Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Journeys Into The Heart Of Dorkness In “The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel”

“The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel”

Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5, Episode 3 – Debuted Thursday, October 31, 2024
Written by Stephanie Amante-Ritter
Directed by Brandon Williams

A fun visit to an exotic location delivers an action comedy episode mixed with deep character dives.

Who invited her?

RECAP

“It’s attracted to energy, sweetie.”

The lower deckers (sans Boimler) lead a routine mission to capture a growing nanite cluster on the ginormous cruise ship, the Cosmic Duchess. Drama heightens when Jennifer joins, apparently unaware she and Mariner broke up a couple seasons ago. Tendi and Rutherford delight in getting back to scanning sci-fi weirdness, which he names “Glumpus.” T’Lyn assesses the Jennifer/Mariner communication anomaly—which the Andorian is calling “Jariner.” After learning Jen is transferring to another ship, Beckett decides to avoid more drama and fake cute-talk her way through one last mission together. Eager to move things along, Mariner uses her phaser to juice a trap for the energy-absorbing Glumpus, but it escapes. The team gives chase, leading them to a concert hall set up for Krog on the Rocks, a “novelty beach crooner” (according to Mariner), but T’Lyn turns out to be a big fan. Remarkable—sorry, fascinating. Jennifer gets testy about this goodbye mission being so rushed, but before Mariner can end the “babe” and “honey” charade, Glumpus grows into a giant D20, surprisingly identified by Mariner as an “icosahedron!” After it absorbs the rest of the team, she gives it a new descriptor: “That d–k just ate our friends.”

Worst. D&D Game. Ever.

“We’re just a trio of vacation bros.”

Boimler is excited to join Ransom for an undercover mission, but sadly in beach wear and not those cool black body suits. They are to retrieve Admiral Milius, AWOL with “vacation madness.” Brad’s enthusiasm is derailed by Jet—who just lost both hands to piranha bats—warning that Ransom is using junior officers as human shields. At a beach bar, Boimler’s nerves are raised when Ransom sends him to get clues from terrifying toothy aliens, but after cultural misunderstandings are resolved, they head to a ski resort, searching for a Milius ally. Again Boimler is pushed into the lead, careening down the “experts demise” slope, crashing into a random alien’s oddly placed private parts, and getting pushed off a cliff. Milius’ Denobulan ally is impressed by his survival, but Brad inadvertently reveals he is with Starfleet. Ransom is pissed the admiral now knows they are coming, but it did reveal his location. The vacation trio heads to the compound via lazy river inner tubes, but Brad snaps when Ransom pushes him to an ominous cave that is likely a trap and declares he is no longer going to be their coal mine canary… and then they all get captured by makeshift-weapon wielding vacationers and tied up next to the “Temple of Dread.” They are greeted with “Congrats on being hostages in AWOL Falls” and offered refreshments. Mixed message much?

Ransom is giving this resort only two stars on SpaceYelp.

“Keep vibing!”

Jennifer reveals she’s just been messing with Mariner, and they finally get honest before rallying to stop Glumpus. They leap it into with Krog’s vibe tubes for T’Lyn, who disrupts the blob with some smooth tunes. Everyone is freed including Krog, who digs the Vulcan’s vibe. And it turns out the nanites were controlled by a tiny parallel universe USS Endeavor, by accident. At AWOL Falls, the mysteriously seductive (and sunburned) Admiral Milius lures Brad with his vision of a safe extended vacation away from unwanted Starfleet tasks. (In the admiral’s case, it was milking space whales. Ick.) As a temped Brad lounges with a cocktail, Billups and Ransom argue he wasn’t invited along to be expendable, but because he’s reliable, and they “always need a wiry guy.” Convinced, he greases up with suntan lotion and frees his comrades while the acolytes abandon Milius, preferring to get back to the buffet. “Sorry bro, vacation is over.” On the Cerritos, the stories converge as Milius is rejuvenated by the task of finding a way to take tiny Captain Tersal and her crew home. In the bar, Jennifer and Mariner are happy to be cordial exes and Tendi gives T’Lyn a signed photo of Krog, which she pretends not to love with all her Vulcan heart. Brad gets a welcome attaboy from his bro Ransom before the first officer turns his attention back to Jet (hiding behind the bar with brand new hands) for a mission to a lava planet to wrangle crystalline spiders. “F—k, he sees you Jet, run!”

Is this a good time to talk about our relationship?

REVIEW

Wow, there was a lot going on in this delightful episode. Once again, Lower Decks was able to take some classic Star Trek situations and find the humor between the cracks. But at the same time, “The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel” exemplified the season’s focus on developing these characters as they not only embrace their lives as Starfleet lieutenants, they’re also just growing up. Both Brad and Mariner were put through a lot to learn their lessons, with Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome stepping up as always to keep it engaging. Here we can see how Mariner is moving past just being a chaos agent, even acknowledging there are lessons to be learned from how her parents make things work with proper communication, a recurring theme on this show. This episode also acknowledges how the Mariner/Jennifer storyline itself was not properly handled during the previous season, hanging a lantern on their phantom breakup and tying up that loose end. It was nice for Tendi to check Jennifer for brain parasites and Rutherford to ponder if she had been on that mission where everyone was turned into crystals, all part of how this show uses humor trusting the audience with core Trek and sci-fi knowledge, including the concept of nanites driving the A story.

This was also a great episode for T’Lyn, with Gabrielle Ruiz deadpan perfect throughout as we learned a lot more about how out of control this Vulcan really is. From cutting insights of Mariner’s poor communication skills to the unhinged “I am having difficulties maintaining focus in anticipation of Krog’s propinquity,” T’Lyn is becoming more and more of a complete character. It has been quite the journey from being introduced in a single episode of season 2 and joining the crew only at the very end of season 3, but her dry humor has fit right in and invigorated the show.

♪ Vulcin’ away again in Duchessville ♪ 

There was even more going on with Brad’s journey through the Duchess. Mixed with the always funny hijinks and pratfalls was more of his season goal of taking ownership of his leadership place in Starfleet. Lower Decks chose to use Jet’s off-target warning and an homage to Apocalypse Now to test Boimler’s resolve, and boy was it tested. Guest star Toby Huss was fantastic as his Colonel Kurtz via Amiral Milius, another cautionary tale like the alt universe crew from the season opener. Jerry O’Connell also ably assisted this story both with his bro humor but also as an important boost to Boimler’s ego.

After last week’s episode exploring how there is no money in the Star Trek future, it doesn’t serve you to think too much about why Starfleet sent them to a cruise ship that includes casinos, charges, and more currency contradictions. However, if you chose to dig a bit deeper (and perhaps overthink) was there another level here? Are we seeing the themes of Apocalypse Now (and the book that inspired it, Heart of Darkness) of the dynamics of power and the blurred lines between the civilized and so-called “uncivilized”? What is a true “latinum elite experience” in a world without want? Perhaps there is a warning of how some in this post-scarcity society would react, with Lower Decks taking us to the extreme of a resort catering to those driven to “the ideal place to hide from command.” Yeah probably overthinking it, but it was still pretty funny, especially for fans of the movie.

You’re an errand boy, sent by Starfleet to collect a bill.

Of course it wasn’t all nods outside the franchise—this is Lower Decks, after all. But as in the previous episode, this season is spending a lot of its energy building on its own lore. The dreaded Starbase 80 gets a callback gag (and is likely foreshadowing), and the various people around the resort were a great example, mixing up some canon returns like the Denobulan. But the two-tone-skin staff and rock-skinned Krog are both Lower Decks originals seen in previous episodes. And then of course you have the first canon appearance of Gallamites, the mentioned-but-never-seen race from Deep Space Nine. All together, a good mix for canon connection fans.

The subtle season arc came back as the two stories were all tied together. The adorable little USS Endeavor came through one of those space potholes introduced in the first episode. It’s now an established mystery why so many of these things are opening up, and clearly there are incursions happening in both directions. We may not have seen the last of Admiral Milius as he works to get the Endeavor back home. This light touch on the season arc, not even mentioned in episode 2, seems to be the right balance for the series, which should stick to its roots, inspired by the episodic nature of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

This week on “Tiny Ship” we visit with the cutest little Intrepid class.

Final thoughts

After a solid two-episode debut last week, season 5 settles in with another strong showing, leaning into the strong character growth without missing a beat when it comes to the humor.

I got the bronze in 2364 for Alpine abs.

RANDOM BITS

  • Stardate: 59393.7
  • The episode name is a play on the title for the 2011 British comedy drama “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.”
  • The Duchess is quite the cruise ship. It’s the “size of a moon” with a multitude of climate zones, an artificial sun (which knows when you are sufficiently tanned), 240 240-hour spas, casinos, an indoor water park and an underwater dry park.
  • One of the nods to Apocalypse Now was Admiral Milius, named for screenwriter John Milius who won an Oscar for Apocalypse Now.
  • Krog looks to be inspired by the MCU’s Korg.
  • New Rutherford eyepiece feature: flash photo mode.
  • Jennifer was transferred to the USS Manitoba, likely a Parliament class ship, named for the Canadian province.

Your great-great-great-great grandfather John would be embarrassed over your antics.

Easter eggs and more to come

We will take a deeper dive into Gallamites and all the Easter eggs and canon connections this weekend. And a Podcast programming note: The All Access Podcast is taking the week off. It will be back Friday November 8 to review this episode along with next week’s Lower Decks episode.


New episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks premiere on Thursdays, streaming on Paramount+ in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, and Europe. Lower Decks also airs on Thursdays in Canada on CTV Sci-Fi Channel.

Keep up with all the news and reviews from the new Star Trek Universe on TV at TrekMovie.com.

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What a fun episode! I plan to rewatch this later today. So far, this is my favorite of the season.

First, I love I love “The Heart of Dorkness” in the title. LOL.

As for Millius, he might believe he’s going to form a team to help the Endeavor, but, personally, I think he needs counseling before he does anything.

The was a fun episode, except I didn’t like Boimler’s freaking out over Ramson subplot. It seemed like he should’ve moved past that and it definitely seemed out of character for Jet to be freaked out.

I’d be freaked out if I lost my hands too.

I wonder if Krog might be a Brikar (Rok-Tahk’s species from Prodigy, and originally from Trek novels by Peter David).

Anyone else notice the mountain that the undercover team had to climb was the Paramount logo?

How does a casino work in a cashless society?

As evidenced by DS9, most societies outside the Federation are NOT cashless

And the Federation clearly had some monetary reserves to be able to trade and negotiate with those societies. On an individual level you had lots of officers on DS9 who had some latinum they could use here and there.

C’mon dude, are you seriously asking this question? DS9 had a casino in Quarks bar. This is not exactly a new thing. And the answer seems to be not all planets in the Federation are cashless. That’s been documented as well. And there are plenty of non-Federation planets out there too. And I have pointed out in the past, even Earth has some type of currency system called credits. It’s just probably not used the way we think of money today.

Manitoba is a PROVINCE. Lol Sorry, Canadian here, Winnipeg is the capital of Manitoba. No hockey fans cheering for the undefeated Jets?

I’m a fellow Canadian and although not a Jets fan, for you my friend I’ll give a cheer for the Jets (just this once).

I’m happy others liked it (and I think Anthony has loved every episode lol) but this was a miss for me. I don’t know, I just didn’t like it very much. It’s probably the only episode that didn’t produce a single laugh for me. I did like Jennifer and Mariner’s relationship status was resolved (and a little sad Jennifer is leaving the Cerritos). The Boimler/Ransom spy subplot was OK but could’ve been a bit stronger. The team trying to chase down the nanite cluster was fun though.

But overall this is probably the fourth or fifth episode in the entire series I didn’t really enjoy. I’ll probably watch it again and see if I have a different feeling about it.

Yeah, bit of a miss for me. Felt like it needed one more draft? Dialogue wasn’t very punchy and the b-plot was a little tepid.

Glad I wasn’t the only one or anyone called me a LDS gatekeeping hater. 😉

I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t as immediate as the first two episodes. A solid 7 out of 10 for me.

Great to hear! And looking around other places like Reddit and Trekcre, I seem to be in the minority view for sure. Most seem to at least like it. And I don’t think it’s horrible or anything and would rate it a 5/10.

I plan to rewatch it again and see if my view changes.

So much fun. Sad it’s the last season. Can we get this cast in live action please?

Slightly off topic but has anyone noticed there hasn’t been any Ready Room shows for this season? In fact the last time we got the Ready Room was during season 2 of SNW. I understand why we didn’t get one for Prodigy but it’s strange there hasn’t been one for LDS. They usually did the opening episodes for that show.

Could it just be cancelled or just decided not to bother with LDS (which I find hard to believe but here we are)?

I don’t recall Ready Room eps for Lower Decks, except the finales, but could be wrong. I always thought they were more common for the live action shows.

I don’t think they ever did a full season like the live action shows but they usually did the premiere as well as the finale at least.

Looking at the Youtube playlist, there was only 1 Ready Room episode during season 4 of Lower Decks. They may save that for the show’s finale this year.
What I found more surprising: Most of the Ready Room episodes for season 4 of Discovery were much shorter than they used to be.
So it definitely seems like they are scaling back on the Ready Room.

OK thanks. So I guess they already scaled back in season 4 and didn’t showcase the season 4 premiere, They definitely did the first 3 seasons. So we’ll probably get an episode after the finale I guess.

But you’re also right, looking at the Discovery season 5 run time coverage, the show was only around 15 minutes outside the finale. The earlier seasons were usually around 30 minutes. They definitely cut back.

I didn’t like the first two episodes of the season. However, this one was better.

This should have been a home run for me, APOCALYPSE NOW being one of my favorite films (and “Heart of Darkness” one of my favorite novellas). But aside from the promising “Admiral Milius,” for some reason they shied away from really going there. It’s just too bad about the missed opportunity, which could’ve been a lot of fun. This is actually the second time Trek has whiffed on “Heart of Darkness,” the first being Michael Piller’s first draft screenplay for INSURRECTION, that Patrick Stewart insisted be rewritten.

Found this not very funny and even less witty. They could have done a lot more with the “Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now” parody admiral.

Good episode, it’s nice to get a holiday destination in Star Trek that’s not Risa. I’m curious as to whether this might be a stealth reveal of the location of the live action comedy series

Krog is probably the same species as the rock man from the Star Trek V deleted scene.