Lower Decks - "Moist Vessel"

[Ixthos]

The Koala's name is Petey, and he'd really rather that nobody worshipped him at all.

Indeed. He certainly put up a good fight against the Dark Matter Entities from Andromeda and their Long Gun, but [Edit] maybe I shouldn't spoil plot points from Sergeant in Motion ...

[Mabus]

So the only reason they made the Tellarite captain suddenly be the asshole is because the writers forgot they needed the episode to have something resembling of a conflict and somehow make Mariner appear cooler? Someone to cause the already ancient rusted leaking ship to... leak? Why not, I don't know, just have the rusted leaking ship slowly crack more and more over the course of the episode as they tow it through space, only to eventually reach the breaking point and break apart completely and spill its content all over the two ships? Where's the joke in the alien captain suddenly becomes arrogant enough and decides to screw up everything? Is it because he looks like a pig so he must be a pig? Haha, so funny, the last time I heard a similar joke I laughed so hard I fell off my dinosaur.

And I have to disagree with Chuck, I don't find people that are incompetent petty arrogant idiots to be relatable in any way. This isn't The Office, where the only dangerous thing that can happen is being photocopied to death while working overtime. It's much easier to make unpleasant people funny when the setting is in itself harmless, because if anything, that magnifies the characters' flaws. Some asshole coworker feeling important for winning the competition of who can print a document the fastest by secretly cheating, for example, is always gonna be funnier than some obnoxious character stabbing someone in the leg because they were drunk on duty or showing disrespect to someone's presentation by yawning loudly. And an unpleasant character not only getting away with being awful but also being praised for as well as doubling down is not funny, it's something that happens in real life and hits too close for comfort. And if the story is written in such way that only the asshole character can solve the problem by being an asshole, then what is there supposed to be funny or entertaining? Even Dr. House often gets called out in his own show for his shitty behavior and a couple of times he even suffers the consequences for his mistakes in some episodes.

And speaking of comedy, the tone of Star Trek has already been set by almost 700 episodes. While some episodes were more light-hearted and comedic, both animated and live-action, they were never comedies, unless you count the unintentional ones. So if you want to make a comedy show, animated or not, you need to keep in in tone with the previous episodes and cannot change too much. There's plenty of room for comedy. But if you change a franchise too much then it becomes something else. Replacing the wooden beams in the ship of Theseus with bricks and mortar will not result in the same ship, because now it's not a ship anymore, it's a building, no matter how similar it looks like the old boat.

It's like after the success of GoldenEye, Eon Productions and MGM decides to make a separate entry in the James Bond Franchise called Austin Powers about a silly spy that is awaken from cryosleep and needs to take down his nemesis Dr. Evil, the most incompetent and over the top villain who adores to create the most over the top schemes. Would that have worked? Hell no! Everyone would be up in arms, they would cry that Flemming is turning in his grave so fast he's causing earthquakes, that they're making a mockery of the franchise. The defenders would be quick to point out that the James Bond films, especially from the Moore era were also campy and had silly tech, it even had a voodoo wizard, and the Austin Powers films don't erase the older films, they're still there, so why is anyone complaining. But regardless of the franchise's past shortcomings, that's not an excuse to completely change the tone of franchise. And yet, the Austin Powers films work perfectly as their own separate universe.

So maybe if Lower decks had been a Trek-like show set in its own universe, then I would have seen it differently, but as it is I just can't find it funny.

[Madner Kami]

I'd like to point out how the scam-ascencion cult's symbol is a stylized version of the Romulan Star Empire's emblem and it ends up appearing in the actual ascension as well. So... Hveolhaonn aefvadh mnei rihanha ra'nodaire! Jolan Tru!

[cloudkitt]

I dunno that the tellarite captain being an idiot is more relatable, lol, but I know he didn't just mean him.

As I said in the other thread, I found the first two episodes way too manic and this episode kind of gets back to that. None of the jokes have any time to land even if they're good. But this does improve over time, and the show is still far more fun than the other two joyless shows.

Also, is he referencing something specific when he says he learned that people really had the joke of continuing to slowly corrupt the name? I always think it works well in Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation reviews, but I can't think of an occasion that Chuck has utilized it.

[tyrteg]

The Koala's name is Petey, and he'd really rather that nobody worshipped him at all.

But he's smiling...what does he know? WHAT DOES PETEY KNOW???

Well - it's Petey. He claims he's not omniscient but he's as close as you get to a God in flesh (and fur) and he's known to play catch with antimatter torpedoes and solve millennia-old puzzles out of boredom between repeatedly saving the universe - so who knows.
And I have to say I didn't expect Lower Decks to give us a joke related to everyone's favorite Amorph Sergeant's universe - but I'm glad to be proven wrong

[CharlesPhipps]

And speaking of comedy, the tone of Star Trek has already been set by almost 700 episodes. While some episodes were more light-hearted and comedic, both animated and live-action, they were never comedies, unless you count the unintentional ones.

Star Trek IV.

I'll get my hat.

Also, the Expanded Star Trek universe has done multiple comedies.

[Hero_Of_Shadows]

I'd like to point out how the scam-ascencion cult's symbol is a stylized version of the Romulan Star Empire's emblem and it ends up appearing in the actual ascension as well. So... Hveolhaonn aefvadh mnei rihanha ra'nodaire! Jolan Tru!

Nice, hadn't caught that! Jolan Tru!

Regarding the Tellarite captain, I have to respectfully disagree with Chuck a bit on this yes the motivations were absolutely petty but he wasn't doing some mad Nero-esque "start a fire in Rome" stuff, he ordered a small change in formation which yeah people asked why but no one knew it would result in the leak.

So did this actions cause the incident? Yes.

Were the actions necessary? No.

Were the actions clearly dangerous and could anyone have foreseen it would happen? No.

[Nealithi]

Were the actions clearly dangerous and could anyone have foreseen it would happen? No.

So I have not seen the episode and Chuck did not cover it. So why exactly did the other captain change formation at all? If it would have no predictable bearing, why protest it?
If all it was, was a reposition. Then there would not be a call to protest. It would be a call to see what is wrong.

[Nealithi]

So the only reason they made the Tellarite captain suddenly be the asshole is because the writers forgot they needed the episode to have something resembling of a conflict and somehow make Mariner appear cooler? Someone to cause the already ancient rusted leaking ship to... leak? Why not, I don't know, just have the rusted leaking ship slowly crack more and more over the course of the episode as they tow it through space, only to eventually reach the breaking point and break apart completely and spill its content all over the two ships? Where's the joke in the alien captain suddenly becomes arrogant enough and decides to screw up everything? Is it because he looks like a pig so he must be a pig? Haha, so funny, the last time I heard a similar joke I laughed so hard I fell off my dinosaur.

Ignoring the arrogant and petty star fleet officers and captains that appeared in Short Treks. (I try hard to forget seeing them)

Let's look at the arrogant and petty senior officers as seen in TNG. As in during the Klingon Civil war the ship Data was given command of. An incident happened and instead of following procedure jumped to what he considered the course of action to follow. But he was not in command. When Data calls him on that he undoes every safety he just put in place. Thus putting crew in harms way as a temper tantrum instead of taking the dressing down as he should have. When Worf spoke out of turn and Data gave him a dressing down about it. He did not pout or throw a tantrum. He took it, apologized, and worked harder to be a good first officer to his captain.

These things do show up in TNG. We just keep focusing on the stars of the show. You know the ones with the service records to kill for. Accomplishments that if printed would be bigger than the ship they are in.

[Madner Kami]

Let's look at the arrogant and petty senior officers as seen in TNG. As in during the Klingon Civil war the ship Data was given command of. An incident happened and instead of following procedure jumped to what he considered the course of action to follow. But he was not in command. When Data calls him on that he undoes every safety he just put in place. Thus putting crew in harms way as a temper tantrum instead of taking the dressing down as he should have. When Worf spoke out of turn and Data gave him a dressing down about it. He did not pout or throw a tantrum. He took it, apologized, and worked harder to be a good first officer to his captain.

Worf does it, because his relationship to data is a friendship and thus he acts rather informal, as Data rarely if ever was in a position of direct authority over him. He acted as if he was commanding alongside a friend, rather than a respectable superior. It's a rather... human mistake to make and I've seen a lot of people fall into that trap, when their years long work-colleague gets a promotion and is put into a position of authority over them.

The guy on the Sutherland, Hobson, simply doesn't trust a machine to do the job of a real erm... person (for lack of a better descriptor for a job universally only occupied by a biological lifeform, regardless of gender or species). Hobson never had contact with a machine similar to Data and his best experiences are likely with the computer of a ship being set to "auto-cruise". Hobson doesn't do what he does out of malice, jelousy or racism or similar motivations. He's like I was, when I first set my brand new car to auto cruise control. I had no experience how it deals with trying to keep the lane, keep the speed, adjust the speed based on the situation (speed limits), keep distance to the traffic in front of me and so on. I didn't just switch it on, took my hands off the wheel and went for a sleep at 200km/h in dense traffic. I remained firmly in control and learned what my car can do and where it needs my input despite all the sometimes bafflingly far advanced technology. Hobson is in the position of sitting in my car, having to switch it to ACC and being forced to jump over into the co-driver seat. He had no chance to build trust and is asked to blindly trust a completely unfamiliar situation that goes against everything he has experienced thus far.

Captain Durango is jelous because Captain Newmann basically said "This ancient ship is my discovery" and maneuvers his ship into a position that "better reflects his leadership in the joint mission", despite his own crew telling him that it's a bad idea. He's pity, spiteful and prideful. He's got no good reason to behave the way he does.