Veritas

The latest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks offered a riff on a staple Star Trek plot, the courtroom drama.

The "lower decks" gang is made to testify about a secret mission involving the Romulan Neutral Zone -- though some of them clearly don't know as much as others. Different, hole-riddled accounts by Mariner, Rutherford, and Tendi build to a reveal about what the aliens questioning them are really after.

Whatever small quibbles I may have had with different Lower Decks episodes so far (not that many, in the grand scheme of things), one thing I've never questioned is the love of Star Trek by those writing it. That quality was center stage this week. Nothing in the episode suggests they were trying to take any of the great Trek courtroom episodes down a peg... and so they can get away with jokes about Star Trek's... shall we say... lower quality moments, like the reference to Uhura's embarrassing Star Trek V fan dance. (The early debate about the "cool factor" of Roga Danar felt so inside that it hit me almost like a joke not just on Star Trek, but on the Star Trek CCG particularly: why is this random guy from that one episode such a badass?)

Certainly, the format this week allowed for a lot of references to be made. Like last week's episode, this Lower Decks was a break from the format in terms of how it grouped the characters. This time, the core four were all together, with flashbacks utilized to isolate them in their own subplots. Rutherford's disjointed flashback, interrupted by "reboots," was just a fun vehicle for almost improv-scene one-liners. ("Your scene is... 'Gorn Wedding.'") Tendi's imperfectly redacted flashback used bleeps on top of bleeps to fun effect.

There was great guest star power this week too. Kurtwood Smith returned to Star Trek to voice the lead alien, squeezing every ounce of menace from each syllable. Plus, of course, there was the cameo by John de Lancie, returning to the role of Q for the first time in decades. And if somehow you didn't enjoy any of that? Well, there were some funny jokes about a tank of eels, too.

I think this may have been my favorite episode of Lower Decks to this point. Certainly, it made me laugh harder than any so far. Maybe the character building wasn't as strong this time out... but this many episodes in, they can probably afford to have one episode that isn't really building up characters (who by now we know). I give "Veritas" a B+.