Children Of Excitement

A bit late to the game, but I still wanted to share a few of my thought of the recent Short Treks titled Children of Mars which serves as a prelude to Star Trek Picard. No I must say that it was refreshing to see that the "Discovery branding" was not included to this one. I know I might get a few harsh word thrown to to my head for saying this, but if you think about it, it has "nothing" to do with Discovery. It does not happen in the same time period, so getting away from that visual intro was a great choice and very welcoming to see. Now that being said the episode was interesting. I was watching this short with my wife who has seen a little bit of Trek before, not a fan in any level, but joined for this few minute long little adventure.

To get this out of the blue it was short, about 7-9 minutes, not much time to tell a story, but they managed to show us two rivals in a school environment with different attachments to their parents. One has been missing her Mom and seemingly enjoying her calls whilst the other has a not so much positive attitude towards her father who will not be able to come home any time soon. Not cool dad, not cool. Their story collides in a fight in the school and while they were punished they were informed that Mars and Utopia Planitia has been attacked. Realising that both of their parents are probably now deceased, they come together under the probably darkest moment in their life so far. End of story.

The story itself was interesting, little tension and emotion put together in 9 minutes with not so much monologue that was new to Trek. It was almost like watching a "silent movie" but with better music and visuals. It was a nice setup for Picard in a sense that we probably gonna have a better understanding of why Picard will find himself in a darker place in the future. There's still a lot to be answered of course, but at least we got a nice tie in to the show that I suspect will come up at some point.

I mean, really?

Now here's the thing, and I do have to address the elephant in the room as seems like a lot of people in twitter addressed this "issue" that I personally find very exhausting... the shipyard scene. Now I understand that people were looking to see more of a 24th century design, and that the Discovery era technology should not have been represented... I must say I am sick of this constant fight about starships. I now this will surprise a few of you, but to be fair that 5 seconds we seen from the show was totally irrelevant for the episode. I see people fighting and arguing about the ships being wrong while we have had older TOS style technology present in later shows like TNG or DS9, but somehow no one gave a damn. And we should not give a damn either about this. The ships are a big part of Star Trek, but essentially they add very little to the story.

Verdict

Overall this Short Trek episode was OK. I did not enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the Mudd episode which is a big thing coming from me, not liking the character from the TOS era onwards. The episode didn't make me feel as a lot of people said it earlier, but hey, everyone is different and I'm happy if you found some value in it. For me and even for my wife it felt nothing like the Star Trek I know/she seen...

So here you have it, a little late, but it's better late than never. ;) I'm interested to see what did you think about the Short Trek and what are your hopes for Picard that just has been renewed for 2nd season? Let me know in a comments below.