No, Star Trek: Lower Decks did not make a 'better' version of Carbon Creek

Carbon Creek is a wonder of a Star Trek episode and it's hard to top it.

Gabrielle Ruiz as T'Lyn in episode 2, season 5 of Lower Decks streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Photo Credit: Paramount+
Gabrielle Ruiz as T'Lyn in episode 2, season 5 of Lower Decks streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Photo Credit: Paramount+

It's hard to deny that Star Trek: Lower Decks came on strong in its final few seasons. It really embraced its concept and pushed it to its maximum. The show really did deliver some quality episodes. It's probably the first of the original offering of Nu Trek shows to be able to say some of their episodes could challenge the franchise's Top 100 episodes.

Will it have any in the Top 100? Maybe, we'll have to revisit our list. Yet, ScreenRant has made the bold claim that one of Lower Decks' final episodes, "Fully Dilated" tops one of the best Enterprise episodes of all time; Carbon Creek.

In Fully Dilated, Beckett Mariner, D'Vana Tendi, and T'Lyn spend a year on a pre-warp civilization. ScreenRant puts over the animation, color, concept, and the return of Brent Spiner for why the series version was perceived as "better" than the Enterprise episode.

Yet, what the Lower Decks episode doesn't do is establish any type of sincerity, character development, or franchise-establishing lore in their episode. In Carbon Creek, T'Pol regales Jonathan Archer and Charles "Trip" Tucker with a story of her grandmother, T'Mir.

In the story, T'Mir and two other Vulcans survive a crash, arriving in a small Pennsylvanian town in the 1950s. During her stay on Earth, T'Mir goes from a bigoted Vulcan to one who finds the simple joy of humanity. She develops relationships she never felt were possible with humans.

Not only does she grow to appreciate and respect humanity, but her colleague does as well, opting to stay on the planet after everyone leaves, so that he may further immerse himself in humanity. It's a wonderful depiction of how allowing yourself to embrace the unknown can help quell the fears of our own inherent differences. It's a compelling and wonderful Star Trek tale.

One that is made better by its message. As good as Lower Decks can be, it rarely ever has the same message that an episode that an episode of Carbon Creek has.

So for that simple reason, for lacking the hefty weight of the message that Carbon Creek has, one can't really say that Fully Dilated "topped" Enterprise. It's a good episode in its own right. It's just not on the same level.