TL;DR – This might be one of my favourite episodes this season because it nails its premise.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ streaming service that viewed this episode. 

Star Trek: Lower Decks Review –

There are a lot of episodes of Lower Decks out there, and not all of them work for me. Their best combination is wherein they balance their deep Star Trek knowledge and in-jokes with telling a compelling story in their own right. Today’s episode is a good example of just how to do that.   

So, to set the scene, the USS Cerritos has found another of those pesky subspace ruptures and has been tasked to close it off. However, before they can do that, the crew discovers a Starfleet signal on a nearby pre-warp civilization. Not wanting to breach the Prime directive, they beam Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Tendi (Noël Wells), and T’Lyn (Gabrielle Ruiz) down in disguise to destroy/retrieve anything before it can contaminate the culture. The only problem is that this planet is living under a slight time dilation, so all Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) and Boimler (Jack Quaid) need to do is stand at the transport controls, wait a couple of seconds and beam them back. What is the worst they could do in just a couple of seconds …? We will be looking at the episode as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

We will get to the severed head in the room in a moment, but I first want to talk about the general scenario. Today’s episode combines two prevalent episode styles in Star Trek. The first is the time-weirdness of the planet, which has appeared in some form in a number of the episodes and is the basis for our more comedic parts of the episode as Rutherford and Boimler desperately try to clean off the console they just spilt drinks over. Then there is the pre-industrial civilization that they are trying to hide in, of which there are numbers upon numerous episodes to pull from. But I think Carbon Creek is my favourite.

It is the distilling of these two-episode styles that brings the conflict this week because it creates a time where Tendi and T’Lyn have nothing to do but start a competition with each other to see who can science the best. I was not completely sold on this premise until right at the end, when it showed that if they had just one conversation, they would have worked this out months ago, but honest communication is difficult for both, given their past lives. Mariner also gets to live out her best Inner Light fantasies but just ends up constantly in jail.

In the middle of this, we find the purple head of Lt. Cmd. Data (Brent Spiner), who attempts to be the calming influence on everyone but only ends up exacerbating the problem. I think this was the perfect cameo for the episode because it didn’t detract from the main story but helped complement it and provide a framework for the conclusion that made sense. There were many things that I loved about the episode, like how T’Lyn navigated the Prime Directive by creating cosmetic products to sell so she wasn’t selling snake oil but also not accidentally boosting their development. Well, on that last point, it will depend on whether cosmetics are a core part of a species development, and the hairstyles here might lean into that. I loved Snell (Eric Bauza) as the creep who is 100% right, but no one trusts him because he is a creep, and he also gets just savagely burnt by Data in a way only Data could. Also, this might be the most innuendo-filled episode of Star Trek that has existed.     

In the end, do we recommend Fully Dilated? Yes, we would. Honestly, it was a lot of fun to watch. The cut back to the boys freaking out was a good setter for the episode pacing. The silliness on the planet worked as its own narrative first and as a reference to Star Treks of the past second. Also, I just a smile on my face from start to finish.  

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Star Trek: Lower Decks yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Star Trek: Lower Decks
Directed by – Megan Lloyd
Written by – Andrew Mueth
Created by – Mike McMahan
Based Upon – Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry
Production/Distribution Companies – Secret Hideout, Titmouse, CBS Studios & Paramount+.
Starring – Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid, Noël Wells, Eugene Cordero, Dawnn Lewis, Jerry O’Connell, Fred Tatasciore & Gillian Vigman with Brent Spiner, Gabrielle Ruiz & Eric Bauza