“Dos Cerritos” Review: Double the Decks, Double the Drama
The farewell season for Star Trek: Lower Decks debuts in fine form as our animated heroes confront themselves thanks to creative external pressures, offering perhaps a hint of things to come.
This season begins with the lower-deckers making do with recent developments in their professional and personal lives. Lt. junior grade Brad Boimler is facing a crisis of confidence as he realizes his career might have already plateaued, without ever reaching the much-valued command position the young man strives for; his exclusion from the official Starfleet magazine’s “30 under 30” article is the salt in the wound. (Remember, Boimler got a taste of captaincy when he led the Cerritos in the season four finale.)
Lt. junior grade Beckett Mariner (Tawney Newsome) misses the old days of her never needing to climb above the relatively low expectations the Cerritos command crew, including her mother, set for her; nowadays, Mariner is tasked with mentoring new ensigns on the ship. And finally, Lt. junior grade Sam Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) is perhaps the worst off of them all, as he is reeling from his friend, Tendi (Noel Wells), not being on the Cerritos anymore thanks to the events of the previous episode. Don’t worry, we’ll get to what Tendi is up to soon.
Their day gets a bit interesting as the Cerritos crew encounters a quantum fissure, which inadvertently leads the ship into an alternate universe. Within this universe is another Cerritos, manned with familiar faces. This second Cerritos features crewmembers that mirror our protagonists, save for relatively small differences in their quantum signature that manifest as differences in appearance or personality. This means these newcomers are certainly recognizable but have distinguishing characteristics that don’t escape the Prime Universe Cerritos crew.
“Wow, alternate dimensions! Imagine meeting like a bunch of weirdos with feet for hands or feet for eyes… or something more creative than that.”
– Boimler upon seeing the quantum fissure.
For example, Beard Boimler (yes, this alternate Boimler goes full Riker) is a man of confidence and leadership, much to Prime Boimler’s envy. Alternate Rutherford, charmingly nicknamed Otherford by Sam, is mostly machine (and getting exceedingly close to resembling a Borg) thanks to various implants; notably, Otherford also lost his universe’s Tendi and decided to erase memories of her, something Rutherford can’t imagine doing.
Mariner is in for a surprise when she sees it’s her counterpart who sits in the Cerritos’ center chair, and the alternate Mariner, Becky, is as straight-edge as they come. Indeed, her crew basically cowards at her presence, lest they endure her scorn. Mariner notices the alternate Cerritos crew is usually on edge whenever Becky walks past, and she witnesses how brutally Becky keeps her crew in line. As Becky asserts, “Fear is the best motivator.”
Other crew members have amusing differences, like T’Lyn (Gabrielle Ruiz) differing from her counterpart only in the word they use to describe something that interests them (“fascinating” vs. “remarkable”); Shaxs (Fred Tatasciore) sports a ponytail over his Prime Universe counterpart while still sharing an intense hatred for Cardassians; and King Billups (Paul Scheer) wears attire befitting his royal origins over his Prime Universe equivalent. Mysteriously, Captain Carol Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) doesn’t have a counterpart on the alternate Cerritos, and later we learn she was banished to the infamous Starbase 80 for unknown reasons.
The two crews initially get along well and devise a plan to allow the Prime Cerritos to return home, but their time working together soon results in friction between most of the pairs over the littlest things, like which Commander Ransom (Jerry O’Connell) gets to press a button. Making matters worse is that the first attempt to re-open the quantum fissure fails, which leads to finger-pointing among the crews. It appears that even the slightest differences between two similar people make each one unique – not a bad Star Trek message.
The two Mariners end up being more similar than they realize. Becky, who throughout their short time together takes a few jabs at Mariner’s roguishness, goes radical in her desire to actually return to a life of inconsequence instead of the position of responsibility she inhabits. Before the two Cerritos are set to depart, the captain lures our Mariner to her ready room and pulls the ole’ switcheroo, leaving Prime Mariner tied up on the alternate Cerritos while Becky assumes her counterpart’s position of low responsibility on our Cerritos. After meeting her counterpart, Becky realized she missed a life in the lower decks; living a life of responsibility turned Becky into someone she despised.
The plan nearly succeeds, but Mariner manages to escape at the last moment and convinces the alternate Cerritos crew to prevent the Prime Cerritos from re-entering the rift without her. It’s worth noting this scene gave us our one “But, why?” moment of this episode: Why didn’t Mariner automatically alert the alternate Cerritos crew that she wasn’t their true captain, instead of trying to fool the crew into firing on the Prime Cerritos? As she returns to her own ship in shame, Becky is in for a rude awakening as her crew now no longer fears her iron will; indeed, they are set to make right the wrongs Becky oversaw on her ship.
Their adventure with the alternate Cerritos gives our lower deckers a bit to think about. Boimler recognized a potential path to becoming a more self-assured leader, especially after taking Beard Brad’s padd which likely holds valuable information about his journey to leadership. We are curious to see how Boimler will apply this knowledge throughout the season. In Becky, Mariner saw herself if she didn’t pursue her life of being just good enough – a life that is threatened now that Mariner is being tasked with mentorship responsibilities.
While her friends are dealing with their alternate counterparts, Tendi, the Mistress of the Winter Constellations, is on a journey of self-discovery as well. She’s living the pirate life, which she is good at, but we know doesn’t suit her. Tendi has always been someone who goes against Orion typecasts, and it turns out she’s not alone. Despite how aggressive and stereotypically violent her crew can be, it turns out there’s more to them than Tendi knows.
While attempting to salvage a crashed ancient Orion ship that Tendi’s sister, D’Erica (Ariel Winter), clued them in on, Tendi learns the crew with whom she runs also sport a willingness to go against stereotype. Punctuating this discovery is the fact that the Orion ship they are salvaging isn’t a battleship or pirating vessel like they first thought, but a medical ship, which they end up fighting with blue Orions to control. Yes, there are blue Orions. Lower Decks really is teaching us not to judge a species by just a few appearances. By the end of their struggle aboard the medical ship, Tendi influences her crew to adopt her ability to pirate without killing. What a novel idea!
Tendi’s time on Orion is extended despite bringing back a valuable medical ship because war is afoot. The blue Orions declare war on the green Orions due to the events on the medical ship. It seems Tendi will have more time to influence her family and crew as she prepares for war. We’re keen to see how the good-natured Orion balances a large-scale conflict with her peace-minded Starfleet ideals.
This episode’s A- and B-plots showcase the throughline that our characters are facing inflection points in their lives. This clever writing in Lower Decks proves it can still be funny and thought-provoking after four standout seasons. Add to that even more polished animation than we’ve seen previously, and voice acting that consistently brings outsized life to these animated characters, and you have a winning combination that’s greater than the sum of its parts.
Some hints in this season premiere make us wonder if certain events will come to pass. After all, we’ve seen Lower Decks seed clever foreshadowing throughout a season that then pays off multiple episodes down the line. In season five, will Rutherford deal with Tendi’s absence by implementing new augmentations and therefore follow mostly in his counterpart’s footsteps? Will Boimler ultimately get a command position thanks to the knowledge gained from his counterpart? Will Mariner, now that she’s seen herself as a leader, follow in her counterpart’s footsteps, or will she carve a bespoke path for herself that marries her roguish personality and increasingly greater responsibility? Finally, will Captain Freeman somehow make her way to Starbase 80 for some yet-to-be-seen reason?
If the premiere is anything to go by, Lower Decks is heading out in style.
Stray Thoughts:
- As expected, more entities join the fight in this show’s credits. New in season five is V’Ger from The Motion Picture, Tholians, and Apollo’s giant green hand from TOS’ “Who Mourns for Adonais?”
- The design of the official Starfleet magazine, Fleet, closely resembles the design of the official Star Trek magazine, Star Trek Explorers, which incidentally just announced its upcoming last-ever issue.
- Articles within Fleet apparently include “Top 10 Riker Moments” and an exposé on the Q Continuum titled “Q Who?” – which is also the name of a Q-centric episode from The Next Generation.
- Included in the “30 Under 30” article Boimler mentions in this episode is Naomi Wildman, the young girl who was seen in multiple episodes of Star Trek: Voyager.
- This episode sees the Cerritos investigating increasingly frequent interdimensional portals, but no one knows why. Will these interdimensional threats continue into the season?
- It’s too bad we didn’t see the alternate Cerritos have a distinguishing feature, a third nacelle or something, which would have been in line with the respective crews being slightly dissimilar.
- The story we hear Mariner share with Becky about Boimler being naked references a scene in the series premiere.
- Why was the alternate Cerritos crew so shy about telling Captain Freeman her counterpart was stationed at Starbase 80?
- Why did Beard Brad casually toss his padd away when he went to address a technical issue? That seems uncharacteristic of him, and too easily created an opportunity for our Boimler to learn his counterpart’s secrets.
“Shades of Green” Review: Much Better Than “Shades of Gray”
There’s a bit to unpack this week as the lower deckers find themselves in separate adventures that remind them of the value of friendship, family, and responsibility.
One plot centers on Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) and Beckett Mariner (Tawney Newsome) as the pair work to rescue a couple of ensigns who were captured. This challenge stems from Boimler trying to be the “cool” commander of an away team that’s helping the people of Targalus IX celebrate the beginning of a post-wealth culture. Boimler has been reading the padd he stole from his alternate universe counterpart, and one of the lessons he took away was to provide his crew with a seemingly endless number of helpful pointers (or Bointers, to use Boimler’s vocabulary), which includes lifting from the legs, always researching flora and fauna on a new planet, and always setting a rendezvous point in case teammates get separated.
“Have you finished converting the stock exchange to an animal hospital?”
“Yeah, smells a lot better in there now, believe it or not.”
– Boimler and Mariner as they help the people of Targalus IX.
The idea of a post-wealth culture isn’t new in Star Trek, as indeed the Federation is supposedly an organization that doesn’t need money to allow its citizens to live wonderfully, and we’ve never seen how a society handles the transition from capitalism to post-scarcity. So, “Shades of Green” struck us by showing a society so soon after adopting technology designed to make money unnecessary. It’s a neat visual that fits nicely in Star Trek’s ethos – and of course, Lower Decks tackles such a scene with chuckle-worthy visual gags, like the various signs around Targalus IX celebrating no more money.
The people of Targalus IX swap money for replicators, and it’s a joyous occasion for most on the planet – except those who profited from the levers of capitalism. These elitist terrorists are the people who captured Boimler’s ensigns, and Boimler and Mariner – the latter of whom feels guilty for initially encouraging Boimler to give his ensigns time off during an away mission – quickly find where the captors brought their hostages. All seems lost when Mariner and Boimler find the ensigns dead, but their sudden revival proves Boimler’s pointer about learning about a planet’s flora and fauna was useful; the two ensigns faked their death at the hands of their captors thanks to a local beetle.
That’s all well and good for Boimler, but what are the other lower-deckers up to this episode? Back on Orion, Tendi (Noel Wells) is strategizing the war effort against the blue Orions with her sister, D’Erika (Ariel Winter). Some mysterious behavior from D’Erika leads Tendi to snoop through her sister’s computer, which leads to a powerful revelation: D’Erika is pregnant.
Tendi doesn’t let D’Erika know her secret is out, which proves challenging when the Orion Pirate Queen decides the best way to settle the conflict between Houses Tendi and Azure (the green and blue Orions in this conflict, respectively) is a solar sailor race through a dangerous nebula. Whichever ship first crosses the Excellon Nebula, retrieves the treasure, and makes it back to the queen wins. Moreover, the losing house must give all their money to the winner. Clearly, there’s a lot at stake as Tendi, D’Erika, and their other sisters set out in a gorgeous solar sailor in a race with the blue Orions.
Tendi is worried about her sister straining herself in this race, so the older sister goes to great lengths to protect D’Erika, and even goes so far as to launch a gentle mutiny (a cutiny, to use Tendi’s vocabulary) to prevent D’Erika from launching a dangerous assault against the blue Orions. In the ruckus of the race, D’Erika escapes from her mutinous sisters and tries to board the other Orion vessel, but Tendi tries to dissuade her by revealing her knowledge of D’Erika’s pregnancy. The two sisters don’t have much time to dwell on this situation before the blue Orions cause House Tendi’s ship to crash on an asteroid, which allows House Azure to secure the treasure and head back to the pirate queen.
The stall in action allows D’Erika and Tendi to share a touching moment as D’Erika reveals she didn’t want Tendi to know about the pregnancy because that would mean Tendi, by tradition, would need to stay on Orion to help train the new future mistress of the winter constellations; D’Erika knows Tendi wants to go back to Starfleet. So, while Tendi thought she was protecting D’Erika, it was actually vice versa.
With this understanding between sisters cemented, a new hope presents itself for the crashed racers: a super-convenient passing comet allows Tendi to tether the solar sailor to the hunk of rock and speed their way toward the end of the race before the blue Orions cross the finish line. Boarding the blue Orions for one final attack before the race is over, Tendi destroys the treasure, which means no house wins the race and, theoretically, both houses’ coffers remain untouched. Unlike Tendi, the Orion pirate queen does not see the logic in this solution and empties both houses’ coffers instead. Seems like Tendi should have acted more like a pirate than a Starfleet officer.
The shortest plot in “Shades of Green” involves Sam Rutherford (Eugene Cordero), who is handling Tendi’s absence much better than last week. But his friend T’Lyn (Gabrielle Ruiz) wants to help him be more social – not that she comes right out and says that to him. Instead, she basically forces herself to hang out with Rutherford, and even suggests working together on the perpetually broken shuttlecraft, Sequoia, which he and Tendi had always worked on. Rutherford appreciates the sentiment but is upset when the efficient T’Lyn finishes the repairs, thereby eliminating a hobby he and Tendi shared. In an act of true friendship, however, T’Lyn notices Rutherford’s frustration and destroys the shuttle again before Tendi makes her return to her Starfleet family.
Yes, “Shades of Green” marks Tendi’s return to Starfleet, and, while it’s earlier than we expected, who can be disappointed she is back among friends? Her return also spells a new hope for her family and their recently depleted wealth, as the people of Targalus IX need someone to handle all their now-useless monies, something Tendi’s house steps up to do. Happy endings all around, then.
“Shades of Green” seems like an important episode in the progress of our characters’ arcs this season. Tendi is back home where she belongs after a lengthy stint with her actual pirate family. Rutherford is finally back in balance after being without his best friend for so long. Boimler gained experience in following the confidence-building advice of his alternate universe counterpart, and Mariner takes a swing at being the more responsible one as she tries to elicit the Cerritos’ help in tracking down the captured ensigns. Bring on more season five shenanigans.
Stray Thoughts:
- Solar sailing is not a new concept in Star Trek, as such ships were featured in Deep Space Nine’s “Explorers” and Strange New Worlds’ “Spock Amok.”
- Boimler’s line to Mariner about being able to do everything right but still have something bad happen to an away team invokes a similar classic line from Captain Jean-Luc Picard. In “Peak Performance,” Picard memorably says to Data, “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.”
- Boimler urges one of the dead ensigns to “turn away from the mountain,” a reference to the Black Mountain, a spiritual battleground a person’s soul goes after death, at least according to Shaxs.
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