Much Ado About Boimler was written by M. Willis and was first broadcast on 17 September, 2020.

Boimler (Jack Quaid) is sent to a medical starship to be taken to somewhere known as the Farm, run by Division 14, when he is suddenly out of phase (transporter accident, of course). Boy, is he in for a surprise. Mariner (Tawny Newsome) is working hard to impress a visiting friend, Ramsey (Toks Olagundoye), who is serving as sub-captain while the command crew is on a mission.

Unfortunately, Mariner is still a bit of a rebel, and Ramsey and her command staff are less than impressed. Will she be able to prove her worth to her former classmate? She may be able to when the mission she and Ramsey find themselves on goes sideways. And maybe there’s something more going on here.

There’s also some hilarity when Tendi (Noel Wells) creates a dog with some tweaked DNA, and man, it’s priceless. Tendi accompanies Boimler with The Dog to the starship, and they all find themselves rebelling against their confines.

Their are some fun twists and turns as it explores some fun themes, and one of them, of course, is fear of the unknown.

The deep trivia cuts include an appearance of an Edosian doctor, the last time we saw one was Arex in The Animated Series. There’s also a patient who ends up using a black wheel chair, with signals, like Pike used in The Cage. And there seems to be a patient suffering from the effects of a Genesis Wave. There’s a nod to Saul Rubinek (The Most Toys), Jellico and stealth suits(Chain of Command). There’s a Gorn doll, and an Encounter at Farpoint jellyfish.

Damn, this show is fun.

Veritas was written by Garrick Bernard and debuted on 24 September, 2020. When the command crew of he Cerritos are captured and held in stasis for a trial, Mariner, Boimler, Tendi and Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) find themselves testifying about a series of events that may be related.

And there are plenty of deep cuts in this one for Trek fans… Roga Danar from The Hunted gets name checked, as does Khan, a hilarious reference to the giant Spock from The Animated Series, a ghost in a lamp is mentioned (Sub Rosa), Clar is voiced by Kurtwood Smith who played the Federation President in The Undiscovered Country.

And speaking of The Undiscovered Country, a number of aspects of the episode’s trial seem very in line with the one Kirk and McCoy stood at in the same film.

The trial is hilarious as each of the Lower Decks crew testifies about specific stardates, and all of it seems unrelated, but it all connects to something that the aliens are interested in.

The visual nods continue with the canon look of the Romulan bridge, a Klingon-style gavel (as per The Undiscovered Country), the Vasquez Rocks, and the Gorn outfit (Arena), and the stealth suits (Chain of Command). Boimler also cries out an episode name, drumhead, and talks about hanging out in vineyards and soul food restaurants, a nod to Picard and Sisko respectively.

There’s also a nod to The Hunt for Red October, a shuttle similar to the Vulcan shuttle from The Motion Picture, not to mention other familar ships, a salt vampire, and a fan dance that doesn’t compare to the one in The Final Frontier, and there’s a quick appaearance by Q (John de Lancie).

Crisis Point was penned by Ben Rodgers and first aired on 1 October, 2020. And this time out we get a fun holodeck adventure.

Mariner heists Boimler’s holodeck adventure, repurposing it, and making herself the villain, Vindicta, in a bit of a nod to the bigger action set pieces of the motion pictures. Mariner is joined by Tendi and Rutherford as the baddies, and have a great time with it.

Boimler only wants to impress the senior officers with his knowledge and questions, and this adveenture is ruining all of that.

Xon from Phase II gets name-checked. There’s a reference to seven years of logs, that seems to be aa nod to the standard series length.

And to convey that it’s supposed to be a movie event instead of an episode there are lens flares and the aspect ratio of the episode changes for this one. It also pokes fun at the Enterprise inspection flyby from The Motion Picture, and there’s another nod to the Genesis Wave. There’s plnty of nods to the cinema history of Trek, including the need for new uniforms, widescreen images, sweeping scores (very James Horner influenced), and a familiar looking sign-off at episode’s end.

We also get our introduction to the ship’s counsellor, Dr. Migleemo (Paul F. Thompkins), who really likes his food metaphors.

And in this episode, Boimler finally learns that Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) is Mariner’s mom!

And the whole thing is really some kind of therapy for Mariner.

SO GOOD!