Anika and Liz go on a nice road trip to pick some flowers, and nothing bad happens to anyone.
Okay, fine, we are discussing Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3, episode 3, “Shuttle to Kenfori”, including…
- First of all, WHAT IS HAPPENING ON REBECCA ROMIJN’S HEAD
- Season 3 has a recurring motif where a woman states explicitly what she wants, and her romantic partner decides to do the opposite
- Batel and M’Benga both tell Pike repeatedly that Batel has the right to make her own medical choices, and Pike never actually agrees
- “I really have to finish my Tuvok/Azetbur fan fiction.”
- RIP Liz’s Klingon wife
- Our only beef with Erica’s storyline is that it worked by making Una hold the idiot ball
- Joseph M’Benga: the only doctor in Starfleet who respects people’s privacy
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 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, “Shuttle to Kenfori”, a boring title name.
Liz: I know. I have a lot of thoughts about this episode, and I have a lot of questions, but let’s talk about the really big one. What did Rebecca Romijn do to piss off the stylists? Did she murder their first-born children and all of their puppies?
Anika: I like that she has a different and interesting hairstyle, but it’s not good. No, I agree. I called it Princess Leia, and I stand by that, but I don’t think it looks good. She could pull off actual Princess Leia The Empire Strikes Back and do well with it, and this is like they stuck a wig that doesn’t fit.
Liz: Yeah, it was weird.
Anika: It’s weird.
Liz: It put me in mind of European nationalist braid crowns, which is really unfair because no European nationalist would wear that much makeup. It was a real Homer’s makeup gun.
[Clip from The Simpsons: Homer, you’ve got it set on whore.]
Liz: And Rebecca is so beautiful and why did they make her look like that? It’s like when you’re creating a video game character and you dial the intensity of all of the makeup up as far as it goes.
Anika: It’s really painful to me. That’s what I thought she was going, Ouch.
Liz: It was such a tight hairstyle. I’m sure it left her with a headache. Anyway, Rebecca, whatever you did, you need to apologize.
Anika: Una was a little tight herself, so maybe her hair was affecting her.
Liz: She definitely wasn’t holding the brain cell this week. But let’s talk about the plot, which, as you correctly point out, is several different existing stories mashed up together to honestly make something new enough to get by. But I am into aspects of it.
Anika: When they introduced the third plot, the third stolen plot, I was like, okay, I guess if you steal one plot that you’ve stolen a plot, if you steal two plots, you’ve stolen two plots. But if you steal three plots, I guess you’ve made a new thing.
Liz: At that point, we can call it high concept.
Anika: But I’m going to say this. It is literally the plot of a Clone Wars episode.
Liz: I was trying to remember which Star Wars it was.
Anika: It’s an early season one episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. And the reason I remember it so well is because they go to the Moons of Yego, which is where the angels live. You might recall the Moons of Yego from how Anika and Padmé meet. Only people like me are like this and remember these things. But they go to the Moon of Yego specifically because the only place where they can find this magic plant that will save Padmé’s life. So straight up, this is stolen plot. And apologies to Anakin because Pike is no Anakin.
Liz: Oh my god, I would enjoy this so much more if it was Anakin Skywalker and Joseph M’Benga on a road trip. Please write that.
Anika: Yes.
Liz: I spotted that the zombies were coming because I recognized the influence of The Last of Us.
Anika: Right. Because they’re plant zombies.
Liz: Yeah. Grain zombies, no less. And then I was delighted by the Alien: Resurrection of it all, because that is not a good Alien movie. But it’s possible that there are only three good alien movies and everything after Alien 3 is just fan fiction. I watched Alien: Romulus last week. It was certainly a film. Anyway, I’m very fond of Alien: Resurrection for rewriting my brain chemistry with the whole ‘let’s bring Ripley back as a hybrid clone’ plotline.
Anika: Yeah.
Liz: I’m really into what they’re doing with Batel. And if she had better taste in men, she would be 100% blorbo material. I know I said the other week that I could do with a war crime, and I’m still open to that. But honestly, she’s getting there without it.
Anika: We’re skipping to the end, but she’s so clear. What is with the women saying something very clearly, using full sentences to explain exactly what they want, and the men to be completely ignoring that and doing the opposite?
Because she has this whole, “I want my pain to be about me, and I want to make all decisions about it, and you shouldn’t be like this” whole thing. And then, Pike says, “Oh, I agree with you,” and pulls her into an embrace, and I was like, I don’t think that was, “I’m sorry.” I don’t think he said-
Liz: No, I did not hear an apology.
Anika: He agrees with her, but because it’s like, he has to, because he’s forced into a corner where it’s already happened, and she’s saying, “I’m gonna leave you if you don’t agree with me,” and so he does, but he’s just placating her. He didn’t change his mind, from my perspective.
Liz: I don’t understand their relationship, because it’s supposed to be this very serious and apparently monogamous thing, but we never really got a transition between what they are now and the sort of friends with benefits situation they seemed to have in season one. So it’s like, did he cheat on her when he slept with that cult leader who kills children? Because I remember that.
Anika: I remember that too, and I always will. I loved everything she was saying. And then it just go anywhere. And she let him hug her. And that was the end. I was like, yeah.
Liz: Yeah. I feel like it’s that thing where a woman has so many things going on in her life that breaking up with her boyfriend or husband is just one thing that she doesn’t have capacity for right now. And that’s like a problem for further down the road.
But she straight up says, I’m sorry that it hurts your feelings that I’m dying. And it’s like, girl, you don’t have to live like this. Have you tried being a single? Have you tried dating Una? You can do her hair for her.
Anika: Yeah. So no, nope to them. In fact, nope to Pike.
Liz: No.
Anika: At all.
Liz: I just, I would have loved this episode, except Pike is just so inadequate in it. On every level. And I don’t believe, I can’t believe that he and M’Benga are friends because M’Benga is a guy with a lot going on. And he has this sort of self-deprecating, oh, I’m a work-in-progress thing. But sir, why have you been married four times or married five times and had four divorces and one annulment? PS. Do you need your next wife because I’m volunteering for the job. Anyway, and then Pike is like, I guess they’re both bad at relationships.
Anika: Pike doesn’t think he’s bad at relationships. The only times I liked Pike in this episode, and the only times I wasn’t actively disliking Pike in this episode, I think is a more accurate representation, which is, that’s just where I’m at now. It takes a lot for me to not actively dislike him. But the only time that I wasn’t actively disliking Pike in this episode was when he was talking about M’Benga.
Liz: Yeah, yeah.
Anika: And being the foil for this long relationship they have, and he was bringing out all of this backstory that we didn’t know about. And that was cool that we got to know M’Benga more. And I liked that. And I liked the fact that M’Benga very clearly has all the brain cells in this relationship. He never gives a brain cell to Pike.
And Pike is like this little puppy around him. He seems to really look up to, as even as you just called M’Benga, he’s a self-deprecating work in progress. I think that’s very accurate. And Pike is like, I don’t understand those words, but you’re really cool about it. And he just has this golden retriever “yes” thing going on, but I actually enjoyed that. I was like, okay, I can see friendship in these moments where they’re just hanging out.
But whenever it was about Pike and his very strong opinions about how his relationship should be and how much control he should have over everything, because he’s the captain and the man, I guess, I really couldn’t, it was like, no.
And Joseph seems to be unable to explain in a way that he would understand. Similar, like Marie at the end, too. They’re using full, very clear words to say, this is bad and Pike doesn’t get it.
Liz: The thing about Pike, and I agree that I am done with this character, and I’m concerned that it’s really spoiling my ability to be reasonable about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, just because, am I making it less fun for myself, but also how do I stop disliking this character who is so dislikable?
But it’s not that he is non-toxic masculinity, it’s that he’s popular because he is a deeply mediocre man who is never challenged and never called out. And that’s the real fantasy, I think, for a lot of the centrist viewers who think Pike is great.
Anika: How is he, in this episode in particular, how is he non-toxic masculinity? Just how? Obviously, the fandom hasn’t seen this yet, so, okay. Maybe they’ll wake up, but it really feels like no.
And so what I was thinking as I was getting my headphones out and logging on to record this episode, I was thinking about how I saw your note that you would like this episode just if Pike wasn’t in it. And I was like, is this how it feels to be someone who doesn’t like Janeway? For whatever reason, whether it’s sexist reasons to not like her or legitimate reasons to not like her because you think that she’s not well-written or that she changes her mind too much, which I will argue with, but I understand what they’re saying.
Liz: Sometimes you just don’t vibe with a character and that’s OK.
Anika: Yeah, sometimes you just don’t vibe with a character and that’s OK. I think that that’s the best. And I think that it’s hard when the character is the captain and the central figure of the show, or even like Michael. You just don’t vibe with Michael, which, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. But if you just don’t vibe with Michael, it’s hard to enjoy Star Trek: Discovery.
Liz: It really is a lot like Star Trek: Enterprise, and Pike’s problems are a lot like Archer’s, in that in both cases you have a Star Trek which is deliberately aiming to be as appealing as possible to the widest possible audience, and at a time of a backlash against progressivism and a rise in conservatism, and with this masculine character who is intended to embody the moment in a way.
And in Archer’s case, that’s because he’s like a George W. Bush figure who’s trying to live up to his dad and all the 9-11 stuff that we couldn’t escape in that era, and just the fact that he simply wasn’t very good at his job.
And with Pike, it’s a bit more complex because he’s certainly not being keyed to deliberately appeal to Trump fans, but he’s also wearing progressive clothes, but he’s also not designed to challenge Trump fans or the conservative fan base that Star Trek has always had, and the conservatism of, say, a production company that just fired a comedian for joking about the president, for example.
Anika: Or specifically, I would say, for joking about the fact that the production company gave in to the president.
Liz: Yes, and maybe bribed him a bit, and “maybe” is, like, legal weasel words, so no one sues me.
The point is, I think that both characters reflect their moment in ways that will kind of make the series age badly. But when I was watching Star Trek: Enterprise back when it first premiered, I got four episodes in and quit because I hated Archer. And it was easier to go back after I watched Star Trek: Discovery, because Archer was no longer the face of the franchise. And so I wonder if I’ll have an easier time with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds when Star Trek: Starfleet Academy drops and Pike is no longer the face of the franchise.
Can I say I’m confused about some of Marie’s choices? Because, and maybe this is something I missed because I take handwritten notes and I only had time to watch the episode once, so maybe I was just writing something and wasn’t paying attention enough. But it seems like she’s really against what I’m going to call the flower treatment when Pike wants to do it. And then at some point off screen, apparently before that conversation, she consents to the hybridization therapy, which now Pike disagrees with.
And obviously I’m delighted that Batel is allowed to make her own choices about her own body, but it doesn’t seem consistent. And did I miss something?
Anika: I don’t necessarily think you missed something because I do think that it is a little janky. But my assumption is the reason that the ‘Spock freaks out because he takes on Batel’s pain’ scene is in this episode is solely to show what Marie is going through and why she’s making these decisions.
Liz: I’m also concerned that it’s foreshadowing that the Gorn is influencing her to make this choice, and Pike’s going to have to put her down. But I just feel like the show is toying with me with Marie and I don’t trust it yet.
Anika: Yeah, I don’t know what’s gonna happen. Actually, I think that you said you’re liking the Alien: Resurrection bit. And I agree with that in that I don’t exactly, I clocked it as Alien 4 immediately, but also that doesn’t mean, because that was the point where I was like, oh, so it is a new story, because now we have three separate plots, so that means it’s a new story.
And at that point I got excited, not necessarily because I was excited for her to have an Alien: Resurrection plot, but because I was like, I don’t know which way they’re gonna go with it. And that’s a good place for me to be. I’m excited to see what happens to her, where I wasn’t really before. I thought that it was just going to be ignored and she was gonna end up having his baby at the end, so I still think that’s true. But maybe she’ll become a-
Liz: Pike’s hybrid-gorn baby.
Anika: Yeah, a hybrid- Pike’s hybrid-gorn baby. I’m sorry. It could go in lots of different ways now and that’s exciting to me. And the fact that she is- she did stand up for herself and everybody else stood up for her too. M’Benga and Spock were planning to go so that Pike wouldn’t find out, which is like A+. Good job, you guys.
Liz: But also, if your medical team has to keep your treatment secret from your boyfriend, should you be with that boyfriend? It’s just really giving “Marie’s body Pike’s choice”, and I don’t like it. Especially because this is in many ways a reproductive autonomy storyline.
Anika: I have an ongoing project where I talk about abortion storylines on television. And I’m starting in the deep past with ER. I know it’s bad to call that the deep past, but that’s how I feel.
Liz: I must diminish and go into the West.
Anika: But I’m interested to see where this whole Batel plotline goes, because I think I could write about it for that series, depending on how things go. Because it’s not even just abortion on television, it’s like reproductive rights on television. Like the choice to have a baby or not have a baby, the difficulty to have a baby for some people, and how deeply personal that is. There’s lots of ways for that to be used mainly in medical dramas, but it’s interesting when they do it in a science fiction plot.
Liz: Absolutely. And it’s definitely an issue that Star Trek has deliberately never engaged with ever in its whole 60 years. Yeah, I’m curious to see where it goes. I just, I feel like Batel is beating against the walls of the way she’s written and trying to become a fully-fledged character. And in some ways, the show wants to let that happen, and Pike is the problem. And yeah, I am once again saying, promote Pike early, give the Enterprise to Batel. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds could do something surprising. It would be so exciting.
Anika: Yeah, we’ll see what happens.
Liz: Yeah. So let’s talk about the Klingon side of the plot line.
Anika: Cool.
Liz: I was going to go back and re-listen to our episode on “Under the Cloak of War” to see if I actually reached a landing on whether M’Benga killed the Ambassador. Because I feel like I said something and said it with absolute certainty, but I don’t know what I said. My feeling now is that when Joseph says, I killed him here, I was like, oh yeah, obviously, that’s always been how I thought. I don’t know if that’s always been my position. But it certainly makes sense. Pike is honestly not pretty enough to be this dumb in terms of not believing him.
Anika: I mean, I couldn’t tell. I think that Pike does believe him and is just willful ignorance.
Liz: Oh yeah, I think by the end, Pike comes around, I just assumed that Pike knew all along.
Anika: Yeah, that definitely wasn’t clear. I mean, it’s also like I didn’t listen to our thing either, so I’m not sure what I said then, but I feel like it was super obvious, like at least to Chapel. Chapel definitely knew. And I feel like the others, the commands team thought it was probable. And we just had this Pike and M’Benga are supposed to be real old friends. So I think he must have known, but maybe in order to pass it off to the brass, he had to convince himself.
Liz: That makes sense.
Anika: That’s my, how I feel it.
Liz: Yeah. And I also feel like it’s the same thing he did with Una in “Ghosts of Illyria”, or it’s like, ‘you’re one of the good ones. So I’m just not going to…’ which is again, not a good practice anyway. I do feel like to put it in a Star Trek: Voyager context, if Tuvok killed people, Janeway would know about it.
Anika: Oh yeah, for sure. And also Janeway would cover it up.
Liz: Oh yeah.
Anika: Without a second thought.
Liz: “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.”
Anika: Exactly.
Liz: And then she would do the cover up.
Anika: And then she would full on promote him to make sure that no one thought it was possible.
Liz: But also, just knowing Tuvok, there are so many hot Klingons out there with a blood feud against Tuvok. I just believe that in my heart.
Anika: I really have to finish my Tuvok and the Klingons set for fanfiction. Badly. Every time you mention Tuvok and the Klingons, I’m like, I really gotta finish that. So I am a little bit obsessed with pirates right now. Mostly because my son is a little bit obsessed with pirates right now.
So I really enjoyed the Klingons because they came off as pirates to me. But honorable pirates. It felt very like old school maritime cool stuff. Not Cold War Klingons. These were pirate Klingons and I love pirate Klingons. So I really liked the Klingon subplot. I thought that her, You Killed My Father Before I Could, is the most Klingon thing I’ve ever heard in my life. And I was super into it and I just am sad that we’ll never see her again because she was awesome.
Liz: Yeah, yeah.
Anika: She should have joined the crew, frankly.
Liz: Oh my god, I was like, I love her. She’s so beautiful and thicc, and I want them to contrive a way to restore her honor without killing M’Benga so she can go back to the Klingon home world and marry L’Rell and live happily ever after.
Anika: Absolutely.
Liz: And it would be so great. But also she should marry me. I understand that it’s going to be awkward if I’m married to Joseph and her at the same time and they have to fight to the death, but I think we can make it work.
And then she died. RIP my Klingon wife.
Anika: I’m really upset about, mainly because it was Redemption by Death, my least favorite trope in television and media and I just, I hate Redemption by Death. And I say that as someone who, Darth Vader saving Luke at the end of Return of the Jedi is the reason I love Star Wars, the reason I love media, the reason I care about storytelling and it defined love for me. Because I saw it at a formative age. And I was like, oh, so that’s what all of these concepts mean. I was a baby. And so that was perfect. Vader’s Redemption by Death was perfect. And since then, every other one is bad because it’s a trope now and it’s just wrong. And it’s just, yeah. And so it cheapened this character for me because she didn’t need that.
Liz: I don’t know. I don’t see any other way out for her because according to her culture, you think about how Star Trek: Deep Space Nine tried to have it both ways with Kurn and end up wiping his memory and giving him a new identity. That’s worse. Kurn would rather have died.
So I think this is one of the only possible endings for her, and it’s the one that she chose. I wouldn’t say that I like it because frankly, I think we have enough Black women dying on our televisions in general.
Anika: Yeah.
Liz: Because it’s The Last of Us, but Star Trek, and that is a way several Last of Us characters choose to go out, including Anna Torv in episode three or four of the first season. So it didn’t surprise me and it made sense. It’s following the rules of the story.
Anika: And it didn’t make sense. I agree with all of that. I just said I want to be surprised. I want it to be different. Yeah.
Liz: I completely agree.
Anika: You’re right. It would break the rules of Klingon-ness for her to just request asylum and come back. But if she did, she would be the person that her father was pretending to be. And that’s a better ending to me. That’s true.
Liz: And that would have… But also, she hated her father so much that she wanted to kill him herself. She could not live with that. And I just… Without getting into some sort of fresh new subplot, which frankly this episode didn’t have space for, I don’t think that there was room for anything else.
Anika: She could have had therapy. I’m not in this episode, obviously. I’m just saying she should have come back with them, had therapy, and become a Klingon Vastar.
Liz: They should have just beamed all of them up together, and she could have had the L’Rell in the Brig subplot again, and then they could have returned her to the Klingons in a prisoner exchange.
Anika: They could make a pact where her honor is restored. Because she refused to give up the Klingons or I don’t know, something, they restore her honor. I know, and this is my problem with Klingons and honor. I don’t actually get it, is the real story. The real story is I don’t like the Klingons and their honor nonsense is-
Liz: I think the problem with the Klingons from the very beginning is that as a society, they have trouble changing. And so they do get stuck in this really toxic and self-destructive pattern that destroys individuals like this character whose name I didn’t, wasn’t in the credits. I assume it’s her family name is Ra. Anyway, I should have made a note and I couldn’t find it on IMDB.
Anyway, I can definitely think now of ways to save her that would also involve saving Katrina Cornwell, because that’s how I live. And then she could marry L’Rell and they can live happily ever after.
Anika: I just said she needs therapy and be okay. So, alright, as you were talking about Klingons, their inability to change, my mind obviously went immediately to Vulcans. And then from the Vulcans it went immediately to Romulans. And then I was like, Oh, the Cardassians are like this too. And then I just thought about it and was like, Okay, I understand all of a sudden why everyone loves and hates the humans in Star Trek Universe. Every other race of beings has this love-hate relationship with humans. And it’s because humans are literally the only people in the entire Star Trek Universe who are capable of change.
Liz: Which is really nonsense. But we’re also among the shortest-lived of the species in the Federation. And maybe that’s part of it.
Anika: Yeah, which is probably why.
Liz: Yeah, yeah. We don’t get stuck in generational patterns to the same degree.
But speaking of people who need therapy, let’s talk about Ortegas.
Anika: Nice segue. Good job. Good job.
Liz: Thank you.
Anika: Again, I’m excited for Ortegas to be doing stuff.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: I really enjoyed. So she’s always been a little bit of a… She goes against orders a lot, but she doesn’t have power, so it doesn’t matter. You know what I mean? She’s too low in the command chain for her going against orders to really affect things. And so I was like, yeah, you go starting to manipulate people into getting that power. I liked her little flirt with the dark side, I guess, but I was into it. Obviously, I like the dark side and people who flirt with the dark side.
Liz: My theory that she served under Prime Lorca on the Buran is stronger than ever because I feel like that was how he was training the Discovery crew to do what they wanted, which obviously backfired terribly for him, but it’s how he behaved with his superiors. Oh, Ortegas/Cornwell, what an interesting…
Anyway, the thing is, I was completely on Erica’s side the whole time because Una was not holding the brain cell. And I’m sorry, but if you’re on an illegal mission in a system where you’re not meant to be, and then the Klingons turn up in the system where they’re not meant to be, that’s not a coincidence. And you can’t just go, it’s probably nothing, let’s just keep going.
Anika: Yeah, I understand, for Una, her very particular circumstance means that she can’t be caught going against Federation orders.
Liz: And also, like Pike, she didn’t serve in the Klingon War, so she doesn’t have that firsthand experience of dealing with the Klingons. I guess I can forgive Una’s decision, and then I was genuinely surprised that in the end, Ortegas was wrong, because the whole time, I was like, just mutiny, Erica, you’re the only one who understands. I will support you completely.
Oh, what if Erica and Michael Burnham once dated?
Anyway, the point is that it was an interesting storyline that did not quite go where I expected, but I felt manipulated into it because, again, Una is smarter than this.
Anika: OK, so this is where I’m going to say Una is the character who ends up having to be whatever the plot requires her for at the time.
Liz: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anika: So in “Hegemony, Part Two”, she has all the brain cells because somebody needs to. And it’s not Pike, because that’s like his plot. His plot was, he wasn’t doing well. And this here is like, Pike’s plot is, I’ve left the ship. But that meant that Una was in the position of not knowing what to do. You know what I mean? She took over the Pike role and it didn’t quite fit her. So I had to do mental gymnastics to make it make sense for her.
Okay, so it’s because she doesn’t know this and she’s being very overly cautious. And like you said, she wasn’t in the war. She doesn’t know the Klingons. That’s the reason that Pike and Una could put up with Ra in the first place. I get it and I can fill in the blanks, but Una was more of a plot point than Una in this particular episode.
Liz: Yeah. It’s interesting that either Una or Batel can have agency and intelligence, but not both.
Anika: But not both.
Liz: In a way, it points to the laziness of this show that they couldn’t find a way to resolve this plotline with both of them being wrong or both of them being right. Or, again, Ortegas being wrong, but Una also being intelligent. Is that? Yeah.
Anika: You’re asking too much.
Liz: It’s a thing where it’s really hard to write super intelligent characters if you’re a person of average intelligence. This is a problem that I come up against constantly, and I really just need to start writing less clever characters. But I think it particularly shows on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds because they’re not interested in intelligence.
Anika: Ana, because I think that we… I say this all the time when I’m describing my relationship with Star Trek: Voyager, in that I didn’t feel like I belonged in Star Trek until characters who didn’t have it all together showed up. Ezri, Star Trek: Voyager, and so it’s the same thing.
But this is the Enterprise. They are supposed to have it all together. That is the way it works. And so maybe, yes, you’re telling a story about how we, the audience, see that they don’t actually have it all together. That’s great storytelling. That’s what we want. But that wasn’t the story they were telling here. They weren’t telling us a story about how Una isn’t sure of herself. She was completely sure of herself and it was right by accident.
Liz: Yeah, it was just frustrating on a writing level, which made it frustrating on a character level. And then you combine that with the way Una was styled. And I was just like, I love you, but I cannot with you this week. Just know.
Anika: Yeah, so yeah. Just know.
Liz: Let’s talk about Spock helping Marie with her pain. And all I have to say about that, because I’ve already covered my fear that this is the Gorn manipulating her. But otherwise, I’m really into watching her suffer. They’re really trying to build a blorbo, and all they have to do is break up with her boyfriend and give her a ship, and I’ll be there.
Anika: I obviously saw it through a Spock and Chapel lens. She was like, it’s me, it’s Christine. And he didn’t stop. And then she slaps him around. And I was like, okay, I see where you’re going with this. I don’t disapprove necessarily. It was very interesting.
Pike randomly asks M’Benga about Christine and Korby. And I was like, this is gossip. Are you guys gossiping? Maybe that’s fun. I guess you’re trying to show that you’re friends, or something. Good on M’Benga. He was like, no, we’re not talking about that.
Liz: Shout out to the only doctor in Starfleet who respects people’s privacy.
Anika: I was going to say, good on M’Benga the entire episode for refusing to compromise other people.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: Because Pike was being very gossipy and it was hilarious. But I felt like that offhand remark and then the fact that she said, it’s Christine and then slaps him, that felt like, remember how these people are in a relationship but not? Just in case you forgot, I know it was a whole week ago so maybe you won’t remember. I just think they’re continuing that plot point in a maybe clumsy way. But that’s what I get out of it.
Liz: Clumsy writing on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds?
Anika: I know. So bizarre, right? I didn’t write them down because I don’t think I actually ship them. But you see how I have Scotty-Ortegas team up?
Liz: Oh yeah. No, I don’t ship them, but they should be bros.
Anika: Can they be besties? I would like that to happen.
Liz: Because if nothing else, it’s weird how Scotty has just been enfolded into the bridge crew group. He’s this new junior engineer. And I get that Pelia doesn’t actually like doing that part of her job, so she sends him to do it. I love that, obviously. But last episode, when he was at Spock’s bachelor party, and I’m like, how long have you guys known each other? A couple of months, I guess? But Scotty and Ortegas make sense.
Anika: They need to be friends. I really want this for both of them. I’m at that point where I’m like, something horrible is going to happen to Ortegas before this series is over.
Liz: My concern is that she’s going to be killed off this season and replaced with Sulu.
Anika: Oh, God. Now I have one fear.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: I was hoping, I guess, that they would, she would make it to the end before those things happened. But legitimately, I don’t think she makes it out of this series alive. Not because that’s necessary, because it’s not, but because fandoms, fans, they think. It’s, I don’t even think that the fans actually need this, but the powers that be think that the fans will require the characters who aren’t in TOS to be disappeared in some way, exactly the way that all of Star Trek: Discovery was disappeared in season two. That’s what I’m expecting, that Ortegas and La’an are dead men walking.
Liz: I horribly can’t disagree, and also Erica is not overtly a queer character, but we all know that queer women are dead characters walking.
Anika: I really feel that Ortegas doesn’t have a chance. La’an could be disappeared in a similar way to Star Trek: Discovery, in that she could fall into some kind of time vortex, where her entire existence is erased, so that it explains why Kirk isn’t like, wait, I knew a La’an, Noonien-Singh, are you related?
Liz: Yeah, yeah.
Anika: I feel like La’an, I don’t know if it’s better or worse, but I think that something timey wimey is gonna happen with her, and Ortegas is just gonna die a very heroic, horrible death.
Liz: Also, because in media, that is the best possible treatment for PTSD.
Anika: I’m so upset, that’s true. That is, oh.
Liz: I actually think that you’re really onto something with La’an, experiencing a timey wimey fate, and I bet she’s going to end up with the Time Cops.
Anika: Yeah, that would make sense.
Liz: Yeah, and I wouldn’t hate that, because it would leave her alive.
Anika: Exactly, it would leave her alive, and also, she could then come into other shows, or it could be interesting things could then happen to La’an. She could have more awesome adventures.
Liz: Yeah, I wouldn’t be mad about that at all.
Anika: Yeah, but she’s sunk. All of you, they’re definitely not going to make it out of here. Una has a chance because she could be explained away as got a commission and went into space, and they talked to her, we just don’t see them talking to her. The other two, I really feel like cannot be explained away.
Liz: I am more concerned for Una because I feel like they’re going to want to explain why she’s not in “The Menagerie”, and why it’s only Spock deciding to dump disabled Pike on Talos IV.
Anika: Maybe Una thinks that’s a bad idea.
Liz: Look, she would be right.
Anika: Maybe Spock is wrong. That’s my theory.
Liz: Because we know Akiva Goldsman said in an interview this week that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will end with Kirk taking command of the Enterprise. And I do think by that stage, the original cast will be fully replaced with new Stepford versions of the TOS cast.
Anika: New Stepford versions. Do not malign my wonderful Jess Bush that way.
Liz: She is the only… Look, the thing is, it’s like… I said last week, I watched…
Anika: I gotta say.
Liz: No, I know. No. Look, they are great and I love them.
Anika: I love them all.
Liz: Just the thing is, young actors now are so much more polished, they have different teeth. It’s like when I was watching Alien: Romulus last week, and you’ve got these young, hot British character actors and that’s great, but they all have such good teeth and I’m like, an Aliens movie is meant to have working class people with terrible teeth who just got an Equity card and would work for cheap. I don’t think the new actors are bad. I just think that we’re losing them anyway.
Anika: I’m never going to watch Alien: Romulus. I watched Prometheus and I decided that would be the last Aliens movie that I ever watched. And I have not done that.
Liz: I will say, Romulus was better than Prometheus, but it was still a Star Trek: Strange New Worlds-ish, “hey, look, it’s that bit from that movie you liked. Remember when you liked these movies?” Over and over again.
My last comment on this episode is that if I was writing a black man, I would not have him describe himself as monstrous. And there is a bit in his fight to the death with her at the end where it resembles “Code of Honor” with the weapons they’re using. And that is another thing that I would maybe not do.
Anika: I think those are both valid criticisms that maybe I don’t think either of those things were on purpose.
Liz: Oh, absolutely not.
Anika: But yeah, and I feel, again, I think I said before that I feel for Babs, sometimes I’m just like, I’m not sure that’s a healthy environment. I think, of course it is. I think that they all get along. They seem to be a close enough cast. Not the way that Star Trek: Discovery or Star Trek: The Next Generation is, close enough.
Liz: But like a healthy working relationship.
Anika: And they all respect each other. I think that’s clear. He’s clearly one of the better actors. I don’t think that’s even a controversial thing to say.
Liz: I will say, I know you haven’t watched Dune, even though you should, because it is absolutely a trans boy mom movie. But his character in the first Dune movie, he’s around for the whole movie, but then he dies in a fight to the death with Timothee Chamelet. And so it’s just nice to see him win one of these things.
Anika: Is he a bad guy?
Liz: No, no, he’s sort of a stiff-necked warrior who is unwilling to change.
Anika: I know literally nothing about Dune. It’s just never been a thing. You’re not the first person to say, you should really watch this. My son and I are now on these things. When I was talking about how he never will watch Aliens after Prometheus, then I was like, unless it’s the next thing that I watch with my son, in which case, obviously, I’ll watch it. And I’ve been trying to get him to watch Aliens for literally his entire life. So maybe I will give in to that, but I was thinking and I was like, but we could do Terminator first.
Liz: Oh, yeah. But also, if you hold off with Aliens for a bit, Alien: Earth, the TV series, is coming in a month or so. And then if you wait long enough, you can binge it with him.
Anika: Yeah, see?
Liz: But yeah, I don’t think you would love Dune, but I think you would find interesting and resonant themes in it. Okay.
Anika: That’s what I want out of everything. I’ll be honest, my favorite things are not great. I feel like I say this all the time. I don’t love things that are perfect. That’s just this, I never ever will. And part of why I haven’t seen Dune is that it actually seems pretty polished.
Liz: I mean, it is, but it’s also based on one of those bonkers 1960s science fiction novels about a planet made of cocaine. So it’s very polished in its production and it takes it very seriously. But also, it’s nonsense and, yeah.
Anika: I didn’t know that M’Benga was in it. And now I’m like, maybe I should watch just for him.
Liz: You only have to watch one movie.
Anika: I mean, it’s anyway.
Liz: Do we have anything more to say about “Shuttle to Kenfori”?
Anika: Other than I’m ending with what I said at the beginning, that is a boring name.
Liz: Oh my God.
Anika: It’s fine. “The Galileo Seven”. I get it. But Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has some really great titles.
Liz: And this was absolutely not one of them.
Anika: This was the working title and they just forgot to give it a good one.
Liz: I guess The Planet with the Wheat Zombies and the Magic Flowers was not a good title.
Anika: But you could make The Planet of the Wheat Zombies and the Magic Flowers into something. You could Shakespeare-ify that and it would work. I’m going to start thinking about it.
Liz: Doctor M’Benga has fucked around and now he’s finding out.
Anika: Or even, I guess you don’t want to give away the twist in the name, but I would totally play on Ra somehow. I think that would work really well because of the whole Sun God situation.
Liz: Yeah, and all the gold that the Klingons are wearing, which I really liked on a production level, how their costumes looked cheap. These are not Klingon warriors, they’re not people in good standing. They’re like the Temu warriors that were all she could afford.
Anika: I loved their golds though. I guess it was the whole pirate aesthetic.
Liz: Yeah, it was gaudy.
Anika: Those are the Klingons that I love. Lean into your nonsense.
Liz: Oh, I have just one more thought before we wrap up, and that’s that they were talking about how this Chimera flower is like a hybridization thing, and I was like, oh, they’re going to Tuvix Marie. They’re going to Tuvix Marie. Interesting.
Anika: Of course they are. Yeah, I did think of how it was. And also, the science and the medicine in this was cool, I will say.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: The fact that is, even though, again, straight up the plot of the Clone Wars from 2008 or whatever, that said, it was fully like that. I love the idea of I’m taking a super scientific concept. This is what happens in the labs that I, they are taking weird things and putting them together to see if they work that way. Let’s create a new thing. And so it’s like this ancient concept, but they’re doing new stuff with it, and that’s cool.
Liz: Yeah. I also like that feeding Federation colonies through agriculture is still an ongoing issue, because even though they have replicators, we know that replicators take up a lot of power. So maybe that is not a feasible way for a new colony to sustain itself. You know, talk about “The Conscience of the King” and how we know that James Kirk experienced famine and a massacre in his childhood on a failed Federation colony. And these worlds are actually really precarious.
Anika: It’s the plot of “The Trouble with Tribbles”, too. They need that grain.
Liz: I would like to see more of that.
Anika: And I think that, yeah, I would like to see more of that, too, because I think that’s actually very relevant to reality.
Liz: Yeah, yeah.
Anika: The whole concept of technology will save us and it’s okay, but AI is costing us not saving us. So maybe we should think about that.
Liz: And you can’t just depend on replicators alone.
Anika: Right, exactly. There still have to be farmers. Star Trek: Voyager was all about that, too, with their whole replicator rations and Kes’s garden.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: The airponics bay, which I loved.
Liz: And we know that even in the 24th century, Earth still has agriculture. And honestly, my headcanon has always been that Earth is still very underpopulated because they had barely gotten over World War III and then suddenly were out colonizing other planets. It’s not an entirely replicator-based universe outside of Starfleet.
Anika: No, yeah. Yeah, these are interesting things to think about, interesting things.
Liz: Thank you for listening to Antimatter Pod. You can find our show notes at antimatterpod.com, including links to our social media, credits to our theme music and transcripts of our episodes. You can also find automatically generated transcripts in Apple podcasts. They’re usually somewhat accurate.
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Join us in a week when we’ll be discussing Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Season 3, Episode 4, “A Space Adventure Hour”, which is again, not a good title.