Casual Trek

Charlie is a lifelong X-Men fan. Miles is a lifelong Doctor Who fan. If ANYONE can objectively rank every single episode of Star Trek on a big list, it’s gotta be the two people who think that Star Trek is “Pretty Decent.” (Citation Needed)

Casual Trek updates every fortnight.

Casual Trek

69. Save the Punks

It’s time to get your stolen spaceship hurtling round the sun and going back in time to the 1980’s with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home! We’re joined by our occasional editor and perpetual Pokémon expert, Reanna Reid-Lobatto, with some news about whales (and transparent aluminium). There’s some impressive Shacting as Spock and the crew get up to hijinks in order to get whales going back to the future! Then we’ve got the second part of this ‘bus punk’ duology with Picard’s “Watcher,” where we’re reminded why ICE should be abolished, Rafi is the most fun she’s been in the show and Guinan’s already fed up of JL!

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Casual Trek

67. Sarek – Vulcan as a Muthaf***a

Better lock up your familial issues and not talk about things with your parents as we delve into possibly one of the worst fathers in Science-Fiction (at least this one has an excuse for emotional distance) as we talk about the most Vulcan of Vulcans, Spock (and Michael Burnham’s and Sybok’s) dad, Sarek. Is he well-meaning, or, as Miles believes, has definately eaten one of his own children like a Goya painting?

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Casual Trek

66. Star Trek: Section 31 – We’re Sorry

It’s finally here! The Section 31 movie, wanted by almost no one and quietly put out onto Paramount Plus looking like a bad attempt to be a Guardians of the Galaxy, Suicide Squad (the bad one) and Borderlands: The Movie.

To celebrate, Charlie and Miles have formed a ragtag band of bantering ne’er do wells including Cele from Celeste is Best and Sean from Famicom Dojo. They carry out a four-person relay recap, pitch their own versions of a Section 31 movie and try to say something good about it!

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Casual Trek

65. Death by Ceiling Rocks

Quick, put on your secret black leather uniform and prepare yourself for moral dubiousness as we prepare ourselves for the upcoming film- ‘Star Trek: Section 31.’ With the film debuting in just a few days after this episode drops, Miles and Charlie prepare themselves by choosing three episodes tangentially related to the forthcoming film. In ‘Inquisition,’ we and Julian Bashir meet Section 31 and all Bashir wants are Scone and Jams, then in ‘Yesterday’s Enterprise,’ we slip into an alternate universe/Tasha Yar fixfic and meet Captain Rachel Garrett (who will apparently be in this movie) and encounter that most deadly Star Trek threat… WALL ROCKS. Finally, in ‘Saints of Imperfection’ Captain Pike meets the worst kind of secret operatives, catty drama kids who can’t shut up about how secret they all are.

Will any of this actually relate to the film? We don’t know, but we’ve assembled a team of our own to talk about it in this episode!

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Casual Trek

64. Human Jank

Don’t click on those ‘Unification Explained YouTube’ videos! Miles and Charlie open 2025 by talking about the OTOY short film ‘765874 Unification’ and honestly, for those of you disappointed that there were no lumps of coal in our Christmas Special… this is it, this is the coal. If this is (as the comments say) ‘Proper Star Trek,’ what do the Casuals who rank Tuvix as 44 out of 144 on their Big List (at time of recording) have to say about this and can they say anything good?

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Casual Trek

63. No Lump of Coal This Year

It’s the end of another year for Casual Trek, so Charlie and Miles have picked out episodes to gift each other!

It’s been quite a year, all in all, so they’ve both been merciful and decided to go for some fun episodes. Charlie’s gift to Miles is Space:1999’s Nick Tate guest starring in a Miles O’Brien spy drama in “Honour Among Thieves,” Miles’s gift to Charlie is some amnesia-based hijinks around a castle in “Among the Lotus Eaters,” and for two episodes about betrayal with ‘Among’ in the title, neither host mentions Among Us!

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Casual Trek

61. Only Murders in the Neelix

Jeri Taylor (June 30, 1938-October 24, 2024) was a screenwriter and producer for many TV shows, including Star Trek The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager. In dedication to her memory, we’re talking about three of her scripted episodes. In ‘Night Terrors,’ the Enterprise crew are having trouble sleeping and people’s REM levels are dropping (insert your own Radiohead joke here, we did) and it’s making everyone go a little crazy. Meanwhile, Neelix gets into true crime for his early morning TV show in ‘Investigations’ and bites off more than he can chew while uncovering a traitor in the midst. Then back to the Enterprise for ‘The Drumhead’ which gave us one of the more infamous Picard facepalm memes, but is it enough to put it at Number One on the Big List? If not, you might find yourself on trial for subversion!

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