Star Trek: Discovery completed its course after a five-year mission spanning CBS All Access and Paramount Plus. It was the first of the “new” Trek series and spawned its share of controversies as well as accolades. In this episode we review the fifth and final season of the series. We talk about the quest plotline and how we feel about the payoff. We discuss the utilization of the characters and whether we felt that they were used fittingly. We also get into the coda scene and whether we felt that it was a fitting ending for the series. Along the way we talk about lore expansions, narrative payoffs, and Discovery’s main achievements and failures.
This week’s five-minute controversy asks whether we think that it’s a good thing that Robert Downey Jr has been cast as Dr Doom in the MCU.
This week Stephanie is cohost and Stephen joins the cast. Ryan makes a brief cameo.
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Over 65 years ago, Fellowship of the Ring, the first book in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings epic was published and literature would never be the same. That one work changed the way that fantasy literature was written and received by the public. It propelled a quiet academic into the public eye and has spawned a plethora of adaptations, interpretations, and imitations. In this episode and the three that follow we take a look at Tolkien’s life and the influences that helped inform his writing style. We’ll also talk about his many books and works, including those published posthumously, and we’ll discuss the various animated and live-action adaptations. 
We all know of examples of fandom behaving badly, and in this episode we delve into the question of whether or not fandom is “broken”. It’s a complicated issue as we examine the interaction between fans and creators and how fans relate to other fans. We talk about how things can go South, how to know if you’re the problem, and give some tips on how to avoid things escalating. We define a “broken fandom” and we each give our own opinions on whether or not it’s broken.