Spoilers for Below Decks, “Fissure Quest.”
it turns out that you can have your cake and eat it.
The penultimate episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks It's a box-ticking exercise for the show's creative team. It does the hard work of setting the table and raising the stakes for next week's series finale. But it's also the show's last chance, for now, to squeeze a joke or two out of all those Extremely Online Trek in-jokes. It's fortunate that while the episode is a bit thin, the things being thrown at the wall are charming enough that it doesn't matter.
For the second week in a row, we'll take the focus off the main quintet to catch up with William Boimler. (That, if your memory is not very sharp, is Bomiler's transporter clone, last seen faking his death to join Section 31.) He is now the captain of the USS Anaximander on a secret mission to close the interdimensional rifts the program has been finding. the whole season.
Boimler, the avatar of a Star Trek fan on the show, has been collecting lost canon figures during dimension jumps. Their team includes T'Pol, Garak, and an EMH version of Dr. Bashir, all played by their original actors. And yes, Garak and Dr. Bashir are a married couple in this universe, because of course the show has to accept that. Piece of fan lore that launched a thousand pieces of slash fiction.
The ship takes an escape pod with Lieutenant Harry Kim inside, who discovers that most of the rest of the crew are also Harries Kim. He is the only one who has been promoted above the rank of ensign, referencing the rumor that veteran series boss Rick Berman said someone had to be the lowest-ranking member of the team. And/or as punishment for colliding with the production team, .
They soon encounter a Mariner from the alternate universe who, unlike our version, is a timid engineer. She, however, has found a way to track the ship that is punching holes in the fabric of the universe. Then the Anaximander sets a trap, only to reveal that it is an old Enterprise-class ship called the Beagle. It is an exploration ship with a human and Vulcan crew, led by Lily Sloane.
Sloane isn't trying to tear up the universe, his universe just discovered pre-warp interdimensional travel. They have been jumping between universes exploring strangely similar worlds, the same life and civilizations with boldness…examining the differences. It's a mission statement that infuriates Boimler, who has gorged himself on fanservice and is now looking for something, anything new to cleanse his palate.
Naturally, this is Lower covers nodding to his biggest flaw, given his reverence for '90s-era Trek. I've always found it quite successful to sway and move simply milking the audience's “member berries.” But that doesn't mean I'm not at least complicit in the concept of serving the same old garbage, over and over again.
Sloane disagrees and says his team seeks to explore the ways people grow and evolve in different environments. She says she has met several different Boimlers, all of whom have their own Mariner, as their connection endures across universes. And that exploration is not just about exploring what is beyond us but about finding the truth within us. That's a journey that can be as dangerous and rewarding as traveling to the farthest reaches of the universe.
Kim, outraged by the stalled careers of his namesakes, steals the Beagle with plans to return to his own dimension. The Anaximander pursues him, and while the other Kims mutiny and return, the Beagle manages to make a jump but explodes in the process. That sends out a huge wave of energy that will wipe out all existing universes unless it is dropped in one place. Fortunately, Boimler knows where to send him: to his twin transporter and the Cerritos crew.
See you next week for the finale.
