Casual Trek - A Star Trek Recap and Ranking Podcast

Listen up, you palookas, it’s time for a Casual Trek about times people tried to copy humans. We’ve got a bona fide Mafia planet thanks to a discarded novel in “A Piece of the Action”, featuring some incredible Shacting.

Next, those Next Generation goombahs find themselves in a casino inspired by another discarded novel in “The Royale”, a troubled script and a bad episode which is actually a fantastic time.

Finally, those Prodigy kids just wanna do a Starfleet and find a culture inspired by the original Enterprise in “All the World’s a Stage”

00:02:52 What Non-Star Trek Thing We’ve Been Enjoying: Lost & Yellowjackets

00:12:20 Star Trek: The Original Series “A Piece of the Action”

00:38:52 Star Trek: The Next Generation “The Royale”

01:01:09 Star Trek: Prodigy “All the World’s a Stage”

Talking points include: Our respective theatrical origins, CHARLIE WAS NOT RAISED IN A CULT, Lost (finally!), science fiction finales, Yellowjackets Season Three, America: It’s Pretty Big!, how our tastes in music will never be a number one hit, Fizzbin, “President Capone”, Miles’ beef with Chicago, Cones of Dunshire, the improv skills of the bridge crew, the horror of an improv planet, books in 1992, Iain (M) Banks, troubled scripts, Madonna’s oeuvre, Bernard from Lost, Charlie’s grandad dressing like a cowboy at a wedding, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the boys go on a tear about Ernest Cline again, Galaxy Quest. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/original-the-royale-script.123944/ - A quote from Tracy Tormé about what the original script for The Royale was going to be like.

Which 1980’s British children’s drink would your cult poison themselves with? Answer in the poll on Spotify!

Pedantry Corner:

Zero’s pronouns are they/them. Respect pronouns, people!

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

Strum your sitar and prepare to launch all Eagles as Miles and Charlie once more become the Space Scamps as they make a second trip to the moon for three more episodes of Gerry Anderson’s ‘Event Horizon meets Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace’ show Space 1999 (Miles is now worried he has created a monster by showing Charlie this show) and in doing so, get to talk about psychadelic trippiness and Kano’s obsession with Computer in ‘Black Sun,’ Christopher Lee (although he’s totally phoning it in,) and the dispatch of a weasly middle manager in ‘Earthbound’ and then with ‘The Troubled Spirit,’ Halloween comes a little early and it’s probably more spooky than whatever we’ll end up doing for our Halloween episode… EPISODES DISCUSSED: Black Sun (11:32), Earthbound (34:20) and The Troubled Spirit (58:40)Talking Points Include: More Space 1999, Death Stranding, a trip to Scotland, the science is impossible, Moon Base Alpha’s limited resources, British Pessimism vs. American Gung-Ho, Gene Roddenberry would never, Hard SF has a tendency to go full magic weirdness, Bohemian Rhapsody deserves it’s rep, Christopher Lee is phoning it in, Simmons is the David Brent in Space, cowardly heroes, our brave explorers enjoying shouting MMMMUUUUUUUUTAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNT like in ‘Mission of the Darians,’ Charlie repeats a Johnny Byrne joke from the last episode, awesome sitar music this is the most halloween episode we’ve done for the show, a wicked burn from Charlie’s old teacher Mr. Jafferji, is Moonbase Alpha a liminal space? M. Night Shyamalan films and surprisingly… some Star Trek.

Grab your dice-bag and make sure your character sheets are up to date!

As Charlie is ill and both hosts are really busy, we take a quick detour from talking about Star Trek the TV Show to talk about Star Trek Adventures Tabletop RPG by Modiphius Entertainment. In his other side-career as a Gaming Journalist, Charlie got to try out a review copy with his gaming group and goes over the ensuing data. If you ever wanted your episode of Casual Trek to be 80% Charlie and 20% Miles, this one is for you! Find out Miles’ potted history with gaming, the world’s strangest Alien campaign and a quick overview of the game itself. This might be our most tangent-free episode!Episodes Mentioned: The Star-Trek Adventure Tabletop RPG (25:20)TALKING POINTS: Our history with RPGS, Miles’ obsession with playing a Mod in RPG’s (the subculture kind, not the internet forum kind) The Langoliers, the weirdest Alien RPG campaign, Charlie’s earlier history with Star Trek RPG’s and Charlie’s brother trying and failing to help, the actual Star Trek Adventures game itself, worries about combat, can you concentrate your way out of everything? Made-up Radiation, Charlie’s spread-sheet nerd habits pay off, Charlie gives a two-word answer to playing Traveller and then fudges a very easy dice roll.

If you want to read a written review, you can! star-trek-adventures-second-edition-starter-set-review

It's time to get your stolen spaceship hurtling round the sun and going back in time to the 1980’s with “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”!

We’re joined by our occasional editor and perpetual Pokémon expert, Reanna Reid-Lobatto, with some news about whales (and transparent aluminium).

There’s some impressive Shacting as Spock and the crew get up to hijinks in order to get whales going back to the future!

Then we’ve got the second part of this ‘bus punk’ duology with Picard’s “Watcher”, where we’re reminded why ICE should be abolished, Rafi is the most fun she’s been in the show and Guinan’s already fed up of JL!

00:04:22 What Non-Star Trek Thing We’ve Been Enjoying: 

00:13:32 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

01:10:28 Picard: The Watcher

Talking points include: Continuum, Dr Who, Ecco the Dolphin, Whale Song, Tavern Talk, Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuux, Final Girl, Top Gun, Karate Kid cosplay, the pronunciation of aluminium, the “I choose to stay” trope, is there no pizza in Star Trek’s future?, Bester from Babylon 5, John Lithgow’s acting career, Bill & Ted’s poorly-aged comments, transparent aluminium facts! Hitchhiker’s Guide dolphins, Some non-bummer news about humpback whales, I urge Comrade Whales to go further, Genma Saotome’s parenting, McCoy Vs the American Health Industry, Alexa & the PS5’s voice recognition, Eddie Murphy, Back to the Future & Howard the Duck’s Lea Thompson, Fly me to the Moon, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Buffy, ICE should be abolished, Edith Piaf, do you like references?, Jerati’s history of constantly fucking up, Eternal Law, Ageing punks, Miles’ connection to Kirk Thatcher, fuck Peanut Hamper, The Rosa Parks episode of Dr Who, Charlie has now finished Yoshi’s Island. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.

The Matthew Rosenberg Wolfsbane thing is covered here: https://www.cbr.com/rosenberg-apologizes-for-wolfsbane-death-scene/

Pedant’s Corner:

Yes technically it’s not been long since we’ve covered a movie, but it’s best we all forget Section 31.

The last scenario of Final Girl Series Three is based on A Quiet Place and Tremors

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Bounty

John Lithgow played Dr Emilio Lizardo in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

We are children of the 80’s living in 2025, not 2024. 

It’s Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, not Seven

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

Watch Reanna and former guest of the show Sean playing Super Mario RPG: https://www.youtube.com/live/bYSOk-bb6EM?si=LpAtQEqLjHrCpqGa

https://ko-fi.com/casualtrek

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

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

Temba, his arms wide!

We have a new episode of Casual Trek for you and it’s about language, no, not naughty language, although we’re both British so we’re VERY good at that. We’re talking about times where language and communication have been important Trekian themes! First, everyone on Deep Space Nine is talking gibberish instead of Technobabble in ‘Babel’ while in Strange New Worlds, Uhura’s first away mission goes horribly awry when she has to communicate with the ‘Children of the Comet’ and finally, we deal with one of The Next Generation’s best episodes as we try and find out just who is Darmok and why was he at Tanagra in ‘Darmok.’ Temba, at rest! Episodes Discussed: Babel (09:42), Children of the Comet (31:17) and Darmok (52:57)Talking Points Include: Catch-22, Sakamoto Days and the slow weebification of Charlie, Love Hurts, Sean Austin, is this Chief O’Brien’s first worst day, Babel originally being a TNG script and how it would not have been as fun, the Odo/Quark dynamic, Kira having no time for BS, how irritating it must be to play a Vulcan sometimes, Sam Kirk is not this show’s Kenny, does Strange New Worlds disregard Roddenberry’s attitude to God? Uhura and Spock being friends, Miles misses Hemmer, when Spock thinks you ****ed up… you ****ed up! Troi’s rather slim resume, Miles suffers the Darmok problem with UK-Specific references in the US, ‘Darmok’ might be Star Trek’s clearest descent into allegory, How ‘Darmok’ inspired the scariest episode of Doctor Who, Picard’s new jacket, Pedant’s Corner: The Chuckle Brothers were a slapstick comedy duo popular on British children’s telly. To me. To you. Rolf Harris was also a popular children’s entertainer on British TV… until he was convicted on many charges of SA towards minors.Miles guesting on Famicom Dojo as Sean plays ‘Out of This World.’ https://www.youtube.com/live/Ucv-hoyVmPU?si=hx_tb9k9qVCqZBMr

Better lock up your familial issues and not talk about things with your parents as we delve into possibly one of the worst fathers in Science-Fiction (at least this one has an excuse for emotional distance) as we talk about the most Vulcan of Vulcans, Spock (and Michael Burnham’s and Sybok’s) dad, Sarek. Is he well-meaning, or, as Miles believes, has definately eaten one of his own children like a Goya painting? Our first trip is to go Disco with ‘Lethe’ as Michael Burnham discovers that her adopted dad has been offloading his guilt complexes onto her. Then in TOS’ ‘Journey to Babel,’ Kirk, McCoy and a whole bunch of alien delegates get caught between Spock and Sarek’s personal drama and finally, in TNG’s ‘Sarek,’ Captain Picard faces a difficult choice with a man he so deeply admires and Patrick Stewart gets to indulge in ‘ACT-ING!’

Live Long and Remember that a Family can just as much be a Found One as one you were Born into…Episodes Discussed: Lethe (07:12), Journey to Babel (31:39) and Sarek (58:00)Talking Points Include: The worst father’s in Pop-Culture, Miles has been writing again HOORAY!, Charlie is playing A LOT of Super Mario Bros. Miles wants a ‘DISCO’ shirt, CONTENT WARNING: Jokes on Baby Eatings, That weird thing with prequel shows when they talk about stuff that was a secret in the original show, Lorca is a shit, would Vulcans appreciate slapstick comedy? Fringe, how Miles’ Britishness switches on a daily basis, we don’t get enough Space Opera shows these days, an alien called Gav, We rate the strange aliens of ‘Journey into Babel’ and how it might be one of the most Trek-like Trek episodes, does Wesley Crusher pull?, what is the slime for? Data pulling the ‘child upset his parents are fighting’ trick with Picard and Riker, we don’t get political… honest… Star Trek is apolitical, Picard wants more hijinks in his Diet, some actually good camera work in Trek.Pedant’s Corner: Blatchington Mill is a High School in Brighton that Miles’ mother definately felt was the runner-up to her wanting him to go to Dorothy Stringer (which he did)

It’s finally here! The Section 31 movie, wanted by almost no one and quietly put out onto Paramount Plus looking like a bad attempt to be a Guardians of the Galaxy, Suicide Squad (the bad one) and Borderlands: The Movie.

To celebrate, Charlie and Miles have formed a ragtag band of bantering ne’er do wells including Cele from Celeste is Best and Sean from Famicom Dojo. They carry out a four-person relay recap, pitch their own versions of a Section 31 movie and try to say something good about it!

00:03:19 What Non-Star Trek Thing We’ve Been Enjoying: 

00:09:18 Introduction to Section 31

00:18:51 Section 31 Recap

00:33:30 Section 31 Review 

01:16:22 Saying something nice about Section 31

01:21:24 Miles’ Pitch 

01:29:08 Cele’s Pitch 

01:36:52 Sean’s Pitch

01:43:41 Charlie’s Pitch 

01:57:52 Cele’s Wife’s Pitch

Talking points include: Borderlands (video game), Guardians of the Galaxy, Creature Commandos, a nice Americano, scone and a book, Macross, Silo (film & books), Midnight Suns, The original Section 31 predicted how the Patriot Act would go down, SHIELD in the War on Terror Era, Babylon 5, Mass Effect 2, Battlestar Galactica, The Culture, X-Force (Cyclops’ and Wolverine’s), Hunger Games, 90’s Animated Cyclops, ‘meh’ should never be said in a Star Trek, “We have Tendi at home”, everyone looks like budget ‘someone else’, if this was on HBO Max then Zaslav would have killed it, The Drazi’s religious war, The Big Outdoor Fight, Rebel Moon, British versions of successful American sci-fi, is there anything original? Starbucks supervisor energy, an Oirish accent, a Pacey from Dawson’s Creek haircut, Agent for Harm, MST3K, Rogue One, Making Georgiou into Spike, referencing Lorca’s most unfortunate line in Discovery, Fifth Element, the sins of Joss Whedon’s writing, Dr Who, Suicide Squad, Torchwood, Celeste’s Harsh Truths™, The Franchise, Jessie Gender, this is a Roger Corman movie if he was an idiot as well as a thief, choking on a Manta Force, Garth of Izar, Gundam references, . Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.

Pedant’s Corner:

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

Celeste is Best YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@NickIzumi 

Cele’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/CelesteIsBest 

Famicom Dojo: https://famicomdojo.tv/

Famicom Dojo YouTube: https://youtube.com/@famicomdojolive 

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

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

Don’t click on those ‘Unification Explained YouTube’ videos! Miles and Charlie open 2025 by talking about the OTOY short film ‘765874 Unification’ and honestly, for those of you disappointed that there were no lumps of coal in our Christmas Special… this is it, this is the coal. If this is (as the comments say) ‘Proper Star Trek,’ what do the Casuals who rank Tuvix as 44 out of 144 on their Big List (at time of recording) have to say about this and can they say anything good?

Episode Mentioned: 765874 Unification (12:35)

Talking Points: Charlie hasn’t seen Tron Legacy, Miles goes on about Galaxy Express 999, what does OTOY stand for? Weird CG Jank, Weird Dr. Who regeneration BS, the Koala did it, where’s Michael Burnham? If you don’t know what dogging is, just Google it, Human Jank, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS, Letting the nostalgia run the asylum, fans were complaining about the same stuff back in the 90s that they are today, what ARE we looking forward to in the Year 2025?

It’s the end of another year for Casual Trek, so Charlie and Miles have picked out episodes to gift each other!

It’s been quite a year, all in all, so they’ve both been merciful and decided to go for some fun episodes.

Charlie’s gift to Miles is Space:1999’s Nick Tate guest starring in a Miles O’Brien spy drama in “Honour Among Thieves”

Miles’ gift to Charlie is some amnesia-based hijinks around a castle in “Among the Lotus Eaters”

And for two episodes about betrayal with ‘Among’ in the title, neither host mentions Among Us!

00:02:17 What Non-Star Trek Thing We’ve Been Enjoying: Absolute Superman, Spy X Family,

00:14:02 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine “Honour Among Thieves”

00:52:29 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds “Among the Lotus Eaters”

Talking points include: Castles, Miles is MARL now, Absolute Superman, Spy X Family, Titanic, Nick Tate, gangster movies, Goodfellas, disappointing D&D Beyond stats, Skip Intro’s series on Copaganda, Poker Face, John Hodgeman (who I did know about from his podcast), Brighton is genuinely nice despite how Miles and I describe it, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Con Air, Chester will appear again, Blake Snyder ruining the film industry, Charlie is a Time Team nerd, Morgan Wallens is awful, Charlie and Miles do a forced amnesia bit, the amnesia plot of 24, the finale of Chuck, Dr Who amnesia theories. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.

Pedant’s Corner:

My Heart Will Go On is apparently a power ballad

There’s an 11 year difference between Nick Tate and Colm Meaney

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

Christmas music by Emraan

https://ko-fi.com/casualtrek

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

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