The Greatest Generation - Hella Conservative (S3E4)

Episode Date: July 20, 2016

When a cloaked observatory gets hit with a banger, the Enterprise needs to step on the gas to rescue some more gray haired scientists before the Prime Directive gets violated. On their arrival, the Enterprise crew just can’t help but violate it themselves, and violate it over and over. It should come as no surprise that this involves Riker going around the planet in a deep vee. Can Picard get out of this by making up a new religion? Did the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer wig get reused? Does Worf’s least favorite lightning have a great Hollywood agent? It’s the episode that Ben recorded while hopped up on DayQuil.

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 friendsofdecisoto for labor.com. That's friendsofdisoto for labor.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 two guys who are a little bit embarrassed to be doing a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Prennicka. Did you say Star Trek? You really pulled those tiny little front frontier. These are the voyages.

Welcome to Star Trek Impression Cast. You're twice weekly 40 minutes of hacky impressions. I'm your host, Adam Pranaka. Desperately hacky and unoriginal and, I mean, not only unoriginal, but bad versions of unoriginal impressions. Yeah, yeah. It's like an impression of an impression of an impression, kind of impressions. Just gross.

Yeah, sorry. Sorry everybody listens that doesn't like it when we break into Pekasbi or Trump Picard. I think they're long gone. I think anyone're long gone. I think anyone who isn't into our impressions left after the second episode. Yeah. At the time of this recording,

the new movie is sort of on the horizon, Ben. Yeah, I, a few people have even tweeted me and said like, what do you think of the new movie? And I've been like, I don't know, is it out? I don't know. And they're like, oh, I thought you would have like, what do you think of the new movie? And I've been like, I don't know, is it out? I don't know. And they're like, oh, I thought you would have like, had some sort of in. And that's not how this podcast works.

We are not in with the cool kids that get to go see things before they're out. Well, let me tell you how this podcast works then. We're firmly on the outside. I think you might already be clear on this. You and I do about as little work as possible. And our listeners do things like bombard a bombard a Twitter feed on our behalf or they'll set up Facebook and Reddit pages for us. They would probably also be the most likely to get a screener. Somebody made an

Argyle Shimoda bumper sticker mock-up, like a presidential campaign with Argyle and Shimoda on the ticket. They've got my vote. Do you think Shimoda as vice president would be more or less fun than Joe Biden right now. Because I love Joe Biden. Just as a person, he's the greatest. He's definitely the drunk charmota of the current government. Yep. Even though he's a tea totler. I read a New Yorker profile in Joe Biden one time and it said that the plane that he flies around,

which is like the hoop-de-version of Air Force One. It is, yeah. He has a little office on it, but there's no seat for somebody that wants to come in and sit and talk to him. There's just a cooler. You have to pull out from under the desk to sit on. That is amazing.

Isn't that the most Joe Biden effect you've ever heard? That story reads like an onion article. It's perfect. He's got coolest cooler under his desk. Yeah, you don't want to sit on the blender function. No. Now that's for personal use only. We've got a hell of an episode, we're reviewing this time, Ben.

It's a season three episode three who watches the Watchers. And I might have steamrolled whatever bit you wanted to do before the show. I don't think I had anything, I don't think I had anything chambered. If I did, I've forgotten it. I'm pretty heavily hopped up on day quill right now. Oh, tell me about that. Getting over some stuff. But, uh...

You sound great. Oh, yeah. Well, I drifted in and out of consciousness as I watched my two episodes to prepare for the show we are currently recording. Oh, you sound like what I've been accused of as recently as today. Someone accused me on our Facebook page of not really paying attention to the show. Yeah, I feel like the last couple of episodes, we've had some kind of glaring plot, like misstatements of how the plot went,

and people have kind of taken shots at us over that. We're not trying to, we're given a sense of the plot so that we can joke about stuff while we over that. Oh, we're not, we're not trained to, we're given a sense of the plot so that we can joke about stuff while we do that. That's the premise of the show. It's not an academic summary of it, that's for sure. Yeah. I thought we had done a pretty good job setting up that expectation, but I guess not.

Yeah, so the enterprise is heading to help some anthropologists with a reactor and Chip is kind of moving at high speed and Jürtie comes up to the bridge and he's like we've got everything that they need I just don't understand why they need so much power. He sort of deducks that they are using this this generator to power a Duck blind is what he calls it, which is a fun federation term of art for using holograms to conceal the fact that some scientists... That they're gonna murder the things that they're out there watching. Some scientists have set up a sneaky little observatory where they can, they can serotonously watch a sort of pre-modern

group of proto-vulcons called Mintakens. We should really talk about what these proto-vulcons look like then because we have referred to unfrozen caveman lawyer before. Sometimes the honking horns of your traffic make me want to get out of my BMW and run off into the hills or whatever. But these Vulcans look like Frankenstein's. They have the wig that unfrozen caveman lawyer has, for sure. But just cut with like a real severe bang

to sell that they are Vulcans. The back of its real moldy though. Yeah, they've got some real like Timmy from South Parkhead. Like sort of a triangular head. Yeah. triangular head. I'm like, like modern folk, quote unquote, modern Vulcans don't look like that. They've got, I feel like a pretty standard head size, right? Well, they're keeping it, they're keeping it trim in the back as well as the front.

These guys are business in the front, but they're fully party in the back. Yeah. Yeah. And when you're living in the Iron Age or whatever, access to Clippers probably isn't a thing you've got. Right. And they've got a little bit heavier of a brow. I would say than your average, Mr. Spock.

Yeah, they got a little bit of Chrome Agnod brow. Yeah. So they sort of look like far side characters like the far sidecapin. I don't know if you saw this but Gary Larson is credited as a consulting producer on this episode. Perfect. So yeah, this observatory is having some power problems and while they're while they're on FaceTime with the observatory the observatory gets a banger and It's one of those perfect

Star Trek industrial accidents that knocks everybody in the room out without killing anyone but One of the one of the guys manages to To slip out the window when he gets when he gets hit with the lightning bolt It's totally like an unnecessary spaghetti western scene where a guy like a guy's under roof and he gets shot And he doesn't need to do a forward flip into the hay bale, but yeah, he does anyway right and and and like a little unclear why they wouldn't also have a pain of glass on that window.

Sure. But, or even better transparent aluminum on that window. Yeah, I don't think that's an OSHA approved workplace. For sure. For sure not. Because also like when it starts to go electric, that electricity is arcing all over the place and every metal surface picks it up. They need some fiberglass in between those metal pieces to serve as damping barriers.

If you're a continuity nerd, I think you'll notice that this is the same electricity that's zapped warp early in season one. Definitely. It looks very similar. Same stuff. That electricity hasn't gotten any work for an entire season, but, you know, it's agent got it back in the show. That electricity finally paid its union dues.

So this guy goes out the window as a couple of mintaqans are out doing some time keeping. They're fixing up the sundial, which is way better looking than our earth sundials. It's got like hoops and they, you know, and rings and they've got to adjust many things on this thing. It's pretty awesome. Yeah. And these two are like our main characters. This is a, this is Liko and his daughter OG. Yeah. And they're sort of, I feel like they're also,

I'm not sure if they cast people of First Nations descent, but they sort of play them a little bit, like kind of a split between like peasant people in terms of the costuming, but like European peasant people in terms of costume, but sort of American Indian in terms of their coloring and like belief system that they suddenly refer to spoiler alert. Sure, but Ray Wise is Liko and he's about the whitest guy that there is. But they put some darker base makeup on his face than he would typically take. Yeah. What's interesting is Pamela Adlin plays OG. Oh shit, is that Pam Adlin?

Fuck yeah, and she is no less hot when she looks like Frankenstein. Like it fucking works. Yeah. Yeah, she's fantastic. Pam Adlin is a solid A plus in my book. She might be too big for greatest GenCon 2017. We'll try to reach out. I mean, I feel like the panel would be a lot classier with a Pam Adlon on it.

Look, Pam, we can't afford to fly you up to Fresno. I can't afford to fly you up to Fresno. But I've got a buddy with a car, like a 1992 Nissan Centra. We'll be happy to drive you up there. I just picture the... L.A. to Fresno is like seven hours, right? Yeah. I just picture us in a single room at the Red Roof Inn in Fresno and just some random weekend in 2017. Each one sitting on the edge of a queen bed facing each other going like, you want to watch an episode

or something? It's not the first time we've been in a strange bedroom together watching a Star Trek episode and then recording an episode of our show Sadly, that's something that we've done before. I think that's what greatest Jen Con is gonna shape up to a Yeah, I Had a really diabolical idea for what would happen with our show when we're done with the show by the way It was my understanding that the show would never end. I was thinking, what if we just go back to the beginning? Oh man, during our clip show, we had to listen to a lot of those early episodes.

And let me tell you, man, I would be in for re-recording a couple of those. That's for sure. What if we did this? What if we just started reviewing our own show? I would be in for re-recording a couple of those heads for sure. What if we did this? What if we just started reviewing our own show? It just comes the most disgustingly meta podcast of all time. I was thinking we'd do Goshiven style overdubs with different voices, like hand pick voice actors. Yeah. Oh, oh god.

Anyways, back on track. So the Banger hits and on the bridge of the Enterprise, data turns around and says like, we could be there in 23 minutes if we speed up and Picard goes speed up and then, and I guess I guess and then the banger hits and Picard says like step on it. Let's go warp nine. Mm-hmm and Maybe wonder why we ever go anything less than warp nine. I know. I was thinking the same thing Why would you be going warp seven if warp nine is available? Like what does it use up? I don't know.

Duterium? I said I don't know, okay. I need you to clarify some stuff, okay. So they get there and they get down to the facility and so there's three, there's three researchers there and two of them are in there passed out, asked out and the other one that fell out the window is missing. Yeah who's in our dustbuster club though? We got Riker, we got data, we got Jordy and Dr. Tresher. Yeah. No worth this time, right? No. Because they're just in the facility. Like, nothing to be worried about. Yeah. If anyone's got a head to match what's going on down there, it's probably worth. Yeah. But so they get like you know, they get it safe. They get the power turned back on.

But before they get the hologram back up and running, Liko pokes his head in the window. And it's a, I think like my favorite, unintentionally funny kind of shot that is in many, many TV shows and movies is a character looking through a window. Like it always makes me laugh to just see a character like just poke their head through a window. It always makes me laugh to just see a character like, look, just poke

their head through a window. And this is real funny also because Data notices him. And instead of greeting him or trying to get him in a Vulcan neck pin or something, he just turns and goes, Commander. And Liko flips out, puts his hand on the metal wall of the window, and it shocks him, and he falls down the hill, and he himself passes out. So they run out there. OGC is all this go down from a hiding place. Before we continue, I want to tie something up to, so Liko falls off the cliff. There are a couple of wheel home screen moments in the show. Everyone's falling off cliffs. Yeah.

It's great. And OG, so OG sees the doctor run out and beam up with her dad. And this is a real head fuck for somebody that lives in the in the technological context that she lives in. Right. It is a crazy thing to do with the 3D face. Have you gone blinded within yourself? Just stand up, don't let go.

You don't deserve the wealth that you never bought. This is a big problem because this whole duck blind situation is meant to enable them to observe these people without causing any prime directive problems. And they've basically doubled down on the prime directive being broken. When Dr. Crusher gets back to the ship, Picard basically tears her a new one because she's brought a primitive on board who should never have been even aware of the duck blind much less going on a starship. And so she agrees to wipe

out his short-term memory using Polasky's technique, which is the first and maybe last time Polasky has ever mentioned in the post-Polasky era. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, her case is interesting because the way she puts it is it's sort of like lying to cover up a lie, to cover up a lie, like they keep hurting by helping is what I mean. Yeah, absolutely, and it's like a series of well-intentioned actions that just snowball into a totally crazy, like, unbelievable prime directive violation that is 100% off the rails before they're even willing to admit it to themselves. Like, they think that they're going to wipe this guy's memory, but they still have a guy missing on the planet's surface, and there's like a good chance that he's

still alive because they can't find his signal, which means he probably ran into a cave or something. And so they're like, Picard is not showing how deep and shit they are by raising his hand up to his eyeballs, but like they're that deep and I think that it's interesting that they don't really admit it to themselves

at this point. Well, they have one of those, like, meeting of the gods, McLaughlin groups in the conference room. Is your walk? Where they go over what exactly they can do now. And it is so godlike to hear what their options are. And in the end, Riker has a very interesting idea for how they might find the missing person.

Well, we should talk about the discussion though, because Picard is being told by the lead researcher that what they should do is just provide a ten commandments to the Mintacans and Bounts, which is a stupendously alarming idea. Like he says, without these 10 commandments, it'll just be nothing but Spanish inquisitions. Oh! Oh!

Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition! That is the most interesting part of this episode, is like thinking about whether them injecting a little bit of their own morality would actually be a positive situation in this prime directive violation or not. Like it definitely, like I'm very publicly anti prime directive. And I think everyone here knows that. The prime directive is a Chinese hoax.

Everybody, everybody should be aware that the Chinese have been beating us over that with this prime directive thing for years. It's the chemtrails of the Federation. Yeah. But this is a case in point, right? If they drop off some Federation morality, can they actually trust that it would get practiced? Or they stuck monitoring and sculpting this culture for the rest of history? Yeah, I think one of the great points that's brought up in the room is religion for its own sake is fairly benign, but religion easily becomes warped into

things that turn into death for a lot of people. They abandoned their belief in the supernatural. Now you were asking me to sabotage that achievement, to send them back into the dark ages of superstition, and ignorance, and fear, no. Right, but I'm not sure why the anthropologists are so sure that their gendered religion that they would just leave on the doorstep before they split would be impervious to multiple interpretations.

He's been watching these Frankenstein's for a while, I probably trust his judgment. Okay, fair enough Adam. This is becoming a speech. You're the captain, so very entitled. I'm not going to type a ramble on about something everyone knows. So the plan is hatched that Riker and Troy are going to go down and look around, see if they can find this guy that's still missing. So yeah, they get made up to look like proto-volkins, including the headpiece and the clothing. And this is once again a great opportunity

for Riker to sport the Open V, which goes all the way down again. You're going to put that thing on and parade around like one of them? Riker is in the latest of summer trade. He's got the deep V, he's got cut off shorts, he's got knee high boots, he's got a fun satchel slung over one shoulder.

Yeah. He is looking ready for fun in the sun. He's got that heat wave Williamsburg bartender look. And Troy is basically in like a form-fitting burlap sack. Like, she is in the heaviest, the heaviest looking floor length dress. She's looking pretty dopey. I don't think it's dopey, it's just, it's hella conservative. And for a society that is matriarchal in the way that she describes,

a little bit strange as a choice on the costume department's part. Yeah. Is this a good time to discuss the kind of depeche mode score that they drop in every time they're down on the planet surface? I uh, I can't think of a better time. It is really synthy and weird. Like, I don't know if it's uh, if it's Ron Moore's uh, situation here, I should probably look that up before I start

talking shit. But yeah, it sounds really different from any other episode we've seen this season, certainly. Like, sort of a throwback to season one, Cynthia. Yeah, I didn't pick up on that, but in my defense, I was probably... You were pretty gacked on, Dave Will. Yeah. As, uh, it's not in my right mind when I watched this episode. God, does Ben even pay attention to these episodes?

Speaking of people who are not in their right minds, uh, Liko. Liko has been fixed up and gets back to his, his village. And he and, uh and his daughter start talking about the experience he's remembering from the enterprise, which we become very apparent very quickly that pressure is no polasky when it comes to memory wiping. He remembers everything. And he has interpreted his memory of Picard as being of meeting God

because Picard was in charge and was looking for this missing guy. So Liko comes back and through just a kind of jaw-dropping series of logical leaps has got the whole village believing in their ancient religion anew. And the appearance of Raker and Troy to sort of like dispel this virus of spreading religion is no good because just then two of the cave manniest of cavemen show up with Palmer, the missing scientists, slung over their shoulders. Yeah, it's not a good look,

especially because that's the moment that Riker and Troy have infiltrated the camp. I felt like Troy and Riker didn't really put their thinking caps on with this. Like, they realized that the prime directive violation is, they're the first ones to realize, like how deep the shit they are in is. And they just kind of keep letting

a logical fallacy fly by without debunking it, you know? Like they keep, like when Lico will say, oh, you know, we found Palmer, the Picard will be happy with us. He maybe can bring back my dead wife. They don't go like what gives you the sense that the Picard has any awareness of you or interest in you. It's the same thing when people insist

that they, in their religious conviction, in a public political way, public political way, it's like, how did you, how are you so certain that you know what God thinks? Like, when there are other people of the same religion that disagree with you. Like, how did you get so convicted in that? And he is convicted in thinking he knows what Picard wants as soon as he is convicted in thinking that Picard is God.

Right, right. Like, it could be that Riker feels that way about it. Like, how are you going to talk since to a religious fundamentalist you can't? So, like, he's got to think of a plan B pretty fast. Like, to talk in this guy out of his thinking is probably hopeless. Yeah, well, especially when he looks so dumb. Riker's been on this planet for all of 10 minutes and he hasn't fucked anyone. Yeah, he's a lot of sorts.

This field trip is a failure. They're getting some super great mileage out of this instance of command playset though. Oh, you think that's the same in walls, but repurposed? I think so. It sure looks like it. That's interesting. It felt different to me, but you might be right. It might just be like lit really differently.

Yeah, you throw some hay around. Yeah. Trial on a little extra stucco to make it look more rustic. Yeah. Yeah, you throw some hay around. Yeah, trowel on a little extra stucco to make it look more rustic. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you might be right. Picard orders raker to do everything in his power to get Palmer, the missing scientist, back up onto the ship. And the way they do this is Troy provides a distraction by saying that she sees another another scientist out in the out in the countryside. Every single person but the

old man runs out to help her track this fictional person down and Raker stays behind and like and like ties the old man up and runs out with the beat up scientist. Who is like... Rikers tied people up by the wrists a bunch. Like he's really great at that. He knows some hats, he knows some safe words. So he's like running away with Palmer and OG like circles back to adjust her sundial again and she sees Riker and so she puts the bow shooting guy

onto Riker's case, and so there's kind of a running around in the hills chase scene where Riker is trying to get away from this guy while he's carrying this man over his shoulders and the guy keeps trying to line up a bow and arrow and not getting a great angle on it. I love that their idea of an Iron Age bow is clearly like a modern carbon bow, but wrapped in bacon. Yeah, they definitely went down to like Models and got like the dopest bow and arrow.

Like somebody in the prop department was like, I kind of want to like get into archery, so I'm gonna buy the dopest bow we can afford on this budget, and then after we're done shooting this, I'm just gonna take that shit home, and I'm gonna have a really nice bow. Super dope bow. Yeah, there's just some like hemp rope wrapped around.

Yeah, just loosely draped. Yeah, so Riker Manage still lose this guy and get beamed back up. But then they know that Troy is up to no good and is not who she claims to be. So they take her hostage and the talk is starting to be of like, why don't we think about maybe sacrificing Troy to Picard because she is clearly like done the opposite of what Picard wants. Why is the first thing people want to do when they're a weird religious zealot is kill people in the name of their God? Oh man. That's like the first thing that they jump to. And this is a fairly new interpretation of a religion for these people on the planet.

Right. And that guy gets there in like an hour. Yeah, I don't know if we said this before, but like the deal with these people is that they like walked away from religion and superstition a long time ago and they are a, they are growing up, growing up rational. Like they have science and reason and logic. In a pretty Vulcan way. They're, they're, they're very precocious in that way.

Yeah. So it's a sticky wicket that they're starting to be fully, fully radicalized religious cellists. But the snowball gets more powder at this point because now choice of hostage. Right, and so Picard is like, fuck this. Like, I'm gonna talk to their leader. Like, let's beam their leader up.

And so their leader is this woman, Nuria, who has been mostly trying to talk Liko down from some of the more insane things that he suggests, but is pretty much believing what Liko is saying because she's seen evidence that has satisfied her for whatever reason. And so they get Troy to kind of let them know when Noria is alone. And they beam her up to the ship. And so like Picard goes down to the transporter bay to do this himself.

He like tells Chief O'Brien to take a smoke break. And now. Yet another like 10 second O'Brien scene in an ex-generation episode. Like he is the master of that. Yeah, he didn't even get a line this time. He definitely got scale for this scene. They were just like,

column, why don't you come down? We're not gonna pay you like a featured role rate, but you can get like $250 if you wanna come down today and be the transporter guy. He kind of has the best job. Yeah, very low stakes. He got a new uniform uniform too like he's not just one of those assholes in the old spandex. Yeah Yeah, his pips move up to the collar The Mandarin collar. Yeah

Talking one long Incredibly unbroken send and moving from topic to topic, but no one had the chance to think the topic was really quite hypnotic. This is a scene where I felt like it was a real missed opportunity, and if I had been directing this episode, here's how it would have gone down. Picard would have slid his hand up the, up the transporter control, beaming Nuria up and she would have beamed up in full squat with her dress bunched up around her waist because what would she be going to do by herself other than take a poo? Oh geez!

That went to a place a couple of times that I wasn't expecting. Man, you really crossed me over on that one. A couple of times that I wasn't expecting. Ha ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Man, you really crossed me over on that one. She, she, I just thought I'd lay a little poo trap for you. She immediately takes a knee because he introduces himself as Pic, and that is enough for her to realize that she is in the glorious and divine presence of her maker. And he basically spends like a quarter of the episode walking her around trying to talk her out of her now newly deeply held religious conviction.

And this is a thing that he's done before with chicks. He grabs them from their planet, brings them up to the ship, and then shows them what their planet looks like from above. This is a thing that's happened many times. Yeah, and it's not the last time it'll happen either. It's sort of his move, right? Yeah. Like Wesley's chocolate, that Picard's got a big window.

Yeah. I sort of questioned whether his taking her to see the planet from the window was the right move for her, because I mean, this is like, like he's trying to talk her into, I'm not a magical being. I just have sufficiently advanced technology. But he basically shows her the most amazing thing that he could, right? Like I guess he doesn't replicate something or whatever,

but he goes and shows her planet from a stupendous altitude and like I feel like that that is a major back step in him. Yeah, that kind of undermines his point, right? Unconvincing her of his divinity. Yeah. If God creatures are mostly depicted as, you know, those who exist above, the people they rule, then that was kind of a misstep. Yeah, but so he talks her through like, you know, if an even more KVK person met you, what would they think of the fact that you know how to build a hut and make a bow. And he basically introduces her to the idea of abstract thought.

He tries to lawyer her a little bit. He tries to lawyer her, but he kind of introduces her to a way of thinking, even. And I thought that that was an interest. I don't know what else they would have done, but an interesting choice on the Raiders part because the idea that they are extremely rational, but also sort of need to be introduced to abstraction as a thought process seemed a little bit at odds. Yeah. But eventually, like, she gets, she's like starting to talk the way he wants her to talk. But then she asks him, hey, why don't you do us a favor and bring back some of the people that have died?

And he's like, fuck. Like I really thought I had you, and it is clear that I'm not gone far enough. So he takes her down to Sick Bay, where conveniently one of the researchers that they beamed up is shuffling loose this mortal coil. And that really like drives the point home for her that they're not all powerful. They are just more powerful than her.

Hey, that might be a good time to play a commercial. Ha ha ha ha ha. OK, Adam, if we're going to do something very abrupt, let's do it. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. A greatest gen live show is something you don't want to miss. Why?

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

Go to GreatestGenTour.com to get more info. That's greatestgentour.com for dates and ticketing information for the Share Your Embarrassment Tour. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We got stupid with Judy Greer.

My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweirds. Pat Noswald. Could I get a ball-rock 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. Oh, rats. 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 have such short nacks. But I'm hearing we need to get on this arc. We've got to get on the arc. It is about terrain. Got us about to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, not, and they've such short nights. But I'm hearing we need to get on this arc. We've got to get on the arc. It is about terrain, about a spout to destroy humanity. Hey, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Are you Noah?

Yeah, I know we look like humans. We're actually, we're podcasters. We are podcasters, so it's different. Have you heard of Ono Ross and Carrie? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so same life, something for us to check out.

We would love to be on the boats. We came to by two. What do you think? O'Neill Ross and Kerry, available on MaximumFun and Outdoor. Oh boy, wasn't that a great commercial, Ben? I loved hearing that commercial. So the next thing that happens is Picard and Noria Beam down with the project of So the next thing that happens is Picard and Nouria beam down with the project of not letting Lico assassinate Troy and also helping the whole tribe understand that he's not God.

And uh, it gets to a point where Lico is showpissed that Picard keeps insisting he's not God that Lico grabs the bow and the bacon bow Yeah, and draws it pointed at Picard and Picard basically challenges him to shoot him and He challenges him with the confidence of a man who knows that Dr. Crusher is but a transporter beam away. Right, right. Like, he's like, probably this can't kill me. Where does the arrow have to go for that not to be true though? Like if the arrow goes right through his eye

and into his brain, that could kill him, right? I feel like even that, they could like, transporter reconstruct. Man. I don't know. And he's got that metal heart too, like he would probably just bounce off the metal heart. Yeah, that would probably prove Lico's point. If he heart shat some and it just just bound this off, talk about your all time backfires.

Absolutely. But Liko Drazen is about to hit him and his daughter freaks out at the last minute and bumps him. So the arrow just goes into Picard's shoulder. And when Nouria stoops to try and help him, she holds up her hand and it's covered in Picard blood. And that is like Likoos losing his faith moment. Yeah, because gods don't bleed, right?

Only women bleed at him. Only women bleed. You were just mentioning how the doctor's only a transporter away from fixing Picard. Do you think the sling that Picard returns to the planet wearing is just a showpiece? And that his arm is fine? Because if you return to all good, that might, again, that might kneecap his point about not being a god. He sort of has to look a little wounded, right? Yeah, we've definitely seen the doctor like use some dermal regenerators Where like somebody has a flesh wound and then they don't so

I think I think you might be right about that. I mean, it's yeah, that's head cannon But I think you probably I think you're probably on the right track You know if if you want head cannon. It's probably a good idea to give head cannon first, right? Yeah, yeah headcanon. It's probably a good idea to give headcanon first, right? Yeah. It comes as a standard part of the package. So this last scene where Picard's arm is in this thing is like him with the chair turned around backwards kind of real talk for teens. Guidance counselloring them? Situation where they're going like, so you were just like us before you were you. He's like exactly. They're pretty cool about accepting the fact that they had their privacy violated

for a long period of time without their knowledge and they're so cool about it that they give Picard a nice piece of woven goods to take home as a souvenir of his time on planet Muntaka. Yeah. Yeah, that's a real nice gift. Yeah. Sort of a remember us with this tapestry sort of gift and Picard's like, there's no way I'm forgetting you guys. And he sort of, he sort of pats his arm like in a real fuck you kind of way. This scar will be an enduring memory. Yeah.

Well. You see that tapestry all the time in future episodes. Like, that thing sticks around. That's one thing I like about the show. Like when a character has like a kind of a character building episode that results in a piece of props, like they don't forget about it, you know? Yeah, props to props. Even though the episodes tend to be total monster, the weak type deals, like there are little bits of continuity that go through the show. And I like that.

Yeah, me too. It rewards a careful viewing. Hey Ben, what's that Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda this episode? My drunk Shimoda is is the chief anthropologist. I can't even remember the guy's name, but just so forceful in his argument that they just gotta leave some 10 commandments and get the hell out of there. It's like the opposite of what he should represent

as a scientist. Like he's there under the Aegis of the Prime Directive, studying an untouched culture to like better understand human and vulcan culture as they developed. And he's like, uh, uh, uh, we gotta totally dispoil their culture and get the fuck out of here. He joins a really growing club of shitty scientists depicted on the show. Yeah, like every time a science man gets gray hair in this show, he just winds up being

such a prick. Terrible science man. Yeah. What about you? My Shimotoko is two none other than the Picard. Because the choice to beam Nuriya to the ship may have offered only a handful of opportunities to convince her that Picard is not a god. While at the same time, if she walks through that ship with her eyes open at all. Like every corner of that ship is magic,

from the doors to the food replicators, to the weird aliens, to anything that she sees on that ship is equivalent to God, like according to her, like according to her level of intelligence. And- Right, like he takes calls on his communicator in this, in front of her and like like that was conceivable in

the 80s Right, yeah, and that's possible now like we could make a thing that is the size of a communicator that can send and receive Radio signals and make little sounds but it wasn But it wasn't buildable in the 80s. Like you couldn't make that. And even 40 years before that, it was a completely insane science fiction idea, right? Right.

It's fucking mental that she is able to be convinced. Yeah, Picard totally goes rogue on this idea. And Picard's like, hey, Nuri, you want to go watch someone die with me? So they go into six, they go into six bay and Sure, they watch someone die, but there's also a thousand other things in that room that indicate their their godlike abilities That if she took a look around would totally dispel the idea of anyone dying in front of her at all. Like yeah. That idea was as crazy and it should have backfired big time and it momentarily did. Yeah, I feel like I feel like you should have

gone to the planet's surface and not brought her to him. Yeah, yeah, I agree. But at that point, like the issue was just a Kadamari domicé of fucked up choices that led to that moment, right? Yeah, that's it. That is... There's no way other way to put it. There are much better ways to put it. That was my way. What's coming up next time? The next episode of the show is season 3, episode 5, The Bonding. When the ship's archaeologist is killed on a mission led by Wurf, the Klingon feels responsible for the sun she left behind. Do you remember this episode at all?

Who are they referring to as the Klingon? That seems like a very unnecessary, the boy moment in the story there. Yeah. Is this the one where the boy slicks back his hair and tries to become like data? I think that's a different one. There, I feel like there are three episodes that are like this.

There's one where it's like a kid that was... This slick back trilogy is what you're talking about. Yeah, there's a total slick back trilogy. There's a boy that wants to be like data. There's a boy that he won't take his gloves off because touching an alien is unclean, but he's a human who is like orphaned. Huh.

And then there's one where Wharf keeps like trying to get that boy to do like a Klingon ceremony with them and they're like, no, no, no, no, no, that is not cool. God, you know, if it's anything like the Bar Mitzvah, I don't think that kid can hang. Yeah. It makes me realize that this show is just fucking lousy with orphans. Like, you've got your Wesley, you've got your Wharf, kind of got your data, kind of got your Riker. Like, there, Goddamn.

It's a ship of orphans. Orphans coming out of the bulkheads. Yeah. Hmm. It really makes you think. What's that about? No shit to orphans, I'm just saying like more than average, right? Like in any cast of eight people, how many orphans should you normally have?

Four? Here's the idea, guys. We make them all orphans, but we underwrite the women entirely. Like, it's just moody chocolate lovers. Those are the women on the show. When we can't kill them, they're just bitching about chocolate. Yeah. Well, hopefully the current writer's room is taking a better crack at things than this.

Yeah, I guess we'll never know. Yeah, well, if you'd like to discuss this episode, the Slickback Trilogy, and any other episode of the show, feel free to reach out to us on Twitter using the hashtag GreatestGen. I'm on there as at Cut for Time and Ben is there as at Benjamin R, a HR. We're on the maximum fun reddits and the greatest gen reddit. One thing I'd love to request of our listeners, if you're inclined to shoot the breeze on reddit at all, I would love to see people go and leave a comment on the maximum fun reddit because we usually get like one or two comments there.

And I feel like it'd be fun if like people were, were getting engaged there because I think that other max fund listeners would see that we're a very lively community and maybe get on board, you know? If greatest Jen listeners actually started commenting on the maximum fund board. It's like, it's like a biker gang showing up to a church mixer. Like,

I'm trying to tack on the phone. Yeah, like tables are gonna get flipped over. Feelings are gonna get hurt. It's gonna be fun. I'd like to see that. Yeah, it would be good. I think. Or it's not good amusing. Yeah. We're also on Facebook. There's a Facebook page and a Facebook group. There should both be pretty easy to find. And I think if you can find one, you can probably find the other. Yeah, and look, the only reason our show is here is through the generous support of our listeners.

So if you feel like being one of those, go to MaximumFun.org slash donate. Yeah, you should also just check out all the great shows on MaximumFun. We can't recommend this network highly enough. Just a bunch of really wonderful, good-hearted people that are making really funny and thoughtful shows on all types of different set checks. Has Pam Adlin been on Bullseye?

I bet she'd be great. I bet she has. Yeah, I'm gonna have to go back into the back episodes of that show. That's one of my favorites. I bet she'd be great on it. Yeah, Bullseye. Louis CK was on it recently.

Yeah. Speaking of people who have been on Louis. And yeah, they're best buds. Yeah. She's like co-written a lot of that show at this point, right? She is great. She is top tier. Yep.

We should thank Dark Materia for our music and everybody that creates like cool fan art and whatnot. Still enjoying the hell out of the Bill Tilly Trading Card collection. Oh man. The hollow cards that he's coming out with are especially good. Oh, the best. Well, with that, we will be back at you next time.

Great episode of Star Trek the Next Generation, and unfortunately this as well. Yep. Slickback. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. Make it sound. I'm not going to be a fan of this.

You're gonna have to decide whether to keep that.