The crew of the USS Cerritos are faced with a classic diplomatic mission in “Of Gods and Angles” as Captain Freeman and her crew work to bring peace between two races of photonic beings, the Orbs and the Cubes.
 
Seemingly standalone from the multiversal storyline running through this season, this episode is a fun comfort food episode of Lower Decks — there’s some good character work, some funny jokes, and enough stakes to be engaging. And while it doesn’t touch on the quantum fissure storyline at all, it’s the latest in the show’s “misfit character needs to fit in” genre.
 

The most interesting character in this week’s episode is Ensign Olly (Saba Homayoon), the half-human, half-Greek god Starfleet officer descended from the alien beings encountered by Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise in “Who Mourns for Adonais?” Ensign Olly’s backstory dances around the direct connection to “Who Mourns…” but the concept of the entities from that episode having children with mortals is not new to Star Trek.

The original script for that Original Series episode would have seen Lieutenant Palamas, who has a brief relationship with Apollo, reveal that she is pregnant. And in the New Frontier line of novels by Peter David, her son Mark McHenry is serving as the helm officer aboard the USS Excalibur (and possesses some of the powers of his father).

I love it when Lower Decks isn’t afraid to reach into the more absurd parts of the Star Trek canon, and the Greek gods idea from “Who Mourns…” was pretty fantastical and probably not something that would have otherwise gotten a second look from the Star Trek canon. The result is a fun character, who — stop me if you’ve heard this one before! — needs to get comfortable with her identity in order to thrive in Starfleet.

But in this case, Olly’s story is less important than the opportunity it provides Mariner (Tawny Newsome) to help someone she recognizes herself in. Having Mariner take the mentor role (and actually be good at it!) shows how far the character has developed and how, by the end of Season 5, the old version of the character has well and truly been left behind after several false starts in earlier seasons.

Meanwhile, Boimler’s story continues to develop in its obvious direction, with Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) acknowledging what he has been doing — and Boimler (Jack Quaid) trying to argue in favor of just doing his best to emulate his alternate self. Rutherford’s advice to “just be yourself,” which Boimler quickly dismisses is pretty clearly where this story is headed, but it looks like Boimler’s got a couple more side quests to go on (and some more beard growth to get through) before he realizes that for himself.

I do relish any opportunity to get to spend time with Dr. T’Ana (Gillian Vigman) though, who always makes me laugh, and has had disappointingly little screentime this season. There’s a skill in animated comedies like this to deploying the bleeped swear words for comedic effect, and Lower Decks always nails making the bleeped swearing as funny as possible.

The Anticans and the Selay — er, excuse me, the Orbs and the Cubes are pretty standard minor Star Trek races. The photonic idea is interesting, but they’re really just window dressing to create tension and conflict and something for our characters to do. Just like The Next Generation episode “Lonely Among Us.”

(All that was missing from that storyline was a trip to Parliament!)

TREK TROPE TRIBUTES

• As referenced above, “Lonely Among Us” is probably the closest parallel to this episode in the Trek Trope of our crew having to host two hostile species aboard the ship and having their hostility be a source of tension and drama for the episode in question.

CANON CONNECTIONS

• The stack of circular furniture includes the ridiculous chair from Worf’s quarters in The Next Generation, a dabo wheel, and an Original Series-era cloaking device.
• The USS Reseda’s crew are all reformed Maquis — I wonder how many served on Voyager?
• “Good joke! We’ve got a real Ronald B. Moore over here!” is a deep cut reference to comedian Joe Piscopo’s comedian character in The Next Generation episode “The Outrageous Okona.” The Comic (how the character is billed in the episode closing credits) was identified as Ronald B. Moore (an inside joke, as Moore was a member of the production crew) on the holodeck menu on the LCARS panel that’s really only legible in high definition.
• “You don’t have to be a Dixon Hill to see that some bad shit went down here,” shows that Mariner is, like Picard, also a fan of the detective novel series that spawned a line of popular holodeck programs.
• Olly’s miniature tractor beam had Wesley’s miniature tractor beam from “The Naked Now” vibes — and in fact, there’s a replica of Wesley’s design in Boimler and Rutherford’s quarters.

OBSERVATION LOUNGE

• I think it’s hilarious that Rutherford and Tendi notice that Boimler’s PADD is from the alternate universe because of its beveling, rather than because it’s red.
• “Starfleet is more of a ‘one for me, nine for them’ type deal,” means Starfleet and Quark have a lot in common, who used a similar method on payday at Quark’s Bar.

Lower Decks turns in an episode that is probably not going to be at the top or bottom of anyone’s list of the show’s best episodes, but it’s a fun starship adventure that involves diplomatic shenanigans and demi-gods, so there’s a lot to like about it all the same. As with previous seasons of Lower Decks, it takes until episode 7 or 8 for the season’s storyline to really ramp up, and we’ve had promises of legacy actor appearances that have not yet been fulfilled.

It’s too early to tell if this is the calm before the storm, but “Of Gods and Angles” is a nice standalone episode of Lower Decks at a time when we don’t have many episodes of Lower Decks left to go.

Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5 continues next week with “Fully Dilated,” premiering November 28 on Paramount+.