9 Ups & 1 Down From Star Trek: Lower Decks 5.5 — Starbase 80?!
7. UP — Up Is Down (The Pole)
This week was all very "vintage," if, by vintage, you also mean "the uniforms of long-dead men". And with the gravity plating on the fritz, it wasn't up to the sweet spot — as per Travis' old hiding place — but a hard down to the floor of the ceiling in engineering via the pole. And that is an UP from me.
Confused? Don't worry! You've not "got the 80". Nor did you hit your head during the sudden reversal of gravity. The pole was the reference to a little-known, and unseen, peculiarity in the NX-01's design.
As Doug Drexler told our own Paul Sutherlin back in 2021, to the side of the NX-01 bridge, there is a "circular gallery" within which "there's a fireman's pole that you can slide down to go to engineering" (on the deck below). "I wish we could've shown that," Drexler concluded. Now, in a sense, they have. Once again, Lower Decks picks up on the esoteric, not only to make a decent joke of it, but also to make it canon.
If you don’t want to use the pole, you can always take the stairs. Great for the glutes!