Last week’s penultimate Star Trek: Lower Decks episode was one for the ages, as “wej Duj” (or “Three Ships”) expanded the show’s horizons to the parallel lives of low-ranking Klingon and Vulcan officers, in story that culminated in a big reveal about the year’s Pakled storyline.

We wanted to know how this highly-praised episode came to life, so we asked the man himself — Lower Decks showrunner Mike McMahan — to tell us all about this three-tiered episode ahead of this week’s Season 2 finale.

TREKCORE: “wej Duj” generated an enormous positive reaction from fans last week — what was the genesis for the episode?

MIKE McMAHAN: I really wanted to do another run like at the end of the first season: 108 was the trial (“Veritas”), told like a sketch comedy episode through the thematic lens of context – and the Lower Decker’s lacking of context. Then in 109, we had our movie (“Crisis Point”), and then 110 was our big finale (“No Small Parts”).

So this season, after everything so far, I really wanted to go big again at the end and have it feel exciting – but part of the “bigness” is the format, so we did the 8-9-10 thing again: 208 was our sketch comedy with the Starfleet drills (“I, Excretus”), and 210 is going to be the big finale (“First First Contact”).

For 209, “wej Duj,” I didn’t want to do another movie, but I wanted to again break the Lower Decks format and expand what the show could be. We have such a great writing team this season, and it struck me how, as much I loved the episode like where Riker went and worked on the Klingon ship (“A Matter of Honor”), and there was all that great Klingon stuff in Deep Space Nine.

It blew me away that we had never spent that kind of time on a Vulcan ship.

TREKCORE: There wasn’t even much on Enterprise, really.

McMAHAN: I mean, Enterprise scratched that itch a little bit, but I had just been thinking a ton about T’Pol and how much I loved Vulcans, and Spock of course. I had been trying for a while how to get T’Pol on Lower Decks, but the timeframe just doesn’t work, you know?

Almost in a flash, I just realized that I wanted to see the lower decks of other ships – like on a Vulcan ship, and on a Klingon ship. That was the beginning of it: “I want to spend time with Vulcans, I want to spend time with Klingons, and I want it to feel cinematic.”

“wej Duj” kind of ended up being like the kind of pitch I’d make to Paramount if they’d let me make a Star Trek movie. What I would want is like a Wrath of Khan-era movie that looks like it was produced in 1982, from the point of view of a Klingon ship – and the point of view of a Vulcan ship. That’s like my dream Star Trek movie.

So we condensed that into this examination of Lower Deck-ish-ness, this celebration of Lower Deck-ish-ness – and getting to tell this triple-mini-movie that’s part Undiscovered Country, part this Vulcan thing we’ve never seen before, and have it all tie up with our overall Season 2 plot… I was just so in love with this episode.

When we were really trying to nail down how we wanted our show’s Vulcans to speak, it’s like, not only are they precise and logical, but they’re also kind of catty, you know? It just feels so right.

I have to admit, though at the very beginning of things, we were getting a little push-back from the network, who were concerned about the story being away from the Lower Deckers on the Cerritos for so long. My feedback to them was, “I promise you – we’re doing this late enough in the season for it to work, and there’s still a ton of time with our main characters in it.” But you know, when you hear a pitch like this, it can be a little scary.

We spent the longest time in sound design for this episode too – we did like a six-hour mix because this is the first time I felt like we made an episode that could have been part of the Next Gen or Deep Space Nine series. It’s a little faster and a little funnier than those shows, but to me, I was losing my mind with happiness that we pulled it off.

TREKCORE: It was kind of astounding how much you managed to pack into just 25 minutes.

McMAHAN: There’s only one thing that I wanted to do in 209 that we couldn’t make happen, just because production was out of bandwidth. I mean, we finish everything at the last possible second, especially on these big episodes.

Originally, I wanted every card of the opening credits — for all of the opening credits — in alternating Vulcan and Klingon languages, so you couldn’t read anything. I mean, everything from the Lower Decks show title, the names of the actors and producers, everything — and then we would have added some extra credits at the end in English.

And we were going to do it, but it’s essentially telling my animators that we were going to have to add an extra minute and eight seconds to the episode… which may not sound a lot but is a massive ask. But the remnant of that original idea, at least, is that the episode title is written in full Klingon.

TREKCORE: Which is still a great gag, since it’s never been done before.

McMAHAN: It’s cool, right? And still, 800 episodes of Star Trek, there’s never been a single episode where it’s all Klingons who don’t talk to the Federation at all? Or one where it’s just a bunch of Vulcans flying around in their own ship?

I honestly couldn’t believe we were the first ones to do it.

TREKCORE: And on top of all that, you still managed to fit in a big reveal on the Pakled story, too.

McMAHAN: Well the name of the show is Lower Decks, right? And the Pakled stuff is big, but there are all these lower-decks levels: our main four characters are lower on the Cerritos, and then the Cerritos itself is in the “lower decks” of the Starfleet in some ways — and even the Pakleds themselves are kind of a “lower decks” alien race, in the pantheon of Star Trek aliens.

The real plot with the Pakleds across the season is that Captain Freeman feels like she wants to be moving up to bigger and better places, and then learning across the season that she’s in the right place. “The carpets are greyer on the other side of the ship,” she says in 208 — that’s a theme we touch on all the time this season.

TREKCORE: Just like Boimler and the Titan, he wanted the spotlight until he didn’t.

McMAHAN: Yes — and we’ve already covered that, right? The thing about the Pakleds is, you know, I wanted there to be something going on with the, but it’s almost above our characters’ pay grade! Like, it’s almost like a “real” TNG or DS9-type villain, now that Klingons are involved.

If you go back through the season, we’re putting Klingon disruptors in the Pakled’s hands in the second episode to tie into this; they’re mining this stuff for the bomb that Captain Dorg gave them….

TREKCORE: And you added Klingon ships to the battle in the opening credits.

McMAHAN: One hundred percent. There are all these little hints, but you know, we’re not TNG — so you can’t meet the hands that are making all of these moves until much later, because our guys aren’t important enough to have found them!

If Boimler had stayed on the Titan, maybe, or if we had stayed with the duplicate Boimler over there, you would have heard about the Pakled-Klingon thing more… but technically it’s all there in our episodes, but the nice thing about Lower Decks is that isn’t what our show is about. It’s there, but it’s not why the show exists.

It’s fun for me to put it in there, it textually changes the stakes and creates these situations, and it’s something we’ll follow, but at the end of the day, this is a show about finding personal truths — not unlocking mysteries, or truths about war, or whatever else.

That’s there, but it doesn’t get to take over the show.

TREKCORE: Fans are clamoring to see T’Lyn again, they really fell in love with her.

McMAHAN: Kathryn Lyn wrote it, and she’s so deep into it — literally, T’Lyn is the name of the Vulcan she has cosplayed as for years at conventions.

There are a lot of people who are like, “Have her join the Cerritos!” — but listen, I have a story for T’Lyn figured out. Season 3 is written, and like, the first episode of Season 3, she’s not on the Cerritos, you know what I mean? But I have stories for T’Lyn that are coming. I love T’Lyn — and I love Ma’ah! My whole thing with Klingons is that I just love a Klingon that doesn’t backstab. A Klingon that’s like, the most honest in their motivations.

I’m just so proud and happy of that episode, and coming into the finale, I’m like “Oh man, now the finale has to be super good now because of how much 209 rules!”

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

We’ll have more from our interview with Mike McMahan after the Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 2 finale, “First First Contact,” beams down later this week — so keep your sensors locked here at TrekCore!

Star Trek: Lower Decks returns for its season finale on October 14 with “First First Contact”) on Paramount+ in the United States and CTV Sci Fi Channel in Canada, followed by Amazon Prime Video (in select international regions) on October 15.