Lower Decks, ep 1: Not great, but at least it’s Star Trek (some spoilers)

For the first time of the CBS era, they actually produced a Star Trek series.

The biggest hurdle is the animation style, and if that doesn’t work for you, it just won’t. Luckily for me, I like it. The second biggest hurdle is CBS. And just from the first episode, it seems like Mike McMahan did the damn thing and managed to keep Kurtzman’s slimy hands off the show.

There are still way too many listed “producers” but this is clearly written and produced by someone who understands the franchise. That alone makes this a success. Now it’s up to Lower Decks to really throw the CBS playbook out the window and tell good stories. One step at a time, though.

In awe while looking backwards. So much meta.

Pros

Details. So many details. But unlike shoving a Gorn skeleton in the background where it doesn’t belong, Ens. Mariner talking about a cha’dich strengthens the situation, not detracts from it. Kurtzman et al tried so hard, so damn hard, to speak the language of Star Trek, but did so with the fluency of an infant writing Hittite cuneiforms. References that make sense and fit into the story are welcome efforts at world-building. References that make no sense and don’t fit into the story are… the hallmarks of Alex Kurtzman’s gang of incompetents that CBS needs to fire.