"Tea with Jean-Luc, episode 1: Ménage à Tea"

October 27, 2015 9:13 AM

In which we explore Picard's specific relationship with Earl Grey. Hot.
posted by hippybear (62 comments total)

“THERE ARE FOUR CUBES OF SUGAR!!”
posted by Fizz at 9:19 AM on October 27, 2015 [8 favorites]

He's still making those?!

If I am having a bad day, Shame on you, Mr. Clemens (#23) can usually go a long way towards making it better.
posted by sparklemotion at 9:20 AM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

I never understood why the "hot" was required.
posted by idb at 9:21 AM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Now do Janeway and coffee, and then Riker and Mad Dog 40.
posted by drezdn at 9:21 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

Now do Janeway and coffee, and then Riker and Mad Dog 40.

Worf and prune juice!!?!
posted by Fizz at 9:21 AM on October 27, 2015 [5 favorites]

I would watch a supercut of every time Sisko says "raktajino."
posted by yellowbinder at 9:23 AM on October 27, 2015 [7 favorites]

"I never understood why the "hot" was required."

As opposed to warm, I guess.
posted by I-baLL at 9:25 AM on October 27, 2015

Oh, also this is amazing. Now I think I'll go make tea.
posted by I-baLL at 9:27 AM on October 27, 2015

I'm so happy to see a new TNG Edit. These are one of my favorite internet things -- the absurdity is great, of course, but for my money it's all about the timing. The person who makes these has such an amazing grasp of the comedic timing of an uncomfortable silence.
posted by tocts at 9:28 AM on October 27, 2015 [9 favorites]

👏
posted by jeffamaphone at 9:30 AM on October 27, 2015

drnking the old gary as we speak!
posted by Foci for Analysis at 9:35 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

I remember some NPR piece about TNG, and when they got to the segment where the reporter was interviewing Patrick Stewart, they began by saying "Patrick Stewart really does drink 'tea, Earl Gray, hot', and he has asked if I could please ask his fans to stop sending it to him because he has plenty by now."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:36 AM on October 27, 2015 [13 favorites]

The effort that goes into these things is mind blowing. 21st entry art is wild man.
posted by The Whelk at 9:36 AM on October 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

I never understood why the "hot" was required.

Tea, Black Ceylon, iced, no sugar, with lemon.
posted by bonehead at 9:39 AM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Gazorra/JanvandenHemel is a legit internet treasure. I backed his Patreon so he can great more joy for the world - you should too!
posted by adrianhon at 9:40 AM on October 27, 2015

In the true future, the replicator's AI would be dangerously literal. "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot" would not prevent the machine from desiccating a human for the water, like in Tank Girl, or serving the tea WAY too hot and burning the roof of your mouth.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:40 AM on October 27, 2015

I was sad that this was so short until I realized it was TNG Edit 40 and that there are 39 that I've somehow missed.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:55 AM on October 27, 2015 [5 favorites]

I never understood why the "hot" was required.

During the Eugenics Wars, sometime around 1995, it became common to drink beverages spiked with tabasco sauce to hide the chemical aftertaste of poorly filtered water. Centuries passed, but the custom of drinking capiscum laced beverages survived and grew more refined. By Picard's time, drinking tea "hot" could be considered traditional.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 10:01 AM on October 27, 2015 [7 favorites]

I never understood why the "hot" was required.

There was a big cryotea fad back around stardate 7542.19 that was irreversibly programmed into the ship computer's defaults.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:04 AM on October 27, 2015 [5 favorites]

the absurdity is great, of course, but for my money it's all about the timing. The person who makes these has such an amazing grasp of the comedic timing of an uncomfortable silence.

The TNG Edits are closer in spirit to Space Ghost: Coast To Coast than like 90% of the Adult Swim line-up.
posted by brianrobot at 10:14 AM on October 27, 2015 [8 favorites]

I think that Earl Grey tea tastes like feet.
posted by Automocar at 10:14 AM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Oh man, the sound of Riker walking around in Picard's office. I am a simple creature.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:15 AM on October 27, 2015 [14 favorites]

I am having Earl Gray from the office's Keurig-clone thing which always somehow reminds me of the Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser machine. Share and enjoy and I blame you all.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:18 AM on October 27, 2015 [7 favorites]

Tea is proof of God's love for us. It is the only beverage I can't give up.

But Earl Grey? No thanks. I like my tea black and strong, and prepared that way the taste of the bergamot oil is disgusting. As both a TNG fan and tea drinker my first cup of Earl Grey was supremely disappointing.
posted by sbutler at 10:23 AM on October 27, 2015

Picard is French. They do things differently there.
posted by hippybear at 10:25 AM on October 27, 2015

The replicator system represents the final victory of The Internet of Things over mankind.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:27 AM on October 27, 2015 [4 favorites]

"I think that Earl Grey tea tastes like feet."

To apraphrase Frank-n-Furter:

"I didn't make it - for YOU!"
posted by I-baLL at 10:32 AM on October 27, 2015 [9 favorites]

I'm convinced his fondness for the overwhelming bergamot bluntness of Earl Grey is a subtle shading for the typically French fondness for "earthy" (Or foot-like) flavors.
posted by The Whelk at 10:36 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

I am having Earl Gray from the office's Keurig-clone thing which always somehow reminds me of the Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser machine. Share and enjoy and I blame you all.

So it's almost but not quite entirely unlike [Earl Gray] tea....
posted by Beti at 10:40 AM on October 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

I have so much Earl Grey it's not even funny.
posted by I-baLL at 10:44 AM on October 27, 2015

Episode 12 of this series Bridge Buffoonery (specifically the second half) seldom fails to elicit open amusement.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 11:24 AM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

I never understood why the "hot" was required.

That part makes perfect sense to me -- hot vs. iced? Sure.

What *I* don't get is why you couldn't just say "hot Earl Grey tea" like a normal person. Who programmed this damn thing -- Yoda?
posted by webmutant at 11:44 AM on October 27, 2015

Or as we used to call it in middle school in Mexico, hot cockweed tea.

Bergamot is bergamota.
Berga sounds like verga, rude slang for penis.
Mota is slang for marijuana.
Thus hot cockweed tea.
posted by Doroteo Arango II at 11:50 AM on October 27, 2015 [6 favorites]

I just don't understand why:

Speak("tea") + PositiveVoiceID("Jean Luc Picard, Captain USS Enterprise") + CurrentLocation("Captain's Ready Room") != "tea, Earl Grey, hot."

Will the future really be that tedious?
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 12:03 PM on October 27, 2015

As both a TNG fan and tea drinker my first cup of Earl Grey was supremely disappointing.

Along with perhaps thousands of others (outside England, anyway), I'd embraced and then abandoned Earl Grey tea before J-L Pekar was a gleam in Gene Roddenberry's eye. By the time TNG began, Earl Grey tea was already a under-grad cliché on the lines of clove cigarettes. By the time it finished, fictional Captain Pekar must've been the last hoo-mon on or off the Earth in any reality who still regularly drank the stuff.

Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.

Unlike, say, Fortnum & Mason Royal Blend, Earl Grey makes perfectly wretched iced tea.
 
posted by Herodios at 12:17 PM on October 27, 2015

The exact phrase is a safeguard in case Picard is ever controlled or impersonated by an alien entity who knows his appearance and voice but not his drink preference. Were Picard to order Earl Grey iced, the Enterprise self-destruct sequence would be initiated.
posted by knuckle tattoos at 12:21 PM on October 27, 2015 [11 favorites]

As was suggested in a previous thread, what they call the "replicator" is really just a transporter link to a bunch of short-order cooks in the Enterprise mess, and Picard is just being a dick.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:21 PM on October 27, 2015 [10 favorites]

The exact phrase is a safeguard in case Picard is ever controlled or impersonated by an alien entity who knows his appearance and voice but not his drink preference. Were Picard to order Earl Grey iced, the Enterprise self-destruct sequence would be initiated.

"Mind your own business, Mr. Twinings. I'm sick of your half-brewed interference, do you understand?"
 
posted by Herodios at 12:25 PM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

The exact phrase is a safeguard in case Picard is ever controlled or impersonated by an alien entity who knows his appearance and voice but not his drink preference.

Shit, I just watched an episode where that happened and I can't remember if QuasiPicard ordered the right drink. He definitely got drunk in Ten Forward and sang some sea shanties and went on an awkward date with Dr. Crusher, though.
posted by Copronymus at 12:27 PM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

He definitely got drunk in Ten Forward and sang some sea shanties and went on an awkward date with Dr. Crusher, though.

Allegiance, S03E18. That's not the captain I know.
posted by sparklemotion at 12:32 PM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

The person who makes these has such an amazing grasp of the comedic timing of an uncomfortable silence.

Doooo-doooo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doooooooooo (bwah wahwawawawa)
posted by J.K. Seazer at 12:52 PM on October 27, 2015 [4 favorites]

webmutant: “What *I* don't get is why you couldn't just say ‘hot Earl Grey tea’ like a normal person.”

Or, frankly, why he couldn't just say tea, since a computer the size of Toledo from hundreds of years in the future ought to be able to remember remember the goddamned captain's preference as far as tea is concerned and just set it as the default.
posted by koeselitz at 1:01 PM on October 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

Picard never bothered to learn how to go into settings.
posted by drezdn at 1:03 PM on October 27, 2015 [11 favorites]

Doooo-doooo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doooooooooo (bwah wahwawawawa)

It's good to have you back, Sir.
posted by tocts at 1:50 PM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

GAZORRA'S BACK YAAAAAAAAAAAY
posted by gusandrews at 2:00 PM on October 27, 2015

I want to see the alternate TNG where Picard smokes clove cigarettes.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 2:25 PM on October 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

I will still, years later, think "Data's painting is making me dizzy," and laugh.
posted by Mavri at 3:46 PM on October 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

The only reason I started drinking Earl Gray was because of Jean-Luc.

and i drink it hot.
posted by mcstayinskool at 4:28 PM on October 27, 2015

Why is Riker's combadge on the wrong side of his chest at :53 in??
posted by Pryde at 4:53 PM on October 27, 2015

I want to see the alternate TNG where Picard smokes clove cigarettes.

Djarum Black, Hot.
posted by drezdn at 5:19 PM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

Why is Riker's combadge on the wrong side of his chest at :53 in??

It's in a mirror universe.
posted by drezdn at 5:19 PM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Abi Sutherland: I took the vaselike vessel from her and sipped it. It was delicious.
posted by metaquarry at 5:21 PM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

I own this tea. (So, thanks for the post.)
posted by nat at 5:37 PM on October 27, 2015

I'm partial to the one where Riker sits on some bridge controls.
posted by cyberscythe at 7:23 PM on October 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

What *I* don't get is why you couldn't just say "hot Earl Grey tea" like a normal person.

Or, just say "hot tea", at which point a robot would show up carrying a fancy wood box full of packaged tea bags.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:53 PM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]

I never understood why the "hot" was required.

I always had an imaginary scene in my head where Picard had to spend time calibrating the replicator, like programming hotkeys - "Computer, Picard's definition of 'hot' is 85 degrees centigrade."
posted by brappi at 7:56 PM on October 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

a computer the size of Toledo from hundreds of years in the future ought to be able to remember remember the goddamned captain's preference

He always sounds so commanding. "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot." What never appears on the show are his softer moments, just before bedtime, when he wearily requests: "tea. chamomile. warm... ish. warmish."
posted by vytae at 4:22 AM on October 28, 2015 [4 favorites]

I've always thought a d'k tahg was the best tool for repairing replicators too, Jean-Luc.
posted by the matching mole at 6:56 AM on October 28, 2015

The only reason I started drinking Earl Gray was because of Jean-Luc.

Easily the best part of using the Keurig-esque machine in my office is that I get to feel a little bit like Picard when I press a button (which is even easier than trying to explain your request to a computer with words) and a machine spits out Tea, Earl Grey, Hot.
posted by Copronymus at 9:32 AM on October 28, 2015

Why is Riker's combadge on the wrong side of his chest at :53 in??

Because this is an edit. gazorra (the creator) needed a shot which had Riker moving left-to-right across a cabin, but only had source material of Riker moving right-to-left. So s/he mirrored the source footage horizontally.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 9:54 AM on October 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

webmutant: “What *I* don't get is why you couldn't just say ‘hot Earl Grey tea’ like a normal person.”

Because then you'd get "Hot Earl's Brand Grey Tea".
posted by hellphish at 10:25 AM on October 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

To be fair... Hot Earl is pretty damn hawt.
posted by hippybear at 10:35 AM on October 28, 2015