When I finished watching "Second Contact", the series premiere of Star Trek: Lower Decks I honestly did not know how I felt about it. It was weird, stupid and everything that Star Trek has never been at any point in my almost 34 years of life. I didn't hate it, but I also didn't like it either. I was indifferent to it. But it's been fourteen hours since the episode ended and after thinking about it a lot since then, I actually like it. I don't love it though. Yet. There's potential for me to grow to love it, but after one episode, I don't. Yet. And here's the reason. It's Star Trek. Without the limits of a budget to try and realize everything you want to realize on screen, with more aliens that actually look like aliens and not just people in rubber and makeup and without the limitations of animation that Star Trek: The Animated Series faced back in 1973. As a result it frees the writers to come up with anything they want and only be limited by their imaginations.
The problem that I have with this episode is a problem I knew I was going to have with the series as a whole and that's the humour undermining any dramatic tension the writers might be trying to create as well as hampering any sort of character development. However, I accept the fact that maybe they just want to make a completely comedic animated series. Which is great. I can understand that. It could work if they can commit to the premise of this show and not try to alter course mid-season just because critics don't like the comedy. That's a problem that Star Trek has had since the third season of TOS back in the '60s. For example, Star Trek: Voyager didn't commit to the Maquis/Starfleet dynamic when that was like half of the show's premise, the two crews needing to learn to work together in order to get home again. Also, Star Trek: Enterprise didn't commit to the Temporal Cold War idea that they introduced in the pilot episode, "Broken Bow". Even Discovery hasn't really committed to a single tone or idea, with each season feeling different than the previous one. So I can see that being a problem with Lower Decks at some point. But right now, it seems like McMahan is fully committed to this idea, so hopefully he stays the course on that conviction.
The show's runtime is a little weird with the episode clocking in at 26 minutes, which hasn't happened to a Star Trek series, aside for Star Trek: Short Treks, since TAS aired in the '70s. But they aren't trying to cram a 60 minute story into a 30 minute one, which was actually my concern because ever since Star Trek (2009) came out CBS and Paramount have been trying to make Star Trek big and bombastic, when most episodes, unless they were a mid-season or season finale, were small stories designed to be told in a single episode and could be done on a small budget. Which makes this series the perfect one for that kind of thing.
None of the characters really stood out for me. Most of the Ensigns that are the main characters are annoying and I don't really like any of them. Though T'Ana, the Caitian Chief Medical Officer, reminds me of a mix of Doctor Pulaski from TNG season 2, and Jett Reno from season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery. T'Ana is this crusty, cantankerous character that I actually like quite a bit. She's not a main character, but she's actually funny and I love her interactions with the crew. The only character that I actually liked quite a bit is Ensign Rutherford, the cyborg, who kind of looks like what Geordi La Forge might had he been assimilated by the Borg instead of Picard, but with hair and no other implants aside from the gear on his head. Of course his design also reminds me of Cyborg/Victor Stone from Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go! but that's just because he's a cyborg and looks like Cyborg.
Aside from the humour, I think the most ridiculous thing about this episode for me is the Galardonians, the alien race of the week. They look like a cross between a Care Bear, Piglet from Winnie the Pooh and a Rodian from Star Wars. I know, that's kind of hard to imagine, but that's the best way to describe them. But that's why animation works so well for Star Trek. To give us true alien lifeforms that we could never have in the live action shows.
Something that I really appreciate about this show over the more recent live action shows, is how well it uses the entire cast of characters. To me Star Trek has always been an ensemble show, and neither Discovery or Picard have utilized their supporting characters very well, with half the bridge crew on Discovery not getting names until the beginning of the second season. But here, everybody is introduced well, and their relationships are established pretty well too. Again it's something that recent Trek has had problems with.
The thing I didn't like about this episode, and hopefully it's not indicative of the series as a whole, is the laziness in what the virus the crew contracts from the pompous and incompetent first officer, Ransom, who is described by McMahan as being this show's Commander Riker. The virus turns the crew into Zombies. Really? You couldn't've come up with something a little more creative for your pilot episode than Zombies? I'm hoping this isn't going to be the start of the show being nothing but Horror cliches and tropes whenever the show needs a virus to overtake the crew, or things like that, because that was the stupidest thing about this episode and I don't want to ever see it again.
The last thing I want to talk about is the show's opening credits. The music and the opening sequence is very reminiscent of '90s Star Trek, from the musical cues, without outright reusing them, and the shots of the ship is a funnier version of the opening title sequence from Star Trek: Voyager complete with the classic jump to warp at the end. The title cards for the credits are the blue colour and font that was used for TNG, which is awesome. Oh, and the episode title appears in the upper left hand corner of the screen like it used to on TNG, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise.
Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall, while "Second Contact" wasn't the best series premiere ever, it was better than I thought it might be given the premise, the tone and the switch to animation from live action. The humour doesn't work for me, and there isn't much to really latch onto, but, I'm willing to keep watching it. It's an acquired taste though, so if this isn't your kind of humour then you're not going to like this show if you decide to watch it. It's not unwatchable though and I love the premise of a Second Contact ship coming in to follow up from starships like the Enterprise and Voyager, that conduct the First Contact missions. So I'm giving "Second Contact" 5/10 stars.
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