Spoilers Star Trek: Lower Decks 3x04 - "Room for Growth"

[Commander Richard]

"Mariner, Boimler and Tendi clash with their arch-rivals: Delta Shift. The Cerritos engineers go on mandatory relaxation leave." - TrekMovie.com

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[The Wormhole]

Engineers are on mandatory leave two weeks after Billups and Rutherford got to relax on a tropical paradise. Must be nice to be them.

Well, as long as you forget the whole nearly sacrificed to a volcano thing.

 

[NCC-73515]

T'Ana did have a tail previously, right?

There are way more D'Arsay archives out there than we thought

A 200 year old Andorian ship

Boimler-Neo? XD

It was funnier than the last 2, but not as outstanding as the first one.

 

[thribs]

Interesting that ships still have sweet spots

 

[Anduinel]

Didn't love this one. The character continuity with the Bold Boimler stuff was nice, but all just a little too random to really do it for me this week.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I want puppy room!

*hugs*

 

[thribs]

Why are kittens more deviant? I didn’t get that one

 

[Charles Phipps]

Why are kittens more deviant? I didn’t get that one

It's a nonsequitor.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

6/10 pretty average, predictable and just not as funny as the previous three. The pre opening credits scene was the best part of the episode.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

Disappointing.

Were these scripts written during the COVID pandemic, for it feels like the efforts of 2 or 3 teams working separately and then having their stories smooshed together to create an episode?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Another piece of engineering technology, lost to the sands of time.

That relaxation machine could've been really helpful to alot of people.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Another piece of engineering technology, lost to the sands of time.

That relaxation machine could've been really helpful to alot of people.

I mean it's basically just a drug injector.

Not the Starfleet way!

 

[thribs]

Was that the first time we’ve seen Rutherford genuinely angry at the end?

 

[Deks]

I mean it's basically just a drug injector.

Not the Starfleet way!

Its not a drug injector.
It literally draws out stress from the body (otherwise, they'd use a hypospray)... probably through vibrations and phase changing technology of some kind.

Another piece of engineering technology, lost to the sands of time.

That relaxation machine could've been really helpful to alot of people.

Agreed.
This was kinda a definition of SF engineers inventing advanced tech and then it no longer being seen ever again.
Though, the Cerritos engineers built it once.. they could easily build another one.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

"Increase puppy levels!"

"You engineered a workaround to your own stress meter???!!!" I always love it when Captain Freeman blows her top.

The crew go to a relaxation station. What could possibly go wrong? Turns out, the station is legit. The crew just have an infinite work ethic. A neat exploration of that.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

I believe this is the first time where we learned that deck 1 is not always the location of a bridge. The California-class has "penthouse"-type crew quarters on that deck. A single room can house four bunks.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

T'Ana did have a tail previously, right?

Season 2 might have been the first time we saw one way or the other, but I could be wrong. She wears the lab coat a lot of the time.

 

[The Wormhole]

Were these scripts written during the COVID pandemic, for it feels like the efforts of 2 or 3 teams working separately and then having their stories smooshed together to create an episode?

Even if it were written during the pandemic, the writers would not be "working separately." They'd still be working together through a virtual writer's room on Zoom.

 

[ExtremeSail]

Redditor BornAshes had some pretty good takes on this episode that I'll share and link below

https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/xepb46/comment/ioi5j8s/?context=3

This was certainly an episode of Lower Decks that catered to particular fans for sure and it's funny how Shax seems to be the more stable and reasonable half of his relationship with T'Ana.

It was a nice episode but it felt very one-shotty and I feel like that's why there's not as many comments about it by now as there usually are. The A Plot following the Lower Deckers scrambling through the guts of the ship to rig a room lotto was nice but pretty straight forwards and a smidge predictable. The takeaway from this being that sometimes the whole "all for one and one for all" philosophy sometimes winds up getting you into more trouble than it's worth and can lead to you developing a false sense of winning when you're actually losing. Also it was nice to see characters stripping down for an actual reason to save someone and not just for shock value alone. Bonus points for the whole Willy Wonka reference though and whatever the hell that thing was that was hiding behind the vines in the swamp area. The B Plot following the Engineers on the Dove came off as cutesy buuuut also a bit predictable in how it turned out, with that De-Stress Device basically getting yeeted out into the void at the end of the episode and the only takeaway being that living on a starship was stressful and not everyone pays attention to their mental health as much as they should. The puppies, kittens, and bunnies were cute though and the Dove is probably apart of a whole support fleet of counselor class civilian operated ships that goes around servicing the health needs of Starfleet alongside Starfleet Medical.

The whole thing was a cool reference to TNG's episode "Masks" and I did enjoy the ship design of the Dove. One might even say that this episode was about the masks we all wear to cover up the cracks in our mental foundations that develop over time. We do this to make other people happy and often we wind up wearing them for so long that we neglect ourselves until we experience a critical failure and suddenly we need a safety net to fall back on. The Captain was wearing one, the Engineers were wearing them, Shax & T'Ana each wore one, and even the Lower Deckers put masks back on by the end of the episode after wearing them at the start and then taking them off halfway through before putting them back on again because they were caught up in that feel good family feeling when they should've been selfishly ruthless in order to address some of the cracks in their own mental foundations.

I'm using the word "masks" a lot but it's entirely relevant! If we're not careful with the masks that we wear then serious harm can result as seen by what happens to the Captain in this episode. Also when we remove our metaphorical masks that we wear around each other and are honest with one another, we often discover that we've got a whole lot more in common than we thought, and can really bond and connect in a way that we couldn't before....buuuut this doesn't always work out. Sometimes the truths that are revealed by the removal of these metaphorical masks the the total honesty that that removal brings can also reveal that....not everything is okay, people are on different pages entirely, and there really are some irreconcilable differences between folks that just can't be mended or adjusted in any way. Sometimes things just don't work out and aren't supposed to. Some folks can accept that and they leave the masks off buuuuuut some folks cannot and it's much more comfortable to put those masks back on and keep believing the lies they were telling themselves.

Sadly I think this means that T'Ana and Shax are totally done for. They love each other and care about each other sure but I think it's a relationship of convenience and not one that's built on a solid foundation at all. Shax did try his best but T'Ana is clearly just using him as her own scratching post of stress relief. It's quite telling that they're only intimate together on the holodeck of all places while dressed up as other characters in a different time and place entirely doing something that Starfleet Officers would never do. Their relationship is a dream and Shax is the only one who wants to wake up from it and make it a reality.

Speaking of relationships, I did enjoy the bonding between Tendi, Mariner, and Boimler. That was very sweet watching them crawl through the muck together and reconnect/check in with each other after so much stuff has happened. Also Mariner being in an "egg" certainly requires a bit more investigation for sure as does Boimler trying to find a way to escape from a maze and Tendi just waltzing into science danger without regard for anyone else until it got REALLY REALLY BAAAAAD. Of course then Rutherford comes back after a mega stressful event and is just laser focused on the room they didn't get and not the shitstorm that his friends just crawled through. Everyone's certainly got some...room for growth...and this episode just highlighted all of that and a bag of churros along with it.

Sadly or happily, depending on how you see things, I think this means that our Lower Deckers are about to have those bonds that exist between them tested in a way that will make or break them. We've basically just been shown the weak points in their relationships with each other and that's pretty much akin to a bunch of med packs basically showing up in game before a boss battle room or the DM throwing a magic shop at you that's filled with enchanted weapons and a charismatic potion seller. Plus Mariner started talking about the future and how Tendi was going to be a bridge officer, Boimler would be dead, and she would be drummed out of Starfleet with no mention of Rutherford which should be a GIANT RED FLAG to EVERYONE narratively speaking. Something big is about to happen on Lower Decks and I cannot wait to see what that something big is and gosh I just fucking love this show!

Cute Star Wars reference too with the whole trash chute and incinerators thing as well.

https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/xepb46/comment/ioi7oth/?context=3

I honestly started off thinking, "Eh this is a pretty shallow episode" and then the more I thought about it the more I shifted to, "Damnit this shit has layers well done!".

The Lower Deckers are totally in a transition state right now and they know it and it's freaking them all out. Everyone is changing and is seemingly starting to move on to different places and that's scaring them because they don't want to lose each other. So obviously given that it's Lower Decks, that means that they're going to be self sabotaging just to stay together even if that means they feel miserable as a result because at least they're still miserable together and that's better than being miserable apart.

In other words, they're growing up and the Cerritos is just a midway point on their journeys through life just like Starfleet Academy was. This painful transition is one that's all too familiar to all of us and I'm positive we can all sympathize with it. We've all experienced this when changing schools or when graduating or when moving from one town to another or when we've just...gotten older and changed and had to say goodbye to old friends and places and hello to new ones. The Lower Deckers are in this exact same kind of situation which they thought would remain static and eternal just like we all did when we've been there.

Sadly Starfleet isn't about staying in one place forever, as comfortable as that may seem and in the light of this episode...as unhealthy as that might actually be. Folks just gotta keep moving on instead of staying in one place forever lest they get stuck in a monotonous and totally toxic metaphorical swamp full of delusions that they can't get out of and eventually wind up dying in having never known that escape to a better place was juuuuust within their reach if they'd just tried. The Lower Deckers are coming to this whole, "Oh things can totally get better and I can absolutely get out of this lower decks slog....oh shit...!" realization this season and it's scaring the hell out of them because as miserable as they are...they're kind of happy and it reminds me of veterans who leave the service and suddenly have to participate in the real world or folks who get out of traumatically bad circumstances and have to function around normal people or yeah the whole high school to college you just became an adult transition phase from childhood to adulthood thing.

It's a time of change and Tendi being a hallucinated butterfly was totally a massive hint at the fact that this is what's going on with everyone on the show. I wonder what this means for the future of Lower Decks? Are we going to see them all getting promoted to different ships within a season or two and a new set of Lower Deckers taking their places with the ones we know becoming the senior staff? Or does this mean that Star Trek Lower Decks is going to wind down a whole lot sooner than we expected? Perhaps I'm overthinking this and this is just the writers being very SNW about all of it by telling us, "Hey here's where things will probably wind up during the series finale so be ready".

It's bittersweet, all too relatable, and I'm totally going to cry at some point as we take this great journey to the inevitable end together with one another and the whole Lower Decks Crew.

 

[Tuskin38]

Season 2 might have been the first time we saw one way or the other, but I could be wrong. She wears the lab coat a lot of the time.

Maybe it's not naturally that small and she lost part of it?