Before the premiere of Star Trek: Lower Decks, the first Trek animated series in almost 50 years, I thought it would be fun to revisit The Next Generation episode that inspired it. The episode, which originally aired back in 1994, bears little resemblance to the comedic stylings of the upcoming series, except for the fact that it too centres around otherwise secondary characters, and their point of view.
The now classic trope, used to great effect in episodes of Doctor Who, Babylon 5, 30 Rock, and Master of None (to name a few), has also been the basis of entire shows. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.LD. is in essence a “Lower Decks” series for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As is Better Call Saul in relation to Breaking Bad.
The seventh and last season of The Next Generation had its fair share of great episodes. “Eye of the Beholder” was a great sci-fi murder mystery. “Attached” finally addressed some of that romantic tension between Jean-Luc and Beverly. “Gambit” put Data in charge of the Enterprise. And “Parallels” was just a great, good old-fashioned “what-if?” My favourite episode of the season, however, besides the impeccable series finale, “All Good Things,” was always “Lower Decks.”
In it, we spend our time with four junior officers on the Enterprise who are particularly stressed out over their performance reviews. They are, the Riker surrogate Sam Lavelle (Dan Gauthier), Crusher’s protege Alyssa Ogawa (Patti Yasutake), Vulcan engineer Taurik (Alexander Enberg), and Bajoran Ensign Sito Jaxa (Shannon Fill), who we first met in the Season 5 episode, “The First Duty.”
The episode, which begins with the basic premise of wanting to show us another side of life aboard a giant starship, very quickly becomes something a lot deeper, and far darker. With a story arc that ties into the ongoing conflict between Bajor and Cardassia, and centres on duty, and ritual, and convention, and that timeless Trek notion that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” “Lower Decks” is a stark reminder that Starfleet is a military organisation that sometimes demands sacrifice from its people.
The writing here is absolutely superb. In just 40 or so minutes, “Lower Decks” manages to do two very important things.
The first, is to keep us completely in step with these four officers. In seeing the world through their eyes, we too are left in the dark with regards to what’s happening on the bridge. There is a sense that something is afoot, but also that it’s on a need to know basis. And given where our young heroes reside on the food chain, they clearly don’t need to know. (Well, not all of them anyway.)
What this does is create a hierarchical divide between the audience, our four junior officers, and those at the top. This withholding of knowledge, this new space between the audience and the show, is a shrewd storytelling technique which keeps us interested in the mystery that’s slowly unfolding before us.
The second thing this episode does is to subtly shift the way we view the command crew of the Enterprise. For 166 episodes, we’ve always thought of Jean-Luc, Will, Deanna, Worf, Beverly, Geordi, and Data as equals. They were our gateway into this world of The Next Generation, and we’ve only ever witnessed their dynamic in relation to one another. Here, for the first time, we get to see them as “superior officers.” When Riker gives Lavelle the cold shoulder in Ten Forward. In the way Picard and Worf choose to test Ensign Sito’s resolve. In how La Forge deals with Taurik the way a teacher would an overeager student.
And then, we get to my favourite scene, which deftly brings everything together. A set piece that seamlessly cuts between the conversations and card games of both the command crew and the junior officers, it is this perfectly choreographed moment that serves to show us how similar these two groups are. They lead parallel lives. They are connected, in spirit and in temperament, and by their dedication to the cause that is Starfleet.
“Lower Decks” is a fantastic episode with a gut punch of an ending that will leave you reeling. It is the perfect example of what Star Trek means to our cultural conversation. Which, at its best, was always about saying something worth saying.
I’m really looking forward to Star Trek: Lower Decks. I’ve always hoped that Trek would expand beyond its “explore strange new worlds” parameters and dip into other genres. It is, after all, a big universe out there with plenty of stories to tell.
I, for one, have always wanted a Cheers-like series, set on Ten Forward, in which Whoopi Goldberg’s Guinan plays therapist to the crew of the Enterprise. Or an all-singing, all-dancing musical. Or even a Star Trek horror movie. God knows, that in space, no one can hear you scream.
We’ve had glimpses of that this would look like from various bottle episodes across the many Treks. We’ve had pioneering cli-fi in The Voyage Home. We’ve even had something of an action movie with First Contact. Needless to say I’m pretty excited to see what a Star Trek workplace comedy would look like.
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