Wej Duj, Klingon for ‘three ships,’ was written by Kathryn Lyn and was the penultimate episode of season two. It debuted on 7 October, 2021.
A Vulcan ship and a Klingon ship have troubling encounters with another starship, and the Cerritos may be next in line. But first, it’s rather quiet on the Cerritos as they are on a long warp journey and they are looking for things to do. So are their counterparts on the Klingon and Vulcan ships, which makes for a lot of laughs while feeling authentic to Trek.
On Cerritos, everyone seems to be spending time with bridge buddies, except Boimler (Jack Quaid). And on the Vulcan ship, we are introduced to T’Lyn (Gabrielle Ruiz), who, for a Vulcan, has a lot of emotional outbursts.
Those outbursts are going to get her assigned to another ship… say the Cerritos in the near-ish future?
Oh, and that strange starship, the Pakleds back again; the Klingons are helping them, and the Vulcans arrive in time to help the Cerritos. There are Klingons aboard the Bird of Prey who find it less than honourable that they are supplying weapons to the Pakleds to disrupt the peace in the Alpha Quadrant.
There are references to Trek V, right down to Boimler wearing Kirk’s ‘go climb a rock’ shirt and using rocket boots! There’s a Shakespeare reference and Klingon blood, as seen in Trek VI: there is a pet targ, as well as familiar-looking props, and the appearance of the RITOS shirt in answer to Discovery’s DISCO shirt. There’s also a benzite who, along with Ransom (Jerry O’Connell) claims to be from Hawaii (he was born on the moon), which causes Boimler more problems when he claims to be from Hawaii as well.
First First Contact closed out the second season on 14 October, 2021. It was written by series creator and showrunner, Mike McMahan.
The Cerritos is assigned to aid the Archimedes, an Obena-class starship, under the command of Captain Sonya Gomez (Lycia Naff) – last seen as an ensign on the Enterprise-D back in season two of TNG. They are going to help the Archimedes make overtures to a new species.
And Mariner (Tawny Newsome) may be starting a love/hate thing with Jennifer the Andorian (Lauren Lapkus). Or is it just love? Mariner also overhears the possibility that her mother, Freeman (Dawnn Lewis), is accepting reassignment to a new ship and leaving the Cerritos! She also shares this information with the command crew, who all act out because of it.
There’s lots going on in this episode. Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) is having problems with his implant (again), and when he clears his redundant memory, he glimpses something else, that perhaps he wasn’t supposed to remember. Tendi (Noel Wells) is worried about her assignment and duties… is she going to be working in Sickbay? But is the change coming for a good thing?
And that first contact? The Archimedes may not get a chance to do it when disaster strikes. It’ll be up to the Cerritos crew to save the day, and it’s a great plan, and once again is undeniably Trek. It knows when to lean into the big moments, and when to enjoy those smaller ones.
We finally get to see Cetacean Ops; there’s a deep trivia cut about the Rubber Ducky room, a reference to an image on the Enterprise-D schematic, there’s manual plate releasing, and a captain’s yacht! Oh and the Cosmic Koala is mentioned.
And the Archimedes gets some really nice beauty shots.
It’s a really well-crafted season finale, with lots going on, and it works like gangbusters. It also ends on a cliffhanger: Captain Freeman is arrested for destroying the Pakled homeworld!
She’s obviously being framed, but how can they prove it and save the Captain?
Grounded, the third season opener, debuted almost a year later on 25 August, 2022. It was written by Chris Kula.
So Mariner, Boimler, Tendi and Rutherford are trying to figure out a way to prove Captain Freeman’s innocence.
The Cerritos remains in drydock, and Mariner’s father, Alonzo Freeman (Phil LaMarr) advises her to enjoy some time on Earth and trust to the system to free her mother. Boimler is working in a vineyard, and oblivious to the women hitting on him. He comes up with the idea of getting his detailed logs off the Cerritos, so they go and recruit Tendi and Rutherford, who are dining at Sisko’s!
The fun deep cuts and trivia include the Bozeman Theme Park built around the Zefram Cochrane statue. There’s a beverage stand called Thirst Contact, a one-song jukebox, and a ride based on the Phoenix. There’s a runabout! There’s a callback to the TNG episode ‘Causes and Effects’ which feature the USS Bozeman under command of Captain Bateson. And I laughed out loud at the Ketracel-White sauce gag.
There’s a musical cue from First Contact, a familiar song, and James Cromwell cameos as Cochrane, and they are all wearing Cochrane caps when they visit the theme park… with the express purpose of stealing the Phoenix to get to the Cerritos (transporters are offline because of a migrating space species that is passing between Earth and the moon/drydock space).
Those space creatures will be the key to eluding Security… maybe.
We also learn that yes, they should have trusted the system. Freeman’s trial already happened, and the truth came out; the Pakled threat was taken care of, and the bomber’s identity was revealed as a Pakled! Bateson and Tuvok were all over the mission while Mariner and her pals were off doing their thing in an attempt to help.
She gets in all manner of trouble, and Freeman assigns Ransom to determine if Mariner should be removed from Starfleet once and for all.
The Human Adventure continues!
