Lower Decks is also the first animated Star Trek series since 1974 and the first Trek series to be named after a seventh season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. They could've gone with Star Trek: The Pegasus, and made it about a young Will Riker, or Star Trek: Masks, about a group of vigilantes, but I think they made the right choice. Much better than Star Trek: Sub Rosa.
The series is set in 2380, putting it ten years after the episode that inspired it, but it's still firmly in my beloved Next Gen era, even more so than Star Trek: Picard. It starts a year after Star Trek: Nemesis, and a few years after the end of DS9 and Voyager, so I've basically been waiting for this since 2003.
Anyway, these are my authentic first reactions to all ten episodes in season one, written before I had any idea what was coming next. I'll be following the same SPOILER rules as the episodes themselves: basically anything that happened in Trek up to this point is fair game. Unless it happened in the future.
Note: I rate episodes on a 1-9 scale, with 5 being around the point where I start losing interest.
| Lower Decks | |||
| 1-01 | Second Contact |
7
| |
 Ensign Tendi's first day aboard the USS Cerritos goes really well, aside from the zombie outbreak. Meanwhile Ensign Boimler endures some time with Ensign Mariner on the planet below and wins her over when he catches her distributing farming equipment to the locals and chooses not to rat her out to the captain... who turns out to be her mother. Also Rutherford's date ends badly when the woman he's with fails to appreciate a level 2 diagnostic.I loved Star Trek: The Next Generation, but one of my problems with the series was that it made life in the 24th century seem incredibly dull. Everyone spent their free time painting, performing recitals, acting out Shakespeare plays, or if they were feeling really wild, playing poker. So even though Ensign Mariner is a hyperactive rebel that lives her life dialled up to 11, I somehow don't entirely hate her yet! It helps that her issues with the senior staff may actually be with two senior officers in particular: her parents. They did a good job keeping that secret when they were promoting the series; there wasn't even a hint of a rumour that Captain Freeman was Mariner's mother. Mariner's kind of hard to like here though, with the way she keeps dropping Trek references. It's an undeniable fact that Deanna Troi looked way better when she switched to a uniform but how the hell does an ensign serving on a different ship 10 years later know about that? Oh, plus there were other regular characters introduced in the episode, and they sometimes got an opportunity to talk as well. Rutherford definitely got a lot more to do than he did in the trailer, and he came off as a pretty decent guy. In fact the ensigns were all decent people, which maybe isn't always ideal for comedy, but it worked for me. I appreciate how Star Trek they are, and how Star Trek everything is in fact.  One thing that's not very Star Trek is kicking the series off with the inevitable virus plot instead of saving it for episode four or whatever. The timing on that was a bit unfortunate, with the global pandemic and everything, as it means viewers are very aware that the characters aren't wearing masks. Well, except for Rutherford and his date, who had the sense to wear actual spacesuits, but they had to take them off in a hurry due to the oxygen running out. Modern day spacesuits have enough oxygen for hours, so I guess the Cerritos must be getting worn out second-hand gear, to go with their second-contact ship and second-rate crew. Actually that's not fair, Doctor T'Ana did manage to figure out that Boimler's slime was the cure in about two seconds. I wasn't all that impressed by Ransom though, seeing as he started the outbreak in the first place (and ate some flesh), and Captain Freeman needs to show her lower decks officers more respect! The episode doesn't have any message or meaning, and it's not an allegory or morality play, but it was a fun action-packed comedy and honestly I really liked it. Much more than I thought I would based on the trailer. I was ready to give the series a few episodes to win me over but it managed it on its first attempt.  Though hang on, Rutherford goes on a date? The captain has an argument with her ex? Is this actually The Orville? • IMPORTANT OBSERVATION | |||
| 1-02 | Envoys |
7
| |
 Mariner gets herself assigned to Boimler's mission to shuttle a Klingon general down to Tulgana IV, and has to watch out for him and restore his confidence as his booksmarts utterly fail to help him to deal with the situations they get into. Meanwhile Rutherford tries out different departments to get free time for Tendi. .The teaser had me worried about this one, as Mariner manages to convince an malevolent energy being to create a tricorder for her. My brain was asking all kinds of questions like "Why couldn't she just replicate one?" and "How the hell does this guy know the atomic structure of a stripey Starfleet tricorder anyway?" Fortunately my brain shut up after that and let me enjoy the two stories about Boimler and Mariner's escort mission and Rutherford's career change. Both stories shine a lot of light on who the characters are, as Boimler starts to get an idea of just how out of his depth he is, and how out of her depth Mariner isn't. She's clearly got years more experience than the other ensigns and the ingenuity to come up with solutions on the fly, but then we already knew that from episode 1. This story shows us something new though: that she's actually willing to make herself look bad to give Boimler the confidence boost he needs to stick with Starfleet. She probably wasn't expecting to look as bad as she does at the end, as it turns out that Boimler's a bit of a dick, but she weathers it with grace. I just wish I hadn't been spoiled on the Ferengi twist! See, this is why I put a spoiler warning at the start of my reviews. I'm still a little unclear on when she arranged this plan with the Ferengi, but the twist worked for me. In fact it was doubly effective, as it made Boimler's racist impersonation of him seem even more terrible in retrospect. I mean what the hell dude? Sure we've seen that 90% of Ferengi really are totally like that, but it's still very un-Starfleet. The other plot was all about Rutherford giving up the job he loves all to spend time with Tendi, which seems a little extreme. I mean they've only had like two conversations in the series so far! The Original Series and Next Gen both had an episode early on where the crew get space drunk due to a virus so we can see their true selves, but it turns out what they should've done is just have everyone swap jobs. Rutherford's failures (and successes) in different roles shows exactly who he is as a person. He's good with devices, bad with people, surprisingly skilled at ass kicking, and he is downright obsessed with Jeffries tubes. His plot also has a side effect of taking us on a tour of the ship and showing off its different departments. Now we know who works where and what all the uniform colours mean! We've also learned that the senior staff are really understanding of a crew member's career uncertainty, and Ransom's totally hyped to see how many casualties he can achieve in the bridge simulator. I can't decide whether I liked this less or more than the pilot, so I'm just going to give it the same score and move on. • IMPORTANT OBSERVATION | |||
| 1-03 | Temporal Edict |
6
| |
 Captain Freeman's frustration over the Cerritos not being taken seriously drives her to work the crew to the point of collapse. Meanwhile, a screw up on a diplomatic mission leaves Ransom and Mariner to fight over who gets to save the rest of the away team by fighting a giant to the death. Mariner demands to be allowed to fight the giant because she's special, but Ransom stabs her in the foot and capably saves the day instead. Back on the ship Boimler talks some sense into Freeman and the crew finally get some time off work to repel the alien boarding party invading the ship.Oh no, it happened! Lower Decks has turned into a normal cartoon. The first two episodes were plenty cartoony, but there was something about them that felt at least a bit like live-action Star Trek. This, on the other hand, has all the characters acting like idiots, and they visit a planet of easily-provoked lunatics straight out of Rick and Morty or Futurama. Plus I'm sure Ransom actually said 'Kirk punch' while doing a Kirk punch. Also it implies that Starfleet regulations actually horrifically overwork their crews unless everyone pulls a Scotty and pads out their estimates! When they actually do their jobs 'properly' the crew turns into the one from the opening titles that crashes their ship into everything. And the episode dissed Chief O'Brien in the ending by making a joke about people in the future thinking that he was important. O'Brien was incredibly important, he did all kinds of stuff! On the positive side, at least Boimler got an actual win this time, as he proved to be able to endure the punishing new schedule better than anyone (even Rutherford, who lives for engineering). Plus he dealt with the intruders effectively without any sign of panic, and he talked sense into the captain. Mariner, on the other hand, came off like a raving lunatic! Well, mostly only in one scene at the end, but still. And there is nothing good about the idea of a Mariner/Ransom romance, so I hope that's going nowhere. The gap between ensign and commander is a bit much for that. On the other hand, I did like that Mariner was finally confronted with the fact that her extensive experience in space wasn't a unique superpower and the senior staff had been through similar weirdness. She didn't need to save the day here with her rogue heroism, Ransom had it covered just fine. And the fact that she kept the scar from being stabbed in the foot shows she's not so picky where her scars come from and maybe the stories behind the other ones aren't actually so amazing. I mean even Boimler's picked up several nasty injuries himself so far and half of them came from standing too close to Mariner. I think I enjoyed the episode while I was watching it, but the more I think about the issues I had, the less I like it. It's not a bad episode, but the tone felt wrong this time and I hope the series is just a little bit more Star Trek and a little less cartoon going forward. I got plenty of cartoons to watch already! • IMPORTANT OBSERVATION | |||
| 1-04 | Moist Vessel |
7
| |
 Captain Freeman gives Mariner all the worst jobs on the ship to get her to quit and when that doesn't work she promotes her to the senior staff to torture her. Meanwhile Tendi ruins someone's ascension into non-corporeal existence and desperately works to win them over again, while Boimler plots to spill coffee on Ransom. Disaster strikes when the ship is hit with terraforming goop (it wasn't even their fault!) but Freeman and Mariner work together to save the day. Also the guy finally ascends and it's horrifying.We're four episodes in, and they've ended two of them with the heroes spraying antidote into the ship to instantly undo the problem! To be fair it was terraforming goop, not a pathogen this time, so it was the Cerritos that was affected. Turns out it can survive a pretty dramatic amount of damage, even having its warp core flooded! Weirdly though it was the other ship that screwed everything up this time, and the Cerritos crew were the ones to deal with the problem and save the day. Well except for Tendi, who messed up that guy's ascension. The episode splits the ensigns up and lets them do their own things: Mariner's tortured, Tendi tortures someone else, Boimler spills coffee and Rutherford basically just monitors fluctuations. But really this is Mariner and Tendi's episode, as they both have to deal with someone on the ship who just wanted them to go away and stop being so irritating. The Mariner A plot is all about her mother trying to get rid of her by giving her everything that Boimler's ever wanted, which helps us understand their relationship a bit better and why she's so keen on staying as an ensign. Basically hanging around with her mother and her friends is a special kind of hell for her, even without all the boring paperwork that goes with the job, and she came off a lot more sympathetic to me this time around because of all the tutorial she endures. Mariner's still super competent, but half of that's because she actually read the report, and Captain Freeman was keeping up with her the whole way, showing how evenly matched they are. Her problem is that she's too experienced to be comfortable with an ensign's level of space adventure and too childish to be promoted. She wants everyone to stand back while she single-handedly Burnhams her way through every problem, Wesley Crusher style, but wants nothing to do with the duties that come along with that job. I don't think Starfleet's really her calling. Meanwhile Tendi gets to be the irritating one for a change as her hyperactivity and need to be loved makes her horrifically unlikeable. At least it makes her less one-note. Also I guess the koala at the edge of forever is Trek canon now? Overall this was a pretty decent episode I thought. Maybe even the best so far. It's what I asked for last time, Star Trek with comedy in it, and it handled both well. • IMPORTANT OBSERVATION | |||
| 1-05 | Cupid's Errant Arrow |
7
| |
 While the USS Cerritos and the USS Vancouver meet up to maybe blow up a moon, Mariner becomes obsessed with figuring out how Boimler could possibly have a girlfriend. Turns out he just has a parasite that emits pheromones and his girlfriend breaks up with him to study the creature instead. Meanwhile Rutherford and Tendi compete to get hold of a brand new scanner, and find themselves at risk of being transferred over to the Vancouver permanently, and Captain Freeman has to deal with a ready room full of people who don't want their existential threat removed.There are three plots in this one, all linked by the Cerritos' mission to help blow up a moon, though I think the Boimler/Mariner one's probably the A plot, seeing as it's the one the title's about, and those two always get the lead story. The dork trying to appear cool to win over a woman apparently out of his league is a cliche from ages past, but I thought they made it work this time, mostly by having Mariner acting like a lunatic in the background in every scene, but also because Boimler had a little Geordi bear with a VISOR. It worked on a Trek tech level as well, because they were using shuttles to get everywhere, and the transporter never had a chance to detect the parasite. It's a little depressing though that Mariner was actually right, kind of, and Barb didn't really love Boimler for who he was. Then again their relationship was long distance and she was well out of range of the pheromones for the most part, so that's got to be a good sign for poor Boimler. It's also good that he's got a friend like Mariner, who keeps going above and beyond to save him from sexy space monsters, even putting on a spacesuit and space-jumping over to him. Meanwhile Rutherford was paired with Tendi for the B plot, again, but that's fine as they're a good pair. Two friends almost falling out as they competing to win something is a bit of a cliche as well, but their plot swerved away from that almost as fast as it swerved into it. In fact it seemed like it was going to tie right into the parasite plot for a minute with the lieutenant being the one that was mind-controlled! But no he was just going nuts, because life on the Vancouver was a bit too 'high concept' for him. The episode likes to subvert expectations, probably because it was written by comedians who know how to comedy. And the C plot was Captain Freeman having to do diplomacy and deal with a ready room full of people who need to get their priorities sorted. As far as Trek cliches go, that's right up near the top. Fortunately she was up to the task, with the only person left unsatisfied being the rich dick with the civilisation of two. There's three things I liked about this plot:
Overall, this was possibly my favourite episode so far. Though I may only think that because it gave me a 10 second glimpse at Deep Space 9, an Olympic-class ship, and First Contact-era uniforms in the flashback. But why was flashback Mariner talking about Data's evil brother and the Borg like it was something that just happened, when Descent happened years before First Contact, huh? • IMPORTANT OBSERVATION | |||
Captain Freeman has apparently swiped Sisko's baseball.
Mariner talks in her sleep and it turns out she has dreams about The Wrath of Khan... which raises the question of whether the movie exists in the Star Trek universe.
There were two Ferengi in the future Federation school at the end, along with a Borg. Also all the kids have to kneel for the whole class and it looks painful.
The USS Merced had blue stripes instead of yellow, because it was a medical/science vessel. Before it got wrecked.
Mariner had a photo of the Binars on her conspiracy board, so I guess she thought it was a possibility that Barb was a hologram they'd created to distract him.TO BE CONTINUED IN PART TWO
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