12 mo. ago • 96%

Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Lower Decks | 4x05 “Empathalogical Fallacies”

Logline

A trio of Betazoids cause chaos on the Cerritos.

Written by: Jamie Loftus

Directed by: Megan Lloyd

46 comments

Damn, security is wholesome. Loved Kayshons Naruto-run to the phasers. Focused!

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- The Cerritos is continuing the proud Starfleet tradition of having good mental health advisors and a kinda useless ship's counselor.
  
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- That B-plot justifying the entire security team being isolated from the threat until the red alert was pretty funny.
  
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Betazed intelligence? That makes sense. There has surely been a thread or two asking why that wasn't a thing.

Laughed out loud at the disappointed Romulans. It was cheap, but I still adored it.

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- At some point, I'd like to see a gag about how the Romulans seem to hang out in the Neutral Zone all the time.
  
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  They don't hang out. They lurk.
  
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  I think there is a fan theory that Romulan space is pretty small (relatively speaking), which is how they're able to defend it well with a small number of ships. Which also explains why they're not able to have enough ships to evacuate Romulus.
  
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- wouldn't the Romulans entering the neutral zone also be an act of war, though? that's kinda the point of a neutral zone -- neither side can enter.
  
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  If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it...
  
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Man, I was hoping they'd confirm the commonly held theory that Sokel is T'lyn's father (since she's the Sh'val's version of Mariner). No dice unfortunately.

Really like how Mariner was emotionally mature enough to solve the problem by just talking. Sure, she's done that some other times (Crisis Point II comes to mind), but she doesn't really know T'lyn nearly as well as those other examples. Really shows how far she's come from the therapy-hating Mariner in Season 1. She's not wrong to point out how Vulcans tend to have a very narrow view of what their species should be like while idolizing paragons who don't fit that mold. Tear them space elves down, girl!

Other notes:

One of Shaxs' officers at the gathering reaaally looked like a Kiley (Kileyan?) from SNW episode 1. Guess Pike's message stuck.

I noted previously that they drew the betazoids with larger eye dots to reference their dark irises. Looking back, I think they even did that when drawing Counselor Troi in season 1.

we don't often see Tendi being the butt of the joke. guess there's no place to ham up her excessive emotionality than a T'lyn episode.
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I like how one of the background characters in the party room was wearing the stupid headset everyone got addicted to in TNG

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T'Ana was great in this episode. Especially because of the fact that we got some weird lore about betazoids being prey lol. When she went feral and started hunting, I absolutely lost it.

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- I also loved how Shax tried to talk her down and persuade her to use some coping/calming mechanisms.
  
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  Lol yeah calling her hunny was great.
  
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Great episode. I really like what they're doing with T'Lyn.

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I like to imagine that Lwaxana trained those three. The image of Majel Barret flipping around whacking people with a shock baton is quite amusing.

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- It wasn’t the shock baton that came to mind, rather the TNG episode where Lwaxana figures out that the fish-alien diplomats are frauds and spies. Lwaxana’s telepathic insights could be distracted, but not for long.
  
  Even Deanna Troi, a less powerful empath, was able to survive alone undercover on a Romulan ship.
  
  Of course there would be Betazoid Intelligence officers embedded in the Federation diplomatic core.
  
  Once again, Lower Decks is the show that takes things to their logical conclusion.
  
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That was a fun episode. Hopefully they don't kill T'lyn due to her Bendii like syndrome. Like how Mariner and T'lyn shared a moment. Betazoids intelligence agents taking the Cerritos across the neutral zone was that due to T'lyn influence?

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- The peptalk that Mariner gave T'Lyn was absolutely fantastic. There were so many good moments in this episode, but that is probably my favorite.
  
  The Romulans that are disappointed when the Cerritos does not cross into the Neutral Zone was hilarious too.
  
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  The peptalk that Mariner gave T’Lyn was absolutely fantastic. There were so many good moments in this episode, but that is probably my favorite.
  
  "Then I suppose, by the transitive property, that I, too, am 'as Vulcan as a motherfucker.'"
  
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- I wonder if she actually has Bendii syndrome or if she's just more emotional than a typical Vulcan? Sarek only lived 2 years after his symptoms started showing!
  
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  Or she could be pretty typical in regards to emotional intensity but with unusually strong telepathy.
  
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- Yes, the Betazoids acted that way because of her.
  
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- I doubt the writers will give here Bendi syndrome. Seems too dark for Lower Decks
  
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It's probably for the best that they didn't use voyager as an example about how Vulcan emotions can infect other people....

I also enjoyed the part where Freeman tries to stop them. I sat there thinking that she was being smart it was 100 percent the betazoids. It's a good example why the characters aren't idiots for doing the things we yell at the TV screen.

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Annotations up at: https://startrek.website/post/2153916

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- I'm not sure if there is or not, but it seems like there should be a way to link a post that links to it on whatever instance of Lemmy we're on instead of hard linking to the main... hmmm
  
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  Would also be nice if opening lemmy links kept you in whatever UI you are using. I don’t like that it opens a browser page to the post.
  
  This is on the voyager app for iOS anyway.
  
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- I always appreciate your posts
  
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Loved the episode. Did I understand correctly that the Betazoids were travelling from planet to planet to find a cure for this rampant emotional telepathic event?

Does that mean T’Lyns powers extended that far?

Or were they secretly hunting for the alien ship? I got a little bit lost with the fast dialog.

On a random note, funny how in ten forward the two guys making out kept inserting themselves in almost every scene.

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- Or were they secretly hunting for the alien ship?
  
  It was this - they're investigating the destroyed vessels.
  
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- They were looking for clues to the attacks on the ships, playing the part of party girls to get in places they probably normally wouldn't be able to. They went full into it when they got near T'Lyn
  
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- I'm relieved to know I'm not the only one who got that mixed up. I had to rewatch the bridge scene to understand they were tracking the ship, and not some psychic outbreak of heightened emotions.
  
  Also, I just now looked ahead. Is the next title really a Garth Marenghi reference? Because that's amazing.
  
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  Parth Ferengi's Heart Place
  
  It's can't be anything else, surely! I kinda want that ep to have a character that can't act.
  
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I really liked the facial expression animations in this episode. Its difficult to pull them off in 2D animation, but it really helped in this episode.

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T'Lyn's voice always reminds me of the Alexa or Google Home, and it's hilarious.

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