Boimler's transporter clone commands a secret mission on a secret starship, hopping between realities in search of the people who have been opening rifts between realities. His crew, assembled from an array of alternate timelines, includes T'Pol, Curzon Dax, Dr. Garak and his husband Julian Bashir (a medical hologram), and a gaggle of Harry Kims. When they do indeed discover who is behind the fissures between realities, they're in for a big surprise -- and also in for a catastrophe that may destroy all realities.
I'll get my one small criticism of this episode out of the way right up top here. As I noted of the previous episode, knowing that we're on the last few episodes of the final season, it feels a bit off to spend an episode not focused on all the core characters of the series -- particularly in a season that hasn't gotten a lot of mileage out of Tendi and especially Rutherford (who again, are barely in this episode). In the most cynical light, you could view this like the series finale of Star Trek: Enterprise, which -- in trying to "send off" the then-past two decades of Star Trek -- lost focus on its own cast.
But I find it impossible to see "Fissure Quest" in that cynical light -- not when the writers so clearly love, deeply, all of the disparate threads of Star Trek they're pulling together here. (While still leaving themselves one final episode for the regular Lower Decks heroes to take center stage and save the day.)
Consider what a meal they served Garrett Wang, having him return to voice a dozen different Harry Kims (Harrys Kim?) in a story line that joyfully played with his "forever Ensign" status. Wang really did get to infuse Kim with more personality than any Voyager script ever allowed him to do, plus he got to play the villain as trouble-causing Lieutenant Kim.
After decades of Andrew Robinson telling anyone and everyone who asked that "yes, I was playing Garak as a gay character, who explicitly was crushing on Julian Bashir," the writers brought him back to make that subtext into text. OK, maybe having Bashir be a hologram undermined the perfection of that moment the tiniest bit... but the sentiment seemed to come from absolutely the right place, and both Robinson and Alexander Siddig clearly had fun playing an old married couple for an episode.
In what world could any of us have imagined that Alfre Woodard would come back to Star Trek, reprising her First Contact character of Lily Sloane? But then, why wouldn't she take the part when it shined the spotlight on her character's expertise completely independent of Zefram Cochrane? Plus, it had her recontextualizing the spirit of exploration that is the very core of Star Trek in a brand new and interesting way that flipped the table on the whole "aren't alternate universes in pop culture getting tired?" argument.
Perhaps the greatest gift of all was to Jolene Blalock (here credited by first name only), brought back to play T'Pol -- mercifully, for once, not as a gratuitous sex object for a horny audience and apparently hornier writers. Instead, she was put with a captain who actually appreciated and accepted her intelligence. She was shown to be a most devoted friend (to Curzon Dax -- another fun "deep pull" from Star Trek past). And she was even, through a stitch of dialogue, given the happy ending with "Trip" Tucker that Enterprise denied her.
I love that amid this parade of cameos, we also got a clever story reveal: the "Big Bad" we've been teased with all season was not actually villainous at all, and the fissures we've seen were not part of some nefarious scheme. Nevertheless, the entire galaxy is threatened, and Our Heroes have just one episode to stop it.
I give "Fissure Quest" an A-. (It probably would have been an A, absent the disappointment of losing time with the core Lower Deckers in the final season.) Now all that's left is to conclude this series-best season with a solid finale to cement its place in the Star Trek franchise.
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