This week on Science Faction, we’ve got sick hosts, recovering rats, California fires, extremely low-tuned guitars, and more Star Trek than you can shake a tricorder at. Devon also somehow turns movie night into legal analysis before discovering that his children have absolutely no interest in Harry Potter—forcing him to take matters into his own hands.

Real Life

Devon kicks things off with the DigiTech Drop pedal, a piece of guitar gear that lets you digitally drop your tuning without having to completely retune or swap guitars. That leads us down the increasingly low-pitched rabbit hole of modern metalcore bands, how they’re tuning their guitars, and just how low a guitar can go before it stops being a guitar and becomes heavy machinery.

Steven, meanwhile, has been dealing with the sickness that wouldn’t leave. Sometimes you get sick, recover, and move on with your life. Other times your immune system apparently signs up for a limited series.

Ben has an update on the rat tumor saga following surgery, complete with tiny socks, medication, and all the complications that come with providing postoperative care to an animal that has absolutely no idea why you’re doing any of this.

And because apparently we needed another reminder that we live in California: the state is on fire again. Ben talks about keeping tabs on everything with Watch Duty, which provides real-time wildfire maps, alerts, evacuation information, fire perimeters, and other emergency information.

Movies, Lawyers, and Questionable Taste

Devon has also been watching movies, starting with Bugonia on Netflix. The sci-fi black comedy from director Yorgos Lanthimos stars Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons and involves two conspiracy-obsessed men who become convinced that a powerful CEO is actually an alien.

Then there’s Coyote vs. Acme. Devon enjoyed it, but being a lawyer means he naturally has some thoughts about what happens when you apply even the slightest amount of legal scrutiny to a movie about Wile E. Coyote.

He also watched Anatomy of a Fall, a French courtroom drama with a distinctly 1970s feel. It’s serious, methodical, and very much outside our normal science-fiction wheelhouse.

So why is Devon talking about it?

We’re wondering the same thing.

Strange New Worlds and Old-School Trek

Ben brings us back where we belong with the latest episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, “Off-Hour”, including the return of Phil Boyce, a character whose roots stretch all the way back to the original Star Trek pilot era.

That naturally sends us into Trek history, potential future casting for McCoy and Sulu, and a discussion of Brian Markinson. From there, we get into the famous professional competition between William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy as Star Trek became a phenomenon.

It’s exactly the kind of conversation where one episode of modern Trek somehow requires discussing television made roughly 60 years ago.

Lanterns and Dungeon Crawler Carl

Steven is three episodes into Lanterns, and the verdict remains the same: this show is really good. The series continues to work as an adult police procedural that happens to exist inside a comic-book universe rather than simply being another conventional superhero show.

He’s also gone back into the world of Dungeon Crawler Carl with the release of the Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG PDFs. Steven is relistening to the first audiobook while digging into the game, and so far the designers seem to have nailed the ridiculous, violent, funny tone that makes the books work.

Larry Johnson and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Finally, Devon decided it was time to introduce his kids to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

They refused.

Rather than accept defeat, Devon did what any reasonable parent would do: he started reading them Larry Johnson and the Sorcerer’s Stone instead.

Apparently, changing the name was enough.

So far, they love it.

Parenting is mostly marketing.