with Jim Moorhouse and Ken Reilly

The USS Cerritos teams up with the USS Vancouver to safely detonate one of the moons of Mixtus III in this week’s Star Trek: Lower Decks adventure, but like all Lower Decks episodes to date, the bridge crew occupy the ‘C’ story of an episode packed with personal intrigue, competition between ships… and secret alien girlfriends?

In a now familiar coupling, Ensign Mariner (Tawny Newsome) is shocked to discover that Ensign Boimler (Jack Quaid) has a girlfriend aboard the Vancouver — so much so that she becomes obsessed with trying to determine what kind of agenda Boimler’s girlfriend is pursuing.

Is she an android? A Cardassian spy? A reptoid? A Suliban?! Mariner chases all these theories (and more!) in “Cupid’s Errant Arrow.”

Meanwhile, Ensigns Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) and Tendi (Noel Wells) team up in their admiration for the much larger, newer, Parliament-class USS Vancouver and try and score themselves a couple of the latest T-88 diagnostic tools from one of the Vancouver’s senior officers, Lt. Commander Ron Docent (Matt Walsh). But when Docent tries to transfer the two officers to the Vancouver, they must figure out his real motive for the move.

Now five episodes in, I am coming to understand that my ideal Lower Decks episode is one that balances the references, nostalgia, and Trek tropes, with plenty of character development, some new thing or idea, and plenty of humor. “Cupid’s Errant Arrow” strikes that balance best for me of all the episodes thus far, and continues to show Lower Decks to be growing into its own. It is, at the same time, comfortable deploying Star Trek’s past with aplomb, while also doing its own thing.

Mariner’s quest to get to the bottom of why Lt. Barb Brinson (Gillian Jacobs) has decided to start a relationship with “Bradward” Boimler of all people, is hilarious. And while, for most of the episode, it seems a potentially a little mean spirited, not only are Mariner’s instincts ultimately correct — it is Boimler, not Brinson, who is infected with a brain parasite — it is also clearly due to how much Mariner cares for Bradward.

I don’t get the sense that the writers are planning to push Mariner and Boimler in a romantic direction, which I think is the right choice.

I also really like the idea of a Starfleet officer who just doesn’t think he’s cut out to serve on the ‘hero’ ships like the Enterprise or the Vancouver. “It’s so epic!,” Docent declares with despair, after trying to get Tendi and Rutherford transferred to the Vancouver in his place – and it certainly sounds like the Vancouver has many similar adventures to ships like the Enterprise. At the start of the episode, Brinson explains that on a recent mission she had to “reverse the polarity” and “reboot the timestream” to escape 1920s Chicago.

I cannot also in good conscience, not acknowledge up front, a major cameo from a legacy character in this episode. No, you didn’t miss the voice of a beloved actor from the Star Trek franchise. I’m referring to the blink and you miss it establishing shot of the USS Quito docked… at station Deep Space 9! And its crew wearing First Contact-style uniforms! I have nothing profound to say other than that was a really awesome aside.

It’s also worth noting in this episode, after several episodes in which Captain Freeman (Dawwn Lewis) has shown somewhat questionable judgement, that in this episode the Cerritos senior staff are extremely competent in the way you would want a Starfleet bridge crew to be.

Freeman successfully negotiates among the people of Mixtus III and its moons to secure the safe detonation of the satellite, even if she does have to deal with one hold out… and his wife. More like this would be great!

Trek Trope Tributes

• Captain Freeman must negotiate in a conference room between competing factions of the planet of Mixtus III how to safely dispose of the threatening moon. These scenes reminded me of many a conference room negotiation between warring factions, such as “Loud as a Whisper” and “The Host.”
   
• Mariner drops some important Star Trek wisdom that the franchise more than supports being true: “When a Starfleet relationship seems too good to be true, then red alert, man, it probably is.”
   
• The idea of a character being controlled by an alien, or being an alien in disguise as a human, is a well-worn trope of the franchise.

Canon Connections

Plasma fire

Rutherford puts out a small plasma fire aboard the Cerritos. Geordi and Crusher had to vent an entire cargo bay in the ‘Next Generation’ episode “Disaster” to extinguish a similar blaze because the fire suppression systems were non-functional, and other green plasma fires have been seen in ‘Deep Space Nine,’ ‘Voyager,’ and ‘Enterprise.’

Alien Deceit

Mariner initially suspects Brinson may be a Romulan spy (TNG: “Data’s Day”), a salt succubus (“The Man Trap”), an android (various TOS & TNG episodes), a changeling (various DS9 stories) or “one of those sexy people in rompers that murders you just for going on the grass” (referring to “Justice”).

Who had the Edo on their bingo cards for a ‘Lower Decks’ shout out?

Olympic-class Starship

The USS Quito is the same class of starship as the USS Pasteur, a medical ship that appeared in an alternate future experienced by Captain Picard in “All Good Things…” According to the ship’s dedication plaque, it was an Olympic-class vessel, and you can check out great photos of the original filming model in our TNG galleries.

Deep Space 9

The Quito is docked at Deep Space 9. While it’s not specifically named in dialogue, how many other Cardassian space stations get Starfleet visitors (we doubt they’d be hanging out at Empok Nor!). Seeing that, and ‘First Contact’-era uniforms again, was a real treat.

“Descent”

In her flashback, Mariner’s fellow officer describes the plot of the ‘Next Generation’ episode “Descent.” “You hear what happened on the Enterprise? Apparently, Data’s got an evil twin brother who teamed up with THE BORG! Crazy, right?”

While the uniforms worn during the flashback are from several years after the events of “Descent,” we imagine it took some time for the stories of that Enterprise-D adventure to circulate around the fleet.

Isolinear Chips

As they are using T-88s to conduct diagnostics to prepare for the destruction of the moon, Tendi and Rutherford pass rows of isolinear chips. The chips even have the cut out corners of the ‘Voyager’ and ‘Next Generation’ movie-era chips.

Mariner’s Conspiracy Wall

Seen or referenced on Mariner’s conspiracy wall are a Romulan, an Allasomorph (“The Dauphin”), a Salt Vampire (“The Man Trap”), a Suliban (“Broken Bow,” et al), transporter duplicates (“Second Chances”), Bynars (“11001001), a humpback whale (‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’), a Xindi-Reptilian (“The Xindi,” et al), an androgynous Soong-type android (“The Offspring”), and a ‘surgically-altered’ Cardassian (referencing the events of “Second Skin”).

Breen Infiltrator

Turns out Brinson also had suspicions about Mariner’s motives, believing she was a rogue holodeck character or a Breen infiltrator. The environmental suit-wearing, mysterious Breen race were last seen aiding the Dominion during the final hours of ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.’

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Other Observations

• The USS Vancouver is a Parliament-class ship. Its shuttles — the Marpole, Fairview, and Kitsilano — are all neighborhoods in the Canadian city.
   
• The teddy bear Boimler brings as a gift for Brinson wears has a VISOR and a gold Starfleet engineering uniform, just like the Enterprise-D‘s chief engineer.
   
• Mariner requests ‘Computer, end program!’ to check whether she’s in a holodeck simulation when Boimler introduces Mariner to Brinson. (That’s not something I’ve tried in real life either. Not at all.) She also tries to solve a tough situation by citing Authorization: Mariner 8′ to execute her plan (the same way many Trek characters have done before her). Unfortunately, she got called out for using a made-up code.
   
• Boimler insists that his girlfriend is “as real as a hopped-up Q on Captain Picard Day”… whatever that means.
   
• Mariner references a Phylosian in tactical, a race of sentient plants introduced originally in “The Infinite Vulcan” in The Animated Series.

• Boimler’s full first name is Bradward, which Mariner proceeds to call him frequently through the rest of the episode.
   
• Boimler describes Cerritos crewmate Jet as “a Kirk sundae with Trip Tucker sprinkles,” referencing two of the Star Trek franchise’s most famous heartthrobs.
   
• The inhabitants of Mixtus III agree to relabel their sixth moon the fifth moon following the moon’s destruction, perhaps a wink to the confusion over which planet of the Ceti Alpha system the Reliant was investigating in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
   
• In one of Lower Decks’ only major canon slip-ups so far, Mariner refers to the picture of the Allasomorph on her conspiracy wall as a “dauphin.” That was the name of the episode and not the race.
   
• Lt. Commander Docent’s computer password is ‘RIKER.’
   
• Recent missions of the USS Vancouver, in addition to the trip to 1920s Chicago, include towing a space station, calibrating a Dyson Sphere, and going back in time to “kill the guy who was worse than Hitler.”

This is probably the first episode of Lower Decks that entirely nails that original premise as described by series creator Mike McMahan in his earliest interviews.

Overall, “Cupid’s Errant Arrow” is probably my favorite episode of the season, for striking the right balance between a good character-driven story backed by Star Trek references galore all while the crew of the Cerritos work in the background to solve a major problem.