Star Trek Scouts

I am rarely granted the rare gift to describe the latest entry in any given ongoing franchise as "Best / Worst Blank Anything Ever." I was able to call Andor Best Star Wars Anything Ever and now I have something I can do for Star Trek. Worst Star Trek Anything Ever.

I watched these as quickly as I could on YouTube because they were getting an unusually shitty reputation (even for New Trek stuff) and if this was as bad as it sounded, Nick will pull this sooner rather than later from YouTube. I'm seeing this legally while I can. It is SUCH a fucking trainwreck, and so wholly incompatible with Star Trek, this will be the franchise's version of Little Muppet Monsters or Loonatics Unleashed. Or God forbid, the Star Wars Holiday Special. Something SO damaging and atrocious, the company that makes the franchise has memory-holed it entirely and it is completely unavailable to view legally anywhere.

This has been up on YouTube for about a day and it's SO bad I STILL can't believe it hasn't been taken down yet. 0.

Any decent reviewer of these abominations will ask the following question at least once: "Who the hell is this even for?" Star Trek fans will hate every inch of it. Preschoolers will have a hard time engaging because the five minute runtime is an unsuitable length for toddlers. The minutes they settle in, it's over. Worst of all, no part of this dreck will potentially turn ANY toddlers watching this into Star Trek fans so as cross-promotion gimmicks go, it literally fails on every level.

I have an interesting idea. I wonder how many reviewers have uttered the words "Gene Roddenberry must be spinning in his grave." Is he? Because from what I remember when Gene was alive, he was the ultimate pimp of shameless Star Trek merch. In fact, the Vulcan IDIC pendant, which has influenced a TON of mythology from later series, was in fact a cheap ad for pins Roddenberry was shilling. The merchandizing was so blatant Leonard Nimoy refused to initially wear it, and he certainly refused to pimp it. Notice when the other characters see it on Spock, they compliment him on it and talk about its Vulcan cultural significance, which is clearly something Spock already knows. They did that because Nimoy refused to say the lines.

So would this cash grab actually shame Gene Roddenberry? I would hope so, but I can't say for certain he would have nixed it. Not at all. 0.

That's over. Jesus. I don't suppose I'll ever see this again. Not just because I wouldn't ever want to watch it again, but I doubt I'd legally be able to because I don't watch pirated material. This is not long for the net. Be appalled while you still can.

There is nothing about this that is Star Trek, and there is nothing to engage toddlers either. This is probably the worst idea for a preschool show since... well, I haven't actually SEEN every terrible preschool show. But in fairness no worse ones are coming to mind either. Barney maybe? Barney was terrible, but he had a point. Parents hated the point, but the "Barney loves you, buy my shit" thing was real and addictive (which was frankly the problem). This has none of that. You can claim Barney's declarations of love were insincere. But I think Barney was probably hated by parents so much because he engendered pure unfiltered love from their kids, and the parents had a hard time making that same connection with their own kids themselves. My theory about why parents hated Barney is they were jealous of such an obviously inferior and insincere caregiver getting the unconditional love from their sprogs they could never get.

Yes, Barney was actually a terribly made TV show too. The thing is there were and are a TON of preschool shows as bad or worse than Barney And Friends. NONE of them has engendered that level of hatred. You can argue Calliou is an even worse show (and it is) and you can argue parents hated it even more (and they did). But they hated it because it was teaching horrible imitable behavior to their kids. An adult objecting to a guy in a giant dinosaur costume telling their kids he loves them, and them instantly believing it, was a far more personal (if admittedly irrational) level of hatred than Calliou ever created.

For the record, many adults hate Elmo for the same reasons they hate Barney. But Elmo is harder to justify hating, if only because Sesame Street isn't actually terrible. Yes, it's been dumbed down decades later, and Elmo was a large part of the reason for that, but parents will still have a far easier time justifying a Barney-free house than an Elmo-free one.

Parents are going to hate this show about as much as Barney and Calliou, but the good news is at least their kids won't like it (if only because it's the wrong length for a show for babies). But it is and probably ever shall always remain the Worst Star Trek Anything Ever. Not even close. Star Trek: Enterprise, you have just been dethroned. And pretty shockingly easily too, I must say. 0.