Goodbye, Women At Warp

“I won’t watch you die. I’ll miss that scene if you don’t mind.”

Last month, the ten-year run of the ‘Women At Warp’ podcast came to an end. The final episode, ‘It’s Been A Long Road’, saw the team look back over the pod, their proudest moments, accomplishments, and more.

I’ve not listened to it yet. I might never listen to it. To press play on that episode would acknowledge that it really is over, and I don’t want it to be.

Realistically, I know it’s over. There comes a point where every creative project has to either come to an end with little grace, make sure that if it does end there’s a satisfying conclusion, or start the plans for an orderly succession.

Women At Warp decided on a graceful, planned ending. It was announced months ago that a final run of merch went on sale through Patreon, and a pledge to keep the server lights on as long as possible was made (and when the time comes, I hope The Internet Archive would be open to preserving the show if asked).

Yet my heart wants to know that somewhere there is one more new moment I could listen to. And as long as that’s still out there, the show hasn’t really come to an end in my heart.

So I raise a toast to the team on a job well done. I’ll thank them for making me stop in my tracks more than once so I could just think. And I’ll applaud the Star Trek creatives who heard the team’s comments and made sure Mariner kept sitting in chairs funny in Lower Decks. I’ll remember and listen again to why there is no such thing as a space tribble, why Captain Kirk is a bona fide Space Queen when he faces questions on gender and queerness, discussions on asexual and aromantic spectrum identies, and that time Gene Roddenberry tried to write a novel (it did not turn out well).

And that final episode will sit in my ‘Play Later’ queue for one more day.