The Best Exotic Heart of Darkness Hotel. Directed by former storyboard artist, Brandon Williams, “The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel” is his fourth of five stories directed by him. With prior work on the 2017 reboot of Wacky Races, Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms, and a lot of work on Solar Opposites. Williams also appears in several reviews of Lower Decks (his episodes) for The 7th Rule, which is hosted by Cirroc Lofton, Jake Sisko. At the same time, the writing credit goes to former co-producer and writer of Velma, and writer/story editor for Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Stephanie Amante-Ritter.

Called onto an away mission with Ransom, Boimler misses out on nanite clean-up duty with the re-formed crew as Jet warns him about the dangerous things Ransom just made him do. This is to the point where Doctor T’Ana has to grow him some new hands. As he’s off living a reference to Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad; Mariner, Rutherford, Tendi, and T’lyn are on nanite clean-up duty, which goes a bit sideways because Jennifer shows up again. Remember Jennifer? That one guy whose comment went missing (not because of me) probably does.

Mariner has been a typical pansexual and was noncommittal to that whole break-up thing, so Jennifer is super close while Mariner is confused. You can’t just walk away from someone, never talk to them for several months, and call that a break-up. Who knew? Trying to speed up this catch-em-all nanite adventure, Mariner shoots an energy crystal (not your ex’s type) to supercharge it and get this pesky nanite to take the bait. It turns out that it is feeding on the energy of things, and a supercharged crystal means super-charged nanite.

I’m not going to spend the next 600-odd words saying “I hate we’re going back to our comfortable place.” We’ve done that, we’re here, and we’re back to “normal” stories which suggest that no one cares that Tendi was off having a pirate cutiney. That’s the last I’ll say of it, for now. I quite like “The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel,” despite the Apocalypse Now thing being twisted to fit something weird. It is what Lower Decks is pretty good at, a fun story about characters that sometimes pokes or holds a mirror up to the franchise.

Again telling a story about Mariner and Boimler rather than anyone else, we’re stuck wondering “So it is the final season, are we going to get a Shax story, maybe something about Rutherford’s life before being Borgified, possibly something about Carol?” What I keep returning to, and as we covered last time it is irrational because animated TV takes so long to produce that this was written before season 4 aired, this doesn’t feel like a season that’s wrapping up. Both it and I are in a weird place: I know it is ending, it is acting like nothing has/will change, so how are you supposed to feel about that?

As a story on its own, “The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel” is a light, fun breeze of an episode that could be so much darker but does that typical Lower Decks twist to keep it from overstepping. Beckett’s story is typically dangerous and blasé about doing things by the book, while Boimler is very Boimler, basically regressing away from the parallel universe of himself that took danger and risk at face value. Despite the face-fluff, this is an episode that could have gone in the last two or three seasons, if I’m honest. I don’t want to keep harping on about it.

There is a hint of character from T’Lyn though via Beckett’s story with Jennifer, specifically that she likes the equivalent of a holiday resort crooner. It is a simple bit of character, but more than we’ve got from either Rutherford or Tendi, for example. Though speaking of odd bits of character, I think Mariner not being able to spot an icosahedron on sight is a little… Disappointing? We’ve seen the crew play tabletop role-play games before, you’d think they’d know what a D-20 might look like on sight.

Back to the less “fun” stuff, I think the story of the Marlon Brando stand-in is more interesting than Boimler’s whole regression into himself. Much like Kurtz in Conrad’s story and Coppola’s adaptation, the small group is on the search for a commander that has gone a bit mad. Again, not as dark as the ivory trader or the Green Beret Colonel, flag officer Admiral Milius is turned insane by monotonous orders resulting in him creating a cult of personality. Too bad his personality is that of a dad with a model train set on vacation.

I get the story of Boimler being afraid while the Admiral wants danger instead of watching flowers grow or milking Wales, but at the same time having him (to use the word again) regress into what he has been previously felt odd. Especially as we’re supposed to be pushing Boimler towards this Bill goatee’d exemplary officer. I don’t want to say too much, but I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be seeing the Lower Deckers of the Cerritos once again getting promotions by the end of the season. This Boimler we’ve got here is the same one we had several episodes ago.

Mariner feels like she’s had more growth than anyone, especially as she is forced repeatedly to confront Jennifer over this did they/didn’t they break up? As a story I enjoy the frivolity of “The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel” but I’m once again left wanting, probably some sense of finality as we close out the show. Something we’ll not really get until “The New Next Generation,” and even then I’m not sure it is a series finale as much as it is a season finale, going by the episodes so far.

Ultimately, I like the story “The Best Nanite Hotel” tells but there is no sense of contention from prior stories or friction heading into the next few. It is business as usual with nothing particularly standing out visually or storywise. I hate to say it because I do like the episode, but it was an episode that happened, yet not one that I think is needed on a rewatch. The type of episode you put on while making dinner and you would still find it hard to miss much.

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7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Marlon Blando is a good change of character.
• T'lyn's little bit of character is a breath of fresh air.
• A light, breezy episode.

Cons

• So little to cling to visually or storywise.