Lower Decks gets too meta, maybe? Spoilers.
On first impressions, probably the biggest ‘miss’ so far. There’s some reasonable ideas, but it just feels too fragmented, with too many jokes at the expense of character or plot. The Boimler plot for instance – it makes zero sense that he would not immediately go and talk to the person he was told to talk to about fixing the problem. He’s just not that kind of person.
The Tendi/Mariner plot was better, but not by a lot. It’s nice to see them pair up, but it becomes entirely too ‘meta’ and half the story is about the fact that we’ve never seen them pair up before. Plus I wasn’t a fan of the ’secret Orion princess’ storyline – hopefully that’s not something we’ll see much more of.
Finally, and worst of all, the Shaxs plot just isn’t earned. Yeah, people come back from the dead. But within the episode, and with a technobabble explanation. And the idea that it’s a mysterious thing for the lower decks type just doesn’t make sense. And the resolution is way too ‘spiritual’, and needed more technobabble.
And one final hit on the episode – it’s just not hitting the mark in callbacks/fanservice versus plot. The ‘VOY’ joke, the runner on returning from the dead, Nauciscan latinum, Jeffreys Tubes. It’s all just too much,
814 down. According to Startrek.com the 800th episode (not counting movies or ‘The Cage’).