TREK REVIEW: Lower Decks 1-6 - "Terminal Provocations"

 

Some of Lower Decks' best moments are when it pokes fun at Star Trek's cliches, and it really goes for it here. Again we have three story threads, and it's impressive just how busy these short episodes can get. Firstly, Boimler and Mariner find themselves stuck helping Tim Robinson's guest character Fletcher, a passable send-up of the sort of story when a new character turned up for one episode to either cause trouble or be amazing for a week before disappearing. In a second thread, Rutherford and Tendi find themselves in trouble on the holodeck when the safety protocols fail, sending up seemingly dozens of episodes of TNG, DS9 and VOY, to the point where Rutherford gives a rundown of pretty much every holodeck character who's ever caused trouble in the franchise (and then some). Finally, the bridge crew find themselves in a face-off with some aliens over the fate of some Starfleet wreckage, bringing to mind any number of alien-of-the-week antagonists who turned up to cause a little trouble and then vanished off back into the galaxy.

Of the three storylines, which interplay rather nicely, the strongest is the holodeck sequence. It's joyfully silly – and surprisingly violent – revolving around Badgey, a computer icon designed by Rutherford to help with simulations. He's basically Microsoft's Clippy reimagined as a Starfleet Delta. The ease with which Rutherford accidentally creates a sentient programme (or something close), the fact that the safety protocols fail as soon as there's even a slight drop in available power, and the speed at which things turn violent are all ridiculous, but that serves merely to poke fun at how often these things happen on 24^th century Trek. Honestly, you can't help but wonder how holodecks are even legal.

In Boim-Boim and Mariner's story, the by-now inseparable pair find themselves having to bail out their fellow Lower Decker when they leave him on shift alone to go to a dance, resulting in utter chaos when he fouls up the computer core. Fletcher is the sort of guy you might enjoy hanging out with for a while but you wouldn't want to work with him. He gets irritating quickly, but that's the idea, and it's clear he's being dishonest when he claims he was attacked and the core sabotaged. The truth – that he tried to tie his own brain into the core – is suitably outlandish. Both these storylines show a very human concern – trying to impress ones workmates and friends – can lead to serious errors in judgment. In turn, in the Trek galaxy, these errors can lead to deadly sci-fi absurdities. Both the violence and the science-gone-wrong nature of Badgey and the Fletcherised computer core bring to mind Rick and Morty, making this episode the most like the series on which the showrunner worked. This episode is more like how I expected the whole series to turn out.

The bridge crew's story is the least interesting, but it holds the episode together. Fletcher's messing with the core causes problems with the shields, suddenly making the rather primitive aliens the Drookmani a threat. In turn, their attack leads to the holodeck going awry. Everything ties up rather nicely at the end, too. The Drookmani are a very standard threat – a bunch of agressive aliens who want to get their hands on some Starfleet tech – but that's rather the point. This is week-in, week-out Starfleet work. The use of Antares-class ships in the wreckage – first named in TOS, seen in TAS and then later in TOS-Remastered – is a nice touch. I like the idea that Starfleet kicks off about aliens salvaging their tech even when it's a century out-of-date; I can't help but feel the Drookmani have a point.

The episode pushes the relationships of the four central characters forward. They're very much two pairs now. Rutherford and Tendi make a great team, and now Rutherford finally starts to admit his feelings for Tendi, so maybe we'll get some romance in the future. There's hints of that with Mariner and Boimler, but I think they probably work better as best buds. We shall see.

Observations:

Yes, that's Martok actor J. G. Hertzler as the Drookmani captain. That makes seven species he's played now, after Vulcan, Klingon, Changeling, Prophet, Hirogen and human (eight if you count holograms).

The starship to which Fletcher is promoted, the USS Titan, is the ship Riker took command of at the end of Star Trek Nemesis. It's amusing to think of Riker having to deal with that liability of a crewman. Apparently the Titan is Boimler's dream assignment. Are we building up to a cameo by Jonathan Frakes?

Best line: "Do you know how hard it is to get cheese out of fur in a sonic shower?"

TREK REVIEW: Lower Decks 1-5 - "Cupid's Errant Arrow"

 

The fifth episode of the series is, for me, the strongest so far, balancing three distinct story threads during its short runtime and getting away with it. This is a very funny episode, that balances the Trek-references, slapstick, character humour and story drama very well.

Everything revolves around the Cerritos' rendezvous with the USS Vancouver, a clearly more advanced and up-to-date starship. (Mariner can't see the difference, but it looks like the next step up from the Cerritos on the design chain, rather like the Excelsior-class compared to the Constitution.)

The A-plot deals with Boimler's new girlfriend Lt. Barbara Brinson, science officer on the Vancouver. She's fallen inexplicably in love with the young ensign, who will not shut up about her and how they're a thing. Mariner can't accept how Boimler is batting so far out of his league, and comes to the conclusion that Brinson's some nightmarish threat in disguise with horrifying plans for Brad. This is a deeply paranoid side to Mariner we haven't seen before, but it stems from a terrible incident in her past when she was stationed on the USS Quito: we get a fun flashback where her friend's boyfriend turns into a shapeshifting monster and eats her, so it's understandable she's got some hang-ups.

For his part, Boimler realises he's punching above his weight, and is sent into jealousy-mode when Brinson is hanging out with Jet, the "second-coolest guy" on the Cerritos, who is, of course, tall, buff and handsome. Boimler tries to impress his coolness on Brinson in increasingly desperate ways, while Mariner tries to gain evidence for whatever kind of monster she is, leading to a series of farcical scenes throughout the episode.

Meanwhile, T'endi and Rutherford are lusting after the superior technology on the Vancouver. There's a fun scene where they geek out over a new kind of tricorder-like instrument, the T-88. They get the opportunity to engage in a little healthy competition to see who will win one of the devices – in reality, by gaining a transfer to the Vancouver. In a nice touch, they draw, earning them both a transfer, but they're not sure they're ready to move away from the Cerritos, especially when it turns out that the transferring officer is desperate to get off the more advanced ship because of the endless high concept missions. It's a fair point; life on a ship like the Enterprise or Vancouver, with its weekly life-threatening scenarios, would be unbearably stressful for most people.

Meanwhile again, Captain Freeman and Commander Ransom must work with the natives of the Mixtus system to try to solve the problem of an errant moon, which is due to collapse and rain down fiery death onto Mixtus Three. The simple solution is to implode the moon, except that the various Mixtan factions all have reasons to stand against this, be they economic, religious, or sheer paranoia (the whole things a hoax to control our minds! Sound familiar?) This requires some serious diplomacy from Freeman, who is well up to the task, but she is then stymied when it turns out that saving Mixtus Three will doom Mixtus Two. It's great to see the captain really showing us what she's capable of, after previous episodes have made her look pretty incompetent. She's great here, never backing down from her impossible problem, and though the final solution is a jokey one, the storyline itself shows us her worth as a commander.

Everything comes to a head as each storyline is resolved at the episode's close. I can't help but feel sorry for Boimler, who loses his girl after all. It'd have been nice for the geeky guy to get the girl for real – after all, there's more than a few of us geeky guys watching. As fun as the main thread is, I wonder if there was a better way to approach it. Brinson turns out to be completely human, but it could have been wonderful if she wasn't, but Brad just didn't care. Mariner could have done her investigating behind her back, and dramatically revealed to him proof that Brinson was a shapeshifting alien, just for Boimler to go, "Yeah, I know. So what?" Still, the storyline shows the deep friendship Mariner has for Boimler, and there's just a chance it'll develop into something more as time goes on.

A very good episode with a great guest spot by Community's Gillian Jacobs as Barb Brinson.

Observations and fun bits:

Things Mariner accuses Brinson of being: a salt succubus, a Suliban, a rogue hologram, a shapeshifter, a reptoid, a surgically altered Cardassian or Romulan spy, a transporter clone and a parasite.

The USS Vancouver is a Parliament-class starship. Mariner's old posting, the USS Quito, is an Olympic-class ship, like the USS Pasteur seen in TNG: "All Good Things." We see it docked with Deep Space Nine, the first appearance of the station since DS9: "What You Leave Behind."

There's a bit of confusion about the Mariner's background as seen in the flashback. She and her shipmates talk about the events of TNG: "Descent" like it was recent, which would place the flashback in 2370. This would mean Mariner has been in Starfleet for at least ten years, which isn't impossible, given her ability to get herself promoted and demoted frequently. However, she and her shipmates are wearing the grey-shouldered uniforms that first appeared in Star Trek: First Contact, meaning the scene can take place no earlier than 2373. On the other hand, Mariner probably isn't the most reliable of narrators when it comes to details.

As well as the Suliban, Trip Tucker gets a name check. I always like it when Enterprise gets a reference. This is the second post-Enterprise character reference, after Captain Archer was briefly mentioned in Star Trek: Discovery.

There's a Phylosian (from TAS: "The Infinite Vulcan") serving on the Cerritos.

Boimler's full name is Bradward Boimler.

Best line: "It's so stressful. It's so epic. It's all, 'Tow this space station and calibrate the Dyson sphere. Go back in time and kill the guy that was worse than Hitler!"

Ancient Beings online exhibition

 The Ancient Beings exhibition was displayed in the Tower Gallery at Eton College from late 2019 until closure earlier this year due to the COVID-19 crisis. It has now been deinstalled, but there is now an online version of the exhibition freely available to view here, allowing anyone to view the remarkable relics that have been collected.

The Ancient Beings exhibition features materials from Ancient Egypt, some of them dating back over five thousand years, and gives incredible insight into the mythology and culture of this distant civilisation.

Explore the exhibition now at this link, thanks to my extremely talented sister, Rebecca Tessier, who just happens to be the curator of the exhibit.

REVIEW: Stargirl season one

The CW and DC's Stargirl made it to Amazon Prime in the UK just over a week ago; Suz and I sat down to watch it not long after and finished the series in three days. It's a real delight; nothing spectacularly new, but a well made, heartwarming and, above all, fun superhero show. It brings to mind the early seasons of Supergirl and The Flash, before they got caught up in their own angst. 

We first saw this version of Stargirl in a brief cameo at the end of Crisis of Infinite Earths. The original Earth-Two (or elements of it at least) has been seemingly folded into the Prime Earth continuity, and a new Earth-Two was presented. This is where the Justice Society of America was the primary superhero team, making it more like the Earth-Two of the comics. We've already seen a version of the JSA, who operated in the 1930s and '40s of Earth-One, on Legends of Tomorrow, where Stargirl was played by Sarah Grey. On Earth-Two, though, the JSA was active in the 21st century, although there was still a retro-vibe to them.

The series kicks off with a gripping scene in which the villainous Brainwave kills off the entirety of the JSA, with the exception of Starman's sidekick, Pat Dugan. It's a hell of an opening and pulls me right into the series straight away. We then rejoin this world ten years later, when Dugan and his family are moving to the town of Blue Valley - which just so happens to be his wife's hometown and the location of the villainous Injustice Society's base of operations. It's extremely silly, but the series embraces the silliness. It hits exactly the right balance - accepting the daftness of the premise but playing completely straight.

Pat Dugan is played by Luke Wilson, forever to be known as Owen Wilson's younger brother, and he brings a real warmth and charm to the role. He's a decent natured everyman who just happens to have a past as a superhero sidekick (an honorable role, he's quick to point out). His stepdaughter, Courtney Whitmore, is played by Brec Bassinger, who has a lot of charm and presence and brings a very optimistic feel to the series. They make for an excellent leading pair, centring the ensemble cast. Courtney might just be the daughter of the original Starman, and in any case, when she uncovers the Cosmic Staff - a seemingly intelligent weapon and tool - it bonds with her, recognising her pure heart and self belief. Pat isn't exactly thrilled she's found the JSA relics he's been carrying around, but it's hardly like he was going to be able to keep this stuff secret forever.

It doesn't take Courtney long to go from alienated teen to superhero. It's pretty blindingly fast actually, and she's kitted up in her own outfit in no time (I enjoyed her making her own adjustments to Starman's costume; it reminded me of the old days when Peter Parker used to do his own alterations at home). Pat, who was originally the hero Stripesy, adopts the slightly less absurd name STRIPE for when he's in his huge robotic battle suit. Now, I know he's a mechanic, but how he managed to keep that a secret during the move is anyone's guess. Still, seeing STRIPE to make his first appearance was the most triumphant part of the opening episode, and well worth the anticipation.

Part of what made this series so enjoyable for me is the fact that I'm not as familiar with the JSA - or their precursors, the Seven Soldiers of Victory - as I am with the Justice League or other more popular heroes. I know enough to make the reveals of the characters' backgrounds and the identities of the villains exciting, but many of them were new to me. Even the ones I knew aren't characters I'm super familiar with, so the series feels fresher than, say, a new version of Superman or Spider-Man would, or even something like Runaways. I guess a real DC diehard would have known who everyone was going to turn out to be, but there were more surprises for me. 

Now, I do know that Starman is one of DC's many legacy characters, but Sylvester Pembleton, the Star-Spangled Kid, was never one of them in the comics. However, conflating the two characters makes a lot of sense, especially as in the comics Courtney went from being the second SSK to becoming Stargirl when she acquired the Cosmic Rod. This sort of streamlining is common in comic adaptations and it makes the backstory here easy enough to take on. I learned a lot more about Stargirl reading up after the watch through. It so happens that Brec Bassinger was born in 1999, the same year Courtney Whitmore was created (she plays her younger, at about fifteen). This might also have something to do with the wonderfully nineties soundtrack to the series, which adds to the retro vibe - it's basically the same as having 1940s heroes revived for comics in the seventies. I also had no idea that Geoff Johns - who created the character and also acts as showrunner here - named Courtney for and based her on his sister, who was killed in the Flight 800 disaster in 1996. It must have made creating this series a very personal project for him.

Bassinger is a worthy Stargirl for sure, but she needs her own JSA, and sets up recruiting new team members from the local teens. There's a bit of a Buffy vibe to this, a little bit of Smallville, even a touch of the Power Rangers to it. This stuff works, so why not use it. Thew new JSA take on the mantles of the classic heroes, sometimes due to inheritance (Cameron Gellman as the surly Rick Tyler, the new Hourman) other times due to affinity with the technology (Anjelika Washington, the hyper-enthusiastic Beth Chapel as the new Dr. Midnite). They're all loners and outsiders for one reason or another. Most affecting is Yolanda Montez's story. Played by the truly stunning Yvette Monreal, Yolanda in this version was a popular girl at school and headed to be class president until her boyfriend leaked nudes that she had sent him, leading her to be mocked and bullied at school and virtually disowned by her religious parents. (I honestly hate them more than any of the Injustice Society villains.) Monreal gives a very deep and believable performance that brings light to this important and ongoing issue in schools today, one that seems particularly prevalent in the States. Yolanda becomes the new Wildcat, taking after her hero Ted Knight. That's another element I like - Yolanda is already a boxer and Courtney is already a talented gymnast, which gives the skills to bring to the table even before they acquire superhero kit.

The rest of the supporting cast are all very good as well. Shout out to Trae Romano, who plays Pat's son/Courtney's stepbrother Mike, and who has more character in one scene than most child actors manage in a career. (I've said this before, but there really are some exceptional young actors starting their careers right now.) Amy Smart, a familiar face in movies in the nineties, plays Barbara, Courtney's mum/Pat's wife, with a lot of humour and class. It looks for a moment like she's going to go down the Buffy's mum route, refusing to believe the evidence of her own eyes, but as soon as she's confronted with the weirdness around her, she accepts it and joins the fray.

The villains are strong as well. Without going through everyone, there's a good mic of the outlandishly evil and the more nuanced. Most notable is Neil Jackson as Jordan Mahkent, aka Icicle. On the outside he's a committed liberal politician and family man, but underneath he's a heartless monster seemingly drawn from the depths of Niflheim. But underneath that, he's... actually a committed liberal politician and family man. Jackson's performance helps a great deal, but there's also some intelligent writing here, and while many of the Injustice Society are clearly opportunistic villains, Icicle is torn by his goals and his actions. When we find out what the ISA actually want, it makes things far more complicated, since their goals are absolutely right and just. There's an interesting argument to be had about whether the ends can justify the means, but even so, I feel that if Icicle had just come clean to the new JSA, made up of forward-thinking kids, he might have won some of them round.

Also worth singling out is Jake Austin Walker as Henry King Jr, the son of Brainwave. Initially he appears to be a generic jock character, the sort of thuggish bully who gets by on his looks and sporting prowess, and the fact that he's the bastard who shared Yolanda's pictures around supports this. Before long, though, a much deeper character emerges, one who's terrorised by his father and ashamed of his own actions. He becomes one of the more interesting characters. Less effective is Cindy Burman, his new girlfriend and current queen of the school. Meg De Lacey gives a perfectly good performance and she's a fine foil for Courtney, but making the stereotypical mean girl a supervillain is predictably obvious. I can't help compare it back to Buffy again, where the mean girl popularity queen became a hero. Still, Cindy has her own horrors in her background and looks like she's set up for a big role in season two, so we might see more sides to her going forward.

Stargirl is tremendous fun and a real family show, but it doesn't shy away from serious issues and gets pretty heavy towards the season's end. It also looks absolutely amazing, honestly some of the most visually impressive TV I've seen. At a compact thirteen episodes, it doesn't drag on like many of these shows. Definitely worth seeking out if you're a superhero fan.

TREK REVIEW: Lower Decks 1-4 - "Moist Vessel"

This week's installment is a fairly strong Trek adventure with an interesting central sci-fi concept, around which there's some promising character work for some of the regulars. For a change, Ensign Boimler takes something of a back seat for the episode, with Ensigns Mariner and Tendi being the main focus of the story.

For a series apparently about life on the Lower Decks, the low-ranking main characters spend a lot of time on the bridge and in the ready room. Right at the beginning, Mariner is present for Captain Freeman's briefing of the senior staff for this week's mission, interrupting the rather dull discourse with guest Captain Durango with an unstifled yawn. It's played up for laughs but it's a relatable moment; we've all been in a meeting or lecture where we can't help but yawn due to the lack of mental stimulation (in fact, I've gotten to the nodding-off stage in meetings more than once). It sets up the main thread of the episode, with the captain at loggerheads with her daughter for her unprofessionalism and disrespect.

Freeman can't just have Mariner transferred, because that would show her up in front of her ex-husband (the admiral who transferred their daughter there in the first place, naturally). Commander Ransom suggests just victimising her with the worst assignments imaginable until she asks for a transfer herself. Cue a montage of revolting and tedious jobs, including emptying the waste tanks on the holodeck, which are full of stuff so disgusting it has to be bleeped out of the dialogue. Fans have been joking about the obvious use of the holodeck and wondering about the poor sap who has to mop up afterwards, but previous versions of the franchise would barely even hint at it (except maybe some of Quark's dodgier holosuite programs and the Doctor's pon farr treatment). Lower Decks has licence to say the thing we've been thinking all these years, and is all the funnier and more believable for it.

However, Mariner finds ways to make the menial jobs competitive and fun, so Freeman tries a different tactic: promoting her to Lieutenant and making her part of the senior officer team. It's very funny watching Mariner losing her mind due to the boredom of the day-to-day work and play of the command team, in a sequence that poke fun at the endless meetings of The Next Generation and Voyager and particularly the off-hours activities of the TNG crew. They were amazing characters, but the TNG officers often came off as sticks-in-the-mud when it came to leisure time. It seemed like in the 24^th century the only music allowed was jazz and opera, and that playing poker was the favourite game in a society apparently without money. The Cerritos officers are the same but worse, with Mariner having less fun playing cards with them than she had scraping carbon deposits off the ship.

Meanwhile, Tendi finds herself drawn to/rivals with Lt O'Connor, who has been preparing himself (allegedly) to ascend to a higher plane of existence. This is the sort of thing only the most remarkable characters ever manage on Trek (although there are plenty of villainous incorporealised beings out there to plague Starfleet as well). Tendi's enthusiastic interruption seemingly screws up the intended metamorphosis, leading to her trying to force O'Connor onto the next plane of existence by using every spiritual technique at once. It's good to see Tendi get some more characterisation, revealing that her main motivation is her need for everyone to like her, and also showing that her intense enthusiasm can be just as damaging as Mariner's disinterest.

The threat of the week comes from an ancient alien generational ship that's loaded up with a valuable substance that can instantly transform environments – a sort of Genesis device in liquid form. Quite why the aliens would need a generational ship if they can terraform planets so quickly and easily is a mystery, and they're all long dead so no one can ask them. When Durango tries to look better than Freeman and gets too close to the ship, the fluid is released, travelling up the tractor beams (hmmm, really?) into both ships. Cue a race against time in which mother and daughter find some common ground working together, and Tendi and O'Connor realise they're similarities too.

The resolution of the plot is pretty perfunctory, and very like that of the first episode, but it's not really the point of the story. It's the relationships between the characters that's the focus. As Mariner points out, she clearly gets her immaturity from her mother, who has spent a lot of resources on trying to force her daughter out and even childishly claimed Ransom's idea as her own. It's not long before their understanding crashes down and Mariner expertly gets herself demoted (much to Boimler's relief). Elsewhere on the ship, O'Connor suddenly and unexpectedly achieves enlightement, ascending after all – a process that turns out to be far more painful than he expected. This is probably the funniest sequence of the episode, drawn out just long enough to make it absolutely ridiculous, and sees the show at its most Rick and Morty-like so far.

"Moist Vessel" is a pretty decent episode that, unlike "Temporal Edict," works as a Star Trek adventure as well as a comedy. The laughs come from the extremes of the situation and more natural character conflict, and from laughing at the foibles of Trek and its tropes rather than simply referencing them constantly. While there are plenty of nods and winks for fans, the episode would work perfectly well without them.