Fully Dilated

 Blu-ray, Lower Decks S5 (Fully Dilated)

They both win! Tendi and T'Lyn are both in the running for Senior Science Officer on the Bridge and throughout the episode Tendi desperately competes with the Vulcan woman, even while they're both trapped on a time-dilated planet living out life while they wait for Boimler and Rutherford to beam them back way out of schedule. On the face of it, it's a charming end to a fun episode where the Captain, listening to the advice of... none other than Lieutenant Commander Data (or more precisely: Data from a purple universe - yes, typically wacky idea), decides they can both have the position. At the same time it's typical of modern Trek (and modern life in general), that people have to be placated when things don't smooth out for them, so instead of having to face a hard decision and deal with it as a fact of life, we have to find a way to please them both. It might sound a touch crusty and complaining to point this out, but Trek was always good at dealing with difficult things, disappointment being one of them, and teaching the audience while our characters learn something. Of course this series tends to subvert things a lot, even while paying tribute or making callbacks to a better era of Trek production, so it's not exactly out of character, and really, it is a... let's say 'sweet' ending. Tendi's always been sweet, T'Lyn is the epitome of the professional Vulcan character modern Trek's always lacked, so I can live with what is a concession to the sensitive in this case, and while I don't remember how it plays out, I'm now curious to see how the roles will work.

The big, nay, massive boon of this particular story is having Brent Spiner along to play Data's head, in what I assume will be the last ever time he plays his famous character (or a variation of such). It may not be The Commander Data of our (and 'Lower Decks'), universe, but apparently this purple alternate is pretty close judging by the way Data talks of his best friend, Geordi, whom he has to get back for, or Lieutenant Worf who he's seen chew ropes with his bare teeth, and Data himself experienced the same events of 'Time's Arrow' where he was stuck in a cave for hundreds of years only to be rescued by Picard, himself, and 'a guy in a silver jumpsuit'! It's all very appealing, jumping back into a version of Data that's much closer to the original 'TNG' character than the later (or current, in this episode's time), Data of the films, since he'd be dead at this point, yet would return in 'Picard' set much later than 'LD,' filmed before this episode... It's simply charming to hear the old Data way of speaking, still on the Enterprise-D, albeit a purple version (Data's take on his universe's penchant for purple is why wouldn't you use the colour if it's available, which is as good a justification as any!), and of course he and Tendi go together perfectly, both nice, thoughtful characters interested in science, while Data is more sensible, able to provide moral support and see past Tendi's issues. It does highlight the difference between this series and 'TNG' in that even one of the calmest and sweetest-of-temperament characters seems scatty, manic and a touch cruel (she turns Data off mid-sentence), compared with 'TNG,' but in Tendi's defence she was going without sleep and her urge to 'win' against T'Lyn had clouded her judgement.

It's never a good idea to try and compete with a Vulcan, and T'Lyn is typically adept at whatever physical tasks she puts her mind to, whether it be instantly performing expert juggling she's never attempted before (a bit like Data dancing in 'Data's Day' - he'd have made a good Vulcan), a gardener of great distinction, able to grow giant vegetables, then becoming rich through turning the vegetable skins into beauty products the natives love, it's both ridiculous, yet grounded in typical Vulcan behaviour of excelling at all they do - most importantly for me after so many bad versions or performances of the race in recent decades, she does so much to remind us why Vulcans are the coolest race, and the reason they're my favourite. The only missing element for me was when she decides to withdraw from the running for the Science Officer position due to believing she was unable to communicate well enough after Tendi had withdrawn into her competitive bubble. It's endearing she blames herself for Tendi's mistakes, but I felt she should have made the choice as she saw the issue had come between their friendship, something she valued and would not want to damage. It's possible she meant that and was choosing to focus on the 'faults,' but she seemed quite genuine and there are plenty of times we've seen her make a pretence for the sake of reverse psychology or whatever, so you can tell the difference.

As it is, the story is quite a pleasant undercover mission on an alien planet, the trio of Mariner, Tendi and T'Lyn are trapped there and just start living lives with different emphases for each so it becomes a fascinating look at what they'd do in such a situation as it has been for plenty of characters before (the obvious ones being both Trekferenced when Mariner realises this is her chance to have a 'probe life' like Captain Picard, and also calls it a 'Carbon Creek' situation after the 'Enterprise' incident of Vulcans crashing on Earth and having to make a life there). Aside from Mariner's bad language and the writers still finding a way to bring some disgust into proceedings (Boimler and Rutherford have to lick the Transporter console to remove their spilled drinks, getting repeatedly electrocuted, and suggesting the operator doesn't wash his hands... unlikely consoles would be affected by a liquid spill as Starfleet would be wiser than that, or that they'd get spiked by electricity - on the other hand the consoles do often explode in battle, so maybe it was a comment on their apparent unreliability at sensitive times), this is one of the most gentle episodes of the series, what with Data there to share wisdom, and an agrarian community, there's very little seen of the Cerritos and the other characters so it gives them an opportunity to do something different, all while still playing with familiar Trek tropes.

The idea of every second aboard the Cerritos equalling a week on the planet is played out well as we keep cutting back to the brief, but unrestrained panic in the Transporter room as time ticks by - the fact Voyager encountered a similar planet is mentioned and the Trekferences seem generally very apt and organic to the story, only adding to the pleasure of it all (such as 'Edo-level' stupidity as Mariner describes her two-month sentence in gaol for a mere eye-poke, yet that hints at the reality of a culture in which the people have horns growing out of their heads, so they would need to be careful!), an alternate Tasha Yar gets a mention (shame we never had Denise Crosby back in modern Trek, other than the old hologram recording she gave Data, seen again in 'Picard,' as a voice role would have been perfect), and the beam-out location is definitely reminiscent of Vasquez Rocks seen throughout Trek productions across the decades! Reflecting before rewatching the episode I wondered if Data's colour was meant to be a Trekference back to when they were experimenting with his skin tone before 'TNG' began, with bubblegum pink and battleship grey variations until the gold we know was settled on (even carried across to action figure variants of the time!), so it was a shame the purple wasn't named as bubblegum pink, though they do get in 'neutral grey' when describing our Enterprise.

It's somewhat surprising they mention neither the D's demise nor Data's, but I suppose they didn't want to bring down the mood, even so, it would have added to the continuity and seems conspicuous by absence - it's more the simple pleasure of meeting a legend for our characters rather than the poignancy of meeting him after he was dead and long gone, which of course isn't the case for viewers with 'Picard' to come a couple of decades later, with a new Data, but the 'LD' characters don't know that and shouldn't react in that way. If I'm nitpicking (and you know it's a good one when there's less to point out), it was not so Vulcan of T'Lyn to be taken out so easily by the Ferengi-like, sneering Snell (voiced by Eric Bauza, his last of numerous roles across the series), the village lurker who's a constant thorn in their side, able to leap from the rafters and knock her unconscious. But in general the Vulcan greatness was on pronounced display, even the attitude toward them was spot-on, Tendi worrying she's in competition with her back on the ship, and Rutherford reassuring her it's probably that Vulcans just forget about feelings (I know, technically Vulcans are supposed to know feelings very well in the sense they experience them tenfold compared to most races, but the point is they use such strong control to bury them that they are alienated from them, not barely contained just under the surface of their persona as is so often wrongly portrayed in Trek from 'Enterprise' onwards!). Oh, and I noticed a rare misspeak from a cast member that apparently wasn't caught at any stage: when commenting on the beverages Rutherford and Boimler have rustled up, Nöel Wells says: "This is something the other Boimler drink, isn't it"!

I enjoyed the classic plot of crew having to be physically transformed into aliens to infiltrate their pre-warp society, Tendi and T'Lyn's inadvertent competition and Mariner's eagerness to live out an alternate life while she has the chance, only succeeding in being imprisoned for her lack of awareness of the society's rules. Having Spiner was a high point of the season (better than the other cameos to come later), he really is Trek royalty, and I especially appreciated they treated him right, didn't have him do anything wacky like swearing or saying ridiculous lines for a gag, but played it straight as the real Data would (even while they technically had licence to do whatever they wanted since it's not The Data, after all!), and while he's now at the age the voice can't be disguised for being old (it sounds like he's got marshmallows in his mouth), he still gets the tone and readings perfect, and if this is, as I suspect, the last time he plays the role (though twenty-odd years ago we thought it was over then, so never say never!), it was a charming performance that expertly harks back to an earlier time. All that and the typically boisterous ending with Mariner playing her soap flute badly which closes out the episode beautifully and amusingly, means I liked this a bit more than when I first saw it, and it was always the high point of the season even then, meaning this is another season to have at least one episode that breaks into the 'standard' quality of old Trek, well done. Even the title is a play on Worf's famous line about Keiko being fully dilated so she may now give birth, another nice 'TNG' Trekference, yet also well suited to the dimensional fissures arc of the season - nice one.

***

Of Gods and Angles

 Blu-ray, Lower Decks S5 (Of Gods and Angles)

One of the more forgettable episodes, to the extent that I actually had the thought while watching: 'Oh yeah, Dr. T'Ana... Oh yeah, Shaxs... Oh yeah, Billups...' Some of these characters have been largely forgotten this season and they haven't built on them as they were doing in earlier seasons. The ideas were there: a link back to the race Apollo came from in 'Who Mourns For Adonais?' and what would it be like if one of the so-called 'demi-gods' had descendants that eventually ended up in Starfleet - with all their powers how could they fit in? Then there are the delightful old tropes such as scanning residue for a murder investigation, two opposing races that need to be brought together... Yet it all somehow felt cobbled together and didn't gel as they sometimes do. It didn't help the B-story of Boimler thinking the way to being more successful is to copy his alternate self by becoming pals with T'Ana, the most bad-tempered, unfriendly crewmember aboard - again, it sounds like an idea ripe with potential, but then T'Ana just comes across as a sweary, swearing swearer. 'Hur-hur-hur, swearing is so funny...' kind of attitude. It's just a nothing story, and of course it's 'hilarious' that both Boimler and Rutherford learn the wrong lesson that to be a success you need to become more like someone else, all the while drip-feeding a subversive agenda - no religion among humans in 24th Century Trek? We'll have Sikhs and Muslims in the background (not that they hadn't done it before). The photonic lifeforms are referred to without gender, which makes sense, but it just added to that sense of nothing going on except for a spot of agenda-ising. 'Anti-cube propaganda' sounds like the kind of thing someone would be accused of in today's world, like the nebulous 'hate speech' which can be used for any definition they want. It was all just rather dopey.

So what else is there? Very little. Yes, you can see some of the rebellious Mariner of old in Ensign Olly, and she can see it in her, too, and takes it upon herself to help her fit in, all very altruistic, except the way Mariner is it comes across as very self-serving and all about me, because this is who I was and I understand. Two Mariners are double the annoying. And how does she even have access to a door override code? I suppose I shouldn't ask - she's Mariner! There are the usual Trekference gags, whether visual (Worf's black chair of multi-ball design and a Dabo wheel are among the items Olly packs onto a grav sled, and perhaps her driving the sled down the corridor, smashing into walls as she goes could have been seen as a tribute to a similar scene in 'Nemesis'), or specific links back, such as copying Wesley Crusher by playing with a mini, handheld Tractor Beam, or the mention of her former crew being made up of reformed Maquis (they must have been the few fortunate ones that either didn't get stranded on Voyager or hunted down and executed by the Dominion), and obviously the big one being hearing of Zeus and how Olly is descended from him - the laurel is actually a bio-luminescent construct that can't be removed, so even now they're filling in a spot of 'TOS' canon that we probably never thought would be.

Even Mariner saying the Q are more annoying than scary is a little reminder of how things change over time, since when Q was first introduced he was pretty heavy and dangerous, putting humanity on trial and bringing them into contact with the Borg to burst their prideful bubble. But over time it seems we no longer think of Q as being all that much of a threat. Other than these little details the episode didn't have all that much to say. Okay, there's the cliched different races finding common ground, almost a 'Romeo and Juliet' situation, except we didn't see it play out, merely the conclusion. The squares and the orbs were simple, but well designed, stripping things right back to the minimum is always trickier than embellishing or elaborating. And it's interesting that they're a rare photonic species... And the battle between them was full-on ridiculous, but in a good way... I'm really grasping at straws to write anything about this episode, as you can tell! Apparently the voice of SquAaron, the result of the union between the two races, was voiced by Roan K. Lai, who'd been Moopsy in 'I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee,' so that's something. And the main cast do plenty of guest voices. That's about it. I'm sputtering out here. Oh, there's no connection to the subspace fissures arc, though of course Beard Boimler is firmly part of this story. Okay. The ship looks beautiful, as always. Yep. Wait, there was one thing: Tendi says something about adding Ferengi blood to their Sickbay collection they'll have a whole rainbow of colours, so is their blood different to the usual red of most races? I don't remember if we'd ever seen it (I'd love it to be orange, of course!). Nope, that's it. It all came across as filler, and when there are so few episodes to go, that's disappointing. At the same time it also makes me realise it was probably a good thing for the series to end when they weren't doing enough good stuff any more.

**

Starbase 80?!

 Blu-ray, Lower Decks S5 (Starbase 80?!)

Before the season was released it was said there'd be some sort of 'Enterprise' episode, or maybe they just suggested they were trying to come up with one, but I took it from the 22nd Century uniforms (and a few other Trekferences... or maybe Entferences!), being used here that this was the episode. Consequently I felt a little disappointed it wasn't more substantial and in no way on a par with the 'DS9' tribute where they visited the station and checked in on a couple of the characters. The 'Voyager' tribute of the previous season was a bit weaker, but still, we got to revisit the USS Voyager and have a little fun with that, so perhaps they were following the rule that 'DS9' was superior, 'Voyager' was a little lesser, and 'Enterprise' was certainly the inferior Trek (until the Kurtzman era came along and made it look like solid gold-standard Trek brilliance in comparison!), by having their tribute episodes follow the same pattern. I don't really think that, especially knowing T'Pol was the real 'Enterprise' surprise to come for the season, so perhaps this was a trick to lower viewers' defences in order to impress them all the more by bringing back Jolene Blalock who was one of the least likely Trek stars ever to return!

Even with the Spock subversion trick (in other words, pretending to kill him at the start of 'Star Trek II' to quash the rumours only to genuinely kill him at the end - could also be called the Trip Tucker trick since a similar thing happened in the 'Enterprise' finale), this still doesn't come across all that well. Despite its fun Trekferences, both visual and otherwise (making it more a 'TOS' tribute than anything else thanks to some nice recreations of various settings from the old Constitution-class ships of Kirk's era, that striking, but simple mid-23rd Century look with none of your rubbish 'DSC' or 'SNW' rejigging of 'visual canon'), as well as some beautiful establishing shots (of which I could have wished for more - not so much the rundown Starbase, but the Cerritos always looks so lovely), and the twist that those entering the 'Hell' of this much-maligned Starfleet facility, notorious fleet-wide for its flaws, actually bring their own flaws with them, I'm not sure it does Mariner any favours. In fact I'm sure it doesn't, the point being her expectations and assumption Starbase 80 and its denizens were responsible for everything going wrong when it was actually the Cerritos crew having brought back an anaphasic entity from a recent underwater mission. But the point seems to be, as Mariner herself states, that if only she hadn't been the 'new, improved' version where she was embracing Starfleet life instead of rubbing up against it, she'd have realised what was going on much sooner. It seems to be a typically modern idea of 'being yourself' the most important thing, not following protocols and being professional - as long as it's good for you, that's what matters, which isn't a good message to send out.

Not that this is by any means a message episode, nor that the series itself is all that good at the more serious side of Trek (which is fortunate in this time when political and ideological direction is so one-sided rather than the old balanced and nuanced approach to storytelling that served so well and appealed across the spectrum), and I can at least give it credit for using its own mythology or backstory, however you want to call it, Starbase 80 having been a quiet threat in the background for a long time. Yet the episode also feels like an amalgam of the pilot, 'Second Contact,' for the 'zombies taking over the ship' and 'Much Ado About Boimler' for the creepy facility full of weirdness so though they'd done a mere forty-four episodes prior to this (which would've been coming towards the end of Season 2 in old money, and even then this would be almost half the number of minutes due to shorter running time), they were already starting to ape themselves, never mind about playing with old Trek tropes. The tropes aren't the issue, it's how they tell stories, and again, while we're meant to believe in this ship, crew and world as being as much a part of the Trek timeline as any live action series, they can't help but make some silly choices that diminish its own reality. Take the Cerritos' Self-Destruct system for example: it's a big moment for that to be activated, and while I'm fine with them playing with such ideas, the simple, mechanical issue is that they shouldn't be able to flick it on and off.

It's done for a joke, which is what you'd expect, and you can even come up with reasons why it could happen (the entity had affected all ship's systems; Billups was the one activating it and he's Chief Engineer so could have found a way to do that), but it just takes away from the reality. The whole point is you can't activate or deactivate this momentous, built-in, last resort, otherwise it would be useless, but as well as Billups doing just that, on and off like a light switch, Mariner, who isn't even command crew level, jumps in and switches it off. Again, you can make up reasons, but it's not very satisfying and like so many things in modern Trek, diminishes the reality and gravity of situations. At the same time as doing ridiculous things for laughs, they also have some good little moments that would only be understood by those in the know: Commander Kassia Nox ('Stargate' reference for another all-knowing race?), the El-Aurian woman Mariner assumes is really old (another trope - see Artim in 'Insurrection' who's asked jokingly if he's much older than he looks, is only a child), but she's only in her Thirties. So that makes her only an 'ordinary' humanoid, Mariner claims. All good fun. Dr. Horseberry is half mutated into a Tarchannen alien like Geordi in 'TNG' - if you know the episode you instantly recognise such unique physiology and enjoy the joke. And they've always thrown in a lot of visual gags Trekferencing old episodes or characters - the shop selling old uniforms and props is a treasure trove with all sorts of connections, such as android Ruk's outfit.

Not sure if they were saying something about Roddenberry since you don't name a character Gene in Trek without realising the connotation, plus he had the same build and was also a Southerner, but if so I didn't read anything into it. Stephen Root voiced him (and an Acamarian), and had apparently also been in the 'Unification' two-parter on 'TNG' which is a nice connection. Oscar Montoya who reprised Mackler (I admit, I don't recall him!), had been the same character in 'Shades of Green' this season, but was most recognisable as Vexilon from 'In the Cradle of Vexilon' - they often liked to reuse voice actors. Sometimes it can be a bit too recognisable when one of the main cast fills another role, as here with Jerry O'Connell playing Clem the anaphasic entity, another of those powerful aliens that's really only a child of his race. The gag with the Decontamination Chamber where you have to rub gel... yes, that's nonsensical. While the Starbase's Transporters may not be suitable for organic matter (another nod to the NX-01), why can't the Cerritos use its own Transporters to beam over anywhere they want to? And what good would the gel do, clearly it had no effect on the anaphasic energy which should surely be on Starfleet's radar. But then you get the 'twist handle control' Turbolifts with the joke of Ransom asking if Freeman used these when she was an Ensign, or the fact the Chief Engineer is a good ol' Southern boy like Trip Tucker III.

Freeman somehow has the ability to fix any Engineering problem on the station and I don't remember them ever saying she had skills or interest in that area (though I could have missed something - only having seen the episodes twice I don't remember as many of the character details as I might). But then you've got wall Communicators as they call them ('wall-comms'), and the gravity sweet spot in all of Engineering, but it's not actually a sweet spot as in 'Enterprise,' it's just the grav plating playing up. I wonder if they were going for more of a 'Babylon 5' tribute in some ways as the station is more like that facility in tone (even called 'SB80' at times), especially with the rough lower levels full of lawless aliens - it is good fun whenever they pointedly use a badly designed Trek race of the past as a joke: in this case the Acamarians who looked so poor and were in such a weak episode ('The Vengeance Factor'). They've done that a number of times, bringing back such weak aliens of the week, like the Pakleds whose very presence is a joke, and that works. They could have redeemed these 'lost' races, so in some ways I'd have preferred that, but it's more about recalling the silly parts of Trek past, the kind you'd never expect to see again, so I understand it (still waiting for Letheans, but looks unlikely now). One thing that is a nice takeaway is that though SB80 seems forgotten, it was described as a place for 'second-chancers' so was meant for redemption (and 'second-contacters' should fit right in!).

Captain Freeman finds commonality with Starbase 80, admitting early on that the Cerritos isn't exactly cutting edge either when they go there for an essential component (shades of 'Empok Nor'?), but it isn't till the end she sees them in the similar situation of being disregarded by Starfleet and realises she was thinking less of them in the same way as people think less of the Cerritos and its California-class so a good lesson in humility and seeing what's being done to us is a trap we can fall into in how we treat others. Starbase 80 is on a whole other dimension of neglect, though, once again making you question Starfleet values that they could allow such things (and especially making a treaty with such as the Acamarians for joint ownership of the station itself!). So it's a mixed bag as is so often the case with this series. Would they really be wearing 22nd Century uniforms and relying on food vendors? Sometimes the cartoonish 'hilarity' requires more illogic than anything else to play out, it's a problem in the series and once again I come to an episode really ready to write about it and eager to see more, and come away feeling more like I used to do in Season 1 where it's more about shock value (though not much of that here, grossness reduced to zombie drooling), or jokiness than good storytelling, but this is still better than some of the early episodes. They don't explicitly join things up with the fissure quest, only loosely with Freeman wanting to do better with the Starbase her alternate counterpart ran in the other universe, and Boimler's facial hair gradually forming into something, but not every episode has to tie in. The fact doing good and having the right attitude doesn't automatically mean things run smoothly for you, as Mariner found, is a test of character, something Trek is all about. It does come across a bit sudden that they're trying to redeem her past behaviour, but that's Mariner summed up: a bit sudden!

**