Spoilers Star Trek: Lower Decks 1x01 - "Second Contact"

[dupersuper]

is conservative straight white heroes fighting against the evil empire that has a Nazi aesthetic

Lando, Chewie Yoda, Ackbar, Nien Nunb and the droids were white? I won't even ask how you know Mon Mothma, the bearded general guy, Wedge, Bigsy, Porkins et al are straight (expanded universe?).

 

[Sci]

That's one thing I had wondered is, what was the conversation like in sickbay? I mean, you'd think that action alone would have gotten her tossed off the ship by Captain Mom instead of the spy mission with Ensign Purple Hair. She was drink on an illegal substance (We could argue whether or not it'd be illegal considering the improved relationship between the Federation and the Romulans at this point, but I digress) swinging around a deadly weapon in the corridor and then sliced into the leg of a shipmate. Probably a superficial medical procedure to fix it but you'd think questions would have been asked.

Well, first off I would suggest that there's a good chance the "actual" wound wasn't as deep as the one we saw onscreen and that that was an example of comedic animated exaggeration.

I think it's also possible that that's the kind of laceration that a dermal regenerator can heal without needing to go to sickbay.

Third possibility: There was no conversation with Dr. T'Ana because Mariner snuck into Sickbay on false pretenses and stole the dermal regenerator, used it on Boimler, and then returned it. This seems like the most likely scenario because it is the one that's most cartoonish and presents the most possibilities for silly jokes.

I think Tendi could probably be the "best" character of the show with her wide-eyed enthusiasm for everything and maybe it not all living up to her expectations. I think the Orion women deal from Enterprise can be "ignored" without pretending it never happened, it did after all happen a couple hundred years earlier, maybe Orion civilization has changed.

Yep. Or maybe not all Orion women can produce such pheromones, and that's a source of major division in Orion society. Or maybe all of them can, but they can control pheromone production and only a minority do it. We do know, for instance, that Orion women served alongside men of other species without issue in the Kelvin Timeline's Federation Starfleet and in the Mirror Universe's Terran Imperial Starfleet. Gaila even slept with Kirk -- and was treated like shit by Kirk, I might add -- without ever using pheromones against him.

(I definitely just rewrote the "Orion" and "Orion slave girl" articles on Memory Alpha recently to make them less sexist.)

I think a lot of that is just that it's hard to know what of popular entertainment and such will survive to the 24th century. Just because the Beatles have lasted as pop culture figures for 60 years now doesn't really mean they'll last for another 3-400, particular through two major wars the impacted the global society.

I mean, the Beatles so fundamentally changed 20th Century music, and wrote so many enduring songs, that I sincerely doubt they'll be forgotten. And I think it's all the more unlikely that the Monkees would be remembered but not them.

Shakespeare and classic music has lasted centuries and through major world-shaking events, and entire shifts in the way society even operates. So it's fairly easy to say they'll still be around for another few hundred years.

But, popular culture references are more or less fine, I mean Picard was into pulp-crime novels and Paris 1950s movie serials, so I think maybe referencing the Beatles is wthin that bracket.

True. And one of the things that often happens with enduring works of popular art is that the popular art undergoes critical re-appraisal and then gets appropriated by elitists. Shakespeare's plays were the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies of his day -- popular entertain for the mob, looked down upon by the elites -- but over the centuries his enduring popularity led to him being re-evaluated and then virtually deified by members of the elite who pronounced him as "high art." Same thing happened to popular American films of the 1930s and 1940s and to the film noir genre; cheap gangster films like Scarface led to high-prestige Mafia films decades later like The Godfather.

Yeah, I doubt Lucas’ political proclivities changed in any way between the first and second trilogies. It was just more trendy and acceptable to be anti-conservative in the early 2000’s, when the second trilogy was released, because of the neo-cons who were in power at the time.

I don't know what the early 2000s were like in your part of the world, but in mine, being anti-conservative was absolutely not trendy. People practically worshiped George W. Bush after 9/11; being opposed to the Iraq War was liable to get you branded a traitor; anti-conservative critics had their careers totally derailed; and hostility to progressive social politics like LGBT equality was at an all-time high.

 

[fireproof78]

don't know what the early 2000s were like in your part of the world, but in mine, being anti-conservative was absolutely not trendy. People practically worshiped George W. Bush after 9/11; being opposed to the Iraq War was liable to get you branded a traitor; anti-conservative critics had their careers totally derailed; and hostility to progressive social politics like LGBT equality was at an all-time high.

Not on my campus in Idaho no less.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I don't know what the early 2000s were like in your part of the world, but in mine, being anti-conservative was absolutely not trendy. People practically worshiped George W. Bush after 9/11; being opposed to the Iraq War was liable to get you branded a traitor; anti-conservative critics had their careers totally derailed; and hostility to progressive social politics like LGBT equality was at an all-time high.

That honeymoon ended quickly after everyone realized what a boondoggle the Iraq war was. It didn’t take long before it became exactly what I said.

In any case, I don’t want to bog down yet another perfectly good thread with the flotsam of the past. There will be plenty of time to vomit out political recriminations in a few months, whatever that outcome will be. I’d just like to enjoy this cool little show while it lasts, thanks.

 

[thribs]

I don’t think she would know about the Genesis Device. That would have been classified

 

[Sci]

That honeymoon ended quickly after everyone realized what a boondoggle the Iraq war was. It didn’t take long before it became exactly what I said.

Public opinion didn't broadly turn against Bush until Hurricane Katrina in late summer 2005. By then the war was two and half years old, and the decade was half-over. I think you are projecting your memories of the second half of the 00s onto the first half, and I do not think it is an accurate assessment of what the early 00s were like.

Edited to add:

I don’t think she would know about the Genesis Device. That would have been classified

I mean, the Genesis Device would have been somewhere in the area of 90-100 years before "Second Contact," depending on where exactly you place The Wrath of Khan/The Search for Spock/The Voyage Home in your chronology. I really don't think the fact that the Genesis Device existed would be a classified secret 100 years later.

And the idea that Genesis would be classified is especially hard to credit when Sarek and Klingon Ambassador Kamarang discussed it on the speakers' floor in open Council session during The Voyage Home, in front of dozens and dozens of people with no indication whatsoever of the proceedings being classified.

So I really don't think it's implausible that Ensign Mariner would know what the Genesis Device was in 2380.

 

[Hythlodeus]

I don’t think she would know about the Genesis Device. That would have been classified

her father is Admiral. I'm sure she had a chance to pick it up somewhere

 

[Michael]

Hate to be late to the party, but here are my thoughts on the first episode:

The concept
Basically it’s what I wished this show would be: A humorous take on Trek that’s not just a parody and gags nonstop but has likable characters and heart. They take the world seriously enough and don't break the fourth wall to wink at the audience too much. I guess the worst case scenario would have been if this felt like an SNL skit or something, but no, the characters are believable as officers who genuinely want to be in Starfleet doing good things.

The look
The show looks beautiful. I still think they could have been a little more bold with the character designs, but the backgrounds, the space FX, Douglas station, the Cerritos herself and the interiors all look gorgeous. They actually help to ground the world in the same universe the live action stuff exists in. I love the concept of the opening sequence, even though the music is a bit generic and I don’t think I’ll hum it anytime soon. But it gets the idea across.

Love the transporter effect:

The characters
I instantly fell in love with all the characters: the bright-eyed positivity of Tendi, the geekiness of Rutherford, the buffoonish know-it-all Boimler, and the maladjusted rebel Mariner. I'm definitely sold. I wonder if they are all somehow supposed to represent parts of fandom itself. The more I think about it each of them could be a stand-in for a certain type of fan: the ones with an unfettered love for the positive world and future of Star Trek (Tendi), the one who delve into all the technical, geeky aspects of it (Rutherford), the ones who are by-the-book, take it all way too seriously and have almost unlearnt how to just enjoy it (Boimler) and the realists who kind of question the Federation and their way of doing things (Mariner). I don't know, it's just a working theory.

The little things
The fast-paced nature of the show really lends itself to multiple viewings, so I guess I didn't catch it all. But I loved some of the background gags. Like seeing that spider-thingy peacefully being on the field right after they had to fight it. Or that moment at the end when the senior stuff is leaving sickbay and Ransom is still strapped to a moving bed. Could it be that the reveal of the bridge when Boimler goes up for his meeting with the captain is an intentional callback to the moment Picard first visits the bridge in the Next Generation pilot?

The negative
There's nothing I straight up disliked. But I do wish the show and the dialog would just be a tad bit slower. Maybe I'm getting old, but if it weren't for closed captioning I don't know if I would have caught everything. I also wish they would dial back some of the Trek trivia jokes. The show is Trek-y enough without constantly bringing up past characters, races and incidents. The preview had something about a Janeway protocol and they also mentioned a Sulu maneuver. I can live with that, but I would also enjoy the show more without it. Also, I have a hard time believing Tendi doesn't know what sand is.

A couple of my favorite lines:

“I’m very complicated, thank you.”

“I can only look one way. I can’t change it by tonight!”

“Wow … this is a very detailed program.”

“You may as well count Earth.” — “I was … counting Earth.”

“Everyone, protect this slime!”

 

[137th Gebirg]

I recall rapid-fire dialog becoming popularized by shows like West Wing in the last decade. Most people don't talk like that IRL. I've met a few from North Jersey who do, but that's the exception and not the rule.

I think, in this case, the show suffers from being too short. 20-some minutes isn't much time to deliver a complex Trek-like story (TAS notwithstanding, they did a good job with what they had back then), but this show tries to stuff about 20 pounds of shit into a 10 pound bag (in a good way). In order to get everything across in time, they speed up the dialog to a break-neck pace. It is a bit exhausting, admittedly, and I too have the CC turned on for the very same reason.

 

[BillJ]

I don’t think she would know about the Genesis Device. That would have been classified

Been a hundred years, it is old news by this point. Terrifying new weapons like Trilithium Warheads have stolen its thunder.

 

[BillJ]

Maybe I'm getting old, but if it weren't for closed captioning I don't know if I would have caught everything.

I use close captions and still miss things.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Been a hundred years, it is old news by this point. Terrifying new weapons like Trilithium Warheads have stolen its thunder.

That and Red Matter are cornering the markets on 23rd/24th century WMD's. Genesis is quaint by comparison and, unlike the others, actually has a potentially benevolent application.

 

[fireproof78]

I mean, the Genesis Device would have been somewhere in the area of 90-100 years before "Second Contact," depending on where exactly you place The Wrath of Khan/The Search for Spock/The Voyage Home in your chronology. I really don't think the fact that the Genesis Device existed would be a classified secret 100 years later.

I mean, it's not Starfleet could stop everyone from talking about it, given it was originally a civilian scientific project. Admiral Morrow said it was a quarantine planet and taboo subject, not that no one could ever know about it ever again.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Hell, Section 31 was supposed to be one of the best-kept secrets in the Federation, and here we have operators flashing their black badges around everywhere like it's some Little Orphan Annie decoder ring. I've seen third graders with better OPSEC trade-craft discipline than some of those bozos have demonstrated.

Point being, yeah, no way Genesis would be kept secret like that for too long. It was probably fully declassified after the requisite 25-or-whatever years have passed to make it so.

 

[fireproof78]

Hell, Section 31 was supposed to be one of the best-kept secrets in the Federation

Neither confirming nor denying makes it the best kept secret?

 

[matthunter]

Assuming it's not just Mariner being drunk, it's entirely possible that "Spock used the Genesis Device to fight Khan and some space whales" thing IS the official cover story.

I mean, this is a universe where Kirk fought a giant space amoeba and the Enterprise once encountered Abraham Lincoln floating in space. Khan returning to attack Kirk with an army of trained space whales isn't THAT out there...

 

[137th Gebirg]

Neither confirming nor denying makes it the best kept secret?

Unfortunately, the idea of the organization suffers from problems with chronological order, originally made for DS9, but then retconned into the canon by Enterprise and then Discovery (also NuTrek). Every time our main protagonists have run into them, it's like they've never heard of them before, irrespective of the era being shown. You'd think someone might have heard of them in hushed rumors or something, at some point or other. This implies they've been very successful at keeping their existence secret, acquiring massive support from top Starfleet Admirals over the centuries in order to maintain a steady flow of resources and anonymity.

But then, in DISCO, we see them walking around, in the clear, with the black badges, essentially broadcasting their intentions and inviting, "oooh, what's that?" questions from genuinely curious onlookers (and don't get me started on the freakin' desk model of the super-secret S-31 USS Vengeance on Admiral Marcus' desk in Into Darkness). This is anathema to intelligence community OPSEC, especially if they're field operators. They are basically confirming their existence to the world, which they are presumed to vow never to do.

It was extremely bad handling of a potentially cool idea. Which is why I am leery of the impending S-31 show. Unless they have real-world professionals helping them in a consulting capacity to build believable stories for such a super-secret organization, it's probably going to be shit.

 

[fireproof78]

I still don't think that the black badges automatically mean S-31. Even in the real world operators have a "day job" that allows them to operate within an organization.

Regardless, yeah S31 was poorly handled but I don't think there cannot be an eb and flow of knowledge of their existence. Admiral Marcus' model doesn't strike mean as being all that problematic, when he was championing the future war with the Klingons, indicating that he was trying to plan for that eventuality. That Starfleet didn't go forward with his design doesn't mean he buries and goes "shhhh" because his whole point is to have a war, fabricated or not, with the Klingons and his design would be proven successful.

As for the show itself I'll wait and see with it. It's not like I go to Star Trek for total believability

ETA: More on topic I rewatched Episode 1 in anticipation of Episode 2 and found myself enjoying a lot of the weird subtle humor. Rutherford's reaction to the door was pretty fun, especially given his rather calm and cool demeanor in the space walk and crisis.

Mariner is still the most intriguing character to me. Yes, she is loud and obnoxious but I definitely see that as a defense mechanism against some hurt. I wouldn't want a Mariner in real life but she as a character intrigues me.

 

[BillJ]

Which is why I am leery of the impending S-31 show.

Same here. But I thought Lower Decks would be a train wreck, yet here we are.

 

[thribs]

Been a hundred years, it is old news by this point. Terrifying new weapons like Trilithium Warheads have stolen its thunder.

Still, the technology is very dangerous no matter how old it is. I doubt Starfleet would want that info out, especially if they use the side canon revealing that it actually works and the only reason it didn’t before was because it was used on a nebula