Antimatter Pod

Anika and Liz are rolling up to a starbase in a stolen starship, putting on our un-earned cadet uniforms and discussing the new episode of Star Trek: Prodigy and children in Star Trek in general! The chase is on! Lieutenant jg Barniss Frex is THE WORST Starfleet needs to start recruiting career bureaucrats who LIKE being assigned to sit in an office in space and do paperwork. Like … us! We don't a...

Anika went to New York ComicCon! So we're catching up on all the news, including… PLUSH MURF! An oasis in a quality merch desert!  Discovery season 5: this looks FUN Callum Keith Rennie's Captain Rayner sounds like Lorca 2.0, and we approve We already love L'ak and Moll, even though Liz is already planning a barrage of Australian puns Prodigy season 1.5: OUR CHILDREN ARE BACK Liz can tell the diff...

Anika and Liz are letting their hair down and ... giving themselves to the Pah Wraiths? This seems like a bad idea... Remembering Louise Fletcher All Star Treks should end before they have a mediocre seventh season that undermines everything that came earlier We do not care for the Pah Wraiths as a concept Make sure you're sitting down because Liz has something nice to say about Rick Berman Kira i...

Winn's back! And she's … First Minister? Anika and Liz put on their robes, dig up an ancient Bajoran city and discuss… Winn wants power, but she's not good at using it Why is Shakaar interesting right up until he becomes a love interest for Kira? Winn thinks she and Kira are playing good cop/bad cop, and Kira's like, "Wait, I don't wanna be a cop!" As a portrait of a white church lady on a power t...

Put on your best Opera House hat and join Anika and Liz as we dive into the first of a three-episode deep dive into Kai Winn Adami. This week, we're looking at her rise to power -- covering the episodes "In The Hands Of The Prophets", "The Circle", "The Siege" and "The Collaborator." And along the way, we discuss... If you only watch the Winn episodes, and maybe even only the Winn scenes, DS9 is a...

Anika and Liz put on some fancy costumes, murder some Gorn babies and agree: that was definitely a season of television. But did we actually like season 1 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds? Erm. Well. Remember when we were afraid this would be the Pike, Spock and Una show? It's definitely not the Una show, and we have different opinions on whether or not it's a Spock show! It's fascinating how seas...

Content warning: We discuss school shootings, gun violence and child death a LOT in this episode, but specific time stamps are as follows:  Conversation about the Uvalde massacre from 4:30 to 6:26 The coronavirus death toll: 8:42 to 9:01 but also Liz is very mean about the British to 10:04 Back to school shootings, and also Kenobi, from 25:41 to 31:38 Anika and Liz don their finest catsuits to pla...

Anika and Liz have put on our memorial pins and fishing hats (and briefly considered, then rejected, a body swap) to discuss Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episodes Memento Mori and Spock Amok... Everyone says SNW is a good show and we're starting to feel a bit gaslit… "Memento Mori" and SNW's whole depiction of the Gorn becomes uncomfortable when you look at "Arena" and realise they were conceived...

Anika and Liz beam up through an ion storm and discuss the third episode of Strange New Worlds, "Ghosts of Illyria". Topics we cover include… This is a pretty mediocre episode and the character stuff is very hit or miss Do we need a log at the end to tell us what the moral is?  We love La'an and we want to know everything about her, but her story makes no sense here "I never think of you as a chil...

You will definitely need to wear your dress uniform to listen to Anika and Liz discuss the first two episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds! We are not watching for the plots, which are decidedly familiar, but the characters Pike: dealing the burden of knowing he's going to be the subject of an ableist plotline, and also his haircare routine We are once again asking the writers to hire a disabi...

Okay, team! It's time for the final two episodes of Star Trek: Picard season 2. Anika and Liz exchange awkward hugs, get stabbed a little, and return to the early 25th century as we discuss... To be blunt, we did not enjoy these episodes or, ultimately, the season CONTENT WARNING: We discuss the Yvette storyline, suicide and mental healthcare from 5:04 to 25:20. If you are vulnerable or simply not...

Anika and Liz are locked in the FBI's basement to discuss the latest two episodes of Star Trek: Picard, "Monsters" and "Mercy". We have a few follow-ups to our discussion of mental health in our mini-ep, but otherwise we're skirting around the Yvette plotline in "Monsters" Liz maybe owes Michael Chabon an apology Okay, but it's probably a bad sign when Law & Order addresses the same issues as Star...

Anika and Liz had such strong feelings about episode 7 of season 2 of Star Trek: Picard, Monster, that they organised a quick out-of-schedule catch-up to rant. Accordingly, this episode (and its show notes!) contains much fresher spoilers than usual. We discuss: Our concerns about the Yvette Picard plotline came true, with a fun domestic violence fake-out twist! Multiple ableist tropes: the tortur...

Anika and Liz cut the lights, grab the mike, and discuss episode 6 of Star Trek: Picard's second season: "Two of One". The casting announcement!  Will we get a Star Trek: Stargazer? Poor Kore, and poor Isa Briones, who has to spend every season playing a woman facing an identity crisis The pacing on this show is SO BAD, but at least it's bad in a different way to Discovery? Through trial and error...

Put on a nice dress and bring your imaginary friend, Anika and Liz are here to talk about Star Trek: Picard's "Fly Me To The Moon"! We have a bit of a scheduling change coming up! Tallinn: is she now or has she ever been a cat? Liz is overthinking things like it's her job Renee Picard and Kore Soong: not so much characters yet  Liz has this whole THING about Persephone, aka Kore, and the Egyptian...

Liz and Anika take a trip [a couple of weeks] back in time and into another [section of the] universe: season 2 of Star Trek: Picard. We really loved the first two episodes Although Liz suspects she may have once said something about Laris and Picard having a father-daughter relationship, which, yikes The other two episodes… It's hard to be invested in relationships when the foundations are weak T...

We have a finale! Anika and Liz put on a lightshow, blow up a techbro, and discuss… We get our nitpicks out of the way first Michael is a hard act to follow when it comes to big speeches Ndoye has taken the final step to becoming a fully fledged character, and we love it We find opportunities to compare TWO characters to Admiral Cornwell #ourbrand The "emotions? In my Star Trek?" argument comes up...

Anika and Liz meet the 10-C, shout enough to scare Grudge, and contemplate… What can Book's fate possibly be? Liz has a theory! Tarka is WORSE THAN GUL DUKAT, YOU GUYS A VERY brief digression into matters Picard related (note spoilers) "Why is Star Trek about feelings all of a sudden?" We cannot believe this is even a point of discussion, but since it's come up, we have a rant we prepared earlier!...

Trekapalooza begins! Anika and Liz put Picard on hold to talk about episode 11 of Discovery's fourth season: Rosetta. Join us as we visit a new planet, huff some feelings dust and discuss… It's been a while since we had a nice landing party on this show! Star Trek should never, ever try to be cool  If you are tired of hearing Liz complain about Detmer, good news: she has completely changed her opi...

Discovery enters the Galactic Barrier, and while real world physicists weep, Anika and Liz turn down the saturation and discuss: Just when we thought Disco had mastered pacing... The Tarka problem endures Saru! T'Rina! Their love! "Insecurity is universal." Discovery is a deeply insecure show. Is MURF Species 10-C?! Translation, alteration and unconscious bias Liz's next door neighbour does a bit...

If an episode is titled Rubicon, you can bet some sort of ... line is going to be crossed. Anika and Liz discuss: We have some prurient speculations about Saru's … experience; also, we ship Saru/T'Rina A LOT but please never make us look at his hands again Nahn is back! Is this … emotional continuity? Gosh! Book and Michael are sort of spinning their wheels, narratively and emotionally Ruon Tarka...

Discovery is back, baby! With hijinks! Maybe even SHENANIGANS! Anika and Liz beam down to the Karma Barge to discuss... An update on our giveaway Captain Picard Week is coming… Wanna make a place seem dodgy in 2022? Fill it with a crowd of people! We are on the record as loving terrible dads in fiction, but we also love good dads! And also … dadmirals! We know you know this, but it bears repeating...

Prodigy comes in for an almost flawless mid-season finale! Anika and Liz take a good, long look at Zero, and the discuss: The sheer joy of watching a carefully planned story, competently told If Lower Decks and Picard are sequels to TNG, and Prodigy is a sequel to Voyager, will the Section 31 series be a sequel to DS9? (Liz has suggestions and they involve casting Alexander Siddig…) We talk a lot...

It is the PENULTIMATE episode of Prodigy for now, and we LOVED it! Anika and Liz plan a reverse heist and discuss: Drednok: the Swiss army knife of henchmen (henchdroids) We love our fictional children We also love terrible dads in fiction and we don't apologise (HOWEVER, Anika has been accused of being a Gul Dukat apologist, and she wants us to know SHE WOULD NEVER) Maybe the Diviner has really g...

It's our ONE HUNDREDTH EPISODE! Can you believe it? We are so happy to be here, and grateful to our listeners for coming with us on this journey of digressions, ritual mourning for exploded admirals, Star Wars feelings and alleged misandry. ALSO we have some Star Trek to discuss! And ... quite a lot of Star Trek coming in the next six months, prayer circle for ... us. Prodigy! Time travel! Technob...