“Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place” doesn’t have a main plot. I started to tell you what the major story of Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 4 Episode 6 was, and my co-host stopped me mid-sentence, because there isn’t one. They kept hopping around. She’s right. Normally there’s a steady overall plot you follow with a bunch of subplots hanging off it, and this was a series of subplots.

It’s a fun episode anyway, and there’s a lot going on in it. Mariner’s on a binge, and I’m just going to call it what it is. The captain’s trying to get something signed with the Ferengi. Tendi and Rutherford have to fake being a couple. And Boimler is addicted to television, pretty much.

Before any of that, thank you for 2,500 subscribers. We just hit that milestone the other day, I’m looking forward to the next 2,500, and I appreciate each and every one of you.

Boimler Finds Television

Boimler’s story is the one I thought was the most realistic, because they don’t have TV like we have today. He gets to see this new form of entertainment all of a sudden, and I could totally see that retro addiction happening. These people live in holodecks. In a world where you can have holograms and experience your entertainment dimensionally, I think it’d be super novel to discover this weird flat form of storytelling.

And that’s the entire story for him this week. You don’t see much of Boimler except at the beginning and the very end. The reason they’re there at all is that Starfleet’s got travel guides for all these planets, and they’ve hardly ever been to Ferenginar.

That part I did like. We’ve never had this in-depth a look at Ferengi culture.

Rom Is Grand Nagus, and He Still Loves Baseball

We saw a lot of Ferengi exploration in Deep Space Nine, so having the actor who played Rom back as Grand Nagus Rom was pretty awesome. I’m not sure about Leeta. It may have been her, but it didn’t sound to me like the actress who played her, and I don’t know what the situation is there. My co-host told me to Google it.

What I liked is how consistent they were about who Rom is. If you watched Deep Space Nine, Rom became the Nagus at the very end of it, and we never really saw any more about that. So here he is actually in the role, and he’s helped turn the Ferengi somewhat around, but not all the way.

My co-host wanted to know why the guy was obsessed with baseballs. That comes from Deep Space Nine too. Rom got introduced to the game there, a lot of them did, and he ended up really enjoying it. It’s one of those through lines they’ve kept for those of us who are familiar with it, and it was fun and funny if nothing else. He made it official: Ferengi are allowed to play baseball.

So Many Profits Lost

Then there’s the giant monument. The Dominion War was the point of Deep Space Nine, and this is their memorial to it. A moment of respect and reverence for everyone who suffered during the Dominion War, and all the profits that were lost. So much lost income. Is there no justice in this galaxy?

My co-host thought the guy was talking about deaths. He was talking about money. Where we would have a death toll, they’ve got all the people who lost money during the Dominion War, and that’s so Ferengi. This is their ground zero monument. It was amazing.

Tendi and Rutherford, Four Seasons In

After four seasons we got the Tendi and Rutherford will they, won’t they. They were adorable, and at the same time I get why the show ended up coming back to the platonic friendship that is clearly still mildly inappropriate.

My co-host thought it was funny that they had to be forced into it. They kept getting put in situations they didn’t want to be in, and they kept blushing. Because of the fields they’re in, it reminded her of Dr. T’Ana and Shaxs, like a mini version of those two. But to her it’s clearly very platonic.

For sure. Especially at the very end, when they’re going back into the Jefferies tube and you’re left sitting there asking what’s happening here.

What’s Going On With Mariner

I asked my co-host what she thinks is going on with Mariner, and she had no idea. Her read is that Mariner isn’t used to being at such a high rank without getting demoted. She’s said in previous episodes that every time she’s gotten a promotion, she’s gotten demoted. This time Ransom is actually trying to be a good mentor and be supportive.

So she goes on this binge with her friend from an earlier episode. We’ve seen him before. She asks for three shots, he tells her it’s 10:00 in the morning, and she pulls out a random shot from somewhere else, gets drunk and gets in a bar fight. Okay, where is this coming from?

At the end the guy tells her she needs to figure out what’s going on internally. My co-host was expecting the episode to close by telling us what happened. That’s not what happened. They kind of low-key gave us a cliffhanger on Mariner, and we’ll see eventually.

Captain Freeman Gets the Last Word

The negotiation between Captain Freeman and the admiral made my co-host say, “I swear they watched Barbie or something.” It’s interesting she said that, because he just kept shutting her down left and right and acting like she didn’t know what she was doing. Come on, guys. What’s the deal?

She also thought it was cool how the captain swindled them, and yeah, she did good. To get all the stuff they were conning the admiral out of, the Ferengi had to bring one planet into the Federation, and that planet was the Klingon homeworld. I kind of thought the Klingons were already part of the Federation by this stage, but maybe I just didn’t understand how my Starfleet history worked.

I Think They’re Being Collected

The season’s running mystery got to a Ferengi ship this week. In the beginning the guy says something like, “Oh, well, just on time,” so maybe the Ferengi have something to do with it. Or at least that guy did somehow, which will be interesting.

I don’t think these crews are being killed. I think that’s just the effect they’re using, and the design is there to make us think that. I think they’re being taken somewhere, or being collected somehow. And I think we’re going to see Badgey again, probably soon, because we’re reaching the last three or four episodes. There are going to be 10 episodes this season.

Slug-o-Cola

I asked my co-host about the show’s version of interdimensional cable. One of her guilty pleasures is TV inside animation, because the way they do it is so unique and different. They had an ad for Slug-o-Cola, which supposedly makes your lobes get bigger, and she thought that was funny. She’s seen the weird cable bit in several shows, and this was one of the more normal ones. TV in animation is just so funny to her.

The Verdict

Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 4 Episode 6, “Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place,” is an 8.0 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index. That’s for the two of us. We discussed it.

I’m running into this weird Season 4 slump where I’m not finding myself over the top impressed. I’m enjoying the show just fine. Rick and Morty faced the same kind of thing, and I feel like we’re in a little bit of an equilibrium place, where they’re taking an awful long time to drag out the storyline for me. Let’s get going, or get off the pot.

My co-host’s take, from what she’s seen and what she’s heard from me, is that it’s kind of a callback show, so maybe that’s why they’re having such a hard time. For a newer Star Trek fan like her, it’s interesting. It’s just not something that’s got a hold on her.

Let us know what you thought of the episode, and all the ways you enjoy my co-host. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.