This week, a seminal moment in the history of television appears to be taking place at 0.5× speed.

“Terrible beyond terrible.”

“Here lies a colossal mess of a show, mixing serious (albeit unrealized) science fiction with broad, less-than-funny comedy.”

“Sometimes you just have to bow to the absurd.”

“That was fun.”

“Yeah, I thought that was great.”

This week on Deep Space Nine, Dukat (Kathy Bates) and Sisko (James Caan) crash land on one of Star Trek’s less convincing standing sets, and then have a proper talk about their Feelings and Values. (Antipathy, and for one of them, Racism.)

This week in Star Trek: Slow-Witted White Men, no one turns into a salamander, gets trapped in a board game or has sex with a ghost. In fact, no one does much of anything at all — at least not anything that anyone will remember 23 years later.

This week, we are properly introduced to Voyager’s latest Intransigent Alien Antagonist, in preparation for a thrilling two-part epic in a couple of weeks’ time. And things go pretty well, on the whole, despite (or perhaps because of) some interpersonal conflict between two important cast members and their characters.

An unexpected but not unprecedented miracle turns water into booze on board the Enterprise-D, and soon the entire crew is horny, depressed, or facing an awkward meeting with HR on Monday. After all this, Joe can’t see how this show becomes a hit, but Nathan thinks he can. Bottoms up, everyone!

Gornfest 2025 continues this week on Untitled Star Trek Project, as we head back to 1967 — when the Gorn were just a single rubber lizard in a spangly minidress and the Federation was barely a glint in Gene L. Coon’s eye. Iconic, memorable and visually striking — this is why nerds still podcast about the show 58½ years later.

This week, Strange New Worlds asks the question, “What if The Best of Both Worlds, but with higher production values, more modern narrative techniques, and much better hair?” The answer might surprise you.

It’s the 1990s — the era of the Consulting Psychopath — and so when a pretty young lieutenant is shot dead in his locked quarters, perky newcomer Ezri Dax decides to investigate — with the help of her crap-haired and murderous previous host Joran. It’s all very light and implausible, but we get a few laughs, Ezri gets a big gun, and the regular cast (except Cirroc) get their usual DS9-style character beats.

This week, disgraced Starfleet officer Michael Burnham falls down the rabbit hole, where she finds an unsettling mirror image of her previous life: a crew regarding her with suspicion, a captain manipulating her with falsehoods, and a Starfleet obsessed with operational security. And then the slavering monster shows up.