The House of Duras Sucks (ENT S2E26)

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.

We're a little bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast.

I'm Ben Harrison.

I'm Adam Branica.

How you doing today, bud?

Great.

Great.

Hanging in there.

Feeling good.

You look great.

Thanks, man.

Great and hanging in there feel like we're at two different points on the number line, though.

Yeah?

So which is it?

Like, hanging in there means like, like, managing.

I'm not thriving, but I'm surviving, you know?

I've had a lot to do today, a lot of little errands and chores, just like

knocking them down.

So in that way, I'm feeling great because I've done a lot of things.

That's a happy place for Adam Prannica, checking things off a list.

And I'm hanging in there because

I still have more to do.

Yeah, I'm hanging in here

personally.

Hopefully you aren't found hanging in there at some point in time.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm not going to go out like Terra Dean.

Your ceiling's like my ceilings, very high.

Very high.

It's just too hard to hang yourself in our studios.

I'm tempted, honestly, but it's too much fucking trouble.

you know yeah who's gonna go through the effort yeah

also i don't have internet back here so i wouldn't have anything to jack off to right yeah when we first moved to la

into our first uh like townhouse yeah we didn't do that thing that we should have when we were like uh looking at places to live which was take out your phone and see how your cell reception is because if we had i think there is no way we would have ever chosen this place to live because it is like like

negative bars in there.

Anytime we had to do a phone call after we moved in, we had to do like Wi-Fi calling that setting on your phone.

Yeah.

That's surprising given like geographically where that place was.

I mean, it wasn't like, you know, in between two hills or anything.

No, this was West L.A.

This was like clear line of sight.

Yeah.

Don't get it.

Just a weird building.

Yeah.

Maybe there was some kind of spatial anomaly nearby.

Did you try reversing the polarity?

I should have done something with the deflector dish, clearly.

Yeah.

And I did not.

I did not do anything besides remove a pre-existing dish from the roof.

Yeah, yeah.

My neighborhood is full of those dishes.

Do people still use those for anything?

You see them all the time.

Yeah.

I wonder if there's one on my roof.

I've never really looked.

I've used antenna television for 10 years now, and it always looks like a magazine.

Like, that's what the antenna looks like.

It's like a floppy piece of plastic, right?

I don't know why you can't get all your super expensive channels, like the satellite channels, through something similar.

You still need like big, hard dish.

I don't know.

Yeah, what's in those dishes?

Like, I don't know, and it's like it's

focusing beams at something.

Is that what?

That's why it's a little parabola, right?

At least when I look at that, I understand, like, my dumb head kind of puts it together how it could work i have no idea when i plug floppy plastic sheet to my tv how that's supposed to work that seems like a fucking miracle to me yeah like i don't really know how the one that's like the you know some semi-triangular shape thing that looks like it's made out of straightened out coat hangers works either but at least it looks like something you know Yeah.

Floppy plastic sheet just seems like there's no fucking way this is interacting with the outside world in any way.

When they were doing meetings at Big Dish, you know that was part of what they talked about, right?

Like cool, this new design is better, but it is not better looking.

Like how it looks does not give me a lot of confidence.

Yeah.

Where's the parabola?

We need a parabola.

My brother-in-law works at Big Dish.

I got to ask him about this.

You know,

see if we can get parabola back, you know?

Big dish.

He's in the pocket.

In the lobby, there's just like the progression of man, like from caveman to like walking upright version for satellite dishes.

In the lobby, like enormous, smaller, smaller, smaller.

Yeah.

Finally, big flappy plastic sheet.

My dad's dentist when I was growing up became like a family friend for a while.

And in retrospect, this guy was crazy.

Like, one thing I learned about him is that he didn't pay taxes because of the principle of the thing and was like a lifelong tax cheat.

And another thing about him was that he had that like 80s version of satellite television where you needed like a good 10 square foot patch of

yard with a clear shot of the southern sky.

And

it looked like something that NASA is deploying to like pick up the early cosmos or whatever.

There is something about the men in your family that seeks out and finds crazy dentists, huh?

Say all.

I want to make this a rule of greatest generation.

If anyone could ever describe your dentist as crazy in the way you just did about your dad's dentist,

find another dentist.

Yeah, he was also, he had like a pistol in his home office and like I was like playing with his son and his son totally took out the pistol in one of those like...

Straight out a 90210.

Yeah, like I am so lucky that i wasn't essentially in a psa about why you need to put your gun in a safe so what did it taste like

kind of like the the type of uh mezcal that we prefer yeah you know that's why i like it not smoky metal you know yeah clay

love it when it tastes like a gun i bought a uh tequila recently it's made in tequila mexico but it's made with espadine and and not blue agave.

How about that?

So what the hell is it?

Sort of a mezcal and sort of a tequila.

Huh.

Huh.

I haven't opened it yet, but I'll report back.

I think Sammy Hagar makes a half tequila, half mezcal kind of blend, but what you're talking about is like not a blend.

It's just a tequila made out of mezcal stuff.

Yeah, made in the style of tequila in tequila, but not with the correct plant.

Is it good?

I haven't opened the bottle yet.

I gotta give it a taste.

Is it your studio bottle?

Come on, Ben.

I can run and grab it.

It's in the house.

I think it needs to live in the studio, man.

Okay.

I think it's got to be there.

For you.

You hold me down.

I'm going to jog and get it.

We'll do it on our tasting.

Sounds good.

I'll be right back.

One minute, 37 seconds later.

All right, I'm back.

So, what I have here is Tesoro number five: Echo Entequila, Agave Spirit.

They're not calling it Mezcal, they're not calling it tequila.

That is like

processed cheese food.

It's the taint.

Also, a strike against it is that it was named after a gas station.

All right, pouring myself a little shot here.

Out of frame, the shot was poured, and what I want to say is I loved hearing that many glugs.

This looks like a mighty shot.

This is a...

I did a greatest gen pour.

Hell yeah.

You know?

All right.

Oh, wow.

This is fantastic.

How about that?

You love a pudding tequila.

I do.

And this is a pudding tequila, but like without, like, they're not adding anything to it, you know?

Yeah.

Like, they're not like adding like vanilla flavor.

Yeah.

So it's got like all of the mildness of an Espadine mezcal.

I think most common type of mezcal is made with an Espadine.

Sure.

But

none of the smokiness of that.

It is like it's barely gun barrel and much more pudding.

Interesting.

Wow, it is crystal clear like water.

And it looks like it's going down real smooth, Ben.

Yeah.

Aren't you glad you have a studio bottle now?

Fuck yeah.

Fuck yeah, dude.

That's great.

No one has to know.

I brought it to take to DD tonight, but maybe I'll let somebody else pick up the booze.

Love that for you.

Yeah.

Oops.

Sorry, guys.

I thought it was someone else's turn.

Also, a very cost-effective bottle, a liter, $25.

Wow.

That's a good gas station tequila right there.

You're going to go into DD lit tonight?

You know, I feel like I deserve it it today of all days.

Absolutely.

Let's see how the show goes, you know?

We're about to find out, Ben.

Let's get started with the season finale of Star Trek Enterprise season 2.

It's episode 26, and it's called The Expanse.

So this gadget shows up in Earth orbit.

I really like the kind of clockwork look of this thing.

Maravioso.

Yeah, I like that too.

Like steampunk super weapon, basically, is what we got going here.

You ever like accidentally click on one of those things on YouTube that's like trailer for Wes Anderson's Star Wars movie?

And you're like, oh, this is just a bunch of AI shit that somebody put together in Mid-Journey.

I actually do not get that reference.

I've never watched anything like that.

That's a thing.

Yeah, like, I don't know.

Like, I'll just be on YouTube and like, you'd think, like, oh man, there's a trailer for a new Wes Anderson thing.

And you, like, click it.

Or, oh, there's a trailer for a new like Scorsese thing.

And you click it.

And it's like somebody like

reimagining or re-envisioning something

using AI, you know, and it's like, you can use these like platforms apparently to just do like fantasy casting.

And for some reason, it's okay for them to like use the likenesses of famous people people that's weird for free yeah it makes me think of that thing that was so popular like 10 years ago remember the movie trailers that were recut to the musical score of broke back mountain and like you'd see back to the future but it was like a very different spin on the movie back to the future right and so forth what's going on between marty and doc brown yeah like like a lot of movies without that subtext suddenly had a lot of that subtext due mainly to the music like yeah kind of amazing.

But, like, all those projects used existing footage in a way that you're describing.

Like, this is AI-created footage, you're saying, Yeah.

Yeah.

Not sure if I like that.

No, but I was going to say, like, this, this is sort of like predating that.

What if the Death Star was in like a steampunk context and not a

jalopy future context?

I like that the weapon system on this thing isn't just like one orifice and one laser beam.

There seems to be like some lenses involved.

So like the sphere turns over, switches a lens, turns another direction, switches a lens, and I think they switch lenses like two or three times before the situation's done with.

But this thing absolutely carves a line into Earth and then casts off its kind of mechanical suspenders and heads for the surface afterwards.

Yeah,

it kind of seems like it implodes almost, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's definitely not shot from orbital defenses, which you might assume exist at Earth in this time period, right?

Yeah, they don't seem to be ready for anything like this.

No.

You know, they never considered that someone would come give Florida a Prince Albert.

Yeah.

Yeah, incredible.

I mean, this thing takes care of itself.

So I guess they didn't need the defenses to begin begin with.

After the theme, we're on Kronosh.

And one detail I noticed from the wide chat band, you've probably noticed this for years,

is the rope bridge that leads to the central building.

Have we talked about the rope bridge?

Like, why does everything have to be a challenge for the Klingons?

Do you have the bravery required to

walk 50 meters

to get your driver's license

or are you a patak

every warrior has the kailesh given right to petition his government if he has the gurumba

these poor bastards crossing the rope bridge like god yeah i'm just trying to pay a parking ticket Jesus.

There's also something very funny about like anytime they do a wide shot like this on Enterprise, it's clearly like

Unreal Engine 3 character models.

There were two guys walking in like the mid-foreground who were clearly really badly animated.

And what they did was layer in a couple of real people in Klingon Loaf against a green screen to kind of obscure them.

Yeah.

Like, like in the in the much closer foreground.

Like, it's, it's easier to do that than to redo it.

Yeah.

yeah.

Like, oh, we just spent like two months rendering this on some render farm

of like Pentium 2 processors.

So yeah, we're not redoing it.

Go slap some loaf on some guys and shoot it in front of a green screen.

That's the cheapest way out of this.

So inside the council chamber, they're post-gaming yet another failed apprehension of Captain Archer and the regrets everyone feels about choosing to punish him short of execution when they had the chance.

And Duras, son of Teral, is in there, and he's been given a chance by the council to get his honor back.

Like it's the classic managerial situation, like when you're pipped.

Like everyone around here in the department knows that you've been a great disappointment.

And what we're going to do is give you a task that's extremely difficult.

And that way, when you fail the task, we have a great reason to fire you.

And so

this is DeRas' chance to get his career on track by going and getting Archer.

I had a very early in life foray into the world of business.

And at one point, I had a very bad disagreement with my partners.

And their solution was to say, okay, you now have...

20% less equity in the company and you can work your way back if you get on the program with us.

And they tried to make me sign a document to that effect.

And I was like, why would I sign something

that takes my equity away?

Why is Duras agreeing to this?

Is what I'm saying.

Back to that story.

What would have made you sign that?

Just for my understanding.

You know.

I mean, would anything have convinced you at that point?

I'm a pretty accommodating guy, but I could get stubborn in situations like that.

Yeah.

Man, what a catch-22 for a Duras type because you can tell that he's like a fuck y'all kind of guy.

Yeah.

And yet the bridge of a bird of prey calls to him.

Like it must, right?

Yeah.

You gotta get back on that BOP.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Back on Enterprise in the briefing room, Archer tells the senior staff about the Florida bifurcation, which is 4,000 kilometers long.

It goes down.

It goes all the way down.

Pretty far, and a million casualties is the body count at this point.

I'm afraid it could be 9-11 times 1,000.

It's so interesting that this has to be a McLaughlin group.

Issue one.

You think you'd get on the 1MC, right?

Yeah, like Archer got told by Forrest, and like everybody's in the dark about this.

Like, they didn't watch this happen on CNN that morning, you know?

Like, they're still using communications boas to send their mail back and forth.

Like, this is probably just a situation where, like, of course they don't know.

No one's been able to to tell them.

And they've been recalled to Earth to, I guess, help with the cleanup.

Like, this is catastrophic that everything that they had planned is canceled.

So they set a course and Archer gets called away to talk to bereaved sexual icon Admiral Forrest one more time.

He's kind of calling a lot, kind of needy

from the sound of it.

Yeah.

You hate to see someone with this much Riz in a state like that, you know.

Yeah.

I mean, speaking of states, Archer's really in one himself.

He's in the clarinet rental room, and Trip finds him looking out the gazing window.

And he wants to know specifically, could you point to the part of Florida where the bad aliens hurt it?

Because he's got a younger sister who lives there, and he's really worried about her.

And Archer doesn't know.

Like, for all the phone calls that he's taken with sexual icon Admiral Forrest, they aren't talking that granularly about the parts of Florida that are destroyed.

But what he does know,

and this really doesn't help, the body count is up to 3 million.

So it is tripled.

Does that tell you anything, Trip?

Like, does that help with your fact-finding that you're here to do?

Every time...

they talk to Archer about these conversations he's having with Forrest.

It reminds me of conversations I have with my wife where like I will interact with you know somebody at the gas company or you know one of my children's pediatricians or something and she'll have like a million questions you know and she'll be like so so what did they say about this and I'd be like I didn't ask him about that I didn't ask him she's like what about this thing that we both agreed was a concern going in.

And I'll be like, yeah, I kind of forgot to bring that up.

Like Archer is not asking Forrest enough questions about this.

Like, it would be useful to know, like, panhandle?

We're not that stressed about it if it's just the panhandle of Florida.

You know, did they get Miami?

I can't believe I'm about to do this.

But in defense of Archer,

like, he can't really ask about a specific person and their condition.

W slash R slash T,

the trench that's been dug from orbit.

He could ask about, like, like, which theme parks got taken out, you know?

Yeah.

Like, that would be helpful.

That would give us a kind of something to go on.

You know, like, Trip is theorizing maybe she was out of state because architects travel so much.

But yeah, Trip is pretty fired up.

This has some, like, why do the terrorists hate us energy?

Like, who knows who did this and why?

It's still a really big question.

This is a very interesting Trip Tucker episode because you see a gear in Connor Tranier that I don't feel like we get very much of.

Like a haunted and sad Trip Tucker is not the good time, Charlie, that I like to be around on this show.

A Trip Tucker who has a like a hole in his heart that he can only think to fill through violence is

pretty intense.

Yeah.

We must stop the terror.

I can't find the baron.

You know who has information.

It's not Archer.

It's actually Tepal.

And when she walks in, she's like, hey, I talked to Vulcan Ambassador Saval.

And guess what?

Like, they've recovered that crashed ship.

And they brought it over to Starfleet HQ.

The pilot's dead.

So can't interrogate him.

Were you shocked to find that this thing had a pilot?

Like, they'd been talking about it as a drone.

I was shocked.

I was like, Yeah, yeah, like

somebody kamikaze to board this thing.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was weird.

They don't know what type of alien this is.

That's still unanswered at this point.

And in case you were wondering, I mean, I don't know why anyone would.

Still don't know what parts of Florida were affected.

So I'll just save you from asking that question.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that Vulcans,

if they were to avoid one part of planet Earth, it would probably be Florida.

You know, it's like the least logical conceivable place.

Your hatred of Florida is cartoonish.

There are plenty of good people in Florida, plenty of FODs there.

Listen, some of my best friends are Floridians.

I'm not dogging out the people of Florida.

I'm just saying it's a silly place.

They know.

Hey, is now a good time for eight Sulaban ships to be incoming?

The Sulaban seem to think so.

Yeah.

And the vibe right now is like, what the hell else is going to happen today?

Yeah.

Just what we need.

Tactical alert.

This is a real rains-it-pours kind of a moment, and they're just starting to like figure out tactical alert and stuff when the power dips and Sulabans are...

crawling around on the ceiling.

What a great sequence this was.

Like with the lights flickering and the Sulaban appearing.

And there's something so wet-haired girl crawling out of a well about the Sulaban as they move across the ceiling.

Like, something just ain't right about them Sulabon on the ceiling.

Yeah.

We kind of understand some of Tripp's irrational hatred of

there's like an Agatha Christie style blackout at the end.

And then when the lights come back on, Captain Archer is gone.

He gets to talking with with Silic in the next scene, who comes in with a bunch of other Sulabons.

And he's like, I knew you were behind this.

It's obviously you from the get-go.

And Silic's like, obviously me?

What?

What are you talking about?

Yeah.

I mean...

If you've ever gotten toe, like, playing stupid is an effective strategy, you know?

Except he's not lying.

He literally doesn't know what Archer's talking about.

Like, I know you think it was me, but I mean, i gotta tell you archer kind of a lot of people look like me yeah actually it's a little racist that you think it was me yeah just because uh we're all covered in knockdown doesn't mean

we all look the same so it's like look bro it wasn't me but uh there is someone who might know who it was in fact and this person wants to have a meeting with you that's why we brought you over to the suliban ship where we are we're actually doing you a favor I'm surprised you didn't know that.

There seems to be a danger to all of humanity that this person wants to discuss.

And so Archer is brought in to talk to the mysterious shadowy man.

And this person tells Archer that the Zindi attacked Earth as a reaction to their homeworld being destroyed by humans 400 years in the future.

And the question in the room is, how do the Zindi know this?

Yeah.

Evidently, Evidently, there are people who can communicate through time, and those people gave the Zindi a heads up.

And Archer seems pretty uppity for someone who is the third most powerful person in a room with three people in it, right?

Your planet was attacked.

I'm aware of that.

I was kind of surprised by him.

Yeah.

I think we learned from Crewman Daniels that some people in the temporal cold war can send

people and things physically through time, but other people can only send information.

But I thought Column of Light Man was on the only information team.

Yeah.

So

maybe it's like a multipartite war where it's not just one side against another.

There's like multiple angles.

And, you know, it's like one of those intersections in Beverly Hills that's impossible to know when it's your turn kind of a thing.

When Newman on Seinfeld talks about

controlling the mail, meaning controlling information, is that also what Shadowy Man is talking about?

Like, like some folks involved in the temporal Cold War control the male.

That's why when Archer walked into the room, he went, hello, Shadowy Man.

Maybe the worst news of all been.

That thing that attacked Earth, that was just a prototype.

That was just a piece of shit ship.

Like, the real thing, that's getting built by the Zindi right now.

And the plan is to take the Big Daddy Daddy back over to Earth to exterminate humans before they have a chance to do the Zindi dirty in the future.

Hey, Zindi, I have a pitch.

Test your super weapon, the small version of your super weapon, on not Earth.

Don't give them a heads up that you're coming with your planet killer.

Such a great strategy.

You know?

God, so fucking smart.

Why give them all this time to react, to respond, in kind,

potentially.

Yeah.

yeah it's why you don't run the bank robbery plan on an actual bank before

right the bank you're planning on robbing you order you order a perfect copy of the vault as though that will go unnoticed exactly you practice in your warehouse that you have access to with your team yep yep and your unlimited budget you do a kind of rehearsal like the show the rehearsal

Which I'm so glad is coming back.

That fucking show is crazy.

I love it.

I hope they can find some people with some more weirdly specific views.

I still think about Orange Juice Man.

You're an awful.

All the time.

Awful person.

I learned so much about numerology, you know?

Yeah.

I spent a lot of time in that bar when I was in my 20s, by the way.

That exact bar?

Yeah.

That's incredible.

Yeah.

It was fun that it was one that I was familiar with, you know?

Lest you believe the shadowy man is doing this because he's got a soft spot for humanity or whatever,

that's not the case.

It is not.

What his ax is to grind here is that if the Zindi go through with this, they were going to pollute the timeline in such a way that he sees as highly objectionable.

So he's like kind of a greenpiece kind of

person.

Like

he wants to like gum up the works of the global oil trade.

This fucking guy, he's like, you got no choice but to believe me.

You have no information without me.

So here you go.

Why don't you take this conversation back to Enterprise and see how it plays?

And Archer tries it out on Tepal in the clarinet rental closet.

Is trying the conversation out on Tepal

the version of the Zendi practice weapon being used on Earth instead of on someone more friendly.

Like, Archer should be doing this with Reed or something, right?

I've heard that when Chris Rock runs material and does spots around New York, like he does, he is like as un-Chris Rock as possible.

Like he is, he is just saying the joke in like the flattest tone you can believe.

That's interesting.

To know whether or not its architecture and its premise is good without his Riz.

Right.

Which sells a ton of comedy.

Yeah, I get that.

Right.

So I feel like trying your material on TePaul has got to be the same thing.

Like if you get a laugh like this, you know, like this is going to fucking kill.

Chris Rock showed up in an episode of Homicide my wife and I watched a couple nights ago.

Whoa.

Amazing.

Man.

What that show was able to pull as guest actors.

I've been meaning to check that out now that it's on streaming.

It's real good.

Yeah.

So yeah, TePaul is like not logical, no time travel.

The Vulcans say so.

What do you make of her point being like, well, yeah, if time travel is real, why did they tell you after the attack instead of before?

Like, that's kind of dumb, right?

Yeah.

And Archer, like, you could tell there's a split second where Archer's like, fuck, fuck.

That makes so much sense.

I don't know how any of this works.

Nobody knows how this works.

It's time travel.

This is the angry.

Archer that sort of matches the angry Trip.

Like, I feel like every time Trip gets angry, Archer gets like cold and and icy

but he gets hot angry in front of topal here i need your support that your damn skepticism i love archer at the end of the scene is like can you please just fucking humor me i don't care if you believe me or not but just like in this moment be like

okay

maybe

It doesn't work for Chris Rock to ask the audience to just like, Jeb Bush, please clap.

We've seen Archer Angry before, but I don't know why.

I like this Archer.

I like it so much.

I think this is a great Archer episode.

Cranky Archer.

Yeah.

Body count is now up to seven milli, by the way.

How did we miss by sevenfold on those initial estimates?

Yeah.

I mean, is it like, is it one of those things where it's like we're only reporting the confirmed number and we're not and we're not guessing or, you know?

Hard to know.

They've made really great time back to Earth because on the bridge they have the sun on the view screen and that nice feeling of safety that it represents is replaced with a torpedo hit to the saucer because guess what?

Duras' bird of prey has fired on Enterprise and this is not a welcome wagon moment.

No, it is a,

fuck you.

You thought you were through the worst of it when you shook the Sula Bun.

No way, man.

We're going to destroy your ship unless you give up Archer.

And Duras is getting a boarding party ready, but then he gets some bangers dropped on his ship.

By some Earth vessels and these seem like sort of pre-NX01 Enterprise class ships.

They're not great looking, but

they manage to scare away Doras, and we meet Captain Ramirez, who welcomes Archer home after successfully preventing the destruction of the NXO1.

Archer has got to be like, what other past conflicts are going to be visited upon me on this day?

Like,

will I be chained and eating gruel at some point?

Will the ghost of my father appear to haunt me?

Will Dr.

Fox's wife be involved?

Yeah.

On any level?

It feels like everything's on the table.

Is Susie Plaxon going to be wielding heavy weaponry?

Yeah.

Is Clancy Brown anywhere nearby?

I would like to know.

So with the Duras issue neutralized for the moment, the crew has an opportunity to look at all the damage that's been done to Earth through the view screen, and you hear the single brass instrument of orbital bombardment play as they do.

I was surprised it wasn't dustier and smokier around the scar.

Like,

I guess it's taken them quite a while to get back, and maybe it's settled, but it seems like this would be like an atmospheric event, too.

It seems like it would be capable of killing dinosaurs.

Yeah.

This sort of destruction.

Like, when you see it, the beam go from land to sea and it's like, it's like frothing the ocean off.

Like, are there any manatees left?

Did they survive or did they all boil?

The frothy mix of ocean and manatee carcasses this thing made.

Pretty gross.

Yeah.

So Archer pitches command on his temporal cold war shit.

Or I guess Forest pitches them.

Like, I don't know who's above Forest, but Forest doesn't seem to have a lot of pull with whoever those people are.

It's clear that the shadowy man isn't the only man in the shadows of this show, because you're right.

The people above Forest, I don't think we have any interactions with this episode.

Yeah.

Anyways, they didn't buy the Temporal Cold War thing, but Archer is really keen to rig up the Enterprise for a long mission and take it out to find the Zindi, the people who are being blamed for this attack.

And

we learn that they are inside an area of space called the Delphic Expanse that's three months away at High Warp.

And this sounds like a pretty rough part of town.

Like we hear some descriptions of ships that like tried to go in there intentionally and some that didn't go in there intentionally and some of the like horrific event horizon-esque things that befell these crews.

Doesn't sound great.

I think it's important that it's Saval

that lays this information out there.

Because

for as

non-emotional as Saval is, to hear these descriptions come from him, like the horror feels even more horribler than if Admiral Forrest were in there talking about it, you know?

Totally.

The likelihood that a Vulcan is going to exaggerate what a horrific situation this was feels really low.

I love, like, he doesn't have to go into the detail that he does, but he's like, yeah, so, like, have you ever imagined what a Klingon would look like inside out?

Have you ever seen the kids' show Mr.

Body?

Now think about those same Klingons, those inside-out Klingons.

Imagine them living through that experience.

And that's just a little bit of what you'll get if you ever try to go into the Delphic expanse.

Imagine the smell, Archer.

Just think of it in those terms.

Yeah,

in this case, the Klingons smell even worse on the outside.

See what I did there?

Star Wars reference.

I'm a character in Star Trek.

He's also like roasting Archer for this time travel stuff.

And Archer's like, well, if you don't believe me about that, I actually got some receipts from the Shadowy Man.

And they go into the like TWA Flight 800 reassembly hangar where they've got all the debris from the

attack sphere that the Vulcans recovered.

And Archer is like radiocarbon dating all of the stuff in there.

And some of it's like, oh, this was like made a year or two ago.

This was made four years ago.

This was made negative.

number of years ago.

Yeah.

I love that they designed the radiocarbon dating thing with negative number setting.

Like, I know this is unlikely, but if we do scan stuff from the future, we're going to want to have the, you know, the ability to describe that on screen.

One of my favorite parts of back when I had a real job was like finding a crack in the armor of an executive that we both recognized made them a real person or made them cool.

And when Archer looks at his scanner and he's like, oh, this thing was made 420 years into the future, like the camera whips over to Forrest and you can see him kind of go like, nice.

And Archer back to Archer, like, oh, okay.

All right.

Sexual icon, Admiral Forrest is down with a wacky tobaki.

Yeah, yeah.

What's wrong with that?

Got anything in this pile that's from 69 years in the future?

soval uh in case you've forgotten is in the room also

yeah and even though there is a device that has told everyone that this thing is from the future he's still not believing yeah but uh that doesn't stop forrest from saying he's going to go back to starfleet command and tell them about this new evidence we also see the incinerated body of the pilot, like so crisped up that it's pretty hard to tell what kind of loaf was on this person.

If it was crisped up all the way through, you wouldn't bother refrigerating it, right?

There has to be some of it that's probably still a little soft.

That's why you put it in the cooler.

You think that they did like a reverse sear situation?

I think so, yeah.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's still medium rare on the inside.

They think it's a Zindi, but they don't know.

Yeah, they want to find out.

So in Space Doc, Archer is visited by a Vulcan named Dr.

Ferrat,

who is going to treat him for some weird radiation that was on that debris.

My notes kept on auto-correcting Dr.

Ferrat to Dr.

Fart,

and it made me wonder if Dr.

Ferrat was actually named Dr.

Fart.

And then like, it became logical to change my name due to the children in my school making fun of me when I was young.

When my grandfather emigrated at V'Elliska Island,

he changed it.

A kindly immigration officer explained what the connotation would be.

He made my school age years bearable.

So he's there to examine Archer because he was exposed to something called paritic radiation from the alien probe.

And this is just a standard scan.

Like when you're exposed to this radiation, there can sometimes be some side effects.

But like during the exam,

Dr.

Fart appears more interested in Captain Archer's mind than his body.

Have you encountered people from the future before?

A number of times.

Does this have anything to do with the radiation?

And I love the cutting back and forth between the two-shot of Archer and Dr.

Fart and Dr.

Flox, like eavesdropping and noticing

and clocking what's happening here.

Because Dr.

Fart tries to like establish some rapport with Archer by saying like, you know, not all Vulcans are so orthodox about this time travel stuff.

Like some of us believe that.

That threw me off too.

Initially, I was like, oh,

this guy's cool.

But I really liked the way it was written to sound a little bit like, you know, like a mental health screening, the way he started like, he started going into like and then how would it make you feel to learn that shadowy man was not a time traveler at a sub point like flox is like i mean he basically snaps a pencil and turns around and and goes off on doctor fart you come to my six-day under false pretenses where are your medical ethics is everyone angry this episode pretty much like the blood is running hot on the entrepreneur and the way dr flox figured this out is he was like listening to the questions he's like let Let me run a quick like LinkedIn search of this guy.

And he's like, The only Dr.

Fart anywhere near here is a psychiatrist and not somebody that treats radiation.

The scene goes on for a few more seconds, like past Dr.

Flox's face and toward a bookshelf.

And you can see one of the books has an exploding volcano on it.

And you're like, oh, all right, I get it.

I get it.

I get why he hates them so much.

Archer kind of implies that they're going to space this guy.

He's like, escort him to the airlock.

I like that.

I love the idea that they just blow him out.

It's like,

you fucked up, Dr.

Fart.

Escort Dr.

Fart to the airlock.

That's an executable offense here.

Yeah.

Faith of the fart.

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And you will never take the greatest gym alive.

Ben would rather die.

Rather die.

Trip and Reed visit the trench, and they're like, they're standing in the parking lot of a Piggly Wiggly looking over this thing.

My sister and I used to love this fast casual chain.

I love a Piggly Wiggly.

Yeah, we learn that she has passed very sadly.

Are you sure?

Oh, yeah.

I just want to scrutinize this a little bit because, like, there's no body,

but still, I will grieve.

Yeah, I think there wouldn't be, right?

Like,

if it made a trench that's like 200 feet deep, there's probably not a lot of human remains in there.

It's just very distracting how much this looks like a Command and Conquer cutscene.

You know?

I was also a little distracted from the tragedy of this moment to notice that the Comic Sans typeface has survived this far into the future because another chain location in the shot is Cafe Rio and they've done their sign in Comic Sans.

The Comic Sans typeface is the cockroach of Fox.

It will live forever.

Archer's Log.

They've gotten permission to go to the Delphic Expanse, Ben.

Yeah.

And Forrest and Archer take a shuttle pod tour of NX02, which is in dry dock, which feels pretty dangerous given how the first flyby went around NX01 with Archer at the controls, right?

A lot of the panels haven't been put in place, so you would try to

maybe keep Archer

minimum safe distance kind of a thing.

Yeah.

The word is the Enterprise is getting refitted as we speak, like before they go out on this mission.

Yeah, some new bells and whistles are being added.

They're getting like military people aboard,

which kind of reminded me of like Master and Commander.

Like there's like the Marines on board the ship and they're like not really part of the Navy

hierarchy.

They're kind of their own thing.

There's a moment in this scene I thought which was so interesting was like Forrest has a lot of questions without answers, but the big takeaway and the thing that gives Archer confidence is that the Shadowy Man never would have told Archer about this whole thing if Shadowy Man didn't think he had a chance of winning whatever this conflict was.

And that made a ton of sense to me.

Yeah.

Like if he had no chance, Shadowy Man doesn't give a shit.

He gives this mission to someone else.

Yeah,

and does that mean that Shadowy Man has like full confidence in Archer?

Or is he like like really hoping Archer comes through on this?

How does the time travel work?

I just hope Shadowy Man isn't a degenerate gambler who's got money on Archer losing.

We get a little scene where Tepal and Flox hang.

Because there's some question about if all of the crew remains or some of them leave.

Like the understanding is that this might be the sort of mission that you don't come back from.

And so there's an option to participate or not.

Right.

And as the two aliens, the two people not involved in whatever conflict seems to be blossoming between Earth and these Zindi, shouldn't they not run the risk of being on the warship that the Enterprise is becoming?

I'm Swedish.

I don't have to go to Vietnam, right?

Is kind of the vibe.

Yeah, yeah.

But I mean, like, Flox's Beetle order speaks volumes.

You don't order that many beetles if you're planning on leaving the ship.

Yeah.

The volume of Beetles is

what's speaking volume.

So TePaul confesses that the Vulcan High Command has ordered her not to go on the big trip.

And he asks her, like, what she's more allegiant to, the Vulcans or Archer?

Weird question.

Obvious answer.

The Vulcans.

Her answer is giving us a classic turn and walk away

to end the scene.

We don't know at this point because we go to the armory next where we see replacement torpedoes being loaded in, and these look familiar.

Dude, they look a lot more like what you'd see on the D than you did it in season one of Enterprise.

Are these Mark I?

They are.

They're not Mark Iv yet.

They're Mark I.

Mark I.

That is how dumb I would have been.

Eh?

Reed is impressed.

Reed is impressed mostly because these yields are tunable.

They don't just have one strength as you shoot them.

You can kind of dial them in to be as strong as you want.

But unfortunately, Ben, there has been no upgrade in aiming technology.

So

who knows if Reed is going to be able to hit the target with these any better than the old ones.

Yeah.

The mark

is maybe going to have better targeting.

Hey, Reed, why don't you leave Trip alone

about his sister?

Why don't everyone just give Trip a wide berth?

The number of runs Reed makes at Memorial, amidst protests by Trip, He's like,

have you planned a memorial?

No, we're not doing it.

Don't bring it up.

But what about a memorial, Trip?

Again.

Why are you so obsessed with memorials?

I'm not obsessed.

She's dead.

Perhaps the saddest part of the whole thing is that your sister died so quickly she did not have time to write to her various ex-boyfriends

to tell them of her regrets during their relationships the way I would have.

Had I had the time.

Yeah.

Trip is like, you know what I'm focused on instead of memorials?

Revenge.

Yeah.

And I'd like you to focus on getting the fuck out of my way so I can feel the feelings I want to feel.

I've got a bunch of raw meat that I'm going to arrange in the Zindi's bed that says Judas.

Yeah.

What does it mean?

It means Omar.

It means Ray Wenge.

That's what I'm looking forward to, Reed.

I'm starting to wonder if we'll ever get the old Trip Tucker back again.

He is a coiled spring, and he has been for most of the episode.

This might change him forever.

Yeah.

The

Vulcan ambassador Sauval and sexual icon Admiral Forrest want to show Archer some grainy footage and Archer gets really excited because he's like, oh man, like, I know Forrest's a fuck machine.

I bet Sawal has bagged a babe or two in his day.

Let's see what this is.

Now it's just kind of like...

PG-rated Event Horizon footage.

It's really not that scary.

Yeah, if for some reason Event Horizon was cut for the NBC Friday night movie,

like this would be the version of the captain's log that you'd get.

Like a bunch of squishy faces and agony sounds.

That's what you get.

I mean, it's like slightly more horrifying because like it's Vulcan's acting strange,

but

you want a guy to hold out eyeballs on, you know, in his palms, you know?

Is there an amount of film grain that you can use that permits the unedited version of the event horizon captain's log to be shown like layer after layer of grain yeah is there a grain enough to cover the eyeballs in such a way that that it could play for network tv do you think that they thought about using it but they were like we already dipped into that well like star trek can't use event horizon a second time basically i know yeah that was was fun when they used it the first time.

It really was.

This was a Vulcan ship that was destroyed because they went to the Delphic expanse for like one fucking second.

It drove them all mad.

And Taval

is trying to use this to persuade Archer not to go on this mission.

And Archer's like, no, man, I'm not afraid of your extremely tame version of Event Horizon.

And Saval's like, okay, well, I just want to talk to TePaul alone.

And he tells TePaul that

after she endures a year of,

I guess, like compensatory service back on Falcon, she can maybe get her old job on Earth back.

It's kind of like the same pitch that Doras got at the beginning of the episode.

Like, you do this for me.

Like, you can maybe claw your way back into my good graces.

In this scene, and so many others this episode, folks presume what TePaul wants and how she feels.

Like, of course, you're going to want to go back to Vulcan.

Of course, the smells and foods and so forth on Enterprise must disgust you, etc.

But maybe the

biggest reason to not go on the mission is that it is suicidal in nature.

Like,

that's clearly the biggest pitch.

It's like, hey, you could also not die and go back to Vulcan, right?

Yeah.

And TePaul is like, how about you let me make up my mind about whether or not I want to go on a suicide mission?

So Archer is going to drop her off on Vulcan on their way out to the Delphic Expanse.

Forrest basically like grabs both his shoulders and is like, hey, man, hey.

Hey.

And Archer's like, I know, I know, I know.

I'm so glad they didn't put words in Forrest's mouth for this, like, that it's just understood between them, that there's this respect and admiration and appreciation for what's about to happen.

Yeah.

Instead of like a, boy, I really have a halftime speech chambered.

But I don't need to do that, do I?

No, sir.

And then, like, they just cut it for time.

Clear eyes, full high.

Yeah.

I don't want your.

So the ship leaves Space Dock, and Duras has just been waiting for them the entire time.

Why wouldn't you just wait for them?

You got a ship with a cloaking device.

Doesn't seem like the humans have any hope of finding him anywhere.

I've wondered how long they were in Space Dock for.

Like the refit either went really fast or Duras waited kind of a long time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We get a scene where Trip and Archer are talking about the imminent departure of TePaul and like drinking the brown liquor of we're going to miss that one.

She was a real one.

Hey, Trip and Archer, if you're going to miss someone who's about to leave, how about you drink with her?

I know.

I thought this was fucked up.

It was almost as fucked up.

as them talking about how great it was that Archer brought Porthos to the suicide mission.

No people have returned from the Delphic Expanse.

I doubt any dogs have.

Cool, Archer.

Yeah.

That's great.

This is also a scene where Tripp reiterates, in case anybody hadn't noticed, that he is out for blood and wants to extract a commitment from Archer that we are going to absolutely fuck these people's shit up in response to what they've done.

I am so angry.

I'm going to be even angrier with a hangover.

They're really getting into the brown, aren't they?

They are.

They're really knocking it back when bangers start dropping on the ship and they get into another firefight with Duras.

And they've got enhanced hull plating.

How about that?

And better torpedoes.

Like, Duras was not prepared for them to be both better defended and better able to knock his ship out.

Can you explain the strategy?

Like we cut over to Duras and he's like, whoa, these torpedoes, huh?

When we cut back to Enterprise, we learned that the yield had been dialed down on those first couple shots.

Why are they not shooting full-yield torpedoes right away?

This would solve the Duras problem for hundreds of years.

Yeah.

That would be good.

Right?

The House of Duras sucks.

If I'm Reed, 100%

is the strength I want these torpedoes going out with.

Right.

Like when Captain yells back, like, like, fire, like, like a full spread at 10% yield, you go like, whoops.

Yeah.

Oh, shit.

I let them go a little hotter than you asked for, Cap.

Sorry about that.

Well, they work.

Yeah, I mean, as they are, they work.

Enterprise leaves this bird of prey in the dust after crippling it, and they head to Vulcan once more.

So Vulcan's two days away when TePaul comes to talk to Archer in the captain's mess.

TePaul's like, is anyone going to talk to me on this trip?

Like,

I'm unclear about if anyone's going to miss me at all.

Yeah.

She has decided to come on the adventure and is going to resign her commission because

Archer hasn't got a science officer as good as her.

There's nobody he can promote into the position that would really cut it.

He needs her.

Ben, this is many, many years before the way to resign your job looked like taking off your com badge.

And because Berman and Braga wrote this episode, T'Paul just takes off her top and puts it on the table, thus signifying that she's resigned in order to remain on Enterprise.

This is actually the first time that they showed frontal nudity on network television.

And the way they got around

FCC rules is that she's not technically human.

Right.

It'd be like showing a topless chimpanzee or gazelle, you know.

This scene is interrupted because rather than answering to Paul in the room about whether or not Archer needs her, he walks her to the bridge and orders the course change in a very dramatic way, like with tons of panache.

He's like, We are not going to Vulcan anymore, we are going to the Delphic expanse because she is coming with us.

So we get another captain's log.

We're now seven weeks later and they're at the edge of Delphic Expanse Space and it's a cotton candy nebula that they're looking at.

It's a big nebula.

It's a purple nebula.

They start heading in.

They launch a communications bois.

Mm-hmm.

It's nice.

So at least they got that going for them.

Yeah.

I mean, they're going to want to see this footage, right?

Like after we go in there.

I mean, the footage is going to blow your mind.

Probably not appropriate for network television.

Right.

We'll let them figure that out.

Suddenly, three birds of prey are on their ass, and Duras wants them to surrender again.

And Archer basically tells them to eek shit.

They plunge into this cloud, and the other Klingons are too chicken to follow them.

But Duras powers on, and suddenly the new torpedoes don't seem to work that good.

Yeah.

I think this suggests that Reed maybe got lucky in the first space battle.

Yeah.

Like, even Reed is going to hit the target once or twice.

Yeah.

He does not hit this time.

And with so many bangers getting dropped on Enterprise, things are getting pretty desperate.

Yeah, you don't want to like head out on your extremely long shot adventure with a ship as fucked up as the Entrepreneur is becoming in this space battle.

Yeah, I don't love it.

It would be like if Year Year of Hell was the pilot of Voyager, you know.

There's an observation here about the condition of DeRasa's ship in that, oh, they've kind of rotated all of their shields to the front, and that's what makes our torpedoes not really penetrate.

We're hitting a shield and we're not getting through, but what's going on on the back?

Did they just leave the back door open?

That's the guess.

That's the prevailing theory.

And so Archer puts a hand on Mayweather's shoulder and he's like, buddy, I'm going to need you to perform the most dangerous space maneuver ever conceived.

Something only the best pilots could ever do.

And when we see this on screen, we learn that the craziest space maneuver ever done is a loop-de-loop.

Captain Archer, to all hands, hold on.

Yeah, but it's also, you know, hitting it from the back, you know.

It's a little raunchy.

They hammer Duras's ship from behind, and it's destroyed.

And then the aftermath, Mayweather was like, woo!

That was crazy.

Do not ask me to do that again.

Like, it took every ounce of courage and strength and know-how to do it.

Yeah.

I was amazed that they actually blew Duras's ship to pieces.

I know.

I was surprised that that was the end of the episode also.

Is this RSVP Duras?

Like, there is that front section where the bridge is that's sort of like floating toward the expanse

is this the same duras that worf later kills no no this is uh like granddaddy duras not all duras's oh i think is the idea is it like a it's a common name like it's the sean of kronos he's related to that duras okay he's descended from lursa but i think they're like cousins they're not like direct descendants Yeah, I still don't really get how the houses work in Klingon World.

How do we still not know how the houses work?

Because fucking Aaron Walkie hasn't written that episode of, like, this is what Prodigy is doing, is it's like solving all of these things.

Like, is Gary Seven and Lobster Hands friends?

We need more Star Trek made for kids so that we can start putting things together like this.

So that we can start understanding what we're watching.

So interesting the way this episode ends, Ben.

Because, as a season finale, I would have guessed that we'd get some dones, we'd get it to be continued, but instead, we get

a moment of triumph almost in that Archer orders the ship forward.

And as the ship moves into the expanse, we're going to move on to season three for the next episode.

Yeah.

But how'd you like this one?

It was

bracing and really intense.

And I mean, like, I think this is going to be a long episode of The Greatest Generation because we talked about a lot of plot in recapping this one,

which feels like a new pace of play for this show.

You know,

like this kind of felt like 10 pounds a show in a five-pound bag in a way that I associate much more with

contemporary Trek.

Yeah.

It felt very Deep Space 90 in that way.

True.

Yeah.

Like with the political and

warlike aspects to it.

Yeah.

And the surprising factionalization

of the people that they encounter along the way.

Yeah.

I thought this was a real interesting one.

And,

you know, both resolves a number of interesting conflicts that have led up to this point and also complicates them and introduces new things based on them.

So I'm excited about it.

Excited to see what's next.

Yeah, I don't need all of my Star Trek to be sad and intense,

but I think this is the best episode of Enterprise I've seen up till now because it

makes Archer so much more effective and understandable and believable in his decisions.

Like, it's so important to have a captain with credibility on a Star Trek show.

And I feel like Archer made the leap here for me in that way.

Like, I'm ready to ride for this guy.

And so much of it has to do with his change in attitude.

Like, I'm ready to go.

And I hope this is a way of being that he can continue because I think it really matters that he's not just a whiny dork about

and complaining about things happening to him.

Like, that's the transition that he's gone through.

Right.

He's not, why are people so mean to me?

And why is exploration so hard?

And why am I eating the gruel?

He's like, no, like, fuck that.

I'm not going to feel bad about my circumstances.

I'm going to take control in aspects that I can control.

And I'm going to fucking ram my ship into the expanse and see what happens.

Like,

that's fun Star Trek.

And I hope that represents a kind of change in tone to this show.

I agree.

At least in a change to the character that I think is most welcome.

Totally.

Well do you want to see if there's anything welcome in the Priority One inbox?

Nothing like the tone change that a P1 represents, right?

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 this ship.

Adam, this P1 is of a promotional nature, and it goes like this.

B ⁇ A!

I've been dreaming of this P1 ever since that Mornhammer app, or was it a Power Hour?

I don't know, where y'all did shots of bad hard seltzer and were very sad.

Want better booze?

Make it yourself!

My book, Hard Seltzer, Iced Tea, Kombucha, and Cider, is out on April 8th, and it's about making tasty drinks in your very own home.

What my theory presupposes is that if you're a Star Trek nerd, you might also be a home brewing nerd even if you don't know it yet.

Buy my book anywhere you buy books.

Thanks, friends of DeSoto.

Look at Emma Christensen going after the greatest gin.

Yeah, so the

call to action here, curious about homebrewing?

Search Emma Christensen Hard Seltzer and buy my book.

That last name is spelled C-H-R-I-S-T-E-N-S-E-M.

Dang, I'm gonna go to bookshop.org and order myself a copy of this because that sounds like a really fun summer project.

Well, good luck with that book, Emma.

I'm excited about it.

Ben, we got a priority one message here from Tony.

It's to Ben Adam and the FODs.

Here's that message.

The cafeteria at work ran a Super Bowl guessing contest, which I won.

with Eagles win 39-24.

On Monday, I was led into the kitchen and handed my prize mug.

A line cook said, Nice guess, crazy how you nailed that.

To which I replied, Yeah, I really need to think of better uses for my time machine.

Dead silence in the kitchen.

Whoa, bad bits drop.

Bits, bits, bits.

You're always doing bits, bits, bits.

You're always doing bits.

Bits.

Bits.

I was doing bits.

Bad bit moment.

Bad bit moment.

Wow.

I think that's a good bit, Tony.

I like the line.

I can't believe they fucking left you hanging out to dry like that.

Then, as a non-gambler, it doesn't surprise me at all you'd have this opinion.

You can't do bits on losing gamblers this is what tony did wrong this line cooked lost

and so to do bits on them like this i get it i don't know tone i don't know tone i didn't assume that anybody in the kitchen was playing like i thought it was like for their customers to guess so oh

okay maybe that was my head cannon but maybe they were in in the game i don't know uh tony was playing that squares game you ever play the squares game for the super Bowl?

Don't know what is.

It's just a luck-based game where you win if you get the score correct.

Okay.

All right.

Pretty awesome.

I'm sorry they did you dirty like that Tony, but

we all have our moments

This P1 is from Bethany aka mom and it's to David even though I won't let him listen to your show until he's older.

David You are eight.

We are nearing the end of season one TNG.

It makes my heart proud to hear you ask, can we watch more Star Trek?

Ben and Adam, thanks for the pod.

Listener, since DS9 and Voyager, I've gone back to TNG to listen along and help inform my mom vetos, which have been used liberally.

This is my first P1, so it'll be fun to hear when I get caught up again.

Wow.

Tony had a bit about a time machine in the last one.

Bethany, a time machine of her own.

Totally.

Thank you for listening.

Thanks for going back to the beginning.

Yeah.

And,

you know, bringing a youngin' into the fold.

I love it.

Yeah.

So many FODs back in the stacks.

Yeah.

Like Bethany.

And potentially raising a future generation of FODs.

I like that.

Amazing.

Yeah.

Our goal is to die in these chairs, so like it's not going to happen unless some, you know, we'll get some young blood to fill our ranks.

Well, whether you're raising youth

or coming up with homebrew cocktail ideas, try to not do bits on a person who's lost a bet.

Instead, do the sure thing by creating a priority one message.

You can do that by going to maximumfund.org slash jumbotron, write in a couple of words, and then you'll get the kind of vamping you've heard today on this episode.

Hey, Adam.

What's that, Ben?

Did you find yourself

a drunk Shimoda?

Incredible.

Drunk Shimoda!

I think one of the places that Archer misses this episode is drinking with Trip, talking about Tepal,

like pre-missing her.

It's hard to appreciate the things you have when you have them before they're gone.

And I can think of one way that they could do that, by inviting Tepal.

to have a drink with them, which I think she would have.

Yeah.

I wonder if they messed around with this idea when they were breaking this episode.

Like,

in the same way that, like, when Picard walks the ship in best of both worlds and runs into Guinen, there's that moment that exists almost without rank between

two people who work together, who have respect and admiration.

I would have really liked that moment for Trip and Archer and TePaul here.

And I wonder if maybe they opted not to do that to just kick that can down the road.

But we do get a version of that later later with the big dramatic Archer entrance to the bridge.

But I don't know, I kind of want to see TePaul take a shot at Brown.

It could have been fun.

Yeah.

I feel like she would have been in the mood for that this episode, you know.

Yeah, I mean, she's not working for the Vulcans anymore.

So

I'm going to split my Shimoda between Archer and Trip Tucker for that.

Interesting.

I'm going to split mine between Reed and Trip Tucker because of the wide shot of them looking over the gash carved in Florida.

The little CG people that they put in the frame there to represent Trip and Reed

did not know what to do with their arms.

They're standing there with their arms like one foot out to either side of them.

I mean, I think that's so that they can be drawn, like so that the border can be drawn around their bardies.

Yeah, yeah.

It

really made me laugh watching.

I went back a couple of times just to enjoy how silly they looked in the wide shot there.

And, you know, there was Comic Sans on screen, so it was

very enjoyable to me.

The dark Shimoda, which we sometimes have, is definitely Archer bringing Porthos.

Dark Shimoda.

Crazy move.

You want to see a dog turned inside out, Archer?

You say fuck.

Faith of the fart.

Well, Adam, it's time to learn a little bit about what we've got coming up next week.

Of course, it's going to be season three, episode one,

the Zindi.

Captain Archer and his crew set out to gain information about the mysterious and antagonistic Zindi race.

To find out how we will be watching that episode, I've gone to goch.biz slash game, where our runabout is on square 74,

and it could go anywhere with the roll of this hundred-sided die.

Exciting.

You're required to learn as you play.

Roll.

And where it went, Adam, is square 60, regular episode next week.

Tula!

Did I win?

Hardly.

How about that?

Okay.

All right.

Not too bad.

Yeah.

Looking forward to it.

I want to say thank you to some really important people, some people without whom this just wouldn't be possible.

Of course, we've got to thank the friends of DeSoto who support the show at maximumfund.org/slash join.

Got to thank Wendy Pretty, our intrepid producer and editor.

Big thanks to our Zindi wartime.

Consiglieri,

Bill Tilley.

He's also in those trenches.

He's,

yeah.

He's a war correspondent, too.

He's down there wearing hip waiters and

doing Richard Valeriani style hits.

Flak jacket that says press in huge white letters on the back.

Yeah, you can see it.

He's making hilarious trading cards that you can catch on the at greatest trek social media accounts all over the internet.

Those accounts run by Rob Adler, who makes them a very fun follow.

Give him a follow.

You know, subscribe to the news.

Give him a follow!

Guy.biz slash mail.

Come on.

It's great.

You won't regret it.

Gotta thank Admiral Gussia for the original theme parody of Diane Warren's Bop.

And also, speaking of bops, dark materia for the original Picard song.

I hope Dark Materia is doing great wherever they are.

Yeah.

With that, we'll be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise.

An episode of the Greatest Generation Enterprise.

It's got one bug in its species.

There's always one bug in there.

Get rid of that thing.

The Achilles bug.

Captain John Picard of the U.S.

Cry.

Catch him.

Jonathan Picard of the U.S.

Make it so.

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