Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is back, baby! Anika and Liz fight off some Gorn and settle in to discuss the premiere!
(We did not realise, when we recorded, that “Hegemony” part 2 would be dropping along with “Wedding Bell Blues”, so we’re only discussing that first episode now.)
- This is certainly an episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
- Is Chris Pike the human embodiment of a Democratic Party fundraising email? Are men too emotional to be in command?
- Pelia is single-handedly inventing Scotty
- Thank God we’ve confirmed that Ortegas is the pilot and flies the ship, we were really confused on that point
- We are really optimistic for La’an’s story to keep evolving this season
- “They are actively trying to destroy Christine Chapel, and I take it personally.” There’s some worrying stuff in this episode, and even more alarming comments made by Akiva Goldsman at the premiere
- We are very much in favour of religion in Star Trek, but Pike praying before telling his girlfriend her consent and bodily autonomy don’t matter is…
- The USS Pablo Picasso was … a choice
- Concept: Christine and Marie should ditch their boyfriends and date each other
- We’re glad Captain Batel isn’t dead; now we’re concerned she’s gonna get the Bix ending
- Has SNW killed Pike/Una as a thing people ship?
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 are discussing the season three premiere of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, “Hegemony, Part Two”.
Liz: We are time traveling because it is, for me here in Australia, Sunday the 29th of June, and just a week ago, we recorded part one of Hair Trek, and then we got screeners.
Anika: Surprise!
Liz: They remembered us.
Anika: Which is great because now we don’t have to rush. Yes.
Liz: Honestly, it’s such a relief, and I’m grateful to Paramount, and I am going to spend the next hour or so eviscerating this episode. But technically, part two of Hair Trek is still up in the air, and we will record it on schedule next weekend, along with episode two of season three.
I watched the screener, and I know you saw it at the premiere there a couple of weeks ago. I watched it and I was like, I have to talk about this right away. I took a whole page of notes. They include the word “Christo-fascism”. It’s going to be great.
Anika: Yeah. So I mean, this is not my least favorite episode of the season so far.
Liz: Oh, good.
Anika: I think I generally liked it better than you. I was like, it’s fine. It’s not good necessarily. It’s not, it’s fine. It’s an episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. There were some moments.
Liz: Overall, my vibe, I think it’s got some really great stuff for La’an. I am enjoying Scotty and Pelia. I just think the problem is that Christopher Pike is the central character, and I don’t think he’s well-written. And I think noted genocide denier Anson Mount is not up to the job of anchoring this show.
Anika: Oh dear. We’re going to lose our access again. But no, I think that Pike is the problem. I think that it is mainly the way he’s written, and potentially the way he’s directed. And Anson Mount is fine, but he’s not a good enough actor to make terrible stuff better, all on his own. That’s my take.
Liz: Yeah. I liked him much better when Pike was a supporting character, and he was basically playing second fiddle to Sonequa Martin-Green. And as the anchor point around which this show has to revolve, he’s simply less effective. And when the writing is as weak as this, like Star Trek: Enterprise was not a well-written show, and Archer was not a well-written character, but Scott Bakula is so charming and charismatic that it almost doesn’t matter.
Anika: Right. You know, Pike’s shtick works for some people. But in this episode in particular, he just was constantly incapable of making decisions. And they’re like, they’re writing it off as he is like this really great leader who lets everyone else talk. And that’s fine, except when you’re in the middle of a war zone and bad things are happening and someone needs to do something. It just, I just have issue with him not being a leader for the moment.
Liz: It’s very funny you say that because I finished this episode thinking that just as Archer was the captain for the Bush era, the George W. Bush era, Pike is kind of the captain for the second Trump era.
Anika: Oh no.
Liz: He, I’m not saying he’s a Republican, but he’s sort of your wishy-washy Democrat who doesn’t really know what to do and does resort to using the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house and ultimately with no effect.
Anika: Pike would be all over writing a strongly worded letter to support his viewpoint the way that we have the Democrats in power doing.
Liz: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dear friend, as the Gorn Hegemony advances into Federation space, we need your support now than ever. Your $5 will help the Federation Democrats.
Anika: Who admit in this email that we’re sending you right now that we actually can’t do anything. That’s the thing, they’re saying, we have no power, we’re really sorry, help us get power. And it’s like, why, why should I help you get power? You didn’t use it when you had it. And now you’re not doing anything. So anyway, we’re off on a tangent.
Liz: To bring it back to what’s actually on screen, it’s interesting that Pike is the one going, no, we need to push back, we need to fight back. And yet from him, I find it completely unconvincing because he’s saying the right things, but he doesn’t know how to do them. Which maybe is also a 2025 liberal mood.
Anika: And I can’t decide, are they writing the character to have this flaw, or do they think that they’re doing the right thing? I feel like I say this in every episode of Star Trek now, where I’m like, I can’t tell what the writers are doing.
Liz: I think it’s particularly a problem with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds because they do not understand subtext. But we’ll talk about the USS Pablo Picasso later. And I remember you got back from the premiere a couple of weeks ago, and you quoted, was it Akiva Goldsman saying that Pike is the only Star Trek captain without an ego?
Anika: It wasn’t the only, it was like the best representation of a Star Trek captain without an ego, paraphrasing, but that was the idea of it. And I think that’s why I’m – when he does the like, I’m going to run around the room and have everybody give me an idea and then choose the one. And it works, so fine. But it seems like he’s going around the room and asking for help because he actually has no ideas of his own. And that’s my issue.
Liz: Yeah, yeah-
Anika: It feels like he’s like desperate.
Liz: Yes. Janeway will sit in her chair and go, “I need ideas, people!” But then you get to something like the resolution of the “Equinox” cliffhanger, where the monsters are closing in and everything’s scary and she knows exactly what to do and she is completely prepared. Get you a captain who can do both. I have never seen Pike be completely prepared and ready for anything because I don’t think he has the imagination.
Anika: And again, in this particular episode, his personal emotions are getting in the way of his ability to- And Una is propping him up. She is the only foundation left on that bridge. And that’s her role as first officer. So again, if they were writing it to be like, you know what, Una is the better captain and she makes Pike good and he gets remembered. And that’s interesting because she was this marginalized person that got in trouble all the time. And there’s interesting threads there, but I don’t think it’s intentional.
Liz: No, and so much of it is Uhura and Una doing the work. And then Pike saying, oh yeah, that sounds good. We’ll do that. That by the end where he is decisive and he is having ideas, I’m completely unconvinced. I’m like, do you have the brain cell right now, Ginger Cat Pike?
Anika: I’m going to keep watching him to see if something changes or, and I, you know, I’m sorry for him that his girlfriend is going to have gorn babies and has to be cryogenically frozen or what, it’s bad. It’s all bad all around. I understand why he’s upset about it, but it’s like, dude, you’re the captain.
Liz: I know, I know.
Anika: Get it together.
Liz: To bring it back to Star Trek: Voyager in “Scorpion 2” where Janeway is seriously injured, Chakotay is like, I’m going to make meaningful eye contact with you, and then I’m going to fucking do my job like a boss. And that’s Chakotay. Again, not a well-written character.
Anika: Yeah. So my main problem with Pike is that I want anyone else to be captain. I’m like, I would like to keep Marie. I would like to promote Una. I would like to bring Kirk on early. I would like to resurrect Katrina Cornwell. Would April like to come back to the Enterprise for a few years?
Liz: Oh my gosh. Yes. Yes.
Anika: Can we just have anyone other than this guy? Because his, from the first episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, not counting Star Trek: Discovery, but from the first episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, his entire character has been, I’m doomed and it’s bothering me. I need to make these years count, but also, I need to not affect anything. And he’s just not capable of actually doing the job.
Liz: It’s really telling that we have so much work being put in to set up Kirk as a captain, as a future captain. Una gets none of that. If that was intentional, if there was a plot or something about how, because she’s Illyrian, they’re letting her stay in Starfleet, sort of begrudgingly, but they’re not going to promote her. She’s hit the glass ceiling. That’s an interesting story. But I don’t think they’re going to tell it because I don’t think they’re aware they’re doing it.
Anika: Right, right, exactly.
Liz: Ever since I watched this episode, and specifically in regards to Una and Pike, I’ve had that bit from the new Sabrina Carpenter song in my head. And for the sake of our listeners, I’m just going to clip that bit from the actual songs because I don’t really have the range. [clip from “Manchild” by Sabrina Carpenter plays] Anyway, that’s their relationship now.
Anika: I like it. Very well done.
Liz: Thank you. Thank you. I thought that you were speechless with horror when you weren’t saying anything, but then I saw you were just adding to our shipping notes. That’s right.
Anika: I was just like, oh, I have to talk about something.
But first, I want to talk about a couple of things that we liked, because honestly, I do think that this episode did wrap up. You described it as “Best of Both Worlds Part 2”, and yeah, 100 percent. “Best of Both Worlds Part 2” is not good in comparison to “Best of Both Worlds Part 1”. It’s just the wrap up where stuff happens. So it felt the same way.
It was like, there were some cool action moments. There was some good character stuff for a handful of people and bad character stuff for others. I was glad, I was worried that we were going to be wrapping up “Hegemony” for the first three episodes, and with a 10 episode season, that’s too much. So I was actually happy to get out of here, and it was like, cool, moving on from this mess.
Liz: Yeah, I don’t really like how it’s resolved, but I think it was the only possible way to resolve this problem they’ve set up, where the Gorn are just pure evil, and we can’t communicate with them.
And I think the idea of an advanced species, which is also susceptible to environmental things, and going into hibernation is really interesting. And maybe the reason they’re using human settlements for breeding is that, because they’re sort of out of it for long periods, they don’t understand that we are also sentient. It’s like the whole cold-blooded, warm-blooded thing. That’s really cool. Imagine if we explored it.
Anika: That’s really cool. And it reminds me a little of the Ten-C, where there’s just this breakdown in ability to actually talk to each other, so that neither side knows why the things that are happening are happening.
Liz: Yeah. Yeah. I wish that it was possible to tell that story without breaking “Arena”. And I kind of, first of all, I hate that we have this species that it’s just okay to kill, and it’s okay to kill their babies. But I hate that for the sake of fan service, we can’t explore the Gorn because there’s the twist that happened in 1966.
Anika: That doesn’t make sense with anything that’s happening right now. Can we just say? Part of me is like, I hope they do redo all of TOS because I want to know their version of arena. I’m curious. I want to see it.
I honestly do want to see them resolve this into something where the Gorn are not pure evil, which is another quote from Akiva Goldsman. So yeah, they are supposed to be pure evil. But as you say, in order to get to that twist, that doesn’t make sense the way it’s being written.
Liz: Yeah. Yeah. To talk about the stuff that I really liked, I love that Pelia is single-handedly creating Scotty.
Anika: Absolutely. Everything about Scotty and Pelia was amazing. Everything. Her tricking him into doing stuff by making it seem dire. Incredible. I was like, you are a chaos goblin, Pelia, and I love you.
But then his response or he was like, I’m really upset because my ship is gone. And I have to get over that trauma. And the look on her face like, oh, I didn’t think of that, you know? For someone who’s lived so long, she’s so in her own self that she didn’t think of, he’s so young, he’s a baby and he lost everything.
Liz: She’s still thinking of him as her young student. And really, he’s a grown man who has been through incredible loss already. And that’s cool. And it’s kind of the inversion of Hemmer and Uhura, where his trauma is not childhood trauma. And it doesn’t feel like Pelia is mentoring him at the expense of herself. This is just how she lives. She finds young people that she likes, and she trains them in her terrible way.
That’s the other thing. I love that Pelia is she’s not centered and wise and all these things that they wanted Jadzia Dax to be at the start. She’s short sighted and selfish. And like you said, she’s a chaos goblin.
Anika: And I love it. I think Pelia is an amazing character that they should lean into more of that. And really avoid having her become the kind of mentor who you like that you assume is going to, you know. Like I remember how she’s friends with Amanda Grayson. I’m just like, I understand why. And I just love it. Everything Pelia is great. Everything. Like I love new Scotty. I love learning how Scotty got to be Scotty. And he’s so not the Scotty we know, but that Scotty we know is in there. He’s like the egg version.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: I really like that they’re playing with that. You know, I want them to do more of that stuff with, like Uhura gets plot lines and she likes, Uhura has more characterization in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds than ever before. But she’s also still, they’re afraid to, I don’t know, make her.
Liz: I think they’re afraid to complicate her.
Anika: Yeah. Yes.
Liz: Things happen to her, but she doesn’t make things happen, except in terms of saving everyone. And again, she has a whole song about how she keeps everything together and doesn’t get credit.
Anika: Right. So. So yeah, so it’s interesting. It’s interesting. But I am excited for Scotty being integrated into the crew. And I love Pelia. So that’s great.
Liz: Scotty and Uhura haven’t interacted yet, but I do remember that we finished season two being like, what if we can ship them? What if that ridiculous pairing from Star Trek V makes sense? I’m still open to that.
Anika: And it recently showed up in a comic book. They had a scene where Scotty comes back to Uhura’s and she says, what took you so long? Because it’s after he got lost in the future and his transporter buff. But he gets back and they hug. And I was just like, oh, oh. So I’m hopeful that that means that we can shift them.
Liz: I also like the implication that Uhura is just straight up immortal. And not mad about it. She never realized this, but she actually has some of Pelia’s people’s DNA in her. Cool, cool, cool.
Anika: That’s great. I love it.
Liz: I thought this was a great episode for La’an in terms of forcing her to address her trauma. And letting her take charge in a way that she often doesn’t get to. Like La’an is one of my favorite characters in the show.
And don’t laugh, I thought this was a really good Ortegas episode. We finally clear up that she’s the pilot and she flies the ship. And I was really confused on that point. So good. We know two things about her. She flies the ship and she experienced war, and she has lingering trauma from the Klingon War.
So to drop her in this situation where she and her team are in danger, she’s badly injured and not able to properly defend herself or her team, or fly the ship easily, but she refuses to let us in. It’s like her war trauma is such that she has chosen to define herself purely by her function and everything else she does. Like, she makes wisecracks, she’s a very supportive friend, but it’s always deflecting attention away from herself. And the fact that she can do this even in such serious circumstances has kind of accidentally made her interesting to me.
Anika: Oh yeah, I do think that it was a good display of Erica. When she said, I’m Erica Ortegas and I fly the ship, I almost died. I was looking around for the hidden cameras because I felt like they were making fun of me personally.
Liz: My soul left my body and not in a good way.
Anika: It felt like the meme version of Erica Ortegas brought to life and I was disturbed. However, I like your reading of it.
Liz: I do think that they sort of hit a problem that was out of their control in that Melissa Navia’s partner died right before season one, or he was dying while it was filming, and so she simply wasn’t able to be a presence the way the other actors work.
I really applaud them for making space for her and for taking the pressure off her. The way they let Anson Mount take paternity leave, I actually think that the behind-the-scenes stuff in terms of caring for the cast is really, really positive.
Anika: In many ways, they’ve-
Liz: Yeah. I just think that by season two, the way Erica was being used was mostly not effective.
Anika: And as for La’an, I am cautiously optimistic. I don’t trust anyone in Star Trek to do mental health or trauma well, but I am excited to see La’an move from someone who was definitely trapped in her trauma. It’s interesting because that’s also Pike’s thing. And she seems to be actually taking steps towards fixing it, whereas he is almost reveling in it in a way.
And I think it’s because he knows his end note where she’s like, I actually can do something. I had this horrible traumatic childhood and it shaped me and I’ve been stuck here for 10 years, but bad things don’t have to happen to me all the time. Like season two was hard for her.
Season two was sort of like, hey, bad things are going to continue to happen to you. But she got herself out of this Gorn stuff by accessing the traumatic memories. And that was such a, like that is the number one, first thing you have to do. That’s what therapy is all about. I was excited to see that she’s like taking those steps.
Liz: And it was interesting that it’s La’an, Erica and M’Benga on the Gorn ship. And also Sam, I don’t care about Sam, extremely team space amoebas when it comes to Sam Kirk. But the three regulars are the most deeply traumatized people on the ship, next to Christine, who has her own work. She has her own…
Anika: They are actively trying to destroy Christine Chapel. And I take it personally.
Liz: We’ll get to that, because I think they said some interesting things at the premiere, as you conveyed it, that I’ve been chewing over since I watched the episode. Speaking of Christine’s plot, I enjoyed the Star Trek ER stuff with Christine saving Batel.
Anika: Yes.
Liz: I am confused that Joseph seems to be the only doctor on the ship. Like, they have a whole backup infirmary or overflow infirmary, but only one doctor. I have questions.
Anika: I mean, I have a lot of questions about how anything works.
Liz: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe by the end of the season.
Anika: McCoy? Was that where you were going?
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: Because it seems sort of like McCoy is the only doctor on TOS Enterprise, except when randomly another doctor shows up, for example, M’Benga. So maybe there’s other ones and we just don’t see them. But in this episode, it was like, no, Christine is in charge of everything and it’s like, okay, she wasn’t even supposed to be on the ship, but sure.
Liz: Yeah. Because my assumption has always been that when there’s another doctor, that doctor is always there in the background. It’s like Dr. Selar on TNG. We only see her once, but we know she’s always being paged. Beverly is not the only doctor for 1,000 people. Oh yeah. The point is, I just think that it’s dangerous to only have one doctor when you have 100, 200 people on a ship.
Anika: That is true. That is true.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: Would you get my cute new nurse?
Liz: This is true. She is adorable. The lack of second doctor means that Spock has to come in and help Christine, which is obviously, I was going to say good for their relationship.
Anika: It’s not good for their relationship. It’s not good for anything. It doesn’t even really move forward their plot. It resets their plot at exactly where it was. Just in case you forgot, this is where they are and this is where they’re going to be forever. Spoilers, as far as I can tell. I mean, spoilers for a show that was on 60 years ago, but you know what I mean. But let’s not talk about her. And I love that Christine is a biochemist and that she uses that a lot. Like that is great.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: I think it is great for modern medical discourse. Not that anyone who’s watching Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is having these conversations, but I work in science and scientific research, and we are having many conversations about how people don’t want to fund or trust science.
And so, when they show people doing the everything about their, we’re going to stick this into the computer and then run it and see what happens. I was like, oh my god, this is so good. This is so true to life. I love it so much. Like I wanted to praise them for showing that science does not give you exact answers ever. It never works out the way that you expect. And you always have at best a 10% chance of things working out. That is so real. And people don’t trust science because they want it to be 100% accurate at all times. And that is not how it ever works. And so I was like, yes, more of this.
Liz: And so when Spock says have a little faith, that is kind of it’s not how science works in its purest form, but nothing is ever pure in the real world.
Anika: It’s not wrong because you do. You do have to say this thing that I believe to be true might be true. And I’m going to try to put it in and see what happens. And if it doesn’t work out, that’s awful, right? But the only way to find out if it works or doesn’t work is to try it.
Liz: Yes. Yes. And the anti-science comes in when you test it and it fails and you keep doing the same thing.
Anika: Right.
Liz: Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Anika: Right.
Liz: But enough about Elon Musk’s rockets exploding.
Anika: So, since he brought up faith, can we talk about Pike praying?
Liz: Okay. I want to like it because it’s a call back to his characterization in Star Trek: Discovery. And as you know, I have strong feelings about the idea that the Federation is completely irreligious.
Anika: And it’s all of that. It’s not true. So those people lost. Sorry.
Liz: Howmstever. And this is where I had to write “overt Christo-fascist vibes from Pike”. And then I wrote, “but that’s an Anson Mount problem”. However, then Marie is upset about the medical procedure that was done to her without her consent. And Pike’s like, don’t worry your pretty little lady head about that. The important thing is that you’re here for me. And I was like, oh, oh, it’s actually not just an Anson Mount problem.
Anika: Yeah, because, okay, so if you remember back to the previous episode, she explicitly says, look, Christine, if I’m gonna birth Gorns, you gotta kill me before that happens. She straight up says it, and then they sedate her, and Pike’s like, don’t do that. And Christine’s like, yeah, I would never do that. And I’m just like, guys, do you guys know?
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: So, I understand from their point of view as people who care about her, I get why they want to do whatever is necessary to help her, but it is, they make a lot of choices that are a little bit concerning in terms of consent, including let’s use Una’s magic blood.
Liz: Yeah, and I have less of an issue with that, because I think one, an infusion of plasma is not going to permanently change Marie’s DNA, unless it does, but-
Anika: Right, yeah, it shouldn’t. It’s a normal thing that happens.
Liz: Yes. I think it’s a reasonable medical procedure to try, and obviously Marie was in no position to consent. And I assume that when you join Starfleet, there is a form where you agree to allow a certain amount of medical shenanigans to take place.
Anika: Experimentation.
Liz: Yes. And obviously on a character level, it’s a really great choice for complicated feelings, because obviously Marie is the one who was prosecuting Una, and yet Una is like, I would do anything for her. And I’m like, because you want me to ship it, I understand.
But also, Marie is entitled to have feelings about that and to work through them on her own and to express them. And so, for Pike to just go, no, I don’t think you need to care about that. And then she comforts him because he’s had such a hard day. And yes, he’s genuinely had a terrible day. But yeah, you know, come on guys.
Anika: She hasn’t not had a terrible day. Luke and Leia escape the Death Star and Luke’s sad about losing Obi-Wan. And Leia’s like, well, my entire planet got blown up, but I’ll take care of you, I guess.
Liz: That’s it, that’s it. It’s just the default setting of woman as comfort giver. When really properly, Pike should be like putting his head on Admiral April’s shoulder and getting a cuddle. Like, he deserves that cuddle. He completely needs support and reassurance and someone to pat him on the head and tell him that he’s not a bad captain, even though he is. But it doesn’t have to be Marie and it didn’t feel mutual. It didn’t feel like they were comforting each other, which I think was maybe the intent.
Anika: Yeah. I mean, I will say this was the first episode where I cared about their relationship at all. So good job. They have been a couple from the beginning and I have been bored mostly. So at least they got me to the point where I was like, I actually am worrying about both sides of this, and I feel things about it. And so that’s good. Good job on that. But it’s not going to be something that I’m going to be hardcore on because she deserves better.
Liz: Oh my gosh.
Anika: That’s just the way it is. Sorry.
Liz: The thing is, Marie is so close to being a blorbo material for me. She only needs to do a few war crimes. I literally have a fic in drafts where Illyrian DNA is used to save Katrina Cornwell without her consent. And then she’s like, well, what do I do now? Where do I belong in the Federation? Will they even have me back?
I really love that story. And I am so excited for Marie to go through this stuff. It’s just that her boyfriend is terrible and I actively dislike him. And I do understand that I’m coming to the point of just being a hater and I am no longer really capable of being reasonable about Pike. And that’s on me. But also, if Marie committed just one little war crime, I would be right or die for her.
Anika: Okay. I’d like your priorities. All right. Tell me about the Pablo Picasso before we go into our shipping news.
Liz: Okay. This is just one of those things that jumped out at me. And it’s not really important, but to me, it highlights how the writers of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds don’t really think about anything beyond the surface.
Because I love the idea of Federation Starships being named after artists. But Picasso was famously a misogynist and an abuser of women. Like, multiple of his partners took their lives. This is not niche knowledge. This is not something that’s just come out in the last couple of years. This was known during his lifetime by the general public.
And so, to choose this specific artist as someone to name a starship after left a bad taste in my mouth. Could have thought about that some more.
I don’t know if there are unproblematic artists. Like, I love Jackson Pollock, but I wouldn’t name a starship after him either. But, you know, maybe. What if, what if they named starships after women and artists of color?
Anika: Yeah, I was just going to say, not that she’s necessarily better than Jackson Pollock, but Jackson Pollock’s wife, also an artist.
Liz: Oh my God.
Anika: And generally a better person. Just saying.
Liz: Would have been a much more well-known artist, except that she spent so much of her life and career supporting his.
Anika: Supporting him. Like Zelda Fitzgerald.
Liz: Yeah. And Mary Shelley, who basically gave up her own writing career to build her husband’s memory. Oh my God. Imagine the USS Mary Shelley.
Anika: Right.
Liz: She invented science fiction. Oh my God. That starship has had sex on its mother’s grave.
Anika: Amazing.
Liz: Speaking of having sex on your mother’s grave, let’s talk about Spock and Chapel.
Anika: Okay. So first about this episode, so as we all know, Spock and Chapel are my number one interest in all of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. And this season is out to get me. In this particular episode, they have a conversation that Spock forces and Christine sort of allows. But she doesn’t really listen to him. She listens to what she thinks he’s saying, and he definitely doesn’t listen to her, because he also listens to what she’s saying and what he wants to hear more than.
Like, I love them, and I love them as star-crossed lovers who never get it together until she’s on death’s doorstep. Like, I actually think that’s an interesting story that I’m interested in. I love we have a complicated relationship for 60 years and never quite make it to a happy ending. Like, I’m into that. That’s fine.
But this particular episode does not move the plot forward at all, and it sets up what we know is going to happen, because we know she’s going off to be with Roger Korby for three months, and we know that she ultimately is engaged to him. So we know that all sorts of bad first Spapel things are going to happen there, but they didn’t do anything with that. They didn’t set it up. They just did the same stuff.
They did the same “He is pining for her, and she’s like, I am afraid of having a relationship with you. Let’s have some space,” and he does not exactly is in the musical episode. He does not hear what she is actually saying, which is, “this is going too fast for me, and I want to talk about it, and I want to have space for our complicated feelings.” And instead, he hears, I don’t want to have anything to do with you.
They’re just really bad at communication, which again, is cool in theory, but things have to change sometime. And they just did the, I’m looking at you, and then I look away, when you’re looking at me thing. And this is like, you guys.
But then, what really broke my soul, was they talked about it in the Q&A after the fact. The moderator started the whole conversation, and this was like the first question to Ethan Peck. We have to talk about your relationship with Nurse Chapel, because I’m angry on your behalf, basically.
Liz: Oh.
Anika: And he said, thank you.
Liz: Okay, first of all, Christine has done nothing wrong.
Anika: Yeah. I mean, okay. So, Ethan Peck talked about how he likes playing with Spock’s… He described it as his pre-computer phase. I was like, yikes. But I think I understand, again, I don’t think he meant that how I heard it. So I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt that, that he was just saying…
Liz: Yeah. Not a great way to talk about neuro-atypical people. Let’s just…
Anika: Right. Like, right. And I don’t think he meant that, that way. I think it was just on the spot, he was trying to describe the difference between his Spock and Leonard Nimoy’s Spock.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: And how he’s very emotionally labile, and that’s different. So anyway, but then, Akiva Goldsman started talking again.
Liz: Why?
Anika: And he basically said that they are purposefully setting up this season of melodrama in the Spock and Chapel relationship to make her look bad, so that we won’t feel sorry for her when we get to TOS. Like not in those words, but that’s how it came across to me. Like we are supposed to be sympathetic to Spock, not Christine. Everything that happens is Christine’s fault. And that’s the only way to read their relationship in TOS, is that she only wants him when it’s too late, or something, or like when she’s already broken him. And I’m just like, hmm.
Liz: Okay, no. First of all.
Anika: And literally the word karmic was used. Like it’s karma. What happens to her in TOS is karma for what she’s doing to Spock now. And they’re writing it that way. This is not, I don’t know if they know what they’re doing. They literally said it. That’s what they’re doing.
Liz: They’re writing her as a cock tease.
Anika: And I don’t like that.
Liz: I’m so angry, Anika. I haven’t had breakfast. I don’t have the energy to have this much rage in me.
Anika: I love Jess Bush’s version of Christine Chapel. And frankly, I love Ethan Peck’s version of Spock. Like I’ve said, that that’s my Spock. And now I’m mad at him. And I’m mad at him because of behind-the-scenes stuff, not necessarily what’s on screen.
Although I, because I can’t really hold him responsible for not knowing how to deal with human emotions because he was raised to not deal with human emotions. And I do think that’s an interesting plot line for him.
But they are doing it all at the expense of Christine Chapel and they don’t care because they don’t think that she’s an important enough character or person. She was already ruined by TOS. So, they’re just adding on to that. And they think that they’re complicating her. But really, they’re just continuing to use her.
Liz: It’s like if they brought Janice Rand in and then went, it’s okay that she is facing threats of rape at every turn because she’s a massive slut.
Anika: Right, right.
Liz: See, the thing is, these two are so bad at communication that I thought that by the episode’s end, Christine thinks they’ve broken up, and Spock thinks they’re still on.
Anika: I mean, I would say that’s true.
Liz: Okay.
Anika: That is, I agree with that. But it’s like Christine doesn’t care that Spock doesn’t understand, I think is the issue.
Liz: I mean, it’s not her job to care. It’s not her job to teach him to understand the words that she is using very plainly, and has been since the musical.
Anika: And I have to say that she literally says like, don’t do anything romantic.
Liz: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anika: Because that’s not what I want.
Liz: And Christine has been incredibly clear about her boundaries from the very beginning. She likes Spock and she cares about him very deeply. She is in love with him, but she doesn’t want a complicated, romantic, emotional relationship. Maybe it was a mistake to think that she could have all these feelings and still keep it casual. But she has not been unclear at any point.
And so, to have Spock turn into this, he treats her so badly in TOS. And to have it be because she broke up with him and now he’s an incel. I don’t feel bad for Spock.
Anika: Yeah. Isn’t that bad? Isn’t that, isn’t that not what we want for Spock? Like I just, where he should grow. And again, I can only accept any of it by imagining the future in the movie era that I’ve made up in my head for them. Because that is the only way I can still like Spock. I’m at the level of you’re trying to ruin Spock for me. Cut it out.
Liz: This is Berman era level misogyny.
Anika: Yeah. And they don’t see it that way, so.
Liz: No.
Anika: I don’t know. Like again, there’s more episodes. We can see all of the things. Maybe Christine will…
Liz: Rally.
Anika: Yeah. Maybe she’ll, she’ll, it’ll be okay. And yeah, I don’t know. I don’t want to be so angry about my OTP. That’s where I’m at. Yeah.
Liz: It’s really stomach churning. Oh my God. So yeah. Let’s talk about… I’m going through the list. Let’s talk about a ship that we like, Christine and Marie. Yeah. When Christine says, I think of you more as a sleeping beauty, I wrote those down in my notes and then drew hearts around them.
Anika: And the thing is that Christine is supposed to be bisexual. So yeah, lean into it. Good. Go for it.
Liz: And yes, there’s an age gap, but Christine is technically a civilian on secondment to Starfleet, so they’re not even breaking that many rules. Christine on her way to steal Pike’s girl.
Anika: Go for it because, yeah, Batel deserves better. And even Pike knows that Batel deserves better because he knows that he’s ratcheting toward…
Okay, so I’m going to briefly go into Pike and Batel, who we don’t have to talk about because they’re the worst. But I am scared… What I came out of this particular episode with her whole Gorn issues and with the end of season two of Andor stuck in my brain…
Liz: She’s going to get the Bix ending.
Anika: She’s going to have Pike’s baby so that Pike’s legacy goes on and literally no one cares about her.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: I do not want. Do not want.
Liz: We’re going to cut to her standing in the fields of his ranch or whatever with his horses and his baby.
Anika: With his horses. And they’re going to say it’s a happy ending. Yeah.
Liz: And I wouldn’t necessarily hate it, but I kind of just need Pike’s line to die. Like, have a baby with literally anyone else, Batel.
Anika: I just think that we’re being set up for Pike is going to be, he’s not, he doesn’t die. If we shouldn’t, they’ve got me thinking his life is over, which is bad because his life isn’t over. He becomes disabled and gets to live a fake life with Vina.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: Which is like, that’s a happy ending, right?
Liz: Ish, yes.
Anika: Like it isn’t, it is not, but you know what I mean? So-
Liz: There’s actually a comic from the 80s that I really, really like where Spock and Kirk return to Talos IV and find that Pike has been rebuilding it, and he’s had a healthy child with Vina, and Spock keeps going, this is clearly an illusion, this is clearly fake. And no, it’s all real. Pike is using an illusionary able-bodied body to rebuild the planet, but he is living a full life. And weirdly, the art makes him look just like Anson Mount. So that’s what I want for Pike. And it’s weird that we have all of this stuff with Batel when we’re meant to think that Vina is his happy ending. Like, are the Talosians going to make her look like Marie.
Anika: It’s so weird, which is also a Bix thing, because everybody was shipping Cassian with Jyn.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: It’s all weird. It’s all like, I don’t understand these choices, except that they think women are interchangeable.
Liz: I mean, aren’t we? Aren’t we, Anika?
Anika: So, Chapel and Batel, and frankly, they should just leave Starfleet, or they can go run the Mary Shelley, and get away from all these losers.
Liz: Or they can go and get their own Eleos and join the Mariposa Collective, and Batel can do the ship commanding stuff, while Chapel flies around saving people with medicine.
Anika: Yeah. And frankly, they should take everyone else with them too.
Liz: Oh my god, yes.
Anika: They should take La’an, and Erica, and Una, like everybody. All of the women leave.
Liz: They can also take Joseph, and Scotty.
Anika: And M’Benga, yup, yup, yup.
Liz: Yes, yes, yes. Basically, we can just leave the Enterprise to Pike and Spock, and they can have their sad man incel party.
Anika: That’s right. And, you know, fine.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: That’s what they want. That’s the future their writers are writing.
Liz: Yeah. Speaking of M’Benga, I still really love him and his interactions with La’an. They sparred a lot last season.
Anika: And they’re hot about it.
Liz: Yeah. There’s a height difference and an age gap, but also, they’re both very traumatized and trying really hard to deal with that and it’s hot. It’s hot and I just I care about them separately, and I would like the opportunity to care about them together.
Anika: I’m hopeful that La’an gets a relationship that is not just more trauma. It would be good for me. That would be nice for me.
Liz: I feel like she’s had Kirk as a starter boyfriend. She’s a bit like Tasha Yar, in that because of her childhood trauma, she’s not really experienced the normal phases of adolescence and growing up, like having a crush and falling in love with someone really fast.
But now she’s done that and she’s gotten out of the way, and she’s dealt with it like an adult because she is maybe the only mature adult on the ship. That’s not fair to her, just like M’Benga. Yeah, she’s the ship’s mom. But now I think La’an is ready for something else, and I don’t want her story to just be about trauma and romance, but I also think that a relationship with M’Benga would be amazing.
Anika: Yes.
Liz: And then your final question here, does anyone still ship Pike and Una? You know that used to be my OTP?
Anika: I know.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: It was a lot of people’s. It was a huge ship and I just, I really want to know if anyone still wants that.
Liz: I will say that I used to follow people who shipped it and I unfollowed them because there was so much Marie bashing last year. So, they might still be out there.
Anika: Right. Well, good for them.
Liz: Yep. Yep.
Anika: I mean, I don’t think this episode gave them anything. They have like one scene where again, she basically tells him how to captain and I’m just like, I don’t understand. It’s fine. If that’s who she wants to be, okay.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: Or like you say, if that’s the only way she gets to have any influence because Starfleet doesn’t trust her, which is possible.
Liz: I hate that, but I would enjoy that story as a Starfleet skeptic.
Anika: Yeah. So this was a fine episode, but it was not a promising start to the season, and Nor was the Q&A. Because Celia, amazing. She is an amazing person. She understands Uhura. She loves Uhura. Everything about that is great. The others, less so.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: And Babs didn’t get to talk, so.
Liz: Oh. Oh, how telling. How telling.
Anika: They asked him one question.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: So, you know, I don’t even remember what it is. It was not clearly, clearly not memorable. And he seems like a very laid-back person, so he wasn’t interjecting the way some of the others were. But it was, it was weird. Honestly, it was weird to me.
Liz: I just get such a powerful “Babs out classes every single other person in this room” vibe from him. Which is, is not to diss the others, just the sheer depth of gravitas and experience that he brings is amazing. And I definitely think Celia will get there. Christina Chong could get there. It’s just, he is amazing and it’s almost embarrassing for everyone else.
Anika: Pretty much. So yeah, so I look forward to being pleasantly surprised by better episodes. That’s my take.
Liz: I mean, the advantage of episodic storytelling, and I say this every season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, is that one bad episode doesn’t mean that the next episode is also going to be bad or that the whole season is going to be bad.
But I will say that I watched the “Broken Circle” and felt like Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was starting a new, you know, a new era, and I did not get this vibe with “Hegemony 2”. But next week, we have some sort of wedding shenanigans, and I love wedding shenanigans. This is why we need to have an episode where we watch “Haven” sometime. Oh my god.
Anika: Yes.
Liz: We should do a run of episodes when this season finishes, where we cover every single wedding in Star Trek.
Anika: Wedding?
Liz: Or at least every wedding episode. We don’t need “Balance of Terror” where there is a wedding happening and other things happen, but every episode that’s about a wedding.
Anika: I’m off time.
Liz: Yes. “Data’s Day”, “Haven”, Worf and Dax’s wedding. Oh yeah.
Anika: I love that one.
Liz: Does “Course: Oblivion” count?
Anika: Yeah. I was going to say which one counts. I would say that I don’t want to do “Course: Oblivion”.
Liz: It’s such a downer. Let’s not.
Anika: It’s such a downer.
Liz: Let’s not and say we did.
Anika: It will ruin the vibes.
Liz: The Star Trek: Enterprise One where T’Pol gets married and Trip has to watch-
Anika: Oh, Home! Yes. Yes.
Liz: Yes. I guess that the Star Trek: Lower Decks episode with the Gorn wedding, bringing us full circle. What a great idea. Please write it down so I don’t forget. I will do the outro.
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. You can follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, and Blue Sky all at antimatterpod, and on Mastodon at antimatterpod@tenforward.social.
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And join us in a week when we will be discussing Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3, Episode 2, “Wedding Bell Blues”. And I’m going to try so hard to be nice about Pike.
Anika: Fair.