Wine Dad Drunk (ENT S4E8)

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

This is a parody.

Paramount owns the sun.

Welcome to the greatest generation. It's a Star Trek podcast by a couple of guys who are just a little bit embarrassed about having a Star Trek podcast.
I'm Ben Harrison. I'm Adam Pranica.

We were talking right before the mics heated up.

We had plans in common tonight, I think. We were going to go see a movie.

We both got invited by the same friend to a movie. We get out the friend.
This is John Champion of Mission Log fame. That's true.

Friend of me,

some would say.

I realized I had double-booked myself. I almost triple-booked myself.
This was. Whoa.

I almost went for the Ben Harrison hat trick, which is putting three things on the calendar for the same time on the same day.

I mean, why even even have a calendar if

this is the attention you give it?

What would have been the third... Okay, run them down.

Obviously, the John Champion movie night was one of the plans.

What's number two and number three? Number two, which actually made it onto the calendar, is some hangs with some dad friends of mine at Musso and Frank.

Yeah, when the dads get together at Musso and Frank. Oh, yeah.

You know, we're going to be pouring that little sidecar of the rest of our martini into the glass going, oh boy, I don't normally get to do this. You're going to get wine dad drunk.
Yeah.

And then the third one was our friend Jesse Thorne invited me to a museum thing. A friend of his has some work showing in a museum and he invited me to that.
How about that?

You know, I like this for you because

this is not a secret to anyone. Like you've said on many shows across many different programs, like to get a Ben Harrison to do stuff, he needs to be invited to stuff.
And look at you.

Your dance card's full. That's great.
My dance card is full. Like, if things happened on different nights, it would be great because then I could do multiple things.

Never happens, though. Yeah.
Things always happen on the same night. Yeah.

You invited me to Dad Night at Musos, which to me read as like a late 90s comedy where someone gets killed, like a dark comedy, like maybe a Doug Lyman sort of adventure film and the yeah and the spirit of go you know that kind of movie

dad night at musos so uh how many people are going you gonna gang up on a booth or I think what's gonna happen yeah I think our reservation was for eight and there are four that are committed at this point wow which is the way it be

yeah but uh yeah I mean if you're craving a muso and you can't wait till tomorrow,

you should come. You're just going to hear a lot lot of stuff about like diaper changing and what public schools people are thinking about sending their kids to is the thing.

And that is a good enough reason for me to say no, but I actually do have a real reason. And that is, I'm sure this has happened in your part of LA as it happens in mine.

The hot restaurant has opened. Oh.
And it is.

In my case, it's a pizza place and it's takeout only.

And all of the pies go on sale at noon and they sell out in like 90 seconds

and this place has been soft opening for like a month now and I've had this pizza twice and it is so good oh my god is it good

and my wife surprised me by by getting one of these pizza reservations for tonight so we're actually gonna go pick it up at seven and enjoy it thereafter but I think that's gonna be the excuse I use for not going to Daddy Night at Musos.

That's actually probably something else, right? Daddy Night at Musos, different theme night.

I mean, we're going to, it's going to be a bunch of Zaddies at Musos, I'm sure. Do you count yourself among the Zaddy tribe? Is that you?

I'm going gray, but I'm not nearly gray enough. I don't think.

I know

Admiral can tell you a lot about the specific tannery that made the leather in his shoes.

It's pretty good, but shit. Admiral always manages to take his vacations in Thailand for some reason.

Yeah, I remember that guy. I think that guy's going to pop up soon in a new Star Trek show.
I think he's coming back.

Just to wrap up this whole thing, you and I haven't hung out socially in a very long time. That's happening tomorrow.
It is.

We're going out tomorrow night to Mussos with celebrity hit producer Wendy Pretty. Amazing.
She's hanging out with us tomorrow. Yeah.
IRL. So you're going to do Muso twice in two nights.
How dare you?

You invited our vegetarian producer to a steakhouse, Adam. I've done it before.
We've had great steakhouse hangs in Las Vegas, actually. So

I knew it was good. Well,

we've got quite the episode of Star Trek Enterprise to talk about today. A Roxanne Dawson-helmed ep.
Yeah. I think we should get into it.
I think it's high time, Adam.

It is, man.

It's time to recap Enterprise Season 4, Episode 8. It's called Awakening.

And where we last left things, sexual icon Admiral Forrest is dead. Somebody bombed the embassy on Vulcan, and that's how he died.
The DNA found on the bomb was a fake.

And it turns out it was an inside job.

But Tepal and Archer are down on a desert adventure looking for a specific Sirenite that they fingered as being the bomber, who is not the bomber. No.

They fingered him, and then he wound up fingering Archer

right back. And then they were all brought before a bunch of Siranites.
They found the whole collection. They caught them all.
Yeah.

But we land in the Vulcan capital city where Saval is getting hauled in front of the high command

and called out on the carpet, asked to explain his actions. You've concealed the fact that you're a melder all these years.
How can you stand there and look at us?

You should be so ashamed of yourself. He's a dirty, dirty meld boy.
He is. And what's worse is that he did it on an about-to-die guy.
That does make it dirtier, right?

Yeah, about-to-die die guys tend to have burger on their face and he was human also right that's pretty fucked up and also i think this goes unsaid throughout the episode not very bright not very good at his job not really paying attention to folks going through the security right sure like it you are the first and last line of defense for the embassy and yeah you know like how how bad are we gonna feel that a bomb went off when it was you doing the bomb screening?

I'm not asking him to tell people to take off their shoes and, like, laptops out of bags or whatever.

I think he was well within his professional right to say, hey, could you drop the hood a little bit so I can see your face? Yeah. That's okay, right? Cloaks go through the scanner, sir.

You know, you got to fold that up and put it in the bin. Yeah.
And for our UK listeners, I don't mean the bin where you're throwing it away. Oh, God.

You're talking about butts again.

There's explosive news in this meeting. Also, Ben.

Yeah, it turns out Stell, the inside man,

has been proven to be a Sirinite, according to Velas, using evidence that we never get to see. His hair, to me, looked soft, glossy, and manageable.
I was completely blindsided by this.

He uses conditioner in a way that Saronites almost never do. Yeah.

Incredible. Oh,

last bit of business here. Saval is fired.
You're fired, Saval. Yeah, we're going to need your shield and your peace.
You're going on administrative leave. Yeah.

Pretty great. I love Vulcans who are fighting with each other, who don't really say the mean thing.
They just say the neutral thing in kind of a mean way.

There's a bunch of that dialogue in this scene. Is there anything else you'd like to say?

There's a great deal that needs to be said, Excellency,

but no one's willing to listen.

After the theme, we're deep in the Syrianite caves where Archer and TePal have been taken, and they meet T-Pow,

which is the Jersey Shore version of her name. I'm going to give her for the rest of the episode.

T-Pow says that she wasn't the bomber because her alibi is, and then she gestures broadly, the desert, where I have been for two years.

yeah is is t pow's tan a little dark for having been naturally done in the desert you think she you think she goes and gets a little spray tan t pow are you suggesting what happened to her is similar to what happened to me when i played agamnon in the school play when i was in middle school i didn't want to bring it up then

that is kind of a scandal hey if the president can do it i can do it

mrs t is here and T-Pow is pissed at her because she led Archer and Tepal to them with the idiot. She did.
That was

not a good choice by her, according to TePow.

And

there's some question about how did you even survive in the desert? And they're like, oh, you know, we met this dude, Erev. He was really cool.
And this is when... The big reveal happens.

Erev was Sirin.

Amazing, right?

Did you drop your mug on the ground after hearing this? Yeah, in slow motion. Yeah, I sure did.
Yeah, it was an alias. Arev is an alias for Sirin.
How about that?

It said Kobayashi ceramics on the bottom. Yeah.

In a cell block later, Archer has caught some post-melled feelings about his situation, and when he describes these to TePaul, It's clear he's not the only one inside his own birdie. Yeah.

He reached reached out and touched Archer and left something behind. Yeah.
And Archer is not himself.

No.

Elsewhere in the cave compound, Mrs. T wants her daughter released from her cell.
That's a natural inclination, right?

Sure.

We get this. You get the sense that there's only one cell in the compound,

given they're being kept together. Is it a facility? I think it's a felicity.

Yeah, like co-ed cell feels like a very Vulcan idea.

Yeah.

Yeah. Nothing happens when they're in it.
You were pointing out there's like a little tiny jail in a baseball stadium for, you know, the occasional dad who has one too many Michelobes.

And I think that that's probably the situation with the Vulcan Felicity. Yeah.
Things don't pop off in a way where we need to lock somebody up that often.

So we just have the one cell with the dirt floor. Mrs.

T has a good point as the mother of an incarcerated daughter, but T-Pal feels like Archer's relationship and also Tepal's relationship with Starfleet makes them kind of a liability.

So shouldn't we keep them locked up? That's her position. Trust is earned.

And what with the Starfleet of it all and Starfleet specifically being aligned with the high command, that's not something we're willing to extend. Like the stakes couldn't be higher.
Sirin is dead.

That means everything that they've worked for is lost because of some reason that Tapow and TLS know, but aren't saying out loud in this conversation.

On Enterprise in the Clarinet Rental Closet, Trip Tucker takes great umbrage with Safal being kicked out of the Vulcan high command. Isn't it amazing how things have changed for Safal's rep?

I would not have expected Trip Tucker to give a shit about this. I know.
Maybe even a couple episodes ago. Trip empathizing with Safal's position on anything.
Yeah. Absolutely shocking.

And Safal's like, hey, man, my career being in the shitter,

not as important as some other stuff that is going on. Like, the Sirenites in the Forge are in grave danger.

Valasse is going to try to wipe them off the map because they are politically inconvenient for him. Yeah.

I mean, this is bad news for that reason, and also that Tepal and Archer are still in there somewhere, and they're out of touch. Can't be reached.

Don't even know all of the things that have come to light since they went down there. No.
No.

In those caves, Tupal is brought to talk with her mother, who explains that in retirement, she got really into the cult thing in her spare time.

And it's clear the two things are hitting TePaul pretty hard in this moment. One, her mom being a secret Syrianite.
But two... I think a lot of of people have dealt with this, right?

Like where your parents stop having a career to devote their mind to, and they just kind of wind up going down crazy internet rabbit holes and starting to unquestioningly repeat information of dubious origin.

Yeah, Mrs. T radicalized.
She did. Clearly.
I've been growing disillusioned with Vulcan society for some time. I mean, it didn't help that she was fired because her daughter did something.

Like she was being punished for the act of somebody else. I know.
But yeah, she's become full Seronite.

The thing that has to bug TePaul even more than the first thing is that she did not have to get married to save her mom's career because that was never going to happen anyway.

And oh, that's got a sting.

Oh man, that sucks. She just thinks back on all the stuff that they did on their honeymoon and she's like,

yeah.

It's going to take like two finger baths to

make herself feel clean again. Am I right? Yeah.
Yeah. If we change the words,

then it's fair use all day long.

Why didn't you tell me, mom, is the question TePaula has.

I mean, T-Less doesn't seem to anticipate. like how much of a betrayal of her daughter this has been because she's like i just wanted to keep you out of it it's like bitch I'm in it.

That is such mom logic, though. And by that, I just mean the generalized parent idea of like, by not telling my kids anything, that's going to keep them happy and safe from all my bullshit.

Yeah, right. When all it does is make things worse.
Because guess who cleans up? The kids. The kids.
Inevitably. Well, Archer's back in the cell, and he finds himself in some kind of vision.

He's on this like this deck looking out at the horizon of Vulcan where explosions are going off. This seems to be some kind of a memory of the war because we meet Surok.

And this is like Surok's memory that Archer is experiencing because Katra in hid.

I love how skeptical. Archer is in this moment, even though he's the one having the vision.
He's like, this is bullshit. I don't know you.

And Surok's like, hey, man, you're the one that's fucking hallucinating. I know.
Like, that's the line of dialogue I was expecting from Surok. Here he's like, you think I want to be here?

I'm being passed around like I'm in some sort of mind papoose, you know?

Like, not since Moriarty on TNG has a Star Trek character had less control over the destiny of the container they're in. I know.
Like,

in Surok's defense, he's really handling this very well. Yeah.
Vulcans have strayed. The high command is not acting in the

like he's a founding father and he's rolling over in his grave. Like the things that he was trying to set this government up to be for and to do have fallen out of favor.
And

he wants Archer to like lead the Vulcans back to the true path, essentially. Don't fight what's been given to you.

Open your mind and your heart, and the way will become clear.

Captain, Archer wakes from his vision because TePal is shaking him. Do you think when you have a vision, it's sort of like having a seizure? Like, you gotta roll Archer over a little bit.

Like, make sure he didn't bite his tongue. Like, there's probably procedures, as a Vulcan, you need to do when someone's having one of these, right? Yeah, yeah.

I've been watching Six Feet Under a little bit lately, and like, every episode there's like a moment where one of the characters like imagines the dead person from the episode, like wandering through the scene and talking to them.

And it's never quite clear how much time has elapsed during one of these hallucinations or delusions or whatever it is. And that's kind of what I'm wondering here.

You want to believe the time is different inside the vision and that you're not just in real life staring off into space for

like just standing there.

Who are you talking to? Tatatonically.

Topal has heard all of Captain Archer's side of this conversation, like he's talking in his sleep.

In the Vulcan high command conference room, Vloss lays out the plan. Guys, I have always wanted to drop one of these.
And now we finally get the chance to drop a photonic bomb. Oh, man.

Oh, these things blow big. The use of atonic weapons has been authorized.
Let's glass these people out of the desert. And then what we'll do is we'll mop up the stragglers fairly easily after that.

Because this opportunity, the idea of all the Syrianites being together in one felicity,

that doesn't happen all the time. It's perfect.
And like... There are some underlings here that are expressing various degrees of horror at the idea of we're going to

use military power to eliminate a politically inconvenient inconvenient group. But, you know, Vlas leads with an iron fist.
Like he's not taking no for an answer.

Like he is going to bomb the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Fucking hey. Don't you want to see what one of these photonic weapons does?

I sure do. Yeah.
Let's get it on. Anyway, we cut over to the Syrinite caves.

I think for maximum effect, like you get Vlas talking about glassing this area, and then we cut right over to the area to be glassed, where Archer tells Mrs. T and T-Pow that he's got Sirok in him.

And T'Pow's solution to this problem is to meld Archer to be sure. There's still a little bit of squishiness to this story in her mind.
No.

So she latches onto Dark Archer's stubbly face. And once she starts crawling around in those brains, it's clear he's got the Catra in there.
He's got the Catra.

We cut back to Enterprise, where Saval proposes

hacking a security satellite so that they can like slip a ship uh into

the the airspace of the forge and see if they can get a rescue operation going for the captain and to paul we learn that travis is rigging up a manual flight system for a shuttle because i guess like the drive-by wire stuff that they normally use won't work we gotta plug in a thrust master here with that you remember that weird cable that computers had like 20 years ago?

The roundy? Uh-huh. Yeah.
The roundy with the little pins in it. Yeah.
What was that called? That's what he's got to do. Is that a PCI cable? Something like that? I think that was more rectangular.

Yeah. Yeah.
There was like those ones that were rectangular and there were two screws to like firmly attach it. This is not going to be a popular opinion to have.
Bring the screws back, man.

I love the screws. Really? Guess what's not popping out? your cable with screws that thing's in there for good

things flopping all over the place now and my crew when fools are set tripping we're also not popping out. Yeah,

yeah

trip is like hey Saval,

I used to hate you

And I still might unless you can answer this question for me Why would you want to help earth people?

And Saval's answer is actually uh lived there for a while, caught some feelings during my time there. Yeah.

Strange. You never really seemed to express it that way.

It is what it is. Yeah.

We flash back to 30 years of Saval living on Earth and all the things he enjoyed. And it's just like him sitting on a balcony reading a book.

I don't know why, but I'm picturing him like really getting into like drive-through fast food. Yeah.

But his orders are like the blandest, weirdest things. Like black coffee and not the hamburger, but like the grilled cheese that you can sometimes get at the fast food restaurant.

Like no meat, no toppings, bun and cheese and a coffee. It is so logical not to have to exit your motor vehicle

in the acquisition of a meal. I mean, it's canon.
Vulcans don't like taco salads. That's true.
Hate that shit. shit.

Tapal tells Archer about these cotric arcs that were discovered in the basement there at Pejem.

And these were these like matrices that were discovered from like hundreds and hundreds of years ago that were reputedly full of the catras of Vulcans who had died.

But there was all these scientists that did research on them and scanned them in a bunch of different ways.

And one of them, sick fucking freak, even melded a cotrick arc and there was no evidence that they worked it was just uh it was just a bunch of hooey

melding a cottrick arc is like using a sex doll right oh it's a flashlight right yeah yeah

what the thing about the cottrick arcs is is that's dishwasher safe sure yeah

Because like any bigger than that, it's like going to be hard to get in there. If y'all, you know, like one wine glass is in there with the full butt and legs.
That thing's gonna break.

I remember that episode and the cottric arcs looked very

semi-translucent, like they looked like colored glass or whatever. Was I not putting together that that was actually foam rubber, all of them?

At the beginning of last week's episode, when the guy was brushing the dust off of the one, if he had rotated it, would there have been an opening at the bottom?

If bangers had dropped during, would it have like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

as he held it.

The upshot of this is she's like, Sorok is not inside you. Like, fucking calm down, Captain Archer.
Like, being the savior of Earth has totally gone to your head.

You're not also going to be the savior of Vulcan logic. Get over yourself.
It does not stop Archer's position being: get whatever this is that's in me out, then,

guys.

Yeah.

Like, head full. Yeah.
Pull it out. Yeah.

Legally, it's just a virtual.

All right. We're over 70 episodes into our show.
Let's learn everything. So let's do a quick progress check.
Have we learned about quantum physics? Yes. Episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we? Yes, we have. Same episode, actually.
Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters? Episode 64.

So, how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news. We still haven't learned everything yet.
Oh, we're ruined!

No, no, no, it's good news as well. There is still a lot to learn.
Woo! I'm Dr. Ella Hubber.
I'm regular Tom Law.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode. Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Hey, gang, gang, wanted to let you know about a special project we shared up on our YouTube channel at Greatest Trek. Ben and I made a Captain's Yule Lag video and you've seen these before.

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Have us join you for your holiday present opening. Put us on during a holiday party.
Loop the video on a bedroom TV during your yearly holiday lovemaking.

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Boop, boop.

You will never take the greatest chin alive.

Ben would rather die. Rather

On Enterprise, Trip Tucker's in command, remember? And he takes a FaceTime call from Vloss. With the investigation on the bombing being almost done, Enterprise, you're excused.

You can go home now. I invite you to fuck off.

Trip's like, thanks and all, but like humans died here, right? We want to be at least nominally involved, right?

Vlas has gone over his head to a certain Admiral Gardner, who I don't think we've met before, have we? No, have we? And he says, and Admiral Gardner will soon be inviting you to a fuck off.

Yeah.

Ouch.

Trip's doing his best, but when Vlas goes over your head like that, who knows what's going to happen next.

So Trip has a tricky decision to make, and we cut down to the caves where Tapow steps to Archer and she's like, I've been reading a lot of books about this, looking into the procedure.

I think I can get that catra out, and I want your consent to do it. And Tales is like, yo, he has that fragile ass human nervous system inside him.
There's no way that he survives this.

T-Pao is like, but if I hit it from the back,

it might work this time.

This is going to be pretty life-threatening for Archer. Like, that's one of the big takeaways here.
He's like, this has never been done before.

It could kill him, but you can't just leave him like this. And also, Tales is writing for like

Sirin chose him. Right.
There is some reason for the Catra having gone into Archer that maybe we shouldn't be so hasty to take it out. Yeah.

There's a fun script flourish in the next scene in the cell that I feel like doesn't really happen in real life much unless you're a jerk, which is Archer commenting on TePaul's looks in order to like draw her out into an emotional conversation.

God, TePaul,

woof. What happened? I don't feel half as bad as you look.
Started to look fucking Surinite. Yeah.

Yeah.

There's some concern there about her mom's relationship to this cult. Before they're able to get down the road too far, the door opens, and Archer's told he's going to get that catcher yanked out.

They're not taking no for an answer either. So if you were concerned about the life-threatening nature of this procedure, just know it's happening.

Tebal is on Team Tales about this being no good and way too risky, but it is going to proceed apace. TePal is like, I like him like this.

Kind of squirrely. He's like logicking a little bit more than normal in a way that's pretty fun.
Yeah.

On Enterprise Trip tells Reed and Saval about being ordered to leave orbit, and they make their way to the shuttle pod bay and feast their eyes on this project that Mayweather's been working on, welding shit together.

What to you

looked different in your mind? I couldn't really figure it out.

There seemed to be so much activity in the previous scene. I wanted something Mad Max looking.
Like, with that amount of welding and sparks flying, I was expecting something Fury Road.

Or like big wings that like fold up so that they can get out of the hatch and then unfold so that they can, you know, maneuver

aerodynamically inside the atmosphere or something.

Wings are extended when this thing departs the ship. Is that the big reveal? I think that they normally do that.
They're like guppy wings. They're like little

flippers. Yeah.
Tell you where you're going to need that, that aquatic Zendi planet. I was also disappointed with the joystick that they added inside.

Like, it's clearly just on a hi-hat just under the panel. Like, it's not, they didn't like mount it to the existing set at all.
It sucks.

Real Thrustmaster is going to have that part that you can adjust your trim tabs with.

Is that the like Devo hat looking?

Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. Maybe your missiles and guns on the right side.
Uh-huh. Got a big red button on the left side.
Yeah. You know, all sorts of things.
You don't get any of that here.

That's a fun one to push. Yeah.
So they're going to do this mission anyway. And at the high command, Velas is trying to threaten them again.

And it becomes clear that like what Velas wants the entrepreneur to leave for is that he doesn't want any witnesses to what he's about to do to his own people.

Yeah.

That's the moment this whole plan feels pretty sour, right?

Yeah. His little buddies start to ask more questions like,

why not?

What are we doing that's so bad we don't want witnesses? Back in the caves, T-Pow does the thing to Archer, melding from the back. Archer has visions of of Surok again.

Only this time, the Surok he sees is in pretty poor health from the radiation poisoning he's been hit with. And Surok is convinced that staying inside Archer is the way.

Because an outsider isn't burdened with all this cultural history, this baggage that a Vulcan would have, carrying extra baggage, and by that I mean Surok in their brains. It's just too much.

Archer's free a little bit to carry, and that's advantageous. Yeah, like

it sort of reminds me of the logic of Picard being worse Chadich. Like, he's outside of the honor system that the rest of the Klingons are involved with.
Like that comparison, yeah.

So as this conversation happens, Tapow

takes her hands back off of Archer's forehead and... tells the Vulcans assembled there that she has failed and that Surok chose to remain where he is.
And Archer kind of keels over.

This has really affected him badly. Surok at the end of the vision, though, says one really important thing.

Find the Kashara. Whatever the hell that is.
Yeah.

Not staying put is the modified shuttle pod launched from Enterprise and it's heading for the surface of Vulcan through the hole in the surveillance net that they pre-arranged in an earlier scene.

Mayweather's at the controls and Reed rides shotgun and there's a random Mako in the back. And almost immediately, they're under attack by the Vulcan patrol ships.

They are just dropping hella bangers on them.

And Mayweather does that move from Top Gun that Maverick does, where he hits the speed brake, and then the Vulcan ships fly right by, and then he attacks them from behind.

Problem is, there's just too many of them. They got to scrub this mission and turn the shuttle back around.
Head back to Enterprise.

This whole seas storyline felt like it was over as fast as it started.

It didn't go anywhere. Yeah.
I mean, we get to see Reed aim manually and actually hit some stuff, which was nice, you know, like a couple of points in Reed's column for this little moment.

But ultimately, this is a big fucking waste of time. Yeah.
Sympathy scene for Reed is what this is, according to you. Yeah.

So Hoshi reports that the shuttle is headed back to Enterprise, and now three Vulcan ships are converging on them in orbit. If you thought Vloss was pissed before in inviting Enterprise to fuck off,

yeah

he's a little bit more ripshit in this exact moment. He's really showing his emotions.
Yeah.

When asked why,

Todd, are you launching shuttles? I don't know, Margo. Trip says he's looking for Archer and a huge reveal.

If Vlos isn't already completely pissed, imagine how he's feeling when he sees Saval walk into frame. I love that Saval knows where the frame lines are on the view screen and

steps into it and he's like, yeah, that was me.

I helped him disable the security satellite and get them down there. He hits his mark perfectly.
Really well done. The thing is, Enterprise is outnumbered.
Vlas has command of all of these.

patrol ships. We're going to blow you out of the stars if you don't fuck off, guys.

Pretty intense. Vulcan and Earth on the brink of war with each other.
Down in the cell, Tepal is trying to tend to a feverish archer who has been unconscious for the last three hours post-meld.

And he wakes up with just like, I mean, he was complaining about hangover symptoms before. This has got to be so much worse.
This is like a with nail and I hangover.

A pair of quadruple whiskeys and another pair of pants, please. Mrs.
T shows up while Tepal is tending tending to him. And Tepal is pretty unforgiving of her mom in this moment.

Wishes she never came out there at all.

As much as Vlas invites Enterprise to fuck off, so too does Tepal tell her mom she doesn't want a relationship with her from this point forward. It's ugly between them and

Archer is like kind of coming to and he looks down this tunnel and he's like, I got to go down there. That's where the Kushara is.

And they're like, What the fuck are you talking about, man? Like, we got to get out of here. There's a lot of talk of evacuating because of the impending vaporization of this Felicity.

I got to tell you, I was a little bumped in this moment, not really sure where we were in the location of this place. Yeah.

I thought when Archer wakes up and he notices this cave door or whatever, this cave entrance. I thought this was in their prison cell.

And for some reason, no one noticed that there was an exit from the cell.

It's like Dungeons and Dragons logic. Like we look behind the tapestry, like, holy shit, there's a really big tunnel here.
Yeah, no one ever goes back there. We haven't really been concerned about it.

We find out that Tapau has been down here looking for the Kishara for two years and she just never looked down that way. Why would she look in the cell?

Why would a cell be built like this? They don't have time to look in this cave entrance, really, because Vulcan patrols have found them, and they've got to evacuate pretty fast. Yeah.

Speaking of evacuating, the Entrepreneur might have to do the same thing because they're getting warning shots from the Vulcan ships.

And we get another conversation with Vloss, who says, like, time to go, guys. And Zavala is like, yeah, he's out for blood.

Like, he is not exaggerating the amount of violence he's willing to inflict here.

And

Trip kind of, you know, is trying to buy buy them time. And Velasque goes ahead and gives the order, and we get

the rare example of Earth versus Vulcan ship-to-ship combat. Pretty great sequence here.
I mean, as awful as it is for what it means between the two, pretty dynamic space battle happening here.

Yeah, I liked it. In orbit of Vulcan.
Good stuff. I like that there were some new kinds of Vulcan ships, but also one of them was at that old familiar hula hoop design.
Yeah.

They know about the space combat down at the Felicity. They must have like really good telescopes or something because I thought technology didn't work here.

You remember at the end of Star Trek first contact like the people on the ground could see the Enterprise go to warp? Oh yeah. I wish we saw more perspectives like that.
Like a shot up

space, like to the sky, to the black sky, and seeing like little colorful pops to signify the space battle. I would like that very much.

Yeah, like that one scene in Return of the Jedi where you're like looking out of the window in the Death Star at the space battle. It's happening like

hella far away. And so all it is is little extra sparkles.
I'm going to take your word for it. I haven't seen it.

It's a fun movie. There's these little fuzzy teddy bear guys.

So, yeah, things are going bad for the entrepreneur, far worse than is generally known. It seems like the Syrianites, though, are going to split up.

Like, some of them are going to evacuate out into the desert, but like Archer, Tapal, and Tapal are going to go further into the caves to find this Kashara.

Yeah, they're going to do a little spelunking.

So Val tells Trip, like, Velas is going fucking buck wild on us, and we are all going to die, and that is not going to do anything to save the people down there.

I really think we ought to retreat. And Tripp finally agrees.
So he gives the order.

I mean, it sure seems like in any functional government, you don't just want a crazy person with his finger on the button. You want like a gallery of folks there to stop this person

from

doing something unhinged in this way. Right.
But Vlos has

no interference. He gives the order to bombard the compound.
Bombardment.

And when we're dungeon crawling with the spelunking team, we get like slight bangers, but it's that like deep, bassy, far away explosion sound, not the close-up.

Soft bangers, you know, like for vibes.

Speaking of vibes, we've got a old-timey torch, like with a flame on the end of a stick, and we've got mummies and spider webs everywhere. This is great.
Love this. Archer, like, recognizes someone.

He's like, hey, this guy owes me $5.

Have you ever used a torch in the classic way, like stick and rag dipped in solvent style? I cannot imagine...

doing it. It seems like it would be so hot and so uncomfortable.
It's kind of all I ever want to do. I know.
Like after thinking about it, like very few people get the opportunity to go full torch.

We got to find you a cave, buddy. I know.

Maybe caves are my new thing. Or maybe a ruin? Hmm.
Yeah.

Maybe.

Yeah, these mummies seem to be familiar to Archer. This is a fun little trick, right? He passes by one.
He's like, I know that guy. Yeah.
That guy's an asshole.

He finds like a big door and he knows some fancy little hand gestures to get it open. That's coming, right?

Like in the way that we've got keypads on doors and deadbolts right now, I feel like eventually it's just going to be door. It's just like and you're just going to touch door frame to do the code.

Did you ever see the movie Undercover Brother where the way to get in the like command center is an arm comes out and you have to do like a 10-step handshake with it?

Is that what you're suggesting, Adam?

Can I tell you one of my proudest moments was,

you know,

Pete Pranica, celebrity play-by-play announcer of the Memphis Grizzlies basketball team. Like, he's a guy.

He's a main guy in NBA circles. I met an unnamed NBA player with him one time, and I don't know where it came from.
It was like Will Farrell doing the debate scene in that one movie.

Like, I blacked out and I did like a four-step handshake with this guy and nailed it. Wow.
Fucking nailed it. Were you like reaching like up above your head to do it too?

Like, I feel like shaking hands with a baller has got to be extra hard just because of. This is a point guard.
Okay. So, so not too bad.
Not a freak of nature.

But yeah, I could totally get your point. It's like if you've got to go up like this, the moves are different.
Yeah. Yeah.

So they find this pyramid thing. This is the artifact that Surok told Archer to find, the Kashara.

And now the bangers are getting closer and dust is starting to come down from the ceilings. And it will probably be boulder soon.
So they got to run.

And we see the like green.

Are these the photonic weapons, these things falling on the surface? They don't seem that bad. That's exactly my point, Ben.

It's like, if you have to ask whether or not these are photonic weapons, I don't think they are. I think someone got to Vlos here.
Because I was expecting something that blew big. Real big.

They do not. No.

But they do reveal the Felicity exploded and destroyed.

And

our spelunking team come out of some tunnel and see the destruction from a distance. RSVP the sanctuary.

Yeah, this doesn't seem like a great move for them to make for the surface. Except if what you're trying to do is get a great view of the destruction,

which is what they got here.

I was thinking about the scene

in Space Balls right at the moment when Velas said, comb the desert.

I couldn't believe it, because they got to catch all the stragglers and eliminate the last of the Syrianites. Yeah, I mean, unclear whether or not they will find shit.

Or whether Tuvac will be there. Yeah.
We ain't found shit. Tepala has a little injury, but they're going to keep moving.

They like come to a part of the destroyed Felicity where they find a bunch of deads and a T-less clinging to life. This is basically...

We've talked about this before, right? This is bedside.

TePal is basically at... Mrs.
T's bedside, except it's the ground. Right.
But like that is the composition. That's the way she's sitting.

And only at the bedside are you able to arrive at a forgiveness and understanding with a dying parent. It's true.
This is T. Les saying to Paul.

I did all of the stuff, including joining the cult for you.

And I've always noticed how you struggle with your silly little emotions. And I can tell you still struggle with it.
But what's coming is going to really straighten everything out for you.

Very mysterious. She doesn't say what.
Mrs. T is like, I regret the pelvic tattoo that I got of Sirin's name.

And also, very glad the many volleyball courts were destroyed

in the orbital bombardment.

I hated volleyball, is my point. Yeah, yeah.

Anyways, RSVP T less.

Yeah.

Maybe TePaul can get divorced now.

There's an upside. Yeah.

So chin up, TePaul. Yeah, weird moment in this scene where like Mrs.
T croaks and Archer puts a hand on TePaul's shoulder like, hey, maybe this means you can get a divorce.

Do you want me to do some research and find a family attorney for you?

Finally on Enterprise, they're retreating from Vulcan still, and Saval and Trip Tucker are post-gaming what happened in the ready room.

And Trip cannot understand why the High Council has it out so bad for these Sirenites. It doesn't make any sense.
Sirinites are so... They're like pacifists, right? Who does that threaten?

Yeah, exactly. The reason is that Vulcan plans to attack Andoria, and they don't want any of these pesky pacifists muddying their agenda.
Whoa.

They want to attack Andoria first because they think Andoria is developing a super weapon of the kind that the Zindi did. Holy shit.

And with that revelation, Trip orders them to head straight to Andoria.

And it's a to-be-continued.

I'm just hoping Shran is keeping a bottle of whoop-ass

in his ice desk

when they arrive.

That's the way to do it, right? Because then, you know, you don't have to cool it down when you pour it. You can just pour it and eat.

Do you think they make desks with insulated drawers for that reason?

I got a buddy who has a car with a little fridge in the center console, like a little four-can refrigerator. Like a 70s van?

No, it's like a modern SUV. And he was like, he was giving me a ride somewhere.
And he was like, hey, check this out. And he flips open the center console and there's four ice-cold Dr.

Peppers in there.

If I were to bet whether or not Bill Tilley had that exact

thing in his car, I would say a thousand percent.

Take all my money. That's my bet.

You just Adam pushing his net worth into the middle of the table. Yeah, that's my bet.
Did you like this episode, Ben? I can't pay. Couldn't for late.
Got no case. Tempting fate.

I did like this episode.

Interesting Vulcan politics.

Interesting to like see the high command through the eyes of Vulcans who don't approve of them because we've only seen it through the eyes of humans who don't approve of them. And

the presumption is that the Vulcans are much more advanced than us. They probably have really good reasons for doing the things that they do, even if we

feel like they're holding us back or doing things that we don't like. And it's nice to see that other Vulcans are like, no, those guys are assholes and they are

power mad and they're doing shit for their own reasons that actually suck yeah how validating has this got to be for archer holy shit

i mean if he survives the day might be actionable but yeah it's very much in doubt at this point i like the episode too a lot of intrigue a lot of uh infighting

with a group of folks you wouldn't expect I was really surprised that Stell is not in this episode, like, as the guilty bomber. I know.

I kept on waiting for the scene where, like, they sneak Stell out of prison. Like, he's actually a guy.
He's the guy behind the guy. He's like running, he's running Vloss in his weird way.

Oh, he's part of the deep stealth. Yeah, yeah.
But no, who knows if we'll see him again? I was looking all over for him, thinking he'd still be involved.

But maybe that's part of the style of this episode is like getting me to look one way intentionally because all of the intrigue is somewhere else. I don't know.
I liked it. I liked it a lot.

I like an outdoor playset like this. I like playing in caves.
They really got their money's worth. I love a torch.
The torch has got to be a little bit scary, right?

Because that's all styrofoam rock that they're building

the tunnels out of. Got to be careful of the fumes.

Well, do you want to see if there's anything smelly in the Priority One inbox? I've lit my torch to look in the caves. See what's written on the walls there.

Priority one message from Starfleet coming in on secured channel.

Supplemental. Supplement.
Yeah, it's extra. But the interest alone could be enough to buy this ship.

I admit it's a promotional message here. It goes like this.
Did you buy a website at popular hosting company, but there's still a huh?

Where your logo should be?

Or maybe your old logo could use a little freshening up. Do you need a poster, book cover, beer label, corporate newsletter, infographic, or bespoke cat stamp?

Let me help you share your vision with the world. I'm a graphic designer and an actual living human who listens and responds to your needs.

And I've been creating durable, thoughtful design since Archer was in the captain's chair. This is another message from sciencemilk.design who have bought P1s in the past.
So a returned customer.

I love to see that. Just taking another cruise around ScienceMilk.design will reveal all of their work, which is great, which makes me want to work with them on a future project because...

Yeah, we got to do it. This is all like, I'm seeing book covers.
I'm seeing programs for theatrical events. I'm seeing merch for t-shirts, labels on beer bottles, the whole thing.

And it's not just one style either. Yeah.
I mean, a good designer can work in lots of different styles.

So the call to action here is visit sciencemilk.design to take a look at my portfolio or follow science milk on Instagram. Man, we got a couple of personal priority one messages here.
Okay.

Here's how the first one goes. It's from Brian in Oakland.
It's to you and me. Message says, hoping to bypass the filter.

Oh, this is in reference to my across-the-board filter on all social media that goes something like, you didn't notice Blank.

Look at Brian and Oakland coming through that.

But I wanted to call out a notable character who seemingly vanished like the hoosnock.

Where did Crewman Cutler go?

I hope it wasn't Kevin. Mr.
Quirkiness, an endearing relationship with Dr. Flox at movie nights.
I then learned that the actress Kelly Waymire passed away unexpectedly in in season three. Oh, no.

RSVP.

Wow.

Well, I bet you feel bad about that now, Brian. Trying to come in and ask us why didn't we notice the absence of a really fun character.
God damn, that sucks. Yeah.
She was really fun.

I agree with you, Brian.

Yeah. Sad that she passed so young, but thank you for sharing that horrible news with all of us.

You know, a good reminder of something that Brian learned that I think we all could use a little bit more of is that like these

characters and the actors who play them,

they're more than just the characters they play. They're real people

who go through things and sometimes die.

So why don't you lighten up a little bit?

It's something we could all stand to remember. Yeah.

We got another one here. This is from Your Frog Prince.
It's to you and me. We hung out with Your Frog Prince in Vegas not too long ago.
Sure did. Goes like this: signature director shots.

Tarantino, beat, Lee, the double dolly. Anderson, symmetry.
Bay, the hero stand-up spinny spin. All classic and instantly recognizable.

My question is: did either of my fave podcasters develop signature shots during their film/slash video careers? Inquiring viewers want to know. Love you guys.
Ben Meltdown Drop.

Ben.

Ben.

I mean, it's appropriate because I don't think that I was ever

enough of an artist to have a signature shot.

I think it's hilarious the examples that your frog print cited because like so much of my work was corporate. Yeah.
You had more creative opportunities than I did.

i had more constraints given the area that i was in but i tried to do shit like the michael bay hero shot when i was like shooting mechanics in a factory like i was i was inspired by all of these things like a few opportunities to shoot feet i guess not a lot of that maybe not any double dollies no i think i did a double dolly before yeah

i did i really love all of these signatures and i think it was fun to just try to shoehorn them into very straight and square and corporate areas. I'm sure you felt this way, Ben.

Like sometimes you just do stuff for you on those jobs.

Like the client isn't going to notice it or appreciate it, but like to keep things fresh for you, you just got to like put a little art into your corporate.

Yeah, like the best clients I ever had were very hands-off. They like trusted me to make a thing that was good, even if it wasn't like their area.

And so like, yeah,

I would get weird with it and like come up with ideas that were very silly. But I don't think I ever repeated something enough that I was like, that's my little calling card in there, you know?

Yeah, I wish.

I both wish I did and I'm glad that I didn't. Like, I never want to be like a dance monkey dance kind of.

Creator of any kind. No.
You know?

One of my favorite ones of those is Frank Oz always has a shot of milk bottles by the door of something in his movies in Labyrinth. It's like by the

Goblin Castle. There's milk bottles at the door.

Well, maximumfun.org slash jumbotron is where you go to fill out prior to win message forms. Look, it's not like a...
a shitty form that you fill out ahead of a doctor's appointment.

It's just telling us what you want to say to us or a friend or a family member or getting the word out about a business you're doing. Write a couple of words.
We'll do the rest.

And it goes a long way in supporting the production of our shows. So thanks.
It really does.

Hey, Adam. What?

Did you find yourself a drunk Shimoda? Incredible. Drunk Shimoda.
I kind of wanted to make it Stell. Stell's not even in this.
Has that ever happened before?

Yeah, probably.

We've done like dozens of these episodes at this point. I mean, I'm going to make it Vloss.
That guy, out of control.

mad with bombing power. Yeah.

Really throwing his weight around. Where does it end? I don't know.

Ironically, the opinion polls come back week after week, and he's getting less and less popular, but somehow the institutions are even more chicken shit than we thought they could ever possibly be.

Amazing. They don't stand up to it.
Nope. Yeah.
What did you expect?

Now, Vlas, for me. How about you? I think I'm going to give it to Sorak.

I don't know what I was expecting for the father of Vulcan logic, like the most important philosopher in the entire Vulcan canon, but like plain generic ass Vulcan for some reason wasn't it.

How come he gets to use conditioner, too? This is always how it goes in the cult. Like, cult leader gets the conditioner, cult leader gets the best hut in the compound.

Oh, I'm not supposed to have sex, but every 19-year-old that joins up, he gets to have sex with. I know.
Yeah.

It's not fair. It's not fair.
It's the main thing that keeps me out of cults is how unfair that whole thing seems. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, otherwise, it pretty much seems rad as fuck, right? Wow.

I wanted him to be like, I don't know, like the kung fu master in Kill Bill or something, like

very fucking eccentric and unexpected in a way that he just wasn't. And with way more complicated facial hair.
Yeah, yeah.

So, uh, for that reason, Sorak is my drunk Shimoda. Great reason.
Faith of the fart. Let's talk about what's coming up next, Adam.
This is a three-parter, huh? It is.

And the final part will be next week's episode, season four, episode nine,

Kershara.

Kershura. Kershura.
Erma Gurditch, Kurshur.

Mer favorite permid.

That girl walks into the room where the TV is.

TV show and reruns Enterprise Ermerger Detroit.

Archer, to Paul, and to Powell attempts to bring the Kershara, an artifact believed to contain Surok's original writings, to the Vulcan capital as the NX-01 gets involved in a Vulcan and Dorian military clash.

Wow. Woo!

Very exciting. Do we think Jeffrey Combs will make an appearance? It seems almost certain.
If he doesn't,

I'm going to quit the show.

Oh, shit. So.
Ben, you're great in everything. Jeffrey Combs is the reason I show up to this thing.
So we're ending on our own cliffhanger, aren't we?

You better be there, Combs.

All right, let's take a look at this game of buttholes, the Will of the Riker, Quantum Leap, where our runabout is presently on square 14.

And when I roll this hundred-sided die, it could land anywhere. You're required to learn as you play.
Roll.

And it did land somewhere, Adam. It landed on square 80.
Tula!

Did I win? Hardly. Which is a regular episode for us next week.
Ooh. Gave my heart a little palpitation there.

Yeah, there's risk in the board. That's what makes it fun.
Yeah.

Yeah. I know this.
Gamblers don't get addicted to winning. They get addicted to losing.
Yeah. You said it.
You said it so I didn't have to.

We're losers, but you're not, you kind, kind friends of DeSoto who support the show on a monthly basis by keeping your membership current at maximumfun.org slash join.

If you are out there listening and would like to become a true friend of DeSoto, we sure encourage it.

You get bonus content every month and you know the feeling that the good stuff that you like in the world gets to continue to exist because you help make sure that happens.

At the end of the year a lot of people you know try to contribute to causes and groups that matter to them.

Absolutely no tax advantage to supporting our shows whatsoever, but if you do have it in you to support what we do, it matters a whole lot. So maximumfund.org slash join.

We should work on getting 501c3 status, though, just so that there is a tax advantage. We should.

Let's just go full cult.

Because you know, cults are writing it off. This is our ministry, right? It's not a sex cult.
Absolutely no one's having sex. There's not going to be any burning.

There's not going to be any solo cup full of Kool-Aid, you know. That's not what we're doing.
It's just chill hangs. Hours and hours of playing No Man's Sky on giant beanbag chairs.
Yeah.

And like 20, 30 years from now, a young couple will go on their first date to a documentary about our cult. Yeah.

And their relationship won't work out because it won't be grisly and upsetting enough to bond them to each other. I know.
Yeah, we can only hope.

We gotta thank producer Wendy Pritty. That was for a handful of people.

For producing and editing this show. Can't wait to see Wendy at the steakhouse tomorrow night.
Gonna be great.

Gotta thank Bill Tilley, the card daddy, for making all the hilarious trading cards that you can find on the Greatest Trek social media accounts that he helps run, along with Rob Adler, who also edits the Greatest Newsletter, our monthly periodical about all things this show.

Check that out, subscribe, go to GreatestTrek.com to do that. You've got to thank Adam Bragusia for our original Diane Warren parody song and Dark Materia for the card song.

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 that will be the last one if Jeffrey Combs doesn't show up to the party.

Exciting.

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