Huh, I was expecting this to be about T’lyn! no such luck on that front unfortunately. Haven’t combed through the trailer in too much detail, but if this is the first time I’m hearing confirmation about them all getting promoted would that imply most of the trailer shots are from relatively early in the season?
It feels right for the gang to get promoted. If you asked me what Lower Decks is about, underneath all the nostalgia and jokes, I’d say it’s about growth–Starfleet is awesome, but its legends of yesteryear don’t start that way. These goofy, lower-decker ensigns may be screwups, but at the core they’re Starfleet though and through. It kind of feels appropriate to move on from where the original TNG episode Lower Decks left off-- the promotion of proto-Boimler Sam Lavelle-- and explore what growth looks like beyond that.
Edited to add: I went back through the trailer and yep, no visible changes to their rank pips. Although T’lyn has a shot where she’s switched over from a provisional lozenge to the standard single round ensign pip.
I’m relieved to hear that the group will be promoted. 3 years is a fairly long haul as ensigns, even on a second tier ship. The humour and credibility would begin to wear a bit thin if they at that rank throughout the show’s run. (… yes, I know about Ensign Kim and that was inexplicable - he should have been given an acting promotion to lieutenant at minimum.)
It’s interesting that TrekMovie has this article up before the news release has been posted. (I checked the Paramount+ press site and the most recent posting for Lower Decks is for the trailer release July 22nd, and these details aren’t in that one.)
Yeah, there was no reason for an Ensign to run Ops on a ship like Voyager. It would have been great writing for after Paris gets demoted, Janeway takes the pip and places it on Kim’s collar.
Instead, they repromote Paris, and when Kim asks why he didn’t see a little box on his desk this morning everyone promptly ignores him.
The Paramount press site is…not as reliable as you would think. It’s not uncommon for sites like Trekmovie to run episode previews that obviously came from press releases, while the actual Paramount site lags behind by a day or two.
Signed,
The guy who sometimes loses his mind trying to set up the episode discussion posts.
One season of Lower Decks is 6 months in-universe, so they’ve only been ensigns for a year and a half
The first few episodes are a bit rough. They make it seem more like a Rick and Morty-type show, which isn’t quite what I was after for Trek. The show does get a bit better later on, when they settle in.
I’m finding all the pilot episodes and most season premieres in the current era rough. It seems a pattern with all the shows
One definitely gets the sense that there are so many senior executives at Paramount and CBS Studios giving notes as they seek to differentiate the shows that the creators’ ideas get muddied.
As they get into the seasons and get more seasons the EPs and writers find each shows voice, I suspect that they suffer fewer notes telling them to adjust to some executive’s idea of what the show is supposed to be and who it is targeting.
One definitely gets the sense that there are so many senior executives at Paramount and CBS Studios giving notes as they seek to differentiate the shows that the creators’ ideas get muddied.
Considering the production issues that Discovery had behind the scenes, I wonder if it might be the opposite. The show’s creatives are being hampered by the executives, who would prefer that they kept to the standard “Star Trek Brand” instead. It’s happened before, with both Voyager and Enterprise, and the current model of the show is meant to be “A Trek for Everyone”, which would be difficult to pull off if all the shows kept to the same sort of formula.
@startrekexplained @ValueSubtracted i like the grumpy cat doctor ;)
@startrekexplained Oh sure! Like all the Characters but the doc ist the best. 😁 The crew avoids coming for their vaccination ? No, Problem. She has a vac rifle ;) or her romance with the Bajoran Security Chief or the Tamarian. Ok, i love all.
This is my feeling about LD to a T. I still don’t get why some people seem to think it’s the best thing since DS9, but it’s not bad.
The series I was shocked by how much I loved, however, was Prodigy.
