Star Trek: Lower Decks Returns to Ask a Simple Question of Trust

When we final left Star Trek: Lower Decks, its wonderful debut season ended with an explosive sea change. Our beloved goofball ensigns had began massive new chapters of their lives in Starfleet and relationships with one another—and so by the tip of its second season premiere, you would possibly discover it a bit odd that a few of these adjustments have seemingly already reverted. But Lower Decks is smarter than that, and it returns to ask us to belief it.

There is, appropriately, lots of unusual vitality in “Strange Energies.” After Lower Decks’ massive finale final yr introduced with it a way of weight and consequence that outmatched many of the different ongoing Star Trek reveals round it, the truth that the collection picks itself up and dusts itself off with a breezy, foolish one-off journey like little or no’s really occurred to harsh its vibe is each completely in keeping with the cheeky, loving bent Lower Decks shone with in its first season, and at occasions oddly jarring. It opens with Mariner (Tawny Newsome) breaking out of Cardassian interrogation like a riff on final season’s “Crisis Point”—all lavishly cinematic and proving that the animation crew at Titmouse is simply flexing on us always. The means it layers Mariner’s frustrations along with her modified relationship along with her mom, Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) and her nonetheless tumultuous emotions about Boimler (Jack Quaid)’s promotion to the Titan—together with the repeated bit that that is, the truth is, simply Mariner’s excercise holodeck program—is ideal stage setting. Riding off the explosive excessive of that finale, it reminds us that these massive adjustments for our heroes are nonetheless uncooked and within the second, and that the established order they’ve laid out continues to be within the strategy of evolving.

We see that throughout this episode, interwoven with the standard Trek plot of the week—the Cerritos offering second contact to the Apergosian civilization within the type of what’s, mainly, their intergalactic cellphone quantity—as Mariner, Tendi (Noël Wells), and Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) all attempt to navigate their modified relationships with one another. It’s extra than simply Boimler’s absence, though we study by the episode’s finish that he too is struggling to regulate with “main character” ranges of Star Trek motion aboard the Titan, that permeates the sense of unease amongst our heroes. On the floor, Beckett and Carol’s new buddy-buddy crew up relationship appears good for the mom and daughter. But it’s made clear shortly on, after which exacerbated by the plot of the week going all Gary Mitchell—an unsubtle nod to one among Star Trek’s first ever episodes—on Commander Ransom (Jerry O’Connell), that their newfound looseness with one another is getting in the best way of each mission protocol and Captain Freeman’s relationship along with her first officer. Meanwhile, Tendi and Rutherford discover themselves at odds with one another as the previous turns into more and more anxious concerning the latter’s modified character, within the wake of getting his cyborg head implants ripped out and re-attached throughout final season’s finale—with every little thing from his dates with a cute Trill, Ensign Barnes, to a newfound love of pears placing Tendi on edge that Rutherford’s not the pal she knew him as.

Naturally, as a result of that is Lower Decks, our heroes all try to deal with confrontation within the wake of those adjustments within the zaniest method attainable. Tendi, more and more satisfied Rutherford is affected by a cyborg-only reminiscence degradation sickness that would result in his mind leaking out of his nostril, harasses the poor engineer everywhere in the Cerritos, threatening to electroshock him or scoop his mind out for some suturing in makes an attempt to “solve” his developed character come hell or excessive water. Down on Apergos, when Mariner’s captain-approved facet mission by chance blasts Ransom with unknown energies that remodel him into an egotistical, rainbow-blast-spewing all-powerful godlike being/floating head, frustration that their easy-going freewheeling sparked an over-the-top mess makes Mariner and Captain Freeman instantly begin butting heads with one another once more.

As the 2 plots come to a head—extra actually in Ransom’s case, when his almighty noggin floats as much as the Cerritos and begins munching on it—these two conflicts come to a captivating conclusion, one a lot smarter and mature than you would possibly anticipate for those who someway had been nonetheless of the idea Lower Decks was simply foolish Trek fluff for the sake of it, and even for those who is likely to be considerably dissatisfied by the established order reversion their outcomes seem like on the floor. After Mariner decides to resolve the God-Ransom challenge with, err, tactical functions of power to his impartial zone, she and Captain Freeman determine that one of the simplest ways going ahead is to return to their outdated Captain/Ensign relationship. Tendi and Rutherford determine a lot the identical, after the latter begs the previous to belief him that regardless of the adjustments he went by he nonetheless is, and all the time shall be, her pal. And so whereas we finish “Strange Energies” with Mariner within the brig and Tendi and Rutherford hanging out along with her like one of the best nerdy buddies they had been final season—standard Lower Decks, for essentially the most half—it’s really one thing way more than that.

Mariner and her mother is likely to be again to the commander and subordinate dichotomy, however they’re nonetheless a loving mom and daughter, now embracing a a lot much less fraught relationship than the one we noticed them with for many of final season. Tendi and Rutherford is likely to be again to being greatest buddies, however Tendi’s not less than now extra accepting of the truth that Rutherford’s gone by his personal adjustments (even when the duo re-rewird his cybernetics to make him hate pears once more anyway). It’s all the way down to moments of belief: Mariner has to ask for belief from her mom than generally they’re not all the time going to be on the identical web page as one another, and Rutherford has to ask Tendi to belief that he’s nonetheless who he was earlier than his accident. It’s not that the present is saying the adjustments it led to within the climax of its first season had been momentary issues to promptly throw out the window, or that change shouldn’t be all the time factor—it’s telling us that these characters have grown and matured in themselves and of their relationships with the individuals of their lives, and that generally taking a step again from a giant upheaval however nonetheless sustaining the teachings discovered from that massive step within the first place is an important a part of rising into a greater individual.

And so, whilst Lower Decks shortly settles again into its consolation zone, it does extra so than show it is aware of its groove, and what made season one such a delight to look at within the first place—it additionally reminds us that even because the plot of the week resets, our characters don’t, and nonetheless have lots of rising to do. Something we are able to’t wait to see proceed, alongside all of the foolish Trek antics it has to supply alongside the best way.

New episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks arrive Thursdays on Paramount+.

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