with Jim Moorhouse and Ken Reilly

Star Trek: Lower Decks concludes its ten-episode first season with a barnstormer of a season finale that delivers on the laughs, the feels, and the surprises — all while providing a perfect cap to the season that nods back to each of the previous nine episodes. The first season of Lower Decks has been a triumph, and “No Small Parts” is no exception.

Responding to a distress call from the USS Solvang, the Cerritos is attacked by Pakled traders — who have upgraded their technology significantly since the Enterprise encountered them in The Next Generation — and the crew must work together to avoid the destruction of the Cerritos.

Major spoilers for the Lower Decks season finale below! 

There is a lot packed into the 27 minutes of this episode, but it all feels earned and explicitly builds upon the characters and stories that have been developed over the first season. A number of characters and their relationships are moved onto the next stages: Boimler gets that promotion he wanted, Mariner and Freeman finally learn to see the value each other brings to the table, and we’re given a finale that feels truly consequential.

It remains to be seen how much of it will hold. It seems unlikely, for example, that Boimler will remain aboard the Titan for very long, and that Rutherford will be out of commission for more than a few episodes next season.

For an animated comedy, though — where the format typically keeps its characters’ development stuck in amber (like in The Simpsons, American Dad, Family Guy, and the like) — the decision to kill off a major character like Shaxs is a big one; a surprisingly poignant move showcasing that the characters on Lower Decks have earned your emotions as well as your laughs.

And in the season’s waning minutes, we get two big legacy character appearances, of course, as Captain Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Commander Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) — truly the Stan Lees of the Trek franchise — come riding to the rescue on the USS Titan, a ship we finally get to see on-screen after 18 years.

Following the Star Trek: Picard season finale back in March, this is the second time we’ve had Captain Riker save the day — a moment we certainly enjoyed! — but the feeling of didn’t-this-just-happen? have been a bit less prevalent if Lower Decks was airing in it’s originally-planned schedule following Star Trek: Discovery Season 3.

That said, while it’s always a joy to see Riker and Troi back in action, this time in animated form, it’s a true thrill to finally see the Luna-class USS Titan (NCC-80102) in canon for the first time.

Introduced in cover artwork for Simon & Schuster’s Star Trek: Titan novel series, the fan-designed starship created by artist Sean Tourangeau is a beautiful ship finally made ‘real’ with it’s first-ever on-screen appearance in Lower Decks — three years after Eaglemoss brought the book-cover-only design to the physical world as part of the Official Starships Collection.

Trek Trope Tributes

• In the opening visit to Beta III, Captain Freeman tells Landru to be quiet or she will “paradox you into destroying yourself,” which is effectively how Kirk and Spock defeated Landru the first time around in “The Return of the Archons,” along with a few other adventures featuring Those Old Scientists.
   
• Captain Freeman has conversations with both Ransom and Mariner during this episode about the common trope of Starfleet fixing a problem on a planet, leaving, and not bothering to follow up and see if the problem remains fixed.

Canon Connections

Landru and The Red Hour

The episode begins with the Cerritos revisiting Beta III, where Landru (“The Return of the Archons”) has once again taken control of the planet’s population.

Gamesters of Triskelion

Freeman tells Ransom that she “hate[s] seeing a perfectly good society get destroyed by a Gamester of Triskelion or whatever,” referencing the Gamesters from the episode of the same name.

Pakleds and the Kalla System

Lower Decks reintroduced the Pakleds! And though significantly upgraded “with the weapons from 30 different species” — including Bajoran, Romulan, and Ferengi — the nose of their new behemoths are recognizably the same ship that the Enterprise first made contact with in “Samaritan Snare.”

The main events of this episode take place in the Kalla System, which was referenced to be a part of Pakled territory in The Next Generation episode “Firstborn.”

Exocomp

“No Small Parts” features a new crew member for the Cerritos – an Exocomp named Peanut Hamper. The Exocomps were introduced in The Next Generation episode “The Quality of Life,” as robots with emerging sentience.

That sentience has extended to the point where they can join Starfleet *and* piss off their dads.

Parents in Starfleet

While trying to determine what the impact will be of the crew knowing that Mariner is Freeman’s daughter, Mariner mentions that Wesley Crusher worked with his mother aboard the Enterprise, and “maybe everyone will be cool with it!”

It quickly becomes clear they are not cool with it.

First Contact Day

Ransom says the Pakleds are carving up the Cerritos like a “First Contact Day salmon,” referring to the holiday celebrating first contact between the humans and the Vulcans.

Mariner’s Contraband

Mariner’s contraband, stored in the walls of the ship, includes a club used by Worf to fight on the holodeck, a fencing sword, her bloody bat’leth from “Second Contact,” and even the infamous Spock Helmet!

Starfleet Funeral

Shax’s funeral mirrors that of others seen in Star Trek (“The Sound of Her Voice,” “Tears of the Prophets,” Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) by featuring a torpedo coffin with a Federation flag draped over it.

Armus

“I’m going to feed you to an Armus!” Mariner tells Boimler after he accepts a promotion to the Titan. This is the second reference this season to the creature who killed Tasha Yar in “Skin of Evil,” another first-season story where the lead ship’s security chief is killed.

Saurian

The USS Titan has a Saurian first officer. Saurians have been seen most recently in Star Trek: Discovery, where Lieutenant Linus is a member of the Discovery crew.

These Are The Voyages…

Riker apparently continues to enjoy watching the adventures of Captain Archer’s Enterprise NX-01 on the holodeck.

“I was watching the first Enterprise on the holodeck,” he says. “You know, Archer and those guys? What a story. Those guys had a long road, getting from there to here.” Yes, folks, Faith of the Heart is now canon.

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Other Observations

• In a nice tribute to The Animated Series, in the opening sequence on Beta III Captain Freeman is holding a PADD with pictures of Kirk and Spock in their Filmation animation designs, right out of the 1970’s show.
   
• Ransom – like us – refers to the 2260’s as “the TOS era,” but rather than meaning The Original Series like us fans he means ‘Those Old Scientists’ – you know, Spock, Scotty etc. who discovered a lot of new civilizations!
   
• This episode adds another California-class ship to the fleet (briefly) – the USS Solvang, commanded by Captain Dayton who previously appeared in “Much Ado About Boimler” commanding the ill-fated USS Rubidoux.
   
• “No Small Parts” has references to each of the season’s previous nine episodes, demonstrating how – despite being episodic – each episode built on the last to bring us to this big, exciting finale.

• The Enterprise has a Captain Picard Day – and apparently, the Cerritos has a Captain Freeman Day.
   
• It’s unclear if Badgey met his end in this episode or not, but it’s cool that Lower Decks has its own recurring holographic villain with a particular grudge against one of our heroes.
   
• The Titan crew are all wearing the First Contact-era uniforms, implying that Starfleet has two uniform styles in use at the same time — certainly something we’ve seen before in live-action Star Trek shows.
   
• Boimler has a circular image — a collectors plate, maybe? — of Commander Ransom on display in his quarters aboard the Titan.
   
• Captain Freeman is not a fan of shiny ship upgrades; “I hate it when a ship gets repaired and comes out looking all Sovereign-class,” she tells the starbase engineer.

Now with all ten episodes available to view, I believe that Star Trek: Lower Decks has had one of the strongest first seasons of any Star Trek show to date. The characters have resonated, the show has taken interesting and unique approaches to Star Trek staples, and most importantly, it’s been funny. I absolutely cannot wait for the second season (already in production).

Now, give me warp — in the factor of five, six, seven, eight!