Burnham with a Beer -- Lower Decks brings some much needed lightness back to Star Trek

Initial reaction to Episode 1 ("Second Contact") of Star Trek: Lower Decks (LD)?

I liked it. It was a fun half-hour of television and an interesting combination of Star Trek and modern-day animated entertainment.

No, it wasn't great Star Trek. No, it wasn't brilliant or ground-breaking or even surprising, to be honest.

But it was fun. And it brings a different view of the Star Trek universe from what we normally see, the view from below.

Tawny Newsome's Ensign Mariner comes across as an interesting adaptation of Sonequa Martin-Green's Michael Burnham from Discovery -- Burnham with a beer in her hand, is how I came to think of her. Clearly capable and intelligent, Mariner is brash and funny and takes no crap, doing what she believes is right no matter the Starfleet Regulations that stand in her way.

Ensign Boimler, voiced by Jack Quaid, is so far the typical straight man; Burnham without the beer or the ability. He's Riker at the start of his career, maybe, but without the attempts at boyish charm. He is Star Fleet, against whom the other characters are highlighted.

It's nice to see an Orion woman, the freshly-assigned Ensign Tendi (Noel Wells), being permitted in the Star Trek universe to break free of the stereotypical (and highly offensive) "slave girl" role that was created way back in the TOS first pilot and, for some reason, reproduced several times in later series. Even in this first episode, you can feel the tension as Boimler and, to a lesser extent, Newsome try to take Tendi under their wings.

But the highlight of "Second Contact" is the very entertaining "first contact" between Ensign Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) and Ensign Barnes (Jessica McKenna), a first date that becomes a charming running joke as the crew of the good ship Cerritos battles a virus that turns their colleagues into flesh-eating zombies.

For all of its fun, LD is not without depth. There is some serious Trek commentary going on here, mostly directed at the bridge-crew focus of earlier Star Trek series:

• The high-profile starship that made the much more celebrated first-contact with the planet completely missed the existence of an indigenous virus that could pose a significant threat to the crew of future visiting Star Fleet ships;
• The arrogant First Officer of the Cerritos, Commander Ransom (voiced by Jerry O'Connell), ignored all protocols after having been bitten by an unknown insect on the planet and his buddy the doctor failed to follow up as the two classic Trek senior male officers focused instead on their social lives and their own glory ;
• The significant contributions of the junior crew to saving the ship from the zombie-virus are completely ignored by the Captain as she records her log, giving official recognition to the efforts of her senior officers to deal with the virus, despite the fact that it was the negligence of her senior officers that created the problem in the first place.

There are enough episodes in earlier Star Trek vehicles where carelessness on the part of a senior officer leads to all sorts of peril; Commander Ransom, a frat boy in uniform, would fit well with numerous senior officers of the past, like Kirk, Riker, Paris, Archer, et al; and the crew from the lower decks is rarely recognized for their contribution or their sacrifice in Star Trek lore. 

The animation is excellent (while still retaining a "cartoonish" feel) and the writers obviously know their Trek: Mariner's spiel at the end of "Second Contact" contains a plethora of ST references, from just about every era of the franchise, many of them so obscure as to be recognisable only to the most committed among us.

No, Star Trek: Lower Decks is not art -- but after the over-bearing weight and seriousness of recent iterations, like the second and third instalments of the JJ Abrams reboot films, Star Trek: Picard and, to an even greater extent, Star Trek: Discovery, LD is a welcome breath of fresh air and fun in the Star Trek Universe.