The Greatest Generation - Novelty Sombrero (DS9 S6E23)

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

When Quark has to attend an important business meeting, Dr. Bashir helps him prepare. But when the “flash cards” he’s been given become less of a benefit and more of a distraction, the future of Ferengi female liberation is put into doubt. Is “Margot Tennenbaum” a compliment? How low should Ferengi dresses go? Are there ANY limits to Dr. Bashir’s medical practice? It’s the episode that cranks up the white noise machines!

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

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

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

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

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

I'm Ben Harrison and my notebook is in the other room. My screens are closed. I'm not looking at the episode as we record. Not looking at the notes during. I will admit to I've got the cast list open for character names. I feel like that is especially useful on episodes like this where we can't use notes. Just to like make it coherent. I don't like describing people as that one guy. Or whatever. Yeah, that seems a little insulting, doesn't it? How lucky in quotes were we to draw this episode

for this type of episode? I don't know, I kind of feel the opposite way, because I mean, I don't wanna get too deep deep into the episode right now because we're in the Marin but yeah can't do that save the episode for the episode but I feel like one of the things that's fucked up about this episode is the structure is a little confusing and I think I am going to be struggling to remember how it went I think I am going to be struggling to remember how it went. Well, I think that's the great thing about our show, Ben, is that between the two of us, we have one functioning brain. Yeah. I think we should be able to stitch this thing together. This is the square on the game of buttholes that is most in the spirit of the greatest generation.

Yeah, it really is. A lot of the other ones serve to mix it up, but this one brings us to our roots. I'm looking at myself in the camera, and I'm just noticing the hair again. I've been starting to, like before I put on the headphones, I've got to curl the hair back behind the ears. You got tuckable hair now. Yeah, my hair is very tuckable, which is making me very not fuckable.

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. My hair is very tuckable, which is making me very not fuckable. Ha ha ha ha ha. I had an epiphany while I was watching for our hip-podcast Friendly Fire. I don't know if we can even say that we watched that movie at this moment in time, but who cares? It won't come out for months and months, but we did watch it for friendly fire. And one of the main actors hair is especially unflattering. And it made me look at an actor who is usually very good looking and see what that hair does to a very good looking person and wonder what that hair is doing to an average looking person like myself.

The way it grows in is a fucking nightmare. I'll admit to a couple of times last week, holding the body trimmer in my hand, wondering, is this gonna be the day? Wow. When I do something terrible, but I think I've pushed through it into a weird... Oh man. ...acceptance. Like, this is stages of hair grief, right?

And I think I might finally be at the last stage. There's a trope in television that a character shapes their head in a, this is my rock bottom, this is my emotional nadir. I guess it happens in royal tenon bombs to cite a film, but it happens in TV a lot too, that a character will shave their head, especially like if a woman shapes her head, I feel like it's a really big deal that a character will shave their head, especially like if a woman shapes her head, I feel like it's a really big deal on a TV show.

That scene in Royal Tannenbaum's is so unique. I would say maybe across the entire Wes Anderson Oove. I haven't seen that movie in many years, but I remember the shock of it because they do that jump cut, hair Wilson, shaved Wilson, and then you see his wrists and the sink. It's so horrifying in a way that Wes Anderson films are, like that is not a quality of a Wes Anderson film is horror. Right, and it's really like,

it genuinely like, it brings tears to my eyes every time. I see that movie, that scene. And it's such a funny movie outside that, you know? Yeah, yeah. Like I'm laughing through most of the movie and somehow he's able to turn the car in the other direction and get me all the way to crying in a pretty brief amount of time.

I feel like Wes Anderson got a special dispensation to use an Elliott Smith song during that scene because that feels like cheating in a way that the quality of the film and that scene is able to overcome. Yeah, did he ever find that needle? Oh no. I mean, I guess that's kind of what the movie's about, right?

Yeah. Now everybody knows that Royal Tenon Bombs has a film about a man confronting his failures as a father. But what my theory presupposes is, maybe it's about one of his sons finding a needle in the hay. What a great movie. That's such a good movie. I compared a close college friend of mine to Margotanenbaum

and like I meant it as a compliment and she took it as a compliment. Like I think there's something so familiar about this Tenenbaum kids, like the broken high achiever. Yeah absolutely. I mean it's not personally familiar to, but I have met people like that. I mean, you're half of that is familiar to you. I'm a broken medium achiever. Well, I think by the time we end our conversation today, we will have decided in what ways today's episode might be broken. I am so nervous about reviewing this episode, man. What do you say we begin the notes free episode of the greatest generation about Deep Space

9, Season 6, Episode 23. I remember it being called profit and lace. Do you realize how incredible this seems? No, of course you don't. The title being profit and lace. It didn't, like I was sitting there thinking about the title while I was watching the episode and it really didn't hit me until the end what the pun was. Yeah. Because I kept thinking lace was the word that they kept the same and that profit was something else.

Yeah, this is not a Bensisco centric episode. It's Bensisco in it. He is in the scene where Quark and Rom storm in with their concerns that they haven't been able to hail anyone on Ferenganar. Right. And then everyone fucking stomps him over, over like anyone being concerned about that at all. Think of the terrible repercussions to the Alpha Quadrant.

I cannot think of any. This is an episode that opens. There's been a distributive denial of service attack on Ferenganar and the attack came from within. It was that their communications net wasn't able to withstand women's lib. Right. Do you think that's what it is? It just like dumbled the number of people started using the communications net and therefore it couldn't handle the the overage and capacity. It sure seemed that way when we when we hear what happened like it's like these the streets of Ferengenar are filled with clothed women and it's such a dramatic moment that everyone what takes to their Internet and starts complaining and gossiping about it.

Yeah. It crashes the global network. It's a strange way to open because it poses so many questions about like what exactly happened that it doesn't seem to care about. This is an episode that I feel like the episode does this and I I feel like also we are going to do this on our episode. It's probably better to talk about generally than specifically. And that's a good example of it, right?

Like, what exactly happened on Firinga? And this episode of Deep Space Nine is not too interested in those particulars. Rahm is super worried about Moogie because he can't reach her. And it's like worrying about a loved one when you hear that there was a natural disaster in the city that they live in or something like and you might not be able to reach them initially. But pretty in pretty short order she and Zeck are showing up at the station and my recollection is that the only rule that changed was that women are allowed to wear clothes outside the home. It sounds good to me. Oh, now you see why I like him best. Right.

And that is the card that collapses the entire house of cards that is foring in our society. Yeah, that's pretty amazing because it's not even they have the right to earn profit or whatever. It's just that they can wear clothes. We get a couple of female, forrangi costumes in this episode. And with what we know about the weather on Forranginar,

do you think that it's a place like, like if you watch Deadwood, the bottoms of women's dresses are just constantly muddy and disgusting. From walking through town, do you think that's what it is on Faringadar when the women start putting on clothing and walking through the muck? It's got to be terrifically dirty. Yeah, like if you were starting from zero, what would women's clothes look like? Is a very interesting question

that I feel like this episode sort of fails to engage with at all. Because I feel like this episode is stopped at Nafelty Sombrairo as an inspiration for Firingi clothing. Because like women's clothes are so much more politicized and scrutinized than men's clothes. Like there's like, who were it best and fashion do's and don'ts? Like so much, at least in art culture,

so much attention is focused on whether or not women are doing it right. And I do like the, like I think that that would have been a fun episode, right? Like, what if what if it was met with relatively little resistance because people instantly saw the profit potential, but then an entire plan, it was just like, what could women wear? Like, let's explore this as a, as a thing. One of the few things that this episode gets right is putting women's clothing in practical economic terms. That conversation that Lady Quarcappin has at the end with the soda magnet. Like he actually A to B to C to D's it, he's like, well, women are going to be wearing clothing.

I know that might be an assault on your sensibilities, but women need to carry things, so they'll need pockets. But what do you put in a pocket? You need to put money in there because they're going to be out buying stuff. And then like he constructs a society beginning with clothing that equals a net positive for everyone.

There'll be plenty of profit for everyone. It's the kind of argument that pro-immigration economists make, which is there is very little evidence of cultures being wrecked by immigrant cultures. There's very little evidence that there's know, like, and there's a preponderance of evidence that immigrants are like very highly motivated workers and they commit fewer crimes than native born populations and that they have lots and lots of economic benefits to the countries they move to because they grow the labor force and then also grow the tax base and also grow the amount of Consumers that are out there and that's the exact argument Korka is making like what if overnight for any could double

it's a number of laborers and double its number of consumers Right, and that's like maybe the best thing in the episode is just like making a somewhat tricky economic argument pretty simple. Right. And I think there are scenes to see in a positive light, but I think when you're just breaking this episode down, it's establishing the idea of something that that it never pays off. Like, no one grows in this app. We begin with like a scene of workplace harassment.

Right. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. And you're like, at least for me, I was like, okay, well, if the rule of this episode is quark finally getting his come-upence for being a shitbag manager, then like I'm all for it. Like to whatever extent embarrassment is a worthy punishment for his many crimes, it's better than nothing. If embarrassment is a punishment, what did we do to deserve this, Adam? I know. I know, but the the episode doesn't even have, isn't even convicted enough in itself to realize

that by the end of it. The episode starts with Quark committing a terrible crime, and then Zach and Mugi and May Hurdu show up, and they are there to explain what happened. And the other shoe that drops is that since Zach has been stripped of power, Brunt has been made the acting Negus, which speaks to the extremely limited population of Ferenganar. Almost no one lives there. I wanted to know more about the nuts and bolts of this because in the event of a global communication collapse, you could understand why a sort of coup could take place during. But you also need a communication structure in order to make that happen.

And like I didn't necessarily buy Brunt's rushing into that power vacuum constructively. It's a little hand wavy, because Brunt, like on the team in the magnificent Ferengi episode also. He lost his job and then he got his job back. And then he mentions that like he bribed all the right people to get power adjacent enough to take advantage of the situation.

Yeah, that happened fast. I got to say like in a clunker of an episode, Jeffrey Combs fucking carries this thing. Yeah. He is chewing up the scenery, he's chewing up the costumes, he's chewing up the camera, he's chewing up the costumes. He's chewing up the camera. He's chewing up Alexander Siddig, the director. Forget the sharp teeth. He could chew his ass off. He's incredible. Whatever alien type may her do is, does like what's the deal with Brunt also having a guy?

You're a lash? Does the FCA appoint you a mayherdo type when you become the the negas or was Brunt trying to kind of make make himself seem negative, dential by hiring a guy like that. I love that they don't take sex mayherdo away in this context. Like like the new negas just gets one. And then subsequent Negas get theirs. But you don't lose it.

It's not like losing the ability to fly on Air Force One when you're not present anymore. It's like you get to keep Air Force One. Right, yeah. That's your Air Force One now. I love when they first meet each other, the Mayher do, and then Mayherto. Like they go chest to chest. Yeah. Well cast. Like I was like almost perfect Mayherdo body. If they ever got into a fight, God, the differences in sizes of characters in this episode, especially,

has got to create a challenge when you're blocking. And I feel like you have a very limited amount of places to stick a camera in order to get the compositions you're going for because of those height disparities. I think that there's a lot of weird tone stuff in this episode, but for all of that, the camera directing is great. And there are a couple of really fun transitions

like the first scene when Zeck comes in and like, you know, doing his customary takeover of Quarx apartment and making it the official in absentia government of Ferengenar. There's a transition where he like sneezes into a box of beetle snuff and like the puff of bug powder fills the frame, and that's where it cuts. Did we always know beetle snuff was explosive?

Ha ha ha ha. Like it seems dangerous. Yeah, somebody must have snuck some white pepper in there with this snuff. Is beetle snuff like brown brown? I wonder, is it with with some sort of powder It sounds like it cut with whatever kind of gunpowder you use on a Ferengi whip We never get a a cloud of smoke transition on this show. So that was fun. It was super fun

So so So, Zach really wants to take power back from Brunt and feels that he can, and the way he's going to do it is by appealing to the greed of sort of like the foreigngi captains of industry, and these are, you know, like people that Zach feels will be loyal to him because he helped them all get fabulously wealthy in his capacity as Grand Nagas. And so he puts Ron Quark and Nag in a call center to set this up. Like, call all of these people to me. Here's my phone book.

Here are the people that we can gather around me to make my case for maintaining the throne. This open concept office space just gave me the cringes. Like we've been in these places before, Ben. It is not good. Not good for a person like me. You gotta get the white noise machines cranked if you're going to do a call center with an open concept floor space, right? Yeah, especially when it's three people making calls and the call center is arranged in a triangle

where they're all facing in. So they're all like talking at each other. Did you get the moment where Max Gridentic was doing a voice? Like he was like he changed his his wrong voice into like serious business man voice in this scene. My wife and I I always bust each other's shops over the like on the phone with a grown-up voice that we occasionally do. You got to do that. You can't let serious people hear how we sound. No, normally.

That would be terrible. Yeah. So every, I think there's like 400 something for Anke on the list of people to call. And all but what? I'm out at this point Ben. You checked out of the episode? No, I mean if I'm one of the three,

if I'm making these calls, like forget it. I'm not making a third of those 400 calls. Like I would be happy to see for Ranganar fall if that was what it took. I know the feeling. I've done phone banking in like elections. Like I try to make a personal commitment in a, in a presidential election or whatever to call, you know, 30 people or something like that and remind them about, you know, when the election is and how to get to their polling place or whatever. I respect the people so much who can do the phone bank, who can do the door to door thing.

Yeah. I don't have that in me. Well, my wife is actually like worked on campaigns professionally and it's like, it's like a part of the gig. It's like there's a part of your day called call time where you just sit there on roll calls for hours. I would be permanently scarred by that. Yeah, I would not be able to get over it. I have the utmost respect because 30 calls is like more, you know, like I lose my will to live at call number three. Do you ever do that thing where you call someone

that you're supposed to call like for like something professional back when we had professional calls. And then they call you back and then for whatever reason, you're like, I'm not in the mental space to have a phone call right now. And then like you screen a call that you were like expecting and that and it's a call, it's a conversation you need to have. I do this all the time. Oh yeah. Camera what it was, but I was playing phone tag with Bikroom Chatterjee, the managing director of Max Fun last week at... Now there's a call I would screen.

I had had a jazz gum about an hour before he called me back for something and I was like, there's no fucking way. I can't do it, man. I cannot seem like a grown upup at a time like this. That's not gonna work. So, so the phone calls NetOneTaker. Yeah. Like, like they do all this calling to get them,

like they need to get an audience for Zech. And this audience of one is recruited, the soda magnate of Ferenganar. Yeah, he's the head of the Coca-Cola equivalent of Ferenganar. I don't remember what the company was called. Brings, plug on cola. The flyway is calling in Galaxay. Seemed very slurm related to me. Yeah. Can you tell me to you? Like, I wonder if did Futurama bite this rhyme? I don't know, it seems like it could have,

because Futurama came out after this, right? This is 1999. It did, yeah. So it made me wonder, which is cool, because I love Slurms McKenzie, and I love everything about that Slurms storyline. Where me win, where me wuzzle, that's party! I also loved Nilva, I think, like, for all of the complaints I have with this episode,

introducing the character of Nilva gets a thumbs up from me. Henry Gibson plays Nilva, and he is like one of the classic actors, like classic comedy actors, from like back in the day. Totally. His sensibility about things is so welcome. from like back in the day. His sensibility about things is so welcome. Yeah, he's one thing that I read about the episode was that there was a lot of conflict between the producers and that Arm and Jim are men and Alexander Siddig kind of had one take on the script

and Iris Steven Bear and whoever co-wrote it with him had a very different take on the script and Iris Steven Bear, and whoever co-wrote it with him, had a very different take on the script. Like the stuff I read was, I kind of hated it because it kind of felt like Iris Steven Bear was throwing arm and shirmament in Alexander Siddigan to the bus a little bit, talking about why the episode didn't turn out great. Yeah, it's not a good look when you say

that the problem with the episode didn't turn out great. Yeah, it's not a good look when you say that the problem with the episode was the conflict between writer and production and you know what you saw on screen was not what I, Rast even bear was writing for. Right. I don't see this being directed any better, to be honest. I think that this is a journeyman execution of a garbage script in my estimation.

I think you and I might have read many of the same articles about this episode. And one of the things that stood out to me was how much darker Alexander Sidig's vision of this episode was than what we got on screen. like to the extent that they had to do reshoots because some of what he got was just like tonally darker than what worked and And with what mixed with the rest of of the footage that they got and and the heart attack Moment is one of those examples right so quark and moogie get new an argument about

like, moment is one of those examples, right? So Quark and Mugi get new an argument about Mugi's vision for the future. A vision that includes a female grand negus at some point. And they have this yelling argument and Mugi does a fall into the fall cushion. Oops. And I guess that's an example of a scene that was supposed to be incredibly dark,

like Boogie Knight's dark between Dirk and his mom's dark. Damn. Wow, man, I wish that was the version we got, honestly, because it makes like your mom having a near death experience into like a bit in a way that like, and Dr. Bashir coming out and talking to the family about it into a bit The conceit of the episode is how are we going to get quirk dressed up like a girl and pretending to be a girl for the benefit of women's rights like it it is Put the guy that is the furthest away from

agreeing with us on the issue in the position of having to defend the issue. I think you and I are an agreement that TV on hard mode attempts to pull from many genres at once or many feelings at once, like to combine aspects of comedy and trauma is much more difficult than to make 42 minutes of a thing that is just comedy or just drama. Right, it's the, how do you, how do you have one of your characters attempt suicide in a film as silly as Royal Tenon bombs and have it mean something?

Great example. And I wonder to what extent that's related to the idea of like, Adam Ragusea would be a great person to ask about something like this. Like adding too much salt or too much sugar to a thing makes it, like you can't remove the salt from a dish once it's in there. And I wonder if the same, like sugar would be

a better analogy here, but like once you reach a tipping point in comedy, there's no going back tonally, no matter how much drama you try to force into it. And I wonder if like that's a scene, Mugi having the heart attack where you've reached the tipping point, that's the point of no return. Like you can't bring it back to neutral or back to dramatic. Right. Yeah.

Maybe the problem with the core of this is that that's not a very funny idea. And that these are not comedy writers, so they may have thought it was funny in the writer's room and been incorrect about that. I wonder how weird it is to be Wala-Shan, and to be an actor of his caliber who can do comedy at the level that he does. And like the failures of this episode are not Wallace Shawn's, clearly.

No. But like when you're Wallace Shawn, you don't just get your pages, right? You get the entire script to read. Yeah. What must a seasoned comic actor feel when... Like, I wonder how this episode looked on the page versus what we got on screen. Boy, yeah, I can't imagine. Like the-

You got to be a little better though, right? Yeah, got to be a little bit better. So yeah, what has been set up is that Nilva is going to meet with Mugi, except for Mugi has had a heart attack and she is not going to be in a position. Like she's in recovery, she's going to be fine, but she's not going to be ready to have this meeting. She's going to need a few days complete rest. Also, I've given her a lobotomy. Unfortunately, she will not remember anything about who you are, Quark, or why she's here. Also, she would have recovered more quickly, but I connected the wrong fluids

to her IV bag. And that was my bed, because I had one bag of something for me and one bag of something for her in my hand. And it was a slip of the mind, really. And it's a shame that that much urine went into her bloodstream, but it did. And you know, I have malpractice insurance and I'm sure this will be a great payout. And I know that your people love that kind of thing. So maybe it's a net positive. I'm not sure I'm not here to make

an ethical judgment about a mistake that I made that is terrible, I admit. If you thought that Julian Bischier's work here was done, this episode, you are sadly mistaken because like I love how this scene is blocked. Like I remember like Julian's in his red scrubs back there And he's sort of like leans into frame The news about the heart replacement and he's like yeah, so a consequence of this is like your mom needs bed rest She's not gonna be in the episode until the end. He is in the heart replacement scrubs, isn't he?

He is. Yeah. Moody. Moody is a lot like Picard in a lot of ways. I'm a rain, come to a Ford, I'm a rain, come to a Ford. What are you doing, what are you doing? What are you doing now? I'm a car, I'm a car, I'm a car, I'm a car, I'm a car, I'm a car, exactly. So there is a lot about this story that's strange,

credulity, but one thing this episode is asking you to believe is that the soda magnet of Ferengenar is depending on the idea of Zech's lady friend, Mugi specifically taking this meeting. Right. She's got to be a part of this. This is a half to have that I was not clear about until this moment.

Like, really? Like, she's that instrumental to the negotiation, okay? I mean, I think that, like that part actually kind of makes sense to me, which is this guy is coming from a culture that is so dipped in misogyny that he couldn't even conceive of a woman being intellectually substantial enough to make a case for herself as an economic actor. And that part of the idea of Mugi being the the principle in this meeting is just as like physical evidence of the idea that she's arguing for. I am a capable woman that understands money in a way that is

sophisticated enough to put me in a position where I'm like technically running the frangie alliance from the shadows. So you have to take me seriously. You have to take this request seriously. It's almost as if the reason for Brunt being on this episode is to rub in this point. Get down on your knees and beg for mercy. He's like, boy you guys are fucked. You really needed Moogie, but she's recuperating with that heart thing. Seriously, he just comes into like salt the wound periodically. Like, like, so you're telling me, Brunt has been elevated to the height of political and

economic power in the Frangial Islands, and his first act is to go off to the remote human space station of Deep space nine to glot at the guy he got it from. This feels like a 80s summer movie where like the land developer is threatening to bulldoze your beloved home because like he's there to incite the desperation of the incident. That is the operation done to quark, right? Because once Brent comes in to glow, everyone's like, well, we can't let those developers win.

Yeah. Like, we've gotta become goonies and turn quark into a girl. We've gotta beat them at the downhill ski race and then undergo a sex change operation. I no longer believe that Dr. Bashir can't do anything. I believe that, I believe in the power of Dr. Bashir's magical surgery.

Yeah. Bashir Giveth. Bashir take it away. I wonder why he didn't send Kurnoff with a couple of great big tits, you know? These might get in the way as I inspect suitcases coming through the station's baggage handling system. I wouldn't know the difference between being flat, chesteded and not. Ffff. Ffff. Fun bags? I think all bags are intrinsically fun,

as you inspect them for bombs and other contraband. Ffff. The stuff with ROM related to everything happening to Quark is very interesting to me. Like, ROM seems more suited to and able to do what quark is doing, but they need a business -minded person in there, and that's just not ROM. But like in every other way, ROM is admitting an interest and an experience in gender play. Right, he has a studied understanding of the different ways we perform gender. Right. That unfortunately is kind of played for a joke, right?

It's like, what's going on with Ram that he knows had a sit and walk like a girl? I thought they made fun of Quark way more than Rom, and I guess it's sad that I thought that what they did to Rom was like maybe just by comparison, like fine. Yeah, I mean, I think the difference is that like, I think Max Grudenship played it with a lot of integrity and respect, and I liked it Lita liked it

It would have been different if he made fun of himself during two right that he didn't like his sincerity He means a whole lot. It's a weird thing like I I don't know why I clicked on this, but I was like I was like scrolling through Twitter or something and happened upon a video of I was like scrolling through Twitter or something and happened upon a video of What's that fucking podcast guy? Joe Rogan talking how did we both know that? Because he's like the number one podcast guy For whatever that means talking to Bill Burr and

Like Joe Rogan is like sitting there like trying to do like a comedy bit about how like It's like not you know, it's unmanned to wear a face mask and Bill Burr Is like yeah like you with your no medical degree and I with my no medical degree are really gonna sit here and tell people what they shouldn't shouldn't do with regards to the pandemic. Great point, Joe Rogan. Like it really made me love Bill Burr.

It was like, Bill Burr was very funny and made Joe Rogan seem like a dope. But Joe Rogan's defense of like, it's not manly. Like, this is what dudes do. Thing, like, it had been like such a long time since I'd like, talked to somebody with a world view like that, or even encountered that kind of world view. I am so used to performative masculinity being something to make fun of that it's weird to hear about someone so sincere about it. Right, and like, I don't listen to that show.

I have very, very little familiarity with it, aside from the times that it makes news because Elon Musk smoked a blunt or whatever. So I didn't really like, I was really surprised at the tone of that. And it kind of reminds me of this of like, like how could Quark a man's man know any of this shit? Right. Which is like a little bit dishonest about the kind of character Quark is because he's like, he is not like a vain popping hyper masculine character, you know?

Yeah, I mean, you would assume that someone in the kind of business that Quark is in would at least have the performative kind of progressivism to make a business that earns money from men and women. Right, you know, if for no other reason, know everyone's wants and desires to make money. Yeah. At least, like the bare minimum, but he doesn't even have that amount of curiosity and that's almost unbelievable. Yeah, that would be believable if he lived on Frank and Ar,

but he lives in a place where those values are shunned. So. Speaking of values, I don't understand why there aren't rules about operating a business on a federation station that would prohibit the sort of shit that he does. Two is employees, I mean. Yeah, I think that there are rules about that. Like, I think there was like a season one episode where

Cisco specifically addressed the idea that Quark should not sexually harass his employees. Alora is a human female. I like, she could run this up the chain. Yeah. I think that that felt like a bad comedy script idea that the writers thought would be a funny punchline to the episode. What if we set up Quark putting ski-v-moves on this lady? And then it's a hilarious conclusion when she is receptive

to those ski-vy moves. Right. So, there is a makeover scene. Work is revealed to be a little-eared, distractingly big-titted, forangy woman. And by distracting, I mean, distracting to himself. Right. It's weird to both want and not want more detail about this, because we understand that there was a medical procedure that Quark underwent by Dr. Bashir wherein he had physical

prosthetics put in, potentially some things removed, but also like a dose of hormones that is having an effect on his temperament and also maybe his voice a little bit. And I just don't understand the rules of this. Yeah, like they give him a rack, but they're not able to change his voice. Is that's what I'm saying. Like why are some things possible and some not?

Again, I tried by hottest and at a certain point I put the wrong bag on the IV and it was only on there for 30 or 40 minutes max. Once we got into that 40 and 50ccs of urine, it became dangerous. I had to stop it. I honestly feel terrible for myself first and foremost, because I was really looking forward to that particular bag. I'd been saving it for a special occasion like the completion of a nearly impossible surgery.

Quark wasn't involved in the Vreenak plan, right? With the ultra-cardassian honey stick and the holo the hollow sweet thing. Like I'm wondering why hollow sweet was never an option here. Oh yeah. They do say better than a hologram at some point, which like I feel like the very similitude of holograms is a very squishy concept in Star Trek. If that's if they're saying that because like sometimes we find out it's been a simulation the whole time. Would anyone else like to speak up? Or shall we end this charade?

And other times it's like oh like well he'll know if this is you know a fake character that we made in the holodeck. I also feel like if you are committed to the idea, if you're Irish Steven Bairn, you're committed to the idea of putting quark and address with tits, you're gonna find a way to make that happen. Yeah.

You're going to pound this story into a shape that could only lead there. Yep. And that's, I think, the fundamental problem with the episode. It's like, it's one idea without enough script around it to really get us there. Like, I think there's a lot of levels on which

to criticize this, but maybe the most basic is just that it's like a barely anything. Like, it's a bottle episode that doesn't have anything to do with the stories that we've been telling. It's like, it stands out a lot, I think, because so much of this part of season six, especially, has been so great. And so, like, why pull the show car over and do this? Oh man, this is not a pullover.

This is like, we took the show car into the ramp and it is like doing handsprings down the road. This is like the cop car and an 80s cop show hitting the ramp and then like landing on its roof. Yeah. So, like, the ramp and then like landing on its roof. Yeah. So the comedy that really challenges me in an interesting way is the stuff that I occasionally

don't like that that this is uncomfortable. This is making me uncomfortable. But this episode is not capable of doing that. And I think one of the one of the unforgivable sins of this episode is just how uninteresting it is in the ways it attempts to make fun of the thing that it's making fun of. Like in a weird way, I would almost respect it more if it were more offensive.

Right. Because at least that would be like taking a swing. If it had the courage of its convictions, it might be a little bit more interesting. Yeah, like does that make sense? Yeah. I feel like that's a comment that could get me in trouble, but I hope that that is interpreted in the right way, in the way that I mean it. I definitely see what you mean. And I think that like while we're talking about courage of its convictions, like the argument that we praise

that Quark makes to to Nova about like why it would be good. And like Nova's got like this, the he's got the ear of the FCA. He's got some some unique political power to make X-Problems go away if he can be convinced. And Quark makes one argument to him about the pockets and the money for the ladies' outfits. Like, look at what I'm wearing. What do you think this cost? What if I told you that you could get this not at a store, but from confederated products? But from the slug juice to the ham, even that cologne you liked, to this dress I'm wearing.

Yeah. But no, but like, like that is just one argument and like this show already had like a pretty good for Engie women's lib episode in the one where they like went back home and discovered that Mugi was earning profit. And I don't think it had a super satisfying ending, but I don't think that this is the way to pick that back up Here's I guess here's what I'm trying to get at is how many people watching need to be convinced that

Farenki women need rights Like does anybody watching Star Trek need to be persuaded of the value of women in the Farenki workforce like why Relidicated thing that's already settled? Right. For our entertainment? Yeah, like in TNG, we get a lot of discussion of the idea of like, oh yeah, on Earth, in the past,

it used to really suck for women. And humans have made a great deal of progress on that. And women are now full equals in the economy, in the law, in society, in all ways. And I don't think that that's depicted well in TNG, but it is at least spoken and given a name, you know, like they make the case for it being the case. And in Deep Space 9, giving us a window on Ferenc culture gives us an opportunity to look at a society that took a very different tack in becoming a space-faring player in the galactic conversation.

And this comes on the heels of the episode of like, what if we could get the Ferengi involved in the war against the dominion? And instead, the diplomatic papers, making that overture get lost because we went on the ship full of children. But like, the Ferengi are as technologically advanced as capable as the Federation, right? And they oppress 53% of their population.

How much more advanced would they be if they if they took the governor off of their engine? Right. Yeah. What this episode asks us to do is be in the position of letting ourselves be convinced that foreign women need liberation. And I don't think anybody watching, no matter where they fall in the political spectrum, needs to be convinced of that. And also, you know, the cross-dressing court as the instrument of that is kind of offensive.

So, I think it fails on the fundamentals and it fails on the execution. As you're experiencing this episode, you are the expectation is that it is going to end in a cul-de-sac of epiphany. Like, we're pulling this episode into the driveway and there will be some sort of growth, but instead we get a very silent movie style pepilipu, powing of the soda magnet at Lady Quark. Yeah, could he sacks playing? Yeah.

While they chase each other around the apartment. Brunt coming in and everything Brunt says being disputed by a growing level of nudity that Quark is more willing to demonstrate. Right. This is a women's lib by Quark dumping them out. Right. Brunt is totally flummoxed by this.

He cannot believe that it's not possible for him to present a convincing argument to the soda magnet. Why? Why? And so Dilva is in the bag, right? He's going to go home and make his case that this actually would be reinstated. This was my confusion at the end of this episode

because we get kind of an elliptical edit where we're back in Quarks, Quarks looking at a ring that the soda magnet gave him. He's feeling very emotional because he's had reverse surgery now to turn back into Quark, but he's still feeling the hormonal effects. He has an overwhelming number of lady feelings. You may be a lousy son,

but you may don't wonder for daughter. And they're fitting a lot of exposition into this scene because I was I was confused so to magnet goes back, but it did it was not clear to me in any way about whether or not a brunt would have to vacate the legacy right and to give it back to Zech. Zech and and Moogie are in the bar like having their one last laugh with the gang about their their great adventure and the friends they made along the way. It's famous last words when Zex says, if all goes well, you know, when we get back, I'll

be back on top. Very unconvincing. And the last seconds of this episode been are like the bookends, like we get the second bookend to the first, which is Quark's employee has read the Umak's book. 50 Shades of Umak's. And is ready to perform and Quark isn't into it. And then you hang on that moment for a second, thinking, well, well, there it is.

Quark has learned his lesson. He's only been able to feel empathy for, for the ladies around him by experiencing the many injustices that, that they go through. Before the very last line of dialogue is like, basically, oh, fuck it, let's go get a hand job. By, by an employee, I was shocked not that he did it by an employee. I was shocked not that he did it because this is in keeping with what a dirtbag quark is. I was shocked at the construction of an episode just whether or not it's about anything that an episode

just full on refused to have any sort of journey for the main character that we went along with. It's almost nihilistic in that way. And especially for this show, which is so willing to change characters radically. I think when you're a fan of this show, you're asked to experience the many indignities that a quark demonstrates. Like he's a hard character to be with because of how much of a shipbag he is. I don't think either of us are asking for him to like change his ways and redeem himself and be a great person but I think any person watching any episode of anything they don't want there to feel like their time is wasted.

Right. And and that was the feeling that I had at the end of this by that very last line of dialogue was like it was for nothing. Yeah, like I don't care about how the frangial alliances politics go. Yeah. The show has never made it feel important. So the the the stakes of the episode are can quirk be improved and apparently their conviction is that he can't. I mean, even more generally, like, is it possible for quirk to experience a thing like anyone else would, like to recognize that he's been through something even?

Yeah. Like not even that it changes him and it doesn't even seem like he's able to achieve that. Nuts. Did you like this episode, Ben? You really want to do this here. Now, okay, okay, let's do it, do it. No.

Uh, this is talked about as among the worst episodes of Deep Space Nine and maybe in the conversation, for me, as among the worst episodes of Star Trek, I don't think it does the thing that Star Trek sets out to do. I think the thing I hate about it is that it doesn't even try. It's like trying the opposite thing. I think that the writers throwing the director and star under the bus after the fact is a really ugly look. Yeah. So thumbs down from me. How about you, Adam? I keep thinking about the deep space nine car hitting the ramp and flying off the cliff like the tutors car. You know, this isn't

just the goodwill of Deep Space Nine that the show is able to trade on in season six. It's the many advances that TNG was able to make in terms of representation, which in its own right was trying to write the many wrongs that a TOS did in terms of what it did. And TOS did some good things in terms of like racial representation and diversity and stuff. But like, this episode really made me think a lot about how Star Trek right now trades on its ideals of being an inclusive and diverse place that is welcoming to every type of person, no matter who you are, and that wasn't always true. And I don't know how Star Trek has a brand and as a place has built up the equity that

it has when clearly, after almost 200 episodes of Star Trek, that it's possible for a franchise to make something like this that is so retrograde in its depiction of Agender. Like how do they not get it at this point? I'm glad Star Trek is the way it is right now. It feels like it's never been more inclusive, but I don't think you get to be off the hook for the sins of something like this

and the way that we're not off the hook for our many mistakes, making the greatest generation. Like we haven't been perfect either, but I don't think we're given the credit nor would we accept being a shining light. In any way, the way Star Trek gets to be. Right. It's a thing that maybe wants to pat itself on the back too much. It's hard. It's hard when you make a certain amount of things to like confront the truth of

the things you made previously. And I don't think anyone's asking for the Star Trek industrial complex to like self-flagulate Itself, you know over its mistakes. Yeah, like let's be real like when we consume Star Trek We're consuming all of it and it's not always great just like our show isn't Always great. It's shocking to be reminded that it was possible to do something like this for a show that we celebrate so It was possible to do something like this for a show that we celebrate so wholeheartedly right now. So let's throw this episode on the junk pile and move on to something that is always delightful, which is our priority one message inbox. Our P1 messages never junky. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel. Need a supplement on it.

A supplement on it? A supplement. A supplement. Yeah, it's extra. But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship! I'm gonna start with this first message of a personal nature. It's from Aaron. It's to Andrew.

And the message goes like this, I love you. Bitch. I ain't never gonna stop loving you, bitch. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha by a couple weeks. Aaron, really lay in the wood. To Andrew, with that term of endearmate. Indeed. Next priority on message here is from Diane Isis and it's to Rockadella de Luca. And it goes like this. To my wonderful husband slash drag sister, I love you. There isn't a lot of overlap between drag and star track,

but God bless the writers for writing an episode that appeals solely to our niche interests. Just like this episode, you pull together disparate elements to create something incredible. I say to you as I say to quark Stay sick and in queen Wow, you know Diane isis has made me think about this episode a little differently and I wonder to what extent this episode is Enjoyed by by those who are interested in the drag culture. Yeah, like as a as a form of representation the gender play being being something that's like maybe looked at more

closely than anything else in this episode the inclusion of other things like like in 97 you're not seeing a lot of Drag culture representation. Maybe that's the thing that you love. Yeah, and maybe that's enough It's pretty good. I mean Quark is giving me a lot of a lot of tassel realness You know, yeah Quark pretty fierce this episode pretty fierce indeed Well, if you'd like to leave a priority one message on the show We would sure appreciate it because it helps us cover the cost of production It's a hundred bucks for a personal message and 200 for a commercial message.

And you can do it by going to maximumfund.org slash jumbo shron. Hey, Adam. What's that been? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? I think at some point along the way, there was a chance to pull the emergency break on this episode and go like we don't have We don't have a strong enough idea for what this is and Well, we disagree in a key way on what this is

Sure on the hit podcast friendly fire. I think a not uncommon story About film production is just how much conflict is brought to set between the creatives and the actors. Like it's just a nightmare to conceive of a production environment where there's that level of disagreement or one side not talking to the other about what its vision is. And I just get, I don't know how in an era of television where you get 26 episodes, how you can't just go like, well, when we broke the season, we had, I feel like maybe 30 episodes, we called it 26.

These are what we have. I have no idea how there wasn't a backup episode that could have stepped in here. That was- Right. That had fewer conflicts in it than this. Yeah. So I think my Shemota is going to're the EP on the show and pull it. And I think unfortunately for this episode, it was written by the showrunner.

So somebody who had some ego points to lose on either side, where it's their script, but also their show. Yeah, what about you, Ben? I think I'm gonna give it to Lida. I think that she was just a bright spot in the episode for me, like, as a very femme character, you know, her utility in the scenes of how are we going to teach Quark to, like, walk around in these stripper heels and quark to like walk around in these stripper heels and convince somebody that he is a woman was was very fun and I think that Chase Mastersden like made a kind of ski-v-scene seem like a little bit more enjoyable just for for the way she, like she kind of like comes into the center of that scene

and is a force of positivity in it, you know. She acts as the firewall between the people who make fun of Quark and ROM and especially ROM and those who support ROM in his understanding of what quark needs to do. Yeah. She does not jump onto the pile on Ram when Ram is making his many demonstrations in a way that really, her stock rises to me for that. Yeah. She rules.

Yeah. Yeah 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, I'd make a pretty great name for a tour. Let's do it! The Share Your Embarrassment 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 get stupid with Judy Greer.

My friend Molly and I call it having the spaceweards. Pat Noswald. Could I get a Balrog burger and some air-gorn fries? Thank you. And Kumail Nanjiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at MaximumFun.org. Look, your podcast apps are already open. Just pull it out.

Give Jordan Jesse Goatry. Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Whoa, Russ. Hey, baby, oh, I'm about to count you in line. These clouds are really freaking me out. I hate having to stand in line. And boy, what do I?

These giraffes do not smell good. No, they do not, and they've such short nacks. 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 seem like something for us to check out. We would love to be on the boats.

We came two by two. What do you think? Ono Ross and Carrie, available on MaximumFun.org. [♪ Music playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing to rule compared to this one, right? Yeah, there's nowhere to go but up at them. Yeah, we are in the ditch right now in Deep Space 9. What's it going to be for the next episode, Ben? You tell me that while I go over to the game of Buttholes, the little of the profits, and see where our runabout is. Well, the next episode is season 6, episode 24, Times Orphan.

An accident turns O'Brien's 8-year-old daughter into a wild, dangerously unsocialized 18-year-old. Are you serious? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Molly's about to grow up real fast, Adam. Did you add the wild dangerous part to that read, or is that what the copy actually says? That's the copy.

Wow. Yeah. She becomes like a like a child raised by wolves, essentially. OK. OK. Okay. Is this another, this is going to be another one of those something happens at Miles O'Brien. I can't remember. Maybe a transporter accident, which really like if you're a transporter chief, having a transporter accident happen that close to home has got to be shameful on a lot of levels. Well, Ben, I'm looking at the game of buttholes

with the profits and we are currently pulsing on top of Commander Riker's bearded face. Today's caught in the Nebula episode was square 82. It looks like in the deep distance is a space butthole which would take us down all the way to square 34. So that would be pretty big hit there. That's a measure of a man episode, I believe. You're required to learn as you play.

Roll. Alright, here we go. I hit it. I rolled a five. We hit the space butthole we're back down to square 34. It's the measure of a man episode. Oh man. The episode where we flip a coin and then

vehemently argue the pro con of the episode as we talk about it. One of our most hated types of episodes. I thought the people liked it when we did that before. I think this is going to be fun. The performative aspect of this is one that's interesting. I think it's fun to be a little antagonistic. Yeah, it's like high school speech and debate. You come in prepared, or argue either side, and you find out what you're going to be doing as the episode happens to you. We did so much work to get up into the 80s on this game board.

I can't believe we got kicked in the junk like that. Yeah, it's wild. I mean, that's the that's the treachery of the game of buttholes, the little profits. Wow. The least treacherous among us are our many supporters. We call them the Friends of Desotto. Friends of Desotto go to MaximumFund.org slash Join to support our shows on a monthly basis

and they're what's keeping us going right now. They sure are. We also appreciate anyone who leaves a nice five star review on Apple Podcasts. If you leave your review in the form of a question or like add a question to the end of your review and it's a five star review, we may answer that question on an upcoming episode of the show. Our card daddy Bill Tilly is our social media employee for expert Shimoda. He runs the at greatest trek account that's the official

Twitter feed of all things greatest and the official Instagram feed now yeah they're both named the same thing greatest trek and there you'll find the official show post and a bunch of fun things to you we got to thank our buddy Adam Ragusia who made the original original Captain Cisco song for this show, which is of course based on dark materials original Captain Picard song. We're hearing Lowe under our voice, which is right now. They made great music for us, and now Adam Ragusia has gone on to be a celebrity YouTube chef. They'll teach you how to make some good food

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It is tank top season. Check out our other shows, greatest discovery and friendly fire. They are also on the Maximum Fun Network. And with that, we'll be back at you next time with another great episode of Start Check, Deep Space 9. An episode of the greatest generation, Deep Space 9, which has aged us. It's a terrible degree. Oh no, it's the fruit bowl of episodes. Make it sound. Maximumfund.org

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