Watching: Star Trek: Lower Decks S1-5

2020-2024, download

For some reason I was biased against this show when it first aired. More likely I was biased against the comedic stylings of the show, lumping it into the same category as many other prime time animated shows I don't care for, e.g. Bob's Burgers. But then Marmy started watching, and I walked in a few times, and I was amazed -- you see, she doesn't like Star Trek and will barely tolerate me watching it, let alone enjoying it herself. But at the same time this is a legit Star Trek show, it is also gently mocking everything, and it has a wonderful lampooning of all things Star Trek, particularly a focus on TNG.

What 100. It is chronologically happening just after the TNG series, and we are onboard the California-class starship Cerritos. Our main characters are not the bridge crew, like every other show, but the lower ranks crew from the "lower decks", as in literally the bottom of the ship, where they all live in bunk beds in a hallway, not cabins of their own. The ship's assignment is "second contact", after all the glorious work is done with, to get papers signed. Buuut, because they are a show they end up getting mixed up in ALL kinds of major events, usually blundering into them.

1 Great. For me, it was the callouts to all the Star Trek mythos: an ExoComp, from TNG episode where Data discovers utility robots have become sentient, who calls herself Peanut Hamper, Lt Dayshon, a Tamarian ("Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra"), assigned as Security Officer, Boimler gets a "transporter clone" who ends up playing a role all the way to the final episode, the crew uses a magical-techno doohickey to prank call Armus, the oil blob that killed Tasha Yar, apparently Mariner was in the academy with Wesley Crusher, Sito Jax and Nick Locarno and they even call out how much Locarno looks like Tom Paris, Ensign Olly who is descended from the Greek Gods who appeared in an Original Series episode, and of course, the opening credits to each show which depict a battle between The BORG and an continually increasing number of Star Trek villains/characters, including V'Ger, a Crystalline Entity and the Big Green Hand, from the aforementioned Greek Gods episode. The callouts are done both as fanservice and as continuity commentary on ALL Star Trek series, including the Animated Series.

1 Good. The Lower Decks crew we follow who include: Becky Mariner, a disruptive, insubordinate Ensign who has been kicked off a bunch of ships and ends up on the Ceritos, captained by her mother, but who is also the cliche "good at everything" typical Trek character; Bradward Boimler, who is basically a nerdy, Star Trek super-fan who probably would have been promoted long ago if he wasn't so annoying; D'Vana Tendi an Orion who prefers science over piracy, and Samanthan Rutherford, an ensign with a cyborg implant who also happens to be a great engineer. The show is really about friendship and the ties it creates, as the characters become close, sometimes romantically so sometimes not -- the tie between Mariner and Boimler is the strongest of any characters in the show and neither has any romantic interest in the other, usually eliciting an "ew" if brought up. All the characters get to grow, eventually becoming the bridge crew they spend so much of the series complaining about.

1 Bad. If I could say anything was bad about the series it was that it had to have the main characters end up being promoted up from The Lower Decks into "bridge crew" officer roles. I get that this has to happen in order for a series to progress, as you cannot spend entire season after season focusing on the elevator pitch for the show, but I felt it could have continued to explore the unexpected, unknown aspects of being on a Federation starship, instead of becoming "the Next Generation with humour" it evolves into.

Further META: The show ended after five seasons with some wacky "multiverse" hijinks that added to the whole "mirror universe" mythology which I really hope plays into OTHER Star Trek series, and considering they have already done a cross-over episode between it and Strange New Worlds (where they don't call out that Kirk is not TOS Kirk), there might be some fun to be had in future series.