6 Ups & 1 Down For Star Trek: Lower Decks 5.4 — A Farewell To Farms

I'll be honest from the outset — I'm no fan of the Klingons. But then, are we really supposed to like a culture — particularly its 'warrior caste' — in which 'honour' is the apologia for systemic violence? Then again, that is taking things a bit too seriously. More to the point, and not to miss it, Lower Decks only inherited the bat'leths and the bloodwine, and it does its best in the main, here, to satirise a certain ruthlessness, and to be funny. 

I'm not going to be switching to raktajino in the mornings either, but my food and drink habits (pace Legnog and Gonald) matter as little as my personal views on the sons and daughters of Kahless. Unlike for the Klingons, there will be no death matches in this article. 

Objectively speaking, save for some heavy plumage, A Farewell to Farms was a perfectly good episode. It certainly can't be reproached for failing to make us laugh, even if it does, on occasion, push the humour at the expense of the substantive.

Sticking to the premise of the series as a whole, A Farewell to Farms also does exceedingly well by its otherwise 'minor' characters. Ma'ah, a former Klingon lower decker himself, whom we first met in wej Duj and saw again in Twovix and The Inner Fight, is not only the focus of the main plot but also opens the episode in quintessential Klingon fashion. taH pagh taHbe' was never the question. Targ, or keep on truckin'?

I might not like the Klingons, but I'd have to be my own special kind of petaQ to deny the intrinsic value and visual delight of the opener to A Farewell to Farms. A lot of green this season, the episode begins on a view from orbit of the emerald (but dirty, you know… a dirty emerald)-skied Qo'noS.

Less Château pIQarD, more Jean-LuQ's basement bloodwine, if comparison there is to be had with a former French Admiral's post-(and pre-re-)Starfleet family endeavours, this was a softer opener than usual, taking place, as the title would suggest, on the farm.

There were two brothers, one shuttle/truck, plenty of targ, and Mariner on 'hold,' but no title credits this week. Instead, we were treated to a rather beautiful reworking of the main Lower Decks theme that played over some equally beautiful (and bucolic) animation.

At TrekCulture Towers, Seán and I had difficulty placing the precise provenance, if any, of those opening shots. Broadly speaking, the sequence was reminiscent of the slower, more meditative beginnings of the likes of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (after the Nimbus III bit, anyway), or perhaps, at a stretch, that of Star Trek: Insurrection. For us, there was equally a touch of Of Mice and Men somewhere in the agricultural dynamics, but we're sure we're missing something more pertinent. Do feel free to tell me/us (off) on socials!