Casual Trek - A Star Trek Recap and Ranking Podcast Charlie and Miles

Pull out two strips of Gold-Pressed Latinum and submit them in the little box to listen to our episode on the Farenghi, Star Trek The Next Generation’s first attempt at a recurring villain race which went incredibly poorly for everyone concerned. From their first appearance in the show when they act like incredibly hyperactive gerbils in the The Last Outpost to their most recent focus in Star Trek Prodigy where we find out more about Dal’s past and the conflict between his old life and his new life in First Con-tact to one of Deep Space Nine’s many attempts to bring nuance to the species in Family Business when Quark and Rom have to deal with their mother Ishka’s becoming involved in what passes for First Stage Feminism in a culture where women can’t wear clothes. What a perfect alien race to talk about the day before the British Election gets the money grabbing Tory’s out of power after 14 years! Who says Star Trek isn’t political? If they do, make them put three strips of latinum in the appropriate hole!

EPISODES INCLUDED: The Last Outpost (13:39), First Con-tact (43:35), Family Business (01:03:43)

Talking Points Include: They Live and Ironic 4th July movies (we didn’t watch ‘They Live,’ but instead we watched ‘Slap Shot’), we briefly touch on the inevitable rousting of the Torys, the unfortunate antisemitic coding of the Farenghi, BE INTIMIDATED BY MILES’ ARMS! The Robocop vs. The Terminator crossover by Dark Horse Comics, (CORRECTION: Frank Miller HAD started writing and drawing ‘Sin City’ the year before) the Monster of the Week RPG, back to the Season One well of Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Bee-Gees, Lisa-Lisa and Cult Jam, where IS the Enterprise’s Engineer? Geordi’s weird ‘oooooh-wee!’ could the Farenghi ever have been a threat? Doctor Who’s own Farneghi the Slitheen and how they killed Charlie’s interest in Doctor Who back in 2005, the Farenghi design and how it’s immediately undercut, Armin Shimmerman giving some great vibes this early on, how this remakes ‘Errand of Mercy,’ Captain Picard does a swear, that one episode of ‘The X-Files’ what Stephen King wrote contained a swear, Transformers: The Movie dropping a ‘S-Bomb,’ Are we actually watching ‘The Mighty Boosh? We want Matt Berry to be a Star Trek Alien, Adele (sound goblins ate anything we had to say further on Adele, apologies for the weird edit) WHY IS ‘ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS’ the US Number One in January? Kid Kapici, Sea Power is a Hometown Band, Dal has a Yondu. Charlie is a freak, Charlie also likes to equate Dal from ‘Prodigy’ to Poochie, Prodigy excelling at non-humanoid aliens, cartoons for kids these days don’t have as much as a reset button as they used to, Prodigy finally does a Starfleet, Warren Ellis and Brian Michael Bendis style decompression in relation to Picard, eventually Charlie will learn how to pronounce René Auberjonois’ surname, Living Joy, Montell Jordan and THIS IS HOW WE DO IT, Charlie’s love of KINECT Dance Games, Jake Sisko is disturbingly obsessed with his dad’s love life, Quark is the lone conservative in a strangely progressive Farenghi family, THE RETURN OF JEFFREY COMBS, Farenghinar is the future tech-bros want, (CULTURAL NOTE: Rounders is the British equivalent of ‘Baseball,’) how old is Jake Sisko? At this point during the episode, the weekly Madison Tornado siren test starts going off, Charlie deals with his own FCA in real life, Farenghi culture and their home world is almost set up to be a Gilliam-esque nightmare, once more a reminder that Miles didn’t watch ‘Rejoined’ for the Trill episode, this isn’t a Farenghi Comedy Episode.

After watching some times Star Trek delved into Cosmic Horror, Miles might have told Charlie ‘Oh, this stuff is tame, let’s watch Space 1999’ instead. So, for this episode, we are now rebranding as #spacescamps as we talk about the greatest collection of space adventuring office workers Moonbase Alpha has to offer in Gerry Anderson’s Space 1999. After we briefly gloss over the opening episode ‘Breakaway,’ we discuss Brian Blessed being out-hammed by the amazingly named JOHN SHRAPNEL in ‘Death’s Other Dominion’ (27:36), things get a bit tentacle monster in ‘Dragon’s Domain’ (40:26), watch some amazing class politics and screams of ‘MUUUUUUUTANT’ in ‘Mission of the Darians,’ (51:57) and bring it all to a close in ‘End of Eternity’ (01:01:09) as we meet a crazed immortal psychopath, which, if you watch the previous episode just come to the conclusion that this happens a lot in Space 1999, it’s not Star Trek, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun! Launch All Eagles! Stop being weird!


Talking Points Include: A FUCKING NUCLEAR EXPLOSION ON THE MOON. Balataro, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the 2016 Ghostbusters film is fun, The Mad Max movies, Date Movies, Miles ruining ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ for the person in front of him (EDITOR NOTE: While Ian Holm is the British actor in question, he doesn’t deliver the final toast to Manchester United in the scene, that’s actually Richard McMillan) What is Space 1999? Supermarionation, Gerry Anderson, The Elevator Pitch, the Earth is fucked, Christopher Lee in an episode we did not watch, Space 1999’s budget is akin to bullying 1970s Doctor Who for it’s lunch money, the cast of Space 1999 are not qualified space heroes, Koenig is far more Office Boss than Space Cowboy, it’s nice to have our characters called Nick and Paul and Adamn, but it does make it hard to distinguish, Charlie’s notes are sometimes as complex as ‘man wearing neck-tie… evil?’, Peter Wyngarde, BRIAN BLESSED, JOHN SHRAPNEL, Grant Morrison comics we wouldn’t reread, asbestos everywhere, Brian’s fate in this episode, Michael Sheard (Who actually plays Ozzel in Empire Strikes Back) some good horror beats that devolve straight into Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace-esque shenanigans, they’ll never meet anyone nice, Charlie has started watching ‘Sapphire and Steel,’ ‘it’s a metaphor for capitalism,’ Barbaria Bain’s leg envy re: Joan Collins, Koenig’s ever continual frustration at the inability of people to simply be normal in space, more on Dave, Charlie’s former (and sketchy) employer, Immortal Hellraiser BS, Victory through OSHA violations, Long Recapping of DC’ Comics Legion Lost, is this the first time Miles has done his Werner Herzog impression? Charlie mentions the roleplaying game ‘Mothership’ about ten times throughout the episode, did Charlie like it? Would Star Trek Phase II have been like this? UFO, Miles recorded the second part of the Breakfast in the Ruins episode of ‘The Coming of the Terraphiles’ and GUESS WHAT It’s going to be a Three Parter!

Star Trek’s universe is bizarre and horrifying at times. Cosmic beings summon orcs to stab you in the back, alternate versions of your flagship get stuck in a wormhole, nonlinear entities get taught about time through memories of baseball, love and death.

It’s all a bit weird and we’re going to revel in it today by talking about cosmic horror.

Ships full of Vulcans get a rough time today, starting with The Immunity Syndrome where a space amoeba kills them and the rest of a solar system. Can the crew discover a solution when their energy and the ship’s are rapidly dwindling?

The next cosmic entity is Nagilum, who is self-aware, godlike and a real jerk! The Enterprise has to work out a solution to get this bastard off their back, but it might mean their own deaths! Wesley picks the best time to take a break from the Conn and we get some camera experiments to distract from this being a bottle episode.

Finally we’re back to tormenting a ship of Vulcans in Impulse, where they’re driven into a mad, zombie-like rage! Not only are these T’Pol’s old colleagues, but she’s also infected. Can the crew survive until help comes? Also Trip & Mayweather get their fanciest gold spacesuits on to go all Minecraft on some asteroids.

00:01:33 What Non-Star Trek Thing We’ve Been Enjoying
00:15:02 Talking about Cosmic Horror
00:17:58 Star Trek: The Original Series “The Immunity Syndrome”
00:43:15 Star Trek: The Next Generation “Where Silence Has Lease”
01:11:03 Star Trek: Enterprise “Impulse”

If anyone could do a cover of the Enterprise theme tune based on either the Donnie Darko “Mad World” or “Cotton Eye Joe” that would be amazing and we would give you a shout out for performing such madness.

Talking points include: We literally only mention him once at the start, but of course Howie P Lovecraft gets a mention, Event Horizon, Space Battleship Yamato, Miles’ guest appearance on Breakfast in the Ruins, The Coming of the Terraphiles, Star Wars The Acolyte, making The Force weird, the disappointment of The Book of Boba Fett, Hold the Front Page, Taskmaster, getting a bit political, Charlie tries to explain cosmic horror in 30 words and loses count, Bobby Davros, Bobby Davro, The Beatles, a redshirt who looks like a young Hugh Dennis, stuntmen called Dick, Babylon 5, Time Lord reproduction, Star Wars Expanded Universe, The Langoliers, power ballads, Rock Band (RIP), The Backrooms, Portal, Earl Boen, Terminator, anime references in Star Trek: TNG, Dirty Pair, Chris Claremont, Buffy, Ernest Kline deserves a kicking, Knightmare, Quentin Quire & Damian Wayne, a thematic trilogy, Impulse (the comic), the descent of the Black Eyed Peas, the most 2003 guest star on a track of music, Mad World, Annihilation, the Space War on Terror, Battlestar Galactica, Alias, 24, Lost, Eastenders, PUT JEFFREY COMBS IN DOCTOR WHO YOU COWARDS!, Space: 1999, Star Maidens. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.

Pedant’s Corner:
Miles left the country two years into the 14 years of Tory rule.
Charlie’s summary of cosmic horror was 22 words, so we both lost count.
Miles’ “reverse logic” bit was 12 seconds, the sspreadsheet has been adjusted accordingly

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

Check your software and make-sure to update your anti-viral software because our Casual Explorers are looking at times when Artifical Intelligence went ‘Wibbly’ in the first episode, Voyager’s ‘Dreadnought,’ Torres deals with a super-intelligent missile from her past, then in Discovery’s ‘Stormy Weather,’ we do some exploration in a dark abyss while the Discovery’s sentient computer struggles with self-doubt about her own skills and talents (and gurl, same) and then, Miles has to endure ‘A Mathmatically Perfect Redemption’ and has to deal with his most hated Lower Decks character and consistently get their name wrong, on a completely seperate tangent, Peanut Hamper is the damn worst. No connection. Honest. We didn’t use AI to write these show notes.

Episodes talked about: ‘Dreadnought’ (09:15) ‘Stormy Weather’ (37:51) ‘A Mathmatically Perfect Redemption’ (1:04:17)

Talking Points: Paranoia, Iain M. Banks’ Culture spaceship names, the movies of Roger Corman, CabinCon, the Infamous Starbucks Gary, early Voyager forgetting The Doctor matters, making fun of British Prime Ministers, Kes getting stuff to do, Voyager’s juggling subplots, Voyager’s bad reputation in the Delta Quadrant, Delta Quadrant being wasted world-building, war-crimes, Dark Star, more 2000ad talk with Rogue Trooper, British Beavis and Butthead, large gentlemen struggling to put on jeans Miles and Charlie’s utter resignation with Ed Sheeran, big expanses of nothing, Miles is very behind on Discovery even though he does a Star Trek Podcast, Discovery’s honest earnestness, New Battlestar Galactica, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy doing things several decades earlier than Discoery, the Short Trek- Calypso, Miles and Charlie talk about never truly growing up and how that can be toxic, Rick and Morty’s lineage in Star Trek Lower Decks, robot/owl Rule 34, Peanut Hamper being the damn worse and why Arnold Judas Rimmer might be one of the greatest characters in all of Science-Fiction TV.

SHOW NOTES: He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty cosmic entity! Our casual travellers decided to let themselves in for a time and experiment with cosmic god-like powers (powered by subtle audio cues and sound effects) while they watch three episodes featuring John DeLancie’s cosmic japster ‘Q’ (Miles is surprised at no point do they make a reference to a similar role DeLancie plays in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic’), at first they watch Baby-Faced Season 1 Riker do his own experimenting with Q-Flash Noises in ‘Hide and Q,’ see Q get brought down to human size sans pants in ‘Deja Q’ and make a final pop over to the Delta Quadrant to see Q’s first meeting with the Voyager crew in ‘Death Wish,’ BYOMB- Bring Your Own Mariachi Band!

CONTENT WARNING: ‘Death Wish’ talks about suicidal ideation and euthanasia, we do discuss this during our post-synopsis discussion and if you wish to skip, the time codes are the following-1:27:50 to 1:34:03

EPISODES TALKED ABOUT- ‘Hide and Q,’- 00:12:21 ‘Deja Q,’- 00:44:52 ‘Death Wish,’- 01:09:00

Quisling, Quinn from Sliders, Doctor Who, Mondasian Cybermen, Charlie reading JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures, Season 1 TNG Weirdness, how one of Charlie’s teachers got fired, Worf has the zoomies, child death, more Star Trek Band Names, Jack Quaid’s voice work, Nudity dreams, the original plot for the episode, Moonfall, Q-Ban Cigars, Data and Q buddy pairing, Casual Trek ASMR, More Bald Jokes at Charlie’s expense, the visualisation of the Q Continuum, Miles talking about Order and Chaos in the work of Michael Moorcock, Evolve or Die, The Good Place, Surprisingly lots of different Doctor Who references this week, Terry Pratchett, suicidal ideation, medical euthanasia, Q’s benevolance through maloevelance, Riker’s Beard is the gift that keeps on giving, Star Trek actually having events stick,

The Youtube Video of Footloose with no music- https://youtu.be/8d7LCO3aSAE?si=yEFh2zbJWQBwN2nH

It’s time to draw some dots all over yourselves as Casual Trek’s discussing Dax! This one’s a Ko-Fi donor episode, so thanks Ben for the opportunity to talk about some more Trill shenanigans.

We normally talk about three different shows but here we’re looking at three different Dax hosts. There’s also a weird sub-theme of muuuurder.

In “Dax”, Jadzia’s on trial for a murder that one of Dax’s previous hosts may have done. We’ve got Odo in detective mode, a trial in Quark’s bar and a gloriously disinterested judge.
In “Equilibrium”, we delve into the dark past of Dax as Jadzia starts remembering things which none of her hosts have done. Oh no, she’s got a Dark Passenger! It’s Joran Dax!
In “Field of Fire”, Ezri Dax investigates a murderer on DS9 and has to enlist Joran Dax to help her hunt them down. Joran takes the opportunity to oversell how much of a murderer he was, but we all have a fun time. Unless you’re a murder victim, I guess.

Just as a warning, there’s some beeping on the audio as there was some building work going on. We also go on way too long about Davy Crockett and how little we know or care about him. It’ll make sense when you get there.

00:02:48 Non-Star Trek Things: Fallout, Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon
00:11:47 Deep Space Nine: Dax
00:43:20 Deep Space Nine: Equilibrium
01:07:47 Deep Space Nine: Field of Fire

Talking points include: Venom, Spider-Man 3, Fallout (TV show & game), GTA, Rings of Power, Person of Interest, The 3DS, Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, Hyrule Warriors, Planet of the Bass explains later Mobile Suit Gundam series, the Mortal Kombat theme, Julian Bashir has creepy Xander Harris energy, Robbie Williams’ career, X-Files style cover-ups, of all people MILES compares something to Lynch, all of the Wolverine revelations, X-Men: Deadly Genesis, all the Professor X mindwipes, Britney-mania, Phoenix Wright, Invader Zim, Hannibal, Joran Dax is the crypto bro of murders, BSG, Farscape, The Dark Half starring Anthony Michael Hall from The Breakfast Club, Kira’s Karen Haircut, Odo’s reading habits, Rear Window, Starfleet Poirot, No one British gives a crap about Davy Crockett. 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