Veritas

 DVD, Lower Decks S1 (Veritas)

Veritas. Very-'TAS'? In truth, it means truth, and there isn't really a lot of connections to 'The Animated Series' (unless you're thinking of that terrible episode where the Devil is put on trial, or was it that he put them on trial, I don't remember...), although Boimler does bring up the giant Spock of 'The Infinite Vulcan' (which wouldn't be the last reference to that specific character on the series), in a list of things that past captains knew nothing about before venturing into The Unknown, when he thinks he's defending Starfleet in an alien trial. For this is Trek trope #9: The Courtroom Drama. Except it isn't, because Clar has only rented out a warehouse (or 'event silo' as he calls it), to celebrate how good Starfleet is for saving him, it's just his funny alien ways that make it seem sinister and deadly. Throw in a couple of Q cameo scenes, skip the gore (though the bad language quotient is higher than usual, even if most of it is bleeped out 'for laughs'), and it's a classic misunderstanding-alien-intentions story with a happy ending of everything coming off okay. It makes a change to have all four lower-deckers together for the entirety of the contemporary plot (though we see flashbacks to other events), and it's nice to have an episode that's easy to enjoy without going too wacky, even if it does often feel like a list of references or random events spat out, rather than a well-thought-out episode. But I did feel the amusement quotient was a little higher than it often is on the series (my favourite line being the Romulan saying how much he hates Remans! - Shame we didn't get to see one, though).

When I first saw it I found it a tiresome, thinly disguised string of Trek references without a story - hey, hey, what about this, what about that --- Roga Danar --- Q --- Khan --- Gorn... And I can see my point, well made. At the same time, for its innocence and positive ending, in the true style of good Trek, I found it to be one of the better entries this season. Not to say that's a particularly high accolade since I've found the season to be mediocre without a truly good episode among them, but it's still a step up from my original feelings towards the series. Of course it remains a scattergun of Trek trivia and hyperactive action, but it did make me smile or snort a few times, which I can't say is as common as should be for an out-and-out comedy drama. Could I have done without Q showing up? Of course! It makes no sense from the perspective of the interactions we'd seen in 'TNG,' 'DS9' and 'Voyager,' and was a bit of a comedown from his last appearance in 'Q2' way back in 2001, almost twenty years prior, but knowing the style of the series now, and seeing so many familiar faces come back voiced by the original actors, it's not jarring to me this time round. And I've seen John DeLancie return in live action for 'Picard' Season 2, officially The Worst Season of Trek. He was completely wasted in that and it's since been revealed that there would have been a much more Trekky storyline for the season if Terry Matalas, who headed the much improved Season 3, had had his way (but just like the last film, 'Beyond,' it was deemed 'too Trekky' - yeah, this is 'Star Trek' you know?).

Anyway, DeLancie's brief cameos here are neither troubling nor make any difference to anything, and that's okay. It may be a bit of a waste of his talent, but 'LD' isn't meant as a showcase of Trek writing, it's just a little gag cartoon. It's just a shame the little gag cartoon has more Trekkiness in it than its live action big brothers. Even granting that it's largely references, it's more fun and less problematic a lot of the time. Did I find it amusing when Dr. T'Ana runs onto the Bridge and claims everyone on board is being replaced by imposters who claim not to know her, and maybe it's a parallel dimension (much like 'Remember Me,' even if, other than the long blue medical coat they wear, she has nothing in common with Dr. Crusher!), except all the Bridge crew are alternate versions of the Cerritos crew - that's because it's another ship, and Dr. T'Ana stumps off saying all these ships look alike? Yes, I did. Or a flashback to a time Ransom was romancing a woman who was actually a Salt Vampire - no, I didn't laugh because they're extinc–hang on, he finishes his line that of course it's not a Salt Vampire because they died out over a century ago! That's funny. I was so busy about to be annoyed by the failure to follow canon correctly that I didn't wait for the reveal they know what they're doing! That's funny. The Reman mention is funny. The guy with the gavel, aping the Klingon magistrate from 'Star Trek VI' being revealed to actually just be there to set up for his little girl's hundredth birthday later on. Funny!

None of it is laugh out loud humour in the way the best Ferengi slapstick episodes were on 'DS9,' but it is well observed comedy rather than the lowest common denominator, gross-out, gruesome, or gory stupidity that some of the episodes have preferred (the only bit that reminded me of 'adult' comedies was when Mariner and Boimler walk by the senior staff happy at the success of the covert mission, and they shrug it off as nothing important, laughing dismissively and high-five-ing - maybe it was just the laugh). Making it better for lore's sake is having a couple of other Trek names in the credits - not royalty like DeLancie or last episode's JG Hertzler, but Kurtwood Smith isn't far behind since he played the actual Federation President in 'Star Trek VI' (sensing a theme here? Clearly that film's trial was the inspiration, to the extent I felt Hertzler would have been a better voice to go with for Clar since he was in the remake of 'Enterprise' ('Judgement'), but that was before I realised it was Kurtwood), and had memorable roles on both 'DS9' and 'Voyager,' so I approved. And Kenneth Mitchell, the guy who played modern TV Trek's first main recurring villain, Kol, in 'DSC,' then two more Klingons, Kol-Sha and Tenavik, followed by a scientist in Season 3, and who sadly died earlier this year after an illness, got to expand his Trek cred even further by doing voices for one of the human black ops operatives in Tendi's flashback, as well as a Romulan guard and captain of the Tweerk (the bug-eyed monster), though, like Kurtwood, I wouldn't have recognised his voice. I like it when we get some interconnectivity in casting, and these were good gets.

One thing that caught my attention was very slight and simple: dust. In the 'courtroom' the harsh beams of light illuminate tiny specks of dust floating about, and it's this attention to detail that gives the animation style so much realism despite the bug eyes and simple lines of the series' design. Visually it is an often beautiful production (even if I wish they wore the 'DS9' grey shoulder uniforms to fit the era), and so much effort goes into recreating the look of late-24th Century style that that in itself is a pleasure to see - here, they recreate a raft of alien (and Federation), ships in some kind of museum Rutherford's taken to with Shaxs and Billups to steal a 'TOS' Romulan Bird-of-Prey for a covert ops mission (the one used to rescue Imperium Magistrate Clar from Romulus). It's like an antidote for the very deliberate disinterest in showing off the vessels seen in 'DSC' where they clearly didn't allow much time for good external views (in fact, the point of having a massive window on the Bridge instead of the more submarine-like Viewscreen appeared to be a deliberate move to bring space into the ship so they didn't need to cut to external views), or preferred to redesign Starfleet and other familiar races' styles so as to be quite far from what we knew. None of that here: with various Federation shuttlecraft, a yellow worker bee ('The Motion Picture,' I think), they travel in the Vulcan Shuttle (definitely 'TMP'), and there are examples of a Klingon Cruiser, Ferengi shuttle, Jem'Hadar fighter, pointy Tholian vessel, not to mention the famous T'Plana Hath, the Vulcan ship which touches down for first contact in... 'First Contact.'

We even get several Romulan Warbirds (beautiful, beautiful ships! - sleek and threatening, intimidating and cool, nothing from modern Trek's creators has come close), in a typically silly moment where their Bird-of-Prey is being scanned, and then it's not, and then it is, etc. Then there are the usual, many connections to other episodes or characters from Trek, such as a suggestion Billups was either part of the Enterprise-D crew during the events of 'TNG' or an avid reader of the ship's logs since in his oxygen-deprived state he shouts out a warning that 'Mark Twain has a gun' or to Tasha that the 'garbage bag's behind you,' referring to time travel in 'Time's Arrow' where they met Mark Twain, and Tasha Yar's death by oil slick Armus in 'Skin of Evil,' which also looked a bit like those shiny plastic rubbish bags, probably because they were part of the costume, I'd imagine! And what must be the first appearance of the Gorn in the modern Trek era when Rutherford has memories from his faulty implant of ending up at a Gorn wedding where he gets attacked. They look like the lumbering creatures of 'Arena,' as they should, rather than the silly CGI versions of 'SNW' only a few years later. And don't forget the time Rutherford's ordered to perform a fan dance as a distraction for a Vulcan guard (wearing 'TMP' riot gear!), when they're stealing the BOP. I think the museum was supposed to be on Vulcan. Though why they had to steal it rather than just ask... is classified!

All inconsistencies or questions about the episode are classified! Surely this is a joke at 'DSC's expense, since this first season of 'LD' would have come a year after the second season of that series ended in 2019 with its infamous denial of all knowledge of the Discovery or Michael Burnham as a way to 'resolve' the canon flummery of a mess they'd got into. 'LD' is very much the antidote to much of what was wrong with 'DSC' because they really know their audience (for the most part - as I say, the classic tone they're going for often clashes with gore and swearing). Even the moment Rutherford wakes up on the Vulcan Shuttle and we discover he's nerve-pinched out some Vulcans is an obvious reference to Burnham doing the same to her Captain (and how did she do that...? How did Rutherford...? See?), though I suppose it could go back even further to the time Picard appeared to do the same to a terrorist aboard the Enterprise. One canon conundrum that I did find suspect was when Mariner and Beckett are arguing over who's best known tough guy, renegade Roga Danar or Khan, and she claims he was a genetically augmented super-villain, but the whole point of Khan was that he was created through eugenics, not genetics (hence the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s), which seems to be a common mistake. But even the way the episode begins was very 'TNG' where we have an establishing shot of K'Tuevon Prime, then the teaser all takes place in one room with people talking. They could easily be more ostentatious than even 'DSC' with no budget limit on how big sets can be, etc, but they're going for a 'TNG' feel and they succeed in that.

Tendi continues to be endearing and I think this is the first time we see she has superior Orion fighting skills when she's mistakenly taken along as The Cleaner when Ransom and some burly, be-muscled 80s action heroes (with their eyes covered by black bars to protect their identity, and their names redacted!), go on the covert rescue mission to save Clar - she's not supposed to be there, but just goes along with it to the point they're fleeing with their prize and tell her to do her stuff, so she grits her teeth and takes out all the pursuing Romulan soldiers (also having their eyes covered with a black bar since this is a classified mission!), when Ransom simply meant her to beam them out of there! Misunderstanding would appear to be the theme of the episode - the whole thing is one big misunderstanding (again, amusing that it's all cut short twenty-two minutes into the episode when an official appears to tell Clar his time is up and he has to vacate for the next party - he only paid for twenty-two minutes, you see!), but there's also Rutherford who doesn't have a clue what's going on thanks to his malfunctioning implant, and even Mariner misinterprets Freeman's order to send the Tweerk ship a message, firing a Phaser beam across its bow when the Captain meant to invite them to dinner!

What else? Oh yes, Rutherford bumping into things on the hull of the cloaked Bird-of-Prey (perhaps in evocation of Gillian Taylor doing the same in 'Star Trek IV' with the Klingon version, or the rubbish men's bins getting flattened by an invisible force). And Boimler, who gets to be the hero of the piece for once, even though all he does is rant out a speech about how the senior officers don't always know what to do - you could see it as a bit negative since he's pulling apart Clar's notion that Starfleet is all perfect people, but the point was that whatever they were doing it was for good, not ill. And he throws in examples of going into the unknown: Picard with the Borg, Kirk with giant Spock, Dr. Crusher with 'the ghost in a lamp thing from the Scottish planet' (which was probably best left forgotten). And throws down the Horn of Candour, shouting "Drumhead!" And Mariner says they'll get kicked off the Cerritos and end up on Earth where there's nothing to do but drink wine and hang out in vineyards or soul food restaurants (Picard's family owned the former, Sisko's the latter). Even the idea of Tendi having to clean cat hair out of the conference room chairs is somewhat amusing. It's great there are no Dot-7 droids, or whatever they're called, as we saw in 'DSC' where they even cleared up fallen chairs and stupid things like that. No to droids in Trek! (Especially with names like Peanut Hamper!). And Q says Picard's no fun, always quoting Shakespeare and making wine. Yeah, it's just a list of remembrances of past Trek, but it's stitched together quite pleasingly and if there isn't much of a story, it's still told in a unique style thanks to Rutherford's implant's POV, so that's something. The veritas is that the series is improving.

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