It seems to be a Lower Decks tradition that every season must have a simulation episode where a lot of past Star Trek references are played with while our characters learn something about it. Last season’s brilliant penultimate episode “Crisis Point” had a field day with Trek movie tropes as Mariner gave herself some much-needed self-therapy, and now “I, Excretus” is pulling out all the stops with Trek episode references as everyone joins in on the fun of self-exploration.
But before we get to the simulations, we’re treated to a hilarious opening that saw our ensigns stranded as the Cerritos warped off to answer a distress call. Six hours and four unamused ensigns later, it seemed like we had our story theme of the week, that the higher-ranked bridge crew perhaps doesn’t appreciate the folks on the lower end of the totem pole. A story theme about appreciation and teamwork is fitting for Lower Decks to explore, but as usual with this show, there’s always a little more than meets the eye.
In a fun callback to the Animated Series, we meet Pandronian drill instructor Shari Yen Yem, a species that can separate various body parts from each other, who is here on the Cerritos to test the fitness of this crew. But a little twist in the training simulations is that the ensigns will get to play the bridge crew and the bridge crew will take on lower deckers’ duties. Both groups feel very confident about their success in doing each other’s works, but that soon proved to be their downfall.
Mariner fails survival in the mirror universe, gets trampled by a horse in a western simulation, and even airlocks herself out of the ship rather than dealing with a “Naked Time” scenario. There’s something funny watching the normally resourceful Mariner failing at something that you’d think is her forte. But perhaps that’s the first sign that there’s something not right with the simulations even before we find out the twist that the drill instructor wanted everyone to fail on purpose. Mariner runs into perimeters in the simulations that don’t allow her to engage in her usual outside-of-the-box thinking, and that often leads to her failure.
Tendi finds herself in a medical ethics situation reminiscent of Worf asking for death in TNG, which hilariously keep docking her points for trying to end a Klingon patient’s life in a nicer way than the program just won’t accept. We see Tendi’s good heart and compassion on display, but she’s still hasn’t quite gathered the kind of assertiveness that she will need one day as Chief Medical Officer. She’s well-meaning but still ends up being pushed aside by some funnily dressed sick bay personnel who beat her Klingon patient to death. Hopefully, this simulation teaches Tendi some of the qualities she still needs to hone in, after all, she recognizes that Dr. T’Ana’s job is more difficult than she realizes.
Someone else who’s also recognizing the difficult job of their higher rank peers is Rutherford as he’s put into a Wrath of Khan scenario where Spock saved the ship. But who knew getting into a door with a hot handle was going to be the obstacle that Rutherford couldn’t get past? And by the time he put his boots on his hands to open the door, the ship has gone kaboom! Why he didn’t find a pair of gloves is beyond me, but then again, it seems good OSHA teachings has always been lacking in Starfleet so I can’t even say this is Rutherford’s fault.
Meanwhile, the bridge crew is put into the situation of the lower deckers, which at first seem simple and easy, a freeing feeling from any responsibility. Until they realized that folks in the lower end of the rankings don’t always get the full picture that would allow them to help, and they were stuck stacking crates together while the ship seemed to be in chaos dealing with a crisis.
Speaking of crates, I applaud Shaxs for calling out the questionable designs of the crates because yes, why make them that horrible shape if they wanted them to be stacked! And more than that, why are they always so unsecured? Are starships unable to produce ropes? Are we running a low supply of duct tape? What is exactly going on with Starfleet that basic OSHA considerations simply never happen? Just how many unnecessary injuries caused by unsecured flying crates and barrels do they want?
Last week I forgot to call out the fact that Mariner wouldn’t have broken her arm if the shuttles just had basic seatbelt functions, and now I must call out the horrendous design choices of Starfleet for cargo bays. It’s just not safe! Why is it that an organization full of SCIENTISTS whom I assume to be highly intelligent, continuously ignore the very basics of OSHA guidelines? Did we lose OSHA in the world wars or something? Is this Khan’s fault? Did he disband OSHA? One day, I would like Starfleet to answer for its sins of OSHA violations.
Anyways, while everyone else is failing at their simulations, Boimler is made for this. Being the book-smart person that he is, he likely would have studied for these kinds of drills and know all the ins and outs of beating a program, and we watch him thrive in playing by the rules where others fail. We also see his perfectionism on display as he repeats his Borg Encounter simulation, again and again, to try to get to a perfect 100 per cent. Though in the end, Boimler’s perfectionism does end up helping to save the day.
It’s been a really great journey this season to see Boimler grow and succeed and be more confident in his own skills. Watching him kick ass in the simulations and carrying an increasing amount of Borg babies all the while having somehow taught the Borg Queen empathy got a hearty laugh out of me. Though that wasn’t as loud as the scream that emanated from my throat as I recognized Alice Krige’s voice as the Borg Queen. It’s safe to say her Borg Queen voice has haunted me since I was a kid watching First Contact and I love it!
Eventually, Mariner and Freeman figure out that this is an exercise to get higher and lower ranked crewmembers to understand each other and encourage teamwork, as that fits the theme set up from the beginning of the episode, but that’s flipped on its head when the drill instructor reveals this is solely about saving her job. Because the other ship crews were passing her tests with flying colors, it made her seem unneeded, so she targeted the Cerritos, a ship that nobody supposedly cares about, to fail them to prove that her programs are important. This gets on Mariner and Freeman’s nerves and with Boimler still in the simulations so the instructor can’t send out a final score to fail them, the crew jumps into some crazy real-life situations to scare the drill instructor into changing her mind.
What this ends up showing is that this crew, higher and lower-ranked officers, all really do work well together. And when not bounded by arbitrary perimeters of a simulation, their ingenuity helps them to survive and live another day. The drill instructor may have had a nefarious plot, but she ends up bringing this crew closer even more, with the senior officers giving the ensigns a new replicator with better meal codes.
The crew, barring a few, took a little bit of a humbling in the simulations but they came out with important lessons learned about themselves and each other, which again is the strength of Lower Decks as a show. Despite the naysayers finding ridiculous things to feel outraged about, what Lower Decks always excelled at is subverting expectations and allowing characters to take centre stage in showing their growths.
And maybe, just maybe, I can even forgive them for not having seatbelts on the bridge for the sole reason of the satisfaction I experienced seeing that Pandronian drill instructor bounces around the bridge. She deserved it…
