I’ll regret this if something is found, but to quote Toryn Green: “Leave the memories alone, don’t change a thing.” Directed by Megan Lloyd, Lloyd is best known for directing three pretty good episodes (that I might have been hard on) last season, including “I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee.” The same episode was written by Aaron Burdette, the sole writer this time out with “Dos Cerritos.” This season’s story editors are May Darmon, Keyshawn C Garraway, and Diana Tay, with Darmon previously writing “Old Friends, New Planets.” Tay’s writing credit is to come later this season.

The final season of Lower Decks, to be exact. Shut up, you’re the one crying! Somewhere in the beta quadrant, Space Elon Musk is being heisted by a White woman who typically isn’t very White or lusting over creepy, ugly, unflattering, horrible, disgusting, morally bankrupt, and utterly irreprehensible men. Did I let my thin veil of hatred slip? Attacked by an Orion ship, the offensively ugly character of Captain Yorif tries wooing the Mistress of the Winter Constellation in disguise. Captaining her Orion pirate vessel, Tendi is just too sweet to sing “Yo ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me)!”

Meanwhile, those who were left behind are having a hard time on the Cerritos without their friend, Rutherford most of all. When asked if he wants a break, Lieutenant JG says, “Nah! I like the way work makes it hard for my brain to focus on all the sad stuff.” Called to the bridge for another Quantum Fissure, the crew exposition exactly what is about to happen with on the nose, eye-rolling smugness for knowing what is about to happen. Long story short: The Fissure loses integrity and the Cerritos is pulled into it, thus we go from uno to dos Cerritos.

An alternate dimensions episode to open the season, fun… almost. Captained by Becky Freeman, the alt-Cerritos is a strange place where Boimler has a beard and Shaxs has a ponytail. Even Andy became a sex pest, or whatever that episode with his mother pimping him out was about. So while Prime Universe Cerritos fights over who are the main characters, with Becky and Mariner avoiding the topic of there only being one Carol, Tendi is still in the Prime Universe doing Sofia the First’s bidding. Mostly fighting weird blue people on a 300-year-old Orion ship that’s crashed in a forest.

Honestly, I said it about Burdette’s previous episode and I think that’s true here, there is mostly one bit of the episode that stands out while the rest of it fades into the background. Cool trailer idea stuff, but not really the greatest of episodes to talk about in detail. The main idea is that with the alt-crew, they are all a bit more tightly wound because Becky is stressed and more tightly wound herself than Mariner and her free spirit. To the point where Captain Becky has a riding crop and a large number of brigs on her version of the Cerritos.

For the endpoint, it works but in the long-term, that idea (which I’m trying to avoid spoilers about) isn’t looking to be too long-lasting. I will spoil something here in a minute, but that’s mostly for the overview of the season to come, which I’ll get to. I think what is quite good is Rutherford and Otherford’s story; this almost Borg Rutherford had a Tendi, but she left to become an Orion Pirate, same as ours. To avoid the pain of it, Otherford upgraded himself like he’s Adam Jensen and deleted the memory of Tendi.

I’ve avoided seeing the spoilers for the upcoming episodes thus far, but I’m guessing “Dos Cerritos” is to be used as a reflection of who our crew is going to become or who they never want to be. This alt-Boimler is confident, takes the helm when asked, and regularly on away missions with the bridge crew. Rutherford sees that he’ll become Otherford if he continues on this path of “I like the way work makes it hard for my brain to focus on all the sad stuff.” While Captain Freeman learns to avoid Starbase 80.

I don’t hate the story, but I think it is a cooler idea than it is in full practice for this length of episode. Neither of the stories feel like they are getting enough to fully explore what could be done with them, and that’s something I’ve said before about Lower Decks. These shorter, rapid-fire references and joke direction do well as a sitcom or comedy focus, but I think we’re shifting (similar to The Orville) into telling the story of good people doing good things. All with a sprinkling of comedy rather than a full-blown joke-a-minute story.

You could say four stories are being told in 25 minutes (27 with credits), and none of them really get enough time to breathe fully. If anything, Boimler and Bill T Boimler are the most fleshed-out stories despite being the shortest in screen time, but that’s because it is the same story we’ve been telling with Boimler already. It was “William” in “Kayshon, His Eyes Open” that was a transporter accident clone that was kept on the USS Titan because he was the better Boimler. I’m not sick of the story, I’m sick of it being his only story.

While I think Tendi’s slice of “Dos Cerritos” is far more enjoyable and actually building to something. Most of it is very much “Look, we remember when they were blue and the women of the race were slaves.” However, I’m looking more at the long-term storytelling. This is where I’m going to talk about the end point so jump ahead about three paragraphs if you want to avoid speculation and part of the ending. Are you gone? Good!

Tendi’s story throughout Lower Decks is that she’s not like most Orions. Despite being called the Mistress of the Winter Constellation, she’s about helping people, healing them, and letting people live. While D’Erika is very much the better, more conventional pirate. So while D’Vana’s crew tries to kill the blue Orions, she’s secret healing them and eventually, we get that L’Kar and the rest of her crew don’t want to be pirates either. Tendi finds a way around killing the blue Orions which leads to war.

Early on it is said that D’Erika will let Tendi go back to Starfleet if she gets her sister this 300-year-old ship, which she did. The blue blokes, to borrow a Scottish phrase, “dobbed” her in though, and the war means Tendi is staying within the pirate syndicate for the time being. Something else I’ve had known issue with when it comes to a lot of Lower Decks is that first and second episode trope we’ve got: At the end of “Kayshon, His Eyes Open” Boimler is back to the Cerritos and status quo is resumed. To a degree, the whole journey of getting our crew back together feels skipped.

Of course, I’ve not seen “Shades of Green” yet, we’ll get to that next week. However, I hope we don’t just have a whole war that happens in 10 minutes next time out, and that’s it, we go back to happy families as if nothing has happened with our crew. I loathe even saying it aloud, but I think it is a problem with Star Trek shows shifting from the 20-episode seasons to these previously UK-centric 10-episode runs. I don’t want One Piece, garbage filler (hate mail to the usual place) in the season, but I’d have liked some more fleshing out.

Are you back? Good, we’ll wrap up now. As an episode, I don’t hate “Dos Cerritos” but it never felt significant enough to say it is a great season opener. I like we’re not going back to the status quo as we have previously with past seasons, but we’ve still got “Shades of Green” to get through before I say that’s a problem solved. There were too many bigger plot points to be set up and given time, especially for this shorter length we’ve got with Lower Decks, but “Dos Cerritos” was still a solid, enjoyable plot that is maybe better when you’re binging the season as a whole.

Ultimately, I like “Dos Cerritos.” Not something I’ll be remembering much of over other episodes, though it does an ok job of setting the groundwork for the season to come before we see our crew head off to become the next generation of Commanders, Captains, and Admirals. Without spoiling too much, I’m excited to see what comes next, mostly in the hope that it isn’t a quick reset to continue as is.

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Lower Decks "Dos Cerritos"

7.5

Score

7.5/10

Pros

• Tendi and Rutherford's stories are the most interesting.
• Laying lots of the groundwork for the direction we're going in.

Cons

• Of the four plots, nothing could breathe.
• Oh yay, let's set up war in the final season.