131. Fortune Cookie Therapy

Anika and Liz don their blue shirts and do a deep dive into depictions of depression in Star Trek. (Please note this includes discussions of suicide and self-harm.)  The early years: Dr Elizabeth Dehner Badmirals Spock's stories can be a metaphor for a lot of things, but the emotional repression to depression pipeline is definitely one of them (Anika has a whole THING about The Motion Picture and Spock's arc, it's amazing) The 90s: A counsellor on the bridge Stories that are explicitly about mental health Lwaxana Troi Sometimes the problem is not the depiction in the series, but the (ableist) reaction of fans Anika presents a very strong argument for B'Elanna having an anxiety disorder Post 9/11 (ENT and the Kelvinverse films)Liz says T'Pol was the first female Vulcan character when clearly she meant first female Vulcan regular, don't @ us ENT reverts to a very masculine type of story: men deal with feelings through avoidance and sex, while T'Pol is literally too emotional ENT and the AOS era: a time of magical healing vaginas as substitute for mental health care The Trek RenaissanceDiscovery and Picard tell explicit stories about mental health, with varying levels of success Prodigy and Lower Decks tell implicit stories SNW takes us back to the manly man stories of the ENT era Harmful and helpful depictionsfandom ableism Liz has an UNPOPULAR OPINION about the depiction of Seven in Picard "I'm gonna say something mean about Katrina Cornwell." Specific episodes we talk about include: "The Loss" (TNG) "Dark Page" (TNG) "Emissary" (DS9) "It's Only A Paper Moon" (DS9) "Night" (VOY) "Extreme Risk" (VOY)