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The latest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks is called ‘Trusted Sources’ after both a very specific Trek online reference, and the overall idea of trusted news sources which is the main theme of this episode. The Cerritos is on a new ‘Project Swing By’ effort, a different sort of follow-up where Starfleet checks up on first contact civilizations that haven’t been heard from in a while.
This time the team will be visiting the aliens from the first season episode of TNG called ‘Symbiosis’, a classic ‘message’ episode about drug use that doesn’t hold up at all or even at the time. I didn’t even remember if I’d seen the episode, but thankfully Lower Decks gives us the highlights — one planet the Brekkan aliens used addictive drugs to effectively control the other planet, the Ornaras until Picard showed up. He essentially broke up their drug trade by not fixing the Brekkan broken transport ships while not fixing the withdrawal issues, deeming it a violation of the Prime Directive. So although the drug trade could not continue, the after effects were still going to happen.
The little twist this episode is that a journalist from ‘FNN’ plans to accompany the ship during the entire mission, showcasing how good Starfleet is (or perhaps how badly the Cerritos might screw it up, which is a potential conspiracy theory given what happens later). This freaks out control freak Captain Freeman, who worries that their known track record of screwing things up will happen again and especially is concerned that Mariner will sabotage things intentionally or through classic apathy.
It’s a funny little visual when Mariner shows up covered in blueberry pie, talking about the ship’s rapport-building pie eating contest that’s happening soon. But a paranoid Freeman cancels the potentially embarrassing event at the barest hints of impropriety, because her characterization this season post-arrest has become quite exaggerated. The funniest moment of the episode is when Rutherford begs to be stunned to avoid feeling the pain of missing the contest, but it wasn’t a particularly funny episode overall, more story-based.
After Mariner discovers she’s being blocked from giving an interview, she decides to ‘tell the truth’ about the Cerritos — a classic misdirect because we know her history. But we also have seen her growth as a character too. We see a few other people being interviewed, like some using Tamarian slang and some tiresome Ransom unwanted flirting — weird how that character really feels inconsistent sometimes.
Although the Ornarans have actually ended up doing well — Freeman angrily confirms that Picard indeed did the right thing, there’s some sort of trap or problem on Brekka. The mysterious helmeted Breen, always intimidating, are there and on the verge of taking over the ship. Suddenly they are saved by a new ‘Texas-class’ ship that’s fully automated, and you begin to wonder if it was all planned by the Admiral to showcase the ship to the journalist knowing that the Cerritos would be a sitting duck to the Breen.
But it gets out that bad news is coming to the ship as the journalist reveals a lot of pretty bad news items, basically the whole show when you look at the times when the Cerritos screwed up. Furious, she banishes Mariner to the terrible Starbase 80, which we finally get a glimpse of here, and it’s pretty funny — wearing outdated uniforms, fighting alien bats, and just seeming to be a terrible place to be.
The ‘twist’ is that Mariner was actually the only one shown on the program to be only saying good things about the Cerritos — certainly the other crew members interviewed likely had positive things to say, but the journalist obviously wasn’t interested in that, considering we hear her trying to spin things for the worse.
But since Mariner feels abandoned and untrusted, naturally she quits Starfleet to join Petra the space archaeologist. So we head into the season finale with a mixed season and some interesting drama finally, but it hasn’t really been the strongest season until now. Always fun, but not hitting those season two heights.
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The Stars at Night
The season finale of Star Trek: Lower Decks is called ‘The Stars at Night’ which is a clever little reference to the lyrics of the song ‘Deep in the Heart of Texas’ because the episode hides its message of Texas versus California in a way that’s easily interpreted as entirely apolitical (even though it assuredly isn’t). The episode was also about a mild reset to the status quo, albeit with some positive changes.
The conspiracy ideas about Admiral Buenamigo are confirmed this episode when he reveals at one point with a villain monologue that he’s been behind multiple attempts to sabotage the Cerritos — and also that he brainwashed Rutherford. He has a ridiculous villain laugh, which is pretty cartoonish — especially because later he claims that it’s for the greater good, so which is it?
His actual plan to replace the lowly California class starships with automated Texas class is an interesting idea, but there wasn’t much in the way of deep investigation of the sci-fi concept or even the regular old ‘automation replacing jobs’ concept. Instead we get the Cerritos involved in a second contact race, where they fall behind because Tendi correctly thinks they should scan for lifeforms while the AI ship ignores it.
The whole concept of Starfleet has always been about people going into the unknown and improving others and themselves, so it makes sense that it’s a thesis statement — in addition to the one where it’s great to rely on others, as we get a fun hit moment when all of the California class ships show up to help out.
Mariner returns to ship too after her brief little tomb raiding adventure — the discovery that Petra was being funded by Admiral Picard was a disappointment because she misses that egalitarian group effort too. It’s a very fast turnaround for the show, a bit too fast, but at least it was a nice moment for the character.
Boimler gets a decent little mini-arc where he accidentally insults Shaxs but in the crucial moment, helps him save the idea in what’s clearly a meaningful moment for him. Even if it’s just ejecting the warp core, which he’s always wanted to do. And I guess Freeman gets a more assured, fair-minded episode where she does seem to be espousing the right values, even if she’s also a bit wound tight.
Rutherford finally knows the truth about his backstory, but it’s not like it really changes anything — at least Tendi’s path to being a senior science officer is still a thing. And thankfully we get the return of the Vulcan hothead T’Lyn, who was so popular (understandably) that it took the show creators by surprise because they weren’t able to really add her until the finale. But the promises of the Tendi/T’Lyn pairing are certainly fun to think about.
The end-credits tag promises potentially more work for Jack McBrayer as the evil Badgey, who I guess we haven’t seen since the Season 1 finale. So next season is about all of the evil AIs then? Overall, I can’t say I loved the obvious evil Admiral twist, but it was a fun episode with heart, and there were some funny lines, like how that one planet is a ‘Brigadoon’ type that only phases into reality every few months.
As a season though it wasn’t the best, especially compared to Season 2. It wasn’t a bad season, just more fun without the real depth we’d come to expect from the show. Hopefully they find their footing again next season.
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