This one is called, let’s rock this place until the dilithium crystals crack! 1, 2, 3, 4! Joking aside, the cold open with its non-sequitur nature in this episode did make me giggle. Though that might have been from the fact I was watching and writing this at 6 AM on a Tuesday. “Temporal Edict,” was written by Dave Ihlenfeld & David Wright, two writers that previously worked on Family Guy and have gone on to create an NFT-based production of a South Park-like wrestling show that is (in a word) awful. That show is about as funny as throwing a dead body down a Turbo Lift shaft.

How about this episode though? Well, it has the fingerprints of Family Guy writers on it. That is to say that the comedy doesn’t land but the plot pushing us forward knows where it is going. The latter may be due to McMahan being a good showrunner or the script editors playing their part, though I don’t want to take all the credit from Dave and David. As I keep repeating throughout these reviews, there is a lot of character work pushing us through bits like “he’s got wood” followed by a log hitting Ransom in the wood and a few phallic pieces of graffiti.

Up to this point, Beckett has been the work-shy daughter of Captain Freeman that is experienced in getting herself out of situations but isn’t very at home in Star Fleet. The drinks and “buffer time” reinforce this, as a highlight of her aptitude and her (as well as others’) creative subversions of a commander’s expectations of how long a task will take. All of this comes back to bite her and the crew when, in an effort to please admirals, Captain Freeman nips buffer time in the bud, imposing strict Amazon-warehouse quotas on every task.

Unlike before in both “Envoys” and “Second Contact,” Beckett isn’t in the A story, or at least she isn’t the focus of that one. This one explores the commanding officers. The A story focuses around three viewpoints of Captain Freeman’s quotas: Brad, Tendi and Rutherford/general crew, as well as Captain Freeman herself. Beckett is off on an away mission that goes awry with Ransom. For once this lets us see how Beckett interacts and pushes her nose up against the glass to make faces at command. It isn’t the boldest concept for a story, none of the Lower Decks episodes have been so far.

As I’ve already mentioned, outside of the cold open, the comedy (or attempts at comedy) simply didn’t land the way they were intended. It was all very throwaway or simply ill-fitting with the world we’ve built so far. The reference of Brad humming the TNG theme in the Turbo Lift was fun if you can catch it and the end scene about “the most important human” Miles O’Brian is fun too. What Lower Decks brings that other Star Trek doesn’t is the comedy and the references, and “Temporal Edict” isn’t the best at doing that with a balance.

Finally, Brad comes out of his shell into showing near unflappable confidence for a solid three minutes as he handles the quotas with ease as everyone else is near death. It is character moments like that and Beckett’s acknowledgment that she has to work within a team that stops “Temporal Edict” from fully falling off the wagon and doing some stupid things. That said, the moments of “that’s actually kinda hot” to give us that will they-won’t they plot device are as useful as Harry Kim kissing a cow. Other than to show Beckett is pushing against power while being attracted to it, I don’t see the point.

Despite being the first episode to use the bleep to cover up swearing (I believe) and aiming to be more of a cartoon comedy, “Temporal Edict” is the least satisfying with its throwaway gags. It is colorful, but the conceit of the episode’s plot is undermined if you apply logic. However, under all of this is some fun 25 minutes of sci-fi with character at the forefront. It is not a highlight of the series thus far, but is certainly one that does well at developing our cast a little more.

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Star Trek: Lower Decks "Temporal Edict"

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Great character work.
• Miles O'Brian, the most important human.

Cons

• Comedy that fell flat.
• The will they-won't they kiss.