Real Lwaxana vibes this week. Spoilers.
A much stronger and more enjoyable episode. Also, an episode with only two plots rather than three. I’m not saying that there’s cause and effect, but just think about it, writers?
The Billups story was a good example of something Trek-y that could only work in Lower Decks. The Ren Faire society is too ridiculous to work as live action (maybe TOS era?), but it doesn’t feel out of place in this series. The story is all very silly, but it rounds out a background character in a satisfying way. I also enjoyed the meta-joke of the plot line – you have to be a virgin in order to be an engineer.
The Boimler/Mariner story was also good. The crash scene was some incredible animation. And the story trod a delicate line of playing into tropes in order to subvert them. The key to that is not making it too obvious, while still making everyone’s actions appear sensible after the fact. Plus it was fun to see the evil computer trope from a lot of earlier Trek get some time in the sun again. Super-intelligent evil computers can be a lot of fun.
818 down.