Faked Tales

Casual Trek’s podcast in a podcast is back as we’re looking at the glorious madness of Space: 1999!

That Lovejoy and/or Al Swearengen from the telly becomes a cosmic horror. Then we get a rapidly-ageing child who might secretly be evil, and finally a Peter Cushing of the mind who wants Koenig to take part in his alien eugenics program!

It’s Monday, so it’s time for a new episode of Casual Trek. This time we’re looking at stories about Starfleet Academy before cracking on with the new television show.

“The First Duty” has that Crusher boy falling in with a bad crowd, including a cadet who looks suspiciously like Tom Paris.

“Valiant” has Nog fall in with a bunch of rogue cadets who have been behind enemy lines too long and it leads to disaster.

“All is Possible” is a surprisingly good backdoor pilot and explanation for Starfleet Academy taking place in the grimdark future. Also Michael Burnham makes everything about her again.

We’re 51 issues into the 52 issue X-Men Age of Revelation event and some people may be wondering, is it any good? I’ve gone through the thankless task of rereading it all to give my opinion on each of the sixteen three-part miniseries. Spoilers for all issues.

It’s time for the Casual Trek Christmas Episode and we’re gifting ourselves a beloved Star Trek-adjacent movie to watch with Galaxy Quest! We get into it about the movie. It being William Shatner Vs Jason Nesmith, Sean and Charlie both being big Rock Band/Guitar Hero nerds, Pokémon, Miles’ charming story about how he saw Galaxy Quest and my rubbish equivalent one about watching Pokémon the Movie!

You can hear us on your podcatcher of choice, Spotify or on YouTube!

RPG prep time! I’m getting ready for a campaign of White Mountain Rescue, so I’ve got:

A campaign notepad with a “the mountains are calling” sticker. Secret things are recorded within.

Blank index cards for clues.

Printed index card-sized location & mystery cards.

Sleeved tarot-sized move cards.

Reformatted playbooks.

A Mystery Board with sections for the mystery, the missing person, spots for a clock for scenes and an order of play.

Little leaf tokens for the clock and to hand over to folks when they owe me a flashback.

It’s Casual Trek time and we’re sticking with some Voyager-based shenanigans in the animated realm. We’ve got Prodigy’s “A Moral Star” where the kids put together all their training to do a Starfleet. Then in “Twovix” we get too many Tuvixes and a horrifying flesh katamari.

Welcome to the Year of Hell!

No, not 2025, but 2374 as the Casual Trek podcast joins Voyager with some timey-wimey shenanigans!

First up, “Before and After” has Kes living backwards through time, starting with her death and ending with her birth, stopping off to hear about some ‘year of hell’ she experienced and that time Harry Kim married her two-year old daughter.

Then the main event, “Year of Hell”, where the dad from That 70’s Show is in charge of a time-ship, erasing whole societies from the timeline and now his attention’s been brought to Voyager! Who will live? Who will die? Who’ll get some sweet ‘dystopian alternate future’ scars?

It’s Monday, so it’s time for more Casual Trek! We’re back on the Holodeck with stories of virtual mischief!

“The Practical Joker” shows what happens if the Enterprise gets a personality and it’s a jerk!

“His Way” has Odo getting dating advice from a virtual lounge singer Julian Bashir made and somehow it’s not all awful!

“A Space Adventure Hour” tries to do a Knives Out, but with most of the cast playing the cast & crew of a less than kind representation of classic Trek.

There’s also hamboning, Miles’ involvement with a local movie and one of the presenters has attempted to Riker a chair. Listen using your podcatcher, YouTube or this link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4SNTPEkRkWcR6fuHIIPl8Z

Happy Star Tek Day!

To celebrate, why not listen to Casual Trek where Miles forced me to read TekWar! https://open.spotify.com/show/22vInew8Qxo5K26tNUUHJZ

We’ve got a feast of an episode for you in Casual Trek Episode 71 as Charlie and Miles talk about food in three Star Trek episodes!

Our starter is “The Raven”, where Seven of Nine experiences food for the first time and it goes horribly wrong!

The main course is “Singularity” where the hosts feel way too called out by the singularity that makes you hyperfocused.

For dessert, we’ve got “Nepenthe”, where JL Picard meets his old friends Riker & Troi for a meal!

It’s time for some softcore gornography this week in Casual Trek as we’re looking at the lizardy bastards who gave Kirk a hard time around those rocks from Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. We also get vaguely current and review the Hegemony two-parter from Strange New Worlds:

It’s Monday, so it’s time for Casual Trek!

We’ve reached episode 69, so we had to celebrate by watching The Naked Time and The Naked Now duology, and then an episode of Lower Decks where they get more raucous than usual. We also have recurring guest @celesteisbest on board to share in the nonsense!