Spoilers Star Trek: Lower Decks 1x03 - "Temporal Edict"

[Charles Phipps]

My thoughts on this episode in order:

1. I was surprised the Temporal Edict had nothing to do with time travel but efficiency.

2. Captain Freeman turns out to be the new "worst captain in Starfleet" (even more than the TROUBLE WITH EDWARD's captain) given presumably her actions are ignoring the time she was an ensign and had to pad out her own business to give herself leisure time.

Is she a hypocrite, just doesn't care, or promoted to Lieutenant straight out of the academy?

3. I think "strict scheduling" has to be for emergency situations only. It's something that also probably is meant to be only used for certain things rather than the whole ship at once given what a disaster it is. Overthinking it? Probably.

4. This felt a bit more like a parody episode than the previous 2 where the nonsense was limited to the Lower Decks staff goofing off. This clearly makes Captain Freeman out to be a horrible captain AS WELL as a horrible mother.

5. I actually admired Commander Ransom's actions there. Disabling an Ensign to fight to save her life is what an officer should do.

6. I have no doubt that the conference was called off to avoid sparking another war with Cardassia.

7. I should note that TNG made it clear that the schedules of officers were very loose as, as we see here, they have time to do concerts and painting as well as possess ample leisure time in addition to their duties. Given the Caitan Doctor is happy the bed will take 5 hours to fix, there's no sign that the majority of tasks have anything to do with urgency.

I mean, what the hell are you going to do in space for the majority of time?

8. A lot of Mariner's bad habits are clearly from her mom. Not just is she childishly rebelling but it seems Captain Freeman really is the glory hound psychopath that Mariner accuses her of being. It's just none of the other senior staff is.

 

[starfleettanner]

Another 8 for me. Gave me a couple laughs, but once again the whole hyperactive crew just kinds of puts me off. Loved seeing the TNG warp effect though! Been a long time since we've seen those pretty rainbow streaks flying by, and the more I see the Cerritos, the more I love it! Also love that every detail is a love letter to the TNG aesthetics. Really does feel like a tribute to TNG but also a self parody. Again, the hyperactive ADHD crew is the only downside I really have.

 

[Crewman6]

This episode is so much better than the other two pieces of crap they should have thrown them in the trash and made this the pilot.

It was actually...funny? At least in spots. I did laugh out loud a few times and I was pleasantly shocked by that reaction.

Some jokes sucked, like the whole teaser. The show really needs to stop writing Mariner exactly like Rick Sanchez. The "what am I, Kirk?" was also awful, as most of the name-drops are. If the line was just, "What is this, the 2260s?" it would have worked on two levels - a deep cut for the fans or just a silly gag for the casual viewers. Making it another groan-worthy name drop (like the captain's reference to the Enterprise) was very lame.

At least the O'Brien name drop, while not exactly funny, wasn't painful.

THAT SAID, there was a lot to like about this episode. It actually had real, meaningful interaction and conflict between the senior staff and the "lower decks." It had amusing spins on Star Trek tropes.

It actually gave all of the characters nuance and dimensionality where they had none before. Ransom isn't just a dudebro idiot, he's a very competent first officer, even if he's also boastful and petty. Mariner isn't always right. Boimler isn't always a screw up, he actually can thrive when he's allowed to do things his way. The captain is also capable, but short-sighted and short-tempered. Etc.

The premise itself started to come into focus more. It's not that the Cerritos is a joke per se, but it does suffer from bad luck and a general lack of prestige.

The tone also felt right in the zone - goofy, but not too silly. There were stakes, but unlike the stupid zombie plot, it felt just "real" enough to not undermine the intergrity/reality of the universe but light enough to be fun.

While this episode is far from perfect, it really demonstrated potential for the show for the first time. Let's hope we have a lot more more of this and that the two earlier episodes we can chalk up to growing pains and the show figuring itself out (you know, like TNG's entire first season...)

 

[Charles Phipps]

I have the feeling Boimler would put down Captain Picard and say the only time the Enterprise was ever run well was when Jellico was in charge.

Edit:

OH MY GOD, THEY NAMEDROPPED THE GREAT BIRD OF THE GALAXY!

Which...could be a reference to Star Trek: New Frontier but could also just be a reference to Roddenberry himself.

 

[Cyrus]

The best episode so far. I gave it 8.

Mariner was more tolerable this time, but still a little annoying.

The feline doctor is great.

He's got wood.

 

[KennyB]

The feline doctor is great.

She's becoming my favorite character.........Bones as a cat.

He's got wood.

That actually went right past me until I saw your post because he DID actually have WOOD!!!

 

[Kzinti]

I don't have much to say other than I am thoroughly enjoying the show and I'm glad there's already a second season coming

9/10 better than last week which was already pretty good

 

[Trekker4747]

I watch with Amazon Prime which apparently put up last week's episode again for this week.

 

[Lorcan Kelly]

Loved this episode. Must say im really warming to this show. Also loved the *Statue reveal* at the end made me chuckle

 

[thribs]

Curious what O’Brien did to be the most important Starfleet Officer

 

[starfleettanner]

Curious what O’Brien did to be the most important Starfleet Officer

Somehow kept DS9 intact without the need for Cardie parts.

 

[KennyB]

Curious what O’Brien did to be the most important Starfleet Officer

Sometimes a joke is just a joke..........

 

[guyute03]

I gave it a 9.
Wow.
I adore this show.

 

[Nyotarules]

I'm sitting in the UK jealous as a Ferengi under liquidation

 

[ToddCam]

There's less and less naked Boimler in this show as it goes on.

 

[thribs]

There's less and less naked Boimler in this show as it goes on.

While Beckett just loves showing her boobs in each episode

 

[eschaton]

I enjoyed it, but I can't say if it's better or worse than the previous episode. I did enjoy it a great deal though.

Although the situation shown in this episode is absurd by Trek standards, I have a hard time defining this episode as comedy because...none of the jokes were actually funny. I mean, they weren't distractedly awful though either. Really it played to me more as light drama with an "moral" at its core, which is classically Trekkian. Although the message - sometimes we need to slack off a little - is kinda an inversion of what one would think of classically in Trek.

I liked that the episode turned on its head what we presumed from the previous episodes, as was noted upthread. I expect that some people will have issues with Captain Freeman being shown as such a flawed individual. Unlike the first two episodes I did get a bit of a "how the hell does this ship survive?" vibe. While the first episode's zombie plague was the sort of dumb luck Trek crews often have, and the second was about the foibles of the ensigns, this one implied that the Captain somehow is still green and doesn't understand command. I think it would have worked better honestly if they didn't play up how obviously the whole crew was screwing up. I know why they did - to try and make it funny - but this meant the Captain came across as ridiculously oblivious as to what was going on, when more subtle mistakes caused by stress/lack of sleep would have gotten across the core message of the episode just as well.

Still, that's a small complaint overall for an episode I genuinely enjoyed. I guess 8 out of 10?

 

[SeamusShameless]

I was expecting Mariner to name drop O'Brien when Ransom sent her to the brig for rolling her sleeves up, but that joke at the end was even better than what I was expecting.

 

[Tim Thomason]

They keep going down for me... the first one was an 8, last week was a 7, this one is a 6 :/

Lower is better.

 

[ThreeEdgedSword]

Well, that was fun, as usual. I had to LOL several times, like when the XO tore off his shirt. Good ol' Kirk ref.

Would have loved to see the Cardassians again, though.

Yeah, Cpt. Freeman is not one of the best, it seems.

Poor Boimler!