I make The Beige and The Bold podcast. I talk about Star Trek (the podcast is also about Star Trek). I also write A Lair Somewhere which is weird and you're not expected to get it. Also on Twitter & Pillowfort as VanVelding.
Great. Now I can't wear my shirt with the original X-Men on it or people will think that I support gay marriage. Please tell me that this is only for Iceman of the alternate past and the Bobby we've known for fifty years will remain straight so I can wear it again.
Lower Decks was sold a Star Trek/Rick & Morty mashup from the start. The first scene is a drunken Mariner literally harming her sidekick, Boimler. It practically screamed, “Mariner & Boimler a hundred tours! Double-u, double-u, double-u dot Mariner and boimler dot com!”
But of course, it also had Star Trek references. One of the earliest is “Who would win in a fight? Khan or Roga Danar?” Why would anyone else in The Federation know or care who Roga Danar is? And there’s no imagination on display for the oldest referential paradigm, “Who would win in a fight?” Lazy. Bullshit.
Of course before the end of season one, Lower Decks showed us it was more than that. Boimler was gaining the kind of experience he needed. The story hinted very strongly that Mariner had been in Starfleet a LONG time. She wasn’t a omnicompotent mary sue; she was a Commander with her own philosophy/trauma that compelled her to remain an Ensign.
It was a good show and it stood on its own. The references were used well to create interesting stories (“Twovix”), as part of the setting (“Hear All, Trust Nothing”), or just as a gag here and there (“Kayshon, His Eyes Open” and, like a dozen others). The references to the setting become the background radiation, remarkable in how deep a cut they really are (Vendorians?). I’ve described it to many people as “Star Trek, but everyone has watched Star Trek.”
What it wasn’t, was related to its namesake. “Lower Decks” was a surprisingly heavy episode about the younger members of the Enterprise crew and their perspective on the missions of galactic import that the viewer usually enjoys an omnisicent view of.
Lower Decks mentions our main cast don’t have that omniscient view, but Mariner is a stone-cold badass, Rutherford was part of a secret effort to develop artificial intelligence, Tendi is the Mistress of the Winter Constellations, and Boimler–actually Biomler is no more exceptional than any other Starfleet officer.
So when we get our main cast and the senior officers into a room and they mention Nick Locarno, our thought is, “LOL, another reference. This one from TNG. Not particularly deep. LOL, Boimler is a Beverly Crusher fanboy. I guess it makes sense, they have the character model from the episode with Tom Paris. Clearly, Robert Duncan McNeil is happy to do some voice work. We’ll probably make a reference to how much he looks like Tom Paris.
"lol”
Look, if you figured it out then pat yourself on the back. Me? I filed away another reference. I didn’t realize that Nick Locarno was connected to the episode of TNG that was this entire series’ namesake. The characters even say, “Who?” which is one of the first times they don’t get a Star Trek reference. Because Nick Locarno isn’t a part of the Star Trek universe they view with an enthusiastic fandomness; it’s part of their dramatic history, whether they know it or not.
“ha-ha, I guess Nick Locarno is too deep a cut for the show that called back to Morgan fucking Bateson.”
But whatever, A-plot/B-plot. Gags about Starfleet habitually rolling up to seedy establishments in uniforms while looking for information, which is subverted by Captain Freeman being fucking genre savvy (also, wasn’t she going to be promoted before getting arrested at the end of season two? I guess getting framed for a crime was deemed to be not very ‘admiral-able’). Mariner ends up in a cave with a Klingon taking shelter from a crystal rain.
The pieces are there. Mariner was an ensign during The Dominion War. Two to three years before The Dominion War, Wesley Crusher left Starfleet, our Nick Locarno expy Tom Paris was recruited to Voyager, and Sito Jaxa was an ensign.
And Nick Locarno is in play.
We could have figured it out! We’re in the narrative and emotional third act of this series (Tendi gave us the “We’ll always be friends” speech last week)! Everyone regular just sat in a room trying to figure out how to help Mariner; we were one fruit salad analogy away from an intervention with Dr. Migleemoo!
Mariner escapes from Cardassian interrogation chambers for fun!
But Locarno is just another TNG reference, like Beverly Crusher. Background radiation. The season’s story arc is something original to Lower Decks, which it’s proven it’s unafraid to do at this point. The series has no relation to “Lower Decks”
And then they fucking hit us with it; Beckett Mariner knew Sito Jaxa. They were friends. Then Jaxa died.
That’s Mariner’s trauma (that and The Dominion War).
And I didn’t see it because I came to see Lower Decks as a series that stood on its own merits as a show while calling back to earlier Treks in a light, non-committal way. And I credit that solely to the writing of the show which leveraged both of those qualities to make an entertaining show that I like before, but now respect.
Every episode of Lower Deck’s season four has been a banger so far.
Twovix? A fucking Voyager tribute that I, a known Voyager hater, can get behind.
Moopsy
Brad Boimler’s own version of “Ensigns of Command” AND a subversion of the evil AI trope? *Chef’s kiss*
Orion homeworld. An unnecessary, but very welcome, exploration of Tendi’s background.
BetazedsVulcanshumansT'lynMetaplotWhooo!
Ferengi homeworld. The Rutherford/Tendi thing is addressed. The Cerritos is canonically the horniest ship in the fleet (even more than the Titan). Pog & Dar: Cop Landlords.
You thought Badgey, Agimus, and/or Peanut Hamper were behind the metaplot? Guess again. Also, rehabilitation is real.
NAMES PROJECT AIDS MEMORIAL QUILT: fucks me up bc so many people died and so many people suffered and their partners didn’t have legal rights as next of kin and so many had been disowned by their parents and had to be held by a stranger while they were dying and if i could resurrect anyone in the world i’d dig up either reagan or thatcher and kill them again (jaskierx) The sheer size and it's meaning make me cry every time. (artemistakenidentity)
UNFINISHED PAINTING: A self-portrait left intentionally "incomplete". I'm roughly the same age as Haring was when AIDS ended his life and I can only begin to imagine how it must feel to know that your life has been cut short a third of the way through. I get such a lump in my throat each time I look at this. (louisianna)
(The "NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt" is an ongoing community art project honoring people who passed away due to AIDS-related causes. It consists of approximately 50,000 panels of 3 by 6 feet (0.91 m × 1.83 m) panels, which is an estimated 54 tons of material. It is currently housed in San Francisco, but is often displayed in various places in the United States.
"Unfinished Painting" is an acrylic on canvas painting by Keith Haring. It measures 39 x 39 in (99 x 99 cm) and some information on it can be found on the National Portrait Gallery's website. It is currently on display at The Broad in Los Angeles. This was Haring’s last painting and it was intentionally left incomplete.)
cocoratchet
