Review: Star Trek: Lower Decks “I, Excretus”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

A consultant named Yem boards the USS Cerritos and has the idea to have the Lower Decks crew experience the rigors or being Captains while the Captains take on the challenges that come with being with the steerage. To help gauge the effectiveness of the Lower Decks crew, everyone heads into test simulators for a variety of different alternate universes to see how each would react in specific situations. Not surprisingly, the Lower Decks crew for the most part fails miserably with the exception of Boimler who passes but is obsessed with getting a better score.

The substitute lower decks crew seems to enjoy being where they are while the wannabe captains continue to reach the potential that comes with being in charge. Freeman and Mariner eventually come together and surmise that perhaps the real point of all these tests is for both crews to be closer together and empathize with the others’ permissions. When Yem gets word of this, we learn that the drill instructor did all of this as a setup to keep her nearly eliminated job. All of the tests were rigged to fail, but Boimler hasn’t left his so the girls see this as an opportunity for everyone to retake their tests and hopefully pass.

The Cerritos crew opts to teach Yem a lesson and take her to a real-life scenario of what these people do on a daily basis…blackmail! Yem is subsequently tortured as the Cerritos crew threatens to destroy all unless if she passes the crew, in which she does. Boimler is saved from whatever hell he was put through, and Yem leaves the Starfleet entirely.

Our Take

This week we get to see the classic adage, “grass is always greener on the other side”. For the Lower Decks crew, that doesn’t seem to be the case as the captains are rather jealous of their lower-dwelling compatriots. In any event, this week’s episode was rather comical with the best sequences, I think, being Boimler getting constantly tortured. The twist featuring Yem was a bunch of fun as well, and hats off to the Titmouse producers for making the different sequences look really unique but still recognizable. Furthermore, a bunch of the one-liners from the faux crews had that old-school Rick and Morty feel to them that Mike McMahan used to be a big part of during the show’s Emmy-winning runs. Space orgies be damned, Star Trek: Lower Decks punches in a solid episode.