I like that a lot of the drama with the characters feels real and motivated by their history. It is great to see characters who were undeveloped in TOS get fleshed out.

I know Orville was widely disliked by critics for uneven tone because they wanted to shove it in a pigeon hole but this is where episodal tv really shines. I don’t think Orville did it this well but given the substantial departure from Discovery and Picard I wonder if Lower Decks or SNW could have existed in Kurtzman’s Star Trek without MacFarlane showing there was still demand.

I hope they use the release of inhibitions in the musical episode to delve into the inner thoughts and feelings of some of the characters as they did in Buffy’s Once More With Feeling which was cathartic for a lot of the characters.