Trek Thursdays: Trekking Towards Sixty #19 — “Crisis Point” And “No Small Parts”

On September 8th, 1966, an intrepid crew of explorers boldly went where no one had ever gone before on television. At that moment, Star Trek was born. A series that launched a franchise that has kept a firm grip on audiences for decades.

As the sixtieth anniversary approaches, we here at Comicon are ready to celebrate one of the greatest science fiction franchises. While Star Trek has graced the silver screen, most of its life has been on our television screens. So, that’s where our focus shall remain.

Every week through September 8th, we’ll be spotlighting two Star Trek episodes, from any and every iteration, that we feel are some of the greatest. At this point there are over 950 episodes of Trek, so it goes without saying some favorites won’t make the cut for this list of 60.

While Star Trek: Lower Decks is the adult-comedy version of Trek, it still has the heart and power that makes Trek what it is. In fact, some would argue that Lower Decks is one of the best shows to do this.

This week the two episodes chosen are both from that series, highlighting what the animated series did best: calling back to the heart and soul of the franchise while addressing things in a more modern and relevant voice while never letting the love and reverence for Trek past drag things down into pointless fan service nostalgia.

The two episodes chosen, both from season one of the series, are perfect encapsulations of those things that Lower Decks did so well while offering up different viewpoints of those elements.

-RED ALERT: SPOILERS FOLLOW-

“Crisis Point”
Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season 1, Episode 9 (10/01/2020)

Synopsis: Pushing her mother captain to a breaking point, Ensign Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) is forced to undergo therapy. Self-destructive as always, Mariner decides instead to hijack one of Ensign Boimler’s (Jack Quaid) holodeck programs where she cast her self as the villain in a ‘lower decks’ style film.

“Mariner goes off the deep end” is the start to quite a lot of good Lower Decks episodes.

As time went on, we got to see more and more of why Mariner was such a self-destructive character. A lot of trauma and guilt from the past caused her to lash out to avoid any sort of command level work. Essentially she chose to remain in the “safety” that the bubble of the Lower Decks provided at times.

We get to see a lot of that in play in this episode, including how Mariner sees herself. Casting yourself as the villain in anything is never a sign of a healthy set of coping tools. Here we also get to meet the wonderful avian Dr. Migleemo (Paul F. Tompkins), and his delicious (though not always effective) food metaphors.

While fun in many respects, the episode is very clear on the effects that anger and trauma can have. Mariner’s more and more demented actions bring a lot of questions from her friends and viewer alike. While it’s all holograms, there is something that instantly doesn’t sit right with Mariner’s vaporizing blood lust playing out. Her anger at her mother colors how she feels about the U.S.S. Cerritos crew as a whole.

Since their introduction, the holodecks have both been a place for characters to blow off steam as well as a place for escape. We saw in Star Trek: The Next Generation the pitfalls and unhealthy nature that surrounds the space if used incorrectly or for the wrong reasons. It’s not a replacement for mental health help and Mariner’s actions showcase that perfectly.

At the same time, actually confronting and fighting herself in the program leads to some massive breakthroughs for Mariner. So maybe that whole bit about the unhealthiness of the holodeck wasn’t true. Either that or it was just pure Mainer style luck, which actually tracks better.

Seeing the show cut this as a movie including opening credit roll and the requisite long slow shots of a ship in spacedock are chef’s kiss. Hell, we even get a spaceship crashing to the planet Star Trek: Generations style moment. It’s episodes like this that speak to how much the crew behind this series really love and understand every bit of Star Trek, pulling in every bit of information, easter eggs, and development possible without it ever feeling forced or overwhelming.

We even get a Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country signature credits call back with the characters rather than the actors. Damn do I love this series.

“No Small Parts”
Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season 1, Episode 10 (10/08/2020)

Synopsis: A new recruit needs help as the Cerritos encounters a familiar enemy that has had a terrifying upgrade.

I don’t think from what I recall in the previous 18 weeks of this column doing episodes that are back-to-back. The recent one with the Nog (Aron Eisenberg) centered Star Trek: Deep Space Nine entry was the closest, but they had an episode between them.

There is a reason I had to do this one as well. In the previous entry I spoke about how fun and great at handling lore this series is, but also at being serious. This might be one of the best at really showcasing all those facets.

Pulling back and taking the sort of jokey, albeit still dangerous, Pakleds from one episode of The Next Generation and making them horrifyingly tough sure is something. Just looking at that massive cobbled together ship of theirs and what it can do to other ships was jaw dropping when the episode first debuted.

Before we even know who is in the ship, we watch as the newly launched California Class ship U.S.S. Solvang is blasted to hell, only to explode as it tries to warp away while being grappled. Through the whole episode more and more threads from the season are pulled at, including the revelation that Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) is Mariner’s mother becoming crew knowledge.

Wrapped into all of this is the debut of a new character, who also has ties to a one-off TNG episode. In that episode, titled “The Quality Of Life,” a group of industrial servo droids called Exocomps became sentient. There was a whole thing about whether they were sentient or not and how they were meant to be tools, but by the end it was fully accepted that they were sentient.

All these years later Starfleet gains their first Exocomp officer in the former of the wonderfully self-named Peanut Hamper (Kether Donohue), a name that she declared to be mathematically perfect, which is hilarious and cute. Though we find out by the end that the character is anything but, as she kind of has a really sucky attitude as she’s very selfish, cruel, self-centered, and fearful.

By golly though the highlight of the episode is the fight between the Cerritos and the Pakled ships. Watching as they are torn asunder, fighting for their lives (with all the contraband that Mariner stowed around the ship), with almost no hope remaining. Until, the episode pulls out its best callback and cameo.

That’s right, the return of Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis as Captain William Riker and Commander Deanna Troi respectively. Sailing in on the U.S.S. Titan, the duo rushes in to save the day with a bit of that old jazz magic. While Worf (Michael Dorn) holds the most appearances for a character, with this episode Frakes took the spot of regular cast member who has appeared in the most series at six. At the same time, he and Sirtis both took the lead of portraying the same character in number of series with five at this point.

Keeping in the serious theme, the evil murderous Badgey (Jack McBrayer) returns and leads to the death of Lieutenant Shaxs (Fred Tatsciore), who sacrifices himself to save Ensign Rutherford (Eugene Cordero). It’s a bold moment, and feels painful but triumphant at the same time. The Bajoran resistance fighter goes down swinging, cackling like a madman, while the ship explodes around him.

Luckily, we get far more Shaxs in the next season and up to the end  (which leads to one of the funniest and darkest bits about how officers return from death and a black mountain and a great Koala, one of the recurring bits in the rest of the series).

Tons of things happen in this episode, befitting of it being a season finale. One that had the show not continued wrapped a lot of things up and introduced fun new threads at the same time. Were this handled by others, the amount of plot beats, call backs, threads and more would have sunk the proverbial ship. Not with this creative team of folks, who made this sort of thing work for four more seasons.

What a damn good show.

Come back next week as we dive into two more of Star Trek’s greatest episodes.