TL;DR – This episode feels like a love letter to the crew of the USS Cerritos, and as such, it was honestly moving in a way I was not expecting.

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

Star Trek: Lower Decks Review –

One of the things that has always made Lower Decks stand out in the vast landscape of the Star Trek Universe is that much of its focus is not on the command crew of the ship. Of course, they are all still there, but they are more side characters and foils for our core cast. Over time, those lines started to blur as we had space to explore characters more, and the Lower Deckers spent more time on the bridge. However, today, we put that all aside to give a love letter to the crew of the USS Cerritos.

So, to set the scene, in the Buhgood Feeding Grounds around the rings of Bhungar V, the USS Cerritos crew are steeling down to explore an old Earth ritual, Halloween. As Tendi (Noël Wells), Rutherford (Eugene Cordero), T’Lyn (Gabrielle Ruiz), and Boimelr (Jack Quaid) all dig into their gourds in a carving session. Mariner (Tawny Newsome) got stuck in painting. All the good things only happen to the bridge crew, which, as fate will have it, is who we will be following today. We will be looking at the episode as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

At the start of the episode, I just thought we would get to see a day in the life of the wider command crew of the USS Cerritos, and frankly, I would have been happy with just that. Indeed, a lot of the set-up of the episode is getting to hear everyone’s personal logs as they explore what they have to do during the day, which is mostly just keeping things running as they work out what is upsetting the Buhgood. This is where we get a canon explanation of why it looks like rocks fall from the ceiling every time a Starfleet Starship is attacked. A line of dialogue that amused me to my core and made me skip back to be sure I had just heard what I thought I heard.

We get a cavalcade of references this week from Spock’s Death in A Wrath of Khan to the retrograde viruses of The Next Generation, and even a shout-out to Strange New Worlds’ famous or infamous musical episode. However, those references were just there to help give this episode the colour it needed to have space to explore all the different crew’s stories. Shaxs (Fred Tatasciore) was fighting an astral projection of the rage built up during the occupation and gets to utter a line that I think will become famous after this episode for apparent reasons: ‘They weren’t warriors, they were occupiers’. At the same time, T’Ana (Gillian Vigman) was told that she has lousy pain management, which then she took to herself to change the pain rating scale through personal experimentation.  

However, more than just exploring these issues, the episode took the time to pair up the senior officers with one of the crew from the ship that we have seen during the voyagers, spreading the love this episode has to give. I very much loved Billups (Paul Scheer) jaunt with Ensign Meredith (Charlotte Nicdao) when she discovers a warning light has gone off in engineering, which sends the two on an epic mission to stop the warp core from exploding. Or how Ransom (Jerry O’Connell) shows that he is brighter than he appears when he gets all the competing ensigns from different shifts to work together by getting them all to hate him and bonding over it.

But at the core of this episode is getting to spend a day in the shoes of Captain Carol Freeman (Dawnn Lewis). Because the ship is parked in orbit, her day is full of meetings, which mainly involve spending time with the crew, being the only person in some cases attending all the different performances throughout the ship. It is tiring work, but it is those moments that bond the crew together, which is precisely what happens when we discover that all of this was a Clicket ruse to capture the Buhgood for their cloaking organs. She rises to the occasion and joins the crew to take the invaders down, using those bonds and a little paying attention in the morning meeting. It was honestly fun getting to see her in her element because we mostly only get to know the character in relation to her relationship with her daughter.

There was joy baked into every part of this episode, and I mean it. They sneak a visual joke into the final seconds of the show that made vocally giggle. Shaxs finding out that he could get more metaphorical weapons through therapy from Migleemo (Paul F. Tompkins) was hilarious and completely keeping with his character. Billups having a wildly different definition of an emergency, Freeman being prepared with an umbrella for the Fertility Event, and Barnes (Jessica McKenna) going to town with a sousaphone all rate a mention. However, I think the highlight of the episode was when Stevens (Ben Rodgers) set up a secret anniversary dinner for Freeman, and I don’t know why, but I got emotional during that because it was a perfect fit for the episode. I think it was because it was both an ideal moment for Freeman and also because it showed that Stevens was a competent crew member away from Ransom.

In the end, do we recommend Star Trek: Lower Decks: Upper Decks? Absolutely. This might be one of my favourite episodes of the show so far because it understands the crew of the USS Cerritos. More than that, it shows a level of love for the show that only people who genuinely care for it can create. We have so few episodes left, and I honestly can’t believe that this might be it. And I hope I am wrong on that front.  

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 – Bob Suarez
Written by – Cullen Crawford
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 Gabrielle Ruiz, Phil LaMarr, Paul Scheer, Carl Tart & Paul F. Tompkins and Mary Holland, Jessica McKenna, Charlotte Nicdao, Nolan North, Artemis Pebdani & James Sie