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.

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