What to Watch - Star Trek: Lower Decks
by Mariah Beachboard, GGR contributor
Intro and spoiler-less review
Star Trek: Lower Decks provides a humorous outlet for Trekkies who love the franchise but recognize that the shows and movies are occasionally absurd. After all, that over-the-top ridiculousness is what makes the franchise so…human.
Remember that movie that had a villain that was more of a goofy relative than an actual villain? (Star Trek V: The Final Frontier)
And the climax was the embarrassing realization that the relative was involved in a cult scam?
Remember the costumes? (TNG S1:7)
I call this the “Evening Wear Banana Hammock.”
Remember…I have no words for this. (TOS S3:10)
I want to know what the Director said to inspire this acting.
But we love our goofy franchise because it indulges our dreams of freedom, exploration, and equity. This is why we get defensive when people make fun of the nutty bits of our beloved Star Trek. We Trekkies hold all of Star Trek as sacred and dear to our hearts. And that serious devotion is exactly what makes Lower Decks so special. Lower Decks truly celebrates the Star Trek franchise, while also allowing us to say “I love how cheesy, corny, absurd, and over-the-top ridiculous it can be!”
Lower Decks features the crew of the Cerritos (a Spanish word for “little hills”) as they deal with all sorts of catastrophes and calamities, many of which are caused or exacerbated by the crew at the bottom of the career ladder: the ensigns. The ensigns live and work on the lower decks of the ship – the part we never see in the other Star Trek series. In fact, the Lower Decks script calls out the fact we never see the people who do the dirty work on the ships. For example, who cleans up spills on the bridge? The nerdy Boimlers of the fleet who are star-struck around the officers. Who crawls through the ducts and does handy maintenance for days? People like Ensign Rutherford, an enthusiastic engineering nerd with cybernetic implants. Who pumps hearts with their bare hands when the Chief Medical Officer is off saving the entire ship from a raging disease? Tendi, who enthusiastically loves everyone to a fault.
Noble and handy people fill the Lower Decks, and their stories were never told, until now.
The Story (Contains Spoilers)
Lower Decks starts with Ensign Boimler recording his own captain’s log in a closet. Beckett Mariner is super-duper drunk when she finds him, and she teases him for pretending to be a captain (in the closet). Then she accidentally slices his femoral artery with a Batleth. Oops.
Thus the tone is set for one of the most fun foils I’ve ever watched. Mariner is a raucous, adventure-loving, battle-hardened, duty-hating ensign. Boimler will die for rules and regulations, and is terrified of disappointing his Captain. The truth is that Beckett Mariner, unbeknownst to the rest of the ship, is actually the Captain’s daughter.
This fraught relationship between mother and daughter ties the series together. They have a tug of war between mindlessly strict adherence to regulation (mother) and sarcastic disobedience descending into utter chaos (daughter).
How many of us can relate to this parent/teen narrative?
By the end of the season, we understand that Mariner is who she is because she was literally raised on Federation starships. And she’s exactly the kind of next generation the Federation really needs - people with gumption and efficient problem-solving skills unhindered by regulation fanaticism. I see her as the new Kirk, with more irreverence. And she’s a gloriously Black anti-hero who saves the day, like, ALL the time.
I love her so much.
You are always wrong:
In Lower Decks, you never actually understand what you see at first glance. Make no assumptions, cuz you’ll always be wrong. Every time. In fact, the only safe assumption is that the actual truth is the opposite of what you assumed.
My favorite example of this is when Rutherford accidentally puts Boimler “out of phase,” rendering him see-through and incorporeal. No one can fix Boimler, so he put on a ship and sent to the “Farm,” supposedly a place where all the “freaks” go to be cured. Tendi comes along so she can escort her horrific creation “Dog” to live permanently on the Farm.
Dog is the stuff of nightmares. I know he doesn’t look like it now, but trust me.
The plot sets us up to believe that the “Farm” is simply a horrible ship with no escape. The inmates stage a coup, Boimler tattles on them, and everything goes to shit. Suddenly, the ship lands, and voila! It’s a gorgeous planet with a spa resort for the patients. Boimler, Tendi, and the inmates realize that the creepy doctor running the ship is just a creepy asshole with resting bitch face, but he totally is a good guy and really was taking them to a place where they can heal.
See? No assumptions allowed.
Have I mentioned how much I love Mariner?
She does all the things I KNOW I would do if I suddenly found myself on a starship like Cerritos. She literally plays with a blast shield button on a shuttle while singing “It’s a blast shield, it’s a blast shield. It comes down and it goes up. Blast Shield!” Also, she’s a sloppy ramen slurper.
Spoof on Real Life:
Lower Decks also has the best spoof on Clippy – the stupid “helpful” paper clip that infested our Microsoft desktops for so long. In episode 6, Rutherford introduces Tendi to his newest creation “Badgey,” a helpful training program. Badgey’s opening line is “Can I teach you a lesson?” Imagine a program says that to you. And then says it again, but in a most sinister voice. That’s the whole delightful episode in a nutshell.
A note about Mariner’s Verbal Vomit:
You can enjoy Lower Decks without being an uber-fan, but the show is heavy on obscure references. For those of you who are just getting into Star Trek, I highly recommend this website if you want to look up some info:
Nerdy AND useful :) Click the image to check out Memory Alpha
The first episode contains a twenty-nine second onslaught of references when Mariner declares she’s taking Boimler under her wing. Her speedy verbal barrage sounds just like a Trekkie trying to mention all their favorite Star Trek things to a non-Trekkie, without realizing that the non-Trekkie doesn’t care. Here’s a complete list of her verbal vomit topics:
Klingons love of war and oaths and Cha’Dich
Spock’s return to life
Genesis from Wrath of Khan
Space whales
Sulu as a “sword guy”
Kirk
Worf
Gary Mitchell (TOS “Where No Man Has Gone Before)
Deanna Troi “whose body be bangin’!”
Poor Boimler. It’s like drinking from a fire hose. Many of our dear friends irl know exactly what that’s like, don’t they? We Trekkies just can’t help ourselves when we get excited about our favorite parts of our favorite franchise.
Graphics/Visuals
Winners
The Opening Credits:
Lower Decks has the most smart-assed opening credits. For example, we see the Cerritos quietly slip away from a battle between the Borg and the Federation, cuz…well, Borg are scary as hell. I would run too. Another example: the Cerritos zips across the screen with a space squid suckling a nacelle (one of the two long glowy sticks on the back of the ship).
Peanut Hamper drifting alone in space like Wheatley in Portal 2. (Portal 2 is a great game everyone should try, by the way.)
Closed captions: They are spot on with those apostrophized names.
The parasite in episode 5 is so ironically unsexy that I guffawed when I saw it.
The titles’ font is straight out of TNG.
Loser
The style of the cartoon is soooooo “Teen Titans Go” with a lack of texture and depth. But honestly, that fits with the light-hearted theme of the show…so I can’t really be mad about it.
Sound Design
Winner
Lower Decks has all the sound effects you expect in a Star Trek show.
The comedic pacing is exceptional! For instance, the “Peanut Hamper” joke would have fallen flat if not for the pregnant pause before Tendi’s insanely exuberant reaction.
Loser
Why do they have to talk so fast in the first episode?
Characters/Actors
There are so many characters on the ship, and characters who stop by the ship, but here are a few favorites and VIPS:
Captain Carol Freeman (Dawn Lewis)
Ensigns aka Lower Decks:
Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome)
Bradward Boimler (Jack Quaid)
D’Vana Tendi, Orion (Noël Wells)
Samanthan Rutherford, Cyborg engineer (Eugene Cordero)
Peanut Hamper, Exocomp medic (Kether Donohue)
To understand Peanut Hamper and her life choices, it would help to watch TNG: “Quality of Life.” Basically, Data fights for the exocomps’ right to choose life or death for itself, even though everyone else thinks exocomps are just stupid automatons with internal replicator capabilities.
Why It Is Worth Your Time
The Lower Decks is filled with light-hearted antics and has a generally happy ending. Your heart won’t be broken, and you’ll finish each episode with a chuckle. Watch it because it is just so f***ing funny.
To Critics Who Hate the Show
Humor is so necessary as we face down horrifying current events. So bring on the spoofs! Give me more. Because, in the inside jokes and uber-human antics, I find relief and joy. It’s in relishing that content that I release my need for control of my spinning world.
And here’s the whole point of Lower Decks: The regular old ensigns doing unexciting jobs on a spaceship helps me see myself in that universe and on that ship – a place I’d much rather be than the current universe and the current time in which I live.