The Spy Humongous

 DVD, Lower Decks S2 (The Spy Humongous)

When I think of the 'worst excesses' of this series, this is the kind of episode that comes to mind. It's not that it's bad, it's just that it goes too far into whack-a-doodle territory and is mildly disappointing when there were signs of actual good writing, such as some of the 'wise' words of Casey, or the Pakled plots. The Pakled sides of the story are the best part of it, even though they're just as silly as what goes on in the Anomaly Consolidation Duty scenes - but the Pakleds have been shown to be pretty witless, stupid and foolish, so they can play that up without breaking anything. That they take it to extremes is a given, but it's a funny given! Their homeworld is called Pakled Planet. We know so little about the race since they only had the focus of one episode ('Samaritan Snare' in 'TNG'), appearing as background aliens ever since (mainly on 'DS9'), so it was a good idea to fill them out a bit (not that they need filling out, they're all huge, lumpen creatures!). That they're so basic as to call their planet such a name isn't hard to believe, nor is it that they have frequent revolutions where a new Emperor takes the biggest helmet and so becomes the leader. Constantly referring to Freeman as Captain Janeway, or the Cerritos as the Enterprise suggests they don't have the capacity for understanding Starfleet has more than one female Captain and more than one ship. And it is amusing, I can't deny it.

If the whole episode had concentrated on Freeman's struggles to get through to these beings with such hard to penetrate skulls it would have been better, but as is traditional for the kind of Trek 'LD' is aping, there has to be a B-plot. And maybe a C-plot, if not a D-plot. In order of enjoyment, then: Ransom and the Tamarian Security guy, Kayshon, who seems to be top in that department when Shaxs is away (shame we haven't really seen them together as it would be good to understand the hierarchy and that sort of thing), escort a visiting dignitary– sorry, an 'escaped' Pakled spy, who shows his mind-numbing stupidity in his task to find out all he can about the ship. That was entertaining because Ransom himself is a little myopic a lot of the time. Not that he's stupid, but he only thinks in a certain way so to see him deal with someone who's a lot like him, if lacking intelligence, sort of showed up his own characteristics. And throwing a Tamarian into the mix with his occasional lapses into metaphor-speak only makes it more fitting. There's also the story of Boimler being pulled away from his friends by the 'cool kids' gang that call themselves Redshirts (reminded me a bit of Red Squad - they think they're superior to everyone else and arrogantly believe they should be at command level).

This story also wasn't bad, though a bit obvious, but like the Tamarian it had an added bit of fun as the Kzinti crewmember is part of it. I got a kick out of him giving Boimler lessons in posture, hunching up as the Kzinti were portrayed in 'TAS' (the funniest insider joke of the episode!), although like almost all aliens in modern Trek (at least Kayshon has his unique language to fall back into on occasion), he speaks like any human character would (played by Shaxs' Fred Tatasciore). I suppose the Pakleds do speak differently, in their lumbering, oafish manner, but in general, and this is one of my big irritations with post-'Enterprise' Trek, there isn't the same level of attention to detail on how aliens sound, move and behave, the words they use, etc, as there is on how they look. But Casey has some choice lines: "The Bridge is wherever you are," he proudly states when asking Boimler to imagine himself as Captain in order to give a rousing speech. The point of this little band which consists of Casey, the Kzinti, Jennifer the Andorian, and another woman, Castro (voiced by Gabrielle Ruiz - once again I thought I recognised the name and then once again realised it was the same who'd play T'Lyn this season and eventually join the cast in Season 4, previously heard as Lemonts in 'Crisis Point'), is that they all follow Casey's teachings, he being the ringleader, and only when Boimler is praised for his actions in the Mess by Ransom they see Casey for what he is: someone that's got entirely the wrong end of the stick when it comes to Captain material!

It comes to a head when, in the moment of action when Tendi's rollicking around as a giant green scorpion, all the Redshirts can do is speechify as other members of the crew look on starry-eyed (at first, then they realise they're just going to talk and not do anything!). But that's it, they don't do anything and it's up to Boimler to save his friend (and everyone else in the Mess). It's a humorous, yet realistic depiction of misconstruing a commander's role, or maybe just their own roles, since, as Boimler says, they're trying to inspire the crew, but they are the crew! Another of Casey's great, but pompous and ridiculous lines is: "This isn't a friendship, it's a starship - are you a star or not?" Unfortunately it is yet another member of the Cerritos crew who's shown up to be less than quality Starfleet material, which only adds to the impression the service is made up of moronic fools, not the message of best of the best we really want to see...

And when it comes to what we really want to see that takes me to the fourth plot, 'trash day' as Mariner so 'delicately' puts it, where they're assigned to collect and parcel up various items senior officers have clogged up the ship with. Would that really happen or are their protocols for this sort of thing? It's another of those shady areas where 'LD' plays with what's not been especially established just to have some fun. Except I didn't find it that fun. Just as Ransom's troubles with his Pakled 'guest' are connected or mirrored in Freeman's experiences on the planet, this is the inversion of Boimler's story - he's off with some new friends who immediately change him, while his old friends are doing a mundane job that eventually wears down even the irrepressibly joyful Tendi. Mariner, as is only right for her very experienced character, has no interest in such grunt work, Rutherford is pretty muted for him, and it seems more like they just wanted to have some visual wackiness to remind us this isn't just 'Star Trek,' this is cartoon 'Star Trek'! So Rutherford swells up like a balloon, Mariner gets electrocuted, and amid other odd moments, Tendi turns into the giant scorpion. Creativity thrives on restraint (Trek's long reign as great serious sci-fi in the old days a testament to that), and animation removes so much of the restraint, so we get all kinds of bug-eyed weirdness and some grossness (though nothing on the level of some of Season 1's worst stuff, like the 'dog' Tendi created), it's still unpleasant and not very funny a lot of the time.

Boimler covering his face in birthday cake with candles on top and charging round the Mess like a maniac was probably the ultimate image for this episode to sum up its silliness, even if it has a nice message in Boimler not abandoning his friends, and with the power of knowledge knowing what to do in this situation to save Tendi, and does it even if it makes him look utterly ridiculous. But it is still way too much (like the Replicator spewing out ice cream and other gunk). I also felt like some of the other ideas were a little too much, too, like Migleemo's energy field book of 'Three Little Pigs' that when opened brings the porkers to 3D life where they have physical interaction with Migleemo's Quarters and smash up the place. Or some kind of special stone they use to prank call Armus. It's just going that little bit (or maybe a lot), too far to be taken seriously. It's fun to see Armus again ("I am a skin of evil!" - also voiced by Tatasciore), but as dubious as he was way back in 'TNG' Season 1, he did kill off Tasha Yar so should we really treat him like such a joke? I will say they got the recreation down well, both his look and the planet's surface which appears the same as we saw it in live action (despite him having the whole planet to roam!). And as usual they got some good references in, my two favourites being, "Xindi, his eyes red," a metaphor from Kayshon for Rumdar going missing on the Cerritos, and Boimler imagining himself standing on the Bridge of the Enterprise-D (which has appeared in this, 'Prodigy' and 'Picard' - how great! It's just a shame there's no love for the Enterprise-E these days, which you'd think would be the more obvious choice since it was used more recently and the D was almost destroyed while the E would still be in service. At the same time I'm never going to complain about the D showing up!).

Ransom also throws in a mention of the Tal Shiar when saying they're not dealing with that level of spy when they twig why Rumdar came aboard, although does the Romulan secret service still exist after they were annihilated by the Founders in 'DS9' Season 3? I suppose they came back, but I always think of that big two-parter and wish it would get referenced as a major event in Tal Shiar history which changed them forever. I wondered if it was even realistic for Freeman to be assigned a "Picard level peace-brokering" mission, as Shaxs puts it? The Cerritos supposedly only does the unimportant jobs, the menial roles other, more 'important,' or 'capital ships' as they've sometimes called them on this series, would do, yet the Pakleds have caused trouble throughout the Quadrant, or that's the impression I've had. They can't have it both ways, either the Pakleds are a real threat (it took the Titan to take them on before), or they're a joke Starfleet doesn't take seriously. If they're a joke then they can't be causing that much trouble, lessening their threat. If they're serious then why would Starfleet leave such key diplomacy to a California-class ship? And Freeman thinks it shouldn't be too complicated since it's 'just' the Pakleds, but surely that makes it much more complicated since they're so unpredictable and atypical, so normal strategies may not work. In the end the series is about having a laugh, that's why they brought the Pakleds back, so it makes sense from that perspective, they fit the series' tone, but even though the series isn't serious they are playing in a serious universe and should always remember that. You can't just throw in jokes and references and think this is good Trek. Largely, however, I think they've been doing better this season, and while I felt this one of the weaker, I still mostly enjoyed it.

**

An Embarrassment of Dooplers

 DVD, Lower Decks S2 (An Embarrassment of Dooplers)

My dream came true! No, not Dooplers, or Shelby, or that species from 'DSC' with lots of eyes on a double horn-shaped head. No, ever since I watched the entire  'The Animated Series' in recent years my favourite thing from it was M4 Green, the little caterpillar bug guy, and I've wanted to see one in Trek again ever since - here I got at least two, so I was very happy. Doople happy, you could say! They've really been very attentive to 'TAS' right from Season 1, but it's taken them this long to bring back one of those (wish I knew what species they are). As we know, it's not enough merely to have tons of references, anyone can squeeze in those, what's really important is having a (funny), meaningful story (that's also funny), and here we have two: it's right back to the basics of Mariner and Boimler, and Rutherford and Tendi, tying in to their pasts and recent events, and most importantly displaying a beautiful sense of friendship taking place amidst a backdrop of comedic misadventure on the same level as 'The Trouble With Tribbles' - you can see that as an inspiration, since it's all about the extreme multiplication of a creature, only this time it's an Ambassador so they really have to be careful not to offend... Except it's that timid pussyfooting around, walking on eggshells that actually creates the problem, and straight-talking honesty that solves it, which could very well be a comment on modern society today as everyone's so afraid of causing offence they allow all kinds of silliness to abound and trap themselves in doing so.

It was a good lesson - not that everyone should say whatever's on their mind at any time, just that sometimes you have to be stern and you can't get on with people, avoid debate and hashing things out if you want to live in a reasonable environment. The fact I'm starting to read things into the episodes of this series is the final proof, if it were needed, that this is the closest to being 'Star Trek' as any recent productions have come. It may be couched in shopping lists of prior Trek connections, and unrealistic comedy, but it does have things to say, and most importantly of all it has that warmth, that joyfulness that's too often missing. That doesn't mean I'm all for the idea of a live action Trek comedy (which was recently announced, to be co-written by Mariner actress, Tawny Newsome), in fact I've never liked the idea ever since I heard Jonathan Frakes wanted to do a sitcom on the Titan back in the 2000s. Trek can do comedy, and do it well, but it should only be a flavour of the week, not a series' focus or goal, another thing I intensely dislike about the Kurtzman era with its 'a Trek for all people' idea of each series being rigidly aimed at a certain demographic, when in the past Trek was all things week to week. But I digress, and I should say this was probably the first episode where I really felt the comedy was working on all cylinders - it's a real giggle, bringing a new species in (Dooplers), which is suitably ridiculous, yet all so fitting for the series.

It's not even that the jokes or gags are particularly funny, but it's more of a gentle humour rather than being raucous or rude, and uses the lore to good effect: the thing with the limited edition Commander Data bubble bath, where a couple might be Lores, is exactly what I'm talking about. Or an Antedean, which Boimler calls 'fish people' (I always think of Markalians as fish people - don't think we've had one of those yet), and one of them responds "hey, we're not people." Or the visual amusement of this Gorn running a food stand, standing their impassively behind his wares. It's all so charming! We see the Kzinti crewman again, though with no lines, sadly, but this is a great one for 'TAS' buffs since we get all these races only ever seen in that before - lots of Aurelians, pictures on the wall of the alien bar which include Arex and M'Ress, and just a general love of that first cartoon series, yet also mixed in with the latest 24th Century style with so many going around in those fantastic white dress uniforms introduced, lest we forget, in 'Insurrection,' one of the great additions to uniform lore. There's more pausing the episode just to look around, as has happened a few times on the series, simply because they love to include so much familiar detail, so whether it was Mizarian Malvus' shop which featured all kinds of items from the obscure, such as Riker's tunic from 'Angel One,' to the common, with examples of Starfleet Phaser Rifles from both 'DS9' and 'Voyager' - where else would you see them together! - or whether it was Starbase 25's equivalent to the DS9 Promenade (which looks like it was based on the original designs for that, brilliantly), it all features so much great detail!

Then there's the alien bar which has an indecipherable name above the door, filled with models and pictures of all kinds of characters and ships to the extent you wish it wasn't so dingy in there and you could walk around and look at all that stuff. There's the Phoenix, and the Guardian of Forever, the Doomsday Machine and what could be Tom Paris' jukebox. The walls are filled with characters and imagery from all over, though mostly 'TOS,' but also Abaddon from that one episode of 'Voyager' ('Alice'), and the Bajoran Solar Sailing Ship from that one episode of 'DS9' ('Explorers'). It also gives the episode a particularly poignant ending where we learn Kirk and Spock visited once in the 2260s, the time of 'TOS' - yes, it may be hard to believe Kirk (much less Spock!), would ever carve their names into the wooden bar counter (more likely someone saw them there and carved it as a monument to their visit), but Mariner leaves her and Boimler's names alongside, and it's just a sweet little moment, especially with them endearingly arguing about who's whose Number One. Almost as nice: Quark gets yet another mention as there's another of his franchises aboard, so that's twice in two episodes, he's doing well! How we need to see him back in live action - hey, maybe they could get him as main cast member of the comedy series that's coming? If they're bringing The Doctor from 'Voyager' into 'Starfleet Academy,' then why not? It would certainly pique my interest...

One thing about the episode I found confusing was that this Starbase doesn't actually seem to be Starfleet - it looks similar to the mushroom-shaped style from the 'TOS' films, but they have a police force that don't wear Starfleet badges (looked a bit like Judge Dredd with those helmets), and Mariner claims they'll coerce a confession out of them and sell their Combadges on the black market, clearly not something Starfleet would do. And why would you have a civilian security force on a Starfleet facility? So it confused me, not that it's particularly important. It was really only an excuse for an action sequence where there's a wheeled buggy chase through the busy corridors (in itself amusing when they smash through various businesses: people playing Dabo, a Bolian barbers in the tradition of Mr. Mot of the Enterprise-D, a Vulcan ship, etc...). Maybe that was the only misstep to have a gratuitous action scene like that when they could have had more of the meaningful scenes, but I can see it was a chance to show off what animation can do, and it did look impressive. Maybe they could have made a connection to the superfluous chase in 'Nemesis,' but it proves they don't always milk every possible gag from every scene! We hear something else about Mariner's mysterious past in that she used to live there and has made some enemies (Malvus, whom she apparently stranded on Ceti Alpha IV, which is worse than Ceti Alpha according to him, and his Tellarite mate), though as usual we don't get any more than that.

We tie back into Rutherford losing his memory at the end of last season, with him questioning himself since he can't even get a model of the Cerritos working, and if he can't even fix a toy he feels he doesn't know who he is any more, but with Tendi to help him he recovers from his wobble and learns they never intended to finish it, it was a way of keeping others at bay for a while, showing that projects and hobbies can have more than one function. Especially good was seeing him use his implant to zoom in on the model to see it up close, an function Geordi's optical implants had which I always loved. Building models of ships from Trek is also another aspect of fandom that many loved so it's an acknowledgement of that, and it just looked lovely to see the Cerritos in miniature - and it was a lovely moment when Tendi gives him a new project to build at the end and it's DS9 (another marketing gimmick by Quark apparently!). Another good joke: it comes with both an Ezri and a Jadzia, although I'm not sure how Starfleet officers would feel if they knew they were being sold in miniature (not that Quark would tell them, they might want something in return!). The idea of a 'social deflector dish,' as in using model-making as a space-maker away from others, was a good idea, and probably quite true for many model builders - working alone (or with a friend as in Tendi's case), and with your hands, I can imagine the therapeutic benefits.

The Captain gets her own plot in the attempt to avoid setting off the Doopler Ambassador, then feeling she's earned a place at the big Starbase party - she makes an impassioned speech to overwhelm the green bouncer, and in this instance I was glad it didn't influence him as we see even a Captain's eloquence can't alter his intractability. There was something quite nice about them hanging around by the Gorn kiosk munching on kebabs! Her revenge may have been out of character for a Starfleet officer, but you can see the solution is aping 'The Trouble With Tribbles' when the whole kit and caboodle was beamed over to the Klingons' Engine Room - in this case they beam the Doopler into the party and... The party itself (which Boimler gets into, posing as his clone twin, William Boimler - interestingly, Mariner once again calls the Titan a 'capital' ship), was an opportunity to get glimpses of a couple of one-off Trek characters that hadn't been seen since they first appeared on 'TNG,' but fascinatingly were both subsequently brought back for other productions: Captain Shelby is seen chronologically many years later, potentially meeting her end in the finale of 'Picard' Season 3, while Okona, a DJ here, returns only a few years later in 'Prodigy' (though for what purpose other than the sake of having someone familiar, I don't know - all that talk about how they both have an eye patch turned out to be the merest adherence to internal canon on the go rather than anything meaningful!). I can't count them as 'appearing' since they don't have any lines, it's not the same as bringing back the actors to voice their characters, as good as it is to get another reference point for their lives and personal timeline.

This time they skip a teaser and go straight into the opening credits, which can sometimes work - usually the pre-credits on this series don't have anything to do with the main story anyway, so you can take them or leave them. If 'Tribbles' was an influence on the story as a whole, perhaps 'This Side of Paradise' was another for the solution - there Kirk realised going against the calming, hippyish attitudes induced by the spores by getting riled up was what snapped him and his crew out of their grasp, and the same happens here where Freeman gives the crew permission to berate their Doopler infestation as that makes them recombine. It's all very silly, but still feels very Trekky at the same time, and that's all you want - in too much Trek now it's silly and doesn't feel Trekky ('SNW' being the biggest culprit in my eyes), so I admire the sense of internal consistency in 'LD' as something to be applauded. What else...? Well, skants are talked about, the male skirt introduced in 'TNG' (and which looked terrible!), I love all the canon attention to uniforms with the grey-shouldered design being common off the Cerritos, unless they're wearing the white dress variant. Mariner makes up that she's from the Voyager-D (pretty sure the original would still be around at that time!). She also talks of 'chaos on the bridge,' which is a direct reference to a documentary William Shatner made about the early days of 'TNG,' so marks for managing to get that in. And Freeman claims she once escorted the Enterprise out of Spacedock as a reason she should be allowed into the party. There are many recognisable aliens (including Lurians, Morn's species from 'DS9'), and was that supposed to be a cameo for Alex Kurtzman in the Pike chair? A guy with glasses and short grey hair. Is it a comment on his vision for Trek that he almost got run over...?

***

Mugato, Gumato

 DVD, Lower Decks S2 (Mugato, Gumato)

"In retrospect, it probably would have come up before," says Rutherford, in one swoop neutralising the most obvious issue with the plot: he and Boimler have suspected Mariner's some kind of undercover black ops super-spy after being given the story by the Cerritos' barman, Honus. It's typically ridiculous, but what I thought was going to be an episode too far even for this series, turned out to be a much more loveable, warmhearted tale of reinforcing the friendship between characters while at the same time giving us our first Ferengi episode since 2002's 'Acquisition' on 'Enterprise.' We'd had the occasional Ferengi (like Quimp last season, Kynk, the main one here, is also voiced by Tom Kenny), and would do again (a common background character in 'DSC' Season 4, plus one with lines in 'Picard' Season 3), but this is a story that actually features the nonconformist rogues as they seek to profit from an outbreak of Mugato on a planet where they aren't native. I wasn't sure how these Mugato had come to Fryon IV, whether it was supposed to be the Ferengi were using an empty planet for their scheme or were simply taking advantage of their unexpected presence there. It would make more sense for the former. I loved how we saw some Denobulan scientists (their first appearance in the 24th Century?), who first encounter a Mugato, not just because they're Denobulans (discussing Raktajino versus human coffee, of all things!), but that they react as they should, faces puffing up in reaction to their fight or flight instinct, as we saw with Dr. Phlox in 'Enterprise' - good use of lore!

The episode is heartfelt as well as being fun and once again they juggle several different plots with Rutherford and Boimler on the run from both Mugatos running wild and Mariner, whom they mistakenly believe is out to kill and eat them, while on the Cerritos Tendi gets a chance to practice assertiveness when she's tasked with tracking down all crewmembers who've shirked their annual physical, and at the same time Captain Freeman deals with a con artist who plays victim when their Tractor Beam appears to destroy his ship - he certainly showed great faith in Starfleet's crackerjack Transporter Chiefs by almost getting himself killed, only saved by an emergency beam-out, then fleecing the good Captain for all she's worth, taking all her Ready Room knick-knacks. That was the slightest story, but it was no less fun, especially as she realises what's happened when her husband, Admiral Freeman, warns her to watch out for a scammer in the area. I don't recall specifics, but I feel like something similar to that had been done on past Trek, certainly a ship exploding when it was caught in a Tractor Beam (my favourite line of the episode being a Bridge officer claiming it was 'at the lowest Tractor factor'!), maybe not the scam part, though it was a very Ferengi thing to do - shame he wasn't a Ferengi, just an alien doing business with them (maybe he wandered in from the 'Star Wars' universe as he uses C-3PO's line, "thank the Maker").

Good use was made of overly dramatic lighting to create sinister moments for emphasis, the suspicions falling on Mariner as she stabs a D'k tagh between her fingers and a theatrical spotlight falls on her when her friends are discussing her with the barman, or he leans in and acts all knowingly sinister. And even later when Dr. T'Ana's 'evil' plan is revealed and Tendi confronts her superior - I don't know why, but I always love it when T'Ana loses all inhibitions and becomes completely catlike (maybe it's because she's so humanoid most of the time. It makes me think of Mrs. Tiggywinkle becoming a mere hedgehog in 'The Tales of Beatrix Potter'!), such as when she enjoyed being the box at the end of the previous episode, and here she scrabbles around on all fours, yowling, hides under a 'car' (shuttle), takes a swipe at Tendi as she tries to reach her, and just generally reverts to her natural state. I wondered if the last 'name' on the list, just a several-digit code, was meant to be a reference to the cyborg guy on the Bridge in 'Into Darkness' (0718 he was apparently called according to the credits), but it turned out to be T'Ana's serial number which, for story reasons just happens to be boldly on display in Sickbay enabling Tendi to realise it's she who is avoiding her scan - the joke is that that's all it is, just a quick once-over with a Medical Tricorder, far from the involved physical workout McCoy put Kirk through in 'TOS,' but it's yet another of those little Trekky tropes from throughout the history where people were always too busy to attend these medical exams and doctors are always scolding them. Less of a specific reference and more a generalisation, but so true.

If 0718 wasn't made a target, there are other modern Trek bits that are mildly mocked: when Rutherford and Boimler (dubbed The Mugato Twins at the end by Mariner, setting another rumour flying via the barman), arrive on the scene to rescue the Starfleet captives from Ferengi cages (using what appears to be the rudimentary cannon Kirk built to defeat the Gorn in 'Arena' - another moment of great fun when it turns out to be a holo-projector!), they actually use their skills of presenting a business proposal with a cost/benefit analysis which is exactly how you should deal with Ferengi, and Mariner responds in high spirits: "negotiating us to safety using the power of 'math,'" in such an overly upbeat way it was reminiscent of awful Ensign Tilly in 'DSC' getting excited about the power of 'math' (or maths, to anyone outside of America). I also felt the moment before when the pair were wishing they had special powers could be an indirect jab at how much modern Trek features characters who act more like superheroes than real Starfleet people, and how this series is so much more realistic and grounded comparatively - when you think such a wacky (always have to use that word at least once a review for this series!), entry in the canon is also what I could consider about the most reasonable and believable, you can see how far the other recent Treks have diverged into fantasy and comedy territory.

The series has become renowned for its extremes of referencing other Trek episodes, characters, races and every kind of obscure thing Trekkers would know, but they also like to throw in other things, too, and this one has a few film connections - the most obvious would be 'Jurassic Park' with the Mugato getting free when one of the Ferengi's electro-whips accidentally opens all the cages leaving them free to terrorise the land (to the extent I'm amazed they never did the ripples in a puddle - even 'Toy Story' did that... Maybe too easy), but when a Mugato leapt onto the fleeing alien's shuttle it gave me an impression of one of the 'Alien' films, I don't know which. There were also strong visual references to 'The Lord of The Rings,' most obviously when Boimler and Rutherford hide under the roots of a large tree with Mugato 'expert' Patingi, as the large apelike animal sniffs the ground above them, just like the Hobbits hiding from the Black Rider. Which put me in mind for when the pair are running through the woods, Rutherford stopping at the edge of a cliff face or slope, and Boimler careers into the back of him sending them both tumbling, as the Hobbits did, running from Farmer Maggot. And then at the end the Ferengi, always open to a better business plan, prepare to open a Mugato preserve where the need to protect their assets and investment means they'll care for the creatures to the best of their ability, but they could have called it 'Mugato Park' rather than 'Mugato Land,' just to ram home the point (again, too easy?).

I came to enjoy this one more than I expected, but that was partly because of low expectations, and also because I think of this as one of the worst since it almost caused me not to bother continuing with the series since I'd heard about the extremely questionable activities of the Mugatos, and if I had avoided Season 2 I'd have missed some of the best stuff to come out of this era of Trek, to the extent 'LD' has become the only series I actively look forward to seeing more of - it's just one of those things that proves the writers of our current time take things too far beyond acceptability and almost lost me, but it's really only one small scene that didn't need to ruin the rest of the series for me, and I don't allow it to. I always loved the Mugato, even though it did look like a man in a suit acting out ape antics on 'TOS,' it was such a striking design, more than any other, and 'TOS' made a name for such things thanks to always featuring the weird and exotic creatures and aliens in its end credits. The action figure is also probably my favourite Trek figure, too, and looks amazing and so I was pleased in a way that we got to see such an iconic creature again. The best fun they have with it all is in the pronunciation of the name, something which is a wry callback to how different actors would say it differently, and even the end credits misspelled it, either because the script changed, or whomever was typing out the names was dyslexic. It's just one of those great entries into lore that it could be Mugato, it could be Gumato (or even Mugatu!), and that all these variations are said in the episode, to the extent that in this case if they hadn't made a point of Boimler officially canon smoothing by explaining the species has alternate pronunciations to its name it would've been funnier, and in-keeping if they never explained it at all (they even have fun with that as Dr. T'Ana calls them Mukutu at the end, about as far as you could get from the original name!).

My issues with the screen gore going too far on the series returns, from Mariner going completely ape (fittingly), and beating her two friends to a pulp in an Anbo-jytsu match, to a Mugato biting the head off Patingi so his purple (?), blood splashes out (a Ferengi also gets gored and yellowish blood comes out). It's just going too far (even if it could be a joke on the fact Klingon blood was presented as purple in 'Star Trek VI'). I'd have loved to see Mariner beat Rutherford and Boimler in a 'real' way instead of leaping around like she's Spider-Man, or breaking her weapon in two in order to stab them. I know the rationale of this cartoon is that it goes over the top whenever it can, but I always find it's the meaningful moments or the truly wry observations on Trek lore that's where it excels, and showing shock gory violence just takes me out of it. Seeing the return of Anbo-jytsu itself (only used once in 'TNG'), was fun, and I assume it was played in a dedicated room rather than the Holodeck as I at first supposed because no one should be able to waltz in early before someone else's session is over (although it was Shaxs so he'd have Security override codes). It was a little slice of 24th Century life, and despite being on such a slim running time, they manage to do these Trekky asides so much better than just about any of their other, bloated stablemates.

It also works so well in terms of these characters being real - they've developed their friendships over the episodes, and though it is of course ridiculous that they could be so easily convinced into believing Mariner as some super agent using them as cover, that it stems from their own sense of not measuring up to the best in Starfleet makes you warm to them even more - a sort of humility that was one of the hallmarks of Trek characters of old. They weren't unapproachable, irreverent superheroes with a witty quip and impossible martial arts moves to get them out of any situation, they relied on each other, teamwork, following protocol (or knowing when to break it), using their minds and personal skills, and that's what they do here. The game they played which was all about compromise, obviously a set-up for their solution dealing with the Ferengi, was a nice addition to Trek's many boardgames, and is funny in itself that the aim is to make everyone unhappy so that they've reached a compromise! And it leads to another of those satisfying happy endings where the threat or problem is dealt with, the Ferengi operating their business in a new way, and that sense of closure and ending on a high is what Trek did so often, so well, and is one of the things new Trek does so rarely, so badly.

Patingi was an interesting character, a Tellarite who believes he's an expert on Mugatos because he's read five books on the subject, though my complaint with him would be that as too often on modern Trek, it's another alien that acts and sounds as if he's human, mainly for comic effect - maybe the antipodean accent was meant to be a deep cut dig at Romulans on 'Picard' having atypical accents (specifically Elnor, who sounded Australian, one thing that totally took me out of that series), but I would've preferred him to be burly as that's the predominant type we've seen of that race. And is this the first time we've ever seen a Tellarite's legs? They're suitably hairy, as you'd expect. The Ferengi were much better examples of their kind, and it was fun to see them wielding the old electro-whips, even if Mariner's comment about them being 'creepy, throwback Last Outpost Ferengi' was a bit too much of fourth wall-breaking since how could she know the name of the episode they first appeared in! Again, it's one of those things that goes too far for an easy chuckle. More funny was her asking if they've heard of Quark (one of them even wore a Quark-like outfit, so maybe he licences out clothing designs now, too?), and they say of course they have, perhaps reinforcing that the brother of the Grand Nagus, who we know has franchised out all over the place, would be well known by all Ferengi. Just a shame we didn't have that explanation in the episode, though they were interrupted and, judging by the fact we already knew Mariner had served on DS9, and that we'd later see she was good mates with those on the station, it was on the tip of my brain that she was about to say she's friends with him, and maybe even that he's got the ear of the Nagus (I hear Rom and Leeta are going to appear in Season 4, so I look forward to that!).

Talking of Mariner's history, we hear of another ship she served on, the USS Atlantis (in true Trek tradition they got used the correct uniform for the time in her bio), where half the crew disappeared (though she claims it was because they had lice and Starfleet didn't want anyone to know). When the barman first mentioned Atlantis I wasn't sure if he was referring to the legend of Atlantis, then maybe some kind of reference to 'Stargate Atlantis,' but it wasn't until they mentioned her ship later I understood what he meant. The idea of her being a spy isn't bad in the sense that she's had a past career where she's been demoted and that could be excellent cover, but then you think about it and what would be the point of serving on a second tier starship carrying out minor missions, Starfleet isn't the Tal Shiar, they don't need an agent reporting what's 'really' going on on every starship in the fleet, and her character just wouldn't work for keeping secrets and reigning herself! But again, it was lovely to hear mention of Tuvok infiltrating the Maquis, claiming Starfleet Intelligence does it (the actual interesting undercover organisation, rather than this obsession with the bad boys of Section 31 by modern Trek), and that it happened in the Dominion War - Rutherford even shouts "Section 31!" when they finally encounter Mariner (I did like the Mugato trap which was a kind of energy half-sphere that traps a foot without causing pain). I think this is the first we see of a Kzinti crewman in the series, something that would be returned to, and a wonderful little 'TAS' nugget. For all its flaws they continue to throw out so many fun little asides (the Gorn doll on Freeman's shelf; Mariner showing how silly Ferengi are since they could just replicate all the stuff they buy with Latinum), and combining that with the series' other qualities of staying true to the visual and sound aesthetics of the era they're portraying, continues to endear the series - even in an episode I wasn't looking forward to rewatching.

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