A conversation cut from Casual Trek 81. See, we do some edits!

Casual Trek’s month celebrating Red Shirts continues as we have a look at Star Trek episodes which have thrown away the lives of extras in order to raise the stakes.

In “The Apple”, we get the highest red shirt body count as a planet wants people to die which is sad, as they won’t get to live long enough to see the most D&D cartoon-looking cave mouth ever!

In “The Bonding” one extra dies, which hits everyone really hard, especially her son and The Boy, who went through this before.

Finally “Now the Battle to the Strong” gives Miles another opportunity to sing the M.A.S.H. theme tune as Bashir and Jake Sisko encounter the horrors of war!

00:01:26 What Non-Star Trek Thing We’ve Been Enjoying: Disney’s Pixar’s Hoppers & Pokopia

00:12:40 Star Trek: The Original Series “The Apple”

00:47:12 Star Trek: The Next Generation “The Bonding”

01:20:25 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine “Now the Battle to the Strong”

Talking points include: Miles is not a fan of imperialist colonialism, Disney’s Pixar’s Hoppers is NOT Avatar, the Watership Down experience, traumatic cartoons, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where it’s all Saw Traps, Charlie does NOT have a Pokopia problem, Professor Tangrowth is a clueless busybody, the first time Charlie shaved his hair, the hot new character finds of 1967, Chekhov’s whole Russia bit, the most Dungeons & Dragons-ass prop ever, watching Star Trek for educational purposes, The Apple is really colonialist even for early Star Trek, Dr Who, Space: 1999, Chekhov was just on the away team to pull, JL’s your dad now, Worf only just now realises what Troi’s job is, some good acting from a young Wil Wheaton, Alexander has a new uncle?, Tony Todd is Worf’s more interesting brother, the Macarena, M.A.S.H. references & the futility of war, a grim Wonder Years, Stargate: The Militarism Star Trek, Charlie does a reading from Bible, . Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.

Casual Trek is by Charlie Etheridge-Nunn and Miles Reid-Lobatto

Music by Alfred Etheridge-Nunn

Casual Trek is a part of the Nerd & Tie Network

https://ko-fi.com/casualtrek

Miles’ blog: http://www.mareidlobatto.wordpress.com

Charlie’s blog: http://www.fakedtales.com

Red shirts might be one of the biggest pop-cultural tropes given to us by Star Trek, but what does it mean, in-universe and out, the first of our two part look actually gives us both as Miles describes the IDW miniseries ‘Star Trek: Red Shirts’ to Charlie and neither can hide their dissatisfaction while following up with a brief discussion of the John Scalzi novel ‘Redshirts.’ Next episode, we’ll actually be talking about episodes of Star Trek which feature examples of Red Shirts themselves. DISCLAIMER: NO RED SHIRTS WERE WORN DURING THE RECORDING OF THIS PODCAST!


SHOW NOTES: ‘Star Trek: Red Shirts’ (16:25) and John Scalzi’s ‘Redshirts’ (01:02:26)

TALKING POINTS: Miles has to carry nitroglycerin in case his heart stops and he finds that metal, The Legend of Luther Arkwright, Star Trek Voyager: Across the Universe, it makes a weird sense that Spock and Worf would be mates, Star Trek: Defiant is a much better comic, Lower Decks’ potential cynicism is canceled out by Tendi being a goddamn delight, Strikeforce Moritori, Avengers Arena and the Battle Royale manga, this might be the one Star Trek ‘thing’ that convinces Miles that Section 31 should exist, making meta-jokes and parodies canonical to the universe is not always a good idea, why send these losers on a covert mission? Miles uses the term ‘Cronenberged’ and hates himself for it, uncertain tonal shifts, Miles and Charlie try and thrash out what they think would be a better treatment of the same material, John Scalzi’s types of novels, the differences and similarities between Red Shirts and Redshirts (aside from the space), Charlie is very happy John Scalzi didn’t appear in his own novel, what happens to Redshirts after the episode is over? A Doctor Who reference to please Miles, that very 2012 feeling of the book, how post-modern self-awareness can sometimes get irritiating, if you approach every situation like you’re actually in a horror movie- get help, Stargate Universe was underrated, Space Scamps III is inevitable.