“You always speak freely. Nobody can stop you from speaking freely!”

The unfunny will now commence. It’s talent night on the Cerritos. Boimler (Jack Quaid) tries his hand at folk violin, but Mariner (Tawny Newsome) and D’Vana (Noël Wells) crash the stage with a guitar and drums performing some thrash metal for the sparse attendees. The noise travels through space (huh?) and angers Klingons. It seems to me Klingons would appreciate thrash, but whatever. After they finish their opus, Mariner drops the mike and exits. As usual, Boimler gets the blame for the noise and his violin is smashed. HUMOR! Roll titles.

I guess Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) is angry. Everywhere she goes she sees her crew slacking off. Everybody around her keeps muttering about “buffer time,” so she corners Boimler in the turbo-lift to get his definition. It turns out these officers are pulling the wool over Freeman’s eyes by claiming their routine maintenance and repairs will take significantly longer to complete than estimated so that they can … I don’t know, drink margaritas and goof off?

She retaliates by putting everybody through drills and simulations. Mariner accompanies First Officer Ransom (Jerry O’Connell) and the shuttle party to a primitive planet to offer a gift in a box. The gift was supposed to be a crystal, but instead, it’s a block of wood, which the natives take as an act of war. They take the landing party captive, but because the captain’s drills have fatigued the crew, they are completely unprepared for a space attack and invasion of these so-called “primitives.”

I don’t understand how they can be so “primitive” with their spears and prisons with bars made of tree branches, yet they have immensely powerful battleships at their disposal. Did I miss something? At least Boimler gets in a few good digs when Freeman tries to reprimand him. She winds up doing everybody’s job on the bridge and drives herself to the point of exhaustion. Meanwhile Mariner lectures her commanding officer on personal responsibility as opposed to following protocol. Ransom agrees and stabs Mariner in the foot with a sword! What?

He rips off his shirt, exposing his obvious dad-bod (but with a ripped six-pack?), and engages in mortal combat with one of the opposing side’s warriors in an arena. God, this is terrible! As the “primitives” invade the bridge, Boimler gives Captain Freeman a pep talk. Again, what? This is a joke, right? This isn’t Star Trek, right? Freeman encourages the crew to go nuts and do whatever they have to do to suppress the invasion. Ransom defeats the guy four times his size and makes him admits that he loves to read and that he isn’t some big macho stud. I don’t get this. This is madness.

I was going to go into the origins of the ship name “Cerritos,” but this episode is so terrible (and unfunny), I guess I’ll save it for the next episode. Because Mariner is so awesome, she doesn’t report Ransom for the stabbing incident. Because Ransom is such a douche, he sends her to brig for rolling up her sleeves. Freeman is so impressed with Boimler’s acumen, she, somewhat officially, coins the term, “The Boimler Effect,” but history, of course, reinterprets this to mean Boimler was the laziest, most irresponsible crewman in the history of Starfleet Command. This episode was about as funny as a train wreck.

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