Star Trek: Lower Decks: The Stars At Night
October 27, 2022 1:59 AM - Season 3, Episode 10 - Subscribe

Captain Freeman and the crew of the Cerritos race for their careers against the new, automated Texas-class vessel. Mariner questions who’s funding all of these archaeologists, anyway.

There is a brief post-credit scene! And the return of many familiar faces.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit (27 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
SO GOOD!

“The Inglewood! The Sherman Oaks! The West Hollywood!”

Picard lol.

Badmiral Goodfriend getting wide-angle-deathbeam hadouken’d!
posted by sixswitch at 4:57 AM on October 27, 2022 [4 favorites]


That seemed like an awful lot of boneless, body heat-less people.
posted by dumbland at 5:02 AM on October 27, 2022 [4 favorites]


T'Lyn is in! Makes up for a lack of Mariner making up with Jennifer; also was hoping for a Yorba Linda.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:09 AM on October 27, 2022 [3 favorites]


Department of crossover references: Pretty sure I heard the West Covina mentioned in there.

No, I did not get request a transfer to a California-class just because Ensign Josh Chan was assigned to the West Covina, haha, that would be crazy.
posted by bartleby at 8:32 AM on October 27, 2022 [11 favorites]


Was hoping for a USS Arcata, because I bet their space logs would be hilarious.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 10:58 AM on October 27, 2022 [1 favorite]


also was hoping for a Yorba Linda

ARRRROOOOOOOOO!
posted by Servo5678 at 12:34 PM on October 27, 2022 [5 favorites]


I haven't seen this one yet, but Lower Decks has become one of my favorite shows. They love Star Trek so much.
posted by JHarris at 5:16 PM on October 27, 2022 [10 favorites]


Cheering hard for the West Covina showing up (and the Sherman Oaks, Alhambra, Burbank...)

Very clever title, too, seemingly innocuous at first until the song gets stuck in your head...
posted by Navelgazer at 9:27 PM on October 27, 2022 [2 favorites]


Lol I got all up in arms like "what the hell! Sherman Oaks isn't a city, it's a neighborhood of Los Angeles!!"

As I said to my husband, "the thesis of this episode was 'California rules, Texas drools' and I'm here for it"
posted by potrzebie at 10:03 PM on October 27, 2022 [6 favorites]


I was hoping for a Garberville and/or a Gilroy myself. But hey, after the events of this episode, Starfleet might just expand the class!

Really interesting that Command didn't seem to learn anything from the last AI-crew experiment, by Daystrom himself.

Kalla is where Shaxs died in the season 1 finale.

MA has a pretty interesting read on the namesake for the U.S.S. Van Citters; it's a deeper cut than I would've spotted.

Just caught the significance of Buenamigo's first name in conjunction with his last. Nice.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 3:55 AM on October 28, 2022 [3 favorites]


Moral: never trust a ship AI with the user interface of the M-5 computer.
posted by Major Clanger at 5:50 AM on October 28, 2022 [1 favorite]


This episode was Arnok, on the night of his joining.
posted by Nelson at 6:40 AM on October 28, 2022 [7 favorites]


Hah

Hello, Carol. I’m Badmiral Notsomuch Goodfriend.
posted by sixswitch at 7:54 AM on October 28, 2022 [2 favorites]


More thoughts:

• Really happy to see T'Lyn back, frustrated that we didn't get to see more of T'Lyn, but the pairing with Tendi (who for my money should be the principle protagonist of this series) is perfect and I'm super psyched for next season now.
• Similarly, Jennifer was in that closing bar scene but had no interaction that we saw with Mariner. I really feel like the show needs to give some closure on that. Like, yeah, Boimler said she should apologize, and Tendi and Rutherford could have been more supportive, but the three of them were all still coming from a place of wanting to keep Mariner on the Cerritos. Jennifer's reaction in "Trusted Sources" was a gut-punch considering what we know of how hard it is for Mariner to open up to someone, and I hope the show realizes that's how that played.
• Jack Quaid really kills it with Boimler's bridge crew impressions.
• A cool thing that it took me until this morning to realize is that meeting pre-cyborg Rutherford in "Reflections" gives us an understanding of the events of this episode as well as Badgey, because the emotionally unstable AI is a reflection of what Rutherford himself used to be like.
• A great touch that I adored is how, when Tendi finds the false positive, the reaction among everyone on the Cerritos crew is that they have to follow protocol, even though it sucks. Tendi is kicking herself, but literally nobody else blames her for it. She was just doing her job correctly and sometimes that bites you in the ass, and everyone gets that. The whole fleet of Cali-Class ships arriving was clearly the "Crowning Moment of Awesome" (as TVTropes would put it) but this was probably the highlight of the ep for me.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:37 AM on October 28, 2022 [14 favorites]


I was mad there wasn't a USS Alameda. Since that's where we kept the nuclear wessels.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:10 PM on October 28, 2022 [11 favorites]


Did anyone catch the genderflipped (with the exception of Boimler, who was a giant insect) bridge crew on one of those arrivals?
posted by Mogur at 7:51 PM on October 28, 2022 [7 favorites]


Mogur: Yep! I believe we've seen them before, even (maybe in "Veritas"? I vaguely remember Dr. T'Ana accidentally boarding the wrong ship or something and running into this crew?)
posted by Navelgazer at 8:39 PM on October 28, 2022 [2 favorites]


Aw, Shax!

That was just exactly what I needed to watch right now. I was delighted the secret archaeology funder wasn't evil! I thought they were going to bring the AI prison into this, but maybe next season. So many people here said great things and rather than reiterating them I will just add on.

I liked that everyone was so focused on being first that even the captain didn't realize the Texas class had circumvented the rules until she overheard Tendi. Sometimes we can get so focused on our goals we miss something important.

Loved the glimpse of Dark Rutherford at the end for a moment.

Last season, Wej Duj gave us an idea of what the lower decks are like on other ships. Next season needs to have an episode titled "I Wish They All Could Be California Class" that takes us on a similar tour of several Cali class ships.
posted by rednikki at 12:23 PM on October 29, 2022 [7 favorites]


I also like how the genesis of "Bold Boimler" was learning that whatshisname had lucked into becoming Captain of the Inglewood, and brought on an all-Bolian crew, and then when the Inglewood, the crew is indeed entirely Bolian.
posted by Navelgazer at 1:15 PM on October 29, 2022 [3 favorites]


In case anyone missed it, there is a (short) post-credits scene that sets up the next season
posted by nathan_teske at 8:37 PM on October 30, 2022 [1 favorite]


One of the other Texas-class ships was the USS Corpus Christi; clearly the Catholic Church has less pull in the 24th century than in the 20th.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:06 AM on October 31, 2022 [2 favorites]


I loved this episode but there's one dorky thing still nagging me. Why/how did Mariner get all the cali-class ships to show when she was streets-behind even knowing the Cerritos was under attack. Just seems like Starfleet should have sent appropriate forces as soon as they heard about it, not wait for it to be on civilian news and for some han solo to call in the geek squad.

Also loved all the Texas city ships, I'd say it's a shame the whole class of ship went super evil but I'm a Texan, I know how evil our state is.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:50 AM on November 2, 2022 [1 favorite]


My theory is that since the California-class program was being shut down, all the Cali-class vessels were in the process of being recalled and were convened at a nearby location.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 9:19 AM on November 2, 2022 [3 favorites]


I loved this episode but there's one dorky thing still nagging me. Why/how did Mariner get all the cali-class ships to show when she was streets-behind even knowing the Cerritos was under attack. Just seems like Starfleet should have sent appropriate forces as soon as they heard about it, not wait for it to be on civilian news and for some han solo to call in the geek squad.

Moreover: where was the news crew filming the attack filming from?
posted by Navelgazer at 4:57 PM on November 2, 2022


Wasn't AI going horribly off the rails a big plot point in Picard?


> Just caught the significance of Buenamigo's first name in conjunction with his last. Nice.

Hmm? Searching: ok, Les Buenamigo, hah! (Oh, that makes a couple of comments make more sense.)


> Loved the glimpse of Dark Rutherford at the end for a moment.

Do you mean Badgey, or did I miss something?


Things that made me really happy:
* Ransom demonstrating the Riker Maneuver
* Shaxs getting to eject the warp core! the crew cheering him on!
* all the California-class ships showing up was hilarious (the names) and awesome (the support)
* the West Covina namedrop
posted by Pronoiac at 10:09 PM on November 19, 2022 [2 favorites]


Do you mean Badgey, or did I miss something?

MARINER: After all that, you're keeping the implant?
RUTHERFORD: It robbed me of my memories, and it was used to cover up deadly crimes, (slight pause) but it's so cool! I'm still finding submenus I had no idea were in there.
posted by channaher at 3:18 PM on January 21, 2023 [1 favorite]


Paramount released a clip of the aforementioned Crowning Moment of Awesome. The audio mix is a little rough for some reason, but you do get to see how the Cali-class ships are unique.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 8:43 AM on January 28, 2023 [1 favorite]


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