S01.E03: Temporal Edict

[tessaray]

Air date: August 20, 2020

Quote

'Temporal Edict' sees the crew of the USS Ceritos given strict orders from their captain to really put their nose to the grindstone in an attempt to make the USS Ceritos feel more important than it is. 

 

[Chicago Redshirt]

The opening bit once again, not as funny as the PTB think it should be. I hate to be a party-pooper, but the notion that Mariner literally rocks hard enough to shake the whole ship AND disturb a Klingon ship AND that Boimler gets blamed for her rocking. It makes me sympathetic to the point of view of all those people who want to reduce the show to "black woman good, white male bad." It also makes Shaxs into something of a dummy that he can't tell that the bass has stopped by the time that he gets to the bar and that he blames Boimler for it. It would have probably been better for him to catch Mariner in the act, bash her guitar like Worf did to Geordi's lute and Animal House's Bluto did to the guitar, and then go, "Sorry." 

I think the takeaway from this episode, and the show in general, is that tight adherence to the rules is often stupid and finding balance is where we should be. Which is pretty much in keeping with all previous Star Trek shows. But because the main character representing "tight adherence" is a white male and the main one rpresenting "no adherence" is a black female, some fans have gone on rants about social justice warrior trek. 

This episode might start to change those people's minds about that, or might confirm that viewpoint. I'm not sure which.

Captain Freeman, I think, is objectively a bad captain and a bad person in this one.

Stung by having the chance at an A-list peace talk ripped away at the last minute, she gets paranoid that it's a slight on her because of the status of her ship. Never mind that there is a facially valid reason given for moving the talks from Cardassia to Vulcan. Are we supposed to disbelieve the admiral and believe that it really is a slight, or is Freeman paranoid? Are we supposed to take this as a broader analogy, with the subtext that Captain Freeman stands for black women everywhere, and that like her, black women either complain about slights justly or unjustly? Is that putting too much weight on the shoulders of what is supposed to be a silly half-hour show? 

From what we have shown, the ship has generally run well. For Freeman to first develop an infriority complex, then arbitrarily institute a new cray rule, then to not see that the new rule is literally driving the crew to overwork itself or to have any of her senior staff tell her this, then to not relax the crazy rule even in the face of an alien invasion, and then to need Boimler's insight to inspire her to do the obvious and rescind the rule that was holding everyone back. And even that she sort of messes up by implementing the Boimler Efect, which takes the buffer effect to an extreme. Her daughter gets injuredduring an away mission and as faras we know, she doesn't swing by Sick Bay or express any concern. Yes, it was merely a flesh wound and she got better, but still. 

The problem is this is an Idiot Plot episode. Everyone involved has to be an idiot for this to work. The random ensign needs to be an idiot and get the wrong crytstal. The whole away team needs to be idiots and not be able to explain to the planet -- which is now a part of the Federation, mind -- that this was an innocent mistake and beam down the actual crystal. The away team needs to be idiots and realize that they can't simply beam up whenever they want to. Shaxs needs to be an idiot and not realize therre are a bunch of boardingparty ships en route until it's too late.  

But hey, at least Boimler got to save the day, albeit by suggesting that not everyone should be held to the same stickler-for-rules standard that he lives by. And Mariner took a small hit, albeit for the minor offense of having her sleeves rolled up against regulations. It seems partticularly a dick move when Mariner saved him from being court-martialed.

I DO NOT ship Boimler-Ransom. Please don't go there.

 

[ottoDbusdriver]

Two out of 3 episodes so far have involved ship-wide takeovers -- if they're already running out of ideas this soon does not bode well.

Per @Chicago Redshirt, this was an idiot plot episode.  So the ship is being invaded and every member of the ship continues to do their assigned timed tasks.  Seriously ?  None of the other members of the bridge crew did anything during the invasion because they were tired.  Really ?  And apparently no one got killed.  Again.

Mariner is really starting to bug me.  I could get if she was a Trill with multiple lifetimes of experience, but there's no way someone that young has done everything she has claimed to do so far.  Plus didn't she openly threaten to not stop others from killing the first officer 'next time' and want to dance in his blood while she was dragged away to the brig.  How has she not been kicked out of Starfleet altogether by now ?

[marinw]

Captain Freeman should not take her management cues from Jeff Bezos. 

What is up with the Battlestar Galactica dorms? I thought even ensigns got shared rooms. Maybe that's just for More Important Starships?

I did love the whole combat thing on the surface. First Officer Dude is growing on me.

[starri]

46 minutes ago, marinw said:

What is up with the Battlestar Galactica dorms? I thought even ensigns got shared rooms. Maybe that's just for More Important Starships?

The Enterprise-D was basically a cruise ship. In both Star Trek VI and in the VOY episode "Flashback" we saw multiple junior crew bunking together.

[KimberStormer]

For me this was the best episode yet. Boimler actually did something and the fact that he had no trouble with the efficiency timelines makes it clear he's good at his job in some ways, which is what this character has been missing. (Also, I have been on the recieving end of that sort of Taylorism and it is indeed the worst thing ever.  If anyone asks me to log my time doing some task at work again I will just quit, it's not worth it.)  Had to love the classic Star Trek double-fist action and the "Permission to speak freely?" "You always speak freely!" exchange.

I'm a little bit less enthused about the Mariner/Ransom ship tease just because I wish the bridge crew would be out of focus more but that's just my preference.  (Also the showing-her-scars bit was kind of weirdly sexualized for a cartoon but I guess that's because I'm old.)  And considering all the Kirk/TOS references in the actual plot I think actually referencing Kirk by name was overdoing it.  And it's too bad Tendi still has nothing to do.

Still, this one addressed most of my problems with the show so far.  Mariner works so much better when bouncing off someone not useless, and both Ransom and Boimler proved to not be useless this episode.  Of course everything is wildly exaggerated (that's the point of this show, right?) but I felt the original mistake with the wood was justified with the over-work lack of sleep, and most stuff followed from that.

EDIT: Though for a show that loves callbacks and references....wasn't Cardassia Prime completely destroyed at the end of DS9?  Did Damar have enough time to rebuild a whole planet between that and this?

Edited August 22, 2020 by KimberStormer
DAMAR

[DrBriCa]

2 hours ago, KimberStormer said:

 

EDIT: Though for a show that loves callbacks and references....wasn't Cardassia Prime completely destroyed at the end of DS9?  Did Damar have enough time to rebuild a whole planet between that and this?

It was very trashed at the end, and the Cardassian population was decimated by the Dominion, but the planet still existed. Lots of rubble to clear out, but the Federation probably loaned them a ton of industrial replicators.  Plus, it has been nearly five years since the war ended, so they presumably would have a somewhat functional civilization by then. For comparison, Bajor's infrastructure had improved greatly five years after the Occupation. 

[Chicago Redshirt]

12 hours ago, KimberStormer said:

For me this was the best episode yet. Boimler actually did something and the fact that he had no trouble with the efficiency timelines makes it clear he's good at his job in some ways, which is what this character has been missing. (Also, I have been on the recieving end of that sort of Taylorism and it is indeed the worst thing ever.  If anyone asks me to log my time doing some task at work again I will just quit, it's not worth it.)  Had to love the classic Star Trek double-fist action and the "Permission to speak freely?" "You always speak freely!" exchange.

I'm a little bit less enthused about the Mariner/Ransom ship tease just because I wish the bridge crew would be out of focus more but that's just my preference.  (Also the showing-her-scars bit was kind of weirdly sexualized for a cartoon but I guess that's because I'm old.)  And considering all the Kirk/TOS references in the actual plot I think actually referencing Kirk by name was overdoing it.  And it's too bad Tendi still has nothing to do.

Still, this one addressed most of my problems with the show so far.  Mariner works so much better when bouncing off someone not useless, and both Ransom and Boimler proved to not be useless this episode.  Of course everything is wildly exaggerated (that's the point of this show, right?) but I felt the original mistake with the wood was justified with the over-work lack of sleep, and most stuff followed from that.

EDIT: Though for a show that loves callbacks and references....wasn't Cardassia Prime completely destroyed at the end of DS9?  Did Damar have enough time to rebuild a whole planet between that and this?

The planet itself was not destroyed. Toward the end of the Dominion War, the Dominion wiped out Lakarian City on Cardassia Prime for being a hotbed of rebel activity, which turned the Cardassian military against the Dominion. This in turn led the Founder to order the Cardassians wiped out in a genocidal rage. But before that could be fully carried out, the Good Guys brokered a peace. IIRC, there was a scene where some of the Good Guys tried to make good on their promise to have a drink on Cardassia Prime in the wake of their success but it felt empty.

FWIW, I would guesstimate that Lower Decks takes place about 15 years after the DS9 finale, which, given the magic technology available in the Trek universe, would be enough time to repair, terraform and repopulate a planet.

Speaking of magic technology, wavy lights can heal just about anything in the Trekverse, which basically means that she wants to keep the scars she has. Which makes her a little crazy and creepy, IMO. 

ETA: But it did lead to one of the few jokes in this episode that I liked, "Congratulations, you look like a fucking scratching post."

Edited August 22, 2020 by Chicago Redshirt

[starri]

2 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

FWIW, I would guesstimate that Lower Decks takes place about 15 years after the DS9 finale, which, given the magic technology available in the Trek universe, would be enough time to repair, terraform and repopulate a planet.

Per the stardates, it's five years.  DS9 S7 was 52XXX, and LDS is 57XXX.  It's two-ish years after Voyager returned to the Alpha Quadrant as well.

[Chyromaniac]

On 8/22/2020 at 12:40 AM, KimberStormer said:

Did Damar have enough time to rebuild a whole planet between that and this?

Unfortunately Damar was too busy being dead to be much help with the rebuilding process.

Overall I thought this was another entertaining episode.  I was really amused by the crystal obsessed aliens - on actual Trek they sometimes mention alien contact missions that go horribly wrong, but here we actually get to see them, which is fun.  "Bark Hugging Root Smoochers" is a fantastic insult.  I also liked the alien leader casually explaining their trial by combat and geode of adjudication, and Vindor!

As for the actual away team, I thought the interplay between Ransom and Mariner was pretty interesting.  I'm starting to view her as kind of a representation of a certain type of Star Trek fan - one that can recite chapter and verse on any given episode, but mostly likes the shows for the cool fights and space battles, and buys into the notion that Kirk is a rebel who doesn't play by the rules.  And in his own way, Rqnsom is kind of the same - except he nerds out on the big "message" speeches, and the values of the Federation.  It's good that for a moment they were able to see past their differences and... appreciate? the merits of each other's viewpoints.  At the same time, I'm also glad that it looks like it's not going to stick.

The stuff on the ship was a pretty on-point critique of bad office management.  The "market president" feels like she's lost favor with corporate, so she cracks down and starts micromanaging the employees.  Then, she gets frustrated when the "time to lean, time to clean" tactics lead to worker burnout, and can't be maintained when a crisis hits.  She also suffers from the delusion that multitasking means literally doing two jobs simultaneously.  Happy to see that ultimately, her strategies get phased out - thanks to a timely pep talk from Starfleet's laziest officer...

[KimberStormer]

Oh was is Garak who had to rebuild Cardassia then?  For some reason I remembered it being Damar.  It's been a long time since I saw DS9...I should rewatch.