Spoilers Star Trek: Lower Decks 5x08 - "Upper Decks"

[aquova]

I'm going to be honest, I really did not like this episode. I honestly don't care for the first season or two of LD, as I felt they had largely superficial episodes just parodying Star Trek elements rather than doing anything unique of its own. The show has gotten a lot better with its writing in the later seasons, but this episode felt like it was a season 1 script they found lying around. Some of the plots were alright, but T'Ana and Ransom felt like they just reverted to their basic caricatures (although T'Ana isn't much different on a good day).

 

[Turtletrekker]

"Boom."

I love T'Lynn.

 

[eschaton]

This episode didn't do it for me at all. The concept was a good one, but the actual execution left a lot to desire.

The episode begins and ends with a framing mechanism, where the lower deckers all but break the fourth wall and directly say "It's weird how we get in all the crazy adventures, and not the command staff." First off, that's demonstrably untrue. Earlier seasons made reference to the adventures the command staff were having. Sometimes a command staff member (often Ransom) would be directly involved with an episode's weirdness. Not to mention earlier episodes which didn't focus on the main cast, like Wej Duj and A Mathematically Perfect Redemption didn't bother with the framing device. Ultimately this just feels like an excuse to ensure the main cast stayed in the credits (and got a paycheck) for the week.

We then get into the actual adventures of the upper deckers (Freeman, Ransom, T'Ana, Shax, and Billups). For 2/3rds of the episode's runtime, these were just random vignettes. The "plot" such as it was didn't really come into focus until Freeman discovered that the visiting scientist was actually a Clicket in disguise. Even then, it didn't work well. Shax and T'Ana are only "involved" in the resolution of the ship's invasion in the most tenuous way, and the warp core almost exploding on Billups was a completely unrelated crisis that just happened simultaneously.

I did like how each of the "subplots" (if you can call them that) were firmly rooted in the characterizations of the five senior officers. That said in a classic Star Trek episode, there would be one or two of these plots stretched across an hour, which would allow us to find out something new about the characters. This is five subplots across 20-some minutes. It's ridiculously fast-paced, and tells us nothing except giving the general impression that wacky shit happens on the Cerritos all the time. Which we already knew.

As a result, I think this is one of the worst episodes of Lower Decks. Normally, there's wacky hijinks, but a focus on 1-2 characters who get to have a coherent character arc. Here it's very clearly set up as "just another day." The episode doesn't take this seriously, and neither should we.

And it's not really funny either.

**sigh**

 

[Tuskin38]

This episode was fun and hilarious.

Clickets! They appeared once before in the episode Veritas in season 1

 

[Hawku]

"This is how all engineers want to go. At work, in a tube."

 

[Captain Shaw]

 

[Fateor]

This might be an unpopular opinion, but this episode felt like filler to me

When dealing with an episodic series they're called character episodes not filler.

 

[Jag2112]

Screencaps gallery now online:

Star Trek: Lower Decks Screencaps "Upper Decks" (S5:E8)

Cygnus-X1.Net: A Tribute to Star Trek

www.cygnus-x1.net

 

[F. King Daniel]

I enjoyed this a lot. The rocks getting an in-universe reason for existing.

"That was set to kill!"

"So am I!!!"

Is Dr. T'ana ridiculous in terms of pain tolerance or what?
I think she's in the wrong field, she should be in tactical with that kind of ability to withstand pain.

She's kinky as hell and loves it.

 

[eschaton]

When dealing with an episodic series they're called character episodes not filler.

I don't think you can call a 22-minute episode which tries to balance five different members of the command crew a "character episode."

 

[Nerys Myk]

I don't think you can call a 22-minute episode which tries to balance five different members of the command crew a "character episode."

Characters then

 

[Charles Phipps]

The answer to that is no. We saw Boimler and Mariner in live action, and they acted very little like their animated counterparts. Think of LDS as a factionalized version of what is actually going on in real life.

By very little, do you mean exactly?

 

[Dukhat]

See, and now I thought they were almost exactly like their animated counterparts, perhaps just turned down a notch.

Could you see T'ana beating the shit out of Boimler if it was live-action?

By very little, what do you mean exactly?

See above.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Could you see T'ana beating the shit out of Boimler if it was live-action?

I'd pay good money for it.

 

[Dukhat]

I'd pay good money for it.

I'll inform Paramount+.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I'll inform Paramount+.

They know

 

[Turtletrekker]

I'd pay good money for it.

Same.

 

[Redfern]

Could you see T'ana ... if it was live-action?

Yes, yes! A thousand times"yes"!!!

Okay, a bit dialed back now, when asked about a live-action version of the character, Gillian Vigman said, "...I would absolutely sit through five or six hours of prosthetics, just to be in live-action playing a version of Dr. T’Ana. It would be a freaking joy..."

Vigman's quote come from this interview:

Seeing what was achieved with the CatKind in Doctor Who's "New Earth" and "Gridlock", particularly Novice Hame, I can see CBS/Paramount doing it as well.

 

[James Cole]

Worst episode of the season. A major missed opportunity.

I appreciate that going in they didn't know this would be their last season, but they really should've been treating everything after season 3 as a potential last season -- minus a finale. If they ended up getting a renewal, "... and then" it and keep upping their game. Instead it feels like they're just running on fumes limping to the finish line for the most part. Maybe Mike McMahan's attention was divided between multiple projects and didn't get a chance to punch up each episode?

 

[Dukhat]

Yes, yes! A thousand times"yes"!!!

Okay, a bit dialed back now, when asked about a live-action version of the character, Gillian Vigman said, "...I would absolutely sit through five or six hours of prosthetics, just to be in live-action playing a version of Dr. T’Ana. It would be a freaking joy..."

Vigman's quote come from this interview:

Seeing what was achieved with the CatKind in Doctor Who's "New Earth" and "Gridlock", particularly Novice Hame, I can see CBS/Paramount doing it as well.

But that's not what I asked. I asked if you could see her beating the shit out of Boimler in live-action. Because I can't, at least not without a lot of CGI of Jack Quaid being smacked about the walls with blood and cuts all over his body, and T'ana not even remotely being reprimanded for unprofessional behavior for striking another officer.