4.8 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 28 August 2025
⏱️ 88 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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In the Star Trek: Voyager episode Lineage, B’Elanna and Tom get the life-changing news that they’re going to be parents. But joy quickly gives way to fear as B’Elanna confronts the pain of her past: her father’s abandonment, her isolation, and the shame she felt about her Klingon heritage. Convinced she’s sparing her child from pain, she attempts to re-engineer her daughter’s DNA without telling Tom. But where’s the line between protecting your child and erasing who they are? Mission Log weighs the science, the choices, and the consequences in Lineage.
Hosted by John Champion and Norman Lao
Welcome to Mission Log, a Roddenberry Entertainment podcast, where we explore the Star Trek universe one episode at a time. Each week, Mission Log examines a single episode of Star Trek, diving into its ethical subtext, metaphors, and cultural significance. From the show’s most iconic moments to its hidden gems, we analyze what makes Star Trek one of the greatest science fiction sagas of all time.
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a Roddenberry podcast. |
| 0:11.4 | Mission Log, a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast, episode 587, Lineage. Line. |
| 0:35.0 | Welcome into another episode of Mission Log, a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast. I'm Norman Lau. |
| 0:35.5 | And I'm John Champion. Each week on Mission Log, we look deep into an |
| 0:39.5 | episode of Star Trek, picking it apart for the morals, meanings, and messages, and seeing if the whole |
| 0:45.2 | thing stands the test of time. This week, lineage. The one where Balana and Tom find out they're |
| 0:52.9 | having a baby, but Balana has some serious concerns. |
| 0:56.9 | You thought it was going to be Tom, right? You thought Tom was going to be the one having issues about raising a child, right? |
| 1:03.5 | Yeah, I might have thought that actually right from the beginning, but stay tuned for surprises. |
| 1:08.7 | I'll be right back with trivia, but first here's Norman to tell you all how to reach us. |
| 1:13.8 | We would love to hear from you. |
| 1:15.9 | Mission Log is a conversation about Star Trek. |
| 1:18.3 | Find us on Facebook at Mission Log Pod and on Instagram and threads at Roddenberry podcasts. |
| 1:24.2 | The conversation always continues in the Mission Log Discord with near daily live events and 24-7 chat about the topics you love. |
| 1:32.2 | Get your invitation to our private server by joining patreon.com slash mission log. |
| 1:36.9 | While you're at it, one of the most important ways to help your favorite podcasts is to leave a five-star rating and a review at Apple or your preferred podcast |
| 1:45.0 | platform. And remember, your comments could be used on the show. And now, here's John Champion |
| 1:51.7 | with this week's trimester report. Okay, let's learn about lineage. This episode was written by |
| 1:59.9 | James Kahn, and no, not our first time seeing his name as the sole credit for a Voyager story. |
| 2:05.9 | Recently, we discussed his writing with critical care, and it's worth remembering before we get into the discussion today that James also had the sole writing credit for the TNG episode, The Masterpiece Society. |
| 2:19.2 | Oh, maybe a little connective DNA there, pun intended. |
| 2:23.5 | This was directed by Peter Lorettson. |
... |
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