Congrats to our four new junior lieutenants, they did in 4 seasons what Harry Kim failed to do in 7.

The DS9 episode was handled with such dignity, but the Voyager episode was a fever dream and I am absolutely here for it!

After 3 seasons, it’s surprising to finally have a voice actor for Westlake.

I didn’t know I needed Clarinet Macro Viruses and assimilated Salamander Automatons at the helm, but my gosh did the LD team deliver!

I wonder if the promotion rollout explains why marketing for this season was so sparse.

I LOVED Shaxs talking about his relationship issues with Ransom and the fourth wall lean on the tubes was perfection.

Now I want to know how T’Lyn knows what Borg smell like.

Veneers? Really?

Worf can get a new spine but they can’t regrow some teeth?

All our Wej Duj heroes came back for episode 1! …I hope Ma’ah’s okay.

It’s interesting how between Lower Decks and Prodigy (plus some brief mentions in other post-VOY shows) we have a decent picture of how the universe view now-Admiral Janeway. It’s clear she’s viewed with a sort of heroic reverence, Captain Freeman assumed that Janeway’s logs would have a good answer for a Tuvix situation. Voyager’s celebrity status has definitely inflated her image a little, really put’s Dal’s awkward first encounter with the real Janeway in perspective.

It feels very right that they didn’t actually dive into the morality of killing Tuvix other than “that’s messed up!” and making the Tuvix’d crew clearly in the wrong/not sapient before de-Tuvixing them. Lower Decks does earnest optimism about Starfleet well, but I don’t think deep dives into moral situations are something for a goofy 22 minute show.

I grinned like an idiot throughout the first episode because of all the Voyager callbacks but I got the biggest laugh in the second episode when Boimler goes to his new quaters and the room is bright red because of the glowing nacelle. I had to pause because I was laughing so much. For the past ~30 years I always wondered what crew quarters which face towards the nacelles were like. Thank you, Lower Decks.

So why did Boimler’s between-the-holodecks room have the (embarrassing) events of both adjacent holodecks reverberating through it? One of the core capabilities of a holodeck is the ability to manipulate where sounds appear to be coming from, which must include the ability to dampen sounds enormously. And if that technology exists, it should likely be available for ordinary walls between quarters too.

Is this just another case of Boimler not realizing that basic niceties (like viewscreen light filters) exist? And did both Freeman and T’Ana disable the audio dampening of their own holodecks?

Assimilated salamander robot is my new favourite villain. That said, why did the exhibit not display their children?

I thought it was fine. The ending of Rutherford’s B-plot felt a little cheap.

Plus with Luvik around, I’m wondering what happened with Jet and if there’s going to be a gang of bitter lower deckers who don’t quite like the main four.