Star Trek: Short Treks

[Drunk Monk]

whaaaa?

short treks has gone animated?

Nah, it's the season break.  Right now, it's just the Short Treks, these 15 min fixes that are sometimes really good and important clues to the seasonal story arcs, and sometimes just a tease.  Chabon worked on some of these.  The next season of Disco is waiting in the holodeck so Picard can have the conn.  Unfortunately, I can't get to Short Treks without CBS Access which I don't have anymore.  So no, I'm not watching. I'm on shore leave.

And we're back.  Stacy caved (her words) and signed us up for CBS Access again.  She's into The Good Fight and given the SIP has determined it is essential. 

I went straight for the next round of Short Treks.  "Q&A" was the backstory of Spock's first step onboard the Enterprise as an ensign where he gets trapped in an elevator with #1 (played by Rebecca Romjin in the DISCOverse).  As I mentioned with DISCO, I dislike DISCOSpock.  I like the Kelvin timeline Spock because he stifles his rage, which I fimd an intriguing alternate reality twist.  DISCOSpock is younger, more naive, more awkward, and more easily amused.  Don't like him.  He lacks the gravitas.  This ep was penned by Chabon and dedicated to another Chabon (his dad maybe).  I'm starting to dislike Chabon's screenwriting.  It tries too hard to be clever and sacrifices the moral of the stories.  

I'll watch more later.

"The Trouble with Edward"

If you know your ST:TOS, you know where this is going with the first 3 words of the title.  It's their creation story.  It's cute and fits into canon snugly, explaining a random cameo in DISCO.  It feels like fan fiction almost and there's even a parody breakfast cereal ad after the credits.  Amusing enough for a short under 15 min. A good role for Rosa Salazar, who had her face digitally anime-ed in Alita (http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomFor...p?tid=4829).

As I said before, many of DISCO's throwback character reboots to TOS fail.  Don't like Spock, #1, Sarek, Mudd (although the Short Trek Mudd was okay).  I do like Pike.  Pike is the one win.  I saw him on a panel at SVCC last year and he was very eloquent.  There's talk about doing a spin off series with him, but there's talk of many such ST spins now. CBS Access even has a topmost navbar button just for ST.  I'd watch Pike, even with Ensign Spock.

"Ask Not" 
A super Short Trek.  Barely 10 mins.  All about Pike.  Saw through it quickly because it's all about Pike.  But still entertaining.

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"Ephraim and Dot"
Another super short trek, this one under 10 mins.  Animated.  The tale of a tardigrade.  Tardigrades figure heavily in DISCO because they can bridge space and time, and this ep is all about eggs, tardigrade eggs and easter eggs. It references the animated series (which I've always felt was vastly underrated) and then drops refs to great TOS eps, SPOILERS Khan, tribbles, fencing Sulu (yes, a sword!), the doomsday device, Apollo, Lincoln, then some of the films END SPOILERS.  It's actually kinda dumb but saved by the eggs.

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"The Girl Who Made the Stars"
The rest of the Short Treks are all under 10 min.  This one sucked.  It's DISCO's Michael (the central character who I don't really like) as a child getting a story told to her by her dad.  It's animated and the story is a universe creation story starting in Africa.  Hold the communicator - wasn't it Star Wars that was bought out by Disney?  I know it was because this ain't no Disney+.  It's CBS Access.  So WTH was that?  I want my 10 mins. back. 

One more for this season's methadone.  Might as well finish this.

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"Children of Mars" 
Two teenage girls are locked in a school rivalry set to Bowie's 'Heroes'. One human (I assume) and the other is a cool looking alien that I didn't recognize (so many aliens in ST now).  Both are alone on earth while their single parents are workers on Mars.  

This barely makes much sense but sets up ST: Picard.   

And now we wait for the return of DISCO...

Star Trek Day 2023 is this Friday.

[Drunk Monk]

First Star Trek: very Short Treks, “Skin a Cat” Features Voice of Ethan Peck
Vanessa Armstrong
Wed Sep 6, 2023 1:50pm Favorite This


This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn’t exist.

The Star Trek: Short Treks are delightful live-action shorts featuring cast members from throughout the franchise. And in just a couple of days, we’ll get some even shorter but no less delightful clips featuring some familiar voices coming to our screen in old school animation form as an homage to Star Trek: The Animated Series, which celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this year.
The latest installment to the Trek universe is called Star Trek: very Short Treks and starts off with five animated spots by Casper Kelly (Too Many Cooks, Star Trek: Short Treks). The first animated spot, “Skin a Cat,” will premiere on Star Trek Day, which happens to be on September 8, 2023.
I won’t get into spoilers, of course, but the short is a hilarious one and includes Ethan Peck reprising his role as Spock in animated form. Peck isn’t the only newly confirmed voice on the series: Gates McFadden, Celia Rose Gooding, Connor Trinneer, Bruce Horak, Noël Wells, and George Takei will also make an appearance in at least one of the spots and join the previously announced voice cast members Jonathan Frakes, Doug Jones, and Armin Shimerman.
“Skin a Cat” will premiere on Star Trek Day, September 8, exclusively on StarTrek.com and the official Star Trek YouTube channel. The four additional animated spots will roll weekly on Wednesdays through October 4, 2023 at 10:00 a.m.  PT/1:00 p.m. ET.
Here are the titles and the release schedule for the remaining spots:
September 13 – “Holiday Party”
September 20 – “Worst Contact”
September 27 – “Holograms, All the Way Down”
October 4 – “Walk, Don’t Run”
While we wait for these episodes, you can also check out the newly released poster for the event below:

[Drunk Monk]

The new Short Trek is silly. It can only be seen on startrek.com. It’s a bit of a dig on wokeness, racial (speciesial?) empowerment, and the oppression of slangs. It starts with my fav ST:TAS character M’Ress, the very first Catian. But then it got silly, dumb silly. A bit disappointing and I hope it doesn’t represent the rest of these this year.

[Drunk Monk]

For e2, you need to know ST:SNW and perhaps STisco. However even knowing those, it's not that funny. 

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Here's the previous one, which now seems a little funnier by comparison. Maybe. I dunno. These aren't working for me like ST: LD at all.

[Drunk Monk]

These Very Short Treks suk.

[Greg]

Maybe there are too many Star Trek shows at the moment?

[Drunk Monk]

There can be more. Many more. It's just these are dumb like Prodigy. Clearly outside of canon. 

Eager for ST: Section 31, ST: Worf's World & ST: Mirror Universe (I just made those last two up but they'd be so cool).

[Drunk Monk]

This one was kinda funny but perhaps only if you know all the franchises in play. And ST:LD gets the best laugh, of course. The finale punchline was dumb tho…

[Drunk Monk]

Started out funny then tried to go Bollywood but that only works if you have a catchy tune, so it was a fail. 

The nature of the overly offending humor reminds me of the same gag used in the first ep, Skin a cat. 

At the very least, it's good to see M'Ress again. She remains the best thing to come out of the first animated series to my way of thinking. Catians rule.