Star Wars Big Board: Now featuring The Mandalorian and Grogu!
The A Star to Steer Her By hosts just went to the cinema to see the brand new Star Wars flick: The Mandalorian and Grogu, and that means one thing: We have to update The Big Boardâą!
You saw it last when we covered a whole bunch of Star Wars movies on the podcast and each host ranked all 11 of the main live-action films (with bonus rankings from guest star James Rossi!). This week, we're sticky-noting a 12th film into the lists as lazily as possible. You can spot where each of us shoved Mando in the light blue stickies above, and listen to our full podcast coverage of the new movie in this week's podcast episode. This is the way.
Here's where everything landed:
Amesâs ranking:
#11:Â Episode II: Attack of the Clones
#10:Â Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
#9:Â Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
#8:Â Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
#7:Â Solo: A Star Wars Story
#6:Â Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
INSERT MANDO HERE!
#5:Â Episode I: The Phantom Menace
#4:Â Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
#3:Â Episode VII: The Force Awakens
#2:Â Episode IV: A New Hope
#1:Â Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Caitlinâs ranking:Â
#11:Â Episode II: Attack of the Clones
#10:Â Episode I: The Phantom Menace
#9:Â Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
#8:Â Solo: A Star Wars Story
#7:Â Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
#6:Â Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
#5:Â Episode VII: The Force Awakens
#4:Â Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
INSERT MANDO HERE!
#3:Â Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
#2:Â Episode IV: A New Hope
#1:Â Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Chrisâs ranking:
#11:Â Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
#10:Â Episode II: Attack of the Clones
#9:Â Episode I: The Phantom Menace
#8:Â Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith
#7:Â Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
#6:Â Solo: A Star Wars Story
INSERT MANDO HERE!
#5:Â Episode VII: The Force Awakens (Chris changed this one live on air!)
#4:Â Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
#3:Â Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
#2:Â Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
#1:Â Episode IV: A New Hope
Jakeâs ranking:
#11:Â Episode II: Attack of the Clones
#10:Â Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
#9:Â Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith
#8:Â Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
#7:Â Episode I: The Phantom Menace
#6:Â Solo: A Star Wars Story
INSERT MANDO HERE!
#5:Â Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
#4:Â Episode VII: The Force Awakens
#3:Â Episode IV: A New Hope
#2:Â Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
#1:Â Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Weâre back to our Keanussance adventure next week, and then more Star Trek after that, so be sure to keep listening to new episodes every Thursday on SoundCloud, follow us on Facebook and Bluesky, and may the Force be with you. Always.
Shore Leave - Keanussance 03: Bill & Ted's Delayed Threequel
Bill & Ted Face the Music
Well, it took a lot longer than the writers hoped, but a third Bill & Ted finally graced our screens in 2020! With most of the world locked indoors, maybe all we really needed was a film with a simple message lacking in any cynicism. After your hosts' cool reception to Bogus Journey last week, did the more straightforward Bill & Ted Face the Music resonate with us? Listen and find out!
Also this week: many side plots, the mystery of Cudi, and oddly touching moments!
Shore Leave - Keanussance 02: Bill & Ted's Underwhelming Sequel
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
Next stop on our Shore Leave jaunt is Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey and what can we say but: at least William Sadler is a delight. Your stalwarts find themselves a bit underwhelmed by this odd sequel, which maybe was a little TOO different from its predecessor. Something is just missing this time around, and no amount of weird robots or caked-up Martians can fix it.
Also this week: sequel issues, more film trauma for little Chris, and forgetting their own rules.
Shore Leave - Keanussance 01: Cleverly-Seeded Time Frippery
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
We're taking one of our patented Shore Leave breaks before the next leg of Trek, and this time we're going over some choice cuts of the career of Keanu Reeves! So we're starting where you know we have to: Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure! It's a classic tale of two well-meaning dopes trying to pass history with the help of time travel so that they can be the foundation of a utopian future!
Also this week: a very smart dumb movie, some poorly-aged things, and alternate Rufuses (Rufae?)
Timestamps: B&TEA: 02:58
Related blog post: Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey, and sometimes both
This week we're looking at arguably the reason the reprehensible Section 31 exists: the excellent Everything Everywhere All At Once! In a movie that turns the Chosen One narrative on its head, Michelle Yeoh plays Evelyn, who is the best hope for the multiverse because she is the worst version of herself. Come along for a story of generational trauma, nihilism, kindness, and the simplest little things actually being set-ups for something much more vital.
Also this week: shockingly low-budget, director jump-scare, and a language tangent!
Timestamps: EEAAO: 1:27
Classic Blog, Alternate Timelines: Through more and more looking-glasses
Brace yourself for Section 31, the abysmal Star Trek movie that's a mashup of all the worst ideas from your favorite franchises and none of the good ones! Despite the universe seeming to not want it to happen, what had once been planned as a Shazad Latifâled spy series instead became a Michelle Yeoh heist vehicle. Brace yourself for samey, quippy dialogue, unlikable characters, and the most obvious "twists" you've ever seen!
Also this week: ruining Rachel, nostalgia sickness, and being critical of criticism!
We've come to the end of the beginning of the Trek streaming era with "Life, Itself". Unfortunately, it's all a bit underwhelming. We've got a pointless space battle, a mall-looking ancient temple/lab/whatever, and an ultimate puzzle that a five year old could crack. There's also a stupid, stupid, stupid reveal and an idiotic epilogue.
Also this week: unexpected Titanic, poster profundity, and wrapping Discovery!
Weâve finally closed out all of Star Trek: Discovery, to some of the A Star to Steer Her By hostsâ chagrin and to othersâ relief. Guess whoâs who. The franchiseâs first foray into streaming television, seriously serialized storytelling, and a much more modern era in television makingâhow often did we remark that we could tell they were filming on the volume?âcame with a lot of formidable elements and also a lot of stumbling points.
So weâre looking back on each seasonâs overall unit and doing what plenty of other reviewers have done: ranking them! And weâre honestly surprised by how some of us thought alike in some ways and actually not that differently in others. Read on below and listen to this weekâs podcast episode (spore jump over to 1:29:48) for our final thoughts on each season as we compare and contrast their pacing, their cohesion, and what Burnhamâs arc was (if anything). For one last time, letâs fly.
Discovery Season 1: Our best first season since TOS?
Ames, Caitlin, Chris, AND Jakeâs #1 â A full sweep!
Iâm as shocked as anyone that literally ALL of the four SSHB hosts ranked season 1 as the best season of Discovery. The Klingon War plot is by no means perfect and its four-week diversion into the mirror universe wastes so much time that could have been spent depicting the actual war, but it definitely has some legs up over the other seasons. Namely, itâs possibly the only season in which Michael Burnham, the hero of the whole show, actually has a character arc, from climbing out of the disgrace of her ill-advised mutiny to seeing redemption for standing on Starfleet morals. After this season, Michael has nowhere else to really develop (itâs hard to develop when youâre already the Most Important Person in the Universe!) and becomes significantly less interesting for it.
â
Discovery Season 2: Mystery boxes all the way down
Ames, Caitlin, and Jakeâs #5; Chrisâs #3
Iâm much less surprised that 3 out of 4 of us placed the sloppy Red Angel season at the bottom. A lot of other reviewers out there put it at #1 because the overall story is structured the best (or maybe they just liked seeing legacy characters like Pike and Spock). But that doesnât make up for the fact that we very rarely had any idea the hell what was going on. The time travel plot is so complicated that if you were trying to follow along with this disjointed mess, you might end up bleeding from the ears. Chris ranks this one higher than the other hosts because he has stated that if you donât try to make sense of it, itâs a much more enjoyable watch. Which seems like a bad quality for a sci-fi show to have, so Iâm going to keep considering this one the worst! Yuck yuck!
â
Discovery Season 3: Do you have some aloe for that Burn?
Ames, Caitlin, Chris, AND Jakeâs #2 â Another sweep!
With our 23rd century seasons averaging to bookend as the best and worst of the show, that places all the 32nd century seasons squarely in the middle. Itâs yet again interesting that of these three, season 3 is unanimously the best. The Burn is just so interesting a concept (even if they badly needed to explore it more), and jumping to the future still feels like a breath of fresh air, especially after that convoluted chaos that was season 2. Opening up the universe a little bit and cutting the show free of the baggage of being a prequel are marks in this seasonâs favor. If it werenât for the really lackluster reveal of the cause of the Burn, this season would almost certainly have rocketed to the top of some of our rankings. You let us down, SuâKal! Feel bad!
â
Discovery Season 4: Shouldâve been a movie
Ames, Caitlin, and Chrisâs #4; Jakeâs #3
The whole Dark Matter Anomaly storyline might be the worst paced season out of a lot of other poorly paced Discovery seasons, which places it pretty low on most of our lists. Jake is slightly more positive because Species Ten-C are such cool aliens, but even they canât help it that much. We maintained in this seasonâs wrap up that stretching the plot across 13 episodes makes it really really drag, with so many episodes that feel like theyâre just treading water and waiting to get to the finale when something might actually happen. We wonder constantly if this whole plot could be condensed to a pretty decent movie, but then again, Section 31 exists (tune in next week because you donât want to miss our episode covering that monstrosity!), so maybe not.
â
Discovery Season 5: Lâak, Schlock, and Barrel
Ames and Caitlinâs #3; Chrisâs #5; Jakeâs #4
The most divisive season of all is the final season, which runs the gamut between third, fourth, AND fifth place among the A Star to Steer Her By hosts. We just released our season thoughts on this one, so itâs the freshest in our memories, and yeah, itâs definitely all over the place. While the Scavenger Hunt plot arguably makes this the best-paced season of the series (which definitely awards it some points), all the pieces donât really form a cohesive whole. Add to that some of the really awful tastes left in our mouths after the series finale, and almost all of the characters other than Michael having little to nothing to do (if they were even there at all!), and youâre left with an overall feeling of âmeh.â
â
Thatâs all from Discovery that isnât scrubbed from the official record by Section 31 or Kovich or Daniels or even the writers themselves. As teased, weâre knocking out the television movie Section 31 next week to fully complete the cycle, so make sure youâre listening along to the podcast on SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts because youâre not going to want to miss that. You can also rank the seasons with us over on Facebook and Bluesky, and prepare for one last black alert: Black Alert!
Weâve finally solved this seasonâs escape room puzzle and the answer was to throw the whole thing into an event horizon. Okay, thatâs not fair; thereâs plenty to like about the fifth and final season of Discovery and the A Star to Steer Her By hosts are here to tell you all the Highlights and Lowlights of our Scavenger Hunt season. Do we still love the Breen? Does Burnham save the galaxy? Does the bridge crew do literally anything? Weâve got it all here!
While weâre sad that the series came to a very unplanned and abrupt end, maybe thereâs a silver lining here because we must admit that we were getting less and less forgiving of some of the showâs faults. So scan along below and listen to our full discussion over on this weekâs podcast (solve the riddle at timestamp 1:01:34) to hear how Discovery closed things out. But first you have to solve a riddle, assemble a puzzle box, and break the Prime Directive for good measureâŠ
This season might have the best pacing of all of them, though thatâs not actually saying much because the other four seasons of Discovery all suffered from some really poor pacing. At least here, the scavenger hunt motif provided a framework that kept things moving along. Each clue leads to the next clue and so on, allowing the action to build so thereâs less wheel spinning, less dragging out the plot, and less boredom for viewers. Itâs hard to get bogged down in sidequests when each episode is its own sidequest, am I right?
The Breen change everything!
The Breen actually made my favorite alien races list from Deep Space Nine because theyâre so enigmatic and interesting. We got just enough of them to raise eyebrows. Here, theyâre expanded a little bit more to see their hierarchical structure, their bureaucratic practices, and their very intriguing dual faces! Making your villain race literally two-faced might be a bit on the nose, but I was digging it. Luckily, the short season also ends before they get too stale (for me at least; your mileage may vary), with one-dimensional characters like Primarch Ruhn and Lt. Arisar stinking up the place, but I can say by the end that Iâm still into these little green men.
Be cool, Honey Bunny
Our main Breen squeeze is the disgraced heir to the throne, Lâak, who makes up a large chunk of why Iâm still into our lime jelloâfaced friends. Itâs been a while since weâve had antagonist characters that weâve understood as well as him and his partner, Moll. Theyâre consistent from the off, the two of them have great chemistry (as we mentioned last week in our Romances post!), and their cunningness keeps us on our toes. Again, itâs a low bar to best unearned villains like Osyraa and Tarka from recent seasons, but these two are fun to watch when theyâre together. Maybe less so after Lâakâs death because Moll doesnât have much more depth than her relationship with him, and even her connection to Book doesnât go anywhere in particular, but when theyâre both alive, theyâre a lot of fun.
Captain Crabbypants
Callum Keith Rennie absolutely nails our no-nonsense, hip-shooting first officer Rayner this season. Heâs a captain who hasnât quite let go of the lawless chaos of the Burn era, which is an intriguing framework for a character, and watching him struggle in a slightly more organized Starfleet makes for a solid character journey. His style of leading parallels greatly with early seasons Burnham, so it only makes sense that the two of them come to form an understanding of each other⊠though it does come with some speedbumps that youâll see in the Lowlights.
We have Data at home
Is Fred just a memberberry when we meet him in âRed Directiveâ? Oh, almost certainly. But this Soong-type android is just so well performed by actor J. Adam Brown, who does a very passable Data impression that speaks to some great respect to franchise history. Meeting him makes an exception for how we donât usually fall for straight fan service because he is executed so well, is a solid concept for an android so old to be so quirky, and makes us really wish theyâd kept him around (the head should still function, after all!). Stay tuned to see what Jake does with him in our upcoming fanfic day.
Damn, this guy works out
I complain nearly every season that Wilson Cruz gets so little to do, and we finally get to see him stretch his legs in âJinaal.â It is a downright delight when the Bix symbiont zhiantaras into Culberâs body because the cocky spirit of this Trill injects some much-needed life into the show. And Cruz clearly embraces the opportunity to play such a big personality that contrasts wildly with the much more reserved doctor. Iâd say âYou only live once,â but thatâs not exactly how it works with the Trill.
Itâs just a jump to the left
Yâall know Iâm an easy mark for a time travel episode, so âFace the Strangeâ really appeals to me. Itâs a clever use of a temporal-jumping plot device that was reminiscent of other timey-wimey episodes like âBefore and After,â âShattered,â and âMagic to the Make the Sanest Man Go Madâ in execution. Sure, itâs well-trodden ground by this point, but sometimes you gotta play the greatest hits. Watching Burnham, Rayner, and Stamets using their cleverness to find the solution to their timebug problems satisfies that itch for competency porn that a lot of people get out of Star Trek.
Denobulans love meddling
Some of the ideas presented in âWhistlespeakâ (less so their execution, as youâll see) really impressed us as well. The society we meet on Halemâno is a nifty little race with a culture thatâs interestingâas itâs always nice to be reminded that Burnham is a xenoanthropologist and totally geeks out about this kind of stuff. And we also enjoyed seeing that the water tower tech that the Denobulan scientist placed there is ancient by the crewâs current era and yet would have actually been constructed after Discovery jumped to the future. Finally, the jump to the 32nd century feels fresh!
Bookâs in the library!
David Ajala was far and away one of the highlights of last season, and while we werenât terribly taken with his arc this time (trying to convince Moll to be his sister got old pretty fast), he still does nail things for the most part. His most touching scene comes in âLabyrinthsâ when the kooky librarian shows him a piece of the Kwejian World Root, possibly the last surviving vestige of his home planetâs culture. Weâre reminded of some of the stellarly acted grief we got after Kwejianâs destruction, and the emotions all come flooding back!
Road trip to Toronto
Speaking of the Eternal Gallery and Archive from âLabyrinths,â what a beautiful filming location, seamlessly incorporated into the action. We are very tempted to make a quick pilgrimage to Toronto to go check out the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library because it looks like such a stunning building, which still makes total sense for this otherworldly, labyrinthine library. Grab your library card, weâre going on a road trip!
With great power comes great responsibility
Iâve been saying since Kovich (that prick!) first sent the crew on the mission to find the Progenitorsâ tech, so itâs really nice to see Burnham totally agree with me: This shit is too powerful to be left in anyoneâs hands. It did take them a whole season to determine that, but better late than never. So I felt particular respect for Michael for throwing the tech into the event horizon where the Koviches of the world canât get to it! Take that, asshole!
The best part of waking up
We mentioned last week in our Romances post how Burnham and Book have such lovely chemistry together, so itâs an extra delight to see them thirty or so years down the road in the epilogue of the series in âLife, Itself,â still presented with their comfortable affection and trademark sass. You can see their rapport with their son Leto also speaks to a family full of love and support. It would have been a great ending scene to close out the show⊠but now we have to get to our season Lowlights for how that moment gets ruinedâŠ
â
Lowlights
MOTHER FUCKING DANIELS
The reveal in âLife, Itselfâ that Kovich is actually Agent Daniels nearly ruined the entire season (if not the whole series) for me, and itâs something weâve been biting our lips about since the episode first came out because we didnât want to spoil Caitlin. Why modern television is so obsessed with origin stories is beyond us because it always ends up feeling like tedious fanwank. Why include this reveal when the point of this whole season was embracing the mystery? Why retcon him to be Daniels other than for the reference of it all? It means nothing to Michael, whoâs never even heard that name before. The SSHB hosts here are in unusual agreement in loathing Daniels during Enterpriseâthat exposition-dumping bastardâso it felt like a personal insult to dredge him back up here. Not everything has to be a reference, writers! How dare.
Itâs a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
But wait, there are more memberberries to point at! This whole season was in service to TNGâs âThe Chase,â an episode that Jake in particular detests because of how clunkily and unnecessarily it answers the question no one was asking: âWhy are all the alien characters played by human actors?â So just reminding us that âThe Chaseâ exists in all its bad science and plot conveniences is groan-inducing enough, but then all the puzzles in the scavenger hunt have to have some hidden lesson spelled out for us to explore the theme of the season: Finding your meaning. And itâs all so stretchy I could scream.
The Most Important Person in the UniverseâąÂ
Weâve been joking on this podcast since before the Progenitor makes it literally canon that this show insists that Michael Burnham is such hot shit. Which, sure. Sheâs your main character AND a good captain AND a fictional character. Of course sheâs going to be hot shit. But to constantly praise her and have her be right all the time is overegging it. Hell, when she says in âLabyrinthsâ that her fatal flaw is her fear of failure, I donât even believe her because she hasnât failed at anything since season 1! And then the Progenitor basically grants her the most power in the galaxy when, frankly, all she had to do was solve a triangle puzzle for babies.
Who micromanages the manager?
Last season we expressed some justified criticism toward Tarka, the character we are told we shouldnât like even though he seems no worse than Stamets most of the time. Do they handle Rayner any better? We already said the acting is good, and the concept of his character is better, but something about him still makes me roll my eyes, and that something is how the rest of the crew treats him like itâs his first day in Starfleet. Tilly in particular is uncharacteristically intolerant, especially in âJinaalâ when she spends the whole episode demanding he conform with the ethos of extreme friendship that Discovery extols and then lambasting him when he doesnât do it her way. It makes Tilly sound like a bitch and Rayner sound like an asshole, all telegraphed so poorly that I can see the writing seams.
Not-so-magic mushrooms
Despite having much better pacing this season, as we mentioned above, it comes at the cost of letting any of the other characters attain full arcs. Stamets in particular feels entirely untethered. We learn early on that spore drive research has been shut down and Paul takes it very personally. But this idea goes nowhere and all we get are occasional scenes of him frantically obsessed with Progenitor techâespecially in âErigahâ when he forces both Tilly and Book to solve the library card clue despite being surrounded by Breenâand his perceived loss of legacy. Except, dude, you still have a ship with a spore drive. No one took Discovery from you. We get lip service to his plot of accepting this, but it was all so uninteresting and that I kept forgetting he even existed because he doesnât actually do anything.
The Born-again Born Again
Ever since he came back from the dead in season two, Iâve been repeating, âPlease do something with Hugh,â into the void, and now that he sort of does something, my response is, âNo, not that.â Trek is riddled with characters whoâve come back from the dead, and we finally have a show serial enough to actually explore what that does to a person. But Discovery spends several seasons just randomly reminding us that Culber has trauma once in a while, all to culminate with his magical prophecy moment in âLife, Itselfâ that lands like a wet fart. This is what weâve been building to for literal years? Talk about an anticlimax.
Breaking up is hard to do
Even more anticlimactic is what the writers do to Adira and Gray, which weâve also been complaining about since their introduction in season three and even more in season four. And somehow this is the worst yet for both of them. The concepts of these characters have so much potential that just gets squandered. Does Adira even have the Trill symbiont anymore? No one knows because it never comes up when it could be useful for them to have a background in anything, but instead we get things like Reno in âErigahâ being picked at random to have knowledge on smuggling? Gray draws the shortest stick of the season, only showing up in one episode, âJinaal,â to break up with Adira and then never be heard from again! This is another character who came back to life from the dead and somehow has nothing to do! Itâs infuriating.
Too little Saru
Our resident Kelpien has made our Highlights section of every single Discovery season⊠until now. And itâs all because thereâs suddenly just so little of him and the whole season suffers for it. Doug Jones was evidently too busy promoting Hocus Pocus 2, which seems like an unusual prioritization to us. And even when we do get him in âJinaal,â Saruâs just acting out simp boyfriend tropes. By the time he reemerges in âLife, Itselfâ to pull a Corbomite Maneuver, weâve forgotten all about him altogether. We love Doug Jones, and we love Saru/TâRina together, and if theyâd known this was the last weâd get of him, maybe theyâd have planned better.
The magical disappearing bridge crew!
Saru isnât the only crewmember we donât get to see for most of the season. It feels like every season, weâve been critical of how the tertiary bridge crew characters were handled, and now theyâre all just plain gone! Except Rhys, who is the last one standing somehow. But every time they mention in a throwaway line that Owo and Detmer are elsewhere, it just draws attention to how scheduling conflicts decimated the characters we had grown acclimated to at least seeing. When itâs hugs all around in âLife, Itself,â we were more aware that this little family had just been absent instead of feeling like this was their culmination.
Give a little whistle
We may have praised âWhistlespeakâ in particular in the Highlights above, but like with the whole Burn season, thatâs why its failure to execute aggravated us so much. We love a Prime Directive debate here on the podcast, and this episode railroads right over it by just suddenly having Michael save the day and throw a race into tumult without anyone questioning it. But itâs also such a missed opportunity for the Halemânites to establish that they use their titular whistling to communicate from great distances⊠and then no one uses the whistling again in the episode? Weâre leaving Chekhovâs whistles all over the place here!
Math doesnât lie!
People give Voyager a lot of flak for its absurd technobabble, but this season of Discovery makes Torres and her Delta Quadrant pals sound coherent by comparison. The incomprehensible science pingpong is the worst it has EVER been. Having Stamets and Tilly and Adira finishing each otherâs sentences with made-up sci-fi vocabulary is supposed to make them sound like a well-oiled team, but actually makes them sound like theyâre pointing out pawprints in Blueâs Clues. Itâs just juvenile! When Reno pats them on the back for technobabbling in sync in âLabyrinths,â I headdesked straight through a table.
The final bad taste in your mouth
Finally, the epilogue that was added to âLife, Itselfâ when it was learned the show wasnât renewed ends up detracting not just from the season, but from all of Discovery. Zora just plain stopped being a character in season five (like so many others did as well), but the showrunners felt a need to connect her arc with the Short Trek âCalypsoâ and it tarnishes both. Weâve already complained about relying on the audience having seen the Short Treks and the wonderful âCalypsoâ had mostly escaped that. Until now. Seeing Burnham knowingly sending a sentient lifeform to wait for a thousand years in solitary confinementâletâs call it what it is: tortureâmakes her seem like a monster. What a terrible note to end on.
â
How does season five compare to the rest of Discovery? Now that weâre wrapped, you can check out our season rankings!
â
And that closes out Star Trek Discovery. Well, almost. Weâre going to use this opportunity to segue right into the truly infamous Section 31 streaming movie and you sure as hell donât want to miss that. So keep listening along to the podcast on SoundCloud or wherever you listen. You can also shout technobabble in unison with us over on Facebook and Bluesky. And maybe donât add epilogues to your finales when they ruin the whole show.
It's "Lagrange Point", the penultimate episode of the final Discovery season! And we're heating things up with a heist! The Breen have gotten their hands on some kind of garbage bin/TARDIS hidden between two black holes, and Burnham and her crack team have to get it back! On the ship, Rayner gets judged for his command style, while back at Fed HQ, Saru decides to volunteer for a dangerous mission.
Also this week: math is like hips, the Poltergeist gambit, and our most recent Trek romances!
Timestamps: Lagrange: 00:56; non-canon and streaming smooches: 45:46
What do you NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED?!: Hearts, Stars, and Trek: Romances in the Kelvin films and Discovery
Hearts, Stars, and Trek: Romances in the Kelvin films and Discovery
By Ames
The candles are nearly out as our Trek date night is finally coming to an end, for now. Over the last couple of months, weâve covered all the main romances in classic Trekâeven including some noncanonical character shipping last weekâand now weâve actually caught up to where weâre at in our full franchise watch-through. Itâs been a very passionate series and we hope you got your rocks off daydreaming about some of these relationships as much as we did
Thatâs right, itâs last call at the bar and the A Star to Steer Her By hosts are ready to call it a night. So get ready to kiss goodnight as we set our sights on the couples from Discovery, of which there are only a few that get explored at all. Oh, and the Kelvin movies too, just to get that out of the way. Make googoo eyes at them all below and listen to our full declarations of love over on this weekâs podcast episode (tango over to 45:46). Parting is such sweet sorrow.
Thereâs really only the one romance we see get developed in the Kelvin movies (weâre not bothering with Kirk and his green chick since that really only served to depict his character as a skirtchaserâthere, done), and thatâs Spock and Uhura. The relationship feels more like a testament from the writers that this is a new take on Trek. There was always a little light flirtation between the two in The Original Series, and weâre really not sure what weâre meant to think about them together other than, âOh, I guess they went there.â But we wonder how? Theyâre obviously supportive of each other, and Zoe Saldaña and Zachary Quinto are both very pretty, so itâs fine, I guess.
Paul Stamets x Hugh Culber
Moving on to Discovery, we start the series with Hugh and Paul as our preexisting status quo relationship. Without Hugh, Paul would probably be absolutely insufferable (read: more insufferable), so seeing how they balance each other is just so cute. What does Hugh get out of the relationship? Weâre still unsure since Paul is such a handful. But overall these two are just your benchmark standard couple who love each other and keep each other [relatively] sane. And if I have to even mention how phenomenal it is to see a gay relationship in Trek so normalized, then you havenât been listening to this podcast.
Harcourt Fenton x Stella Mudd
We get our customary little fanservice moment in âMagic to Make the Sanest Man Go Manâ when Stella turns up to collect Mudd. Thereâs a small spark of interest since the only thing we knew about Stella before this was through Muddâs very unreliable perspective in âI, Mudd,â and here you can see sheâs less shrewish and might actually love him? Or itâs a ruse and sheâs just a rich bitch who wants to make her daddy mad? Whoâs conning who? Itâs fairly open to interpretation since, as weâve discussed before, sheâs mostly just a memberberry.
Michael Burnham x Ash Tyler
Michaelâs first (and less interesting) love interest comes in season 1 with Ash Tyler. Or at least the closest approximation we get of Ash Tyler. Though they were definitely doomed from the start, we still enjoyed watching two very pretty people smashing their faces together, and it was nice getting to watch the then-conflicted Burnham loosen up a little bit. Would she have gotten on so well with a non-Klingon version of Ash? Who knows? Maybe that was kind of part of his steamy allure.
Gabriel Lorca x Katrina Cornwell
Speaking of people who arenât who theyâre presented as. Yikes. The real Lorca and Admiral Cornwell were probably a lot of fun together, as weâre shown that theyâre totally down for some casual sex to let off steam but it doesnât seem to be more serious than that. Which is all AOK. But she figures out somethingâs up with this Lorca after some sexytimes because heâs just a different person whoâs trying to manipulate her. She probably wouldnât have guessed that heâs from the mirror universe exactly, but then again, she probably doesnât watch Star Trek as much as we do.
LâRell x Voq
We were totally into LâRell and Voq in âThe Butcherâs Knife Cares Not for the Lambâs Cryâ when he was still, well, Voq. Through their love, they could change Qâonos! It gets more complicated when Voq has been transformed into Ash Tyler. The fact that the SSHB hosts still canât agree on how consensual their relationship was, as depicted, is problematic. When Ash is throwing the word âviolationâ around a lot in âPoint of Light,â we cringed. The surprise baby doesnât help either, as that basically sticks them together whether they like it or not. So weâre kinda conflicted on this one.
Michael Burnham x Cleveland Booker
The main course of this whole series is Burnham and Bookâs relationship. The chemistry between Sonequa Martin-Green and David Ajala is downright palpable. Itâs when sheâs with him that we see Burnham at her most comfortable, finally able to enjoy happiness and love. They quip together, they have inside jokes, they really feel like a true couple. Itâs also refreshing that there is actual complication between them when Book, ya know, tries to genocide Species TenC in season 4. As one does. But then seeing them as an older couple together in âLife, Itselfâ really warms the heart with how natural they are with each other. And hot. Also so hot.
Adira Tal x Gray Tal
Sadly, we were largely dissatisfied with a lot of how the Adira/Gray relationship was depicted, but thatâs been a problem with their writing from the start. Frankly, they were so much more interesting when Gray was stuck in Adiraâs head. We do get a lovely scene between the two when Gray gets a body in âChoose to Live,â but then itâs like the writers ran out of things for BOTH characters to do together, sending Gray back to Trill immediately after and then breaking them up in âJinaalâ (and Adira doesnât even seem onboard!). Their whole relationship arc feels like a wasted opportunity to tell literally any more stories with potentially interesting characters, not to mention characters of trans and nonbinary identities.
Ruon Tarka x Oros
We may not have liked the character of Tarka in season 4, but his scenes with Oros in âThe Galactic Barrierâ almost made up for it. Almost. Watching two total nerds hit it off in Tarkaâs flashbacks throughout the episode finally gave some much needed character motivation to the megalomaniac. We could absolutely see whatâs been driving Tarka all this time. His connection with cute little Oros is so pure and sweet that when it becomes clear that they will never see each other again, our hearts almost break. Again, almost.
Saru x TâRina
We gush about these two on the podcast all the dang time, but how can you not love Saru and TâRina? The SSHB podcast hosts arenât alone in pretty much declaring Saru as the best character in Discovery, and Doug Jones nails the tender and respectful affection he develops for the dignified Vulcan powerhouse. The two are cut from the same cloth: caring individuals who put their people over themselves at every opportunity. So it feels like a culmination when the two finally get happiness at the end of the series.
Moll x Lâak
Lastly, season 5 introduces us to Moll and Lâak, two thrill-seeking couriers who will do anything for each other. Their backstory in âMirrorsâ shows how powerful their bond is and how much they have to lose by running away together. There could have been a little more to Mollâs ultimate goal of finding her paradise planet that sort of got dropped, but what can you do? We also maintain and Moll and Lâak are definitely best when theyâre together. After Lâakâs death, Moll becomes less interesting and more one-note, only focused on getting him back⊠because heâs really the only interesting thing about her.
â
One day, weâll circle back around to romances in the newer series after weâve covered them on the podcast, so youâre just going to have to keep following if you want to get twitterpated all over again. Listen along for whenever that happens on SoundCloud or wherever you like listening to podcasts. You can also walk us to our door over on Facebook and Bluesky. Now, wanna come back to our place to Paramount+ and Chill?
Keep your voice down as we make our way to a Marvel-ish library in "Labyrinths"! The race is on to the final clue and Michael has to endure one of the more tedious Trek tropes: going into your own mind made of recycled sets! Meanwhile, Moll leads a coup to become Queen Breen!
Also this week: a very busy secret location, an obvious revolt, and shipping!
Over the past couple months, weâve been commenting on how relationships throughout Trek have worked (or more frequently, failed to work), but this week, weâre reading in between the lines! Star Trek has been a bastion of non-canonical shipping ever since Spock/Kirk launched the slashing phenomenon that is #Spirk. While we here at A Star to Steer Her By are more partial to Spock/McCoy (thereâs just so much romantic tension in âBread and Circusesâ and we can hardly stand it!), we also have a bunch more character pairings running amok in our imaginations that we have to share!
Are you #Garashir shippers? Do you like it nerdy like #DaForge? I know you #J7 shippers are out there championing the women of Voyager. Do you even keep it in the same franchise or are you that freaky? The SSHB hosts have got some couplings to our tastes that you can read about below and listen to this weekâs discussion on the podcast (jump to timestamp 41:00). All aboard!
Jake is thinking outside the box for his ships, so heâs pairing people who may or may not have even ever met, let alone been in the same show. But after talking about Winn Adami the other week and how her relationships with Jaro Esso and Anjohl Tennan were so self-serving that we loved it, Jake got to thinking what passive-aggressive, entertaining, evil energy a pairing with Weyoun would exude. For the comedy potential alone, we want to see what a Gomez/Barclay ship would look like. And these two are on different shows, but how conniving would Dukat/Sela be? Thatâs a romcom we want to watch because their sexy antics would be both hilarious and diabolical.
â
Chrisâs ships â Might as well be canon
Tom Riker x Kira Nerys
Garak x Julian Bashir
Keyla Detmer x Joann Owosekun
The pairings Chris called to mind all come with ample evidence already on the screen for how these pairings would work. Tom and Nerys already met in DS9âs âDefiantâ and there was definitely a spark there between these two vigilantes. If/when he gets out of the Cardassian mines, perhaps Tom could look her up. #Garashir is such a popular couple that Andy Robinson and Alexander Siddig have done dramatic readings of fanscripts centered on the two of them, not to mention that Lower Decks makes it as close to canon as it could get. And there are so many meaningful little glances between bridge buddies Detmer and Owo that the whole fandom has basically decided #Jola is already a thing.
â
Caitlinâs ships â Just hatefuck already
Damar x Weyoun
Quark x Odo
Q x Jean-Luc Picard
These couples would really capitalize on the copious tension between them. Youâre just waiting for their impassioned antagonism to flip over to desperate displays of lust. The Dominion may well have succeeded if Damar and Weyoun threw passion to the wind and just got it over with already. Also on Deep Space Nine, the chemistry between Odo and Quark is so strong and their antagonism toward each other is so well developed that you know there is real, substantive love between themâyou can see it in âWhat You Leave Behindâ when Odo departs and they refuse to say goodbye to each other. And you can tell Q singles out his favorite human, John Luck Pickerd, to bedevil because he certainly has a flirtatious little thing with him.
â
Amesâs ships â Iâll stop the world and melt with you
Seven of Nine x Ducane
Katherine Pulaski x Worf
Malcolm Reed x J. Hayes
Since I first saw âRelativity,â itâs been my head canon that Agent Ducane is secretly in love with Seven. Thereâs just something there in his gentle touch when briefing her on the mission, and it makes me wish the time-displaced version of our favorite Borg babe ran off with him to go fight temporal crime together. Call me, ParamountâI have a show for you. I also perked up at some legitimate sparks between Worf and Pulaski in the otherwise sloggy âUp the Long Ladder.â When a woman creates an antidote so she can participate in your poison-tea ritual, you keep that woman around. And like in any of Caitlinâs hate-turned-to-love examples above, I was just waiting for Reed and Hayes to stop punching each other in "Harbinger" and start making out. Just me? Surely not.
â
Well this ship has sailed. We have one more opportunity next week to talk about romances before we catch up with Discovery, so swipe right to keep up with our chatter here. Speaking of Discovery, make sure youâre following along with the podcast on SoundCloud (or any old podthinger) since weâre close to the end of the series and youâre not going to want to miss it! You can also talk ships with us over on Facebook and Bluesky. Drop anchor, mateys. Weâre coming in to port.
In "Erigah", we've caught up to our plucky bandits, and one of them is in a bad way. Worse still: uncle has come calling! Meanwhile, the B team is trying to get to the bottom of the latest clue. And in both cases, we have a Discovery superpower: sudden backstory out of nowhere! Turns out Rayner has a long history with the Breen, while Jett gets a Poe Dameron style upgrade! Would've been nice if any of this had been mentioned earlier...
Also this week: conclusion jumping, antagonist v. villain, and remaining side-love!
Timestamps: Erigah: 03:31; DS9/VOY/ENT minor romance: 58:33
D'blog: Hearts, Stars, and Trek: Other Trek Romances, part 2
Hearts, Stars, and Trek: Other Trek Romances, part 2
By Ames
Spring is here and you know what that means: constant sex metaphors. Weâre still in love with love here on A Star to Steer Her By, as weâre finishing off the series of the pre-streaming era with some winks across the bar. Last time in this series, we took a look at some of our favorite couples of minor and guest characters from TOS and TNG, so itâs only fair to go through the rolodex and make a couple booty calls to Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise to round this off.
Of these three series, the bulk of our list is going to come from DS9 because it has sooo many recurring characters whom we didnât include with our main character ships post. Dare I say, no other Trek series has quite so many characters and weâre still moderating the list a little bit to keep to a tolerable length. So spray yourself down with cologne, puff out your chest, and scroll on below and/or listen to this weekâs podcast episode (jump to timestamp 58:33) for all the smooth moves from the rest of classic Trek. Let the mating season begin!
The flirting between Nog and Sul (and Jake and Sul for that matter) from âThe Storytellerâ strikes a very similar tone to that between Wesley and Salia which we talked about last time. Both girls are extremely young leaders of their people who enjoy the distraction of some boy or other. The difference here is that Nog, who usually wouldnât pay any respect to a female, actually likes her enough to give her some salient advice instead of imposing Ferengi customs on her. But thatâs later in the list.
Winn Adami x Jaro Esso
This one is just fun to watch because Louise Fletcher owns every moment sheâs on screen. In the three-part arc âThe Homecoming,â âThe Circle,â and âThe Siege,â Vedek Winn positively sparkles with Jaro Esso because she is in her exact element: manipulating other people! The romance is a means to an end and she wholeheartedly throws the guy under the bus, jumps into the driverâs seat, and runs over him herself when she no longer needs him. Love âem and leave âem, Adami.
Jake Sisko x Mardah
Little Jake has a spattering of love interests throughout the series, starting off with Mardah the dabo girl, whom we actually see in the flesh in âThe Abandoned.â This one is uncomfortable because Ben clearly disapproves because of Mardahâs line of work (though itâs more likely a him projecting because he doesnât want his little boy to grow up), while the rest of us are skeezed out because she looks so much older than our baby Jake!Â
We checked: Jill Sayre was 18 (though Mardah was supposed to be 20) and Cirroc Lofton was 16 when this aired, but he looks so young in this episode that we were hella distracted!
Jake Sisko and Nogâs double date
This oneâs a twofer because you donât really have one without the other, for better or for worse. Nog insists on tagging along to Jakeâs date with Leanne in âLife Support,â but when theyâre out to eat, the Ferengi is nothing but rude and insensitive to his date, Riska. Itâs so unfortunate after we saw how he could act like a cognizant being around Varis Sul, but once some of the grosser Ferengi customs enter the picture, the clash is too much to accept.
Jake Sisko x Onaya
One more Jake relationship worth sharing, not because itâs good (itâs not) but because of the effect it has on his character. Onaya in âThe Museâ is just plain predatory and uses her vampiric powers to feed off of Jakeâs brain energy. Itâs icky and self serving, and not in the fun Winn Adami way. Jake deserves better than this.
Elim Garak x Tora ZiyalÂ
Speaking of characters deserving better. Like with the Neelix-Kes relationship in Voyager, weâre just not sure why the writers had to hook Garak and Ziyal up in âFor the Causeâ when the exact same dynamic could have been constructed as just friends. Both of them are looking for connections to their Cardassian culture, so it makes sense they would seek each other out. The problem is they have no chemistry and the whole pairing feels like Garak coming down with a raging case of the ânot-a-gays.â
Rom x Leeta
A lot of folks love the pairing when Rom and Leeta hook up in âDoctor Bashir, I Presumeâ because theyâre so authentic with each other. Rom seems like heâs entirely out of his league, but Leetaâs so supportive of him that itâs sweet. I do need to criticise some of the shittier things Rom does in their relationship in âFerengi Love Songsâ and âCall to Armsâ because he has no idea what heâs doing and also still trying to be a good little Ferengi, which is the exact opposite of how to be together with a Bajoran woman, but I covered those all before.
Ishka x Zek
We have more âFerengi Love Songsâ to sing, and what an appropriate episode title for our romances discussion. And yet the romance itself is probably the weirdest on this list. Zek has been established as the most misogynistic representative of Ferengi culture already, and yet he gets with the biggest feminist icon in possibly the whole show. How did that work? Is it just Ishka taking advantage of an increasingly senile old man to advance her politics? Letâs say yes.
Martok x Sirella
We talk all the time about how much we love the dynamic between Martok and Sirella despite how little we see of them together in âYou Are Cordially Invited.â They have one scene together and are only in the same frame for like a second, but you still get the impression that Martok absolutely worships the ground this Klingon powerhouse walks on and we can let our imaginations do the rest. Is it hot in here, or is it just them?
Winn Adami x Anjohl TennanÂ
One final example from Deep Space Nine, but itâs also the best one! Like in âThe Siegeâ with Esso, Winn is using her relationship with Anjohl in âThe Changing Face of Evilâ to pursue her own power, but itâs such successful dramatic irony that heâs the one playing her! It is a gift to the viewers to watch how Marc Alaimo and Louise Fletcherâs evilnesses compliment each other so well. Theyâre a TERRIBLE couple as characters, but they are absolutely perfect for the show. No notes.
Korenna Mirell x Dathan Alaris
Letâs move on to Voyager. I canât stop championing the entirely underrated episode âRemember,â in which Torres is reliving the romance between two Enaran youths. Itâs sorta âThe Inner Lightâ except that Torres has no control over what she experiences but gets to dream the bittersweet Romeo and Juliet relationship between Korenna and her luddite boyfriend Dathan and bear witness to the tragedy (and Korennaâs complicity) in his execution.
Q x Suzie Q
We love us some Suzie Plakson whenever she appears in Trek, and apparently so does Q! Her on-again-off-again relationship with everyoneâs favorite omnipotent pest has lasted literal eons by âThe Q and the Grey,â and we totally buy it because their chemistry sizzles. Finally, someone who is an equal to John de Lancieâs Qâhow refreshing! We hope they carry the Continuum as the power couple they truly are.
Henry Janeway x Shannon O'Donnell
Oh no! The worst romance of all time! We rail on â11:59â all the time because the relationship between Janewayâs ancestors is just so terrible. Henry Janeway is simply the most unlikeable character, and yet apparently weâre supposed to be rooting for their love? WHY? The two of them have exactly no chemistry. Henry is WAY too old for Shannon. They neither complement each other nor support each other. What could have fixed this other than starting over from page 1?
Mestral x Maggie
Finally, in Enterprise there are just a couple additional romances worth talking about. Mestral in âCarbon Creekâ already made my favorite minor characters from the series, and itâs entirely because his little flirtation with Maggie the owner of the Pine Tree tavern is just so earnest. Vulcans are notoriously hard to love, and yet his openness to new situations, his growing fondness for Earth culture, and his insistence on doing the right thing translate perfectly to his wanting to stay behind and be with her.
Malik x Persis
One more really toxic relationship, but not in the fun way of Winn x Dukat or something. All of Soongâs progeny in âThe Augmentsâ triple-parter are just awful people, and watching Malik manipulate Persis for three episodes straight is fully gross. Weâve shit on this whole YA drama before and how uninteresting it all is, but these two in particular have no chemistry and nothing going on except boring mind games. Next.
Shran x Talas
While we hate that Enterprise fridges Talas in âUnited,â we did love what we did see of her and Shran together! You get the impression that their violent Andorian customs really got put to good use, and their flirty energy was perfectly cute. Shame that most of the dynamics we see between them come as a result of her death and how it affects Shran, but thatâs all too typical for television.
â
Weâre nearly caught up with all our romantic pairings, so keep it here next week as we finally converge both blog topic and episode watch-along with Discovery! You can also listen along with the podcast on SoundCloud or wherever you catch your pods, catcall at us on Facebook and Bluesky, and curse the name of Henry Janeway from now until eternity.
It's that time again; the first season of a new Trek series has come and gone so we're going to do our general overview first impressions chat! How do we feel about Trek taking on the teen romance/drama genre? What do we think of our students, faculty, and Mudd-esque villain? Settle in before the bell and find out!
Also this week: Fishpower and cost-cutting, a huge cast, and the look and feel of SFA!
Timestamps: Series chat: 02:30; Aesthetics Chat: 1:28:15
Note: MAJOR Picard S.2 spoiler from 36:50-37:05; but honestly if you've not seen it we're saving you from a stupid, stupid, stupid reveal.
So shiny: Class is now in session: Starfleet Academy aesthetics
Class is now in session: Starfleet Academy aesthetics
By Ames
We recorded this weekâs episode AND I wrote this post before learning the series will be over after its second season, so the egg is all over my face. Anyway. Season 1 of the brand new Starfleet Academy is now wrapped so catch up if you havenât watched it yet. We wonât be spoiling anything here, but if you want to hear our general retrospective over on this weekâs podcast, that is CHOCKFUL of spoilers, so listeners beware. The whole of the discussion boils down to: Itâs far from perfect, but itâs worth a watch before itâs all over.
As weâve done before when we gave a broad overview of season 1 of Strange New Worlds, the A Star to Steer Her By hosts are taking this time to revisit some past blog topics concerning show aesthetics to catch the new show up. So if you were on the edge of your captainâs chair waiting to hear what we thought of the captainâs chair or the opening title sequence or those funky gym teacher uniforms, weâve got them all below! Scroll on for all the slides and listen to our school presentation on this weekâs episode while being wary that there ARE SPOILERS (jump to timestamp 1:28:15). And be ready: There may be a pop quiz.
You may remember one of our first blogtivities was mostly an excuse to nitpick about how well or poorly kerned the series title cards were. We got really pedantic about font weight and the length of swashes, so we donât need to do that again with SFAâs title card because itâs pretty much everything weâve already seen before. The screen glows to just a blank white background and you get the standard Star Trek branding with the series name in the original movie font. The swash on the Y at the end strikes us as a little unnatural, but we understand itâs mainly for symmetry.
Series Themes
The series theme is very familiar to us, which only makes sense because itâs another Jeff Russo. Jeff has had his hand in so many of the recent Trek series that heâs almost become a character on the shows himself. So the fact that we find it extremely similar to the first two seasonsâ Picard theme that weâve discussed before (plus a little bit of Iliaâs theme from The Motion Picture thrown in for good measure), it only makes sense. Itâs very pretty, with so many flourishes that it feels quite majestic, but it also definitely has that Star Trek quality of wonder and exploration hinted throughout.
Opening Title Sequences
My lord, this is the longest opening title sequence yetâprobably to fit in all the Executive Producers, though those arenât even included in the official YouTube video embedded aboveâand it really just keeps going on and on. Weâve come a long way since the intros of ships just fwooming by, but now the sequences are getting way more elaborate than necessary. The tree metaphor is so unsubtle that it begins to grate. The visuals are lovely, but it starts to feel like youâre being beaten over the head with the âgrowing/buildingâ analogy that you start to lose focus on what the show is supposed to be about (which Iâm guessing is trees?). Even after the title card, thereâs somehow even more footage at the end because itâs just so damn long! Skip intro, please.
Combadges
These little things grew on us after a little while. There was some initial trepidation in so obviously mimicking the shape of the Athena (more on her below) in the combadge design because itâs such deliberate branding, and it also makes the combadge even taller vertically than some of the other combadges weâve seen, but in the end, itâs fine. Donât get us started about putting rank pips on the combadge though. At least these are slightly easier to see than on the original Discovery badges, and they get points simply for not being the big ovals from season 3 Discovery on.
Cadet Uniforms
For uniforms that are mostly that godawful grey of the season 3 Discovery potato sack uniforms, the cadet uniforms are cut so much better. The tailoring really makes these things shine and the pops of color are fresh and make these things easier to look at than a wall of grey. While the colorblocking of the panel on the left side does well to break things up, we wonder (as we always do) if it really needed to be yet another delta shape. And extra kudos for the skirt variant, which jives perfectly with the top and has that lovely pleating on the left side that elevates the uniforms from private school kid to fashion worthy.
Chancellor Uniforms
Weâre also glad that Nahla Akeâs uniform isnât the really unfortunate one that Admiral Vance wears. She gets that nice red color we love so much with a pretty slick collar. Unlike most of the flag officers, Ake gets just the right amount of gold pipingâjust enough to provide some clean lines at the neck without making her look like a cartoon villain (except for maybe the epaulets, which do get a little fascisty) . The cut and length are perfect for Holly Hunterâs teeny tininess, and the asymmetry is the right length to look intentional and not like a mistake. Would it work on actors with a different body shape? I doubt weâll ever see another one to find out because so many uniforms end up being bespoke (which kind of makes them the un-uniform, but whatever).
Starfleet Officer Uniforms
Speaking of uniforms not being uniform. We get several different Starfleet officer uniforms and I havenât figured out what distinguishes them from each other. Any extras get the typical Discovery season 4 uniform weâve seen before. Academy instructors like Reno and Tilly get one thatâs similar but has a different collar and a zigzag racing stripe (it makes them go faster!) to break up the blocking that the SSHB hosts agree to disagree on how stupid it looks (whoâs shocked that Chris loves it?). The asymmetry isnât as good as Akeâs, though, and ends up looking like maybe these teachers buttoned the wrong button.
The Doctor gets his own bespoke uniform for some reason and weâre not sure why, but we are sure that Robert Picardo looks fly as fuck in it. Itâs a classic shape with black shoulders more akin to The Next Generation uniforms. And yet another entirely different collar! How many collars do these people have?Â
We have another Academy professor with yet another uniform we only see on her, and thatâs Illaâs uniform in âSeries Acclimation Mil.â Why is hers different? Who knows? But itâs got side panels that look almost corsetty and definitely accentuate Tawny Newsomeâs figure in ways that we appreciate.
Lura Thok has her own uniform as well which seems to be the Klingon-JemâHadar variant just for her. Same color and collar, pretty much, as Akeâs, but with a center zip and panelling. Itâs a good cut, but weâre predictably put off by all the Klingon insignias all over it. Itâs like whoever designed this couldnât help but put branding all over it when that panel could easily have just been another color or texture and had just as much contrast.
Oh, and all the zippers are little deltas, and weâre DONE!
I couldnât help but include the gym teacher uniforms which look ridiculous as hell. Whoever colorblocked these got away with something here. All we can see are little person shapes that seem more to be indicating where the restrooms are than who these instructors are. What an absolutely strange concept!
War College Uniforms
The Academy cadets have a nice little breast pocket on one side of their uniform, but thereâs no way they can compete with the War Collegeâs absolute abundance of pockets! These jocks have much more of a utilitarian, survivor look than their nerdy counterparts, and the all-black color palette also gives them a covert ops, militaristic flavor on top of that. At least theyâre not covered in deltas.
Chancellor Kelrec also has his own uniform over at the War College. Itâs also got that more militaristic feel with its slick patterning and more epaulets that make Kelrec look even more like heâs got a stick up his ass, but the cut is nice and weâre really into that asymmetrical zipper. But upon closer inspection, both his and the cadetsâ uniforms have a very subtle camouflage for some reason! Now thatâs just idiotic. What are they trying to blend in with? Camo has become such a statement piece for pro-government whacko that itâs hard to take it seriously for this institution when they ruin whatâs otherwise a perfectly suitable uniform!
Starfleet Ships
The Athena serves as both the showâs hero ship and as the actual Academy setting when it detaches its saucer section from its majestic nacelles and lands in San Francisco. As our Classics major, Caitlin immediately saw in the wing-shaped nacelles some imagery consistent with depictions of the mythological Athena, which is a damn nice touch. Do the 32nd century ships go a little too crazy with all their detachable, free-floating parts? Oh they absolutely do. But the circular shape is nice, and weâve gotten pretty used to very very flat ships since Discovery, so thatâs fine.
We havenât blogged about bridge design yet per se, but we can already say that this one has the same misuse of space that the Discoveryâs bridge has. Everyone seems like theyâre a mile apart! The shape is good, with different levels that draw the eye to the center platform, and the consoles and railings are sleek as hell. But why does the space look like youâre in a toaster oven? The Enterprise bridge in season 2 of Discovery had a similarly strange lighting quality that made you feel like youâre inside a pinball machine and it all just makes me wonder if the bridge crew can see a damn thing theyâre doing.
Captainâs Chairs
Akeâs chair feels very much like a throwback, much like her, so we are really into its station-wagon aesthetics. The red cushioning is very poppy, and we are frankly drooling over that rich wood paneling. It gives such a comfortable aesthetic without actually looking terribly comfortable (perhaps thatâs one reason why Ake never sits in it the same way twice). While Chris would rank this among his favorite chairs, I do find the arm rests look like massive paddles that stick in so far that you will definitely stab your buttcheek with them. The base is the most unique thing about it, with its array of centered pipes holding the chair up in a way that seems to defy gravity.
â
Regardless of what our specific opinions on the rest of Starfleet Academy are, we always have a good time commenting on the design details and picking apart the aesthetics. That goes for Discovery too, so make sure youâre also following along with our podcast coverage on SoundCloud or wherever you listen, get pedantic about kerning with us on Facebook and Bluesky, and stop putting deltas on absolutely everything! Class dismissed.