Star Trek: Lower Decks makes another enjoyable detour away from the Cerritos this week in another “larger world” story in “A Farewell to Farms.” It’s a conceit that the show first pioneered with the universally-acclaimed “wej Duj,” followed by the not-so-popular “A Mathematically Perfect Redemption” that centered on Peanut Hamper.
 
Lower Decks has enjoyed throwing us the occasional episode that explores what it means to be Lower Decks that center the stories of characters who are not our usual core foursome, and this episode is a worthy entry.
 

This time, “A Farewell to Farms” takes us to Qo’noS to revisit Ma’ah (Jon Curry), the Klingon lower decker turned captain — turned Lower Decker again — who was first introduced in “wej Duj” and had a critically important role helping Mariner address her issues in last season’s “The Inner Fight,” and “Old Friends, New Planets.” Returned to Qo’noS in disgrace after his crew had mutinied against him, Ma’ah works to find his new place in the universe – with a little help this time from Mariner and Boimler.

One of the key themes of Lower Decks has been the journey that everybody goes on — usually in youth (but not always!), and usually in the formative parts of your career (but not always!) to find yourself and your place in the universe. Throughout the whole series, our characters have navigated the expectations that others have for them, or that they have for themselves, to get comfortable with who they are and find their authentic place in life.

We’re seeing that play out for Boimler this season as he clearly tries to inauthentically ape his alternate universe doppelganger. Tendi’s been through it with her visit to Orion. Mariner blew up a Genesis Device as part of her arc at the end of last season.

And now Lower Decks turns to Ma’ah, the compelling and endearing Klingon who uses his experiences in this episode to choose his own path. In some ways, Ma’ah’s journey is similar to Worf’s in that they are both Klingon characters who decide to eschew the “usual” way of being a Klingon to inhabit a more authentic version of Klingoness that reflects the individual character’s uniqueness. But given Ma’ah is a Klingon living on Qo’noS and a product of the Klingon system, it’s a compelling and different perspective that sees Ma’ah decide to hold true to his principles rather than submit to the Klingon system of advancement.

Mariner (Tawny Newsome) and Boimler (Jack Quaid) play secondary roles in this story, but their role is a welcome one, particularly as Boimler appears to be on a thematically similar journey to Ma’ah, but hasn’t yet realized what being authentically him looks like yet. And it’s always fun to visit the Klingon homeworld, and especially to see a part of the Klingon homeworld outside of the capital city or other major urban areas for the first time.

Outside of the awkward scenes in “Birthright,” I don’t think we’ve ever seen a Klingon farmer before, and so it’s great to see another take on Klingon life that authentically integrates the concepts or honor and combat that are endemic to all Klingon life, but in a more real world that acknowledges it needs farmers and bartenders and other roles in order for a society to function.

The Cerritos storyline meanwhile is all comedy, with a deeper look at Dr. Migleemo’s (Paul F. Tomkins) species, who we now know are called the Cloacans. Having a birdlike race centered around hedonism related to food whose most revered icons are food critics is a funny premise, and there’s a lot of good food-based jokes in this one. But it’s ultimately just a humorous throwaway, the real meat of the episode is on Qo’noS.

TREK TROPE TRIBUTES

• I am always here for an episode structured around an arcane Klingon ritual that revolves around the endurance of a lot of pain, like TNG’s “The Icarus Factor,” DS9’s “You Are Cordially Invited…” or VOY’s “Prophecy.”

CANON CONNECTIONS

• The Klingon architecture of Ma’ah’s family farm matches the architecture seen on Qo’noS in the 22nd century when Captain Archer visited the planet in “Broken Bow.”
• Ma’ah uses a flip communicator similar to the ones seen used by the Klingons in the Original Series.
• General K’orin (Jess Harnell) reprises his role from Season 1’s “Envoys.”
• The painstiks used in the Rite of Unending Pain are the same model of painstiks used to shepherd Worf into adulthood in “The Icarus Factor.”

OBSERVATION LOUNGE

• I love when the show swaps out the usual opening credits sequence for something a little more cinematic. It makes the episode feel special, and this one was very well done!
• “Experience biJ!” “You experience biJ!” is a loving references to the Star Trek: The Next Generation — A Klingon Challenge interactive VCR board game, when the devious Klingon character who had hijacked the Enterprise would force you to miss a turn rolling the dice.
• While you see that on Ma’ah’s family farm they produce bloodwine, it still isn’t clear (and is a long running thing in Star Trek) what bloodwine is actually made from. The fact that the family raises targs would imply that bloodwine, if it is indeed blood, is made with targ’s blood, but you also see Ma’ah stomping on gagh in a similar way to traditional winemakers stomp on grapes to make human wine so…pick your poison!
• Sir Legnog and Madam Gonald continue Lower Decks’ unbeaten record of hilarious Star Trek alien names.
• Banished from the Great Seating Chart, the Traditional Amuse Bouche, Flavor Prison, the Lower Decks writers were clearly having a blast with all the food jokes this week.

“A Farewell to Farms” combines a Klingon as hell A-plot (that hews to the series’ central premise) with a Migleemo-flavored B-plot that’s all jokes into an enjoyable episode of Lower Decks that gives us a little more time with our beloved Ma’ah before the season wraps up.

With the knowledge that the interdimensional rifts that have been an underlying subplot of the whole season are being made and not naturally forming, it looks like the season’s metanarrative is beginning to come into focus. I can’t wait to see where it takes us next!

Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5 continues next week with “Starbase 80?!” premiering November 14 on Paramount+.