Review: Star Trek: Lower Decks “Terminal Provocations”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

While Freeman and the bridge crew enter intense negotiations to secure some abandoned Starfleet waste from Drookmani scavengers, the Lower Decks crew is on their usual duties, this time with Fletcher, whose coolheaded nature helps diffuse tense moments which gets everyone to like him. A big concert is that night, which Boimler and Mariner planned to go to, so Fletcher takes on the work for them while they enjoy themselves. However, once they get back, they find him knocked out and screaming about being attacked and a ship core is missing. The three search the ship for possible suspects, but the truth comes out: Fletcher tried putting his brain in the computer to make the work go faster, but it ended up creating a knowledge hungry AI with Fletcher’s personality. Luckily they manage to get it out the airlock, causing it to drift into the Drookmani ship and destroy it. In order to make Fletcher pay for his crimes, Boimler and Mariner decide to…tell everyone he saved the day so he gets promoted and transferred! But he’s fired six days later.

Meanwhile, Tendi confides in Rutherford that she never finished learning how to space-walk, so he makes a holodeck program to teach her so he can impress her, taught by his own AI named Badgey, a sentient Starfleet badge. But because of the ruckus happening in the ship, Badgey goes rogue and takes revenge against Rutherford for his abuse. Luckily it turns out Badgey is susceptible to the simulated environments, so Rutherford makes it freeze to death in a blizzard before snapping its neck.

OUR TAKE

Surprisingly, this episode turned out to be a considerable improvement over the previous five, and for a few notable reasons. A consistent issue I’ve brought up with Lower Decks is how much of its humor is reliant on references to previous Star Trek shows and movies, which is pretty counter-intuitive to the apparent goal of this show attracting new fans to the franchise. And while it’s not entirely avoidant of that this week either, two of the three plots work pretty much entirely using knowledge of just what we’ve seen in Lower Decks. Freeman’s attempt at retrieving the abandoned Starfleet waste just needs you to know that Starfleet captains attempt the peaceful negotiation route first, while the Badgey plot has a more common trope of an AI gone bad. This is also apparently something that is quite common in the franchise, but only need it to make sense with what we know HERE, which we do. The Fletcher plot MOSTLY manages this up until the reveal that Fletcher tried uploading his brain into the core, which isn’t something anyone only watching this show would know is possible, but is, surprise surprise, a reference to another episode from another Star Trek show.

But all three plots feel a lot easier to get invested in than they have been in prior episodes. For one, the tension of the ship being attacked by debris from the other ship is constantly escalating and impacts the other two plots accordingly. This also helps to esecalate things within those plots as well, as both the Fletcher plot and the Badgey plot lead to battling against killer AI who are both an equal mix of funny and threatening. Though while Fletcher and his core-bot are likely gone for good, Badgey is probably gonna be making a few more appearances if he’s still in the ship’s computer. We also get to see some ACTUAL FREAKING CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT between our two main pairs, with Boimler and Mariner actually seeming more like friends who care about each other and have complimenting points of view than simply equally but differently annoying co-workers who hate each other and waste screen time, while Rutherford and Tendi seem to be developing…something? Whether it’s leading to a cute nerdy romance is unclear but it is certainly cute. All four of them feel more like people now who could be expected to grow and change over the course of the season. A shame, then, that we’ve only got four more episodes left to see that in this season, but better late than never I suppose.