Lower Decks: Room for Growth

The newest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks was something of a "what if?" scenario -- what if we saw what happens after the events of a familiar Star Trek episode?

A shipboard crisis (another "ancient alien mask" incident) has passed, but restoring the Cerritos to normal has run the engineering team ragged. Captain Freeman is determined to help them unwind, leading them on a relaxation spa excursion that only seems to stress everyone. Meanwhile, Mariner, Boimler, and Tendi team up to rig a lottery for upgraded quarters, spurred to cheating when they hear that their rivals on Delta Shift are planning to do the same.

I thought last week's Lower Decks episode tipped the perfect balance a little bit, packing just as many jokes as the best installments of the series, while not being as strong in serving up a "Star Trek plot." This week's episode felt like it had the opposite balance to me: the "Star Trek-iness" of it all felt pretty  strong, but there weren't quite as many laughs as usual.

Mind you, there was still plenty of funny, of course. From great sight gags like "the puppy room" (and a shout-out to us weirdos who prefer kittens), to continuing the show's own running jokes like Towel Guy, to an extended conversation about how to invite someone into your room (that wisely avoided becoming as low-brow as it could have) -- I definitely laughed throughout the episode. And there was plenty of the meta commentary that I particularly enjoy, jabs at how Geordi LaForge has no hobbies, and even a self-depracating joke about "bold Boimler" not being "sustainable."

Still, I thought this episode was one of the least "joke dense" Lower Decks in a while, and part of that was that the story really was focused on delivering the promise in the title: showing character growth. I certainly wouldn't have said before this episode that Mariner, Boimler, and Tendi (and Rutherford, for that matter) felt like they weren't close, but the trio's adventure throughout the guts of the Cerritos seemed like a fun bonding experience for them. The resolution was oddly on-brand for Star Trek too, basically that you have to be better than your enemy -- even though the "enemy" in this case was Delta Shift. (Shout-out to the character design of the Deltas, by the way. Their shapes perfectly matched that of Mariner, Boimler, and Tendi, even as their details differed.)

The relaxation spa storyline was more zany, yet it too felt oddly Trek-like to me -- probably because it's been a long-running element of multiple Star Trek series that many characters don't seem like they know how to relax. (The only ones here who seemed to be doing that well? Shaxs and T'Ana!) Plus, boil it all down to its simplest essentials, and the episode was just saying that different people like different things.

I suppose what I like is for Lower Decks to be a bit more madcap and wild -- that's what this series can give me that other Trek series don't. Still, I absolutely enjoyed the episode even if I wouldn't call it a classic. I give "Room for Growth" a B.