The Trouble with Edward

The conference scene alone makes this worthwhile - it made me laugh out loud several times. It serves as a neat origin story for the tribbles (at least in their troublesome form) and features a couple of great performances.

Just as funny are the reviews - never ceases to amaze me how people who bash modern Trek for getting things "wrong" are wrong themselves.

Spock is the only Vulcan in Starfleet? Er...how about the entire crew of the Intrepid for starters.

Trek humour should be restrained "by precedent"? Never seen I, Mudd or Bride of Chaotica, I take it.

Sigh.

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.

The actors and the director of this episode are great,and this beats the fact the Star Trek creators have no clue about the biology lessons from the school.For example,Odo can turn himself in to a glass ,and can be as easy as a glass ,but in the same time he can transform himself into an iron shape shifting Terminator or in to a very heavy hard solid rock,so ,how much mass has h is body in reality ?!?..or how can he remain alive without eating anything,although he sometimes makes very much effort.. ?!?..or how can you combine a being with a copper based blood with the one with an iron based blood ..?!? ..or how to combine a being with two hearts with the one with one heart ( a Discovery producer would say something about their external ,sexual organs ,because they clearly don't understand such sub textual and still so obvious references) ...?!?...how can a being who eats cereal seeds to grow so fast without food and even they are just omnivore beings how can they eat so fast ,when they don't seem to have the sense of smell,they don't have eyes or mouth or ears ?!?.. Anyway the Critters-Gremlins are still cute enough and the actors the same to save this little episode for bad reviews.I would love to see a Galaxy Quest series with those actors and that ship,but we, the Trekkers, don't have that kind of luck.

And that's the point! Geeze people, get over this "this isn't star trek" garbage already. It's so boring. This is obviously a comedy episode and it is very funny. John Benjamin's character is hilarious of course, and the captain handles him perfectly. I guess some people still can't stand to see an intelligent woman in a position of power, even on TV. Just because the bumbling science officer is a man doesn't mean this episode is about "gender politics" or whatever nonsense codewords y'all have to cover your backwards and misogynistic worldview. It's sad how easy it is to read between the lines with some of these other reviews.

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.