Untrustworthy Hair (ENT S2E6)

Here's to the finest crew in starving.

When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument from me.

This is a parody.

Paramount wants the sun.

Welcome to the Greatest Generation.

It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast.

I'm Adam Pranica.

I'm Ben Harrison.

I could have sworn it was my kick today, but you kicked.

And I feel good about that.

I did that thing where I waited a couple of seconds and I wasn't sure if the kick was going to happen, so I just went and kicked it myself.

Man, I a little bit feel like the show is the football.

You're Lucy and I'm Charlie Brown.

Lucy never kicks the football herself, does she?

No.

Why don't you try kicking the football, Lucy?

Why or why do I let her do this to me?

Does Charlie Brown have the like vindictive soul that you would need to pull the same shit on her if she, if, if the cards were ever in the other hands.

Oh, Charlie Brown grew up and has bodies.

I'm positive about that.

You don't grow up the way he did and arrive at adulthood in any way well-adjusted.

A failure face if I ever saw one.

The footballs in his life are all around him.

I mean, if that was true, then I'd probably have bodies too, because just like going through life being humiliated by all your peers is kind of all i ever did as a child

i mean

honestly ben i wouldn't rule out bodies for you either i'm starting to think about it yeah

i'm giving bodies some consideration what you're doing is you're giving some bodies energy

and whether or not you have bodies i think you want to be the sort of person that could or could not have bodies, right?

Right.

You want to be a mystery.

Like people will fuck with you less if they're like, it could be the bodies type.

Exactly.

You look like someone who might throw your tray in a lunchroom at a penitentiary, you know?

Yeah, I'd be like the nice, quiet guy who

boiled over one day.

Like Charlie Brown.

What's it like when you snap?

I've snapped a couple of times.

I snapped on a

not a real estate agent.

What do you call the guy that like opens the door for you to check out an apartment and then you have to pay him like two months' rent when you get the apartment.

A landlord?

No,

because he was like an agent.

Uh-huh.

A broker,

an apartment broker.

Yeah.

Sure.

I snapped on one of those guys one time.

Wow.

Yeah.

Got him to cut his

completely absurd and unadvertised rate in half.

RSVP that guy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Did you push him off a fire escape?

No, I just yelled at him in a, in the like hallway of an office building where a management company was.

Amazing.

Yeah.

I wish I knew that Benjamin R.

Harrison.

That Benjamin R.

Harrison is dead.

Just under a simmering pot right now.

Yeah.

I mean, there's some pretty nice...

like mild-mannered guys in this episode that snap, but they only snap at the urging of Archer.

You know, great pivot into episode Ben because that really is what we're talking about here, right?

What's

your limit before you start to push back?

How much are you gonna take from the Klingons?

How many leaders of deuterium are you gonna let them take from you?

I'm fucking pumped up for this episode now.

Listen to you.

Yeah, let's get into it.

It's Star Trek Enterprise Season 2, Episode 6.

It's called Marauders.

I love that sting of the violins on the opening shot of this episode.

We're in what can only be described as an oil drilling town in California.

I do my own drilling.

Doesn't it feel to you like the sort of place that would be great for Ro Lalin to give her uniform top to a little kid?

Mm-hmm.

I feel like that was a set they never took down.

You'd be like, damn, she's got a tank top under that.

Hubba, hubba.

Way too dry to have an Echips family involved, though.

I also did get

planet Eech's family vibes from this place.

No open pipes, no nothing.

This is very dry.

It's a dusty planet.

A bug planet.

Pretty good by my estimate.

Yeah, he doesn't have a lot to do here.

Some dudes are working with some wrenches.

Manual labor is what they're doing.

They look up skyward and they see something incoming.

What is that, Ben?

It's a shuttle pod.

And one thing about this shuttle pod that I did not like was how quiet it was.

Yeah.

Why isn't it giving us any like air over the hull whooshing sound?

It's absolutely silent on the way in.

And I feel like you can see the burn on the back.

You can see exhaust or something coming off of it.

That doesn't make a sound.

I've always wondered with this show why the shuttle pods are so dumb looking.

Like why that big bulbous shape with the like one bubble of glass for somebody to look out of in the pilot seat.

But it seems like

you know like some modern cars you get in and like the hood, the hood is just too high.

You can't tell how far you are from anything out the front of it because, and they have like tons of sensors to counteract the confusion that this causes.

But like it, it just feels unnerving to drive a car where you have no sense of how far you are from anything.

You're exactly right.

I was wondering if there's ever a time when Tripp is piloting this thing where he do that thing that Bush pilots do, where, you know, you get into the low altitude.

Sometimes you'll just kick open the door get some fresh air in there maybe see exactly how high off of the water your your floats are before you hit right like uh i don't know crack the window yeah trip tucker you don't get any of that this thing is geared for silent running well my theory is maybe it is so perfectly designed as an airfoil that it makes no sound and it it looks strange to us yeah because our

aircraft designers aren't making these compromises, you know?

No.

They're like, it will look very stupid and be hard to see out the front of, but it will be perfectly silent.

After the theme, the shuttle pod doors finally open.

An action that should only take place on the ground, according to the passengers inside.

And out pops Archer and TePaul and Trip Tucker.

TePaul in some whites.

Which I think is notable on a planet that looks very dirty and that also does dirty work.

Right.

I was stressed for her wardrobe.

My wife left on a business trip this morning, like got up early,

caught a plane, white jacket.

And I'm like,

I know and love my wife.

And I

emphasis on the first word.

I know her.

Yeah.

This is risky.

White jacket on an airplane.

Risky behavior.

I don't know.

This is Tepal.

This is what Tepal is doing.

This is white jacket on an away mission.

Because Archer and Trip are in the desert away mission stuff that they wore when they were hanging out with Clancy Brown.

Yeah.

So like presumably this is the Vulcan analog of it, but I don't think it's logical to have it be this crisp and white.

I mean, she looks great,

but at what expense?

Yeah.

At what cost?

So yeah, they walk up to these guys who are like, oh, man, we're so relieved we didn't recognize your ship when it came down.

Cause if it was the one we recognize, we'd be hyper-stressed out right now.

Anyways, what do you want?

You should probably get out of here.

And Archer's like, oh yeah, well, I was trying to hail you, but nobody picked up, so we just decided to come

on down, invite ourselves in.

We scanned the shit out of you guys, and it seems like you've got a whole lot of deuterium.

I assume that's what the greasy stuff is you're lifting up out of the ground.

Can we get some?

Trip, like, wipes a finger on the other guy's chest and puts it in his mouth.

Like, that's deuterium, all right.

Oh, yeah, cap.

98.5% purify

if I'm not wrong.

You know how so often, I mean, obviously, dialogue does so much to tell you how characters feel about each other, but I think this is a scene that's an example of the absence of certain dialogue telling you just as much.

I think it is very telling that Archer and TePaul and Trip Tucker are like, hey, I'm Archer, and this is DePaul and Trip Tucker.

And these guys do not introduce themselves.

I don't think they ever do.

They don't want to do business with the Star Fleets, and they're like, Yeah, like you, you were right that you detected deuterium when you scanned us, but that is spoken for.

You can come back at the end of the season, and maybe we'll be able to sell you something.

But,

you know, odds are not good.

No deuterium.

This place is a dump.

These pumps are broken, Ben.

Yeah.

Even if they could spare some deuterium, they aren't running at an efficiency that would allow sharing any of their extra.

Yeah.

This guy named Mockley, played by Stephen Flynn, who I've seen in a bunch of stuff.

He's like, hey, like, if you could...

If you could wrench on these two pumps that we have that are currently down, like we could get back on pace and maybe we'd be open to trading with you in that case.

And Trip is like, I'll go get my tools.

And seems like there is a little bit of an opening for a deal to be made.

Is this like that thing where you never hear someone say goodbye before hanging up a telephone?

The end of this scene is like, oh yeah, Trip Tucker's going to go get his tools.

I don't feel like this arrangement is agreed to by both parties.

No, I mean, it becomes clear that there's like further negotiations to be done.

Yeah.

But it was weird given how little trust they started off with that everybody was just on the same page about that without overtly discussing it.

Like, Trip goes back and he's fetching whatever he needs to fetch, and he meets Kell, who is a markedly less successful sketch comedian than his erstwhile partner, but loves a shuttlecraft, loves you know, assessing the different types.

He's a real nerd of this.

And

Tripp is like a little bit charmed by this little guy and says that, hey, if your mom and dad say it's okay, you can come back up to the ship and get a little tour.

You know, gives him like a little like plastic wings with a little adhesive on the back of it.

Kel puts it on his shirt.

Very exciting.

You want to root for Kel because he's not haunted.

He's not a slickback.

He has two living parents.

There's some conversation later in the episode about some folks who have died.

This kid seems pretty well adjusted.

At this point, you have nothing but optimism for Kel, given how voluminous and puffed up his hair is.

Yeah,

he seems to have freshly washed his hair and just sort of towel-dried it out at this point.

Looks great.

He doesn't have that annoying kid affect that so many TV and movie kids have who are coded as smart.

Like this kid's clearly smart and he's got an interest in being a pilot or whatever, but he's not that cloying kind of ugh.

Right.

That kind of kid.

Like

he's actually down to hang.

He's not like precocious in a way that the adults writing for him just are like, why don't we just write him like he's a like wise beyond his years adult?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We cut over to a tent where the aforementioned negotiations are happening.

It's going really badly.

Like, these people want a lot for this piddling amount of deuterium that is being discussed.

And Archer is not willing to part with as many power cells as they're hoping to get.

It's Camp McLaughlin Group.

Issue one.

And it made me wonder whether or not they ever took that show on the road.

Was there ever a McLaughlin Group road show?

Right.

Feels like there would have been at some point.

They share

travel bookings with Antiques Roadshow.

So

every week they're in, like,

we're coming to you from Battle Creek, Michigan.

You just, you bring the group a political opinion, and John McLaughlin goes, wrong.

And then, like,

there's no appraised value to it.

There's like the sparkle sound, and then wrong on the lower third.

And

that's what you're hoping to get.

Yeah.

This woman suggests: like, maybe we don't need all power cells.

Maybe we could also get some medical supplies from you guys.

And they come to an agreement that feels like a really bad deal from Archer's standpoint.

It's going to be like four power cells and a bunch of medical equipment.

And you got to get it done in two days.

Like, you got to get these pumps fixed and be out of here, or you do not get paid.

I don't know much about

mining,

miners,

or refinement, or whatever, but this seems like

more than a two-day job, don't you think?

Yeah, I don't know.

Like, you watch those gold mining shows on Discovery Channel, and that's like half of the drama of every episode is like, is like the huge barrel that turns around and sluices the gold has broken down, and they only have three days left in the season.

Can they get it fixed before it ices over?

See, you've got more context for this than I have.

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

Yeah, I mean, they're terrible shows,

but you know, I'll watch anything.

This timeline is hard and it's close and it's going to be enforced.

Like, that's definitely the feeling you're getting from this scene.

Like, you got two days.

You may be leaving here with deuterium or not, but the two-day thing is going to happen.

That's the vibe.

Ellis, the lady, goes up to Six Bay and is

just kind of grabbing everything she can.

It's a bit of a shopping spree in there for her.

She doesn't want Flox's weird starfish leech.

Thank you, but I'll just take some vascular adhesive.

She wants a lot of other things.

She gets stuff that seems impossibly fancy and expensive to her.

He's like a tiny bit suspicious of like what's going on with these people based on her pick list because it seems like a lot of like wound treatment stuff.

And he's like, God damn, I didn't have any sense that mining for deuterium resulted in a lot of phaser burns.

Kind of a lot of venereal disease treatment products here, Ellis.

Like sort of a lot of creams and sprays and suppositories.

And what's going on here seems pretty pervy,

doesn't it?

Should we take that kid with us and like see if we can rehome him somewhere a little safer?

You were confiding an interest in a show you're not proud of.

This felt like supermarket sweep to me.

I love supermarket sweep.

This lady is going through all the cabinets picking stuff out.

And it feels like Dr.

Fox is more than happy to provide.

Like, this stuff doesn't have any great value to him.

Where I think he would draw the line, though, is if she reached into a cage where there was a weird animal or a squeaky plant or something.

I don't think she'd be allowed to have one of those, right?

He's like, he's like, it's easy to take care of.

You're going to love it.

And she's like,

I don't know.

Ellis is like, what about this pile of freshly cut toenails

he's like oh no no you can't tell me that that has medical properties i need those yeah so there's a darkness in her that i think is clear that phlox observes too right and and she denies it and then kind of hastily leaves the scene before anything could be said of it TePaul and Archer have a conversation as they're walking around this town.

Really weird how poor these guys are, given what a valuable commodity they mine.

What's up with how poor they are?

And TePal's like, stop judging them.

Hey, Archer, I got a movie I want to show you.

It's called Blood Diamond, you stupid fuck.

Yeah.

It's weird.

Look at how dirty and poor these miners are.

Yeah.

You tell me the miners that still exist near Earth or whatever are living high on the hog?

No, not so sure.

anyway it seems like a surprise to archer in this scene so trip is working with one of these dudes on fixing up one of the pumps and a ship shows up this is uh korok we find out it's a ship with 12 klingons aboard and on the surface everybody kind of starts to make themselves scarce like everybody needs to like stop what they're doing and get inside for safety's sake.

And this is a bit of like a surprise inspection energy.

They thought they had three more days till Korok showed up.

Yeah, it's a real urgent situation.

I mean,

what we know at this point is that this Klingon ship hasn't picked up Enterprise in orbit.

Archer's like, cool, like, let's keep it that way.

Hide behind moons or whatever.

Like, stay off of their radar.

Stay hidden.

And when the Klingons beam down to the mining area, I thought this guy was Clancy Brown.

And I think it's confusing when you have two episodes with characters that sound like Clancy Brown, one of them actually having Clancy Brown, like in such close proximity.

My old friend.

I feel like that sounds like Clancy Brown racism.

I swear it's not.

I mean, a lot of loaf involved in the second character, so you could be forgiven.

Sure.

I had to look it up.

Not Clancy Brown, but it made me wonder, has Star Trek ever had a very special guest star multiple times in close proximity?

Like two in a row or two spaced between a couple of episodes.

Man, maybe.

Strong move.

A lot of people are surprised to learn that

there are 900 Captain Koroks.

More Koroks than a Klingon phone book.

There's a moment when they're kind of like entering the town square.

They've beamed down and Tesik, the leader guy, is like talking to Archer and he's like, just stay out of sight.

Do not get involved.

And those are two phrases that just mean absolutely nothing to Archer.

Yeah, these guys aren't willing to accept the two pumps are down explanation.

And then another deadline is given in this scene, right?

Four days, fix the pumps, give us our deuterium, and we'll be back then.

He's like a shakedown guy who's like, I like you, you're my friend.

I could go get this anywhere, but I get it from you because you're so great.

I like the way Korhak was written.

I feel like in a movie, he would be more charismatic.

In this episode, he is not really, in a way that I kind of craved more of.

Like, like, you're describing a character type that we run into in specifically like gangster movies, the gangster with the Riz,

you know, like, God, he sucks, but also...

You know, like, I'm feeling this way when I'm, I've been watching the Penguin show on HBO, and damn it if I don't really love the penguin.

Penguin's a monster.

But like he's so weird and interesting and he's got this strange charisma.

Like I was kind of hoping for a little more of that.

Just like, just a little more

spice.

Just a dab.

A dab will do you.

Yeah.

Mockley got kind of roughed up by the Klingons.

So they take him back into the tent and start,

you know, treating all of his wounds.

And it becomes clear why all of this medical equipment was needed.

And Archer's like, man,

what are you guys doing?

There's like seven of them.

There's so many of you.

Why are you letting them like kick your ass

around the mining site like this?

Tessica's like, yeah, I mean, we tried to fight back three years ago and it went bad.

Just ask Kel over there and Kel like lowers his head.

Turns out he is a slick back.

He just hasn't.

His hair's on like a delayed reaction thing.

Maybe it's four seasons it will take for his hair to slick back.

This idea of a slick back timeline, I think, deserves scrutiny, right?

Like at what point does the hair slick back?

You don't go to the funeral with slick back hair.

I think you just kind of grow into the lifestyle of it.

Yeah, it'd be weird to show up to your father's funeral with like a whole different look.

Does he have any surviving parents?

Like is

Ellis's mom?

Do we know that?

I couldn't quite tell.

Like the way she was interacting with him felt a little little ambiguous to me.

I'm just wondering like you don't want to go to a funeral for one parent with a slickback

given the connotation.

Like if you have a surviving parent.

They're like, what are you doing?

I'm not dead yet.

Don't slick back yet.

No slick back.

I'm going to step up.

I promise.

Like I'm going to fill the gap.

He's like, nah.

I will never die.

So now they just roll over.

That's the big takeaway from this.

They fought them once.

It didn't go well.

And so now they just walk around with atomic wedgies multiple times a year.

And Archer and TePaul and Trip Tucker walk out of camp, like pointing behind them.

Like, what the fuck is up with those guys?

Yeah.

Like, I guess we're going to go back in a shuttle.

What a bummer.

But Trip stays behind.

He doesn't go back up to the ship because that kid from before.

needs an apology for the the Enterprise tour not happening.

And this kid has a very interesting point.

None of this shit would be happening if Enterprise decided to go weapons hot against the Klingons.

And the mood right now, very disappointed.

You could have just shot them out of the sky and then this problem would be over.

Or, I mean, I don't care how bad of a shot Reed is.

Shoot one torpedo at the surface.

It doesn't even have to hit.

Just like them seeing a huge explosion on the surface would...

I think they get the point, right?

Sure.

Faith of the fart.

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And you will never take the greatest gym alive.

Ben would rather die.

In his clarinet rental studio, Archer's hanging out.

at the bum out window and TePaul comes in.

She's like, okay, we got all the deuterium we asked for.

And Archer gets up onto his self-righteous high horse and he's like, Man, like, I bet, I bet, like, if we just go talk to like the people in charge of Kronos, like they would, they would put a stop to this.

Like, we got Klang back to them, and like, we pulled those guys out of that gas giant.

Like, we're, we're solid with the Klingons, they should do what we ask.

Like, if we ask them a favor, that should work.

And DePaul's like, these guys are not operating within the bounds of the law.

These guys do seem to lack a distinct honor.

That's very true.

Archer kind of trails off and looks to Paul up and down and is like,

you were on that dusty, dirty planet with us, right?

Like, I'm looking down at the collars around your pant legs, like, perfectly white and clean.

How'd you do that?

Your boots?

Patent white leather boots?

Totally clean.

What's going on here, TePaul?

Suspicious.

Yeah.

And she's like, hey, man, I agree with you.

Like, A, it is improbable that I stayed this clean, but that's just part of the mystery with me.

And B,

like, what are we going to do?

If we help these guys fight the Klingons, it's just going to scare the Klingons away for a minute, but then it's going to immediately exacerbate the situation.

Like, they will come back in greater numbers or whatever.

The math of this drove me crazy, Ben, because, like, once it's established that, like, these seven Klingons exist outside of the purview of high counselness, doesn't that also leave them open as targets for enterprise to do with whatever they will without fear of high counsel retribution?

To me, it feels like they're off the hook.

It would seem as though they are off the hook without fear of retribution,

but

I think Archer's just too much of a goody-goody to do it that way.

Yeah.

He shows back up on the surface and it's now nighttime and Tessek is like trying to repair some piece of equipment.

Archer offers to help Tessek wrench on this thing and they get to talking.

And Archer is like, hey man, why do you just let them shove you around like that?

That sucks.

You're just rolling over them, showing the soft part of your belly to them every time they come down here.

Like what...

What's wrong with you?

Why do you have no self-respect?

It doesn't help that Archer's wearing a Starfleet Letterman's jacket in this scene.

And his hair is like

bleached at the tips.

He's carrying a football around.

It's a strange energy, right?

Because I think what Archer thinks he's doing is giving a little motivational speech.

But what it sounds like in the moment is a lot of dunking.

Like, Tessic is throwing out this vibe, sort of vibe a person has where they lost once and would rather not play

if it meant risking another loss.

And that's even though winning would change everything for him.

It occurs to me that while the Klingon High Council might not have anything to say about what Korok is up to, I bet if they talk to the great Deku tree, he could put a stop to this.

I don't.

Any Legend of Zelda fans on the call today?

Man, you missed me with that, but

I'm sure a ton of people will enjoy the reference.

Okay, cool.

You know what?

I enjoyed that reference about as much as Tessic enjoyed the teach a man to fish story,

which made me feel like that character in airplane that Stryker keeps talking to that like dumps a...

a barrel of gasoline on himself and starts to light a match.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Tesik is at rock bottom.

You really think the teach a man to fish story is going to be motivational at this point?

Doesn't feel like that.

Yeah.

One thing I want to I want to talk about in this moment is so much of this guy's dark story is he watched people die the last time they resisted.

Right.

I think what's missing from this story is the death.

Because Tessic as a character just feels kind of a malaise instead of dark and haunted.

and brooding and angry even.

Like, it's okay to be angry and not want to fight, but it doesn't doesn't even seem like he's angry.

You know what I mean?

He doesn't come across as angry.

He's more just stressed.

Like, he's a stressed-out leader who doesn't have a good solution to all the problems that beset his people.

The checkstands are getting slammed at the deuterium grocery store on the day before Thanksgiving.

Like, that's the vibe that he's got.

Yeah, yeah.

He's

stressic.

Yeah.

Yeah, he sure is.

So they have a meeting about like strategy, and they got a bunch of like

dusty old rifles that these guys had around.

And at no point does it seem to be on the table that the entrepreneur would provide any like additional firepower to the to the project because this isn't really a firepower-oriented strategy.

It's going to be a deuterium-based trap.

What they're going to do is take the whole town and pick up all of the pieces of it and move it 50 meters so like

really fucking far i don't know how far that is

yeah i mean that's it's uh it's impossible to say but uh that's like a 30-minute drive yeah easy okay if not more or a little less okay

depending on the time of day

um they're gonna like cap off the wells and disguise them and then like rig them to blow.

And so they've got three days to do this because that's how much time is left before Korok returns with his men.

We get a little like it's a combination of training montage and town demo and reconstruction montage.

We get to have a scene where Hoshi has now become the master at target practice.

Do you mind, Lieutenant?

She shows Mockley what Reed showed her.

I don't like Hoshi's unexplained presence in a scene with Reed.

Like,

come on, Hoshi.

You don't have to be there.

This isn't your department.

But once she starts kicking ass with the rifle training, it makes a lot of sense.

It makes me wonder, like, is Reed not good at rifle either?

Like, if he was an instructor or an expert, on this sort of thing, you'd think he would have noticed the finger stuff.

Like, Hoshi's all all over what this guy should be doing with his fingers.

And I think when you're told what you should be doing with your fingers, you better listen.

Yeah.

Listen to Hoshi on that one, not read.

Yeah.

No.

It's all going to be very academic coming from him.

Anyways, Trip has been setting up the traps, and Archer has been reassembling the town.

And they have a little conversation where Trip is like,

wondering whether this is, you know, exactly what TePaul was worrying about.

Like, is this just going to put them in a worse spot when it comes to the Klingons?

And Archer's like, I've never liked Bully's Trip.

Not on Earth, and not out here.

It was like not a satisfactory answer, in my opinion.

Pretty great.

I mean, this is clearly the sort of episode that is in that weave that the show is doing, right?

Like, sometimes the Enterprise helps too much, sometimes too little.

Like, there's correcting and over-correcting.

They're trying to find a consistent way to treat situations like this.

And this is one of those

imperfect middles that they're in, where they're sort of helping, but they're not orbitally bombarding six Klingons to death like they easily could.

Right.

They're teaching a man to murder a Klingon

so that

they can then go on to murder Klingons.

as many as they want.

Guess?

Get a little sequence where Tapal shows off some of her Vulcan Kwando skills, but she's like, I don't have time to teach you any of this, but I can teach you how to dodge.

So that is going to be like the entire focus of their, of their hand-to-hand combat training.

I love the

moment where Tepal demonstrates is badass, and she's great at this.

And I love...

Like, she's got real drill sergeant energy in a fun way.

Yeah.

And you see her do her move.

What doesn't work is when you see this move exported to the entire class and it's clearly like dodge dodge roll.

That's it.

It's like playing a Street Fighter or something where like that's what your character can do.

The dodge, dodge, roll.

That's your special move.

That's it.

Pretty fun.

Did you ever see the movie Equilibrium with Christian Bale?

Yeah.

The gun kata.

It's like a way of shooting your guns so that bullets don't hit you.

What?

Ah, shit.

Shoot him!

Shut up!

Shut up!

Nothing can ever hit you if you dodge, dodge, roll.

What's great about dodge, dodge, roll is you don't need to hire a fight choreographer to teach a bunch of guest stars how to do this.

It's dodge, dodge, roll.

You don't need to be a professional.

DePaul can teach them that.

Yeah.

So we're back on the surface, surface and the camp move's almost complete.

And Trip and that non-slickback talk about how much or little this dude's going to be involved with the defense of the camp.

And at this moment, I was like, well, the kid really wants to fight.

And Trip is doing all he can to sort of discourage this from happening.

He says he's a good shot with a weapon.

In my mind, I'm formulating an ending to this thing where, like, the Klingons are going to have the upper hand, and this kid is going to save them in a very like Rambo 3 kind of way right like this kid is involved he's discouraged but he he saves the day in the end right I'm thinking that's what's gonna happen at this point preparations continue and

trips like you know what you should do is

go take that martial arts class from Tepaw learn how to dodge dodge roll

Dodge dodge roll I've heard that if your hair is like pretty greased up and slicked back it makes it easier to do the roll part, and it's a little bit more honest about where you're at in life, kid.

Because that's the one part that's making me not trust that you could be a part of this defense.

You have untrustworthy hair.

So, Archer visits Tessic, and they do the old captain's walk before the big battle.

He's been nervous before, Captain Archer, and he's nervous now.

Visigot, Visigot, etc.

Something, something, Fall of Rome, undeterred, and the Klingons show back up, and they beam right back to the town center under that kind of batleth-looking arch structure.

They start walking around.

Town is damn quiet.

Too quiet, you might say.

Their way of getting the town's attention is by licking a shot in the atmosphere.

Love that sound.

How good was that sound, right?

It was a good sound.

Show yourselves!

A guy steps out from behind a tent and sprints for a berm, and the Klingons give chase.

I could not believe that the first thing that is done to the Klingons is just a classic rope clothesline.

I had a problem with using bird calls to pop off the gorilla-style combat.

I mean, are we sure that birds live on this planet?

Oh, man.

Did they go over the tookie-tookie and so forth?

To get the sound code right?

I feel like we're missing a scene here.

I actually forgot how the code goes.

That's why I did that.

This pops off a bunch of moments that feel very red-dony, you know?

Like, there's some rock throwing, there's some Vulcan dodging, like, Tepal gets a badass scene of kicking the shit out of a guy, but it's all very bloodless, right?

Bloodless in a way that could have used a little more blood here, Ben.

Yeah.

Like, like, you don't have to show me death.

Like, I'm fine with people not getting killed here, but geez,

a little weak.

The Klingons, like, get...

get roughed up and are kind of collecting themselves in the middle of town and are like, well, that was ridiculous.

We're going to make them pay.

No more Mr.

Nice Klingon or whatever.

And they start walking toward the hills where they suspect the townspeople are going to be.

But this is no good because they're not walking near the explosive parts of the ground.

The whole moving the town part didn't get them positioned right where Archer needs them.

So the whole gang like scrambles clandestinely over rocks and through these ravines and they get them right where they wanted, and suddenly the Klingons are surrounded by balls of flame,

and Tesik comes down and confronts Korok face to face.

How do you feel about this, Ben?

Like, this did not go the way I expected it to.

In the tease of this being a trap, I thought, you know, hiding the flammables suggested to me that like a little more than just a warning flame or fire fence situation would be happening.

I mean, I'm a red-blooded American man.

I like to see a stunt man staggering around on fire.

That's just me.

That's just what I like.

And I wanted one of those in this scene.

And instead, it's like a wrestling ring

that's framed by a wall of flames.

Right.

And they're like, they're told that there's more right under them.

So don't make any sudden moves.

Yeah.

But yeah, you don't get that guy stumbling around where his proportions are all wrong because he's like got so many layers of clothing to protect him from the fire.

That's just part of it.

That's the part that I like.

Yeah.

Sometimes they have like a weird mask on to protect their face

and you could just see it.

Tessett goes from guy who barely raises his voice when talking about fighting and dying a few years ago to barely raising his voice as he tells the Klingons what the new deal is.

He's like,

Here's the terms.

You leave and you don't come back.

Otherwise, we're going to turn up the flames here.

And if you come back, we'll be ready is the warning.

And these Klingons

beam away after hearing that?

Do these Klingons, do they not observe the

what I'm going to just call the code of honor among Klingons?

Like,

why would they ever beam out of a conflict like this?

Every Klingon I know would have run through fire to cut off Tessek's head.

Yeah, I mean, I guess Korok is without honor.

Is that it?

If you're gonna give Tessek the hero turn, have him raise his voice and puff himself up, and then when these guys fuck off, have him turn back to the townspeople and like raise his rifle.

Wolverines!

Like, Tesek needs to embrace how iconic this moment is, and I feel like he's just too dead inside to do that.

Yeah, I mean the the half-life of stress is like it takes a while to get out of your system, you know?

Yeah.

So yeah, they win.

Kel has gone back to the shuttle.

He didn't help.

It didn't help.

Like weren't you expecting him to either fuck it up or or win the day?

Yeah.

Neither was what happened and I lost a ton of money.

Yeah, I thought somebody would go down and he would pick up a rifle and do something heroic or something.

Kel, don't go near the flames.

And then, like, Trip turns away, like, oh, yeah.

I mean, that little boy didn't have a bunch of hair products in him.

I regret tell him to slick his hair back.

It's what ignited first.

He wasn't even that close.

His poor little dome was full of accelerants.

That's that's not a nice way to go.

At least I no longer have to give a stranger these schematics to our entire ship.

Which, in retrospect, sort of a dangerous thing to give a small child on a planet we'll never see again.

This is strange from an OPSEC standpoint.

Why didn't I just let him look at my nipples?

He'd probably be perfectly excited by that.

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

We have so many rolled-up Enterprise cutaway posters.

Would have been perfect for his bedroom.

Yeah, like he gives him basically an iPad, too.

Yeah, I mean, great gift.

Yeah.

They get paid, you know, 100x what they asked for or something, like an absolutely staggering amount of deuterium.

And there's all these barrels getting piled up next to their shuttle.

And I did not understand how this episode ended with Archer and TePaul getting into the shuttle and leaving all the deuterium there.

What was that?

I think there's a way you could read this scene that goes, wow, you're being very generous with the deuterium now.

And it's because, you know, they went above and beyond on the Enterprise crew side to ensure their safety.

That goes, like, actually, we can't carry that much deuterium.

Like, we could only, like, like, we, we put the nozzle into the gas tank and, like, the nozzle went click.

Like, thanks, thanks, and everything.

But, like,

we start overfilling the deuterium, it's gonna run down the paint, it's gonna make a big mess.

My fingers are gonna smell.

There's a little yellow sticker on the pump that specifically says not to do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So

they leave it.

I can only hope they're like sending another shuttle craft down with some grunts to like load it up or something.

Haven't they done enough moving?

This episode?

Like so much of this episode was like the discomfort of moving when you're asked to help move and also like impending war.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What if

what if that was the explanation?

Like, Archer was like, what's all this deuterium?

And they're like, well, you went above and beyond.

So we decided to do that also.

And he's like, you know what?

My back is just

shot to hell after schlepping that town 50 meters.

You know, the thing is, like, at our age, pizza isn't a commensurate reward for all the effort we put in here.

You know, like, I think we've grown out of that as being a payment.

You got a six-pack, but it was a domestic.

Like, what are you doing?

Ben,

some problems at the end of this episode, but how'd you feel about the episode in total?

I don't know, man.

I liked a lot of this episode, but the concern that TePaul raises is like, what could we possibly do?

to help these guys scare the Klingons away once that would work on them in such a way that it would scare them away forever.

And I think you have to buy that whatever plan Archer comes up with it after that moment is going to satisfy the conditions that she sets.

And I didn't feel like it did.

Like, I don't think that they can always blow up a bunch of deuterium in a perfect circle around the Klingons every time they beam down in such a way that the Klingons will actually be scared to come back.

Yeah.

These guys are dead within a week, right?

All of them.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I think it's kind of a bad episode because it just doesn't stick the landing for me.

Like, as much as I like all of the setup stuff, and I thought the, like, dilemma was really interesting, and, like, the place was interesting.

Like,

I don't know.

I was also just like, is deuterium like that hard to come by?

It's just, it's hydrogen with an extra electron, right?

Like, that seems like an abundant resource.

Oh,

check out the big brains on bin.

I just like, I wrote it down in my notes app and then just did like look up, and it was like, oh, it's just hydrogen?

There's lots of that.

I mean,

as stated in the episode before, where they had to go to the repair shop to fix their saucer, I like the maintenance business of Starship exploration.

Yeah.

This feels like it's a version of that.

But like, I want a new spin on the Magnificent Seven or whatever.

Or, like, this, this episode reminded me of Karate Kid in a way.

Like, we're going to train the bullied

to repel the bully.

And in the end, the bully will respect you and not try to hurt you anymore.

But that doesn't export to Klingons.

Because for Klingons, it's death on the line and not

your standing in your high school hierarchy socially you know like I wanted a

reverse Magnificent 7 I wanted like a

reverse

cowgirl seven samurai you know like I wanted I wanted something else

like it was too on the nose as a retelling of that so yes I liked I liked the biz part of it but but like If it feels like something, I'm with you, Ben.

This episode was missing something, and I think we proposed a bunch of ways that you could fill that up with with something different it's like what doesn't work about this episode is also what doesn't work about the rebel moon movies on netflix it doesn't even have like a robot with antlers on his head to like sell you on it so

i appreciate that this series is doing that that sine wave of like get involved leave him alone get involved leave it alone but like there is not not that epilogue of self-awareness that's like, well, we tried the middle this time.

Let's see if they live another week.

But maybe that's just implied with what's going on here.

I wonder if they'll

come back and check on these guys and be like, oh man, what a tragedy.

Yeah.

Let's see if we've got anything scorched in the priority one message inbox.

What do you say?

Let's do it.

Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on secured channel.

Need a supplemental income.

Supplemental income.

Supplemental.

Supplemental.

Yeah, it's extra.

But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship.

Our first P1 here is of a promotional nature and goes like this.

I figured being a trekkie wasn't nerdy enough, so I started a freshwater aquarium service in northern Colorado.

The ICHEB's brother of aquariums, if you will.

Not local?

Great.

I offer digital consultation to anyone, anywhere.

Emphasis on live plants and ethical fish keeping?

Visit my website freshflowaquatics.com or look me up on YouTube for educational content.

FODs get 10% off.

Code shrimp-ropes.

All capitals.

There's no input for coupons since it's Squarespace site, so you'll need to casually slip it into the conversation.

Get in touch to request services 970-430-6402 or follow me on YouTube at FreshFlow Aquatics.

Wow, very cool.

This is great.

I just went to

Fresh Flow Aquatics YouTube landing page.

A ton of videos on here, like instructional videos

shot over the course of several years.

And they're not like 40 minute long monologues on aquariums.

Like these are these are tips and tricks and maintenance topics.

Yeah.

And it's all like high stuff.

Like it's not just dude on an iPhone.

It looks and sounds like really good instruction.

I love this.

I'm on the webpage and these are really beautiful tanks.

These are like planted tanks.

And I've recently, with the help of Adam Ragusia, gotten into the lifestyle.

Folks watching on the stream at home can see my tank in the background.

Are you a fish man?

Tin Ma'am.

I'm a fish man and it is a freshwater planted tank.

This is the thing that Fresh Flow Aquatics does.

So

I'm super psyched at the confluence of a new hobby of mine and an old hobby of mine.

That's really cool.

I hope there's people listening out there that could use some help and we'll get in touch with this guy.

Yeah, so the call to action, I'll just repeat here is 970-430-6402 or visit Fresh Flow Aquatics on YouTube at FreshFlow Aquatics.

Pretty great.

I think that might be the first time someone's given a phone number out on the show.

I know.

I was just thinking about that.

I mean, usually we just give out 206-984-4FU for any comments or questions or concerns about our show.

But they're not going to be able to help with

your fish tank.

I mean, you could try.

I mean, here's what I'll say: call 206-9844FUN, ask them an aquarium question, and then call 970-430-6402.

See which one calls you back first.

There you go.

I would suspect Fresh Flow Aquatics would be first on the callback.

Indeed.

Then we got a personal message here.

It is from Natalie.

It's to the doctors, Mr.

and Mrs.

Naomi.

Oh, captains everywhere have enjoyed the happy privilege of joining together two people in the barren of matrimony.

Now I'm throwing scarves at TGG to celebrate me.

Marrying both of you.

Whoa.

Thanks for being my friends and letting me get away with sneaking faith of the heart into your ceremony.

Brooklyn live show pilgrimage 2025, please?

Aww.

Asked Natalie.

I like it.

How about that?

I've never had the happy privilege.

I think I want to marry someone.

I mean, in the way that you know I mean that.

To officiate.

To be the officiate.

I think that'd be fun.

Yeah.

My wife has done it.

It's a lot of work, but it's a very special thing to get to do for someone.

Yeah.

Pretty great.

And look, the pilgrimage to Brooklyn will happen whether or not there's a show.

Sure.

I love going to Brooklyn.

You're there all the time.

Our final P1 here is from Ben and it's to Adam and Ben or Ben and Adam and it goes like this.

I started viewing last year.

I'm currently on DS9 season four episode 20.

Nice.

I am in grad school pursuing my Master of Social Work and work full-time.

This week I found myself burnt out and on a grippy sock vacation.

Imagining what mental health advice Kern would give kept me sane.

Kern impression?

I do not remember any of my coursework when I got my MSW,

but technically I still have the degree.

I just haven't had the heart to apply for any social work opportunities on Kronos.

Socks?

A Klingon does not wear

socks.

A Batak wears socks.

I even put TGG on my discharge plan for coping strategies.

Thanks for giving me something to live for.

Aww.

Wow.

Well, thanks for doing what you do, Ben.

And I wonder if you'll be a social worker by the time you catch up to this message.

Yeah.

The requested timeline is before the show ends.

So congratulations to Ben.

You made it.

You barely made it.

You got it in right under the wire.

You can get your message in well under the wire by going to maximumfund.org slash jumbotron.

Have us read your message.

It doesn't take more than a few words.

We'll embellish your message.

We'll do great things with it.

We'll even give you the greatest gen bump like we have to Fresh Flow Aquatics.

And

Priority One messages go a long way in supporting the production of both of our shows.

Hey, Ben.

What's that, Adam?

Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda?

Incredible.

Drunk Shimoda!

I did, Adam.

I'm not proud of this.

It is

a drunk Shimoda that happened just because I laughed at somebody's name when I saw it fly by in the credits.

One of the Klingons was played by an actor named Pee-Wee Piamonte.

Yeah, I mean, I'm embarrassed to say that he is my drunk Shimoda just because I thought that that was a funny name.

It's a funny name.

Yeah.

Mine's going to be Tepal, both for wearing white after Labor Day and on a Dustbuster Club mission to a sandy, dirty planet, and also for just being the secret badass that she is.

Like, she does all of this combat training.

No one says that thing that you get in most moments like this, which is like, whoa, Tepal.

What a badass.

Like, what the fuck?

she can totally kick ass

she's vasquezing a little bit but you're not getting the vasquez react that that you get in aliens so like

i think it's okay to be impressed by her i think it's weird that no one is

but uh in any case to paul's my shimota for like keeping keeping the badassness

under a basket faith of the fart well adam uh it's time to figure out how we will be doing next week's episode which is of course is season two, episode seven.

And it's called the Seventh.

After TePaul is contacted by the Vulcan High Command, Archer, Mayweather, and Tepal travel to Antarctic World to apprehend a fugitive.

We're going to check every igloo, igloo outhouse,

further igloo outhouse.

Igloo fox house.

Igloo hen house.

I want a hard target search.

Yeah.

That's what this sounds like.

Sounds like fun.

I didn't kill my penguin.

I don't care.

So

you're saying Trip Tucker plays the part of

Tommy Lee Jones?

Absolutely.

Oh, man.

Bruce Davidson is going to be in this episode.

Looking forward to it, Adam.

I'm going to go over to goch.biz slash game,

where we keep the game of buttholes,

the will of the Riker, Quantum Leap.

Our runabout is currently on square 18.

You're required to learn as you play.

Roll.

And we have jumped up to square 43 for a regular episode next week.

Tula!

Did I win?

Hardly.

How about that?

How about that?

Feels like the show's going on location quite a bit lately.

We're going to the sand level.

We're going to the snow level.

The way we do a show remains consistent.

I think people depend on that.

Yeah, indeed.

People love that.

In these trying times, they sure do.

Well,

that just about does it for this episode.

Our eternal gratitude to all the friends of DeSoto who support what we do on a monthly basis.

We really appreciate your support.

We also appreciate the efforts of Wendy Pritty, our producer and editor on this program and all of the crap that we do over at Uxbridge Shimoda.

We got to thank Rob Adler and Bill Tilly for running our social media accounts at Greatest Trek on all of the places.

Throw those a follow and

repost something if you see it and think it's funny.

Or leave us a nice review on your podcast app.

We're in December.

It means there's a couple weeks left to watch our streaming shows.

Greatestgen tour.com is where you can get information on how to do that.

Three of them waiting for you.

If you haven't seen a Greatest Gen live show, do it from the comfort of your own turlet.

Yeah.

Or give it as a gift to someone.

Fun thing to do with your family.

If your family likes incredibly crude jokes about Star Trek.

Oh, and sign up to the mailing list.

Mailing list is something we've been working really hard on for the last year

to make a uh a a good and valuable uh thing that shows up in your inbox once a month you know full of interesting stuff about the show and uh what it's like to make it little behind-the-scenes things that you can get that at goch.biz slash mail or just sign up at potchoff.biz

with that we will be back at you next week with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise and an episode of the Greatest Generation Enterprise

that didn't kill my wife.

It was a one-armed polar bear.

Remember the end of Roadhouse when that stuffed polar bear falls over?

Hmm.

New one or the old one?

Old one.

I haven't seen the new one.

Oh, you gotta check out the new one.

It's a lot of fun.

Really?

Yeah, it's genuinely a lot of fun.

Alright, I'll give it a try.

Alright.

Bye.

Make it so.

Captain Jon Lu Picard of the U.S.

Sentinel Cry.

Captain Jon Lu Picard of the USS Tenta Cry.

Make it so.

Make it so.

John Lu Picard Carter Carter.

A polar bear fell on me.

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