For the longest time I resisted watching Lower Decks for various reasons. Then I did the give-it-three-episodes-at-least thing. I was sold on it by the end of the first episode. This wisecracking boatrocking social butterfly who’s talked up as some sort of combat badass is, in fact, a combat badass - but a traumatized one who’s doing the what-you-are-in-the-dark thing as a whole new career. Smuggling free farm equipment to locals she may never see again, for no reward whatsoever, just to better the lives of those strangers? That is totally an Ensign James T. Kirk kind of move.

Mariner is the kind of character that could easily have been written very badly, but the Lower Decks writers accomplished a miracle and made her work. She’s an incredibly compelling main character for a Star Trek series. Easily the best since Sisko. And Tawny Newsome is a ridiculously talented voice actor. I have to believe she’s a trekkie in her own right because when Mariner makes commentary leaning into meta commentary territory, Newsome puts the perfect tone of voice into the line. Mariner feels like one of us!

And the show as a whole has the heart of Trek. It’s not about massive space battles or YELLING AS DRAMA. It’s about our reaction to discovering the wonders of the universe, the potential of humanity to do great things if we could just stop murdering each other, about personal ethics and principles, how sometimes right doesn’t mean legal and sometimes legal doesn’t mean right, all that good stuff.