Yesterday saw the series premiere of the new animated comedy Star Trek: Lower Decks. Not only was “Second Contact” loaded with jokes, but it also packed in a lot of fun Star Trek references. Today we take a closer look to hunt down the easter eggs and highlight some of the new details revealed in the episode that weren’t covered in our review. Obviously… SPOILERS.
VISORs
Two different members of the crew of the USS Cerritos were seen wearing a VISOR, the corrective medical device for blindness worn by Geordi La Forge throughout Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Nomad
There was a deep cut Star Trek reference that has been staring at us since the opening scene was released at Comic-Con@Home. In the closet where Boimler was recording his “captain’s log,” look closely to see Nomad (or perhaps “a Nomad”) propped up against the wall. The Nomad space-probe-turned-mass-sterilizing-machine was the titular antagonist in the Star Trek episode “The Changeling.” It helps to see him if you turn up the brightness; he’s tipped a bit on his side, stowed behind what looks to be transporter pattern enhancers.
Romulan Whiskey
In the opening scene, Mariner shows off all the contraband she picked up during shore leave, including some Romulan Whiskey, which is the alcoholic cousin to Star Trek’s famed Romulan Ale—and according to Boimler, also against regulations.
Bat’leth and Klingons
It’s not Star Trek unless there are some Klingons around, and we know there will be some coming on Lower Decks. In “Second Contact,” Mariner makes a number of references to the warrior race and their penchant for honor, including declaring Boimler her cha’DIch, and name-dropping Worf. She also picked up a bat’leth during her shore leave, which didn’t go well for Boimler.
Her box of contraband also included a Glavin, the spiked glove hand weapon used by the Ligonians in the TNG episode “Code of Honor,” but the less said about that episode, the better.
Cetacean Ops and a squash court
We learned a bit about the USS Cerritos itself in “Second Contact.” The California Class ship has the registry number NCC-75567, and one of the many “ops” sections of the ship is Cetacean Ops, just like one referenced but never seen on the USS Enterprise-D. According to some background information, the Enterprise’s Cetacean Ops is where dolphin and whale crew members worked. After “Second Contact” aired, executive producer Mike McMahan was a guest on The Ready Room with Wil Wheaton and indicated we may finally see this area of the ship in season two. During the episode, it was also mentioned that the USS Cerritos has a squash court on deck 9.
Shuttles named for parks
The most prominent shuttle used during “Second Contact” was the Yosemite, but others seen in the shuttle bay were named Joshua Tree, Redwood, and Death Valley. These are all national parks in the state of California, which is fitting since the USS Cerritos is a California-class ship.
Argo buggy
The vehicle complement of the USS Cerritos also includes Argo buggies, like the one introduced in Star Trek: Nemesis.
Captain’s knickknacks
Captain Freeman’s ready room had a shelf of collectibles that looked to be homages to items kept by some of Star Trek’s famous captains, including a service cap like Pike’s, a baseball like Sisko’s, and more.
Freeman also has a tattered flag for the state of California, yet another reference to the state where most of Star Trek has been produced. It could be a relic of World War III.
A familiar bar
The ship also contains a bar, which is one of the few places Mariner likes above the lower decks of the ship. The bar wasn’t given a name but it had a number of elements like those seen in Ten Forward on the USS Enterprise-D, including the wait staff’s uniforms, and glassware.
Spock’s beard
“Second Contact” saw much of the crew taken over by a “rage virus,” turning them into zombies spewing a black substance. This gave one of the Vulcans in the crew a familiar look, reminiscent of Mirror Spock.
A walk on the hull
Rutherford’s date with Ensign Barnes involved them taking a stroll across the hull of the ship, wearing space suits first seen used in Star Trek: First Contact.
TNG era, down to the typeface
The show is set one year after the TNG film Star Trek Nemesis, which checks out based on the episode’s stardate of 57436.2. Another way Lower Decks drives home the TNG feel is by using the same typeface as ’90s Star Trek and a post-opening credits episode title.
TOS, by the numbers
Even though the show evokes Star Trek: The Next Generation, there were a number of references to Star Trek: The Original Series. In addition to Nomad and Mirror Spock, the number 79 was mentioned twice (the date of Boimler’s commission and Tendi transferred from Starbase 79). We think this is a reference to the 79 episodes of TOS.
Alien crew
The crew of the USS Cerritos included a number of alien races, both well-known and obscure. Before the episode aired we knew the main characters included a Catian (Dr. T’Ana), a Bajoran (Shaxs), and an Orion (Tendi). During “Second Contact” we also saw a number of Andorian and Vulcan crewmembers, which is common as they are also founding members of the Federation. We also saw a Benzite (pictured above), a Bolian, a Trill, a bar waiter who looked Klingon, and another crew member who could be half-Klingon (like B’Elanna Torres).
There were some obscure races as well, including a Napean. (See below, pushing a crate next to Rutherford.)
There were at least a couple of new aliens, or at least ones we haven’t figured out yet, but the bartender could be related to Jaylah.
What did we miss?
Did you catch anything else? Let us know in the comments below.
All Access free month promo
CBS All Access also announced a one-month free promotion. For a limited time, try 1 month FREE!
New episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks premiere on Thursdays on CBS All Access in the U.S. and on CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada, where it’s also available to stream on Crave. It has not yet been announced where and when Lower Decks will be available outside of the USA and Canada.
Keep up with all the news and reviews from the new Star Trek Universe on TV at TrekMovie.com.
I like the Security-Chief and his Warp-Core-Destroy-Affinity. Seems to be a running gag !
cant wait to watch this… probably this weekend… but some trek news dropped so looking forward to some analysis… new paramount film chief is re-evaluating which trek movie to go forward with… some nuggets from the deadline article the hawley trek (now semi on hold) was a new cast… the Tarantino one still in play and it takes place in a gangster 1930s setting… and said based on an episode so assuming it’s the “a piece of the action”… presumably with current movie cast. article implied she wants to get this right and she managed franchises at fox so i think this is all a good thing…
Lets talk about the VISOR. First seen worn by Geordi, even the crew of the Enterprise’s chief medical officers were both intrigued by his use of it and suggested implants as almost all patients would tend to lean towards. Remember the VISOR often caused Geordi nothing but grief and pain. Throughout TNG, DS9 and VOY we never saw another person wearing one and Geordi ultimately got his implants shortly before or after being assigned to the Enterprise E which questions why there would be multiple people on one ship wearing them. Now my opinion on Lower Decks
Overall it wasn’t nearly as bad as I was bracing for I thought it was going to be pretty cringeworthy but it ended up being ok. I enjoyed the name drops: Spock, Sulu, Worf, Troi, etc. and some of the humor “Doc will just shine a light on it” to heal him for example and how things just reset at the end of the show. Hope there are tons of other TNG era references, I’m curious who the Legacy Characters are that are expected to come sometime in S1. Now for my biggest complaint:
My biggest complaint about it as how completely wired for sound some of the characters talking a mile a minute and just all over the place. I hope that’s not something they’ll have the entire series they need to tone it down just a few notches.
“First seen worn by Geordi, even the crew of the Enterprise’s chief medical officers”
LOL. Grammatically, that means that Geordi was wearing the Enterprise’s chief medical officers. Maybe he wasn’t so unlucky at love after all. :)
Pedantic grammarians gotta be pedantic!
This may be really out there, but during Ensign Rutherford’s date they mention liking the 60’s band The Monkeys. In the late 1980s, Nickelodeon(owned by Paramount’s parent company Gulf and western) aired the original Star Trek Animated series in a Saturday programming hour which included an episode from The Monkeys television show. The theme song from that show was “I’m a Believer.”
FYI: it’s The Monkees. Misspelled deliberately to echo the similarly misspelled Beatles. It is popular folklore that while Chekov was added to the cast in Season 2 because the show lacked a Russian (as the Russians pointed out), the character was made young and had a very 60s hairstyle specifically because of “The Monkees”, which was a smash hit (for a year or so) at the time Star Trek was on the air.
Going even further back, the original Monkees TV show also aired on NBC from 1966-1969. In fact, The Monkees premiered 4 days after Star Trek did! Davy Jones and Mr. Spock were the big breakout hits of the season. Spock didn’t release AS MANY records as The Monkees did, but still more than you’d think a Vulcan would ever put out.
Walter Koenig has often said he was brought aboard Star Trek to echo Davy Jones of The Monkees- this explains why Koenig is wearing a terrible wig at first on Trek, before he switched to his swinging combover.
The girl with the visor is pretty cool.
This is the second Star Trek series pilot that features two of the main characters in their underwear!
Bajoran Security-Chief!
This was surprisingly good! I mean not laugh out loud gags but still, quite fun!
It’s really nice seeing so many recognisable alien species. Take note SNW. The lack of familiar faces really hurt STD/STP in my view.
Fair point.
I recall that it was the re-introduction of the Andorians, especially Shran, that really got my attention on Enterprise.
I was also really intrigued by the Tellerite in the Short Trek “The Escape Artist.”
In both cases, the actors were very strong and brought little-known species to life. That seems equally important as the familiarity.
So far, LDS is giving us an Orion main character for the first time, but I’m hoping that we’ll get to see some of the other aliens as more than backdrops.
I liked the joke “the doctor will
Just wave a light over it and you’ll be ok”
In the background of a hallway scene, you see a blue uniformed crew person wearing white shoes. I think this is a reference to the blooper in Birthright Part I when Dr. Bashir is spotted wearing white tennis shoes in one scene.
The Napean seen in the bar wasn’t pushing a crate, he was cleaning a table (a cloth can be seen in his hand). 🖖
But will Ensign Barnes return?
Ensign Barnes looks a lot more like Brexen Ijoula…
Seeing the episode title quotation marks in the proper typeface makes me happy.
The copy-paste ‘straight’ marks around the HD TNG titles annoy me to no end! :-[
Is it just me or did they show a silhouette of an Arex style alien from The Animated Series? It was in the season trailer at the end of the episode. I really love this series already. I hope we get an action figure and toy series from this! Preferably Playmates Toys again. Also it would be great if Star Trek gets Micro Machines back on starships again. Micro Machines are back again and they are hoping to return to licensed products again. Star Trek had a pretty successful run of affordable and collectible ships when the line was with Galoob!
I missed the humor.
The most interesting part of the show was the political comment regarding the Federation regulations. I wonder if to make those comments (which I admit smart) that reveal such a huge organization as something fallible (Picard and Discovery have shown it very well, even Star Trek Continues in its great episode “Lolani”) it was necessary for the series to be humorous . Couldn’t a non-humorous animated series have raised the same questions? I do not know.
Shaxs the Bajoran Security Officer Lieutenant is wearing 3 Full Pip Commander rank at the end of the episode. An Easter egg for Tuvok’s rank issues?
Is Lower Decks not cannon? I don’t know if mentioning elements of the Star Trek universe in a Star Trek program count as “Easter Eggs.”