S01.E09: Crisis Point

[crazymadness]

Quote

Mariner repurposes Boimler's holodeck program to cast herself as the villain in a Lower Decks style movie.

Okay, I haven't been too enthused by this series up to now, but that was freaking awesome.

[dwmarch]

That was hilarious! The only thing that fell flat for me was a weirdly shoehorned weed joke when Rutherford was trapped in engineering. Something to do with sativa and indica. That joke belongs on the Orville.

I loved that they poked fun at JJ Abrams and the lens flares. They also used the weird warp effect from the JJ movies. And they did the JJ thing where the ship just straight gets its ass kicked.

The shuttle inspection tour was amazing work. I also loved the exploding Borg head and Shaxs talking shit about the Pah Wraiths. Fun episode!

[Chicago Redshirt]

I'm glad that the series is getting stronger, and that it expressly addressed one of the complaints I've seen fans raising about Mariner's behavior.

Mariner needs psychiatric help. Against the backdrop of a funny episode, it tackled that she has real issues with her mom that has caused her to self-sabotage.

I hope that that part of things is not a one-and-done thing.

And I'm interested into the show delving more into why Freeman and Mariner explicitly chose to conceal that they are mother-daughter. It still seems far-fetched that at least T'ana would not know for medical/next-of-kin contact reasons, but I'll go with it.

[starri]

This has been the best by a country mile.  And I've basically liked every other episode.

They need to go ahead and make Paul Scheer a regular.

[KimberStormer]

Hey, I really liked that one.  For one thing, the references were less pure namedropping and felt better integrated.  So all the movie references were delightful, instead of being annoying!  I like it when Freeman is a good captain, and she was good here, both in real life (trying to respect the Prime Directive without the lizards getting eaten) and in Lower Decks: The Motion Picture where she saves the crew and faces the badguy.  Mariner's issues being not, apparently, some kind of Dominion War PTSD (as has been speculated) is a huge relief to me, and it was nice really to see her deal with some stuff (although disturbing how into the murderousness she got!  So much blood and body parts!)

Negatives, I've got a few, though minor.  I am glad Tendi dealt with Mariner's casual racism but I think she was still too accomodating in the end (I wouldn't want anybody in real life to say "Well, it's true that many of [my ethnic group] are [terrible stereotype], but not me!")  It seemed less censored than usual (maybe because it was The Motion Picture?) and that was kind of off-putting, "dick wig" etc.  And the Rutherford plot was a strange ship tease, considering how they've been doing the ship teasing with Tendi this whole time; a love triangle where one person is attracted to two other people but neither of them know it is unusual!  I suppose it happens in real life though.  I will say the Chief Engineer guy seems a more likely prospect than Tendi, who doesn't sit mopily eating soup alone.

As the world's only fan of The Motion Picture (the real one, with V'Ger) I hope they release a director's cut of this episode with the flyby view of the Cerritos dragged out much longer.  I loved it.  Curious where things go from here next episode.

[ottoDbusdriver]

Mariner still bugs me.  Screw the Prime Directive -- really ?

The visual references to better Star Trek franchises were nice, but the overall plot was just .... annoying.

[Chicago Redshirt]

11 minutes ago, ottoDbusdriver said:

Mariner still bugs me.  Screw the Prime Directive -- really ?
 

Despite this series being lighthearted, this episode did an excellent job of showing the limitations of the doctrine of non-interference in a planet's internal affairs.

For Starfleet to sit there and say, "Well, we could easily stop the rat people from eating the lizard people but we're not gonna" is monstrous.

That is exactly what they would have to do if they played by the letter of non-interference.

I'm pretty sure that every Trek series besides Enterprise has at least one example where the heroes do some sophistry or kick the non-interference doctrine to the curb altogether when sticking to it would be so fundamentally unjust. And the only reason Enterprise gets excepted is because there wasn't Starfleet so there was not a non-interference directive.

Giving the rat people food replicators is interfering in the affairs of Whateverplanet, just in a way that is more palatable than a lizard people revolution.

Edited October 2, 2020 by Chicago Redshirt

[marinw]

Great episode! The endless panning of the ship in drydock is hilarious.

So it's ok to get invloved with a senior officer? Mariner crushes on Ransom, and Rutherford is crushing on Phillips.

Who is the Science Officer on this ship?

Loved the visual gag of the two olives in the Chevron symbol. The Counselor is annoying yet funny.

[Chicago Redshirt]

23 minutes ago, marinw said:

Great episode! The endless panning of the ship in drydock is hilarious.

So it's ok to get invloved with a senior officer? Mariner crushes on Ransom, and Rutherford is crushing on Phillips.

Who is the Science Officer on this ship?

Loved the visual gag of the two olives in the Chevron symbol. The Counselor is annoying yet funny.

In the TNG-era shows there didn't seem to be any rules against fraternization among the crew or at different ranks. Picard dated one of his science officers, a lt. commander, Riker and Troi had whatever their Imzadi thing going on and Commander Riker slept with Ensign Ro when everyone had their memories wiped. Troi even had a one-nighter with some rando Lower Decks type (albeit when she was under alien influence), Troi and Worf dated, Data dated a random lieutenant junior grade, Geordi dated a woman named Christi who I don't know what rank she was.

I don't know if they have a "the science officer" like Spock was for TOS. I don't think TNG had a person who was THE science officer. DS9 had Dax, but Voyager didn't have any single person fitting that role. 7 was probably the closest. 

[marinw]

I like that there is no rule against romantic relationships amongst crew of different ranks.Such rules are paternalistic and impossible to enforce. Better to treat people like adults.

[Chyromaniac]

22 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I'm pretty sure that every Trek series besides Enterprise has at least one example where the heroes do some sophistry or kick the non-interference doctrine to the curb altogether when sticking to it would be so fundamentally unjust. And the only reason Enterprise gets excepted is because there wasn't Starfleet so there was not a non-interference directive.

Nah - Enterprise just has a bunch of episodes where they lament not having some kind of ‘primary direction’ after sticking their noses in some alien culture’s business...  In this case, I don’t think it’s really a debate about the morality of the PD itself, but rather just a jumping point to again explore why Mariner acts out the way she does.

Overall, this was good.  Skeet shooting with DaVinci might be my favorite gag of the season- if only they would’ve got John Rhys Davies for the voice.  The holodeck proved to be a good template for a bunch of jokes about the various film series- the extended panning shots of the ship were nice, but I really dug how they turned the Lower Decks music into James Horner’s WoK score.  Boimler ignoring the movie plot in favor of his (ultimately doomed) research was a hoot.  I also liked seeing the “aggressive question followed by cheery response” fakeout from episode two carried over here with Rutherford and Billups.

Speaking of fakeouts, when “normal Mariner” showed up to defend the ship at the end, I nearly expected that to be the real her- with Vindicta being a self-aware alter ego (maybe “alter id,“ in this case) she programmed into the “movie.” I think that would’ve made sense, given that the prologue was all about how she has good intentions, but acts impulsively and doesn’t think through the repercussions.   Plus, then her fantasy becomes more about saving the crew, and not about pretend murdering her Captain/mom and taking out as many of her coworkers as possible along the way.  Look, I get that “Vindicta” was ultimately a send-up of the movie villains, but there were a couple of moments when her actions crossed the line from funny to uncomfortable to me.  Plus, if Vindicta is just a character all along, then the stinger makes sense.  In general this episode was good though, and I’m interested to see what all this Mariner secret keeping is leading to next week.

[starri]

9 hours ago, Chyromaniac said:

Speaking of fakeouts, when “normal Mariner” showed up to defend the ship at the end, I nearly expected that to be the real her- with Vindicta being a self-aware alter ego (maybe “alter id,“ in this case) she programmed into the “movie.”

I actually had the same thought, but I suppose it also functioned as "The Enemy Within" where she was forced to confront her own dual nature.

15 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

I don't know if they have a "the science officer" like Spock was for TOS. I don't think TNG had a person who was THE science officer. DS9 had Dax, but Voyager didn't have any single person fitting that role. 7 was probably the closest. 

The Cerritos is supposed to be an engineering support ship.  That seems less weird than the Enterprise or Voyager not having one.

[Ottis]

On 10/1/2020 at 8:48 PM, KimberStormer said:

As the world's only fan of The Motion Picture (the real one, with V'Ger) I hope they release a director's cut of this episode with the flyby view of the Cerritos dragged out much longer.  I loved it.  Curious where things go from here next episode.

Not the only fan! And for the record, I loved the long Enterprise flyby in ST:TMP. The show had been off the air for more than a decade, it was fantastic seeing Enterprise again! And so I chuckled at this tribute with the Cerritos.

On 10/1/2020 at 9:56 PM, Chicago Redshirt said:

For Starfleet to sit there and say, "Well, we could easily stop the rat people from eating the lizard people but we're not gonna" is monstrous

Discovery had this exact same situation and blew by this issue, which has always annoyed me.

Am I the only person who assumed everyone already know Mariner's mom was the captain? The ending was sort of like The Sixth Sense to me, when the big reveal happened and I had thought everyone knew that all along and didn't get that it was a reveal.

[Chyromaniac]

1 hour ago, Ottis said:

Am I the only person who assumed everyone already know Mariner's mom was the captain? The ending was sort of like The Sixth Sense to me, when the big reveal happened and I had thought everyone knew that all along and didn't get that it was a reveal

I think because it’s presented as a “secret” to us, that we assume it’s a secret on the show as well.  In retrospect too, I assume it would have been mentioned if people knew- specifically when they were trying to punish her in Moist Vessel.
 

I do agree that the idea that they were even able to conceal their relationship is kind of silly and unbelievable.  Okay, so they don’t know Freeman’s her mom - what about her dad?  Is he “Admiral Mariner”?  If so, wouldn’t people figure out that she’s his daughter?  And wouldn’t a crew as gossipy as this one know their Captain was/is in a relationship with him?  Given that I did enjoy the payoff in the finale, I’m glad they mostly kept “the secret” out of the show- because if they had made it a story thread, I think these issues would have brought down my appreciation of the season as a whole.  If I’m only thinking about this stuff afterwards, then it didn’t break the show.

[Chicago Redshirt]

1 hour ago, Ottis said:

Am I the only person who assumed everyone already know Mariner's mom was the captain? The ending was sort of like The Sixth Sense to me, when the big reveal happened and I had thought everyone knew that all along and didn't get that it was a reveal.

I was under the assumption that it was a secret to the average crew person, but that the senior staff knew, or at least Ransom (because you tell your No. 1 everything) and T'Ana (because she would have to have medical records and next of kin information for both Freeman and Mariner in her CMO role). 

Oh well.