It’s a wrap. Or should that be a warp?
The final episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks has aired and with it, the USS Cerritos’s five-year mission to explore strange corners of canon, to seek out new gags and comedic situations, to boldly go where no “Star Trek” has gone before has come to an end.
So, in honor of the voyages of Starfleet’s second contact specialists, we’ve picked out 25 of the best ‘Trek’ callbacks from the show’s five-season run — everything from whales in Starfleet to the infamous Riker maneuver.
The opening credits
From the riff on Alexander Courage’s famous “Trek” fanfare to the “Next Generation”-faithful fonts and the “Voyager”-style fly-by, the “Lower Decks” opening titles are one long callback. The best bit is the Cerritos’s brave retreat from a battlefield that, by the final season, features a rogues’ gallery of Borg, Romulans, Klingons, the Crystalline Entity, the whale-seeking probe from “Star Trek IV” and Apollo’s giant green space hand from Original Series episode “Who Mourns for Adonais?”.
Cetacean Ops
A passing reference to the Cetacean Ops department in the classic “The Next Generation” episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise” becomes a pair of uniformed beluga whale navigation officers — Kimolu and Matt — in “Lower Decks”. The USS Voyager-A also has its own resident humpback whale, Gracie, in “Star Trek: Prodigy“.
Officers on deck
When the Cerritos crew are turned into rabid zombies in the opening episode “Second Contact” (season 1), Ensigns Rutherford and Barnes continue their date on the ship’s hull. Their starlight wander echoes Picard and Worf’s spacewalk in “First Contact”, albeit with fewer Borg and a lot more appreciation of the “classical” music of The Monkees.
Rock man
A creature hewn from rock was originally supposed to attack James T Kirk in the final act of “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier”. It was decided that the costume wasn’t up to scratch and the scene was subsequently deleted, but the species got an unexpected reprieve three decades later in “Envoys” (season 1), courtesy of a brief cameo in a bar brawl.
Signing off
It was never officially confirmed at the time — and Kirk, Scotty and Chekov later turned up in “TNG” handover movie “Generations” — but “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” always felt like a swansong for the original Enterprise crew. The veteran cast literally signed off with their autographs ahead of the closing credits, and the Lower Deckers do exactly the same at the end of “Crisis Point” (season 1).
Exocomps
In “TNG” episode “The Quality of Life”, Data successfully proved that the Exocomps — small, functional robots designed to perform menial tasks on Tyrus 7A — are sentient. Several years later in “No Small Parts” (season 1), an Exocomp named Peanut Hamper joins the Cerritos crew — though it later turns out that she’s developed mutinous feelings towards Starfleet.
The Animated Series
“Star Trek: The Animated Series” continued the five-year mission of the USS Enterprise, with most of the original cast. It’s been a frequent source of inspiration for “Lower Decks”, with the irascible Dr T’Ana belonging to the same Caitian species as “TAS”‘s M’Ress, and a brief cameo from a shape-shifting Vendorian in “Envoys” (season 1). But the nicest touch is arguably a “photo” of the “TAS” incarnations of Kirk and Spock in “No Small Parts”.
Those Old Scientists
In the real world, the “TOS era” refers to “The Original Series” time period of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. The term is also used in “Lower Decks”, though — as Commander Ransom explains in “No Small Parts”— the in-universe definition is “Those Old Scientists”. “Those Old Scientists” is also the name of the “Strange New Worlds”/”Lower Decks” crossover episode.
Lt Kayshon
Lt Kayshon, the Cerritos’s new head of security in “Kayshon, His Eyes Open” (season 2), is the first Tamarian to serve in Starfleet but we had encountered his species before. In the classic “The Next Generation” episode “Darmok”, Jean-Luc Picard was trapped on a planet with a Tamarian captain who communicated only in metaphor and allegory. Kayshon converses in a similar way.
Boimler x2
One of Starfleet’s alarmingly regular transporter accidents resulted in the creation of a duplicate Will Riker (known as Thomas) in “The Next Generation”. Exactly the same fate befalls Bradward Boimler while serving under Riker on the USS Titan in “Kayshon, His Eyes Open”. One of the doppelgangers even chooses the name William as a Riker tribute.
A prank call to Armus
Armus was the malevolent oil slick who killed Tasha Yar for no reason in “The Next Generation”‘s first season. In “The Spy Humongous” (season 2), the Lower Deckers use a submanifold casting stone to prank call Vagra II’s self-proclaimed skin of evil. He still has unresolved anger issues.
The Naked Time/Now
In “I, Excretus” (season 2) a training exercise pits Mariner against a virus that’ll be familiar to anyone who’s seen “TOS” episode “The Naked Time” and “TNG”‘s “The Naked Now”. It’s the same inhibition-blocking infection that turned Sulu into a sword-wielding maniac and prompted Yar to seduce Data — meaning that Mariner sees things nobody should have to see — but as Starfleet tests go, it’s no Kobayashi Maru.
Go climb a rock
“Star Trek V” — aka the one where Kirk meets “God” — has always been considered one of the weaker Star Trek movies in the canon. Brad Boimler clearly didn’t get the memo, however, and in “wej Duj” (season 2) he pays tribute to the film during some holodeck-based R&R, wearing both Spock’s rocket boots and Kirk’s “Go climb a rock” top.
Captain Freeman Day
It’s no longer just a craft day for toddlers… In “First First Contact” (season 2) Brad Boimler makes a “Happy Freeman Day” banner that looks a lot like the decoration the kids on the Enterprise made for Captain Picard in “The Next Generation” episode “The Pegasus” — a memento so important that it was on still on display at the Starfleet Archives in “Picard”, set two decades later.
The swagger stick
USS Excelsior commander Captain Styles only got a few minutes of screentime in “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” — and hardly covered himself in glory — but his bizarre affectation of carrying a swagger stick (essentially a military riding crop) ensured he’ll never be forgotten.
When Captain Freeman is up for promotion in “First First Contact” (season 2), her daughter Beckett Mariner is worried about potential replacements, suggesting that “We could end up with some weirdo with a riding crop”. Dr T’Ana goes one step further in “The Stars at Night” (season 3), wielding a riding crop of her own.
Ketracel White-Hot Sauce
In “Deep Space Nine”, Dominion lackeys the Jem’Hadar were genetically engineered to require a drug known as Ketracel White to stay alive. In “Grounded” (season 3) we learn that Sisko’s Creole Kitchen (run by Captain Sisko’s dad, Joseph) has Ketracel White-Hot Sauce on the menu — a concoction so spicy that it’s definitely set to stun.
The Riker manoeuver
Will Riker had a famously unorthodox approach to sitting in chairs on the Enterprise, and his first officer counterpart on the Cerritos, Jack Ransom, is also an advocate of the Riker maneuver. “You need to sit, cross your leg over the back of it, and slam down,” he tells a gathering of junior officers in “The Stars at Night” (season 3). “Command that chair!”
T’Illups
A mission to transport the decommissioned USS Voyager in “Twovix” (season 4) provides a chance to revisit one of Captain Janeway’s most infamous command decisions. Just as another transporter malfunction fused Neelix and Tuvok into Tuvix, Dr T’Ana and Chief Engineer Billups are combined as T’Illups — who then goes on to create a hybrid “Tuvix Army”. The episode also asks plenty of ethical questions about Janeway’s decision to split Tuvix into his components parts, essentially murdering a new species in the process.
Mariner’s Starfleet Academy days
Not every callback in “Lower Decks” exists for comedic purposes. In “The Inner Fight” (season 4) we learn that Beckett Mariner was at Starfleet Academy with Wesley Crusher, Sito Jaxa, and the other cadets whose unauthorized training flight maneuver resulted in the death of a fellow student in “The Next Generation” episode “The First Duty”. Following Ensign Sito’s death in “TNG”‘s “Lower Decks”, Mariner’s ongoing mission to avoid promotion was a tribute to her late friend
Not a puppet
While hunting for the fugitive Nicholas Locarno (another member of Wesley Crusher’s ill-fated team of cadets) in “The Inner Fight”, Captain Freeman wrongly assumes that an information broker is a puppet.
It’s arguably an easy mistake to make, seeing as he’s the spitting image of the puppet the child-like Balok used in the Original Series episode “The Corbomite Maneuver”. The haunting original version was a memorable fixture of the “TOS” closing credits.
The Genesis device
From “Star Trek: Nemesis” to “Star Trek Into Darkness” and beyond, the franchise has frequently tried to recapture the magic of its finest hour, “The Wrath of Khan”. Few homages have been as blatant as “Old Friends, New Planets” (season 4), however, in which Mariner has a nebula-based face-off against former classmate Nicholas Locarno — a close encounter that culminates in the detonation of a Genesis device.
Decontamination gel
When the Cerritos visits the eponymous space station in “Starbase 80?” (season 5), it’s such a blast from the past that you still have to cover yourself in decontamination gel before stepping aboard. This was standard practice two centuries earlier in the “Star Trek: Enterprise” era, though we don’t recall Archer, T’Pol, and Tucker enjoying the application of the goo quite as much as Ransom.
An Olympian crew member
Kirk, McCoy, and Scotty met Apollo, an alien masquerading as an Olympian god, in the Original Series episode “Who Mourns for Adonais?”. Close relative Ensign Olly takes up a post on the Cerritos in “Of Gods and Angles” (season 5), and reveals that those godly golden laurel leaves are actually part of her skull. Unfortunately, her lightning bolt-throwing skills still require some work.
The music recitals
Carrying on the tradition of Will Riker with his trombone, Data with his violin, and Harry Kim with his clarinet, there’s no shortage of Cerritos officers waiting to perform concerts for their shipmates — culminating in evolved/de-evolved Barnes showing off her sousaphone skills in “Upper Decks” (season 5).
William Boimler’s Anaximander crew
“Fissure Quest” (season 5) reveals that the not-really-dead William Boimler is working for Section 31 to fix rifts in space and time, but the bigger headline is the make-up of his crew. “Enterprise”‘s T’Pol, “Deep Space Nine”‘s Curzon Dax, and lots of (still unpromoted) Harry Kims (“Voyager”) are a welcome presence on the Anaximander bridge. The writers also play out many a fan fiction fantasy by featuring “DS9″‘s Elim Garak and Julian Bashir (the latter’s a hologram) as a married couple.
Every episode of “Star Trek: Lower Decks” is available on Paramount+.