The fourth season of Lower Decks sees the lower-deckers being less lower-decky, as our four main characters (as well as one of our recurring regulars) all get promoted to lieutenant junior-grade. Having previously covered the good, the bad, and the ugly of the horribly uneven season one; the good, the bad, and the awesome for the much better season two; and the good, the bad, and the interesting for the more complex season three; this time around we cover the good, the bad, and the spectacularly nerdy, because LD is both at its best and its worst when it’s being nerdy….
The Good
The absolute best thing, bar none, about season four is the recurrence of T’Lyn, magnificently voiced by the great Gabrielle Ruiz. The Vulcan science officer’s deadpan is the perfect contrast to the spectacularly manic main four, and she has proven to play beautifully off of three of the four regulars. (We haven’t really seen her team up with Rutherford yet.) She gives good command advice to Boimler in “In the Cradle of Vexilon,” she’s a useful helpmeet on the Orion adventure that she joins Mariner and Tendi for in “Something Borrowed, Something Green,” and the ongoing relationship that develops between the super-serious T’Lyn and the goofily dorky Tendi is just epic. Plus, T’Lyn has arguably the funniest line of the entire season, though its humor can only really be appreciated in context and with Ruiz’s voice: “Ah—it is a volcano.”
In past seasons, Captain Freeman has been somewhat inconsistently portrayed, depending on the needs of the plot. Sometimes she’s the Trek equivalent of the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert. Sometimes she’s a brilliant captain. Sometimes she has to carry the idiot ball in order to make the joke work. But this season, she’s mostly been what all Starfleet captains should be, even the ones on the crappy ships: a badass. From her reconstructing the planetary computer in “In the Cradle of Vexilon” to her brilliant negotiating with Grand Nagus Rom in “Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place” to her dramatic rescue of her daughter in “Old Friends, New Planet,” Freeman has been much more in the mode of Trek‘s fabulous captains this year.
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System Collapse
The looks into the lower decks of Ferengi, Klingon, Romulan, Orion, and Bynar ships has been a delight.
In general, the looks into the Orion society we’ve gotten, mostly in “Something Borrowed, Something Green” and “Old Friends, New Planet,” has been very enlightening, a long overdue look at a culture that goes back to “The Cage” in 1964 and which has had very little done with it outside of a really terrible Enterprise episode before now. (We’ve gotten some on Discovery, ‘tis true, but that’s all been in the far future, and mostly focused on the Emerald Chain as a criminal organization, not much—at least not yet—on Orion culture as such.)
The AGIMUS-Peanut Hamper pairing in “A Few Badgeys More” proved to be an absolute delight. Having them turn into besties who are less interested in planetary conquest and more interested in being with the ones they love is, at once, hilarious and also completely true to Trek’s core ethos. Plus no one ever went wrong making use of Jeffrey Combs or Kether Donohue, and they’re both fantastic.
“Caves” was quite possibly the best piece of Trek satire the show has done, doing a hilarious riff on the franchise’s tropism for cave sets, and nailing several other clichés at the same time, all the while telling a story that’s a very Trekkish tale of friendship and solving problems through talking rather than violence.
Moopsy! “I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee” gives us the most adorable psychotic monster ever in Moopsy! Moopsy is fabulous! (Okay, Moopsy is crazy-dangerous, but still…) Moopsy!
The Bad
On the one hand, Mariner gets some character development this season, but while this should be good, it feels like we’ve gone over this territory before. We know Mariner has had trauma in her life that would explain her constant self-sabotage (the death of a dear friend on the U.S.S. Quito, as established in “Cupid’s Errant Arrow”), but they decided to insert another trauma on top of that, one that was never mentioned before: her best friend at the Academy was Sito Jaxa, from TNG’s “The First Duty” and (of course) “Lower Decks.” Sito’s death in the latter episode did a number on Mariner, and while her coming to terms with it in “Old Friends, New Planet” indicates that she’ll do better, we’ve had indications of that before. And Mariner has constantly backslid. It’s grown tiresome. (For an alternate take on Mariner, check out the brilliant Jaime Babb’s “How I Learned to Love Beckett Mariner” on this here site…)
While it was entertaining to see all kinds of ships get zapped by what turns out to be Nick Locarno’s zappy thing from Nova Fleet, the actual resolution of that plotline was a major disappointment. First of all, they fooled me, at least, into thinking it was Badgey responsible, and while that’s mostly on me, the execution in “A Few Badgeys More” could’ve been clearer. Also the fact that the ships weren’t destroyed, but instead somehow the top brass of each ship was exiled and the lower-decks folk put in charge and part of Nova Fleet strained credulity to the breaking point. It wasn’t clear where Locarno got all his wonderful toys or how they worked or, well, anything. It was just dumb.
The rivalry between Rutherford and Livik that we saw in “I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee” was kinda weak-sauce, but if it became a recurring thing, it could’ve worked. But we didn’t see it again until “Old Friends, New Planet,” when their argument was resolved by the stupid Mark Twain thing.
SPEAKING OF THAT, oh my goodness was the stupid Mark Twain thing stupid. Introduced in “Something Borrowed, Something Green” as a method of resolving arguments by having both sides cosplay as Samuel Clemens on a holodeck re-creation of his steamship the A.B. Chambers, it was incredibly dumb in that episode, and even dumber when it was brought back for the finale. Especially since most people’s impersonations of Clemens sound more like a mix of Colonel Sanders and Foghorn Leghorn than the famous author…
This is technically a good thing, but I’m putting it under “bad” because it lasted for three years: there is no way, none, that officers in Starfleet would be quartered in open bunks in an open-access hallway. Even on modern submarines, which are the poster children for holy-shit-we-don’t-have-enough-space, officers get at least a modicum of privacy. It is patently absurd that on a starship that has a theoretically unlimited power source (the annihilation of matter and antimatter) they can’t spare some space for officers to have private bunks. So while it’s good that they finally allowed our heroes to have, y’know, walls in their sleeping quarters this season, it’s fixing something that should never have been there in the first place.
Not nearly enough of T’Ana, Shaxs, or Kimolu and Matt. Though what we did get of them was, as always, fabulous.
Moopsy!
The Spectacularly Nerdy
The Ferengi are allied with the Federation! This is the perfect accomplishment of the Grand Nagus Rom regime. We already know that the Ferengi are part of the Federation in the thirty-second century thanks to Discovery, and there’s something incredibly appropriate about seeing that process start on LD of all places, and especially by having Rom and Leeta forge that alliance. Plus Max Grodénchik and Chase Masterson get to reprise their roles, joining the legion of past Trek folk who have voiced their characters on LD.
Speaking of that, we also had Robert Duncan McNeill coming back for the second time on LD, this time to voice his other Trek character, Locarno. In addition, they dragged Shannon Fill out of retirement to again voice Cadet Sito Jaxa in flashback, also getting Wil Wheaton to reprise the role of Cadet Wes Crusher in that same flashback. Plus we finally get to see poor Cadet Josh Albert, whose death drove the plot of “The First Duty,” but whom we never actually saw until “Old Friends, New Planet.”
“Twovix” is made up almost entirely of Voyager references, from the merging of crewmembers from “Tuvix” to getting versions of the salamanders that Janeway and Paris turned into in “Threshold” to the Borg to the macrovirus from “Macrocosm” to Dr. Chaotica from the various Captain Proton holodeck episodes to the clown from “The Thaw” to (for some stupid-ass reason) Michael Sullivan from the two stupid-ass Irish stereotype holodeck episodes that were stupid-ass. (Though strangely, not a single actor from Voyager was used to voice a character in the episode.)
In addition, “Twovix” sorta-kinda crosses over with Picard season three, as the latter established that Voyager was in the Fleet Museum at the turn of the twenty-fifth century (twenty years after this episode), and “Twovix” is when the ship was officially made into a museum piece, with the Fleet Museum being its eventual destination after its inaugural display on Earth.
Finally, having the Ferengi put in a paywall in order to disarm the Genesis Device was just perfection itself.
Moopsy!
Like season two, this one ends in a cliffhanger, with Tendi going off to become the Mistress of the Winter Constellations once again. One assumes that this will be reversed like, y’know, almost every other time a main castmember leaves the ship (including on this show, viz. Boimler’s promotion and transfer to Titan at the end of season one). Besides, T’Lyn finally broke down and agreed to be Tendi’s science bestie—she has to come back!
There’s lots of stuff I didn’t cover in this overview (like, I didn’t even mention Goodgey…), so please feel free to tell me in the comments what you thought was good, bad, and/or spectacularly nerdy!
Moopsy!
Keith R.A. DeCandido’s most recent work includes several short stories: “Prezzo” in Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird, a story about Italian immigrants in 1930s New York City and monsters; “Know Thyself Deathless” in Double Trouble: An Anthology of Two-Fisted Team-Ups (which he co-edited with Jonathan Maberry), teaming H. Rider Haggard’s She with the Yoruba goddess Egungun-oya; “Another Dead Body on the Corner” in Joe Ledger: Unbreakable, featuring Ledger in his days as a Baltimore homicide cop; “What Do You Want From Me, I’m Old” in The Four ???? of the Apocalypse (which he co-edited with Wrenn Simms), about the four septuagenarians of the apocalypse; “The Legend of Long-Ears” in The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny, a Weird Western tale of Bass Reeves and Calamity Jane; and “The Kellidian Kidnapping” and “Work Worth Doing” in the two most recent issues of Star Trek Explorer, the former a Voyager story featuring Tuvok, the latter the backstory for Discovery’s President Rillak.
“Especially since most people’s impersonations of Clemens sound more like a mix of Colonel Sanders and Foghorn Leghorn than the famous author…”
To be fair, there are no recordings of Samuel Clemens’s voice, and contemporary descriptions of it are all over the map. So nobody really knows how he sounded. Although we know that the version of Clemens that exists in the Trek universe sounds like Jerry Hardin doing what I assume was an impression of Hal Holbrook’s famous version of Mark Twain.
Anyway, the Twain thing is supposed to be stupid. The fact that it’s completely absurd and shouldn’t possibly work is the joke. Although I’m not a fan of the LD jokes that undermine credibility, because the show is supposed to be set in the canonical Trek universe.
And that’s pretty much where I stand on the season. There were some great bits that advanced the characters well and added meaningfully to the universe, but there were also too many dumb gags that threw plausibility out the window, or that too obviously came from the minds of people who are fans of Trek as a TV franchise rather than people who live in the Trek universe and know its events as real history. Or more to the point, who shouldn’t know some of the things we know in real life, like episode titles, or the fact that Dr. Crusher once taught Data to tap-dance (something she was embarrassed about and is not likely to be public knowledge).
My goodness…. where to begin?
First, the bad news. I found the resolution of the season long mystery somewhat unsatisfying. That Nick Locarno could pull off something this massive without tripping over the intelligence communities of the Federation, Romulus, Q’onos and Orion is … unbelievable. How did he contact all these ships without anybody in a command position knowing about it? I just didn’t buy it….
Now the good news: almost everything else was awesome. I share your adoration of T’Lyn, the best addition to a Trek cast since Worf joined DS9. (I join some of my fellow posters in thinking she’s got an itch for Boimler. She probably finds his chaotic energy fascinating…)
The world-building visits to Ferenginar and Orion were fantastic. More than any other series going right now, LD shows the universe of Star Trek as a living, breathing organism, endlessly complex and inviting, populated with people of all species you adore and admire. Mike McMahan’s love for this franchise shines through everywhere.
Can’t wait for season five to see the Mistress of the Winter Constellations in action!
P.S. Paul F. Tompkins is a national treasure, and Dr. Migleemo’s well-meaning incompetence breaks me up every time. Watching him get his warrior on against B’eth was… there are no words. (Can I get “fluff your down!” on a t-shirt?)
@2/cjlasky: I dunno… I can buy that someone making appeals to the lower-deckers of various fleets could slip under the radar of intelligence communities that are focused on the captains and admirals and political leaders and such. I offered a similar idea in Department of Temporal Investigations: Watching the Clock, though giving any specifics would be a spoiler.
And people don’t spend 100% of their time on ships. LoCarno could’ve contacted those various subalterns while they were on leave.
@3/CLB: Expanding my argument….
Think about it: every single member of the lower decks of this vast independent fleet had to agree to Locarno’s dumb ass plan. Not one person reported to a higher officer that some greasy looking human (who strangely resembles Tom Paris of the USS Voyager) was sniffing around, talking about mutiny. Not one communication between the conspitators was monitored. (On Romulus, I expect EVERY communication to be monitored.) Locarno is never caught on surveillance.
It’s just too much.
“Although I’m not a fan of the LD jokes that undermine credibility, because the show is supposed to be set in the canonical Trek universe.”
Given that the canonical Trek universe includes things like “infinite speed” and half-Vulcans, critiquing stuff for undermining credibility feels very much like trying to catch an already sailed ship.
In present-day navies, the people on the lower decks aren’t officers. Fans of The Cruel Sea may recall that HMS Saltash has ~ 150 crewmen, and about six officers (from memory). What are the figures for the Cerritos?
If officers are the people in charge, who has reported to the lower-decker’s over the past few seasons?
OTOH, if junior officers are the people at the bottom of the hierarchy, they should be shown as such.
@6 Enlisted personnel can report to ensigns. Though Star Trek is usually pretty fuzzy about them.
One reason to expect officers would have quarters is because they “need” to have better arrangement than the enlisted ranks. Especially for ensigns since they have so little authority otherwise. Though that might not be a thing in Starfleet.
@4/cjlasky: “Think about it: every single member of the lower decks of this vast independent fleet had to agree to Locarno’s dumb ass plan.”
It wasn’t that vast — just a few people from each of the abducted ships.
“Not one person reported to a higher officer that some greasy looking human (who strangely resembles Tom Paris of the USS Voyager)”
No, I don’t see it. ;)
“was sniffing around, talking about mutiny.”
I imagine he would’ve vetted candidates ahead of time and only approached the ones who already showed signs of disaffection or insubordination, rather than just walking up to random strangers and hoping.
“Not one communication between the conspitators was monitored. (On Romulus, I expect EVERY communication to be monitored.)”
And yet Spock and the Unification movement were able to get around that for a while. If surveillance is ubiquitous, it gives people plenty of opportunity to invent ways around it.
“Locarno is never caught on surveillance.”
Maybe he was, but they thought he was someone else. He just has one of those faces. :D
@5/foamy: “Given that the canonical Trek universe includes things like “infinite speed” and half-Vulcans, critiquing stuff for undermining credibility feels very much like trying to catch an already sailed ship.”
A fictional universe doesn’t have to follow the same rules as the real world, but it should be consistent within itself. As I’ve pointed out before, there’s a difference between naturalistic comedy and absurdist comedy, and a comedy set in the same universe as dramas that aspire to naturalism should go for naturalistic comedy. It was plausible for St. Elsewhere to do an episode where the characters visited the bar from Cheers, because you could believe Cheers took place in a realistic world. It wouldn’t have been as plausible to do an episode of Mannix where he teamed up with Jeannie and Major Nelson.
Thank you as always, Keith, for the shout-out; you do me far too much praise.
It was definitely a mixed bag of a season. I agree that T’Lyn is the best new(-ish) thing that it brings to the table, and that the season-long arc didn’t ultimately pay off very well (I’m still waiting for Secret Hideout-era Trek to give us an iconic new villain, rather than just remixing the ‘legacy’ material; so far the Vau N’Akat from Prodigy come the closest, but we barely know anything about them as yet and I suspect that they won’t remain enemies after the arc of that series has run its course). I think that “Something Borrow, Something Green,” “Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place” and “A Few Badgeys More” were standouts and are among the best episodes that this series has ever done. I can’t really think of any episodes that I would call bad here, but there was perhaps an overreliance on B-plots that were a bit too low-stakes for my tastes: Boimler can’t find good quarters; Rutherford, Tendi, and Mariner are being hazed; Boimler and Rutherford clash as roommates; etc. That said, I actually thought that the Twaining gag was hilarious when it was just Boimler and Rutherford doing it, but the more it gets used in a plot-relevant way, the less I like it. I hope that they do more with Ma’ah in season 5 because he was great here.
@6/ad9 – Does the Cerritos even have NCOs other than Lundy? I can’t recall any.
Moopsy!
Despite what Twain may have sounded like, when you put on that white suit, you will talk that way. It’s science.
One thing I forgot to say: I think that it was very clever to show the Klingons and the Romulans as the first two ships to get stolen, because we know that mutiny is a semi-regular occurrence on Klingon ships and that Romulans are just generally conspiratorial, so “dissention in the lower decks” didn’t really stand out as a thread, even though it was staring me directly in the face from the beginning.
jaimebabb: Nonsense, I give you exactly the right amount of praise.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@8/CLB: Spock and Pardek got around Romulan security for awhile, but eventually, they got busted.
“No, I don’t see it.”
Come on! Their faces are practically identical! (We could do this all day…)
I agree with jamie that there were no really bad episodes this year. The Ferengi and Orion episodes, Caves, and Inner Fight (for those amazing scenes between Mariner and Ma’ah) were top shelf, with Vexilon, I Have No Bones, Badgey, the Betazed ep and the finale coming up a little short. Contrary to popular opinion, I didn’t think much of Twovix. To me, it represented everything LD had supposedly outgrown–just a whole bunch of Trek easter eggs jammed haphazatdly into one basket.
“A fictional universe doesn’t have to follow the same rules as the real world, but it should be consistent within itself. “
Happy news: LD is consistent within itself! Extra happy news: The Mark Twain bit specifically is no sillier than any number of other Trek bits over the years and in fact a roleplaying exercise that makes people come at their problems and disagreements from a different persepctives is actually not that silly.
I think that “Twovix” was a tribute episode done right: rehashing some of VOY’s weirdest, worst, and most controversial episodes and then ending by pumping the ship’s computers full of cheese did more to honour the spirit of that series than did, say, Picard season 3’s attempt to honour TNG by treating everything associated with it like a holy relic. That said, it was probably the season’s weakest episode.
@15/foamy: “Happy news: LD is consistent within itself!”
I was quite obviously talking about LD’s consistency with the rest of the Trek universe.
I agree that T’Lyn has been a terrific addition to the crew, and I’m picky when it comes to Vulcan actors, so hats off to Gabrielle Ruiz. Of course, she doesn’t have to pull off the nonverbal acting that is so important to convincingly portraying Vulcans onscreen, but she voices the part perfectly.
I also agree about Freeman. The show seemed to have a hard time early on trying to figure out how competently it wanted to portray her, so I’m glad they finally settled on her being a capable commander. This has definitely been her strongest season.
I can’t get behind your praise of what the season has done with regards to depicting Orion culture, since I find the Enterprise episode “Bound” to be offensively sexist, and Lower Decks is largely running with what that episode established, but I suppose it is doing the best it can with the continuity it has inherited. On the other hand, I loved what they did with the Ferengi, because in this case they had much better material to work with and extrapolate from.
As for the pairing of AGIMUS and Peanut Hamper and the introduction of the adorable menace that is Moopsy (Moopsy!), I can’t imagine anyone who didn’t enjoy them. OK, that’s a lie. I can imagine those people, but I don’t want to believe they exist.
When it comes to Mariner, I can understand your attitude toward the character, even if I don’t agree with it, because her development has been uneven. However, I feel like she turned a corner this season, and I’m looking forward to seeing where she goes from here.
Like you I was also disappointed by the Locarno plot, not because what he accomplished strained credulity, but because Locarno himself was portrayed as such a one-dimensional villain. If they weren’t going to do something interesting with the character, it would have been better to leave him be.
On the other hand, I quite enjoyed the recurring Twaining gag, partly because it is so silly, and partly because it kind of would actually work, at least for me. If I were having a feud with someone, and we were both forced to sit down together dressed as Mark Twain and talk it out using ridiculous accents, I can’t imagine I would be able to stay mad for very long.
Overall, I found this season to be of about the same quality as it’s immediate predecessor, which was also quite good and also had a rather mediocre if action-packed finale.
@16/jamiebbb: i get what you’re saying, but is that really Voyager’s legacy–cheesiness (literal and metaphorical) and “shit got weird”?
I was underwhelmed. Look, it’s Chaotica! (Only, without the Captain Proton program and Mulgrew gloriously hamming it up.) Hey it’s the VR clown! (But they couldn’t get McKean back.) They Tuvixed the Cerritos! (But they mostly dodged Janeway’s moral dilemma.) It’s the hunk from Fairhaven! (And, uh, we LIKE the Fairhaven eps now?)
Look, I kinda liked the Borgified macrovirus and the animatronic salamanders (priceless!), but I felt that as a tribute, it lacked a certaim…. spirit. JMO.
Moopsy!
Quick reminder to keep the tone of the discussion civil and avoid rude or dismissive comments. Thanks!
I can see why the showrunners of LD want their show to be canon, but I wish it weren’t. I’d rather just let the show be silly when it wants to be silly even when that’s at odds with what we know about how people behave in the Starfleet, etc.
The entire point of Twovix was that they were laughing at all the worst episodes of Voyager. Threshold, Fairhaven, the cheese, the giant viruses – those are all the episodes of Voyager we look back at as the worst.
Lower Decks gets both what works about Star Trek and what doesn’t. Twovix is amazing because it’s just half an hour of acknowledging the worst of Star Trek and laughing at it. I imagine it doesn’t go over well if you try to take the episode seriously.
@17:
I know. But I said two things, and the second was that the wider Trek universe has plenty of silly elements and outright comedic bits, or at least attempts at it. A silly bit on a comedy show isn’t inconsistent with any of that — and it’s not even as silly as it looks at first glance, either.
Ok, i could deal with a roasting of the worst of Voyager, but I thought “Bride of Chaotica!” was generally considered to be one of the best eps of the series, and a lot of fans genuinely enjoyed Action!Janeway in Macrocosm and the creepiness of The Thaw. You want bad Voyager? Where are the Amazon Women of the Delta Quadrant (Favorite Son)? Where’s Flotter?
“Twovix” was commenting on Voyager, but not on just the bad stuff–it was all the goofy shit. Yes, LD pokes at the goofy shit of the franchise all the time (“Allamaraine!”), but it generally doesn’t use the goofy shit to represent an entire series. I guess that’s what’s bugging me….
Ed: I know, but the two Fair Haven episodes were SO INCREDIBLY TERRIBLE that I would’ve been much happier pretending they never happened.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido, who REALLY REALLY REALLY hated those two episodes with the fiery passion of a thousand white-hot suns
@23. Canon is overrated. As long as Lower Decks continues to celebrate the core values of Star Trek, then I don’t care how silly it gets. One of the most interesting things about the current slate of Star Trek shows is that they all more or less do their own thing, have their own unique feel, and prioritize telling the stories they want to tell the way they want to tell them over fitting into a box.
Regarding the Twain thing….count me among those who enjoy it, as a sort of Python-esque absurdism. And as for the voices, I strongly suspect that if you asked random 21st Century Americans to pretend to be Sam Clemens, a mix of Colonel Sanders and Foghorn Leghorn is exactly what you’re going to get from most of them.
MOOPSY!
The stupid and bad things on this show are much less significant for me than in the other series. OK, agree that the season closing was not so great, but i don’t mind even Mark Twain in it. :D I might have mentioned it before, but viewing this together with Enterprise, the differences in quality are huge. Enterprise is regularly repetitive and dumb with only a very few good characters. LD stories are more brave, smarter and most of the characters are starting to be actually really good…I can’t wait for the next season.
@29/Jason: I fear that if you asked a random 21st-Century American to impersonate Sam Clemens, they’d say “Who the hell is Sam Clemens? Is he on the current season of [Insert Reality Show Title Here]?”
I will admit to liking two things about “Twovix”: Freeman’s expression when she read that Janeway “straight up murdered” Tuvix; and, of course, the promotions to lieutenant jg. I will also give LD credit for one, on-the-nose bit of Voyager storytelling: after Boimler and co. spent the entire episode destroying Voyager, everything reset to zero at the end.
MEEP! (Wait. Wrong series.)
#23, #28
Yeah, I’m not sure why they felt the need to insist this show is “canon” or whatever. Maybe it was some company mandate from the suits that every single Star Trek series must be within the same universe, because shared universes are what the folks in marketing tell them they must have in order to reach eleventy billion dollars and yachts for everyone around the really long table.
But it strikes me as the silliest joke of all trying to wedge this bug-eyed parody in there with everything else. It’s like trying to seriously, meticulously, IRS audit and fit Lego Star Wars with regular Star Wars or Young Frankenstein with the James Whale movies. For silliness’ sake, just let it be a lark.
@34/Herbie: “Yeah, I’m not sure why they felt the need to insist this show is “canon” or whatever.”
It’s not about “need.” It’s sure as hell not a “company mandate.” It’s just been the standard ever since 1973 that every new incarnation of Trek is presumed to be part of the same continuity (with even Kelvin being handwaved as an altered timeline branching off the original). It was a shared universe long before shared universes became a billion-dollar industry. (Well, Roddenberry implicitly considered TNG to be a soft reboot, but his successors unified it more directly with TOS.)
And Lower Decks being part of the same shared reality is its strength, because it lets them use and advance the continuity in meaningful ways. For all its vast overuse of continuity in-jokes, it’s done a really good job of feeling like a legitimate continuation of the entire franchise and making the whole thing feel more unified. I still feel that its goofy comedy aspects are its weakest parts; it’s best when it’s telling legitimate Star Trek stories of exploration, adventure, and problem-solving with Starfleet’s positive values. I don’t like that aspect because of any “need” or “mandate” — I like it because it works, because they’ve gotten worthwhile stories out of it, which is all that matters in fiction. A mere parody of Trek wouldn’t have been as worthwhile or substantial, just a disposable bit of fluff like those terrible Very Short Treks things they did on YouTube. Their commitment to being a sincere, authentic part of the continuity is what makes LD more than that.
I’ve seen many sci-fi sitcoms over the decades, and most of them have been bad and short-lived. I’ve long believed that’s because they were nothing more than mockery of sci-fi, so their realities didn’t have any sincerity or substance. Fantasy and SF have a high bar for suspension of disbelief; you have to give the audience a reason to buy into what they’re seeing, to care about it. A key part of why ST:TOS succeeded when its contemporaries failed was that it approached its universe sincerely, striving for character naturalism and believability if not necessarily scientific believability. So sitcoms that just mock their own setting have a hard time winning an audience. The best SF sitcoms — Red Dwarf and Futurama — succeeded because they didn’t just make fun of science fiction; they told stories that were science fiction, just in a funny way. They told stories about genuinely interesting SF ideas that made us think and fired our imaginations. (Well, Futurama has done plenty of episodes that were just parody of SF tropes, but they’ve also done wonderfully imaginative, powerful stories like “Parasites Lost” and “The Sting.”) And that gave them a depth and sincerity that made them compelling in ways other SF sitcoms weren’t.
Lower Decks is the same way. It’s weakest when it’s just making self-referential fun of past Trek, strongest when it’s actually telling full-on, legitimate Trek-universe stories that happen to be funny. It succeeds because it has that substance to it, because it tells stories that can stand alongside what the live-action shows do rather than just be superficial mockeries of them.
“…or Young Frankenstein with the James Whale movies.”
Oh, I’ve felt for many years that YF is a legitimate sequel to the first two or three Frankenstein movies. In the same sense as what I said before, it works because it’s a genuinely good Frankenstein story in its own right rather than merely being a superficial lampoon of them. Sincerity makes comedy better.
I suppose it was inevitable that Lower Decks would have a weaker than normal season finale eventually. Still Boimler in the Captain’s chair, and a Genesis device detonating are pretty awesome.
T’Lyn is a gem. I must disagree with our humble reviewer, for my money while “Ah. It is a volcano” Is Good, unlike T’Lyn it’s not, “Vulcan as a Motherf*cker.” Seeing her relationships with the Lower Deckers develop was absolutely joyful. She was immediately supportive and corrective of Boimler’s neurosis, Mariner lifted her up by applying her standard the higher ups are probably wrong and stupid viewpoint, and she triggered all of Tendi’s “I NEED PEOPLE TO LIKE ME” energy by not immediately embracing her. T’Lyn not getting a Rutherford team up is a bit of a blind spot, but time constraints…and she also was the one who suggested Twaining in the finale, which is the sugar on the grapefruit.
Freeman getting her shine is even better than Mariner getting her crap together. I get the feeling that Freeman has had people questioning her competence in universe enough that she factors it into her planning, which also plays into how the audience sees her. So it’s a pleasant surprise when, NO, Carol knows what she’s doing. She’s not in that Captain’s Chair because her husband is an Admiral.
The Great AI Redemption is also pretty awesome. Star Trek is one of the few places you can go where AI isn’t constantly a threat to all mankind. Seeing them be markedly antagonistic since Discovery Season 2, was a bit sad, so seeing Peanut Hamper, Badgey, and Agimus all get redemption arcs (and not a mathematically perfect one) was splendid.
KRAD, Keep that Moopsy away from me, I’m not playing.
Rutherford just being able to call in the promotion was fantastic. He usually is MVP status anyway, so it makes sense. They also now have me wondering if they’re going to pull the trigger on Tendiford. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all.
Locarno’s story doesn’t make a LOT of sense, but with fifteen years motivated by rage and working outside the Federation he might be able to make the contacts to pull his Nova Fleet off. The thing that was missing is motivation. What is Nova Fleet? A shortcut to your own command sure, but is it a PMC? A gang? Dirty Deeds Done Cheap LLC? The beginning of a new nation? Pirate Island? What was his endgame? Freeman and company only entered his system to get Mariner back. He took a Terraforming WMD as Strategic Deterrence, but had he annexed a claimed system? It was all very incomplete, which I think is on purpose because Locarno’s whole thing just seemed to be “Starfleet you were wrong to kick me out, so I’m gonna start my own fleet without you“. Which is fine, he’s an egomaniac, but honestly it rings very hollow.
@34, Herbie,
Probably because before Cinematic Universes were a buzzword, Star Trek already was one. Has been since basically DS9 and TNG were on the air at the same time. Not just a franchise, but an ongoing narrative that builds on the events that were established beforehand. Lots of people think of canon as restricting, but I view it as a wonderful constant addition to the setting the stories are set in. It gives a great advantage of having an already existing living breathing universe around you.
“Bug-Eyed Parody” while a good joke, doesn’t really fit this show. It actually cares more about fitting in with what came before than a lot of its Trek contemporaries.
#35
Well, I think shared universes have in many cases become needless, unwieldy exercises in pettifogging and accounting and corporate synergy, but we’ll probably never see eye-to-eye on that. But does this serious take from some fans on what is a parody have more to do, I wonder, with so many of Trek’s current offerings being so darned shallow and unsatisfying? Maybe when you’re hungry for that serious, heavy, old-fashioned meal of Trek goodness and nourishment, you’ll even look to this bowl of candy for it. Could that be a part of it?
As for comedy, hmm, I don’t think there is one formula or mindset that makes it “better.” That’s very much in the eye of the beholder. Some can enjoy frivolity and insincerity and lightness in comedy. I mean, I don’t think it needs to be anchored to any sort of canon, or even reality itself, to make me laugh and feel meaningful. Parody is welcome. Absurdity is welcome. Despite what Roddenberry set down in the ancient scrolls, I still welcome it. But different strokes.
#37.
“Bug-eyed parody” wasn’t a joke on my part. Because the show sure seems like a parody to me.
The aforementioned Young Frankenstein took great care in recreating details from the Whale films, even going so far to use the same lab equipment, I believe. Tonally, it’s still a parody. Just because the picture is detailed doesn’t means it’s always to be taken with stony-faced, artistic contemplation on the part of the audience. That mustache on the Mona Lisa is detailed but…
I agree that Nick Locarno being revealed as the mastermind behind the ship disappearances as part of a dumb, implausible plan was stupid; however, I maintain (as I said several weeks ago) that it was simply the culmination of a season-long gag making fun of serialized story arcs that could be resolved in a couple of episodes but instead are dragged out over the full period. This builds anticipation until the audience can’t help but be disappointed in the outcome. I really hoped the outcome here would be something stupid, and it sure was. I was laughing the entire day at the idea that friggin’ Nick Locarno had caused this much chaos in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants.
All in all, I think this might have been the best Lower Decks season yet. It had pretty much everything you could want out of the show and is set up for even more fun. And I personally don’t think we’re going to see any more backsliding from Mariner; I think they’ve pretty solidly resolved her biggest issues at this point.
@40/Chase: Oh, how I wish the Locarno running subplot was one big whoopee cushion tucked underneath this season–but no, I don’t think so. McMahan was way too invested in tying the original Lower Deckers (Sito, Locarno) in with Mariner’s epiphany. Locarno was set up to be the path not taken for Mariner; how she could have curdled into bitterness and truly destructive rebellion. Thematically? It worked! Practically? As we’ve established here:
1. It’s hard to believe Locarno could set all this up without getting caught.
2. It’s hard to believe he could get his hands on all that alien tech (not to mention a Federation Steamrunner).
3. He was a one-dimensional villain.
4. He had no endgame.
Better luck next time, Mike.
@38/Herbie: “Well, I think shared universes have in many cases become needless, unwieldy exercises in pettifogging and accounting and corporate synergy, but we’ll probably never see eye-to-eye on that.”
I’m not talking about shared universes as a generic category. It makes no sense to reduce things to blanket generalizations about entire categories, because each example is its own unique entity, and naturally two different examples of a given category can be vastly different in quality. I’m talking about Lower Decks as its own individual entity judged on its own merits, which is the only fair way to judge anything. The performance or quality of other shared universes has exactly nothing to do with that conversation, because Lower Decks is not part of any of them.
” But does this serious take from some fans on what is a parody have more to do, I wonder, with so many of Trek’s current offerings being so darned shallow and unsatisfying?”
There you’re making the same mistake of overgeneralization. A discussion of a single specific entity is not a discussion of a blanket category or a proposal of a universal rule. That’s not how life works. Has every pizza you’ve ever eaten been exactly as good as every other? Has every store clerk you’ve ever spoken to been exactly as helpful as every other? There are good and bad instances of any category, so judging one is not a reflection on the others.
Also, you’re missing what I said, which is that comedy and parody are more satisfying and less shallow when they have an underlying sincerity to them. Taking something seriously doesn’t mean it can’t be funny. It means you take your own work seriously, that you approach it with care and commitment and integrity and strive to make it as good as you can. Making good comedy requires serious commitment, because it’s a hard thing to do well and you can’t half-ass it. I’ve found in my career that writing comedy stories requires more care and hard work than writing dramatic stories, because comedy requires precision; you have to choose just the right words, get just the right timing, or it doesn’t work. It also means that you don’t settle for just mockery and snark with no deeper substance. Comedy works best when it has something to say, and when there’s a substance to the characters and their world that the audience is able to relate to and believe in.
@39: “Because the show sure seems like a parody to me.”
And in many ways, it is that. But what makes it worthwhile is that it isn’t just that. The best creations have more than one level of meaning.
I mean, making something just a parody of a well-known franchise is the simple way, the path of least resistance. It’s not that impressive. It’s much bolder and more challenging to make a parody that’s simultaneously an integral part of the franchise. It’s a more impressive feat if they pull off that delicate balance between adding believably to the universe and poking fun at it. That’s why I admire the instances where LD achieves that balance successfully, and critique the instances where it sacrifices the former for the sake of the latter. Because that’s taking the path of least resistance.
Same for Young Frankenstein. It’s not a binary question. Yes, obviously it’s a parody, but it’s a parody that simultaneously works as a legitimate continuation, and that’s what makes it so much more brilliant than most of the dime-a-dozen film parodies out there.
I can see the character arc of Beckett Mariner being debated at con panels long after LD concludes.
{holds “Team Jaime Babb” Pennant.} Sorry, KRAD.
@41: Lacking an endgame is a key part of Locarno’s character. He expects to have his announcement of Nova Fleet to *be* all the success he’s been looking for, just as he expected one showy Starfleet Academy trick to make him a legend. A proper Starfleet officer wouldn’t be hoping to rest on his laurels after the Academy (or after any particular heroic event)
He’s not a great leader, but he’s a great “convincer” – he can talk people into doing things that are immoral and impractical by figuring out what drives them (in the finale, we see him appeal to Wesley’s desire to impress Picard). So it’s not that hard to believe that he can convince a few disgruntled lower officers in fleets that are genuinely cruel to lower officers to overthrow their leaders. But the same doesn’t work on Mariner – because the Mariner that Locarno believes he knows isn’t quite the Mariner he meets.
@41 I agree that Locarno wasn’t just a gag; his role in the finale in particular is exactly as you describe. The gag was in the brief glimpses of the various ships being captured over the season; it really wasn’t necessary to go back to it as often as they did. That is the part that I think was the joke and that I ultimately found very funny.
See, I get what they were going for with Locarno (he’s how Mariner could have ended up), but I never really bought that he could have been behind the mystery ship. Where did he get the resources to build a state-of-the-art ship? Or a space station? Or an impenetrable shield around an entire star system? Again, a line of dialogue about how he “found this abandoned station” or something would have gone a long way.
Also, one thing that I didn’t mention in my article is that, while I do think that Mariner’s behaviour has always had the character of a trauma response, I didn’t like that they made it Sito Jaxa. To my mind, it would have been much more natural for the event that drove Mariner to fear ordering subordinates to their death to be…actually having ordered a subordinate to their death. Tying it in to some character from TNG whose association with Mariner we didn’t even know about until the very episode where it became relevant just felt like an unnecessary continuity hit.
@46/jaimebabb:”Where did he get the resources to build a state-of-the-art ship?”
Post-scarcity society. Resources shouldn’t be an issue. All you need is a design and a vehicle replicator to upload it to.
“Or a space station?”
Courtesy of some of his allies, perhaps.
“Or an impenetrable shield around an entire star system?”
That was specifically explained — the trio of Bynars created it (hence “Trynar shield”).
“Tying it in to some character from TNG whose association with Mariner we didn’t even know about until the very episode where it became relevant just felt like an unnecessary continuity hit.”
Yeah, but that TNG character death that motivated Mariner happened in the episode entitled… “Lower Decks.” So in a way, the show has been hinting at the connection all along. We just didn’t realize it until now.
@44/AndyLove: It’s one thing to convince a bunch of green Starfleet cadets to pull off an illegal training maneuver; it’s another to convince trained starship crews to mutiny–when the penalty for mutiny is probably death.
I have no doubt Nick could probably convince a lot of these lower deckers to go along with him, even without a solid plan, because he does have that gift. He could promise the Klingons honor and glory, the Ferengi endless profit; but if he came up against one skeptic–just one!– who wanted specifics? He’s toast. The skeptic alerts superiors, and Nick Locarno, former Starfleet cadet, mysteriously disppears, never to be seen again…
@48/cjlasky: Sure, that risk exists, but if Nick LoCarno were the type to be deterred by risky plans, then he wouldn’t have attempted the Kolvoord Starburst that killed Joshua Albert. So it’s entirely in character for him to ignore that risk. We can just assume he got lucky until Mariner showed up.
And like I said, he probably vetted candidates for prior signs of disaffection rather than just walking up to people at random.
I’d like to see LD continue Locarno’s story by having the Cerritos discover that Genesis merged his personality withe the newborn planet Locarno. Think Ego, the living planet or Mogo of the Green Lanterns.
locarno could the become the site of the newest starbase and we could see all the hijinks that would ensue with having a sentient starbase. Think Farpoint Station with a mind that finally gets to be part of Starfleet
It’s just wacky enough to happen.
@48: Nick is probably smart enough to acquire a bit of blackmail material on people he talks to before he tries to inveigle them into his plot – or he’s enough of a judge of character to pick his recruits well – or he was just that lucky.
@49, 51: You guys are giving it the old Starfleet Academy try (and it’s fun reading!), but I’m still not buying it.
When it comes down to it, the reason I can’t take Nick Locarno seriously as the Big Bad is that, in putting together this mind-bogglingly complex operation, he had zero margin for error. None. One compromising video image, one intercepted communication, backsliding from one of the dozens of Nick’s carefully vetted candidates, and the game would be over. And Nick would be… well… dead. Frankly, Nick never struck me as a good enough planner to navigate these hazards.
Nobody is that lucky.
The Season Three plotline worked because the Texas Class project was sanctioned by Starfleet and constructed entirely above board. The only factor nobody could have predicted was the darkness in Adm. Buenamigo’s heart.
In my mind, Nick’s grand project would have ended early in the recruitment phase. The Tal Shiar would invite Nick to a “private retreat” to have a “constructive discussion” about his current activities. Nick would decline, citing previous commitments. He would then discover that “no” was not an option.
@52/cjlasky: Isn’t it possible that the Tal Shiar were just willing to let Locarno get away with it? After all, he only compromised the crew of a single Romulan ship, which the TS might’ve thought was a worthwhile price to pay for the disruption he caused to everyone else’s fleets, and for the embarrassment it would’ve inevitably brought to Starfleet once the truth came out. And his “Nova Fleet” was never likely to be more than a minor nuisance (or so they might’ve thought if they hadn’t been aware of the Genesis torpedo).
Anyway, we’re only about a decade after the Tal Shiar was badly weakened with the destruction of their joint fleet with the Obsidian Order by the Dominion. It rebuilt after that, unlike the Order, but we’re only a year or two after Shinzon’s coup, which must’ve thrown the entire Romulan government into chaos. So the TS is probably too busy getting its own house back in order to have any attention to spare for Locarno’s petty activities.
Plus, by this point, broad segments of Romulan society would be aware of the impending supernova (Picard has already been promoted to admiral, after all). A breakdown of discipline within the empire seems all but inevitable under the circumstances. Perhaps the mutineers even have enough context to think that they’re getting out while the getting’s good.
@54/jaimebabb: I’m not sure about the timing of the supernova discovery. In the non-canonical Picard prequel novel, Picard was promoted to admiral specifically to head the evacuation task force, but LD established his promotion happening earlier than it did in the novel, and there’s been no hint so far in LD that the impending supernova has been discovered, which would certainly be a huge deal everyone would be talking about.
And before anyone mentions it, no, it couldn’t be a secret known only to the Romulan government. Stars are right out in the open, visible to everyone. You can’t hide their spectra. If a star shows signs of an approaching supernova, you can detect it from hundreds or thousands of parsecs away, like we can with Betelgeuse or Eta Carinae. So everyone would know about it at the same time. (Never mind that, realistically, the warning signs of a supernova would be detectable millions of years in advance, not just 5 or 6. And stars with habitable planets around them aren’t big enough to go supernova, though Trek has ignored that repeatedly with Minara, Fabrina, and Beta Niobe.)
52, 53, 54: I was using the Tal Shiar in an example of (IMO) a more likely outcome for Nick Locarno’s grand project. I never meant to dig into Romulan politics. But (ignoring that impending supernova for the moment), let’s follow through with this scenario:
If anything, the fragile state of the Romulan government post-Shinzon is all the more reason to bring the hammer down on Nick Locarno. Locarno is a wild card–and while letting him go on his merry way would indeed be a huge embarrassment to the Federation, that’s of secondary importance to the Romulans. Locarno recruited one of THEIR ships, and that’s a huge breach of security, one that cannot be tolerated (or repeated). No intelligence agency worth its rep would risk looking like Pakleds by letting this slide. The Tal Shiar would grab Nick, the crew of that Romulan ship, their families, and anybody else within ten light years of this incident, until the matter was settled to their satisfaction. (It would get VERY messy.)
P.S. But–now that you mention it–nobody saw that supernova coming? Really?
What stands out to me is that the Romulans apparently settled on a planet around a sun that, even 2,000 years earlier, would look like it could conceivably explode at any minute. I know that the non-canonical material suggests that the nova was artificially induced somehow, but so far none of the canon series seem interested in taking up this plot point.
Ugh. So much effort in the Secret Hideout era has gone into writing around JJ Abrams et al.’s willingness to blow-up major planets as a cheap plot point.
@56/cjlasky: “I was using the Tal Shiar in an example of (IMO) a more likely outcome for Nick Locarno’s grand project.”
Sure, but my first point could apply to any intelligence service of a “bad guy” power. Any of them might be willing to shrug off a mutiny on one of their ships for the sake of the disruption Locarno caused to their competitors.
“If anything, the fragile state of the Romulan government post-Shinzon is all the more reason to bring the hammer down on Nick Locarno.”
That assumes they have the resources to spare for such a minor nuisance. Their whole government was overthrown, and then the overthrowers were overthrown. Things are probably in relative chaos. Whoever’s currently in control of the reins of power is probably using the Tal Shiar to put down rival factions within the Empire itself and stave off another coup.
” P.S. But–now that you mention it–nobody saw that supernova coming? Really?”
On the contrary. The entire backstory of Picard season 1 is that the supernova was detected 5 or 6 years in advance (as opposed to ST ’09’s less plausible implication that it happened unexpectedly) and Picard was promoted to admiral to spearhead a massive evacuation effort, which was scuttled when the synths destroyed the Utopia Planitia spaceyard and crippled Starfleet’s shipbuilding effort. Starfleet’s abandonment of the evacuation disillusioned Picard and led to his retirement, etc. etc.
For me, it’s a toss up between seasons 3 and 4 as the show’s best. The first two seasons were definitely the warmup run to what the show has since become and has mostly excelled at.
4 gets some points for trying to differentiate itself from before not only by bringing T’Lyn to the mix, but also thanks to the main characters being promoted and dealing with the changes that come with it. I do feel the secondary characters got a little lost in the mix, but the show made up for it for some significant and amusing stories with the regulars.
Regarding the show’s plausibility over the mystery ship storyline, I tend not to hold that against the show as much as I would on other Trek incarnations. LD is not only an animated show, but it’s also a comedy, created by someone who spent quite a while writing Rick and Morty of all things. It may be a legitimate part of the Trek universe, but to me, it gets to indulge and be a little more flexible with some of the plausibility scenarios (certainly more so than Prodigy).
Loved the trip to Ferenginar, and seeing Rom and Leeta again. I got the biggest laugh out of the bomb’s paywall twist. And I had a big grin throughout the Planet Hell cave episode. The show’s certainly still feels fresh and interesting even after 4 seasons.
Tendi and Mariner evolved the most. Tendi with the Orion business, and Mariner with the Sito/Locarno situation.
And in Mariner’s case, the story did some necessary legwork that put her whole character arc – and the show by proxy – in perspective. It’s about learning to deal with the fact that sometimes you’re forced to follow orders that have consequences. But it’s one thing for captain or other commanding officer to deal with the pain of sending junior officers to their deaths. It’s another when you’re the Lower Decker: it’s your rear on the actual line or you’re losing someone close to you because of some unknown higher-up’s orders. Mariner ultimately dealt with it in very destructive ways, and the show got a lot of mileage out of it. But unlike Locarno, she sucked it up and started to move on. He remained stuck in Nova Squadron mode.
But given Locarno’s apparent death in the finale, I can see this affecting Mariner. She would blame herself for not doing more to save him, and this could fuel another backslide in her behavior arc, stalling her growth for a few more seasons.
McMahan’s been pretty vocal about a 7 season plan. We’re getting a fifth season, and I hope the ratings accomodate the last two. Overall, I’m pleased with what we got so far, but I’d hate to see the show getting cut short before it’s gotten the chance to fulfill whatever master plan he has in the works.
Seven seasons and four movies of wildly varying quality.
@50, 58, 59: A five to six year warning is still a microsecond in astronomical time; you’d think the Romulans would have detected instability in their star much earlier. (And if it was sabotage, as we suspect, maybe that should have been given a heck of a lot more attention.)
I can see Nick’s death bumming Mariner out big time, which is why I like the idea of Nick’s consciousness fusing with the new planet. Maybe when Mariner visits Planet Locarno, she and Nick (in some form) can have a nice, relaxed chat and work things out.
@61/cjlasky – I can’t imagine Mariner being too broken-up about Nick, personally. She barely seemed to like the guy even before he turned megalomaniacal supervillain, and she gave him every chance to not die.
@61/cjlasky: “A five to six year warning is still a microsecond in astronomical time; you’d think the Romulans would have detected instability in their star much earlier.”
I addressed that already at the end of comment #55.