"You reckon it should just be called a human name, instead then? Something silly like 'Carl'?"

The Cerritos is continuing the proud Starfleet tradition of having good mental health advisors and a kinda useless ship's counselor.

Man, I was hoping they'd confirm the commonly held theory that Sokel is T'lyn's father (since she's the Sh'val's version of Mariner). No dice unfortunately.

Really like how Mariner was emotionally mature enough to solve the problem by just talking. Sure, she's done that some other times (Crisis Point II comes to mind), but she doesn't really know T'lyn nearly as well as those other examples. Really shows how far she's come from the therapy-hating Mariner in Season 1. She's not wrong to point out how Vulcans tend to have a very narrow view of what their species should be like while idolizing paragons who don't fit that mold. Tear them space elves down, girl!

Other notes:

• One of Shaxs' officers at the gathering reaaally looked like a Kiley (Kileyan?) from SNW episode 1. Guess Pike's message stuck.
• I noted previously that they drew the betazoids with larger eye dots to reference their dark irises. Looking back, I think they even did that when drawing Counselor Troi in season 1.
• we don't often see Tendi being the butt of the joke. guess there's no place to ham up her excessive emotionality than a T'lyn episode.

And you may tell yourself, "This is not my aesthetically pleasing residence!"

And you may tell yourself, "This is not my aesthetically pleasing Bynar spouse!"

Throw T'lyn (promoted after a short stint of time served offscreen) and Tom Paris in too.

The Tom Paris one was absurd and Harry was right to call it out when Paris made lieutenant again before he was even considered.

All our Wej Duj heroes came back for episode 1! ...I hope Ma'ah's okay.

It's interesting how between Lower Decks and Prodigy (plus some brief mentions in other post-VOY shows) we have a decent picture of how the universe view now-Admiral Janeway. It's clear she's viewed with a sort of heroic reverence, Captain Freeman assumed that Janeway's logs would have a good answer for a Tuvix situation. Voyager's celebrity status has definitely inflated her image a little, really put's Dal's awkward first encounter with the real Janeway in perspective.

It feels very right that they didn't actually dive into the morality of killing Tuvix other than "that's messed up!" and making the Tuvix'd crew clearly in the wrong/not sapient before de-Tuvixing them. Lower Decks does earnest optimism about Starfleet well, but I don't think deep dives into moral situations are something for a goofy 22 minute show.

"A remarkable creature. Your design nearly passes as human."

"...I am human?"

"Ew! well, then you need to drink more water."

Huh, I was expecting this to be about T'lyn! no such luck on that front unfortunately. Haven't combed through the trailer in too much detail, but if this is the first time I'm hearing confirmation about them all getting promoted would that imply most of the trailer shots are from relatively early in the season?

It feels right for the gang to get promoted. If you asked me what Lower Decks is about, underneath all the nostalgia and jokes, I'd say it's about growth--Starfleet is awesome, but its legends of yesteryear don't start that way. These goofy, lower-decker ensigns may be screwups, but at the core they're Starfleet though and through. It kind of feels appropriate to move on from where the original TNG episode Lower Decks left off-- the promotion of proto-Boimler Sam Lavelle-- and explore what growth looks like beyond that.

Edited to add: I went back through the trailer and yep, no visible changes to their rank pips. Although T'lyn has a shot where she's switched over from a provisional lozenge to the standard single round ensign pip.

Boimler: "Has everyone on this ship time traveled?!"

Gotta agree, it seems like an unforced error. A good chunk of the audience knows she shows up in TOS, which robs the whole idea of any tension it might have, and on top of that it feels plot armor-y to have one person survive and then not check for anyone else.

They could've just contrived to have Spock and Chapel be the best persons for the saucer deorbiting-- Spock as the precise vulcan/science officer to place the thrusters, Chapel as medbay's lead in case they could bring anyone back from the Cayuga.

Yeah, the colonists in this episode intentionally curating the a small-town experience is pretty subtle worldbuilding, but tees into the crazier variants like the Hysperians from Lower decks.

Y'know the retroactively craziest role that never gets mentioned here is that Majel Barret voiced Spock's mother Amanda Grayson in TAS.

Just dropping that for the benefit of the people making the Chapel==Una==Computer jokes.