The Trouble with Edward

Designed as a Star Trek story with a lighter tone, it instead comes across as an unpleasant take on a Starfleet that's more reflective of current day society as opposed to the idealistic future Gene Roddenberry had presented in the 1960's and again in the 1980's.

In many ways, the stumbling, awkward character presented in this story is the Reginald Barclay of his day. Unlike Barclay, however, he isn't nurtured or befriended by the crew of the Enterprise or his commanding officers at Starfleet headquarters who see that, at his core, he is a brilliant man. No, Edward's commanding officer views him as an idiot who wants him as far removed as possible without digging a little deeper into what he believes he can accomplish and his fellow crew members are as dismissive and unpleasant as she is. In the end, his ultimate fate is met with a collective shrug.

It seems unlikely that the tone of this particular short, if presented in the 1960's or 1980's, would have inspired two generations of fans to look toward a more hopeful future and to look beyond themselves.

Short Treks have been a lot of fun but this one was a big miss.

Excellently set episode, great description of interpersonal relationships, I know it's offtopic but I have to say we have one "Edward" at work, man your description of souch people is incredibly accurate!

I caught this by accident after having totally losing confidence in the Star Trek franchise with the absolutely awful Discovery, and pretty much anything the managers of the franchise touch.

I thought this episode was a parody shot on the sound stages in spare down time, and really enjoyed it for its poking fun at the franchise, except I think it was actually a legit episode, which actually does make it worse. But lets keep it at a parody.

A scientist who manipulated cute creatures to be tasty and meaty? Hilarious. A b!tch fight that goes on and on with the captain, much more entertaining than anything they've served up in real start trek lately.

The character of Edward was just so out of sorts with the Star trek world that it had to be a parody, lets pretend it was. Like a SNL wind up. Let's pretend.

I laughed my a** off. The exchange between the Captain and the, er, miscreant had me chortling out loud and rewatching the scene. It's darkish humor but played broadly enough that it is not actually disturbing.

I adore Star Trek. All of it. I love the deep conversations about ethics, about communication with very alien species a la Darmok, with debating the personhood of artificial intelligence, with the plainly written moral dilemmas the Prime Directive entails. I love the action, the swashbuckling, I love Kirk and Riker getting it on with every vaguely female entity that comes within pheromone distance.

I also love Star Trek takeoffs, whether self-generated (as this is) or coming from fandom -- a la Galaxy Quest and the Orville. Bill Shatner's storied appearance on "Saturday Night Live," where he told early Trekkers to "get. a. life!" is funny even as I see myself as one of those Trekkers. All these things can be reconciled if one is not a humorless fundamentalist.

The Trouble with Edward (2019) is just plain fun. Some serious people may try to over analyze it for ST canon, but just sit back and enjoy this tragic smorgasbord of workplace dysfunction in "utopia". Though a comedy, it's crammed with so many delightful levels of subtle "what the..." and that an introverted savant's actions could snowball to affect everyone's ethics, work, careers, ships, planets, and the whole Federation. This episode took some thinking to orchestrate this clockwork train wreck and is deeper and more humbling than I expected as an engineer. Thoroughly enjoyable just how many other Star Trek episodes this connects together. Things to notice: Edward is morally and ethically obtuse, yet a genius. Add to this a drive to prove he's smart and trouble insues. He did (unintentionally) create a cheap biological way to destroy ships, evacuate planets, disrupt empires, and it's a tasty food. It touched on how to manage people and groups and how easily a promising young Turk's career was sunk. The only minor thing that I see that needed explained is where the Tribbles found enough food/water to breed that much.

Now on a sinister note: If the ending was tweaked to be less silly, this episode could have gone very dark. Imagine Edward did not die at the end but was really working for Star Fleet Intelligence (SFI) or even Section 31 (S31). This would make sense because Edward is the perfect savant for working on black projects that would make others in Star Fleet (SF) wince. Notice how Edward obtusely comes up with famine solutions (eating Tribbles, manipulating human DNA, lobotomizing lifeforms) that ethically causes his co-workers to smile uncomfortably or tense up. This is similar to "ST: Into Darkness" where Kahn was recruited to cross ethical boundaries Star Fleet wouldn't come near. In "ST: DS9" Dr. Bashir or the augmented savants were used either by SFI or S31. This would answer Captain Lucero's incredulous question why Edward was able to stay in SF so long being "an idiot" (Edward might be an asset for SFI or S31). If this was so, after every "screw up", Edward would just be moved to some other isolated insignificant science posting to continue his "protein work" (i.e. Weaponizing tribbles against Klingons). This idea could be milked to explain several ST:TOS and other episodes where SF comes across strange lifeforms, diseases, and devices that are the deliberate or unintentional byproducts of someone like Edward working for SFI or S31 (The Naked Time, The Deadly Years, This Side of Paradise, Operation - Annihilate!). "Operation - Annihilate!" could be just another TOS examples of Edwards creating another new "food" source. Edward is use to being dismissed and thus is covert in his actions. Captain Lucero was reported by Edward for interfering with his work and later became the patsy for Edward's (SFI, S31) project. Sadly, SF, SFI, or S31 will likely conclude she being in charge is what caused all the problems and not Edward. As I said, this episode could really be milked into several episodes to show all the Federation dirt swept under the carpet by SF, SFI, and S31. But hey, it's just a comedy. I hope they have future adventures of Edward Larkin.