Why ‘Star Trek’ Fans Awaiting ‘Picard’ Should Check Out ‘Short Treks’

Ileane Rudolph December 12, 2019, 11:30 am

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While Star Trek fans wait for CBS All Access’s Discovery to return and the much-anticipated Patrick Stewart vehicle Picard to premiere, Picard executive producer Alex Kurtzman has brought back Short Treks, those endearing morsels set in the Star Trek universe.

“As we build the franchise, part of our mission is to make sure that each thing you watch has it own identity and unique tone, but yet is immediately identifiable as something Star Trek,” Kurtzman tells us.

There are three shorts, the first two now available are “The Girl Who Made the Stars” and “Ephraim and Dot,” both kid-centric and animated.

“‘Ephraim and Dot’ is essentially about a road-runner character — [a repair drone aboard the Enterprise] — that’s a really fun, really sweet love letter to Star Trek and its fans,” Kurtzman explains.

“Ephraim and Dot” (CBS)

“In ‘The Girl,’ which is geared to very young children and their parents, five-year-old Michael Burnham is listening to a story about a girl who made the stars. It’s a tale about courage and it’s not immediately apparent that it’s a Star Trek episode until the end. Star Trek has actually never done anything for kids this little before.”

A fun fact: Kenric Green, who played Burnham’s father on Discovery and is actually Sonequa Martin-Green’s husband, did motion capture and the voice for the animated version of young Michael’s dad.

“The Girl Who Made The Stars” (CBS)

Changing gears again, the third short, which airs in January, is a setup to Picard. “It introduces one of the main cataclysmic events that ended up shaping Picard’s life,” Kurtzman reveals. “It offers a human perspective on a really big cataclysmic story. There’s hardly any dialogue; it’s all about the music and the performances. It is definitely not for children!”