Spoilers Star Trek: Lower Decks 3x05 - "Reflections"

Sampaguita? The flower in the Philippines. So is this confirmation that Rutherford is Pinoy like Eugene Cordoro? This Fil-Am needs to know!

Also, good episode.

 

There seem to be some additional hijinks involved beyond what we've seen with Rutherford, and more than he suspects. In the flashback, we saw the Lt. Commander was wearing a TNG uniform (at first I though it was the early version, but going frame by frame, at the end of the shot the light dims just enough to see the collar), which places the flashback somewhere between 9 and 16 years earlier. Like, Mariner is trying to stay an ensign, so that makes sense, but even if he's totally lacking in ambition, it seems unlikely to me someone as capable as Rutherford wouldn't have been promoted from ensign after five years (minimum). Maybe he spent some time in suspended animation or something after the surgery? But that still wouldn't explain why the implant seemed new to him at the beginning of the show when he would've had it for three-plus years as a cadet, plus however long it had been since he was commissioned.

Maybe the implant was modified or upgraded just before the show started? It's a stretch with the dialog (maybe the old implant was ostensibly just a prosthetic eye and ear, and the new one was the first one that really brought him above and beyond?), but that's all I can think of beyond a straight let's-pretend-we-never-said-that revision of his backstory.

 

Maybe he just joined Starfleet late.

 

A light but good episode. Rutherford is really messed up! I wonder who his employer was and how he still used him after the accident.

Fun to see LDS poking fun to that ridiculous Voy episode, uniforms included, also fun to see Conspiracy mentioned.

Boimler said something about the Doctor’s agency having been questioned, was he simply referring to Author Author or we’ll discover something of what happened to him after returning to the Alplha quadrant?

8.

 

I give it a 9.we get a good focus on Rutherford which we haven't had before. I enjoyed the added mystery of the implant that we got a peek at last season. But wouldn't his old personality have returned after Shax yanked out his old implant on the Pakled ship. I think Badgey is hiding somewhere in his mind as well.

Mariner showed tremendous restraint against the other booth people after they started endlessly harassing them, which is a good development on her part. I've noticed little moments like this.

Bold Boimler strikes again, and gets in good with Ransom, so that's a plus.

DELTA FLYER! even if it was just part of Rutherford's imagination, was still good to see it. too bad they didn't show Tom's old school joystick controls.

 

"Join Starfleet if you want to get turned into a Borg."
*they flee*

 

'Red' Rutherford did say on screen he was from 10 years ago (inferring that was the approx. date of the accident.)

 

Upgrades!

'Nother great dual personality story, perfectly suited for animation. Two Nines in a row for me.

 

I bet his memory was erased (again) just prior to the start of the show. Then his Starfleet records were modified and he was sent off to an obscure posting as a fresh ensign. Who knows how many times they did that to him. From his perspective, and his personnel file, he just got the implant recently. This doesn't work if it was stated that Mariner and Boimler knew him before the implant, but I'd need to see the exact dialogue.

 

Um...how did the Collectors obtain this from Khan???

Or is it a replica?



"Butt Bugs!"

 

It's an easter egg to activate your memberberry gland into releasing its soothing chemicals.

 

Solid episode! I was worried at first, because I thought it was going to be an "evil twin" kind of episode, and I hate the absolute hell out of those. Fortunately, it ended up being much better, and I laughed far harder than I probably should have when Boimler went ballistic, but it was so much fun.

 

"Sorry Baby Bear." Shax is on the ball!


"Our style isn't across the whole fleet, but they're in the California-class--" So there are variations among the different classes of ships? That is cool!

"Coltar, when he drowned in the swamp."

Lot of great quotes in this story.

 

The plant Tendi was studying was from TOS "This Side of Paradise"

 

I liked the TAS and TMP aliens in the crowd down on the surface. This wasn't a great episode but it was an entertaining one and seeing Boimler go off on people and aliens was a nice scene.

 

I wonder if that "collect Dilithium" comment was a Star Trek Online reference.

 

I did appreciate how the archaeologist who was in Starfleet had served on the Victory and there's a Constellation-class starship model at Boimler and Mariner's booth. Nice symmetry, even if unintended.

 

It was one of the aliens from the crystal planet in 1x03, so probably not.

 

It's just you do a lot of that in STO.

 

true but not really an issue if they decide to have it both ways: this episode takes place only around seven years since Sisko’s disappearance, he could well come back later, say around the time Picard is set, some 25 years later.