Bret Devereaux

So CBS put the first episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks on youtube as a promotion. Not the best foot forward. I find myself oddly disappointed, because I actually like the four mains and want to watch more stories with them...but I don't like the show they're in. 1/7

I'm not bothered by the art-style, or the dialogue, or the concept. I'm bothered by the cynical meanness of how it views its broader setting. All of the senior officers are apparently self-absorbed jerks. The captain doesn't give the junior officers any credit at the end. 2/7

Starfleet itself is apparently a corrupt, nepotistic (from the admiral we see) bureaucracy that actively discourages individual initiative. The ship they are on is a crowded breakdown prone dump (credits, but also engineers dialogue). 3/7

And I get that part of the joke is all of the crazy stuff that happens on Star Trek - but humor of Mariner having been in so many terrible situations in a relatively brief career just adds to the darkness with which the show views its setting. 4/7

I don't mind them poking fun at the Trek mythos, but I think they could have done it while keeping the hopeful, optimistic tone of Golden Age Trek. Even DS9, at its darkest, was never really cynical - there was a right and a wrong (and sometimes our heroes did the wrong). 5/7

Honestly, there is plenty of dark, cynical or gritty sci-fi out there (some of it is even good). I really wish the folks at CBS would take the risk to play Star Trek's traditional optimism straight, because when everyone is edgy, a 'square' show can stand out. 6/7