star Trek 6? What is dog shit but target practice? Yeah. Finally, Porthos is scratching at a door and is allowed. to go inside and that is where Captain Archer is laying in his bed with a clip show device attached to his forehead and Porthos. It's like a clip show bindi, right? It's like right in the middle. I feel like you never see this. They're always on the temple, but these are right in the

front. Much like Archer being awake and having an ivy tapped and not flinching or betraying it at all, like this is a version of that for the actor where Bacula himself has to remain perfectly still while a porthos licks his entire face and inside his mouth. Amazing restraint. This is why you bring an intimacy coordinator onto the set

so that when an actor is like expressing what their comfort level is with a dog putting their tongue inside the actor's mouth, you can negotiate that stuff. What's difficult is that you can never tell when a beagle

is wearing a merkin. they're kind of wearing one all the time huh yeah after the theme we catch up with dr flocks and he's in that state of loneliness where he's talking out loud at the dog doesn't take much for me to do that i would say uh maybe an hour after my wife leaves for work and i'm doing my morning business talking to the dog all the time yeah i like this i mean it becomes a letter to Dr. Lucas, like this is an epistolary episode where Flox is describing his experience to another person, not to a personal log or anything. But it is like dictated not read. So it's also for porthos's benefit, right? Hey, Ben, for the FODs who don't know what mean, I absolutely know what it means, just to be clear. But like, could you maybe define epistolary? for the FODs out there.

Isn't that like the epistle is when you read the letter in church and an epistolary novel is one that's like it's letters back and forth between characters? Okay. I mean, yes, that's what it is, because I also know what that means. Yeah, epistle, a letter, especially a formal one. Mm-hmm. Aren't all letters formal these days? They do feel that way, right?

Yeah. If you're writing a letter to somebody, that's like a, like, like, all. almost like suing them at this point. Like, you better have your ducks in a row before you set a fucking letter to my house. I wrote a thank you card to a friend for doing me a kindness. And I got an extreme amount of, not flack, but kind of be like, fuck you, flack. Like, this is too, that's, that's too nice. All right, just back the fuck off.

You don't have to fucking write me a thank you letter for a thing I did. Like, chill the fuck out. out. Yeah. I mean, I do feel like we are in a low amount of expectation surrounding thank you letters era. Yeah. And I wonder if your experience means we're moving into a suspicion surrounding thank you. Because I get a thank you letter. I'm like, that's so nice. Like, who does that anymore? Like, what a sweet gesture? Didn't need it, but I really appreciate it. Tell you what, Ben, you're one of one. Not a lot of that out there in the world. I mean, and like when we, you know, got like baby gifts, we, like, made an effort to write them.

And by we, I mean, my wife. That is different, though. When you do an occasion where that is expected, like birthdays, holidays, baby stuff, like, there is a reasonable expectation of a thank you gift. When it's just random, thank you, whoa. Yeah. Hey, man. It's not like that between us. Hey, man, everything okay?

you clearly have a lot of time on your hands to write a thank you and go to the post office and mail it i'm really worried about adam i think you might be suicidal he's like getting his affairs in orders he's sending out thank you gifts for recent gestures why why did he include a picture of himself and and also a like a secondary note that was like this one would look good on an easel next to my coffin Why is that my responsibility? Oh. Porthos wants to eat a leech. Don't tell the captain.

If you, like, went out of town, left Ripley with a, you know, like a boarding situation or a house sitter, he came back and found out Ripley ate leech while you were gone, how would you feel about that? I mean, I would hope the leech passed harmlessly through her birdie more than anything. The description is that this is going to clean porthos out, which seems good, right? It does. I mean, what you want if your Captain Archer is to wake up to a perfectly healthy dog that is uninjured and not sick at all. Sure. But Dr. Flux has a sort of cavalier attitude about dog care where he's like, yeah, this dog is begging for something he can't understand.

Why don't we give it a try? Ben, question for you. Just going to put you on the spot. Okay. What is more troubling to look at, denobulant feet or talaxian feet? Easily denobulant feet for me. I thought so, too. When you see Dr. Flax's feet in this scene, they rocketed straight up to, is first

position on Mount Rushmore the Washington side? That's the left side, right? So that's number one. Is that number one? Yeah, I guess so. So that would mean denoubulin feet leftmost foot on Mount Footmore. Who do we got on there? What do we got like Andrew Jackson on there?

Oh, yeah. It's a fucking horror show. Like, I feel like maybe we need to stop using Mount Rushmore as these are four good things. If Andrew Jackson's on there. We got Washington, Jackson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln, right? Yeah. But the horseback Roosevelt, not wheelchair Roosevelt. Right, yeah.

Yeah. I wish he was wearing the hat on the mountain. That would be fun. Give us that hat. It would be a tricky cantilever maneuver with carved stone, but I think it would have been worth it, you know. What if they were all wearing hats? Like you go to the end and Lincoln's got like the tallest part of them. He's in position four, but he's the tallest one because of that hat.

So Washington was a wig-era guy, not a hat-era guy. No, but he wore the tricorn. cornered hat, right, when he was crossing the river? Somebody's got to take that fucking thing out, right? It's got Andrew Jackson. There's nobody worse than Andrew Jackson. Like, very few presidents worse.

You never saw Andrew Jackson wearing a hat. Like, what is his hat of note? He seems to be the outlier there for that reason and that reason only. Yeah. Yeah. Knock him off the fucking mountain. Knock him off the twomp. I have a stamp. I put other faces

on my 20s. Oh, sure. You're a tubman stamp person. That doesn't surprise me. Yeah, I got the tubman stamp. I'm throwing tubs in the titty bar, you know. If we change the words, then it's fair use all day long. We go back to the, you know, the how we got into this situation description in the letter. And we're in a McLaughlin group. Issue one. About how the entrepreneur is coming up on a trend.

dimensional disturbance. And this is right dead center on their path to the Zindi colony that they think the weapon might be getting developed at. And it would take two weeks to go around this thing, but they can go through it. This is just more space caseo, right? I think so, yeah. I think it probably isn't quite as infected looking as the last one that they found. There seems to be, there's some discussion about this too, right? When it's new. it's less coagulated. It's more misty and foggy, and that's the condition of this space,

Koso. It hasn't tightened up the way you want a cheese product too. It's like the Koso before you fundito it, you know? And so they could get through it, but it would mess up everybody's brains if they did that. So Flax has a plan to kind of turn off everybody's neocortex. this will dampen the neurological activity, much like shutting off the main computer in an ion storm.

Dr. Flux is like, fortunately, we only have to give a half dose to read. That was unjustified. I don't need to do that to read. Reed did nothing wrong this episode. I mean, he's a creepy jerk. He's not a moron. He's bad at shooting weapons. That doesn't make him an idiot.

Right, right. It's a real, like, you know, Oprah revealing, you know, everybody reach under your chair. You get a coma. You get a coma. You get a coma. Everybody gets a coma. There was a Reddit thread recently, not in our Reddit, which is great and positive. I don't know what section of Reddit this was, but it was like, hey.

Adam, just blink SOS if you don't think our Reddit is great. the question was if you've been in a coma what was that like do you just blink and then you blink again and you wake up or like do you feel your coma yeah and almost to a person everyone was like nope felt nothing like the idea that that your family comes in and talks to you and strokes your hair and whatever and that's supposed to do something for you across the board the people who have been in comas were like yeah man like i was out for two weeks i was out for six months. It didn't matter how much time had passed. It was like, I got into the car accident and then I woke up. Man. And it was like someone held up a newspaper. I'd like to do it at some point,

you know. It's not an experience everybody gets. And if it's not painful, absolutely sign me up. You know? If the drink is gross, that might be a barrier for me. Like, all you're going to do is drink this leader of liquid and then you're in a coma for a week. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. What was that? Oh, Project Hail Mary, the Andy Weir novel. One of the premises of this is that the main character wakes up after having been in a coma for a really long time on a spaceship. And he can't really remember why he's on the spaceship.

And, like, other crew members did not survive their very long comas. And so that's, that's, like, the first problem he has to solve among many. Do you think if that were to happen to you? like say you go to sleep tonight and then you wake up and you're on a spaceship how long do you pretend that that's exactly where you know yourself to be and you like kind of fake your way

through like everything being fine while inside you're like I don't know where I am and I don't know what this stuff does I'm just trying to like go with the flow here I gotta say I think I would hang on for days and days because if you're on a spaceship you got to assume there's like a camera in there and like somebody back in mission controls got their eyes

on you. So you want to be cool, right? You don't want them to worry. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm faking it so long. Boy, Adam said a really bad week on the space station. Like, he's kind of not doing much. Does it seem like he really, like, knows what his assignment is. Do you think we should call him? Is he taking time off? I mean, I don't remember receiving a time off request from Adam. They also discuss how fast they're going to go through this because it would be two weeks to go around this dimensional disturbance but only four days to go right through the center of it but Tripp wants to do that at impulse

because it's the strange energies at work might have an effect on the warp engine. So part of the problem is like Flox is the only person immune so he's going to need to get a little tutorial on flying from Mayweather and a little tutorial on keeping the engines working from Tripp. God, they just... They fucking do Anthony Montgomery so dirty once again. Like, here's Dr. Flux getting lessons from folks.

The Mayweather lesson is the only one where you can't hear dialogue. Let's just do that in like a kind of a little montage element where we don't have to pay Anthony Montgomery his full week's rate. Also, like, this comparison's so easy. There's, like, the moment where you see Dr. Flux steering the ship, there's a little bit of a banger, and he's like, oh, I got it now. Like, this is what you do. And then smash cut to Trip Tucker going,

you will fucking kill us if you don't do this right. And I don't trust you at all. Yeah. Here's an idea. Don't touch anything. Don't touch anything, Dr. Flokes. You'll kill us. I got these controls rigged up

so that they only activate if four nipples are touching on the four little pads down here. You're never going to let that go, are you? I'm like a long-haul trucker who's done a lot of improvised technology where like I'm tying belt buckles onto steering wheels

between gas pedals and a shifter so I can piss in a jug. There's a lot of pissing the jug technology on Enterprise and you'd never understand it. The moment where Tripp takes Dr. Flock's by the shoulders and is like, if there is a problem with the engine, you wake me up because it is better that I die so that we can do our mission, then you like let the entire ship explode because you don't know what the fuck you're doing with this thing. What do you think their EV suits are made of that prevents them from being used in this situation? Like, it seems like you put Tripp Tucker in an EV suit And, uh, oh, I just broke the episode

Sorry Oh, it's all in pieces on the ground now He'd have to have like three feet of lead shielding Around the helmet part To really protect himself and his You know, it's like, my neck is not quite strong enough To do that for four days He's like a juggernaut from the X-Men

Yeah, yeah We should say episode directed by Roxanne and Dawson and written by friend of the show Chris Black. How about that? So Flax is there to put Archer to sleep and Archer wants to say something to Flax. And Flax is like, no, man, no, I can't fucking listen to that shit from you too. I've gotten this from every goddamn crew member that I have put under. I don't need to hear it from you as well.

And Archer's like, no, man, what I'm trying to say is you got this. You've got this, Flax? What Archer's trying to say is, you got to make sure I don't piss myself in the coma. Like, look, here's my drawer full of dry underwear. I'm wearing a very easy to take off onesie. There's a bunch of towels I'm just going to leave next to the bed. Do not let me stay wet, Dr. Flax.

Do not. It's like a coach addressing the team before the game that determines whether they go to state. you know, like make sure when you go out there and you face the other team, I don't piss myself. Look, Dr. Flox, I can only tell you I am fairly certain I took a four-day dump 20 minutes ago, like complete evacuation. We're going to have to trust that nothing's moving through there. Yeah. We're back to the letter, back to the present, and everything is going good on their journey through. They're like two days in, but flocks hears a little bump in the night.

Like, I forget where he is at this part of the episode, but like there's like a couple of times where he's like trying to write his letter to his doctor friend and here's something on the ship and can't determine what caused that noise. he's doing a lot of hollering hey what's that noise no response and we learned at this point we're about halfway through the journey

yeah you'd think you'd be very scared of whatever might be causing that but it was revealed in the next scene that he is not because he is walking

around the ship in the buff everything but his feet is uncovered which I appreciated like we did get one nasty tootsy shot at the beginning of this, but every other time the camera shows his feet, which is quite a bit

more than normal, I would say. He's wearing slippers. So I guess they didn't want to do the toenail loaf over and over again. That was one of the things that John Bailingsley talked about with respect to this episode was that like normally it's an amount of time to make me the alien. And for this episode, I had to do 16 hour days, both because I was the episode's primary character with all the dialogue, and also you saw All of My Bertie. You don't see the parts that are being Austin Powers in this scene, which I thought was very funny, like covering up his parts with things in the room. That's really great. I did like that the iPad was extra big. That feels like Roxanne Dawson with a sense of humor, you know?

Like, let's make it fun and weird. Yeah. You also notice that Dr. Flax has a pretty significant lumbar lordosis thing. Either that or he's just a bad B. I don't know. Did notice that, Adam. I like that Flax observes the tradition of movie night, even though everybody else is asleep.

But that gets interrupted by some more bonks, and he goes into the shuttle bay to see what it is. porthos has no chill porthos runs right past flocks after whatever is making this noise were you shocked that a beagle of all breeds does not bark at the thunder or whatever like all of these noises are happening on the ship

the worst porthos does is just run again like the most science fictional thing about this show is porthos's restraint surrounding using his voice I mean probably the leech attached itself to the cords and nothing's going to happen there. I like that head cannon.

Yeah. If that's true, like, let's get some of those leeches. The leeches love the vocal cords. Get right up in there. So, yeah, it was just like some steam and a chain. And Tepal shows up, not to Fox's surprise. And it's like, oh, yeah, I'll, like, put something in the maintenance log so that they could fix that. And we come to realize that they've both been.

awake for the past couple of days doing various stuff around the ship and it's like a little hard to square with the with the letter flocks was writing earlier like why did he have to learn the engine and the flying I guess just because there's two of them and like two was one and one is none yeah I think that's it exactly must be something like that anyways he's like what do you've been up to like the movie's not over I just pressed pause do you want to come check out the last half and she's like more of a first half of the movie kind of person. And I was like, yeah, that's why I really identify with DePaul in this show. I like that they have an arrangement to just kind of leave each other alone for four days.

Yeah. Where all there is, but let's just stay on opposite sides of the ship. Yeah. He's like dinner later and she's like, nah. The desperation in his voice and in his invitation is the thing that tips her over into accepting. I don't think she had any intention of doing that, but man, he's thirsty for companionship. He's thirsty is F. So later he's in engineering and he hears more bumps and actually sees something moving up on that upper catwalk area. And he radios to Paul to be like, what the fuck are you doing up there at engineering and not answering me? And she's like, I'm on the bridge, man.

I don't know what you're talking about. So suspicions are race. Something or someone is on the ship. And flocks is having a weird experience with this. There is a technique that I think is noticeable starting now, but is present throughout the episode before it, which is like you only ever see Dr. Flax's perspective. Like ordinarily on a Star Trek episode,

we would have cut to the bridge for Tepaul to receive this message and respond. But we are with Dr. Flax the entire way. Yeah. The next scene is their dinner date. Flax has made denobul and fuh. I mean, the chef we've heard is like the best in Starfleet, but that doesn't mean the chef has skills outside of human cuisine, right? And so they're kind of talking shit about what chef has done with regards to plomek and the noodle soup that Flox enjoys. One of the biggest giveaways about what's happening here is that DePaul does not eat a single bite of the food. She doesn't touch it. Dr. Flux is doing all the talk. and all the eating in this scene.

Yeah. And his spit bucket is filling up from take to take. And hers stays empty. Yeah. Pretty good deal for Jolene. Yeah. So he confesses that he was distinctly of the impression that there was somebody in engineering with him.

And, you know, like there's some like, you know, what about if you were just imagining it, like what with the solitude of it all? And they're talking about how to Paul, as a Vulcan loves this shit and how flocks as a denobulan hates this shit. He wants to be around people. He wants to be in a denobulant city that is jam-packed, cheek-by-jowl with other denobulans. She's been on vacation.

She loves it. Yeah. She's fine to eat in her room, clearly. No. Well, time to go back to the rounds, which is basically checking for wetness. How are we feeling today? Weird that not only Archer is dry, but there's kind of a bang happening outside of the window to Archer's quarters. Kind of shadowy figure out there, too, to go along with it.

That's no good. So he's got to fucking bring this to Topal again. That's an energy to a lot of this, the whole, like, fuck again. Like, she already doesn't believe me. Yeah. She already thinks I'm going a little crazy. I've got to report this. I also just really loved the choice of the jump scare here

because it's like him looking at a window and we can see the window and tell the jump scare. And all we see from the jump scare is a shadow washing over him as he's like, you know, we're seeing it from the perspective of the window now. So whatever he saw is up to us to, you know, fill in the blanks with our imagination. And that is like, we're kind of put into Paul's position of being like, what did you see?

And he, like, can't really describe it, you know? Yeah. Topal, when told of this, basically pats him on the top of the head and tells the doctor he should go get some rest. But he doesn't do that. He still has rounds to do. And as we experience those with him, we see an insectoid zindi looming over Hoshi Sato's bed. And Dr. Flux does one of those get away from him. from her takes and then runs away.

Yeah, poor Hoshi, devoured by the insect Zindy at this moment. Dr. Flux could have done more in this moment, I think, as the Insect Zindy looms over Sato. Did he lock himself in the airlock? He did, yeah. That is not where I would, pardon the pun, bug out to in a scenario like that. If I'm an insect zindi and I'm searching for Dr. Flax, I might just proactively open the airlocks. You know, like one less thing to worry about. Like, clearly no one's going to hide in there.

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Yes, hello. Who is this? Hi, this is Tom Lum from Let's Learn Everything. I'm calling about your maximum fund membership's extended warranty. Do you have a few seconds to talk about that? I think I have to go. No, oh, no, no, no, they're going to be so mad at me. Okay, fine.

Did you know that as a part of your maximum fund membership's extended warranty, you've been picked as the member of the month, which is one. wild, and we're so excited to have you. It's so exciting. Thank you. So as our member of the month, you will also be getting a $25 gift card to the Maximum Fund store, a special member of the month bumper sticker, a special priority parking spot at MaxFund HQ in Los Angeles, California, just for you. Also, I have to read, hold on, I have to read this. It says, we at Maximum Fun apologize.

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about them. Triple Click. It's kind of like we're your friends. Find us at maximum fun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. the greatest chin alive Ben would rather die When the coast is clear he reports this to a still

extremely skeptical to Paul and he's like why are you not helping me like there's fucking why wouldn't there be Zindia board like we're going to stop their evil plan like help me fucking find them so they're like get some weapons

and they get some flashlights and they're going to go deck by dead Well, I think a crucial detail about this is that flocks is the only one with a weapon or a flashlight. She's just kind of there as an NPC. It's like a reveal after they've been searching for a bit, but like she's just walking alongside him with her hands at her side. Yeah. Yeah. He is so paranoid that he almost shoots Porthos in the face.

Oh, almost got him. It would have been a real cranky captain at the end of this adventure, if that. had gone down. This is the moment that to Paul's patience runs out. She gets in his face about his behavior, how he isn't with it enough to even make sure Porthos

is going to survive this journey, let alone, like survive the walks that he has to give him. Like, you got to, when you're a dog sitter, make sure the front door is shut after you return home with the dog, right? That's like job number one. Yeah. Yeah.

And you simply forgot. I've been distracted They're really at each other's throats She says something interesting here That I don't remember being a detail About denobulins, Ben When denobulins are stressed They hallucinate and they kind of like it

Is that a thing about denobulence? Yeah, it was, I feel like this episode Like comes right out of an episode Where Hoshi was having hallucinations Right, he says that to comfort her Right, maybe it was the telepathic Trickster alien that they had encountered. It's real don't fight the psychedelic energy that he's giving here. So it could just be

a stress response and he doesn't like that coming from to Paul. He's like, you're not denopulent. You can't talk about our reactions to things like that. And so he huffs off and he gets a hail from Hoshi and goes to her quarters and she's not in her bed. Fuck. She should be in bed. It is clear that this shower is too damn hot. The amount of steam coming out of here, really intense. Well, you know, you might interpret that as steam unless you're listening to the soundtrack of the episode and you hear the steel drum, and then you realize,

oh, she is getting fucking blazed, bro. Yeah, blazed could be a way to describe what her skin looks like. She appears to have been transformed into the monster from behind the dumpster in Mahal and Drive. I hope that I never see that face ever outside of a dream This reveal This reveal is terrifying

Maybe the most terrifying moment of this episode for me It's a real nightmare shower That's how you know the water's too hot Yeah Yeah Yeah and then she's not there And she's back in bed And there's no steam in the shower

So it's like, what the hell? What are we dealing with? And Flax at this point is forced to admit that there's a distinct possibility that he's imagining things. Ben, for the second time in, I don't know, three or four episodes, I've got to ask you. Did you think at this point Dr. Flax was being, my name is Barashd? I started to get simulation vibes here again for some reason. Yeah. I didn't go there.

I had started to wonder, like, how much of his reality was real anymore. Mm-hmm. And he's, like, heading to Six Bay and runs into Archer. Archer, like, comes off the elevator, and it's like, hey, man, like, you don't look so good. He's got that disappointed dad energy of, like, hey, you know, I loaned you my car because I thought I could trust you. And now I see you're going all sorts of places where you didn't tell me you were going to go. and there's like a bunch of shit in the passenger seat that you didn't clean up. You did like almost $300 worth of body damage.

Yeah. You know, like scraping a ballard going through the drive-thru at a fast food restaurant. I'm going to guess based on context clues that a ballard is a tall cylinder pipe-like thing that keeps you from driving into the microphone. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Yes! Woo! The ones you see in London

often made out of Napoleonic cannons that they seized from Napoleon's armies. How about that? Yeah. Wonderful. Fun little detail about London. Hmm. Hmm.

Anyways, he should have neuroscanned himself. Right. You know, he was like, he was so focused on whether the crew was okay. You know, it's like dad putting a bunch of sunscreen on his kids at the beach and then going ahead and getting his own sunburn, you know? Put the mask on yourself before putting the mask on someone else. Yeah.

He's getting disruptions, too, not as severe as would be happening if he was a human, but it is affecting him. And he's like, to Paul, okay, I got to put a clip show Bindi on myself. You've got this. There's six more hours. Like, you just got to like kind of walk around and make sure that the crew haven't pissed themselves. And she's like, no, no, no, no.

I refuse. Did you see me earlier? I nearly lost my temper. I love this take. This is so much fun when you think you're out of danger. They only have like four hours left to transit. Like, this seems like a reasonable amount of time to do an emergency thing. Dr. Flux puts himself down.

She takes over. Like, you think on paper, there's nothing wrong with that plan. Right. To Paul kicks this plan in the nuts. It's been three and three quarters of the four days. Yeah, yeah. Can he not sleep the last six hours? No.

Yeah. DePaul, I'm asking for your help. I can't. Why not? The final boss is to Paul's irritability. Yeah, yeah. So she too was affected and she's like, we got to do this together. We got to like knuckle under and go through.

You know, like Archer gave him the pregame speech and Topal gives him the half. Half-time speech, you know, like Archer trusted you to keep Archer from pissing himself. If Archer thinks that, that you have what it takes to keep him from pissing himself, I know that you have what it takes to keep him from pissing himself. In four hours, the entire crew is going to be dry. I know that. I've bet on it. So they show up on the bridge and they're like, huh, weird. I kind of thought would be through by now. it's like the timer goes off on the oven like you think your dinner's done oh no

they put a toothpick into the middle of the nebula and it comes out and there's still like little wet chunks of nebula stuck to the toothpick fuck fuck I have guests god damn it yeah and for some reason the cake is getting bigger and bigger

in the oven that's also a problem here yeah yeah it's like one of those things where like the edges of the nebula are burning and the middle of the nebula is still a soupy mess that is expanding. Total nightmare. There's still so much anomaly. Like 10 more weeks of anomaly they discover. What do you make of this time? Because like I think this is very intentional. Four days of misery seems endurable depending on the misery. Like that's 10 weeks compared to four days feels like a death sentence.

in a really magical way for the story. Yeah, because he's like so close to losing his marbles entirely already. So like they're only 1% of the way across and they have 99% left is just like, fuck. Going to warp feels like the only alternative they have. And if you remember, Tripp Tucker gently suggested that they don't even try to do that in this thing. And if they really need to wake him up and let him like sacrifice. his own life to get them out of this thing.

I'd rather die than you try to take this ship to warp. I won't cease or desist because you really think it's fair use. In engineering, DePaul is really falling apart. She is like too scared to help, but like in, I thought that this was such an interesting choice by, like, it felt like both a choice by Jolie and Blay. and by Roxanne Dosson that the kind of scared she would be was kind of silly scared. Yeah, that's a good call. There's a really interesting composition here from the top of the warp core angle down at them that looks like the TV guide shot with Kirk and Spock.

Sure, sure. Like that kind of lighting, that kind of composition. They got a lot of god shots in this episode, and it is the blind leading the blind. like neither of them are warp engineers and they don't really know what they're doing so they have to like read the assembly instructions on starting the warp core and like you know the first thing on there is the little guy calling the phone number to ikea customer support you know and they're like well we can't use that like that's not available to us can you find the little hex wrench you know what if you were putting together a billy bookcase and all of a sudden like an angry swedish ghost comes out of the wall and starts screaming at you about how you're doing it wrong? That's basically what the ghost of Tripp Tucker is doing

to Dr. Flax here as he tried to turn the engines on. He's like horsky barsky borgsiborg Bargie Borg Sounds Swedish. We are the Borgie Borg Borg. Borgie Borg

is Borgie. so flux overcomes the self-confidence undermining ghost of Tripp Tucker and they start to form a warp field but there's like bangers and we cut to the exterior and we see that the nacelles are like flickering on and off which really you know just ugh I hate seeing that like I want them all the way on or all the way off I don't like them flickering pretty great shot to Paul not helpful like in a total like goofy state of panic there is the suggestion of like what about if we wake up trip like he will survive for like a few minutes and maybe could help us and the math of that being like potentially this saves like eight billion lives like doesn't that seem like maybe worth it like sacrifice one trip for all humans everywhere and fox is like no man to Paul's like we already have the footage the funeral footage I mean we could just throw to that at the end of this episode.

He's in a torpedo casing and everything. Fox flouts this recommendation, figures out some technical shit. I have to say, by the way, that I loved, like, how scary the technical mumbo-jumbo in this was. Like, oh, unless you're, like, within two parsecs of a graphometric disturbance, do this, this, and this. Like, going to work for the first time in Star Trek

history sounds genuinely technically terrifying. Yeah, if you get to do it yourself. Yeah, but they get it up to Warp 2 with some bumps along the way and then they are out. What a great moment that was. Like a ton of bangers on the way, a lot of sparks shooting really feels like it might not happen, but getting to Warp 2 feels great. Like when the ship finally smooths out, yeah. Great moment.

Great moment for two really scared people. And, like, I think that, like, Billingsley's enthusiasm and Jolie and Laylock, like, playing to Paul as a to Paul that is not totally in control of her emotional expression, like, it really sells it. Like, they're both so relieved and excited that that happened. This is, like, when the raft finally gets over the tide in that Tom Hanks volleyball movie, you know? Like, it feels great. Great success. Bump set spike.

So the clip show device comes off of Archer's forehead and, you know, a box is like bedside mandering the shit out of Archer here. Very much underplaying how exciting the last four days have been. Archer's like, I looked at my underwear, Doctor. Like, it's the same underwear I wore in the beginning. Like, did I really not piss or? or shit at all for four days? It seems weird, doctor, that you were giving me the sponge best I requested,

but then putting the underpants back on me. Can you imagine what the sewer system is like on Enterprise as soon as the crew wakes up after four days? Like how overtaxed it is? Can you imagine the bangers happening on Enterprise during this wake-up? It's like a municipal sewer system during halftime at the Super Bowl. It's just completely overwhelmed at this moment. Yeah, it's intense. Flax's woken up trip and he like, you know, pats him on the back and then

Flaxen's a Paul catch up and we get to to Paul's quarters where Flax is dropping her off and the door opens and the reveal is that she was also asleep this whole time. You can tell this is a Berman and Bragg a joint because we angle in. on Dr. Flax and he's like, hmm, I could have imagined to Paul naked the whole time. I could redo my hallucination, I would. Your Dr. Flax is a thousand percent better than mine. He finishes his letter and decides not to leave out all the parts where he was totally out of his mind when he was writing it. Which is like, man, I have a friend who.

who was recently in the hospital. Like, he got, like, incredibly serious food poisoning and was very close to death and was, like, texting me about it in real time. And then, like, a couple days later, he was like, hey, man, I don't know if you knew this, but I almost died. And I was like, yeah, I knew.

I've been in communication with him through the whole time, and he, like, didn't remember any of that stuff. I was wondering how much of his letter, Flax remembered, even. Knowing what I know about you, Is there a chance that that was you? Did you doctor's orders yourself? I wish, I wish.

I would much rather have been the friend in the hospital, you know. That feels like the right arrangement for me. That is really insightful. That you would rather be the sufferer than the person told about the suffering. Oh, yeah. Anytime. I love suffering. New five-star review on Greatest Jen

by B. Harrison. I love suffering five stars. What more needs to be said? Well, flocks and Tepal got to have lunch. She tells him about how badly he fucked up the warp engines doing all the stuff he did. It's like a parasycial lunch, right? Like he has spent a bunch of time with her

that she has not spent with him. You hear from off-camera, the chef that we've never been. before we're going, who fucking used the kitchen and didn't clean up after themselves? What the fuck? An absolutely unbelievable amount of kosher salt got used, given nobody was awake for the past four days. What the hell is going on here? Did you like this episode, Adam?

I love a true blue bottle episode like this. Yeah. Big fun. I additionally love a episode that centers Dr. Flux as its primary character. That was big fun because of my enthusiastic interest in John Billingsley as an actor. Like I like seeing all the different flavors of that guy. Totally. And what he brings to it.

I, darkness of this episode is in one place. And I just don't know if, do you ever tell Tripp how close you were to waking him up? Because there are, I think there are three moments in this episode where they're like, shouldn't we wake up Trip? And knowing that that's all a fantasy, it gets very close to Dr. Flox in a crazy state waking up Trip for reasons that maybe he shouldn't, gets him killed. And then what?

Yeah. Like, but this episode isn't that dark. And I think the ending is what underscores the vibe of this thing. Like, this is never going to go there, even though that's the truth of it. The truth is the trip almost died many times. I think that it's really interesting that the tone stuff almost all rests on Jilline Blaylock's shoulders. Yes. Yeah.

Because you're right. Like, this episode never gets that dark. And I think it is because of the way she plays her to Paul hallucination the entire way through as being scared, but not in a bone-chilling, blood-curdling way, but in a goofy like, what's going to happen next kind of way. I mean, that episode of TNG seems like it might be the comp, right? When no one can get REM sleep and everyone's having waking nightmares and stuff. Yeah. There's an evolution of makeup in that episode, too. as time goes on, the bags under the eyes, the voice changes and stuff. With Topal, it's all performance, right? They don't make her look much different. They shoot her differently to pay this off, but I think that's a big part of it too, right? Yeah. And I wonder what this episode is like if they do go dark. Do we like it as much? I don't know. I like the episode as it is, but, you know, like, you could scare me a little bit more. Yeah. Be fine with that.

Spook me. Mm-hmm. Well, do you want to see if there's anything terrifying in the Priority One inbox, Adam? Ah! Priority One message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. You need a supplemental income. Supplement. Supplement.

Yeah, it's extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship. This one's of a promotional nature. B&A. You recently enjoyed a P1 from Reed. So I thought you'd love a P1 from any character not read. Your podcast makes me feel seen, which as you'll know from Vanishing Point is a bit of a problem for me. I also had a problem with Tarkwin, who just wasn't sibilant enough to be a recurring pervert on your show.

Recently watched Plan 9 from outer space on movie night, and the aliens called their universal translator, the Dictal Roboteri. First mention is about 43 minutes in, and worth a listen. Hmm. Hmm. Dictal Roboteri. Dick Tal Roboteri.

Wow. That was a promotional P1. The call to action is possible drop. Forgive the arrogance, but consider it does have the word dick in it. Oops, got to go. Travis and I are busy barely being on the show. Recurring purpose. Pervert is an alliterative flourish that I really enjoy.

I don't think I've ever heard or read those two words together in that way. Oh, really? It's my vocal. You know, I used to do red leather, yellow leather, but now I do recurring pervert. Recurring pervert. That's perfect for you, Ben. Yeah. Got a priority one message here of a personal nature.

Ben, you want to hear it? It's short and sweet. It's from Heidi. It's to Carl. yeah here's that message happy birthday from she who is your wife alright

happy birthday Carl Carl happy birthday if this was a walking dead birthday would it be happy birthday coral

I don't know Coral happy birthday Carl Is that a thing from walking dead yeah the way the way they yell Carl's name

Carl, the little boy from that show. He gets a lot of Yarl in his name when people are yelling it. Quirle! I never saw that one. Dietro says to Mothra, since we embarked on our own greatest track of parenthood, I've gotten a new perspective on Deep Space Nine through the eyes of the boys.

The boy. Ben and Adam, I may not get all your obscure 90s references, but at least now I can smile and nod, when you start talking about the Borg's Queen. Love you. Sure you can, D. Trow. Yeah. Yeah.

Would you describe your own parenthood experience a greatest trek? It's pretty great, man. You know? God, the way you have to say that, knowing that your kids may one day listen to this show, like, it's a hostage situation

when I ask a question that way. It's not. I genuinely love it, but it's fucking hard. Like, there's, there's... Hey, DeRone, and the other one, you're driving my friend crazy. Stop it.

Stop it now. Well, baby girl's crawling, sitting up now. She's gonna walk in, like, in like months. It's crazy. Sounds like a problem. Yeah, she's... Sounds like a real problem. She's keeping us on our toes.

I'll tell you what. Yeah. Well, if you've got a priority one message, you can go to maximum fun.org slash jumbo-tron, where you can wish someone a happy birthday. Or wish another person a happy birthday. Or, I don't know, wish a third person a happy birthday.

All kinds of messages go a long way and supporting the production of our show. They really mean a lot. Mm-hmm. Hey, Adam. Tap in. Did you find yourself? A drunk Shemota. Incredible.

Drunk Shemota! It's hard not to pick Dr. Flock's. I kind of want to do a chaos pick that isn't him. Uh-huh. But, like, there's so much he does this episode that... Can I pitch you on one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Here's my pitch. I wasn't quite sure which direction I was going to go,

but I think Linda Park might have the funniest role on this because she had to get in tons of loaf. And most of the rest of the cast didn't even have to be there that week, you know? Like, this was a seven-day shoot, and Jolene Blaylock and John Billingsley were the only two actors that were there the entire time. What I want to say about this scene is, can you think of another character who got into more makeup for less screen time than Linda Park in this episode. I think she's on screen for three seconds. She was clearly in a makeup chair for six hours. Easily.

Does this show like Linda Park? That's a question I have, thinking about that ratio. I don't love that. She got ratioed, didn't she? Sure did. Wow. Yeah, I can co-sign that. Does that mean we're both on Linda Park as the drunk's mode?

Let's become Linda Park co-signers. All right. Faith of the fart. All right, we got to talk about next week's episode, Adam. It's season three episode 17. Hatchery. Archer goes to extreme lengths to save an abandoned nest of zindi insectoid eggs ready to hatch. Extreme lengths or does he go to extreme measures?

All right. Well, you said it, Ben, and that means I'm vetoed. the next episode and we are watching Extreme Measures instead. How about new? You can't do that. That's not one of the things. It's not one of the things, no. But what is one of the things is

our game of buttholes, Will of the Riker, Quantum Leap, where we could hit anything at any time, Adam, and I'm headed there now to roll this hundred-sided dice. You're required to learn as you play. Roll.

Keep us out of trouble, Ben. Yeah, we're currently on square 67, and anything is possible. Ooh, Adam. I narrowly kept us out of Broan-related trouble. I rolled a 30. Chula! Did I win? Hardly.

Jumped us up to square 97. Oh. Right past that Broan's own square on 96. It would be weird to get that kind of repetition from the past few squares. I know, I know. Thank goodness. Yeah, I mean, I would have vetoed it. I would have done that for the FODs. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know.

And we would have watched Extreme Measures instead of Quantum Weep. We would have been the only people to ever re-watch Extreme Measures. Yeah. We got to thank a bunch of people. The biggest group of people and the ones we appreciate the biggest are the FOTs who go to maximum fun.org slash join and become members of this

program, keeping it alive, perpetuating it off into the future. Huge for us. We talk about you all the time. Financially supporting the show keeps it going. It does. And it's cheap. Got to think Wendy Pretty,

our producer, editor, who tightens this thing up, makes it sound great, and gets it to you on time every week. If you appreciate seeing this show up in your feed on Monday mornings. The primary person you have to thank is Wendy Priddy.

She does an amazing job. As we build the show, she is the screaming Swedish ghost that makes the show better. I got to thank Bill Tilly, our Zindy wartime Consigliari and Rob Adler, with whom he co-runs

the at Gravest Trek social media accounts. Please also follow our newsletter Greatest Newsletter Going to gach.biz slash mail Or you can just sign up at Greatestrek.com Yeah, go there. That's got everything.

That's got a link to Podshop.biz. That's got a link to the feed for our other amazing show, Greatest Trek, and our other other amazing show, Wholesome, that we do with Adam Ragusea who made the theme song for this show. Sure did.

What an experience. Got to thank Dark Materia for the original Picard song. And with that, We will be back at you next time. Another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise and episode of the Grey's Generation Enterprise where Adam and Ben are doing sick medical experiments on hobos.

Finally. Finally get to use my medical utensils. For those like sent in for a Code 47, like a friend of DeSoto was like, Hey, if you guys ever want to do a deeply, unethical medical testing these are for you. For years I've been building a collection of vintage

medical supplies so I can't wait to put them to good use. Nothing has ever surprised me less. Make it so. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows

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