Much as I like Avery Brooks, he never got a handle on the Sisko character until he shaved and went back to being Hawk but with a son. They should have let him do that from the beginning.

Lower Decks is stuffed full of funny references to other Treks and specific episodes. Being an incurable Star Trek geek I get all or most of them and it’s part of the fun. That said, all of those references are treated as throwaway lines and aren’t important to the story, so I think it’d still be a good show if you miss those. It might even be more fun when you later watch that one TNG episode and go, “oh that’s what they were talking about”. Either way I recommend Lower Decks. It manages to be silly and fun while not mistreating Trek or its characters.

Yep. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magnificent_Ferengi_(episode)

As an aside, Iggy Pop as a Vorta was freaking great. He just looked so done and irritated with everyone the whole time. Great example of having the one straight man in the middle of a comedy.

We might have to agree to disagree on the overall look of the thing, but I want to comment on the job part.

It’s always been a bit of a disconnect that you supposedly had this post-scarcity, socialistic, utopia where we have overcome our baser instincts and work cooperatively. But for some reason the dominant organization has military ranks and some people agree to sign-up to take orders and get thrown in jail if they don’t. That never quite squared. But in the real world it’s a simple matter of writing what you know and Gene was ex-Navy so that’s what Starfleet was modeled on. Doesn’t really make sense. It’s also why admirals are so often bad. He had a beef with them.

But yeah I agree I like it better when they talk about their places in Starfleet being a matter of choosing to be a part of it and it being bound by honor and duty. I don’t know why they’re doing that, if it’s supposed to be earlier in the development of the Federation, or if they’re just copying the Orville jokes. I do really like is Una. A lot of that is I always felt robbed by the fact that the network made Gene cut out the idea of a woman first officer after the first pilot and I feel like we’re finally getting to see what could have been with Majel in that role.

When I wrote the above I had not seen the musical yet. It was well-produced and fun, but I think it really undercut the show and I didn’t like it. It made the characters seem silly. Contrast with the Lower Decks crossover which I thought I was going to hate and I thought actually worked fine if you could ignore the cartoon thing. I didn’t mind that it was played for outright comedy because it still took the characters seriously. Much like the DS9 Tribbles episode.

I do think DS9 was great by the way, with a few exceptions, mostly the mirror universe stuff. And Miles calmly encouraging the Ferengi to go on strike because of course that’s what you do, was maybe one of the most subversive things Trek has gotten away with on TV. American media loves to hate on unions so that was a bolder than you might realize and I loved it.

You’re not wrong, but that’s why I like it. Before I get in to that.

Discovery had some good moments and some good acting but was overall a mess.

Picard was like someone gave a big budget to a fanfic and said “I’m not taking any notes.” When a bunch of good actors turn in a lousy performances you know the whole thing is broken.

Lower Decks is just all around fun and I really like it.

Back to your statement. I (American) grew up on TOS reruns in the late 70s. I watched old movies and TV shows that had the American 50s optimism for the bright shiny future, but in the late 70s it felt like we’d failed not just economically but more importantly socially. Trek showed a better possible future where we’d solved our problems and learned to work together. It had the 50s optimism for tech and the 60s lessons in social justice. Gene’s vision (and he was by no means perfect himself) was that humanity had solved its problems and that serious conflict had to be external. We were still humans with loves, losses, and petty squabbles but we didn’t have hatred for our fellow man. But we were still working to be better at accepting everyone. Kind of a throwaway but a great example is Boimler the snotty ensign telling legendary Captain Pike it’s kind of offensive to assume all Orions are pirates.

SNW has been a combination of goofy fun, serious topics, and gut-punches like Lift Us Up Where Suffering Cannot Reach.

I still loved DS9 but it strayed away from the vision a lot. I especially hated the parallel universe bullshit which really undermined the point of the original episode. And it gave my conservative friends license to say, look if we’re not tough we’ll get rolled over and be the underclass. Either be the Terran Empire or be slave. I reject that.

I’m tired of gritty dark Trek. Especially in these times where the future doesn’t look good I want to see a shiny happy future where we overcome the challenges by being smart and cooperative. The sets are bright and polished and everyone is fit but the characters actually feel more like real people to me than TNG. I love that we got to watch Uhura’s progression from scared cadet to confident at her job for example.

Michael Dorn has spent 30+ years delivering deadpan one-liners and I love him for it.

That was Gene’s vision, that humans had grown and matured to where we could find ways to resolve problems peacefully at least amongst ourselves. The conflict and moral stories were always supposed to be external. Some Treks did this better than others, but it really was that positive vision of the future that I think resonated with people in the midst of the 60s. I’m glad to see Strange New Worlds now doing something very similar but fresh. We need some positivity in these times too.