This week brings us to the third episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, and we’ve got your next round of new photos from “Temporal Edict” today — as Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) decides that it’s time to crack down on the Cerritos’ crew’s below-par efficiency, while Ensign Mariner (Tawny Newsome) and Commander Ransom (Jerry O’Connell) face off during an away mission.
Here are eight new photos from this week’s episode, along with two previously-released images for “Temporal Edict.”
'Star Trek: Lower Decks' -- 'Temporal Edict'
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Captain Freeman shares a turbolift with a nervous Boimler. (CBS All Access)
Boimler showcases his musical skills. (CBS All Access)
Boimler seems confident as the others seem to disagree. (CBS All Access)
The crew lands in a shuttle. (CBS All Access)
Commander Ransom strikes a pose. (CBS All Access)
Ransom looks worried during an alien encounter. (CBS All Access)
Mariner surrenders to the aliens. (CBS All Access)
Rutherford and Tendi looks exhausted. (CBS All Access)
Lieutenant Shax gets angry. (CBS All Access)
The gang shares a round of margaritas. (CBS All Access)
An advance clip of the episode debuted last Friday during the ReedPop Metaverse live panel with the Lower Decks production team.
Meanwhile, Star Trek licensee FanSets has announced its upcoming line of Lower Decks pins are coming to collectors soon, with plans to release versions of the Cerritos crew, the California-class USS Cerritos itself, as well as pins representing the on-ship bar logo and the silver Starfleet delta worn by the show’s officers.
Finally, if you didn’t catch it at the end of “Envoys,” here’s the preview for this coming week’s new episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks.
TEMPORAL EDICT — A new work protocol eliminating “buffer time” has the Lower Decks crew running ragged as they try to keep up with their tightened schedules. Ensign Mariner and Commander Ransom’s mutual lack of respect comes to a head during an away mission.
Written by Dave Ihlenfeld & David Wright. Directed by Bob Suarez.
Star Trek: Lower Decks returns Thursday, August 20 with “Temporal Edict” on CBS All Access and CTV Sci-Fi Channel. International distribution for the series has not yet been announced.
Despite our delayed publication schedule this week — thanks, everyone, for your patience! — the second contact with Star Trek: Lower Decks is a hilarious success, as the show’s sophomore episode, “Envoys” builds upon the groundwork laid in last week’s premiere while continuing to tell a fun — and funny — story.
The A-plot of “Envoys” continues to develop Ensigns Mariner (Tawny Newsome) and Boimler (Jack Quaid) as they attempt to deliver a Klingon ambassador to a rendezvous on the neutral planet Tulgana IV. Meanwhile, back on the Cerritos, Ensign Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) explores reassignment to other departments aboard the ship in order to spend more time with his new friend, Ensign Tendi (Noël Wells).
Mariner and Boimler continue to have the most chemistry of any of the characters, and across the first two episodes of Lower Decks, they are emerging as the show’s primary relationship — though clearly more of siblings rather than anything romantic. The two characters, as much as they may annoy each other on the surface, clearly have deep affection for one another as they continue to balance each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
Boimler and Mariner have different outlooks on their away mission. (CBS All Access)
Newsome’s performance as Mariner continues to be utterly delightful. And thanks to Rutherford’s reassignment roulette — something showrunner Mike McMahan designed to give viewers a “tour” of the Cerritos — the ship’s senior staff also get a little more screen time, as the young engineer tests his career options with Commander Ransom (Jerry O’Connell,) Doctor T’Ana (Gillian Vigman) and security chief Lieutenant Shaxs (Fred Tatasciore).
The characters on this show are a delight, and the way in which each of the department heads supports Rutherford’s search for the right fit is very Star Trek.
If there is one criticism among all the great things about “Envoys,” it is Boimler’s reaction to the Ferengi character at the end. While the show does a great job of subverting your expectations about the Ferengi himself — as the final scene reveals that Mariner called in a favor with Quimp to help her restore Boimler’s confidence — I didn’t care for the way Boimler treated and talked about the Ferengi at the bar later by laughing about his cultural traits.
Ensign Rutherford trades in his engineering gold for medical blue… for a few minutes, anyhow. (CBS All Access)
While we know that young cadets are “warned about Ferengi at the Academy,” as Harry Kim obliviously told Quark in the Star Trek: Voyager pilot, Boimler’s jabs at the four-lobed fellow — “Big ears, beady eyes, the greedy thing they do with their hands!” — was honestly kind of racist for an ‘enlightened’ 24th century human.
Armin Shimmerman wrote a whole novel exploring the idea that the Federation is a little racist towards Ferengi, and Boimler’s reaction here is no departure from that. But after two decades of rightfully calling out the way Star Trek: Deep Space Nine sometimes treated its Ferengi characters as laugh lines, particularly in the early days, and even deconstructing that narrative within the show itself in later seasons, to see it ported over to Lower Decks is a little dismaying.
But not enough to derail an otherwise stellar episode.
Trek Trope Tributes
The episode’s cold open includes a trans-dimensional, ball-of-energy alien who arrives randomly on the ship, which has strong “The Child,” “Imaginary Friend” and “Day of the Dove” vibes — with the energy being even proclaiming, “I shall make a feast of your misery!”
Captain Freeman talks about how she needs a catchphrase for going to warp (like “Make it so!” or “Hit it!” for previous captains) though her suggestion “It’s warp time!” could probably do with a little work.
Tendi and Mariner encounter a glowing orb in the corridor. (CBS All Access)
Mariner calls out the way in which many Klingon names are similar and how they all “have an apostrophe for some reason.” She’s not far off the mark, with names like K’mpec, B’Etor, K’vort, K’mtar, K’Tal, K’Temoc, K’Vada – and now K’orin!
Mariner having a preexisting relationship with K’orin echoes characters like Dax, who we learned had a long history with Klingon warriors prior to Jadzia’s time aboard Deep Space 9.
If the holodeck programming reflects reality, the Cerritos has children aboard — during Rutherford’s command simulation, the ship “loses” both its kindergarten and pre-K classrooms. (“All the ships children have been ejected into space!”)
Boimler predicts a future for himself in which he is assigned to an asteroid research facility where he studies insects, until they eat him, but not before he is able to send out a distress call that gets picked up by a nearby starship who need to then reconstruct what happened to him from his final shaky log entry. Sound like any episodes of Star Trek you know?
Mariner’s reaction to the thought of working on a research asteroid speaks volumes to all the less than prestigious Starfleet assignments out there: “Absolutely not. Do not even joke about that. That is the lamest thing you can do!”
Kaelon, Klingon, Ferengi, Lurian, Skorr, and Napean…
Alien Alert!
Klingon: Ambassador K’orin,one of several Klingons seen in the episode, wears an eye patch similar to General Chang (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country).
Evora: The short, herbivoral aliens from the opening moments of Star Trek: Insurrection can be spotted walking around the spaceport landing pad as the shuttle lands.
Kaelon: Seen in the TNG episode “Half a Life,” Mariner notes that they are notoriously isolationist. I mean, who expected to ever see a Kaelon again?! This show!
Andorian: A number of Andorians appear in this episode, many wearing uniforms of the Andorian Imperial Guard and carrying ushaan-tor blade weapons.
Bajoran: In addition to security chief Shax, the officer about to be operated on in Sickbay that Rutherford is tasked with calming down is also a Bajoran.
Napean: Introduced in the TNG episode “Eye of the Beholder,” the Cerritos also has a Napean crewman in Shax’s security division.
…Borg, Andorian, Evora, Bajoran, and the tentacled Vendorian.
Vendorian: A true throwback to The Animated Series, we see our first tentacled Vendorian shapeshifter since 1973’s “The Survivor.”
Skorr: If one TAS alien wasn’t enough for you, we also see a member of the tall, golden birdlike Skorr race in an overhead establishing shot of the Klingon market. The winged aliens were prominently featured in 1974’s “The Jihad.”
Lurian: The race of DS9’s talkative barfly Morn, a Lurian can be seen brawling in the Andorian bar (and also in the establishing shot of the Klingon market).
Ferengi: Mariner’s pal Quimp is the first Ferengi to appear sine 2002’s “Acquisition.” In his playacting scene, he cosplays as a “The Last Outpost”-era Ferengi, complete with furry sash.
Borg: In Shax’s “Smorgasborg” security training program, Rutherford faces off against a squadron of Borg drones, easily taken out with the help of his Vulcan cybernetic upgrade.
Canon Connections
Klingon Greetings & Songs
In order to impress Ambassador K’orin, Boimler tries out a few different variations on the pronunciation of the traditional Klingon greeting – Nuq’nuh — translating to ‘(eventually deciding to “keep it subtle”). And later Mariner and K’orin sing a Klingon anthem together.
EPS Conduits
Rutherford is seen aligning the EPS conduits; additionally, one of the tools he uses is a common engineering tool seen in Deep Space Nine, and also made an appearance in the hands of the Red Bolian in the recent Picard episode “Stardust City Rag.”
Klingon Paraphernalia
As Boimler and Mariner exit the shuttle, they step over K’orin who has passed out on the floor. Around him are Klingon blood wine bottles (as seen in Deep Space Nine), a Klingon d’k tagh knife, and his luggage is very similar to the carry case used by Colonel West disguised as a Klingon sniper in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. (And if you know where those flagons on the shuttle came from, please let Ensign Boimler know!)
Khitomer Accords
Boimler mentions he thinks they might be violating the Khitomer Accords, the famous peace treaty between the Federation and the Klingon Empire that was developed from the events of The Undiscovered Country.
Section 31
By 2380, the shadowy organization is again common knowledge among Starfleet personnel, as Boimler mentions them in passing. I’m sure this reference will not be controversial at all among fans. (Mariner also mentions some previous “off-the-books grey ops stuff” with K’orin.)
Type VI Shuttle
As the Cerritos’ shuttle — a Type 6A design — lands in the Klingon district, Type VI shuttles (the main shuttle from later seasons of The Next Generation) can be seen parked in the background.
Mek’leth
The Klingon street vendor is armed with a mek’leth, the smaller of the two Klingon swords that was a favorite of Worf’s (like in First Contact, when he uses it to cut the arm off a Borg).
Klingon Armory
One of the street vendors in the Klingon district is selling a number of Klingon weapons, including variations seen throughout the whole franchise history. Included on display are the TOS Klingon disruptor, the version seen throughout TNG and DS9 (“beak nose”), Kelvin Timeline Klingon disruptors, and a “death sting” (seen in the TOS movies).
Jamaharon
There are several references in the episode to the Risian pleasure seeking activity, known as jamaharon (which is, y’know…) Also seen in the Risian district is a large Horgahn statue; both jamahoran and the Horgahn were first referenced in The Next Generation episode “Captain’s Holiday.”
Ushaan-tor
The Andorians are armed with the ushaan-tor weapons seen in the Enterprise episode “United.”
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Other Observations
While having her awesome dream, Mariner is quietly reciting lines from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, referencing “the moons of Nibia” and being “marooned for all eternity.”
The establishing shot of Tulgana IV includes a spire tower and radial structure, which strongly resembles Deneb IV’s Farpoint Station.
There is also a lot of Star Trek: Enterprise-style architecture across the various alien sectors of the planet’s surface, perhaps indicating that Tulgana IV has been occupied for several centuries. The look of “Little Qo’noS” matches Klingon buildings seen on Enterprise, the Andorian designs reflect the starship interiors of the Kumari and similar vessels, and the Federation Embassy looks a lot like the Earth Embassy seen in “The Forge.”
Commander Ransom tells Rutherford that “nothing compares to the firm hot pulse of a joystick in your hand,” a fun crack at the Enterprise-E’s “manual steering column” from Star Trek: Insurrection. (Because there is no way he was talking about anything else, right?)
Ransom also suggests that Rutherford use “The Janeway Protocol,” which seems to frighten and alarm the holographic crew once the young ensign tries to put it into practice. (Here’s hoping we never find out what it is, only suggestions of chaos and disaster that the Janway Protocol might bring about!)
Rutherford echoes Wesley Crusher’s famous line from “Justice” — “I’m with Starfleet: we don’t lie!” — when he commits to joining Tendi to watch the Trivoli Pulsar. “I’m Starfleet; I never go back on my word!”
As Boimler and Mariner approach Quimp on the planet’s surface, some very Vasquez Rocks-looking outcroppings fill the background.
If you thought “Second Contact” had a lot of Star Trek references in it, as you can see, “Envoys” totally blows it out the water by taking franchise references, callbacks, and Easter eggs to the next level, all wrapped up in a genuinely good, funny episode of Star Trek.
Star Trek: Lower Decks returns on August 20 with “Temporal Edict,” the third episode of the season, on CBS All Access in the United States and CTV Sci Fi Channel in Canada. Additional international availability for the series has not yet been announced.
Star Trek: Lower Decks is heading into its third week on the air, and as the episodes continue to roll out, we caught up with series creator and showrunner Mike McMahan to talk about the show’s animated art style, why the TNG era is such a draw for storytelling, and how his team uses existing Trek canon to form the Lower Decks world.
Mike McMahan at San Diego Comic Con 2019.
TREKCORE: You’ve talked about your inspiration for the show, and how you pitched it to the team at Secret Hideout – but how did you land on the look of the show, the character design, and the overall animation style for Lower Decks?
MIKE MCMAHAN: I grew up watching The Simpsons and Futurama, and Family Guy a little bit later, and King of the Hill – and from, from my time working in animation, I’ve worked in and around a lot of what people would call primetime animated comedy.
That’s the stuff you see around the 7:00 PM block on Fox, and other places too, you know, the ‘animation domination’ style; that’s what I grew up with. I was a [production assistant] on South Park, I was a P.A. on Drawn Together, and a writers’ assistant and eventually showrunner on Rick & Morty – so that, combined with really loving the feeling that I get from watching Simpsons and Futurama…
Like, those shows really land for me in a way that are really comforting. So when we sitting down with the artists at Titmouse Animation — whose art team makes the show in their studio in Vancouver – my edict for what the show should look like were really coming from a place of where I wanted a combination of things to work.
Because we were animated, because we’re a comedy, I wanted the character designs to really have the prime-time animated comedy vibe. All of the characters seem like, from a distance, when you sit down to watch the show, it’s probably not going to be an action kids show. And on top of that, I really wanted the backgrounds, the ship design, and all of the stuff behind the characters to be an elevated version of what you might see in a prime-time animated comedy.
So traditionally, you have very few backgrounds, you have very few incidentals, and you don’t spend a bunch of time making sure that everything in the background is looking gorgeous and crazy and awesome — but on Lower Decks, you know, it’s the opposite of that. I wanted a lot of detailed backgrounds, I wanted a lot of references to The Next Generation for the prime-time animated-looking characters to inhabit.
McMahan on the ‘Discovery’ set during production of his ‘Short Trek,’ the Harry Mudd-centric ‘The Escape Artist.’ (Photos: Mike McMahan)
Now, alongside all of that, I explained this a lot to our art team, the prime-time look of the characters — those designs — they feel very human to me, even when they’re not human. We have voice actors on our show, but you’re not seeing an actor inhabiting an actual space… and I wanted the design of the characters to reflect a feeling of, you know, these are people. These are human beings and these are aliens that are inhabiting these sci-fi areas.
It went hand in hand with the feeling of the grounded sort of every-man vibe of The Simpsons in a way. At least, that’s what we were trying for.
TREKCORE: When you start talking about Star Trek, there’s nothing people pay more attention to than the details: especially in prop design, costume design, alien and set designs.
How do you take these familiar elements, that are so well known in the physical world, and translate them into this animated world?
MCMAHAN: Well, many of the people on the show – and many of the artists on the show — are Star Trek fans, and we have a lot of people who are in charge of making sure that if you write a scene where technology is being used, we then dive into the existing Star Trek lore and imagery.
I mean, there are so many reference guides — not only physical, but also online — you know, the fan reference guides, the various kind of wikis that are out there, and episode guides, and still frames from all of the, all of the series and the movies that exist for us to be able to look at. What we do is we write the scene so that it’s really driven from an emotional place, and from a comedic place, and then when the artists are going through it, everything is hand designed — every element of the show.
It’s not like you can just open up a prop cabinet. So we will get a bunch of designs, and then a group of us who are huge, very knowledgeable Trek fans will say, “Oh, not this, you know, that’s too old of a phaser for this setting. Put this type of phaser into the visual lexicon of the show.” Or, like, “Oh, a shuttle can’t have those types of weapons on it. They would never put that on there.”
The Andorian ushaan-tor blade, introduced in ‘Enterprise,’ is given an animated rendition. (CBS All Access)
That kind of thing — we’re really trying to follow the rules of any other Star Trek show that would take place in 2380, but also translate them, with our artists, into the animated version that we’re doing. You’ll see across Season 1 — this always happens in animated shows — we get better and better at it as each episode goes on, because we’re building what we know of as ‘our version’ of that TNG era… just in a hand drawn way.
TREKCORE: And what sort of timeline does the development of each episode follow? Obviously right now, pandemic life has turned every production schedule upside down, but when things are ‘normal,’ what’s it take to bring an episode of Lower Decks from story idea to screen?
MCMAHAN: Well, let’s say the show’s been picked up and you’re ready to go – maybe you have a pilot written, maybe you don’t – but it’s usually about 13 months from ‘zero’ to having a finished episode.
That can give or take, you know, a little bit more or less, depending on how long the episodes are, how complicated they are… or if there’s a global pandemic keeping everybody working remotely so you can’t just pop into somebody’s office and be like, “Hey, does this bat’leth look right?”
Instead you have to schedule a Zoom call, or shoot an email off and wait! But the process, in a nutshell, is: you write it, you have a lot of conversations about the script, and then you record it with the actors and they give their shine to it. Then we get, like, an old-timey radio play version of the episode, that gets distributed to the [storyboard] artists, who start putting together sequences.
An early animatic sketch for the holodeck beach resort program seen in ‘Second Contact.’ (CBS All Access)
And then at the same time, once you know how many things are supposed to be in each episode — and depending on what planet you’re going to — you’re working with the character designers to design new aliens, or figure out what our Klingons look like, or what our Andorians look like.
Then you’re working with the background artists and the color artists, and everybody’s kind of working hand-in-hand to make sure that it’s all filtering through me — because there has to be one person saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ at the very end of the day.
That’s kind of like what I really geek out over — all these different artists who are all loving it… and then the more we do, the more they understand what the show should look like.
TREKCORE: That also means you get to see your name in that classic blue Next Generation font in the credits every week, which has to be pretty mind-blowing.
MCMAHAN: Oh, it’s the best. The best! Even while making the show, I was like, “Are they gonna let me do that?”
The classic 1987-era ‘Next Generation’ font returns for the ‘Lower Decks’ credits sequence. (CBS All Access)
TREKCORE: The last fifteen years – between the Kelvin Timeline movies, Discovery, and Captain Pike – have been a lot of Original Series-era stuff, but now with Picard and Lower Decks, 2020 has become the year of Next Generation nostalgia.
What is it about that TNG era that makes such a great time period for Star Trek storytelling, instead of centering Lower Decks at some new point in the Trek timeline?
MCMAHAN: Well, I think the TNG era did a really amazing job of showing people in charge who were responsible, and ethical, and really liked to talk stuff out, and really make sure that the right thing was being done… and I think right now, maybe, the people in charge [of the world] don’t always seem like that they are guided by, you know, being bastions of truth and honesty.
Like, I think that ‘Truth-with-a-capital-T’ is kind of getting banged around right now a little bit. So there is this baseline of Starfleet, and these morality stories in all the Star Trek shows — but for me growing up, especially in TNG — I like playing in a world where there are rules and there are good people doing good things.
Then, you want to write characters that are also good people trying to do good things, but who have personality. They don’t have to be like existing cast of a Star Trek show to be a good person who wants to do better, and who wants to explore.
There’s room in the TNG galaxy for the characters we’ve made for Lower Decks.
A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it return of the Kaelon alien race, seen once back in 1991’s ‘Half a Life.’ (CBS All Access)
TREKCORE: Now that you’re set in that part of the franchise timeline, how do you choose between fitting in a familiar alien, introducing a new technology, or calling back to that one weird creature from a 1993 episode of Next Gen when you’re breaking stories?
‘Canon’ can be a dreaded word sometimes for the Star Trek creative teams — it’s obviously something you’re embracing closely in Lower Decks — but where you strike the balance between a making a reference to something known, and creating something new for your stories?
MCMAHAN: I mean, nobody on our show goes into it being like, “Ooh, we’re making an Easter egg show!” Like, every single person is there to tell emotional stories about Mariner, Boimler, Rutherford, and Tendi.
For us, all of the Easter eggs and all of the little references and stuff that are in the episodes aren’t there for people to pick through – they’re really there to create a rich, vibrant, fun expression of the world of Star Trek in that era, and incorporating elements of other areas.
Because we’re such a different show, and we have such a different tone from all other Star Trek shows, it just brings us a lot of joy to bring in all that Starfleet stuff and to bring in all the alien stuff, and to honor the other shows that already existed.
That fine line is, you know, we’ve had to pull stuff out, like when an artist loves something from the Original Series and it gets into the show and it’s like, “Ooh, actually, that alien isn’t actually known by these people, “ or, “There would be no reason for that alien to be in this sector during this time period,” that kind of thing.
A Vendorian shapeshifter, first seen in 1973’s ‘The Survivor.’ (CBS All Access)
So if it’s making us ask more questions than providing answers, we’ll pull it out — but at the same time, the way I like to make animated shows? I’m a big re-watcher. I like to put stuff on and find new things every time I watch – I’m the kind of guy who just loved Where’s Waldo? books growing up.
I like to make TV shows feel like Where’s Waldo? books, so that you watched it four times because you love the characters, because you love Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid’s performances, and Noel Wells’ and Eugene Cordero’s… but then you watch a fifth again and you say, “Wait a minute, look at that! I never noticed that!”
We want it to be like a visual feast, and be having fun, but if you don’t know any of those references, it doesn’t diminish the show – and if you know every one of them it’s going to be like sensory overload! But it should still feel like we’re doing it carefully.
We’re not just like spraying it all over the show and then being like, “Good luck! Have fun hunting it all down!”
Captain Freeman (Dawwn Lewis) and Ensign Mariner (Tawny Newsome) share a family secret. (CBS All Access)
TREKCORE: Tell me about the reveal in “Second Contact” that Mariner is actually Captain Freeman’s daughter. How will that surprise play out as the season continues?
MCMAHAN: We’ve seen a lot of parents in Star Trek with their kids before, but we’ve never seen one of those relationships where both of them are constantly at odds with each other.
For me, growing up, as many times as we had where our whole family was getting along, we also got in big arguments — because we love each other. That’s just how our family expressed what a long car ride should be like, you know?
I knew that I really wanted to write Mariner as a new type of Starfleet character, who is great at everything, but doesn’t have it all figured out yet – like, hasn’t figured out her place in Starfleet. And I knew that I wanted her to have been on other ships before the Cerritos, and that this assignment was kind of her last hurrah — her last chance of being a Starfleet officer.
Making her mom the captain — and making nobody else on the ship knew –provided very rare they’ve-never-done-this-on-Star-Trek-before character elements that got me really excited to find out what that might look like in a Star Trek show.
So it really was just a mixture of all those things that allowed me to write Mariner in a way that she could behave a little differently than other Starfleet characters, and allow me to write Captain Freeman in a way to allow her to behave a little bit differently as well, and it didn’t really break the rules of Starfleet, because they have this kind of secret between them.
That’s something we explore across the whole season in a way that I had a lot of fun with, and you’ll also see it reverberate into Season 2 as well.
Ensign Tendi (Noel Wells) gazes into the unknown. (CBS All Access)
TREKCORE: Before we wrap up here, Mike, what are your hopes for the series – and is there anything else you’d like to share with Star Trek fans who will be watching?
MCMAHAN: I’d say that I’m really excited for people to do the series. I know it’s tempting to judge the entire series based on each episode — but every episode is different. Every episode, has, you know, a story of the week with light serialization across the whole season.
I would say, keep watching the show if you’re finding things you like. If you’re holding us to task, if there are things that you want to be better, keep watching — because I think you’ll be really surprised at how many different, amazing, and fun kind of stories are coming across the first season.
We’ll have our review of Lower Decks’ second episode, “Envoys,” up on the site Sunday — just a little bit of real life getting in the way of our publication schedule this week.
In the meantime, let us know what you think about Mike McMahan’s insights into the creative processes behind Lower Decks in the comments below!
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Star Trek: Lower Decks returns this Thursday with “Temporal Edict” on CBS All Access in the United States, and CTV Sci Fi Channel in Canada. International availability for the series has not yet been announced.
The newest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks — “Envoys” — has just debuted on CBS All Access, and we’re sure you’re ready to dive into a discussion about the story!
Here’s your place to take on all the new Trek lore this episode brought us, with no restrictions on spoilers. If you haven’t yet watched the new episode yet, here’s your last warning!
We’ll have our full episode review — full of analysis, Trek tropes, canon connections and more — soon enough, along with a new interview with Star Trek: Lower Decks creator and showrunner Mike McMahan before the weekend, so keep your sensors locked!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HzRGqvRK8U
Meanwhile, if you’ve still not had a chance to see the Lower Decks series premiere, CBS All Access has made “Second Contact” available for fans worldwide on YouTube for a limited time — so those of you outside North America can watch the first episode of the show!
Last month’s Emmy nominations shined a spotlight on Star Trek: Short Treks, the short-form mini-episodes of Trek canon that have touched on various corners of Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard over the last two years.
While it’s unclear if there’s any official plans to continue with the series quite yet, Star Trek franchise boss Alex Kurtzman is hopeful that the award nomination for ‘Outstanding Short Form Comedy or Drama Series’ will help spur on another wave of Short Treks in the future.
In a new interview with award-buzz blog Gold Derby, Kurtzman shared his thoughts on the future of Short Treks, including a few ideas for what kind of formats he’d like to see:
It was an amazing experiment, the Short Treks, because I think I love was the idea of using them to experiment with different tones and different styles and push at the boundaries of what ‘Star Trek’ feels like it can be.
[…]
Thanks to the Emmy nomination, I’m really hoping [there will be more]… There are so many different forms that the shorts can take. I’d love to do a musical, for example, I’d love to do one in black-and-white, and figure out what that means.
I could probably think of fifty different ways that we could tell stories, in fifty different little crevices of the ‘Star Trek’ universe to explore, that may not be the right kind of crevices for the larger shows, but we always think of the ‘Short Treks’ as scenes just as important as what’s going on in the main shows — but that you wouldn’t have time [to include].
Sonequa Martin-Green in a ‘Discovery’ Season 3 promotional image.
He also spoke for a moment about how the various Star Trek Universe writers rooms are making progress on future seasons of the shows during pandemic life, including mentions of Discovery — hinting that, despite what some corners of the Internet may tell you, Season 4 is on the way, though no official CBS announcement has yet been made — as well as Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard, and initial seasons of both the Captain Pike-centric Strange New Worlds and the Michelle Yeoh-starring series Section 31.
We’ve been running all of our writers’ rooms on Zoom. The silver lining is that we’ve been actually been able to get quite ahead [on] scripts for upcoming seasons of ‘Discovery,’ and ‘Picard,’ and ‘Strange New Worlds’ — which is going to be shooting next year — and ‘Section 31.’
It was fairly obvious that Star Trek: Discovery was set to follow Picard in the 2020 television line-up — thanks to promotion beginning nearly a year ago — and here Kurtzman confirms that it was planned for a spring debut before the pandemic impacted all areas of post-production.
The thing that we’re very lucky about is that we wrapped ‘Discovery’ [Season 3] ten days before the lockdown happened, so the challenge that it posed is that is slowed [post-production] down quite a bit; it slowed visual effects; it slowed editing. I’m now editing with our editors, and we’re both on our laptops.
Obviously, the visual effects companies took a very hard hit, and it took them a minute to get back on their feet after everything that happened. And when it comes to recording music, you can’t have musicians in an orchestra in one room any more, so each musician is individually recording their instruments and sending it to Jeff Russo – our composer – and Jeff has to mix them together as if they were all sitting together in a room.
So all of that takes a lot longer. That being said, everybody’s been heroic about it, and I think it’s given everybody a real purpose: we get to keep working, we get to keep occupying ourselves during this really difficult and challenging time — and we are planning to go back into production.
A lot of time has been taken, coming up with a big plan for how the sets and the stages are going to be run — that’s still being iterated right now — obviously, safety being everyone’s number one concern. Everybody’s working on that really diligently, because everybody wants to go back to work, and nobody wants to do it in a way that’s unsafe.
The good news for the animated shows is that those shows have been barreling full steam ahead, both ‘Lower Decks’ and ‘Star Trek: Prodigy.’ The animators are obviously working from home, the writers have just finished Season 2 of both shows….
We will be airing ‘Discovery’ after ‘Lower Decks.’ We’re done editing — we’re still doing work on the mixes and visual effects — but it’ll all be coming out soon, and I can’t wait for people to see it. I’m just so sad people couldn’t see it in the spring when it was supposed to originally come out — but that’s what COVID did to us.
Star Trek: Lower Decks continues weekly through October; Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 debuts on October 15. Air dates for Picard Season 2, Prodigy, Strange New Worlds, and Section 31 have not yet been announced.
We’re still a long way from seeing next year’s kids’ animation series, Star Trek: Prodigy, warp into our quadrant, but this week the driving creative force behind the show has been named by Nickelodeon and CBS’ Eye Animation Productions.
On Monday, the network and studio announced that Swiss-born director and producer Ben Hibon will serve as the director, co-executive producer, and creative lead behind Prodigy — the CG-animated show coming to Nickelodeon in 2021 — which follows a group of teens who take command of an abandoned Starfleet vessel.
Here’s the official press release on the news:
AWARD-WINNING DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER BEN HIBON TO DIRECT NICKELODEON’S ANIMATED SERIES, STAR TREK: PRODIGY
BURBANK, Calif.—August 10, 2020—Nickelodeon and CBS Television Studios today announced that award-winning director and producer Ben Hibon (Codehunters) will direct, co-executive produce and serve as the creative lead of Nickelodeon’s all-new animated series Star Trek: Prodigy.
The CG-animated series, which expands the Star Trek Universe, follows a group of lawless teens who discover a derelict Starfleet ship and use it to search for adventure, meaning and salvation. Star Trek: Prodigy will debut exclusively on Nickelodeon in 2021 for a new generation of fans.
“Ben’s contributions to the world of animation are immeasurable, and we are so lucky to have his vision and creative genius on Star Trek: Prodigy. As an incredible storyteller and a world builder with a distinct vision, his original approach paired with this beloved property will bring the characters to life in a whole new way,” said Ramsey Naito, Executive Vice President, Animation Production and Development, Nickelodeon Group.
Said Hibon, “Getting the chance to work on an IP like Star Trek has been an incredible opportunity, particularly when partnered with the talented teams at Nickelodeon, CBS and Secret Hideout – who have been pushing the boundaries of what animation and serialized storytelling for younger audiences can deliver.”
Hibon’s perhaps best known work is the animated Tale of Three Brothers sequence in 2010’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, which he directed — and would later go on to earn an Academy Award nomination for the tale.
He also directed the 2006 short film Codehunters, which received critical acclaim at dozens of international film festivals in 2006 and 2007.
Star Trek: Prodigy,expected to debut sometime in 2021, will be from CBS’ Eye Animation Productions, CBS Television Studios’ new animation arm; Secret Hideout; and Roddenberry Entertainment. Alex Kurtzman, Heather Kadin, Katie Krentz, Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth will serve as executive producers alongside Kevin and Dan Hageman. Mac Middleton will serve as a producer with Aaron Baiers as co-executive producer.
This week brings us to the second episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, and we’ve got your next round of new photos from “Envoys” today — takes Ensign Boimler (Jack Quaid) and Ensign Mariner (Tawny Newsome) on a diplomatic mission with a Klingon general, getting into trouble along the way.
While those two try to find their footing on an alien planet, Ensign Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) finds himself searching for a new calling aboard the Cerritos as he tries his hand at other roles aboard ship.
Here are four new photos from this week’s episode, along with nine previously-released images for “Envoys.”
'Star Trek: Lower Decks' -- 'Envoys'
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Tendi and Mariner move some cargo down a corridor. (CBS All Access)
Tendi and Mariner encounter a glowing orb in the corridor. (CBS All Access)
Boimler waves a padd about. (CBS All Access)
Mariner shows Tendi their workspace. (CBS All Access)
Boimler finds Mariner eating in the shuttlecraft. (CBS All Access)
Boimler and Mariner arrive at the Klingon facility. (CBS All Access)
Mariner and Boimler encounter a Ferengi while away from the Cerritos. (CBS All Access)
Mariner and Boimler share a moment aboard their shuttle. (CBS All Access)
Rutherford listens to Lt. Commander Billups, the Cerritos' chief engineer. (CBS All Access)
Security chief Lt. Shaxs seems angry. (CBS All Access)
A dirty Rutherford chats with Tendi. (CBS All Access)
Tendi and Rutherford grab a drink at the bar. (CBS All Access)
Tendi and Rutherford spend time in a Jefferies tube. (CBS All Access)
On social media this week, CBS has released some new looks into the series, including this comparison video showing the before-and-after process of the animation work that goes into producing an episode of Lower Decks.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CDupgqeI8so/
In other news, showrunner Mike McMahan and the creative team behind the series will hold a virtual panel during ReedPop’s “Metaverse” digital convention on Thursday, where they’ll appear in a video event at 2:45 PM on August 13.
Ready to boldly go into the #ReedpopMetaverse? Join the creative team behind CBS All Access’ new animated series, “Star Trek: Lower Decks,” for an exclusive clip of Ep 3 & a Q&A panel to discuss the newest Star Trek Universe series.
Finally, if you didn’t catch it at the end of “Second Contact,” here’s the preview for this coming season of Star Trek: Lower Decks.
ENVOYS — After a high-profile mission goes awry, Boimler (Jack Quaid) is further plagued with self-doubt when Mariner (Tawny Newsome) proves herself to be a more naturally talented sci-fi badass than he. Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) quits his job in engineering and explores other departments on the U.S.S. Cerritos.
Written by Chris Kula. Directed by Kim Arndt.
Star Trek: Lower Decks returns Thursday, August 13 with “Envoys” on CBS All Access and CTV Sci-Fi Channel. International distribution for the series has not yet been announced.
If you’re living like Cris Rios with an old Walkman — er, record player — in your quarters, then our friends over at Lakeshore Records have a new pressing to add to your collection!
The label released composer Jeff Russo’s Star Trek: Picard score back in April on digital download and streaming services, but now they’re returning to 2399 with a special collectors’ edition of the first season’s soundtrack in Borg-errific green vinyl!
Due to beam down on October 9 — just days after Star Trek: Picard lands on Blu-ray — the two-LP special release will include 26 of the first season’s tracks across both records, each pressed from galactic “Trans Green Splatter” vinyl coloring.
Included will be these tracks from Season 1:
Side A – 17:30 mins approx
01. Star Trek Picard Main Title
02. Star Trek Picard End Title
03. Walking With Number One
04. The Painting
05. Twins
06. Romulan Collusion
07. Trouble For Picard
08. Raffi Decides To Join
Side B – 20:28 mins approx.
01. Sizing Up Rios
02. Happier Times
03. Mystery Ship
04. Soji And Narek Waltz
05. Home Movies
06. Seven Needs Revenge
Side C – 18:39 mins approx.
01. Raffi Calls Bosch
02. Looking For Picard
03. Walking Around Nepenthe
04. Picard And Riker Reunite
05. Picard Bids Farewell
Side D – 22:16 mins approx
01. Tal Shiar Admonisher
02. Sutra Arrives
03. Romulans Arrive Pt.1
04. Talking To Data
05. The Crew Leaves As One
06. Blue Skies
07. Star Trek Picard Episode 110 End Credits (Full Version)
Have you picked up previous Star Trek soundtrack vinyl releases — and will you be adding the Picard set to your collection? Sound off in the comments below with your thoughts!
Star Trek: Lower Decks has finally warped into North America, and as the new animated series launches today, there’s a few news bits that we wanted to shine a spotlight on before the next mission of the new crew!
As the hours approached last night’s debut of Lower Decks, the official Star Trek social media team released a four-part series of Starfleet recruitment posters to highlight starship life for new officers in the fleet — giving Ensigns Mariner, Boimler, Rutherford, and Tendi each a chance to be the face of the ‘fleet.
The yellow-striped, California-class USS Cerritos. (CBS All Access)
Series showrunner Mike McMahan spoke with the How to Kill an Hour podcast earlier this week, and as part of his discussion he expanded upon the look and design of the California-class starship at the center of the series: the USS Cerritos.
The ship is in great condition. It’s a California-class ship, which has always existed in Starfleet — [this is] what we’re saying — that they’re the utility support ships. In the California-class [line], there are three types of hull painting: there’s blue, red, and yellow.
We’ve extended the visual metaphor of the uniforms to the ships, and the Cerritos has yellow on the hull because it’s primarily a second contact engineering ship. They show up to planets that need engineering stuff done on them in order to be able to communicate with the Federation.
There’s also, you’ll see in the show, blue-hulled California class ships, which are usually deployed to places where there has to be more medical expertise, and red-hulled ships that are like for moving around ambassadors and doing more command-level stuff.
A front view of the Cerritos, inspired by the Miranda-class USS Reliant. (CBS All Access)
The actual design for the Cerritos, which is our lead ship, is directly inspired by my favorite Starfleet ship — the Reliant from ‘The Wrath of Khan.’ I just love the look of that ship. I wanted to take the Reliant and then put it into a version of the ‘Next Gen’ look of ships — and then on top of that, it’s a support ship so it can’t look as cool as all the other ships. It can’t be as easy to get around in it.
I’m surprised by how many people online were like, “Well, wait a minute, engineering section is removed and put in between the nacelles?” It’s like, guys, there were diagonal turbolifts in the Enterprise-D. Have you guys not been looking at the schematics of the Enterprise D?! Because we have been!
Also, as my wife — who saw some of those tweets — rolled her eyes and said, “Why are they not knowing that there are diagonal turbolifts on this ship? There’s diagonal elevators at the Luxor in Las Vegas. They think the Luxor has better technology than a Starfleet ship?”
A composite of the Cerritos’ master situation display monitor from ‘Second Contact.’ (CBS All Access)
Listen, I love the internet. It’s a hive mind where everybody who knows more than me is getting together and trying to make sure that everything is stress checked. But when it comes to the ship, we had many hundreds of designs that we whittled down to exactly what I wanted.
I wanted the nacelles to be shaped more squarely than the smooth lines of the Enterprise-D’s nacelles. And I also didn’t want it to look [like the ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’-era] NX-class where it was funky and early, and I didn’t want it look like a Sovereign-class, which is all fancy and shiny.
I wanted it to look a little more like a standard season four, season five TNG-era ship. So it has fewer decks, but it’s still a fully functioning Starfleet ship. It has a full crew. And I don’t want to spoil anything… but we do visit some parts of the ship that we’ve always heard about but never seen before.
One of those never-seen places may be the long-joked-about Cetacean Ops laboratory, introduced in the Next Generation Technical Manual and the expanded Enterprise-D Blueprints, as discussed in this week’s new edition of The Ready Room, where host Wil Wheaton interviewed McMahan following the overnight debut of Lower Decks.
Mike McMahan: “We’re all obsessed with Cetacean Ops; we love that it exists. We’re breaking a story now for the second season where we’re like, ‘Is this it? Is the one where we finally go to Cetacean Ops?’ Because a lot of our characters talk about Cetacean Ops, and sometimes enter a scene wet — but we never actually get to go into Cetacean Ops [in Season 1].
I’m dying to go into Cetacean Ops but it’s got to be worth it. It’s got to be for a good reason.”
Star Trek: Lower Decks returns next Thursday with “Envoys” on CBS All Access, CTV Sci Fi, and Crave.
Star Trek makes a triumphant return to the world of animation with the premiere of Lower Decks and its pilot episode, the aptly-named “Second Contact.” Combining some glorious nostalgia, deep-cut references sure to satisfy the most ardent Star Trek fan, episodic storytelling, and a plethora of humor and smarts, Lower Decks is a triumph right out of the gate.
Having had the opportunity to view the first four episodes of the season so far, we’re pleased to report “Second Contact” is not a fluke. Lower Decks succeeds as both a Star Trek show and as an animated comedy, and we’re excited to see where this show goes next.
Unlike its most recent predecessors in the Secret Hideout-era — Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard — Lower Decks does not shy away from or work to reimagine or ‘modernize’ certain elements of Star Trek’s history. Instead, it revels in what has come before.
Ensigns Tendi (Noel Wells) and Boimler (Jack Quaid) take in the view from the USS Cerritos’ observation port. (CBS All Access)
From the cold open of “Second Contact,” complete with establishing shots of the USS Cerritos, docked at a classic movie-era Starbase, to an opening “captain’s log,” to the overall look and feel of the ship, this show oozes nostalgia for Berman-era Trek from its pores from the opening shots.
Series creator and showrunner Mike McMahan — and his team — are not just huge Star Trek fans — they are comedy pros, too. And while humor can be extremely subjective, I found the jokes worked across all four of the episodes we got the chance to preview. This is a funny show, accentuating the things we love about Star Trek — all while living up the promise of not just being a brilliant comedy as well.
“Second Contact” introduces us to our series leads – Ensigns Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid), D’Vana Tendi (Noël Wells), and Sam Rutherford (Eugene Cordero). Newsome and Quaid immediately establish themselves and jump off the screen in this episode; Newsome’s performance as Mariner in particular is dripping with a sly charisma that makes the character extremely compelling.
Ensign Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) goes on a spacewalk with his date, Ensign Barnes (Jessica McKenna). (CBS All Access)
Lower Decks is structured like classic episodes of The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine: a strong A-story, with B and C-stories supporting the main plot. In this episode, the A-story very much focuses on Mariner and Boimler; the latter of which is given an assignment by Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) to keep an eye on Mariner’s rule breaking ways.
The B-story, which sweeps up Tendi, involves a hilarious outbreak of a zombie-like rage virus aboard the USS Cerritos and gives us our first major exposure to the ship’s senior staff: first officer Commander Jack Ransom (Jerry O’Connell) and Doctor T’Ana (Gillian Vigman), the Caitian doctor who is likely to cement herself as a fan favorite.
Finally, the C-story involves Rutherford going on a date with a fellow officer, but ultimately breaking things off because his romantic partner was more interested in love instead of the fact an access hatch was in need of maintenance. Given the primary focus on Mariner and Boimler in the pilot, it may take an episode or two more for Tendi and Rutherford to fully establish their characters, but I like what I’m seeing to this point.
The Lower Decks score, composed by Trek newcomer Chris Westlake, hearkens back to the bombastic riffs of ’90s-era television adventures, a welcome throwback and instantly feels familiar and lived in. The composer, who also scored McMahan’s just-debuted Hulu series Solar Opposites, also gets a shout-out in the episode as Ensign Tendi’s boss, Nurse Westlake.
As for the show’s title sequence, it hilariously plays off the sweeping scope of the Star Trek: Voyager opening visuals, with the Cerritos haphazardly encountering a black hole, colliding with a comet, and high-tailing it away from a Romulan/Borg skirmish, among other troubles along the way — leading into the episode title, which returns to the on-screen credits for the first time since Star Trek: Enterprise.
It’s a perfect way to introduce viewers to a Trek comedy that cares about the Trek universe.
Pipe the gas cure into the vents, problem solved. (CBS All Access)
Trek Trope Tributes
Mariner says senior officers are always “yelling about directives,” and later that “Klingons are always making oaths.”
Ransom is bit on the planet by an insect, and as he returns to the ship says, “I’ll be fine” when he is encouraged to “get that looked at it.” Sure, Ransom. You’ll be fine.
When Boimler is injured, Mariner dismisses it quickly by saying, “You’ll be fine. Doc will wave a light over it.”
The rage virus cure is released through the Cerritos‘ ventilation system to cure everyone instantaneously.
Ensign Barnes refers to the songs of The Monkees as “classical” music, just as McCoy categorized the Beastie Boys in Star Trek Beyond.
After coming up with the cure, Captain Freeman tells Dr. T’Ana she’ll get “to publish more award-winning research,” a classic Trek poke at senior staff always talking about awards and commendations throughout Trek.
After things have calmed down, Rutherford references the rage virus by saying to Tendi “that stuff happens all the time.”
Aliens Spotted (and Spotted Aliens)
A Benzite, seen multiple times in The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine — most prominently in the TNG episodes “Coming of Age” and “A Matter of Honor” — is present at Tendi’s arrival on the Cerritos.
One of the crew members who boards the Cerritos with Tendi is an Andorian, marking the first appearance of the race in Lower Decks. Andorians have been frequently seen on Star Trek since Star Trek: Enterprise — appearing in Discovery and Picard as well — and it’s fair to say you’ll be seeing more of them in this series as the season progresses.
Ensign Barnes, Rutherford’s date — and one of the helm officers aboard the Cerritos — is a Trill, the spotted-skin race made famous by Jadzia and Ezri Dax in Deep Space Nine. It is unclear if she is joined, but her father is “part cyborg.”
One of the Cerritos’ away team members is a Bolian, the first appearance of the race in their traditional blue appearance since Ensign Chell on the USS Voyager — but we did see a holographic red Bolian in Picard this season.
As Ensign Tendi join the Cerritos with a few other Starfleet personnel, we see what appears to be a half-Klingon Starfleet ensign joining the crew, too.
Of course, Ensign Tendi is the first Orion regular in Star Trek history; the green-skinned race made its debut all the way back in “The Cage”, with subsequent appearances in the Original Series, Enterprise, Discovery, and the Kelvin Timeline films.
Canon Connections
Standard Starbase
Douglas Station, the starbase the USS Cerritos is docked at the opening of the episode, matches the design for Space Dock, which was first seen in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and used as several additional starbases in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
VISOR Vision
Two crewmen are seen wearing a Geordi LaForge-style VISOR in this episode – the first when Tendi arrives aboard the shuttle on the Cerritos, and the second as a member of the Galadonian landing party.
An Engineer and His Tools
When first introduced, Rutherford has an open toolkit filled with tools that match those seen on other 24th century Star Trek shows, including Miles O’Brien’s toolkit in Deep Space Nine.
Starfleet Luggage
Classic 24th century luggage design is still the fashion in 2380, as Tendi carries a cylindrical case that is shaped like those first seen back in “11001001” in TNG’s first season.
Cetacean Ops
Boimler mentions Cetacean Ops as one of the coolest places on the ship. Previously only mentioned in dialogue in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and hinted at in “The Perfect Mate,” the classic Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual and establishes Cetacean Ops as important to navigation aboard a starship, manned by dolphin crewmen.
The Coolest Places On the Ship
Mariner, Tendi, and Boimler visit the holodeck. This is the first time the holodeck has appeared in its Next Generation appearance — plain black walls with a yellow grid pattern — since the Enterprise series finale “These Are the Voyages…”
Boimler, however, loves the USS Cerritos‘ warp core, the first traditional vertical warp core, complete with pulsating thumping sound, seen since Star Trek: Nemesis.
Bar Wear & Barware
The waiters aboard the USS Cerritos are wearing the same green colored uniforms as the waiters in Ten Forward on the USS Enterprise — in addition, many of the drinking glasses are right out of Guinan’s inventory.
Pattern Enhancers
The Cerritos’ away teams beam down to the planet with the help of standard 24th century pattern enhancers, like the ones featured throughout 90s era Trek and first seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Power Play.”
Argo Buggy
On the planet’s surface, Mariner and Boimler travel around using the Argo buggy, whose first and only previous appearance was in Star Trek Nemesis.
cha’DIch, baby!
Mariner nominates herself Boimler’s new “mentor” and goes on to say she is now his cha’DIch. Picard served as Worf’s cha’DIch in a much more serious scenario where Worf was facing discommendation from the Klingon High Council. (TNG: “Sins of the Father.”)
Starfleet Bureaucracy
The Galardonian farmers that Mariner decides to help with some extra equipment because they “can’t afford to wait for Starfleet bureaucracy to notice them” are reminiscent of the forgotten Bajoran refugees Ensign Ro introduces Captain Picard to in “Ensign Ro.”
Mariner’s Shore Leave Haul
Mariner’s collection of items she gathered on Shore Leave at Douglas Station includes a Klingon bat’leth, a glavin weapon from Ligon II (“Code of Honor”) and a Saurian brandy bottle.
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Other Observations
The California-class USS Cerritos has a number of references to its namesake including the California state flag on the wall of Captain Freeman’s ready room, and the fleet of Type 6-A shuttlecraft named after California’s parks – Redwood, Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Death Valley, and King’s Canyon. (Plus, Boimler is from Modesto, CA, as well.)
The first-seen Sikh Starfleet officer is on duty in the shuttlebay as Tendi first arrives on board.
There are references to the following Starfleet regulations: 498, 756, 25, 15, 348 and 76, as well as General Order No. 5.
Mariner’s declaration to Boimler and her lower decks crewmates at the end of the episode includes references to Spock coming back from the dead in Star Trek III, the Genesis device and Khan from Star Trek II, whales from Star Trek IV, Sulu rocking a sword in “The Naked Time,” Kirk, Worf, Gary Mitchell, and Deanna Troi’s famous jumpsuit wardrobe.
“The bridge is not cool.” “Yes it is!” (CBS All Access)
“Second Contact” is a fun and funny beginning to the latest Star Trek series, combining humor and smarts into a self-contained episode that capably establishes the characters and their dynamics. Based on this episode, and the three that come after — “Envoys,” “Temporal Edict,” and “Moist Vessel” — prepare to be left breathless by the series as it progresses.
And because this is Star Trek — and ultimately, the characters ascend above the story — perhaps the most consequential reveal of the episode is the one at the end; Ensign Mariner is actually Captain Freeman’s daughter, who she has been trying to get reassigned because their relationship is strained.
It will be interesting to see how that dynamic develops over the remainder of Lower Decks’ first season — and something we discuss with series showrunner Mike McMahon in our new one-on-one interview with the writer, coming to TrekCore later this week.
There are nine more episodes to air this season, and the Lower Decks production team are hard at work scripting Season 2 now. We are strapped in and excited for the ride ahead: it’s warp time!
What did you think of “Second Contact”? Share your thoughts on the Star Trek: Lower Decks premiere in the comments below!
