Star Trek: Lower Decks

While we wait for the final season of Lower Decks to drop, we head back into the show’s distant past to see how it reintroduces itself to the world at the start of its third season. As you might expect, it’s with love, loyalty, extreme cartoon violence and a few affectionate digs at one of our favourite Star Trek films. And, inevitably, gallons and gallons of alien seminal fluid.

A game of Bat’leths & BiHnuchs takes a surprising turn, as Mariner and Boimler make some very important decisions: Mariner is going to be less insubordinate, while Boimler is going to boldly take opportunities he has never taken before. But soon Mariner finds herself ignoring Ransom’s orders and plummeting from an orbital platform to save her crewmates, while Boimler plays some springball, joins a Bajoran dirge choir, models nude for a figure painting class, and is finally hunted through the ship by a monster for sport. And we all learn a valuable lesson, except Boimler, who learns a stupid one.

This week, a mathematically perfect recurring villain gets her own episode of Star Trek, and we discover how much fun the show can be without all that relentless moralising, just moments before we also discover how much fun it is to watch a villain get her comeuppance while some dunderheaded bird people shake off the dead shackles of a stupid tradition.

Everyone learns a valuable lesson this week: Boimler learns about the perks and perils of being the fun boss, Tendi learns what it takes to be a kick-ass swashbuckling aunt, and T’Lyn learns why, how and how much Rutherford and Tendi love each other. Even the gardener bot gets a little arc. (Good for him.)

This week, Tendi and T’Lyn learn the usual Star Trek lesson about co-operation and competition, Boimler and Rutherford learn that Starfleet uniforms are less absorbent than is sometimes necessary, and Mariner learns that the real Inner Light experience comes from the friends (and murderers) we meet along the way. And Data shows up too, is just as delightful and wise as we always expect him to be.