Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 5x10 "The New Next Generation"

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::: spoiler Logline
Season finale where lots of wild stuff happens!
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Written by: Mike McMahan

Directed by: Megan Lloyd

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Annotations for 5x10 up at: https://startrek.website/post/17452674

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Spoiler throughout:

Is that an angry bullpup version of the unicorn dog from the Original Series?
I like the Sense-oars pronunciation I spotted.
OMG I should've expected them to address the different Klingon looks but I didn't expect to see a T'kuvma / Discovery era Klingon reappearing. When they said "solidton" particles I imagined it was going to be a metaphor about keeping "canon" stagnant.
First time I see a ST character say "those words aren't real" to Treknobabble.
I'm glad they're keeping the Star Trek tradition of holding up way too many Pads on the table where one should've done the trick.
I never wondered if Klingons had claws for toenails, now I am.
I like how Brad tries to convince others that William's the worst.
How'd they know they were dropping out of warp if the next shot shows them cloaked?
I expected as much with the ship changing. Never really cared much for the different classes of ships though.
This Rutherford bitterness feels like it came out of nowhere.
Those whales are thirsty again.
I thought she was going all Kamehameha.
I have a feeling the clam is a reference to something but I'm not sure what.
IDK why, but that one shot of Boimler turning his head and us being able to see under his chin particularly stood out as a "bump the lamp" moment.
Was there a cut scene, what was (silver?) Badgey doing there? Or was that Goodgey? Have I forgotten about them?
I like how Ransom made his own rule for provisional first officers.
Engage the core is a perfect Warp catchphrase.

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I am very displeased that they left the Rutherford and Tendi relationship hanging.

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Is that an angry bullpup version of the unicorn dog from the Original Series?

I believe it was a jackal mastiff, which hasn't been seen (outside of STO) in quite a long time.

I never wondered if Klingons had claws for toenails, now I am.

We got to see Worf's feet once, and I apologize for the reminder.

Worf's feet from "Ethics". They have a ridge running up the foot from his second toe, and a large protuberance over the outside of the foot.

Or was that Goodgey? Have I forgotten about them?

Goodgey did remain with the crew, and was last seen in episode 5x02.

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As a finale, I think that was satisfying. I'm glad they got the cameos out of their system last week, and primarily focused on the core cast this week.

The main thing that I wanted to see this season - a tie-in with the impending Romulan supernova - didn't come to fruition, but I'm trying not to hold that against them. They've very clearly left themselves a path for continuation in some form, so we'll have to see what comes of it.

Boimler eventually turning away from the alt-universe PADD was an inevitable conclusion, but I like the reason they provided, avoiding the low-hanging fruit of alt-Boims turning out to be a dick or something.

The overall Rutherford arc was less successful. I guess they seeded it previously, but I always just assumed his implant was on the fritz, so it was odd to see him suddenly blaming the ship.

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Loved loved loved the Wrath of Khan style shots of the Cerritos' saucer section, the DIS style Klingons, the ultimate fate of Starbase 80 and Carol along with it. Nice way to wrap it all up with a tribute to the ship's crew, but I'm still so sad it's the end at least for now. Time to hunt down the comics...

hopesdead

The impending supernova doesn’t occur until 2387 and the latest stardate available indicates a year of 2382 (“Fully Dilated”). The synth attack on Mars, which as a reminder was orchestrated by Zhat Vash to stop the evacuation fleet, happened on First Contact Day of 2385. The closest we’ve gotten was PRO, :::which ended season 2 with the attack on Mars occurring in real time.:::

hopesdead

Was this the story I expected? No.

Did I enjoy this? I thought it was awesome.

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One has to dig into the novels for some of this, but Picard took his promotion to oversee the evacuation plans, so in theory, Starfleet already knows about the supernova and is beginning their initial evacuation effort.

The Utopia Planitia fleet was a major project, but evacuations took place even before the fleet was built - Elnor's colony was an evacuee settlement, and Laris and Zhaban stuck with Picard after he rescued them.

I had been hoping that such a major re-evaluation of Starfleet's mission would affect this show, but it was not to be.

hopesdead

Which leads me to think this occurred before any of it. Or at the time they relegated their lower tier ships and starbase to this mission (explaining why we haven’t heard of California-class before). Everyone else is trying to help Romulus. Which of course we know the black hole created didn’t work, thus leaving the Prime Timeline without Spock.

haverholm

This show has been a balm for my worst nerd impulses since episode 1, and I will miss it. As finales go, I think this was damn near perfect, too.

Like others have mentioned, Rutherford's sudden frustration with the Cerritos felt a little off to me, but that's really small fry in the larger picture of
::: spoiler PREVIEW_HERE
a bona fide, stable quantum portal to parallel universes hanging around the Alpha quadrant since 2382!
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Wow, you'd think that would have been brought up even tangentially in Prodigy or chronologically later set shows? It could even feasibly have been used to
::: spoiler PREVIEW_HERE
bring Mirror Giorgiou home to her own universe in Discovery s3.
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But what do I know, it might not be as stable as it looked in this episode...

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I was thinking that it's interesting that crossovers with the Mirror Universe stop completely at some point around the 27th Century. There's a story there.

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What a perfect finale. It really shows what I most loved about Lower Decks. The crew - aside all comedy - is formed by professionals which are capable of working together and advancing beyond their single capabilities. There is no drama or trying to hide important info from each other like in PIC or DIS. This is what I always loved about TNG, DS9 and VOY and it is great to see it still works - even on modern television.

One silly, little joke got me out of nowhere (maybe I was a little bit emotional about the impending end):
Ransom: Mr. Rutherford, a little birdie told me you made some pretty inspired updates to the plasma injectors.
Rutherford: Was it Dr. Migleemo?

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This was a pretty solid episode with some very good jokes (the thing about creating a warp field with one nacelle was fantastic, for example), but I left feeling underwhelmed because of the bizare "the first officer is two LTJGs" thing. Lower Decks has had a shockingly strong track record of not doing things that strike me as immediately stupid, but this is really silly. "Ransom must be pulling another twisted prank, because he's not this bad at his job" level silly. I think it's still better than promoting Tilly to XO, but that's a bar I had hoped this show would remain well clear of and a close shave is disappointing.

I think I understand why they did this: there's no obvious non-specialist XO candidate of an appropriate rank in the main cast (arguably Shax, but he's "only" a LT and does not seem ready for the job), and they didn't want to just trot out a handwave and say they'll be picking up the XO at the next starbase or something. I'd also theorize that they had planned to have two more seasons in which to work Mariner and Boimler into positions where they might actually make sense for an XO billet. But they aren't there yet, and they both know it.

Also, gosh would that alternate universe explorer thing have been useful in DISCO S3. And probably Prodigy too. It's also a dangerous can of worms to open for future stories, because having reliable access to random slightly different universes, apparently at different points in their timelines, is incredibly useful for both anticipating and solving problems in the "prime" universe. There's also cool stuff they can do with it and I'm sure they will, so I'm trying to keep an open mind.

Finally, props to them for coming up with a more plausible reason for our heroes to literally save the universe: because someone connected to them got unwittingly thrown into a position of enormous influence, and deliberately picked them. It's Zeus and company antagonizing Hercules, not Michael Burnham being central to solving five (?) entirely unrelated but galactically significant disasters, apparently by pure chance.

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The overall Rutherford arc was less successful. I guess they seeded it previously, but I always just assumed his implant was on the fritz, so it was odd to see him suddenly blaming the ship.

I am at a loss as to how Rutherford's implant could be flexible enough to function as part of his brain in day-to-day life, and yet somehow be incapable of helping him solve engineering problems on an old ship? Is there some kind of weird DRM installed that prevents it from opening schematics older than a couple years? Or is all the data on California class systems stored in a file format that they latest and greatest starfleet tech can't open? Both of which would be rather colossal failures of Federation computer tech.

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The showrunners said from a very early point that the two would not get together during the shows run, and I get the distinct impression that they actively enjoy trolling shippers. So this is pretty much exactly what I expected, and I'm perfectly happy with it.

(Also, look at Tendi in that last scene, when she gets a scan of Rutherford during a conversation about them being "just friends". She saw something on that Tricorder which she didn't expect, and then when Rutherford gets up and has his back turned, she's clearly checking him out. Draw your own conclusions.)

haverholm

What was ~~Cronenberg~~ Kovich's line about that again? "The Mirror Universe has been drifting away" or some such?

I'm willing to bet the Terran Empire tried some multiversal invasion that exploded in their collective face and blew them across the quantum plane (if that's a thing). The Quantum portal could easily be written into that.

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And yet it endures. Unlike the Terran Empire, which fell centuries ago. Were you aware that the distance between our two universes started expanding sometime after your departure? There hasn't been a single crossing in over 500 years. You didn't know that, did you? You're all alone now.

There's definitely a lot of wiggle room in there.

Dr. Fortyseven

Honestly, for me, the finale covered it enough. It's obvious they like each other. I don't think it needs to be directly confirmed in dialogue for it to be legit.