The Cerritos is tasked to transport the U.S.S. Voyager, which has just undergone extensive refurbishing, to its final home in a Starfleet museum. But a transporter mishap combines T'Ana and Billups into a hybrid "Tuvix"-style lifeform... and that's only the first of several threats from Voyager's history that soon return, from macroviruses to Chaotica to a menacing clown. Meanwhile, Boimler feels the pressure after Ransom tells him a promotion is imminent.
When Lower Decks staged its Deep Space Nine episode, they included returning DS9 cast members. With Voyager, they take a slightly different approach -- perhaps because they've already featured Tom Paris as a talking plate, perhaps because many Voyager characters are still being featured on other Star Trek series, or perhaps they just wanted more distance from another recent Trek crossover (which Mariner mentions in dialogue).
Whatever the reason, I like the "greatest hits" approach to representing the Voyager TV series. I think without being mean, it highlights how Voyager (in strong reaction to the hyper-serialized Deep Space Nine) chose a stalwartly episodic format. Even decent episodes (which I think most of the ones referenced here were) wound up feeling like "deep cuts." But hey, why not one more ride for the macrovirus, the evil Clown, or Janeway's holographic love interest? And why not poke a little loving fun at Janeway's solution to the "Tuvix" situation that caused such a fan uproar? And absolutely why not take "Tuvixing" to a Lower Decks extreme and bring us a giant meatball of merged people? It's all a great use of the medium animation, which allows all of these things that would be a challenge to revisit in real life. (Not to mention simply showing so many old Voyager sets!)
But Lower Decks has a great track record of being interesting and heartfelt even amid the chaos, and once again does so here. Boimler's deep anxiety about what will happen after he's promoted isn't just a great story for the character (though it is), it specifically calls back a past character arc aboard the Titan. As great season premieres do, this episode reminds the audience of the core qualities of their characters, both here and in how Mariner helps Boimler overcome his issues to be his best self.
All that, plus the seeding of what looks to be a season-long story arc with the strange alien ship/probe/device that takes out a Klingon ship (with its own Lower Deckers) in the episode's final moments.
It's kind of easy to forget, with Strange New Worlds being so amazing so far, that Lower Decks has also been a reliably great Star Trek series. But now that it's back, we can appreciate that again. I give "Twovix" an A-.
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