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‘Lower Decks’: Mining for the obvious
When a scientist at a research station on an alien world inhabited by stone-like people (the "Scrubble") is tempted by his greatest fantasy (his hot seventh-grade teacher) and turned into stone by a magical telepathic artifact, the Cerritos crew comes in to clean up the artifacts before they can do any more accidental harm.
The lower deckers are on the case, and while they do the cleanup, they have to deal with hallucinations created by the artifacts which reveal their deepest fantasies. They must avoid temptation lest they be turned into stone — while also competing against the USS Carlsbad‘s lower deckers, whom they are assigned to work with, and whom they assume regard them as a bunch of screw-ups.
The biggest problem with "Mining the Mind’s Mines" is its utter lack of imagination. A story that uses the Trekkian staple of the fantasy world showing the crew false images could’ve been used to reveal interesting things about the characters, or at least use the fantasies to drive some clever comedy. Instead, we get a bunch of surprisingly obvious jokes and "zany" cartoon action.
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