Star Trek Lower Decks "Crisis Point" Review - Modern Trek's Best Episode?

I felt so vindicated when your opinion aligned with mine. I had the same kind of “buzz” after watching this episode that I did after seeing the 2009 movie, which sounds strange to say about a 23 minute episode of television, but actually makes a lot of sense when you consider how dense that episode actually is. The trick was that they didn't have to build the characters because it's a TV show, so you could sort of get straight into the conflict part of the story. S P O I L E R S I will say where I felt differently about the episode though — I thought that this was a Marriner/Rutherford episode with Tendi and Boimler fading more in the background. There is a lot about Rutherford in this episode; he just isn't a villain, he can't even pretend to be one. It's just not in his nature. Even the expected reversal about how all he really wants to say to his boss is an “attaboy!” is expected exactly because it's Rutherford. I also didn't really think that the romantic connection with Billups was subtext at all, it kind of seemed pretty much text to me. While we have seen Rutherford attracted to women before, all that really means is that he is attracted to women (CIS straight white guy here, so not sure if that's a factor in my read of the moment, but full disclosure for acknowledgements of possible blind spots thereof). I just think Rutherford at the end is reticent to approach someone with whom he bonded with a holodeck simulation of because it is kind of an awkward thing to do. Rutherford would be building off of connections that were only experienced by one of the parties in question, and that isn't always the best place to be approaching a relationship from. >cough< Leah Brahms >cough< I could be wrong though. We shall see. Either way, I did think there was a lot of space given to Rutherford this episode. My reaction to the approach the Cerritos was… it's a 23 minute episode, they're going to do something like Star Trek 2009 and pay homage to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, they're not going to… At some point, the chuckle became a laugh, and that laugh evolved into a hyena-like bray that I had to stifle because it was way too early in the morning to be making that much noise. I've generally gotten at least one belly laugh per episode thus far, this one was the most sustained and satisfying. So I feel that this scene does a Galaxy Quest thing, which is doing so well at sending up a thing that the result ends up rivaling the best of the thing that it is sent up. That was a bizarre sentence, but you know what I mean. This scene out-starship porned the porniest starship porn that ever porned a starship. C'mon, as Trek fans, on a certain level, we're all with Billups here, even if just a little bit. This scene in particular, but also the episode in general, also highlights Chris Westlake, who has been doing some great work for the series throughout, but the more cinematic approach here really gave him space to take over the soundscape, and I for one felt he rose most ably to the challenge, and thus I felt compelled to post a ridiculously run-on sentence of praise for his score on the internet.

Joshua Gizelt