The Greatest Generation - The Rick Berman Hat Trick (ENT S2E10)

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

When Hoshi and Trip take their very first transporter ride, Commander Tucker goes first and Hoshi feels shaken up when she rematerializes on the ship. But when no one is listening and she starts to ac...tually disappear, her extremely anxious dream logic reveals what she thinks about her colleagues. What special skill does Linda Park have on the back of her headshot? How much hot water is available on the NX-01? Which is the most dangerous prop ever seen on Star Trek? It’s the episode that makes residue info a very sad word.Support the production of The Greatest GenerationGet a thing at podshop.biz!Sign up for our mailing list!Follow The Game of Buttholes: The Will of the Riker - Quantum LeapThe Greatest Generation is produced by Wynde PriddySocial media is managed by Rob Adler and Bill TilleyMusic by Adam Ragusea & Dark MateriaFriends of DeSoto for: Labor | Democracy | JusticeDiscuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen and find us on social media:YouTube | Facebook | X | Instagram | TikTok | Mastodon | Bluesky | ThreadsAnd check out these online communities run by FODs: Reddit | USS Hood Discord | Facebook group | Wikia | FriendsOfDeSoto.social

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Here's to the finest crew in Starling. When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument from me. This is a parody. Paramount owns the song. Welcome to The Greatest Generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast. I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pranica.
Starting point is 00:00:27 Transporter accident episode today, Adam. First transporter accident in the canonical history. Yeah, pretty great. But before that, Ben, I've got an improvised code 47 because I received a package from our friend friend Jonathan Heffler. No kidding. Who reached out to me and said that I've got something for you guys and I'd like you to open it on the show. Wow.
Starting point is 00:00:55 How do I get that to you? And I said, well, don't send it to Ben's post office, send it to me and I'll do it. So here, speaking of firsts, is the first time for a long time I'm going to be opening up a package on the show. And I'll tell you what it is. Let's hope it's not a transporter accident. Let's hope it came in one piece, whatever it is. Captain, I'm sorry to disturb you.
Starting point is 00:01:19 I'm receiving a code 47. Verify. It is code 47, sir. Starfleet emergency frequency. Captain's eyes only. I don't use a letter opener. I use scissors opened wide. TM. It always makes me so nervous when I watch you and my wife open a package. Never had an accident doing that.
Starting point is 00:01:42 Wow. Oh, look at this. We've got little packing peanuts in there Just a wonderful addition to any keyboard. Yeah Gotta have those. Oh, this is nice. I've got a letter here from Jonathan Heffler and it's on that premium paper Mmm, it feels so good. Can you can we can we hear a wobble of that paper in the mic? That's nice. Jonathan says, Dear Ben and Adam, for the next episode of This Old Enterprise, regards. What we have here is what looks like an original edition of the Starfleet technical manual. Wow.
Starting point is 00:02:28 I have never seen one this old. Dang. Look at it. It's so old. I have a fact of your correspondence. It seems as though there's a bookmark in here. So I'm gonna see if maybe this constitutes a direction of some kind that Jonathan would like us to go in. Calling his shot, as it were.
Starting point is 00:02:51 And what he's called my attention to, and yours, is the layout of Starfleet headquarters. And I will show you that. I'm curious, before you show it to me, can you like look at the copyright page and tell me when this book came out? Is this pre-TNG? 1975. Mm.
Starting point is 00:03:15 Amazing. You weren't even a twinkle in your daddy's eye when this book came out. So here's a picture of Fleet headquarters. And what I'll do is I'll scan this and make it available to those who follow us on the socials. But here is that. That looks very much like a diagram of the reproductive organs of a lady. And what has bookmarked this section is a screen grab of one of our very own shows
Starting point is 00:03:47 with the title more labial than Chihuly So that was a really fun walk to that punchline made possible by a friend of the show Jonathan Heffler a book that I will treasure a book that is just impossibly old. What a thing. This season, we're revisiting one of our favorite projects, the headquarters of the United Federation
Starting point is 00:04:18 of Planet Starfleet. Now, many people don't realize that Starfleet, in fact, predates the Federation, which is part of why it is such a specifically homo sapien design when it comes to replicating female reproductive organs. Many people have accused Starfleet of being a homo sapiens only club as a result of this design. We're here to change that. This is where they add like a second staircase to appease the Klingons. Pretty great.
Starting point is 00:04:49 Hey, thanks, Jonathan, for sending us such a treasure. I can't wait to see what other reproductive organ related or designed parts of Starfleet there are. I mean, there are so many pages in this book, I imagine half of them are just like that. I mean, it's a very horny... It's a horny franchise. One must admit. This is a fairly horny episode in some ways, Ben.
Starting point is 00:05:15 What do you say we get into Star Trek Enterprise Season 2, Episode 10... Vanishing Point? ["VANISHING POINT"] vanishing point. We begin in a cave and there's a Hoshi and a Triptucker there and they're looking over some hieroglyphics. She's doing the non-translating and he's doing the picture taking and record keeping. I really like the push into the Indiana Jones ruins that they're in at the opening of this episode because it kind of feels like we start outside and find them inside.
Starting point is 00:05:51 And yeah, they're scanning hieroglyphs, they're exploring what appears to be a long abandoned place that no aliens presently live in or protect. Unlike Indiana Jones, this is not a place with a bunch of traps or spookiness. The danger of being here is outside and it's bearing down on them. Archer calls in to say that a storm is headed their way and they're gonna have to leave in the next few minutes
Starting point is 00:06:21 if they want to avoid being stranded. And being stranded isn't even an option once we learn more about this storm and the storm that's kind of nudging it to go faster. They had five minutes when he called down and then we cut up to the ship and we learned that there's a second more perfect storm coming in hot right behind that first one. And yeah, it closes the window way quicker than they thought they had. They're gonna have to leave the cave, pass the buoy and the big dumb ducks
Starting point is 00:06:55 and however the rest of that monologue goes. Yeah. You know what? Your goddamn sword will come. What a movie, The Perfect Storm. Loved it. I haven't seen it since I saw it in theaters, but yeah, I remember thinking it was great.
Starting point is 00:07:10 But do I remember which parts of it were The Perfect Storm and which things were from the shipping news? Not so clear. Oh, I don't think I ever saw that one. Anyways, yeah, so too late, and they get on the communicator with Archer again, and he is explaining like shuttle is no longer an option. It won't survive going up.
Starting point is 00:07:33 We're talking emergency beam out now. And Hoshi is in the bargaining stage of learning. She's going to have to use the transporter. She's like, what about polarizing the hull plating and just riding it out in the shuttle? And he's like, this thing's going to have to use the transporter. She's like, what about polarizing the hull plating and just riding it out in the shuttle? And he's like, this thing is going to tear that shuttle apart. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:07:51 Polarizing the shuttle would be to cover it in kites and keys. Not what you want to do with a storm like this. At that point, it's more a debate about who's going to go first. Is it going to be be Trip or Hoshi? Neither of them has done this before, but Reed has done it a couple of times and says it's no big deal.
Starting point is 00:08:12 But she makes Trip go first. He beams up and then she beams up. And you know, she's got a little bit of like defeated samurai hair when she materializes on the transporter pad, but she doesn't look any worse for wear. Bunches made later on in the episode of like,
Starting point is 00:08:31 who went first here and who should have gone first here. Are you a go first as a person, especially when you're nervous to do a thing? I often find that if I'm especially nervous, I do want to be first. I don't want to be watching the thing that I'm nervous about.
Starting point is 00:08:48 Well, in my experience, it's always better if you can get the lady first, you know, stand a better chance of getting her at all at that point. I mean, that's clearly not what Tripp does here. He takes care of himself. Yeah. So she heads back to her quarters and is, you know, a little like, ugh, what a close scrape. And she's, you know, doing some washing up. These must be dirt marks from spelunking,
Starting point is 00:09:19 not from being in a storm, right? You don't get dirt on your face from storm. I mean, a storm could whip up all the dirt and debris and smush it against your face. It could be from anything. I guess so. Yeah. That's fair. Is this what the remains of the day is about? We're talking about movies I haven't seen and that you definitely have. Yeah. It's mostly about people doing evening toilet, cleansing, washes, micellar water, et cetera, to remove the various toxins and environmental detritus off of their skin. That'd be a great name for a facial product, you know?
Starting point is 00:10:00 Ends of the day. Get at me, Noxzema or Neutrogena companies. I've got ideas. Adam did put remains of the day, just those words on a piece of paper in an envelope and mailed it to himself. So you can't do it without his say so. That's right. So Archer comes to Colin while Hoshi's doing her routine. And just out of the kindness of his heart gives her the rest of her shift off. But in just being around Hoshi for the time that we have, she's kind of in too much of a daze to be at work anyway.
Starting point is 00:10:36 Like nice by Archer, but okay, like is that the sort of Hoshi you want on your bridge anyway? She was talking a big game about heading back to her shift and he disabuses her of that. and then is like, yeah, well anyways, you'll go back down tomorrow to get the other shuttle pod. And it becomes clear that she is, she's really shaken up. There's, there's no upside to returning to the pod in her mind. Where do you go when you're shaken up, Ben?
Starting point is 00:11:04 Back out in public to the mess hall is what we're made to believe. I guess you gotta eat. That's what Hoshi's there to do. Trip and Mayweather and Reed are already there. They're already eating. They're already sitting together and laughing their asses off when Hoshi rolls up.
Starting point is 00:11:19 And this is a moment that makes us believe that Trip is fine, was fine, will always be fine with being transported. He's great. I asked if they'd look at the pattern buffer for a prior version of my body that doesn't have nipples all over it. This is the first time I've used the machine
Starting point is 00:11:39 so they didn't have one. Hoshi does not feel fine. No. Clearly. It was very unsettling. Didn't you find it unsettling? Yeah, it's, I mean, like, I really, I feel two ways about this, because, like, I'm very much a, like, suffer in silence person.
Starting point is 00:11:54 If I'm, like, mad about something, the last thing I want to do is, like, bring it up to everyone and talk about it. What's wrong with Ben this time? But I know that there are people that like need to process stuff that way. But also, Hoshi, you picked like people who were having a nice time and just went and dumped a bucket of ice water on their nice time. Yeah, the Debbie Downer tuba needs to be playing here for sure. I don't know. I just don't feel right. We learned a little bit about the legend of Cyrus Ramsay. playing here for sure. I don't but never materialized on the other side.
Starting point is 00:12:47 Is there a system of weights and measures that you feel like you've got a pretty good grasp on or is yards also? Yeah, I don't really know. Unclear. Yeah, he's become a bit of a ghost story, this Cyrus Ramsay. If you're going on a survival training mission, the unrematerialized particles of Cyrus Ramsey, like if you're going on a, uh, on like a survival training mission, the unrematerialized particles of Cyrus Ramsey will haunt your campsite or whatever. And, you know, they kind of make some light of Hoshi being a real Cyrus Ramsey type.
Starting point is 00:13:18 So upset is Hoshi in this scene that when the discussion turns toward picking up that shuttle that was left on the surface after the fact, maybe Mayweather will be the guy that goes along on that mission. Maybe Hoshi can just sit this one out. Is Hoshi a trained pilot? Because that's like part of the point the trip makes is like I need another person who can pilot when we go down there. is like, I need another person who can pilot when we go down there. Yeah, I see nothing wrong with this plan, honestly. Makes perfect sense. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:13:56 Anyways, she goes to Six Bay and it's empty and she's like poking around, looking for flocks and he shows up behind her having seemingly come out of a, a nook that she just recently cleared. So, you know, you got to look at the doors and corners, Hoshi. Like, you got to really clear the rooms before you holler that out. There's a musical cue that we get a bunch in the first half of this episode, and I think we get it in this scene, to cement the creepy feeling we're supposed to have. Hello?
Starting point is 00:14:26 Oh, Ensign. Ordinarily, you walk into a six-bay, oh, where's Dr. Flux? I don't know. Oh yeah, there's Dr. Flux, and it's fine. But that's absent this music cue. You get the music cue and all of a sudden, uh-oh. It's not fine, actually. Yeah. ["Saltin' Long"]
Starting point is 00:14:47 There you saltin' long. I think Archer and Tripp and now Flax have made the mistake of thinking she was scared of the storm. Like, oh, were you like hiding under the bed because there was lightning, like a puppy? She's like, no, I went through the matter recombining matter stream of a transporter I'm fucking terrified so he's like scanning her seeing if anything's wrong with her molecules
Starting point is 00:15:15 doesn't correct her on they're not really your molecules your your body is just using them for now but you know they will go back into the universe and be part of entropy later. He scans her and he says she's fine. You're no Cyrus Ramsey. But that doesn't scan how she feels. She doesn't feel right. And there's not a lot that Dr. Flax can do besides prescribe a good night of sleep. Maybe after that, she will feel a little better.
Starting point is 00:15:45 She doesn't want his sedatives. He doesn't really like cotton much to the idea that one of her freckles moved. I have a mole. Well, it looks lovely where it is now. But she goes to bed sans sedative and is nonetheless woken up at 1,100 hours by DePaul with an emergency.
Starting point is 00:16:06 This really starts to feel like anxiety dream, like showing up to school without your math homework vibes, because she's super late to her shift. Tucker and Mayweather have gone down to the surface and been taken hostage by aliens that didn't show up on previous scans. She is so far behind what's going on. The captain is clearly like super annoyed that she's late, but it's too urgent to resolve the hostage crisis for him to like lay into her about that. It's just a fucking mess. You described a lot about the scene that creates a feeling of not being settled and maybe feelings of paranoia
Starting point is 00:16:47 or dream logic or whatever. But the thing that stuck out the most to me that drove me totally crazy is, are we supposed to believe that it takes three hours for you to get it called if you're doing a no call no show on your bridge shift. Three hours to Paul Waits before ringing Hoshi to see what the fuck.
Starting point is 00:17:13 Yeah. What? That didn't make sense to me at all. Well, yeah, I mean, I think that like logic has broken down in key ways starting now. But also you can like sort of head candidate as like, oh yeah, you know, they knew she was really upset after the storm that she looked at from a distance.
Starting point is 00:17:33 Two must have been real scared of that storm. Let's take it easy on Hoshi. Yeah, I don't get any of that energy from the scene. It is weird. It's weird. If I were 30 minutes late to a recording, I would expect a call after 10 minutes, three hours. I think I'd probably give you half an hour.
Starting point is 00:17:51 Yeah, you're generally permissive. I am probably too, too permissive. So they get a call on Travis's communicator and we've got some cranky captors doing a ransom call in an alien language and Hoshi is just blowing it when it comes to figuring out how to translate this thing. And you blew it! The universal translator not working, she tries to free ball it and the pressure is
Starting point is 00:18:21 just mounting from everyone on the bridge, like, crack this code, communicate with these guys. And ultimately, she breaks under pressure. Like, she is drenched in flop sweat, she gets dismissed by the captain. I'm sorry, I'm... sorry. You blew it! And she heads back to her quarters in shame. Imagine being replaced by Crrum and Baird.
Starting point is 00:18:46 Brutal. I mean, I fucking can't wait, but Hoshi is really, really hurt by this. Baird of all people seems to be like the final twist of the knife. I love Archer's take here in that he can't even look at her. Like that's the depth of his disappointment. Like, oof.
Starting point is 00:19:07 I mean, not that I give one single shit about how Archer feels about anyone, but like that's notable. That's another thing that he would do ordinarily. Yeah, yeah. So she goes to wash the flop sweat off in her shower. And this is where we get the first disappearing Hoshi effect. She initially sees it in the bathroom mirror, and then she sees the shower water going through her hands.
Starting point is 00:19:36 I thought this was really well done, this effect. I don't quite know how you, did they get hands against a green screen and then make multiple layers of like shower effects? It was good. It's either that or you cast someone who can be invisible. Ha ha ha. Does Linda Park have that on the back of her headshot?
Starting point is 00:19:57 This is a scene where we get a second look at the shower playset. Mm-hmm. It's been given a lot of screen time lately, and by shower playset, I'm not only talking about Hoshi with her top off. Kind of a moment where you suspect something spooky is happening. We get that music again too. Spooky music.
Starting point is 00:20:23 Speaking of characters who love getting topless, Hoshi comes up to T'Pol in the lunch room and sort of seems like T'Pol is like icing her out initially. Anyone sitting here? Or maybe she's just engrossed in whatever novel she's reading. Sub-commander. Ensign, would you like to join me? Hoshi is like, you know,
Starting point is 00:20:49 trying to find a shoulder to lean on a little bit here. And T'Pol informs her that, yeah, like the hostage situation was actually resolved while you were showering. I'm surprised you didn't know that. And also, Crumen Baird now has your job. You don't have a job anymore, because you're so bad at it.
Starting point is 00:21:08 How long was this shower? How much hot water do you think they have on Enterprise? I mean, yeah, in the Navy, you're supposed to take like really, really brief showers, right? Yeah, yeah, a lot of questions this moment. Baird made her look so dumb. Like apparently she left the bridge
Starting point is 00:21:26 and he just cracked the code that instant. If Baird's the hot hand, I think you gotta do the heat check of just maybe keeping him at that station for a while. I don't fault this decision at all. What's notable about this, in addition to everything else, is that Archer could not even summon the courage to have a face-to-face to tell her that she didn't have to report to the
Starting point is 00:21:51 bridge anymore as part of her duties. He laid this off on to Paul, which, wow, impressive delegation there by Archer. Love that. I mean, once you see how this version of Archer handles any sort of confrontation, I think you get it. Yeah. Well, also, if you have a Vulcan as your first officer, you want them to do all the firing, right? Because they don't care that it doesn't burden them at all emotionally. They'll never leave you open to something actionable in the eyes of HR.
Starting point is 00:22:27 That'll be a perfect firing. Everything is going to be totally buttoned up. And yeah, so she's out in the hallway now and Hoshi wants to use the elevator, but it like won't come when she calls. So she has to sneak on board and it sounded almost like CPR talk that she was hearing. There's like a little auditory hallucination where she hears people encouraging her to come through. She goes to Six Bay.
Starting point is 00:22:58 She wants to know if flocks can see her based on this experience she just had in the elevator. Flocks can. As a construction, you need the ghostly voices part of this episode, right? You really, really do. I don't think it works without. Yeah, I mean, I think it's that
Starting point is 00:23:17 and the thing of not getting a call when you haven't shown up for your shift for three hours. And getting hoshi topless. So those three things. We got the ghostly voices, the three-hour late call checkup, and then topless Hoshi. Yeah. I think that's called the Rick Berman hat trick. And they nailed it. They fucking nailed it. Faith of the fart. This podcast is sponsored in part by Squarespace. These are the people that make it easy to create
Starting point is 00:23:48 a beautiful website, engage with your audience and sell anything from products to content to time. All in one place, all on your terms. Squarespace Payments is the easiest way to manage your payments in one place with Squarespace. Get started in just a few clicks and give your customers more ways to pay with popular payment methods like Klarna, ACH, and Apple Pay. Make sure that in the new year, your website is looking fantastic. Go to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash scarves to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Are you tired of pillows that don't feature the faces of your favorite Star Trek podcasters?
Starting point is 00:24:31 Well, FOD's the newest drool-worthy merch is now at Podshop.biz, the completely normal and not at all parasocial Greatest Generation Pillow Collection. Now you can rest your weary head on the faces of two guys who are a little bit embarrassed about having a contest about whose face is less attractive based on sales. Check out these options. The Ben Pillow. Imagine that it's stuffed with his beard and pub clippings. Feel the scratchy comfort of. Stubble against your cheek as you drift off to the exact opposite of a wet dream. Or the Adam pillow. You'll sleep so
Starting point is 00:25:10 soundly next to his frozen un-laughing face. The last thing you'll think to do with this pillow is anything weird or bad. And for the true collector, the Ben and Adam Duo pillow. Double the faces, double the drool, double the concerning devotion to podcast hosts. Let's not explore all the possibilities. But wait, there's one last pillow. You'll want to complete your terrifying collection. Our special, holo.
Starting point is 00:25:38 Come on. Holo. Come on. Or pillow. Yes. Is it polo, poyo, or just pillow? Who knows? It's yet another quiz question.
Starting point is 00:25:49 Ben will get totally wrong. Attention, these pillows are for sleeping only. We know what you're thinking and know humping the pillows. Order now at Podshop.biz and use the code parasocial for 10% off your first concerning purchase. That's Podshop.biz for our new collection of totally normal and not creepy pillows. Hey, Sydney, you're a physician and the cohost of Sawbones, a marital tour of misguided medicine, right?
Starting point is 00:26:13 That's true, Justin. Is it true that our medical history podcast is just as good as a visit to your primary care physician? No, Justin, that is absolutely not true. However, our podcast is funny and interesting and a great way to learn about the medical misdeeds of the past as well as some current, not so legit healthcare fads.
Starting point is 00:26:32 So you're saying that by listening to our podcast, people will feel better. Sure. And isn't that the same reason that you go to the doctor? Well, you could say that, but. And our podcast is free? Yes, it is free. You heard it here first folks,
Starting point is 00:26:44 Sawbones, Merrell Ture, misguided medicine, right here on Maximum Fun, just as good as going to the doctor. No, no, no, still not just as good as going to the doctor, but pretty good. It's up there. It's hard to explain what happens on Jordan, Jesse, Go. So I had my kids do it.
Starting point is 00:26:58 Saying swear words. Saying swear words. Yeah, bad jokes. Bad jokes? Bad jokes? Bad jokes. Maybe it's like you tell people that you're going to interview them and then you just stay there like, like really quiet and try and creep them out. It's just really boring.
Starting point is 00:27:21 Because of Jordan, right? Not me. Because of both of you. Oh. Subscribe to Jordan Jesse Go, a comedy show for grownups. And you will never take the greatest chill alive. Ben would rather die. Rather die. What? Flax can see her. He doesn't buy the thing about the buttons being unresponsive. He's like, you know, this is all in your head. You just need to rub some dirt on it
Starting point is 00:27:46 and get your head right and get back in the game. She goes down to the gym onboard the ship and Trip is actually using the space camp device to work out. You're upside down, Ensign. What kind of workout is this? Is it like swimming where like when you use your whole body to stabilize itself, that's the ultimate whole body workout? It's like all core.
Starting point is 00:28:12 Your entire body is interacting with a form of a shake weight, I guess, in order to remain stable. It seemed like he was kind of like, like it wasn't like motorized, right? He was like doing the motions himself. You used to space camp G-Force machine in college, right? You were on the team. Yeah. Well, I wasn't on the team.
Starting point is 00:28:36 I just had one in my dorm room and my roommate hated me. When you hear that thing from the other side of the door, you maybe just go study in the library at that point. Yeah. Hat tip to the construction crew who puts this thing together. I've got to believe if you don't have that exactly right, if you don't have things torqued correctly across the instrument, you could probably really hurt yourself.
Starting point is 00:29:03 Oh, yeah. It seems like the sort of thing that could slice off a hand and not even lose any energy to it. It would just like, take fingers off. It seems maybe like, honestly like outside of that poisonous fish
Starting point is 00:29:20 that was kept in Picard's office, maybe this is the most dangerous prop that's ever been on Star Trek. What the fuck are they doing? No hard feelings coming from Tripp Tucker on having been taken hostage. That's totally fine. Didn't even tie us up. They're having a very funny conversation because he is rotating in three dimensions and she is doing like three reps at a time
Starting point is 00:29:45 on various weightlifting machines and then like stopping and moving on to another machine. There's a gym device that came out, I wanna say last year, that's like the mirror style gym. You stick it to your wall. Oh yeah. And then what the computer does is it's variable weights. So it changes the amount of drag per pump.
Starting point is 00:30:06 That's it. Get it. And I mean, if you're going to be generous about the number of reps that Hoshi is getting here, maybe this is just the ultimate expression of that. Like maybe three is all you need. Yeah. She's, she's doing like 150 pound curls. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:30:24 Three times is good. That's fucking amazing. So, you know, she's telling him about how she's been upset since the thing and her own personal Cyrus Ramsey experience. And he's like, you know, maybe you need to take some sedatives. And she says men are all alike. They're, I guess, all pro sedative. And she says men are all alike. They're, I guess, all pro sedative.
Starting point is 00:30:48 Have you found this in your travels? You know men. I haven't, and I don't know what she's talking about. It would have been great if they were in his sports bottle, though, and he was doing them and pass them to her. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. I'll wait and see.
Starting point is 00:31:03 A night's sleep will do you a world of good. You gotta be careful when somebody offers you pills in a gym locker room though, right? It's such a weird interaction between them. Again, like by the end, we understand that these are just Hoshi's projections of people and what her feelings are about them. And like, Trip is understandably just a real chill dude who
Starting point is 00:31:26 suggests like the least invasive kind of reaction to how Hoshi's feeling. And like, good for Tripp Tucker to just be like, look, Hosh, can I call you Hosh? Can I call you Hosh? Cause we're such close friends. Take a couple of these pills. Get yourself a good night's sleep. I would say we're close bros, but that's not really appropriate, is it? I like this idea of Tripp Tucker as a person. I would have liked to meet that Tripp Tucker. How did he get out of the space camp device?
Starting point is 00:32:02 Cause he leaves. Yeah, we don't see that. We don't get the three to four minutes of him slowly unbuckling and clicking and the rings like so slowly tilting back into their resting position before he can safely get out. And the like six crew people that have to come like hold it steady. For some reason this episode skips over that. He leaves and she tries to leave,
Starting point is 00:32:32 but the buttons won't respond. And now her hand is like passing through solid objects, but like not all solid objects, because wouldn't she be able to leave the room? Because she passes her hand through like free weights, right? Yes. But can't leave. When we cut to later, she has been sleeping on the floor
Starting point is 00:32:54 when T'Pol and Tripp Tucker walk in. Neither of them can see or hear her. And it's like a dream. Being able to hear what people are saying about you, I thought for sure this would be the angle that this episode took. A very similar angle to the TNG episode that Jordie and Ro were in.
Starting point is 00:33:14 Right. You know, like so much of that runtime was spent understanding, especially for Ro's part, like that she does not have to feel like everyone hates her all the time. Like I thought for sure this would be where the episode starts to maybe tell us a little bit about Hoshi and how she feels about things and how other people feel about Hoshi. Hey, that never happens. No attending your own funeral moment for Hoshi. And they're just wondering where she is. And later we get Archer and T'Pol questioning
Starting point is 00:33:49 Phlox about like, you know, I mean, like Tripp was the last person to see her and then Phlox is talking about how, you know, he scanned her and there actually was something wrong with their scans that he didn't notice the first time. And maybe if he, as a physician had just listened when a female patient was telling him something was wrong, we wouldn't be in this pickle.
Starting point is 00:34:10 I really love the blocking of the scene that is so familiar to like a Dick Wolf style. Dr. Flax has to stop mopping, and then he like puts his arm up on some crates to answer the detective's questions. Cause even like Archer and T'Pol being the investigators here are sort of arranged in that kind of way. That's very familiar to someone who watches that kind of TV.
Starting point is 00:34:36 I also just like the camera move revealing that Hoshi is there in the room listening. Cause you do not see her in the, in the initial composition of the shot. I love how small she makes herself in this moment. I think it's not just that she's there in the background, it's that she's kind of shrunk. She's shrunken in, like, actually in the scene,
Starting point is 00:35:00 but also it's a choice that suggests how she has to be feeling in proportion to everyone and everything else. Totally. So next thing to investigate is the transporter itself. And Tripp goes through the computer and sees that there's in fact something wrong with it. The secondary phase coils are out of alignment. And he gets a real survivor's guilt Tripp going at this moment, like, man, it should have been me. I should have gotten the lady first,
Starting point is 00:35:34 save mine for the end. You know, everybody's like, oh, come on, Tripp, don't do that to yourself. That's fine. And he's like really convinced that he's the one that should be missing. Pretty great or awful moment for Dr. Flax to pop in to be like, yeah, we're gonna need a microscope
Starting point is 00:35:51 to see what's left of her body at this point. Like she was probably reduced into kind of a fine mist that I mean, potentially we could pick up using our tricorders or whatever, but I don't know. I think that Scott Bakula, like when Fox comes in to say like we need to recalibrate our scans for residue, we get a single on Scott Bakula processing bad news. And I think like horrible news react is one of Scott Bakula's greatest gears as an actor. I absolutely agree. And I want to also point out that I'd like to see
Starting point is 00:36:29 most actors say the word residue in an emotional way, the way Scott Bakula does, because that is not easy. And that should be a fucking laugh line. But it isn't. Bakula acts his ass off in this scene. And that one word example is what I would point to. Hey, can you just say residue in like maybe the most emotional way you can?
Starting point is 00:37:00 That fucking sucks. I'm gonna take another run at it. Okay. Residue. Let's hear it, okay. Residue. Let's hear what you got. Residue? This gym sock is full of residue. ["Residue"]
Starting point is 00:37:21 Cause you really think it's where you So we get the single brass instrument of a captain coming to terms with the death of an officer who was a great disappointment to him the day before. And elsewhere in some tubes, Dr. Flax and TripTucker are bent over at the waist. This is the sort of tube that they're in. They can't stand straight up. They're in there scanning for the remains that Hoshi has maybe left behind. I like how Enterprise has like extreme versions
Starting point is 00:37:53 of Jeffree's tubes. Like we see in all other Star Trek's tubes where you have to crawl on hands and knees, but in Enterprise, it's like you can either shimmy like delicately through if you're a Hoshi sized person or it's a lot bigger than a Jeffreys tube, but you still can't stand straight up. This is a bad design.
Starting point is 00:38:10 I'd rather be crawling than bent over at the waist walking through this thing. This is dumb. It's a killer. Yeah. Yeah, so they find, you know, some goo. Hoshi is hearing like alien voices, but Flox and Trip are not hearing that.
Starting point is 00:38:26 And Phlox leaves and Trip has another just beat the shit out of himself sesh as he speaks to the goo as his dearly departed crewmate. I mean, this is the moment, right? This is him sort of eulogizing, but he kind of makes it about himself. What could I have been thinking leaving you down there? I was the ranking officer.
Starting point is 00:38:52 I would have made it more about why, why Dr. Flux is putting them remains in a paper envelope. Ha ha ha ha. It was just about a quarter size puddle of goo. Let's get this straight. What we're talking about here is the recommended amount of shampoo in terms of goo. And he's putting it in paper? Is this because he comes from a culture that doesn't use single-use plastic items?
Starting point is 00:39:18 How do you even send that home to a loved one? He's mad at Hoshi, Trip, that she didn't listen to him. Why did no one listen to Hoshi, Trip? Why are you not reflecting on that? She was walking around telling everyone she didn't feel right. She felt like her molecules were fucked up. She felt like her beauty marks were moving around on her face. Yeah, I mean they could only do what they could do with the information they had. That's what happened. And ignore the information she was offering. So, Hoshi hears more alien languages and she goes around a corner and finds a couple of guys cramming wooden shoes into every corner of the ship.
Starting point is 00:39:54 Hence the word sabotage. Fortunately, they also can't see her, but she realizes that the ship is in desperate straits. These must be the aliens that were taking hostages down on the planet or whatever, right? Yeah, and they're blue. Total shocker. I love seeing the tubes. The tubes, I think, are the best part to me.
Starting point is 00:40:18 It's not just that they're attaching what looks like little explosive devices to walls. It's that they're all chained together. Yeah. All willy-nilly. They're having like a LAN party for bombs. And she goes up to the clarinet closet and is trying to get Archer's attention, even
Starting point is 00:40:37 though she's invisible and inaudible. She wants him to know about these bombists. And because she is there, she observes Captain Archer getting her dad on FaceTime so that he can break the bad news about her untimely demise. And, uh, man, Archer is so bad at the, like, for as good as he is at receiving bad news, he is so bad at delivering bad news. I can understand being Star Trek by fuck Bokai, but
Starting point is 00:41:15 Archer is the absolute worst at conveying this message, and that you would get this guy on screen and go on and on about what a transporter is. When are you going to say that she's dead? What the fuck? Archer, you are so bad. So bad at this. It was infuriating.
Starting point is 00:41:40 It was really brutal. I mean, all fuck Bokai can do is be like, yeah, I guess I'm going to try to process whatever it is. You just said Are you driving at something in particular or Jesus only one episode for Keoni Young on this show I would have loved to get Hoshi's dad back more jobs for fuck Bokai. That's what I say I'm gonna canonically believe that Hoshi's dad back. More jobs for fuck Bokai. That's what I say. I'm gonna canonically believe that Hoshi's dad is fuck Bokai forevermore.
Starting point is 00:42:11 So instead of the episode pivoting into fuck Bokai and maybe like more of his background and his family situation. It would have been nice. Hoshi is working on sending an SOS using some lights on the ceiling in Archer's ready room. And it is so important that she is stretched out so far that her tank top clings ever tighter to her body during. She's like insinuating her fingers into the bulkhead and is able to cause a light to blink.
Starting point is 00:42:48 So she's trying to do an SOS and Archer notices it and correctly interprets it as an SOS and calls T'Pol in. SOS. And T'Pol is like, I don't know about this Morse code shit. It's probably nothing, Archer. Don't pay any attention to that. She totally talks him out of caring about this. SOS. SOS, It's a call for help. But also, you're the captain, and if you care about something, you can choose to care about it all the way. He's such a fucking dullard. He's so incurious
Starting point is 00:43:18 that he's like, all right. The bombers are still at work setting up all of their bombs. One of them goes into the engine room using what I believe is our first canonical example of hexagonal luggage in Star Trek. And he's putting a bomb up on the top of the warp core and Hoshi like goes back to that room that she found them in and interestingly comes up with a way to throw wooden shoes into their wooden shoes. Yeah it's pretty great. Her relationship to the aliens and the alien devices is so interesting in that like she can hear and see them they can't hear and see her she can sort of interact with their devices though in a useful way. They get frustrated and like, you know, yell at each other in alien a bit and then
Starting point is 00:44:14 it seemed like they kind of beamed in a transporter pad and then each beamed out on it. Yeah. And then they were going to just leave that behind, right? I guess if your end goal is to destroy the ship, you don't need any of that stuff anyway. Yeah. That stuff isn't evidence. She beams out too. She hops onto their transporter pad after they're gone and rematerializes on the entrepreneur, like right where
Starting point is 00:44:41 she materialized the first time. And what she finds out is that Trip and Reed have been standing there, not experiencing the same passage of time that she has. She just came up from the surface and this was just a little, they were like resolving a little glitch and for like a couple of seconds, you know, her matter stream didn't come together and she
Starting point is 00:45:04 was in the pattern buffer. And this was just a weird waking nightmare that she had because she was in like a limbo transporter state. It's wild to think about. Like for eight seconds, she was completely separated on an atomic level. Yeah. And yet there were enough atoms to produce a dream or a memory that she could maneuver within. She confabulated Cyrus Ramsay.
Starting point is 00:45:37 Cyrus who? Yeah. It was like the first thing I started wondering about as the reveal was done in this episode, and I was so glad that they addressed it. Like, nobody has heard of Cyrus Ramsay. Pretty amazing. Finally, in Six Bay, Dr. Flux gives Hoshi a clean bill of health. The same clean bill of health that she got in her imagination.
Starting point is 00:45:59 So that can't make her feel too good at this point. Not reassuring. She says, you know, the obligatory, I'm not gonna be doing that transporter nonsense anytime soon, shuttles for me from here on in. Nothing bad ever happened to anyone in a shuttle on Star Trek. Yeah. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Did you like this episode, Adam?
Starting point is 00:46:30 It had such potential, like as a spooky story, as a story that teaches us something about Hoshi or her relationship to other people. I mean, as an expression of her imagination, her hallucination does tell us a little bit about how she sees other people, especially Archer, who is depicted as even worse in her imagination than he is in real life. And yet, totally plausible in how shitty he is as a person, as a captain. Like, there was nothing about his behavior that made me feel like, oh, well, he sticks out in a weird way. Like, no, totally plausible.
Starting point is 00:47:13 I mean, as a Hoshi and Jim clothes episode, also like a great expression of that as a design to an Enterprise episode. I just wish that like, it was a little more toothsome in the ways that we tend to prefer episodes be about Mayweather. When Mayweather is tortured by his circumstances, we learn nothing about Mayweather before, during, or after.
Starting point is 00:47:39 And at the end of this episode, I feel a little bit similarly in that cool, it's good to learn about how she feels about other people. But like all the stuff that Triptucker expressed, hallucination Triptucker, I should say, expressed in the Turbolift was just a product of Hoshi's own imagination. We aren't really learning about how other people feel about her in any constructive way. So. Or how she feels about herself. Like the only like character trait that is really expressed over and over again is I'm nervous about the transporter, you know?
Starting point is 00:48:11 When she sees Fuck Bo-Kai on screen, that was, I thought, an opportunity to feel something deeply for her circumstances through her. Like that seems like the ultimate moment to be like, oh fuck, they're telling my parents this is real, this might be permanent. I love Hoshi for like always staying on mission and trying to figure out her circumstances. But like, I think it's also okay to recognize
Starting point is 00:48:41 how profoundly emotional a moment like that might be. And maybe because Fuck Bokai was also unemotional during, that would have made it clang a little bit if she was the only one falling apart. But I guess in general, I would have wanted to feel more during this ep than I did. Then just like, let's figure out the mystery. This should have been mystery and emotion,
Starting point is 00:49:05 and it was just mystery to me. What about you? Yeah, like if they'd established that her relationship with her father was really strained, and then he was like really torn up and she saw that, you know, like that could have like pushed her character in a direction of feeling like she needed to reconnect and, you know, repair something.
Starting point is 00:49:26 Like that's just one of a million directions they could have gone in. I think that I just found myself feeling very betrayed by the deus ex machina of, oh, it was all just in your imagination. And I mean, like to this episode's credit, I think it's about, you know, an important topic. Women like getting ignored by people
Starting point is 00:49:46 that when they're saying something is wrong, that happens over and over again. I think thematically an interesting thing to explore in an episode, but that we just get the carpet pulled out from under us at the end. It's like, yeah, it was meaningless. None of the people that were ignoring her were real people. That was just like solipsistic projections from within her mind. And the two seconds once her matter stream started to rematerialize, it just like, it
Starting point is 00:50:15 winds up being a bunch of Sturm and Drang signifying nothing. That's the quote, right? Sure is. Let's see what kind of either sturm or drang is in our priority one messages. Let's do it. Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secure Channel.
Starting point is 00:50:35 Need a supplemental income. Supplemental income. Supplemental. Supplemental. Yeah, it's extra. By the interest alone, could be enough to buy this ship. Adam, we have a promotional message today. It goes like this. Everyone knows when William Hartnell retired from Doctor Who,
Starting point is 00:50:56 the BBC put a new, different actor in the role, setting a precedent that allowed the show to continue for decades. What my theory presupposes is, maybe that works for podcast co-hosts? That's right, the Doctors Watcher, the classic Doctor Who podcast about every single episode of Doctor Who, just started on the second Doctor and has a new co-host. Listen to Kyle, aka Cage23 on Discord, tell his brother Ryan all about dr. Who
Starting point is 00:51:28 Had imagine having the sort of show where you change co-hosts Every time you get a new character. Oh, man That's something that I wouldn't like but I think you probably would that's the dream right there. How many? Doctor who's were there ever? Like 16? I think it's like how many stations are there in the Tokyo subway. It's sort of an uncountable number. I mean just as there are uncountable number of episodes in the Doctor Who oeuvre. The Doctor Who oeuvre.
Starting point is 00:52:01 Yeah. If you will. If we'd been smart we would have done a Doctor Who show because then you never run out. Instead, we've got finite resource that is Star Trek. I can't get purchase on Doctor Who as a thing. I've tried watching it in a number of spots, seeing if it takes. It's not taking. It's never took.
Starting point is 00:52:24 I don't think it's for me. I've never seen a single frame of it. Yeah. I don't even know really what it's about. I think there's a, there's like a police phone booth in it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love that people really like it. Maybe I still haven't found the right entry point after trying eight or nine times. Maybe I should just give up. I mean, there's always new doctors, so if one doesn't work, just wait a little while. Maybe I just haven't found my doctor. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:52:51 Well, if you'd like to get something in the priority one inbox, we'd sure appreciate it. Maximumfun.org slash Jumbotron is where you go to set one up. Hey, Ben. What's that, Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Incredible. Drunk Shimoda.
Starting point is 00:53:09 I didn't, Adam. This episode, I am not nominating a drunk Shimoda. I am nominating a Jim Shimoda. And my Jim Shimoda is Tripp Tucker for finally being somebody who has the balls, has the balls, has the courage to get on the Space Camp device and use it.
Starting point is 00:53:30 And he's having a great time doing it. That's gotta be a thrill for any actor to get in that thing. Yeah. Yeah, that's my Q&A question at any future convention that actor attends. I wanna know more about that. Pretty great. Yeah, indeed. How about you? Did you have a drunk Shimoda or Jim Shimoda?
Starting point is 00:53:48 If I ever go to Garrett Wong's house and see that thing there, I will not be surprised either. No, that's probably why he lives in Vegas. Just have a lot more space for his collection, including really large format items like that. He was stating the obvious again. Unfortunately, one of the legs is broken off and it doesn't stand upright anymore. Yeah. As many of these props are, they're a little battle damaged. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:54:17 Ben, my drunk Shimoda is gonna be hallucination Captain Archer. A man almost indistinguishable to me from the real thing. I love the idea that she goes to work every day and this is what she thinks of him. Holy moly, like show me the insides of every other bridge crewman and what they think of Archer also. Give me two episodes like that every season
Starting point is 00:54:44 and I'll be happy. I love that idea. Maybe we will get it. Maybe, maybe that will just be in my head. Well, Adam, let me put something in your head about next week's episode. It's season two, episode 11, Precious Cargo. Trip boards an alien cargo vessel to help repair a stasis pod, which holds a beautiful woman in suspended animation. When the woman accidentally wakes up,
Starting point is 00:55:11 she reveals she's not a passenger, but a prisoner. Hey, Trip's ready for romance again. He's been on the sidelines for a dozen episodes. And now I'm back. Ready for love. Ready for love. Ready for love and all of the above. Guest starring beautiful woman, Padma Lakshmi, this episode.
Starting point is 00:55:35 How about that? Yeah. That's great. Good for Padma. Do you want to find out how we will be recording this episode with me? If you do, head to gach.biz slash game where we keep the game of buttholes. The will of the Riker quantum leap. I'm going to roll
Starting point is 00:55:53 this 100 sided die, which is currently on square 83 could take us anywhere on the board. You're required to learn as you play. Roll. Oh, shit dog. I landed on a Naomi Wildman Square. All aboard! All aboard! This is the second time in a very rapid turnaround, I feel like, where each host must make a piece of artwork representing the episode and share it with the other,
Starting point is 00:56:23 and we have to post pictures of our artwork. The Naomi Wildman square has been on the board for a hundred episodes. More probably. And now we've hit it twice in the span of, I don't know, like less than 10, that's incredible. Yeah, it's especially interesting to like hit it randomly because we were having a meeting this morning where Rob was like
Starting point is 00:56:46 Yeah, like people really liked the artwork thing that you guys posted when you hit that Naomi Wildman square. You should do that again Can I have to get more Gatorade and drinking straws for the next episode? Wow. Well that will be next week's episode of the greatest generation Wow. Well, that will be next week's episode of The Greatest Generation. Thank you to everyone who supports the ongoing production of this show with a membership at maximumfund.org slash join. Really, really appreciate y'all. We also appreciate Wendy Pretty, our producer and editor, and the aforementioned Rob Adler, who runs the at greatest Trek social media accounts along with Bill Tilly, our temporal Cold War time consiguia. Hey this music you're hearing right now? It's by Dark Materia one of the greats one of the all-time
Starting point is 00:57:36 greats but our theme in interstitial music built constructed and auto-tuned by the great Adam Ragusea. He does great work and we're working with him on another show, it's called Wholesome. Check that out if you want to listen to another roughly 45 minutes of me and Ben and Adam Ragusea talking about the stuff that makes us happy in our lives. Yeah, it's been a very gratifying project, and I think the episodes are really good. It's true. Well with that, we will be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek
Starting point is 00:58:10 Enterprise and an episode of the greatest generation enterprise that is probably going to have to try to fight its way back in Last Chance Kitchen. That is a cooking show reference. Yeah, isn't that the one that Pod Maloxby's on? I don't know. Competition cooking show? I don't fucking know. Bye bye! You wonder why Star Wars is so much more popular. It's like so much more in the cultural imagination when there's no fucking sex at all in Star Wars. Like, the sexiest it gets is that time that guy kisses his sister.
Starting point is 00:59:01 Pretty sexy stuff. I guess so. Yeah, I guess that is what all porn websites are now. Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you. Hello, listeners of the greatest generation and greatest trek. It is I, Ben Harrison, along with my friends, Adam and Adam. We're the hosts of Wholesome, a brand new podcast about three friends sharing what they like with their friends. I've known Ben and Adam for many, many years, and I can tell you that I am learning
Starting point is 00:59:38 all sorts of new things about them over just the first handful of episodes. If you're interested in knowing any more about us, I think the Wholesome program is for you. Yeah, to spell it out for folks, so normally one of us drives the pod car for any given episode, and we will do sort of a written essay, you might call it, similar to what you knew and loved
Starting point is 01:00:01 from the Friendly Fire program that the boys did. And it will lead to, via often rambling routes, a topic that we would like to discuss for that day, which is something that we like, just something that we really love that we'd like to share with our buddies. Recent examples include, a sci-fi author I really like,
Starting point is 01:00:18 the car wash, steak houses, auxiliary refrigeration. And American football. This is a Patreon only podcast and once you've set up a membership, it'll give you an RSS feed that works in any podcasting app pretty seamlessly. So it's easy to do. It's a lot of fun.
Starting point is 01:00:40 And I think a lot of people that enjoy these programs will enjoy Wholesome. And to get it, it is patreon.com slash wholesome underscore pod.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.