Star Trek: Lower Decks

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Can't hate a series that finally recognized the Most Important Man in Starfleet's History...

Chief Miles O'Brien!

You make a strong case.

[GreyICE]

I am willing to bet some latinum that the plot will be:

* Mariner refuses to believe Boilmer has a girlfriend
* Horribly embarrasses her and almost ruins the relationship
* Apologies and tries to make amends.
* Boimler and she break up for entirely unrelated reasons.

Anyone want to take this bet?

Not you, Quark!

Yes. I'll actually take that bet because this show is deliberately breaking sitcom tropes to show how the future is different (like when every section head is excited for Rutherford leaving to find what he loves). So my bet:

* Mariner tells Boilmer it's awesome, gives him really good advice
* The advice works, and the girl/guy falls for him
* He feels like a fraud using the advice to act differently than he normally would
* He tells his date, they thinks it's awesome he was honest and likes the real Boilmer
* Either Boilmer decides it's not healthy for him to date because his psyche is messed up, or Boilmer discovers they're not compatible for other reasons
* Boilmer ends up drinking with Mariner, and admits that sometimes he wishes he was the person she advised him to act like, she tells him that any time he wants he can be

[CharlesPhipps]

I think the joke is Boimler had his girlfriend BEFORE Mariner.

Which Mariner cannot actually believe.

Because she thinks Boimler is a loser--which is a shame and very anti-Roddenberry of her.

But we'll see.

5 latinum bet accepted. Next Romulan Ale on me.

[CharlesPhipps]

Okay, good episode that established Mariner has pretty severe PTSD.

Also, I don't believe for a second Boimler can't get a hot girlfriend. He's a nerd and this is the Trekverse.

Nerds are the new grunge band in the future.

[GreyICE]

Okay, personal piss off time. This "single ideal of hotness" is an illusion of 20th century media, which pushed a small number of "superstars" as ideals. They essentially created a hype loop to push a certain look, and then judge people based on that look. If you look back at history, you certainly don't see any single ideal of beauty, and as we're moving into the 21st century and the media empires of the 20th century are fading, we're moving away from their monolithic weirdness.

This is the Star Trek universe. One thing they can certainly do is casual cosmetic surgery to look however you want to. As to why everyone isn't a supermodel, Sir Patrick Stewart both asked himself and answered to himself that question - he talks about thinking "in the future, why would anyone go bald?" He then answered to himself "In the future, no one would care if you went bald."

In a future where anyone can walk into a med bay and walk out looking like Jessica Alba or Idris Elba, your looks are simply a matter of aesthetic preference. Obviously people are still going to be attracted to other people, but there's not going to be this sort of "ideal of hotness" that's generated by 20th century media (and which is already fading as the 20th century media collapses).


So I'm happy to say that outside of that, my major problem was most of the humor just missed. I normally appreciate the B plot/A plot inversion that Lower Decks uses, but in this case the "B plot" was so much more compelling that it did the thing where it made the A plot worse because you kept thinking during mediocre scenes "this could have been B". I love our engineer and med tech so much. I really hope they start getting some A plots.

[Ordo]

Okay, good episode that established Mariner has pretty severe PTSD.

Yeah...watching her friend get her face melted by an Alien infiltrator is going to leave one or two mental scars. Thus I don't mind how far she went for Boimler.

Also, I don't believe for a second Boimler can't get a hot girlfriend. He's a nerd and this is the Trekverse.

I doubt they'd do it, because it'd be the LONG con...but I'd recommend towards the end of the season they have his now Ex-girlfriend come back, wanting to reconnect with Boimler saying that she feels the same as she did even without the influence of the parasite. The reason she broke up with him was...

A. She HAD to be sure the parasite wasn't influencing her emotions and thus left until she could make sure.

B. Barbara was a little intimidated by Mariner, because she was afraid that if Boimlers badass space adventure friend disproved of them together (or worse had an interest in Boimler herself) then it would ruin their relationship...so she kept in touch with Mariner to feel Boimlers's friend out and possibly convince the Maverick that she'd be a great catch for Boimler.

Also...the B plot was really good but I think it had the advantage of not being the focus. You get just enough to keep you interested and excited without it overstaying it's welcome.

[Dman]

Okay, first things first.
Is every other Captain required to be a dick in some way? Stop proving Mariner right, damn it!

Tendi and Rutheford continue to be great fun but Freeman stole the show with just a few scenes, some great diplomacy in action (just too bad we didn’t see her yelling at the government conspiracy guy). A great ST comedy plot.

As for the main plot, well… I still hate the “You’re not good enough to date someone like her” plot. Although, it was kind of sweet the lengths Mariner went through for Bradward. And it was also cute the way the girls bonded over fun experiences with him.

Still, I would have liked a bit more of Bradward and Barb at the end. Hope she really is just figuring out her feelings and she shows up again.

Well, there’s still the holodeck, the BLEEP filters are full of BLEEP what’s a bit more?

Also, I don't believe for a second Boimler can't get a hot girlfriend. He's a nerd and this is the Trekverse.

He's lucky this isn't Discovery or else he would get eaten by tribbles and people would laugh at him for it

[chaos42]

i think the plot worked ok, overall its not the best star trek but its not bad either, i think they just need to keep working on it but i think its got some potential, though i do wish they would do some more jokes about the ship falling apart because of how much work it does, wonder if they will pull an elack like in farscape and have the dying ship do a suicide run to save everyone.

[CharlesPhipps]

He's lucky this isn't Discovery or else he would get eaten by tribbles and people would laugh at him for it

Is there a reason Trek fandom is fond of a guy who does cruel and inhumane animal experiments? I thought people who performed those were mostly considered dicks in RL.

[GreyICE]

I believe the “all other captains are dicks” thing is a meta joke about TNG, where other captains (and admirals) are almost always antagonists, and thus “dicks”.

That and ultimately having fully functional relationships isn’t quite as funny.