CAPTAIN'S LOG: Poor word choice creates an HR problem on the bridge. Available on YouTube.
WHY WE LIKE IT: The warbly music at the top of each minisode.
WHY WE DON'T: Was Animated Kirk really off-limits?
REVIEW: Casper Kelly's Very Short Treks have not met with universal acclaim, and it's hard to get particularly excited about 2-5 minute clips in the style of the Filmation animated series (heretofore referred to as TAS). If you ARE a TAS super-fan, you might be annoyed that they're making fun of your childhood Trek. If you're not, it might look hokey and very thin compared to Lower Decks or Prodigy. And while THOSE animated shows are clearly in continuity, it's pretty clear that the first of these, Skin a Cat, isn't, which means Trekkies will be less interested in them. This is all beyond whether or not any given joke lands, of course.
To address the continuity issue, we're now living in a post-multiverse world. It's a mainstream concept. Trek has always had parallel worlds - the Mirror Universe and Kelvin Timeline being the two most recognized ones - but I think we should look at Subspace Rhapsody as an explanation of how the ludicrous TAS of Very Short Treks can exist. If there's a quantum reality that's a musical, there must be one that's a stupid cartoon.
However, Skin a Cat has a sort of in-between state. While Spock looks like TAS Spock and is voiced by Ethan Peck, and M'Res, Arex and Scotty are part of the crew - things that lend the short a air of legitimacy - the captain is a parody of Kirk without being Kirk. Comedian Pete Holmes voices him rather than any live action actor (Shatner and Pine would have been surprising, but why get Peck but not Wesley?) and he's credited simply as The Captain. He's not even drawn as TOS Kirk, but rather looks more like Holmes. It's odd. Pick a lane, Very Short Trek.
As for the story, such as it is, the Captain says there's more than one way to skin a cat, which angers the Caitian communications officer M'Ress as it's culturally insensitive to say the least. They then run through a bunch of common expressions that trigger other alien crew members with ever increasing absurdity. While "fish to fry" works for an Antedean, "knickers in a twist", "dumbass" and "screwed up" give us very silly personnel. Once we're past that, the episode riffs on Kirk's longing for love, the perfect woman, etc., a TOS trope that's amusingly adapted here. I suppose much of the joke is to lather wokeness on top of original crew material.
Clever meta-textual idea to beat the Klingon threat, but it takes a bit too long to make it happen, so I only really got it on the second viewing.
LESSON: Don't trust people who want Australia in Risk. It's not that they have lesser ambitions. They're setting up an unbreachable base from which to launch their attack while always collecting bonus armies, from the start.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium-Low: Amusing, but puzzling, and doesn't feel necessary.
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