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)
Transcript
Liz: 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 5, episode 3, Jinaal.
So to give some context, I have a broken ankle. I broke my ankle the day before yesterday, and so I couldn’t watch this when it came out. And I watched it last night and I was like, oh, this is such a nice old school episode of Trek. I should complain about how I know what’s going to happen at every single turn, but it’s honestly just nice to have something relatively low effort when I don’t have the energy to think too hard.
Anika: Yeah, like I was writing the outline and I was like, what do I even have to say in this episode? It’s like no shade, just nothing to say.
Liz: I have some shade in that we have fewer than 10 episodes left of this whole series. And I kind of feel like we have limited time and we’re wasting it on stuff that isn’t really groundbreaking. But at the same time, it’s just one chapter of a story and I’m hoping that it is building up to something more interesting.
Anika: It came out today that Strange New Worlds was renewed for season four.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: And Lower Decks was renewed for season five.
Liz: Five, yes.
Anika: Five, and it is the final season of Lower Decks.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: And people are very upset about it being the final season of Lower Decks. And I understand that. I got you. I get you. I understand. However, knowing ahead of time before you’ve started making any of the episodes that it is your final season is so much better in every way.
Liz: Absolutely.
Anika: And you know, frankly, five seasons is a long run.
Liz: Oh yeah, yeah.
Anika: If you aren’t a show that started in the nineties and is still going, then five seasons is huge for right now.
Liz: I definitely thought Lower Decks was the show most likely to go past that. But at the same time, I am more than happy for Lower Decks to finish while it’s still funny. And so we don’t get the lows and highs of The Simpsons as writers burn out and leave, and then a new generation has to pick up.
Anika: Right.
Liz: And yeah, learn.
Anika: Yes. And Lower Decks is special. It’s funny. I have always been of the opinion that if you get an extra 10 episodes of a season that you know is your final season, you get something fun to do with it, then that is worth it. That’s what Burn Notice got. That’s what Gossip Girl got. It’s just better than ending on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved. Or Discovery, which is making a story that you’re proud of and that you enjoy making, but is not your final story, and then having to scramble to create a final episode that is your final story, having already filmed the other nine episodes.
Liz: And having episodes like this week where it is really, like if this was not the final season, I think that I would be less, you know, “is that it, where’s the rest about it?”
Anika: There was nothing wrong with this episode. It was just, I don’t have anything to say about it. Like I have my little notes here and none of them are groundbreaking and none of them are necessarily interesting.
Liz: I got very excited when they said that Lieutenant Nilsson has transferred to the Voyager because I thought of you and how happy you must be that she’s gone.
Anika: Thank you! I got so excited! I’m sorry, I feel badly about it, but I was so excited that Nilsson is gone.
Liz: I got really excited last week when we saw the beta shift and I was like, oh, Detmer’s gone! But no, I think it’s actually very, very funny that with the ongoing complaints that the bridge crew are not the main characters, that this season we’ve decided to bring in the beta shift.
Anika: I love it actually. This episode, we didn’t get to see Owosekun and Detmer have their 20 words. We got completely random people that we’ve never seen since before last week. It was actually wonderful for me. And I thought that when they came on, I was like, oh, the people who want the bridge crew to be important, we hate this. And that just made me more happy. I am sorry. That’s just how I feel. Because haters make me want to get what they don’t want.
Liz: Yeah, you get a little contrarian streak.
Anika: Sorry.
Liz: And I actually like that we’re seeing crew members who are not part of the main group, not even part of the bridge crew clique. And that some of them come from the 32nd century. You know, I think it makes Discovery feel more real.
Anika: So, but yeah, this is fully old school. Like it is 90s Trek. It’s not all the way back to the original series, but it is definitely 90s Trek. And I say this with genuine affection, even though we know that Deep Space Nine and I have a strange relationship. This could easily have been an episode of Deep Space Nine. I kept slotting Book into the Kira role the entire time.
Liz: Yeah, this could be a Dax story and it would lose nothing. When I’m blogging about Voyager, one of the scales by which I measure an episode is, could this only be a Voyager episode or could it be, is it more generic? And this is more generic, but I think I just have to accept that. You know, it is what it is, and I can’t complain about it.
Except that I think this is very much post-Strange New Worlds Discovery, in that we end with a little speech explaining the meaning of what we’ve just watched as if the audience was not paying attention. And we know very well that a lot of the audience does not pay attention to Discovery because people of color and queer people are talking. So I understand that you need to make it very, very obvious, but again, the post-subtlety universe of television is grating to me.
Anika: It is a little bit disturbing. I prefer stories that trust their audience.
Liz: Absolutely. I actually this week read Babel by RF Kuang, which is a very highly regarded fantasy novel. And Kuang did not trust her audience one little bit. There are literally footnotes in the text so she can explain to the reader that the racist thing they just read about was in fact racist. I read a review which suggested she was writing with a bad faith Twitter audience in mind.
Anika: Yeah. And that’s like, that’s the issue. My brother wrote a whole diatribe about Letterboxd this week. It was basically saying that Twitter specifically ruined everything. Because the very short one to two sentences or sentence fragments, jokey thing that is written to go viral is more important than anything of substance.
Liz: I actually think he’s right.
Anika: And that has infected everything.
Liz: And I love and I hate that about Letterboxd.
Anika: Right, exactly. Even our fiction, even our fictional stories still have that like, we have to be quippy, we have to have a joke and then explain the joke. We have to tell you what we’re doing because your attention span is so broken by this phenomena that you can’t pay attention to the whole 47 minutes. And we have to tell you the one to two sentence fragments version of what we are trying to get across with this story.
Liz: The TLDR.
Anika: That’s bad. We don’t want that. That’s bad.
Liz: It’s definitely going to date a lot of media from this era. And I think, overall, Discovery is good enough that it will rise above that. But it’s sad that Star Trek overall has fallen into this trap. Particularly live action Star Trek. It’s just so infantilizing of the audience. It really feels like Captain Planet appearing at the end to tell kids about environmentalism.
Anika: But, you know, let’s talk about things we liked. I liked Wilson Cruz.
Liz: I was about to say, I really, I enjoyed Wilson Cruz and Wilson Cruz seemed to enjoy himself.
Anika: Wilson Cruz’s entire performance as not Hugh Culber, as Jinaal was incredible. It was hilarious. It was tongue in cheek. I loved that he had a different voice.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: I could not get over his voice. I was just sitting there like, oh, say that again.
Liz: I have always thought that Cruz was very attractive. It turns out he’s been holding back.
Anika: I cannot get over how sexy Wilson Cruz as Jinaal was. It’s not like he wasn’t sexy as Culber or just as Wilson Cruz. Wilson Cruz in general, incredibly sexy. And I’ve thought that since I was a child and was watching My So-Called Life, and yet I have never been attracted to him the way I was as Jinaal.
Liz: No, same. And Cruz doesn’t need us to be attracted to him. He doesn’t want us to be attracted to him.
Anika: He doesn’t want us.
Liz: But that’s okay.
Anika: And that’s always sort of been there. But Jinaal, I was like, you are not gay, Jinaal. You are pansexual sexy man.
Liz: And I enjoyed that he was kind of an asshole, arrogant, sexy scientist, but not evil. He is a little ruthless, but he absolutely has a moral core. You know, sometimes a character is possessed by an alien and it’s like, they’re just evil. They’re sexy evil.
Anika: Sexy evil, yes. Which, to be clear, I can be attracted to sexy evil.
Liz: One day, we’re going to cover the whole of season one of Discovery and I’m going to have some problems, but…
Anika: But, yeah, he had a moral center. He had reasons for everything that he was doing. It was actually, there was like a brotherhood. There was like a pact going on between the scientists. And like, I love Romulans. You know I love Romulans, but 90s Romulans are not sexy. So not attracted to Vellek in any way.
Liz: You don’t have a shoulder pad fetish? Weird.
Anika: Sorry. But I liked the concept of the like overtly moral to the point of being amoral scientists. That was kind of great. I was into it.
Liz: I also like that because of the Dominion War, which created this sort of paranoid, conspiratorial feeling within the Federation. These people became paranoid and created a conspiracy. Like, guys. And yet, I think they were right. Never mind the Dominion or the Changelings getting their hands on the Progenitor’s secrets. Imagine if it had been Section 31.
Anika: Right. I mean, imagine if it was anyone. There are very few people even in Star Trek that I’m like, it’s okay if they get their hands on this, it’ll be fine. Like, Paul Stamets is not one of them. Sorry.
Liz: No.
Anika: Absolutely not.
Liz: In the first episode, everyone was like, the Federation is at peace. And I’m like, guys, this just feels very self-congratulatory and complacent. So I really appreciate that today, this episode, Michael, was like, the Federation is at peace right now. Who knows what’s going to happen next?
Anika: Not to bring the real world into our escapist science fiction.
Liz: No, we never do that.
Anika: But I was just reading a substack today about how perilously close we are to World War III and how all of America is like, that’s not going to happen, it’s fine. If we don’t talk about it, pretend that it’s not happening, everything is okay. And it’s like, no.
Liz: You’ve watched NCIS Sydney, so you probably know about the AUKUZ Treaty, which is the Australia-UK-US Treaty, where you guys are giving us nuclear submarines. First of all, we can’t be trusted. We can’t be trusted with nukes, I’m sorry, just as a nation.
Anika: To be fair, we can also not be trusted with nukes.
Liz: No, that’s true. But I was reading this week that Japan is preparing to enter that treaty, and I’m like, seems bad. I’ve read more than one book on the causes of World War I. I don’t like this.
Anika: I went to a predominantly Jewish university.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: And I studied a lot of World War II. And it was bad. I would say, let’s not do that. And also the beginning of World War II was like September 1939.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: But the reality is that there were many skirmishes that pretty much count as actual, like, wars and battles.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: But they were called skirmishes that, you know, started as early as like 1931.That entire decade was building up to… And it’s just like, hey, maybe we can learn from this and not do that again.
Liz: If you’re a German Jew, then World War II did not begin in 1939 with a speech by Winston Churchill.
Anika: It did not.
Liz: And it’s interesting that this is sort of all kicking off again as that generation who remembers World War II dies out.
Anika: Dies. Right. Exactly. And that’s what’s happening here, too. The voices of the people who lived through that are being texturally and on screen retired and moved off to the sidelines and saying, yeah, we’re not going to deal with that anymore.
And the idealistic reality that you want to believe that, yes, we are at peace, we have reinstated the Federation and it is strong and it is beautiful and now we can continue exploring our ideals the way that we always do. And you want to believe in that, you want that to be true. I understand that, that is something that is beautiful and that we want to strive for. But the reality is that all of that goodness and all of that victory comes at a cost. And you can’t just ignore it.
Liz: And I think that’s why it’s important that they have Rayner on board, as a guy who has experience of the hardscrabble life of the 32nd century, where the Federation is a much more borderline organization. But also we have this glimpse into the political side with Saru and T’Rina.
Liz: And Rillak is around but off screen this week. And, you know, I really love Rillak. I think that she is a basically ethical person. But would you trust her with a Progenitor weapon or device?
Anika: Oh, I don’t trust anyone. Again, I don’t trust any of these people with a Progenitor weapon.
Liz: Here is a list of people I would trust with a Progenitor weapon: Spock, Michael, Jean-Luc Picard.
Anika: Yeah, I’m on the line with Jean-Luc Picard.
Liz: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Anika: I got you with Spock and Michael.
Anika: Those two, those two can — I trust them. That’s about it.
Liz: Picard, it really depends on the era.
Anika: Yeah, it depends on how he’s feeling today. But, you know, when you woke up this morning, Jean-Luc…
Liz: Yeah. Which Jean-Luc were you? Whereas, you know, so many beloved characters, characters that I am absolutely ride or die for … Kathryn Janeway, absolutely not. Benjamin Sisko, no.
Anika: Legitimately, none of those people.
Liz: No.
Anika: I don’t mean that as a criticism. That means that they are real people, that they are, like, true to life, because there’s also no like actual people that I would trust with any of this, including myself.
Liz: It’s a bit like who is worthy to lift Thor’s hammer.
Anika: Right, exactly.
Liz: And I wouldn’t even trust Steve Rogers or Thor with a Progenitor device.
Anika: Exactly. And again, I have always been very, you know, that’s a fake. It’s like a dichotomy that is unrealistic.
Liz: I would always — actually, I take it back. There is a bit, a couple of bits early in this episode where the Trill talk about how Michael is worthy and she looks kind of pleased and I would even say smug. And I wonder if part of this journey is Michael realizing that just because she can solve the riddles doesn’t make her worthy.
Anika: Interesting.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: Interesting. I would like that. I loved the Vulcan meditation part of this episode. That was very delightful to me. Because it reminds us of Michael’s childhood and her upbringing and her special place in this universe that I think is actually important to her as a person and as a character.
Liz: And I appreciate that she has come so far from who she was in season 1, but that doesn’t change the fact that she has a great deal of Vulcan culture within her. She is more emotionally available, but she still has that core.
Anika: Right, and this is Spock’s journey as well. It’s a ‘yes, and’ situation. You don’t have to give up something in order to embrace something else. You can be both Vulcan and human. That is okay.
Liz: Also, I would like to specify that the only time I think Spock would be worthy to have access to a project or a Progenitor device is after Unification, not only after he’s died, but after he’s had that extra century of experience.
Anika: So, Liz, no one. You’re saying no one. No one should have a Progenitor technology.
Liz: I just think that…
Anika: I mean, I think that is the answer. Like, I’m just going to say, no one on earth should have nuclear capability. Absolutely no one.
Liz: And isn’t that… I have not rewatched The Chase yet, but isn’t that the whole point of the episode that everyone thinks they’re seeking this amazing weapon? And in fact, it’s just a hologram of Salome Jens going, hey, you guys are all related. So peace and love, kumbaya, hugs and kisses, live, laugh, love, and off she goes.
Anika: Now I’m like imagining her like, like she has like a little tea stand or like a, you know, a farmer’s market on the edges of the universe.
Liz: The Progenitors’ homewares stores are just amazing. So many cushions, and they’re all embroidered with like uplifting slogans.
Anika: But I do think that that is the point. The point of that episode is partially at least that that everything is universal and therefore anyone could be worthy, but no one is worthy. And I can’t imagine that this episode, that this season of Discovery is going to end in any other message than none of us are worthy of this technology, including the people who made this technology.
Liz: No, I don’t understand how they can possibly resolve this. However, to get back to my Book and Michael Baby theory, I just want to point out that the monster, the alien animals on Trill were protecting their young. And the way Michael says to Book, “The way any parents would,” I was like, you guys should have a baby.
But also, I have been obsessed with this TikTokker in Canada who came out one morning to find out that two Canadian geese have laid their eggs on her porch. And they’re federally protected, so the geese can’t be moved. She just has these incredibly territorial giant birds living on her porch and, you know, nursing their eggs.
Liz: So, let’s talk about Paul, because he seems to be trying a little bit too hard. You’re saying…
Anika: I’m a little worried about him.
Liz: I think Paul is incredibly hyper-focused on himself. Remember what an asshole he was when Michael first came on board? He’s not that level of asshole, but I think he’s that level of obsessed. Back then, he was trying to get the spore drive working, and now he’s trying to find a replacement.
Anika: And remember he had that whole arc about his family?
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: And like, duty versus family, and he was sort of obsessive of them too. Like, I think that this is a character flaw in Paul Sammits and is part of his story, but I have concern.
Liz: Oh, I am absolutely concerned about Paul, but I also feel like this is the arc that he is going through for the season. You know, he didn’t see that Adira and Gray are having problems and that Adira is worried about it. At the end, Culber is dealing with the aftermath of his… I know it was voluntary, but he was possessed, and he’s dealing with it alone. You know, this family…
Anika: Yeah, that was weird, right? I was like, wait, wait, why are you by yourself? Don’t you like have a family?
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: Why are you by yourself? I was a little upset by that.
Liz: As the camera pulled out, I kept expecting Paul to come into the frame and hug him. And instead, they’re all in separate places. And that was sad.
Anika: Yeah, yeah. And I get, like, it’s a good story, but I’m… I don’t know. Again, because this season feels very fraught, because we know it’s the end.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: And so it’s sort of like, we have to wrap up your storyline, Paul! We need you to get to a place where I’m not worried about you anymore. And because he has never gotten to that place over the last four years, I’m worried. I’m worried about him.
Liz: I do think that it is very much part of his nature to be obsessive and to let his personal life slide in the face of his professional aspirations.
Anika: Maybe it’s my worries that he is going to be the one who is tempted the most by this technology, because he legitimately straight up said, “If I understood this technology, it would blow the spore drive out of the water, and it would be the most amazing thing that anyone had ever done.” And it’s like, okay, but maybe that shouldn’t be your goal.
Liz: No, no, I agree. But I do think that this is a case where we have to trust the process.
Anika: And the process has burnt me so often that I have a lot of trust issues. Just gonna say this. I’m sorry. I believe you and I agree with you. It’s hard for me.
Liz: No, I understand. You have very serious trust issues when it comes to television these days. But Paul is not a woman in her 50s or 60s, so he’s not gonna get blown up.
Speaking of the older characters, I love Rayner, but he is so bad at his job. In a way that I really enjoy.
Anika: My favorite part of the whole Rayner arc, which was great, I gotta say, all of Rayner and Tilly, I was fully into the entire time.
Liz: Yep.
Anika: But when they are at the bar, and he was like spouting all the things that he learned about people, and she was like, yeah, that doesn’t fix the problem. That was the best. She was like, cool story, still not what I’m talking about. You didn’t actually connect with any of them.
Liz: And that’s the thing, he knows trivia about the crew that everyone is complaining we don’t know, but he still doesn’t know them.
Anika: Exactly. It’s so good. When they did the montage at the end, I kept expecting him to maybe join them or to put in any effort, or for Tilly to wave at him and suggest that he come over on him to be hesitant. I just thought there would be more, but he was just like, no, I’m still scared. I get that — because I actually do think it is very hard to be demoted into this new realm and come to a crew that is so close as Discovery is. That seems actually super hard, and I feel for him for it. think that as much as they were trying to ease him in, I do think that they also didn’t recognize his needs.
Liz: No, no.
Anika: Because he’s not that guy, and they didn’t make any effort to do it on his terms.
Liz: Yeah, no. I complain a lot that sometimes found families in fiction are more like cults, and Discovery, I say this with love, is absolutely a found family that’s a cult. And that does make it hard for Rayner. And as Tilly says, he’s embarrassed. It’s humiliating to be demoted. And unlike Kirk, he doesn’t get to be demoted, but he goes back to the job that he loves with the crew who love him. He is surrounded by strangers. He is also like Adira in that he grew up in this very isolated time, and he may not be as adept at making connections with strangers as…
Anika: Absolutely.
Liz: Obviously, he’s older. He’s much, much better at it than they are, but it’s still hard.
Anika: Not to be a Rayner apologist, but I just want to say, I’m definitely going to be a Rayner apologist for this entire season.
Liz: Oh, yeah.
Anika: I was going to put that out there.
Liz: No, no.
Anika: Be prepared. But not to be a Rayner apologist, but the fact that he actually did actively look into Earth idioms and try to work them into his conversations, that actually is effort on his part. And I don’t think that it was appreciated.
Liz: He is not a Lorca figure who regards people around him with thinly veiled contempt. He’s just a bit like Jellicoe, in that he is not as impressed with the characters we know as they or we feel that he should be. And that’s good. That is a reasonable and logical source of conflict.
Anika: But he is putting in effort, and he does actually respect Tilly, by the way. Like, it’s pretty clear that he thinks of Tilly as, maybe not equal, but as a peer.
Liz: He seems to regard her as a potential first officer, because I actually think she may be the third officer on the ship now.
Anika: So you want to talk about the media?
Liz: Yes.
Anika: Oh my gosh. I’m super into this.
Liz: So I feel like Discovery is further muddying the waters of the political system of the Federation, because it seems like Saru as an ambassador is actually on the Federation Council or in its orbit in some way.
Anika: Like, whatever. I don’t understand anything that happened in terms of what those people’s roles were.
Liz: No, no. I really do need to see an org chart. But I love that we know that there is a media, a news media out there. And things like press releases and open government and politicians demonstrating honesty to their constituents are things. What if we got a Star Trek political series like Star Trek: The West Wing, but it was set in the 32nd century?
Anika: Oh my god, I would love it so much. I would love it so much. Those are the two places that I would want to be set in. The end of Enterprise, where the Federation was first begat, or the 32nd century, where it’s like we have this, you know, legitimately hundreds of years of history, but it was broken and we have to put it back together again. Like, those are great places.
Liz: In line with the tropes of the wanky prestige speculative drama, both.
Anika: Yeah, exactly.
Liz: I loved all of this. I do like that T’Rina has staff. I need to see Saru’s staff, ASAP.
Anika: Rillak’s staff, like, oh my gosh.
Liz: I know you’re not a Babylon 5 fan, but one of the things that I like about that series is that the ambassadors, like, there is a diplomatic corps for each embassy on the station. And I want to see more of those. Also, I need to know like which planets Saru was representing, because like, is one of them his homeworld? Because it would be weird if…
Anika: If it wasn’t? Yeah. I mean, I think it needs to be, yeah, I think it should be his home planet and then like the surrounding planets.
Liz: I agree.
Anika: A conglomerate of planets that are close to his home planet. That would make sense to me.
Liz: Yeah, absolutely.
Anika: It doesn’t really make sense for him to be sort of like, ‘and then we reassigned this guy. Here are 50 random planets that don’t have enough aliens.’ Like, whatever. It’s that weird Earthcentric thing. We got to get away from that. Move away from that. And, for what it’s worth, the other three races that were of the original Federation.
But yeah, so what I am disturbed by is the fact that the Vulcan alt-right still have so much power 900 and something years from now.
Liz: You know, I feel like they probably come in ebbs and flows over the centuries and they’re just in a flowing era.
Anika: Like, I’m just like, look, Vulcans, I just want to, you know, talk to you.
Liz: Yeah. And not mad, I just have questions.
Anika: I just have — exactly. I just have questions. My questions are, how can this still be a problem? These people were trying to kill Michael when she was a child, back in like 2200 or whatever.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: How are they still around in almost 3200? That is a thousand years later. Can we have some movement, some tiny bit of movement?
Liz: A thousand years ago, Europeans were incredibly anti-Semitic and anti-Romani. And now in 2024, they’re incredibly anti-Semitic and anti-Romani. And those prejudices have spread throughout the European empires.
Anika: That’s a very good argument. So you’re right. You’re right. That is true. And I guess I can’t expect the Vulcans to be better than Earth.
Liz: I expect them to be worse. If only because individual Vulcans live longer. So it takes longer for bad ideas to die out.
Anika: The Vulcan backstory is that like those people were the enemy of Surak. And Surak was, like, generations, many, many, many generations ago. So it sort of feels like all of Vulcan history is just this one battle, which I guess is true. I mean, I guess that maybe is true to life. And I should get over it. But I don’t want the Vulcan alt-right to win.
Liz: No, no. I think what’s consistent is that thousands of years ago, the Vulcan conservatives were anti-Surak. And now they are radically pro-Surak. And basically any position that requires conservatism, you know, a lack of change, a return to old ways, is — maybe this alt-right arose out of reunification. And they just really hate Romulans.
Anika: Yeah, I mean that, yes. I can see that. I can absolutely see that once unification happened, the minority that was against unification became stronger. That makes sense. I’m just so mad at the Vulcan conservatives. I feel like they are personally out for me.
Liz: I need you to picture Vulcan NextDoor, where it’s just reports of, “I wish to convey that someone was being illogical on my block this afternoon. I distinctly heard the sound of voices raised in irony.”
Anika: I’m just so angry at them for being upset with T’Rina for having an interspecies relationship, because it’s sort of like, it is 3100 people.
Liz: But maybe, like me, they’re just really prejudiced against Saru’s hands and don’t disapprove of the relationship on principle, but think that — like, imagine what the children would look like. My God.
Also, I like that T’Rina’s basic principle was, we’re not going to give in to the alt-right. We’re not going to cater to them. Catering to them would actually destroy the trust I have between me and the citizens who support me.
Anika: T’Rina was the adult in the room for that entire plotline, because she was like, yeah, no, we’re actually not going to give in to these people and their demands. That would be compromising. It’s one of those things where, you know, the alt-right of America, I am obviously fully against because their goals are to eradicate my son and people that I love. And it’s like, well, maybe we don’t want to do that. Again, I went to a predominantly Jewish university. Let’s not eradicate them. So, you know, it’s personal. It’s personal when I’m angry at the Vulcan alt-right because I don’t expect Vulcans to be better. I just wish for people literally a thousand years out from today to be better.
Liz: And yet we do have T’Rina who is so wise and generous, and she’s the one who can say to Saru, no, it’s very normal to have conflict in a relationship.
Anika: This is the best line.
Liz: Oh my gosh, Gene Rodenberry would be so mad. I actually felt the rumble as he rolled over in his grave.
Anika: I know, right? It was so beautiful that I was like, oh, you know, we’ve been saying that Saru, this is like his first real relationship. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. That was such an adult relationship conversation.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: That I know people who are in their 70s and aren’t capable of having that conversation.
Liz: I’m going to float the idea that Michael and Book are not there yet.
Anika: Nope, nope, nope, nope. And it was just, it was beautiful. And we need that. We need this. I’m surprised so far. I’m surprised that Saru and T’Rina are getting so much screen time. I didn’t expect that. But it’s sort of like, oh my gosh, like a relationship that is comfortably mature. And getting this amount of attention is actually amazing.
Liz: I really do like Saru as the 40-year-old, maybe not virgin, but romantically inexperienced. And there’s no shame or judgment or joking. He’s just like, I have very little experience with this type of relationship. And then he takes her advice and he respects her input. And he — look, Saru can apologize like a pro.
Anika: Remember, that’s all he did for the first like eight episodes of the series.
Liz: Yeah, true. But in contrast with Adira and Gray, congratulations on calling that they’re going to break up. And it feels like they’re being really mature, but they’re cosplaying maturity.
Anika: Yes, that was, I mean, I look, I love Gray for — again, for personal reasons. And I am sad, I’m convinced we’re never seeing him again. I feel sadness about the whole thing. They were very, it was a good breakup.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: It was lovely, but it felt on like a meta level as we are writing this character out of this story. Because we don’t want to deal with it.
Liz: For me, it didn’t quite feel like that, but it felt like they knew that their relationship couldn’t continue as it was. But like Gray says, there are other types of relationships. And I think what he’s saying is, you know, we can have other partners, we can try other things, but Adira isn’t in a place to consider that. You know, maybe they’re monogamous. Maybe if they can’t have Gray, they would rather just prefer to focus on work and study. We don’t know what they’re thinking yet, but it feels like they had both chosen not to try to work very hard to save their relationship. And you know what? I actually think that’s okay because they are both so young.
Anika: They’re so young. I wouldn’t want teenagers — I say this all the time. People who meet as kids or teens or like their first love, you know, their first real relationship. I love the trope of like, I met this person when I was a kid or a young adult or they were my first love. And then I find them again 30 years later.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: Like, that’s my favorite thing. But that 30-year break is super important.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: You’re not supposed to be pining for that person. You’re supposed to be like going and having another life and becoming your own person separate from that relationship. It’s just that that relationship is like so important that you come back to it. That’s what’s beautiful about it.
Liz: I can even see them doing the Lorca/Cornwell thing where they’ve grown up together and they love each other and they can’t be together now, but maybe they’ll get together in a few years’ time. Maybe they’ll find a way to have a casual thing. Maybe one day they will make some sort of long-term commitment. But you don’t think Gray is coming back. I actually expect we’ll see him once or twice more, probably in the finale, and I expect it will turn out to be one of the new scenes that they film.
Anika: Yeah, I feel like maybe in the finale, but only because it was like, oh, we have to close this circle, so we have to bring him back.
Liz: It definitely didn’t feel like it was being written as ‘this character is leaving and we are never revisiting him again.’
Anika: It felt like ‘this character is not a main character,’ which is true, and it’s fine. Totally fine. It was like, we’re going to set this character up in somewhere where he can thrive. He is clearly thriving on Trill, he is doing well. He’s happy there. He is comfortable and he’s getting the life that he wanted. Good for him, and I want that for him. That was their whole thing. I’m happy here and you’re happy there, so let’s just be happy. It’s okay to be happy without each other. I think that’s great. That’s healthy. That’s amazing. It’s a wonderful message. More of that.
Liz: They’ve ended the romantic side of their relationship before they came to resent each other.
Anika: Yeah, it’s all good. I have nothing against their story or their breakup. I’m just saying that I personally like Gray more than Adira, so I’m sad about that.
Liz: I definitely feel like the Gray relationship has been holding Adira back. And I’m not saying we need to see them having other romances, but it feels like when Gray was on board, they were sort of a crutch that Adira relied on. And even after they’re gone, it was like we rarely saw Adira out of work, and only briefly with people their own age.
Anika: I think that I’m actually hopeful that Adira is going to end up in Paul’s arc.
Liz: Yeah, yeah.
Anika: And that they are going to be the person who brings him back from the brink or whatever, or stops him from being a crazy person and shows him that affecting the life of one person, one individual, is just as important as having a legacy that people remember 300 years from now.
Liz: No, I think that is completely fair and I think it’s a reasonable prediction. And yeah, I’m curious to see what happens next. I’m a little concerned that Moll has planted a tracking device or something on Adira. Mostly because it reminds me of the spore that entered Tilly in season 1 and I’m like, why do you always do this to your ensigns? Guys!
Anika: Stop it! No, I mean, I hope that it’s just a tracker that is supposed to track them across the universe. Moll pretending to be a Trill guardian was, like, I really enjoyed that.
Liz: Oh yeah.
Anika: I was into that.
Liz: I don’t think I’ve ever seen the actress in anything, but I’m going to look her up and see what else she’s done, because she does have a real presence. And she was barely in this for a flash. And yet, I was like, hello, I love you!
Anika: Yeah, the presence of the actress, like, she didn’t speak, she didn’t do anything. It was very clear that it was her. I know what’s happening here. It was exceptional work on her part, infiltrating and being creepy. And then her little smirk as she turned away and I was like, yes.
Liz: It does feel like she walked in from Star Wars, and she knows it.
Anika: 100%, exactly! She’s like, I am not in Star Trek and I am going to eat it up.
Liz: Yeah, she relishes being a chaos agent. And I relish watching her.
Liz: So I guess I should go and watch our screener for episode 4 so we can talk about that tomorrow.
Anika: That’s right! Let’s go!
Liz: I feel like such a bad podcaster because we got the screeners for 3 and 4 last week and then I was like, I kept looking at them going, but I want to watch it with everyone else.
Anika: Aww, I mean I think that’s sweet actually. I think that television in general should be communal.
Liz: Agreed, yeah.
Anika: So it’s better that way and so I get it. I get that impulse.
Thank you for listening to Antimatter Pod. You can find our show notes at www.antimatterpod.com, including links to our social media, credits for our theme music and transcripts of our episodes.
Liz: If you use Apple Podcasts, I have activated the setting where the app automatically generates transcripts. They are quite good and I am using those transcripts to generate ones for our website. They only take an hour or so to edit into usable form instead of a week, so I’m very excited. Unfortunately, the transcript for our last episode is on my work computer and I’m not going to work for the near future, so, sorry.
Anika: Good job, Apple though.
Liz: Oh yeah, I’m really impressed with the quality of these automatic transcripts. They spell your name right.
Anika: Which is impressive. It is the Dutch spelling and that is apparently the less popular spelling, so… Good job.
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Join us next week when we will be discussing the next episode of Star Trek: Discovery, Face the Strange.