I also guess I never particularly noticed her bare feet before, now that Starfleet Academy started emphasizing it as a Lanthanite trait or quirk. Or was it not a thing before and they made it a thing for this season?

Puppet Pelia threw her shoes at one of the Orions early on.

I’m sorry but no. Of all the “and it didn’t happen/gets reset at the end” episodes of Star Trek – possibly of all of television – that was the biggest waste of time I’ve ever subjected myself to.

Yes, you clearly are then. If this episode is a dud I’ll have slid overall into Discovery levels (sorry DIS fans) of “I watch to be in my favorite universe for a hour and to keep up on the lore, but I have no expectation of being wowed by what I see” mode for the rest of the run, quite likely.

If it manages that level I would consider it a minor miracle.

Exactly! And this season to date has me tilted heavily toward “faceplant”.

I hate to be pessimistic but I’m dreading the hell out of this episode.

Right now it’s hard to imagine they’re going to bring Kurtzman and Secret Hideout back for anything Trek-related. It’s pretty clear Kurtzman’s era as Trek overseer is done.

I had that thought too at times during the episode. Doing the whole thing in black or white pulled me out of any noir mood every time we were back on the Enterprise.

Better episode this week, mostly because they gave Una something to sink her teeth into. Ironically, I thought the past episodes went too far into their genre, but this one didn’t lean in hard enough. The black and white just got distracting, especially every time the plot moved back to the Enterprise and the story there noticeably was weaker.

Q brings Neelix to the Alpha Quadrant and the story is off and running.

I guess I should have said “Who besides Terry Matalas was asking for more Alexander stories?” 😂

Not oligarchy, state disinformation and war mongering?

My main reaction overall to the reveal was this iteration of Paramount ownership would have cancelled something that delved into these things as fast as it did the rest of the Trek slate.

Also, it’s slightly boggling that the fans who wanted this were hyped for Captain Seven (I think it’s fair to say), and the premise was going to be…nah, let’s do a Worf/Alexander/Klingon politics story? Who was asking for more Alexander stories?

Counterpoint though, there is reporting that suggests Paramount+ has plans along the lines of Sheridan-type programming/audience chasing while focusing on some other broad genre types/audiences…but there’s no mention that they have any particular interest in animation here.

P+ has never struck me as a great place for animated fare anyhow.

Man I don’t know what to take from that episode. Interesting for Scott, nice to see Ortegas get more screentime besides flying the ship. And I guess that’s about it.

Well, saw the episode. But all the going for shock and eek and ick didn’t really impress, especially when the story basically has no resolution other than “beats us shrug”.

That is already way more passion and/or giving a frak about Scouts than I could muster even if you paid me.

Well thank heavens, the anniversary year is saved. 🙄

Well I just watched it, but I don’t know what to do with it. It just kinda…happened. Other than a few moments here and there, I didn’t really get much out of it. Eh.

And I really don’t need Pelia dropping more Doctor Who references. One time was amusing and enough.

Just saw an interesting bit on his Bluesky, Mike McMahan’s story in this issue is the idea he had for how a season 6 of Lower Decks would have kicked off.