REVIEW: 'Star Trek: Very Short Treks' Was a Puzzling Mess
Images: Paramount.
Disclaimer: My opinion is not fact! Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and this is mine. You are more than welcome to disagree!
OCTOBER 6, 2023 - I had been looking forward to the Very Short Treks since they were announced at Comic Con earlier this year along with a bunch of other fun events in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Animated Series. I’m frankly devastated at how horrendously awful the Very Short Treks have been. I’m not the only one. People on Twitter have been brutal, calling the Very Short Treks “war crimes,” “an insult,” and “rubbish,” to name a few insults. I think that @Replimat1 on Twitter sums up the fan view pretty well:
Our review. Fanwank, in a word. In a few more; redundant, pointless, incoherent, no internal logic, and a poor excuse to just get actors to reprise roles. Conclusion; still baffled by the actual point of these Very Short Treks. https://t.co/gEUyN5Emg5
— The Replimat - DS9 Review (@Replimat1) October 3, 2023
So yeah, needless to say they were not well received. Now that they’re (finally) over I’ve decided to throw my hat in the ring and give my opinion on each of the episodes. So let’s get into it.
WARNING: There will be spoilers. If you would like to watch them before reading my review go to the Star Trek YouTube page.
“To Skin a Cat”
Summary: the Enterprise is stuck in an impossible situation surrounded by Klingon Battle Cruisers, with shields failing, and no way to get away. The Captain, who in this episode is unnamed, tells Spock that it isn’t hopeless because there is “more than one way to skin a cat.” This does not go over well with Lieutenant M’Ress, a Caitian. The captain then makes a joke about eating fish, which upsets an Antedian ensign. This trend of the captain saying something and thus offending the members of his Bridge Crew continues until eventually he apologizes for being a dumbass and screwing up, cueing the appearance of crew numbers, one of whom is a screw and the other is a literal butt head. Spock advises the captain to choose his words carefully, after which he then realizes that whatever he says will show up so he summons his perfect woman who also knows how to get the Enterprise out of their current situation. Just as she’s about to tell them what to do the ship gets blown up and the episode ends.
This was frankly my least favorite Very Short Trek. The joke is redundant and drags on the whole episode, making it feel like an hour and not a minute. It wasn’t funny the first time and it wasn’t funny any of the subsequent times. On top of that, the joke is painfully un-Trek-like with its painful complaints about political correctness over “harmless jokes.” Star Trek, with a few glaring exceptions, has always been about inclusion and equality so this episode essentially calling political correctness a joke in and of itself feels so anti-Trek. Star Trek has never been about “PC censors us” and it’s weird that they’ve started now.
“Holiday Party”
Summary: In this episode, the Enterprise crew from Strange New Worlds is celebrating First Contact Day. Hemmer was originally elected to lead the celebrations but chooses to tap out considering he is neither Human nor Vulcan and instead nominates Spock to take his place. Spock decides to show a “blooper reel” to get the party going. Spock wants to show his fellow crew members what he deems is comedy. The first clip shows a transporter accident — graphic and tragic, not funny at all. Only the top half of a crewman beams successfully, but without legs, his bowels spill onto the transporter pad. When his crewmates do not find this graphic scene to be entertaining Spock explains to them that comedy is the unexpected and because someone having their guts all over the transporter room floor is unexpected it is funny. Spock then decides to skip more of the bloody clips and shows T’Pring leaving him for another man. At the end of this clip both Spocks (the one in the reel and the one showing the reel) are in tears. Then Spock, seeing that nobody found his tragic love life funny, decides to show a clip from the Battle of the Binary Stars, which everyone, of course, finds appalling. Uhura then gives Spock some advice on what a blooper reel should be and he gets the joke, showing a crewman slipping and then hitting his crotch on the hard end of a mop. His friends laugh and Spock offers to reenact the blooper. Then the episode ends.
I liked this Very Short Trek more than I liked “To Skin a Cat.” but not by much. It felt as though it was written by someone who was given a Star Trek summary but had never actually watched a single episode. The characters were not at all true to their canon selves and the whole joke felt very forced. I quite enjoyed seeing Hemmer again. He was a favorite character of mine and I was sad to see him go. I do love the frame of Spock crying (I used it in one of my Monday Meme Reviews).
“Worst Contact”
Summary: Riker and Crusher make first contact with a species that built their first warp drive. They beam down to give this new species the exciting news: “You are advanced enough to join the Federation of Planets!” Riker goes to shake the leader’s hand who then picks his nose “as a sign of respect.” Riker of course pulls away, being disrespectful. As the episode goes on Riker and Crusher see how gross this species is. They rub their boogers on the walls, put boogers in raw fish as seasoning, and other unsavory things of that sort. Eventually, being too grossed out, Riker destroys their warp drive and he and Crusher beam away.
This episode takes Star Trek humor to a whole new level. By a whole new level, I mean a level lower than I thought possible. They rely on jokes that are barely funny to a six-year-old, let alone anyone with a developed sense of humor. The amount of booger jokes is completely unnecessary and the whole episode has no real point. Of course, this is just a comedy skit so it doesn’t have to be true to canon but the characters treating first contact, something so integral to the Star Trek universe as a casual, every day event and then majorly messing it up because they found the species customs to be gross was a bit off-putting to me and again, felt very un-Trek-like. The coolest part of the episode, which I didn’t notice until I watched the episode again to write this review, was that they designed the aliens’ heads to look a bit like noses.
“Holograms all the Way Down”
Summary: This video opens with a shot of Archer’s Enterprise, which was a fun surprise. Then, Trip Tucker III (who is alive?!) says, “It’s been a long road” (a reference to the Enterprise theme song) after an unnamed treaty is signed. Then a Klingon Battle cruiser opens fire. As the bridge begins to explode we hear Riker say, “Computer, freeze program” and we are transported to the grid of the Enterprise-D’s holodeck. As Riker and Troi go to leave the Holodeck we hear Quark telling the computer to freeze the program. Apparently, Quark is using his holodeck to show Garek how accurate his recreations can be. Accurate enough to be used as war propaganda, for the right price, of course. Before Quark and Garak can shake on a deal we hear Tendi say “Computer, freeze program!” After shaming Boimler for his Kirk x Gorn fanfic the Lower Deck cast is interrupted by the Prodigy cast, all in their Starfleet uniforms. Then the Prodigy kids are interrupted by Uhura and Sulu from The Animated Series when Sulu tells the computer to “pause the rec room.” Then in rapid succession, Saru calls for the computer to freeze the program prompting Hemmer to ask the computer to end the simulation which is then quickly revealed to be a holo-novel in a PADD being read by Neelix, who calls it “silly stories.” This chaotic jumble of scenes shifts to reveal a conjoined quintuplet made up of Riker, T’Pol, Trip Tucker III, Spock, and Uhura. They are all standing at the foot of Neelix’s bed wearing one massive red shirt. Trip asks the computer to end the playback and then asks his fellow Starfleet officers if they are real or part of the program. That then causes the computer to tell the computer to freeze the program. The quintuplet then freezes and the episode ends.
I wish my summary could have been more coherent but that is literally exactly what happens in the episode. It was a massive fever dream that I frankly don’t understand. I’m all for holodeck schenagins but this felt like a bit much. This episode is my favorite Very Short Trek (if only for Boimler’s Gorn Slash fics). I enjoyed all the cameos throughout the episode. I felt as though the Prodigy characters were very stiff for some reason. They were pretty poorly rendered, however, it was still nice to see them again. This episode felt like a silly little love letter to the holodeck and all of its weirdness.
Computer, end program.
“Walk don’t Run”
Summary…?: I’m frankly not sure I’m able to summarize what happens in this episode. In a fourth-wall-breaking scene Tendi is attempting to honor The Animated Series which “walked” so that Lower Decks could “run.” This of course upsets the cast of the Animated Series and eventually, Tendi and them get into an argument over which series is better. Then Riker and Sulu walk in and tell them to just love each other. Sulu then shows off his abs. Then Riker and Sulu break into a relatively jarring 60s musical acid trip. Then the episode ends.
This wasn’t the worst episode ever. The music was fun enough but mixed kind of weirdly so that whenever Tendi sang it was significantly louder than everything else, making the experience on my headphones quite uncomfortable. I appreciated the line “I got your orgy right here!” in reference to the weird orgy scene from Lower Decks. Once again, I really don’t understand the point of this episode. This was the first episode I actually laughed at so that’s something.
Overall Thoughts
I’m not sure who approved the Very Short Treks and why on Earth they thought they were a good idea. I couldn’t agree more with Replimat1’s review. After watching all of these my main question was why. They weren’t really all that funny and frankly did The Animated Series a great injustice. It deserved a better tribute than whatever the hell was going on with all of these episodes. This was exactly what everyone feared Lower Decks would be, unfunny and out of touch. After every episode, I was wondering why this was made and how it was ever approved.
Aster is a fresh face to Daily Star Trek News, joining the ranks as a contributing writer. Though he may be young, he self-describes as a hardcore nerd, lover of cheese sticks and niche internet discourse. Outside of his long-time obsession with Star Trek, Aster is an avid cosplayer, crocheter, and Catan enthusiast who is attending school for technical theater and design. He's very excited to debut in his "professional nerd career" and finally put all his obscure nerd facts to good use.
