Lower Decks’ Is Here! Why Not 50 Days Ago?

For the first time in a long time, fans of Star Trek have been experiencing their own personal “Amok Time:” A television-induced condition of withdrawal, almost but not quite comparable to the madness associated with the onset of Pon Farr mating rituals.

Trekkies and Trekkers alike have had only one recourse: to re-binge reruns and re-watch the 13 films (and director’s cuts) like it’s May 2005. That’s when the oft-derided fourth season finale of Star Trek: Enterprise aired, leaving a vacuum as vast as the final frontier itself, with no new Trek on TV for 12 long years.

At least this time, it’s only been since July 7. Fans, and those who love them and embrace (or barely tolerate) their cosplay and constant quoting of scripted lines—”Risk! Risk is our business!”— haven’t had any new episodes to watch since Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ended its first season early last month.

Two weeks ago, Paramount+ confirmed that Strange New Worlds is now the number one most watched series in the 56-year-old Star Trek franchise.

Two weeks from now, Paramount+ will be celebrating its third annual Star Trek Day in Los Angeles, with special guests and sneak peeks behind the scenes and at what’s to come.

And, right now, in the sweet spot in between and for the first time in 50-days, fans finally have new episodes of the animated comedy series Star Trek: Lower Decks to enjoy. Season three dropped on Thursday with the conclusion of the season two cliffhanger.

A warning:

If you have not yet watched episode 301, “Grounded,” go do that now!

This report contains a few spoilers about the season premiere, but from here on, it is spoiler-free as far as the rest of this season goes—with just hints about the episodes to come and the fourth season to follow!

Do check-in as each week’s episode rolls out, because my interview with executive producer and series creator Mike McMahan provided some exciting details about the next nine episodes that fans will want to know about, including a new LGBTQ+ romance for a fan favorite character, a deep dive into one character’s backstory that will resonate with transgender viewers, and special guest stars.

So what took so long?

“I don’t think anybody else knows” McMahan told me Thursday in a phone interview, in which he revealed exclusively why Lower Decks is streaming its third season beginning now, instead of weeks ago. The reason: Time.

“Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because they’ll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we’ve lived.” — Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: Generations, 1994.

No, McMahan didn’t quote the captain’s famous words from the Generations film in his explanation, but he might as well: Making the third season of Lower Decks the best it could be took time, he said, and it was time well-spent. He said they chose to devote the time that was needed, especially when it came to episodes 309 and 310.

“The reason that we didn’t air a couple of weeks earlier is, we needed a couple of extra weeks, because those episodes get huge,” said McMahan. “I love how season three goes, and ends, and then season four takes it to a whole other level. And I feel like we’ve done that four times in a row now. So if someday they pick us up for a season five, like I’ll have to wear sunglasses while we’re working on it because it’ll be too bright and beautiful.”

It’s funny… but deeply Star Trek

Without giving any spoilers, I asked McMahan to tell fans what to expect this season.

“I think what I would say is that season three is fun. It’s funny. It’s deeply Star Trek,” he said, and revealed this season owes elements to the first sequel series to Star Trek: The Next Generation. “It’s got tons of a lot of Deep Space Nine influence this year. I think last year had some sort of, I think, Voyager sort of implications. And this year it kind of leans Deep Space Nine.

“I think that season three is our first season where you can really see the confidence of that we know and love this show, and we’re exploring themes in it that we didn’t even know we were going to hit. And we have found and grown to love these characters.”

As fans enjoy the start of season three, McMahan provided a few more spoiler-free details about what he and his team are working on for season four.

“We’re writing right now. I’m writing episode nine and we’ve already done the outline for ten,” he said.

Look for legacy characters to return

Fans will be delighted to see some of their favorite characters from the earlier series and films interacting with the Lower Decks cast this season. I won’t tell you who, nor how McMahan and company worked Zefram Cochrane into the plot of episode 301, but the lifelong Trek fan was over the moon talking about working with Emmy-awarding winning actor James Cromwell. In the season premiere, Cromwell reprises his role from the 1996 film, Star Trek: First Contact, not seen since his brief bit in the 2001 pilot episode of Enterprise.

“There’s a lot of people that I love, right? I mean, I love all of these legacy characters in different ways,” said McMahan. “Obviously getting to work with James Cromwell! He introduced himself as ‘Jamie’ and it trips me up when I’m trying to say his name and I say, ‘Jamie Cromwell.’”

In addition to Cromwell, fans will be treated to some of their favorite characters from DS9, The Next Generation and a franchise surprise cameo that I promised to not spoil.

Crossing over

As I reported in July, two characters from Lower Decks will appear in a special crossover episode of Strange New Worlds. I asked McMahan how that came about.

“Henry [Alonso Myers] and Akiva [Goldsman] are huge fans of Lower Decks, and this was last year,” he said. “They asked me if I would be interested in doing something like this. Strange New Worlds is such a flexible show because it genre jumps, and it really sort of celebrates Star Trek the same way Lower Decks does, just in a different tone. And since they can genre jump around, it was really their premise, their idea to have Lower Deckers appear in live action on the Enterprise.

“Tawny [Newsome, who plays Ensign Beckett Mariner] and Jack [Quaid, who plays Ensign Bradward Boimler], the whole cast of Lower Decks are such strong performers, that I just didn’t have any doubt in my mind that it wouldn’t be a blast. They involved me in the script and directing the voice actors and the animated portion of it. I got to help punch up lines for everybody. And the only thing that bugs me out about it is, I couldn’t be on set when they were filming, because [director Jonathan] Frakes and Tawny and Jack were all texting me photos from from the set, teasing me that I couldn’t hang out with them, because they were having such a blast.”

Connecting to Star Trek’s past

Ever since Lower Decks premiered, McMahan has been a regular guest on the Trekyards web series, along with members of his production team, discussing the nitty gritty details of the U.S.S. Cerritos.

“There’s a couple of things about Star Trek that I’m into, but I wasn’t very good at. Like episode titles. I was more of, ‘It’s the one about the thing!’ And as for the ships: I had my favorite ships, like the Reliant, but some of the stuff about the ships, like those guys get so distinct about that stuff,” said McMahan. “I love talking about it, but I really love having my designers on there, especially because after we had a bunch of stuff designed, we brought in Michael and Denise Okuda to go through and tighten everything, and make sure that everything made sense. Getting to experience that kind of expertise, like how other Star Trek showrunners have, across the entire franchise, I really feel connected to other people who made these shows over more than half a century.”

“Dig into it”

“If you’ve ever been wary about giving an animated comedic version of Star Trek a chance, we’re going to have 30 episodes pretty soon, all available on Paramount+, it doesn’t take long to dig into it and find out that maybe it’s something, maybe you couldn’t predict and expect,” McMahan said.

In addition to Newsome and Quaid, Star Trek: Lower Decks features the voice talents of Noël Wells as Ensign Tendi, Eugene Cordero as Ensign Rutherford, Dawnn Lewis as Captain Carol Freeman, Jerry O’Connell as Commander Jack Ransom, Gillian Vigman as Doctor T’Ana and Fred Tatasciore as Lt. Shaxs.

The first episode of season three, number 301, “Grounded” of Star Trek: Lower Decks is now available to stream on Paramount+, as are seasons one and two and every episode of the entire Star Trek franchise, going back to the original series, which premiered on NBC on Sept. 8, 1966. For information about Star Trek Day, click here.