. . . and so we, step by tiny step, lure yet another one in.

Not everyone in 1965 had a nice new big television, let alone a colour one.

Here’s a top of the line RCA model from 1954…

Some thoughts after sleeping on it…

— I found the 4 x 01 Twovix the best season premiere yet.

All the premieres seem callback and Easter egg heavy. Making this one a museum (ship) mishap episode worked that into the story in a natural way and allowed some of the weirdest and trippyest things from Voyager to pike on. Bravo.

While some reviewers have expressed regrets that the original Voyager actors voices weren’t used, I’m glad that the focus stayed on the Cerritos crew, the artifacts and how Voyager remains dangerous wherever she is, even as a literal museum.

I am unhappy that the Klingon lower decker and his ship were sacrificed for the seasonal mystery big bad. It’s clear it’s really dangerous though. (Perhaps the mystery ship is collecting humanoids to take them to another era where they are extinct….?)

It’s also likely the case that I enjoyed the ride of the premiere more for knowing I had another new episode to watch immediately.

— The second episode was mostly a straightforward Lower Decks classic, but one that did its job to move the main 4 lower deckers into their new roles.

We’ll have to see how well it works on rewatch, but the moopsie scenes seem likely to be classics. After the Voyager celebration of weird in the season premiere, it was very smart for Lower Decks to underscore its ability to give us its own very original weirdness, and remind us that humanity are the most dangerous in the menagerie.

I’m glad that they make Rutherford a bit of an odd man out in the promotions. I still feel that he’s a bit of an incomplete person/character because his ambition and drive has been submerged by the implant. I really hope that the writers will keep dribbling out more about that.

I’m relieved to hear that the group will be promoted. 3 years is a fairly long haul as ensigns, even on a second tier ship. The humour and credibility would begin to wear a bit thin if they at that rank throughout the show’s run. (… yes, I know about Ensign Kim and that was inexplicable - he should have been given an acting promotion to lieutenant at minimum.)

It’s interesting that TrekMovie has this article up before the news release has been posted. (I checked the Paramount+ press site and the most recent posting for Lower Decks is for the trailer release July 22nd, and these details aren’t in that one.)

That was likely added to quell reactions to a woman as a first officer. But the Network had notes even so on how negatively test audiences reacted to Majel Barrett’s Number One.

Roddenberry tried another tack with blonde, beehived, Whitney in a miniskirt as Yeoman Janice Rand. She was supposed to be a woman main character but even that was too much for the executives and she was written out by the end of the first season.

That is M’Ress, a Catian, and the back up Comms officer among other roles.

Animation allows for aliens that aren’t just bumpy forehead humanoids.

T’Ana, the Chief Medical Officer in Lower Decks and, a minor recurring character in the first season of Prodigy (shown in my avatar) are also Caitian.

Strongly recommend seeing TAS at least once. There’s a lot of great stuff in there from the original TOS writers and cast.

A shout out to Trek Core’s great database of screencaps. This one is from their TAS BlueRay screencap library.

This exactly. Using something closer to the xenomorphs of Alien, introduces a truly frightening species that is sufficiently different that their kind of intelligence and motivations are believably difficult for Federation humanoids to understand.

I know there are other older fans struggling with this, but I think it’s saving the Gorn and Arena from absurdity.

No matter how compelling the story, TOS Arena’s ridiculous rubber suit Gorn has become one of the most recognized images from the franchise in popular culture.

Even as a child watching the episode in its first run it seemed more like silly monster movie stuff. It didn’t have the quality of truly scary monsters of that era such as the Creature of the Black Lagoon. It wasn’t in any way reaching Roddenberry’s target high value sci-fi standard of Forbidden Planet or even The Cage.

More, with so many later stories of Kirk and other captains welcoming the strange and different, coming to terms with very alien species, we need to be shown why Kirk was so hostile to the Gorn by the time of TOS.

While they could have gone for some other kind of reptilian, I like SNW’s choice to go with a the biology of parasitic R-breeder. Roddenberry’s original concept for the Ferengi was closer to the parasitic bat people of Andromeda than what TNG and DS9 gave us. The updated Gorn can be viewed as incorporating that idea and making them as terrifying.

I’ve seen a great amount of curmudgeonly criticism of this episode in other places.

Can’t understand it really. There really seems to be a contingent of fans that just don’t want to have fun.

This FinPost article is very thin. Not exactly providing adequate information for their target financial market readers.

I appreciate the OP’s effort to bring a diversity of news sources here, but this isn’t a particularly useful article other than to flag the announcement.

The Ontario government news release itself has more contextual information despite being written to promote the decision to consider an expansion.

The CBC story weighs some of the risks and concerns.

I agree that it has a genuine TOS feel.

Especially as it gets back to the mid 20th century thought experiments around how the mind functions, but informed my more current understanding of memory, cognitive function and emotion.

I wasn’t quite sure the balance of the scenes was what it could have been, but it was good to see all of the main cast having their moments. I was nonetheless frustrated that Number One was quickly sidelined once again.

Also I was uncomfortable with how far Pike was willing to go in his aggression in order to get information from Zack. I believe we’re supposed to feel that, but it did feel that it was pushed just that moment longer to drive home the point that Pike’s deep ethics are what keeps him in check, not his emotions. It also tracks with his anger and how he even used it to break the thrall of the Talosians in The Cage.

But overall, I liked it. It’s a deeper and more challenging episode than it may seem on the surface, first watch. I suspect it will be one that stands up over a longer horizon.

Having Pelia say it, with the lens of historical perspective, is perfect.

The Federation may not use the word or describe its society that way, but someone who’d lived in the United States in the 20th and 21st century might.

Affordability does not appear to be a consideration in this index.