Star Trek: Lower Decks

There's Jake Sisko, sort of.

I don't think he was exactly a reporter, but he was a journalist. More one of those "write novella length reports on major situations"-style journalists, vs a "breaking news" type, though.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 20th 2022 at 7:50:38 AM

That's fair. And the only other examples I can think of are the one from the first episode of Picard and the one here. So we're only at 2/3 scummy tabloid reporters.

ingore

Edited by Ghilz on Oct 20th 2022 at 8:46:10 AM

Don't watch Lower Decks but I did see a video clip from the episode about a Pie Eating contest.

Star trek... pie eating contest. Did they just reference Breaking Bad?!

For all we know, the crossover could have just been set up by a one-off gag in season 4. If Mariner rejoins the Cerritos is not a question. When is. It either will be next episode or the start of Season 4, depending on how they want to hook us.

And even if these Texas class ships do get off the ground, they can't really be a replacement for the Cali-class ones as Buenamigo is implying (which I'm guessing will be either the season finale conflict or the overarching background for Season 4), if for nothing else than a lot of their tasks still require actual living people. It would be hard to do Second Contact without an actual crew to beam down and provide aid. Can't do in-person diplomatic missions and can't do support missions either other than military, escort, or transport. And it also flies in the face of Star Fleet and the Federation ideals, that things are done for personal and societal enrichment. It's why cooked food and restaurants still exist, even in a world of replicators and no money and certain infrastructure exists, despite not being required anymore. The people still exist, and they still want to boldly go. So as long as they have purpose, so will the ships they serve on.

I'd hazard a guess the Texas Class has something to do with AGIMUS or Peanut Hamper. Automated ships don't seem to be a thing in anything later in the timeline.

Anyone notice how, when Carrol started doling out the punishment, Ransom looked surprised? I'd even say shocked. Like, even he thought Carrol was going too far.

And that bridge didn't just get burned, it was hit with a tactical nuclear strike, and I don't see how you rebuild that bridge, because that whole thing is now radioactive.

Heard some fans say that there were automated ships in Picard, but I wouldn't know because I haven't seen it. Antares ships were automated before, but only for transport. These Texas class ships actually have fire power.

And really seems like a poor way to judge whether a program is necessary, because one of their checkups were actually doing well. The proper way to gauge would have been to make it a long trial program with dozens of planets and make documented records, not send some random reporter on a single system, where you have no idea what to expect. But again, I think Buenamigo set them up. Cali-class ships are made to be the Star Base 80s of the Federation fleet (and apparently the Cerritos is the most decorated of its class). If Texas class ships are meant to be their replacement, having their most celebrated ship fail spectacularly and publicly, while being shown up by the new sleek and stylish would be a quick way to do it.

Yeah. He'd apparently said he saw it as a hell-hole and would never send anyone there.

So yeah, he definitely thought it was too much. And yeah, all bridges utterly burned. She actually talked up the crew, and not only did no one believe her, her own Mom never really trusted Mariner from the start considering she tried to keep her from saying anything because she never trusted her own daughter.

There is absolutely no coming back from this, and the show may have done too good a job of convincing me of that.

And not just her. The entire crew (even her friends, though they were more sympathetic) genuinely believed she sold them out, even though many of them were the ones who really screwed up.

The bridge is a melted hunk of slag right now, with zero hope of repair and I honestly don't think Mariner should come back after how she was rejected here.

I liked this episode a lot, even if the twist was easy to see coming. It's a bit of a surprising return of a trait from the Captain we haven't seen in a while (that she's an asshole far too concerned with appearances), but that trait never really went away, I guess. But on the other hand, she hasn't been this bad of a captain since Season 1 (and more on that in a second).

That said, it does continue something I've had a problem I'd had with this season as a whole. The season really wants to move with this plot beat of Mariner and Starfleet being bad for each other which... never really landed for me when it was brought up a couple episodes ago. Mariner's been pretty good with Starfleet. She's resourceful, capable and - most importantly - actually cares about the work that Starfleet does. She's impulsive and has a habit of railing against orders, but the negative sides of these traits are things she had character development away from ages ago. The whole "belligerent hellion" Mariner trait hasn't been a thing for like two seasons at this point, to the point where most of her rogue moments now are times where the people she's working for are actively being incompetent and refusing to listen to reason.

But the season really wants us to think that Starfleet is a bad fit for Mariner. Yet at the same they don't want to undo that Character Development, so instead they've just keep having bad things happen to Mariner as a result of Starfleet (someone on this thread referred it to "the universe deciding to hate Mariner" a few months back).

Her mom gets arrested by Starfleet on false charges, so she does something crazy to save her, which gets easily cleared up but she nevertheless gets punished by having to serve for an officer who hates her and is blatantly trying to sabotage her (and, in a reversal of his character development, is newly incompetent again), leading up to this episode where she's outright blamed for something she didn't do by nearly everyone she knows and cares about (except the main group) and drummed out of Starfleet.

It's... really forced, in a way that makes it potentially sticking around not very believable. This isn't the end of the season, and that's pretty obvious - cause if they're trying to convince us that Mariner's best fit in the galaxy is shady archaeologist lady it's not really working. I don't know if Mariner can go back to how she was, but this seems bluntly temporary.

The noticeable way this plot pretends that traits the characters had at the very beginning of the series haven't since gone away makes me wonder if this was written a while back and they just stuck to their guns, but that's speculatory.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 21st 2022 at 1:04:54 AM

Mariner as a belligerent hellion was kind of half the episodes of the last season, where she was doing reckless things behind everyone's backs because she thought she knew better. This season was specifically about her trying to reign that in, though the Cerritos crew are still the same incredibly flawed individuals that would allow her on the ship in the first place. Last season, her arc was about learning to get close to people and opening up, but her development for that season wasn't about not being a belligerent ass. I think this episode was trying to say that even though she did all that effort, she's not going to be given a fair shake, because of all that previous baggage, but it's not like she stopped being a major pain after the initial Pakled incident. It's hard to say she stopped being a belligerent hellion via Character Development since Season 2, only that it was less focused on compared to Season 1, but a lot of her antics even during Season 2 would be grounds for her dismissal if not for nepotism.

Just from Season 2, Strange Energies, she was greatly taking advantage of the new found leniency her mother was giving her to basically partake in new projects that she considers helpful, even though both her mother and her XO were against.

Kayshon, His Eyes Open, she disregarded Star Fleet protocol to just escape, rather than drag her friends along in order so they can be daring badasses. Although Jet fell into the same trap of not listening to all voices before figuring out a plan, his ideas were closer to the actual solution than Mariner's idea to bust through twice as many rooms with just the four of them against a full ship's security.

We'll Always Have Tom Paris, it was Mariner's idea to go on a side trip that ended up creating a lot of trouble for Tendi.

An Embarrassment of Dooplers, same idea, abandoning duty and impersonating a Star Fleet officer in order to enter a party they weren't approved for, and all that occurred in between.

Where Pleasant Fountains Lie, where Mariner got Boimler pulled off the mission because she didn't think he was competent enough, and never got enough pushback from.

First First Contact, where she sowed discord between the senior staff.

And then it all culminated into Grounded, where she neither trusted Star Fleet, her father, or her friends, and thought stealing a starship and flying into Klingon space was a rational idea.

But no, her drumming off the ship wasn't right and wasn't fair and it wouldn't be right for her to go back to the Cerritos with the same status quo as before. But the arc of progression, I don't find illogical. Carol as a major flaw is that she is a controlling micro-manager too stuck up on the perception of her worth, rather than focusing on the good she's supposed to be doing, and that's still an issue into this season with the trip to the Dove. And that needs to be confronted.

Edited by HeyMikey on Oct 21st 2022 at 1:57:38 AM

And if it had just been Carol, that would have been okay...not great, but okay. But the rest of it...we do get a bit of a reaction from Ransom, but then he just goes along with it instead of trying to talk her out of a terrible decision and everyone else basically just is fine with it too?? Especially the scene with Mariner's girlfriend was just...not great.

I honestly can't tell if there's some deeper plot at work, something really clever coming, or if this was just nuking a bridge and then pretending everything's good in an episode or two?

I guess we'll see. My initial thought was that it was fairly transparent jumping off the slippery slope to shove Mariner back into the freewheeling independent 'hero' after three seasons of moving away from that.

But I guess it could also be the reverse where they'll play up Mariner's disobedience in going for the interview and try to make it the equivalent of Carol's absurd reaction to that disobedience.

Somehow the part that sticks out to me the most is the part where she quits without a word (at least as far as we see) to the rest of the Lower Decks crew? Considering how ridiculously, abusively furious she got when Boimler stopped communicating with her, that's not a great contrast.

Well, we'll see. This show's built a lot of trust over the last two and a half seasons.

Edited by ECD on Oct 21st 2022 at 2:04:51 AM

I can actually see the rest of the Cerritos turning on Mariner other than the main Lower Deckers. With the exception of them, Mariner wasn't close to any of them. Regularly forgets names, hates being around a large portion of them, and probably actively disrespects them to their faces. Her time under Ransom wasn't about learning to love them, it was to respect them all in a professional capacity. I would bet her platitudes about found family wasn't about the Cerritos as a whole, but the main quad she lives and dies by, because calling the rest of the Cerritos her family, I don't buy it (I'm sure she at least hates Ransom with every fiber of her being).

If she is going back to the Cerritos, it will be probably be out of the wellbeing of those three. The rest of the Cerritos may be effectively dead to her (and that actually would be an interesting development for the show moving forward that she no longer even gives the hint of courteousness the rest of the ship), but those three are still there and if she could be convinced that she needed to be there for them, I can see it.

I think you and I are defining "hellion" very differently. I don't mean instances where she was just a maverick, but instances of her being actively, negatively insubordinate and selfish.

Essentially, her actually being written as a problem, rather than just being the loose cannon of the ensemble. Star Trek has plenty of loose cannons.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 21st 2022 at 3:17:26 AM

Even by that definition, that only removes Strange Energies. All the other instances, she did what she did for irrational, selfish, immature, or condescending reasons. That's still 5 out of 10 episodes, including the season finale. When I think of being a hellion, I think of basically being unhelpfully mischievous for poor reasons, not being a sourpuss like The Spy Humongous or being combative for rational reasons like Strange Energies or I, Excretus.

In the other 5 episodes I listed, she was actively being detrimental for absolutely terrible reasons, against the wishes and consent of her close friends. At the very least, sowing discord amongst the senior staff because she heard her mom is getting a promotion to be "actively, negatively insubordinate and selfish", and that was the season finale of the previous season, not unbecoming behavior that was dropped two seasons ago.

Edited by HeyMikey on Oct 21st 2022 at 3:40:00 AM

I do wonder if they're building up to a callback to last season's cliffhanger and its resolution, and that Mariner's taking the public drubbing to cover for an investigation into... something. Maybe something Petra's involved with, so Petra's less likely to suspect that Mariner is spying on her?

And Pleasant Fountains, where she went through official channels to remove something she thought was going to be a liability. She was wrong, but it's quite possibly the most by the book Mariner's been in the entire series.

For We'll Always Have Tom Paris, given that the basic idea of her subplot is the same as O'Brien and Nog's subplot in DS 9 Treachery, Faith and the Great River - with the twist that it all goes wrong - the idea of her being an unsuitable hellion for taking part of shenanigans that are, again, not unusual for Star Trek series is again an exaggeration.

And Embarrassment of Dooplers is an odd pick for something that's uniquely a "Mariner is a detrimental officer" problem, seeing as it's ultimately just sneaking into a party, and the entire punchline of the episode is that people in Starfleet have been doing it for that party for years.

Kayshon is straight up not an example. It's absolutely a "in a combat situation, do we fight our way our or work to protect each other" plotline, something that's happened in tons of Star Wars episodes with characters across the series taking either Mariner or Jet's conclusions. And like Pleasant Fountains, it's an story where her not being right in that situation and her being unsuitable for Starfleet are far and away not the same thing.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 21st 2022 at 4:14:05 AM

Where Pleasant Fountains Lie, she actively lied about Boimler's wishes. When Mariner asked Ransom to take Boimler off the Dansk mission, Ransom's first question was asking about what his wishes were, and Mariner answered in the negative and then added that he also wasn't prepared and was going to get himself hurt. It doesn't matter that she went through official channels when she misrepresented both his desires and his status. If I went to my boss and told them to take my co-worker of similar standing off a shift, despite their desires because I thought I knew better and misrepresented them, that's unbecoming behavior. Especially since they're similarly ranked.

For We'll Always Have Tom Paris, Mariner was the cause of the initial issue for Tendi, because she was playing around with the post and broke it. Unlike Nog, who was trying to help out O'Brien in the first place, which lead to a cascade of problems, but was otherwise in search of a solution to a problem already in play, Mariner was the cause of said problem in the first place and had to try and fix her mistake. And unlike Mariner's solution, Nog's didn't put O'Brien in mortal danger.

For Embarrassment of Dooplers, she was the one who came up with the plan to sneak into the party by impersonating William Boimler. And all events that spawned from it, like the car chase, was primarily her fault. And I'm not entirely sure what you mean by everyone in Star Fleet was doing it. No one else snuck into the party. Carol, in a bit of pettiness unbecoming of a captain, just teleported the Doopler ambassador into the party, but she never actively tried to get in via intentional subterfuge. The ending point wasn't that everyone was trying to sneak into the party, it was that two of the most decorated members in Star Fleet history considered it a bore and were better off having fun in a dive, trying to create personal parallels between the two pairings.

In Kayshon, His Eyes Open, Mariner was constantly butting heads with Jet, despite having no rank on them and being outvoted 3-to-1. Her failings here were two-fold. One, she didn't listen to all options before deciding a course of action, which to be fair, Jet failed as well. Two, once a course of action was decided by proper process, she actively showed irritation with the course of action, causing disruption in team cohesion. In a battle situation within a group, unit cohesion is key and was a very common lesson in Star Trek. Mariner was being disruptive. Even with Jet's failure to listen, he was following protocol and had consensus, something Mariner didn't have either of, nor a proper rebuttal to the rest's disagreement.

You're doing a lot of treating things that happened outside of Mariner's control as if she had directly done them herself, which not only doesn't work for the argument you're trying to make, it straight up not how the morality of the franchise works. Again, I should note that her not being right or things she decides to do not working out and her being unsuitable for Starfleet are not the same thing.

If every Starfleet officer was blamed for everything that went wrong on their watch, or every risky decision they made, pretty much nobody would have a job - especially not people like Kirk. If you're looking for a franchise that will blame people for shenanigans, Star Trek isn't really the right series.

In this series in particular: the characters in general are characterized as reckless kids who act selfishly and make mistakes at times. This is, again, not a Mariner specific problem, but a function of the show endeavoring to be about the lower decks and the younger ensigns, who have more of a wild teenager quality than the more professional and polished bridge crews. Much of the show is based around characters screwing up, learning an aesop, and improving because of it.

Again, this something that feels less like a Mariner thing, and more like how the series as a whole is written: and from the examples you gave, I can't really buy that Mariner is somehow unique in that specific behavior. Mariner is hardly the only character in the series to make a crap call, or do something immature or selfish on duty, get involved in a shenanigan, and then have worse extreme events happen to them the more they try to fix it.

Not to mention stuff like this:

Arguing with your superior officer about tactics is not nor has ever been anything resembling a flaw in the Star Trek franchise, and nor is pushing an opinion when outnumbered (and of course, this is also ignoring that the character development regarding this is the entire point of the episode). It's a problem in real life military, but it's rarely one in Starfleet. TBH, superior officers surrounded by subordinates who butt heads with them is one of the cores of the series.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 21st 2022 at 5:10:46 AM

Caught up with last two episodes back to back. The thing I have to remember for the show as a whole is that they have less than a half hour to tell their story, so they just don't have the option of slower character-driven stories and rely on very fast paced plots with little subtlety. Both episodes suffer from this fact, "Trusted Sources" even morso.

"Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus" is a pretty good episode overall, but I can't help but wonder if it would have been better splitting the stories into two or three different episodes instead of smashed together. The quickness of Boimler learning of his twin's "death", Mariner learning about it a few scenes later and them RPG'ing to find some consolation makes for a lack of subtlety, something the show can't be very often. But I found myself a bit more fascinated with how the holonovel intersected that plot with the computers improvising a nonsensical subplot for them to follow, a really interesting approach to blending sci-fi concepts with human experiences. Tendi and Rutherford engaging with the actual plot of Paradoxus was deliberately vague on how the narrative comes together, but since it was devised by Boimler I was curious if he might have put a bit more of himself into that story than he realized.

"Trusted Sources" is structurally fine, but I would say one of the weaker episodes of the entire show in part because the lower decks characters are heavily sidelined both in-story and the actual episode because of Freeman's orders (but not in a clever way like Peanut Hamper's episode). The sequential way everything fell apart really made Freeman look incompetent and easily blinded by rage rather than just stressed and misinformed. The way everyone turned on Mariner complete with a loudspeaker announcement not to talk to her was too exaggerated to take seriously, making the reveal she was the one person to NOT share damaging stories obvious. And Mariner is so pissed off her goodbye to her friends is sloppy, really piling on the "poor Mariner" feelings. While a lot of the senior staff may not look that good from what they did, it's at least played as a genuine accident. Ransom seemed fine with calling Mariner out but even he was shocked when Freeman ordered a transfer. The final bit where she had resigned and joined rogue archeologist is similar not a surprise.

As for other developments. The Texas Class is not the first ship, Starfleet or otherwise, that can operate autonomously. The Prometheus Class is designed for multiple separations, while it has a crew it also had plenty of built-in combat programs to use with just voice commands. As far back as the show Enterprise there was some drone ships controlled remotely. We don't know if Texas Class has the option for a crew, but the design appeared to not have windows (much like the Defiant). My guess is Texas Class ships will be positioned as rendering Cali-class ships obsolete, especially given the Theme Naming.

Except, with probably the exception of Embarrassment of Dooplers, none of what I brought took into account the unforeseeable consequences of Mariner's actions, only specifically the actions themselves, the reasoning, and what would be reasonably foreseeable consequences. If I was taking into account unintended consequences as part of the decision making, I wouldn't have removed Strange Energies.

For Kayshon, in any Star Trek lesson, where people bump heads, the reasons for why also come into play. Just disagreeing to be contrarian is not a virtue in Star Trek. When Mariner and Jet were butting heads, why did they have their disagreement? Mariner was angry with Jet for taking over command because she thought she was the better leader and she wanted to go with the badass option. Jet was following protocol and choosing the option with the least amount of unknown variables and were more likely to guarantee their safety and made an argument that convinced both Tendi and Rutherford. The eventual solution was a more refined version of Jet's plan. If this was a Star Trek episode where Mariner was supposed to be right, Mariner would have some special information or reasoning that would place a flaw in Jet's plan and it's very easy to re-write to do so (say, Kayshon will stay a puppet unless the defenses are disabled in 30 minutes, so not enough time to make it out, get security to come back through and disarm security that way, or if they wanted to be simpler and less silly, the ship blows up with an explosion that will also take out the Cerritos) or that Mariner had a philosophical moral that they intended to be stronger, like telling Jet to listen to Tendi and Rutherford first, rather than just go straight to protocol. Unless you believe Star Trek promotes being hot-headed badasses for the sake of it as a philosophical virtue.

For Tom Paris, Mariner for no reason took a look at the package and started playing around with it against Tendi's protests, which eventually lead to it breaking. And when they tried to get it fixed, they tried to get the money to pay for it by doing a con in a bar with thugs. The problem started because of Mariner's negligence. And the solution proposed had a very obvious negative consequence for failure. Unlike Nog's assistance, the failure state is Sisko doesn't get back his desk. With Mariner's plan, the failure state is that they get shiv'd in a bar. Not to mention the potential gains far outstrip the loss. O'Brien gets the Defiant's systems up and running in 3 days instead of 3 weeks. Mariner gets to play with a Catian sex post and spare Tendi T'ana's disapproval. If Mariner was actually being smart, the better solution would have been to just go back to the ship and Mariner take responsibility. Under rational thinking, Tendi gets a light disappointing talking to and maybe some demerits on her personnel record and Mariner goes to the brig for the night.

For Embarrassment of Dooplers, sneaking into a party by impersonating someone breaks all kinds of ethical standards, as is convincing someone to do so when they wouldn't have done it themselves. Boimler is an adult, and he did poorly to agree to go on this little ploy, but the lion's share of the responsibility goes to Mariner for hatching the plan. And her plan also included getting the information from criminals. And all this to attend a party.

In Where Pleasant Fountains Lie, I specifically brought up taking Boimler off the Dansk mission. Everything relating to when they crashed down I'm not considering, but Boimler was right. She had no right to take him off that mission. And she lied about it, because she thought she knew better than Boimler and Ransom, for not particularly justifiable reasons.

So based on all of these instances, I'm actively avoiding consequences that Mariner couldn't reasonably foresee. I'm specifically going about her reasoning, which in the examples were hot-headed or petty or mean, the reasonably foreseeable consequences (working with criminals does tend to end up with bad consequences and playing around with something old can potentially break it), the risks for the actions far outweighing the potential gains, or forced her actions on others without their consent or input. In all these examples listed, those who were involved did not consent, and when they were dragged along were not given reasonable context. And unlike Kirk, Mariner isn't a captain or an elected/assigned leader. She's an ensign, same as the rest of the Lower Deckers.

Let's take a similar boneheaded move that was done this season, Room For Growth. In it, Beta shift engaged in the ethically poor decision to rig the lottery for the single room. It was unbecoming of them as officers, but inter-personally it was healthier interaction than what Mariner has done previously. It differed from how Mariner handled these 4 previous situations because 1) It was made entirely with all those involved consent. 2) They were given reasonable context of what this would involve, with Boimler showing them the map of the conduits they would be going through in order to reach their destination. 3) Should anyone protest, Boimler took the action to go forward first, so that only he was at risk, before everyone else followed. Again, it was a stupidly dumb idea, but it was a microcosm of what proper leadership should entail, which Mariner didn't display in the other four situations.

Without even giving into the fact that you're blatantly inventing the idea that Mariner's behavior that matches Kirk's is only acceptable for Kirk because he's a Captain (which also makes that Moving the Goalposts), there's still the fact that rest of the lower deckers engage in similar behavior.

This is for a reason I outlined, which you seemed to have missed:

Or in short, Mariner being a lower decker vs Kirk being a Captain is much less relevant than something else: she, Boimler, Tendy and Rutherford are, like Kirk, protagonists. This was never going to be a series where the main characters keep their head down and never do anything wild and unstable.

Most group of protagonists in Star Trek have a maverick. Most groups of protagonists in Star Trek have someone who takes liberties with protocol. This is usually forgiven, which means any assumption that it's actually unacceptable is more to the tune of fanon than accurate.

And this show specifically being a show both about teenage shenanigans, the degree to which this is exhibited is much higher: attempts to strictly analyze the actions of the characters based on real like military structure is always going to fail, because that's not how the series has presented their actions, and thus that's not how the series - or, in turn, the franchise - works. You keep trying to analyze these episodes with more and more elaborate reinterpretation, but it's always going to fly into the face of what's actually presented.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 21st 2022 at 8:54:54 AM

If we're basing this entirely on framing and story plotting, Mariner is still considered the break all the rules for not necessarily good reasons until the start of Season 3, when that was curbed by the plot because she was placed under direct supervision of Ransom. This entire discussion was started because you characterized Mariner as growing out of her belligerent hellion characterization by the end of Season 1 and I'm stating that she still exhibited the behavior all the way into the end of Season 2, where you defined being a belligerent hellion as her being actively, negatively insubordinate and selfish and that definition would fit the actions she displayed imo in 5 different episodes in Season 2, including the season finale, at least according to how I perceive the plot beats and framing.

And I fail to see how the behavior listed in the 5 episodes aren't Mariner specific in Lower Decks. Yes as protagonists, they do wild and unstable things, but how they manifest themselves are different, in accordance with the season's framing and needs and how the writers have developed the characters. Just saying they all do wild and immature things as protagonists in a comedy oriented series is so broad as to be uninformative. They all do things that are immature, that is normally expected. What I'm saying is that how Mariner displays her immaturity to engage the plot was not markedly different between Season 1 and Season 2, other than her development to open herself up more to people and that the plot actually bites back at her more frequently when she misbehaves. One of her main character flaws in season 1, that she defaults to breaking protocol and flaunting authority and lording her supposed superior capabilities over everyone, while dragging some poor hapless sap unwillingly along for the ride hasn't been addressed yet, but unlike Kirk, isn't willing to take the full responsibility that comes with being senior staff. Basically, a lot of her worst behavior in season 1 would not be out of place done in season 2, improved writing quality not withstanding.

There is a difference between being a maverick and being a negligent ass, and a lot of that has to do with intention, risk, and reasoning. Usually when Kirk goes maverick and it's considered a good by the plot, those 3 points are properly accounted for. His intention is normally to help people, the risk is supposedly calculated with input from his crew, and reasoning either lends it some logical, pragmatic, or philosophically moral weight at least from the plot's framing (if not necessarily on deeper dive). And when it doesn't, it's normally considered a bad thing. That was still lacking from a lot of Mariner's actions in season 2.

Wow...uh...really didn't like it.

Don't want to jump up and down on things, but I extremely dislike the evil admiral trope and this one was pretty uniquely bad, acting entirely out of petty careerism and deciding to murder an entire ship's crew when it was revealed (oh, and he started this all, apparently with the authority to wipe someone's mind as a commander, (which also undercuts his, it's so hard to advance as an admiral claim) unless I was misreading the pips when we get Ruthorford's breakthrough).

And the resolution of Mariner's plot was bad. Just, really, really bad. I was okay with the character growth and the 'no, the archaeologist isn't actually sketchy' beat. But the resolution of the last episode's problems was way too pat and the resolution of this episode's problem was just...extremely weak. They'd put out a distress call. There was apparently an entire fleet of California class ships in range, but none of them decided to help until Mariner convinced them somehow? I mean, usually in Star Trek, the nearest ships would respond and for something like this, they'd all converge automatically (I mean, maybe, the number of ships around has always been real variable).

I was okay with the callback to Ruthorford's AI research and how it always goes wrong, and this even makes sense in canon as potentially underlining the dangers of AI which result in what we see in Picard Season 1, but since I really don't like that angle, that doesn't help it work for me.

I was very glad to see the return of the renegade Vulcan! Poor girl, assigned to Tendi...

I do think the desire to give everyone a plotline here was a mistake, this really should have been a Ruthorford and Mariner focused episode (more than it was). The entire Shax-Boimler plotline was extremely weak and would have been better focused on Ruthorford recognizing that Shax was right about the potential solution and maybe given a bit more focus/time to the discovery of who was behind Ruthorford's memory wipe and everything.

And finally, I really dislike the they took our jobs, angle? Especially in the federation and Starfleet? I mean, I could see being concerned about being split up and everything, but the reactions were clearly meant to be comically over-the-top, but came across as just missing the point of Starfleet and the mostly utopian future of the Federation, which was hilarious as the captain basically said it word for word (though I sort of hoped one of the aliens in the room would point out that Starfleet isn't just for humanity...)

Overall, weakest season finale so far and wasted too much time on irrelevancies.

I liked it.

I admit, I had a lot of doubts that anything would bring Mariner back after how badly all bridges were burned. I also admit I'm not sure about how things played out, but seeing the crew of the Ceritos prove themselves by taking on the entire Texas class, and seeing Mariner gather the entire California Class to defend them was something I liked.

The twist with Archeology lady working for Picard and being good feels like the kind of twist this show likes, where the thing you expect because it's happened before turns out to not be how it looks.

I'm a little disappointed with the Admiral. That's really the only part played straight, but everything else was fine if not great. The parts I liked, I really liked, and the ending was rather upbeat all in all, with the combined crews of every California Class celebrating their victory, and Mariner now committed to Star Fleet, and unlikely to every be distrusted again.