Antimatter Pod Anika and Liz

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)

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

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)

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

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

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