Star Trek episodes traditionally have an A and a B story. The A story normally comprises the bulk of the episode and deals with the important stuff, while the B story takes up less time and tends to deal with more character-based plotlines. For example, while Picard’s off dealing with vital, galaxy-saving issues, Data can be twatting around trying to deal with his cat’s fleas.
Episodes do occasionally mix this up. A particularly good example is DS9’s In The Cards, which relegated the important Dominion war story to the background, and instead focussed on Jake and Nog trying to obtain a baseball card for Sisko. More often, episodes dispense with the B story altogether, or as here introduce yet another storyline – something very ambitious when you’ve only got 25 minutes to tell all your stories.
It’s also traditional that the episode’s title relates to the A-story, something else that this episode subverts. Voyager’s erstwhile helmsman appears – both in person and as a collectible plate (obviously) – but is nowhere to be seen in the main story, and plays only a small part in Boimler’s subplot. Perhaps they wanted to show off their guest star (Robert Duncan McNeill), or perhaps the title – not only based on Casablanca, but also a not-very-good first season Next Generation episode – was too delicious to pass up.
So here we have Mariner and Tendi going off on their mission together (or as they call it “girls trip!”) Boimler dealing with his feelings of no longer belonging on the Cerritos, and Rutherford being freaked out by an inexplicably resurrected Shaxs (who died saving him in the season one finale).
The bulk of the screen time, as well as the most entertaining storyline, is given over to Mariner and Tendi, who are assigned by the Caitian Doctor T’Ana (essentially a giant, sentient cat with a bad attitude) to retrieve a family heirloom from Qualor II – the storage depot featured in TNG’s Unification. Weirdly the settlement looks nothing like its previous appearance, instead being a dead ringer for Freecloud from Picard’s Stardust City Rag (note cameo appearances from a ‘Quark’s’ franchise, as well as Vic Fontaine’s bar).
Needless to say, things go wrong. After retrieving the heirloom – a Caitian libido post (it turns out T’Ana is on heat) – the pair manage to accidentally break it. This then leads them to a starbase and a game of dom-jot with a group of Nausicans (because when has that ever ended badly?), which causes the post getting damaged further. Then, after Tendi’s protests that not all Orions are thieves and pirates, they head to visit her cousin on a thieves’ den on an Orion pirate outpost.
Besides Mariner having to ‘green up,’ (which she feels is not very PC), she learns a lot more about Tendi, including her first name, – D’Vana – that she’s Mistress of the Winter Constellations (whatever that means), as well as a total badass around other Orions, which makes her super uncomfortable. Oh, and the post gets utterly destroyed.
More important than this is the revelation that the two friends actually know very little about each other. Besides being oblivious to Tendi’s background, Mariner is also surprised by her musical tastes, which, considering she’s into Klingon acid punk rock, isn’t surprising. Tendi meanwhile is surprised by the number of Mariner’s former assignments (five ships and Deep Space Nine!) and her revelation that she’s into “bad boys, bad girls, bad gender non-binary babes, ruthless alien masterminds, bad Bynars.”
Say what you like about Alex Kurtzman’s stewardship of Trek (and we have), LGBTQ+ representation has come on leaps and bounds during his tenure. We’ve gone from coy implications that Garek had a thing for Bashir without being allowed to say it outright, to a show’s lead character casually dropping into conversation that she’s pansexual (is that still the right term if it includes aliens?) and it being no big deal, which is just the way it should be. Also, compared to the somewhat heavy-handed attempts modern Trek has made with queer issues (Gray’s subplot on Discovery where he’s invisible to all but his partner and his desire to be ‘seen’ springs to mind), kudos to the writers for sneaking the revelation in so naturally.
Anyway, the result of all this is that Mariner decides to cover for Tendi by crashing their shuttle into the Cerritos (by which we mean, bouncing harmlessly off its shields) blaming it all on a space bee, and getting sent to the brig again. T’Ana on the other hand is delighted, not caring about the smashed heirloom, but only wanting to climb inside the box it came in and do weird things to it. Presumably because there were no boxes anywhere on board the ship. And because cats are weird c***s.
The episode’s B-story deals with Boimler’s feelings about being back on the Cerritos. Due to new security protocols, the ship no longer recognises him, doors don’t open, replicators don’t work, and the computer doesn’t obey his commands. Not only is this symbolic of the ensign being unsure where he belongs – the ship he thought of as home no longer seems to want him – it’s complicating his desire to get visiting dignitary Tom Paris to sign his collectible Paris plate (available now for the bargain price of $29.99 – no, we’re not kidding). After crawling through Jeffries tubes, almost getting cremated, poisoned, and hallucinating the plate talking to him, a dishevelled Boimler finally drops onto the bridge only for Paris to mistake him for a Kazon and beat him up.
Weird subplot of the week though goes to Rutherford. After former security chief Shaxs reappears, fit and well, aboard ship (as we predicted a couple of weeks back, based on little clues like the actor’s name still being in the opening credits and him being in the trailer) Rutherford is obsessed with finding out how he’s returned from the dead. Despite his friends’ assurances that members of bridge crews are always dying and being resurrected by various means (to be fair, not a trope exclusive to Trek), and despite witnessing another crew member being reassigned just for having the nerve to ask, Rutherford plucks up the courage to ask the security chief. It turns out that methods do exist, and those that don’t need to know (presumably non-regulars in most Trek series) aren’t privy to them as they’re too disturbing. We’re spared the details, but judging by Rutherford’s reaction, they’re not much fun.
It’s a strange way of bringing Shaxs back, and despite the fun of listing various methods (as well as visualising some possibilities, such as Borg and mirror universe versions of him), ultimately unsatisfying. Still, it’s great to have him back, even if it means his replacement, Kayshon has been relagated to a background character.
We’ll always have Tom Paris is a packed episode of Lower Decks. There’s a little too much going on for its own good. We’d have liked to spend more time with Mariner and Tendi (ironically for a mission where they bond and find out more about each other, we’re left wanting to know more about the pair). And although it’s great to have Robert Duncan McNeill back as Paris, the episode hardly has time for him beyond a few lines. The episode has three potentially fascinating storylines, but the Boimler and Rutherford stories in particular feel short-changed. Moving one plot (we nominate the Rutherford/Shaxs one) to another episode would have given the others more room to breathe.
It’s a fun episode of Lower Decks, but ultimately, by trying to give all four characters a story, an unsatisfying one. Normally it pairs the characters up, giving the show two plots, and adequate room for each. By splitting the cast three ways – and throwing in a big Trek guest star to boot – it struggles under the weight of its parts. Those Tom Paris commemorative plates are seriously cool though.
New episodes of STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS premiere Fridays in the UK on Amazon Prime Video
For our previous STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS reviews, click below:
