We have already recapped and reviewed Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5, episode 6, “Of Gods and Angles,” and discussed it on All Access Star Trek podcast. Today we are looking at the canon connections, Easter eggs, and nods. There weren’t a lot this week, but they were were some pretty deep cuts. Here’s what jumped out to us, which include SPOILERS.
Who mourns for Olly?
The episode introduced “Olly,” described as a demigod and “granddaughter of Zeus.” Mariner asked “Didn’t Kirk kick their asses? I thought they all went off and became ‘one with the wind’ or whatever.” This is in reference to the TOS episode “Who Mourns for Adonais” when Kirk and the USS Enterprise encountered Apollo, son of Zeus, revealing the gods of Greek mythology were actually powerful aliens who had visited Earth and thrived off of worship until people stopped believing in them. In that episode Apollo was defeated by Kirk and he also revealed the other “gods” had “returned to the cosmos on the wings of the wind.” The original ending for the TOS episode established that Enterprise archeology officer Carolyn Palamas was pregnant with Apollo’s child, but that was nixed by NBC censors. The omitted scene is available on The Roddenberry Vault Blu-ray. The Palamas pregnancy was also included in the James Blish novelization of the episode. Lower Decks appears to be presenting Olly as the daughter of Apollo and Palamas. Take that 1960s censors!
Mariner 2.0
Even thought she was a demigod, Olly was presented as a sort of new version of Mariner, particularly how the character was in the first season. Olly’s first scene showed her carting around a collection of stuff, just like Mariner’s introduction in the first episode of the series. Like Mariner’s collection, there were some easter eggs on Olly’s sled including the Worf’s weird ball chair from The Next Generation and a Dabo table from Deep Space Nine.
Ensign Olly also used Mariner’s old bunk, and the episode ended with Olly in the brig claiming it was her “favorite place,” again echoing early seasons Mariner who often found herself in the brig, claiming it was her favorite place on the ship. You can even see the same doodle in Olly’s cell that Mariner drew.
Lock and load
Speaking of collections, there were some fun items in Boimler and Rutherford’s quarters. Brad has added another figure/statue. He now has three: Mirror Archer from Enterprise (in green TOS Kirk tunic), TOS movie era Spock, and now what looks like Data in First Contact/TNG movie era with phaser rifle.
CSI: Cerritos
When Quadralon’s room is found trashed with “residue” on the wall, Mariner says “You don’t have to be Dixon Hill to see some bad BLEEP went down in here.” This is the second reference this season to the fictional noir detective Dixon Hill, a favorite of Jean Luc-Picard on The Next Generation.
Are you some kind of comedian?
Trying to dismiss Rutherford’s accusation that he had a stolen PADD from the alternative universe (from episode 501), Boimler says “Good joke. We got a real Ronald B. Moore here.” This is a deep cut to the TNG episode “The Outrageous Okona,” when Data ran a holodeck program of a 20th century comic to learn humor. The comic (played by comedian Joe Piscopo) was named “Ronald B. Moore,” according to the (hard to see) holodeck listing which was itself an easter egg honoring visual effects coordinator Ronald B. Moore
What did you see?
Spot any new Trek references we missed on Lower Decks? Have a favorite? Sound off in the comments below.
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Olly can’t be Apollo/Palams daughter as she’d be 114 years old!
Given that the Apollo Kirk met is the same Apollo that visited Earth in ancient Greece that means she can live that long. Even much, much longer.
Apollo presented himself as the last of his kind, and faded away at the end of his episode. So a child of his with Palams is the youngest a grandchild of Zeus could be. Unless Zeus had a child elsewhere that was a long lived demigod, and that child begat Olly more recently.
Why? Apollo was thousands of years old.
its great grand daughter people can’t you all get it right
Why the hostility?
People just need common sense if no one can’t read and no hostility at all just all need to understand the story.
The new figurine looks more like O’Brien to me.
The plot of the episode owes a lot to The Outrageous Okona as well, of course.
Apollo could still be alive, May not be cannon. But Star Trek Continues first Episode Delt with Apollo and even had Michael Forrest Reprise his Role as Apollo but aged. At the end of that Episode he had taken refuge on a Primitive Planet to help them.