I've gotten hooked into this show for quite a while after playing Starfield on my XBOX Series X Great game by the way and this Star Trek Series of LOWER DECKS maybe my favorite Star Trek series
Me too, I love how they LEVELED up from the way they would have made them in season 1. They really built them into the story and characters instead of just making a reference for the sake of it. @@renrants
Yeah it was so funny, there were a few that didn't make it into my notes, but did make me cackle, like the bit about them all looking the same. I have such a soft spot for 90s Trek's foam sets
OMG the foam! I went back to check out a bunch of the Cave episodes after this...they look SOOO Foamy (not the squirrel) now in glorious streaming quality. haha@@renrants
Starting to think Scrollmouse is a Millennium (the movie) situation. That movie's plot was time travellers from a post apocalypse future go back in time to save people at the brink of death (off crashing airplanes, etc) and bring them to the future to repopulate. It's got federation time police aesthetic to an extent. Could be LD's setting up a semi-retcon for The Burn by saving all the missing races and moving them to a post-Burn time period. Time travel is 'forbidden' by the 32nd century due to the results of the temporal cold war, but someone from the 29th who knows what's going to happen maybe setting up something for the post 32nd time period. If so very shades of Foundation. I have never once been right in predicting the actual finale, though.
I'm still heartbroken about final space, although I did pre-order the graphic novel Final Space Ends, and I'll be sure to review it when I receive it 😅
Thanks for making these reviews, Ren. I’m on a tight schedule with work, freelance, and family and I haven’t had the time to watch tv since I became a dad. My train commute and UA-cam channels like yours help me catch up on shows I’d like to watch but can’t. Keep up the great work. Be well and bye for now!
Happy to help! ❤️❤️ I hope you have the time again some day! I love watching Star Trek with my dad, so hopefully you'll have a watch buddy as they get older :)
Sorry I missed some of your rants, been in the wilderness of no Internet. I agree that caves play a suspiciously large part in the Star Trek verse. I think the "Allegory of the Same" plays a heavy handed role in the setting.
0:20 Usually I'd find clipshows to be kind of Boring but this episode but this episode puts a fresh take on the characters backstories on how they got stuck in caves
I agree it's not the best, but definitely fun! I should definitely do that, I've been watching it and it's so fun, I was surprised by the quality and depth of the storytelling!
So there's a couple of things that this reminded me of. First is the episode veritas from season 1( which not only gave us the first names of both Rutherford as well as Tendi). But also was very much in this vignette Style. Hell Q even shows up at the end which lends credence to Boimlerer telling Levy that he's actually real. I just did a quick look and it seems with the exception of last season which was Crisis Point 2, each season has had a similar type thing has in season 2 we had I, Excretus. I wouldn't necessarily count the Tendi Story as a retcon as We Know by envoys that the group is starting to mesh together especially as they integrate Tendi into the friend group. It was just nice to see some of that in the season 1 animation style as well. Also I wouldn't necessarily call this episode a filler episode as episode's like this much like Veritas and I, Excretus get to show us more of the crew interactions fleshing out the crew. Such as I remember one of the standout moments of that season 1 episode is when Dr T'Ana ends up on the Alhambra which had all of the Bizarro versions of our crew which was one of the greatest site gags in that first season. It also set up the plot point which would later be used in the season 3 opener when Mariner decides that she is going to sneak on board the Cerritos in order to use those log entries to clear her mother's name. And I do like the little visual detail of having Mariner look like a slightly modified version of her mother when she reached roughly around her mother's age complete with the same gray streak in her hair. I really have to call out how great it is to actually see the characters interacting with other members of the crew given that we've spent three seasons with our ensigns and it would be nice to learn more about the others( such as finding out that Levy is named Steve, T'Ana hates Engineers, the Delta shift feels like they don't get seen). All of these are incredible bits of character development and as much as I love the early seasons of Discovery it is something that was sorely lacking in that series until they got to season 3. Also when the leg fell off I did start cackling to the fact that I knew that you wouldn't be too happy with the body horror. All in all I feel that it was a very feel good episode and I cannot wait to see what the next 2 weeks brings especially since we know from the recent con that both Mike and Alex have said that we are going to be getting a lot more of T'Lyn in season 5
Excellent analysis! I always look forward to your comments they're so insightful and detailed! I would still classify this as a filler episode, but I personally think filler episodes are super important for all the essential character reasons you've stated. They give characters a chance to breathe without a whole giant plot so it adds a ton of texture to the world and gives it more of a lived in feel. (I have a whole video about my love of Filler episodes it's really about The Last Of Us but Data's Day features prominently 😅) When I was critical of Discovery the fact that we hardly knew any of the bridge crew or any recurring side characters because of the constant action heavy plots was definitely something I complained about often, so I totally agree it's essential, and trek has often made very memorable and enjoyable use of the occasional low budget, low stakes episode to pad out their seasons
@@renrants I believe back in those times they referred to those as bottle episodes. Episodes that took place almost entirely on board the ship so that they just needed to make do with the permanent standing sets. Unfortunately Discovery is very much a victim of the previous incarnations of Trek as it took many episodes before we got to know secondary characters as well as certain Bridge crew. And the reason my analysis are so detailed is due to the fact that I am one of the few people that I know of that has actually gone through and done chronological watches of all of the Star Trek series. So I have a lot of the episode synopsis and how they play into the greater story going on in my head. In fact I started such a marathon which I had to take a break from (because of the other marathons that I was doing) just before the start of season two of strange new worlds. I am very very happy that I am finally able to continue it now that Paramount plus has officially added original series and Enterprise to it's catalog here in Canada meaning I don't have to rely on my local library
@@renrants I remember some weeks back when strange new worlds was still airing I had made a comment about the works of writer and director Dave filoni within the Star Wars Universe well there's a good amount of episodes both in Clone Wars and in the series Rebels that many view as being Filler episodes. An assertion that I do not hold to since practically everything that has been proposed by filoni comes back later on even if it takes something along the lines of 15 years
Thank you, The next best to seeing it. Large ground spiders in Thailand taste a bit like crab. The large crickets might, too. For your enjoyment, The Day or The Kidnapping Day is a Korean drama that is pretty good. A man desperate to get money for an operation to save his dying daughter is convinced by his estranged wife to kidnap a Doctor's daughter. It turns out that she is a very high level genius and because he does what she wants and instinctively protects her, they bond. Clever writing and clever people in the drama. The last 5 minutes of the penultimate episode is hard to watch without tears. 12 episodes 60 minutes each.
@@renrants It is. Besides the daughter, there are two women in his life. One happens to be 11. When I still hiked, I went with my wife to hike in the Southern Alps. We stayed at a Japanese Inn in Ina City. The inn prepared a box lunch to eat at the top of the mountain. When Kinuko open it she let out a yelp. One of the side dish was sweetened grasshoppers. She didn't want to eat it so I enjoyed both portions. There wasn't much flesh, but it reminded me of eating candied shrimp. Later I visited a school and one of the teachers offered wasp larvae. Boiled but not sweetened. I didn't care for that one. Thank you.
it's like the humor in this show is a lot light hearted tone and there characters are way more likeable characters then Rick and Morty I'd don't get why some people compare there humor in Star Trek Lower Decks to Rick and Morty when there Both completely different shows in science fiction lore but the comparison I will give Star Trek Lower Decks to Rick and Morty is One of the writers from Rick and Morty created this show which is a Great Star Trek Series
Rick and Morty is SO much more mean spirited for sure! I don't see them as being remotely comparable beyond both being animated scifi shows and even that feels like a stretch 😅
They confirmed T'Lynn will make common appearances next season according to Trek Culture. I thought this was pretty funny the way it was a clip show with entirely new content. Of course I thought it was very funny the way it was in general... As for what to review I suggest Nimona. Oh yeah... Weren't you working on some video essays or something? Did you hit a block with those?
I'm still working on the Trek Was Always Political Series, although I took a time out for October to focus on spooky season content. I LOVED Nimona and a review is definitely forthcoming :)
I'd hope that you cover Rick and Morty next for reviews despite of the Whole Justin Roiland drama I'm sure the show will get better with it's new voice actors and there Season 7 premiere is Great the funniest episode in quite a few years
I'll check it out! I used to really enjoy Rick and Morty despite the Fandom, I think I have some older reviews where I talked about it, but they're definitely lower quality 😂
So I think this episode is indicative of the production problems the showrunners are getting into. Usually when shows have enough old material to do nostalgic retcons, it's in preparation to start saying goodbye to certain characters. They want to leave the viewers with some warm and fuzzy memories before the next season's switch-up. I think that's why T'Lyn has been conspicuously absent. Something tells me Boimler is going to get another promotion off the ship and be more or less a footnote for season 5. Replacing Boimler's role with T'Lyn is the only logical (pardon the pun) outcome since he plays the neurotic straight man and her personality is the closest substitution.
here are some Disney Cartoons to review/watch Big City Greens Amphibia Gravity Falls The Ghost and Molly McGee and The Owl House there's my recommendations for ya good luck
I don't think "Clipshow" is the right term for this. I remember the actual clipshows of old, where TV shows completely cheaped out and cobbled together an "episode" that was 95% re-used old clips from previous episodes, barely strung together with a half-arsed, threadbare "framing device" that mostly consisted of variations of "Oh yeah, I remember when we did that… But do you remember when we did _this?"_ You know, stuff that a freelance writer hacked out in an hour and that can be shot "on the side" in less than half a day, while shooting for an _actual_ episode. When an episode consists of all-new material, but instead of having several concurrent A, B, C plots, it has several _consecutive_ short stories, I'd call it an "Anthology Episode". An _"ANTHOLOGY of INTEREST!"_ if you will. 😉
Valid, just to note though i wasn't using clipshow insultingly, I actually used to love clipshows back when shows weren't easily accessible in their entirety via streaming and you had to wait for favorite episodes to come up in syndication But it really is more of an anthology, especially since it's stories we haven't seen so you are right!
Between that fern baby, and Moopsy...It's like they're starting their own Pokedex.
I gotta catch em all 🥺
I've watched this episode in the morning before work and watched again after work and it was a Great episode that gave me the warm fuzzies
It was so sweet! 😭
I've gotten hooked into this show for quite a while after playing Starfield on my XBOX Series X Great game by the way and this Star Trek Series of LOWER DECKS maybe my favorite Star Trek series
I just liked the overall story. Even when life takes them apart and gives them new experiences, they're still LOWER DECKS
Yeah, it was really sweet, and I loved the cave jokes 😅
Me too, I love how they LEVELED up from the way they would have made them in season 1. They really built them into the story and characters instead of just making a reference for the sake of it. @@renrants
Yeah it was so funny, there were a few that didn't make it into my notes, but did make me cackle, like the bit about them all looking the same. I have such a soft spot for 90s Trek's foam sets
OMG the foam! I went back to check out a bunch of the Cave episodes after this...they look SOOO Foamy (not the squirrel) now in glorious streaming quality. haha@@renrants
To be fair they always looked like foam on DVD and TV too, their jungles also had the fakest plants a lot of the time, but I loved it anyways 🤣🤣
Starting to think Scrollmouse is a Millennium (the movie) situation. That movie's plot was time travellers from a post apocalypse future go back in time to save people at the brink of death (off crashing airplanes, etc) and bring them to the future to repopulate. It's got federation time police aesthetic to an extent. Could be LD's setting up a semi-retcon for The Burn by saving all the missing races and moving them to a post-Burn time period. Time travel is 'forbidden' by the 32nd century due to the results of the temporal cold war, but someone from the 29th who knows what's going to happen maybe setting up something for the post 32nd time period. If so very shades of Foundation. I have never once been right in predicting the actual finale, though.
Oooh that's really interesting! It would be such a fun twist if the scroll mouse is a good guy 😅
5:40 kind of makes sense there medical doctor character is a Cat character no wonder this Star Trek series gives me Final Space vibes
I'm still heartbroken about final space, although I did pre-order the graphic novel Final Space Ends, and I'll be sure to review it when I receive it 😅
I know@@renrants
Thanks for making these reviews, Ren. I’m on a tight schedule with work, freelance, and family and I haven’t had the time to watch tv since I became a dad. My train commute and UA-cam channels like yours help me catch up on shows I’d like to watch but can’t. Keep up the great work. Be well and bye for now!
Happy to help! ❤️❤️ I hope you have the time again some day!
I love watching Star Trek with my dad, so hopefully you'll have a watch buddy as they get older :)
ST:LD is something I’d love to watch with my daughter….wish they curbed the cussing…lol!
Star Trek TAS is really fun and has the mild swearing of TOS, but I started watching TNG and Voyager in elementary school and loved it!
Gotta love how all the planets are recolors while the caves are all the same “set”.
That was such a funny detail
Sorry I missed some of your rants, been in the wilderness of no Internet.
I agree that caves play a suspiciously large part in the Star Trek verse. I think the "Allegory of the Same" plays a heavy handed role in the setting.
Ooh that's an interesting connection to make, that's a fantastic point with the amount of cave specific illusions, honestly!
I may be on the road during this premiere, but I will try to tune in.
Thanks! ❤️❤️❤️
I'd hope this show gets picked up for another season this is a Really Good Star Trek Series
I think season 5 is a done deal, but season 6 isn't
good to know@@renrants
0:20 Usually I'd find clipshows to be kind of Boring but this episode but this episode puts a fresh take on the characters backstories on how they got stuck in caves
I really enjoy how it used it as a vehicle to make fun of the cave episodes too :)
Would be fun to see you review TAS after lower decks.
Did love this episode, even though not the best this season
I agree it's not the best, but definitely fun!
I should definitely do that, I've been watching it and it's so fun, I was surprised by the quality and depth of the storytelling!
0:29 I'd guess it makes sense for those who have watched The Next generation of Star Trek
Caves on caves on caves on caves
So there's a couple of things that this reminded me of. First is the episode veritas from season 1( which not only gave us the first names of both Rutherford as well as Tendi). But also was very much in this vignette Style. Hell Q even shows up at the end which lends credence to Boimlerer telling Levy that he's actually real. I just did a quick look and it seems with the exception of last season which was Crisis Point 2, each season has had a similar type thing has in season 2 we had I, Excretus. I wouldn't necessarily count the Tendi Story as a retcon as We Know by envoys that the group is starting to mesh together especially as they integrate Tendi into the friend group. It was just nice to see some of that in the season 1 animation style as well. Also I wouldn't necessarily call this episode a filler episode as episode's like this much like Veritas and I, Excretus get to show us more of the crew interactions fleshing out the crew. Such as I remember one of the standout moments of that season 1 episode is when Dr T'Ana ends up on the Alhambra which had all of the Bizarro versions of our crew which was one of the greatest site gags in that first season. It also set up the plot point which would later be used in the season 3 opener when Mariner decides that she is going to sneak on board the Cerritos in order to use those log entries to clear her mother's name. And I do like the little visual detail of having Mariner look like a slightly modified version of her mother when she reached roughly around her mother's age complete with the same gray streak in her hair. I really have to call out how great it is to actually see the characters interacting with other members of the crew given that we've spent three seasons with our ensigns and it would be nice to learn more about the others( such as finding out that Levy is named Steve, T'Ana hates Engineers, the Delta shift feels like they don't get seen). All of these are incredible bits of character development and as much as I love the early seasons of Discovery it is something that was sorely lacking in that series until they got to season 3. Also when the leg fell off I did start cackling to the fact that I knew that you wouldn't be too happy with the body horror. All in all I feel that it was a very feel good episode and I cannot wait to see what the next 2 weeks brings especially since we know from the recent con that both Mike and Alex have said that we are going to be getting a lot more of T'Lyn in season 5
Excellent analysis! I always look forward to your comments they're so insightful and detailed!
I would still classify this as a filler episode, but I personally think filler episodes are super important for all the essential character reasons you've stated. They give characters a chance to breathe without a whole giant plot so it adds a ton of texture to the world and gives it more of a lived in feel. (I have a whole video about my love of Filler episodes it's really about The Last Of Us but Data's Day features prominently 😅)
When I was critical of Discovery the fact that we hardly knew any of the bridge crew or any recurring side characters because of the constant action heavy plots was definitely something I complained about often, so I totally agree it's essential, and trek has often made very memorable and enjoyable use of the occasional low budget, low stakes episode to pad out their seasons
@@renrants I believe back in those times they referred to those as bottle episodes. Episodes that took place almost entirely on board the ship so that they just needed to make do with the permanent standing sets. Unfortunately Discovery is very much a victim of the previous incarnations of Trek as it took many episodes before we got to know secondary characters as well as certain Bridge crew. And the reason my analysis are so detailed is due to the fact that I am one of the few people that I know of that has actually gone through and done chronological watches of all of the Star Trek series. So I have a lot of the episode synopsis and how they play into the greater story going on in my head. In fact I started such a marathon which I had to take a break from (because of the other marathons that I was doing) just before the start of season two of strange new worlds. I am very very happy that I am finally able to continue it now that Paramount plus has officially added original series and Enterprise to it's catalog here in Canada meaning I don't have to rely on my local library
@@renrants I remember some weeks back when strange new worlds was still airing I had made a comment about the works of writer and director Dave filoni within the Star Wars Universe well there's a good amount of episodes both in Clone Wars and in the series Rebels that many view as being Filler episodes. An assertion that I do not hold to since practically everything that has been proposed by filoni comes back later on even if it takes something along the lines of 15 years
Thank you, The next best to seeing it. Large ground spiders in Thailand taste a bit like crab. The large crickets might, too. For your enjoyment, The Day or The Kidnapping Day is a Korean drama that is pretty good. A man desperate to get money for an operation to save his dying daughter is convinced by his estranged wife to kidnap a Doctor's daughter. It turns out that she is a very high level genius and because he does what she wants and instinctively protects her, they bond. Clever writing and clever people in the drama. The last 5 minutes of the penultimate episode is hard to watch without tears. 12 episodes 60 minutes each.
Ooh I love K Dramas, I'll check it out!
I'll eat bugs happily if they taste good. That sounds really interesting!
@@renrants It is. Besides the daughter, there are two women in his life. One happens to be 11. When I still hiked, I went with my wife to hike in the Southern Alps. We stayed at a Japanese Inn in Ina City. The inn prepared a box lunch to eat at the top of the mountain. When Kinuko open it she let out a yelp. One of the side dish was sweetened grasshoppers. She didn't want to eat it so I enjoyed both portions. There wasn't much flesh, but it reminded me of eating candied shrimp. Later I visited a school and one of the teachers offered wasp larvae. Boiled but not sweetened. I didn't care for that one. Thank you.
@@gmatgmat ooh I would definitely have tried the grasshoppers 😂
That sounds like such a fun experience!
And of course Tendi has the strongest reaction to Rutherford having a cave baby with T'Ana, because #Tenderford.
Right?? She definitely seemed upsetti 😅
it's like the humor in this show is a lot light hearted tone and there characters are way more likeable characters then Rick and Morty I'd don't get why some people compare there humor in Star Trek Lower Decks to Rick and Morty when there Both completely different shows in science fiction lore but the comparison I will give Star Trek Lower Decks to Rick and Morty is One of the writers from Rick and Morty created this show which is a Great Star Trek Series
Rick and Morty is SO much more mean spirited for sure! I don't see them as being remotely comparable beyond both being animated scifi shows and even that feels like a stretch 😅
I know right? that is weird@@renrants
It's puzzling but it's the media literacy I expect from some Rick and Morty fans 🤣
They confirmed T'Lynn will make common appearances next season according to Trek Culture. I thought this was pretty funny the way it was a clip show with entirely new content. Of course I thought it was very funny the way it was in general... As for what to review I suggest Nimona. Oh yeah... Weren't you working on some video essays or something? Did you hit a block with those?
I'm still working on the Trek Was Always Political Series, although I took a time out for October to focus on spooky season content.
I LOVED Nimona and a review is definitely forthcoming :)
I'd hope that you cover Rick and Morty next for reviews despite of the Whole Justin Roiland drama I'm sure the show will get better with it's new voice actors and there Season 7 premiere is Great the funniest episode in quite a few years
I'll check it out! I used to really enjoy Rick and Morty despite the Fandom, I think I have some older reviews where I talked about it, but they're definitely lower quality 😂
Small thing. So, we have alpha shift, beta shift, Delta shift. 1,2,4. I'd swear in Trek there's Gamma shift.
...Why isn't it Ceti shift?
That's an excellent question 🤔🤔
So I think this episode is indicative of the production problems the showrunners are getting into. Usually when shows have enough old material to do nostalgic retcons, it's in preparation to start saying goodbye to certain characters. They want to leave the viewers with some warm and fuzzy memories before the next season's switch-up. I think that's why T'Lyn has been conspicuously absent. Something tells me Boimler is going to get another promotion off the ship and be more or less a footnote for season 5. Replacing Boimler's role with T'Lyn is the only logical (pardon the pun) outcome since he plays the neurotic straight man and her personality is the closest substitution.
Oh that's a fascinating prediction, I hope you're wrong because I want my seven seasons dammit, but you might very well be right 😅
@@renrants FWIW, I hope I'm wrong too.
Fingers crossed!
If they do cancel it I'm psyched to watch Paramount crash and burn bc they have so little offer besides trek
T'Lyn-less AGAIN?!
Right? 😭 A constant struggle lately it seems
here are some Disney Cartoons to review/watch
Big City Greens
Amphibia
Gravity Falls
The Ghost and Molly McGee
and The Owl House there's my recommendations for ya good luck
I LOVE the Owl House and I've been meaning to talk about it now that I've grieved it being cancelled 😅
I know right? and I blame Disney for canceling The Owl House at least Amphibia has it's full third season@@renrants
That was probably my only overall dislike of the episode, validating the conspiracy theorist. We don't need that in this day and age.
Yeah that part wasn't great, I'm glad that Boimler at least still said he's a crackpot with dangerous ideas, but it's not quite enough 😅
I don't think "Clipshow" is the right term for this. I remember the actual clipshows of old, where TV shows completely cheaped out and cobbled together an "episode" that was 95% re-used old clips from previous episodes, barely strung together with a half-arsed, threadbare "framing device" that mostly consisted of variations of "Oh yeah, I remember when we did that… But do you remember when we did _this?"_ You know, stuff that a freelance writer hacked out in an hour and that can be shot "on the side" in less than half a day, while shooting for an _actual_ episode.
When an episode consists of all-new material, but instead of having several concurrent A, B, C plots, it has several _consecutive_ short stories, I'd call it an "Anthology Episode". An _"ANTHOLOGY of INTEREST!"_ if you will. 😉
Valid, just to note though i wasn't using clipshow insultingly, I actually used to love clipshows back when shows weren't easily accessible in their entirety via streaming and you had to wait for favorite episodes to come up in syndication
But it really is more of an anthology, especially since it's stories we haven't seen so you are right!