Over the last five seasons, Star Trek: Lower Decks has often had much to say about the power dynamics aboard a Starfleet vessel—taking a page from the iconic Next Generation episode that gave the series its name. But it’s taken until there’s just a handful of episodes left for the series to take that episode’s premise for a spin, to boot. In doing so, we might not get an episode that is as self-serious and poignant as its TNG predecessor, but we do get one that is perfectly Lower Decks.
“Upper Decks,” as the cheeky name implies, shifts Lower Decks perspective away from our Lieutenants Junior Grade (who spend the episode carving pumpkins, a move that makes it feel like maybe this episode could’ve run a little earlier in the season) and onto the Cerritos often-supporting senior bridge crew. But that’s pretty much where the similarities between it and TNG‘s “Lower Decks” come to an end: as our heroes joke in the opening and closing scenes bookending the episode, the show’s about them, except this time it’s not. They’re only in those two scenes. This is an episode entirely about those primary bridge officers, who all get moments to shine as both characters and in their relationships with the wider crew at large, not just our regular stars.
It’s great, because that makes this a Lower Decks episode, not just a re-hash of what “Lower Decks” already did so brilliantly. And that‘s great, because it frees “Upper Decks” to just be a fun, sentimental love letter to itself and its characters for once, rather than a love letter to a Star Trek premise. Even better? It’s the one episode so far this season that doesn’t resolve thematically identically around the series’ wider message about communication and teamwork, so all in all it’s just a very fun, refreshing episode!
And that’s all in needs to be. Initially seemingly a series of vignettes focusing on each of the main senior officers—Captain Freeman navigating her way through a trying day of meetings and outreach with Cerritos officers, Shaxs dealing with the repressed rage of his time during the Cardassian Occupation by astrally snapping some Cardassian ghost’s necks, Billups stopping Engineering from blowing up (again), Ransom corralling quarreling ensigns as they wrangle space-bug-cows, and Dr. T’Ana testing her pain tolerance to prove her bedside manner in Sickbay is great—everything comes together when it’s revealed that the various shenanigans aboard the ship have been agitated by saboteurs in the form of the Clickets, the insectoid race that can’t take a compliment from season one.
It’s a fun way to tie all these disparate plotlines together into something more coherent as an episode, but it also gets to climax all these vignettes around just what makes the Cerritos‘ senior staff such fun characters, albeit rarely explored ones. Sure, some are played for laughs, like Shaxs just basically hanging around to get in a fight with himself that can only be resolved with his fists, and T’Ana’s is mostly an excuse for Gillian Vigman to let out her best feral feline shrieks. But elsewhere there’s a genuine, sincere care for what these officers do aboard the ship and their bond with the officers below them.
Billups teaming up with a young ensign who has no idea just how dangerous (and kind of fun) life in engineering can be. Freeman silently gritting her teeth but getting through days where she makes the time for being there to support her crew in their lives beyond their duties. Even Ransom showing he cares enough about getting his ensigns to work together by giving them an annoying figurehead to rally against together out of spite! It’s a sweet reminder that for all the power dynamics that the show has interrogated before in their relationship with the lower deckers, at the end of the day, all these people are Starfleet officers who got where they are by caring, about their jobs, about their co-workers, about the generations of officers they inspire.
It’s good that Lower Decks got a chance to show that before it heads into its final end. It took a long road, getting from there to here, but the show got to deliver on its namesake in the best way—and on its own terms, instead of simply through homage.
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