Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season 1 Episode 10 – No Small Parts

We’re back with the tenth and final episode of Season 1 of Star Trek: Lower Decks, titled No Small Parts. This episode was written by creator, executive producer, and showrunner Mike McMahan and directed by Barry J. Kelly, who also directed S1E1 Second Contact, S1E4 Moist Vessel, and S1E7 Much Ado About Boimler.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

If you haven’t seen the season finale of Lower Decks, stop right now!!! Go watch it, then come back!!! We’ll be here for you!

Mariner’s secret is out… and it’s now more than just Boimler that knows!

The cold open starts with Boimler not only telling Mariner that he knows her secret that she is the Captain’s daughter, but everyone else on ship finds out, too! That might have been a little convenient for the secret to be broadcast over a communicator, but it got the job done.

Sucking up to Mariner…

We see a lot of people sucking up to Mariner all of the sudden, even senior officers you might not expect to do so. We thought one of the funniest was Lieutenant Levy, who I don’t think we’ve seen before, a conspiracy theorist who thinks that Wolf 359 was an inside job (well, if you think that it was led by Locutus, it WAS an inside job of sorts!!!), that the Dominion War didn’t happen, and that Changelings don’t exist. There were other funny encounters, but that one was among the funniest.

Ensign Peanut Hamper…

We encounter the Exocomps, which were first seen in the TNG episode The Quality of Life, and one has even joined Starfleet and is Tendi’s new recruit. It was interesting to think of the Exocomps as Starfleet officers, but since they became sentient, I guess that makes sense. However, unlike when we saw them in The Quality of Life, this Exocomp didn’t want to make the sacrifice. It was more interested in saving itself than saving the crew.

Peanut Lore…

Here’s something I didn’t mention on the podcast. It’s funny that the Exocomp was left floating in space, much like Lore was… You may recall that the Pakleds were the ones who found Lore when he showed back up in the TNG episode S4E3 Brothers. I wonder if that will be a story they pick up on in Season 2.

Spot the References…

Again, there were a lot of references this week. I used this Den of Geek article to help find them. Obviously, the Titan was not only referenced, but seen, but there were a lot more!

Did they stick the landing?

Most of us agreed that they did stick the landing, though we had a couple of dissenters, including last week’s guest host, LT. Kyle gave it his third 10 in a row, and I gave it my second. This had lots of action, heroes, dramatic tension, and a new bad guy from someone you might not expect. It also left the show in a much different position than where it started. Shaxs is dead, Boimler has been promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade and transferred to the Titan, Rutherford no longer has his implant and has suffered memory loss, and Tendi, well, she’s Tendi. It seems like the adversarial relationship between the mother captain and the daughter ensign is over, replaced with a much more collaborative one.

Chapters

00:00:00 STLDP 010 – No Small Parts (S1E10)
00:00:21 Intro
00:02:11 About No Small Parts
00:03:40 Ratings
00:06:37 Yeses
00:23:57 Nos
00:27:45 Not Good Enoughs
00:40:09 Listener Feedback
01:15:20 Spot the References
01:21:08 Our Notes
01:32:49 Shipwide Announcements
01:48:58 Wrap Up

Final Reminder! Subscribe to the Star Trek Discovery Podcast feed to catch our Discovery episodes!

For our next episode, we switch over to the Star Trek Discovery Podcast, and Ruthie returns! We will be discussing the Season 3 Episode 1 of Star Trek: Discovery, titled That Hope is You. The deadline will be 7 PM Eastern/6 PM Central on Friday, October 16, 2020, unless announced on the Facebook group otherwise. Your feedback is SO important to us!!! Don’t forget! If you have been listening to us on the Star Trek Picard Cast feed, subscribe to the Star Trek Discovery Podcast to get the Discovery episodes. If you’re listening to us on the Talk Through Media All-Inclusive Feed, there’s nothing for you to do.

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