We'll Always Have Tom Paris: Lower Decks S02 E03

A Caitian Libido Post, a Tom Paris plate and the resurrection of a senior officer make for probably the best episode of the season so far.

We'll Always Have Tom Paris not only takes its running time to play out as many Star Trek twists and turns as possible and as viewers would hope but also manages to address its own consistent inconsistencies in the way in which events play out.

Dr T'ana sends Tendi on a mission to acquire an old family heirloom from Qualor II (yes, that Qualor II) as Boimler attempts to get his Tom Paris plate signed by the visiting Voyager legend and Rutherford tries to get to grips with the return of Lt Shax (yes, the one that died).

With an A, B and C story, it's a packed 22 minutes of action but at no point does it feel overwhelmed with story. Each piece lasts out just enough and there's a bunch of laugh out loud moments all the way. 

Tendi chooses to take Mariner with her and there's a fairly blatant nod to the audience reactions to season one that didn't see these two take on any adventures together. Seeing it as a bonding exercise, Mariner approaches it with the usual over exuberance that filled out many of her episodes with Boimler which is the polar opposite to Tendi's naïve cautiousness.   

Their mission to retrieve T'Ana's box takes a turn though (as you would expect) that sends us off across two more worlds and a whole heap of trouble that explores a lot of background of these two characters plus manages to drop a load of franchise references along the way from planets to bars to alien races and even long-forgotten emblems. The attention to detail within this part of the episode is meticulous to say the least and goes even further to provide more information on two of the four main characters.

I'll touch on Rutherford's narrative first ahead of Boimler. This is a classic Trek trope all the way. How many times have we seen characters resurrected? Numerous. How many times in The Original Series did it happen and there was no explanation? (Ok, so accuracy wasn't as laser like as it is now...). We'll Always Have Tom Paris plays on this with the inexplicable return of Lt Shax who we saw die a the end of season one. It's messing with Rutherford horribly with the ensign obsessed with how it's happened. Watch out for the lengthy reel through of how it could have happened and tick off all the actual instances mentioned!

Now for the main event and the incredibly well kept secret of Tom Paris' return to Star Trek.

Boimler's fan obsession is nothing short of your pinnacle of, well, obsessive fandom. It's not helped by the fact that a security update to the ship has rendered him virtually invisible to its systems which leads him to the most extreme ways to reach his Voyager (or VOY as he calls it to save time saying it, wink wink) idol and a missing autograph from his plate collection. 

Honestly this was a scream of a storyline and as a whole We'll Always Have Tom Paris felt way too short with the amount crammed into the relatively short runtime. Of all the three threads this is by far the simplest executed but with the biggest payoff with Robert Duncan McNeil voicing the Voyager helmsman once more - as only it could be.

The humour is absolutely on point but episode three feels as though it has much more depth and is deserved of at least a second watch and not just to pick out the glut of references to its series predecessors. It's an episode that at its heart really is about the characters and their relationships with each other. The missed oversight of pairing Tendi with Mariner is long overdue and adds a dynamic to the show that we have been robbed of for 12 episodes. While Boimler's pairing with Mariner emphasises his neuroses, Tendi's arrival beefs up her role and gives her more to do than we've seen since the beginning. 

She's now not just the initial guide to our arrival on the Cerritos but our lead when it come to seeing more of the Orion people and her uncomfortable place within it. For once she's the one with as many answers as Mariner when it comes to resolving their splintered predicament although Beckett is the one ultimately willing to self-sacrifice as usual to save face for her colleague - no, her friend.

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