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.

Anika and Liz sit down to discuss DS9’s “Past Tense”. It’s one of those episodes where we go, “This is really good!” and then talk about its problems for an hour.

• Everyone knows “Past Tense” is a great two-parter, but what our theory presupposes is … maybe it’s deeply flawed?
• But seriously, “This is a great episode” is the beginning, not the end, of the conversation
• The great man theory of fake history
• The neoliberalism of DS9
• Anika’s big Reagan rant finally makes it through editing into an episode!
• Empathy versus apathy
• This is a really bad episode for Liz to have a total mental blank around the word “complicit” (don’t worry, the long pauses are edited out)
• The outstanding costume and set design

It’s the episode where we go, “Has this just aged, like, really badly?”