Logline
A trio of Betazoids cause chaos on the Cerritos.
Written by: Jamie Loftus
Directed by: Megan Lloyd
Damn, security is wholesome. Loved Kayshons Naruto-run to the phasers. Focused!
The Cerritos is continuing the proud Starfleet tradition of having good mental health advisors and a kinda useless ship’s counselor.
That B-plot justifying the entire security team being isolated from the threat until the red alert was pretty funny.
Man, I was hoping they’d confirm the commonly held theory that Sokel is T’lyn’s father (since she’s the Sh’val’s version of Mariner). No dice unfortunately.
Really like how Mariner was emotionally mature enough to solve the problem by just talking. Sure, she’s done that some other times (Crisis Point II comes to mind), but she doesn’t really know T’lyn nearly as well as those other examples. Really shows how far she’s come from the therapy-hating Mariner in Season 1. She’s not wrong to point out how Vulcans tend to have a very narrow view of what their species should be like while idolizing paragons who don’t fit that mold. Tear them space elves down, girl!
Other notes:
- One of Shaxs’ officers at the gathering reaaally looked like a Kiley (Kileyan?) from SNW episode 1. Guess Pike’s message stuck.
- I noted previously that they drew the betazoids with larger eye dots to reference their dark irises. Looking back, I think they even did that when drawing Counselor Troi in season 1.
- we don’t often see Tendi being the butt of the joke. guess there’s no place to ham up her excessive emotionality than a T’lyn episode.
Betazed intelligence? That makes sense. There has surely been a thread or two asking why that wasn’t a thing.
Laughed out loud at the disappointed Romulans. It was cheap, but I still adored it.
At some point, I’d like to see a gag about how the Romulans seem to hang out in the Neutral Zone all the time.
They don’t hang out. They lurk.
They better enjoy it while they can, their planet’s gonna be destroyed in just 6 years.
I think there is a fan theory that Romulan space is pretty small (relatively speaking), which is how they’re able to defend it well with a small number of ships. Which also explains why they’re not able to have enough ships to evacuate Romulus.
I think people tend to underestimate what’s required to evacuate a planetary population. That’s billions of people! The 24th century we see might have some massive passenger transport that could hold, say, 10000 passengers. You’d need hundreds of thousands of ships that size to evacuate the whole planet. And the logistics would be a nightmare’s nightmare. A ship that size probably doesn’t make planetfall. How do you get them loaded? Think about how long it takes to get a widebody jet boarded - maybe 500 people at most. What about the quadriplegics? What about the bedridden? What about the pets? Etc. etc. etc.
You could hold a lot of people in buffer.
True. Unfortunately, holding people in the transport buffer is one of those things you have to entirely forget exists if you want to tell certain stories. The transporter in general could trivialise a lot of story beats.
wouldn’t the Romulans entering the neutral zone also be an act of war, though? that’s kinda the point of a neutral zone – neither side can enter.
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it…
I like how one of the background characters in the party room was wearing the stupid headset everyone got addicted to in TNG
T’Ana was great in this episode. Especially because of the fact that we got some weird lore about betazoids being prey lol. When she went feral and started hunting, I absolutely lost it.
I also loved how Shax tried to talk her down and persuade her to use some coping/calming mechanisms.
Lol yeah calling her hunny was great.
I like to imagine that Lwaxana trained those three. The image of Majel Barret flipping around whacking people with a shock baton is quite amusing.
It wasn’t the shock baton that came to mind, rather the TNG episode where Lwaxana figures out that the fish-alien diplomats are frauds and spies. Lwaxana’s telepathic insights could be distracted, but not for long.
Even Deanna Troi, a less powerful empath, was able to survive alone undercover on a Romulan ship.
Of course there would be Betazoid Intelligence officers embedded in the Federation diplomatic core.
Once again, Lower Decks is the show that takes things to their logical conclusion.
That was a fun episode. Hopefully they don’t kill T’lyn due to her Bendii like syndrome. Like how Mariner and T’lyn shared a moment. Betazoids intelligence agents taking the Cerritos across the neutral zone was that due to T’lyn influence?
The peptalk that Mariner gave T’Lyn was absolutely fantastic. There were so many good moments in this episode, but that is probably my favorite.
The Romulans that are disappointed when the Cerritos does not cross into the Neutral Zone was hilarious too.
The peptalk that Mariner gave T’Lyn was absolutely fantastic. There were so many good moments in this episode, but that is probably my favorite.
“Then I suppose, by the transitive property, that I, too, am ‘as Vulcan as a motherfucker.’”
I wonder if she actually has Bendii syndrome or if she’s just more emotional than a typical Vulcan? Sarek only lived 2 years after his symptoms started showing!
Or she could be pretty typical in regards to emotional intensity but with unusually strong telepathy.
So I’m feeling really dumb on my trek lore, but Vulcans have telepathy? I mean I guess their mind meld is a obvious giveaway. I just never considered the two one in the same.
It doesn’t come up very often. Their telepathy is very weak and they usually can’t do much without physical contact.
Except in Discovery. It works across lightyears in the first episode.
And Spock with V’Ger 🙂🖖
How can I get into TOS?
TOS and Abrams content is the only thing I haven’t done yet.
Got a good watch list for the critical stuff?
Yes, the Betazoids acted that way because of her.
I doubt the writers will give here Bendi syndrome. Seems too dark for Lower Decks
It’s probably for the best that they didn’t use voyager as an example about how Vulcan emotions can infect other people…
I also enjoyed the part where Freeman tries to stop them. I sat there thinking that she was being smart it was 100 percent the betazoids. It’s a good example why the characters aren’t idiots for doing the things we yell at the TV screen.
Great episode. I really like what they’re doing with T’Lyn.
Annotations up at: https://startrek.website/post/2153916
I’m not sure if there is or not, but it seems like there should be a way to link a post that links to it on whatever instance of Lemmy we’re on instead of hard linking to the main… hmmm
Would also be nice if opening lemmy links kept you in whatever UI you are using. I don’t like that it opens a browser page to the post.
This is on the voyager app for iOS anyway.
I’m finding Voyager less up to date for this instance and less functional than a browser view, even on mobile.
It’s a nice app but has some way to go.
I always appreciate your posts
I really enjoyed this one, from captain knowing somthing was up to the careing security team
I wonder if “Boimler, he guesses the charade” will enter the tamarian lexicon by kayshon for somebody finally getting it.
For sure that’s what’s going to happen in a future episode
I really liked the facial expression animations in this episode. Its difficult to pull them off in 2D animation, but it really helped in this episode.
Loved the episode. Did I understand correctly that the Betazoids were travelling from planet to planet to find a cure for this rampant emotional telepathic event?
Does that mean T’Lyns powers extended that far?
Or were they secretly hunting for the alien ship? I got a little bit lost with the fast dialog.
On a random note, funny how in ten forward the two guys making out kept inserting themselves in almost every scene.
Or were they secretly hunting for the alien ship?
It was this - they’re investigating the destroyed vessels.
They were looking for clues to the attacks on the ships, playing the part of party girls to get in places they probably normally wouldn’t be able to. They went full into it when they got near T’Lyn
I’m relieved to know I’m not the only one who got that mixed up. I had to rewatch the bridge scene to understand they were tracking the ship, and not some psychic outbreak of heightened emotions.
Also, I just now looked ahead. Is the next title really a Garth Marenghi reference? Because that’s amazing.
Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place
It’s can’t be anything else, surely! I kinda want that ep to have a character that can’t act.
T’Lyn’s voice always reminds me of the Alexa or Google Home, and it’s hilarious.
