This text comprises spoilers for the most recent episode of “Star Trek: Decrease Decks.”
“Star Trek” reveals have been identified to go massive for his or her last seasons (or film send-offs, as was the case with “Star Trek Generations”), and judging by this week’s nice episode, “Star Trek: Decrease Decks” is not any exception. The newest installment, “Totally Dilated,” is certainly one of my favorites of your entire sequence. It focuses on three nice characters (Tawny Newsome’s Mariner, Noël Wells’ Tendi, and Gabrielle Ruiz’s T’Lyn), makes use of probably the most impactful “Trek” tropes on the market (time dilation), and features a very silly-funny bit about Boimler and Rutherford spilling prawn cocktails all around the transporter panel throughout a very high-stakes second.
“Totally Dilated” was already one of many extra endearing episodes the reference-packed animated comedy has produced to this point, however its constructive qualities actually went off the charts when it launched its not-so-secret weapon: Brent Spiner’s Information. Extra particularly, the Cerritos crew encountered the purple severed head of an alternate universe model of Information, who crash-landed onto the planet they ended up trapped on for a 12 months. Spiner continues to be an energetic participant on the planet of “Star Trek,” having simply appeared in “Picard” as not too long ago as final 12 months, however his heat presence continues to be extremely welcome — and a giant get for the ultimate season of “Decrease Decks.”
The Cerritos workforce recovers Purple Information’s head from the wreckage of an alternate Enterprise D, which comes from a spot the place the whole lot appears to be precisely the identical apart from its residents’ love of the colour purple. In an try and out-science T’Lyn and harness a promotion, Tendi reanimates the bifurcated android, preserving him in a lab of types the place he doles out recommendation and tries to counterbalance Tendi’s insecurities. At one level, she worries that Information wants a physique, however he reassures her that he is been completely nice residing as a severed head earlier than.
Decrease Decks is not the primary Star Trek present to characteristic Information’s severed head
Like many “Star Trek: Decrease Decks” references, this throwaway line leaves extra questions than solutions for informal franchise followers who could not have seen the older “Trek” reveals shortly. Or, quite, it begs one query specifically: when the hell was Information a severed head earlier than?
To reply, we now have to journey again to 1992, when “Star Trek: The Subsequent Era” ended its fifth season with an Emmy-winning, much-loved two-part episode, the second a part of which truly aired because the season 6 premiere. Titled “Time’s Arrow,” the double-sized story sees Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) and his workforce discover proof of alien visitation on Earth practically 500 years earlier. That proof? Information’s severed head, which is present in a Bay Space cavern a mile underground, together with relics from the nineteenth century.
Quickly sufficient, Information — the one with a physique — finally ends up transported again to San Francisco circa 1893, permitting for the present to couple critical existential talks in regards to the character’s mortality with an entertainingly comical “What if we messed with historical past?” story arc. This “Physician Who”-like interlude options appearances from Mark Twain and Jack London, plus loads of enjoyable, period-specific language and apparel. The episodes additionally mess around with time paradoxes, permitting the “Subsequent Era” crew to satisfy ship bartender Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) within the nineteenth century as a result of her future self instructed them to, and in the end explaining Information’s head with a trippy catch-22 of a climax.
Partway by way of the season 6 premiere, Information fairly actually loses his head in a scuffle, and the ship’s workforce brings his physique again to the Enterprise of the long run whereas in a time crunch. Fortunately, Information’s outdated head, discovered within the caves of California, is already on board the Enterprise, and Geordi (LeVar Burton) reattaches it to his present-timeline physique. Picard, it seems, encoded a secret message in Information’s tooth again within the day, and when his head will get again to his physique, he is all of a sudden given data that is very important to the mission.
Decrease Decks provides to the story of Time’s Arrow
We do not be taught a lot about what Information’s head was as much as throughout its time on Earth, however time journey logic signifies that it was concurrently trapped there for 500 years and wasn’t separate from his physique for very lengthy. In distinction to the chatty, pleasant Information of “Decrease Decks,” although, the pinnacle in “Time’s Arrow” is creepy and vacant, clearly void of any life power or vitality supply. Throughout the present’s low season, followers did not know whether or not or not Spiner’s character would find yourself killed off within the nineteenth century, as he suspected he would, and the thriller of his recovered head was solely solved when the present got here again three months after its cliffhanger finale.
Hilariously, “Decrease Decks” does not simply reference the opposite time that Information misplaced his head, but additionally jokes about the way in which “Time’s Arrow” by no means actually handled the realities of leaving Information’s neural middle behind on Earth. “Don’t be so onerous on your self!” Information tells Tendi at one level when she’s fed up with a science experiment. “I struggled to construct an electromagnetic subject core once I was trapped in nineteenth century San Francisco.” When Tendi asks what Information did to beat the impediment, he reminded her that he could not do a lot as a decapitated head: “I waited in a cave till Captain Picard, myself, and a few man in a silver jumpsuit dug me out.”
With respect to this incessantly humorous sequence, “Star Trek: Decrease Decks” does not at all times take advantage of its cameos, and it is nice to see Information get loads of display time on this sturdy episode. He is additionally a robust scene accomplice for Tendi, whose Orion background makes her really feel additional strain to achieve Starfleet. “I’m the one android who has served on the Starfleet bridge, so I understand how troublesome it’s to be the primary,” Information instructed Tendi throughout the closest factor the episode has to a sentimental second. He additionally performs a serious half within the present’s plot, advising Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) to permit Tendi and T’Lyn to work collectively as Science Officers. Our Decrease Deckers are lastly transferring up on the planet, with assist from among the best characters in “Trek” historical past.
New episodes of “Star Trek: Decrease Decks” premiere every Thursday on Paramount+.