Anika does 133 jumps while Liz infiltrates a Klingon ship. What could go wrong? Well, this episode is late, so…
Yes, we are discussing season 1, episode 9 of Star Trek: Discovery, “Into the Forest I Go”. A nice walk in the woods! Everyone comes home!
- Do all Starfleet captains disobey orders? Actually yes! Despite the stereotypes, the biggest exception is Kirk in TOS … and Liz has a theory about why that changed
- “This conversation reminds me of a Tumblr post that mildly irritated me two weeks ago…”
- “You can’t say anything against my baby Ash, okay? He’s my baby girl.”
- We have some digressions and thoughts on the state of fandom and franchise media in the year 2026
- Anika’s Wonderland Corner: Cornwell, Ash and L’Rell as Knight, Death and the Devil
Transcript
(Please note this transcript was generated automatically by Apple Podcasts, and though it was edited by a human, some errors may remain.)
Anika: Welcome to Antimatter Pod, a Star Trek podcast where we discuss fashion, feminism, subtext and subspace, hosted by Anika and Liz. Today, we’re discussing Star Trek: Discovery Season 1. Is this correct? Episode 8? I’m sorry. Today, we’re discussing Star Trek: Discovery Season 1, Episode 9, “Into the Forest I Go”.
Liz: We’re just limping to the finish line. We have so earned the break that we’re going to have between now and Season 4 of Strange New Worlds.
Anika: It’s just that time of year, everything’s going crazy all at once, and there’s all this personal drama that keeps happening, so.
Liz: Anyway, let’s talk about some Star Trek. This episode sees the Klingon War mini-arc of Kol and the sarcophagus ship come to an explosive, shall we say, end, and only the important characters escape.
Anika: We’ve been telling you all along who those important characters are, so. Gold star for us.
Liz: Yeah. It’s Michael, Ash, L’Rell, Kat. Our definition of important characters may differ slightly from everyone else’s, but that’s fine. Don’t ask questions.
Anika: Whatever. I just want to start with my question here — what happens at the beginning of this episode. Lorca is not a rules-follower type of guy.
Liz: No.
Anika: Our Lorca, the dark Lorca here. He definitely has his own agenda, and so he’s just going to follow that no matter what anyone tells him. We have seen this. That’s his whole thing. But right at the beginning of this episode, he sort of has a chat. First, he gets his orders to definitely not do that. And he turns off Terral and tells them immediately that he’s definitely going to go do that. And they should all go along with it, basically. So just accept it, and we’ll go forward now.
And it just reminds me of that scene in Insurrection, that scene in the second season of Strange New Worlds. And I feel like in every Star Trek, that scene in The Search for Spock, which I recently had a very in-depth discussion about — how Spock is the most important person in the universe, and that’s why they have to break all of the rules to get him back, because we have said before, there’s only one brain cell. Spock definitely has the only one brain cell, and he also has the heart of the universe. And so it just can’t go on without him.
I understand why people are breaking rules in all of these different times. At all times, all of the rules are meant to be broken. Our crew is on the side of that, so therefore they’re on the side of right, because they’re the good guys. But it’s just funny to me that it makes it seem like all of Starfleet is — actually, the whole discussion of is Starfleet the military or not, I feel like is answered by this question, because it is absolutely not.
Liz: Which brings us back to what I was saying about the premiere, that the only reason that Michael is punished for her mutiny is that it didn’t work out in the end. Lorca here is literally giving his crew a masterclass in how to disobey orders. And at the end, they’re going to give him a medal.
Anika: That’s why I wanted to bring it up. Because this series starts with — and a lot of people got really stuck there with this whole idea that Michael is a bad person for mutinying and going against Starfleet rules and regulations. And it’s just, if you watch Star Trek at all, that’s the way it is.
Liz: Yeah. Michael’s real mistake was not waiting until she became a captain before she started breaking the rules.
Looking at all 60 years of Star Trek, it actually feels like the only person who broke the rules, had it work out okay, and got punished anyway in the entire franchise is Rayner. And that’s because he needed to become Discovery‘s first officer.
Anika: Right. It was to set up the story that wanted to be told.
Liz: It’s almost as if Starfleet as an institution only exists as a vehicle for telling stories, which we shouldn’t think too hard about.
Anika: Exactly. We should only think about it — but it’s just really funny to me. I have a bug in my bonnet about the people who hold this against Michael for the rest of the run of the series. Almost to the point where they hold it against the series, they hold it against all of new Star Trek, everybody who was ever a part of any of new Star Trek, which is a lot of people at this point.
And it sticks in my craw because it’s like, I would like to introduce you to Spock. I would like to introduce you to Kirk. I would like to introduce you to Picard, Sisko, literally everyone.
Liz: The irony is that the Star Trek captain who is most rule-bound and most respectful of authority is James Kirk. And I think that is more than anything a product of — it was made in the 60s, and despite the Vietnam War, people still had some respect for authority and institutions.
And you come into the movies and it’s post-Watergate, and suddenly Kirk is breaking the rules all over the place because no one trusts institutions anymore. Nixon broke Starfleet.
Anika: Right. Nixon broke Starfleet. It should be a poster.
Liz: It’s definitely going to be the title of this episode.
Anika: I’m going to work on that because that’s amazing. And I’ll get off this. This is clearly a tangent, but it really stuck out to me, and so I just really wanted to go into it a little bit. But you’re right about Kirk and his reputation of being that cowboy maverick going against the rules. And Picard is like the boring statesman.
Liz: Yeah. Oh my gosh. I’m going to extend this tangent a little further and say that this conversation reminds me of a Tumblr post that mildly irritated me two weeks ago, about how after seven seasons of TNG and Picard as the company man who always does what Starfleet says, we really needed Sisko to come in and shake things up and break the rules.
I am begging Deep Space Nine fans to try watching TNG, because the difference between Picard and Sisko is only the accent and the color of their skin and the aggression with which they break Starfleet rules. And I would even say Picard is the more aggressive when it comes to —
Anika: I was going to say Sisko is actually more restrained, because he thinks very carefully about every decision he makes.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: And Picard is like, I have an idea. I’m going to go do it and figure out the rest later.
Liz: “What up, guys? The defining moment of my life was when I got my heart stabbed out in a bar fight, and you would be surprised at how little I’ve changed since then.”
Anika: It’s really funny to me because Sisko thinks about consequences and makes decisions based on them. He’s willing to accept those consequences. That’s Sisko’s whole thing in terms of making these decisions and breaking the rules and whether it’s moral or not. Sisko cares. Picard does not.
Liz: That’s the difference between a space station that has to stay in one place and a starship that can just warp away from the consequences and forget about it.
Anika: Oh my gosh, that’s so true. And that’s Pike and that’s, yeah, all of those things.
And also I do think that that’s a privilege, but it’s also that Picard, once again, is landed gentry for hundreds of years. So the level of privilege that Picard has is so much higher than everybody else. And he acts like it. For good — I am not saying that Picard is bad or wrong in this. I’m saying that I wish more people with that level of privilege lived this way and allowed the rest of us to live this way.
But it is ridiculous to think that people who get consequences — Sisko does get consequences, Janeway gets consequences, Michael obviously gets consequences, that’s my whole point. And you said even Rainer gets consequences. And I would say that if you look at Rayner, he feels like the military grunt working-class guy.
Liz: Oh, yeah.
Anika: Not landed gentry. So I think that there is this very interesting overlay of society — you could look at all these captains and the way that they break rules and the way that they think about it and the way that the audience reacts to it.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: And that could be a thesis.
Liz: I mean, there’s also a lot of classic fandom racism in people looking at Picard and going, ah yes, this white man who breaks the rules and doesn’t face any consequences is the authority figure and the role model. And this Black man and this Black woman who think very carefully before they break the rules and deal with the consequences — they’re the rebels. They’re aggressive. They’re dangerous.
Anika: Can we just come back to Michael, because she’s actually what we’re talking about here — she literally called her dad to discuss the decision that she was going to make.
Liz: And I fully think that if she had leant on that nepo baby connection and gone, hey, this is what Sarek told me to do — Sarek, Ambassador Sarek, your old friend, the Vulcan ambassador to the Federation — Georgiou would have given it a lot more weight.
Anika: Yes, and Starfleet would have too.
Liz: Yeah, it’s going to come up again at the end of this season when Sarek is going to be the civilian authority signing off on a war crime, a potential genocide, and it’s Michael and Admiral Cornwell who have to deal with the weight of that.
Anika: Exactly. This is a thing — you said it’s going to come up again, and I just, I really think that it’s a through line through this season. I’m not sure it’s purposeful.
Liz: It is 100% in-universe and real-world sexism and racism, but it’s really interesting. Isn’t it fun to dig into this and roll around in it?
Anika: And looking back now, having had all five seasons, having had all of this time with these characters, and the different decisions that everybody made to bring them to life, I really feel like going back to this beginning, it’s actually super interesting to see that arc, to add these layers on top of it, and to think about the authority and the privilege and all of the — it just makes Discovery a richer text.
Liz: And a very consistent text. So I’m into it, and I’m really glad that we’re doing this.
And you let me go on my tangents — I’m going to extend it just a tiny bit more to say that this is one of the recurring things in Starfleet Academy: Nahle Ake can break the rules and walk around without shoes, but Caleb Mir cannot. And in part, that is about experience — he needs to learn the skills to be the badass rebel without getting people hurt. But also she is a middle-aged white lady, and he is a young mixed-race man.
Anika: And also we see in the first episode of that series that it’s Caleb and Jay-Den who have to deal with being changed in order to become Starfleet, and the rest do not. It’s pointed and I think it’s purposeful, even though — and even Nahla has more authority than Kelrec. Even though they’re peers, she’s definitely the one in charge. And he toes the line. And it’s just really interesting to look at all of the different ways that all these things happen.
And Starfleet Academy is amazing at it because we also have — both of the mirrors are dealing with this. Jay-Den is dealing with this, but even we do get consequences for the more privileged characters. But they’re… it’s almost like the consequences are to the story like with Rayner, and it’s also that those characters — a consequence of, like, you don’t get to go into the command track right away, is very different from, like, if you leave the Academy, you might go back to prison for the rest of your life. That is a very different consequence. Or even if you go back to your home world, they might decide to delete you. There are interesting levels of consequences. It starts with Michael in the first season of Discovery.
Liz: Yeah. Tarima and Darem and Genesis, if they had to just go home and go back to their parents, they would still live materially comfortable if unfulfilled lives.
Anika: Exactly. I’m not going to say that Tarima doesn’t have consequences. She has many consequences that she is dealing with before the series even begins. Yeah. But she is also princess of Betazed.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: That’s a prison in itself, but it’s also like she has a level of power that Caleb never will. If he married her and became the prince of Betazed, he would still be seen as a hanger-on. He will never get that level. Even if he goes all the way up to Nahle, they’re still going to be like, yes, she took you out of prison, dude. That’s just how the world works, unfortunately.
Liz: Yeah. But I do think that Starfleet Academy is very aware of this and is doing a lot of this intentionally. Whereas going back to Season 1 of Discovery, I do think much of it is only semi-intended. I’m actually really proud of Alex Kurtzman and the production team — the stable production team that he was eventually able to assemble — for leaning into this accidental story and telling it well.
Anika: I think that, much as we can say that a lot of the depth that Sisko and Deep Space Nine have are because of Avery Brooks, I think you can say the same — that a lot of the depth that Michael and Discovery have are because of Sonequa Martin-Green.
Liz: Absolutely. I think she was a driving force. At this point in the series, they didn’t even have a Black woman on the writing staff. So much of this is Sonequa.
Anika: All on her, exactly the same way as with Avery Brooks. It was like, hey, by the way, this has racial undertones, I think we should talk about it — instead of there being someone in the writers’ room to say, hey, let’s talk about it before we even give the script to the actors.
Liz: Yeah. I don’t even know how much they would have listened to her at this early stage in the series, because remember when friend of the podcast Jules got up at Comic-Con and asked Alex Kurtzman about the racist subtext of the end of Season 2. And Kurtzman looked very awkward and uncomfortable and Sonequa was sitting next to him going, yes, yes, yes, silently.
Anika: All props to Sonequa Martin-Green. That’s basically where I’m going with this. I think that Discovery is a very interesting, rich text in the Star Trek universe. And I think that Sonequa Martin-Green brings a lot to the character of Michael Burnham, and I think Michael Burnham is a really interesting character.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: So let’s talk about the episode.
Liz: Yeah. 20 minutes later, I really enjoy this episode. I think it’s really well put together. I think the pacing is great, and the action plot of — we’re going to do a bit of a space battle, we’re going to do 133 jumps — is interspersed really well with Michael and Ash infiltrating the ship of the dead, and then Michael as the solo action hero while Ash basically has a breakdown. Are men too emotional to be in Starfleet? I don’t really mean that. I just think it’s funny. This is the opposite of the gender dynamic we would have had years ago.
Anika: You can’t say anything against my baby Ash, okay? That’s my baby. You can’t do that. I would never. He’s perfect.
Liz: No. I love him. He’s so good.
Anika: I love him so much. I am going to go on a rant when we get to the end, because I’m so mad about everything. But I love him and he’s perfect. When they’re trying to get into the room, and they have to cut the wires and stuff, and she’s like, I’m not sure how to do this. He’s like, I’ll try. She looks at him like — I love you Ash, but you’re a himbo and I just don’t think that’s going to happen. He’s like, I was imprisoned by the Klingons for six months. I bet I could do it. I learned a thing or two.
Liz: Yeah, yeah. And he literally says, hi, Klingon prisoner for seven months. That’s just a delightful and witty bit of writing.
Anika: He’s so perfect. I just love him so much. But yeah, it’s definitely the Michael show. It is fully the Michael show, then it’s the Kat show. And Ash is like distant eighth in terms of people who do stuff in this episode. I love him, but he is not the focal point.
Liz: He’s the damsel in distress and he is so pretty.
Anika: He is so pretty. He is so in distress and I love him for it. He’s honestly perfect. Ash is one of my favourite characters. I just adore him.
Liz: I want to talk up Lorca and how he leads this mission. He addresses the crew and refers to them as a crew of polite scientists. And for all the months that he has been in command of Discovery, he has had to physically restrain himself from opening every ship-wide communication with, “Listen up, nerds!”
Anika: At this point, he’s affectionate. He has decided that as long as they follow him — and there’s still an element of them being tools — I honestly think that he has as much affection as someone from the Mirror Universe can have. You know what I mean? He sees them as his favourite tools.
When you go golfing — I don’t go golfing, so I don’t know why this is the metaphor I’m going to use, but I’m going to keep going. When you go golfing, there are clubs that the golf course can provide you. But obviously, you have to have your own clubs. And in your own clubs, there are the two that you always rely on — these are your lucky clubs, right? He has that level of affection for these people.
Liz: Oh my gosh, he’s looking at his crew the way I look at my collection of stationery and go, you’re my favourite ballpoint pen, and you’re my favourite gel pen, and you’re my favourite washi tape.
And just like me with my favourite washi tape and not wanting to waste it, he doesn’t want to send Michael into danger on the Klingon ship, even though she is by far the best qualified for this mission. It’s the same thing that he had last episode where he’s like, but she’s my Michael and I want to keep her safe.
Anika: No, it’s honestly cute.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: It’s awful and toxic, but also cute.
Liz: I mean, he’s just a great character because he is a bad person in many respects, but I just so enjoy hanging out with him.
Anika: Great, and Jason Isaacs plays it so perfectly. He is so good at that. He is so good at playing someone who is on paper the worst, but you still end up rooting for him in some way. I hate you, but I kind of want you to win anyway. I kind of want you to get what you want. I want to see what happens then.
This is such a good episode for Lorca because he is so far on his skis. He is so far past it. He makes interesting decisions in this episode, but he’s already got everyone on board with it.
Liz: Yeah. This is the turning point of his relationship with Stamets. They’re almost bros.
Anika: I was just going to say — the scene with Lorca and Stamets in front of the beautiful space background, that big wide room. I feel like you said that you wrote a lot of Lorca and Stamets fan fiction in the break or something. And I was like, that’s weird. But then I watched that scene and I was like, okay, never mind. I get it. I understand.
Liz: I have not written Lorca/Stamets. That was definitely not me, but I read a lot of Lorca/Stamets/Culber. Mostly because for a while it was the only Lorca fic going.
And so, yeah, their relationship — they dislike each other, they don’t respect each other, but then suddenly they do and they have this common ground, and Lorca is doing such a good job of passing himself off as someone who really cares about Starfleet’s scientific mission.
And the thing is, I’ve seen this episode a bunch of times and I’ve only just now appreciated that it was a last-minute decision on Lorca’s part to make the jump home to the Mirror Universe, because he realises that Stamets is taking himself off the board. But Lorca fully intended to keep prosecuting this war with this crew. He was going to go back and get that medal and presumably have a really awkward conversation with Admiral Cornwell at some point.
Anika: I feel like when I first watched this episode, what I remembered was that Cornwell was alive and he was like, that’s bad, I’m going to have a problem. And so I had to escape. I had to pull the lever and go down the escape hatch, right?
Liz: Yeah, that’s what I thought too.
Anika: Watching this time, I was like, oh no, he could totally talk himself out of that. They were so far in Lorca’s corner at that point. It was the second time on screen — probably the twelfth time in the timeline — where Discovery did something they weren’t necessarily meant to, and they weren’t expecting it to happen, but it turned the tide and they got a victory out of it. So they love Lorca, they love Discovery, they’re ready for all of it. Starfleet was fully in his corner.
They would back him against Cornwell. She just came back from being a prisoner of war. She’s on medical leave. There are so many ways that he could get rid of her and her influence without anything nefarious, just by talking over her and being like, crazy lady over there.
Liz: Oh, yeah. The fic that I wrote in this hiatus was basically, Lorca’s family comes in to discredit her and be like, well, she’s just been a prisoner. She’s his ex. Obviously, she’s emotionally compromised. Was she ever good at her job to begin with? And Lorca could have done all of this himself. It was totally within his power.
Anika: I think he could end up admiral and get her knocked down, or at least Fleet Commodore or whatever, in charge of fleet operations for the war.
Liz: I am certain — and I need someone to write this AU now — but I am certain that somewhere in the back of his head, he’s like, well, I have Michael. She’s not my Michael, but she’s pretty good, and I’m going to get this medal. What if I just take Admiral April off the board and take his job?
Anika: Yes, 100%, and the thing is that Cornwell would be like, I’m worried about you, but she could also be brought around. He could play on their relationship and convince her that this was the best course, and then she would be like his second — she would be super in his corner as well. I can see this AU where — and that’s, I love Katrina Cornwell. She’s the best character ever, but she has flaws and a lot of them are related to Lorca.
Liz: Oh, yeah. That’s right. I love her.
Anika: Exactly. She is compromised. That is true.
Liz: Yeah. No, there are so many points where this story could have gone differently and still would have been really good. And some of them would not have worked on screen. Some of them could only be fan fiction, not a televised prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series. But they’re still really good stories.
And I love that about this season. It’s so exciting. Even though I know how this story is going to play out for the next five seasons, there are still so many possibilities. And this whole sense of the universe is wide open. We can do something new with Star Trek. I on AO3 can do something new with Star Trek.
Anika: It was so beautiful. It was such an amazing time. And that’s what I love. I love Starfleet Academy and I feel like that’s a loss. And I’m sad about the current state of Star Trek because it’s very uncertain and it feels like not-great people are making decisions.
Liz: Yeah, yeah.
Anika: But what I really am sad about is that energy of the fandom, because I feel like now the fandom is beaten down. We keep losing things.
Liz: Yeah, yeah.
Anika: And we keep being told that what we care about doesn’t matter. And that no matter how big a fan we are, we can’t get what we want. There’s a lot of toxic fandom going on right now that we’ve discussed as well. And I’m not asking for fans to be in charge because that’s actually horrible.
Liz: Oh no, no.
Anika: And I also don’t want fans to be like, I’m entitled to this and I should get it. But I do want fans to have that energy to go write their own version on AO3. I feel like that has waned because of how beaten down it feels. We care about this — no you don’t. We’re going to take it away from you. We’re going to transform it into the blandest version of what you like.
Liz: I think that plus the streaming model — and Star Trek is not a show that’s dropped all at once to binge, except for Season 2 of Prodigy, RIP. But the binge model has changed fandom so much in that fandoms basically go into hiatus between seasons and there is so much less fan fiction, and there is less fan art than there used to be.
That’s the energy that I miss. I don’t want ship wars and I don’t want fighting amongst ourselves, but I miss that sense of possibility. And I’m part of the problem because I barely read or write fic anymore. I’ve really deliberately put a lot more energy into doing original work because I would like to be a professional writer, but not every fan is like me. And I just think it’s a shame.
Maybe it’s also the demographics — Star Trek is an aging fandom demographic, and so therefore we have jobs and we have less time. That could be a factor.
Anika: Yeah, you’re fully correct. During this hiatus — the hiatus between this episode and the next episode — is when I wrote the most Discovery fic. I had so many ideas and I wrote so many versions of how things could go. And then I kept going with that.
But what I mean about the demoralising part is that then I watched Discovery Season 2 and it really stole that energy from me. And then Strange New Worlds Season 2 — and I know this is different between you and me, but I really loved Strange New Worlds Season 2. And I once again wrote a bunch of fic. I have a whole collection of Christine Chapel stories that I have not written because I got excited about it. And then the rug was pulled out from under me. And again, I don’t want the show to give me what I want, but I don’t want the show to take away what I like.
Liz: I think that’s a really good description. And I want to say, your enthusiasm for Season 2 of Strange New Worlds was infectious. And I certainly wasn’t writing or reading fic, but I was listening to so much music and sending you songs going, this is a Christine song, this is a Spock song. And it was so fun.
Anika: Yeah, exactly. It was fun. It was like, we created the Discord during the hiatus. That’s when everything came to be. And I’m sad that we — and it’s not just Star Trek. Doctor Who announced its pause slash cancellation.
Liz: “Out to tender,” air quotes.
Anika: Star Wars is definitely on the down. It is not doing as well as they want it to. Marvel is not doing as well as they want it to. My son is super excited for Doomsday, but it’s because the X-Men are in it, not because of anything plot-wise. And we’re all exhausted by all of these franchises.
And then even something like The Pitt, which is such a breath of fresh air in the current timeline of fandom — the fans are awful. It’s just a really bad place to be in. And I think that can almost be universalised across every large fandom right now. It’s just a bunch of people that I don’t want to have anything to do with.
Liz: Look how the Heated Rivalry fandom went from zero to harassing the actors’ significant others. It’s just not a fun place to hang out.
Anika: I just hate where we are right now because the energy is in all the wrong places. The energy is in harassing people who have nothing to do with it.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: That’s what people are spending their time on. And it’s just painful. We’re way off topic.
Liz: This was a really cathartic conversation and I’m so glad we had it.
Anika: Yes, I agree. And it is related, because legitimately this episode gave me so much to work with. And then it was November or something and it didn’t come back until January or February — I don’t remember exactly, but there was Christmas in between. And there was time to get together with people and think about things. And it’s a cliffhanger, right?
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: And it could go in all these different ways. And it feels obvious now. I have on here — I can’t believe — Lorca literally says “I’m going home now.” So I’m just sitting here going, what is wrong with us? But at the time I wrote this whole ridiculous story about a magic cat who could time travel. And I brought Kirk into it. And Kirk and Cornwell were going to go save Discovery. Magic cat gets that level of nonsense. That’s where I was at and I miss it.
Liz: That sense of freedom, that sense of not just the show can do anything, but we as fans can do anything. This is why I think we need to kill the CEO in our head.
Anika: Yeah. Yeah, we do. We need to — and the sense of entitlement that fans have now is actually destroying this as well. That is part of the problem. Because until someone wants to hire me to write for Star Trek, which I’m very willing to do, or any of my other fandoms —
Liz: David Ellison, I will take your money, and I will make something very woke.
Anika: I literally went on a half-hour discussion of how I could have fixed the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean movies if someone had just brought me in.
Until someone hires me, I don’t want to have any effect on the actual series. I want them to do their thing, and I want them to trust that we will like it or dislike it, and it doesn’t matter. Just tell a good story. The goal should be to tell a good story. People always use that when they’re like, well, that’s why we’re not hiring a diverse cast — we’re just trying to tell a good story. And it’s like, cool, tell a good story.
Liz: Yeah. Looking at you, Strange New Worlds.
Anika: This is not what I want, okay? This over here is bad.
Liz: I also just wonder if it’s the nature of a story to start out with all the wide-open roads and every possibility open, and then it’s a natural consequence of telling a story that some of those pathways are closed off. And I’m thinking of For All Mankind and Star City, because this is totally nerdy, and I realise I’m saying that on a Star Trek podcast, but I am obsessed with Star City, which is the spinoff of For All Mankind, from the Soviet point of view.
There was a fourth episode last night — I haven’t seen it yet, it was my birthday, I went out for dinner — but I’ve seen three episodes, and I’m enjoying it so much more than I did the first three episodes of For All Mankind. And it’s kind of pinpointing why I’ve had problems with the last couple of seasons of For All Mankind. Also, I just think it’s good.
And I think that telling a story about how can we advance science and connect with other human beings in the face of an oppressive surveillance state is a really 2026 story. And it’s really smart to tell it through the lens of the Soviet Union, America’s great enemy. Because this is in a sense a story about America right now.
Anika: Yeah, I think that’s one of the things. And again, I don’t want to be yelling at fans. I’m sorry. I don’t ever want to say that anyone’s doing fandom wrong. But the people who are obsessed with it should be this way, or it should be that there are these rules and you can’t think about it in a different way — that is a product of its time. And so we should give it a pass.
And it’s like, yes, it’s a product of its time and we should give that weight because that does matter, because actually everything that we’re making right now is about 2026. No matter how hard we try to not make it about 2026, it in fact is, because of when it is happening. That’s just how it is. I can say I’m going to make something about my childhood and it’s not going to be about the 90s — it’s going to be 2026 thinking about the 90s. That’s just the way things work.
And so we are allowed in 2026 to look at something that was made in 1967 and say, okay, this is where we were and this is where we are now, and what matters is getting there and we can still talk about it. It still matters because everything that’s true now was still true back then. Even if we weren’t talking about it and even if we were not caring about it, it was still true. If it was a bad thing, it was still bad.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: So I just want fans to take a step back and realise that our interaction with a thing is important for us. But it’s not important for the thing.
Liz: Yeah. Yeah. The fandom should not be driving the story. Do we learn nothing from Snakes on a Plane, the movie that was effectively written by the internet and then wasn’t very good? Come on, guys.
Anika: Right.
Liz: Is Strange New Worlds the Snakes on a Plane of Star Trek?
Anika: That’s a question I don’t want to get into, but I like it. It’s a good question, but yikes.
Liz: Let’s get back to Discovery and let’s get back to this episode. We’ve talked for nearly 45 minutes.
Michael says two or three times in this episode, I have to bring everyone home. Everyone has to come home. It’s like, I love you. You’re my favourite character, one of my favourite characters. You need to get therapy for this whole impulse to take personal responsibility for everything in the universe.
Anika: Again, I get it, because of what we learn about her childhood and her upbringing.
Liz: Oh, yeah. It makes perfect sense.
Anika: It makes perfect sense. It’s actually so, so good.
Liz: It’s that classic thing of the character’s greatest strength is also the character’s greatest weakness, which is a writing trick that I love. So absolutely wonderful portrayal of this type of character.
Anika: But it’s so true. Michael is a one-woman show in this. Because, I mean, the circumstances require her to be, and she meets the task. She does it. Good job, Michael. But it is that — I can’t rely on anyone. It’s such an older sister thing. As an older sister, let me tell you. And it’s such a motherless daughter thing. There are so many reasons that Michael is this way. Calm down. You are not responsible. You literally don’t have a rank.
Liz: I mean, it’s so interesting to think about. Yes, she’s always had this impulse. It’s very deep within her. But she starts this season — this series — being let down profoundly by Georgiou not trusting her. And then at the end of this season, she’s betrayed by Lorca. And so her martyrdom drive is much, much stronger in Season 2. And I think that’s a consequence of what she goes through in Season 1. Character growth. Sometimes it looks like regression.
I also — what I love about Michael is that she feels intense guilt about killing T’Kuvma, and she does feel responsible for the war. But also she will walk into a situation and be like, bitch, I killed T’Kuvma. That makes me powerful. She did it with Harry Mudd and she’s done it now with Kol. And I feel like this is just a fight she has been wanting to have for some time.
Anika: And again, I can see where that comes from too, because legitimately Sarek does it all the time.
Liz: Oh my God, he does.
Anika: In a Vulcan way, in a quiet, logical, I am just presenting the facts kind of way, but he legitimately boasts all the time. And I don’t hate him for that either. Yeah, you are all that, Sarek, go ahead.
Liz: And then eventually Spock takes up the mantle and he’s, yeah, I’m just going to go negotiate peace with the Klingons. You know what? I’ve decided to reunify Vulcans and Romulans. Try to stop me, bitch.
Anika: Exactly. When these characters decide that they no longer have any effs to give, they just go for it.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: And it’s magic. Good job, you. And again, it’s because they have that point where they have the privilege and they catch it and they can do it.
Liz: And I mean, I think what makes Michael remarkable is that she doesn’t have the privilege and she doesn’t, as you just said, she doesn’t even have a rank, but she is going to do it anyway. And she is doing it through sheer force of will and personality and I love that.
I also do want to say, Michael, if you find someone who is maybe suffering from a spinal injury, your first response should not be to roll them over. Basic first aid, do better.
Anika: I don’t know that she paid attention in basic first aid. Not only based on this scene — I feel like it’s a recurring thing where it’s like Michael, no, both with herself and others.
Liz: No, that makes a lot of sense. This is why Culber had to become a regular, because Michael cannot be trusted in medical emergencies.
Anika: Barely any of them can, actually.
Liz: Oh, yes. Culber really is the adult in the room, which is why he had to be killed off for part of Seasons 1 and 2.
Anika: I know.
Liz: He had the brain cell and it was too powerful.
Anika: It was way too powerful. Oh my gosh. We will get to it when we get to shipping news, but man, Culber in the same storyline.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: But Kat and her potential spinal injury.
Liz: She straight-up says she can’t feel her legs.
Anika: Yes. I mean, I remember I made a gifset of this episode that is still being reblogged sometimes, because I took a post someone made about her and was like, I can’t believe — this is a woman who might be paralysed and is talking someone through their post-traumatic stress, a panic attack, while shooting the enemy at the same time.
Liz: So great.
Anika: And that’s the best thing I ever saw on television. Exactly. Oh my God. I can’t believe that this is happening. And that she’s a middle-aged woman. And that she’s not pretty in this — they made her all sweaty and bloody and messy. It’s amazing. It’s an amazing scene.
It’s why every time we get to a new thing that happened with Kat in this season, that’s why I became a Kat fan. It’s literally everything she does in Season 1 that’s why I went to Star Trek Las Vegas. Do you know how much it cost me to go to Star Trek Las Vegas?
Liz: Oh, I can imagine.
Anika: I have only gone once because it took all of my money. But I was very excited to go see Jayne Brook and tell her how much it meant to me. And I don’t do that — I think I’ve said it before that there are three people that I have gone up to and been incoherent towards because they’re so important to me. And Jeri Ryan isn’t one of them. I love Jeri Ryan and Seven of Nine is very important to me, obviously. But it’s the Jayne Brook performance in Season 1 of Discovery — that level of, you don’t understand, you changed my life.
Liz: I remember — was this the one where you put together a book of essays and stuff that people had made and written about Jayne Brook’s performance and you gave it to her? Because I remember when you put that together and you put out a call for submissions, and I was like, I don’t do stuff like that. I’m just going to not participate. I think it’s cool, but it’s not for me. And I have regretted that ever since.
Anika: Oh, I mean, it was beautiful. So what I will say is, we actually gave it at her first convention appearance, which turned out to be in Europe.
Liz: Oh, yeah, it was the German and UK one.
Anika: Yes. And so I wasn’t there to give her the book, but they told her about me. And so I have a picture of everybody who was there and Jayne holding the book and a little piece of paper that says, hi, Anika. And let me tell you, that is one of my treasured possessions.
Then when I went to Star Trek Las Vegas, that was her second convention, and I had her sign my essay that I included in the book — I was also on Women at Warp, and wrote about being a middle-aged woman in command. It was so important to me, and how it allowed me to exist in the world as someone who was over 38 or whatever. It was that level of — you are allowing me space by existing.
And at interviews and panels that she was on after that, she kept using that phrase, that it was really important that she was a middle-aged woman in command. And I was like, that’s from me. I made an impact. We were on the same page. The level of excitement that she gave me, I was also able to give some of that back to her in some small part.
Liz: And that is exciting because this was just a job. She has had a long career doing little character pieces here and there. She was a hey-it’s-that-person. I mean, she still is. She’s retired, but she’s a hey-it’s-that-person.
Anika: So, yeah, and I think that book was full of so much love. All of the essays and all of the art and all of the messages were so heartfelt.
Liz: It was important. It was a gift. I am old enough to remember when Kate Mulgrew at 40 was considered maybe on the cusp of too old to play Janeway.
Anika: Right. Exactly. And this episode, this scene is so important because there are so many layers of what’s happening. And it’s the post-traumatic stress arc that could have been, should have been, and almost kind of still is.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: We get close to it. What happens with Ash Tyler does not erase these scenes. They are still important. Everything that happens with him still matters. And it is all twisted up because of everything that happens with him and everything he has to go through. He certainly still has post-traumatic stress in Season 2. So it is not empty — it’s not like Picard Season 2, where Picard’s father is abusive — oh no, just kidding, his mother is unstable.
Liz: No, it’s a yes-and.
Anika: This is exactly it — it’s the yes-and, not the we’re-trying-to-trick-you. So however, I do sometimes still mourn the version of the story where everything is just on its face true.
Liz: And the trauma story is kind of a cliché now in media. But 10 years ago, it felt really important that we had three different types of trauma with Lorca and Michael and Ash — that it was Ash as a man who has the sexual trauma, and Michael who has the childhood trauma. And obviously Lorca has the military trauma, because look at him, what else would you do?
But yeah, it felt important, and I’m not mad that so much of it was a misdirect, but it could have been great.
Anika: Right. Exactly. Again, I’m a huge Ash Tyler fan and, actually, as much as I hate the end of Discovery Season 2, I really like Ash’s arc. I like everything that they do with him and I like how he becomes this interesting hybrid who has all of this different stuff that he has to deal with, and how he learns to deal with it himself, not leaning on Michael, not leaning on L’Rell, not leaning on Kat. I think that’s important too.
I don’t hate the story we get and I don’t want to change it. Again, this is the story they were telling. I’m not entitled to a better different story. I’m just saying there are ways that this could have gone, that are equally as good.
Liz: Yeah. I think that’s back to the magic of this season — there are so many open roads that we could have taken. We’ve taken a really long time to get to our point. Let’s talk about Anika’s Wonderland corner.
Anika: Okay. I have a few different things. First, I just want to say that this episode is titled “Into the Forest I Go,” and Stamets straight-up says it, but he textualises the title. And the idea of going into — and I will say the Enchanted Forest — is the first step in the Hero’s Journey or the process of a fairy tale. It’s like leaving home and going into the different place. And it is often conceptualised as a dark forest that you have to go through to get to wherever else you’re going. That’s not necessarily related to Wonderland as a whole.
And also we discussed that Michael isn’t actually on the Hero’s Journey, but I do think that things are tropes for a reason. And leaning into fairy tale tropes and the Hero’s Journey and the architecture of a story — that should always be your foundation, really. Whether you’re subverting it or ignoring it completely, it’s still the underlying way people have learned to understand and interact with stories. So I just think it’s…
Liz: It’s fun to position Michael as Little Red Riding Hood going off into the forest, not knowing that the big bad wolf is already in grandma’s house — being Discovery.
Anika: This episode in particular has Michael and Stamets on parallel lines, where she’s the action hero — which is great — and he’s the brain guy, but they are going on these interesting versions of going into different forests.
Liz: Yeah. And you’ve talked about how the design of the sarcophagus ship is very organic, and it looks like it smells. I look at this set and I feel like I know how this Klingon ship would smell. And so it has a sort of organic, foresty vibe.
Anika: Absolutely. And everything is very big, and there are just these vast spaces that are also somehow cramped. Just the way that everything is there. And I think that it’s a very interesting set and it’s really well done.
So then the second thing I want to bring up is that I previously have said that Cornwell is the White Knight.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: And in the original story, they had one illustrator who illustrated everything, John Tenniel.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: And he based his illustration of the White Knight on an earlier painting that was “The Knight, Death, and the Devil.” And I just think that is such a — that’s absolutely what Cornwell represents.
And in this particular scene, Cornwell, Ash, and L’Rell, all in that room together, it feels like “The Knight, Death, and the Devil.” And they’re all sort of playing each part. So I just — again, that’s going into the lore a little bit, but it was something that occurred to me. Then obviously, it ends with going into the Mirror Realm through the looking glass, but also, we literally get a shot of Michael jumping into a rabbit hole.
Liz: Yes. That’s what happened. Leaping into the now. It’s so good. It’s such a great effect. It’s such a great action set piece. She has leapt down the rabbit hole.
Anika: The production — this is definitely a mid-season finale. The production values and the way it’s all presented, it’s very tight storytelling. And they go big or go home. They really ratchet it up. And I appreciated the obvious production values that went into it. All the explosions were good. All of the imagery was amazing.
But it was also like when Lorca is playing with his star maps and he’s doing the Tony Stark thing, just gesturing and everything and the maps move around. That scene is so small, really. That’s an effect that, I just said, was in Iron Man. So it’s not new, but it was still beautiful. The way that the lights played on their faces — how do you even do that? The lights aren’t there. So I appreciate all of the production values of this.
But that moment of Michael jumping into the middle of the ship and disappearing and going down the rabbit hole, landing on Discovery that immediately goes through the looking glass and into the Mirror Universe, is just amazing.
Liz: Yeah. It’s so interesting to me that — we’ve talked about how there were some bottle episodes this season, even early on — and they’ve destroyed the sarcophagus ship, and we never see that set again. I don’t think any component of it was ever reused. Whereas the Shenzhou set, I’m pretty sure, was still turning up — I think there were still pieces of it in the atrium on Starfleet Academy.
And so it’s the extravagance of building this enormous, detailed set and then only using it for half a season. In general, I argue that Star Trek is not a high-budget production and never has been, but that almost makes this more important because it’s just wild that they did that.
Anika: I love that set. It looks like a game. I can literally imagine putting the little pieces on the board and moving them around. And they act like that. All of the Klingons carry themselves as if they are living chess pieces. Everyone involved understood the assignment and really hit it out of the park.
Liz: Yeah. It was just great work.
Are we up to shipping news?
Anika: I think we are.
Liz: Okay, I mentioned that I had not actually written any Lorca/Stamets, but I had read a lot of Lorca/Stamets/Culber, and I just really like all of their interactions. And I love Lorca seducing Stamets with the prospect of scientific renown after all this time, with his work being commandeered by Starfleet and all of that.
We learn that they were allies in the Mirror Universe, and Lorca has known all along who he is manipulating — he just hasn’t found the right hook for this version of Stamets. And it is just really enjoyable to watch. I realise that saying there’s so much manipulation is maybe not an advertisement for an OTP, but let me do my thing. Don’t judge.
Anika: Look, I am on the record with: I ship unhealthy. If it’s too healthy, I’m disinterested.
Liz: Truthfully, I think part of the appeal of Lorca as a character is that he is incapable of having healthy relationships.
Anika: Absolutely. So yeah, Lorca/Stamets — again, I don’t ship it, but I didn’t even, I was like, no, who ships that? And then I saw this episode and I was like, okay, never mind. I get it. I understand. It’s all on screen.
And Culber/Stamets are just adorable, but heartbreaking. Hugh Culber is heartbroken for most of the series.
Liz: He has a really rough time.
Anika: He goes through so much. Poor baby. He deserves better.
Liz: It’s funny that for reasons involving murdering Hugh, Ash and Hugh can’t really be friends, because honestly they are the biggest baby girls.
Anika: I know. Again, there’s a universe where Culber is the one who helps him through his post-traumatic stress. But it’s not this universe.
Liz: I mean, just as Kat is not the right mental health professional for Lorca, Hugh is not the right mental health professional for Ash. That’s just how it is. They should swap.
Anika: Just how it is.
Liz: But also, this is the episode where Culber and Stamets kiss on screen for the first time, and it’s a really tender moment. You really believe in their relationship and I love it.
Anika: Right. Yes. It was important because Stamets is the main character in a committed relationship that is never questioned.
Liz: Yeah. Then Lorca and Michael — he’s like, I can’t send you into danger. I know I said that I was bringing you aboard so that you would serve and have a purpose, but not in a way where you could get hurt.
Anika: He’s literally having a tantrum on the bridge about it.
Liz: Yeah. He wants to keep his Michael action figure in plastic, in his man cave, with the rest of his Funko Pops. And by Funko Pops, I mean Gorn skeletons.
Anika: Yeah.
Liz: But also, even setting aside the lies — the whole, you’re a person I care about and I don’t want to send you into danger, but I will — it’s just classic Star Trek captain tension.
Anika: Absolutely.
Liz: I never really thought that Lorca would last beyond a season, but I really hoped that he would because I was looking forward to a slow-burn Lorca/Michael relationship. I know.
Anika: Yeah.
Liz: And then Ash and Michael — they are so good together. I love them.
Anika: They are so good together. She is so respectful of him.
Liz: And I think what’s great is that she talks about how his strength inspires her, but without demanding that he be stronger than he is. That is such a fine needle to thread.
Anika: It’s so funny because she’s in some ways bad at relationships, but when she’s not worrying about it and she’s just reacting, I think she’s good at it.
Liz: I mean, I think that’s classic Michael Burnham. She gets into her head.
Anika: Right. Exactly. Then Kat and Michael here, and it’s mainly for that one line when she says, “you’re leaving me.”
Liz: It’s the most vulnerability that she shows in this episode. But also —
Anika: I know, and it’s just, wow.
Liz: But their interactions carry a lot of weight because Michael is the main character. And so Michael, as the protagonist, elevates everyone she interacts with, and this sort of sets the groundwork for the interactions that they will have when they’re reunited in a bunch of episodes — nine months from Kat’s perspective — where it’s kind of sexy.
Anika: Right.
Liz: Yeah. Now that they’ve met, they can proceed to have sexual tension.
Anika: Thank you. I’m sorry. It just is. It’s true.
Liz: Preview of our episode on “The War Without, the War Within.”
On that happy note, thank you for listening to Antimatter Pod. You can find our show notes at antimatterpod.com including links to our social media, credits for our theme music, and transcripts of our episodes. I have been putting up transcripts as I speak. There are three new Discovery transcripts, and I’m going to try and get as many done as possible in the break.
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I logged in to get the Apple transcripts downloaded, and saw that we had a couple of one-star reviews, so feel free to fix that ratio.
We will return in a few weeks to discuss Season 4 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and don’t worry, we will finish Season 1 of Discovery. We are not abandoning this project. We are here to the end.
Anika: No, no, no.