Across five seasons of the Paramount+ animated series “Star Trek: Lower Decks,” the voice cast got so close that costar Jerry O’Connell invited his fellow actors and “Lower Decks” creator Mike McMahan to his birthday party — where he read them a poem dedicated to their friendships.
“He had a printed-out set of papers — plural — that he read from,” joked McMahan.
“I love ‘Lower Decks,’ we’re a family,” O’Connell said. “And I wanted to celebrate my birthday with my cast.”
O’Connell and McMahan were joined by “Lower Decks” stars Tawny Newsome and Noël Wells in the Variety Studio presented by Google TV at San Diego Comic-Con to discuss their journey up to the fifth and final season of the “Star Trek” animated spin-off.
“Star Trek: Lower Decks” follows the supporting crew of one of Starfleet’s most insignificant starships, the U.S.S Cerritos. Coincidentally, the first time O’Connell and Newsome met was at Comic-Con to unveil the first season of “Lower Decks,” an announcement which, according to O’Connell, was not received as well as they hoped.
“I met Tawny here at Comic-Con exactly five years ago when we announced the show…it was not thunderous applause,” said O’Connell. “It was rough announcing it.”
“It was a confused Hall H,” added McMahan.
Four years and two Emmy nominations later, “Lower Decks” is heading towards its series finale. Although it may seem natural for the show to end when the “Lower Decks” crew is inevitably promoted to higher ranks, McMahan feels he left the show in a place where the character’s stories could keep going.
“You do get to see everybody grow up in Season 5,” McMahan said. “To me, there isn’t a natural end to being ‘Lower Decks’ because I feel like I am still learning stuff all the time. So yes, the characters do go through a change this season, but ultimately where we end, you don’t feel like they aren’t still ‘Lower Decks’ and that we couldn’t keep telling those kinds of stories.”
With almost six decades of lore to pull from, fans can expect plenty of references to past “Star Trek” series in Season 5. Newsome teased the return of a “Star Trek” icon in the new season in an unexpected and rather grotesque way.
“There is a legacy character. All I will say is that I get to carry around part of them in a way that is very satisfying,” Newsome said.
“There is a piece of a legacy character, and Noël’s character, Tendi, gets to spend a lot of time with them,” McMahan added. “There is a running theme across the season of these space potholes that the U.S.S Cerritos is closing that are these rifts in space. We had been given enough of a heads up that this could potentially be our final season, and so I suddenly opened up the cupboard of ideas and was like, ‘Alright, what are some mechanics to get all sorts of crazy things to happen in this season?’”
