'Star Trek: Lower Decks' Episode 7 Review: Mariner meets an old friend that again questions her career choices
Spoilers for 'Star Trek: Lower Decks' Season 1 Episode 7 'Much Ado About Boimler'
There can be a lot of pressure on a comedy show, especially an animated one that has comedy built right into its premise, to be as funny as possible as often as possible. Comedy is hard enough, but that pressure to fill every joke with as much humor as can be crammed in can turn out to be more annoying than anything else when it's not done right.
'Star Trek: Lower Decks' doesn't appear to feel that pressure, however, as this episode proves that even when comedy isn't the show's top priority, it can still churn out an entertaining episode worthy of a live-action episode.
The A-plot of this episode sees a replacement Captain, Amina Ramsey (Toks Olagundoye) take charge of the USS Cerritos while the Upper Deck crew is on a special ops mission (hilariously prestigious for Captain Carol Freeman, voiced by Dawnn Lewis, despite being a simple mission to plant a seed). It turns out that Amina and Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) are old friends and classmates, and there's no one Amina wants by her side more than Mariner herself.
Mariner is promoted to temporary First Officer — and as we've seen before, that's not the kind of thing that Mariner is entirely comfortable with. In fact, the last time that Mariner was promoted, it was specifically as a punishment meant to be so extreme it would get Mariner to quit. Mariner's clumsiness at first looks to be like nervousness about her position before it's revealed that she was messing up on purpose to ensure that Amina would not somehow give Mariner a higher-level position.
It's an interesting contrast — where Mariner's distaste for more responsibility was played off as a daughter's rebellion when it was against Captain Freeman. When it's played off against a peer like Amina, it really underlines just how deep Mariner's compulsiveness goes.
Seeing a former classmate of Mariner's rise to a captain's position while Mariner remains on the lower decks really drives home the point that Mariner could easily be one of Starfleet's best Captains, and underlines the biggest question: why isn't she? There is obviously more going on than a simple fear of responsibility — but that's a mystery that's being left for later.
In the meantime, the show shifts from Mariner's screwups to a high-pressure adventure regarding an energy being consuming what's left of another ship — with the crew still trapped inside. It's a pure sci-fi adventure, and while humor isn't gone entirely, none of it undercuts the stakes. It turns out that 'Lower Decks' is capable of balancing straight adventure with humor — at least with this episode.
The B-plot is a fun and bizarre exploration of what happens to those who suffer from the many strange misfortunes that can happen in the course of a 'Star Trek' adventure. From Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) being stuck in phase form to D'Vana Tendi's (Noël Wells) utterly horrific "regular" dog and a man aging backward and forward at the same time, they're all placed in a ship full of oddities. Being taken aboard by the ominous Division 14 turns out to have its patients' best interests at heart after all. It's a fun side-story that continues the show's fascination with the more unexplained parts of the 'Star Trek' universe.
'Lower Decks' has all the ups and downs expected of the first season, but it is carving out a solid identity for itself amid a wealth of similar comedic animated shows. It's got the kind of limits that other animated series do not but is stronger for them, able to focus on story and character more than an endless series of gags. While there will no doubt be funnier episodes, it's good to know that the show doesn't always have to be funny in order to be good.
The next episode of 'Star Trek: Lower Decks' airs on September 24 on CBS All Access.
