A Star to Steer Her By - A Star Trek Podcast

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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 Board™!

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:

Ames’s ranking:

#11: Episode II: Attack of the Clones #10: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith #9: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi #8: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker #7: Solo: A Star Wars Story #6: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi INSERT MANDO HERE! #5: Episode I: The Phantom Menace #4: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back #3: Episode VII: The Force Awakens #2: Episode IV: A New Hope #1: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Caitlin’s ranking: 

#11: Episode II: Attack of the Clones #10: Episode I: The Phantom Menace #9: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith #8: Solo: A Star Wars Story #7: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker #6: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi #5: Episode VII: The Force Awakens #4: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi INSERT MANDO HERE! #3: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story #2: Episode IV: A New Hope #1: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Chris’s ranking:

#11: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker #10: Episode II: Attack of the Clones #9: Episode I: The Phantom Menace #8: Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith #7: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi #6: Solo: A Star Wars Story INSERT MANDO HERE! #5: Episode VII: The Force Awakens (Chris changed this one live on air!) #4: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi #3: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story #2: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back #1: Episode IV: A New Hope

Jake’s ranking:

#11: Episode II: Attack of the Clones #10: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker #9: Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith #8: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi #7: Episode I: The Phantom Menace #6: Solo: A Star Wars Story INSERT MANDO HERE! #5: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi #4: Episode VII: The Force Awakens #3: Episode IV: A New Hope #2: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story #1: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

We’re 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.

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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!

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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.

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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

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Ten Forward 53: Everything Everywhere All at Once

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

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Episode 437: Tunneling Beneath Expectations

Star Trek: Section 31

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 Latif–led 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!

Timestamps: Section 31: 03:01

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Episode 436: The Vulcan Meh

DIS: "Life, Itself"

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!

Timestamps: Life, Itself: 01:26; Season 5 Wrap: 1:01:34; Ranking Disco: 1:29:48]

Season Highlights and Lowlights: Discovery Season 5: L’ak, Schlock, and Barrel

Series wrap up: Ranking the seasons of Discovery

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Ranking the seasons of Discovery

By Ames

We’ve finally closed out all of Star Trek: Discovery, to some of the A Star to Steer Her By hosts’ chagrin and to others’ relief. Guess who’s who. The franchise’s first foray into streaming television, seriously serialized storytelling, and a much more modern era in television making—how often did we remark that we could tell they were filming on the volume?—came with a lot of formidable elements and also a lot of stumbling points.

So we’re looking back on each season’s overall unit and doing what plenty of other reviewers have done: ranking them! And we’re 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 week’s 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 Burnham’s arc was (if anything). For one last time, let’s fly.

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[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Discovery Season 1: Our best first season since TOS?

Ames, Caitlin, Chris, AND Jake’s #1 – A full sweep!

I’m 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, it’s 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 (it’s hard to develop when you’re already the Most Important Person in the Universe!) and becomes significantly less interesting for it.

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Discovery Season 2: Mystery boxes all the way down

Ames, Caitlin, and Jake’s #5; Chris’s #3

I’m 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 doesn’t 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 don’t try to make sense of it, it’s a much more enjoyable watch. Which seems like a bad quality for a sci-fi show to have, so I’m going to keep considering this one the worst! Yuck yuck!

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Discovery Season 3: Do you have some aloe for that Burn?

Ames, Caitlin, Chris, AND Jake’s #2 – 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. It’s 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 season’s favor. If it weren’t 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, Su’Kal! Feel bad!

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Discovery Season 4: Should’ve been a movie

Ames, Caitlin, and Chris’s #4; Jake’s #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 can’t help it that much. We maintained in this season’s wrap up that stretching the plot across 13 episodes makes it really really drag, with so many episodes that feel like they’re 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 don’t want to miss our episode covering that monstrosity!), so maybe not.

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Discovery Season 5: L’ak, Schlock, and Barrel

Ames and Caitlin’s #3; Chris’s #5; Jake’s #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 it’s the freshest in our memories, and yeah, it’s 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 don’t 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 you’re left with an overall feeling of “meh.”

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That’s all from Discovery that isn’t scrubbed from the official record by Section 31 or Kovich or Daniels or even the writers themselves. As teased, we’re knocking out the television movie Section 31 next week to fully complete the cycle, so make sure you’re listening along to the podcast on SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts because you’re 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!

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Discovery Season 5: L’ak, Schlock, and Barrel

By Ames

We’ve finally solved this season’s escape room puzzle and the answer was to throw the whole thing into an event horizon. Okay, that’s not fair; there’s 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? We’ve got it all here!

While we’re sad that the series came to a very unplanned and abrupt end, maybe there’s a silver lining here because we must admit that we were getting less and less forgiving of some of the show’s faults. So scan along below and listen to our full discussion over on this week’s 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 measure…

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[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Highlights

A better-paced season

This season might have the best pacing of all of them, though that’s 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 there’s less wheel spinning, less dragging out the plot, and less boredom for viewers. It’s 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 they’re so enigmatic and interesting. We got just enough of them to raise eyebrows. Here, they’re 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 I’m still into these little green men.

Be cool, Honey Bunny

Our main Breen squeeze is the disgraced heir to the throne, L’ak, who makes up a large chunk of why I’m still into our lime jello–faced friends. It’s been a while since we’ve had antagonist characters that we’ve understood as well as him and his partner, Moll. They’re 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, it’s a low bar to best unearned villains like Osyraa and Tarka from recent seasons, but these two are fun to watch when they’re together. Maybe less so after L’ak’s death because Moll doesn’t have much more depth than her relationship with him, and even her connection to Book doesn’t go anywhere in particular, but when they’re both alive, they’re a lot of fun.

Captain Crabbypants

Callum Keith Rennie absolutely nails our no-nonsense, hip-shooting first officer Rayner this season. He’s a captain who hasn’t 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 you’ll see in the Lowlights.

We have Data at home

Is Fred just a memberberry when we meet him in “Red Directive”? 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 don’t 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 they’d 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 “Jinaal.” It is a downright delight when the Bix symbiont zhiantaras into Culber’s 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. I’d say “You only live once,” but that’s not exactly how it works with the Trill.

It’s just a jump to the left

Y’all know I’m an easy mark for a time travel episode, so “Face the Strange” really appeals to me. It’s a clever use of a temporal-jumping plot device that was reminiscent of other timey-wimey episodes like “Before and After,” “Shattered,” and “Magic to the Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” in execution. Sure, it’s 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 “Whistlespeak” (less so their execution, as you’ll see) really impressed us as well. The society we meet on Halem’no is a nifty little race with a culture that’s interesting—as it’s 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 crew’s current era and yet would have actually been constructed after Discovery jumped to the future. Finally, the jump to the 32nd century feels fresh!

Book’s in the library!

David Ajala was far and away one of the highlights of last season, and while we weren’t 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 “Labyrinths” when the kooky librarian shows him a piece of the Kwejian World Root, possibly the last surviving vestige of his home planet’s culture. We’re reminded of some of the stellarly acted grief we got after Kwejian’s destruction, and the emotions all come flooding back!

Road trip to Toronto

Speaking of the Eternal Gallery and Archive from “Labyrinths,” 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, we’re going on a road trip!

With great power comes great responsibility

I’ve been saying since Kovich (that prick!) first sent the crew on the mission to find the Progenitors’ tech, so it’s really nice to see Burnham totally agree with me: This shit is too powerful to be left in anyone’s 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 can’t 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 it’s an extra delight to see them thirty or so years down the road in the epilogue of the series in “Life, Itself,” 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 ruined…

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Lowlights

MOTHER FUCKING DANIELS

The reveal in “Life, Itself” that Kovich is actually Agent Daniels nearly ruined the entire season (if not the whole series) for me, and it’s something we’ve been biting our lips about since the episode first came out because we didn’t 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, who’s never even heard that name before. The SSHB hosts here are in unusual agreement in loathing Daniels during Enterprise—that exposition-dumping bastard—so it felt like a personal insult to dredge him back up here. Not everything has to be a reference, writers! How dare.

It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World

But wait, there are more memberberries to point at! This whole season was in service to TNG’s “The Chase,” an episode that Jake in particular detests because of how clunkily and unnecessarily it answers the question no one was asking: “Why are all the alien characters played by human actors?” So just reminding us that “The Chase” 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 it’s all so stretchy I could scream.

The Most Important Person in the Universe™ 

We’ve 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. She’s your main character AND a good captain AND a fictional character. Of course she’s 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 “Labyrinths” that her fatal flaw is her fear of failure, I don’t even believe her because she hasn’t 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 shouldn’t 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 it’s his first day in Starfleet. Tilly in particular is uncharacteristically intolerant, especially in “Jinaal” when she spends the whole episode demanding he conform with the ethos of extreme friendship that Discovery extols and then lambasting him when he doesn’t 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 tech—especially in “Erigah” when he forces both Tilly and Book to solve the library card clue despite being surrounded by Breen—and 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 doesn’t actually do anything.

The Born-again Born Again

Ever since he came back from the dead in season two, I’ve been repeating, “Please do something with Hugh,” into the void, and now that he sort of does something, my response is, “No, not that.” Trek is riddled with characters who’ve 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 “Life, Itself” that lands like a wet fart. This is what we’ve 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 we’ve 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 “Erigah” being picked at random to have knowledge on smuggling? Gray draws the shortest stick of the season, only showing up in one episode, “Jinaal,” 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! It’s infuriating.

Too little Saru

Our resident Kelpien has made our Highlights section of every single Discovery season… until now. And it’s all because there’s 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 “Jinaal,” Saru’s just acting out simp boyfriend tropes. By the time he reemerges in “Life, Itself” to pull a Corbomite Maneuver, we’ve forgotten all about him altogether. We love Doug Jones, and we love Saru/T’Rina together, and if they’d known this was the last we’d get of him, maybe they’d have planned better.

The magical disappearing bridge crew!

Saru isn’t the only crewmember we don’t get to see for most of the season. It feels like every season, we’ve been critical of how the tertiary bridge crew characters were handled, and now they’re 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 it’s hugs all around in “Life, Itself,” 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 “Whistlespeak” in particular in the Highlights above, but like with the whole Burn season, that’s 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 it’s also such a missed opportunity for the Halem’nites to establish that they use their titular whistling to communicate from great distances… and then no one uses the whistling again in the episode? We’re leaving Chekhov’s whistles all over the place here!

Math doesn’t 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 other’s sentences with made-up sci-fi vocabulary is supposed to make them sound like a well-oiled team, but actually makes them sound like they’re pointing out pawprints in Blue’s Clues. It’s just juvenile! When Reno pats them on the back for technobabbling in sync in “Labyrinths,” I headdesked straight through a table.

The final bad taste in your mouth

Finally, the epilogue that was added to “Life, Itself” when it was learned the show wasn’t 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 “Calypso” and it tarnishes both. We’ve already complained about relying on the audience having seen the Short Treks and the wonderful “Calypso” had mostly escaped that. Until now. Seeing Burnham knowingly sending a sentient lifeform to wait for a thousand years in solitary confinement—let’s call it what it is: torture—makes her seem like a monster. What a terrible note to end on.

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How does season five compare to the rest of Discovery? Now that we’re wrapped, you can check out our season rankings!

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And that closes out Star Trek Discovery. Well, almost. We’re going to use this opportunity to segue right into the truly infamous Section 31 streaming movie and you sure as hell don’t 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 don’t add epilogues to your finales when they ruin the whole show.

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Episode 435: Between a Breen and a Void Place

DIS: "Lagrange Point"

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

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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, we’ve covered all the main romances in classic Trek—even including some noncanonical character shipping last week—and now we’ve actually caught up to where we’re at in our full franchise watch-through. It’s been a very passionate series and we hope you got your rocks off daydreaming about some of these relationships as much as we did

That’s right, it’s 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 week’s podcast episode (tango over to 45:46). Parting is such sweet sorrow.

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[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Spock x Nyota Uhura

There’s really only the one romance we see get developed in the Kelvin movies (we’re not bothering with Kirk and his green chick since that really only served to depict his character as a skirtchaser—there, done), and that’s 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 we’re really not sure what we’re meant to think about them together other than, “Oh, I guess they went there.” But we wonder how? They’re obviously supportive of each other, and Zoe Saldaña and Zachary Quinto are both very pretty, so it’s 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? We’re 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 haven’t been listening to this podcast.

Harcourt Fenton x Stella Mudd

We get our customary little fanservice moment in “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Man” when Stella turns up to collect Mudd. There’s a small spark of interest since the only thing we knew about Stella before this was through Mudd’s very unreliable perspective in “I, Mudd,” and here you can see she’s less shrewish and might actually love him? Or it’s a ruse and she’s just a rich bitch who wants to make her daddy mad? Who’s conning who? It’s fairly open to interpretation since, as we’ve discussed before, she’s mostly just a memberberry.

Michael Burnham x Ash Tyler

Michael’s 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 aren’t who they’re presented as. Yikes. The real Lorca and Admiral Cornwell were probably a lot of fun together, as we’re shown that they’re totally down for some casual sex to let off steam but it doesn’t seem to be more serious than that. Which is all AOK. But she figures out something’s up with this Lorca after some sexytimes because he’s just a different person who’s trying to manipulate her. She probably wouldn’t have guessed that he’s from the mirror universe exactly, but then again, she probably doesn’t watch Star Trek as much as we do.

L’Rell x Voq

We were totally into L’Rell and Voq in “The Butcher’s Knife Cares Not for the Lamb’s Cry” when he was still, well, Voq. Through their love, they could change Q’onos! It gets more complicated when Voq has been transformed into Ash Tyler. The fact that the SSHB hosts still can’t agree on how consensual their relationship was, as depicted, is problematic. When Ash is throwing the word “violation” around a lot in “Point of Light,” we cringed. The surprise baby doesn’t help either, as that basically sticks them together whether they like it or not. So we’re kinda conflicted on this one.

Michael Burnham x Cleveland Booker

The main course of this whole series is Burnham and Book’s relationship. The chemistry between Sonequa Martin-Green and David Ajala is downright palpable. It’s when she’s 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. It’s 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 “Life, Itself” 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 that’s been a problem with their writing from the start. Frankly, they were so much more interesting when Gray was stuck in Adira’s head. We do get a lovely scene between the two when Gray gets a body in “Choose to Live,” but then it’s 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 “Jinaal” (and Adira doesn’t 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 “The Galactic Barrier” almost made up for it. Almost. Watching two total nerds hit it off in Tarka’s flashbacks throughout the episode finally gave some much needed character motivation to the megalomaniac. We could absolutely see what’s 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 T’Rina

We gush about these two on the podcast all the dang time, but how can you not love Saru and T’Rina? The SSHB podcast hosts aren’t 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 L’ak

Lastly, season 5 introduces us to Moll and L’ak, two thrill-seeking couriers who will do anything for each other. Their backstory in “Mirrors” 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 Moll’s ultimate goal of finding her paradise planet that sort of got dropped, but what can you do? We also maintain and Moll and L’ak are definitely best when they’re together. After L’ak’s death, Moll becomes less interesting and more one-note, only focused on getting him back… because he’s really the only interesting thing about her.

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One day, we’ll circle back around to romances in the newer series after we’ve covered them on the podcast, so you’re 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?

[sshbpodcast]

Episode 434: Insufficient Bowie

DIS: "Labyrinths"

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!

Timestamps: Labyrinths: 01:23; Our Ships: 41:00; fanfic picks: 59:55

The blog that launched a dozen ships: I ship it: Non-canonical Romances in Trek

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I ship it: Non-canonical Romances in Trek

By Ames

Over the past couple months, we’ve been commenting on how relationships throughout Trek have worked (or more frequently, failed to work), but this week, we’re 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 (there’s just so much romantic tension in “Bread and Circuses” 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 week’s discussion on the podcast (jump to timestamp 41:00). All aboard!

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[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Jake’s ships – Series-crossed lovers

Winn Adami x Weyoun

Dukat x Sela

Reg Barclay x Sonia Gomez

Jake is thinking outside the box for his ships, so he’s 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? That’s a romcom we want to watch because their sexy antics would be both hilarious and diabolical.

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Chris’s ships – 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 DS9’s “Defiant” 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.

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Caitlin’s ships – 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. You’re 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 them—you can see it in “What You Leave Behind” 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.

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Ames’s ships – I’ll 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 “Relativity,” it’s been my head canon that Agent Ducane is secretly in love with Seven. There’s 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, Paramount—I have a show for you. I also perked up at some legitimate sparks between Worf and Pulaski in the otherwise sloggy “Up the Long Ladder.” 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 Caitlin’s 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.

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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 you’re following along with the podcast on SoundCloud (or any old podthinger) since we’re close to the end of the series and you’re not going to want to miss it! You can also talk ships with us over on Facebook and Bluesky. Drop anchor, mateys. We’re coming in to port.

[sshbpodcast]

Episode 433: New Backgrounds All Around

DIS: "Erigah"

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

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Hearts, Stars, and Trek: Other Trek Romances, part 2

By Ames

Spring is here and you know what that means: constant sex metaphors. We’re still in love with love here on A Star to Steer Her By, as we’re 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 it’s 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 didn’t include with our main character ships post. Dare I say, no other Trek series has quite so many characters and we’re 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 week’s podcast episode (jump to timestamp 58:33) for all the smooth moves from the rest of classic Trek. Let the mating season begin!

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[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Nog x Varis Sul

The flirting between Nog and Sul (and Jake and Sul for that matter) from “The Storyteller” 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 wouldn’t pay any respect to a female, actually likes her enough to give her some salient advice instead of imposing Ferengi customs on her. But that’s later in the list.

Winn Adami x Jaro Esso

This one is just fun to watch because Louise Fletcher owns every moment she’s on screen. In the three-part arc “The Homecoming,” “The Circle,” and “The Siege,” 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 driver’s seat, and runs over him herself when she no longer needs him. Love ‘em and leave ‘em, 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 “The Abandoned.” This one is uncomfortable because Ben clearly disapproves because of Mardah’s line of work (though it’s more likely a him projecting because he doesn’t 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! 

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 Nog’s double date

This one’s a twofer because you don’t really have one without the other, for better or for worse. Nog insists on tagging along to Jake’s date with Leanne in “Life Support,” but when they’re out to eat, the Ferengi is nothing but rude and insensitive to his date, Riska. It’s 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 it’s good (it’s not) but because of the effect it has on his character. Onaya in “The Muse” is just plain predatory and uses her vampiric powers to feed off of Jake’s brain energy. It’s icky and self serving, and not in the fun Winn Adami way. Jake deserves better than this.

Elim Garak x Tora Ziyal 

Speaking of characters deserving better. Like with the Neelix-Kes relationship in Voyager, we’re just not sure why the writers had to hook Garak and Ziyal up in “For the Cause” 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 “not-a-gays.”

Rom x Leeta

A lot of folks love the pairing when Rom and Leeta hook up in “Doctor Bashir, I Presume” because they’re so authentic with each other. Rom seems like he’s entirely out of his league, but Leeta’s so supportive of him that it’s sweet. I do need to criticise some of the shittier things Rom does in their relationship in “Ferengi Love Songs” and “Call to Arms” because he has no idea what he’s 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 “Ferengi Love Songs” 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? Let’s 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 “You Are Cordially Invited.” 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 Tennan 

One final example from Deep Space Nine, but it’s also the best one! Like in “The Siege” with Esso, Winn is using her relationship with Anjohl in “The Changing Face of Evil” to pursue her own power, but it’s such successful dramatic irony that he’s the one playing her! It is a gift to the viewers to watch how Marc Alaimo and Louise Fletcher’s evilnesses compliment each other so well. They’re a TERRIBLE couple as characters, but they are absolutely perfect for the show. No notes.

Korenna Mirell x Dathan Alaris

Let’s move on to Voyager. I can’t stop championing the entirely underrated episode “Remember,” in which Torres is reliving the romance between two Enaran youths. It’s sorta “The Inner Light” 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 Korenna’s 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 everyone’s favorite omnipotent pest has lasted literal eons by “The Q and the Grey,” and we totally buy it because their chemistry sizzles. Finally, someone who is an equal to John de Lancie’s Q—how 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 “11:59” all the time because the relationship between Janeway’s ancestors is just so terrible. Henry Janeway is simply the most unlikeable character, and yet apparently we’re 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 “Carbon Creek” already made my favorite minor characters from the series, and it’s 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 Soong’s progeny in “The Augments” triple-parter are just awful people, and watching Malik manipulate Persis for three episodes straight is fully gross. We’ve 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 “United,” 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 that’s all too typical for television.

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We’re 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.

[sshbpodcast]

Ten Forward 52: Starfleet Academy Season 1

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

[sshbpodcast]

Class is now in session: Starfleet Academy aesthetics

By Ames

We recorded this week’s 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 haven’t watched it yet. We won’t be spoiling anything here, but if you want to hear our general retrospective over on this week’s podcast, that is CHOCKFUL of spoilers, so listeners beware. The whole of the discussion boils down to: It’s far from perfect, but it’s worth a watch before it’s all over.

As we’ve 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 captain’s chair waiting to hear what we thought of the captain’s chair or the opening title sequence or those funky gym teacher uniforms, we’ve got them all below! Scroll on for all the slides and listen to our school presentation on this week’s episode while being wary that there ARE SPOILERS (jump to timestamp 1:28:15). And be ready: There may be a pop quiz.

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[Images and video © CBS/Paramount]

Title Cards

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 don’t need to do that again with SFA’s title card because it’s pretty much everything we’ve 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 it’s mainly for symmetry.

Series Themes

The series theme is very familiar to us, which only makes sense because it’s another Jeff Russo. Jeff has had his hand in so many of the recent Trek series that he’s almost become a character on the shows himself. So the fact that we find it extremely similar to the first two seasons’ Picard theme that we’ve discussed before (plus a little bit of Ilia’s theme from The Motion Picture thrown in for good measure), it only makes sense. It’s 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 yet—probably to fit in all the Executive Producers, though those aren’t even included in the official YouTube video embedded above—and it really just keeps going on and on. We’ve 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 you’re being beaten over the head with the “growing/building” analogy that you start to lose focus on what the show is supposed to be about (which I’m guessing is trees?). Even after the title card, there’s somehow even more footage at the end because it’s 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 it’s such deliberate branding, and it also makes the combadge even taller vertically than some of the other combadges we’ve seen, but in the end, it’s fine. Don’t 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

We’re also glad that Nahla Ake’s uniform isn’t 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 piping—just 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 Hunter’s 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 we’ll 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 haven’t figured out what distinguishes them from each other. Any extras get the typical Discovery season 4 uniform we’ve seen before. Academy instructors like Reno and Tilly get one that’s 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 (who’s shocked that Chris loves it?). The asymmetry isn’t as good as Ake’s, though, and ends up looking like maybe these teachers buttoned the wrong button.

The Doctor gets his own bespoke uniform for some reason and we’re not sure why, but we are sure that Robert Picardo looks fly as fuck in it. It’s 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? 

We have another Academy professor with yet another uniform we only see on her, and that’s Illa’s uniform in “Series Acclimation Mil.” Why is hers different? Who knows? But it’s got side panels that look almost corsetty and definitely accentuate Tawny Newsome’s figure in ways that we appreciate.

Lura Thok has her own uniform as well which seems to be the Klingon-Jem’Hadar variant just for her. Same color and collar, pretty much, as Ake’s, but with a center zip and panelling. It’s a good cut, but we’re predictably put off by all the Klingon insignias all over it. It’s like whoever designed this couldn’t 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 we’re DONE!

I couldn’t 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 there’s no way they can compete with the War College’s 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 they’re not covered in deltas.

Chancellor Kelrec also has his own uniform over at the War College. It’s also got that more militaristic feel with its slick patterning and more epaulets that make Kelrec look even more like he’s got a stick up his ass, but the cut is nice and we’re really into that asymmetrical zipper. But upon closer inspection, both his and the cadets’ uniforms have a very subtle camouflage for some reason! Now that’s just idiotic. What are they trying to blend in with? Camo has become such a statement piece for pro-government whacko that it’s hard to take it seriously for this institution when they ruin what’s otherwise a perfectly suitable uniform!

Starfleet Ships

The Athena serves as both the show’s 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 we’ve gotten pretty used to very very flat ships since Discovery, so that’s fine.

We haven’t blogged about bridge design yet per se, but we can already say that this one has the same misuse of space that the Discovery’s bridge has. Everyone seems like they’re 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 you’re in a toaster oven? The Enterprise bridge in season 2 of Discovery had a similarly strange lighting quality that made you feel like you’re inside a pinball machine and it all just makes me wonder if the bridge crew can see a damn thing they’re doing.

Captain’s Chairs

Ake’s 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 that’s 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.

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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 you’re 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.