Spoilers Star Trek: Lower Decks 2x08 - "I, Excretus"

[DaveyNY]

Are ya glad you did

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[Seven of Five]

An easy 10, I was laughing so much. Naked Time!

The other callbacks to Spectre of the Gun and Ethics were fun. "I broke my back picking up a peanut." Yes, that's pretty much how it happened with Worf.

I loved all of the different drills programs as well. Boimler being Boimler just had to get a perfect score in his Borg drill.

 

[Sarcastic Vulcan Salute]

Nice little episode but not as interesting as the previous couple of ones for me, I give it a 7, perhaps a bit more.

The main issue is that this episode requires A LOT of suspension of disbelief, the whole situation seems very unlikely and the resolution quite unreasonable as well.

The nice things are the myriads of references and the ending, which hopefully will have lasting effects.

What about this required more suspension of disbelief than a typical episode of Star Trek?

ETA: In a response I didn't see before I posted this, it looks like you take issue with three main things:
1. That the villain admitted rigging the test in the first place ala James Bond villains
2. That the Cerritos crew wouldn't just use the confession to get StarFleet to investigate the rigged tests
3. That her motivation to rig the test didn't make sense because she could just program better tests

To the first, meh, I'm pretty sure in all Trek villains monologue because they are overconfident idiots. There's no reason for this trainer to not fall into that same trap.

To the second, seems like it would be a piece of cake to give Starfleet the code for un-rigged versions of the same scenarios to head off such allegations if they ever came up and were investigated. Which they might not be since having a near 100 percent fail rate would make complaints about the fairness of the test seem like it was likely unfounded especially when combined with a recent real-world example of incompetence that apparently has filtered to random consultants.

To the third, two issues. First, we don't necessarily know how good a programmer she is.. Maybe she couldn't program better fair tests. Second, the issue may be in the nature of Starfleet. If all the good crews are generally passing tests with flying colors, it's not something that requires suspension of belief to think that Starfleet might be like, "Why do we need this woman's drills again?"

 

[Search4]

Sadly we did not see Boimler beat the Kobayashi Maru. Perfect opportunity here!

 

[jackoverfull]

"I broke my back picking up a peanut." Yes, that's pretty much how it happened with Worf

by the way, I believe the correct way to handle this (with an unrigged scenario) would have been to refuse and refer to the fact that the duty to honour-kill a Klingon belongs to the closest member of his family, not to a stranger. That’s how Riker got out of it, anyway.

To the second, seems like it would be a piece of cake to give Starfleet the code for un-rigged versions of the same scenarios to head off such allegations if they ever came up and were investigated. Which they might not be since having a near 100 percent fail rate would make complaints about the fairness of the test seem like it was likely unfounded especially when combined with a recent real-world example of incompetence that apparently has filtered to random consultants.

and a while ship failing while all the other whole crews pass is not suspicious at all. Right.

 

[Sarcastic Vulcan Salute]

and a while ship failing while all the other whole crews pass is not suspicious at all. Right.

Given that the Cerritos is a ship of second-stringers who have messed up quite a bit in real life, no, it would not suspicious that another ship did alright or well, while the Cerritos sucked.

Now, if you want to say the tester was bad at rigging things, fine, that I'll co-sign. A goal of achieving 100 percent failure was foolish and could have possibly drawn attention to what she was doing even if she hadn't confessed. She could have achieved her objective of making her testing seem relevant with even a 20 percent fail scenario and not raised any eyebrows.

Or that she targeted the ship of a captain who's married to an admiral, that's not exactly smart either.

But these aren't things that require suspension of disbelief, because people make dumb decisions all the time in fiction and in real life.

 

[TimeIsAPredator]

It's a fking cartoon, suspension of disbelief is the point. would be some borefest of a sci-fi comedy if everything had to make sense

 

[Romulan_spy]

Sadly we did not see Boimler beat the Kobayashi Maru. Perfect opportunity here!

Well, the Borg Encounter scenario was a no-win scenario and he beat it. I get the feeling he would beat the Kobayashi Maru scenario too. He'd probably insist on taking it over and over until he got a perfect score like he did with the Borg scenario.

 

[KimMH]

My only 10 of the season so far. It was so sweet it gave me a cavity; after the week I’ve had I’ll take ALL the sugar. Loooooved it.

 

[Orphalesion]

Yup 10/10
Naked Time (with Billups just browsing on his tablet while sitting there naked), Boimler carrying around that absurd amount of Borg Babies, the Bridge Crew abandoning the quartet in space at the beginning,, Mariner getting trampled by the horse (which wasn't rigged), the Bridge Crew having to stack crates during ship-wide emergencies...

Also loved how much we saw of the rest of the crew in those score boards.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Great fun. Gave this one a 10.

Spoiler

The set-up, the massive and funny lean in to referentialism (the Naked Time outing, in particular, was hysterical), the Pandronian's villainy and Boim's perfectionist ability to crush even the tilted Borg challenge he's given... and the final resolution where they exposed their "tester" as a big old fake was all just great. I loved that we got Alice Krige as the Borg Queen. Just thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of this.

Very interesting that while we get the obligatory feel-good team and friendship message out of it, there's another subtle nod to trauma here. Last time it was Tendi pretending not to be traumatized by Rutherford's death fakeout, this time it's Boimler's clear trauma at the simulated Borg assimilation he's been put through that everyone else ignores. This actually feels in part like a reference to the old-timey "gather round and laugh" endings of TOS, but I also wonder if they aren't building toward something more specific.

Isn't that the secret of good comedy?
It has to come from a place of pain.
The more pain, the better the comedy.

This episode was the (short of the magnificent Badgey episode, no one can top that) best of the series. Funny, entertaining, weird, with over the top and heavy handed messaging, and pitch perfect character responses.

But the best moments were Boimler... not just the Borg sim Boimler but even the mirror Boimler's brief cameo.

Such a great episode

"They sleep in a hallway"
Underrated line... but the Borg babies got the biggest laugh from me. I'm still chuckling here thinking about it...

 

[NCC-73515]

The music playing during Boilmer's borg simulation is mostly this track from TNG

Though they didn't credit Ron Jones in the episode.

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They've used the BOBW soundtrack throughout the whole show already

 

[jackoverfull]

Now, if you want to say the tester was bad at rigging things, fine, that I'll co-sign. A goal of achieving 100 percent failure was foolish and could have possibly drawn attention to what she was doing even if she hadn't confessed. She could have achieved her objective of making her testing seem relevant with even a 20 percent fail scenario and not raised any eyebrows.

precisely what I meant.
I mean, she didn’t even need them to fail at all in the first place, just having lower scores than “better” crews would have been more than enough.

Or that she targeted the ship of a captain who's married to an admiral, that's not exactly smart either.

good point

But these aren't things that require suspension of disbelief, because people make dumb decisions all the time in fiction and in real life.

they did for me.

But one of the few things I have against LDS (which I otherwise I really love as a series) is that it tends to be REALLY over the top, requiring the spectator to imagine things a bit toned down to be able to fit them into canon.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Over the top is what makes it work. I don't really care if the show is canon, in my mind it is more canon-adjacent than anything else.

 

[fireproof78]

But one of the few things I have against LDS (which I otherwise I really love as a series) is that it tends to be REALLY over the top, requiring the spectator to imagine things a bit toned down to be able to fit them into canon.

That is a feature not a bug.

 

[Orphalesion]

To me Lower Decks is canon. It's not really any sillier than some of the life action episodes.

 

[cooleddie74]

"The Outrageous Okona(TNG)" is basically a live-action, 46-minute-long LD episode.

 

[fireproof78]

"The Outrageous Okona(TNG)" is basically a live-action, 46-minute-long LD episode.

If things like that episode or Profit and Lace, Threshold, I, Mudd (among others), can exist in canon then Lower Decks can too.

 

[cooleddie74]

Yep. LD is canon.

If the past 55 years of Trek have shown viewers anything it's that the universe is WEIRD.

 

[Tuskin38]

Wow, another 8/10 from Bernd over on EAS.