Spoilers Star Trek: Lower Decks 2x05 - "An Embarrassment of Dooplers"

Grand Nagus Rom was a real help in getting his brother a lot of lucrative business licenses on other worlds.

 

I gave this a 10. I don't give tens that easily, but I can't but love this episode. I was laughing almost constantly and bonding between Mariner and Boimlet felt very sweet. Characters seem to be evolving very well. I hope they can keep up the pace with these episodes. This was the first one that seemed to run longer than it actually did, and I did not want it to end. That is a mark of a good episode. Well done developers.

 

We had one on Qualor II a couple weeks ago. Like I suggested then, it seems Quark hit the ground running on franchising his name after Rom became Nagus, with two far-flung establishments within five years and one farther still within twenty-four years. Mariner saying that Starbase 25 has "a Quark's now" tells me two things: that it's fairly new (of course), and that she is probably familiar with it from elsewhere. She says she was on DS9, so she probably went to the original, and she was on Qualor II two weeks ago, but she made no comment at the time, but I think she may have seen it somewhere else as well.

 

To be fair, so is being a Dominion War hero.

 

Interestingly, Qualor II, Freecloud, and Starbase 25 all seem to be within the Federation (per BTS and onscreen dialogue), but on the periphery. Hives of scum and villainy where less-than-reputable pursuits are known to be had.

So, of course, Quark's would be popping up here. I'm sure everything they do is above-board, and it's just an unfortunate coincidence that a criminal element persists nearby.

 

I hope they leave a seat for Morn at each of them.

 

A 10 from me. An absolutely superb episode. I thought the storylines and humour were perfect. There was a good balance between action and dialogue and the set pieces we saw in this episode, I felt really fleshed this world out nicely.

I loved that we revisited Boimlers decision to leave and how that impacted the people around him. I have to say I felt a little emotional at the reconciliation. I thought it was really powerful to see them switch up the dynamic and show that in some ways the senior officers are still lower deckers trying to find their way.

A really powerful episode. I loved it, my partner loved it (and she's not a Trekker) and I could go on and on, but I think I'll go watch it again instead.

 

Lots of fun and funny in this one: the Doopler gag, the epic space station chase and Tendi and Rutherford's subplot all landed. (I think my favorite Easter Egg was two of the alien species from the TAS episode "The Jihad" turning up.) The comedy was more mildly amusing than laugh-out-loud funny and I think I've had enough of Mariner being insecure about Boimler's promotion, but it still amazes me how much they're able to do in episodes this short. 8/10.

 

Best ep of the season so far. Tiny computer voice is best computer voice.

 

I think the bouncer was also a species we've encountered in TAS; Maybe "The Jihad" as well. Was he the one who could open complicated locks?

 

We did see a Lurian during the chase scene. Was that Morn? Presumably stumbling towards this station's Quark's?

I like to think that Morn's trade route connects directly to stations and outposts with a Quark's, now.

 

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Em/3/Green's_species

 

He was mentioned by name

Must've been from the time when they found his head in SF and reattached it

The Hansons had a Playmates cube

 

I would tend to agree about Okona. Yes, at least one recent pre-Coda novel made extensive and entertaining use of him, so there's a case to make for that down the road.

 

Trekcore is suggesting that Okona might be the legacy character that Mike McMahan mentioned in an interview that he had to redesign because of Prodigy.

Okona had an eyepatch in the episode, and the presumption is that the Prodigy version of Okona will have an eyepatch.

 

He didn't have to "help". All Quark has to say is that his brother is the Grand Nagus. That will open doors on his own.

 

This was an OK episode structurally. It just didn't make me laugh.

 

I had the bubble bath! Good luck all you easter-egg collectors, this one should keep you busy for a couple weeks!

 

The first appearance was in the Vanguard novels, it was then scaled down for TOS-R. Here it looks to be back to it's proper size. Of course, different size starbases of otherwise same design has ample precedent in Trek.

 

That outline, though, was unmistakable and so TOS Era. I'm glad they decided to use it.