118. The Ones Who Warp Away From Omelas/Talk Like A Space Pirate Day (SNW 1.06 and 1.07)

Content warning: We discuss school shootings, gun violence and child death a LOT in this episode, but specific time stamps are as follows: 

• Conversation about the Uvalde massacre from 4:30 to 6:26
• The coronavirus death toll: 8:42 to 9:01 but also Liz is very mean about the British to 10:04
• Back to school shootings, and also Kenobi, from 25:41 to 31:38

Anika and Liz don their finest catsuits to plan a jail break and discuss episodes 6 ("Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach") and 7 ("The Serene Squall") of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

• Is it possible we are being punked? Is everyone else getting a different, better version of Strange New Worlds?
• If you're going to rip off Le Guin, at least try and do a good job
• Everyone who called Discovery "grimdark" and "nihilistic" owes it an apology
• It left the sexism behind, but otherwise Strange New Worlds is very much the heir to Enterprise
• We are very concerned for M'Benga and Rukia, and also very mad about fandom's racism towards them
• Following last episode's strong anti-child-eating stance, we're going to take another radical position: maybe we shouldn't let children die?
• Anika will not stand by and let Liz criticise the Star Wars prequels
• SNW is like season 3 of Voyager: competent but not in any way groundbreaking or remarkable
• "The Serene Squall" owes something to How Much For Just The Planet? Except that was … good
• We've seen Our Flag Means Death, we have standards when it comes to comedy pirates
• Honestly, we would feel better about the trans/non-binary representation here if the writers were not cis and the writing was not so heteronormative
• (It's so heteronormative!)
• Anika has a controversial opinion: let's decanonise TOS
• Hey, remember when this series had two Black regulars? Where'd they go?
• Maybe they're in the same place as that emotional continuity we were promised?