Structural Bees (ENT S1E24)

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 song.

Welcome to the greatest generation.

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

I'm Ben Harrison.

Good morning.

I'm Adam Pranica.

It's a rare morning record.

Yeah.

I feel like it's not so rare anymore.

It feels like it's happening more and more often.

Morning records used to be hard.

Like I remember going like, God, how am I going to wake up and be funny?

And

I'm a little jet lagged from coming back from our London show.

And I've been up for many hours.

I feel fine.

I too have been up for many hours, but it's because I have a small child.

Is it not because your neighbor's alarm went off at five in the morning?

Can you give us an update on that?

A couple days in a row of it not going off or going off and being immediately turned off.

Yeah, we didn't actually make contact.

I haven't been able to address the situation directly with them.

There's another thing that I've been wanting to bring up, which is that there is a tree

on their side of the line that has a trunk that is totally packed with bees.

And that tree trunk is right outside my back door.

So every time I walk out my back door, I'm like,

there's like tons of bees like right around the back door of my house all the time.

You should get a bee guy to come out.

I want to get a bee guy.

I want to get one of those like ASMR bee guys from

social media to come and like lovingly re-home the bees.

But

these neighbors are just so they're, they, they stay to themselves.

They they have a huge tall hedge in front of their house.

Like they're very hard to get in touch with.

They're not going to care about you calling in a bee person to to take care of the bee thing just just do it you can't live like this i can't live like this the issue is that this tree is growing up through the roof of their house like it it like like swiss family robinson style yeah it like grew past the eve and so probably if this tree has to come down which it probably should given where it is

it will probably require them to replace the roof of their house.

So it's kind of a, I'm knocking on your door with a $20,000 problem, you you know?

I mean, just take care of the bee thing first, man.

I don't know enough about bees in trunks.

Do you think these are structural bees?

I'm just thinking, like, if you have to cut the trunk open to get the hive out, you're going to want to make sure these aren't load-bearing bees.

Once you take out the queen, the whole structure can possibly come down.

We've consulted with an apian engineer who assures us that these bees can be safely removed.

Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I just get the sense that they're not like sitting on extra money to replace a roof that

is a classic Ben conflict here.

Benjamin R.

Harrison would rather be attacked by bees every time he leaves his home.

Yes.

Versus

alert a neighbor about a problem that the neighbor clearly does not know about.

I think they know about it and don't want to deal with it.

You know what?

That's tough cookies, man.

It's your fucking job as a homeowner to make sure that that your tree doesn't fall in a neighbor's house or that it's not full of bees that that are gonna sting a person i'm sorry like i i agree i would never allow a bee tree to upset a neighbor of mine but this is an anti-b tree podcast all right oh man it's about time everyone knows that if you if you're pissed off about this being an anti-b-tree podcast uh call 204-984-4-fun

did you intentionally get that number wrong?

You fucking throwing your body in front of the MaxFun phone line?

No, it's 206-9844-FUN, right?

It is.

Yeah.

If you've got, if you've got a bee-related incident going on between you and your neighbors, you might just want to call that number.

If you're afraid to tell your neighbors that their tree bees are putting your child in danger, you might be Benjamin R.

Harrison.

I bet Daron has got a very cute beekeeping costume.

Hey, guess what?

Halloween's just around the corner, man.

That's a great concept.

How about that?

It's beekeeper family.

That might supplant firefighter or train conductor in the running.

You know what a classically passive-aggressive Adam Franica move would be in this case?

The whole family dresses up as beekeepers for Halloween and then repeatedly rings the doorbell of the neighbor's yard as just like the constant trick-or-treaters.

We assume you have lots of honey for us, given the deal over there.

Yeah.

Wow.

I'm going to be asking for an update on future shows.

I think FODs deserve to know

what's going on there.

I mean, the tree bee situation has been going on for six months.

This is not new news.

This is going to just really out me as the idiot that I am.

Are bees kind of seasonal?

Like, would you expect the bees to go away as it gets cooler?

Cooler in quotes in LA?

Or are these bees here to stay?

I feel like if they're going to the trouble of building a hive, they probably want to hang out in that hive, right?

I mean, you'd think so.

Yeah.

The new construction hives, though, the build quality shit.

It's like you watch them put this thing up and then like you see the like leak abatement people six months later with their van parked out front.

It's like, how do they build this brand new building?

They don't know how to keep water out of it.

There's a box box-on-box house a couple of blocks away from where I live.

New construction.

It's been for sale ever since it was built.

No one's bought it.

And the crews have come in and totally, like, they're already tearing that thing apart because it was built incorrectly.

Jeez.

This is an expensive project they're doing on an unsold home.

And that's just how it is.

They need to call the bees in there.

Yeah.

Bees know what they're doing.

I mean, they're going to start by moving into a tree that is destroying

someone's home.

And destroying someone's childhood, it sounds like.

Yeah, yeah.

Doing a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.

Adam, no bees in the desert in this episode.

That's the truth, isn't it?

Yeah.

You want to get into an episode of Star Trek colon Enterprise?

I really do, Ben.

It's Star Trek Enterprise Season 1, episode 24,

Desert Crossing.

I'm going to begin with the ultimate question, Ben.

Okay.

Favorite dessert?

Preme brulee.

I think

is my top.

Tiramisu.

There we go.

Oh, what?

Yeah.

Tiramisu?

What a useless dessert.

God, I didn't expect that kind of reaction.

Jesus.

You are literally yucking my yum.

I yuck your yum.

I yuck it.

What is the problem with tiramisu?

It's good.

It gives you a little bump.

Bum, bump, bum.

From the caffeine.

Tastes a little boozy sometimes.

I'd say Italy and their desserts can go fuck themselves.

Wow.

Italy.

Yeah.

And their desserts.

Yeah.

Don't care for them.

Well, you heard it here.

This is a...

anti-B-Tree podcast and also anti-Italy podcast.

I mean, the hot takes always come on time for Benjamin R.

Harrison.

I suppose the country is fine.

I just think that they can leave the desserts at home.

Jesus.

Leave that to the French.

You know?

They really know what they're doing with the sweet.

Outrageous.

All right.

Well, Archer's log tells us that Enterprise is heading back towards Risa.

Thank God.

Finally.

Everyone's about to bust at this point.

His plan we hear recorded is kind of a solo vacation trip from the sounds of it, but a distress call interrupts this scene before we get too far down the road with him.

And these RISA plans have been blown up again as the ship is going to have to change course to intercept a ship in distress.

Yeah, and this ship in distress is the Clancy Brown ship, the Clancy Brown that we were promised when we read the description of this episode last week.

You know how so often there's like the aircraft carriers are named after presidents in this country.

And then there are the other ships in the fleets that are named after people famous or infamous or whatever.

USS Clancy Brown sounds like a ship that exists.

They should commission that.

Yeah.

Man, would it be one of those like really modern ones that's all like weird angles that looks like a cyber truck on the water?

Or would it be like the classic ones that look like they could be, you know, there could be like a World War II deck gunner up there.

I mean, Clancy Brown is a classic, just a stone-cold classic of an actor.

I'd hope for a classic, just a classic battleship.

Yeah.

For a guy like that.

Totally.

Unmothball a battleship.

Rechristen it the USS Clancy Brown.

Now you're in business.

You telling me you're a country that's threatening another country when the USS Clancy Brown rolls up on your doorstep?

Oh, yeah.

We're pulling that into

the territorial waters around you.

You're fucking shutting your yap.

Yeah, not going to happen.

Can we talk a little bit about the way Clancy Brown sounds in this episode?

Not just the

fact that he's doing Tevia with his accent.

What kind of mischief can I play on my friend Tevia?

But also,

like, almost all, if not all, of his dialogue...

seemed like it was looped to me.

I thought that maybe he wasn't familiar with Star Trek and the only episodes he watched were the Voyager episodes with Leonardo da Vinci and he's like, oh, I could kind of do my best Da Vinci voice for this.

I kind of wondered if he was just being regular ass Clancy Brown and then he was like...

Do we know what Clancy Brown actually sounds like?

I assume he doesn't sound super different from Shawshank Clancy Brown.

Yeah.

Got that, you mega dick motherfucker.

But then like when he saw the

dailies, he was like, oh, man, I should have done more of a Tevia thing with that.

I didn't find any evidence of this in the production notes, but yeah, I wonder if he did his episode and he was like, ah, that kind of sucks.

Like, I'm an alien with just a little something on my chin.

Maybe I need to give it a little bit more in the voice department.

Oh, you're going to enjoy this.

Maybe here's what here's what here's my theory of the case.

Okay.

The ship that he flies that we see getting repaired by Trip Tucker is

something that is CG'd into all of those shots.

So he didn't even get to look at what the spaceship of this character would be until perhaps later.

And he was like, oh no, that's not like a that's not like a Clancy Brown guy spaceship.

That's more of like a

oh, this is a

put this spaceship up in the air.

We are edging more into this territory.

I've been accused of war crimes.

So the spaceship is a total piece of shit, but they fixed it.

And he's like, you got to come chill at my home planet.

Accept my invitation.

I will be a total asshole about it if you don't accept my invitation.

I should warn you, Captain.

I am easily offended.

Great news.

We have a weird sport that you'll absolutely love.

And for some reason, Archer agrees to suspend their journey to Ryza so that they can go accept this guy's hospitality.

Did you believe that

Zobral, the name of the Clancy Brown character, did you believe that he was actually taking offense or this was sort of a bit offense that he's doing here?

It seemed like a bit offense, but then Archer takes it really seriously.

The way that you would expect him to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, like...

Archer's not doing bits that much.

So maybe he just has like a bad bit filter.

And if you think about Archer's experience for the entire first season, it's rare for him to encounter an alien that wants to hang out with him or have a conversation or whatever.

So he's like a puppy when an alien is like actually open to his overtures.

He's like, wow.

He has not received affection in a very long time.

This is his raiser.

Totally.

So he tells Trip, like, hey, great news.

We've been invited to a piece of shit desert.

And Trip is like, man, I wanted to get my dick wet.

I i wanted jamaharon maybe i'll just stay up on the ship and wrench on the on the warp core or whatever but uh archer kind of insists you don't understand what these nipples do in the heat

they chafe real bad yeah i mean you felt chafing with your two nipples imagine eight more along your forearms rubbing against the inside of your sleeves but also against the side of your body as you swing your arms when you walk have you seen me walk i really swing the arms.

I really feel bad for Trip Tucker here because I've occasionally been the Jonathan Archer of these conversations.

I really want to do something and I really want to do it with this buddy.

Yeah.

And this isn't my buddy's thing.

No.

But I don't want to do it by myself.

No.

Like this hard sell is extremely hard.

And finally, Trip gets tipped over into being a part of this.

Archer and Trip just have really different ideas of fun.

Yeah.

They head down to 41-degree degree temperatures on this planet, which nobody even knows how hot that is.

Sounds fine, honestly.

Yeah, I don't know what they're complaining about.

It's hotter than hell out there.

They're wearing their special sand kit uniforms, which I do like quite a bit.

Yeah, those were cool.

They discuss a little bit like doing survival training in the desert and having to eat snake meat and stuff.

And Trip is not relishing that.

So it is a big relief when the first thing they stop and do is have a great big meal with Clancy Brown.

And they're drinking Yasalat, a local cactus wine.

Oh, yeah.

Taking cactus wine to the dome.

Is that just like

before you actually distill tequila?

What it would be?

Oh, interesting.

Like pre-tequila fermented cactus juice.

You know, pre-tequila can still get you pregnant.

This is feeling like a way better desert experience than last time for Trip.

He might be coming around to the idea.

Until they get served the bloody testicle soup.

The essence of the male, chopped and seasoned.

Yeah, that is.

This is tough.

Not an ideal dish.

I expected some tactical napkin deployment here.

You know, one of those like,

oh,

and then napkin over the face.

Yeah.

That kind of thing.

There's no spit outs.

You always think that that's subtle, but everybody knows what you're doing.

Yeah.

Because you're never like, you're never both hands wiping your entire face with a napkin otherwise, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's rough.

Archer makes the mistake of admiring a tapestry on the wall, and Zoe Bral just wants to fucking rip it right off of the wall and give it to him.

It's awkward.

Like, this is a sort of kindness that is just a little over the top for Archer.

Yeah.

And he's like, I would have nowhere to hang that.

And so Zobrawl is like, all right, fine.

Well, I'll give you something else then.

How about this little sculpture made by a Sulaban?

And Archer's like,

take my Sulaban trinket, please.

This is small enough for carry-on luggage.

And I think this is why Archer finally agrees to take it.

Yeah.

Like no liquid in there, so TSA is not going to have a problem with it.

The sound of a chime indicates that the

Jesgana or Gesgana?

Jif or GIF.

I don't remember.

This game is about to begin and Zobral encourages them to not just watch but to participate.

And Ben, this is a kind of Star Trek episode problem that we've seen quite a bit.

These crew people agreeing to play a game that they have no idea about when death could easily be on the line.

You gotta get the rules before you agree to play the game, right?

Right, is this a spiky bird type of game or is it space lacrosse with a, you know, LED lit up ball as we find out it is?

I was expecting it to be more rugged.

Like it's very sport of the future looking.

But like anytime you play a game on the sand, I'm thinking Rambo 3.

Like we're going to be riding around on horses, dropping sheet bodies onto

little circles drawn into the sand and that's going to be the game.

This just looks very sophisticated.

The sticks also look like they were like very pointy at the end, and I thought that people were going to be like stabbing or otherwise harming each other with the sticks.

Like they get bloody, but it's just from like body checking and stuff.

The whole like volleyball is to beach volleyball what lacrosse is to beach lacrosse kind of vibe here, right?

Yeah.

I do like that they were playing shirts and skins and that Archer and Trip just assume that they're skins when

Zabral throws them into the game.

It's like the volleyball scene from Top Gun, except a little more dudes in their 40s, you know?

Yeah, it'd be like if you and I were cast in the volleyball scene from Top Gun.

Like, disappointing, but, you know, you get the idea.

Yeah.

You can imagine that one special lady is up for whatever that is.

Yeah, she doesn't see very well.

Back on the Enterprise Bridge, they get a hail from a place pretty far away from this camp where they're playing this game.

And the dude on the FaceTime also has a little something on his chin.

And he's asking questions about why they're hanging out with Zabral.

Yeah.

Because odds are, they're dead.

I love how casually he puts this.

Oh, that's interesting.

That's who they're hanging out with?

Hmm.

I hope you're aware that most likely you'll never see your captain or engineer again.

I do like just the implication of like, hey, like urgent concern several hours ago you sent somebody down to the surface of our planet.

Like what were you doing in the hours since then?

Yeah.

This is kind of a running thing in Enterprise, right?

Like the

people taking their time to respond to something, but then making it sound super urgent when they do.

It's the future past.

Things aren't as instantaneous as we've come to expect with the course of watching Star Trek series.

They sure aren't.

So, yeah, Archer and Trip finish up their game.

They're not very good at this sport.

Two centimeters to the right, and we'd have had it.

Next time we'll set you with an Olook Pass.

I thought that they did a nice job of having the other guys look pretty solid at this and Trip and Archer look like they were having fun trying to learn it on the fly.

I'm glad this wasn't a situation where they get the game immediately and are great.

Like, I love Archer taking the shot and missing.

Yeah.

I think that's a good look.

It is.

He whiffs it and gets his radio out and talks to TePaul, who's like, hey, maybe like step away from the other guys while I talk to you about this.

They stand accused of being terrorist by a guy that claims to be the government of this planet.

You may be in danger.

That's an interesting point you made, Ben, because when you're on Star Trek, you're always on speakerphone, right?

Yeah.

Like, none of these communicators come with an earbud.

You always have to be like, yeah, I'm in the car with blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

How you doing?

That's it exactly.

Yeah.

And there's a moment where after after the call, Archer hits up Trip and he's like, all right,

looks like there's a situation back on the ship we got to get to.

And Trip takes kind of a while to pick up what Archer's putting down.

Did it sound to you like the thing about the warp core was code?

Like they'd established a like, if I say something to you about this warp core problem, you'll know that like it's actually serious and we do need to go?

It sure does seem like there would be a pre-arrangement about the code, like sort of the like blind date phone call

to get you off the hook situation.

I thought it was nice when the captain said that, that Trip goes, oh, I'm sorry, Captain.

I forgot how the code goes.

Anyways,

Clancy Brown has to reiterate that he is a very easily offended man.

And if in fact this is about the Chancellor dogging him out to Commander TePaul, that is really going to burn his toast.

Yeah.

And he persuades Archer to kind of hear him out.

He's like, you know, like, I know that those guys don't like me and talk shit about me every chance they get, but if you hear my side of the story, you're actually going to want to help me.

And this is part of why I have brought you here.

Whoa, what a revelation.

His ship probably didn't, in fact, need to send an emergency distress signal.

He was attempting to get in touch with Archer specifically.

This is never confirmed, but but do you think that's what happened here?

He was honeypotting a little bit?

I think so, yeah.

I wonder if the micro fracture in his hull was something that he did on purpose or if he didn't even realize that his ship had a micro fracture.

I don't know.

We aren't made to know.

We are not.

So Brawl tells the story of, look, those guys are cast holes.

And they hate me and the sports that we play out here.

It's a bad scene.

Like, there was a time when the promise of freedom was made once the caste system was dissolved, but that just ended up being a big lie.

And so, like, I heard about you, Jonathan Archer.

I heard you're a great and heroic man.

Wouldn't you like to help us fight for our freedom?

The legend that has spread of Jonathan Archer is pretty intense.

Like, the Suleban prison break of a few episodes ago is something that Clancy Brown has heard about and was a much bigger operation in his imagination than it actually was.

And this is a war of liberation that he's fighting,

not a terrorist war as it has been characterized by the Chancellor.

Like he tells the story of the jailbreak and so forth and the Sullibon incident.

And then kind of a lot of the story is about his virility and sexual prowess.

Like legendary stickman storytelling happening here.

Yeah.

And Archer's like,

you're too, you're, you, you flatter me, sir.

I mean, like, you know, I can fuck pretty good, but it's not like I'm not no legend.

I've heard about you, Jonathan Archer, and yet I've heard nothing of this friend of yours with all the nipples.

I was honestly surprised when you flung that ball and you missed the hole.

I was told that you always hit the hole.

My people have written songs about you.

Let me play one on this out-of-tune piano.

Stick around for the second first, because it is about your friend with the nipples.

A sound interrupts their conversation, and it's Tarathan cruisers on their way to attack.

Hey, go ahead and hide in this basement while we fight, is the pitch that Zobral gives to Archer and Trip.

And they fucking do it.

What?

They have never seen what's going on in the basement basement of this place.

Yeah.

I did not love this instinct by them at all.

We have seen them dogfight in their shuttle pods.

Yeah.

I wondered if they were...

This is discouraged as a plan.

Yeah, like Wyatt is assumed that their shuttle pod would be no match for whatever is coming in on this strafing run.

But yeah, they go down into the bunker and hang out there, and they can't reach the entrepreneur, and the entrepreneur can't reach them.

And like, we are told that there's no way the

entrepreneur could possibly mount a rescue given the assault that's taking place.

So they just have some time to talk.

And Trip is like telling the captain, like, hey, man, maybe not a great idea to join the cause of somebody that lured you here under false pretenses.

Yeah, that seems wise.

But like, Archer, like, he is serving Benjamin R.

Harrison in this episode because he's like, Zabral might be mad if I say no!

Yeah,

that's definitely the vibe.

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If you're enjoying Greatest Generation and Greatest Trek, but you haven't dipped into our other hit program, Wholesome, you're only getting part of what we do.

That's because on Wholesome, me and Ben and Adam Ragusia talk about all kinds of things that make us happy.

With each episode being hosted by one of us, where we share what we're enjoying at the moment and have a conversation about all the little ways it makes our lives better.

With topics about movies, neighbors, ice cream, mid-TV.

It's a weekly dose of good vibes every Wednesday and you can get it at patreon.com slash wholesome underscore pod.

So listen to wholesome.

Maybe it'll inspire you to share something that you think is wholesome with your friends.

Every Wednesday at patreon.com slash wholesome underscore pod.

You know, we've been doing My Brother, My Brother Me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years, I know where this has ended up.

But no.

No, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

the only nfts i'm into are naughty funny things which is what we talk about on my brother my brother and me

we serve it up every monday for you if you're listening and if not we just leave it out back and goes rotten so check it out on maximum fun or wherever you get your podcasts

all right we're over 70 episodes into our show let's learn everything so let's do a quick progress check Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

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Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

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Ben would rather die.

Back on Enterprise, they pick up the attack on their sensors and they're barely able to communicate with Archer down in this basement.

That's what happens.

You go down into the basement, you lose all your cell reception.

Yeah.

This is an old house, you know, like thick, thick walls that, I mean, they keep the water out, but they also keep the cellular coverage out.

They can't beam them back either, and Reed's stupid fucking proposition of going down in a shuttle pod is shot down as fast as he would be on this rescue mission that he's proposed.

I mean, we get to see just the destructive power of the world government here because Zabral's house gets taken out.

Yeah.

It's toothpicks.

All of those beautiful tapestries gone.

All that bloody testicle soup just dumped into the sand.

Oh, what a shame.

Yeah, what a waste.

So Trip and Archer like run out of this ruined structure and go to the shuttle.

And instead of like trying to take off in the shuttle, they get gear out of the shuttle and then like run into the desert.

I think for this episode to be good for you, you've got to be down with this plan.

And I'm, I just do not get the plan.

You got to get in and fly the ship, right?

They both seem risky.

You're exposed out in the desert.

They both seem risky, but the shuttle seems like it can defend itself better than like

two dudes in rash guards walking through the desert.

Right.

Yeah.

We don't know what's in that desert.

There could be sandworms.

Gods, what a monster.

I think the show has also established that Archer and Trip aren't very good shuttle pilots either.

So maybe that's a part of it.

Right.

Like, they can't even dodge a wrench in a shuttle.

No.

Yeah.

Much less a ball.

So they get some shit out of the shuttle and back on the Enterprise bridge.

Topal is pissed about being left in the dark, about the encampment attack by that magistrate from before.

And

this guy with the stuff on his chin on FaceTime was under the impression that they're aiding and abetting terrorists.

And this guy fucking hangs up on her.

Chancellor.

If you attempt to launch another shuttle craft, we'll have no choice but to consider it as an enemy vessel.

He does not seem to be super worried about the idea that they might have killed the captain.

Not at all.

He is not afraid of starting a diplomatic incident here.

And

it is the next morning down on the planet, and we get a long lost in the desert montage with the captain and Trip.

Did you see where they shot this?

I was curious if they like.

I didn't know that there were sand dunes like this in the U.S.

I can't imagine that they went to like Tunisia to shoot this episode of Star Trek.

Yeah, I doubt that myself.

I mean, maybe they went to the the Carolinas to like Kitty Hawk or something.

Oh, shit.

You think these are beach dunes?

I have no idea.

I can't tell the difference between beach dunes and desert dunes.

Wow.

So all dunes look the same to you.

They do.

They do.

Wow.

Desert Dissolve as a stylistic choice.

You just have to do it.

You got to.

Nice dissolve.

When you're walking through the desert, you need the super long dissolves playing out your sequence here.

And that's what you get.

It is absolutely required of all filmmakers.

They do a good job of making this look miserable, right?

This looks like it fucking sucks.

Yeah, it seems to be hitting Trip way harder than it's hitting Archer.

Trip is just less desert compatible than Archer is.

I mean, Trip has 47 more nipples than Archer.

I'm losing a lot of extra water here, Captain.

I'm lactating.

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

Yeah.

They've got a 30-kilometer walk ahead of them, a distance that I can't process.

I have no idea how long of a walk that's going to be.

Sounds long.

Yeah.

And this sounds terrible for Trip Tucker.

It doesn't seem like he's going to make it.

And especially when he starts maybe hallucinating a ship in this scene, is it a shuttle pod?

No, it's not.

It's the worst thing.

It's another Tarathan cruiser that they have to hide from by burying themselves in the sand.

Yuck.

That sand gets everywhere when you're sweaty, especially.

Sure does.

And they're like a little confused that they haven't been rescued yet.

Yeah.

Like, it seems like they should be spottable.

Like, it's just unbroken sand as far as the eye can see.

If you had to bury yourself in the sand, do you think you could?

That seems really hard.

Like, to hide yourself from a cruiser attack.

It seems like it would take a long time to do well.

Yeah.

But yeah, they managed to do it.

I loved how when they reveal themselves after being under the sand, it's like the scale was really surprising.

Like I was like, oh, it's going to be little them under the sand.

I was like, no, this is like a pretty close-up shot of them under the sand, actually.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyways, up on the ship, we have a McLaughlin group.

Issue one.

They're talking about this, you know, scattering field that surrounds the planet.

And Reed is,

again,

just like advocating for the most violent possible response to the situation.

So he wants to start shooting down satellites.

It's violence against satellites.

It's not violence at all.

But, I mean, like, TePaul's point is well taken that this is like going to be an incredibly provocative move by them.

You're such a Benjamin R.

Harrison about this, man.

Like the captain and first officer are in danger and in the middle of a war and they're getting shot at.

You think returning fire at their satellites is a provocation that supersedes what's going on on the surface?

We don't know what kind of firepower the people on this planet have.

They might have like 25 ships that they could send after the entrepreneur.

They're lucky their presence in orbit is being tolerated right now.

My vote is shoot the satellites.

Shoot them all.

Every fucking one of them.

Let God sort them out.

Yeah, exactly.

Jesus.

There's a transition in the scene that...

I felt a little bit bumped by that I wanted to ask you about.

Like, the whole Read Into Paul conversation happens, and then the camera camera feels like it pivots to Hoshi and Hoshi's like,

how'd you make first contact day work?

And it's such a change of subject.

I found it like by the time the conversation ends, I get where her mind is at.

Right.

But I found the transition really interesting and like as a hard transition, especially conversationally.

It winds up being a conversation about like, what do the Vulcans think think about when they think about where to do first contact?

Because we did first contact in a remote place with these people,

which is not dissimilar from what the Vulcans did.

They were in fucking Montana.

Yeah.

How did we screw this up?

Was a question Hoshi.

Hoshi doesn't ask as directly as that.

She indirectly asks that question.

Yeah, and I like TePaul going like, yeah, but Archer is going to have to like figure this out eventually because what he's doing is clearly not working most of the time.

Right.

Like every time Archer does first contact, they end up in a firefight or eating gruel without using their hands.

He's on a bad streak here.

And TePaul says that the Vulcan High Command has protocols for this, and maybe Archer should think about writing some of those.

Yeah.

Down on the planet, Trip is now showing signs of heat exhaustion.

He has to be forced to drink water, and he's just in a real bad way.

Archer is basically carrying carrying dead weight with him at this point.

He's an under-the-shoulder, delirious engineer holder

in this scene.

Good scene for Trip Tucker here, who doesn't want to take another man's water.

Like that quote, especially just felt like code for a good man, you know?

It's kind of Fremen-y logic.

It is, yeah, yeah.

I'll never give your water away, not even for the dead.

I'd rather you just spit in my mouth and on my nipples.

I'm good, Kinky, you know?

Piss on my nipples, Captain.

Piss on them all.

Call me a dirty little nipple puppy.

On Enterprise, they pick up on Zabral's ship approaching.

And I love this move from Zabral.

He's like, look, it's kind of a gamble for me.

You either let me in or I'm dead.

Yeah.

And And rather than watching his ship get destroyed at the view screen, they decide to let Zabral board.

Reed and TePaul go down to meet up with him as he comes out of the shuttle bay.

I wondered if he had to go through the lube room at any point.

Like,

you know, who knows what

he's picked up from bumping into all those sweaty sweaty dudes playing his stick game down on that planet surface?

Has anyone looked more comfortable than Clancy Brown in all these robes as a guest star?

Like, as costuming goes, this just seems great.

You'd think that velvet wouldn't work in a desert environment.

I would drape myself in velvet if it was socially acceptable.

Yeah, that would also be my assumption.

How about that?

But he looks great.

The thing is, when you're wearing robes like these, like you're kind of turtleshelling.

Like, you're just a couple of sticks away from making a shelter when you're wearing robes like this.

Great point.

Yeah.

Any environment where you can put a couple of sticks in the sand, you've basically got a tent ready to go.

Yeah.

He's like, hey, so yeah, like we're kind of confused because we heard all of the stuff about what a warrior Archer was and all of that like, you know, liberating oppressed Sulaban stuff he's been up to.

And Reed and to Paul.

Like

you, you have really got this guy all wrong.

That is not his bag.

Would you like to watch a couple of episodes of the first season of Star Trek Enterprise?

I can show you.

People fucking hate this guy.

I'm not even sure how I feel about him.

His illusions start to get shattered, and they're like, hey man, like, you should really feel bad about the amount of danger you've put him in, given what a weenie he actually is.

The tables kind of get turned because they ask Zabral if he can help Enterprise because he's got knowledge of the Tarathan defenses

and maybe that could be exploited in their favor.

But when he refuses, Tepal is like, look, man, the assumption is that Trip and Archer are on your team.

Like, de facto, they are.

Right?

Right.

So because they're in league with you anyway, you kind of have to defend them, right?

You're obligated.

Honor bound.

And this seems to land with Clancy.

So we cut back down.

And Trip and Archer have gotten to the thing that they were walking toward, which is some buildings that Archer saw from the shuttle on their way in.

Trip snaps back into Codency and he's like, no water?

This abandoned camp is a dope.

Just wait till you see the pool.

And then, like, a bunch of Clancy Browns rise up from the dry swimming swimming pool.

Oh man, Clancy Brown going from being draped in robes to being in a banana hammock.

Yeah.

Very exciting stuff.

You two look like you need to get wet.

It's exactly the opposite of that vibe that we're describing.

It feels like they have accepted this is the place where they're going to die.

There's like a walk that's full of water that Archer is excited to see, but then he smells it and is like, ooh, no way.

You're just going to rust out your carbon steel wok by keeping water in it.

What are you doing?

Yeah, unless that thing is like super duper well seasoned.

Like,

that is not a good.

It doesn't look that way to me.

It doesn't.

Dude, you fucked up your wok.

Well, you're going to have to run, not walk, to the restaurant supply store and replace that thing.

Yeah.

So now Trip has like heat stroke symptoms and

Archer is like stressed about keeping him awake and making sure he's staying hydrated.

And for some reason, like they do use the water in that lock.

Is it because he like boiled it or something?

I mean, we've got life straws right now, Ben.

Why is that not part of the kit?

That should have been one of the things they grabbed from the shuttle when they left.

This is what I'm thinking.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Who knows?

So they boil it to make it potable, but that doesn't make it delicious.

That's part of the problem.

Trip kind of turns his nose up to this water.

And Trip is like, is really clinging to consciousness by his fingernails.

And Archer doesn't have great strategies for keeping him alert.

He's like, explain how the warp core works.

That's not going to keep anyone awake.

It sounds boring as hell.

You got to be kidding me.

I mean, I'm with Trip on this.

Like,

I would have accepted him falling asleep and dying at this point.

My nipples are chapped.

I'm exhausted.

Just let me die.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A different subject is hatched, a much better one.

It's what's the meal you want once you get back to the ship?

And it's real steakhouse fare that Trip wants when he gets back there.

And that that sounds like fun.

That's something to look forward to.

Sure is.

Ben, how close have you ever been to death?

Like, that's a really serious question to ask, but this feels like as close as these characters.

I mean, Trip has had a terrible season

as far as proximity to death is concerned, but like this may be as close as Archer has been.

I've had like

near-death experiences where like something very dangerous happened nearby or whatever and you realize like, oh man, like if that had broken slightly differently, that would have been it.

Yeah.

Like the moment you cruise through a red light on accident and you're like, oh fuck.

Is that happening to you a lot, Adam?

No, it's not, but like shit like that,

the way you've described, like, if shit just breaks differently, it's a different story.

Yeah, I don't think I've ever been near death, like from a, like, it is my health that is failing standpoint.

Yeah.

It's always been like a sudden emergent thing happens.

And I go like, oh, shit, that was close.

You know, in high school, I went four-buying with a buddy of mine, and we went up into, I wouldn't say the mountains, the hills to do this.

And we got the Jeep stuck in a big, deep puddle and we were by ourselves.

And like, it was turning into night.

And this was back in the day of like, like, we didn't have cell phones.

Like, it was, it was deep out there and it was cold.

And we were wet.

Like, in order to get out of the jeep, like, we had to get into the water and.

try to get ourselves out and like we had to walk for a long time to get back down to Like it didn't feel like the threat of death was there.

But like when you're that cold and wet at night.

You can be closer than you realize.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

That's scary, man.

That just felt like...

Did you survive?

No, I died for a moment.

And then they paddled me.

They paddled my bottom and my chest.

And I woke right back up again.

So at long last,

Malcolm and Tepal Tapal and Zabral

go down in a shuttle pod to attempt to rescue Archer and Trip.

They're like heading for the planet's surface, looking for them.

I guess just looking for them from the air.

Mark one eyeball, sir.

Mark one eyeball.

Yeah, I mean, that seems to be the plan.

Sensors still being scattered is the situation.

So

this is frustrating for everyone involved.

Archer has now moved on with Trip to the types of games that kids played in the backs of cars on long road trips before iPads existed.

This is the moment where I would have chosen death.

Like, don't fucking do this.

Don't play slug bug with me while we're in the middle of the desert, idiot.

But they come under fire, and this is like dangerous for them, but it also reveals to the search party where they are because the central government is now shelling the little cluster of buildings that Archer and Tripp have taken refuge in.

And TePaul sees this from the air and she has them like shoot the mortar emplacement that is

causing the bombardment, which now that you point out my

weaseliness about the satellites, like that is much more provocative, like shooting actual boots on the ground soldiers.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

Yeah, maybe they could have.

Reed's option earlier was fairly non-lethal.

Yeah.

These guys are fucking dead next to the mortar, though.

Like, clearly.

They're super duper dead.

I really liked shuttle ass rescue choppa in this episode.

Sliding the door open.

Love that POV from above, like spotlit down to your characters.

Such a classic.

And Clancy Brown, like, you know, sticking his hand out to haul the character aboard, going like, hey, man, sorry, I thought you were much more of a badass than you actually are.

What a bunch of trouble I got you into with that easily made misconception.

He's like Erickson from First Blood Part 2.

Don't know whether to trust this guy.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, he does seem like a badass, but is he our badass or not?

Zabral's like, glad you made it.

And Archer's like,

decks him and throws him out.

They give Trip and Archer canteens immediately.

And,

I mean, Trip drinks lustily from his in a way that makes you think this could be lethal too.

Like, you're not supposed to take water to the dome like this.

Yeah.

Maybe it was like Gatorade in those canteens or something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Something a little bit more like appropriate to the emergency.

Yeah.

So there's a passage of time where it's time for Zabral to go, and Archer and TePaul walk him out, and Archer tells Zabral that he's not the legend that he's been made out to be, and he's actually way more boring, and most people just hang up on me.

But not you.

Thanks for not hanging up on me, buddy.

And so he goes off, and that leaves Archer and TePaul to walk the corridor together.

And they talk about how torn they feel about leaving at this moment moment in time because it kind of feels like they could help and they're choosing not to.

And that's kind of the ambiguity that the story is left with.

But were you ambiguous about how you felt when watching this episode, Ben?

I was not.

I really liked this episode.

I thought Zabral was an interesting character.

I liked that he brought them there under false pretenses, but also had like learned their legend under false pretenses.

Yeah.

And then like he was like an honorable enough person that when he had his mistake pointed out to him, he was like, oh, I got to fix this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I liked it a lot from that standpoint.

I loved the environmental stuff that they did in this episode.

Like it just felt really cool to see Star Trek go somewhere that wasn't obviously just the hills of Southern California.

That's fun.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I really liked it.

Clanty Brown, what a treat to get that guy in an episode.

Yeah, that's big fun.

How about you?

It feels like the urgency of needing to draw up some paperwork about how to do first contacts is a, let's not go to RISA, let's stop the ship in space and draw up a plan worthy.

I don't know how many more times they can meet new folks without an architecture for this because things keep going bad, you know?

Like, I'm starting to feel like there is enough of a sample size to where like that needs to be the very next thing that they do.

And to not do that feels irresponsible.

Yeah, I mean, I do remember this becoming like a storyline in Enterprise, like where they like start to talk about, like, hey, when we have an emergency, we should have like a set of principles in place for that.

And when we meet people, we should have a set of principles.

And like, I think that part of what they're writing toward with these stories is like the realization that this stuff needs to be more structured.

Yeah.

Which is like

having watched tons of Star Trek, it feels super obvious, but I guess the point they're trying to make is that it wasn't at the time.

I hope we don't get the episode where we like draw up the paperwork for the prime directive and so forth, and like the music swells as everyone signs it or whatever.

Like, I don't need to see that.

I'd rather just stay out on adventures

at this point.

I like the episode fine.

I mean, we gotta let up on Trip Tucker a little bit.

He's at a difficult first season, I think.

No one needs to get fucked harder than Trip Tucker once they get to Ryza, I think.

Yeah.

Well, do you want to see if anyone's getting fucked in the Priority 100?

Oh, yeah.

That would be exciting.

Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on secured channels.

Need a supplemental income.

Supplemental income.

Supplemental.

Supplemental income.

Yeah, it's extra.

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

Adam, we got a few Priority One messages here.

The first one is of a promotional nature, and it goes like this.

The DCEWB chapter is building a bridge in Demang Bay, SE, Sierra Leone.

There's a small stream that cuts through, and it is usually fine, but each summer, rainy season, the stream swells to 1,000 feet wide no one can cross even kern so no school clinic or road access we're grateful for anything if you could donate the price of one yummy donut it would help please go to www.ewb dashdc.org slash projects slash sierra dash leone and click donate thanks again to all the fods ben Adam, and Wendy, for making us all feel great.

Eric from DC.

So the call to action here is that the DC chapter of Engineers Without Borders would like some help in funding this bridge project in the village of Dumangbe in southeastern Sierra Leone.

Wow, Eric from DC had me in the first half because I was like, They're gonna build a Star Trek bridge

in Sierra Leone?

Like, what an unusual choice.

Yeah.

But it turns out it's far more serious than that.

Wow.

Yeah.

Helping people that don't have the resources to build this bridge otherwise.

Hey, maybe after building this bridge, we can build an enterprise bridge out there.

Yeah.

Hopefully they get enough contributions that there's a little bit extra for something fun.

I think it would be really cool to have a tourist attraction like that.

Maybe...

You know, like the Enterprise D bridge, I feel like is really cool, but maybe not great in the rainy season, given all the carpeting.

So maybe an enterprise bridge you know yeah uh we don't often get promotional p1s of this kind of uh seriousness so i hope fods everywhere go to this website yeah why don't we throw the uh url into the show notes for today's episode so that it's clickable and people don't have to remember all of the all of the slashes and dashes yeah good call ben we got a priority one message here from matt and it's to a and b i think that's you and me.

Oh, A and B,

Adam is the goose, and the B is Bill Tilly.

Oh, so I was wrong about that.

Here's their message.

Thanks for the pod, A and B.

Just finished season two of TNG with y'all.

I've been re-watching the episodes as you've been reviewing them.

Apparently, you were just at STLV 2024.

Hopefully I can join you at the Prana Cabana.

Maybe avoid the unfortunate incident with the floor scrubbing union at next year's meetup.

Good reference, Matt.

Wow.

Yeah.

We got in a lot of trouble for defying the floor scrubbers.

Hopefully we'll be invited to go back.

Yeah.

That's really fun, Matt.

It sounds like Matt is a new listener who's starting from the beginning.

So appreciate you

getting a P1.

taking a risk on still being into this podcast 500 some odd episodes later.

Love it.

Love to see it.

Plenty of FODs in the back catalog, too.

Our final P1 today is from Defested.

It's to Adam, Ben, Rizzo, Steph, the Dith, Lizoto, Chris, Salinas, Brie, John, Aziz, and everyone else at Prana Cabana 2024.

Wow, another Prana Cabana shout out.

Yeah, amazing.

Here I am, enjoying yet another great year at the Prana Cabana.

Y'all,

it was a blast seeing/slash meeting so many of you.

Ice Bucket must survive another year.

Love you all.

Wow.

Defested is referencing a streak that we've had over the years at Prana Cabana where someone or several people takes an ice bucket and just dumps it down the front of their shorts.

It's the crotched ice challenge.

And it's great.

Yeah, good rules.

Nobody should feel obligated, but...

It can be very refreshing in that Vegas heat, you know.

No one's obligated to do anything.

Prana Cabana is such a treat every year.

I'm so glad we get to go to STLV.

I'm so glad that that's become a regular thing for us.

Every year it feels like we run into more FODs at STLV and it's a thrill every time, but it's fun to have like an event where we can gather them because so often it's like drive-bys.

We'll be walking to and from something at the convention and we'll run into someone and have a hang.

But gathering them all up in one place sure is neat.

True.

Well, if you'd like to get a priority one message on the show, head to maximumfund.org slash jumbotron and book yours today.

We sure appreciate it.

It helps keep the lights on around here.

Sure does.

Hey, Ben.

What's that, Adam?

Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda this episode?

Drunk Shimoda!

Gotta make it.

My man, Clancy Brown.

Yeah.

I think the like over-generous gift giver, Clancy Brown, is the specific drunk Shimoda I want to give this to.

Like, he's seen their ship.

He's seen how few unbroken spans of drywall they have.

They don't have room to hang up those tapestries.

Yeah.

At best, Archer could throw that over the back of his chair

in the clarinet storage closet.

So are you saying this was a gift bit too?

Like Clancy Brown goes to the tapestry knowing that it won't be accepted?

Because it's an over gift?

I mean, he is playing games at this point, right?

Like he has Archer right where he wants him under false pretenses.

Like, going over generous with the gift giving feels calculated.

So, yeah, I think so.

I think this show uses the Clancy Brown typecast a little bit in a way that works.

Because when he's on screen, he's so jovial and fun.

I kept waiting for that other shoe to drop with him.

And it does.

But the way it does is really interesting and different.

And yeah, I'm going to make mine Clancy Brown too.

Just one of my favorite character actors.

And really fun to see him pop up on a show that I like.

Faith of the Fart.

Well, Adam, it is time for me to head to goch.biz slash game for us to find out how we will be doing next week's episode.

I'm also going to tell you about that episode.

It is Star Trek Enterprise Season 1, Episode 25.

Two Days and Two Nights.

Shore Leave takes some interesting twists when the Enterprise crew finally arrives at Ryza, the famous pleasure planet.

Amazing.

That's all we get.

What a tease!

I can tease you a little bit more, Adam.

This episode is directed by Michael Dorn, who has a special

relationship with Ryza.

Yeah, he sure does.

As a ruiner of Ryza,

I have had my fill of Ryza.

Also,

a cameo by Steve Wozniak, co-founder of the Apple Computer Corporation

in this episode.

Probably handing out $2 bills.

Oh, that's fun.

That's some WAS trivia.

Adam, last time we landed on square nine, which was right on the doorstep of a measure of a man square.

But fortunately, we did not hit that.

We did not have to fight tooth and nail over this episode.

I'm going to go ahead and roll this bone and see what happens to us, if anything, for next week's episode.

All right.

You're required to learn as you play.

Roll.

Again, a doorstepper.

Did I win?

Hardly.

I rolled a 56, which put us right next to a looking at each other during, which would require us to record together in person, but I did not hit it.

Hey, let me tell you something i'm reluctant to go to your home given the bee situation over there well yeah i guess i would have to come to your home and get that power tool i lent you like nine fucking months ago i know man we don't want to have a my girl situation once i go over to your house

oh man that would be such a sad ending to this podcast i know

like of all the ways one of us could go out very surprising yeah like ironically we just had this conversation about near-death experiences and then Adam is running into the streets with a cloud of beasts,

like Macaulay Culkin.

Yeah.

Yeah, you're probably going to close that casket

if it's a beasting-related death, right?

Yeah.

Too bumpy.

Your wife would be so fucking mad at me.

She's already pretty mad at me just in general, I feel like.

I don't know where you're getting that.

I think that's just resting my wife vibe.

Maybe it is.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting the signals.

But

anyways, looking forward to a regular old episode next week.

In the meantime, let's give some thank yous out.

Especially big thank you to all of the friends of DeSoto who support the production of this show at maximumfun.org slash join.

Huge, huge help in making this even possible.

We also hugely appreciate Wendy Pretty, our producer, editor who

made this show sound so good.

Got to thank Bill Tilly, our temporal Cold War time consigliary, making hilarious trading cards that you can check out at Greatest Trek on social media.

Those accounts run by Rob Adler, our social media director, who also makes little video clips of us and doing all kinds of fun video edits and

runs our mailing list.

We're doing a monthly newsletter, which I think is a very fun subscribe.

So I had to goch.biz slash mail to get subscribed to that.

Yeah, it's not just stuff to read.

It's like useful stuff too.

We're giving away offer codes for hotshop.biz.

I mean, newsletter subscribers were also the first ones to hear about the Nubbenbug toy.

Indeed.

Subscribe to that list if you want to be the first to hear about anything Uxbridge Shimoda related.

Check out drunkshimoda.com.

Check out the Wikia,

GraceGen.wikia.com.

Great work being done over there.

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 we have turned off the thing that controls how nice the weather is.

I hope we never do that.

We've had a good run of weather lately.

Make it so.

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