This season on Star Trek: Lower Decks, one of the show's recurring characters was transferred from the show's "hero ship," the USS Cerritos, to the USS Manitoba, named for the province of my birth. Naturally I'm tickled, even though we don't actually see the Manitoba on screen, and the series' untimely cancellation after this season means we're unlikely to ever see it.
Still, Manitoba represent!
The first season of Star Trek: Lower Decks concluded a few days ago. Despite my initial reservations at the idea of a comedic Trek--let alone a comedic Trek that would be treated as canonical--it turns out that Lower Decks is my favourite Star Trek offering of the 21st century.
Lower Decks is the story of four low-ranking officers posted to the USS Cerritos, a starship assigned to so-called "second contact" duties--that is, they fill out the paperwork and perform all the other non-glamorous work of establishing formal relations with new civilizations in the wake of more prestigious "first contact" missions like those carried out by the Enterprise.
The four officers are rebellious Beckett Mariner, suckup Brad Boimler, obnoxiously cheerful D'Vana Tendi, and engineering nerd Sam Rutherford. They're supported by a stoic bridge crew: Captain Carol Freeman, First Officer Jack Ransom, Security Chief Lieutenant Shaxs, Chief Medical Officer Dr. T'Ana, and Chief Engineer Andy Billups.
Naturally, each of these characters has their own comedic quirks. Mariner tends to fly off the handle, sometimes violently; Boimler's ambition gets him into embarrassing predicaments; D'Vana has to endure the stereotypes associated with her Orion heritage; and Rutherford has a cybernetic skull implant that sometimes goes haywire. The senior officers have their own foibles: Freeman clearly has a chip on her shoulder with regards to the lack of prestige of their mission; Ransom is a comedic mix of the less savoury traits of Captains Kirk and Riker; Shaxs is even more prone to violence than Worf ever was; and Billups is a bit of a sad sack. My favourite character, Dr. T'Ana, is a Caitian, the humanoid cat species introduced in the first Star Trek animated series; but instead of presenting as a sexy stereotype, the "feline fatale," as it were, T'Ana is a crotchety, potty-mouthed alley cat. She's clearly good at her job, but has no patience for her patients, as it were.
The show's humour mixes slapstick, self-parody and referential humour, and situational gags. The writers do an excellent job in finding the humour in the franchise's inconsistencies, logical leaps, and absurdities, poking fun without being mean. There's also plenty of fun to be had in the character interactions and the way they navigate the challenges presented by the A and B stories, a structure we haven't seen since the glory days of 90s trek (TNG, DS9, and VOY).
The show doesn't ignore story in favour of jokes--far from it. To my great surprise and delight, Lower Decks achieves a rare feat: it improves with each episode, thanks in great part to the strength of the stories and the growing confidence and ambition of the writers. It all culminates in one of the best season finales in Star Trek history - a finale with real jeopardy, high stakes, huge changes to the show's status quo, plenty of clever humour, and special guest stars that show up with great fanfare, but organically; their appearance makes perfect sense given the story.
Best of all, Lower Decks captures the original Star Trek spirit by portraying a future where people care about right and wrong and make decisions based on the greater good for everyone. I find both Star Trek: Picard and and Star Trek: Discovery quite cynical about Star Trek's ideals; their showrunners, to my mind, can't really bring themselves to believe in Gene Roddenberry's original utopian vision, so the Federation we see in Picard and Discovery is corrupt or flawed in some fundamental way. Not so Lower Decks. The animated series isn't naive about the Federation or the difficulties of maintaining utopia, but these showrunners clearly believe that Federation ideals are worth not just examining, but upholding.
My one complaint - and it does ease off as the season progresses - is that the showrunners lean a little too heavily on references to the old shows. The references are, by and large, clever and appropriate, but they're so numerous that it reminds the audience just a little too much that this is just a show, and so are all the other Star Trek series we love.
Thanks to this first season, I'm now more excited for more Lower Decks than I am for the next seasons of Picard and Discovery. Not only is the show funny, not only does it feature great characters whose stories I'm invested in following, but it feels like coming home to the grand old days of 90s Trek.
Last night Sylvia and I watched "Second Contact," the pilot episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, the first Star Trek show billed as a comedy and the second (barring a couple of Short Treks) to be animated.
"Second Contact" introduces us to the show's premise and its main characters. Lower Decks is set on the starship Cerritos; her primary mission is to perform second contact missions. That is, the crew of the Cerritos goes where others have gone before, following up the more exciting and hazardous first contact missions with alien species by taking care of the mundane work of establishing permanent communications links, cultural exchanges, trade agreements, and so on. The show is set just a few years after the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, so the ship designs, uniforms, and even the typefaces are identical to or clearly evolved from that show's design lineage.
While other Star Trek shows follow the adventures of the bridge officers--the captain and other high-ranking folks--Lower Decks reveals the less glamorous world of the fresh young crew who perform the least desirable or prestigious tasks on the ship. Our protagonists include Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler, two ensigns on the command track; new Orion recruit D'Vana Tendi, who works in the medical division; and engineer Sam Rutherford, who recently became a cyborg due to an injury in the show's recent past. Each of the four displays the drive, ambition, and desire to do the right thing we've come to expect from Federation characters, but these characters are less polished than Kirk, Picard, Data, Spock, Sisko, Janeway, and so on. Mariner tends to pay less attention to regulations than she should, though always in pursuit of a greater good; as a result, she's been demoted at least a rank or two before the show opens. Boimler tends to be a little too focused on advancement, with perhaps a tendency to suck up to his superiors. Rutherford is still getting used to his Vulcan-designed cybernetic implants, which tend to tamp down his emotions by default, and he's also a bit too in love with his job, to the detriment of his social life. Tendi seems to be the least quirky of the quartet, though she does get a little overexcited when she gets the opportunity to hold a live, beating human heart in her bare hands.
We catch only glimpses of the senior staff; the ship's captain, Carol Freeman, gets the most development in this episode. She comes across as slightly antagonistic in this episode, but it's hard to judge her fairly based on just a few seconds of screentime.
Like most Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, this pilot has an A plot and a B plot. In the A plot, Boimler and Mariner beam down to the planet of the Galardonians to help set up some infrastructure. In the B plot, the ship's first officer infects the crew with a quickly-spreading zombie-like disease. Hilarity ensues in both plots, and Boimler unwittingly saves the day.
When I first heard about Lower Decks, I had one concern: Could the creators respect the Star Trek ethos while at the same time producing something funny?
The good news is the talent takes great pains to stay true to Trek values. While the characters are wacky by the standards of live-action Trek, they remain believable, if somewhat exaggerated. They clearly believe in the Federation and its mission, and act out of a desire to do good.
But is it funny? Well, I laughed, but not uproariously. The gags are a mix of physical pratfalls and gentle digs at some of the sillier aspects of the world of Star Trek. It works for me, but I'm a pretty small audience.
If I had to characterize Lower Decks in just a few words, I would say it's gentle, sincere, and has great potential. I already like the characters, and the premise is promising. It's a good start.
