Josh Reviews Star Trek: Lower Decks Season Four!

The one consistent bright spot for me of the modern Star Trek shows has been the spectacular, amazing, wonderful animated Lower Decks!!

This show follows the adventures and misadventures of four “lower deckers” on the U.S.S. Cerritos, a small Federation starship in the 24th century (the era of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager.)  The show is a comedy, but it’s not a spoof — it tells serious, canonical new Star Trek stories.

Unlike all the other modern Trek shows ( with the exception of the terrific third season of Star Trek: Picard, overseen by Terry Matalas), Lower Decks is clearly made by a group of people (led by creator and show-runner Mike McMahon) who are huge Trek fans.  Their deep knowledge of, and love and respect for, Star Trek shines through in every single moment of this show, and it gives me enormous pleasure to see.

At this point in the run of the show, I deeply love all of these characters!  Not just the main foursome, but all the other supporting characters!  This show has gradually built up a wonderfully deep bench of supporting and recurring characters, from the Cerritos command crew to Ma’ah, the Klingon “lower decker”, or Badgey, the holographic villain voiced by Jack McBrayer.

I love that the show allows its characters to learn and grow.  It was a great twist to have our group of four ensigns promoted to lieutenants (albeit lieutenants junior grade) at the start of this season.  The show got a lot of mileage out of exploring the repercussions of that, and how each of the four main characters responded to this change in their lives.

The show has dabbled in a gentle continuity between episodes before, so it was fun to see that taken a step further this season with the running subplot of a mysterious ship attacking alien vessels across the quadrant.  The show was still episodic (which felt right), but I loved the way this subplot slowly built up steam as the season progressed.

I was blown away by the genius ways in which the show, this season, finally connected to the TNG episode from which it gets its name.  It was revealed Mariner was close friends with Sito Jaxa, who appeared in the TNG episode “Lower Decks”.  I thought it was so clever, and deeply moving, to learn that the source of Mariner’s stubborn insubordination and fear of promotion could be traced back to Sito’s fate in that TNG episode.

As if that amazing bit of Trek continuity wasn’t enough, Mr. McMahon and the Lower Decks writers dug even deeper.  Because, of course, the TNG episode “Lower Decks” was actually the second appearance of Sito Jaxa — she first appeared in “The First Duty,” as a member of the disgraced group of Starfleet cadets known as Nova Squad.  I was overjoyed that the show brought in Robert Duncan McNeil, to reprise his character of Nova Squad leader Nick Locarno!!  (Mr McNeil, of course, played Tom Paris on all seven seasons of Star Trek: Voyager, a character who was originally supposed to have been Nick Locarno.  Apparently the changed the name to avoid having to pay royalties to the writer of “The First Duty”.  Ahh, Hollywood!!)  Mr McNeil was terrific as this older, nuttier version of Locarno; I loved getting to revisit this character!

While Lower Decks has always centered on the foursome of Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, and Rutherford, this season seamlessly integrated a fifth character into the group: the Vulcan “lower decker” T’Lyn, introduced in the second season episode “wej Duj”.  Bringing in a new main character is risky, but the writers made it work so well!  I love this new character and I enjoyed her presence in the mix this season.

Other thoughts:

• The season premiere, “Twovix” (brilliant title), was a love-fest for Voyager.  I’m not a big Voyager fan, but even I enjoyed it!!  I loved getting to see the Voyager, beautifully recreated in animation.  I loved hearing the Voyager theme.  I loved the Voyager references, from Neelix’s cheese to Doctor Chaotica to the Clown (from “The Thaw”) and more.  Most of all I loved seeing Captain Freeman have to wrestle with a “Tuvix” dilemma, just like Captain Janeway did.  Janeway’s decision has often been criticized by fans over the years, so it was fun to see the show wrestle with that here.  (I also loved Andy Richter’s performance as the Voyager museum curator!)
• I’m a Deep Space Nine guy, so I adored episode six’s visit to Ferenginar, and the return of Rom and Leeta!!  It was a thrill to hear Max Grodenchik and Chase Masterson reprising those roles, and I loved getting to see how exactly Rom operated as the Grand Nagus.  (I love the idea that he leans into his goofy/dumb persona as a way to get people to underestimate him, while Leeta is waiting to strike.)
• The idea of a Betazoid gift box (from the first season TNG episode “xx” — again with the deep cuts!) being given a simulated life by a Kataan probe (as seen in TNG’s “The Inner Light”) in episode three was amazing.  I was also beyond thrilled to see the Wadi game from DS9′s “Move Along Home”… Allamaraine!!
• I loved getting to learn more about Tendi’s Orion family, as well as more about Orion culture in general, in the fourth episode of the season, “Something Borrowed, Something Green”.  Lower Decks has done a terrific job in world-building for the Orions, taking this one-dimensional alien race (that had been around all the way back since the original Star Trek pilot, “The Cage”) and fleshing them out.  It was cool to actually get to visit Orion in this episode — for the first time in Trek history!!  Based on the season-ending cliffhanger, I hope season five gives us some great Tendi adventures on Orion… but also that the show doesn’t wait too long before getting her back to the Ceritos and her friends.
• Bonus Trek nerd points to episode four for the deep, deep cut of the alien Chalnoth (seen in the second season TNG episode “Allegiances”).
• I enjoyed the great actors they cast in episode five, “Empathalogical Fallacies”, to play the trio of drunk, hard-partying Betazoid officials: Janelle James, Rachel Dratch, and Wendy Malick.  I hope we see them again!
• I’m rooting for Tendi and Rutherford as a couple; it was fun to see them forced to go undercover together in episode six, “Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place”.  The ending, in which they cuddled together in a Jefferies tube, seemingly oblivious to their feelings for one another, was so sweet.  (I love that this silly show makes me care so much about these characters!)
• I was happy to see Jeffrey Combs (who played both Weyoun and Brunt on Deep Space Nine, as well as the Andorian Shran on Enterprise) back as the evil super-computer AGIMUS.  (The idea of an AGIMUS, Peanut Hamper, and Badgey crossover/team-up episode was genius!)
• I loved episode eight, “Caves”, which poked fun at the many, many Trek episodes set on the show’s generic-looking caves set!  (“I feel like I have been in this cave a hundred times!”)
• Oh boy did I love seeing Bynars again!!  (They’re from the first-season TNG episode “11001001”.)
• The running joke about characters dressing up (and speaking like) Mark Twain on the Holodeck as a way to express their feelings was amazing.

What a great season!!!  I love this show so much.  These ten episodes blew by way too quickly.  I really hope we’ll get many more seasons of this show…!!!

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