LizstarTrek - Lower Decks Season 3
Every Sunday my Twitch subs and I watch Star Trek in my Discord. Here are my reviews and thoughts on each of the episodes as I see it. If you’re curious about a nerd’s views on Star Trek episodes, please read on, I go quite in depth with some of these episodes! I’ve watched some Star Trek before but not all of it!
I know very little about this show except it was made by nerds like me with a very different sense of humor. God, please be good.
Grounded - ENT 7/10
We pick up shortly after where we left off. The captain has been arrested for conspiracy to blow up Pakled Planet. They also have footage of her cackling like a maniac as she plants the bombs herself. Okay. Beckett is PISSED, and it seems she’s being railroaded, so she teams up with Boimler to try and prove her innocent. Also Boimler’s family grows grapes in a vinyard, like Picard. But unlike Picard it’s for raisins, and Boimler HATES it. Also it’s filled with horny girls who keep trying to get in his pants.
lol the hot sauce is “ketrecel-white hot” thats cute.
They plan to kidnap an old man and steal his transporter to get onto the Cerritos, but they do not cause he’s VERY nice. He actually udnerstand and helps them figure out where to go next which is uh… Montana??
They steal the Phoenix, Cocrane’s ship, from what is basically Cocrane Disneyland. Thats pretty funny. They also accidentally kidnap a kid named Gavin, who after crying a bit, is happy and steals the Phoenix for himself. Cute. Unfortunately, this plan kinda falls apart. They were GOING to get Boimler’s logs, which are a direct copy of the captain’s… but ALSO filled with him talking about passing gas and shit. They’ll be laughed out of court. So she kicks them out and steals the Cerritos to go get evidence herself. They sneak back on and stop her.
By the way, the animation is clearly stepped up, pretty impressive
They’re saved from all of this by Captain Freeman, who shows up in the nic of time to clear them of stealing the Cerritos. Turns out she was cleared, because yeah, she didn’t do it and the system worked. The entire show, everyone around Beckett was like “Dude, Starfleet is good, trust the system” and she’s like “NO, THEY PUT HER IN THIS MESS TO BEGIN WITH, I DON’T TRUST THEM”, and then we found out, yeah, uh, they solve it immediately. It was always a setup by the Pakleds.
I gotta say, that’s really nice after watching Picard, where everyone is like “Starfleet are the good guys though!” and Starfleet keeps doing evil shit for no reason
Anyways, she fucked up. So Freeman puts her under the jurisdiction of Ransom.
This was pretty good for a starting episode. Fun, actually good jokes.
The Least Dangerous Game - ENT 8/10
The gang are playing a D&D type game with a fake Martok (played by ACTUAL Martok, nice to see DS9 characters). Beckett is dragged out to do work with Ransom, while Boimler finds out that a previous one off character, Vendome, got promoted to captain cause he “lucked into it” by agreeing to do everything. Tendi convinces Boimler to try and do everything that’s asked of him now, aaand it goes about as well as you’d expect. Though he has SOME hits. Turns out he’s a great tenor.
Ransom for some reason forces Beckett to do engineering shit with him while the engineers to command stuff. He’s clearly not good at this or up for it. Why is he doing this??? I guess some jealousy shit. I still don’t like Ransom. He’s mostly just annoying. He’s watching Youtube tutorials to figure it out, which is fun. Like, cross training IS good, but do one and one? Also apparently the engineers are “enterting the sacred hallway without an exposed navel” which is a serious faux pas. That’s one of the most Star Trek thing I’ve ever seen.
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This is K’Ranch. He’s stuck on the ship while waiting for something to be repaired. He’s kinda bored, and asks Boimler to let him hunt him for sport. Boimler is now trying to say yes to everything aaaand he gets hunted. What a surprise. This is… REALLY funny, actually? Boimler is running like a maniac while K’Ranch is SUPER lovely to everyone just, y’know, wants to hunt Boimler for sport. “THANKS FOR THE MIMOSAS EARLIER” he growls at the captain as he crawls past on the ceiling.
Another good joke: Boimler dives into Cetacean Ops and they go “wtf? Don’t dive in here with your shoes on man, that’s messed up”. I’m glad we’re seeing them again.
So yeah, the stuff with K’ranch? FANTASTIC. The stuff with Beckett and Ransom? Eh. Take it or leave it.
<img src=”“https://imgur.com/VKVhziw.png” alt=”trek”>
Boimler tries to “become the hunter”, which apparently is VERY common. He gets a fucking spear in the shoulder, and then K’ranch takes a selfie with him. The hunt is over. This is really funny.
Ransom finally says he fucked up and was just trying to get Beckett to flake and insubordinate… AS she was flaking and insubordinating. He doesn’t catch her, they save the day, he’s still egotistical and annoying. The end.
This is the first episode filled with banger jokes, IMO. There were good ones here and there before this, but really good ones here.
Mining the Mind’s Mine - ENT 7/10
We get to RIGHT after what is basically another episode. Some scientists upset some silicon lifeforms, the Scrubble, on a remote planet, and they planted glowing rock mines that read your mind’s deepest desire, then turn you to stone. The Cerritos brokers peace, and now its up to them to clear the mines.
Meanwhile, in the B-plot, Tendi has to go through senior science officer training with Dr. Migleemo, the ship counselor, a overly optimistic and kind bird guy who is kind of a bird brain. I feel I’m not gonna like this B-plot as much. He gives very bad advice and has never done this kind of training before and has no idea what he’s doing.
Back in the A-Plot, they are working with another ship to take care of the rocks. The other ship will dismantle a thingy, while Cerritos takes care of hte rocks. The other ship people are mean and rude, cause of rumors about the Cerritos. So Beckett decides she wants to show it to them! They can handle it! All they have to do is ignore these fantasies!
These… extremely inaccurate fantasies. NO, BECKETT DOES NOT WANT A HOT ANDORIAN GIRLFRIEND, SHUT UP.
Yay, homosexuality.
Their superior officer fucks up and breaks all the rocks, so now they summon nightmares. Horribly nightmares like Kukulkan, from TAS, cool. Horrible klingon clowns with batleth arms, horrifying. This.
This is your nightmare????? This is MY fantasy.
They all hide in a cave and wait for hte nightmares to end, and find out that actually, the other ship was jealous, they’ve heard of Cerritos’ exploits and wanted to seem cool. So they work together to figure out what’s going on… they find that the cave actually holds the core of the mind rocks, and find out that hte Scrubble are working with the Federation scientists to spy on people. They were also trying to spy on the captain by planting a spy rock in there, aaaand Tendi fixes it all by getting so fed up she breaks the rock. She got the courage to do it from T’Ana, who she views as her REAL mentor.
All’s well that ends well.
Room For Growth - ENT 8/10
Things have been pretty hectic lately. Nonstop shenanigans. Apparently the captain touched a mask and has become an ancient godqueen. I remember that TNG episode! So, the past two seasons did this kinda joke a lot, a reference to an old episode, and I was mostly not into it. They felt very “ha ha, laugh, nerds”, but here they are SO much more smooth. I really don’t know why?? I can’t tell the difference. But it’s very much better. Honestly everything else. I’m laughing WAY more often.
Anyways, shit’s been rough, so the captain is demanding a mandatory vacation for everyone. The engineering crew gets placed down on a pleasure ship for a while, which they handle by finding work to do. Meanwhile, in the B-Plot, there’s a raffle coming up for who gets the 1st deck rooms. Delta shift is cheating, and they decide to try and cheat back by sneaking to a terminal. So we go through some very random scenes. First, they go through the holodeck to find…
These two are apparently in a relationship, and it’s VERY kinky. Thats fun. Then they sneak through a botany place and accidentally get high. Well, Tendi is immune. The others are not.
The captain goes fucking bonkers after finding out the engineers are finding ways to pretend to be relaxed. This makes it clear SHE’S the one who needs to relax, and is taken away for ULTIMATE RELAXATION.
Anyways, all of the sneaking around, they run into Delta Shift, and then actually find out they like spending time together and are actually kinda cool with each other. Wait no, that was a twist, the Delta Shift stab them in the back to get to the terminal first.
The engineers solve a problem by making a machine that makes you unstressed. This feels like it’d be addicting, but okay. The people on the relaxation ship IMMEDIATELY destroy it cause it undoes everything they are. That’s funny.
Our team loses, Delta shift wins, the end.
This show really weirdly has clicked together? I don’t even know what changed, but it all just works.
Reflections - ENT 9/10
We get our A and B plots real fast here. Rutherford is having nightmares he can’t fix. This ends in him getting mind controlled… by himself? But ruder? Meanwhile, Boims and Beckett are assigned to a Starfleet recruitment booth at an alien job fair. They have an asshole “freelance archeologist” next to them trying to ruin their day, and if Beckett can’t get people to sign up, she’s being reasigned.
Rutherford is being an asshole to everyone and they somehow aren’t noticing, while True Rutherford is stuck in reflections. FINALLY Tendi steps in and IMMEDIATELY notices something is wrong, which is nice. They manage to phaser stun him, so it turns into a Fight In The Mind.
We learn some LORE. Damn, imagine that, Rutherford Lore. Imagine building a fucking character and giving them background lore and characterization. He used to be a cool kinda assholish racer. They have a race in the mind to determine who gets the body. Rutherford uses the Delta Flyer, Old Rutherford uses a ship he designed himself.
Meanwhile, Boimler goes fucking apeshit after everyone’s been disrespecting Starfleet all day. He starts screaming in everyone’s face. There’s some fun references here. “THE DOCTOR DIDN’T SPEND SEVEN YEARS IN THE DELTA QUADRANT TO BE DISRESPECTED. HE HAS RIGHTS!” Yo, I agree. This actually ends up getting them sign ups. Ransom returns to find Beckett happily signing up people and Boimler foaming at the mouth attacking people.
Rutherford wins the race because he has friends, and old Rutherford doesn’t. He imagines up his friends helping him with the race. Old Rutherford fades away, going “…Maybe this is for the best. It’s better to grow.” But not before reminding Rutherford that he got the implant in a coverup. This scene is good and gives feels. Also it sets up stuff for the future!
Boimler is thrown in the brig, but everyone commends him for it. Also, the archaeologist, Petra apparently, hits up Beckett being like “Yo, if you ever want out, you can hang with me”. She tells her to fuck off, but I feel we haven’t seen the last of her…
Yo this show is getting good????
Hear All, Trust Nothing - ENT 10/10
The Cerritos is suddenly randomly assigned to do work on DS9. They need to save face for a moment by pretending to be in awe and flying around the pylons…. so they recreate the DS9 intro, interrupted by “so uh, another go round?” THis is unironically my favorite joke in this show.
Holy shit Kira is here. And it’s ABSOLUTELY Nana Visitor. I love this fucking episode already. I’ve been craving a sequel to DS9 since DS9 fucking ended.
Everyone goes on DS9 to be a touritst, except Beckett. She stays behind because her “hot Andorian girlfriend”. I already know how this B-Plot is going to go. Beckett is scared of committment and will ruin her relationship because of it. There’s nothing WRONG with that plot point, I just don’t like watching it, it makes me sad ): I want a hot Andorian girlfriend.
Meanwhile, Tendi meets another starfleet Orion! He’s… very Orion. She is not happy. Rutherford keeps trying to include him in stuff, and she’s NOT happy about it. Tendi does not like being from a planet of hats. I love Tendi.
C-Plot, the captain needs to do trade talks with some Delta aliens. She tries to get them into it by introducing them to Quark, who is VERY unhappy. He’s like “THEY DID NOTHING DURING THE DOMINION WAR WHILE MY CUSTOMERS WERE DYING!” Dude, when did Quark get so woke? This is a setup of some kind. They kidnap Quark and knock out power.
The power is out so now Jennifer’s friends are freaking out. Beckett is still trying to be polite, but Jennifer is like “dude what’re you doing? I like you cause you’re rude and can handle shit like this.” WHAT. NOT ONLY DID THEY MIX THE B AND C PLOT PERFECTLY, BUT THEY ALSO ENDED IT IN A WAY I EXPECTED???
The A and B AND C plots???? Turns out the orion they met was a faker. He’s from Ohio. But they need a REAL Orion pirate to handle this. Anyways Tendi pulls some WILD shit out of nowhere. She’s perfect. Tendi moving into S tier.
This is very cute. I like them a lot.
Turns out Quark stole stuff and they were just arresting him. They get a deal where they get 76% of Quark’s profits on their technology. Quark is NOT HAPPY. This is like a good episode of DS9??? We even get some nice smooth references to DS9 stuff, like Quark’s head on Kira’s body.
A Mathematically Perfect Redemption - ENT 6/10
Remember the end of season 1? We get to see it again, but from the side of Peanut Hamper, the Exocomp who beamed herself off the ship to avoid having to do scary dangerous stuff to help people.
It’s been like two years. She’s turning the junk of the battle in a makeship nacelle to get her out of there. She’s gone NUTS. She makes a rock named Sophia to talk to.
Peanut Hamper crash lands on an alien planet, some bird people who aren’t space faring. She’s taken in by the village elder, who’s kind of a bird brain and unable to tell that Peanut Hamper is clearly a bitch. She’s really awful. Everyone else notices cause like, yeah, obviously.
She uses her technology and knowledge to save the elder, help hatch more eggs that were going to die, and help improve life. All while being awful. The Elder’s son, a buff as fuck owl, is originally apprehensive of her, but they grow close.
This is a Disney movie. Like, intentionally. It’s pretty good.
The two of them enter into a sexual relationship. Peanut Hamper slowly becomes a better person. Okay, it’s actually quite fast, cause it’s a single episode. But she IS improving.
Some scavengers come to tear up the land and steal ancient ships that their ancestors left down below. They’s destroying the village and hurting people. Peanut Hamper risks herself by giving out a distress beacon to Stafleet. She also risks herself to help save the others. She saves the day, everyone loves her, she’s going off to Starfleet, they underestimated her… oh whoops, she called the scavengers here.
Yeah she’s still kind of a shithead. This was all just a ploy to get her back off the planet and NOT in a penal colony.
God damn, what a bitch.
Instead, her now ex-fiance risks HIS life to get on a ship and save everyone, including the Cerritos, which is getting its ass kicked.
Peanut Hamper is sealed away with the evil robots, the end. Weakest one so far, but still fine. Peanut Hamper is slightly too annoying.
Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus - ENT 8/10
We get another sequel episode to a season 1 episode! This time it’s a sequel to the movie episode. I liked the idea of a holodeck recreation trying to make a take on the TNG movies, but this time it’s just the friends fucking around on the Holodeck. And not Beckett being weirdly psychotic. I like that!
Boimler needs to step out for a minute, and comes back real sad. Uh oh.
Suddenly, the vibe VERY much shifts. Boimler is really bummed and unable to really connect with it. I wanted this to just be them hanging out and having a fun time! This is kinda a shame ):
They split the party, Tendi and Rutherford still doing the original thing, it’s kinda cool. Rutherford is not taking this seriously, Tendi is getting real into it. Beckett and Boimler are doing weird side stuff with background extras. This is Knicknac. I like him a lot. Beckett flares out at him over this and leaves, and finds out what the problem is.
Remember Boimler’s clone? He died. Gas leak. Whoops.
Beckett goes back and cheers up Boimler by being there for him and helping him come to terms with it. Also turns out Boimler was thrown in the brig. But KNICKKNAK SAVES THE DAY! And he’s gay for Boimler, which Boimler accepts and is cool with. Yo what the fuck???
Turns out Tendi is being real try hard about this movie cause she wants to be a captain IRL. Rutherford is like “oh shit, I’m sorry, I’d love for you to be captain, I support your dreams.”
TENDI IS MY CAPTAIN.
Boimler finds the God at the end of the story, asks it the meaning of life, and it’s just a quote generator. Cause yea, it’s the holodeck. He has a freak out, cries that life has no meaning, and then finds himself in some kind of idyllic dream world… He’s at Kirk’s! Wait no, it’s actually Captain Sulu. “Even better.” Hah.
He has a good talk with Sulu, then gets dorky at him, and Sulu is like “this horse will bite you now.” CHOMP. It was actually a hypospray. He passed out from dehydration. They all walk away like “acutally your movie was fun, let’s go”
ALSO BOOM, BOIMLER’S CLONE ISN’T DEAD! He’s part of Section 31 now! ….Oh come on, I’m starting to LIKE this show!!!
At least they make fun of MODERN Trek with this. “Why does Section 31 have badges??? Aren’t we a secret???”
Trusted Sources - ENT 7/10
While Cerritos is doing a new project, “Project Swingby”, a plan to go visit first contact planets and make sure everything is still good, they get a reporter on board to keep an eye on them and write a news report. So now the captain is SUPER on edge about this, making sure the ship is SPOTLESS. Beckett can’t take a hint about how she would fuck up the captain’s plans.
Also apparently their first swingby planet is that fucking Very Special Episode TNG episode with the drug addicted aliens. Jesus. Those fucking guys. “Picard just LEFT?!” Yeah. Yeah he sure did. They go down, and it SEEMS fine at first… but it’s slightly uncomfy. They only suffered for like, 14 years, but are now addicted to fitness. :)
The reporter is like “Hmm, this project is superfluous”. SUPERFLUOUS? THERE’S NO MONEY INVOLVED. Isn’t it GOOD to check on people who might need help even if they don’t? God damn.
Beckett is annoyed by all of this, and plans to do something about it. She’s going to make sure the reporter sees the TRUTH. She tells her things that ACTUALLY happened.
The reporter of course runs with this for her own sake, aaand Beckett is kicked off the ship, sent to Starbase 80, the shithole of the Federation, apparently. I dunno if I really like that this is a thing in the canon, but okay. Everyone treats her like shit, including her girlfriend who unceremoneously dumps her. There goes my new ship ):. She didn’t really do anything that heinous, but everyone acts like she did. Goodbye Beckett.
Anyways they continue on, reaching Brekka, the other planet from that episode. Everyone is missing. Turns out the Breen are here, taking the planet by force. They beam off, now at battle with the Breen.
They’re saved by a Texas Class, a new automated ship. Welp, that’s sure to end poorly. Anyways project swingby is completely ignored for this new project, thrown to the wayside, aaaand we find out that the only person who DIDN’T say bad things during interviews was Beckett. Whoops! Beckett quit starfleet over this, and they can’t contact her, cause she’s with that shitty Archaeologist from earlier in the season. Dang.
This one made me sad and gave me bad feelings, but the turning point is that I feel BAD about it instead of MAD ABOUT IT. It felt a bit rushed, too. But it’s a setup for the following episode, so, it’s fine.
The Stars at Night - ENT 9/10
After the fallout from the last episode, the best friend admiral who’s been “helping” Captain Freeman all season throws her under the bus to push his new unmanned ships forward. They’re going to shutter the California class. I’m sure this won’t go poorly. Why are Starfleet back to making stupid-ass decisions cause of one clearly biased media interviewer that did spliced interviews. Jesus.
Everyone finds out about this through the grapevine. “Those AI are gonna take our jobs!” God damn, Trek, as usual, talking about the modern problems of the world, huh?
Boimler is kind of unravelling without Beckett. Beckett, however, is having a great time being an unethical archaeologist. She is a LITTLE sussy of how they’re getting the money for these operations though. I’m sure that won’t be a problem.
They come up with a plan. A Race. If they can do the second contact job better than the AI ships, then they keep their jobs. The admiral pushing this is super sussy and smug about it. They are on MAX alert about this, they need to be at tip top shape to keep their jobs.
They lose the race cause they slowed down cause there MIGHT be life. The admiral cackles evily about this. That’s just a normal STarfleet admiral.
Rutherford remembers. The person who wiped his memory? That was the admiral. The AI of the ships? Based on his code. It’s unstable, and he was silenced to stop him from talking about it. The Admiral unlocks their safety protocols to have them kill the Cerritos. The AI IMMEDIATELY kills the admiral and blows up a starbase, killing hundreds. Holy shit.
Meanwhile, we find out who the mysterious benefactor is for this archaeology guild. It’s Picard. He just really likes Archaeology. That’s funny, actually. Beckett learns that there’s a huge battle going on, and asks to go back. She needs to help.
Cerritos risks themselves to get the AI to stop killing civilians. God damn. And then they need a plan, how to stop them? Shax FINALLY to do what he always dreamed. We all cheer for him as he goes down, and does the dream he’s always dreamed… He’ll eject the warp core, directly on top of those AI ships. I love you, Shax.
Unfortunately, one ship survives the blast, and the now unpowered Cerritos takes heavy its, almost being destroyed… but someone comes to save the day!
Beckett’s ship can’t take the AI ship, obviously… but she called some who could. EVERY California class ship is here to defend themselves, and their sister ship. After a great sick battle, the evil is defeated.
Beckett is brought back. Everyone apologizes to her (except her ex, who kinda just stares, shocked). We ALSO get another new member of the crew…. T’Lyn! YAY, SHE’S BACK AND A MAINSTAY! Whoo, let’s hear it for the Cali-class!
….after credit sequence, Oh no, Badgey is back D: It’s interesting that as this series goes on and gets better, it doesn’t ERASE the things from the first seasons and ignore them, it just makes them better.
….Okay.
Wow.
This kind of blew me away? I think maybe cause Trek Night has been so fucking dire since Enterprise started. Honestly, this is the best Trek thing on average I think since Voyager. It’s prolly better than most of those seasons honestly.
The characters are a LOT more likable. It’s a lot less mean spirited “ha ha look at them suffer” humor. It’s a LOT more Star Trek vibes. Problems are handled not in Rick And Morty conclusions, but in Star Fleet ways.
It’s so much better that it honestly astounds me. And it’s not like it’s amazing. It was mostly 7s. But it CLICKS, and it’s really not that much that’s different, every little thing is just BETTER. The writing, the animation, the characters, even the pacing. The pacing was so much better, we can LET SHIT BREATH, HOLY HELL.
Also, uh, may I say? I love the gayness of this.
Star Trek has been a thing that’s had a… we’ll say difficult history with sexuality. It did have flirtations with it back in the 90s, I remember the Dax Kisses A Woman episode, which it handled rather well, but that was veiled in the “oh they were a man inside cause Trill” shenanigans. And don’t even get me STARTED on Bashir and Garak, who were intentionally seperated cause they were too gay and had too good chemistry.
Then we get Discovery. Discovery WAS gay. It finally allowed homosexuality. But it felt… not quite right. It is like Trek’s equivalent of corporate pride. Like a “of COURSE we support gay rights! Here, we have your gay couple right here!” I DO like Stamets and Culber, but uh, their relationship is… weird. They are never shown being just a couple. But like a lot of Discovery, it doesn’t really get development. It just is. It feels back patty, and it feels weird that their entire on screen chemistry is them talking about their relationship. At least show them existing as a relationship!
Don’t even fucking get me started on Picard’s homosexuality.
And then SNW was…. a little worse even? Nurse Chapel is canonically bisexual, cool, into that. We gonna do anything about that? No? Just gonna… throw that out there, but do nothing about it? Obviously bisexuals don’t GOTTA date women, but I dunno man.
And then there’s how Lower Decks handles it. If the other Treks feel like they’re meeting gayness with the Corporate Pride vibes. This feels like it’s made by queer people who’d understand what queerness would be like in a Trek utopia. The first time it’s mentioned, it’s Beckett going “Yeah, no, I’m into anything, who cares.” Pansexuality, fuck yeah. Then this episode really dials up how it’s handled.
It’s NATURAL.
No one makes a thing about it. There’s no “look at us, we’re so gay!” It’s Beckett blushing about the girl she likes. It’s a fucking one-off hologram character going “BOIMLER! I LOVE YOU! I LITERALLY ROMANTICALLY LOVE YOU!” And Boimler laughing and going “Aww, hey man I love you too.” BECAUSE THAT’S JUST A NORMAL THING IN OUR SOCIETY. COOL.
This is exactly the homosexuality I wanted in Star Trek. And even though Beckett and Jennifer’s relationship ended messily, that’s also… normal. That happens. Relationships are messy, and people make mistakes and fuck things up.
I am genuinely SO excited to see how this show progresses in the future. Consider me hooked.
…sadly we’ll have to go back to Discovery next week. Sigh.