The Greatest Generation - Karate Stance Bean Flickin’ (S2E16)

Episode Date: June 15, 2016

Picard gets super salty when Q kidnaps him in a stolen Previa, but things go from bad to worse when the ship gets frisbeed into the path of the galaxy’s shittiest Rubik’s Cube. Does Guinan have the only locking door on the ship? Why are the Borgs so interested in the Jim Shimoda Memorial Corner? Is the crew even ready to go on star treks? It’s a very special episode of Borg Maury.

Priority 1 message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Hey friends of Disodo. Before today's episode, we just wanted to take a moment to talk about the historic labor actions being taken by writers and actors in the American Film and Television industry. If you're a fan of the work done by the people who make Star Trek, we hope you'll join us in standing in solidarity with the folks who actually bring these adventures to life. Over the past several years, the AMPTP, the organization that represents the American Film and Television Production Studios, have reduced the profit from movies and TV going to workers. And in so doing,

they've attempted to weaken the labor unions that represent those workers. They wouldn't even engage the unions on many issues in their negotiations. And so a strike was the only course of action to take. Adam, Wendy and I have been having a lot of internal discussions about how best to stand with the unions and we are continuing those conversations in a dynamic situation. We're doing our best to understand where the picket lines are in these digital spaces,

and we would never intentionally cross one. With the information we have, we feel like we can do more good talking about and supporting the strike and continuing our show as planned. We'll keep you informed about what all this means for greatest trek specifically. Today we're making a contribution to the Entertainment Community Fund. This fund exists to help all the people whose livelihoods have been put on hold because the AMPTP refuses to negotiate

in good faith with the unions. It provides financial support for writers, actors, and all the thousands of laborers who make the shows that we talk about here and without whom we wouldn't have Star Trek to cast pot about. Those folks are all out of work because billionaires, company shareholders, and the executives of these companies don't want to compromise on the length of their yachts. We hope you'll join us in supporting entertainment workers in a challenging time, especially after they've already endured several years of challenges brought on by the pandemic

and season two of Star Trek Picard. We've set up a page where you can also contribute. It's at friendsofdecotoforlabor.com. That's friendsofdececoto for Labor.com. That's FriendsOfDecoto for Labor.com. Link in the episode description. Okay, now let's get on with the show. Here's to the finest crew in Starfleet. Engage! Welcome to the greatest generation, a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are a little bit embarrassed quite frankly to have a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison.

I'm Adam Pryanaka. Adam, I have some pretty auspicious news. Oh really? And it's gonna, I think it will be the subject of some debate, but you tell me what you think. Okay. You can count on my honesty. As of I think today, the day we are recording this, we have crossed mission log in number of iTunes reviews. We have 301 and they have 295. That's one of the many metrics that we use to measure ourselves against that podcast. That's a good one.

Another is dick size. How many negative reviews do they have versus our negative reviews? That's an interesting question. Let me see if I can pull it up. We did get a new negative review from somebody who really took issue with the fact that we aren't super experts. Hey, look at that. We're at 302. I checked this five minutes before we got on the Skype, and we're already at 302. That's great. Thank you everybody for leaving nice reviews. Let's see. Let's see if it breaks it out here. So we have 11 4 star reviews, two 2 star reviews and one 1 star review.

1 star, not even 2 stars, 1 star really? Yeah, we got a new 1 star. I don't feel like a show that's as produced as well as ours is could get a one star review. Well, the guy took issue with our being not dry and uninteresting experts. Oh, he took umbridge with the fact that we aren't a scholastic enterprise. Okay, get ready to glow to Adam. Okay. Okay, mission log has 14 for star reviews six three star reviews four two star reviews and eight one star reviews. Oh

See, I feel a little better about our our negative reviews now. That's that's pretty good Look, they say if you if you haven't made enemies here there you haven't truly lived your life And I think the life of a podcast, a couple of one-star reviews don't mean too much. What do you think? I agree with you in principle, but I do want our listeners to feel motivated to go bury that one-star review in more five-star reviews, which they seem to be doing, which is great. Yeah, it goes without saying that we want to bury, we want to drown and then bury the bad reviews on our set.

Yeah. Well, anyways, I'm feeling great and I kind of want to celebrate by ripping open another pack of Star Trek cards. What do you think? Oh, Jesus, this is like two opens for the price and one. Let's do it. Hey, hey, do you want to do it at the same time? Oh Cross streams. Yeah, what do you think won't that like collapse the space time? What have you? I don't know

I can't remember how you gone talks about that, but maybe All right, get your get your pack. Alright. If one of us gets a signature card and the other doesn't, it's gonna just be total showstopper. Got one for reunion, which is a bunch of hands in each other. I think this is the time that Wurf's baby mama drops off his son. My first card, my top card is hollow pursuits. It's a barkly episode. It's got a bunch of fencing swords crossed on the front. Crossing streams, crossing swords.

It's all... it's all thematic. It's card number 69. Nice. Radon. Let's see, my next one is the vengeance factor. It's a riker cupping the head of a young woman. Don't remember this episode. I got the naked now, which is an episode we remember

and treasure. Yeah. Does it have an image of assistant chief engineer Shremot on it? It is a massively missed opportunity to have a Shremotocard. I don't know if a Shremotocard exists, but what we have is just a picture of data and what is supposed to be a new Tasha Yarr who's just sort of in black profile Yeah, sort of shadowed out. So let's that's the second image you would want for that episode after isle in your Jenga Sure X card for me is an episode called Hollow Pursuits, and it's Fencing Swords Crossed. Is that sinking in for you, Adam? Yeah, that's the top card that I got.

We got a reaping. Yeah. But what are the chances? Hey, Van, what are the chances that my third card is an autographed card because of this? Are you shooting? Oh, no. It's...

Wow, you have opened two packs and you've gotten two autograph cards. I know, right? That's crazy. Congratulations, this limited edition card has been personally signed by Charles Dennis. The Charles Dennis? I know, right. I fucking got Charles Dennis. The Charles Dennis? I know, right?

I fucking got Charles Dennis. As Commander Sunad in Transfigurations, this is a gentleman who looks to be wearing some melted candle wax on his head, on his forehead, that is running into his ears. So. Oh, nice. I look forward to hearing him talk about the process of putting on that makeup at greatest

GenCon 2017. Man, I've got a very warf heavy pack here because my last two are Sins of the Father, which is an image of warf and first born, which is an image of a batleth. Well Worf's your guy, isn't he? Who's one of my guys? He wouldn't say he's your favorite guy? No, but cards my favorite guy. I guess.

All right. My last two were... Who's your guy? I don't know. I think maybe Guy Nans my guy at this point. Just going off of what we've seen in the series, I'm a big fan. Yeah maybe Guy Nans my guy at this point. Just going off of what we've seen in the series, I'm a big fan. Yeah, Guy Nans pretty good.

I got to remember me and I got Gambit Part Two as my last two cards. Don't remember them? What's Gambit Part Two? So it's the exciting conclusion to one of the early, multi-episode arcs, the Star Trek universe attempt. It is card 157, so it is very far into our podcast's future. Are the numbers of the cards corresponding to episode numbers?

I'm only guessing because the naked now is card number three and that all of these other cards are Episodes we haven't seen in their very high numbers that that would be the case, but that would just be a guess Okay So what we got well we got on today's episode is season two episode 16. Q-hoo! Did you just crack a brew? I did.

I've been doing something a little class year and drinking some brown liquor with a big chunk of ice in it. But you know, you do you. Speaking of beverages, this episode opens with hot engineer ordering a hot chocolate out of the replicator and spilling it all over the captain. And she does it. She does like, what you would do if you wanted to

get your hands all over somebody and not actually wipe their shirt off. But doesn't go for a rag, which I imagine they've got to have like shami rags around the engine compartment of this ship, but she's just kind of like patting his chest. She's sort of giving him a sponge bath with her hands. It's pretty, pretty aggressive move. I feel like I feel like going the other way This would be this would be grounds for some kind of tribunal, you know So this is Ensign Gomez that we're talking about and There are a couple of things that are weird about this scene first of all like I think we've both been in like

White collar business environments that are that have signs up that say, like no food or drink past this point. Right. No coffee without a lid, for example. Mm-hmm. And yet, engineering has a full on replicator just in that department. I think that's a strange choice

to put a replicator there. I mean, do you want, you want guys eating fried chicken and doing warp core repair? I don't know, it just seems like a replicate there. I mean, do you want, you want guys eating fried chicken and doing warp core repair? I don't know, it just seems like a bad deal. That's one of the nice things about having one of those an induction burner type stoves that they have all the computers modeled after in engineering. Is you just squeegee them off when you start?

Everything really wipes clean, for sure. Yeah, that's a good call. You gotta imagine that that's some pretty like advanced non-stick sure. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good call. You gotta imagine that that's some pretty like advanced non-stick material. Yeah. Yeah. So this scene, like they begin with the B story, which is really.

How much fucking windex must they have used on this show? Like there must have been a PA on set whose whole job was just to run in and like squeegee everything off after every shot. This is the late 80s. I mean, this is this is pre-microfiber cloth. So yeah. I mean, whoever that PA was was probably put in real elbow grease. With like Terry cloth or like a t-shirt or something. And you can't get anything clean with those. They're too lenty. It's the worst. I can't do it.

Well anyways, Picard's all all over clamped about his messed up shirt so he's gonna go put a new one on. Picard's wet again. He steps into the elevator and it's not the elevator but the back of a Toyota Previa. Yeah he does that thing where he walks out of the transporter without looking. And that sounds like a pretty dangerous maneuver for a ship that has been known to wing a guy around inside a transporter or a timer, too. So he steps onto the Previa, the door closes behind him,

and he is out in deep space. Yeah. On a Previa with Q. in deep space. Yeah. On a Previa with Q. Q is in his like captain uniform and he's he's citing the use of the Previa as a loophole in his prior agreement with Picard not to fuck with the Enterprise anymore. I guess he lost the bet in the last terrible episode he appeared in and the terms were that he would leave him alone for the rest of eternity. But is he totally, he totally jakes a shuttle

for that purpose? Yeah, but he's interpreting the confines of that agreement to be limited to the ship. And so he's telling Picard about how he wants to become a member of the crew. And Picard is like, I'm not listening to your bullshit. Yeah, just pretty much shut some down. It's not really interested in even hearing what Q has to say. It's like a dad who has missed his kid's baseball game

one too many times and is trying to smooth it over by gun. Do you want to go to like for ice cream? And the kids like, no. And Q is just chewing the walls off at the scenery here. Like he is, he is so entertaining and fun. Like he's getting in Picard's face. He's whispering in his ear. He's like throwing a rubber ball against one of the ball kids. He's just, he's great.

Yeah, he's totally like Steve McQueening in the back of the Previa. Right. With that, with that rubber ball. And like, again, I think we've mentioned this before in other Q episodes, the dialogue is not super strong, but it's delancy that puts it up over the top. Yeah.

It's his force of will that makes it work. Yeah, he does not take, he does not merely deliver dialogue. He delivers dialogue So we cut back to the ship and and Geinen spider senses are tingling. Oh, man I totally was thinking them as spidey senses. Yeah. We're on the same wavelength. She feels a special tingle and radios up to the bridge. And this is a pretty weird thing to happen. Riker can't ever remember Gynon calling the bridge before

and he says as much. He's like, what's going on, Gynon? Gynon's like, oh, just checking to see if everything's cool. And she says it in that way that like, whenever a girl says that we need to talk, you know like some serious shit has gone down, but she's not willing to say it. I think any time,

any time Gainin says that like something just feels off or I just thought I'd reach out and say hi. I feel like any time Gainin does that, that is a reason to shit some pants. That is grounds for calling a full stop on the ship and and reassessing everything. Yeah, except Reiker doesn't have a special relationship with Gainin, so he just sort of right to doff is Gainin being weird Gainin. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, cool guy and everything's right up here. Thanks. Yeah, and that's like, table, essentially, and they kind of keep going about the business of the ship and then... Troy's spidey sense starts to tingle. And she's like, I don't feel Captain Picard anymore.

Like, maybe we should see where that guy is. That's gotta be like real upsetting, right? When the like gravitational center of your social universe is suddenly gone? Yeah, I mean, I sort of wonder what took her so long for that to happen. I wonder if she's like constantly doing an audit of all the people in her mind.

And like on that long loop, she gets back to the top, back to Picard, and that's when she's sort of tipped off. And they do one of those checks with the computer. They ask the computer where Captain Picard is. The computer's like, yeah, he's not here. Computer look, hey, Captain Picard. The captain is not on the ship. I like how neutral the computer treats

every piece of information. Yeah, no matter how terrifying, like the Captain of the ship is no longer on the ship. And by the way, I didn't tell you the moment that happened. Right, you would think that there would be like a life alert bracelet that just kind of like pings whenever he is suddenly not accounted for. Yeah, the computers like Picard's not here and one of the shuttles are gone, and Wesley,

too, is credited as like, well, that's impossible. We would have known if someone flew a shuttle out of here. So they start trying to piece together what the hell is going on, and we cut back to the shuttle. And I think this is where Q sort of like grinds Picard down to the point where Picard agrees to hear him out Back on the enterprise Q's like I can wait you out forever man Like we can be buddies in this shuttle for years or decades It doesn't matter because I can live forever and I can keep you alive forever too like yeah

And Picard's like you know given that piece of information He's like well, I don't necessarily want to die out here on this Toyota Previa. If I promise to give you a hearing, listen to what you're offering, can we just go back to the ship? And they're like, yeah. So he snaps his fingers in their back and tend forward. This is an awesome thing because this is where Q and Gainin have a little showdown. They come close to a showdown. Picard. It's a karate stance showdown.

Yeah, Gainin puts her hands up and she's got her fingers arranged in a way where she Emperor Palpatine, death ray, type of ship. And Q is like, telling Picard that he has no idea how dangerous it is to have somebody like gynin' on his ship. And every episode with Gynin' now is implying more and more what a surpassingly powerful and eldritch creature she truly is. If Q is like, you know, if Q's tail puffs up when he sees Gynon, like you know some shit is about to go down if she actually decides to do something. Yeah, it's great exposition because it's allowing us to infer something that they never prove, right?

Like by Q's mere reaction to Gainon, we suddenly are supposed to propel her up into the level of her being sort of an equal if not a superior to Q, which like is sort of a crazy implication. Yeah. Well, she's been hiding in plain sight, basically. And it raises a lot of questions, especially because what Q now does is propel the ship

out thousands of light years from where they were into the path of a bored Q. Yeah, but why does he do that? Well, there's a moment that instigates that. Sounds like you have something you want to say about that out of. This might be the beer talking, but I want to make sure I get this right, man. So they're intent forward,

and the thing that the cue wants more than anything is to be a crew member on the ship. And the cards like fuck that, like you're really interesting dude, but you're far too much trouble to have as a crew member, like what are you going to be? You're going to be like an Ensen or some random science officer or whatever, like you're skipping the academy and you're going to be a part of the crew no way. Like that's... What are you gonna scrub the Bousard collectors?

Yeah, you can't jump the line like that. Give me a fucking break. And Q's like, look man, you're gonna need someone like me out here. You're gonna run into some times when you're gonna need some help. And I'm just the type of person that can help you. In moments like those, and Picard's like, we're ready for what's out here. Our whole mission is about exploring things the type of person that can help you. In moments like those and Picards like,

we're ready for what's out here. Our whole mission is about exploring things and running into challenges and overcoming them. Like, that's why we're here. We're gonna be fine, not concerned. And Cubes like, you have no idea. Like, that is the most hubris- hubris-tick should have ever heard. Like I know every one and everything in the universe and you're not ready.

I'm telling you you're not and Picard's like, yeah, we'll see. I think we're gonna be all right. So Q snaps his fingers and then that sort of frisbee golfs the enterprise across the galaxy. And as soon as they land on the other side of the galaxy, he was like, all right, bye. They started scanning around and they're like picking up the same thing that they were picking up in the neutral zone at the end of the last season when they would find a planet where an entire settlement had been scooped up and vanished. And I think they mentioned this that they have observed this before, but they really don't make a strong effort to link it back to those episodes. But you know, pretty quickly they're picking up this ship and

Geinen is like, all right, here's what you're dealing with. Geinen is from this part of the galaxy and that's the only reason they're asking our advice on anything at all. Like, it would be pretty strange if they were at any planet and they're like, hey Genen, what do you think? Just think of this. Like, Guynen's like, yeah, we're actually pretty close to where my people are from, so I could probably give you some advice on what's going down. And so they choose to do that. And it isn't long before they pick up a ship, it's headed their way.

It's the Borgs. It's the Borgs. He's a Borg! Oh no! And we get a pretty neat scene here because they call down a guy and they're like, hey, are these the people that murdered everyone in your planet? And guy and goes to her office. Yeah, just like across the hall fromhord. What does she do there? I don't know. Like is she counting money? It's just bolts of scarves.

Yeah. Bolts of scarves. She might have like the like really rare bottles of Romulan ale stashed back there. Oh, that's the private stock. Mainly though, let's be honest. This room has masturbatorium written all over it. God you know that Riker wants the code for that door. It's so close to 10 forward.

They can just fall out of the door and into that hall and then across the way into the office. Telling each. But GuyNan's not giving that shit up. That's where she goes to flick the old beam. In her karate stance. Yeah. Some karate stance beam flicking. Yeah.

So she pulls the image of the ship up on her screen in the office and she's like, yep, those are them. You better get the fuck out of here because they will light you up. And this is, this like begins Guy Nenon warning them to just like, you know, they're like two and a half years away from the closest star base if they were to push the ship

to the limit and just like turn heel and run. And she's basically saying like, that is the thing you should do right fucking now. Cause like this is not, not a fight you want to even risk having. That's like a core tension though on this show for this ship, for this captain. Like it's the tension between that exploration tendency and the idea that it would be the right thing to do to leave. If you trust Geinen at all, if the only reason Geinen is on the ship is to provide the

sort of advice that you can't get anywhere else, it would be smart to take your advice, but they don't. And so they raise their shields. They're taking seriously that this is a massive ship that, like it's weird in a bunch of ways. Like there's no bridge, there's no engineering section. Like they're not detecting any weapons or life signs, but like, but like they know that it's like because they don't understand what they're looking at.

So the shields go up, they like radio down to engineering and like in soft focus in the background of this shot. One of the borg's appears in the engineering section and just starts like walking around. And Jordy is like... Security report to main engineering. We have an intruder. So Picard actually comes down with the Dustbuster Club to check out this visitor that they have. And this board is like hanging around in the Shimoda Memorial Corner, just kind of looking at all the screens, taking notes in a spiral stenopad, and learning as much as it can about the ship that it has beamed itself on,

despite the fact that the shield's were up. And this is where Q reappears. And he starts kind of like taunting Picard, who's like, interesting, isn't it? Not a he, not a she, but like anything you've ever seen, an enhanced humanoid. Yeah, he goes down the laundry list of how,

what an oddity it is. And as he's describing the Borg, the Borg starts flicking its little arm against the instruments in engineering, shooting some green lightning at it. And stuff starting to happen. And Picard's like, hey, bro, cut it out. Like he does that thing where he raises both hands. He's like, hey, man, we're not going to hurt you. We're just out here on a groovy exploratory mission. And the board is like not even listening. Like Picard is just beneath him to even even listen to to at this point. Yeah, so a wharf trest to stun this guy and doesn't work. And so he cranks the dust bruster up to full suck.

Command operation, vacuum suck. And kills the Borg. Suck, suck, suck, no sooner has this board gone down than his board buddy beams onto the ship and finishes lightning bolting the computer. And then he starts digging around in the corpse for components and grabs three or four things. And you know, try to phaser this guy a couple times

and he's got personal shielding that has Like grabs like three or four things and, you know, and they like try to phaser this guy a couple times and he's got like personal shielding that has adapted to counteract the effects of a dustbuster phaser. That's a great scene too, because when that little personal shield goes up, he kind of looks at Worf and like if a look could possibly give a jerk off hand

motion, like that's what he gives to Worf at that moment, it's an oddly emotional showing from from something that is utterly without emotion, like it was a total big dog move. If if drones were given to talking, this drone would have said cool dustbuster bro. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he strips the other guy who's dead of all of his useful parts and then they both beam away. So they got back up to the bridge and the board have opened a hailing frequency and it's just kind of like a random shot of something inside the Borg cubes that they're seeing and they're getting like a bunch of voices at once saying

to surrender and that they're going to be assimilated and and Picard is really embracing the hubris that that Q accused him of and just goes like nah dog fuck all that. And so they put him in a cuttering beam which starts, this is like a pretty sweet special effect actually where they like the board cut a cone section out of the, out of the saucer section and start pulling it out of the ship. You see individual decks with a toilet in one of them and a school classroom in one of them. If the saucer had a mole, the board were removing the mole by scalpeling around it and then pulling the skin from it. Yeah, or like doing like a Biori strip on the black head of

right saucer section. Right. And I guess that's 18 people by the farm in that little... If there is a toilet in that cross section of the saucer, that's a real Jurassic Park style moment, isn't it? Like lawyer on the toilet. T-Rex pulls the top of the porta-padi off. Like it's a, it's a total Jurassic Park ripoff is what I'm saying. Yeah.

I mean, it came seven years before Jurassic Park, but you're right. Sure. So, the Enterprise tries like shooting back, and this is like the only time I can think of where shooting a phaser at a board ship has any kind of satisfying result in the series because they blow some like sizeable holes in the in the Borg cube, which is fun to watch, you know. The cube is not appearing to be a threat anymore, so they decide to send an away team over. And this is our first time onboard a Borgs Cube, which is-

This is an idea that Gynon objects to heartily, by the way. They sort of focus group it in the conference room. And Gynon's like, you gotta be fucking kidding me. Like, you cannot just walk over there Especially when they know that the phasers that they used in engineering didn't have any effect like they beam a dustbuster club over there With with nothing like with slingshots for all they know like with the same weapons that didn't work I mean it a yeah Yeah, they're yeah, they're better off giving War for Batleth.

What they should have. I mean, I guess they wanted to save that for Star Trek first contact, but it would have been cool. This is one of the cool interior set pieces that we've gotten so far. This interior of the ship is really awesome. Yeah, it's like if HR Geeger had gone to work for like black and decker and designed a microwave,

like this is sort of what it would have looked like. I feel like. Yeah, a lot of dryer ducting. A lot of aliens, you know, Morph was here, type goo on the walls, but it's not quite as gooey. Yeah, they do a great job with scale too, like they go tight and wide in this scene. They show you how crazy big this ship is.

And that's something that is very rarely achieved with good effect in this show. I mean, when Riker goes and visits his beloved anybody Canyon, it never looks like quite right. But this looks awesome. Yeah, and you could tell that Riker wanted to yell anybody off of that balcony, because like a moment before they go to commercial,

the camera pulls out real wide to show a super wide shot. And he walks over to the edge and I was like, oh, if there's ever a time to yell anybody again, it's right now. Yeah. Did you notice when they went super wide that there was a pool at the bottom? No.

I never noticed that the first time I saw this episode, but yeah, there's like a green, brown, almost like, not a river, but like a big, long pool at the bottom. Oh. You think that's where the board queen swims laps? almost like not a river but like a big long pool at the bottom. You think that's where the Borg Queen swims laps? Yeah, I think so. You got to keep it tight. Yeah, so they learn a lot of things about the Borgs. They learn that they have baby Borgs with baby Borgs implants.

When the ship is damaged, all the Borgs go back to their cubby holes and use their collective brain power to regenerate the ship. And what else do we learn about the borgs? Data, data, like, so there's these alcoves where all of the borg, like, they walk in to these these little closet spaces standing up and then they plug themselves in to the ship. And ostensibly, that's where they get information. They work as a collective and they also repair themselves. And so, data walks into one of these closets and tries to stick a finger in the outlet. Nothing happens. But it's another case of like data sticking his arm through a transporting wall, like just sort of not really thinking about the consequences.

Pretty great. Wouldn't it have been fun if they had just made a little bit of a motif of data, like getting terribly maimed every few episodes? You know, because they can like, they can repair a data arm or a data leg. Just fine, it's like, his brain is very precious, but like he can spare a hand for a few weeks. I wish they'd done that. That would have been so great.

That would have been fun. It would have been like the body part equivalent of killing Kenny and South Park. Like, just another forearm. Yeah. Well a lot of our listeners have been kind enough to tweet at Star Trek Room and you know make their case for us getting jobs as writers on the new Star Trek series. And I really get ideas like this that are really going to like take us over the top and convince the producers

of that show that we are the kind of guys that have great ideas like this that they need on their staff. Yeah, that's an idea that should go up on the whiteboard. Let's put that in a box for season two. Yeah, let's see if it plays They beam back because they realize that the reason that That no one cares that they're there is because every single one of these boring is putting their effort into repairing the ship

And that that really scares the shit out of a card once he realizes that they're fixing the ship. And that really scares the shit out of a card. Once he realizes that they're fixing the ship, he's like, bring him back, we got to get the fuck out of here. And so they bug out and the and the and the Borg's cube is like in hot pursuit. And there's a great shot where they like zoom in super tight on it. And it's it and it's like going like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and putting itself back together in real time. It looks really cool. This is maybe the best special effect in an episode of really terrific special effects. Yeah, it looks like a different show.

It's so good. And so Q is going to take this as a great opportunity to come back and continue to make his case for getting a job on the Starship Enterprise. Yeah. I wish we had the kind of power over the new Star Trek series that Q has over Picard in this moment. I want to get it legit though.

Yeah. You don't want to use your supernatural powers to get a job. I mean, I want to use my kung fu stance and my legit writing wit to get into that room and nothing more. Yeah, we should probably start writing if we were writing with our words on this show. That's true. So they're high-tailing it out of there and it becomes pretty clear that they can't outrun them. Their weapons aren't working anymore. And Q is like, I've got solutions to all these problems. It's too bad I'm not a crew member. I could really

be useful right now. Right. I mean, this is like, this is like the pitch he always makes, right? Like, like when he gave Riker the cue powers, it's like, they just have these cool powers and you can just still be the second banana on this ship and just like doesn't make any sense, you know? Doesn't add up. Yeah, and the board cubes gaining on them,

they finally get to a point where it becomes clear that this is a no-win situation. Like, the ship is going to pace them. The card's like, uh, looked buddy, if the decision is between asking for your help and dying on this hill, you know, like for pride, I'm going to ask for help. Like, please help us. Don't really feel like dying today. Like, can you help us? Can you get us out of here?

Like if we're dead, you're gonna be real sad, right? If you're gonna tease and torment if we're not around. Yeah, and I mean, like, I think the point Picard is making here is like, yes, to like like this is a thing that we might encounter out here that would be hard for us to grapple with if we had encountered them without your, you know, throwing us into this, into this gladiatorial arena with them in a totally synthetic situation. in a totally synthetic situation. But like, that makes this your fault, not ours. Like, yes, we need your help

in this completely artificial situation. And I mean, Q is right. And he has always been right, I feel like, in everything he said, like from the beginning, from the very first episode, from the very first moment he came on the scene, he's like, you guys are ready for this? You think you're ready?

Humans are sloppy and violent and bad. You're gonna fuck this up. And here it is, like I'm showing you how badly you are going to fuck this up. But what he's wrong about is that he constantly comes at it from a point of view that Picard is too timid to like face those challenges. And Picard has never been timid. Picard is not hubris-dick or prideful or afraid. Like he's a total realist and and and he told you that they were ready for anything. Well,

then how is that not hebristic? They're ready for anything that they would naturally encounter though. You could argue that they they were going to naturally encounter this sooner rather than later. Yeah, within some amount of time but like but like this is You know like Geinen says like you put this in their pathway earlier than it was supposed to happen like as though she's sort of like tapped into some sort of understanding of the destiny or fate of

of the of the destiny or fate of the ship, which like that's a whole rabbit hole we could go down, but yeah, I choose not to. So Q snaps his fingers, wings the enterprise back to where it was before. The lesson, the lesson being that they weren't ready for this. They got punched in the face and cues like, you know, think about this. Don't just wag your dick around the galaxy here, thinking that you can push everyone else around because it's impossible, you can't do it. The borgs have got to be just completely baffled because they're like, they're like,

all right, we got like a ship here. It's like some interesting technology that we can assimilate and we've overpowered them. Like, we've clearly demonstrated our superiority. Now we're going to start assimilating. Wait, where did they go? And then the like, the board, we've got to be spending a year in conferences, just going like, okay, what was this mode of transportation that the enterprise had? Because we got to get us some of that. Where did those guys come from?

Should we try spinning around? I mean, I'm just spitballing here. Three of six, I told you we're not gonna start spinning around. It's not going up on the board. I was told there would be snacks at this meeting. Borg's don't eat snacks, shut up. 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 Sherry Reembarishment

Tour. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We were open awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We get stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweards. Pat Noswald.

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Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Oh, rats. Hey, hey, oh, I'm about to count you in mine. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line. And boy, what do I? These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not and they've such short neck. But I'm

hearing we need to get on this side. We've got to get on the art. It's about to rain. It's about 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 Kerry? We investigate spirituality, claims of the paranormal, stuff like that. And you have a boat and say the world's gonna end, so seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats. We came to by two. What do you think?

Ono Ross and Kerry, available on MaximumFun.org. Our epilogue, what's the word for the thing at the end? That's the epilogue, right? Yeah. So our button on this episode is just realized how much of an asshole I sounded like saying that word. The button on the episode is Picard and Gainin enjoying a little bit of three-dimensional chess and 10 forward. Because it's nice after a long mission to play a little three-dimensional chess.

Yeah, hang out with your homegirl Gainin. Yeah, so they're chatting a little bit about the episode that they came before. So Picard's like, yeah, that was pretty fucked up, huh? And Guy Nans like, yeah, except you were not supposed to meet them for a while. And I can't tell you how I know that, but like now that they know you're here, I'm pretty sure that they're going to start stocking you big time.

Yeah. And this sort of like sends a cold chill up a card spine because they don't really have a solution to this problem. Yeah. And that is how the episode ends. It's a real kind of a down-know. Yeah, it just ends with Macho Man Randy Savage looking into the camera going, I'm coming to get you!

The cream of the crap! I love this episode. It was great beginning to end. That was awesome. Pretty solid episode. It unsurprisingly was a Rob Bowman episode. You get a throw- Womp, Womp, Womp. You get to throw him the keys to the important ones and they do.

I am the cutest aboard. You will respond to my questions. I am the cutest aboard. You are bored. I thought a little bit about just how important this episode was, just in the overall canon of Star Trek story. And God, do you think they knew at this moment just how important this episode would be for everything that was to come after? I get the sense that they did because they like really did not fail in any of the like things that were would have been tempting to fail at in designing this existential threat to the federation. Like the borgs are really cool design, like the

like the characters are really like fully realized. Like they definitely make like minor refinements to the design of the of those characters over the years. But like basically like they come fully formed. The ship that they fly around on comes fully formed. So like, if you like talk about the mechanics of a monster, like a Dracula, like it can't be out in daylight. And if you want to kill it, you have to use garlic, silver, or a steak to the heart. Like, all of the kind of rules of the board are like totally set up in this episode. Like you know what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, how they work, like how the like whole collective consciousness works, what motivates them.

Like all of that shit is totally laid out really flawlessly. And this is a story that, I mean, I think we've talked about this concept before, like they initially introduced the Ferengi to be the main enemy to the Federation in this show, and they fucked it up so badly that they had to scrap it and start all over again. Like, this is a show that had enough runway to start all over again and introduce a new alien and do it right. That modern television shows don't get that chance. And it's like they learned all of a sudden in a season and a half how to do it right

and they just fucking did it. It's sort of a miracle. Yeah. I can't really well be. I can't think of no other example of a television show being able to course correct like that. You think about the fact that like the average budget per episode on this show is like more than a million dollars.

Yeah. They've spent like more than 35 million dollars to get to this point. Yeah, they're sort of pot committed to making it right. Yeah. And like, and like the coolest thing about the board, I think, is that like, they, they know when to use them for the rest of the series. Like they, it's not like, it's not like, uh, you know, Iron Man 2, or they're like, well, we like to having Iron Man and Iron Man 1.

So let's have 50 Iron Man and Iron Man 2, you know're like, well, we like to have Iron Man and Iron Man 1. So let's have 50 Iron Man and Iron Man 2. You know, it's like, you get little hints of them. There's like one or two Borg episodes, like every 20. And yeah. And like, it just builds on the kind of mythos of the Borgs. And it never gets overdone, I don't think. One of the scenes that really, that I wanted to talk to you about was so Picard

and Q, being back to 10 Forward from the Previa. Do you remember how Guinein appears in this scene? She's like hiding behind the the the bar. Yeah, she like stands up from behind the bar. Like, was she sleeping back there? Like, like, George Costanza slept under his desk at Yankee Stadium. I was like, what is that about? It was such a cool reveal and could have been super cheesy, but it worked. It worked. It somehow worked. Yeah, I and could have been super cheesy, but it worked. It worked and it somehow worked. Yeah, I don't know why it worked, but it did.

Also, I think Jordy has been ruined for me, man, because every time he interacts with a girl, I'm just not buying it. All of the scenes he had with Gomez, just to ring as Supercreep's Revive. I don't know if you feel the same way, but I think what I need is a Jordy episode to sort of get his stock back up for me. I'm starting to not like him. Yeah, you got to cleanse your Jordy palette. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that this may be more than any episode also introduces the weird way that

Jordy interacts with women. And he keeps getting, I feel like he also like typically gets these these real, motivated, and shapely young cadets right out of the academy that really want to impress him. It's like, don't send these poor women into the engineering section on the interplay is anywhere but there. Yeah, he's really ruining careers and lives. He's not a great leader at this point.

No. I am a cutesy ball. Lockfaces on that dress. I am a cutesy ball. There are four lights. As you are watching this very special episode, did you find any drunk tomatoes? Did the drunk tomatoes?

Yeah, I mean, I just had to go with Intangomas because I feel like she's kind of like going around the same like little parts of the ship as Jim Shimoda and you know spilling a drink is a real classic drunk-eye party fell. So she's my drink Shimoda and we should say, drunk Shemota is the award we give at the end of every episode for a character who's goofing around doing something silly or maintaining the spirit of Jim Shemota, our favorite character from episode two.

Our hero. And what yourself? And my drunk Shemota was Commander R Riker and it's for a very specific scene. So the dustbuster cloak beams over to the Borg cube and they're knocking around over there doing some exploring. And Riker rounds the corner of the Borg nursery and like you can hear the baby's cries from outside. He hits a button and out slides an incubator with a little baby, with little Borg stuff attached to it.

And I couldn't help but think that Riker's secondary mission was to check to see if any of the babies were his. Like, like what he tells Picard is, oh man, there's like a nursery over here and they're, and they're like starting these kids young on these, on these cybernetics. But like, I can't, we don't see it, but I'm pretty sure he opens up the rest of those incubators to see if anyone looks like him. Yeah. And so, like anyone who might have made a mistake after a night of drinking, I feel like Riker checking some paternity is my drunk Shimoda Oh He's on a very special episode of Borg Mori Commander Riker you are not the fuck

Man show took a dark turn Oh man, the show took a dark turn. Well, this episode can't be beat. I'm curious about what follows it in the series. What are we watching next time? Uh, it looks like you're gonna get what you were hoping for with a Jordi episode because the next episode is season two episode 17 Samaritan snare while Picard fights for his life in surgery, Jordy is held hostage by the leaders of an alien race. I don't remember anything about this episode.

I think it's the one with the dumb guys that don't know how to fix their ship and they like, it winds up being sort of like a short con For like parts and and technologies. They like take Jordi hostage. I think it's that What's wrong with the cards heart? Do you remember that all I remember is that the surgery uniform that Dr. Pulaski where it has a built-in fizz Fantastic I want to see that no veto on your part Dr. Pulaskiwares has a built-in fizz. Ha ha ha ha ha. Fantastic. I want to see that. No veto on your part?

You won't get that from me. Okay, I will also nod veto. All right. We'll watch that one next time. Perfect. If you want to talk to us about this super long episode, or any of the other mistakes we've made on any other episode can find us on Twitter using the hashtag GreatestGen at Cut for Time, Ben as at Benjamin

A.H.R. We're also in a Facebook group called Greatest Generation and the Maximum Fun Reddit and the Greatest Gen Reddits, both their fun places to go and chat about the shows. Please leave us an iTunes review, five star or don't bother. We'd love to get a little bit of distance between ourselves and Mission Log, less they finally engage with us in our rap battle

and try and catch up. Oh, and we should thank MaximumFund.org, our beloved podcast network. And you can listen to all kinds of fantastic shows on that network, not limited to the Beef and Dairy Network, the Flop House, one bad mother, Judge John Hodgman, stop podcasting yourself. We got this. There's so many great shows on the network.

You might think that you have no interest in listening to Beef and Dairy Network, but I'm telling you, you gotta give Beef and Dairy Network a try. That is a fucking singular piece of podcast artwork. It's an achievement. It's amazing. The Beef and Dairy Network went on maximum fun about three weeks before we did.

And when they went on, we had been sort of talking to them about the possibility. And when that show went on and I listened to it, I was like, holy shit, we are not good enough. I thought the same thing. As soon as they made the network, I was like, no fucking way. Yeah. Holy mackerel, that is a good show.

It actually inspired me to really put a lot of effort into the production of this show, to be serious for a second. That show is very well produced in a very hilarious way, and we could only hope to be as good as that one. Yeah, that's something to aspire to, for sure. Yeah. Well, with that, we will be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek the Next Generation and also whatever this is. Make it sound. Maximumfund.org You'll be got to got to got to got to got to got to.

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