Maybe Lower Decks was the show I wanted all along

 So I just started Star Trek Lower Decks, and I’m enjoying the fuck out of it. It has a real strong TNG era feel and is reasonably amusing, while still definitely being a Star Trek show - with a decidedly positive view of the future and with progressive messaging in each and every episode. Its humor is a tad crasser than I would prefer - I don’t feel comfortable sharing it with my kids, which is always a downside for me, but even beyond that I just don’t really feel the level of sexual content in it is entirely necessary, but at the end of the day thats a pretty minor complaint and really to be expected in an animated comedy (a notoriously horny genre) about Star Trek (which despite the fact I definitely feel older Trek is suitable for family viewing, has always had an undeniable horny side). But even aside from that, its actually doing a lot that I find interesting in terms of issues I’ve had with other Star Treks.

I honestly forget if I’ve written a blogpost about this, but I think the Prime Directive in Star Trek is problematic for a number of reasons. Its obviously inspired by anti-colonial and anti-imperialist sentiments from the Vietnam and other western interventions in “less advanced” societies, and as a reaction to that, in historical context, its makes sense. The West has a long history of justifying intervening in other cultures and countries by saying we know whats best, and then exploiting them for our own benefit, The Prime Directive prevents that by saying, don’t interfere with other cultures unless they are roughly equal in terms of technological advancement. This however has several issues - for one, the idea that there is a real standard by which you could measure another cultures technological advancement as if it is linear and will always be the same, but also the presumption that all interference is created equally and that all interference is bad.

It honestly gets to the point where in several episodes across other Star Trek series, we see patently absurd interpretations of the Prime Directive, such as in Star Trek Enterprise where they choose to allow one of two sentient races to die from a disease that they have a developed s cure for, because they don’t want to interfere with the “natural” development of their society and in doing so let them oppress the other, “less advanced” species which is naturally immune to the disease. This is framed as a difficult moral quandary, but if the advanced civilization had warp technology, there wouldn’t be a moral quandary, they’d just help them. Exactly how the Prime Directive works and what behaviors it restricts has varied over the years - sometimes it will be strictly forbidden for the Federation to help a pre-warp civilization at all, no matter what, other times it is okay as long as the citizens are unaware, and a common theme in episodes where it comes up is Captains choosing to break it due to this time, it seems unjust -  and I think this variance indicates that writers over the years have struggled to understand what the point of it is and what things weigh on whether interference is okay.

Lower Decks helps explore this in a couple ways. By focusing on second contacts, it directly critiques a lot of plots in earlier Star Treks where Starfleet failed to live up to its ideals - including the Prime Directive, pointing out various societies where the Federation interfered and messed things up, or did not interfere and thus let them go to shit, and shows the necessity of cleaning up these things. It also shows us Mariner choosing to help many of these societies off the books, and mostly sides with her, showing that protocol should not win out over helping people. I don’t know exactly how complete and nuanced this critique will get - I found it interesting that Mariner did actually end up fucking this up when trying to help people in the episode where she insists on power washing the buildings and uncovers ancient and dangerous technology that turns Ransom into a god, but the episode did not seem all that focused on her choice to “help” these people by “cleaning” something they did not perceive to be dirty, something that parallels broken windows policing and other problematic policies, but instead on the interpersonal dynamics between Mariner and her mom and Ransom’s toxic masculinity. Nevertheless, the deconstruction of this is something I find a welcome addition for a Star Trek show, as the Prime Directive is something that was out of date almost as soon as it was introduced, although there definitely needs to be a real line drawing made between helping out pre-warp civilizations in crisis - something that the Federation probably should be willing to do - and interfering in them for ones own benefit - something it should never do. I am pretty sure at least some TNG episodes argued that no such line could be drawn, but the discussion should at least be focused on the attempt to draw such a line, not there being some sacred “natural progression” that shouldn’t be interfered with.

I have some other thoughts, but I think I’ll stop there for now as I’m not all the way through Lower Decks and I will probably have more to say as I get through it, and this seems good for today. Overall though I’m enjoying it a ton, moreso even than the last two seasons of Discovery.