Two Hundred A Day - Episode 30: The Big Goodbye

Episode Date: April 1, 2018

Welcome to Twenty Dollars a Day, the podcast where we explore our favorite fictional characters in the Star Trek: TNG universe! Nathan and Eppy discuss the character of Dixon Hill as introduced in S1E11 The Big Goodbye. When Captain Picard decides to destress by bringing up his favorite noir detective program on the newly upgraded holodeck, it all seems like fun and games - until a remote probe sends things haywire and the fictional and real dangers facing the Enterprise start to converge. This is a well-constructed episode with some poignant moments among all the scenery chewing. (Happy April, everyone!) Apologies for the audio issues in this recording - but, while this episode started as a "prank" we really did enjoy discussing this episode, and pulled some real lessons out of in our second half as well. We will be back to our normal Rockford discussion in our next episode. Want more Rockford Files trivia, notes and ephemera? Check out the Two Hundred a Day Rockford Files Files! Support the podcast by subscribing at patreon.com/twohundredaday. Big thanks to our Gumshoe patrons! Check them out: Richard Hatem Victor DiSanto John Adamus, The Writer Next Door Lowell Francis's Age of Ravens gaming blog Kevin Lovecraft and the Wednesday Evening Podcast Allstars Mike Gillis and the Radio vs. The Martians Podcast And thank you to Dael Norwood, Shane Liebling, Dylan Winslow, Bill Anderson, Adam Alexander, Chris and Dave! Thanks to: zencastr.com for helping us record fireside.fm for hosting us thatericalper.com for the answering machine audio clips spoileralerts.org for the adding machine audio clip Freesound.org for the other audio clips Trekcore.com for the Star Trek audio clips Two Hundred a Day is a podcast by Nathan D. Paoletta and Epidiah Ravachol. We are exploring the intensely weird and interesting world of the 70s TV detective show The Rockford Files. Half celebration and half analysis, we break down episodes of the show and then analyze how and why they work as great pieces of narrative and character-building. In each episode of Two Hundred a Day, we watch an episode, recap and review it as fans of the show, and then tease out specific elements from that episode that hold lessons for writers, gamers and anyone else interested in making better narratives.

Captain's personal log. I'm entering the ship's holodeck where images of reality can be created by our computer. Highly useful in crew training. Highly enjoyable when used for games and recreation. Welcome to $20 a Day, a podcast where we explore our favorite fictional holodeck characters of Star Trek The Next Generation. I'm Nathan Poletta. And I'm Epid Dyer-Ravishaw. And Epi, which of our favorite fictional holodeck characters are we talking about this time? Well, I think we're going to start with perhaps, I would say the second most famous of all the fictional holodeck characters. And this is Dixon Hill as portrayed by Captain Jean-Luc Picard in this case in the holodeck program The Big Goodbye. Yep we are starting off early in the

career of Dixon Hill this is the the first appearance in season one episode 11 of Star Trek The Next Generation. This episode is as say, constructed around this character of Dixon Hill, who is a fictional 40s hard-boiled PI. And we'll talk more about the details that we learn about Dixon as we get into the show. But a couple of things about the episode. This is written by Tracy Torme, who either wrote or was involved in writing in some way every season one episode okay so he is very literally the author of dixon hill as we will also uh learn but this is this is very much a kind of a pastiche homage to maltese falcon big sleep Goodbye, hence the title.

And apparently, a little piece of trivia here, Dixon Hill was originally named Dixon Steel, but that was too close to Remington Steel, which was running at the time, so it had to be changed. Also, this was an Emmy award-winning episode of Star Trek. It won an Emmy for costume design. I can see that, definitely. Yeah, this episode was directed by Joseph Scanlon. First of four episodes of Next Generation that he directed,

and he was just also one of those working directors of TV and TV movies all over the place. There's one shot in this that really jumped out at me that I'll mention when we get to it. But overall, I think this is a high to very high episode of Star Trek. It is worth mentioning too. And this is a thing that I stumbled on a little bit while watching it. If you're familiar with Star Trek Next Generation, which of course our listeners would be, Trek Next Generation, which, of course, our listeners would be.

This is the first holodeck episode, right? I think the holodeck is in episodes, because I think in Farpoint and stuff, they are on the holodeck. Right. Data. Yes, right. And so there's a couple moments in episodes previous to this where someone is on the holodeck for a reason. Right.

Someone out there will correct us if we're wrong but i am pretty sure this is the first like here is an episode that is about how the holodeck works and interacts with the rest of the ship yes because as we'll see picard is astounded by it in ways that jaded Star Trek viewers are not. Well, maybe we'll go ahead and get into the cold open because this is actually where we learn about this. Hi, everyone. Nathan here.

Epi and I decided to have a little fun for this April 1st episode and really ended up enjoying our conversation about another show we both really like. So we hope you give it a listen. Unfortunately, this alternate reality recording picked up some audio issues along the way, so apologies for the inconsistent sound quality. That said, we hope you enjoy our dive into Star Trek The Next Generation, but never fear, we will be back next time with our usual show about the Rockford Files. 200 a Day is supported by all of our listeners, but especially our gumshoes. For

this episode, we say thank you to John Adamas, the writer next door. Find his go to resources for storytellers and creatives who want to tell better stories at writer next door.com. Mike Gillis, a host of the radio versus the Martians podcast, the McLaughlin group for nerds radio versus the Martians.com. Kevin Lovecraft, part of the Wednesday evening podcast all-stars actual play podcast, found at misdirectedmark.com. Lowell Francis with his award-winning gaming blog at ageofravens.blogspot.com. Shane Liebling, Dylan Winslow, Dale Norwood, Bill Anderson, Adam Alexander, Chris, and Dave.

And finally, big thank yous to Victor DeSanto and to Richard Haddam, who you can find on Twitter at Richard Haddam. We've recently updated our Patreon with new opportunities for sponsorship. So check out patreon.com slash 200 a day and see if you want to be our newest gumshoe. As all Next Generation episodes start, I think almost all Star Trek episodes start, we have our cold open where we come right into some action. So we start on the bridge with Riker giving a first officer's log about the general mission that they're on. They're making contact with this alien race, the Harada, who are insectoids and require a very specific greeting because their sense of honor and propriety is so intense. If this greeting is not given with the precise pronunciation, there's going to be trouble.

So, of course, Captain Jean-Luc Picard is the one who has to deliver this greeting. And so he's practicing in his ready room with Counselor Troy, who is coaching him through the difficult pronunciation. He's clearly been at it, working hard. She thinks he's overworking. Maybe he needs a break. Yes. And that perhaps he should go get a little recreation

on the upgraded holodeck. So Picard gets a winsome look on his face to say, ah, Dixon Hill. Yes. And I am with Picard. I'mome look on his face to say, ah, Dixon Hill. Yes. And I am with Picard. I'm a Dixon Hill fan. One of my favorite fictional fictional detectives. But yeah, so that's just that.

So it's an upgraded holodeck, which I think is the one line that accounts for all of the wonder that we see. Right. So yeah, so that was our open. We go to our familiar credits and then start the show proper on the holodeck in 1941, San Francisco. I like the conceit here, which again is a little weird for the jaded Star Trek fan. But getting into the spirit of, oh, this is the first time they're doing this. The holodeck characters, and they do this differently in different episodes but like the holodeck characters recognize who the real people are supposed to be but also

recognize if they're not wearing the right clothes because he comes in in his captain's uniform and i mean those look like pajamas the year currently is 2018, and those still look like pajamas, right? Like, we've been promised this fashion in our science fiction for 60 years now, and we still haven't achieved it. Full body jumpsuits still have not come into fashion. Yeah, exactly. I don't know, maybe I'll give it a shot. Maybe I'll... Well, these are the, like, the really tight ones that they couldn't...

At some point in the show, they transitioned more like human fit versions roddenberry had this vision of like everything there are no wrinkles in star trek everything is like right you know so everything was super tight um that is neither here nor there uh there so there are a couple gags here where so so dixon hill uh who's wearing the wrong clothes comes into into his office and his secretary busts his chops about, what, did he lose a bet? Right. I am a fan of the secretary. She doesn't get a whole lot of screen time in this. Yeah.

But it's an ongoing thing in Star Trek to have Picard has such gravitas. There's a wonderful formula when you have somebody just status drop him uh out of nowhere and it's usually like a stranger who doesn't understand that picard should have this gravitas because we as as audience members i mean yeah we're instructed that he does because he's the captain of a starship but also because of the performance of patrick stewart right like he just right it doesn't matter how you what you put him in he's just gonna have that uh there's just something i mean it's it's one of the reasons why i forget her name laxana troy that character whenever she shows up because she just doesn't

care about his she she cares about his status because he's the most important person on the ship until she steps on board right and then she's the most important so um here's one where he comes in as a captain as a spectator as a as a audience member uh and this character just won't treat him as a captain and won't treat him as a spectator as an audience member and i think that's great yeah and he's clearly taken aback both by the like the resolution of the holodeck right like he's amazed taken aback both by the like the resolution of the holodeck right like he's amazed by how real everything looks and the sounds and the smells but then he also doesn't know what to make of this person who seems so real because he's so perfectly holographically realized who doesn't treat him like a captain right it takes him a

little bit to figure out how to act around this. I do like this implication that this is the first time the holodeck has been this real. Now, again, the year 2018 where we've had some experience with virtual reality, both good and bad. You have to wonder what the previous holodeck was like. Did it all smell like off-gassing plastic? Did people spend more than 15 minutes in it and come out and just had to sit down and let their stomach settle? Right, had splitting headaches because of all the rays bouncing through your eyeballs and stuff? I think I might have relayed this story to you, but maybe not to our audience members. Maybe they enjoy it.

I share a co-working space with a video game company and they work on some uh virtual reality stuff one of my first days there i witnessed without knowing it somebody who was working on uh an early part of a virtual reality thing didn't know that they were doing i'm just typing away and out of the corner of my eye i see him come out of his office put both hands on his knees and crouch down and just start breathing heavily. He just had the glasses on for a few minutes and it just messed up his center of balance because they had, I don't know if it was like a glitch or anything, but you have to expect that early holodeck beta tests had to have been horrific. I don't think we're interested into delving into the implications of what this kind of technology could mean.

That's a fun game to play. We're interested into delving into the implications of what this kind of technology could mean. Right. Like, that's a fun game to play. We're not going to play that game on our show here. That is not the point to 20 a day. Right. No. We're interested in the fictional premise here, not how it would really, quote, really work. What I think is important here is that the reality of this fictional place is sold to us by Picard's amazement at how real it is.

Right. Yes, exactly. In addition to the secretary making fun of him for his clothes, she says that there's someone waiting for him in his office, as every good hard-boiled PI story should start. He goes in and there is a, as one would expect, a leggy blonde waiting for him in his office with the Venetian blinds and the harsh lighting and the shadows and all of this very on point homage visual language of the noir detective. We have two voiceovers before we get here, which are standard for Star Trek. Star Trek always has a voiceover. It's the captain's log.

Or in this case, it starts with the first officer's log and then the captain's log. And those themselves have very deep noir roots. Yeah, they're like Double Indemnity. The whole fictional frame of, I forget the character's name,

but you learn spoiler alert for double indemnity. You learn towards the end that the voiceover is him dictating into a dictaphone, right? Yes, exactly. It's a, it's a literal voiceover from the end of the movie that is played over the

beginning of the movie. And I think it's just kind of fun to see that parallel play out here. Although like he doesn't have a voiceover for the holodeck program. We just have the voiceover from the outside world. So yeah. Well, so that's a question. Is he Dixon Hill?

I mean, he is in terms of he loaded the Dixon Hill program, but he's still in his uniform. He doesn't really know how to act yet. So is he Dixon Hill here or is he Jean-Luc Picard? So here we get to the premise of the game I played with this episode, which is I assumed that every moment in the holodeck is a Dixon Hill episode. And we have Jean-Luc Picard playing Dixon Hill. Right. And every moment outside the holodeck is the DVD extras of the behind the scenes of when that episode was being created.

So this may be just to let the audience understand why I have maybe a more bizarre take on some of these scenes here than Nathan does. But in my mind, he is Dixon Hill. And he has lost a bet. Yeah, yeah. And this comes full circle in a horrific way by the end of the Dixon Hill episode. And so we'll get into that. I'll hang with you for that. This is, like, if you're just watching Dixon Hill, this is a great mysterious open.

That's true. What is going on with this outfit? And why is he like this? And the answer to that mystery will blow your mind. All right. So Dixon Hill then talks to this woman. Her name is Jessica Bradley. She says that someone is trying to kill her.

And I may have misspoke earlier. She says that someone is trying to kill her. And I may have misspoke earlier. And here is when we get the standard Star Trek credits to break us from our intro into the first act. That is one of the areas where I had a little trouble. I was like, is this in the Dixon Hill episode? All right. So we come back to the voiceover of the captain's personal log talking about Dixon Hill.

So for me, watching this as a Star Trek audience member, this totally makes sense. But this sounds like it might be a crisis for the way that you're watching it, where his voiceover is saying that Dixon Hill is a fictional detective from the 20th century while he's on the holodeck. Yeah, I mean, at this point, Dixon Hill hill may be drunk he may have been hit over the head uh he may be dealing with some um i think it has to be in universe for the end of the episode for the end of the dixon hill episode to make any sense yeah and and uh it could be read at this moment as a solipsistic nightmare right like this is sure yeah yeah okay we'll get to it because the end of the dixon hill episode i gotta tell you all right so uh jessica bradley she doesn't know who though she does think maybe cyrus redblock yes or maybe someone else

wants to kill her she wants dixon hill to find out who and why. Name your fee. And he names his fee $20 a day plus expenses. A call out to a non-fictional detective show from the 1970s, not the 1940s, The Rockford Files. But we're not talking about that here. No, but I would urge our listeners to explore that if they're interested in detective shows. Maybe they can enjoy an episode or two of The Rockford Files. There's a bit of flirtatiousness here after he names his fee. She gives him a kiss on the side of the mouth that leaves a very prominent lipstick smear. She says that she'll do it.

She'll hire him. He hasn't said he'll take the case yet, but she does give him a C-note for a retainer. I should point out, because we have dealt with some money here. Which rarely on this show do you get to talk about money but finally finally some numbers to crunch in 1941 the 20 a day uh would equal about 351 dollars or 352 dollars in in today's money and like you had mentioned that uh uh was it, the Rockford Files? You had mentioned during the Rockford Files, $20 in 1941 would have been equivalent to $88 in 1978.

So he's significantly underpricing himself compared to Jim Rockford. Right, yeah. Or Jim Rockford is overpricing himself. I don't know. Like, it's inflation. We have to watch the show. It's very hard to judge that sort of stuff. So the C note is almost $1,600, right? Like, that's what in today's money.

So that's a serious amount of money for someone. She's clearly scared. Though, as we know from noir detective fiction, perhaps her motive here is not what it seems. Exactly. So, Dixon Hill seems delighted to have this interaction with her. And then after she leaves, he gazes out the window at the cars going by. And he listens to the car honks and the night sounds of the San Francisco street stepping back, really

lending the aura of reality to the holodeck, right? Yeah, no, exactly. So, in the Dixon Hill story, Dix leaves after he leaves his office. A squirrely guy walks in looking for Dix

and then we go back to the Enterprise where Jean-Luc Picard saves the program. So there's a thing here. I don't know if you found this as troubling as I did. The lipstick? Yes. Should we talk about the lipstick? So on the one hand, things work the way they need to work for each individual episode of Star Trek, right? Like, if this is a problem for you, this probably isn't the conversation for you.

But things like, how does the holodeck work? How do the transporters work? How do the replicators work? Those are inconsistent from episode to episode because they work how they need to for whatever the story is. Right. So in this case, he has this lipstick smear from a holodeck character on his face that he then carries with him through the entire next scene while he's talking about how great the holodeck is. Until it's finally wiped off by Dr. Crusher. And so I'd be like, oh, that's fine.

That's just how it works to get that gag. Right. Right. Dr. Crusher. And so I'd be like, oh, that's fine. That's just how it works to get that gag, right? Right. But as we find out at the end of the episode, this episode has a specific line at which holodeck characters stop existing. Right. So. So, okay. So one of the things that kind of settled in my head that made this possible uh is that the holodeck technology

is not too different from the transporter and the replicator technology i believe that is canonical that they are that they are the same thing right in terms of turning matter to energy in whatever direction they need to they need to and there's huge philosophical issues with that that we can get into. Well, that we won't get into. But if you are listening to us, you have access to the Internet. And so you can, if you wish, get into it. But certainly if he poured himself a drink on the holodeck, he would be drinking that drink. Right?

Oh, sure. So this is just getting into pure headcanon. But I can see an approach where if something touches a person, then the holodeck programmers to program the lipstick specifically to act just like food or water would in, you know what I mean? Right. They'd be like, oh, here's a good Easter egg for people. They won't realize, which explains why he wanders around with it and doesn't know. Yeah. So no one in the future wears lipstick. Right.

So this is something he doesn't even think about. Yeah. No one in the future wears lipstick, so this is something he doesn't even think about. Yeah, so there's a visual gag of crew members looking at him funny as he walks through the corridors with this lipstick smear on him. And then we go to the next scene where he is excitingly regaling his senior staff with how great the holodeck is. And I was like, did he call a meeting just to talk about the holodeck but no this does have a purpose um and this is a very again gag filled scene there's a lot of good jokes that rest on people in the future don't remember stuff about the 20th century that we know because we are in the 20th century or at the time we're in the 20th century what isn't like wharf wants to know what an automobile is um there's a bunch of references to like you know old technologies that like data can can recall right um and uh picard makes the specific points of how real everything seems

dr beverly crusher the especially more so in the early seasons, but the on-again, off-again romantic interest of Jean-Luc Picard. I should say they have it. It's bidirectional. Right. Their relationship is one of mixed professionalism and romanticism. And this episode brings up the romantic side in a way that not a lot of the episodes do. I think because of the fictional frame that they're able to, like,

we're playing now. Right. Which is great. Like, I mean, that's, um, that's one of the purposes of play in general.

That goes back to like, you can see in Victorian parlor games, those are all excuses to accidentally touch a person. Uh, and, uh, and in this case, it's Crusher who rubs this lipstick off of his face. Right, yes.

Telegraphing that she's going to be interested in whatever he's up to. Yeah. So she's close to him, rubs his lipstick off, and he invites her to come back on because it's so thrilling. And he also wants to invite their 20th century historical expert member of their staff to come as well. In addition to the real purpose of the meeting, which is the Harada,

and this is kind of reprising this concept of the greeting, the last time the Federation tried to interact with the Harada, the captain messed it up and caused a 20-year conflict. And they've reviewed the tapes of what happened to that ship, and they don't want to see them again. Oh, there is another important bit that we need to hit before we get to the real-life problems of the ship. And by real-life, I'm putting quotes around. And that is Riker. putting quotes around and that is reicher because when picard is talking about the list of things you can encounter in the holodeck he mentions women and the look on reicher's face uh yeah

like that he is not at all hiding the fact that oh i know what I'm going to use the holodeck for. Like, he's not at all disguising what his future plans are for the holodeck in that very moment. I like how in Deep Space Nine, they kind of have a much more, I don't know if realistic is the right word. So on DS9, Quark runs the holosuites, and the holosuites are like rentals. And there are much more telegraphs. It's as like this is where people go to bone down yes like while in next generation like everyone kind of pretends like people aren't going to the holodeck to like have weird sexual fantasies but yeah what else would people do in the holodeck but reicher clearly is like yeah intrigued um we get a bit of banter uh between data and jordy as they leave the meeting in their banter uh uh or i think data is also curious about

this fictional character and jordy brings up sherlock holmes yeah they could do lots of fictional characters uh he's a detective what's a a detective? Oh, like Sherlock Holmes. And I'm not sure if this is the very first place where Sherlock Holmes is mentioned to Data, but it's planting a seed that perhaps we will follow up again in a later episode. find out what he can about this fictional character. The computer tells him and the audience in the very mannered way that Star Trek does this, the fictional background of the fictional detective, which is that he was written in a series of books in the 1930s, and then Data reads them.

Yeah, he demands that the computer does it faster. But there is a moment here where we do learn to the educated viewer or the reader of Memory Alpha, the author of Dixon Hill is listed as Tracy Torme, who obviously is the author of the episode. And thus, that is not a fictional reference. He is literally the author of Dixon Hill. Yeah. Right?

And like once you follow that chain all the way to the end. Here's a wonderful, almost Borgesian thing. Is it Tracy Torme is either the author of Dixon Hill or the author of Tracy Torme, the author of Dixon Hill, right? Like is Tracy Torme a character within this situation here?

It's distinctly possible. Like we, we have, it could have nesting dolls of Tracy Torme, Tracy Torme, who at the time that this episode is written. So he's born in 59. Dixon Hill takes place in 41.

It's certainly possible that Tracy Torme wrote these things anytime after 1941, wrote these things any time after 1941, or maybe the Tracy Torme that Tracy Torme is writing about is a sci-fi writer writing about Dixon Hill from before the year 1941. I don't know yet. We can't quite figure out if the timeline Tracy Torme's line up. Anyways, that is an interesting exploration that I've, the kind of exploration that I find interesting that perhaps is not helpful for a podcast. Though I will say that another fun trivia note, you mentioned Loxana Troy earlier. She was introduced by Tracy Torme as well in terms of the first introduction of the character. Interesting. So does Tracy Torme not respect Captain Picard? All right. as well in terms of the first introduction of the character interesting so does tracy

tourmain not respect captain picard um all right so we we get the factoid that there's 11 hours until the rendezvous with the harada thus plenty of time to go and play around in san francisco so we have finally in full period costume jean-luc picard the fiction expert wayland i think he's a lieutenant and beverly crusher who is running a little late and then data shows up because he's invited himself along yes oh data's outfit too oh it's pretty great look up some screenshots the period costuming is pretty I do not have the expertise to say how accurate it is, but it is certainly visually engaging and exciting to see these characters that we're so familiar with in this new setting. Oh, and this is where we get the shot that I really

liked in this episode, which is... So the three of them, so Picard, Weyland, and Data, go through the arch into the holodeck with the whole scene of San Francisco in front of them. And we get this long shot that kind of goes to the arch and then through it. And they're kind of in the lower half of the shot. And with that, and there's like the swelling music that goes along with it, that shot really communicated the sense of wonder that they have going into this perfectly detailed exotic world. Yeah, so it's a really good point because how necessary that shot is, right? Like, we're watching Star Trek because, probably because we're looking for a little hit of the wonder ourselves, right? Like, that's one of the reasons to engage in science

fiction this is why we're engaging with it and if they're then engaging with something that we're at least more passingly familiar with than they are we're not used to the 1941 but we've seen movies from that era where you know like it's it's not alien to us like it would be to them comparatively it's kind of like going i don't remember exact time, like the number of centuries that have elapsed. But like, it'd be like going through a doorway into a Greek theater and seeing the chorus, realizing that you're in this totally different environment that you've heard about and maybe read about, but you've never immersed in. Yeah. So how wonderful it is to then, you know, have them aware enough to kind of create that with the shot. Yeah. They know that their audience needs a little more help getting that, that this is wondrous.

And it's really nice. I like that it's in this episode. I feel like they don't do it as much in other, like once it becomes more usual that they go on the holodeck, it's not something they do every time to get this effect, but I like that it's here because it not only does it really capture why Picard is so invested in this and why he's so engaged, it also transitions us into the main Dixon Hill story in a really smooth way. Yes. So the three of them are exploring the San Francisco streets.

They're charmed by everything. Picard is particularly compelled by the newspaper stand and the very broadly drawn but fun to watch newspaper hawker. He flips through this newspaper. They have a bit of business about Joe DiMaggio and his baseball streak while data reels off statistics that are going to occur in the future. And the newspaper guy is bemused and then dumbfounded, leading to another of those weird interactions, right? Where it's like, they know who Dixon Hill is supposed to be, but the other people aren't specific characters. They're just other people in Dixon Hill's world. So they get to another little bit

about how he's not from around here he's from south america where's a place that someone in 1941 san francisco probably wouldn't know anything about that seems fair the thing that i would have referenced if i were writing this in that time and and we're very lucky that i wasn't uh it would have been the coneheads this reoccurring snl silent live characters who who would say that they're from france that was their joke but i think that that saying that would have been like at that time too on the nose and too it would have been too pop cultural yeah yeah yeah so in addition to to the jokes, we also get to Dixon Hill seeing the picture in the paper of the woman who had hired him, Jessica Bradley. She's been murdered.

Oh, bad news. Bad news. So here's a question for you with your viewing of Dixon Hill. Right. He feels bad about it. I could have done something, right? Right, right. And then Wayland, it's like, she's just a fictional character.

Right. something right right and then wayland it's like she's just a fictional character right i wrote this line down because this this line taken from the context of dixon hill being an episode of something that we're watching uh and not part of star trek uh this line is amazing she's a page from a book dixon hill has just learned that someone he knows has died right someone who paid him to find out who wanted her to die. Right. You know, it's on him in many ways. And the words of comfort, and these are delivered as words of comfort.

She's a page from a book. That's all she ever was. Oh my God. And that's actually better than my summation of it. Because that's a metaphor that works for someone who just comes into your life and then is gone. Right. And it's such a noir metaphor, right? It just, and it hits, but it's also so grim, so grim in context.

Obviously, we know as Star Trek viewers that he's just trying to say, it's just a video game, right? Like, don't invest yourself in this. But if we're not Star Trek viewers, if we're part of this program, or if we're watching this, like, that is cold. That is very cold. Yeah. Well, after that grim line is delivered, we get a couple of gorillas roll up to grab Dix. I did not realize until they talk about taking him downtown that they were cops and not, like, mobsters. But yes, they arrest him for the murder of Jessica Bradley because they found his business card

in her pocket. Yeah. Which is extremely flimsy, but also is very noir-y. Isn't that like the cops are going to be clean, right? Right. Dixon Hill goes on commercial and we go back

to the bridge of the Enterprise where the ship is undergoing a long-range probe by the Harada as they get closer to their rendezvous. The ship shakes to show us that something bad has happened. And we see the holodeck kind of freaking out from the outside, those little comm panel flashes, and the doors open and close on their own. After this comes a message from the Harada. Which doesn't seem to have much point other than to make the point that they will only talk to Picard. They message the ship and then yell at Riker for answering because he's not the captain 11 hours before their rendezvous is supposed to happen.

But it's just underlying that it is extremely important that Picard is the one who talks to them. Right. So Riker sends Geordi down to get him back from the holodeck. Right. But there's no communication possible. Right. Here are the fictional pressures that are going to make our story start to get higher

stakes. Dr. Crusher is in her costume, which is fantastic. Yes. So she arrives at the holodeck. The door is still kind of freaking out as she goes in, but she does manage to get through. And she comes through directly into the police station to join Data and Weyland as they're waiting for Dixon Hill to be interrogated. The bit here, apparently, Data has decided to try out all the Imperiod lingo with full voice and motions so that's a lot of the uh a lot of the gags here are data's uh use of of language uh which asks where the captain is waylon tells her that he's

being interrogated he's having the time of his life yes and she goes why aren't we all being interrogated which again extremely weird in the world of Dixon Hill. But it's great, right? So in the fiction of Dixon Hill, if you look at this as a story, you're like, something's being built here. We're seeing a lot of intriguing, interesting characters that don't quite fit from the beginning. Dixon Hill himself stands out in his pajamas in his Lost Bat costume party. The line is a perfectly legitimate line if you have a bunch of co-conspirators you have a bunch of people who are involved in this murder

who are all getting together and only one of them is being interrogated then yeah you would ask the question why aren't we all being interrogated we're all just as guilty you know that that sort of thing but that's not how it's delivered at all it's it's the joy like why don't we get to be interrogated and that particular bit it just has this great feel of like what is up with these people and uh will this all come together and make some sort of coherent sense at the end well including that we see uh dixon hill being yelled at and interrogated by the bad cop and smiling yeah and clearly gleeful about the treatment that he's receiving so that can be read sorry i'm having so much trouble with this that can be read as dixon hill being a little

bit of a badass right sure yeah we mentioned yeah. We mentioned earlier this obscure 70s detective TV show, The Rockford Files. And I've seen a few of these episodes. I can imagine a scene where the character of Rockford is as blasé about the interrogation. Going gleeful the way Dixon Hill did is one way that i feel like the character of rockford would be just from my understanding uh would be more uh ironic or arch about it yeah and just a little a little as if it's an imposition to him and he should just be let go but both of them are

treating it with the same weight right right i Right. I'm innocent, so let's get this interrogation over or let's enjoy it. Yeah. We're going to be here. Well, and we do see it does drag on long enough that Dixon Hill loses his patience with it because it's not actually going anywhere. And he's like, okay, I'm done with this. Yeah. Which is when we go from the bad cop to the good cop.

But before we get to that, we do have a moment where Geordi reports back about not being able to get onto the holodeck or communicate into it. Riker dispatches him and acting ensign Wesley Crusher, who apparently has an encyclopedic knowledge of the holodeck specs. Yes. But also his mother is missing in there as well. So Riker allows him to go help Geordi. Though, as we see, Wesley seems to be doing all the work. Apparently he is the holodeck expert. Who knew? You would expect that, right? He's the youngest and this is new technology. These are a bunch of old fogies that don't know how to use the new technology. That makes sense. Shout out to Wesley Crusher. That makes sense. Shout out to Wesley Crusher. Yeah, we get another quick scene in a minute where there's no quick fix.

They have to go through it millimeter by millimeter to determine why it's not working. But yeah, so Dix is no longer amused with his interrogation. The bad cop leaves. I feel like I didn't get either of their names, but they're listed on Memory Alpha. The good cop who ends up having a bigger role as we go is McNary. So McNary comes in. They banter. We see that the character of McNary and the character of Dixon Hill have history. They're friends from across the police line. Yeah, you would invite one to barbecue.

Right. If it was possible to run some license plate numbers at this point in history mcnary would be the one that dixon hill is calling to ask to as a favor to run those plates uh from their banter uh we get to mcnary asking well you must have someone waiting or you wouldn't want to get out of here so so bad who is she dixon hill replies she's a lady, all right, and her name is Enterprise. Which, again, is a little weird, but, you know, people have had weirder names.

Or is he saying he's married to his work, the Enterprise that he is engaged in? That, I think, probably is the best interpretation of that. Which is great. No, that's canon in my head now. That's canon in my head in the world of Dixon Hill. her nose imitating another woman who's in the police station clearly framed as some kind of working girl and also a police sergeant starts hitting on her shortly before on crusher shortly before uh dixon hill returns so the bit about this that that really stands out to me is the

implication is that this character in both interpretations, both in the world of Dixon Hill and in the world of Star Trek, doesn't know how to apply makeup. And she's clearly wearing just a metric ton of makeup. She did not come into the scene without makeup on. So, in the world of Star Trek, maybe that makeup was replicated

on her face, and she just didn't know how to deal with it. It could be she went to an actual makeup person. We do know that the ship has a barber. But in the world of Dixon Hill, it's even more bizarre because she is clearly made up. And then just adding more and more makeup as she sits there. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's like trying to learn how to do makeup from this other person. So we don't know how she got this makeup on her face. it's another hint at what the true meaning behind this episode is there's a lot of good bits in business we're going to skip over some of them it's it is an episode worth watching right uh picard comes back sees crusher all made up all the costuming and stuff this is when they have an interaction where they are very close to each other we get like the slow zoom on their faces yeah there's some chemistry there's some some energy there going back and forth or looking into each other's eyes dixon hill invites her to come back to check out his office but then coming up in the background wayland and data invite themselves along because

they also want to see The Office. And we get a big eye roll from Beverly Crusher. Yeah. Oh, this is such a good scene. Once back at The Office, everyone has the appropriate amount of wonder about how well realized it is. And then our squirrely guy comes back in. Yeah. This is Felix Leach, who is played by a character actor that I feel like people would recognize

his face or his voice. The actor is Harvey Jason, who seems familiar from many things, including one episode of another detective show, Columbo. He was in a second season episode in the early 70s. All of the characters in Dixon Hill are kind of heightened caricatures. Right. You just need to get what they are. So he's this big version of this weaselly but creepy henchman. He has business with Dixon Hill and he produces a gun.

He wants a certain object that Dixon Hill is supposed to have. And he threatens them with the gun. Waylon steps up, puts on his own period voice. We're not going to give you anything. Give me the gun. Waylon steps up, puts on his own period voice. We're not going to give you anything. Give me the gun. And then Felix Leach reaches out and shoots him in the stomach. And everybody is appropriately horrified. Including Beverly Crusher. Yes. Applauding. As we know, the Star Trek holodeck has safety protocols so that real people can't get injured so they they are all appropriately impressed with like the pratfall yeah yeah this guy has acted quite well but then he raises his

hand and they see blood on it and it's real he's really bleeding and now it has gotten real yes this is again this is a um the weirdness of the the fictional world here like why would they be applauding at one of their friends getting shot right that's exactly very strange this is a uh a tonal shift um from how they've been treating everything like a toy like a game right now they're they're shocked by it yeah i won't say so much too much more about these reactions because actually the best part of it is just about to to show up so crusher checks him out he he's gonna die if they don't get him to sickbay yeah but then they can't get the the exits dixon hill quickly steps up disarms and then smacks leech across the face sending him running out of the office both he and data call for exits which do

not appear clearly something is wrong and the tonal shift really solidifies from that sense of wonder and amusement and play to one of fear. Because now they're trapped in this place. Yes. Then we get a quick bit on the bridge where they have arrived at the rendezvous with the Harada. There's only so long Riker can stall them. They need the captain. Back on the holodeck, Data is at a loss. There's a bit of business with moving a corded lamp around. Again, kind of showing that they don't know this place, right? They don't know the parameters of what

they're dealing with. It's good business, too. I mean, like, this is Data's shtick in general, but I couldn't help but laugh at how he's reacting because yeah it's a little three stoogey because he unplugs but picard understands what's happening and plugs it back in but data's unaware of that like that's what fixes it so it just turns off and then turns back on and he doesn't know why there's no clue yeah leech returns with another goon and the aforementioned Cyrus Redblock. Oh, Cyrus Redblock. Who, again, is played in this extremely big, over-the-top way by Lawrence Tierney. Yes.

Who, again, is a big character actor from movies and TV from the 40s through the late 90s. And is just full of scenery chewing. Oh, so good. Expressive dialogue. He has so many lines, like quotable lines. Some of them have to be quotes and references, right? Like I didn't really recognize any in particular, but the way that they're delivered and they're so stylized

seemed to me that they really have to be some kind of references. Right, yeah. I would agree with you, and I don't think I would be able to figure out what they are. But they're very period in that noir literary sense of, you know, using language really specifically. So, you know, he says stuff like, life is an endless series of choices. Good manners are never a waste of time. That kind of stuff. Plot-wise wise what happens here is

that so so red block is looking for the item yeah leech can't believe that he was hit he's he's both offended and afraid that hill was brazen enough to strike him so he gets his own back he he basically pistol whips him across the face uh causing picard to bleed right again showing that they are vulnerable and calls calls back the lipstick. Oh, that's true. Like he's bleeding on the lip in exactly the exact same spot, I believe. Yeah, it's a visual callback. Yeah, for sure.

And then McNary shows up with a bottle of scotch he was going to share with Dixon Hill because he saw the lights on, thought he was still working. And he walks into these gangsters, know holding everyone at bay we get some banter between data and red block about you know he's from south america you know i've been all over the world i've never seen anything like you sure he's a little more educated and world you know world wise than your standard 1941 person on the street he's not a thug here he's he's the the mastermind uh so seeing that denial is getting them nowhere picard takes and or dixon hill i suppose i should say takes a new tack they're not from here they're from another world ah so we've stepped into the twilight zone or well

not quite yet we're about to step into okay so at this point as a viewer of Dixon Hill, I'm like, is this a con? Is it a desperate attempt to distract your captors from the truth? Maybe put them off guard long enough to take a run for it? You know, what is your end goal here? I mean, from the Star Trek view, the end goal is this intriguing discussion that you're opening up about what is being, right? What is existence? Because I'm about to tell you that your existence doesn't exist. I think in viewing the Dixon Hill, that's not where we're at just yet,

because we're about to get there. Well, and also, as a Dixon Hill viewer, on the one hand, this could be a con, but also be a con on the viewer, because it actually explains some of the irregularities of the other characters that we've seen so far. Are we being fooled as viewers or are they now revealing why all this weird stuff we've seen is true? But yes, they're from another world with fabulous riches. That's where the item is. The item.

This is the greatest MacGuffin of all time, as it's not even named. It's literally just the item this is the greatest mcguffin yeah of all time as it's not even named it's literally just the item data says that red block and his goons they're the fictional characters all this conversation of who's real and who's fake is making leech crazy he just wants to kill someone uh leech red block says that well we'll test the theory by killing one of you i want the item if you don't have it then i'll kill one of you and then want the item. If you don't have it, then I'll kill one of you. And then he ends up targeting Crusher as the one who will be shot if Dixon Hill does not produce the item. So Picard's like, okay, fine.

I do have it. But my price for bringing it to you is that you have to help us save this man's life because Weyland is, he's going to die from the gunshot wound. Redblock has a phrase here while he's waiting for Picard to tell him what he wants. Make your thoughts fruitful and your words eloquent. So good.

So delightfully written by either Tracy Torme or Tracy Torme. Outside the holodeck crusher says he thinks he has something that might work. There is no drawback to trying it it'll either work or not work now or it'll work or not work later right so do it now which is a weird piece of techno babble yeah honestly on one hand i think it's it's kind of awesome listen this is these are our odds we spent any more time working on it right it's not going to improve our odds to keep working on it but it's delivered by wesley like his mom is in there so it's yeah he's like i'm done i'm done with this i can't do anymore this is the best i could do for you um so he does a thing uh so we

go back inside leech wants to kill data uh there's a little more banter about saving lives and whatnot but then whatever wesley does suddenly plunges them into a blizzard like the entire scene just turns into ice and snow and swirling winds and the everyone jumps and yells and it's like what you know it's freaking out about what happened and then it's gone And then the exit arch appears and opens. So the blizzard, that's the bit. That is the thing that nails it. That is when we go from a pretty typical noir story to a Twilight Zone episode, right? And this would fit right in with a Twilight Zone episode.

The Dixon Hill story would be a Twilight Zone episode. No problem. And it is that blizzard that that does it like the sheer terror that that would have that would bring on the characters within that story on maybe not cyrus red block because he definitely can roll with some punches uh all the who aren't dixon strangers as we'll call as i'll call them you know like yeah this is a great moment. This is the panning in through the arch into the holodeck moment of wonder for the viewer of the

Dixon Hill episode. Yeah, it suddenly changes. Picard says that it's the way into our world. Yeah. Roblox wants to go out himself and I think Data warns him, you can't go out. You have to, you know, your existence will stop. He could have just kept his mouth shut. Like I kind of, I half remembered this episode

as this being a trick. Right. I was thinking the same thing. They trick them into going out and that's how they get out of it. But this is actually a stronger thematic statement, right? That Data tells him, no, going out there is basically death for you. And he's like, I don't believe that. I'm going to do it. So Redblock and Reach are like, we're going to go out there. After we're gone, kill all of them. You know, make sure the bodies are never found.

And then they walk out of the arch, and they take a couple steps away from the holodeck, and then slowly start dissolving from the feet upwards. And we get the final line from red block what is this what are they doing i can't do this to me don't they know who i am i'm cyrus redblock cyrus redblock a little over the top but but yeah. Back inside, Data easily disarms the remaining goon, bends the gun with his android strength, and then punches him out. Picard has them take Weyland to sickbay. And then we have a moment, kind of the emotional peak of the episode.

So, I mean, Dixon Hill, but at this point, I mean, I guess this is still Dixon Hill because he's talking to McNary. And McNary has seen all this unfold in front of him, right? You know, they have a moment where they say goodbye. Hill is like, I have to leave now. I'm leaving forever. You'll never see me again. And McNary says, so this is the big goodbye. Yeah. That's the title of the episode. And then asks, after you're gone, will this world still exist? Will I still see my wife and children? Right. Yeah. Oh, so heartbreaking. And Dixon Hill, Picard, he doesn't know. Yeah. Well, and then it ends my second favorite shot from the episode where Picard leaves the holodeck,

the exit closes after him, but the camera stays on the holodeck. And then all the lights, everything just fades down to black after Picard is gone. This is the end of the Dixon Hill episode, right? This isn't the end of our episode from Star Trek, but this is the end of our Dixon Hill episode. And this ending, I'm going to say, is slightly more satisfying than the ending to the Star Trek episode. And maybe we'll talk about that a little bit later, but I want to put a footnote here and say I want to talk about the implications of this ending. And then we continue with Star Trek. This is also a great ending to Twilight Zone, like as you were saying. Well, so we go from here to the ending of our Star Trek episode where Picard rushes to the bridge still in his Dixon Hill costume, takes off his hat and coat, turns around and gives the Harada greeting.

Yes. In good order. He undoes his tie a little bit too, which is good. Yeah. There's a pregnant pause and then they get a response that they are honored by his perfect greeting. Captain Picard does it again. He did the thing. Applause from the bridge crew.

Yay. Data arrives. He is also still in the costume. He sits down in his position. Someone asks him about how he found the holodeck or whatever. Yeah. And he continues chewing the scenery in his 40s accent until he is called out for it. And then where usually we would end an episode on Jean-Luc Picard saying, engage.

He instead says, step on it. Yeah. Credits roll. End of episode. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, let me talk about this moment of satisfaction. In future Star Trek episodes, they'll explore this a little bit more.

But the Twilight Zone ending to the Dixon Hill is great because it doesn't tell you whether they'll exist or not. It leaves a big question. Yeah, it's a great question and it leaves you as audience members, or rather it left me as a member of that audience. Of the Dixon Hill viewing audience. Yeah, the fictional Epi, who's the viewer there, with a sense of, are we real, right?

Like this is the same sort of mind-blowing thing that the Matrix was, but, you know, this, some Philip K. Dick stuff before the Matrix and some Borges stuff before that and all the way down to Plato. The big question of if all of our senses tell us that we're in a real world, but we are limited by the extent of our senses, how do we know, you know, that that is the real world and not a simulation or not an artifact of our sensory perception, et cetera, et cetera. So this is great. This is a fun tale to tell.

And it goes back. It goes all the way back. Yeah. I think we can talk about it in this kind of blasé manner, not because it's a boring question, but because it's a question that we re-engage with over and over as times change, as technology changes, and as the fiction that we engage-engage with over and over as times change, as technology changes, and as the fiction that we engage with brings it up in different ways. And there are great works of our past that have tackled this, but it's great because it has this

wonderful visceral fear. Now, we contrast that with the Star Trek episode ending. It's kind of a good ending. It's actually of the sort that I enjoy, which is you have this grand problem where the solution is something very small and petty and very nitpicky. One of my favorite authors, Jack Vance, does this all the time in his stories. They're just often involving wizards or space travelers who have to deal with just weird, very picky social constructs. So I'm not like belittling that because I actually quite enjoy all that. What is weird is that Picard can walk away from McNary, that he can, he'd be like, I don't know. Just peace out. On the one hand, right? Like he knows the importance of, like he knows that there's a timeline, right? And the character of Picard he knows that there's a timeline right and the

character of picard is is about duty right it's about doing what he needs to do i'm not saying it's outside of his character to do it because it absolutely is within his character he needs to make a snap decision as a captain of a starship would have to right in that case the the sort of mathematics that he has to face are well i do know to some extent that my world exists, although we know that his world doesn't. Right. I'm getting into Borges again. But anyway.

But I know to some extent my world exists, at least to a greater extent than McNary's world does, or with a greater amount of certainty. And that my world is in peril if I don't do something right now. He's making the decision that he can make which is you're not real so i can safely right walk away um which i think brings up the thing that is that is most interesting to me about that ending uh which isn't necessarily the what is consciousness how does that relate to reality which you know is interesting enough but where does the

responsibility lie yeah is there and this comes up in maybe another, we alluded earlier to some of the Data Sherlock Holmes episodes where this is the point of the episode, but it's like McNary only exists because Picard wanted him to. Now that if McNary is self-aware because of it, does Picard have a responsibility to that? Or is it still safe to just... Yeah, so it's like, where does the consciousness fall along the... Existence, non-existence, permissive spectrum. Right. And it's one that Star Trek does tackle outside the ship quite often.

Mm-hmm. I mean, like, and Data is kind of usually the locus of that, right? But also, when they come across some threat threat and then it turns out to have intelligence or consciousness or self-awareness so they can't just shoot it because they respect life and all that stuff they have to first determine that it is of that magnitude and then figure out how to solve it without just killing it so this is kind of the flip side of that coin we're like oh well you're not really alive so you can stop existing. So one of those big questions that I think the best episodes of Star Trek bring up, and this is a thematic one throughout Next Generation and certainly Voyager with the holographic Doctor character.

But in terms of fictional holodeck characters, Dixon Hill is a fun character that we actually don't really get to see too much because we keep seeing Picard. Yes. Instead. I don't have any conception of Dixon Hill outside Jean-Luc Picard playing Dixon Hill. I do have some fan theories about Dixon Hill. One of which is that he fought in the Great War because people keep calling him Captain. Either he was a disgraced captain from the police force, which is how he knows McNary, or he was a captain in the Great War. the police force, which is how he knows McNary, or he was a captain in the Great War.

Also, clearly, Red Block has been a power broker for a while. He has a line about, why wouldn't I kill a policeman? I've done it before. So what happens when he's gone and there's a power vacuum in San Francisco? A lot of good stuff for a Dixon Hill sequel, perhaps.

And it's also worth examining both on all the levels that we have here, uh, the parallels between red block and Dixon Hill and captain Picard, because I think that there's, I mean, they're both bald. Um,

they're both willing to snuff out the existence of other people to get what they need. If, if they have determined that that existence is not equivalent to theirs. Exactly. Yes. There's interesting stuff here. Yeah.

Yeah. But yeah. So the first season of Next Generation, I think, and rightly so, is considered to be, you know, they're still finding their feet. There's a lot of kind of weird stuff and not super great episodes. But this is a good one. Yeah, I think so. I think this one stands the test of time. There's still a lot of good stuff in it. And while we maybe went down a little bit of our own rabbit hole about the layers and layers here, because that's what we're interested in, I think this episode does a good job of taking a fictional show to present us another fiction in a way that is both thematically resonant with the the first

show like the show you're actually watching but also interesting and fun right they get to be in costume they get to be in these period sets one thing i did want to mention was a lot of the time where it's like there's some banter or there's some business there's a lot of scenery chewing the actors have a chance to really do some really broad acting with some like fun stuff that they don't get to say very often yeah yeah the in-universe actors are all as we said extremely broad and do lots of voices voice stuff and lots of lingo and all that stuff so it's a fun it's fun to watch i think you can see that they had fun doing it i would would agree. Good episode. And I think a solid entry into our fictional characters of the holodeck survey. Exactly.

Do you have anything else about the big goodbye before we take our break? Have our small goodbye? No, I think we covered quite a bit of it and tangled up as much of it as we can tangle up. Yeah, let's take the break, and when we get back, we'll examine what we can learn from it. Absolutely. All right.

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As always, we deeply appreciate your support. And with that, back to the show. Welcome back to $20 a Day, the podcast where we talk about the fictional characters of the Star Trek holodeck. And in what you just heard, the first portion of the episode, we talked about the big goodbye. Our introduction to Dixon Hill. And a great

introduction it was. Yeah. And the noir world of San Francisco in 1941 as portrayed aboard the Starship Enterprise. This is the second part of the episode. This is where we talk about some of the lessons that we may have learned

about creating our own fiction in the holodecks of our mind, whether that is fiction that we're writing for things, fiction that we're acting out, or that we're playing at the table in a role-playing game. Role-playing games being the literal holodecks of our minds. So what have we learned i want to like just kind of do a little bit of a um set our listeners minds at ease uh to let them know that i will no longer be zooming in and out of various fictional viewing levels and we'll just

talk about what how this was done um and things that we learned well so speaking of those fictional levels uh i think yeah we we don't need to go back and forth in terms of our discussion but the techniques that this episode uses to give us two different fictional realities and then weave them together i think are pretty uh are pretty strong um i mean, it relies on, I mean, like most, especially science fiction, but most fantasy fiction, it relies on some assumptions about the ways that the technology works in order to fictionally justify the ways that the characters interact. Right. And I don't think we need to go too much into that. Like that's suspension of disbel disbelief ground work assumptions of your fiction kind of stuff but i think there's something really clever here about how the story the episode transitions from one of exploration and wonder to one of uh tension and danger and it comes about through taking a fictional pressure from one layer, having a crisis that combines the layers, and then having a fictional pressure from the second layer. Yes. Right?

Like, all arrow together over the arc of the episode. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. I think that, because, right, so the balancing act that you got here. Okay, so do you remember um inception the movie inception so this has quite a bit of that going on your dreams within dreams within dreams uh and when inception came out there was somebody who was doing uh a hack of dread where they pulled out a new jenga tower for each layer of dream that you had going. And thematically, I think that's pretty interesting.

But from sort of a game design, and this is why I'm bringing it up here, is that I would have concerns that you would lose the previous pressure each time, right? If it's brand new, yeah. Yeah, you step into a new story. Mechanically in Dread, that's a reset because the tension comes from drawing the

blocks out and waiting to see what's going to cause the tower to fall. So when you refill the tower you're actually taking the tension away. And so the metaphor as it applies here is that basically what I'm saying is if you're telling the audience here's the real world, now here's the fake world

within the real world and so on and so forth, however far down you want to go. The pressures in your fake world are going to be less impactful unless they interplay with the pressures from the real world. Right. I think Inception is a great counter, not really counterpoint, but it's a great contrast with this episode because Inception and other episodes of Star trek that are like inception where you don't know as an audience member you are following a character as they move through different levels of a reality and you don't know where they are and part of the drama

is waiting for what's the next change going to be when are you going to find out what's, quote, real and what's a layer? In this episode, as audience, we're watching our protagonists go from one to the other. It's very clear when they're on the holodeck and when they're not on the holodeck. So the tension shifts because you know the stakes. Like, you're not waiting to find out what's going to happen to Dixon Hill. You know that Dixon Hill is a fake character on the holodeck. What's actually what the real stakes are in the world of Star Trek are what's going to happen with these aliens if Picard can't give them the right greeting. But the combination and this I mean, this sounds super obvious because we just saw it done and it was done very well but i think we're calling out the technique right which is the combination of the two is when the protocol

is overridden or whatever and now our characters are trapped on a layer it's suddenly more real than it was right and it's suddenly real and suddenly there's physical danger and i think what's key here is that the fact that they're trapped is the tension. They also use the shooting Waylon and then there's like a time clock, like we have to get out at this point or he will die. But that is the same time clock as if we don't tell the Harada the right thing at the right time, they're going to blow up our ship, right? The tension comes from we're trapped. We're trapped in a different place and we don't have the resources that we assumed that we'd have. I think Star Trek overplays this over time, right?

Like, they go back to this well a lot, especially with the holodeck, to the point of, like, why does the holodeck even have controls that can be overridden? There's a joke to it, but if we're just focusing just on this episode, the limiting of their movement is what creates. Yeah. Is what combines their realities.

Right. And makes the stakes from one matter in the other one. And I think that like, okay, so I was literally thinking about your, what you were saying about the shooting of Wayland and how as audience that had more weight to me than the Harada. Right. That had more weight to me than the Harada, right? And I think part of why that is, what's going on in the Harada layer of the story? I've been doing a lot of hand gestures in this podcast and they don't help us at all. In the Harada layer of the story, we're getting a straightforward, standard Star Trek episode for the most part.

No, actually, not even standard. We're getting like the barest outline of a Star Trek episode with them. Before we did this podcast, we were talking about it a little bit. And the thing that I said at the time, which I think holds true here, is that we're getting the outside layer is what the Star Trek crew is doing between episodes, right? Sure, sure. Yeah. This is a day in the life of Star Trek, of the crew of the Enterprise. So what we're getting on the Harada layer is almost just a day in the life of the crew of the Enterprise. Picard has to do these diplomatic connections all the time. And only sometimes do we see a whole episode about it, because a lot of them are like

this and so there's a pressure there but the pressure drives a card into the dixon hill layer but once he's trapped in that layer uh the pressure on him is more about the what's happening immediately there which is waylon being shot and right he definitely is like we need to leave I gotta go do a thing right uh but as audience what we're feeling in there is Waylon the the visceral tension is oh this gangster who has no like in in the fiction of Star Trek yeah right this gangster was written in order to be an antagonist to the character that Picard is playing. There's not even a, how do you reason with this person? They are written not to be reasoned with because they are written to be a plot device.

And now that they can create physical harm. Yeah. That's the visceral, like, is there any way to stop this? Yeah, yeah. I think that's interesting. And I think that it's clearly complex writing it, but viewing it, it's not as complex, right? Yeah, it's not really complex at all. It's pretty linear in terms of the moment-to-moment seeing what's happening and feeling what you're supposed to pressures, as you're writing it or playing it at the table, you want to make sure that since they're coming from these different directions, you want to make sure that they don't just push in a completely obvious escape route, right?

Which lets it all out. Right, yeah. And also that they work together and not be totally separate. I guess what I'm trying to say is if the pressures work together, then the characters or, you know, your reader or your player, the investment grows as the two pressures come together. If they're two separate things that happen to be happening at the same time, then you're probably going to end up invested in one more than the other. Right. And that's what happens with a lot of like A plot B plot episodes where there's these two plots that are happening concurrently, but they don't really impact each other.

So you end up being like, I'm actually not really interested in Data trying to find his cat. When are we going to get back to like the away team and what they're doing on the planet? Right. Because one of these things feels more important. And then in this episode, the A-plot and B-plot, the B-plot is essentially the Harada. But they actually they come together at the end with those mounting pressures, which is nice. That kind of leads into what I wanted to talk about.

I'm going to mispronounce this, so I'm going to pronounce it two different ways and then stick with one. Either the Droste or the Droste effect. D-R-O-S-T-E. You can look it up. It's a recursive effect. It's named after a brand of cocoa.

On the container of the cocoa, there's a picture of a nun carrying a tray, which has the container of the cocoa on it, which has a picture of the nun carrying a tray, which has the container. And so you get where that's going. And we've all seen it, like in memes or animated GIFs have it all over the place and just this sort of sense of things going on forever and ever. But the reason why I bring this effect up, because this story of a nun carrying a tray with a container of cocoa on it. Like, the smaller the image gets, the worse the resolution of the image gets. And it's fine.

It is absolutely fine. To our eyes, we understand what's going on. And we can fall into that image. our eyes we understand what's going on and we can fall into that image and why i bring that up is because we've been talking about how delightful these characters are but they're broadly depicted and one of the reasons why that's perfectly okay is that we know as we're watching it that they're a fiction within a fiction so we lose some of the resolution and we're okay with that loss of resolution. It gives us permission to play a little further than just that first layer of fiction does. Yeah, totally. That's a good way of putting it. I mean, we care about the cast, right? Because we're Star Trek

watchers and we've seen them and- We talk about them all the time on $20 a day. We talk about them all the time on a podcast a day. We talk about them all the time on a podcast. So what is the purpose of all those other characters that we don't see all the time? Right. And it depends on the episode. But in this one, I think, as you say, the purpose is to communicate the genre. Like, here are all the tropes that you associate with this kind of story. There's also a playfulness to their references to specific things in our real world,

like other fictional things, right? Like the item that is, you know, the Maltese Falcon or whatever, right? The big goodbye is a reference to both Big Sleep and Long Goodbye, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. So communicating that quickly

with these big, broad characters is totally fine. Also, because we're not going to see them again. So why wait? Yeah. I think that's something to pull out for role-playing in particular, but also for fiction,

if you're kind of learning about a character as you write it or building a character as you write it. There's this sense sometimes of, I need to do a bunch of groundwork before I can get to the good stuff. Right. And especially if you have a limited format, either a limited time format or a limited space for the fiction to exist in, for your audience to experience it in, get to the good stuff. Yeah.

Here are people interacting with a story that runs on a certain set of rails that you already have an association of how that kind of fiction works. It's not telling you, pay attention to the Dixon Hill story. It's really interesting. That's not the point. The point is the Star Trek story needs the Dixon Hill story to, it needs you to fill in a bunch of holes for it. But those are also not the things that matter. What matters is how the two realities end up coming together. One thing I really liked about this episode was seeing both the characters and also, I think, the actors really having fun with what they were doing. And I think that sense of fun and kind of wonder and whimsy is so important to, I mean, just liking what you're doing. But like like generally but again i think it can

get lost in in play sometimes and in trying to put something together narratively and you're paying a lot of attention to structure and pacing and stuff like that and it's kind of like sometimes you just want to have some fun with it and that's okay. All right. Well, with that, we will, I don't know, set a new heading and engage onto our next destination. We're not going to say that there will never be another $20 a day episode, but you can certainly join us next time for our triumphant return to the Rockford Files. Make your thoughts fruitful and your words eloquent.