It’s that time of year where we try and delve into the strange and scary for our Halloween episode and this time, we’ve hit upon altered states (not the Ken Russell film) where our heroes undergo a strange transformation, in TOS ‘Wolf in the Fold,’ Bones’ obsession with getting Scotty laid ends in a lot of mysterious stabbings that date back to Victorian London while in Voyager’s ‘Darkling,’ the Doctor’s attempt to improve himself by adding bits of other people into him starts making him very large in the tooth and a little too psychosexual towards Kes while in DS9’s ‘Empok Nor,’ O’Brien, Nog, Garak and a collection of clearly important side characters go to a deserted Cardassian Space Station to steal some wiring ends with psychotropic drug-induced violence. Typical. Happy Halloween!

Episodes Discussed: A Wolf In the Fold (13:19) Darkling (42:06) Empok Nor (01:11:42)

Talking Points Include: The European cut of Kubrick’s ‘The Shining,’ Horror Movies, We HATE Pan and Scan, Weird UK Film edits, Bones clearly wanting to get laid, my God, they do a seance, Robert Bloch and Harlan Ellison’s twin Ripper stories in ‘Dangerous Visions,’ censorship and no Kirk shirt rip for drugs this time, Jack the Ripper in other SF franchises, no walk of shame for Kes, Picardo’s make-up leads to a lesson about old special effects, the Civilization Gandhi glitch, does Kes actually grown over her four years, CSI Tuvok, Jeremy Renner-gy, when romantic comedies have to make the rival partner an utter jerk, Robert Picardo with hair is amazing, MMMbop, Tom Waits covering Disney, ‘Cardies’ does not work as a derogatory slur, what Brighton sounds like, Garak Bashir and O’Brian probably don’t hang out at the same time, the original plan with Worf vs. Garak would not have been as fun, Nog trying too hard, ‘Bolian Dies First,’ there’s probably a meeting about Garak being a spy.

Welcome to spooky season and we're horrifying Miles specifically with a crossover between Star Trek and his favourite fandom! Can you hear the finger of a monkey's paw curling?

Assimilation Squared has been a threat on this show for a while, but why is that? Listen on and we'll explain the story and the many questionable art choices.

04:09 - What Non-Star Trek Thing We’ve Been Enjoying:

10:32 - Preamble and talking about licensed comics

31:09 - What is Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation2 actually about?

Talking points include: Transformers Vs GI Joe, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, TV-21, Charlie didn’t hold a cat hostage (said mainly to appease Emma), TekWar, Alien: Isolation, Hollow Knight, Absolution, the works of Tony Lee and the various other creators, Charlie & Miles’ history with Star Trek comics, Saga, Buffy comics, the unnecessary final boss level in Bioshock, the TARDIS enters Data (non-sexually). Miles’ Star Trek/Doctor Who fanfiction, All-Star Superman, Sanji’s eyebrow, Star Trek and Doctor Who’s acknowledgement of each other, The Multiversity, our recommendations for tie-in comics. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek. And Doctor Who.

Pedant’s Corner:

• Tony Lee’s X-Men Unlimited story is about Sage stealing a painting from an old Hellfire Club guy

• Miles means Charlie Adlard

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

Insert all your tired 2025 jokes here because after the last nine months, we’re pretty much out as this episode, we go All-Voyager, All the Time with a slate of episodes concerning ‘The Year of Hell,’ one of Voyager’s more infamous wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey moments. In ‘Before and After,’ we see the writers try and tease out what never comes to pass as a time-displaced Kes discovers something horrifying, Harry Kim married her two-year old daughter! Then we go into two-part territory as we enter ‘The Year of Hell’ and a lot of bad things happen to Voyager while Kurtwood Smith makes us ask ‘Is Annorax Star Trek’s best villain?’ But seriously… Harry Kim married a two year old and I don’t care if she’s a short lived alien race, that’s real weird, especially considering who the father is!Episodes Discussed: Before and After (08:29), Year of Hell Parts 1 and 2 (38:25)Talking Points Include: Miles has a quota of Ed Gein jokes per year. Weird Al, The Devils, One Piece, Harry Kim marrying a 2 year old, Tom Paris asking for time off to have sex, the Voyager Homecoming comic, Miles requests Charlie do a Planet Wales for his next Star Trek RPG campaign, Annorax might be the best Star Trek villain, Miles doesn’t platinum video games, Kurtwood Smith might play Trek’s best villain, Chakotay actually getting to do something, Year of Hell failed so that Battlestar Galactica could soar, would it have worked as a year long season? How sometimes, compromises and failures can make a great TV show, probably for the best Tuvoy didn’t lose a leg, does Harry ever get a promotion? History changing stories usually have one set ending and the much needed keyfabe of ongoing media.

Put on your best private detective hat and prepare to get into character as we talk step into the Holodeck and prepare ourselves for inevitable disappointment. In ‘The Practical Joker,’ the Enterprise computer gets wacky while Bones, Sulu and Uhura fail to enjoy a primitive Holodeck. In ‘My Way,’ Odo uses AI to make girls like him and we get a lot of song and dance numbers (and the best IDW comics pitch) as we meet Vic Fontaine while in Strange New Worlds’ Space Adventure Hour, La’an gets to beta-test the Holodeck and nearly kills everyone on the Enterprise doing so. Typical. Bloody Typical.

Miles is a Jerk!

SHOW NOTES: The Practical Joker (07:50) My Way (28:49) Space Adventure Hour (55:03)

TALKING POINTS: The Knives, Doctor Who, the Southern Reach series (and the only film where Miles nearly wet himself in the cinema) Brighton Wok the Legend of Ganja Boxing, TAS actually pulling off some Shacting, Unfortunate stains, a noncanonical reason for Chekov’s absence from TAS, Romulan pranks are usually pretty deadly, Hamboning, Odo secretly being a gossipy bitch, Miles and Charlie talk relationship advice, Tom Jones in Star Trek, we come up with the PERFECT IDW Comic pitch, Miles hates when 50s SF TV and Cinema is immediatly shown to be crap, The Last Frontier feels too mean spirited to be affectionate, the cast getting to play, Uhura and Scotty is a great contrast to Uhura at the start of Strange New Worlds, the L’an and Spock pairing seems weird and the show is obsessed with making us know Spock ***ks, Vulcan Walk of Shame, Charlie has tried to Riker a chair (Update: Charlie can still Riker a chair)

PEDANT’S CORNER: Top of the Pops and Old Grey Whistle Test are BBC Music shows, there was some BS about flags in the British News hence the strange tangent about flags. Neighbors and Home and Away are two long running Australian soap operas that were incredibly popular in the UK back in the day.

Welcome to Neelix’s Kitchen Nightmares you doughnuts!

I’m Gordon Ramsey and we’ve got three meals for you to shove in your face from three questionable kitchens.

Neelix’s kitchen’s covered in fluff and filth and seems to have been made in a large office meeting room. Will his food help Seven of Nine in “The Raven” or will it bring back dire flashbacks? I think we all know how it’s going to go.

Next up is the unnamed chef of the Enterprise who actually has a full kitchen. Hoshi Sato comes in and takes over, does she think she’s me or something? She gets the job done, possibly a bit too much in “Singularity”. Also there’s some delightful nonsense with a chair.

Finally William T Riker’s got the midlife crisis giant pizza oven out for a visit from his space dad, JL Picard in “Nepenthe”. Has he got what it takes, or will this episode and pizza both be undercooked? Whatever it is, it’s better than the replicated cake that gets thrown up all over La Sirena!

This is actually Charlie, I’ve no idea what Gordon Ramsey sounds like, I hope you enjoy the show!

00:05:21 What Non-Star Trek Thing We’ve Been Enjoying: Hungerstone by Kat Dunn, Alien: Earth

00:16:50 The Raven

00:48:33 Singularity

01:19:43 Nepenthe

Talking points include: The hyperfixation black hole, all the British food Miles misses, Hungerstone and other Carmillas, Alien: Earth and rants about latter Alien movies, which war was best: Britpop, Kree/Skrull or Avengers/Defenders, the works of Bryan Fuller and his horrifying first draft, Dexter & Sherlock Holmes, Dark Skies, marmite, people talking about their novels/characters, Phlox is basically Hank McCoy, James Bond Themes, Elnor doing a Metal Gear Solid, is Rizzo the Rat a Romulan?, old JL’s such a rogue again, Gilmore Girls and decades-later sequel problems, . Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.

Pedant’s corner:

• The actor Miles & Charlie are talking about is David Jonsson who is going to be in Romulus 2, The Long Walk and is currently on The Road Trip.

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

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 commentary (hey Spock-o, that’s OUR job) and then in the Strange New Worlds Season 2 finale and Season 3 opener ‘Hegemony Parts 1 and 2’ Pike spends more time hiding and less time building rudimentary cannons, Spock and Chapel play a little Alien Isolation and Ortegas loses herself in the job… Bogus. Episodes discussed: Arena (07:20) and Hegemony Parts 1 and 2 (38:27)

Talking Points include: American Family Reunions, Donkey Kong Bananza, young Tom Jones is weird looking and The Monkees are great, Oh no not another Godlike being, Vasquez Rocks, everyone got tinnitus making this episode, Charlie’s time as a scout, Miles has a legitimate reason to bring up ‘Blake’s 7,’ they tried to build the cannon on Mythbusters… it did not go well, we’re not Trying That in a Small Town but we finally listen to The Mountain Goats for the show! Pike’s brief moment of religious crisis is weird, Strange New Worlds’ making the Gorn so monstrous clashes with how it went down in ‘Arena’, Alien Isolation, the nature of ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ members of various Star Trek races and how the idea the Gorn might be biologically evil might not be a great look for Trek.

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 functional, sexually?’ and Miles asks the second most important question ‘Why have this as an second episode?’ Meanwhile, Guest-Star Cele from ‘Celeste is Best’ gets to talk about Lower Decks’ own ‘everyone goes drunk and crazy’ with ‘Empathalogical Fallacies’ and has no real important questions to ask except ‘why is this so delightful?’ WARNING: Believing yourself to be descended from Irish Kings does not in fact make you an Irish King.

EPISODES DISCUSSED: ‘The Naked Time’ (19:44) ‘The Naked Now’ (52:44) ‘Empathalogical Fallacies’ (1:25:09)

TALKING POINTS INCLUDE: Donut County, the Elric books, the Superman movie, Man of Steel, Fortunate Son was not the only song about Vietnam, Spock looks weird in a black t-shirt, Sulu looks great with no shirt, Spock is a huggy drunk, how NOT to follow up your first episode of a brand new TV Series, Picard’s weird grunting, Miles and Charlie share stories of drunken productiveness, the failure of the writers to make Wesley likeable, the canonical reason why Data is ‘fully functional’ and why Lore is EEEEEVIL, Denise Crosby’s incredible mincing and costumes, everyone should watch Lifeforce, the very referential nature of Lower Decks feels like a bug, Worf would not host a poetry slam, Cele gushes about the fantastic work of Jamie Loftus.

PEDANTS CORNER: Miles pronounces D’Artagnan as Dogtanian, but the Muskehounds are always ready.

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 both deep and very stupid, in the best possible ways.

00:01:17 What Non-Star Trek or Death Stranding Thing We’ve Been Enjoying: 28 Years Later & the six harbour walk around Fishbourne.

00:13:17 How did we get into Death Stranding?

00:25:00 What is Death Stranding?

Pedant’s Corner:

• Charlie’s thinking of Final Fantasy VII: Remake, but in his defence they’re incredibly similar names

• MULE stands for Multi-Use Labour Element. It may be a reference to an Atari game of the same name

Talking points include: 28 Years Later, The Walking Dead, Men (the movie), Quiet Year, Apocalypse World, Nosferatu, monster peen, a nice walk, Kubrick, Chvrches, Theory for Turntables, Spider-Man (PS4, Mega Drive, Commodore 64 versions), Final Fantasy Remake, time is nothing anymore, Jedi Survivor, Metal Gear Solid, Low Roar, Breath of the Wild, loner characters. 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

Death Stranding by CHVRCHES is their song and used for review purposes here.

https://ko-fi.com/casualtrek

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

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