Sfdebris.net

https://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/l107.php
Opinionated Lower Decks Episode Guide returns to the later part of the season as Boimler accidentally gets messed up by a transporter and Mariner finds her old friend is now her acting captain. Also, the nicest hellhound you'll ever see!

I'll admit, I'm a sucker for the "innocuous person has cliche evil villain mannerisms" gag.

Fianna wrote: ↑Sat May 21, 2022 5:03 pm I'll admit, I'm a sucker for the "innocuous person has cliche evil villain mannerisms" gag.

Same, it's a total screw the audience gag, hell the whole ship is, and yet it worked really well here.

Admittedly less so on my first viewing where I thought the dog especially was too much of the 'lol random' style of comedy, but then I was still then in the 'this show is not very good' camp at that point and it wouldn't be until the last two episodes of s1 that I came around.

The twist on Division 14 being a genuinely benevolent Section 31 is a fine example of the aforementioned "innocuous person has cliche evil villain mannerisms."

At the same time, I can't help but imagine what kind of story it would be if it played the "horrify, science experiment gone wrong needs to be hidden away" bit completely seriously.

Say for example an episode of DS9. A Federation ship returns from the Gamma Quadrant with several patients in need of serious medical treatment; they're mutating or something. Doctor Bashir does his best, but at the moment the only thing he can do is stabilize them. But the next morning he finds that all of his patients have completely disappeared, no one knows what happened to them, and all records say that his patients died a week ago in an engineering accident. When he starts poking around he gets a visit from Sloan who tells him that the poor souls have gone to "The Farm." Sloan explains that another part of Section 31's job is to keep a lid on the more horrifying things that exist out in space and what they can do to the average person. That if word of mouth reached parents that their children were turned inside out because their ship flew through the wrong nebula...well it wouldn't exactly help Star Fleet's recruitment.

A follow up could even have DS9's crew travel to The Farm, maybe have Sisko make comparisons to the leper colonies of Earth. It could also act as a metaphor for how society treats the differently abled.

In any case, it would've made for a nice gag that even if they've been sent to a paradise planet, it doesn't change the fact that they're physically, mentally and emotionally messed up.

Edosian: Here you'll have anything you want and be given the humane treatment you deserve, isn't that nice?
Red Shirt: I'm living in a gefilte fish jar.

Fianna wrote: ↑Sat May 21, 2022 5:03 pm I'll admit, I'm a sucker for the "innocuous person has cliche evil villain mannerisms" gag.

lol, ditto.

It's cool seeing what messed up thing The Dog will do next. I like this episode.