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overthinking entertainment
Star Trek: Lower Decks: Starbase 80?! - Season 5, Episode 5
Ransom uses too much disinfectant gel while Mariner gets paranoid about curses.
Memory Alpha is a total T'Pol over here:
- First episode with both a question mark ("Is There in Truth No Beauty?") and an exclamation point ("Bride of Chaotica!") in the title.
- The Acamarians first appeared in TNG's "The Vengeance Factor." Mariner characterizes them as "a knife gang," although Klingons and Tamarians pretty much carry knives with them at all times.
"Chad lives to dog another day."
- Chad
Poster's Log:
Starbase 80! If most Trek is competence porn, then SB80 is the opposite of that, although it's hard to say what the opposite of porn is, because, no matter how unsexy you think something is, someone somewhere probably gets off on it. I mean, a corn dog vendor and an arcade with free tokens, on a certain level that's a pretty good time. Even the Acamarians are pretty chill. Space stations that are a hive of scum and villainy are a space opera staple; Omega in Mass Effect, the lower part of Absalom Station in the Starfinder RPG, even a few places in Trek. All they need is a stable wormhole nearby and a station commander who inadvertently ends up as a major religious figure, they'll get that place fixed up in a jiffy.
Poster's Log, supplemental: speaking of good times, anyone wanna bet that Ransom has a 55-gallon drum of decon gel in his quarters?
Boimler Beardquest: gettin' there.
posted by Halloween Jack on Nov 14, 2024 at 9:04 PM
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Kinda wondering if this is a backdoor pilot. This Starbase 80 crew is suspiciously well-developed.
posted by jordemort at 9:39 PM
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Zombie crewmen and bats; definitely feels like this was planned as a Halloween episode.
This Starbase 80 crew is suspiciously well-developed.
On the other hand, as Captain Freeman points out, they still haven't met her mirror universe counterpart. It would be weird to visit bizzarro Starbase 80 without first seeing normal Starbase 80, and I would hope Star Trek writers remember this.
anyone wanna bet that Ransom has a 55-gallon drum of decon gel in his quarters?
He'd probably get along well with helmsman Sulu.
posted by pwnguin at 10:01 PM
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Funniest one of the season so far if you ask me. I kept wondering how SB80 could possibly live up (well, down) to its reputation and yet still be a Starfleet facility, and I feel like they managed to walk that line nicely.
Stephen Root (Jakobowski) previously played a Klingon captain in TNG: "Unification" I & II.
Nicole Byer (Kassia) is best known as the host of Nailed It!
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 5:40 AM
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The second I heard Root's voice i immediately hollered, "Jimmy James!" Which is what I do anytime he pops up in a show or movie. It was a delight to have him pop up here, and I guess they definitely weren't joking about bringing in all the funny people they knew.
This was a nice solid episode and I was excited to see SB 80. Was there any reason they suited out the SB crew in the Enterprise era uniforms? Why are they wearing those instead of TOS era, which would have been newer (if maybe, worn by dead men)?
All in all, good stuff.
posted by Atreides at 7:07 AM
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Were all the crew on SB80 wearing ENT uniforms, or were those blue jumpsuit and shoulder stripe uniforms work uniforms on another show that I'm just not remembering?
ah jinx
posted by Kyol at 7:09 AM
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The only thing that I can surmise is that SB80 is so far out of the Federation/Starfleet mainstream that they can get away with wearing pre-Fed uniforms and they like having pockets. (Roddenberry hated having pockets and visible zippers on clothes; like negative emotions, humanity was supposed to have evolved beyond all that.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:46 AM
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The second I heard Root's voice i immediately hollered, "Jimmy James!" Which is what I do anytime he pops up in a show or movie.
You might enjoy watching television with my wife, who yells "Bill Dauterive" whenever he's in something. The two of you could make a game of seeing who shouts out their preferred fiction Root character first.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 11:32 AM
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You're married to good people.
posted by Atreides at 2:13 PM
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We have achieved goatee!
Lots of nice touches throughout. We got a rack focus on the bridge! SB80 has a "Maintenance Labyrinth." The gel is an effective red herring, an actually comes in handy to free Gene from the, uh, bat tube?
On the downside, the episode feels like it could use some polishing. Mariner acts like she visited SB80 once, not lived there (no reunions, not even some kind of intimate knowledge of the station.) The Captain was big on the station being a place for second chances, but she volunteered to be there? (Maybe volunteering was her mistake? Doesn't seem like that's what they were going for.)
Best line was Chad's when he was being overwhelmed by Ritos crew, "Chaaad!!" (He knows no one else is going to say it.)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:32 PM
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Mariner acts like she visited SB80 once, not lived there (no reunions, not even some kind of intimate knowledge of the station.)
She seems to have been there barely long enough for a visit. I just rewatched "Trusted Sources" [FF thread], our first actual glimpse at SB80, and Mariner is on her way there when the crew go to Brekka and encounter the Breen; after that fight ends, shortly thereafter the special/exposé airs, and Freeman realizes her mistake, but when she calls SB80 and asks for Mariner, she's already gone--she's already the XO on the Loot'n'Scoot. It's unclear how long that gap was, but the general impression is that she didn't take that long to nope out.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:54 PM
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I was a little ashamed that I didn't catch Stephen Root's voice at first (I adore him, and he did the opening narration on the show I just finished up on!) but my wife caught it immediately. Thankfully, I was able to recognize Nicole Byer, at least (who I also love to see/hear in absolutely whatever.)
posted by Navelgazer at 8:29 PM
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