10 Incredible Times Star Trek Ensigns Saved The Day
3. Lower Decks! Lower Decks! Numerous… (Ensigns Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, And Rutherford)
It was about time they got their own series. After all, Lower Decks of The Next Generation was first broadcast in 1994. There was that episode of Voyager with similar intent, but they were all crewmen. Now, aboard the Cali-class, we see just how often the ensigns save the day or, to phrase it more in the style of the show itself, the number of times they "kick impossible's arse".
For the most part not yet tired or jaded by the rigours of rank and command, or precisely to avoid it in one case, Ensigns Beckett Mariner, Bradward Boimler, Samanthan Rutherford, and D’Vana Tendi have repeatedly innovated their way out of danger. Either collectively or individually, they have helped cure a zombie rage virus, defeated Romulan guards, and uncovered spy plots. They have fended off the Packled, the Drookmani, and Billups’ Mum, outsmarted a megalomaniacal computer, compromised with the Ferengi with clever economics, and generally saved each other’s lives countless times.
In the season two finale First First Contact, Mariner inspires Rutherford with the plan to remove the outer hull of the Cerritos, and the entire crew then work around the clock to save the Archimedes from crashing into an inhabited planet. Tendi also saves Boimler with Cetacean Ops CPR.
Again, in the season three finale, all three are crucial to saving the day; they prove that Starfleet needs people (especially its ensigns), and not a bunch of machines, to ensure its mission. Let’s just hope that history doesn’t really remember Boimler as "[…] the laziest, most corner-cutting officer in Starfleet […]".