Review: Star Trek Lower Decks “wej Duj”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

As Boimler tries to expand his social circle when his usual friends are busy, a Klingon Ensign tries to rise through the ranks elsewhere, and a Vulcan Ensign faces conflict with her out of the box thinking on a different ship.

OUR TAKE

I very clearly oversimplified that synopsis, but if you’ve seen the episode in question, you know full well that it is A LOT. And in mostly a good way! It balances what would be a pretty typical plot for Lower Decks of Boimler being borderline slimy with trying to gain favor with his superiors by lying about coming from Hawaii (which it turns out all of them were lying about it too but it doesn’t really excuse him), but juxtaposes that with two much stronger plots involving two new characters who are similar to the Cerritos Ensigns in at least a couple key ways. The first of which being that rank, meaning that all three stories are about lower crewmen trying to contribute to their respective ships. A subtle, but more important overlap is that both Boimler and the Klingon are eager to move up in rank, but have a conscience that stops them from being total kiss-asses. For this Klingon, he learns that his captain is actually behind the Pakled attacks (more on that later) and kills him to keep another war from breaking out. Meanwhile, the Vulcan Ensign (sorry, the names are escaping me at the time of this writing) actually shares a quality with Mariner, feeling restricted by the protocol that is keeping them from finding new ways of doing the job they came to their respective ships to do.

This episode is another dissection of the core thesis of Lower Decks, mainly in how it shows that there are similar people in smaller positions who are likely to influence history in small but significant ways. And THEN it throws in a bunch of big revelations regarding what has been going on with all the Pakled attacks, showing that it was this lone rogue Klingon captain who was eager to start up all the fighting again. Interestingly, the Cerritos might end up never knowing the full picture of this despite fighting with this captain directly. It’s unclear where the Klingon Ensign is going to end up, but it looks like the Vulcan one is headed to a Star Fleet ship for her insubordination, and I have a good guess which one. Honestly, this feels like a Season Finale in a lot of ways, making me both excited and a little worried what they could possibly be planning for the actual finale next week. But if I had one critique for this excellently layered installment, it’s just that it’s too busy. I honestly think we could have cut out the Cerritos characters entirely with all the other Ensigns of the Klingons, Vulcans, Pakleds, and even Borgs serving their purpose. Now what’s up next?