This week is the one with Jet, though not the Jet that men from the 90s continue to think about as they go to bed at night. With Bradward off on heavily serialized battles with a bunch of complex characters which always ended in mind-blowing twists that make you question the basic tenets of your reality, we needed a fourth member of the team. Writing his second second-episode, Chris Kula once again does a decent job with “Kayshon, His Eyes Open” but I think we needed to pick up and move on from where we were.

Particularly at this point in the season, we’re finding our feet to advance the characters a bit more than they were at the end of season 1. At least we should be. The reality is that we’re still looking to reset the clock back to zero so we can have 8 episodes of adventure with our lead four and supporting bridge crew. We do get some character work in Kula’s latest episode in our reviews though. The A story, in particular, is conducive to making Mariner finally look to Tendi and Samanthan for the answer to our problem of the danger bearing down on the group.

On that, our A story this time focuses on the crew being tasked with helping out a member of the collector’s guild to clear out a fellow collector’s personal museum. Joining the away team of our regular three and Jet is the Cerritos’ newest security officer Kayshon, another special case to Star Fleet enlistment and replacement for Shaxs. Of course, hijinx happen, there is a horny helmet for those with a horny helmet, and Kayshon gets turned into a doll. Typical Star Fleet stuff.

Promoted to the B story, Brad gets his own little arc on the Titan as he worries for his life, yet Riker and crew act as if it is an adrenaline kick. Encountering Pakleds and giving us our second beat to the Pakled arc we kicked off in “No Small Parts,” an away team of Brad and the most annoying Star Fleet members next to Julian embed themselves in a Pakled labor camp/mine. As has already been said, these are “heavily serialized battles with strange twists…” yadda yadda yadda. Anyway, it eventually turns out that Brad gets the Tom Riker treatment.

On the surface, I like the ideas and enjoy when Mariner asks her friends “you’re in charge, how do we get out of this?” I think Jet posed a decent question against Beckett’s regulation-less lifestyle in Star Fleet. However, as I previously said, get us back the non-transporter accident Boimler. At least that’s the idea, though neither the art team nor the director really gives us an idea which Boimler is the “real” one and which one is secretly part of the Maquis. The intent, I believe was to make it all about how our Boimler is still a nervous wreck but William Boimler is suave and ready for the position on the Titan.

“Kayshon, His Eyes open” isn’t a bad episode but it isn’t a particularly attention-grabbing one either. I like seeing that Rich Fulcher from The Mighty Boosh and his project with Matt Berry Snuff Box is still getting work, though. I generally like him. Though beyond flashes of interesting things, such as the member of the collector’s guild wanting to steal the horny helmet from the recently dead Kerner Hauze’s collection, nothing stands out. Pakleds are still educationally disadvantaged (stupid!), our Cerritos away team is focused around Mariner, and we go back to square one.

If I’m honest, I was more interested in the C story where Carol is nervous and then angry about a report from Star Fleet command. Being the pervert I am, I think the sonic shower cold open is interesting, though entirely for the fact we see Mariner with her hair messy and down. Being someone with long hair, showers are rather interesting when you introduce sci-fi elements or have characters that have to also deal with hair in odd places, like drains.

Ultimately, I’m glad we can get back to regular Lower Decks stuff but we aren’t out of the gate running with season 2, and I don’t think we will be for a week or two yet. “Kayshon, His Eyes Open” does everything right functionally. Sadly, for a comedy-drama series, I’m not left laughing or concerned about our leads at any point. Nothing big was going to change and nothing felt like it was particularly humorous. All the pieces on the 3D chess board just needed to be reset and this was the idle chat we had during that process. I’m going to forget about it by next week, I assume you will too.

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Star Trek: Lower Decks "Kayshon, His Eyes Open"

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Mariner finally asking Tendi and Rutherford for advice.
• Great, we're back to normal, can we move on now?

Cons

• Those kids on the Titan need a shovel to the face.
• Nothing particularly outstanding to think of throughout.
• No aid from direction to suggest which Boimler is the clone.