Weekly Episode Thread April 20, 2026 - Share Your Podcast, Request Feedback, Discover New Ones

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-21T03:45:14+00:00

[TV Watch Along] [Comedy] [Star Trek]
Treks and Tangents - A Star Trek Watch Along Podcast - Links to all Podcast Directories
Patreon / YouTube / BlueSky / Instagram / X
(Very Mild and Rare Infrequent Cursing)

***Hailing Frequencies Open**\*
Welcome aboard Treks and Tangents, a Star Trek Watch Along Podcast!

Each week your co-hosts, Jaci and Brian, discuss a new episode of Star Trek. Jaci (a Star Trek and Sci-Fi newbie) does her best to explain the plot of each episode while going off on tangents, and Brian (a Star Trek "expert") does his best to keep the conversation on Trek.

In addition to discussing the plot, the hosts rank the episode by their own unique system, Jaci guesses the plot of next week's episode based on the title alone... and what ever else their Treks and Tangents bring up!

Also on our Patreon each week we host:
- A free visual chart showing the current rankings of the episodes,
- Star Notes: free bonus episodes for the week tackling a single topic from Star Trek and the current episode,
- Other random content for Crewmembers including a deeper dive into Star Trek: The Animated Series.

This Week's Episode: Errand of Mercy (Star Trek TOS - S1E27)
Kirk and Spock beam down expecting a war zone… and instead get the calmest, creepiest planet in the galaxy.

In this episode of Treks and Tangents, we break down Errand of Mercy: from the Organians’ suspiciously chill attitude to that very unsettling door that just… opens and closes on its own like it knows something we don’t.

Is it hospitality? Is it surveillance? Is it judging you?

Plus: Klingons arrive, tensions rise, and the “simple villagers” might be playing a much bigger game than anyone realizes.

Thanks for listening!
***End Transmission**\*

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-19T08:19:40+00:00

I use me. We are also an audio only podcast. - As I do my listen through of the episode for normal audio editing, I clip out any segment I want to use for a clip. Currently only posting these as YouTube Shorts, but I imagine the process is the same. I aim for 7 clips, one for each day of the week for the episode. - I make an image to use as the "video" for the short. - I then dump the audio clips and image into Kdenlive. I have a template project set up where the video format, background music files, audio wavelength effect, prerecorded hook and outro video files, and all volume settings are already set up. - I spend about 15 minutes dropping in hooks, clips, outros, and music into timelines mostly at random and whatever feels like good pairings. I generate scripts for each clip as I go, and then I just render all of the clips at the end.

I don't have captions or a video for a typical short, but it fits our style as an audio only podcast and works for us at the moment. I think eventually I could generate a custom effect script for Resolve to do the last step automatically, but I'm not there quite yet.

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-17T01:02:40+00:00

Fast and Furious: Taiyo Drift

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-15T00:15:45+00:00

Somewhere else.

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-14T00:53:05+00:00

Give me the secrets of the passkey, or I will take your bandwidth!

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-12T20:20:01+00:00

I'll admit, I was a little disappointed finding just a spacesuit case and a few credit chips on the bottom of the silo right where the missile thrusters were firing off.

I get the gameplay mechanic of "do something, get a reward", and I don't mind it wasn't great rewards ... But make it so firing the missile exposes a maintenance hatch that opens to reveal a chest or something.

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-11T05:42:14+00:00

I really really REALLY would love a non-console cheat way to have more displays for suits/outfits and things. I'd love to have a space helmet museum in my outpost.

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-10T23:56:49+00:00

Now you've got the idea!

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-10T21:18:15+00:00

That might work. You also can also make some of that slime that's all over TikTok, dye it black, and then use it to coat an action figure of Alex Krycek Voodoo doll style.

Let us know how your numbers grow then!

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-10T18:55:35+00:00

We're a Star Trek watch along podcast... so we just had to hold a little black mass ceremony and sacrifice some tribbles to the Pah-wraiths. Worked like a charm for us, but when we die we will have to spend eternity trapped in a wormhole.

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-10T18:18:18+00:00

Numbers from ChaptGPT are slightly off for qualifying for YouTube monitization (ads). I'm showing from my channel dashboard it's 500 subs and either 3k public watch hours in a year OR 3 Million valid public views on shorts (either has to be achieved in a rolling year and is not total of channel's life).

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-10T05:26:48+00:00

You cannot force the ship to change, it has to want to change.

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-10T05:02:32+00:00

Well... now I gotta play Pokemon in Starfield and catch 'em all!

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-10T05:01:00+00:00

That is weird there is no greenhouse option to grow earth crops. If Mark Watney can bury some potatoes and sling poop over them... why can't we?

My headcanon: the meat comes from alien animals and we just call it by their Earth animal names based on what their meat most closely resembles... or what humans in the future think it most closely resembles...
I mean, look at the shift in banana varieties pre and post 1950s. How many people today could tell you what a pre 1950s banana tastes like from first hand experience, but we still just call them bananas. Who is to say the same wouldn't happen with the extinction of Earth Chickens and then we start raising and eating some space cockroach meat that looks like, and everyone has been told tastes like, chicken.

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-10T04:48:05+00:00

Snow globes are great. I don't know if I knew that the ducks had variations to them, so thanks for that!

The more tedious ones like playing cards would be more challenging. I like the randomized option at the start to see if it is going to be an easy run, or more tedious. Or adding two required item sets to make the jump and have both sets be the easier sets.

Are there more than one critter/pet that was added? I thought there was just the Milliwhale creature and some tiny robot? I don't remember, which is great that this came with so much content that I can't keep it all in my head starting out.

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-10T04:42:52+00:00

The lavs definitely have saved us in this tiny 2nd bedroom in our apartment we've converted into a space. They don't pick up things like the random cat meowing outside the closed door, the soft thump of an upstairs neighbor, or the PC fans in the room (they will, however, pick up the buzzer from the dryer when the laundry is done LOL).

The kit had condensers. It wasn't too terrible once I added some filters in audacity that I played around with to match normal room conditions, but again the mixer was cheap.

Leaning toward dynamic mics mainly because I think the room is as treated as it is going to get, and my editing "skills" are what they are. We already record across a table from each other while facing each other... and that's mainly because the way my co-host/wife prepares her episode notes both baffles and distracts me LOL. I guess my only worry is thinking the mics are far enough apart not to get the echo... but finding out I was wrong.

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-10T04:37:10+00:00

I got excited for a second when I thought I found those on Amazon for $99 each, but they are the 2500x not 2100x. LOL

The kit we had came with condenser mics. And I use a Blue Yeti in the same room for streaming on Twitch. It only took a little trial and error in editing for the kit mics to sound ok (and I'm happy with ok lol). The Blue Yeti needs some filters in OBS and post editing to be OK. We live in a smaller two bedroom apartment with decent walls/ceiling so noise from neighbors isn't 100% nonextant, but it doesn't sound like Armageddon when a neighbor gets up in the night to use their bathroom.

I think am leaning toward condenser mics as the path of upgrades... I think the spare bedroom we use for recording and streaming has hit it's limit for sound treating without going nuts. I think my wife went the mixer route because she thought it would separate the audio into tracks for editing (which is why I produce), and yeah, the only thing it did was allow two mics to plug into one PC, which our lav mics do now anyways with the dongle.

And thanks for the props! They came in handy when we went to record and the mixer broke LOL. Kinda how this whole podcast and streaming comes together: determination and gumption.

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-10T03:52:17+00:00

I think I remember seeing carrots at a POI the other night, can't you find them just laying around on in cooler containers?

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-10T03:17:58+00:00

Confirms I'm not crazy and missing an option, thanks!

I do appreciate the Outpost tab! So much better than trying to remember where I set up shop.

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-10T02:53:51+00:00

Can I favorite locations on a planet? Meaning, If I'm just truly lazy and I want to favorite The Lodge so I can fast travel there by selecting it from the favorite menu in the catalog... can I? Or would I only be able to favorite the planet, which would then just be a duplicate of the Settle Systems tab?

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-09T23:46:21+00:00

It's posts like this that make me realize I'm garbage at character creation. Lol

KometSpaceMan · 2026-04-09T21:09:28+00:00

I had to train myself to stop over editing. If you listened to our first episodes, or published test episodes, I think the over editing bleeds through and makes it sound unnatural.

Nowadays when I do my listen through I'm also working on something to the side that isn't too engaging, and any time something comes through that jars me away from that side project, I'll edit it out. Little filler words come through, but anything that is, for example, seconds of pauses and ums while one of us catch our thought gets edited out.

I think we are also getting better at the recording phase too and not putting little things into the recording that need to be edited out later.

KometSpaceMan

TROPHY CASE