Lower Decks: Mugato, Gumato

Star Trek series are known to shift tones from week to week, offering a comedy one week, a mystery the next, something else the week after that. In its latest episode, Lower Decks seemed to do its own version of a tonal shift, veering into more crass humor than it has generally embraced.

The Cerritos is sent to investigate the sighting of a Mugato on a planet to which the alien creatures are not native. Rutherford and Boimler get separated from Mariner during the away mission... and aren't too keen to reunite with her, as it appears a rumor about Mariner has been confirmed: she might be a Starfleet Black Ops agent on an assignment to kill them all. Meanwhile, Tendi is tasked by Dr. T'Ana with completing scheduled physicals with reluctant crew members.

If I rewind in my head and try to remember what I thought Lower Decks might be before I watched the first episode, "Mugato, Gumato" might be it. In teasers, it sure came on with strong Rick & Morty vibes -- and no wonder, as it was created by Mike McMahan, a staff writer for that series (who also co-created Solar Opposites). This episode is actually written by another writer, Ben Rodgers, but it includes a lot of jokes that I'm sure some viewers will take offense to (despite the content warning clearly displayed at the start of the episode).

So yes, we got an episode that includes one character repeatedly tasting animal scat, two characters hiding as alien creatures energetically mate nearby (with an enthusiastic audience), and a guest star getting his head bitten off as a major laugh line. Not only will all that shock some section of the audience, I imagine another handful will be turned off by the "obvious" jokes involving Dr. T'Ana as a cat -- hiding under the shuttle, and fighting a medical exam with every fiber of her being. (I found those hilarious.)

Personally, I'm fine with Lower Decks stretching its legs and getting a bit "PG-13" every now and then. It was a bit more "sitcom-like" too, with the main plot being a take on a classic sitcom formula: one main character is humorous misunderstood by another (resulting in a half-hour of hijinks before they finally talk to each other). If Lower Decks is going to run for the long haul -- and I truly hope it does -- then it will need to try different things like this along the way.

Beside, there were still plenty of in-jokes here for the long-time Trekkers. A lot of these were of the "pointing out when Star Trek has mustard on its chin" variety, jokes that I'd say would also annoy a small slice of the audience -- though I reckon the Trekkers who can't take such jokes stopped watching Lower Decks long ago. Mariner smashed the fourth wall commenting on the transformation of the Ferengi from "Last Outpost" whip-cracking baddies into their more familiar form. Rutherford and Boimler totally built an "Arena" style Gorn-buster gun. Boimler rattles off a parade of increasingly implausible starship infiltrators from franchise history.

And, of course, the episode title itself is the biggest Star Trek in-joke of all. The "Mugato" was inconsistently named in the original series episode where it appeared ("A Private Little War"), including in that episode's own credits, where it was called a "Gumato." The story goes that DeForest Kelley kept slipping up on the intended "Gumato," so they decided on the fly to change it to "Mugato" -- which Shatner and Kelley then went on to just call a "Mugatu" more often than not. Lower Decks turned that joke up to 11, giving us countless more ways to pronounce the creature's name -- often by the same character, in the same scene. It made me laugh every time.

More than perhaps any other Lower Decks episode, I suspect "Muagto, Gumato" won't be to some people's tastes. I quite enjoyed it, though, giving it a B+.