Lower Decks: An Embarrassment of Dooplers

The latest episode of Lower Decks was, to me, the weakest episode so far in the second season. Even at that, it was a solid and entertaining one.

The Cerritos is escorting a diplomat from a race that self-duplicates as an emotional response to stress; stress ensues. Mariner and Boimler try to sneak into an exclusive Starfleet party. And Tendi and Rutherford are building a working model of the Cerritos, which begins to make Rutherford doubt his engineering skills.

The fact that Lower Decks is an animated show is sometimes used to help normalize its wackier concepts. This week, it was used to realize a huge new environment that none of the live action Star Trek series would ever be able to afford on its budget. Starbase 25 is enormous as depicted here, with a huge mall that one imagines the Deep Space Nine promenade was meant to be, a lakeside retreat, a massive ballroom, and much, much more. Whether you have a hard time reckoning with Lower Decks as "Star Trek canon" or not, it can nevertheless engage in world-building on a fun and epic scale.

This episode made me realize just how important the characters have become to the Lower Decks formula, even in relatively few episodes... because the focus was pulled away from them at times in this episode that didn't feel natural to me. Richard Kind is a funny actor (and he can pull on your heartstrings too)... but he's always going to be 100% recognizably Richard Kind. His distinctive voice featuring so prominently in this episode subconsciously steered me toward thinking of American Dad, Big Mouth, and other animated shows he appears on.

Then there was -- as far as I can recall -- the first instances of "cutaway gags" (or something close to them) in Lower Decks. More than once during the "car chase" sequence, the camera lingered with random characters as they delivered zingers almost to the camera. It's a kind of joke that's very cartoony, but thus far not very Lower Decksy, and they felt quite jarring and off to me.

Still, the show once again served up some effective and poignant stories amid the jokes and Star Trek fan service. The two stories of friendship -- Mariner and Boimler fully reconciling, and Tendi reassuring Rutherford -- were typical of the non-cynical course that Lower Decks charts for its humor, stories that would fit in just fine on any Star Trek series.

If this is what now qualifies as a "bad episode" for Lower Decks, then it has quickly found its way and might just be the most consistent, quality Star Trek series yet. I give "An Embarrassment of Dooplers" a B.