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Transcript
Here's to the finest crew in Starlink.
When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument from me.
This is a parody.
Paramount owns the song.
Welcome to the Greatest Generation.
It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast.
I'm Adam Pranica.
I'm Ben Harrison, and I'm unhappy, Adam.
Do we need another drop for you, given how often that's the case?
I mean, this isn't, I'm not medically unhappy.
I mean, I am also medically unhappy.
Sure.
Yeah.
I don't want to downplay that, but
this, I'm just unhappy about this
show open that we have to do today.
We rolled the temporal cold war tile on the game of buttholes,
the Will of the Riker quantum leap.
Yeah.
You could have vetoed it.
I could have.
You blew it.
We didn't want to do a quantum leap episode, I guess
it was quantum leap episode or three bad reviews.
That was the thing.
I was sitting there with my finger on the veto button and I was looking at your face and I was like, do I want Adam mad at me?
Because we have to now do a quantum leap episode?
Or do I want to feel bad because mean people said mean shit about me on the internet and I have to go experience that.
When is my being mad at you ever dictated any decision you've ever made?
I'm trying to turn over a new leaf here.
I think this is going to be interesting.
Much like the Naomi Wildman Square, a Virgin Square,
untouched by us.
So too is the Temporal Cold War Square, Ben.
I don't like you describing Naomi Wildman like that.
A place we've never been before on the game board.
Yeah.
Here's what we did.
We did not do the deep dive into our own reviews.
Instead, we fitted our great producer, Wendy Pretty, with a podcast review gas mask and
like anti-radiation suit.
Yeah.
All the PPE was provided.
We tied a rope around her waist and then like we slowly let her go
down into that well.
She could see all the bad reviews and there was a kind of a weird mist over them with some like laser light shining through it and uh she picked three out uh you know i think the good thing about the temporal cold war segment adam is well we have lots and lots of reviews on apple podcasts we don't have that many bad ones so with any luck we'll we'll exhaust our ability to even do this square
well i can appreciate the idea of being humbled every once in a while you know knocked off our high horse as being the biggest and best Star Trek podcast out there.
We're not above a little bit of criticism, Ben.
Let's see what we got here.
Yeah.
And
this first one here is a bona fide one-star review.
Came in eight years ago from user FuzzymanNH.
Does that mean this is the fuzziest man in New Hampshire, do you think?
Oh, I mean, get in line, fuzzy man.
It's the hairiest state in the Union.
You think it's hairier than Maine?
Absolutely.
Wow.
They're shaven in Maine.
But are they Fortoni friendly?
Get a clue is the subject of this one-star review.
I generally expect Star Trek podcasters to know something about Star Trek.
These guys are clueless.
Listen to Trek Geeks or Mission Log instead.
I I mean, the second part,
half of it's right.
Go listen to Trek Geeks or Mission Log.
Why don't you?
Yeah.
If we're not your cup of tea, instead is the word I grossly disagree with.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't like instead.
This doesn't have to be a zero-sum situation.
This was our reason for getting into the podcast Beef with Mission Log.
We got a lot of this in the beginning of our show.
A lot of the whole, why do I need this?
I have this other thing.
Right.
It suggests that Fuzzyman doesn't have a great big appetite for Star Trek podcasts.
Yeah, well, and also, like, if we were trying to do what Mission Log is trying to do, I feel like they would have been mad at us for that.
Also, like, the fact that we tried...
to be our own kind of show seemed to be offensive to this kind of person, but I can't imagine that just...
You're suggesting that we even knew or listened to any other Star Trek podcast in order to avoid doing what they're doing.
I had no idea what anyone else is doing.
That's true.
Yeah, no, I'm not saying that we were avoiding somebody else's format.
I'm just saying that if we had listened to somebody else's format and attempted, I'm just, I feel very defensive.
Just let it flow through you, man.
That's what you got to do.
Since when are you the like
keep an even keel guy on this show?
Haven't I always been that guy?
No, I don't know about that.
What's our next one?
Yeah, fuck you, Fuzzy Man.
Eat shit.
Alright, here's one for you, Ben.
Los au fun is the headline.
L-O-S
of fun.
Los of fun?
Like, the of fun?
Hmm.
Maybe is what this means.
Really enjoy listening to these guys review episodes I haven't seen in years.
But Crusher works in sick bay, not sixth bay.
She's a doctor, and there is a sick bay on every ship since the ships set off from Troy to rescue Helen.
Wow.
If
user 182745 did this as a bit, I think it's actually really funny.
I love getting sixth bay wrong.
Right.
Like, you even get your fucking dunk wrong.
That the dunk is wrong kind of makes me think that this is a bit.
Yeah.
Gotta be.
That this is a four-star four-star review also.
It makes me kind of think it's a bit how about Wendy not getting more than one one-star review for us,
she's very merciful as a producer, she's a caring nurse, yeah.
I also do just really like the idea of somebody that's like, I love these guys and their vibe, but they are wrong about how they say the name of that part of the entrepreneur.
Yeah.
If you don't like the way we say things, this just might not be the show for you.
Yeah.
All right.
Okay.
We got one last one.
How are you feeling, Ben?
Let's check your temperature a little bit.
I'm less, I feel less dysregulated than I did on that one-star review, which really
burnt my toast.
Jeez.
This next one is from Cameraman Dan 83.
Cameraman Dan 83.
Did you mean to say Cameraman Dan?
Cameraman Dan.
Cameramandan.
If Cameraman Dan was born in 83, that makes Cameraman Dan a kindred spirit because I was born in 83 and I was a cameraman for a long time and was at the time that this review came in.
I'm positive you'll be exactly alike based on what you're about to read, Ben.
Title of the review, pretty good.
And it's a four-star review.
I'm writing this 11 episodes in.
They seem to be hitting a stride, but really need to lose the whole, we're embarrassed to be doing the show, shtick.
If it was a podcast about enterprise, I'd understand.
But while they're starting with the worst of TNG, a love of the show by no means is something to be ashamed of.
When they get to talking about the show, it's really funny, and they don't veer off too many tangents.
Okay.
I think, you know, I think that we got like much more
hostile versions of this review in the early days, like people that were genuinely hurt by the idea that someone could be embarrassed to be hosting a Star Trek podcast.
Fucking babies.
Imagine being hurt by the concept of a podcast.
Yeah, but I think that there is like a
kind of person whose nerdery has been so weaponized against them that they have to be like the opposite of embarrassed of it.
And
well, that's like the,
what is that, that knot, that loop?
The Mobius strip, the Gordian knot?
What's the thing that goes back around on its own?
I think it's the Mobius Uroboros.
I mean, that's kind of what you're describing.
Like, we're reflecting the embarrassment that we felt all along
and exploding it back out.
We're allowed to use that word, Ben, is what I'm saying.
Yeah, I think so.
I mean,
it's for us.
It's not for anyone else.
You know, nobody should feel embarrassed to listen to this show unless they do feel embarrassed to listen to this show.
And then that feeling is valid.
Feel however you want.
Just listen to the show is my recommendation.
Or something else.
Wow.
So
three, I'm going to guess ban, palatable bad reviews for you was what we endured.
Yeah, I didn't, I'm not proud of how I behaved here.
But I think I learned something.
What do you think?
Should Wendy take the governor off next time we hit this square and like really, really fucking light us up?
I will admit to you that privately and behind your back,
I talked to Wendy and asked her to find relatively tame ones or ones that just dunked on me specifically.
And these are what she got.
So, I mean, I'm going to leave it up to you, Ben.
I don't want this process to hurt you, so I'm protective of you in that sense.
But if you just want your fucking nose rubbed in it, that's up to you.
I mean, I feel like in the spirit of the thing,
I should get my nose rubbed in it.
But I appreciate that while you are very much dead inside, you honor the fact that I am less so.
We're dead in different ways inside.
Yeah.
If these felt like reviews that you would like to bury under positivity, go ahead and head over to our Apple podcast page and put a nice five-star review in there.
All right.
let's find out if the episode we're about to review is also dead inside.
I've got some pretty strong feelings about it.
It's Enterprise Season 2, Episode 5.
It's called A Night
in
Sixth May.
That's not what it's called!
You didn't even read it, Ryan!
Our cold open is in the decontamination chamber where Hoshi, Tepal, and Archer and Porthos are doing a sort of decontamination centipede with each other.
Yeah.
One's getting one's back.
That person's getting the next person's back.
Archer is getting Porthos' back.
I wonder what they put on the dog.
Because, like,
are they rubbing like hair gel?
What is it?
It can't be.
I mean, even the most well-trained studio animal would take great umbrage with viscosity like this.
Yeah.
Although, they do test a lot of cosmetics and things on beagles, so maybe this is something that Porthos is used to.
Maybe this is a side gig for the actor who plays Porthos.
Side hustle into the medical testing of makeup.
Yeah, he's usually down at Johnson Johnson's RD facility.
Dark joke.
You don't need help
gelling up your front.
And yet, there is on occasion in this episode some help with the front.
You don't need that.
You don't need it.
I don't even like help on my back.
Like, the spray on sunblock has been such a revolutionary game changer for me.
Because, like, I don't even really want my wife to rub that stuff on my back.
Because I'm like, I don't know what's back there.
It's probably, my back is probably bad, you know?
The spray sunscreens break out my birdie really bad, so I really can't use them.
Ah, what about the like the pump action, but it's the rub-in kind.
Can you do that?
Yeah, I think the rub-in kind is better than the aerosolized kind, which I seem to have some sort of reaction to.
Dang.
Sorry, bud.
I feel sorry for you.
I feel sorry for Portos.
He picked up a pathogen down on
the Cretacin planet.
Ben, why isn't this an aerosol in the decontamination room?
That's what I'm saying.
Like
when you're in an outbreak and you're in your full-body viral barrier suit, you go through the door and you put your hands up and it sprays you.
Tell you why it's not an aerosol on the show.
Not horny enough.
Yeah, so everybody can go but Porthos.
We hear this from Dr.
Flox.
Porthos went, they were like trying to apologize for their previous eating shit in front of the Cretassans.
It went badly, and Porthos has some kind of disease from the planet's surface.
And we get a little on-screen, what time is it?
It's 9.09 p.m.
as Archer, fresh out of the decon chamber, is checking in on Trip Tucker, who's really stressed out about their plasma injectors and how few of them they have left.
This is the whole reason for hitting up the Cretacins again.
I mean, on the one hand, you want to go make it right and apologize for past offenses, but you also need to maintain the relationship, right?
If you're going to be trading goods and services for apologies over the long term, you got to make sure everything's on the up and up.
And this is something that Archer was complaining about the entire fucking time in that decon chamber, just like, oh, the Cretacins suck.
They're making me grovel.
On and on he goes with how great of a lift this is for him.
And it's interesting to see when he interacts with other crew people, the other folks are like, it's quid pro quo, man.
Like, get on the level with the Curtassans because we need these things to do the mission.
Yeah.
Are you saying it's too much to apologize here?
It's interesting because you sort of get the sense that maybe they're like apology cucks, like they love it, you know?
Like maybe
the curtassins literally want to trade injectors for for apologies we're gonna have to go somewhere else to find you your injector trip these people are impossible they come from a high context culture right like we we live in a low context culture like people's customs are not always assumed
you go like somewhere like japan the uk
High context culture.
There are ways things are done.
And if you don't know those things, you can embarrass yourself without even realizing it.
And that's what the Cretassans have pulled.
But my theory is that they're such a high-context culture that they're like, we love it.
Everybody embarrasses themselves in front of us, and then they have to do our ridiculous apology ceremonies.
And
that's how we get off.
The thought I had in my head that would not leave was, why was Porthos invited to begin with?
Why would Archer just assume Porthos would be welcome on an away mission period, let alone on the Cretacean homeworld.
Yeah.
We have
many people in our lives that are bring the dog everywhere people.
And it poses problems sometimes, you know, bring the dog everywhere people run into problems that not bring the dog everywhere people do not encounter.
I love my dog very much.
I'm not a bring my dog everywhere person.
And I think if you are, you're wrong.
Well, Archer is wrong in this episode because back in Six Bay, we learn that his dog's autoimmune system is collapsing.
And Flox is kind of stumped.
He's not really sure what to do about this just yet.
He's not panicking or anything.
He just is like, yeah, like, I haven't figured this out yet.
The word collapsing does a lot of work here in the way that Worf saying the word obliterated.
The house has been obliterated.
Kind of paints a less than rosy picture, wouldn't you say?
I don't like that word in a medical context.
I might prefer obliterated, Ben, to be honest.
His immune system has been obliterated by the Cretassan atmosphere.
I mean, give it to me straight, Dr.
Flox.
I can get on that level.
This is going to be a Spockbox situation.
Yeah.
Archer looks at his obliterated doggie through a glass.
panel.
I guess whatever is affecting Porthos can affect other people.
people.
Ben, from here, this is a puppet Porthos, right?
That I think I've seen up for auction, even.
Oh, really?
Does Garrett Wong currently own Puppet Porthos?
He was stating the obvious again.
Do you think if you wanna display Puppet Porthos, this is the most upsetting
prop that you could own?
I don't like this.
This is flying too close to the taxidermy sun.
I have to say, for this script, I was shocked at how much money they spent on this episode.
Like, every production dollar is on screen in this episode.
With the puppet porthoses and the, like, digital bat and the, and the, you know, model of a dead chameleon later.
I think this is the reason that the episode made it to air instead of being shelved like coat of honor,
which is what I, not to cut to the end, what I feel like should have happened to this episode.
Wow, that is a spicy take.
Let's talk our way through it before you say anything you can't take back, though, Adam.
Sure thing.
Yeah.
This is another reason that Archer is pissed at the Cretacens.
He's like, we sent Porthos's genome to them.
They should have checked if their ecosphere could support his species and told us if there was something that was dangerous to him.
Yeah, the burden should have been on the place that the dog person was visiting
to make sure everything would be safe for the dog.
That's great, Archer.
Good thinking.
DePaul wants to discuss this situation, not on the bridge, but in Archer's ready room.
This is very perceptive of her because Archer blows his stack yet again when she discusses just why the Cretassans are so pissed at him this time.
There was a copse of trees that Porthos went and took a piss on that happened to be very important sacred trees.
They're Alvera trees.
Over 300 years old.
That's fascinating.
Archer is not sorry.
Of course.
Why wouldn't he be?
I mean,
let's set aside the fact that these are trees.
Cultural treasures have been pissed on by a dog.
That's what's happening here, and Archer has made it the Cretacean's problem.
We are digging Archer in.
Yeah,
this is an Archer digs himself a whole episode from Jump.
And like, he's mad at the Cretassans.
He's mad that the Beagle is sick, but he's also really mad that TePaul
profusely apologized on his behalf.
He's like, no, I would never.
Do not apologize for me.
Don't do that.
They're the ones who should be sorry.
Not only that, but if Porthos dies, he'll pee himself on those fucking trees.
Like, he's a Calvin peeing on a Chevy logo and a a bumper sticker.
That's what he proposes here.
I'm pretty excited about our new Archer pissing on a tree bumper sticker coming to Pod Shop.biz.
Podshop.biz.
Wow, look at that.
It's already there.
Amazing.
Fast action.
In the Bill Watterson art style.
I started to
feel a little dread here, Ben, because as the digging got deeper with Archer's character and what his priorities are for the episode.
I'm wondering how he's going to get out.
I'm wondering how I ever respect him again.
Starting here, I'm excited to find out.
We cut over to Archer's quarters, Ben, and he's watching water polo on TV and doing that kind of Steve McQueen stuff with a polo ball, like he's in the Great Escape.
Yeah.
Love seeing it bounce off the wall back into his hand.
Speaking of places a character cannot leave,
we've got a scene depicting water polo, which means much like a dog owner,
assuming their animal is welcome in any situation they're in, I will also assume that my hit game show within a podcast
is also welcome in any podcast I'm in.
It's time for polo.
Come on, polo, 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.
Today's contestant is Benjamin R.
Harrison, a 41-year-old illness enthusiast from Highland Park.
And today he'll be playing for the love of his family, the respect of his podcast host, and a gift certificate to PodShop.biz.
Podshop.biz, the online home of polo, polo, or boyo merchandise.
If it's not podshop.biz, get fucked.
Did you know that a discount EP552 will get you 5% off a purchase that includes a polo, polo, or pollo merch item and an archer pissing on a tree merch item?
I love it.
It's the code that saves.
Ban on our game today.
Three multiple choice questions with one correct answer.
Oh boy.
Okay.
The answers are either polo, the horse sport,
pollo, otherwise known as a chicken,
and successful West Wing and Meet the Parents actor Terry Polo.
Okay.
I'm not familiar with his work.
Let's start with the first question.
Okay.
In 1985, this made headlines in Sports Illustrated with the phrase, breaking into the boys' club.
A.
Polo, the first women's international championship that was sanctioned by the USPA.
B.
Poyo.
Female chickens are first allowed to compete in major rooster shows.
Okay.
And C.
Terry Polo, her debut documentary on girls trying to join male only sports teams.
Wow.
You know, Terry is one of those names that can be a boy name name or a girl name, and I, for some reason, assumed boy because I wasn't familiar with the actor showing off just how much internal bias I have.
For that reason, I have to guess that it's Terry Polo that made headlines in Sports Illustrated because
that's exactly the kind of bias that they're trying to tear down in that article.
I'm so glad you made that observation, Ben, because this game is so much about your lack of trivia knowledge and also your terrible biases.
Ben, final answer?
Wrong!
Damn it!
The answer is A.
Women's Polo achieved a major milestone in 1985 with international recognition.
Let's move on to question two.
Featured in National Geographic in 1991, this particular Marco became a sensation.
A.
Polo.
champion horse named after the explorer.
B.
Pollo, the world's largest discovered campero rooster in Spain.
Or C.
Terry Polo, her breakthrough role playing Marco Polo's daughter in a movie about his life.
Wow.
I feel like you have to cast Terry Polo in a movie about Marco Polo.
much in the way that Richard Dreyfus played a character in that movie about the Dreyfus affair all those years ago, but not Dreyfus himself, interestingly, and Terry Polo not playing Marco himself.
So I'm going to guess actor Terry Polo one more time.
Final answer.
Wrong!
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The answer is boyo, Ben.
Marco Compero became famous as a heritage breed preservation story in the chicken community.
The chicken breeding community.
I fear that I owe the chicken breeding community a quad box apology after a blunder like that.
I know.
Let's see if you can redeem yourself with the third and final question, Ben.
A 1992 behind-the-scenes documentary revealed that for six months, intensive training was required for A.
Polo, teaching horses to perform in water-based matches.
Oh, shit.
B.
Pollo, training chickens for the first ever Free Range Olympics.
Or C, Terry Polo,
who had to learn horseback riding for her role in Northern Exposure.
Hmm.
I mean, I've had a little training riding horses,
but it wasn't six months.
I mean,
I don't consider myself a horseman.
I wouldn't be able to take one out of a bar and hop on it and ride away.
You wouldn't even be confused for a horseman.
Tin Ma.
But I can't imagine six months of training for a television show.
I just don't think that the budgets existed for that back then.
But I am very intrigued by the idea of combining the two most famous versions of polo, horse polo and water polo, into one super sport.
Super polo.
Super polo.
And
so
I'm going to guess A, horses learning how to play in water.
Final Final answer?
Vogging it in, yeah.
Wrong!
The answer is C.
Terry Polo had to learn horseback riding for a very specific story arc, Northern Exposure.
For six months?
I know.
Yeah.
Really, really put herself into the training.
Is it because it's so much harder to ride on the back of a moose?
I guess.
Yeah,
I don't recall this arc in Northern Exposure.
Maybe worth going back for.
Oh, yeah.
In a bonus episode.
Maybe when Greatest Track has to stoop to doing hot moose summer because they stop making new Star Trek shows.
Ben, thanks very much for playing.
We've gone 0 for 3 today.
Not your best showing in Polo.
Holo
or Boreo.
Very humiliating.
I didn't know it was such a rough game.
Archer cannot get his mind off of the bad stuff that is happening to his beloved doggie.
So back to Six Bay he goes
and he's brought a pillow and a blankie.
He is going to bed down on a bio bed so that he can
keep
his beagle company while Flox ministers to him.
And they get talking about like pets and Flox talks about denobulin lemurs, which are maybe the closest thing they have to dogs.
Most of them have one head.
Would you be able to sleep on a bio bed?
We've seen these throughout the years on every Star Trek series.
None of them have rails, and yet they are very narrow.
Yeah.
I guess it depends on if you're a tosser or someone who likes to change positions during sleep.
I do like changing positions when I sleep, and I feel like I would be a roll-off danger on one of these bio beds.
Yeah, my father-in-law recently fell out of bed and
like bonked himself.
Oh, no.
And it did kind of put some fear in me, but I think I could probably do it.
I think in the context of like a healthcare thing, like
it's different.
A couple of times in the last few years, I've been with a family member in a hospital and had to sleep in an unusual circumstance.
I think so often you're also handcuffed to the rails ben in that situation.
So you like you can't roll over.
Right.
So
you're safe, at least.
You're not going to
fall out.
But
yeah, they're talking about like whether Flox is even qualified to do this kind of work.
Turns out he has so many degrees.
The number of degrees that Flox has is really kind of staggering.
It's amazing that he has a career.
Like he seems like one of those people that just stays in school forever.
Yeah.
When he starts rattling off the number of degrees he has.
Like those polymath instincts don't stop.
You're just not done learning.
He's got a love of lifelong learning.
Yeah.
So you feel in his care Porthos is going to be all right.
That's the big takeaway here.
Faith of the fart.
And you will never take the greatest gym alive.
Ben would rather die.
So Archer pulls the curtain to sleep on his bio bed.
And I was wondering why you would even pull the curtain if the whole point was to be near Porthos, to have them somehow sense your energy nearby.
I didn't think this worked for me at all.
It is not as if sleep comes easily in this moment because Archer soon hears the sound of someone doing a thing you should never do in a public space or a space shared with anyone else.
Personal grooming.
In Flox's defense, though, like he didn't ask for Archer to come down there and shack up in his six bay.
You know what?
You're right about that.
Yeah, this is his space.
It's Flox's space.
And Archer's a guest there, which means when he makes the food for the toenail-eating plants, Archer's just going to have to deal with that.
I love that he fed it to the plants.
Does he feed the tongue scraper goo to a plant?
You don't see the aftermath of that.
You just see the scraping.
An amazing aside, like a special effects set that they spent money on
is Flox scraping the shit out of his super big tongue.
I looked up this prop, Ben, the tongue scraper prop.
It was briefly
offered in a Star Trek auction.
It was not quite in time with my bid.
I was outbid just barely in the final seconds.
Want to know who outbid me?
Oh,
I mean, it seemed like the kind of thing I would bid on, but I wasn't aware of that auction.
Who got it?
Garrett Wong.
Damn it!
That guy.
Also, Ben, Dr.
Flox does these personal grooming tasks out of order.
You don't work with your mouth after you work with your feet because your hands smell like feet.
Hmm.
Why would you do that, Dr.
Flox?
Is it possible he washed his hands in between?
Nah.
It didn't show us that scene.
So Archer gets an hour of sleep and then is woken up again.
And Phlox is making the rounds and feeding all of his critters.
I don't know if we mentioned, but the pathogen that is affecting Porthos has been eliminated, but there's not like a prognosis yet.
So we're just like waiting to see how he does.
You can see he's still affected because he looks like a puppet.
That's the major side effect to his illness right now.
It turns you puppety.
So this is like late night and I guess Archer is just like, fuck it, I'm not sleeping.
I might as well hit the gym.
And he finds TePaul in there and I thought there was some really neat equipment in the gym too.
Like that It looked like one of those like zero gravity space camp things in the corner.
It was totally space camp gym in the corner room.
How great would this scene have been if it played out with Archer in that thing instead of the treadmill?
They're both in it and they're both like hitting the button to make it go faster.
Yeah, hard to act when you're getting spun like that, probably.
Hey, note to gym goers.
Notice Archer does the thing where he does not take the treadmill right next to the woman, instead leaves a treadmill in between.
That's very polite gym going by Archer in this case.
Leave some fucking space, would you?
Yeah, leave her alone.
They have a very competitive, argumentative workout where they are pushing the button to make the treadmill go faster at each other while they discuss his resentment of the whole premise of apologizing to the Cretassans.
And he is like really worked up about TePaul having an opinion about this at all.
It's a bad vibe between the two of them.
Like, they are not collaborating the way they have come to do more often than not.
They're not on the same page.
And by that, I mean TePaul being on the right page and Archer still believing that the rights of Porthos to accompany him on any and all away missions supersedes any other concerns having to do with that mission.
It's totally insane.
The reconciliation demands come through.
The Cretacins have gotten together and come up with what they want Archer to do by way of apologizing.
And they go up to the bridge to get this.
And I thought it was amazing that TePaul is like
very put together and Archer is like drenched in flop sweat.
And she was already working out when he came in there.
Do you think there's something to the physiology of this?
Like humans are known by Vulcans to be stinky and pheromonal.
Yeah, maybe.
Maybe a Vulcan just does not perspire as much and wouldn't put that stuff out into the air.
She's like Jason Bourne.
She can do that without even, without, she can breathe through her nose the whole time.
Everyone loves a scene when crew people arrive on the bridge in non-official clothing, though.
This is fun.
So Hoshi has received these demands and loaded them onto an iPad.
And I was like too distracted by the fact that 22nd century iPads have a headphone port.
They put it back.
This is technology lifecycle stuff, though.
Like you know what's coming back, don't you, Ben?
Like iPad 17
headphone port is back
for some reason.
And then we can throw away that weird little gizmo that we each had to buy for live shows so that we could connect our iPads to the house PA system.
Pretty great.
So yeah, but the demands don't seem that bad.
And Archer's like, okay, I'm going to go get a little bit more shut eye.
And when he leaves, Hoshi asks a very strange question to TePaul.
Do we have a chainsaw on board?
I wonder if the word chainsaw has ever been said on Star Trek.
It seems like such a weird...
I've never heard that word before.
It really does.
In this context.
It's got to be a first, right?
Got to be.
Down in Six Bay, Porthos is in in anaphylactic shock.
If it's an animal, would it be anamylactic?
Can we pretend that it is?
Animalaxis.
Yeah, I think so.
Okay.
This is touch and go for a second, but they managed to inject the right thing, and we don't think Porthos is going to die just yet.
And this sends...
Archer even deeper into his pity party.
He's like, why am I apologizing to these assholes?
They should apologize to me for making my dog feel bad.
Yeah, it's a total emotional spin-out by Archer here.
And I was wondering if Dr.
Flox would have to relieve him.
It's so broad what's happening here with Archer.
These questions Dr.
Flox is asking
aren't usually the spin-out type.
Turns out, he's also a licensed therapist.
He's got everything.
You name a degree, he's probably got it.
He starts to come up with a theory of the case, which, because like they're talking about
Tepal,
like showing disrespect for Archer's, like how much Archer cares about the crew and the ship.
And Flox is like, man, you just need to nut.
Like,
she's clearly a babe.
Like, you're...
You haven't had sex in a long time.
Like, you have tons of sexual tension with Tepal.
And I was like, Man, like,
I did not see this coming.
I thought that the whole show had been building up to sexual tension between Tepal and Trip.
Yeah,
did you see tension between TePaul and Archer at any point?
I mean, I saw like professional tension, but sure, Flox has really
nailed this as being an Archer wants to fuck TePaul situation.
Yeah.
And as this revelation is being rolled out, we cut back up to the the bridge where Hoshi is on with a Cretassan
who is chewing her out for the captain's choice not to adjust the clock on the entrepreneur to Cretassan standard time,
which isn't like a law or anything.
It's just common courtesy.
I'm surprised you didn't know that.
Didn't you suspect that the direction for the Cretassans was be a visiting parent and you're staying at your kid's home as an adult.
Right.
Like, that's kind of the tone I'm getting here.
Like, oh, you set the thermostat for
68.
Interesting that you wouldn't turn it up higher for your aging and very cold parents.
You know, like that kind of spin on things.
Yeah.
This episode goes goes from strange to stranger when we cut back to Six Bay and Flox is chasing a weird bat around.
He and Archer wind up teaming up to try and capture this bat using a giant origami bird that Flox has folded and put on the end of a broom handle.
They're like, you know, climbing up on counters.
At one point, a big jar of French dressing gets knocked on Flox's belly.
This is act bad, right?
Act bad at catching bat.
Like, this is hard to pull off because
these two adult people should not be this bad at catching a bat.
I mean, bats, have you seen them fly?
They fly all crazy.
It's not like a straight line.
You can't predict where it's going to be from one second to the next.
They're bad at bat.
Yeah.
As they are having this struggle to capture bat, Flox draws the conversation back around to the sexual tension between Archer and TePaul.
And Archer is really trying his hardest to ignore this suggestion being brought back up when Hoshi wanders into the room and easily catches the bat.
Yeah, wasn't that hard?
She's got news about the Cretassan conversation.
Archer's taking this about as well as anything in the entire episode.
He doesn't like being rushed into making a decision about the amends that he needs to make.
And so he goes to sleep and he has a dream about Porthos's funeral.
It looks like this is happening on the planet from Sub Rosa.
Yeah.
It's raining cats and dogs, ironically.
And Phlox is delivering the eulogy, but then who should provide a comforting handhold but TePaul?
And suddenly we're back in the decon chamber from the beginning of the episode, and it's Hoshi and Porthos that get dismissed.
DePaul and Archer are going to have to rub each other even longer.
On their front bodies,
this happens.
Yeah.
This is a wet hand hand-hold, Ben.
I thought that was notable.
Don't get too many of those, right?
Those umbrellas are not doing the job.
No.
Now, Archer wakes up and talks to Dr.
Flox, and I think it is very specific that the shot is framed above the waist.
If I were having this kind of dream with the lube and the decontamination chamber and so forth,
I might take a beat.
The wet hand hand hold and then the wet hand boob hold.
Yeah.
It's a wet bio-bed Archer hold after that.
I'm making assumptions about the relative
turgidity.
happening here below the frame.
When you know it, Tepal walks in to this scene.
Interesting that she shows up.
She brings in a couple of big round ones.
Plates of food, that is.
And
that's great.
Archer is contrite in this moment, but he's very horny.
He's like, hey, like,
I kind of lost it on you in the gym, but,
you know, he's slipping up.
He's working in horny words where they don't belong.
I haven't slept very much, but I'm doing the breast.
The best I can.
I understand.
This is a Freudian slip-and-slide that Archer's on.
What a mess.
Porthos is stabilizing, but his pituitary gland is fucked, and he's going to need a transplant.
And the only thing Flox has on board that might be compatible is a chameleon.
And he gets like a big bucket out for Archer to drown his dog in so they can do the surgery like sous vide, basically.
Hairy things in big drums full of liquid.
Only takes me one place in my imagination, Ben.
Of course, the clone room and alien resurrection.
What horrors will we see once this dog is dunked?
Is anyone's guess?
Rill re
It would be fun if Porthos had like a Scooby-Doo thing.
Yeah.
Yeah, but he's still stuffed.
And we see this procedure play out.
The replacement for an obliterated pituitary gland takes a little bit of microsurgery and a little dime-sized hole in the skull.
I couldn't believe this.
And you see it going in.
This was...
such a high-spec prop.
Like,
I was blown away that they designed all of the props.
Like,
I want to get to go to Garrett Wong's house so badly now just to see that of Porthos.
Yeah.
Amazing to me that this exists.
Deeply troubling.
I did not expect to see this.
As they are doing the surgery, for some reason, Flox is not too distracted to continue talking about the way Archer clearly wants to bang to Paul, and Archer kind of admits it in this moment.
And he's like, but what do I do about that?
Like, I'm the captain and she's my first officer.
There's no way to, like,
actually have sex with her.
And Flox is like, just like, just being aware that that is a thing going on between your ears is like the thing that you need to do.
Like, like, understand that that's part of what's driving how dysregulated you are and potentially make peace with it in the future.
And they talk about like Flox's like extremely complicated, polyamorous family life, and how
he has children that love and admire him and took after him, and other children that he doesn't see eye to eye with, and he's on estranged terms with.
And he
finishes this story up saying he really loves serving on board this ship, and it makes Archer feel like an absolute heel that he's been such a cranky racist dickhead all night.
Yeah, good moment for them.
Yeah, it's always reassuring when a cranky racist head realizes that that's actually bad.
Finally, we get a scene where Captain Archer is made to chainsaw one of those special trees that Porthos pissed on
while a group of smug Cretassans look on.
And question for you, Ben.
I'm really curious about how you answer this.
Is this made to make Archer look silly or the Cretassan culture to look silly?
Oh man, I thought it was totally to make him look silly because
he has to put the beads in his hair and get the back tats and
it's like both a like religious ritual of some kind, but also
in many ways like assembling IKEA furniture because every time he finishes a step, he has to like go back to the iPad and like figure out what he has to do next.
I wanted the piss to be evident on the tree.
Like, you know how when you walk through your neighborhood, you can tell if a tree's been pissed on?
There's a dark spot there.
Yeah.
It's now 9:15 a.m.
We're back on the ship.
TePaul reports that the new plasma injectors are working great.
Archer's eating a plate of melon when TePaul walks in to add two more to the scene.
It turns out he owes her a topology
as well.
Thank God.
I mean, sit-down shows, they're going pretty well for us, Finn.
Good show by you.
Seems like the attraction may be mutual
is the vibe I got.
Really incredible moment.
You're right.
Because, like, Archer's working to minimize the friction conversationally, and the way TePaul discusses this
suggests that, like, where there is attraction smoke, there may be sexual fire.
The friction that you speak of could be much more
problematic.
Not expecting this at all.
Oh, big surprise.
But yeah, they're just going to have to not have sex due to the regulations and whatnot.
Yeah, somehow Tepal is going to manage to not do that.
And somehow the camera manages to capture the back of her head as she walks out of the room.
Amazing.
We get everything this episode, don't we?
We sure do.
Archer thanks Flox.
Porthos is A-OK.
Gets to take him out of the Porthos Spock box and hand his faithful physician back his six bay.
That is the end of our episode, Adam.
Did you like season two, episode five of Star Trek Enterprise?
I kept expecting Archer's behavior to be a bit like he can't truly feel this way about his priorities, right?
He really isn't putting porthos above diplomatic relations.
Captain Archer, we're told through dialogue, is like a seasoned diplomat.
The reason he's the captain of this ship is that he is a great diplomat,
and yet we have one season plus five episodes of evidence entirely to the contrary.
I kept waiting for that other shoe to drop and for Archer to be like, you know, I'm just, I'm just fucked up about this.
Like, the Cretassans frustrate me.
Like, obviously,
I made the mistake.
But Archer is so not self-aware.
At any point,
he never pulls up out of this nosedive.
I thought this episode was the nail in the coffin for his character.
Wow.
It made me hate Captain Archer.
And not just be indifferent to him as I've been up till now, but like actively annoying, aggressively annoying.
And I never want to feel that way about a captain.
Yeah.
This was truly shocking.
I did not see this coming.
Up until now, I found him redeemable, but like, what the fuck, Archer?
You are a boob, and I don't respect you, and I don't know how your crew does.
That's how I feel about this episode.
This is the episode that killed Captain Archer for me.
Wow.
I kind of liked it.
I kind of knew that you had a you'd had a big reaction to this one going into it because we were having a conversation with someone and you mentioned that you just watched an episode that would have made you turn Enterprise off if you'd just been watching it in first-run syndication as a fan and not doing it professionally.
Those are my words.
I couldn't help but have that prime my viewing of it and see if I could see in it what you saw in it.
I don't think I got there.
I think that like I agree with you that Archer should put the diplomatic situation first and put the ship and his crew first ahead of his dog.
But like I love my dog and like I I can't really fault anyone for having a big emotional reaction to somebody putting their dog at risk.
Like, I think that it sort of hinges on whether you believe that there was a presumption of some kind of safety in exchanging the DNA and everything.
Like they sent the DNA so that they could find out if everyone going would be safe to go and
did not get accurate information back.
And that is what he's pissed about being like the thing that undergirds all that.
I agree with you that where an animal is involved, big feelings can also
be involved.
But this is that bad dog owner energy of like taking an aggressive animal to a dog park and going,
I don't know what happened.
It's so weird.
Like, like the vanity of a, of a kept pet that, that's like, everything's perfect over here.
We can do no wrong.
Like, take some fucking responsibility.
I agree with that.
I mean, it didn't kill Archer for me because I feel like part of the point of the show is that nobody really knows how to do this and and everybody is kind of learning on the job.
But yeah, like coupling that with a like narcissistic dog owner thing, I can see how that could be like too many hits in the negative column to sustain.
So yeah,
I think on balance, I kind of liked the episode and I especially liked the absurdity of the contrition ritual at the end to just fully dunk the basketball on Archer.
Like, I like that the show is willing to do that to this captain.
So,
yeah, I think that's my take.
Ben, let's see if we have any well-behaved Priority One messages over in the inbox.
Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on Secured Channel.
Need a supplemental income.
Supplemental income.
Supplemental.
Supplemental.
Yes, extra.
But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship.
These wouldn't piss on any valuable relics, right?
No.
Not knowingly, anyways.
Ben, we got a promotional priority one message here.
And it is from Star Wars Skeleton Crew.
Who's that message?
I know it's not Star Trek, but it's the best I could do.
Check out episode 3 of Star Wars Skeleton Crew, only on Disney Plus, and see if you can spot the greatest gen Easter egg.
Whoa.
Thank you guys for the excellent pod throughout the years.
Chris Brenner dropped.
I'm Chris Brenner.
Brenner Information Systems.
You know, interface, operations, net access, channel 90.
Chris Brenner.
Amazing.
So the call to action is going to be to watch the Star Wars Skeleton Crew episode 3.
Dang.
Because the makers of this show are FODs.
Isn't that fun?
That rules.
I'm going to watch the shit out of this.
I'm going to watch episodes one and two also, so I have context for what's going on in episode three.
That's smart.
Pretty amazing and pretty incredible that the makers of all sorts of science fiction happen to be viewers of our show.
Just a delight to know that every time.
I am tickled pink and deeply honored.
So wild.
Thank you, Star Wars Skeleton Crew folks.
Not to be specific so that nobody gets in trouble.
What do you guess is the greatest Jen Easter egg on this show before you watch it?
Well, it's probably not a dog pissing on a very important tree because I feel like that would be like too prescient.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Is it like, do you think Icheb's brother is like, is like squeegeeing shit in the background of the shot?
Yeah, it's funny.
My mind also went to a character.
I was like, like, maybe someone gets a lobotomy.
Oh man, I can't wait to find out.
Our next P1 here is from Matt and it's to Ben and Adam and it goes like this.
I just finished season four of TNG on TGG.
I could have gotten through it faster, but Spotify kept playing episodes from another podcast that is a lot like yours.
What?
Those guys are reviewing new Star Trek.
They keep calling themselves TGD, but the title says TGT.
Not sure what's going on there.
Hopefully, the message doesn't get cut off before I tell you how great
about that.
So, when you listen to our show on Spotify, it germbles all the shows.
Yeah, it sounds like those dastardly devils over there on Greatest Trek are sneaking plays in.
Those great-looking, dastardly devils.
Yeah, I mean, they're handsome, but I fucking hate them.
I hate them because they're beautiful.
How about that?
I don't use Spotify as a podcatcher, and I'm likely not to, given that that's how it treats the order of shows.
Nothing could be worse than, like, we do a show that's made to listen to an order.
We're shuffling podcasts.
Yeah, it'd be like if you got like audible and it just like put a chapter from a different book in there.
Yeah.
Crazy.
Ben, our final priority win message is from Chris.
It is to you and me.
And here's that message.
Now your cars can be painted money green.
Not me, though.
I got the stolen bus pass.
I love this.
I'm 99% sure that Chris is making reference to a couple of songs by my favorite band, The Coo.
Of course, Cars and Shoes.
Song about having a bad car where he's bragging that he's going to paint his car money green when he gets paid.
And then Stolen Bus Pass, of course, referenced to the song Fat Cat's Big of Fish, where a local pickpocket sneaks into a black tie-catered function to rob rich people.
And Donald Trump is a character in that song, and the record came out in like 1993.
And it's about what an asshole Donald Trump is all the way back then.
I feel like
I'm in a foreign country and you've just helped me order something off the menu.
So glad you're here, Ben,
to help me with those references, references that would have missed me completely.
I'm glad to understand them now.
If they're not references, amazing work, Chris.
You made me think something was there that wasn't.
You're like the Rick Steves of rap.
You're just helping me understand.
If you'd like to put coded messages to us or anyone else onto our show, go to maximumfun.org slash jumbotron and set up a P1 today.
You know that's how you can support the production of the show, don't you?
Got to.
Hey, Ben.
What's that, Adam?
Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda this episode?
Incredible.
Drunk Shimoda!
I did.
I am going to give it to the executive producers of this episode who received...
I mean, I think it was like Brandon Braga and
what's his nose, the bad one, Rick Berman, those are the writers of this episode.
Yeah, so they probably also get to make the money decisions about what episodes they're really going to invest in.
But like, I think you have some like legitimate criticisms.
I don't agree with all of them about like this episode and like being a maybe let's not watch Star Trek Enterprise anymore level offense.
But I would say the minimum you could say about this episode in criticizing it is that it's a pretty lightweight script.
It's like barely anything.
They built a wet set so that they could have a rainy,
rainy funeral scene.
Yeah, wet set.
They built a vat with a dog in it to do like a surgery scene with a bunch of articulated like surgical instruments to stick in there for close-up shots.
They
have
a model of a dead chameleon in a shot.
They have a puppet of a dog in a shot.
Like, they spent a lot of money on this episode.
They built that huge Cretacin scene.
They like did
the territorial shot of the Cretacid city.
There's loaf.
There's a fucking chainsaw.
They really spent big on this one.
This was not a cheat bottle episode.
So line producers,
the drunk Shimoto Shimoto for this show?
That's who I think earned it for me this time.
Ben, you named a lot of places the money went.
And what you like when you make an investment in something is to realize some sort of return.
If the intent was ever to make Captain Archer a respectable captain in the Star Trek Pantheon, they did not get a return on their investment here.
Fire this episode into the sun if you want the person in your life to like Star Trek Enterprise or Captain Archer specifically.
Wow.
Arrest the people
involved in this decision.
Absolutely outrageous that we would treat a Star Trek captain like this, that we would sketch him out with such a lack of respectability.
Bury him with the dog.
Okay.
Okay, I got to get out of here, man.
All right, let's go.
Faith of the fart.
Next episode of season two episode six marauders in need of fuel enterprise visits a mining colony for deuterium supplies the crew discovers that the colony is being controlled by klingon marauders who are regularly pillaging the mined deuterium gotta pick up some gas at the station don't we ben yeah i love a an episode that's about uh doing starship business maintenance-wise that's what we get yeah
all right ben i've gone over to gock.biz goch.biz/game, where you can find the game of buttholes,
the will of the Riker, quantum leap.
Our runabout is on square 88.
This has been a temporal cold war episode.
Pretty great work by us getting through that slog.
Let's see if we land on anything else after this roll.
You're required to learn as you play.
Roll
Ben, we have been bounced all the way down to the second row.
Square square 18 in a regular old episode for us.
Thank goodness.
Tula!
Did I win?
Hardly.
No more mean thoughts in the next episode.
All nice.
I'm going to appreciate that.
Let's get out of this negative space that we've been in this whole episode.
I know.
Really colored the whole conversation.
We got some thanks to give out.
We got to thank Wendy Pretty, our producer, and Bill Tilley, our temporal Cold Wartime consigliary, and Rob Adler, our social media director at Greatest Trek on all social media.
Hey, really appreciate all of the great folks who support this program by going to maximumfun.org slash join.
Please sign up for our mailing list.
It's a...
a really fun thing to get in in your inbox once a month and we can keep you abreast of all of the fun stuff we're doing.
Oh no, I'm just like Archer having Polarian slips.
There's our third breast reference.
We did it!
They did!
Thanks to Adam Ragusia, who made our original parody music and Dark Materia, who made the card song.
Get yourself something at podshop.biz.
And with that, we will be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise and an episode of The Greatest Generation Enterprise where Ben and Adam are really glad they switched to electric cars because they don't want to fuel up in a part of town where there's a bunch of fucking Klingons around.
Yikes.
Would rather not.
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