A somewhat belated farewell to Star Trek: Lower Decks

So yeah, I'm kinda late, a whole year late, finishing the final season of Lower Decks.  Honestly, I stopped prioritizing it when the season opened with what I found to be repetitive material for the series.  Having watched through the whole season...I gotta say, I'm not at all surprised the series is done, because that was a whole season of the show, to my mind, spinning its wheels.  Aside from rounding out a better appreciation of Tendi's Orion family/society, I'm not sure there's much value in it, except pointing out once again that if you give Andy Robinson's Garak any screentime at all, he's just going to steal all the attention shamelessly.  Even Boimler!  The whole season predicates that he basically ends up happy being...Harry Kim.  I find that a tad ironic.  Even Mariner's fate as happily adjusted doesn't feel all that earned.  It's very much as if Mike McMahan himself grew bored and just filled out a contract.  Rutherford randomly, in the final episode, giving up his implant?  Okay!  Sure!  It's not a total loss.  If you're a fan of the show it's worth it, and there are efforts to round out the rest of the classic franchise (though there's kind of a needless dig at Discovery in the process), and how it ends wrapped up in a big Klingon drama is very much in keeping with franchise lore.  

Goofy fun, great characters, ran its course.  Plenty of fans think that about the rest of the franchise, right?  Seems about right.

Star Trek: Lower Decks 2x10 "First First Contact" Review

 rating: ***

the story: Freeman is offered another command.

review: The season finale ends with Lower Decks' first cliffhanger(s), and most of it makes up for the bit that falls very, very flat for me.

Let's get that out of the way first.  This is a series of franchise references, in some ways, sometimes so many and so often it can feel like that's the whole point, but most of the time they're handled perfectly and hilariously.  "First First Contact" is a rare blunder, and infuriatingly, one that the episode feels the need to harmer repeatedly.  This is the insistence on emphasizing guest-character Sonya Gomez, a minor character from a few episodes of The Next Generation, previously best known for spilling hot chocolate on Picard, now a starship captain.  It's obnoxious and on the nose and not even in character with how the concept of the series has used its cast of minor Starfleet officers.

So anyway, putting that aside the episode pivots on Captain Freeman, finally circling back to her after having such a notable role in the first season as the subplot of her being Mariner's mom played out and having nowhere the writers felt like going this season.  Apart from hitting overly familiar notes with Mariner (and Tendi; it's baffling how often they hit the same notes with Tendi), Freeman's arc circles the series back to the idea that the Cerritos itself is a "lower decks" starship in the fleet, an assignment Freeman would be happy to give up in order to upgrade her career.  

By the time she decides she actually wants to stay, after an amazing bit of heroism from the crew, we're thrown the curve of Starfleet actually coming to arrest her!

Then we get advancement for one of the main characters: Rutherford finding out there's a hidden truth behind his implant.  Here's hoping the next season has a much better idea of what it wants to accomplish.  One gets the sense that when conceiving this season, all they prepared was the setup of Boimler's transfer to the Titan.  This time there's drama better integrated to the Cerritos, and the characters themselves.  

criteria analysis:

• franchise - I'm knocking this point off for the Gomez blunder.
• series - A confident stride toward another season begins here!
• character - Freeman at last breaks free from the constraints of being a senior officer in a junior officer series.  And what about Rutherford???
• essential - Anytime there's a season finale cliffhanger, it deserves attention.  And this one does.

Star Trek: Lower Decks 2x9 "wej Duj" Review

 rating: ***

the story: The lower decks crews of Vulcans, Klingons, Pakleds, and Starfleet unexpectedly converge.

review: I would probably have considered rating this one a classic if the online reaction hadn't been so overboard in emphasizing the role of the Vulcan in the episode.  Proclaimed an instant "best of" Vulcans!  Should be a regular character of the series!

Not that special.  What's actually special about "wej Duj" (Klingon for "three ships") is that it takes the premise of Lower Decks to further conclusions, as outlined in the story summary above.  The Vulcan and Klingon characters act as independent agents (they're essentially the Mariners of their crews), and while we've seen far more of how Klingon crews operate, this is still, for me, the more interesting of those arcs.  The Pakleds are Pakleds.  There's even a funny bit at the end featuring a Borg crew.

Meanwhile Boimler is once again trying to find a replacement crew, this time buddying up with Ransom (as is traditional in my reviews, even though Ransom is in every episode, and therefore so is Jerry O'Connell voicing him, when he has a particular spotlight, I include him as a "notable guest-star") in lying about being Hawaiian.  This is notable in that it's a rare instance of Boimler being anything but his impresion of Starfleet professional.  The arc ends with a mushy note of Boimler once again discovering his work is noticed.  Not even the only time this one has been done this season, so I'm not really counting it as a positive, and it's all the weirder because the episode otherwise is about the Mariner archetype, and she doesn't even have anything notable happening, which is another obvious oversight in a string of episodes that didn't think everything through.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The Klingon arc follows a grand tradition, and it's a rare instance of getting to hang out with Vulcans, too.
• series - It's the series doing an episode of just lower decks action!
• character - The Boimler arc falls a little flat for being overly familiar.
• essential - It's an episode the series had to do.  And mostly nailed.

notable guest-stars:

Jerry O'Connell (Ransom)

Star Trek: Lower Decks 2x8 "I, Excretus" Review

 rating: ***

the story: The crew is evaluated through a series of simulations.

review: Online, "I, Excretus" quickly became infamous for doing things that could only have happened in Lower Decks, and that might be the most concise summary possible.

Where I found real merit was Boimler getting to be Boimler again.  In the first season Boimler was best understood as the nutcase who believed in Starfleet protocol so passionately it blinded him to everything else.  Throughout the second season this took a distinct backseat to trying to reconcile him with Mariner, with whom the producers couldn't decide where they wanted to go.  It had seemed obvious that a romance was inevitable, but the season finale put a big kibosh on that (for now?), so "I, Excretus" was the chance to reboot him, so once again his ridiculous efficiency is highlighted, and as it flits in and out it probably hits what to this point in the series is its peak.

Simply put, he knows exactly how to handle the Borg.  In every other incarnation of the franchise this is beyond impossible, but for Boimler, at least as far as his simulations go, all he's capable of doing it doing it better.  And better.

The rest of the episode doesn't have anything worth comparing to that, another curiosity that developed during the season.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A lot of familiar strands here.  Let's settle on the appearance of the Borg Queen.
• series - Only in Lower Decks could things play out this way.
• character - And specifically for Boimler, who finally feels like Boimler again.
• essential - Again the series sabotages itself in failing to support its best material.

notable guest-stars:

Alice Krige (Borg Queen)

Star Trek: Lower Decks 2x7 "Where Pleasant Fountains Lie" Review

 rating: **

the story: Evil computer voiced by Jeffrey Combs.

review: By now, Jeffrey Combs is so familiar to fans of the franchise, casting him is tantamount to stunt-casting.  He played two regular recurring roles in Deep Space Nine, made an appearance in Voyager, and had another regular recurring role in Enterprise, and so he joined the ranks of the Star Trek family with an assured legacy.  In "Where Pleasant Fountains Lie," he's representing two legacies, his own and the classic idea of the evil computer that has taken over an alien world.  

The result is underwhelming.  By the time we catch up with the evil computer, it has already been deposed, and so the whole episode is him trying to trick his way back into control (any control!), and the episode doesn't really nail the comedic potential of it.  The vocal performance by Combs is what you would expect from Combs, but it's not really the right fit for him.  In his three recurring roles (and other appearances besides), he never wasn't unsavory of some kind, so trying to buy him as capable of ever being trusted is inherently difficult.  This is not exactly HAL.

Anyway, the episode rebounds by unexpectedly lobbing a gimme in the direction of background character Billups, who seemed previously to be as boring a Starfleet officer as can be.  But he's apparently royalty on his world, and his mom will stop at nothing to trick him into being royalty again.  So that's the arc that lands solidly in this episode.  

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Evil computer trope, check!
• series - It's tough to decide where the success of the Billups arc lies.  It seems like Lower Decks is the only incarnation of the franchise where this could've happened.  But in the end...
• character - ...we'll say that the success is in the ability of Lower Decks to nail another character, since it sometimes doesn't really know what to do with some of the others.
• essential - No, not really.  If you really like Billups, maybe!

notable guest-stars:

Jeffrey Combs

Star Trek: Lower Decks 2x6 "The Spy Humungous" Review

 rating: ***

the story: The Pakleds think they can field a spy???

review: The problem the season began to develop was the inability to juggle the a- and b-stories.  Originally the a-story was whatever the main characters were up to and the b-story was what was happening in the background, what would in a traditional Star Trek series have been the a-story.  In "Spy Humungous," the b-story is more interesting than the a-story antics.  The main characters are busy doing ridiculous things, while the b-story continues the Pakled arc.

In The Next Generation, the Pakleds were one of the early experiments to come up with aliens who weren't from the original series.  Everyone knows the Ferengi, from these experiments, because so much time was spent developing them, and they ended up appearing in each subsequent incarnation of the TV franchise, through Enterprise. The Pakleds weren't so fortunate.  Their simple-minded idiocy, though surprisingly effective, was difficult to take seriously, and there didn't seem anywhere to go with them past an introduction ("Samaritan Snare").  Then Lower Decks comes along and they're a perfect addition to a cartoon take on the franchise that, unlike The Animated Series, is comedic in tone.

Generally with additional exposure, aliens tend to get their culture explored.  Somehow "Spy Humungous" accomplishes exactly that.  And that's a tough act to follow.  Far more than the previous episode, "An Embarrassment of Dooplers," it's a rousing success, and doesn't need leaning into, because the joke sells itself, the hierarchy of a such a society (kind of a parody of Klingons, which in hindsight seems absolutely right), and plays out on two fronts, aboard the ship and on the Pakled homeworld.

The main character shenanigans feel far too expected in comparison.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The unexpected moment in which we dive into Pakled society!
• series - With such a heavy emphasis on the Pakleds, Lower Decks needed this moment.
• character - The problem with hitting the same notes relentlessly with the same characters is that either it's a sitcom in which that's exactly what it's supposed to, or you risk beating a dead horse.
• essential - Pakleds!  They are strong!

Star Trek: Lower Decks 2x5 "An Embarrassment of Dooplers" Review

 rating: **

the story: The Cerritos hosts an inconveniently nervous ambassador.

the review: It seems obvious that "Dooplers" was meant to be the Lower Decks equivalent of tribbles, and whether you think this is a good or bad thing, it's the highlight of the episode, other than the continuing attempts to explore lingering character arcs.

At this point, it's clear that the season was quite determined to linger on those arcs throughout its course.  Rutherford still can't settle into the fact that his implant essentially rebooted his whole character, Mariner can't decide how she feels about Boimler's time aboard the Titan, and so these things are rehashed while other subplots have Mariner and Boimler attempting to crash an exclusive Starfleet party (which eventually concludes with failure, but their discovery that Kirk & Spock failed to find their way in, too, in a previous generation) (which seems kind of ridiculous, if you think about it too much).  

Surprisingly, it's Captain Freeman, in her efforts to resolve the duplicating Doopler crisis (I wish they'd come up with a more creative name for the species), doing so by being gruff, the first time she gets to be successful just by being herself (it comes up again in the season finale), who shines in the episode.  Since there's so much happening around this, and the brunt of the effect of the whole thing hinging on the ambassador's hilarious embarrassment, "Dooplers" ends up losing a valuable opportunity to take a victory lap (which, again, is probably something the producers themselves figured out, given the season finale).

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The echo of "The Trouble with Tribbles" is worth savoring, plus the restraint in not actually featuring tribbles.
• series - There's the sense that, given the overall emphasis on the Pakleds in other episodes, that another set of gimmick aliens just here to be ridiculous might be Lower Decks overextending its hand.
• character - Even if everyone else kind of feels like they're treading water, Freeman gets a small nudge in a positive direction.  She's no longer just Mariner's mom!
• essential - If the episode had leaned more on the Dooplers, or Freeman, it might have been.  

Star Trek: Lower Decks 2x4 "Mugato, Gumato" Review

 rating: ***

the story: An away team grapples with Ferengi poachers.

review: In the original series there were two notable attempts at full-body costume aliens: the Gorn and the Mugato.  Of the two, the Gorn have gotten plenty of attention, and thanks to Enterprise even a another appearance in the franchise.  Finally, it's the Mugato's turn!

Unlike the Gorn, the Mugato is an animal, kind of an ape with a horn, and so naturally the horn is what the Ferengi poachers are after.  That setup allows Lower Decks to once again spotlight for fans who never quite got the Deep Space Nine memo that the Ferengi aren't one-dimensional anymore.  Mariner had a friend in the first season who played off that ignorance, but in this instance the Ferengi are more or less true to stereotype until a successful negotiation turns the tide.  (There's a whole running gag in the episode about negotiations, making the resolution all the more clever.)

Tendi, for the second episode in a row, is out to prove herself, while Boimler and Rutherford are scared out of their minds that Mariner has another secret, a plotline that feels a little lazy, especially after two episodes where the series knew exactly what it was doing, but it involves enough elements (including a bartender of considerably less insightful banter than Guinan, and another of the many accents the season has been spotlighting, which for an accent guy like me has been easy to enjoy).  Although, I guess, it's nice to be worrying about Mariner for exactly the kinds of reasons we did at the start of the series instead of the business with her mom (y'know, Captain Freeman).

criteria analysis:

• franchise - It's nice to have throwbacks like the Mugato, the Ferengi, and even Denobulans (!) in the mix.  Just imagine if anyone ever gets around to all the background aliens from the original cast movies!
• series - Probably only an animated series could successfully the Mugato anyway, right?
• character - The season has been throwing up different combinations between the lead characters, which here is once again refreshing, with Boimler and Rutherford teaming up for a change.
• essential - But the stakes are fairly low.

Star Trek: Lower Decks 2x3 "We'll Always Have Tom Paris" Review

 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.

notable guest-stars:

Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris)

Star Trek: Lower Decks 2x2 "Kayshon, His Eyes Open"

 rating: ****

the story: Assisting the inventorying of a dead collector's ship proved unexpectedly complicated.

review: With a single laugh-out-loud line, "Kayshon, His Eyes Open" becomes a classic episode, the first time (and followed rapidly a second time the next episode!) Lower Decks provokes this reaction for me.  I don't always actually laugh at funny material.  It's more often a matter of a sudden joke, or punchline, that gets me.

The set-up is in the title, the use of a Tamarian for the first time since their introduction in the classic (for an entirely different reason!) Next Generation episode "Darmok" as temporary new chief of security aboard the Cerritos, in which we learn the universal translator has mostly been able to compensate for their language's peculiar penchant for allegory.  

Dayshon isn't even the focus of the episode.  He isn't even the secondary character with the biggest spotlight.  That falls to Jet Manhaver, who's a kind of substitute Boimler (more on him in a moment) as a counterpoint for Mariner on the away mission aboard the collector's ship (which itself is stuffed with even more easter eggs than the series already regularly features, including a far less glorious memento of Kahless the Unforgettable than the sword Worf and Kor fought over in Deep Space Nine's "Sword of Kahless" which nonetheless is a subtle link to the Abrams films, which feature Klingons in helmets).  Jet isn't exactly a Boimler, but his penchant for protocol still rubs Mariner the wrong way.

Anyway, long story short, Kayshon gets turned into a puppet.  The line that got me isn't exactly complicated (it's literally "Kayshon, when he was turned into a puppet"), but it's such a succinct, distinctly Lower Decks punchline, it's a perfect way to explain the appeal of the series, something Lower Decks hadn't previously nailed.

(Though, again!  Somehow the very next episode does it, too!)

The episode also gives Boimler's time aboard the Titan actual airtime, and at once takes a subtle jab at modern live action Star Trek (all action! all the time!) and nods at Riker lore (Next Generation's "Second Chances" and Deep Space Nine's "Defiant," the existence of transporter duplicate Thomas Riker, whom I wish we had also gotten an update on, as last we heard he was headed to a Cardassian prison of some kind, and that was DS9's third season, well before the Dominion War even started!), a funny way to get Boimler back aboard the Cerritos.

(This is also a reminder that Lower Decks takes place between Nemesis and Picard, and in fact significantly closer to Nemesis than Picard, as by Picard Riker is in fact mostly retired.)

criteria analysis:

• franchise - There are fans who consider "Darmok" to be one of the best episodes of any Star Trek series (including a good blogging friend of mine), so this nod is long in coming.
• series - A spotlight that ably demonstrates everything that makes Lower Decks work as a comedy version of the franchise.
• character - All four main characters of the series have something to contribute to the episode.
• essential - And, for me, the first real laugh-out-loud moment of the series.  Counts for a lot!

notable guest-stars:

Jonathan Frakes (Riker)

Star Trek: Lower Decks 2x1 "Strange Energies" Review

 rating: **

the story: Ransom gets zapped with weird energy and develops godlike powers.

review: Welcome back, Lower Decks!  The second season opens with a fairly unambitious episode that nonetheless grounds it in traditional franchise lore, a plot device demonstrated previously in the original series ("Where No Man Has Gone Before," "Charlie X") and Next Generation ("Hide and Q"), although played very differently in Deep Space Nine (Sisko as the Emissary of the Prophets, a series-long arc that never sees him develop special powers, unlike his rival Dukat, who does when he becomes emissary for the Pah-wraiths).

And while Ransom, a key member of the command staff voiced by the biggest name of the regular cast, Jerry O'Connell (as a reminder, I list O'Connell as a guest-star when Ransom has a significant part, even though he's generally in every episode), certainly deserves an odd spotlight every now and then, that "Strange Energies" devotes its time to a supporting character in this situation is a little disappointing.  Boimler, locked up as a member of another crew (Riker's Titan) at this point, would have been the obvious choice, and it almost seems as if everyone realized what a terrible mistake it was, as he's barely even in the episode.

Tendi and Rutherford instead have the significant spotlight, although nothing much comes of it except to highlight that they're pals.  Even more surprising is that even Mariner doesn't have much to do!

The whole experience seems calculated just to make sure someone popping in for the season premiere doesn't feel too bogged down in series specifics, which is kind of funny, as Star Trek traditionally holds premiere and finale slots to make bold series-specific statements.  Well.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - The familiar plot device is a nice reminder of the kinds of things Star Trek has done in its rich history.
• series - My quibbles aside, it's genuinely nice to see Lower Decks return with new material regardless of its overall merit.
• character - I don't think there's a significant spotlight for anyone here, with Tendi coming closest (although the four episodes I've seen as of this writing suggest there was a specific push for her, and this was merely a soft start).
• essential - Not at all. The kind of episode you can enjoy but not worry too much about.

notable guest-stars:

Jonathan Frakes (Riker)

Jerry O'Connell (Ransom)

Star Trek: Lower Decks 1x10 “No Small Parts” Review

 rating: ***

the story: The secret’s out!

review: It wasn’t just viewers who didn’t know upfront that Freeman is Mariner’s mom. Boimler accidentally found out last episode, and just as accidentally leaked it to the rest of the Cerritos. The result? Now everyone treats Mariner differently, sucking up to score favor with the captain, and of course she hates it!

It’s really the only way the season could have ended, but there are a few unrelated twists, and one related one, that keep it lively. Tendi mentors an exocomp (secret origin from Next Generation’s “The Quality of Life”), who has joined Starfleet, which leads to any number of unexpected developments, while Rutherford gets his best spotlight of the season when he learns there’s a switch in his implant that can change his personality. Eventually the funny bits lead to a sad bit, as well as the sacrifice of the ship’s aggressive Bajoran chief tactical officer, Shaxs.

And Pakleds! Surely the most hilariously pathetic legacy of Next Generation’s second season, the Pakleds blunder their way into be formidable again. 

But then Boimler is promoted and transferred to the Titan. Riker! Troi! Again! No one has shown up in the modern franchise more than these two, and here they continue their impressive stature. Will they be here all next season? Well, where then would be Mariner? And Tendi? And Rutherford? Technically also the canonical first appearance of the Titan, referenced as Riker’s new (and first!) command in Nemesis, and apparently considered quite a prestigious assignment. Of course!

criteria analysis:

>franchise - Riker and Troi! Again!

>series - A fitting season finale.

>character - Big moments for Mariner and Boimler, and yet somehow it’s Rutherford who shines brightest.

>essential - Close!

notable guest-stars:

Jonathan Frakes (Riker, sounding as natural as ever in animated form)

Marina Sirtis (Troi)

Jack McBrayer (Badgey)

Star Trek: Lower Decks 1x9 “Crisis Point” Review

 rating: ****

the story: A holodeck program version of Lower Decks: The Movie!

review: For a series that literally a few episodes ago dithered with a “holodeck malfunction” episode, it’s all the more rewarding that doing another holodeck episode lands so successfully. For whatever reason, when a Star Trek series decides to base a whole episode on an actual holodeck adventure (“The Big Goodbye” in Next Generation, “Our Man Bashir” in Deep Space Nine, “Bride of Chaotica!” in Voyager), it’s always a highlight. And now “Crisis Point” in Lower Decks.

The whole episode technically hinges on Mariner and Freeman’s relationship (which leads directly into the season finale), but Mariner chooses to “make a movie” to work out her issues. This allows riffs and hilarious comments on the differences between a Star Trek episode and movie (and a repeated gag involving movie credits). It’s good standout material, which also works in exploring Mariner’s issues.

We also get another standout Tendi subplot, when she finds herself cast as a stereotypical Orion pirate in Mariner’s program. Eventually she stands up for herself in what might amount to the closest we get to the kind of societal examination of the Orions that we got for the Cardassians, the Bajorans, the Trill, and especially the Ferengi in Deep Space Nine.

criteria analysis:

>franchise - Surprisingly, the closest we get to a full-blown Star Trek (movie) spoof we get all season.

>series - Literally only Lower Decks could get away with this.

>character - Mariner finally addresses her biggest problem. And Tendi! In her best spotlight this season.

>essential - Yeah, absolutely. I think this one’s easy to love.

notable guest-stars:

Gary Cole

Star Trek: Lower Decks 1x8 “Veritas” Review

 rating: ***

the story: The junior officers stand trial (probably).

review: If Star Trek since 1991 has proven anything, it’s that The Undiscovered Country looms large in the production offices. Voyager revisited it with its Sulu episode, “Flashback,” Enterprise held another Klingon trial in “Judgment,” and now Lower Decks riffs on the trial with “Veritas.”

The whole thing ends with a swerve, but it’s also an excuse to spend quality time with the personality quirks of the four lead characters, out of whom Rutherford finally gets to shine with his implant glitching, leaving gaps in his memory and therefore his testimony.

But the biggest surprise? Q! Really! John De Lancie, no stranger to vocal performances, provides the voice and everything! He’s not nearly the lead element, but it’s still fun to have him around, not the least because Q is no stranger to trials (first and last episode of Next Generation, “Death Wish” in Voyager). 

criteria analysis:

>franchise - The sixth Star Trek movie is revisited! Again!

>series - With a distinctive, and unexpected, Lower Decks twist!

>character - Finally Rutherford is getting to showcase his potential (even if it revolves around that implant of his).

>essential - Maybe not, but it’s still good fun!

notable guest-stars:

John De Lancie (Q)

Kurtwood Smith (who also appeared in Undiscovered Country and Voyager)

Star Trek: Lower Decks 1x7 “Much Ado About Boimler” Review

 rating: ***

the story: Boimler’s caught in a weird transporter effect while Mariner reunites with an old friend.

review: Just when it seems Lower Decks is caught in a rut, “Much Ado About Boimler” comes around. Just in time!

Rutherford has another close encounter as the source of Boimler’s mishap, having tweaked the transporter, which leaves Boimler partially phased. But Tendi gets more mileage in an unrelated subplot when she bioengineers her own dog...which she hilariously screws up because as an Orion she has no real idea what dogs are supposed to be like. Anyway, good to see her get some material, and arguably one of the most successful uses of the animated format this season.

Of course, Boimler’s predicament is what can be termed classic Boimler at this point, and leads him (and the dog) to D-14, a Starfleet medical anomalies division that of course exists (based on all available evidence from every other series and their many, many medical anomalies). The effect is to thrust Boimler into a “land of misfits toys” for the episode. It’s the good kind of franchise insight that’s Lower Decks at its best, and it’s played out perfectly.

Mariner’s old friend is now a captain, so of course this is another opportunity to explore Mariner’s career choices. It might have felt repetitive, but like everything else this episode it still works.

criteria analysis:

>franchise - For the valuable addition of D-14 alone to Star Trek lore, this episode’s valuable.

>series - The best strengths of Lower Decks are in full display here.

>character - Which of course means its cast of wacky characters, with the first real highlight for Tendi.

>essential - The kind of episode I could easily bump up in value later. We’ll see!

Star Trek: Lower Decks 1x6 “Terminal Provocations” Review

 rating: **

the story: Another junior officer totally screws up.

review: Weirdly, I’m actually feeling less patient these days with modern Star Trek that feels too much like classic Star Trek. The second episode of Discovery’s third season, “Far From Home,” for instance, has a subplot that would have substantially played exactly the same way in nearly every other TV incarnation of the franchise, and now this, the second time in this inaugural season of Lower Decks, I find the results to be a little too standard. This is the “holodeck malfunctions” episode.

It would actually be a little more interesting than that, since Rutherford and Tendi are the lead characters in that half of the episode, based off of Rutherford creating Badgey, an instructional aide much like the paperclip from Microsoft. But it sort of becomes far more about Badgey’s glitch descent into cartoonishly murderous intent than any real insight into Rutherford, Tendi, or their relationship.

Boimler and Mariner, meanwhile, have a friend who turns out to be a huge screwup, which is the source of the holodeck malfunction. I was actually hoping he’d at least turn out to be a secret agent of the aliens the crew desperately tries to contend with (as represented by J.G. Hertzler, most familiar to fans as Deep Space Nine’s one-eyed General Martok; he’s the other bit of fun casting this episode features, along with Jack McBrayer as Badgey, just the opening salvo of a tide of familiar voices in the second half of the season).

criteria analysis: 

>franchise - Casual fans might enjoy the animated version of the holodeck trope.

>series - Boimler and Mariner’s friend is a sort of cautionary tale, and his fate will in hindsight foreshadow the end of the season.

>character - I don’t think any of our the four main characters particularly shine this time.

>essential - Nope.

notable guest-stars:

Jack McBrayer (Badgey)

J.G. Hertzler

Star Trek: Lower Decks 1x5 “Cupid’s Errant Arrow” Review

 rating: **

the story: Mariner is convinced Boimler’s girlfriend can’t be real.

review: Well, I guess it had to happen. “Cupid’s Errant Arrow” is the first episode of Lower Decks that didn’t really work for me.

Everything about it feels like the series at its most basic level, in fact everything we’ve already seen...again. The worst part is that for the first time, Boimler is reduced to being the butt of the joke rather than actively participating in it. In fact, it’s kind of a whole episode that’s theoretically about him but instead is about Mariner’s desperate attempts to uncover the truth about his girlfriend.

Tendi and Rutherford get a subplot about how much better everything is on another ship, but they learn it comes with a price, that the crew there is under immense pressure...because they experience big wacky events all the time. Except literally every episode of Lower Decks has pivoted around big wacky events, too. And therein lies the danger of the series: calling too much attention to the fact that it doesn’t really follow its own premise.

In fact, the other subplot is another big dramatic Starfleet mission the crew of a third-rate Starfleet ship is...still involved in. I mean, I get that this is an animated series in an era where big wacky events are expected to happen every episode, and that half of Lower Decks is the funny version of Star Trek. But there have to be some limits. Even Orville frustrates viewers just expecting funny Star Trek, because as often as not it’s actually trying to...just be Star Trek(ish). 

Anyway, there’s nothing that particularly stands out this episode. You might call it the one where the creators were finally done enjoying how great the original idea was and then just took it for granted.

criteria analysis:

>franchise - If you’re already a Star Trek fan there’s little to gain from watching this one. Except that one alien who was fighting for the right to inhabit a whole planet with his wife. In context it’s the best bit of the episode, and nothing you would ordinarily see in the franchise.

>series - Which I guess I’ll use as the reason to watch Lower Decks this episode. It’s a great punchline, however deeply buried it is in everything else.

>character - Since it’s really a Mariner episode, it’s worth watching for that, including a flashback scene that’s kind of fun.

>essential - Not essential. Nope. Move along home!

Star Trek: Lower Decks 1x4 “Moist Vessel” Review

rating: ***

the story: Freeman tries to alienate Mariner by promoting her.

review: The one thing Lower Decks hadn’t really done in its first three episodes was really emphasize what its concept was really supposed to be, the idea that it followed around junior officers doing truly mundane work. There were a lot of riffs on traditional Star Trek tropes (which really suggests this was a crew of complainers rather than a ship that did less interesting things than any other characters we’ve followed), and sure, we saw our main characters, the junior officers, doing routine work, but never to the point where it seemed they were really that different from the command staff.

But here’s Mariner to save the day again!

If “Temporal Edict” was a Boimler spotlight, “Moist Vessel” is Mariner’s, putting a hard focus on her relationship with Freeman (her mom), who has decided she’s had enough of Mariner’s lax attitude and will do anything to get her to request a transfer.

(We also get a subplot with Tendi concerning a colleague “ascending,” a spiritual development that’s interesting.)

Anyway, what this means is that Freeman tries two very different ways to achieve this. The first is to assign Mariner the very worst tasks. This doesn’t work because Mariner finds a way to enjoy them.

Then Freeman stoops even lower. She promotes Mariner!

This is actually the best element of the episode, in which we discover all the mundane duties Mariner is suddenly required to perform as a lieutenant, which are typified by the boring meetings she’s forced to attend. As viewers we’re conditioned to view meetings as dramatic events in which unique perspectives and brilliant decisions are the point. But meetings are meetings. So through Mariner we get a better sense of what being in Starfleet is probably really like.

criteria analysis:

>series - An excellent use of the central premise.

>franchise - Ever find yourself romanticizing Starfleet? Watch this!

>character- Mariner’s worst nightmare is career advancement. Apparently she’s successfully worked against it for years!

>essential - Insofar as we get to laugh about an admiral pronouncing “sensor” funny. Would have been a bigger statement by deciding something about Mariner and Freeman’s relationship.

notable guest-stars:

Haley Joel Osment

Star Trek: Lower Decks 1x3 “Temporal Edict” Review

 rating: ****

the story: Boimler accidentally reveals to the captain how most of the crew functions by padding out their work time.

the review: If there’s a potential breakout episode among the first three of the series, it’s this one. I loved the Boimler/Mariner dynamic in the first two, but separating them turns out to if anything be even better.

Mariner is the best character in the series, but her story in “Temporal Edict” is the weaker, generally speaking, of the two. The effect is to set up a potential romance with Ransom (his biggest spotlight so far) as they square off in an “Arena” riff. So I’m not really going to focus on that (though pending future developments this could become more significant).

Instead: the Boimler Effect, folks.

Boimler’s best moment in the episode is when everyone else is freaking out and struggling to perform routine tasks for n the time allotted by Freeman (and now I know the captain’s name; previously, for me, she was better known as “Mariner’s mom), which for Boimler is no big deal at all, as he strolls the halls of the Cerritos (and maybe I know that now, too! it wasn’t until this, Discovery and Picard that I actively demonstrated in these reviews having to learn basic facts in Star Trek, because these are “real time” reactions where all the previous ones are retrospective; there was legitimately a time I had no idea what a Cardassian actually was, and that was when I was actively engaged in the franchise and expected to know these things by my family, in which I was the resident “expert,” which as this side note expands I assure you is all the more accurate now than ever before).

Anyway, Boimler’s whole thing is that he loves serving in Starfleet under its standard operating procedures. He’s the picture of a generic officer, which because we’ve...never seen this before (the closest is Harry Kim, but even he tried desperately to prove himself to Torres and Paris right from the start in Voyager). He loves going by the book. 

And...basically no one else does. He loves it so much it’s easy for him. When it’s just Mariner in contrast, it looks like he’s weird because she’s so awesome (generally speaking), but set against...everyone else, you realize, this guy’s like the Vulcan of Starfleet officers. Which because he isn’t Vulcan makes him all the more fun to follow.

So imagine his reaction when his biggest victory turns into his biggest defeat: by convincing Freeman to lax the rules (for everyone else), he actually sends the message that everything he stands for...is an impossible standard that no Starfleet officer should ever be held to. And gets that distinction named after him: “the Boimler Effect.”

Anyway, the whole thing feels like the best statement of the series to date, very close at the very least to some of the best of the Short Treks. I could very well bump it up to classic status at a future date, depending on how much better the series itself could get.

And then, just because this is the episode that keeps on giving: there’s a wonderful nod to Miles O’Brien at the end.

Okay, okay, I talked myself into it: This one’s a classic.

criteria analysis:

>series - Well worth watching as a fan of Lower Decks itself.

>franchise - A wry commentary on being a Starfleet officer.

>character - Boimler fully in the spotlight.

>essential - A truly defining moment for him, in fact.

notable guest-stars:

Jerry O’Connell

Star Trek: Lower Decks 1x2 “Envoys” Review

 rating: ***

the story: Boimler and Mariner pilot a Klingon ambassador to an embassy.

the review: This second episode is less manic and steeped more in familiar franchise elements (notably, Klingon), but at heart sticks to the same winning formula of showcasing how great a lead character Mariner is.

Technically Boimler drives the plot again, but it’s Mariner, how she plays off him and even in a last second reveal again is given more depth. Her role seems to be the living embodiment of rejecting all the stereotypes someone might have about a Starfleet officer, and by “someone” I mean people who don’t typically watch Star Trek. Of course, fans will know it’s not just Kirk who tends to go off-book. In a lot of ways Mariner embodies the later Jadzia Dax (initially, Deep Space Nine depicts her far more conservatively, and even the new Dax host Ezri seems more like a Boimler than a Mariner), especially in her unexpected ability to bond with Klingons (and Ferengi).

The dynamic between Boimler and Mariner is formulaic until the end of the episode, when it’s Boimler bragging to his friends about their adventure. It’s nice to see him as something other than the nebbish wannabe, a counterpoint to Mariner’s relaxed experience.

We get a better contrast with the two other lead characters, Tendi and Rutherford. Tendi’s the green one, Rutherford the one with a cybernetic implant. Tendi, who was initially presented as a potential viewer surrogate, still has little to actually do, while Rutherford questions his career path and tries out every other available track, giving viewers hilarious examples of how they can go wrong (and right!), and also how Starfleet is a generally accepting organization, encouraging him in all his decisions. Anyway, it’s a great spotlight for him.

Just the endless fun the episode has with familiar and new aliens is worth celebrating. Where the original animated series allowed itself to let loose visually, there’s a sense that Lower Decks might actually serve best to let, say, the Klingons be fully Klingons. Even better, we have a Ferengi who nails both the shifty original vision seen in Next Generation and the more nuanced one we see in Deep Space Nine. 

All of which is to say, I think I’m really beginning to enjoy this version of Star Trek.

criteria analysis:

>franchise: It’s a great way to see the Star Trek landscape.

>series: It’s a great way to settle into Lower Decks itself.

>character: Mariner and Rutherford have excellent spotlights.

>essential: Still waiting to see how deep all this can actually get.

notable guest-stars:

Jerry O’Connell is technically a part of the regular cast, but his character First Officer Jack Ransom has a token appearance in this episode. When he has something substantial to do, as in the previous episode, I’ll list him here, as I did then.