Antimatter Pod

185. How To Train Your Loom (Prodigy 2.17 and 2.18)

Anika and Liz send a bunch of kids off on a black ops mission, which is a cool and normal thing to do and definitely something a healthy maternal role model would do. Oh yeah, we're discussing the Star Trek: Prodigy episodes "Brink" and "Touch of Gray", including...

• 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

184. Janeway/Chakotay Is The New Janeway/Chakotay (Prodigy 2.15 and 2.16)

Anika and Liz are told to pack it all up and go home, Starfleet Command will be taking care of the podcasting from here on out. And we were absolutely going to obey, but fortunately some plot intervened. We're discussing Star Trek: Prodigy's "Ascension" part 1 and 2, including...

• 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

183. Warlord Janeway (Prodigy 2.13 and 2.14)

Anika and Liz stumble through a series of alternate universes, including the one where we like "A Tribble Called Quest" and the one where we're good at podcasting and don't go off on long tangents about shipping. (That's a lie. That universe doesn't exist.)

• 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

182. A Situationship (Prodigy 2.11 and 2.12)

• We promised we'd be normal about Hot Chakotay, but we lied
• An incomplete list of people with whom Anika compares Hot Chakotay: 
  • Wolverine
  • Deanna Troi in "A Fistful of Datas"
  • Russell Crowe
  • Aragon
• Dal finally finds his mentor
• Chakotay: not a girl dad
• Ma'jel is too gay for this. She is here for the girls and the non-binary babes and wants no part of whatever Hot Chakotay has going on
• Gwyn and Dal and sharing leadership
• Chakotay and Hologram Janeway's codependent relationship
• Is it possible the TNG crew didn't try very hard to reach Beverly?
• It took 30 years, but we finally found someone we don't ship with Kathryn Janeway
• Content warning: the Antimatter Pod Shipping News is more than usually not appropriate for kids this week. Yes, when we're talking about the kids show. We're the problem with fandom. 

181. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOMS!!!!!!!!! (Prodigy 2.09 and 2.10)

Anika and Liz arrive at an ancient and timeless ziggurat, congratulate themselves on knowing how to spell "ziggurat", and settle down in a nice mid-century modern apartment to talk about episodes 9 and 10 of Star Trek: Prodigy's second season, "The Devourer Of All Things". Including...

• 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

180. A Flower Crown Cult (Prodigy 2.08)

Anika and Liz don their finest flower crowns and make an appearance at a feast. What's that? You want us to go for a nice run? No thank you, we will stay comfortably seated, talking about the Star Trek: Prodigy episode "Is There In Beauty No Truth"...

• 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

Antimatter Pod Flashback - Past Tense

According to DS9 episode "Past Tense", the Bell Riots took place from 1 to 3 September 2024. Fandom is marking the occasion with, um, homelessness cosplay; we decided to repost our discussion of that two-parter from 2021.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

179. This Race Could Have Been An Email (Prodigy 2.06 and 2.07)

Anika and Liz hit a speedbump with their recording schedule (stupid jobs) and then hit a speedbump with Prodigy in the form of ... two episodes that we did not entirely love? Is that even possible? We're here to talk about episodes 6 and 7 of Star Trek: Prodigy's second season: "Identity Crisis" and "The Fast and the Curious"...

• 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

178. Childless Dog Ladies (Prodigy 2.05)

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

177. Nebula Zoom Call (Prodigy 2.04)

After some minor timeline mishaps, Anika and Liz finally stop to read Temporal Mechanics 101! Yes, we're discussing the fourth episode of Star Trek: Prodigy's second season, including...

• 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