Lower Decks set their ends by bending their ribs

Spoilers for Lower Decks, “Fissure Quest.”

It’s you it can be eat your cake

The penultimate episode of Star Trek: The Lower Decks it is a work in the box to mark the artistic group of the exhibition. It does a terrific job of setting the table and building up to next week’s series finale. But it’s also the last game – for now – a chance to get a gag or two out of all those deep jokes, Extremely Online Online jokes. It’s fortunate that while the episode is a little on the thin side, the throwbacks are likable enough to not matter.

For the second week in a row, we’re pulling the spotlight from the lead quintet to catch William Boimler. (Which, if your memory isn’t too sharp, is Bomiler’s transporter character, last seen faking his own death to join Section 31.) Now he’s the captain of the USS Anaximander on a secret mission to close the rifts in space the system has been experiencing. the whole season.

Boimler, the epitome of a Star Trek fan, has been picking up stray figures from canon during the dimension hop. His team includes T’Pol, Garak and the EMH version of Dr. Bashir, all played by their original cast. And yes, Garak and Dr. a piece of fan fiction that presents a thousand pieces of slash fiction.

The ship takes an escape pod with Lt. Harry Kim inside, who learns that most of the other workers are Harrys Kim as well. He’s the only one who’s ever been promoted to the top job, nodding to rumors that longtime series head Rick Berman said someone should be the lowest-ranking member of the team. And/or as punishment for conflicting with the production team, .

They soon encounter another universe Mariner who, unlike our version, is a shy engineer. However, he has developed a way to track the ship that is drilling holes in the universe. So Anaximander sets a trap, to reveal that it is an old Enterprise-class ship called the Beagle. It is an exploration ship with a crew of humans and a Vulcan, led by Lily Sloane.

Sloane isn’t trying to rip the universe to shreds, their universe has just been discovered so they can travel to the center of space before the warp. They have been jumping between universes exploring the same strange worlds, the same life and civilizations boldly… exploring the differences. It’s a mission statement that upsets Boimler, who is devoted to fan service and now wants something, anything new to cleanse his palate.

Naturally, this is so Lower Decks eye for its biggest flaw, given its homage to ’90s era Trek. I’ve always found it more effective to drill and weave by simply milking the audience’s ‘memberberries. But that doesn’t mean it’s not at least engaging in the idea of ​​serving up the same old crap, over and over again.

Sloane disagrees, saying that his team is looking to explore the ways in which people grow and change in different environments. He says he’s met several different Boimlers, all with their own Mariners, as their connection grows stronger throughout the world. And that exploration is not just to explore beyond ourselves but to discover what is true within us. That’s a journey that can be as dangerous, and rewarding, as it is to the farthest reaches of the universe.

Kim, angered by his namesakes’ stagnant activities, steals the Beagle with plans to get back into shape. Anaximander gives chase, and while the other Kims rebel and retreat, the Beagle successfully makes the jump but explodes in the process. That sends out a massive wave of energy that will wipe out the entire universe unless it is dumped into one place. Thankfully, Boimler knows where to send it — to his shipping twins and the Cerritos crew.

See you next week for the final.