The D-Con Chamber

Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer -- with special guest, Robert Duncan McNeill -- watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "The Breach". There are two breaches to be explored in this episode: one planetary, one familial. In our A plot, intrepid spelunkers Trip, Malcolm, and Travis go to save an (ungrateful tbh) Denobulan science team from a planet with unstable politics, to say nothing of the geology. The...

Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "Horizon". It's Travis's turn to be the star of the episode, but we only wish it were under better circumstances. Family tensions are high on the Horizon, and his brother doesn't much like the idea of Travis bringing his newfangled Starfleet ideas to their old cargo ship. Ok boomer! Meanwhile, T'Pol tries really, really hard to get...

Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating -- and special guest, director James L. Conway -- watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "Judgment".   Archer's arrest by the Klingons brings him face to face with Kolos, played by Deep Space Nine veteran ... J.G. Hertzler! This is Enterprise's homage to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, so if you guess what happens at the end, it just means you're an OG fan. At le...

Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating -- and special guest, director David Livingston -- watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "The Crossing". Enterprise gets swallowed whole by a massive alien ship whose incorporeal inhabitants start taking the crew for joyrides. Wisp-Malcolm is on the prowl for a meaningful experience, while Wisp-Trip gets the best meal of his life. Time is ticking until First Contact bec...

Dominic - odd numbered episodes Connor - even numbered episodes Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "Canamar". Trip and Archer learn that getting arrested is easy, getting un-arrested is surprisingly difficult, and prison jumpsuits really aren't anyone's color. It's Canamar: Con Air in space (minus the Nic Cage hair)!   Each week in The D-Con Chamber, we boldly revisi...

Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "Future Tense". The Tholians, the Suliban, and the Enterprise duke it out over a bigger-on-the-inside piece of Temporal Cold War tech, containing a really long ladder and one (1) dead boi. It's Groundhog Day in the D-Con Chamber... in more ways than one! Each week in The D-Con Chamber, we boldly revisit Star Trek: Enterprise through...

Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer -- and special guest, Mr. Jeff Combs himself -- watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "Cease Fire". We're so lucky to have Jeff in for this Shran-centric episode, where the groundwork is laid for the special and enduring relationship between Shran and Archer. We come across the Andorians in a territorial dispute with the Vulcans, which escalates to the point that Shran...

Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating -- and special guest, director David Livingston -- watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "Stigma".   It's an early 2000s ambitious AIDS allegory centered on T'Pol, who is facing ostracization from the Vulcan High Command after contracting Pa'nar Syndrome, a neurological condition transmitted solely by a stigmatized minority: those who can mind meld. We follow Archer and...

Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "Dawn".  Or as we're calling it: Darmok Part II: Electric Boogaloo! After crash-landing on a freezing planet with an alien who wants him dead, Trip is forced into the world’s angriest survival camping trip. Somewhere between the hypothermia, mutual hatred, and inability to communicate, the two slowly stumble toward understanding, pr...

Marvin Rush joins us this week on The D-Con Chamber for a wide-ranging conversation about his extraordinary career behind the camera. Best known to Trek fans for helping define the look of The Next Generation era and for directing episodes like Voyager’s “The Thaw” and Enterprise’s “In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II” and “Terra Prime,” Marvin opens up to Connor and Dominic in a way that surprised even...

Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "The Catwalk". This is a tightly-written Sussman/Strong episode that sees the whole crew of the Enterprise, some alien refugees, and a number of resident animals (including dear Porthos) take refuge in the crawlspace that runs the length of each nacelle. Dealing with the massive radiation storm in space would be bad enough, but if t...

Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "Precious Cargo". It's Enterprise's take on "The African Queen", guest starring Padma Lakshmi, of "Top Chef" fame. Trip finds out that the cargo is a kidnapped royal heir, and a hectic rescue-romance ensues, culminating in an actual swamp. But you won't catch Connor in that marshy water twice... not if his ears have anything to say...

Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "Vanishing Point", joined by the episode's director, David Straiton. It's Linda Park's time to shine as, ironically, Hoshi gradually fades away in this half-horror, half-mystery. Will the translator end up losing her voice forever, and be spoken of in hushed tones as the next Cyrus Ramsey? (To be sure, as Trek transporter mishaps go...

Vince Deadrick, Jr. is in the chair this week, a man whom Connor and Dominic know best as the stunt coordinator for all four seasons of Enterprise, and the primary stunt double for Scott Bakula. He's a man who's had more thn 50 years in the business, and has recently been honored for his massive contribution to film and television by the Children and Family Emmy Awards. You've seen him -- even if...

Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "Singularity", joined by the episode's writer, Chris Black. REED ALERT!!! Enterprise is approaching a black hole that's part of a trinary star system, but who's got time for that when there are chairs to zhuzh, dishes to perfect, prologues to write, and crewmen to lobotomize?? Join us for T'Pol's point of view when as she lives her...

Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "The Communicator", joined by the episode's writer, André Bormanis. Back in Enterprise time, the fledgling ideas behind the Prime Directive get put to the test when Malcolm loses his communicator on a pre-warp planet. In a race against time before he and Archer are executed, the crew launches a daring rescue in a Suliban cell ship....

Robert Picardo joins Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating for a wide-ranging conversation, with particular emphasis on his latest return as The Doctor in Starfleet Academy . He now serves as Chief Medical Officer on the USS Athena, centuries older, more experienced, and still evolving in unexpected ways. Bob reflects on stepping back into the role at this stage of his career, what has changed, what...

Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer -- and special guest star, director David Livingston -- watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "The Seventh". T'Pol has some unfinished super-secret Vulcan business to attend to, and no one is safe, least of all Bruce Davison! We're honored to have David with us to offer his unique insights into what happened behind the scenes - fire! snow! stunts! Just don't mention the...

Denise Crosby joins Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer on a very special Star Trek Cruise episode of The D-Con Chamber, recorded live on the Caribbean Sea. With the ship rocking beneath us, Denise had a full theater hanging on every word as she shared stories that spanned her remarkable life and career, from Star Trek and beyond. Effortlessly charming and with tales to fill three lifetimes, we wi...

Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "Marauders". The desert gear gets another opportunity to shine in this David and Goliath battle over the right to deuterium. The Klingons learn a hard lesson here: teach a man to build a fire, and he will be warm for the night. Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life. Each week in The D-Con Chamber, we boldly...

Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "A Night in Sickbay". Some of you love it, and some of you love to hate it! There's a mad dash to save Porthos and Archer is getting increasingly antsy... and horny. Along the way, we have a funeral in the rain, a bat caper, Freudian (Pillarian?) slips, and a human centipede of decon chamber delight. What's not to like, really? Each...

Paul Giamatti is an actor's actor, and someone we have admired for a very long time, even before he joined the annals of Trek as Nus(topher??) Braka in "Starfleet Academy". We were so lucky to get him in the Chamber this week, where we chinwagged a bit about his life and career, from Yale and beyond, and got to pick his brain a bit about the new show. Each week, we explore and celebrate the lives...

Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "Dead Stop". After the skirmish with the Romulans in the last episode, the NX-01 is dead in the water. Incredibly conveniently, there's a repair station nearby. It sounds like Roxann Dawson and only wants a pound of flesh... Each week, we explore and celebrate the lives that the Star Trek universe has forever changed. From former an...

Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "Minefield". Finally, Malcolm gets his turn at the Captain's table... and it's almost the last thing he ever does! Will Archer save his poor impaled armory officer before the Romulans blow them out of the water? Well, T'Pol doesn't seem to mind either way... Each week, we explore and celebrate the lives that the Star Trek universe h...

Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating watch Star Trek: Enterprise's "Carbon Creek". It's the untold tale of First Contact... or is it just a story? Jolene Blalock takes center stage as T'Mir, her own ancestor, in a quaint 1950s coal mining town. Each week, we explore and celebrate the lives that the Star Trek universe has forever changed. From former and future cast and crew members to celebrities,...