166. His Holiness Pope David Cronenberg (Disco 5.01 and 5.02)

First, we both have essays out! 

On Raffi by Anika Dane is in the current issue of Star Trek Quarterly

The Diversity Paradox: Star Trek, Star Trek fandom, and the limits of fandom as progressivism by Liz Barr is in Speculative Insight

SECOND, it's time. Anika and Liz are being called away from a fancy 32nd century cocktail party to stand in an empty void and discuss the first two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery's fifth and final season...

• Compared with the over-the-top emotional drama monarchs of Star Trek: Picard's third season, it's just nice to be with competent professionals who get the job done
• Picking up the threads of Star Trek: Picard's first season
• Captain Picard is still the most important individual who ever existed
• This arc so far has the Star Trek V problem: they can't actually meet God, so the real meaning of life will be the friends we made along the way
• Tilly has a rare but valuable anti-ambition arc
• Moll and L'ak have wandered in from another series, but we're not mad about it
• It's nice that Vance has a wife and Tilly has a love interest, but we're still shipping Vance/Tilly and we're not sorry