Casual Trek - A Star Trek Recap and Ranking Podcast

Casual Trek has ranked 97 episodes and two movies, so we decided to do something special for when we ranked our hundredth item on our big list. It would finally be time to rank the most infamous episode of Star Trek: Voyager! That’s right, it’s Threshold! While we could fill an hour and a forty minutes talking about one episode, but rather than doing that we’ve decided to have some Trekxtra Curricular studies. As well as being the bestselling author of TekWars, William Shatner also released multiple albums. We decided to put ourselves through his first album, The Transformed Man. It was… quite an experience. You’ll also get to hear how many comic-reading quests Charlie is taking and listen to two men with almost no experience of drugs try to figure out the best Star Trek episode to watch while under the influence. We also say “Flesh” too many times early on in the show in unpleasant ways. 02:00 What non-Trek thing we’ve been enjoying: X-Men ‘97, Flesh 15:42 Star Trek: Voyager “Threshold” 56:22 William Shatner “The Transformed Man” Talking points include: Godzilla is for everyone, X-Men ‘97, X-Men: The Animated Series, Put Dire Wraiths and Rom in X-Men ‘97 You Cowards!, X-Men: The Motion Picture, Flesh (I am so sorry for the moment of Flesh), 2000AD, Charlie’s Comic Marathons, Charlie posing like Jeff Goldblum from that photo, Shako: The Only Bear on the CIA Death List, Miles’ cunning trap, Neelix was assistant to the engineer, Dunking on Lovecraft, Cronenberging, HG Wells’ The Time Machine, Miles could say pretty much anything about what happens on Blake’s 7 and Charlie will believe it, Legion of Super-Heroes’ Evolvo Lad, The Outer Limits, David McCallum, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Fly, naming your child Khaleesi, Only Fools & Horses, everything better that debuted at the same time as Shatner’s album, Snoopy music, Leslie Nielsen, SNL skits, Andrew Ryan, Shatner trying to be a playful scamp, Shit my dad says, who would be a better Cyrano? The Free Design, Miles’ record collection, The Simpsons, Ranma ½, She Lies With Angels, Miles’ choice of song to sing in the style of William Shatner, The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, casting Alan Moore in Lord of the Rings, Charlie’s funny ears, Poirot facial hair (again). 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

Look out, the Holodeck’s malfunctioning and we’re all trapped inside! And the safety protocols have been disabled! And the holograms are self aware! Today we’re looking at the Holodeck in three different shows and all the horrors it can cause. First up is The Big Sleep, which introduces Picard as the private dick, Dixon Hill and his entourage can’t stop touching things. We also both attempt to re-create Picard’s epic speech from the end of the episode. Then we’ve got Kobayashi, where Dal tries to get through a Holodeck Kobayashi Maru with some of the best people in Starfleet (and Odo who’s not technically part of Starfleet). Finally, Bashir and a very sassy Garak play at spies in Our Man Bashir, facing death traps and their comrades who think they’re characters in a campy spy film! We also get into some musical acts who gave us psychic damage, a nemesis of the pod and use this as an excuse to talk about a rare musical track that’s featured in an episode. 00:09:54 TNG: The Big Sleep 00:40:29 Prodigy: Kobayashi 01:03:12 DS9: Our Man Bashir Talking points include: Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light, Arnold Judas Rimmer, Dune (1984), Dune (the SyFy movie), Sting’s movie career, Lil Gator, the Pokemon Fuecoco, Dead Ringers, The Maltese Falcon, Miles’ patronising clapping, Charlie’s egg-shaped head, the facial hair of all the different Poirots, D&D novels, Macross, Reboot, Ba Weep Granna Weep Ninny Bong, LA Confidential, Blob Detective, Red Harvest, Brad Dourif, Thunderstruck, Rock Band, Maximum Overdrive, Star Wars: Rebels, Pandemic, Will Self & Gareth Gates’ musical career, Explaining The Wombles & Britpop to Americans, James Bond movies, The Man from UNCLE, Alien, LeCarre, GoldenEye. 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

We’ve been Borged! Oh no! Specifically, we’ve been I, Borged as each of today’s Borg-themed episodes are based in some way around Hugh Borg. I don’t think Borg’s his surname, but I don’t recall hearing any other name for him. First up is I, Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Crusher and LaForge have a new pet and it’s a deadly Borg! A traumatised Picard’s eager to use him to do a genocide and Guinan’s with him. Oh no! Second we have Star Trek: Lower Decks’ I, Excretus where attempts to perfect a Holodeck trial lead to Boimler getting a bit too close to the Borg and some fun, awful scenarios which happen when Upper and Lower Decks have to swap. Finally there’s Picard’s Impossible Box, which turns out to be both a Borg Cube used for rehab and a puzzle box that a weird hot Romulan uses for meditation when he’s not getting way too close to his sister. Picard has a nice reunion with Hugh and there’s a Lord of the Rings Elf who’s there for some reason. 09:28 Star Trek: The Next Generation “I, Borg” 37:38 Star Trek: Lower Decks “I, Excretus” 59:44 Picard “The Impossible Box” Pedant’s Corner: Charlie is going to have to recap Star Trek: Nemesis Alice Krige’s surname is pronounced “Kree-Guh” Talking points include: Battle Angel Alita, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Reanna being cancer free, Berserk, Joe Abercrombie, James Barclay, Elric, Picard would make a great Number Two in The Prisoner, Visionaries, X-Men: Fatal Attraction, Batman hologram trading cards, Matlock Bath’s Hologram Museum, Star Wars: Dark Droids, Whoopi Goldberg would make a great Doctor Who, a poop joke, Nemesis of the Pod Ed Sheeran, Funny Games, James VanDerBeek, not forgiving people for reminding us that Young Sheldon exists, mocking Geoff Johns’ career again, crowbarring The Legion of Super-Heroes into a recap, pesto, Grant Morrison, The X-Men’s Sentient Danger Room, being tired old men, Bond themes, Miles’ issues with James Bond, Alan Partridge, Orbital’s The Box, Evil Goth Merlin from the TV Show Merlin, Elnor is an elf ranger, Elnor has taken a level in rogue, Elnor has only seen the Lord of the Rings movies (probably not even the extended versions), Elnor saw the 90’s Three Musketeers or the Paul Anderson one, Rifts (Charlie will never run Rifts), JJ Abrams naming, weird incest siblings, Penny Dreadful, a weird The Cube room. 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

We’ve got a guest star! Celeste of the Nerd & Tie Podcast and Celeste is Best joins the casual crew this episode to talk about the Trill. The species has always been a fascinating one and science fiction stand-in for conversations about gender and identity, so the three of us are going to delve into that in three different shows. Star Trek: The Nest Generation’s “The Host” is the introduction to the Trill who look a little strange compared to what we’re used to. There’s a romance, a death and Riker volunteers to get a slug put in him. We also spend time in the Enterprise salon with our hands in some green goo. In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s “Rejoined” Jazdia Dax meets her wife from a former life and the pair hit it off, even though they’re not supposed to in Trill lore. Kira’s a good comrade, Bashir’s a fifth wheel and we get a touching love story in this episode. Finally in Star Trek: Discovery’s “Forget Me Not”, new arrival Adira is having problems being a human host to a Trill symbiont, so we journey through memories and buck traditions while Saru’s having to learn how to get his crew of overachieving nerds to chill out a bit. This was a really fun episode to make, even though there are some audio issues we’ve hopefully ironed out and one of us didn’t do the right homework. 00:05:30 Trill 00:07:55 Celeste’s history with Star Trek 00:10:29 What Non-Star Trek Thing Have People Been Enjoying? 00:21:51 TNG: The Host 00:52:30 DS9: Rejoined 01:22:05 DISCO: Forget Me Not Pedant’s Corner: The governor was Leka Trion, not Leka Tyrion. Damn you, autocorrect! Eastenders had a brief flash-forward to build suspense for their Christmas 2023 episode Burnham’s Captain Catchphrase is, “Let’s Fly” Talking points include: Venom, Maggott, Mr Mind, 52, Doctor Who, apparently Americans don’t know when an American’s putting on an English accent, Transformers/Star Trek crossovers, yuri anime, I’m in Love with the Villainess, Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady, The Executioner and Her Way of Life, Gundam, Dark Shadows, Degrassi’s zombie and Terminator webseries which genuinely happened, Grange Hill, EastEnders, Arthurian Mythology, Fantastic Four, The Curse, Nathan Fielder in general, Lynch, Wandavision, The Bear, Miles watches Zardos so much he was probably watching it while we were recording, Meatloaf, The Enterprise has a salon?, Game of Thrones’ approach to siblings, what sad loser YouTube channels would have been doing in the 80’s, Avatar, homosexuality in the very early 90’s, Northstar, Pasíon de las Pasiones, slightly less psychic damage from Mariah Carey, the Tom Tom Club, Weird Al, Weird Science, Revenge of the Nerds, untrustworthy practitioners of close-up magic, New BSG, Helix, Dawson’s Creek is better in the original Klingon, Michael Scott is so devoted to profit, appropriating ‘not my cup of tea’, Quinton Reviews also giving us psychic damage, The Orville, Jessie Gender, X-Men, pointed sticks, Buster Keaton. 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 Celeste is Best YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/@NickIzumi?si=zn9n9co5XTbM3d-P The Nerd & Tie Podcast: http://www.nerdandtie.com/our-shows/the-nerd-tie-podcast/ Miles’ blog: http://www.mareidlobatto.wordpress.com Charlie’s blog: http://www.fakedtales.com The sound effect “Landline phone pick up angry” is by FilmCow

It’s the wicki wicki wild Wild West! We’re putting on our worst cowboy voices and donning some coconuts so it sounds like we’re on horseback as we go into the Holodeck or to worlds where things are suspiciously like The Ancient West. A Fistful of Datas has Worf resentfully taking his son to the Holodeck during downtime only for things to go awry after Data gets plugged into the ship. We also get Troi living her best life as a Western LARPer. The Spectre of the Gun puts the away team into a weird half-built Wild West set where they’re the villains in a no-win scenario and Chekhov gets to romance an alien dream construct that looks like a woman. North Star is a good episode of Enterprise, where Archer, T’Pol and Trip have to deal with the descendents of Ancient West folks who were abducted by aliens centuries ago and are now oppressing the descendents of their captors. 00:06:32 - Westerns 00:16:28 - Star Trek TNG: “A Fistful of Datas” 00:37:16 - Star Trek TOS: “The Spectre of the Gun” 01:00:54 - Enterprise: “North Star” Somehow Charlie forgot to mention that instead of playing “Cowboys and Indians” as a kid, his father made him play “Christians and Heathens”. Also there was a moment where Charlie spent too long talking about the Legion of Super-Heroes and we cut that. If you want Charlie to annoy Miles with pointless Legion of Super-Heroes trivia, tell us and we’ll do an episode on the Star Trek/Legion comic! Talking points include: Deadwood, Westworld, Red Dead Redemption, The Between: Ghosts of El Paso, the Quick and the Dead, Star Wars, Firefly, Blake’s 7, The Prisoner, Red Dwarf, Worf doesn’t get Worfed, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Doomlord, Dogville, Gunfight at the OK Corral, The Hayes Code, specifically NOT the Legion of Super-Heroes after Charlie explained Ultra Boy’s origin to Miles, Unforgiven, 24, Quantum Leap, Gilmore Girls, Doctor Who. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek. Pedant’s Corner: Emily Bergl who played the teacher here and Francie in Gilmore Girls played the roles about 10 months apart. 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

Welcome to Casual Tek, a podcast all about the prose of William Shatner! Is that not what we’re doing here? Well, if only because we could use the name “Casual Tek” it is this time! After months of Charlie trying and failing to get a copy of TekWar he finally has one, so it’s time for he and Miles to delve into William Shatner’s attempt at a cyberpunk noir tale. We do some reading from the book and try to explain what TekWar’s about, what the technology’s like and then desperately want to take some Tek in order to forget this reading experience! Normal service will be resumed shortly as we’ll be returning to Star Trek to ‘gift’ each other an episode in time for Christmas. 0:00 - A Dramatic reading from the introduction of the book 23:32 - We actually start talking about TekWar 34:51 - Miles tries to explain TekWar From there we kind of go all over the place. Talking points include: NaNoWriMo, Blade Runner, Film Noir, Cyberpunk, Johnny Mnemonic, CyberPunk 2020, ShadowRun, that neon clubwear shop in Sydney Street in Brighton, The Big Lebowski, Gerry Anderson’s UFO, Geek Syndicate, Monarch, Transformers, Garth Marenghi, Breakfast in the Ruins, Tarnsmen of Gor, James Herbert, Just King Things, I Don’t Even Own a Television (RIP), Ed Brubaker, Agatha Christie, World of Darkness 1 point Disadvantages, Lost, Red Dwarf, Judge Dredd, faxes, the times Charlie threw his Kindle, Fifty Shades of Grey. Oh, and of course TekWar! Pedant’s Corner: The cover image is not what Ron Goulart looks like 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 The FontStruction “TekWar” by V. Sarela is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives license. https://ko-fi.com/casualtrek Miles’ blog: http://www.mareidlobatto.wordpress.com Charlie’s blog: http://www.fakedtales.com

SHOW NOTES: November will come and go as does our two-part look into Season 2 of Short Treks. Miles is trying to make sure we keep to time, but in attempting to sound high energy and keep things moving, he sounds like he’s about to try and throttle Charlie through the Zencastr feed. The first few minutes are a little scratchy in places, but it improves. Spock is a little shouty on his first day on the job as Una makes him engage in Q&A while Edward’s attempts at being THAT coworker ends in Tribble-y horror in ‘The Trouble with Edward.’ Captain Pike tries out some interesting headware in ‘Ask Not’ and after that, things get animated with ‘Ephraim and Dot’ and ‘The Girl Who Made the Stars’ although one of these feels more Trek In Name Only than the other. Then, to round it all off, Charlie’s struggles for completion end with a look at the ‘Children of Mars’ and it all gets a bit sad. Next Episode finally sees us do something we’ve been threatening for a while as we look at William Shatner’s first attempt at a novel as we make the audience finally learn about Tek War!!! Q&A (2:46) The Trouble with Edward (9:09) Ask Not (18:17 Ephraim and Dot (24:47) The Girl Who Made the Stars (30:23) Children of Mars (35:46) Talking points include: We still don’t like Ed Sheeran and we never will. Why is America obsessed with Gilbert and Sullivan? Goodness Gracious Me. Miles totally refers to women as females while complaining about men who call women females. As they say in Wisconsin, Ope. Miles once again makes working at Starbucks sound like the bloody Borgias. British Opinions on American Gun Control. How Starfleet Academy decides to do secret tests of character is utterly batshit. The Utopian Federation has NO Human Resources Department. Miles had his phone on and got texted, naughty naughty. Kirk Thatcher is the only Thatcher we stan. Stormzy sounds like someone we would know in Brighton. A song we refuse to listen to, even more than anything from Shearan. Miles’ opinion on what is THE WORST Christmas Pop Song and despite their vitriolic reaction to Mariah Carey, it’s not her. Live Aid. Children of Men, Dune, Earth, whatever… Yes, Miles has actually been in a fight at school. Better slowed down Bowie songs to use instead of ‘Heroes.’ The ‘Believe’ advertising campaign for Halo 3. Fortnite… Oh, and a little thing called ‘Star Trek.’ Pedant’s Corner- ‘Goodness Gracious Me’ was a 90s BBC sketch show with an entirely English Asian cast and writers and highlighted the culture clashes of Indian’s living in Englad. It would probably be seen as ‘Woke Pandering’ by certain people today.

SHOW NOTES It's November, so our Casual Explorers have novels to write, but we also want to bring you the innovative Casual Content you crave, so we're going to go through all of Short Trek in a two part binge. We've make some new friends alongside Tilly as we discover that Ice Cream isn't a universal constant like Sweedish Meatballs (Babylon 5 fans will get that one) in Runaway while in the far-future, things feel a bit like the opener to most RPGs with FPS mechanics in Calypse. After that, things go a little bit folk horror for the Kelpians as we get Saru's secret origin in The Brightest Star while Miles becomes disturbingly obsessed with saying 'Jippers on a Beach' like he's Harry Mudd in The Escape Artists. Next episode will see us wrap up the Short Excursion with the second season of Short Treks!- 8:01- Runaway (ST)- 19:21- Calypso (ST) - 29:21- The Brightest Star (ST) - 39:17- The Escape Artists (ST) Talking points include- Harlan Ellison's agressive tendencies, The Exorcist II: The Heretic, Wes Anderson and The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar, Charlie hates Maroon 5 (But when pressed on this, he simply replied 'Who Doesn't?'), we had a LOT of music on this one, Asteroid City, folk horror, Bioshock and RPGS with First Person Shooter Tendencies, Classic Doctor Who fans having very obsessive tendencies, every time Charlie talks about Delgrassi Junior High, he paints an ever more disturbing image of a Canadian Teen Drama written and directed by Sam Peckinpah, Quinton Review's Long YouTube Videos about Carly 101 and VicTORIous, Rick and Morty and apparantly the British being unable to pronounce anyone's names correctly. Pedants Corner: Miles is editing the two Short Trek episodes and that has inspired him to take some of the editing load off Charlie giving them both one episode a month to edit, there may be a few spotty edits, but there we go. The Quinton Review discussion went in a few tangents dealing with personal stuff that both Miles and Charlie decided were best left out of the episode itself. 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 The List is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V-mTOlKgIzFKjMqNaR0yHtaHdS6mUGP7TWxvIs69XDc/edit https://ko-fi.com/casualtrek Miles’ blog: http://www.mareidlobatto.wordpress.com Charlie’s blog: http://www.fakedtales.com

It’s Halloween, so it’s time for spooky episodes of Star Trek! There are some ominous cucumber sandwiches, some salt and a lot of air vents this year! The Man Trap gives us the classic TOS villain of the Salt Vampire and some shapeshifting shenanigans. There’s also an amazing glove puppet plant. Dead Stop has a brightly-lit rest stop with offers that are too good to be true. Including why it was on ‘spookiest Star Trek episode’ listicles. Persistence of Vision brings us some horror in the Delta Quadrant as it looks like Janeway’s losing her mind. The characters and sandwiches from her Gothic novel holodeck program are appearing in the real world! 10:22 - The Man Trap (TOS) 37:58 - Dead Stop (Enterprise) 1:05:02 - Persistence of Vision (Voyager) Miles guested on Breakfast in the Ruins where he talked about some more of James Herbert’s rat books! https://breakfastintheruins.podbean.com/e/halloween-special-2023-james-herbert-s-domain/ Talking points include: James Herbert, Classic Dr Who, Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense, Rupert & The Frog Song, The Wicked + The Divine, Yellow Submarine, paintballing, Werewolf, Doctor Zachary Smith, Seth MacFarlane, Logan’s Run, The Mountain Goats, Lost, Robson & Jerome, PJ & Duncan, Todd in the Shadows’ review of From Justin to Kelly, Cube, The OC, Miami Vice, some Cube 2: Hypercube action, space in Star Trek is Warhammer terrifying, Stargate Universe, Dead Space, Mariah Carey has traumatised us both, Bothans, Mass Effect 2 Relationship Choices and a budget Colin Firth. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek. Pedants Corner: Miles should have said Series One, not Season One of Dr Who, but he was having fun and that level of pedantry is more Charlie’s thing Miles was right, Sunshine Superman is indeed a DC Comics character Charlie means that Seth MacFarlane might have gone back in time in a Trials and Tribble-ations way, not a Trouble with Tribbles way Apparently Harry Kim’s girlfriend Libby is actually real. Who knew? Charlie has now seen Taylor Swift: Eras and it was very good. 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s time to get assimilated into the new episode of Casual Trek! We’ve got some great episodes all about the ominous Borg. We’ve also got John DeLancie lounging on things and seeing a young Q here, wouldn’t Andy Samburg be a perfect Q? I’d love to see if he could be as ominous as John DeLancie, and we know he’d be good at the capering lunacy. We get some Frankenstein vibes from Drone which was not the episode I thought it would be, and then Let Sleeping Borg Lie gives us an excuse to check out Prodigy again and the Borg are scary in an episode made for kids. Good work, Prodigy! 8:52 Star Trek The Next Generation “Q Who?” 43:27 Star Trek: Voyager “Drone” 1:08:59 Star Trek Prodigy “Let Sleeping Borg Lie” Talking points include: Paranoia, Watchmen, Before Watchmen, Doomsday Clock, Early Versions of The Boys, Into the Archives with Peter Fleming, Doctor Who (A LOT), Charlie being extremely slow to realise what ‘firing power’ meant although he’s talking to a man in America so it’s somewhat justified, Marvel’s post-Comics Code Teenage Years, Bryan Fuller, our first song mentioned with a Weird Al parody, hologram trading cards, Spaced, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, a passing mention of Babylon 5 & Blake’s 7, a game of ‘who has the worse fans online?’, the Star Wars film you don’t mention online, Charlie can’t think of “Whirlipede” from Pokémon, a rhino man borg!, Avatar (guess which one), Transformers Earthspark, . 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 Next episode: Badmirals!

What’s less casual than the Maquis? This episode we’re watching our first non-pilot two-parter with “The Maquis” which introduces some Federation rebels, something you didn’t often see apart from in the occasional colony as a one-off problem. Well, these folks are going to be a bit tricky both as a problem and an existential threat to the concept of the Federation. At least, that’s the potential of them. We watch a couple of episodes which aired around a fortnight apart and had different levels of effectiveness at showing the Maquis. 06:48 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine “The Maquis” 43:21 Star Trek: The Next Generation “Pre-Emptive Strike” Talking points include: WM Akers’ roleplaying game “Comrades” which Charlie ran in the Age of Apocalypse one time, Blake’s 7 (a lot), doing a Starfleet irl, BBC’s Ghosts, The French Resistance, Falcon & The Winter Soldier, The Krakoan Age of X-Men, Boris Johnson’s undisclosed amount of children, Succession but with Gul Dukat, Phantom Menace Trade Route Chat, Babylon 5, ruining your 90’s pop childhood by looking into Ace of Base, Mandalorian Season Three, Farscape, the ‘five years later’ Legion of Super-Heroes, Lovely Bryan Fuller, 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

Welcome to this inaugural meeting of the Brad Dourif Appreciation Society. Today we’re… wait, wait, that’s a different podcast. A private podcast. We will be talking about Brad Dourif here, but we’ll also be talking about a number of other things including war criminals and Tuvix! Yes, we’re ripping that plaster off and talking about the merging of a good and awful character into a somehow worse character and what to do with him! We’ve got it all though, a Neelix episode which might actually make you like Neelix, a Tuvok episode starring Brad Dourif and then finally we merge together into Tuvix! 13:39 Star Trek: Voyager “Jetrel” 40:26 Star Trek: Voyager “Meld” 1:09:34 Star Trek: Voyager “Tuvix” Talking points include: Space 1999, Lost in Space (all version), You, Dexter, Resident Evil VII, The Dungeons & Dragons Movie, Charlie plugging his comic Kickstarter, Neelix is not anything like Captain Britain but Kes is like a bad Meggan, Alan Davis’ wonderful hair art, Oppenheimer, Disney’s ABC’s Marvel’s The Inhumans, Babylon 5 (a couple of times), Blake’s 7 but only in passing, the oeuvre of Bradford Claude Dourif, Chuck Austen (who I realise now is also a big humanist like JM Straczynski), Hannibal, Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, ugh the trolley problem, Sliders, Madelyne Pryor, Miles brings up the time he went off on one about Moriarty. 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 Explosion High #2: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exposionhigh/explosion-high-1-and-2 https://ko-fi.com/casualtrek Miles’ blog: http://www.mareidlobatto.wordpress.com Charlie’s blog: http://www.fakedtales.com

Hello and welcome to a very special episode of Casual Trek! We talked about games in Star Trek last episode, now we’re playing a Star Trek choose your own adventure style game! Voyage to Adventure is an old book and quite a weird one, being not one adventure but several short ones in different duty stations on the Enterprise. Revel in my bad choices and Miles’ bad accents in this episode! 08:57 - The start of the book 11:28 - The first playthrough - Charlie on the bridge! 21:53 - The second playthrough - Charlie in science! 32:33 - The third playthrough - Charlie in engineering! 41:31 - The third and a halfth playthrough - Charlie in engineering! 42:51 - The fourth playthrough - the second playthrough revisited - Charlie in science again! Talking points include: a Star Wars Choose Your Own Adventure, Metal Showcase 11pm by Jason Morningstar, Cheat Your Own Adventure, dry heaving at unironically using the word ‘content’, Fighting Fantasy books, The Author Kim Newman, the 23rd century Monkees revival, skutters, Mo Howard, Slaughterhouse Five... Oh, and occasionally Star Trek. My Kickstarter for Explosion High issue two is found here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exposionhigh/explosion-high-1-and-2 My review and playthrough of Metal Showcase 11pm as the band Death Hammerdeath - https://whodaresrolls.com/rpgs/metal-showcase-11pm/ 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

Show Notes ***Properly Fixed Edition! Damn you AGIMUS for sabotaging our show!*** It’s games night here at Casual Trek! Crack open a steaming tin of gamer fuel and stretch those controller-twiddling thumbs! We’ve got three episodes all about games today. The Ktarian Game - A free to play puzzle game which looks very simple but is worryingly addictive Chula - We get so annoying about this one and I can only apologise. Allamaraine! Bat'leths & BiHnuchs was probably sold as an RPG but is more of a board game with purchasable DLC Springball - Space Squash We get into all of those games and some wacky nonsense of the first degree with DS9 going through toothing problems and our first Wesley Crusher focused episode. 11:06 Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Game 33:14 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Move Along Home 58:11 Star Trek: Lower Decks - The Least Dangerous Game Talking points include: Experiencing BiJ, Rock Band, Portal 2, The Gamers, Sean’s Zelda II playthrough, Fire Emblem Engage, Oath, Battlestar Galactica/Unfathomable, Reaganomics, video game addiction, Wesley Crusher-themed emo band names, an easy 2 Unlimited dunk, Metal Gear Solid, the cube from the film The Cube, Dread, Cluedon’t, the Norwegian LARP scene, The Mountain Goats, I Only Listen To The Mountain Goats, Charlie Goes Off On One About OneD&D, Fucking Drizzt. 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

Whether played by Leonard Nimoy, Ethan Peck or even Zachary Quinto, The fantastic Mr Spock is one of the most popular characters in all of Star Trek. This episode we’re celebrating Spock by showing all manner of shenanigans; Angrily Horny Spock, Giant Spock and Freaky Friday Spock! A quick note for the pedants: we forgot Jack Harlow’s song and talked about Harry Styles’ one again at the start of the SNW conversation which is probably all the statement you need on Jack Harlow’s song. Yes, this is a Star Trek podcast. 12:30 Star Trek: The Original Series - Amok Time 38:09 Star Trek: The Animated Series - The Infinite Vulcan 1:00:49 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Spock Amok Talking points include: The Great Tolkien/Moorcock Fan Fight, The Blade Runner Roleplaying Game, Starship Troopers RPG, GURPS, Rifts (you can tell Charlie went on a tear about RPGS), Poker Face, I am The Law, Thatcher’s still dead (woo!), T’Pau, Last Unicorn Games’ Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Roleplaying Game, Futurama, Walter Koenig from the Babylon 5, Billiam Shatner from TekWar, Stephen Universe, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Giant Vulcan from the X-Men, Freaky Friday, Farscape’s body swap episode. 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 Charlie’s Kickstarter notification page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exposionhigh/explosion-high-1-and-2

Synergy! It’s what got me to force Miles to finally watch and rank the pilot episode of Picard! We recorded this episode before watching the first episode of Picard season three, so we’ve picked the other two episodes based on guessing what’s going to happen thanks to the trailer. That means we’re covering the first appearance of Lore and of Evil Hologram Moriarty! 00:00:00 Opening 00:14:21 Star Trek TNG - Datalore 00:45:50 Star Trek TNG - Elementary, Dear Data 00:58:46 Miles enters ‘Sherlock Holmes pedant mode’ 01:11:55 Picard - Remembrance Miles is on the Breakfast In The Ruins podcast talking about some Marenghi-ish horror! He also wrote a review of Picard season three, episode one: https://mareidlobatto.wordpress.com/2023/02/16/review-star-trek-picard-season-3-episode-1-the-next-generation/ Talking points include: Dune (specifically the 1984 classic film version), Vampire Survivors, Treebeard, James Herbert, Elden Ring, Doki-Doki Literature Club, Portal 2, Adric in Dr Who, Robby the Robot style droids in Star Trek, Dr Hank Philip McCoy and his many war crimes, Data is an AI artist, Miles gets to be a big nerd about Sherlock Holmes, getting erased Reboot-style, Professor X’s ability to get over pretty much anything, prestige television fatigue, Logan, the works of Michael Chabon, Alias, Eternal Law. Oh, and occasionally we talk about Star Trek. That Tor article Miles mentioned: https://www.tor.com/2023/02/06/space-opera-horror-and-the-endless-void-of-space/ 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 Miles writes about Dr Who here: http://timeandrelative.uk

We’ve got our first Ko-Fi donor request today! It’s time for time loops! How annoying can we make this for everyone including each other? We’ve got three very good episodes from different Star Treks, and even better, we’ve got our first Ko-Fi donor request today! It’s time for time loops! 11:29 Star Trek Voyager - Coda 31:03 Star Trek: The Next Generation - Cause & Effect 54:34 Star Trek Discovery - Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad Charlie’s Kickstarter for Explosion High 2 can be found here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exposionhigh/explosion-high-1-and-2 Talking points include: Happy Death Day, Dr Who (specifically Eve of the Daleks), Immortal X-Men issue nine (the time loop one where Sinister keeps trying to kill the Quiet Council), Red Dwarf (specifically White Hole), The Invisibles, Poker Face, The Menu, Pig, The oeuvre of Nicholas Cage, Gorillaz, Todd in the Shadows, Stephen Fry on ‘don’t you die on me’ cliches, Stargate SG-1’s time loop episode, Frasier Crane, Groundhog Day, Dr Who Adventures in Time and Space RPG, Supernatural’s time loop episode, Fiasco, The Iliad, Wycleff Jean’s 1997 classic, “We Trying to Stay Alive”, Fallout 3 killsprees, (sigh…) Blake’s 7. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek. The Overthinking It write-up on the Discovery episode: https://www.overthinkingit.com/2017/11/04/star-trek-discovery-season-1-episode-7/ The GTA 5 playlist from D+Pad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fziXvBA59zU&list=PLrYVddHWttVTx_aTjO9B9eYeF60Z6imWV 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 time to go to the movies! Yes, we’re covering Star Trek: The Motion Picture! We’re also watching The Changeling which is a very comparable episode to the movie. It’s an episode where a giant floating electric toothbrush threatens the ship, Earth and causes the first redshirt deaths we’ve seen on the podcast so far! 00:00 Opening 07:12 The Original Series: The Changeling 35:58 Star Trek: The Motion Picture 1:30:36 Miles singing when we got separated on the call Talking points include: Alien, Flash Gordon, presenting the podcast in widescreen or pan & scan depending on your podcatcher, the Eccleston Doctor Who, The Invisibles, Everything Everywhere All At Once, GI Joe Origins: Snake Eyes Origins (which I stress was NOT a recommendation), maths (ugh), whether Nomad is Doctor Who cheap or Tomorrow People cheap, Professor X’s callous disregard for human life, the Clangers reboot, Guillermo Del Toro’s Raggydolls, a gritty Bill & Ben reboot, Pinky & Perky, Alien franchise novelisation writer Alan Dean Foster, Charlie was (and is) a big nerd, West Side Story, Blake’s 7, Yacht Captain Kirk, that time Chris Claremont came back to the X-Men, a casual appreciation of Star Wars, Interstellar, 2001: A Space Odyssey, comparisons to Green Lantern and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, . Oh, and occasionally Star Trek. Miles also appeared on Two Boobs Watch the Tube for an epic episode about the Christopher Eccleston Doctor Who. If you want to hear him getting very un-casual about a thing he loves, it can be found there. 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 has a blog! http://www.mareidlobatto.wordpress.com Charlie has a blog! http://www.fakedtales.com

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

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

It’s an episode of Casual Trek all about Klingons! Qapla’! It was so hot when we recorded this, I muted myself and had my fan on so many times during the recording and am amazed I didn’t pass out. 00:00:00 Opening 00:11:29 TOS: Errand of Mercy 00:29:18 TNG: Matter of Honour 00:47:16 DS9: House of Quark When I was a child I found a corkscrew my dad left out from a night drinking wine with friends and thought it was weirdly like a d’k tahg. I’m amazed I never stabbed anyone with it. Talking points include: Orks. Sigh… blackface. Space Vietnam. Solving issues by actually talking. Battlestar Galactica. Brain Thompson getting a good guy role. Starscream’s actor not being Starscream enough. Rookie colleagues who think they know everything. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek. I call the newer Battlestar Galactica “the real Battlestar Galactica” even though it didn’t come out first. It is definitely the better one, so if you want to correct me, please find a void to shout into, you big nerds. 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

Hey, it’s episode two of Casual Trek! We’re still watching the pilot episodes of Star Trek, so this is a long one, but we’ve had an idea for a gimmick which will help keep us on point with the recaps 00:00:00 Opening 00:06:41 VOY: Caretaker 00:37:17 ENT: Broken Bow 01:03:38 DISCO: Vulcan Hello / Battle at the Binary Stars This is a mostly poorer set of pilots, but luckily they’re a lot of fun to talk about. Where’s Picard, Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, Prodigy and The Animated Series in our examination of the pilots? Shh, we’re ignoring most of those for now, but we do have plans. Talking points include: Space raccoons. 90’s mall chic. More bad GM practices. Lexx. Loving a chunky set. Space good ol’ boys. That time James Cromwell glued himself to a Starbucks. Space looking really beautiful. Charlie doesn’t know what metal is, but describes a thing as being metal here. 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

Hey, it’s episode one of Casual Trek! Consider this our Kobayashi Maru… and yours! 00:00:00 Opening 00:08:25 TOS: The Cage 00:34:57 TNG: Encounter at Farpoint 01:07:00 DS9: Emissary It turns out there’s another episode called “The Emissary” which I think I keep calling this one. It’s not though, but we’ll get to that soon. Also my airdates aren’t 100% perfect, but I’ll be back on track for episode two. Please don’t correct me, I already know I goofed. Talking points include: Ball aliens or butt aliens? Alf. 80’s Mall Chic. Detaching The Saucer. Reading your character description out loud instead of acting. Babylon 5. The British in Space. 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