Do we all love Lower Decks because we don't take it seriously???

In the bizarre world of the M*A*S*H spinoffs, it gets weirder. Trapper John, MD is actually a spin-off of the movie, not the t.v. show, and there was some kind of lawsuit about it, but even more wierder, in the pilot there are references to the TV show anyway.

 

Right! The “this is based on the movie, not the TV” bit was more of a legal technicality than anything else. As you say, that the creators made it obvious as early as the pilot that they were using the show as a reference point.

 

There should have been a BJ Honeycutt spin-off series that had him riding his yellow motorcycle around solving problems like Then Came Bronson, with the occasional emergency appendectomy thrown in. It couldn't have done worse than W*A*L*T*E*R.

Back to the current subject of the thread, despite being a comedy the show an have very moving moments. As bad as a captain Freeman can be, and as much as she probably SHOULD be in some trouble for other things, I was actually upset and shocked for her character at the end of this season. If the same thing had happened to Archer at the end of season 2, I would have just shrugged.

 

After M*A*S*H is actually pretty fun.

 

Yes. Janeway's voice took some getting used to. Chakotay had a very pleasant and mellifluous baritone.

Point is, someone accused me of being not just a Janeway hater but a WOMAN hater because I said that Chakotay did some things better. Surprised the hell out of me because I actually like Captain Janeway a lot. Even her voice eventually grew on me.

 

Also: Lou Grant spinning off of The Mary Tyler Moore Show...

I love MASH, but never saw Aftermash, Trapper John MD or Walter...

 

Kate Mulgrew's voice is distinctive, certainly, but not unpleasant. She's read a number of audiobooks and they're all excellently performed. Surely though if there's a member of the Voyager cast whose voice could be described as a pleasant and mellifluous baritone it would be Robert Picardo rather than Robert Beltran...

 

... why? It's just a voice. It may be on the deeper side of the normal range for women, but that's the only thing that's distinctive about it. What's wrong with women having a deeper voice? Why would that make her an inferior captain?

What does that have to do with being a better captain?

To be frank, I have a hard time imagining how you could argue that a woman wouldn't be as good of a captain as a man because of her voice WITHOUT being misogynist. You seem to be saying that you object to deeper voices for women, because that's the only thing distinctive about Janeway's voice.

Unless you're willing to say that there are some men out there who would be inferior captains to some women because of their voices, too. In which case you're not misogynist, but I still question your criteria for good leadership.

 

That's not my point. Simply put, I gave a handful of reasons why I felt that Chakotay would have been a better captain, voice being only one of them.

Did someone provide five, or ten, or twenty reasons why Janeway was the perfect person for the job? They certainly could have, since she was pretty awesome most of the time. But they didn't. Instead, they accused me of hating all women. There is a difference between telling someone why they're wrong and shutting them down with baseless accusations.

 

I've been told (in my life, not just in regards to Star Trek) that I take everything seriously (sometimes as a compliment, sometimes not so). I quit Lower Decks in disgust in the middle of episode 5, after trying my best to keep an open mind for the first 4 episodes. Only Trek show I did this to, I even didn't mind Voyager and Enterprise. And I enjoy Disco and Picard despite its criticism. I wonder if there's a correlation between my supposed personality and the need to not take the LD show seriously as suggested by the thread subject.

 

^ Possibly. Personally, I love it when things that I like are treated with irreverence and levity. That's why one of my favorite sci-fi series in general is Futurama.

Kor

 

Nothing wrong with that. We all have the ways we Trek and the ways we don't.

 

You listed two reasons. One of them was a reasonable argument ("he actually promotes people"), and one was voice.

Voice is absolutely not a valid reason.

I'm not sure what other conclusion to come to after you make such a ridiculous statement, like her voice of all things could ever be a valid reason for her to be considered an inferior captain to another character.

Yeah, it sounds to me like LD's fundamental ethos is just not compatible with your temperament.

 

I like it because it can actually be funny and that offsets the lack of actual plot.
Something that isn't funny, nor has a good plot, nor has any other redeeming factors can still be not taken seriously, but all the while is not enjoyable.

A title must have something to capture my interest, if it not be a well-executed plot, then humor is certainly a good substitute.

 

I listed two reasons in this topic. I listed five in the other one. They included:
* As a male character, Chakotay might have been allowed by the writers to have a consistent character. Janeway was practically schizophrenic at times.
* Chakotay was more pragmatic by nature. Janeway was usually an idealist. And idealism isn't always the best survival strategy when you're 70,000 light years from your allies.
* Despite being less driven by principles, Chakotay still had a more reliable moral compass. I don't see him giving WMD's to the Borg, torturing Equinox crew, or splitting Tuvix against his will.

Add that to "Chakotay promoted people", and that's four valid reasons. And I could probably come up with a couple more.

 

I feel Janeway was the way he was because of being the captain.
One will also notice that in general the flag officers are somewhat unreasonable to say the least, making one wonder how exactly they obtained that position.
If the unreasonable character not be the one in authority, the problem would of course easily be solved with the reasonable character pulling rank.

 

Not because of the formats of the shows; mostly because they're on different networks.

I mean, has that ever happened? Shows on two different networks taking place in the same world, doing crossovers, etc.?

 

Actually an early Homicide episode establishes X-Files as fictional.

Ss there would appear to be two Munches: one X-Files, one "every other show".

 

For a little while (I believe one season) Buffy was on UPN while Angel was on The WB, and they still took place in the same universe and shared characters, though they had started out at the same network, they were always produced by the same studio.

Similarly, CBS’s Supergirl (before moving to the CW) crossed over with The Flash on the CW, because they had the same studio ownership as well, and it was made even easier by the co-ownership of the CW by CBS.

And related to that, the Constantine show was on one season on NBC, and then his character continued on in several CW Arrowverse shows playing the same iteration of the character, and referring to the events of the NBC series directly.