The first season of Star Trek: Lower Decks came to an end on 8 October, 2020 with No Small Parts. It was written by series creator Mike McMahan and it sees the crew take on a familiar enemy, and deliver lots of Trek deep trivia cuts.

The weird toy from the 60s, The Spock Helmet shows up, now making it canon; a fencing foil like Sulu’s makes an appearance; Landru (Return of the Archons) makes an appearance; there’s a visual callback to Spock’s funeral, the Luna-class Titan, Gamesters of Triskelion gets mentioned and a reference to the Enterprise theme song. We also get a look at the Animated Series version of Kirk and Spock and a blatant use of TOS (The Original Series) as Those Old Scientists.

And that familiar enemy? The Pakleds who are causing more trouble. They are strong, and they want all the ship pieces. They’re using this massive ship with grapplers to harvest weapons and ships to make themselves stronger. They seem to be a real threat now.

In the teaser, it gets revealed that Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) is Mariner’s (Tawny Newsome) mom, and now everyone knows. So she thinks maybe she should move ships, and the Sacramento is looking for a new officer.

Tendi (Noel Wells) gets to look after a new recruit, an exo-como, Peanut Hamper (Kether Donohue), and she fits right into sickbay.

Get Mariner and Boimler (Jack Quaid), Tendi and Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) come up with a way to save the Cerritos and stop the Pakleds, but that may also mean a problem with Badgey (Jack McBrayer) with his safety protocols disabled.

But it’s not going to be easy, and there will be a cost…

Peanut Hamper refuses to help out, and beams away.

Shaxs (Fred Tatasciore) and Rutherford throw a plan into action, only one of them comes back alive, though Rutherford has had his implants removed to stop Badgey. This upsets everyone, especially Dr. T’ana (Gillian Vigman), who had romantic or at least sexual inclinations towards the security chief.

As things get pretty dire, the Titan with Captain William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Troi (Marina Sirtis) arrives to save the day!

It’s a fun way to end the season. There are also some nice themes, including friendship though Boimler accepts a transfer to the Titan as the episode ends.

Season two launched on Strange Enemies on 12 August, 2021. It was also written by McMahan.

There’s a bit of a Gary Mitchell thing going on in this one when the Cerritos encounters strange energy that infects Ransom (Jerry O’Connell).

Tucker tubes get mentioned, and Mariner proclaims there are four lights! T’ana gets to pull a Kirk move.

The story picks up a few months after the finale; Boimler, now a lieutenant, and serving happily on the Titan.

Tendi thinks Rutherford, with his new implant, isn’t quite right yet, and things get wacky between them. Oh, and Mariner is exploiting the whole fact that everyone knows she’s the captain’s daughter, and she and Freeman are doing all manner of goofy things that still feel incredibly Trek-like.

There are lots of laughs to be had, and we see a bit of a resolution between Mariner and her mom, as well as Tendi and Rutherford.

And we get a glimpse of how things are going with Boimler, which seems to be a little too big for the lieutenant to handle.

It’s obvious that McMahan and his team love Trek, their references are spot on, and despite all the humour running rampant throughout the series, it is undeniable Trek.

Kayshon, His Eyes Open was written by Chris Kula and it first aired on 19 August, 2021.

Jet (Marcus Henderson) takes over Boimler’s bunk and shift duties, which causes some problems with Mariner, as he starts to prove his worth on the shift immediately and doesn’t like the comparisons to Boimler. As tensions build through the course of a mission, they find that they can work together, and do it well.

And we get a bigger look at how things are going with Boimler aboard the Titan, where it’s high adventure week to week, and a lot more than he expected.

The Cerritos is assigned to oversee and clear out a station that was owned by a Collector before the Collector’s Guild can come in and remove all the collectibles. The crew are joined by the new security chief, Kayshon (Carl Tart), a Tamarian. But how long will he last against the Collector’s defences?

There are lots of cool things to see among the collection: Chateau Picard, Giant Spock, Odo’s bucket, Khan’s necklace, a salt vampire.

And Boimler becomes a victim of a transporter accident, much like Riker did in Second Chances, ending up with a twin. Meaning that one will have to go back to the Cerritos…

So much fun. Proving once again that humour works really well in Trek, and it can still be Star Trek. Boldly go!