Lower Decks: wej Duj

Every episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks is sprinkled with references to the rest of the Star Trek franchise. But the latest episode, "wej Duj" (Klingon for "Three Ships"), used that history in a different and clever way.

There's a long warp journey ahead for the Cerritos, and the Lower Deckers are spending the time with senior staffers they've grown close to... except for Boimler, who needs to find himself a "bridge buddy." Meanwhile, we see what life is like for the Lower Deckers on the Klingon ship Che'ta' and the Vulcan ship Sh'vhal.

This episode isn't so much riffing on the plot of a specific Star Trek episode (save, perhaps, "Lower Decks" itself). Instead, it's leveraging the fact that 50+ years of Star Trek have taught us all exactly what Klingons and Vulcans are like. Where another animated show might need seasons of setup to do an episode like this, Lower Decks can just drop us into the honorable violence of a Klingon ship, or the restrictive logic of a Vulcan ship, and it almost already brings a smile to your face.

Of course, they didn't stop there. The comedy was inspired, particularly aboard the Vulcan ship, with constant wry jokes about T'Lyn's "emotional outbursts." (You know Vulcans have to be well aware that the surest way to rile someone up even more is to say, basically, "you mad, bro?")

The Klingon ship was perhaps not quite as funny, but only because Lower Decks actually dared to tell a fairly complex story there. Hints of a Pakled alliance have been dropped throughout the season, and here that was paid off with the revelation that in between the one-liners and sight gags, Lower Decks has also been giving us a gentle season-long story arc. Ambitious stuff, and it worked pretty well.

I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again, but the Pakleds really are the perfect baddie for Lower Decks, a not-to-be-taken-too-seriously threat that doesn't disrupt the flow of comedy that's the show's main agenda. There seems to be an inexhaustible well of "how dumb is a Pakled" jokes to be mined; this week, we learned that this Pakled ship (and quite possibly all of them) is named "Pakled," and that a crisis triggers a hilariously whiny "red alarm!"

While this episode did represent a break in formula for the series, it still made room for the usual one-off references: the "we need to keep a PG rating" pinkish Klingon blood from Star Trek VI, Boimler donning Kirk's rock climbing shirt and Spock's rocket boots from Star Trek V, and Freeman wearing a "RITOS" shirt just like the Discovery crew's "DISCO" off-duty wear.

It all added up to yet another excellent episode for season two of Lower Decks. I give "wej Duj" an A-. I'm both excited for the finale next episode, and disappointed that it means it'll be the last new episode we get for a while.