Lower Decks: Mining the Mind's Mines

The newest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, "Mining the Mind's Mines," was the weakest of this still-young season. But that's more a testament to the quality of the episodes so far than an indictment of this episode itself.

The crew of the Cerritos must work with the crew of the Carlsbad to clear dangerous artifacts from a survey site, which have been turning Federation scientists into statues. The artifacts trigger tantalizing visions and grand nightmares, posing quite a challenge for the away teams. Meanwhile, Tendi's science officer training begins... with a mentor she was not expecting.

I found the first two episodes of Lower Decks season three to be truly excellent because they were credible Star Trek episodes that also happened to be funny. This week's episode was no less funny, but felt less to me like a legit Star Trek episode and more like a sitcom in a Star Trek costume. That works well enough -- and honestly, it was all I expected Lower Decks to be as a series, back when it began. But with Lower Decks now having shown again and again that it can do both, I've come to expect more from it.

Basically, it comes down to multiple moments in the episode that turned on characters behaving oddly for the sake of the joke. Captain Freeman will never be in the conversation for "best Star Trek captain," and that's the point -- it's why she commands a California-class starship. But for her and the captain of the Carlsbad to openly feud in front of a delegation at an important diplomatic meeting felt more like a story from a Parks and Recreation or The Office than Star Trek.

Mariner getting caught up in a rivalry is certainly on brand for her character, but the Carlsbad "lower deckers" responding in kind felt a little off to me too. In fact, they were so oddly belligerent, and then so quickly turned on a dime to confess their true feelings, that I initially suspected that the versions of them trapped in the cave with Mariner and company were in fact more fantasies conjured by the alien orbs.

The subplot around Tendi seemed a bit off to me too. It just felt like a stretch, a suggestion for an improv scene, that Starfleet at any level would have unqualified and inexperienced offers training up-and-comers. But all that said, I realize those quibbles start to sound a bit "not my Star Trek" and gatekeepery -- which I very much don't want to be. Especially when they really are just quibbles. So the story this week wasn't top notch. It still worked overall. And certainly, it was very funny.

Plus, it's not like the series forgot to be Star Trek this week. For the third week in a row, an inspired cameo voice made for lots of laughs; this time, it was Susan Gibney returning to voice Leah Brahms as engineer's crush, a full circle for where the character began. The various nightmares conjured by the alien orbs were a grab bag of great sight gags, from giant Borg snakes to killer clowns with bat'leth hands to one of the weirdest things ever shown on the very weird Star Trek: The Animated Series -- the flying serpent Kukulkan.

So no, I don't really have any major complaints here -- just the acknowledgement that recently, Lower Decks has been even better than this. I give "Mining the Mind's Mines" a B. If this is actually the lowest point of the season, then we're truly being spoiled by this fun series.