Review

It was inevitable for this show to do a holodeck malfunction episode and they didn't disappoint! Badgy was hilarious and stole the show. The Fletcher main plot was unfortunately much less effective, as he was mostly just annoying the whole way through rather than funny. His best scene was bumbling into a promotion and a transfer to the Titan only be fired days later. But hot off the heels of the last episode's DS9 cameo, this was definitely a missed opportunity for a meatier cameo once again. This show needs to commit to its cameos more! If you're gonna have Fletcher get transferred to the Titan, then show a cameo of Captain Riker firing Fletcher! If you're gonna show a bar scene at Deep Space Nine, make it Quark's bar instead of the Quito's! Show Quark or other DS9 characters in the background or something. You don't even need to give them lines. With an animated medium, it should be trivial and largely costless to flesh out these cameos more.

The most unfortunate detail in the episode though was Shaxs' preoccupation with murdering the Drookmani, repeatedly asking for permission to fire on their warp core, which would've destroyed the entire ship. It's well-established on Star Trek by now that there are plenty of less than lethal methods of disabling a hostile opponent in battle. It doesn't always work, but it's at least worth trying. Apparently even Captain Freeman forgot this when she eventually broke down and ordered Shaxs to fire on their warp core. And the only reason it didn't work was because of a computer glitch. That scene did much to undermine both of their characters and ran quite counter to the spirit of Star Trek. It was perhaps the most dispiriting scene in all of Lower Decks so far. Sure, people might defend it by claiming it was just a joke, but it's important to remember this show is canon, not a parody, and murder is not funny. That scene was the closest thing this show has gotten to the atrocious Discovery short "The Trouble With Edward" so far, and let's hope that's as close as they ever get.

By and large though, this was a pretty entertaining episode. With fewer flaws, better use of cameos, and more focus on effective comedy ideas like Badgy, it would've been worth considerably more points.