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There’s something that’s comforting about familiar archetypes, even when they are seen often. In Star Trek: Lower Decks the two primary leads are Boimler and Mariner, the classic dichotomy of nerd vs jock. Even if a jock in Star Trek is a nerd anywhere else. The latest episode is called ‘Temporal Edict’, which is a funny play on words because it leads you to believe it’s about time travel, when in fact it’s about micromanaging people and their schedules.
The episode has the best cold open yet, subverting a few things and confirming others. Boimler plays songs with an electric sci-fi violin about his mom, including one called ‘Requiem for a Hug’? Expected but funny. Mariner playing an overly loud, raucous song that shakes the ship — but no one actually likes despite her overconfidence? Unexpected.
Continuing on with the typical style, this episode also has parallel storylines, this time separating Boimler and Mariner, which I appreciated as it allowed the introduction of new dynamics. The main storyline was on the Cerritos, all driven by very poor decisions by the Captain in what is certainly a bad sign. She’s salty because she feels that her ship is getting the worse, less prestigious assignments because they aren’t as capable. This is true, but instead of understanding what actually makes a ship like the Enterprise work so well, she overreacts.
Boimler, who is an overly hard worker and rule follower, discovers the concept of “buffer time” that everyone on the ship uses to get things done without being overworked. It feels intentionally like a shout out to that episode of TNG, ‘Relics’, where Scotty reveals he always padded engineering estimates to Geordi so he’d be perceived as a miracle worker. ‘Creative estimates’ as it’s explained. But after Boimler accidentally reveals the buffer concept to the Captain, she goes nuts and demands an overly critical accounting of everyone’s time.
Naturally this leads to failures and screw-ups, cascading shipwide until it initiates the secondary storyline, which is Mariner on an away team led by Commander Ransom to a crystal-worshipping society for a typical follow-up contact mission. But because of that pesky overworking, things don’t go as planned and Ransom and the rest are held — not for ransom, although that would be funny.
Instead through a series of escalating moments of sexual tension with Mariner, the two argue with legitimately well-written lines about their place in the hierarchy versus the responsibility for fighting to defend their team. Then you get a fun subversion where Ransom rips off his shirt (like Kirk) and literally shouts out ‘interlocked hands’ (which is a classic Star Trek fight style) as he easily defeats the giant alien. I was into that whole scene, especially how the giant was actually a gentle soul hoping for progressive elements in his society.
The Mariner/Ransom plot in general had the best lines — Mariner looking at the spears and comparing it to the ‘2260s’, being taken aback that her guard was fulfilled, mentioning ‘high concept fights’ (that’s pretty close to the classic ‘high concept sci-fi rigmarole’ from Rick and Morty), the two fighting over who would fight to the death … especially I liked how it ended, with Mariner refusing to report Ransom stabbing her but getting written up for not rolling up sleeves. I rewatched it again before writing the review and laughed again, that’s always a good sign.
The Boimler plotline was a bit more fun action-y with all the spear throwing aliens, with Boims basically saving the day by convincing the Captain to take it easy on the micromanaging thing. It’s a nice change of pace, as Mariner didn’t save anything and Boimler did, even if there wasn’t really anything good with Rutherford or Teni this episode. But it was a pretty fun episode with a lot of laughs and some pretty good character development. A real improvement and hopefully a good sign.
And the final moment talking about Miles O’Brien as the most important person in Starfleet history after that jab at Boimler? Chef’s kiss. Miles is underrated.
Star Trek: Lower Decks streams new episodes every Thursday on CBS All Access.
What did you think of the episodes? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
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