This Star Trek: Lower Decks article contains spoilers.
“So, tell me about your gramps,” Mariner demands of the new ensign at the end of the latest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks. “Did he smite?”
On its face, that’s a weird question, even for a motor-mouth like Beckett Mariner. Across five seasons, Mariner has established herself as a mouthy and energetic, but shockingly competent, Starfleet officer. Furthermore, Mariner, like her voice actor Tawny Newsome, is a walking encyclopedia of Star Trek lore, which is why she knows about Ensign Olly (Saba Homayoon) and her grandfather Zeus. Or rather, as Captain Freeman reminds Mariner in official Starfleet terminology, Olly’s grandfather is the psychokinetic being that presented itself as Zeus.
Olly’s appearance raises a question for Mariner, who asks, “Didn’t Kirk kick their asses? I thought they all went off and became ‘one with the wind’ or whatever.” That’s a question most Trekkies share, because Mariner’s quoting the last time Greek gods showed up on Star Trek. Specifically, they appeared in the second episode of the second season of the Original Series, “Who Mourns for Adonais?”
Written by Gilbert Ralston and Gene L. Coon and directed by Marc Daniels, “Who Mourns for Adonais” sends the Enterprise to Pollux IV, where they encounter a being called Apollo. Kirk and co. learn that Pollux IV is the home planet of super beings who came to ancient Earth and were worshiped as gods by the Greeks, ruling from Mount Olympus. But as humanity began to put away its superstitions, the beings grew weak and returned to their home planet.
While most of the gods allowed themselves to dissipate into some ethereal energy, Apollo (portrayed by Michael Forest) retained his humanoid form and sought new worshippers among the Enterprise crew. And he almost found one in the form of Lt. Carolyn Palamas (Leslie Parrish), the expert in ancient Greek mythology that the Enterprise apparently keeps around. Of course, Kirk outwits Apollo and saves Palamas, sending the rest of the god aliens into the ether.
Even for those who love silly Trek, “Who Mourns for Adonais?” tends to rank toward the bottom of Original Series episodes. Forest has a lot of fun playing the haughty Apollo and there’s something delightful about the effect used to make the god tower over Kirk and Chekov. But the episode is neither as goofy nor as serious as it needs to be. The cast plays the conflict a little too straight, which makes it difficult to look past the fundamentally sexist resolution, in which Kirk orders Palamas to get over her silly crush to lie to Apollo about her attraction, thus frustrating his desire for worship.
Lower Decks doesn’t bother with dealing overtly with the problems in “Who Mourns for Adonais?” Heck, it doesn’t even bother to explain where Olly came from. In that way, Lower Decks differs from the non-canonical works that revisited the episode. Novelist Peter David brought back the gods in a few of his books, including 2001’s Being Human, in which Palamas gives birth to a daughter she conceived with Zeus. A descendent of that daughter becomes a regular character in David’s New Frontier novels, Mark McHenry.
Yet, as much as these works build on “Who Mourns for Adonais,” Lower Decks seems to offer the most compelling version of Greek mythology mixed with Star Trek, a woman whose electric powers get in the way of her ability to serve in Starfleet. Fortunately, Mariner knows a thing or two about making a mess and dealing with powerful parents, and the two find a way to use her gifts to solve a diplomatic crisis.
Does the solution answer all of Mariner’s questions about the gods? No, obviously not. But it does help redeem one of TOS‘s lesser episodes, enriching the world of Star Trek.
Star Trek: Lower Decks releases new episodes each Thursday on Paramount Plus.
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