Below Deck with Lower Decks: Going Viral

This week's all-new episode of is throwing us a change-up!

After four and a half seasons of shenanigans featuring our favorite band of junior officers, this latest episode turns the spotlight (kinda sorta) on Captain Freeman, Commander Ransom, and the other senior officers of the U.S.S. Cerritos. While Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, Rutherford, and T'Lyn are doing cool things like hanging out and carving pumpkins, Freeman and her command crew are busy with all manner of interstellar weirdness. "Alien invaders," says Freeman at one point. "Chaos in engineering, Shaxs fighting demons…just the usual."

You know, your typical Thursday aboard that ship.

Among the various crises and nuisances demanding attention? A "Zerta pathogen" that latched on to one of the ship's crewmembers. According to Dr. T'Ana, it was a virus that caused the crewmember's DNA to evolve and devolve, which of course proved a bit challenging for the ship's chief medical officer.

Wait, hang on. A virus that affects the crew? Why does that sound so familiar? Most fans likely know that strange alien viruses attacking the crew is nothing new for Star Trek. I mean, this isn't even the first time something like this has hammered the Cerritos crew. We all remember "," the very first Lower Decks episode, right? Commander Ransom beams back to the ship from an away mission without realizing he's carrying an alien contagion that immediately starts spreading across the ship and in doing so begins turning the crew into zombies. The only thing standing between it and his crew is Boimler, who's still so much of a rookie at this point that Freeman can't even remember his name.

Ah, Lower Decks. You used to be such a sweet, simple little show. Look how you’ve grown.

Such viral mischief goes all the way back to "," one of the early first season episodes of the original series. When a member of the Enterprise crew is infected with a strange virus from a remote planet, it has an intoxicating effect on nearly everyone aboard. This results in a dramatic(!) lowering of inhibitions, sending them toward chaos in every conceivable direction and distracting them from their duties to the point the ship is in danger of being pulled down into the planet's atmosphere.

The idea is revisited in pretty direct fashion in "," the second episode of the still minty-fresh 's first season. This time, the new Enterprise is infected by a very similar virus when Commander Riker and an away team investigate a derelict starship and finds its crew dead. In much the same way as what happened on Captain Kirk's Enterprise, a pathogen is brought back to the ship. Captain Picard and his crew find themselves in the grip of the contagion's disruptive effects, making them all but powerless to save the ship from a disastrous collision with a runaway fragment ejected from a collapsing star. You know, just your everyday run of the mill space disaster.

Now, you know I saved the best for last. That's right, Barclay's Protomorphosis Syndrome: I'm looking at you!

In the seventh-season TNG episode "," Dr. Crusher attempts to treat Lieutenant Barclay's case of Urodelan flu by using a synthetic T-cell to help activate the dormant T-cells in his body so they can fight the infection. . We all remember Barclay turning into something out of a David Cronenberg movie, right? Fun stuff, y’all.

As for the Cerritos, while Freeman's senior staff was able to contain their own weird contagion, it was but the start of just another Thursday aboard ship. To find out how they tackle the rest of the day's challenges (and how those aforementioned favorite junior officers manage to avoid most of it…you know, for once), you’ll just have to make time to watch this week’s episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks!

(And after that, there's always Buffer Time!)