Star Trek: 10 Episodes That Are UNWATCHABLE Now
4. Very Short Treks - Skin A Cat, Holiday Party, Worst Contact
To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of The Animated Series, CBS commissioned five ‘Very Short Treks,’ which were to be comedic episodes animated in the Filmation style of the seventies. Created by Casper Kelly, these five episodes were released on YouTube for free. Of the five, two of them - Holograms All The Way Down and Walk, Don’t Run - are charming, fun, and are an attempt to honour both The Animated Series, and Trek in general. Cameos from Trek Alum, like Ethan Philips and George Takei, helped to make these episodes more enjoyable.
The same cannot be said for the first three episodes of this series. Skin A Cat is a poor attempt to parody political correctness, where a flustered Kirk continually puts his foot in his mouth, with the gag seemingly being a very boomer-esque ‘everyone is offended these days.’ The short ends with the ship exploding, for which we are all grateful.
Holiday Party features the Strange New Worlds cast watching a ‘blooper reel,’ as Spock describes it. It’s an uncomfortable lesson in Spock having no sense of humour. It was, unfortunately, another example of a lack of understanding his character. Spock wasn’t funny because he was trying to be - he was often funny because he wasn’t trying to be. Watching him cry as T’Pring breaks up with him - hardly funny at all.
Worst Contact is a joke about snot, inconsiderate people in the workplace, and gross out humour.
Sigh.
As a tribute to The Animated Series, one could be forgiven for wondering if CBS actively hated that show, and used these shorts as a way to prevent even the mildly curious from ever seeking them out. The decision to greenlight these truly was a blooper.