alt Hacker NewsThe Pakleds weren’t as dumb as they pretended.
Yeah Lower Decks played on their stupidity. But everything about Lower Decks was an exaggerated form of cannon.
But the actual behaviour of the Pakleds was to mislead people into thinking they were harmless through playing on their own stupidity.
Now I’m not saying they were a smart race comparable to (for example) the Romulans. But they weren’t as stupid as they portrayed themselves.
Lower Decks is canon, not “a form” of it (exaggerated or otherwise) but just as canon as any other show, and it’s my opinion (of course you may disagree) that it enriches Star Trek’s lore. Yes, that means the Koala is canon (it even shows up in the intro on the Strange New Worlds crossover episode!), but when you think about it, that’s not any more silly than Q or the myriad other bizarre things on other Star Trek shows.
https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/q0udro/comment/hf...
Ultimately it doesn’t matter. They’re fictional shows so all that’s important is that we enjoy them in our own way, but I don’t think Lower Decks exaggerated how dumb the Pakleds are, I think it explored them so much because them being dumb made them a good comedic fit. When I watch the TNG episode and Lower Decks, I see consistency. More than comedy, Lower Decks has an immense respect and care for the lore.