Casual Trek - A Star Trek Recap and Ranking Podcast

We’ve got a slightly different episode today and a callback to our very first episode of Casual Trek!

We discovered Chris Claremont had written a Star Trek comic and HAD to check it out. So here, in lieu of our normal episodes, we’ve got a bonus episode where we review and talk about Debt of Honour. I know that’s not how honour is spelled on the book but I kept writing it that way and with Claremont as an anglophile, I figure he wouldn’t mind.

We open by talking about the man himself and a few other things.

The actual talk about Debt of Honour starts at 13:41

Ha ha, just kidding, we talk about the credits and get side-tracked, the actual talk about Debt of Honour is 23:03

Talking points include: Sovereign Seven, why is Chris Claremont, a LOT of X-Men talk, The Image Exodus, the Death of Superman, Miles doesn’t know how to say ‘kayfabe’ understandable fawning over the Simonsons, Legion of Super-Heroes & JLI, Marvel’s Star Trek comics, X-Files, Chris Claremont’s anglophilia (which is not a shield from bad takes), Samuel Delaney, Diane Duane, RPG novelisations, Kitty Pryde’s unfortunate use of slurs to make a point, Cats Laughing, the many kinks of Christopher S Claremont, Psylocke, two time GLAAD award winner Peter Alan David, . Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.

Casual Trek is by Charlie Etheridge-Nunn and Miles Reid-Lobatto

Music by Alfred Etheridge-Nunn

Casual Trek is a part of the Nerd & Tie Network

https://ko-fi.com/casualtrek

Miles’ blog: http://www.mareidlobatto.wordpress.com

Charlie’s blog: http://www.fakedtales.com

I hope you all had a nice festive time! This episode should be airing on Boxing Day here in the UK, so enjoy your time off work and listen to a couple of chaps as the ‘gift’ each other a Star Trek episode. Will we be overjoyed with festive cheer, or will we hope desperately that the other person kept the receipt?

Also this one’s a bit low energy, as Charlie was thick with a cold and there was quite a bit of lag on the line, so to counter this, maybe have a Lucozade or run about a bit as you listen.

00:00 Opening

05:45 The Original Series - The Conscience of the King

37:39 Enterprise - Future Tense

There’s a little nosebleed chat around 1:05 for about a minute if anyone’s got issues with that and wants to skip forwards. Also a little throw up chat around 1:06… so maybe just skip to 1:06:50

Talking points include: Elric, Garth Marenghi, Macbeth Macbeth (like Mario Mario?), various calculations about Kirk’s age, The Wire, Glass Onion, Lost, Tyler Dayspring, Avengers Vs X-Men, Battlestar Galactica (TV show & board game), Avengers (UK), Charles’ terrible TaTu anecdote, Quatermass and the Pit, Red Dwarf, House of Leaves, roadkill laws, battles in Babylon 5, Charlie gets on his art wanker story game RPG high horse again, Starship Eternia, The Super Mario Bros Movie. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.

Casual Trek is by Charlie Etheridge-Nunn and Miles Reid-Lobatto

Music by Alfred Etheridge-Nunn

Casual Trek is a part of the Nerd & Tie Network

https://ko-fi.com/casualtrek

Miles’ blog: http://www.mareidlobatto.wordpress.com

Charlie’s blog: http://www.fakedtales.com

It’s Jeff time!

Jeffrey Combs has played roles in several different Trek shows, so when I first started putting together theme lists, a Jeffrey Combs Appreciation Episode was on the docket. Here we have him as a mad robot, an angry Andorian and a pair of cloned zealots of varying levels of faith.

00:00 Opening

14:48 Lower Decks: Where Pleasant Fountains Lie

36.40 Enterprise: The Andorian Incident

57:51 Deep Space Nine: Treachery, Faith and The Great River

Talking points include: favourite Jeffs, ranking of Jeff names, Jeff Minter, Babylon 5, Justice League Unlimited, HP Hatecraft and Harlan Ellison, System Mastery, Questionable Content, The Three Jokers (ugh), The Young Ones, #iHunt, How Did This Get Made, Charlie’s personal role model Skeletor, Portal, Evil Computers in Mass Effect, Roxann Dawson director of “The Long Con” for Lost, Charlie describing a dalek but failing to describe an Andorian, X-Men (the 2000’s movie), GoldenEye & Half-Life levels, “what if The Empire was the good guys” people, Miles being a 1990’s nerd hipster, X-Files, Catch-22, The Del Boy Trotter of Space, Alan Rickman in Galaxy Quest, The Dead Zone TV show with Anthony Michael Hall from The Breakfast Club in it, Deepwater Black, Australian science fiction shows (not Deepwater Black), the Australian Ultraman show, alternative social media and becoming a fan of something obscure enough it can’t generate flamewars. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.

Miles mentioned about acts of arson in the Moulsescoomb council estate. While I never new anyone who did that, my brother was friends with a kid who set light to a newsagents in Whitehawk.

A clarification: Ed Sheeran was alive in 2001, he’d only have been ten years old

The rankings:

Jeff

Jef

Jeph

Geoff

Casual Trek is by Charlie Etheridge-Nunn and Miles Reid-Lobatto

Music by Alfred Etheridge-Nunn

Casual Trek is a part of the Nerd & Tie Network

If you want to support what we’re doing and suggest an episode or theme for us to cover, head on over to: https://ko-fi.com/casualtrek

Miles has a blog! http://www.mareidlobatto.wordpress.com

Once more we throw ourselves into very un-Casual waters as Miles tries to tell Charlie whether or not it's worth Charlie's time to watch Jodie Whittaker's final episode of her tenure as Doctor Who. Will Charlie watch and have an opinion of his own? Jump to:

TIMECODE

53:00 to find out for youself.

Miles' first time in the editing chair, so the machine isn't as smoothly run as possible. Talking points include Doctor Who, our histories of watching Doctor Who, Age Inappropriate Doctor Who novels in Miles' Primary School Library, Doctor Who Actors, Doctor Who Companions, The Master, Ra-Ra-Rasputin, Jeph Loeb, Doctor Who, Doctor Who, and possibly if we're lucky, Doctor Who, Guess What, Blake's 7 gets a mention as Charlie's utter refusal to watch the show draws a stark boundary. Little does he know that Miles got to choose an episode title that references an infamous line from the show.

Maximum Power!

It’s time for some Junji Ito style body horror with three funny episodes about little furry creatures! I didn’t mean to lose it at the utter horror of it all, but I do.

Also Miles’ audio’s not great here. We’re trying to sort out the levels and the general audio, please stand by and hopefully we’ll be able to improve it soon.

00:00 Opening

10:32 The Original Series, The Trouble With Tribbles

33:16 Deep Space Nine, Trials and Tribble-Ations

52:50 The Animated Series, More Troubles, More Tribbles

Talking points include: Evil pets, Kevin O’Neill (we recorded this literally days before he passed away, so there’s no mention of that on the podcast, but he was someone Miles and I both loved the work of and will miss), The War Against the Chtorr, Assassin’s Creed’s whole “women’s skeletons are too difficult” thing, Charlie loves a denouement, The OC, [Catatonia Voice] Mulder & Scully [/Catatonia Voice], Futurama, Axe Cop Logic, Red Dwarf’s Barroom Tidy, Blake’s 7, Van Der Valk, a horror version of Katamari Damacy, Miles’ Klingon Tribble Fight Song and the Ballardian entropy of Twitter. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.

Casual Trek is by Charlie Etheridge-Nunn and Miles Reid-Lobatto

Music by Alfred Etheridge-Nunn

Casual Trek is a part of the Nerd & Tie Network

https://ko-fi.com/casualtrek

Sign up to be notified when my new comic launches on Kickstarter here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exposionhigh/explosion-high-1-and-2

There are so many Star Trek shows that we’ve got three more pilot shows to watch! No, not Picard. We’re still putting that off.

There are enough animated Star Trek shows for us to have a whole episode based around them, and we’ll be mixing live action and animated shows from now on (mainly to help our Jeffrey Combs episode idea).

It took some effort for me to bother with Lower Decks and that was the first of these shows I saw. We’ll get into it a bit and I feel like me criticising Lower Decks episodes for being a bit MacFarlane will be the new Miles calling every modern Trek episode “a bit Whedony”.

00:00 Opening

10:54 The Animated Series - Beyond the Farthest Star

29:34 Lower Decks - Second Contact

54:01 Prodigy - Lost & Found

Talking points include: X-Men cartoons, Star Wars Rebels, Halloween Ends, Hitman, Outside Xbox, This is not a London Road podcast, Ready Brek forcefields, Ulysses 31, Charlie’s deep romantic love of spreadsheets, jazz, Miles is the worst kind of hipster, Family Guy, watching the quality of The Simpsons die, Seinfeld, Red Dwarf, Marvel’s Slingers, Bond Themes, Jason Mantzoukas, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Warhammer 40k For Children. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.

Casual Trek is by Charlie Etheridge-Nunn and Miles Reid-Lobatto

Music by Alfred Etheridge-Nunn

Casual Trek is a part of the Nerd & Tie Network

https://ko-fi.com/casualtrek

Also sign up to be notified when the Kickstarter for Explosion High starts! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exposionhigh/explosion-high-1-and-2

It’s Halloween and time for a spooooky Star Trek show!

Slightly less spooky is Miles’ audio which wasn’t great on this episode, let’s say that’s part of the spooky atmosphere.

0:00:00 Opening

0:16:50 The Next Generation - Genesis

0:40:39 Voyager - The Thaw

1:00:22 The Original Series - Catspaw

Talking points include: Mobile Suit Gundam Cucuruz Doan’s Island, Trophy RPG, Midsommar, The T-Virus, Jordan Peterson being full of shit, the first Babylon 5 reference we’ve had in a while, Twin Peaks, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, The Five Doctors, Charlie is not sidelining doing a Casual Thunderbirds podcast, the Assassin’s Creed approach to genetics, the Clangers, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.

For those of you who want to see what Miles’ incredible line delivery was based on: https://youtu.be/xrvh_jB6c70

Casual Trek is by Charlie Etheridge-Nunn and Miles Reid-Lobatto

Music by Alfred Etheridge-Nunn

Casual Trek is a part of the Nerd & Tie Network

https://ko-fi.com/casualtrek

Oh you’re in for a special one today! Things get a bit crazed as we experience the Mirror Universe. You get to hear me sounding the most ignorant about DS9 that I ever have, despite it being a show I very much love. You also get to hear us literally lose our minds at one point. Miles keeps calling Ash Tyler Ash Taylor and I don’t correct him as I don’t care for Ash Tyler. Enjoy!

00:00 Opening

13:58 TOS: Mirror, Mirror

33:15 DS9: Crossover

01:02:02 DISCO: Despite Yourself

Talking points include: Holy Terror, Doomsday Clock, MASH, Justice League International, John Ostrander Star Wars, Our Flag Means Death, Football (inexplicably), Chris Claremont, the watershed, Dune, buskers, Warren Ellis/Brian Michael Bendis Syndrome, dumb fascists, Warhammer 40k, Doctor Who. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.

Casual Trek is by Charlie Etheridge-Nunn and Miles Reid-Lobatto

Music by Alfred Etheridge-Nunn

Casual Trek is a part of the Nerd & Tie Network

As a post show note, it turns out Brighton & Hove Albion did release a football song: https://youtu.be/QFLPaL4Bxwc

Also as at time of editing, Brighton & Hove Albion are still number four in the league table, which I think is a good thing?

https://ko-fi.com/casualtrek

Hey, guess what? It’s an episode with no Star Trek this week!

We messed up some of the watching and had the dreaded life issues get in the way, so we’re talking about a Casual Trek… just not one in the stars.

Talking points include: The South Downs Way, Brighton both fair and foul, wandering Wisconsin, Ed Gein, light pollution and oddly enough, a few personal bits and pieces about anxiety, insomnia and meeting the ones we love.

Casual Trek is by Charlie Etheridge-Nunn and Miles Reid-Lobatto

Music by Alfred Etheridge-Nunn

Casual Trek is a part of the Nerd & Tie Network

https://ko-fi.com/casualtrek

It’s a Casual Trek episode all about the Enterprise Episode “Strange New World”.

What? There’s a whole show by that name? I guess we’d better cover that, too.

00:00 Opening

07:22 ENT: Strange New World

23:48 DISCO: If Memory Serves

46:08 SNW: Strange New Worlds

Talking points include: Peeing on a new planet, camping trips, space racism, Miles talking about Blakes 7 & Dr Who crossing over, tedious average worlds, Davros style wheelchair thingies, edging, the Mines of Moria, Supergirl, The Orville, The Ernest Cline School for Writing. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.

Casual Trek is by Charlie Etheridge-Nunn and Miles Reid-Lobatto

Music by Alfred Etheridge-Nunn

Casual Trek is a part of the Nerd & Tie Network

https://ko-fi.com/casualtrek