Lower Decks is the Show We Thought The Orville Would Be

When The Orville debuted in 2017, a lot of people just assumed it was going to be a Star Trek parody because it starred Family Guy/American Dad/Ted creator Seth MacFarlane.  And then it turned out that show was really just an off-brand version of Star Trek The Next Generation with a little smartass humor mixed in.  Some people and critics, though, are still trying calling it a parody.  The Onion's AV Club, which is generally not a parody even though The Onion itself is a parody, tried to hedge its bets by referring to it as a somewhat-parody.  That's pretty weak sauce, Onion--as weak as my attempt to make a joke.

In actuality, The Orville is a pastiche, which is something made in the style of something else.  But according to Wikipedia or Dictionary.com or whatever site came up on Google:  a pastiche celebrates what it's imitating, rather than mocking it like a parody.  In the same way a lot of my gender swap stories are pastiches of comics or toys or movies or whatever because I'm imitating the style not mocking them.  Thanks to the Donald Westlake book Forever and a Death for bringing that word up.

The legit Star Trek parody is the latest (for about 24 days) Star Trek series on Paramount+, Lower Decks.  Taking its title from a well-known seventh season episode of Star Trek The Next Generation about a group of ensigns trying to make it--one of whom, a Bajoran, dies on a secret mission in Cardassian space--the show revolves around a group of ensigns on the California-class starship Cerritos, which is far, far, removed from the flagship of the fleet.  The show sets the tone in the credits by parodying the TNG/Voyager credits only having the Cerritos getting beaned by rocks, losing a warp nacelle by clipping a comet or asteroid, running from a Borg-Romulan fight, and having a giant space monster grab onto a nacelle.  It really tells you that these are not the great heroes, but the regular guys.  Then the first episode indicates the Cerritos specializes in "second contact," which is going back to planets that already made first contact to get documents signed and things like that.  Basically they're like glorified UPS or FedEx workers.

The four main characters are Mariner, a perennial screw-up and secret daughter of the captain; Boimler, the stiff-necked rule-follower who dreams of becoming a captain; Tendi, an Orion nurse who is pathologically perky; and Rutherford, an engineer who has a cyborg implant that occasionally is useful.  They don't even have quarters on the ship; they all sleep in a hallway in bunks.  A lot of what they do is the crap work the main crew doesn't have time or inclination to do.

What Lower Decks can do that The Orville can't is directly parody the Star Trek universe.  They can actually have Riker, Troi, Tom Parris, Q, Armus, Gorn, Ferenghi, Pakleds, and so on in their episodes, so it never has that feel like you're watching the equivalent of a weird action figure you got off Wish that's supposed to be something well known but really isn't:

The action figure equivalent of The Orville

To me the show feels like Archer meets Rick & Morty only set in the Star Trek universe.  I mean like Archer it is at the core kind of a workplace comedy, only the workplace is a spaceship!  And besides the animation, the show pokes fun at a lot of the sci-fi tropes (especially those used in Trek) like Rick & Morty.  Though since this is officially-licensed Trek, it's a lot more PG-13-rated than R-rated like those two shows.  There's some sexual humor, but not nearly as much, or as graphic.

There is also some heart to a lot of the episodes.  The main characters do have some kind of character development and while they are sometimes screw-ups, they are still Starfleet, trying to explore the galaxy and help people and all that stuff.  So it's not just senseless pie-throwing comedy either.

One thing I would question, is:  since this show is animated, why are the main characters still all human or humanoid-looking aliens?  Why don't they have a blobby one or a gaseous cloud or something crazy like that?  In one episode they had an ExoComp; someone more permanent like that would have been neat.  At least something with more arms and legs.  I mean, come on, even the original animated Trek did that when they replaced Chekov with Arex, who had three arms and three legs.  And that was with crappy Filmation animation in the early 70s!

In one of his reviews, Tony Laplume brought up something that didn't really ring true and that's when the Bajoran security officer Shaks comes back to life after "dying" at the end of season 1.  They make it sound like this happens all the time, but Laplume and I both couldn't really think of characters being resurrected other than Spock.  Sure, the main characters like Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, etc are always cheating death, but they don't really die for extended periods and come back.  That kind of thing is far more prevalent in comic books and soap operas.  So that bit didn't really land.

Most of the other bits do land and I think this is the kind of show that will get better as it nears (or maybe by now finishes) season 2 and maybe gets more seasons.  For those who were disappointed The Orville wasn't as funny as they thought it'd be, check this show out.