It's a different Star Trek, but it's finally Star Trek
When Lower Decks first came out, I gave it a bad review and now I would like to make up for that. It's not that I disagree with my earlier reviews, they were accurate regarding the episodes back then. But I do feel that since then and especially now in Season 3 they have become so much more than just another animated sitcom or just another Star Trek parody. NOW it finally starts to feel like actual Star Trek, which is the highest praise a Trekkie can give - especially considering that there is so much "NuTrek" around now, yet none of the other shows - including and especially even the live action shows - truly feel like Star Trek. Well, okay, Strange New Worlds isn't half bad either, but that's also because I can't wait for their crossover with this show!
The problem was that initially, me and many other fans couldn't understand how an over the top animated parody, could be more like Star Trek than say that other show about vineyards. But it truly is and it's more than just a parody. Roddenberry described Star Trek as "Guliver's Travels in space". And of course Guliver's Travels has always been a satire and a parody - though be it a parody of the society of its time. And of course if you criticize your contemporary society, you need to figure out some way to get around censorship. And of course the classic trick is to just pretend that it's not talking about our present society, but about some remote island/planet that just so happens to look exactly like the contemporary society of the author. But thanks to both Jonathan and Gene, that trick is now so old and so well known, that no studio executive in the world is going to be fooled by it anymore, which is exactly the reason why the other NuTrek shows don't feel like Star Trek anymore.
Lower Decks on the other hand uses the fact that as an animated parody it's prone to not be taken as serious, and so it's easier for them to fly under the radar and hide their criticism about contemporary issues (even if it's mainly criticism of NuTrek itself) among a myriad of jokes, Easter eggs and 4th wall breaks. It's literally "lower decks" and lower decks won't stand out (among the many other shows with a higher budget and bigger stars) and in fact they are counting on that and that's why once I realized that, I now absolutely love and adore them. Which explains why initially they did more of a parody, but starting with this episode and this season, they increasingly drop the disguise and have some real stories and messages underneath all the overt silliness.
