The Greatest Generation - Werebear PTSD (S5E6)

Episode Date: January 25, 2017

When Commander Riker returns from holiday on Risa, he's totally obsessed with playing "Suck Disk." But when Wesley (The Boy?!) sees how dumb-looking the glasses are, he turns his sights on an age-appropriate co-worker instead. Which sexual subculture are you into if you display a horga'hn AND credit cards? What color is Worf's apron? How many Coogi sweaters are in Wesley's closet? It's the episode where we've given up dessert flirtation games!

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 friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdisotoforlabor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! Welcome to the greatest generation, a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Benjamin R. Harrison.

If you're looking for a Star Trek podcast, by two guys from embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast you're in the right place. Yeah, just to underscore the show open here. I want you to be sure what you're getting. Yeah, fear viewer. Adam, the other day I was, I think it was the first episode, we had our first ever episode with an advertisement on it. Actually, not that's not really true, but our first ever episode where we were paid to advertise something. Right. And that was a big coup for us because, you know, I think we're, we

have a big enough audience now that I think that we're both feeling like it should not be a net loss in terms of hours put into this show for us to do the show. And at the same time, I also feel like we could lose everything with a bad turn of phrase or a late publication of the show. I mean, the stakes have never been higher. That's true. Anyways, I was excited to hear how the episode sounded with an ad in it. And so I was listening back to an episode. The morning it came out. And I just headed on the little speaker on my iPhone. And I was walking around the apartment getting ready for my day and my wife walked into the room and overheard.

Maybe the first greatest gen she's ever heard and she's like, oh, did you edit little sounds from the real show in there? That's so cute. Wow. On the one hand I'm glad that she appreciates the quality and the effort that we put into the show. On the other hand it's like it's like coming home after getting a haircut and like your wife not noticing. Oh I I couldn't say anything about that because I have never once in my entire life noticed a haircut that my wife got.

Oh boy. Oh, that'll put you in the doghouse, Ben. It put me in the doghouse the first like dozen times when we were dating and now it's just a running joke. Like she can tell me I'm going to go get a haircut and then I'll be home a little later tonight and she'll come home and she'll be like, notice anything difference and it will genuinely stump me. What's different?

It's baked into our DNA bin. Yeah, yeah, so, you know, of course, she notices every single time I get a haircut. What I'm trying to say is I'm a terrible husband. And yet she does not enjoy what is clearly your life's work and your calling. So I think you're probably even. Yeah. She asked me if that hurt my feelings.

And I was like, honestly, it doesn't really. I don't think that it's really your cup of tea, but that's true for most humans. This show is an acquired special taste. And that's the tension, isn't it? Like, friends of mine, this just happened to me very recently. A friend of mine was taking a road trip,

like an eight hour road trip, substantial, with a lady friend of his. And he's like, Hey, I'm thinking about Q and up one of your podcasts. I've never heard it before. And neither is my lady friend. Yeah. Which one should I start with? And I said that that would be a terrible idea because you don't watch Star Trek.

We have viewers that don't watch the show though. It was like, it's, it's all right. I think it'll be great. And so I gave him a couple of ideas. A couple hours later, he texts me back and he's like, we got through 20 minutes. Hahaha. I don't want to hear that.

It's, it's hurtful. Like, on the one hand, I appreciate the effort. It's like a friend does that for another friend. You try to enjoy the thing that they put so much effort into, but I told him he wasn't gonna like it, and sure as shit he didn't. He didn't have to tell me about those 20 minutes, but. Yeah.

Well, Adam, there's only one Star Trek podcast that I like. And we're doing it. It's true. Let's try to make this episode, an episode that can get past 20 minutes to a stranger. What do you say? I'm in. All right.

This is one of my favorite episodes, Ben, of the series, it's season 5, episode 5, The Game. Now this episode opens with Riker playing like, in the words of Dan Savage, cops and robbers in your underpants. Yeah, what do you think is going on here? So, it's one of the most campy openings, I think the show has ever had, right? Oh, I fell over again!

Like, this could almost be something that happened in the original series. It's so weird. But there is a loafed-out woman. She's got the kind of loaf that can only be described as a vagina butt, which is she has two butt cheeks and a vagina right there on her forehead. They're a little bit bubbly too.

Like when you cook a pizza at home and you get the big blistered dough bubble. Like there's some bubbly loaf here I think. Are you doing bubbly? I do indeed. That was for one person out there in our audience. You know who you are. But you're right, though.

They're engaging in the sort of foreplay that is very chased, like, Edo style foreplay. And they're doing this because they can't just explicitly show the light bondage and loaf play that happens off screen. Yeah, this is a 6 p.m. television show. They can't show it going in. Yeah, yeah. Into the forehead. Right. Well, so this lady's name is Etana Joel, and she is having a bit of a laugh running around the

Rysa hotel room of one Riker William T, and she has his communicator badge in her hand, and she's playing a bit of a game of keep away, and this game ends with her tossing his communicator out the window. I believe you did that. Believe it. Into the rest of the soundstage that they're on. You would think that there were some military-style shoreleaf rules about like the things you leave out on a dresser in a hotel room.

You know, and I would think that the communicator would be a big part of that rule. Because think about all the things that they use the communicator for. Like if they say, like lock onto my signal and beam it off the port bow, you know, and they like slap their communicator on a bomb that's about to go off, that bomb gets beamed out into space.

Like that is their identity in their society. It marks you as a federation person too in a way that I know the military when they take short leave, like they're not going to wear IDs in places they could mark them in mixed company as a potential target. And so he's got his horgon out and his communicator out. And probably a bunch of credit cards just on the dresser waiting to get stolen. Yeah. Do you think there was a cut scene of him rummaging around in the bushes later because that

was the only way he was going to be back up onto the ship? You don't want a landscaper to weed whack the communicator. Oh, that would be terrible. I think that sucked up into a lawnmower. Yeah. So they're chasing each other around the room. She chucks the communicator out and then he continues the chase. Yeah.

This is Reicher's level of dedication to boning down. They end up on the bed. Like he sort of, they chase each other and they sort of give up in that way that typically ends in doing it. They fall into bed together. She's on his back and she's like, I got this thing I want to put on your head. And it's a 1989 style walkman metal headband. Yeah.

With a couple of eye shooters out front. And she puts it on him. And then we see his field of view. And what we see in his POV is sort of a lower grid matrix and a couple of buttholes. Yeah. It's like whack-a-mole if you had to toss a frisbee into a butthole.

Yeah, it's whack-a-butthole. It's ultimate butthole. Yeah, it's a bit like Google Glass or like, you know, it's like an augmented reality thing where it's like in your field of view, but you can still see, like, you can see like a wicker chair and a couple of wall hangings in the background of this. You know what's crazy is this show is 25 years old, and these things look way cooler than

Google Glass. I know. How did Google fuck that up so bad? I know. Just base it off of this thing. Yeah, they should have just based it off of this thing. And then they wouldn't have run into the problem of people using their product getting called glass holes.

Rikers like what am I supposed to do with these digital buttholes and she's like you just sort of let it happen. You see the frisbee into the butthole, and he's having a hard time. He's winging the Frisbee all over the field. Yeah, she's like, no, no, no, no, no, it's in the wrist. It's in the wrist. And Riker's like, oh, I know from things

that are all in the wrist. So he gets it in. He gets it in. And what happens to him is pleasure. We cut back outside of his POV, and we see him sort of like half-Irol. Yeah, he gets... You can tell something good is happening.

Yeah, you wouldn't want to check the mattress, you know, under where he's lying at that moment. Right, right. And so instead of a squint to theme song, we get sort of like a quarter orgasm into theme song. Oh, face to theme. Yeah. Yeah. One of the, I mean, I feel like we say at every episode, but one of the strangest open sequences of all time. Because his face really fills the frame. Yeah, it's as close as we ever get. With a lot of people, this wouldn't be flattering, but

Freaks has got a good looking face. He can pull it off. He can do this. I feel like by the time you get to the films, I don't know, Freaks could do it, but they got him at his peak. It's peak freakes. Yeah. Come back. The ship is going to go do some science somewhere.

Rikers back on board. He's like getting the download. He like sonters onto the bridge and the captain is like telling them all the different shit that is going on and there's some good news, some bad news. The bad news is they're big science project they have coming up. They're only going to have two weeks to do it. But the good news is, Wesley. The boy.

The boy. Young Wesley Crusher. My son. Is coming back onboard the ship. It doesn't feel like he's been gone very long, does it? Yeah, when did he leave? Like a little bit about this point in season four? Yeah, so it's he's I guess in real time it's been a year. Yeah. But in show time it hasn't been that long.

Has it been is it is this like his spring break or something? It's not long enough to miss him. Yeah. To me anyway, but in the life of a show he's he's been away a long time. Well, guess who else is aboard, Adam? Who's that been? The lovely Ensign Robin Leffler. Yeah. And she is age appropriate for young Wesley Crusher. Sure is. There's great news. Yeah. We get a reveal that she is back for this episode of her.

She's like pulling some, some crap out of the wall to do some engineering on it. I guess she's got some like, she's gonna like do some isolineer chip jenga maybe. And uh, Riker's Saunters into engineering gets a, gets a similar update from Jordy to the one, he just got it from the captain, and then he's like, hey buddy, listen. Jordy, I brought something back from the Rysa that you have got to try. Yeah, and Jardies like, like, all right, rub it in. Last time I tried to go to Rysa, I got turned into a, a manchurian candidate by the Romulans,

jerk. Yeah. Some asshole got to enjoy Rysa, who barely looked like me. Yeah. Ha, ha, ha. Couple of think of it. This is the, the next person from the crew to go to Rysa. And it is also a plot to take over the ship, isn't it?

Yeah. It's sort of making the case that Rysa should be associated with danger. Yeah, maybe we change the shoreleaf policy with regard to Rysa. Well, anyways, uh, Jority, uh,

Jority's like, I'd love to, but I'm running a full sensory calibration at about 10 minutes. Can I wait? Ashley Judd is here, so I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna get distracted just yet. And Raker's like, well, I can, I can certainly understand that.

So he heads to 10 Forward and Troy, who is fresh off of an episode that unpoted her plant is sitting there being the most two-dimensional character that she can possibly be. She's back in the fucking pot, big time. She's in a pot so big, like you ever go to a lawn care nursery place and they have those those pots that are just impossibly large because big as a car. Yeah. That's where

she's in. You think they you think they were just repotting her like they they had her out last episode to like loosen up the root ball and they just had some put some soil into a bigger pot. Stecker in it and they're through a little water on. I was thinking a lot about why I find her character so objectionable in terms of the backstory that they give her. And I think it comes from what the intent is from the writer, because at first I just became angry at the writer's room for making her one dimensional,

but then I started to think about why. Like if your intention is to create a character that a female that you don't know and don't understand what identify with, like this is a science fiction person with a contemporary interest that the wife of a nerd could could enjoy and identify with. Yeah. What sucks is your deprived of an intellectual strength, a more interesting hobby that could be enjoyable for everyone in the room. Yeah, her hobbies are wearing sexy leotard

and eating chocolate. And it sucks because any woman in the room watching this program could enjoy her if she had a more interesting hobby. Like why? Well, I think that- Like dumb her down. I feel like the women I know that love this show

really do like Troy and wish, and you know, wish there was more to her, you know? Like there's so many like potential things you could have, right? Like Worf has some conflict about having been raised on Earth but being a Klingon. She's half, you know, she's half betasoid, half human. What if she like really resented the fact that she was half human because it limits her abilities

or something like that, or whatever, you know, like it's, she's just a chocolate eater, sucks. It would have been interesting if she had a little bit of her best friend Tasha Yaren her and the thing that made them friends was how into mixed martial arts they were or something. You know, like what if her character contrast was that she was a huge ass kicker. Yeah. But she is so soft. Yeah. In, in all ways. And ways and that's just hard. So she's in ten-forward, basically finger-banging a chocolate moves when Riker climbs over a chair and sits down with her.

And she gets a full-on, like you remember when Row in the last episode had a Warner and told the most shocking, terrifying story of watching her father die while being tortured to death. Deanna Troy gets a monologue about giving oral sex to a banana split that goes on for a minute and a half. That's the spoken word part to a sex rap song. Yeah. You have to spoon the fudge around the rim, leaving only the ice cream in the middle. Then you gently spoon the ice cream around the sides like you're sculpting it.

Yeah, it was very, it was very jackable. You know something's up with Riker when he doesn't just hit the flirtation ball right back at her and instead is like, you want to play a game? I feel like on any other day, Riker would have been like ordering canolies and like, and like shooting cheese out at her, you know? Like playing, playing dessert flirtation games. Yeah.

But he's not interested. He wants to share this game. Dipping a flirtation games. Yeah. But he's not interested. He wants to share this game. Dipping of Biscotti into her chocolate. Yeah. Well, she gets excited about this game and we cut away to the boy beaming on board. And O'Brien is standing there,

a little bit indifferent to the whole thing. And Wesley asks if he can like go, say what's up to everybody on the bridge and he's like, well, let me ask, Radio's up to Worf. Worf is like, yeah, I guess so. I don't see a big problem with it. Like as dispassionate as it gets,

like it's totally administrative. Yeah. Worf doesn't even know Wesley is the Effect that he's putting yeah, it's fun and and so Wesley is a Little a little sheepish walks up to the observation lounge walks in and leaves the lights off for an uncomfortable amount of time and a vulnerable amount of time. And eventually the lights pop on, and there's a very half-hearted

yell of surprise from the assembled senior staff, and his mama runs around the curved table and gives him a big hug. Everybody's really excited to see him. Even Picard. Komodo to a Latina contest. I feel like a surprise party is something you only ever see on television.

Have you ever been a part of a surprise party or been the victim of one? We threw one for my wife, I think, when she turns it. Was it a lights off affair? Like, you just jump up from behind the couch thing? No, I think she was expecting to be having drinks with a couple of her friends, and it wound up being me and like 25 of her friends at a bar.

It's so strange. It was good for her. She's easy to rope into a scheme like that and very amenable to it. I told her afterwards. Because you would put the invitation in the podcast so you know she wouldn't hear it. Yeah, exactly.

I told her afterwards if she ever got the idea of throwing me a surprise party, not to. I would not like it. I said something I always say, Adam, there's nothing worse than free surprise barbecue. Like free barbecue is the best thing ever, but if it's a surprise, it's the worst thing ever, because what if you ate like a peanut butter sandwich five minutes ago? And now there's all this barbecue and you can't you can't throw

yourself into it the way barbecue deserves. Yeah, that's a tough spot. You know, and then you just eat until you're sick. I need to prepare myself to be around other humans. Then you throw up in the ash catcher. Yeah, that's no fun. That's a bad time. Yeah. So it turns out that

Wurf is the baker of the senior staff. I made it myself. Yeah. And offers Wes a slice of cake that he made himself. Yeah, this cake is, it's like the size of a baby's head, this slice of cake. It's fucking huge. How do you think he does it?

Like, we've only seen cooking depicted once, and that was when Riker made those shitty eggs. Yeah, we're fluffed those eggs. I wish we got a montage of worth baking this cake. Yeah. Getting a little bit of loose flour in his loaf, you know, having good... It's got a frilly apron on.

Yeah. Yeah, what's the, what's the deal? He's in the back room of 10 forward, like borrowing the commercial kitchen stuff. Yeah. Yeah, he probably doesn't have any, he doesn't have like an oven in his, in his quarters. Kitchen aid.

A warrior's mixer. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. It's a real, it's a real turnaround on, on the way he was on the radio. But anyways, Wesley's going to be hanging out for a few days and he's going to be helping out. He's technically on vacation, but he knows his way around the ship. The senior staff trust him, so he's gonna do some help amounts.

And he heads down to engineering. It's a bust mentality, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, he heads down to engineering and it's kind of like the kind of vacation my dad takes, where he's got two weeks off and he decides to strip and re-haul a boat. You know, it's like, that's the most dirty and least relaxing thing I can possibly imagine. How stressful is your real life if that's what your vacation is? Yeah, exactly.

Well, he heads down to engineering and Jordy gives him a little task to accomplish and he's having trouble when the lovely rabid leftler tosses him a bone, tells him how to manually recalibrate the dilithium inverter or whatever. And they hit it right off. And it's so different from the time that he met the lady that turned into a... A wear-bearer. A wear-bearer. He didn't know the first thing about saying,

what's up to a girl. And now he's like, I mean, I wouldn't say his game, but he's like, he holds his own. And this is Ashley Jen, we're talking about. You know how damaged you feel after a really bad breakup and how long it takes to get over? Like, imagine the wear bear PTSD that Wesley has. Like intimacy has got to be so difficult

the first couple of times. Like, is she gonna change? Yeah, he goes in for that first smooch and deposits and says, you're not gonna change into a Star Wars Cantina alien, are you? I gotta believe that he's leaving the chocolate moose at home for this one, that didn't work out well the first time. He's got different moves since going back to the Academy. He's walking around with a little bit of confidence. Yeah.

Speaking Adam of walking around, there's a scene that happens right before this that I wanted to get your take on, where data and Wesley are walking around in the corridors together. Mm-hmm. Did you look at data's chin in that scene? I have to say I did not, specifically. There's something weird about his chin. And I like, I looked if there was like trivia or goofs or something to see if like, you know, like they had to cover up a motorcycle injury or something.

But it goes unanswered and it's gone the next time you see data. But he just, he like has like a very obvious weird thing going on in his chin. Whoa, yeah. They caked on some, some putty. It looks like some makeup putty. Yeah.

It like, it kind of looks like he has, like the world's largest pimple, but they've painted over it. I don't know how your Brent Spiner and your wear makeup for as long as you wear it without your face just going crazy. It surprises me that it's more of an issue. Yeah, I mean, he and Worf sat in the makeup chair for like hours every day and then spent an entire shoot day in makeup and then in like extensive makeup. Like he has it on his hands. Yeah. On his neck.

I don't think Worf probably has it on his neck, but he's, you know, he's wearing a helmet. I bet the zits that happen around your hairline on Michael Dorn are out of fucking control. I bet that the size of grapes. Yeah. His loaf just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Cover it up. They introduce a character trait with Robin, like that, I don't think we've gotten up until now,

which is the idea of someone who's quirky. I think the last time we got this was with the girl who had a three-part, or that had a three-episode arc in the best of both worlds who spilled her coffee on Picard. Yeah. Like, she was quirky. And that was the last time we got a quirky character, I think. Yeah. She's got like, like, student film level quirkiness, though.

Yeah. Leffler's proto-quirky. Yeah. In a weird way. She's got her- That becomes way popular in several years. Yeah, yeah. Like the idea of a character that has a long list

of personal edicts the way she does. I feel like I read a lot of scripts in college that had that type of character quirk in them. Are you talking about your time in film school, Ben? Yeah, when I went to the New York University Can Bar Institute for Film and Television Production at the Tish College of the Arts. Good for you. My love is a piece by long and till about which

long and thus have the pity. It appears that young Wesley Crusher's flirtation is having an effect. Yeah. She's batting the flirtation ball back at him. Yeah. Bad narration. The plan is for Tennis.

Yeah. Yeah, it's working. And so they make plans for later. Why don't we meet up and tend forward for a little after work hang. And she's totally into it. She's not more than just into it. He suggests coffee and she's like, pfft, fuck coffee.

Let's go on a date, dick. Yeah. Yeah. Around this time that Dr. Crusher, Wesley's mom, turns off data and then shoots a ray gun into his head. It seems a little out of character. Yeah. So the ring leaders of this new conspiracy are Troy, the doctor, and Commander Riker.

I guess, uh, Jordy didn't get roped in just yet. Still too busy. But uh... Not cool enough for a conspiracy. No, I also wondered like, cause they never showed Jordi using the thing. I feel like they wrote that scene in with Riker asking him about it

so that they could establish that he was gonna be susceptible to the thing without having to show him using it because it wouldn't fit over his visor, and he doesn't have irises or pupils, so how would it shoot rays into his eyes? I really want to know that. They never answer it.

No. Jordy puts it on. He's like, this thing fucking sucks. I can't see anything. Yeah, so Wesley runs home to get ready for this date and his mom is like, oh, you got to try this game. It's great. And he's like, well, listen, I'll try it later, but I'm really busy right now. I got a hot date with Ensen Leffler from engineering.

And that's enough to satisfy the doctor that she doesn't need to put a headband on her son just yet. And then Adam Wesley goes and opens a door that I have wanted to see the inside of from episode one of this show. It's true. Wesley's sweater closet. And this definitely has been cleared out a little bit like he's he's a way at school. So this isn't like his full sweater collection, which is a bit of a shame, but they're like four or five koojis in there. You imagine like what Mr. Rogers sweater closet would look like like fully outfitted and stacked. It's like a this is like a partial Rogers situation. Yeah skeleton Rogers.

This is like a partial Rogers situation. Yeah. Skeleton Rogers. Yeah. But there's some new sweaters that we haven't seen yet. I feel like maybe some old, some golden oldies are in there. If you're the set designer, you've got to be just like rubbing your hands together, at the opportunity.

These giant sweaters have been hanging in wardrobe. Yeah, they've been it for five seasons. They've been on like a Metro shelf in a in a big rubber made tub with 2G written on the outside of it. You got to fold those things up like tense. Yeah. Yeah, man, you can't you keep the poles in a separate bag.

They're going to fall right off those hangers. They're too heavy. They're too heavy. And the necks are too big, you keep the poles in a separate bag. They're gonna fall right off those hangers. They're too heavy. They're too heavy. And the necks are too big, you know? Yeah. Got a lot of boat neck type of deals on there. But the sweater he opts for is a new one on me. But it's got kind of like a bejure in uniform style to it.

Yeah, it's shouldery. Yeah, it's it's it's shoulder-y. Yeah, it's very shoulder-y. And Robin has put on a a lovely little outfit as well. And they're having this nice date, drinking something pink that I can only assume Commander Riker suggested. Yeah. And they're like, hey, what's up with this game that everybody's playing? Like everybody is talking about this crazy game on the ship. And they're like, hey, what's up with this game that everybody's playing? Like everybody is talking about this crazy game on the ship. And they like start looking around. And that like everybody in 10-4 that is doing this thing is obviously strung out. They're like, well, maybe we should, maybe we should look into this thing before we try it.

So they had... Everyone except the servers. Yeah. Which I thought was a weird contrast. Yeah, it's a weird contrast. The servers don't have except the servers. Yeah. Which I thought was a weird contrast. Yeah, it's a weird contrast thing. The servers don't have time for games. Yeah. Yeah.

It felt like a really contemporary scene in that way where you'll go to a restaurant sometimes and you'll see eight out of ten tables, people will just be looking at their phones. And so when you see two people with their heads up and the rest of the room with their heads down, it seemed like a familiar scene. They're like, what's up with these sort of a sad way? What's up with these iPhones everybody's using? Should we try this or is it like an addictive thing?

It's like an iPhone allegory. You're just desperate to get the title on this one, aren't you? Does it sound that way? I think I'm just feeling particularly quippy today, not unlike a Robin Lefler. So they head down to the lab and they plug one of these things into the brain simulator machine. And they start running simulations, and they're like, this kind of looks like what would happen

if this thing was injecting heroin straight into the temples of your head. It looks like it feels great. Could be pretty addictive. So they're like, what's going on here? They're doing a lot of explaining to each other as a way to explain to the viewer. Like they're describing symptoms that sound

like contemporary psychotropic drugs symptoms. Yeah. So Wes is like, I gotta go tell the captain about this. He's gotta nip this shit in the butt. Yeah. I feel like this was like half him doing the right thing and half him trying to kind of show what an important dude he was to Robin Leffler. Yeah. He's really one degree of separation in her. Hey, listen, I'm pretty close with the with the with the cap. I'm going

to run up there and say what's up to him. She's like, how close are you? And he's like, I don't want to talk about it. He's on a no knock basis with the captain. Locks in and tells him about his concerns and the captain's like, I'll start an investigation immediately. Thank you, Mr. Crosser. I feel like we've had this a couple of times where the captain listens to somebody, tell him about some terrible thing that's be falling the ship and he's already under its sway. Yeah. He has to kind of bullshit through hearing the complaint

and then Wesley walks out with some confidence that he's done the right thing, running this one up the ladder, but alone in his ready room, Captain Picard swivels his chair around, and you see that he too is under the sway of the game. The game is stealing everybody's consciousness consciousness and putting it under... it's sway. This is the hinge in the episode where it turns into invasion of the body snatchers. Yeah, yeah. From here to the end of the episode is an intensity jump that works. It fucking works. It's 25 years old.

Like there are some legit fears going on from here into the end. And I thought it was great. Yeah, I mean, this is a series that has taken a stab at the Who Can You Trust storyline. Yeah. Plenty of times. And at this point in its run, they have figured out how to do it. Yeah. they have figured out how to do it. Yeah. Like even like the next scene, which is just a POV of the game being played, walking around in 10 forward and it walks up to Robin Leffler and you hear Chief O'Brien's voice.

Have you tried this? O'Brien's got to be so happy, he's like, God, finally, an escape from my life. But even that scene is like really ominous, right? Yeah. This sort of underscores an argument that I've made for a long time about Star Trek being a place. Like, this body-snatcher story is transportable, and you can play it in a bunch of different

genres, and it works especially well here. I am a cute and sublime. There are full lights. So for the rest of the episode, it is fun and games with Wes and Robin avoiding the body snatched enterprise crew. And like the vagina butt lady from the first scene has shown up with a scary-looking spaceship and is asking Picard about when she can take delivery of her new ship and what the plan is for

getting the game into everybody else in the Federation's hands. Like, this is a full-blown takeover that they're attempting. Yeah, and the bridge crew really plays it subtly. Like, there have been episodes in the show where the crew has been taken over and their voices get deep, for example, or they walk around robotically. But the effect of this game is even scarier when they look and act like they always have. They're just taking action in a way that's very arch. He's like, yeah, yeah, we've got some great, some great news. We're going to

get this game onto the hood. We're going to get it to star based 27. We're even going to get it to the academy once we get Wesley under our sway. This idea of doing something evil that you believe is doing something right is the scariest thing. That is terrifying. when the person taking the scary action doesn't know it. Right. There's a scene where like they come and check in on Robin and Wesley and they've put fake game headsets on. At some point they start looking into the fact that data is deactivated because they're like, okay, everybody is body snatched and data is the only person on board that

wouldn't be potentially, wouldn't potentially fall victim to this. So what happened to him? And they discovered that there's a very precise laser beam like cut in his neural net that's like preventing his brain from controlling his body, which is also super scary, you know. Like he's basically been in a persistent vegetative state the entire episode, but has been fully conscious the entire time, which for data, like I can't tell if that would be like a terrifying or incredibly satisfying, because he's always looking for ways to experiment with ending his own life. Yeah, there could be some peace there. Yeah.

He's basically the protagonist from Metallica's one video? Yeah. But eventually he gets down to engineering and he's like working with Robin on what the next step is and he looks up at her and she is very obviously strung out herself. And so he starts running and Riker and Warford chasing him. And Wesley has like a bunch of different gambits for getting away from them, you know, where he like sets up a phaser to shoot a force field so that they think he's in one place.

He takes off his badge and leaves it somewhere. He does some sight to sight transport. Eventually he's crawling around in the Jeffries tube and Worfin Riker get him. I was trying to remember if there was some specific place he was supposed to be running to, or was he just trying to get away from them? So yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Like, this scene plays for great tension. And it's especially scary again,

because you know, Warfan Riker are so capable. Yeah. And yeah, and this doesn't diminish their capabilities at all. Right. And as he was escaping, I was thinking back to that scene where he and Robyn are in their quarters and they're trying to plan out what to do and they come up with the idea of coming up with the fake headbands

to sort of blend in with all the people playing it. But like, he's got to have another plan other than that, right? Like what's the end game? Don't you have to have an escape plan for leaving the ship somehow? And he doesn't have that. Yeah, you have to get away out. It's pure fight or flight survival that's happening right now. Yeah.

Yeah, they don't ever have like a moment where he pauses and then ghostly over one of his shoulders, the head of his friend Jake comes and goes, steal the shuttlecraft, Wesley. Everyone's doing it. You want to be cool, don't you? Ha ha ha ha. So they catch him and they take him up onto the bridge Everyone's doing it. You want to be cool, don't you? So they catch him and they take him up onto the bridge and they plop him down in the captain's chair so that

so that the Low fee low fee lady on the view screen can see this and they put the headset on him and they They Alex's eyes like in clockwork orange and they shoot the beams into his eyes and for all we know the episode is over. Like the bad guys won and just then the lights are the lights drop and who should walk on to the bridge put a newly up and up and running commander data. And he's got like the flash from the climactic scene and rear window. And he's like holding it up to everybody's face and giving him a couple of strobes. Yeah, he rolls up like a techno DJ and he does the drop as soon as he gets on the bridge. Why am I sweating so much? Because you're feeling it! Is that a good thing?

Yes! It is a good thing that the functional equivalent of going to a rave managed to deprogram everybody, right? Usually it's the opposite effect. What would they have done if rave light hadn't worked? I think what happens is what data always does when he wants to take over is he gasses the crew. Yeah, I guess he could have gashed the crew. That's a good point.

How many people do you think data kills on the way to the bridge? We are deprived of that journey from six Bay to the bridge, aren't we? Yeah, that would have been fun to see punching holes in people. Well, everybody just kind of like rubs their eyes and shakes their heads and Picard turns to, uh, to Etana on the, uh, on the FaceTime and it's like, hey, you're an attempt to capture our ship has failed. A super impressive try, but it didn't work out, sorry. Uh, they shoot the tractor beam at them and, uh, and their plan from there is to drag

them back to space prison. Yep. The plot is foiled. The optical burst did its job. And now it's time for Wesley to head home. And there's a touching little goodbye scene between him and Robin before he heads off to the transporter bay. And it's made pretty clear in this scene, even though they have a cute little smooch that they didn't ever bone down. And that just seemed like a real shame. Yeah, she never got to see his birthmark. Yeah.

Ashley Judd plays this scene really interestingly to me. There's a kind of acting where you're sad enough to cry real tears and then there's two steps back from that where you just make your eyes well up. And she has the self control to just well up her eyes, but not in a way that's like, can't be your cheesy. Yeah. It's really subtle, I thought she did a great job. It's so subtle that I almost wonder how I kind of want to like rewatch this scene in SD to see if you can see that. Because it's so, it's like, we're talking about pixels

of distinction. Yeah, I mean, if she's not an actress by now, she is after this episode. Like, she's legit. Nic by now, she is after this episode. Like she's legit. Mm-hmm. Nicely done Ashley Judd. I looked it up and the last, the previous episode I think is her first film in television credit.

I don't recall seeing an end introducing in the credits. Did she get one of those? I don't remember. Because you fucking deserve that when it's your first time. Yeah, she did a great job. Yeah. Did you like this episode Ben? I did like this episode. I think that there's some some plot holes we discussed but Generally speaking really good performances. It's really fun

for this show to have a character written off and come back and be as developed as this. Yeah. Like he had character development that we can do some head cannon on, but he's a more mature version of the same character. And that's very well executed in terms of scripting and in terms of performance. If you'll forgive the wordplay,

he really does hit the ground running. Like, he picks up right where he left off. Yeah. And they don't waste a lot of time recharacter developing him for a new viewer's benefit. Yeah, there's no the boy, my son, Wesley Crusher stuff. Like, they don't have to like, bop you over the head with who he is and what his relationship is with

everybody else. They do a great job of showing and not telling. Yeah, they don't talk down to the viewer that way. And that's something I really, I really value on a show that at one point was incredibly campy with that. Well, Adam, do you want to check and see if we have any subspace communications? Yeah, let's hit it. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplemental link. Supplement?

Supplement. Supplement. Yes, extra. The interest alone could be enough to buy this ship! It doesn't sound like we have any messages this week Ben, but if any of our viewers are interested in a personal or business style priority one message they can go to maximumfund.org slash jobotron. Yeah, go do that. Ben, did you find or flee from a drunk Shimoda this episode? Drunk Shimoda!

I fled from one atom. Yeah. Who do you got? My drunk Shimoda for this episode is... Warf. And it is just because of the... There were a lot of things Warf did that I thought were Shimoda worthy in this episode, but the scene with him crawling in the Jeffrey Stube

was the one that I wanted to highlight. I could watch Worf crawling like an infant all day long. I think it is so funny looking. How about yourself? Like, you just can't see Wurf playing this game. And they don't even bother to try showing us that. Like, it would be tantamount to like him knitting in a corner. Like, it's such a soft hobby that I sort of want that.

Like, I want to see a character like Wurf, even Wurf fall prey to the game. Like, there had been a wordless scene where Worf has the headset on and is also baking at the same time in his quarters. Just like a three second little slice of life that they dropped in like in between Wesley going from the lab to Picard or something.

How fucking amazing would that be? It'd be great. I think what we're both agreeing on is who I'm gonna give my Shimoda to. And it is the decision, we don't get that moment of seeing Wurf try to put on the tiny headphones that he can't. And then he like snaps the headband in half

and just manually holds them to the side of his head. Before later on replacing them with a quad XL version, with a giant hoop on the top. A warrior's Google glass. I really wanted that. They chose not to give us the Jordy scene, but man, tonight give us the war scene is a little unforgivable. So maybe I'm giving it to Worf. Yeah, give it to Worf. A Greatest Gen Live Show is something you don't want to miss. Why?

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

That's greatestgentour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. 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 already open, just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse Goatry.

Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Whoa, raps, hey, hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line and Boy, what do I these giraffes do not smell good? No, they do not and they've such short Max, but I'm here and we need to get on this off got to get on the art. Yeah, it's about terrain Got us about to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah? Yeah, I know we look like human

We're actually we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Kerry? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came to by two.

What do you think? Ono Ross and Kerry, available on MaximumFun or D.O.R.G. ["Domokrigage and July, and Denogra Dica." What do we have come up on the next episode, Ben? The next episode of Star Trek the Next Generation, season five, episode seven, unification, part one. I'm a vacation, unification. Oh, boy. Yeah, I'm gonna let you do the rest of the show, Ben.

Picard and Mr. Spock clash over a proposed reunification of the Romulans and the Vulcans. Do you remember this episode, Adam? I do remember this episode. Do you remember the marketing campaign around this? Like they really commercialed the hell out of the return of Spock, is that I remember? Oh man. Important what you said.

Occasionally people send us those like TV spots that they played on KBHK channel 24. I was a kid. Yeah. And did I say 24? I meant 44. Oh, you're gonna get some letters for that one, Ben. It's real fun stuff.

This is, in many ways, like their chance to recapture the people that didn't quite get the uptake on new Star Trek. This feels to me like a grab for old Star Trek people who weren't on board with a terrible first couple of seasons. Yeah, who took one look at the makeup they put bones in in episode one and were like, nope. Could you blame him?

Would you veto this episode, Adam? I would not. I would not either. I think this is going to be a good one. Yeah, looking forward to it. Alright, well that's the next one we're watching. Thanks to everybody for listening. If you'd like to chat with us about this episode or any other episode,

use the hashtag GreatestGen on Twitter. Adam is at Cut for Time and I'm at Benjamin R. A.H.R. If you'd like to talk in a format that is longer than 140 characters, we've got some great conversations happening on our Facebook page and group as well as Reddit. Yeah, you can sign up for our theme music and Adam Riggusia for much of the other music you hear on the program. If you like what we've done on our show we'd really appreciate a review or a referral to a buddy or I don't know put it up on the Star Trek Reddit. I feel like those people are

ignorant of our show. Yeah, help them see the light. Don't let them be ignorant, Aemis's. Well, with that, Adam, I think we're going to have to come back next time with another great episode of Star Trek, the Next Generation, and a very logical episode of the greatest generation. I'm hearing the super tramp song in my head as we speak. Make it sound. Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture, Art and Stone Listen or Support it

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