Although there’s still much left to explore, the Star Trek Lower Decks characters are completing their episodic journey through the final frontier. Season 5, the closing season of the animated series, will premiere on Paramount+ on Oct. 24 — and we learned more about it during an exclusive interview at New York Comic Con (NYCC)!
Ahead of the first episode drop, The Pop Insider spoke with Creator and Executive Producer Mike McMahan to learn about deep cuts, wrapping up the series, and merch. We also found out why Boimler collects plates!
As an animated story, Star Trek Lower Decks has the ability to include references to different characters, props, storylines, and more from the bountiful lore of Star Trek. Thanks to a staff composed of dedicated fans, choosing what to hint at or highlight from the universe throughout the past few years has been an exciting experiment.
“Deep cuts come in different ways. ‘Oh, I want that character, they’re a deep cut. Let’s talk about them ad nauseam. How do they tick? What about the actor’s performance makes them excited and want to work with them? What about their story? Where would they be in our era?’ There’s tons of discussion,” McMahan says.
He mentions that he’ll remember things from Star Trek history that would positively impact the episode, then he’ll search through old episodes (or go to Memory Alpha) and find it. Including these references can be a personal act for the writers and for the fans as well.
This show is a love letter to Star Trek, but it’s also a love letter to making Trek.
Mike McMahan, Creator & Executive Producer
“People say, ‘This show is a love letter to Star Trek,’ but it’s also a love letter to making Trek. So I’ll be like, ‘Oh, we need a new device to do this.’ Go and look up a device that got used a couple times for different things, and then draw that, and then we’ll have used it like a fifth time. And that’s like a little meta joke for me,” he says. “I could be deep-cutting forever. There are 800 episodes of Star Trek. There are 50 episodes of Lower Decks, you know what I mean? And all the deep cuts are personal to somebody on the production.”
Fans can see one example of a personal connection when the Pakled species appear in Lower Decks. According to McMahan, “The Pakleds, to me, I saw that episode on TV growing up, and then I didn’t see it again for 15 years when the DVDs came out. And when I saw it on the DVDs, I gasped because I thought I had imagined that episode. And I was like, ‘They did this.’ And so Pakleds became almost my personal little thing. I liked that they existed because it was finding an old friend again.”
While it’s exciting to see different parts of the Star Trek universe exist in Lower Decks episodes, fans also enjoy representing their favorite franchise when they aren’t watching television. The best way to do that? Merchandise.
Last year, we discussed potential merchandise with McMahan. This year at NYCC, we rekindled the question to see if creating and marketing the final season will result in different merch (or different merch desires that we all hope will come true). While he would still love to see the beach ball planets with attached ships and work with fanfiction writers to create official books, McMahan did reveal that there are some actual products in the works.
“There is some cool Lower Decks stuff coming down the line … I’m greedy, I would love tons of it. Merch in Star Trek is a thing I grew up with,” he mentions. “That’s why Boiler collects plates. In the early ‘90s, moms I knew would have Star Trek plates and I’d be like, that’s hilarious.”
Collectible toy ships — not attached to beach balls — are also on McMahan’s mind. “As for new merch stuff, I love the ships. I’d love a big toy Cerritos that you could pull the hull off of that would have deep cuts,” he says. “If Lower Decks is about deep cuts, I would love the merch to have deep cuts to the show. I would love an Agimus, you know what I mean? That has voice lines in it.”
Season 5 concludes the series, and while McMahan would love to see it continue, fans can watch it end with confidence. “We did a good job on it … the way we leave it, you’re gonna tear up … it leaves you in a place where everybody’s grown, and now they have new stuff to do, and you get to see a hint of it,” he says. “You’re gonna want to see it, I want to see it, but you’re not going to feel like we didn’t finish a story.”
Fans can anticipate thoughtful endings, heartwarming conversations, and, of course, the comedy they’ve loved for several seasons. However, it will start to feel like your time with these characters (in this specific episodic format, at least) is coming to an end.
“You’ll see as the season goes, it becomes more aware that it’s a final season,” McMahan says. “Because I didn’t want it to be a final season, but as I just got more proud of having done 50 amazing episodes, I was just like, ‘No, I can’t — through being a baby about this — not give you guys something that feels worth watching.’ The closest I could come to that is an amazing end to a chapter of an overall story that we could keep telling stuff with.”
No matter what deep cut is included or how Season 5 comes to an end, McMahan and the team behind Star Trek Lower Decks are certain to deliver the same message: “I always make sure that there’s a grounded, relatable, lower deck story because I do believe everybody’s lower deck, whether you’re like the heads of companies or whatever, that deep down when you go home, you’re lower decks. Anybody who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves,” he explains.
Those with a lower deck ranking can find Star Trek Lower Decks clips and poster on startrek.com. The final season streams soon, so prepare to voyage into space once again!
