Antimatter Pod

227. Moving at the Speed of Plot (SFA 1.10)

Anika and Liz toast some marshmallows in the Atrium's brand new open fireplace (Nus Braka: Interior Decorator) and discuss the first season finale of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, "Rubincon". 

• 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

226. Away Team To Planet Star Wars (SFA 1.09)

Anika and Liz don their finest cloaks, hoods and masks and beam down to a planet we've seen a few times before to find Anisha Mir and discuss the penultimate episode of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's second season, "300th Night".

• 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)

225. The Liberal Arts Agenda (SFA 1.08)

Anika and Liz watch Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's "The Life of the Stars" and have a little cry. Featuring a special guest appearance by Bradley Whitford and Liz reads a brief excerpt from Discipline by Randa Abdel-Fattah. 

• 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? 

224. Queen of Fishland (SFA 1.07)

Anika and Liz take a quick trip to the Khionian Realm to attend Darem's wedding, then follow along as Caleb and Genesis get up to hijinks. We're watching Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's "Ko'Zeine", and discussing: 

• 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

223. Imzadi-coded (SFA 1.06)

Anika and Liz go out on a training exercise that definitely won't go horribly wrong! We're discussing Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's "Come, Let's Away", and talking about...

• 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?

222. Tumblr Star Trek (SFA 1.05)

Every now and then, we at Antimatter Pod ask ourselves: is are we due for a DS9 rewatch?

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!

221. Starfleet Debate Bro (SFA 1.04)

Anika and Liz take their podiums to discuss Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's "Vox In Excelso". But there's not much debate to be had, because we agree it's very good! 

• 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)

220. Take Me Out To The Calica Court (SFA 1.03)

Anika and Liz are not sports people, but they're willing to watch from the sidelines as we discuss Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's "Vitus Reflux", including...

• 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…

219. Liberal Arts Military School (SFA 1.01 and 1.02)

Anika and Liz step through the 32nd century arches that give them new outfits and sprawl in their chairs to discuss the first two episodes of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. And we like it a whoooooole lot. 

• "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?

218. Florida Man Discovers Metaphor (ENT 4.03)

Anika and Liz don their snazziest outfits and beam down to Vulcan for the most miserable wedding we've covered yet. It's Star Trek: Enterprise's "Home"! In which T'Pol marries some dude, while Archer goes rock climbing and Phlox encounters the spectre of xenophobia on Earth. 

• 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