Chill Hitler (ENT S4E2)

Speaker 1 Here's to the finest crew in starving. When it comes to my crew, you won't get any argument from me.

Speaker 1 This is a parody.

Speaker 1 Paramount owns the sun.

Speaker 1 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 Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pranica.

Speaker 1 Adam, I was getting myself some lunch today.

Speaker 1 Oh? Went down to my beloved local Popeyes franchise. Oh, what you're describing is your secret lunchtime rendezvous that

Speaker 1 you hide the garbage from your wife after enjoying. I do do that.
Not because I'd be in trouble per se. I just don't want to get the look.

Speaker 1 I think all husbands out there understand the look. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 It's because of the look that I have gone for the record.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, you get the look too often.
You might end up just getting divorced. Yeah, exactly.
So this is a relationship enhancement technique that

Speaker 1 I go throw the Popeyes garbage away in the outdoor trash where she's never going to see it. Sure.
Yeah. Because she's never taken the trash out to the outdoor trash.
That's my job.

Speaker 1 That's my shit. She doesn't know the combination.

Speaker 1 I was noticing, though, that

Speaker 1 there's currently a promotion going on at Popeyes Adam where it is Popeyes X Hot Ones, and there are a number of menu items that are, I guess, spiced in the way of the chicken wings on the Hot Ones program.

Speaker 1 Right. You've got your the bombs and

Speaker 1 other? Yeah,

Speaker 1 I didn't write anything down for this. Okay.
So I don't remember what they were, but

Speaker 1 it just got me thinking, you know, because we're, I mean, mean, we're no less an internet sensation than hot ones. Some would argue, a greater internet sensation than hot ones.

Speaker 1 I don't see anybody getting tattoos of hot ones.

Speaker 1 I think they are. I think we just don't swim in the same social media pool.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying, when and if

Speaker 1 the opportunity comes for us to collabo with a quick surface restaurant chain.

Speaker 1 What do you think we do?

Speaker 1 What's our angle on that?

Speaker 1 What chain?

Speaker 1 I mean, you know, McDonald's has like their celebrity meal, and that doesn't even have to have like a special item, right? It's just like this guy gets his burger this way with french fries and a Dr.

Speaker 1 Pepper or whatever. I don't know.
I don't know what any of the meals are, but you follow?

Speaker 1 You're asking me, were we to have a fast food collaboration with

Speaker 1 which fast food purveyor would we collaborate? Yeah. And how do you see it going? Like, what would we make?

Speaker 1 What would it be? I know how this is going to come off. This is going to come off as I don't even own a TV guy.

Speaker 1 But like, I don't really eat fast food except for the rare road trip occasion.

Speaker 1 And even those are exceedingly rare. Like, I think Taco Bell is maybe my favorite fast food.
Okay. But even that, I'm only having very rarely.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, I only get it like two, three times a week, so I'm not

Speaker 1 saying like I'm any different from you. We're on exactly the same level.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 See, what I'm doing is I'm eating healthfully for lunch and then putting my trash on top of the garbage can. Like, I don't even put it in because I want my wife to see it.

Speaker 1 I want her to be proud of me because I crave her approval. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, I do too. I mean, if I'm going in for lunch, I'm making a big salad and I'm walking it past her going, ah, ah,

Speaker 1 pour a morning cup of coffee, go out into the back bathroom, eh? Regular!

Speaker 1 Regular again!

Speaker 1 Maybe it could be a coffee place. There's plenty of coffee chains we could work with.
Like the idea of that. Helping the FODs get regular by patronizing a Pete's or whatever.

Speaker 1 What's the most embarrassing fast food item across all of fast food, do you think? Man.

Speaker 1 Is it the KFC double-down, the sandwich where it was two pieces of chicken instead of two pieces of bread?

Speaker 1 I think people were pretty excited about that at the time, weren't they? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 The thing about fast food is there really is no shame. It's not what it's about.
You eat it in your car

Speaker 1 away from people

Speaker 1 to hide it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Man. Which is to say they're hiding their shame.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I feel like you have something chambered.

Speaker 1 What are you proposing here? No, I thought we could riff on it, but I mean, I'm really liking the idea of coffee because coffee is something that is done a little bit more publicly.

Speaker 1 Like, you know, there is the green straw of the Starbucks cup that has been made iconic by TMZ

Speaker 1 and is like... something people do out in public.

Speaker 1 Is there a fast food brand that's like that but the opposite?

Speaker 1 Should we start over something?

Speaker 1 I'm really trying to help this premise sucks i'm trying to help i just i don't have the life experience of it all right well with help like this why don't we just start over what let's let's take a different run at the beginning of the episode how about new i think we've got something here i'm just trying to think of like what is what is embarrassing versus what you want to be seen with because i think what you're describing is like did you say tmz popularized a starbucks drink

Speaker 1 uh well i just feel like the the people on TMZ all have the Starbucks cup, and it's like the straw is the identifier on that in a big way. Okay.

Speaker 1 And like, I think Coffee Bean, you know, went with purple straw in reaction to this. So like the different coffee places are now all color-coded the way the cell phone providers are all color-coded.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 in parts of the South, you could get yourself an alcoholic beverage through a drive-through window. Do those have color-coded straws? I feel like that would be more our speed.
This is interesting.

Speaker 1 Is Purple Zebra a big enough chain to do Greatest Gen X Purple Zebra? I really feel like the meetings at Purple Zebra HQ are going badly. Far worse than is generally known.

Speaker 1 I think there's contraction there, Ben. They're probably getting high on their own supply.

Speaker 1 A little too many people coming to the meetings with a hoof for them to be taking care of business as a business. They don't seem like, as a customer, to be very enthusiastic about their own product.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Maybe we could change that.

Speaker 1 Maybe Greatest Gen X Purple Zebra is the thing that starts turning things around for that business. As someone with a best friend who's a restaurateur, leave me out of that one,

Speaker 1 my friend. I think the very last thing you'll ever find me doing is getting involved in a restaurant or restaurant idea of any kind.
Oh, it's just a licensing play for us, man.

Speaker 1 They're just paying us on every unit sold. Oh, then perfect.
Sign me up. I'll sign anything with that kind of deal.

Speaker 1 Well, I think that the one thing that they've got to do is modify the hoof so that it fits in a cup holder, you know?

Speaker 1 I think that's where they went wrong. What I think they should do is put two hooves connected so that you could use both cup holders in your car.

Speaker 1 Because how often have you ever encountered a single? I feel like whenever you see cup holders, you see two. They're always paired up, yeah.
Yeah. And this way you get the stability.

Speaker 1 What you don't get is the side-to-side danger of a single cup holder. At least

Speaker 1 you're locked in there. But if you're hitting the gas or the brakes, watch out.
You're still,

Speaker 1 you got that forward and backward momentum. I guess it depends on if your pair of cup holders are aligned with the axle or aligned with the drivetrain.
This is what I'm I'm saying. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's exactly it. Because I have drivetrain cup holders in my car.
So I feel like it's the corners that I'm going to be worrying about with the dump. Oh, yeah.
And I have axle cup holders.

Speaker 1 How about that?

Speaker 1 This would never work. You know, Purple Zebra are not thinking about these things, and that is probably a big part of why, you know, they can't hold on to real estate at the Rio.
Right. Right.

Speaker 1 I also could never advocate drinking a hoof drink and driving, but I just think that's dangerous to put out into the world.

Speaker 1 I think people shouldn't take their drinking and driving advice from Star Trek podcasters. I say, you know, you use your own judgment on that one.
Very, very true. Yeah.
Freedom.

Speaker 1 We would never want to infringe upon your freedoms to do whatever the hell you want. Well, look for the Greatest Gen X Purple Zebra Calabo coming, you know, just after Star Trek Las Vegas next year.

Speaker 1 Probably missed the timing on it. Oh, yeah.
If there's one regret I have about STLV, and there are Miriam, it's probably how little we drank at the booth.

Speaker 1 Probably could have made better decisions there. There needs to be a bar in the vendor hall, you know? The thing is,

Speaker 1 policy was fairly specific about not bringing alcoholic beverages in. Now that we've done it once before, we know no one checks and no one gives a shit.

Speaker 1 The extent to which no one gives a shit

Speaker 1 cannot be overstated. The extent to which most people we encountered were

Speaker 1 having something,

Speaker 1 I think, was pretty clear starting from day one. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, people give a shit in today's episode, Adam.

Speaker 1 A rousing, stirring episode about giving a shit about Nazis in America. Something I thought everyone gave a shit about.
Do you want to get into it? Heroically put, Ben.

Speaker 1 Let's get into Enterprise Season 4, Episode 2, Stormfront, Part 2. Got a free speech and it's all.

Speaker 1 Opening on some newsreel footage.

Speaker 1 Joan the Furious visiting New York City, a city that he conquers. Look at him cozying up to Lady Liberty.

Speaker 1 Pressing the flesh with all of the all of the fine people of New York City's high society.

Speaker 1 He's seeing all the sites. I feel like if you're Hitler,

Speaker 1 you got to see all the places you went to. If you're going there to give a speech,

Speaker 1 I mean, you got to do a little bit of light tourism also. I know that I had the image of George Washington, you know, in the Madison Square Garden rally that Hitler was attending in this newsreel.

Speaker 1 Like, I'm aware of what that actually is, but I don't think Hitler is standing in front of a giant picture of somebody other than Hitler, personally.

Speaker 1 I mean, maybe

Speaker 1 due to his many victories in this timeline, he's kind of mellowed a little bit. You think his ego has had the edge taken off of it by just like repeated success?

Speaker 1 I think this episode is pretty forceful with the idea that many, many things have changed in this timeline. That perhaps being one of them.
Maybe so. Yeah, maybe.

Speaker 1 Maybe there's a softer,

Speaker 1 less selfish Hitler. Yeah.
He's talking about the parasitic elements in American society that they're going to get rid of.

Speaker 1 I thought it was an interesting moment here because I was like, I know why they're dog whistling because you don't want somebody flipping through the channels and just seeing something that appears to be

Speaker 1 a horrific condemnation of Jews and immigrants or whatever on your

Speaker 1 net.

Speaker 1 This is not a network show, right? It's syndicated to UPN, I guess. Ben, are you suggesting that Hitler may be against Jews and and immigrants? What? Well, they don't put those terms in specifically.

Speaker 1 It's like, it's dog whistles, right? And I wondered if that was like because of standards and practices being like, little, we're uncomfortable with like saying that explicitly on the air.

Speaker 1 Oh, who knows? I think this is a message that is common with quote-unquote strongmen who want to quote-unquote save the economy and the working man.

Speaker 1 You know, there's always going to be a threat out there. And in this case, financial profiteers is the whistle I think you're referring to.
Yeah, yeah. So that is our cold open.

Speaker 1 With the newsreel over, we go to the White House where that field marshal-y guy is pretty stressed out about the coming Allied counter-attack on the beachhead that the Nazis have formed on the entire eastern seaboard of the United States.

Speaker 1 Ben, let's just say, for argument's sake, you're Hitler, okay?

Speaker 1 I'm going to invite the FODs along with this thought experiment, okay?

Speaker 1 Benjamin R. Harrison is Hitler.
He and his army have invaded the eastern seaboard of the United States. Now I'm going to ask you.
And he's visit.

Speaker 1 Sorry, not he. I am visiting New York.
Yeah. to like, you know, glad hand and celebrate my big victory.
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 A victory that is absent many of the large photos of yourself that you tend to speechify in front of, or at least used to.

Speaker 1 You know, it was a cult of personality for a while, but now everybody just sees that the ideas are good enough that it doesn't need to be about me.

Speaker 1 I got to ask you, Hitler, Benjamin R. Harrison.

Speaker 1 You're visiting the United States. I got to believe you're going to eventually see the White House.

Speaker 1 Why is repairing the damage to the White House not a a priority?

Speaker 1 This thing is kicked. Like, all they did was set up a tank out front in the lawn, but like a whole corner of this thing is fucked.

Speaker 1 And I got to ask you, Hitler, like, is that the reason you're not visiting the White House? Because it's not ready for you?

Speaker 1 You know what?

Speaker 1 The problem that the Nazis had is

Speaker 1 they don't have enough bunting. It's all banners.
It's all long banners hanging everywhere. And bunting can cover up shit like that.
You just put a bunch of bunting around the crown of the building.

Speaker 1 That'll hide that stuff. Bunting is great.
Bunting is so great. It's very festive.
No evidence of Hitler actually visiting.

Speaker 1 That's the question I'm more interested in an answer to than like dog whistles or whatever. Is like, is the image of Hitler at the White House something they ever discussed?

Speaker 1 Because what an incredible image that would be. Like, I I want to be provoked by a storyline like this.

Speaker 1 And I think all of the risks that this episode doesn't take leave me feeling a little disappointed in that way. Yeah.
Like, we'll provoke, but not too much.

Speaker 1 Just banners. Just banners and armbands and stuff.
Yeah. I mean, like, the field marshal guy doesn't seem like he's a general in the German army, but he doesn't, he's not like...
He's not bad.

Speaker 1 He's never given any personal like actions to condemn him, you know?

Speaker 1 He's merely a functionary. Like, you get Hitler in the room with Vosk.
Now we're fucking talking. Did they not want to cast for Hitler? Yeah, German general guy, like,

Speaker 1 the only downside to him is administrative. Like, he just can't get on the same page as Vosk.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 they're basically having a clerical argument, you know, like, when are we going to do what? Just going to sit here and wait for the American counterattack? No one wants to do that.

Speaker 1 I mean, I guess Vosk doesn't give a shit, but this German general kind of wants to do something instead of wait. What they're arguing about is this squadron that Vosk does not want to deploy yet.

Speaker 1 Vosk is saying the squadron is not ready. German general is saying it doesn't matter.
We've got this big counterattack coming. You swore an oath to defend Germany.
This is Germany now.

Speaker 1 And the squadron in question, like I'm picturing the footage that we got shown in the previous episode of the the guy, you know, taking out a tank with a handheld weapon.

Speaker 1 Big argument over what to do with the squadron. And Vosk is like, he really big dogs the shit out of the field marshal.
He's like, you are such a pip squeak.

Speaker 1 Your goal is to conquer land. I'm expressing my will across time.
I'm doing big shit over here. You're doing little shit.
Leave me alone. Pipe down.

Speaker 1 It's a hell of a way to win an argument when like what you're trying to do is get supplies and arms to fight a war, and

Speaker 1 Vosk just tells you, I could erase you from everyone's memory if I wanted to. I just choose not to.
Yikes. The next time you feel the urge to threaten me, remember this.

Speaker 1 I wanted so badly for them to leave the room and those two guys standing guard at the door to exchange a look or anything.

Speaker 1 Like, does this not impress them at all?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it seems like every conversation at this level is eavesdropped on by guards. Like you're saying, only no one registers that they are hearing any of it the way that they should.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Ben, can you imagine being a Nazi? I mean, I've been doing it so far. I'm still visiting New York in this, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, that was the pause for effect. Okay.

Speaker 1 But you're still like a private, and your job is door duty.

Speaker 1 Like

Speaker 1 door duty for aliens. Like actual aliens.
And then when you leave, they're like, don't tell anybody about what you're seeing, you know,

Speaker 1 but the Martians. Yeah, it's incredible.
Up on Enterprise, Alicia Travers is up in the dead Ensign O'Malley's quarters, just kind of looking through her things. Kind of thought that...

Speaker 1 You'd take that stuff down after the letter is sent, I think, maybe. Right.

Speaker 1 Once Trip breaks the news to the parents, you put it all in a foot locker and ship that stuff home to them. Sure.
Not a great time for Archer to walk in, but he does.

Speaker 1 The gazing window isn't working like anyone thought it would, I think, in this scene. I love

Speaker 1 that they took another run at how Alicia would react to learning about what the future is like. And they were like, oh, it will seem like it sucks to her.

Speaker 1 Like, from where she's sitting, like, she's on, like, the most fucked up busted starship All we're learning about is like Florida getting taken out by war with the Cindy She's she's like this is like Warhammer 40k stuff that you're talking about I don't want to go into this future.

Speaker 1 I want to go back to Bensonhurst This is so interesting that like the dream for a science fiction enthusiast is often like beam me up Like take me to the future, take me to the starship that I believe to be there so I can live my life in the future.

Speaker 1 And the idea that you probably have a fair chance of being beamed up to a ship that is busted and shitty. Because why else would a future species want to interact with you unless they were desperate?

Speaker 1 Yeah. They're coming back here because something went terribly wrong for them.
The good starships don't need you. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, like, Dr. Jillian probably should have come to the same conclusion when she saw what the inside of the HMS Bounty looked like.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, not to mention what Lily saw on board the E, you know? It was a fucking nightmare up there.

Speaker 1 The thing that underscores this entire idea is that Archer's like, look, I could send you anywhere on the planet down there. Where would you like to go? And she's like, well,

Speaker 1 back home is where I want to be. That apartment specifically.
Bensonhurst is where I want to be, where I can shoot Nazis.

Speaker 1 Yeah, she also has some pretty good ideas about bombing Berlin from orbit. She's like, you got this fancy starship.
I don't know what it can do, but if you could help, that would be pretty huge.

Speaker 2 Start with Berlin. Wipe that damn place off the map.

Speaker 1 Fucking hey. Archer promises to help, but not in the way that she's asking or that she thinks that they should.

Speaker 1 And that has got to be so crushing for her. One of the many ways and moments that she has crushed this episode, I think.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 The future is deeply disappointing, but she's going to help them figure out where Tripp and Travis got taken.

Speaker 1 Archer is going to break his promise not to use the transporter on her anymore because the shuttles are busted. Archer broke a promise.

Speaker 1 You know, as soon as he grows that five o'clock shadow, he is going to start lying constantly. I won't cease or desist,

Speaker 1 because you really think it's fair use.

Speaker 1 Vosk is told by one of his guys that the entrepreneur is from a future that does not have time travel yet.

Speaker 1 This is very interesting information to him, but he's a little distracted because they're testing their time conduit thing, and it does not work.

Speaker 1 The test is a bust,

Speaker 1 and we learn in the scene that they're pretty short on time. Or at least Vosk believes that they are based on how antsy this German general is getting.

Speaker 1 It's like, yeah, I don't know how much longer they're going to actually play ball with us. So we better get this thing figured out.
There's some talk about like,

Speaker 1 what about all these guns and stuff? Like, why don't we just give them that? Like, that, that will, like, buy us some forbearance from the Germans.

Speaker 1 And he's like, they could point those guns at us, man. Like, I'm not giving them stuff that could tip the balance of power in their favor.
That is an interesting argument from

Speaker 1 Vosk and a group of people that I'm trying to figure out how we're supposed to feel about them.

Speaker 1 Because they sort of like, they start off by making fun of Enterprise and like, God, these people don't know anything. They don't even know, they don't know how they got here.

Speaker 1 They don't have time travel capabilities. They don't have capabilities for the time travel.

Speaker 1 And like this whole 180 that Vosk takes about like, you know, those prisoners that I that I know are getting the shit kicked out of them. Why don't we give them some proper medical attention?

Speaker 1 And you know how sometimes I'll like wink at people and say proper medical attention when I mean like enhanced torture?

Speaker 1 This, like, I don't know how to convey that I actually mean like proper and good medical attention. Right, right.

Speaker 1 Like, like, I'm not saying proper medical attention like I'm stringer bell talking about something on a phone I'm not sure is safe to talk on.

Speaker 1 I'm actually saying proper medical attention. This is what's so confusing about being evil is, is, like, even when you're being sincere, everyone thinks you're being evil.

Speaker 1 Like, boss, are you feeling okay? Do you need medical attention?

Speaker 1 So, Trip and Mayweather are dragged to their concrete cell, and it looks like they've been roughed up pretty bad.

Speaker 1 Hard to know whether the Sulaban on the ceiling is going to be an improvement to their situation or not when it falls on top of Trip.

Speaker 1 We learn a bit more about the revision of history in a little McLaughlin group. Issue one.

Speaker 1 It seems like the point in time where stuff started changing, they figured out, is when Lenin was shot and killed and therefore did not rise to power and that the Bolsheviks never had their revolution.

Speaker 1 And so when Hitler got his war going, he considered the Russians not to be a threat. and therefore focused all of his efforts on rampaging westward rather than eastward.

Speaker 1 And there's some rumors about Lennon's killer having vanished into thin air, which could be cloaking like a Sulaban or could be beaming away. Sure.

Speaker 1 But I thought it was very useful that they reminded us like one scene ago that Sulabons can go invisible because I was like, oh, it could have been Silic.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Or somebody that rolls with Silic, anyways.

Speaker 1 And we're learning so much about this alternate history, almost setting up the series of novels that could be then adapted into an Amazon Prime original television series, but we gotta go.

Speaker 1 Reed describes kind of a chill Hitler who's not so vain

Speaker 1 the way he might have been in their prime timeline. Captain, he would give a speech in front of a picture of somebody other than him.

Speaker 1 One thing that is

Speaker 1 almost exactly the same between timelines is the complete lack of bunting

Speaker 1 between Nazis of this era and our own.

Speaker 1 The Germans just never considers it. And hard to believe, but it's actually kind of a weak point for them.

Speaker 1 Just then, Vosk blows in a call to Enterprise, which Archer takes on the bridge. This conversation is about prisoners and meeting up to do an exchange for them.
And we do that immediately.

Speaker 1 Like, hey, do you want to meet up and exchange prisoners? Okay. And then we're there in this wooded area where Archer and a couple of Makos beam down to.

Speaker 1 And there's good old Vosk arriving in an APC, and everyone is armed. I was a little surprised by this.

Speaker 1 Like, there was no discussion beforehand about, like, you bring two and I bring two, and no weapons allowed, and, like, we'll do that thing where we pat each other down at the center of the bridge or whatever.

Speaker 1 There is none of that. Like, everyone's armed.
Everyone's pointing things at each other.

Speaker 1 I wondered at this moment, could you just shoot Vosk with the phaser set to kill and that solves the like does that just like jump you in time? Everything goes correct? I don't know, Ben.

Speaker 1 That just kind of sounds like a really Hitler sort of idea from you. Hmm.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it is interesting traveling to the past and that not being like the main focus on everybody's mind.

Speaker 1 Tripp and Mayweather are brought out, and they look very surprised to see Archer, which was a reminder to me that they don't know that Archer's alive.

Speaker 1 Yeah, easy to forget this given all of the confusion of the last two episodes leading up to this, but they believed Archer to be dead.

Speaker 1 Although I did like the way Connor Trenier played Trip, realizing this as a little understated, a little like, oh,

Speaker 1 you know. Right.
Knowing what we find out a little bit later about him. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So Vosk wants to know, like, what do you know about me, Archer? And Archer starts like telling him all of the shit that Daniels told him. Why give this information up?

Speaker 1 Like, what is in it for you, Archer, to tell Vosk exactly what you know about him? This is more dork Archer, you know?

Speaker 1 It truly is because he seems to be speaking like someone who's just nervous and babbling. What I like about this moment is how wrong he is.
Yeah. Vosk is like,

Speaker 1 wrong!

Speaker 1 You ever think that maybe you're on the wrong side of this whole temporal cold war, Archer? Because the thing about Daniels, and I'm sure you've noticed this, Daniels does not like to watch.

Speaker 1 Daniels likes getting involved in the timeline. Don't you think that's a little aggressive for someone who purports to be all about the coldness of this temporal war he describes?

Speaker 1 It is a little bit challenging, and Vosk starts to describe the people that...

Speaker 1 Daniels is aligned with as being the real tyrants because they maintain and manipulate the timeline, but they do things that benefit them specifically.

Speaker 1 And Vosk feels like there should be more democratization of time travel technology. And you should be able to get to do what you want and fix the timeline up the way you think it should be fixed up.

Speaker 1 He's a real two-way time travel guy. Societies and cultures can be improved through careful manipulation.
of historical events. Gotta say, I found his argument very persuasive.

Speaker 1 And I think a big part of it is just how unlikable Daniels is.

Speaker 1 And how squirrely he is with his reasoning and so forth and his manipulations of Archer. Then again, Vosk did go back in time and not kill Hitler.
So

Speaker 1 you know.

Speaker 1 Vosk has an amazing offer on the table for Archer.

Speaker 1 He's like, look, if you just fuck off and leave me alone to do my time travel business, I'll send you back to a corrected future that was just like the way it was when you left it.

Speaker 1 Like, I'll fix all the bullshit that you're seeing down here and make it right, but just leave us alone to do our work, all right?

Speaker 1 It is an interesting pitch.

Speaker 1 I mean, you really have to extend a ton of trust to Vosk to buy this because he's like, like, you're going to go home and then I'll stay here and I'll make sure everything is right when you get there.

Speaker 1 There's not a lot of assurances surrounding that.

Speaker 1 We don't have a lot of time to go down this tangent, but like, if this was the moment that becomes Back to the Future part 2, where like, yeah, Archer and Enterprise are returned to their future, but something again is not quite right, like, this could be the entire season of just fixing time travel shit.

Speaker 1 Reed's biff in the Back to the Future 2 parlance, right? Like, there's no way they return and Reed isn't a total monster. Yeah.
Reed's

Speaker 1 what he's gotten is a copy of all of these letters that he wrote in the future to various girlfriends, and now he's using those letters to get into the pants early of these women.

Speaker 1 He's groundhogs daying all of these women. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Doing it perfect.

Speaker 1 You speak French.

Speaker 1 What a monster. But what Voz really wants is like tech from the Enterprise.
He's like, you see what we're working with down here. I might as well be banging rocks together.

Speaker 1 You're not much better, but you're better enough that it will speed up my ability to build my time conduit. Like, this is good for me and good for you.
And Daniels is an asshole.

Speaker 1 So what do you say, Archer? And Archer's like, all right, I'll give it some thought.

Speaker 1 Which is real big city, fuck you.

Speaker 1 Whenever you say that. It really is.

Speaker 1 Legally, it's just a fart joke.

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Speaker 1 Man would rather die. Rather die.

Speaker 1 Back on Enterprise in Six Bay, Archer talks to Trip and Mayweather in there when Dr.

Speaker 1 Flox does that conspicuous, hey, take a look at this scan I just scanned of Trip Tucker and kind of does the Seinfeld looking at the ticket that hits the table like

Speaker 1 his eyes get all wide

Speaker 1 Whoa who ordered the market price lobster the conversation almost immediately gets really awkward until Tripp and Archer just get into a full-blown tussle Yeah, and then Sulaban Tripp runs the hell out of there and gets shot in the back by two makos in the corridor.

Speaker 1 I wish we threw to Mayweather a little bit more in the scene, like for React. Yeah.
Give me Mayweather React here. Like in the way of the guards in the White House.

Speaker 1 Like, I want to know what somebody that didn't get to see the scan is thinking in this moment. I know.
I know.

Speaker 1 They roll the body over, and it is revealed to be silic.

Speaker 1 Pretty exciting. But we cut away to Bensonhurst, where Bobby Bakala is getting a gunshot wound tended to by Alicia,

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he heard a little something about her and Archer vanishing into thin air. And I wondered how famous the assassination of Lennon was and if he was like anything to do with that.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Like if he were to tie the two things together, that would have been very interesting.
Yeah. He also went through her jacket and found her Star Trek communicator.

Speaker 1 And she feels very violated by this. Like, why are you going through my shit? And

Speaker 1 relax. I was looking for a cigarette.
I also found this, and it's like the

Speaker 1 plastic circle case of birth control. He's like, I thought your husband was out of town.

Speaker 1 She's like, I take it for hormones.

Speaker 1 It cleared up my acne. What the fuck is wrong?

Speaker 1 Just more and more shit from her purse, he produces.

Speaker 1 And what about this? And he just like holds up her keys and he's like, Do you really need all these keys? And she's like, Shut up. There's definitely some that I need to take off.

Speaker 1 I just haven't gotten around to it.

Speaker 1 He wants the truth.

Speaker 1 Unclear at this point whether he's going to get it, though. Archer steps to Silicon who has been taken to the brig, starts questioning him about, like, what did you find down there?

Speaker 1 Because you had this great CD-ROM tucked into your pants pocket. I've been going through your jacket too.

Speaker 1 That's funny.

Speaker 1 And it's a schematic of Vosk's facility.

Speaker 1 Was it referred to as a complex? Oh,

Speaker 1 it could have been a Felicity also. Yeah, it could have been a Felicity.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Ben, are you surprised that there is a brig that can hold Silic on the ship? Or do you think Silic wants to be here? Because I personally don't think that any brig on Enterprise could hold him.

Speaker 1 You're saying it's like Joker getting taken to the major crimes holding cell. It's like this is exactly where he wants to be right now.

Speaker 1 Might be.

Speaker 1 So we know that Silic has a ghost boss who

Speaker 1 cannot actually travel back in time, but Vosk can. So there's this theory that's proffered here that like the guy you're working for is trying to get the tech that Vosk has.

Speaker 1 Silic's like, yeah, sometimes I'll go to work and there will be the shadowy figure there. He looks like he's wearing a wig.

Speaker 1 And like his uniform doesn't look quite right. They're like a camera crew is following him around too for some sort of documentary.

Speaker 1 Don't quite get that.

Speaker 1 He said at the end he's going to give me and my family $10,000.

Speaker 1 I guess billionaires are good.

Speaker 1 I love how Silic is so sure Jan to Archer here. Like, Like,

Speaker 1 yeah, data disc being stolen is a thing that I dislike, but the extent to which I need your ship to accomplish my mission should be evident to you by now.

Speaker 1 But I cannot tell you how little of a shit I give about Trip Tucker. Like, what does he have to do with anything? We have a Felicity to get down to.

Speaker 1 At some point, Archer opens the door and starts getting physical with Silic. Isn't that a joke, too?

Speaker 1 I love Silic noticing that Archer is Dark Archer now.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, this close, you can see the stubble. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I mean, Silic's people don't grow hair, so it must be really alarming to him. Like, what's wrong with your face, man?

Speaker 1 I wish I knew with the Sulaban

Speaker 1 what was possible to hurt them with. Like, if you held him up against the wall by his neck, does that hurt or not? I don't personally think it does.

Speaker 1 But then later on, something even more painful happens to him. And I was very surprised by that scene.
Yeah. I thought he would be T-1000 a little bit more, you know?

Speaker 1 I don't trust just two Makos standing at the door could keep him in there when the door swings open. Not at all.
I feel like the Makos got really lucky outside Six Bay.

Speaker 1 Anyways, Trip wakes up and he's hog-tied in a closet. But not hogtied that good like he's able to unbind his feet pretty quickly but yeah he's uh

Speaker 1 he's somewhere in uh in the complex do you think he's fully restrained uh with how he's tied up i would say he's not

Speaker 1 wow

Speaker 1 yeah it's really good it's really good adam are we out of handcuffs this is the 40s do we not have the steel for handcuffs This is what Silic was able to accomplish in the, like, I need to impersonate this guy and get up to the entrepreneur context.

Speaker 1 So maybe he just didn't have time to, like, get the correct supplies. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because it did look like the hands look like they're maybe bound with pea cord, but the feet look like they were bound with like dental floss or something. Yeah, and the knots are hasty.

Speaker 1 You see these knots. You know it to be true.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 We get another hail from Fosk.

Speaker 1 Another Archer offering a lot more information to Vosk than he really needs to. But yeah, they've got guns pointed at each other.
Like Vosk has a plasma cannon, Archer has phase cannons.

Speaker 1 Who do you think shoots first? In a

Speaker 1 Vosk and Archer are having a little disagreement about whether Archer is going to help situation. I mean,

Speaker 1 it's a fun question. It seems like mutually assured destruction.
These two armaments seem fairly even, don't they? It seems like they would be.

Speaker 1 I mean, I guess the Earth-based ones are under a shield, so

Speaker 1 there's that. Vosk is able to hurt the Entrepreneur, and they fire back a couple of times, but those shields protect Vosk.

Speaker 1 I guess my point was Archer in dialogue is like stating a real mutually assured destruction concept that does not exist here.

Speaker 1 I think he's expecting a fairer fight that it ends up becoming. Yeah, yeah, good point.
Well, with the ship damaged, Archer's like, fuck, we got to figure out about those shields. Tapal,

Speaker 1 here's that data disc. You figure out how to knock out the shields.
He goes to talk to Silicon and Silicon's like, yeah, I'll help you bust into there.

Speaker 1 You know, I prefer to work solo because of my genetic advantages that enabled me to slip in there undetected. And Archer's like, no deal.

Speaker 1 And then Tepal like wheels around the corner and she's like, all right, I figured out how to disable their shields.

Speaker 1 It's a real sending Vulcans on the away mission, you know? We have completed the mission. You may return us to Enterprise.
It's really fun. And it is almost as fun to see a Sulaban

Speaker 1 in street clothes as it is seeing Vulcans in street clothes. Yeah, it's good stuff.
The plan is we're going to go down there, we're going to sneak in, we're going to get the shields down.

Speaker 1 Once we do that, give us 10 minutes to get away so that we aren't killed in the bombardment and then nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Speaker 1 In Vosk's base, he's told by the Nazi general that American resistance forces are headed for Washington, D.C.,

Speaker 1 and also that Hitler is ordering Vosk's squadron of fighter planes to be transferred to his command. And there's some pushback here because these planes are going to require some special training.

Speaker 1 You just can't shove a Luftwaffe pilot into these things and expect them to know what to do. The training doesn't matter at all to the general.
Yeah, he's like, get her done.

Speaker 1 Vasque is very, very frustrated here and declares to his inferiors that it's going to be tonight that they're going to have to leave.

Speaker 1 Even though they haven't seen a good test of the time conduit yet, it's do or die time. It really feels like dad's being mean to me and I'm going to run away.
Like that kind of vibe.

Speaker 1 Fucking hate that guy.

Speaker 1 That Nazi general is always such a dick to me.

Speaker 1 even though the conduit doesn't work he's told to his face that thing has never worked it's never worked for more than a fraction of a second vosk is like fuck it man we're going tonight manifest destiny has been such an inspiration to vosk yeah if we change the words

Speaker 1 then it's fair use all day long

Speaker 1 In his little mop closet, Trip shimmies himself up a sewer pipe and busts a light bulb so that he can get a little piece of glass to cut the bonds on his hands.

Speaker 1 And we see Archer and Silic walking around. Silic has de-aliened himself.

Speaker 1 He now looks human. Which has got to be, if you're the actor who plays Silic, your favorite day on set.

Speaker 1 What a relief.

Speaker 1 Oh man, it's got to be so nice. I checked to make sure that they didn't just cast someone else as human Silic, because wouldn't that have been the greatest insult?

Speaker 1 It's like, oh man, so so like on day three, like I'm reading the script and it seems like I'm on the street with Archer and I look human. Like that's that's my day, right?

Speaker 1 No, we got another guy for that.

Speaker 1 You know, somebody whose face we like.

Speaker 1 You have a face for Sulaban and that's where we need you. Silica's talking to Archer about like, yeah, like I didn't, I thought all of you humans were

Speaker 1 such wimps based on all of our interactions. And then I go back at the past and you guys are nuts.

Speaker 1 And I am genuinely impressed with how you've drawn on the savage history of your people to make this new character of Dark Archer.

Speaker 1 We learn a little bit more about the relationship between the Sulaban and Vosk's people in that Vosk's species hate the Sulaban to the extent that they tried to time travel

Speaker 1 back in time to a point where they could stop the Sulaban from becoming sentient. And that is a pretty hard action to forgive, according to Silic.

Speaker 1 Archer's like, they tried to make you a Lenny culture? And Silic is like, yeah,

Speaker 1 but Daniels and those guys stopped them. And Archer's like, well, why are you fighting Daniels then? What gives?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's weird.

Speaker 1 I almost would prefer no backstory to this backstory. It kind of feels like maybe they got a little bit of the Lennying done, you know?

Speaker 1 Fair. Yeah.
Silicon Archer make their way to a a burn barrel with some dew whoppers. They ask about Alicia Travers.
Hey, you know Alicia Travers?

Speaker 1 There she is. She just pops up from behind a corner along with Bobby Bakalo.

Speaker 1 Very fun. They're like, well, glad you're back.

Speaker 1 And Archer is here to rope them in to an attack on the complex.

Speaker 1 We learn on the bridge that the Allied attack has begun and the fighting is not close to New York City, so we're not worried about this swamping or overwhelming the efforts of our away team.

Speaker 1 And we also learned that the repairs to the ship are going slow, and that the targeting array is one of the things that's messed up.

Speaker 1 So their job of blowing up the site from orbit is going to be made very difficult by the no-targeting array situation. And what do you know?

Speaker 1 Their chief engineer is one of the unaccounted-for members of the away team. Reid is like, now, as long as you don't expect too much from me in terms of being able to hit the target,

Speaker 1 I want to reiterate that I want to keep your expectations low. And everyone is like, yeah, Reid, sure.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we'll do our best.

Speaker 1 You said that the target is very big? Oh, thank fuck.

Speaker 1 On the streets of Brooklyn, Silic is about as frustrated by how slow the plot is moving as anyone and wants to ditch Bobby Bacchola and Alicia Travers right there.

Speaker 1 But Bobby and Alicia are not on the same page and she's going to go ahead and help them no matter what Bobby wants to do or say about it. So we cut to Vosk and his guys.

Speaker 1 Vosk is sort of a fill-in monologue slash captain speech for his creepy friends. The mastery of time has allowed us to perfect ourselves to reach our full potential as a people.
I mean, this is good.

Speaker 1 You got to do that. Like, if you're about to flip on the switch to the suicide booth, what is eventually going to be a suicide booth?

Speaker 1 You want to make sure the troops are ready to run into it. You do.
Right? There can be no doubt. And that's what this halftime speech is for.
Yeah. Trip has gotten into the room.

Speaker 1 He's hiding in the shadows listening to this. And it made me wonder...

Speaker 1 Like, the my brothers were going home speech. Did he say that in German or in English or in his own?

Speaker 1 Like, does Tripp understand what is being said in this room? Was a question on my mind. How great would a Hunt for Red October translation sequence have worked here? It would have been great.

Speaker 1 That would have been cool. Bobby Bakala has been talked into this.
So the mafia stage an attack on the entrance of the time travel device complex.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 meanwhile, Archer and Silic are going to go sneak in a back way where silic is gonna like gooey himself through a an air vent and then like open the door from the inside and there's a funny little pregnant moment we're like i hope uh i hope he does actually come back and open this thing up for archer and he does good old silic you can always count on him what is that fucking vent doing right next to the door like it's a mail slot

Speaker 1 no one has ever installed a vent next to a door in the way that this one is Have you ever seen this before in your entire life? It looks like a really, really big version of the vent that my dryer

Speaker 1 puts the hot air out of in the side of my house. That's it exactly.
I didn't get the sense that they were doing a ton of laundry at this facility. No.
No.

Speaker 1 Unlike the facility in the GoldenEye game, where that's almost all that happens there. And also, unlike Felicity, who does a bunch of it when she goes off to college.

Speaker 1 Inside the base, they are aware of this breach, but Vosk is like, pay it no mind. That's Nazi work.

Speaker 1 Voskwork is operating this time travel phone booth. Speaking of calling it Voskwork, I was persistently annoyed that we never got a name for this type of alien in watching this episode.

Speaker 1 I was like, can we name them? Like, I want to know what they are. Yeah, they have a name on Memory Alpha, but it's never said in episode.

Speaker 1 That's why I choose not to say it yeah I didn't look it up so they're activating the conduit in another part of the building Archer and Silic manage to get the shields down they're doing a lot of firefighting Enterprise enters the atmosphere of the planet to go on its bombing run but Archer and Silic are under a lot of fire and Silic is like could I please Arm myself like do I just have to cower behind the the 55 gallon drums with you while you do all of the shooting?

Speaker 1 Like, I do have some game here, like, I could be an asset in this battle.

Speaker 1 This was the moment where I started to question

Speaker 1 the imperviousness of the Sullibon to all sorts of things. Like, is it just an energy weapon that could take him down, or could anything else do it? Because, like, there's a really brave moment.

Speaker 1 where Silic climbs up a bunch of shit and then, like, gets the jump on some people with guns and like does clobbering moves. And I'm like, oh yeah, he's fine.

Speaker 1 He's got a gun now, but like it's not like bang, bang to the back. Like Silic's down and he's dead.
Like almost as these thoughts are occurring to me, I'm like, oh shit. Really?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I was really surprised that he bled red. So did I.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Doesn't look like he would bleed red. Do you think after all the things that Silic did, he might have gotten gotten some red dead redemption? Hmm.

Speaker 1 I don't know. I mean

Speaker 1 all I feel like I can say is RSVP Silic.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Archer goes to like, uh, like move his eyelids down and his hand just goes into his face.

Speaker 1 Oh!

Speaker 1 He closes those two eyelids and two more eyes open up.

Speaker 1 And he's like back and forth like, no, I can't close both all four at the same time. Oh, now it now it's all over me.
He like wipes his hand on his

Speaker 1 and now silic eyes are all over the front of his uniform like oh come on. Oh

Speaker 1 With the entrepreneur heading toward them Vosk decides to deploy his special squadron to defend the facility and the Nazi general walks in and he's like not so fast I told you that they were going to go do blah, blah, blah, because Hitler ordered it.

Speaker 1 And Vosk just shoots him dead. RSVP, the general.

Speaker 1 I mean, Vosk probably wondering why Hitler's being so unreasonable here about the fighter plan.

Speaker 1 Seems like kind of a departure from the chill Hitler that, like chill on vacation Hitler that was depicted earlier on in the episode. Why is he acting like he's in the bunker already? This is nuts.

Speaker 1 I know. I know.
Vosk in charge now pen

Speaker 1 archer tries to radio the enterprise but they don't pick up silica i guess is still like breathing a couple of his last breaths and he's like oh yeah they won't be able to because of the ionization in the atmosphere were you hoping for something more substantial as far as words to say with your dying breath

Speaker 1 i was like really All he's going to say is like, yeah,

Speaker 1 your walkie-talkie's not going to work if they're in the atmosphere. Not any sort of like, Dark Archer's my favorite archer.
Yeah. You son of a bitch.

Speaker 1 But I suppose I can settle for this.

Speaker 1 I mean, there was the like, you were a worthy adversary, but like, I wanted Archer to be like, who's the shadowy man in the column of light? Like,

Speaker 1 I've been coughing up information left and right this episode. Why don't you cough some now? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I was hoping for that myself. So Archer starts walking away from this corpse and bumps into Trip in the the hallway and Tripp believes him to be Silic.
I loved this moment too.

Speaker 1 Because Tripp doesn't know Archer's alive. He still doesn't know.
Yeah, it's great. I love this moment.

Speaker 1 But they get a happy reunion once Trip gets to see the dead body of Silic lying there with a bunch of Nazis.

Speaker 1 Up on the bridge, Reed realizes he's going to have to take out the facility the old-fashioned way. Just as long as everyone gives me a half a dozen shots.

Speaker 1 Just, Mayweather, if you could just circle around the area several times so I can orient myself toward the target.

Speaker 1 I wanted to take out the Felicity, the old-fashioned way, you know, dinner in a movie. She turned me down.

Speaker 1 And this was post-haircut. Can you believe it?

Speaker 1 How great? are the shots of Enterprise descending through the atmosphere. It's so pretty.
Beginning with its descent, I thought they really did these effect shots right. They really did.

Speaker 1 So the mob starts to fall back because they're told by Archer that this whole site is going to be going sky high. Archer's like, look, I'm not sure there is a safe distance away from here.

Speaker 1 We've got Reed

Speaker 1 up here trying to hit a target. And I mean, Reid normally not very good at that.

Speaker 1 He'll be shooting in the dog. Go as fast as far as you can.
Archer promises to unfuck the timeline to Alicia and says his goodbyes.

Speaker 1 I love this moment as they depart because Alicia's like, look, Archer, you got to fix racism

Speaker 1 when you're fixing the timeline. Like, you got to make sure that goes away.
You got to make sure that there's justice for black people like me. And there's a big pause.

Speaker 1 And then she's like, no, I can't ask you for that. I'm just going to ask you to stick me back into my apartment with my husband.
I'm like, like, what?

Speaker 1 Alicia,

Speaker 1 ask for more.

Speaker 1 Please.

Speaker 1 Like, start your negotiation

Speaker 1 with a big number so that you can work your way to something reasonable.

Speaker 1 You don't start yourself in the hole.

Speaker 1 Way too modest with,

Speaker 1 I think,

Speaker 1 what could be demands on her part. She has done an awful lot and risked an awful lot for Archer.
She's a fucking badass. She deserves an awful lot.

Speaker 1 He's like, yeah, as long as you don't need me to fix anything systemic, that's fine.

Speaker 1 Into your apartment with your husband, you will go. Yeah.
Hopefully he's not one of those 1940s husbands who gets a little loose with the temper.

Speaker 1 Is he a time traveler, too? Is he from like the 80s? He's a little softer.

Speaker 1 I mean, not too soft, you know. Not like a 90s husband.
Alicia's like, he loves me, I promise.

Speaker 1 He just gets angry sometimes. Archer's like, all right, good enough.
Sounds good. I will fix nothing.
That's good enough for Dark Archer.

Speaker 1 I also can fly off the handle in terms of

Speaker 1 my temper. So I get it.

Speaker 1 So we get some pretty cool combat footage with the modified Stuka dive bombers that are now fixed with space weapons. Archer's on the bridge.
Vosk gets his conduit fired up, and

Speaker 1 like it seems like the temporal hole is going to stay open long enough for him to walk through I really like that it's Vosk that goes first like say what you will about Vosk complicated person

Speaker 1 definitely a Nazi however

Speaker 1 he wasn't the sort of Nazi that's gonna stick a hench through the time hole first he's gonna go first on his own. Yeah, let's just say Vosk was doing time travel the right way.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yep.

Speaker 1 All this happens as Enterprise dogfights above New York City. I fucking love these scenes.
So beautiful. I had no idea I needed this and I needed it so bad.

Speaker 1 I think it's one thing to depict Enterprise above New York City dogfighting against World War II era aircraft. It is another thing to add the frosting that is the time of day that this takes place.

Speaker 1 Like, it's so golden and beautiful in addition to all that's happening here. I love that extra step.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 They set this at, like, the crack of fuck so that it would be so fucking beautiful. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Almost as beautiful as seeing Fosk's body warp and rip apart when they fire on the facility at close range and destroy the time conduit.

Speaker 1 Oh, you don't believe he got through the portal and it was just a little more painful than he was expecting?

Speaker 1 You don't think transit was a success?

Speaker 1 No, because suddenly we're in like the the kind of movie that you go to in a theater at a history museum.

Speaker 1 Yeah, this is, this is like the

Speaker 1 theme package to a mid-90s PBS show

Speaker 1 that chooses a different historical moment for every episode.

Speaker 1 Archer and Daniels are in this liminal space. Why is there a stairway in this liminal space, too?

Speaker 1 Because, like, we're with Archer first, and you see, like, starting from the feet, like the still suit of a Daniels,

Speaker 1 and the camera like slowly rises up.

Speaker 1 And you're bracing yourself because you're like, I mean, we saw that guy in Six Bay.

Speaker 1 He was not easy on the eyes, like, with his hair up in a messy bun and those glasses. No way.
Would not. In this liminal space, Daniels is

Speaker 1 beautiful.

Speaker 1 He does a bunch of exposition about how everything worked out good, and Archer's like, okay, good. Well, I would like to be left the fuck alone.

Speaker 1 Like, I was really sold Star Trek Enterprise as like a prequel series and not a fucking crazy time travel series. Can we have a prequel series, please?

Speaker 1 I was absolutely feeling the energy of that, Ben. That the things that Archer was saying were things that Dark Archer felt, but also things that like we, the viewers, are feeling.

Speaker 1 Like, done with Daniels. Done forever.
Sick of you. Don't care anymore.

Speaker 1 You know what? Don't come back on any Star Trek series. You will be unwelcome.
My real name is a bit of a red directive in and of itself. Don't even try and work it in in the last 15 minutes of one.

Speaker 1 Like, we'll be pissed. You're going to think it's a pleasant surprise or whatever? It won't be.
No one will like it.

Speaker 1 Everyone is okay. The temporal Cold War is coming to an end, and we're back on the bridge.
The Earth is there on the view screen. It looks beautiful.
But what day is it? It's the right time.

Speaker 1 It's the right time, and I guess they know it because of the armada of human and Vulcan ships that approach that are not weapons hot. Nice little ship parade.
Welcome home for the entrepreneur.

Speaker 1 They have got to be horrified at the condition of enterprise. We don't get the react

Speaker 1 in this moment, but I wonder if we will in the next episode, Ben. Yeah, curious to get there, but

Speaker 1 before we do, I've got to ask, did you like this episode? I can't pay.

Speaker 1 Couldn't for late.

Speaker 1 Got okay.

Speaker 1 Tempting fate. It's fun to get some laughs out of the episode, but I really thought it was thin.

Speaker 1 And I think the reason why you started to articulate at the beginning of the episode was like just how shallow it became when it had to deal with anything having to do with Nazis or race or whatever.

Speaker 1 Like, I would have complained if it proselytized too much in a Star Trek way, so I know I can't have it both ways. But like, have Vosk shoot Hitler.
out of desperation. Like,

Speaker 1 have something crazy happen. It just didn't feel crazy crazy enough to me in a weird way.

Speaker 1 And, like, if you have the benefit of fucking with a timeline and having there be no consequences by the time Enterprise is sent back into their proper future, get messy. Get way more messy than this.

Speaker 1 Way more messy than lasers on Stukas, you know?

Speaker 1 Like, I wanted it to be grosser. I wanted it to be bigger.
I wanted something like more explosive at the end. Yeah.
But

Speaker 1 I guess we got that with the destruction of the Zindi weapon. I guess we're going for a different kind of victory here, a more cerebral victory.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 Like, I think that, you know, like at the beginning of In Glorious Bastards, there's that scene where Christophe Valtz is in the farmhouse, and it's just like one of the most tense scenes.

Speaker 1 And it's because he is a true believer, and he's like articulating what his horrific ideology is, you know?

Speaker 1 Like, if you're going to go ahead and set your show in a past where the Nazis are rampaging around, like you don't need to pull your punches. They're fucking Nazis, you know? Punch the Nazis.

Speaker 1 And I didn't feel like this delivered enough of that, you know.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I just wanted it to be weirder

Speaker 1 than it was.

Speaker 1 And it's too bad because I think it represents... I mean, they clearly had a great big budget for this.
A lot of big sets, a lot of locations. Big effects shots.

Speaker 1 Scrape a little bit off of the plate and onto

Speaker 1 a practical Hitler actor

Speaker 1 or,

Speaker 1 I don't know, a submarine shooting laser weapons. That's fucking cool.
I don't know. I think there are all sorts of ideas that could have worked here.

Speaker 1 I wonder to what extent this represents a return to Star Trek form. Like, a book feels like it has closed here on a...

Speaker 1 very

Speaker 1 long storyline that

Speaker 1 I wonder will bring on, you know, more episodic Star Trek from here until the end. Makes me wonder.
We shall see.

Speaker 1 We shall also see what is in the priority one inbox, Adam. You want to head over there with me? Oh, Ben, you know what's in there?

Speaker 1 Hitler.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 priority one message from Starfleet coming in on secured channel.

Speaker 1 Need a supplemental income. Supplemental income.
Supplemental. Supplemental income.
Yes, extra. But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship.

Speaker 1 Adam, this is a promotional priority one message. Goes like this.
Deep in the Pacific Northwest, some tragedies never stay buried.

Speaker 1 Dark Northwest is an audio drama blending horror and history inspired by chilling mysteries from the region.

Speaker 1 With a full cast, cinematic soundscapes and an original score, this podcast immerses you into the world of the supernatural. Season one story explores a recent tragedy at the Old Cascade Tunnel.

Speaker 1 Don't miss this chilling mix of haunting history, disaster horror, tragedy, and just enough humor to keep you breathing. Wow.

Speaker 1 So you can find Dark Northwest on every major podcast platform at darknw.com or at darknw podcast on social media.

Speaker 1 You kids better stay out of the forest.

Speaker 1 That back there is the old Cascade Tunnel. Cascade Tunnel sounds like a place that Ramba would hide out, right?

Speaker 1 I love the name of this because it feels very in keeping with a vibe that the Northwest has,

Speaker 1 which is like stuff happens out there in the woods.

Speaker 1 And I feel like we know about very little of it. This is an interesting concept to me.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Very exciting. Looks like a lot of talented people worked on this.
So

Speaker 1 go give it a listen. I'm sure if that sounded intriguing, you'll really enjoy it.
Darknw.com or DarkNW Podcast on social media is where you can find out more.

Speaker 1 Ben, we got a second priority one message here. It is from Dan.
It's to you and me. Here's that message.
I started listening nine months ago and have really enjoyed your first six years.

Speaker 1 I especially appreciate your love for the orchestra.

Speaker 1 2025 has been a tough one between my corporate IT job job and parenting, but your humor has helped me through. Also, hearing your pandemic stories is helping me make sense of my own.
Whoa.

Speaker 1 Timpanist by night,

Speaker 1 Oakland. All right.
Thank you, Dan. What a great job in the symphony.
My eye is always drawn to the timpani in any orchestra.

Speaker 1 They're doing the big swings.

Speaker 1 It seems like they're having the most fun. It does.

Speaker 1 It feels like there have got to be like long stretches where you're like, ah, fuck, I wish wish I could be on my phone, like, dicking around on social media or something, though.

Speaker 1 That's an interesting point. Like, you got to remain fully engaged even when you're not doing anything.
It seems like it takes a lot of concentration. Yeah.
Well, thank you for the kind words, Dan.

Speaker 1 Hey, you only have three more years of episodes to listen to. Yeah.
I wonder if Dan has dipped into Greatest Trek yet, because there's plenty more over there. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 If the well starts to run dry, Dan's got something to listen to during the parts he's not playing. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, just one earbud, though, right? Like,

Speaker 1 kind of split your focus there. Yeah.
All right. Well, if you'd like to get a priority one message on the show, you can do it.
Go to maximumfund.org slash jumbotron and book yours today.

Speaker 1 Hey, Ben.

Speaker 1 What's that, Adam? Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Incredible. Drunk Shimoda! Yeah, I got to give it to those White House Nazi guards.
I mean, there were many people on screen that confused me.

Speaker 1 Like, some of Vusk's people are walking around wearing Nazi armbands and some are not. And I was like,

Speaker 1 I wonder what they're, like, are they like, I'm not, I mean, like, I'll participate in the war effort, but I'm not a party member, even though I'm an alien. See, I think that's a chill Hitler policy.

Speaker 1 He's like, look, we're relaxing the rules on the uniforms a little bit. You can opt in or not.

Speaker 1 But the people that perplex and delight me most of all are the guys that are like, yeah, I got a pretty cushed job guarding the field marshal who's been installed as the governor general of North America and is operating out of the White House.

Speaker 1 And occasionally I do, you know, provide body coverage for him when he's having meetings with the extraterrestrials that are giving us the super weapons that we're using to prosecute this war.

Speaker 1 And yes, occasionally they do threaten his life, but I don't say anything about it.

Speaker 1 I mean, maybe they're just sleeper agents, you know? Like maybe they've just gotten themselves installed in a sensitive area and then they're waiting to strike. Maybe they got one earbud in, you know,

Speaker 1 you can't see, but they're actually listening to like old episodes of The Greatest Generation. Like, they're like halfway through the Deep Space Nine episodes right now.
That's how you stay.

Speaker 1 So they're kind of a little bit focused on that. They're going to miss the

Speaker 1 cue, is the problem.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think mine is going to be just the decision to dress Silicon Archer in head-to-toe filson gear giving archer the hat again god damn he looks great in a hat but silic looking like a filson ad for folks that work with toxic waste i thought was so fucking funny to me and in a way that wasn't i don't think intentionally supposed to be funny he looks ridiculous does look very silly Faith of the fart.

Speaker 1 Very silly indeed, Adam. And

Speaker 1 sometimes we do this show in a way that is very silly indeed we play this game at the end of every episode it's called the game of buttholes will of the riker quantum leap and it determines how we will be doing the next episode of the show the next episode of this show is season four episode three home

Speaker 1 once the nx01 finally returns to earth the weary crewmen face repercussions of their journeys both positive and negative Huh. I went home, and

Speaker 1 the bad sister was there waiting for me.

Speaker 1 It fucking sucked.

Speaker 1 I gotta pretend like I like her.

Speaker 1 Adam, our runabout is on square. 78

Speaker 1 could be anywhere once I roll this hundo. You're required to learn as you play.
Roll.

Speaker 1 Rolled an 80, Adam, jumping jumping us just past that Mornhammered square. Wow.
Tula!

Speaker 1 Did I win? Hardly. My goodness, that was close.
What would that have been like now that we're both back to full strength? Kind of? Yeah. How are you feeling these days, bud? Oh, about 90%.

Speaker 1 All right. That's good to hear.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, regular old episode for your boy next week. Yeah, that'll be nice.

Speaker 1 You know what else is nice, Adam? It's the generosity of the friends of DeSoto who go to maximumfund.org slash join and support this program.

Speaker 1 Gotta thank Wendy Pretty, our producer and editor, who polishes this up and puts it out on time and under budget every week. Really appreciate her efforts.

Speaker 1 Appreciate Rob Adler, our social media director and the editor-in-chief of the greatest newsletter.

Speaker 1 Please sign up for the newsletter, greatestreck.com, for links to all of our various things that we got going on. What a great team team we've got.
We really do.

Speaker 1 We got our temporal Cold War time consigliary, Bill Tilley. I guess if the Temporal Cold War is over and the Zindi War is over,

Speaker 1 does he just go back to being like our regular consigliary?

Speaker 1 I hope so.

Speaker 1 I do too.

Speaker 1 He's the card daddy. He's making the trading cards that you can see on the at Greatest Trek social media feeds.

Speaker 1 Worth following just for that, if not for all of the other great things that go up on those.

Speaker 1 Head to podshop.biz, get yourself some merch, support the show. Look great doing it.
We've been adding a bunch of new stuff lately, and I'm really proud of all of it. I think you're going to like it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, some of the new items have Benjamin R. Harrison original artwork

Speaker 1 on them, and I think that is really impressive stuff. It's really great.
Get over there and check it out. Been having a little fun doing some drawing when I have those precious moments of downtime.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, go check it out. Podshop.biz.
Thank you to Adam Ragusia, our

Speaker 1 music director here at Uxbridge Shimoda and also the co-host of the Wholesome program, a show that he does with Adam and me every Wednesday at patreon.com slash wholesome underscore pod.

Speaker 1 A really fun show that I think friends of DeSoto would really enjoy. Give them a listen.

Speaker 1 With that, we will be back at you next time with another great episode of Star Trek Enterprise, an episode of the Greatest Generation Enterprise, where our review is both positive and negative, inevitably, right?

Speaker 1 Like, that's just, I mean, I could say that about any given week.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's just our brand, man.

Speaker 1 Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.