Star Trek: Lower Decks brings high-quality animation with poor quality writing in a bizarre series that fails to be unique, or remotely close to Star Trek.
Star Trek: Lower Decks debuted and got the reaction most thought it would; a tepid one. Let’s start things off right, this is subjective. This is not a review that will necessarily tell you how you should feel about the show, only how this specific review felt about the show. It’s ok if you liked it. It’s ok if you didn’t.
What can’t be argued is that the show is off to a bad start. As Rolling Stone’s writer Alan Sepinwall wrote about the show’s inability to work as a comedy, “…maybe it’s that the fundamental sincerity of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek vision can feel at odds with snarkier humor.” Which perfectly incapsulates the series’ crippling issues.
That is however just one portion of a five-prong system of how things should be reviewed. Comedy, like all entertainment, is subjective and anything subjective should not be given a sole point for evaluating a property. That’s a guaranteed way to show a bias that you don’t intend to be there. A show is more than just whether you like it or not.
So we’re going to go through five categories and judge them all independently of each other. First is the acting, or in this case, the voice acting. Did they get the timing right, were accents used well, were you able to tell who was who just from listening and all that jazz. Then there’s the writing. How was the dialogue? Did the situations make sense for the show? The design is obviously about the feel of the show and how it creates its own identity. In a live-action setting, we’d talk about the effects, be it computerized, stunt coordination, that stuff. Yet here, we’ll look at animation in its stead. Lastly, we’ll talk about whether the show landed with this specific reviewer. This is largely a personal opinion category.
All five categories are out of five and at the end, each category will be counted up and whatever the score is out of 25 will determine its overall grade.
So with that said, let’s see how the show did grade-wise.
Acting
Tawny Newsome and Jack Quad play the two most focused on characters in the series. Newsome plays Beckett Mariner, a disgraced ensign who keeps getting busted down in rank because she perpetually disregards orders, disrespects her crew members, and blatantly violates numerous Starfleet regulations under the guise of “doing the right thing.” Newsome’s acting for the role is efficient. She brings an energy that the character demands and seems to have a good vocal delivery.
Jack Quaid plays the spineless Brad Boimler. Quaid is rather muted having to play off of Newsome’s high energy in the first energy. Quaid does solid line delivery but nothing about his performance stands out, at least yet. Quaid’s a great actor but as seen in The Boys, his best moments come from his ability to act with his facial features and his over the top reactions to monumental moments that don’t have a lot of clutter around it. Like when he detonated Translucence. Quaid seems slightly hindered in this voice role, either by directional design or simply an inability to make a more memorable impact against Newsome’s infectious energy.
The other two main characters are Noel Wells’ D’Vana Tendi, and Eugene Cordero’s Sam Rutherford. Neither character really carved out their own niche so to speak through Wells’ “I got to hold a heart!” line was one that was delivered with genuine enthusiasm and that’s greatly appreciated.
The best character work so far goes to Dawnn Lewis as Captain Carol Freeman, Jerry O’Connell as First Officer Jack Ransom, and Dr. T’Ana, a Caitian doctor. Lewis does an incredibly hammy, over the top captain’s roll, while O’Connell really hunkers down as the overblown Will Riker archetype. Though it’s Vigman’s Dr. T’Ana that steals the show, as she delivers the perfect cadence and inflection in all of her line delivery.
Overall, great talent, poorly managed, however.
Grade: 3/5
Writing
The show is lost in a slew of wannabe ideas. The series is a clear Rick and Morty clone. That’s not up for debate. Yet, Rick and Morty is a satirical spoof on Back to the Future. Rick and Morty work, however, because it’s not Back to the Future, despite it being a clear homage to the original franchise. If Rick and Morty were Doc and Marty, people would hate the show. The idea of Doc abusing Marty would turn off fans of the franchise for not being true to Back to the Future. Something Lower Decks is being accused of with regards to Star Trek.
Since Rick and Morty is its own thing, the show doesn’t have to worry about appeasing to the Back to the Future fanbase. Which is good, because everyone is awful in Rick and Morty and no one is trying not to be.
Trying to make Star Trek into a comedy is never truly going to work it’s too sincere. So when you introduce a character like Beckett Mariner, she doesn’t come across as cute, clever, funny, or endearing but rude, awful, insubordinate, and a bully. Yet she’s the good guy of the series? A know-it-all who openly states she’s “always right”? That’s the problem with Lower Decks beyond the comedy writing, there isn’t one likable character. There isn’t one character that doesn’t do something to either annoy you or anger you.
Brad Boimler is the dorky, goody-goody troupe that constantly becomes the butts of people’s jokes. D’VAna Tendi is the overly nice, naive newbie, and Sam Rutherford’s whole thing is he’s Data mixed with Spock and sometimes has spazzes because he’s now part cyborg.
Beyond the main cast, the senior members of the crew are all seen as selfish, unlikeable, awful people, with no redeeming qualities. The lower decks crew comes off as a person’s attempt to mock Star Trek and belittle the idea behind it. Throughout the first episode, Mariner is constantly pointing out that all officers across the fleet are glory hounds who don’t care about people.
Yet 50 years of Star Trek says that’s not true.
Despite claiming otherwise, the writing of the show makes it feel like the creators are mocking Starfleet and Star Trek as a whole. Which is a super bad idea.
Beyond that, the show doesn’t have a clue what it wants to be. On one hand, there’s gore, nudity, and swearing; so it’s not a kid’s show. On the other hand, the jokes aren’t creative (spider-butt jokes happen), nor are they designed to really make you think. They’re just “I’M LOUD AND SAYING THINGS”. Which work if you’re 12 and were watching Cartoon Network.
Yet if you’re targetting the 30-year-old crowd, how is being drunk and maiming your colleague funny? The writing isn’t thought-provoking, the characters are all awful people and the humor is sophomoric at best, and nonexistent at worst. It fails across the board.
With better writing, this may work for a parody but not for a Star Trek comedy.
Grade: 1/5
Design
The design of the show is nearly perfect. From the look of the Cerritos to the design of the uniforms, everything about this feels right. The suit redesigns work in a modern way, while still doing a great job capturing the essence of Starfleet and past Star Trek properties.
The Cerritos isn’t an original design, at least not uniquely. It’s a California-class starship that looks great even in animation. The layout of the ship’s crew quarters is very unique to Star Trek which helps. Instead of everyone having their own room, the lower decks crew (made up of mostly newer recruits) sleep in a bunk that resembles a more barracks-style design. This idea was actually very cool and practical.
The problem comes with the design of the new Star Trek aliens, the Galadorians. A purple pig species that feels more at home in Rick and Morty than it does in Star Trek. They’re put into the series to add to the “cute” and “weird” aspect that a lot of cartoon aliens are supposed to have when catering to children but again this isn’t a show for children. So why have “pig people” when this is the universe that gave the world Klingons?
Grade: 3/5
Special Effects/Animation
The animation can be broken down into two different ideas. The first is whether or not the animation is done and done well. The other is whether or not the animation can be timeless, while also maintaining the show’s unique identity in the process. A property that can create a timeless idea that will always identify the property is important. For instance, it’s why Zelda: Wind Waker holds up better visually than Zelda: Twilight Princess.
One tried to be cutting edge while the other tried to have an identity.
So how’s the animation in Lower Decks? It’s graphically well done. Its tight lines are appreciated, the color schemes are not so wild that it’s hard on the eyes but there’s enough vibrancy within the show to make it interesting to look at. All without putting so much out there that it becomes a strain. The motions feel fluid and there wasn’t a penny spared in the animation aspects of the show. It’s a beautifully constructed piece of work.
That has no originality to speak of.
This show is a copy and paste clone of Rick and Morty. In twenty years when this show is rediscovered by whatever generation hates Zoomers the most, someone’s going to ask why Rick and Morty had a Star Trek spinoff and no one is going to know why. The reasoning for the style is obvious, to try and appeal to the Rick and Morty fandom.
It’s why Final Space, Solar Opposites and so many other shows are embracing that idea right now, to try and cater to that specific fanbase. Why? Because originality doesn’t exist in Hollywood apparently?
The desire to make it like every other clone series will cost the series its identity and make it just another dollar store version of something more popular.
Grade: 2/5
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
Overall
The show does a good job trying. It certainly isn’t poorly made and rushed. That should be acknowledged. The acting is great, if at times under/overproduced, and the general design of the ships and crew outfits are pretty well done. It has a nice visual tone and it feels like a Star Trek show, even with the opening credit sequence. The opening music lands pretty well.
That’s where the good stops though.
The show fails to find a voice in its comedy. In Rick and Morty the general tone of the show is that everything is pointless and nothing matters. This is clearly lost on the creators of Star Trek: Lower Decks who try to make Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler their Rick and Morty stand-ins. The only problem is that instead of going all the way offensive as Rick and Morty does, Lower Decks still tried to keep some of the Star Trek idealism injected in. This idealism doesn’t make sense considering the main characters are terrible people. Getting drunk and attacking someone for fun isn’t an altruistic move, it’s the sign of an unstable, unhealthy, and unfit for duty character. Yet, that same character is going to break protocol, commit treason, and allow her crewmate to suffer unnecessary horrors, and she’s the “good” guy? Keep in mind Mariner let Boimler get molested by an alien. Yet she’s morally righteous by attacking Starfleet’s bureaucracy? She’s a psychopath.
No one argues that Rick Sanchez is “the good guy” of Rick and Morty. Rick and Morty have no good guys, just like Lower Decks has no good guys. Rick and Morty can get away with not having likable people. Star Trek can’t. If you present Star Trek without people sacrificing for the greater good, then you’re not presenting Star Trek.
If you’re making a Star Trek show that doesn’t encompass what Star Trek is, then you’ve already failed.
Overall: 10/25 (40%)