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jonny-r217 · 3 years

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I’ve been listening to the scores for Star Trek Discovery s1-3 and Picard during my commutes the last couple days and it got me thinking about “modern” Star Trek.

Disclaimer- I’ve been watching Trek since before I could speak and will continue to watch ALL iterations until my dying day. While I generally enjoy Discovery, Picard, and Lower Decks, I don’t love them in their totality, which I think stems mostly from pacing. (Also I’ve done at least one complete viewing of each series, some rewatches, but going mostly from memory for my thoughts here.)

Three thoughts-

1- Lower Decks: I don’t actually like the show.

I love Mariner. Boimler, Tendi, & Rutherford are adorable, but I just don’t like the pacing. It’s hyperactive and over saturated with jokes and Easter eggs to the point where I can’t enjoy an episode without multiple pauses or rewinds - on the first viewing. It’s a little frustrating since the show is so obviously made with care and love for Trekkies by Trekkies. I just wish there was a breath or two more to really let us take it all in. Also who knew that high octane screwball comedy Star Trek would work so well?

2- Picard was a near masterpiece.

There are some places to trim the fat, namely with the Romulans/Zhat Vash, the admonition, and the AI Federation; but it is such a fantastic study in grief and letting go/moving on with the broken pieces we have. (See also the rest of the cast and their arcs.)

Personally I didn’t care for the Romulan infiltration of StarFleet. They could have left it simply as the Tal Shi’ar were responsible for the Mars attack as retribution for a failed Nova rescue, but it was the Federation alone that caused the synth ban. It adds gravitas to the dichotomy of being a good man with no light behind you that Picard faces, while also being a nice look at how the UFP isn’t always living up to the ideals it strives for. Commodore Oh and Narik and his sister could have been erased and the show would have been relatively unchanged and stronger for it. Leave the artifact as a section 31/federation black site, keep Laris & Jabahn, Elnor & the Qoat Mialt unchanged.

Also unless Discovery or Picard intent to revisit the cuter AI tentacle monster it’s best to just say “that was weird” and move on and ignore it.

Finally, Discovery. It too suffers pacing issues, but also some diversity as well.

Pacing, I know I know it’s supposed to be the action adventure, but give us a little time to see what happens when the dust settles each season. Let us sit with the crew. I know it’s Michael’s story, but it’s been three years and we barely know her crew mates/subordinates. If filler episodes are a thing of the past, give us a short trek or two.

Diversity, the crew is both the most diverse in history and simultaneously the least. Yes we started 10 years pre-TOS and there’s intentional parallels to TOS’ crew dynamics, but with Saru not really being around and Linus a glorified guest star, it’s a completely human crew in a galaxy where humans are not the only sentiments. Trek and it’s species are supposed to be mirrors. Without the aliens, it feels lacking. Particularly because of what I feel is a missed opportunity with Grey and Adira. Their story presently doesn’t connect to me, and I think it’s partly because it’s yet another human, even if a Trill & Symbiont are involved. How much richer would Adira’s story have been being a joined, yet blocked, Trill? What about how it plays into their place in Trill society which we know frowns on maintaining a relationship with the loves of previous hosts when in this case they are one and the same? Or what of Adira being a young alien trapped on a Post-Burn Earth? You could still have had all the trans education and working to have Grey be seen again and Hugh and Paul adopting them both, while making it a little bit more richer narratively. Maybe it was because of backstage ideas not wanting to hide trans/NB actors behind alien prosthetics and make up, but it feels a missed opportunity.

#personal #star trek #star trek picard #star trek discovery #star trek lower decks

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Star Trek: Lower Decks Episode 10 Review: No Small Parts

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This Star Trek: Lower Decks review contains spoilers.

Since it debuted, Star Trek: Lower Decks has made no bones about being a quirky sequel to The Next Generation. Yes, there are Easter eggs from Deep Space Nine to Enterprise, but the tone and spirit of the show is firmly TNG. And, in the finale episode of its first season, Lower Decks brings back a tradition that TNG arguably perfected: The season finale that makes you love the show ten times more than you already did.

The season finale of Lower Decks — “No Small Parts” — is not the best episode of the season. But then again, because this episode is the entire season in one hilarious jolt, it could easily serve as a quick way to get someone into the show who was holding out. Basically, “No Small Parts” feels like a real Trek season finale — not the season finale to comedy series. This legit TNG zing is so powerful that the only negative thing you can say about this episode that it’s going to be tough to top.

Good Star Trek season finales are in a different category from all other Trek episodes. If you don’t count the original series (which you really shouldn’t because those season finales aren’t really what season finales became) you could argue that TNG actually has, on average, the worst season finales of all the other Trek series. Think about it. “The Best of Both Worlds” is fantastic, but after that? What’s the next great TNG finale? I mean, they really tried with “Redemption,” where Worf leaves the Enterprise and ditto for “Descent” wen Data seems to turn evil, but if you’re honest with yourself, then you know that maybe the second-best TNG season finale is “Times Arrow,” and even that is a distant second to “The Best of Both Worlds.”

Meanwhile, Voyager, DS9, and yes, even Enterprise have tons of season finales that are all better than TNG season finales that are not “The Best of Both Worlds.” For example, Voyager’s “Equinox” is better than “Time’s Arrow,” and “Shockwave,” from Enterprise is better than “Descent.” And in terms of moving the story forward in a way that felt big and important, nearly every DS9 finale has more weight than TNG finales, because on that show, you knew the big changes were gonna stick. Even though we all bit our nails during the summer 1990, wondering if Picard would come back from being a Borg, the good money was on the idea that he would return. Even TNG’s best finale lacks the teeth of its successors.

And yet. TNG perfected the Star Trek season finale, which paved the way for the other shows to do it, too. The Lower Decks season 1 finale knows this, and showrunner Mike McMahan has crafted a finale that isn’t perfect, but it’s seemingly imperfect on purpose. If every episode of Lower Decks is an episodic think piece on other episodes of Star Trek, then “No Small Parts” is a statement about how big episodes of Trek can change the franchise and keep it familiar simultaneously. By the time this episode is over, Boimler has transferred to the USS Titan, Rutherford’s memory has been erased, and Jax is dead. These things are not getting undone for season 2. The changes are here to stay, kind of like when Tasha Yar died in “Skin of Evil” in TNG’s first season. That episode wasn’t a season finale, but Lower Decks knows the actual season finale TNG season 1 (“The Neutral Zone”) sucked, so, they tried to make better one.

If the entire season has been trying to figure out what will happen to Mariner and Boimler, then Lower Decks follows-thru on these character arcs, possibly better than any other first season of a Trek show. Part of this is a little bit of a cheat. Mariner and Boimler haven’t actually had to deal with as many horrific things as other Trek characters, but, in terms of personal growth and interesting changes, “No Small Parts” does something comedies rarely are able to do — surprise us. Generally speaking, you want your situation comedy to keep the situation relatively the same. But, the Lower Decks finale doesn’t care about all that. By the end of it, Boimler is gone, and Mariner is actually cool with working with her mom — Captain Freeman — without being a jerk about it. The banter between Mariner and Boimler and her friction with her mom kind of defined the entire first season. So, by having Boimler leave the USS Cerritos and to have Mariner be buddies with her mom, the series gestures at some maturity and confidence other Trek shows couldn’t have done as quickly.

Granted, Lower Decks growing up fast is also a little bit of a magic trick. This is still a comedy, which means, the stakes, will still remain slightly lower than other shows in the Trek-verse. And yet, Jax really did die saving Rutherford. And Boimler really did ditch his best friend for a career opportunity. These things weren’t played for laughs, they just happened.

It’s been said many times that the strength of Star Trek is that it really doesn’t have one genre. Sure, science fiction informs the setting of Trek, but the genre changes from episode-to-episode and series-to-series. Discovery is mostly an action-adventure show. TNG and Picard are more drama. Enterprise feels like a borderline Western, as did TOS. But within those series, you can jump to slapstick comedy episodes, whodunnits, and, bizarrely, at least a couple gothic romances. In its first season, Lower Decks hasn’t really outdone any one specific episode of great Treks from other shows, but the charm of the series, and of this finale in specific, is that it’s made you think the show has been on for slightly longer than it has.

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When Riker, Troi, and the USS Titan warp to the rescue in the last act of the episode, and Will Riker blurts out “Mariner!” you really feel like Lower Decks is officially part of the family. Or, more accurately, that it always was.

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