Review: Star Trek Lower Decks “Where Pleasant Fountains Lie”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

It is revealed that Chief Engineer Billups is actually the heir to a throne of a planet that the Cerritos is helping, with a plot being revealed to get him to leave the ship to inherit rule. Meanwhile, Boimler and Mariner are tasked with escorting an evil computer back to Earth and get stranded on an abandoned planet.

OUR TAKE
It’s taken a long time, over a season and a half, but I think we’ve finally gotten an episode that didn’t feel like it needed extensive knowledge of the franchise to understand! Which is interesting, because it seems that this one was crammed to the gills with references to frequent Star Trek plots and archetypes, but I just didn’t notice this time! Better late than never, I guess. As I’ve pointed out a few times now, this series needs to engage with an audience with isn’t necessarily as knowledgeable with Trek as the writers are. I understand that the property has been around for decades but that doesn’t mean everyone has seen TNG or TOS or even Discovery. Thankfully it looks like they’re managing to do that now.

As for the actual plot of the episode, I’m surprised that we’ve finally gotten some focus on Billups. He’s had somewhat of a presence around the ship, being the more regular looking dude among the other command staff who had a budding comradery with Rutherford through their shared passion for engineering. Now he gets part of the spotlight where we learn some of his backstory, apparently being the son of a queen and being in line to takeover. This is a pretty stock plot on its own, which may very well be because it’s typical on The Next Generation and so other shows might have taken it from there, but it works well enough on its own here and the humor is on point.

Same goes for the Boimler and Mariner plot. Dealing with an evil computer who wants to take over everything is something I can instantly grasp, only made better by the fact that said computer is voiced by Jeffery Combs, who I know mostly as The Question in Justice League Unlimited and Rachet in Transformers Prime, but he’s apparently been a veteran of Star Trek roles so this is a welcome return for fans! If I had to put one or two critiques of these plots though, I think there should have been some things that weren’t as easily resolved, as well as both plots having clear “don’t cross the stream” moments, meaning them highlighting specifically things that shouldn’t happen which makes clear what will definitely be happening down the line. But I’m going to be nice this time and say that this was probably one of the better Lower Decks episodes overall. Hopefully we’re in for a strong last four episodes of the season.