How does Lower Decks compare to Star Trek the Animated Series?

Honestly comparing Star Trek: The Animated Series to Star Trek: Lower Decks makes about as much sense to me as comparing Dragnet 1967 to Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

 

Yeah, but don't tell fans that.

 

I'll compare the shows' artistic merits, on a superficial level.

TAS's animation might've looked primitive and cheap to some, but to me, its art is beautiful and charming. The character designs are dignified and attractive. In fact, some look much better than their real-life counterparts. Where did Kirk's love handles go? By the wave of a brush, bloat be gone!
Some of the background paintings of alien worlds are lovely works of art, with subtle shades of acrylic paints layered in translucent gradients.
But, by modern standards, the sound effects are frighteningly repetitive in TAS, to the point that I had to mute the audio when re-watching TAS. The identical shrieks of the alien monsters (eg, flying dragons) are seared into my membranes.

LD characters are distant cousins of Family Guy, notably the giant bug eyes and the men's top-heavy torsos. Nonetheless, the character designs are likeable, and Cmdr. Ransom and Lt. Shaxs manage to be sexy despite the simplicity.
Backgrounds in LD are matching line drawings, filled in with single colors, so not really screenshot-worthy wallpaper materials. But I get how minimalist designs appeal to other viewers; not everyone's into naturalistic art.
On the other hand, LD ships' exterior shots look so much more realistic that the transitions into 2D scenes can be a bit jarring, but maybe that's the point.

I didn't expect LD to have the same visual style as TAS. Both series are products of their time artistically, and I enjoy both on those terms.

 

My names Friday, my partner is Jake Peralta. I'm in HR filling out a transfer request...

 

Given Peralta's love affair with old school policing he might be on board for that...briefly.

Then, hijinks!

 

Lower Decks seems like an animated version of The Orville's first season. Basically a comedy.

TAS seemed more of an attempt to stay closer to TOS, a 4th season as others have mentioned.

I renewed CBS All Access subscription to watch Lower Decks. I'll cancel before next month. Don't really care for it.

 

Tom Hanks' character in Dragnet (1987), Pep Streebeck, was a bit Peralta-ish.

 

Except unilke The Orville, ST:LDS actually manages to be funny once in awhile, and it fits.

 

Joe Friday would say something cisheterosexist, Jake would punch him, and they'd both pretend they don't see the uniformed cop across the street shooting a black man dead for not wearing a seat belt.

 

To me they compare like this:

One show has people talk and behave pretty close to actual people, excellent voice acting interesting stories, excellent designs and fluid animation, likeable characters, funny humour and high entertainment value.

And the other is TAS.

Also anybody thinking we're gonna see those goofy dragon things from TAS in LD at some point?

I wouldn't call the backgrounds in LD "simplistic". They are pretty standard for modern, higher quality TV animation and if you look at things like the alien farmland in EP 1 and the alien city in EP 2, those places are full of background characters, animals, etc.

Sure TAS has some nice background paintings, but I find rather jarring to then have those poor quality 70s Saturday morning cartoon characters that move stifly and are basically unable to emote pasted onto them. In LD the characters and background match and the animation is fluid.

 

Which ones? There've been several: in "Yesteryear," "Once Upon a Planet," and "The Infinite Vulcan," at least, off the top of my head.

 

The purple screeching ones with the corkscrew legs from the episode with the giant Mr.Spock.

 

The shriekies appeared in almost every episode, or at least that's how I remember TAS XD

 

Right, those would be the ones I was referring to in "The Infinite Vulcan."

 

The next cameo from TAS I'd love to see is a Nasat like M3 Green. Those sad pillbugs are all over the SCE novels and maybe there's one rolling around the Jeffries Tubes on the Cerritos

 

Oddly, Lower Decks is more comparable to Brooklyn Nine-Nine (ensemble comedy with irreverent humor) than it is TAS -- and I don't mean that to necessarily be a bad thing.

Lower Decks is B99 with space explorers instead of cops. The main protagonist in both shows is mischievously cheeky, often juvenile, and has been known to flaunt authority -- yet is also very capable at what they do.

 

Why should that be odd? There's no reason to expect any two given animated shows to be written the same way, any more than there's any reason to expect any two live-action shows to be written the same way. Especially since Lower Decks has always been clearly promoted as a comedy from the start.

 

Nothing odd about it. 99 is a great show and fits Trek well.

 

I agree "oddly enough" is not the correct term. Maybe "interestingly enough" would have been better.

I guess I was writing that with the OP in mind -- specifically how he made the comparison between TAS and Lower Decks simply because both are animated. I think the animated aspect of those shows is a superficial similarity that says nothing about the overall tone of them, which is a more salient point of comparison.

And the tone of Lower Decks is much more similar to Brooklyn Nine-Nine than it is TAS.

 

Yep. I've been saying all along that I reject the premise of the original question. Format is not genre. Being animated is the only thing the two shows have in common. Maybe once we have more animated Trek shows in a wider range of formats -- starting with the kid-friendly, 3D-animated Prodigy -- that will be clearer.