Casual Trek - A Star Trek Recap and Ranking Podcast

SHOW NOTES: It’s the fiftieth numbered episode! Do our brave and casual explorers want to do something special? Do they want to drastically alter the podcast’s format and mission statement (Miles is still holding out for #blakesboys), not particually, but they’re interested in when Star Trek’s done it! Join them as they finally talk about Star Trek The Original Series’ second attempt at securing a...

It’s Casual Trek’s third anniversary! Can we still call ourselves casuals after all this time? Probably. In this episode we have a look at what exciting things we’ve discovered in the past year, such as: tolerating Neelix, hating Peanut Hamper, not knowing who all the bridge crew on Discovery are and more! We set each other some questions, and even had some questions from the audience! Enjoy, and...

Those wacky Soongs are at it again, proving that Data’s the only good one of the lineage as Eugenics criminal Dr Arik Soong has some genetically engineered children who are out causing diplomatic incidents. That’s right, we’ve got not one, not two but three Enterprise episodes as we watch all of the Augment trilogy in one go. Should they be ranked as one episode or three? How much does this want t...

Pull out two strips of Gold-Pressed Latinum and submit them in the little box to listen to our episode on the Farenghi, Star Trek The Next Generation’s first attempt at a recurring villain race which went incredibly poorly for everyone concerned. From their first appearance in the show when they act like incredibly hyperactive gerbils in the The Last Outpost to their most recent focus in Star Trek...

After watching some times Star Trek delved into Cosmic Horror, Miles might have told Charlie ‘Oh, this stuff is tame, let’s watch Space 1999’ instead. So, for this episode, we are now rebranding as #spacescamps as we talk about the greatest collection of space adventuring office workers Moonbase Alpha has to offer in Gerry Anderson’s Space 1999. After we briefly gloss over the opening episode ‘Bre...

Star Trek’s universe is bizarre and horrifying at times. Cosmic beings summon orcs to stab you in the back, alternate versions of your flagship get stuck in a wormhole, nonlinear entities get taught about time through memories of baseball, love and death. It’s all a bit weird and we’re going to revel in it today by talking about cosmic horror. Ships full of Vulcans get a rough time today, starting...

Check your software and make-sure to update your anti-viral software because our Casual Explorers are looking at times when Artifical Intelligence went ‘Wibbly’ in the first episode, Voyager’s ‘Dreadnought,’ Torres deals with a super-intelligent missile from her past, then in Discovery’s ‘Stormy Weather,’ we do some exploration in a dark abyss while the Discovery’s sentient computer struggles with...

SHOW NOTES: He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty cosmic entity! Our casual travellers decided to let themselves in for a time and experiment with cosmic god-like powers (powered by subtle audio cues and sound effects) while they watch three episodes featuring John DeLancie’s cosmic japster ‘Q’ (Miles is surprised at no point do they make a reference to a similar role DeLancie plays in My Litt...

It’s time to draw some dots all over yourselves as Casual Trek’s discussing Dax! This one’s a Ko-Fi donor episode, so thanks Ben for the opportunity to talk about some more Trill shenanigans. We normally talk about three different shows but here we’re looking at three different Dax hosts. There’s also a weird sub-theme of muuuurder. In “Dax”, Jadzia’s on trial for a murder that one of Dax’s previo...

SHOW NOTES: Grab your popcorn, take a sledgehammer to your 80s Pan N’Scan VHS (Disclaimer: Casual Trek endorses Physical Media, just, just not Pan N’Scan) and climb into your favourite beep-chair as Casual Trek goes to the movies In Search of Spock for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock! But, we have a little B-Feature before we hit our A-Picture and so we’re also covering the other time a member...

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 Curric...

SHOWNOTES Great Scott! We’ve a new season of Discovery starting this week and Miles and Charlie want in on all the possible synergy and sponsorship deals talking about BRAND NEW STAR TREK should entail. But we weren’t invited to the premier and Miles has just discovered ‘Taskmaster’ so he has no time to fly anywhere, but what they do have is the Trailer on YouTube and they spend a lot of time on Y...

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-...

SHOW NOTES: Because Miles’ schedule sometimes means he has to prioritise other shows, even shows that aren’t ours, we decide to do something quick and off the cuff and we end up with one of our longest episodes, go figure. Of course, we got Miles to talk about Doctor Who, what did we think would happen because that boy goes feral pretty quickly! Mainly talking about the four recent Doctor Who spec...

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 a...

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 t...

SHOW NOTES: We’re throwing ourselves through The Time Tunnel as Casual Trek decides to travel back to the past and to the future in a discussion about Time Travel. Kirk, Spock and Erickson (who is THE worst) break history and Spock have to fix it in ‘Yesteryear’, Janeway and Paris have to dress up in Burger King Uniforms when they travel back in time a day in ‘Time and Again’ and La’an and A Kirk...

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 T...

It’s Christmas Day and we’re giving you the gift of a new episode of Casual Trek and we’re now, as is traditional, gifting each-other an episode of Star Trek each to cover for the holiday season. There must be something in the air because both Miles and Charlie decide to go with a nice present instead of any potential lumps of coal. Miles desire to make reperations for Tek War results in us gettin...

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 an...

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...

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-f...

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 o...

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 bei...

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. The...