Spoilers Star Trek: Lower Decks 3x07 - "A Mathematically Perfect Redemption"

[Paul755]

I appreciate them doing something different but I thought this was terrible with the lone bright spot being the Agimus cameo.

Seeing how many people loved it maybe I need to rewatch in a better frame of mind (I started it after watching my Broncos lose to the Colts in that terrible football game).

But for now I would put it in the bottom 5 LD episodes of all time.

5/10.

 

[NCC-73515]

I was really moved and welling up when it seemed she'd turned good and everything was so nice and beautiful that I was gonna give it a 10. I understand why they did what they did, but it ruined all the nice stuff.

 

[Verteron]

It's interesting how divisive this one is turning out to be. A lot of people on the various socials split between saying it's one of the best episodes of LD ever, vs those who thought it was terrible.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I was really moved and welling up when it seemed she'd turned good and everything was so nice and beautiful that I was gonna give it a 10. I understand why they did what they did, but it ruined all the nice stuff.

I remember how much I simply could not stand the finale of DISCO season 4 because the playing straight of "it was all just a misunderstanding" regarding genocide. I'm a DS9 fanboy and one of the best decisions I think they made was the acknowledgement you couldn't just redeem someone like Dukat because they never thought they did anything wrong in the first place.

Peanut Hamper wasn't a space Nazi, no, but I like how the show made it clear some people will NOT respond to kindness and empathy--which is unfortunately a lesson that is true in the real world. You have to be prepared for manipulative sociopaths too.

It's interesting how divisive this one is turning out to be. A lot of people on the various socials split between saying it's one of the best episodes of LD ever, vs those who thought it was terrible.

It's because of the surprisingly DS9-esque message that subverts the default Star Trek assumption that people are fundamentally good. Peanut Hamper is a narcissistic sociopath and all the kindness and forgiveness everyone offers her is wasted on her because she doesn't feel any empathy for anyone else.

It's just this was masked by having the personality of a teenage girl.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

A very nice parody of Avatar and the Na’Vi.

 

[Tuskin38]

I remember how much I simply could not stand the finale of DISCO season 4 because the playing straight of "it was all just a misunderstanding" regarding genocide. I'm a DS9 fanboy and one of the best decisions I think they made was the acknowledgement you couldn't just redeem someone like Dukat because they never thought they did anything wrong in the first place.

Idk there’s a big difference between 10c and Dukat. Dukat never showed any remorse for what he did. The 10c were horrified.

 

[eschaton]

I did realize Peanut Hamper had one bit of personal growth.

The whole scenario of trying to save the Areolans is a complete farce of course. But she did put herself into real danger when she crashed into the scavenger ship to disable it. That was basically the same scenario that was offered to her in No Small Parts, but here she decides to go through with it. That means she did grow as a character.

Unfortunately, it's of course for self-interested reasons. Basically she grew from being just a bratty teenager to a supervillain, because she realized that she was going to have to take big risks in order to get what she wanted out of life...and what she wanted was completely self-centered.

 

[eschaton]

Idk there’s a big difference between 10c and Dukat. Dukat never showed any remorse for what he did. The 10c were horrified.

Also, 10-C are a race, Dukat was a person. Trek has been pretty consistent that individual people can be bad, but entire races can't be, because that's space racism.

 

[Starkers]

That was surprisingly excellent. The subverting of the redemption trope, the creation of a fully formed alien species in just a few minutes, the wonderfully icky exocomp/alien sex, a heck of a nice ship to ship battle. Funny, exciting and more than a little disturbing. A bold (Boimler) move that paid off!

 

[1001001]

I can appreciate the attempt, but this was pretty dumb IMHO.

5

 

[Seven of Five]

Another 9 this week. Seeing the sassy Peanut Hamper sharing her knowledge with the technologically inferior race will have me smiling for the rest of the day.

An interesting off-format episode, and I wasn't sure if I would like the experiment, but I was won over by the end. Much like how TV works, I guess.

 

[DaveyNY]

Another 9 this week. Seeing the sassy Peanut Hamper sharing her knowledge with the technologically inferior race will have me smiling for the rest of the day.

An interesting off-format episode, and I wasn't sure if I would like the experiment, but I was won over by the end. Much like how TV works, I guess.

Except they weren't really "technologically inferior", because Rawda apparently knew exactly how to fly the ancestors ship at the end without any apparent training.
They had simply chosen to no longer use that technology.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Idk there’s a big difference between 10c and Dukat. Dukat never showed any remorse for what he did. The 10c were horrified.

Yes, I didn't like it because it set up that a massively advanced civilization guilty of unimaginable manslaughter was somehow still innocent.

I come from Appallachia so "mine bosses get a bunch of people killed through negligence" isn't the happy message that the writers thought.

 

[dswynne1]

I can't believe I am doing this, but I am giving this episode my first 9 score of the season. Why? Well, in spite of the fact that the "antagonist" was unlikeable, and that plot was full of stereotypical tropes and characterizations (including the so-called "redemption arc"), it felt like I was watching a film from Mel Brooks, or from the producers of AIR PLANE! The episode was so bad, that it was entertainingly so. And I did like especially the dig at INT (and the movie AVATAR), which, while not a bad TNG film, was yet another set of ridiculous tropes. So, strictly on entertainment value, and not as a typical STAR TREK episode (even for the likes of LDs), that is the reason for my score.

As an aside, I do hope that the theory is right that these avian-like people are really the avian-Xindi who had gone "native". Also, as cringe the "love-making scenes" were (another trope), everyone knows that had it been one of the Cerritos crewmembers, a human, been in place of Peanut Hamper, you will still have said crewmember go, well, "native". Hell, anyone of of us would have gone "native", if stuck on a planet of bird people. Love is love, as the cool kids would say these days, yes? Kind of reminded me of the AVATAR effect, when you had fans of the film lamenting about not frolicking amongst the Na'vi. Oh, well...

 

[jackoverfull]

Except they weren't really "technologically inferior", because Rawda apparently knew exactly how to fly the ancestors ship at the end without any apparent training.
They had simply chosen to no longer use that technology.

true. But perhaps the technology is just very intuitive to use, especially by someone who is very accustomed to flying? The scavengers had zero trouble operating it as well, by the way.

 

[eschaton]

true. But perhaps the technology is just very intuitive to use, especially by someone who is very accustomed to flying? The scavengers had zero trouble operating it as well, by the way.

Everyone in Star Trek seems to be able to use alien ships intuitively as the plot requires. Don't overthink it.

 

[cooleddie74]

Yeah, at least in ENT Travis and Archer have to spend time in the shuttlebay learning the controls of the Xindi shuttle. They go through the process of figuring out which controls do which and that's different from many Trek episodes where a character jumps into the pilot's chair of an alien shuttle or some other spacecraft and intuitively knows what to do to fly it.

 

[DaveyNY]

true. But perhaps the technology is just very intuitive to use, especially by someone who is very accustomed to flying? The scavengers had zero trouble operating it as well, by the way.

"Intuitive" still requires more than a little bit of Tech knowledge to know how to actually turn it on and which controls do what.
(like firing weapons and chasing after the bad guys)

 

[F. King Daniel]

Loved this one. Best bit? "This makes me feel like song!" followed by an ungodly shriek

 

[F. King Daniel]

So apparently Peanut Hamper can also be a souped-up electronic version of a Fleshlight.

And the next merchandising opportunity has dropped.