I hope Lower Decks is good and I’m willing to give it a chance, but I’m kinda bummed that because it exists we probably won’t get the slice-of-life Star Trek show about junior officers that I’ve wanted ever since the original Lower Decks aired.

Just a low-stakes dramedy about a bunch of young or otherwise inexperienced Starfleet crewmembers living their lives, figuring out what they want to do with themselves, having relationship ups and downs. Whit Stilman in space.

Some of the biggest names in SF right now—Becky Chambers, Nnedi Okorafor, Arkady Martine, Martha Wells—specialize in character-driven stories that forefront emotional journeys over space battles and underscore the importance of friendship and unity. That’s *perfect* for Trek.

I don’t know, a show about being a young person on a starship just trying to make it through the day while people older than you constantly make decisions you have no say in that could destroy the lives of everyone you love? I feel like that might be a little relevant right now.

It’s not exactly this idea—and not without its flaws—but The Orville is workplace SF about people who care for and respect each other in spite of their foibles.

If Seth MacFarlane has (understandably) scared you off, maybe give it a shot? It gets better and better as it goes.

Maybe it's for the best that we don't have a Trek show that tries to foreground compelling character conflict, considering the current state of TV writing seems to confuse that with "everybody being pissy with each other all the time for no reason."

Plus you know a workplace Trek show would go the lazy route of making all the senior officers huge assholes instead of just, you know, real people doing their best under tremendous pressure and who aren't always great at the "being supportive" part of their job.

AND you just know the whole thing would be wrapped up in that dumb boring "MayBe The FEdEratiOn is bad aCtUaLly" take that NuTrek loves so much.

I'm not saying that the Federation has to be unquestionably perfect, but "utopia isn't a place but a process that requires constant work to maintain" is much much more interesting POV than "what if this perfect society is really eeeeevil?"

(Anyway, that's my Picard review.)

This wasn't really about the new show but I just watched the first episode so here's a mini-review:

It's okay, and has potential to become something more than okay. My main beef is that it's just not that funny. It's crammed with Joke-Like Objects but not that many actual jokes.