Lower Decks: Reflections

The typical Lower Decks episode has a big story line for Mariner or Boimler (or both), while occasionally letting one of the other characters step up from their normal, secondary role. This week's episode highlighted a character who hasn't often taken center stage, Rutherford.

An issue with Rutherford's implant resurfaces memories from the accident which led to its installation -- including a second, very different personality from that time frame. Meanwhile, Mariner and Boimler are assigned to staff the Starfleet recruitment kiosk at a planetside fair -- an assignment Ransom has arranged to test Mariner's patience.

This week's Lower Decks balanced Star Trek and comedy by having each of the two story lines focus mainly on one of those aspects. The Rutherford plot was doing the heavy narrative lifting, of course. His implant has always been a curiosity; maybe they would explain how they got it, and maybe they wouldn't. I found it interesting that filling in that back story teed up an ongoing mystery for the show to explore. While the Lower Decks collection of running gags is always growing, the show doesn't tend to hang on to dramatic story lines for long. Just as the Pakleds' scheming resolved in one season (and Captain Freeman's arrest wrapped up immediately after a cliffhanger hiatus), I wonder if we're going to find out more about Rutherford's history soon, or if this is a mystery they'll spool out over a longer period of time?

Of course, the way that mystery was explored was through a Star Trek staple, the "personality split." The form was slightly different this time, in a fun way. This wasn't quite "two halves of Rutherford" or some such -- this was showing us that Rutherford actually used to be a different person than he is now, and it pit those two against each other in a fun mindscape. I don't tire of the recurring motif on Lower Decks that "friendship is a personal strength," but it's usually Mariner at the core of that message; it was nice seeing that told from Rutherford's perspective.

Mariner and Boimler's story line was where most of the comedy came from. (And yes, a story about "working a booth at a convention" resonated deeply in my bones.) The parade of Star Trek references  -- both called out in dialogue, and just shown as Easter eggs -- was fun as usual. (Face cut-outs to pose as Kirk and Spock kept making me smile even the tenth time they showed it.) I enjoyed how the premise let Lower Decks play with Star Trek's general fuzziness about "just how militaristic an organization is Starfleet?" And it all paid off with a fun role reversal in the end, when Boimler (not Mariner) flipped out and became the violent agent of chaos.

It's become clear that there's never really a "dud" episode of Lower Decks. (Don't go proving me wrong on that, Lower Decks!) There are only degrees of how enjoyable each episode is. I'd give this one a B+. We're now halfway through the season, and I'm already starting to feel just a touch of sadness about how fast we're burning through them.