The best bits of Star Trek: Lower Decks’ first season weren’t necessarily its love-letter references to decades of Trek history. The arc its ragtag ensigns went on celebrated what a weird, wonderful, hopeful world Star Trek has, through the eyes of people in that world who love it. But as this snippet of the sophomore season shows, the references can also just be as good, frankly.
We’ve already had a sneak peek at what to expect for the crews of the U.S.S. Cerritos—and, in Boimler’s case, the crew of Captain Will Riker’s U.S.S. Titan—in the second season of Lower Decks already. But this new short clip celebrating a month to go before the season begins is just a concentrated delight of nerdy, nerdy Trek references... even before we wonder what’s brought Boimler and Mariner back together after their falling out, when the former accepted his promotion and reassignment to the Titan without telling her.
It’s short, but definitely very sweet—and there’s so much going on. There’s the classic Starbase design (which, as TrekCore notes, originated in the Star Trek: Vanguard novels), and even the vehicle Mariner and Boimler have absconded in—presumably, as security is going after them—has big Argo vibes, the buggy from the infamous sequence in Star Trek: Nemesis. The white-and-gold dress uniform variant of the Lower Decks era uniform is also a riff on the same ones worn by Picard’s crew in Insurrection and Nemesis. And then there’s the fish people! Who, as they angrily intone, aren’t actually fish people—they’re the Antedians, who appeared in the Next Generation episode “Manhunt” as would-be Federation members. Looks like they got over the, spoiler alert, failed terrorist plot in that episode and joined up by the time of Lower Decks at least!
That’s a lot of referencing for just 15 seconds (and we didn’t even wonder why Boimler and Mariner had little statuettes of Data in their vehicle). No doubt there’ll be even more, when Star Trek: Lower Decks returns for its second away mission on Paramount+ on August 12.
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