Antimatter Pod

167. Trust the Process (Discovery 5.03)

Anika and Liz beam down to Trill, don their finest red cloaks and hoods, and discuss the third episode of Star Trek: Discovery's season 5, "Janaal". Including...

• This is a perfectly fine episode, but it seems a shame to waste our limited time this season on something that is merely competent
• RIP Star Trek: Lower Decks
• Introducing the beta shift when fans are still under the impression that the alpha shift bridge crew should be the leads: brilliant trolling
• We have always been Wilson Cruz Appreciators, but we are appreciating him extra hard!
• We are concerned about Paul
• "Not to be a Rayner apologist, but I am definitely going to be a Rayner apologist."
• The Vulcan alt-right sure does endure! 
• Adira and Grey are cosplaying maturity (and that's okay)

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

165. Hallmark Trek (VOY 5.22)

Anika and Liz fire up the ancestry.com subscription and do a deep dive into an episode which does a deep dive into Kathryn Janeway's heritage. Yes, we're watching "11:59", an episode which has aged badly but maybe wasn't ever good to start with.

• This is ostensibly the sort of filler episode that people now say they want more of, but it mistakes trivia for character development
• "Small town business owner who hates progress and reveres the past" is a type that hits different in 2024
• Henry Janeway voted for Mike Pence
• Why are so many (white) starship captains from small town America? 
• "11:59" is not interested in exploring the forces that would drive a woman out of STEM and into homelessness
• Has any problem in the history of humanity ever been solved by a benevolent corporation? 
• At 26:06, Liz says "dystopian" when she means "utopian", please be assured this will keep her up at night for the foreseeable future
• We debate the benefits and otherwise of genealogy (content warning: from 34:03 to 34:27, this includes revelations about incest)

164. The Sito Jaxa Duology (TNG 5.19 and 7.15)

Anika and Liz assemble a board of inquiry and examine two episodes which turned out to be significant for Star Trek: Lower Decks - "The First Duty" and "Lower Decks". Are we gonna cry? Oh yes. 

"The First Duty":

• Imagine if Beverly Crusher got to parent her son
• "Anika needs to talk about Jack Crusher" is an item in our outline
• We get into the really serious issue: who is dating whom in Nova Squadron?
• Liz's knowledge of American high school life, as gleaned from YA fiction and Archie comics
• Star Trek is a place where it's okay to fail

 

"Lower Decks":

• Picard's relationship with Sito
• The Enterprise only takes the best. So why are the bridge crew SO bad at managing staff?
• Except Worf, an unexpected contender for Best Boss Ever
• And Deanna Troi, Holder of the Brain Cell
• We can infer a lot about Sito's personal growth between "The First Duty" and now, and her reconnection with Bajoran culture
• Our semi-regular one-sided correspondence with Mike McMahon continues
• Critiquing Worf's contouring

163. PUA seeks Tradwife (TOS 1.22)

Anika and Liz don their finest gold mesh and settle in to discuss a key Star Trek episode: "Space Seed"...

• It's been said before, but it bears repeating: this episode is super racist (would it have been better or worse if they had renamed Khan and made him Mexican?)
• Time to ask the real questions: why are there so many women in Star Trek named Marla?
• Marlene McGivers: aspiring tradwife
• We've found it. A woman in Star Trek that neither Anika nor Liz can defend
• Does SNW break "Space Seed"? 
• But seriously, why has La'an not changed her name
• How did the Eugenics Wars … work?
• Khan Noonien Singh: still a better world leader than Donald Trump

162. Certain Type of Feminism-Coded

Last April, Anika and Liz each bought a copy of the June 1999 issue of the official Star Trek magazine.

Then we had ... some other things to podcast about.

But we've finally opened it, and we're talking about...

• Remember when we'd pay US$7.99 -- or AU$15! -- for a magazine that contained a couple of interviews, some facts we already knew about the Klingon Empire and a Bird-of-Prey pinup?
• The Kate Mulgrew interview: 
  • She does not talk about her relationship with Jeri Ryan (but we do)
  • None of the other captains of this era had to talk about how work took them away from their kids -- and Scott Bakula had a toddler when Enterprise started!
  • (Hey, isn't it cool that now Anson Mount can request and get paternity leave, and no one's asking Sonequa Martin-Green how she balances motherhood with her career?)
  • Putting the Janeway/Chakotay relationship on the backburner (and where they could end up in Prodigy -- that's us speculating, not Kate in 1999…)
  • We try to picture Kate Mulgrew in the MCU and fail spectacularly
  • Let's all take a moment to send bad vibes to Liz's grade 10 drama teacher
• Jason Alexander and the woke agenda
• 1999 NFTs
• Anika wants you to know that D. C. Fontana shipped Spock/Christine
• 25 years later, Tim Russ deserves an apology for the interview which closes the magazine

161. Holding Hands at the Malt Shop

We're back for 2024! With some genuinely awful sound quality because Liz is so out of practice that she forgot to move her microphone from its place on top of the printer to … you know. Somewhere in the vicinity of her mouth. 

But the show must go on, and Anika and Liz are pulling the names of Star Trek men out of a hat and deciding whether or not they're any good in bed. Yes, it's the SEX … Now That We've Got Your Attention episode, and decidedly not suitable for children.

The hat has us talking about…

• Jack Crusher (the secret Picard baby, not Wesley's dad)
• Rom
• Shaxs
• Tuvok (our beloved)
• Jean-Luc Picard
• The Doctor
• Jonathan Archer
• Cris Rios
• Odo
• Gary Mitchell
• Narek
• Garak
• Saru
• Benjamin Sisko
• Jack Ransom
• Hugh Culber (with bonus Paul Stamets)
• Liam Shaw
• Dr Migleemo

We also abandoned the hat to specifically discuss…

• Spock (Ethan Peck edition)
• Chakotay
• Will Riker
• Chris Pike
• Sarek (Vulcan's greatest love machine)

160. Chekov’s Genesis Device (LD 4.10)

Anika and Liz do a deal with some Orions and definitely know which Chek(h)ov had the gun on the mantelpiece, it is a joke, we are only accepting criticism if it is delivered via Mark Twain impression. And Anika is not home to Mark Twain impressions.

Yes, it's the finale of season 4 of Star Trek: Lower Decks, "Old Friends, New Planets"!

• They stuck the landing!
• We remain, as we have been since episode 1, a Beckett Mariner Stan Podcast
• You Are Not Special, Bro: The Nicholas Locarno Story
• Star Trek is bad at romance (but all media is bad at romance these days)
• …we're just gonna talk about shipping in the other series for a minute
• Orion is Matriarchal Capitalist Westeros and we're okay with that
• Anika remains SHOCKINGLY BIASED against both Migleemo and Mark Twain

159. Lower Decks: Friendship is Magic (LD 4.09)

Anika and Liz definitely failed Hoodlums and Racketeering 101 at the Academy, but that's FINE, we're just going to hang out on this nice jungle planet, hiding from various warring factions while we talk about the penultimate episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, "The Inner Fight"...

• Tom Paris and Nicholas Locarno are different people, which we knew, but sometimes it's nice to have it reinforced
• Important sidebar: which canonical Vulcans are most likely to be in an MLM and why it T'Pring's parents?
• Freeman is the best captain because she's the only one willing to make a fool of herself 
• "The First Duty", "Lower Decks" and Beckett Mariner
• Is Mariner the only character in the franchise who did NOT join Starfleet to escape trauma and/or her family?

158. The Vendorians Work For the Bourgeoisie [LD 4.08]

Anika and Liz beam down to a cave, get trapped, and record the shortest regular episode of Antimatter Pod yet! But that doesn't mean we didn't enjoy Lower Decks season 4 episode 8, "Caves", or that we're not going to discuss important issues such as...

• It is not, in fact, time for Lower Decks to break up the band
• (But it is time for them to see other officers, and that's okay!)
• Are Vendorians real? Anika has doubts
• Liz has THREE VERY SPECIFIC BONE SQUICKS and so far this season Lower Decks has hit two of them
• This is an episode about fear of the unknown, and also Star Trek's consistent skepticism of conspiracy theories