Lower Decks S5E4: A Farewell to Farms

In 1966, the country was sharply divided, over race, foreign wars, women’s rights, and we had only very recently avoided catastrophic nuclear war. At home and in the world at large, things seemed hopeless. So it wasn’t an accident that Star Trek struck a nerve. The original series promised a future without poverty or bigotry, full of moral clarity and scientific wonder, and even just a future in which we had a future.

With American democracy itself suddenly in doubt, with a man who assaulted that democracy (as well as countless women), stole nuclear secrets, and vows revenge against his political enemies (and millions of legal American citizens who nonetheless don’t fit into a white supremacist vision of who “belongs” here) returning to power, maybe for four years, maybe for the rest of his life, not because of any chicanery or coup (although voter suppression certainly played its part), but because that’s what America wanted? It’s a tough week to feel optimism.

And a fairly silly episode of Lower Decks isn’t quite as inspiring as Kirk and Spock pondering human nature, or Picard giving a stirring speech about moral lines that shouldn’t be crossed. But we do still get an A and B story about corrupt authority figures getting a deserved comeuppance, which we have to admit is pretty damn satisfying. 

We open on the Klingon homeworld, where a fearsome warrior vows to defeat a “dishonorable swine”… only for the reveal that it’s a literal swine. Ma’ah — a Klingon friend of Mariner’s who’s popped up in a few episodes — is working on the family farm, and it’s not going well. He was very briefly a captain, until his ship got caught up in the multiple mutinies at the end of last season, and now he’s down on his luck, working for his disdainful brother Malor, on a farm that harvests worms for blood wine.

So Mariner beams down to help, whether he wants it or not (he does not). But it’s Boimler, who tags along, who’s actually more helpful, as his nerdy love of Klingon bureaucratic minutiae presents a legal loophole in which Ma’ah can plead his case to get his ship back. Unfortunately, he killed the judge’s brother — over a justifiable matter of honor, naturally, although the judge doesn’t see it that way, and does anything he can to rig the trial against Ma’ah.

Even more unfortunately, Ma’ah’s help in the series of tests he has to pass is Mariner, Boimler, and Malor. Which leads to a fun combination of Klingon toughness, Boimler’s nerdiness, and Decks‘ habit of working out a satisfying ending that isn’t the one we expected.

In the B story, bird-alien ship’s counselor Dr. Migleemo (the always-delightful Paul F. Tomkins) meets two of his culture’s most esteemed scholars — incredibly snobby food critics. They criticize anything and everything on the ship, and good doctor has to win them over with the help of Tendi, Rutherford, and Captain Freeman, who find out they have a terrible secret, which they expose with a clever ruse. 

Decks is still at heart, a show for, by, and about people who love and embrace Trek‘s vision of a future built on tolerance and understanding, where optimism is rewarded and the guilty are punished instead of the other way around. We could use some more of that.

Stray tachyons:
• Boimler’s beard just keeps looking worse and worse. But as Mariner observes, he’s come a long way from being afraid of skiing earlier in the season to being psyched that the Rite of Unending Pain “is gonna be Klingon as hell!” That’s a line Mariner used early in the series, and the fact that Boims is enthused about Klingon pain rituals and Mariner’s excited about a space anomaly is some nice, well-earned growth from both characters.

• Trek has never specified whose blood exactly is the key ingredient in blood-wine. Turns out its worms. Klingons have a pretty thorough worm-based diet. It’s also a nice runner in the series — Picard’s family owns a winery; Boimler’s owns a vineyard that only makes grapes for raisins; Ma’ah was set up as essentially a Klingon Boimler, so of course his family owns a worm winery.

• We skip the usual credits, in favor of a Star Wars-esque sunset-over-an-alien-planet scene, played over a slow, stately version of the opening theme. It’s a terrific piece of music, (composed by Chris Westlake), which the show continually deploys well.