Kinda sad we didn’t get James Frain back as Sarek for this episode. I could kinda see him bumping into Chapel and reminiscing about how the Vulcan Science Academy was absolutely awful to his 1.5 human kids.
sorry, it’s the future, these are apparently mandatory now.
Well said.
One thing I noticed in my first watch through Lower Decks was just how much they use variants of the phrase “I’m Starfleet.” Just constantly touching on the optimism of the show, how despite all the nonsense these unimportant ensigns on unimportant ships have to put up with, they are still Starfleet. They are as much Starfleet as Pike, Picard, and Sarek’s lauded mutineer children. And Starfleet is awesome!
There’s an excellent OrangeRiver video that showed up on my youtube feed a bit back about why D’vana Tendi is awesome and I think it really gets at the heart of why Lower Decks works as a Star Trek show and not just a Star Trek adjacent parody. Prodigy has a slightly different perspective on Starfleet but it works kinda the same in having characters (the Janeways, I will not elaborate) that represent just how awesome Starfleet can be.
People complaining about how the replicator’s blandly perfect food and sometimes reliability goes back at least to TNG. It is not new.
I will argue that the Disco bit is more intended to add some subtext that outlines Admiral Vance’s thoughts than just “haha we eat poop.”
I read it as tiredness on Vance’s part-- a sort of signal that yes, in some ways the quality of life under the Emerald Chain is better than the sterile closed environment of the UFP’s remnant. Contrast this with Osyraa’s statement about how she has real apples. He chooses the Federation’s integrity when it comes down to it, but he was genuinely considering throwing the Federation’s legitimacy behind the Chain.
To be fair to other series, plenty of them tapped into the Vulcans’ potential as comedy straight men. This is arguably why we had the recurring conflict of goofy alien Neelix vs. Tuvok on Voyager. Lower Decks doesn’t see a lot of them, but gets a lot of mileage making fun of their uptight nature in Wej Duj. TOS even had some fun poking holes in Spock’s facade-- just look at the end of Amok Time.
But yeah, it’s kinda crazy seeing the shenanigans come from the Vulcans themselves in this show.
The DS9-Prodigy (~2370-2385) era gave us several lovely ship classes-- the Sovereign, Intrepid, Parliment, Obena, and Protostar classes come to mind for me
I’m also in the camp that liked it, Pike since his reintroduction in Disco S2 has been one of the franchises’ most emotionally open captains. Most of the time we see this as this self-assured dad energy he uses when talking to his subordinates, but I think it was good to see how he can be vulnerable but still that genuine, emotionally mature guy with someone who’s on the same level as him.
Maybe a less popular one, but all the stuff Admiral Vance had to do to keep the Federation together prior to Discovery’s arrival. He’s pragmatic and you can tell from how he treats Stamets in the s3 finale he’s no stranger to sacrifice. From his discussion with Osyraa, though, you can see he’s still committed to the high-minded ideals of Starfleet and the UFP.
Outside of measure of a man-type episodes, I don’t think they’ve ever had a super in-depth discussion on selfhood and the soul as characters see it in universe. , but it seems like materialism is the generally accepted philosophy. Post Enterprise, people who have hangups on the transporters (perhaps more based in dualism) are treated as weirdos.
More evidence for materialism: Q, the godlike being who might be able to tell the difference, treats Golem-Picard the same entity. And last I checked nobody’s going around saying that Thomas Riker and William Boimler are p-zombies.
(I guess Gray Tal is the odd man out, since there was some consciousness that got somehow ceremonially split off before shoving it in a golem. Maybe that’s just trill symbiont weirdness though).
Spock briefs the featured crew, including navigator LT Jenna Mitchell, on his plan to get the inspectors off the ship and steal the Enterprise to help La’An. This foreshadows Kirk & Co. famously doing the same thing to help Spock in ST III, a sequence called “Stealing the Enterprise” on the soundtrack album.
It also bears mentioning that Spock did more mutiny/Enterprise-stealin’ of his own in The Menagerie. Sarek’s kids truly are menaces.
Yesterday’s Enterprise, if I had to pick one.
Some more obscure ones that I like and I haven’t seen mentioned thus far in this thread:
Side note, have we not had any time shenanigans in Lower Decks? I know it’s technically coming by way of SNW, but still.
Not a bad start, although the episode felt somewhat lackluster. The character writing felt a little wooden, too much stuff is explicitly said instead of letting it hang in the subtext. Also there had better be a good explanation in future episodes as to why the hell Dr. M’benga keeps a couple of vials of punching serum handy at all times.
The visuals were great. The Klingon makeup was toned back a bit more towards a TNG-era look, but you can still see the more distinct Discovery skull shape. Overall a good mix between the two I’d say. The visuals from Spacedock feel very Discovery as well-- nice to see those starfleet drones being used outside of Control trying to kill everyone.
Spock stealing the enterprise again (I guess technically this is the first time). Add it to the small but alarming pile of crimes by Sarek’s kids.
I did not recognize the Crossfield class ship until they called it out, the nacelles looked totally different and I assumed it was something more NX-class adjacent. I’d guess this is a more standard Crossfield build and Discovery and Glenn were the odd children out, maybe we’ll see in the future.
To be fair, Sybok was the original spontaneous Spock sibling, even though Star Trek V was chronologically later.