Star Trek: Lower Decks Homages a Classic TNG Tradition
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 1, Episode 4, "Moist Vessel," now streaming on CBS All Access.
In the first episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, we learned that Ensign Mariner is the daughter of U.S.S. Cerritos Captain Freeman, and she is caught in a game of hot potato between her mother and father, a Starfleet Admiral. Both want nothing to do with their daughter, and they are determined to have her serve on a ship that is not under their command.
Now, in the series' latest episode, "Moist Vessel," Captain Freeman makes another attempt to get her daughter off her ship. This time, she assigns her the worst and most disgusting tasks on the Cerritos in the hopes that Mariner will willingly choose to request a transfer. However, that doesn't work, forcing Captain Freeman to change course. And when she does, Lower Decks delivers an homage to a classic Star Trek: The Next Generation tradition.
When Captain Freeman notices that Mariner is able to find fun in even the most tedious tasks, she opts for a different approach: promoting her to the rank of Lieutenant, ensuring she will no longer have time to have any fun. Instead, Mariner will have to focus on the minutia and workload that comes with an upper-management position.
Mariner's new responsibilities fail to engage her, and it becomes even worse when the Captain invites her to take part in the inner circle's poker game. All of the senior officers are in attendance at the game, the Captain included, and they are sitting around a poker table, waging bets based on their cards.
The scene is clearly meant to be an homage to The Next Generation. In fact, in the fan-favorite Star Trek series, the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D would often play poker to unwind. Throughout the series' seven-season run, Worf, Riker, Dr. Crusher, Data, Troi and more characters would challenge one another to games of poker. These games showed a different side of the characters and were often used as a vehicle to deepen their bonds as a family unit -- even if the Captain rarely joined them.
The Next Generation's poker games became a tradition for the series. They served as moments of levity amid all the complications of space exploration, becoming a classic part of Star Trek history. Although the scene may be brief, Star Trek: Lower Decks honors The Next Generation by having its own crew play poker on the U.S.S. Cerritos. Clearly, the tradition lives on.
Star Trek: Lower Decks stars Tawny Newsome as Ensign Beckett Mariner, Eugene Cordero as Ensign Rutherford, Jack Quaid as Ensign Brad Boimler, Noël Wells as Ensign Tendi, Dawnn Lewis as Captain Carol Freeman, Jerry O'Connell as Commander Jack Ransom, Gillian Vigman as Doctor T'Ana and Fred Tatasciore as Lieutenant Shaxs. The show premiered on CBS All Access on Aug. 6.
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