Music Festival Math (ENT S2E12)

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 Pranica.

Back from break.

Back from break.

A seamless break from the perspective of all listening, but it's been a really long time since we've recorded an episode of this show.

To an FOD, this is going to be like severance.

Like

the elevator doors close on the last episode.

They open up again on this episode.

No break in

quality.

No break in time.

Thanks for spoiling the first instant of the second season of a series, Adam.

Yeah,

I don't apologize for that great big spoiler to you.

You want to update FODs on how you're doing specifically?

I feel like that's going to be the big update.

Yeah, well, I think a lot of people have worried about our status W slash R slash T fires, and we are both in.

We're both dead.

Died by fires.

As of this recording, we are butt ash, and yet, you know, the podcast demands that we record an episode, so we can't even get a fucking break

from that standpoint.

This is a break.

This is the best part to me.

This is the best part.

You're right.

You're right.

But also, yes, Darone has a little baby sister.

She was born on the 7th of January.

She and mama are both doing great.

It was a huge surprise.

So the moment you reached into the drawer of the maturation chamber of the Borg ship and pulled it open and were greeted by a baby daughter, that was a big moment for you, huh?

It was.

Well, what happened was the drawer closed and then the drawer opened right back up again at the beginning of the next season.

That's fun.

Yeah.

Yeah,

she was a total surprise.

We had totally, we didn't know that it was going to be a girl.

We didn't know what it was going to be.

And we had so many conversations about boy names.

You remembered having sex around nine months ago, right?

Like you remember that part?

We did know that there was going to be a baby.

We just didn't know what gender would be assigned at birth.

So that came as a big surprise.

And, you know, these first few weeks are so many get ups in the middle of the night that we're both delirious and not making any sense.

And my wife keeps going like, can you get him to me while I'm like lying in bed?

And I'm like, who do you mean?

Do Do you mean our son or our daughter?

So it's been a lot of fun getting used to the new normal.

Do your kids sleep in the same room?

Where does Darone sleep and where does your daughter sleep?

This early, we have the little one in the room with us in like a, in like a bassinet so that, you know, when she is eating like three or four times a night, so she needs to get up.

And it's just, there's no way to do that with her in another room.

Like there, it wouldn't make any sense logistically.

So eventually she will move into the kids' bedroom, as we are now calling it.

About that.

But that'll be, you know.

Until you dig out the basement for Darone.

Right.

Yeah.

For his cool kid teenage situation.

Oh, yeah.

He's going to be down there smoking pot with his other three-year-old friends.

Hell yeah.

It'll be that camera that's in the middle middle of the of the cipher circle that goes around like that 70s show.

Big fun.

Yeah.

I never knew what was going on on that 70s show until years later I watched like a rerun of that and I was like, oh, I know what this is.

I've never seen a single second of that show.

Oh, great people came out of that.

You should definitely enjoy

all of their work.

I know that's a top-line concern for how you make choices for programming.

So

I'll try to keep that in mind on my end.

But yeah, stuff's going good.

How are you?

How has the break been for you?

I mean, less of a break, but still, you know, a break from recording feels unique as a way to live.

Yeah.

Had a fun and restorative holiday break, and I don't know.

Like, it's hard to

like before fires seems like a long time ago yeah and uh now

here we are in late january it just feels like the holidays were so long ago i i feel uh refreshed and ready to get back into this long-term project we do indeed a whole lot i couldn't be happier to be here i couldn't be happier to be hunkering down for some more records as they do in today's episode of star trek enterprise do you want to get into it adam do you think when you're good looking and you do this, you're hunk-hunkering?

Hmm.

Yeah.

And when you're having like a sizable portion of a hunker and you're good looking, but not the whole thing, you're having a hunk-a-hunk-hunkering?

Do you think when you're Elvis and you want that, it's a hunk-a-hunk-a-hunk-hunkering?

I think probably.

I think that's probably the case.

We're back in pre-break form, Ben, obviously.

Let's get into the show with Star Trek Enterprise Season 2, Episode 12.

It's called The Catwalk.

Anyways, we're orbiting an uninhabited, sort of primordial sounding planet.

Like plants and animals, but no, no smarties down there.

They don't have to worry about a culture or interacting with it.

It's so weird you said that, because like when I think of primordial, all I think about is ooze.

I'm not thinking about a planet with like plants and beautiful lakes and stuff.

Like the way this planet is described by the folks getting ready to go down there, it seems like a personal paradise because it is a vacation wonderland without any other people at all.

Yeah, it's like...

Planet National Park, but they're not letting anybody else in.

But there's no ooze in the primordial sense, which is the only like I only ever hear that word with ooze.

Yeah, yeah.

You

you and Daylost Soul, Adam.

They're getting ready for a camping trip, and Trip is very excited about this because the planet has binary suns, so a lot of hours of daylight down there, which I guess means like plenty of partying will be done.

I kind of feel like you do that after the sun goes down, but I don't know.

I think the older you get,

as I've gotten older, I'm doing more of my partying in the daylight hours.

I just get too tired.

They are like in the minivan, in the garage, getting ready to push the button to put up the garage door when some aliens approach and are like, hey, like, would love to come aboard your ship.

And then you guys high tail it out of here at Warp

Sevo.

Our top speed is Warp 5.

If you like King to come out,

bring it on!

I love this moment because it feels so familiar, right?

Anyone who's ever taken a phone call in the driveway, like that's what Archer's doing here with this FaceTime.

Like, he's in the shuttle.

He's about to go.

Yeah, it's a bit of bad news.

They didn't know about the neutronic wave wavefront that is closing in because it's not on their sensors yet, but it will be soon.

And I mean, I feel like this is classic, you know, don't give the last four of your social to somebody that calls claiming to be your bank kind of a moment.

Like, Archer tells these guys what their top speed is just over an open comm signal.

That seems like a secret that you don't want to give up.

Yeah, I don't love that.

But it's like the whole moment is played for embarrassment, right?

Like, ah, these aliens I've just met think I'm way faster than I actually am.

That's going to be a tough conversation.

A conversation we don't end up seeing.

No.

Which I grieved.

Like, I wanted that moment so bad.

I mean, it's kind of reminiscent of the conversation they had with those guys that were like, oh yeah, we heard you like broke a bunch of Sulabans out of prison and you're like really tough.

You know?

There is a lot of that going around on on this show.

The I thought you were one thing and you're actually not.

It's sort of the opposite of the ship of death problem that Voyager was encountering, where it's like they're being misapprehended by a lot of people, but not in a good way.

No, not at all.

Yeah.

Ship of don't worry about it.

Oh, this little ship over here, I wouldn't worry about that little ship.

We get a McLaughlin group

where TePaul explains what a bad deal a neutronic wavefront is and how this is the kind of thing that has really done, you know, bad damage to previous Vulcan ships

and they're kind of spitballing what they can do because they can't run away from it fast enough.

And this is a moment in time that predates Turn Us Into the Wave.

No one's ever done that before.

That was invented later.

That's why that plan isn't on the table.

Six bay not big enough to hunker.

Mm-hmm.

But it seems like it's big enough to do some hunkering, right i'm gonna put you on the spot here is dr flox a hunk if we're talking about hunk hunkering

i think dr flox is an absolute hunk hunk or anti-hunk dr flox your vote is hunk okay good to know

uh yeah i mean uh people should write in is it like let's do let's do a social media poll let's get some fucking audience engagement on this hunk or anti-hunk yeah i mean somebody with a tongue like that really only reads as hunk to me I mean, that's what's on the inside.

I think the general understanding of hunk is a very superficial

sort of label, wouldn't you say?

Sure.

I guess when the tongue is on the outside, we can be superficial at that point.

You're plussing up your hunk score.

You are.

When you're letting the tongue hang.

Yeah.

It's an everyday thing for Dr.

Flox when he lets that tongue hang.

So they're like, oh, the other thing we could do is uh is camp out in the warp nacelles we'd have to turn off warp power because they're so hot when warp power is on but when they're off there are these catwalks in there and uh and we can hang in there so this is this is going to be the plan they don't have a lot of time to make it happen they have to leave orbit of the planet which i didn't totally get but that's part of it yeah what happens to the planet when this wave hits it do you know that

well that like that's what i was thinking thinking: is the planet done for?

Or

our planet has

a magnetic field that protects us from stuff in the cosmos.

Wouldn't a planet help in some way?

Couldn't you get behind the planet?

Do you think there was a time when people were on this planet, but the wave comes through and clears them all out?

Oh.

Like, maybe

were there to be an away mission, they would have seen ruins and so forth.

Right.

It's a primordial snooze button.

It resets everything every 20 million years or something.

Really interesting concept, the idea that there would be like improvised fallout shelters under the nacelles

in this way.

Yeah.

So a little expedition is done to start making plans for how they're going to set these tunnels up for people to stay in them because the entire crew has to be packed cheek by jowl into two nacelles.

And we learn that this is not Travis's first rodeo.

He's been through

one of these space storms before.

And so his first thought is, the bathroom.

What are we going to do about the bathroom?

This was such an opportunity for Mayweather to maybe let the mask of joy slip a little bit.

Like his

regular vibe is one of

being super cool with just about every situation.

Six weeks in a situation like this, he's served.

If there was ever a moment for him to have a look in his eyes, like a look of freak out, you're like, this is it.

He tiptoes up to it, right?

When he talks about like, you know, when they lost main power and their grav plating went offline and he saw his dad, you know, start to contemplate death or whatever.

I mean,

no one jacked it for six weeks and you're all cooped up.

Like, that's a recipe for disaster.

Oh, my God.

We knew we were in trouble.

You don't want to see your dad jack off, Ben.

You just don't.

When you're trying to catch some shut eye in, you know, in the core of the ship and you look over and your dad's blanket is moving in that way.

Yeah.

The construction of portajons out of storage lockers is an intriguing visual to me because

we all know the size of a storage locker.

You can stuff a fucking nerd into a storage locker, but I don't know if anyone can take a shit in one comfortably, right?

Like you need, here, I'm going to do it.

You need some room to sit down.

Wait a second.

Is this a storage locker or an elevator, Adam?

I kind of craved a

build on the latrine.

Yeah.

Got to be honest with you.

I mean, this was one of the rare opportunities Star Trek had to show us a bathroom.

Yeah.

Like, is Star Trek V going to be the only time we see a toilet in Star Trek?

Or

I mean, I guess maybe that hull section that comes out of the D when they first encounter the Borgs, maybe.

Yeah.

But the throne rooms being nerdlockers is so Star Trek Enterprise as a concept.

I feel like the whole episode could have been built around this.

I think it is also very clear that two is the number of them that would be made for a crew of 80.

And that is some real music festival math right there

when it comes down to it.

It's going to take an hour for those things to be pretty bombed out, where you're no longer shitting on water anymore.

You're shitting on shit.

Yeah.

You hear the slap as it lands on the pile.

God.

Just the worst.

The absolute worst.

worst.

We get to see the beta bridge.

That's fun.

They construct it a good ways away from the latrines.

Yeah.

I would think.

And it's going to be made out of a bunch of like jumper cables and turned over barrels.

It's a great setup in there.

Yeah, it's really like Land Party, not,

you know, not like one of those, uh, what do they call like those Reddits where people show their

super cool PC gaming setup, like command centers or something like that.

Oh, that's interesting.

I've been seeing, I've been served a Reddit community, and I don't know what this says about me, but it's, God, I wish I could name what it is exactly, but it's like, I'm a man and I live alone,

and it's sort of like a rate my setup thing.

Yeah.

And there are like so many

56k light bulb, one-room apartments.

Like

it's fucking bleak, man.

Here's the thing.

Change your light bulbs.

My buddy Michael Hoffman walked past a building in New York and just sent me like a video of it from the streets.

It's like new build apartment construction.

Yeah.

And it's like different color temperature bulbs in all of the units.

Burn it down.

He's like, just because I know you, this makes me irrationally angry.

I would like to formally apologize on this date in late January for making a joke about burning an apartment building down based on different color temperature light bulbs.

Yeah, not great timing for that one, Adam.

That joke is good.

50 out of 52 weeks.

Yeah, it's

your kids are going to love it.

Yeah.

So over in the decon chamber,

what has it got to be like to be a visiting alien?

You're a little bit desperate for a place to hide out from

this oncoming wave.

And they invite you over and they stick you in the chamber with the creams.

You're going to hang out there for a little while until we know what to do with you.

Archer comes in to greet.

These guys are very understanding about it.

They're like, oh, no, it's fine.

Don't sweat it, man.

Do we understand this to be a technology that other species have?

I guess so.

Like, I mean, this happened when Travis went over to that alien ship and got all baked while he was wrenching on their engine.

Yeah.

These folks are from Tecret,

which...

Hopefully these guys don't wind up with a bunch of arm nipples.

You're never going to let that go, are you?

I mean, we don't see them rolling up their sleeves ever.

They seem to be

pretty lazy with everything going on here.

Tekret's pretty far away, and their job, as stated, is stellar cartography.

This is something that catches their ears.

They're like, oh, that's great.

You know, we're explorers.

Maybe we could do some map trading when the emergency is done.

You guys hunker with us, and then after, you can unfurl maps.

Got to call your attention to one thing I'm sure you noticed, Ben.

One of these aliens, and we should should also say that their loaf seems to be a very like tired alien loaf, very puffy under the eyes,

is where they decided to go with this.

One of these aliens is played by Zach Grenier,

which has a face that you must pay attention to.

It's not his fault, it's just that everything he's in, you are drawn to that face.

You're like, this Secretary of Defense might be up to something, you know.

This fucking guy and his face, like, I cannot emphasize enough.

Is it possible that this police lieutenant may be corrupt?

Is the face that he gives?

This guy has zero story this entire episode.

And yes.

He's like the third most important of these three aliens.

Like, how did they get the casting this jumbled up?

They get so much juice out of the idea of just casting him at all.

It heightens the entire thing with him in it.

Yeah.

There's so much.

He's got an intriguing face.

And you know how I mean that, right?

It is striking.

It is intriguing.

Yeah.

I mean, it's like on our sister show, The Flophouse here on the Maximum Fun Networks, they always, you know, talk about how like if Bill Nighy shows up early in the movie, not as the bad guy, it's like...

There's no amount of forecasting that you could do greater than that.

Like he will end up being the like ultimate evil evil that was pulling all the strings.

And that's what it feels like when Zach Grenier shows up on screen.

It's like, okay, like, some fucking shit is going to go down with this dude.

You know?

Did they ruin the episode by casting him in some fucked up way?

I don't know.

Like, it's not his fault.

Was this early enough in his career that that wasn't the baggage that he brought into a character?

Like, I feel like he's been around longer than this.

Imagine showing up to a casting call and seeing Zach Grenier, like, outside on a on a plastic chair.

Fuck!

We got Zach Rigny out here?

Yeah.

What chance does this face have?

Nobody has a face like that.

So they're like, yeah, we'll give you some maps for saving our bacon.

That's a fair trade.

And we get a little montage of prepping the tubes.

There's like lots of half-full gym bags being bucket brigaded around the ship.

It seemed like a bad way to pack for potentially a couple of weeks of hunkering, but that's what they do.

I mean, I guess gym bags and hunks go together, so that makes sense.

But think about how much time everyone had to pack.

This is something that just happened to me.

Like, my wife and I had to pack up to leave because of fire.

I had to direct my dad to pack up to leave for me.

So I was like, yeah, like, I think my birth certificate is in like the top drawer on the right.

I would give any amount of money to have a recording of you and your dad talking about that.

Oh my God.

Like an absolutely delirious call because I hadn't slept in like 48 hours and I'm like trying to remember where all the important shit in our house is.

Just incredible.

Yeah.

My point being is the crew didn't have a lot of time to prepare.

It's like whatever you can grab to stuff in a duffel is what they're going to do.

And like ordinarily, this moment is one of my favorite moments in a Star Trek thing.

Like, I love the moment in Star Trek Generations where they're getting ready to evacuate the ship, except in this scene, there are no dropped teddy bears.

And I think that means a lot when

you're coloring in the feelings that this is supposed to evoke.

Like, in how much danger are we really?

How many kids could potentially die in this situation?

Do any adults have teddy bears?

I have many questions.

Yeah,

Hoshi's got a comfort animal that she.

Reads teddy bear as a permanently open mouth.

Hey, wait a second.

Is that your teddy bear or your waifu, Malcolm?

A teddy bear with a permanently open mouth and also empty eye sockets.

I need something to do with this shit, Kamanda.

Fair enough.

We get a scene in Six Bay where Phlox is complaining to TePaul that he's been allotted 15 cubic meters for all of his critters and he just needs a lot more than that and is not looking forward to the Sophie's choice of it all.

But we had just established that Six Bay was one of the other, only other places on the ship that would be safe from this storm.

So I was like, just stay there.

Can I admit something to you?

Hmm.

God, this is going to be so painful.

Okay.

I get it through context clues.

I've never seen Sophie's choice.

What is Sophie deciding?

She has to pick between kids, like in the Holocaust, like which ones she's going to save.

Oh my God.

Really?

That's so sad.

Yeah, I mean, I haven't seen it either.

Sounds too sad.

I always conflate Sophie's choice and Silkwood in terms of like

actors going through something hard, having to make a terrible decision.

And do they also star the same people?

Yeah, yeah, I think it's Meryl Streep and both, right?

Meryl Streep, Sophie's choice.

Yeah.

Silkwood, Meryl Streep.

Wow.

Wow.

Great job.

Like, I think Silkwood is really trying to be the polemic against nuclear power that, like, would like, like, now we will not do nuclear power now that we have Silkwood.

And it's, like, a little too didactic to really hit as a metaphor.

So, like, I feel like Silkwood doesn't work in a way that Sophie's choice does.

Yeah, Silkwood's aged very poorly.

We should get rid of that movie.

How about this emotional appeal that hunky Dr.

Flox lays on TePaul?

He's like, look, you can't make me choose between bug and other bug.

Yeah.

And TePaul's like, how about we give you more square footage so you don't have to?

Done and done.

Why would an emotional appeal mean anything to her, though?

Like, couldn't they have made a little bit more hay of this?

I was very intrigued by this moment for that reason.

Like this and like your aforementioned no-dropped teddy bear, I feel like, are what make this not a metaphor for hiding in the London underground during the Blitz?

Is this another movie reference?

No, like, you know, like in the World War II, like everybody had to go into the subway stations because the Germans were bombing London.

Oh, yeah.

And I thought that that's what we were getting here.

That was the famous lost episode of Friendly Fire, right?

Like the last one?

Wasn't that the one where they hid in the sewers?

There are so many last.

I think there's like seven episodes of that show that didn't come out.

I know.

But yeah, something like that.

I mean, like, Rachel Weiss was probably giving out hand jobs,

you know.

Someone's going to fucking clip that piece of audio.

I'm going to be so

Wendy.

Edit that out.

Hurry.

How about new?

They're used all day long.

We cut to the catwalk where folks are loading in.

Yeah.

And they'll have to be there for eight days.

While the idea of getting to know each other is lightly floated by Trip Tucker, these aliens are obviously lying about the stellar cartography part of their backstory.

And they really do not want to be outed as lying on their resume.

No, they want nothing to do with any of these people.

So they are going to kind of hide in a

basically like

what happens when you take all the cushions off the couch and build yourself a fort.

Like that's what these aliens do for themselves.

You know me very well, and I think you would agree that this would be my sort of behavior in a situation like this.

I am going to carve out my space.

I mean, you've done that to me on car rides before.

Why did Adam bring a shower curtain to the inside of this car?

They said bring only what you need to survive.

And that it's like he got his passport and a curtain.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I hate shower curtains in any other context, but that one.

So Archer gets to watch the wavefront come in, and it really does look like a slow-motion praxis explosion.

But it also, because it's so thin, really looked like something that they should easily be able to get around.

You know?

Yeah.

Like, I know you can't outrun this by going directly away from it, but just go, like, up, and I think you're going to be okay.

We're talking about the Z angle, right?

Yeah.

Just throw some some Z on that bitch.

You're going to be fine.

Why didn't anyone say that?

Like I just, like the way we just did, it's two seconds.

Hey, what about the Z axis?

Nope, can't do that.

Even if it's just no, can't do that.

Right.

It wouldn't work.

Asked and answered.

So yeah, they watch it come through.

He tells to Paul that he actually like did a little in the very short amount of time they had to get the nacelles ready for everything archer went and did some research about that vulcan ship that encountered a storm like this and found out that they uh in fact got destroyed and not like nearly destroyed as depaul described it so like she made a choice a lie and her choice was to misremember i guess this moment combined with your observation of the poorly packed duffel bags is just a delight to me because while everyone is freaking out, like they basically dumped out their dirty clothes into a Delpho bag because that's faster.

Archer has kicked back in the clarinet rental room, like reading about that mission and going, huh, something doesn't quite add up here.

Very strange, TePaul.

Yeah.

Nothing is made of this.

Like, it's like, were you trying to hide something, TePaul?

Was there some nefarious reason you didn't go into detail?

Was she the only survivor?

Right, like the ship had a name that didn't sound unlike TePaul.

I was like, oh, like, because

remember that thing in the Bible about maybe TePaul is like super duper old?

Yeah.

I keep wondering if they're going to do anything with that.

And like,

there was that episode of Lower Decks that TePaul showed up in, and that's like a long time from these events.

She takes off her top on her honeymoon with Trip Tucker, and her boobs are just so saggy.

Like, whoa!

But she's an old lady.

I mean, look at her.

You are old.

I did not see that going.

I mean, the cat suit is doing

a lot of the foundation here.

Shout out to the cat.

That she plays it off as maybe I remembered it incorrectly.

There's another moment in this episode where you're like, what's up with TePaul?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, it kind of puts you on her in a way that, like, you notice her and you think something weird's going to happen with her.

Right.

It, like, this moment is to her character what Zach Grenier's face is to any character he plays.

She's kind of Zach Graniering around a little bit.

A little bit.

Yeah.

Anyways, they shunt all of the command systems to their improvised land party bridge in the nacelle, and then we get the single brass instrument of shutting off main power.

I like evacuation scenes.

I like turning off the power scenes.

It's always interesting.

Some of my favorite Star Trek stuff.

Yeah.

A captain's speech about we're going to get through this, also a solid Star Trek thing that we get here.

This is very brief.

You may not be comfortable, but you'll be alive.

Do you feel inspired by this?

No, I mean, but then again, do you need inspiration to like sit in one place for six days?

I hate doing that Star Trek podcast thing that's like, you know, I have an idea of how they could do this better.

But I have an idea of how they could have done this better.

Put the speech during the evacuation.

Right.

You've got like the drumbeat of the intensity of the pack.

You've got people moving in this orderly, disorderly fashion.

Get on the 1MC and get the captain on there going, like, I know this is a crazy situation, but you guys are the best.

And you got duffel bags full of dirty clothes.

Like, double-time it.

And he's he's like trying to be stirring, but he sounds like a little distracted because he's doing the speech while trying to read a little bit of history about this Vulcan ship that got destroyed.

And he's like, he's really trying to sell that they will survive this if they work together.

And then he's like, kind of seeing a lot of evidence to the contrary.

Anyway, the storm absorbs Enterprise after a series of bangers.

And after that, it's fairly smooth sailing.

Yeah.

Or coasting, as it is, because they're going into this underpowered or unpowered, right?

Yeah.

So Archer takes a walk around.

I guess there's like two nacelles.

So there's like a whole B team of people that we don't see at all.

But Archer walks around the one that he's in and kind of, you know, walks amongst the troops, tries to,

you know, keep his chin up.

Ben, this is so fucking agonizing when you describe it that way.

Because the thought of those others, the other 40,

who may or may not be making decisions to their own ends,

maybe be planning a mutiny right under your nacelle.

Right.

There's a riot in the line

for the locker.

Like, what a conflict builder to even state that they're over there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like going to your friend's birthday party and then you get seated at a table with a a bunch of kids you don't know, you know, like Ben, you were seated with the adults, though.

Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, because you know, Deborah's an excellent conversationalist.

Oh, are they?

But, like,

I love the idea that somebody's like mad about having gotten stuck in nacelle B, you know.

Deborah, how did you feel about this month's news week?

Cover story.

Ben, you're eight.

i just think they're doing such interesting things with this dna research as stated before like like archer does this sort of walk around like out of boredom it seems it doesn't seem like this is something he would do ordinarily but he kind of does the rounds yeah nice to know that the nyt crossword puzzle app survives this far into the future yeah hoshi appears to be like brushing her teeth or whitening her teeth with a device that she's got and uh the new aliens have a curtain up, as stated before.

Right outside the curtain is the crew card game where Trip Tucker is holding it down.

And Archer asked Trip, what is the deal with the curtain aliens?

And he takes a break from the card game to tell him they are the sort of neighbors that have a lot of complaints and not a lot of contributions to what's going on on the block.

It's not a great scene.

Yeah, I mean, we find out later that they can't really eat human food.

So maybe those curtains are up to, like, limit how much of the gas they're passing is making it into the rest of the cell, you know?

Maybe it's a courtesy curtain.

I mean, maybe.

It seems like everyone's squeezed in there so tight that

flatulence is going to penetrate the curtain.

Yeah, unless it's like an N95 curtain.

There's no way people aren't going to be smelling that.

Can't you smell farts through an N95?

Do N95s block farts smell?

I mean, they're supposed to block particulates, but I guess that's gas, too.

You want to get more people to wear N95s?

That needs to be on the list of use cases.

Yeah, a P100 would definitely block a fart smell.

That's what you want.

P100 curtain.

Guess so.

Faith of the fart.

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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 planned 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 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 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 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 Lum.

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.

And you will never take the greatest gym alive.

Ben would rather die.

Rather die.

Reed goes to Six Bay for some anti-nausea medication.

Doesn't really go anywhere.

Archer goes up to the

bridge and gives Mayweather a couple of directions before turning in, which just means leaning against a bulkhead and watching TikToks about water polo games, which DePaul finds very irritating.

Because he's not using headphones.

Yeah, all he needed was a set of headphones, and this would have been fine.

It feels like they're just there's just more and more sub-basements to how shitty Archer is.

What the fuck are you doing?

Wear headphones in a public space if you're going to watch something on your device.

This is a rule of greatest gen, man.

Yeah.

It just is.

But to a certain extent, Star Trek is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi, right?

Like, like the Third World War, like the like the post-atomic horror, the war that they fought against Khan's people, which I forget the name of is all horrific shit.

And like maybe they lost AirPod technology and all that.

You know, the playing of audio out of a device in a public space is proof that the post-atomic horror continues

unabated.

Or maybe this is just a cultural thing, like, like post-Oobie-Doobie, like everybody wants to play everything on speakers, you know, like when we made friends over an Ubi-Doobie with the Vulcans, that proved to us that headphones were not going to be a part of our culture going forward.

I'm tired of borish behavior being recategorized as cultural.

Have a little fucking consideration is my camp.

Playing anything on a personal device would be awful, but that it's polo does mean only one thing.

We're about to find out if

Ben will feel like a piece of shit after playing the hit game show within a podcast.

Wow.

Holo.

Come on.

Holo.

Come on.

Or boyo.

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.

Wow.

I didn't even see that coming.

Ben, I've tried to make this easy on you this time.

Oh, okay.

All right.

Today's game is three true or false questions.

One about horse polo.

Okay.

One about water polo.

And one about chicken recipes.

Okay.

Are you ready to play?

I feel good about this.

True or false?

Due to a highly contagious equine disease outbreak in the late 1890s, the 1900 Paris Olympic Games polo matches were played on bicycles rather than horses, with teams using mallets to strike the ball while cycling around the field.

True or false, Ben?

Oh man, that sounds rad.

It kind of feels like that's awesome enough that if it had happened, there would be lots of cool pictures of it, and like people in Brooklyn would have been doing it, you know, like in some like bombed-out lot in Red Hook.

On those bikes with the big front wheel and the tiny back wheel.

Oh, a penny farthing.

I'm going to say false.

Correct.

Wow.

I can't remember the last time I said that.

Ben, while velocipede polo or bicycle polo did exist in the early 1900s, the 1900 Paris Olympics featured traditional horse-mounted polo.

Moving on to question two, true or false?

In professional water polo prior to 1976, goalkeepers were prohibited from crossing the halfway line during play, even during penalty shots, leading to the famous Budapest Empty Net Strategy.

The famous, I mean, who among us hasn't given some consideration to the Budapest empty nest?

Let's just consider for a moment the possible Budapest erasure on the line here, depending on Ben's answer.

True or false?

I think rule changes are a thing that sports should revisit from time to time to you know keep the game fresh and interesting.

So I'm gonna go with true.

Wrong!

Damn it!

There was never such a restriction on water polo goalkeepers.

While goalkeepers do have specific rules about their movement, they've always been allowed to cross the halfway line.

One correct, one incorrect for you, Bam.

Here's the tiebreaker.

True or false.

The dish, polo ala ventina from Guadalajara, traditionally requires the chicken to be marinated for exactly 43 hours in a mixture that includes both chocolate and dried grasshoppers.

Trying to think if Guadalajara is in the state of Oaxaca or if it is in its own state, because those grasshoppers and that chocolate seems like it would be a Oaxaca thing.

Sure does.

You'd think, wouldn't it?

That 43,

there's like that liquor quarente trace.

There's such a specificity to like 43 hours that I found

very interesting.

Very interesting.

I'll go with false.

Final answer?

Final answer.

Correct.

Yeah!

While pollo aleventina is indeed a famous dish from Guadalajara,

it's actually chicken covered in a spicy sauce from dried chilies and does not involve chocolate or grasshoppers.

Ben!

For the very first time,

you have won polo polo or bollo!

congratulations.

Wow.

Is this what feeling high on cocaine is like?

I promised you I would make it easier for you, and I did, and now I feel like shit.

The next game of Polo, Polo, Poirio, I'm gonna annihilate you.

You're gonna die in the next game.

Yeah.

So, Tepal stares at Archer, and then when asked, shares that yes, it does bother her that he's playing his polo match

out in the open like this, which is way more consideration than most people in public are ever afforded.

Yeah.

Archer kind of orders Tepal to like make better friends with the crew during this trying time.

That doesn't go anywhere either.

I'm not skilled at fraternizing.

We cut over to Reid and Trips card game and they're like they're kind of at each other's throats at this point, which is like interesting given that like these two guys know from hunkering down in a spaceship during an emergency together.

But like Reed fucking hates Trip and is like pissed off at the situation.

And it was so distracting that I almost didn't notice that we see the chef for the first time in this episode.

But it's like he's the Muppet Baby's mom.

Like you just see, you just see a striped chef socks.

Yeah.

But the animation of the seam going up the the calf on those stockings as the calf pivots in front of the camera One of the great moments in golden age animation history just another fucking atrocity of a moment for Reed's character like things are just barely bad and he is freaking out about showers and pot roast you knew we'd be stuck in here for over a week You might have given a little thought to making it tolerable.

Pot roast is good.

Shut up, Reed.

Reed is not good in a situation that is even barely uncomfortable.

Oh, we got to watch a movie here, too?

What the fuck?

Meanwhile, the aliens are grilling in their tent, and this is when we learn that they can't digest the food.

Interesting moment because they're like, oh, you know, you're right.

We should, it was very inconsiderate of us to fire up the barbecue grill without checking with you guys if it was okay okay or if we had set it up over top of a highly explosive piece of equipment.

You really want to separate out your chicken wings too.

Like, you don't want to clump them all together in a pot like that if you're going to get some good crisp.

Right.

They're going to steam each other.

And that's not what you're going for from a doneness perspective.

So Trip walks off in a huff and goes up to the makeshift bridge where he gets bad news about the anti-matter injectors having come online kind of spontaneously.

And he's ranting and rafing about the aliens and how they chant and walk around at night and how they're just driving him crazy.

And

suddenly his train of thought is broken because the matter injectors also come online.

And that just makes no sense.

Not only that, but they can't be shut down remotely, which means someone has got to consider the Steve Zahn contingency in this moment.

Someone's going to have to go down there to shut him off, and that person is Trip Tucker, who is made to wear a protective suit that's only good for 22 minutes.

Yeah.

22 minutes.

I lasted 22 minutes.

It's a good thing they're right above engineering or whatever, right?

Like, it's a pretty short walk.

Yeah, they're just like, you know, don't hang out too long, but yeah, go ahead and go down there and fix this.

So off he goes, and when he gets to engineering, there's like

somebody's stuff left on the floor in there.

Yeah.

And he hears like movement in the compartment.

I love this move when he like shuts off all the lights on his suit.

I feel like this is a mistake they make in movies all the time where like somebody's like creeping around a warehouse with a pistol and a flashlight and they hear something and they don't cut the light.

It's like that's going to draw them right to you.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Good job by Trip.

We only get the barest glimpses of these guys at first, but it's guys in uniform, but they have similar loaf to our guests, and there are a ton of them.

They're like all over the ship.

He is like seeing him in the hallways.

They don't seem to be wearing any kind of protective equipment.

And I was like, oh man, like, have these aliens been spoofing the sensors and like making them believe that there's a reason to hunker when there isn't?

It's funny how visually patrol is code for number of people.

Because like as Trip starts skulking around, like avoiding capture or discovery, like you see some folks almost marching past.

And like that reads as far different.

when you're trying to figure out how many people are aboard.

Like if it were just two dudes with phaser rifles skulking around, like waving flashlights around,

in my mind, I'm like, there are six people on board.

But that there's actual like patrols suggests that there are far more.

There's a lot.

And that is also suggested by the ship that has attached itself to the entrepreneur that he sees out the window.

Great moment, huh?

Yeah.

It's awesome.

So we meet the boss of these aliens,

older gentleman who gets a report from one of of his underlings that they're looking for fugitives, in fact.

Like these guys are looking for the guys that the entrepreneur took in.

This guy has a great voice.

What's the status of the warp engines?

And you may recognize hearing it.

It's Danny Goldring.

He played one of the crew people in the killing game.

He's

who were those aliens?

Hmm.

Hirojin.

The Herogen, yeah.

He's got Hirojin voice even now.

He really does.

So back on the catwalk, Trip has run back and reported this, and we've cut all the way to Flocks scanning their guests and discovering that these guys are immune to the stuff in the wavefront that is buffeting the ship right now.

What a great sequence that was, I thought.

Like, we don't get Trip getting out of the suit or anything.

It's like smash cut to tribunal scene, basically.

Yeah.

And these guys know the jig is up.

So one of them confesses, like, okay, like, we deserted this militia.

The militia are the guys that are walking around on your ship right now.

We quit because we had like moral qualms with the way the militia conducts itself.

We kind of think that they're, we thought it was going to be like being in the military, but in fact, they're just pirates and they like steal people's shit all the time.

And we didn't like it.

So we're running from them.

It's a tale as old as time, Ben.

Like, I just want to, I want to go to a barn and play pool and drink beers with my buddies and maybe like shoot bottles bottles off of a fence post.

And then you're like knocking off vessels and stealing all their shit

two weeks later.

That's no fun.

Things accelerated really quickly.

Yeah.

I loved the vulnerability that this episode establishes with where they're hiding, though, because the aliens on the bridge and in engineering are like working on turning the engines back on.

And we know that that will...

put it up to oven temperatures in the catwalk where they're hiding.

Do you feel like that's going to be a low and slow situation or is that going to be kind of a blast furnace situation in there?

I think, I mean, 300 is like, I mean, that's not hot enough to brown.

You need to get up to like 325 probably for that.

So I think the answer is like you're going to live kind of a long time in a great amount of pain.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like going to a Russian bathhouse, you know, going into that hot room.

Yeah, it's a little hotter than the hottest sauna because I think even the hottest saunas are less than 300, right?

It's like that's like 240.

Yeah, and there's no like enormous Russian dude whacking you with a tea tree branch.

230, 240, whatever it takes.

Yeah.

Very Biner's explanation that these aliens give, right?

About

they're pressed.

Like, why didn't you just tell us this before?

Why didn't you just ask for help?

And the whole we were afraid that Archer would say no

thing is given as the excuse.

Yeah.

We hear this all the time in Star Trek.

Yeah.

You might have said no.

Yeah.

So we got to throw a couple of wooden shoes around the ship to make sure that warp power doesn't come back on when the entire crew is up in these nacelles.

And so Reed, Archer, and Tepal suit up in the only three EVA suits that they have to go do that.

They split up.

Archer goes to somewhere in the kitchen to do something.

And Reed and TePaul are working on the engineering piece of this that Trip is talking them through.

But Archer sends a hail to the main bridge and gets on FaceTime with the lead pirate dude.

I did not understand the performance choice here.

Because Archer is playing it like he's taking a shit.

No, why don't you?

Get the hell off my ship.

I am right with you on that.

I thought he was kind of Hollywooding how much pain he was in in order to get the captain thinking that his enemy was wounded and like

creating an environment where like he could set some traps or something and like he was actually far healthier than he was portraying himself as.

Yeah.

I also could not get on this level.

Yeah.

It seemed unmotivated.

I do like the conflict between Archer and this alien captain.

I mean, whether or not Archer's in pain for it, like if we could set that aside a little bit, like the joy that Archer derives from the happy privilege of connecting a starship with an auto-destruct system, like,

it's great to see.

You love to see it.

And that's the threat that's leveled here before he hangs up the FaceTime on this guy.

Yeah, this guy wants to find Archer, believing Archer to be the only survivor of the initial shock of the wavefront.

Like, Archer goes to leave the kitchen and gets in a great big gunfight, replete with exploding heads of Napa cabbage

with the guys that

the leader sent to grab him.

Isn't a kitchen such a great location for something like this?

Yeah.

It's awesome.

There's so much energy with like the sway of ladles.

Yeah.

I mean, if Jurassic Park proved one thing, a ladle is a great way to establish danger in a kitchen combat scenario.

It's metal bowls making a terrific racket.

Yeah.

And

this is like one of those combat sequences where part of the combat is the way they're flying the ship into bangers so that people get knocked around.

And Mayweather is like flying the ship toward these plasma eddies.

And fortunately, like after a few close shaves, Tepal is able to get warp power back offline.

Like the heating lamps had come on and like started to warm things up in the nacelles, but she gets all that stuff offline.

They're kind of in a warming drawer when the nacelles come back online, right?

Yeah, it's like they've proofed, but they haven't baked.

Yeah, exactly.

So with no warp power and no hope of surviving a direct collision with a plasma Eddie, the head alien guy signals the retreat to his people.

They even grab the guy that Archer stunned, which I was like, damn it.

I wanted them to have that guy on board and then have to deal with that later.

Yeah.

But like in some episodes of Voyager, when the bad guys get away, I kind of like the idea that

they're just out there.

They're out there and they're fucking mad about what happened.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

So they're still flying toward this eddy because they have no way of knowing in the land party bridge whether or not there are still invaders on board the ship.

Fortunately, Archer radios up that the bad guys have all gone just in time for Travis to

steer them away from an Eddie.

And I was really waiting for like a moment where the Eddie caught hold of the ship and just flung it free of

the cloud.

Yeah.

But no, like they stay another few days in the nacelles.

And I can't imagine how paranoid they must have been about whether anybody had clamped onto their ship for those remaining days.

It's two days of a really haunted feeling that you don't get at all.

Yeah.

Skipping past that part.

They don't just have movie night during their hunker.

They also have watching old episodes of Kung Fu Night.

Is that what this was?

I thought this was just a Western movie.

I looked it up.

They were watching Kung Fu.

How about that?

That's fun.

Yeah.

And

say a fond farewell to their fugitives.

Trip, like, elbows Reed.

He's like, hey,

you know, that David Carradine died.

Why don't you try that, Reed?

See how far you can get.

You can even borrow my belt.

And I'll give you a little peek at my forearm before you head off to the

makeshift latrine to give it a try.

Can you imagine like you've been standing in line for hours to get to the makeshift latreat, and then you're like knocking on the door.

Like, come on, man, there's so many people waiting.

Then the door finally kind of like swings idly open, and a

auto-erotic, asphyxiated reed

dangles out of it.

Like, he's obviously hanging on the door, right?

So, like, the door takes a little bit more effort to open.

And there he is, and there, and like, out wafts just the cheapest pineapple candle smell

coming out of there.

It's like, you know, like Yankee candle pineapple shit smell.

I know I've had to take shits bad enough to where if I opened up the door to the latrine and Reed were in there having hung himself,

I would have to close the door behind me and like get shit done and deal with that later.

Like, there's no way I'm waiting just because this guy, like, this guy's still dead.

He's dead.

He doesn't care.

He's still going to be dead in 20 minutes.

I lasted 22 minutes.

I'll call 911 then.

And, Mr.

Pranica,

the record shows that the body had Rick or Mortis set in already before

you ever placed the 911 call.

How do you account for that interval of time?

What did you do?

You want to compound a terrible situation with something worse?

We're all packed under the nacelle, like so many sardines.

You want one of us covered in their own shit?

I don't think so.

Well, does this episode compound a terrible situation with something worse, Adam?

How did you like this one?

This felt like a little, it was a little under siegey to me.

Yeah.

Except

for like 20 minutes.

Yeah.

I wish the revelation of the ship takeover had happened earlier, if only to give us more fun under siege moments.

Right.

You know, like that part was...

was postponed until so late that that it was just a tease of the potential of what that could be.

that said i mean i love i love stories like this this felt a little bit like the tng episode where they do the baryon sweep like i love totally starship mine yeah exactly like having to retreat from a ship for reasons and then having the ship get taken over yeah it's a star trek tale as old as time and it's one of the greatest hits i think that's why they keep doing it And I love the idea that this story didn't have a resolution.

Like, these folks are still out there.

The wave is still out there.

Yeah, I dug it quite a bit.

And I mean, personally, it has been a month since I've watched a Star Trek Enterprise episode.

It was nice to get back into it with you.

How about you?

It sure was.

I agree.

I think that we had a lot of ideas for interesting ways they could take this episode as we talked through it that felt like they sort of undermined my appreciation of the episode overall where I kept kind of going.

You guys were so good at that.

Yeah, like, wouldn't it have been nice if it had gone this way?

And one that I don't think I gave voice to is like, what if there had been another twist and these guys hadn't actually been fugitives, but kind of like the bait that these guys use to,

you know, like they do this all the time.

Like they just follow this wavefront around the universe and steal ships that get caught in it because they have this unique adaptation to not be poisoned by it.

You're telling me Zach Grenier is not bait?

Of course he's bait.

That's what I'm saying.

Like when you have him, of course he's bait.

Of course he is the bad one, actually.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, our first instinct was correct.

That's what it should have been.

You know, that felt like a missed opportunity, but overall, a very fun episode.

And I really liked watching some more Star Trek after a month of not.

Absolutely.

Well, Adam, do you want to see if we have anything fun in our Priority One inbox, which we also haven't looked at in over a month.

Oh god, the P1 inbox is 300 degrees, Ben.

It's piping hot.

I wonder what's still in there.

Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on secured channel.

Need a supplemental income.

Supplemental income.

Supplemental.

Supplemental.

Yeah, it's extra.

By the interest alone, could be enough to buy this ship.

Adam, we got

a promotional message here.

Goes like this.

A while ago, after starting a re-listen of the entire TGG run, I committed to sending a new P1 each time I heard one of my old P1s in the stacks.

I've sent several and turns out they rarely glisten the way I thought they would when I wrote them.

So I've decided instead to bump my monthly contributions.

This is likely my final P1, and this is the point.

Ben and Adam and crew give us something truly special each week.

Please support them and all your favorite creatives.

That's how this works.

And the call to action is just support.

Chris is right.

Support the things you like.

Yeah.

So they stick around as long as possible.

Indeed.

That's a good reminder.

We really appreciate it.

And

we give up a slightly bigger rip on P1s than we do on monthly support.

So your dollar goes a little bit further toward supporting our show.

If you don't have a message you need to get out, monthly support is a great way to make sure the lights stay on around here.

Yeah.

Don't wait for someone else to do the right thing.

You can do the right thing.

Indeed.

Ben, we've got a message here, interestingly enough, sent by past Chris to future Chris.

Is this the same Chris?

Whoa.

As the promotional message?

Let's find out.

Happy birthday, self.

Remember that JL Pipes was 47 when he became captain of the Enterprise?

We're 49 now.

Whoa.

I know it's not fair to hold oneself to the same standard, but we should have at least been a pretend captain on a Del Sol for a few years by now.

At this rate, we'll be lucky to be a pretend 55-year-old space ensign.

Get busy living from self.

Wow.

I don't feel like that resolved whether it was the same Chris or not, but

I like the spirit of this.

Like,

let's get a little motivated in the new year.

I think what we have here are two messages in a row that are like, don't wait.

Get in there and do it.

Do what you're thinking of doing.

A theme is emerging.

Yeah, from the Chris's.

Both Chris's or the one Chris

supports you to that end.

Final P1 today is from Katie, JJ, and Diana, and it's to Jared Wilson.

It goes like this.

Shout out to the galaxy's best husband and father.

Thank you for experiencing as much beej as you have to with us.

You're a way better dad than Wharf, low bar.

You're there for us more than the number 47.

Your wife would keep a candle lit, give up everything to move to a weird Scottish planet for you, but she's glad she doesn't have to.

Moopsie!

Moopsie!

Hey, that's a nice shadow.

How about that?

A long-term, committed husband-and-wife relationship where there's still biz in it, Ben?

Who says when you get married, all the biz goes away?

Pretty great.

It doesn't have to.

That's a nice thing to learn.

Yeah.

What a nice message there.

I'm going to take this information into my life and see if anything can be done.

Honey, I just read this priority one message.

For my Star Trek podcast?

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Let me start over.

Like the sound of tires screeching

and leaving the driveway.

Both kids left behind.

Oh no.

Thank you for not leaving Priority Win messages behind.

P1s are a great thing in supporting the production of our shows.

And you can write the words that we will speak and also make fun of.

Go to maximumfund.org slash jumbotron.

And we really appreciate them.

Sure do.

Hey, Adam.

What's that, Ben?

Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda?

Drunk Shimoda!

I don't want to make it Reed because I just fucking hate Reid so much.

But in the way that we've called attention to several times, like there are moments in this episode where a character behavior just seems off enough where you're like,

what's up with that guy?

Do I need to keep an eye on him?

And Reed had another example of this.

Like, dude.

You can't go eight days without a shower without freaking out.

And maybe you have pot roast twice in an eight eight-day span.

Pot roast.

Chill the fuck out.

Like the code for this stuff should be never be the worst part of a bad situation.

And it feels like Reed has had like six bites of that already on this show.

Like shit goes down, shit is bad, and Reid makes it worse.

Whether you're on Star Trek or you're in real life, you just can't do that.

Don't be the worst part of it.

And that's what Reed is in this episode.

You can't just skip lunch.

You can't just serve pot roast

twice in three days.

You just can't, guys.

Who's bags?

I don't think that's allowed.

Can you imagine how that sketch plays if he's like pushing pot roast through a totally soaked sleeve?

Is that a pot roast?

Just a full-size potato, like just hitting the desk.

A pineapple in there.

Sorry, sir.

I've never been so tired.

I'm the tiredest I've ever been.

What about you, Ben?

This is like kind of a high-concept Shimoda, but we learned in that McLaughlin group that Six Bay was okay.

It never made sense that Flox got...

moved to a nacelle.

Yeah.

What we do know about Flox is that he is long overdue for his nap.

This is a perfect opportunity for Flox to take a nap.

Like, the happy privilege should be the couple of people that get to hang out in Six Bay taking care of the critters while Flox sleeps.

You know?

Whole lot of netting in the Flox area of the nacelle.

Kind of feels like he could hammock one of those nets out, you know?

Let Flox sleep.

Yeah.

So for not sticking up for his nap time,

a nap time that seemed so tantalizingly close.

A nap time I would kill for.

I rarely see this look in your eyes, Ben.

I believe you.

I believe you would kill someone, like a stranger, obviously, or actually maybe someone that you met once.

I think that's probably as far as it goes.

I would plan it.

And I would execute on that plan, you know?

I would like disappear into Central Park and take my fucking nap.

Would you taunt on the person you killed?

Is that part of this?

Yeah, I mean, I thought they looked like they smelled bad on the outside, but uh,

you gotta keep warm somehow.

Well, uh, let's wrap this thing up, and we gotta, we, here's what I want you to do: get a nap after this episode and don't tell anyone.

You're out in the studio recording.

That sounds so good.

I wish, I wish that was in the cards for me, but it ain't.

Faith of of the fart.

What is in the cards is the next episode of Star Trek Enterprise.

It's season two, episode 13.

Dawn.

During a solo test mission on Shuttle Pod 1, Trip is attacked by a territorial alien and forced to land on the night side of a moon.

Huh.

I tripped the dawn because it was like a thumbnail of Trip's face

when I clicked on it and it came up.

Yeah, a shirtless thumbnail, as I recall, in the Paramount Plus app.

A Paramount Plus app that is now force-feeding me commercials before I watch episodes of Enterprise.

Cool.

I get different thumbnails

in the Paramount Plus side-loaded into Apple TV thing that I use.

Weird.

And no commercials.

Well, I mean, that's a reason I should get the fuck off of that app.

Yeah.

Although there's like reportage in your being on it.

Like, I like hearing about how that app is going.

We had a friend friend of DeSoto email and ask, Hey, I have to, like, for work, meet with the chief technology officer of Paramount pretty soon.

What should I say?

It's like,

I don't think what we would want to say would be good for your long-term employment prospects.

I mean, what I would do is unplug that person's computer from the network so that they can't continue to hurt people.

All right, Adam.

I am heading over to goch.biz/slash game where we keep the game of buttholes,

the will of the Riker, quantum leap.

I'm going to go ahead and roll this 100-sided die.

We've got our runabout on square.

24 right now.

100-sided die could take us anywhere.

You're required to learn as you play.

Roll.

Anywhere.

Anywhere.

Oh, man.

I jumped just over another square.

We keep coming danger close to these squares.

I'm on square 63 right next to a Porthos cheese plague.

Chula!

Did I win?

Hardly.

Remind people what that is.

That's one where we have to review some cheeses at the beginning of the episode.

That sounds pretty nice as these squares go.

Yeah.

Hey, we just finished the Star Trek pod crawl as of the release of this episode.

Yeah.

And I want to thank everybody that participated in that.

We're recording this before it, so I don't have an update on whether or not we hit our fundraising goal for the National Center for Science Education, but star trekpodcrawl.com is where you go if you'd like to kick 10 bucks toward a great cause.

Thanks to all of the great podcasts that participated in the pod crawl and made it such a special thing.

Yeah, it was really cool experience.

We've talked about how we network with other Star Trek podcasts for a long time.

Not just in a rat battle context, but in a why don't we get together and do some good.

And you're too modest to say this, Ben, but like this was your idea.

You pitched it.

The team helped put it together.

A bunch of other podcasts agreed to do it.

And I'm really proud and happy for your work here.

You did a great job.

It was a total team effort.

Couldn't have been done without you and Wendy and Rob and all of the other producers that helped us out on it and all of the other great hosts that helped us out on it.

It's just

I'm really glad that

all of those connections have been made and we can all communicate with each other now because like there is a group email thread among all of the participants.

So really cool that that happened and really cool that so many great shows said yes to this sort of hair brained long shot idea.

And huge huge thank you to everyone listening who listened and participated.

And

if you're new to the show because of the pod crawl, welcome.

This show and our episode of the pod crawl was produced by our great producer Wendy Pretty.

Music you're hearing is by Dark Materio Gadaller.

Theme and Interstitial music is from Adam Ragusia, our co-host for the wholesome podcast that we do on Patreon.

Yeah, check that out.

Patreon.com/slash wholesome underscore pod.

We got to thank Rob Adler, our social media director, and the card daddy Bill Tilley, our temporal Cold Wartime concigliary.

Those two guys run the At Greatest Trek social media accounts all over the internet.

Throw those a follow and find some friends of DeSoto online.

They're a great group of people who would love to hang out with you and, you know, do some Star Trek shit posting or whatever.

I was just on Bill Tilley's podcast during our break.

Had a blast talking about Iron Eagle with him and ex-producer Rob.

So check that out.

Very fun.

Go listen to that.

Go listen to Wholesome.

Go listen to Greatest Trek, our other show.

And 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 where Trip Tucker will probably make a mistake and when he does, he'll probably say,

Oh!

Make it, make it make, make it, make it so.

Make it so.

You could really do yourself a favor by changing those light bulbs, fellas.

That's all you gotta do.

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