Paramount Plus
The latest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks is called ‘Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus’ and is a follow-up from the ‘Crisis Point’ episode from Season 1 where Mariner is called out for using a holodeck program to fantasize about murdering her crewmates (and by extension her mother) due to her deep psychological issues which have barely been addressed.
Here we have our Lower Decks gang on a new holodeck movie, this time programmed by Boimler, who’s playing Captain Bucephalus Dagger in a classically ridiculous Star Trek plot. There are a lot of references to things, including stuff I’m sure I missed — I have to assume that joke about an alternate timeline with different people playing younger versions of them is a specific call out but I’m not sure if it’s simply the JJ Abrams Star Trek movieverse (which it probably is) or something more obscure.
I did pick up that one of the planets is called Tatasciore IX, named after Fred Tatasciore, the voice actor for Shaxs. There’s an odd mystery at first, when Boimler is called away for a short while to get some news from Ransom — at first there’s a question if it’s something as simple as he says, being reassigned maybe away from his friends. But we do come to figure out what’s really going on.
While Rutherford and Tendi continue on the main ridiculous time travel ‘Chronogami’ storyline, Mariner stays behind to follow Boimler as he starts to do a side quest that wasn’t really programmed into his movie — but the holodeck AI is certainly doing something to keep things interesting. Boimler keeps asking about the meaning of life and the purpose of anything, but we only find out the truth eventually.
We are told that Boimler’s transporter clone that was on the Titan has died in a freak accident, leading to ‘original flavor’ Boims to ponder the point of anything — since his clone died seemingly for no reason and for no purpose. It makes sense that it’s something that would obsess you if that happened, one of the classic weird sci-fi ideas that Star Trek touches on that makes you wonder philosophically about things.
Paramount Plus
He ultimately gets advice from a vision or dream of Captain Sulu (the voice of George Takei returning again) simply telling him that he’ll never find joy if he spends time worrying about the future. Of course, all this is slightly undercut by the called out cliffhanger that ‘William’ Boimler actually faked his death and is now part of the ridiculous Section 31, something that DS9 pulled a few interesting episodes out of and that Discovery really couldn’t.
Otherwise, the Tendi/Rutherford stuff is pretty light and easily resolved. Rutherford is treating the holodeck movie as light fun, which makes sense as it’s all a game really, but Tendi is taking it very seriously and keeps getting annoyed at him. It doesn’t really make sense why she’s getting so distressed at his fun until she reveals that she wants to make sure she could be respected enough to be a captain, her dream.
And naturally, Rutherford easily offers his approval of the idea which is no surprise at all — of course he’d be supportive. So … I don’t know, as fun as it was to see them go through Boimler’s silly time travel story, this little message felt tacked on and a little uninspired. I guess they had too much focus on the Boimler stuff, as per usual — but at least they didn’t simply make him the butt of a joke.
It was another fun and mostly light episode, nothing with the thematic intrigue we often saw last season. At this point I’m not sure if we’ll get to those heights, considering the track record of the ones that have come out already. I’m still hopeful if not optimistic at this point, but I suppose a fun show is still better than a boring or annoying one.
New episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks stream Thursdays on Paramount Plus. Use Hotchka’s affiliate link to subscribe.
What did you think of this episode? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
Share this post
