rating: ****
the story: The Cerritos hosts a visit from Tom Paris.
review: Unbelievably, after the first laugh-out-loud moment (for me) of the series in the previous episode, "We'll Always Have Tom Paris" does it again! And thus, for me, another classic. If you're going to do a comedy version of Star Trek, animated or otherwise, this is the sort of thing to absolutely treasure.
Tom Paris, Voyager's lovable rogue, doesn't even have a particularly large role in the episode (another commonality with "Kayshon, His Eyes Open"); actually, the b-plot with Mariner and Tendi is on the whole better and more memorable, while Boimler's hero worship itself is eclipsed by his refusal to simply adapt to new security measures and resultant crawling around access tubes...
And because the best line of the episode isn't even necessarily the best part of the episode, I'll here skip right to it: "Kazon!!!" That's when a disheveled Boimler finally meets Tom, and for the Delta Quadrant veteran who, unlike most fans, remembers the Kazon as something other than disappointing, vaguely bootleg Klingon villains, it's a hilariously terrifying moment.
Back to Mariner and Tendi, though, and especially because the next episode also has Tendi kind of trying desperately to prove herself, it's absolutely worth celebrating that the character the first episode of the series kind of introduced as more important than she ended up being, at least during the first season (taking a definitive backseat to Boimler and Mariner), the episode frames the story as Mariner realizing how little she knows about Tendi, which allows the audience to learn about her, too, and as I've already seen pointed out on the internet, giving us a deeper look at Orion culture in general than we've gotten previously in the franchise. It's perhaps an even better character insight than we've so far gotten from Mariner, despite a pronounced effort in multiple episodes, another sign that although this is an animated comedy that spends a lot of time making references to Star Trek lore, it can build its own, too.
It's also worth noting that the name of the episode is the second time the franchise has nodded at its own episode titles. "We'll Always Have Paris" is a first season Next Generation in which Picard reunites with an old flame. There was also "Who Mourns for Adonais?" in the original series, with the later Deep Space Nine echo "Who Mourns for Morn?" (in which of course we still never get to hear the dude actually speak). (Bonus points if you also thought of "The Emissary" from Next Generation and "Emissary" from Deep Space Nine, not to mention "The Muse" from that series and "Muse" from Voyager, or "Blink of An Eye" from that series and "Wink of an Eye" from the original series. But you get my point.)
Less successful than all that is Rutherford's arc with Shaxs, not because of anything that actually happens but that it implies that Star Trek regularly randomly resurrects main characters. Well, no, it doesn't. I mean, weird things certainly happen to them all the time, but the only real outright resurrection would be Spock. It just seems like a fan argument that is just taken for granted as a thing, when it really isn't. Although maybe it's a talking point I simply haven't really thought all that much about. Well.
criteria analysis:
- franchise - A visit from another series, which is often a highlight.
- series - Which surprisingly keeps most of the focus on Lower Decks itself.
- character - In a season making a thrust at putting Tendi in the spotlight, this is the best one so far.
- essential - Not every fan will get that punchline, but those who do certainly will love it, the mark of another classic.
