wej Duj

 DVD, Lower Decks S2 (wej Duj [Three Ships])

I feel almost traitorous not giving this a good rating - it's definitely the least offensive episode they've done, in every way (which shows they can do it if they want to), and is full of delightful lore, but... There are some little niggles that stop me regarding it as highly as some other episodes this season, in spite of this being the introduction to what would go on to be a major character in Season 4, and the revelation about the ongoing Pakled story. It was clever they dropped in the reveal about who was behind the Pakled's rise to troublemakers of the Quadrant in what is a very gimmicky episode - when you only have ten episodes a season it seems... illogical to allow too much deviation from traditional Trek storytelling, yet in this case they didn't do a bad job. At first it does appear to be a thinly connected series of vignettes comparing Starfleet lower deckers with those from other ships, so to include important development for the season's arc was a wise move to add relevance. Not that it was necessarily needed as it's enjoyable enough just seeing life aboard a Klingon ship, a Vulcan ship, and even a snippet of life aboard a Pakled ship (not to mention the wonderful, yet simple gag of the end credits showing Borg lower deckers, too - actually quite relaxing listening to the gentle hum of the inside of a Borg Cube as they stand in peaceful repose at their regeneration stations!).

However, as much as I loved all the callbacks, which in this case are more general recreations of how Trek did these races or ships in the past (and what a way - swooping Birds-of-Prey, dark and dingy interiors, to pristine Vulcan interiors... beautiful), I felt it was another case of something the Kurtzman era is absolutely notorious for: the blurring of different time periods into one amorphous blob. It's happened on 'DSC' with its 'Holodecks,' its 'Replicators' and its ship designs. It's happened on 'Picard' with things like the 23rd Century Romulan Bird-of-Prey... I can't actually remember all the various incidents of confusing the eras, whether that's purposeful to make Trek seem like one continuous thing without any development over time, or just a major misunderstanding of Trek's finely honed sense of period drama and continuity. It makes a change that 'Enterprise' should be the period pulled into the 24th Century since that's so often the forgotten era. It's had its Trekferences, of course, like all the series' have, and for a while was almost the only series commonly called back to: the Kelvin films were always doing it, 'DSC' as well, but since 'Picard' and 'Lower Decks' they'd broken out of that and embraced Trekferences to everything. It's not that I don't like 'Enterprise' or connecting to it, but in this episode I felt as if they were confusing the 22nd Century era of Vulcans and Starfleet being only casual allies, instead of remembering this race was integral in the founding of the Federation and ever since.

Would they still be using those massive ring ships? I mean, they are things of beauty and it was lovely to be able to see one again after so long ('DSC' gave us a little glimpse, but even there they were redesigned to be more angular if I recall, and I think we only saw a shuttle), but we've never had the impression Vulcan still has its own fleet separate from Starfleet, just as Earth doesn't: Starfleet is their fleet. Now you can say that because it's never been specifically stated 'in canon' that they don't, and we certainly know that as late as the 23rd Century they had all-Vulcan crews, and even into the 24th Century you occasionally hear of a Vulcan ship (such as in early 'DS9' when they go through the Wormhole), so I suppose I'm talking myself out of it, but it's just that it didn't seem quite right, as much fun as it was to see the Sh'Vhal, a fully Vulcan Cruiser that harks back to those lovely 22nd Century designs. In some ways the same could be said for the Klingon Bird-of-Prey Che'Ta', in that it harks back to early 'TNG' when you'd see belligerent Klingon Captains going about doing their own thing. Maybe it's because we saw much more developed crews in the latter part of that series, such as Martok's, who were fleshed out on occasion, but this ship very much evoked early 'TNG' and what I want is to get that feel of whatever era I'm in as that's part of the joy of Trek: its accuracy and way of presenting different centuries and periods.

With the Klingons it's not a problem that they are autonomous since the Klingons haven't become part of the Federation (and apparently never will judging by 'DSC,' though I suppose one thing about modern Trek is that you rarely get any context for the powers and state of the main races of old), but that's where 'LD' is so different, they're deliberately trying to evoke memories of the 'TNG' era and one reason I like it so much (relatively), compared to the other stuff produced in recent years. And I do like this episode, I'm not saying I don't. I really did appreciate the relative cleanness of the dialogue, story and visuals (aside from a little gory Klingon violence, but even that was a sort of joke with the purple blood, and even the lower decks guy mentioning Klingon blood runs as reddish-pink as ever!), even Dr. T'Ana, usually the worst culprit for swearing (even if it is disguised by being bleeped out), keeps her nose clean and has a funny moment (when Boimler's recreating Kirk's fall from 'Star Trek V' and a concerned Tendi asks if the Holodeck safety protocols are on, T'Ana offhandedly thinks they are). I especially liked the lesson on kindness, when lower decks Klingon Ma'ah is about to be executed by his enraged Captain, the Captain's Targ, whom he's been looking after, snarlingly comes to his rescue.

It's not just the confusing of eras, however much I've just proved that there is precedent for such things, it's the way the Vulcans are acted just on the borders of acceptability. It's been an irritation of mine ever since the days of 'Enterprise' where they began to be portrayed as no longer emotionless, but barely containing their emotions just under the skin. Thinly veiled acidity and such. I will say that it was generally pretty well done, especially compared with the live action examples we've had, but I just wish they could be completely dispassionate and not inject any emotional state into their dialogue at all: I always look at Tim Russ' effortless grace as Tuvok for how I think Vulcans should be portrayed. But again, it's only a minor note, the Vulcans were still well done and it is funny how they all arch their eyebrows or T'Lyn's minor deviations from strict orders or duty are considered outbursts or wild behaviour (in the same way they got Klingon culture spot on - Ma'ah mentions logic so they tease him about being Vulcan-like. It's so true to their culture to mock Vulcans: "Avoid death and cower!"), and I look forward to seeing more of her when I get around to seeing Season 4 soon. I almost wish we could have had all the various lower decks characters of the different races meet up, but Ma'ah becomes Captain by the end for his honourable conduct (and getting rid of bad Captain Dorg), and the Pakleds and Borg were really only gags. But we might have had the other lower decks Klingons on Cerritos, maybe an exchange programme, even though it's already been done (that doesn't stop 'SNW'!).

Despite my mild overarching concerns this is so close to being up there with the better episodes of this season and series it's almost negligible - let's take a step back for a moment and just recall that only a couple of years before this came out in 2021, it looked like we may never get proper Klingons again. Who could have foreseen that the redesign of 'DSC' and changing so much of what Trek is, could be so quickly undone and the old, great Trek aesthetics, style and everything about those eras returned to the fore! It is beautiful to see the old Klingon Bridge design that's been knocking around for decades, not just the Klingons looking as they should (not one Orc version in sight these days!), but that same Bridge and other parts of the ship familiar from 'DS9' and others. It's easy to forget how unlikely all this was, not just from 'DSC' and how badly it brought Trek back to 'TV,' but even before that with the Kelvin Timeline films. That's what draws me to 'LD' - it's not perfect, far from it, and there are many things I often find uncomfortable and distressing about the style or the humour, but at the same time it is by far the closest to recreating the true spirit of Trek and that's why it works. It's so sad they still haven't been able to recreate that same feeling in live action (though 'Picard' Season 3 comes closest), as it shouldn't be that hard!

While the majority of the episode concentrates on Klingons and Vulcans, meaning there's not as much time to throw in specific Trekferences, they still managed to deal in plenty of that nostalgia currency: Boimler suggests a Stratagema tournament when Captain Freeman allows the crew R&R during the long haul warp the Cerritos is going on (he also tries conversational Tamarian with Kayshon in his quest for a Bridge buddy as the rest of his friends have arranged activities with a Bridge officer, and only succeeds in offending him!), and not only does he wear Kirk's 'Go Climb a Rock' jumper in the rock-climbing holoprogram, but also Spock's gravity boots, thus combining both Kirk and Spock. Though once again there are privacy issues since he can apparently just walk into someone else's program while it's running, which could be distracting or disconcerting for the players already inside, taking them out of their story or activity - he does it again when he finds Mariner and Mother recreating the shooting match game, Velocity, Janeway and Seven had on 'Voyager,' though in that case they're too busy arguing to even notice! T'Lyn displays knowledge of Klingon culture when she says those that stand together are considered cha'DIch, a 'second' to support one who is going through a challenge or trial. Rutherford holds his completed DS9 station model from a few episodes back, which was a nice continuity touch, as was the Captain wearing a 'Ritos' t-shirt which apes the 'Disco' casual wear seen in 'DSC' - funny! I didn't realise it was first done this late in the series, I thought it had already happened.

There are other basic throwbacks like Captain Dorg quoting General Chang (I assume), quoting Shakespeare from 'Star Trek VI': "Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!" and Ma'ah subtly alluding to that film when he says other Klingons have tried to sabotage peace with the Federation before, and failed. He also mentions Kor's hound at the battle of Klach D'kel Brakt (mentioned by Kor himself in 'Blood Oath' on 'DS9'), a name I've always loved! Or Ransom revealing he's from Tycho City on Earth's Moon (a place mentioned in 'First Contact' as a place you can see from Earth, and where a Cadet in 'Valiant' was from), not to mention the flurry of crewmembers running around the ship during the Pakled attack still wearing various dressing-up clothes: Robin Hood (even though that was actually a Q scenario rather than a Holodeck one, but it still counts as a Trekference), someone in Sherlock Holmes' dressing gown with pipe, the Anbo-Jytsu outfits, what looked like Napoleon, some Medieval courtiers, and best of all, the deep cut of Crusher and Troi's ugly exercise leotards from 'TNG'! You might even say T'Lyn's parting words, "Live long and prosper... Sir," said in such a snarky tone, were a Trekference to Kelvin Spock in 'Star Trek XI' where he refuses entry into the Vulcan Science Academy (I didn't like it there and I don't like it here - too emotional). T'Lyn herself had a hairdo modelled on Valeris with the hairband, perhaps meant to subconsciously tell us she's different to most Vulcans.

And the music! That was glorious, so evocative of 'Star Trek II' or maybe 'Star Trek III,' though also a reuse of the 'Crisis Point' film-evoking episode of Season 1 - either way suitably dramatic and stirring, reminding me why I used to love Trek so much (and am so underwhelmed by so much of modern Trek!). There were a couple of slightly more obscure Trekferences: when Freeman and Mariner are playing Cluedo (with a layout on the board shaped like a starship!), Mariner guesses the murderer was the chef with the sniper rifle that can shoot through walls, which happened (apart from the chef part), in 'Field of Fire' on 'DS9.' The one I had to stop and think about due to its incongruity was when Boimler's worried that if he admits he's not really from Hawaii, as he told Ransom to fit in with his gang, the First Officer will demote him and send him to work on a penal colony where he'll have to mate with the enemy to form a new civilisation, which I'm assuming is a Trekference to the 'TNG' two-parter 'Birthright' where Worf, searching for his Father, discovered a colony where the Klingons and Romulans had come together to create a new joint community having previously been prisoners and jailers. Perhaps the funniest Trekferences were the general ones aimed at the Pakleds: I loved that their ship is called the Pakled Clumpship Pakled, or that instead of a Red Alert signal they have a Red Alarm where a voice cries out "Red Alarm! Red Alarm!" Or that they're so stupid they complain to the Klingon Captain about the bomb he gave them not working once they'd used it!

One other thing I wasn't keen on was T'Lyn's attitude to being sent to work on a Starfleet ship, considering it a punishment, when surely Vulcans of the late-24th Century are fully integrated? And while it was great to see the huge ring ship warp in to cover the Cerritos when the Pakleds are giving them a pounding, much like the Enterprise-E suddenly showing up to protect the Defiant in 'First Contact,' I don't buy that Vulcan ships would be so much more powerful than Starfleet ones at this time, and for that matter, T'Lyn's project to modify her ship, used as a last-ditch solution, was rather convenient and easy to implement - no engineering work, just connect the PADD to a console and suddenly the ship's all powered up! I did love that despite her project being a success and saving both the Sh'Vhal and the Cerritos, her Captain still gives her a Vulcan dressing down and sends her off the ship for disobedience. It's a very Vulcan thing to do and it also shows that regardless of outcomes, obedience and hierarchy are important, attitudes so often missing in modern Trek. The episode does a pretty good job of dealing with aliens, not just the main guests, but also in smaller ways like Shaxs getting upset when he thinks of Bajor because he still has unresolved issues with the memories of the resistance, or showing a Benzite using one of those respiration units, although I don't think we'd seen one using it since 'TNG' as 'DS9' showed at least one without and even 'LD' has had the occasional Benzite in the background sans this device. Don't tell me, only southern Benzites use them...

It was a good little twist that this particular Klingon Captain who feels his people have become too soft and wants to destabilise the Federation so the Empire can expand again, is the source of all the Pakled discord - maybe it's hard to believe that one single Captain of a Bird-of-Prey could provide that many weapons or that much information to destabilise a Quadrant, but once again we are dealing with the unconventional Pakleds so maybe all they needed was this one little spark to go into major revolt. It gave us the opportunity of seeing both races again, which is enjoyable in itself, but also reminding us of how these races are - not the collected group of various peoples the Federation represents, and so we're able to enjoy their culture instead of it being subsumed into a greater whole, and they feel more like the races they're supposed to be, when generally in modern Trek most aliens do not seem alien at all, merely humans with different faces, a major misstep in presenting Trek's future world. The fact they got Marc Okrand, the creator of the Klingon language involved as both Dialect Coach and Translator, shows how much they meant business (even the episode title is displayed only in Klingon language characters!). But oh how it makes me wish this approach (minus the humour), could have been used with all the series' they've done, so that it would all actually feel like Trek again. Because, writing this the day after Trek's 58th birthday, I'm not sure where it stands now with so many productions I have little to no interest in as they desperately try to be 'relevant' to younger viewers, while at the same time putting off people like me!

**

I, Excretus

 DVD, Lower Decks S2 (I, Excretus)

The drill grading was a little like how I felt about this episode - as Boimler kept retrying his scenario, pushing the percentage success rate up each time, so this episode kept trying to boost up its rating. That it didn't quite succeed with flying colours is thanks to some of the inappropriate content (they do seem to love scenes of the whole crew naked, or close to naked...), but it certainly wasn't Boimler's fault as his scenes were the best. As usual a lot was packed into the short running time: there's a lesson to be learned about the carpet always being greyer on the other side of the ship (in other words, it's not as easy being the senior staff as the lower deckers think, and it's not as easy vice versa for the lower deckers), a temporary return to the old animosity between Captain Mother and Ensign Daughter, and tons and tons of Trekferences as I'll call them from now on! That's to be expected by now (or, actually by the end of the pilot episode, to be precise!), but they probably squeezed in more direct episode titles than any other before since much of the action takes place as a series of drills in simulation pods for each crewmember to attempt. First things first, though, and we have another strong return to a race first (and only ever), seen in 'The Animated Series' ('Bem' - a dual title that was the character's name, but also well known for being an acronym for Bug-Eyed Monster); a Pandronian, the green-skinned creature that can split itself into different parts and refers to itself as 'this one.'

Actually, first thing was the mini-teaser which ably demonstrated (far better than any of the live action series' of modern Trek ever do), that mix of beauty and adventure of being in space, not relying on ridiculous stakes, just the personal, but also not forgetting this is supposed to be a comedy, so humour's fed in, too - as usual they get that opening 'TNG' tone where there's an attractive piece of music to set things up and the four friends are on the hull of some kind of satellite or other space tech admiring a nebula or something, before the Cerritos forgets they're even there and goes off to try and rescue a ship trapped in a temporal causality loop (which keeps sending the same distress signal over and over). My only sadness is that the moment of pleasant beauty is so fleeting, but just as they fit in an entire episode of 'Voyager' into a teaser less than a minute long (Paris and Torres spent much of 'Day of Honour' floating in space), everything is sped up to maximum warp just so they can fit it all in. Madcap pacing aside, it's this sort of stuff that makes me think well of the series and why I would put this season as the best of in modern Trek so far.

It often seems as if they're daring themselves how much Trek lore and, yes, Trekferences, they can cram in one episode and far be it from me to try and account for all of them, but even when I first saw the episode I enjoyed having a Pandronian guest starring - I almost felt I recognised the voice, but I don't know the actress' name, she just did a terrific job as this outside authority coming aboard ship to test the crew and subject them to all kinds of discomfort, ostensibly for their own good, sounding like a teacher or trainer would. Any qualms about whether someone really could reverse the command hierarchy just for some kind of test can be smoothed over by the fact that, while Shari yn Yem wasn't a bogus drill instructor (I feel they should have worked in a Trekference to drill thralls somewhere...), she did have a sinister ulterior motive: to ensure the ship's failure in case her drills were no longer considered worthwhile since most starship crews pass with flying colours (as you'd expect - a good reminder of the standards of Starfleet, something easily forgotten in so many of the errant modern versions of Starfleet people, or former Starfleet people, or not quite Starfleet people yet, that populate the other series'), before turning into a cackling villain and having to be blackmailed by the Cerritos travelling into 'dangerous' spatial phenomena until she agrees to give them a passing grade (since she adjusted the tests to ensure failure).

Maybe taking an authority figure of the week on a wild ride to scare her might seem a little irresponsible (I at first assumed they'd cunningly brought her into a Holodeck simulation), and maybe it's also playing into the idea of 'teachers' (broad term), being limited by their not having personal experience, which is why Shari yn Yem is fooled by the relatively minor dangers she's put through (Crystalline entities! Black holes which have the effect of the Wormhole in 'The Motion Picture' with colourful blurry reality! - it was only missing the sloooowww mooootiooon to make it hilarious, though it was fun to see her tumbling about the Bridge like she was on 'TOS'!). They obviously enjoyed recreating the Crystalline entity (or one of its kind), so much they added it to the main titles in Season 3. It makes a change for Boimler to be the one who rises most to the challenge and actively relishes it, but then it was only a simulation. Maybe he wouldn't be quite so gung ho about it in real life, but it was such fun to see him retry the test each time, and each time finding a way to do it even better until he's got to a level where he somehow contacts a Starfleet Runabout that comes and picks him up, rescues Borg babies, captures several adult Borg, and blows up the Cube itself - great comedy escalation! But all so Boimler in his quest for perfection, another reason I liked the majority of the episode.

Other parts were fun, too: for Trekkers MU doesn't stand for Marvel Universe, it stands for Mirror Universe with Mariner's trip 'across' being a highlight (she wears Uhura's outfit from 'Mirror, Mirror'! There are images of the sword through the world logo all over! The Agoniser! She uses a double-fisted hammer punch on Mirror Shaxs! Hang on, that's not exclusively a MU trope, but I liked it all the same, especially as he merely sees it as a legitimate greeting!). I'm not sure Starfleet could actually recreate the MU in such detail, wouldn't they want to keep such things secret, that's what I always thought? Mind you, 'DSC' completely messed up the MU anyway, and as time goes by I increasingly want to think of most of this Trek era we've been going through as an alternate universe (and as much as I'd like to include 'LD' in Prime, one aspect I didn't look on favourably about the crossover with 'Strange New Worlds' was how they accepted that Enterprise and crew, thus legitimising the aesthetic and those versions of characters as 'normal'). Still, 'LD' is by far the closest in almost every way to the classic eras past and it continues to make me smile with its stunts and Trekferences: this time the big one is Alice Krige herself! Wow, a real big gun, and it begins to look like 'Picard' was copying 'LD' since they brought back Q after he'd appeared in Season 1, and then brought back the Krige version of the Borg Queen after 'LD' had her in Season 2 - just a shame they didn't do the same for Susan Gibney's Leah Brahms who'd appear in Season 3 of this, but not that (though we never did hear who Geordi's wife was, did we...?).

Krige's velvet tones, reprising the role just over twenty years after she last played her in the 'Voyager' finale, were a delight to hear, I just wish they could've brought her back physically when she reprised her again in 'Picard.' It was also really good to see a proper Borg locale, too, after the ugliness of that sanitised, clean and tidy version of a Cube in 'Picard' Season 1. 'LD' just seems to keep bringing back the old Trek aesthetic in every way (and keeps making me wish we could simply have a straight, live action drama in this mould, without the excesses of animation and comedy they insist on here - sadly, with the announcement of a live action comedy it sounds like they're going to keep going in the direction of humour more than proper Trek...), and it's also in the writing, too - okay, I could lose the contemporary expressions and attitudes which infuse all contemporary Trek, but there are also the little details such as the Borg saying 'few-tyle' again instead of 'few-tul.' It makes me warm and cosy when that happens... and then I'm jolted out of the reverie by things like the 'Naked Time' scenario from the infamous inhibition-reducing virus of both 'TOS' and 'TNG,' episodes I really don't need to be reminded of. Oh, but then there's stealing the Cerritos out of Spacedock to go for Spock's body on Genesis ('Star Trek III' would certainly have been a different film with that ship instead!), and the fantastic Old West Planet simulation where they have a Western street of facades on a blank red backdrop just as they had in 'Spectre of The Gun' because they either couldn't afford to build a full set or weren't able to shoot on an existing one - I always loved that spare, stylistic choice so the callback here was perfect (they could be Trekferencing T'Pol's dislike of horses from 'North Star,' too, since Mariner's horse hates her).

Then there's the brilliant 'The Good of The Many' scenario where Rutherford has to recreate Spock's saving the Enterprise, wearing that distinctive white Engineering suit with the target on the front, and he can't even get into the chamber because he hasn't got the gloves with him (for want of a glove, a door couldn't be opened, for want of a door opening a starship blew up...). I thought they were going to do Kirk at first since the guy who talks to him looks like him, but I think he called him Lieutenant. No doubt we were meant to get that impression, however, but I'd be very surprised if they could ever afford to have William Shatner on the series (still, for the series finale, maybe?). One I was slightly disappointed in was the 'Ethics' recreation as Tendi has a Klingon patient that wants to commit ritual suicide - it was very amusing how they reverse things and he's 'unfortunately' saved (aside from legal suicide being a creepy modern agenda), and I was delighted to see the feet sticking out the end of the bedsheet had little horns on them, but where was the chest exoskeleton (as seen most prominently in 'Sons of Mogh' where Worf's brother Kurn gets him to stick a knife in), that seems like a major oversight unless they're suggesting this guy was only half Klingon - I did enjoy the comment from the surgeon about Klingons having extra organs, or whatever he said, I just expect a higher level of accuracy from this series!

The destruction of the Enterprise (if we can assume it was, it could have been some other refit Constitution-class vessel - otherwise can we add that to the tally of Enterprises being blown up?), was fairly spectacular, but it once again raises a big issue I have with simulated environments and how they shouldn't be able to show things in an external view since it doesn't exist. Unless that was there for the benefit of the crew who were watching, that would at least make sense in this case. Something else I wondered about was why this Pandronian would carry around however many individual pods for her drills when surely it would be simpler to use the Holodeck(s)? I don't think we've ever seen a Holodeck divided up to run multiple programs simultaneously (although there was 'The Killing Game' where they had to extend the Holodeck to fit in all the scenarios the Hirogen wanted to run, so maybe that would count?), but you'd think that would be simpler than transporting all these pods from ship to ship. Perhaps it would've meant it was more difficult to tamper with the programs, though there's never been any hindrance to that previously! Even more when they had to have multiple people in the scenario (though I much enjoyed Shaxs' exasperation at the hexagonal shape of the crates they're ordered to stack during an emergency!).

Another issue I had was the use of people's likenesses in holographic form. Surely this isn't acceptable, yet it seems to happen on this series all the time. There's got to be privacy issues, even in something official like a Starfleet test - would Migleemo have agreed to being kept on a perch, tethered by a lead on a collar like Mirror Worf did to Mirror Garak? I understand why they have familiar characters because they're the ones we know, but it's difficult to believe in this series' choices sometimes in the wider Trek universe, very much because they do such a good job of recreating 24th Century tone and style in general. A lesser issue or note that came up was when Shaxs says they're all equal on this ship perhaps foreshadowing the approaching change in command structure - that could be a little jab at things like 'DSC' and 'SNW' which have been roundly criticised for failing to show a believable command structure, preferring to be 'inclusive' to anyone and everyone's butting in on decision-making or questioning orders at any time, or just generally inappropriate behaviour. Thankfully the idea is punctured quickly here by Ransom reminding him they sleep in a hallway, so clearly lower deckers aren't equal in that sense, and I think that's good to be reminded: it takes experience, hard work and aptitude to reach the senior levels of starship command (even if it doesn't always seem like that), and that's how it should be!

If I can complain about one more aspect, it was Shari yn Yem tapping the Captain of the ship she's visiting on the nose. In front of her crew. That's not a good way to encourage discipline and respect (as funny as it was), but we're supposed to feel uneasy about her is how I read it. She doesn't become a villain until much later in the episode, going as far as saying most of the Federation doesn't even know California-class ships even exist (making sense of why we'd never heard of them before this series), reinforcing the small fry impression 'LD' seeks to give us, before reminding us that they are still Starfleet, they still have the training, and maybe not the experience, but they're getting there. A couple more minor complaints, too: Boimler claims he suffers from hay fever and acid reflux which must surely be easily curable with 24th Century medicine, though there's an easy defence to this nitpick since he could simply have been making things up to dissuade the Borg Queen from assimilating him into the Collective. But Freeman giving the lower deckers a 'better' Replicator at the end? That makes no sense whatsoever, they'd only need to add the programs to the existing model. It's times like this that it smacks of trying to emphasise a story point over sensible continuity and reminds me of the original premise that described them as being people that put the yellow cartridge in the Replicator to get bananas, or something similarly inane and plain wrong.

They have come quite a long way from those early missteps, however, and the season continues to skirt the edges of genuinely good Trek stories and characters, even if it more often than not still falls slightly short. Sometimes I think the lesson of the week needs a little bit more promotion (I think of the brief period of Freeman and her senior staff remembering how lower deckers have no worries and no responsibilities), at the expense of losing some of the humour or dramatic moments, but when they do succeed and an episode is (largely), clean, there's nothing more evocative of old Trek than this. There's always the reality that we could, and probably should, just go back and watch the good ol' days, but at the same time it's nice to have new Trek. Even if they continue to tease us: the Commander in the group simulation where Klingons are supposedly taking over the ship spots a Jem'Hadar, but it's off-camera so it's one of those famous races that continues to elude modern Trek. They could have recreated some for the Changeling storyline in 'Picard' Season 3, but even there they drew a blank. Maybe they realised they couldn't match the great Michael Westmore's superb designs on that one? And speaking of harking back to greatness on 'DS9,' I write this shortly after hearing of James Darren's death - he was so great as Vic Fontaine and would've been a perfect guest star for this series. Once again it's sad how many Trek people have gone now, especially with 'DS9,' and as 'Generations' reminds us: cherish every moment, because it'll never come again.

**

Where Pleasant Fountains Lie

 DVD, Lower Decks S2 (Where Pleasant Fountains Lie)

It took them long enough, but they finally did it: brought back the Great Jeffrey Combs! In the first few seasons of modern Trek, from 'DSC' to early 'Picard' and 'LD' they'd refrained from jumping deeply into returning actors from old Trek. It wasn't that they never had anyone familiar (Clint Howard showed up in 'DSC' Season 1, for example), but they definitely didn't seem to have such connections in mind. Leaving aside Jean-Luc himself, we only got a smattering, though that gradually snowballed until we've had tens of old characters played (or voiced), by their original actors. Perhaps they realised the writing wasn't up to it for those schooled in Trek, and they needed to get more people more interested, or perhaps they felt a little more confident as time went on (just as 'TNG' kept away from 'TOS' for the most part in its early years), but either way the returning of characters and actors has been one of the few successful aspects of this era. And yet they still hadn't brought in Combs who was one of the most versatile greats we ever saw in Trek - beginning as a one-off alien in 'DS9,' then taking on the iconic roles of Brunt and Weyoun in the same, he went on to appear in 'Voyager' and had a recurring role as Shran in 'Enterprise' (and was talked up by Manny Coto as being planned to join the series as main cast if they'd got a Season 5), and was definitely high on my list of people they really should bring back. I'd always imagined him returning to one of his famous roles (most likely an aged Shran, but anyone would've done!), but if we only get his voice as a megalomaniacal supercomputer then that's something, at least...

He is very good here, the wheedling, the manipulating, the complimenting... it's funny, yet also somehow real, and very well written to reflect this machine that constantly manoeuvres from one strategy to the next while Mariner and Boimler are just trying to stay alive on a planet where they've crashed (especially enjoyed the moment of the crash where we see it from inside the cockpit of a shuttle with the ground racing up towards them, just as they would have filmed it in old Trek!), and the last thing they need is a voice continually preying on their situation, pleading that he can save them if they'll only... plug him in... Combs was ideally suited, his whiny, yet reasonable stream of suggestions, attempts to divide his two captors, and never missing a chance to try and lay some groundwork for escape is a highlight, but even better is the way Boimler tricks him by apparently playing into his hands and using Mariner's belief that he's lost it to save them both! A real success story and a clever twist. It's also a good-looking episode with this desert planet full of space junk that has been sucked down to the surface, but also the Medieval decor and style of the Hysperian 'fantasy' ship, Monaveen, Chief Engineer Billups' own Mother's ship. Unfortunately, that's where the similarity with the two plots ends (unless you count them both being driven by a sneaky, manipulative character that will do absolutely anything to get what they want!).

The problematic premise, which is exactly the kind of humour that prevents this series from truly blossoming like the great Treks before it, is very family unfriendly, and while it never really goes anywhere visually, the innuendo goes too far and almost ruins what was one of the better stories, bringing it down to merely enjoyable thanks to Combs. Such a shame he was 'wasted' in an otherwise troubled story when he could, and should, have been the sole focus for the crew. Still, if you ignore the exact nature of Queen Paolana's (sounds a lot like Lwaxana to me...), method of tricking her son into taking the throne as king of his people, it's still quite an innocent, fun story, and while it makes use of a recurring character to good effect, it's really about Rutherford and Tendi - while it could be said to be a tired trope by this stage that so many episodes feature Mariner with Boimler, and Rutherford with Tendi, it's actually quite a nice format, especially when you only have half the episode length of traditional Trek, and this one is particularly poignant as Tendi is told, and believes, that Rutherford died in a freak accident aboard the Monaveen. Of course we've seen that all before (I immediately think of Mayweather in 'Dead Stop,' but Garak blowing up his own shop is another instance that comes to mind), but Tendi hasn't, and we see it through her eyes.

That the Queen would go to any lengths, even afflicting great grief on her son, shows just what a manipulative Mother she is, without the bustling charm and rudeness of Lwaxana Troi, though in the same mould. But the idea of a people that deliberately play up fantasy myths and rename standard technology to reflect that was typically daft of this series, yet I could imagine it happening in live action Trek, too. No doubt there are examples of all kinds of weird alien groups that we've seen, though nothing's springing to mind. The ship was beautiful, if a little 'Star Wars' princess (I could certainly imagine Queen Amidala travelling in it!), and it was well presented - the physical docking connection seemed like yet one more swipe at 'DSC' for its ridiculous energy field attachment corridors. There was also the expected humour, my favourite being the evil lute-playing which jams Combadges from communicating, the musician having an infernal, diabolical light in his eyes! The episode was surprisingly thin on references, which made a change, though they do have to throw in Mariner's suggestion of burying Agimus like Data's head, to which Boimler rejoins that it was actually in a cave - love the attention to specifics, and that he knows this! There's also the Daystrom Institute, which is where they're transporting Agimus (though it's questionable why a shuttle would be travelling to Earth when surely the Cerritos would be faster, but they had to set it up that way so the pair could be marooned), and Agimus claiming he's turned over a new leaf and wants to join Starfleet where he could be the next Seven of Nine!

I suppose you could say the flying drones that Agimus imagines himself creating, and was part of the artwork by the planet of people who had worshipped him, were the same design as those in 'The Arsenal of Freedom' in 'TNG,' and his "Yes, yeeesss," when watching Boimler and Mariner fight was reminiscent of Emperor Palpatine watching the battle between Luke and Vader. I also had a fleeting suggestion of the little robot that wedges itself in the doorway in 'Capricorn One' when they're trying to move him (I think it's that film, or is it 'Space Camp,' it's been a long time?), as Agimus briefly grabs the doorframe with his tubules before being pulled out, though I'm sure it wasn't intended. And it was a great gag to have him locked away in a room full of compartments occupied by similarly boxy evil computers as if it's a regular issue for Starfleet (there's one featuring the CBS Eye logo, an upside down Triforce from 'Zelda,' and best of all, in his first ever appearance in Trek, Batman himself!). For some reason, even Agimus shouting out that he's going to take over the Federation was appealing, just for hearing Combs say 'Federation'! Another good observation came when Mariner asks how Phaser Rifles are different from normal ones and Boimler says they take two hands, as when you think about it, that should be the only difference, although I've always felt they're more powerful due to having a larger capacity for power (and they look tough, too!). Not all references were jokey - Tendi worriedly suggesting there are going to be times every now and then when it seems like Rutherford's died, acted both to remind us of the last time this happened, and also to display a vulnerability in her that shows how hard she found it to accept her friend's apparent death yet again.

I did wonder how she could just wander onto the Monaveen (though I loved that she asked the computer to locate Rutherford, giving her the coordinates for where she assumes the last part of him must be, the old-fashioned way - so Trekky!), though I suppose Starfleet had been given free access. Still, you'd think the ship would have shut down in order to ensure Billups doesn't have second thoughts. My other criticism was that Rutherford moans about how he wants to tell Billups to use someone else because he's too worried about all the customs and messing up an alien ship - my issue is since when do Ensigns get to decide what they do? That sounded a bit too 'DSC' for me where ship discipline and everything else is apparently controlled by people's emotions and how willing they are to do something rather than obedience and snapping to duty. It's possible Rutherford meant he would request off the assignment and Billups could decide one way or the other and we're just hearing it from a lower decks slant of how he forms the situation to his friend. One other thing was that it seemed strange for Boimler to have his assignment changed via PADD, as usually it would be in person or at least over the comms, but of course in this case they don't want us to know Ransom reassigned him by Mariner's request as Boimler would have asked why and it would have all come out, whereas it was setup for Agimus to show what really happened and use it as fuel to aggravate. But he underestimated the quintessential Starfleet man! That's a good message, well done. But next time let's give Jeffrey Combs our full attention (and preferably in live action. And preferably bringing back one of his great previous characters. Preferably).

**

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.

**

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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