Work on the fifth season of Star Trek: Lower Decks is currently underway. The showrunner and star are teasing some of what we can expect for the next season of the animated adult comedy.
Unexpected cameos and new format for LDS S5
Lower Decks is known for cameos and guest spots from legacy Star Trek actors, like the season four finale that featured Robert Duncan McNeill as Nick Locarno, Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher, and Shannon Fill as Sita Jaxa. Speaking to TrekCulture (via ScreenRant), showrunner Mike McMahan teased that this trend will continue into season 5:
“We’ve got some amazing cameos. I think we really outdid ourselves this season. Stuff nobody could expect. Stuff that was very difficult to lock everybody into and involved me writing personal letters and calling in favors. And this is me saying that after how hard it was to track down Shannon Fill, who I love…”
And during a panel at the Farpoint convention earlier this month (via Fandom Spotlight), star Tawny Newsome (Beckett Mariner) was asked if there was anyone in Star Trek she wanted to work with, and she started with:
“There is someone that I want to say, but they are coming up in season 5, and so I can’t tell you about it. But I’m very excited for season 5.”
Newsome then went on to say that in addition to this season 5 person, her “holy grail” would be to get to do a scene with Avery Brook’s Sisko, as Deep Space Nine is her favorite show. She is also hoping to get a chance to work with Terry Farrell, and said, “I think would be cool to see Mariner and Jadzia do some stuff together.”
Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher with Shannon Fill as Sito Jaxa and Tawny Newsome as Becket Mariner in Lower Decks’ “Old Friends, New Planets” (Paramount+)
When asked if there is anything even crazier than Mariner’s past Star Trek adventures she would like to see, Newsome again teased the upcoming season:
“There’s crazy stuff coming up in season 5.”
In his TrekCulture chat, McMahan offered a bit more, revealing there is some “really cool stuff on Orion,” picking up on the season 4 cliffhanger when Tendi was forced to leave the Cerritos for Orion. He also said:
“Season 5’s gonna be awesome. We’ve got some amazing stuff happening. We’ve got some really funny episodes that are inspired by other episodes in Trek. We’ve got some wholly new stuff that you guys aren’t gonna see coming. We’ve changed the format of the show again because we never do the same thing twice, so there isn’t a season-long big bad… We self-contained that… Oh! We go to a place that I’ve been wanting to go to in the show. It’s so fun.”
Noël Wells as D’Vana Tendi in in Lower Decks’ “Old Friends, New Planets” (Paramount+)
It’s still unclear when season 5 will arrive on Paramount+. In her Saturn interview with TrekMovie earlier this month, Newsome said that she’d already wrapped up her voice work for the season and thinks even with the delay caused by the 2023 strikes, the show should remain on schedule. Lower Decks was released in the late summer in each of its first four seasons.
Keep up with news for the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
Season 4 was pretty light on cameos until the finale. We’ll see what they do this time. Kinda hoping they work Enterprise in there somewhere.
Why are the official Trek people talking to a poorly written clickbait site like ScreenRant lately? That website is only one step above Ain’t It Cool News, and half it’s articles are AI-generated. Pretty much all of its Star Trek coverage is filled with mistakes, and there’s no editing or proofreading at all. So why have we seen Heather Antos and McMahon giving them any credibility?
Looking forward to it! This show has been a wonderful treat for this lifelong Trek fan :-)
Same!
Lower Decks has been a gift to a lot of long time fans l. I truly enjoy it.
Nostalgia and nothing but.
‘Nostalgia and nothing but’ implies an endless recycling of old material. Do you see the irony here?
I’m trying to speak in a way that Trek fans of 2024 will understand.
What is it, exactly, that you’re trying to get them to understand — and, more to the point, why is getting them to understand it so important to you?
It’d nice if Paramount got off the holding pattern and announced season six of LDS and season four of SNWs….
I suppose the sooner they get bought, the sooner things can get back into gear.
Agreed Phil. Part of me think this could be LDS last season but I’m hoping upon hope it gets renewed!
And then it ultimately gets to seven seasons….and then a movie!
There will never be a Lower Decks movie. It simply doesn’t have a broad enough appeal.
I’m thinking in terms of streaming, ala, Section 31.
McMahan said the same thing in an interview and he would love to do a streaming movie once the show ended. Now that’s something I could get excited about if it happened! 😀🖖
Wow nice! :)
The way things are going at Paramount I’m not sure we’ll see even another Star Trek movie period.
I know they just announced another movie though so that’s definitely happening. 😂😐🙄
Hope there will more crossovers with other Star Trek shows.
Please please please let it be a crossover with Enterprise!
Season 5 can’t get here soon enough!
Two words: Michelle Forbes
Shatner would be the king of cameos, but I don’t see him doing it.
Didn’t McMahan say that Enterprise was getting some love this season?
More cameos! More nostalgia! More references! More legacy!
What a surprise. The only thing anyone can ever talk about.
Trek really is quite pathetic atm. “To boldly go”? Not in the slightest.
The irony is that LDS has done more exploring than most of the new shows. How much has DIS or PIC done? SNW actually did more in season 1 but season 2 stalled quite a bit.
Oh wow! They’ve never done *that* before!
I am *shocked*. Inspired by other episodes of Trek??? Surely not.
I’m dissapointed that Lower Decks has became a series basing on cameos and not original stories. Such lazy approach.