Really, we’re doing Riverdale with Star Trek, that’s what we’re doing now? This has little to do with “wej Duj,” I’m only just getting to the point in my advanced schedule to talk about Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, a vain attempt by CBS/Paramount to make young people like Star Trek. We saw how this went with Doctor Who: Insufferable sex offenders like Torchwood, it was written by someone who’d be suffocating in space if I had a choice, no one really liked it, then we tried Class, and that died by the second episode. Stop appealing to teens, they don’t care!

It is now three days later and I’ve calmed down a bit, just a little bit though. So let’s talk about a really good episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, shall we? Somehow my keyboard doesn’t have the Klingon alphabet to write “wej Duj” properly, who would have guessed that one coming? Of course, the sad among us know fully well that “wej Duj” is a Romanization form and would translate to “three ships.” Oh yes! It is that episode, the one with the Klingon lower decks and the pointy-eared ones that only think in dry statements. How do Vulcans do dirty talk?

Is it really a surprise that one of the writers from Strange New Worlds, the woman that wrote some of the best episodes in a great series, also wrote one of the best episodes of this season? I’ve said it time and time again, in a 10-episode run where half of them felt like they weren’t going anywhere, this is what we needed. Kathryn Lyn’s “wej Duj” is one of those almost standalone episodes that keeps us moving along while it ambitiously tells the season arc in the background.

What is so ambitious about the second last episode? The Cerritos is heading somewhere to do something (you know Starfleet busy work) so everyone has downtime. All the lower deckers have some time with their “bridge buddies,” but of course, his suck-up-in-chief Boimler, the one who tries his hardest to get on his knees for every officer in Starfleet, doesn’t have a single friend on the bridge to hang out with. Meanwhile, in the discussion in the mess hall, there is a question about what it is like for lower deckers on Vulcan and Klingon ships.

It is strange to get some fresh air in the vacuum of space, as we see T’lyn and Ma’ah deal with the politics of not only their ship but their cultures. T’lyn is a Vulcan with a desire to do more, with a sort of sense that she could do something else to improve the ship, a feeling if you will. Ma’ah is a Klingon that understands that being toxic, excessively aggressive, and being stereotypically a Klingon/Reddit’s idea of a man isn’t necessary. Yes, this is a rehash of S’Chn T’Gai and the son of Mogh, of house Martok, but that’s what this series is all about.

I mention Gabrielle Ruiz every time I notice her in Lower Decks simply because she’s just brilliant, especially in Rachel Bloom and Aline Brosh McKenna’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Everything else on CW (or its ilk like Starfleet Academy is meant to be) is crap, but that show is fantastic! We also have Nolan North returning for Captain Sokel. For once he isn’t a complete, um Neelix, like he is in everything else, including a previous couple of episodes of Lower Decks.

Ma’ah (being opportunistic) gets under the feet of Captain Dorg in an effort to climb his way out of the bunks of the IKS Che’Ta'(‘s) lower decks. He does stupid tasks like getting the blood wine, walking Dorg’s pet targ, and moving away the dead body of the captain’s previous first officer (Dave or something). You know, normal Klingon things you do. Oh, and he kills the captain because it is unveiled that Captain Dorg is selling weapons to the Pakleds, who just happened to use the last bomb to blow up an asteroid. For some reason, they can’t just use it again. I’m reminded of the training for suicide bombers.

T’lyn on the Sh’Vhal has been tinkering with the ship’s systems, enhancing the sensors to notify the crew of any issues with a really niche thing called metreon particles. She did so with this hunch, this feeling that she has that it may become something of a contentious point for the plot. Being on a ship exclusively with Vulcans and their stupid logic, T’lyn is made to feel somewhat diminutive for insubordination towards those around her. It is a 25-ish minute episode, there are no red herrings in this writing.

While all of this is happening between the two ships, our Cerritos crew is finding or hanging out with their bridge buddies. Mariner connects with Carol, D’Vana goes rock-climbing with T’ana, and Ransom hangs out with Andarithio first before moving on to throwing pot with Shaxs. Boimler is of course gate-crashing all of these and often ruining them all. It isn’t until he’s lying to Ransom in the turbolifts that he’s from Hawaii that he finds a buddy, even though we know he’s from the most boring place on earth, Modesto, California.

While everyone is getting hammered with gallons of sex on the beach, an anomalous reading alerts the Cerritos, and later T’lyn’s system warns the Sh’Vhal too. Someone has been playing with the boom-boom particles: The metreon particles from a Varuvian bomb. The Pakleds, the greatest minds the universe has ever known this side of F1 Twitter, decided to test the “boomer” on a large asteroid, a “boomer” that Dorg sold to the Pakleds. Dorg is just another Kaybok, trying to drag the Federation into a needless war for his own glory.

We’re not done with the Varuvian bomb in the slightest, but this is the last we hear of Dorg after he quotes Mark Antony as he finds Caeser’s body. I might not like that Billy S bloke, and I really don’t like that quote from a professional astro-turfer’s book, but I know a quote that might seem out of place when I hear one. Why is a Klingon that is actively an aggressor toward humans (and their allies) quoting a nearly 800-year-old human line about casting revenge for an assassination from a tragedy? I thought Klingons cared about star-crossed love from their Opera and courage in disarray, not conspiracy and stirring the pot.

Despite saving the day, T’lyn is reassigned so she isn’t so much of a disruptive influence on the Vulcans of the Sh’Vhal. She is reassigned to a small California-class ship that might have a few rabble-rousers of its own, ready to follow their guts and act with proper reason. We get more Gabrielle Ruiz, and I’m not complaining. I really hope you aren’t either otherwise I’ll have to logic you to death. Oh and of course, Brad’s lie comes out in a big moment that outs Ransom also not being from Hawaii, but despite this Ransom looks out for Brad by giving him… his own little Brad.

Ultimately, “wej Duj” is hands down one of the best episodes of the season, and ultimately one of the funniest when that third ship is revealed. A solid minute of just the lower decks of a Borg Cube, its almost anti-humor of complete silence catches me off guard every time and it is great. I said it a moment ago, but there is not a hint of fat on this bacon butty with a big dollop of brown sauce on it of an episode. Picking flaws out of Kathryn Lyn’s “wej Duj” is like finding flaws with the genitals you are playing with. It doesn’t matter, any decent genitals you’re playing with are good genitals!

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Star Trek: Lower Decks "wej Duj"

9.5

Score

9.5/10

Pros

• Lean writing.
• Politics and culture, I love it!
• That Borg joke at the end is perfect.

Cons

• "Let slip the dogs of war!" from a Klingon feels off for some reason.