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It feels like yesterday, but back in 2020, the Star Trek franchise launched its first animated comedy with Lower Decks. The brainchild of Rick and Morty writer Mike McMahan, Lower Decks follows the misadventures of a Starfleet crew not cool enough to boldly go on Enterprise-level voyages. For five seasons of warm-hearted sci-fi comedy, Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome have led the series as the voices of stickler Brad Boimler and rule-breaker Beckett Mariner, respectively. In 2023, they even played their animated characters in a live-action crossover episode of Strange New Worlds.
Now, with the Lower Decks journey ending with season five, we caught up with these outer space besties to get a sense of how this quirky Star Trek will end and what’s next.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Lower Decks is ending with this fifth and final season. In the first episode, we get a tease of an alternate universe. Can you imagine your own alternate universes where you didn’t join Star Trek?
Tawny Newsome: I can’t. Since 2020, Star Trek has really loomed large in my life. I mean, I’m a lifelong fan, but it was my entire career last year. Doing Lower Decks, combined with writing for [upcoming Paramount+ live-action series Starfleet] Academy. I don’t know what I’d be doing without Star Trek. Probably be bartending again or something.
Jack Quaid: I think the thing that first came to mind was just the friends that I got to make from this show. It would have been a real loss if I never met Tawny and all these people. I got a best friend out of this.
Newsome: Don’t make me cry, Jack!
Quaid: I’m sorry. But everyone from Eugene [Cordero] to Dawnn Lewis to Noël Wells…
Newsome: Jack, they’re not here. You don’t have to say all that.
Quaid: Okay, I’ll blow smoke your way. I just feel like I got a true bestie out of this, and then widening it out a little bit like the supporting cast and even the larger Trek family, we got to do that amazing episode of Strange New Worlds and got to bond with that cast, and Jonathan Frakes got to direct us. I still text with Jonathan Frakes and got to meet Gates McFadden—all these people that Trek has touched. I feel so much more connected to and eternally grateful for this franchise.
Speaking of Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks is ending, but Mariner and Boimler can live in on live-action, right?
Newsome: Every day in the writers’ room of Starfleet Academy, I’m like, “You ever think about maybe Mariner could show up?” Every day, I just casually bring it up. But no no. I’m joking. The internet will run with that. But we would be remiss if we didn’t say that [Lower Decks showrunner] Mike McMahan ain’t done. He’s got seasons upon seasons in him. So, it would be great if Lower Decks could continue to have life somewhere else. Outside of that, I think that it makes total sense to have more live-action things. Maybe a movie, something where we can see the rest of our castmates in live action. We got to see Shaxs and Tendi and Rutherford and Carol and Jerry [O’Connell]. Why did I just call him by his Earth name? [Laughs]
Quaid: I’m glad you did! [Laughs]. In this pitch, Jerry O’Connell does not play Commander Ransom. He plays the actor Jerry O’Connell! Mariner and Boimler have grown
a lot over these five seasons. But the show is still very, very down-to-Earth. How does that even work?
Newsome: I think it’s a good meditation on how nothing’s really a meritocracy, even in Starfleet where we wish it might be! Sure, in season five, Mariner is no longer self-sabotaging. But that doesn’t mean the rest of the fleet is suddenly going to be like oh wow, the Cerritos, what a great ship. They’re still kind of messed up.
Quaid: My favorite shows ever are animated, and the one that comes to mind, I think, is always The Simpsons, but then it’s also Futurama. I love Futurama because it’s a sci-fi sitcom that speaks to the nerd inside everyone. I think Lower Decks does that.
What do you hope fans—new and old—take from Lower Decks as a whole?
Quaid: I think our show is really grounded. If people could take any kind of inspiration, maybe make some sci-fi that isn’t all about pew pew pew. There are so many more interesting things to dive into out there. Not that I don’t love the pew pew pew of it all, but it’s such a huge genre and I love the way Star Trek explores it, so I just wanted that to keep going in whatever way possible.
Newsome: Our show always tends towards a real overarching kindness. Teaching that lesson through comedy, I think, is the best way to do it. So I hope that people will make things that take whatever they’ve learned from Trek. There are climate lessons, there are lessons about capitalism, there are lessons about race and sex. Just take an ideal and make your shit. I hope they’re inspired.
Star Trek: Lower Decks is streaming now on Paramount+.
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