Review: Star Trek: Lower Decks “Twovix”; “I Have No Bones, Yet I Must Flee”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The crew of the Cerritos face their most important mission yet: Escorting the USS Voyager to a museum in orbit. Naturally, deep cut reference-laden shenanigans ensue as T’Ana and Billups end up in a transporter accident and fuse into one being, T’illups. Taking note from a similar incident that occurred during the Voyager’s travels, Captain Freeman tries to decouple him, but T’illups takes matters into his own hands and starts fusing several other members of the crew. The Ensigns eventually help get everyone defused, including new Vulcan Ensign T’Lyn, and Boimler, Tendi, and Mariner are all promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade.

Later, as Boimler adjusts to his promotion and Rutherford eventually gets his own, Mariner tries getting demoted on purpose because she believes she’ll eventually be put back down the moment she speaks her mind. She attempts this on a mission to an alien zoo that’s holding a couple humans, but is soon overtaken by a bone sucking monster that’s also totally adorable. However, Ransom tells her that he knows that she does this on purpose because she doesn’t believe in herself, so he’ll believe in her regardless.

Also there’s a mysterious ship floating around that blew up a Klingon ship and then a Romulan ship.

OUR TAKE

Lower Decks returns for a fourth go-around following a slam-dunk of a crossover with its sister show Strange New Worlds, which is a much better thing to follow up on than the frustrating third season finale. I remember when I was first assigned to cover the premiere, having then not watched very much Star Trek prior to that, and seeing a show that relied WAAAAAAAY too much on references as substitutes for jokes or plot beats, even making one of their episodes being not much more than a collection of references to Star Trek films. Years later, I’m happy to report that this show has grown out of that…mostly. Its characters are much more fleshed out and developed, it takes great advantage of its lower priority crewmen to tell stories that other Trek shows couldn’t, and its references have now become a garnish on what are solid plots and jokes on their own…again, mostly. This is also not the first episode as tribute to a specific older Trek series, as last season had a DS9-focused outing that works perfectly fine if you have never seen a single episode of it, like me. This one obviously focuses on Voyager, which I haven’t seen but do get the references, and while the basis for certain things are explained, like the still controversial episode “Tuvix” which inspired the main plot here, you may get lost with holographic clowns and Irishmen running about.

We also get a notable shift in the status quo: Promoting our favorite Ensigns up a rank and seeing how they react, through which we get many character specific emotional journeys. Boimler is excited but worried about losing his friendship with Mariner, that is thankfully cleared up, Rutherford feeling he needs to prove himself even when he’s already done so multiple times, Tendi is…just fine with it, and Mariner basically craps her pants with anxiety. We’ve heard and seen instances of her being terrified of promotion and sabotaging herself to get put back at the bottom, even when her peers and superiors clearly see how brilliant she is (remember her friend from Season 1 who made Captain and called her on it?), but she’s also been doubted a lot and also doubts herself, which does carry over things from last season’s finale (as much as I disliked it for other reasons). Where she’ll be headed in the remaining eight episodes of the season is anyone’s guess, but she’ll have a good team behind her every step of the way.

And oh yeah, the weird ship. Not much to say at the moment besides the fact that the two scenes it has, blowing up a Klingon ship at the end of Ep 1 and a Romulan ship at the beginning of Ep 2, are structured eerily similar. Kinda wonder if we’ll get one for every Star Trek species, haha. Also a sad end for Klingon Captain Ma’ah, who we first met in late Season 2 as a lower decker himself, in the same episode we met T’lyn, who is now a recurring character on the Cerritos. Also Happy Star Trek Day!