Antimatter Pod

216. Live Data Reaction (TNG 4.11)

Come on a journey with us. A story of true love, as we watch Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Data's Day", one of the great romances of all time. 

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

215. Stephen Miller's Betazoid Eugenics Program (TNG 1.10)

We continue our wedding series with Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Haven" -- in which Deanna Troi's arranged marriage is interrupted by the arrival of an AIDS allegory. It's … rough. It's rough. 

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

214. Spacebook Relationship Status (TOS 2.01)

It's wedding season! Anika and Liz are looking at some of Star Trek's key wedding episodes, beginning with the one that launched season 2 of The Original Series and rewrote a lot of people's brain chemistry: "Amok Time".

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

213. Twentieth Century Thinking (SNW 3.10)

Noted Doctor Who podcasters Anika and Liz settle in to watch a very bad Steven Moffat pastiche. 

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?

212. Gamer Gorn Girlfriend (SNW 3.09)

Anika and Liz get sucked into a wormhole and trapped on a moon orbiting a gas giant, which is actually pretty standard when you're adults with jobs trying to organise a board game night. We're discussing Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, season 3, episode 9, "Terrarium", an episode which comes so close to being good before it snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. 

• "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? 

211. Ghostwritten by J. K. Rowling (SNW 3.08)

With heavy hearts, Anika and Liz discuss "Four and a Half Vulcans", the worst episode of Star Trek's streaming era, and possibly one of the top five worst episodes of Star Trek ever.

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!

210. Selling Starfleet (SNW 3.07)

It's documentary time! Anika and Liz look straight into the camera and share their feelings about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' "What Is Starfleet?", including...

• 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

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'."