Strange New Worlds Takes a Turn for the Stranger in This Wild Star Trek Animated Short

Last week, Paramount debuted very Short Treks, a kooky new spin on the vibes of the original Star Trek: The Animated Series from Too Many Cooks! creator Casper Kelly. And if last week’s peculiar entry—which saw the Enterprise explode as its captain pondered a series of potentially offensive euphemisms—didn’t key you into the kind of humor these are going for, this week’s Strange New Worlds entry definitely will.

Set during a First Contact Day celebration aboard the Strange New Worlds-era Enterprise—season one specifically, considering Uhura (a briefly returning Celia Rose Gooding) is still a cadet and Chief Engineer Hemmer (Bruce Horak) is, well, still alive—“Holiday Party” sees Spock (Ethan Peck) attempt to understand the human nuance of terrible jokes as he tries to lighten the mood with a gag reel of Starfleet bloopers.

Horrifying, traumatic bloopers.

It’s… certainly something, and for anyone who might’ve been expecting something a little more Lower Decks, and a little less Sealab 2021, the tone might come as a bit of a shock. But it was clear from the get-go that these shorts were going to be distinctly non-canonical, so there’s nothing to get too up in arms about from that perspective—it’s just Star Trek stretching itself to a tone and style it rarely chooses to go to.

Though I wouldn’t mind Strange New Worlds season three having an episode where people suffer a series of genital-based pratfalls for some inexplicable reason. Really test the limits of what that show can do!

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