I’m almost speechless over how good this episode is. I remembered it as fantastic, and I went into the re-watch prior to writing this review fully expecting to give it five stars—and still, I found it to actually be better than I had remembered. It’s as though the writers took a little vacation from the mediocrity that characterized most of season seven, cocked their eyes at the handful of best-in-season-to-date episodes, and went, “Oh, yeah? Well, I think we can do much better than that.” And then they did! “Lower Decks” begins with a charmingly fresh premise, takes it in several intriguing directions all at once, and ultimately winds up packing an altogether unexpected emotional gut punch in its final act. Along the way, it pretty much nails every single scene. Its complex narrative structure feels like it shouldn’t even be able to fit within the confines of a single episode, and yet it delivers on everything that its setup seems to promise, and leaves the audience fully satisfied (if also sobbing with heartache). Just an absolutely amazing piece of work.
So, for starters: The basic “Lower Decks” concept of focusing an episode on the experiences of a small group of junior officers aboard the Enterprise is absolutely brilliant. I’ve talked before about how much I love it when Trek finds time to delve a little deeper than usual into what it’s actually like to live and work, day after day, on a starship. “Lower Decks” represents a novel and super-fun window into exactly that, but in a way that simultaneously expands the boundaries of what the show normally is—because it specifically invites us to imagine what life aboard the Enterprise is like for the otherwise nameless functionaries working under the regular characters. Here are four people who interact with “our heroes” every day, but don’t see them like we see them. To these four, Riker, Worf, Geordi, and Dr. Crusher are bosses, whose reactions aren’t always predictable and whose motives aren’t always easy to discern, and about whom their subordinates engage in the same kind of grousing that people everywhere direct at those in charge of them. This offers a fresh point of view on the regular characters, who inevitably come across as somewhat less approachable, and perhaps a bit more…whim-governed, than they usually seem to us (yet without actually being characterized any differently). But even better, the episode is structured around crew evaluations, and has the junior officers angling for promotions that it is up to the regulars to bestow—a setup that provides characterization opportunities for both the junior officers and the regulars. To a large extent, this aspect of the episode is kind of a coming of age story in which the doubts and resentments that the junior officers harbor toward their superiors, while being shown to have a degree of legitimacy, nevertheless give way to a greater appreciation of the complexities faced by the senior staff, who, for their part, acquit themselves pretty well in their supervisory/mentorship roles. (I mean, the show was hardly about to shit all over its main characters by depicting them as terrible bosses or anything). So, Geordi proves to be open to Taurik’s ideas after all, and Riker isn’t as hypercritical (and devoid of personality) as Lavelle imagines him to be. (The Ogawa/Crusher bits don’t have as much “story” to them, but thanks to the former’s four-plus years of history as a minor character working with the doctor in sickbay, the warmth between them does at least feel earned.) To the episode’s credit, though, it does depict Riker, in particular, as less than perfect, putting him through a mini-arc involving stepping back from judging Lavelle too harshly. (I usually emphasize that TNG stories should actually center on the show’s main characters, and am critical of episodes where this doesn’t happen. This episode, up to a point, is a case study in how to break this rule effectively, but one of several reasons why it works is that, despite the focus on the “lower decks” characters, it still manages to also be “about” a couple of the regulars in a meaningful way.) The way the episode establishes parallels between Riker and Lavelle (whose reservations about each other are born of tensions around the superior-subordinate relationship, sure, but are also very much about their similarities, and about seeing their own potentially cringe-worthy traits reflected back at them) is nifty, and the scenes that go back and forth between the simultaneous poker games are particularly fun. (Yet another win for the show’s recurring poker night device!)
Of course, with Riker being second in command of the Enterprise, seeing him acting in a “commanding officer” capacity in itself is hardly novel—and we’ve seen Geordi functioning as a department head and mentoring subordinates in engineering before, too. More novel, here, is getting to see how Worf fills this type of roll. This aspect of “Lower Decks’ is absolutely phenomenal, again showcasing a Worf who, while still utterly believable as the same guy we’ve been watching for all these seasons, has also grown immeasurably during his time aboard the Enterprise. Worf serves as an advocate and a mentor for his subordinate officer, Sito, in a way that is not really paralleled in any of the other senior/junior pairings in the episode, and it’s totally awesome. (It’s hard not to imagine that having Worf as your immediate commanding officer, especially for a new-minted ensign, has got to be rather intimidating, and this episode doesn’t necessarily contradict that—but even so, seeing the way he supports Sito, and pushes her to grow, is really moving and cool.) I love to death the scene where Worf provokes Sito to rebel and stand up for herself, and the scene at the end, where he wordlessly joins the other junior officers at their table, has always stood out to me as a sign of his character’s growth. Paired with this, too, is Picard’s part in the whole “seeing the senior officers through the eyes of their subordinates” concept, wherein he initially appears harsh and unfair, until Worf’s little intervention impels Sito to push back—and then Picard, in a version of his signature move, shows his true colors. Good stuff. Also, it was a fantastic idea to include Sito in the episode in the first place! Connections between (good) episodes are always fun, and having familiar faces in the “lower decks” quartet helps the audience to invest emotionally, and the history between Picard and the group of cadets that included Sito adds an extra layer to their interactions. You buy into Picard’s initial harshness more than you otherwise might (even if you don’t, at first, like it very much), and then you end up loving him all the more when he ultimately reveals that he acted specifically to ensure that she would get a fair chance. All of this was just plain awesome.
The way in which the episode balances junior officer character drama with the unfolding of its plot about the Cardassian spy is also really clever. At first, the story seems merely to be about crew evaluations, and anything to do with a “ship’s mission” plot is very much in the background. This furthers the “lower decks” concept by having us see a mission through the eyes of junior officers who are sporadically witnessing/participating in events to whose details they mostly aren’t privy. It’s also a novel approach to maintaining suspense and keeping the audience guessing as to what’s going on—and it lends heightened excitement to moments like there suddenly being a Cardassian in sickbay (!). When Sito is eventually brought in, briefed, and asked to volunteer for a dangerous mission, the whole situation is just way more impactful than it would be if we, as the audience, already knew what was going on, and/or if we had been mostly following Picard and the senior staff, rather than Sito and her friends, throughout the episode. Then the episode successfully leans on established back story (from TNG’s own continuity to an extent, but also, of course, from its sister series) in a way that adds layers of meaning, and real emotion, to the interactions between Sito and the Cardassian: the disturbing make-up job to simulate abuse, the handcuffs, the show of trust from Sito that participating in any of this requires, the forthright and war-weary manner of the Cardassian, and their brief conversation in the shuttlecraft. All of this is just gripping, moving, great stuff. Meanwhile, back on the Enterprise, poor Lavelle, who hasn’t chanced to be involved in anything that would make him privy to secret information, still doesn’t know what’s going on, and can only stew silently in wild speculation as the wait for the missing shuttle drags on. I, on the other hand, knew exactly what was coming (on this re-watch, at least, since I’ve seen the episode multiple times), but this didn’t prevent Sito’s death from knocking me over emotionally. Every aspect of the episode is perfectly constructed to make the death of this minor character into an incredibly wrenching and tragic climax…and we simultenously experience it through the eyes of Picard, who sent her on the mission; of Worf, who saw her promise, mentored her, and recommended her for promotion; and of her friends, who have to go on with their lives and careers without her (with Lavele, in particular, accepting a promotion that he spent the episode yearning for, but now wonders whether he would have received if Sito had not died). I just can’t say enough about how gripping and impactful the whole of this story is.
I hardly have anything negative to say about “Lower Decks,” but here, for the sake of it, is one very minor nitpick: Even though the awkward (in a good way) scene where Lavelle tries to make conversation with Riker is very well done and helps to tell the story of the episode, I do have to ask whether it makes sense, in the twenty-fourth century, to treat identifying someone who is from Alaska as “Canadian” as a mistake. I mean, there aren’t still nation-states on earth, right? Being “Canadian,” presumably, just refers to having grown up in the general geographical region that was once identified with the nation of Canada, and all that this entails in terms of one’s ethnic and cultural background, etc. You’d think that people would use the term somewhat loosely, without regard for exact former boundaries or outdated political allegiances. And in that context, wouldn’t making common ground with someone who grew up in Alaska, as a fellow “Canadian,” seem reasonable enough? (I mean, the way Lavelle does it is still awkward as hell, and the scene still totally works; I’m just saying that, from a Trek universe perspective, the details chosen by the writers for this little exchange don’t quite track for me.)
But in any case…this is just a fantastic episode. Major kudos!