We're taking our phase pistols to town this week as we follow "North Star"!

Podcaster and cosplayer Thad Hait returns to the show to discuss an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise that takes aim at discrimination and xenophobia. When in the Expanse, Archer and crew find a planet inhabited by Earthlings descended from old West settlers. But before they can solve the mystery of their existence, they'll have to stop a impending race war and run the bad guys out of town!

The events of September 11, 2001, forever changed our world, not just in the political sphere but also in the field of entertainment. We can't ever know what Enterprise might have been without 9/11, but in the wake of the tragedy, Trek did what it was designed to do and sought to reframe our contemporary conflicts and prejudices through the lens of sci-fi allegory. The third season of Enterprise was mostly focused on the crew's efforts to avenge the victims of the Xindi attack, but it still took the time to tell a story about the kind of unfocused rage and racism that was present in the real world. On this episode, we talk about how Enterprise handled the politics of its time, the franchise's long association with allegory, the way in which stories about war ground genre characters, the fundamental connections between westerns and Star Trek, the freedom Enterprise might have had in syndication, and why it's a great time to be a sci-fi fan.

We also discuss returning to cons, making your Trek panel a Supernatural panel, Trek and spy stories, waiting for Prime Lorca, the wester sci-fi feel of The Mandalorian, a Trek cop series, a wind-free planet, Archer gets plugged, some James Bond talk, and Space Sears!

I want my Backula back!

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