I love that little bit with Kayshon gardening. Just a few lines of Tamarian while taking care of the flowers and makes me wonder what those metaphor means in context!
Tendi being resistant to hallucinogens is probably consistent with the history of Orion's being immune to their own pheromones as well as their use of hallucinogens for interigation in the far future
The skeleton is from the duplicator episode. Where the alien would duplicate when they were stressed out. It is not from Starfleet. So many of them duplicated one or two must have gotten lost
Also, they specifically point out that it was the Stress of the Arrest, being Captain, AND the Possession that caused her to break. The recent possession also seemed to be of the primary concern of the doctor.
The skeleton in Eye of the Beholder was only there during Troi's hallucination, when they scanned the wall back in reality, they only found some cellular residue.
The baryon sweep would have also killed every plant in that room, so it’s safe to say that the Cerritos has not undergone a sweep, or that room is somehow protected from them.
They could have put in diverters. Enterprise had an arboretum too. So either they had to move all that stuff or put in diverters. Eye of the Beholder. The skeleton was only in Troi’s vision, what was actually there was cellular residue.
"We’re only going to be lower deckers for so long. In no time, Tendi’s going to be a bridge officer. I’ll probably get drummed out of Starfleet for calling Ransom a piece of sh*t. And Boimler, you’ll be dead because of the whole BEING BOLD thing." - favorite quotes of the episode. Would you like to try “Lower Decks' Comic Mini-Series”? It have a vampire and Enterprise NX-01 in it.
The klingon going overtime is also a call back to DS9 and the introduction to Koloth(?) when he went overtime in the holosuite continously fighting some famous Klingon battle.
It was Kor in the holosuite and this was one of the best DS9 episodes out there. Blood Oath, (S2-E19). They brought 3 klingons from TOS together in full Klingon makeup (Kang, Koloth and Kor). Love this episode.
So my only feedback would be for the down on the straw that broke the Captains back when she snapped and went black band. The points you made were very valid of things that could have been listed as a joke. I do feel it was very well played out and is very much a common thing that causes people to finally snap and lose their head is rarely the highly stressful things but a minor thing especially when you are trying to help someone or a group of someones that their resistance just becomes a breaking point.
Yeah I wanted to post a similar comment. She could have been suppressing all the stress she had from her passed experience until they made her to snap.
That is very true. It's what the phrase "the straw that broke the camel's back" basically means. It's actually something of a time honored tradition in comedy for a character to have gone through a metric ton of stressful situations and come through mostly okay, only for one very minor inconvenience to just set them off on a destructive rampage.
I loved it that the Delta team were subtle opposites of the Beta team. Delta Boimler’s hair goes down instead of up, Delta Tendi is reddish instead of green, and Delta Rutherford has an eye patch.
part of boimler's "shortcut" took them through what looked a lot like the "warp core" that kirk realigned in the kelvin timeline and I think it turned out to be the inside of the deflector dish and it got nary a mention
2 things about the skeleton. The Skeleton in the TNG episode was part of Troi's vision. As others pointed out already. The one in this episode is not a crew member. It's one of the Dooplers.
But the organic residue where the skeleton was at was real. Don't know if that part is shielded (because who in their right mind would be in that part of the room anyway).
I ignored LD the first two seasons because I usually dislike cartoons. I stumbled on the first season three episode recap by Shawn and thought I would give it a try. I enjoyed the pilot episode and ended up bingeing the entire run to date. LD is a great addition to Star Trek. Thank you TrekCulture for introducing me to LD. KITSON, his eyes open. One favor though: Please consider putting a caption of the episode title every time you reference an episode from another show. Whenever Shawn mentions an episode I have to reply it a couple of times to write it down.
Didn't they mention at the beginning of "Starship Mine" that it's not common for a ship to need one so soon into its service, but the Enterprise had logged more mission hours than the average ship that they had to do it early? Maybe the Cerritos is a decade away from needing its first sweep? Also, I thought the zero-g scene was a reference to the "sweet spot" on every ship that Travis mentions in the Enterprise pilot.
That cadaver under the hydroponics bay is not a crewmate. If you look close it is actually the body of a Doopler. Maybe one of the clones from the doopler episode.
THANK YOU! It is esp HILARIOUS to see Sean complain about that on a Green Screen, bc I am pretty sure that Kris Thompson noticed considering how Blown Up that Doopler was lol.
5:59 AND AROUND IT: I dispute your down sir. For those who haven't dealt with a lot of stressing things for a long time (as you so aptly list for us), allow me to elucidate. It's very often the smallest of things that can cause a stressed person to explode. The biggest things we deal with daily are there and part of our world construct, so rather than explode at every turn with these daily recurrent issues, is that one teeeeeeny tiny thing that causes the blow out. There's many sayings that demonstrate this, such as "The straw that broke the camel's back," or the experience of a tiny stone in one's shoe being so eggregious that you have to stop and remove this BOULDER only to find a bit of sand. I perfectly understand Captain Freeman not exploding at her daughter, she knows how to manage that. Her arrest was stressful but she knew she was innocent. Her engineers refusing to "relax" as prescribed/ordered? NOT NORMAL MUST FIX.
For the Baryon Sweep thing, I'd assume that the Hydroponics Bay is shielded from that sort of thing there because otherwise the entire bay gets wiped out there.
Also a possibility is that the bay can be ejected for the sweep. Also if I am remembering correctly the sweep was as dangerous as it was because the Enterprise was long overdue for it. They cranked the power up for deep cleaning and that is why the crew needed to be evacuated. Non living organics were safe otherwise the leather saddle wouldn't have been left on the ship.
@@Yattien89 no, they are just trying to prove a point that the sweep clearly can be set to not clear certain things or places on a sweep, since the specific saddle they mentioned, which is the corpse of an organic being, didn't get removed.
@@Yattien89 As Master E said I mentioned the saddle as it shows that the sweep didn't damage organic matter that wasn't alive. The captain went back onto the ship to get the saddle he left behind because he found out the planet they were orbiting had horses. If it destroyed organic matter then the saddle wouldn't have been left behind. Normally they would have done the sweep without moving the crew off but the increased power due to the ship being over due was why they needed everything living off the ship.
I always enjoy watching your up & downs. Thanks for all the effort you put in! This time I disagree on the down for Cpt. Freeman's breakdown. It is quite common that people who can handle high-stress levels lose it on little things, sort of a pressure valve or the straw that breaks the camel's back. I thought it was rather funny.
As an engineer, both professionally and spiritually, this episode was right up my alley. I once stayed in a hotel room in which I spent an hour fixing a radio that was built into the nightstand (it was a long time ago, in a very old hotel). I doubt anyone else had used that radio in decades but it was broken and it *needed to be fixed,* damn it. This Is The Way.
As an IRL engineer myself...can confirm that we de-stress best when we *solve* problems, or build something that *works* . Note that this is very different from *working* on things, or if a device *doesn't* work. We stress just like anyone else when the work is happening, but the achievement pop at the end when it all comes together is what really does it for us.
I kind of felt that when Billups slapped Shax, it called back to the ever controversial Mel Brooks movie, "Blazing Saddles" with the French Mistake scene, where the guy is beating up on one of the cowboys calling him a brute and collapses crying on the cowboy.
Regarding your first down: To be fair, IIRC, the head relaxation officer did point out Freeman was suffering from an accumulation of stress over a long period all manifesting itself after the engineers trigger her by continually working …
The whole gag with not shooting the asteroids cuz that's what the deflectors for got me. Things like that that reminds you how the ships are supposed to work in an episode where they're crawling through tunnels that aren't on any schematics.
they could easily have turned that scene into the weapons officer turning it into an "asteroids" (arcade game) type gag by shooting the asteroids one at a time.
Sean, with your first down you’re missing the element that this isn’t just Mariner not obeying her, this is the entire engineering department actively disobeying her orders, and remember her management style is micromanaging, every order obeyed perfectly and on time. This is great exploration of her character, when we had just seen her daughter explore her dream and nightmare being the strictures of commitment being the loss of her freedom hence why she loathes advancement. It’s an up from me
and he missed the fact that she was just recently taken over by an alien mask, which the episode eludes to, as having contributed to her inability to handle her stress like she normally does.
I really enjoyed this episode. I really liked the smaller storyline of our lower deckers just being friends on an adventure in the bowels of their own ship. Very fitting with the themes of this show. And my goodness, the animation just gets better and better, doesn't it?
It's a Doopler, not an officer skeleton. Latinum up. Also, no mention of the main deflector? It's really the first time we've seen it used "properly" in TREK and not some energy delivery thing.
disagree with down for PTSD. Freeman experienced multiple episodes of extreme stress in a short amount of time. 3 recent mask encounters for instance. Her goign from functional but highly stressed to non-functional and overstressed is very realistic and how PTSD presents when triggered.
2 things that got missed 1 - one of the female engineers is wearing a visor 2 - Boimler says 12:29 "a lot of this stuff isn't even labeled". In SeaQuest DSV, Bridger and someone else is taking Darwin though his water tubes. Bridger says the same thing about the SeaQuest.
My favourite bit of the episode is at the end when they get rid of the fancy new "relaxing machine" because it would put everyone on the Dove out of a job. It feels like a calculated little jab at all the "miraculous" tech or uses for the transporter that show up from episode to episode in series past only never to be mentioned again.
One thing to point out, the swamp is not the hydroponics bay, it is below the hydroponics bay. That's where the water is coming from. They even show the hydroponics bay where the...Darmok-guy is tending a flower. I didn't notice the skeleton until pointed out here, and even when it was being shown, I wasn't sure if it was a skeleton or a stone idol. The ship was transformed into a temple and this would be the last place anyone would want to clean.
I dunno, I think this being Freeman's max stress fits the character as I see her, setting aside the mention that it was really just the last straw after a barrage of them (building for months or whatever the line was). Beckett is her daughter so that's a part of her baseline and has been for decades. She believes in the system so the trial wasn't so bad. But this? Her crew hiding things from her and thus (according to her thinking) not believing in her as their captain? Yeah I can see it. It feeds into her California class fueled inferiority complex in a way nothing else that's happened really does.
If "making love" to churros means consuming 35 of them, hot, in one sitting... well, I'd be hospital now _but I wouldn't regret a damn thing_ . Churros with cream cheese are 100% worth a trip to A&E.
It reminded me about a bag of churros I hid in a cupboard so my Mom would not find it, as I did not want to share. I forgot about it for a few months and when I found the bag again, they had darkened and were hard. I tried putting them in a glass of water for a while, but it was hard chewing them. They did smell nice, I love the smell of cinnamon. Wasn't the "building yourself the perfect girlfriend" what the holo deck was for? Or for the engineering crew? LOL. Do they still have the rule here that a superior officer can't date anyone under his command, like on the first Enterprise? If they still do, no wonder he's lonely. Shax and Dr.T'Ana have the same rank, they can date, the captain is married, Billups does not want to become a king, and the Tamarian and Stevens keep being rejected by women. Really, the Lower Decks have more fun !
I think you can judge a show best on its "C" episodes. Not the worst, not the best, but the straight-down-the-middle episodes that won't make it into the highlight/lowlight compilations. If those episodes are still making me laugh, then it speaks to a strong overall series.
Nah, man, dealing with random idiots is annoying, but no-one can stress you out and rile you up like your friends. Freeman going over the edge 'cause of her crew is totally in character and believable IMO.
I'm a diehard trekkie and I finally was able too get my wife into star trek with lower decks 😁 I get too show her classic trek anytime they make a reference 🥳
I'm assuming a baryon sweep would destroy the organic matter in hydroponics, too. I guess they'd just beam the whole thing off the ship and beam it back again afterwards. And who knows? Maybe the dead officer is just like the decorations you get in a fish tank, I dunno.
I think we skimmed over some very fun stuff here. Like the Dove leader telling her crew to jettison the relaxation machine or how she is getting stressed to the point she has to space vape. Or the low grav section in the deflector array, the fun they were having felt like the sort of wonder that a low ranking starfleet officer would just hold fondly through the rest of their career, like in SNW with the outer panel marked all over with initials.
I liked that the administrator of the _Dove_ claps her hands, the two outside ones clapping on the middle one. Well thought out! That's the exact right way for a three-handed species to clap.
I think when she said they should join the Maquis, she was using it as a way to say they should die. Contrary to your down, failing to get the engineers to relax after so many stressful events was the straw that broke the camel's back. The woman running the spa identified the mask situation(s) as being a causal factor. I have to agree with other viewers that the body spotted there appears to be one of the Dooplers. How he ended up there would be anybody's guess, but I wouldn't classify it a down. This was a thoroughly enjoyable episode. I honestly feel like you keep forgetting what kind of show this is. The ONLY down I would give it is the fact that the bridge is on deck 1. There are traditionally no quarters there. I'm just surprised nobody noticed that. Side note about the baryon sweep, Captain Picard's saddle wasn't damaged by the sweep. One could conclude the sweep doesn't affect dead organic matter, just living organisms. (Edit) Oh, right. Plant life. What did the Enterprise do about the arboretum and other plants on the ship? I don't remember if that came up.
I think the Teller Prime mud bath is also a call back to the Enterprise NX-01 crew's preparation for Ambassador Gral visiting. Trip was complaining about having to set up the mud bath because the Ambassador likes a good soak.
The device engineered for Capt Freeman's rehabilitation is based on Temple Grandin's hug machine! She is an on-the-spectrum scientist who studies animal husbandry and uses the device on herself when feeling anxious...she devised one for cattle to reduce their stress. BTW I'm with you Sean on the formulaic quality of this season's shows, I hope they don't fall in the same trap/rut as Futurama in treating characters as a means to just quick laffs...I'm a big fan of this Star Trek show and would love to see it stay strong for seasons to come!
I would rarely disagree with you Sean, but I can't agree with your first DOWN. They scanned Freeman as she was going ballistic and then say that she's been repressing months of severe stress. This engineer incident is just the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Re: Freemans breakdown. The Dove captain/ person does state she's repressed months of stress. Perhaps shorthanding Seans concerns with her black level.
I DISAGREE SIR. Captain Freeman has been through a lot, but that’s just being StarFleet. If she feels like she isn’t taking care of her people, it stresses her out crazy. That is an UP sir.
Could the reference of Mariner saying that Delta shift should go join the Maquis be a really dark reference, as they had been all slaughtered and delta shift should join them in being slaughtered?
It might be a stretch, but when I saw the ship was named the Dove, I immediately thought that there'd be a reference to the fact that the engineers and Freeman had a Day of the Dove, if you will...
I disagree with you about her stress. In the episode they elude to the fact that she just recently got taken over by the mask, and that, that contributed to her ability to not handle her stress like she normally would.
if you disintegrate all organic matter the skeleton would still remain as it is made of calcium and other things, but yes, someone would notice a missing crewman, and i don't think you can stowaway for long on a Starfleet ship
The body of the "officer" in the Swamp room, is actually a Doopler that never rejoined with the others. from "An Embarrassment of Dooplers" ;)
I was just coming to say this, it's even got the ears. Well spotted!
Must have missed that. That is gross.
So since it was the body of the diplomat, does that make this go from a trellium down to an up?
Yep! Sure is!
Same here. Came here for this.
"Was this woman recently possessed by an alien entity?" is literally said when Freeman goes total stress. They give a reason for heightened stress
She also says "months worth of stress."
It's like sometimes they are desperate to come up with downs...
Exactly what I was going to comment. An unfair down. 😕
There are times I wonder if we are watching the same episode.
@@Nergalsama01 Yeah, there were a few times when they were going over prodigy that I think they were being unnecessarily harsh, too
I love that little bit with Kayshon gardening. Just a few lines of Tamarian while taking care of the flowers and makes me wonder what those metaphor means in context!
Tendi being resistant to hallucinogens is probably consistent with the history of Orion's being immune to their own pheromones as well as their use of hallucinogens for interigation in the far future
Bloody hell I didn't even think of that
Female orions at least
"Mariner is her daughter - pretty stressful." -- That's an up from me, just for the sheer understatement!
The skeleton is from the duplicator episode. Where the alien would duplicate when they were stressed out. It is not from Starfleet. So many of them duplicated one or two must have gotten lost
Also, how someone get confused as that being a officer uniform? Clearly the duplicator wearing that outfit.
Also, they specifically point out that it was the Stress of the Arrest, being Captain, AND the Possession that caused her to break. The recent possession also seemed to be of the primary concern of the doctor.
Yes, and also, apparently this was the latest in a string of possessions. That'll stress you out!
Her engineering staff wasn't the sole cause. They just happened to be the straw that broke the camel's back.
Re-watching this and Sean calling Ro returning made me smile ear to ear.
The skeleton in Eye of the Beholder was only there during Troi's hallucination, when they scanned the wall back in reality, they only found some cellular residue.
The baryon sweep would have also killed every plant in that room, so it’s safe to say that the Cerritos has not undergone a sweep, or that room is somehow protected from them.
They could have put in diverters. Enterprise had an arboretum too. So either they had to move all that stuff or put in diverters.
Eye of the Beholder. The skeleton was only in Troi’s vision, what was actually there was cellular residue.
"We’re only going to be lower deckers for so long. In no time, Tendi’s going to be a bridge officer. I’ll probably get drummed out of Starfleet for calling Ransom a piece of sh*t. And Boimler, you’ll be dead because of the whole BEING BOLD thing." - favorite quotes of the episode.
Would you like to try “Lower Decks' Comic Mini-Series”? It have a vampire and Enterprise NX-01 in it.
I think Sean missed the point of Freeman getting really really stressed by people who refuse to to relax. I thought the irony was hilarious
The klingon going overtime is also a call back to DS9 and the introduction to Koloth(?) when he went overtime in the holosuite continously fighting some famous Klingon battle.
Some Klingon battle? It was the Battle of Klach D'kel Brakt!
@@recoil53 Yes.. It's sad to say that my knowledge of obscure star trek trivia is not up to snuff.
that dummy in the klingon room also looked like one of the aliens from Worf's holodeck training program
It was Kor in the holosuite and this was one of the best DS9 episodes out there. Blood Oath, (S2-E19). They brought 3 klingons from TOS together in full Klingon makeup (Kang, Koloth and Kor). Love this episode.
"Shut off the power."
"He'll kill you!"
"No, he said he'll kill you - shut it off."
So my only feedback would be for the down on the straw that broke the Captains back when she snapped and went black band. The points you made were very valid of things that could have been listed as a joke. I do feel it was very well played out and is very much a common thing that causes people to finally snap and lose their head is rarely the highly stressful things but a minor thing especially when you are trying to help someone or a group of someones that their resistance just becomes a breaking point.
There's a quote that essentially says it's not the normal stressors that'll get you, it's the broken shoestring when you're not expecting it.
Yeah
I wanted to post a similar comment.
She could have been suppressing all the stress she had from her passed experience until they made her to snap.
Yeah in the episode they said it was the result of months of stress.
The dialog even says this is month's worth coming out.
That is very true. It's what the phrase "the straw that broke the camel's back" basically means. It's actually something of a time honored tradition in comedy for a character to have gone through a metric ton of stressful situations and come through mostly okay, only for one very minor inconvenience to just set them off on a destructive rampage.
I loved it that the Delta team were subtle opposites of the Beta team. Delta Boimler’s hair goes down instead of up, Delta Tendi is reddish instead of green, and Delta Rutherford has an eye patch.
I dunno Sean... "Join the Maquis" could be a euphemism for "die" since the Maquis were "all wiped out" by the Jem'Hadar.
It's "Go the way of the buffalo" for the 2380s.
Ooh, that's clever!
I thought some survived and was rescued by sisko
This aged differently than expected
The whole engineers working while on shore leave is a call back to TOS. When Scotty was reviewing technical manuals!!!
part of boimler's "shortcut" took them through what looked a lot like the "warp core" that kirk realigned in the kelvin timeline and I think it turned out to be the inside of the deflector dish and it got nary a mention
2 things about the skeleton.
The Skeleton in the TNG episode was part of Troi's vision.
As others pointed out already. The one in this episode is not a crew member. It's one of the Dooplers.
Looks like not all of them formed back.
It's a Doopler. Makes sense since they overrun the ship.
But the organic residue where the skeleton was at was real. Don't know if that part is shielded (because who in their right mind would be in that part of the room anyway).
The line "Engineers, all of them are god damn Geordie LaForge's" got the biggest laugh from me. This should have been a latinum up.
All UPs for me. I just enjoy all this new Trek and DGAF what internet people think.
Hell yeah!
Awesome, love ya
It’s not gonna last forever so I am intent on enjoying every second of every show. To hell with the naysayers.
100% agree
I don't enjoy all of it. I don't consider myself a shill . I try to keep it real . But I do enjoy lower decks which is what we're talking about.
5:37
Tbf, the show explicitly said that the engineers brought out all of the stress that she's repressed, causing her to explode and get a black band
I ignored LD the first two seasons because I usually dislike cartoons. I stumbled on the first season three episode recap by Shawn and thought I would give it a try. I enjoyed the pilot episode and ended up bingeing the entire run to date. LD is a great addition to Star Trek.
Thank you TrekCulture for introducing me to LD. KITSON, his eyes open.
One favor though: Please consider putting a caption of the episode title every time you reference an episode from another show. Whenever Shawn mentions an episode I have to reply it a couple of times to write it down.
Didn't they mention at the beginning of "Starship Mine" that it's not common for a ship to need one so soon into its service, but the Enterprise had logged more mission hours than the average ship that they had to do it early? Maybe the Cerritos is a decade away from needing its first sweep?
Also, I thought the zero-g scene was a reference to the "sweet spot" on every ship that Travis mentions in the Enterprise pilot.
Also starship mine mentions that Enterprise needed a high power sweep than normal.
Yes starship mine mentions (at least in the german version) that the enterprise had more active duty in 5 years than most normal starships have in 10.
That cadaver under the hydroponics bay is not a crewmate. If you look close it is actually the body of a Doopler. Maybe one of the clones from the doopler episode.
THANK YOU! It is esp HILARIOUS to see Sean complain about that on a Green Screen, bc I am pretty sure that Kris Thompson noticed considering how Blown Up that Doopler was lol.
The puppies and bunnies room was so adorable! I'm not sure I'd relax so much as get so ramped up my head would explode.
This show is seriously exactly what trek didn't know it ever needed. Love it.
5:59 AND AROUND IT: I dispute your down sir. For those who haven't dealt with a lot of stressing things for a long time (as you so aptly list for us), allow me to elucidate.
It's very often the smallest of things that can cause a stressed person to explode. The biggest things we deal with daily are there and part of our world construct, so rather than explode at every turn with these daily recurrent issues, is that one teeeeeeny tiny thing that causes the blow out.
There's many sayings that demonstrate this, such as "The straw that broke the camel's back," or the experience of a tiny stone in one's shoe being so eggregious that you have to stop and remove this BOULDER only to find a bit of sand.
I perfectly understand Captain Freeman not exploding at her daughter, she knows how to manage that. Her arrest was stressful but she knew she was innocent. Her engineers refusing to "relax" as prescribed/ordered? NOT NORMAL MUST FIX.
For the Baryon Sweep thing, I'd assume that the Hydroponics Bay is shielded from that sort of thing there because otherwise the entire bay gets wiped out there.
Also a possibility is that the bay can be ejected for the sweep.
Also if I am remembering correctly the sweep was as dangerous as it was because the Enterprise was long overdue for it. They cranked the power up for deep cleaning and that is why the crew needed to be evacuated. Non living organics were safe otherwise the leather saddle wouldn't have been left on the ship.
@@nobodyimportant2470 I'm confused, are you saying plants are non-living organics, since the comment is regarding hydroponics bays?
@@Yattien89 no, they are just trying to prove a point that the sweep clearly can be set to not clear certain things or places on a sweep, since the specific saddle they mentioned, which is the corpse of an organic being, didn't get removed.
If I remember from that episode they mentioned the hydroponics Bay and all those plants being needed to be evacuated or something like that.
@@Yattien89 As Master E said I mentioned the saddle as it shows that the sweep didn't damage organic matter that wasn't alive. The captain went back onto the ship to get the saddle he left behind because he found out the planet they were orbiting had horses. If it destroyed organic matter then the saddle wouldn't have been left behind.
Normally they would have done the sweep without moving the crew off but the increased power due to the ship being over due was why they needed everything living off the ship.
The dead body is an UP!! It’s so lower decks. It’s telling you that they are not taking good care of the Cerritos!!! Loved it!!
I always enjoy watching your up & downs. Thanks for all the effort you put in! This time I disagree on the down for Cpt. Freeman's breakdown. It is quite common that people who can handle high-stress levels lose it on little things, sort of a pressure valve or the straw that breaks the camel's back. I thought it was rather funny.
As an engineer, both professionally and spiritually, this episode was right up my alley. I once stayed in a hotel room in which I spent an hour fixing a radio that was built into the nightstand (it was a long time ago, in a very old hotel). I doubt anyone else had used that radio in decades but it was broken and it *needed to be fixed,* damn it. This Is The Way.
You missed the joke -- it wasn't an officer's body in the swamp -- it was one of the Dooplers!
I didn't realize the body till this episode and it looks like a duplier body as the clothing looks similiar.
As an IRL engineer myself...can confirm that we de-stress best when we *solve* problems, or build something that *works* . Note that this is very different from *working* on things, or if a device *doesn't* work. We stress just like anyone else when the work is happening, but the achievement pop at the end when it all comes together is what really does it for us.
It's like relaxing by doing a crossword puzzle or something.
I kind of felt that when Billups slapped Shax, it called back to the ever controversial Mel Brooks movie, "Blazing Saddles" with the French Mistake scene, where the guy is beating up on one of the cowboys calling him a brute and collapses crying on the cowboy.
Regarding your first down: To be fair, IIRC, the head relaxation officer did point out Freeman was suffering from an accumulation of stress over a long period all manifesting itself after the engineers trigger her by continually working …
Favourite episode of the season so far!
The whole gag with not shooting the asteroids cuz that's what the deflectors for got me. Things like that that reminds you how the ships are supposed to work in an episode where they're crawling through tunnels that aren't on any schematics.
they could easily have turned that scene into the weapons officer turning it into an "asteroids" (arcade game) type gag by shooting the asteroids one at a time.
10:34 It is not an officer, it is a Doopler. I think that is an amazing call back. Also the Hydroponics bay would be shielded from a barium sweep.
The robes they wore on the Dove looked like Picard's pyjamas in All Good Things
The corpse is a Doopler from season two. loved that throw back. (same writer) and the holodeck scene. omg the most funny scene in the series so far.
Another cetacean observation...one of the engineers (a female) was wearing a Geordi LaForge-style eye prosthetic.
Okay your down for the captain I disagree with because they specifically explain she has had this build up for months hence the whole season.
Sean, with your first down you’re missing the element that this isn’t just Mariner not obeying her, this is the entire engineering department actively disobeying her orders, and remember her management style is micromanaging, every order obeyed perfectly and on time. This is great exploration of her character, when we had just seen her daughter explore her dream and nightmare being the strictures of commitment being the loss of her freedom hence why she loathes advancement. It’s an up from me
and he missed the fact that she was just recently taken over by an alien mask, which the episode eludes to, as having contributed to her inability to handle her stress like she normally does.
I loved the 1/2 klingon looking person standing behind the Shaxs in engineering (look closely at the lines on that crewmember's forehead)
I really enjoyed this episode. I really liked the smaller storyline of our lower deckers just being friends on an adventure in the bowels of their own ship. Very fitting with the themes of this show. And my goodness, the animation just gets better and better, doesn't it?
It's a Doopler, not an officer skeleton. Latinum up.
Also, no mention of the main deflector? It's really the first time we've seen it used "properly" in TREK and not some energy delivery thing.
One for Cetacean Observations: Boimler says "fortune favours the bold" which is a DS9 reference.
That's what Matt Damon said. Shortly thereafter, I lost ALL my money 💸 in Bitcoin. 😉
It's also ab Latin proverb, though. Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat
Doesn't Kirk say that in a movie? Or something similar.
I'd say that's a stretch as that's a saying that's existed long before star trek was ever crested and is used to this day.
disagree with down for PTSD. Freeman experienced multiple episodes of extreme stress in a short amount of time. 3 recent mask encounters for instance. Her goign from functional but highly stressed to non-functional and overstressed is very realistic and how PTSD presents when triggered.
2 things that got missed
1 - one of the female engineers is wearing a visor
2 - Boimler says 12:29 "a lot of this stuff isn't even labeled". In SeaQuest DSV, Bridger and someone else is taking Darwin though his water tubes. Bridger says the same thing about the SeaQuest.
My favourite bit of the episode is at the end when they get rid of the fancy new "relaxing machine" because it would put everyone on the Dove out of a job. It feels like a calculated little jab at all the "miraculous" tech or uses for the transporter that show up from episode to episode in series past only never to be mentioned again.
10:40 I think that skull looks like a dupler.
One thing to point out, the swamp is not the hydroponics bay, it is below the hydroponics bay. That's where the water is coming from. They even show the hydroponics bay where the...Darmok-guy is tending a flower.
I didn't notice the skeleton until pointed out here, and even when it was being shown, I wasn't sure if it was a skeleton or a stone idol. The ship was transformed into a temple and this would be the last place anyone would want to clean.
I missed the skeleton too
Surprised Tendi and Mariner in their underwear didn't get added to "most paused scenes."
I actually enjoy watching this podcast more then the Below Decks. This show just takes me straight to the highlights.
you namedropped Geordie, but ignored the visor!
I feel like that deflector area with the low gravity is a reference to the low gravity area in Enterprise.
For some reason, I got strong Willy Wonka/Fizzy Lifting Drinks vibes from that scene LOL
I dunno, I think this being Freeman's max stress fits the character as I see her, setting aside the mention that it was really just the last straw after a barrage of them (building for months or whatever the line was). Beckett is her daughter so that's a part of her baseline and has been for decades. She believes in the system so the trial wasn't so bad. But this? Her crew hiding things from her and thus (according to her thinking) not believing in her as their captain? Yeah I can see it. It feeds into her California class fueled inferiority complex in a way nothing else that's happened really does.
11:30 He is in roots which is organic material. That area would have been protected from the sweep.
It's not a crewman, it's one of the dooplers
I like to imagine Diane being T'ana's kinky sex name is an homage to the actress who played Dr. Pulaski.
If "making love" to churros means consuming 35 of them, hot, in one sitting... well, I'd be hospital now _but I wouldn't regret a damn thing_ . Churros with cream cheese are 100% worth a trip to A&E.
It reminded me about a bag of churros I hid in a cupboard so my Mom would not find it, as I did not want to share. I forgot about it for a few months and when I found the bag again, they had darkened and were hard. I tried putting them in a glass of water for a while, but it was hard chewing them. They did smell nice, I love the smell of cinnamon. Wasn't the "building yourself the perfect girlfriend" what the holo deck was for? Or for the engineering crew? LOL. Do they still have the rule here that a superior officer can't date anyone under his command, like on the first Enterprise? If they still do, no wonder he's lonely. Shax and Dr.T'Ana have the same rank, they can date, the captain is married, Billups does not want to become a king, and the Tamarian and Stevens keep being rejected by women. Really, the Lower Decks have more fun !
I think you can judge a show best on its "C" episodes. Not the worst, not the best, but the straight-down-the-middle episodes that won't make it into the highlight/lowlight compilations. If those episodes are still making me laugh, then it speaks to a strong overall series.
Nah, man, dealing with random idiots is annoying, but no-one can stress you out and rile you up like your friends. Freeman going over the edge 'cause of her crew is totally in character and believable IMO.
Let’s go Ferrick!! Missed you today bro. I was late.
I'm a diehard trekkie and I finally was able too get my wife into star trek with lower decks 😁
I get too show her classic trek anytime they make a reference 🥳
Great video as always.
But, FANTASTIC top.
One of the best episodes of lower decks
The Clyde Barrow version of Shaxs reminded me of Marc Alaimo as Burt Ryan in "Far Beyond the Stars"
Latinum Up to Ro Laren survival confirmed!
If Ro Laren is still alive, Thomas Riker better damned well be too.
I'm assuming a baryon sweep would destroy the organic matter in hydroponics, too. I guess they'd just beam the whole thing off the ship and beam it back again afterwards.
And who knows? Maybe the dead officer is just like the decorations you get in a fish tank, I dunno.
In the Klingon’s relaxation room there was a tribble pinned to what looks like a dart board
I think we skimmed over some very fun stuff here. Like the Dove leader telling her crew to jettison the relaxation machine or how she is getting stressed to the point she has to space vape.
Or the low grav section in the deflector array, the fun they were having felt like the sort of wonder that a low ranking starfleet officer would just hold fondly through the rest of their career, like in SNW with the outer panel marked all over with initials.
I liked that the administrator of the _Dove_ claps her hands, the two outside ones clapping on the middle one. Well thought out! That's the exact right way for a three-handed species to clap.
11:29 Your bones are mostly calcium. Calcium is a mineral and not organic. It's more like a rock. So a baryon sweep would possibly miss\skip it.
I would assume hydroponics would be expressly shielded from Barium sweeps as the whole purpose is to grow organic food stuffs?
I think when she said they should join the Maquis, she was using it as a way to say they should die.
Contrary to your down, failing to get the engineers to relax after so many stressful events was the straw that broke the camel's back. The woman running the spa identified the mask situation(s) as being a causal factor.
I have to agree with other viewers that the body spotted there appears to be one of the Dooplers. How he ended up there would be anybody's guess, but I wouldn't classify it a down.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable episode. I honestly feel like you keep forgetting what kind of show this is.
The ONLY down I would give it is the fact that the bridge is on deck 1. There are traditionally no quarters there. I'm just surprised nobody noticed that.
Side note about the baryon sweep, Captain Picard's saddle wasn't damaged by the sweep. One could conclude the sweep doesn't affect dead organic matter, just living organisms.
(Edit) Oh, right. Plant life. What did the Enterprise do about the arboretum and other plants on the ship? I don't remember if that came up.
I think the Teller Prime mud bath is also a call back to the Enterprise NX-01 crew's preparation for Ambassador Gral visiting. Trip was complaining about having to set up the mud bath because the Ambassador likes a good soak.
Could also be a reference to the DS9 episode 'Who morns for Morn" where he slept in a mud bath because it was relaxing
The device engineered for Capt Freeman's rehabilitation is based on Temple Grandin's hug machine! She is an on-the-spectrum scientist who studies animal husbandry and uses the device on herself when feeling anxious...she devised one for cattle to reduce their stress.
BTW I'm with you Sean on the formulaic quality of this season's shows, I hope they don't fall in the same trap/rut as Futurama in treating characters as a means to just quick laffs...I'm a big fan of this Star Trek show and would love to see it stay strong for seasons to come!
I would rarely disagree with you Sean, but I can't agree with your first DOWN. They scanned Freeman as she was going ballistic and then say that she's been repressing months of severe stress. This engineer incident is just the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Re: Freemans breakdown. The Dove captain/ person does state she's repressed months of stress. Perhaps shorthanding Seans concerns with her black level.
I DISAGREE SIR. Captain Freeman has been through a lot, but that’s just being StarFleet. If she feels like she isn’t taking care of her people, it stresses her out crazy. That is an UP sir.
Loved both your show and Lower Decks.
The swamp was UNDER the hydroponics bay, not IN the hydroponics bay. They cut upwards to show the actual bay.
Could the reference of Mariner saying that Delta shift should go join the Maquis be a really dark reference, as they had been all slaughtered and delta shift should join them in being slaughtered?
The throw away lines from post-egg dialogue was my favorite part of the episode.
It’s a shame as this doesn’t hit Amazon prime for another day (or two?) in the UK.
Australia (Amazon Prime) gets Lower Decks about 24 hours after Sean's posting of Ups & Downs, so this video is up before Prime "airs" the episode.
It might be a stretch, but when I saw the ship was named the Dove, I immediately thought that there'd be a reference to the fact that the engineers and Freeman had a Day of the Dove, if you will...
Well like always Sean NICE job on the UPS and Downs this week Thanks
I disagree with you about her stress. In the episode they elude to the fact that she just recently got taken over by the mask, and that, that contributed to her ability to not handle her stress like she normally would.
Doesn't Ro Lauren take over for Odo as DS9 chief of security in the DS9 books?
Bullets were wrong at holodeck scene. They still had their casings attached. But you can say it was a holodeck program coding error.
Sean I LOVE your shirt!! Also has no one learned since Scotty went twice on shore leave and have it go badly each time??
if you disintegrate all organic matter the skeleton would still remain as it is made of calcium and other things,
but yes, someone would notice a missing crewman, and i don't think you can stowaway for long on a Starfleet ship
No mention of the engineer with a VISOR?
Big ups for guest star Mary Holland as Toz. She's always great! So amazing on Veep, Comedy Bang! Bang!, and Happiest Season.
Saying someone should go join the Maquis. The Maquis are all dead. Is this not her wishing they were dead?
This would have beeb a perfect time to show us the "Rubber Ducky" room.