Casual Trek - A Star Trek Recap and Ranking Podcast

Okay, lets you and him fight! In shameless pursuit of ‘brand synergy,’ this episode of Casual Trek celebrates the return of Strange New Worlds to our streaming services by doing an episode about those lizardy bastards Kirk fought once at those rocks from Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, the Gorn! In ‘Arena,’ Kirk fights a string vest wearing space lizard while Spock watches and provides inane comment...

It’s episode 69 and so our brave Casual Explorers are showing their emotional age by watching the infamous ‘everyone gets drunk, horny and crazy’ episodes of Star Trek, TOS’ The Naked Time where George Takei shows off his impressive sword and TNG’s less impressive ‘The Naked Now’ where Charlie asks the most important question ‘if Data has no emotions, why did his creator build him to be fully func...

Strap on those babies and keep clear of the wet ghosts, we’re finally talking about Death Stranding! Yes, Casual Trek Episode 69’s going to have to wait as the boys are very excited about the work of the game designer, dreamweaver, visionary plus actor, Hideo Kojima. Sit back and listen to the attempts to explain what Death Stranding is actually about, the ways Hideo Kojima’s works are somehow bot...

Grab your phials of glowing green goo and prepare to ham it up as we talk once more about Jeffrey Combs, the Philip Madoc of Star Trek (that’s a Classic Doctor Who reference) and three episodes where his many characters make large roles. Unfortunately, Weyoun is only in a few scenes of Deep Space Nine’s ‘Ties of Blood and Water’ and both Miles and Charlie try really hard not to get personal as Kir...

The ‘mystical pregnancy’ trope is a bit of an overused one in genre fiction and Star Trek visits that well so many times we had options for which ones to highlight here. The episode you all knew was coming is Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “The Child” where Troi gets pregnant with a cosmic entity. We also see puppies and the Enterprise dealing with a horrendous disease as a B plot. Star Trek: Vo...

Grab your tastiest sandwich and try not to spoil Twin Peaks as we return to Deep Space 9 with an all-DS9 extravaganza. We’re talking about the opening three-parter of season two of Deep Space Nine which, unlike the Augment three-parter of Enterprise we covered (Episode Title- We Have Wrath of Khan at Home), we’re discussing and placing on the Big List as one single entry and not three seperate one...

It’s Bank Holiday Monday, so let’s take it easy and talk about some comics. After promising it early in the show’s history, Charlie’s finally read the first arc of IDW’s Star Trek comic by Lanzig & Kelly. Look, we’re Casual Trek, this is the level of service you get from us. The first arc, “Godshock” features that classic Star Trek concept: thumbing your teeth at god, only this time it’s a bad...

Pull out your helmet with the torch on and your spelunking gear because we’re talking about Caves! Miles and Charlie go potholing for Star Trek episodes featuring caves and find a Horta in TOS’ ‘Devil in the Dark’, bid farewell to a member of the TNG cast in ‘Final Mission’ and do you remember when everyone got trapped in a turbo lift in Lower Decks’ ‘Caves?’ Always use the buddy system! Follow sa...

Listen up, you palookas, it’s time for a Casual Trek about times people tried to copy humans. We’ve got a bona fide Mafia planet thanks to a discarded novel in “A Piece of the Action”, featuring some incredible Shacting. Next, those Next Generation goombahs find themselves in a casino inspired by another discarded novel in “The Royale”, a troubled script and a bad episode which is actually a fanta...

Strum your sitar and prepare to launch all Eagles as Miles and Charlie once more become the Space Scamps as they make a second trip to the moon for three more episodes of Gerry Anderson’s ‘Event Horizon meets Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace’ show Space 1999 (Miles is now worried he has created a monster by showing Charlie this show) and in doing so, get to talk about psychadelic trippiness and Kano’s o...

Grab your dice-bag and make sure your character sheets are up to date! As Charlie is ill and both hosts are really busy, we take a quick detour from talking about Star Trek the TV Show to talk about Star Trek Adventures Tabletop RPG by Modiphius Entertainment. In his other side-career as a Gaming Journalist, Charlie got to try out a review copy with his gaming group and goes over the ensuing data....

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 fut...

Temba, his arms wide! We have a new episode of Casual Trek for you and it’s about language, no, not naughty language, although we’re both British so we’re VERY good at that. We’re talking about times where language and communication have been important Trekian themes! First, everyone on Deep Space Nine is talking gibberish instead of Technobabble in ‘Babel’ while in Strange New Worlds, Uhura’s fir...

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...

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...

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 Bashier meet Section 31 and...

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 Li...

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’ gift to Charlie is some amnesia-based hijinks around a...

Put on your biggest shoulder pads, your pointy ears and start being secretive because we’re looking at one of Star Trek’s dastardly duplicitous Romulans and we’ve recruited Celeste from the Nerd and Tie network to divulge secrets! In ‘The Enterprise Incident,’(TOS) we see Kirk do THE WORST Mission Impossible Mission ever while Spock gets his flirt on, then in ‘The Enemy,’ (TNG) we get to see one o...

Jeri Taylor- (June 30, 1938 to 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...

Moopsy! As Lower Decks is back for the last time, we’re looking at three animated Star Trek episodes, specifically ones about strange creatures. The Eye of the Beholder brings us weird dopey-looking elephant slug things who are actually more evolved than humans! A Tribble Called Quest brings us all kinds of mutant tribbles including a bizarre horrible Tribble with a face! Ugh… I Have No Bones, Yet...

It’s Halloween time again! Put on your sexy Star Trek costume and make sure you’re fully in control of your faculties because you might not be entirely you in there! This time, our Casual Explorers decided to explore some of the many psychic and or energy beings who can just pop inside your flesh and blood as easy as a pair of boots. In Enterprise’s ‘Observer Effect,’ Trip and Hoshi get sick off K...

Dust off your illegal VHS tapes and be prepared to write a strongly worded letter to Points of View because we’re back with the second part of our ‘Banned by the Beeb’ two-parter looking at three more episodes of Star Trek that suffered the wrath of British censorship. We’re back with three episodes, the final two banned TOS episodes, starting with ‘The Empath’ where William Shatner has to do some...

INTERLOPER! We have an interloper in the podcast! It’s Sean Corse of Famicom Dojo and Two Boobs Watch the Tube fame, here in the spirit of Nerd & Tie unification. This episode we’re looking at the Unification trilogy, a multi-part story that spans multiple Star Trek series and over 800 years! First up, Picard and Data go to Romulus to hunt down Spock, who might have turned traitor! We also hav...

Show Notes: Despite what Americans may think, moral panics about TV exist everywhere and today, we begin the exploration of a doozy. The start of a two-part look into four episodes of Star Trek that came a cropper at the hands of Auntie Beeb (a not-so affectionate term for the BBC) that of course allows Miles to indulge in one of his favourite talking points about British movie culture - Video Nas...