Lower Decks - "Moist Vessel"

[Nealithi]

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.

Why Worf made the mistake does not downplay the point that he took the command dressing down properly and like a good officer.

Hobson on the other hand was spiteful. First off he has a uniformed biped who has been given command over him. Not a simple tool in the ship. If Data was a Vulcan the discussion would be what a speciesist he is. Also the difference in auto cruise and Data. Is that you are supposed to maintain control with auto cruise. It is not a get in the backseat and take a nap. Further his actions are he sees a child on the street. Decided to veer anyway. And when reminded that the autocruise would have avoided the child too. Would be to point the car at the kid again. That is not adult behaviour let alone the behavior of an experienced officer.

[Mabus]

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.

Don't you mean Star Trek V?

Because ST4 is not 100% comedy, it also has serious moments to balance it, while STV is nothing but a series of (terrible) gags with 2 emotional scenes that stick out like a sore thumb, which sounds a lot closer to the typical LD episode.

Also, 1 maybe 2 films and maybe 2-5 episodes out of 700, still heavily tilts the balance towards a more serious storytelling.

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.

Yes, but the only reason the Tellarite captain exists in the episode is to (suddenly) create conflict, because if you remove him, then the episode literally doesn't have a third act. His contribution to the plot is minimal, he's a lazy plot device. At least the douche-officers from the previous Trek had some contribution to the story or were relevant to the plot, here you could replace the douche-officer with say, a greedy Ferengi suddenly showing up to steal the alien ship before running away after realizing what they tried to steal, and the plot won't change very much.

[CharlesPhipps]

Yes, this is a zany comedy in Star Trek.

And yes, it's the first time there's a zany comedy even though there's been plenty of comedy episodes that are usually around something ridiculous being treated seriously.

See: Tribbles, Harry Mudd [when he's not a terrorist], or (ugh) Trip getting pregnant

But just because it's a zany comedy doesn't mean it's not Star Trek. Its just that we're now seeing one.

[CharlesPhipps]

Yes, but the only reason the Tellarite captain exists in the episode is to (suddenly) create conflict, because if you remove him, then the episode literally doesn't have a third act. His contribution to the plot is minimal, he's a lazy plot device. At least the douche-officers from the previous Trek had some contribution to the story or were relevant to the plot, here you could replace the douche-officer with say, a greedy Ferengi suddenly showing up to steal the alien ship before running away after realizing what they tried to steal, and the plot won't change very much.

My take on this is actually the Tellarite Captain proves that Captain Freeman ISN'T the worst captain in Starfleet. And he's probably court martialed for what he did (well 100% he was since losing a ship is grounds for one).

It does help explain why California class vessels are considered shitty postings, though, if this is where they stick their Freemans, this guy, and presumably Seth MacFarlanes.

[Mabus]

Yes, but the only reason the Tellarite captain exists in the episode is to (suddenly) create conflict, because if you remove him, then the episode literally doesn't have a third act. His contribution to the plot is minimal, he's a lazy plot device. At least the douche-officers from the previous Trek had some contribution to the story or were relevant to the plot, here you could replace the douche-officer with say, a greedy Ferengi suddenly showing up to steal the alien ship before running away after realizing what they tried to steal, and the plot won't change very much.

My take on this is actually the Tellarite Captain proves that Captain Freeman ISN'T the worst captain in Starfleet. And he's probably court martialed for what he did (well 100% he was since losing a ship is grounds for one).

It does help explain why California class vessels are considered shitty postings, though, if this is where they stick their Freemans, this guy, and presumably Seth MacFarlanes.

So basically the California-class ships are more or less the type of ship where all the incompetent or problematic Starfleet officers are sent to so they don't cause trouble to the Federation?
I guess that could work in-universe, but if that's the case, I'm surprised they are even allowed to do second-contact, at best they would be glorified servants to another more competent ship of officers.

[CharlesPhipps]

Yes, but the only reason the Tellarite captain exists in the episode is to (suddenly) create conflict, because if you remove him, then the episode literally doesn't have a third act. His contribution to the plot is minimal, he's a lazy plot device. At least the douche-officers from the previous Trek had some contribution to the story or were relevant to the plot, here you could replace the douche-officer with say, a greedy Ferengi suddenly showing up to steal the alien ship before running away after realizing what they tried to steal, and the plot won't change very much.

My take on this is actually the Tellarite Captain proves that Captain Freeman ISN'T the worst captain in Starfleet. And he's probably court martialed for what he did (well 100% he was since losing a ship is grounds for one).

It does help explain why California class vessels are considered shitty postings, though, if this is where they stick their Freemans, this guy, and presumably Seth MacFarlanes.

So basically the California-class ships are more or less the type of ship where all the incompetent or problematic Starfleet officers are sent to so they don't cause trouble to the Federation?
I guess that could work in-universe, but if that's the case, I'm surprised they are even allowed to do second-contact, at best they would be glorified servants to another more competent ship of officers.

That's actually their role in the season 2 finale as they're only there to do backup to the actual First Contact specialist (Sonya Gomez).

I don't think incompetence is the right word (though this guy did something staggeringly stupid) but the California class is considered to be low-priority grunt work. In-universe, it is considered to be the multi-purpose ship that you send when you have already done the stuff that needs to be done.

They're the ship made so you bring supplies and fill out paperwork.

The season 2 finale flat out says that Captain Freeman's promotion is contingent on her leaving behind the rest of her crew because they "want to keep California class together." We also have the guy at the Captains party episode flat out say California class vessel captains don't qualify.

Which is...jesus, people.

[Makeshift Python]

Yes, this is a zany comedy in Star Trek.

And yes, it's the first time there's a zany comedy even though there's been plenty of comedy episodes that are usually around something ridiculous being treated seriously.

See: Tribbles, Harry Mudd [when he's not a terrorist], or (ugh) Trip getting pregnant

But just because it's a zany comedy doesn't mean it's not Star Trek. Its just that we're now seeing one.

Hell, practically every Ferengi episode in DS9 was a zany comedy. Wallace Shawn's performance alone tells you exactly what the tone of an episode is.

One of the things I like about Trek is that genre is kind of fluid depending on the episode. Sometimes it's a morality play, a court room drama, a naval thriller, a horror story, etc.

I also reject the conceit of treating Trek as some tangible universe where everything must align tonally and be 100% consistent with each other. I get there's fans out there that want to see Trek treated as if it's almost a docudrama, but that approach would have made Trek stagnant.

[Sir Will]

It did make it stagnant. Voyager so wanted to keep the TNG tone they completely wasted most of their unique elements. There was still enjoyment to be had but still.

[RobbyB1982]

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.

They've absolutely had full blown comedy episodes plenty of times. I Mudd, A Piece of the Action, All three Tribble episodes, Star Trek 4, every single Ferengi focused episode, about half the episodes with Q, about half the episodes with Troi's mother, the Bashir James Bond episode, the baseball episode, the Vic Fontaine Oceans 11 episode, the black and white old sci-fi episodes of Voyager, they do comedy episodes all the time.

The jokes don't always work, but they absolutely do episodes where they're just being goofs and not taking it too seriously.

[CharlesPhipps]

It did make it stagnant. Voyager so wanted to keep the TNG tone they completely wasted most of their unique elements. There was still enjoyment to be had but still.

Famously Ron Moore said it was the most unhappiest writers room he'd ever been in. The writers all wanted to write TNG and talked extensively about how they loved everything about TNG from Klingons to Ferengi to the Federation's inner politics and Borg. He said that all of them (except for him) were quietly fuming or not so quietly fuming they were stuck with a premise that made all of those elements impossible to use.

UPN was no help because they wanted Voyager to be their TNG.