I agree with your positions about short seasons and brand new big bads.
However, I don't think TNG, and classic Trek at large, have a future totally devoid of "the pains and pitfalls of present-day life". For instance, Captain Maxwell blows up a bunch of Cardassian outposts, and there was that whole incident with the Pegasus and the cloaking device. These are clear instances showing in TNG's world, we haven't completely grown out of the darker parts of our nature.
I think the ideal of Star Trek is there is a future where we have overcome many of our problems, and when new (or old, sometimes) arise, we can work together to overcome them and improve ourselves.
In some ways, I think that Lower Decks embodies this extremely well. Because it's supposed to be a comedy, it liberates the show from a lot of modern sci-fi conventions; this allows a largely utopian environment for our Federation characters where they're free to help each other evolve far beyond the borderline insane sitcom archetypes they started the show as.
Depends on which Khitomer - the original accords (probably most notable) were because of the whole Praxis incident.
“And I will see my dream come alive at last / I will touch the sky”
Coolio, but I won’t be using it at least until it hits Debian Testing. Hopefully this can be in Trixie - looks like the freeze hasn’t happened yet.
"His neural engram structures are experiencing rapid total depolarization. Get me the dineurotrocacaline hypospray, quick!"
Man, making up nonsense Treknobabble is fun. 😏
Funny, but the truth is most warp cores from 2375 have secretly been powered by the suffering of transporter clones of Miles O'Brien made without his knowledge while he taught at the academy. Eventually, when people found out what actually powered ships sometime before the 31st century, O'Brien warp propulsion was retired and dilithium was brought back into use.
Ooh. That’s difficult to say. I feel like the holosuite ones are always great, but that’s nearly every Trek for you.
I can live with “In the Pale Moonlight “.
Yup. Always are.
I don’t know that I’ve used enough handheld Linux devices to say. The only major one was I had Debian on my Surface Go 1. Power management never worked quite right - after a few suspends, I’d get these weird graphics glitches and have to reboot.
Also, I kind of hated the keyboard- it wasn’t very sturdy and often flexed, causing accidental trackpad clicks.
I still have the device, but when I need a portable Linux machine, I just go to my Thinkpad these days, which other than installing the backports kernel for Wi-Fi support and then adjusting the modprobe.d entry because it was Realtek pretty much just goes brrrr - even my desktop gave more of fuss, as I used to be in a room without ethernet and needed a card that worked with Windows, Linux, and Hackintosh (from before I got rid of my Windows install and my Hackintosh SSD conked out, leading me to switch to virtualization).
That scene where they pull away from the station feels like an invisible hand is pulling on my brain.
Also, sometimes I think, "What if this could all be as beautiful as the remasters in What We Left Behind?"
Finally, why does my mind read this in the voice of Vic Fontaine?
I got the Worf one and a mini-Spock for Christmas (sitting here in my bathroom cabinet):
I love the Janeway one, though, one of which I gifted to my mother a few years back.
I swear it’s one of the top episodes in the franchise now.
Also, according to an okudagram shown close up by someone who worked on it, Harry is a lieutenant during Prodigy.
I’ve made a bizarre observation: commemorative plates tend to be associated more with Star Trek or Star Wars more than other franchise (Stargate seems to have some, too.), and I kind of wonder why.
Obviously, they’re not actually that popular anymore and have faded into kitsch, as the only plate that seems to have come out since DS9/VOY era is the Lower Decks Tom Paris plate - there are no DSC, PIC, Kelvin, or even ENT plates, while newer Star Wars plates don’t seem all that common as well unless you want paper plates.
I’m wondering if it has to do with 2 factors, still somewhat true today but especially in the 1990s:
These would have made the plates commercially viable, meaning to both inside and outside observers, plates became a stereotype of the fandoms.
Anyhow, what are your thoughts?
P.S. Wow, this is starting to feel like a meta version of Daystrom.
Okay, the title may be a bit of comedic overstatement. What I really mean is I love the Lower Decks soundtrack and think Westlake may have been meant for Star Trek. I don't know what it is, but it truly evokes TNG era background music but on steroids.
I can't wait for the second volume. RIP Lower Decks - may the next few years prove to be the "Search for Lower Decks" (minus the butchering of a good Vulcan character, the pointless death... okay, maybe that wasn't the most apt comparison).
What’s your eulogy for Lower Decks?
Here’s mine: I wasn’t sure about Lower Decks for a well - I’d never been into the adult animation genre, and when I first heard of it, I had initially seen it as the wrong direction for Star Trek.
Finally, in late 2023, I watched it for the first time and was surprised to enjoy it.
Then came the crazy month of March 2024. I got rejected from all my dream schools, putting me in a sullen mood. I returned to the show and suddenly started resonating with Boimler as someone who had ambitions - some naive, some not - that weren’t always fulfilled, while I found the Cerritos to be kind of an analogue to the state school I would end up at.
Then, at the end of that month, a close family member shared their advanced pancreatic cancer diagnosis, and they passed a month after. That was when my attachment to Lower Decks solidified - I turned to it as a comfort show and really started to appreciate it. I think I’ve rewatched it twice since then - one randomly in the summer, and one to refresh my memory for the final season that began while I was doing the (mediocre) paint job for a 3D-printed combadge for a costume:
Overall, it’s probably my second favorite show in the franchise at this point, only behind DS9. I’m sure I’ll rewatch it plenty times more, though maybe a bit more sparingly - just one more this year to cope with the emptiness of no more new episodes. 🤭
Lower Decks! Lower Decks!
I knew it was Data the moment I noticed the head looked nothing like Data
In all seriousness, though, I swear I'm going to break into Rick Berman's house and send him to Gre'thor for what he did to Jadzia (and honestly, most of the female cast members at he time).
Seriously, though. I think I've seen this guy in the grocery store down here in AZ.
To be fair, the mirror universe in general, even in the DS9 era, is kind of Star Wars-y.
In general, though, it sometimes gets annoying when the franchises swap aesthetics, even back to V when they did bargain bin Mos Eisley (the bar in III was hilariously campy, though). Recently, I watched the first episode of a certain Star Wars series on a friend's recommendation (I wouldn't have otherwise), and at one point, I was like, "What the heck! This is supposed to be a rough pirate ship, but there's so little weathering on the set that this could be a Federation starship!"