WHY WE LIKE IT: Strange New Worlds!
WHY WE DON'T: It's kind of the same joke over and over.
REVIEW: A riff on The Original Series' famous cast party blooper reel (which made the rounds at conventions during the interim), this Very Short Trek is grounded in a single joke - Spock being unable to gauge what is funny and therefore a good blooper. Of course, this is an in-universe Enterprise party (in the Pike era), so the things caught on tape are diegetically akin to "America's Funniest Videos" rather than mistakes made my a television cast. So what if The Animated Series (or even the live action shows) could show gore and violence? Or what if Spock crying at being dropped by T'Pring like a stone were funny (because he doesn't show emotion, see)? We get it, but like a last-30-minutes SNL sketch, we get it too early for it to stay funny.
At least the current Strange New Worlds actors are voicing their characters (including Bruce Horak as Hemmer, placing this First Contact party in Season 1). Metatextually, it's also a good Filmation gag to show a clip of Discovery (or really, of the USS Shenzhou, because the short respects the fact that no one can talk about the Discovery), and have Saru wearing the wrong uniform (it's one from the super-future). Filmation was notorious for weird animation mistakes, like wrong-colored uniforms, third arms, etc.
The punchline, an actual "blooper", hinges on a fart joke, so I'll leave it there, if you don't mind.
LESSON: Go big or go home.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium-Low: Keep the T'Pring bit, but a little of this goes a long way.
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