#why is general Speed so fine? 😳

[r0semultiverse]

Do y'all think she's packing? 😳

[discotreque]

LwD 2.1: Strange Energies

WE’RE BACK, BABEYYYYY

Are my thoughts organized? Nope! Are they articulate? Not even a little bit! Am I going to dump them on Tumblr anyway?

Spoilers below, obvs.

Ughhhh, this show is so pretty. I never hated the character designs, but I don't really love them, either—they're cute and expressive enough, they get the job done—they're fine. I'm neutral.

The backgrounds, though? The special effects? The colour palettes in general? Stunning. Exquisite. I want to lick them. (I was a little kid in the late 80’s, so I feel the same way about eye-searingly vivid neon colours as 70’s kids do about oranges and browns, and 90’s kids feel about colourful translucent plastic.)

Anyway, ummmm... Mariner sexy 😳

(And—just when I thought I'd reached Peak Lesbian watching Mariner grapple around with Cardassian interrogator Missi Pyle 🥵—my #1 background bae Jennifer the Andorian stopped by! Captain, I'm picking up an enemies-to-frenemies-to-lovers 'ship on long-range sensors...)

That whole cold open was genius, though. Our lead character fights her way through a Cardassian prison, steals a (Miranda-class 😍) starship, and blasts her way to freedom—primarily as a backdrop for the obligatory season-premiere exposition bringing the audience up to speed—while also making some excellent goofs about Star Trek tropes. (I got my first big belly laugh from poor holo-Boimler: "Oh my god, Mariner, you gotta get me out of here! They keep showing me lights!")

Not to be a huge screenwriting nerd, but it was just so efficient 😙👌

Second big belly laugh: "Look, I know we're not supposed to have interpersonal conflict..."

I ended up really empathizing with Monstrous Rainbow God Ransom towards the end of the episode: the teeth-grinding fake-niceness between Mariner and "cool mom" Captain Freeman was deeply uncomfortable for me right from the start.

We finally got the last name of the captain's husband/Mariner's dad... and it's "Freeman" too? Then where the hell did "Mariner" come from? Was her birth name "Beckett Mariner Freeman"? Anyway, he's voiced by the great Phil LaMarr, so I hope this storyline they seem to be kicking off about Captain Freeman's ambition means he's going to be around more.

Speaking of actors, I already miss Shaxs, but I'm thrilled they're keeping Fred Tatasciore around—he voiced the Cardassian guards in the opening sequence! And this was beyond a doubt Dawnn Lewis's best episode to date, what a legend.

Ransom turning Dr. T'Ana's hypospray into an ice cream cone, and her frustrated "dammit!" instantly followed by a lick of the ice cream—because why waste it?—was another perfectly understated moment of hilarity.

The best dialogue of the episode might have been "Tendi, please! I just want to go swimming with girls!" / "Then give me your brain!!!" (Tendi in full Chaotic Neutral mad-scientist mode is terrifying, btw—and does she have a crush on Rutherford or not? I'm genuinely invested.)

As soon as I saw Ransom's giant head float up into space, I started hoping he'd bite the ship's saucer section like a cookie—and he totally did. 🏆

I wouldn't say I need an uncensored version of this show, but boy would I ever love to hear Eugene Cardero's unbleeped delivery of "Fuck pears!"

And finally, I feel like Jonathan Frakes didn't have to do much acting for this line:

That was a VERY good premiere. I don’t know if we needed the immediate renegotiation of Freeman and Mariner's arrangement, but it seems like it's going to be a big part of the season story, so I don't blame them for wanting to get it firmly established—and most of their audience probably hasn't been joyfully re- and re-watching Season 1 over the hiatus like I have, either.

Look, I freely admit that my sense of humour hasn't evolved since I was 13, and I understand that slapstick comedy isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I also think "what if Gary Mitchell got kicked in the balls repeatedly and then got a boulder dropped on him?" is an objectively fucking hilarious premise for a joke, and you can't change my mind about that.

I love this show. I woke up in a pretty shitty mood this morning, but now I can't stop grinning. Let the Star Trek renaissance begin!

Next week: I've got no clue. Crave (the Canadian streaming service that owns the distribution rights to Star Trek here—which means that Paramount+ in Canada has no Star Trek TV content whatsoever, lmao) didn't have a preview for 2.02, and neither did the uhhhhh extremely legal copy I downloaded to make screenshots from—so I guess we'll find out!