After ‘‘The Inner Fight,’’ Stop Calling ‘Lower Decks’ A Parody

Animated series connects with its TNG namesake in such a poignant way

Oct 30, 2023

Editor’s Note: Spoilers ahead for the Star Trek: Lower Decks fourth-season episode, “The Inner Fight.”

We don't usually review new individual Star Trek episodes here at Subspace Chatter, given that there are so many other capable fans who already have been publishing and posting theirs for much longer.

But the latest Star Trek: Lower Decks episode, “The Inner Fight,” will be an exception, considering that it's a truly watershed event for the animated series.

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Where to begin??

Let's start with this: Did Robert Duncan McNeill really ever think he would have the chance to play Nick Locarno again?!?

Tom Paris, his longtime character from Star Trek: Voyager? Sure. But the one-off Nick Locarno? Probably not.

But truly, there's so much more to “The Inner Fight” than the surprise return of a guest character from the Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “The First Duty.”

I'll be honest that I was really put off four years ago by Star Trek: Lower Decks — which began largely as the franchise’s entry into comedy and parody — taking its name from an episode that still resonates as one of the most affecting, and really one of the darkest, certainly from TNG if not the franchise as a whole.

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But “The Inner Fight” connects the animated series with its TNG namesake in a way that's not only poignant, but truly transcendent.

One of the great things Star Trek can do is take a major story or plot-point from one series and expand it — or come at it from an entirely different angle — in a separate series.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine did this to tremendous effect by showing us how Commander Ben Sisko (Avery Brooks) experienced the battle of Wolf 359 which we first saw from the perspective of the the crew of the Enterprise-D in the classic Next Generation episode, “Best of Both Worlds.”

“The Inner Fight” does the same sort of thing for the tragic death of Ensign Sito Jaxa (Shannon Fill) in Lower Decks’ namesake TNG episode.

By doing so, “The Inner Fight” accomplishes several things at once:

It gives us crucial backstory for Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) and finally explains her often difficult and recalcitrant nature when it comes to Starfleet.
The episode is a poignant salute to the TNG namesake with a loving homage that not only pays tribute to Sito's story but amplifies it by demonstrating that her ultimate sacrifice was felt profoundly beyond her small group of friends aboard the Enterprise.
And by doing all of that, it definitively elevates Lower Decks beyond the ghetto of parody and proves that it can tell big, powerful stories as a co-equal entry in the Star Trek franchise.

We can now easily see that Star Trek: Lower Decks has so much more storytelling potential and that its best days still lie ahead.

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