WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 2, Episode 4 “Mugato, Gumato,” streaming now on Paramount+.
The animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks has always been a celebration of Star Trek history, good-naturedly poking fun at some of the patently bizarre and head-scratching elements of the science fiction franchise without becoming an outright parody. And as Brad Boimler and Sam Rutherford find themselves on the run on a remote, tropical planet, left with only their wits, they decide to improve upon a classic, makeshift weapon from Star Trek: The Original Series in order to save the day when outnumbered and outgunned by a familiar foe.
While investigating a Mugato sighting on the planet Frylon IV, with the Mugato not indigenous to the world, the U.S.S. Cerritos discovers Mugato have been brought to the planet by an illegal poaching ring of Ferengi, selling Mugato parts on the black market. With the rest of the landing party overpowered and captured by the Ferengi, including the recently resurrected security officer Shaxs and Boimler’s best friend Beckett Mariner, the two junior officers have to think quickly for a viable strategy to save their crew mates. Realizing they are no match for the Ferengi physically, Boimler and Rutherford approach the poachers with what appears to be a small cannon that the two have fashioned from bamboo, with the apparatus a callback to TOS.
In the TOS first season episode “Arena,” Captain Kirk and the captain of a Gorn starship the U.S.S. Enterprise was pursuing across the cosmos were stranded on a desolate planet by the Metron. Stripped of his usual devices and weapons, and with the Gorn being physically far superior than him, Kirk decided to use the natural resources at his immediate disposal. Creating gunpowder by mixing deposits of potassium nitrate, sulfur and coal together, Kirk gathered raw diamonds to use as projectiles and a large bamboo shaft to use as a cannon and emerged victorious after using this crude, but effective, weapon on the reptilian rival.
Decades later, during Lower Decks, Rutherford and Boimler’s device isn’t a cannon at all but rather a makeshift projector, despite Rutherford operating it like a bazooka. With the Ferengi entirely preoccupied with finding ways to get rich, Boimler and Rutherford have prepared an elaborate business plan for the Ferengi to use their Mugato in a different get-rich scheme: Create a wildlife preserve for the Mugato while building a theme park around it and making a fortune off of the resulting tourists in admission fees, concessions and merchandising. To the Cerritos‘ relief, the Ferengi agree and release the captive landing party.
To save the day, the crew of the Cerritos has again looked to the past example of the Enterprise crew, putting their own comedic twist on it. Rutherford and Boimler weren’t looking to blow away the Ferengi, especially not with their friends being held prisoner, but instead appeal to the longtime antagonists of Starfleet by speaking with them on their own terms. And from the Mugato’s return from the TOS era to Kirk’s secret weapon against the Gorn, the legacy of Captain Kirk’s adventures remain just as vital and influential as ever, just in time for the franchise to ring in its 55th anniversary as Lower Decks continues to honor the adventures that came before it.
To see the separate missions, Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 2 is now streaming on Paramount+, with new episodes premiering every Thursday.
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