Review by Frank Plowright

Lower Decks is the first animated Star Trek series in almost fifty years, concentrating not on the glamour of those making decisions and giving orders, but the grunts staffing starships who have to carry them out. The Cerritos is a craft very much resembling the classic era Starship Enterprise, and the connection between the lower decks and the bridge is Beckett Mariner being the undisciplined daughter of Captain Freeman.

Breaking with tradition, though, Ryan North starts the first of three adventures with the bridge in the spotlight sorting out a tiresome squabble between two races. Down below, the lower decks crew are messing about with a Dixon Hill hologram program as beloved by Captain Picard in Next Generation. North peppers his plots with easter egg references, not least generating the graphic novel’s menace via carelessly spoken dialogue in the holodeck. The result, although not immediately, is a vampire loose in reality. The obvious solution would be to delete the program, but that could possibly violate the Starfleet directive about destroying intelligent life.

Still, North has a few surprises in store regarding the artificial Dracula, and while the lower deck crew are discovering those, the main officers find themselves in a fine pickle.

Chris Fenoglio applies just the right touch with the art, instilling a modicum of menace while still presenting the cheery characters from the TV show. Plus Dracula. Dracula, actually, is great, a real scene-stealer as drawn in classic attire and with sly expressions.

The beauty of this story is that behind all the jokes, some of them laugh out loud, there’s a couple of solid adventure plots here, well enough written that you’ll be caught up in events as well as laughing along. However, there are a couple of caveats, the plot is definitely over-extended in order to incorporate all the jokes, and some readers may feel the concentration on Dracula is at the expense of the cast. Others will feel he’s worth it. Take your pick, which is compulsory for the next Lower Decks graphic novel Warp Your Own Way.