Things get mixed up this week on Star Trek Lower Decks, with an almost meta twist on the format. Positively, Episode 9 of Season 2, ‘wej Duj’ also shows some promising invention.
Taking the show’s concept one step further than usual, the writers have decided this week to create a story that involves not just the Cerritos lower decks, but also those on a Klingon Bird of Prey, the Che’ta, and a Vulcan vessel, the Sh’Vahl. In each case we get equivalent versions of our main protagonists. It’s an interesting idea and one which is a nice change of pace.
On the Cerritos, the crew are enjoying some r n’ r, as the ship is on a 12 warp to their next task. Each of our main group appears to have found a bridge buddy to suck up to, all except Boimler (Jack Quaid). This, as you’d expect, irritates him, so he tries to ingratiate himself into others activities. Somewhat unsuccessfully. Basically, these scenes are a good chance for some in-joke references, but are almost filler for the other ship’s narratives.
The alternative stories play on the standard stereotypes of the Klingons and the Vulcans, but are generally very good. The Vulcans find one of their number too outgoing and see her tiny emotional expressions as massive outbursts, while on the Che’ta, there is the usual mutiny going on. While the alternate versions of our heroes are sort of matched to the originals, it’s not clear if they’re direct swaps or amalgams of more than one. The Klingon Ma’ah for instance is sort of a mix between Boimler, Tendi (Noel Wells), and Mariner (Tawny Newsome), while Vulcan T’Lyn is Tendi, Mariner and Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) combined. Whatever its supposed to be, it works.
It’s a great idea and lets them play around with the different themes in the show and do some unusual references . It also skips past the usual issues that exist with some of the characters and brings in some fresh perspective. To a degree, I’d be quite happy to follow the Vulcan lower decks crew a little more than endure some of the stories that have occurred on the Cerritos.
‘wej Duj’ continues the upswing in quality we’ve seen in season 2 and the future looks pretty bright. The likelihood is that Lower Decks has just been hit by the usual early season curse that affects most Star Trek series, and no doubt it will find its stride in season 3 like TNG and DS9! If it doesn’t, then let’s just go back to the Sh’Vahl…
