Okay, regardless of what else the latest episode of Lower Decks did or didn’t accomplish, it did one thing for which it will always have a warm place in my heart: It gave us Badgie, a 24th-century version of Clippy. Everyone who used Microsoft products around the turn of the millennium has probably had a run-in with Clippy, the “office assistant” that was part of Microsoft Office 97 that looked like a talking paperclip. It’s also likely that, if you did encounter Clippy, you either wanted to beat it to a pulp or was convinced that it was really an evil creature sent to destroy us all.
Badgie confirms both those states of affairs. It’s possibly the best piece of social commentary Star Trek has ever done.
[SPOILERS AHOY!]
Okay, maybe not, but damn, it was hilarious. Rutherford created Badgie as a tutoring tool to help people on the holodeck with various Starfleet procedures. It’s a combadge with a face and little arms and legs. Very adorbs.
Turns out that Tendi somehow graduated the Academy without finishing the space-walking certifications. Her professor gave her a B and she didn’t say anything, it was probably a clerical error, but they may need to do space-walking, and she’s panicking.
Rutherford takes her to the holodeck so Badgie can help her with space-walking, though sometimes he’s slow to load the right program. Then the holodeck malfunctions (because of course it does), and Badgie goes psychotic. While the malfunction keeps the holodeck from shutting down and the safeties are disengaged (because of course they are), they can change the setting. Rutherford first changes it to a Bajoran marketplace (complete with a mountaintop shrine you have to climb endless steps to get to), which tires Badgie out, then the middle of a blizzard, which freezes it.
Eventually, the ship returns to normal and Tendi and Rutherford are saved, as Badgie has seemingly gone back to normal.
The downside to this plotline is that it’s only really funny if you remember Clippy. It helps if you, like me, have a deep-seated loathing of Clippy, in which case you’ll be like Brandon in Galaxy Quest (“I KNEW IT!“).
We’re also back to the formula of Rutherford and Tendi’s B-plot being more compelling than Mariner and Boimler’s A-plot. In this case, we have Fletcher. An Academy-mate of Boimler’s, Fletcher goes from nice guy everyone loves who defuses nasty situations to a hapless goon who endangers the ship with his abject stupidity. This half of the plot just doesn’t work because there’s no reason given for Fletcher’s sudden alteration from cool defusing dude to panicky stupid dude. In the first half of the episode he can do no wrong, and in the second half of the episode he can do no right, and the change is never explained.

The particularly dumbass thing Fletcher does is try to make himself smarter by plugging himself into one of the isolinear cores, but that just results in an unconscious Fletcher and an isolinear core that has his brain engrams and tries to consume other pieces of equipment. They toss it out the airlock, where it homes in on a pirate ship that the Cerritos has been confronting and takes it out.
That’s the bridge-level C-plot, and it’s cute. A group of scavengers are trying to claim salvage on a collection of Starfleet wreckage, while the Cerritos is trying to deny their claim, since it’s all Starfleet stuff. Captain Freeman tries very hard to attempt a diplomatic solution, but the scavengers are having none of it. While the scavengers are unarmed, they do have tractor beams, and they literally throw wreckage at the Cerritos.
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This is only a problem insofar as the isolinear core that Fletcher broke is part of the defense system, and the shields go down way faster than they should because that piece is busted.
Once the day is saved by Mariner and Boimler tossing the core out the airlock, Ransom confronts the two of them and Fletcher. For his part, Fletcher has threatened to take Boimler and Mariner down with him if they give him up.
Instead, Mariner takes a page from her mother’s playbook. She tells Ransom that Fletcher had the brilliant notion to upgrade the core and toss it at the scavengers. This gets Fletcher a promotion and a transfer to another ship. Naturally, without Mariner and Boimler to cover his ass, he’s “fired” within six days.
(The use of the word “fired” in this episode is irksome, as Starfleet is still a military organization with a hierarchy and stuff. You don’t get “fired” from Starfleet, you get discharged. It’s another case of the writers putting a little too much 21st-century lingo in their 24th century.)
Again, the whole episode was worth it to see Rutherford forced to weepily snap Badgie’s nonexistent neck, and then throw his fists into the air and cry out, “BADGIEEEEEEEE!” to the heavens. And I love that Freeman tries very hard to find a diplomatic solution to the issue with the scavengers, even though they’re having none of it. And Shaxs is hilarious as he wants desperately to fire on the aliens. (“Please, please let me shoot their warp core! I have been very good this month!”)
Still, the A-plot doesn’t really work. Comedian Tim Robinson does a decent job as Fletcher’s voice, but the character is too much of an inconsistent plot construct and not enough of a character to work.

Random thoughts:
- We’ve got the teaser back, BUT THIS TIME IT WAS FUNNY! No, really! Boimler, Mariner, Fletcher, Rutherford, and Tendi all start comparing the different hissing noises that the engines make, and it’s hysterical—especially when Ransom walks by and thinks they’ve been possessed by aliens…
- Fletcher is transferred to the Titan after his undeserved promotion. While they don’t mention this in so many words, that’s the ship that Riker was given to captain at the end of Star Trek Nemesis, which means he’s the one who fired Fletcher. Weird that a show that goes out of its way to name-check other Trek productions didn’t mention Riker by name.
- Speaking of name-checking, the evasive maneuver Freeman calls for is called “Sulu Alpha.”
- While most of the publicity has focused on Saturday Night Live alumnus Robinson voicing Fletcher, the really cool guest turn for me was J.G. Hertzler as the captain of the scavenger ship. They even gave him an eyepatch over his left eye! (Hertzler is blind in that eye, and his recurring character of Martok on DS9 lost his left eye as well.)
- Tendi really hopes that one of the wrecks in the salvage yard that’s being fought over has the old-style communicators with the clamshell.
- One of Fletcher’s incredibly non-brilliant ideas for how to deal with the out-of-control isolinear core is to let it beat them up and then say that Q did it. For all that it’s a stupid notion, though, I love the idea that Q is the 24th-century equivalent of the dog ate my homework…
- Rutherford points out that you can do a lot more with the holodeck than just hang out with Sherlock Holmes, Robin Hood, Sigmund Freud, Cyrano de Bergerac, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Stephen Hawking, or Socrates.
- We learn this week that Boimler and Mariner (and presumably Rutherford and Tendi) are on Beta Shift. Also, they have a nasty rivalry with the overnight Delta Shift. This also means that Freeman follows the imbecilic four-shift rotation that Captain Jellico implemented during his brief tenure as captain of the Enterprise-D.
Keith R.A. DeCandido did a whole mess of programming at the virtual Dragon Con, and most of it is archived on YouTube! Click here for all his stuff.
I was going to write something about the pros and cons of a four-shift rotation, but I went back and read over the comments of Chain of Command Part 1 and found that had already been done. So I’ll defer to that to avoid repetition. Regardless it is nice to see multiple shifts addressed within Trek since it so rarely comes up.
But yeah, the B-plot with Badgie was definitely the stronger one, especially with Jack McBrayer providing his folksy, upbeat, then murderous voice. Though you’d think with all the times the holodeck has malfunctioned by now it would’ve been reprogrammed to shut down as soon as the safety protocols turned off. To quote SF Debris, “That’s why they call it a failsafe. It fails when it’s no longer safe.”
@1/kradeiz: It doesn’t make sense that holodeck safeties even can be turned off. Maybe they could break down or malfunction, but why would there even be a mechanism for intentionally deactivating them? That’s outright negligent.
Although, well, since Starfleet is technically the military, I guess it could be for the equivalent of live-fire training exercises. Still, maybe they should build dedicated combat training holodecks with optional safeguards and build separate recreational holodecks with permanent safeguards.
“To quote SF Debris, “That’s why they call it a failsafe. It fails when it’s no longer safe.” “
Language nerd nitpick: It’s actually called that because it’s meant to ensure that a thing remains safe even when it fails — that the consequences of its failure cause as little harm as possible. It’s like the dead-man switches on old railway trains — they were designed so that if the conductor were incapacitated and let go of the throttle, the train would automatically slow to a halt rather than running out of control. Or like how elevator brakes are held open by tension in the cable, so if the cable snaps, the brakes engage automatically. So it fails, but is still safe.
This, by the way, is why I hate the animated series’s use of force field belts in place of spacesuits. A spacesuit can fail safely — if it loses power, it still remains airtight. But if a force field belt loses power while you’re in the vacuum of space, you’re dead. It has no way to fail safely.
In the case of a holodeck, a failsafe would be something where the safety protocols are so integral to the holodeck’s programming that if they shut down, the whole thing shuts down and the doors automatically open.
Highly enjoyable episode. Pretty much a standard trek episode, with humor added, and great pacing and gags. I didn’t like Mariner and Boimler (particularly Boimler) not giving up Fletcher in the end, although I understand it’s a gag, part of the humorous setting. And great to have JG Hertlzer as the scavenger captain!
One thing I really didn’t like was Boimler and Mariner being so nonchalant about Fletcher xenophobia, calling Doctor T’aana “just a cat in a coat”. That has no place in Star Trek, not even as a gag.
Personal head-canon: since Fletcher started showing up on screen (he’s been in the background for most episodes) my son and I liked to imagine that he is from Uruguay, our country, or at least from Elizabeth, New Jersey, a place where many of our country people live. We gave him the first name Washignton, which is a common name here.
I could have done without the Badgie subplot, but it was funny. A little bit gorey, but I don’t agree that it was more compelling than the A plot.
@krad: Fletcher’s change happens because he plugged a computer into his brain to try and make him smarter. That’s pretty obvious.
@1 – kradeiz: Oh, it was Jack McBrayer, that makes sense.
MaGnUs: yeah, I’m with you on the T’Ana insult. Meant to mention that in the review and then forgot. Sigh.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@2 I suppose it depends whether the force field belts are more likely to fail than the spacesuits are likely to suffer a catastrophic puncture. For all we know, the belts could be as reliable as the ships gravity, and when has that ever failed?
krad, I’m not saying that Holodeck Design is where Starfleet dumps those of its vast population of adrenaline junkies who like living a little too dangerously – but wouldn’t that explain SO MUCH about the design of a typical Holodeck?
Also, important question – might one please ask if The Mighty Hertzler TALKS LIKE A PIRATE at any point in this episode? (Come on, come reality, please delight us with the Great One’s very best Long John Silver … ). X*
*Crossing my fingers, in hope and not necessarily in expectation.
They also use force fields to let people work in the shuttlebay when the door is open, going back as far as TMP.
The force field belts held up pretty well against the Kzinti, taking weapon fire that incapacitated the crew but didn’t disrupt the field.
I wonder if they use a 3/4 rotation. 4 teams, but 3 shifts, rotated so everyone has downtime every 4th day for alternate or light duties, training, etc. but in an emergency all stand watch. Delta would be the cover shift.
@5/ad: “I suppose it depends whether the force field belts are more likely to fail than the spacesuits are likely to suffer a catastrophic puncture. For all we know, the belts could be as reliable as the ships gravity, and when has that ever failed?”
But the whole point of a failsafe is about assuming that every system must fail eventually and making sure that it won’t kill the operator if and when it does. It’s not about preventing failure. That’s missing the point. It’s about surviving failure when all your preventative measures have already been exhausted. Murphy’s Law — “Anything that can go wrong, will” — is not merely a wry philosophical observation. Murphy was an engineer talking about the principle behind safety engineering. Assume that things will go wrong sooner or later; design your system accordingly. That’s why the word is “failsafe” instead of “failproof.” It’s about making sure that if and when something fails, it fails safely.
As for spacesuit punctures, remember Enterprise: “Minefield?” A sufficiently well-designed spacesuit has ways of sealing punctures, ideally through some automatic sealant release, or by having a patch kit available. (It’s ironic that the 22nd-century spacesuits of “Minefield” have more advanced sealant mechanisms than Worf’s 24th-century spacesuit in First Contact that he had tie shut by hand after it was punctured — which would probably not work as shown anyway.) If a force field belt fails, the entire thing vanishes instantly.
Not to mention that spacesuits are not as easy to puncture as fiction portrays. High-velocity micrometeorites are a routine hazard in space, so real spacesuits are literally bulletproof. (This also scuttles the fictional trope of firing bullets in a spaceship/station being a potential disaster; the hull would be designed to cope with such an impact. The real hazard would be equipment damage, not to mention the noise in an enclosed space.)
@CLB: It depends what kind of spaceship you’re talking about. Firing a gun inside the LM or the ISS would be a poor decision from any number of points of view. The techniques used to defend against micrometeorites don’t apply to, say, a rifle round: micrometeorites are smaller, faster, and, in general, originate *outside* the spacecraft. Having a layer of aluminium foil wrapped ’round your spaceship won’t do much if someone puts a 9mm through the wall from the other side, y’know?
I confess I was actually rather interested in the idea that Shanx and Doctor Purrlaski are in a relationship.
I like Captain Freeman and the rest of the Senior Staff most when they’re mostly competent.
I do think that it was a mistake covering for such an enormous idiot and liar as Fletcher. He almost got them all killed and he could have done a lot more than toss garbage in the warp core. Still, I like that they have established that Mariner and Boimler have SOME lines they won’t cross.
I do wish the foursome would pair off a bit more. Boimler and Mariner are great but what about Boimler and Tendi or Sam and Mariner?
And the force field belts could be nested fields, each on a separate circuit. One may fail but half a dozen may not.
The pod ship drained phasers and communicators but the the belts. One of the belts also stood up to the automated bridge defense mechanism.
From what we saw, they work very well.
Honestly, I’ve consistently found that the most compelling subplots on Lower Decks thus far have been whatever the bridge crew is up to, which is perhaps a bit awkward, given the premise of the series. The “computer core turns into a rapacious monster” plot was a bit ridiculous, but no more so than many of the things that have canonically happened on the “serious” series, so we’ll just go with it. I do wish that they would either give Rutherford and Tendi the A-plot one of these episodes, or break up the standard pairings of Mariner/Boimler and Tendi/Rutherford to give the characters a bit more chance to mingle.
(The use of the word “fired” in this episode is irksome, as Starfleet is still a military organization with a hierarchy and stuff. You don’t get “fired” from Starfleet, you get discharged. It’s another case of the writers putting a little too much 21st-century lingo in their 24th century.)
I was in the military for 24 years, still work for DoD, my father was in the Army 26 years, my uncle in the Marines for over 30, my cousin 22 years in the Marines. Its not unusual to say someone is “fired” when they eff up and get transferred off to god knows where.
I was glad to see that there were lines Mariner wouldn’t cross, but the whole Fletcher situation just seemed too awful to be funny to me. I want the characters to STAY STARFLEET while doing funny things, and Fletcher’s dishonesty and incompetence turned me off of that whole plot line.
I liked the Rutherford/Tendi story better. I mean, the holodeck seems way too dangerous to actually be tolerated on their ship by any sane captain, but holodeck weirdness is an established Trek trope at this point, sort of like transporter accidents. :-)
Slight nitpick: Windows 97 isn’t a thing. Clippy (officially the Office Assistant) first appeared in Microsoft Office 97, which at the time ran on Windows 95, and later Windows 98.
MisterKerr: Thank you for catching that. It’s been corrected.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido, using the edit function to look less like an idiot since 2011!
It kind of amuses me that so much of the nitpicking takes the show so seriously. There’s a trope comedies have called “Rule of Funny”—things that don’t necessarily make much sense are nonetheless permissible as long as they’re funny. And Lower Decks makes a lot of use of this. Especially where they play up slang or situations that would be more common to the 21st century than the 24th. Complaining about things that don’t make sense kind of misses the point.
It’s just a show, you should really just relax.
My interpretation of Fletcher is that he’s developed one skill in life and the others interpret it as diplomacy as well as the Power of FriendshipTM. In fact, it’s the skill of covering his ass and deflecting blame for problems that he runs into. He rapidly hits the Peter Principle when he’s out in space and there’s problems he can’t deflect without outright lying or Starfleet Code of Justice criminal behavior. It actually fits with the Roddenberry Utopia that people DON’T suspect how bad Fletcher is or try to help him before reporting him.
It also fits with Riker just having him court martialed as we see that, for all his problems with Jellico, Riker runs just as tight and nasty a ship — he comes down HARD on Ro and that kid from Lower Decks. Which is what Fletcher needed as he has no business on a starship.
@@@@@ 5 I can only remember gravity cutting out twice. Once, in The Undiscovered Country, zero gee was vital to the plot of the movie. The other was a Voyager episode where they wanted a funny scene of Tuvok saying “…and now the gravity’s out, too” while starting to float away with a really annoyed look on his face.
I never understood the hatred for Clippy. First, nobody has used Clippy in over a decade. Second, it’s very easy to remove from the Office suite. Third, I’ve never seen it give advice that weren’t relevant (but then again, I never saw it for very long).
@3: There was the “cat in a coat” comment, the reference to Tendi as “your green friend” and Fletcher purely xenophobic comments about “aliens” (the one about the Q was funny though). The “pointed-ear freak” comments were irksome in the 60’s, but nowadays, there is really no reason to think that a diverse crew in the 24th century would think that kind of things, especially in Starfleet.
Gotta say, I do remember Clippy, just don’t recall him being named as such, and must not have left that big an impression on me to connect with Badgie. After initial concerns, this series continues to grow on me. I would also say that this seemed like the first time was saw Mariner without a lot of her negative traits, whether that has to do with Fletcher’s characterization, we’ll have to see, and it was good seeing her being nice to Boimler. Also, I know the scavenging scenes had to have been chock full of Easter Eggs aside from the remains of the freighter from More Troubles, More Tribbles…
@12 – C.T Phipps: I do hope Shaxs and T’Ana (Dr. Purrlanski, lol) have some sort of relationship or that kiss is very wrong.
For those who are interested, this episode was written by former Survivor winner John Cochran.
A creepy reminder is that Badgie’s behavior is not remotely unprecedented in Star Trek. In VOY’s “Revulsion”, the holodeck of the aliens created a mechanic who slowly went insane (or perhaps not so slowly) due to the abuses of his crew members like we see with Rutherford. Apparently, the safeties might actually BE the only thing keeping some holodeck programs from wanting to murder them all. Perhaps that’s why the Synth ban was made by interested parties.
They made a synth ban, but not a holodeck ban.
Just finished watching TOS “The Apple”,
Kirk threatens to fire Scotty if he can’t get the ship loose. Scotty later tells Kirk he’ll have to fire him later in the episode when he can’t break free.
And then Kirk tells him he re-hired when they overcome Vaal.
So, it’s been historically usedin Star fleet in a self-deprecating manner.
BTW: The Apple is awful. Why is there an extra hut for them to stay in when there’s no change in the population and they’ve never had visitors?!? And all the other issues pointed out in the rewatch post
This was a pretty good episode. I enjoyed seeing Boimler and Mariner acting like they’re actually friends and not constantly at each other throats. The first half is more of what I’d like to see: covering for each other, chewed out by senior officers, rivalry with other shifts, etc. Once Fletcher totally loses his mind, that plot got less interesting and significantly less funny.
Badgie was really great, especially when his loading bar froze and Rutherford started beating him up to get it moving again. That’s what I remember from Clippy. Clippy appears, Clippy freezes, and Word crashes. Thanks, Clippy!
@15 – “I was in the military for 24 years, still work for DoD, my father was in the Army 26 years, my uncle in the Marines for over 30, my cousin 22 years in the Marines. Its not unusual to say someone is “fired” when they eff up and get transferred off to god knows where.”
Same here. I did a hitch in the Marines and it was not at all rare to hear the term ‘fired’ used in a circumstance when someone is relieved of their posting/billet for cause.
@krad – Fired/relieved would be the proper term for someone who is shuffled to another posting (like Starbase 80) for non-performance but remains in the service. Discharged would indicate that they have left the service entirely. If you want a military nit to pick, how about that both officers we’ve seen promoted from the rank of ensign skipped Lt j.g. entirely?
“This half of the plot just doesn’t work because there’s no reason given for Fletcher’s sudden alteration from cool defusing dude to panicky stupid dude. In the first half of the episode he can do no wrong, and in the second half of the episode he can do no right, and the change is never explained.”
I assumed watching it that it was a side effect of interfacing his brain with the core. He didn’t stop coming up with solutions, and it wasn’t that the solutions didn’t have a sort-of-logic, it’s just that they were, as you say, panicky stupid.
So were they squabbling over the wreck of the Antares from “Charlie X”?
Without trying to be nitpicky, because I absolutely agree that the proper vernacular should be used, Dr Crusher refers to her being discharged as her being fired in the episode “Suspicions” in TNG season 6.
@2/CLB- Thanks for the correction. And it was my mistake entirely since I misremembered the quote. In his review of ‘A Fistful of Datas’ what SFD actually said was, “The entire meaning of the word ‘failsafe’ is that if it fails, it fails to a safe state. Not a potentially deadly one.” So yeah, I was considerably off on that one.
31:]
I took Fletcher as undergoing a breakdown as he actually has a fairly complicated cover-story planned out and its only when he gets found out that he ends up panicking. You have to wonder how many other innocent Starfleet ensigns he’s framed over the years.
Boimler and Mariner getting along and Mariner not being abusively condescending to him massively increased my enjoyment of this episode. The senior staff not being gloryhounds raised the bar even higher.
Fletcher is an interesting case. We’ve had insubordinate Ro, nervous Barclay, and now we have CYA Fletcher. It must take a massive amount of insecurity to make it through four years of a military science academy and still have so much fear that one can’t admit screwing up with a piece of equipment. If he had just repaired the gear that he broke right then, the whole situation could’ve been avoided. Though his interaction with the core seems to have made him worse.
While Badgie is direct reference to Clippy, quite frankly my aggravation with Cortana still makes it feel modern relevant.
@31 I was thinking the same thing. The computer said neural pathway established, which seems to imply that the computer didn’t just receive an imprint from his brain but also interfaced with his brain…poorly. He got electrocuted and to the point that he was drooling, clearly he wasn’t right afterward. The bad thing about Mariner’s covering him and Fletcher’s own unwillingness to actually fess up to what happens is that he likely needs medical treatment for interfacing with a computer and then not “ejecting” his brain.
@35. None. He’s fresh out of the academy just like Boimler.
@20: It wasn’t strict discipline per se that Riker objected to with Jellico. Rather, it was his insistence on upending ship’s routine and methods without having been on the ship (though he could have studied them on the way over) AND insisting on immediate results. In the cases you mention with Riker and Enterprise crewmembers, he already knew them, so his actions were more understandable in each case.
@37 In Ro’s case she was also brand new, but had a terrible reputation for disobeying orders on an away team mission with the results being she got her eight crewmates killed. Jellico did in fact study the crew on the way over and knew their records and abilities, but was unwilling to spend any time building relationships and trust. This wasn’t entirely Jellico’s fault as he was thrust into a crisis situation and was being charged with ramping the Enterprise crew up to tactical readiness against a ruthless enemy. Edward Jellico’s flaw was that he didn’t recognize that his orders were generating a lot of negative impact and adapting.
As for Sam Lavelle in Lower Decks, Sam’s problem was that he was trying too hard and Will saw too much of his younger self in him.
The whole Badgie/Clippy plot reminded me of probably the best moment on NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell me
Link SFW
https://youtu.be/NxcmoLKVd60
That there isn’t a Badgie action figure, plushie, or bendy figure yet is a MAJOR failing of the producers of this show.
As much as one can have a favorite Star Trek guest star, I think Badgey is probably mine. Definitely my favorite “our timeline” reference, with Stephen Hawking’s appearance running a close second.
My boyfriend calls me Badgy. Am I a holodeck assistant? Is my life really just a simulation?!?!
Yeah, I’m trying to catch up, but having paused here — I gotta say I love it. I didn’t think Fletcher didn’t get too many scenes of being an Ace before his true colors came out, though of course that’s only my opinion. Of course I liked the B-plot better because I just freaking love Tendi. Seriously, I don’t know if I wanna know someone who doesn’t love Tendi. She’s like Liara and Tali from Mass Effect combined and turned up to 12.
Of course, I keep fixating on the whole Titan thing. My brain is stuck merging continuities that probably don’t even exist anymore (one of which Wil Wheaton is sure was never even book-level canon in the first place) and I’m picturing Captain Riker, Commander Vale, Lieutenant Commander Tuvok (from the Titan series — I admit to only reading one book so far) AND Lieutenant (Commander(?)) Wesley Crusher (from Star Trek: The Tour, as well as the deleted scene) sitting around a poker table trying to figure this Fletcher kid out. “He’s like the Mirror universe version of Barclay!”
(I actually do want Wesley to show up in season 2, in Starfleet AND a Traveler. Why would he bother with Starfleet? It’s like the smartest person in the world in Dilbert being Dilbert’s garbage man — he has his reasons and he’s beyond our ken by a parsec or two so, there you go…)
Okay. Can we get more of this? Yes, the cold open was actually funny! I do the sounds of the various starship engines in my head all the time, and seeing a group of Starfleet officers geeking out of what ship engine makes what sound and why was very satisfying.
Mariner wasn’t loud, obnoxious, and annoying; Boimler wasn’t sniveling, clueless, and stupid. Just for all that alone, I’d call this a good episode. But the real heart of the episode was the Rutherford and Tendi plot. I remember Clippy, and despised it with the white-hot fury of a thousand suns, so to see this really funny take was even more satisfying.
And as a bonus, Captain Freeman actually behaves like a Starfleet Captain, trying really hard to find a peaceful solution to the conflict with the scavengers (yay, J.G. Hertzler!). And Lieutenant Shaxs is really funny here, too.
Of course, as usual, the downside is the Mariner and Boimler plot doesn’t really work (once again, we see an Ensign promoted straight to full Lieutenant for no apparent reason.).
But yeah, this may be the first episode of Lower Decks that didn’t upset me. Maybe there’s hope for this series. Time will tell.