The second season finale of Star Trek: Lower Decks arrives this week. We have a first look at some new images which reveal a returning legacy character. There’s also a trailer to check out plus some new bits of Lower Decks merchandise.
“First First Contact”
Get ready to celebrate Captain Freeman Day and the season finale when it begins streaming on Paramount+ on Thursday, October 14.
Synopsis:
In the season two finale, the U.S.S. Cerritos is tasked to aid a
n Excelsior-classstarship on a first contact mission.
Gomez returns
The preview images reveal the return of the character of Sonya Gomez, who appeared in two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation (“Q Who” and “Samaritan Snare”). Actress Lycia Naff returns to play Gomez, now a captain, in the Lower Decks season two finale.
Phil Lamarr as Admiral Freeman, Dawnn Lewis as Captain Carol Freeman, and Lycia Naff as Captain Gomez
On Star Trek: The Next Generation, Gomez was an ensign in engineering. While only appearing in two episodes, Gomez is memorable for her earnest enthusiasm and for spilling hot chocolate on Captain Picard (in “Q Who”).
Excelsior!
As noted in the synopsis, the USS Cerritos will be working with an Excelsior-class ship, which was first introduced in Star Trek III. In Star Trek VI the USS Excelsior was seen again under the command of Captain Sulu, and Star Trek: Generations saw the launch of the Excelsior-class USS Enterprise-B. There have been many more versions of the ship seen in the 24th century on TNG, DS9, and Voyager, but this will be the first for Lower Decks. It can also be seen in the trailer below.
The USS Archimedes
UPDATE: Actually Obena!
After Paramount+ sent out the synopsis which mentioned the Excelsior-class ship, Mike McMahan offered a clarification on Twitter identifying it as Obena Class (named for Art Director Nollan Obena), which is inspired by, but larger than the Excelsior-class. The ship itself is named the USS Archimedes.
We have a cool new ship in this week's Lower Deck's finale: the USS Archimedes, an Obena class ship. Inspired by the Excelsior class (which is still in service) but larger with some other changes. #starfleetstuff pic.twitter.com/h0c6DTJW21
— Mike McMahan (@MikeMcMahanTM) October 12, 2021
More photos:
Tawny Newsome as Ensign Beckett Mariner and Lauren Lapkus as Jennifer the Andorian
Paul Scheer as Lt. Commander Andy Billups, Dawnn Lewis as Captain Carol Freeman, Jerry O’Connell as Commander, and Fred Tatasciore as Lieutenant Shaxs
Eugene Cordero as Ensign Rutherford and Noel Wells as Ensign Tendi
Dawnn Lewis as Captain Carol Freeman and Tawny Newsome as Ensign Beckett Mariner
Eugene Cordero as Ensign Rutherford
Episode 210 trailer
The trailer was released on social media (also available on startrek.com).
Get ready for an EPIC Captain Freeman Day! Watch this sneak peek of the #StarTrekLowerDecks Season 2 finale. pic.twitter.com/yKW6KoNmjj
— Star Trek on Paramount+ (@StarTrekOnPPlus) October 10, 2021
Tawny says finale gives her chills
Tawny Newsome was a guest on The Talk, co-hosted by her co-star Jerry O’Connell.
RITOS shirts now available
Last week’s episode had Captain Freeman wearing a “RITOS” teeshirt, styled like the “DISCO” shirts on Star Trek: Discovery. It should come as no surprise that like those DISCO shirts, the official Star Trek Shop is now selling RITOS tees.
Soundtrack released
On Friday, October 8 Lakeshore Records released Star Trek: Lower Decks Volume 1—Original Series Soundtrack on digital. The 53-track album features music from the first and second seasons by composer Chris Westlake. You can get Star Trek: Lower Decks, Vol. 1 at Amazon for $9.49 or from other music providers.
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.
Huh, the Sovereign style nacelles look surprisingly good on the Excelsior hull. And I see that Starfleet’s engineers have kept up the tradition of strapping increasingly large impulse engines to the ship with each revision. Glad to see Lower Decks putting a new spin on an old design rather than just perfectly creating its on screen appearance.
Of course, there are probably already idiots on Twitter saying it’s “25% different” from previous Excelsior-class ships…
which is odd considering they’ve shown other designs that aren’t changed at all.
Of course! Because the narrative behind the “25% different” obsession was always 100% BS!
The only Trek merch I own, a Disco shirt. I guess I’ll have to pick up this one, too.
Captain Freeman Day : “Isn’t that a craft day for toddlers?”
Snort
Clearly the writers have experienced having their households redecorated in kindergarten and primary grade expressions.
The Ritos shirt is hilarious and so Lower Decks. Both a loving nod and a slight burn of Disco shirts. Not to forget also celebrating the underdog!
Finally… the LDS score. I love it. But I can’t help analyzing that stuff to death :-) Westlake’s score sounds a lot like The Orville and Galaxy Quest but that stuff being 80s space opera parodies themselves, this is quite logical. But what exactly does it mainly emulate that sounds so familiar, so nostalgic?
Well, it ISN’T mainly early TNG in most parts. I know those score like the back of my hand :-) There are some cues that resemble that era or even TWOK and Aliens Horner but that’s not the main influence either… Star Wars…nah…
But there it is: it’s an 80s Alan Silvestri: Back to the Future, Predator! The action sequences sound very much like him :-)
Garth Lorca, I suggest that you listen to the opening credits and end credits of The Animated Series.
The Lower Decks theme references a specific note sequence from that which you may recognize.
Of course I have recognized those as well. The main theme has got some TAS influence. I also can spot traces of TNG’s unused alternate theme.
But yeah, I was talking about the overall feel of the released score, especially the action sequences. And those really have that 80s Silvestri vibe…
I get what you’re saying. As you say, it’s got an overall intentional nostalgic feel while definitely being it’s own thing.
One thing that makes it work is that the music intentionally riffs off the motifs for the various species.
From the outset, first time I heard the Lower Decks main theme I recognized an homage to the Filmation TAS theme. The horns’ 4-5 note fanfare if not EXACTLY the same, is mighty damn close.
Weird, According to Co-Producer Brad Winters on twitter, it isn’t an excelsior class, it’s a brand new class (even though it clearly looks like an excelsior made to look all Sovereigny)
But the synopsis says excelsior. Very odd. Maybe he confused it with another ship.
We can only work with what we’re given. After the episode is out if there’s more information we will update things with the clarification.
We have now added the clarification from Mike.
Fitting that Gomez is there: she was in the first Pakled episode.
Gomez is wonderful fan favourite.
In the Litverse, she was given command of a Starfleet Core of Engineers ship, but this will be great too.
There’s an idea for a show…..
I think that many of us would like the episodic or small arc anthology stories that the Litverse explored with the SCOE and Bureau of Temporal Investigations books.
A six or eight episode season of either or both of them would be welcome.
It would mean that Secret Hideout would need to do some reading in the Litverse, but since ViacomCBS owns all the IP, there aren’t any legal barriers.
Ah, guess have to wait till tomorrow to see if the Excelsior-class starship crew wears ‘Dor’ t-shirts
when around the ‘Ritos’ crew to set up a cheezy, natcho typical story.
aka something dinky related causing a run for the dyson sphere border.
Does anyone know which track in the soundtrack is playing when the Titan shows up?
Sonya Gomez!!!!! I was always sad that she was never brought back in anyway. Such a fun character. <3
Instead, we get ….Reginald Barclay. Where’s Robin Lefler when you need her?
Please, no more Robin Lefler. Wesley somehow managed to find the only person in the galaxy who’s even more annoying than he is.
Man, they’re just gonna keep upgrading the Excelsior-class forever, aren’t they? I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a few still flying around in Disco S4.
A good number of Terran ships in the Federation seem to be variations of the Constitution class, as well.
Naff is doing some AMAZING work in L.A. with the homeless…. Worth your donation… https://www.drivebydogooders.org/lycianaff
I kid you not, but a week ago for some reason I ended up on Youtube watching a recent interview with Lycia Naff talking about her time as an actress and of course what it was like to work on TNG. She had some REALLY interesting anecdotes about here time there. Some positive, but also a lot negative. Not with anyone in the cast, that all sounded positive, but just the crazy conditions they are put under by the producers of the show. The one I remember the most is how they forced her to wear a D cup to make her boobs look bigger under her uniform but it still showed up as an A cup in in the episodes. The stuff actors are put through lol. Nice surprise Gomez is back and as Captain. As others said I wish she stayed on TNG.
Anyway excited about the episode and assume we are going to have a great finale like we did last year! Love the new ship (that’s NOT the Excelsior ;)). But in terms of how much I liked the episodes this season, it’s been a 9 out of 9 for me. Hopefully it will be 10 out of 10 soon. Just a great show!
Nana Visitor’s book highlighting women and Star Trek will no doubt be full of great and wonderful stories, but sadly I am sure it will also contain terrible accounts about how women were treated, especially back in the 1960s. Your post makes it obvious that things may have been better in the 80s and 90s, but very far from perfect. Hopefully we are getting close to a time when women in the entertainment field are treated fairly and equally with men. When I was a kid the term “casting couch” was just an accepted term describing the way women were treated in hollywood. And as we learned from Anthony Rapp, that type of harrassment didn’t just victimize women. It may not be perfect, but hopefully things are much better today.
As for the LDs, after last week’s stellar penultimate S2 episode, I am really looking forward to this week’s finale. Bring it on!!
Yep all sadly true!
TOS sound like there were some real horror stories for women actresses, including one of them being raped by a producer. It’s not unbelievable but still shocking things like that happened and was probably pretty common. The later shows do sound a lot better but still not great for women overall. One of the reasons Terry Ferrell left DS9 was due to things Rick Berman would say to her. Not hit on her but said things very degrading to her. Again, at the time, that’s just probably how a lot of Hollywood producers talked to actors but it still should be completely unacceptable.
I would like to think today and with the #Metoo movement there is a bigger shift in how women are treated in Hollywood but my guess is it still happens, just less egregious than before. And you’re right, even men like Rapp had to face these problems. At least the biggest difference today is they can speak up when it does happen and there are big consequences now.
I can’t wait for Visitor’s book to come out and I hope she can turn it into a documentary as well! I will definitely read and watch both.
I hate that I read these spoilers but I’m a ship guy and the Obena class looks Amazing! Kudos to LD for expanding the fleet.
Sonya “Hot Chocolate, Please!” Gomez? Another winning deep cut for Lower Decks. Still waiting for “Discovery” to also have an Excelsior-class ship in their 32nd Century Starfleet HQ bubble. Takes a licking, but keeps on ticking, that ship.