Star Trek: Ranking The Short Treks From Worst To Best

"Children of Mars" is the first Star Trek production set in The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager era of the 24th century since 2006's fetid Star Trek: Enterprise final episode "These Are the Voyages...". The promise of our first glimpse into the world of Star Trek: Picard a few weeks before that series' premiere was probably always going to be too great to live up to, so "Children of Mars" goes small.

This is just the story of two young girls who bully each other pretty relentlessly for having grown up in a supposedly enlightened, utopian society. But kids will be kids? Until of course the Star Trek: Picard shakes things up off screen and shades of 9-11 creep in.

Peter Gabriel's cover of "Heroes" sets the mood for "Children of Mars" (though there are more than couple other Peter Gabriel songs that would probably have been more applicable here) and it is effective. The production and costume design are slick (though for some reason they reuse Star Trek: Discovery era starships in the VFX shots) and this Short Trek provides a solid slice of life in the 24th century that few Trek productions have shown us before.

It's a surprising direction but "Children of Mars" sets the stage for Star Trek: Picard's more ground-level storytelling and continues Short Trek's greatest achievement of expanding the Star Trek Universe.