The latest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks celebrated Deep Space Nine, including a couple of original cast cameos. And now the showrunner is talking about doing it again with Star Trek: Enterprise.
McMahan has faith of the heart
In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Lower Decks creator and showrunner Mike McMahan was asked about “bucket list” cameos, he named a few Star Trek actors he would like to work with including TOS’ George Takei and TNG’s Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, and Gates McFadden, but he also pointed to a series that hasn’t seen that much attention yet on the reference-rich animated comedy:
I’m a huge fan of [Star Trek: Enterprise], and I would love to work with as much of that cast as possible. I’ve been trying to figure out a respectful, cool, funny, surprising way to celebrate that show with Lower Decks and, you know, we’ve had 30 episodes. We haven’t gotten there yet.
In his Star Trek Day interview with TrekMovie McMahan revealed that the writing for season four was almost complete, so bringing in Enterprise characters may have to wait for season five, which McMahan is optimistic will be commissioned by Paramount Plus. Most of the legacy cameos for Lower Decks have been characters from shows also set in the 24th century (TNG, DS9, and Voyager) so it makes sense that it would take a bit more time to work out how to bring in characters from Enterprise, which was set in the 22nd century. But there certainly must be a way. Enterprise has had some love on the show, including the appearance of some Enterprise species like a Denobulan in “Mugato, Gumato.”
Denobulan in “Mugato, Gumato”
Pike’s crew wasn’t ready for the lower deckers
McMahan also talked about the upcoming Lower Decks live-action crossover with Strange New Worlds. He revealed he was involved in the scripting and offered a tease of what is to come, saying:
I also got to punch up the script and help make sure it felt like Lower Decks, so I was getting to write lines for Spock (Peck) and Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) and Pike (Anson Mount). I will say, they may have gone to strange new worlds before, but they have never had strange new characters like mine showing up on the show. It’s funny, I feel like the Enterprise crew is really good at figuring out and handling aliens, but they’re completely flummoxed by how to deal with human beings like I created.
Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid will appear in live action as Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler in the second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which should arrive in 2023.
Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid crash the Strange New Worlds panel to announce crossover at San Diego Comic-Con 2022 (Photo: TrekMovie.com)
New episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks stream Thursdays in the USA on Paramount+ and CTV Sci-Fi in Canada (where it’s also available to stream on Crave). It streams on Fridays on Amazon Prime Video in international territories around the world. In Latin America, Lower Decks debuts (both seasons 1 and 2) in September.
Keep up with all the news and reviews from the new Star Trek Universe on TV at TrekMovie.com.
I mean given “These Are the Voyages…”, seems like it wouldn’t be too hard to come up with an idea poking fun of it, where Mariner and Boimler visit the NX-01 to get some ideas on something currently happening in the episode.
Just have them in a temporal episode to that time. So many comedic beats you can do
Just make “These are the voyages” a holodeck episode of LDS. After Riker and Troi ended the programm, Boimler ends that programm and TATV was just a “what if Riker and Troi visited ENT on their holodeck” holodeck novel of LDS. So Trip never died at the end.
Works for me!
Love it!
That’s actually brilliant. In one fell swoop it de-canonizes the thing that people hate most about the end of Enterprise. Personally, I keep trying to get into LDS, but it just isn’t doing it for me. It’s not funny enough to be “laugh out loud” funny – like Rick & Morty or (in its heyday) Family Guy. And every episode just sort of leaves me with no real feeling. But, to each their own, right? If you love it, that’s great. Kind of the nice thing about ST right now is that there is something for everyone (which I guess is the point Paramount is trying to push) and everyone can find the thing or things that suit them best. For me, SNW is the most enjoyment I’ve had out of ST in a long time.
Fantastic idea!
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I seriously cannot wait for this crossover. It sounds so damn funny.
Same here. And since McMahan was involved a bit to make sure they got the LDS characters right, I am even more optimistic!
If that crossover works, I hope they do another live-action one with Discovery. It would be fun to have Burnham and Mariner make a completely ridiculous plan that is against direct Starfleet orders to solve a problem with Boimler freaking out. And at the end, Mariner sides with Boimler because that crazy Captain is taking things way too far!
…but then after that, the Captain is proven to have been right all along, and Mariner and Boimler get reprimanded and sent back to their support ship — and then we have a touchy-feely, happy moment for them where they realize that they are just fine with being on their little ship and don’t really want any part of the stress or big events that happen in the “big leagues” of Starfleet…make this ending a funny analogy to the ending of It’s a Wonderful Life to generate further guffaws for the viewers.
Neither can I!
Yes I would certainly love it if it does happen. And as I said in my OP they did such a great job with for DS9, I can only imagine they would honor Enterprise just as well.
Not sure “honor” is the right word for LDX. “Use” might be better.
In terms of DS9, they got all the elements of that show and character completely right and made you look back at the show with fondness. That’s what I mean by honor, they really made you appreciate the shows and characters. And using its theme song in the opening is another great example. Then you have something like Khan and STID (as a stark difference for an example) where he was used, but far far from honor.
Can’t comment on how they did the DS9 stuff. Haven’t seen this season yet. I’ll check it out when I re-up for Prodigy.
But from what I have seen thus far LDX has been using past Trek. Not “honoring” it. Again, I haven’t seen it but my guess is them using the DS9 theme, for example, was meant more as a joke than an “honor”. Similar to how they did a big ship flyby ala Scotty flying Kirk around the new E in TMP. But that joke doesn’t sound funny or clever. It didn’t work that first time, I don’t see it working a 2nd time.
But I still stress… I haven’t seen it. This is all guesswork based on what I have seen before. There is always a chance they will break from their past formula. I just don’t think the odds are good.
Yeah, you haven’t seen it. So…
Star Trek Enterprise and Lower Decks! Now that’s a perfect comparison if I ever heard of one. That’s right up there with when Penn was paired with Teller, and when Aliens were paired with Predators.
Do a straight up animated episode of Enterprise. Jokes and all. No references to the Cerritos until the end, when it’s revealed to all be Boimler watching a holo program.
“Why are you watching old Enterprise adventures?”
“Well, Riker does it all the time I figured there must be something to it.”
“Learn anything?”
“That it would make a lousy series finale.”
“Riker watched the false alternate ending and I wanted to watch the real ending instead.”
I think it would be cool (and different) to maybe meet a descendant of Archer or one or more of the other crew. Maybe have them attend some sort of event that celebrates the launch of the NX-01 that brings some of them together. It would be more interesting than time travel or a holodeck episode.
How about Mariner and Boimler witness Trip and T-Pol in the decontamination chamber, and the then Mariner teases Boimler for the rest of the ep for getting a woodie from watching them. Also, it would be hilarious if the could include some sort of Klingon Augment Virus hijinks as part of the plot. And then some joking and turning their nose down about what a really shitty-ugly design the NX-01 is. Plus, an out of canon reference to the horrible TV ratings would be a great gag. LOL, I could get into this!
I’d love to see some Enterprise characters on LDS. Show doesn’t get nearly enough love in my opinion.
It’s difficult when they are so far away from the other crews and time periods. It’s even harder for Discovery characters to just show up on Picard or SNW now. But it’s Star Trek, they can always find a way and would love to see Enterprise characters on this show.
I’m still really (obviously) curious how LD is going to show up on SNW. I highly doubt they are going to redo the mistakes of These are the Voyages and just do a holodeck thing. Nor do I think the Enterprise will be flying into the future.
The Enterprise discovers an 2D parallel universe where TAS and LDS exist.
If Mike is writing the lines of SNW characters, I think it’s obvious that it’s a holodeck episode.
If it was a holodeck episode, I think it would just be an animated episode of Lower Decks. Doing it as a live action SNW episode leads me to believe that time travel will be involved.
I have to believe tho that they are going to be more clever than just traditonal time travel.
I was picturing it as an LDS holodeck scenario, with the two of them entering the holodeck and appearing in a non-animated form. And nothing is said about that transformation at all, it is only the viewer that sees it happen. To Boimler and Mariner, they are just entering a holodeck adventure of the 1701. That would then imply that it is only the viewers that see LDS as an animated show, in “reality” it is just as real as any non-animated Trek show.
Maybe a Frequency-like story where they are communicating with each other across time (DS9 did that with The Sound of her Voice too.)
That’s a cool thought but Jack Quaid made comments IIRC about filming on the Enterprise set.
Also, it would have been awesome if true since Frequency starred Dennis Quaid LOL
Damn! How’d I miss that? I never put two and two together that he was Quaid/Ryan’s son.
LOL I know right? I thought that was cool too.
They wouldn’t need Boimler and Mariner in live action if they were just talking to Pike on the comm.
I’m honestly curious if Scott Bakula would be interesting at all in returning after his announcement that he has no interest in appearing in the Quantum Leap sequel.
I still think Bakula will show up on the new QL. Most of his “I’m not involved” comments date from when he was pitching a new show for NBC. Since they passed on the new show, he’s available for QL 2.0.
interesting. well it would be cool if he returns but i don’t want the new team to “rescue” him. Sam is in full control of his leaps and doesn’t need or want to be rescued.
I think he will be as well. My theory is that in the series finale, whenever that is, Ben finds Sam, and they both leap home. Franchise Finis.
I’d like to see Phlox, Trip, or Hoshi. I could totally live without the others. Back when I was (trying to) watch Enterprise, my husband would joke that he could make a drinking game out of my saying, “Archer, you idiot; listen to T’Pol!” :-)
I would love to see Hoshi! Love Linda Park!
Even better…Empress Sato!
I think maybe we’ve had enough of the Mirror Universe for awhile. It has been extensively used lately.
I’m sure Jerome Bixby had no idea when he wrote “Mirror, Mirror” that they’d still be using his idea half a century later!
Totally agreed. Enough, The MU was supposed to be a one off thing. Then in DS9 it was a fun little once in a while distraction from the Dominion War. Now it’s become this overused and abused thing in Discovery.
Even DS9 overused it. I can see each show using it once. I think it was meant for character building, IMHO. Although a potential Trek comedy with competent writers could have some real fun with it. Hopefully when Secret Hideout gets cut off the new folks could try one.
Yes!
He did later. He learned to trust T’Pol a lot by the third season. I think originally their relationship was sort of like Mulder and Scully from X-Files. Mulder didn’t originally trust Scully because he thought she was there to hinder his program. And then even after he trusted her, she was still a skeptic to everything and why they kept butting heads even after he trusted her.
That’s basically Archer and T’Pol in a nutshell. Yeah she was definitely right on a lot of things, but she was also wrong on things too, especially how she kept repeating time travel didn’t exist. Obviously no one ever gave her or the Vulcan Science Directorate any Star Trek episodes to watch because there was lots of time travel lol. Archer ended up being right on a few things she was very dismissive about. They both basically came around to each other’s POV by season 3, but still had arguments about certain courses of action.
If the scripts hadn’t cheated in his favor, Archer would have gotten them all killed during Season 1, and there wouldn’t BE a Season 3. :-)
It’s a TV show, the scripts cheat in everyone’s favor lol. It’s why the Federation has never lost a singe war in 200 years, the Enterprise engines never once blew up no many how many times Scotty said they would and Kirk can still beat up foes half his age. ;)
YES please! I would love to see the NX-01 crew mixing it up with the Cerritos. They did such a great job crossing over DS9 and it gives me more faith (of the heart) they will do a great job with SNW as well now; especially now knowing McMahan wrote some of the script for that too. So would love it if they can figure out a way with Enterprise as well.
Unless there’s a Hall of Federation Presidents in future Disneyland somewhere, I don’t see how any of the NX-01 crew can appear unless they get the Zephram Cochrane treatment. Once was funny, multiple trips to that creative well is just panderiing.
There is always time travel! And it’s kind of funny I thought if any show would be doing more crazy time travel stories it would be Lower Decks! Every new show has done it so far in some form: SNW, PIC, PRO and definitely DIS lol. But not one yet for LDS and it’s in its third season now.
All California class ships have auto self destructs in the event of a time travel attempt, to prevent accidental time line contamination.
What? Where did you hear that? And why only California class ships and not the whole fleet?
Even if that was true, they can always use Carl/GOF, time crystals, Daniels, the Bajoran Orb of time, the Nexus and on and on and on. Again, it’s Star Trek, they can always find a way.
Maybe one of those will be used in the SNW/LDS crossover too if time travel is involved.
Unless they take the logs from the Defiant as canon from In a Mirror Darkly, Archer could possibly be alive during SNW and who knows maybe could show up during the crossover next season!
Archer would be at least 150 years old. Given the life span of Vulcans T’Pol could much more easily show up on SNW.
But I honestly would rather she not. God only knows how they would ruin her.
Dude, News flash!!! The entire lower decks series is based on pandering.
I would say that’s NuTrek in general lol. LDS is the most obvious about it though, but the others aren’t far behind at this point either save for Discovery actually.
The phrase NuTrek is not really used by actual Star Trek fans. It’s popular with trolls though…
Can we not gatekeep what defines a Star Trek fan please? We use Trek shorthand all the time and I haven’t seen another quick and easy way to describe Star Trek post-2009 besides NuTrek.
We’ll said!
Except that it is used by many fans.
Dude, that’s an unnecessary insult to Tiger2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5Y25FT7DxE
;D
LOL
I tend to use “new Trek” when talking about the Berman era and “nu-Trek” when talking about the Secret Hideout era. Just a way to separate the eras. Anything more is just looking for intentions that aren’t there. Which, sadly, is far more common these days that it ought to be.
Dude if the Berman era is still considered ‘new’ for you, you must be like 70 years old lol. Even Enterprise is now over 20 years old and that’s the baby in the bunch.
To me, everything that came after TOS has a minimum of 20 years from it. So everything that came after that I consider “new”. New & Nu is just my way of separating the Berman and Secret Hideout eras.
I get it, it’s just funny since most of those shows are basically 30 years old now. But only older fans would use that. No one under 40 would call it that, especially if those shows are older than them which many are now for a lot of fans today.
For me, TOS-ENT are now considered ‘classic shows’ and everything from Discovery on I call ‘modern shows’ or NuTrek when I’m lazy or when I like to troll apparently. ;)
Everyone who uses this site already knows you don’t like the show.
NuTrek! NuTrek! NuTrek! ;-)
Have you seen Lower Decks? That show is nothing but pandering! It fits right in with what that show is. The mechanism they use to collide the two shows doesn’t matter. Not one bit.
What, the NX-01 isn’t in a fleet museum somewhere, with the robo-Tesla Capt. Archer giving tours? Animated Archer would be a substantial improvement over live action Archer.
Not only did the NX01 not make it to a museum, but the real TOS predecessor ship – the XCV330 – is displayed in the Enterprises museum/large crew lounge in TMP.
Troi definitely mentioned that the NX-01 was in a museum un TATV.
Obviously it would be. It’s the first warp 5 ship and responsible for a lot of things including stopping the Xindi from destroying Earth, fighting the Romulan war and forming the Federation.
Yeah, because Berman overwrote the canon for the predecessor ship that Roddenberry had already established in canon.
To be fair IIRC that had more to do with Paramount’s insistence on what they wanted the post VOY show to be than Berman.
But it wasn’t overwritten at all. Trek Central made a video about it not too long ago. It fits perfectly in line with canon! I time marked the video if you want to have a look:
https://youtu.be/73Np5-H6Ors?t=493
This is not an issue at all. The video states it was a warp 4 ship launched in the 22nd century and before the NX-01 was. Every piece of canon since has made that clear, especially Into Darkness and as the video stated a painting of it on the NX-01. So it was canonized in Enterprise itself as coming before that ship.
Awesome, thanks for the link as per usual!
No worries! :)
Please see my other two posts in this thread…you don’t have the full background. I have done a lot of research on this issue.
That was all retconned AFTER Enterprise appeared on TV, so sure, NOW it looks like it all fits…lol
I mean, Drexler and Okuda were themselves designing the Enterprise starship to be based on the XCV-330 overall design:
Okuda and Drexler raised the possibility of using the XCV-330 for Archer’s ship. The producers felt this was too radical a departure, but Drexler continued to incorporate elements of the ring ship into the designs he was submitting for the new Enterprise. Again they were rejected and the producers finally settled on the familiar version of the Enterprise NX-01.
So this proves that it wasn’t intended as a ship from much earlier in Trek history, otherwise why would Drexler and Okuda be proposing it as the basis for Archer’s ship? Makes no sense?
The point is it was just a photo in TMP. And when Enterprise came around they NEVER implied that ship didn’t exist but simply came before it, hence the painting on the NX-01. So yeah, they didn’t overwrite canon. It’s still another Enterprise, right?
And I agree, it would’ve been too radical of a departure. It looks boring and awkward.
And it’s been 20 years now and it’s firmly in canon today of it being an earlier ship. Nothing contradicts that since it was just a photo.
It was my understanding that Paramount wanted another TNG era show but Berman and Braga said they weren’t feeling too good about yet another show in that era and they were the one’s who pitched a “before the UFP” kind of show. Paramount capitulated by forcing them to include some sort of future thing in it. Which is where the temporal cold war concept came from. From what I can tell Braga was not too thrilled about adding that.
As said before, that ship still exists in canon. It simply came before the NX-01 did, so I don’t understand the issue? Nothing was overwritten, at least in this case lol.
So not only did I refute this above in my other post, but I would also point out the absurdity of the display on Starfleet’s Enterprise flagship in TMP showing the predecessor starship along with the “these are the previous Enterprises” line by Decker — and instead of the NX-01, the historic starship that helped found the Federation and which was lead by the great Captain Archer…instead of that we get the XCV-330? I mean, come on, the NX01 is not even shown? That’s absurd, right? So of course the XCV-330 in the original starship that was meant for the Enterprise TV series.
So obviously, Rodenberry intended the XVC-330 to be the predecessor starship, and (as I mentioned in my other post) it even served as the starting point for Drexler and Okuda to design the Enterprise starship.
Ocaam’s Razor applies here. We don’t need some overly complex canon retcon here. It’s as straightforward as Berman just wanting to do his own thing with the starship design instead of properly following the starship canon that Drexler and Okuda were rightly trying to follow based on Rodenberry’s approved design for the ship which became canon in TMP. And then afterwards, every series reinforced and built upon his canon rewrite, including STID.
Berman overwrote canon because he preferred an incrementalist design that he was more comfortable with…which fits the overall theme as to why Enterprise ended up being a lackluster series in other ways as well. The man should have let the professionals (Drexler and Okuda) proceed with their correct design concept, based on the XCV-330, which was pre-defined in canon already.
Still nothing overwrites it in canon on Enterprise. It’s a photo. Unless someone SAYS that’s the next ship before the Constitution class, itt doesn’t matter. It could’ve been, now we know it isn’t. If Kirk said a line in the movie saying it was, you would have a point. But it’s fiction, so anything can be implied.
And people do their own thing or change things all the time. Did you not see the Klingons on Discovery lol. Or the fact nothing in the Discovery universe looked anything like the TOS universe??? I just don’t get it, that you’re OK with, but having a different ship from 100 years prior because its not the one in a photo I don’t think anyone remotely cares about is still bothering you 20 years later? OK, I get it, but yeah.
Sorry I’m 100% with Berman on this one. But hey if it was up to me, we wouldn’t have had any prequels at all so none of this would’ve been an issue in the first place. Nothing would’ve came before TOS, ever. That would’ve simply stayed the first show in the timeline. But that ship has warped and here we are.
I think we’ve agreed to disagree on this before, so I’m fine doing it again.
I’m sure we will be having this same discussion again in a year or two here. :-)
All I’m saying is it didn’t overwrite canon. British Khan in STID overwrites canon lol. This doesn’t at all. But of course I’m not saying it wasn’t what Roddenberry was originally implying, but no one knew there would be a prequel show 22 years later either.
But we’ll agree to disagree.
Well if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and flies like a duck, it’s most probably a duck.
Anyway, canon is not what it used to be given all the stuff we’ve seen since 2009, and now we even have comedy cartoons that are proclaimed as canon as well.
It’s kind of sad, because I have really enjoyed taking canon way too seriously over the years…lol
It wasn’t shown because the show Enterprise did not exist in 1979 when TMP sets were built.
And it’s appearance in that show did not undermine anything in that wall of pictures on the Rec deck of the TMP Enterprise.
Exactly. A photo on a wall doesn’t violate canon, especially one with no actual date on when it existed.
Just because the NX-01 came much later doesn’t mean that image in TMP never appeared. Enterprise was set 100 years before TOS you know.
I think what Troi said is she remembers seeing a station similar to TPol’s in a museum and then Riker said Kirk’s ship had them. I don’t think that means the NX-01 is in a museum specifically although it wouldn’t surprise me.
Think about the absurdity of if the NX-01 had a full museum, but yet the Federation didn’t even bother to show a picture of it in the TMP Enterprises history display of previous Enterprises? lol
Now that is what we call a canon cluster-f$ck
Again… How? The show Enterprise didn’t exist then. So it is reasonable it would not be included in the gallery. The production designers didn’t have a crystal ball to look into Trek future to see what was coming 20+ years down the pipe.
And even still I don’t see how it doesn’t work. There is nothing to suggest such a ship didn’t appear in the years between the NX-01 and NCC-1701.
Voyager is getting plenty of love thanks to Picard and Prodigy. I’m all about Lower Decks giving the same love to Enterprise it just gave to Deep Space Nine. Mike McMahan is the guy to who could figure out how to do it right.
Yeah thanks to the new shows, TOS, TNG and VOY are all getting renewed interest in the franchise showcasing multiple characters and we finally got a real appearance for DS9. So it will definitely be great to see Enterprise get it too. And I been saying this for awhile now, they will all get appearances again (as we’re seeing), it’s just a matter of when. Enterprise has actually been referenced in every new show so far; Picard was the last one and happened in season 2. So appearances will come next at some point. But yeah, it is harder for that crew than the others for obvious reasons.
Showing the OV-165 in Picard was brilliant. If you didn’t know what it was, it was a cool prop. But if you did, you almost tinkled in your shorts!
Agreed! Those are the types of easter eggs I love, you have to really be in the know to get it.
Time travel? Bring in Daniels.
I think there is a chance Daniels will show up on Discovery.
I doubt it. The Temporal cold war should have ended over 100 years ago and time travel is banned and Daniels should be long since gone.
Since we know the NX-01 is in the fleet museum, it could start with that. I’ve been waiting for a glimpse of it in Picard or Discovery.
We seen the refit model of it in Picard at least. Doug Drexler confirmed he himself put it on the show.
It’s really not that hard. It’s animated, all the cast members are still with us… Seems like it’s just a matter of negotiating price. Do they need a plot for this? Not really. It’s Lower Decks. What matters is the crossover. How they do it doesn’t matter. Just re-use some time travel thing from some other show. Boom. Done. Get’s characters together and fans get another fangasm.
Haven’t seen the current season yet. From what I have read it sounds like I haven’t missed anything fun. But I’ll undergo the punishment when I re-up the P+ for Prodigy soon.