I will admit Lower Deck is always a bit crass and that element never goes away, but the characters develop really well and it’s impressive how attached they get you to them in a total runtime shorter than TNG season 1, and the show gets surprisingly emotionally sincere as it goes on.

And I’d say seasons 3, 4, and maybe 5 have what I’d call legitimate contenders for some of the franchise’s best episodes. Honestly, if it’s really hard for you to watch season 2, just skip to Wej Duj and watch from there.

But honestly, if you can’t get past the crasser elements, I get that.

Because he unmasked after “The Cage”…

I can get it being back by the 32nd century, but I still wonder why Nova Squadron (or any elite academy group beyond a simple honors society) came back in Prodigy relatively shortly after:

1. The Locarno incidents
2. That time Red Squad tried to take over THE ENTIRE FREAKIN’ FEDERATION.

Bang, bang, Mak’zel’s silver hammer came down upon her head. Bang, bang. Mak’zel’s silver hammer made sure that she was dead.

It’s not saying to be a jerk to people.

“Masking” is when a person with autism hides associated mannerisms in order to blend in with neurotypical people (make themselves “more palatable”), such as avoiding hand stims or atypical (but still healthy) reactions of enthusiasm.

“Unmasking” doesn’t mean giving up anything you do to be considerate of others (such as not giving unsolicited 15 minute rants about my hyper fixations); it just means not trying to pretend to be a neurotypical person, consciously or subconsciously, and to just be your authentic self, autistic self.

I agree with my sister that it should have been a flashback later in the season; they didn’t need to tell us so directly in the first episode.

Then again, DS9 did the intro text thing explaining Wolf 359, so…

Really? I think the show’s so gosh darn horny in that disgusting Rick Berman way all the time that I’d take almost anything over it.

Why does the Enterprise D bridge look like the interior of a 1990s car stretched out?

And being a former Vegas resident, DS9 accurately pictures being in one of the more run-down Vegas casinos.

Also, honestly, I think modern campus architecture has embraced this “casino look” you describe, weirdly enough.

You only watched season 1 of LD didn’t you?

I think part of it too is 32nd century Trek has already done a lot of sociopathic, who’s-gonna-stop-me, “because I’m evil”-type villains, and we need someone a little more gray, or at least psychologically compelling; as seen with Gul Dukat and Kai Winn, you can still pull off interesting but pure evil characters.

His consciousness is uploaded after death into a torture simulation by a curious computer with emerging sentience for several hundred years a la I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream; when the computer finally learns its lesson and builds a new body for O’Brien’s backup consciousness, he just gets right back to work, centuries of technological progress be darned.

It would use fields or something to do different things for different people; an escalator for some, a wheelchair life for others, normal stairs for those who choose, but for Miles O’Brien’s transporter clone stuck in the 32nd century, it sets the gravity to 10x and forces him to crawl with all his might to the stairs’ control panel. This happens once a week.

But maybe they’re magic sci-fi stairs…

I kind of disliked Giamatti’s character, honestly; just a bargain bin Harry Mudd.

Otherwised enjoyed it.

“Alla maraine! Count to four! Alla maraine, then three more! Alla maraine, then you’ll see. Alla maraine, you’ll come with me!”

EDIT: I apologize. This was a bit snarkier in tone than I intended, and probably escalated conversations in ways that I shouldn’t have. A more civil way to put it is I disagree on the standard of “seriousness” ascribed to the earlier Star Trek series; take the Riker maeuver, for instance.

Ah, yes, Star Trek, the “dead serious” show.

I felt better once they got out the prisons; the ship aesthetics have some generic sci-fi aesthetic to them, but having the reds in them makes it feel overall much brighter and Trek-y. Honestly, even though it’s not as bright as TNG, just being able to actually see scenes was nice.

Late gen Z, generally modern indie centric tastes; there might be a deeper genre name than that, but that’s what I can think of off the top of my head. Also has some 70s-90s stuff, including picking up a few of my favorite They Might Be Giants songs, mostly Lincoln-era stuff.

I don’t know.

If anything, me and my younger sibling were actively annoyed by a lot of the show’s music choices, and modern show music in general. In both this show and recent Stranger Things seasons, they put music in every single moment, even moments that should be silent.

Based on what @ValueSubtracted mentioned, maybe the signing is something to do with when you’re Tan Elbrum-level powerful, telepathic communication isn’t a good idea?

Also, I felt like they did demonstrate some telepathic, not merely empathic, ability in the episode; I’ve only watched it once, so I can’t quite recall my evidence, but it seemed they could get surface-level thoughts beyond emotion, like “you’ve lost someone” instead of just “grief”. I wonder if it’s a consent/pushing too hard thing, somewhat like soothing and rioting in Mistborn; if the average Betazoid tries to get beyond the surface level of thought, the target will be able to tell, and their privacy will feel invaded.