Moist Vessel

 DVD, Lower Decks S1 (Moist Vessel)

It's back to some of the wackiest worst excesses of the series, and another one that put me off it on original viewing, although I concede it was a little more enjoyable this time. It's not gory and there isn't too much swearing (in fact I mistakenly thought the worst offender came from the Captain and wasn't 'hilariously' bleeped out like usual - her errant daughter leaves the Ready Room waving a sarcastic Vulcan salute and 'Vulcan' said so quickly sounded like a swearword, assuming it was deemed more 'hilarious' uncensored in the context of Freeman's exasperation! Whoops - noticed my mistake when checking back!), and there isn't really much crudeness (though the stuff about the Holodeck wasn't great, although at least it wasn't explicit). I'm sounding like I hated this episode, but that isn't so, it's just that it was back to too much wacky-crazy, woo-woooooh! Characters chattering ten to the dozen, hyperactively hurtling around and over-emoting like a Ferengi from 'The Last Outpost,' perhaps making it worse that Tendi, usually so sweet and gentle, was the main culprit. Her storyline about trying to help another crewman, O'Connor, to 'ascend' into energy being state (which is really more of a 'Stargate' thing than something in Trek, although it does happen, just not to Starfleet officers!), wasn't really something that fitted, with its extremely New Age overtones - as I say, it's taking things to the worst excess, somewhat mitigated at the end (and then undone by the very end when he really does 'ascend'), by the fact it was all a sham since he was just trying to be liked by his peers for having a unique aspect to himself, something which jives with Tendi's own admittance of needing to be liked by everyone or she feels bad.

The lesson being that you need to be genuine and not worry about how other people perceive you? Possibly? 'LD' isn't really the Trek to draw good messages from (mind you, none of modern Trek is good for that anyway!), so I wouldn't mark it down for failing in that regard, but the trend of the episode wasn't to put Starfleet people in a generally positive light: Freeman's only way to deal with Mariner is to force her into doing all the worst jobs so she'll request a transfer, then she realises something even worse than that could work better: give her responsibility, something she absolutely hates (confounding Boimler who sees bad girl Mariner as being rewarded for breaking the rules and so tries to become Bad Boimler, only for that storyline to go nowhere in the time allowed). The fact that Mariner typically scarpers from any sense of responsibility is a major anti-Trek message in this series (in the same way that all modern Treks have a great deal of anti-authority, anti-hierarchy, people should respect me more than duty to respect them, etc), but because it's a comedy it doesn't seem as terrible as Burnham's regular insubordination and always taking matters into her own hands, or the collection of waifs and strays in 'Picard,' so again, I don't normally criticise that aspect, especially as we don't know that much about the character yet, or how she ended up being demoted to the lower decks. But it is one more example of the trend in this episode.

As is Captain Durango of another California-class, the USS Merced, a Tellarite (who actually looks like one, unlike the warthog designs of all other current Trek!), who doesn't seem all that argumentative (another aspect of modern Trek to lose the Trekkiness of it all - aliens could all be played by humans since they don't emphasise the traits and behaviours we know and love, presumably in an effort towards 'diversification,' and which I've discussed before, actually takes away from the Trek universe by making everyone homogenous), but who shows very poor Starfleet training and a lot of pettiness when he causes the whole disaster of the episode by moving in closer to the alien 'generation' ship (as Captain Freeman calls it, when it should surely be 'generational' - intentional slip for humour's sake? That's the trouble with an out-and-out comedy, you don't know if mistakes or odd things are there purposely as a joke), his Tractor Beam pulling off a panel and unleashing the biological virus or whatever it was, that then causes both ships to undergo internal terraforming (which must surely be a reference to 'Masks' when exactly that happened, though not in the 'Star Trek III' Genesis effect of rocks bursting out everywhere as here, but then you expect overly dramatic scenes in a cartoon since you can do anything with no budget issues). It shows his captaincy in a very bad light and no one looks particularly good in the story.

It becomes a Mother/daughter bonding moment when Freeman and Mariner are trapped together and have to solve the problem, though it's obviously a very simple solution that hand waves the problem away without much need for impressive logic or clever solutions. And how come there are no gaping holes in the bulkheads and decks from where all these promontories burst through? All too easy, but again, that could be a commentary on the Great Reset Button that existed so strongly in 'TNG'-era Trek. Always hard to criticise. It wasn't really very funny, I think that's one aspect about the episode, and perhaps the series in general, that's been up and down, certainly in these first few episodes. There were the occasional little touches that made me smile briefly, like Boimler mentioning cleaning carbon off of carbon was like a Klingon prison, or Mariner's escalating boredom levels with constantly being called to meetings, so that she literally rolls off her bed and across the floor at one point. And being ordered to: "report to executive poker," was probably the funniest line. All very 'TNG,' as was the mockery of the most boring conference meeting she's forced to endure where Shaxs and T'Ana debate which style of chairs they should have.

Tendi comes across as very much the epitome of the modern young person, more concerned with how much they're liked (or how many 'likes' they have, perhaps, equating it to today's social media?), but also Mariner moaning about how she wishes her Mother would just let 'me do me,' the typically selfish attitude of 'I'm the most important,' etc, and should be allowed to act and behave how they want, regardless of societal norms or command structure. No doubt all designed to appeal to  a younger demographic (just one of many aspects of modern Trek that is so different to that which went before, when discipline, hard work, respect for authority and other good qualities were so much in evidence). I did like the message of perseverance found in Mariner's determination to find ways to enjoy even the most menial tasks she's given (gamification - turning everyday chores or work into a game, even though you could say that's really just another instance of the infantilisation of adults as everything has to be dressed up in sparkles so as not to be boring to the easily bored!), and Ransom sums it up perfectly when he reports she's: "finding ways to inject joy into otherwise horrible tasks." That's a good attitude to have, even if the actual tasks themselves are pretty much ridiculous because we know the ship cleans itself from 'TNG' - at least there are no droids skittering about as introduced in 'DSC' and reiterated in other Trek productions since.

Always good to hear a little more history of a character, and this time we learn Captain Freeman served with Durango on the Illinois, back what sounds like fifteen years ago. Then there's the lovely use of the classic 'TNG' Tractor Beam visual and accompanying sound - love it! And the joke at the end where Mariner gets herself comfortably demoted yet again by insulting the way visiting Admiral Vassery (also voiced by Shaxs' Fred Tatasciore), pronounces 'sen-sors,' which must be another subtle mockery of Spock's way of saying the word (in the Trek zeitgeist again in those recent years since Spock had returned on 'DSC' before this, and Ethan Peck was trying to recreate Leonard Nimoy's speech patterns). The only thing there that distracted me as I thought of it, was wondering why this Admiral had a uniform similar to the Cerritos crew - surely he (and his staff), should be wearing what appears to be the fleet standard grey-shouldered design and which I think Freeman's husband, also an Admiral, was wearing on Viewscreen communications before this episode, unless I'm mistaken - even so, later Admirals would be shown to wear that, and though I don't think it's been stated, I got the impression the California-class 'second contact' crews had this different uniform because they're basically second-class Starfleet, or isn't that the joke of the whole series?

I would have liked more exploration of the alien ship, though in this case it was only there as a means of causing the problems on the Starfleet ships. Still, it's more interesting to explore an unknown ship or culture, but then it has to be remembered that this (once again), isn't traditional Trek, so while we will get bits of things that are reminiscent of old Trek, the point is to tell an amusing little story. I do at least applaud them for continuing to dial back the heavy references to a minimum other than vague implications to other things. Q and The Traveller were mentioned by Rutherford when discussing energy beings, and Boimler pleads an impression of Moriarty when he forgets to chirp his combadge off and says something sinister, but there weren't lists of characters and events being spouted out all over the place, so a better balance has been developed - for example, the sand art that O'Connor had created looked very much like the Romulan symbol of a bird of prey holding the twin worlds of Romulus and Remus. Not important, just fun to observe. The series is still a bit too wacky, even without overly objectionable content, so it had a long way to go to win me over (though it eventually did), but seeing the characters in a better light as I do now I have been able to enjoy even this weakest season more the second time around. Whether that will continue with worse things to come in successive episodes remains to be seen... Finally, I don't know if animation actors can have the same name as live-action performers, but Durango was voiced by Al Rodrigo, the same name as a guy who played Bernardo, Dick Miller's Sanctuary District guard partner in the 'DS9' two-parter, 'Past Tense.' I hope it's the same guy!

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