Before Star Trek: Lower Decks returns on August 25 for it’s much-anticipated third season, it’s time to revisit the show’s second season through the just-released Blu-ray set which beamed down to collectors in mid-July (and arrives to German fans in September).

A fantastic and hilarious season of the animated Star Trek comedy, the second season of Lower Decks serves up instant classics like “Kayshon, His Eyes Open,” “First First Contact,” and the critically acclaimed “wej duj.” If you are not a Paramount+ subscriber but you do like to check out the home media releases, this set is worth it for the episodic content alone.

Lower Decks rules, and Season 2 is even better than the show’s already great first season. More action, more Riker, more thoughtful and hilarious Star Trek callbacks, more breaking-the-fourth-wall-into-Star-Trek-fandom in just the most delightful way, and more cameos from legacy Star Trek talent. Lower Decks is delightful, and if you aren’t on board with it yet, the Season 2 Blu-ray release is another opportunity to find your way in.

As with all Star Trek home media releases, Lower Decks Season 2 offers the most superior viewing experience possible for Star Trek. In this case, with ten episodes spread across two Blu-ray discs, the colors really pop off your screen, the animated lines are crisp, and the audio quality is excellent. The streaming experience through Paramount+ continues to improve, but high-definition physical media continues to offer the best presentation possible for a lot of Star Trek content.

The special features on this set, however, are a bit hit and miss compared to other releases, and to the dismay of Blu-ray collectors, there’s no special Steelbook-packaged version of the Season 2 set available.

There are two standalone features — Lower Decktionary: Season Two which is where you’ll find interviews with the cast, creatives and crew about each episode of the year, and A Sound Foundation which dives into the meticulous world of animated sound design — but beyond that, the only extra video content is a set of Animatics (9:29 in total) and a rundown of ten Season 2 Easter Eggs (11:19 in total), each repurposed from previously-released StarTrek.com content.

Lower Decktionary: Season Two (32:36) – The more traditional of the featurettes, this one takes a few minutes to discuss each Season 2 episode through interview footage with cast and creatives. While it’s probably the best general overview of a Star Trek season from the Paramount+ era, it still feels like there could have been more to talk about when it comes to episodes like “wej Duj,” such a highlight of Season 2.

A Sound Foundation (13:19) – The content for this featurette is excellent. Where the Season 1 set had a featurette on the animation process behind ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks,’ this one dives into the sound design and how that works, and talks a lot about how ‘Star Trek’s’ iconic soundscape is so essential to creating the atmosphere of the 24th century.

Where the Lower Decks Season 2 set really excels, though, is the four welcome audio commentary tracks which feature an array of talent talking about the work that goes into making the series. Missing from the Lower Decks Season 1 release, these commentaries are fun and engaging, and reveal a few interesting details about Season 2 — and the yet-to-air Season 3 — of Star Trek: Lower Decks.

COMMENTARY: “Kayshon, His Eyes Open” with Mike McMahan, Jack Quaid and Jonathan Frakes

This is a fun commentary with showrunner Mike McMahan and Boimler actor Jack Quaid riffing with Season 2 guest star Jonathan Frakes. The most fun part is when they had to bleep out about ten seconds of Frakes speaking because he seemingly dropped a very large Will Riker spoiler for the upcoming third season of ‘Star Trek: Picard,’ much to McMahan and Quaid’s excitement.

COMMENTARY: “An Embarrassment of Dooplers” with Mike McMahan and Jack Quaid

Mike McMahan and Jack Quaid clearly like each other very much, and were clearly both sitting in the same room when they recorded this commentary so their chemistry together is great. Mike McMahan reveals that the look of Thadiun Okona in this episode was carefully chosen to coordinate with his appearance on another ‘Star Trek’ show – perhaps that rumored ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ appearance may still be on the way.

COMMENTARY: “Where Pleasant Fountains Lie” with Tawny Newsome, Paul Scheer and Garrick Bernard

It’s always great to get both the actors and episode writers together, as here Billups voice actor Paul Scheer and the episode’s writer Garrick Bernard joins ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ lead Tawny Newsome (Mariner). There’s a lot of fun banter in this one, and it’s great to hear Bernard’s perspective on a lot of the writing choices he made in the episode.

COMMENTARY: “wej Duj” with Mike McMahan, Gabrielle Ruiz and Kathryn Lyn

My personal favorite of the four commentaries, McMahan is joined by T’Lyn voice actor Gabrielle Ruiz and episode writer Kathryn Lyn, who talks at length about the origin of T’Lyn (a character she cosplayed to conventions!), some interesting discussion about T’Lyn’s role in Season 2 (and Season 4!) of ‘Lower Decks,’ and some great reflections by Mike McMahan on the episode’s central conceit.

Overall, the Blu-ray release of Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 2 will not disappoint home media completists — but if bonus features are your driving factor when it comes to buying physical media, the audio commentaries are lovely peeks behind the production curtain — but beyond that the light video features aren’t very exciting.

But thankfully the two-disc set is moderately priced (and region free, for those of you outside North America) — so if you are just looking for a new way to revisit this excellent season of Star Trek comedy, picking up this set to view the animation work in the highest-quality presentation possible isn’t a difficult decision to make.