“An Embarrassment of Dooplers” marks the halfway point of Star Trek: Lower Decks’ second season, an episode that tackles the two main character storylines head-on — the lingering tension between Boimler and Mariner regarding his transfer to the Titan, and Rutherford’s frustration with his own memory loss following last year’s injury — while also reminding the Cerritos’ senior staff that their plucky ship still doesn’t get the respect they desire.

The new Trek species introduced this week — the overly-sensitive, emotional Dooplers — are a funny concept, something that would only really work in Lower Decks, and with a comedy legend like Richard Kind voicing the role of the jittery Doopler ambassador.

In some ways, Dooplers feel like an appropriately-modern version of tribbles, because they don’t appear to replicate through food and sex, but through generalized anxiety that compounds upon itself with every duplication.

The Cerritos assignment, to deliver the Doopler emissary to Starbase 25, is also scheduled at the same time as the annual Starfleet Command conference — an event which not only brings the best and brightest of the fleet together, but also ends with a legendary after-party that our animated heroes are desperately trying to attend.

The attempts by Boimler (Jack Quaid) and Mariner (Tawny Newsome) to get access to the party — first through Mariner’s shady contacts from her previous posting on Starbase 25, then Boimler trying to pose as his Titan-based transporter clone William — were each a lot of fun, but it’s the emotional payoff at the end of the episode that really made the story work for me.

While they pair recovers from their failed entry to the party, Mariner and Boimler discover that the legendary duo of Kirk and Spock also tried — and failed — to get into the same event, which reminds us that even though these Lower Decks characters are not always on the top of their game, they are learning and growing… and may even, one day, end up reaching those lofty heights.

Back aboard the Cerritos, Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) is finally forced to face his memory loss head-on as he and Tendi (Noel Wells) work to complete a small replica model of the California-class ship while the Doopler chaos rages around them.

The usually-chipper engineer finds himself exploding at Tendi after she inadvertently shows surprise that he doesn’t remember a shipboard modification that was put in place months ago, finally expressing all his frustrations about losing who he calls “old me” after his injury in “No Small Parts.”

Rutherford feels “less than” his former self, even being “like a year behind” in their friendship… until the young Orion reminds him that when it comes to the Cerritos model, nothing has changed; they purposefully never completed the build so they could have an ongoing project to work on as friends (without anyone else on the ship bothering them).

It’s nice to see this addressed and for Rutherford to work through his emotions more in this episode.

Finally, the animation this season has been a significant improvement upon the already great work in Season 1, and it’s in this episode that I really noticed the upgrade: particularly during the car chase sequences, the animation is gorgeous, lively, and it’s easy to take in both what’s happening in the foreground — and all the fun Easter eggs in the background — even during a high-speed car chase.

The Lower Decks animation team is absolutely firing on all cylinders, and even the relatively static shot of Starbase 25 is really impressive. Kudos to the whole creative team who invest so much effort into making this show look so good.

TREK TROPE TRIBUTES

• The episode’s premise is pure trope – our heroes are escorting an unusual ambassador to a starbase for trade negotiations. Hijinks ensue!
   
• “Sometimes this job just feels like it’s just stacking crates in storage bays,” says Boimler, pretty much describing the typical busy work often assigned to background extras on Star Trek shows.

CANON CONNECTIONS

• The deep-voiced, insectoid bouncer at the Starfleet party — as well as at least one member of the wait staff inside — is a member of the same alien species as EM/3/Green in “The Jihad” from the Animated Series.
   
• Starbase 25 was previously mentioned in dialogue during “The Slaver Weapon,” again an Animated Series episode; the station’s design is an updated Watchtower-class starbase, designed for the Star Trek: Vanguard novel series (and later canonized on-screen in the remastered edition of the Original Series).
   
• Docked at Starbase 25 are a Parliament-class ship, an Andorian cruiser (as seen in Enterprise), two Dadealus-class ships, and a ship matching the Maquis fighter design.

• The starbase’s captain’s office includes what seems to be model of a Preserver obelisk, similar to the one seen in “The Paradise Syndrome,” as well as a great deal of Amelia Earhart memorabilia… who of course was found alive in the Delta Quadrant in “The 37’s.”
   
• The Tellarite who spots Mariner on the starbase signals his contact using a Star Trek III-era Klingon communicator.
   
• Malvis is a Mizarian, seen previous in The Next Generation episode “Allegiance.”
   
• Malvis’s shop contains PADDs, a TOS computer, a TOS tricorder, Riker’s ridiculous shirt from “Angel One,” a three-dimensional chess set, TNG tricorders, tribbles, a lirpa, TNG-era phaser rifle, a Voyager compression phaser rifle, and a Wrath of Khan phaser.

• During their car chase, Mariner and Boimler are chased through the starbase’s casino, complete with Klingons playing dabo, and of course a Bolian barber shop — and a clothier complete with Farpoint Station-style bolts of fabric.
   
• Also spotted on the car chase are a Lurian, a Pike chair, Antedeans (“Hey! We’re not people!”), and several Skorr.
   
• Malvis claims that Mariner stranded him on Ceti Alpha IV, which is “much worse than Ceti Alpha V,” referring of course to the planet on which Captain Kirk marooned Khan and his followers.
   
• “Are you sure this isn’t a Lore?” Boimler asks, picking up one of the limited-edition Commander Data bubble bath bottles.

• The Command Conference after party is limited to Luna-class-and-above ship classifications, referencing for the first time the USS Titan’s ship design.
   
• A few Next Generation characters make cameo appearances in the Starfleet party, including Elizabeth Shelby from “The Best of Both Worlds” — now a captain — and the outrageous Thadiun Okona manning the DJ booth.
   
• Okona now features an eyepatch — and with the freighter captain rumored to be appearing in Star Trek: Prodigy, this could be the legacy character showrunner Mike McMahan said the Lower Decks team had to “[alter] their appearance to make it in line with what you’ll be seeing in Prodigy.”

• Parked in Starbase 25’s hangar is a Vulcan D’kyr-class starship.
   
• The starbase dive bar includes a lot of memorabilia from past galactic adventures, including models of Zefram Cochrane’s Phoenix, the Doomsday Machine, and the Guardian of Forever on display.
   
• Besides the display replicas, the bar’s walls are covered with images referencing Trek’s past, including M’Ress from the Animated Series, a Bajoran solar sail vessel (from “Explorers”), the trio of Mudd’s women, the Delta Quadrant junkyard trader Abaddon (from “Alice”), and a Bzzit Khaht from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS

• “Data Bubble Bath” seems to be a reference to the oddball Star Trek: First Contact “Borg Bubble Bath” licensed product, released in 1996.
   
• This is the second episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, after “Cupid’s Errant Arrow,” which does not include a teaser before the main credits.
   
• Starship models in the 24^th century are a step above those available today, as the miniature Cerritos that Tendi and Rutherford build include both working phasers and a tiny explosive warp core.
   
• Rutherford and Tendi get to work on a new “Quark”-branded Alpha Quadrant model — starbase Deep Space 9 — which comes with both Jadzia and Ezri Dax figures.

• The Cerritos dress uniforms are similar, but distinct, from the white dress uniforms introduced in Star Trek: Insurrection. The Insurrection-style dress uniform appears among the invited party guests too, implying that like their regular duty uniforms, California-class crews have their own dress uniform style compared to the rest of the fleet.
   
• We get our third reference to Quark in three consecutive episodes, and the second 2380’s franchised location following Qualor II. Given that we know he eventually opens a Quark’s location on Freecloud in the 2390s, our favorite Ferengi barkeep must be taking advantage of being Grand Nagus’ brother to build his hospitality empire.
   
• Captain Shelby’s first officer is an alien species that’s modeled after the original design for Star Trek: Discovery’s Saru, a creature design which was dropped after early tests due to the complicated multi-eyed look that proved too cumbersome to manage.

“An Embarrassment of Dooplers,” written by Dave Ihlenfeld & David Wright, is a great way to close out the first half of Lower Decks’ second season. As Mike McMahan said in his TrekCore interview last week, the season is set to only get bigger from here, and we can’t wait to see what the next five episodes bring.

As part of the Star Trek Day celebration on September 8, CBS released a brand-new trailer looking ahead to the second half of Lower Decks Season 2 — watch it below if you didn’t see it yesterday!

Star Trek: Lower Decks returns for Season 2’s sixth episode on September 16 — on Paramount+ in the United States and CTV Sci Fi Channel in Canada — followed by Amazon Prime Video (in select international regions) on September 17.