Star Trek Lower Decks

Fero McPigletron

Feel the fear!
Citizen
Saw the third ep. There's no cold opening?

I'm disappointed that that's it for wadi. I wanted more but it was things we've seen before. Tendi did cool stuff, saw possible new regulars but that's it.
 

Copper Bezel

Revenge against God for the crime of Being.
Citizen
I appreciate that they included a ringworld in an episode featuring a Kzinti character, and I love the conceit of following up with the one utopia managed and provided for by an ancient machine superintelligence that's not secretly evil just to check and finding out that it's still not secretly evil. No Trek series ever before has done the episode where the ship visits a planet with a peaceful, happy society that is exactly what it seems, and the crew didn't even unintentionally or misguidedly blow it up to learn a lesson about themselves (I mean Captain Freeman did a little but not significantly in the end.)
 

Dake

Well-known member
Citizen
Honestly, I was a little surprised by Freeman just winging it because she "took a semester back at the Academy". It seems out of character for her.
 

Dekafox

Fabulously Foxy Dragon
Citizen
Honestly, I was a little surprised by Freeman just winging it because she "took a semester back at the Academy". It seems out of character for her.
Could be a hobby for her too that she usually doesn't get to indulge in, considering she didn't do too bad until the update hung. Very much had vibes of someone who knows some stuff wanting to get a chance to play with it since they don't normally get to do so.
 

Fero McPigletron

Feel the fear!
Citizen
New ep!

Sometimes Tendi is just too perfect, y'know? Other than Boimler (so far), it's like the Lower Deckers are predestined or have inherent greatness wired into them.

Loved the stabs, hahaha

Has that sorta cat ish alien type appeared before?

Edit - Holy cow, I realized they broke the pattern! This might be the key to the mystery!
 
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Dvandom

Well-known member
Citizen
Yeah, the stabbing was one of the best running gags ever.

I agree with the "destined for greatness" thing, but with a twist. Most of them are Refusing The Call and staying that way. They just wanna stay where they are being nerds about Starfleet stuff. They could be great, but they'd rather scan that cool subspace anomaly. Mariner is the exception among the core four, but her problem is that she's a TOS star in the post-TNG era, so her Call never seems to come. (T'lin was introduced last season as basically Vulcan Mariner, her Call ain't coming to any Vulcan ship.)

---Dave
 

Cybersnark

Well-known member
Citizen
Other than Boimler (so far), it's like the Lower Deckers are predestined or have inherent greatness wired into them.
I think it's less a Lower Decks thing than a Starfleet thing. Everybody in the fleet is an exceptional individual just by virtue of being there (if they weren't, they wouldn't have made it through the Academy, or even wanted to). That's the aspirational part of it; anyone can be special, and even the lowest Ensign might one day become Captain (and every good Captain remembers being an overworked Ensign).

And so far we've had two "imperious wife and easygoing husband" duos (on SNW and here). Rule of Comedy says there's a third coming, possibly in Discovery.
 

The Predaking

Administrator
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Loved the use of the holodeck to settle differences. However, the rest of the episode was just kind of meh to me. Oh well, they all can't be winners. the knife bit came almost straight from Scott Sterling, but was still good.

 

Copper Bezel

Revenge against God for the crime of Being.
Citizen
For me it wasn't a stand-out best kind of episode but it was above average. I've seen Jessie Gender's review of it, and she makes a good case for Tendi's story having some real meat as trans allegory. My personal high points were the Orion sex dungeon and seeing another Raven-type ship. Rutherford and Boimler being best buds now has the potential to be entertaining, but their plot and arc this episode was mostly just a bit goofy to me and didn't quite work, especially the bit where they dressed up the captains.

But the Orion side of the story, I felt like they were really fully utilizing the material (compared to, for instance, "Twovix", which was fun but felt like it left a lot of potential on the table.) It kicked ass seeing Tendi dominate the murder-bug drinking game, and I was sure that must have been some TNG thing I'd forgotten - it was nice for once to find out that no, it wasn't a reference I missed, the creators just put themselves in such a perfect TNG zone creating it that I couldn't tell the difference (I wonder if they got Okuda in on that table?) Hope it shows up again in Discovery or something.

And everyone talking about the episode has commented on it, but I love the line the episode walked with the Orions in general. TOS gave us sexy Orion slave girls, Enterprise told us that they like it that way and you're the one who's sexist for thinking otherwise actually, and Discovery showed us that when the galaxy descended into piracy and organized crime 700 years in the future, the Orions were ready for it and entered a golden age of crime. The Orions represent basically every lazy or problematic trope a Star Trek species can have (aside from explicit racial coding.) Lower Decks has taken that as a challenge from the beginning with Tendi, we had a great spin on it in the SNW crossover, and in this episode they finally took on the creation of the Orion homeworld itself. And somehow they just keep Tendi's "you know not all Orions are like that despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary" bit going, and somehow it never stops being funny. So for an episode that otherwise doesn't feel particularly momentous, that is kind of a final bossfight for one of the things the show's been doing.

I hope we never see a Raven-type that isn't crashed. Two data points so far but I have a hunch that's the unluckiest model ship in the galaxy.
 

Fero McPigletron

Feel the fear!
Citizen
Mariner is the exception among the core four, but her problem is that she's a TOS star in the post-TNG era, so her Call never seems to come.
I've just started on TOS so I'm not sure what a TOS hero is yet.

Orions do not have a race insignia? There was no floating debris during the attack this time. But the killer ship was the one defending itself.

It's another supposedly antagonistic race so others left would be Cardassians, Ferengi, Pakled, Breen, Borg, who else?

I'm going to assume that if the serial killer (?) isn't an evil AI, it's one of the godlike beings who are after peace, just disguising their abilities with a fake technology. And the Next Gen did discover that space worm baby that drain power from ships.
 

Dvandom

Well-known member
Citizen
The cliche of the ToS hero (if not always borne out by actual canon) is the loose cannon maverick who not only doesn't play by the Book, they toss the Book out the airlock and Get Stuff Done. The "cowboy" archetype that Kirk gets slapped on him at times. Picard was a deliberate contrast with that stereotype, the calm and collected diplomat who tried his damnedest to follow the regulations even if he kept ending up in situations where the regs didn't really work. (Never mind that Kirk was actually the bookworm nerd at the Academy and Picard was the pool shark who got knifed in a bar fight with Nausicaans.)

Boimler might not be "meant for greatness" in the same way Tendi or Rutherford, but he IS the scion of a wealthy (to the extent that means anything in a post-scarcity society) agricultural family, and if he'd been interested in lots of hot chicks wanting to jump his boims, the episode where he visits home demonstrates he could have had that.

---Dave
 

Fero McPigletron

Feel the fear!
Citizen
Jump his boims! Hahaha!

They gave Boimler two paths to greatness now, with William of Section 31 out and about too.

Haven't seen Kirk being a cowboy yet but I've seen 4 eps, including the cage and, holy cow, TOS is so sexist, geez!
 

Dake

Well-known member
Citizen
Uh... pretty bad.

I mean, Mad Men didn't make stuff up - the scary part is the number of people that watch it and wish it was still that way.
 

The Predaking

Administrator
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Jump his boims! Hahaha!

They gave Boimler two paths to greatness now, with William of Section 31 out and about too.

Haven't seen Kirk being a cowboy yet but I've seen 4 eps, including the cage and, holy cow, TOS is so sexist, geez!

TOS actually was quite progressive, especially once it gets passed the Cage and into the series proper.
 

Agent X

Kreon Bastard
Citizen
I liked this episode. The jokes were natural to the world and the characters and not a super-specific meta-note from Trek continuity (Mariner's line about "A starfleet captain being taken out by 3 Orion showgirls" aside).

This episode stood on it's own legs, not propped up against something else.
 


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