References ahoy once again in the latest Star Trek: Lower Decks Episode, as we venture into Star Trek Voyager territory with Tom Paris!
Welcome to Trek Central! I’m your host, Commander Brie, and let’s get into it!
The Third Episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks Season Two is titled “We’ll always have Tom Paris”,
and we’ve got Ensign Boimler fully back aboard the USS Cerritos. This week's episode is directed by Bob Suarez and written by M Willis, let’s dive in and see what we think!
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Immediately with the opening of the third episode, we’re treated to one of the main running gags.
This being that the USS Cerritos does not recognize Ensign Boimler trying to access any systems, including the ship's Replicators and doors, as well as other mechanical systems throughout the starship.
These security upgrades are in response to the Pakled attacks in the Season One final episode,
where the Cerritos is totaled by Pakled forces.
It’s interesting though that the doors can recognize who is trying to walk through them, part of me really likes this!
We’re told that the Creator of Fairhaven, Captain Proton himself, Lieutenant Tom Paris is appearing in this episode,
as if the title did not give it away, oh and the fact he was in the main trailer for Star Trek: Lower Decks Season Two.
And we finally get to see the collectible plate of Tom Paris, which is now an official merch btw, so yes, if you want a plate for Tom Paris, you can go and get it.
There is also a cheeky reference to “That Voyager Episode”, yes we mean Threshold and if you know, you know, so keep that in mind.
Ensign Boimler is being his nerdy self as usual, and collects all the plates, and he even references Voyager as Voy!
VOY being the series abbreviation for Star Trek: Voyager, which Trekkies typically use when talking and discussing the series.
If you’re wondering where the whole plate thing comes from, well years ago you could collect authentic and original Star Trek plates,
now it appears the Lower Decks creators are referencing that with this episode. Given you can also get merch from this once again.
Boimler has had his plates signed by Janeway, all the way down to Kim, proving that Harry Kim is still an ensign as of 2380/2381.
Boimler may have hummed the TNG theme last season, but this season he is humming the voyager theme.
Due to the stubbornness of Boimler, and him not being registered by the Computer,
Boimler decides instead of simply asking to be put back into the system, to crawl his way from the lower decks to the bridge,
This leads to the Tom Paris plate talking scene, where Boimler starts to inhale some gas while in the tubes.
Boimler finally makes his way to the bridge, but in doing so he looks pretty bad, and very similar to a Kazon,
in which Tom Paris in immediate reflex decides to attack boimler just in case he is a Kazon.
To the best part of the ship's story, Yes, Lieutenant Shaxs is back and alive, apparently.
On a serious note this was originally shown briefly in one of the Lower Decks trailers,
now the third episode confirms it.
Somehow Shaxs is back alive in this episode, and Ensign Rutherford sets himself the task of finding out how Bridge Officers like Shaxs always come back from the dead.
Think about it, main characters typically die in Trek then magically come back thanks to some comics forces.
Some of these forces are even mentioned in the episode, from restored Katra’s like Spock, to Mirror Universe Switcheroos like Philipa Goergiou.
Shaxs went through something, but didn’t lose his killer serve at racquetball. I wonder if he too wears the weird spandex outfit that Bashir wore.
There is a nice scene where Rutherford is imagining all different possibilities of Shaxs coming back to life,
nd we get to see Shaxs in an Enterprise Jumpsuit uniform, which is lovely to see.
Rutherford eventually decides to ask Shax directly and we hear the story of “The Black Mountain”.
Well we don’t hear anymore of it, since it traumatises our Baby Bear Rutherford.
But I do wonder if “The Black Mountain” is a part of Bajoran Spirituality, which would be interesting.
The B plot of this episode follows Tendi and Mariner. Finally we get that combo which fans have been wanting since Season 1. I
I hope Season 2 carries on this mixing up of the lower decker pairs for episodes.
Chief Medical Officer of the USS Cerritos, Doctor T’Ana is dispatching Ensign Tendi on a personal mission,
given Tendi is keen to impress the doctor so she can hopefully get a promotion, which could possibly go wrong in this regard.
Turns out, a lot, as Tendi has to secure Doctor T’Anas family heirloom it seems.
The mission is on Qualor II, which we previously thought might have been Freecloud, but even if it isn’t freecloud it definitely gives that vibe,
with adverts for Vic Fontaine, Zebulon Sisters, Quarks, ann-marie and many more.
During this away mission, Tendi mentions that she is a fan of Klingon Acid Punk, which is very interesting since we had the introduction of a Klingon Band in Picard,
in which Kestra Troi-Riker was a fan..
The Family Heirloom of T’ana turns out to be a Caitian Libido Post, a scratching post basically,
and while the two officers decide to mess around with it, they break it and have to resort to other methods to get it fixed, which first require money.
We learn that Mariner served on DS9 before serving on the Quito, which is absolutely fascinating
and I wonder if we might in the future get a short trek of Tawny Newsome superimposed onto a DS9 episode in the style of “Trials and Tribbleations” from DS9.
I think that would be a brilliant idea.
Anyway the scratching post gets even more broken upon Mariner challenging some nausicaans to a game of Dom-Jot,
which at least they didn’t get stabbed through the heart like Picard, but still.
They now have to resort to Tendi’s plan, which is to go to her Orion Cousin, who is a Pirate.
Tendi turns out to be some sort of Orion Nobility and is referred to as the “Mistress of the Winter Constellations” and gets her cousin to help fix the scratching post.
But again, things don’t go as plan and the scratching post gets more damaged.
In order to “fix the situation” Mariner takes the blame unto herself and decides to crash the shuttle into the Cerritos upon their return in order to let it look like she is at fault for breaking the post.
Turns out after all the chaos of securing T’Ana’s family heirloom, she actually just wanted the box instead.
Because you know, cats actually like boxes.
Still though we found this hilarious, as it is that typical comedy gag of all the chaos over something that doesn't even matter in the first place.
And we end the episode in usual fashion, Mariner in the Brig, Boimler beaten up, this time with a Black Eye from Tom Paris, and Tendi showing her favourite Klingon Acid Rock!
Character development in Star Trek can be hit or miss, luckily Lower Decks is doing it’s main and secondary characters justice throughout the second season.
The focus on Doctor T’Ana, who might be my favourite character in the series, was fantastic, really developing her character more on what we’ve already seen in Season One of the series.
Hopefully we’ll get even more of her as the show progresses.
A funny moment that was highlighted in this episode was when Mariner and Tendi go on a mission together.
This was something Trekkies noted down in Season One, with the fact that Tendi and Mariner never worked together with each other directly,
with it typically being Rutherford and Tendi, and then Mariner and Boimler.
The dynamic was expected to work well, but I honestly did not expect it to take a turn for how it ended.
Then again, Mariner taking the blame to cover the mistake and not get Tendi in trouble with Dr T’Ana is something that we’ve come to expect from her character.
Lower Decks does the typical Star Trek thing of tackling stereotypes, and this is one of those real world issues Star Trek always aims to address as well.
The stereotype being that because Ensign Tendi is an Orion, then she is apparently like all the other Orion's we’ve met in Star Trek.
You know, the type who steal ships, rip off people and are slave traders.
Obviously we know that is not the case, but it’s outlined and reinforced in this episode during conversations between Ensign Mariner and Tendi herself.
Robert Duncan McNeil returning to voice Lieutenant Tom Paris was very cool, but at the same time rather lackluster.
Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand that this show is not all about cameos and such, but part of me thought they would make better use of having him in the show.
At the same time though, we do not want to distract from the main cast of Lower Decks.
Originally teased in the trailers for Star Trek: Lower Decks, we finally got confirmation on how Lieutenant Shaxs is back in the series, and it’s explained in an interesting take.
His death explanation is certainly an odd but fun turn, but does make sense with Lower Decks.
The joke being that only the senior officers who die know what it is really like on the other side, and they won’t reveal their secrets to the younger Lower Decks for fear of scaring them and scaring them for life.
This is evident with Rutherford chasing Shaxs around the ship looking for answers in the episode.
It’s certainly good to have Lt Shaxs back with us, given he was a fan favourite character from Lower Decks Season One,
and his death did indeed catch many people off guard during the season final episode.
Hopefully his character is developed even more in the second season and perhaps we’ll see how he’s changed with his death experience, there is certainly room to play off of that if the writers want too.
Overall I would say Episode 3 was a quality episode, though the second episode so far still remains the best one for me, personally.
Don’t forget you can watch STAR TREK: Lower Decks every Thursday via Paramount+ and CTV-Sci Fi as well as Crave, then on Friday via Amazon Prime Video for International viewers, make it so!
That’s a wrap on our review of STAR TREK: Lower Decks Season 2 episode 3, make sure to let us know in the comment section or via social media, what you thought of this episode, because if you’re talking Star Trek, then we want to hear about it!