“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.
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.
