askryan
The Bill thing at least is a joke about TNG season 1 - they had Troi call him Bill and it was in the early series bible that Picard would call him William and he would be called Bill by “close female friends.” I hate these shorts (although I’m glad they exist for the animation, at least), but that was a pretty funny callback.
With all the “Pirates of Orion” references in this one, they really missed the boat not having at least someone pronounce Orion the insane way they do in that episode.
The information broker has had cosmetic surgery to resemble the puppet Balok used to appear intimidating in “The Corbomite Maneuver”
I don’t think it specifies in the episode that the information broker had cosmetic surgery, does it? I wondered if this episode was trying to semi-canonize the Dassik. I don’t really care either way because that bit was hilarious.
If Locarno had kidnapped like Harry Kim or Geordi or some shit and put them on that viewscreen like he did Mariner, we would have had a full episode’s worth of them interminably trying to find a way to play along and send a secret message out and agonizing over the situation, when just yelling “this guy’s an idiot and his plan is stupid” is genuinely a vastly better plan.
The Orion ship that arrives to collect Tendi is inspired by the one introduced in “The Pirates of Orion”, but appears to be a more modern iteration of that craft, as well as being significantly larger.
There have been a number of references to that episode this season, but STILL no one has said “Oreeeeon” or worn a silly green jumpsuit/helmet combo. Like what are they even doing?
As much as I want every Star Trek show to now have one musical episode once a season –– just to annoy Subspace Rhapsody grinches –– I don’t think it’s funny enough for Lower Decks. I would love to see an episode where, like, the same anomaly happens but it makes everyone speak exclusively in limericks, or some shit like that.
