Star Trek: Lower Decks

[Anthony W]

By now I take it you have all seen the trailer to the new animated Trek series Lower Decks. You folks remember when Seth MacFarlane was making The Orville and everyone sneered at it and said it would be Family Guy in space? Well, The Orville turned out to be a great dramedy while still honoring Trek because MacFarlane is a huge Trekkie.

If you are looking for a "Family Guy In Space" then Lower Decks looks to be the show you want. Nothing wrong with that, check out my avatar. I just find it amusing that MacFarlane originally pitched CBS to do Star Trek but was turned down. I wonder if the folks in charge of Trek at CBS is looking at what Kurtzman has wrought and what MacFarlane has been able to do without the Trek brand and then seeing this attempt at a Trek cartoon and remembering MacFarlane's work in animation. Combine that with a peek at Metacritic and maybe CBS is starting to think that maybe they bet on the wrong horse? Discovery gets 72 from the critics and a 3.9 from users. The Orville gets 36 from critics but an 8.7 from users. Picard gets a 76 from critics and a 4.2 from users.

[Immortal Weapon]

I'm not a fan of Trek but the trailer made me cringe. It was terrible cross of Rick and Morty and Final Space.

[Anthony W]

I'm not a fan of Trek but the trailer made me cringe. It was terrible cross of Rick and Morty and Final Space.

Everyone keeps tossing around Rick and Morty, but I am not seeing it. The "blast shields up, blast shields down" gag is something I can easily imagine Peter Griffin doing. This show's style is reminiscent of the time (Yes I know, it sounds like I'm setting up a Family Guy style cutaway) of the time Family Guy spoofed Star Wars. Except you could feel the love of Star Wars coming out of that. I feel nothing coming out of this. It's like a spoof of Star Trek by people who aren't really into Star Trek.

It hurts to say that because Mike McMahan is a big Trek fan, but Kurtszmann is involved so it could be fruit from a poisoned tree situation.

[Cyke]

I liked it but I really don't mind that it looks like Rick and Morty. Mike McMahan worked on the former and is the show runner here, and to me its near-analogous to Futurama looking like the Simpsons though Groening had a smaller role (unlike Roiland and Harmon, who have nothing to do with this show).

With that said, Star Trek's been deconstructed before for really heavy drama and harder sci fi (DS9 moreso than any show before or since). I'm down for another deconstruction, but from a source of humor. Especially to counterbalance the dour Discovery and uneven Picard.

[WebLurker]

I'm not impressed by the trailer, but I think we should keep an open mind about the show; wouldn't be the first time that the trailer didn't do the project justice.

[Personamanx]

I was reasonably entertained. The design style isn't particularly inspired, but a workplace comedy on a spaceship is a decent enough concept. Albeit not the most original. But I like that Star Trek is willing to have a sense of humor about itself.

[Güicho]

Wow that was painfully awfull. Not even funny.
When was this franchise surrendered to "creators" of this inane half-baked crap.
How far Trek has fallen.

[Anthony W]

I'm not impressed by the trailer, but I think we should keep an open mind about the show; wouldn't be the first time that the trailer didn't do the project justice.

Well if it's anything like Picard the first three to four episodes will be watchable, that way you won't be able to just walk away when it falls off a cliff.

[WebLurker]

Well if it's anything like Picard the first three to four episodes will be watchable, that way you won't be able to just walk away when it falls off a cliff.

Why would it be anything like Picard?

[dswynne]

I really doubt that it's trying to be anything other its own thing. I do think that the show will play on the typical ST tropes however, and 'Trek has had the occasional comedic episodes

[Anthony W]

Why would it be anything like Picard?

My bad, anything like a Trek show where Kurtzman is involved.

[Cyke]

My bad, anything like a Trek show where Kurtzman is involved.

I do hope that as we get more Trek shows, he takes more of a backseat, like Rick Berman. Technically he was in charge of DS9, but the show succeeded in large part because he was too focused on Voyager. (of course, Berman's tried to claim DS9's successes as his own, even the ones that he was against and the writers/other producers went around his back to make them happen)

[Anthony W]

I do hope that as we get more Trek shows, he takes more of a backseat, like Rick Berman. Technically he was in charge of DS9, but the show succeeded in large part because he was too focused on Voyager. (of course, Berman's tried to claim DS9's successes as his own, even the ones that he was against and the writers/other producers went around his back to make them happen)

True. But Berman may have stopped DS9 from making one of the biggest mistakes in Trek history. Here is a taste, the link is below.

At the Star Trek Las Vegas convention Star Trek: Deep Space Nine showrunner Ira Steven Behr described a very different ending he originally proposed for the series finale.


As TrekMovie describes, the convention ended with a panel dedicated to a single, beloved episode: Season 6's "Far Beyond the Stars." In the episode, Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), commander of Deep Space Nine, has a vision of himself in a distant past.He was no longer a member of Starfleet, but a science fiction author in 1950s New York named Benny Russell. Russell has written a story about a black space station captain titled "Deep Space Nine," but is unable to get it published thanks to the racism of American society.
Originally pitched by writer Marc Scott Zicree, the metafictional elements of "Far Beyond the Stars" stuck with Behr, particularly how the episode was "about the dreamer and the dream and who is dreaming and what they're dreaming about." When it came to write the series finale, Behr considered returning to Benny Russell.

"The final episode would end up with Benny Russell on Stage 17 at Paramount, wandering around the sound stages, realizing that this whole construct, this whole series that we had done for seven years, was just in Benny's head," Behr said in his pitch to co-executive producer Rick Berman. "That is how I wanted to end the series."
Berman questioned what this ending could mean for other Star Trek series. If DS9 is nothing but a dream, what about Star Trek: Voyager? What about Star Trek: The Original Series? "I said, 'Hey man, I don't care who is dreaming those shows, I only care about Deep Space Nine and yes, Benny Russell is dreaming Deep Space Nine.' He didn't go for it."

There you have it folks, disaster averted lol. Here is the link https://www.newsweek.com/star-trek-d...l-what-1086237

[Triniking1234]

No one watches Star Trek for humour. I could already tell how bad this will be considering how awful the attempts at humour in Discovery are.

[Anthony W]

No one watches Star Trek for humour. I could already tell how bad this will be considering how awful the attempts at humour in Discovery are.

I thought Spock saying "I like Science" was pretty funny.