It's been some time, but as the specter of a season 2 of Picard and a season 4 of Discovery looms, forebodingly in the near future, I thought I would take another look at what turned out to be a pleasant surprise last year... Star Trek Lower Decks.
To be completely transparent, I was not very optimistic when I first heard about this show. I just didn't see how a animated comedy could be good Star Trek. But as a fan, I was willing to watch the first few episodes and see how it went. The fact that I live in Canada and if you have CTV Sci-Fi as part of you general cable package, means it's free. So at least there is that.
So after the first episode I still wasn't sold. The episode was alright, but to be fair, I found the character of Ensign Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) was just a little bit manic and annoying. But otherwise not terrible. All the rest of the main characters: Ensign Brad Boimler (played by Jack Quaid), Ensign Tendi (Noël Wells) and Ensign Sam Rutherford (Eugene Cordero).
Each of them had their charm. Boimler was trying to be the perfect Starfleet officer. Rutherford just enjoyed everything about being an engineer and Tendi was the newcomer on the ship, wide eyed and eternally optimistic. The rest of the cast playing the senior officers seamed to be well thought out. The only one I wasn't really clicking with was Beckett. She was so over the top, going out of her way to push the boundaries and get away with something...seemed like there would be no way someone like that would end up in Starfleet, and even if they did they would be court marshaled. Semi-spoiler alert...there is a reason as to why she isn't...turns out her dad is an Admiral and her mom is the ships Captain.
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USS Cerritos
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| Star Trek Lower Decks Senior Staff |
But after a few episodes it all started to grow on me. the design of the ship, which at first was kind of meh, I started to like as I understood the type of ship it was supposed to be. An older engineering starship. A workhorse not meant to be pretty, but tough and reliable. The ships registry is even facing the rear of the ship (according to the show runner, Mike McMahan) because as an engineering/recovery ship she is often towing other starships with her tractor beams. I'm cool with that. And over the course of the series we get to see a few more starships. The USS Vancouver was a really cool design for instance.
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| USS Vancouver and USS Cerritos in orbit. |
Right of the starters block there were a lot of cool references. Not just cool, but deep cut nerd cool. from obscure Andorian weapons to a classic Romulan Bird of Prey to "Spock's helmet", you could tell that the people making this show were fans with a deep love of Star Trek. Even Mariner started to grow on me as you got to know her character arc and her history.
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| Riker and Troi |
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| USS Titan |
So when it was all said and done, I ended up really enjoying this series. It has a few flaws. It is after all still produced by "he who shall not be named" (Kurtzman). Although is seems clear he has little to do with it...as it's actually good. I look forward to a second season due out this August.
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| Crew of the Cerritos |
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| USS Cerritos MSD |
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| Mariner figuring out a mystery. Suliban to Salt Monster to Humpbacks |
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| Watch out for that Ferengi...although he seems nice and helpful. |
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| Don't listen to Landru! |
