Antimatter Pod

While Anika builds a machine that lets her enter the heart of the universe, Liz is reduced to atoms and hangs around the galactic barrier for a few centuries. OR ... we got together for part 3 of our deep dive into Peter David's Q-Squared. And we discuss... Tommy Riker versus Jean-Luc Picard Guys, don't send a deeply traumatised former POW off to have a haircut from a stranger without getting his...

Peter David is recovering from a series of strokes, along with a mild heart attack. His wife is raising money for his medical bills , and if you enjoy our coverage of his work, please consider throwing a few bucks their way. Also, this episode contains spoilers for the end of Star Trek: Picard. Anika and Liz hang out in midair in a turbolift shaft and read pages 106-214 (paperback edition) of Q-Sq...

FIRST: After we recorded this episode, we learned that Peter David is recovering from a series of strokes, along with a mild heart attack. His wife is raising money for his medical bills , and if you enjoy our coverage of his work, please consider throwing a few bucks their way. Anika and Liz hop some timelines and read pages 1-105 (paperback edition) of Q-Squared by Peter David, and along the way...

As our unofficial Festival of Beverly continues, Anika and Liz hang out in some caves and have very earnest discussions about terrorism. Yes, we're discussing "The High Ground"! Star Trek: Picard spoilers from 00:00 to 00:59 We are deeply unqualified to talk about the Troubles. Of course, so were the TNG writers… (Book credits: Just Another Kid by Torey Hayden and Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Kee...

"Hey, someone left a naked disassembled android lying around! We should definitely rebuild him!" Anika and Liz, minus their evil twins, discuss "Datalore" … with some Picard spoilers along the way.  Skip to 00:49 to avoid the big spoiler and also Liz singing (Liz actually pronounces French words even worse than she sings, so, um, apologies to France) "I apologise to everyone for comparing Beverly...

It's Valentine's Day! Or close enough. Anika and Liz settle in with chocolate, champagne and a list of their favourite OTPs. And OT3s. And … look, we have so many ships, we're practically a navy.  Picard/Crusher: our first OTP Gwyn/Dal: #OTPCatboots Fifty years and all it took to make Anika ship Spock/Chapel was letting Christine have a personality Anika's favourite Star Trek rarepair will SHOCK a...

Anika and Liz get chased by some drones, fall down a hall, and take the opportunity to discuss the first season TNG episode "The Arsenal of Freedom"... For a first season TNG episode, this is … not bad at all Is season 1 of TNG really season 4 of TOS? TNG went all-in on the anticapitalism in season 1 (it's just a shame they brought the antisemitism along for the ride) Riker's whole job is to keep...

Anika and Liz don their blue shirts and do a deep dive into depictions of depression in Star Trek. (Please note this includes discussions of suicide and self-harm.)  The early years:  Dr Elizabeth Dehner Badmirals Spock's stories can be a metaphor for a lot of things, but the emotional repression to depression pipeline is definitely one of them (Anika has a whole THING about The Motion Picture and...

Anika and Liz replicate a shuttle without seats and settle in to discuss the two-part finale of Star Trek: Prodigy's first season… Prodigy loves a Vulcan/Tellarite/Andorian trio COMMUNICATION is THE THEME Holo Janeway fulfills the dream of all Janeways everywhere Gwyn's big hero moment ALSO the Dal/Gwyn, we have been shipping it since episode one and we feel VERY GOOD about everything! Everyone sh...

Anika and Liz swap bodies and invade some holonovels as we discuss the Star Trek: Prodigy episodes "Ghost in the Machine" and "Mindwalk". And along the way, we touch on... Into the holo-verse Where is the Zero-as-Dixon-Hill story we need and deserve? Jankom Pog is NOT OKAY and we're into that Seriously, just a few weeks ago, we were like, "Jankom is the flattest character?" HOW WRONG WE WERE Murf....

Anika and Liz replicate some coffee, put on some classical music, and get into some backstory. And along the way, we discuss... Good news, Dal! We know who your family is! Bad news, they're the worst people in the galaxy. I'm sorry. You're a Soong. We continue to respectfully fangirl Aaron Waltke It's never too soon to introduce your children to bioethics Rok-Tahk is the anti Toph Beifong The Tell...

Due to real life shenanigans (Thanksgiving, a state election), Anika and Liz were unable to record last weekend. But here's a mini-ep we prepared earlier - a long rant about the state of Star Trek merchandising that was cut for time/relevance from our last full ep. Topics include: Disney knows when to merchandise a series, and more important, when not to merchandise it Paramount can't do either Wh...

Anika and Liz don their cutest Starfleet-issue hooded coats and beam down to an icy outpost in search of some fugitives, and along the way, we discuss Star Trek: Prodigy's fourteenth episode! "We have a plan but everything goes wrong" and "this could all be resolved if people talk to each other" are classic plots going back to Shakespeare and beyond, BUT that doesn't mean we have to like them! Liz...

Anika and Liz answer a distress call and wind up on the planet of the Strange New Worlds fans. We had some audio issues in recording and sound a bit like we're under flawlessly animated water, but we discuss things like… how Liz is explicitly banned from using her Shatner voice for the whole episode We have decided to ship Chakotay/The Diviner When entertainment becomes the entirety of one's cultu...

Hey, that's a nice cube. Let's steal their stuff! What could possibly go wrong?! Anika and Liz discuss Star Trek: Prodigy's "Let Sleeping Borg Lie", including… Nodding to past Borg stories while also doing something new There's a fantastic synchronicity between Lower Decks's second contact concept and Prodigy's foundation being the Federation's apparent failure to follow up after a first contact A...

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...