“Ooh, this is the new shuttle with blast shield! Yeeah! It’s a blast shield, it’s a blast shield. And it comes down, and it goes up. Blast shield!”
We’re required to believe (at least in scripted fiction) that there’s always somebody worse off … than you, than others. There’s always a janitor who has to clean the toilets and vacuum the rugs. In Lower Decks, there don’t seem to be any visible crewmen, though we know ships are staffed by crewmen. Officers command those crewmen (the “non-coms” of the Miles O’Brien lexicon). Ensigns are officers. This is why O’Brien could be ordered around by lowly Ensign Nog. Because O’Brien was a “non-com.” He was a high-ranking “non-com,” but he was still a “non-com.” “Non-coms” make up about 80% of a ship’s crew.
I know Voyager played with these conventions by having B’Elanna Torres (who dropped out of Starfleet Academy) outrank Harry Kim as a Lieutenant and, conversely, Harry never being promoted, but what’re you gonna do? We can’t possibly promote Harry. He had sex with an alien hottie and turned a glowing blue! We’d sooner demote Tom Paris and then reinstate his rank within a year, which we did! Stay in your lane, Harry Kim! Now imagine a—I guess—”group” of Harry Kims, all with no hope of advancement or promotion (one of them being the Captain’s daughter) consigned to manual labor; the dirty work shiny bald captains refuse to do, and you have Lower Decks.
In the show’s second episode, “Envoys,” Boimler must come to terms with the fact that he’ll never be as cool as Beckett Mariner. Yes! That’s it. That’s the episode. Girls rock-guys suck! Now hear this! From this point going forward (or possibly 2017 when Santa Clarita Diet was released) all straight white male characters are to be portrayed as, described in the current vernacular, “buffoons.” Buffoon is defined as “a ridiculous but amusing person; a clown.” Conversely, all female characters are to be portrayed as confident, strong, and unbelievably brave. All female characters are to be given positions of power and authority over all male characters. The message must be clear: being a woman is cool and being a man is stupid. Okay. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s make a television show!
Boimler is selected to escort Klingon general Korin to Tulgana IV, so naturally Mariner tags along because (of course) she and the general are old friends. With Boimler pointing out how she would be too young to have so many undocumented exploits, the show’s writers are winking at us that we’re not supposed to be taking any of this seriously. Korin takes off shortly after arriving on the planet and Boimler and Mariner are tasked with retrieving him. Meanwhile, the part-cybernetic Sam Rutherford grows to hate Engineering and decides to switch to Command. I didn’t know you could do that, but then again I didn’t know Troi could switch from being a glorified analyst to command either, so that’s pretty much my bad (psst: she can’t).
Anyway, Rutherford fails his simulation, killing 105% (huh?) of the crew. Again, the inconsistency is pointed out, but again the writers wink at us. They’re so cute! Rutherford transfers to sickbay but that doesn’t go so well either. He excels in security during a tactical simulation against the Borg as a result of his cybernetic implants, and he gets the job, but apparently, he doesn’t want to work in Security. He wants to go back to Engineering. My God, what a Fussy-Britches! Boimler and Mariner finally find Korin and beam his drunken carcass back to the Cerritos. So I’m sensing a pattern here. Boimler screws up as he goes by-the-book and Mariner saves his hash with her wild, unorthodox approach. In a few years we’ll all look back on this and laugh … or cry. I don’t know which.
Star Trek Rewind explores the Star Trek universe. From Archer to Janeway, Kirk to Picard, and Georgiou to Sisko — boldly read what no one has read before!
