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.
Yeah, that was exactly my point. With these four series -- TAS, LD,
Dragnet 1967, and
Brooklyn Nine-Nine -- you've got two axes: drama/comedy; animated/live action. Two shows can both be live action but can be totally different on the other axis; two shows can both be animated and the same applies.
Dragnet 1967 may be live action and
Star Trek: The Animated Series animated, but they're both very earnest workplace dramas.*
Brooklyn Nine-Nine may be live-action and
Star Trek: Lower Decks animated, but they're both absurdist workplace situation comedies. Expecting
Star Trek: The Animated Series to be like
Star Trek: Lower Decks just because they're both animated shows centered around Starfleet officers makes about as much sense as expecting
Dragnet 1967 to be like
Brooklyn Nine-Nine just because they're both live-action shows centered around cops: Medium (Live action vs. animated), format (workplace procedural), and genre (comedy vs drama) are all separate elements.
*To modern audiences, both ST:TAS and D67 may register as being funny because of
how earnest they are in a form of unintentional camp, but that's a result of cultural changes since the shows were made, not a reflection of the original artistic intentions of the creators.
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.
That's an interesting point I hadn't considered -- Boimler and Mariner do draw upon some of the same archetypes as Peralta and Santiago. We could probably also say that Rosa draws upon some of the same archetype as the Bajoran security officer and Caitian CMO (I can't remember their names), Terry draws upon some of the same archetypes as Rutherford (affable company man), and Holtz draws upon some of the same archetypes as the captain (frustrated hyper-competent leader). Tendi draws a little bit on Amy's archetype too (earnest, competent subordinate who wants superiors' approval). The parallels aren't a perfect match, but I think it speaks to the way most sitcoms (and arguably most comedies in general) draw upon archetypes and character stocks that date back to things like the
comedia del'arte.