Lower Deck Episode/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: An episode about the minor character.

  • Straight: Bob, the Security Chief of the USS Troperville, finally gets an episode that focuses on him and his team after appearing on the side in a few episodes.
  • Exaggerated: The episode focusing on the security team is promoted to no end prior to its airing, as if it were a special event involving the main cast.
    • An episode focuses on an entire group of nameless background characters, while the main cast don't get as much as a cameo.
  • Downplayed: There's a story about the adventures of a minor character, but rather than being part of the regular series it's a direct-to-video special.
  • Justified: In the previous episode, the entire main cast is captured by the Big Bad and the only ones who can save them is the security team, who was on an Away Mission at the time.
  • Inverted: A show that normally focused on Ensign Bob finally shows us what happens on the bridge.
  • Subverted: The episode starts off set in armory with the security personnel chatting, but a surprise attack incapacitates them, and the main cast must save the day as usual.
  • Double Subverted: Our heroes, the command crew, take quick action to save the security team, only to be caught in a trap set by the big bad. The rest of the episode focuses on the engineering watchstanders jury-rigging solutions to save the ship and get out of harm's way.
  • Parodied: ???
  • Zig Zagged: ???
  • Averted: A normal episode, focusing on the main cast.
  • Enforced: The star of the show is unavailable, so an episode is written which puts his character temporarily out of the way.
  • Lampshaded: ???
  • Invoked: Bob's actor's contract stipulates the character gets A Day in the Limelight.
  • Exploited: ???
  • Defied: ???
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???

Back to Lower Deck Episode