About this podcast

Untitled Star Trek Project is a random Star Trek commentary podcast by two life-long Star Trek fans. Each episode, we choose a Star Trek episode from any series and comment on it as we watch it through.

You can listen to Untitled Star Trek Project on its own, of course, but you can also watch the Star Trek episode along with us.

The podcast artwork was created by Kayla Ciceran and the theme was composed by Cameron Lam.

We’re on Twitter at @untitledtrek, on Facebook at untitledtrek and on YouTube at @untitledstartrekproject. Joe is on Twitter at @docoho, and Nathan is @nathanbottomley.

The Rules

To choose a random Star Trek episode, we use the Randomiser, which is a page which lets you select one or more Star Trek series and then choose an episode at random from the series you have chosen.

Here are the rules we follow to choose a Star Trek episode.

  1. At the end of each episode of Untitled Star Trek Project, we will choose a Star Trek episode to cover in the next episode

  2. We will choose one or more series for our random selection to come from, but we must announce which series we have chosen before making our choice.

  3. We can re-roll if the Randomiser chooses an episode we don’t want to do. We will continue to re-roll until (a) we get an episode we want to cover, or (b) we get embarrassed by how long the process is taking.

Our other podcasts

Joe

Joe podcasts with his old friend Jack Shanahan at The Nimon Be Praised, a fun informal podcast that covers a range of topics related to Doctor Who. They do voices and everything. He is also the genius behind A Hamster with a Blunt Penknife, a commentary podcast with a wide variety of guests who discuss their favourite Doctor Who episodes with knowledge and enthusiasm.

Nathan

Nathan is podcasting his way through the entirety of Doctor Who on Flight Through Entirety and on 500 Year Diary; he can also be heard commenting on Space: 1999 on Starling Barbara Bain and dropping hot takes on new Doctor Who episodes on (take a breath) The Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire. He is an occasional contributor to the Blakes 7 podcast Maximum Power. His previous projects include the James Bond commentary podcast Bondfinger and a flashcast on Doctor Who’s Jodie Whittaker Era called Jodie into Terror.

About us

Joe is a man in his forties with dark hair and a beard. He's looking up at the camera and wearing iPhone headphones.

Joe Ford became a fan of Star Trek at the age of eight after a glut of Doctor Who consumption and suddenly realised that this was a genre that could blow your mind with pretty pictures. Although he wouldn’t have been able to elucidate that at the time: he just went “Cor wow!” at luxurious shots of the Enterprise-D in action. His first ever crush on a guy was Wesley Crusher, but again he wouldn’t have been able to say why he was so obsessed with the science geek in the grey tunic: he just always wanted his hair cut in the same style.

He found Deep Space Nine at thirteen, and it blew his mind. He had no idea that storytelling could be this sophisticated, that characterisation could be this nuanced. Again, he couldn’t put this into words. He just let it wash over him with the feeling that the universe was opening out, that the characters had secrets, and that the concepts were just a little beyond his reach. He was in love. DS9 is the only TV show that he watched with his mum from beginning to end, and it opened dialogue about identity, religions, politics and race, and he can now see that it helped her to teach him how to embrace everything and judge nothing. What a gift of a show.

Star Trek is an enormous sprawling engine of storytelling, at once comforting and mind-blowing. Joe ducks away from the science and the technology but adores the characterisation and sense of adventure. This franchise has given him a safe place to go when the chips are down and a chance to luxuriate with some of the most wonderful characters you will ever find on TV.

Now he gets to talk about it with his overseas husband at length and to explore it in brilliant new ways. Star Trek just keeps giving. Let’s go on an adventure that covers television over fifty years. What a treat.

Nathan is smiling at the camera. He's in his fifties, with a shaved head, a short grey beard and a thick grey moustache.

Nathan Bottomley was born in between the broadcast of the second last episode of the Original Series and the last episode, Turnabout Intruder. His first memory of Star Trek is being told by his friend’s older brother that it would give him nightmares.

When Doctor Who went off the air in 1989, he switched his fickle affections to Star Trek: The Next Generation: he cycled to every video rental story in the neighbouring suburbs in search of the Season 1 VHS releases. (Ask your parents.) He remained on board with 90s Trek until just after the pilot of Enterprise.

Although 90s Trek is Nathan’s first love, he is delighted by its current renaissance — so many different shows, upholding and critiquing Star Trek’s peaceful, internationalist and utopian ideals. Star Trek Discovery is a particular favourite, but Lower Decks is an unexpected source of joy.

Nathan lives in Sydney with his husband and a series of increasingly deranged fluffy dogs.