Star Trek: Lower Decks Returns to Knock Its Heroes Down a Peg or Two

The downside with making low-rank Starfleet officers the heroes of your Star Trek present is that, in some unspecified time in the future because it retains going, they’ve finished sufficient being heroes that it begins feeling a bit of bizarre that they’re nonetheless low-rank officers. Star Trek: Lower Decks, fortunately, is again to remind us that it’s very intelligent, and is aware of the right way to resolve this subject splendidly.

“Grounded,” the third season premiere of the present, comes within the wake of Ensigns Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, and Rutherford having finished an entire lot for the usS. Cerritos over the primary two seasons of the present. They’ve paired up with senior officers, they’ve practically died a number of instances, they’ve been the heroes of the ship time and again, particularly in order this picks up instantly the place season two‘s explosive finale ended off, with the ship saved but Captain Freeman arrested and framed for the destruction of the Pakled homeworld. They’re much less your commonplace Ensign at this level, however your… properly, your Voyager’s Harry Kim form of ensign: undoubtedly principal characters of the story, sure one way or the other inexplicably nonetheless the bottom rank on the Starfleet-issue ladder.

And, for probably the most half, “Grounded” looks like it’s going to proceed to play into our ensigns as the large rattling heroes of their narrative. With the Cerritos locked down in drydock whereas Freeman stands trial earlier than the Federation courtroom, the crew and our heroes have gone their separate methods. But after all, Mariner can’t let her mom stand by and be framed for a criminal offense she didn’t commit, and so goes about rallying the troops and hatching a suitably loopy plot to achieve the Cerritos, bypass Starfleet safety, and use, of all issues, Boimler’s comically over-detailed private logs to show that Freeman couldn’t have been close to the Pakled planet on the time of its destruction.

It’s a rip-roaring journey of getting the band again collectively. There’s loving references from Deep Space Nine to First Contact, there’s beating unlikely odds, and the wonderful, triumphant return of Star Trek civilian put on that appears like sweaters made fully out of early ‘90s theater chain carpeting. It’s additionally very a lot a narrative within the mould of tales Lower Decks has gotten fairly comfy telling—Ensigns being instructed to not do one thing, doing it anyway, and getting away with it as a result of with out defying their standing because the Lower Deckers of Starfleet, there wouldn’t have been heroes to avoid wasting the day. And that’s all properly and good, as a result of Lower Decks remains to be extremely adept at telling this sort of story with the kind of enjoyable gags and coronary heart we’ve come to anticipate of its three seasons in.

But what elevates “Grounded” is a kind of reset that manages to each deal with this concept that our Ensigns have grow to be a bit of too enamored with the heroic highlight, whereas additionally being deeply humorous about it: not one of the above journey really issues. Lulling us right into a false sense of safety, simply as Mariner and her buddies’ absurd plan—utilizing a shoal of passing aliens that was blocking transporter entry between the Cerritos’ drydock and Earth to supply cowl as an essential scientific analysis mission they’d been tasked with to dupe Starfleet Security—is about to repay and so they’ll get to courtroom and show Freeman’s been framed, Freeman herself reveals up. And so does the remainder of the Cerritos bridge crew. It seems whereas Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, and Rutherford had been hijinking across the Solar System and making an attempt to be the heroes, an precise episode of Star Trek was occurring off display screen. A high workforce of Starfleet officers secretly investigated a hyperlink between the Pakleds and an information forger, and because of the assistance of a Command Tuvok mindmeld (see, it’s undoubtedly an precise episode of Star Trek, with cameo and every part!), uncovered that it was really the Pakleds themselves who destroyed their world—framing Captain Freeman so the Federation, out of disgrace, can be pressured to relocate them to a brand new homeworld richer in assets.

All that is instructed in a couple-minute lengthy montage narrated by Freeman herself in her finest, most heroic voice, resplendent within the triumph of Starfleet having believed in one in all its personal regardless of appearances on the contrary on the floor. But instantly after, as Mariner tries to brush off her and her buddies’ antics as “all’s well that end’s well” chicanery, Lower Decks will get even smarter, and doesn’t let her get away with it. Our heroes are properly and really knocked down a peg: Bomiler, Tendi, and Rutherford have to wash up the mess they’ve made, and Mariner crucially not has her mom answerable for tutting and passing off her repeated escapades due to their familial hyperlink, with Commander Ransom assigned to be Beckett’s ultimate authority. Now, if she skirts authority, there’ll be precise repercussions, and the specter of her being kicked out of Starfleet instantly feels extra actual than it has been for about half of the present’s lifetime at this level.

It provides a layer of stakes to Lower Decks’ third season which might be rather more attention-grabbing than the standard “save the ship, save the day” antics that the present has gotten as much as in its first couple of seasons. And it’s not like these tales can’t occur any extra, it’s simply now our heroes, particularly Mariner, must be rather more cautious about how they navigate them. It refreshes the present coming into season three brilliantly, whereas nonetheless being humorous as hell and true to what Lower Decks has all the time needed to be: a sequence in regards to the individuals milling within the background of an precise Star Trek narrative. Only a present like this might kick off a season by knocking its personal heroes down a peg or two, however actually, solely a present like Lower Decks might make us love watching it occur.

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

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