Redshirts Always Die
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Star Trek: Lower Decks – Pilot episode gets off to rough start

By Chad Porto

Pictured (l-r): Eugene Cordero as Ensign Rutherford, Boiler, Fred Tatasciore as Lieutenant Shaxs, Dawnn Lewis as Captain Freeman, Ensign Barnes played by Jessica McKenna, Tawny Newsome as Ensign Mariner, Gillian Vigman as Dr. T'ana of the CBS All Access original series, STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS. Photo Cr: Best Possible Screen Grab CBS 2020 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Pictured (l-r): Eugene Cordero as Ensign Rutherford, Boiler, Fred Tatasciore as Lieutenant Shaxs, Dawnn Lewis as Captain Freeman, Ensign Barnes played by Jessica McKenna, Tawny Newsome as Ensign Mariner, Gillian Vigman as Dr. T'ana of the CBS All Access original series, STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS. Photo Cr: Best Possible Screen Grab CBS 2020 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. /
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Pictured: Jack Quaid as Ensign Boimler of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS. ©2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Pictured: Jack Quaid as Ensign Boimler of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS. ©2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. /

Enjoyability

Yikes. This show isn’t very good. Don’t start with the “WELL IT’S ONLY THE FIRST EPISODE…” nonsense. Imagine taking that idea to anything else, and let’s emphasize the idea of anything else. You buy a car, it starts to shake when you drive it off the lot. You don’t accept a “well it stops shaking over 35 MPH’s”. You turn around and tell them to give you a better car. If you order a steak and it comes out under or overcooked, the chef doesn’t go “oh, you gotta get to the 12th bite, that’s when it gets good.”

If you can’t do a good job with your first offering, you didn’t do a good job at all.

The other argument of “the creator doesn’t owe you anything” doesn’t work here either. This isn’t free content. People have to purchase this. So yes, they damn sure do owe the fans something. The notion that fans should just be grateful they’re getting “more Trek” isn’t an excuse to allow people to make bad Trek.

If we’re talking a free-to-enjoy, Star Trek fan project, then you’d have a point. There’s no reason to be upset or critical of a fan who’s doing something out of their own desire to add to the community. It takes zero money to view their work. It’s a passion project. It doesn’t need to be criticized.

This isn’t a fan-made project. This is a multi-million dollar property, sold to fans behind a paywall, so you better make sure it caters to as many fans as possible otherwise what’s the point? An unfunny show about unlikeable characters, that spends more time insulting the lore of Star Trek than it does anything else is not above criticism.

Grade: 1/5

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