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

Grab your phials of glowing green goo and prepare to ham it up as we talk once more about Jeffrey Combs, the Philip Madoc of Star Trek (that’s a Classic Doctor Who reference) and three episodes where his many characters make large roles. Unfortunately, Weyoun is only in a few scenes of Deep Space Nine’s ‘Ties of Blood and Water’ and both Miles and Charlie try really hard not to get personal as Kira has to look after a seriously ill surrogate family figure, fortunately Shran more than makes up for it in Enterprise’s ‘Cease-Fire’ as Archer is drafted into helping settle a planetary land dispute between Vulcans and Andorans and we make a little detour to ‘A Few Badgeys More’ as AGIMUS, the evil computer and F***ing Peanut Hamper plan mischief… if you’re one of those weirdos who only listen to hear Miles swear, this episode is for you! Come back in a year’s time probably for J3ff, more than likely.

EPISODES MENTIONED: TIES OF BLOOD AND WATER (14:26), CEASE-FIRE (45:33) A FEW BADGEYS MORE (1:11:27)

TALKING POINTS INCLUDE: Blowing up Objectivists, what elements of British films make Miles homesick, The Phonecian Scheme, John Wickend which leads to a wider discussion on John Wick, the Death of Princess Diana, our first Jeff episode does not have enough Jeff, Kira has supplanted Odo as Miles’ favourite DS9 character, how Kira and Ace from Doctor Who are very similar, a long way from the ‘Prat’ version of Bashir, Miles finds out something horrifying about LL Cool J, Charlie retells his one TATU story and the boys clearly have Heatstroke, Shram/Archer shippers must exist, Andorian soccer mums, accents, Andorian Antennae acting, we don’t need the Koala-joke in Lower Decks explained, Miles actually compliments ****ing Peanut Hamper, Boimler and Tendi hanging out together always seems weird.

PEDANTS CORNER: Jeffrey Combs is Ratchet in Transformers Prime, not Transformers: Robots in Disguise