THE GORN ULTIMATUM. All big swings must come to an end, and Strange New Worlds doesn't disappoint with its second season finale. There's a major set piece that competes with the best that Star Trek has ever done. Big emotions! Big decisions... and Scotty ? It's also Trek, Marry, Kill 's second season finale AND 100th episode. We've got a lot of people to thank for joining the show this season. The grades begin at (16:38). We'll be back in September with new episodes. Don't forget to check out ou...
Jul 30, 2024•1 hr 24 min•Season 2Ep. 64
OUTSIDE CONTEXT PROBLEMS. Ben Sisko just wants to hang out with his son in the Gamma Quadrant, but Quark wants to advertise his bar on the station monitors. Something's gotta give and it turns out the entire Star Trek format gets sacrificed to tell this story as the DS9 writers looked to differentiate their show from TNG -- and boy do they! Is the destruction of a Galaxy-class starship a traumatic moment in Bryan's life? Does the introduction of The Dominion equal Strange New Worlds' take on the...
Jul 30, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 63
MAKE IT SONG! Strange New Worlds breaks the TV mold by doing their musical episode early in the show's run rather than later. There's lots of singing but very little dancing. Bryan has a theory as to why. But more importantly, this week's special guests joining Bryan and Kristen have theories of their own about why this episode works so well and also why there are a few small pockets of the hour where it works less well. Becca is a Grammy Award-winning musician who breaks down the vocals. Bill i...
Jul 23, 2024•1 hr 55 min•Season 2Ep. 62
THE VILE FRONTIER. The elites are at it again! Kirk & Spock are tortured for the amusement of a bunch of blue-blooded assholes in order to compel Dr. McCoy to give up his Starfleet commission and become their personal physician. It's The Original Series most notable examination of class warfare that resonates to this very day! It also features singing and dancing loooooong before "Subspace Rhapsody" AND one of the first interracial kisses on television, though it's not as historic as it was ...
Jul 16, 2024•1 hr 22 min•Season 2Ep. 61
INFINITE VELOCITY = INFINITE REGRETS. Bryan is joined by author Tom Salinsky whose book, Star Trek: Discovering the TV Series: The Original Series, The Animated Series and The Next Generation , releases on July 30th. He committed himself to a daily journey of Star Trek and catalogued his findings all for your reading pleasure. But what did he think of one of the weirdest, wildest swings in the history of Star Trek ? When Tom Paris achieves Warp 10, he begins to evolve into a real headache for th...
Jul 09, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 2Ep. 60
WHO'S THE DEVIL? A straight down the middle episode from the original series has Bryan and his guests pondering what really stands out about this adventure where the crew must overpower an alien serpent statue that has taken away all humanly pleasures from the humanoids it has tasked with fueling it for centuries on end. Breaking the chains of Vaal's control is an anxious Captain Kirk and a horny Ensign Chekov with his girlfriend (?) Yeoman Landon. There's some damseling, some ass-kicking, and a...
Jul 02, 2024•1 hr 27 min•Season 2Ep. 59
ANOTHER HORRIFIC SECRET harbored by Dr. M'Benga compels another member of the Enterprise crew to aid in a coverup. This time around, it's not M'Benga's family matters, it's his war record. Turns out, he was The Winter Soldier during the Klingon-Federation War and the arrival of a Klingon defector turned Federation ambassador has dredged up some ugly memories. Does this one earn its shocking twist and merit a place in the top tier of Star Trek's canon? Bryan and Kristen decide! The grades begin a...
Jun 25, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 58
RAPID AGING SUCKS. Well, that's one of the main lessons of this episode where Dr. Pulaski is exposed to a virus that makes its victims age rapidly. Meanwhile, Bryan and Kristen explore the IMDb of one of the guest cast, wonder who lines up to get Diana Muldaur's autograph (when she used to attend conventions), and discuss how the high res conversion of the season two episodes actively disrupts the viewing experience by calling attention to smaller details that otherwise would've been ignored and...
Jun 18, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 57
COMPUTER, END PROGRAM? Boimler & Mariner board the Enterprise , only it's not the Enterprise they usually mean when they talk about "those old scientists." It's Pike's ship -- does that change the vibe? Does Strange New Worlds successfully pull off its latest "big swing," the TV crossover? Katie Hampton from her Napping Through Happy Hour Podcast returns. The grades begin at (22:47).
Jun 11, 2024•1 hr 28 min•Season 2Ep. 56
TOO MUCH FUN. The Defiant is orbed back in time to the teaser of "The Trouble with Tribbles" on the occasion of the Star Trek franchise's 30th anniversary. Bryan and Kristen dig in to an earlier crossover that featured extravagant technology to accomplish the task. Does this time capsule of Forrest Gump-inspired technology and Back to the Future- level grandfather paradoxes still hold up? More importantly, is it a BIG SWING that connects? The grades begin at (27:01)....
Jun 04, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Season 2Ep. 55
GENE RODDENBERRY'S MISOGYNY. Apparently, women couldn't be Star Trek captains all along. In a season that began with "Spock's Brain," wherein we discovered that Gene Roddenberry (and Gene L. Coon) had a chip on his shoulder about beautiful women preferring handsome men in their prime the season -- and series -- ends with a similar diatribe from Roddenberry's mind. This time, women want the same positions men have, only, they don't have the constitution to handle the job! It's a silly notion fois...
Jun 03, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Season 2Ep. 54
UHURA HAS VISIONS and none of them are good. Will she be able to figure out the source before she loses her mind? Helping her through all this is Lt. James T. Kirk who is aboard the Enterprise for reasons, one of which is to eventually meet Spock. Is it an historic moment? Shereese Alexander was on our episode about Voyager 's "Drone" and returns to comment on her very first episode of Strange New Worlds while also celebrating the end of The TNG Podcast , which looked at every episode of TNG, as...
May 28, 2024•1 hr 30 min•Season 2Ep. 53
BEYOND THE VACUOLE. Ensign Eager himself, Harry Kim, winds up in another dimension or on another planet after a transporter malfunction sends him through a subspace vacuole. He arrives in a world that thinks he's visiting them from their afterlife, which is no heavenly place at all it would seem -- thanks to him being unable to keep his big mouth shut. Returning to discuss Brannon Braga's big swing at exploring life & death on Star Trek is Marina Kravchuk (@drakkorex) from Daily Star Trek Ne...
May 21, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Season 2Ep. 52
WELCOME HOME, RO? Michelle Forbes returns to Star Trek: The Next Generation just before the series finale and 30 years later Bryan finally understands just exactly how tragic this episode's ending is, resonating all the way until Star Trek: Picard 's "Imposters." Joining him to sift through 30 years' worth of opinion about Captain Picard is actor-producer Samantha Gregory, who has co-founded a women-led production company Sam Hill Productions (samhillproductions.com and sam__hill__productions on...
May 14, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 2Ep. 51
ONE FINAL ADVENTURE inside the holodeck is what the writers had in mind for the antepenultimate episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation . Is it a big swing that connects? Joining Bryan to render a final verdict is TV reviewer Diana Keng (@diana4tv), who wrote hundreds of Star Trek reviews for TV Fanatic, but now provides her talents to another of outlets. Does the 30th anniversary of this episode's premiere make the hosts nostalgic or has time allowed them to more soberly assess one of the las...
May 07, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 50
NICE SHOT, da VINCI! Our animated spotlight for this season of Trek Marry Kill concludes with the final two episodes of Lower Decks ' first season, and joining Bryan to discuss is Katie Hampton, who appears in Jerry Seinfeld's Netflix movie, Unfrosted , which debuts May 3rd, 2024. The penultimate episode might very well be the ultimate holodeck adventure as Mariner reprograms Boimler's sucking up to the Captain simulation into an exciting Star Trek- themed action movie called Crisis Point: The R...
May 01, 2024•1 hr 59 min•Season 2Ep. 49
SPOCK BECOMES HUMAN after a shuttle accident at the mouth of an interdimensional vortex places his broken body in front of a group of energy beings patterned after Amazon customer service chatbots. It only gets worse for our favorite Vulcan when the in-laws drop in to complete a sacred Vulcan tea ceremony. Can his mother help him tap into his human side in time to lie his way through it? Will any of this story make sense? Bryan and Kristen are highly skeptical! Does this big swing connect? The g...
Apr 30, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Season 2Ep. 48
MY FAIR SEVEN. The Doctor sticks his photons into Seven of Nine's interest in procuring a man to "date," and little does he know that his programming has made him vulnerable to the feminine wiles of Seven of Nine, who is completely clueless about how humans date. Kristen returns to discuss the "Seven is horny" episode which features a complimentary B-plot featuring the hilarious Scott Thompson from comedy group Kids in the Hall . The grades begin at (24:26).
Apr 23, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Season 2Ep. 47
A LOVE STORY? When Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Commissioner Nancy Hedford discover Zefram Cochrane is both still alive and under the influence of an electrical cloud that has fallen in love with him, it's just the setup for perhaps the deepest exploration of love in Star Trek history. Joining Bryan to discuss this BIG SWING from 1967 is Laurie Ulster from TrekMovie.com. Can she and Bryan agree on a final grade for this one? Two podcast episodes to check out which Bryan references in the episode: 1) ...
Apr 16, 2024•1 hr 30 min•Season 2Ep. 46
OFF THE SCALE! The Enterprise is thrown to the edge of the universe in one of the biggest swings Star Trek has ever taken. Joining Bryan to discuss this important early episode of TNG where Captain Picard talks to his dead mother and when Wesley Crusher meets the Traveler, are Mark Farinas & Ryan T. Riddle from the Ship Full of Jerks Podcast . They're here not only to judge the quality of this season 1 episode but also to extol the virtues of TNG-Season 1 overall. Better than you remember or...
Apr 09, 2024•1 hr 18 min•Season 2Ep. 45
BOIM US UP! This month's animated spotlight looks at the highs and lows of being a lower decker as well as the highs and lows of Star Trek stories told via animation. Joining Bryan to discuss are two animation veterans: Cassie has written for multiple animated series and hosts a podcast that spotlights women & nonbinary talent in animation called The Ink & Paint Folk Podcast. Their partner Matt is a CG artist who's worked on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spi...
Apr 02, 2024•1 hr 36 min•Season 2Ep. 44
SCOTTY GETS DRUNK with a Kelvan and Star Trek fans are given a scene to enjoy forever. Does the rest of the episode rise to the occasion or is there a "just play the hits" quality to it? It's Trek Marry Kill's 79th episode, and so it seemed only fitting to do an episode of TOS. The Enterprise is once again taken over by superior beings and once again it's up to Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty to figure out how to take down "gods." This time, the gods don't want to test humanity or watch them toil...
Apr 01, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Season 2Ep. 43
ANSON MOUNT'S RETURN from paternity leave thrusts Captain Pike into an adventure where he loses his memory and becomes... the darkness that's been inside him all along? And it's because an asteroid crashed on a planet thousands of years ago? Huh? This week, Bryan is joined by Michael Baumann of the cycling blog Wheelysports and the baseball blog FanGraphs to sort out a greatest hits-type of story. Michael has a great theory about how every Star Trek series has a captain who is a different type o...
Mar 26, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Season 2Ep. 42
GATES MCFADDEN DIRECTS one of the biggest swings in the history of the Star Trek franchise: the crew de-evolves! How did the Dancing Doctor's perspective improve the episode and is her directorial debut a classic? Joining Bryan this week is actor-writer-producer-director Heidi Cox , creator of the web series "Stalking LeVar" and co-founder of Dweeb Darlings (@DweebDarlings on social), a media company promoting balance in the industry for women driven content from women creators. Not only was thi...
Mar 19, 2024•57 min•Season 2Ep. 41
MASAKA IS SLEEPY! Writer-Director-Actor Thomas Tulak joins Bryan to discuss one of the most extreme examples of writing, directing, and acting in all of Star Trek history. Is Brent Spiner up to the task of playing multiple characters from an entire civilization? Is Patrick Stewart sleepwalking through his performance or does he manage to act just enough in this one to not be shown up by the 12 errant palm fronds production brought in to decorate the Enterprise sets after the ship starts to trans...
Mar 12, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Season 2Ep. 40
PARTY OF LINCOLN! We continue to look at Star Trek's BIG SWINGS with the episode where literally Abraham Lincoln beams aboard the Enterprise. It's a classic Star Trek story that includes wacky 1960s predictions about the future, alien gods pitting our crew against the forces of evil itself for their own amusement, and some really unsubtle Kirk-Spock slashfic material. Joining Bryan this week is returning guest Andrew Bloom (@TheAndrewBlog and andrewbloom.substack.com). Will they Trek, Marry, or ...
Mar 05, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Season 2Ep. 39
COOL OR FOOL? In the this month's animated spotlight, Bryan and Katie Hampton from the Napping Through Happy Hour podcast take a look at two Lower Decks episodes that firmly push the freshman series in its own direction. In the first, Mariner suspects that Boimler's long distance girlfriend is a parasite. In the second, Tim Robinson screams his way through some shenanigans. Are they Treks, Marrys, or Kills? If you want to jump to "Terminal Provocations," the grades begin at (39:50)....
Mar 01, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Season 2Ep. 38
CAMP OR CLASSIC? The Emmy-winning and New York Times-bestselling writer Joshua Pruett returns to walk Bryan through the high camp of one of Star Trek: Voyager's most tragic episodes in which the crew discovers that they are merely mimic goo that's now disintegrating because of an enhanced warp drive. Did Bryan Fuller and Nick Sagan have higher aims or were they locked into a nihilistic ending? And just how many members of the cast were in on the joke of playing up the ridiculousness of turning i...
Feb 27, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Season 2Ep. 37
LOKI MEETS TWILIGHT? Bryan and Kristen kick off a new theme series: BIG SWINGS. And, folks, Star Trek is committed to the big swing. This time out sees La'an teaming up with an alternate reality Captain Kirk to travel back in time to 21st century Earth for reasons. Does the episode reveal something new about La'an? Does it give us a new side of Kirk even if only through the lens of an alternate reality figure? Or is it all too safe and pat? The grades start at (17:35).
Feb 20, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Season 2Ep. 36
SOME MALE BONDING is all the crew behind Star Trek: Enterprise needed to get excited again about their show late in the first season. This bottle episode that was largely a two-hander wound up bonding actors Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating IRL. Does this one evoke the adventure and progressivism that are the hallmarks of Trek , or does it tend to scratch the itch of its corporate masters who want a more conventional network TV show? Joining Bryan to discuss another episode in TMK's Two Hande...
Feb 13, 2024•51 min•Season 2Ep. 35
