This new animated comedy on CBS All Access follows the lives of low ranking crew members on the USS Cerritos. This turned out to be very entertaining.
This show is pretty funny. The writers do a surprisingly strong job mining the Star Trek universe and science fiction concepts. Any Star Trek fan will get a kick out of the show as it makes some valid satire of the universe. There are also a few pretty creative ideas. The subplots to the episodes "Moist Vessel" and "Terminal Provocations" are works of mad genius.
Though this is a comedy, Lower Decks at its core still adheres to the spirit of Star Trek and the positive outlook of Starfleet. (If you're one of those people who feel Picard or Discovery were cynical and drifted from the Trekkie spirit, you may be pleasantly surprised with this.) Basically Lower Decks is a combination of anarchic humor and more sentimental, upbeat stuff and it all meshes so well. The two supporting cast members Tendi (voiced by Noel Wells) and Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) are a rare breed in an adult animated cartoon: nice guys and total optimists whose characters don't exist to just get punished for their upbeatness.
I advise you to stick through at least the third episode. The two leads Mariner (Tawny Newsome), the noncomformist rebel with the heart of gold, and Boimler (Jack Quaid), the one who follows all the rules and wants to rise up the ranks, suffer in the first two stories by leaning too hard into their personalities. The later episodes find a nice pacing for them.
The animation is kind of like Rick and Morty with cleaner linework. Though the character designs are simple, the animation can be ambitious. Stuff like fights and starship and galaxy design can be pretty impressive at moments. The show especially goes all out for the final episode. The animation is really colorful and I'm happy they went with strong color-coded outfits of Star Treks past.
Overall, I highly recommend this for Star Trek fans or casual viewers. I definitely liked this better than CBS All Access' other ST entries.
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