The Shuttle Pod Crew Celebrates Romance In Star Trek

In honor of half-price boxes of chocolate after Valentines Day, Kayla, Jared, and Matt join together to discuss Trek romances, couplings, unrequited loves, bromances, and a little bit of fanon ‘shipping.’

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In season 2, Hugh describes his wedding to Reno. So I think the writers changed their mind.

Star Trek 2009 was the first real trek I have got into and I really liked Spock and Uhura as a couple since I thought she was going to end up with kirk. so they are my favourite.

Star Trek 2009 made me watch more new trek and discovery just sucks, including the couple. michael and Book and the gay couple who are only there for representation and nothing more.

I later saw TNG as that was the most popular trek tv and I have to say I loved Troi and Riker

‘michael and Book and the gay couple who are only there for representation and nothing more’

Well, that’s not true.

I mean go off if you need to, but dragging relationships featuring people of colour and members of the queer community…. its not a good look for you. But yeah, go off.

My favorite couples are Tom and B’Elanna, Worf and Dax, Riker and Troi and Spock and Uhura (KT). But Riker and Troi are the ultimate will they or won’t they (again) couple in Star Trek. I really loved how at the very end they finally ended up together. While Insurrection and Nemesis weren’t great movies, I did love that it finally formalized their relationship.

Love the podcast, but how can you talk about romance in ST without mentioning Edith Keeler?

It’s true that’s a big one we somehow overlooked.

I think the biggest one you missed is Trip and T’Pol. Love it or hate it, that relationship really was a major part of seasons 3 and 4.

Since you were talking about fan ships/bromances with Bashir/Garak, it is probably worth talking about Kirk/Spock. There are definitely a lot of fans who see something there.

nah, lots of fans dont see something else with kirk/spock. the ones that do are just mostly fan girls and female viewers who love the idea that two male best friends are in love and love to sleep with eachother. we call it slash. However that has never been the majority of the fandom.

It’s not the majority of the fandom, but those viewers are part of the fandom. It’s worth discussing, even if it’s just to explain why most of us think that they’re just friends. Besides, it could be argued that Garak/Bashir is just a slash pairing that the actors like.

Yeah K/S is the original slashfic for sure. I think it’s hard for me to see it that way since Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are clearly 3 sides of the same whole.

Favorite romance I’d go with:

Kieko and Miles O’Brien: Felt like a real military family on the frontier, how to you manage a real lasting romance as such, kids and all.

Kirk and Carol Marcus. You can just imagine the affair of the brilliant scientist and hotshot Starfleet officer and them dealing with the moral and ethical consequences of having a son together. Sad they didn’t try to explore that in Into Darkness. You see those scenes where they talk in the Genesis cave in ST:II TWOK and just screams drama.

Was thinking in retrospect – the DC comics did romance surprisingly good.
A little more light hearted, Kirk’s developing romance with RJ Blaise; the Federation protocol officer sent to babysit him was an awesome romance.
Also Debt of Honor actually had Kirk have a kid with a Romulan over the decades; that was well done as well.

Yeah I’d love to have seen a bit more (but not too much more) of Kirk and Carol. Apparently in very early drafts of ST:VI Kirk was supposed to be leaving from visiting Carol on his way to the big meeting at Starfleet Command where they’re told they’re escorting Gorkon.

What must have been totally tragic… Kirk having to tell Carol about the loss of David. It was in the DC Mirror Universe comic arc. Yikes.
I have no clue why they didn’t film that with Bibi and Shatner when they had the chance.

As a kid, I was really affected by the use of past romantic history of characters on TOS. I was totally shocked when McCoy found out his old flame Nancy is actually the salt monster and Chapel finding out her old flame Korby is now an android.

I think the big one not discussed on the pod was Spock and Nurse Chapel. It was always there and smoldered for three seasons. I truly believe Spock felt something for her but could not really express it. The fact it never happened is kind of heartbreaking.

While Pike never warmed to Vina in The Cage/The Menagerie because he didn’t trust her, I liked that on Discovery, we see that he actually felt something for her. It was a lovely and tender moment.

There seemed to be no real chemistry anymore between Chekov and Irina in The Way to Eden, but I did like that Pavel seemed to be a different person around her, likely because seeing her again reminded him of his pre-Starfleet life.

Probably the most sexual ST encounter is the Romulan commander seducing Spock in The Enterprise Incident. It’s definitely kind of surprising how adept he is at seductive subterfuge!

Totally enjoyed the podcast! Looking forward to the next one!

Oh Spock and Christine Chapel was a great one!!!
Also was neat how Chapel was in the fleet in some ways searching for her lost love.
I am sad we never got to meet McCoys daughter, he had a whole back story about joining Starfleet so tragic was his divorce. Can only imagine the ex!

Great additions :-)

Probably the most sexual ST encounter is the Romulan commander seducing Spock in The Enterprise Incident. It’s definitely kind of surprising how adept he is at seductive subterfuge!

Totally agree

Ha ha Back in the 23rd century you had to do what you had to do to save the Federation. That’s an ethical sacrifice I’d be willing to make. LOL

I’m sorry, but the volume mixing gets progressively worse. Kayla sounds fine and the volume is great, but Jared and Matt are barely audible. This has been an issue in previous pods, but it really gets worse and worse.

The volume levels are really really far off. Kayla is at about -6db and Jared is sometimes at -24db