Star Trek: Lower Decks

I kept wondering how a drone ship was supposed to replace an entire crew. Sure, it's fine for space battles, but I didn't see how the Texas class was going to help out a planet with maintenance and stuff. Then I saw it transport huge pieces of equipment down to the planets' surfaces, which explained a lot.

One thing about Mariner coming back was, her friends and mother apologized to her, but we never got any resolution to Mariner's girlfriend who had a big fight with her and basically dumped her.

I think that is the resolution.

Jennifer looks guilty and Mariner walks past her without even talking to her.

The ship is burned, torched, and sunk.

So yeah, this episode is much like the previous one where there is just too much going on to really breathe, resolving something like five subplots at the same time. The action though is fairly impressive and surprisingly intense, unusual for the show but comparable to the first season finale ramping up the action.

I have never being a fan of Mariner, I mean apart from Neelix never found a Star Trek character that annoying, but I really like how the character acted and the character’s development and how the writers pull the rug out of me because of my expectative. Because I spent the whole episode rolling my eyes thinking that Mariner was gonna blew it because she was going to be her classical stubborn irresponsible self, and then I was wrong and she actually did good and the problem were the others, and even felt bad because everyone judged her. Good writing right there.

I think a lot of people who had problems following rules, obeying in school and other environments, and who accumulate a reputation of being “difficult” to the point they are judge beforehand causing a vicious circle can identify.

Edited by Dgon on Dec 22nd 2022 at 5:00:46 AM

Which was also not helped that for a long time Mariner very much wanted that kind of identity, so she fed the Vicious Cycle due to her own insecurities and issues until this season.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Dec 22nd 2022 at 5:22:30 AM

They announced a fifth season.

First look at Strange New Worlds / Lower Decks crossover. Looks pretty sharp though I am amused that Boimler is depicted in the animated show as short and scrawny, Mariner is slightly taller than him, while Jack Quaid is actually fairly tall and reasonably built and they can't really get around that. Tawney Newsome looks perfect as she should.

New season airs on 7th September. https://twitter.com/startrekonpplus/status/1682856173957988353?s=46&t=xV_8r0pwVBDj5j0rQQCWyA

Trailer for Season 4 of Lower Decks has been released. Looks neat. Looks like we're visiting Orion, Ferenginar, fighting Badgey, and various other hijinks are happening. And Rutherford gets trapped in a Wadi game. Allamaraine, count to four.

"That Pike thing we aren't supposed to talk about" is on this week's Strange New Worlds, "Those Old Scientists".

Edit: it was released early for SDCC and is out now.

From the above trailer, we're getting another Larry Niven crossover: there's a quick glimpse of a Ringworld.

Edited by alanh on Jul 22nd 2023 at 5:38:37 AM

It might be an Orbital. I don’t think one’s ever shown up in Trek so far, but in a setting with at least one species that could build Dyson spheres, an orbital isn’t that out there.

Just a quick head up everyone but from season 4 onwards, it’ll be airing on Paramount+ in the UK & elsewhere.

Since the SNW crossover went up. I've been watching LDS for the first time and so far up to 'We always Have Tom Paris' (McNeill's voice has changed enough I wasn't sure it was him).

One thing that seemed vague either intentionally or just me being stupid but which Boimler stayed on the Titan and became William? Transport Boimler or shuttle Boimler?

Shuttle Boimler would presumably be much more comfortable with the Titan's action quotient after fighting his way off planet than transport Boimler.

Also interesting to see just how competent and experienced Mariner is. In SNW she was more like Boimler and fangirling about the past, just with a too cool for school attitude.

Edited by dcutter2 on Aug 30th 2023 at 2:24:12 PM

At the moment, we don't know which Boimler stayed on the Titan, even now, with reasoning being given to make both sides plausible using both story reasons and narrative clues.

For the transporter Boimler going back to the Cerritos side, the common theory is that Shuttle Boimler having to fight his way back to the Titan got to feel like an absolute badass getting out the situation himself and that embolden him to stay on the Titan from the experience. The idea is that his experience fight it out on his own means he's capable of doing it on his own, so is capable in continuing to work on the Titan. The narrative clue being that as an audience we usually emotionally imprint on the one we give focus to, thus why we continue caring about Brad and not William, so it is the expectation that we are given more focus on transporter Boimler, that is the one we follow.

For the shuttle Boimler side, some saw that his escape didn't embolden him, it exacerbated his stress of having to go through that ordeal. With transporter Boimler, he worked out a plan to save his teammates, and in return his teammates had his back and when he was rescued, came back to a hero's welcome with a room-wide cheer, possibly increasing his attachment to the Titan. Shuttle Boimler having to fight to get off the planet and back, almost abandoned, starts feeling like he can't keep going through with this and decides to go back to where he wants to be. The narrative clue is that they regularly use the words that the transporter clone stayed on the Titan. Now in absolute terms, it can technically be applied to either Boimler, but it's more commonly referred to the one who came through the transporter first, once it's realized there was a cloning incident.

I think currently, the Transporter Boimler going back to the Cerritos is the larger faction. But as of the moment, we still don't know for certain and there is a possibility we may never know, because part of Trek is that both Boimlers have claim to being the "real" one.

Wait, I thought it was rather clear in the episode, so maybe I missed the ambiguity. Shuttle Boimler steps down from the pad and says "I've been transporter cloned? Bleh", and the Transporter Boimler answers something on the lines of "Oh, I'm the clone? Bleh", and I thought after that that Transporter Boimler is the one who stays on the Titan.

The problem is that in the actual scene where they decide, there's nothing to clear up which one's which, since they're wearing exactly the same thing.

I always thought Boimler said that his transporter clone stayed on the Titan, though I now realise we never heard how William called Bradward so maybe they both referred to each other as a transporter clone (even though they acknowledge that one of them is the clone).

One of the elements of the original Riker-split is the fact that neither of them is the original. The short version being the transporter split the two but filled in the gaps. They're both original Boimler.

The process for the transporter clone was that the original is in transit, hits a reflection barrier and the transporter chief catches them with a second beam that causes the duplication. One drops back to the last position and one materializes on the ship. It wasn't a copy and paste sort of thing but more akin to the quantum universes Worf once encountered.

Narratively, the story stays with the Boimler who transported to the ship slightly longer, so we would assume he is the same Boimler who returned to the Cerritos. Likewise, staying true to Thomas Riker, the one left behind and later escaped becomes a conniving asshole.

Doesn't Boimler refer to William being his transporter clone in 2x05?

I mean it's accurate to both.

Cerritos' Boimler kept the name, so for simplicity's he'd refer to the other one as a clone, even if he wasn't. Like he'd probably be insecure introducing himself to his friends as a clone.

Interesting that if we take name change as a indicator of being a clone, then William Boimler and Thomas Riker had opposite fates, the former kept the original's career advancement on the Titan while the originals was kicked back to Cerritos while in TNG the original kept their career and Thomas got a career as an Lt he would have had if he'd been stranded all those years with no clone, and then packed it in.

Tangentially, I wonder if Mariner was ever tempted by the Maquis life.

I wonder if there are a lot of people in Star Trek with embarrassing tales of the "Maquis phase" they went through as teenagers.

Maybe in the fanboy sense, but the Maquis are basically all dead.

Chakotay and B'elanna are still alive.

I assume there are a few others still kicking on Voyager as well.