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Episode 404: Memories Not Found

DIS: "Forget Me Not"

The Discovery crew continues its twofold search for Starfleet and a little inner peace in "Forget Me Not". A trip to Trill seems like it could hold the answers, until Star Trek remembers that the Trill government is just...just awful. Back on the ship, Saru asks the computer for help planning a party and it goes as well as one might expect. Never ask an AI for advice, Saru!

Also this week: The Great Gazoo, why the Ames Maneuver rarely happens, and fictional dystopias!

Timestamps: Forget Me Not: 01:04; Dystopic Media (no, not the actual news): 40:09

You don't need a high rating to read this: One person’s utopia is another’s dystopia

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One person’s utopia is another’s dystopia

By Ames

I wouldn’t be the first to say everything sucks right now (it does). It could also get way worse (but things are still bad). And like we discussed last week when we talked about post-apocalyptic works of fiction, writers and other artists use the complicated elements of societies to explore the slippery slopes we could find ourselves on if nothing changes. From population surveillance to eugenics to capitalism run amok to full-on authoritarian fascism, there is no lack of dystopian themes that speak to any given moment in modern society.

We’ve seen plenty of these types of cultures across Star Trek, but today the A Star to Steer Her By hosts are thinking more broadly, and likely getting picked up by the thought police right away for doing so. Thinking independently is double plus ungood, of course. So resist with us as we read banned books, escape tyranny, stand up to oppressors, or at the very least try to survive in the harsh worlds of dystopia. Read along for our favorites in the ever-expanding, increasingly bleak genre below and listen to a whole bunch of other oppressive worlds on this week’s podcast episode (file up at 40:09 for the interrogation). And remember: Big Brother is watching.

Ames’s picks

No one’s going to be surprised by my picks because I do love any good excuse for world building. Black Mirror is among my favorite shows right now because of how each and every episode uses very clever storytelling to create uniquely fucked-up settings for its characters to thrash about it. Favorite episodes include “Fifteen Million Merits,” which highlights a society with a rigid and exploitative class structure so unusual it got me hooked on the show immediately, and “USS Callister,” which starts out as a Star Trek parody and then turns dark (we covered it and its sequel on the podcast before!). Of all the excellent classic dystopian literature out there, I’ve got to hand it to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World for creating a dystopian environment that manages to trick its population into thinking it’s utopian. I am constantly amused by Huxley’s letter to George Orwell, praising his old student on the success of the differently dystopian 1984, while mostly using the correspondence as an excuse to say his own book accomplished it better. LOL! And I’d start gushing about the cinematic masterpiece that is Gattaca now, but I’ll save it since it’s gonna come up again!

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Chris’s picks

Chris also picked one of those dystopian staples we all read in high school, but he went with Ray Bradbury’s ever-prescient Fahrenheit 451. The irony that a story about the consequences of societies banning books is so often found on banned-books lists is so palpable I could scream. After we covered it on the podcast recently, you could have predicted that Blade Runner would end up on Chris’s list too because of how fulfilling it is as a feast for one’s eyes. The design elements of the futuristic world heighten the ideas from Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? so successfully that the whole thing is “more a mood than a movie,” as Chris tends to put it. “Not enough sheep!” you can hear me countering in the distance. Speaking of cinematography that’ll knock your socks off: it’s time to dig into Gattaca since I spent too much time just now gushing about Black Mirror and that nut Aldous Huxley above. We covered this one for the podcast too because more people need to see this pretty, pretty picture. The world is so gorgeous that it almost masks how shitty a society built on eugenics would be if you’re not one of the pretty people. Almost.

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Jake’s picks

Jake was going to also say Gattaca but is taking this opportunity to create some more variety. He’ll always praise Paul Verhoeven’s films, which succeed greatly in doing a show-don’t-tell with their dystopian world building. Robocop in particular weaves an excellent story about corruption in the police force, the devastating power of megacorporations, and the consequences of Reaganomics, all in a hyper-stylized and hyper-gory action flick with cyborgs! Verhoeven just does shit like that, as he also sneaks enough social commentary into Total Recall and Starship Troopers to radicalize anyone paying attention… if they do pay attention, that is. If you’re looking for a neo-noir surrealist mindfuck, look no further than the cult classic Dark City, which navigates an absolutely bananas, constantly shifting cityscape controlled by the enigmatic “Strangers.” We’re also all theatre-makers here on the podcast, and of all the really great dystopian stageplays out there, we need to throw some roses for Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman, a seriously disturbing play that takes place in a police state and should be flagged with just about every content warning there is, but at its core, it explores the power of storytelling.

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Caitlin’s picks

We also braved a nightmare land to get Caitlin’s picks since she was trapped in an authoritarian regime during time of recording. Making her list is the currently running hit mindfuck series Severance, in which people can undergo a procedure to split their minds into their at-work self and their out-of-work self—already fascinating enough a concept on its own—but there is so much more going on under the surface that we are on the edges of our seats to see where this show goes. Caitlin will also gush to anyone in earshot about her unexpected love of the film V for Vendetta, a highly stylized adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name. It centers on our masked vigilante protagonist stoking revolution in an authoritarian regime not so subtly paralleling Nazi Germany. Let’s also give some props to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and its very powerful television adaptation. The world of Gilead is so hostile to women it’s scary, depicting a scenario in which fertile women are treated as baby incubators and not as people, and it’s chilling to see the parallels continuing to occur in legislatures worldwide.

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All of this kind of art is revolutionary. Read banned books. Protest safely. Be informed. Depictions of dystopian societies show us what we can avoid if we don’t go down the wrong road. Wouldn’t we much rather live in the Star Trek future than any of these worlds? Compare for yourself as we continue with our watchalong of Discovery over on the podcast on SoundCloud or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also send coded messages to us on Facebook and Bluesky. Nolite te bastardes carborundorum!

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Episode 403: Good Tree. Nice Planet

DIS: "People of Earth"

Now that the gang's back together, it's time to continue the hunt for Starfleet and the Federation in "People of Earth"! But it turns out the titular people have become real jerks and are under attack by mysterious space jerks, and the Discovery crew is caught in the middle of it all! Meanwhile Stamets finds someone new to be smug at.

Also this week: unsubtle costume coding, music choices, and the post-Apocalypse!

Timestamps: Earth: 00:40; blog: 43:42

Someone else broke it, we're just living in the aftermath: It’s the end of the world as we binge it

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It’s the end of the world as we binge it

By Ames

While we watch the Discovery crew dealing with the aftermath of the Burn over on the podcast, the A Star to Steer Her By hosts are meanwhile absorbing ourselves in other apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction running the gamut of all types of media. It may seem like the genre is really exploding lately—it always seems like we’re a button-press away from doomsday as it is—but stories of the end of the world have been around forever. Whether it be the result of pandemic or nuclear war or natural disaster or zombies, all it takes is some paranoid writer out there to bring an apocalypse to life.

One thing’s for sure: worlds built out of disaster can be so complex and imaginative that we find ourselves fully caught up in them. Sometimes their societies are functional and sometimes they are holding on by their fingernails, and we are all about it! Join us in the bunker as you read on below for some of our favorites and give a listen to the full discussion, ripe with a ton of honorable mentions, on this week’s podcast episode (jump to 42:43). Prepare for the end of days!

Jake’s picks

Witness me! Jake is highlighting some really messed up pieces of fiction that have not taken to their world-ending events well. The whole Mad Max franchise is certainly a must-watch, even if each film is wildly different in subgenre from all that preceded it, with definite standouts of The Road Warrior and Fury Road as absolute cinematic marvels full of grit, explosions, and super impressive stuntwork! Children of Men is simply devastating. Definitely add it to your list of movies you must watch once, get completely broken by it, and then never watch again because it is so damn bleak, as one would expect from a story about a population that cannot produce offspring. And here are some props for the Horizon series of video games which plops you into the middle of a dystopian future full of robot dinosaurs and a mysterious backstory that unravels slowly over the course of the game. What a great way to immerse you in the world where some tragedy in the past annihilated everyone’s way of life!

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Chris’s picks

Shocking no one, all of Chris’s picks are video games. It’s such a far-reaching and popular genre that there’s really no dearth of options to put yourself in the shoes of the stories’ protagonists and really get to live in that traumatized society! Chris always has a million accolades to lavish upon Death Stranding, from the excellent voice acting to the unnecessarily enormous sandboxxy world to the absolute perfect timing of its release at the top of the pandemic when everyone felt like they were cut off from society anyway. This is the ideal game for those of you out there who want to sidequest your way through life. The Fallout video games are no less intricate, with a retro aesthetic that is fun to look at even if what you’re looking at a lot of the time is nuclear devastation. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker takes place in a world where the gods have flooded the planet and the populations that remain live on individual islands. This isn’t the first time we’ve brought up Link’s adventures in these blogs, as last week we highlighted Ocarina of Time, solidly demonstrating the varied world building that goes into this franchise.

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Ames’s picks

I’m going a little more literary with my favorite world-shattering stories. Hugh Howey’s Silo series of novels is pure art, and the currently running television series adaptation is pretty damn good. But nothing can really hold a candle to some of the captivating revelations in the novels as Howey deftly uncovers the background of the people who live in an underground silo and the apocalyptic event that put them there generations ago. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road sets off all my English-major alarms with writing so intentional that it really paints a picture of a world ravaged by some unspecified event. I’ve still not even seen the movie adaptation because I cannot imagine anything doing this book justice. Finally, a little levity amidst these landscapes of dust and decay: I simply adore Shaun of the Dead, a Simon Pegg–led zombiepocalypse satire flick that really knows how to squeeze comedy out of its savage subject matter in ways that I have to commend for the filmmakers’ cleverness.

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Caitlin’s picks

Caitlin was busy surviving a hellscape during recording for the podcast episode, but she put her picks in a loot crate for us to find later. While Chris favored the original video game source material, Caitlin wanted to laud how well Fallout translates to the television screen. The cinematography, perfect 50s-ish design aesthetics, tongue-in-cheek musical touches, and stellar acting really make this adaptation work in multiple mediums. And Walton Goggins is just such a fuckable zombie. I’m also glad Caitlin added the Pixar masterpiece Wall-E to her list because it accomplishes so much worldbuilding with such little dialogue. Those CGI geniuses really know how to tell a powerful story of perseverance in a way that is accessible to children (and adults!) of all ages. And finally, here are some props for the cult classic Waterworld, which really deserves a watch for the Kevin Costner of it all. Back in the day, Chris and Caitlin appeared on the Mad Max Minute podcast when they were covering Waterworld, so you really should get caught up!

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I also totally forgot to bring up the absolutely beautiful Latvian indie flick Flow during our live discussion, so I’m making sure to bring it up here! It got a lot of attention when it came out in 2024, and for good reason! With its very adorable animal characters, entire lack of any dialogue, spell-binding animation, and seemingly simple plot of surviving a Biblical-level flood in a land intriguingly devoid of humans, it lives up to the hype. And it’s just so cute!!!

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Did you survive all those cataclysms? Well stick with us for more science fiction subcategories as we explore the diverse range of the genre. You can also follow along with us as things start to get fancy in our Discovery watchalong on the podcast over on SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave us a doomsday warning over on Facebook and Bluesky, and watch out for zombies!

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Episode 402: The Future Ancient West

DIS: "Far from Home"

The Discovery crew may have been separated from Michael, but their arrival in the future also starts off with a jolt. A search for where and when they might be leads them to a Trek tradition: the alien locale that is suspiciously similar to a Western, complete with spur sounds and swinging doors! And on the ship, Stamets continues to be so stubborn as to risk his life. Classic Paul!

Also this week: deus ex kicking, unclear lessons, and time travel!

Timestamps: Far From Home: 01:15; this blog is from the past: 51:28

Or was it the future? Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey, and sometimes both

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Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey, and sometimes both

By Ames

Now that we’ve jumped into the future for our watchthrough of Discovery over on the podcast, the A Star to Steer Her By team has time travel on the mind. We’ve already covered our favorite and least favorite time travel stories from all of Star Trek, and now we’ve broadened our minds to science fiction media in general. What are our favorite stories from all media that bridge the future, the past, and everything in between?

There are myriad to choose from, but one thing’s for certain: when they’re done right, adventures through time are really journeys of self discovery. When done wrong, they can be messy excuses to include dinosaurs in a story but have nothing significant to actually say (looking at you, Terra Nova). So step into your phone booth, accelerate to 88 miles per hour, pull the Master Sword from the stone, initiate Project Splinter, or take a dip in a hot tub with us as we prepare to launch through time itself to bring you our favorite blasts through time. Check them out below and listen to a ton of honorable mentions over on this week’s podcast episode (timewarp over to timestamp 51:28). And watch out for bootstrap paradoxes.

Chris’s picks

All of Chris’s faves hit that nostalgia lobe of the brain in just the right way, which is kind of its own form of time travel if you think about it. What child of the 80s doesn’t have a soft spot for Marty and Doc Brown and their time-traveling Delorean in Back to the Future? We’ve covered all three on the podcast before and they all scratch their own respective itches (have a listen if you haven’t before to parts 1, 2, and 3). Chris is also a centuries-old British man at heart, and always appreciates an absolutely bonkers romp in a TARDIS like you’re bound to see in any era of Doctor Who, so you knew that was going to make the list. And finally, the decade-switching mechanics of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was revolutionary in how its gameplay involved time travel in its trademark puzzle solving by having Link switch from child to adult depending on whether or not he had his sword. How damn clever is that?!

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Ames’s picks

The English major in me wouldn’t let things slide if I didn’t include Kurt Vonnegut’s out-of-order masterpiece Slaughterhouse-Five on this list. I’ve lost count of how many classes I read it for, but exploring how Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time definitely formed a cornerstone of my college experience and my tastes in really mind-fucking literature as an adult. On the lighter and more ridiculous side of things, I just have such a soft spot for Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. It could have made my list last week of foundational introductions to science fiction since I watched it so many times as a kid; it is just too damn fun. Let’s split the difference between comedy nonsense and heart-breaking storytelling with the episode “The Late Philip J. Fry” from Futurama. The whole series is packed with some great individual time-travel plots (“Roswell that Ends Well” and “Meanwhile” also come to mind), but this one has it all: cartoon zaniness, a great science mcguffin, and an ending that rips your soul to shreds. Gotta love it.

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Jake’s picks

Jake agrees with a couple of the time-travel media that have come up already, so let’s start with his distinct option: the profound mystery box series that is 12 Monkeys. The Terry Gilliam film is good too, but the Terry Matalas vehicle really relishes in weaving an overly intricate web of timelines over the course of its several seasons, full of some amazing acting, lots of fancy tech, and more timeline mapping even than something like Looper. If only Terry had brought this level of originality to his season of Star Trek: Picard. And here are additional shout outs to familiar touchstones Back to the Future and Slaughterhouse-Five. What more can we say about the two of them? While they are almost polar opposites in terms of their tones and styles, they really do form the taste backbones for a lot of millennials out there.

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Caitlin’s picks

I’ve managed to travel through time to include Caitlin’s favorites from this category, despite her being trapped in a time loop during our podcast episode! We’ve already talked about a couple of them already, including Doctor Who, which she mentioned in last week’s introduction to science fiction post was one of the properties Chris used to get her into sci-fi in the first place! And, like me, Caitlin has an affinity for Back to the Future, Part III out of the films in that trilogy because really who doesn’t ship Doc and Clara? Speaking of Mary Steenburgen! She also stars in Caitlin’s next pick! Before Nicholas Meyer grabbed the reins for various Star Trek feature films, he made his directorial debut with Time After Time—while also penning the story—involving H.G. Wells chasing Jack the Ripper through time. Ya know, like ya do. Caitlin wanted to also make sure we again shouted out Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Turtles in Time, surprising no one.

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We’ve returned to the right timeline now, so let’s call it there before it starts raining doughnuts. We’ve got more great science fiction chatter planned for the coming weeks, so make sure you’re following along to this space. You should also leap to the future with us over on the podcast where we’ve reached season three of Discovery in our rewatch; listen along at SoundCloud or whatever podcatcher you like. You can also draw some diagrams with straws with us over on Facebook and Bluesky. So it goes.

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Episode 401: Kool-Aid Manning Into the Future

DIS: "That Hope Is You, Part 1"

Season 3 of Discovery starts off with a bang—rather literally, as Michael's first act in the future is to have a space-car accident. In "That Hope Is You, Part 1", Burnham finds her plan to save all living things from Control might have succeeded, but in its place a new crisis arose: a dilithium-destroying cataclysm known simply as "The Burn". Now with her new...friend?...Book, she begins her search for not only her shipmates, but the Federation and Starfleet.

Also this week: bird clock, the Smuggler and his Queen, and Sci-Fi origins!

Timestamps: Hope pt 1: 00:35; falling into science fiction: 49:00

Where'd we come from, anyway?: Baby’s first sci-fi indoctrination

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Baby’s first sci-fi indoctrination

By Ames

We’re all millennials here on A Star to Steer Her By, so our formative years in the 80s and 90s were really treasure troves of some cartoons that really broke ground in their industry, movies with levels of camp that we can look back on fondly (mostly), books and comics that formed the foundation of our whole educations, and other media that ran the gamut from pieces of shit to masterpieces. So that got us thinking: What were our first [conscious] introductions specifically to science fiction? We’re a Star Trek podcast, after all. Where did it start for each of us?

Some shows and movies are so ubiquitous that we don’t even remember when we first saw them, but others left a lasting impression on us while we were still developing as sapient individuals. Also our memories are shit, so there’s also that to contend with. But that’s not going to stop us from going on a trip down memory lane as we reminisce about robots and aliens and mutants and whatever the hell Howard the Duck was. Check out some highlights below and listen to our fond memories over on this week’s podcast episode (tons more honorable mentions start at 49:00). Go go Gadget listicle!

Chris’s picks

While we tried to keep this topic to non–Star Trek properties, Chris’s childhood was spent watching The Original Series with his grandmother so early in life he wasn’t even forming memories yet, so we’ll have to take his family’s word for it. Evidently enough got into that skull of his to make him a Trek fan for life, hence this whole podcast project coming about in the first place.

We talk about Trek enough on the podcast as it is, so Chris also wanted to plug some other media he has lasting memories of. Back to the Future is an obvious highlight for most kids of the era, but we’re probably going to talk about that film again next week (make sure you’re following this channel!). Really, the rabbit hole we really found ourselves careening down was the plethora of kids’ television shows with vaguely science-fiction-y themes like Transformers and Inspector Gadget and Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers—shows about incredibly advanced technology that you just accept in the world of the show because you’re a kid, but which make less and less sense the more you think about them. There were a ton of these shows and they were super addictive!

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Caitlin’s picks

For someone who claims she eschewed science fiction for most of her life because it was for nerds, Caitlin actually seems to have watched a lot of those sci-fi cartoons for kids we were just talking about. Colorful Saturday morning–style cartoons like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Reboot, and X-Men made her list of foundational programming that children ate up throughout the 90s, possibly without even realizing they were getting a big helping of science fiction in their wacky adventures.

Caitlin even pinned down more straight-forward building blocks like Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, E.T., and Star Wars as obvious examples of science fiction that introduced her to the medium with their delightful characters, memorable scenes, and general accessibility to new and young audiences. Now we’re happy to call Caitlin a big nerd!

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Ames’s picks

A lot of this is hazy, but not much early-years science fiction made an impact on me apparently. It was closer to late middle school and into high school that I actively remember media of that genre permeating the wealth of consumables aimed at kids. Let’s start with the books I was obsessed with. The Animorphs series and anything by R.L. Stein got gobbled up. But it may have been Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that really opened a door into a sci-fi world for me. I lugged The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide all over the place, and that thing was huge!

My upbringing would not have been complete without copious watching of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 whenever it was on. I was super into comedies as a kid and teen, and this scratched that itch with a fun sci-fi gimmick and greatly impacted my generally snarky attitude. I lived for those cut scenes on the Satellite of Love! Crow, Tom, and Gypsy may come up again whenever we talk about our favorite robots from across all science fiction media one of these days, so be on the lookout for that!

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Jake’s picks

Jake was basically born with a combadge on his onesie, as his parents were big Trekkies from the get go and that trait is genetic. But even beyond a childhood of watching The Next Generation, if there was wide-appealing science fiction programming on television, Jake probably watched it. He recounts one of his favorite movies as a kid, Batteries Not Included, which frankly holds up pretty well today! Check it out for the cutesy robots, nostalgic 90s style, and message that somehow is still applicable today.

While Jake can also shout out to similarly enthused properties like Short Circuit and Space Balls and D.A.R.Y.L., he instead wanted to make sure we specifically featured Howard the Duck, if only for the WTF factor. What a weird fucking thing, especially when a younger audience watches it. Well, we can say this about it: it certainly left an impression!

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We were truly blessed with great science fiction options throughout the nineties. How about you? What were your first memories of getting into sci-fi of any kind? We’ve got way more blog posts breaking down the genre planned for upcoming weeks, so make sure you’re subscribed to this page. And that doesn’t even mention all the Star Trek we’re watching, so follow along over at SoundCloud or wherever you podcast as we launch into the future with season three of Discovery. You can also chat about cartoons with us on Facebook and BlueSky. And repeat to yourself: It's just a show, I should really just relax.

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Episode 400: Experience Trivia

Welcome all to the 400th mainline episode of "A Star to Steer Her By"! While it was always theoretical we'd make it this far, it's still a little mad that we actually have (and more, really, when you consider all the Ten Forwards and Shore Leaves that are counted separately). And we're celebrating by doing our own little twist on Star Trek Trivial Pursuit, with a little help from a piece of legendary merchandise!

Also this week: planning the next round of fanfics!

Timestamps: The Game: 00:41; The Plan: 51:52

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Episode 399: Perhaps Once Was Sufficient

Short Treks: Season 1

Back when the New Era of Trek was...new...they did Short Treks. We looked at the first batch back between Seasons 1 and 2 of Discovery and have lamented since more than once that it's something they should have done more of. But considering we were largely cooler on the second batch, maybe there was a reason...

Also this week: weird messages, back to cartoons, and ranking the lot!

Timestamps: Q&A: 01:21; The Trouble With Edward: 15:28; Ask Not: 27:03; Ephraim and Dot: 35:57; The Girl Who Made the Stars: 43:16; Children of Mars: 49:27; top'n'bottoms: 59:56

But what did we think? Look here: Short and/or Sweet: The best and worst Short Treks

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Short and/or Sweet: The best and worst Short Treks

By Ames

We just wrapped season two of Discovery, which we pretty much agreed was a mixed bag, and we’re jumping headlong into also wrapping all of Short Treks. It’s a bittersweet conclusion because this collection of short outings provided an engine for Trek stories that had a lot of potential, but was somehow also a mixed bag despite only cranking out ten episodes in total over its two very quick seasons. Maybe it’ll come back one day since Trek’s overall future is still terribly unclear, but for now, this is all we’ve got.

That doesn’t mean we’re not going to do our usual Top and Bottom Three Episodes from this tiny batch! Because of that small sample size and also due to the widely varied tastes of the A Star to Steer Her By hosts, you’re going to see a comparatively large percentage of these Short Treks represented on both the good and bad lists for their own respective reasons. So grab separate bowls of Spumoni ice cream and of Tribbles cereal as you check them out below and listen to our heated debate in this week’s podcast episode (scoot scoot to 59:56 for the blogtivity). Where’s my spoon?

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Bottom Three Episodes

Interestingly, there’s only one episode from season one of Short Treks that makes the bad list, which might be more telling about the quality of season two than it is about that episode…

“Ephraim and Dot”: Caitlin While the rest of us seemed to quite enjoy how cute this little animated piece was, Caitlin didn’t quite see the point to this shallow reference-fest. Maybe it’s just that there weren’t a lot of episodes to choose from (let alone episodes that were truly deserving of the Bottoms List), but when you’re scraping for substance from a sub-ten-minute cartoon, you’re definitely not going to find it here amidst the in-jokes, bright colors, and Looney Tunes score.

“Children of Mars”: Chris The Picard lead-in short suffers a similar fate because of how generic a story it tells. While there’s a lot to appreciate about this Short Trek (you can probably tell this is another that’s going to be on both lists), there’s nothing original in watching two schoolgirls we will never hear from again having a typical tween spat. The episode is further hampered in retrospect because we just didn’t care for Picard the series in general and this started it off with promises it won’t keep.

“Ask Not”: Ames, Jake We’ve seen the “it was all a test” twist so much that this short really suffered for it. The reveal that it’s Pike being arrested for mutiny pretty much lets the cat out of the bag (or the captain out of the headsack) at the off. But then when you actually think about it, what is Sidhu’s test result really? Whenever Kirk or Picard or Janeway or whoever has disobeyed Starfleet orders to instead do what’s right, the audience has been on their side. We’ve celebrated that they could stand up for justice, and yet this bootlicker gets an overly happy ending? What’s the actual message here?

“Q&A”: Ames, Chris Here’s another example of an episode that doesn’t seem to accomplish what it set out to do. We don’t need the retcon for why Spock’s character wasn’t yet solidified in the flashback footage from “The Menagerie,” and trying to tie up that loose end only makes things messier. By the end of this short, we weren’t interested in this otherwise nice interplay between Spock and Number One. We were instead peeved at Una for basically telling Spock to be someone other than who he is. She urges him not to smile or show enthusiasm, essentially turning him into a copy of her, and that’s actually kinda sad.

“Runaway”: Caitlin, Chris, Jake The meetcute between Tilly and Queen Po is just so jarring in tone, swinging between presenting Po as a rabid animal and then as a brilliant scientist in so little time you’re not allowed to think about it. When we wrapped season 1 of Discovery, we were commending how far Tilly had come as a character, and the way she has regressed here to babbling buffoon is indicative of how annoying she’ll be in season two. And the fact that you badly need the context of this episode to understand who Po is in “Such Sweet Sorrow” is deleterious.

“The Trouble with Edward”: Ames, Caitlin, Jake The one that most (but tellingly not ALL) of our hosts agree is garbage is “The Trouble with Edward,” another origin story that we emphatically did not need. The jokes rarely land in this over-the-top ridiculous comedy script, but instead were more likely to elicit cringes and groans. Watching this actually became uncomfortable because they clearly thought this romp was going to be hilarious but instead was just stupid. And I’ll argue until I’m blue in the face that the writers misstepped by making Lucero nearly as unlikeable as Larkin in their first impressions, which taints the whole thing for me.

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Top Three Episodes

You’re gonna see half the good list is composed of episodes that were already on the bad list. And the other half (the better half) is all episodes from season one. The second batch of Short Treks was definitely quantity over quality, it would seem.

“The Trouble with Edward”: Chris You probably noticed that Chris was the one host that didn’t include “The Trouble with Edward” in his Bottoms List because he loves this kind of schlock. He’s done this kind of shit before, like when he listed “Time’s Arrow,” “Ferengi Love Songs,” and “Take Me Out to the Holosuite” among his favorites, and I’ve picked on him every time for it. In this instance, at least you can still appreciate some humorous work from H. Jon Benjamin, without whom this episode would probably be unwatchable. And even I’ll admit that the cereal commercial after the end credits is an absolute delight.

“Ephraim and Dot”: Chris Caitlin may not have cared for this one, but the rest of us sure found it adorable! The design and characterization for Ephraim the tardigrade is cute in a boot! How can you not fall in love with her immediately? And then the rest of the animated short is an assemblage of loving references to The Original Series and the films that feels like the kind of homage as something like “Trials and Tribble-ations” and not just the kind of fanservice we’d expect out of Lower Decks or Star Wars. Or maybe it just worked on us too well; who can say?

“Children of Mars”: Ames One more that’s on both lists, and I’ll stand up and defend this one as a former tween in a Catholic school uniform who can relate to these two misunderstood, bullied girls. It’s in the way this story is told that I really found it most successful—I do love me some minimal-dialogue techniques. The editing, acting, and simplicity of this story were all points in its favor. But the thing I like most is how perfectly it sets up the initial premise for season one of Picard without being required context like some of the season one Short Treks were for Discovery. Ya know, like “Runaway” above.

“The Brightest Star”: Caitlin, Jake The rest of the tops list is all going to be from the first season of Short Treks, which generally dominated this category. First off is the fascinating backstory of the Kelpiens that we get in “The Brightest Star.” While this episode provides the foundation for a lot of the Kelpien plots in Discovery, the context is more smoothly integrated than it was for “Runaway.” Doug Jones is also always just a pleasure to watch, therefore a few more minutes of him, his amazingly interesting society on Caminar, and even a quick glimpse of Phillipa Georgiou are definitely welcome.

“Calypso”: Ames, Caitlin, Jake Though I definitely didn’t need to see what later seasons of Discovery did to this little short, “Calypso” on its own is still a work of art. Even with characters we’ve never met in a time period divorced from any Trek we’ve ever seen, this episode shines in its clever writing, its humanizing premise, some stellar acting, a perfectly edited little montage to show the passing of time, and the best button we’ve seen in a while. The story of Zora and Funny Face, despite getting very little screen time, is exactly what science fiction is all about.

“The Escape Artist”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake Finally, one that we all agree on! While most of us thought the comedy in “The Trouble with Edward” didn’t land, the comedy in “The Escape Artist” was spot on! Clearly director Rainn Wilson got a great performance out of Rainn Wilson because he respects him so much. He has really embraced what Harcourt Fenton Mudd is all about: Sliminess! The cutaway scenes are all good gags (even if they go on a little long at times). The tertiary characters are well done. And the ending gag with the rooms full of Mudd androids! We laughed out loud! Just some great work there.

The only installment that didn’t make either list was “The Girl Who Made the Stars,” which was so middling that none of us thought to bring it up anywhere. Perhaps it’s also because none of us feel we can speak to the cultural element because we’re all so very white, so let’s sum it up quickly by saying this: Depicting the /Xam Abathwa origin story for the stars was a nice touch but it wasn’t very sci-fi-y and most of us entirely missed the fact that it tied directly to Michael Burnham’s character, so that probably could have been established better. Cute tardigrade plushie though.

—

We’ve already covered all the Short Treks title cards, and with this post under our belts as well, that’s all we’ve got to say about them unless they ever make more! Which we wouldn’t be opposed to! C’mon, Paramount, stop cancelling Trek shows and experiment more in this low-stakes format. What have you got to lose?

And what do the rest of y’all have to lose by giving this blog a follow, joining us on our Trek rewatch over on SoundCloud (or wherever you podcast), hanging out with us on Facebook and Bluesky, and digging into some tribbles! They’re pregnant with flavor!

[sshbpodcast]

Episode 398: Go See a Star War

DIS: "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2"

We've reached the end of S.2 of Discovery and...it's a LOT, guys. "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part II" is mostly action sequences all just strung together rapid-fire with only a few, regrettably-brief pauses for character work. Also one of the worst lines in the history of Star Trek is here. All we need is some Beastie Boys and we're at the crossroads of all off JJ Abrams's worst impulses.

Also this week: Bill & Ted, rocky ships, and wrapping season 2!

Timestamps: Sorrow2: 01:13; momentary rankings: 1:02:45

In summation: Discovery Season 2: Mystery boxes all the way down

[sshbpodcast]

Discovery Season 2: Mystery boxes all the way down

By Ames

I was so proud of myself for writing up a wrap-up post for Discovery season one in which I tried to keep as objective and unbiased as possible. You can barely tell I’m not a big Discovery fan! This season, I don’t know if I can pull it off. Sure, there’s a lot to like about the sophomore season of Discovery, but dang y’all. There’s also just a lot. Period. It’s an overwhelming season if you’re trying to follow all the tangled plot threads and new characters that mostly get dropped and twist after twist after twist until I’m catatonic, propped up in front of the sensory overload of a season finale, muttering to myself and drooling.

But I said I was going to try to be objective and unbiased, especially since not all the A Star to Steer Her By hosts share my distaste with this very convoluted time-traveling plot. So like last time, instead of our normal top and bottom episodes (there are only 14 in total this time!), we’re going to discuss some highlights and lowlights from this Red Angel season. You can read on below or listen to our impassioned debate on the podcast (blast to timestamp 1:02:45 for the season chatter) to see if you, unlike me, can make any sense of this plot before you’re sent 900 years into the future.

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Highlights

More science, less war!

If last season’s overall plot felt dark and bleak, this season does more embracing of exploration and science. This is a show called Discovery, after all; it’s nice to see them discovering things. Setting things up by investigating a scientific phenomenon certainly helped. The whole sphere story in “An Obol for Charon” is a great example of using the show to tell stories that feel like the kind of optimistic science fiction that people were really looking for and not finding in season one.

It’s also a breath of fresh air to see Starfleet officers being more ethical this time around. They immediately jump to help May’s people in “Saints of Imperfection,” a far cry from torturing tardigrades and calling prisoners animals a year ago. We’ve also got to praise “New Eden” for giving us that episodic Trek nostalgia of going on an away mission and objectively investigating a new culture, even if Michael was condescending the whole time.

Sonequa acts her ass off

This series threw everything and the kitchen sink at Sonequa Martin-Green and she rolled with it! Especially in the emotional roller coaster “The Red Angel,” in which she battles with the idea that she’s going to turn out to be the titular Red Angel, learns the truth about Project Daedalus from Leland, has to go through some absolutely bananas torture and death scenes, and then gets reunited with her mother absolutely out of nowhere (or out of the future, I guess). Does Michael cry too much throughout the season? Yeah maybe, but she just does it so well!

Pike is instantly likeable

Considering that Anson Mount was given the herculean task of portraying the legacy character Captain Christopher Pike, we were onboard from the first introduction. Pike has climbed to the top of a lot of people’s Best Captain lists because he is so charismatic, he treats his crew like people, he’s always cool as a cucumber (who else can pull off taglines like “Hit it”?), and his compassion is off the charts. When we see in “Through the Valley of Shadows” that Pike accepts the distressing fate we all know awaits him per “The Menagerie,” we can rest assured that this is a leader who will do what’s right for the good of the many.

Ethan Peck had some big ears to fill

Our other legacy characters in Spock and Number One were also handled pretty dang well. Especially Spock, who had the added constraint of skirting elements of the canon, sometimes with success and sometimes less so, as you’ll see in our Season Lowlights section. But Ethan Peck still nails Spock’s curiosity, reserve, and dual nature. The way his relationship with Michael develops throughout the season, from contentious and cruel to supportive and loving, was actually one of the better-paced elements of the back half of the season. And how damn pretty was he with that beard? I just wish he could nail the eyebrow.

Saru is still the GOAT

Our collective fave from season one is even more interesting in season two! Doug Jones is always a treat, and his acting in Saru’s near-death scene in “An Obol for Charon” is stunning. Even if you know they’re not about to kill off a main character, you forget for a minute that he has plot armor. And after his threat ganglia have fallen off, Saru’s character journey begins its new chapter. What was a character who used to be afraid of everything all the time and advocate much safer plans (usually running away!) is now a character who is learning to become more impulsive with a new perspective on how to perform on a team.

Unbury your gays

Another character who is learning a lot about his new self is Hugh Culber, who is back from the dead. The manner in which he comes back in “Saints of Imperfection” is absolutely ludicrous (I didn’t follow a word of the technobabble surrounding the spore cocoon thing), but we must admit that it was nice of the writers to undo the bury your gays trope that left a lot of people with a sour taste in their mouths. This opens up a lot of substantial character work for this doctor who, admittedly, had almost nothing to do in season one except die. Witnessing the scenes in which Wilson Cruz beautifully portrays Culber’s struggle with identity was phenomenal.

An engineer with a side of sass

We loved Jett Reno! Whenever an episode didn’t have Jett Reno, we were definitely asking, “Where’s Jett Reno?” There was not enough of Tig Notaro’s sarcastic yet brilliant engineer this season, but what we did get was a whole lot of fun. Unlike some of the comedy that comes out of various other characters, her jokes have the greatest tendency to work. She’s also just plain brilliant, able to keep her Hiawatha crewmates alive with duct tape and gumption. And you just can’t turn down more representation of LGBT characters in Trek! Happy Pride, y’all!

Amanda isn’t just a trad wife

Though we’ve seen little bits and pieces of Amanda Grayson over the years, it’s almost always been in service to either her husband Sarek or her son Spock. Getting more dimensions to this human among Vulcans colors in more of her character. She’s not content to just sit idly by while Spock is in danger, as we learn in “Light and Shadows” when she has him holed up in some caves to keep out of the hands of Starfleet or Section 31. Plus look how well dressed this wife of an ambassador is. Desperate Housewife she is not, but fashion icon she definitely is.

More Kelpiens = more good

We meet Saru’s sister Siranna in “The Sound of Thunder” and she’s immediately really cool. The whole Kelpien race fascinates me, and their relationship with their predator species introduces some interesting elements to the show. It allows Saru and Pike to debate the Prime Directive a bit, something we always love doing on this podcast. What else is the Federation around for if not to help oppressed people? And the Ba’ul’s whole drama queen vibe proves just so fun to watch, from their boggy design to their guttural language to the way they always know how to make an entrance.

The other bridge characters get something to do!

Okay, this one was a low bar, but last season we didn’t even clear it. The rest of the bridge crew were practically interchangeable, and if they had names, no one knew them. But now Joann Owosekun gets another trait in “New Eden” when we learn that she hails from a community of luddites (which is so interesting we wish it got explored more!). The little montage of people, including Owo and Detmer, writing farewell messages in “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 1” also gives them some much needed characterization. And Airiam having to upload her individual memories to the cloud in “Project Daedalus” was practically Black Mirror levels of sci-fi… but we’ll get back to her later.

We get to make googoo eyes at the Enterprise

We gushed last season over the aesthetics of the Discovery, but when the Enterprise rolls in, we realize that’s what we really want. The uniforms are way better than the Discovery uniforms, coming in the bright departmental colors we’re all accustomed to from The Original Series. You can tell what division/rank everyone is more easily with the colors and the bars on the sleeves (when they remember to CG them in) instead of on the combadge, which was a damn mistake.

The ship itself is a loving update to the familiar design. We’ve talked up this version of the Enterprise before when we covered Starfleet vessels, but this one is definitely a highlight. The bridge is definitely an improvement over the Discovery’s giant, dark cavern of a set. When we see it in “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 1,” we definitely find it more intimate and bright, though the colors and lights do make it feel like you’re inside a pinball machine.

Back to the future!

The choice to end the season by going to the future is commendable. Some could argue that’s where they should have started this whole show from the onset, but that may just be me. Prequels are just inherently hamstringing. The established canon can really limit your options; and conversely, breaking canon always results in alienating fans. So we’re looking forward to what options for creativity have opened up for our heroes 900 years forward. Having more advanced technology will make more sense. We’ll be able to explore more alien cultures without wondering why we’ve never met them before. The galaxy is their oyster. Yum yum.

—

Lowlights

1+1+2+1…

While I just praised this season for sending us into the future at the end, I struggled the hardest of any Trek to follow the rest of the time-traveling plot arc. Some of the confusion can probably be blamed on the switcheroo of showrunners that happened in the middle of things, which sure didn’t help. And due to the usual pacing issues of a lot of streaming television (Surf Dracula, anyone?), the episodes careen headlong to an ultimately exhausting ending. Everything is explained at breakneck speed so that you can’t think about it because if you do, you’ll be three scenes behind. 

So… somehow seven red signals appear simultaneously despite being across many lightyears AND then again later for the Discovery to visit individually AND then again whenever the Red Angel appears? Somehow it’s all convenient and convoluted at the same time—which is the real magic of time travel! It’s both a bootstrap paradox and an alternate timeline at the same time!!

Who’s the biggest Mary Sue in Star Trek?

Michael Burnham gets a lot of flak for getting buffed into the Most Important Character in the Universe™, especially starting this season. One day we’ll have the debate on the podcast over who the biggest Mary Sue in Star Trek is (my money’s on Sisko or Spock), but the writers aren’t doing Burnham many favors when time and time again everyone gushes about how important she is. 

Regardless of if you think Burnham’s a Mary Sue or not, her crewmates sure act like she is! In “Project Daedalus” Airiam tells us Michael is at the center of all this; Spock and Michael decide she’s the lynchpin in “The Red Angel”; Control inexplicably lures Michael specifically to the derelict Section 31 ship because she’s so vital in “Through the Valley of Shadows”; and Spock basically praises Michael as the messiah all throughout the two parts of “Such Sweet Sorrow.” Even when we learn that the Red Angel is Gabrielle Burnham in “Perpetual Infinity,” somehow Michael is still the better Red Angel because she saves the day so miraculously that even the wormhole aliens would find it contrived.

“Make it look like a movie”

I said this last season too and I could pretty much cut and paste the same lesson here: less is more. The aspect ratio this season has even widened from 2:1 to 2.39:1 to make it look more like a movie. But why? Not only are all the camera tricks dizzying and distracting, but it seems like every piece of tech this season is a transformer. The floor corkscrews down to a lower level. The asteroid catcher unfolds like CGI origami. We see the unfathomable turbolift netherspace. The characters’ spacesuits just appear on them. All that’s in “Brother” alone! And where the hell did the Jacob’s Ladder’ing shaft, the thousands of shuttles and drones, and the DOT-7 repair droids we see in “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2” come from??? It’s all such overkill just to make the series look cinematic when Trekkies are usually perfectly fine accepting an obvious sound stage like in TOS’s “The Empath.”

Tilly regressed into a manic Sonia Gomez

Remember how last season we praised Tilly’s subtle character growth? Well, this season the writers forgot about that and decided they needed to establish in every single one of her appearances that she’s manic and awkward and babbling, even when she’s not even central to the scene! She ham-fistendly injects herself into conversations, disrupting the flow of scenes, and generally getting on our nerves. They had the perfect opportunity to help her character develop by being in the command training program, but then that idea went nowhere and seemed to get dropped in favor of her delivering goofy one-liners all the time.

Wakka wakka!

Tilly isn’t the only one delivering lots of dorky one-liners. There are so many cringey jokes this season! From Tilly’s “This is the power of math, people!” to Spock’s “I like science,” to Burnham and Spock’s “Hamlet, hell yeah,” the quippiness of the dialogue does not land. Possibly the absolute worst offender is Nhan’s “Yum yum” in “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2,” which sounds like something a novice writer would put in a YA novel with an entire lack of subtlety and nuance. Each line sticks out like so many sore thumbs.

Linus, for that matter, is introduced solely to be a joke. When we meet him in “Brother,” it really feels like Discovery’s reaction to The Orville getting more attention in some Star Trek circles at the time. This funny alien lizard sneezing on the Mean Guy™ could literally have been a joke from the Seth MacFarlane–driven comedy show; like, seriously, cover your mouth, asshole!

And then Georgiou turns up out of nowhere just to be a quip machine. Like Tilly, she’s required to have at least one sardonic retort in every scene she’s in to underline that she’s evil. Which reminds me…

The depraved bisexual trope

One of the most awkwardly acted scenes in the whole season is the one in which Emperor Georgiou is teasing Stamets and Culber mercilessly in “The Red Angel.” “Don’t be so binary,” she taunts. “In my universe, he was pansexual and we had DEFCON-level fun together. And you, too, Papi.” It's so cringey and the actors don’t seem to know how to deliver it. At this point, the only bisexual characters we’ve really established in Trek (other than the Trill, which are their own things) are villains from the mirror universe using their sexual orientation to depict how evil they are (there’s a whole tv trope about it), especially compared to their straight, respectable prime-universe counterparts. What a strangely regressive depiction for Trek to include in 2019.

The magical disabled person trope

You know what else comes across as kind of gross and unprogressive (and also has its own tv tropes page)? Using Spock’s disability as a magical power. Spock having l’tak terai is fine on its own, and can even serve as solid representation to include and accommodate characters with learning disabilities, but then we find out that his Vulcan dyslexia was established only to advance the plot. Making a disability into a magic power is pretty often looked upon disparagingly by the disabled community, who would rather just be allowed to exist as they are. We’ll never see Spock’s l’tak terai come up again; it only existed to get them out of a problem.

Did we really need the Talosians?

Here’s another element that only exists to get the crew out of a problem. The Talosians in “If Memory Serves” were only there for one reason: to magically advance the plot. Scratch that. Two reasons: to magically advance the plot AND to make the fans wank because they recognized a thing. And wank they did! This is a generally positively reviewed episode because people liked seeing the Talosians, but we really wondered why they were here other than as a reference. They magically solve the problem and advance the plot, but they don’t earn it. They aren’t characters; they’re member berries. 

Airiam, we hardly knew ye

Speaking of things that aren’t earned: Airiam’s whole sacrifice episode. Anyone familiar with television could tell once they started filling in her backstory in “Project Daedalus” that meant they were going to kill her off by the end (another tv trope!). And it’s such a crying shame because her backstory is so good! The idea of her surviving a horrible accident by being installed into a cyborg body is damn cool! Her uploading memories to the cloud, as mentioned above, is excellent sci-fi! And her death scene is fucking stunning! But when I should be feeling devastated at the loss of a beloved character, I only feel rage that we didn’t get ANYTHING before this episode to get to know her. How hard would that have been???

Everything’s a soap opera

So many decisions are for the sake of drama this season of Trek. The whole Klingon soap opera in “Point of Light” feels absolutely unnecessary to us. Excise that whole episode and you’re not missing anything because we’re absolutely done with Klingons after last season. Relatedly, there’s exactly no reason why Tenavik has to be L’Rell and Tyler’s kid in “Through the Valley of Shadows.” It doesn’t pay off in any way. Cut it.

The only consequence from the Klingon plot that has bearing on the rest of the season is that Ash Tyler leaves Qo’noS to join Section 31, which is all too convenient. And then he’s only stationed on the Discovery to add drama to any scenes with Stamets and Culber and to remind us that he and Michael like to smooch despite having no chemistry. Cut it.

And then the Klingons show up in “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2” with the Kelpiens somehow, just so Saru and Siranna can say goodbye? Contrived. Laughable. Cut it.

In non-Klingon drama, the reveal during “If Memory Serves” of what Burnham did to Spock as a child was a massive letdown. The show had been building up to this giant revelation all season because it takes forever to find Spock, and then when we finally find him, we learn that Michael just pulled a Harry and the Hendersons on him and then neither of them talked for, what, twenty-five years? Cut! It!

Optional materials aren’t optional

I really liked the Short Treks episodes that precluded this season. They were nice to exist as little stories in their own bubbles. And then they turned out to tie directly into this season, and I’ve got to be honest: I liked them a little less! “The Sound of Thunder” needed a whole recap of “The Brightest Star” to provide the context for the Kelpiens’ relationship with the Ba’ul. If you didn’t see or have access to that Short Trek, then at least the episode mostly filled you in, but you wouldn’t have the full picture.

Even more blatant was bringing in Queen Po in “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 1.” They write away who she is in a rapidly spoken Tilly-babbling line, but there’s absolutely no context if you missed “Runaway.” People were asking online after the Discovery episode if they were supposed to know who this character was because her inclusion was reliant on you seeing the Short Trek AND they don’t explain it.

For that matter, I’m curious how much sense “If Memory Serves” makes for fans not familiar with “The Menagerie.” It makes me wonder who this show is for if it’s inaccessible to new viewers. Shrug.

Once more for the neckbeards in the back

Finally, there was just too much from this season that was obviously in response to fan rage from season one. I already mentioned that Linus is just a joke from The Orville. We also see hack writing like introducing Connolly in “Brother” specifically to kill him off as if it’s a statement to the fans about bad-faith criticism or something. Guys, never respond to internet trolls.

For some reason, the writers also decided to retcon some of things that fans complained about. Pike is adamantly anti-hologram because by the time we get to TOS there isn’t holocommunication anymore even though this show had it. The Klingons grow their hair back out with the pathetic cover line that they shave their heads during times of war—something we’ve never seen before—but people hated the Klingon redesign so much they fixed it. And finally, it’s just so ham-fisted that “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2” needs to spell out that we’ll never speak of the Discovery, the spore drive, and Michael Burnham again and that’s why none of the other series mention them! These writers buckled like the neck of the Klingon Sarcophagus ship and it shows.

—

Okay, I was definitely less charitable this time, but you can see where I got hung up quite a lot. We look forward to seeing if next season’s jump to the future fares any better for our Discovery watch through, which you can follow along with on SoundCloud (or wherever you like listening to podcasts), and make sure you’re following along with this blog for more Tilly babble. You can also share your Red Angel conspiracy theories with us on Facebook and Bluesky, and remember: if it’s got a page on tv tropes, you probably shouldn’t do it.

[sshbpodcast]

Episode 397: Letters Home and the Katraphone

DIS: "Such Sweet Sorrow"

We're coming to the end of Season 2 of Discovery, with the penultimate episode "Such Sweet Sorrow"! With the Sphere Data scuppering the Janeway Maneuver, the crew decides to recycle the time travel plan on a larger scale. But they're going to need some help from the Enterprise and a familiar face! Well, familiar if you watched the related "Short Trek", which was not possible in all regions...good job, Paramount.

Also this week: small space, tactical joke strike, and Enterprise aliens!

Timestamps: Sorrow: 00:32; The Blog: 52:10

Whole lotta prosthetics: Top 3 Star Trek Enterprise alien races

[sshbpodcast]

Top 3 Star Trek Enterprise alien races

By Ames

We’re concluding our spotlight series into Star Trek: Enterprise this week after previous forays discussing our favorite characters and villains. We’re rounding it out with the A Star to Steer Her By hosts’ favorite alien races from the show, some of whom we may even have discussed before in previous Trek shows. Cross reference our picks from TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager to see who else has come up before. It’s like an alien scavenger hunt!

Pretty much every time that we meet an alien race in Enterprise is a first contact situation because of the prequel nature of the show. Some of them are filling in backstory for what will become franchise staples later in the show chronology, and some are brand new and never call us back again (it was probably something Archer said). So grab your universal translator—or Hoshi if she’s available—and get ready to meet some new friends and enemies listed below and discussed in this week’s podcast episode (jump to 52:10). Please to meet ya!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Ames – Don your human costume

Symbiotic lifeform

Wraiths

Wisps

I really appreciate an alien lifeform that is truly alien in concept and design, and Enterprise is shockingly full of them. And even though none of my picks are humanoid in any way, they all end up communicating through human mouths at some point or other. The goopy lifeform from “Vox Sola” ends up mentally linked to whoever it touches; the sluggy being from “Rogue Planet” takes on the form of a woman from Archer’s memories; and the incorporeal entities from “The Crossing” possess the Enterprise crew and determine they really like bread! Can relate!

—

Chris – No monocultures here

Suliban

Xindi

Aenar

There’s some really interesting worldbuilding going on with some of the alien societies Chris wanted to highlight, and it’s a shame that we don’t get more of them. The Suliban as a species are frankly fascinating, especially when we see in “Detained” that not all of them are into genetic enhancements like those in the Cabal are. Perhaps the most interesting element that Enterprise introduces is the concept of the different Xindi races who all evolved together on a planet teeming with drama. And who wouldn’t love the Aenar, an offshoot of the much beloved Andorians, who existed secretly under the ice this whole time!

—

Jake – Get to know us better

Vulcans

Andorians

Loque’eque

Jake’s picks mostly deepen the lore behind alien races we’ve known from the very start. Vulcans and Andorians have been major players in Star Trek since The Original Series, but we get so much more of their backstories explored in Enterprise and we appreciate it. Learning about their different sects, their occasionally illogical politics, and their really bitter hatred of each other make them more interesting when you know how far they’ll come. And let’s also show some love to the Loque’eque from “Extinction” who, like the Kataan natives from “The Inner Light,” threw a real Hail Mary pass when their species was about to die out.

—

Caitlin – Star Trek says Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Xindi

Aenar

Denobulans

Happy Pride Month, y’all! Caitlin’s Enterprise alien picks put some of the foundational values of Star Trek on display by including some underrepresented minority groups. The Xindi are all about diversity in their society that is literally made up of all of their subsets but who all get representation on their council (even if they spend most of their time fighting). The show also introduces the Aenar, a race of blind, light blue Andorians, and brings them into the fold. And while we may not care for Phlox as a character all the time, the Denobulans’ matter-of-fact polygamy is so normalizing that Gene Roddenberry would be proud… and a little turned on.

—

That’s it from Enterprise for now! Let’s go back to pretending this series doesn’t exist until the next time we have a blog series that drags it back into the forefront. We’ve got more important things to do right now, like finish up the second season of Star Trek: Discovery on the podcast, where you’re no doubt following along on SoundCloud or wherever you listen. Keep an eye out here for our season wrap post, sit around the council table with us over on Facebook and Bluesky, and pass the bread!

[sshbpodcast]

Episode 396: Field Trips!

DIS: "Through the Valley of Shadows"

The Klingon Soap Opera returns and Michael takes a merry jaunt across space in "Through the Valley of Shadows". Pike is seeking the rather mystical-sounding Time Crystal from a Klingon monastery that looks like it was plucked straight from Earth, while Burnham has gone rogue yet again in search of information on Control. And along the way they both encounter familiar faces that aren't at all familiar and could literally have been ANYONE else.

Also this week: Arthur Denting Pike, the nature of Leland, and Enterprise villains!

Timestamps: "Shadows": 01:37; ENT Heavies: 50:03

We promise it's not just John 12 times: Top 3 Star Trek Enterprise villains

[sshbpodcast]

Top 3 Star Trek Enterprise villains

By Ames

Now that we’re back in the swing of doing these series spotlight posts again, you surely know what’s next! We’ve just covered our favorite minor or one-off characters from Star Trek: Enterprise, and now it’s time to turn our attention to our favorite villains from the series! You can also check out our favorite villain picks from TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager, because if there’s anything Star Trek excels at, it’s creating some really unique and interesting baddies.

And then there’s Enterprise, which the hosts here at A Star to Steer Her By have definitely found to be the weakest of the bunch, and that seems to extend to their villains as well. While we do have some pretty fun villains to highlight below, the bench was definitely not as deep as it was with other series. Many were badly written or were generic bad guys or had no motivation to speak of. As you’ll see, others were characters whom the writers probably didn’t intend to be so morally bankrupt but whom we found villainous anyway. So who’s left after all that? Scroll on below and listen to this week’s episode (jump to 50:03) in which we disagree a whole lot on what makes a villain good, bad, or at all interesting. Mwahahaha!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Caitlin – Villains of their own stories

Daniels

Phlox

Archer

Caitlin went a different way with her villains. We are supposed to side with these characters as the heroes of the show, but they do such an abysmal job at it that many episodes of Enterprise treat them like the villains of the week. We found ourselves enraged whenever that time-traveling pissant Daniels shows up to muck about for no reason. And we’ve written whole blog posts about how Phlox and Archer do horribly depraved things—torture, racism, more torture, and genocide to name a few—that the show really should punish them for but doesn’t.

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Chris – Can’t we all just get along?

Tarah

Degra

The Vissians

Shockingly, Chris didn’t pick Silik this week, but he got to cover him last week in our minor/recurring characters post, so it’s all good. But like Silik, Chris’s other favorite villains are all folks the Enterprise crew could easily have been friends with. From the Andorian spitfire whom we’ve loved in all her other roles, to the Xindi primate who started off as the architect of a superweapon but came around to do the right thing, to the race of oppressors whom Archer befriends despite their horrible treatment of a subsection of their own people.

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Jake – The abyss will gaze back into you

Colonel Grat

Arik Soong

Eska hunters

It was Nietze who said, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster,” and these are Trek characters who definitely become monsters. Jake has a tendency to pick villains with some level of complexity to them, from the Tandaran colonel whose hatred of the Suliban Cabal ends up extending to innocent Suliban as well, to the geneticist whose pursuit of perfection leads to him create a race of superior assholes, to the literal monster hunters who turn out not be hunting monsters at all.

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Ames – Trek alums turned bad

Arik Soong

Repair station

Trellium foreman

All of my villains are familiar faces (or voices) from other Trek series getting down with their bad selves. Brent Spiner is just a joy to watch as a hammy mad scientist… but ya know, a different hammy mad scientist than usual. Roxann Dawson, using only vocal work, makes the computer running the repair station in “Dead Stop” so creepy that it’s commendable. And Stephen McHattie, whom viewers might recognize as Vreenak from the DS9 episode “In the Pale Moonlight,” is the grossest, ickiest, most self-serving being we’ve seen in a while!

It also doesn’t hurt that two of these three featured in my Enterprise fanfic, which you can find here!

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When the actual main characters of the show are worse people than the ones trying to destroy humanity, then something’s gone wrong. We’ve got one more Enterprise spotlight, so join us when we determine who our favorite alien races are from the show! We’re also nearly through season two of Discovery on the podcast, and you can make sure you’re watching along and listening to us on SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also practice your diabolic laugh with us over on Facebook and BlueSky, and stop gazing at that abyss!