“Revulsion”
Written by Lisa Klink
Directed by Kenneth Biller
Season 4, Episode 5
Production episode 173
Original air date: October 1, 1997
Stardate: 51186.2
Captain’s log. On an alien ship, Dejaren drags a body with a head wound through a corridor. Then his body fizzles and fades for a second. He sends out a distress signal, saying he’s the only survivor of the ship, and he’s an isomorphic projection—a hologram.
In the 1970s, Gene Roddenberry wrote several pilots, including one called Genesis II in which a contemporary human named Dylan Hunt wakes up in a post-apocalyptic future. The show wasn’t picked up, as CBS went for Planet of the Apes instead. Some time after Roddenberry’s death in 1991, his estate did a deal with Tribune Entertainment to develop some of his unused and incomplete concepts, and a variation that seemed to combine Genesis II with a post-Federation collapse version of Star Trek was developed by Robert Hewitt Wolfe into Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda.
And now Star Trek: Discovery is doing their own take on this…
In the TNG episode “Tin Man,” the Enterprise rendezvouses with the Hood, whose captain says, “They send you Galaxy-class boys out here to the far reaches. Me, I’m just hauling my butt back and forth between starbases.”
Star Trek: Lower Decks, the first animated Trek series in forty-six years, has been showing us the adventures of another ship that hauls its butt back and forth between starbases, and has been at best a partial success. Herewith, the good, the bad, and the ugly of LD’s inaugural season.
“Nemesis”
Written by Kenneth Biller
Directed by Alexander Singer
Season 4, Episode 4
Production episode 171
Original air date: September 24, 1997
Stardate: 51082.4
Captain’s log. Chakotay is running through the jungle, and is captured by the Vori. We learn in short order that his shuttlecraft was shot down, and he did an emergency beam-out. Unfortunately, he landed in the middle of a war.
In 2002’s Star Trek Nemesis, it was established that William T. Riker and Deanna Troi were going off to the U.S.S. Titan, which would be Riker’s first true command of his own. But Riker and Troi’s subsequent appearances—on Enterprise’s “These are the Voyages…” and Picard’s “Nepenthe“—took place either before or after Riker’s tenure on the Titan. It was left to the tie-in fiction to give us Captain Riker in his big chair—
—until now.
[Sort of stuck between a rock and a kiss-ass place, aren’t we, sir?]
“Day of Honor”
Written by Jeri Taylor
Directed by Jesús Salvador Treviño
Season 4, Episode 3
Production episode 172
Original air date: September 17, 1997
Stardate: unknown
Captain’s log. For the second episode in a row, we open in the Borg-converted cargo bay, where Seven is meeting with Chakotay. She wishes to have a duty assignment, as being stuck in the cargo bay alone is driving her binky bonkers.
“The Gift”
Written by Joe Menosky
Directed by Anson Williams
Season 4, Episode 2
Production episode 170
Original air date: September 10, 1997
Stardate: unknown
Captain’s log. Cargo Bay 2 is still full of Borg tech. Seven is regenerating in one of the alcoves. Janeway, Tuvok, and the EMH enter the bay and the latter reports that her human immune system is now rejecting the Borg implants since she’s been cut off from the Collective.
[The child you spoke of, the girl—her favorite color was red.]
It only took nine episodes, but after eight episodes of Ensign Beckett Mariner being simply awful and horrible, we finally have her realizing that she is, in fact, awful and horrible. The “Crisis Point” in the title of this week’s Lower Decks is Mariner finally exploding, her frustrations and neuroses all coming out at once.
The form they come out in? A Star Trek movie.
“Scorpion, Part II”
Written by Brannon Braga & Joe Menosky
Directed by Winrich Kolbe
Season 4, Episode 1
Production episode 169
Original air date: September 3, 1997
Stardate: 51003.7
Captain’s log. We get the highlights of Part 1, then pick up with a Borg Cube running very fast away from the Species 8472 ship that blew up a planet, Voyager in a tractor beam. Chakotay tries to get Torres to beam Janeway off the cube, but Janeway herself contacts them and says to belay that order, as she has formed an alliance with the Borg.
Star Trek: Voyager Third Season
Original air dates: September 1996 – May 1997
Executive Producers: Rick Berman, Jeri Taylor
Captain’s log. The primary theme of the third season was that there wasn’t really a primary theme. For the first time, there were no recurring villains. Yes, we got one last look at the Kazon, but that was just resolving the cliffhanger in the “Basics” two-parter, and the Vidiians, but they were illusory in “Coda.”
Instead, Voyager pressed onward. They firmly moved away from the space occupied by the Ocampa, the Sikarians, the Vidiians, the Talaxians, the Haakonians, the Trabe, et al, and instead entered unknown territory, encountering tons of new species. They have at this point gone so far that Neelix’s value as a guide is pretty much gone as they traverse the Nekrit Expanse, so that their remaining journey is a mystery even to their self-styled native guide.
[Three years ago, I didn’t even know your name. Today, I can’t imagine a day without you.]
One of the cool things the first Star Trek animated series did was not only bring back most of the cast to voice their characters, but on three occasions, they were able to do the same with guest stars: Mark Lenard (Sarek), Roger C. Carmel (Harry Mudd), and Stanley Adams (Cyrano Jones) were able to reprise their roles from the original series without having to worry about the timing of their ability to be on set, because their lines were recorded individually. (Indeed, Lenard wasn’t available until the last minute, and James Doohan had recorded Sarek’s part initially.)
One of the difficulties of having mortal actors play immortal characters is that the mortal actors will age. Seeing, for example, Q on Picard or Discovery would be problematic, as John deLancie has aged.
But he can lend his voice to the role…
“Scorpion” (Part 1)
Written by Brannon Braga & Joe Menosky
Directed by David Livingston
Season 3, Episode 26
Production episode 168
Original air date: May 21, 1997
Stardate: 50984.3
Captain’s log. We open with two Borg Cubes. They’re doing their usual shtick about how resistance is futile and you’ll be assimilated, and all that jazz that we’ve been hearing since “The Best of Both Worlds,” but the recitation is cut off mid-word by a blast that annihilates both cubes.
“Worst Case Scenario”
Written by Kenneth Biller
Directed by Alexander Singer
Season 3, Episode 25
Production episode 167
Original air date: May 14, 1997
Stardate: 50953.4
Captain’s log. Torres is walking down a corridor when Chakotay approaches her. He never calls her by name, and is talking about how lots of people are fed up with Tuvok, and also with Janeway, and how there may be a mutiny happening on board.
The basic story of the latest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks had a chance to be any number of things. It could’ve been a fun episode about a genetically engineered dog that is secretly a monster from a horror movie. It could’ve been a fun episode about Boimler being affected by a transporter accident and trying to figure out how to manage. It could’ve been a fun look at Mariner through the eyes of her old Academy-mate.
It winds up being none of those things, which is incredibly frustrating.
[Wake me up when it turns into something I need to care about.]
“Displaced”
Written by Lisa Klink
Directed by Allan Kroeker
Season 3, Episode 24
Production episode 166
Original air date: May 7, 1997
Stardate: 50912.4
Captain’s log. Paris and Torres depart the holodeck, arguing, when suddenly a humanoid appears out of nowhere in the corridor, acting very confused. So are Torres and Paris, who take him to sickbay.
