How to Be Useless: THE CIRCLE (2.02)

Our Patreon is LIVE! Join our community, get into feisty discussions about costumes and character arcs, and decide if you’d like to support the podcast and earn exclusive perks. Thank you in advance for helping us keep the lights on! All the info here, or at the link in bio:Patreon: Deep Space WineAnd in the meantime, join us for the swashbuckling good fun of The Siege, the triumphant conclusion to the so-called Bajor Trilogy. Kira and Dax give us their best Han and Chewbacca impressions trying to get a hunk of junk flying, while Sisko and company lead a guerrilla resistance dressed in dungarees and parachute pants. Kira’s heroic flight to save Bajor from fascism is, believe it or not, a tale as old as time. Her quest throughout the trilogy aligns with the age-old saga of the Hero’s Journey, popularized by Joseph Campbell in his 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Join us for a journey from Campbell to Carl Jung to a veritable feast of comparative lit, including The Barbie Movie, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, The Odyssey, The Wizard of Oz, The Matrix, The Devil Wears Prada and so much more. You’ll get a crash course in the three stages of the hero’s journey, how they map to the three-act storytelling structure pervasive in modern screenwriting, and maybe more references to Frozen 2 than you’d prefer. But don’t say we didn’t warn you.🍷 Wine Pairing:  Jim Barry Assyrtiko 2025 🎥 Watch us on YouTube! Deep Space Wine channel❤️ Find us on Insta or Facebook: deepspacewine_podcast

The Bajor Trilogy continues, as Kira's journey of self-discovery leads her to explore woodcrafts with a sexy monk (whose sexiness remains a deep point of contention). In their discussion, Lily and Cole link the simmering civil war on Bajor to proxy wars waged in so-called banana republics during the Cold War, and to the ways proxy warfare continues to shape the geopolitical landscape today. The Cardassian conspiracy to funnel weapons to extremist groups to sow instability isn't so far from policy the United States quietly continues in the 21st century. Also discussed: our nominations of Vedek Winn for Real Housewives of Bajor, and Odo for cutest rat ever. 🍷 Wine Pairing:  Grainha Reserva 2025, Douro Valley❤️ Find us on Insta or Facebook: deepspacewine_podcast

We're back, nerds! Ready for a whole new season of jumja sticks, underboob dabo ladies, and hot takes on our favorite Star Trek series. "The Homecoming" takes its inspiration from a 1960s Western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. But the tale about false narratives holding more power than truth feels more relevant today than ever. And of course, this episode kicks off an epic three-parter, Star Trek's first-ever trilogy. Lily and Cole are here to cheer on Major Kira as she sets out to save Bajor from fascism -- looking fab in Ren Faire swashbuckler chic while she does it. 🎥 Video: https://youtu.be/GxoWEn-k1fE 🍷 Wine Pairing:  2023 S.C. Pannell Montepulciano❤️ Find us on Insta: deepspacewine_podcastAlso, a cheeky plug for some other podcasts Cole dabbled in during the hiatus: News Swaphttps://open.spotify.com/show/6ncfiIkr2gjyzJkbkhtU9N?si=96f3bc5fc12c4aa6https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/news-swap/id1834581051Deviantshttps://open.spotify.com/show/0gxEebzE7cSwm6XMBhiCoB?si=eb4fb77287c84220https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deviants/id1861755734

Yes, it's the award show you never asked for but didn't know how badly you needed. In this DS9 Season 1 retrospective, Lily and Cole bestow awards for acting, costumes, makeup, props, and more -- including best and worst episode (but spoiler: neither goes to Move Along Home). It's the glitziest night in the quadrant, and you don't want to miss it. 🥂 Drink pairing: Roku gin and Schweppes soda ❤️ Find us on Insta: @deepspacewine_podcast

Jumja sticks! Sexy Vedeks! The Sydney Opera House as fashion accessory! It’s the explosive season finale of DS9, and Lily and Cole are as fired up as a schoolhouse on fire. Showrunner Michael Piller intended “In the Hands of the Prophets” to serve as a bookend to the pilot, “Emissary,” revisiting Sisko’s relationships with Bajor, the Prophets, and his devoutly religious first officer, Major Kira. In turn, we use this super-sized podcast episode to revisit some of the recurring themes of Deep Space Wine’s inaugural season, including: Lily and Cole’s will-they-won’t-they dynamic; lamenting the sorry state of Miles and Keiko’s marriage; and endlessly debating which characters are smashable. (Lily’s taken by a certain cherry-red kimono.) 🍷 Wine pairing: Champagne from Ruinart ❤️ Talk to us: Find us on Insta @deepspacewine_podcast

Intended as a low-budget ‘bottle show’ to save money before the season finale, ‘Duet’ devotes most of its runtime to two characters steeped in conversation with each other. But this dense story of a tug-of-war between justice and vengeance has come to be regarded as one of the finest hours of Star Trek. Cole and Lily delve into the post-WWII historical context that inspired 'Duet', including the Nuremberg Trials and the establishment of the state of Israel. The scriptwriters drew inspiration from the play ‘The Man in the Glass Booth,’ which in turn was inspired by the kidnapping and trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1961. That same court case would compel Hannah Arendt, a philosopher, political theorist and Holocaust survivor, to coin the term “the banality of evil” to grapple with the wide-scale complicity of the German people in the Holocaust atrocities.Tracing this history all the way through to modern-day crises of occupation and oppression, Cole and Lily also consider Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel’s writings on inherited violence and “cycles of rage.” But there is room for hope, too: we end with Hannah Arendt’s playbook for tackling hatred and fascism--which, as it turns out, hinges on more people simply talking to each other. 🍷 Wine pairing: 'Serpico' Cabernet Sauvignon from Mitolo❤️ Find us on Insta @deepspacewine_podcast or Facebook @Deep Space Wine Podcast

Is this unhinged tale of intrigue, betrayal and horology giving more Shakespeare or soap opera? We say both, and all the better for it. And though there's plenty of camp silliness on the surface, naturally Lily and Cole dive deep. Cole sees the 'play within the play' setup as a revealing metaphor for television acting, using it to interpret what each DS9 cast member brings to his or her respective character. Meanwhile, Lily teaches Cole that the sci-fi conceit driving the episode's plot actually isn’t so far-fetched, connecting it to the concept of social contagion and mass psychogenic illness, mass hysteria, and groupthink. Oh, and not to be outdone by the drama onscreen, Lily also gifts us with a Shakespeare reading. Fasten your seatbelts, once more unto the breach -- it's going to be a bumpy night. 

Get your Kleenex ready - it’s time for the episode that makes all of us melt into a puddle. And if you haven’t got your pail nearby, thank the drag gods that Lwaxana Troi is here to scoop you back up. Lily and Cole deep-dive into Lwaxana’s drag queen energy, what her fabulousness brings to the comparatively sterile world of Star Trek, and particularly what her arrival means for queer-coded self-acceptance on DS9. We also pay tribute to actress Majel Barrett, First Lady of Star Trek.🪕 Intro music: Lily on ukulele and vocals, "I Am a Rock" by Simon & Garfunkel  🍷 Wine pairing: Beaujolais 'Les 3 Roches' from Pierre-Marie Chermette❤️ Find us: On Instagram @deepspacewine_podcast or Facebook @Deep Space Wine

Thought this episode was nothing but Rumpelstiltskin and rabid emus? Think again! Lily plumbs the depths of the station residents’ imaginations to psychoanalyze their deepest desires and greatest fears, uncovering some surprising insights along the way. Meanwhile Cole revisits The Secret, the runaway 2006 self-help bestseller all about "turning thoughts into things," to evaluate just how powerful the human imagination really is. 

What’s one stubborn farmer standing in the way of progress for an entire planet? Everything or nothing, depending on how you measure value. Nog and Jake spend the episode measuring it in wrappages of yamok sauce, bars of latinum, and gross of self-sealing stem bolts. Meanwhile, Major Kira is forced to reassess her values in a postcolonial Bajor where the black and white of wartime have blurred into an uneasy gray. For our discussion, we draw from A Short History of Progress by Robert Wright, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, and the history of the Three Gorges Dam project in China.