I, Excretus

After the senior officers leave Mariner, Boimler, Tendi and Rutherford stranded during a spacewalk, tension between the bridge and the lower decks runs high. Starfleet sends Pandronian drill administrator Shari yn Yem to put the crew through holodeck simulations with roles reversed: ensigns in command, senior officers in junior posts. Nearly everyone fails. Mariner flunks a string of scenarios, from the Mirror Universe to a western, Tendi wrestles with medical dilemmas, and the senior officers' own drills go badly. Boimler, assimilated as “Excretus of Borg” in his Borg scenario, refuses to accept anything less than perfection and keeps rerunning his drill against the Borg Queen. It turns out Shari has been rigging the tests so crews fail and her job stays secure. Boimler's endless reruns keep the evaluation open long enough for the crew to prove what they can do together, Shari changes their scores to passes, and Freeman rewards the lower deckers with replicator privileges.