This should’ve absolutely been a Halloween episode. It’s a zombie episode, kind of, it keeps you on your toes the whole way, and it’s the most fun they’ve had so far.
The Cerritos is having issues with its navigation array, and it has to stop at the only place that’s available, which is Starbase 80. Starbase 80 is literally the tail end of the galaxy for these explorers. It’s also a place Mariner is very, very familiar with, so much so that she’s terrified to go back.
I watched this one with my co-host, and when I asked what he thought, the answer was two words: space zombies.
It’s a Parasite. It’s Whatever.
What ended up spreading it was the badge. Every time somebody would click their combadge, someone would change into a zombie. You get the call going out, “Rutherford to Commander Billups. SB80 has got some problems with their grav-plating. Can you help out?” And what comes back is static.
My co-host summed up the cause as “it was a parasite, but anyways,” and kept right on going. That’s actually the exact right energy for Star Trek fans. That’s literally how we see it too. It’s a parasite. It’s whatever.
The reason it’s on the station in the first place is the whale people, the two whales who work ops. One of them went on an away mission to a planet that has an electrical something or other, with a species that lives that way, and I guess it piggybacked onto them. So the doctor from Starbase 80 had to use some really good, strong medical knowledge: “Some problems need an old-fashioned bucket.” That was the hard-hitting technical knowledge he had to have to help them get rid of this thing. It’s awesome.
Starbase 80 Came Straight Out of the Original Series
Starbase 80 is so funny, because it’s this super retro place. It looks like it came right out of the original series. They’ve got the little wall communicators. They’ve got the little elevators where you’ve got to hold the handle, turn it, and then say where you want to go. They’re everywhere. And the place is literally falling apart.
And when I tell you they’re old, it’s not only the technology. They’re wearing old suits. My co-host asked me why the suits look like that, and I told him they’re from Enterprise. He said, “Ugh, whatever.”
The Captain’s Treasure Hunt
Captain Freeman and Ransom go to the transporter room looking for the chief engineer, who’s supposed to have a navigation array for them. They find one guy, and he says no problem, but can you real quick fix this thing, because it’s blaring beep beep beep. She fixes it. Great, he says, you’ll find him in the arcade.
He doesn’t take them to the arcade. They go everywhere else but. They end up down in a basement cellar with a bunch of bats, and now it’s “actually, can you fix this gas leak?” She fixes that too, and asks where this engineer is. Still the arcade.
So they finally get to the arcade, and they’re greeted by these aliens hanging around the edges. “That’s a lot of Acamarians. Careful, Cap, these guys can get pretty rough.” And one of them says, “You lost, Starfleet? We don’t get a lot of your kind around here.” Then they find out it’s the arcade these two are after, and it’s oh, okay, right back here, and tokens on the house. They didn’t even use them.
Inside, they see the same guy again. She asks one more time where this engineer is that he keeps talking about, and somebody says, in earshot of him, “Calm down, lady. That is Jakobowski.”
“Chief Engineer Gene Jakobowski, at your service.”
She tells him he lied. And what he tells her is that he’s been trying to get someone from Starfleet to help fix the base, but apparently they’re very low on the to-do list. True story. Ransom isn’t having it. But the Captain walks away sad, because she hasn’t been nice to these people. So they decide to really commit to helping, and they end up clearing the bats out of some of the lower areas.
A Place for Second Chances
The other plot is Mariner’s. She ends up going around the station with an officer they find there, and they’re having a hard time. The one person who’s taking them everywhere keeps telling them this isn’t a bad place. She’s trying to help them see the upside of it, and I thought it was really good. She says it’s a place for second chances. Which is what Mariner wanted when she was banished.
My co-host caught a correlation I liked, between Mariner and Mariner’s mom. In the first episode, in the alternate universe, her mom was the commander of Starbase 80. So she’s freaking out about being there, and Mariner’s freaking out because that’s where she was banished to. And the answer both of them get is the same one. This is a place for second chances.
It was fun watching them defeat the bad guy. I say bad guy. The entity that was misunderstood, as Star Trek often does.
The Verdict
Star Trek: Lower Decks, “Starbase 80?!”, is a solid 8 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index. I asked my co-host for his number first and he said eight. I’m down with that too.
We had a wonderful time watching it. It’s a lot of fun, and you can tell they’re having a good time by the end, doing some fun stuff.
I’d love to see more of what the parallel universe story arc is. There’s nothing on it in this one. If they did something with it, we just completely missed it. I don’t think they did. He doesn’t think so either.
Did we miss it? If the parallel universe arc showed up somewhere in this episode, tell me where, and tell me what you thought of Starbase 80. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
