I enjoyed this a lot - I liked that the sci-fi plot took a back seat to character work and thoughtfulness; this was by far the best Ed/Kelly character work all season, as the script was sincere (MacFarlane's best since About A Girl) and treated them as two mature adults. I also like Yaphit's characterization (his first serious characterization instead of him being a one-note visual gag/sex pest) - there were still laughs, but he was written as a dimensioned character with professional skills, aspirations and thoughts/feelings, someone we could actually take at last halfway seriously. In theory I'm also there for the LaMarr character work, but J Lee didn't really pull it off - his acting isn't stepping up to the game, and I thought he was weaker here than in Majority Rule, which he wasn't especially strong in either. The explanation for why he apparently hid his intelligence was also too pat and didn't seem context-appropriate - OK, he concealed his smartness in the working-class community he grew up in, but what about after he left home and joined the Union Fleet? How did he get to the position he's in - why would he continue to play dumb in a professional environment where other smart professional people are his peers?
Good supporting use of Isaac, and I liked that Kelly played a meaningful role. An ongoing nitpick is that Bortus continues to just be used as comic relief - yeah, he's great at it (in a similar way to Michael Dorn), but the character and actor can offer so much more than this. So I'd love more meaningful action for Bortus on an episode-to-episode basis and ideally at least one more strong, dramatic Bortus episode in season 2.
Two-dimensional lifeforms are of course a borrowing from a Next Generation episode; I wasn't crazy about the corny dayglo execution here, but they at least really sold the awe factor and made it look nice, if not that credible. I appreciated the unapologetic mathsiness of the tech dialogue and the obvious thought that had gone into the quantum physics concept, even if the execution was slightly too cartoonish for my taste. But overall, New Dimensions reminded me of TNG and TOS in good ways, delivered meaningful character work on at least two fronts (LaMarr's promotion, Ed and Kelly's new understanding and increased trust/respect, plus taking Yaphit a little more seriously) and that had gags that were largely funny and worked in context. It's a good 'un.
Good supporting use of Isaac, and I liked that Kelly played a meaningful role. An ongoing nitpick is that Bortus continues to just be used as comic relief - yeah, he's great at it (in a similar way to Michael Dorn), but the character and actor can offer so much more than this. So I'd love more meaningful action for Bortus on an episode-to-episode basis and ideally at least one more strong, dramatic Bortus episode in season 2.
Two-dimensional lifeforms are of course a borrowing from a Next Generation episode; I wasn't crazy about the corny dayglo execution here, but they at least really sold the awe factor and made it look nice, if not that credible. I appreciated the unapologetic mathsiness of the tech dialogue and the obvious thought that had gone into the quantum physics concept, even if the execution was slightly too cartoonish for my taste. But overall, New Dimensions reminded me of TNG and TOS in good ways, delivered meaningful character work on at least two fronts (LaMarr's promotion, Ed and Kelly's new understanding and increased trust/respect, plus taking Yaphit a little more seriously) and that had gags that were largely funny and worked in context. It's a good 'un.