In the TNG episode “Tin Man,” the Enterprise rendezvouses with the Hood, whose captain says, “They send you Galaxy-class boys out here to the far reaches. Me, I’m just hauling my butt back and forth between starbases.”
Star Trek: Lower Decks, the first animated Trek series in forty-six years, has been showing us the adventures of another ship that hauls its butt back and forth between starbases, and has been at best a partial success. Herewith, the good, the bad, and the ugly of LD’s inaugural season.
The Good
In Tendi and Rutherford, the show has given us two delightful characters. Show-runner Mike McMahan has stated that Tendi is pretty much the stand-in for how he himself would act if he were assigned to a Starfleet ship. And her boundless enthusiasm is infectious—as is Rutherford’s. The cyborg engineer is your prototypical engineer, one who takes joy in tinkering and futzing with equipment and such. He’s what you imagine Scotty or O’Brien or Tucker were like when they first joined Starfleet. Both characters are fabulous and, if anything, should be getting more screen time.
Also, the plots involving Tendi and Rutherford have on the whole been the best parts of any given episode, whether it’s Rutherford’s date that continues unabated while the Cerritos is undergoing a zombie apocalypse, or Tendi trying so hard to help a crewmember ascend to a higher plane of existence after she screwed up his ritual with her enthusiasm, or Rutherford’s ill-fated creation of Badgey (which is one of the greatest creations in 54 years of Star Trek), or Tendi’s lengthy rant about racial stereotyping of Orions, or both of them nerding out over the top-of-the-line Vancouver, or both of their missions related to the rescue of Magistrate Clar.
Commander Ransom is a hilarious send-up of the square-jawed white male hero who dives in and gets his shirt ripped off, embodied on previous Treks by Kirk, Riker, and Paris, not to mention by Commander Peter Quincy Taggart on Galaxy Quest. Jerry O’Connell absolutely nails the role, too.
More than any other Trek show, LD embraces the fact that life in Starfleet is damn crazy. Individually, each mission is pretty weird, but the cumulative effect of watching Kirk’s Enterprise, Picard’s Enterprise, Deep Space 9, Voyager, Archer’s Enterprise, Discovery, and, now, the Cerritos (with Pike’s Enterprise on deck) all having batshit crazy missions is that there’s a lot of wacky in Starfleet, and LD has embraced it to a hilarious degree.
On top of that, the satire of Trek movies in “Crisis Point” is absolutely spot-on, and provided some of the funniest moments in the season.
The U.S.S. Titan showed up twice, and in its second appearance, we also got her captain and his wife, with Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis adding to their huge pile of appearances as Riker and Troi by providing the voices for their iconic characters. Best of all, the design of Titan was the one created by Sean Tourangeau for the Star Trek: Titan novel series that Simon & Schuster has been publishing since 2005. Also points for getting John deLancie back to voice Q, and also hiring Trek veterans J.G. Hertzler and Kurtwood Smith, as well as Phil LaMarr, Jess Harnell, Kevin Michael Richardson, Jessica McKenna, Haley Joel Osment, Gillian Jacobs, Tim Robinson, Maurice LaMarche, Toks Olagundoye, Gary Cole, Paul F. Tompkins, and the great Kether Donohue to do various guest voices.
LD has served as a loving tribute to its predecessor: there are animated series references galore, from a Vendorian to what may or may not be a Skorr to a mention of the giant clone of Spock to a picture of Kirk and Spock that uses the animation from that series. Not to mention a Caitian in the main cast and a guest appearance by a member of Arex’s species.
Speaking of that Caitian, my favorite character in the show is the terminally obnoxious T’Ana, the chief medical officer, delightfully voiced by Gillian Vigman. We need more of her caustic wit in season two, please.
The Bad
My second-favorite character is Shaxs, the ultra-violent, uber-pissed off Bajoran chief of security, who sadly dies in the finale. For a show that has embraced light comedy and ridiculousness, shoehorning a tragedy into the final episode (which also had a ship being destroyed with all hands lost) is a tonal shift that doesn’t entirely work. Also, I will miss the hilarious Shaxs, bombastically voiced by veteran voiceover actor Fred Tatasciore.
One of the biggest problems with the show was mitigated by the finale, as the entire season was a litany of Boimler never getting what he wants and screwing up, not always due to any flaw of his own, but at the end of “No Small Parts,” he actually gets a promotion and a transfer to Titan. But still, the repetition of Boimler being on the receiving end of a shit sandwich grew tiresome, especially given the role Mariner played in it. (More on that in the next section.)
Also, the show kept indulging in not-very-funny teasers that had nothing to do with the rest of the episode, but they also dropped that by the halfway mark.
The show is only half an hour. While the one-hour Treks were often well served by having an A-plot and a B-plot (and sometimes a C-plot), a half-hour show can’t always accommodate two storylines, and all too often one or both got seriously shortchanged. The strongest episodes this season were the ones that only had one overarching plotline. This also helped make some of the surprise twists fall flat on their faces, as they didn’t have room to be adequately set up or be properly twisty. (“Much Ado About Boimler” was a particularly egregious example of this.)
Humor is subjective, and I’m the first to admit that, but I found that the show worked better when it just wrote funny stuff instead of writing stuff that was consciously trying to be funny. (As an example, Ransom’s “TOS” joke in “No Small Parts” was trying to be funny and wasn’t really.)
The number of references to past Trek grew wearying as the season wore on, especially since the references were almost entirely limited to TOS and TNG. It made it feel like we weren’t watching the Star Trek universe so much as we were watching people cosplaying the Star Trek universe.
The Ugly
The lead character is this show is completely unlikeable. Beckett Mariner is a fuckup and a slacker and a mean horrible person. She treats Boimler like crap, she treats her commission like a joke, and she should have been drummed out of Starfleet ages ago, and she only hasn’t due to nepotism, which is the most un-Star Trek thing ever. The self-revelation she got after her holodeck movie in “Crisis Point” should have led to a reformation of the character, but it looks instead like she’s now having her behavior enabled by Captain Freeman, instead of her mother trying to stop it.
Worse, the show is locked into the formula that Mariner is always right and Boimler is always on the wrong end of the stick, and they are completely wedded to that, even when it’s horrible. The worst example is in “Cupid’s Errant Arrow” where Mariner is so invested in the incredibly mean-spirited notion that Boimler can’t possibly have a girlfriend that she becomes obsessive on the subject, concocting numerous absurd conspiracy theories—one of which turns out to be absolutely right, in opposition to logic and common sense, in order to sledgehammer into this tiresome formula.
My biggest complaint about Mariner in “Second Contact” was that she should be Chris Knight from Real Genius and is instead Bluto Blutarsky from Animal House. Nine episodes later, I stand by that assertion. The backstory for Mariner as someone who used to be a Starfleet rock star who has instead become cynical and embittered by all the craziness she’s seen that she has just stopped giving a fuck has potential. But they express it by making her a screwup who actually endangers people’s lives, from drunkenly playing with a bat’leth to almost getting an away team killed due to forgetting an important piece of equipment.
I also have come to the end of this season with absolutely no handle on Captain Freeman as a character. Whatever the show’s other flaws, most of the characters are pretty well drawn, and I feel like I know Boimler, Mariner, Tendi, Rutherford, Shaxs, Billups, Ransom, and T’Ana. But Freeman’s personality keeps changing with the needs of the plot. Sometimes she’s a hardass, sometimes she’s understanding, sometimes she’s brilliant, sometimes she’s short-sighted and dumb, and so on. I like her best in exasperated mode, best seen in her dealings with the people of Mixtus III, the Betans, and the Anticans and Selay. I like her much less in oblivious mode, especially in “Second Contact” and “Temporal Edict.”
In general, the show can’t seem to make up its mind whether it’s a comedy in the Star Trek universe, a parody of Star Trek, or a 21st-century office comedy awkwardly transplanted onto a 24th-century Starfleet vessel. Either of the first two would be fine, though trying to do both simultaneously doesn’t always work very well. The third is consistently disastrous, from crewmembers talking about after-work drinks with chest-bumping and finger-pointing and general dudebro behavior to Mariner constantly calling Boimler a nerd derisively to talk of better replicators on the command deck to Freeman overworking the crew so they don’t pad their repair estimates to Tendi and Rutherford competing for the hip new tech that the Vancouver has and they don’t even though both ships have replicators.
The real question is what we’re in store for in season two: Will Boimler’s transfer have a good effect on his character? What effect will Rutherford’s loss of his cybernetic implants and concomitant amnesia have on him? Will Mariner stop being horrible? And how feeble will the contrivance to get Boimler back on the Cerritos be?
Keith R.A. DeCandido assures everyone that he will also be reviewing new episodes of Star Trek: Discovery starting this week with “That Hope is You.” Also you should be reading his Star Trek: Voyager Rewatch, which is currently in that show’s early fourth season.
I agree with all your points, but I would like to hone in on an issue that you didn’t point out (directly): The dialogue flies at warp speed.
I don’t know if this is a result of trying to shoehorn two plots into a single episode (A/B as you said), or an attempt to bring it closer to the Family Guy format, but it’s very hard for me as a viewer to get invested when it sounds like the actors are competing to finish their lines the fastest.
I stuck with it for 5 episodes, but gave up when there didn’t seem to be any character development. As you also said, Mariner is thoroughly unlikeable right now, and having her as the focus of the show doesn’t make me want to continue watching.
I will check out Season 2, because I liked all the other aspects, and am hoping to see improvement on the pacing and storytelling.
I don’t see the fast talking as an issue, but then, I’m from New York….. 🤣
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Hopefully the issues mentioned above are teething troubles, rather than systemic failures – what I’ve seen of the show makes me hope that (like THE NEXT GENERATION) it will learn the right lessons from its first season and go on to better & brighter things (quite frankly the creative possibilities inherent in a STAR TREK animated are too juicy for me to wish it anything but the Best).
Also, one would like to add that I really like the uniforms designed for this series – they’re delightfully colourful and rather snappy.
On a less serious note, Dahar Master Krad, just how badly do you want to see some Juicy Klingon drama in Season 2? (I’m personally keeping my fingers crossed for a ‘Klingon Opera’ scene that puts those Season 1 DISCO costumes to the use for which they were so clearly intended!*).
* “Man those costumes looked sharp – those actors must go through so many plasters!” “You have to wonder how the costume designers came up with those things” “They robbed a museum.”
– BEAT –
“Klingons take their opera Very Seriously..”
I will miss Shaxs, but wow, that was a heck of a way for him to go. Also, it solves the mystery of what happened to the Dominion fleet coming through the wormhole on DS9: when Shaxs arrived in the Celestial Temple, his reward for a life well lived was to punch an entire fleet of Jem’Hadar to death. (Which also probably counts as a good ending for the Jem’Hadar, by their lights).
“Loving parody”, as exemplified by Galaxy Quest, is such a good fit for Star Trek. It is really a bummer that LD missed the mark so much, because when it got it right it was great. My two favorites are Freeman with the moon negotiations, and Ransom with the giant arena fight. Both of those were funny because of the hoops they jumped through to live up to the Federation ideal, while recognizing how there were much more simple (and worse) options.
Finally, when it comes to references, I’m not impressed when someone name checks Spock. They have to be deeper references to be funny: give me a character who doesn’t use table salt because their great grandfather was one of the redshirts in The Man Trap. Or through time travel shenanigans, have a minor character be Mr. Atoz. Or even have a box of honey frosted tribble-os in the background. Just something more than “hey, remember Star Trek?”
Lastly finally, what’s up with the lack of love for DS9? Was there even a DS9 reference in the show?
@@@@@#5 BrianDolan
Lower Decks has a lot of potential. The first season started kind of shaky (as per post-TOS Star Trek tradition) and ended pretty solid. One limiting factor was the length of the show (about 25 minutes vs. 42) and the length of the season (10 episodes vs. 20-26). So in terms of total screen time the first season of Lower Decks is roughly equivalent to only 5 or 6 other episodes of Star Trek which doesn’t present a whole lot of opportunity for character development. Writing comedy is hard and Star Trek has high writing standards in general (and has to put up with the whims of the producers) so the writers seemed to do a pretty good job.
The biggest issue with Lower Decks is that it’s not for kids. Star Trek’s supposed to be a family show. How many times have you heard a fan say something along the lines of “I remember watching Star Trek when I was nine years old”. But how many parents would let their kids watch Lower Decks, much less Discovery and Picard?
Lower Decks has flaws, but they can be fixed which will hopefully occur during season two.
@7/Stevie: “So in terms of total screen time the first season of Lower Decks is roughly equivalent to only 5 or 6 other episodes of Star Trek which doesn’t present a whole lot of opportunity for character development.”
I think the faster pace of dialogue and events that some people have commented on is some compensation for that.
“The biggest issue with Lower Decks is that it’s not for kids.”
But the upcoming Nickelodeon animated series Star Trek: Prodigy will be for kids. We were told from the start that there’d be one animated show for adults and another for kids. So I don’t know why you think this is an issue. Not every show in a franchise has to have the same target audience. Look at Doctor Who, Torchwood, and The Sarah Jane Adventures, for instance. Or the family-friendly Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and its more adult Netflix series.
@BrianDolan,
Sorry, I haven’t watched Lower Decks so I assumed that what you described about Shaxs actually occurred in the show. My mistake.
Personally, I find it highly dubious that nepotism is anti-Starfleet given the sheer volume of nepotism we see in the shows. Examples: 1) Wesley Crusher, despite having no formal training as an officer, is made an “acting Ensign” on the Enterprise, mostly just because of Picard and Crusher’s prior relationship. And it isn’t just a bullshit title, we see multiple instances where he is given direct command over enlisted personnel (ex. “Pen Pals”), 2) Picard ignores MULTIPLE instances of direct insubordination from Dr. Crusher (a court-martial offense in any competent military force) that at least violate the Prime Directive and at worst directly threaten the entire Enterprise, ostensibly due to their past relationship. 3) Archer is made the captain of the NX-01, despite being dangerously incompetent and openly racist against Vulcans, for reasons which I must assume are entirely based on the fact that his father was the ship’s designer (and despite the fact that he fucking HIJACKED the experimental warp 2 ship). 4) Sisko ignores at least half a dozen instances of going AWOL by BOTH versions of Dax (one of whom did it in the middle of a goddamn war) because he used to be drinking buddies with a previous host. Seriously, the list goes on like that. If anything, it’s actually somewhat forgivable in Marriner’s case because it’s an animated cartoon we are not presumably meant to take seriously.
I would love a Star Trek that wasn’t for adults or for kids, but for different ages to watch together. I would love it even if I had to warn my kid when the gross kissing parts were coming up, or my husband had to warn us both when something gory or gooey was in the offing. We are currently watching Farscape together–although sometimes the dialogue is tricky–and we can watch Babylon 5 and the older Star Trek series in the same way.
This? Not a hope. Even when my husband watched it on his own and then fast forwarded to a scene that was not gross or lecherous so we could at least see what it was like, my son exclaimed indignantly, “That’s not Star Trek! Everybody’s either stupid or a jerk!”
I thought that the season hit more than it missed, especially on the back end. Beckett is in fact thoroughly unlikeable and I don’t like that kind of character in general. They may be trying for a Tony Stark jerk slowly grows a heart of gold angle, but even Tony as a full blown jerk is likeable and cool. Mariner is often flat out unlikable. Check their interaction with the soft spoken guy in their group. Tony pokes and prods Bruce, but also makes it clear that he respects him, thus the birth of the Science Bros. Beckett almost cuts off Brad’s knee with a Bat’leth while drunk. She has more redeeming moments like getting him back on the horse after Tulgana IV where she’d caused him to lose all of his confidence but that didn’t actually mark the end of her treating him like crap.
Another problem with Mariner is that for as many times as she was proven right, she didn’t get proven wrong. Nor did she have a moment where she began to respect the rules for their own sake. For instance, you don’t go to Talos, Why? Because the Talosians might trap you in an illusion forever. Don’t interfere in alien cultures, why? We don’t play God nor do we know the actual course a civilization should take. While her frustration with bureaucratic red tape is understandable, we didn’t get her being forced to acknowledge the other side.
Overall I agree with ED though, the show has a lot of potential and the fact that they could absolutely nail some of these episodes shows that they just need to find their true voice and get consistency going. Hopefully next season Boimler will come back with a beard.
@5/Brian Dolan
Aside from everyone’s favorite Bajoran Security Chief, in Much Ado about Boimler, Mariner’s horrific flashback showing why she doesn’t like perfect mates, took place at Deep Space 9.
@10/Santos L Harper
Wesley was made an acting ensign due to the fact that he had contributed to the ships mission including saving lives on multiple occasions and being made an acting ensign was preparatory for his entry into Starfleet Academy. Him being assigned to lead a science mission over commissioned officers was also a part of his studies, and likely a test and that decision wasn’t made by Picard it was signed off by him, it was suggested by Riker who was overseeing Wesley’s studies. He didn’t get to sit in the big chair or make command decisions. And if there was any undue influence it wasn’t Picard’s attraction to Beverly, it was his guilt over Jack Crusher dying on his watch.
Which instances of insubordination with Dr. Crusher are you referring? The one that sticks out is investigating Dr. Reyga’s murder where she was relieved and was packing her bags because she was about to be on her way out of Starfleet. Only the fact that she was right and Reyga was murdered was her job saved.
Archer was the one who cared the most about the NX Project because it was his father’s work, but he ALSO did the work to be a captain in Starfleet. And nepotism wasn’t at play when AG Robinson was selected to be the test pilot for NX Alpha and be the first human to break the warp 2 barrier. And yes he and Robinson hijacked the NX Beta, but that was because they weren’t going to sit by and let the Vulcans dictate the course of their warp development. They were also punished by being grounded for three months. As for him being racist there weren’t that many involved in the project that didn’t have resentment for Vulcans because they felt the Vulcans were only holding them back without any significant help. And the Vulcans were actively condescending in those days before the Kir’shara was found and the Romulan influence was rooted out. Archer also followed Robinson’s advice and took a Vulcan with him.
I don’t even remember the instances of Dax going AWOL though, you gotta be more specific. But Curzon wasn’t a drinking buddy, he was Ben’s mentor. The Spock to his Saavik…with more skirt chasing.
As for the direct case of Mariner though it seems like more than simple nepotism going on. Ramsey talked about Mariner like she was a modern Jim Kirk. It’s entirely possible that Mariner had a lot more pluses in her past than the negatives in her present. Starfleet is a lot more forgiving of officers than a straight military is because they need people capable of thinking outside of the box. Reg Barclay also would’ve been drummed out of the service. Also usually in nepotism the relationships are a known factor. Both of Mariner’s parents seem embarrassed at the prospect of anyone finding out about the relationship and want her shoved off on someone else. Freeman did admit that she was trying to protect her by keeping her on her ship, but she was also more than happy to ship her off to the Quito.
@8 ChristopherLBennett
The faster pace is also an aspect people seem to have issue with. So if the pace of the show slows, then it may not compensate for the shorter amount of screen time.
Good point. Maybe it’s just a preference for a show to be accessible on multiple levels to different audiences.
@13/Stevie: There are a lot of different Trek shows now, though. The value of having a large franchise is that different parts of it can cater to different tastes. It would kind of defeat the purpose if every part of it were the same. IDIC, y’know.
@14/ ChristopherLBennett
Agreed. Again, it’s just a personal preference for a show to be accessible to people of different generations similar to what Jenny Islander expressed in @11.
And to Jenny Islander: Your son is wise. The world needs more people like him!
The points made largely parallel my own thoughts, so I’ll avoid being needlessly repetitive. Its sort of been hit and miss for me but, to be fair, many of the issues I have with Lower Decks can be written off as first season wobbles. They showed more than once that they could do properly Star Trek-y stories and as things progressed there was definite improvements and they abandoned some things that didn’t work. They even realised that they kind of needed to do something to make Mariner more sympathetic. With the long lead in time of an animated show, they don’t really have that much ability to adjust as they go, so second season is when we’ll see if there’ll be real growth in this production. It certainly has the potential and I’ll give it my time again when season 2 rolls round.
But I’ll miss Shax. (“Let me shoot their work core. I have been very good this month”)
I also think that this, and Prodigy, are good signs for the franchise. They’re trying new approaches, broadening things, rather than clinging to a single approach. Won’t always work, but it offers the chance of showing the same universe from a different angle and opens the franchise to those who may never have given it a go.
@7 I have to confess I’m a bit tired of this excuse regarding this era of Star Trek, because it feels like a bit of a moving goal post. If the first season is bad, well, it’s the first season. If the second season is bad, well, actually they haven’t quite made up a full season relative to old star trek, so I’m sure the next season will be good.
At what point do you just admit the show isn’t very good?
It feels even worse in this era of Star Trek, because the whole ‘grow the beard in the second season’ thing with TNG era Star Trek feels like something that was more of an observation than a guide book. Shows simply don’t have the time to burn wasting a first or second season to figure out what they’re doing. It’s more troubling when you realize that other shows have managed to pull off this sort of stuff in similar seasonal time frames, and just deliver high all around quality episodes for all episodes of a season, even their first season.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re rarely perfect, but there’s something different from a show having teething pains like these other shows do, and what we’ve been seeing rather frequently in Star Trek of this era where the mistakes are almost fundamental in nature.
—
The biggest problem for me, with Lower Decks, is that I’m not wholly sure why I wouldn’t just pull up r/startrekgifs for this sort of humor. I simply don’t understand how this show is supposed to fit with anything. On the other hand, it also feels like the only modern Star Trek that actually cares about the IP, so there’s that, I suppose.
@12/Mr. D
1) Whether Wesley contributed to the ship or not is irrelevant. If the Captain of an aircraft carrier made the CMO’s 15 year old son the ship’s helmsmen, even if he was some kind of prodigy genius, he would almost certainly be dragged before a board of inquiry and stripped of command. Because regardless of technical skill, giving a teenager command authority in a context like that is incredibly stupid. And putting him in charge of other people’s lives as a “learning experience?” Even more stupid. Seriously, Picard and everyone who went along with that should have been stripped of rank and dishonorably discharged the moment Starfleet command heard about that.
2) Beverly Crusher disobeyed a direct order in “The High Ground” when, after a terrorist bombing, she refused Picard’s command to return to the ship. In any competent military, everyone is expected to instantly obey the legal orders of their superior, which she point-blank refused. This immediately led to her getting kidnapped and held hostage by terrorists and a series of events that got Picard taken hostage as well and the Enterprise nearly destroyed. As for Dr. Reyga, the fact that she was proven right should have been irrelevant. Regardless of intent or outcome, she disobeyed a direct order, violated the Prime Directive (something TNG Starfleet believes in enough to allow entire civilizations to to die) and hijacked the experimental shuttle. The fact she was right is meaningless in the same way that a vigilante shooting a person who had committed a crime (but had not been convicted of) would still be a murderer. In any sane society, she would have spent the remainder of her life in military prison. Instead, she is not punished for either instance of flagrant violations of military and civilian law, for reasons I must presume have EVERYTHING to do with her relationship with Picard (aka, nepotism).
3) You can quibble about motivations all you want, it doesn’t change the fact that he hijacked a government spacecraft which was probably worth more than literally any military project up to that point in human history. And his punishment was “getting grounded for three months?!” He committed an act of treason! He probably should have been dragged before a firing squad! The fact that he wasn’t can only be explained by either a) humans of the future being literally insane, or b) ALL the nepotism.
4) In the DS9 episode “Blood Oath,” Jadzia Dax departs the station without receiving leave from her commanding officer to carry out a murder over some vengeance oath Curzon swore. Though Sisko knows about it, he does not give her permission to leave (aka AWOL). Ezri Dax, in the final season of DS9 episode “Penumbra,” takes a runabout without permission and departs the station without leave to search for Worf (aka, hijacking and AWOL). And again, we can use whatever words we want to describe Sisko’s past relationship with Curzon, it does not change or excuse the fact that he ignored them committing court-martial level acts multiple times because of said relationship. AKA, nepotism.
Can’t really dispute anything you’ve said, krad. It is a mixed bag. I liked parts of it here and there, but seems to me a mediocre effort. In between passionate hate and passionate love is a shrug.
I liked the intro of Orions in Starfleet, though STO got there first earlier this year when they gave KDF aligned characters a female holographic Orion doctor for their crew, fully dressed. Also liked seeing a Caitian featured. Maybe next season we’ll see Ferasans. (No Kzinti please. Boo, hiss.)
The show excelled at action set pieces. Basically, the bookends for me were the initial D’Deridexes battling the Borg in the opening credits and the Luna class Titan flying into battle in the last episode. I have one of those in STO, though only flew it briefly while leveling one character. It’s considered a Science Reconnaissance Vessel. Can’t really run it in end content since it’s a lower tier ship and would get shredded in endgame content. Which actually fits pretty well as an opponent to Pakleds (who have joined the UFP in the 25th century, btw.)
As far as its intended audience, I’m not sure it’s for either adults or kids. Maybe it’s aimed at teenagers, maybe just teenage boys. My initial assessment was that it was juvenile and manic. That didn’t change much over the course of the season.
After the first 3 episodes, I waited to watch more. Mariner ruined those episodes for me. But it got better.
…Having watched the whole season, I just don’t know what we’re supposed to take away from this show. Now, I grew up with animated comedy(The Simpsons, Family Guy, etc.) and I’ve watched a whole bunch of Adult Swim (Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Harvey Birdman, Metalocalypse, Black Dynamite, etc.). Those shows, though imperfect, were funny, and were trying to say things, to varying degrees. Star Trek: Lower Decks just seems to have nothing relevant to say, particularly frustating with having Star Trek in its title. Worse, it’s just not that funny.
The principal lead of the show, as Krad said, is unlikable, and we still don’t know what drove Mariner to be openly insubordinate, rude, and obnoxious. Mariner could be a good officer and a good person, but she chooses not to because ??? We still don’t know.
Boimler.
If Rutherford and/or Tendi took the lead in episodes, it would have gone a long way toward breaking up the stale formula the season locked itself in.
On the plus side, Rutherford is pure of heart and should be protected, and he was, thanks to Shaxs’ sacrifice.
I liked Shaxs. Really gonna miss that big, angry Bajoran.
They could mitigate the callbacks, bizarrely only to TOS and TNG, by referencing events and ships and people we’ve never heard of.
First season-itis? I’d buy that if the show was actually building a consistent framework. That’s why I stuck it out with Discovery, despite struggling with that show initially.
I figure Mariner is the way she is because she, like all of Starfleet, was deeply traumatized by Wolf 359. Lots of friends killed or assimilated. Many of the fleet’s best mid-level officers gone. The only other character who had the trauma of that defeat explored in any depth was, IIRC, Sisko. And then the Dominion War came and wiped out another batch of promising officers! Starfleet, as a whole, must have taken decades to recover from those disasters. 40 years after the Dominion War there will be admirals who were deeply traumatized as ensigns still dealing with that.
Thank you for this review! I was having trouble putting my finger on why I really disliked this show. It’s Mariner and Boimler. Absolutely hate them. But I do like Tendi and Rutherford. I am a life long Trekkie but am not the intended audience for this show. I don’t like shows in the Rick and Morty style. I watched the whole season to support Star Trek on CBS, but I really hope they learn from all these reviews.
As I’ve mentioned in the individual episode reviews, I have no issues with the stuff you don’t like, krad. I thoroughly enjoyed this season, and it’s basically what I expected from the show. I think it’s achieving what it set out to do.
@5 – BrianDolan: That is an amazing headcanon about Shax’s afterlife, and I’m adopting it too.
@10 – Santos: Mostly yes to all that.
@13 – Stevie: No, “people” don’t have an issue with the fast pace. “Some people” do. I have absolutely no issue with, I find that it fits the show’s tone perfectly.
@24 – Terry D: Despite sharing a writer and some aesthetic elements, this show is nothing like Rick and Morty.
Fair review. Honestly, I really enjoyed it and look forward to more. More importantly, my kids loved it and it was Trek we could watch together while I drop tidbits of other Trek knowledge.
I liked that in the final episode, even though we see Boimler as the butt of a lot of jokes, Ransom acknowledges that his record is freakishly flawless and recommends him for promotion. I’m really looking forward to the Riker/Boimler relationship on the Titan in season 2. Some of the Mariner stuff was too over the top, but overall, I was fine with her and am hoping for more growth next season. For her, your milage may vary. Tendi and Rutherford are perfect. Give them more to do next season.
As for structure, by far the best episodes were the ones with a single story (especially the last three). A and B plots rarely work in a 25 minute show.
Now, can we get a quick appearance by Captain Boimler (played by Jack Quaid) in season 2 of Picard? Pretty please…
@53/Sunspear: On Orions in Starfleet, remember that the 2009 movie gave Uhura an Orion roommate (Rachel Nichols’s Gaila) at Starfleet Academy. And there were occasional Orion Starfleet characters in novels and comics before then, I think.
@19. Santos L Harper: I think you might be making the mistake of assuming that Starfleet’s institutional culture is identical to that of a 21st Century military service – a somewhat risky assumption, especially during the early period of the NEXT GENERATION era.
Firstly, it should be pointed out that it’s somewhat dangerous to assume that The Federation – with it’s truly prodigious mix of species, frequently with very different rates of physical & mental maturation – will look on the age of fifteen as automatically beneath the age of competence (it should also be noted that, during the Age of Sail from which STAR TREK has traditionally drawn so much inspiration, young men our generation would regard as boys were entrusted with full authority over subordinates twice or even three times their age).
Secondly, it seems clear that Starfleet values initiative over automatic subordination to legal orders – especially in officers obliged to serve a long, long way from any central authority and without easy access to replacements – a tendency that we’ve observed to have both positive and negative outcomes (I’d argue that Starfleet’s long list of crooked admirals are the logical outcome of favouring captains who prefer to operate on their own initiative as ‘Master after God’ and tend to have a long, long record of ‘thinking outside the box’).
Thirdly, strictly speaking Captain Sisko’s attitude to Dax could more properly be described as cronyism (given Dax is a close friend and not a relation), although the nature of Dax symbiote does make this a somewhat complicated issue.
This isn’t necessarily relevant to the discussion, but is a detail that nagged at me until one got it onto the screen & off my mind! (-;
In all fairness I do believe that your points are very reasonable, from the perspective of Modern Military discipline (as practiced on Sol III aka ‘Earth’), yet it seems important to restate and emphasise that Starfleet is NOT a modern military organisation – given that it exists between a century and three centuries in our future, not to mention in a Galaxy and a cultural milieu very, very different from our own.
It therefore seems not unreasonable that it’s standards will differ appreciably from those of our own age & culture.
@28/ED: It’s not even about future norms being different, it’s about this being television drama driven by characters and their relationships. I daresay any TV series set in a military organization will have similar instances of personal relationships and sentiment holding sway in situations where that would realistically be inappropriate or nepotistic. Or for that matter, a business organization or anything else. Real organizations try to weed out conflicts of interest, but fiction thrives on interpersonal and inner conflict.
And yes, any character who commits a misdeed that they’d normally get fired or court-martialed for is going to end up being forgiven, not because of nepotism or whatever, but because the actor is under contract and thus has to remain in the cast. How many times on DS9 did Quark commit a crime that should’ve gotten him jailed or banned from the station, but then got forgiven at the end because he helped out with the crisis of the week, or sometimes for no evident reason at all? It’s just dramatic license. In series fiction, you want to put the characters in conflict and threaten the status quo, but without actually changing the status quo unless it serves the story to do so. So if realistic rules or consequences would get in the way of the story, they get suspended.
@29. ChristopherLBennett: You’re quite right, old man; I have a bad habit of forgetting to consider ‘Doyleist’ explanations and focussing on the Watsonian …
I adore Mariner. She’s brilliant, comes through when it counts (example: the finale), and really screws up just enough that she won’t get promoted because she has zero interest in it. She loves being an ensign because it gives her way more freedom than she’d have in a higher rank. Even Captain Freeman acknowledges this. Which makes Freeman a good captain in the end, because she sees Mariner’s strengths and finally embraces them.
I also find it very disturbing that your character criticisms are geared solely towards the only two Black women on the show, especially considering how obnoxious Boimler is.
@31: I’m a black man, and I’ll tell you those criticisms are perfectly valid. Mariner and Freeman are the two characters whom it’s impossible to get a handle on, mainly because the show doesn’t know or, frustratingly, didn’t tell us. I can’t excuse idiocy in my main characters because they’re people of color; it’s for that reason I’d like them to be at least somewhat defined at the start. But no, Mariner remains loud, rude, and obnoxious, and Freeman…is basically whatever the plot calls for.
@CLB: the Orion girl in ST09 was there to show skin and it’s not the main timeline. As far as ancillary tie-in material? Shrug. I’ll stick with Tendi as a standard bearer for Orion feminism and representation. It’s only been five years…
Meanwhile, the LD showrunner had some things to say about possible season 2 elements, including this nugget while discussing Mariner’s sexuality and that Capt. Amina Ramsey was her ex from the academy:
“Every Starfleet officer is probably at the baseline bisexual, in a way.”
star-trek-lower-decks-season-2
@33/Sunspear: “the Orion girl in ST09 was there to show skin and it’s not the main timeline.”
So? Neither of those has anything to do with the fact that STO was not remotely the first to use the idea of an Orion in Starfleet.
“As far as ancillary tie-in material? Shrug.”
Uhhhhhh… Star Trek Online is also ancillary tie-in material, but you were willing to count it.
@31
It’s more disturbing the only two Black women on the show are so badly written. But that’s this era of Star Trek. Bad writing abounds.
@CLB: it seems you’re willfully overlooking the bit where I said fully dressed. Then you counter with an example that perpetuates the Orion slave girl stereotype, even if she’s in school (and in a different universe). Guess get back to me when you’ve actually seen this show and have seen what it establishes, not just arguing for it’s own sake. Context is for kings.
The tie-in stuff is too random and obscure. STO is prominent for me. So yeah, it’s more relevant.
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@36/Sunspear: I’m not talking about how Orions in Starfleet were portrayed, only whether. You said “STO got there first,” and I was simply clarifying that others got there even earlier. Aside from the 2009 movie and various tie-ins, there were Orions in the Imperial Starfleet in ENT: “In a Mirror, Darkly.” So it’s an idea that’s been around for decades in various forms. That’s the only point I wanted to make.
(Also, I have seen the first episode of LD, which was free on YouTube, and I quite enjoyed Tendi as a character.)
Quoth Sunspear: “The tie-in stuff is too random and obscure. STO is prominent for me. So yeah, it’s more relevant.”
The point is that STO is “tie-in stuff” also. There’s no difference between it and a novel or comic book in terms of its place in the franchise.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@16: I credit my husband for supporting me in keeping “edgy” (eyeroll) media out of the house while the kids were little. They got Studio Ghibli, Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, A Little Princess, Batman: The Animated Series and its cartoon universe, Star Trek live-action series, Babylon 5, and shoujo anime that had miles and miles of heart. Now they voluntarily choose stuff that could be classed as hopepunk and prefer narrative voices that don’t treat the protagonists or their supporting characters with contempt. I can’t get into most of what they read/watch these days, but the reviews are encouraging.
@krad: “The point is that STO is “tie-in stuff” also.”
Well, of course I know that. But as a consumer of the IP, I choose it’s relative importance to me. So a ranking system would go something like this:
Tendi is alpha canon. She’s the first legit mainline Starfleet officer. Kirk’s frolic buddy in ST09 is beta canon. STO is gamma. An obscure panel in a comic decades ago is probably delta canon. My knowledge of the novelverse is not comprehensive, so can’t even guess there.
Headcanon works its way in there somewhere. Something like Kzinti are zed/zero canon.
It’s purely subjective. Anyone enforcing a supposedly objective standard must have an official Badgey.
I can certainly agree with the idea that Starfleet Officers would be an open-minded lot by definition, though one would like to point out that this remark makes the somewhat unfair assumption that every Starfleet officer comes from a species that practices sexual reproduction (which, at least in the spin-off novels, is verifiably not the case – I remember one of the crew on USS Titan was a crystalline/mineral entity that apparently budded off parts of its anatomy that, given time, would grow into another member of its species).
It also bears pointing out that, even going only by basic anatomy (leaving out those elements of gender that are a purely social construct) there’s no guarantee a species will have only two sexes – I believe both THE NEXT GENERATION and ENTERPRISE introduced species that explicitly had three sexes.
Put another way, any statement that starts with “Every Starfleet officer…” will probably lead into a rule that has a multitude (possibly even an infinity) of exceptions to prove it.
@42/ED: “…this remark makes the somewhat unfair assumption that every Starfleet officer comes from a species that practices sexual reproduction…”
No it doesn’t, because McMahan was talking about relationships, not reproduction. From context, what he meant by “at the baseline bisexual, in a way” was that Starfleet selects for people who are curious and open to new possibilities, and that this would presumably apply to their personal lives as well. I figure it’s like something a friend of mine once said back in college, that she didn’t believe in ruling out the possibility of a relationship with someone just because of their gender. So the whole point is that they don’t let biological definitions or reproduction-based assumptions preclude potential relationships.
Although you have a point that “bisexual” is a questionable word choice because different species might have more or fewer than two sexes. Perhaps “pansexual” or “panromantic” would be a better term.
For me, I agreed with KRAD’s review almost word-for-word, until the section about Mariner.
I LOVED Mariner.
What can I say? I’m a simple man. The show is a comedy, and she made me laugh. That’s all I need.
Now Boimler? The show could drop him entirely and I’d never miss him. More Tendy and Rutherford instead, please.
I have to admit, I haven’t watched the last episode or two, having drifted away from the show. Oh, I wanted to support it, I wanted to like it, but the second has to happen before the first.
I found Mariner to be, as others have said, obnoxious. More than that, loud, angry and shouty. I don’t watch shows that are obnoxious, angry, loud and shouty .. I don’t need to add anyone else’s anger to my day. Real, scripted live character, or cartoon.
Boimler was annoying and while he could have been okay, Mariner pushed buttons and circumstances where the character reacted predictably. It also got to be more wearing than enjoyable.
I really wanted for these four to have some oversight … a boss to please. In no person’s Star Trek would a parent have direct command over a child. Captain Freeman allows Mariner to thumb her nose at her authority in front of other crew. Given her badass authoritarian hold on the rest of the ship, it’s surprising that an ensign would remain on-board, after some of the antics Mariner pulled.
I cheered for Mariner at the start as a smart-talking character, thinking she would rep women of color with zealousness, if not integrity. Somewhere along the way, in my mind, she lost the richness of character and color and just became ‘that angry delinquent.’
@32, and Freeman…is basically whatever the plot calls for. Freeman is not the first female captain to be so afflicted. Janeway had much the same problem.
I don’t get your hate-on for Mariner. Her and Boimler’s pairing is Sitcom 101: the savvy, overbearing alpha and the neurotic, self-sabotaging beta. They both complicate each other’s lives in pretty expected sitcom ways. And I think they both evolve over the course of the show. And Tammy Newsome’s voice-acting for her is excellent. I agree with a poster above that I would miss her way more than I would ever miss Boimler; of the two cliches, he is far less palatable.
As a friend put it, “I’d say [Mariner’s] personality is “the only sane person in a crazy world.” She’s genre savvy in a universe that has very strange and arbitrary rules. It would be hard not to be her if you knew what was going on.”
… you had me at “Fred Tatasciore.”
This is the only STAR TREK show I can get my 25-year-old son to watch, I think because the producer’s a former RICK & MORTY guy. I have to explain some of the references to him.
I do wish the dialogue would slow down just a bit. I miss some of the references to earlier TREK because it goes by so fast. And I would like fewer exclamations of “Dude!” or calling someone a nerd. Seems too 21st Century to me, which is one of my objections to THE ORVILLE. But overall, I think this show has been the best in tapping into TREK’s comic potential since TOS, and I’m looking forward to the next season.
Did anyone notice that zombie apocalypse show parodied vomit zombies of the Expanse first books (not the show which sanitized that part of it)?
I enjoyed it, but I have to agree with you on Mariner. I would love for them to write her more as a Chris Knight than a Bluto that somehow ends up being right more often than not. Make her more clever, less mean. More mischievous. less insubordinate.
Coming in late-ish:
Of all the legitimate issues raised both in KRAD’s essay and the ensuing comments, the one that I think has been least well articulated is the matter of what’s been described as rapid-fire dialogue. This is, I think, more significant than it’s been made to appear; let me see if I can explain why.
Here’s the thing: it’s not just the dialogue that matters here, it’s the viewer’s ability to hear and process that dialogue. And Lower Decks isn’t just fast-paced vocally; the visuals are often crowded with high-intensity detail, and the balance between dialogue, music, and ambient background noise isn’t always well maintained. It is, in short, visually and aurally busy, sometimes to the point of being seriously cluttered.
If you have good to excellent hearing, no visual impairments, and aren’t somewhere on the spectrum of folks with neural issues that affect information-processing abilities (I’m deliberately phrasing that as broadly as I possibly can), well and good. But add in any one of those sensory limitations, and the show’s busy can become a muddle; add in more than one, and it may become downright impossible to follow.
Personally, I’m on the outermost edges of the range where this becomes an issue – my hearing is not as sensitive as it once was (age will do this, evidently). But it’s enough that I’d appreciate the ability to stream these episodes at,say, 90% of normal speed so that I can better follow the dialogue and the sight gags at the same time. And the sense that I get from the comments is that I’m not alone in having this kind of issue.
Looking at it from a wider angle: in an era where we’re finding more and more ways in which people can diverge from what we think of as “neurotypical”, I think it’s especially important that the Star Trek franchise should be as accessible as possible to people across the neural spectrum. Yes, there are a lot of things that are possible – and/or more prevalent – in animation than they are in live-action TV. But animation producers also need to be cognizant of their audiences – both the established (and thereby graying) fans who grew up on live-action Kirk and Spock, and the new generation of viewers that we old(er) farts are trying to lure into the franchise. And that means making shows that won’t leave viewers behind purely because some of us have to work a little harder to keep up with what’s happening onscreen.
I’d rather the streaming platforms gave you the ability to slow down the playback than to straight up change the way the show is produced. I am all for adaptations for all people, but I’d rather not have to hear audio descriptions (for example) if I don’t have to.
Is there a reason why the first seven episode posts for Lower Decks are closed for comments? I finally got an All Access subscription and have started watching, but I can’t post my thoughts.
Re: closed comments; in an effort to lighten the workload of the site’s moderators (particularly in terms of spam), comments on most articles on the site close automatically after 30 days. Most ongoing rereads, rewatches, and series are exceptions, but TV reviews/recaps of new shows are not. We understand that might not be ideal for some viewers, but you can still leave comments on the more recent episodes or on the season overview. Thanks.
Well, then, I guess I’ll have to post my thoughts on the episodes here as I go through them.
I’ve already commented on “Second Contact,” so I’ll start with “Envoys.” It was pretty good. It’s nice to see them getting humor out of the positivity of Starfleet characters — Mariner seeming to mess up Boimler’s mission but turning out to be trying to support him and build his confidence, Rutherford fearing that the crew will be offended by his transfers but having them encourage him instead.
I liked seeing a planet with different cultural zones coexisting. Already this silly cartoon spoof has portrayed Federation culture more realistically than any of its predecessors, as a society with different member cultures interacting in one place rather than being segregated into stereotyped planets of hats. Okay, I guess it wasn’t a Federation world per se, but it’s a good portrait of the kind of cultural blending you’d see in a multispecies civilization.
It had more crude humor than I prefer, but otherwise my main issue is that I have a hard time believing Rutherford would be allowed to transfer departments multiple times in a single day.
Oh, one more thought on “Envoys”: I don’t like it that Mariner’s plan at the end relied on Boimler buying into blanket racial stereotypes about Ferengi. Federation/Ferengi relations should be past that now. But on the other hand, a Ferengi who sounds like Tom Kenny doing Peter Lorre? Priceless.
Also, I was expecting more than that brief glimpse of the Vendorian. I’ve been waiting 47 years to see another Vendorian, and that’s all I get? Except… if they were there all along… how would I know???
@32, Janeway was consistent in laser (phaser?) focus on the welfare of her ship and crew. Freeman could be incompetent, compassionate, self-absorbed, competent…all over the place. Depending of the plot of the episode.
“Temporal Edict”: Not as good as the first two. The crew falling apart due to the lack of “buffer time” was too exaggerated, as was their continued adherence to the schedule while being invaded. The alien culture was also too caricatured and one-dimensional. I don’t mind humor, but a comedy within Trek canon should still have some degree of plausibility. Still, the character stuff with Ransom and Mariner was pretty good. It’s interesting how Ransom is a macho tough guy but also very dedicated to Starfleet’s peaceful principles. And amusing how his unarmed combat technique relied almost entirely on the two-handed Kirk chop.
I also found Boimler too caricatured here, with his revulsion at having a rule about bending the rules named after him when he loves following the rules. They literally had him say that in about as many words, and that was just too on-the-nose.
“Moist Vessel”: I quite liked the sci-fi plot about towing the terraforming ship and stopping the terraforming substance (which I thought of as “Genesis Goo”) from destroying the ships. It succeeded at the show’s stated goal of having the comedy stuff happen against the background of stories that feel like real Trek.
I wasn’t so fond of Freeman trying to trick Mariner into requesting a transfer. That seemed juvenile and unprofessional. But there was some decent stuff with the mother-daughter bickering in the climax — again a bit exaggerated, but it felt genuine. And I like it — in both episodes — that Mariner’s the one who really knows what she’s doing and finds solutions when the chips are down, in a particularly Trekkish, technobabbly way here. It helps make up for her bad behavior at other times, and helps explain why she hasn’t been drummed out for it. She’s just too good to get rid of entirely, even if you want her to be on some other ship.
The ascension subplot was kind of a cute take on the old sci-fi trope, even if it feels closer to Stargate‘s take on ascended beings than Trek’s. I don’t buy that it’s actually possible for an ordinary human to achieve ascension just by finding spiritual enlightenment, but O’Connor was covered in the terraforming goo just before he ascended, so maybe that triggered his transformation, perhaps catalyzing some residual effect of some earlier ascension ritual he tried.
On the bit we debated in the episode thread about the officers’ replicators getting better stuff, it’s pretty clear that that difference only exists in Boimler’s mind. Mariner tells him outright that it’s the same food the lower deckers get, and the rest is just playing along with Boimler’s fantasy.
General observation: It struck me belatedly that the science uniforms have white boots while the other two divisions have black boots (all with department-color soles). What gives there?
“Cupid’s Errant Arrow”: I thought this was a fairly good one. I really disagree with Keith’s interpretation in his review. I don’t believe Mariner’s mistrust of Barb was just about believing Boimler couldn’t attract a woman; she ribbed him about that, but that was just her usual teasing. It seemed clear to me that she was badly traumatized by seeing her best friend on the Quito murdered in front of her by a shapeshifter, and that she was essentially the one responsible for getting her friend killed by spooking the shapeshifter into revealing herself. That’s not a “sop,” it’s a profound guilt trip. She panics over Boimler because she’s terrified of losing another friend the same way and is determined not to be responsible for letting it happen again. It’s more PTSD than anything else. This is where we start to see how much pain and trauma underlies Mariner’s erratic behavior.
As for the Cerritos not having the T-88s, I can buy that a prototype design might be tested out on one of the newer frontline ships before getting distributed more widely through the fleet. There’s no material scarcity, it’s all just replicator patterns, but there’s undoubtedly bureaucracy and paperwork that has to be gone through before the fleetwide distribution of a new design is approved — much like how we authors have to wait weeks or months for our contracts or payments to work their way through a chain of approvals. And it’s a minor transgression for Tendi and Rutherford to steal some, since more can always be replicated.
The C plot about the exploding moon was fun too. People letting petty politics or greed or denialism get in the way of solving an imminent threat to their planet’s survival is depressingly plausible and familiar.
“Terminal Provocations”: This is another one where I disagree with Keith. The Fletcher plot worked pretty well. He didn’t inexplicably change personality; we just discovered that his cool, diplomatic, crisis-defusing persona was a cover for his real insecurities and corner-cutting. Like other characters in this show, he was projecting a persona to get people to like him. I also liked the idea of someone who learned the wrong lessons from Mariner’s rulebreaking and took it too far, which showed by contrast that she’s still Starfleet at the core and cares that she is. It reminds me of an old DC Trek comic, the last and best issue of Mike Carlin’s brief run as its writer, where a young captain learned the wrong lessons from Kirk’s reputation for bending the rules and went totally rogue, with Kirk having to stop him and confront the impact of that reputation.
I found it implausible that the malfunctioning processing core was able to come alive like that, but I guess they laid the groundwork by establishing that it was an advanced self-repairing system, thus capable of modifying itself and having a degree of built-in artificial intelligence. And hey, we’re farther forward in the timeline than TNG/DS9/VGR, so it makes sense that the tech has advanced. Still, it shouldn’t be that easy to repurpose connector cables into tentacles.
Not much to say about the holodeck/Badgey subplot, except that you’d think that in the 16 years since “The Big Goodbye,” they’d have hardened holodecks against malfunctions caused by alien interference. Also, it looks like Rutherford is starting to fall for Tendi. Well, she is an Orion woman.
I liked Freeman’s commitment to finding a peaceful resolution, except for the part where she jumped right from “We must avoid conflict” to “Target their warp core” without trying less violent intermediate steps like disabling their shields and propulsion. They sacrificed credibility there for the sake of giving Shaxs a punch line.
“Much Ado About Boimler”: Fairly good, but with some credibility issues. The whole “Chain of Command” riff with the command crew being sent on a secret mission was implausible there and just as implausible here. I guess poking fun at that was the point, but still, it’s hard to buy.
I agree with Keith that Mariner’s deliberate screwups to avoid a promotion felt kind of forced and overdone. But I stand by what I said about the Division 14 subplot basically working; it was plausible that the “freaks” would have a hard time trusting Starfleet’s benevolence; their situation would have made them afraid, and that fear would lead them to imagine the worst. And I like the counter-deconstruction of sinister/dark deconstructions of Starfleet benevolence like Section 31. However, I think they went overboard with some of the “freak” designs, another case of bending credibility too far for the sake of a gag.
Speaking of which, I don’t think transporters have ever been connected to “phasing” before, and they shouldn’t really make it possible for someone to be intact and materialized yet still out of phase. But then, maybe Rutherford’s upgrade uses some kind of phasing process to boost the speed.
So nobody has any reaction to my thoughts on Lower Decks? I was hoping not to miss out completely on the conversation.
One more thought occurred to me: In “Much Ado…,” Tendi created an apparently sentient biosynthetic canine as a hobby in her spare time. How brilliant is she?
Meanwhile, Rutherford created the fairly intelligent-seeming hologram Badgey. Plus we had an exocomp AI in Starfleet, Peanut Hamper. That’s quite a burst of progress in AI development. I guess that’s going to be nipped in the bud in about four and a half years when AI research is outlawed after the Mars attack.
Another thought: If Dr. T’Ana is Caitian, where’s her tail? M’Ress had a tail. But then, M’Ress was designed as a humanoid lion (I’d say lioness, but she had a mane), while T’Ana looks more like a scruffy alleycat. The Caitian officers in the background in The Voyage Home were sort of in between. Could there be more than one subspecies of Caitian? Are there Manx Caitians? Or maybe T’Ana lost her tail in an accident. Or maybe she just tucks it under her uniform.
Nice that you are enjoying LD, Chris. I’m betting we’ll find out about T’Ana’s tail in a future episode.
T’Ana did just strike me as a felinoid species, not specifically Caitian. She’s more scruffy than Caitians seen previously. And for Lower Decks, a short clip, so to speak, about T’Ana’s tail would fit right in, yes.
I’m curious what you will make of the season overall, CLB, because I still don’t know. It’s an animated comedy, blah blah, but it has Star Trek in its title.
@63/Dante: The showrunner has confirmed in interviews that T’Ana is meant to be a Caitian. The species name hasn’t been spoken onscreen yet, but then, it never has. M’Ress’s species was never named in the actual episodes either.
Overall, of the three current Trek series, Lower Decks is the one I’m least ambivalent about. It feels like a real Star Trek series — albeit one crossed with Futurama, which isn’t a bad thing. It has its excesses, and some of its attempts are less successful than others, but that’s always the case. There’s a genuine respect for the universe and its principles. I am a little ambivalent about its use of continuity; sometimes it overindulges in winks to the audience and TOS/TNG references, but it’s also done better than just about any other series in picking up on minor background aliens and building on one-shot episode concepts, which enhances the feel of it being a cohesive universe.
Plus, as a lifelong TAS fan, I love it that the show is so full of TAS references — Caitians, Edosians, a Vendorian, a mention of the Phylosian Spock clone, the drone ships from “More Tribbles, More Troubles,” etc.
Just tries to hard to be edgy and funny and achieves neither. But visually the show brings happy memories of TNG, DS9 and voyager. Although I’m finding it hard to get through the first season, as the author stated the main characters are just unlikable and for the most part not funny.
While I don’t entirely agree with KRAD about which of these ten episodes worked and which didn’t, I do agree that it’s kind of a mess of a season. It sometimes felt like they were figuring out what kind of comedy they wanted to be as they went along, which isn’t terribly unusual for the first season of any show, but it was especially noticable after having seen how much better the show gets in future seasons. That being said, “Crisis Point” remains one of my favorite episodes, and while it wasn’t nearly as good, “No Small Parts” has been my favorite season finale of the streaming era so far during this rewatch.