There’s a lot to like about this week’s episode Lower Decks. The penultimate episode of the show set the stage for what could be one of the best endings of a Star Trek show, packed with energy across the board to deliver a rousing take on much of what has made the show so great over these five seasons. But even if the show somehow manages to hit the final frontier, I will always be grateful for what this week’s episode gave my little heart.
“Fissure Quest” immediately hits you with a ship of A journey geekery, even if it’s actually within the storytelling of Lower Decks on its own (the return of Boimler’s transporter William, now a Section 31 operative carrying his own starship on a mission to save the multiverse!) or between wild cameos that just pop up. William’s team of sorts A journey The characters include the original trooper Harry Kim (and one lieutenant, all voiced by Voyager‘s Garrett Wang), a version of Curzon Dax from Deep Space Ninewhere the Dax symbiote had not been transferred to Jadzia as it would have been in the beginning. A journey timeline, and another way of BusinessT’Pol (Jolene Blalock) makes a rare return to acting and a rare return Star Trek at large) who found his happy ending with Trip.
But what surprised me the least were William’s medical officers: the real Elim Garak when he joined Starfleet and put those sewing hands to work in surgery, and the Medical Hologram of Julian Bashir, who probably appeared in the reality where the events of Deep Space Nine“Doctor Bashir, I Presume” actually played well. That’s already exciting enough, especially since both Andrew Robinson and Alexander Siddig are returning to reprise their respective characters for the first time on television in decades. But it’s also interesting how William presents it in his log: they are you are married. Finally, even if there are other versions of them, there is a piece of them Star Trek TV with Garak and Bashir as husbands.
Deep Space Nine fans have long shipped the plain, ordinary tailor and CMO of DS9—the way their relationship on the show was electric from the moment Julian and Garak met, the allure of the mystery of Garak’s past and Bashir’s overzealous curiosity providing the primary . material for fans to learn queer interpretations of. Although Deep Space Nine he never went there in terms of the text, even when he went against the perceived taboo of queer relationships in some places, there was always something in the duo that caused that romantic chemistry. It’s one that both Robinson and Siddig have been eager to nurture ever since Deep Space Nine he concluded, discussing the relationship at fan conferences and how the two would, at times, try to push their matches as if there could be something between the two there, even if the script wouldn’t go that far. Robinson even went on to write several Star Trek novels about Garak, touch on the character’s criminality—even if it is unclear about Bashir.
Lower Decks I would just leave it at that. “Fissure Quest” continues enough that it could have succeeded in summoning Garak and Bashir’s husbands and continued with its other concerns, but instead it gives the couple space to be real. be a couple. They find time to communicate and tend to each other. Hell, they arguably get one of the episode’s best emotional arcs, playing with their broad lyrics about the concept of diversity to clearly emphasize that no matter what different realities they come from, or wherever they end up settling down after their careers end, home is between each other. That’s right too completely Garak and Bashir that this ending comes after the former spends a lot of time arguing with the latter about whether or not they will stay in his whole place or in Julian’s place—because, as Garak lovingly tells his husband in the climax, he’s always liked to argue. with him.
It does everything I’ve seen from these characters since I watched it DS9 As a young queer myself I’m actually part Star Trek in some small way, after years of wondering what it was. For all the interest of its past Star Trek has had in its streaming revival—from the appeal of aesthetic and structural nostalgia to series like Strange New Worldsto Picard‘s continuation of The Next Generationstories and characters, to Lower Decks‘ your true love Star Trek in and out of its script—the idea that it’s using that to give weird fans a couple that never existed (even if it’s not “our” Garak and Bashir for a while was something I never expected, let alone Lower Decks face down the phaser tip of its end. There’s a lot I’m thankful for that this show has done in its five seasons, but regardless of how it ends next week, I’ll always be glad it gave it a shot. Deep Space Nine‘s relationship is the best, and he did queer justice he always deserved.
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