Second Contact: Goodness Gracious Great Balls Defiler!

This week, we’re on a second contact mission, revisiting Star Trek: Enterprise Season 3, Episode 12 “Chosen Realm,” now that Bill and Maria have watched this episode which is actually a thinly veiled metaphor about fundamentalist Islamic terrorism which irresponsibly promotes myths about Islam at a time when islamaphobia in the US was at its peak (yes, in case you couldn’t guess, Jamie is writing this description). Also, we go on a tangent about man soap opera Landman and discuss the memory alpha page on abortion in our Mammary Alpha segment. A word of warning: If you haven’t listened to the episode before this one, “Goodness Gracious Great Balls Defiler!,” go listen to that first because this is a follow up to last week. We now have merch! Show your love for EnterpriseSplaining and the cutest beagle ever with a Porthos Appreciation Society shirt!EnterpriseSplaining is proud to be part of the ESO Network.The show is produced by K.O. Myers at Particulate MediaFollow us on BlueSky: @enterprisesplainFollow us on Instagram: @enterprisesplainingLike us on Facebook: EnterpriseSplainingSend us an email: [email protected]

This week we’re watching Star Trek: Enterprise Season 3, Episode 12 “Chosen Realm,” but only Jamie has actually watched this episode where the Enterprise is taken hostage by religious extremists from the Church of Space Spheretology and for some reason there is a lady who wants an abortion, though she never gets one since the writers seemed to have forgotten about that storyline once it no longer matter to the main episode plot line.Rikermendations:Bill: Sherlock Holmes (1954) Maria: HoppersJamie: Sneakers (1992)We now have merch! Show your love for EnterpriseSplaining and the cutest beagle ever with a Porthos Appreciation Society shirt!EnterpriseSplaining is proud to be part of the ESO Network.The show is produced by K.O. Myers at Particulate MediaFollow us on BlueSky: @enterprisesplainFollow us on Instagram: @enterprisesplainingLike us on Facebook: EnterpriseSplainingSend us an email: [email protected]

We’re on a second contact mission, revisiting Star Trek: Enterprise Season 3, Episode 11 “Carpenter Street,” now that Jamie, Maria, and Bill have watched it. Our guest explainer, A Sigler comes back to get our reactions to time traveling Xindis in Detroit! A word of warning: If you haven’t listened to the episode before this one, “Lions and Tigers and Xindi, Oh My!” go listen to that first because this is a follow up to last week.We now have merch! Show your love for EnterpriseSplaining and the cutest beagle ever with a Porthos Appreciation Society shirt!EnterpriseSplaining is proud to be part of the ESO Network.The show is produced by K.O. Myers at Particulate MediaFollow us on BlueSky: @enterprisesplainFollow us on Instagram: @enterprisesplainingLike us on Facebook: EnterpriseSplainingSend us an email: [email protected]

We now have merch! Show your love for EnterpriseSplaining and the cutest beagle ever with a Porthos Appreciation Society shirt!EnterpriseSplaining is proud to be part of the ESO Network.The show is produced by K.O. Myers at Particulate MediaFollow us on BlueSky: @enterprisesplainFollow us on Instagram: @enterprisesplainingLike us on Facebook: EnterpriseSplainingSend us an email: [email protected]

This episode is going to sound and feel different than usual because our crew is leaving Enterprise behind this week to head out on an away mission cross-over episode with the Monkeeing Around podcast, who monkeesplained the entire first broadcast episode of The Monkees to us newbs.Plus, if you want to actually see us, this episode is available to watch on YouTube We’ll be back with our regularly scheduled Enterprise episodes next week.We now have merch! Show your love for EnterpriseSplaining and the cutest beagle ever with a Porthos Appreciation Society shirt!EnterpriseSplaining is proud to be part of the ESO Network.The show is produced by K.O. Myers at Particulate MediaFollow us on BlueSky: @enterprisesplainFollow us on Instagram: @enterprisesplainingLike us on Facebook: EnterpriseSplainingSend us an email: [email protected]

We’re on a second contact mission, revisiting Star Trek: Enterprise Season 3, Episode 10 “Similitude,” now that Bill, Jamie, and our guest, science-writer Bethany Brookshire, have watched it and have strong opinions on why the clone-based ethical conundrum posed in this episode doesn’t work. And in our Mammary Alpha segment, Jamie does a deep dive into whether there are bathroom facilities in the NX-01 shuttlepods and what they must have smelled like when Malcolm and Trip were stuck in one together for three days. A word of warning: If you haven’t listened to the episode before this one, “Send in the Clones!,” go listen to that first because this is a follow up to last week. We now have merch! Show your love for EnterpriseSplaining and the cutest beagle ever with a Porthos Appreciation Society shirt!EnterpriseSplaining is proud to be part of the ESO Network.The show is produced by K.O. Myers at Particulate MediaFollow us on BlueSky: @enterprisesplainFollow us on Instagram: @enterprisesplainingLike us on Facebook: EnterpriseSplainingSend us an email: [email protected]

We’re watching Star Trek: Enterprise Season 3, Episode 10 “Similitude,” but only Maria has actually watched the episode. An accident while testing the warp core puts Trip in a coma and the only way Phlox can save him is to grow a clone of him and harvest its brain matter. And that's just the first of a series of ethical conundrums that the crew has to deal with. Of course, Archer has a thoughtful and thorough analysis of the problem and... oh who am I kidding. All he really wants to do is save his bro. Join us as we attempt to navigate the truly wild complexities of this gordian knot of an episode.Bethany Brookshire, science writer and author of Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains and creator of Insomniac Academy, joins us to give us a little perspective on the fundamental dangers of cloning, growing up in two weeks, and why southern accents probably aren't genetic.Rikermendations:Bethany: The Murderbot Diaries (show and books)Bill: Mountain Goats (tabletop game)Jamie: A Man on the InsideMaria: Ride or Die (TV show), plus remember Ted Lasso is back!We now have merch! Show your love for EnterpriseSplaining and the cutest beagle ever with a Porthos Appreciation Society shirt!EnterpriseSplaining is proud to be part of the ESO Network.The show is produced by K.O. Myers at Particulate MediaFollow us on BlueSky: @enterprisesplainFollow us on Instagram: @enterprisesplainingLike us on Facebook: EnterpriseSplainingSend us an email: [email protected]

This week, we’re on a second contact mission, revisiting Star Trek: Enterprise Season 3, Episode 9 “North Star,” now that Maria and Jamie have watched it. Also, we’re joined by Ryan Consell, author of the Stealing from Wizards series! We all agreed that this episode was trying to say… something, but what it was trying to say was weird! We also do a deep dive into the episode name “North Star” and whether it comes from the name of Frederick Douglas’ anti-slavery newspaper, as Memory Alpha claims, or if they actually stole it from a 90s made-for-tv movie of the same name. A word of warning: If you haven’t listened to the episode before this one, “The Good, The Bad and the Skagly!,” go listen to that first because this is a follow up to last week. We now have merch! Show your love for EnterpriseSplaining and the cutest beagle ever with a Porthos Appreciation Society shirt!EnterpriseSplaining is proud to be part of the ESO Network.The show is produced by K.O. Myers at Particulate MediaFollow us on BlueSky: @enterprisesplainFollow us on Instagram: @enterprisesplainingLike us on Facebook: EnterpriseSplainingSend us an email: [email protected]

Maria and Jamie just got back from Dragon Con and have a ton of stories to share with Bill and all of you about the reaction from other fans to our decontamination cosplay, taking silly photos with Enterprise cast members, singing Faith of the Heart at karaoke, and meeting and talking to so many Enterprise fans and even some of the fans of EnterpriseSplaining!Joining us to talk about our time at Dragon Con is the voice of the computer, Stephen, and our rikermendation sponsor (and the person who comes up with a large percentage of our episode titles) Eric.Check out all our photos from the con, and the full video of our Faith of the Heart karaoke session.Here’s more info on Dawnn Lewis’ A New Day Foundation and the great work they are doing with youth in underserved communities.In the episode we said we couldn’t find the C🖖NT t-shirts online, but after recording, Bill was able to find them for us, so now you can buy your own!See you all next year at Dragon Con 2027!We now have merch! Show your love for EnterpriseSplaining and the cutest beagle ever with a Porthos Appreciation Society shirt!EnterpriseSplaining is proud to be part of the ESO Network.The show is produced by K.O. Myers at Particulate MediaFollow us on BlueSky: @enterprisesplainFollow us on Instagram: @enterprisesplainingLike us on Facebook: EnterpriseSplainingSend us an email: [email protected]

Giddy-up! It’s our 100th EnterpriseSplaining episode and to “celebrate” we’re watching Star Trek: Enterprise Season 3, Episode 9 “North Star,” but only Bill has actually watched the episode. This week the Enterprise Crew finds a colony of humans, living a rootin’ tootin’ cowboy lifestyle, right down to the horses, rotgut, and hangings! As they sort out the history of these people and the oppressed alien “Skags,” Archer gets close to schoolmarm Bethany, and it all ends in an old timey gunfight. Also, we’re joined by Ryan Consell, author of the Stealing from Wizards series (which we highly rikermend and you can listen to for free via the podcast of the same name)!Rikermendations:Ryan: The Young Necromancer's Guide to Ghosts by Vanessa Ricci-ThodeJamie: Tiny BookshopMaria: A Nice Indian BoyBill: Hairspray (1988)We now have merch! Show your love for EnterpriseSplaining and the cutest beagle ever with a Porthos Appreciation Society shirt!EnterpriseSplaining is proud to be part of the ESO Network.The show is produced by K.O. Myers at Particulate MediaFollow us on BlueSky: @enterprisesplainFollow us on Instagram: @enterprisesplainingLike us on Facebook: EnterpriseSplainingSend us an email: [email protected]