STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS
SEASON 1, EPISODE 6
SEASON 1, EPISODE 6
Terminal Provocations
Series: Star Trek: Lower Decks - (2020 - 2024)Season: 1
Episode #: 6
Original Airdate: September 10th, 2020
Writer(s): John Cochran
Director(s): Bob Suarez
Guest Stars
Tim Robinson as Ensign Fletcher
Tim Robinson as the Corrupted Isolinear Core
Jack McBrayer as Badgey
Asif Ali as a Delta Shift Command Ensign Asif
Artemis Pebdani as Ensign Karavitus
J.G. Hertzler as the Drookmani Captain
Jessica McKenna as Ensign Barnes
Jessica McKenna as the Voice of the U.S.S. Cerritos Computer
Paul Scheer as Lieutenant Commander Andarithio "Andy" Billups
Stardate: 57663.9
Synopsis
The Cerritos is currently holding position in space near the site of a recently discovered shipwreck. It’s a Federation ship, so Starfleet understandably wants the remains, but the Drookmani freighter captain who discovered it is claiming that the ship’s advanced age (over a century old) has voided any salvage claims Starfleet may have had. The bellicose Shaxs is chomping at the bit to blow the freighter out of space, but unfortunately Captain Freeman is insisting on a diplomatic solution.
While this tense standoff is going on, the lower decks crew are goofing off in the mess hall. Ensign Fletcher is standing under the replicator while the machine pours cantaloupe puree directly into his mouth. In her excitement at the event, Mariner stumbles into Dr. T’ana, pushing her face into a plate of nachos and getting cheese in her fur. An irate Dr. T’ana loses her temper and tells Mariner to go work on Starbase 80 if she’s so interested in screwing around. This gets a shocked reaction from the crew, and things nearly come to blows, but then the suave Fletcher steps in and smooths the whole thing over. Boimler remarks that Fletcher was always doing that sort of thing when they were at the Academy together.
Elsewhere, Rutherford and Tendi are talking about what could be in the cargo containers floating out in space. Rutherford remarks that they’ll probably have to spacewalk to retrieve them, since the cargo’s too massive for the transporters to handle. This news fills Tendi with apprehension. She reveals that she never passed her spacewalking course at the Academy, but graduated anyway due to a clerical error that Tendi never bothered to report. Luckily, Rutherford is working on a holodeck program that can help train Tendi for this.
Later, Mariner, Boimler, and Fletcher are putting their Academy training to work changing out chips in a series of isolinear cores. Mariner moans that it’s taking so long they’re going to miss the “Chu Chu dance.” Fletcher assures Mariner and Boimler that he can handle this on his own, and sends them off to get their Chu Chu on.
Meanwhile, Rutherford unveils his holodeck training program, which includes a virtual assistant shaped like a Starfleet badge appropriately named of “Badgey”. Soon the two have spacesuits on and are dashing around in holographic space. While Tendi is learning how to maneuver her spacesuit, her magnet boots accidentally get stuck to Rutherford’s. Suddenly, Badgey appears and offers to start the training program. While loading the program, Badgey’s progress bar gets stuck. Rutherford is frustrated in his attempts to impress Tendi and savagely yells at and kicks the hologram. It spits out the program Rutherford wants, but… at a price.
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Mariner and Boimler come back from the Chu Chu dance to find Fletcher passed out and woozy. One of the ioslinear cores for the shield array is missing. It’s a redundant system, but one which will definitely be noticed; Boimler deduces that the culprit must have wanted to get Fletcher in trouble, but not harm the ship. Fletcher claims he was stunned by an unknown assailant.
“Who’s shady as hell and knows these systems as well as we do?” asks Mariner. The unanimous answer is “Delta shift!”
Delta shift, aka the third shift or night shift, are the rivals of Beta shift, which Mariner, Boimler, and Fletcher work. After confronting Delta shift, Fletcher flies off the handle and threatens one of the Delta-shifters. A fight almost breaks out when the Delta-shifters reveal that they couldn’t have done it, because they were at the Chu Chu dance too, alongside Boimler and Mariner.
On the bridge, things are heating up. The Drookmani ship is somehow managing to hit the ship despite having no weapons; it turns out they’re reversing their tractor beams to throw huge bits of wreckage at the Cerritos. Shaxs pleads to be allowed to destroy the ship, but Freeman stands firm. The shields are draining fast because of the missing core. The resulting power shortage doesn’t shut off the holodeck, but does shut off the safety protocols. While Rutherford tries fruitlessly to end the program, Badgey takes his chance to launch himself at Rutherford and exact his revenge for the beating he received earlier.
Thinking quickly, Rutherford changes the environment to a Bajoran marketplace. Badgey follows him in, and gruesomely murders two holographic Bajorans. Rutherford and Tendi change into robes to blend in as locals, but Badgey has already spotted them and pursues them out of the city and up a long staircase up a mountainside to a temple.
The Drookmani captain is still peppering the Cerritos with as the shield strength continues to weaken. Fletcher’s missing core is perilously close to being discovered. He now thinks the Drookmani must have stolen the core. The three ensigns run back to their bunks to grab their scanners so they can locate the intruder. In the process of doing this, Boimler notices a lump on Fletcher’s bunk. It turns out to be the missing core.
Fletcher breaks down and confesses everything. He felt taxed by doing all the cores by himself, so he hooked up his brain to one of the cores in an attempt to make himself smart enough to do it in a jiffy. Things went predictably bad. Fletcher begs Boimler and Mariner not to report him, and they sigh, say they support him, and go about trying to replace the core without anyone noticing.
Their efforts are complicated when the core, animated by Fletcher’s brainwave patterns, scrambles away from Boimler. It picks up a PADD and begins to “eat” it, chanting “make me smarter!” Grabber tentacles pop out and start pulling stuff into a giant ball.
In the holodeck, Badgey is still chasing Rutherford and Tendi up that staircase. Rutherford notices that Badgey is getting tired, too. It seems his lack of holoprogramming expertise has left Badgey subject to a normal lifeform’s physical limitations. Knowing this, he decides to freeze Badgey to death by changing the environment to a snowy mountaintop.
Meanwhile, the mutated core is eating everything. Mariner throws a sheet over it and begins to drag it away. Excitedly, Fletcher declares he’s come up with a plan: let the core beat them up, and tell their superiors that a Q showed up and did all this. This suggestion gets him tied up and left in a corner while Mariner and Boimler try to drag the core to the transporter before it gets too big to move. They don’t quite make it to the transporter, but they do get it out an airlock. The day is saved! …until the core drifts over to the Drookmani ship.
On the bridge, there’s a red alert and all the shields are failing. Shaxs finally has permission to fire on the freighter, but weapons are down. Fortunately the mutant core tears into the freighter and disables it.
Back on the holodeck, the holoprogram degrades slowly which allows Rutherford to have one final fistfight with Badgey, watch him succumb to cold, and then break his neck, wailing over what he’s done. The program finally ends, and a new version of Badgey pops up, which is all glitch-free and knows nothing about what he just did. Rutherford and Tendi rush out.
Fed up with Fletcher’s antics, Mariner rats him out to Commander Ransom. For his efforts, Fletcher earns… a commendation from Starfleet for saving the Cerritos, and a promotion to lieutenant, and a transfer to the U.S.S. Titan, which was the ship Boimler always wanted to be on. Boimler takes this in stride; maybe the responsibility will make Fletcher mature into the guy he always should have been.
No matter, though; Fletcher calls them less than a week later, having been busted back down for emptying trash into the warp core. Mariner and Boimler wave him off, decide they make a pretty good team, and resolve not to fight as much in the future. They’ve got enough enemies on Delta shift, after all.
Trailer
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