ANSON MOUNT'S RETURN from paternity leave thrusts Captain Pike into an adventure where he loses his memory and becomes... the darkness that's been inside him all along? And it's because an asteroid crashed on a planet thousands of years ago? Huh? This week, Bryan is joined by Michael Baumann of the cycling blog Wheelysports [https://wheelysports.substack.com/] and the baseball blog FanGraphs to sort out a greatest hits-type of story. 

Michael has a great theory about how every Star Trek series has a captain who is a different type of dad. Is Mount's "Dad Energy" your kind of Star Trek captain energy? Is this episode a big swing that connects? The grades begin at (33:39). 

SNW: "Among the Lotus Eaters" (s2e4) with Michael Baumann of Wheelysports and FanGraphs

There are 930 episodes of Star Trek. Some of them we love because they are a perfect combination of Star Trek ideas and human drama, some of them we like because they're just good examples of Star Trek, and the rest are ones we'll watch because why not? Star Trek is like pizza or sex: even when it's bad it's still good. 

Join Bryan and Kristen (and the occasional special guest) as they take the schoolyard game of F***, Marry, Kill and apply it to episodes from all 11 series asking specific questions like, "What part of the story will they teach at the Academy?" "What are the Best Trek Tropes in the episode?" "Worst Trek Tropes?" and many more in order to decide if an episode is one they'll TREK out again, MARRY because they'll cherish it for life, or KILL because it missed the mark. 

Keep track of our grades at www.trekmarrykillpod.com [https://www.trekmarrykillpod.com/]!

This show is not affiliated with Paramount, Viacom, CBS Television Studios, Roddenberry Entertainment, or Secret Hideout Productions. 

Our theme music is "70's Synth Funk Jam" by Phill_Dillow on Pixabay [https://pixabay.com/users/phill_dillow-16161775/?tab=audio].