Star Trek: Short Treks - Season 2 Review

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I've got a whole batch of reviews for you! Short ones.

I don't know if Short Treks comes in seasons, but I'm calling this 'season two' just to keep things organised. In fact I don't even know if this is considered to be a separate series to Star Trek: Discovery these days. I went into it assuming it had become its own thing, seeing as none of these stories feature the USS Discovery or her crew (except for young Burnham), but it's still got the same Discovery-style title with the starship herself flying past, and it's still got the same theme, so I don't even know.

One thing I do know is that all these episodes were put together with the season one stories and released on Blu-Ray together... except for Children of Mars. So now I'm wondering if that's its own thing. It doesn't have the Short Treks title sequence on it and it has a version of the Picard theme playing over the end credits, so is it actually episode 1 of Short Picard Treks? Are we going to be getting Short Lower Decks Treks next year?

Anyway, I'm just going to write about all of the latest Trek shorts without worrying about what counts. Beyond this point you will find six separate reviews, each of them written back when I first saw the episode and packed with general Star Trek SPOILERS.

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There'll be numbers to the right hand side of each review, so here's a handy guide to what they all mean:

10	Some scales go up to 11, mine only goes up to 9.
9	When I love an episode beyond reason I can't help but give it a 9.
8	This was a damn fine episode.
7	An episode I enjoyed and had no real complaints about.
6	The episode had some problems, but not enough for me to regret watching it.
5	Like a 6, but with less to redeem it.
4	I didn't like it, but I didn't entirely hate it either.
3	The episode actually annoyed me.
2	I couldn't sit through it all.
1	There's an episode of Doctor Who about people jumping around dressed as ants, that's what a 1 is.

Short Treks
2-01	Q&A	5
Ensign Spock's first day aboard the Enterprise immediately goes wrong when he's trapped in a turbolift with the ship's first officer, Number One. It's the one time the lift's ever broken down on the original Enterprise and it just happens to be the worst time. However, being trapped together gives the two of them a chance to show their hidden emotional side, just for a moment. Okay what the hell is up with the giant turbolift ride inside the USS Enterprise? It's one thing to rework the exterior and reimagine the bridge, it's another to say the thing's bigger on the inside! It's not the bloody Tardis, they've got the wrong franchise. Oh wait, hang on, I think I've got it figured out: See, I was thinking of the ship of being a solid block of corridors, rooms, and machinery, but maybe it is just an empty space full of winding turbolift rails and the only parts actually occupied by the crew are right up against the hull where the windows are. Of course it doesn't really matter, as what's important about an episode is the characters and the story... except it apparently does matter to me because it's the first thing I wanted to talk about! Rant about, whatever. I've been struggling to decide what I think about the rest of the episode to be honest. They put two likeable characters in a lift together and they were likeable, so it has that going for it. The bizarre direction was off-putting though, as Spock seemed more in awe looking at the transporter room he was beaming from than he was looking at the nebula outside. Also it really had no trouble just giving away Number One's name all over the place (shh, we're not supposed to know what it is!) The trailer made it seem like Young Spock was going to be talkative and obnoxious so I was glad that was entirely not the case. Number One demanded that he ask everyone a lot of questions and the tiny budget gave him a limited number of people to ask, so he had to keep pestering her. It seems like these episodes are going to follow the same pattern as last season and increase with scope each episode, as you don't let much more limited than an elevator. (Though they could've saved even more money by not yanking Number One out into a cavernous and elaborate CGI turbolift chamber at the end. By one hand.) It's a story about two stoic strangers allowing their carefully controlled image to drop just once, like a more positive version of The Naked Time, except in fast-forward. Though I was a little bothered by the way Number One encouraged Spock not to restrain himself, but then told him that he did have to restrain himself so that he can become be a captain someday. Yeah, someday. The guy's a bloody ensign, let him work it out for himself as he gains more authority. It was also a bit sad watching him go to his science station for the very first time, knowing that he'll never serve in another position aboard this ship or any other for the rest of his life. Sure he did eventually make it to captain for a while (all that stoicism finally paid off), but then Kirk came back and he moved right back to his chair again. It's like Enterprise all over again, where they did a five year time jump and no one had taken even a single step forward in their careers in the meantime. • IMPORTANT OBSERVATION The other transporter room was a cunningly redressed Section 31 starship bridge! Those sneaky agents have had their hands in everything. Though the Section 31 bridge itself was a redress of the Shenzhou's bridge.
2-02	The Trouble with Edward	7
Captain Lucero's first command goes horribly wrong when a scientist called Edward Larkin genetically enhances tribbles with his own DNA, turning them into an endlessly multiplying swarm that floods the entire ship. It turned out in the end that Discovery's second season wasn't about humanity inventing the Borg, thankfully, but now we know that we did invent the famous fast breeding tribbles! And so the universe got a little bit smaller. Though there are clues that these genetically modified tribbles that mad scientist Edward Larkin comes up with here are a new variant we've never seen before. He does say that tribbles usually "breed very slowly", but he may have meant 'they breed too slowly for us to have enough of them to feed an entire planet in 20 minutes'. Dr Phlox said they breed prodigiously 100 years ago back in Enterprise and I think I'm happier taking his word for it. Plus the tribbles we've seen before only breed when they're well fed, the plot of The Trouble with Tribbles was all about the super grain they were eating, but Larkin's tribbles breed constantly without food and gain the extra mass by magic. However something about this story made me think that it wasn't actually supposed to be a serious addition to the series' canon at all. (It might have been the fuzzy VHS 'Tribbles' commercial at the end). The trouble with The Trouble with Edward, is that it doesn't feel very Star Trek. I mean the uniforms and sets certainly line up with what we've been seeing in Discovery, and the direction was far more... conventional than in Q&A. But the way the episode treats Edward himself is pretty much the opposite of how Barclay is treated in Hollow Pursuits, as the moral of this story is that the guy who doesn't fit in is problem they really should have gotten rid of earlier. Though it probably for the best they didn't, as if the outbreak had happened on Earth they would've had to evacuate the entire planet. But in the end it's all just a bizarre joke, with the punchline of "He was an idiot", and to be honest I'm fine with that. I'd definitely take this over the Ferengi comedy episodes in Deep Space Nine, as it's just as dumb and even less plausible, but it has the advantage of being funny (to me). It's the sort of story that belongs in Short Treks, where it's not bothering the rest of the franchise and no one's expecting it to be too meaningful. Or to have any kind of good moral or message whatsoever, besides 'have some safety procedures in place when conducting mad genetic experiments, and also don't conduct mad genetic experiments'. I've got some more nice things to say about it: Rosa Salazar was good as the newbie captain with limited management experience and the worst luck in the universe, and H. Jon Benjamin did a great job with what he'd been given, even if he's just a stubborn idiot in the end. I was impressed with some of the tribble effects shots, I was able to endure the comedy music, and the advert at the end was genius. Stupid stupid genius. But they really needed to give this poor production crew a break as they were clearly going insane by this point. • IMPORTANT OBSERVATION Larkin was an idiot.
2-03	Ask Not	6
A young cadet is asked to keep Captain Pike prisoner during an attack, but he tries every tactic to convince and manipulate her into letting him go. Turns out that it's just a test though, and by obeying the two random security officers over the high ranking captain, the cadet passes and gets to serve on the Enterprise. I hope to see her on Strange New Worlds someday! The season started with a Short Trek all about asking questions, now I've reached one about asking not. Of all the Short Treks, this one has to be the shortest so far; it's tiny! In fact it's the shortest episode in all of Trek to this point. So it's hard for me to say to say that I'd figured out what was going on early, because it's not long enough to even have an 'early'. It starts and then it's over. It was always a possibility that this was a test for the cadet, the whole set up was suspect, (in fact it seems that a lot of people guessed it just from the trailer) but when Pike slipped out of character and started talking about fighting the Tholians, that gave it away for me. Turns out this one was one of those traumatic surprise tests that Starfleet likes to pull on its trainees, like we saw way back in season one of Next Gen when Wesley Crusher tried to join the academy. The cadet took it all very well though, despite being blown up, threatened with losing her job, and told her husband was in danger. I guess that proves that she's Enterprise material, as they only take the best of the best (no Edward Larkins allowed). Hopefully that means they have the best counsellors as well, because this was pretty messed up even for Starfleet. I mean what the hell, Number One? The conversation between Pike and the cadet was pretty well acted, even if a lot of it was them stating regulations, and it's a shame we'll probably never see her again as I thought she was pretty good. We didn't need that denouement on the Enterprise though, as it felt a little too much like Pike introducing Ensign Mary Sue to all the main characters. I'm not saying that she's a Mary Sue, the way it was set up just gave me that vibe. Also this is another episode that tries to impress with the spectacle of the redesigned Enterprise, but it fell flat for me because a: I've played video games already, and b: it looks wrong! This is the third episode in a row with someone transferring to a new ship, though I've reached the end of the Enterprise officer transfer trilogy now and that's a bit of a shame I reckon. I am curious to see what the animated Short Treks are like, but I want more of the Enterprise crew! Wait, I just thought of another thing that was bad about the ending: the 'was that pistol loaded?' cliché. Either it wasn't or the people who set up the simulation are idiots. If you get Captain Pike as the special guest star in your test scenario you do not create a situation where the cadet may possibly shoot him! • IMPORTANT OBSERVATION It must have taken a lot of work to turn all those panels red to transform the Discovery sets into the Enterprise. And then they had to turn them all back again for Discovery season 3.
2-04	Ephraim and Dot	4
A giant space tardigrade lays her eggs inside the Enterprise's engine room, where they lie unseen for three seasons of TOS, a full refit, and half the original movies. Unfortunately a robot who was also unseen all the time kicks her out, so she has to give chase and get back in. They have a fight, the ship is blown up by the self-destruct in Star Trek III, but the robot realises at the last moment that the intruder was protecting her kids and rescues them. Man, I don't even know what the hell I just watched. This is the very first Star Trek cartoon since the Animated Series back in the 70s (along with The Girl Who Made the Stars, as they were released at the same time), but I had a feeling it was going to have a very different tone to the classic show. In fact I assumed it was going to be a obnoxious heart-warming tale aimed at young kids about a cute Baby Yoda-looking repair bot making friends with a cute space tardigrade. But it wasn't that either. It wasn't that at all. It's like an animated comic spoof, and it had the Star Trek and the Looney Tunes sides of my brain fighting each other as I struggled to interpret what it was I seeing. I was all set to be outraged that they put a scene from Space Seed on the reimagined Enterprise, but then the tribbles showed up a whole year too early and it dawned on me that this was just madcap absurdity. But the Star Trek side of my brain still had to note that Sulu's sword fight happened before Space Seed, and that space Abraham Lincoln wasn't actually giant, and that all of these events didn't take place one after another in the space of ten minutes. And where was the Botany Bay when Khan was on board? And why does every room on the ship have a window now, even the warp core? And how come the warp core didn't get refitted along with the rest of the ship? The Looney Tunes side of my brain was like "Dude, it's just a tour of Star Trek history, stop trying to make sense of it," and then it got right back to criticising the action for being pretty dull and straightforward. Tardigrade is thrown out of the ship, tardigrade gets back in the ship. There's no jokes being set up, no pay-offs, no ingenious twists, no subversion of expectations. There's no fun in their conflict! Also the animation is the ugly kind of CGI and it's full of errors. Like they put the Enterprise's saucer on at the wrong angle in one scene and put the name on upside down in another. And they labelled it NCC-1701-A, even though that's a different ship. It kind of has me wondering if the mistakes were meant to be a deliberate homage to the Animated Series somehow, or if the animators were just very very rushed. Sure it's a cartoon, it's okay if it falls short from 100% absolute visual fidelity, but there's a difference between exaggerating something and just plain getting it wrong. Here's John Crichton's space module being represented as a cartoon in Farscape's Revenging Angel. The wings are too far forward, the scale is all wrong, they've added handlebars and a horn, and he's riding it around like it's a scooter. Complaining about this would make me a crazy person because it's obviously a joke and it works in context. I don't feel like I'm crazy for complaining about Ephraim and Dot. I should probably dial back the negativity a little though, because it wasn't boring and it didn't make me cringe, so it's far from the bottom of the barrel for Star Trek. But it has references in place of comedy and it keeps getting them wrong, so it's not really ideal for fans or new viewers. It's nowhere near as good as Revenging Angel when it comes to Tom and Jerry cartoon mayhem, that's for sure. • IMPORTANT OBSERVATION Ephraim the tardigrade was originally going to be Stamets' boss on Discovery (he would've had his own Starfleet uniform and everything) until the writers changed their mind and went with the Ripper plot instead.
2-05	The Girl Who Made the Stars	5
Young Michael Burnham listens to a bedtime story told by her dad, all about a brave girl who headed out on a trip to find the First People a new place to live, even though a monster lurked in the darkness. She meets a kind alien who gives her a ball which fills the sky with stars, giving the other villagers the confidence to travel during the night like she did. The Girl Who Made the Stars was also the first animated Star Trek released since the Animated Series back in the 70s. But one there's one bit of trivia it doesn't have to share with Ephraim and Dot: its record breaking run time. This is now the shortest of all the Trek episodes. What's good about the Short Treks is that they let writers and directors experiment with different kinds of Star Trek stories and do things they'd never get to do with a regular episode. And in this case they made a kid's cartoon about a legend which has nothing to do with Trek whatsoever. I suppose you could look at it like an origin story for Michael Burnham's love of exploration, or a metaphor for the Vulcans bringing us into the galaxy once we were brave enough to use warp travel, but that's a stretch. The episode also has a really strange moral to it, as it's all about facing fear, but it seems like there actually was a bloody huge snake there in the dark waiting to eat the villagers, and they may have all died if they had the courage to make the trip. The girl only survived because she ran and hid... which is also true for Burnham herself now that I think about it. Her dad got murdered not long after this cartoon by the scary things coming from out the dark. So the real moral is: bad things lurk in the night and you need to grow up into a badass warrior queen before you're ready to kill them. Or I suppose it could be: exploration's a definite risk but sometimes you'll get lucky and meet an alien who turns out to be friendly and gives you all the stars. But if there were no stars, where'd the alien ship come from, huh? The moon? Wait, why didn't the moon light up the night sky? Creation myths are weird. On the plus side, it was a good looking episode, much prettier than the tardigrade one, and getting one of the best directors from Discovery to direct seems to have really helped. It was a nice story, well told, but it's just not really the kind of thing I watch Star Trek for. Or television in general really. • IMPORTANT OBSERVATION Lil' Burnham has a lot of photos of her dad but none of her mother for some reason (possibly because it would've meant creating another 3D model).
2-06	Children of Mars	5
Two schoolgirls end up as enemies when one heads to the school shuttle in a bad mood and causes the other to be late. She gets her revenge, which just makes the other even angrier and they each step up their retaliation until they're both in trouble. Then both their parents get blown up and their petty animosity is immediately forgotten. My first assumption about this episode, going from what I knew about Star Trek: Picard and the trailer, was that it was going to be about two kids who were brought together by a devastating 9/11 style attack on Mars. Then I saw the Disco-era ships in Utopia Planitia and the old school shuttle, and realised it wasn't a Picard-era Short Trek at all! Incidentally that school shuttle was in a real hurry if it took off in the time it took a kid to pick up her bag. I was a bit put off right at the start by the way the dad wasn't able to come back this year because of work, seeing as they don't work for money in the Federation and have much better labour laws. At least that's how it is on Earth (and presumably Mars). But hey it's Disco-era, when things weren't so much of a utopia yet, so I can give them a pass. The kid goes out angry and shoves another kid, which escalates wordlessly until the two of them are punching each other in the hallway. Seems like school to me! They nailed it. But what does any of this have to do with Star Trek? And why did did they play a cover of 'Heroes' over two kids tormenting each other? Seems a bit ironic... unless they were going to do something heroic after the music stopped! But when the music stopped the rogue synths attacked Mars, the girls held hands, a Vulcan was shocked and... that was it! Episode over. Oh plus it turns out it was all in the Picard-era after all! Surprise! There's a lot to like about the slick production of this episode and the way it told its story without any dialogue, plus the acting was rock solid. But it was like the pre-credits teaser to an episode, or an entire series in this case. It's not much of anything on its own. Though it did make me realise how important the setting is to a Star Trek story. I can buy into a series that uses cardboard walls with coloured spotlights pointed at them for its corridors as long as it's consistent about it, but the flashiest effects in the world won't win me over if they don't match the reality that's been presented so far. I whined about this before when they reimagined the Enterprise, but it was worse in this case, as the use of Discovery-era ships made the reveal of Picard at the end feel like it was the big shocking twist, not the attack itself. If they couldn't afford to buy someone's fan-made USS Voyager model or whatever, they shouldn't have had the shot at all. Plus there's only the one establishing shot and it's of the shipyard orbiting Mars, so I just assumed the school was on the planet below and that made the ending even more confusing for me. Overall this had the same 'why am I watching this?' problem for me as The Girl Who Made the Stars, because it's so different not just to Star Trek, but television I enjoy in general. There's all kinds of different flavours of Star Trek, it doesn't just have to be about people trekking between stars, but I can usually rely on it being my kind of thing, and this wasn't. • IMPORTANT OBSERVATION If I'd been a little more observant I would've noticed the Golden Gate Bridge out of the kid's window at the start, indicating that the school scenes are almost certainly on Earth (though they do take a shuttle ride to get there, so who knows?)

CONCLUSION

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I don't want to hate on Star Trek! I love Star Trek, I grew up on Star Trek. Not the Original Series though mind you, or even The Next Generation - I grew up on all of it. For me 'Real Trek' can be anything from Balance of Terror to Take Me Out to the Holosuite, from Measure of a Man to Macrocosm, from Star Trek IV to Star Trek Into Darkness. It doesn't need to be set on a starship, it doesn't have to take place in the future, it doesn't have to be cerebral, it just has to feel like Star Trek. It has to feel like I'm looking in on an alternate universe with its own semi-consistent rules watching charismatic people with a secular humanist philosophy getting things done.

This season of Short Treks was all about letting the storytellers go wild, break rules and experiment. Or, in other words, it was about letting people do Star Trek wrong to see what happened. So far the results seem to indicate that the further they get from Trek, the less I give damn. In fact the only one of these I really enjoyed was The Trouble with Edward, and that was like a deliberate parody. It was halfway to being Lower Decks.

It's a bit strange to me that they tried to make so many stories that wouldn't necessarily appeal to a typical Trek viewer. Not because it's a bad idea, they've got to stretch the definition of Trek if they want to make a Marvel Cinematic Universe out of it, I just think it's weird to do it here, in the place where only hardcore Trek fans are going to find them. I suppose the theory is that a Trekkie is going to watch Ephraim and Dot, love it for its fan service and references, and show it to their kids who'll love it for the cute characters and slapstick. Then in ten years time those kids will be old enough to subscribe to CBS All Access to watch Discovery and Picard!

The sad thing is, I'd love a Star Trek anthology series that jumps around to different eras and locations, making use of all the sets and side characters created for the other shows to tell proper Trek stories, but this isn't that. I'd love an Animatrix/Gotham Knight style compilation of short stories by different creators interpreting the universe in their own style, but this isn't that either.

To sum up, Short Treks is like a box of chocolates and I hope it includes more of the kind I like next time. And they should give Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill a Captain Proton short already!

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NEXT TIME

Tomorrow on Sci-Fi Adventures, I've got something a little different for you. I'm in the mood for some Looney Tunes, so I'm writing about the original Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century!

But you can post some more words about Star Trek if you want. I've tested that comment box down there thoroughly and it can support a lot of opinions. Or if you want to have more of a conversation you should drop by our friendly Discord.