What we have this week is a normal episode of Lower Decks, albeit one that continues two themes from the two-episode season premiere week: Boimler trying to be more like his alternate-universe counterpart, whom he met and admired in “Dos Cerritos,” and the proclivity for quantum fissures that prompted their mission in that same episode.
Unfortunately, the A-plot this time focuses on dating adventures, which puts LD back in the mode at which it is least interesting: a twenty-first-century sitcom crowbarred into a Trek setting. Jennifer-the-Andorian goes on an away mission with Mariner, Tendi, and Rutherford to get rid of a nanite infestation on a resort station, and Jennifer immediately starts acting like she and Mariner are still dating. Mariner is appalled, because they broke up ages ago (right around when Mariner was exiled to Starbase 80 in “Trusted Sources”). Except, when she goes over what happened, she realizes that she didn’t actually break up, she just gave Jennifer the silent treatment and assumed she’d understand. And their respective duties have kept them away from each other in any case, so they haven’t talked until now. So now Mariner has to actually break up with her.
This plot is tiresome for a number of reasons, not the least being that it’s a little too early-twenty-first century. And I still wince every time we see this Andorian named “Jennifer.” LD has dipped a little too much into the “they’re aliens, but they have boring white-person names! Ha! Ha! That’s funny!” well. Plus Jennifer just isn’t that interesting.
Another reason is that this is yet another “oh God, Mariner is the worst” plot, which grew tiresome around the one-third mark of season one. I’ve said all along that Mariner would be better off being modeled after Chris Knight in Real Genius, the veteran officer who has seen it all and has stopped giving a fuck, and recent seasons have given us more of that (e.g., booing missions that seem boring, like in “Caves”). But this is back to Mariner just being rotten and no fun to be around. Before she has a chance to properly break up with Jennifer, the Andorian reveals that she’s transferring to another ship, so this is their last mission together before they will be physically far apart. Mariner is relieved, as circumstance has prevented her from having to do something unpleasant, she can just let Jennifer transfer off, and it’ll be just like they actually broke up!
What we learn this week is that Jennifer is just as horrible a person as Mariner. (Well, okay, we kinda knew that from the way Jennifer used Mariner to tweak her salon in “Hear All, Trust Nothing.”) Eventually she reveals that she knew damn well that Mariner’s silent treatment was breaking up with her, but Jennifer wanted to make Mariner actually do it before Jennifer transferred off. They have it out, and wind up breaking up less acrimoniously, and remain friends—or, as Jennifer puts it, she finally has an ex who doesn’t want to kill her. Lovely.
This being a Star Trek show, the big conversation where they have it out happens while both are clutching to a palm tree while a giant nanite infestation is consuming everything in its path.
The nanites—Rutherford names the collective nanites “Glump,” which is adorable—resist all attempts to capture them, though eventually Rutherford figures out a solution, because of course he does. And it involves T’Lyn, in another bit that I wasn’t entirely enthusiastic about: the oh-so-logical-and-stoic Vulcan goes all fangirl on a popular singer named Korg. She even gets to use his instruments—vibes—to create a resonance frequency that will shatter the nanite bond and block the intelligence controlling them.
It’s cute that T’Lyn has this weakness, but it’s a little too constructed. Tendi later gets Korg’s autograph on a padd for T’Lyn, and her initial response is that it’s a pointless gift, but she keeps it anyhow, because she might need it for handwriting analysis later. Ha! Ha! That’s funny!
The more interesting plot is Boimler’s. He’s assigned with Ransom and Billups to go undercover to retrieve an admiral who’s gone AWOL. Boimler, however, is all nervous because just before he goes off with the first officer and chief engineer, he sees Jet on his way to sickbay. Jet warns Boimler that Ransom is a crazy man who gets his junior officers hurt: on their just-completed mission together, Jet lost both his hands.
This, at least, feels like a Trek comedy plot. After all, a cliché of the franchise since practically the very beginning has been the junior officers on the off-ship mission (whether landing party or away team) being the ones who get hurt or killed, thus showing that there’s danger without actually endangering a regular. And Boimler is now scared to death that he’s the designated victim on this mission. As a result, he screws up any number of things he normally wouldn’t, like eating and drinking in front of Kreetassans and giving away that he’s Starfleet while on an undercover mission.
However, when it seems like the AWOL admiral has converted Boimler to his side of the fence—he’s fed up with the crummy assignments he’s gotten since being promoted to flag rank, like being in charge of milking space whales—Ransom and Billups make it clear that they wanted Boimler along because he’s a good officer. (Also, he’s wiry. As Billups says, you always need a wiry guy.)
Unlike Mariner, who remains stuck in neutral five years in, we’ve gotten to watch Boimler evolve from the callow ensign into the type of highly competent officer that we come to expect from our Trek characters. And, true to how evolution works, it’s happening very very slowly. But it is happening!
The nanites have been directed by a Starfleet ship—an extremely tiny Starfleet ship. It turns out to be another vessel from an alternate timeline, but in their universe, everything is way smaller. The admiral returns from duty and is assigned to help the micro-ship out. (Her captain is surprised, saying that the admiral’s counterpart in their universe is off milking space whales…) This is the second time we’ve had a universe crossover, and one suspects this will all build toward something…
Random thoughts
- T’Lyn also meets Korg, and he turns out to be a devotee of logic, which just makes T’Lyn an even bigger fan. That’s the sort of thing we don’t see enough of in Trek: people from one species embracing the culture of a different species. It has shown up here and there—Ensign D’Seve in TNG’s “Face of the Enemy,” for example—but we should be seeing more of it.
- Boimler now has a lot of stubble. He’s obviously very very slowly working his way toward growing the beard that his alternate-universe counterpart had in “Dos Cerritos.”
- Kreetassans and their taboo against eating and drinking in front of other people were introduced in Enterprise’s “Vox Sola.”
- Finally, this episode has a historic moment, as we see Gallamites for the first time! Established in DS9’s “The Maquis, Part I” has having toothy smiles and transparent skulls so you can see their brains. It was a running gag on DS9, with Dax having a friendship with a Gallamite captain named Boday. In this LD episode, we see Gallamites, and they have big teeth, the tops of their heads are transparent, showing their brains, and they also look surprisingly Saurian, which is a nice touch.
