Star Trek: Lower Decks

That was a pretty engaging (no pun intended) episode. For the first time since the OG air date I sympathized with Mariner. Martok was an added bonus. I really liked this episode, nice throw backs to TOS as well. This is how you respect canon. SNW was good, but this is better.

I keep assuming that every single plot point in Lower Decks will be a reference to some previous Trek episode, and making myself crazy trying to match every plot point to its inspiration when maybe sometimes there isn't one ...

The Bolian's former captain getting turned into a baby: "Rascals" (TNG)
The planet Dulaine: The Edo from "Justice" (TNG)
The orbital lift: "Rise" (VOY)
K'Ranch: The Hirogen (VOY) ... maybe also a nod to Tosk from DS9?
355: Landru and basically every other computer-god from TOS
The telepathic baby: ???
The sentient volcano: ???
Mariner's skydiving outfit: Michael Burnham's Red Angel suit from DIS?
I'm assuming all of the things Boimler says yes to before the hunt are just one-off gags rather than callbacks to anything specific.

Oh, and Tendi in nothing but a towel was pretty hot.

Telepathic baby is Clint Howard's character from TOS. Sentient volcano, also TOS, but not a 1:1 exact comparison. Skydiving suit JJTrek.

I do like that this far this season, the Lower Decks crew is in fact an actual crew together rather than Mariner/Boimler and Tendi/Rutherford and the occasional mix up of these two dynamics. Can't wait to see more of this.

Anyone else think K'Ranch's design was a nod to Garrus from Mass Effect?

Klingon D&D looks cool. Nice to see Lower Decks continuing the use of boardgames.

Can't imagine Riker convincing the Edo not to sacrifice Wesley via the power of buffness though.

Also, you could interpret Tendi in the towel as a nod to the Saavik turbolift scene from TWoK if you squint.

I'm just not really into this kind of show generally, but the Martok game was quite the chuckle

I've actually played the TNG board/VHS game the Martok game pays homage to

She's easily in her mid-20's.

This website puts her in her 30's, although I don't think that's right. (The actress who voices her is 33.)

EXPERIENCE BIJ

Fuck!

yeah, they should at least 22-23 figuring 4 year programs at SFA, starting SFA at 18, and all being on first assignments.
Mariner can be Tawny Newsome's actual late 30s based on her classmate who is now a captain but not stated to be younger than Kirk (who had been the youngest at 35... something you'd expect they'd mention if only to piss off certain viewers)

Wasn't Tryla Scott in the TNG ep with the neural parasites stated to have been the youngest Captain ever?

Kirk's revised history in the Kelvinverse aside, that means we've ALREADY had a female captain attaining the rank faster than Kirk. Mind you, she was dead by the end of the episode.

Yep ... and Shatner got his panties in such a twist over the thought of her breaking Kirk's record, even 80 years later, that he had to put her in one of his novels and explain that her ascent through the ranks was the result of alien manipulation.

Cerritos as the Enterprise of support ships.

Hmm, I can appreciate that

Loved seeing Jennifer clap her antennas together

Honestly, my only nitpick about modern Trek is all the Andorians and Aenar have stationary antennas. If Enterprise could remote control the ones for every background Andorian with the comparative budget of $10 and a bag of peas, there's no excuse for Discovery or SNW with bigger budgets and fewer episodes

I'm impressed that they went out and got Susan Gibney for a one-off Leah Brahms gag.

As Alice Kriege showed, ex-Trek actors are up for this shit. Especially now many of them have audio booths at home.

Today’s episode was pretty good, I chuckled quite a bit.

did we get closure on Tendi's pet and it's whereabouts?

amorphous blobs ALWAYS become troublesome if not contained.

I don’t think we did.

So I'm assuming the DS9 cameo will likely be next week, given previous trends of first trailers premiering stuff from the first five episodes?

I don't hate season 3 but it's been feeling a bit light on the character development and I feel like this may be intentionally so.

They’re focusing on story rather than character. It seems like they’re more focused on the group rather than individuals, but we still have six more episodes left.

LD/Orville crossover.

The timing is just about right for the blob to grow up to be Yaphit.

It's the holodeck, firearms are ancient tech by then. The "mistake" could be by the person who created the holodeck program, or by Shaxs, being Bajoran may never have seen an actual firearm and thought the entire cartridge was fired.