Star Trek: Lower Decks review, Episode 10: “No Small Parts”

The season finale of Star Trek: Lower Decks is a laugh riot filled with epic action and the return of some iconic franchise characters.

Star Trek: Lower Decks has finally reached the final episode of its impressive debut season, and it did not disappoint. “No Small Parts” solidifies the series as not only a great animated Star Trek show, but a great Trek show in general.

While Mariner, Boimler, Rutherford and Tendi all have their moment to shine in the finale, it’s the special guests who save the day. Star Trek: Lower Decks season has featured plenty of familiar faces, but few as recognizable as William T. Riker or Deanna Troi. Adding the galaxy’s favorite dynamic duo to any Trek endeavor is a guaranteed success.

The big event development of this episode is when Boimler reveals to the entire ship what he learned last week: that Mariner is actually the daughter of Captain Freeman. Neither are happy the secret has gotten out.

Then we cut to the shiny, just-out-of-the-package looking USS Solveange, which encounters a massive ship that obliterates the Starfleet vessel very quickly, killing everyone on board. This is the darkest the show has gotten so far, which is an interesting change of pace. Lower Decks does come from a Rick and Morty writer, after all, and that show can get pretty bleak at times.

“No Small Parts” also delivers up a well-developed side story aboutTendi training a robot Ensign named Peanuthamper, who looks like a hovering vacuum with no hose. Meanwhile, Rutherford tries to reset his cybernetic enhancements to their default settings.

Pictured: Noel Wells as Ensign Tendi and Gillian Vigman as Dr. T’Ana of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS. Photo Cr: Best Possible Screen Grab CBS 2020 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Back in the A-plot, Mariner decides to steal Boimler’s idea of trying to get a promotion so she can work on the Sacramento and go back to being a nobody. Being a rebellious rule-breaker is no fun if everyone is continuously showing you special treatment.

Meanwhile, on the bridge, Captain Freeman gets a brief distress signal from the USS Solveange. Soon enough, the Cerritos is attacked by the same mysterious ship, which turns out to be run by space pirates Trek fans will recognize from The Next Generation. They were never considered that much of a threat before, but underestimating them was clearly a mistake.

In probably the best Next Generation jokes the show has pulled off, the pirates mistake the Cerritos for the Enterprise. They attack, and chaos ensues.

Pictured: Tawny Newsome as Ensign Beckett Mariner, Dawnn Lewis as Captain Freeman and Jerry O’Connell as Commander Ransom of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS. Photo Cr: Best Possible Screen Grab CBS 2020 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Captain Freeman knows the only way to stop such an enemy is to rely on Mariner’s unpredictable instincts. This all leads to a creative solution to their problem: it ends up that Badgy, the sentient training program that tried to kill Ensign Rutherford in “Terminal Provocations,” is their only hope for survival.

Peanuthamper is the perfect vessel to transport Badgy to the ship, but in a hilarious twist, she refuses to be a virus bomb, and tells everyone she only joined Starfleet to anger her dad before she beams herself off the ship to safety. This means Shaxs and Rutherford will have to board the enemy ship personally.

Badgy ends up double-crossing Rutherford, forcing Shaxs to remove the Ensign’s cybernetic implants, shove him into the transport and sacrifice himself in order to save the Cerritos. But then three more enemy ships emerge from the shadows and surround the Cerritos. With all hope lost, the crew awaits their demise.

Pictured: Tawny Newsome as Ensign Beckett Mariner of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS. Photo Cr: Best Possible Screen Grab CBS 2020 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

All is not lost, however, as the Titan arrives to save the day with some Starfleet veterans on its bridge. The heroic vessel is run by The Next Generation’s Commander Riker, and by his side, as always, is the flawless Deanna Troi.

The epic ordeal ends with Boimler taking a promotion to work on the bridge of the Titan alongside Riker and Deanna, with the shenanigans he endured throughout season 1 helping him impress his new colleagues. But Mariner isn’t happy, and she makes it known that she will run into Boilmler again.

Adding Riker and Deanna to the mix was great, and I love knowing they’ll be more involved in season 2. But they’re just some of hte reasons we should be excited about where this show could boldly go in the future.

Pictured: Jack Quaid as Ensign Brad Boimler and Tawny Newsome as Ensign Beckett Mariner of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS. Photo Cr: Best Possible Screen Grab CBS 2020 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

All in all, this was an excellent way to cap off a well-written season. There’s plenty of replay value, especially with the finale, and I already can’t wait for more from the Star Trek: Lower Decks crew.

Episode Grade: A+

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