Review: Star Trek Lower Decks – Where Pleasant Fountains Lie s02e07

Recent episodes of Star Trek Lower Decks have moved much more towards becoming actual Star Trek stories, rather than reference-fests.  Episode 7 of the second season ‘Where Pleasant Fountains Lie’, continues this trend and sees the show hitting more solid ground.

The key to this, as always, seems to be pushing Mariner (Tawny Newsome) back in the plot, and not making her the main focus or central character.  In this episode it is arguable that the two critical characters are Boimler (Jack Quaid) and Rutherford (Eugene Cordero), and it is all the better for it.

In the first storyline, Boimler and Mariner have to escort the evil supercomputer ‘Agimus’ (Jeffrey Combs) to the Daystrom Institute where he can be locked away from doing any harm.  Thankfully, the two main protagonists here are Boimler and Agimus, which ultimately revolves around a standard Star Trek plot of being stranded on a remote planet.

What’s great about it mainly though, is that it has the excellent Jeffrey Combs as the guest star. He has appeared in so many Star Trek series that to not have him appear in Lower Decks, would have almost invalidated it as a legitimate entry into Star Trek lore.  From Brunt the Ferengi and Weyoun in DS9, Shran in Enterprise, and also an appearance in Voyager, he’s a fan favourite, and a perennial figure.  He knows the style and the material, and as usual delivers brilliantly.

Elsewhere in ‘Where Pleasant Fountains Lie’, there’s a nice bit of backstory with Chief Billups (Paul Scheer) coming to the fore and teaming up with Rutherford.  We learn that Billups is actually a prince, who had to renounce the throne of his planet so he could be in Starfleet.  Strangely, he also has to remain a virgin, or he would automatically ascend to the throne whether he likes it or not.

This is basically a whole play on the Lwaxana/Deanna Troi dynamic in TNG, and it works pretty well.  His mother (June Diane Raphael) is suitably Lwaxana-ish, but also has some quirks of her own.  Somehow, it doesn’t come across as horribly derivative, even though it could very easily have become so.  The added bonus with this storyline is that it continues the dynamic between Tendi (Noël Wells) and Rutherford, even though she is a minor part and very underused.

Generally, this season appears to be moving in a much more productive direction and establishing its own stories.  This is something that had to happen, and hopefully they can maintain the balance that has been evident in a few of these last few episodes.