The beginning of every episode of Solar Opposites informs its audience of the show’s general premise: “Planet Shlorp was a perfect utopia, until the asteroid hit. One hundred adults and their replicants were issued a Pupa and escaped into space, searching for new homes on uninhabited worlds…”
Solar Opposites follows one of these 100 Shlorpian groups during their efforts on Earth, but the series has gotten increasingly creative regarding its scope and subject matter. Right from the show’s first season there have been episodes that experiment with form and the newest episodes from season three go even further in this respect. One of the most entertaining episodes of the third season is “99 Ships,” an entry that’s written by series co-creator Mike McMahan and explores the question of what happened to the other 99 Shlorpian ships from the series’ opening credits. What follows is easily the busiest episode of the series that deliriously jumps between 99 separate stories that all happen to end in a grim common denominator. It’s a bold concept for an episode, but it’s actually a premise that McMahan first experimented with on his other sci-fi animated series, Star Trek: Lower Decks.
“There was an episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks that I loved working on called ‘Three Ships,’ explains McMahan. “It looked at a Klingon ship, a Vulcan ship, and a Federation ship. For Solar, I was like, ‘What’s the insane version of that?’”
The episode that Mike McMahan and Josh Bycel are referring to is “wej Duj,” which is Klingon for “Three Ships,” the penultimate episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks’ second season. Scripted by Kathryn Lyn, the episode creatively expands the boundaries of the Lower Decks world by shifting its perspective to the lower deck crew of the IKS Che’ta, a Klingon vessel, and the Sh’vhal, a Vulcan science cruiser, in addition to Brad Boimler on the typical U.S.S. Cerritos. The episode begins with an earnest “the grass is always greener” ideology only for “wej Duj” to show that every lower deck crew suffers from the same fears and aspires towards similar dreams. It’s one of the more ambitious episodes of Lower Decks and an installment that was heralded for its scope and message.
This is also the only episode of Lower Decks where a scene plays out under the end credits, which in this case can’t help but give into temptation and feature what’s technically a fourth ship as the lower deck crew of a Borg ship is briefly shown. The compulsion to feed into this appealing premise is palpable in Lower Decks, but it’s truly pushed to its apex in Solar Opposites where four ships are shown in a matter of seconds and the amount of Shlorpians that are checked in on reaches the triple digits.
In contrast to Lower Decks, Solar Opposites is a show that gleefully indulges in stylistic experiments and “wej Duj” is the type of episode that’s much more in line with its sensibilities. In that sense, it’s remarkable that Mike McMahan ostensibly remakes the Lower Decks episode, but pushes it the “zth” degree with “99 Ships.” What’s even more impressive is that the contrasting tones of these two shows makes it so that “99 Ships” never feels derivative of “wej Duj.” Both episodes use the same premise to communicate different ideas and it’s a relief that Mike McMahan didn’t write off “99 Ships” simply because it had already been done on Star Trek: Lower Decks. It’s like the episode has been transformed by one of Korvo’s ray guns or been converted into an energy pattern and then reassembled by a Star Trek transporter.
It’s already exciting to see the synergy between both of Mike McMahan’s series and this could mean that more cross-pollination between Solar Opposites and Lower Decks is on the way. If Lower Decks ever decides to do an entire episode that’s devoted to the Now You See Me franchise then you’ll know that you have Solar Opposites to thank.
The first three seasons of ‘Solar Opposites’ are now streaming on Hulu and the first two seasons of ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ can be streamed on Paramount+