Watch: Full First Episode Of ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Streaming For Free

If you aren’t currently subscribing to CBS All Access, now you can find out what all the Lower Decks fuss is about. And even if you have seen it, there are a couple of bonus videos you may want to check out.

Watch “Second Contact”

For a limited time, CBS has made the entire first episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks available on YouTube. The free version of episode one went online just as the second episode was made available on the streaming service right after midnight Wednesday night.

https://youtu.be/_HzRGqvRK8U

UPDATE 2: While the video was initially available without a geo lock, it appears it is now only available in the USA, like all other CBS All Access videos on YouTube.

Bonus videos

There are also some recent videos about Lower Decks. First up one featuring the voice cast introducing each of their characters.

And CBS has released a special video all about Mariner, including some new footage from upcoming episodes.

TrekMovie coverage of Lower Decks premiere

Now that you have seen it, check out our recap and review and easter eggs analysis of “Second Contact.” You can also listen to our podcast discussions of the episode on both All Access Star Trek and Shuttle Pod.

And check out our post-episode exclusive interview with Lower Decks creator Mike McMahan.

All Access free month promo

CBS All Access also announced a one-month free promotion. For a limited time, try 1 month FREE!


And keep up with all the news and reviews from the new Star Trek Universe on TV at TrekMovie.com.

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Oh my! Quite the marketing stunt? I read many complaints (funny enough, mostly in the StarTrekCBS Instagram section) about the dragging international release – this might actually ease the waves on that matter a bit…

Haha, nope :D

Correct, CBS has locked it outside the USA.
Why?
Just because they haven’t got a clue how to win fans and hearts and minds and interest.
They just go around annoying people and slapping lawsuits on people too.
Pathetic.

Just seen it, love it!

Mariner is rapidly becoming one of my favorite Trek characters on any show.

Well, personality-wise, she’s kinda fun, even if it is not my kind of fun. I have trouble getting over the voice, though. It’s so grating, I almost ALT+F4’d my browser window at “Okay, computer!” ;)

The rest of the voices aren’t much better. Why they all sound like they’re playing at 1.5x speed? Why is everybody squeaky and yelling?

That’s less of an issue in episode two; it’s still there, just not AS much.

1.5 speed?

Do you mean like the “Report” blocks of dialogue in TNG and other 90s live-action Trek series when events or science/technical disasters or solutions took place off-screen?

For me that fast dialogue was always a source of joy. I remember my student friends and I going back with the VCR right after our watch parties to go over the bits we’d missed on first watch.

I suspect most of us forget how dense some of the 90s Trek dialogue was on first viewing simply because we’ve seen it so many times. But I suspect it’s really a feature rather than a bug, because it gives the shows layers that are revealed in repeated viewings.

If I was fresh out of school, around 20 years old, travelling in a spaceship to new worlds, believe me you´d need slow motion to understand anything I said. Just our of pure excitement and joy, to be where I was, I would not even be able to speak at normal speed. This actually makes it much more realistic for me personally.

Uh, the literal squealing and screaming would stop after a few days for most youths in an exciting new environment. Otherwise, medication should be sought.

Glad to hear that you’ve found a positive in LDS Salt!

Look forward to hearing more from you again as the international distribution works out.

Tendi is my favorite but Mariner is a fun person.

Ok, that were 26 minutes I’ll never get back…. What exactly does this have to do with Star Trek again?

They’re in space, in a spaceship, wearing space uniforms and work for a galactic military organisation. The big ships also have tiny little ships inside them and people can come and go using sparkly/swirly effects. Seems pretty Start Trek to me.

Boimler is troubled by the captains orders to spy on Mariner, its a conflict of loyalty.
Mariner breaks protocol, but to help people in need.
The alien monster Spider that seems to be attacking is revealed to be a more or less harmless farm animal.
Boimler and Mariner have a heart to heart at the end about loyalty and camaraderie.
The characters are excited to be on a starship and express genuine love for their field of expertise.
The intro with the space station, the reveal of the bridge,.. many many moments ooze the wonder of space travel.

People are mad about the liberties the new live action series took with designs. This series dwells in established designs. Look at the “Orion” scene at the Holodeck. The architecture is very close to the “Cage” scene with Vinas Dance. They could have done anything. But they chose to pay tribute to what came long long before. Just one example of many.

You totally get it, GT! This is definitely Star Trek, and I hope to see more bold varieties to the franchise like this.

I just watched a few minutes of it and really, really hated it. I tried, but I couldn’t give it more than five minutes. I found it screechy and unfunny and juvenile. I was embarrassed for the cartoon characters, who were all so poorly scripted and voiced. I’ve been watching Star Trek since 1966, fan of every show from TOS and TAS to PIC (except VOY I guess), and I guess I’ll skip this one.

Ok, boomer.

@Bryant Burnette why so rude?

I feel the same way as he does, and I’m not a boomer – why does everything have to come down to insults? Is someone not allowed to not enjoy something that you enjoyed? It’s all personal preference at the end of the day. I enjoyed VOY, which a lot of Trek fans hated. Are you going to call me a name too? Or will you hold off because you enjoyed it as well?

That’s okay, you don’t have to watch it.

I really liked it and am more than happy for more.
And it is a bit funny to hear the complaints about the late international release. OK, granted, I also hope to get it as soon as possible, but I can very much remember the time when I had to buy overpriced imported VHS tapes of DS9 Season 6 because in Germany we just finished season 4. So, if I have to wait a few weeks, (which is still luxus), it´s okay.

Yes, I remember that time. What was worst was that in my region, the station which was airing DS9 season 7 at the time was beeing the spot for some local station to send their programm. The rest of Germany was viewing DS9 Season 7 on SAT1, I was watching our wacky local station on the same channel.

Even worse, I was in the army at that time and recorded the crap local stuff on VHS for me to watch on the weekends…because I thought I was recording DS9.

It took all the time to when the DVD box sets to get out for me to watch season 7.

I was waiting for DS9 Season 7 when the reruns aired in Sat 1 in 2002-2004. The DVD-Boxes were released around the same time and then Sat.1 interrupted DS9… The DVD-Boxes were overpriced in today’s standard (100€ while cheaper in other countries) but already cheaper than the VHS together which Werbwolf has mentioned above.

Of course the officially released VHS, not those recorded ones.

As it stands currently it’s not “a couple weeks” but rather “Well whenever we get around launching All Access Internationally AND you’re going to pay an arm and a leg to be able to watch a single series”.

I still have a few VHS tapes here untouched… bought them when the wer sold out for 1€. :-)
Among them a few from Enterprise which were only Promo-VHS-tapes…

I also remember having to buy every episode on VHS back in the 90s. Our Australian TV station was years behind America. It was barely acceptable in the 90s (Usenet was rife with spoilers for stuff we hadn’t seen.) but in 2020? Star Trek is all over the internet. We’re a global community now. We’re all part of the same conversation. Don’t get me wrong, I understand there are practical reasons why this happened and I’m not going to spend my days and nights whinging, but I don’t think I would characterise this situation as “okay.”

I very much enjoyed that!

That was fun. That’s first first new Trek I’ve enjoyed in a loooong time.

To everyone who keeps saying things along the line of “What does Lower Decks have to do with Star Trek?!”:

What does “Cheers” have to do with Boston circa 1982-1992?

What does “Scrubs” have to do with working in a run-down Los Angeles hospital?

What does “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” have to do with the real NYPD?

I literally could go on and on, but I hope I’ve made my point. All three of the comedies I listed above take place in heightened reality analogues of real world places.

To me and countless millions of fans, “Star Trek” is a real world too—or at least it is hundreds of hours of televised images from the future world we want to be a part of. Is there no imagination or room for the possibility that “Lower Decks” is just another heightened reality of a place that’s real in our hearts?

Now everyone can watch Lower Decks now… Sort of.

I was just wondering if it is a good or a bad sign… Depends on the view.

Well my interest has just been officially killed by CBS. I was stoked to watch the first half of this earlier in a lunch break. I just tune in to catch the last 5 mins and they’ve locked it outside the USA.
For what was supposed to be a nice act to promote the show, about an egalitarian show like Star Trek no less, to then turn into, ‘Get lost you aren’t from the States.’ is a huge slap in the face.
Rope people in then hit them.
You know what CBS?
Stick it then. I don’t want your Star Trek. Your lack of respect for your fanbase is well off. I’m done.

I’m out too! I know there were difficulties due to the pandemic but more time intensive industries have created solutions and arranged deals. There is a trend here; the short treks that preceded disco s2 and Picard weren’t shown here either, but are available on a dvd to buy. There is zero reward or sentiment to give back to the fans. As a 40 year old who has watched trek in all its forms since I was 7 I’m totally disgusted. I’ll be cancelling my Amazon account for Picard and won’t be engaging with anything further.

if you don’t want all of our community to engage then so be it!! Back to reruns on netflicks

Thats exactly how I feel. They don’t give a damn about what they’ve got here. They don’t listen to the fans, the same fans at heart who kept Star Trek alive long enough to even get the movies and TNG. They pretend they are listening but they continue pretending they are going to give us what we want, in order to sell us what they want. Its a personal vanity project for them to force their 21st Century politics onto the moral and egalitarian universe of Star Trek. Now they can profit, I can’t argue with that, they are a business but don’t they realise that if the show was on proper tv and internationally sold quite cheap, just how much money they would make? Billions. The appetite is there. But they are playing at being drug dealers not businessmen. A little taste here and there, and then wanting more money. Promise much, deliver little.
Star Trek has become a property that is exploited, not explored.
The internal chronology and morals of the show, apart from those ironically who seem to have physically written and made Lower Decks, seem to be in shreds.
Paved Paradise to put up a Parking Lot.
Screw them.

While the video was initially available without a geo lock, it appears it is now only available in the USA, like all other CBS All Access videos on YouTube.”

WTF?!?!? THANK YOU!!!!!! Just wanted to see it this afternoon but waited a bit too long, now it’s already taken down… §%$&%§ “§/&$%!

And comments are already deactivated in youtube… let’s see how long voting is possible…

Just watched it. I found it to be good-natured and light, some fun throwbacks to the past and actually a pretty tight little story, nothing groundbreaking but it doesn’t need to be. I wouldn’t call it funny, the humor is more cute and goofy. The show isn’t something I’d pay for, but the next time I sign on for AA for PIC, I’ll probably watch them all. Like others have said, I will offer that it’s the most watchable thing I’ve seen from Nu-Trek thus far. Good luck to them, and I hope it gains a following in the demographic they’re seeking out.

I see the discussion about the international release of this show around this site and I want to add an element that might also be a reason why it might be a bit difficult to sell this show internationally. This is the issue of the speed of the dialogue, now I am a relatively good English speaker and I can understand almost everything they say in the show even though English is not my native tongue, but I can also see where this might be a big issue in many countries who don’t have native English speakers. I think producers need to think about these issues as well when they create these shows. Are they viable internationally?

They have to dub it anyway. There is no chance they would air an only English version in most European markets. Even in the Netherlands where they hardly dub anything, they will dub a show considered for children.

But they might even have trouble with the dubbing if the dialogue is so fast all the time.

I’m not convinced that it’s so much faster than the “Report” scenes in TNG.

Well, that might be why TOS was a bit more popular in my country than the TNG and TNG era shows. Even with the faster dubbing, if you can’t make head or tails out of a situation you are gonna get lost in plot heavy situations.

Fast dialogue? Didnt know they spoke spanish or french. 😎

Well, this is disappointing. I made it a point to support the arts through legitimate channels, and that meant I took up Netflix to watch Discovery and later added Amazon Prime for Picard. Perhaps CBS just wants us international fans to download LDS from Pirate Bay.

Hmm…! That was really fun. Problems reactivating my AA, and they’ve been slow to respond. But this is probably by favorite ST series from them so far.

I love that the most TNG-compliant version of modern Trek to date is an off-kilter comedy. It just feels appropriate.

Think Rob Burnett is right though about Kurtzman Trek’s dismissive attitude towards professionalism. There was definitely a lot of that here. The command staff should at least be likeable people…

Blast! I just sat down to watch this here in the UK having watched the first 5 min yesterday on my lunch break, to now find it geo-locked. I should have watched the whole thing yesterday!. I don’t get the whole geo-lock thing. Turns those who can’t watch off, in a big way. DISAPPOINTING!