Tendi just wanting to play in the sand is cute.

Boimler being completely fed up with the assignment is great - he knew exactly what he was walking into, but did it anyway (I'm glad it actually had payoff at the end).

Rutherford has finally resolved badgey, and seemingly learnt nothing.

I didn't feel like mariner had a whole lot to do in this episode, she just kind of tagged along.

A bit of a weird episode in that the protagonists didn't solve much, the two problems just sort of fizzled out for their own reasons.

Kind of surprised that Peanut Hamper was up for parole-- Memory Alpha doesn't list a specific stardate for A Mathematically Perfect Redemption but judging by the adjacent years and the stardate AGIMUS listed she's been in Daystrom for less than two years.

IMO this episode confirms that what we saw last week wasn't an anomaly, Rutherford's got it bad for Tendi. It's kind of weird to have him focusing on her encouragement to the exclusion of Mariner (who was in his immediate vicinity!) otherwise.

An odd number of Binars… and we find the missing pair operating a bridge console at the time of the attack.

Certainly fits the profile of the other acts of treachery followed immediately by betrayal.

I have to admit, with the revelation that the ships are all being stolen with fake debris left behind… I’m at a loss as to what the endgame is.

• I seriously doubt they’re being salvaged for parts. Lower Decks has already done that with the Pakleds.

• The ships don’t really fit a profile. We have the huge vertical warbird to the tiny Orion vessel. The militant Bird of Prey to the sciency Binars.

• Only the Orion and Ferengi vessels could be argued as sharing a mission—with their sorting of random weapons. But even if the ship is after weapons, there are better targets.

• Taking the crews prisoner seems impractical.

Really, the only things the ships all have in common is a lower decker that is vindictive and gullible enough to commit treachery. But that’s not an objective, that’s a means to an end.

Did anybody else feel like the plot required a bit more suspension of disbelief than usual? The federation really needs to invent antivirus technology and firewalls.

Boimler and Tendi are rarely paired up for their A/B-plots, as well as Rutherford and Mariner. I was kind of disappointed much wasn't done with that, they were just kind of ... there and it was Boimler and Rutherford's story chiefly. Not much character interaction between the duo. That made it a bit funnier when Rutherford was like "Tendi is right" and Mariner was taking a bit of umbrage to that.

Mariner and Tendi noping out on Rutherford and Goodgey was hilarious.

I hope we’re done with those robots. Jeffrey Combs is a lot of fun as the evil supercomputer but I really don’t want to see anymore major plot lines around them.

Bradward 'Meat Pipe' Boimler

Annotations up at: https://startrek.website/post/2610545

Are we heading toward a Crystalline Entity type situation here? It looked like Badgey was orchestrating attacks/salvage but wasn't necessarily behind the actual mystery ship.

I thought it really was one of the weaker lower decks episodes. Didn't quite care about the Ferengibepisode, but it was a nod to DS9. This one, no couldn't relate to it...

Are there any trekkie groups in Cleveland Ohio? It's been so long, I don't know where to look anymore.