Lower Decks Returns With an Old Lesson to Re-Learn

From the very beginning—even when some Trek fans initially grumbled that a show that dared to poke fun at Starfleet could never say anything meaningful about Star Trek at all—Lower Decks has been fascinated with communication. The nature of power balances between senior and junior officers, the human need and frustration that comes when people just can’t bring themselves to express themselves to the people close to them, the very idea about the need for good Starfleet officers and good people in general to be open and honest with their friends and peers has long been the core of Lower Decks‘ thematic heart. Now, the show is back for one final outing, and it really needs you to remember this lesson, as much as its seasoned young heroes do.

The opening two episodes of Lower Decks’ fifth and final season, “Dos Cerritos” and “Shades of Green,” largely tell two disconnected stories united by this particular thematic thrust as well as one of the show’s regular dramatic weaknesses: the need to resolve a status-quo-changing season finale cliffhanger as quickly as feasibly possible to get us back to that aforementioned status quo. In this case, it’s Tendi being shipped off to serve with her sister in her family’s Orion crime syndicate to pay off the asks she made of D’Erika in the season four finale. And at least in this case, we not only actually get to spend a decent chunk of time with Tendi across these two episodes in the B-plot of the first (and arguably the A-plot of the second) before she’s ready to come back to her friends, even though she’s separated in the narrative, it all comes back to this overarching message about the fundamental lesson Lower Decks has about communication. And again, this feels like it is ultimately a reflection of just how far Lower Decks itself has grown over these five seasons: it’s tried this kind of narrative shuffling before and rarely has it really felt like it worked, but with time and confidence the series has finally managed to nail one of these status quo reversions without it immediately feeling like a bit of a cop-out.

This sense of maturation is another through line in these first two episodes. “Dos Cerritos” is another Lower Decks fave in the form of a riff on a classic Trek idea, when the ship, attempting to fix a “space pothole” creating fissures to other parallel realities, accidentally manages to be yanked in instead and come face to face an alternative Cerritos. It turns out that the reality our Cerritos crew find themselves in is just a fraction of a percentage different to Trek‘s prime universe (the designation of which becomes a great ongoing gag), one with enough differences to be notable, but close enough that it becomes less about an alternate reality, and more of a potential future for our heroes.

The Rutherford of this reality, much like our Rutherford, is plagued by the absence of his best friend in Tendi, extrapolated to the point that he has allowed much of his body to be replaced with cybernetics that dampen his emotions and memories in exchange for better workplace performance. The Boimler of this reality is a bearded, confidant second in command, the apex of what our Boimler is yearning to achieve after his brush with the captain’s chair in season four’s climax. The Mariner of this reality is everything our Mariner has hoped and feared for across the show: stylizing herself as Captain Becky Freeman, carrying the legacy of her mother to be a Starfleet leader that rules with power and confidence… and as we learn, perhaps a little too much of the former and not nearly enough of the latter.

The Mariners’ dual arcs are what we really sink our teeth into with “Dos Cerritos.” It becomes clear very quickly that even if Becky has achieved the status our Beckett knows she’s capable of, she’s done so at great personal cost: she’s become cold and distant to her friends and colleagues, commanding through fear and a capacity for violence that makes for a smooth-running ship but one gripped by tension. No one on the alt-Cerritos is doing their jobs because they have a passion for the tenets Starfleet holds dear, but because they’re petrified of being dressed down, beaten, and sent to the brig by a captain that they serve out of terror rather than duty or compassion. It’s everything our Mariner hates about the systems of power at play in Starfleet, but it’s also everything that she fears for herself coming from years of trauma growing up as a Starfleet hopeful in the age of the Dominion War, that she would have to lose parts of herself that she values, to cushion the blow of losing people in a fight to survive.

Thankfully though, our Mariner has taken on this aforementioned lesson of being able to communicate and express herself with her friends and colleagues, and is quick to not just rally against Becky being an asshole to her crew, but when her alt-reality doppelganger reveals that she wants to try and take Mariner’s place on Cerritos Prime to live a carefree life of charming insubordination, she’s quick to step up and actually talk with the alt-Cerritos crew in the nick of time in order to make sure she gets home as intended, and Becky is locked up for abusing her crew. That’s Mariner’s actual growth in action!

If “Dos Cerritos” is about this familiar lesson being reflected across Mariner, Boimler, and Rutherford, then “Shades of Green” gives the bulk of itself over to having Tendi re-learn it. The Starfleet crew does have some fun stuff in the second episode to re-affirm this message—Mariner and Boimler (who, having secreted away a Padd from the alt-reality’s Boimler, is mainly using it so far to learn that he needs to pull a Riker Maneuver and start growing his facial hair out) visit a planet in the process of giving up capitalism to join the Federation as a member of post-scarcity society, and Rutherford gets a great but minor plot arc with T’Lyn as she tries to comfort him about Tendi’s continued absence. But it’s all mostly a lighter edge to the focus on Tendi’s narrative. Yearning to go back to her friends on the Cerritos, Tendi takes on a mission for D’Erika in “Dos Cerritos” to recover a lost Orion warship, only to run foul of a group of Blue Orions (a wonderful throwback to their goofy appearance in The Animated Series). When Tendi manages to win the ship by listening to her piratical crew mates after they almost betray her for saving the life of a Blue Orion, things take a turn when the patriarchal society declares war on House Tendi for her “un-pirate-like” approach in the engagement, leading to a wild space race mandated by Orion’s ruling powers to settle it all.

It’s a fun premise to hang “Shades of Green” around—it’s the most we’ve ever really got to explore how Orion society works, and goes beyond the typical depiction of their mercenary culture that not only gives the species at large some texture, but allows Tendi to embrace her Orion heritage in ways she’s been reticent to throughout the show so far. Plus, who doesn’t love a space race for treasure that feels very Disney’s Treasure Planet meets Voyager‘s “Drive”? But again, the real strength Lower Decks finds here is not in the Trek nerdery of it all, but in pushing its characters. Tendi and D’Erika go on a great little arc in this second episode that flips the switch on the antagonistic relationship we saw them have last season, one that brings us back to this underlying message about the importance of openness and connection.

Just before the big race kicks off, Tendi learns that her sister is pregnant with a child that could be her ticket back to Starfleet: a new scion to inherit her title, but also a new life that could be at risk if D’Erika takes command on this dangerous mission. At first, neither sister is willing to actually talk about this with each other, leading to the increasingly comical attempts of Tendi trying to make sure D’Erika is facing as little stress as possible during the race, even when it means the crew starts falling behind. But ultimately they both realize they need to be honest to each other about their feelings, and in turn they come out of the other side of the race willing to part ways but closer than ever, as sisters and as people who have grown to respect their sibling’s divergent paths in life.

There have been versions of this kind of thematic storytelling throughout Lower Decks‘ life so far, but in returning to these messages again as they prepare to start their final season of adventures, it’s a reminder that for as far as all of heroes have come, as people, as friends, as Starfleet officers, that there are fundamental lessons we have to revisit in our lives as we change and grow as people. Star Trek has always been about sitting down and talking, about understanding different perspectives and making sure you have faith to stand up and make the case for your own. Lower Decks, even as it’s lovingly poked fun at this franchise we all love, has always understood that: and wants to let you know that even as it’s preparing to say goodbye, it’s going to keep understanding that too.

The fifth season premiere of Star Trek: Lower Decks is now streaming on Paramount+.

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