Female Starfleet Captains and why Michael Burnham’s the worst
By Marc Kick
Captain Carol Freeman is another fine example of a strongly written female Starfleet Captain on Star Trek: The Lower Decks
Even in the current Paramout+ series, Star Trek: The Lower Decks, Captain Carol Freeman of the USS Cerritos, who is largely a secondary character, considering the show centers around a group of Ensigns onboard her ship, is always portrayed as a serious Captain who is always acting in the best interests of Starfleet in her own stern manner. Even in her dealings with her Admiral husband, in which she’s usually trying to get their daughter, Ensign Beckett Mariner, transferred off her ship, she is rarely ever spoken down to by her superiors.
Though her ship may be relegated to completing somewhat boring missions that otherwise wouldn’t be handled by Starfleet’s most well-known ships, Captain Freeman always keeps her chin up, puts on a serious face and charges forward in hopes of one day, commanding the more important missions that Starfleet has to offer on one of the ships deems more important to the fleet.
Even in Starfleet’s conflict with the Pakleds, though the Pakleds continued to express a general ineptness and kept confusing her with Captain Janeway, Captain Freeman takes their threat quite seriously and worked together with Captain Riker when he came to help fight off their Clumpships.
Though she and her ship may not always be taken completely seriously, she always exudes a “can-do” attitude to her crew and tries to make their mission (however unimportant) seem important.