Casual Trek - A Star Trek Recap and Ranking Podcast

Casual Trek - A Star Trek Recap and Ranking Podcast

By Charlie and MilesTV & FilmTV Reviews
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Casual Trek - A Star Trek Recap and Ranking Podcast episodes

  • Of Course You Know, This Means Worf
    In today’s episode we’re having a look at Worf, a character who’s a rare series regular between two whole Star Trek shows. We wanted to have a look at some early stories of him in both TNG and DS9 and they both ended up being about bad actors wanting to ‘Make Qo’NoS Great Again’ in their own ways.
    First we’ve got some rebellious Klingons making trouble in the Neutral Zone and Worf’s first time being torn between his new friends and his work friends in “Heart of Glory”.
    Then we’re over to some rash decisions from the Klingon Empire as they decide to invade Cardassia right after it’s had a rebellion against its own government in “Way of the Warrior Parts 1 & 2”. This is a big, status quo changing episode with a lot of fun guest stars like friend of the pod Gul Dukat, Martok and the glorious eyes of Gowron.
    0:19:39 TNG: Heart of Glory
    0:49:49 DS9: Way of the Warrior Part 1 & 2
    Just so you know Miles was beeping a little as the batteries on his explosive collar were running low. I edited around the beeps a lot, but there are a few still in there. - C
    Talking points include: our reasons for covering this episode, manifesting a god by having enough people scream at a road, The Exorcist, Brad Dourif being a moist serial killer, Brad Dourif being a good egg in Deadwood, Goodfellas (apparently that is Ray Liotta’s real laugh), the works of M-Scoz, Kylie Minogue, Rick Astley, Bill Bailey’s Klingonness, Blake’s 7, Classic Doctor Who, The Simpsons, ValSpeak, Shenmue, Wing Commander, The Young Ones, Babylon 5, Red Dwarf, Brian K Vaughan, Mystique, Star Wars and space battles, event comics, and Gengar. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.
    Pedant’s Corner:
    Sweeps weeks are when people like Nielsen do their ratings calculations, so channels often pulled big stunts to try and get people watching.
    We didn’t know AGIMUS was going to come back when this was recorded
    The decision and placement of Way of the Warrior was quick, even if it was sidetracked by several tangents
    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
    1 hr 37 min
  • Humans: The Fleshening
    It’s time for Casual Trek and oh no… Earth’s been infiltrated by aliens!
    Thanks to the generosity of Ko-Fi donor Cheryl, we’re talking about aliens on Earth. We’ve got a Chakotay episode of DS9 where he might well bone down with a Species 8472. Also what the fuck is Pon’Far night?
    Then we’ve got the story of the real First Contact in Enterprise, with a cosy story about Vulcans living among us.
    Then we get decidedly un-cosy as Enterprise embraces the War on Terror era derangements of America and suffers from a bit of the old xenophobia just in time for our ship to get home. We also get some manpain from Captain Archer and Trip being encouraged to disrupt a Vulcan wedding.
    13:53 Voyager “In the Flesh”
    43:40 Enterprise “Carbon Creek”
    1:13:45 Enterprise “Home”
    Talking points include: X-Files, They Live, Jaws, Yahoo Serious, Rabbit Proof Fence, Are Australian filmmakers alright?, Waking Fright, Muriel’s Wedding, the Australian Ultraman Show, knifey spoony, Wanderhome, Holly by Stephen King, Classic Dr Who, Pink Floyd, Battlestar Galactica (2004), My Favourite Martian, X-Treme X-Men, Space: Above and Beyond, Lost, Quantum Leap, a horrific hypothetical Only Fools & Horses: The Nest Generation, The Truman Show, Dan O’Bannon, Coldplay, buskers, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Riverdale, Twilight Zone, 52, Quantum Leap, Lord of the Rings, whatever happened to Robbie Williams?, that time Dr Samuel Beckett never returned home, Halo, Anakin Skywalker at a good event, a case of the Jack Bauers, quiet issues of X-Men, The Graduate, Manpain in Modern Dr Who. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.
    Pedant’s Corner:
    Dan O’Bannon wrote Dark Star & Alien, but Rockne O’Bannon made Farscape
    The Thanksgiving issue of Uncanny X-Men was 308
    Yes I know T’Pol’s mum is T’Les, but in the moment T’Mum sounded better
    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
    1 hr 47 min
  • The Episode With A Rock That Looks Like a Dildo (feat. Matt Hardy)
    We’ve got our first guest star in today’s episode as we get the nonstop machine of comics crowdfunding Matthew Hardy to join us in talking about the First Lady of Star Trek: Majel Barrett!
    Majel’s been in so many episodes, hell, so many SERIES of Star Trek over the years, so there’s a lot to work with here. We’ve got shockingly little Majel in the TOS episode that ostensibly is a spotlight focus on her. Then we’re in to the wild world of Lwaxana Troi as she gets kidnapped by Ferengi in TNG and that version of the Ferengi are the absolute worst. Like Internet Guy worst. Finally we get a surprisingly nice pairing of Lwaxana and Odo stuck in a lift together as a weird life form from the Gamma Quadrant has got into the computers.
    20:13 TOS: What Are Little Girls Made of?
    48:37 TNG: Ménage a Troi
    1:11:18 DS9: The Forsaken
    Talking points include: Westworld (both flavours), Babylon 5, Only Murders in the Building, Righteous Gemstones, Adam X the X-Treme, Ahsoka, Classic Dr Who, FMV PC games, Charlie’s back on his Lost bullshit, From, Amnesiac City, Two time GLAAD award winner Peter Allan David, The Matrix, Terminator, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, The UK Office amount of awkwardness, Shoggoths, Tiny Clangers, The Prisoner, Legion of Super-Heroes fashion, Mario Kart-based declarations of love, Vampire: The Masquerade, The Mos Eisley Cantina Band, Lucille Bluth, Lwaxana Troi going full Mrs Bennet, Picard giving it all Shakespeare, More Classic Dr Who, Lord of the Rings for the SNES, Gilmore Girls, Tamagochi, War of the Worlds. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek. A surprising amount of Star Trek this time…
    Casual Trek is by Charlie Etheridge-Nunn and Miles Reid-Lobatto, our guest star was Matt Hardy
    Music by Alfred Etheridge-Nunn
    Casual Trek is a part of the Nerd & Tie Network
    Matt’s Kickstarter for Thunder Child: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/153289885/war-of-the-worlds-thunder-child-2
    https://ko-fi.com/casualtrek
    Miles’ blog: http://www.mareidlobatto.wordpress.com
    Charlie’s blog: http://www.fakedtales.com
    Pedant’s Corner:
    Gap-wise, the gap between TOS finishing & TNG airing was 18 years, the gap between Enterprise finishing and Discovery airing was 13 years
    “Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so” is the actual quote
    Charlie couldn’t think of the word “camper van” when describing From
    Memory Alpha’s reference to Lwaxana Troi saying she ‘made love’ to DaiMon Tog, has a link to an article on Oo-mox
    1 hr 48 min
  • Once More With Phasers
    We’re feeling a bit musical in today’s episode of Casual Trek. Charlie’s been eager to crowbar in a musical episode after realising it’ll get another episode of Picard ticked off our list, then Strange New Worlds provided us with the perfect opportunity to talk music!
    We’ve got three episodes all about music. First up is Voyager with a classic Hubris of The Doctor episode where some Space Karens get fascinated with his singing, but do they love him for him, or just his programming? We also end up talking about AI art and the content slurry of it all
    Then we’re over to Picard in heist mode as the gang need to get JL to give an inspirational speech to his ancestor to save all of time. What’s the best distraction? Music!
    Finally we’ve got the main event of the episode, Strange New Worlds doing a dedicated musical episode. We’ve got singing, dancing, a fairly thin plot but who cares when you can belt it out like these actors!
    12:01 Voyager: Virtuoso
    34:54 Picard: Two of One
    53:32 Strange New Worlds: Subspace Rhapsody
    Talking points include: Hawkwind, the Eurovision Song Contest, Subwoolfer, the new Babylon 5 cartoon, The Poseidon Adventure, The Silt Verses (podcast & RPG), The Manics covering the MASH theme tune, Britpop, Miles’ poor taste Burroughs joke, Bono’s smugness, The Doctor being the third Crane brother, AI art, Paul Williams’ oeuvre, Neelix being a Phil Spector and/or a Del Boy of space, Only Fools & Horses, using Coldplay as white noise, The Borg Queen rips off Scorpius’ bit, an alternate casting choice for Professor X from the TNG cast, that time Professor X enslaved a sentient Danger Room, the Metropolis remake, Scott Pilgrim, Buffy, The Magicians, Riverdale, Dr Who’s musical audio episode, Macross, modern musicals, Across the Spider-Verse, Rocky Horror Picture Show, the Chuck Austen run of Charlie’s X-Men marathon. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.
    Pedants Corner:
    James Newman was the “just some bloke” who the UK sent to Eurovision in 2021
    Miles is not a Eurovision expert so he doesn’t know Wales don’t compete (although it’d be good if they did) and we’d gone on about Eurovision for long enough I didn’t want to go back and correct him
    Where’s all the Taylor Swift in episodes we’ve covered? Literally episode two when we covered Discovery’s pilot and also episode twelve in the Borg episode
    Pelia suggests the idea of beaming in a song to Uhura
    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
    Casual Trek’s Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/casualtrek
    Miles’ blog: http://www.mareidlobatto.wordpress.com
    Charlie’s blog: http://www.fakedtales.com
    1 hr 23 min
  • Casual Khan!

    It’s time for another Star Trek movie!

    We’re looking at Wrath of Khan, the supposed best Star Trek movie, which means we’ll also be watching the Star Trek episode which introduced us to 90’s icon Khan Noonien Singh, a man who thinks himself Kirk’s greatest nemesis. Will he be? And where will these episodes rank on our big list?

    18:56 The Original Series: Space Seed

    55:15 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

    Talking points include: Diving into an ongoing comic partway through a run, the Venture Bros Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart, Strangers with Candy, The Prisoner, American Gods, HP Lovecraft: somehow less bad than Jowling Kowling Rowling, Legend of the Overfiend, Tenet, Randy Old Scouse Git, meeting famous historical figures and shoving them in a locker (Charlie) or having a drink with them (Miles), Jurassic Park, Falling Down, The Dawson, Madness, latter era Paul McCartney, the best Bond songs, the genre films of 1982, the exorbitant Casual Trek CGI budget, Space Jam, Jarvis Cocker’s 1996 Brit Stage Invasion, Taskmastering your Kobayashi Maru, the giant plug from the end of Lost, re-evaluating the Star Wars prequels, James Bond, D-List Batman Villains, the MCU release model, the legacy of Kirsty Allie, Marvel’s surprisingly good Star Wars comics, WotC’s latest controversies (unless more have happened between recording and releasing this), Street Fighter the 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

    2 hr 4 min
  • A Casual Anniversary

    Oh my god it’s been a year already!

    We decided after a self-indulgent episode celebrating our birthdays that we should do the same for the podcast. Things get unscripted, but we cover things like:

    Friends call each other out on weird ideas and make them follow through
    Marathoning television shows
    The things that surprised us with Trek
    Living in a post-scarcity world
    Our favourite characters in each series
    What we want to see next!

    Talking points include: Star Trek, a lot of Star Trek, but also Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, Slayers, Hannibal, The Suzy Izzard oeuvre, Buffy, Lost, Alias, Gilmore Girls, Farscape, Babylon 5, Lexx, The Vengeance Trilogy, Zatoichi, NaNoWriMo War Stories, X-Men (again), Doctor Who, Hideo Kojima, the works of Leslie Neilsen, the art career of Steve Rogers, Starting a beef with other Star Trek podcasters, Blake’s 7 (of course), Legion of Super-Heroes, the fetishes of Chris Claremont and more!

    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

    1 hr 4 min
  • How Much Brien?
    It’s Miles’ birthday and we’re here to celebrate it with a thematic episode of Casual Trek. And you know what? It’s also Charlie’s birthday, so we’re going to celebrate both hosts with a special episode dedicated to some of the most memorable Mileses and Charlies in Star Trek!
    Miles O’Brien is a fantastic member of not one but two crews in Star Trek and we’ll get to see both those incarnations here, with The Wounded bringing us some reminders of O’Brien’s military history. He also gets into some engineering hijinks helping out a lizard man in Captive Pursuit.
    Charlie X is a complete dirtbag and we’re better off only having the one episode with him in. We do get to see the Enterprise’s gym and some sick moves from Kirk as he proves how much better he is than this 29 year old teenage boy.
    16:03 TNG: The Wounded
    37:52 TOS: Charlie X
    1:09:36 DS9: Captive Pursuit
    Talking points include: Charlie Brown, Miles “Tails” Prower, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, My Adventures with Superman, Deep Kandor Lore, Smallville, Ultraman Blazar, People Just Do Nothing, Zammo and his Smack Habit, MASH, Dan Dare, The Beatles, Doctor Who, X-Men (Chuck Austen era), close-up magic (the hobby of creeps), The Twilight Zone, Third Rock from the Sun, Dawson’s Creek, Marvel’s The Beyonder, Zapp Brannigan, the sad legacy of D-Ream, Glee, Charlie Can’t Tell Bryan Adams Tracks Apart, Q Anon Anonymous’ episode on Jim Caveziel, V, having a lovely walk to Lewes, . Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.
    Pedant’s Corner:
    Sadly Bryan Adams didn’t do any more movie songs for swashbuckling 90’s movies.
    O’Brien is a verb now.
    Translation guide:
    “The Nick” = jail
    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
    Miles’ Blog
    1 hr 47 min
  • Your Laws Are Stupid
    Did you know that some planets in Star Trek might not have the best laws? Especially utopian ones which are suspiciously wary of joining the Federation.
    Today we’ve got a trio of planets that are up to no good, from an algorithmic war, a fuck planet with some deadly attitudes about lawns and a sky city which will fail if you don’t plug a child into it for… some reason.
    09:54 Star Trek: The Original Series - A Taste of Armageddon
    36:00 Star Trek: The Next Generation - Justice
    59:10 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach
    We’ve got some fun attempts at bad line delivery, discussion of Ursula LeGuin and a new bottom shooter for our list one episode after our first real contender for a new best of all Trek. Incredible!
    Talking points include: Those Who Walk Away from Omelas (a lot), Zardos, Hello from the Magic Tavern, Arkham Horror: The Living Card Game, Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker, Glam Thunderbirds, keeping your pwning hygienic, James Doohan: War Hero, Ben Reilly, Wil Wheaton’s oeuvre, Phonogram, Librarians, Man of Steel, Dr Who, X-Men’s Krakoan Era, South Park Centrism, The Quiet Year, . Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.
    https://shsdavisapes.pbworks.com/f/Omelas.pdf
    Pedant’s Corner:
    The Spider-clone we were both thinking of was Spidercide
    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
    1 hr 47 min
  • Strange New Synergy!
    SYNERGY!
    Yes, it’s time to try and coordinate an episode of Casual Trek with the start of one of the new shows. Specifically it’s Strange New Worlds, a show which has been fantastic so far.
    Being Charlie and Miles, we do have some difficulty keeping to the point and ultimately this is more of an episode where we talk about Balance of Terror and how very good it is.
    11:48 Strange New Worlds “A Quality of Mercy”
    43:37 The Original Series “Balance of Terror”
    1:16:45 Strange New Worlds “The Broken Circle”
    Talking points include: Mass Effect, Void Rivals, Transformers, Robert Kirkman’s Ouvre, The Walking Dead, Miles appeared on Breakfast in the Ruins, the Bioshock series, DIE The Roleplaying Game, A general appreciation of Kate Bush, Degrassi: The Next Generation, Grange Hill, Vampire Diaries, Jim Carrey doing Kirk in In Living Colour, The Dungeons & Dragons Movies, Miles pushes his Dr Who cred, Star Wars space fights, Night Witches, This War of Mine, Legion of Super-Heroes’ Super Stalag of Space, Harlan Ellison, Ke$ha, Venom from Batman (not the Spider-Man foe), Modern Who, Carol Kane’s credits, Across the Spider-Verse, . Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.
    Pedantry notes:
    Ship captains can’t marry people just because they’re captains, they need to be a priest or notary or something as well.
    Carol Kane played Miracle Max’s wife, not husband
    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
    Kitsune Kon is here: https://kitsunekon.com/
    Miles’ blog: http://www.mareidlobatto.wordpress.com
    Charlie’s blog: http://www.fakedtales.com
    1 hr 45 min
  • Shax’s Second Best Day
    It’s time to call out some Bad Admirals! Why do admirals go bad in Starfleet? Oddly enough one of these episodes will get into it. We could have picked so many episodes for this one, and we’ve got some interesting choices including a couple of recent Trek outings.
    We also talk about the awkward conversations on Voyager once Janeway de-Tuvixed Tuvok and Neelix for some reason and we cancel JL Picard for himself being a Badmiral.
    If you want to pitch in and help us decide who’s the Worstmiral, come on down to the Nerd & Tie Discord after listening to the show!
    11:39 Star Trek: Lower Decks “The Stars at Night”
    37:36 Star Trek: The Next Generation “The Pegasus”
    1:05:36 Picard “The Next Generation”
    Talking points include: Shin Kamen Rider, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Aitch who isn’t H from Steps, The Avengers (classic TV show, not comic), Boushh, kid-safe Wolverine from the X-Men cartoons, Wolverine Sidekick Syndrome, Closing Songs for Nick Fury, Baywatching, R’lyehwatch, Tramforce, Shadow of Mogg, Wurzel Gummidge, Lost, On the Waterfront, the works of Terry O’Quinn (apart from Babylon 5 which he wasn’t in), Mo Ryan’s “Burn It Down”, Pacey from Dawson’s Creek and Fatal Attraction, Thunderbirds, the Spider-Verse, Fallout 3, Eragon from the hit film Eragon, You, Eastenders, Charlie trying to hide his contempt for D&D, the films of Martin Scorsese, . 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
    1 hr 40 min

About Casual Trek - A Star Trek Recap and Ranking Podcast

From the publisher's feed

Charlie is a lifelong X-Men fan.