9 Ups & NO Downs From Star Trek: Lower Decks 5.7 — Fully Dilated
Mariner, Tendi & T'Lyn find their inner light (and Data) in Season 5's best episode so far.
Fully Dilated, fully everything. This week's episode was beyond a doubt the highlight of the season so far. Temporal shenanigans are often a sure-fire success, but Lower Decks isn't one to rest on the laurels of relativity. Besides, laurels were sooo last week.
Quite the opposite, Fully Dilated offered something fresh and new from something that could have felt a little old — time dilation. On Dilmer III, with several months to spare whilst mere seconds passed on the Cerritos, it was a triumph for a trio and a heads-up from a famous head. T'Lyn shone, as did her hair products. Tendi tried to out-shine, but just needed to be herself. Mariner, well, she was arrested. But in fun ways!
The nature of the space-time differential meant that we didn't spend long aboard ship. What we did get there was a pantomime of sublime silliness as the two boys continued to plagiarise their alternates. Oh, and something about a purple Enterprise-D!
To rework that famous phrase a little: time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like one of T'Lyn's grapes.
10. UP — Violets Are Neutral-Grey-Blue
What an opener! Not just 'the fat one,' but the 'purple one,' too. Sadly, the Cerritos missed the alternate Enterprise-D, probably back to battling those evil clones of Tasha Yar… or something. We did get a nice look at the otherly shaded 'D' on Captain Freeman's PADD as it returned through the "fizsh". Presumably that version didn't crash on Veridian III!
In the 'Prime' Universe, Starfleet ships like the Enterprise are, "No colour. Just neutral grey," Freeman told a certain talking head towards the end of the episode. In fact, the original Galaxy-class six-foot studio model was painted in two shades of blue — duck egg and sky blue — as designer Andrew Probert noted in Star Trek: The Magazine, volume 1, issue 16. When filmed under studio lights, however, the model appeared grey.
There is a lot more to the paint-work story than that, including the oddest of accusations by Probert that the grey look of the 'D' was somehow done on purpose. Whatever the case may be, Lower Decks remains just as proficient at picking up on the most minute detail, only to amplify it to a plot point.