![]() ![]() Beckett's rebellion is clearly rooted in having been raised a "Starfleet brat" and in her relationship with her mother, the captain. Captain Freeman comes off as officious and remote, decisive but inflexible. In the course of the episode, we learn that Beckett is actually that daughter of Carol Freeman, the captain of the Cerritos and a Starfleet admiral. She knows and quotes Starfleet regulations, but she continuously undercuts and flouts them. In contrast to her starry-eyed fellow ensigns, Beckett is a cynic who previously served as on a first-tier ship before being demoted. Worf and Nog.) Sam Rutherford is an engineering geek who has recently become a cyborg and is still getting used to the situation. (I'm very pleased that Lower Decks is following in the Star Trek tradition of having past enemies becoming part of Starfleet, cf. Next we have D'Vana Tendi, a female Orion woman in the sciences division who is experiencing a sense of wonder at being given her first assignment on a starship. We're introduced first to Brad Boimler, an insecure white human male from California in the command division who dreams of becoming a captain but is unsure of himself. The pilot also successfully sets up our lower decks ensigns. As the bridge crew are dealing with an alien virus that turns everyone into zombies, two of the lower decks ensigns are on a first date, hardly noticing the backdrop. All in all, the premise is ripe for parody as we see in this initial outing. What were the rest doing? We get a glimpse in the excellent TNG episode "Lower Decks," which served as a source of inspiration for ST:LD. There were over 1,000 people on the Enterprise-D, but throughout most of seven seasons, only a handful ever did anything. Instead, these will be the adventures of the ensigns who inhabit the ship's "lower decks." This concept has a lot of potential for parody and for interesting development. Moreover, the lead cast of this series is not the bridge crew of this second-tier starship. This is the type of ship that makes "second contact," which Ensign Boimler asserts is "still pretty important: you get all the paperwork signed make sure we're spelling the name of the planet right get to know all the good places to eat." Specifically, we're told that this isn't the type of ship Starfleet sends to make first contact with new life and new civilizations. Instead, its much more like the Tsiolkovsky (TNG: "The Naked Now") or the Brattain (TNG: "Night Terrors") - the kind of ship that gets into trouble and has to be rescued by the Enterprise. The USS Cerritos isn't an elite ship like the Enterprise or Voyager. Long, long ago." (Ack! It's all like that!)įrom the outset with Ensign Boimler's fake/aspirational "captain's log," we get the premise. ![]() Crusher and Wesley, "You know the captain?" Wesley, "When I was little, he brought my father's body back to us." Dr. I love "Star Trek: The Next Generation," but "Encounter at Farpoint" can be so painful as cast members step into the spotlight and introduce themselves and their wooden backstories. This is not a particularly high bar, as pilots are tough: you need to establish the new ship or setting along with an ensemble cast and their motivations. "Second Contact" is arguably the most effective pilot in the history of the franchise. T'Ana is able to use the slime to synthesize a cure which is deployed through the ship's environmental systems, saving the crew. On the surface, Ensigns Brad Boimler and Beckett Mariner encounter a giant spider creature that covers Boimler in a slime that proves to be a counter-agent to the virus. The disease quickly spreads, causing much of the crew to become zombie-like creatures. While setting up a subspace transmitter for the native inhabitants, first officer Jack Ransom contracts an alien virus. Stardate 57436.2: The USS Cerritos is sent on a "second contact" mission to Galador. ![]()
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