Antimatter Pod

209. The Shape of Star Trek (SNW 3.06)

Anika and Liz battle an ancient and unbeatable enemy: grimdark anti-morality in Star Trek. We're discussing Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' "The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail", an episode with all the ingredients of Star Trek except its soul...

• 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?

208. There's Always A Bigger Fish (SNW 3.05)

Anika and Liz beam down to a nice planet where nothing bad happens and everyone leaves with the same amount of eyeballs they started with. WAIT, NO, we're discussing Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' "Through the Lens of Time"...

• 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

207. Jaunt and/or Romp (SNW 3.04)

Anika and Liz are here, and we hunger for braincells! Unfortunately, before we can celebrate our favourite episode of the season so far, we have to talk about the Spock/La'an of it all...

• 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'."

206. Her Body, Pike's Choice (SNW 3.03)

Anika and Liz go on a nice road trip to pick some flowers, and nothing bad happens to anyone. 

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

205. The Girlfriend Edit (SNW 3.02)

Anika and Liz put on their cutest wedding outfits and settle in to discuss episode 2 of Strange New Worlds' third season: "Wedding Bell Blues". Liz is gonna try not to talk about Pike. Anika is going to do her best not to implode. It's fun! 

• 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

204. Berman Era Level Misogyny (SNW 3.01)

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is back, baby! Anika and Liz fight off some Gorn and settle in to discuss the premiere! 

(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?

203. Hair Trek (part 2)

Anika and Liz let their hair down, and as it tumbles over their shoulders in perfect beach waves identical to the hair of every other woman on television in the 2020s, they return to their discussion of hair and hair styling in Star Trek...

• 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

202. Hair Trek (part 1)

Anika and Liz put their hair up and settle in to discuss the most pressing topic of our time -- hairstyles in Star Trek. 

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

201. Very Sixth Season TNG (Derogatory) (TNG 6.22)

Anika and Liz put on their least comfortable lounging clothes and settle in to discuss Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 6, episode 22, "Suspicions".

• 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

200. Performative Femininity

It's our 200th episode! A victory for quantity over quality and our small, chill audience of friends!

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