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 Spock’s arc, it’s amazing)
- The 90s:
- A counsellor on the bridge
- Stories that are explicitly about mental health
- Lwaxana Troi
- Sometimes the problem is not the depiction in the series, but the (ableist) reaction of fans
- Anika presents a very strong argument for B’Elanna having an anxiety disorder
- Post 9/11 (ENT and the Kelvinverse films)
- Liz says T’Pol was the first female Vulcan character when clearly she meant first female Vulcan regular, don’t @ us
- ENT reverts to a very masculine type of story: men deal with feelings through avoidance and sex, while T’Pol is literally too emotional
- ENT and the AOS era: a time of magical healing vaginas as substitute for mental health care
- The Trek Renaissance
- Discovery and Picard tell explicit stories about mental health, with varying levels of success
- Prodigy and Lower Decks tell implicit stories
- SNW takes us back to the manly man stories of the ENT era
- Harmful and helpful depictions
- fandom ableism
- Liz has an UNPOPULAR OPINION about the depiction of Seven in Picard
- “I’m gonna say something mean about Katrina Cornwell.”
Specific episodes we talk about include:
- “The Loss” (TNG)
- “Dark Page” (TNG)
- “Emissary” (DS9)
- “It’s Only A Paper Moon” (DS9)
- “Night” (VOY)
- “Extreme Risk” (VOY)