Lower Decks season 5

[CharlesPhipps]

I mean Tendi and Rutherford being platonic isn't something they ever forwarded. They had several romantic episodes.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I feel like it was pretty ambiguous. Parth Ferenghi's Heart Place was practically a fandom Rorscharch Test.

[clearspira]

It really comes down to where your opinion of where friendship ends and romance begins. Some people have extremely intense friendships that even includes sex, but they're not romantic in nature.

Unfortunately, this is complicated by the fact that they are male and female. Some people just do not believe that you can be that close to a woman without wanting to bone. And let's be honest, a lot of us will probably never personally know what such a friendship feels like which makes projection difficult.

Edit: It also occurs to me that whilst Star Trek is a product written in 20th/21st century America and must be viewed from that lens, it is meant to be showcasing a liberal utopia where contraception is free, STDs have been cured and judgement is largely a thing of the past. Roddenberry was also quite clear that he envisioned the Federation being the embodiment of the 1960s free love future so that also has to be at least partially considered. Of course, greatly contrary to the atheist he would later become, in the episode that introduced the Romulans he showed a marriage with a visible cross on the wall. Clearly he believed that marriage, religion and free love could co-exist.

Point is, what is and what is not a relationship is already being rewritten today. Imagine what it'll be hundreds of years from now. Love, friendship, romance, sex, polygamy; all of these things should blur in such a society.

[stryke]

My final review of LD is ''this is the best Star Trek show since DS9.'' It me a long time to get past its Rick and Morty inspired looks as we all know, and tbf, there were some missteps in season 1 which I do not think is controversial to say. But over time, it captured the feel of Star Trek in a way that even VOY and ENT never really managed.

I think it's spot on myself, and while I got on board earlier than you did, I do still think the very first episode is the worst one of the whole show. With the Mugato one in season 2 probably being the second most bad, but apart from a couple of weaker eps it's been a remarkably consistently good show, and it even has some episodes that deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as the very best of ToS, TNG, and DS9 like Wej Duj.

[Durandal_1707]

Rutherford and Tendi are mates - no different to Sisko and Dax.

And after the finale, they will soon be mating!

ducks

[clearspira]

Just going back for a moment to the idea that DISCO may have been retconned, I actually think that PIC causes more damage to the timeline simply because it is meant to be the future of LD. I hate PIC obviously - but it almost, kind of, maybe, fitted in when we were going from Nemesis to PIC because that in itself was a dark film.

But LD to PIC? The Federation is FALLING FAR in only a couple of years. From bright colours and hope to racism, terrorism and misery in only a couple of years.

I am being very hopeful that DISCO is gone for good (and the rumours are swirling heavy around the internet right now) but getting rid of PIC would make far more sense lore wise. It is also kind of a pity that LD ended in season 5 because it may have naturally ended up retconning PIC.

BTW - if Trek does retcon DISCO then spare a thought for the good denizens of Memory Alpha. I remember when the War Doctor was revealed and the members of the Dr Who wiki collectively defecated at once at the possibility of having to change every article to account for the new Doctor numbering system (because Ten is not actually Ten and Eleven is not actually Eleven etc.). But here? There is no getting around it. All of those articles that they tirelessly tried to make at least some sense with the DISCO nonsense will have to be erased now.

[hammerofglass]

The idea the Discovery is retconned because of a sight gag is pure wishful thinking. They could have done the exact same joke with TOS/"Augment" Klingons and it would have changed nothing in the episode.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Yeah, Clearspira, I think you may be reading a little too much into it if you expect LD to undo Disco. Especially given that Discovery has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it Lower Decks reference.

[McAvoy]

I just recently saw videos pop up from Overlord DVD and Midnight both saying that Disco got sidelined from the timeline. I was curious what they meant but wasn't willing to listen to them.

There was a time I would listen to both but their constant bitching just got on my nerves.

[clearspira]

I just recently saw videos pop up from Overlord DVD and Midnight both saying that Disco got sidelined from the timeline. I was curious what they meant but wasn't willing to listen to them.

There was a time I would listen to both but their constant bitching just got on my nerves.

I'll sum up the Midgnight's Edge for you.

Once upon a time, due to corporate bullshit, there were in fact two corps that were taking money off Star Trek: CBS and Paramount. CBS owned the rights to actually making the show but Paramount was taking at least a fair share of the money for the merchandise because they were the distributor.

It was agreed when Star Trek 2009 was in production that if the film was 25% different to Classic Trek then CBS and by extension Abrams's Bad Robot production company (for the Kelvin films at least) could take the money for the mechanise produced for New Trek. Note that I said ''Classic Trek'' not ''Prime Trek''. Prime Trek was an invention purely to distinguish Classic Trek from Kelvin Trek that has merely come to be known by the fandom as including everything else. Behind the scenes, at corporate bullshit level, this is not true.

ALL Trek produced since 2009 has been under this alternate licence.
Classic Trek Licence: TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, MOVIES.
New Trek Licence: Kelvin, DIS, PIC, SNW, LD, PRO.

You'll note that when Classic Trek actors do appear in New Trek they are never the same character that they were playing previously. Because - 25% different. Picard is now a prick, Janeway is now a hologram etc. Other than that, all crossovers are between New Trek show to another New Trek show. You can also liken it to how ''Never Say Never Again'' has Sean Connery in it as Bond even though he is not actually the same Bond as his Eon counterpart. Two universes, same actors.

Now, here is where it gets interesting for this is no longer true. CBS and Paramount were bought by Skydance who brought everyone back under one banner. This was also about the time when all of the New Trek shows were starting to get cancelled as Skydance was trying to make the franchise actually profitable again. And there is plenty of evidence that only the Classic Trek merchandise sells, not the New Trek merchandise.

Rumours of a power struggle between Old and New at Skydance are very prevalent, but given how many New Trek shows are getting cancelled, given how DIS MAY be retconned, it doesn't look as if Alex ''Destroyer of Star Trek'' Kurtzman has come out on top. This could also be why the ''Section 31 series'' is now ''Section 31 the movie'' as that is essentially the same as a cancellation but corporate bullshit meant that it was made anyway.

Agree with this or not, that's the video. It does broadly coincide with what I have heard from other places though, I'll say that.