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Transcript
Here's to the finest crew in Starlink.
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 Prianica.
And
we...
have something to talk about, Adam, because not at the same time,
not on the same day, you and I visited
Enterprise-D Bridge Actual.
Yeah, we did that thing where, you know, to preserve, what is it, like leadership continuity or whatever, we can't go to a place together.
Yeah.
We got to go separately and on separate days when we're talking about theme park visits like this.
Yeah, you were my designated survivor and I yours, sir.
Indeed.
But yeah, I think if you're on social media and have ever like tapped a star on a thing to do with Star Trek, you probably heard about the Universal Studios Hollywood Fan Fest Nights event that they were doing that included an experience where you get to go on the bridge of the Enterprise that they did for Star Trek Picard.
And we both got to do it in the last few days.
Yeah, we both went in May.
Tickets for this went on sale in January.
And like at the time, I wanted to ask what you were expecting then.
Because like, because all you had to go off of was like a couple of pictures and then like a cast, not a not a Star Trek cast member, but like a cast member of the park in a uniform, like gesturing.
It seemed like it was going to be a live-action thing.
You'd be able to go to the bridge and hang out and see it.
This being the Enterprise D bridge that was made for the third season of Star Trek Picard.
I bought tickets thinking, like, holy moly, I'm going to be sitting in some seats.
I'm going to be hitting some buttons.
That was what I thought this was going to be.
Yeah, the level of expectation I brought to this was basically zero.
Smart.
Because I have not had many theme park experiences since I was a small kid.
That was going to be my follow-up question.
Like, have you ever been to Universal Studios?
I had.
When I was a kid, we did like a family trip down to Southern California and we did Universal and Disney.
And that's a big week.
Yeah, it was a big week.
And I remember the E.T.
ride was new at Universal and was like,
I don't think my parents would have gone to Universal, but I'd seen lots of television ads for the E.T.
ride.
And I was like, we have to go to the E.T.
ride.
So, which I don't think is there anymore.
Yeah, not at all.
I mean, I think there was a section of it in the park that was all gray.
Yeah.
Like gray and dusty.
Yeah.
They just have to express love for it and then
it'll come back.
But I went with a friend who happens to be named Adam, but not you.
Wow.
I went with my wife.
My wife would never.
And he was a fun tour guide because he's like done Universal so many times
that like his pitch was this is going to be like horror nights in that there will be not haunted houses per se, but things on the model of haunted houses where you walk through and have an experience.
And that turned out to be like very, a very strong prediction.
Yeah, that's well put.
Because it wasn't just Star Trek.
There was also like a couple of anime things that I wasn't as familiar with that had events.
There was Dungeons and Dragons.
There was Back to the Future.
And, you know, like a bunch of different like IP kinds of properties had events going on at Universal.
Getting back to the expectation question, had had you also gone to Star Trek the Experience in Las Vegas when it was going?
No, I never got to see that.
I have watched like the YouTube videos of the walkthrough of it.
So I know a bit about what it was like.
I think that represents the hope that I had for this going in.
I think your friend Adam had a much more accurate prediction when he talks about like the haunted house walkthrough.
But I don't know about your night.
My night was one of the hottest nights of the year.
They should have called it Fest Nights hot.
So hot.
Oh man.
I mean, it was, it was like a 90 degree day in LA, like one of those two-day pops where it was like, we were in the 70s.
What the hell happened?
Yeah.
And then the park opens at 7 p.m.
That's that's the night element.
They close the park, get all the kids and folks out, and then they turn it over for this nights.
experience and then they let you in at seven and I got in pretty much at seven.
Yeah.
Started walking around.
We got in earlier than that.
Uh, there was like a $20 add-on charge that you could do to get you in at 5.30.
And we were so glad that we did that because they like everybody was getting kicked out, but most of the fan fest nights hot.
People had not gotten let in yet.
So there was like an hour where we could just like walk onto rides and walk into the experiences without having to wait in line, really.
That's great.
So when my wife and I arrived, like the first thing we wanted to do was like go straight to what you could just call Star Trek land, like the area where the Star Trek stuff was.
Yeah.
And the first thing that we saw was the Quarks Cafe setup, which was like a re-skinned place where you could get food and beverage and cocktails.
And then there was another side bar.
where they sold just cocktails.
And then in between those things, there was kind of a boulevard where there was a command chair from the Enterprise D setup.
And then kind of a banner.
Yeah, like a scrim that just had the back of the bridge printed on it.
Yeah.
I mean, they had the horseshoe.
The horseshoe was represented physically.
Did you get yourself a picture?
I got a picture.
I got a picture in the
chair.
And
yeah, so that stuff was actually not right near where the Star Trek Red Alert experience was.
It was.
But it's the thing you pass first on your way there.
Yeah.
And we stepped up to it.
Ride closed due to technical difficulties.
No!
So we went over to the Dungeons and Dragons experience.
Ride closed due to technical difficulties.
What happened?
I don't know.
Then we went back to the Star Trek thing and it was open at that point.
So I don't know what they were doing, but they had to reset something.
Here's the thing.
Once you go through
Star Trek Red Alert,
you wonder what technical difficulties there might have been to cause a closure.
Like very few failure points to this system.
Right, right.
By the time we got back, though,
because it had been out of commission for half an hour or 45 minutes, some demand had pent up.
And so we did have to wait in a bit of a line to get in.
Eventually, you do make it to the bridge of the D.
And there's places that you can go and places that you can't.
Like you can go up to the horseshoe and be up there in the back section, but you can't go into the area where, you know, the helm and the captain chairs and stuff are because that's where storytelling is happening.
And there's a bunch of actors.
Did you feel like this was a deception to arrive at the bridge and realize that, no, this is just a place for cast members to be?
Like you don't get to be in that part.
You're prevented from being there from a railing I didn't expect to be able to like sit in the captain's chair or anything like that yeah but I didn't either but I had hoped to be closer yeah I will say I was also just totally blown away at how much smaller it was than it is in my imagination like it is half the size of the of the space that I see when I watch Star Trek on television and yet that's that's what it was like that is the set that they used to shoot those scenes Yeah, these were average-sized actors and everyone on our tour group seemed like average-sized people.
Like the scale of the thing really felt different in exactly the same way.
Yeah.
I think that changes if you're able to get into the middle of it, though.
Yeah, maybe so.
Like being on the outer ring of it, I think matters than if you're inside looking out.
And I wonder if the number of people in the room also makes a difference because there's probably 40 or 50 people in there, right?
Like
between the groups and the actors.
That was pretty packed.
So yeah, I mean, I was geeking out.
I had a lot of fun getting to see it in person.
But yeah, it's over so quickly.
Like you walk through the next door and you're just like back out into the park and you're like, whoa, that was just a, there's just a door into the bridge that is like unmarked.
Yeah.
That if you like could get by the guy with the windbreaker.
Yeah.
Standing at that door, you could just walk onto the bridge at any time.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was it.
I mean, that was also my feeling, Abriel, that was it.
It's over.
It's over.
But by the end of your Star Trek experience, Ben, at the end of Star Trek Red Alert,
did you like it?
Was it good?
I'm really glad I did it.
I think that I would have regretted the spend on the ticket if I hadn't had a full several hours of theme park hangs with my buddy on either side of it.
You know, we did the Back to the Future thing and we did the D ⁇ D thing and we did basically every ride that was open, which was kind of a surprise to me.
I'm not like, I'm not much of a rides guy, but I had a lot of fun just like doing the whole thing and getting a little Star Trek experience in there was a real treat for me and made me think like a more fleshed out, like fully realized ride is something that I would love to see in a theme park like that and would love to go to.
It also made me think a lot about the Star Trek convention and how when you get those photo ops, like there's like a little 10 forward that you can go get your picture taken in or whatever.
It's only ever that, you know, it's never like the actual set built out and like full service.
Like you can't step to 10 forward and order a drink at the convention.
It's it's just there for a photo op.
And it was interesting to see them make a slightly more interactive version of the thing.
Yeah.
I kind of wished we'd like gone on on like one of the press days and gotten a slightly more boutique tour of it.
I feel like we would have had a better experience.
But yeah, they made it look fun.
It seems like they had a fun time there.
Yeah, it was cool to see.
How about you?
Did you like Star Trek colon red alert?
I think as with so many things Star Trek related right now, I'm glad that it exists and it is better than not having it.
Yeah.
But something that my wife told me as we were walking through all of this stuff and when we finished with Red Alert was that like
the enthusiasm that the fans had for this stuff was evident and everywhere and
full of spending money.
Yeah, it was so funny to see like a guy in a monster maroon.
Star Trek uniform like wandering around in front of the clock tower from Back to the Future later on in the evening.
But she said,
you know, you guys deserve more than this.
You deserve better.
Yeah.
Is what she said.
And I don't disagree with that.
Like,
they're so close to making this great.
Yeah.
But it's, it's like that last lap before the finish line of just like the final fit and finish, just a little bit more to make it be like an actual wow experience instead of like, oh, it's over.
Like the difference between those two things is the difference between something that you overpay for and something that you remember years afterward.
And I wish Star Trek was a franchise that just had more of that, that like recognized its own value, that recognized that like making an investment in itself is worthwhile because people come out no matter what it is, no matter how shitty your blue chicken burger is, people buy it because they love the franchise.
Yeah.
And these things open and they close and they don't last.
And even when they're around, they're just fine.
Like,
thank you for this.
But like, please, can I have some more?
Yeah.
Is my feeling afterward.
Yeah, I dig it.
God, I don't know how much more I could talk about this here,
Ben.
It turns out you can talk about it a lot, Adam.
We had a very long conversation about our universal experiences and captured a lot of pictures and videos, and those are are going to be available on our YouTube channel for those who are curious.
Plus, it's more fun to look at than listen to, right?
Yeah.
So if you'd like to see us visiting the Bridge of the Enterprise and Quark's Cafe and crap like that, click the link in the show description in your podcast app.
Feast your eyes on a totally insane-looking core dog.
You really want to see this thing.
Yeah.
Did you run into any friends of DeSoto while you were there?
I definitely got clocked by the cool kind of FOD that was like with their own people.
You know, like in Fight Club, when they recognize the Fight Club leaders, like when they're in the restaurant, they kind of get the what's up.
I got a couple zups, but I didn't get any interactions.
I had a couple.
That's great.
Yeah, one of which was somebody, I wore my
Neelix in the Netflix logo font shirt.
Sweet.
And somebody was like, hey, cool shirt.
And then was like, wait.
And then like later came back and was like, hey, you're not Ben Harrison by any chance, are you?
I don't like that your shirt was more recognized than you
in that interaction.
Yeah, I think that
a lot of stimulus in that environment, you know, a lot to look at.
Well, a lot to look at in our episode of Star Trek Enterprise.
What do you say we turn it on over to a review of it?
It's Star Trek Enterprise Season 3, Episode 6.
It's called Exile.
Gotta be a speech
And did you know
this was the first episode of Star Trek to air in high definition?
Whoa!
Big moment, huh?
They really pulled out all the stops.
Yeah.
A Roxanne Dawson directed episode, no less.
Yeah, she's getting a lot of reps on Enterprise.
That's cool.
She sure is.
So we start with Hoshi in the bathroom doing like her evening toilet as she hears someone calling out and asking if she understands him and this is sort of a whispering voice in the dark scenario
there's a version of a ghostly voice right
and these can take all kinds of forms one of them can be spooky like haunted house voice another version can be uh ghostfucker candle points sure
I would say on that spectrum, this is more ghostfucker right off the bat, isn't it?
Right.
This is not Eyes in the Dark.
We're expecting something horny to happen.
Yeah.
Especially with the like, you know, fair maiden alone in her chambers kind of imagery of it.
For sure.
There's a shadowy figure there and she reaches right out and pushes the call
Reed button, which is like, got to give you a little bit of like a bump, right?
Like, is this really who I want to call to come save me from Room Invader?
It's fucking Malcolm Reed.
How desperate do you have to be to call Malcolm Reed?
Holy moly, you're right about that.
This felt to me like it could have been kind of a scanner's moment too.
Like, is
apparition of a person appearing to you in a room part of the turning inside out process?
Like, is this how it happens?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I see someone first.
Oh, man.
I feel a special tingle.
I see a person in my room.
Dot, dot, dot.
Then I'm inside out.
Like there's a third thing.
We don't know what that is yet.
Yeah.
But after that, profit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's our cold open.
After the theme, we're in the command center, and Tapal shows Archer some information relating to
two spheres.
One is the sphere that they know about already, right?
They visited that one.
And Archer's like, I...
I know about two spheres.
I fell face first into them in a recent episode.
Exactly.
But there's this idea, a hypothesis about maybe another sphere
that may be out there.
And Archer's like, Are you fucking crazy?
Two spheres?
No way.
And then TePaul hits a couple of buttons that runs like a computer simulation that shows that
all of the anomalies that they know about in the expanse happen to be from where two spheres energies are crossing.
Yeah, they're sort of like irregular rays irradiating from each sphere, and where those rays intersect in space is where anomalies happen.
Yeah.
And if you know where the two spheres are, maybe you can tell where the anomalies are going to be and where you're going to run into trouble.
But in order to see the two spheres, you've got to undo something that you can't see that's out of you.
And you, if you aren't practiced at this,
like it can be a real awkward situation to reveal them.
To like reach the grappler around something and come in from the back that you can't look at while you're doing it.
No.
No, you can't, you can't look over the top either because that betrays that you may not know what you're doing or have never encountered such a thing before.
Right.
I mean, there's something that TePaul could have prepared Archer for here, which is that occasionally when you're very lucky, you encounter spheres where you can grapple right there in the front, in between the two spheres.
I mean, but that's, in my mind, that's just legend.
Like,
people have said that that exists, and yet I've never seen it with my own eyes.
There's no evidence that that exists in reality.
It's like,
yeah.
It's like ghost stories, you know?
It's like, okay,
I believe you believe that that happened to you.
How huge would this be if you could construct a predictable map of where these anomalies would occur?
It'd make it so much easier to navigate the expanse, right?
Yeah.
And not only that, like this hypothetical seconds view, not far away.
Close.
So Archer's like, cool, let's go to there.
Meanwhile, Reed is
looking into Room Invader.
on behalf of Hoshi Sato, and he cannot find any evidence that a person was on board the ship.
There's nothing in the logs.
There's nothing in the sensors.
What do you make of Reed's vibe here as he checks all the boxes here to Hoshi?
I feel like there is kind of a strong undercurrent of sometimes communications officers be crazy.
Am I right?
Yeah, but it's 2025.
Believe communications officers, you know?
Reed does do one good thing here, which is like puts himself on Hoshi's level.
Like the whole, you know, you know sometimes I feel crazy also
I occasionally hear things in my own quarters I admire how quickly you called for for backup because I would be into my third letter to an old girlfriend before I thought to do something like that
yeah Hoshi I mean this doesn't really do much for Hoshi when she hears this she She believes and she wants to be believed.
And right now, Reed isn't able to do that.
Maybe Dr.
Flox can, because in Six Bay,
she's undergoing an exam for what's happening, and Dr.
Flox can't find anything unusual with her condition.
Perfect health.
Yeah.
So basically, this is all in my head.
It appears to be.
Great.
Hoshi, at this point, I thought it was curious, gives a little more detail about her condition.
So, doctor, these are sounds and images.
You should know that it's kind of both things.
And look, I'm stressed.
Who wouldn't be?
We're in the expanse.
There's the constant threat of being turned inside out every fucking second.
Have you not felt this way?
Yeah.
But what she does not tell Dr.
Flox is that she has not told a superior officer about her hallucinations and has no plans to.
Oh, well, back to work.
Back to work.
They briefly touch on the idea that she could have been high, but there's nothing psychoactive aboard.
Nope.
And Flox is like, hallucinating under stress is something that I, as as a denobulin have a great respect for.
Yeah.
And would never relieve you of duty due to that.
Absolutely.
Because it's a gift in my culture.
Yeah.
In the command center, Hoshi hears that man's voice call her name.
And there's something even creepier about her name.
being called in this context.
And then like some real fun haunted house stuff happens here.
Hoshi's face is put up on all the screens.
And then like the screens display a picture of a planet and her face.
And it does like that infinity screen thing of like when you shoot someone in front of a monitor, like there's that whippy, blurry thing happening.
Yeah.
Real fun.
Real like Wayne's World public access TV effects energy.
This voice is attached to a man and that man is in the room, Ben.
Suddenly he's here.
And it's like he's here and she's on the screens.
And he's saying, you know, you're out here looking for something.
I can find things.
Like, that's what I'm good at.
And now she's not even on the ship.
She's in this like kind of move along home style hallway that's inside of a castle in the snow.
He's basically like formally inviting her.
Come check out my snow castle.
Do the words don't be frightened
most of the time make you feel exactly the opposite?
It's a close cousin of you can trust me, I would say.
Yeah, didn't like hearing that.
I am frightened when I hear don't be frightened.
I'm just going to say that.
I am suspicious when I hear you can trust me, you know?
Yeah.
So Reed wakes her out of her hallucination and in Six Bay, Dr.
Flox
still can't find anything.
And Reed and Archer are there too.
And they're concerned.
But the kind of concern that isn't totally believing what Hoshi's saying, it's definitely an undercurrent of that flowing through this interaction.
Captain is involved now.
They're in Six Bay talking about these hallucinations and how a person reaching out to her is not probably what's really happening.
So she's going to hang out in Six Bay for a little while until they can get to the bottom of whatever this is.
Kind of love that there's a hallucination protocol here.
Archer's like, all right, let's pretend that this is real.
If it is, we're going to put security near the armory in engineering.
That's sensible, right?
Yeah.
Almost as if he's asking a question, like,
so security around the armory?
Like that uptock thing, like, and engineering?
The food stores, maybe?
You know?
Yeah.
I don't know.
While that was totally sensible from Archer, the thing that is totally insane that he does in this scene is tell Hoshi that she can sleep in Six Bay.
And this is a punishment that Archer knows a lot about, personally.
and what I believe is a cruel and unusual sentence to be giving Hoshi.
Does this underline a failure of empathy that is at the core of Archer's character?
Like, he doesn't give a shit if he is making somebody else do it.
I wonder if he just doesn't remember.
Like, he was just in there sleeping with his dog.
Yeah.
Like, going through that whole thing.
We can assume that that's what's going to happen to Hoshi.
She starts feeding the fish once everybody leaves, and she's talking to Flox about the experience of telepathy, like having somebody else's thought in your head in a way that you can hear it is a unique thing.
And she's kind of trying to describe it to a Flox who is now the guy
and explaining that he's been in her head for several days.
He's been rummaging around in there, getting to know her.
Studying your mind, your memories, learning so many things about you.
How good is Billingsley here in this moment?
Absolutely skin-crawlingly creepy when it's revealed.
Wow.
Yeah.
Did they do like a thing where he was like on one side of the frame and then he like ran behind the camera position to be on the other side of the frame or something like that?
Maybe.
There's a lot of fun
haunted house style in-camera trickery happening this episode that makes it a lot of fun.
It's a fun one.
That stuff only works in high dev, you know?
Yeah.
They waited until now.
If we change the words,
then it's fair use all day long.
He explains that Hoshisato has a unique mind that can process his strange brand of telepathy.
And, hey, he just wants to meet.
Like, the kind of mind that he can do this with is very rare.
So exciting for him to come in contact with one.
And also, like, look at at what he really looks like.
So handsome.
No loaf.
No loaf.
The conventionally good-lookingness of this guy, I also found very suspicious.
Hey, you can fuck me.
You can fuck me.
This guy is like modeling menswear in a clothing catalog, you know, like that kind of good-looking.
A Mervin's grade hunk, I would say.
Yeah, absolutely.
For the clothes you love to live in.
So she talks this over with with Archer in the Clarinet rental closet.
No word on how she was able to convince them that she could leave 6 Bay, but she's in the Clarinet Rental Closet talking about this experience.
And he's like, I mean, like, I'm sympathetic.
I want to help.
But it's a tough pill to swallow.
And she's like, well, let me just go visit him.
Like, it's close.
It's also close.
Sphere number two, I know why you want to go to sphere number two.
Listen, I understand that you want to go to sphere number two.
Can you remember an episode I've been a part of the A story in?
Like, it's time.
I think that's reason enough to meet with him.
He's like, okay, okay, we'll give you a little bit of A story.
We'll go to this planet.
We see it.
It's just like the one that we saw on the monitors.
Take down a shuttle pod.
And they're in that move-along home hallway, just like in her previous telepathic encounter.
And Hoshi really seems to know her way around this place.
She's been here before.
She has.
Yeah.
Weird.
Weird how many candles there are on an alien mountain castle world fortress.
Yeah, because this guy has to go personally light all of those, we learn later.
Yeah.
I mean, it's something to stay busy, right?
Like, that's it, isn't it?
When you're living an extremely long life alone, like, you just got to come up with routines.
probably.
You need to construct a life worth living.
And for this guy, lighting candles is a big part of it.
Right.
Ben, I thought this alien looked like a version of the parable of the blind man painting an elephant, except he's a blind man cosplaying as Coolio without actually knowing exactly what Coolio looks like.
I did my own makeup.
Yeah.
It's me.
It's Coolio.
Yeah, you do look like you walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
His name is Tarquin,
and he starts out feeling pretty bad about the pictures on his dating app not exactly matching up to how he looks in real life.
I'm obviously not what you expected.
He is still offering to help, though.
He's like, I know you guys are here in the expanse looking for something.
And, you know, I know from having rummaged through Hoshi's brain that...
I just can't say it enough.
I've been in there kind of a lot.
That thing is the Zindi, and I want to help you find them.
So if you can get me one
object manufactured by them, because every species that has manufacturing capacity leaves their essence in the objects that they make.
And that will be a totem through which I can hunt these guys down and tell you more about them.
I'm not going to say this out loud.
I might only suggest it telepathically.
But if this object could be in some way
plug-shaped,
That would really help me out a great deal when I'm left alone with it to do my psychic business with this thing.
I could arrange to have something sent down.
How much time would you need with it?
No more than a few days.
You don't know how it works for my psychic business.
You're gonna give me something plug-shaped.
I'm gonna go around this partition
Do some stuff to it and then by the end of it.
Yeah, I'm going to tell you what its story is.
I mean, go around this partition.
You will see some garments of mine go over the edge of it and drape onto it.
You don't need to ask a lot of questions about what's going on back there.
Again, Ben, we must emphasize none of this was articulated verbally.
It was all telepathically said.
Yeah.
What is said is he's alone on this planet and he would really like some company while he's doing this.
And that's kind of the price of his help.
Like if
they want him to tell them where the zindi are and where they're manufacturing this weapon which he can do they're gonna have to leave hoshi there with him and they're like perfect well we're going to uh to check out a second sphere so good deal we'll just leave hoshi here she can camp there is that tension though of like the yikes of this being a condition of the help being offered and then archer in the moment shuts it down But on Enterprise, like Hoshi's growing comfort with the deal,
I think the episode wants you to believe that this is something that Hoshi truly wants.
Yeah.
Hoshi wants to stay in the A story.
This is a condition to staying in the A story, is what it is.
Yeah.
I can take care of myself, Captain.
So they give him a piece of the Zindi bomb that cut Florida up.
It's in like a little pelican case, and when Hoshi hands it to him, he does that horrible thing where he drags his rotten dog dick finger across the back of her hand.
God, we got to talk about these fingers.
This is clearly a tape job between the pinky and the ring finger
that makes for one thick finger.
Yeah.
And then like three other like appendage fingers.
It's not the lobster claws of a traveler, but it's like half a claw.
It is.
It's like a pruner.
Oh, yeah.
Like, you know how when you're like pruning a thorny bush, the pruner's got that half moon cutter part?
Yeah.
And then the straight top part, that's what his hand looks like.
It's really horrific.
You can't believe that they cut right from this to a banquet scene where he's prepared a long table with all of the delicacies of earth, such as Hawaiian pizza, macaroni and cheese, and a hamburger.
I love that these are all room service meals.
They're only notable for that.
Like, these are room service meals only available on the late night menu at a hotel that still serves food.
Do you always eat like this?
Only when I have company.
I thought it was also very funny that clearly they had three different scenic food stylists on staff, one for each dish, because they were styled so differently.
Like, the burger is like the burger from a fast food commercial that looks like...
perfect and like perfectly composed on the plate.
The pizza looks like it came out of the fucking microwave and the mac and cheese looks like they ran over to craft services and just scooped some out of a dish over a can of sterno because they were like, ah, we need a third thing.
I think the pizza is maybe the worst Star Trek food I've ever seen.
Like the DiGiorno been sitting on a plate for two hours-ness of it
was notably awful and that she grabbed it first.
You have certainly done your homework.
I've enjoyed it.
That burger was right there.
There's no way that's the first bite.
The burger looked good.
I'm taking a fork full of the mac and cheese if I got to do a first bite here.
I feel like, yeah, like you're going to be able to extrapolate from what the mac and cheese is like, whether the rest of it is going to be edible.
Also, would you trust the food from this guy?
He says that he programmed his replicators based on her memory of the way things tasted.
I mean, that power sounds pretty awesome.
Like, if you can go into a sense memory of the best thing you ever ate and reproduce it for its greatness, that sounds fantastic.
It does sound cool.
But there is no way this slice of pizza is notable to Hoshi for its taste.
It works, though.
She thinks it's good.
Yeah.
And apparently, Hoshi does not eat with her eyes first.
She chomps this pizza and he starts telling her about what it's like being him.
He got kicked out of his homeworld for being a telepath.
It's a rare condition this day and age.
And they are all subjected to isolation.
And
what he has identified in Hoshi is a kindred loner spirit.
Like, you're just like me.
You don't fit in.
You don't have any friends.
And he starts talking about her in a like, I mean, he's been rummaging around in her fucking brain for four or five days now.
He's got essentially a super intense parasocial relationship with her where he knows everything about her, including what gross ass pizza she prefers.
And she knows nothing about him.
This show came out before the concept of nagging, I think, was like in the zeitgeist, but he's nagging her, isn't he?
Oh, shit.
That explains the huge hat with a feather in it that he's wearing.
Not even your parents could deal with you.
Your grandma.
was the only one that could put up with your shit.
Like, Jesus, Tarquin, do you know how you sound?
Somehow, she's comfortable enough to go to sleep in this man's weird house.
Tell you one thing, my choices in sleepwear are a lot different from Hoshi's.
Yeah.
If I'm in this circumstance, probably wear like some hockey pads.
I'm wearing a fucking sleeping bag, like with legs and arms.
Like Maggie Simpson?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's so awkward.
Like, like he kind of, he does like the walk to the doorstep that you do on a date.
That is instead walk to your room to go to bed.
And he's like, all right, so I got a big work day tomorrow.
You can just have a look around or whatever or read this book if you're looking for something to do.
Yeah, this language is dead anyways.
Just one last creepy thing to say before we go to bed.
And then he's off.
Yeah, the rule is don't go outside.
Yeah.
Real windy out there.
It's a gusty mountain peak that this castle has been built into, so not safe.
Legally, it's just a far jump.
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Friends of DeSoto, we survived Star Trek Las Vegas 2025.
All seven days of it.
And boy, oh boy, do we have thoughts?
So many thoughts that we just had to record a very special bonus episode about our experiences with me and Ben, but also producer Wendy and our social media concigliary Bill.
You'll get an honest review of things, all the gossip, the stuff that worked, the stuff that didn't, and some big takeaways as we plan for next year.
So if you want to know what STLV was really like, the bonus feed is how you find it.
By the way, this bonus episode, like all of our monthly bonus episodes, are available to everyone who supports the shows at maximumfund.org slash join.
It's easy to do, so go to maximumfund.org slash join to get our special episode about stlv 2025 and all the great episodes that we put out every month
you know we've been doing my brother my brother me for 15 years and maybe
maybe you stopped listening for a while maybe you never listened and you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years i know where this has ended up but no
No, you would be wrong.
We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.
Yeah.
You don't even really know how crypto works.
The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on My Brother, My Brother, and Me.
We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.
And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.
So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.
All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.
Let's learn everything.
So let's do a quick progress check.
Have we learned about quantum physics?
Yes, episode 59.
We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?
Yes, we have.
Same episode, actually.
Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?
Episode 64.
So how close are we to learning everything?
Bad news.
We still haven't learned everything yet.
Oh, we're ruined!
No, no, no, it's good news as well.
There is still a lot to learn.
Woo!
I'm Dr.
Ella Hubber.
I'm regular Tom Lomb.
I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.
And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.
Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.
You will never take the greatest kid alive.
Bam would rather die.
Rather die.
We cut back to the entrepreneur at Warp heading off in the direction of Sphere.
And speaking of Spheres, Archer is hanging out in his ready room, bouncing the water polo ball off the bulkheads.
What was that?
He was bouncing a water polo ball off the bulkheads at him.
Oh, Ben.
You know whenever.
There's a depiction of water polo on Star Trek Enterprise.
Does this count?
It is time to play the hit game show within a podcast called Polo.
Polo?
Come on.
Porfoyo.
Come on.
All right.
I told you.
Best sport in the world.
One part basketball, one part swimming,
one part wrestling.
I didn't know it was such a rough game.
Today's game is a surprise, as it has been many months since we've last played this game.
And so this round will have three questions.
One each about a surprising aspect of horse polo, water polo, or a chicken recipe fact.
Okay.
Let's begin with question one, Ben.
My body is ready.
I feel like I'm about to fucking crush this.
What unusual tradition do elite horse polo players observe before championship matches?
A.
They sleep with their mallets under their pillows for good luck.
B,
they feed their horses honey and champagne for extra energy.
Or C, They wear mismatched socks to confuse opposing team members.
So this one is about horse polo's unusual traditions, Ben.
Okay.
Number one sounds too uncomfortable.
Like you'd get a bad night's sleep and therefore not be at your best the next day.
I don't believe the mismatched socks thing would be that distracting because there's a whole horse in between Sock A and sock B.
Yeah, are you distracting the horses or the other riders?
So I'm gonna go with honey and champagne being fed to the horses.
Because this sounds like some rich people shit.
Yeah, it does make a lot of sense, doesn't it?
Wrong!
Damn it!
Elite horse polo players have been known to sleep with their mallets under their pillows for good luck.
How superstitious is that?
Baron.
That sounds like bad luck to me.
Here's question two:
What bizarre training method was invented by the Hungarian water polo team in 1998.
A.
They practiced holding their breath while reciting their national anthem underwater.
B, they trained in tomato juice to build resistance to chlorine irritation.
C.
They wore weighted belts while playing against other professional swimmers.
Wow.
You know, I love Hungarian food.
I'm picturing this tomato juice with paprika in it.
Oh, yeah.
Water polo paprikash, they call it.
You want to throw away the towels after getting out of the pool in that session.
Oh, yeah.
Their hotel has coated the walls and floors with saran wrap.
Yeah.
That's just too fun.
I got to go with practicing in tomato juice.
Lock it in.
Locked in.
Wrong!
Weighted belts.
While they played against other professionals.
It does make sense.
Yeah, less mess that way.
While playing against other professionals is...
I mean, that's that's gutsy.
I know.
Question three: What surprising secret ingredient is essential in the award-winning Festival Pollo dish from southern Mexico?
Mexico?
Mexico?
Mexico.
A.
Chocolate and cinnamon mixed into the marinade.
B.
Coffee grounds rubbed under the skin before roasting.
C.
Crushed pineapple leaves soaked overnight with the meat.
Mmm.
I've done pork chop with coffee grounds in the dry rub, and that's really nice.
Yeah, that's good.
I can see it working for chicken as well.
Of course,
that first one sounds like a mole, maybe.
Trying to remember whether Oaxaca is in southern Mexico.
Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.
I don't know my Mexican geography that well, so...
I feel like there's probably some tenderizing properties in these pineapple leaves or something like that.
So I'm going to guess pineapple leaves.
Final answer?
Final answer.
Wrong!
Damn it!
Fuck!
Chocolate and cinnamon mixed into the marinade bin is essential to making an award-winning festival pollo.
Famous in southern Mexico, Ben, you have utterly lost.
This game of Folo Bolo
or Boyo.
Very demoralized.
Let's just get back to the episode.
I didn't even know it was such a rough game.
There's anomalies, you can tell, because the ball gets stuck in the bulkhead, like that one lady on TNG that fell through the floor part of the way.
Do you think they wanted to put someone in a wall and they thought, I guess we'll just do the ball?
Yeah, it's been done.
It's been done.
Can't bite our own rhyme.
They're not just isolated to Archer's room either.
They're all over the ship.
They're in the corridors.
They're in engineering.
They're on the bridge and they're like blowing hull plating off the saucer.
Like, these are raining bangers onto the ship.
Kind of look like some hull plating like boiled away into space in that one chunk.
And yeah, they come to an all-stop because these are much stronger anomalies than they encountered on that first sphere.
And they're just going to get torn apart if they keep going.
They come up with the idea of, well, we didn't put the trellium all over our ship.
because Tepala's here and we didn't want to like drive her crazy again, but we still have that Trellium.
So let's get a shuttle pod put together.
It'll only take a couple of days for Trip to reconfigure one of the shuttle pods with Trellium.
Yeah, this is not spray insulation.
This really sounds like it takes some time and effort to do.
Yeah.
But they're going to get started on that.
And we cut back
to Hoshi next morning, I guess, finding Tarquin.
in one of the many rooms in his ice castle.
And he's got the plug in one hand and like a glowing crystal crystal in the other hand yeah he's working the artifact he's doing what he promised yeah i'm sorry i didn't mean to disturb you knock on my door knock next time what is that big blue crystal for
it is a telepathy extender according to Tarquin.
And she can play with it if she wants to.
I was so glad he didn't tell her that he uses it instead of antiperspirant.
Yeah.
It's just as effective and it's all natural.
Oh, is it just as effective?
Interesting.
I think everyone goes through a phase trying out the crystal.
You got to learn by trying with the crystal, I think.
You got to learn by smashing against the rocks of romantic opportunity that the crystal does not work.
Yeah, the crystal does not want you to bone down.
Yeah, so he doesn't have a location yet, but he's like learning things about the Zindi.
He's like, did you know that there's like a bunch of different kinds of Zindi?
And she's like, yeah, we had figured that much out.
I mean, I would think that if you figured out Hawaiian pizza, you would have known that.
This really felt to me like the magician or the futurist or whatever doing crowd work
and like asking a question that you could guess almost with complete certainty about the answer, but like in the room, it's like, whoa.
Oh, how did he know that there were five species of Zindi?
Does he know what the fifth one is?
Stay tuned to find out.
I feel like you shouldn't just give someone the big blue telepathy extender without saying fairly clearly that you were going to get a rush of imagery.
Because when Hoshi holds onto this thing, she is zooming through.
some images of past episodes, Star Trek Enterprise.
She's not scared by the end of it, right?
She's just kind of done.
Yeah, I felt a little bit similar at the Universal Fan Fest nights, hot,
which was we got out of there and there was no line anymore for Star Trek Red Alert.
And my friend was like, hey, do you want to go again?
I mean, we can just go again.
And I was like, I just think I'm done.
That was the feeling exactly.
We dissolve to later,
and Hoshi is still still walking around Hoshi's castle.
She finds the garden center, and then, uh-oh, she pushes open a door and walks outside, a place she was told very specifically not to go.
What does she find there?
Graves
and headstones, and Tarquin takes great umrage with this.
He's like, hey, Hoshi, I told you not to go outside.
Yeah.
What are you doing?
How'd you like to find out that all of the previous girlfriends of the guy you're on a Tinder date with are in the ground.
Yeah, these are folks he's called his companions, and that doesn't help.
We learn a lot more about him in this scene as she confronts him in the frigid cold while wearing her shift dress.
He's over 400 years old.
Which means that was a big blue pill he was messing with earlier, right?
Yeah, it's a telepathy extender, all right?
Yeah, you can try it too.
I actually like if I crunch this up and snort it, actually, it works a lot better.
Yeah, you know those ads you hear on some less reputable podcasts?
That's real.
Like those compounded ones are,
they act quicker.
We're going to have to be careful, though.
If my telepathy is extended for longer than four hours, we might have to take a trip to the emergency room.
So these were his companions, and it begins to seem like Hoshi is sort of on deck to be the next companion.
And he would like that to be a fair exchange.
Like you become my companion and I help your ship.
I will make good on my side of the thing, figuring out everything there is to know about the Zindi and giving them sort of a cheat code to defeating the Zindi weapon as long as you will stay with me.
That seems pretty fair, right?
Like seven million of your people died.
This is a sacrifice you might actually want to consider.
Ben, I'm as ever willing to be humiliated by Wendy when I say this, but I'm I'm almost positive at no point does Hoshi say the word no to this offer.
It is something like, we barely know each other.
It's only been two days.
I'm on this mission.
It's important.
But I have no intention of becoming your next companion.
She is definitive, but not declarative.
I already told you, I'm not interested.
And I wonder if that's like...
A Hollywood script trick.
Like, you can't say no because it's too definitive for the sake of drama.
It may be that, but it's also just that, you know, women are socialized to deflect and defer rather than to specifically say no, oftentimes because of the threat of male violence.
I'm surprised you didn't know that, Adam.
It was not the first thought on my mind.
No.
I'm glad you're here, Ben.
I won't cease or desist,
because you really think it's very useful.
He goes back into hunk mode as he tries to like complete the hard sell on this.
He's like, you know, like, you're a linguist.
You love making unique connections with other minds.
What am I if not that?
It's like, look, Hoshi, we're kind of on a time crunch here.
Like, did you see the size of the telepathy extender I took?
Like,
we gotta go, okay?
Like, I'm not gonna sit here in this condition.
I kind of thought you were sending signals, so I got ready.
And if you're not ready, like, I don't know how to close the circle on that because I am fucking ready.
Is my face a little red?
Like, I kind of feel like a speedy heart rate.
I kind of feel a little flushed.
Is there anything, like, even if you don't want to go all the way, is there anything you can do for me just to like get us out of this little predicament?
If the answer to that is no, uh, do you think you could just take a walk around the castle while I kind of take care of the situation?
Aren't there any errands you can run?
I just, yeah, I just need this wing to myself for a little while.
So we cut on this terribly suspenseful note of whether this guy's going to get blue crystals or not.
Crystals.
Back to Enterprise where they're launching this modified shuttle.
And I was so disappointed that the shuttle looked exactly the same.
I wanted it to have blue armor or something.
No, it's just your standard old shuttle pod with Archer and Trip inside.
And they pass through an anomaly and nothing happens.
Yeah.
Insulation works.
It's amazing.
I love that moment where you like hold your breath.
We're good.
We're good.
And so they head in the direction of the cloaked sphere.
And Tepal is on the radio kind of guiding them in based on coordinates and so forth.
Suddenly bangers hit.
But these aren't anomaly bangers.
It's what it feels like to go through the membrane.
And then they're on the other side.
And then they see it.
Another sphere.
It's real.
It's real.
Their sensor relays got cooked by...
going through the barrier though.
So they decide to land aboard this sphere and hop right out in their EV suits on the surface of the sphere.
And I guess Trip is going to like try and fix the sensors so that they can get the scan of the sphere that they came here for.
But when Trip gets a panel off of the shuttle and starts messing with it, he accidentally triggers one of the thrusters to fire and the shuttle takes off, sort of like a kid losing purchase on the string of their balloon at the zoo.
That's so funny you mentioned that.
Like, such a white hot sense memory came back to me of, like, a hot air balloon taking off and Bam Margera holding the rope as it like pulls him into the air.
Let go, let go, let go, let me go let go, let go, you asshole.
Hold on, don't you care for like 100 feet high.
I was like, this feels like that moment where like, shouldn't you try to get on board?
Because like, that's your ride out of there.
Yeah.
Like, it takes them a long time to come up with the idea of shooting the thruster.
Yeah.
So the shuttle is like pretty far from them by the time they do that.
Shoot her!
Shoot her!
He's like holding on to it and Trip's hand like slips through his arms.
If you were to guess how many attempts it would take to shoot the thing that they need to shoot on the shuttle to get it to fall back down, would you have guessed seven or eight shots?
as it is in this scene?
How many fewer would it have been if crack shot Malcolm Reed had been on the away mission?
I mean,
would Reed have shot or would he have gotten right to work on those letters as the shuttle lifted off?
Hard to say.
So it lands.
Because of the gravity, I thought that was neat.
Like, you don't just shoot the thing and it keeps floating.
It comes back down.
Yeah, and it kind of like bounces to a halt right in front of them.
Fun.
It's nice that it didn't crush them.
Yeah.
They get their scans and head back to the entrepreneur, and it's time to head back to pick up Hoshi.
In Hoshi's castle, Tarquin tells her that, all right, well, Enterprise is going to be here to pick you up.
And boy, I've learned a lot about this indie weapon.
Anyway, you're going to stay, right?
Kind of presuming the affirmative here, where he has absolutely zero evidence that that's going to be the answer.
I mean, the evidence that he's going off is the fact that she has yet another skimpy nightie.
Like she packed for this trip with a lot of nighties that sort of imply a comfort and leisure in the environment that maybe is not a signal she wants to be sending right now.
I mean, I'm not trying to blame her for what she's wearing.
Yeah, I mean, shocking admission by your part, Ben, to suggest that she was asking for it.
No, I'm just saying she made herself too cozy,
you know?
Yeah, here's a little advice, Tarquin.
Be honest with the next potential companion about your intentions, dude.
Yeah, she can't be a lifelong companion.
That's, you know, like when she
swiped on his profile, there wasn't anything about lifelong companionship in his profile, you know?
She thought that they were looking for the same thing, but they're not.
And he's got to just, you know, there's plenty of other fish.
You just got to lead with what you're actually looking for, man.
When Hoshi puts on her uniform, I couldn't help but think that this was like a chastity uniform.
Like, why weren't you wearing this the whole time, Hoshi?
Not that what you were wearing before was asking for it.
Definitely not saying that.
I'm saying, like it was just cozy it was like you were making yourself at home to an idiot who doesn't sense the signals like this 400 year old asshole like maybe the uniform is a better choice oh man 400 year old asshole was a mental image that just yeah popped into my mind wow wow so Archer's here now and he is very pleased with the information that Tarquin has provided him and he's like man this guy, this guy is the goods.
And here's a thought, Hoshi.
This is just coming to me now, but
why don't we keep working with this Tarquin guy?
He seems to really get along with you.
You seem to help him get results in terms of
working with his blue crystal and whatnot.
Why don't we keep doing the mission?
You hang out here and he can kind of forward information to us as it comes in.
And, you know, you can make a decision about long-term companionship down the line when the mission's over.
I just need you to know as your captain, I think Tarquin's great.
He's attractive.
He's funny if you just give him a little time.
Some of his references are a little
strange to someone who doesn't know him that well.
But he's clearly got money.
I mean, look at this house.
Yeah, I know.
And Hoshi's like, all right, well, I guess I'll just come like pack up my quarters.
And Archer's like, not so fast.
We'll send all that stuff down to you.
We don't want to give Tarquin the idea that you're leaving or anything.
If you want to write any letters, we'll just tell Reed to write letters to folks like Travis and so forth.
And Hoshi's like,
did you say Travis?
The man I was thinking about, but not saying the name of?
She caught him dead to rights by bringing up the one member of this crew that no one would ever bring up.
The one man who doesn't belong anywhere near the A story of an episode.
It's just like being back in the wood.
Who are you?
Inson Travis Mayweather.
Parents must be very proud.
When I was a kid, we called it the sweet spot.
Who are you?
I'm the helmsman.
I guess growing up a boomer has its advantages.
And your mom very proud.
That's true.
It takes practice.
Other than keeping Inson Mayweather up at night, I'm not sure what we expect to accomplish here.
We cut back to Enterprise, and isn't it weird that the signals being jammed when they tried to radio Hoshi?
Uh-oh.
What the heck?
And then the power went out.
And by power, I mean all systems on the entire ship, the entire ship's power is out.
And that's pretty dangerous.
So Hoshi has realized now that she is not talking to her captain.
She's talking to Tarquin, who's in her mind projecting images.
And he's like, hey, listen, I can't let you leave.
Like, if you agree to stay with me, if you, you know, I know it's under duress at this point, but if you agree to stay here with me, I will let your crew live.
And she's like, you're taking my ship hostage?
I'm taking your fucking crystal hostage.
Yeah.
And if you're 400 years old, you start to understand just how important a giant blue crystal of a telepathy extender is.
Yeah.
I mean, even if you're alone, like you just want the ability.
Yeah.
I mean, it's just, it's nice to feel young again.
Hoshi says at another part in the episode that she has a phaser.
I really wanted her her to hold a phaser up to this thing.
But instead, it's held as if she's just going to turn her hand over and the crystal is going to explode once it hits the floor.
Right.
And that's still usable if you're talking about that amount of blue telepathy extender, right?
Right.
Like, we know that this guy's got, you know, a Ralph's discount card in his wallet that he can use to chop that dust up and get it going.
Yeah.
But yeah, holding the crystal hostage works.
And he's too desperate to keep his crystal.
So he turns the ship back on.
And she hails them up.
And that's that.
No actual new information on the Zindi was gathered.
That was all a ruse.
Huge fucking waste of time.
Yeah, it seems like of the two missions, the Archer mission on the sphere got a whole bunch more information that they can use than what Hoshi did.
Because Tepala's made a nearly accurate map of the anomalies now, and she's started to do the math on this.
And she's like, ah, shit, this means that there's not just two spheres.
And Archer's like,
holy shit, what do you mean?
She's like, there's 50 spheres.
And he's like, yeah,
50 spheres.
So we're talking about like
the belly of a pregnant dog amount of spheres in the expanse?
You're never going to let that go, are you?
Wow.
Amazing to think about.
Whoever built them must have been incredibly horny.
Code over to Hoshi's room and she's reading that book that Tarquin gave her.
I guess she's the type of reader that doesn't want to stop reading a book no matter how much she's not into it.
Like she wants to read to completion.
I get that.
Guess who's there?
Fucking Tarquin.
To like ask for a book report or something.
Right.
Give it a rest, dude.
I thought it was just going to be like, I I heard Archer saw a second sphere.
Do you know what was it like?
Did you hear?
She's the 400-year-old virgin.
Yeah.
Could you describe what it looked like in great detail while I turn around and close my eyes?
Turned out to be not all bad in the end, right?
I mean, he was willing to kidnap her or whatever, but ultimately...
He does give Hoshi a little bit of information, and she takes this on an iPad to Archer.
And this has an actionable piece of intel.
They know now where part of the Zindi weapon is being built.
If they believe Tarquin, I guess.
I mean, that's really it, isn't it?
That's the end of the episode, Ben.
Did you like it?
I can't pay.
Couldn't believe.
Got okay.
Tempting fate.
Yeah, I mean, I think that
we've been here before, like, especially like male telepath doing squeak things to a female crew member with his telepathy skills is
an unfortunate star trek trope i would say but this one is done i think a little better than average and
i thought they did a nice job with the like haunted house elements of it and the
never being quite sure whether reality was realness of it like it wasn't all creepy dream sequences it was creepy like wait do we believe that this guy is who he claims to be or not Right.
Kind of moments.
Right.
And I thought that those were better because it's more
evocative of what people go through when they realize that somebody that they're like close to is monstrous in some way, you know?
Yeah, that's a good detail to keep in mind.
I think much like Universal Star Trek Red Alert Hot Knights.
You can speak to us normally.
A Hoshi in the A story is better than no Hoshi story at all.
But I don't like that all of our ladies of Star Trek are so easily...
I won't say easily, because Hoshi never is seduced, but like the seduction methods deployed by our creepy aliens are so apparent to us as the viewer,
but a little less so to our Star Trek women.
And I don't like that aspect of this episode.
Yeah, I don't either.
But I thought Linda Park did a great job with the script she was handed.
I was just going to say that.
Like, the episode's direction is great.
The performances are great.
The set is cool and interesting.
Like, a lot of candles.
Like, it's the story that falls apart for me.
Yeah.
Well, do you want to see if anything falls apart in the Priority One inbox?
Absolutely.
Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on secured channels.
Need a supplemental income.
Supplemental income.
Supplemental.
Supplemental income.
Yeah, it's extra.
But the interest alone could be enough to buy
Adam, we've got a promotional P1 here.
Goes like this.
Do you live in or visit the New England region?
Have you ever wanted to do something fucking spectacular?
Boston Skydive Center in Smithfield, Rhode Island is an FOD owned and operated skydiving drop zone.
BSC has been around since 2011, but new owner Brett believes in Trek so much he decided to form his own personal post-currency society by putting all his scarves into it.
P.S.
Ben Adam and Wendy jump for free.
Wow.
PPS, shout out to my former co-worker and cycling buddy Sarus Faravar.
Whoa!
Well, a friend of Sarus's is a friend of ours, and
that's a lot of fun.
I mean, I don't know how you get away calling it Boston Skydive Center if you're in Rhode Island.
That's like a whole different state.
I love the offer here.
I don't know if I would ever do this.
It's pretty high up there.
You don't want to pull a Tom Cruise and do your own stunts?
I don't know, man.
I mean, it looks cool and other people do it.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Maybe it's like as I get older, heights are becoming more of an issue for me.
Sure, sure.
I don't know.
My mother, who is reaching her 80s, recently expressed an interest in doing this.
So maybe my mom and I will hop on a flight and head out east and do a skydive so she can cross it off her list.
Yeah, I mean, I'm assuming this would be a tandem jump.
They don't just strap you up and shove you out.
I mean, I surprised myself and went on the Jurassic Park ride when I was at Universal.
So like
maybe a late-in-life newly found appreciation for scary things is in my future.
Jurassic Park is like a fun little boat ride, though.
That thing is great.
Yeah, but it has dropped.
That's scary.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's part of it.
All right, Ben.
We got a personal priority one message here from shh Malice.
It's to Tango Llama.
Here's how that message goes.
Thanks for always being willing to go to the live shows with me.
From the first time in DC when I tripped and fell on my face
in the venue to the most recent Philly one I had to miss as my birdie was riddled with pneumonia.
Oh no.
Still can't believe I missed my live shows P1.
Aww.
Wow.
So we did their P1 and they weren't even there.
Jeez.
You're my number one brother, not just because you're the oldest.
O'Brien dropped.
I am Chief Miles Edward O'Brien.
This is fucking spectacular.
Wow.
I hope by the time our next tour kicks off, you're in good health and you and Tango Llama can attend, I don't know, our Baltimore show,
which I'm presuming might be close to you, given that you went to a Philly one and a DC one,
and not have any Ben Harrison-like catastrophes happen to you along the way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Inshallah.
Our final P1 today is from Andrew slash son, and it's to Chris slash father.
Goes like this.
Thanks for being the greatest father.
As an OG Star Trek nerd, you've been slightly embarrassed for a long time.
But I'm not at all embarrassed to be your son.
Thank you for passing along all your nerdy proclivities to me.
I will pay it forward to the next generation as soon as my own son Kai,
is of age.
I love you, Dad.
Wow.
Hey, that's pretty great.
Ben, as a father yourself, does it kind of sting to hear other people get called the greatest father?
Oh, no, I believe it.
If Chris slash father was able to raise an Andrew slash son that's as enthused about all of the nerdy proclivities as they seem to be.
I think Chris did it right, you know?
Pretty great.
Yeah.
I'm sure my son will be a total alpha and far cooler than me in all respects and very embarrassed of me to boot.
If that's the case,
everyone besides your kids will know you as the world's greatest father.
I certainly hold you in as high regard.
Oh, thanks.
Yeah, I mean, I have no practice, so that was great.
That was like a nice timely Father's Day message.
Pretty good.
Well, timing or not, you can have us read your message over at maximumfund.org/slash jumbotron.
Priority one messages are a great way to support the production of our show.
They're easy to do.
You just write a couple words and we say them.
It's true.
Go a long way in supporting the production of our show.
Hey, Adam.
Zap in.
Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda?
Drunk Shimoda!
You can't be Tarquin
looking this way and acting this way without being the Shimoda of the episode.
I mean, part of it is there's just few choices given how many characters we encounter.
Tarquin,
my dude, you'd think in 400 years of companionship with different companions, he would have learned a thing or two about seduction.
Yeah.
It does not appear to be the case.
For that, you will be my drunk Shimoda.
How about you, Ben?
Yeah, I mean, it's Tarquin.
I also just love the kind of smoking jacket look that Tarquin has cultivated.
Is that mind stuff or is that for real, you think?
Everything is a question, right?
Like, there's that moment where he's like rolled out the banquet for her, and she's like, do you do this all the time?
And he's like, only when I have company.
Like, does he do it ever at all?
Or is it all being beamed into her head?
And she's really eating like, you know, a bowl of mealworms.
You know?
Eat hearty, brother.
Weren't you waiting for that part for the trick to dissolve and reveal the mealworms of all kinds in this castle?
It seemed like it could.
Yeah, like if they've wanted to go like hard horror, there could have been that moment like
I don't know.
For some reason, I'm thinking of the moment in Minority Report when he gets his eyeballs replaced and he like goes into the fridge, but his eyes have been wrapped up with gauze and he grabs the rotten sandwich on a plate that's right next to the not rotten sandwich on a plate.
Who hasn't done that?
Yeah.
Very relatable.
Yeah.
I mean, who doesn't have a fridge with one rotten sandwich on a plate in it where they don't just stick another sandwich in there right next to it without clearing out,
you know, a future that Adam Pranica could never.
I know.
No way.
But yeah, Tarquin, Tarquin, come on, you silly goose.
Get it together.
Acting like you're some kind of Hugh Hefter when really you're like the galaxy's foremost loner.
I would love to believe that I have gotten better at being a companion with every relationship I've ever had.
Like you got to get better at this stuff.
You got to learn where you're deficient, where you can be better.
Like that this guy learned nothing for 400 years is very sad.
Yeah, I guess when you put it that way.
Faith of the fart.
Adam, let's start talking about next week's episode and how we're going to do it.
It is season three, episode seven, the shipment.
After Enterprise arrives at a Zindi colony, Archer, Reed, and Major Hayes infiltrate a facility that is producing a substance crucial to the Zindi weapon.
I love getting a Major Hayes episode.
Gotta check in with Stephen Culp.
We'll see how things are going over there.
Hell yeah.
All right, Adam.
Our runabout is on square 89 at the moment, and it could go anywhere.
And I hope it does.
You're required to learn as you play.
Roll.
Wow.
We just keep narrowly missing squares.
We are on square 33 now.
Tula!
Did I win?
Hardly.
One away from a quarks bar.
Amazing.
That's just the bring whatever you want, drunk a sod square.
You don't have to drink anything in particular.
You just got to drink.
Boy, I thought you might have tossed us to a brown zone.
Would have been an interesting pairing with the Stephen Culpness of it all.
Sure.
Yeah.
I think we're going to have Stephen Culp for a little while in this season.
They better not fucking kill that character.
Oh, man.
If they take out Culp in this episode and we didn't Brone Zone it?
Let's just hope that doesn't happen, Ben.
I'm not ready for that.
All right.
Well, let's keep our fingers crossed and hope that next week's episode does not deprive us of future culprit.
I like that.
Nice one.
We got some thanks to give out here at the end of the show.
Adam, we got to thank our beautiful listeners, the friends of DeSoto, who support the production of this very program.
Got to thank Wendy Pretty, who produces and edits this now very long program.
edits all the greatest gen and greatest trek shows most of the time.
Does an absolutely stellar job.
Indeed.
Got to thank Rob Adler, our social media director and chief author of our newsletter.
Of course, Adam and I are always contributing items to the newsletter as well.
A lot of fun over there.
Bill Tilly out in the social media streets.
Yeah, sure.
Making the trading cards.
Follow the at Greatest Trek Blue Sky or Instagram accounts to check out the trading cards cards every week.
Yeah, if you're not on a Discord yet, what are you doing?
Get on a Discord.
Get on our Discord, Drunkshamoto.com.
Yeah.
I gotta thank Adam Ragusia for his remix of the Diane Warren original theme for Star Trek Enterprise and, of course, the great Dark Materia
for the original Picard song.
Dark Materia, not a co-host of Wholesome, our patrons-only podcast, but Adam Ragusia is patreon.com slash wholesome underscore pod.
Every Wednesday.
With that, we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise and an episode of the Greatest Generation Enterprise that ain't no macrobiotic, chemical, colonic.
It's political, symphonic, lyrical, narcotic.
Something much more potent that we plot than
come and get some if you ain't got them.
Word.
Captain Jon Lu Picard of the USF.
Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows, supported directly by you.
