S02.E02: Kayshon, His Eyes Open

[starri]

No episode description yet.

[dwmarch]

Fun episode, as usual. They really packed the Easter Eggs into this one with the Collector's ship (which is an Easter Egg unto itself from TNG's "The Most Toys").

I appreciate the moment where Mariner realized she didn't have to be in charge all the time. Having said that, I hope Rutherford and Tendi are a little less hesitant to speak up in the future knowing Mariner is just bossy by default.

So Kahless has a sex helmet now? Okay... However, I did get a good laugh out of Tendi's enthusiastic "safety first!" quip.

And now we have two Boimlers, courtesy of the same method that gave us two Rikers. The deep cuts on this show are deep, that's for sure. Not certain why Boims had to give up his promotion.

The Titan characters did not get names so I'm not sure if they are further novel references or not. The Titan series of novels specifies that the ship has an exceptionally diverse crew with humans being the odd ones out. Then again, in the post-Nemesis novel continuity, Tuvok is supposed to be serving on the Titan.

Good to see that the Universal Translator is at least somewhat up to speed on metaphorical languages! Weird choice to turn Kayshon into a puppet though. That might be the deepest cut of all. There was an early episode of DS9 where Sisko was present on a visiting ship that was captained by a Lt. Commander. When things started happening, Sisko was the one who got to be in charge since he was the highest ranking. So here, Kayshon would have been in charge except he was turned into an inanimate object.

Dr. T'ana's sign in sickbay was also hilarious. "He'll be back to normal in about an hour" is so very Star Trek as well. We're at the end of the episode so there's no time to explain how we're going to fix it but we will fix it.

Boimler got another classic in there by reversing the polarity on something when he was saving the away team. He didn't have all of his facts straight though. In recounting the adventures of the D, he said they "insurrectioned". Assuming he's referring to the movie, same crew but that happened on the E.

Starfleet undercover agents being immediately outed by their clean, soft hands is beautifully snarky.

[Cerulean]

I feel like this isn’t the end of Titan Boimler (William?).  Will Mariner prefer the explorer Boimler over the adventurer Boimler? 
 

It was kinda sad to seem them kick out Jet, but presumably he can’t coexist with Jet… which makes me wonder if we’ll also see Barb again. 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Much better than last week, IMO. And they solved the problem of how to get Boimler back. 

3 hours ago, Cerulean said:

I feel like this isn’t the end of Titan Boimler (William?).  

I have a feeling we'll have the occasional story with him. 

[Ottis]

Is it wrong that I am more interested in watching the adventures of the Titan, sans Boimler, than the Cerritos?

[Chicago Redshirt]

23 hours ago, Ottis said:

Is it wrong that I am more interested in watching the adventures of the Titan, sans Boimler, than the Cerritos?

To each their own. While I would love to see Riker continue his more free-wheeling style with adventure and the occasional Troi appearance as a regular series, I also still enjoy the random stuff the third-stringers of a second-string ship are up to.

[Chyromaniac]

Man, that collector ship- I feel like at some point I’m gonna have to go through it frame by frame just looking for stuff.  For a show that’s known for Easter eggs, this may be the purest version.  Still, I liked that the key prop turned out to be the joke one that they just made up.

Darmok is a favorite episode, so I’ve always been curious to see how they would handle the Tamarians again.  I think the gag of the translation not always working was fine- as I just said above, this show is known for references, so of course they’d work in the big lines - “Shaka, when the walls fell,” and so on.  Personally, I thought it would be funnier if the computer would just convert their references to ones humans would understand.  Like, when they were griping about having to do inventory, he could’ve said, “Mary Poppins, her spoon full of sugar.” Basically, ‘Yes, we have a job to do, but let’s find a way to make it interesting.’

It was a little disappointing that we didn’t get more of the Titan away mission.  I think both stories could have supported an episode each - but somehow I feel like there was more left on the table with that part.  Like, I think there’s a bunch of material they could have done about Enterprise style “action“ away missions.  Also, I would have liked to know more about the Titan crew- I think it would have made Boimler’s situation funnier if we had more background on the yahoos he’s been stuck with.  Still, this had lots of fun moments, and I love the Pakleds as villains.  And, I’m interested to see how, or if, the conclusion plays out going forward.

[starri]

3 hours ago, Chyromaniac said:

Man, that collector ship- I feel like at some point I’m gonna have to go through it frame by frame just looking for stuff.  

Among other things:  the skeleton of Giant Spock from TAS "The Infinite Vulcan," the bust of Picard made for Captain Picard Day, the game from "The Game," a T'Kumbra Logicians cap, Dr Crusher's Sex Candle, Odo's bucket, Neelix's apron, Gorn and Mugato skeletons, and a Terran Empire flag. 

Riker also had a model of the Pegasus (and what I assume were jazz records on vinyl) in his ready room.

[Cerulean]

It occurs to me that Boimler was very competent in No Small Parts. Boimler here is both very competent and now has no issue interacting (behaving as?) senior staff. 
 

Meanwhile, Mariner just learned that she doesn’t need to be in charge and should listen more to her friends, rather than just supporting them. 
 

Based on so much of the trailer appearing in these first two episodes, I can only assume the white uniforms happen next week. Presumably it won’t be an Envoys type situation again where Mariner is both the problem and solution. 

[Mr. Sparkle]

1 hour ago, starri said:

Among other things:  the skeleton of Giant Spock from TAS "The Infinite Vulcan," the bust of Picard made for Captain Picard Day, the game from "The Game," a T'Kumbra Logicians cap, Dr Crusher's Sex Candle, Odo's bucket, Neelix's apron, Gorn and Mugato skeletons, and a Terran Empire flag. 

Riker also had a model of the Pegasus (and what I assume were jazz records on vinyl) in his ready room.

Did I see a case of Chateau Picard? 

[dwmarch]

Den of Geek has a good list here although I see they didn't catch everything:

https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/star-trek-lower-decks-season-2-episode-2-easter-egg-and-reference/

[marinw]

Currater/Hoarder on the Collector ship reminds me of Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons.

Loved this episode. Animation allows for set pieces that would blow the budget of any live action show.

I also like how the Powerful Packleds are a villian unique to this series, we saw the Packleds once in TNG but ST:LD makes this adversary its' own.

Edited August 23, 2021 by marinw

[marinw]

I have always wondered what the Tamarian technical manuals look like. How do engineering specs work as metaphors?

[Chyromaniac]

So I’ve spent the better part of the week trying to remember who painted a portrait that’s on the back wall of the collector’s gallery.  It’s kind of got funky cubist dimensions- could it be a Picasso?

Nope- turns out it was by the great impressionist, Jean-Luc Picard.  It’s from the life drawing class (another classic “D“ activity) in the cold open of A Matter of Perspective, which is the episode with Riker’s holodeck murder trial.

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 8/23/2021 at 4:36 PM, marinw said:

I have always wondered what the Tamarian technical manuals look like. How do engineering specs work as metaphors?

I would assume that there would be a mix of more direct references and metaphors.

"Go to Warp 8" versus Warp 9 would have to be more than "Mirab, his sails unfurled" 

"We have a warp core breach" would need some reference to the warp core beyond "Shaka, when the walls fell."

Along similar lines, there'd have to be some way to distinguish between past, present, future tenses, among others.