Antimatter Pod

Anika and Liz save the world, and then settle down for some light gardening in a giant midwest McMansion. Yes, the time has come to discuss the season (series?) finale of Star Trek: Prodigy, "Ouroboros" parts 1 and 2. Anika was really onto something when she said Rok-Tahk is the new Wesley What is a good age to start watching Star Trek with kids? "At no point does Prodigy talk down to its audience...

Anika and Liz send a bunch of kids off on a black ops mission, which is a cool and normal thing to do and definitely something a healthy maternal role model would do. Oh yeah, we're discussing the Star Trek: Prodigy episodes "Brink" and "Touch of Gray", including... Kids are gonna learn about plausible deniability sooner or later It was always going to be Ascensia versus Gwyn And Ascencia versus J...

Anika and Liz are told to pack it all up and go home, Starfleet Command will be taking care of the podcasting from here on out. And we were absolutely going to obey, but fortunately some plot intervened. We're discussing Star Trek: Prodigy's "Ascension" part 1 and 2, including... Dal and Zero's arcs reach their respective climaxes The Voyager crew were also the Rogue Misfit Squadron The Doctor is...

Anika and Liz stumble through a series of alternate universes, including the one where we like "A Tribble Called Quest" and the one where we're good at podcasting and don't go off on long tangents about shipping. (That's a lie. That universe doesn't exist.) Liz has a hot take: she does not like "A Tribble Called Quest" and thinks it has an accidental forced-birth subtext The three Dad Genders: Gir...

We promised we'd be normal about Hot Chakotay, but we lied An incomplete list of people with whom Anika compares Hot Chakotay:  Wolverine Deanna Troi in "A Fistful of Datas" Russell Crowe Aragon Dal finally finds his mentor Chakotay: not a girl dad Ma'jel is too gay for this. She is here for the girls and the non-binary babes and wants no part of whatever Hot Chakotay has going on Gwyn and Dal and...

Anika and Liz arrive at an ancient and timeless ziggurat, congratulate themselves on knowing how to spell "ziggurat", and settle down in a nice mid-century modern apartment to talk about episodes 9 and 10 of Star Trek: Prodigy's second season, "The Devourer Of All Things". Including... Wesley Crusher, Star Trek: Picard, "Assignment: Earth" and more Liz drops some obscure Doctor Who lore Why do so...

Anika and Liz don their finest flower crowns and make an appearance at a feast. What's that? You want us to go for a nice run? No thank you, we will stay comfortably seated, talking about the Star Trek: Prodigy episode "Is There In Beauty No Truth"... Star Trek bringing the anti-running agenda for 2024 Maybe these non-corporeal adrenaline junkies should look into rollercoasters It's a really nice...

According to DS9 episode "Past Tense", the Bell Riots took place from 1 to 3 September 2024. Fandom is marking the occasion with, um, homelessness cosplay; we decided to repost our discussion of that two-parter from 2021. Instead of dressing up as homeless people and doing riot LARP, this is a good time to support your local homelessness organisations and vote against politicians whose policies de...

Anika and Liz hit a speedbump with their recording schedule (stupid jobs) and then hit a speedbump with Prodigy in the form of ... two episodes that we did not entirely love? Is that even possible? We're here to talk about episodes 6 and 7 of Star Trek: Prodigy's second season: "Identity Crisis" and "The Fast and the Curious"... Both of these episodes are mainly about putting the pieces in place a...

When it doubt, Anika and Liz seek advice from a whale. Yes, we're talking about the Star Trek: Prodigy episode "Observer's Paradox"! Kathryn Janeway pours a shot of espresso into a larger cup of coffee and then gives it to a teenager; she should not be allowed to care for children Murf definitely knows everything about the USS Discovery After thirty years, Chakotay is finally linked to a real Indi...

After some minor timeline mishaps, Anika and Liz finally stop to read Temporal Mechanics 101! Yes, we're discussing the fourth episode of Star Trek: Prodigy's second season, including... Intertextuality within the Star Trek canon Ma'jel upsets the group dynamic in a fun way -- every time a Star Trek starts getting stale, they should add a young Vulcan woman to the cast The binge model has robbed u...

Anika and Liz attempt to change the timeline so Paramount never dropped Prodigy and we got to enjoy each episode week by week … but alas, we did not pay attention in Temporal Mechanics 101.  We're discussing Star Trek: Prodigy's "Who Saves the Saviors", including… Rok-Tahk knows when to keep her mouth shut and when to tattle, and also has done nothing wrong (ever, in her entire life) Dal has never...

Anika and Liz sign up for an internship, accidentally steal a ship, and … well, we're discussing the second season premiere of Star Trek: Prodigy!  (Please note we have seen the whole season, and although we make some very virtuous remarks about sticking to the episodes at hand, we cannot be trusted to respect the Temporal Prime Directive.) The binge model and Star Trek Dal versus the education sy...

Anika and Liz get all dressed up to attend a wedding. They just have to figure out the meaning of life first. Easy, right? It's a very special episode as we discuss the series finale of Star Trek: Discovery, "Life, Itself"! We thought we were ready for Discovery to end, but we were wrong Liz suffered a finale-related injury and Anika has wine The Sega Star Trek: The Next Generation game (and also...

Anika and Liz put buckets on their head and infiltrate a Breen ship, pausing along the way to have a serious personal conversation. We're discussing the penultimate episode of Star Trek: Discovery (WE ARE NOT READY), "Lagrange Point"! Including... What sort of ending do we want for Moll?  We already have a crush on Primarch Tahal Michael and Book parallel Michael and Ash in "Into the Forest I Go"...

Liz has done it AGAIN: she forgot to move her microphone. She's audible but a little echoey for the first 10 minutes, before she has a horrible realisation.  Anika and Liz are spending their vacation AT THE LIBRARY, where they are checking out some books and checking in on Michael Burnham. Every single thing in this episode is Sarek's fault Libraries and archives are never apolitical Primarch Ruhn...

It is so awkward when you literally stick a guy in a refrigerator and then his death provides motivation for his grieving partner to go on a rampage. Anika and Liz discuss season 5, episode 7 of Star Trek: Discovery - "Erigah"(!!!). It is DEVASTATING that this is Discovery's last season and we're going to lose Rayner as fast as we got him Liz accidentally talks herself into shipping Michael/Nahn a...

Anika and Liz infiltrate a pre-warp society, where they absolutely do not enter a race, that is clearly a trap. Not because of the human sacrifice, because of the running!  Like episode 3, this felt a bit predictable, but ALSO like a rebuke to "Lift Us Up Where Suffering Cannot Reach" and "Who Watches The Watchers", so we're not mad about it What if obeying the Prime Directive is the unethical opt...

(Note: our episodes are getting shorter because the screeners are fairly low quality and don't have subtitles, so it's a bit harder to get deep into the weeds of a story than if we were recording as episodes air. But our day jobs are quite busy, so we need to record as far in advance as possible in order to make our self-imposed deadlines. It's a pickle!) Anika and Liz beam over to an eerily famil...

Anika and Liz are caught in a time loop, which is actually a nice opportunity for a nap when you think about it. We're talking about Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4, "Face the Strange"! Let's check in with Anika, The Only Person Who Hated "Magic To Make The Sanest Man Go Mad". She thought "Face The Strange" was … good "I don't wanna sound creepy, but I have a pretty good idea of where Jas...

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 alp...

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...

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...

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 Squadro...

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...