The Big Picture

The final season of
Lower Decks
features an extended finale episode, promising an exciting conclusion and growth for the characters.
Season 3 of
Strange New Worlds
will feature a Vulcan episode and a Hollywood murder mystery.
Despite challenges, the crossover episode between the two shows was a success, with a unique blend of tones and fun experiences for the cast.

Last year, two of the best Star Trek shows came together to maximize their joint sci-fi slay with an epic crossover episode between the adult animated series Lower Decks and the episodic prequel series Strange New Worlds. However, because that episode dropped during the industry-wide writers and actors strikes, press for such a momentous fandom occasion was sadly limited. Now, by a stroke of luck and timing, Collider can bring you the first shared interview between these two casts. Last week at San Diego Comic-Con, Editor-in-Chief Steve Weintraub was chatting with the Lower Decks crew ahead of their final season, when their live-action pals from the Enterprise decided to crash the party for an epic joint interview.

During their 30-minute conversation, Weintraub spoke to both casts about filming the crossover episode, working with Jonathan Frakes, and how Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid were largely responsible for bridging the tone between the two shows. They also discussed the final season of Lower Decks, which will feature an extended finale episode, and what changes they had to make when they learned Season 5 would be the show’s last. Season 3 of Strange New Worlds was also a hot point of conversation as Weintraub asked how they plan to top a crossover and a musical in the coming episodes.

The cast also teased Frakes’ highly anticipated return to the director’s chair, which he has called the best episode he’s ever directed, as well as the teaser footage which sees five crew members turned into Vulcans. You can read the full conversation with Strange New Worlds’ Ethan Peck, Rebecca Romijn, showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers, and Lower Decks’ Tawny Newsome, Jerry O’Connell, Noel Wells, and creator Mike McMahan in the transcript below or watch it in the video player above!

Star Trek: Lower Decks Behind every great captain, is a crew keeping the ship from falling to pieces. These are the hilarious stories of the U.S.S. Cerritos.Release Date 2019-00-00 Creator Mike McMahan Seasons 4 Franchise Star Trek Streaming Service(s) Paramount+ Expand

COLLIDER: I am a huge fan of your series, and I’m really bummed that it’s ending, but I’m also grateful that you guys got to make five seasons. It’s like winning a lottery to make any show. Everyone watching this knows the show by now, but what can you tease about Season 5?

MIKE MCMAHAN: We’ve got some amazing Orion episodes. Noël, as Tendi, goes back to Orion for a little while, and you learn a lot more about Orion culture.

TAWNY NEWSOME: What do I do?

MCMAHAN: You do a lot of growing. You actually did a lot of growing last season.

NEWSOME: Growth and grappling.

MCMAHAN: Then Ransom is actually both equal parts dumbass and beloved commander, so as he’s always been, but maybe more than ever before. We knew this was gonna be our last season pretty early, so instead of going out feeling final, it feels more like a fireworks show when they blast everything off at the very end. So it’s like a huge celebration with everything I’ve been planning on doing put into one big party all season.

I’m so happy that you knew going in that this was going to be the end. How much did that allow for exponential character growth and lead everyone toward where they’re ultimately going to go in the future?

MCMAHAN: We did not jump them ahead of where they are in the story. Instead, it feels like the end of a chapter. It feels like we’re in chapter one of the story of Lower Decks. So it still feels like Lower Decks. It’s still funny, it’s exciting, it feels like it fits into canon, but it does feel like we’ve said something by the end of it. So, you could take the first five seasons and be like, “This is a full idea,” but it does not feel final, which I think is the best way for a comedy to be.

JERRY O’CONNELL: Wow, that was so well-put, Mike.

MCMAHAN: Thanks, guys.

O’CONNELL: He’s a smart guy, our boss. He worded that perfectly.

NEWSOME: It’s like when you make a cheesecake, and then you put it in the fridge to chill. It firms, but it’s not solid. You can still puncture it.

O’CONNELL: You can still puncture us!

NEWSOME: You can still puncture us.

O’CONNELL: It’s funny, being a performer on it, I felt very satisfied with this season. I felt Mike did a great job.

How much does it cost for him to say that?

MCMAHAN: Too much.

O’CONNELL: It doesn’t at all, really. To quote Tawny, “If I didn’t have a good time, I would just be quiet.”

NEWSOME: [Laughs] That’s true.

O’CONNELL: It’s really funny, I’m very proud as a performer, I’m very proud as an employee, but also, I’m really proud of my Lower Deckers. I’m really proud of them.

NEWSOME: I’m proud, too.

Without spoilers, have you recorded all of Season 5? You’re done?

NEWSOME: Yeah.

‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Season 5 Will End With an Extended Finale
Image via Paramount

What was it like reading that last script and seeing ultimately where it was all going to be going?

NEWSOME: I refused at first. I said, “If I don’t end it, it won’t end, and we can just live here forever.” Then they tackled me in my home and asked me to come down to the studio to do it, so eventually we did it. It was bittersweet but lovely.

MCMAHAN: You joke, but we did keep adding and adding and adding to the finale because nothing was ever satisfying enough and there weren’t enough goodbyes to tell in a funny way. Ultimately, what we ended up with is a gigantic episode that’s really fun.

Is it longer than a typical episode?

MCMAHAN: Oh yeah.

Oh, nice.

MCMAHAN: I think a lot of the season actually is. It’s a big season.

NEWSOME: It’s a double-stuffed Oreo of an episode, for sure.

O’CONNELL: It was really interesting working on the finale of a series and watching Mike’s process because you did a version, you honed it, you did a version, you honed it. It’s funny, by the time that I did my last recording, you really did a great job, Mike.

NOËL WELLS: I feel like when I first recorded the episode, we didn’t know that it was the final episode, but then when we had to make some changes…

NEWSOME: We’re reading it, going like, “Well, this sure sounds like the end.”

WELLS: We had to make changes to some things just to adjust to that.

MCMAHAN: Comedies that end, comedies that have a final episode, that’s usually not anybody’s favorite episode. On a serious level, on this, we may have broken that. This might be somebody’s favorite episode. A lot of people’s.

A lot of the episodes are like 25 to 30 minutes?

MCMAHAN: They want them at 22, but because we’re on Paramount+, we can rob from some episodes and add to the others and be a little more flexible.

Do you know the running time of the last episode? Is it like 35?

MCMAHAN: We’re still working on it. The last I saw—my editor and line producer would kill me—right now, we’re, like, eight minutes longer than an episode usually is, which is like an entire other act, basically.

NEWSOME: That’s gargantuan at a half hour.

MCMAHAN: It’s really big, and we’re not done with it. So, I don’t know. We’ll see.

I have so many follow-ups to that. Was it hard coming up with the last shot? The last thing?

MCMAHAN: No, that was the easiest part.

NEWSOME: No, at first you didn’t have…

MCMAHAN: The last shot. The very last shot.

NEWSOME: Oh, I’m talking about the last scene. At first, you didn’t have that. I remember, I was like, “I can’t believe we’re not doing blah, blah, blah. Doing et cetera, et cetera.” And then you did it.

MCMAHAN: We added a couple of things at the very end, and… Oh, man.

WELLS: Our fans are here!

MCMAHAN: The Strange New Worlds gang banging on the window.

NEWSOME: Akiva Goldsman is banging on the window like one of his monsters in I Am Legend.

‘Strange New Worlds’ and ‘Lower Decks’ Cast Finally Reunite to Talk About the Crossover Episode
Image via Paramount

I loved, loved the crossover episode. So let’s talk a little bit about that because I don’t know if you guys have ever done an interview together.

ETHAN PECK: No, we haven’t.

REBECCA ROMIJN: We barely got to talk about it because of the strikes. We wanted to talk about it from the mountaintops, and we couldn’t.

NEWSOME: We just talked to each other about it. We were like, “Pretty cool, right?”

HENRY ALONSO MYERS: Mike and I were on the phone a lot.

Fans loved the episode, I loved the episode. Let’s talk a little bit about the planning stages. Was it difficult to do? What was it like for the cast? Let’s get into it.

MYERS: We didn’t know what we signed up for. We wanted to do something that was a merge. A crossover episode is a classic Star Trek element and we really wanted to do that, and we love their show so much. We thought this would be one that no one would expect. We knew it was also a challenge because we had to animate a huge section of it, and then we knew we were gonna have to work with all of the folks that we could bring over into our world. Honestly, we wanted to get everyone in it. We had time for about two of them to do live-action, but we really wished we could have found a way to absolutely have everyone there.

AKIVA GOLDSMAN: Here’s the thing that nobody will tell you: it was really hard. Fundamentally, it seemed like, “Well, they’ll just come over.” But it turns out that they’re animated, and we’re real, and we have different tones in our show. The integration of their tone and our tone was a full-on job.

MCMAHAN: But you know what? Everything I heard from both casts was, “This is the most fun we’ve had.” It was a synergistic effect. It was hard, but it was getting to have the most fun doing both shows at once that we couldn’t have gotten separately, which I thought was really cool.

GOLDSMAN: Real costumes. They like that.

MCMAHAN: No, we have them recording costumes!

NEWSOME: And we got paid more, so that was fun.

WELLS: You got paid more?

GOLDSMAN: That was a secret. That part was quiet.

ROMIJN: It was really fun watching Jack and Tawny make these minute adjustments to fix tonally what was the divide between animation and real. It was really fun watching you guys.

NEWSOME: Thank you. All props also go to Jonathan Frakes for helping guide that so expertly.

ROMIJN: He massaged that a lot.

NEWSOME: I don’t mind being told to tone it down when it’s Jonathan Frakes. Most people, I’m like, “Mmm, disagree.”

MCMAHAN: Did he ever tell you to?

NEWSOME: No. [Laughs] He did say, “Go harder.” At one point, he said, “Please say the script.” He said, “The writers would really like for you to say the words on the page.”

MYERS: I gotta say there were a bunch of ones that we were like, “We’re gonna use this one,” because it was fun and funny. There were things that we didn’t expect. The way that Boimler walked? When Jack did that, we were like, “Well, we have to use that shot because he’s actually doing the walk,” which he’s never gotten to do in real life before, so I think it excited him.

NEWSOME: I’ve seen him do it. That’s just how he walks.

The thing about that crossover episode is it’s so nice when everyone loves something, and rather than tearing things down online, it’s all like, “Oh, that’s great.”

‘Strange New Worlds’ Season 3 Turns the Crew Vulcan
Image via Paramount+

With Strange New Worlds and the upcoming season, you did a musical episode, which was phenomenal, and you did this crossover episode. What can you tease about the upcoming season?

GOLDSMAN: We’re doing Vulcans.

MYERS: In addition to seeing a lot of people become Vulcans who you wouldn’t expect, we get to see other people on the ship behave in ways—some of them who might actually be present today—that you’ve never seen them do before.

GOLDSMAN: That’s mostly Jerry.

I saw the five-minute clip of the cast getting turned into Vulcans and not being able to get back, and it was fantastic. What’s interesting for the cast is that you are having to act like a Vulcan and you’re not used to doing something like that. What was it like for you having your fellow castmates acting as Vulcans? Are they talking to you about, “How should I do this?”

ETHAN PECK: Well, I didn’t appreciate being the half-Vulcan and being ostracized and criticized for that. But they did seek my advice a little bit, the actors. I spoke probably most thoroughly to Celia [Rose Gooding], who plays Uhura. It was really fun to see everyone turn into Vulcans. It was kind of shocking, too. And funnily enough, it made me feel like I belonged more to see more pointed ears. But then, of course, they were very offensive.

MYERS: Weirdly, the hardest part wasn’t the performance—performance came very easily to them—it was the hair. The hair was the hardest part, but also to give each of them their own specific feel and look. Yes, they are Vulcans, but that doesn’t mean they all act the same.

NEWSOME: Vulcans are not a monolith.

ROMIJN: They all have their own brand of Vulcan. That was pretty surprising and fun to play off of.

Where is that in the season?

MYERS: It’s Episode 8.

Is it really? Oh, wow. When you’re in the writers’ room, you’re coming up with pie-in-the-sky ideas, and then it’s about, “How do we get this on the page? How do we get this to be filmed?” Are there certain things in animation that are more expensive than others? And how much does that dictate how much you can do in an episode? With Strange New Worlds, you obviously have a budget for the season. Can you talk about where and when you want to deploy the big resources in an episode, and how much does that impact two other episodes when you go big in Episode 6?

MCMAHAN: Mine is easy because red costs a lot more. If you use red on screen, it costs twice as much. The ink is just really expensive. For us, it’s just, “How many voices do we have in the episode? How many minutes do we have?” Every minute is just compounding for us, and every voice, we only have a certain amount of people we can have on the show. So, we use every penny.

WELLS: But the great thing about animation is that you can invent anything and go anywhere, and there is no cap on what your imagination can be.

MCMAHAN: We can put in a lot more aliens, we’re not paying for prosthetics, and we can do a lot more ships. We’re not building new sets. We’re drawing all that stuff.

MYERS: We did spend a bit of time beforehand talking about what were the existing sets from Lower Decks that we could use. I remember having a long conversation with you about, “What angles on the ship already exist? Which ones can we use? If they go in this direction, can we see this? Can we see that?” And then there was a whole thing where the set that we built on the AR wall, which existed both digitally, practically, and also in an animated style, was probably the most interesting one because these are divisions that probably never have to work together and we had to get them all in line. So, that was challenging.

We spent a lot of time beforehand trying to decide where the money’s gonna go big and where the money is gonna go small. It’s more like we’re gonna spend a lot on this episode for TBD reason like we have a creature effect that’s really expensive, we have a visual effect that is gonna cost a lot of money because we’re gonna be out in space for a while. That’s one thing. If we are gonna take that away, we have to give something else, like maybe turn a lot of people into Vulcans, for instance.

O’CONNELL: This is crazy too. Ethan’s body makeup is…

GOLDSMAN: And the CG that we have to do afterwards.

O’CONNELL: I’ve seen the cost, and it’s astronomical.

MYERS: That was all set up for the original deal that he made on the show, and we’re not actually allowed to change it.

GOLDSMAN: We’re doing it in real-time right now, which is really pricey.

NEWSOME: You look great.

MYERS: You wouldn’t believe the effects that this has.

When you think about the episodes you’ve done thus far in Strange New Worlds, what scene or sequence do you consider the toughest one to have pulled off?

ROMIJN: Personally, I think the most work I put in was a scene that you and I had in the third season. It’s a sequence of scenes that we got to do together.

PECK: Oh, I remember.

O’CONNELL: You guys are being so shady.

ROMIJN: In Episode 8.

PECK: Mine might have been the sequence in which Spock has an anxiety dream and fights himself. I had to play both sides of the fight, obviously. That was pretty complicated.

Obviously, you can read something on the page, and you could be like, “Oh, this is really good.” Sometimes it turns out better than you expected, and sometimes not so much. For all of you guys, what is an episode that you are just so happy with the way it turned out in terms of it being better than you imagined and it’s one of your favorite episodes of Star Trek?

O’CONNELL: The crossover episode that we all did. I don’t recall in recent memory anyone else doing that, and the tone was perfect. They really pulled it off. I gotta say, I was extremely doubtful when it was announced.

ROMIJN: When they pitched it, I couldn’t understand how they could possibly make it work, and it totally worked. I’m gonna go with the crossover episode, as well.

NEWSOME: I wanna shoot some love your way, Rebecca. The trial episode.

ROMIJN: “Ad Astra per Aspera.”

NEWSOME: When that episode came on, I don’t think I read it ahead of time or anything. I think I just heard, “Oh, they’re doing a trial episode,” and as a lifelong Trek fan, we’ve seen a lot of trial episodes, and so I was like, “Sure. This will be good and fine and whatever.” I was really blown away because of the portrayal that you brought to it. Also, it’s really hard to do trial episodes in Star Trek that still feel like there’s something new to say or to discuss in that way, and I thought you guys really nailed it.

ROMIJN: Thank you. It was a beautifully written episode.

MCMAHAN: I think to some extent, every single episode goes through this process of, “I like this– Oh no, it’s a disaster. Wait, an army of talented, amazing, passionate artists are making it better and better and better.” For me, once you get music into an episode, it’s such a relief because that’s where the heart comes from. You’ve edited it, and you’ve lived with all these lines. So, I can’t think of a single episode where you don’t go through waves of joy and panic and then ultimately are just so relieved that it’s good and that you’re telling a story and making people laugh, and being in space together. I don’t know. It’s great. Star Trek’s great.

I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is Strange New Worlds, you’re going to stay with me, but Lower Decks, you need to leave and do another interview.

Your show is one of my favorite things to watch. I love it so much. I’m so excited for Season 3. The thing a lot of people don’t realize is that you were originally going to film Season 3, and then the strike happened. How did the scripts for Season 3 possibly change because of the extra time, or were they just locked?

GOLDSMAN: It’s not quite as simple as it sounds because we were down, so we didn’t actually have a lot of time. We had the time we had, then we stopped. Everything ground to a halt, and then we picked up again six weeks out of production. Really, what was problematic, or at least was unique, is the machine is typically really running six weeks out. When you’re just six weeks out, everybody’s getting it, and now we were starting all over again in terms of momentum six weeks out. So, it was energetically complicated, creatively annoying, but fundamentally, we made the episodes we planned to make.

One of the things about Season 2 is you really did it—the musical episode, the crossover. You were very ambitious. How ambitious is Season 3 compared to Seasons 1 and 2?

ROMIJN: Surprisingly ambitious. We didn’t know how they were gonna push the envelope, and they did! We’re really proud of some things in Season 3.

GOLDSMAN: It is amazing what you can do if you get polaroids of your cast and then offer not to put them on the internet. They will do things that are extraordinary.

PECK: Things you won’t believe.

What can you tease without spoiling about Season 3?

PECK: The Robocop episode.

GOLDSMAN: The Star Wars crossover.

ROMIJN: The all the all-nude episode.

GOLDSMAN: I love that one.

PECK: The Godzilla episode’s gonna be great.

Image via Paramount+

So Season 3, Episode 1, is there a big time jump from the last episode?

MYERS: No time jump at all. So, just almost an instantaneous pickup.

ROMIJN: Mid-battle.

Jonathan Frakes has said that he directed something in Season 3 that he considers his favorite thing that he’s directed. I don’t know if he’s directed more than one episode.

MYERS: He directed one this season and one last season.

Can you say what episode number he directed?

MYERS: Episode 4.

When he said that out loud and announced that it was his favorite thing he’s ever directed, were you like, “Yeah, he’s probably right.” Because there must be something to this episode.

MYERS: That is a spectacular episode. I’m delighted with it.

ROMIJN: It was a really special experience. When he wrapped that episode, he and I were on the same flight going home that weekend, so we were at the airport, which was delayed by three hours, so I got to listen to him talk about, for three hours, how it was his favorite hour of television that he’s ever directed.

What can you tease?

MYERS: It’s a very unique version of Kirk, one that we have not seen on the show before. All of our actors get to do things that we’ve never seen them do before.

GOLDSMAN: It’s a Hollywood murder mystery. I think he’s said that, and if he hasn’t, let us say it officially now. We are, as always, striving to create a different genre within ours, so there’s a reason for it. It’s not somebody having a dream, although we did once in the room have a thing about a dream and many Unas.

MYERS: That was the Godzilla episode.

GOLDSMAN: So, because of that, our actors get to do things that they haven’t gotten to do previously. As you’ve been asking, and as Rebecca was saying, we do keep trying to push, because we were so delighted ourselves with the musical episode that we kind of were like, “Oh, fuck, what are we gonna do now?”

MYERS: It is like a genuine Star Trek episode. No one who knows and is familiar with Star Trek will say, “Oh, that doesn’t feel like a normal episode.” They will be like, “Oh, I get it.” But it will surprise them.

How quickly during shooting are you able to let go and then turn it back on in the morning and how much is a piece staying with you the entire time?

ROMIJN: I’m able to let it go really quickly because I have kids who are there with me sometimes, and I gotta get home and make sure they’re okay and make sure they’re fed. You gotta be able to turn it off and on. But I think it’s different for Ethan.

PECK: Well, I spend probably more hours as this character than I do as Ethan during the season, so I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t altered a little bit. I do take a little bit of it home with me, which isn’t so bad because he’s a great guy, a person of integrity, a half-man of integrity. He’s very aspirational and wants to be something pure, and I think that’s beautiful. So, I’ll take that home.

How much do you want to leave set wearing the uniforms and just go to Starbucks?

PECK: I would love to. All the time.

ROMIJN: I remember one time Melissa Navia’s family, her sister and brother-in-law and their kids came to visit us, and it was also during COVID, so we weren’t really allowed to see anybody, but we all stepped outside on the street to go take a picture with them. We were just walking down the street in Mississauga in our uniforms. We were like, “This is weird.” It was awesome, though.

PECK: I would love to just go on a Starfleet field trip.

I personally think some viral stuff when you’re filming Season 4 is just for all of you guys to go to the local supermarket in costume and just act like you’re on an away mission, and just don’t acknowledge anybody, and let them film it.

MYERS: The problem is they wouldn’t have money.

With currency, but in full costume.

GOLDSMAN: Do we own the idea? I’m just checking.

You can have it for free.

MYERS: That’s very kind of you. Thank you.

When do you start filming Season 4?

MYERS: We start next year.

‘Strange New Worlds’ Season 4 Is Already In Development
Image via Paramount+

Already knowing that Season 4 is coming up, are you writing on Season 4 already?

MYERS: We’re in the room. We have the cards with the episodes, we know what they are, we know what the 10 episodes are going to be about. The network doesn’t yet, but they will soon.

MYERS: We’re excited for them to find out.

What is it like when you’re in that blue sky in the writers’ room when anything is possible? Do you think about, “We want Episode 8 to go fucking big, so how do we save on these other three?”

MYERS: Yes. That is the conversation we have, but we don’t look at it that way. We don’t want every giant-budget episode to be back-to-back. We want to separate them because it takes some recovery time. Also, there are other things we can do in the meantime that also require a different kind of work. If there’s one that is a romantic episode, we’ll have that in one place and then we’ll have a comedy and then we’ll have a horror movie or a big space battle. We’ll try to separate these with some space so that we’re not doing everything hard altogether.

GOLDSMAN: Within reason, we start with all the kids being equal. So, we don’t actually build with the idea of size as an organizing principle. Because remember, our show is a little different in that we rotate characters. We’re an ensemble piece, but our lensing changes. Most typically, you hear it in the captain’s log or the first officer’s log, so you know who’s walking you through the show, right? So fundamentally, in that way, just as we try to keep all the actors getting a shot, all the episodes get the same shot, and then as we lay them out creatively, some sort of go, “Oh, I could be big or small. Oh, I could only be big. Oh, I really need to be small.” Then we sort of move it around like that. But our show is pretty, again, within reason, evenly distributed where there’s not a terrible swing between our most expensive episode and our least. They’re all right in the same strike zone.

At the beginning of Season 3, when you’re in the writers’ room and you’re figuring out the arcs, are you coming up with where Spock is in Episode 1 and where Spock is in Episode 10?

MYERS: Yes.

What can you tease about your character’s journey in Season 3, from where it starts to where it goes?

ROMIJN: You get to see a lighter side of Una now that she no longer is hiding behind her shame of the Illyrian side of her character. You get to see a lighter side of Una.

PECK: At the beginning of Season 3, Spock is alive, and then he’s still alive at the end.

MYERS: Spoiler alert.

How much are you thinking in terms of, “We have a five-year plan, we have a seven-year plan,” or how much is it, because of the freedom of this show being able to do so many different things, just episode by episode and season by season?

MYERS: Episode by episode and season by season. We really try to treat everything like, “If this was our last episode, what would it be like?” We want to do the best version of everything. If this was all we got to do, what are the cool things that we will be really upset that we never got to do? We look at every season like that.

GOLDSMAN: And left to our own devices—which really means if Paramount will—we’ll keep going into the TOS era, and we know how. That’s the hope. But as Henry said, nothing is assured, so we come from a conservative place with great aspirations.

Both Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks are available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Star Trek: Strange New Worlds follows Captain Christopher Pike (played by Anson Mount) and the crew of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) in the 23rd century as they explore new worlds throughout the galaxy in the decade before Star Trek: The Original Series.Release Date May 5, 2022 Main Genre Sci-Fi Seasons 3 Franchise Star Trek Streaming Service(s) Paramount+ Expand

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