LizstarTrek - Short Treks 5-8

Every Sunday my Twitch subs and I watch Star Trek in my Discord. Here are my reviews and thoughts on each of the episodes as I see it. If you’re curious about a nerd’s views on Star Trek episodes, please read on, I go quite in depth with some of these episodes! I’ve watched some Star Trek before but not all of it!

While Disco was being made, they made Short Treks basically at the same time. We should watch those too I guess. This is a Disco side series about the Disco characters. Cool. But this time we ALSO get some Picard stuff in it too, our first introduction to Picard! Oh… boy, I am… SO excited for Picard. Yep. Cannot wait. Yep. Not stalling at all.

Q&A - ST 7.5/10

This is NOT a short trek about Q’s ass, as I expected it might be, instead it’s Spock’s first day on Enterprise. He’s kinda weird here, smiley and young and trying his best to fit in and be the perfect starfleet member and it REALLY feels weird, intentionally.

Una, who I think actually isn’t named, and is just called Number One still, shows him around. It’s a bit awkward. She tries to force conversation by asking Spock to ask her questions. Then they get stuck in the turbolift.

What proceeds is a lot of questions. Spock has two modes. First, he asks really softballs. When Una finds them kinda boring, and asks him to up them, he jumps to deep dark philophical stuff. She asks him to step it back a tad. “Do you like Eggplant?”

It’s kinda funny. As they get MORE stuck in the elevator, it goes to what Spock is like. His aspirations. Why he was smiling. She advices he do his best to “hide his freak” from those who wouldn’t get it, and then shows her “freak”. Which happens to be Gilbert and Sullivan. Fascinating. And then they’re pulled out of the Turbolift. Why IS the Turbolift like this in Discovery, anyway? That makes no god damn sense.

Yeah, this was cute. 7.5. It’s kind of like proto SNW.

The Trouble With Edward - ST 4/10

Fuckin’ Edward. Always with this shit.

No, I dunno who Edward is.

More Enterprise. Pike is saying goodbye to a scientist under his watch who’s being promoted to Captain.

Her name is Captain Lucero, and she’s now the captain of a research vessel on the edge of Klingon space. Under her watch is a man named Edward. Edward is breeding Tribbles with genetic modifications to make them breed faster so they can be a good food source. Lucero is like “what in the fuck? No, that’s stupid, do not do that”. It doesn’t help that he’s wildly unethical.

Edward is weird, unlikable, and immoral. Not exactly the most popular dude on the starship. He’s also jealous of Lucero, who is likable, immediately connects with the crew, and of course, shuts down his dumb-ass plan about Tribbles.

This kind of guy 100% exists. Every single person has worked with this guy. We all have an Edward. BTW apparently he did this by putting his DNA into the Tribbles. What the hell?

He, of course, continues to do his dumb Tribble experiments, and the Tribbles begin to overrun the ship. This episode makes me wonder how the fuck Trouble with Tribbles happened. These Tribbles blew up a fucking research vessel, how did they EVER get onto the Enterprise??? They acted like they were unknown cute little pets there, this should be national news.

If Lucero makes any mistakes this episode, it’s not putting Edward in the brig. It’s a joke episode full of nonsense, so it’s not supposed to be serious. But this guy is LITERALLY crushed to death under a tidal wave of Tribbles while going “I’M NOT AN IDIOT, YOU’RE THE IDIOT”. Eventually she’s brought in front of a tribunal and defends herself by going “He was an idiot”

Everyone DOES have an Edward but this episode felt weirdly mean spirited

Ask Not - ST 2/10

A ship is under attack, and a young cadet, Cadet Sidhu, is in an exploding room. Some officers bring in a prisoner, who turns out to be Captain Pike who’s immediately like “okay, let me out.” Sidhu, of course, does not do that, he’s a prisoner. He tries to be manipulative about this. LEt me out or people will die. Your family will die. It will be your fault.

Eventually, after a lot of disgusting emotional manipulation, Pike goes “damn, she’s good. Okay, simulation over” and reveals it was all a test. I… that’s really shitty. This shouldn’t be allowed. This is some CIA shit.

Anyways she gets a job on board the Enterprise cause of this. I’ll just consider this noncanon.

Ephraim And Dot - ST 7/10

This is the first animated Star Trek thing since TAS. Wowee zowee.

It’s about a space Tardigrade named Ephraim. She is swept up onto the Enterprise as it floats by, during Space Seed of all episodes, and a little drone called Dot goes out to stop her from running amuck. What proceeds is some extreme slapstick of Ephraim going through the Enterprise and getting thrown around a lot. She lays some eggs, tries to protect those eggs.

Wow, I had no idea Naked Time took place at the same time as Space Seed. Oh shit, AND Tholian Web? Yeah, okay, it’s a big joke episode, it’s fine. It’s cute references. We even get the classic TOS fight music!

In the end, Dot saves Ephraim’s eggs, and then flies back off into space. This isn’t anything super great, but it’s cute.

The Girl Who Made The Stars - ENT 5.5/10

Another animated one! Cool. I don’t like the animation very much, though. It feels like a bootleg Christian kids movie. A young Michael Burnham wakes up from a nightmare, and his dad has to tell her a story to get her to fall asleep again. He tells some folk story about “the girl who made the stars”. You know, that classic kind of story where like, a young girl (shown as young Michael here) discovers some weird alien creature, and throws wood ash into the air to create the milky way. It’s very kidsy.

The story of the light inside this girl leading her to be a brave queen cures Michael of her fear of the dark, and she doesn’t need the night light anymore. Alright.

Cute enough, but the animation was REALLY distracting me.

Children of Mars - ENT 1/10

The sequel to Mars Needs Moms?

Two girls on Mars are going to school. Even in the future, school kids are dicks for no reason. Things in these two girls’ lives aren’t perfect, cause even in a perfect utopian future, this one girl’s miner dad on Mars can’t make time to go back and see her. Dog, a flight from the Earth to Mars takes like, 5 minutes. There’s prolly busses.

This shit has a really weirdly dour tone. There’s a weird sad song, the anxious unpleasant vibe of a middle school full of shitty awful kids. I get to listen to this really weird music as I watch these two teenagers beat the shit out of each other in slow motion. It’s some pretentious bullshit, I hate this. These two girls are then taken in to be disciplined, wheeeen

We find out Mars has been attacked, and countless are dead. We get flashes of the girls talking to their parents on Mars, as news flashes on the screen about the Mars attacks. 3000 dead. 3000?! THEY NUKED THE ENTIRE SURFACE OF THE PLANET. UTOPIA PLANITIA IS THE BIGGEST SHIPDOCK IN THE FEDERATION. Anyway…. the two girls then hold their hands, and the episode ends.

A fucking take on 9/11. I want to vomit. The stupid fucking Mars attacks in Picard are bad enough already, but fucking whooooof.

There’s really not a single good thing about this.