with Jim Moorhouse and Ken Reilly

“Much Ado about Boimler” mixes up our traditional ensign teams in this week’s episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, but unfortunately only one of this week’s two storylines really lands.

When Ensign Boimler is injured in a transporter accident, he is sent – along with a genetically engineered dog created by Tendi – to Division 14’s “The Farm,” a specialist division that handles “unsolvable space illnesses and science missions.” Meanwhile, with Captain Freeman and the senior command crew temporarily re-assigned for a secret mission, an old Academy classmate of Mariner’s, Captain Amina Ramsey, takes temporary command of the Cerritos.

The Mariner storyline in this episode works very well and continues to significantly deepen the character and her motivations. Through Captain Ramsey, we see what Mariner could be if she applied herself: a Starfleet captain. Mariner is so scared of taking responsibility that she’s willing to jeopardize her relationship with her Academy classmate through a series of intentional mistakes designed to avoid Ramsey offering Mariner a more senior position back on her ship.

The more we learn about Mariner, the more we see her struggling between her fiercely independent streak and her desire to do and be more. At this point in her career, her independent streak is dominant, but in this episode there are moments where Ramsey brings out the best in her and ultimately together the two officers save the crew of the USS Rubidoux as it is taken over by a birthing space alien. I really enjoyed this exploration of Mariner’s character.

Unfortunately, the successful and thoughtful Mariner story is paired with a Boimler / Tendi story that just did not work for me. A clear Lower Decks take on a horror episode, Boimler is transferred to the USS Osler to travel with other injured Starfleet personnel to Division 14’s “The Farm.”

The patients aboard are deeply suspicious of the unnamed Edosian medical specialist and decide that The Farm is a lie, and try to mutiny… except that The Farm isn’t a lie. It is the idyllic sanctuary they were all hoping for.

“Much Ado About Boimler” is the first episode where I feel like the writers unsuccessfully weaved together the tropes of an adult animated comedy with the ethos of Star Trek. Honestly, this storyline was a little mean-spirited, and the plot draws too heavily upon the idea that the patients are ‘freaks’ and not desirable to be around.

This is the second episode this season where the writers have walked Boimler into some objectionable behavior — his slightly racist attitude towards the Ferengi Quimp in “Envoys,” was not great, but Boimler’s ableism in this episode towards his fellow patients is a bit offensive.

For such an otherwise great show, this is a disappointing trend.

Trek Trope Tributes

• Boimler is sent to Division 14 because of a transporter accident caused by Rutherford trying to make it more efficient. Transporter accidents are a staple of previous Star Trek shows (“Rascals,” “Realm of Fear,” “The Enemy Within,” “Tuvix,” etc.), though usually the crews of the Enterprise or Voyager are able to solve the mystery and save the day.
   
• With Captain Freeman away on assignment, the Cerritos is assigned a temporary captain. The episode even explicitly refers back to the most famous example of this — when Mariner compares the incoming captain to a “babysitter Jellico-type” — the famous Next Generation two-parter “Chain of Command.”
   
• Ramsey and Mariner talk with the captain’s crew about their time together at the Academy. It has been a frequent trope of Star Trek that guest characters we’ve just been introduced to have detailed prior histories with our stars, like Cal Hudson and Ben Sisko (“The Maquis”), Admiral Pressman and Will Riker (“The Pegasus”), and B’Elanna Torres and Max Burke (“Equinox”).
   
• Ramsey and Mariner love a good “space mystery,” and so do Star Trek writers, who have shown our crews investigating eerily empty ships many times before in stories like “The Doomsday Machine,” “The Tholian Web,” “Night Terrors,” “Empok Nor,” and more.

Canon Connections

Stealth Suits

This episode has a few “Chain of Command” references, most notably the reference to Captain Jellico already discussed. But when Freeman, Ransom, and Shax are off ship on their mission to germinate rulot seeds, they are wearing the black Starfleet stealth uniforms also see in that episode worn by Picard, Crusher, and Worf.

Additionally, the manufactured ‘expertise’ for why the trio was selected for this mission (germinating rulot seeds!) feels very familiar to the TNG trio’s ‘expertise’ in metagenic weapons and theta-band carrier waves.

Millicochranes and Milliseconds

When Boimler re-materializes slightly phased, Rutherford tells him he is just one millicochrane out of phase. The ‘cochrane’ is a unit of subspace distortion that has appeared numerous times throughout the franchise, of course named for Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of the warp drive.

Rutherford is shown trying to shave milliseconds off his transporter tests, similar to the way LaForge was trying to increase his engine efficiency by miniscule levels to best a colleague in “Force of Nature.”

Delta Radiation

One of the Division 14 patients, Ensign Jenna, is confined to a wheelchair that matches Captain Pike’s from “The Menagerie.” Like Pike, she was exposed to delta radiation.

Edosian

The Division 14 medical specialist is an Edosian, the first time we’ve seen the race since the character Arex appeared in ‘Star Trek: The Animated Series.’

As you would expect, this Edosian also includes the anatomically ridiculous third arm coming straight out of his chest, which is expertly obscured by a well-placed cloak.

Type III Phaser Rifle

When the patients aboard the Osler mutiny, the Edosian medical specialist brandishes a Type III phaser rifle — the same design that first appeared in ‘Star Trek: First Contact’ and subsequent episodes of ‘Star Trek: Voyager.’

Shakespearean Titles

A tradition, by any other name, is the franchise’s use of Shakespearean quotes in their episode titles. From “Conscience of the King” to “Dagger of the Mind,” and from “All Our Yestedays” to “The Measure of a Man,” many episodes of Trek have included nods to the Bard’s work — and now you can add “Much Ado about Boimer” to that list.

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Other Observations

• The USS Rubidoux is another California-class ship, named for yet another city in California. The ship also has red striping indicating it is a command ship.
   
• The USS Osler, which takes Tendi and Boimler to The Farm, is named for the city in Saskatchewan.
   
• When Doctor T’Ana tells Boimler she is shipping him off to Division 14, he asks if they are ‘the time travel police,” a definite reference to the Department of Temporal Investigations (seen in “Trials and Tribble-ations”).
   
• Captain Freeman’s ready room display wall includes a small model — or action figure? –of a Gorn.

• Lizard-like former human Anthony bears a striking resemblance to a Warp 10 salamander, the de-evolved human form which Janeway and Paris turned into after breaking that speed barrier in “Threshold.”
   
• The lead ‘freak’ aboard the Osler is half old-aged and half-young, and is “doomed to live out his days as half a rascal” — an oblique reference to TNG’s “Rascals” which featured Captain Picard and friends reduced to their teenage selves.
   
• The space alien that transforms the Rubidoux looks similar to the space jellyfish encountered by the Enterprise-D in “Encounter at Farpoint.”

Overall, despite a strong Mariner story that continues to deepen the character beyond the confines of an adult animated comedy, “Much Ado About Boimler” leans a little too hard into making the patients of Division 14 the butt of the joke for me to rate this episode particularly highly.

The writers have demonstrated a number of times this season that they can make funny Star Trek without being mean spirited or indulging in 21st century prejudice. Unfortunately, this episode does not accomplish that.

Star Trek: Lower Decks returns on September 24 with the eighth episode of the season, on CBS All Access in the United States and CTV Sci Fi Channel in Canada. Additional international availability for the series has not yet been announced.