We’re just three weeks away from the return of Star Trek: Lower Decks, and thanks to today’s San Diego Comic Con @ Home panel, we’ve got our longest look yet at some of the wild situations the USS Cerritos crew will find themselves in during Season 2!
New species. New enemies. Same old ship. #StarTrekLowerDecks season two is beaming in this August! ✨ #StarTrek pic.twitter.com/IB7EsZoATY
— Star Trek (@StarTrek) July 23, 2021
Returning to Paramount+ for its second season on August 12, the wacky adventures of Ensigns Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid), D’Vana Tendi (Noël Wells) and Sam Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) continue for another 10-episode run, picking up where last season left off — with Boimler serving on the USS Titan under Captain William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes), an assignment which clearly doesn’t last too long.
We also briefly meet the officer who may be the replacement for dearly-departed Lt. Shaxs, newly-arriving security specialist Lieutenant Kayshon (Carl Tart), a metaphor-speaking Tamarian whose species was introduced in “Darmok.”
That said, we do see a glimpse of both Kayshon and Shaxs on-screen at the same time, so it’s possible that Kayshon’s arrival to the Cerritos happened some time ago, and this scene is a flashback to before the Bajoran’s death in last season’s “No Small Parts.”
Some of the other shenanigans in Season 2 include: Tendi being turned into some kind of scorpion-like creature, an encounter with a Crystalline Entity, more run-ins with the now-villainous Pakleds, escaping from a gang of mean-looking Nausicaans, and more.
Here are just some a few of the moments we caught in the two-minute trailer:
In addition, we also noticed that the motivational speaker who cheerfully calls out to the Cerritos crew is a Pandronian, an alien race introduced in The Animated Series episode “Bem,” capable of separating into independent, functioning parts.
Tendi and Mariner also look to pay a visit to a casino-style planet, similar to Freecloud (seen in Star Trek: Picard) — likely where they encounter the Nausicaans.
Finally, the trailer also features two returning Star Trek fan favorites — one more obvious than the other.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Enterprise recurring guest star Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun, Brunt, Shran) voices an “evil computer,” who insults Mariner about her weight…
…and Star Trek: Voyager’s Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris) voices his Starfleet alter ego in the form of a talking Starfleet collector’s place, reminiscent of the long-running series of Star Trek plates issued throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Boimler was seen with a Jack Ransom plate in his quarters aboard the Titan in last season’s finale, so perhaps its no surprise that he has another of Star Trek‘s famed officers in commemorative form — and it’s quite the talent that he can hallucinate Tom Paris’ voice, must be some dangerous fumes in that Jefferies tube!
In addition to all that trailer goodness, we’ve also got a set of new still images from the upcoming season — which reveal the names of two Season 2 episodes: “Strange Energies” and “Kayshon, His Eyes Open.”
Star Trek: Lower Decks is back again on August 12 on Paramount+ in the United States, and on CTV SciFi Channel in Canada; so far, there’s no word on when Amazon Prime Video — who distributes the series in other global regions — will debut Season 2.
(Last season, the show debuted on Prime months after the North American rollout due to delayed international rights negotiations caused by the pandemic.)
In the meantime, let us know what you think about the Lower Decks Season 2 trailer in the comments below!