Shades of Green

 Blu-ray, Lower Decks S5 (Shades of Green)

Whoops. The kind of episode that makes me think maybe it's actually a good thing that Trek is no longer in production any more if this is the kind of extreme ideological stuff and weak plotting they were knocking out... It seems identifying the title with the weakest episode of 'TNG' may have been portentous! Where to start, then? I actually didn't have much to think about during this story, it just seemed to have so little of interest. Start with the good, I suppose: T'Lyn trying to keep Rutherford occupied since she's noticed he hasn't been himself since Tendi left. She may be the best character the series produced, and I've said it before, certainly the best Vulcan in modern Trek (not a high bar, admittedly, but she does a creditable job of being a believable example of the logical race, unlike most aliens who never seem that alien - case in point the Tellarite, Gorm, who doesn't argue incessantly!). I enjoyed the little tribute to Data standing and staring into space while waiting for Picard to go to sleep, in this case T'Lyn waiting patiently for Rutherford to finish his work - although... would that be an efficient use of her time, surely she could have done some work on a PADD or something? The fact I'm starting to nitpick shows I was at least invested in this C-plot of the episode, though I can't say as much for the A- and B-plots.

I can understand the writers poking fun at the ridiculousness of Trek's 'post-scarcity' future, since it's never made any sense, or why would there be wars for resources or control of areas? (For that matter, aren't gold and jewels all obsolete anyway since they can be replicated, that's why Latinum was precious: because it can't be! So why would Orions want this junk?). I always go back to Picard's mumbled, 'holier-than-thou' speech about how the Federation doesn't need money any more, or use it (and the fun 'DS9' ribbing of the concept when Jake wants to buy his Dad an antique baseball card, but doesn't have any money because he's an 'evolved' human of the 24th Century - 'if you don't need money,' says Nog, 'then you don't need my money!'). It demonstrated why it's best not to think too deeply into how Trek's universe works, details modern Trek has mistakenly shown too much of (not just regarding money, but even basic domestic details like people cleaning their teeth, the kind of thing it would be better to leave to the imagination, but lack of imagination is one of this era's defining characteristics!). The reality is there is still a cost to everything, and that's energy, and while we can say they have technology that enables vast amounts of energy to be released (warp, Phasers, etc), something doesn't come from nothing. If they were seriously pointing out how terrible capitalism is then I don't think they'd have had the questionable act at the end where Freeman hands over all the planet's wealth to the family of her crewmember! Nepotism? It comes across as if they 'conned' a planet out of its wealth with Replicators and then ditched their economy. All of which was a bit uncomfortable in today's polarised political climate.

It's always important to remember the series is primarily a comedy, and while it's 'supposed' to make sense in the world of Trek, and be considered canonical, they are going to be wacky at times. Frequent times. The real story, in any case, is Boimler trying to be a fun boss, never a sensible idea in the first place since authority needs to have some distance to enable it to function properly and enforce discipline. Not that discipline is high on the agenda of modern Trek where everyone does what they want and argues with their superiors as a matter of course, but generally 'LD' has been better at such things than the others, one reason I suspect it feels more like Trek than they do, and is so liked by many in consequence. With Boimler's four-hair moustache and the new 'Bointers' to give advice (the inspiration being Lefler's Laws from 'TNG,' but in this case he clearly got the idea from his alternate rather than her), Boimler's arc this season of trying to emulate his alternate self is rather transparent, and therefore somewhat pointless since you can see where that storyline would lead: just be yourself. I have to say I found his and Mariner's roles rather lacklustre, didn't really go anywhere (other than to a fancy hall in a posh house that looks like it was out of 'The Matrix Reloaded,' though perhaps it was merely a generic posh hall, since no martial arts take place, in slow motion or otherwise). No, nothing really to comment on, it was just the pair of them tracking down his lost Away Team.

The A-story is Tendi's messing up of her entire family's position in the Orion Syndicate (I suppose you could see loose parallels with Worf's discommendation, but if that was intended it wasn't very well executed). The war between her family and the blue 'Oree-ons' has meant less profits, or something, so they pull the old space race challenge out of the back pocket of discarded sci-fi concepts. It's never a good idea and suggests a series rather running out of them, even with the solar sailing ships that gives it a more piratical feel. Add to that the culture is incessantly and simplistically feministic (green Tendi girls good, blue 'Oree-on' men bad), and it quickly becomes tiresome, the two sisters competing with each other or Tendi trying to protect D'Erica since she's read her Personal Log and discovered her pregnancy. I also don't buy the Orions would have a Queen (Sabor, voiced by Debra Wilson, Captain Cusak in 'DS9,' her second and final role in modern Trek here), since the whole point was that the true situation of women being the dominant force was meant to be a closely guarded secret. The best we can suggest is they don't allow outsiders on their planet, but in an age of recording devices and easy broadcasting from anyone it's hard to see how the secret would stay secret. It's also all too girly with choice lines like D'Erica telling her sister at the end that she doesn't want her girl growing up to see her doing anything other than what her heart tells her. Ick. This is where Trek had come to, though to be fair 'DSC' started it all in that direction right from the beginning and 'LD' has still been far more realistic than the other recent series'.

It's rather rich of a mega-franchise that requires payment to watch nowadays to be pointing out the 'evil' of the system in which it's made, Trek being a product manufactured in order to make money! It's hard to take any satire about profit or the extremes of capitalism seriously in such a setting, but there's always been a tug-of-war between 'art' and 'profitability.' Still, some people do genuinely watch Trek believing this world will one day come to reality, but unfortunately that's meant modern Trek had to dumb characters down, and in keeping with the modern ideals of 'being yourself,' even if that encourages selfishness, focus on oneself, and lack of care towards anyone else, made them more like 'us,' to the extent people from old Treks that went back in time and found people to be so different to them, could now go to their fellow Trek series' and find the same thing: modern Trek characters are us now! (With the exception of the odd superhero character like Burnham who could almost do no wrong, and even when she did, escaped real punishment and was soon shown to be righter than right!). When an episode only leads me down the rabbit hole of denigrating its stablemates I know it hasn't succeeded, and while I wouldn't say it's on a par with the worst Treks of recent years, it is one of those episodes that shows up the weaknesses in the modern crowd. Not least the excessive swearing I noticed again! And the fact Tendi just turns up back in Starfleet as if you can waltz in and out however and whenever you feel like it (rather than the real world reason of having her leaving be a cliffhanger ending). But the real issue was barely seeing any of the supporting cast at all (even if some of them do voice other characters instead). The blazzard squawking was amusing. As was seeing Goodgey poking his head up in the Cargo Bay. Yep, that's all I've got.

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