Antimatter Pod

Anika and Liz, very much against their better judgement, watch The Puppet Episode. Yes, it's Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' "Level Five Transporter Accident", and we are using words like "I regret having a Star Trek podcast" and "it's a crime against humanity". 

• Hey, it's not as offensive as "Four and a Half Vulcans"
• Anika talks about the ancient art of puppetry, commedia dell'arte and Punch and Judy
• This episode does not understand the point of the "leave one human and the rest of the characters are played by Muppets" meme
• In fairness, it also does not understand why Muppets are funny
• The "joke" about Pike's chair
• This is the third episode of the season where Spock is seeing things
• Spock: what is wrong with this allegedly grown man 
• "My girlfriend has been having a hard time and I did not reach out to support her, why did she break up with me?"
• "So all of that happened for no reason."
• La'an the reverse Pinocchio (not even the first woman in SNW who aspires to become an object!)
• Liz got so irate she gestured violently and knocked over her water bottle. We are not good at podcasting. We are sorry.

 

Manchild instrumental by Janette: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcpU4-auc54; song by S. Carpenter, A. Allen and J. Antonoff

It's Antimatter Pod, but we're in black and white! We're discussing Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, season 4, episode 4, "A Case of Chiaroscuro". Did Anika include a pronunciation guide in the show notes? She sure did! 

• This episode scales the giddy heights of "it's fine, I guess"
• "It's interested in the aesthetics of resistance without actually exploring what it is we're resisting." 
• Imagine if this episode spent less time having characters tell each other stuff they already know, and more time exploring those characters
• Don't learn anti-fascist opsec from a Star Trek podcast, but definitely don't follow the example of this fake resistance whose leader keeps photos and a database in her office
• This week we are TEAM LA'AN and also SPOCK STOP UNDERMINING HER
• Christine is a better boyfriend to La'an than Spock
• She has to be sidelined this season or else she would be TOO AWESOME A CHARACTER
• Maybe La'an deserves to stab Spock a little

Anika and Liz hang out with a cactus. Is it a tribute to the Doctor Who serial "Meglos"? No, we're talking about episode 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' fourth season, "Human Best Friend"!

• Strange New Worlds has become a show dedicated to pastiches of better media
• How many episodes inspired by Star Trek Las Vegas are too many episodes inspired by Star Trek Las Vegas
• They did it -- they finally found a planet even worse than Risa
• Are the gimmicks getting in the way of storytelling?
• On the other hand, it feels like the story is setting La'an up to be the big bad before she is written out of the series
• Kirk, you have a baby. Why are you at a resort? Alone? 
• "If you look hard enough, you'll always find something to be angry about." Which is a longer way of saying, "Don't overthink it."
• Liz is still formulating her thoughts on the depiction of alcohol in SNW
• Congratulations to SNW for discovering queerbaiting

Anika and Liz beam over to a long-abandoned and extremely haunted space ship. And instead of talking about what we experienced over there in the shadows, we're going to discuss episode 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' fourth season, "The Griffin Institute". 

• This episode is a huge step up from the premiere! And also still super-duper into the eugenics of it all! The away team's biggest fear is … their genes!
• This whole subplot with La'an is really leaning into racist stereotypes about Chinese women
• "I am continuously horrified by how this series portrays Spock's internal conflicts." 
• The episode wants us to think that Carol Marcus is the bad guy in the relationship, not James T "actually I'm gonna go to this conference instead of seeing my infant son" Kirk
• We are obsessed with the conference. What could possibly be relevant to Spock, La'an and Jim? Was there only one bed? 
• We are a Pro T'Pring Podcast
• Does SNW actually want us to be engaged with Spock/La'an? 
• Liz has a pitch for a Division 12 comic (spoilers: it involves Lorca)

The Enterprise goes back in time and doesn't prevent a genocide, but Anika and Liz would like to go back in time to prevent this episode from ever being made. Oh, did the fourth season premiere of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds displease us? It sure did! 

"Don't overthink it!"

• This episode provides more evidence for our argument that Pike is bad at his job
• Words we use to describe this episode: "nonsense", "dreadful", "terrible", "morally broken", "anti Star Trek", "almost clever"
• Why does SNW want us to hate La'an? 
• Leaning into the biological determinism with this Kha'an arc
• The Martians and Spock are totally incurious about each other, because this is The Least Curious Star Trek
• "Let's not worry too much about that genocide we facilitated" is … not a great twist in 2026. Or ever.

Anika does 133 jumps while Liz infiltrates a Klingon ship. What could go wrong? Well, this episode is late, so...

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

Anika and Liz go for a nice walk in the forest and discuss Star Trek: Discovery's "Si Vic Pacem, Para Bellum", and ask ourselves: which Discovery characters are most likely to massacre a bunch of Tusken Raiders?

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

Anika and Liz don their finest 2017/2257 outfits and go to a party. 

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

Anika and Liz take off for a cheeky little diplomatic meeting with some Klingons. What could go wrong? 

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

Anika and Liz are thrown into a Klingon prison, where they are absolutely choosing Lorca's pain. But no one is having a worse day than that poor innocent tardigrade! 

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