Lower Decks: The Inner Fight

I was, of course, expecting that Star Trek: Lower Decks would soon be tying up its season-long story about the mysterious alien ship. I wasn't expecting it to begin in the first half of a two-part finale. And I certainly wasn't it expecting to tie back to Star Trek: The Next Generation in such an important way. But that's what we got in "The Inner Fight."

When ex-Starfleet personnel come under specific threat, the Cerritos is assigned to locate and secure former cadet Nick Locarno. Captain Freeman is concerned about the danger, and more concerned that her daughter seems to be deliberately throwing herself in harm's way of late, so she assigns Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, and T'Lyn to a safe repair mission. But that mission takes a turn when the team is marooned on a planet with different aliens who have been abducted by some unknown force.

I want to praise the humor of this episode right at the top, because it was funny as always, with Trek canon references honed to razor sharpness. Boimler dreaming about getting tap dance lessons from Beverly Crusher made me laugh out loud; Freeman's awkward encounter with a Balok "puppet" had me howling.

Funny as the episode was, though, what really impressed me about it was how serious a story it actually took on -- and how that story was also deeply steeped in Star Trek history. We finally learned the reason behind Mariner's "forever ensign" energy, and that it's rooted much deeper than issues with her parents or disrespect for authority. A dear friend and Academy classmate was killed, and she has always associated that loss with the moment that friend was promoted to greater responsibility. Tawny Newsome has always been good for fast-talking quippiness, but she changes gears to deliver a genuinely haunted vocal performance in the scene where Mariner confesses all this. I was truly taken by surprise at how the show that had had me cackling minutes earlier now had me feeling this moved.

Of course, they were leveraging my longtime Star Trek fandom to get there, tying into one of the very best episodes of The Next Generation. But this was hardly "stolen valor"; that episode was "Lower Decks," the very namesake of this entire series. In the moment I realized what writer-creator Mike McMahan was doing (after the initial rush), I was actually impressed at the restraint in waiting this long -- until nearly the end of the show's fourth season -- to make this obvious connection. Sito Jaxa was one of the few deaths on The Next Generation that ever felt like it "mattered," and it's perfect that it still matters today for one of the characters on the series it inspired.

But "Lower Decks" was the second appearance of Sito Jaxa. The first came in the other episode heavily referenced this week, "The First Duty." We'll see what part two of this finale has in store, but for now I'll say that it feels like a bit of a stretch that any ship would be tasked to round up Nick Locarno -- one particular washed-out cadet from Academy history. But then, it turns out that he's at the heart of whatever plot we've been building this whole time... and I kind of have faith at this point that Lower Decks will find a way to make that work. Either way, we get Robert Duncan McNeill's return to the series (after voicing his other character, Tom Paris... and Boimler's commemorative plate of that character).

I give "The Inner Fight" an A-. Not only did it feel like a strong episode of Lower Decks, but depending on how the story concludes next time, the two-parter could be in contention for the best of the series.