Antimatter Pod

15. Disco 212 - I Know! A Halo!

We're talking season 2, episode 12 of Star Trek: Discovery, "Through the Valley of Shadows". And...

• Pike's character ("He is Starfleet")
• Can the ableism of "The Menagerie" be fixed? Signs point to no! 
• Ken Mitchell: he will play all the Klingons
• (Proposal: Mary Chieffo as the new Suzie Plakson)
• The L'Rell-Voq | Ash-Michael family unit and love triangle
• A very obvious plant
• Adventures in self-destruct sequences

This episode is short because big chunks of it were lost to audio malfunctions, as Liz's microphone started blipping in and out. Among the discussions lost were "Does Jett's wife being dead add to the dead lesbians trope?" and "But seriously, how many ships does Starfleet have?" Apologies! 

14. Disco 211 - Definitely Sad and Gross

This week, we're talking about season 2, episode 11 of Star Trek: Discovery: "Perpetual Infinity". And, along the way...

• Does the time travel stuff make sense? Does it need to make sense?
• How is Dr Burnham getting her puffy vests?
• Gabrielle and Philippa
• Poor old Leland
• Biological and adoptive families
• Alternate timelines
• Borg????????
• Anika and Liz have very different approaches to world domination

Other Star Trek discussed:

• "Dark Frontier" and "Unimatrix Zero" (VOY)
• Star Trek (2009)
• "Parallels" (TNG)

And some other media, whose endings we absolutely spoil...

• Neon Genesis Evangelion
• Fringe

13. Disco 210 - Nearly Shatnerian

A short episode ("only" 50 minutes!) in which we discuss the events of "The Red Angel", including key issues such as...

• Mothers, and why Anika identifies with Michael
• RIP Leland? 
• We were so wrong about Control!
• Sonequa Martin-Green, the extraordinary talents thereof
• Ash: give this man a new job
• Kat and Hugh
• Philippa, please stop sexually harassing your colleagues
• Costumes
• And more!

Links: 

• Aristrofranes on season 2's structure ("structure") so far
• Wilson Cruz discussing his costume on Twitter

12. Disco 209 - A Super-Powered Google

We discuss Discovery's "Project Daedalus", including...

• Airiam's history and fate
• BUT THE PACING
• the Short Trek "Calypso"
• artificial intelligence in Star Trek and real life
• (this is why Dr Soong couldn't get funding)
• Anika will make you sympathise with Control
• RIP Admiral Patar, we hardly knew ye or your alleged extremism
• Admiral Cornwell, queen of our extremely biased hearts

Other media we found a way to make relevant: 

• Solo: A Star Wars Story
• Droids in Star Wars generally, with particular attention to the Clone Wars arc "Downfall of a Droid"/"Duel of the Droids"

Links: 

• The Greatest Generation's discussion of Jonathan Frakes's directing style in TNG came in their episode covering "The Drumhead". Among others, but that's the most recent one Liz has listened to.
• Liz's Tumblr post mentioning the interesting way conflict is being portrayed this season

11. Disco 208 - Walking Around With A Head Vina

Previously on Antimatter Pod:

"Reckon we'll see Vina?"

"Nah, seems unlikely." 

Which goes to show what we know. 

This episode, we're talking about: 

• Vina
• retreads, reboots and recreations
• Michael and Spock
• Who is the Red Angel, round 5,847. Anika's new theory: Gamora, basically
• Mirror Talos
• Section 31
• Paul and Hugh (and also Ash)
• mental health care, and health care overall, in Discovery -- does the series suffer for not having a chief medical officer in the regular cast? 

Our weekly digressions into random other pop culture media: 

• various Spider-men
• Person of Interest
• Anika just straight up spoils the end of La Femme Nikita, Liz really does need to watch it sometime, it sounds amazing

See antimatterpod.tumblr.com for more shownotes!

10. Disco 207 - The Squid Ships It

It's our tenth episode! But we're too busy talking about Discovery's "Light and Shadows" to notice. 

What we did notice and talk about: 

• Michael Burnham, the sensible middle child of the family
• Amanda Grayson, 1960s archetypes and disposable mothers in SF
• Sarek: still the worst, but at least he ... tries? And has an improbable yet charming amount of faith in Section 31?
• Alice in Wonderland
• Pike and Tyler
• We have divergent takes on Leland and where his story is likely to take him
• Revisiting and retelling old stories

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

09. Disco 206 - Walks Like A Squid Sister

Saru goes home again. We start out agreeing we don't have much to say about this episode, then ... talk even more than usual, covering such ground as:

• Can we come up with a different Jeff Goldblum gif for every episode this season? 
• This whole episode is exactly why we need the Prime Directive.
• Kelpien worldbuilding.
• Who is the Red Angel? What does it want? Who is it working for? 
• Our weekly semi-related digression into other media takes us into video game territory.
• Anika has very strong opinions about predestination paradoxes. We both have a lot of feelings about sickbay design and best practices when it comes to mental health care in space. 
• For the benefit of our many listeners who are entomologists, Liz would like to emphasise that she does actually know that spiders are not insects. 
• The jury is still out re: Lorca and whales, though. 

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

08. Disco 205 - A Hot Mushroom Man

Once again, Discovery brought us an episode packed with twists, turns and no half-Vulcans whatsoever, and we are here to talk about it. 

Our discussion includes...

• We love Sylvia Tilly the way Philippa Georgiou loves trolling Michael
• Soooooooooooo is Hugh a mushroom now? 
• Leland and Pike are old frenemies, and we are into it
• Kat Cornwell is back! 
• Anika's La Femme Nikita AU
• ...we also talk Star Wars a bit, because why not?
• Wild speculation about the Picard series
• The mycelial dating network

And more!

This is a slightly shorter episode, though, because we both had colds -- Anika in particular -- and once you edit out the nose blowing, there's not a lot left. Also, Liz is even more nasal than usual. 

See antimatterpod.tumblr.com for more detailed show notes, and follow us on twitter.com/antimatterpod for more shenanigans.

07. Disco 204 - She's Like A Little Yo-Yo!

This week, we discuss season 2, episode four of Star Trek: Discovery, and, along the way...

• wanky titles (and why we love them)
• serialised versus episodic storytelling
• the endless Search for Spock
• the Prime Directive
• the Neville Longbottom of Discovery
• Neon Genesis Evangelion
• Saru's quarters
• and we seriously question Captain Pike's priorities

Also, an apology from Liz: I had a mild cold when we recorded, and though I've edited out all the nose-blowing, I just had a lot of trouble ... expressing ... words. Also, "Eurydice" is a verb now. 

See antimatterpod.tumblr.com for more shownotes and this week's pod sketches.

06. Disco 2.03 - Klingon Botox

Disco crammed a lot of episode into its running time! And so have we!

Covered: 

• Disco's crack is back! Questionable decisions! Doubtful pacing! We're so happy!
• Secret [spoilers]!
• Okay, if you haven't watched "Point of Light" yet, you should know that we spoil its biggest surprise less than thirty seconds into our chat. 
• Social expectations for women, especially mothers
• What Vulcans and Jedi have in common
• We also talk costumes! The Princess Diaries! Game of Thrones! The Favourite! And even more! 
• (And we cut Liz's two-minute rant about Lorca as the embodiment of misogynistic criticisms of Janeway; aside from being completely off-topic, that almost needs an episode in its own right.)

See https://antimatterpod.tumblr.com/post/182589139579/06-disco-203-klingon-botox for more detailed show notes and also the return of the podsketch!