williams_482

@williams_482@startrek.website

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 5x05 "Starbase 80?!"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I really liked this one. I think it did a good job making Starbase 80 fit into the universe as more than just a joke (why does starfleet have a starbase that everyone knows just totally sucks? Well, because of a bunch of weird circumstances, and also it’s more complicated than the reputation).

  Interesting, although unsurprising, that Mariner apparently didn’t hang around SB80 long enough to figure out that there was more there than met the eye. A lot of the stuff uncovered in this episode should have been noticeable to a new transfer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x10 TBA⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I kept expecting William Boimler to show up before the end of the season, guess they’re holding onto that thread for next year

  I think it would be pretty funny if they just never picked up that thread again. William Boimler, already presumed dead, joins S31, does ??? because ???, is never heard from again.

  Then again, this show could do a great job riffing off of how counterproductive and ultimately stupid S31 is, in addition to their absurdly twisted and seemingly inconsistent history. So I’d be perfectly happy to see that too.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x10 TBA⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  This was an excellent finale (as all four of them have been, not at all a given with modern Trek or frankly modern television in general), and fully justifies the somewhat weaker setup episode before it.

  “A paywall on a bomb?” might be the best joke this show has delivered in it’s whole run. I don’t often crack up while watching these episodes, but this one really got me. At the very least it’s up there with “It’s a bomb! You can only use it once!” from Wej Duj. I’m sensing a pattern.

  In more typical lower key Lower Decks humor, Boimler and Rutherford arguing about if Locarno looks like Tom Paris was excellent.

  I do wonder what the plan is with Tendi. We’ve seen supposed major shakeups like this dropped into previous finales, of course, with Boimler leaving the Cerritos for the Titan at the end of season one and Freeman getting arrested at the end of Season 2, which were quickly reverted in the first few episodes of the subsequent season. Odds are that’s the play here. I hope so, because losing Tendi would suck. She’s a delight.

  Why was Boimler the acting captain when the command staff took off on the captain’s yacht? There was a full Lieutenant right behind him on the bridge, and surely tens of others on the ship who are more senior and more qualified. A little bit of a main character boost there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x09 "The Inner Fight"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  This episode was okay, I guess? It feels very strange to be sitting on one half of an obvious two parter from this show, and recent Trek shows have left me with an instinctive suspicion of mystery-related plots. This is a good writing team so I have hopes they’ll carry this rather bizare setup into a satisfying resolution that actually makes sense, but I’m much more nervous than I usually am.

  To play it all out: why the heck is Nick Locarno flying around in a little ship capable of disabling the systems on larger warships, transporting(?) the ships and crews to some planet while leaving wreckage behind? If this turns out to be another figurative Kelpian dilithium tantrum I’m not going to be pleased.

  I like what they were trying to do with Mariner in this episode, but for whatever reason it didn’t land quite right with me. Her whole pivot into even-more-than-normal overtly reckless behavior three episodes after the supposed precipitating event felt very abrupt, and the scene where she talks it over and appears to resolve her issues with Ma’ah felt rushed, almost forced. The Sito Jaxa makes reasonable sense as a backstory component, but I found it distracting and it does add to the “small universe” syndrome that expanding IPs risk falling into. Further, the “your dead friend wouldn’t want you to have emotional problems” bit is a cliche that rarely lands with me, and this time was no different: these aren’t problems that people can typically resolve simply by recognizing that their emotional reactions are irrational, so being won over with a rational argument isn’t very convincing. It speaks well of Mariner and Rodenberry’s future humans that this worked, I guess, but it does make it less relatable.

  The B-plot with Freeman and her deception was decent, although as noted elsewhere Rutherford’s presence feels oddly tacked on. I guess they wanted an engineer around, just in case?

  The Jaxa connection does give us a better shot at nailing down Mariner’s actual age, which was presumably somewhere between 17 and 22 (and likely on the later end of that range) at the time of the Nova Squadron incident in 2368. That puts her in her early- to mid-thirties, and lines up well with her service record. We can also confirm that Mariner was not a young child aboard the Enterprise-D, which launched when she was in her mid to late teens.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x07 "A Few Badgeys More"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  We saw a CGI model for the first time in the Ferengi episode

  Can you explain what you mean by this? Isn’t everything we see in Lower Decks technically CGI?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x06 "Parth Ferengi's Heart Place"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Expanding on this, I’ve convinced myself that the whole couples dinner thing exists primarily to entertain the other diners. The way it’s set up an an obnoxious and increasingly grotesque public spectacle which I suspect the vast majority of couples would find highly uncomfortable supports this, as does the remarkable timing of the (presumed fake) removal of the fraudulent couple and Tendi/Rutherford being allowed to leave on a flimsy pretense after putting on a pretty good show of their own.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x06 "Parth Ferengi's Heart Place"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I dislike cringe humor and watching characters be uncomfortable, so I didn’t love the Rutherford/Tendi plotline, but there were enough cute moments in there to make it worthwhile. It feels like the show is openly baiting “shippers” at every opportunity, and this is the most flagrant example yet.

  With that said - and making no claims about if romance is in any way necessary or inevitable here - these two being so close is adorable.

  For a therapist, Migleemo is either really bad at reading other people’s emotions, or deviously brilliant at appearing clueless. Possibly both?

  I appreciate the continued development of Mariner as a person who keeps getting in her own way, slowly coming to terms with that and trying to figure out what to do about it. It’s a problem I don’t relate to at all in the specifics, but the more general “why do I keep doing this” is very easy to connect to, and I know I’m not alone in that. Her Ferengi friend laying it all out for her here seems like an important step, and I wonder where she’s going to turn next.

  This probably deserves a deeper dive at some point, but the further we go the more I see Mariner’s path as a more realistic and relatable trajectory for Michael Burnham to have taken. Both are superbly talented people capable of great things. Both are also reckless, supremely overconfident in their own judgement, and prone to self destructive behavior, all of which combines to put them and those around them in dangerous situations. Burnham in S1 right before the Mirror Universe jump and Mariner in the first episode of Lower Decks are in fairly similar places, both having been recently bumped down from more senior positions due to major fuckups. This is where their paths diverge: both continue to display all the behaviors that got them in trouble, but Mariner remains a lower decker on relatively unimportant assignments, with both her strengths and weaknesses clearly recognized by her superiors. Burnham, meanwhile, is fully returned to her previous high station and even promoted beyond that because her most problematic behaviors are improbably rewarded by a universe which places her in the middle of multiple extraordinarily significant events. I strongly related to S1 Burnham, and really wanted to see her grapple with her weaknesses and develop into a better person and officer over time. I didn’t get that opportunity, but Mariner gives a second chance at telling that slow-burn story and thus far, Lower Decks has done very well with it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x06 "Parth Ferengi's Heart Place"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  We see people enslaved in mines for lying about being a couple to get a discount at a restaurant!

  I do wonder if that was actually an arranged bit of entertainment, with the (alleged) punishment trumped up for the sake of it. Ferengi do like to put on a show.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I feel compelled to note that being promoted from Ensign (O1) to Lieutenant Commander (O4) would be a triple promotion, skipping both Lieutenant Jr. Grade and Lieutenant.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x03 "In the Cradle of Vexilon”⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  The typical Vulcan response of passivity but curiosity is going to work perfectly throughout Lower Decks.

  It’s just perfect, isn’t it? Hardly a surprise to me given that a huge chunk of the funny parts of “serious” Trek stem from the dry bluntness of characters like Spock, Data, and Odo. Now that T’lyn is here my only question is why it took until the 4th season for someone like her to show up.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x01 "Twovix" & 4x02 "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  My first thought was Slave I from Star Wars, which doesn’t really lend itself to any Trekverse theories.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x01 "Twovix" & 4x02 "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  So why did Boimler’s between-the-holodecks room have the (embarrassing) events of both adjacent holodecks reverberating through it? One of the core capabilities of a holodeck is the ability to manipulate where sounds appear to be coming from, which must include the ability to dampen sounds enormously. And if that technology exists, it should likely be available for ordinary walls between quarters too.

  Is this just another case of Boimler not realizing that basic niceties (like viewscreen light filters) exist? And did both Freeman and T’Ana disable the audio dampening of their own holodecks?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x01 "Twovix" & 4x02 "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m honestly disappointed about the double release, because now I have to process two awesome episodes at the same time and I keep getting them mixed up.

  Quick hitters, in no particular order:

  • love Ransom demonstrating competent personnel management, another “surprise” twist of stuff working as it should.
  • the Shax/Ransom exercise scene is fabulous
  • Did that macro virus really get stuck behind a panel on the bridge for a decade (ish), or did curator guy cook it up to enhance the exhibit?
  • the whole Tuvix sequence was the perfect absurdist sequel to the original episode. Apparently T’Lynn and all of the merged persons are also cold blooded murderers in their own special ways.
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I don't remember this other son of Mogh⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Of course Kurn is victimized by bad kerning.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Star Trek executive producer wants more Strange New Worlds episodes, and I’m nervous⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is definitely not a “bottle episode”. Bottle episodes are episodes which require minimal or no additional budget for SFX, sets, etc beyond what is already available from previous/upcoming episodes. They exist as a money saving device which was necessary for shows to run 26 episode seasons and shell out for expensive productions while remaining within their budget. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow wouldn’t have been the most expensive episode to film, but there’s still a lot of exterior scenes, VFX, etc which make it quite a bit pricier than an episode almost entirely confined to a handful of existing sets.

  It is a happy accident (whether by chance, or because the format forces an emphasis on the stories Trek has been best at telling) that Trek bottle episodes tend to include some of the best writing and character moments of the various series. This naturally leads to some confusion about what a “bottle episode” actually means.

  Strange New Worlds has not had any true “bottle episodes” to date, although they certainly have been able to work in a lot of high quality character moments.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x08 "Under the Cloak of War"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, the previously inexplicable “inject a bunch of drugs to fight Klingons” scene in the season opener has suddenly paid off.

  I have little to say now except that this episode was a seriously heavy hitter. Just… wow. And ouch.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anyone else out there who actually really loved Discovery's S1 style of Klingons?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  because apparently Star Trek, unlike every other fantasy and science fiction thing I like, is Forbidden from being treated like a secondary world that should have its own internal consistency.

  How many other Science Fiction properties out there sprung out of a low budget TV show from the 60s but are still producing content without some kind of explicit reboot?

  Star Wars is the classic comparison in all sorts of ways, and for better or worse Star Wars avoids this problem entirely by 1) having a much higher budget relative to the number of sets and costumes required for it’s initial installment, 2) having picked an aesthetic that is crude, gritty, and seemingly practical which escapes looking dated many years after the fact, and 3) not being set in our future where the advances of modern tech make obviously retro elements look ridiculous.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anyone else out there who actually really loved Discovery's S1 style of Klingons?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  For me, having them look like TNG Klingons doesn’t even solve the problem because ENT had implied that shouldn’t happen until the TOS movie era.

  That Enterprise arc was clearly intended to apply a (totally unnecessary) in-universe explanation for why Kirk’s adversaries were just guys in vaguely asian facial makeup, but there’s no reason we have to extrapolate that the Augment virus was a widespread and incurable until the late 23rd century. It could easily have been a relative blip on the radar; aggressively quarantined and/or cured much earlier than anticipated.

  The idea that they also needed to make an explicit reference to the augment virus being cured, or explicitly point out “hey, these guys would look less different if they weren’t shaving their heads!” strikes me as absurd. These are not difficult conclusions to reach for someone motivated to find them, and there were people mentioning those possibilities pretty much immediately after the first Discovery trailer dropped.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anyone else out there who actually really loved Discovery's S1 style of Klingons?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I remain amazed that many people insist that T’Kuvma and company are irreconcilably different from the TNG era portrayals. These are big, carnivorous-looking aliens with prominent forehead ridges and significant individual variation in appearance. They’re different in some small details, like the extra nostrils, but outside of the most extreme visually literalist stance, is it really that hard to square these guys against Chang, Martok, and Worf? Replace the shine and detail with a classic rubber mask, silicon makeup, and matte brown body paint in exactly the same head and body shape, stick them at a side table in Quarks circa S6 of DS9, and I challenge you to notice anything amiss.

  What this rework did do was make them feel so much more alien, and so much more dangerous. They outright eat people, which was occasionally hinted at but is noted far more literally in Discovery, and very, very easy to believe looking at these guys. I wish they hadn’t backpedalled so hard back to the 1980s makeup in SNW 2x01, because I would have loved to see these monsters chumming it up with Spock: that scene would immediately have been slightly more unsettling, bringing the audience closer to what Spock and his crew are likely feeling about their momentary drinking buddies, instead of the much more casual feel we got from Klingons who look just like our old buddies from DS9. These guys are still dangerous aliens whose friendliness is tenuous and temporary; they would literally eat Spock if circumstances were slightly different. We shouldn’t forget that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2x07 "Those Old Scientists"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Poor Christine Chapel! Now she knows what the audience has always known: her relationship with Spock is ultimately doomed. Plus a delightful mix of guilt and fear that she could unwittingly cause Spock to never measure up to the vague but crucial future that Boimler mentioned to her in the turbolift.

  That suuuuuucks.