Dragon’s Teeth

Episode 161

Friday 11 July 2025

We see three Vaadwaur — ridiculous Voyager aliens who are supposed to look like cobras but who instead look like embarrassed white American actors each covered in five kilos of latex. Two of them look angrily at each other in profile. The one in the background looks uncertain.

Star Trek: Voyager

Series 6, Episode 7

Stardate: 53167.9

First broadcast on Wednesday 10 November 1999

This week, the crew of the USS Voyager awaken an ancient evil and unleash it upon the Delta Quadrant: the Vaadwaur, a phantom army that appears out of thin air, destroys entire colonies, and vanishes in the blink of an eye — but whose soldiers’ physiognomy is such that few men can find them afterwards.

Recorded on Wednesday 9 July 2025 · Download (67.7 MB)

Star Trek: Voyager

To the Death

Episode 160

Friday 4 July 2025

The Defiant's transporter pad is full: six Jem'Hadar, and dwarfed by them, it's Weyoun, looking smug, appearing on DS9 for the first time.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Series 4, Episode 23

Stardate: 49904.2

First broadcast on Monday 13 May 1996

There’s a get-to-know-you buffet at 1930 this week, as the crew of the Defiant team up with the Jem’Hadar to fight some Jem’Hadar rebels who want to take over the Galaxy. And, surprisingly late in the series, we get the first appearance of Jeffrey Combs as Weyoun.

Recorded on Tuesday 1 July 2025 · Download (66.8 MB)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Two of One

Episode 159

Friday 27 June 2025

Agnes Jurati, in a flowing red dress, walks away from us across a city street at night as headlights and skyscrapers glow ahead of her.

Star Trek: Picard

Series 2, Episode 6

Stardate: Unknown (12–13 April 2024)

First broadcast on Thursday 7 April 2022

This week: a party. The crew of La Sirena turn up at a lavish black-tie gala for some top-quality character work, only to be overshadowed by an incredible musical number by Alison Pill and a lovely scene of kindly encouragement from Patrick Stewart. But then they find themselves overshadowed, in turn, by the ineffable hotness of Santiago Cabrera.

Recorded on Tuesday 24 June 2025 · Download (63.0 MB)

Star Trek: Picard

The Forsaken

Episode 158

Friday 20 June 2025

Odo and Lwaxana are standing in a turbolift. Odo is looking up at the ceiling, Lwaxana is smiling gently at him.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Series 1, Episode 17

Stardate: 46925.1

First broadcast on Sunday 23 May 1993

Three plots for the price of one this week on Deep Space Nine. In reverse order of importance: (C) we all stand around in Ops talking about the computer; (B) Julian gets some funny lines and a pleasantly unsurprising character arc; and (A) Odo and Lwaxana are trapped in a lift together with nothing to do but some amazing and even quite moving acting. Underrated, but mostly by people who don’t enjoy things that are good.

Recorded on Tuesday 17 June 2025 · Download (73.1 MB)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Tapestry

Episode 157

Friday 13 June 2025

Picard is sleeping in a sunlit bedroom, lying on his side facing us, smiling post-coitally as he gently wakes up. A hand appears from behind him and strokes his ear. (It's Q.)

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Series 6, Episode 15

Stardate: Unknown (2369)

First broadcast on Monday 15 February 1993

When Q first turned up on the Enterprise bridge in 1987, he came to teach all of humanity a lesson about its terrible past. But this week his mission is more personal: to teach Picard how much he owes his young, undisciplined self, and to remind us that youth is silly and difficult, and that the people living through it deserve our respect.

(On that topic, if you wish to see the inspiration for Joe’s preferred 1990s hairstyle, you should check out the cover of Star Trek: The Next Generation — Boogeymen (1991) by Mel Gilden.)

Recorded on Tuesday 10 June 2025 · Download (60.9 MB)

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Alice

Episode 156

Friday 30 May 2025

A young woman, Alice, in a slate grey jumpsuit is standing in a turbolift. She is looking at us with wide staring eyes.

Star Trek: Voyager

Series 6, Episode 5

Stardate: Unknown (2376)

First broadcast on Wednesday 20 October 1999

Sometimes everything just comes together — a dull script, routine design, a generic score, perfunctory direction, an uncharismatic leading man and a guest star’s strange and flaccid performance. Meanwhile, on Star Trek: Voyager, Tom screams at his long-suffering girlfriend after falling in love with a car or something.

Recorded on Tuesday 27 May 2025 · Download (70.3 MB)

Star Trek: Voyager

The New Next Generation

Episode 155

Friday 23 May 2025

Hero shot of the Lower Deckers standing in the turbolift, lit dramatically from below: Tendi, Rutherford, Mariner, bearded Boimler and T'Lyn.

Star Trek: Lower Decks

Series 5, Episode 10

Stardate: Unknown

First broadcast on Thursday 19 December 2024

This week, we witness the ascension of Star Trek: Lower Decks, as it finishes its run on television and becomes a show fuelled by interdimensionality itself — decoupling its superpositions and spriralling off into an infinite number of unseen quantum possibilities. It’s funny and heartwarming and visually arresting, of course, and we can’t imagine what life would be like without it. Engage the core!

Recorded on Tuesday 20 May 2025 · Download (54.3 MB)

Star Trek: Lower Decks

Fully Dilated

Episode 154

Friday 16 May 2025

Tendi and T'Lyn are on an away mission to Dilmar III, and so they have Dilmarian orange skin and blue hair, and big blunt horns protruding from their foreheads. They are sitting down, tied up back to back. Tendi looks pretty pissed off

Star Trek: Lower Decks

Series 5, Episode 7

Stardate: 59499.6

First broadcast on Thursday 28 November 2024

This week, Tendi and T’Lyn learn the usual Star Trek lesson about co-operation and competition, Boimler and Rutherford learn that Starfleet uniforms are less absorbent than is sometimes necessary, and Mariner learns that the real Inner Light experience comes from the friends (and murderers) we meet along the way. And Data shows up too, is just as delightful and wise as we always expect him to be.

Recorded on Tuesday 6 May 2025 · Download (44.9 MB)

Star Trek: Lower Decks

The Empath

Episode 153

Friday 9 May 2025

In the middle distance, Kirk, Spock, Bones and a beautiful but completely passive woman are walking past a row of perspex tubes into a dark void. Watching them, their backs to us, are two tall aliens with domed, hairless heads with visible buttock cleavage at the base of their skulls.

Star Trek: The Original Series

Series 3, Episode 12

Stardate: 5121.5

First broadcast on Friday 6 December 1968

A series of urgent production catastrophes this week, as we arrive at Paramount Studios with no set, no lines for our female guest star, and a script with no story and no plot. Can these omnipotent bum-headed aliens help us out?

Recorded on Tuesday 6 May 2025 · Download (73.7 MB)

Star Trek: The Original Series

The Drumhead

Episode 152

Friday 2 May 2025

Jean Simmons as Admiral Norah Satie, looking like she has just realised that she has completely destroyed her career. (Satie, not Simmons.)

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Series 3, Episode 21

Stardate: 44769.2

First broadcast on Monday 29 April 1991

This week, Jean Simmons strides imperiously onto the Enterprise bridge, accompanied by her executive assistant, her scary stenographer, her daddy issues, and a terrifying sense of self-righteous rage. Unmissable.

Recorded on Tuesday 29 April 2025 · Download (71.3 MB)

Star Trek: The Next Generation