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  1. - Top - End - #121
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    Default Re: Star Trek: Lower Decks

    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    A.) Peelee.
    2.), I also brought up several other examples, including the OGs Mccoy and Spock.
    iii.) I' m not so sure about the wisdom of characterising anyone's arguments as "lolz [stuff]".
    I can agree with you on the mcoy spock thing, thats a good example and at the least is one worth arguing about as a debate point, but yeah, the ds9 example was a bad one for reasons already mentioned. The most encompassing one being the argument is that starfleet in general helps each other out, or at least doesnt actively sabotage each other, and the factors you brought up werent federation. There were federation crew conflicts, oh my yes, plenty in all the various series from tos to ds9. But even then, it was REALLY rare to see someone stab a coworker in the back out of malice.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ramza00 View Post

    Since he has no foundation, no foundational anchor his critique is empty for it is merely self serving. The season 4 scene from Way of the Warrior with Quark and Garak talking about the federation, root beer, and seduction / salvation is a far better scene.
    My favorite bit of trivia is knowing that root beer scene was improv. They were literally just making it up as they went along as some b roll filler but it turned out so good that it was put in the show. I LOVED that scene.
    Last edited by Traab; 2020-09-24 at 06:41 PM.
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  2. - Top - End - #122
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    Default Re: Star Trek: Lower Decks

    Eight eps in, and I still say I like this show better than anything on TV or film with the Star Trek name since DS9 went off the air.

    So far it's avoided one of the biggest pitfalls the Orville keeps facediving into. The Orville wants to have it both ways, showing the crew to be idiots when it suits the comedy, wants us to take them seriously when it suits the drama, and both get undercut.

    Lower Decks is a straight comedy, but though the characters screw up at times, they are never shown to be anything other than competent at their jobs (Well, I'm not sure about the Captain or First Officer). A lot of the comedy is pulled from character quirks, and a lot from just how silly the Star Trek universe can look if you run into alien gods, space jellyfish, holodeck malfunctions and space anomalies week after week. "Much Ado About Boimler" had me worried the show had taken a really wrong step by suddenly turning Mariner into Jar-Jar Binks and showing the Federation as much darker than it should be. But by the end of the episode it proved me wrong and I felt silly for not trusting the writers at this point.

    Reactions still seem to be mixed, and I wouldn't recommend anyone subscribe to a streaming service just for this, but trust me. When this goes somewhere people can watch it more easily, give it an honest try. It's only found firmer footing since the show has gone on. Between three seasons of Discovery and Picard, I really don't think I realized how much I've missed an optimistic future in a weekly episodic format.

    And the Dog was hilarious.

  3. - Top - End - #123
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    I'm a bit forced to stick with it since my partner is into it, even though I still don't find it particularly funny. Mariner is still a know-it-all insubordinate slacker and Boimler still an overeager brown-noser who would have been kicked off any competent Starfleet vessel yonks ago, but they're lucky enough to be on the Cerritos where the bar is considerably lower since the bridge crew are somehow even worse. And we're starting to see the Lower Decks crew (particularly the two of them) get more and more "bridge duty" assignments because the reality is that's where the interesting stuff in Star Trek shows happens.

    Q showed up in the latest episode (reprised by John de Lancie himself) for a few gags, but it's a testament to how much more madcap the episode itself - a Reservoir Dogs style "describe the heist from multiple perspectives with various time jumps" deal - was, even more than usual, that the the cast basically waved him off with "no, things are zany enough, we don't have time to deal with you too."
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  4. - Top - End - #124
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    Default Re: Star Trek: Lower Decks

    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    I'm a bit forced to stick with it since my partner is into it, even though I still don't find it particularly funny. Mariner is still a know-it-all insubordinate slacker and Boimler still an overeager brown-noser who would have been kicked off any competent Starfleet vessel yonks ago, but they're lucky enough to be on the Cerritos where the bar is considerably lower since the bridge crew are somehow even worse. And we're starting to see the Lower Decks crew (particularly the two of them) get more and more "bridge duty" assignments because the reality is that's where the interesting stuff in Star Trek shows happens.
    Re: Boimler

    While he's the butt of a bunch of jokes, I don't think his reputation as an "incompetent Brown-noser" is super accurate.

    Incompetent: He's not especially competent, especially not compared to Mariner, but situations where he's been out of his element have usually been Mariner's fault.

    In the second episode, he would have been perfectly capable of doing the task to which he was assigned: Greeting a Klingon General and flying him to the planet. Mariner encouraging the general to get drunk is what escalated the situation and got the two of them navigating a minefield of alien cultures to which Boilmer was unfamiliar. In this week's episode, his snafu on the bridge was due to having not been there, which was Rutherford's fault. Otherwise, none of the episodes so far really contain much in the way of Boilmer being incompetent. He's the butt of the joke, sure, but it's pretty rare that he actually messes up.
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    Episode 1: He's ordered to watch Mariner, and spots her doing some shady stuff. He spends a while getting gummed on by the giant spidercow, but that isn't really due to any mistakes or errors in judgement on his part. He tends to react pretty reasonably with the context he has.
    Episode 2: Described above, and the best "Boilmer is Incompetent" episode. Mariner gets him into trouble here.
    Episode 3: His "Screw-up" here is mentioning "Buffer Time" to the Captain, but really, the incompetence in this episode is on her for instituting the scheduling that causes the ship to break down. Boilmer actually thrives under those conditions, and in the end successfully argues the captain into scaling them back. Once again, he's the butt of the joke, but I wouldn't say he really makes any errors in execution or judgement.
    Episode 4: Boilmer is barely in this one, he gets upset about Mariner's promotion, and I think spills some coffee on Ransom in an attempt to emulate Mariner's behavior.
    Episode 5: Boilmer does nothing wrong here. He gets into some standard Wacky Sitcom Hijinks with his insecurities over his too-good-for-him Girlfriend, but none of it is really him being Bad At His Job.
    Episode 6: Boilmer and Mariner are pretty much in lockstep on this one.
    Episode 7: His only real "Mistake" here is volunteering for the transporter experiment. I guess you could argue his blind trust in the Clearly Shady Starfleet Guy, but even that turns out to have been justified.
    Episode 8: Not his fault, he was out of the room at the time, and he got a much more specific (And hard to deflect) question than Mariner did.


    TLDR, he should probably be the last pick for any away team, but as far as the countless little tasks that keep the ship running (90% of his job) he seems to be pretty good.

    As for being a Brown Noser, he's enthralled with the romance of Starfleet (He's basically the Trekkie self-insert character), and especially with the idealized Senior Officers, which gets him made fun of by Mariner in a rehash of the Hawkeye-Burns dynamic from M.A.S.H, but unlike Frank Burns, we don't really see his infatuation cause many problems (except for the Buffer Time incident, which can't really be put on him). As early as the first episode he's showing that he's able to make his own judgements rather than being blindsided by obedience. He mostly just geeks out about being on the Bridge, and wants to get promoted someday. He gets CALLED a brown-noser by Mariner due to his earnest enthusiasm for Starfleet (as compared to Rutherford's Earnest Enthusiasm for Engineering, and Tendi's Earnest Enthusiasm for basically everything) but he doesn't really act like one, at least not beyond trusting and respecting his commanding officers.
    Last edited by BRC; 2020-09-25 at 10:30 AM.
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  5. - Top - End - #125
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    Default Re: Star Trek: Lower Decks

    Quote Originally Posted by BRC View Post
    "Screw-up" here is mentioning "Buffer Time" to the Captain
    Loose lips sink ships. Dude cannot keep even low-value cards close to the chest, that's a pretty big issue.
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  6. - Top - End - #126
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    Default Re: Star Trek: Lower Decks

    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    Loose lips sink ships. Dude cannot keep even low-value cards close to the chest, that's a pretty big issue.
    Both of his loose lips issues (here and in "Much Ado About Boimler") were done reporting things to his commanding officer. I'm kinda in awe at using a "loose lips sink ships" quote for that unless WWII captains were in the habit of torpedoing their own boats.

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    Default Re: Star Trek: Lower Decks

    Quote Originally Posted by Dire_Flumph View Post
    Both of his loose lips issues (here and in "Much Ado About Boimler") were done reporting things to his commanding officer. I'm kinda in awe at using a "loose lips sink ships" quote for that unless WWII captains were in the habit of torpedoing their own boats.
    ...the entire episode was about the captain torpedoing her own boat after Boimler told her that, though?

    ETA: Not to mention, that was still not supposed to be reported to her. The point is he was not supposed to say thing X to person Y. That goes for whether he's talking to the captain in the lift or doing peace negotiations with Romulans. Boimler shows that he cannot do it. He may in the future, but he cannot now.
    Last edited by Peelee; 2020-09-25 at 12:01 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    ...the entire episode was about the captain torpedoing her own boat after Boimler told her that, though?
    Boimler isn't supposed to make those distinctions. Chain of Command is report to his senior officers. Boimler's mistake was in not catching until too late that "Buffer Time", though widely known about among crew culture, wasn't something the captain knew about and was overlooking for the sake of crew morale. I worked IT for 20 years and "Buffer Time" was something people did, and as long as people knew when to do it, taking a quick mental refresh wasn't something management would applaud, but they wouldn't break your back over it either unless you were doing it at the wrong time.

    But back to point, I just found it funny we were comparing Boimler mentioning "Buffer Time" to his CO in the same vein as loudly talking about troop deployments in a bar full of randos.

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    Default Re: Star Trek: Lower Decks

    Quote Originally Posted by Dire_Flumph View Post
    Boimler isn't supposed to make those distinctions. Chain of Command is report to his senior officers. Boimler's mistake was in not catching until too late that "Buffer Time", though widely known about among crew culture, wasn't something the captain knew about and was overlooking for the sake of crew morale. I worked IT for 20 years and "Buffer Time" was something people did, and as long as people knew when to do it, taking a quick mental refresh wasn't something management would applaud, but they wouldn't break your back over it either unless you were doing it at the wrong time.

    But back to point, I just found it funny we were comparing Boimler mentioning "Buffer Time" to his CO in the same vein as loudly talking about troop deployments in a bar full of randos.
    I get that last part, but the sentiment is "don't tell things to people who aren't supposed to know". The captain wasn't supposed to know. I sure as hell wouldn't trust Boimler to not drop references to starfleet deployments in a bar after that. Would you?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    I sure as hell wouldn't trust Boimler to not drop references to starfleet deployments in a bar after that. Would you?
    In all seriousness? If I had to, I could at least be sure he would take the job seriously, I haven't seen anything to suggest otherwise in the eight episodes so far to question his general competence. He's excitable, wet behind the ears, and flusters under pressure, so he'd be far from my first choice if I had to pick an Ensign to do so (but in a universe that contains Harry Kim, not my last).

    In his favor? We just had an alien trial episode and the Bradster conducted himself very well in that.

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    Default Re: Star Trek: Lower Decks

    Quote Originally Posted by Dire_Flumph View Post
    In all seriousness? If I had to, I could at least be sure he would take the job seriously, I haven't seen anything to suggest otherwise in the eight episodes so far to question his general competence. He's excitable, wet behind the ears, and flusters under pressure, so he'd be far from my first choice if I had to pick an Ensign to do so (but in a universe that contains Harry Kim, not my last).

    In his favor? We just had an alien trial episode and the Bradster conducted himself very well in that.
    I wound never suggest he wouldn't take the job seriously. But I wouldn't trust him to not leak information.
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    Default Re: Star Trek: Lower Decks

    Also, Boimler is quite young.

    Boimler's explicitly only been out of the Academy for a year. The Cerritos is his first assignment, and when the series starts he's barely been on any missions. He's only, like, 25 years old or so. And while he thinks that he and Mariner are about the same age, all of the evidence is that she has at least a solid four or five years of field experience on him.

    (For the other two, we don't really know where they're at; Rutherford is probably a little bit older than Boimler, and Tendi is also on her first deployment so she's presumably a similar age, at least to the degree that Orions and humans age similarly.)

    Boimler's not on the fast-track to super-success, but he's well within parameters for "normal Starfleet ensign". Give him a few years to figure out what to do and what not to do and he'll make lieutenant. He'll probably reach lieutenant commander in his 30s, and then even out into "functional subordinate."
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    Season (Potentially Series? Reception hasn't been great, and this didn't feel like setting up for much of a second season) Finale came out and

    Spoiler
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    As much as I consider myself a fan of the show, I can't say I loved the finale.

    Like, the first bit is some quality character-drama with everybody finding out about Mariner being the Captain's daughter. Which...would be solid ground for an episode, but they way they handled it didn't really work for me.
    Like, they go the route of "Everybody starts kissing up to Mariner, and she hates it". Which 1) Doesn't work with how the show has portrayed any of these characters so far. They seem to respect captain freeman, but they don't brown-nose her except to get her off their backs so why would they suddenly start making a show of trying to impress her daughter?

    Anyway, that doesn't really go anywhere except to get Mariner to a point where she decides to clean up her act so she can get transferred off the Ceritos, because everybody trying to make her like them succeeds where administrative tedium failed. Fine, solid enough.

    Then we get to the big Crisis Setpiece, with the scrapper aliens. Which serves to set up Freeman throwing the problem to Mariner so she can think of an outside-the-box solution which comes down to...a pretty standard star-trek solution of "Tell the Engineers to whip something up". It's less than pure technobabble because it's got the starting point of "They integrate a lot of different tech into their ship, so their system must be pretty willing to accept a wide variety of code", which is neat, and brings back Badgey.

    It's hardly "A brilliant solution that only Loose Cannon Ensign Mariner Could Think of!" It's pretty standard star-trek fare to be honest, but it's a solid action setpiece with a heroic sacrifice at the end.


    ...Then a bunch more alien ships show up solely so they can get saved by Troi and Riker aboard the U.S.S Cameo-Ex-Machina.

    And you end with, returning to the idea from the first episode, that Mariner's disregard of Starfleet regulations comes from a genuine desire to do good. And kind of an agreement for the two of them to unofficially work together.



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    "Everybody Kisses Mariner's Ass" is neither an especially entertaining bit, nor does it make a lot of sense as a reaction. Also, that sort of thing really could have deserved it's own episode. I would have gone the route of "Everybody stops hassling Mariner for goofing off because they assume her Mother is just going to cover for her anyway", which would work because 1) You can get some good humor out of Mariner reacting badly to people letting her get away with things, and 2) Character growth, as Mariner is offended that people think her mother is protecting her.

    I get that you're excited to have some TNG actors do cameos, but this is the season finale of YOUR series. It should be about YOUR characters. Don't suddenly invent a problem so the Cameo characters can solve it. That's just lazy screenwriting.

    The resolution of having the captain acknowledge Mariner's perspective, and methods is a good one...if that was more of a theme across the season. Besides the first episode, most of what Mariner has done has been goof off when she can get away with it, occasionally pulling out her hypercompetance to save the day. "Beckett Does Good Things By Breaking the Rules" has barely been a plotline, in fact, in THIS episode it's kind of a tacked-on rehash of the first episode (Beckett handing out supplies).
    I guess there was that one episode where she overthrows a despotic government. In general, the conflict hasn't been Beckett Wants To do Good but Starfleet Won't Let Her, so building the resolution around that feels odd.

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    Wow, what a season finale!

    Spoiler: S1E10: No Small Parts
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    The return of the Pakleds, and making them a real threat instead of a joke. The return of the exo-comps. And that cameo of the Titan, Riker and Troi! I about lost it when Riker referenced "These Are the Voyages..." (the awful series finale of Enterprise) at the end there. And Shaxs died! Didn't see that coming.


    Can't wait to see what they do with season 2 (which is already in production). And next week, we get season 3 of Discovery.
    Last edited by JadedDM; 2020-10-08 at 01:56 PM.

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    I am getting my Janeway back ... in an animated series coming out in 2021 ... according to Today's news.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ramza00 View Post
    I am getting my Janeway back ... in an animated series coming out in 2021 ... according to Today's news.
    I'm intrigued for a few reasons:

    1. I always liked Mulgrew on Voyager, I just don't think the writing was there to back her up. I'd love to see a 2nd crack at the character.

    2. Captain Janeway? Wasn't she an Admiral now?

    3. And this is on Nickelodeon, not CBS all access or that new Paramount service, which is interesting.

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    Default Re: Star Trek: Lower Decks

    Yes, on Star Trek Prodigy. It was the second animated series in the pipeline, but where as Lower Decks was an adult comedy, Prodigy is more of a children's animated series.

    So aside from Discovery, Picard and Lower Decks, we have Prodigy, Strange New Worlds (the Pike series) and the Section 31 series all coming, as well. That's a lot of Star Trek.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dire_Flumph View Post
    3. And this is on Nickelodeon, not CBS all access or that new Paramount service, which is interesting.
    Since Nickelodeon is owned by ViacomCBS I bet long term 6 months, 2 years later, whatever number we will see this Janeway show on either the
    1) CBS All Access service, or
    2) Paramount Streaming Service which ViacomCBS also owns as a subsidiary.

    -----

    I am thinking about "Disruption Innovation Theory" by Harvard's Clayton Christensen who died this January. ViacomCBS is a legacy incumbent and its size is a tool against it now vs new entrants such as Netflix. This is because ViacomCBS has so many products designed to maximize their revenue by being complicated long ago. But the new entrants attack "orthogonally" they no longer have to worry about Cable such as Nickelodeon since there was never a Netflix version of Nickelodeon. Likewise when CBS All Access was launched and Paramount Streaming was launched these streaming services and they compete with each other. Likewise ViacomCBS also has a free streaming service with Pluto TV. All these subsidiaries competing with each other and they do not add value. A tangled weave that confuses customers and they are not going to sign up for all these services so ViacomCBS is not revenue maximizing.

    Clayton Christensen's point with his theory is that the incumbents are trapped by the new entry in the market that attacks orthogonally. The only way to win is to sacrifice temporary profits, and reorganize your company in a way that makes sense, but this is a very hard thing to do for you are sacrificing immediate revenue with the goal of uncertain future profits. To use a biological metaphor you are going to be draining your own blood, barely surviving, barely sustaining your organs, in order to enter a more healthy place that you may not ever reach.

    (note this theory is complicated and does not always happens but if you look at streaming Netflix is eating everyone's lunch, and Disney will probably survive this but they are purposefully losing revenue to push DinseyPlus with the goal that DisneyPlus will reach more customers than cable, and those more customers will do more theme parks, merchandising such as lunchboxes, etc.)
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dire_Flumph View Post
    I'm intrigued for a few reasons:

    1. I always liked Mulgrew on Voyager, I just don't think the writing was there to back her up. I'd love to see a 2nd crack at the character.

    2. Captain Janeway? Wasn't she an Admiral now?

    3. And this is on Nickelodeon, not CBS all access or that new Paramount service, which is interesting.
    Its funny, I liked the potential for voyager, but they had a really hard time deciding if they were going to be a ds9 ongoing storyline type of setup where each episode has long term repercussions for the next, and tng where it might as well be the simpsons. Everything is tied up and forgotten by the end of the episode. They had interesting arcs like the fairhaven hologram thing had potential, I liked the bideans or whatever that race that stole organs from others to survive was. Even the Predator knockoff Hirogen were interesting. And the character arcs were, mostly, pretty interesting. Yeah the doctor was a kind of Data rehash with wanting to be a real boy, but wanting to be more than his programming, the time he made himself a holo family, his singing career, it was pretty awesome. But they just had so much stupid stuff mixed in with it.

    I wanted to see a captain have to decide between morals and getting her crew home, and deciding where the line was. I wanted to see the voyager struggle to make it because as anyone in the navy could tell you, SHIPS NEED MAINTENENCE! Not the kind of stuff geordi could whip up on the go either. They need time in dry stardock to get all sort of repairs done that cant be done out there. So Voyager may be stronger than anything they faced (for the most part) but they cant avoid all damage and every bit that happens is a drain on resources they cant be sure they can replace, as well as damage they might not be able to fix at all. And again, we got some of that, but it was haphazard and rarely lasted longer than that episode or mini arc before it was back to status quo. I wanted to see real issues develop between starfleet and maqui crew members. Again we DID, but it was single episode only then all was forgotten.
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    Quote Originally Posted by BRC View Post
    Season (Potentially Series? Reception hasn't been great, and this didn't feel like setting up for much of a second season) Finale came out and

    Spoiler
    Show

    As much as I consider myself a fan of the show, I can't say I loved the finale.

    Like, the first bit is some quality character-drama with everybody finding out about Mariner being the Captain's daughter. Which...would be solid ground for an episode, but they way they handled it didn't really work for me.
    Like, they go the route of "Everybody starts kissing up to Mariner, and she hates it". Which 1) Doesn't work with how the show has portrayed any of these characters so far. They seem to respect captain freeman, but they don't brown-nose her except to get her off their backs so why would they suddenly start making a show of trying to impress her daughter?

    Anyway, that doesn't really go anywhere except to get Mariner to a point where she decides to clean up her act so she can get transferred off the Ceritos, because everybody trying to make her like them succeeds where administrative tedium failed. Fine, solid enough.

    Then we get to the big Crisis Setpiece, with the scrapper aliens. Which serves to set up Freeman throwing the problem to Mariner so she can think of an outside-the-box solution which comes down to...a pretty standard star-trek solution of "Tell the Engineers to whip something up". It's less than pure technobabble because it's got the starting point of "They integrate a lot of different tech into their ship, so their system must be pretty willing to accept a wide variety of code", which is neat, and brings back Badgey.

    It's hardly "A brilliant solution that only Loose Cannon Ensign Mariner Could Think of!" It's pretty standard star-trek fare to be honest, but it's a solid action setpiece with a heroic sacrifice at the end.


    ...Then a bunch more alien ships show up solely so they can get saved by Troi and Riker aboard the U.S.S Cameo-Ex-Machina.

    And you end with, returning to the idea from the first episode, that Mariner's disregard of Starfleet regulations comes from a genuine desire to do good. And kind of an agreement for the two of them to unofficially work together.



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    "Everybody Kisses Mariner's Ass" is neither an especially entertaining bit, nor does it make a lot of sense as a reaction. Also, that sort of thing really could have deserved it's own episode. I would have gone the route of "Everybody stops hassling Mariner for goofing off because they assume her Mother is just going to cover for her anyway", which would work because 1) You can get some good humor out of Mariner reacting badly to people letting her get away with things, and 2) Character growth, as Mariner is offended that people think her mother is protecting her.

    I get that you're excited to have some TNG actors do cameos, but this is the season finale of YOUR series. It should be about YOUR characters. Don't suddenly invent a problem so the Cameo characters can solve it. That's just lazy screenwriting.

    The resolution of having the captain acknowledge Mariner's perspective, and methods is a good one...if that was more of a theme across the season. Besides the first episode, most of what Mariner has done has been goof off when she can get away with it, occasionally pulling out her hypercompetance to save the day. "Beckett Does Good Things By Breaking the Rules" has barely been a plotline, in fact, in THIS episode it's kind of a tacked-on rehash of the first episode (Beckett handing out supplies).
    I guess there was that one episode where she overthrows a despotic government. In general, the conflict hasn't been Beckett Wants To do Good but Starfleet Won't Let Her, so building the resolution around that feels odd.

    Ya know, I started off the first season markedly lukewarm on it and I finished it a big fan. The last two episodes were the best, with 9 getting the top spot IMO.

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    I didn't much see any issue with the crew's treatment of Mariner - Ransom's initial encounter with her and Freeman is almost identical to Boimler's, so we have both a junior officer that is close friends with her and a senior officer that more or less indifferent to her react awkwardly on knowing her familial status. It's a pretty good indicator that the rest of the crew would feel similarly awkward. Plus, that they don't suck up to a seasoned captain doesn't mean they wouldn't to a particularly well-positioned ensign; any captain would be able to tell immediately what the deal was with possible brownnosing, but newish barely-out-of-Starfleet kids who were cadets in recent memory? It'd probably pass Boimler by, for example, and while Mariner is significantly sharper and more seasoned, there's no reason to think everyone would know that, let alone think it differentiates things.

    I also am hesitant to call Riker and the Titan a DEM, since the Cerritos crew earned their victory. The Titan only saved them from the three new aggressors that were exactly as foreshadowed and relevant to the story as the Titan itself was (less so, actually, since they mention the Titan in the first few minutes and Boimler moves in at the end). The three additional ships come in solely for the Titan to come in, sure, bbut there was hardly any time for the danger to even exist, so I'm fine with that. The main characters solved their own problem. The other ships were an afterthought and dealt with like they were an afterthought. Though I would have liked a line about the Cerritos now knowing if their distress call got through the jamming or something to foreshadow the Titan a bit more.

    Plus, I unabashedly love Enterprise (or at least the parts of Enterprise that didn't deal with the Temporal Cold War or the Xindi), so I also loved the callbacks to it. Even the callback to that stupid ****ing title song.
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  21. - Top - End - #141
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    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    Ya know, I started off the first season markedly lukewarm on it and I finished it a big fan. The last two episodes were the best, with 9 getting the top spot IMO.

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    I didn't much see any issue with the crew's treatment of Mariner - Ransom's initial encounter with her and Freeman is almost identical to Boimler's, so we have both a junior officer that is close friends with her and a senior officer that more or less indifferent to her react awkwardly on knowing her familial status. It's a pretty good indicator that the rest of the crew would feel similarly awkward. Plus, that they don't suck up to a seasoned captain doesn't mean they wouldn't to a particularly well-positioned ensign; any captain would be able to tell immediately what the deal was with possible brownnosing, but newish barely-out-of-Starfleet kids who were cadets in recent memory? It'd probably pass Boimler by, for example, and while Mariner is significantly sharper and more seasoned, there's no reason to think everyone would know that, let alone think it differentiates things.

    I also am hesitant to call Riker and the Titan a DEM, since the Cerritos crew earned their victory. The Titan only saved them from the three new aggressors that were exactly as foreshadowed and relevant to the story as the Titan itself was (less so, actually, since they mention the Titan in the first few minutes and Boimler moves in at the end). The three additional ships come in solely for the Titan to come in, sure, bbut there was hardly any time for the danger to even exist, so I'm fine with that. The main characters solved their own problem. The other ships were an afterthought and dealt with like they were an afterthought. Though I would have liked a line about the Cerritos now knowing if their distress call got through the jamming or something to foreshadow the Titan a bit more.

    Plus, I unabashedly love Enterprise (or at least the parts of Enterprise that didn't deal with the Temporal Cold War or the Xindi), so I also loved the callbacks to it. Even the callback to that stupid ****ing title song.
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    I guess I can see it as "Everybody is just kind of awkward around her"


    The Cerritos and crew earned their victory, it was great. Then the show puts them back into danger so they can get DEM'd out of it.

    I'm not actually opposed to the occasional DEM, but it was the combo of invalidating the cast's hard-won victory, then having the USS Cameo show up to invalidate the invalidation of the victory.
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  22. - Top - End - #142
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    Quote Originally Posted by BRC View Post
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    I guess I can see it as "Everybody is just kind of awkward around her"


    The Cerritos and crew earned their victory, it was great. Then the show puts them back into danger so they can get DEM'd out of it.

    I'm not actually opposed to the occasional DEM, but it was the combo of invalidating the cast's hard-won victory, then having the USS Cameo show up to invalidate the invalidation of the victory.
    I get the "invalidating the invalidation", and I agree on characterizing it like that - it's just I see those two as canceling each other out, so I'm cool with it.
    Last edited by Peelee; 2020-10-09 at 12:08 AM.
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  23. - Top - End - #143
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    Quote Originally Posted by BRC View Post
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    I guess I can see it as "Everybody is just kind of awkward around her"


    The Cerritos and crew earned their victory, it was great. Then the show puts them back into danger so they can get DEM'd out of it.

    I'm not actually opposed to the occasional DEM, but it was the combo of invalidating the cast's hard-won victory, then having the USS Cameo show up to invalidate the invalidation of the victory.
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    I don't think it qualifies as a DEM. They specifically said earlier the Titan was also in range to respond to the distress call, so their appearance at the end wasn't out of the blue. The Cerritos did defeat the original Pakled ship, so I'm calling it a win for them even if they needed saving in the end. I agree it took a bit of the victory away though. A mention during the crisis that the Titan was on the way and they just needed to hang on until their arrival might have helped.

    Some thoughts:

    -Freeman coming out as a strong Captain for once. She seemed quite a bit more on the ball than usual. I like that she quickly realized what likely happened to the Solvang and avoided it.

    -I'll admit I got some laughs out of the Landru follow-up (especially love that the log entry showed TAS Kirk), but I don't like the suggestion that they'll focus on following up older Trek episodes. We will see I guess.

    -ILL MISS SHAXS!!! Went out like a bad-ass though. Character really grew on me over time and I'm sorry to see him go. At least the Worf effect didn't get him.

    -Ransom had his moments over the season, but I think after all is done he's probably my least favorite character at this point. I know he's the Kirk/Riker pastiche, but here he just seemed like a potential harassment lawsuit in the making.

    -The Titan looked cool. I'm not sure if it had an official look before this episode, but I liked the class of ship.

    -I'm not sure why, but the existence of Wolf 359 truthers depresses me.

    -I guess we have a solid timeframe for the series now. After Nemesis, but well before Picard.

    -Why don't they have weapons lockers on the bridge? I don't recall earlier shows having them either, but it really makes no sense that they had to abandon the bridge to the invaders to arm themselves. Shouldn't security at least be armed?

    -Very interesting end to the season, and if this had been a series finale it would have been a satisfying one. Nice to see Bradward get his promotion and a spot on the Titan, I'd hate to see that reversed in season 2, but I'd also miss the character. Rutherford didn't really have much development to reset, so his memory wipe came off as kind of hollow. It would be interesting to see Mariner work more closely with the bridge, I'm hoping to get more to the bottom of her issues with rank. Mostly I'm just hoping the reset button doesn't get punched in the next episode.

    -Looks like this has been renewed, so after a promising season one, looking forward to Season II: The Wrath of Badgey
    Last edited by Dire_Flumph; 2020-10-09 at 12:37 AM.

  24. - Top - End - #144
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    Quote Originally Posted by Traab View Post
    Its funny, I liked the potential for voyager, but they had a really hard time deciding if they were going to be a ds9 ongoing storyline type of setup where each episode has long term repercussions for the next, and tng where it might as well be the simpsons. Everything is tied up and forgotten by the end of the episode. They had interesting arcs like the fairhaven hologram thing had potential, I liked the bideans or whatever that race that stole organs from others to survive was. Even the Predator knockoff Hirogen were interesting. And the character arcs were, mostly, pretty interesting. Yeah the doctor was a kind of Data rehash with wanting to be a real boy, but wanting to be more than his programming, the time he made himself a holo family, his singing career, it was pretty awesome. But they just had so much stupid stuff mixed in with it.

    I wanted to see a captain have to decide between morals and getting her crew home, and deciding where the line was. I wanted to see the voyager struggle to make it because as anyone in the navy could tell you, SHIPS NEED MAINTENENCE! Not the kind of stuff geordi could whip up on the go either. They need time in dry stardock to get all sort of repairs done that cant be done out there. So Voyager may be stronger than anything they faced (for the most part) but they cant avoid all damage and every bit that happens is a drain on resources they cant be sure they can replace, as well as damage they might not be able to fix at all. And again, we got some of that, but it was haphazard and rarely lasted longer than that episode or mini arc before it was back to status quo. I wanted to see real issues develop between starfleet and maqui crew members. Again we DID, but it was single episode only then all was forgotten.
    Voyager suffers the curse of being (arguably) the most unevenly written Star Trek show. They can have a brilliant episode, then turn around and have one that's complete crap. One minute they're struggling for basic sustenance, the next the have a full compliment of shuttles. (They lost 16 shuttles not counting Delta Flyer, so someone must have been sending the entire series doing noting but replicating shuttle parts).

    As for Lower Decks, you have to love any show that gives us the most obscure Easter Egg of all..

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    A Xon reference. Hell, I bet most of you weren't BORN when Xon was a possibility.
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  25. - Top - End - #145
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    Quote Originally Posted by tomandtish View Post
    Voyager suffers the curse of being (arguably) the most unevenly written Star Trek show. They can have a brilliant episode, then turn around and have one that's complete crap. One minute they're struggling for basic sustenance, the next the have a full compliment of shuttles. (They lost 16 shuttles not counting Delta Flyer, so someone must have been sending the entire series doing noting but replicating shuttle parts).
    I want to blame management for this, not just the writers.

    Much of the choices of Voyager were about "control" and thus you were beholden to the producers, show runners, etc, etc. Now this is the case of all shows but part of the reason for the Voyager Spin Off in the first place is these various people wanted more creative control away from TNG and DS9. And since TNG was so successful you having a spin off show that also makes people happy for they get to do more freedom is a way to make everyone happy for at the time Star Trek printed money and thus the power battles was not worth it during the time of plenty.

    I bring this up for eventually Voyager found its groove. Now it is still one of the most inconsistent shows and part of that is the writers, but I just want to point it out is more complicated than that.

    (This is not counting other things such as Kate Mulgrew and the Jeri Ryan feud, which Kate has since apologized for. Pretty much with Season 4 on the Media recast who is the center of the show from the women captain to the hot new women crew member and Kate took this personally and took it out on Jeri. This created a toxic atmosphere that many of the actors has commented on it and now with distance Kate realized she was in the wrong and was the cause of things. Even if the media is sexist often for sex and stereotypes can sell magazine articles.)

    Sorry if I seem whiney but I love my Voyager, the problem child of the Star Trek universe in some ways.
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  26. - Top - End - #146
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ramza00 View Post
    Sorry if I seem whiney but I love my Voyager, the problem child of the Star Trek universe in some ways.
    Hey, I get it. When i do my top 10 list of favorite Trek episodes, Voyager has 5 of them.

    When I do my top 10 list of worst Trek episodes Voyager has 5 of them.
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  27. - Top - End - #147
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ramza00 View Post
    I want to blame management for this, not just the writers.

    Much of the choices of Voyager were about "control" and thus you were beholden to the producers, show runners, etc, etc. Now this is the case of all shows but part of the reason for the Voyager Spin Off in the first place is these various people wanted more creative control away from TNG and DS9. And since TNG was so successful you having a spin off show that also makes people happy for they get to do more freedom is a way to make everyone happy for at the time Star Trek printed money and thus the power battles was not worth it during the time of plenty.

    I bring this up for eventually Voyager found its groove. Now it is still one of the most inconsistent shows and part of that is the writers, but I just want to point it out is more complicated than that.

    (This is not counting other things such as Kate Mulgrew and the Jeri Ryan feud, which Kate has since apologized for. Pretty much with Season 4 on the Media recast who is the center of the show from the women captain to the hot new women crew member and Kate took this personally and took it out on Jeri. This created a toxic atmosphere that many of the actors has commented on it and now with distance Kate realized she was in the wrong and was the cause of things. Even if the media is sexist often for sex and stereotypes can sell magazine articles.)

    Sorry if I seem whiney but I love my Voyager, the problem child of the Star Trek universe in some ways.
    Imean, I agree with Mulgrew's complaints. It's just that she took it out on the wrong person.
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  28. - Top - End - #148
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    Quote Originally Posted by tomandtish View Post
    Hey, I get it. When i do my top 10 list of favorite Trek episodes, Voyager has 5 of them.

    When I do my top 10 list of worst Trek episodes Voyager has 5 of them.
    I agree with that but I just do not want to place "all of the blame" on the writers when there is several different groups to blame, and for different reasons.

    Film and TV after all being a collaborative project, unlike other genres such as Literature where you can have a singe author.
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  29. - Top - End - #149
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ramza00 View Post
    Sorry if I seem whiney but I love my Voyager, the problem child of the Star Trek universe in some ways.
    I may not like Voyager in execution much (though I will admit it has some classics in the run) but as a fan of the Star Wars Prequels I say never apologize for what you love.

    I had a co-worker some time back who was a major Voyager fan (It was the only Trek show he liked), and while he didn't change my mind, he did give me a different viewpoint on it's merits that I've always appreciated since.
    Last edited by Dire_Flumph; 2020-10-11 at 06:19 PM.

  30. - Top - End - #150
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dire_Flumph View Post
    as a fan of the Star Wars Prequels I say never apologize for what you love.
    As a decidedly non-fan of the prequels, I agree with you and will still nerd out over the prequels with you any time.
    Quote Originally Posted by Dire_Flumph View Post
    I had a co-worker some time back who was a major Voyager fan (It was the only Trek show he liked).
    I know what I just said in the top half, but this deserves a "wait REALLY?!"
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