Mike McMahan Reveals “Spicy” Details For ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Season 3

The second season of Star Trek: Lower Decks came to a conclusion last week. Following the season finale, showrunner Mike McMahan did a few interviews and he dropped a few hints about what’s next for the animated comedy. We have cultivated some of the highlights, so SPOILERS ahead.

 

Tying up the Klingon/Pakled conspiracy

Speaking to io9 Mike McMahan explained why he chose to end season two with a classic “To be continued…” cliffhanger.

Well, “wej Duj” didn’t end. The Klingons leave and they’ve got a new boss, right? There’s obviously things that aren’t quite finished with that story which do get addressed in season three. So, I knew I wanted that. Also, we’re always trying to find these themes of finality, but also the story’s not over. So, so much stuff is wrapped up that, it really just felt like that story’s not over—and I don’t want people to wait until next season to know the story’s not over? So, the promise of the stuff they’re going to be seeing in season three is why the end on this.

The showrunner also revealed to Syfy there isn’t more to the Klingon/Pakled conspiracy revealed in the penultimate episode:

The events of all the Pakled/Klingon stuff, the reason the Pakleds have Klingon disruptors, that does culminate in what has happened to Captain Freeman and is continued into the next season… But there is not a “villain in a villain” here. It’s really Pakleds, Pakleds being manipulated by one Klingon, and then them getting bigger and stronger than you could believe they could.

This will include a return to Pakled Planet:

We get to see a little bit more about the Pakled homeworld and how Freeman is embroiled in the detonation and destruction of it.

Season three will return to Pakled Planet

Rutherford’s backstory revealed

The season two finale added a whole new mystery about Rutherford’s cybernetic implant, and Mike spoke to ScreenRant about where that is going:

There’s an episode in season 3 that answers a lot of questions about the implant. A lot of things that Rutherford thought he knew that weren’t right. There’s a lot of stuff that ties together. Like, you see the implant malfunctioning a lot in the first and second season. There’s something about the implant that hasn’t been discovered yet.

And remember, this is Rutherford’s second implant. He lost his first one at the end of the first season. So it’s not only part of the implant story but it’s about Rutherford himself and why he needed the implant. Because nobody else has those. There’s a reason [Rutherford has it.] It’s a little of my Julian Bashir, kind of, backstory. Not one-for-one but that’s kinda what got me excited [about Rutherford’s backstory].

Who are these guys?

T’Lyn returns

The episode “wej Duj” introduced two new characters: the Klingon Ma’ah, and the Vulcan T’Lyn, who was reassigned to Starfleet at the end of the episode. McMahan talked to ScreenRant about her future:

You will see T’Lyn again, but her story does not take her to the Cerritos any time soon.

T’Lyn is coming back

Mariner and Jennifer dating

The season finale saw Mariner and Jennifer the Andorian finally bury the hatchet and begin to form a friendship. Speaking to io9 McMahan revealed there is more to come between the two:

In the third season, [Mariner] and Jennifer are seeing each other and there are stories we tell about that. What I would say is it’s not easy to date Mariner, and this show really is not about Mariner’s romantic relationships. It’s about how she sees herself, and how she treats friends and colleagues more than romantic partners. So, it was important to me—from the point of view of Star Trek, having these people in your life and seeing where these stories go. Mariner’s sexuality to me has always been… she seems like the kind of character who can run into a villain and awkwardly Mariner had dated him or her before. Those are the kinds of stories I really get excited about. With Mariner, there’s these historical sort of things you see with her, so… you will see Mariner and Jennifer dating, and see how that affects her, but really the tectonic shift that’s going into [Mariner’s arc in season three] is, right when she opened herself up and everything was going great, it all gets taken away from her. How does that affect somebody who doesn’t like it when people leave her or are taken away?

Mariner and Jennifer before the thaw

Shax and T’Ana get spicy

And on The Ready Room McMahan revealed that things with Shaxs and T’Ana are just getting started:

First season, Dr. T’Ana does say she wants to snag Shaxs with her coital hooks, which is a delightful appetizer to the growing sensual meal of their relationship. You see some of it coming in second season. And I can say third season you might want to loosen that collar pre watching the episode… it gets a little spicy third season.

Dr. T’Ana and Shaxs are going to get “spicy”

Characters find their own path

Mike also talked to io9 about cameos and character arcs for season three:

… as we start up [season three] there’s going to be some interesting cameos, some fun callbacks, but we’re also starting to mix in cameos and callbacks to our own episodes a little bit more. We’ve seen a lot of Mariner and Boimler and then Tendi and Rutherford, and we’ve seen them mixed up a bit. Season three we get to see them start their own paths a little bit more while still being friends.

And if you are worried about Captain Freeman, his discussion with The Ready Room made it clear she is going to be just fine back on the Cerritos:

You saw captain Freeman all season [two] wanting that bigger and better and then in the finale she catches up to what the audience already knows which is: The Cerritos is already amazing. We are not done with these families and telling these stories. We have all been working on season three and it’s really fun to see that the Captain has got to a place where she is really proud of the Cerritos and her crew. She doesn’t need a bigger ship with crazier missions.

Freeman will be back

Production on the third season of Lower Decks is already underway, but there is no official target for a release date.


Keep up with all the news and reviews from the new Star Trek Universe on TV at TrekMovie.com.

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I wasn’t a big fan of the two shows you can watch on YouTube for free, but I’ve caught clips from some more recent episodes and found myself warming to them quite a bit — I especially enjoyed the renegade AI, the holodeck training simulator, and the way the Vulcans were handled, which was frankly better than it’s been done on many of the live action shows. If the response to “Strange New Worlds” ends up being positive and I re-up with Paramount + I’ll definitely give this series another shot.

I’m in the same boat here. Waiting to see how the first few SNW episodes are reviewed here, then will decide whether or not to sign up with Paramount +. Absolutely not considering it before that. LDS and PIC aren’t going anywhere.

I can’t even feign much interest in PIC at this point, truth be told. I thought the early episodes showed promise, but the show pretty much lost its way in the second half of the season. That the finale was penned by one of my favorite novelists made it an even more bitter disappointment.

The sad thing is that the first trailer, with less actual content, had me more intrigued than the second.

Cautiously hopeful now that Terry Matelas is a showrunner.

I piked up the service and have just now finished all 10 episodes of LDX. Episode 8 was surprisingly good. But that was it. Nothing else worked. The show is still a joyless fangasm. In fact, after initially being curious about Mariner the more they show of her the more terrible a person she becomes.

I’m surprised with just HOW MUCH I enjoy LDS.
I enjoy Orville now, when it took a bit more serious tone.
I don’t see what the big deal is with Galaxy Quest.
Mike McMahan and team have created a great show with some legs to it.
It’s also very quotable, I like that.
“What are we doing today? Some kinda sci-fi stuff?”

The leg has been passed. It was an honorable movement.

Be your own captain.

I was sceptical about another animated show, especially done for laughs but I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I really like this show and can’t wait to see more.

Love.
This is the only thing on Kurtzman’s resume that’s worth watching.

In your opinion

That kinda goes without saying.

It really doesn’t, though. So many people here proclaim their opinions as though they’re obvious facts. The hyperbole is strong.

That’s all certainly true. That said, Star Trek: Lower Decks remains, for me (and obviously a number of others), easily the high point of the Kurtzman era of Star Trek so far (though I’m also super-hopeful and excited for Star Trek: Prodigy).

Fair enough. But it’s a bit misleading. That high point is still awfully low.

No, it does indeed go without saying. People know when someone says, “you are wrong, Bosc pears are great” that it is not fact but rather opinion. No need to keep pointing that out.

I would disagree.

Really not keen to see more spicy content from the Dr T’ana and Shaxs.

Clearly, there must be some audience for this, but I’m expecting more “Why did they have to do that?!!” from our teens.

On the other hand, this continues to be the one show that consistently makes my spouse laugh out loud, so it gets a lot of rewatches for each episodes here.

I’ve loved every second of the T’Ana and Shax. Definitely an audience.

I mean, Lower Decks has been pitched as an adult comedy from the start but it has been pretty tame so far. Maybe they are leaning more into adult comedy now that Prodigy is coming out and specifically targeting younger audiences. I guess CBS is setting up Prodigy as the family-friendly show. Have the producers talked about the age group they’re targeting with Strange New Worlds? If so, I don’t remember.

I don’t think we have had a clear read on the expected market niche for SNW, but if the idea is to have a bit of an anthology feel, with thought provoking short stories, it may be for an older demographic.

The problem with LDS is that the messaging about its target audience has been very muddled. Over time we have had it referred to by McMahan, Kurtzman and official Paramount+ advertising as:

– A show for everyone “from 8 to 88”

– The first Star Trek animated comedy for teens

– The first Star Trek adult animated comedy.

Any and all of these would be fine, but they are NOT the same thing, and the show is definitely moving to option 3.

It has been pitched and referred to that way but if you watch it you will see it absolutely is not aimed at the adult crowd. I would go so far as to say it’s aimed below young teens. They did throw in a couple of more “mature” moments but those moments were extremely out of place with the level of humor and characterization that has gone on on that show for 20 episodes.

Now I’m beginning to wonder if Shaxs got that scar on his eye in battle, or if he got it from T’Ana.

Soooo happy T’Lyn is coming back next season. She made a huge impression on people. It’s rare to see Vulcans acting that uncontrolled, emotional and wild! More T’Lyn please!

Also excited about Mariner and Jennifer becoming a couple next season. I admit I did NOT see that coming lol. But can’t wait to see what they do with it. Also I read not too long ago that Andorians have four genders? Has anyone else heard this? I’m guessing that is beta canon but like to see more about that. We don’t really know much about Andorians outside what we learned about them in Enterprise and a little more in Discovery. So LDS may go that direction being the show that it is.

Lastly loving the Pakled plotline! I thought it was genius the last two episodes hid that storyline. Just think, these guys were in one episode from 1989 and here we are talking about them again. This is why I love Star Trek, nothing EVER stays dead (except Prime Kirk ;)).

I’m truly happy to see fans starting to really appreciate the show. I loved it from the first episode. But it doesn’t mean everyone loves it either. But after the Kelvin movies, Discovery and even Picard where a lot of that has been pretty divisive (and marked people like Abrams and Kurtzman as Satan) it’s nice to have something that doesn’t have so much scorn. You don’t even hear the Youtube haters shouting its the worst thing ever and will be cancelled any day now. And no eye rolling talk about a 25% difference lol. LDS is 100% classic Trek in look and style and why I love it!

In the TNG episode, “Data’s Day”, Data mentions that Andorian marriages have four partners. The novel authors took that line, interpreted it as Andorians having four genders, and used it for some interesting stories.

Oh thank you! And I completely forgot about that line in Data’s Day. I guess now I have to go back and watch the episode entirely. You twisted my arm. ;)

I wouldn’t say there’s anything “classic Trek” about LDS, other than the visual effects of being at warp. But that’s not a bad thing for me. Whereas Star Trek writers have always seemed to be imagination-forward–making something new, finding a solution, and then moving on–this show is more like an encyclopedia of everything that’s happened in the show’s history brought to screen. It seems to be written by Star Trek nerds with a knack for comedy that claim “forgotten one-offs would not be forgotten in-universe, and that’s a playground worth exploring,” and I love it.Trek has always been delightfully cerebral but strangely not self-aware, and this series really brings in that piece that was missing.

I really have to disagree. On one hand I DO agree that LDS is probably one of the most unconventional Trek shows we ever gotten (which is a good thing IMO) BUT when you look at the core of the show, it’s really a classic Trek show. In fact it’s basically a show that would fit in the Berman era just fine…at it’s core (I have to stress that lol).

But if this was a live action show and everything was played straight (no zany comedy or random callbacks) and the characters were more mature and straight laced, the stories they tell would just be basic stories you would find on TNG. Imagine that show and the episode ‘Lower Decks’ this show was inspired on. Imagine those characters in place of Boimler and Mariner and they were in a lot of the same episodes but everything was serious, it would play fine.

A lot of the stories themselves are inspired by the classic shows. They are doing stuff like saving planets from exploding moon debris, cultural misunderstandings with some of the first (or second) contacts, dealing with crazy viral outbreaks, stopping bad aliens from exploiting a lesser species, going on diplomatic missions, shutting down an evil computer (those are so popular in Star Trek lol) etc. Yes HOW they tell those stories is very different than other shows but it is the same stories you would find on the other shows; just played more broadly and obviously for laughs.

I’m certainly not saying EVERY episode could translate to the other shows. ‘Crisis Point’ is a wild send up of the movies, it’s a parody in every sense of the word so it solely fits into LDS world. But a lot of the episodes, especially the stuff like ‘Wej Duj’, ‘No Small Parts’, ‘Envoys’, ‘Mugato, Gumato’, ‘Cupid’s Errant Arrow’, ‘Moist Vessel’ and ‘First First Contact’ would fit in fine if they were reworked for any of the classic shows.

And it looks EXACTLY like you would expect a 24th century show to look. Ships look like 24th century ships. All the species look exactly like they did in the classic shows (especially the Klingons ;)), First Contact uniforms, LCARs, holodecks, all with the same sound effects and everything; its all there. If they turned into a live action show, it wouldn’t miss a beat in terms of its visual canon with only minor differences. Certainly much better than Discovery lol.

That reason alone seems to be a big reason why fans are gravitating to the show. It’s the first show since Voyager that just looks like classic Trek again and nothing ‘questionable’ like people had with Enterprise, the Kelvin movies and Discovery.

If you’re talking stakes, objectives, locations, and technology, then yeah…but that doesn’t really make the face of the show, IMO; or at least, it’s a minor point. That’s just “setting” for me. It’s how the characters present themselves and interact that really sets the tone for the core vibe of the show, and that’s the part you’re suggesting needs to be changed–“play it straight”–to fit into the TNG line. There’s no doubt it aligns itself with 80s-00s Trek, but only in the sense that people say The Orville does.

Well for *me* it does. I like the comedy and characters a lot. I love the easter eggs, but I been saying since season one it’s the stories themselves that mostly draw me in. It sounds like that is the case for a lot of people who are watching it. People liked ‘Wej Duj’ because it both presented stories of lower deck officers on other ships along with continuing the Pakled plot line. Obviously the comedy adds to it, but like ALL Star Trek it’s still the heart of the story itself why the show is getting the strong reception it is with fans. It’s a Star Trek show through and through.

Oh yeah, I was reading an old thread on another site from years ago about a fan arguing that TNG era was ‘dead’ because they already did everything in that period, can’t make any new or interesting stories blah, blah, blah. People used to say that here as well, around the time the first Kelvin movie was coming out. I’m always fascinated with how narrow minded some Trek fans think at times. It’s Star Trek and your setting is the freaking galaxy!!. There will ALWAYS be tons of material no matter the era as long as you have passionate writers like MacMahan who knows it backwards and forwards and inspired by that period.

He brought up the example that ‘Wej Duj’ was the first time we had a story set on a Vulcan ship. How is that possible after all this time??? It just proves despite ALL the episodes and movies out there, there is still a lot of ‘firsts’ to do in Star Trek, especially with new blood. And you can constantly create new characters and species which the 24th century shows did the most.

With three new shows now and Prodigy on the way next week, the 24th century/TNG era is back in full swing again. And its probably staying as long as this new era of Star Trek sticks around. Seeing what they did with LDS, that keeps me in a very happy mood! Now Picard just needs to be a better show.

Worse is when Star Trek writers/producers/showrunners themselves complain about the prequel setting and canon being too restrictive. Discovery staff have been quoted as saying as much during the first few seasons – especially explaining why they made the move to the 30th century (“It finally frees us up to tell the stories we want to tell”). Canon is merely world building that makes the Trek Universe richer to tell a tale within. Like you said – it’s the “freaking galaxy”! How can you find yourself limited within that?

Would Tolkien’s Middle Earth setting/characters/places be considered “restrictive” to a writer and need “reinvention”? I hope not! All of those details make it a rich sandbox to play in!

When Trek writers mention that Trek canon “limits” them, and that they feel the need to ignore it or re-invent established races/evens/characters, it makes me think that they have a lack of imagination. I want to ask them if they are sure they really want to be writing for Star Trek, or would rather be on some other TV show.

To be honest, I think Discovery is a special case. I’ve said this before but I think the main issue with that show is it was all Fuller’s idea and ‘vision’ and he probably knew how he wanted to chart it in future seasons. But it also seems like he wanted to reboot it as well. And once he left, they didn’t really know what to do with it because A. they were relying on him for the big ideas and direction and B. no one who was still there probably had a strong urge to even do a prequel show in the first place.

And I think once the complaints started (and there were a lot lol) it made it easer for them to just throw their hands in the air and move the show because I’m guessing most wanted a post-Nemesis show. If Fuller stayed my guess is it would still be where it is. And who knows it may have been great. But being completely honest, based on what we got in first season, I’m kind of glad he’s gone.

SNW is also coming. so they didn’t just abandon doing anymore prequels. I think with that they can start off on a different foot though and make it feel much closer to TOS aesthetics. And since it’s a direct TOS prequel I imagine it’s more interesting for them because now it can be a revolving door of TOS era characters just like Picard, LDS (and probably PRO) is a revolving door of TNG era characters basically. The best of both worlds. ;)

So maybe SNW will be the ‘proper’ prequel many were hoping DIS was going to be. But I have a feeling that Kurtzman probably feels more comfortable doing post-Nemesis shows considering we now have four of them. And we’ll probably get a lot more.

But yes there are tons of stories they can do in the 23rd century, both pre and post TOS. A lot of us still want to see a post-TUC show one day and they can basically do what they want with that as well.

I don’t know if others have taken note, but Akita Goldsman has said in several interviews recently that when he came to work on Discovery and was briefed that it would take place 10 years before TOS, he was super excited to be working on a project in an era where Pike and Number One were contemporaries etc.

But when he arrived to join the writers room, it was something else altogether.

As much of a shock it was for many fans, how much was that a shock for Goldsman who is of the generation of fans who attended the first conventions in the 70s?

I think we can thank him for using his relationships and stature to push to add Spock, Pike and Number One to season two of Discovery and thereby gave fans the option to campaign for a show that fills an unmet niche.

Actually I never heard about him and Discovery. I know he is a big fan of TOS and always wanted a Pike show in the past. So you’re right, he is probably the one who convinced them to use Pike and Spock in season 2. A lot of people seem to really hate Goldsman (and I’m not his biggest fan based on some of his ideas) but his heart really is in the right place when it comes to Star Trek. There is no doubt he’s a huge fan when you hear him talk about it and why it makes perfect sense for him to lead SNW.

But yeah, I still remain very cautious on that after his involvement with DIS and PIC. And his directing in both first season finales of DIS and PIC were really bad IMO. These were some of the worst episodes I seen in Star Trek and that’s saying a lot.

I’m willing to say that the TNG era works great as a comedy!

The problem occurs when writers get stuck in the idea that a new story requires a new species, new planet, or new technology to be interesting, forgetting that plenty of television does just fine making comedies, dramas, and adventures out of plain old humans, Earth, and present day. What’s been put into Star Trek already is huge, and should be enough material for interesting TNG-era stories for decades.

After reading this, the one thing I realize is LDS has not done so far is really add any new technology. I can’t think of one single new piece. That show isn’t ‘tech crazy’ like a lot of the old shows and definitely all the new stuff like the Kelvin movies and Discovery. Another big plus that the show is more focused on characters and story than gimmicks.

And I don’t have a problem with adding new technology (there is no Star Trek show without crazy tech lol), just as long as it somewhat fits in with the period, which neither Discovery and the Kelvin movies were good at lol. Another reason why it’s probably best to go forward since these writers seem like they want to make a lot of crazy tech from spore drives to time travel suits and advanced AI robots that didn’t belong in the 23rd century.

After reading this, the one thing I realize is LDS has not done so far is really add any new technology.

Rutherford wearing the computer-helmet?

Sorry this is so late, I just saw this. Not sure I agree with that since we have a character like Ariam in Discovery who was basically a full on cyborg who could do everything Ruterford could like record all her memories and probably much more. And it seem like pretty low tech for the 24th century when another character had all of that a century prior. But I think any show will always lose out in the advance tech department when competing with Discovery. ;D

I like how he’s not only completely open about what we can expect in season 3 but also about what we cannot expect, instead of teasing us with vague maybes. It’s also good that the broad strokes are planned out already.

THANK YOU!

Yes its nice to just hear actual story lines and real character development not just vague ideas of what to expect next season. He straight up tells us that Freeman will be fine (which we all know) but its nice just to be told something specific for a change.

What’s really frustrating about the producers talk about Discovery is that they say absolutely nothing when discussing the show. Listening to them talk about season 4 in the most fuzzy way just does nothing for fans. Not everything has to be a complete and utter mystery. I think this is the one thing that has bothered me once Abrams showed up because now it’s all designed in mystery boxes instead of just telling a straight but solid story. And serial stories its nothing BUT mystery after mystery. But no one is expecting for all the surprises to be spoiled of course, but tell us a bit about the actual season. What planets will we see? Who are some of the new players? Who are the main groups that will be involved in the story? What are some of the issues the characters will be dealing with, etc.

“Pakleds being manipulated by one Klingon, and then them getting bigger and stronger than you could believe they could.” Well, it’s not that that wouldn’t have precedents in history..

And it seems that it’s a point that the EPs are making intentionally.

This was an enjoyable season! My favourites were probably the season finale and – dare I say it? – the Mugato episode. My least favourite probably the season opener for being rather cartoonish and over the top in the sense of stretching fictitious plausibility too much, and the “Embarrassment of Dooplers” episode: While the psychology of Lower Decks is usually quite astute, I don’t think shouting at people with low self-esteem is something you should necessarily try at home. My guess is someone on the writers’ team vented some frustrations with a personal acquaintance in that episode :-) Also, I was somewhat perturbed by the horrendous disregard towards personal data protection and personality rights as evidenced by the holodeck training episode. Heck, with that attitude, you could actually have a dating service that lets you test-date anyone you know in a holodeck environment :-D

What I really like about Lower Decks is that it offers half an hour of carefree fun and levity, while still telling meaningful stories. I still think the writers made a decision about this show to not go political but personal, thus offering a kind of safe common bubble? I think I recognized maybe 2 political digs, but they were really subtle.

I enjoy that in season 2, Lower Decks has told more original stories, and often displayed good writing with various story threads mirroring common topics, which has also been picked up in the official episode reviews on this site.

I like that jokes are sometimes the hidden joke type or multi-layer, like it still makes me laugh the infamous Mugato scene possibly mirrored the “diplomatic compromise not violence” topic of the episode, or TG47 pointing out the possible Schroedinger’s cat reference with Dr T’Ana’s box.

What I really like is that in each season, there’ve been a few nuggets of meaning to discover that were actually quite deep. I mean, just think about the season 1 finale’s real psychological idea that: “True personal freedom is when you do what you want EVEN THOUGH your opponent is asking you to do it”. That’s actually quite knowledgable. Memorable lines from this season include “I nearly burnt myself out competing against myself” and “Be you own captain”, etc. I think someone on the writer’s team either has a psych degree or a personal interest in the topic.

While some other shows kind of draw on the “Big 5” of meaning like “fighting for freedom, overthrowing dictators, saving the universe, equality” etc., Lower Decks seems to take its inspiration from smaller common-day matters or personal development themes. It seems I’ve connected with that and found more instances of inspiration in this cartoon than in other current Trek movies or shows. (It also makes me consider Trek makers are doing a good job by having a portfolio of different shows).

So I still hold up that for all of it’s cartoonish nature, Lower Decks is sometimes an introspective or subtle show.

For example, in a way, Lower Decks is as progressive for example with regards to various sexual orientations as Discovery, but just quietly includes it as an established casual fact of daily life, while the DISC team goes political by publicly celebrating their LGBTQ+ characters. (I am not saying Discovery shouldn’t celebrate this, just observing this difference). In Dr. T’Ana, Lower Decks also quietly presents a character that challenges female stereotypes by not conforming to feminine stereotypes AND having good sex.

By now, I’ve come to care for all characters.

There was maybe the right amount of controversy in this season to add to the fun discussing on this board :-)

I also like how Lower Decks is taking the approach of making representation work by normalizing it.

Many people have spoken about how Schitt’s Creek was aspirational because it showed LGBTQ+ people as unremarkable and accepted.

Why this seems more possible for comedies than drama at this point, I can’t say. However, I would really welcome future dramatic series in the Trek menu building representation in this way.

Last note, I like that Prodigy has two gender-free or non-binary main characters. This will allow for subtle representation and reflections.

When our kids were younger the Canadian show Annedroids got them thinking about gender as a social construct. In that show, an AI called PAL exists in an androgynous humanoid body. Over the course of the show, the three lead children note that PAL could chose a gender, and at one point a girl and a boy try to convince PAL why choosing their gender would be better.

In the end, PAL resists being pushed into a choice and insists that the kids accept them as they are. I could see Prodigy doing the same thing over time. It would be a good balance to the TNG episode where Data’s child chooses a gender.

Oh man, I hope nothing happens to Jennifer.

And I was kind of pulling for her and Boimler, as there have been a few hints here and there.

Mike…. The only thing you need to do in season 3 is MAKE THE GAGS FUNNY!!!!!

That’s it. The character stuff should always come 2nd to laughs in a comedy. Always.

Please remember that Mike.

And don’t be afraid to poke fun at Trek tropes! You can poke fun without making fun! Why are you so afraid of that?

For a lot of us the show is pretty damn funny. But it’s not my main priority personally. I just want good stories more than anything which LDS does better than PIC and DIS IMO.

I will never apologize for expecting something that bills itself as a comedy be funny. Or that calls itself an “adult” comedy have gags that would be funny to adults.

Once you establish that you are funny then you can get into character stuff if you want. But first and foremost is the comedy.

Ok. You do you!