60th Anniversary!

The Star Trek 60th-anniversary reunion episode! The bridge crew is back, and they have *opinions*. We kick off by carving a Mount Rushmore of American rock bands, then get to why modern Star Trek keeps missing the mark: streaming budgets, prestige-TV ambitions, and a cliffhanger style borrowed from airport thrillers. From there we look back on ten years of the podcast, including our favorite moments, the Voyager slog, and what we'd do differently. The episode wraps with Nolan's Batman trilogy, the new Resident Evil, and whether physical media is worth holding on to now that PlayStation is dropping the disc drive. Grab your last bottle of Star Trek wine and settle in. **Timestamps:** - **00:00** – A Mount Rushmore of American rock bands: CCR, Nirvana, Springsteen, Metallica, and whether the Beach Boys count as a band - **07:54** – Catching up on new Trek (Strange New Worlds, Starfleet Academy, Shatner's *The Return*) and why modern Star Trek is so hard to get right - **26:36** – How thriller novels shaped modern TV: empty cliffhangers, *The Chair Company*, *Twin Peaks: The Return*, *Pluribus* - **37:07** – New Trek or new sci-fi? Franchise fatigue, *House of the Dragon* vs. *A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms*, and the Harry Potter series - **44:26** – Looking back on the podcast: favorite moments, Voyager burnout, what we'd change, and the case for a puppet or late-night-show version - **58:27** – *Obsession* and the rise of movies made by YouTubers - **1:02:17** – Rewatching Nolan's Batman trilogy and why third movies fall apart - **1:10:18** – What we've been watching: *Lanterns*, *The Chair Company*, *The Rehearsal* - **1:20:26** – Zach Cregger's *Resident Evil*: faithful adaptation or expensive fan film? - **1:26:09** – PlayStation drops the disc drive: physical media, cassettes for the kids, vinyl, and the ideal album length