Antimatter Pod

63. Michael and Ahsoka (Discovery 3.07)

Liz and Anika talk "Unification III", an episode practically made for us. Discussed along the way:

• the academic rigour of the Vulcan thesis defence
• the latest episode of The Mandalorian
• false binaries
• Tilly's career path
• Michael's quartet of complicated mothers

It's the episode where we ask -- just how much of a creep is Grudge? And really? Baby Yoda has a name now?

62. Blue Redshirt (Discovery 3.06)

They had us at "unsanctioned mission".

• the Luke-Vader heist of Anika's dreams
• the teams are fracturing and it's AWFUL but also a bit great
• does Michael actually want to be in Starfleet? Did she ever choose to be in Starfleet?
• Michael Burnham and the Series-Long Badge Motif
• Michael/Book: how do we love it? We cannot even begin to count the ways!
• a Culmets duck family
• is Grudge a real cat: y/n?

We also go off on a wholly irrelevant tangent about the ENT episode "Carpenter Street".

61. Fetch Quest (Discovery 3.05)

Liz and Anika are shocked -- SHOCKED! -- to learn that Starfleet Command is maybe a bit shady.

Also covered:

• we care as much about 32nd century starship design as we do about the bridge crew
• how season 3 is structured like a video game
• Nhan's departure
• Georgiou's arc
• Discovery is not an ensemble show and should stop trying to be
• they really did manage two separate scenes where men tell Michael to watch her tone
• Saru's historiography is ... bad
• music: the score and the clue

Remember, statistically there is a high probability that Admiral Vance is evil!

60. Trilling Around (Discovery 3.04)

Liz and Anika return to the Trill homeworld, and also attend an awkward dinner party. It's time to talk about Discovery 3.04, "Forget Me Not"!

We discuss:

• how very 2020 this season feels ... but in a good way?
• the Adira/Gray romance, representation, ghost stories, YA fiction and Truly, Madly, Deeply
• Saru's character growth
• Liz wants you all to know she hated "Calypso"
• it took three seasons, but Culber is finally the fully fledged character Anika always knew he could be
• Buster Keaton, and when the A and the B stories are the same

It's the episode where we reluctantly accept Linus's gift of popcorn!

(See antimatterpod.tumblr.com for more detailed show notes.)

59. It's Just A Really Good Tree, Man (Discovery 3.03)

Discovery season 3 might be Voyager 2.0, but it still only takes them three episodes to get home to Earth. Downside: turns out you can't go home again.

Anika and Liz discuss:

• the narrative language of Star Trek
• Michael's year on her own
• Adira: Wesley Crusher but make them non-binary
• Pronouns!
• Earth's moral failure in the face of a crisis
• hugging CGI trees
• capslocking about Keyla, or, Discovery has a problematic history with trauma stories and we want them to do better this time

Check out antimatterpod.tumblr.com for more detailed show notes!

58.Sexy Neelix (Discovery 3.01 and 3.02)

Like season 3 of Discovery, Liz and Anika are a little bit delayed but totally worth the wait. We hope!

We're discussing the first two episodes of Discovery's third season: "That Hope Is You" and "Far From Home". And, along the way, we talk about...

• Grudge, a good catte
• Cleveland "Book" Booker, a Jedi and a Disney princess
• Aditya Sahil, the bureaucrat who waited
• We ... kind of maybe don't care about the Burn, except to the extent we've decided it's Jonathan Archer's fault
• Nhan/Georgiou: we ship it
• The breakup of Yugoslavia (it's relevant!)
• Westerns, and characters who don't know the genre of their story

 

57. A Tale of Two Romulan Commanders

Liz and Anika revisit "Balance of Terror" and "The Enterprise Incident" -- the only two TOS episodes to feature the Romulans on screen. 

We discuss: 

• parallels and contrasts
• honour, duty and espionage
• Romulan fashion
• why do we like the Lenard Commander so much when he killed so many people? 

And more!

56. At Least One Pon Farr

We take a deep dive into episode 8 of Enterprise's third season: "Twilight", and discuss: 

• how much we love this episode (A LOT)
• we kind of maybe ship T'Pol/Archer here
• Rosemary's Baby, feminism and psychological horror
• the fascinating things this episode does with gender
• storytelling through costume, hair and make-up
• the destructions of Earth and Romulus
• it turns out that JJ Abrams is a hack????

It's the episode where we ask, um, are we meant to find Phlox attractive here? Because, wow, baby!

55. The Trekkie's Mantra

Halfway through its first season, Liz and Anika revisit Lower Decks. Spoilers, we still like it! BUT...

• it really is awfully heterosexual
• and isn't it weird how, out of all the modern Trek series, only one actively pursues queer representation and the others just fall into a heteronormative default?
• is the solution ... a letter-writing campaign???

But also!

• this is still a Beckett Mariner stan podcast
• is Boimler ... you know, that type of fan?
• the Lower Decks characters and classic Mary Sue types

54. It's The Dark 'n' Gritty Zootopia

Anika and Liz select characters, concepts and ideas which, if copyright law didn't exist (and also they controlled Star Trek, which, for some reason, they still don't), they would bring into the Trek universe. We're talking about...

• the value of retelling stories
• Star Trek: SVU
• a Tal Shiar Red Room (the Black Widow kind, not the Twin Peaks kind, but Liz is actually thinking of Amazon Prime's Hanna)
• Star Trek: Scandal
• Daria Morgendorffer on the USS Cerritos
• Beastars, whose anthropomorphic animals would be equally at home on Deep Space 9 or the Cerritos 
• Miles Vorkosigan (and an accompanying rant about the depiction of Little People in Trek, and also fandom ableism)
• Bella Swann BUT IN SPACE
• does Starfleet need more cannibals?
• what do Cardassians taste like? 

It's the episode where we reject wholesale the end of Rogue One!