Lower Decks S4-E10 "Old Friends, New Planets" Spoilers Whitin

AMKC

So it's the final episode of Season 4.

I wonder will the Lacarno thread be solved in this or will if be co tinued to next season. Stay tuned to find out.

Edit: Well that's that thread and the Lacarno thread solved alright. Was an enjoyable episode

Spear

I'd say the Locarno thread is very solved.

A lot of pretty explicit Wrath of Khan parallels,from the music re-use and shot recreation. Otherwise a fairly straight forward enough bit of space adventure overall.

Some nice small details, the jokes about the resemblance to Tom Paris, the comment about the first time seeing someone use a captain's yacht, and Mariner appointing her new first officer.

Does the final scene with Tendi set her up as the big bad for the next season though?

corkie

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Old_Friends%2C_New_Planets_%28episode%29

Enjoyable episode, at least it didn't end on a big cliffhanger.

Spoiler Warning

Paywall on a Bomb?

Rawr

Pretty good finale. I was a little surprised that the Steamrunner Class Mariner stole was having such a hard time against the various "Lower Decks" shuttles. I kind of assumed that the Steamrunner was built for battle and resembled a beefed up cross between a Defiant and a Sovereign. I expected a Steamrunner to have an easier time fighting them off (although in fairness it did take a serious beating and kept going).

Do kind of love how Mariner's story now ties into the TNG Episode "Lower Decks". It was undoubtfully the inspiration for this show, and it makes sense for there to be a link.

Spear

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121314877#Comment_121314877

Steamrunners are just small destroyers, but there seems to an implication that the one they had wasn't up to scratch. There's no starfleet officers among Nova Fleet, and Mariner refers to it as an old tub(which doesn't seem right, it should still be a recent design at the time of LD, and way more modern than the Cerritos). It seems like the ship was stolen without any crew, and was maybe mothballed or being refit, or salvaged from the Dominion war. Locarno also states surprise she got it started, but that could just mean he didn't expect her to have her mothers command code.

The ship itself is named the USS Passaro, seemingly a reference to an Eaglemoss designer who died last year. A ship of the same name also appeared in Picard as a Gagarin class for the same reason.

ilovesmybrick

That was a really fun episode, probably one of my favourites of the season. I liked the steamrunner, but it did seem somewhat small (at least from what I remember) so is it possible it's something like the Nova, with a similar design to the Intrepid, but smaller? The sideways D'deridex like Romulan ship was kind of interesting looking.

No can do Tendi two had me laughing quite a bit!

eadrom

That was good! I think this has been a pretty sub-par season overall but I really enjoyed this one.

corkie

https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Passaro

@Spear Memory beta is ahead of alpha in listing the two ships.

Cast and characters

• Shannon Fill reprises her role as Sito Jaxa for the first time since TNG: "Lower Decks".
• Wil Wheaton reprises his role as Wesley Crusher. He last portrayed the role in PIC: "Farewell".
• Rutherford and Boimler argue about Locarno's resemblance Lieutenant Tom Paris. McNeill previously played Locarno in TNG: "The First Duty" and Paris in Star Trek: Voyager.

Continuity

• In the flashback of Nova Squadron, the previously unseen Joshua Albert is shown for the first time, while Jean Hajar is absent.

breezy1985

Well I do say I quite enjoyed that one good sir.

Some really nice little movie scene recreations in there. Probably so many that I missed a few.

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121317276#Comment_121317276

Ye definitely an episode you could watch again in fact watching the last two episodes together would be the best way to do it.

JayRoc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121316964#Comment_121316964

Yep, it's probably been the weakest season of the four for me, but this is my favourite episode of it

TheValeyard

Really enjoyed it. Good strong season finale.

Definitely sorts out Lorcano anyhow.

Captains yacht was nice to see.

Cool using an Orion Destroyer as a ramming tool.

Laughed out loud at the Ferengi putting the disarm bomb code behind a paywall.

TheValeyard

Apparently it's not a Steamrunner class, but a Sabrerunner. A failed experiment to create a smaller Steamrunner fleet.

_Kaiser_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121318295#Comment_121318295

Would agree with this. Overall a much weaker season I think, but it finished strongly at least.

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121320355#Comment_121320355

Laughed out loud at the Ferengi putting the disarm bomb code behind a paywall.

Yes that was funny and not any paywall but a two latnium bars needed paywall lol.

TheValeyard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121324228#Comment_121324228

And you know what, you really could see the Ferengi actually doing that.

Spear

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121323839#Comment_121323839

As a season it was a bit disjointed. The overall season arc was badly integrated with the rest. I think it was 7 out of 8 episodes had essentially the same teaser scene being repeated, before going all in with it for the last two episodes. And T'lyn keeps appearing and disappearing randomly, sometimes playing major roles, and completely vanishing for other entire episodes. The individual episodes are good, but they don't make a coherent whole.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121324514#Comment_121324514

Its not really supposed to be a proper season arc though. Lower Decks like most Star Trek doesn't do season arcs.

Those scenes were always prologues or epilogues for that reason.

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121320661#Comment_121320661

Thanks for that. Now it makes a lot more sense for the scale of it. I was confused since I had imagined Steamrunners to be much larger, but as said, it was not a Steamrunner.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sabrerunner_class

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121324514#Comment_121324514

They were admittedly making the cold opening do most of the heavy lifting for the season arc, which isn’t great long term. Previous seasons did a better job intergrating the arc within the episodes themselves.

Mariner had an interesting development arc which I had hoped they fleshed out more. We get the beginnings of her trauma with the loss of her TNG Lower Decks cadet friend, but then only brief mentions of what happened to her in the Dominion War. That’s a goldmine of potential character development there, and sets her apart from the other Lower Deckers since they were all likely still junior cadets during her War service.

Also, I get the feeling that the “Caves” episode was possibly a reheated plot that was intended for an earlier season but slotted in here to complete 8 episodes. There’s no T’Lynn, and they are given a very “Lower Decks” mission. It felt more like something from the earlier seasons, but was left out for being a weaker script. They managed to massage it into the current season, but it still felt out of place.

It’s not the best season of Lower Decks, but even then it is still the best Trek we’ve got going at the moment. A poor showing from Lower Decks still succeeds in towering over anything from Discovery or the early seasons of Picard.

JayRoc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121325062#Comment_121325062

I know I'll be watching Lower Decks again. Multiple times, I would say, even the episodes that weren't the "best".

(Compare that to Picard, which I should never have watched even once)

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121325178#Comment_121325178

Even SNW I find gets less good with every rewatch. For instance I watched a good episode today but on rewatch without the excitement of the first watch was just shocked at how cringey M'Benga's "Hulk juice" or those crappy warped in Romulan and Federation fleets in the Balance of Terror remake (episode also butchered the amazing maroon uniform)

Lower Decks is the only new Trek that grows and reveals more with every rewatch.

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121326017#Comment_121326017

For instance I watched a good episode today but on rewatch without the excitement of the first watch was just shocked at how cringey M'Benga's "Hulk juice" or those crappy warped in Romulan and Federation fleets in the Balance of Terror remake (episode also butchered the amazing maroon uniform)

Maybe but I would still rather watch SNW than Discovery.

Stark

I enjoyed LD season 4 more than season 3 tbh. Think the highs were better in season 4, don't really remember any standout moments in season 3 and the finale didn't really do it for me. Probably because the whole AI about to destroy the Federation thing had already been done in Discovery and Picard at that point.

pixelburp

I enjoyed the episode, though Lower Decks loves ending a season with one of its cast dramatically leaving for some reason. Honestly, once bitten n all that; didn't really feel anything for Tendi's departure cos I knew she'd be back first episode of next season.

As to the season? Ah it was ok; I feel the ostensible comedy has been pared back quite a bit and don't remember as many rapidfire gags as there were before - it has become much more like normal Trek with occasional gags (the Ferenghi bomb with paywalled cancellation a good one though). Not sure how I feel about that. If I'm right.

Flinty997

Very enjoyable overall.