Something Borrowed, Something Green

 Blu-ray, Lower Decks S4 (Something Borrowed, Something Green)

The kind of episodes where Trek explored one of their previously established races, be that first tier (Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans), second tier (Borg, Cardassians, Bajorans), or third tier (Breen, Andorians, Orions), seemed to have been largely lost to a different era of storytelling, probably due to the increased serialisation which left little room for cultural exploration when mysteries and buildup to the next cliffhanger were the order of the day. This is one of those rare examples of a modern Trek episode that does feature, if not quite examine a culture, albeit in the extremes of silliness over reality as befitting the series in which it was made. Would I have liked a properly serious examination of Orion society in an episode of 'Picard' that gave us a much stronger sense of their culture than we'd seen before? Of course, but the Orion plots they've done on 'LD' have served reasonably well to expand what has always been a race lacking in exploration. Perhaps it was because they were outlandishly green and therefore tied to the famous image of Vina from the original pilot, 'The Cage' (or more specifically, in the spirit of 'LD,' 'The Menagerie' and its use of the material since 'The Cage' didn't get seen commonly until the late-80s!). It set people wondering about such an animal-like humanoid that was so strikingly costumed and coloured - in reality, Vina was only playing an Orion (an Orion Animal Woman, to be precise!), and though it was a striking image, it wasn't necessarily something to expand upon.

That never really changed, the Orions were the also-rans of 'TOS,' showing up once more (a different shade - the first hint of depth to the race, if you can call it that), bypassed in the films and 'TNG,' where even the similarly 'image more than substance' race of Andorians were at least seen. Mentioned in 'DS9,' with the Orion Syndicate even coming into the odd story, they were still entirely absent onscreen, presumably as part of the Berman-era edict for keeping humanoid aliens more human-like, or simply less wacky than 1950s B-film sci-fi that many in 'TOS' could be argued to have their DNA in. It wasn't until a new era opened up and things became a little more connected to 'TOS' with 'Enterprise' that the race was finally shown, even if not greatly explored and from then on they've appeared in most Treks, be that live-action, films or animation. It made sense for this series to include an Orion in the main cast as it was trying to ape the style of 90s Treks, and they tended to include at least one alien from a race that could do with learning more about, like Trill, Bajorans and Ferengi in 'DS9,' or simply connecting to Alpha Quadrant races with Klingons and Vulcans in 'Voyager,' so Tendi fit right in, especially as she was, in common with the usual Trek trope, an outsider both in Starfleet for being uncommon, but also for not quite fitting into her own people's ways.

Can we say they've developed her to the same extent as those 90s characters? No, of course not, the series is at heart a short, comedy series, they don't get a lot of time to do that kind of detail, but at least it's there. In fact I'd say this is a good example of a story which uses most of the characters' existing history and the knowledge we've learned of them to enhance it, as you'd expect by this time in the series' lifespan: T'Lyn, quite the fresh, new face in relative terms is used nicely - we may not know all that much about her personally, but she's here to represent Vulcans and their unemotional nature, and once again she's given some nice lines ("Celebrating a lack of purpose is illogical," when Tendi and Mariner are expressing pleasure at the thought of finishing their work; or describing Boimler and Rutherford's new rapport as roommates with, "Their emotional closeness is unpleasant"), that really express the Vulcan attitude far more than we've seen in any other modern Trek, to the extent I'm becoming enthusiastic about her involvement in a given episode, in a way she would most disapprove of. True, she also goes down the sickly 'you are who you choose to be' route when Tendi's unhappy about her pirate assassin heritage, both cliched and not necessarily true, although quite Trekky in sentiment, but she retains her calm and poise at all times within this very expressive, violent culture she finds herself in (perhaps the only thing missing was seeing the similarities between Orion and ancient Vulcan culture, so they didn't hit everything possible).

Things are slightly different in that the colleagues she visits Orion with aren't teasing her or butting up against her Vulcan nature and attitudes, something that happened a lot with Spock and Tuvok and which had the side effect of showing how cool Vulcans really are that they can deal with all this stuff, including peer pressure, and still come out apparently comfortable in any situation, seemingly effortlessly (one reason they're my favourite race). My favourite moment for T'Lyn was when Tendi was fighting with D'Erica, her sister, and she's trapped, her sister saying Tendi abandoned her for science, and only then does T'Lyn stand up as if she's about to get involved, only paused by Mariner! So true to the person and her race, funny at the same time, even though it wasn't played up, just a small observation on character. And she did the old thing of a Vulcan relenting on strict protocol and procedure when she realises it's more fitting to the moment to abandon a report made for the purposes of curiosity at the expense of her friend's concerns, even coming up with the argument it would be unethical to submit such a report without the subject's consent - not sure I agree as it wouldn't be objective if that were the case, but again, I liked the sentiment, and how it was done with T'Lyn having to raise her voice over the sound of the ship flying in atmosphere, her hair ruffled while she remains the unflinching eye of the storm, cool and calm as ever.

Boimler and Rutherford were similarly treated quite well, as utterly silly as their storyline was: they're calling themselves 'Brutherford' since they're best mates now they live in the same Quarters without the girls (room to display their Mirror Archer and Spock action figures or model DS9 which they couldn't do when restricted to corridor living), yet they're also quarrelling over little things such as who gets to spray the bonsai tree. The arguments were an example of a well-observed knowledge of the characters and their unique history: Rutherford says his implant tells him exactly when and how much the tree needs, while Boimler makes the equally valid point he has green fingers from growing up on the vineyard, nice they're bringing things up intelligently rather than just throwing them in. That they resolve their differences by acting out Samuel Clemens on the Holodeck is just great fun as a Trekference to 'TNG,' but also becomes this surreal thing in its own right where they later suggest it as a mediation solution to a strained diplomatic situation with Coqqor the Chalnoth, where both Captain and adversary face off dressed as Clemens! It's completely ludicrous, nonsensical, and yet has a kind of internal logic that fits right in this series - crucially it doesn't work, ending up with Coqqor becoming violent until he hears of the bonsai and then after eating it and drinking the spray bottle, acquiesces to their demand to study the nebula. Even that little scene in their Quarters had attention to continuity since Shaxs had just been chucked over by the Chalnoth in the Holodeck so Kayshon is in his place here for Security - we don't know what happened to Shaxs but can assume he was injured, and that it happens offscreen allows our imagination to fill in the details.

Even the pre-credits teaser which continues the season's ongoing arc of various races' ships and crews being apparently destroyed ties in to the main plot of the episode and subtly furthers the arc since this is the first time there's been any acknowledgment by one of our characters (Freeman), that a ship has been lost - it didn't make sense to me that the Captain would be coming personally to tell Tendi she'd been given leave of absence to attend her sister's wedding, until we learn there's a diplomatic angle to it with Starfleet wanting to be cautious after the recent ship's disappearance. I'm not sure why Starfleet would care about keeping in good relations with a criminal organisation (it seems to suggest the Orion Syndicate does run their home planet, with Tendi part of the fifth most powerful family), but as far as it goes it made sense for our characters, at least. Not everything about the episode works so well, it all goes very 'Star Wars' with the sweeping orchestral 'here's a new planet' swoop over Orion showing the shuttle coming in, but at least they made up for it later with some proper Trek danger music when our little band makes an old hijacked Federation starship operational to get back in time for the wedding (unlikely it would be so easy to get off the ground, but I did like the detail it's an old-style of vessel like the one Seven of Nine's parents used, the SS Raven, fitting it to an older time period).

Wasn't so keen on all the girly talk such as at the Orion night club, as much as it's a parody of all we know of Orion culture previously, and there are some nice little jokes based on Trekferences surrounding the culture, with the best being Mariner repeating Tendi's obfuscation about how pheromones were made up by Starfleet to explain how a Captain could be taken out by some Orion showgirls (they don't mention Captain Archer or the NX-01 by name, but it's clearly referring to 'Bound,' one of the few Orion episodes in 'Enterprise'), so I enjoyed the obscure humour. All the stuff about it actually being a female-controlled society comes up even though it seems like the men are in charge (the majority female crew of the Orion ship in the teaser, or Tendi's Mother seeming to have more pull than her Father), and the raider crew even talk about how someone just got metal plates and bolts stuck to their shaved head (something we never see other than in their 'Enterprise' iteration which was uniquely brought to the table as a new aesthetic of Orion culture since we'd never seen the males before, other than the silly 'TAS' version!). I like that we do get all these different shades of green, covering the gamut of previous appearances (something they should've done for the Klingons with the flathead, crustacean-head, bumpy-head and dome-heads of various productions). Perhaps we still don't delve all that deeply into the culture, it takes many episodes and subjects to do that, and while it wasn't quite as good as 'We'll Always Have Tom Paris,' it was on the right lines, and Tendi always works quite well as this reluctant expert in combat and nefarious activities.

There weren't many issues, perhaps having T'Lyn along helped the writing to remain more logical (not that it's necessarily helped before...), but I did have a couple of mere observations: Tendi talks about them wanting photos of them in their wedding outfits and we even see some of the photos taken at the wedding at the end, but would they really use photos at this stage? I know the Doctor on 'Voyager' was really into holo-photography so he could show his 2D images on the 3D Holodeck (which never made much sense to me - why would you create two-dimensional images if you can show them in three dimensions?), but it's like they're just modern people with tablets or phones and the digital photos they've taken! Also, with T'Lyn's PADD that she throws out of the ship so her report won't be read, wouldn't it constantly backup to the nearest Starfleet computer automatically? I'm just speculating here, but that would make sense, though in this case she may not have been near the Cerritos enough for that to be the case even if that's what happens with the technology, and the ship they were in, though Federation, may not have been operational in all areas (I loved the 'Voyager' look of the consoles and design!). And what about the Holodeck exit: Rutherford enters at one end of the steamer's bar, but when he and Boimler leave, the exit appears right at their table. I'd assume it was for timing reasons, and of course the room could shift around, but I found it distracting since the exit usually has a set location in a program.

Mildly disappointing the Chalnoth wasn't voiced by J.G. Hertzler as I initially thought, even though it's a shame that when they do use him for various roles, it's never the actual, real Martok... But another 'DS9' actor does return, and one who'd been one of the few on that series to do a voice-only role: Debra Wilson! She played Captain Cusack in 'The Sound of Her Voice' ('Her' being her), and while I didn't recognise the voice (and I'm assuming the rules for actresses in animation is the same as in live action that you can only have one person with that name, so it must be her), it's nice to realise another longtime Trek performer has made it into the modern era, though I assume it was completely unrelated to her having been in a Trek before or they might have woven in a subtle joke about her previous role. I don't know who Z'oto was, so it couldn't have been a substantial role, but still, the more connections to the old actors the better for me. It seemed the season was finally on the right track, getting closer to the quality I was expecting...

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