On September 8, 2025, a brand new “Star Trek” collection launched, and nobody observed. There have been no previews, no adverts, and solely a really, very temporary point out of it method, method on the backside of a Paramount press launch. The present isn’t obtainable on Paramount+, the place many of the “Star Trek” franchise lives, nor has it been licensed to Netflix (the best way “Star Trek: Prodigy” was). It could possibly solely be discovered on YouTube. However even then, it is not on the official YouTube “Star Trek” channel, nor does it have a channel of its personal. Fairly, it exists on the YouTube channel for the Canadian animated collection “Blaze and the Monster Machines,” a present about anthropomorphic monster vans who clear up math issues.
The collection is “Star Trek: Scouts,” and it is the strangest factor to ever enter the franchise. And it is a property that already included a musical episode.
“Star Trek: Scouts” is an animated collection for toddlers. Its character design is spherical and approachable, and the “Star Trek” devices are all colourful and kid-friendly, wanting like Fisher Value toys. Every episode is just about 4 minutes lengthy, and the conflicts are of the gentlest nature. The principle characters are three five-year-olds who dwell in some sort of planet-bound remark station and have been left to function it, unattended. They’ve three pets, together with a Klingon targ named Bubbles, a horned canine named Zips, and a turtle-like creature named Star. The animals resemble the big-eyed stuffies put out by Ty Toys.
JR appears to be the captain of the three children, as he wears the crimson command uniform and sits in a captain’s chair. He appears like a Kindergarten model of Chris Pine. Roo is the science officer, and he or she appears to be the one who prompts all of the machines. Lastly, Sprocket is a Vulcan engineer with a bionic arm. He does not behave notably Vulcan, apart from to be essentially the most scientifically curious. When Bubbles belches up her macaroni and cheese, he is the one to smell it out of curiosity.
Star Trek boldly goes to preschool with Star Trek: Scouts
Episodes of “Star Trek: Scouts” start and finish with the slogan “Uncover, Develop, and Boldly Go,” implying that it is meant to be an academic collection. Whereas an academic “Star Trek” present for youths in regards to the fundamentals of astronomy would have been a effective concept, the collection itself is disappointingly frivolous. Within the first episode, an asteroid is hurtling straight for the characters’ station. The asteroid resembles a bar of cleaning soap. The three children have 4 objects they’ll transport into the cleaning soap’s asteroid’s path, and the present stops whereas an off-screen narrator spins a wheel to decide on which merchandise might be jettisoned. The Romulan rubber ducky does not work, and the targ eats the mac’n’cheese, so the characters go together with possibility #3: a bathtub of water. The asteroid turns into bubbles, and the station is saved.
Within the second episode, the identical disaster is repeated, solely this time the asteroid is a big meatball. It is defeated with a fork of spaghetti. Every time JR launches an assault, he says his catchphrase, “It is asteroid-blasting time.” As talked about, every episode is just 4 minutes, so there’s not quite a bit else to discover.
It is essential to not delve too deeply right into a present like “Star Trek: Scouts,” as it’s meant for pre-schoolers. It is vivid, chipper, playful, and bland. “Scouts” is wholly applicable for actually little children and has no connection in any respect to the franchise’s better lore apart from some iconography and correct nouns. So far as I can inform, “Scouts” is a collection about three five-year-olds who’ve been left unattended in a holodeck, tasked with entertaining themselves in a make-believe “Star Trek” workplace. Maybe their dad and mom are Starfleet officers and had been too busy to search out daycare.
Followers of “Blaze and the Monster Machines” may dig “Scouts.” It is not fairly as high-octane or toyetic as “Paw Patrol,” and it options no villains; Admiral Humdinger is nowhere in sight. (Though, what’s Oscar Isaac as much as?) Extra characters could also be launched later within the collection, however solely two episodes are at present obtainable.
Scouts is innocent, however it raises issues in regards to the better Star Trek franchise
Nonetheless, the introduction of a “Star Trek” present for toddlers raises some issues in regards to the property as an entire. The “Star Trek” franchise is definitely pliable, after all. Many Trekkies might recall watching a “Star Trek” collection of their early years, so making a “Star Trek” present that may be loved by kids isn’t a problem. Heck, I used to be watching “Star Trek: The Unique Sequence” reruns at age six or seven. However on the identical time, it suggests the property at giant not has a way of route. “Star Trek: Scouts” exists in the identical universe as the ridiculous, violent motion film “Star Trek: Part 31” that launched again in January. It is also a part of the identical franchise that gave us the 2009 “Star Trek” movie and the Dominion Battle on “Star Trek: Deep Area 9.”
Which means that the “Star Trek” property has entered that harmful industrial headspace the place it’s attempting to be all issues to all individuals. The present handlers of the franchise need to create a “Star Trek” challenge for each demographic, turning it right into a Swiss Military knife of leisure. In order for you intercourse and violence, watch “Star Trek: Discovery.” In order for you snuggly blue pigs burping bubbles, watch “Scouts.” And when a franchise tries to be all issues to all individuals, it additionally tends to lose its form, route, tone, or central message. It as an alternative turns into a merchandise empire or a enterprise mannequin. The “Star Trek” property, for essentially the most half, has lengthy held on to an underlying notion of utopian beliefs, all advised by way of a peaceable military-like group and the miraculous ships they function. What is the message with “Scouts?” Is there one?
The present talks about discovering and rising, however the tales about meatball asteroids sort of undercut that thesis.
Finally, although, the present handlers of the “Star Trek” franchise need it to be one thing else. First, they took an ordinarily stuffy, considerate, philosophical property and layered in a number of firefights and loss of life, turning lots of its new reveals into motion collection. However now, with “Scouts,” they solely appear to be making inventive selections for mercenary, industrial functions.
