Yes, we are discussing season 1, episode 9 of Star Trek: Discovery, "Into the Forest I Go". A nice walk in the woods! Everyone comes home! 

• Do all Starfleet captains disobey orders? Actually yes! Despite the stereotypes, the biggest exception is Kirk in TOS … and Liz has a theory about why that changed 
• "This conversation reminds me of a Tumblr post that mildly irritated me two weeks ago…"
• "You can't say anything against my baby Ash, okay? He's my baby girl." 
• We have some digressions and thoughts on the state of fandom and franchise media in the year 2026
• Anika's Wonderland Corner: Cornwell, Ash and L'Rell as Knight, Death and the Devil

You may have noticed some audio issues lately, and this recording was particularly challenging, so Liz resorted to Descript's "studio sound" filter. This made everything more or less audible, but also weirdly muffled, like we were recording from inside a pillowfort. Alas! 

• Is it possible to tell a new Star Trek story? 
• If Dave Filoni wrote a Star Trek, it would be this episode
• Did Admiral Cornwell hold Starfleet Command's only brain cell? 
• We are going to say something nice about the pacing on Star Trek: Discovery
• Liz knows very little about chess and it shows

Then they do it all over again.

Then they do it all over again. 

Yes, we are caught a time loop and discussing Star Trek: Discovery's "Magic To Make The Sanest Man Go Mad"! 

• "This, to me, is like if Strange New Worlds was good."
• Is this Anika's least favourite episode of Discovery?
• Ash is happier and more successful as a human being than he was as a Klingon
• Making Harry Mudd spend time with his wife is not a good or suitable punishment for his crimes? It is highkey misogynistic? Do better, show! 
• Liz is here to pitch Star Trek: Stella, where Meg Stalter plays Stella Mudd as she roams the galaxy being a sociopathic nepo baby with an amazing wardrobe, who disintegrates people

We are discussing Star Trek: Discovery's "Lethe", an episode which inspired our friendship, a whole lot of fic and a conversation about whether it is a flawless piece of Star Trek, or if it has merely a single flaw. 

We are not here to be cool or reasonable about Admiral Kat

• Normal Human Guy Ash Tyler and Normal Federation Captain Lorca
• At any time, it is reasonable to assume that Sarek is disappointed in at least one of his children
• Ash Tyler could never appear in SNW because his whole existence is a rebuke to that series' biological determinism
• Anika's Wonderland Corner: the Vulcans at Michael's graduation are dressed as chess pieces (Michael, like L'Rell, is a white pawn)
• We have. A lot. Of feelings. About Katrina Cornwell

We're discussing episode five of Star Trek: Discovery's first season, including: 

• This is the worst Saru episode of the entire series. It's rough, man
• Overthinking the "five best captains" list
• For an awful moment, we start to ask dangerous questions like "how many starships does Starfleet have?"
• This episode is a card trick: your attention is on Harry Mudd, but really it's introducing Ash Tyler
• Liz has normal and rational feelings about the historical Buran
• We play a fun game called "which other captains would leave Mudd in the Klingon prison" (Archer)
• Introducing Ash means we have to talk about Ash, L'Rell and the misguided sexual assault subplot
• Antimatter Pod: We aren't really into m/m ships Also Antimatter Pod: We will die for Lorca/Tyler
• Our hot take: Saru did NOT deserve that telescope, this is NOT a sweet scene to be immortalised as a Hallmark ornament, this is REWARDING his BAD BEHAVIOUR

• This is decidedly not one of Discovery's stronger scripts
• "Lorca is so clearly flagged as evil," we said back in 2017, "that there absolutely has to be more to it than that." Anyway…
• Michael's skills and flaws are all on full display here
• "I also do not respect Saru." 
• Okay, but why is Saru the first officer? He frankly does not seem up to the job. Is Lorca keeping him around as a snack? 
• "Let's talk about Elon Musk."
• Discovery Stop Killing Off Women Of Colour Challenge
• Michael and L'Rell: parallels (parall'rells)

• You are not gonna believe this, but Michael Burnham is the protagonist of Star Trek: Discovery. I know. Huge if true. 
• But Gabriel Lorca thinks he's the main character of multiple universes.
• Ellen Landry: one of the all-time worst people to wear a Starfleet uniform, and we are fascinated by her.
• Lorca absolutely practised his introduction to Michael in the mirror, possibly while flexing, because he's a monster, but he's also a giant dork

Anika and Liz go back in time to revisit the series which led us to become friends and launch a podcast ... and we are excited! We're starting with "The Vulcan Hello" and "The Battle at the Binary Stars", in which Michael Burnham has a very bad day. 

• "I am one of the first 500 people to sign up for CBS All Access. Which is a dubious claim."
• These episodes are not bad, but they are a terrible introduction to the series, both in terms of its ongoing tone and themes, and in terms of making people want to see more
• "Can I just say? T'Kuvma could get it."
• We are not opposed to subtitles, but the specific "Klingon" font used by CBS All Access was straight up hard to read
• Does the premiere ask too much of the audience? Both in terms of asking them to empathise with complex characters they've just met, and also in having basic media literacy?
• (Michael Burnham Did Not Start The War.)
• Saru's relentless negativity makes him a difficult character to like
• Returning to our roots as The Sarek Podcast
• The Klingons are MAGA, but they're also very Brexit-era Britain
• We are once again criticising the Federation's carceral state

• We are sad and angry! 
• What does Paramount even want from Star Trek?
• "This episode is two B plots in search of an A plot." 
• "Conceptually, it's great. In execution, it's very Jeri Taylor (derogatory)."
• B'Elanna adds "chaos" to the Doctor's program, but it sure is a coincidence that the algorithm "randomly" selects for scary Klingons infiltrating the Doctor's white suburban sanctum!
• "Everyone has a go at reprogramming the Doctor's family" - mourning the arc we never got

• A finale where the good guys don't fire a single shot, and where we apply the lessons learned through the whole season
• Stakes? Too high? Just high enough? Is Star Trek actually good at telling small scale stories? 
• "What is Starfleet?" Caleb finally gives Anika a satisfying answer. 
• A handsome, arrogant guy with neglectful parents and a crush on a Klingon? Darem has been Tom Paris all along! 
• Nus is too solipsistic and misogynistic to realise that Anisha isn't on his side
• Anisha was never the villain, but she is an antagonist, and with good reason
• Nahla, Anisha and restorative justice
• Nahla punching Nus: ma'am, you do not get to have little a police brutality as a treat, that felt ill-considered and out of character

• We know the second semester goes by fast, but this is ridiculous!
• Caleb Did Nothing Wrong
• Genesis is wrong about Caleb, but in an understandable way
• Sam 2.0 is a little more complicated, and that's a good thing! 
• The following actors are underrated: Sandro Rosta, Tig Notaro. That is all
• Lura hasn't been around much in the second half of the season, and obviously the role requires heavy make-up and discomfort … so PROPOSAL: Lura Thok Animated Series
• The trip to Planet Star Wars hits a lot of racist alien planet tropes AND features lazy costuming (after we recorded, we learned from Avery Plewes' Insta that her costume plans were impacted by the FedEx strike and she had to improvise, so, um, sorry, Avery!)
• Venari Ral Toastmasters
• "You're music." Caleb can break up with us ANY day
• Nahla/Anisha (enemies to lovers, slow burn, co-parenting, hate sex, there was only one Caleb)

• We got Star Trekked. We got Our Towned. They got us RIGHT in the feels.
• The women that time forgot
• How much agency has Tarima had in her recovery? It seems like not much!
• Did Liz totally misread the Tarima allegory? Banshees and mental illness and maybe you can spend so much time looking for the allegory that you miss the story?
• "Stealth trauma counselling" isn't the MOST unethical use of psychology in Star Trek, but we have raised our eyebrows!
• At no point did we think Sam would die, but ALSO we were on the edge of our seats through this entire plotline
• "Not holding Sam's hand felt like a war crime."
• Us a few weeks ago: "Sam's makers feel like an allegory for helicopter parents." This week: helicopter parents fail to build resilience in their children
• The Tarima-Caleb-Genesis love triangle is handled … really maturely? What if you were attracted to someone and simply chose not to do anything about it? 

• Um. Did we make this episode happen? 
• It's a spring break episode, but no girls are going wild, no one is going to the beach (except Kyle, alone), and none of the usual cliches are deployed
• Except the Star Trek Wedding Cliches, which we do love to see subverted, what if this time a man was passively going along with everything? What if there was a little less gender? What if Jay-Den wore a beaded gown? 
• Darem and Genesis continue to be mirror images
• The Caleb and Genesis show! Are we … meant to be shipping them? Remember when Liz was like, "There's no way we're meant to be shipping Spock and La'an, that would be really stupid"? We remember. 
• Genesis and toxic perfectionism
• Caleb, Genesis and Darrem: all command-coded in different ways, with different problems to overcome

• We really like how the season slowed down and gave us some slice of life stories and heavy characterisation -- and now, at the midpoint of the season, everything changes
• This is a great episode for exploring Nahla, but Anika has had enough of Nus Braka
• It's time to face facts: Admiral Vance is pretty, but he's not clever
• Nus Braka versus Osyraa: we firmly believe the only reason he's as powerful as he is now is that her death created a vacuum
• Comics and popular culture as art, as inspiration, as propaganda; uh, is it bad when your fun Star Trek for teens starts referencing Grave of the Fireflies?
• (But it's weird that Tales from the Frontier had no female characters, right? RIGHT?)
• Women's voices are heavily policed and criticised, so Tarima's power is interesting
• Vance is a 2020s centrist: he likes the idea of having ideals, but isn't quite sure how to go about putting them in action. Is that unfair? Will Liz ever be able to talk about Vance without bringing up Rayner? Is it wrong to ship Vance/Braka?

And Starfleet Academy wants us to know: the answer is always yes. 

We're talking about episode 5 of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, "Series Acclimation Mil", an episode which dares to ask: is there such a thing as too much fan service? 

• Four episodes of SFA have aired at the time of recording, we check in on the fandom (and have a little rant about media literacy)
• Does "Series Acclimation Mil" prioritise fanservice over the new viewer?
• Liz: "It's giving 'These Are The Voyages…' (complimentary?)"
• The adult plotline feels … mean and incomplete?
• Sam is dealing with being a homeschooled kid off to college, and helicopter parents who can't let her go, and in some ways, hers is a first-gen immigrant story
• Sam's story is also about the journey undergraduates take in their education, from learning facts to synthesising disparate resources and developing original research
• Hey kids! Don't do 12 shots in one night! Your Antimatter Pod Aunties are here to remind you to have fun and drink responsibly!

• Liz, a former debate kid, has a lot of feelings about this episode (and also about how debate bros have ruined the fine art of having a structured argument)
• We don't need Star Trek: United because we already have SFA
• Caleb is critical of the Federation, but he also embodies its values, both the humanistic and paternalistic tendencies
• Is this an allegory for the queer experience, or is Jay-Den literally gay? And if he is not, we will be demanding compensation for queerbaiting. 
• "Actually, your dad abandoned you because he was supporting you" feels like Worf Parenting Apologia, but also, Lura clearly comes from a happy family and cannot imagine anything else
• Klingons are climate refugees
• A lot of YA is about the fantasy of teens having power; this is about the fantasy of adults respecting teens but taking responsibility for fixing the world
• Are we meant to be shipping Darem/Jay-Den? Because we think Darem is shipping it…
• Building a love interest for Captain Ake (when your brain was rewired by Picard/Crusher at a formative age)

• No stakes! Only shenanigans! It's a Gen Z "Take Me Out To The Holosuite"!
• The War College kids are facing obsolescence and acting out, but their strategy, with overtones of hazing and sexuality, is also evidence of why the War College is being phased out
• This episode understands that growing up with access to sports is a privilege
• Starfleet Academy is not Euphoria, thank goodness
• Darem is queer! Lura and Jett are dating! Kyle is totally into Jay-Den! 
• If any Star Trek is gonna give us polycule drama…

• "I think I just quoted Joe Biden. I did not mean to."
• Character beats - Caleb can handle himself, but in a crisis, he's an engineer; Jay-Den and Sam are simply too pure and we love them; Darem and Genesis are mirror images: privileged high achievers, but one is a natural leader and the other is a bully; Tarima is a character specifically for Anika. We are here to wax rhapsodic over Captain Ake. Nus Braka is giving Harry Mudd.
• Starfleet Academy is unusually interested in depicting disability, assistive devices and accommodations
• We have one problem with the premiere -- breaking down boot camp tropes, Black hair politics, what does "regulation" even mean in this context and when Caleb's peers are wearing piercings and jewellery?

• Is it possible that Tuvok is the only person in the history of Vulcan who ended up happy in his arranged marriage? 
• It's impossible to square Koss's behaviour with the writers' apparent belief that he is a decent guy
• "Home" is ENT's "Family"
• Antimatter Pod pays salute to ENT's use of tropes in the Trip/T'Pol ship
• Archer's angry camping trip
• In its clumsy way, ENT was one of the first pieces of media to address the trauma of 9/11, not just the anger and desire for revenge
• If ENT wanted to be The Sexy Star Trek, they could have saved all the money they spent on decontamination gel and just put all the characters in Henleys
• What have we learned about weddings in Star Trek?
• Star Trek is a grim dystopia where your job matters more than your relationships, and that is why Star Trek's weddings and marriages are rarely executed or explored well

Yes, our wedding series has brought us to Star Trek: Deep Space 9's "You Are Cordially Invited", and we have ... questions. Concerns. Loud protests. And that's just Anika's cats!

• Both this and "Data's Day" were written by Ronald D. Moore, and we are trying not to read too much into anything
• This is an episode about Dax rejecting the Klingon gender binary and being punished and publicly humiliated for it, including by her friends
• Not a single character is changed by the events of this episode, except Jadzia, who learns an important lesson about tolerating abuse (it's good and she should do it)
• Complaining that there are no TNG characters at Worf's wedding is a lot more fun than talking about all the ways the script throws Jadzia under the bus … so we do both!
• Lieutenant Atoa, infidelity and using Polynesian people as props
• If Odo has this "instinct for justice", why doesn't it apply to facing consequences for his own wrongs?
• Giving Avery Brooks a line telling Terry Farrell to suck it up and kiss the boots of a racist, xenophobic asshole is … a choice. A REAL choice. 
• Justice for all the Daxes (except Curzon, who is actually the reason some of the Daxes deserve justice)

We speak, of course, of the relationship between Admiral Mendak and Subcommander Selok. 

Also Miles and Keiko get married. 

• This is the third episode in our wedding series, and the first marriage between two enthusiastically consenting adults
• But is it? Is it really?
• Keiko is a controversial character for a lot of reasons, many of which boil down to sexism and racism, but ALSO her introduction here does her no favours
• Much like Deanna and Wyatt in "Haven", Miles and Keiko's relationship is written as if they are adolescents AND IT'S WEIRD
• We are obsessed with all the background details: Age Gap Couple! The USS Zhukov! 17 feline supplements! Helm Ken! Patricia Tallman! 
• Data considers Worf a kindred spirit, and we have to ask: does Worf feel the same way?
• One oblique hint at a time, we WILL make Beverly Crusher a three-dimensional character!
• LOVE the costumes in this ep, mostly, but we cannot endorse Keiko's hair chopsticks
• Not many people know this, but T'Pel's shark fin hat and Winn's Sydney Opera House hat are friends

Note: Liz says two completely inaccurate things with absolute confidence: first she claims that Wyatt is the only guest star with a costume change (false, that is Lwaxana) and then she claims that he's wearing grey in the holodeck scene (he is wearing burgundy). And unfortunately these were LOAD-BEARING INACCURACIES that couldn't easily be edited out. Never trust a podcaster. 

• "I don't know who wrote this, but I cannot support them." 
• We know early TNG loved a Special Boy, but why is Wyatt Miller the protagonist of this episode? 
• Is Lwaxana Troi a reliable source of information on Betazoid culture and custom? 
• "Genetic bonding" is a fancy word for "child betrothal" and also sounds kiiiiiiiinda sketchy? Were Ian Troi and the Millers attempting to pull some sort of eugenics shenanigans?
• (Streaming movie about Michelle Yeoh taking out Ian Troi, co-starring Jess Bush as young Lwaxana, when?)
• Liz is not a fan of Lwaxana and takes issue with the current "if you don't like Lwaxana Troi, you're a misogynist" discourse
• "I would like to have a dinner party with Lwaxana Troi and Cersei Lannister." 
• Is Mon Mothma the anti-Lwaxana Troi? Either way, she's joining Lwaxana and Cersei for cocktails

And in typical "Antimatter Pod does it Antimatter Pod's way" fashion, we're gonna talk about ... how great it is for the Spock/Chapel ship. 

• Why we're doing a wedding series: we love weddings, and we love how they can be used as a characterisation and worldbuilding tool
• Vulcans secretly live for the drama
• It does not do to dwell on the science and evolution behind pon farr and we should not have tried
• Liz is very concerned for the wellbeing of asexual Vulcans
• There's a lot of orientalism in our first glimpse of Vulcans and their culture, and modern Trek hasn't really walked that back
• We don't appreciate William Shatner enough (William Shatner did not pay us to say this)
• It's actually quite possible that McCoy and Chapel have never spoken outside of work
• Strange New Worlds has destroyed this episode and also Spock as a character
• Vulcans: we are an advanced and sophisticated culture Also Vulcans: please do not ask about the child marriages
• Kirk's infatuation with T'Pau is very important to us

Yes, it's time for the season 3 finale of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and spoilers, turning into a statue might be preferable to this.

• It turns out Marie's whole arc has been about becoming tradwife statuary
• The weird Christian subtext of the season intensifies, not in a good way
• The racial dynamics of this episode are very, very bad
• Do we need to dismantle the carceral state for the Vezda? 
• No more backstory for M'Benga, please, we have enough dog whistle racism
• Kirk, Spock, barroom mind melds, queerbaiting and the weirdness with La'an
• You almost have to respect the effort that went into dismantling Marie as a character before fridging her
• Speaking of dismantling characters: remember when we didn't hate La'an? When she was, in fact, one of our faves?

• "We're going to give you the stories you've been asking for since season 1, and then we're gonna end it with a twist that makes it all totally meaningless! Hurray!"
• Good news, Akiva Goldsman finally watched "Arena"! Next question, did he, um, understand it? 
• Anika has notes on Metron experiment design
• The AUDACITY of SNW criticising the Gorn for ableism
• This was an opportunity to let Uhura become a more complex and flawed character, but unfortunately Pike is bad at his job (and so are the writers)
• Is La'an actually psychologically fit for starship duty? 
• Why are we making fun of Spock's weight? Why is this whole season so dedicated to bullying Spock? 
• Endangering 4,000 people including children: that's the Christopher Pike way
• But seriously, why does Uhura have sole responsibility for this problem? Why is Pike setting her up to fail? 

So that's fun. 

• Liz keeps returning to the question, "Is this worse than 'Code of Honor'?"
• "I understand that this is meant to be funny." 
• Genetics and hair don't work like that
• "I felt disrespected as a viewer."
• The whole "feminist career women can't cook, amiright?" trope was tired when they did it with Janeway in the '90s and it's more tired with Chapel and Batel now
• Anika: the only person on the whole internet watching "Amok Time" for the Spock/Chapel
• Comedy mind control rape (for the second time in a season)
• Uhura this season generally has whatever personality is required for the plot, but using her for TERF propaganda about groomers is unforgivable
• Romula'an is almost a good storyline, provided you don't know anything about genetics, Romulans or how "Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow" went
• Why is Marie's professional future wrapped up in a plot from I Love Lucy?
• Pike uses Marie's chronic condition to try to sabotage her career, because apparently their relationship is now a horror story from r/BestofRedditorUpdates
• You have to be really incompetent to come up with a dance-off that we hate this much!

• We have complicated feelings about this episode! It interrogates the documentary as a form of propaganda, but also interrogates the Federation in bad faith? 
• SNW is not equipped to deal with Israel/Palestine or Ukraine/Russia through allegory
• Liz would like to apologise to the Spanish speaking population of Earth for her pronunciation of "Beto"
• This is an episode about journalism that doesn't want the audience to ask too many questions
• Anika appreciates the messiness of this story
• Did we not? Have a whole Prime Directive? About not getting involved in foreign wars? 
• SNW has a lot of the same problems as Voyager
• We did not need a self-harm story from Spock, anymore than we needed an animal harm story from Pike
• It's not enough that now everyone joins Starfleet because of trauma, but now everyone is alone and friendless until they are assigned to the hero ship
• It's so unfair? How people keep bringing up that murder M'Benga did? It's actually really triggering for him? 
• Anika explains how Starfleet is like the spirit of Norway

• This feels like a backdoor pilot for a series which has been around for nearly 60 years
• Why are we spending so much time developing James Kirk instead of the regulars? We have had a whole movie trilogy about Kirk learning to be a good captain!
• Take a drink every time Anika says this should have been an Una episode!
• SNW does not understand why people love watching Kirk and Spock together, and we say that as people who don't ship K/S
• It's weird how Kirk's characterisation in Strange New Worlds has so little to do with "Where No Man Has Gone Before". We have never asked this question before, and we hope to never ask it again, but: do we need more Gary Mitchell up in here?
• How much was season 3 impacted by the strikes?
• Pike sending La'an into danger while he hangs back is not a good look
• "I wasn't sad about killing 7,000 people until I found out they were human" is bad ethics and bad Star Trek
• How many NFTs do we think Pelia owned?

• This once again felt like several unrelated episodes smushed together
• Like season 5 of Discovery, this video game is on easy mode
• La'an is completely out of character in this episode, being both stupid and mean in a misogynistic way
• (NEVER date Spock, he is BAD FOR WOMEN)
• Since when was trust a problem between Spock and Christine?
• Hey, a queer-coded male character! Wait, nevermind
• SNW doesn't have enough episodes to tell these stories
• We are no longer interested in Uhura/Beto

The Gorn, the Vezda, and setting up for an Aliens v Predator story

• When Anika said she shipped Spock/La'an, she didn't mean in canon!
• "I want to slut shame Spock, and not in an ironic way."
• At this point it's gonna look pretty bad if Spock DOESN'T hook up with Uhura
• This episode has literally the same ending as "Charades"
• AND NOW on to the rest of the episode, which was perfectly solid and did not deserve this
• The show within a show: Sanctuary Moon intensifies
• Brace yourself, Liz has nothing but praise for Anson Mount's performance as TK Burrows
• Lucille Ball and Ida Lupino, honouring the women who worked behind the scenes in Hollywood
• Everyone was great, but Melissa Navia stole the whole show
• "It's 'Our Man Bashir' and it's 'The Big Goodbye', but just for a moment, it was 'Far Beyond the Stars'."

Okay, fine, we are discussing Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3, episode 3, "Shuttle to Kenfori", including...

• First of all, WHAT IS HAPPENING ON REBECCA ROMIJN'S HEAD
• Season 3 has a recurring motif where a woman states explicitly what she wants, and her romantic partner decides to do the opposite
• Batel and M'Benga both tell Pike repeatedly that Batel has the right to make her own medical choices, and Pike never actually agrees
• "I really have to finish my Tuvok/Azetbur fan fiction."
• RIP Liz's Klingon wife
• Our only beef with Erica's storyline is that it worked by making Una hold the idiot ball
• Joseph M'Benga: the only doctor in Starfleet who respects people's privacy

• This episode was engineered in a lab to target Anika personally
• Is this a mean-spirited commentary on shippers? 
• We did not need a second sequel to "The Q and the Gray". Or a first sequel. Or "The Q and the Gray". 
• Christine: I don't want any big romantic gestures Spock: Big romantic gesture, got it
• It's weird how we're being gaslit into thinking Korby is a decent guy
• "It's gonna be really hard for me to not talk about dinosaurs on my podcast."
• We're so happy for an Orgetas subplot that we're not even mad it's the same as Detmer in season 3 of Discovery
• Batel is firmly in the Girlfriend Box, not the Captain Box
• The snake/garden of Eden/Taylor Swift's Reputation era styling of Christine's "wedding dress" was a … choice

(We did not realise, when we recorded, that "Hegemony" part 2 would be dropping along with "Wedding Bell Blues", so we're only discussing that first episode now.)

• This is certainly an episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
• Is Chris Pike the human embodiment of a Democratic Party fundraising email? Are men too emotional to be in command?
• Pelia is single-handedly inventing Scotty
• Thank God we've confirmed that Ortegas is the pilot and flies the ship, we were really confused on that point
• We are really optimistic for La'an's story to keep evolving this season
• "They are actively trying to destroy Christine Chapel, and I take it personally." There's some worrying stuff in this episode, and even more alarming comments made by Akiva Goldsman at the premiere
• We are very much in favour of religion in Star Trek, but Pike praying before telling his girlfriend her consent and bodily autonomy don't matter is…
• The USS Pablo Picasso was … a choice
• Concept: Christine and Marie should ditch their boyfriends and date each other
• We're glad Captain Batel isn't dead; now we're concerned she's gonna get the Bix ending
• Has SNW killed Pike/Una as a thing people ship?

• Liz has a theory about why Janeway's early hair was … like that. And we're sorry, but it does involve Margaret Thatcher and Madeleine Albright
• Enterprise: the end of the torturous updo
• WASP beauty standards, "professionalism" and Michael Burnham
• The Romulans of season 1 of Picard (yes, Anika is going to wax lyrical about the Romulannisters, and you WILL like it)
• Every single woman in season 3 of Star Trek: Picard except Raffi has American Girl Doll Samantha hair (Anika will explain American Girl Dolls and Samantha) (Una and Batel have The Hair too)
• Tasha's hair did not necessarily signify queerness in the 1980s, but Ortegas's hair absolutely does today, and so it's weird that they don't … you know … 
• We actually don't have much to say about Pike's hair, save that it looks … sticky

We talked for so long that we wound up splitting this into a two-parter, which is PEAK Antimatter Pod, but in this first half, we discuss...

• Janice Rand, Marie Antoinette and Sabrina Carpenter
• Pavel Chekov, The Monkees and appealing to girls
• WASP beauty standards, "professionalism" and Deanna Troi
• Tasha Yar and the changing meanings of short hair on women since 1987
• "I'm sorry, I'm thinking of Reagan again, and it makes me angry."
• Beverly's hair is always changing, but without much intentionality behind it
• Sisko's hair tells a story (sometimes that story is about racism)
• Kira's "busy suburban mother of a toddler" hair

• Why is Beverly Crusher hosting an astrophysics conference? And other questions that will forever go unanswered
• However, this episode, which makes no sense in the context of TNG, makes a LOT of sense in the context of Star Trek: Picard, and its theme of marginalised people doing SCIENCE is resonant in 2025
• You're not gonna believe this, but you can't actually just substitute Beverly for Geordi and Worf and not make any other changes to a story
• Breaking down the Star Trek monocultures
• This unremarkable episode has one of Picard's best speeches in the entire franchise
• Beverly Crusher puts on heels and pantyhose to lounge around at home, because athleisurewear had not yet been invited in 1993
• PITCH: the next streaming movie should be about Philippa Georgiou and Guinan DOING A HEIST

To celebrate, Anika and Liz are talking about Star Trek: Open A Channel - A Woman's Trek, Nana Visitor's book about women in Star Trek. 

• Open A Channel is much more substantial than just girl power feminism.
• How Lucille Ball was erased from Star Trek's narrative
• The throughline of mentorship
• We gently interrogate Nana Visitor's second wave biases
• We also have two separate (but related) rants about Janice Rand and the "glorified secretary" concept
• Hair Trek
• Marina Sirtis versus … a lot of people
• Bodyshaming from fandom. "The idea that fat people should not exist in your utopia is really horrible and RFK Jr coded."
• The editorial decision to exclude Michelle Hurd

You can watch it here, or -- in a much smaller window -- watch an unauthorised HD remaster. 

• We're in our Alan Ruck era, but we were not prepared for the unbelievable hotness of Garrett Wang, or the SURPRISE LIBERTARIANISM.
• We take … issue. With the timeline-changing catalyst. 
• This comment from a Redditor who claims to have worked on the production sets it in context. 
• Of Gods and Men is in conversation with the other science fiction of its era (2006-2008) in an interesting way.
• Nichelle Nichols carried this movie, and it is tragic she never got a showcase like this in official Trek
• Alternate Universe Chekov is a LIBERTARIAN FREEDOM FIGHTER with an unspeakable wig
• Alan Ruck and Chase Masterton have great chemistry
• The costumes are … hmm. Well.
• You should know that the entire time Anika is talking about Alien Nation, Liz was thinking of Coneheads

• What was Usenet? (Please do not fact check Liz on the technical details.)
• And who was using it?
• The initial response to DS9 before "Emissary" aired…
• …and after. Here's Roger Tang's 5 January 1993 post with his impressions: "EMISSARY betrayed far too many of the storytelling flaws that have plague[d] TNG over the last two-three years."
• The very gendered language of the era: Picard and Bashir are "weenies", Dax and Kira are "chicks", but Dax is also a "bimbo" or "airhead" and Kira "has balls". And that's before we get to the slurs…
• Anika defends Terry Farrell from the Trekkies of 32 years ago.
• We may not be a Pittcast, but we ARE ride or die for Trinity Santos, thank you for asking.
• Michael Lee Jacobs' commentary on "Emissary": "It was almost painful to watch TNG right after the two wonderful hours of DS9 this evening." How much are these Usenet posters representative of the wider fandom? Where were other conversations taking place? 
• Babylon 5 was The Orville of the 1990s, in terms of its fans coming into Star Trek spaces to say, "Stop watching that new Trek with the Black lead, this show with the white dude is way better!"
• A really fascinating (and incomplete) debate about whether the Garak/Bashir interactions in "Past Prologue" were intended as a homophobic depiction of queerness. A bunch of straight men say no! 
• The one thing from this era (and the years following it) that we would like to bring back is people sharing their long-form thoughts on new episodes of TV. Like this post on "Duet" which Liz didn't get around to talking about!
• Finally, shout out to this prediction, a week after "Emissary" aired, which was completely wrong but also … kind of right?

• Is this TNG's best episode? It could be!
• This story turns on Picard absolutely trusting the word of a Black woman
• Rachel Garrett was Liz's very first female starship captain
• The original premise for this episode is FULLY BONKERS
• "Yesterday's Enterprise" takes a completely novel approach to writing Tasha: what if she's just good at her job? 
• We engage in a bit of Sela Discourse, because why not?
• "Yesterday's Enterprise" sets the template for Discovery

• Everything that happens on the Enterprise B is the fault of Starfleet PR
• This is a movie that mistrusts nostalgia, but also believes really strongly in heterosexual domesticity, which makes for an interesting internal conflict
• Generations gives us the very first glimpse of the fourth estate in the world of Star Trek
• Anika argues that Picard's arc in this film is necessary for season 3 of Star Trek: Picard to work
• Liz and Anika have a LOT of feelings about Rene Picard
• Jonathan suggests that modern nostalgia-driven franchise media is the Nexus. "The '90s are something that everybody wants to go back to, and I promise you, you do not want to go back."
• It's funny how Kirk's fantasy life is basically cosplaying as Chris Pike (SNW edition)
• Is the Nexus the real villain of this movie?

• We feel cheated that we didn't get series that Erika Lippoldt and Bo-yeon Kim wrote
• But is it Star Trek? Yes. Next question!
• We are intrigued by Georgiou's decision to go into the hospitality industry
• Rachel Garrett is not quite a fully-fledged character, but she has enough potential that we're sad we'll probably never Kasey Ruhl in the role again
• Farscape, Alias and Enterprise vibes
• Is Zeph a transphobic joke in human form? 
• The costumes by far were the best part of the movie and we have a lot to say about Rachel Garrett's collection of blue pageboy wigs

Yes! It's time to discuss Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and yes, this episode is 90 minutes long, but please note that's still shorter than the movie itself. And we have a lot to talk about! Such as...

• Content note: In 2014, actor Stephen Collins admitted to "inappropriate sexual conduct with three female minors". We have chosen to talk about his character, but not his performance - as far as the two can be separated. 
• Hot take: we like The Motion Picture
• Anika argues that Spock is the protagonist of The Motion Picture. Kirk is also in this movie.
• It's too often forgotten that Persis Khambatta is the first woman of colour to play the female lead in a Star Trek film (which is separate from the problem where, up until 2009, the films kept introducing new female leads rather than ever developing Uhura…)
• "My oath of celibacy is on record." Gene. What the fuck.
• Season 4 of Discovery has a lot of The Motion Picture in its DNA … and so does SNW! (Anika has a strong argument that Christine's characterisation in SNW owes more to this film than TOS)
• Possibly our most controversial opinion: we mostly like the uniforms
• Antimatter Pod: "We don't ship Kirk/Spock." Also Antimatter Pod: " Anyone who thinks that this movie is not about Kirk and Spock being in love is not watching this movie."
• Anika tells Liz about The Lost Years by JM Dillard, queen of the fiery red-haired psychic OFC

• We love the coda so much that it makes us like the final season more
• This episode had the wrong type of ship nerdery for us
• The trouble with Tendi
• Rutherford has been even more underused than usual this season, which makes his subplot here feel like it came out of the blue
• Carol Freeman gets the ending she deserves: her husband by her side and a new adventure
• A few weeks ago, we agreed that Ransom was not captain material, and we were so wrong
• Mariner/Ransom is CLEARLY still a thing and we're not mad about it at all

• While Anika was out touching grass, Liz was getting spoiled for every single surprise in this episode (and also getting blocked on Bsky by Mike McMahan)
• Jolene Blalock, our queen
• Curzon: why?
• "I don't mean to make this a carrot podcast, I just think they're a very overrated root vegetable." 
• Jokes about Harry never being promoted are tired, especially when we know the reason was Rick Berman's racism -- which makes this episode's twist a bit … yikes
• Who gets to be openly ambitious? And who has to keep their head down and wait patiently for recognition to be bestowed upon them? 
• Liz spoils the end The Day of the Jackal (2024) at 23:46, so deploy your skip=30 button if you need it
• FINALLY a Starfleet with a place for Anika
• Did the Harrys Kim hook up? Yes, obviously

Yes, we're talking about Star Trek: Lower Decks' "Fully Dilated" and "Upper Decks". We liked one of these episodes! Mostly!

• "Fully Dilated" was a personal attack aimed at us
• Why is Tendi so out of character this season? 
• The Boimler and Rutherford subplot felt like a throwback to TNG_S8, but what works as a 140-character tweet is less successful spread over 22 minutes of animated comedy
• If you're going to put T'Lyn in the T'Pol role and then make boob jokes, they should be … funny
• "Do you know how mid an episode has to be for Data to be our favourite part?"
• We liked "Upper Decks" a lot! 
• But doctors withholding pain medication is not funny
• Freeman continues to be the best captain

Okay, no, we're discussing Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5, episode 6, "Of Gods and Angles"!

• Another round of the "accept what makes you different" moral, which is not bad, but more suited to Bluey than an allegedly sophisticated comedy for adults
• (Bluey is successful for the same reason that Star Trek is successful! Competence porn and aspirational levels of decency!)
• "They could do anything, but they have no imagination!" is a BOLD choice of dialogue in a season this weak
• Teen pregnancy? The Humourless Feminist Killjoy Hour is here to ask: is Star Trek entering its natalist era?
• Liz talks really authoritatively about Romeo and Juliet for someone who hasn't read or watched it since 1997

Yes, we're talking about Star Trek: Lower Decks episodes "A Farewell to Farms" and "Starbase 80?!", and we have a few things to say...

• "A Farewell to Farms" was fine
• Mary Chieffo deserves better
• It's time for Liz to admit the truth: she has a soft spot for Dr Migleemo
• Is Migleemo Freeman's Tuvok?
• It's very possible that there are external reasons that season 5 of Lower Decks hasn't been working for us
• The SNWification of Star Trek since 2022
• Starbase 80 is symptomatic of an empire in decay
• What is Mariner's arc in season 5?
• We are here to ship Mariner/Kassia

We're discussing Star Trek: Lower Decks episode "The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel", and spoilers, we aren't fans!

• The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel did not deserve this
• "My shoulders went up around my ears and stayed there for the entire episode."
• Jennifer is abusive, and it's weird how the show (and the fandom!) seems to consider this zany and delightful
• This is not a great season for Tendi's characterisation so far
• It feels like Mariner and Tendi's arcs ended in season 4 and the show doesn't quite know what to do with them now
• But also, less than week to the US election and Lower Decks is like, "How about an episode where a Black woman on the cusp of becoming a leader is mistreated and everyone cheers?" Guys.
• An Apocalypse Now parody? Groundbreaking.
• Anika: "I apologise to people who liked this episode." Liz: "I don't."
• How much has season 5 been affected by the industrial unrest across the entertainment industry? There are so many barriers to making good television at the best of times! Also, Liz talks about season 5 of Babylon 5 (sorry, Anika)

It's time! For the Star Trek: Lower Decks fifth season premiere!

Liz: I don't ship Rutherford/Tendi/T'Lyn 61 seconds later… Liz: I ship Rutherford/Tendi/T'Lyn

• Remembering Jeri Taylor
• New York Comic Con: Anika has been in the presence of greatness (Carol Kane)
• Is Lower Decks getting tired, or is it Liz who is too tired to feel joy? 
• Beard Boimler and Otherford
• We are learning SO MUCH about Orion culture! 
• INCOMING HUMOURLESS FEMINIST KILLJOY MOMENT: Maybe October 2024 is not the right time for a subplot about controlling what a pregnant woman does?
• Anika has a Bointer for you: always try to avoid anything that makes you sound like J. D. Vance

• Anika was really onto something when she said Rok-Tahk is the new Wesley
• What is a good age to start watching Star Trek with kids?
• "At no point does Prodigy talk down to its audience."
• Anika's two fictional sons (Dal and Jack) in one episode!
• This podcast is tough on Indiana, tough on the causes of Indiana
• Why do so many series captains own property on Earth? 
• Characters from DS9 and Picard we want the Prodigy kids to meet
• Saving Holo Janeway

• Kids are gonna learn about plausible deniability sooner or later
• It was always going to be Ascensia versus Gwyn
• And Ascencia versus Janeway
• Girl you have too many nemeses, put one back
• Wesley's plan fails because he didn't expect Gwyn to prioritise her father. WHICH SAYS A LOT ABOUT HIM. 
• (A fun question: how much of Picard's relationship with his parents did he replicate with Wesley, and how does that impact Wesley's relationship with the kids now?)
• Like Discovery, Prodigy has a really fluid hierarchy among the kids
• Liz threatens to write a book called Management Lessons from Michael Burnham and Dal R'El 
• We are thoroughly dismayed to find ourselves shipping Holo Janeway/the Doctor

• Dal and Zero's arcs reach their respective climaxes
• The Voyager crew were also the Rogue Misfit Squadron
• The Doctor is at his best in a low-pressure environment, but he's programmed to think he thrives under pressure
• Dal speedruns his own arc in miniature and comes out the other side
• Zero: they're a hero, actually
• Flashbacks to "Such Sweet Sorrow" part 2 had Liz running to Moopsy for support
• Prodigy tells more overt queer stories than SNW, which is actually kind of alarming
• We care about shipping, not ships

• Liz has a hot take: she does not like "A Tribble Called Quest" and thinks it has an accidental forced-birth subtext
• The three Dad Genders: Girl Dad, Boy Dad, Scientist Dad
• Maybe we need to stop making tribble episodes
• MOVING ON TO THE EPISODE WE ACTUALLY LIKED
• The Jellico In Command Timeline
• Okona and Chakotay: the deadbeat dad and the dad who stepped up
• Did Captain Tuvix murder Janeway? 
• Who would win in a fight between Mirror Janeway and Emperor Georgiou? 
• Chakotay, formerly Hot Chakotay, is at his least attractive ever when he's reunited with Janeway, and that serves a purpose! 
• The best-known Evil Overlord list, as reproduced on TV Tropes
• The Antimatter Pod Shipping News! 
  • Mirror Janeway and the search across the multiverse for the Chakotay with the brain cell
  • Chakotay/Holo Janeway
  • Zero/Maj'el
  • Dal/Gwyn and the parallels with Janeway/Chakotay

• Wesley Crusher, Star Trek: Picard, "Assignment: Earth" and more
• Liz drops some obscure Doctor Who lore
• Why do so many time travel organisations have a mid-century modern aesthetic? 
• Adulthood is about making the hard choices, but youth is about rejecting the no-win scenario
• Anika wants to know how Janeway knows Wesley; Liz has a plethora of theories
• Don't worry, Anika can explain how Dal is like Anakin Skywalker

• Star Trek bringing the anti-running agenda for 2024
• Maybe these non-corporeal adrenaline junkies should look into rollercoasters
• It's a really nice bit of worldbuilding that telepaths are bad at consent and boundaries, but accidentally gives rise to a subtext which feels transphobic
• Which is not to say that this is not a wonderful episode or a great allegory about both the trans experience and disability! 
• But it's complicated! We talk about it at length!
• ALSO this Feast of Senses would have been so much creepier if Gene Roddenberry or Rick Berman were around
• Jankom Pog dances like a Bluey character
• Dal and Gwyn and relationships that exist in small moments

Instead of dressing up as homeless people and doing riot LARP, this is a good time to support your local homelessness organisations and vote against politicians whose policies dehumanise and further marginalise the vulnerable.

----more----

Anika and Liz sit down to discuss DS9’s “Past Tense”. It’s one of those episodes where we go, “This is really good!” and then talk about its problems for an hour.

• Everyone knows “Past Tense” is a great two-parter, but what our theory presupposes is … maybe it’s deeply flawed?
• But seriously, “This is a great episode” is the beginning, not the end, of the conversation
• The great man theory of fake history
• The neoliberalism of DS9
• Anika’s big Reagan rant finally makes it through editing into an episode!
• Empathy versus apathy
• This is a really bad episode for Liz to have a total mental blank around the word “complicit” (don’t worry, the long pauses are edited out)
• The outstanding costume and set design

It’s the episode where we go, “Has this just aged, like, really badly?”

• Both of these episodes are mainly about putting the pieces in place and setting up threads for later
• What type of characters are allowed to be audacious and ambitious? 
• Does Prodigy have a problem with body diversity and same-face? 
• Zero/Ma'jel and the power of being chosen by someone instead of being thrown together by circumstances
• Anika has a new favourite Andorian
• Dr Noum: great at work-life balance, maybe not so great at … his job
• "I'm going to say something controversial and brave."
• We're not NOT shipping Gwyn/Ma'jel

When it doubt, Anika and Liz seek advice from a whale. Yes, we're talking about the Star Trek: Prodigy episode "Observer's Paradox"!

• Kathryn Janeway pours a shot of espresso into a larger cup of coffee and then gives it to a teenager; she should not be allowed to care for children
• Murf definitely knows everything about the USS Discovery
• After thirty years, Chakotay is finally linked to a real Indigenous nation: the Nicarao people of Central America
• If we're not meant to be shipping Janeway/Chakotay, then why does this episode exist?
• The Antimatter Pod Shipping News: Anika has a terrible new OTP
• We have questions about the Doctor's holonovels, but ALSO romance novels are an important force for marginalised groups getting their work in front of audiences
• When the adult in the room is a whale

• Intertextuality within the Star Trek canon
• Ma'jel upsets the group dynamic in a fun way -- every time a Star Trek starts getting stale, they should add a young Vulcan woman to the cast
• The binge model has robbed us of the joy of speculating wildly about who the mysterious benefactor is
• Ilthuran is not a regular dad, he's a cool dad! AND WE HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT HIM
• The Doctor is so well-used in Prodigy that we're more positive about his joining Starfleet Academy than we would have been a month ago!
• The Antimatter Pod Shipping News
• An interlude where we stop to dunk on Sarek for a while #OurBrand

We're discussing Star Trek: Prodigy's "Who Saves the Saviors", including…

• Rok-Tahk knows when to keep her mouth shut and when to tattle, and also has done nothing wrong (ever, in her entire life)
• Dal has never watched Star Trek and isn't about to start now
• We have conflicting feelings about birds, and Liz drops some Doctor Who lore
• Tysses and Noum are the Married Mean Gays that Star Trek has needed for eternity. Yes, we just made that up. But it's canon in our hearts. And we would subscribe to their podcast.
• This isn't even the first time Chakotay has abandoned a bunch of kids in the Delta Quadrant!
• Why is everyone so determined to put Janeway and Chakotay in parental roles when it's clear they would both be very bad at it?
• Jankom represents some of Star Trek's best disability rep ever
• Janeway is deeply flawed, and that's good writing

(Please note we have seen the whole season, and although we make some very virtuous remarks about sticking to the episodes at hand, we cannot be trusted to respect the Temporal Prime Directive.)

• The binge model and Star Trek
• Dal versus the education system
• Sexualising the Diviner
• Zero's story is both a trans narrative and a disability narrative 
• The romances in this series are super low key and free of inherent drama … but would there be a bigger fandom if the show provided more fodder for ship wars? Is that better? Or worse? 
• Jankom and therapy and Dr Noum
• Rok-Tahk, rules and Liz's Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead trauma

It's a very special episode as we discuss the series finale of Star Trek: Discovery, "Life, Itself"!

• We thought we were ready for Discovery to end, but we were wrong
• Liz suffered a finale-related injury and Anika has wine
• The Sega Star Trek: The Next Generation game (and also Jenny Nicholson's four-hour video essay about Disney's Galactic Starcruiser experience)
• It feels like they were setting up Primarch Tahal as the big villain for season 6
• We have even more feelings about Rayner than we do about the Galactic Starcruiser video
• Moll's ending is not what we expected, but we like it
• Discovery streaming movies when?
• The epilogue! The Star Trek: Legacy we deserve!

• What sort of ending do we want for Moll? 
• We already have a crush on Primarch Tahal
• Michael and Book parallel Michael and Ash in "Into the Forest I Go" - is infiltrating an enemy ship a date? 
• We are briefly interrupted by an appearance from Anika's cat's butt
• Paul and Hugh have been sidestepping drama all season and it's great? 
• Saru: relationship role model
• We're not NOT shipping Rayner/Tilly

Anika and Liz are spending their vacation AT THE LIBRARY, where they are checking out some books and checking in on Michael Burnham.

• Every single thing in this episode is Sarek's fault
• Libraries and archives are never apolitical
• Primarch Ruhn heard there were drag queens doing storytime at the Eternal Archive, and he is NOT happy about it
• Anika has been linking Labyrinth and Alice in Wonderland for YEARS
• An alarming amount of people don't believe in atonement or redemption
• Michael's riddle is, do you understand the point of Star Trek: Discovery?
• Is the Federation bigoted against slime people?
• "What I'm about to say is going to make it sound like I ship Vance and Rayner, and I want you to know that I do."

• It is DEVASTATING that this is Discovery's last season and we're going to lose Rayner as fast as we got him
• Liz accidentally talks herself into shipping Michael/Nahn and also Nahn/Ortegas
• We have unlocked Rayner's tragic backstory
• Hot take: Michael is now a better captain than (prime) Georgiou
• Anika is here to make it about Jack Crusher
• We aren't puzzle people, but neither are the Discovery writers, and it kind of shows
• Jett/Pelia has never been more canon

• Like episode 3, this felt a bit predictable, but ALSO like a rebuke to "Lift Us Up Where Suffering Cannot Reach" and "Who Watches The Watchers", so we're not mad about it
• What if obeying the Prime Directive is the unethical option? 
• (Caretaker + Who Watches the Watchers) x (Lift Us Up Where Suffering Cannot Reach + Sacred Ground) - Christopher Pike/Evil Ex + Michael "Fuck the Prime Directive" Burnham
• Hugh Culber and ChatGPT therapy
• Paul and Hugh are both at turning points, but it's not a crisis for them or their relationship
• This season is the opposite of a mystery box
• Discovery has always been a series where science and religion co-exist
• Paramount, the most competent media company, accidentally took Anika off their Star Trek list and put her on the Knuckles list. So … we talk about Knuckles! 
• Is Kovich a little too omniscient?
• We are not here for fandom's fatshaming of Mary Wiseman

Anika and Liz beam over to an eerily familiar starship, steal a locket and a plush gecko, and discuss episode 5 of Star Trek: Discovery's fifth and final season, "Mirrors".

• It's a double date for L'ak and Moll and Book and Michael!
• We take it back about not being able to emotionally engage with L'ak
• Liz has a theory about what this episode is setting up
• We're checking in with Hugh
• Respectfully, so far the puzzle isn't very puzzling
• Rayner's performance anxiety

• Let's check in with Anika, The Only Person Who Hated "Magic To Make The Sanest Man Go Mad". She thought "Face The Strange" was … good
• "I don't wanna sound creepy, but I have a pretty good idea of where Jason Isaacs is at all times."
• This season feels like an intentional final season, even though we know that's not true
• Michael is the collaborative leader that Pike pretends to be
• We are platonically shipping Rayner and Reno as BFFs
• Book's job in this episode is to turn up, take his shirt off and be supportive. Perfect, no notes
• L'ak is SO going to die
• So far Discovery has focused on fleshing out Rayner, but at the expense of Moll and L'ak

• This is a perfectly fine episode, but it seems a shame to waste our limited time this season on something that is merely competent
• RIP Star Trek: Lower Decks
• Introducing the beta shift when fans are still under the impression that the alpha shift bridge crew should be the leads: brilliant trolling
• We have always been Wilson Cruz Appreciators, but we are appreciating him extra hard!
• We are concerned about Paul
• "Not to be a Rayner apologist, but I am definitely going to be a Rayner apologist."
• The Vulcan alt-right sure does endure! 
• Adira and Grey are cosplaying maturity (and that's okay)

On Raffi by Anika Dane is in the current issue of Star Trek Quarterly

The Diversity Paradox: Star Trek, Star Trek fandom, and the limits of fandom as progressivism by Liz Barr is in Speculative Insight

SECOND, it's time. Anika and Liz are being called away from a fancy 32nd century cocktail party to stand in an empty void and discuss the first two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery's fifth and final season...

• Compared with the over-the-top emotional drama monarchs of Star Trek: Picard's third season, it's just nice to be with competent professionals who get the job done
• Picking up the threads of Star Trek: Picard's first season
• Captain Picard is still the most important individual who ever existed
• This arc so far has the Star Trek V problem: they can't actually meet God, so the real meaning of life will be the friends we made along the way
• Tilly has a rare but valuable anti-ambition arc
• Moll and L'ak have wandered in from another series, but we're not mad about it
• It's nice that Vance has a wife and Tilly has a love interest, but we're still shipping Vance/Tilly and we're not sorry

• This is ostensibly the sort of filler episode that people now say they want more of, but it mistakes trivia for character development
• "Small town business owner who hates progress and reveres the past" is a type that hits different in 2024
• Henry Janeway voted for Mike Pence
• Why are so many (white) starship captains from small town America? 
• "11:59" is not interested in exploring the forces that would drive a woman out of STEM and into homelessness
• Has any problem in the history of humanity ever been solved by a benevolent corporation? 
• At 26:06, Liz says "dystopian" when she means "utopian", please be assured this will keep her up at night for the foreseeable future
• We debate the benefits and otherwise of genealogy (content warning: from 34:03 to 34:27, this includes revelations about incest)

"The First Duty":

• Imagine if Beverly Crusher got to parent her son
• "Anika needs to talk about Jack Crusher" is an item in our outline
• We get into the really serious issue: who is dating whom in Nova Squadron?
• Liz's knowledge of American high school life, as gleaned from YA fiction and Archie comics
• Star Trek is a place where it's okay to fail

"Lower Decks":

• Picard's relationship with Sito
• The Enterprise only takes the best. So why are the bridge crew SO bad at managing staff?
• Except Worf, an unexpected contender for Best Boss Ever
• And Deanna Troi, Holder of the Brain Cell
• We can infer a lot about Sito's personal growth between "The First Duty" and now, and her reconnection with Bajoran culture
• Our semi-regular one-sided correspondence with Mike McMahon continues
• Critiquing Worf's contouring

• It's been said before, but it bears repeating: this episode is super racist (would it have been better or worse if they had renamed Khan and made him Mexican?)
• Time to ask the real questions: why are there so many women in Star Trek named Marla?
• Marlene McGivers: aspiring tradwife
• We've found it. A woman in Star Trek that neither Anika nor Liz can defend
• Does SNW break "Space Seed"? 
• But seriously, why has La'an not changed her name
• How did the Eugenics Wars … work?
• Khan Noonien Singh: still a better world leader than Donald Trump

Then we had ... some other things to podcast about.

But we've finally opened it, and we're talking about...

• Remember when we'd pay US$7.99 -- or AU$15! -- for a magazine that contained a couple of interviews, some facts we already knew about the Klingon Empire and a Bird-of-Prey pinup?
• The Kate Mulgrew interview: 
  • She does not talk about her relationship with Jeri Ryan (but we do)
  • None of the other captains of this era had to talk about how work took them away from their kids -- and Scott Bakula had a toddler when Enterprise started!
  • (Hey, isn't it cool that now Anson Mount can request and get paternity leave, and no one's asking Sonequa Martin-Green how she balances motherhood with her career?)
  • Putting the Janeway/Chakotay relationship on the backburner (and where they could end up in Prodigy -- that's us speculating, not Kate in 1999…)
  • We try to picture Kate Mulgrew in the MCU and fail spectacularly
  • Let's all take a moment to send bad vibes to Liz's grade 10 drama teacher
• Jason Alexander and the woke agenda
• 1999 NFTs
• Anika wants you to know that D. C. Fontana shipped Spock/Christine
• 25 years later, Tim Russ deserves an apology for the interview which closes the magazine

But the show must go on, and Anika and Liz are pulling the names of Star Trek men out of a hat and deciding whether or not they're any good in bed. Yes, it's the SEX … Now That We've Got Your Attention episode, and decidedly not suitable for children.

The hat has us talking about…

• Jack Crusher (the secret Picard baby, not Wesley's dad)
• Rom
• Shaxs
• Tuvok (our beloved)
• Jean-Luc Picard
• The Doctor
• Jonathan Archer
• Cris Rios
• Odo
• Gary Mitchell
• Narek
• Garak
• Saru
• Benjamin Sisko
• Jack Ransom
• Hugh Culber (with bonus Paul Stamets)
• Liam Shaw
• Dr Migleemo

We also abandoned the hat to specifically discuss…

• Spock (Ethan Peck edition)
• Chakotay
• Will Riker
• Chris Pike
• Sarek (Vulcan's greatest love machine)

Yes, it's the finale of season 4 of Star Trek: Lower Decks, "Old Friends, New Planets"!

• They stuck the landing!
• We remain, as we have been since episode 1, a Beckett Mariner Stan Podcast
• You Are Not Special, Bro: The Nicholas Locarno Story
• Star Trek is bad at romance (but all media is bad at romance these days)
• …we're just gonna talk about shipping in the other series for a minute
• Orion is Matriarchal Capitalist Westeros and we're okay with that
• Anika remains SHOCKINGLY BIASED against both Migleemo and Mark Twain

• Tom Paris and Nicholas Locarno are different people, which we knew, but sometimes it's nice to have it reinforced
• Important sidebar: which canonical Vulcans are most likely to be in an MLM and why it T'Pring's parents?
• Freeman is the best captain because she's the only one willing to make a fool of herself 
• "The First Duty", "Lower Decks" and Beckett Mariner
• Is Mariner the only character in the franchise who did NOT join Starfleet to escape trauma and/or her family?

• It is not, in fact, time for Lower Decks to break up the band
• (But it is time for them to see other officers, and that's okay!)
• Are Vendorians real? Anika has doubts
• Liz has THREE VERY SPECIFIC BONE SQUICKS and so far this season Lower Decks has hit two of them
• This is an episode about fear of the unknown, and also Star Trek's consistent skepticism of conspiracy theories

• This episode was made for Anika, except it's about characters she doesn't care about
• The birds in Liz's neighbourhood were extra loud just for us
• The evil AI trope
• We're getting all Asimovian up in here
• Like and subscribe to Badgeycast, the new podcast hosted by Badgey and the Cosmic Koala!
• Er, how many times has the Federation almost been destroyed by an AI using its subspace network? Guys, please install a firewall or antivirus software or something?
• (Is it a metaphor? For social media?)

• Is Beckett Mariner okay?
• Do Tendi and Rutherford have feelings for each other? Are we meant to think that they do? 
• We need to admit that Migleemo is the sex god of the Cerritos
• If there isn't a thriving Landlord Cops fandom by the time this episode drops, we will be VERY disappointed
• Liz predicts there will be Rom Discourse
• "Joe Biden is not Rom. BUT…"

• This episode is truly a gift for Star Trek Las Vegas cosplayers
• Anika's Totally Spies theory
• Liz's Daria theory
• Here on the Taking Things Too Seriously Podcast, we are curious about the evolutionary implications of Catians hunting Betazoids
• "Shaxs, man. Shaxs."
• HOLISTIC SECURITY

• ORIONS! LIZ'S BELOVED!
• Are the Orions really all that secretive about their culture, or is it just that the Federation never asked? 
• The Orions need a gender equality movement
• Liz: "I don't know why I'm so unfocused." It's because she was coming down with covid. 
• Anika is not a fan of Mark Twain
• We are familiar with your human "humour". We understand "jokes"
• Antimatter Pod has a lot of feelings about labour and workplace justice

• We don't mind a bit of a workplace hierarchy now and then
• Liz has a WHOLE THEORY about how Captain Freeman's command style is why Beckett Mariner is the way she is
• We go off on a tangent about Voyager, specifically about that time Naomi Wildman died and was replaced by a duplicate. So, um, if dead baby chat is not for you, skip from 13:30 to 14:40!
• Ransom the art critic: chef's kiss
• Is a Gorn wedding the solution to ALL problems? Yes

• "We're not gonna do Tuvix Discourse." We absolutely did Tuvix Discourse
• Voyager as a museum, curation styles and fandom: Liz has a THESIS
• Maybe the real Starfleet is the friends we made along the way
• Friendship ended with Beckett/Jennifer, Tendi/T'Lyn is our best friend now
• We're going to do our very best to pretend to be shocked when it turns out that Beckett and Ransom have been a thing all season
• We have NO IDEA who the mysterious new villain is, but we're cautiously prepared to rule out Boba Fett
• Liz has a recurring nightmare about bananas having bones, and, well. Ep 2 was very difficult for her.
• We already know there won't be Moopsy merch, but what if Paramount releases Moopsy merch? 
• Lower Decks is completely sincere (about Star Trek, about its characters) and that's why it works

Editor's note! Due to audio bleed, it was impossible to edit out all the overlaps and interruptions this week. Yikes, eh? Apologies for all the throat-clearing and overtalk and the whole thing where Anika is substantially louder than Liz…

• The Gorn problem (why are the characters so incurious about them?)
• SNW rips off the Alien franchise without understanding it
• Concept: promote Pike early, stash him on Starbase One with April, give Batel the Enterprise
• Do the writers know Erika Ortegas is a regular character? Do they know Sam Kirk is not? 
• Is it because we're both career admin people that we don't vibe with Pike's leadership style? Anika has a whole theory about the 1980s comedy Working Girl and how Pike is the Sigourney Weaver character!
• "What if we do the 'Best of Both Worlds' cliffhanger, only … bad?" 
• Anika has a BAD THEORY about La'an's fate
• Liz has a WORSE THEORY about Paramount+'s fate and the odds of a third season

• Liz did a crash course in musicals, and then "Subspace Rhapsody" kind of does the same thing!
• "It's bad because it's Strange New Worlds, not because it's a musical."
• Liz has some comments about sound mixing, which is PRETTY RICH coming from someone whose podcast sounds the way it does
• We've had a season of characterisation via romance to build up to a musical! It all makes sense! (Except that it's all so straight!)
• La'an and Una are failing the Bechdel test in song!
• We need more Batel, less Pike
• Christine Chapel has never done anything wrong, ever, in her entire life, and Anika has never loved her more
• "It's like the put all the pieces on the board, and then they threw the board in the trash" - the SNW Story
• If you look up "liberal white men who step back and let Black women do all the work of saving the world" you'll find a picture of Chris Pike

• Looking at fan reactions to this episode, one might almost begin to think people apply a different standard to new Trek compared with the Star Trek of the '90s
• Liz completely misremembers the matter of the Accountant of Auschwitz: it was Germany, not Israel, who put him on trial and sentenced him to prison, and he died before he began his sentence
• Did M'Benga do it?
• It's a real shame Starfleet's only competent admiral/mental health professional got blown up
• The Federation is America (derogatory)
• We are once again asking, whose utopia is it anyway?

• Hi, we loved this episode! 
• Boimler is fandom: he expects things to be a certain way and freaks out that SNW is different
• Mariner is also fandom: she loves Uhura and finds her inspiring, and has more respect for canon than she wants to admit
• Anika has a presentation on how "Those Old Scientists" parallels the plot of Barbie (2023)
• (this episode is also about identity)
• Liz can also make this about Oppenheimer (2023)
• Boimler is not excited to meet Christine Chapel (and he's wrong, but what does that tell us about the history of this era?)
• Stop saying Spirk. This is a callout post (for us)
• Save Mariner from SNW's heterosexual agenda
• It's self-congratulatory references all the way down, but would this crossover work with any other series?
• Does Pike need to be punched in the face by Jonathan Archer for his own good? Our theory is … yes!

• Please stop using disabled bodies as monsters, show!
• It's interesting how SNW is reproducing the problems (episodic storytelling, the reset button) that stymied Voyager
• White men and Christine get development through hijinks and romantic adventures; everyone else gets trauma, and a disproportionate amount of it falls on Black characters
• Is La'an jealous because Jim is hanging out with Nyota? Jealousy plots: they're not good! On the other hand, La'an has a pile of feelings she cannot process with anyone else…
• Uhura has been so underused this season, it's great to see her get some focus, but why is she constantly being bombarded with microaggressions? First Spock in season 1 and now Kirk are like, "Hey, maybe you don't belong in Starfleet"? Come on, guys!
• Why does Star Trek keep casting men who are far too old for their roles?
• Modern Star Trek's relationship with subtlety and subtext: "I don't know her"
• Liz is seeking expressions of interest for a new Blorbo

• This episode is a gift specifically for Anika
• The theme of this season is "identity"
• On one level, this episode is a 60-minute mother-in-law joke with bonus ethnic stereotypes, and that is not great!
• Have short seasons killed slow burn UST?
• The aliens of the week are racist AND acephobic
• Spock, honey, you're a Jewish vegetarian, put down the bacon

• Liz had a visceral reaction to this episode: a timeskip-inducing migraine would have been preferable
• WORSE, Anika is indifferent
• Character development for Ortegas: she flies the ship! 
• Hey, space millennials! Don't go wanting career advancement! Don't even put a toe outside your designated box! 
• Speaking of designated boxes, the whole Warrior!M'Benga thing? Yikes
• It feels like Pike is incredibly bad at his job
• Captain Batel, honey, girl, you deserve better. And also a first name
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: for when the Berman Era isn't heteronormative enough
• Pike is a complacent captain for a complacent Star Trek
• Contemporary Star Trek and the American liberal arts bubble
• …so what does it say that Ortegas, the most 'working class' character, is kinda racist?
• "I realise that I'm reading a lot into my favourite character, but that's what I do."

(Liz would like to apologise for the revving sounds in the first fifteen minutes. She has already bought a better microphone that will record less outdoor noises and probably more chair creaks.)

• FIRST we are very angry and sad about the cancellation of Star Trek: Prodigy
• SECOND, we were extremely nervous going into this episode, and then … we loved it? 
• Introducing Paul Wesley's Kirk via a set of AUs is really smart
• Is this the best episode of Enterprise or the sequel to "Time and Again" we didn't know we needed? Yes. Is it a problem that SNW keeps revisiting old stories? Yes. Did we love it regardless? Yes
• Okay FINE we're shipping La'an/Kirk BUT IN THIS TIMELINE ONLY
• An actual Secret Romulan that we didn't make up? A GIFT FOR US! (Also, again, aliens among humans, THERE'S A THEME)
• The UNIT Dating Controversy of it all
• It took three goes, but finally Khan Noonien Singh is played by a South Asian actor!
• Anika calls it: we're gonna see Brent Spiner in the finale
• "Progress requires trauma" - does it, though? Does it really?
• Are we the first Star Trek podcasters to talk about Pete Davidson?

• Gene Roddenberry would be SO MAD there's a civil rights lawyer in Star Trek! Which is not the ONLY reason it's great, but it's one!
• Utopias are hard work and civil rights progress via litigation is incremental, and this episode gets that
• This is a Neera Ketou Stan Podcast
• HOWEVER Liz thinks the writing veered into a couple of ugly tropes
• What's Vice Admiral Pasalk's deal? Is he a Secret Romulan???
• It would be interesting to dig further into genetic alteration as a cultural practice versus eugenics as a violation of civil rights
• It's allegories all the way down!
• "Aliens hiding among humans" seems to be a theme this season, but NOT in a paranoid way? Aside from our new hobby of Seeing Romulans Everywhere, of course
• Ortegas has a new facet to her character! She's racist!

Yes, season 2 of Strange New Worlds has begun, and we are here to discuss:

• This was a solid B+ of an episode! Why does The Algorithm want us to think everyone hated it?
• We know more about Pelia from two scenes than we've learned about Ortegas in a whole season
• The algorithm keeps bringing us the Bad Spock Takes
• But seriously, we can criticise the heteronormativity without being biphobic and/or misogynistic 
• Anika makes the argument for Spock/Christine
• La'an and Spock are mirror images
• M'Benga, Chapel and the homebrew super soldier serum
• Conceptually, the super soldier serum is great; in practice, the racial dynamic is … bad
• How much do we love Pelia? SO MUCH
• "This is getting out of hand. And awesome."
• The costume design for the away team is amazing and we love it
• For Nichelle

• We are not impressed by Captain Shaw
• The Jack and Seven relationship is a HIGHLIGHT
• Worf treats Raffi better than literally anyone else in the whole of Star Trek: Picard, which is … bad. Like, it's great! But it's bad
• Liz hijacks the podcast to talk about Succession, and how Terry Matalas is like Logan Roy
• "Vox" is better than previous penultimate episodes of the seasons, but still not great! Everyone is suddenly an idiot! 
• Order 66, Star Trek style
• Romance is … not this series' strong suit
• We spend a good few minutes working out how an unexpected pregnancy in middle-age can happen in a 24th century "utopia", which is probably more time than the writers put in
• It's really hard to root for Seven/Raffi when they don't seem to actually like each other
• Stepford Laris
• Liz has a whole rant about autistic representation in Picard; Anika responds with nuance
• In conclusion, this is our pitch to showrun Star Trek: Legacy

• There is a strong possibility that this was … bad
• In Star Trek: Picard, Borg nonsense is always on the horizon
• Is Terry Matalas mirror!Anika? The signs are there!
• A lot of our problems with this season are actually with season 2, ie, the discarding of the original cast
• Some TNG characters were incredibly well-served in season 3. Others… 
• Returning female characters, fridging, and men who hold grudges for three decades
• The MCUification of Star Trek
• Anika cannot be normal about Jack Crusher
• Something very odd is happening with the passage of time in this series, and in the absence of any other evidence, we're going to assume it's Janeway's fault
• Hey, remember when Soji was the female lead? Anyone?

• Toxic masculinity spoils the party again
• Track A is trauma all the way down
• The entire multiverse ships Picard/Crusher, which, honestly? Feels right!
• We shouldn't have to say this, but infidelity does not justify murder
• Like
• Come on guys
• Content warning: we discuss real world family violence and the murder-suicide in this book from about 7:25 to 15:00
• (The specific details of the murder-suicide run from 11:42 to 15:00)
• (Also Liz's cat started walking acoss the desk and brushing his tail against the pop filter around the 15 minute mark -- at least, that's where it became impossible to mute the track because Liz was speaking)
• This book owes Deanna Troi an apology
• Tasha Yar, Hair Exposition and a long digression on the semiotics of short hair on women in the 1980s (Liz looked up Denise Crosby's Playboy shoot, but it was for research, honest!)

Finally, we are once again asking our listeners to consider supporting the fundraiser to cover Mr David's medical expenses and the renovations required to make his home accessible.

OR ... we got together for part 3 of our deep dive into Peter David's Q-Squared. And we discuss...

• Tommy Riker versus Jean-Luc Picard
• Guys, don't send a deeply traumatised former POW off to have a haircut from a stranger without getting his consent and giving him a Xanax first!
• Track B Worf seems great, right up until you realise he's Qanon Worf
• Jack Crusher and Liam Shaw: how to build a character
• Anika explains how Jack Crusher and Jar Jar Binks are the same
• Beverly and Picard TOUCH HANDS and it's a lot
• A brief public service announcement: Michelle Yeoh is not Asian-American and should not be the face of AANHPI Month for Paramount+
• We have very limited tolerance for Q's stream-of-consciousness and also Gary Mitchell
• There are hints -- they're pretty subtle, but they're there -- that Picard and Q have some sort of … bond? On a profound level? Huge if true
• WAR GUINAN

If you love this novel as much as we do, please consider throwing some money towards the fundraiser for Mr David's medical expenses.

Also, this episode contains spoilers for the end of Star Trek: Picard.

Anika and Liz hang out in midair in a turbolift shaft and read pages 106-214 (paperback edition) of Q-Squared by Peter David. Along the way, we discuss…

• Paranoid readings, ie, Peter David did not singlehandedly invent misogyny out of nowhere
• Tommy Riker is the Spock. Yes, really
• Worf/Deanna is a multi-universal constant. Sorry, but it's true
• So is Worf/Riker. Don't @ us
• CANONICAL PICARD/BEVERLY
• This was very formative
• Track B Picard = Raffi Musiker
• There's something a bit cathartic about hating Jack Crusher (the first) as much as we do
• "There's a particular type of masculinity that people associate with the starship captain."
• Nurse Geordi and Data the human-oid
• We are taking out a restraining order against the entire Q Continuum
• Trelane obsesses over something Kirk said but doesn't understand it, making him the ultimate Star Trek fan
• Fan service and nostalgia

Anika and Liz hop some timelines and read pages 1-105 (paperback edition) of Q-Squared by Peter David, and along the way, discuss…

• Our first encounters with the novel
• A brief overview of Picard/Crusher shipping in the official tie-ins
• They don't make tie-in novels like they used to
• We come to this with pre-existing opinions about Peter David
• Getting into the alternate universe set-up of Track A: Captain Jack Crusher, Commander Picard, Dr Howard, Nurse Geordi, POW!Riker and Vigilante!Worf
• This book gets deeper into Jack Crusher's personality than any other TNG-related material, and, uh, yikes
• Peter David writes a GREAT Riker
• Listen to Where's Beverly's Hallowe'en episode for Liz's "Beverly is a space witch" theory
• The perpetual widowhood of Beverly Crusher
• Canon timeline Deanna is a punchline and it's not funny
• "This novel makes me feel things, and I appreciate that."

• Star Trek: Picard spoilers from 00:00 to 00:59
• We are deeply unqualified to talk about the Troubles. Of course, so were the TNG writers… (Book credits: Just Another Kid by Torey Hayden and Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe. If you want a review of "The High Ground" from an actual Irish person, please see this post by the always excellent Darren Mooney.)
• As a character study of Beverly Crusher, "The High Ground" is amazing. As an episode with something to say about terrorism, it … exists.
• Melinda Snodgrass was particularly good at including female characters in roles that otherwise tended to default male, and not worrying about whether or not they were "likeable".
• When Finn talks about the moral cowardice of the Federation, he probably just watched "Lift Us Up Where Suffering Cannot Reach".
• "The High Ground" does avoid the common American trope of romanticising the IRA.
• Yes, Beverly and Deanna are both in feminised "caring" professions, but, um, how many female CMOs have been regulars in Trek? 
• The nameless boy who becomes Beverly's apprentice
• Picard spoilers from 31:28 to 32:16
• The Beverly/Picard shippiness in this episode is OFF THE CHARTS
• Finn feels like a first draft of Chakotay
• Just gonna put this out there: the Prime Directive is bad, actually
• Picard spoilers again from 41:11 to 44:30

• Skip to 00:49 to avoid the big spoiler and also Liz singing
• (Liz actually pronounces French words even worse than she sings, so, um, apologies to France)
• "I apologise to everyone for comparing Beverly Crusher to Darth Vader, however…"
• This is an episode about family, and not just the Soongs
• Breaking down the "Shut up, Wesley" scene
• Picard spoilers from 26:03 to 26:15
• And again from 27:05 to 27:32
• If you are a Wil Wheaton who was forced to participate in the "Shut up, Wesley" scene, you may be entitled to compensation
• But seriously, fandom's treatment of Wil was NOT OKAY and it's alarming how little has changed (from alt.wesley.die.die.die to Facebook comments complaining that Bella Ramsey isn't playing a sexy 14 year old)
• Very, very mild spoilers for Picard from 41:49 to 42:11
• Bigger spoilers from 45:06 to 50:24
• "It's almost like they can't understand women as something that are unrelated to men." THIS APPLIES TO EVERY ERA OF STAR TREK (except Discovery)
• "I mean, just because something is bad doesn't mean you can't love it. We're Voyager fans!"
• #SynthIntensifies

Extra credits: this episode uses a drop created by Adam Ragusea for The Greatest Generation (go listen), and portions of compositions by Ron Jones. We're calling it fair use since we were discussing those pieces.

• Picard/Crusher: our first OTP
• Gwyn/Dal: #OTPCatboots
• Fifty years and all it took to make Anika ship Spock/Chapel was letting Christine have a personality
• Anika's favourite Star Trek rarepair will SHOCK and SCANDALIZE 
• Janeway/Kashyk shippers: there were dozens of us in 2000!
• Has Janeway/Paris become a rarepair? That's definitely not going to stop Anika from shipping it! (We respectfully disagree with this essay.)
• Janeway/Chakotay: Liz knows she shouldn't ship it but she cannot stop
• "Speaking of war crimes…" (Or, how to segue into Cornwell/Lorca)
• Anika has a LOT of femslash OTPs
• Janeway/Seven has gotten more complicated now we're adults
• Sometimes, shipping problematic things is … good
• Vulcan polyamory is logical
• Big shout out to the Captain Georgiou/Commodore Paris shippers
• Please go and read Anika's Palpatine-as-the-sex-candle-ghost fic, it's so much better than the premise deserved
• We can ship Kathryn Janeway with everyone, and we will ship Kathryn Janeway with everyone
• (We will also ship Katrina Cornwell with most people and we are not sorry)

• For a first season TNG episode, this is … not bad at all
• Is season 1 of TNG really season 4 of TOS?
• TNG went all-in on the anticapitalism in season 1 (it's just a shame they brought the antisemitism along for the ride)
• Riker's whole job is to keep Picard out of danger. He's gone for LESS THAN AN HOUR and Picard is beaming himself down to the death planet.
• hurt/comfort dynamics
• Beverly, that's not how xenobotany works
• Tasha was killed off just as they were figuring out how to write her
• Deanna Troi singlehandedly invented the "let's stop in the middle of a crisis to talk about your feelings" scene
• Is Logan the worst chief engineer of every single Enterprise ever? Yes!
• "The Beverly that came back isn't the same as the Beverly that left."
• (Yes, it's because no one was left in the writers room from season 1, but LET'S SPECULATE WILDLY REGARDLESS)

• The early years: 
  • Dr Elizabeth Dehner
  • Badmirals
  • Spock's stories can be a metaphor for a lot of things, but the emotional repression to depression pipeline is definitely one of them
  • (Anika has a whole THING about The Motion Picture and Spock's arc, it's amazing)
• The 90s: 
  • A counsellor on the bridge
  • Stories that are explicitly about mental health
  • Lwaxana Troi
  • Sometimes the problem is not the depiction in the series, but the (ableist) reaction of fans
  • Anika presents a very strong argument for B'Elanna having an anxiety disorder
• Post 9/11 (ENT and the Kelvinverse films)
  • Liz says T'Pol was the first female Vulcan character when clearly she meant first female Vulcan regular, don't @ us
  • ENT reverts to a very masculine type of story: men deal with feelings through avoidance and sex, while T'Pol is literally too emotional
  • ENT and the AOS era: a time of magical healing vaginas as substitute for mental health care
• The Trek Renaissance
  • Discovery and Picard tell explicit stories about mental health, with varying levels of success
  • Prodigy and Lower Decks tell implicit stories
  • SNW takes us back to the manly man stories of the ENT era
• Harmful and helpful depictions
  • fandom ableism
  • Liz has an UNPOPULAR OPINION about the depiction of Seven in Picard
  • "I'm gonna say something mean about Katrina Cornwell."

Specific episodes we talk about include:

• "The Loss" (TNG)
• "Dark Page" (TNG)
• "Emissary" (DS9)
• "It's Only A Paper Moon" (DS9)
• "Night" (VOY)
• "Extreme Risk" (VOY)

• Prodigy loves a Vulcan/Tellarite/Andorian trio
• COMMUNICATION is THE THEME
• Holo Janeway fulfills the dream of all Janeways everywhere
• Gwyn's big hero moment
• ALSO the Dal/Gwyn, we have been shipping it since episode one and we feel VERY GOOD about everything!
• Everyone should get a puppy (but especially Rok-Tahk)
• No offence but Zero looks like an iPod now
• What next for season 2?

• Into the holo-verse
• Where is the Zero-as-Dixon-Hill story we need and deserve?
• Jankom Pog is NOT OKAY and we're into that
• Seriously, just a few weeks ago, we were like, "Jankom is the flattest character?" HOW WRONG WE WERE
• Murf. Just. Murf. What?
• It is OUTRAGEOUS that Paramount hasn't released Delta Heart: Magical Veterinarian as a phone game
• We do not dislike Dal's pirate game, but it doesn't really tell us anything new about him
• Liz is here to ship Control/The Living Construct. And also Zora/The Living Construct. Enemies to lovers but make it AI.
• Any time you can put Kate Mulgrew in a scene with herself, you get something good

• Good news, Dal! We know who your family is! Bad news, they're the worst people in the galaxy. I'm sorry. You're a Soong.
• We continue to respectfully fangirl Aaron Waltke
• It's never too soon to introduce your children to bioethics
• Rok-Tahk is the anti Toph Beifong
• The Tellarites just took a DISABLED ORPHAN and THREW HIM INTO SPACE we are NOT OKAY and neither is Jankom Pog
• Now as much as in the '90s, the Kazon deserve better
• Like many people raised by abusive parents, Gwyn is incredibly aware of the emotional state of everyone around her
• IT'S JUST HEARTBREAK ALL THE WAY DOWN
• The Diviner: a bad person, should be stopped
• The Vindicator: she can have anything she wants, we support her
• (We ship it)
• We have a new theory about what Chakotay is doing, and if we're right (sometimes we're right!) it could justify his whole presence in the show and maybe even redeem the character from decades of racist writing

Topics include:

• Disney knows when to merchandise a series, and more important, when not to merchandise it
• Paramount can't do either
• When your merchandising is dominated by spirits, wine, beer and drinking glasses, there's a whoooooole demographic you're excluding - and we say that as people who drink!
• Also, our predictions for episode 15 of Prodigy? So wrong. SO wrong!

• "We have a plan but everything goes wrong" and "this could all be resolved if people talk to each other" are classic plots going back to Shakespeare and beyond, BUT that doesn't mean we have to like them!
• Liz spends an episode talking about Xindi Insectoids even though they are clearly Reptilians
• Stop! Don't split up the landing party! Don't leave Rok-Tahk unsupervised! Honestly, these teenagers and children are weirdly not good at planning.
• You'd think Holo Janeway would have said something, but she's also very young! And also, she can't get home until the weapon is resolved? And she's a Janeway, so that must be hard? 
• We are mystified by the ongoing presence of Okona in the animated Treks. MYSTIFIED.
• Antimatter Pod remains an unapologetically pro-Romulan podcast
• We need to know every single thing about Commander Tysess, especially whether or not he and Tuvok are BFFs
• Some decades-overdue worldbuilding for the Tellarites, yet it has been 50-odd years and we have yet to see a single Tellarite woman
• We engage in wild and baseless speculation about what season 2 will look like -- will the kids steal a different starship? Will Admiral Janeway adopt Rok-Tahk? 
• Murf's new appearance is a bit. Um. 

• how Liz is explicitly banned from using her Shatner voice for the whole episode
• We have decided to ship Chakotay/The Diviner
• When entertainment becomes the entirety of one's culture
• How to be Starfleet (you don't need a uniform or a hashtag)
• Galaxy Quest, "Muse" and "Far Beyond the Stars"
• What better way to introduce young viewers to TOS than via the stage? (Just ask Anika!)
• We are NOT PREPARED for Murf to change! Yes, this is a series for young people and change is a fact of life BUT WE ARE GERIATRIC MILLENNIALS AND THIS IS ALL VERY STRESSFUL

• Nodding to past Borg stories while also doing something new
• There's a fantastic synchronicity between Lower Decks's second contact concept and Prodigy's foundation being the Federation's apparent failure to follow up after a first contact
• All of Janeway's assumptions are wrong, and it's GREAT
• We take a few minutes to be a Tolkien podcast (Rings of Power spoilers)
• It turns out the real collective is the friends we made along the way
• Anika has SO MANY FEELINGS about redemption, atonement and forgiveness
• Prodigy has a very clear morality: it's a place where it's safe to be wrong and then do better, and you don't have to be powerful or important or a member of a quasi-military space force to do good in the universe

• The chase is on!
• Lieutenant jg Barniss Frex is THE WORST
• Starfleet needs to start recruiting career bureaucrats who LIKE being assigned to sit in an office in space and do paperwork. Like … us!
• We don't actually think Dal is a Janeway/Paris salamander baby, but we have a lot of thoughts about how it would be great if he was
• It would be terrible if the Diviner has done something to Gwyn to also make her a weapon. Absolutely awful. We wouldn't enjoy that one little bit. Honest.
• Rok-Tahk is safe to learn and make mistakes
• If kids go from "Hey, Murf is a Mellanoid slime worm, let's watch the only episode of Star Trek where those are mentioned," they'll watch "Coming of Age", the episode where Wesley fails to get into the Academy (and that's okay). Coincidence? Maybe!
• Liz wants to be happy about finally getting the J/C hug she's been waiting for since she was 14, but Robert Beltran's making it hard
• Anika has compiled some stats about children in Star Trek generally, and they are fascinating
• Like, TOS had FOUR episodes about kids taking over the ship! Out of nine across the franchise, and that's not counting Prodigy!
• In fact, you can kind of track social attitudes towards children via their presence in Star Trek, which makes it alarming that SNW keeps killing them

• PLUSH MURF! An oasis in a quality merch desert! 
• Discovery season 5: this looks FUN
• Callum Keith Rennie's Captain Rayner sounds like Lorca 2.0, and we approve
• We already love L'ak and Moll, even though Liz is already planning a barrage of Australian puns
• Prodigy season 1.5: OUR CHILDREN ARE BACK
• Liz can tell the difference between Jameela Jamil and Ella Purnell, honest.
• From shipping Janeway/Janeway to making it WEIRD in record time
• Picard season 3: it's us! The only people in fandom who think this looks awful!
• The misogynoir starts in the trailer, and Michelle Hurd and Michael Dorn deserve better
• We're here for the Picard/Crusher, but also, we watched season 2, soooooooooo…?
• If they've killed off Laris, we're going to find a table and flip it
• For all our complaints about Picard and the way it dominates the conversation (and marketing budget), the future of Star Trek lies with the people who came in with Discovery and Prodigy, and that's wonderful.

• Remembering Louise Fletcher
• All Star Treks should end before they have a mediocre seventh season that undermines everything that came earlier
• We do not care for the Pah Wraiths as a concept
• Make sure you're sitting down because Liz has something nice to say about Rick Berman
• Kira is a Jewish Bajoran and Winn is a Christian Bajoran
• It turns out that if you watch all the Winn episodes in a short space of time, her season seven arc arc does not make sense at all
• Winn/Dukat is a textbook abusive relationship and it's troubling that fandom doesn't see that or thinks she deserved it
• The similarities between season 7 of DS9 and Revenge of the Sith are actually fairly impressive
• RIP Solbor, the only person who cared about Winn (and he didn't even like her)
• It's possible we're meant to find Winn's sensuality repellent (so once again Liz and Anika are Doing Star Trek Wrong)
• The intimate partner violence of it all

If you'd like to see our notes for this episode (which include screencaps and shouting), you can click here.

• Winn wants power, but she's not good at using it
• Why is Shakaar interesting right up until he becomes a love interest for Kira?
• Winn thinks she and Kira are playing good cop/bad cop, and Kira's like, "Wait, I don't wanna be a cop!"
• As a portrait of a white church lady on a power trip, Winn has aged VERY well
• We are going to generously assume the Federation is a democracy
• Winn's desperation for power is a trauma response, because the entire planet of Bajor has PTSD
• She has actual character development (and ceases to be an antagonist to Sisko) in "Rapture"
• The Prophets seem to hate Jake Sisko specifically, which is just further proof they're not good people

It's the episode where we compare the Federation to the British Empire!

• If you only watch the Winn episodes, and maybe even only the Winn scenes, DS9 is a really amazing show about two women fighting about religion and politics
• "In The Hands Of The Prophets" - just because Winn is wrong doesn't mean the Federation is right
• Winn asks questions the writers should have thought about themselves: why is a human the Emissary? Why should Bajor join the Federation? (Why is this botanist with no teaching qualifications running a school?)
• Winn is the target for so much misogyny, and it says a lot about how fandom perceived and still perceives women in power.
• Minister Jaro and Shaxs: the only sexy Bajoran men in the entire history of the planet (also we do not agree on how to pronounce Frank Langella's surname, but Anika's version is probably right)
• Contrary to popular belief, Winn has integrity: she hates the Cardassians even more than she loves power, and is loathe to collaborate with anyone -- even the Federation
• Unfortunately we have become Winn/Jaro shippers
• "The Collaborator": Kira becomes the Vimes to Winn's Vetinari
• Winn as a maternal figure for Kira, which is GREAT except when you think about what happened to Kira's actual mother and then what happens to Winn…

It's the episode where we realise we don't NOT ship Sisko/Winn...

But did we actually like season 1 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds?

Erm. Well.

• Remember when we were afraid this would be the Pike, Spock and Una show? It's definitely not the Una show, and we have different opinions on whether or not it's a Spock show!
• It's fascinating how season one of SNW shares a lot of problems with season one of TNG, but no one is out there arguing that TNG's first season was good
• Anika has to "well actually" Liz
• The Elysian Kingdom: 
  • We just want M'Benga to be happy, is that so much to ask?
  • It's 2022 and the depiction of queerness in SNW is roughly on par with DS9 in the 1990s (this is not a compliment)
• All Those Who Wander:
  • #GornRights
  • "Straight-up Aliens rip-off" is a feature not a bug for us, but the depiction of the Gorn is even more troubling than it was in "Memento Mori"!
  • PLEASE make Star Trek hire a disability consultant because the depiction of disability and mental illness in any Trek overseen by Akiva Goldsman is dreadful and offensive
  • Children, whether Gorn or human(ish), don't have rights in this series, and Anika finds that TROUBLING
  • Lifting a Spock/Uhura scene -- body language, camera angles and all -- from Star Trek (2009) but subbing in a white woman was … well, the optics aren't great, y'know?
• The Quality of Mercy
  • We don't often say this, but we hate everything about this episode!
  • Like, don't remake "Balance of Terror" if you don't understand Kirk, Spock, Romulans or the plot of "Balance of Terror"
  • It makes a good double feature with "These Are The Voyages…" but that isn't really a good thing
  • We have a new appreciation for Greenwood!Pike and the (relative) lack of ableism in his story 
  • The Great Man Theory of Star Trek history
  • The ending is … exactly the same as the ending of season 2 of Lower Decks? At least for once it's a white woman facing the Federation's capricious justice system?

• Conversation about the Uvalde massacre from 4:30 to 6:26
• The coronavirus death toll: 8:42 to 9:01 but also Liz is very mean about the British to 10:04
• Back to school shootings, and also Kenobi, from 25:41 to 31:38

Anika and Liz don their finest catsuits to plan a jail break and discuss episodes 6 ("Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach") and 7 ("The Serene Squall") of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

• Is it possible we are being punked? Is everyone else getting a different, better version of Strange New Worlds?
• If you're going to rip off Le Guin, at least try and do a good job
• Everyone who called Discovery "grimdark" and "nihilistic" owes it an apology
• It left the sexism behind, but otherwise Strange New Worlds is very much the heir to Enterprise
• We are very concerned for M'Benga and Rukia, and also very mad about fandom's racism towards them
• Following last episode's strong anti-child-eating stance, we're going to take another radical position: maybe we shouldn't let children die?
• Anika will not stand by and let Liz criticise the Star Wars prequels
• SNW is like season 3 of Voyager: competent but not in any way groundbreaking or remarkable
• "The Serene Squall" owes something to How Much For Just The Planet? Except that was … good
• We've seen Our Flag Means Death, we have standards when it comes to comedy pirates
• Honestly, we would feel better about the trans/non-binary representation here if the writers were not cis and the writing was not so heteronormative
• (It's so heteronormative!)
• Anika has a controversial opinion: let's decanonise TOS
• Hey, remember when this series had two Black regulars? Where'd they go?
• Maybe they're in the same place as that emotional continuity we were promised?

• Everyone says SNW is a good show and we're starting to feel a bit gaslit…
• "Memento Mori" and SNW's whole depiction of the Gorn becomes uncomfortable when you look at "Arena" and realise they were conceived as an allegory for Native Americans
• Liz cites Finding Eliza by Larissa Behrendt as, among other things, an examination of the European preoccupation with cannibalism
• It's weird how Worf, Michael and La'an all have exactly the same backstory
• Anika is explicitly opposed to eating children
• We were promised that SNW would have serialised emotional arcs, so … why is La'an fine now?
• Ortegas will be getting a second dimension to her character any day, right…? 
• It's troubling how sidelined MBenga has been through this season, especially when you consider the racial dynamics and how Uhura gets one whole line in "Spock Amok"
• Clearly Spock/T'Pring is doomed BUT CONSIDER: movie-era Spock/T'Pring! Picard attended the wedding of Sarek's son in the early 2300s! THINK ABOUT IT!

• This is a pretty mediocre episode and the character stuff is very hit or miss
• Do we need a log at the end to tell us what the moral is? 
• We love La'an and we want to know everything about her, but her story makes no sense here
• "I never think of you as a child," in the context of a character first encountered as a child, is a terrible line
• Somehow … Palpatine has returned (to our conversation)
• Has no one told La'an that she can just … change her name? People can do it all the time! Anika did it! 
• Don't sleep in your eye make-up, guys. This is an Antimatter Pod PSA.

• We are not watching for the plots, which are decidedly familiar, but the characters
• Pike: dealing the burden of knowing he's going to be the subject of an ableist plotline, and also his haircare routine
• We are once again asking the writers to hire a disability consultant
• This is a Pro-Spock/T'Pring podcast
• Did Uhura need a tragic backstory? No, but Starfleet is full of orphans, so what's one more?
• It's Christine Chapel's universe, we're just living in it
• It feels like Sam Kirk is here purely to alienate casual viewers
• La'an feels like a do-over of Tasha, and we approve
• Is Ortegas queer? The show has started out on a pretty heteronormative note 
• Hair Trek
• You can rewrite "Amok Time" and erase "The Menagerie" (please! Please erase "The Menagerie!") but you cannot tell us Spock doesn't have chest hair. That is where we draw the canon line.
• Protect Celia R. Gooding at all costs
• Our new regular feature: Where Is Katrina Cornwell Right Now?

• To be blunt, we did not enjoy these episodes or, ultimately, the season
• CONTENT WARNING: We discuss the Yvette storyline, suicide and mental healthcare from 5:04 to 25:20. If you are vulnerable or simply not in the mood, feel more than free to skip. And if you are vulnerable or affected by this and need help, here are some resources: 
  • https://www.imalive.org/ (international)
  • National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 800-273-TALK (8255), Text HOME to 741741 from anywhere in the United States, anytime. 
  • Lifeline Australia: 13 11 14
• The theme of the season is loneliness
• How do you have Orla Brady in two roles and waste her in both?
• Raffi/Seven is the new Hera/Kanan (in that there is a total disconnect between what the writers think the relationship is versus the actual relationship on screen)
• We do not love Rios's ending (or the way all but one of the original characters have been discarded)
• Anyway, that was a whole THING! That was just super not for us! Even the bits that should have been!

• We have a few follow-ups to our discussion of mental health in our mini-ep, but otherwise we're skirting around the Yvette plotline in "Monsters"
• Liz maybe owes Michael Chabon an apology
• Okay, but it's probably a bad sign when Law & Order addresses the same issues as Star Trek but more progressively
• Raffi? Manipulative? Really?
• Seven and Raffi are both dealing with a LOT, and this episode puts a lot of their recent interactions in context (finally)
• (Again: what IS pacing?)
• Anika had a really outstanding rant about the foolishness of making people chose their career paths at age 18, and it was trimmed down because her cat agreed so enthusiastically that the rant itself became inaudible, but trust us, it was great
• Rios slept through the class on the temporal prime directive
• We're going to be Those Fans about Agent Wills's story, but for different reasons

Accordingly, this episode (and its show notes!) contains much fresher spoilers than usual.

We discuss:

• Our concerns about the Yvette Picard plotline came true, with a fun domestic violence fake-out twist!
• Multiple ableist tropes: the tortured artist whose creativity depends on their mental illness; the "having a mentally ill parent is SO traumatic" story
• Imagine being a bipolar Trekkie right now
• Brief mention of suicide from 8:14 to 8:26
• This is not AS egregious, but they got Freud all over our Picard/Crusher

• The casting announcement! 
• Will we get a Star Trek: Stargazer?
• Poor Kore, and poor Isa Briones, who has to spend every season playing a woman facing an identity crisis
• The pacing on this show is SO BAD, but at least it's bad in a different way to Discovery? Through trial and error, we will eventually get to a place where the pacing is good?
• Someone at Tesla GAVE APPROVAL for their car to be used in scene where it runs over Picard and that is AMAZING
• How much Twilight fic do we think Kore has written?
• We are CONCERNED about next week's Yvette plotline
• Tallinn could be played by Gates McFadden and literally nothing else about the story would change

• We have a bit of a scheduling change coming up!
• Tallinn: is she now or has she ever been a cat?
• Liz is overthinking things like it's her job
• Renee Picard and Kore Soong: not so much characters yet 
• Liz has this whole THING about Persephone, aka Kore, and the Egyptian goddess Isis, and look, she doesn't get to use her Classics degree that often, just humour her like Anika does
• Expositional cleavage
• Stop Possessing Agnes 2k22 Challenge
• Depression, like the Borg Queen, is a liar OH IT'S A METAPHOR

• We really loved the first two episodes
• Although Liz suspects she may have once said something about Laris and Picard having a father-daughter relationship, which, yikes
• The other two episodes…
• It's hard to be invested in relationships when the foundations are weak
• To borrow a phrase from another podcast: Where's Beverly?
• Do Raffi and Seven actually like each other?
• Having Picard and Seven out here tone policing Black women was A Choice
• We share some dental trauma stories from 34:43 to 36:67 if you'd rather skip that
• Hey, remember when Soji was the main character?
• Picard's mother! Is a person! Who exists! We are excited yet afraid…
• Are we MEANT to be shipping Agnes and the Borg Queen? Because we're not waiting for permission!

• We get our nitpicks out of the way first
• Michael is a hard act to follow when it comes to big speeches
• Ndoye has taken the final step to becoming a fully fledged character, and we love it
• We find opportunities to compare TWO characters to Admiral Cornwell #ourbrand
• The "emotions? In my Star Trek?" argument comes up again; Liz makes snoring noises
• Wait, did we know Federation HQ was mobile???
• Anika talks about The Abyss
• Stacey Abrams! Liz has a hot take; Anika has a much better one
• Liz accidentally quotes Ronald Reagan and owes Anika a MASSIVE apology

• What can Book's fate possibly be? Liz has a theory!
• Tarka is WORSE THAN GUL DUKAT, YOU GUYS
• A VERY brief digression into matters Picard related (note spoilers)
• "Why is Star Trek about feelings all of a sudden?" We cannot believe this is even a point of discussion, but since it's come up, we have a rant we prepared earlier!
• We do enjoy a nice puzzle…
• Some WILD SPECULATION about the possibilities for season 5
• Wait, why haven't they just chucked a spacesuit on T'Rina and sent her out to mind meld with the 10-C?

• It's been a while since we had a nice landing party on this show!
• Star Trek should never, ever try to be cool 
• If you are tired of hearing Liz complain about Detmer, good news: she has completely changed her opinion!
• 10-C, anthropology 101 and the elephant's graveyard in The Lion King
• Sometimes a little knowledge about reality can impede one's enjoyment of Star Trek, which is apparently not a documentary or something…
• So we can safely assume by now intelligence isn't the number one trait that attracts Michael to a man…
• The delegates: a linguistics nerd, Space Wordle, Rillak's pantsuits and Earth's Brexity vibes

It's the episode where Cleveland Booker is on THIN ICE, you guys, THIN ICE.

• Just when we thought Disco had mastered pacing...
• The Tarka problem endures
• Saru! T'Rina! Their love!
• "Insecurity is universal." Discovery is a deeply insecure show.
• Is MURF Species 10-C?!
• Translation, alteration and unconscious bias
• Liz's next door neighbour does a bit of yard work, which is great…
• We have started shipping Vance/Rillak, which means we are also VERY concerned that Rillak's gonna go get herself blown up or something

And more!

• We have some prurient speculations about Saru's … experience; also, we ship Saru/T'Rina A LOT but please never make us look at his hands again
• Nahn is back! Is this … emotional continuity? Gosh!
• Book and Michael are sort of spinning their wheels, narratively and emotionally
• Ruon Tarka is the Elon Musk of the 32nd century, and we do NOT mean that as a compliment! But it's okay, we took a break from fixing Good Sam to offer notes

• An update on our giveaway
• Captain Picard Week is coming…
• Wanna make a place seem dodgy in 2022? Fill it with a crowd of people!
• We are on the record as loving terrible dads in fiction, but we also love good dads! And also … dadmirals!
• We know you know this, but it bears repeating: Sonequa Martin Green is very, very good at the whole acting business!
• A bridge crew subplot that … hangs together and doesn't feel jammed in? In OUR Discovery?

• The sheer joy of watching a carefully planned story, competently told
• If Lower Decks and Picard are sequels to TNG, and Prodigy is a sequel to Voyager, will the Section 31 series be a sequel to DS9? (Liz has suggestions and they involve casting Alexander Siddig…)
• We talk a lot about how the Diviner is a child slaver, but he also has the regular kind of slaves AND THAT'S NOT BETTER!
• How the Diviner is like one particular Australian scam artist…
• We have some qualms about the Diviner's fate
• Protecting Rok-Tahk is SO important
• The Shipping News (Liz has a lot of Janeway/Chakotay feels)

• Drednok: the Swiss army knife of henchmen (henchdroids)
• We love our fictional children
• We also love terrible dads in fiction and we don't apologise
• (HOWEVER, Anika has been accused of being a Gul Dukat apologist, and she wants us to know SHE WOULD NEVER)
• Maybe the Diviner has really good reasons for hating the Federation, but the CHILD SLAVERY makes it a bit difficult to sympathise…
• New uniforms means we have OPINIONS!
• Does Anika have to explain how animation works?

ALSO we have some Star Trek to discuss! And ... quite a lot of Star Trek coming in the next six months, prayer circle for ... us.

• Prodigy! Time travel! Technobabble! Space program history! TRAUMATISING CHILDREN!
• In an unexpected twist, we LOVED Jankom this week
• (We also loved everyone else, but that is only to be expected.)
• Anika imprinted on Aliens at a disturbingly young age
• It's interesting that the usual suspects aren't calling Rok-Tahk a Mary Sue…

• Did we NEED to bring the Ferengi into the 21st century? 
• Seriously, lots of things about Nandi left a bad taste in our mouths
• "The prime directive quandary was the most interesting part of the episode" -- words which we have NEVER said before now!
• Can Murf consent to being a transporter experiment subject? 
• Nandi has pierced ears and this worries us a LOT
• Pay animation writers fairly, dammit!

• OUR CHILDREN ARE BACK
• We are still talking about the unconscious racism in people's attitudes to Dal (and Michael, and Raffi, and Becket…)
• Understanding versus interpretation
• Gwyn finding her identity
• Things are getting a bit timey wimey up in here
• There probably isn't a secret plot to keep DS9 out of current continuity…
• Archive audio, sound quality and FEELS

• We speculate wildly about filming multi-storeyed crowd scenes in covid
• Should, uhhh, Book have been allowed at this meeting? 
• Earth is a bit genocide-happy and it's worrying
• Never trust anyone whose solution to their problems is moving to another universe!
• Some digressions: Gundam Wing, Fringe, Loki
• Also Liz reads poetry (badly)
• Artificial intelligence in our homes: Google, Alexa, Siri, Zora…

• This episode was great, yet it's not our favourite … and that is very much an us problem not a Discovery problem
• Must a Star Trek podcast be full of meaningful insights? Is it not enough that we have some Voyager comparisons and a whole digression about the psychological benefits of procedurals?
• Gray is Kes (this does not mean that Adira is Neelix)
• A little bit of a rant about fandom's take on found family
• Depictions of anger in Star Trek (and the world)
• A digression about season 4 of Enterprise
• The Bridge Crew Problem (™) (in which we have something nice to say about Nilsson!)

• It turns out we were onto something thematically relevant with our calls for prison abolition!
• "The Examples" feels like TNG or Voyager, and this time we mean it as a compliment
• (It feels so much like a Voyager episode that we have to debate whether or not the character played by an First Nations actor was an ethnic stereotype…)
• Ruon Tarka is a great foil for Stamets and a … temptation? For Book?
• We have a lot of feelings about the USS Janeway and the NSS T'Pau
• Was Zora's development of emotions triggered by the anomaly? Is this set-up for Calypso? We have WILD SPECULATION and VERY LITTLE EVIDENCE!
• Liz is not entirely certain how to pronounce "eschew" but that's not going to stop her from trying!
• Prediction: the anomaly looks like an eye because we are going to be asked to empathise with it

…but we're not very good at that, so instead we talk about: 

• The departing character, our feelings and our hopes
• This is an episode about Michael using her middle child powers
• Vulcans love drama almost as much as they love logic, and we are HERE for it
• Anika is delighted to see Hugh in action as Discovery's therapist
• Are we due for someone else's planet to asplode?
• Could this be Discovery's final season? Liz has an idea for how it should end -- Anika is not impressed.

• Actually we did not love this episode and feel slightly bad about it (but maybe the writers should feel worse?)
• PRESIDENT RILLAK DID NOTHING WRONG, Liz has a powerpoint presentation and an interpretive dance to persuade you if you disagree
• We are once again calling for the abolition of the carceral state
• We don't know enough about the Federation OR Ni'Varan justice systems to understand why Michael disagrees with Rillak, and that's kind of a problem
• We have a lot of complaints about this episode, but we love and adore its depiction of Vulcans
• Spock's World by Diane Duane, a novel which is unexpectedly relevant to this episode of Discovery
• Michael has chemistry with EVERYONE and it's a problem (unless you're a multishipper, which we are)

• The anomaly's name is Greg now
• We talk a lot about grief in this ep, but also how Liz thinks Michael and Book should have a baby, which is a totally legitimate solution to any problem
• Michael Burnham is allowed to cry, it is good that she is capable of crying, and the logic bros and manbabies of fandom need to get over it
• Star Trek is about grief and sex, and has been since "The Cage"
• Wilson Cruz is remarkable as both a person and an actor and we are lucky to have him

• Discovery has left Paramount Plus and basically Paramount has squiddled so much good will in one move, we are confused
• It's possible that two new Star Treks in 24 hours is too much
• There was not enough kissing in any of these episodes!
• Is Murf a person or a pet? (And if they're a pet, that is TOTALLY valid but we think Rok-Tahk might also like a puppy.)
• Does Michael Burnham need to be put in the James Kirk box?
• "And that's why we have to destroy capitalism."
• Book is Princess Leia (yes, this does make Michael Han Solo)
• We discuss our least favourite characters on Discovery; their identities may shock and enrage you.
• We don't love that someone is questioning Michael's capacity yet again, but that aside, we LOVE President Rillak and offer her the highest possible Antimatter Pod compliment: she reminds us of both Seska and Kai Winn.
• We have hair, make-up and costume notes.
• Saru is in this episode.

As a protostar is born, a planet is asploded. Or something.

• We're glad we don't have to cover two Star Treks at once, but we're gonna miss these characters when Prodigy goes on hiatus
• Janeway is a week old and also a single mother and we love her
• Every single character is an orphan with a tragic backstory (or a hologram) and we have a lot of feelings!
• We should be more like Rok-Tahk
• The Alice in Wonderland of it all
• Connections between Star Treks
• Anika has an extremely controversial Garak opinion and will be recording future episodes from Nerd Protective Custody

• Long Janeway is Clippy, and we're sort of into it
• The kids who choose their roles and the kids whose roles are given to them
• It's wild that (adult) viewers are criticising Dal for mistrusting authority and not being a perfect Starfleet cadet, and there are also some racial undertones
• Likewise, Gwyn has done terrible things and has bad opinions, but she is also at the beginning of her journey to learn better
• The Federation is a classless utopia, yadda yadda yadda, but let's talk about how the Tellarites are sort of working class and marginalised
• Why is Paramount so bad at merchandising Star Trek?
• They're also missing a great opportunity to introduce kids to science!
• ALSO there should be two prequel junior novels, by known middle grade authors, on shelves by Christmas, how is Paramount so bad at this?
• Dal doesn't trust authority, but Star Trek fandom kind of loves authority too much
• 42:29: discussion of real life rape and murder, and the use of the carceral state as a tool to abuse Black children
• In conclusion: imprisonment is bad and redemption stories are good, and also is anyone else excited for the prospect of Team Protostar meeting Seska's kid or the Lizard Babies or any of the other many children Voyager abandoned in the delta quadrant?

• It's a little bit Star Warsy … but we think that's a good thing
• Star Trek has a reputation for being extremely serious, and its fandom for being utterly humourless, and Prodigy is taking Star Wars and MCU fans and showing them that's not true
• Save the cat (no, please, save that poor kitten!)
• We love and adore Gwyn, a character who was practically made for us
• The darkness of children's stories
• How did all these alpha quadrant species end up in a prison mine in the delta quadrant? We smell shenanigans!
• Angus Imrie's Emma Thompson impression
• Anika's theory as to how Drednok is a Jason Isaacs character

It's the episode where we are definitely shipping Dal/Gwyn!

We talk about: 

• Anika's NYCC experience
• A new Discovery trailer! Gosh, people have awfully strong opinions about the Ferengi make-up…
• Serenading the cast
• Liz loves the Federation president and has pre-forgiven her for any war crimes she might do.
• Prodigy's goal is to welcome new people to Star Trek without making them watch hundreds of hours of TV and movies, and we are HERE for it.
• We wound up LOVING the rest of Lower Decks season 2
• ...except the Pakleds
• We love Boimler now? Like, a lot? 
• Liz's confession: "I'm a Doopler."
• We loved "I, Excretus" so much that Anika can't talk about it without laughing!
• We want Captain Freeman to command the Enterprise
• Anika fangirls Dawnn Lewis

It's the episode where Liz has so many last-minute thoughts that this is basically the end of Return of the King, in Star Trek podcast form

• Kes did not even get an entry in her own right in the Voyager character bible
• We swore we weren't going to use Kes's episode to talk about Neelix, but seriously: why is Neelix?
• In fact, why are all Kes's stories about men? 
• Anika's home for wayward narratives
• How Soji is Kes 2.0
• Everyone is wrong about Elogium except Liz (okay, and Anika)
• We had to cut a long discussion about how great Tuvok is because THIS IS NOT AN EPISODE ABOUT THE MEN IN KES'S LIFE
• Any situation which can be compared with the end of Breaking Dawn is probably bad
• Fury hits REALLY differently now we know more about Lien's departure
• COSTUMING, including our '90s aesthetics and a terrible quote from costumer Robert Blackman

Episodes to watch: 

• Elogium (an episode about Neelix deciding if he's ready for Kes to have a baby)
• Cold Fire (an episode about a guy recruiting Kes for his cult)
• Warlord (a man possesses Kes's body)
• Darkling (the Doctor is very concerned about Kes falling in love)
• Before and After (it's actually about Kes! Just don't think too much about Ocampa and human co-existence…)
• The Gift (an episode about Seven of Nine where Kes decides it's time to leave Voyager)
• Fury (but don't feel like you actually have to watch it to listen to this episode, Liz certainly didn't bother)

• We have concerns about the sidelining of female characters in Prodigy
• How will Long Janeway be changed by her time with the kids?
• The all-male Prodigy panel was followed by the Discovery panel, which featured no heterosexuals whatsoever
• An ugly incident of homophobic abuse at the event
• The Strange New Worlds characters
• Christine Chapel's backstory: any situation that involves the phrase "multiple sexy robots" is going to be regrettable
• Anika has a lot of feelings about the trend of taking male villains and reinventing them as women
• Despite all the evidence that this is a bad idea, ie, season 1 of Star Trek: Picard, we are very excited for season 2 of Star Trek: Picard
• We were wholly unmoved by the "Legacy" section of the event
• People we love: Mary Chieffo, Jolene Blalock
• We are here to defend the red carpet hosts!

It's the episode where we agree that, for all our mixed feelings about his father, Rod Roddenberry seems like a good egg.

Along the way, we talk about:

• Walking the line between responding to fans versus pandering
• We have feelings about the depiction of Orion women in Lower Decks … and, in fairness, most of Trek
• We have even stronger feelings about the Ferengi here. "Why???" is a feeling, right?
• We're also not into the Pakleds!
• This remains a Beckett Mariner stan podcast
• Liz is still lukewarm on Boimler, but Anika finds him charming and appreciates the meta genius of making him a Tom Paris fan
• Where are the NGOs in the Star Trek universe?
• We talk about Kai Winn for a while because we love her

It's the episode where we had to cut out a twenty-minute chat about police procedurals because not even we could pretend it was on topic!

• Everyone knows "Past Tense" is a great two-parter, but what our theory presupposes is … maybe it's deeply flawed?
• But seriously, "This is a great episode" is the beginning, not the end, of the conversation
• The great man theory of fake history
• The neoliberalism of DS9
• Anika's big Reagan rant finally makes it through editing into an episode!
• Empathy versus apathy
• This is a really bad episode for Liz to have a total mental blank around the word "complicit" (don't worry, the long pauses are edited out)
• The outstanding costume and set design

It's the episode where we go, "Has this just aged, like, really badly?"

• We may be a Star Trek podcast, but we're a Star Trek podcast with a lot of Loki feels
• (Seriously, this episode includes big spoilers for Loki and a big-ish spoiler for WandaVision)
• Children's media before stranger-danger was invented
• Abolish the time police 
• Ethical time travel
• We made it to the 30 minute mark before declaring Sarek THE WORST
• Where's Michael in the Yesteryear timeline? 
• Okay, now imagine if Sarek adopted Loki…
• So Spock loses a pet, and he can choose to forego emotion for the rest of his life, but the rest of us just have to deal with our feelings? Unfair!

It's the episode where we wish the tiny Vulcan children would put some clothes on!

We are very good at this whole podcasting business.

• Social media: it's good, actually
• "I stayed to watch, and there was something very important that she had to tell Jean-Luc, and I was like, 'Oh my gosh, she loves him!' And 30 years later, here I am."
• Liz's friend Lauren shares their opinions as a first-time TNG viewer
• Early widowhood probably wasn't great for Beverly's sex life
• Is anyone out there shipping Geordi/Leah Brahms?
• Riker/Troi, a pairing which somehow achieved perfection after the series ended
• Why are there MULTIPLE incidents where consensual encounters between Riker and Troi are hijacked by telepathic rapists? How did that happen? 
• "Peter David is … problematic."
• Deanna/Worf: the very best end of series random relationship
• How Worf is like Kylo Ren
• Picard/Ro Laren shippers: there are dozens of us
• Is Picard demisexual?

Content notes:

We get a little more explicit than usual in this episode, particularly when it comes to the logistics of sex with Klingons. And there is discussion of sexual assault from 24 minutes to 26:23.

Sound notes:

Despite doing every single thing normally, there are a few points where there's a hissing noise behind Liz if Anika's track is muted. For that reason, we have a bit more overtalk than usual.

• Liz attempts to summarise the episode and we learn an important lesson about taking notes
• A Medusan character in Prodigy
• As a story about disability, this is … interesting. There's a lot to unpack. Including Kollos, because he lives in a box
• We only want the best for Miranda Jones
• "Both the Spock stuff and the Miranda stuff are actually all about how you present yourself versus who you are to yourself."
• Telepathy and mental health professionals in Gene Roddenberry's future
• Human telepathy in SF generally and Star Trek in particular
• #releasethesenenskycut
• Assistive technology but make it fashion
• Anika's Scotty impression
• Infinite Cash in Gene Roddenberry's Pocket

• Usenet memories
• Decolonising Star Trek
• Chakotay, the significance of a Native American writer handling a Native American character, and the … notable lack thereof in the show itself
• Another round of religion in Star Trek
• “People need to understand that Chakotay/Seven was not endgame.”
• Fandom, homophobia and het that's not heteronormative

It's the episode where we look back and go, "Oh, YIKES."

• we are maybe the wrong audience for a loving tribute to The Original Series…
• a loving recreation of a ‘60s aesthetic … that ends when women sit in the hair and make-up chair
• no one needed an explanation for “Turnabout Intruder”
• imagine a metaphor for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign … but with Spock as Trump
• “Canon should be elastic. Canon should not be a rigid line. Ever.”
• Dr McKennah, the major original character in this series — she’s a total Mary Sue and we love her

It's the episode where Anika says, "He's doing a Chekov accent, not a Russian accent," and we're not entirely sure if that's good or bad.

• Bonus points to the Hansens, where BOTH parents are terriblel
• Digressions: that careful balance where you don’t want to give up your whole life because you have a child, but also maybe you shouldn’t take that child into Borg space??????
• Sisko, single fatherhood and parenting goals.
• Rom, DS9’s other Good Dad.
• O’Brien, a better dad in TNG than DS9 (brief digression: why Keiko and Miles really ought to consider divorce).
• Worf. Just … Worf.
• In defence of Kirk.
• Data is a good dad. Soong and Maddox: not so much.
• Our Azetbur headcanons are approximately on topic!
• The L’Rell/Tuvok shipping is not, but that isn’t going to stop us.

We came to drink tea and make fun of Sarek ... and we're all out of tea.

• The official Star Trek con will be held next year in Chicago, Liz's favourite city in the US. She still can't go, but…
• Star Trek: Prodigy and Long Janeway
• The Christine Baranski Cinematic Universe
• A new Star Trek movie! With ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO GO ON, we are speculating wildly
  • We want multiverses! We want Kelvin!Michael! We want new characters we've never even heard of yet!
• Liz was completely underwhelmed by the promise of Q's return in Star Trek: Picard, but Anika has an idea which CHANGES EVERYTHING
• We have a good, solid rant about Akiva Goldsman's recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter
• Why is Q such a dick, anyway?
• We are extremely excited for the next season of Discovery
• Fannish anniversaries and holidays: they're kind of weird
• How Anika created PadMay
• Stay tuned for Katoberfest

[Note: we had some audio challenges with this episode, and Tim is not always as audible as we'd like -- apologies.]

• What is the IMDB ratings systems and why should Anika, specifically, care?
• The short answer: sexism 
• That is, certain Treks (you can probably guess which ones) are rated higher by women than men (the IMDB system is purely binary), and far more men rate things than women
• "It's ruined childhoods again, that's what it is."
• This week's digression takes us into Doctor Who fandom
• Discovery versus The Orville (but only in terms of IMDB ratings because Anika and Liz have so far declined to watch The Orville)
• Star Trek: Continues weirdly has the highest rating of any non-TNG Trek

• The near future: 2018
• So where's our reboot?
• Underwater Tom Paris
• Liz's very first Cranky Older Woman In A Position Of Authority
• Hitchcock/Kreig: okay, imagine B'Elanna and Neelix were married...
• Marilyn Stark: we want to love her, but she is not a good character
• Does modern television need more talking dolphins?
• he younger and sexier season 2
• That thing where you glom onto a minor character actor and try to follow their career … without the internet
• A conversation about following career actors evolves into Liz just straight-up spoiling the end of Major Crimes.

It's the podcast that leaves us thinking, man, maybe we SHOULD do a full seaQuest rewatch pod...

• Because, wow, the MU is not the place to go for good rep!
• Headcanons are not the same as canonical representation
• Pine is a top-tier Chris
• Deniable, erasable and word-of-God queerness in media
• The Trill Problem, part 1: We need to talk about Jadzia
• An unpopular opinion? On Antimatter Pod? It's more likely than you think!
• The Trill Problem, part 2: Beverly and Odan
• Headcanon is not canon, but let's talk about Will Riker anyway
• Raffi Musiker and Beckett Mariner: a tale of two showrunners
• "Every Starfleet officer is probably, at baseline, bisexual in a way."
• But why IS Michael Chabon the arbiter of what constitutes "organic" queer representation?
• Biphobia in media and fandom

Topics covered include:

• Changes in the way we talk about fic
• Reminiscences about mailing lists
• How fic reflects the time it’s written
• Early fandom racism
• Anti-feminism in fic
• The thorny question of content curation, warnings, ratings and acceptable content in fic
• Fic as a valid subject for critical analysis
• Liz makes a confession about her sockpuppet past
• “Again, I don’t wanna be an anti…”
• A brief digression into X-Men, Anika’s Mary Sue marriage to Sarek, and WandaVision
• “Are women people?” (Related: How do you write a good female character? We are still having these discussions?)
• Is it possible to have … too much feminism?!
• “At least a third of Trekfen are male.” Why is fic dominated by women? The ladies of the '70s had some theories...

Please note there's a discussion about incest in fic between 31:08 and 31:02.

• We have nice things to say about Shatner
• Edith's don't-punch-Nazis attitude is ... challenging in 2021! We hash it out with a little help from The Clone Wars
• How Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries is like Game of Thrones
• The Kirk/Spock of it all
• We did not deserve DeForest Kelley
• A digression into CBS procedurals

It's the episode where a psychotic break involves more time travel than most!

• We are not good at maths
• “It’s a good pilot, but not a good episode.”
• The script has a really complicated relationship with Janeway’s femininity
• Tom Paris is a truly awful character in the pilot (and for a while after)
• Chakotay: stereotypes and racism abound
• Tuvok is magnificent and we love him
• Harry Kim and the completely unsupported idea that he’s bad with women
• We love and adore Kes and hate most of the storylines for her
• (We also love and adore age gap relationships … except Kes/Neelix)
• “Neelix doesn’t know what a boundary is.”
• B’Elanna doesn’t play a big role in the pilot, so we make up for it by discussing her whole arc over seven seasons
• The Doctor is basically just Cranky Siri in the pilot
• The paternalism in this story

Other episodes discussed: 

“Initiations” “Alliances” “Basics Part 2” “Journey’s End” (TNG)

Notes: At one point, Liz refers to Evan Evagora as “half-Maori”. A better term would have been “of Maori heritage”, rather than a phrase which suggests some sort of division or blood quantum. My apologies.

Notes:

• Season 3 repudiates nearly everything we hated about season 2
• Finally Owosekun gets a moment
• Liz has decided to ship Owo/Zora
• “We are Starfleet”: it’s basically the flipped version of “this is not America”
• The new uniforms are bad and we hate them
• Liz quotes Meatloaf
• Expanding from motherhood stories to parenthood stories
• The Moffat era of Discovery

We're taking a break for a month or so, but if there's a topic you want to hear us discuss, let us know! We're on Twitter at @antimatterpod, and you can also reach us at antimatterpod.tumblr.com.

This ep has some audio issues, as Liz learns new software, but we manage to discuss:

• Is this Christmas homage a Die Hard episode?
• Osyraa and Vance level up in characterisation
• Osyraa/Vance arranged marriage fic now pls
• Does Osyraa need to raid Georgiou’s wardrobe?
• RIP Anika’s Andorian
• We EXPLICITLY SAID we didn’t want to know how the replicators work
• Who is the Federation President? Our candidates include Voyager's EMH, and also Grudge

• Another haunted house, another recurrence of the season’s theme of confronting fear and ugly truths
• Su’Kal: the most 2020 hero
• The cause of the Burn: a child the Federation failed to rescue
• In fact, the Federation destroyed itself through its own complacency
• This is a story which prioritises emotional intelligence over logic
• Do we need to report Book to the Space RSPCA?
• Osyraa’s costume tells a story 

It's the episode where we absolutely refuse to get into the question of whether the food you eat on the holodeck is real!

• So it turns out the mirror universe is not a fun place to hang?
• The Terran Empire was always destined to fall
• A redemption arc, or a reformation arc?
• “You don’t fail upwards in the mirror universe.”
• Saving Saru
• Liz spoils the end of The Good Place
• We talk a lot about Gabriel Lorca and Harry Mudd, which is weird since they don’t actually appear in this episode
• VICAR
• Sorry, we really did have to discuss Lorca’s priest fetish and make fun of his screen name
• The return and demise (again) of Ellen Landry
• Vance is oddly inconsistent
• Do we need to see Vance in his jim-jams? For ... character development reasons? 

 • It was so nice of CBSAA to make an episode of Discovery just for us!  • Saru, Book and Vance are under the impression that they’re in a regular episode. They are very wrong.  • We strongly suspect Carl is not really a human from the 1930s.  • If you die in the mirror universe, you die in real life as well.  • A recurring theme of duty  • How Saru is Kristy Thomas  • “And that’s why capitalism is going to destroy us all.”  • The usual Mandalorian digression

Link Selenak’s review

We're also talking about:

• Admiral Vance: does he have a drinking problem yet?
• Michael doesn't really understand the concept of letting others make choices, and it's probably Sarek's fault
• Misfits, outsiders, and why is piloting "macho" anyway?
• Saru is not a good captain (which is fine), but fandom won't admit it (which is bad)
• What the heck is going on with Georgiou? Are we building up to her departure?

It's the episode where Book levels up in Disney Prince!

• the academic rigour of the Vulcan thesis defence
• the latest episode of The Mandalorian
• false binaries
• Tilly's career path
• Michael's quartet of complicated mothers

It's the episode where we ask -- just how much of a creep is Grudge? And really? Baby Yoda has a name now?

• the Luke-Vader heist of Anika's dreams
• the teams are fracturing and it's AWFUL but also a bit great
• does Michael actually want to be in Starfleet? Did she ever choose to be in Starfleet?
• Michael Burnham and the Series-Long Badge Motif
• Michael/Book: how do we love it? We cannot even begin to count the ways!
• a Culmets duck family
• is Grudge a real cat: y/n?

We also go off on a wholly irrelevant tangent about the ENT episode "Carpenter Street".

Also covered:

• we care as much about 32nd century starship design as we do about the bridge crew
• how season 3 is structured like a video game
• Nhan's departure
• Georgiou's arc
• Discovery is not an ensemble show and should stop trying to be
• they really did manage two separate scenes where men tell Michael to watch her tone
• Saru's historiography is ... bad
• music: the score and the clue

Remember, statistically there is a high probability that Admiral Vance is evil!

We discuss:

• how very 2020 this season feels ... but in a good way?
• the Adira/Gray romance, representation, ghost stories, YA fiction and Truly, Madly, Deeply
• Saru's character growth
• Liz wants you all to know she hated "Calypso"
• it took three seasons, but Culber is finally the fully fledged character Anika always knew he could be
• Buster Keaton, and when the A and the B stories are the same

It's the episode where we reluctantly accept Linus's gift of popcorn!

(See antimatterpod.tumblr.com for more detailed show notes.)

Anika and Liz discuss:

• the narrative language of Star Trek
• Michael's year on her own
• Adira: Wesley Crusher but make them non-binary
• Pronouns!
• Earth's moral failure in the face of a crisis
• hugging CGI trees
• capslocking about Keyla, or, Discovery has a problematic history with trauma stories and we want them to do better this time

Check out antimatterpod.tumblr.com for more detailed show notes!

We're discussing the first two episodes of Discovery's third season: "That Hope Is You" and "Far From Home". And, along the way, we talk about...

• Grudge, a good catte
• Cleveland "Book" Booker, a Jedi and a Disney princess
• Aditya Sahil, the bureaucrat who waited
• We ... kind of maybe don't care about the Burn, except to the extent we've decided it's Jonathan Archer's fault
• Nhan/Georgiou: we ship it
• The breakup of Yugoslavia (it's relevant!)
• Westerns, and characters who don't know the genre of their story

We discuss: 

• parallels and contrasts
• honour, duty and espionage
• Romulan fashion
• why do we like the Lenard Commander so much when he killed so many people? 

And more!

• how much we love this episode (A LOT)
• we kind of maybe ship T'Pol/Archer here
• Rosemary's Baby, feminism and psychological horror
• the fascinating things this episode does with gender
• storytelling through costume, hair and make-up
• the destructions of Earth and Romulus
• it turns out that JJ Abrams is a hack????

It's the episode where we ask, um, are we meant to find Phlox attractive here? Because, wow, baby!

• it really is awfully heterosexual
• and isn't it weird how, out of all the modern Trek series, only one actively pursues queer representation and the others just fall into a heteronormative default?
• is the solution ... a letter-writing campaign???

But also!

• this is still a Beckett Mariner stan podcast
• is Boimler ... you know, that type of fan?
• the Lower Decks characters and classic Mary Sue types