We'll Always Have Tom Paris

 DVD, Lower Decks S2 (We'll Always Have Tom Paris)

Fun to watch, but oh so tiring to keep track of for review purposes! I remember this being the first episode I actually warmed to: jokes were funny, all three plots for the characters were engaging and all of them were simply stuffed with lore, in-jokes and perfectly pertinent references, and to cap it all we have the return of a live action Trek character from 'Voyager' for his first appearance in twenty years! The Shaxs came back, the very next season - yes, the Cerritos' Security Chief returns out of the blue, and even though I already knew about it before I'd even seen the episodes, it was most enjoyable. They make a joke of the fact that Bridge crew 'always' come back, and it's supposed to be this great mystery that lower deckers will never know, and since we, the viewers, are at their level, neither will we, but then they make that into a story as Rutherford has to know, and... it just makes the head spin, wheels within wheels. The big joke is that this may well be how it seems to those lower down in the crew, when in the other series' we're always up there with the main heroes of Starfleet so we're going to know how Spock came back, or Tasha somehow reappeared, or Dax (in a way). It doesn't really make a lot of sense that they don't know about such things since, in the tradition of Season 1 they reel off a whole host of possible scenarios (all of which were actual events). Previously these hilarious lists came across as a bit lazy, gratuitous prodding of the nostalgia bubble, but when doused in proper stories with characters we now care about, they take on a sunnier aspect.

Was it a pattern buffer 'thing,' a restored Katra, a Mirror Universe 'switcheroo,' the Borg rebuilding him, is he actually a future son from an alternate timeline (my favourite - there's never any references to such a relatively obscure episode as 'Firstborn' where Alexander comes from the future, calling himself 'K'mtar,' how I wish they could get James Sloyan in new Trek!), he got Genesis-deviced, or even time-ribboned, which is the same as the Nexus... All good stuff, and the fact that Boimler and Mariner are going back and forth with these suggestions makes it more fun. But we're not limited to just these mere audible lists, we also get a load of lore referred to or created that is one of the major things missing from the modern era - they love referencing, in all the series', but as I've so often complained before, just as the humans all sound as if they're from our contemporary Earth culture right now, the aliens all sound the same, too, there isn't that impression of alienness that used to make them so fascinating as different species! Yet here we learn more about the Orions (and the fact there's still a stigma around being one in Starfleet as humans tend to think of them as all thieves and pirates, probably not helped by the reputation of the Orion Syndicate), and the state in which they're currently in, as well as Caitians since Tendi's personal mission is to carry out a task appointed by Dr. T'Ana, with the help of her friend Mariner.

Or are they friends? Another good little swipe at themselves, just like the idea of bringing Shaxs back without explanation, is Mariner and Tendi noting how it's a glaring omission they've never been on a mission together, just the two of them, and how it's usually Boimler and Mariner, and Rutherford and Tendi. They're at the stage where they can make an amusing, fourth wall-breaking observation like that, and then remedy the situation - in much the same way early seasons of old money Trek would pair up various combinations of characters to explore who worked best together, and now they're finally doing that here. So it's playing with tropes while at the same time recognising there's a need for them, one of the reasons this series, and particularly this episode stands out amongst the others of its era. Even though it's only twenty-five minutes long they pack three separate stories in which all have resolution and all explore an aspect of one of the four main characters, which was a delight to see. I'm not sure what was the best - perhaps overall the trip to an Orion pirate colony, for its genuinely gripping action scenes as Tendi and Mariner try to get T'Ana's family heirloom repaired, but are chased by an angry mob when Mariner's "false green" wears off, but the best joke, and one that made me snort with joy when I first saw the episode was Boimler falling into the Bridge looking dishevelled and stained, approaching Tom Paris, who shouts "Kazon!" before beating him up! Though the moment Mariner explains why she's talking weirdly to an Orion male and explains it away as being allergic to pheromones and he wholeheartedly agrees saying they're really bad this time of year, was priceless and so revealing towards what it might be like to be under that influence.

I also loved when the mob have got them at the lifts and Tendi tells them to stop and the lead male starts to agree for a moment, then realises he's being bewitched. Although... technically Tendi did say she's not 'one of those kind of Orions,' so there was the implication that not all Orion females have this pheromonal advantage over the males, and yet Tendi seems to show this power, however briefly. Unless she meant she wasn't the sort to take advantage, but I read it the first way until she demonstrated some ability in that area. Still, either way it was beautiful to have more lore developed on the under-loved 'Enterprise' come to the fore and be relevant again (just as I was pleased when Spock mentioned nasal suppressants in a Season 2 episode of 'SNW' I saw recently!). Not only that but we get a very rare glimpse of one of their (superb) uniforms when Rutherford starts going mad with suspense about how Shaxs returned and hallucinates a whole gang of Shaxs in various forms, including a Mirror Universe version, Borgified, one from a microscopic civilisation with a tiny Dyson Sphere (partial reference to the miniature universe discovered in the 'DS9' episode 'Playing God'?), what appeared to be a Victorian Shaxs, possibly a Moriarty Holodeck version, one in 'TOS uniform, even one wearing Neelix' most familiar outfit (of course - he came back from the dead thanks to Seven's nano-probes!), probably because there was a bit of a 'Voyager' bent in the episode!

The episode proper even begins with a load of 'Voyager' talk, in the same vein as Ransom calling the 2260s the 'TOS' era in a previous episode to acknowledge the way we abbreviate the title in real life, Boimler shortens the title of that ship (and therefore series), to 'Voy,' which tends to be how that's seen, too! They need to do a 'TNG' gag now. Then of course we have even more fourth wall-breakage when Boimler admits to owning a complete set of 'Voy' collectable plates featuring each member of that ship's Bridge crew (from Janeway down to Kim - how lovely it is to hear of these people, and not just in some quick-fire call-out, but a sense they lived and are known for what they achieved, immortalised in plate form!), something that was big in the old days, especially the plate collecting (though I'll admit that particular piece of merchandise never appealed to me, I preferred more useable or specific items, like action figures, books and magazines). His quest to get his plate signed by the visiting Paris, appearing apparently to boost morale with stories from his time on Voyager suggesting this is in response to the war, if we can call it that, or maybe heightened tensions, with the Pakleds, and that he enjoys the lecture circuit! And who cares how he comes to be there, really, it's just wonderful to have a main character from what is my second favourite Trek. Robert Duncan McNeill had been (and is), better known for directing since the 'Enterprise' days on, and he can't disguise that there is an aged quality to his voice, unsurprising since it had been over two decades, but I liked that he's the same old Tom.

I say he's the same old Tom, but we don't really have enough time with him to get to know him and his current situation, which may be the only disappointment in the episode - I want to know how B'Elanna's doing, and their daughter Miral, and whether they had any more children and are both still in Starfleet. Do they continue to meet up with other Voyager crew (as many of the actors often do), and is he still best mates with Harry? So many questions and obviously a less than half hour cartoon isn't the place to find all this out, it's a mere tantalising morsel, but at least there wasn't a chance to ruin the character as has been done with certain other 'legacy' characters <coughSevenofNinecough>, maybe divorcing Tom and B'Elanna, killing their daughter and booting them out of Starfleet, which I can imagine happening in 'Picard.' It is so lovely that many of that cast have been given the opportunity to reprise those old roles, no matter how brief, with Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok and Seven all returning in some form (and I know the Doctor is also in the latest season of 'Prodigy'). It's not the same as having all these people in live action, nor all together at once (one of my big complaints about the VII-IX trilogy of 'Star Wars' - what a waste!), as was so beautifully achieved with the 'TNG' cast in 'Picard' Season 3, looking less and less likely nowadays as Paramount doesn't have the money, the actors' age, and the streaming world in general closing ranks. A short couple of years ago it looked like anything could be possible, but that window of opportunities may have closed.

If this is the last we ever see of Tom, full Lieutenant Tom as he is (and wearing the great grey-shouldered uniform he never appeared in on his parent series!), it's a pleasant little reminder of a fun character. But I do wish we could've had more of him. Maybe they could have reintroduced Shaxs in the next episode and concentrated on just A and B plots, but then again I liked how this was all so well judged. Boimler's situation may be the slightest story since it's mostly his troubles with the Cerritos computer - while played for comedy it's now a very real modern workplace issue since so much is controlled with computers and logins to them, so if employees do go off to other sites within a company it can be irritating how the codes and ID have to be transferred and aren't always recognised! The pitfalls of modern technology, something I don't know if I took in the first time I saw this. In the Starfleet future it does come across as a little bit ridiculous - would a Replicator really need user ID in order to work, that seems entirely counterintuitive, especially given that any number of guests could be using those main Replicators at the bar! And, as Boimler himself exploded when he was in danger, the computer shouldn't need authorisation in an emergency situation. Then again, the computer should also have safety protocols so that it would be impossible to activate whatever was happening in the catwalk where Boimler ends up, so I like to think it wasn't merely something related to his transfer back from the Titan, but part of some computer glitches, though then it would take away from the humour of everything happening to him specifically. And was that 'wall with a seam' always there? I must look out for it in previous episodes...

Boimler being put upon is always entertaining because he is so stiff and formal, yet goodhearted, and I felt his pain that he couldn't even record a Personal Log in his moment of despair! Injecting some familiar procedure in the midst of a story or event is one of those things that makes this series feel so much more Trekky than just about any of the other modern Treks, and we see it again in such moments as Rutherford and Shaxs having one of those 'halt Turbolift' conversations that were so often carried out in the past. Just the words 'halt Turbolift' make this more Trekky than just about anything on 'DSC' (although my new scapegoat for all that's wrong with current Trek is aimed much more at 'SNW' these days!). They even used the Vulcan theme as Shaxs describes the ordeals he went through (though I wasn't sure if it was from 'TMP' or 'Star Trek III' - maybe both?). Another Trekky moment, this time one that's subverted in amusing fashion, is when Mariner goes into ramming speed with the shuttlecraft as a way to explain the destruction of T'Ana's heirloom (though why the box would remain intact and the item inside smash might be hard to explain) - much like Ro Laren smashing her shuttle into a ship in 'Picard,' and other instances throughout past Trek, it's a striking image, but in this case there's very little striking as the small vessel just bounces right off the Cerritos' shields as if it's made of rubber, and when the Captain asks for a damage report she's told: "None," which makes a change!

The bonding of Mariner and Tendi worked best and the recognition that work colleagues may consider each other 'friends,' but that's become a catch-all term which doesn't necessarily have the depth that perhaps it once did, and I felt this was a commentary on that situation in modern life: Tendi and Mariner have done plenty together, gone through all sorts of events, yet they really didn't know each other that well. Mariner wasn't even aware Tendi had a first name (she assumed it was just one, like Odo, which has even more resonance when we know she served on DS9 for a while and knew those people, even admitting to running over Worf's Mek'leth when she was there!), let alone it was D'Vana (though we also hear her Orion title, Mistress of the Winter Constellations!), while in turn Tendi thought the Cerritos was Mariner's first ship and she says it's her fifth, presumably including DS9 since they were talking about the station (where she served before the Quito). It ends with them moving beyond the jovial facade of friendship when Mariner touchingly admits she doesn't get close to people because every time she opens up people get promoted and 'take off,' a sad state that could also be a commentary on today's workplace where employees often move on after merely a couple of years, short attention spans and multiple life options opening up a world of possibilities, but perhaps lessening real and permanent connections. It's that kind of speculation that can be drawn out of an episode that helps to make Trek continually relevant in a way the shallow effects-driven, overly contemporary style of the other series' are missing.

It's often missing even from this series, but that's why Season 2 has been such an improvement, giving us episodes like this that skilfully weave existing lore and new, with characters we know have depths to explore, in spite of its comical mandate. Very little is known about the Caitians, mainly because the only character from the race was M'Ress from non-canon 'TAS,' a series similarly light on development of cultures, though you could say the same to some extent about 'TOS' since it was really the 'TNG' era that did much of the developing of recurring races in the Trek universe. Now that we have another main character of that people it would be nice to learn more, though I always get the sense that modern Treks are much more wary about adding new details (unless it's utterly ridiculous stuff like Spock being autistic or whatever!), partly because so much is being made by so many different groups at the same time, and also because they don't want to tread on any toes or accidentally contradict something, various series' occurring in various time periods being a lot to keep track of, when in the Nineties you only had to worry about two series' and a film at the most in an average year. We discover Caitians go through something akin to the Vulcan Pon Farr, only it happens every year, and the only fault I had with the episode was the lewd joking about T'Ana's scratching post, though in the end even that was put right by the fact she didn't actually want the thing itself, but the box it was stored in! Ridiculous, but all the same believable, and funny seeing T'Ana acting so cat-like and happy with her empty box to snuggle into, a harmless and happy ending!

Other fun things thrown in include a trip to a dodgy bar run by a Tellarite (once again looking like a proper version of the race rather than the warthog version used in all the live action stuff, bar 'SNW' - one thing they did right), where Mariner and Tendi play Domjot (the Tellarite warns against violence as he just had the table 'rejotted,' which I loved!), against a gang of Nausicaans - so fun to see them again, even if the voice of the main one was a little too obviously Marcus Henderson (the voice of Jet, especially as he appeared in the episode as well), all happening at Starbase Earhart (where Picard was stabbed as a young man), though can you call it a Starbase when it's on a planet, I ask? It shows that female Orion pheromones are common knowledge by the 24th Century, as you'd expect, since the Nausicaan complains Tendi will use that to cheat them. Then when we meet her cousin, D'Onni, he mentions the Syndicate, so that's still alive and well, as you'd expect. And going back further we see more evidence for Quark franchising his name (learned in 'Picard'), with first stop, Qualor II having a sign for Quark's, as well as Vic Fontaine for the full experience, not to mention the Zebulon Sisters which I think were the ones famed for the 'choo-choo' dance last season. Going back to the beginning, Mariner asks if Paris is still a salamander, which must have been made in jest since obviously he wouldn't still be, but they had to get in a mention of 'Threshold' because it was so ridiculous and well worthy of the kind of thing that happens on 'LD'! Boimler knows him as 'Creator of Fair Haven' (which I was surprised they didn't rip into), and 'Captain Proton himself,' so Paris' deeds are well known, apparently.

Shaxs' reappearance was cunningly distracted from by him asking for spicy kiwi flavour ketchup on his replicated hotdog - I wasn't sure which was more strange, and the other characters commented on it, too (though I'd like to try some...). Bonestell was where they went at the Starbase Earhart bar, Mariner hoping to fix the heirloom (as seen in 'Tapestry' in 'TNG' and named for artist Chesley Bonestell, well known as a space artist to readers of Starlog - I wonder if these writers know who he was?). Fun to hear Shaxs and Billups talking about Raquetball since that was a sport well known to DS9 (though perhaps Springball would have been a better fit since that was what another Bajoran, Major Kira, loved to play), and Rutherford mentions the Terellian Death Syndrome which was what Barclay thought he was suffering from in 'Genesis' (though they missed a trick - they could have had fun with the various races that all sound similar: Terrellians, Terellians, Tarellians, Terkellians, etc...). At least they got in a good reference to the actual 'TNG' episode named 'Lower Decks' when they mention gik'tal ('to the death'), and the Caves of No'Mat (from various), both apparently subjects for Klingon rock music. One of the Shaxs' in Rutherford's hallucination says it's always Christmas in the Nexus - three references to the energy ribbon in one episode, amazing! And Mariner even gets in a reference to Chakotay when she asks if Boimler got his 'bowl' signed. Funny. Best reference may well be the title itself, which is a play on the 'TNG' Season 1 episode 'We'll Always Have Paris,' in itself a reference to a line by Humphrey Bogart in 'Casablanca' - phew, what a lot to take in.

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