Editing Star Trek (section)

==''Lower Decks''==
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{{topquote|I FAILED THE KOBAYASHI MARU SEVENTEEN TIMES MOTHERFUCKER!|Brad Boimler}}
Mike McMahan is doing this one, him being the person behind the Rick & Morty cartoon. It's set in 2380 on the ''Cerritos'', concentrating (like the TNG episode of the same name) on the grunts working in the bowels of the ship. The main characters are ensigns and low-level lieutenants: Tendi is a perky Orion science office-in-training with massive insecurities about her species. Rutherford is Geordi LaForge with less experience and a Manchurian Candidate backstory.  Mariner is basically just reboot-era Kirk down to the captain's kid, broken home complex. They are all the bane (and close friends) of the worrisome Boimler, the Starfleet straight-man who could be the next Picard if he stopped worrying about getting promoted so much.
[[File:Star_Trek_Lower_Decks.jpg|400px|right]]
Fans feared this would focus on lowbrow "humor" episodes with technobabble nonsense stapled to it just like McMahan's other works; and they were half right, although the technobabble is here honestly ''less'' annoying than in mainline Trek, on account it's not being taken seriously.  But over the first season the show found its footing.  To enjoy it, you just have to embrace the likely reality that a few decks below all of Picard's noblebright ready room monologues there were hundreds of ignoble, corner-cutting crewmen who just want to get to the end of their shift.  It's entertaining, but in a "The Bashir & Garak Show" sort of way.  John de Lancie reprises Q, and Frakes returns as Riker, now in command of the USS Titan.  

By the end of the first season, the consensus had formed that Lower Decks is probably the best addition to the franchise since the Rick Berman era ended, with a much better understanding of what Star Trek IS (to its fans) than either Discovery or Picard. The second and third seasons moved the series towards an overarching plot. The Pakleds, a joke throwaway species from TNG, are fittingly brought back as the story's big bad. The Pakleds are basically Ork [[Freebooterz]], an entire species of idiotic space pirates. Brutally kunnin they are not; their "plans" are worthy of Douglas Adams. Mariner gets beaten with the nerfhammer for the middle of season 2 and occasionally in season 3 making her much more tolerable. Meanwhile, the story of Rutherford's cybernetics gradually unfolds as the result of a conspiracy in Starfleet.  Along the way, there's an episode ripping off James Cameron's ''Avatar'', a session of Klingon Dungeons & Dragons, space-faring Renfaire fanatics, and Mariner and Boimler having to work the Starfleet booth at job fair.

In summary, the first season was rife with teething issues (but show me a Trek series which wasn't) and directly appeals to people who loved Star Trek but now believe that "Star Trek is dead, Jim". Second and third season are more appealing to Trekkies who aren't afraid to laugh at the thing they like.

'''Outstanding Episodes: '''Crisis Point (Mariner hijacks Boimler's holodeck simulation of the bridge crew and turns it to a Star Trek film holodeck program); The Spy Humongous (Captain Freeman is sent to negotiate with the Pakleds while a Pakled spy pretends to be an asylum seeker. Answers the question how the various dangerous plot devices are disposed of); Where Pleasant Fountains Lie (Boimler and Mariner crash on a desert planet escorting an evil AI, Mariner gets well and truly nerfed. The ship's chief engineer turns out to be a prince of aforementioned Renfaire-fanatics); I, Excretus (The crew undergoes a holodeck drill program of various situations from past serieses. Boimler gets to shine in classic Starfleet activities); Grounded (Season 3 pilot. Mariner is convinced her mother is being railroaded in court and more evidence is needed from dry-docked Cerritos); Reflections (Rutherford races his past self in his subconciousness and his repressed memories start surfacing. Mariner and Boimler work a Star Fleet recruitment booth at a fair leading to the section quote.); Hear all, Trust Nothing (DS9 homage episode guest staring Armin Shimmerman and Nana Visitor. Tendi deals with her species embarrasment); Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus (Boimler desings a Star Trek film, but derails it almost immediately for himself and Mariner. Basically an RP sesssion where half of the players derail and split off).

'''Episodes to avoid:''' Envoys; Temporal Edict; Veritas; A Mathematically Perfect Redemption.
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