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

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"Mariner and Boimler work the Starfleet recruitment booth at an alien job fair, Rutherford challenges himself." - TrekMovie.com

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Best episode of the season. Got to learn more about Rutherford (And the race was amazing), and Mariner and Boimler's story was fun too. Hopefully we see Petra gain, and I liked the Truthers.

This felt like this first episode in a while to really push the character arcs forward.

10

 

You can just sign up for Starfleet? What on Earth was Wesley doing in TNG?

I’m surprised they didn’t have Vash in the archeology booth.

 

Fun episode. Nice to see a more serious side to Rutherford. Kind of wish we'd seen more of his earlier self.

 

It's like they're reading our comments XD



...and our endless debates!





Allamaraine gets what it deserves



Fancy flight suits



For the one who asks about watching it with a 10 yo...



And some LtCdr seems responsible for the implant - I still say it's 31.

 

So what did happen to Sisko?

 

He's apparently not back from the Celestial Temple despite Avery Brooks saying that Sisko wouldn't abandon his children.

 

Nice to get some more info about Rutherford. Too bad he was kind of a jerk before the implant. 8/10

 

Anybody feel like our silly debates on the Message Board finally gets included in this ep?

 

What do you mean “silly”?

 

Oh man this was a great episode. "Calling out" Starfleet and common Trek tropes/fan debates, deep dive into Rutherford, I love that Boimler was the one who blew up and rightfully so, sometimes taking the high road means sticking up for yourself.

"The one where you're in a new timeline with Kirk and Spock where they have cinematic chemistry?"

 

Yeah, I concur. Best episode so far of the season, by a wide margin.

 

Signing up doesn't necessarily mean you just get in.
If what we saw in TNG was accurate, then most prospective cadets will have to undergo some kind of evaluation prior to going to the Academy.
Since its not a military, its not just going to take anyone or brainwash them into joining for the sake of increasing their own numbers - sure, the 'pitch' made it seem a bit overzealous with the positives, however, they DO present you with all pertinent facts (the good and the bad) to allow you to reach your own decision... and you can drop out at any time without reprecussions... its not a conscription.

It's also possible the entry requirements were 'loosened up' after what happened with the Borg and the Dominion War so that they were made a bit easier on cadets to actually get into the Academy (which should realistically have campuses all over the Federation - at least on all member worlds - and since space is vast, and UFP supposedly has over 80 000 ships by this point in active service, it would make sense that out of nearly a Trillion individuals across UFP space at least 3-5% might be part of SF to keep it going - and you need large amount of campuses/facilities to educate those individuals - ships can be used for that too after all what with holodecks, etc., plus the amount of starbases that have to exist across UFP should be large - to say nothing of the shipyards [Utopia Planitia or SOL cannot be the only facility in the UFP making ships - I'd expect each member world to have its own version of Utopia Planitia with at least similar ship production capacity, defensive structures and orbital habitats like Starbase 1).

After all, everyone has the potential to learn stuff and become 'great' if they are given the right education and opportunities... so it wouldn't make sense to limit your number of prospective students to just 'the best of the brightest' when you can simply MAKE 'the best of the brightest' at the Academy.

Similar. For a moment I thought it may have been Vash, but the british accent obviously turned that possibility into dust - not that I mind.
I'm fine with LD increasingly doing its own thing.

I liked the use of the Delta Flyer... I wonder if the shuttle ended up massed produced since VOY came back, becuse its more like a new/advanced runabout.

 

A lot of questions raised by this one that can be explored further. I’d like to know what shady doctor/ organization wiped Rutherford’s personality with the implant. It sounds like he was injured in an explosion while at the Academy and given the implant to save his life and at some point Section 31 or some other outfit tampered with it to cover up the mission he had been on. What were the politics in the Federation ten years before Lower Decks? Maybe they recruited Rutherford as a spy. What better cover would there be for a spy than an adrenaline junkie who likes to race in the Neutral Zone?

I don’t think Mariner will last long in Starfleet and realistically she has every reason not to. The end of the season might show her shipping out with Petra.

 

You can sign up to be a non-commissioned crewman. O'brien and Simon Tarses got into Starfleet this way. But if you want to be a commissioned officer you have to go through the academy.

 

I hope Rutherford got a chance to apologise to Barnes afterwards...

 

I looked up the name Sampaguita and discovered that it is the national flower of the Philippines. It is a beautiful white flower of the jasmine family.

Philippine National Flower- Sampaguita - National Museum

 

Samanthan is one English spelling of a name for a cultural group in India, per Wikipedia. Rutherford is probably part Indian and Filipino, though the last name is English.

 

Not a perfect episode, but pretty clearly the best of the season to date. Finally feels like they're doing something new and not just doing mediocre riffs on what they've already done.

Rutherford up until this point had been the shallowest of the four main characters, and was in desperate need of a focus episode. Not to mention the Section 31 (?) tease from the Season 2 finale needed to be elaborated upon. I loved the twist here. We were all expecting that the hostile personality was some sort of sleeper agent they put inside of Rutherford, but no, it turns out that's the real Rutherford, who isn't evil, just an immature dick. I wasn't quite as keen on the total return to status quo - I wish some sort of merging would happen to give his arc forward movement, but we still don't know the secret information which led them to wipe him, so there's more here for later in the season (or next season).

The planetside plotline with Mariner and Boimler was clearly a B story, but it also worked well. Both characters showed tremendous growth from where they were in the first season. It's hard to imagine "early Mariner" defending Starfleet so calmly (the Archeologist woman was clearly set up to be everything she was attracted to). Seeing Boimler hulk out was also amusing, though it honestly reminded me of Beavis doing Cornholio more than anything else. Mariner saving the contact at the end was I suppose meant to show some character flaws remain in her, but it could easily just be seen as her wanting a backup plan in case Ransom does find an excuse to boot her out.

Lots of jokes about Star Trek in a general sense, but relatively few "remember X" and no completely unneeded guest stars! I still didn't find it particularly funny, but I don't think it was trying very hard to be funny this week.

 

It's the 24th century. More humans need to be depicted as a completely unrecognizable mish-mash of different ethnicities, and honestly they should be overrepresented in Starfleet if you presume most Starfleet officers meet their spouses on duty and kids of officers are more likely to go into Starfleet themselves.