Star Trek: Lower Decks S2 E3 Review – We’ll Always Have Tom Paris

Lower Decks spotlights Mariner and Tendi doing “cool stuff” of their own.

This week’s Star Trek Lower Decks episode is called ‘We’ll Always Have Tom Paris’ and it’s a freewheeling three-ring circus of Star Trek fun, only one of which involves the plot and guest voice appearance inspiring the episode’s title. Robert Duncan McNeill makes his laugh-out-loud return to the role of Tom Paris.

The former Voyager helmsman is visiting the Cerritos to take it out for a spin and hear its “Cali-class engines purr.” But the character’s also present as the picture on Boimler’s collectible Voyager plate, encouraging him to find a way out of the Jefferies tube in which he’s managed to get himself trapped.

In the second ring—Shaxs is back! We last saw the Cerritos’ Bajoran security chief sacrificing himself to save Rutherford in season one’s “No Small Parts,” but somehow he has returned. While his senior colleagues simply accept Shaxs’ unexplained revival, Rutherford frets over it for days before finally asking him the truth. We don’t hear Shaxs’ whole answer. Judging from Rutherford’s shaken reaction, that may be for the best.

But in this episode’s main ring, Mariner and Tendi go on a “girls’ trip” quest to Qualor II. Dr. T’Ana wants Tendi to retrieve a “family heirloom” from a storage unit at the depot. It turns out to be a Caitian Libido Post (marking the second week in a row Lower Decks has shown us sex toys, undoubtedly a record for the franchise). Tendi and Mariner manage to break it after opening the crate for an unauthorized peek.

They take it to Tendi’s cousin, a “fixer” among Orion thieves on Bonestell, for repairs. But when Mariner’s faux Orion makeup rubs off, the jig is up. In their rush to escape, the post suffers even more damage. Despite Tendi’s decision to tell T’Ana the truth, Mariner hits the Cerritos’ shields at ramming speed so they can claim the collision damaged the object. In the end, it turns out T’Ana didn’t want “that old post”—just the box. (Your recapper refuses to ponder the mysteries of a Starfleet CMO’s litter box. The line must be drawn, here!)

Lower Decks urges us to go boldly on our own adventures

Once again, Lower Decks delivers some surprisingly heartfelt character work amidst a fast-paced flurry of Star Trek in-jokes longtime fans will appreciate.

With his nearly complete collection of signed Voyager plates and his penchant for calling that ship “Voy” “to save time,” Boimler again emerges as the ultimate in-universe Star Trek fan surrogate. Plus. anyone ever frustrated by a forgotten password or failed computer update (does Starfleet still run on Microsoft Windows?) can identify with his escalating exasperation as the computer fails to recognize him.

During their heist-like hijinks on Bonestell—which even include a dom-jot game against surly Nausicanns gone sour, an emphatic nod to the facility’s introduction in TNG’s “Tapestry”—Mariner and Tendi discover how little they actually know about each other. Seeing D’Vana Tendi intimidate her cousin as “Mistress of the Winter Constellations” is as eye-opening for us as it is for Mariner. It’s nice to see these two establish a camaraderie that passes the Bechdel test with flying colors after their conversations about Rutherford in the season premiere didn’t.

But my favorite plot was the mystery of Shaxs’ resurrection. For starters, it gives us a rapid refresher of all the ways this franchise finds to cheat death, from transporter pattern buffers to “mirror universe switcheroos” to being trapped in the Nexus “where it’s always Christmas!” I also enjoy the idea most lower-ranked crew simply accept “cool stuff” like coming back from the dead simply happens to bridge crew, stuff they can never hope to understand and shouldn’t expect to look forward to themselves.

Ironically, of course, as we’ve seen so far this season and all of last, “cool stuff” is happening to lower deckers all the time!

Lower Decks may be fondly and gently reminding Star Trek fans: Don’t spend all your time engrossed in other people’s adventures (as Rutherford obsesses over Shaxs life-and-death continuity), or collecting signed merch (not even nifty Voy plates) to commemorate them.

Like Mariner and Tendi, boldly go to the Qualor IIs and Bonestells of your life and make some adventures of your own!