A while back, I blogged about The Greatest Generation, "a Star Trek podcast by two guys who are a bit embarrassed to have a Star Trek podcast." It's a fantastic and hilarious podcast that went through every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, offering commentary and comedy. (They've now moved on to Deep Space Nine, and the show is as funny as ever.) When Star Trek: Discovery spun up, their podcast spun off; every Tuesday after a new episode of Star Trek, they served up their own new episode of The Greatest Discovery.
The tone is the same: they're looking to make jokes, but not to poke fun. These guys love Discovery -- indeed, they might even like it a bit more (and a bit more consistently) than I do. But that doesn't mean they can't laugh at it. Sometimes this revolves around pointing out when the show has food on its figurative chin, but more often it's about running a riff about taking a serious scene not-so-seriously, or pulling out a running gag from their ever-increasing stable.
The two hosts, Adam Pranica and Ben Harrison, actually work in film and television production for their "day jobs," so occasionally the show can get educational too. If there's a particular camera set-up being used to achieve a particular effect, certain lighting, certain movement, you name it... they'll notice it and comment on it. They have "favorite directors" who work on Star Trek, and when they point out those directors' signatures in an episode, you'll come to understand why, even if you're not the sort to normally take note of how the entertainment you watch is put together.
Of course, the key difference between The Greatest Discovery and The Greatest Generation is that they're watching these Star Trek episodes for the first time, like we are. This is no nostalgic look back, but a look at whether Star Trek as a franchise has brought what it takes to be noticed in this era of prestige television. (The hosts' answer: generally yes.) Speculation about what would come next has added to the Star Trek: Discovery experience; once or twice, it's made me wish the writers of the show had zagged where they zigged. (How fun would a whole episode of the Mirror Discovery in the Prime Universe have been?)
In a podcast queue that's always bursting, I always drop everything Tuesday morning to listen to a new Greatest Discovery (even switching away from something I was halfway through the night before). For season one of Star Trek: Discovery, at least, it's too late for you to "listen along" as I did. Still, I'd recommend the podcast. It'll give you a way to keep Discovery in mind over the coming hiatus between seasons. The Greatest Discovery gets an A in my book.
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