Star Trek: Lower Decks: Season 5 (Final Season)

I love that Jennifer was just messing with Mariner.

Huh. Another Denobulon in the 24th Century time period.

I like T'Lyn's very reserved version of fandom.

Fun episode. 3 1/2 stars.

That was Klingon as hell!

I love Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. and sometimes like Star Trek: Discovery, but both of those shows' biggest failing is that the Klingons there suck. In Discovery's case they are literal irredeemable monsters, but even the classic "Turtle Heads" on Strange New Worlds, are wearing the wrong make-up for the era. And the Klingons are always irredeemable bastards on both shows. And I get that's how they were perceived in Kirk's time. But it's fucking boring as shit.

This show and to a lesser extent Star Trek: Picard and its reintroduction of Worf, bring back the best aspects of the Klingons from The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. Their culture is interesting and cool! And I fucking LOVE seeing an extended scene at the beginning of Klingon civilian life. We never get that. And this show is awesome because its flexible premise ALLOWS it. Good deal.

Boimler's reactions were great, but Mariner was absolutely slaying it. I love it whenever Klingons get flustered by "Weird" humans, and Mariner is definitely the weirdest human we've seen put in these scenarios. I like her telling the guy who was repeatedly calling her friend weak, after she learned the friend killed his brother, that means his brother must have sucked.

Normally a human speaking that way to a Klingon is a death sentence. And yet the fact that Mariner is clearly using it as trash talk flusters the guy into a defensiveness he actually shouldn't need to explain to a human. And I love it when Star Trek shows Klingons freaking out around humans who don't "Fit The Profile". There was similar dynamic with Jadzia Dax, but she was Trill, not human, and respected to boot. Mariner coming out of nowhere to get under this guy's skin by giving him the business is "brutes" as the kids say.

It was an interesting space hole! That's all the reason Mariner needs to risk her life.

I can't spell the bird guy's name but I didn't like his species, thought they were a species of turds, and think whenever Star Trek shows a species of a crew member for the first time acting like THAT, it's a tiresome bore. I thought the whole thing was tedious that he was so desperate to get approval from these obvious shitheels. Who can't even tell they're eating shit.

But I'm gonna pretend that stuff happened in a different episode and give this five stars for the raw Klingon Homeworld stuff. 5 stars.

Fun Fact: Stephen Root played a Klingon Captain on the Star Trek: The Next Generation two-parter "Unification" in the early 1990's.

Scrappy underdogs or not, I think Mariner had it right the first time that the base sucked.

Making fun of the gel stuff from Enterprise. Worst aspect of Star Trek of all time.

A young El Aurien is just a person. Good observation. True statement.

Of course she's observant (species of Listeners). I note she's the only other El Aurien we've met besides Guinan who is worth a damn. Martus and ESPECIALLY Tolian Soran were pure monsters and made that species look bad.

Love the doctor with the only half-cured Tarchannen virus. Yes, it's noticeable.

It was a pretty good week. 3 1/2 stars.

I thought Squaran was pretty cute, but I wasn't digging the rest of the episode.

The "mystery" was predictable, and Olly is kind of annoying. It's sort of cool to bring back the Demigods from The Original Series, but "Who Mourns For Adonis?" is a pretty shitty episode.

I'm wondering how the fuck T'Ana ever became a doctor.

This was very well-received among fans but it left me a bit cold. 2 1/2 stars.

I love that they got Brent Spiner back as Purple Data. Spiner is often selective in when he chooses to do Star Trek, and it seems his stint on Star Trek: Picard has loosened him up a bit there. Also Lower Decks has a good reputation, and he might actually like the show.

I loved him saying he's seen Worf chew out ropes before.

Fun Fact: Spiner played The Purple Man on The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Coincidence? Definitely.

Tendi and T'Lyn are so sweet together. I love that T'Lyn was never in competition and was trying to bond with Tendi the whole time. That makes sense and also explains why they were using Tendi for the viewpoint character for that specific plotline. Also they're now rich!

I love Purple Data! 4 1/2 stars.

As I watched the teaser I was like, "They should have done this premise LONG ago."

And yet after seeing the episode, I get why they didn't. Hell, they probably still shouldn't have.

It's not just that the bridge crew can't carry an episode (although they can't.) But the subversive Star Trek nonsense is funnier if it's related after the fact by the Lower Decks crew. Actually seeing the silliness in action I think hurts the franchise a bit.

Star Trek: Lower Decks is cool because it's always saying Star Trek is silly and lame. But saying it is one thing. Showing it and proving it is another. It's too far and it's why the episode doesn't work.

Only two episodes left, and this season hasn't had much of an arc going for it. I'm disappointed in the last season. Here's hoping for a surprise and for the series to bring it home in the end. I am currently skeptical of that. We'll see. 2 1/2 stars.

This is an amazing episode with SO much fan-bait. I'll give it a perfect five stars. But it DID do something majorly wrong. I won't penalize the final grade for it. But it must be discussed.

Let's talk about the SO much good first. All of the Star Trek characters! Jolene Blalock apparently just goes by Jolene now. I don't question the logic of T'Pol being alive. But 200 years later means she should be MUCH older than she is. I appreciated her appearance because I know Jolene fucking HATED Enterprise. She was a old-school Star Trek fangirl and she thought every inch of the show she was actually on sucked ass. And she was Goddamned right! I don't give a SHIT how much crap you talk about Star Trek: Discovery. On its worst day it was never as appalling as Star Trek: Enterprise on its best.

To put T'Pol in a continuity where her and Trip got married, and "These Are The Voyages...", not just the worst series finale in Star Trek history, but one of the worst series finales in TV history, never happened, is doing right by an actress who loved the franchise, but suffered by the fact that Rick Berman and Brannon Braga were the absolute WRONG Stewards of Star Trek when Enterprise was created. She deserved better, and because of this episode, she finally got it.

Lily Sloane was a pleasant surprise, only because her last name is FINALLY made canon. It's kind of ridiculous it never was in Star Trek: First Contact, considering how important to history she was. For the record, in that movie, Picard ought to have recognized her too. While we are comparing faults of the Berman-era of Star Trek.

Speaking of which, the fact that Garak was gay on Deep Space Nine, and it was not only never brought up, but never explored, was one of showrunner Ira Steven-Behr's biggest professional regrets. In a franchise about futurism and the progression of humanity, Rick Berman was shockingly gutless when it came to the inclusion of gay characters. The word they'd use today for the rare sex-same romances explored with the "But totally not gay" asterisk next to each plot synopsis of that era is "problematic". And exploring a romance between Bashir and Garak would have not only been juicy, but explained a LOT about the tension in their friendship and personal chemistry. One of the producers in the documentary "What We Left Behind: Looking Back At Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" tried to comfort Behr with the sobering question "Would Paramount (read: Berman) have even allowed that?" And Behr, because he is a great storyteller, dismissed that as an excuse entirely. "Probably not. But we didn't even ask. That's a failing."

And you might say "Well, it's easy to turn Garak and Bashir gay in a different Universe that has no consequences for our own," but the value of doing it is proving it COULD have happened in our Universe under difference circumstance. The 'shippers there who saw that were NOT crazy. They never were.

God, listening to Alexander Siddig and Andrew Robinson banter again 25 years later is the TV treat I never even realized HOW much I missed until I finally got it again. Garak says he's arguing because it's fun. And regardless of the fact that Bashir doesn't think it is, that is consistent for Garak in ANY Universe. Probably the only more fun thing for Elim Garak than debate is lying. And I missed him. And I will go to my grave saying out of ALL of the Star Trek TV shows and movies that ever existed, Garak was hands-down the best character. Most Star Trek fans who only watched Next Gen or TOS, or just dipped in and out of DS9, would NEVER believe that but I think my opinion is probably pretty common for most people who have seen every episode of Deep Space Nine. It's the best kept secret in Star Trek. The best Star Trek show of all time, and SO many Trekkies have never even seen it. It's bugfuck crazy to me that the far inferior Next Generation was considered the prestige sci-fi show of the era when at least two of its seven seasons were outright shitty. Despite a first season that took too few risks, DS9 was otherwise great nearly the entire way through.

Last compliment goes to Garrett Wang for his return at Harry Kim. I think it took a LOT of self-deprecating courage for Wang to come back. Not only is Kim portrayed as a bigger punchline than he EVER was (and he was already infamously the most notable Star Trek character who was NEVER promoted from ensign). But I'd be resentful of the role were I Wang because for some weird reason, it destroyed his career. For most cast members of the first four live-action Star Trek sequel / prequel series Star Trek ended their careers. For no damn reason. For some insane nonsensical reason they were supposedly "Typecast" and Hollywood didn't want them for any other future roles. The thing that's absolutely bugshit about this happening in that era of Hollywood, is like, I don't ever see Voyager and say, "God, that Harry Kim is such a one-of-a-kind memorable character that nobody but Wang could play him." He's not memorable at all, and Star Trek: Voyager was not the juggernaut The Next Generation was. There was absolutely NO goddam reason for his career to be over because of Star Trek. None. It was completely stupid and always was. That doesn't happen to Star Trek actors from the Kurtzman-era, thank God. It's ridiculous.

Now to talk about the bad thing. This is the penultimate episode of the entire series. I'm sorry but as great as it was, it needed to focus on the Lower Decks guys from OUR Universe. It's the second-to-last episode EVER! We need to spend these last two weeks saying goodbye to our guys. As a fangasm episode, it's tops. As the first part of a two-part series finale? It's focused on the wrong characters entirely.

But again, I won't penalize the final grade for it. 5 stars.

It's a good episode. A series finale? Lacking. And considering how this season hasn't really had a great arc to its name, it's not surprising.

I get the producers didn't want to stop, and they are keeping things open-ended in case Paramount+ decides to relaunch the show in the near-future (and I can't imagine they won't at some point). But there are certain expectations for series finales. Either we get closure (see Deep Space Nine, Discovery, and Picard) or they are amazing (see The Next Generation, and uh, DS9 and Picard). I thought the ship battle effects were well-animated and the CGI visuals are beautiful. But Rutherford and Tendi are still not a thing, Boimler and Mariner having that stupid co-first officer thing resolves nothing, and they set up this new Final Frontier of exploring the Multiverse without us actually seeing that. It's less disappointing than Voyager making it home in literally the last scene of that show, where we saw ZERO fall-out from that, but it's disappointing for the same reasons.

I like that M'Lar loves human food. This is a good facet to give a Klingon. Human food is delicious. And Klingons LOVE to eat and always have. It makes sense the sweet and saltiness of it would be a big selling point for many Klingon palates.

It's weird one of the alternate Klingon realities used the horrible blue Discovery monster make-up. It doesn't actually explain it. But acknowledging the problem exists is actually a positive thing for the franchise.

I didn't precisely love Discovery's last episode either. But it delivered the Closure Goods. And since I didn't love this episode, no Closure Goods makes it a failure on some level. 3 1/2 stars.