LizstarTrek - Lower Decks Season 5

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!

Time to finish Lower Decks! I’ll genuinely be sad when its gone.

Dos Cerritos - LD 8/10

We start with watching Tendi be badass. She’s VERY good at being a pirate! Oh except for one thing: She doesn’t like killing people! She’s fine with robbing rich assholes, who cares, maybe even roughing them up a little. But killing them is a no go.

Back on the Cerritos, everyone is feeling a little stressed out by their current problems. Oh except Rutherford, he’s distracting himself by putting in more and more work. G-good for him. He’s doing… VERY well.

They go to check out an anomaly and get sucked through to a parallel reality and find another Cerritos with a bunch of parallel versions of themselves. T’Lyn is the same except one says remarkable and one says fascinating. Boimler has a beard. Stuff like that. Oh and the captains dead. whoops. Beckett is now the captain. Things are… slowly unraveling, as it’s clear that Captain Beckett is Kinda Evil.

Meanwhile, T’Lyn gets a chance to pay off her debt and return home by salvaging some old ancient warpship.

lol blue Orions from TAS.

Things are collapsing quite quickly in both storylines. The alternate versions are fighting each other, and the pirates turn on Tendi cause she doesn’t let them stab them. Captain Beckett also tries to swap places because she’s like “wow I used to have fun okay gonna steal your life”.

Tendi and the pirates come around with each other cause they have hobbies they want to persue to, like her. Like dancing and baking. That’s cute.

Alternate Mariner is stopped, and Alternate Boimler takes over as acting captain, doing the Riker Chair Thing. That’s so good. I think you unlock that move once you get a beard.

Tendi earns her freedom but sticks around cause the Orions and the Blue Orions are at war now because of “un-pirate-like methods”.

Good start!

Shades of Green - LD 6.5/10

Tendi’s sister seems to be Off and refuses to be scanned. Tendi thinks she’s pretty sus. After some digging, she finds out she’s pregnant. So she’s really excited, buuuuut her sister just isn’t ready to spill.

Meanwhile, Boimler is trying to be the Cool Lieutenant. I dunno if he’s succeeding. The Federation is at a new member of the federation and trying to help them ease into their new post-scarcity lifestyle. They’re burning money and going ham with parties. Fuck yeah, fuck capitalism.

The Pirate Queen tells them to knock it the fuck off and do an old school race through a dangerous nebula to determine which house will be the victor. Tendi doesn’t want her racing cause she’s pregante, which she’s really annoyed by. Tendi is being REALLY heavy handed about this.

Boimler’s away crew is kidnapped by Capitalism Terrorists, and they have to rescue them. “I HAVE TO TAKE YOUR HOVERBIKE!” “Yeah go ahead, I’ll just replicate a new one” “Oh yeah. Good for them!”

I find the Boimler and Beckett storyline really funny, but the Orion one is annoying. I don’t need Tendi to hold the idiot ball just cause she’s the kind and sweet one. Yes your sister just got pregnant. But you didn’t stop her from doing dangerous stuff before, why is it SUDDENLY so different now that she has a 3 week fetus inside of her. Also it turns out her sister was trying to protect TENDI about it cause if she knew it’d mean she’d need to stay for another 14 years or something. I thought she WANTED her to stay? She fucked her over in the last season? Whatever.

She loses cause she acts like Starfleet, anyways. Whoops. They take all of her house’s wealth.

Boimler’s ensigns handle the situation by using his uncool advice, and all is handled. Tendi is sent back to Starfleet, and finds out they were just tasked with hauling away “treasure trash”, jewels and stuff they were throwing away. Soooo they hire Tendi’s family to “dispose” of the jewels. Cute. TENDI’S BACK, YAAAY

The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel - LD 7.5/10

The lower deckers (minus Boimler, who’s doing big boy stuff with Ransom) have to clean up a space hotel overwhelmed with nanites. They call it The Glumpus. Meanwhile, THIS happens!

Hey, remember Jennifer? I once cited Beckett and her being gay as being the best fucking thing. But then Jennifer betrayed Beckett at the end of season 3 and never apologized so I was like “damn, fuck her I guess”. She’s FINALLY back and acting like nothing has changed. At first I was like “If Beckett doesn’t want her I’ll take her” but actually no, I can find another hot Andorian wife. Beckett quickly realizes they never technically broke up and they need to talk about it, buuuuut it’s Jennifer’s final mission so she sees the EASY way out (not communicating) and decides to roll with it. Jennifer VERY quickly catches on that she seems super eager to be out of their final mission together.

Meanwhile, Boimler thinks Ransom is just using him for the dangerous scary shit and it’s getting in his head.

T’Lyn is SUPER into “vibe rock” music, that’s super cute. “I am finding it hard to focus while thinking of Krog performing.” She’s great.

Boimler is working with Ransom to capture an AWOL Starfleet captain who’s there because she’s unsatisfied by how the higher ups treat him. He offers Boimler to join him, cause Boimler is just as mistreated as he is. He of course, doesn’t crack, using the opportunity to break the others out.

Jennifer and Beckett finally have that talk. Jennifer explains that Beckett didn’t even give her a chance to open up and apologize for being shitty, she was just phased out. Neither of them handled the breakup well, but now they could ACTUALLY breakup. Also it turns out the nanite swarm was actually an alternate universe starfleet ship from a universe on a much smaller scale. I’m sure alternate universe stuff won’t keep being important.

A Farewell to Farms - LD 9/10

We start with a long interesting opening with Ma’ah at his family bloodworm farm. He was stripped of his captaincy for letting his crew mutiny. He’s trying to avoid Mariner who finds him and ruins a sexy time he’s about to have. Bad bro move, Mariner.

THE BIRD PEOPLE ARE CALLED KLOHWAKANS??? NO. Some dramatic Klohwakans are on the ship are Migleemo has to make them happy, but they’re shitty fuckheads. Oh boy, uh, a Migleemo episode???

THEY REFERENCED BIJ!!!!!!

To get Ma’ah his captaincy back, they need to do an ancient Klingon rite. Boimler is SUPER into Klingon stuff right now so he’s on board. Beckett is of courseo n board. And they also drag Ma’ah’s country bumpkin brother.

Everything goes well but Ma’ah is really annoyed by all of it. It’s clear he doesn’t actually want this.

Boimler keeps going “Ohhh, this is SO Klingon!” I’d be the same tbh, I love Klingon stuff. Also I haven’t commented on his “beard” he’s trying to grow but its very funny.

Turns out Ma’ah is annoyed cause he doesn’t ACTUALLY want to be a captain in this shitty guy’s fleet. “Then just transfer to a new fleet”. They end up fighting this guy who’s being a shithead to Ma’ah, through a really fun Klingon loophole. He doesn’t accept it and stabs Ma’ah in the back, so Ma’ah kills him. There’s also a big awesome Klingon fight. Hey, remember how there was a Klingon civil war and we never really saw any cool Klingon fights??? This is exactly what I always wanted.

Migleemo’s story ends with him defeating the shitty hoity toity food critics by proving they can’t actually taste anything. “Is this ethical?” asks Tendi. “THese guys are punks, let Migleemo has his win.” - the Captain. That’s very funny.

The migleemo plot was whatever but the Klingon plot was PEAK.

Starbase 80?! - LD 8.5/10

Nice interrobang!

Beckett is feeling weirdly happy and optimistic. But then… the ship breaks down and needs repairs. And the closest starbase is… STARBASE 80?!

Mariner is NOT happy about this. She’s sure SB80 is cursed.

Their transporters are not good for organic use soooo we have an Enterprise gel wipe down. The people here also are wearing Enterprise outfits, which is interesting. It’s VERY old fashioned here. The story splits. Ransom and hte captain need to get to the head engineer, and are struggling to get there.

Meanwhile, the Lower Deckers are exploring around as some kind of zombie virus takes hold. Mariner is SURE it’s cause of the curse, buuuut it turns out to be from the Cerritos!

They FINALLY find the engineer at the arcade, he’s been sneakily trying to get them to fix problems in the station. He’s also voiced by Gideon’s dad from Gravity Falls and its very distracting.

This makes Starbase 80 something that doesn’t bother me. It kinda lowkey annoyed me before this episode, because it was an evil shitty place that no one wanted to go to, it was basically Bad Person Jail for people. I was like “why would Starfleet HAVE something like this?”

This explains what Starbase 80’s deal actually is. It’s not cursed, it’s not intentionally shitty. It’s a place where a bunch of weirdos go and people who need second chances. They’re kinda lost in the lurch cause of a diplomatic mess up, giving half the starbase to the control of a “knife gang” who are actually perfectly pleasant people, but it makes things weird. Like there’s still the problem with Starfleet ignoring and forgetting them cause they’re at the bottom of the priority list, Starfleet incompetence, but this is still SO much better.

They solve the problem and help fix all the problems they can at SB80, which is sweet. I really liked this one. ‘

Of Gods and Angles - LD 7/10

Ransom is having some problem with a new ensign, Ensign Olly. She’s the granddaughter of Zeus. Holy shit, you remember how the Greek Gods were in TOS? Olly is a nice person who means well but she keeps causing problems, and there’s a big diplomatic peace talk here between the Cubes and the Orbs. Mariner sees herself in her and offers to take over helping her.

MEanwhile, Boimler keeps trying to pretend to be his alternate universe cool self. He decides he needs to become besties with T’ana like his alt self. I’m sure that’ll go well. He VERY quickly fucks it up and gets drugged by experiemental drugs. Whoops!

One of the cubes got murdered, or is missing and it SEEMS like a murder. Now they need to figure out what’s going on. Olly is CERTAIN it’s a murder and is super gung ho on pinning it on a random orb. Mariner looks into it and it turns out Olly found the crime scene first, freaked out, and accidentally broke a computer with her lightening powers.

Mariner convinces Olly to use her power aaand it makes shit worse. But she realizes that the reason she ALWAYS wanted to be in Starfleet is cause she wanted to Engineer so she uses her engineering expertise to fix the problem.

Also turns out no one was murdered, they were just sneaking off to fuck. That wasn’t a murder scene, it was “their kink”. Oh no.

Also T’ana likes Boimler now cause he got horribly injured and she develops a new procedure to fix him.

This was an alright one.

Fully Dilated - LD 7/10

This title was a choice.

More alternate universe nonsense. They need to go undercover on a pre-warp planet to take back some stuff left by an alternate universe that’ll fuck up their evolution. Meanwhile, T’Lyn and Tendi are competing to become the new head science officer. Tendi REALLY wants it and wants to be normal about it, but she is not normal about it.

The planet they’re beaming to has some issues with time dilation. So a week down there is a second up there. Aaaaand just after beaming them down the teleporter breaks cause of Boimler’s nonsense. Whoops!

The alternate universe thing that crashed is… Purple Data’s Head! Oh boy! Tendi is getting more and more jealous…. and it gets worse when they’re there for over four months.

Mariner is bored, so she decides to turn this into a Inner Light episode. She needs to go get a partner fast! She IMMEDIATELY gets arrested. Whoops.

Tendi fixes up Data’s head and gets advice from him how to be a better science officer. Tendi starts… unravelling. T’Lyn seems to want to hang out for companionship and she keeps being aggressively friendly.

It also doesn’t help that T’Lyn keeps one upping her. After they’re kidnapped by some creepy guy who’s been stalking them for four months, they finally talk. T’Lyn didn’t even REALIZE they’ve been fighting. She wants to rescind the application, but Tendi wants to as well. They break free, fix the situation, and they FINALLY get beamed out.

Mariner meets Data and she’s as nerdy about it as I would be.

Data suggests to the captain who he thinks should be promoted… both of them. They are co-leads. That’s cute.

Upper Decks - LD 6.5/10

Beckett and Boimler comment on how it feels like they’re the main characters and the bridge crew never seem to do anything. Aaaand then we get an episode entirely about the bridge crew.

It’s the Lower Decks episode of Lower Decks, thats cute.

Everyone gets their times to shine. Ransom’s part is about trying to get some lower deckers to work together by being an example and get them motivated.

Shax’s is about an evil inner self that’s trying to get him to fight him…. He instead meditates and uses his inner self to fight him instead. That’s cute.

Billups is having the TIME OF HIS LIFE fixing some dangerous stuff. The Ensign with him is happy about it.

T’Ana gets her catty nurse to “rearrange her insides” so she can actually feel pain and they can update the pain chart.

Aaaand the captain is doing lots of menial bullshit all over the ship like watching horn concerts and poetry slams.

Shaxs is the fucking best.

Anyways an alien fleet, the Clicketts, shows up to take over the ship. They’re all basically fully stopped by the lower deckers working with them. Even WITH THE UPPER DECKERS EPISODE, they still need to be saved by lower deckers. Well, not all of them. Doctor T’Ana handles a phaser set to kill because she’s immune to pain.

Everything is handled, aaaand Captain Freeman gets enough time off to have an anniversary date with her husband.

This one was alright, it was cute.

The New Next Generation - LD 8.5/10

BOIMLER FINALLY HAS HIS BEARD! Boimler is getting sad about his dead clone. Remember him? He wonders what he could have gotten up to if he survived…

But we know he did. So here he is. What is he up to? He’s exploring alternate realities in a Defiant class as captain, and his crew is entirely alternate universe main characters. T’Pol, Curzon Dax, Elim Garak and his husband EMH Bashir (YES. YES. YES. YES. YES. YES. YES. I AM NORMAL ABOUT THIS.) and about a dozen Harry Kims.

William Boimler is… unhappy. He hates the multiverse. After being out here all year trying to fix and find whoever is ripping holes in the multiverse, he thinks its basically just slightly different weird versions of everyone he already knows, and he’s SICK of it. “IT’S PROBABLY BORG’D PICARD OR HUMAN WORF.”

I love silly fun references like this.

The next person they rescue is… alternate universe Mariner! Boimler is EXCITED to see his best friend, he’s seen no one for years cause he has to pretend to be dead. This Mariner is an engineer and is afraid of conflict.

Using Mariner’s suggestions, they sneak through after whoever is doing the damages, and they take damage while knocking the ship into a planet. They get locked up by the locals and meet the “villains” who are unstablizing realities.

This is Lily Sloan, who built the first warp engine with Zefram Cochrane. In her reality, they built a dimensional drive instead. They overcome their differences and become friends, and she tries to help Boimler see the beauty of the multiverse.

The dimension hopping ship is stolen by a Harry Kim before they can fix it fully. “Two Pip Kim”, the only one who got a promotion, is going to take all the other kims to his universe, where they can be promoted. None of the other Kims are happy about this. They try to mutiny and are beamed back.

There’s a little story here with Garak and Bashir arguing. They eventually realize there’s no reason for the arguing at all. “Why are we even doign this?!” “Because arguing is fun :)” “NO IT’S NOT?!” this is the most Garak thing.

Two Pip Kim succeeds and his ship explodes, reaching all realities. They can fix it, barely. By directing the problem to a SINGLE reality…. so Boimler choses the prime reality, his, because he trusts his friends and himself to fix it. He piggybacked a message to his duplicate, as long as he doesn’t freak out- oh, he freaked out.

That was good and I was very happy to see Garak and Bashir again.

Fissure Quest - LD 7/10

Here it is. Season finale. Series finale. Can it cleanly end it all?

A rift opens and hits some Klingons. They turn into Discovery Klingons, that’s funny. And horrifying! One asshole Klingon Captain, Relga, who’s brothers Ma’ah killed, intends to use this to further her career. They find Ma’ah and try to kill him, but his brother forces them to sneak out.

Meanwhile, Boimler gets the news and tries to get help from the upper command. The captain agrees and tries, and they’re like “Yes, this is real. Here, it’s up to you, good luck.” Also everyone hates Boimler for his clone sending the problem HERE.

Also for some reason Rutherford is being a grumpy pants.

Ma’ah and his brother show up, requesting asylum. Only Ma’ah’s brother actually, he’s annoyed by all of this. Relga tries to force them to give it over by pretending to be the admiral, it seems, aaaand then just attacks them anyway. She, like her brothers, is not a very good Klingon. Why is anyone following this person?

They run, cause y’know, theys till need to solve a universal collapse, while Ma’ah’s brother disappears. They get close to the field, which will turn people into weird versions of themselves…

The ships keep turning into other versions of their ship. One of the Klingon ships is now an old sailing barge and they all die :) Yay. Spacing quota met!

Ma’ah gets angry and thinks where his brother is hiding is hidden in Boimler’s padd. Boimler breaks the Padd. It was working for him sure, and he was cool and hot, buuuut it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t have his friends’ backs. Cute.

They manage to defeat Relga by having Olly use her thunder blasts to break their shields. They change and explode, GG.

One final ship change for the Ceritos, aaand it becomes a Galaxy class, sweet. Only for a bit though, it goes back to a shitty Cali-class. Rutherford rips out his implant for some reason and supes up the ship. There’s something about how he thinks he Cali class is the best, I dunno.

Okay it’s moving so fucking fast and every sub plot is concluding that it’s really hard to explain. Whatever, everuything happens. Rutherford falls back in love with the ship, Tendi and T’lyn work together as Science Besties to stop quantum collapse.

The rift isn’t closed, but is stablized. Now Stafleet can go explore the multiverse as a new frontier. To help the mission, they move Starbase 80 to act as the stop gap between the new rift and Starfleet, cause its old systems aren’t effected by the rift’s effects.

Captain Freeman is assigned as the new person in charge of this. She’s leaving the Cerritos.

Rutherford is fully human! It’s also a tease towards Tendi x Rutherford, which is cute.

The episode ends with a big cute thing where Mariner talks about how special the crew is and how they’re explorers, and not perfect, but a family, etc, etc.

Captain Ransom…. oh no, I’m worried about that. But the adventure continues, etc etc. Boimler and Mariner are also promoted as provisional first officers. They are VERY anxious about this, but everyone seems proud of them.

I felt like they set up too many things and then knocked em all down well, but it was still paced a little off. I feel it was a little overloaded. And sad it’s the ending. But still, mostly good, mostly cute.