Watched on Saturday September 7, 2024.
Movies & TV
Reminiscence, 2021 – ★★★
I liked it, I liked the dystopian sort of cyberpunk ish Noir world. There are a lot of parts that kind of feel like, "Is this based on a book where this is a bit more fleshed out." And the end was a little meh, not for what it was but for just, reasons that feel too spoilery.
Just, I feel like "they would not have let him do that in that way" covers it for anyone not wanting to be spilered. Maybe "they would let him do that" but just not "in that way".
Kind of predictable a bit in that you know there will be twists, not necessarily what they are but it's a movie that screams "This plot device will have layers of twists."
Star Trek – Lower Decks (S1-S4)
So, unlike Discovery, this show is a lot more serialized, which is much more Trek-like honestly. There is some loose callbacks within the seasons, mostly at the end of the seasons, but otherwise, each episode is mostly just its own mission or activity. Or more often, several missions or activities.
Unlike most Trek shows, this one follows the “lower decks” crew. As the name would suggest. There is a bridge crew that shows up, but they are not the focus. Instead, it’s, all those people running around in the background shots of every episode, doing God knows what, keeping the ship running. At least that’s the pitch, but the command crew gets quite a bit of screen time and characterization as well, particularly the Captain.
The show in general is kind of a huge love letter to Trek fans. It makes fun of a lot of Trek Tropes, but it does so in a very tongue-in-cheek way that makes it feel like it’s meant in a good way. Like, “We all know this is kind of dumb, but we are just going to not be serious about it.”. There are a lot of moments where the main 4 are literally stating, “We don’t know what is happening, that’s the senior officer’s job.”
The characters are all pretty likable as well. The two core heroes are Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler. They are basically your traditional odd couple type, and best friends on the ship. Mariner is highly able and experienced but has a massive history of avoiding the rules and general self-sabotage, while Boimler is an overachiever who can’t really get anywhere because he constantly gets in his own way. The secondary pair of heroes are D’Vana Tendi, an overly eager Orion medical ensign and Sam Rutherford, an obsessed with his work Engineer.
In addition to all the nods and jabs at Trek over the years, the show also does a good sort of deconstruction of the “lower tier life” of any large personnel outfit. They do their job well, but they also get annoyed by all the going-in-blind nonsense that the people up top push down on them. It’s almost like “The Office in Space” in that sense. Though the leadership isn’t completely incompetent on Lower Decks.
The crew is part of the USS Cerritos (another joke because it’s named after a boring small California Town). They go around doing primarily “2nd Contact” jobs. Once Starfleet has met with an alien planet for First Contact, the Cerritos is part of a group that comes in and helps them get things set up. They also do a lot of standard “scan this rock” style missions as well, and getting into other trouble.
There are a ton of references to previous Trek Material ranging from straight full plot parody to random nods here and there. There have also been episodes devoted to basically every one of the original Treks, though the TOS now was technically part of Strange New Worlds. A lot of the popular main characters have made cameos as well, voiced by their original actors.
The show has its own running gags and plots too though. The Pakleds are the pseudo-regular villains for the Cerritos, for example. The Pakleds themselves are kind of a ridiculous joke of an enemy, mostly known for being absolutely dead stupid. There is an entire regular subplot about how Mariner is very capable but just doesn’t want to move up in the ranks at all and keeps self-sabotaging herself. Also, despite that the Cerritos is supposed to kind of be a screw up ship, they always manage to save the day like the “big boys”.
It fills a nice hole in the Trek world right now, which feels like it’s trying to do a variety of things to appeal to everyone. Discovery has its single-character deep drama. Strange New Worlds is more “traditional Trek” but still a bit more lighter in nature, Lower Decks is a full-on comedy, that still does a good job of making things feel appropriate for the in-universe world. Granted, it has its exaggerations, Riker’s cameo in particular kind of felt a little too exaggerated. But overall, it’s a good show.
Star Trek Strange New Worlds
Despite that I’ve been writing about Star Trek Discovery, what really brought me back to Star Trek was Strange New Worlds. I had tried and given up on Discovery several times, not making it past the first episode, and I wasn’t hearing much great and Star Trek Picard. I was hearing good things about Strange New Worlds. I know the timelines and continuity is iffy, but it’s essentially a prequel series to The Original Series.
Something I kind of realized when starting SNW, is that I have never really watched TOS. I have seen episodes here and there for sure, and I have watched the movies many many times. I even have a pile of notes on the Animated series somewhere so I could forget to blog about it. But I have not really watched TOS properly. I may have to fix that. I am fairly familiar with it, but more with elements from the movies. For example, I forgot Nurse Chapel was there on TOS quite a bit, she is a main character here in SNW. There are actually several minor crew members in SNW that are also minor crew members in TOS.
Anyway, I also am aware of Captain Pike and how he fit into TOS. He was captain in the TOS pilot, and in a later episode after he was basically crippled into a space wheelchair thing. Basically, he was Captain of The Enterprise before Kirk. Which is the story SNW is showing us. The more interesting TOS character here is young Spock, who served under Pike before serving under Kirk. Rounding out the TOS characters is Uhura, who served as Communications Officer under Kirk, though she is a lot more floaty in her duties here under Pike. Part of her story is sort of, finding her place.
The show has its own share of new characters though, or in some cases, fleshed out minor characters. Pike has his Number One, who didn’t have a name in TOS, or in her Season 2 Discovery appearance. She gets a name finally, though it’s funny because her first name is “Una”, which is suspiciously close to “Uno”. There is the previously mentioned Nurse Christine Chapel, and her partner in crime Doctor M’Benga. Chapel was fairly present in TOS, but M’Benga actually did appear as well in a couple of episodes. The main cast is rounded out with Security Chief La’an Noonien Singh, whom is a descendant of well known Star Trek villain Khan Noonien Singh. And lastly, probably my favorite of the new characters, Lt. Erika Ortegas, who helmsman under Pike.
Oh right, there is also Captain Christopher Pike. I am really enjoying Pike as captain, though he does come off as feeling very Kirk-like at times. That may be a side effect of just how much more like Star Trek this show feels as a whole. Especially next to Discovery (Though I watched Discovery AFTER watching SNW). Unlike Discovery, this show is all about the crew and their interactions with each other.
There is a lot of strange irony going on that Ortegas is my favorite character here, and Unlike her character and feel like I know more about her character than most of the Discovery Crew. The irony being that Ortegas isn’t even a very fleshed out character. There was even kind of a memory episode where everyone lost their memory and Ortegas summed up her entire character as, “I fly the ship.”
Which bring up another thing I like about this show, it’s much more episodic in nature. There are hints of an underlying narrative, but it’s just that, it’s an underlying narrative, and less so a running plot thread. There are also a lot of subtle nods to various things in Trek. Characters that show up later again and such. A lot of the show revolves more around the character interactions as well, which is so nice because part of what makes Trek enjoyable is a fun crew that gets along. We still get history for these characters as well, with touches on La’an’s unsteadiness about her ancestry, or Chapel and M’Benga’s time during the Klingon War where they did some.potentially shady missions. There is exploration of Spock’s relationship with his Vulcan fiance T’Pring, complicated by his increasing feelings for Nurse Chapel.
But there are also a lot of fun goofy stuff going on. We get an entire musical episode when the crew encounters a special rift with a proclivity for music. There is also a really fun crossover episode with Lower Decks, where two of the Lower Decks members, Ensigns Boimler and Mariner, are transported to the “real world” past.
We also get some nods at things to come. Pike is haunted by a memory he was given during his time on Discovery, about his future death. He knows he is going to die and he knows there is nothing he can do to stop it. There are also several cameo appearances by a young Lt James T. Kirk. I am a bit torn on Kirk. The actor does a really good job and I like his character, but he doesn’t really look or act like Shatner. Funny enough, he looks like Jim Carey, who is most responsible for parodying Kirk and basically creating the “Kirk… talks like … he hasa weird… speech impediment” trope, that isn’t really very accurate.
Kirk doesn’t yet serve on the Enterprise though, so he only shows up occasionally.
Anyway, rather than push seasonal write ups, I figured I would wrap Season 1 and 2 up into one, general thoughts, write up. Overall, Strange New Worlds is really great though, and it’s done a great job of pulling me me back to Star Trek.
