This week, a mathematically perfect recurring villain gets her own episode of Star Trek, and we discover how much fun the show can be without all that relentless moralising, just moments before we also discover how much fun it is to watch a villain get her comeuppance while some dunderheaded bird people shake off the dead shackles of a stupid tradition.

In hoc episodio, cum nautae astronavis Enterprise ad Urbem Aeternam pervenissent, brevi tempore magister Kirk amicos suos in harena certantes spectavit, passerem garo elixum gustavit, ancillam formosissimam futuit, postremo festinanter discessit. Sed dum navem solvit, cognoscit se testem fuisse novam religionem pacis ac fraternitatis oriri.

This week, Deep Space Nine does the best that it can with a slasher horror premise involving four redshirts and some murderous Cardassians, including beloved secondary character, plain, simple Garak. Fortunately, no one suffers any long-term ill-effects — except for the people who are no longer around to complain, I suppose.

The finish line is in sight this week for Star Trek: Enterprise, and so it’s time to throw out the rulebook and have some fun for a change, with a preposterous farrago of fan service that remembers at least that one of our most important jobs is to be enjoyable and entertaining. T’Pol starts wearing a miniskirt and Archer drinks some poisoned champagne, and, frankly, we couldn’t possibly be happier.

As private parts to the gods are we! They play with us for their sport!

Lord Melchett, Blackadder II: Chains

A defrocked god appears on the bridge of the USS Enterprise and wanders around being much more fun than anyone else aboard. (Apart from Whoopi Goldberg, obviously. And maybe Brent this week.) A solid outing from TNG’s Imperial Phase.

Star Trek: Prodigy is here for a second season, bringing our crew back together and sending them off on an epic mission aboard the USS Voyager. It’s Star Trek: Voyager as you’ve never seen it before, but it would be cruel of us to say why. (Hint: we both think it’s really good.) Also appearing: the two best Roberts, which is quite exciting.

This week, Deep Space Nine serves up a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, in which a respected female character undertakes an ill-advised heterosexual romance with a creepy and unattractive white guy, which makes her look like an idiot. Meanwhile, over in the B-plot, Quark and Jeffrey Coombs try to get hold of some deepfake celebrity porn of Nana Visitor.

This week, with a budget of dozens of crisp American dollars at their disposal, Joe and Nathan pull out their smocks, palettes, easels and oils in order to bring you a lavishly illustrated story of human creativity and achievement in a 25-minute episode you won’t be embarassed to show your kids. Or not terminally embarrassed, anyway.

This week we drop into a parallel universe where Voyager’s situation is desperate, resources are constrained, and the crew has no alternative but to live by its principles — helping, making friends, reaching out, forming alliances, working together to solve problems, seeking out new life and new civilisations, that sort of thing. Turns out, it would have made quite a good premise for a Star Trek series.

Nothing to learn about gender politics this week as we visit Angel One, where large aggressive women lord it over their twinky male consorts, and Star Trek: The Next Generation finds plenty of exciting new ways to be as offensively sexist as possible. Could someone pass Gene a napkin, please?