Star Trek: Lower Decks

... By mediocre scores or disgruntled purists pining for a canon that was shattered before the original series even ended it's first run. Star Trek has always been escapist fun with an added layer of social awareness. It never became "woke" - it was "woke" back when we called "woke" people hippies and it never changed (with the notably shameful exception of S01 of TNG). It's enjoyable, Trek flavoured comedy with added in-jokes for nerds. The older (and nerdier) you are, the more of those in-jokes will hit home. As a 50 year old, lifelong Sci-fi fan I really enjoyed the 1st episode and look forward to more.

I went into this show, a quite disgruntled star trek fan expecting to be disappointed once again. "Rick and Morty humor with Star Trek? How long are they going to beat the horse they killed?" I thought to myself. But then it turned out that I liked it. While it's not perfect and not all the humor lands for me, it's not bad either. Many Star Trek fans are understandably, and from my point of view, justifiably bitter about what has been done to Star Trek with Discovery and Picard, and even though Kurtzman is running this show too, I think there is an opportunity for it to shine by satirizing what made people like me hate the last two 'not treks' CBS made. It's not the trek you wanted, that mantle seems to have passed onto the Orville, but it's worth continuing to watch in my opinion as long as the show doesn't try to take itself too seriously, and especially will be if the creators can eventually seize the opportunity to demonstrate self-awareness about what went wrong with the last two shows.

Following the adventures of the backbone crew of a Starship...

Those expecting Lower Decks to echo 1973's Star Trek the animated series may be left feeling like Gene Roddenberry Holodeck ghost. In terms of tone this animated vision of Star Trek is reminiscent of The Orville, Futurama with a mix of Rick and Morty. It's sharp, fast paced and above all entertaining.

Thankfully, with plenty of in-jokes it never leaves the Star Trek universe, firmly set in the Star Trek world of TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager etc showing that if anyone can and should be parodying Star Trek it's, er, Star Trek. Lower Decks is wacky, funny, refreshing and outlandish.

With a cast of excellent voice actors the character are humorously and likably brought to life and for obvious reasons Tawny Newsome's Mariner is a sure instant fan favourite. Notable are Jerry O'Connell as Freeman and Noël Well's Tendi to name a few.

While no doubt many fans prefer a live action serious series and rightly so, but so long as they are running this wonderful animated incarnation in conjunction with the usual traditional style series this is Praxis shockwave gold.

Overall, once you buy into the style, it's plain Starship sailing, recommend.

As a Berman era Trek fan, I am loving this show. First episode is so so but it really takes off after that.

It's a show that pokes fun at itself, in the most loving way. I really don't get all the hostility to a cartoon, but if you like TNG, DS9 etc, at least give it a shot and make up your own mind.

This is a great show with some beautiful animation that somehow manages to get me invested in every character even minor ones. It started a bit mediocre and too hyper with the first 2 episodes but after that it's only improved with season 2 on average being even better than the 1st one.

Season 2 episode 9 Wej Duj I would count among my top 10 favourite episodes of all of Star Trek.