The Ringer-Verse - Ringer-Verse Recommends: September 2025 (Featuring 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds')

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

Hit it! Recommends returns to put a bow on a busy September. First, Ben brings on Ringer contributor Joshua Rivera for a spoiler-free conversation about 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,' with an emphasis on the series' appeal, the ups and downs of Season 3, and the state and future of the franchise on both the big and small screens. After that, other Ringer-Verse hosts salute unsung releases to complete another expanded installment of the monthly roundup of fandom favorites from TV, anime, movies, video games, books, comics, and beyond that were released recently but not yet covered in-depth on a full-length episode. Host: Ben Lindbergh Guests: Joshua Rivera, Jomi Adeniran, Steve Ahlman, Van Lathan, and Joanna Robinson Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those WeatherTech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need WeatherTech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Hello and welcome into the ringerverse, your nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, senior editor for the ringer, button mash host, and your captain here at Ringerverse Recommends. Welcoming you to another edition of Ringerverse Recommends, this time for September 2025, accompanied as always by my familiar, the loyal beloved Doxand, Grumkin.

We gather here at the end of every month to shout out some recent releases that we've liked, but haven't had a chance to talk about in-depth on a full-length episode. They are typically in the nerd culture realm. Not always. Sometimes we make exceptions to that. Today we will. But that's the idea, at least. It's been a busy month.

We've had so much to talk about. Gen V. Peacemaker, Alien Earth, a demon slayer movie, and so much more, it's been an unbelievable button mash month, so many great games. But there are a few things that have slipped through the cracks. And so we've convened some of our Ringerverson House of Our Host. We don't have the whole crew with us this time. But Joanna Robinson will be back on Book Corner, making her return to Ring Averse Recommends. So happy to have her here.

And a few of the Midnight Boys will be here as well. So at the end of the episode, we will get that collection of clips. I will return to recap those recommendations and also share a listener recommendation sent to Ringaverse Recommends at gmail.com. And then we'll be out of here. But last month, we switched the format. So we now have a spotlight segment, a conversation where we focus on one recent release. Now, we skipped the July edition of Ringerverse Recommends when I would have recommended Dexter Resurrection.

I still do recommend it. And in fact, I did a dialogue with my ringer colleague Miles Surrey, which ran on the website at the ringer.com. What a great website. It's text, but that's okay. You still read things online, right? I hope so. So you can check that out to get my thoughts and Miles' is on the latest.

Dexter's spin-off sequel and also the state of the Dexterverse. But this time, on this episode, we will be talking about Star Trek, Strange New Worlds. As one of the resident Star Trek fans here at the Ringiverse, I always try to squeeze Star Trek in where I can. And Strange New Worlds has been a highlight of the franchise for me. The third season just wrapped up on Paramount Plus. And so I will be joined in just a moment by Joshua Rivera to talk about it. Joshua is a prolific. pop culture coverer. He has written for Kataku, Polygon, many other sites. He contributes to the Ringer website. And he's joined me a couple times on Buttmash to talk about video games, but he's also a Star Trek guy.

And so we will be getting into how we came to Star Trek, how we came to Strange New Worlds, what we thought of the early seasons, what we thought of season three, which is a very genre-jumping, high-concept sort of series, doesn't always work. But we'll talk about it. And we'll also get into the future of the show and the franchise and the state of Star Trek. No specific spoilers for Strange New World's season three. So it's okay to proceed if you haven't seen it. So we'll get right to me and Joshua in our longer conversation. Then we'll be back with some additional recommendations. Right now, let's beam him up. All right, hailing frequencies open. On screen now is the great Joshua Rivera. Joshua, my mind to your mind, my thoughts.

Thoughts to your thoughts. Welcome to Ringaverse Recommends. Hello. So happy to be mind-melting with you, Ben. Yes. It's great because we have a whole series in our future that this is really just a prequel, too. We're really just setting the stage for our budding relationship where we play various forms of futuristic chess. I wanted to talk to you about Strange New Worlds because I think our relationships to Star Trek are somewhat similar. A couple of years ago, you wrote about Picard, season three, as did I. and you described your level of investment in Star Trek as along for the ride and happy to be here. So I've talked a little bit about my history with Star Trek on previous pods.

Tell me your Star Trek origin story and what you meant by that exactly. Yeah, it was basically kind of like a dad and uncle thing, right? Like I had an uncle who was crazy into it. And then I had my father who was like casually into it, right? Like he was when there was like a new show, he was pumped to check it out. And then, you know, like most people watch TV back in like the, you know, 90s. You know, life gets in the way and you sort of like check it out when you can, you know? Yeah.

And, you know, there are certain things that were appointment television and some things that you just watched when you found it. And Star Trek was something my dad watched when he found it. And so for me, that was kind of like the casual thing. Like sports kind of, you know? We're just sort of like if what we're doing is watching the game, that's what I'll do. I watch them a little more actively now. But that's kind of how it was for Star Trek with me. Yeah, not too different for me because I love Star Trek, but I'm not stressed about Star Trek.

Which is a nice feeling in fandom just to be happy. If it's good, great. If it's bad, well, it's been bad before. I've been watching Star Trek since I was a kid. I keep close tabs on it. But I'm not a total Trek completest or scholar exactly. I don't care that much or obsess about Star Trek canon because I feel like Star Trek doesn't care that much about its own canon.

There's just so much of it. That's the thing. It's a volume shooter, basically. And a lot of those shots go in. And some of them kind of clank off the ring, off the rim, but then you take another one, you know? And although I always want it to be good, it doesn't feel like a complete crisis when it's bad. Because the series started on TV with 26 episode seasons. There were going to be some duds.

There were going to be some filler, right? So you can kind of pick and choose. And, yeah, when we were kids, it was always on either first airings or reruns. And so you wouldn't necessarily see everything. You'd just dip in and out. And when it was good, great. It was kind of background. Now it's more appointment viewing for me,

but I still sort of retain that attitude toward it, where I just have a deep fondness and affection for it. But it's not the end of the world if something goes wrong, which I guess we'll talk about on this episode. So we're talking specifically about strange new worlds. Maybe we can talk a little bit about our general experience. with new Trek and the resurgence in Star Trek properties recently. But how did you get into Strange New Worlds?

What was your initial impression of it? Yeah. I mean, I have followed this new era Trek on Paramount Plus pretty linearly, right? So I've been watching it basically all as it came out. I fell off a little bit on Discovery towards the end. Me too. Yeah. So yeah, for the listener at home, if you haven't,

checked out Star Trek of late or ever. This new era on Paramount Plus, which at the time was CBS All Excess, I think, right? It started off with Star Trek Discovery, which itself was interesting, both to Trek people because it was the first new Trek show since Enterprise in the early 2000s, almost 20 years. And it was also interesting because it was like a production boondoggle, right?

Brian Fuller, initially we was a showrunner, then left that show, and everyone was kind of wondering what kind of show it would turn out to be. And also because it was serialized, not episodic, so it wasn't just Adventure of the Week. There was actually a through-line and a developing story. Yeah. And so, what do you call it?

That show was initially, and we don't have to get into this in detail, but it was initially set before Star Trek, the original series. It was like a prequel. And through that, it started to introduce characters of the original series, and that became a spinoff show, Strange New Worlds. And I liked all of those characters more. Yes, I know. It was really a tough beat for Discovery, because I also liked Discovery at first,

but then this backdoor pilot for another show inside of Discoveries, which is what it turned out to be. And it was like, oh, wait, I wish I were watching this show instead. You know? Yeah. They just got upstaged, sort of. It's so unfortunate. You feel really bad because, like, again, every season of discovery and even, like, the ones that people would call bad, I would say every season of discovery starts with a bang.

It's, like, really, really impressive and then just sort of, like, loses its way. And part of the appeal of a strange in a world is beyond the nostalgic affection you had for, like, these older characters was that it's going to go back to being episodic. So that classic Star Trek feeling then is describing about like, you know, if it's bad, it's not the end of the world. There's another one next week. We're back to that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. No, it felt like a return to that.

And especially, you know, you have Picard. So there's kind of an uneven quality in Star Trek output recently, not only across series, but also within series. So Discovery started really well. well and it was exciting. And then, yeah, I fell off, I don't know, season four or five. There was a massive time jump. Yeah, it got kind of convoluted. And then Picard, similarly, I thought, started in pretty promising fashion. And then season two was terrible in my life. Like, I've, forced myself to consume season two of Picard and ultimately was rewarded when we got to season three, which we can talk about. But it did really feel like, ah, this is a lot.

load off. You know, it's not that I wanted Star Trek to be regressive or retrograde or to say, like, we have to go back to white guy captains or something, and Star Trek can only be one thing. I like that it has experimented and broken the mold. And Strange New Worlds is no exception to that. But also, it just felt like a real return to just sort of the ethos of the series. Just like, this is thought-provoking and it's sometimes sort of silly. also, and it can be profound, and it can be both of those things, and sometimes it'll just reset,

and it'll make you ponder things, and it'll make you laugh, and it has a crew that you care about with just an incredible cast, which I think is the most important thing when it comes to a Star Trek series. Yeah, yeah, it can't be stressed enough. I think, what do you,

I think an underappreciated Star Trek thing is that, like, I don't think any of them, except for Enterprise, has a truly bad cast, right? Like, they're all very good, and it's sort of like, seeing different characters sort of like recede and, you know, like, enter the spotlight.

It's like one of the fun things about Star Trek, but there's something about strange new worlds, like the actors that they cast, and how they are riffing on and expanding on these classic parts that people know from the 60s and beyond. is just really kind of special, you know? It's sort of like just, like he said, it's weird, it's funny, and also just sort of like, I don't know, very warm, you know?

That was the thing. I think I wrote this after season one that I just felt sort of homesick for Strange New Worlds because that's what you want. You know, this is the home away from home for the characters, and they become kind of a family, as they often. reference on Strange New Worlds. And that's the vibe that you want. It's just like I'm with my space daddy and I'm with my space family, basically. And Ensign Mount is awesome and plays a great Captain Pike and is just magnetic and has a lot of range. And Ethan Peck makes for an incredible

Spock. And it's just, it's such a deep cast. It's just a really deep ensemble. And it will kind of zoom out and have episodes that feature a lot of characters. And then it'll kind of isolate individual characters for certain episodes and deep dives and flesh them out. So it is more episodic, but there's a light serialization aspect to it. So it's kind of a blend, whereas in the original series, you could almost just jumble up those episodes and watch them in any order. Strange New Worlds, their developments, their promotions, their relationships, there are things that evolve, and yet you can kind of dip in and out if you want to, which I wouldn't want to dip out of it because I like watching the show.

Also, Anson Mount, who plays Christopher Pike, just has a wonderful hair. He's got like an enviable lift, a lift and swoop thing going on. The altitude. It's incredible. Like, I want to know everything about his hair products, but yeah, Joanna and I call him handsome handsome. I'm sure we're not the only... No, not at all.

It's become kind of like self-aware, too, and then they will refer to the hair and the appearance. But, yeah, I mean, it's quite a really a contrast from previous Star Trek captains who had no hair or maybe had some hair assistance that was, you know, kind of swept under the rug, so to speak. 23rd, 24th century. They just didn't think about it much. Yeah, I guess so. So the first couple seasons, it starts so strong. And one of the other things, you know, they keep it coming, right? So there was a writer strike and that was a delay and everything. But they have renewed it early. They've kind of shot it quickly so that it's in the can so that they can keep it coming on a fairly regular basis. You know, we're not waiting three years between Strange New World's episodes, which helps a little bit. And I feel like they found their rhythm fairly quickly when it came to just what is an archetypical Star Trek Strange New World's episode. and who were some of the strange out, some of the standout characters.

And the chemistry of the cast just gelled well. Yeah. What, was there anybody that you were, like, unsure of? Or did they all just immediately be like, yeah, this is it for you? Yeah. I mean, I think that there are some characters who've been relatively underserved. It's not like I dislike any particular characters, but I just find that some of them don't pop quite the same way.

I guess I'd single out Una, number one, maybe, as just not having as much material to work with or just kind of almost being sidelined by the Pike and Spock relationship. And then number one is just there, but doesn't always have something distinctive to do. So that one stands out to me. You know, I think Laan Nuni and Singh is probably third favorite character on the show. Christina Chong is just great and had a lot to work with in recently completed season three. Uhura is great.

Ortegis is great. It's pretty deep. What about you? Yeah, I would say the same thing. I think Una is unfortunately when the episode isn't necessarily about her. Her role is kind of like, we're working here, you know?

Yeah. I have to be the boss, unfortunately, because that's what she has to do. She has to take over when the captain's not around. And it makes her seem like a drip you know, which is when the show's so fun, it's kind of like a noticeable, like, sore spot, you know? Yes, it's true.

So season three, which just wrapped up recently, and we should say that the end is already in sight for Strange New World, so this is not a case where we need to speculate about how many seasons will it run, but it was kind of unusual in that they announced the ending far in advance. So there are actually two more seasons to come, and the fourth is already done, right? And so there's a full-length four, and then there will be a five,

and that will be it for Strange New Worlds, and we can talk about what the future of the franchise, and these characters is beyond that. So it's this happy-go-lucky show, developing these characters, adventures of the week. We get to season three, and it's kind of an awkward time

to do a recommendation for this series. Not that I'm qualifying my recommendation. I think it's worth watching even at its worst, because its worst is not that bad. But the latest series is the weakest or the latest season. So we're coming in at kind of a tough time to sing the praises of Strange World's. You know, there are merits to it, but maybe we can talk about the likes and dislikes. Should we start with, are there positives for you from season three? I think everybody

One of the cool things about modern trek is that it's sort of like it takes Like we were talking about before It takes like the notion of like these people have to make Their jobs, their lives You know, a little more seriously So it lets them be more full people And I think season three

allows them to sort of like drop into different registers You know in a way that is like both fun and kind of impressive, right? It shows how elastic Star Trek has always been and how elastic it can be without necessarily breaking. And it's the kind of, I don't know, I think you can sort of take like a haughty approach to like a procedural, right? And think that's not necessarily your deal.

but I think formula is important and formula allows people to be more depth and find more nuance and things and I think that's what Strange New Roads has done ironically though it has strayed so far from formula and I think that's the problem with a lot of my issues

that there's like no baseline and fun what previous seasons and previous Star Trek's would have treated as fond diversions have become kind of like what this season does all the time. Yes. Yeah, it's the rare case where you almost want it to be more formulaic, just like rain it in a little bit more, because that is one of the strengths of the first couple seasons was that it would have these diversions, which were entertaining, and the show could kind of flex and show its range and do a musical episode and just experiment and take chance

and that was great, but now that has become the majority of the episodes. Almost without exception, there's some sort of gimmick or the show is doing a bit, basically, at all times. And some of those bits work better than others. But this season, you know, there are a couple of standout episodes, I think,

but you can almost classify every episode this season as some sort of very special episodes, right? There's sort of like there's the documentary format episode. There's the episodes that has Klingon zombies. There's the episode where everyone turns into a Vulcan. You know, like there's always something. We should have done with Vulcan ears. Yes.

There's always something wacky or zany going on, essentially. And you just kind of want to like settle down, you know, do what you do. Like tell me some character-centric stories. give me some kind of classic trek. We go to a new planet. We encounter some species. We navigate some moral quam in question, and we learn something from it,

and we come together, and we navigate the problem, and we solve it, and we hit it and head out to the next planet in the next episode. There's not a lot of that going on in season three. Yeah, and like the character-centric stuff is also ironically extremely serialized, right? like Ortegas has like, I would say a pretty compelling arc this season,

but it's stretched across so much of it that like it sort of ebbs and flows with the quality of each episode, you know, where, you know, traditionally you would just have an episode where like Ortegas has to solve this problem, you know, herself. And it's all part of like this one self-contained story about that character in particular. And so, and like, I don't want to harp too much on this because it sounds like, you know, oh, they got romance in my Star Trek. But they really struggled with finding, particularly for, you know,

the woman in the cast, to give them stories that weren't, you know, involved, you know, that weren't about romantic entanglements or complications. And I don't know. I felt like it does a disservice to how, like, interesting these characters are. how much they've got going on or could have going on. Yes, yeah. And I think another one I would single out, I meant to mention when you said, you know,

who doesn't quite work as well is Pike's love interest, Marie Bettell. And I feel bad describing her as Pike's love interest, but that is sort of what that character has been on this series all along. And she plays a more prominent role this season, and a lot of it, you know, there's an infection and there are medical procedures. and we won't spoil what happens in the finale where there's just sort of a metamorphosis

and all those things kind of come to fruition if you can follow exactly what happens in almost like a Doctor Who-esque way. But for the first two seasons, when we see her, it's usually like a quick scene in Pike's cabin where they had some shore leave or they had some time together

and now they've got to split up again because they're both captains and they're trying to do this long distance thing. And it's basically just Pike is sad because his girlfriend is leaving. And we don't really get a sense of her or their relationship either. We know that he likes her. We know that she's important to him, but it's hard to assess why that is exactly or, you know, just like it's hard because she kind of comes to center stage this season, gets more screen time. But it's still very much just how will her being in jeopardy affect Pike more so than her own kind of realized character.

Yeah, and she's more interesting in prior seasons when she just shows up, right? Because she's a busy captain, you know? And what do you call it? Not that Wikipedia is like an authority. Got to go to memory alpha, Joshua. Yeah, I know. But it's really funny if you go to Wikipedia and you look up Marie Bettell, all it says, I did this just before recording it, all it says,

Marie Patel is a starship captain and Captain Pike's girlfriend. And I was like, she... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What else do we know about her? Every now and then we get to see her sort of do her thing or strut her stuff or like exist independent of the fact that she's Pike's girlfriend, but not very often.

So that is a bit of a bummer. One thing I did want to ask you about outside of this was, or just talk to you about in general, is that this episode, I mean, not this episode. So this season seemed less interested in, and there are a few, and I would say those are the best ones, but like seem less interested in interesting sort of like problems or ideas in a way that makes it feel not very Star Trek, unfortunately. Like, I don't have a problem with like the JJ Abrams mode. That's more like blockbuster, but we pause to think a little bit about what we're doing, you know, but not too much. Yes.

I have some problems with Star Trek into darkness, but I won't get into them here. Oh, yeah. I mean, but I'm fine with Star Trek dipping into that mode. I'm less fine with that being kind of like the only mode. Or there's also some stuff. Like, without spoiling anything, part of the ongoing concern of this season is like, you know, an alien race. that might be a primordial evil, right? And that kind of seems to fly in the face of, like,

what I understand Star Trek to be about, which is sort of like, you know, life of all sorts is never that simple, you know? I feel like Star Trek is something that is a story that rejects the idea of, like, innate evil in a race or a species or being. Yeah. And this is kind of sort of like didn't care about that, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the, what is the essence of Star Trek and is this real Star Trek that can be kind of a fraught conversation on any number of levels, you know, and in kind of toxic ways, but also legitimate ways. And yeah, you know, my wife, when we watched Discovery together, she kind of bumped off it for similar reasons just because it would get dark and just very like, you know, torture and gritty.

And not that there wasn't some of that in previous Star Trek series, but ultimately it is kind of a utopian vision of the future. And, you know, yeah, there's always the wrestling with Starfleet is this, you know, benign and benevolent organization, but also has weapons and wages wars. And there's one episode this season that kind of unsuccessfully, I think, tries to dig into that issue. But, yeah, it's not always. you know, we come back to it and, oh, everyone's just trying to do their best and we're all

working together and science will save us. And, you know, there are sometimes when it does get a little dark. And again, I don't want to be too restrictive on what Star Trek can be. And I think Stranger New Worlds is a lot less like this than Picard was at times than Discover. And also just a little less action-centric. There are sometimes in Strange New Worlds where, you know, they've introduced or reintroduced the Gorn as an enemy. And this is kind of a callback to the original series and the cheesy effects and the guy in a lizard costume, you know, fighting Kirk. And they've kind of rebranded the Gorn now as, you know, a more just deadly and lethal and intimidating group. But also, with the exception of one episode, I guess, this season, we don't get a great insight into them and what they want and who they are.

So they are still just sort of lizard people, but like the lizards look better, you know? It's not like the cheesy reptile Godzilla-looking thing, but there's not that much depth to the gorn for the most part also. So maybe that kind of goes along with what you're saying there, that sometimes it does get a little like setting phasers to kill and doing dog fighting. And that feels out of place in a sense in Star Trek. Yeah. Yeah. And again, like, we're down in it, but like you said, it's still, it's so watchable, right? Oh, yeah. Like, I don't, I don't, it just goes down so smooth that like, it, like, maybe there are, there are some episodes where like, I check my fantasy team a little more, you know? Yeah. But I'm never mad that, you know, that like I watched it, you know?

Yeah, yeah. After the fact, I'll think, where is this going? What is, what is the vision here exactly? But on a moment to. moment basis, I'm still having fun hanging out with my space friends. And, you know, I didn't even mention all of the kind of gimmicky episode. There's a Q episode. There's a hollow deck episode, which have always been kind of hit or miss. And, you know, this is not new for Star Trek, but I think why it stands out more is that these seasons are 10 episodes. Yeah. So if this is old school network TV and the show is on half the year and it's a 26 episode season, and you have a handful that are weird, then good. That's a nice palette cleanser. It's a nice change of pace. But when you have a 10 episode season and most of your episodes are kind of the curveballs,

the changeups, then it's just like, give me a few fastballs down the middle, basically. And that's what I miss. And, you know, they have already done a little bit of damage control about this. Yes. You know, they've really hyped up this aspect of the show, historically speaking. And there was a variety story back in March where they were asked, you know, Akiva Goldsman, show and her producer, he's asked, like, is there anything Strange New Worlds can't do? Is there a genre that the show can't handle? And he basically said, I'm not sure there is. Could it do Muppets? Sure. Could it do black and white? Silent, slapstick? Maybe. And in fact, they teased that there is a Muppets, Puppets episode coming in

season four. But they have kind of walked that back in the wake of the kind of colder reception to the season and said, well, we were rushed, the writers strike, you know, there were production, snafus and such, and season four is going to be much better. Don't worry. Like, it's already, you know, we've kind of, we've rained things in and we've found our way back to just true north here. So we'll see, you know, because they work ahead, I'm not sure how much they were able to adjust based on the feedback to season three, but they're at least sending the signal that, all right, we're going to get back to what we do best. Yeah, yeah.

And it's, I would say, I guess, highly unusual for Star Trek to have a set ending. Although they might have, like, you know, privately, right, been lobbying for this sort of, this length in time because, you know, in the fiction, Pike runs the enterprise for five years, right? And then Kirk takes over. And they've been setting that up, you know. in the background, right? Paul Wesley of the Vampire Diaries has been showing up pretty regularly

as Captain Kirk. Do you like him? How do you feel about him? I like him, but that's another thing that I sometimes wrestle with with this show where when it becomes about doing that prequel thing of setting up what we know is coming in the canon and bringing these characters together,

I kind of care less about that, really? Because I'm in the show for this show, not because it is the prelude to the original series. It works well sometimes. For example, Scotty was added to the cast and is a pretty prominent figure this season, and I think is great. And it's nice to have him there.

Kirk, though, kind of comes and goes in a weird way where he's not part of the crew yet, and they keep coming up with ways to sort of shoehorn him in. He's still sort of the executive osphraser on another ship. So suddenly Kirk's here and Kirk's back, and he's renewing these relationships and everything. And you can see them weighing the groundwork and kind of bringing these characters together.

And that's fine, but to the extent that it distracts from Strange New Worlds cast, like for me, Strange New Worlds is Star Trek at this point, so it's not really set up for something else that I'm anticipating more. But I think the portrayal of Kirk is good. I enjoy Kirk's presence for the most part. They do.

They also do, and one of the many gimmick episodes, They do a fun parody of 60 Star Trek in which Paul Wesley does an exaggerated Shatner impression. They got me, you know? I won't lie. But yeah, I agree. I think that's another like growing frustration where it just sort of like, you know, I want the promise of the show. I want strange new worlds, you know?

Yeah. And the beauty. I'm not sitting here going like, when will McCoy come in? because he probably will at some point, but Dr. Embenga is awesome. He's one of my favorite characters on the show. Absolutely. And Nurse Chapel is an original character, of course,

who's much more prominent here, but I'm not sitting there thinking, give me bones, like, get the core trio together again, because I just, I like this cast and this crew. Yeah, absolutely. And so it's sort of like a thing that, I feel like we'll never get, like the ideal version of the show again

because there are too many just like moving parts, right? Sort of they're very cagey about whether they just want to like run the original series again and slide into like, you know, Kirk and the classic crew, which again, I think that would be a mistake. I also will watch it if that's what they do. Yes. But it's like one of those things where it's just sort of like, I, you know, Discovery had its shortcomings, but I don't think we should, you know, shy away from trying again and doing something else,

like new and different in a different era. But yeah, how do you, do you think that they're trying to, you know, increasingly play check with remaking the original series? Yeah, and maybe next generation as well. So we can close with just a brief sort of state of Star Trek, what's next for the franchise? What do we want next for the franchise conversation here? And the finale of Season 3 of Strangery World's kind of clears the decks on a narrative level,

and we're heading off into the unknown and going boldly. And so it sort of seems like it has the potential to be a reset, we'll see. But elsewhere in Star Trek, so, Discovery is concluded. You had Prodigy. You had Lower Dex, which was wonderful. I love Lower Dex. Lower Dex is number two for me,

like a close two behind Strange New Worlds when it comes to Best of New Trek. And the fact that they crossed over was a delight as well. And then you had Picard, which was all over the place, really. And I think we were aligned where I almost quit on Picard in season two. And then season three, they just said, okay, we know what you want. You know, like, good for them. They tried to take this legacy character and not make it just a TNG reunion. And then ultimately, it just wanted to be.

It was built to be a TNG reunion and other things weren't working well. And so they leaned into that and they brought back more characters. And it worked. And that turnaround from season two to season three was striking. Absolutely. That just scratched the itch for me. And in a way, that was dismaying because it was like, this is fun, but is this bad for the franchise? Will this just encourage that same impulse that we see

everywhere in IP and in shared universes now where it's just let's keep running the same place? You know, let's do callbacks and Easter eggs and nostalgia and bring back the same characters over and over and over again. It was nice that Star Trek felt free from that for a little while. And so there's been a lot of talk of Star Trek legacy. Just, okay, let's do TNG again. And let's just make it the series. It hasn't come to fruition, but a lot of buzz about that. There has also been some discussion of Star Trek Year 1, a spinoff of Strange New Worlds that would just be Kirk and Spock again, basically. And of course, there is Starfleet Academy, which is the one really confirmed show that's on the horizon, a new thing, which takes place in the far future discovery timeline, but is basically just like,

you know, young cadets just kind of becoming officers in Starfleet, the first generation of the rebuilt Starfleet in this far future scenario. And, you know, like, there's some crossover with Discovery cast. There's also like Paul Giamati. I don't know what to expect from this series. It's coming early next year. So that's the one thing that we know. And hopefully that will be new and exciting in some ways. But again, it's just like, it really runs the gamut. Like, Section 31, which was at one point... I didn't watch that one. Don't.

That was wise. That was one of the worst pieces of popular media I have ever consumed. And you can completely tell that this was supposed to be a show. And then it just got reconfigured into this streaming movie. And it was a disgrace, basically. I wanted to recommend it on Ring ofverse Recommends. And then I watched it. And I thought I cannot include conscience.

I can recommend that you not watch it, which is what I'm doing now. But, you know, that was just a misfire. And it sounds like they're not going down that road with streaming movies anymore or with Section 31. So I don't know. Do we just end up kind of pivoting back to what has worked before? Or does Starfleet Academy do something new? Can we have both? Because that's what I want, really.

I want multiple threads of Star Trek. I'm fine with having the traditionalist Trek show, as long as that's not. all we have. Yeah. And I think from, you know, just from what we can infer, right, from strange new worlds and like what they've said and what they've green light and what they haven't green light, I feel the people in charge of Star Trek, which I guess is mostly like Akely Goldsman and his brain trust, are kind of interested in doing that, right? Like having something new, trying something new, and then also having like a nostalgic, like, a nostalgic, like safeguard, right?

And I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with, you know, Starfleet Academy, Starfleet Academy. And then, you know, when that first season's wrapped, right before Strange New World, season five drops, we get a year one, you know, or something of that nature. I also think, because another wrinkle here is that the Star Trek movies have been in development hell. Oh, yeah.

basically for a decade now, right? Because we're approaching 10 years since Beyond, which was the last Star Trek movie. And there have been all sorts of weird developments. I think with like what Skydance is acquisition of Paramount, they're trying to sort out something new there. Yep. Yeah, that's really kind of a complicating factor here

because who knows what's going to get green light. you know, what's going to get greenlit. The executives have said that Star Trek is a priority, and obviously it's something that they've built up Paramount Plus with, you know, maybe there is some theoretical limit to how many Taylor Sheridan shows there can be at one time. Not any limit to how many I will watch, to be clear, but, you know, Star Trek is one of those tent poles.

And, yeah, even though it's a little bit different from the Star Wars situation where it's so strange not to have a movie for so long because Star Wars started in theaters. Star Trek obviously started on the small screen, but it is odd to go this long. And so there are things in the works here, which has been the case for years and years. It's incredible to look at the people

who have been working on a Star Trek movie at some point and turned in a script and Tarantino and Noah Hawley and Matt Chapman, and it's just like a succession of big name people over and over who seem to have some vision or passion for Star Trek and then just went elsewhere. And, you know, Chris Pine even called the franchise cursed at one point, right? At least the movie franchise.

And Alex Kurtzman, I guess, is kind of like the steward, the shepherd of Star Trek, you know, kind of the figy, feloni of Star Trek and has overseen this big burst of Star Trek. Maybe it's also a case of like, you know, we went from no shows for years and years to so many shows all at once. Maybe there's a happy medium. But Kurtzmann worked on the movies, the Abrams movies as well. And so supposedly there are two movies in the works now. There's kind of a fourth movie with the Abrams cast that will wrap up that timeline. And then there's also an original thing with and or director Toby Haynes attached and people writing and Abrams is producing, I guess, both of them.

But I don't know which way that will go. And I don't know if it will go anyway. I assume at some point with this merger done, they will want to fast track that and we will actually see a Star Trek movie again, which is sort of something to look forward to because it's been an extended drought. Yeah, yeah. And I don't know. I still, I was, again, like, we started this talking about how I am mostly like a Star Trek casual, right? But I do think there's something like beautiful to Star Trek, right? Oh, yeah.

I love the notion where like Star Trek at its best is like, you know, now, this crew that you know very well confronting a group of people who believe something thoroughly, right? And they have to decide amongst themselves, are these, do we agree? Is this, right? Is there a better way to be? And that's like such a good question to just ask over and over and over again and all sorts of formats, you know? And I don't know, I get, I turn, I turn as annoying as I as annoyed as I am by Star Trek a lot of times

and as annoying as I can find it. I am a little bit of a sentimentalist towards it. Me too. Yeah. Yeah, we have fewer state of Star Trek conversations than we do state of Star Wars or state of the MCU. And that has to do with just the prominence

of these properties and how popular they are and how many fans they are. But it feels at least to me, we're not relitigating that over and over and over on this podcast, at least. And, you know, I have hope. And again, maybe my standards are a little lower because it's just like, yeah, it can be uneven. But what is not uneven when you put out this much stuff? And you can say that about Star Wars and you can say that about the MCU.

And you can bemoan and lament the bad things. Or you could focus on the positives, perhaps. And, you know, we just swing from pole to pole, basically, where it's like, if the latest thing that came out is bad, it's a crisis. It's the end. It's super hero fatigue. It's Star Wars fatigue. There's no rudder to this franchise. It's crisis. It's chaos. And then something great comes out. We're like, hmm, are we so back now? Like, you know, and I feel like we could maybe just have longer memories, perhaps, or just take a longer view and be like, you know, there's a lot of bad, but also there's some good that comes with that. And next,

year's the 60th anniversary of Star Trek. It's been around for a really long time. You know, it's been kind of a constant even when it does disappear for a while. And I'm glad that it's with us, and I hope it will continue to be with us. And I'll look forward to the highs. And when there are lows, then you can choose not to watch Section 31. You know, you can exercise some restraints and protection of yourself. Yeah, it's baseball, not football. I would say. Exactly. Yeah, it's a marathon, not a sprint. It's the background's noise. It's kind of the comfort food in a way. And that's when I think of Strangery World's like my happy place is just Pike's cabin when the crew's all there and they're cooking dinner and he has his apron on. And that's what I think of next generation too. It's like everyone's playing cards and just hanging out, right? Like you want just those relationships among the cast. That's ultimately what I gravitate towards. And that's, I think, why even though we're pointing out some of the flaws of Strange New Worlds, that's why it does have such a hold on us and why I do give it a very enthusiastic recommendation on the whole, because it nails that aspect of Star Trek. Absolutely.

All right. We will hope for the best with the continuing five-year mission or however many years we continue this. Always a pleasure to talk to you, Joshua. Thank you very much. Hey, likewise, Ben, and just energized, I guess. Yeah, we've got some clips queued up, so hit it. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable Internet means everything for your business.

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Which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, The Love Hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more.

Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. What's up? Bringerverse Recommends. It's me, Joanna Robinson, back on the book recommendation beat here at the end of 2025. I want to recommend a book. Usually I like to show the book to the video when I'm talking. This is an old book.

This is R.F. Kwong's Babel. I'm not here to talk about Babel or Babel, if you prefer. I'm here to talk about her newest book that came out in September, called Catabasis or Catabasis. She says it's okay to pronounce it either way. So I say it's okay to pronounce it either way. I don't have a copy of the book in front of me. I lent it to a friend, but it is extraordinary. It's about two academics named Peter and Alice, PhD students who travel to the underworld to find their advisor because they need letters of recommendation or other motives that might be cooking in the background for all of that.

So they travel to the underworld. And basically what R.F. Kwong has done is taking mythologies of like all the underworlds through all the different cultures and mishmash them all together. So it's a journey through the underworld, which is what the word catavis means. And it's just a really fun sort of mythological quest kind of story. There are great magic systems inside of it, great academic ideas inside of it. And there's also like a really personal section in the middle that is very clearly inspired by, you know, maybe something that the author is similar to something the author herself experienced, which I thought was just like outstanding work. So if you like fun, like journeys through mythology where you're pulling from like Eastern and Western cultures to find where all of our ideas about a certain concept meet up in the middle. and if you like quests and if you like enemies to lovers

and if you like all sorts of different things, that is all available to you inside of Catavisus by R. F. Kwong. It's a little bit of a doorstopper like Babel, Babel, but I think you'll really enjoy it. I really loved it. And I couldn't put it down. I thought it was really, really fun. And it's a really good audiobook listened to. I read it and I listened to it. So that is my September ring of verse recommends.

Okay, bye. What's up, everybody? It's Van. It's September. And my ring of verse recommends for the month is a mini miracle. I'm going to recommend Demon Slayer, Infinity Castle. You guys, okay? I know, I know this is quite the me a culprit for me.

But the reality is I saw it. Not just that, but I watched all the stuff from the train and the entertainment district and stuff like that. It's kind of cooking. Now, I shouldn't have to recommend this to too many people because it's making a $1 billion right now, but I thought the story wasn't perfect, but it was still enthralling.

I thought the animation was brilliant. And overall, the scale of this movie is an achievement to behold. I'm recommending anime. What is going on in the world? Demon Slayer Infinity Castle. Go check it out. What's up, Ringervverse?

Steve Allman here for your recommendation. for September. It's already September. Oh, my God. Fall. Guess what? You know what my favorite thing to do ever is? It's not gambling, but it's fake gambling. Fake gambling, it's probably one of my favorite things

because it captures all the thrills of gambling, but your wife doesn't leave you and you get to keep the kids and the house and it's all great. And that's the video game that I'm talking about today. And it's called Clover Pit. If you're familiar with Balotro, if you're familiar with any of these other gambling, uh,

and like card-based rogue likes. This is that, but with a slot machine. And not just with a slot machine, but it's also this hilariously bleak and terrifying hellscape that you find yourself in a five-by-five isolation cell trapped where you can't get out and all you have left to do is gamble for the rest of your life. And you get little trinkets and tokens that will help you

increase your luck and increase the types of things that you can get after gambling successfully. And the reason that I love this game so much is that it's the absolute perfect encapsulation of slamming your head against a wall and then making the pixels dance and make you feel happy. It's that incredible visceral reaction

that only things like Ballotro and Clover Pitt can do. It's less than $10 right now came out this month and it's so good that it toppled my, actual recommendation, which would have been a book. So check this out. Clover Pit. It's on Steam right now and probably coming soon to a lot of other things. Check it out.

What is up, Ringaverse Hommies? How y'all doing? It's your boy, Jomi. Guys, here to tell you about the greatest thing to come out of Great Britain since chicken ticamasa. And it is slow horses. I am in. in love with this show.

Oh, my God. I binge the first season in a night. One night, six episodes. And I almost didn't want to finish season four because I didn't want to lose this show. But it's back for season five. All our favorite characters are here with us again. Jackson Lamb, the worst human being I've ever seen,

but I still have a soft spot. I'm at heart for him. Our guy, River Cartwright, the worst spy ever, like legitimately one of the worst, like, 007, like if he in 007 did like a dev battle thing, he would double seven, just look at River and he would die. That's how wacky is. But again, I still love him.

The love of my life, Louisa, is back. Oh, I'm so excited. I love slow horses. They've already got one episode down, that the second one coming out this week and I basically build my Wednesdays around Slow Horses. Hashtag Slow Horse Wednesdays because that's where I'd be in front of my TV

locked in on some British television. Join me on the Slow Horses train. Come to Slough House and let's get it done. All right, it's Ben back again. Grum has gone to bed and it's time to put this podcast to bed. I'm here to recap our recommendations. share a listener recommendation and tell you what's coming up next on our feeds. Thanks again to Joshua, he and I sang the praises of Star Trek Strange New Worlds,

season three, but really all three seasons on Paramount Plus. Joanna Robinson rejoined us, never left our hearts, but is back on Book Corner with a recommendation for R.F. Kwong's Catabasis. Van Lathen recommended Demon Slayer the movie, Infinity Castle, still in theaters. Did Van discuss that movie at some length? on a Midnight Boys episode that will drop soon after this episode does. Yes, he did, but his heart was overflowing with love for the film, and so he had to let some of that love out here, too. The Van Amay era is upon us.

Steve Alman recommended the rogue-like clover pit on Steam, and Jobyedinaran recommended Slow Horses on Apple TV Plus, which recently returned for yet another season, like Clockwork, comes out every year. Is Slow Horses, nerd culture? No, not exactly. But we did let Jomey get away once with recommending Emily and Paris on this program. So that sort of broke the seal. Can't draw the line at Slow Horses, which is a fantastic series. And if we're recommending non-nerd culture shows on Apple TV Plus, check out Platonic. That's my smuggle of the month.

Great show. No one seems to watch about to finish its second season. It's the Seth Rogen starring show on Apple TV Plus that didn't just win every Emmy. But let's do a listener recommendation, which came to us, as always, via email at ringerverse recommends at gmail.com, where we welcome nominations, submissions for next month and future months. This one comes from listener Tomaso at Zenny, who comes to us from Italy, listens abroad and says for the September edition of Ringiverse Recommends, I would like to propose John Scalzi's novel, The Shattering Peace. 10 years after the last novel of the series, The End of All Things Hit the Shelfves. Scalzi brings us back to the old man's war universe,

this time with fewer old men and less war, but with the usual mix of irony in action. The first six installments of the series focused on John Perry, a 75-year-old who joins the Earth's colonial defense forces, an elite force of elderly people recruited in retirement homes, who are given new superhuman bodies, one of the best sci-fi premises ever, if you ask me. That's, if you ask Tomaso, that is, to defend our colonies in the galaxy from alien species

who may not be so happy with our drive to claim every possible planet, understandable. Now, spoiler for the first six books, a peace treaty between Earth and the Alien Council has finally been reached, and our protagonist, Gretchen Trujillo, a friend of John Perry's daughter from the past books, who works as a low-level diplomat, is called to participate in the investigations when the first attempt at a joint colony with settlers from Earth and the alien species mysteriously disappears without a trace. Sounds like the space Roanoke colony. The book is fun and wholesome, as you'd expect, from Skalsy.

You can probably read it even if you haven't read the rest of the series. But if you haven't, what are you waiting for? The action is great, the humor irresistible, and the world building fantastic. Well, that was a fantastic recommendation as well. Tomaso, thanks so much. And again, the address is Ringiverse Recommends. at gmail.com. Keep those wrecks coming. Now, we have plenty more content coming on the ringverse and House of our. Of course, we have peacemaker finale coverage coming up quite soon. And we have much more

button mash to come, too. The avalanche of releases has not slowed yet. We've got Ghost of Yote to talk about soon and so much more. So please do stay tuned to both of our feeds and to this one as well. Thanks as always to Steve Allman for producing this podcast. Thanks to Arduna Ramgapal for his senior podcast management and thanks to you for listening. We will talk to you soon. And in the meantime, before we return for October, we hope that you will recommend the ringerverse. What's the difference between butter and butter made from real California dairy? It's the real California farm families behind it. Real people. Real care. Real intention. Why? Because real matters.

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