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March 28, 2024, 10:06:03 AM

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Star Trek: Lower Decks

Started by Malcy, July 12, 2020, 07:07:21 PM

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KennyMonster

Just seen the first episode.

Do all new animations have to have characters  shouting their lines  quickly whilst waving their limbs around like they're on The Muppets?

Does it substitute for talent and quality or something?


Malcy

Quote from: KennyMonster on January 29, 2021, 11:05:47 PM
Just seen the first episode.

Do all new animations have to have characters  shouting their lines  quickly whilst waving their limbs around like they're on The Muppets?

Does it substitute for talent and quality or something?



It's all a bit hyper for the first few but it calms down. It's really unnecessary and very annoying. As if kids aren't hyper enough that they need to have hyper shit to watch as well. I wonder would it work better at .75 speed.

Malcy

This is back on Thursday and on Prime Video every Friday.

Loads of easter eggs and a few spoilers in the trailer from a couple of weeks back.

https://intl.startrek.com/videos/watch-star-trek-lower-decks-season-2-trailer

daf

I've only seen a few brief clips on youtube, but it looks like a lot of fun.

mothman

It kinda is. If the very idea of this show offends you, then there's not going to be much here for you. But (excepting The Orville) it's the closest thing we're ever going to get to a post-TNG/DS9/VOY show.

Alberon

I stalled with the series just a couple of episodes in, but I decided to try the first episode of the new season.

And it's... tolerable to slightly good. I doubt I'll ever be completely happy with it as I hated the Orville until they removed a lot of the attempts at silly humour, but I might watch some more.

Malcy

I rewatched the first series the other day. Enjoyed it still but the last 3 episodes are far better than the rest.

Good start to the new series. I always find myself scanning the background of scenes for Easter eggs. The Pakleds & Klingons have been added to the Borg battle in the titles. The theme tune is brilliant. A proper Star Trek theme. DSC & Picard's themes are shite.

Looking forward to the rest of the series. I think Prodigy will be airing quite soon after this finishes as well.

Malcy

Ep 2 was great. Big dead Spock lending a helping hand.

Ep 3 is called
Spoiler alert
We'll Always Have Tom Paris
[close]
which is a big giveaway to the guest star although already spoiled in the trailer!

mothman

It was a treasure-trove of references, people are still finding new ones. But at the same time, I rather want to ask "You done? Got it out of your system? Maybe start doing something new instead of continually harking back?" Of course, the next episode's title rather answers that question.

The Tom Riker thing has always fascinated me. It appears to suggest that either there is no such thing (in Trek) as a "soul" (the Vulcan katra notwithstanding), or it is wholly duplicatable by technological means.

Which brings me nicely to William Boimler.
Spoiler alert
I'm calling bullshit on this. It's a trick by the Pakleds or their as-yet-unknown sponsors. Of all the times and places for a unique transporter accident to re-occur, it happens in the presence of the previous victim? Who's therefore predisposed to feel sympathy and maybe not question it too much?

Plus the divergence between the two Boimlers is immediate and pronounced. Will and Tom were different by virtue of eight years of wildly divergent experiences. Within minutes, one Boimler is acting in a way completely different to how the single source Boimler was shortly before.

And sending one back to where he came, demoted? That makes no sense. Tom was a Lt. and stayed one and got a new posting at that grade. Both Boimlers were still Lt. jgs and should stay as that. It's a blatant and clumsy attempt to return to the series concept's status quo.
[close]

Mobbd

Quote from: mothman on August 24, 2021, 11:04:36 AM
It was a treasure-trove of references, people are still finding new ones. But at the same time, I rather want to ask "You done? Got it out of your system? Maybe start doing something new instead of continually harking back?" Of course, the next episode's title rather answers that question.

Star Trek: Reference. Star Trek: Wallowing in Our own Crap. How can they be so intensely in thrall to the lore (not that one) of classic Trek while the other new CBS shows are so intensely contemptuous of it? It's the two main fanfic problems but there's millions of dollars involved. It's so strange.

The only Lower Decks I've seen (curiosity got the best of me) is the opening titles and a clip on YouTube of an encounter with Pakleds. The Pakled weapons seem to physically/mechanically assault the LD gang's ship rather than the usual laser/photon-type weapons (wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a joke or not) and at one point a character paraphrases Riker's "They're carving us up like a roast" from Q Who. They replaced "roast" with "salmon" or something. Again, I wasn't sure if it was a joke as such but it gave me a bit of a cringe.

Why is it called Lower Decks anyway? What I saw just seemed to be a bridge crew.

I'll say one thing: it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It seemed to be tonally a bit truer to Star Trek than the other new CBS shows and it wasn't overly manic/hypercharged/shrill like Rick and Morty in the way I'd assumed/dreaded it would be.

mothman

Don't get me wrong,[nb]Though the above bit you quoted, and the Chief O'Brien gag I ranted about a few pages/months back, might give a different impression.[/nb] I do enjoy it, but sometimes all the in-jokes are a bit much.

Mobbd

Quote from: mothman on August 24, 2021, 12:39:32 PM
Don't get me wrong,[nb]Though the above bit you quoted, and the Chief O'Brien gag I ranted about a few pages/months back, might give a different impression.[/nb] I do enjoy it, but sometimes all the in-jokes are a bit much.

That Chief O'Brien thing sent me spiraling! I wondered how any Family Guy-style cutaway gags can be canon? Are they? Who knows. And if they're not, then is the rest of it?

It's nitty gritty, I suppose, but I feel bad for those hardcore fans who wonder if the suddenly-visible labels on TOS bridge consoles post-remastering are canon. That kind of Talmudic scholarship is kinda lovely but not compatible with a show that contains scenes like the Chief O'Brien bit.

MojoJojo

On teleporter accidents.

Quote from: mothman on August 24, 2021, 11:04:36 AM
Which brings me nicely to William Boimler.
Spoiler alert
I'm calling bullshit on this. It's a trick by the Pakleds or their as-yet-unknown sponsors. Of all the times and places for a unique transporter accident to re-occur, it happens in the presence of the previous victim? Who's therefore predisposed to feel sympathy and maybe not question it too much?
[close]

That's setup in episode and isn't a coincidence.
Spoiler alert
they're talking about riker as he is their captain. Boimler is inspired by Riker's teleporter accident, and does something related to it to get them out, so it somehow making a clone when it goes a bit wrong makes sense. It's also implied that teleporter clones are a thing, and something similar happened to Kirk.

Although not teleported Boimler escaping is weird, along with instant personality change. I can't remember which Boimler it was (teleporter or escape pod) whose personality changed.

So yeah, maybe a trick.
[close]

mothman

Spoiler alert
The Kirk transporter cloning was in "The Enemy Within" and was more of a transporter splitting, with good and evil Kirks. Which could explain the divergence in the Boimlers' personalities. But if that's the way they're going then
[close]
FOR FUCK'S SAKE, again, TRY DOING SOMETHING THE FUCK NEW FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.

Spoiler alert
It just felt to me really weird and clunky that they'd mention that specific incident - Riker's transporter cloning - just before something similar happened. It's either very lazy writing, or a masterful fake-out. After all, HOW did the second Boimler escape so easily on that shuttle?
[close]

Malcy

Thought episode 3 was ok.

Would like to have seen a bit more of
Spoiler alert
Tom Paris
[close]
. Best laugh was him shouting
Spoiler alert
Kazon! When Boimler fell into the bridge with his wild hair.
[close]
.

I knew that
Spoiler alert
Shaxs was coming back somehow as he was just barely visible in the second trailer. Glad he's back as he was a big highlight of the first series.
[close]

Lighter on references this week but nice to know
Spoiler alert
Vic Fontaine has branched out. Quarks bar count - 3!
[close]

mothman

A diverting episode but when you start to think about it, familiar problems crop up.

Let's do the obvious one here. Why was Tom Paris in this? What did he bring? There was no character development for him, no sense of what he's been up to since VOY (!) returned home. He's even still the same rank. RDM these days is mainly a director for TV, hard to see what would attract him back to acting for a near-cameo (apart from getting in with the producers for the chance of directing DSC/PIC/SNW). It's like they thought of the episode title and then had to come up with a plot for it...

The Boimler story. Fine so far as it goes, I guess.

Rutherford/Shax. They were obviously trying to emulate the Sherlock death theories, and then not really explain how Shax is alive at all. But then they tried to be clever and make it all this "Bridge crew" (the "main cast") thing that the Ensigns aren't privy to. But in a really overdone way that doesn't match our (the viewers) perceptions of how/why the "heroes" always survive or return from the dead. The... Black Mountain or something? Fuck off. Maybe they are being really clever but I just don't see it...

Lastly, Mariner/Tendi. I like them exploring what it means to be an Orion in Starfleet. A welcome team up - the problem is, they massively lampshade that this is a pairing that's not been done before. It's another "explaining the Klingon Forehead Problem" ep. But it doesn't explain WHY they've never paired these two before. Could they not think of anything for them to do before that isn't all meta and "hey, let's put these two together, not tried that before?"

I'm starting to feel they're running out of ideas. Earlier upthread I posed a theory about the Boimler cloning. I'm now wondering if I'm giving them too much credit...

MojoJojo

I think Tom Paris was fine, he was a McGuffin for Boimler to get excited about. Has Tom Paris ever had any character development, beyond turning into a salamander?

The Mariner/Tendi was annoyingly Rick and Morty like. Thankfully it stopped. I didn't realise Orions were a thing but it didn't seem to matter much.

I think my main problem was that there were 3 plots, and only Mariner/Tendi really had any substance.

This gives the impression I didn't like it, but really it moves along quickly enough, and has enough gags, that these issues don't matter and its a fun watch.

petril

Quote from: MojoJojo on August 28, 2021, 11:08:30 AM
I think Tom Paris was fine, he was a McGuffin for Boimler to get excited about. Has Tom Paris ever had any character development, beyond turning into a salamander?

I suppose most of his character development was when they created Tom Paris instead of using Nick Locarno from that TNG episode

Mister Six

Quote from: mothman on August 27, 2021, 06:01:59 PMRDM these days is mainly a director for TV, hard to see what would attract him back to acting for a near-cameo (apart from getting in with the producers for the chance of directing DSC/PIC/SNW).

Getting an easy few grand for an afternoon's work during a pandemic that's shut down most/all live-action TV production?

Malcy

Saw a lot of negativity online about last weeks Mugato threesome and horn rubbing. To quote The Shat, "Get a life". It was an OK episode but this weeks was really good. All through the episode trying to place the voice of the Dooplers and then the credits rolled and Richard Kind's name came up!

Of course it was!

And
QuoteShelby made an appearance, now a captain.

It was just a really fun episode.

Ant Farm Keyboard

This season, so far, has been quite pleasant. I won't nitpick on details about the wider Star Trek lore, but they've managed to show in a better way Mariner's flaws, while she was too much of a badass in the first season. This way, the relationships between characters have been much more balanced.

Malcy

I didn't realise at the time but Okona was the DJ at the party. I wonder if he'll lose an eye in Prodigy and get the eye patch he had.

mothman

Has to be said, this week's episode was pretty good. Actual Star Trek. Trek references keep to a minimum, four distinct plot lines that rarely intersected but complemented each other. One review questioned the use of Armus, a murdering monster, as a punchline, but what the heck, anything that makes his eternal isolation worse is a bonus!

Malcy

Quote from: mothman on September 18, 2021, 02:06:02 AM
Has to be said, this week's episode was pretty good. Actual Star Trek. Trek references keep to a minimum, four distinct plot lines that rarely intersected but complemented each other. One review questioned the use of Armus, a murdering monster, as a punchline, but what the heck, anything that makes his eternal isolation worse is a bonus!

The ending with Armus was great I thought. I love that the show has chosen the Pakleds as the main villain, especially as they're mostly voiced by Rich Fulcher! Pakled Planet as the name of the home world was fitting. Stupid but dangerous!

Chairman Yang

This is actually pretty watchable when people aren't shouting or hitting each other.

Chairman Yang

OK, they've worked their way up to a chuckle with
Spoiler alert
the Pakled spy tumbling past the window
[close]
. Good job, show!

Fambo Number Mive

I really like the friendship between Boimler and Mariner and between Tendi and Rutherford. It's refreshing how the program doesn't have its main characters fall for each other and just focuses on their friendship.

Mr Trumpet

The bit at the end of the latest episode with the prank call made me properly laugh. I wouldn't say it's a show I can work up much enthusiasm for otherwise.

And the writers need to be told that just shoehorning the name of a famous Star Trek episode into dialogue isn't funny. I'm not sure it even qualifies as a joke.

Mobbd

Quote from: mothman on September 18, 2021, 02:06:02 AM
Has to be said, this week's episode was pretty good. Actual Star Trek. Trek references keep to a minimum, four distinct plot lines that rarely intersected but complemented each other. One review questioned the use of Armus, a murdering monster, as a punchline, but what the heck, anything that makes his eternal isolation worse is a bonus!

Guys! I did it! I overcame my reflex to throw up all over myself whenever new-Trek is on and watched an episode of Lower Decks. This one. Based on mothman and malky's positivity. Verdict:

Positive:

Amazingly, I was not offended as a Star Trek fan. I wouldn't go so far as saying "Actual Star Trek," but it certainly seems to have kinder thoughts toward the source material. It seems to know Star Trek in terms of what it's about and seems to have a good general encyclopedic knowledge of Trek bits and bobs.

Also amazingly, it was nowhere near as manic and shouty as I'd expected. Though it was still a bit shouty. Or maybe just 'keen'. But yeah, tonally more pleasant than I thought it would be.

Neutral [Zone]:

I like that the Pakleds are a lead villain in this show, but I don't love Fulcher's voice for them. I'd have thought I would have liked it and would have loved the news that he'd been cast, but it sounds like he's really phoning it in to me. Just a generic thicko voice. Could be better. Fun idea though. The "big helmet" stuff pales in comparison to his chosen one/"I'm a big 'un" stuff in The Mighty Boosh. This is probably an unfair comparison but I felt sad to hear Fulcher's voice with so little mischief in it. It probably tells us something about the production side of this show: it wasn't made in a creative atmosphere of joy; it's just professionals doing what they've been told to do by other professionals. Which is fine, I guess. But hard to get excited about. Neutral.

I thought I would hate the animation style but I didn't. I can't say I loved the digital sliding around of the starships or the slightly dead-eyed (okay, wide-eyed) character designs, but it was nowhere near as as bad as I'd grumpily imagined and I can accept that this is just the style of the moment. I like the queerness of the haircuts and that.

I didn't understand the main characters, but to be fair I was only coming into this series at a very random episode and hadn't been watching since the beginning. I got that the green Orion girl is a "keener" and that's the joke there (same joke as Tilly on Disco, I think, but I'm not an expert on either show). I didn't know what the other characters were about; they just struck me as line-delivery machines. Nobody struck me as having a recognisable silhouette or a particular thing going on. I can't be too harsh here because I have only seen one episode.

Negative:

I'm sorry, but it just wasn't funny. At all. The one slight raising of the corners of my mouth came from this very moment:

Quote from: Chairman Yang on September 21, 2021, 09:07:31 PM
OK, they've worked their way up to a chuckle with
Spoiler alert
the Pakled spy tumbling past the window
[close]
. Good job, show!

The timing of that moment was funny. Everything else about that
Spoiler alert
Pakled mistaking an airlock for a toilet was exceptionally weak sauce
[close]
.

Quite often, I was unsure if a joke was supposed to be a joke at all. Turning into a giant scorpion might be a joke if it's unusual in the world of the show but it's not particularly unusual in Star Trek; people get transformed into weird shit all the time and it's usually played for mystery or horror. I'm honestly not sure if it was supposed to be a joke or not. The music and attitude suggested it was a joke, but I honestly couldn't tell where the funny was supposed to be. Does that character have a particular relationship with scorpions or something, like Anya in Buffy with rabbits? Or was it really just completely hollow and not about anything?

They don't seem to understand juxtaposition. It can never be inherently funny that someone is incompetent or low-level if everyone else around them is incompetent or low-level too. Rimmer and Lister being chicken soup machine repairmen on Red Dwarf is funny because (a) it's an unlikely focus for a sci-fi show, and (b) they are surrounded by competent officers who know their stuff. Our central characters on Lower Decks are supposed to be junior and/or inexpert or silly compared to the upper-decks A-team on the bridge, but those characters seem to be useless and silly too. I think the USS Cerritos is supposed to be a shitty ship compared to the Enterprise, right? But then that should be the juxtapositional joke rather than the lower decks/upper decks divide, I would think. And just call it Star Trek: Cerritos, no? A show about one of the ships you don't usually hear about in the mainline/flagship Trek shows. If you want it to be about a lower decks crew, set it on the Enterprise or the Discovery. This all just smacks of too many cooks and not enough of a vision.

I can't see how it's intended for adults at all. The tone is like a kid's show. Nothing wrong with kid's shows but this is specifically sold as an adult animated comedy. We know what those are like because we watch The Simpsons and Futurama and Family Guy and Bob's Burgers and all the rest of them. Yes Lower Decks is a different show to those and can do its own thing but those examples are all different to each other and doing their own thing too, only without leaving doubt about what sort of show it's supposed to be. What I saw of Lower Decks is far too tame and simple to be for adults. It really feels like it belongs on Nickelodeon (no shade on Nicktoons at all) and I can't imagine how Prodigy will be any more compatible for kids than this.

Conclusion!

I know I'm moaning a bit here, but it being unfunny or (inadvertently?) for kids are not overly troubling as problems go. Star Trek isn't supposed to be particularly funny (on its own terms) or grown-up, so the rot is not to the core like it is with Discovery and Picard. It is not grim or melodramatic or senseless or incoherent or hostile to the source material. So (after seeing just one episode, of course, which might be unfair) Lower Decks gets a C+ from me and places 10th in my Trek rank (beneath all classic series, beneath the Kelvin films, above the rest of CBS Trek).

Burp!

Malcy

Yeah it wasn't hugely funny this week, more enjoyable than funny. It's worth watching it from the start. Especially the last 3 episodes of the first series which I thought were really strong. I'm just happy to have a new Trek show that isn't miserable!