1x04 Moist Vessel

[8.0/10] Another winner! I like A-, B-, and C-stories here. Each was fun, full of character and humor, and even some neat sci-fi concepts.

The A-story was the real champ here though. It’s a good mother/daughter story with Becket and the Captain. It’s relatable when Mariner proves herself a capable officer who can think through problems and solve them with creativity, but also gets frustrated with her mom second-guessing and micromanaging her. There’s a nicely adolescent sense of “Why can’t you just let me be me?” to the whole thing, from a military brat who doesn't want to be poured into the Starfleet mold.

The way the show dramatizes that is really well done. There’s a great Tom Sawyer-esque energy to Captain Freeman assigning Mariner all the crap jobs in an effort to make her transfer, only for Mariner to find the joy in them. The turn is even better though. There’s something ironically perfect about punishing Mariner by promoting her, and forcing her to deal with all the low-stakes minutiae of the senior officers. It works great as a send-up of The Next Generation-style tropes, and it’s a brilliant way to antagonize Mariner with the thing she likes least -- the life her mother leads.

But that works great for the C-story, which sees Boimler upset that Mariner got the promotion he so desperately wants despite being an inveterate rule-breaker. His faltering attempts to follow her lead at an inopportune time (replete with a Moriarty reference!) got a big laugh out of me, and his fascination with the slightly better food from the officers’ replicators was worth some good chuckles too.

The B-story was very solid as well. Focusing on Ensign Tendi’s nigh-pathological need to be liked creates a good emotional throughline and her overzealous efforts to fix the way the messed up a fellow crewman’s “ascension” makes for a good plot motivator. Her strenuous attempts to force a spiritual awakening are amusing, and the reveal that the crewman didn’t really want to “ascend” but instead just wanted an edge and a gimmick in Starfleet makes for a neat way for them to bond. The emotional resolution in a time of crisis is good storytelling, and the crewman's actual ascension, which is far more horrible than transcendent, is another good riff on some familiar Trek tropes.

Speaking of which, this episode is chock full of good references and bits that play on familiar Trek archetypes. Finding a strange old generational ship with life-making matter on it is classic Trek stuff, and the show plays it to the hilt in terms of animation and drama. We get to see the first Tellarite Starfleet captain that I can recall, which is pretty cool. And references to poker games and spoken word jazz management training and a “United Federation...of Characters!” one man show are all very entertaining tweaks of the franchise’s prior series.

The overall resolution works well too. Mariner and her mom having to work together to save the day once the life-giving shit hits the fan is a nice way to make a breakthrough in their conflict. It gives Mariner the chance to show that while she doesn’t do things the way her mom might prefer, she’s better prepared and better able to handle what comes than Captain Freeman might think. Plus, the way their newfound understanding is undercut by Mariner making fun of an admiral and going back to her earlier (and hilarious) yawning bit is perfect. (The same goes for Tendi seemingly having come to accept that not everyone will like her, only to wrestle Rutheford for info on who might not think she’s swell.)

Overall, Lower Decks is off to such a great start, blending good jokes, strong character-focused storytelling, and entertaining Star Trek references and gags beautifully.