Mid season and episode five is a mixed as episode four.
Charged with escorting the Doopler emissary to Starbase 25, the senior staff of the Cerritos have been on tenterhooks to avoid upsetting him. If they cause any sort of emotional imbalance then he could duplicate and fill the ship Tribble-like. So you can guess where this is heading already.
OK, An Embarrassment of Dooplers does revert to the more "favourable" pairings of Boimler/Mariner and Tendi/Rutherford and it only goes to prove how strong the duos are. The latter's modelling tale does weave into the senior staff's peril on the ship while Brad and Beckett's adventure on the surface joins everything back up right at the end.
Background pictures, locations and even items for sale are all picked out from the background of the franchise again with a strong lineage back to TOS in particular. However, it's easy once more to get tied into the minutae and not really focus on those main story points.
An Embarrassment of Dooplers goes to highlight the ineptitude of the senior officers and just how far down the line of importance the Cerritos is. Starbase 25's Captain's Party is the event to be at - everyone's there including Captain Shelby (The Best of Both Worlds) and Thaduin Okona is DJing - who wouldn't want to get on the list? But the reversion to the pairings this week is more about how far they've both come since the end of season one and it's well thought through. Mariner and Boimler have stuff to work out after he left for the Titan while Rutherford feels inept against his former self pre-memory wipe.
The car chase sequence is excellent, combining the usual Lower Decks humour with some niche references and visual gags with a fast-paced and genuinely exciting scene. Perfectly entertaining, ...Dooplers does what Trek does best and focuses on the characters and their relationship foibles. It's a great one to rewatch and possibly even one you could use to get new viewers into the show.
While perhaps not keeping within Starfleet's parameters, the last act of ...Dooplers is poetic if nothing more and only goes to cement the link between the four main characters and the senior staff... for now at least.
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