Anika and Liz battle an ancient and unbeatable enemy: grimdark anti-morality in Star Trek. We’re discussing Star Trek: Strange New Worlds‘ “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail”, an episode with all the ingredients of Star Trek except its soul…
- This feels like a backdoor pilot for a series which has been around for nearly 60 years
- Why are we spending so much time developing James Kirk instead of the regulars? We have had a whole movie trilogy about Kirk learning to be a good captain!
- Take a drink every time Anika says this should have been an Una episode
- SNW does not understand why people love watching Kirk and Spock together, and we say that as people who don’t ship K/S
- It’s weird how Kirk’s characterisation in Strange New Worlds has so little to do with “Where No Man Has Gone Before”. We have never asked this question before, and we hope to never ask it again, but: do we need more Gary Mitchell up in here?
- How much was season 3 impacted by the strikes?
- Pike sending La’an into danger while he hangs back is not a good look
- “I wasn’t sad about killing 7,000 people until I found out they were human” is bad ethics and bad Star Trek
- How many NFTs do we think Pelia owned?
Transcript
(Please note this transcript was generated automatically by Apple Podcasts, and though it was edited by a human, some errors may remain.)
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 the latest from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail.” Anika, how do you feel about this episode?
Anika: Well, like I said before we started, I got myself a glass of wine to discuss it. Because there were moments that were really fun, there were moments that were really poignant, and then there were moments that I wanted to throw my computer out the window.
Liz: That’s about my take too. I think what’s annoying is that – obviously we’re recording more than a week before it will come out. But I think fandom is going to love this episode because it’s about men learning to do manly things, and it’s shaped like a Star Trek episode, and the fact that it has this horrible nihilistic twist at the end is… Yeah. Yeah, we’ll get to that.
Anika: I mean, it’s clearly a setup for the Kirk show that they want to do.
Liz: That they keep threatening, yes.
Anika: Because everybody on the Farragut is in TOS. It’s literally Kirk’s crew, and it’s their first adventure together with him as captain.
Liz: There’s a real ‘backdoor pilot for a series that already exists’ vibe happening.
Anika: I like Paul Wesley’s Kirk, but it’s weird how he’s just always there now.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: I mean, everybody is there. Batel is in this season in weird ways, but she is a presence. And yes, you know, and Pelia is not actually a member of the cast. So it’s a wide ensemble. It’s all good.
But this particular episode was like, wait, why is this about Captain Kirk? I feel like I have seen many, many, many Star Treks about Captain Kirk.
Liz: I feel like I know this guy. Yeah. Yeah. To the point where in his opening scenes, I was like, oh yes, this is James Kirk as presented in Star Trek: Beyond.
Anika: Right.
Liz: I don’t know if you know this, but there’s a whole movie trilogy about Kirk learning to be a good captain.
Anika: Literally. So, what’s interesting about that is, that if you actually lined up the timelines together, because that Kirk skips over a whole lot of life in order to get to – but it’s like that Captain Kirk who is on the cusp of being promoted to Commodore, that’s where he is in Beyond, but he’s the same age as this one. And we’re in the same place.
And so they’re having the same arc, even though they’re on different, you know, veering lines. And as someone who appreciates the multiverse, I like that, but I don’t need to see it.
Liz: No, no. Hypothetically, I like it. In practice, I’m like, A, I don’t need to see this again; B, I’m not that engaged with this version of Kirk versus literally any of the non-legacy characters in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. And C, I am now wondering if Paul Wesley has the same problem as Anson Mount, where he is perfectly great as a supporting character, but doesn’t actually have the gravitas to lead a show.
Anika: I guess he was supposed to be playing… It’s weird. I can’t tell. This episode is weird. This episode is very weird. The music is great. I just want to say that because I’m going to forget, because I’m going to rage black out at the end. So, I just want to start with, the music is really good in this episode. Even when I hated everything that was going on on screen. Beautiful musical cues.
Liz: I think one thing we can say about the whole of modern Star Trek is that the scores have been excellent throughout. Every series, no matter how lackluster the series itself is, the musical work is good. And the only exception to that, I’d say, is Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard, where it relies too heavily on the music of previous Star Treks.
Anika: There is one really beautiful musical composition in Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard, but overall, yes.
I have a list of people that I’m more interested in seeing this exact plot with, instead of it being Kirk. But at the top of it is Una. Yes. I don’t understand why this episode was not about Una. It’s just saying.
Liz: As Cody on Bluesky said way back before Season 3 aired, why is the show so much more interested in setting up Kirk as a captain than Una?
Anika: Right.
Liz: Second, I would like to see more of Batel as a captain rather than a girlfriend. I know that would be a slightly different story, but we’ve never actually seen her in command, except for like two minutes before the Gorn attacked in the second season finale. It seems like she is girlfriend/medical mystery/probably going to sacrifice her life to take down the big bad this season.
Anika: Batel, at least there’s, she’s on a different, like you said, she’s on a different storyline, so.
Liz: Yeah, yeah.
Anika: It would be like – I think that this is her first – oh, you just convinced me. They give her a command to see if she’s okay with it and this happens. I—
Liz: Yeah, yeah, that would be-
Anika: I’m ready. I’m ready to watch that episode. So, so, yup.
Liz: Even if it’s like, Marie is desperate to prove that she is still a human person, a real person, that kind of makes the twist at the end more interesting, if no less horrible.
Anika: Wow, okay. So, it would be better with Batel, it would be better with Una.
Liz: Yes, for the same reasons, proving herself.
Anika: I already know how Captain Kirk became Captain Kirk. I already know his personality inside and out. I know what makes him tick.
Liz: Yeah, this is not an interesting or new story.
Anika: The only thing surprising that happened in any of this was that in the end, Pike’s way was the right way. And that’s not surprising for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, but I was hoping for something different.
Liz: We’ll get to Pike, because I would not say that he covered himself in glory this week. Even with my anti-Pike bias in mind.
Anika: So Kirk, first he had overconfidence, then he had a crisis of confidence, and then he was the Jim Kirk we know and love, who just does wild and crazy things that he drags all his people into, and they go along with it because he’s always right. And I guess this is the start of that.
And, you know, I love no win scenarios, Kirk – Chris Pine is my favorite Kirk still, and so I love the trilogy about how he becomes, you know, how he goes from a kid with a chip on his shoulder to the best captain in Starfleet. But I saw that movie, and this one wasn’t as good. This version didn’t do it for me, and like, the Kirk and Spock of it all, no, they missed a lot. Just…
Liz: Your note here, “does Star Trek: Strange New Worlds know why people like Kirk and Spock together?” No. No, it does not. Even setting aside the homoerotic subtext, and I do think that even if you’re not a Kirk Spock shipper, taking that subtext away changes the dynamic to a point where these characters could be anyone – I just don’t think the connection is there.
Anika: The episode where, at the very end, Spock and La’an kiss had just aired when I first saw this episode. Everyone agreed that they were making Spock to be the most heterosexual ever, and that is weird and problematic.
So, when I watched this episode and it became clear that it was going to be about Kirk and Spock, or in theory, I sort of got excited. I was like, oh, maybe we were too harsh on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and there’s going to be like some kind of point. And this is, you know, we’re still going to get Kirk and Spock and it’s going to be building alongside or something.
No, that did not happen. And I was excited that there was a scene that it actually made the scene better to me when I watched it the first time. This episode, the first time I saw, I was like, well, they’re doing something interesting.
Liz: Oh, my sweet summer child.
Anika: When I watched it to make the outline and it was like paying full attention and stopping and writing things down. I did not like it at all from jump. And by the end, I was just spitting mad.
Liz: It’s a Star Trek, and they’re doing Star Trek things and they’re solving problems and they’re collaborating and having disagreements but dealing with them in professional and mature ways. And that’s really great. But the outcome on the Kirk, Spock side of the story is just hollow. Because we know how this story ends and it’s not an interesting course to get there.
Whereas the stuff on the Enterprise with Pelia and M’Benga and Ortegas, who are an amazing trio who should hang out all the time, that was great. Pike honestly was actively a hamper to this episode’s plot, but that’s Pike for you.
I think it’s going to be popular because it looks like Star Trek, but it doesn’t feel like Star Trek. Does that make sense?
Anika: Yes, it absolutely makes sense. Una had her one great moment where she proved that she watched Wall-E and used the space air to make the ship go, which made me very happy.
Liz: Super smart.
Anika: Imagine again if she was in charge.
Liz: Imagine.
Anika: I really loved all of the Enterprise hijinks with the phones. That was all delightful. It was such a throwback to early computing, to communication. Pelia was like, this is the first time I was happy to live through the 80s.
Liz: Yes, I loved it.
Anika: It was a delightful line. Also, it’s just, yeah, the 80s and phones that now we had dial-up internet. Remember dial-up internet?
Liz: I do remember dial-up internet.
Anika: I just liked how it was playing with the past is the future and the future is the past. That’s what is fun Star Trek, right? And even the plot line with the scavengers.
Liz: It was interesting.
Anika: Right, it was interesting because these scavengers, I got to say, they’re like how I imagine the Romulans to be. You know, me and my Romulans. And how much I love them.
Liz: I do, I do!
Anika: And that the reason that they’re so isolationist and mean is because they kept trying to make friends and failed because everybody was, no one shared. They were just refugees all the time and everyone closed their doors to them. And so, the scavengers made sense to me, and I liked the whole thing and the set up. It was just that payoff was really bad.
Liz: Yeah. Just to go back to the beginning before we move on, I want to say that I love the Vulcan Captain of the Farragut. I wrote, “RIP my Vulcan captain” when she went down. And then I wrote, “she’s alive!!!!” Because I was so happy she wasn’t killed.
And I have to say, it’s a really bad look for Kirk to be mansplaining how to do her job. Just putting that out there. Jim, come on. Yes.
Anika: I mean, I guess we’re supposed to believe that he is overeager and he does have authority. He is the XO. So he’s being the XO that talks back., I agree, but I think it’s because he, of his bravado and his overconfidence. It’s the way that he does it comes off. But it’s interesting.
Liz: Yeah, I just, I like your note that it’s a reverse Janeway and Tuvok, because that is absolutely the dynamic. And I also think that a reckless female captain and a Vulcan who is a male Vulcan who is the voice of logic is fun, but a conservative Vulcan woman and a reckless human man is maybe not such a fun dynamic. You can’t just swap the genders and call it a day there.
Anika: I agree.
Liz: But I love her. She was clearly a good captain.
Anika: Right. And she’s okay. And she’s going to, you know, taking it back. And Kirk maybe learned his lesson and will listen more. Maybe.
Liz: Yes. Yes. I just feel like ‘overconfident man learns an important lesson and then gets his confidence back’ … we’ve seen that.
Anika: We’ve seen it a hundred thousand times. Again, what if it was 52-year-old Rebecca Romijn? Sorry. I’m just going to keep saying that.
Liz: But also, and I am sorry because I am going to talk about Gary Mitchell, and I’m going to call for more Gary Mitchell. But it’s weird how Kirk’s characterization in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has so little to do with “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, because this is the era when he is still the uptight rule-following nerd guy who has just been teaching at the Academy, and who is into long-haired poetry and stuff. And his best friend Gary Mitchell is the hypermacho bad influence.
Anika: Yeah, they definitely forgot that.
Liz: Yeah, yeah.
Anika: And that didn’t come into this, this episode had none of that. He was an uptight nerd in the sense that he was really against Pike’s version of command.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: Which I approve of, but it didn’t come off as – I only when you said that did I think, well, maybe this part fits that description. It didn’t come off that way when I was watching it. It just came off as he needs to do everything his way. He has to go through his process, and his process was taking too long. That’s an interesting lesson, but he didn’t learn that one either. It’s none of the things that were interesting were used.
Liz: No, I enjoyed that he was not into the Pike style collaboration, but then he learns an important lesson about being into Pike style collaboration.
Anika: Exactly. I was just, I’m just, no. I mean, I think this is just going to be, it’s coming down to, like I said before, maybe you can’t watch Star Trek: Voyager if you don’t like Captain Janeway. Maybe if I just have such a problem with the particular managerial style of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and how they support it, then I should just say this is not my Star Trek and it’s okay.
Liz: I mean, it’s definitely not my Star Trek and I enjoy it less than you. The things that I care about are not the things that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds cares about. Why are we spending so much time with James Kirk when Erica Ortegas is still barely a two-dimensional character?
Anika: Exactly.
Liz: On the other hand, we learn one new fact about Winona Kirk.
Anika: She likes dogs.
Liz: I mean, she likes a particular cliche that references dogs. This is exciting new info.
Anika: A particular cliche that references dogs that is the most cliche. I just, okay. I mean, so what’s interesting about this is that it does, to me, because I am ridiculous, but I was like, well, that means that in Star Trek 2009, when Jim Kirk steals a convertible and flies it off a cliff, that was his mom’s car. That’s what I got out of her being the one who likes the dog that caught the car metaphor, was like, oh, she likes cars. She’s a car lady. Good job.
Liz: You know, I was like, we still talk about putting the cart before the horse, so I guess people would still have metaphors that reference cars. But I like your idea better. Your idea is more fun.
Anika: You know, if they’re not going to color in her character, then I will.
Liz: I mean, that’s the whole point of this podcast.
I did not spot your observation that everyone on the Farragut is a legacy character who will serve on the Enterprise with Kirk. Love it, hate it, don’t know how to feel about it.
Anika: I think that I like it. Again, that’s the interesting part of this. It’s okay. They have this adventure together before they are a crew. And that’s interesting.
Liz: Yeah. Yeah.
Anika: That’s, you know, getting the bands together. Fun. I like that his crew trusts James Kirk so much because they’ve seen him before he was the captain that he is.
Liz: In a way, they helped him to get there.
Anika: Right.
Liz: James Kirk is a collaborative invention.
Anika: Yes. And that’s, I like that. I love that. It’s warm and fuzzy.
Liz: Yeah. Yeah. I also kind of like that, coming from such a collaborative ship as Pike’s Enterprise, because Pike actually has no ideas of his own, they collaborated to help Kirk become a better and different sort of captain.
Anika: Yes. And we do get Spock being the sounding board.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: There’s a part when he says, “I’m still not sure about hearing ‘captain’,” and he says, don’t worry, I’ll demote you as soon as possible. That was amusing. That was amusing. That was camaraderie. That was Spock and Kirk fun banter. It was there. It just, I don’t know, if everything felt, what’s the words, like, desaturated.
Liz: Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, you know, those pictures from the Wizard of Oz at the Dome where AI and actual human special effects people have been used to expand the canvas of the Wizard of Oz to be projected on that dome. It has that glossy, too clean, flawless, but not in a good way veneer. And I think part of that is just the nature of modern television. And you’ve heard my rant about how actors these days all have good teeth.
But I also think that a lot of the magic of Kirk and Spock came from Shatner and Nimoy and their personal relationship. They were very similar in a lot of ways. They had theater backgrounds. They were both Jewish men whose families had immigrated from Ukraine. And they had a lot in common. But they also really didn’t like each other. And so they had this this friendship with an undercurrent of dislike. They were frenemies. That’s it. They were best frenemies.
And I think that’s why the Kirk and Spock relationship has always been so compelling. Because they’re playing this friendship, but underneath is the off-screen rivalry. You can imitate that, but you can’t reproduce it. Not without doing some seriously unethical shit behind the scenes.
Anika: I liked the Uhura plot, because Kirk and Uhura had sort of an understanding last season. And, you know, yes, he was sort of mentoring her. And she was like, you know, I believe in you. And she was the one who was sort of in his corner. He’s gonna get it. We just have to help him. Whereas Scotty, who’s like, this is just crazy. Why do people keep telling me to do these things that I can’t do? Actually, everyone is turning Scotty into the Scotty we know because he keeps being backed into a corner.
Liz: It’s kind of great. And he has the omnipresent background trauma of losing his ship off screen in the final season. And it’s funny that we never see that, but it’s such a part of his character and his fear of losing more ships under his watch.
Anika: Absolutely. And also letting people down. The people who are his crew. I think, again, I think that there is a good episode peeking out of this episode that maybe just needed more time to germinate or… I don’t know. It’s just not quite there.
Liz: I think part of the problem is that these scripts were written and ready to start filming when the strikes hit. And when the strikes were over, there was no opportunity to go back and revise, to look at them with fresh eyes, to use the allegedly better conditions for writers to take the time to look at the subtext for this whole season. They just had to go and start filming. And then they immediately started filming season four. So there’s no opportunity to respond to reviews and to commonly held good faith criticisms and pivot.
And it’s funny that I’m saying this because, you know, I’ve always said that Star Trek: Discovery was too responsive, but there’s a real risk in creating art in a vacuum. You can get away with it if you’re Tony Gilroy writing Andor. You can’t get away with it if you’re Akiva Goldsman overseeing Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Anika: Right. I mean, it’s just a very different horse.
Liz: Yeah, it’s a different situation. I would love to see a 10-episode Star Trek that’s all written by one person, that is polished and ready to go before the cameras start rolling. I just don’t think that’s how Paramount is interested in working, ever. That’s a real shame.
I suppose they tried to do it with season one of Star Trek: Picard, and for some reason that was given to a novelist with no experience, and he wasn’t writing solo, he had a writer’s room and all of that. I just think there are problems with the way Paramount expects Star Trek to be made.
Anika: And Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is trying very hard to walk the line of episodic with an overarching plot. And this season is just really wonky on that because there is continuity in the episodes, but they’re so different. And it feels like they’re introducing things.
I hope that – I haven’t seen the end of the season, but I hope that the end of the season ties up all these threads that they’ve been sort of introducing throughout, and that there is a plan that I just don’t see. But I’m not sure that’s true. And even if it is, they didn’t do it in a smart way.
So no, because I do think we have to evaluate all of these episodes on their own, because they’re telling one story. This episode is telling one story about Jim Kirk, and that is separate from anything else that is happening. But it feels like it’s supposed to also relate to everything that’s happening, and I’m not quite sure how it does or why, or what I’m supposed to be doing with many of that.
Liz: Yeah, it feels like, you know, season two of Star Trek: Voyager, where they were trying to introduce more serialized storytelling, but also half the writers were refusing to go along with it, and they just had no experience, so it was really messy. That’s what it feels like. And I’m sorry, but it’s the 2020s, and you don’t have that excuse anymore.
Anika: Right. And I do think, I think that you’re on to something by it being like, we had a writers room, we were doing it, and then we stopped, and when we got back, we just went with the fifth draft instead of doing a final draft.
Liz: Or even just looking over it to give it a little bit of a polish. I went on a writers retreat last weekend, I picked up a project that I had started in 2021, and then put down in 2022 because I was so burnt out. And literally the first thing I did was I read every single word, and I took copious notes so it would all be fresh. And then I went back to the start and I started tidying and polishing. I don’t think they had that opportunity.
Anika: Right. And so they’re missing something. And yeah, I think that this episode in particular needed more work to become the episode that they want it to be. But like you said, it looks like Star Trek. It has the shape of Star Trek. It has the plots of Star Trek. It’s just not the pieces aren’t coming together because they’re doing this brave … are we going to call it brave?
Liz: We can call it something.
Anika: Once again, I don’t know what they want me to feel about this, but I think it’s not what I do feel. I guarantee they don’t want me to be feeling what I feel, but I don’t know what I am supposed to be feeling.
But before we get to that, can we talk about Pike?
Liz: Well, first, I just want to talk about Pelia and Ortegas’ reference to Pelia’s vibrator collection, because I would just like to unpack that in respectful detail on AO3. That’s all I’m going to say.
But also, I do believe this is the first reference to a vibrator in Star Trek, and I’m glad it went to Ortegas.
Anika: I was thrilled for Ortegas, actually.
Liz: She had a lot to do, and it was fun.
Anika: Oh, yes. Again, everybody, it was the Pelia, Ortegas, M’Benga, Una show was great. Yeah. No notes on any of them. And Mitchell too.
Liz: Yes. Mitchell is really underappreciated.
Anika: It’s like everything about Pelia is delightful. I really wanted one of those cat phones. I remember those cat phones.
Liz: Do you remember the Garfield phone? I really wanted a Garfield phone.
Anika: Yes. Oh my goodness. We should have more phones that look like cats. You know. So yeah. And I loved the wiring. The wires down the hallway was such, I was looking at images of the first computers and the women who made them. And that’s what I thought of. Everything about that was great. And it was all because Pelia is such a fun character and gets to have all these anachronistic things. I love her quarters.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: I need everything.
Liz: I actually need Pelia and Ortegas to hang out more, because they are polar opposites. Remember last season when we were complaining that Ortegas’ quarters give nothing away about her? All there was, was a little model ship. Pelia is the exact opposite and this is why they should be friends.
Anika: So yes. So yeah. Good for her.
Liz: I will also say La’an has her brain cells back after last week, and that was very good to see.
Anika: Yes. La’an was great. La’an was fully in charge. I liked all of the things that – her micro expressions. That’s what I’m going to say. Christina Chong was doing something with micro expressions this episode that was really good. I feel like she looked more than talked. And maybe it’s just because she was stuck with Pike most of the time and I didn’t want to listen to them. But I felt like she was doing a lot with how she carried her body, and her eyes, and little glances, and the things she does with her lips. It’s not a pout, it’s like a firm pout. I can’t describe it. I’m so sorry, I apologize to the actress.
Liz: It’s an expression of subtle judgment.
Anika: Yes, that’s a good way of putting it.
Liz: And then there’s the Pike of it all.
Anika: Okay, so again, everything with Pike was bad. If Pike is going to go off on his own thing, which is fine, but if we’re going to put Pike over here doing his own thing with La’an –anyway, again, this should have been an Una episode. I’m not going to stop saying it. You can put a little ding for each time I say it and count them all at the end. But since they chose to do that, we should learn something about Pike here. That’s how I guess I felt.
Liz: Well, we do learn that he’s bad at his job.
Anika: Yeah, well, but we already knew that.
Liz: That’s not new information.
Anika: He almost dies and La’an saves him, but not really, because he was saved by being human. I didn’t like that.
Liz: I mean, it just goes to highlight how few aliens there are on the crew of Enterprise and in the cast of this show.
Anika: Okay, so you mentioned Star Trek: Voyager Season 2.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: Remember when they find Amelia Earhart and friends?
Liz: Anika, I will never forget.
Anika: There were people who were in full suits that were shooting at them and then they stopped because they were human. I’m just putting it out there that this isn’t the first time that they’ve done this, but in that episode, no one died. And in fact, it was all about how Voyager chose to keep going instead of settling for the planet of humans.
And I guess those humans found a planet, so they were nicer. But it just, I wish that they hadn’t done the scene with Pike because it only made me think of the scene in Star Trek: Voyager.
Liz: It made me think of the Star Trek: Discovery episode “People of Earth”, where Earth is under attack by masked aliens who turn out to be humans from the Titan colony. And basically, any time you run across a bunch of guys who are attacking you and who are all wearing masks, just assume they’re humans.
Anika: And also, since we already brought up Star Trek: Beyond, this is also the plot of Star Trek: Beyond. Oh yeah. And I love Star Trek: Beyond, but I think it is a flawed movie because it would have been a stronger movie if at the end Idris Elba helped Jim Kirk save the falling space station that was falling because he made it fall.
Liz: If he made a new choice instead of being trapped in his old choices.
Anika: Right, right. I know that’s naive and idealistic of me, but I still think it’s a better story.
Liz: And this is Star Trek. If ever there is a place for idealism, this is the universe for that. I’m not saying everything has to be good and fluffy all the time, but this is a whole episode about how there is terrifying and dark stuff out there in space, and there are monsters that even the Gorn fear. And why don’t we get a less nihilistic ending?
Like, I’m sorry, the whole thing where there’s dialogue about how it’s sadder that 7,000 people died because they were humans and they had an American flag on their ship – that is, to me, not the ethos of Star Trek. 7,000 lives is 7,000 lives, no matter how much silicon they’re wearing on their faces.
Anika: Kirk literally says, “I didn’t care before I knew it.” Buddy, you should care. And I was like, that’s bad.
Liz: So I mean, it kind of ties in with the xenophobia that has underlain so much of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds from the beginning. Like to me, this is going to be the new “Lift Us Up Where Suffering Cannot Reach”, where everyone’s like, wow, it’s so deep. It’s like classic science fiction from the 60s, or from whatever year Star Trek: Beyond came out. And I’m going to be here jumping up and down going, this is bad, actually.
Anika: Yeah, right. Yes. First of all, 7,000 deaths is sad no matter who they are. That’s just how it is. We’re talking about people. We’re not even talking about ants or anything.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: They’re a space faring race. They’re people. And I think that if – this is going to sound odd, I think that if Kirk had an actual dog and something happened to the dog, people would be more sad about that than the 7,000 people.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: But now that they’re human, they’re like, well, they could have had a dog, so I guess we’re going to be sad about them now. They’re mirrors of us.
Liz: They definitely killed children.
Anika: They definitely killed babies. I know that we already did that on this show, but innocent people who had nothing to do with anything, who were not scavengers. And again, they were refugees. They literally left Earth to find a better life. That’s the definition.
Liz: I wrote down our favorite line from “A Space Adventure Hour” when we got to the bit about how the scavenger ship was just eternally growing and consuming and getting bigger and bigger. I wrote, “oh, I thought it was about capitalism.” And so I think maybe this is a metaphor for capitalism.
But then they say that these people who left originally were not the capitalists. They weren’t the billionaires going out to look for Planet B. They were the best people who are looking to build a new home with optimism and hope. Is this about tech bros? Question mark, question mark, question mark, question mark.
Anika: I’m pretty sure it is. I 1000% think that this episode is related to Elon Musk being mentioned in Star Trek: Discovery. And now that being like a joke meme.
Liz: I totally buy that. Except that Pelia has all this dialogue about what great people they were and how they were heroes and so admired. Take that dialogue out and just whack a Tesla logo on the ship at the heart of the scavenger. Great. I’m still sad because those 7000 people are descended from tech bros. They’re not the tech bros.
Anika: But. I’m saying that there was that the people who loves, the people who write Star Trek and the people who love Star Trek loved people like Elon Musk because they were great thinkers. They were creating Starlink. They were creating SpaceX. And they were going to make space an opportunity for all and not just the military and the government. And then we were betrayed by them because it turns out they were just in it for the money after all.
Liz: And they never invented any of that stuff. They just bought it.
Anika: And so Pelia was saying the idealistic version, like, I was tricked into believing that crypto is great. And then Pelia had the starry-eyed version of Elon Musk and then Kirk saying, how did they go from that to whatever it is they became is the, you know, 2025 we’re sitting here going, all of these people that we revered as great thinkers. I mean, remember Think Different from Apple, and now Tim Cook is like giving gold to Trump in the Oval Office.
Liz: Oh, is that what happened? Right. Okay.
Anika: Okay.
Liz: So much of what I see from America, I just assume is a joke until I’m told otherwise. I’m really sorry. He was on the roof, right?
Anika: Yes, he was on the roof. I’m so sorry. He was on the roof so that he could map out how his ballroom would fit into the White House. So, yeah. So Donald Trump is literally building the Palace of Versailles in Washington, DC and the people who consider themselves liberals who are against that are upset that the tech bros are on his side and that this new world that they were promised, that they believed in, that was going to get us to Star Trek is being taken away. He was a liar. And so they made these scavengers to be like, it was a lie all along.
Liz: I think that’s a really interesting reading, but I don’t know that they necessarily thought about it that much.
Anika: Oh yeah, I don’t think they thought about it.
Liz: But I really like your reading.
Anika: Once again, they didn’t know what they were doing. But I think that their biases are showing.
Liz: Yeah, yeah. I mean, having a pro Elon Musk bias is yikes.
Anyway, but also just to circle back a bit, how many NFTs do you think are in Pelia’s quarters? How many dead hard drives full of crypto does she have?
Anika: Yes, fully. Yeah. Because Pelia, it doesn’t matter. Pelia can love every fad and throw everything she has into all of them because it’ll never be the end for her. Pelia is great. I wish I was Pelia.
Liz: I love her so much. I am so excited for Holly Hunter’s character being a half Lanthanite in Academy. Just putting it out there, I will die for her and I will kill for her. Just be prepared.
My only other note on this episode is that for a lot of it, I actually thought Anson Mount was off sick or on leave or doing something because first Pike mainly appears on the screen and then he’s in a suit with a mask the whole time, and I think that was a stunt double. But then he is physically there on set on the scene where he’s like, okay, you go risk your life and I’ll stand here and fiddle with some wires.
Anika: Yes, that was when I lost the last crumb of respect that I had for him as a captain and a person.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: Because that was absurd. I guess we’re supposed to assume that she wouldn’t be able to do the wire part or something. Is that what he was suggesting?
Liz: I mean, I don’t know why we would assume that. We’re just a few weeks out from her literally hacking a Gorn ship.
Anika: It was really weird. She definitely has the skills. Or if he had said, “because you’re a better shot than me.” I just need one line for it not to be the actual worst because what it looked like on screen was, “you go do the hard part while I try not to blow us up.”
Liz: “You go and risk your life and I’m just going to stand here.”
Anika: Listeners, tell me why that happened. Tell me how I am supposed to respect Pike when that happened. Tell me how La’an is supposed to respect Pike when that happened.
Liz: No. That is not just bad captaining. That’s bad retail management. Obviously, if you’re in retail, you’re not supposed to ever be in a situation where you’re risking your life. But in general, you don’t send the more junior person to do the hard job.
Anika: It’s so weird, because then at the end, when he’s like, okay, I’m going to set this off, you should step back a little, like he’s protecting her. What is going on? I don’t understand.
Liz: Too little, too late.
Anika: Anything that happened in that five-to-ten-minute sequence of events with Pike and La’an, this is where I’m saying we needed more, we needed someone to look at the script and be like, I think he’s being an asshole. Let’s give him a line to explain this away.
Liz: I was watching and going, this is giving me flashbacks to Katrina Cornwell’s death, but I would be so forgiving of that if Pike went out the same way.
Anika: Right? If it, yes, it did give flashbacks because he was doing what she was doing in that scene, but he wasn’t having flashbacks or he was just, again, yeah, if he had said something like, I know how to do this because I have this memory of what, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, literally anything. I don’t know what Pike was before he was captain. He could be an engineer.
Liz: He was a test pilot.
Anika: Oh, God. So, okay. Of course he was. “Once I had to, I crash landed, and I had to rebuild my whole engine before my oxygen went out.” And people are going to be like, oh, it’s all subtext. There is no subtext. Nothing happens on screen that explains why this happens, other than he’s an asshole who is a bad captain and sent her into danger.
Liz: And honestly, this makes me angrier about Katrina Cornwell’s death, because her whole deal is I’m the highest ranking one here, so I’m not going to leave it to Una or Pike to disarm this torpedo. I’m going to do it myself and sacrifice my life.
Anika: Right. He has to explain himself. This is not a, you know, show and don’t tell moment. He has to explain himself.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: Even if it was after the fact. And she was like, hey, so why did you – or he had a personal log? I don’t care. Anything, literally anything that gives me a reason.
Liz: And then he lectures Kirk on being a good captain. What would you know about it?
Anika: No, that scene was awful. It had great music, but it was awful. And I just I can’t. I can’t with any of them.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: Yeah. So I’m like, good job learning how to captain again, Captain Kirk. But you should have compassion. Even for your enemy.
Okay, so I, you know, breadcrumb, he asked about life signs and he asked about trying to transport them. So, good. He said he said out loud, I didn’t care that they were dead. He said that out loud. And he’s also the one who said, how did they go from that to whatever it is they became? And it’s like, you don’t know what they became. You had one encounter with them.
Liz: Yeah, yeah, you don’t know about the artists or the teachers or, again, I’m going to say the children.
Anyway, do you have any shipping news?
Anika: Yeah, so this episode was again all about Jim Kirk. And so I just want to talk about Jim Kirk with everyone, because I do think that we’re calling it the backdoor pilot, the secret backdoor pilot of a show that already exists. And that’s true, but if we’re going to look at it like that, then I do think that this again is the origin story of the Enterprise crew with Jim Kirk as its captain. And so I want to look at his chemistry with each of the people involved.
Liz: Okay.
Anika: So we’ve sort of discussed Spock and how he doesn’t have any, except in that one moment. Which means that he could have it.
Liz: Yes.
Anika: Because in that scene with that one offhand joke, it was there, they were doing, I mean, it was an imitation, but it was a good one. And I will also say-
Liz: It kind of felt more of a Quinto imitation than a Nimoy imitation. Yes.
Anika: I was just going to say that. I was like, it was an imitation of Star Trek 2009, but that’s okay because I love them too. And honestly, I fully believe that Jim Kirk is in love with Spock in those movies. And Spock has feelings for Kirk. He’s just not- It’s different.
Liz: Not there.
Anika: But full-on crush on Jim Kirk’s side, on both Spock. But so yes, the chemistry is possible. It also- I could see it a little in the very beginning of their scene when Spock walks in and he’s like playing with the chest and he’s monologuing about his relationship with his captain. And Spock is like, yeah, so we have to do something. We don’t have time for this. That was great too. There are moments where they could have it.
Their discussion of dogs and sehlats was super forced. And I didn’t like it. Someone needed to rewrite that scene a few times. Again, something was there, but they didn’t get out. But again, my first impression of the episode was that it was about Kirk and Spock. And so, I think that maybe if you’re not looking at it with a super critical eye or with the eye of someone who thinks that Star Trek should be better than being not sad about the babies, maybe it would work.
Maybe I’m interested to see what other people think of Kirk and Spock in this episode. I don’t think they make it, but I’m interested to see what people who actually really ship them think of it.
Liz: Yes. I was about to say, I’m really eager to see what the shippers have to say and if they have a different take on it than you and I.
Anika: Right. That’s what I mean. All right.
So, then La’an didn’t get to stay on the ship, but she did beam over to the ship and have a moment with Kirk. And that was the moment when again, I had just watched Spock and La’an kiss and the internet’s reaction to that. And then I watched this episode and I saw that moment. It’s at the very, very beginning. And I was like, oh no, I am fully responsible for everything that’s happening. I was just like, if this turns into another love triangle, I’m going to lose my mind. Why are my shipping preferences going haywire all over the actual show? It didn’t happen, but that moment was there. It could be one of those breadcrumbs.
Liz: Oh God. I definitely braced myself for weird love triangle drama, even though Jim has never actually been interested in La’an and was a really stand-up guy about being upfront about that.
Anika: Yeah, but they have a connection or something. I don’t know. There was a moment. That moment happened. I’m not crazy. We were supposed to notice it. And Spock and La’an didn’t get anything in this episode. There was—
Liz: Thank God.
Anika: Spock sort of looked at her in that same scene with a hmph kind of, which is again, why I was like, oh no, because I have been saying for I think years that there’s an instant enough romance. So, you know, it’s fine.
Liz: This is in fact entirely your fault.
Anika: It’s all my fault. And I just want to be upfront with that. But so, yeah.
Liz: Anika, I forgive you.
Anika: Kirk and Uhura, I already mentioned, I think that they’re great little besties. I love them in the Kelvinverse as well. I think that they’re besties over there, again, because they both have Spock so much. So, I really like that relationship. I do not like their siblings. There’s nothing romantic between them.
Liz: I was literally watching Uhura talk about Kirk in this episode and thinking, it’s going to be so awkward when those godlike aliens force you two to kiss. I’m so sorry. They don’t need this.
Anika: They don’t need that, no. Kirk and Scotty. I mean, again, this is not really shipping shipping, but I enjoy the banter. I like Kirk is single-handedly going to turn that man into his chief engineer.
Liz: Whether he wants to be or not.
Anika: Whether he wants to be or not. I see something in you, and I love that you in particular aren’t going to like it, and it’s messing with the engines and kicking off the nacelles. That was great. Kirk and Scotty, bros. Delightful. Kirk and Chapel, who I don’t remember interacting in TOS. They do, but it’s not like I know what they’re like together at all.
Liz: No, they’re not buds.
Anika: And so that was the most interesting on this list, because they don’t have any real relationship. We have to make it up entirely in the background and in our minds. And she was the one who was like, well, if we have to kick him off of command, then I can do that.
Liz: Love that for her.
Anika: Is great. And then she got to be the one who was like, this is crazy. And I liked his line about how he was glad that he was just sitting down. They did actually have chemistry as, again, a crew. I liked that bridge scene. Because it was sort of a hybrid between Pike’s… Because he did ask for suggestions in the Pike way.
Liz: And my beef with Pike is never that he asks for suggestions. Good captains do that. It’s that he never has ideas of his own. And when he does accept suggestions, he puts the responsibility for the success or failure on the individual who made it when that is his.
Anika: Right. And when… What is so good about this is that he did that. He asked for suggestions. Then he came up with this crazy plan all on his own.
Liz: Yeah.
Anika: And told them, this is your part in it. This is your part in it. And he absolutely owned it. I do think he was really upset about killing off the 7,000 humans. He did have that ready room scene that where Pike told him it’s hard to be a captain because he was taking personal responsibility for the choice.
Liz: Yeah. Maybe not enough because again, you should feel away about killing 7,000 people even if they’re not the same species as you. But okay. Okay.
Anika: I’m just thinking. He’s doing better than Pike is what I’m saying.
Liz: No, no. It’s a low bar and he is sailing over it with aplomb.
Anika: Oh, I have to say one more thing about Jim Kirk, that he said we all have people on that ship. My brother is on that ship. I appreciate Star Trek: Strange New Worlds really doubling down on Jim loving his brother.
Liz: Yes. I don’t understand why, but we have brothers. We get it.
Anika: I get it. I feel like we never met Sam Kirk until he was dead. So it’s like we don’t have any reason to care other than he was Jim’s brother and that’s really not enough when you’re just told. So I like that they’re trying to make that happen. And that Kirk really comes off as a family guy.
Liz: He does. You know, he’s got his partner, his kid, his mom.
Anika: Yeah, so I really think that.
Liz: Hmm. I do need to know if Carol has given birth yet. This is more important to me. This is so much more important to me, like, the end of their relationship and his exit from his kid’s life ,than how Jim Kirk learned to be a captain.
Anika: Well, I have a feeling we are not going to get that information.
Liz: That is just that. That’s because this series has bad priorities.
Anika: This, where, with that is not, no, yeah, sorry, but that would involve a baby and they don’t like babies.
Liz: Oh my god.
Anika: They like blowing up babies.
Liz: What if Pike tried to kill David Marcus? And that’s why Carol is like, actually, I don’t like Starfleet.
Anika: Yeah.
Liz: You were silent there because you were angry at how plausible the situation is.
Anika: I’m, I can’t, I can’t, I’m, I’m angry that there is a universe in which – of course, Christopher Pike wouldn’t … I’m going to make fun of Star Trek: Picard. But you remember how the captain doesn’t care about Jack Crusher at all. And it’s like, yeah, go ahead and beat yourself over to the enemy because I don’t know you when you’re not in Starfleet, and you’re like a pirate, so bye. And then Picard is like, but he’s my son. And then all of a sudden, he puts the entire ship at risk to save him.
Liz: Yes. Are you saying that would be that would be Pike in…?
Anika: Yeah, I’m saying that would be Pike. Pike would only do it because it was David Marcus and it was Kirk’s son. He doesn’t care about anonymous children, but Starfleet children, that’s important.
Liz: Starfleet children whose parents or whose dad he knows.
Anika: Right.
Liz: Honestly, Pike is the reason Carol Marcus and David Marcus hate Starfleet, is my new headcanon, and I’m going to come up with a justifiable story behind it. That’s not just Pike hates babies and wants to murder them.
Anika: Okay. I like it. Go for it.
Liz: Thank you. Yeah.
Anika: Yeah.
Liz: On that happy note, are we done?
Anika: I’m so sorry.
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 Bluesky, all at antimatterpod, and on mastodon at antimatterpod@tenforward.social.
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