The Strange New Worlds And Lower Decks Crossover Episode Is A Beautiful And Hilarious Tribute To Star Trek Fandom
This article contains spoilers for season 2, episode 7 of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds."
There's something really special about "Star Trek." The science fiction franchise has been around since 1966, showing audiences creator Gene Roddenberry's dream of a utopian future where humanity travels the stars and Earth is a paradise. Regardless of your age, there's a pretty good chance you grew up with some kind of "Star Trek" in the pop culture conversation, from the original series in the 1960s all the way up through the contemporary "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" and "Star Trek: Lower Decks." That means there are multiple generations of fans who truly love this franchise and all that it embodies, and that fandom has enriched their lives. It's powerful stuff that previously has only really been delved into in the unofficial "Star Trek" meta-commentary comedy "Galaxy Quest," but in the "Strange New Worlds"/"Lower Decks" crossover episode, "Those Old Scientists," the magic of fandom was finally fully explored.
In the episode, ensigns Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) and Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) accidentally go through a time portal and end up in the time of Captain Pike's (Anson Mount) Enterprise, about 120 years before their own time. Given the importance of the Enterprise throughout Starfleet history, the two both totally geek out. It's a little annoying and disconcerting to the crew of the Enterprise at first, but soon they realize that fandom is what keeps Starfleet flying, just like the real-life fans keep "Star Trek" aloft.
The fun side of fandom
"Star Trek: Lower Decks" is full of franchise in-jokes and references, often delivered so quickly that fans will catch new jokes on every rewatch, so when Boimler and Mariner end up on the Enterprise, they're still full of quick quips. It's important that they don't share anything from the future with the crew, but they slip up more than a few times out of sheer excitement. For example, Boimler performs the Riker maneuver while hopping on a saddle and yelling "Riker!" in reference to "Star Trek: The Next Generation" character Commander Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes, who directed the episode), which makes Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) stare at him like he's insane. He also drops a "Worf's honor," reveals Spock's (Ethan Peck) future nature to his current paramour Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush), and reveals to the crew that Captain Pike's birthday is coming up. (We also learn that Boimler dressed up as Captain Pike for Halloween, which is adorable?)
Boimler is just as excited to stand on the bridge of the Enterprise as any fan from our world would be, because the adventures of Starfleet officers who came before are as legendary in the world of "Star Trek" as the fictional stories are to fans on Earth in 2023. It's exhilarating to watch him geek out because the audience can live vicariously through him, joining the crew of his daydreams for a brief moment and getting to live out a total fan fantasy. For Mariner, however, the excitement revolves entirely around one crew member: Ensign Nyota Uhura.
Healthy hero worship
Mariner wants nothing more than to meet Uhura, who happens to also be an ensign at the time of Mariner and Boimler's accidental visit. The lower decker has to be careful not to reveal too much about Uhura's future to her, but the two get a chance to chat, and it's incredible. There's an old adage about how one should "never meet your heroes" because it's practically guaranteed to be a disappointment, but Mariner has the added complication of meeting her hero before many of the events that permanently put her in the history books. Thankfully, the two have a great conversation about the importance of taking breaks and the upsides of knowing Starfleet code so you can exploit it, and their time together helps lead to a breakthrough in Uhura's translation of the words on the time portal.
What's neat and pretty true-to-life about the lower deckers meeting their heroes is that their heroes are just people like them, doing their best and taking it day by day. They can learn from their fans as surely as the fans can learn from them, and their interactions manage to be a positive impact on everyone. Even Captain Pike, who was extremely irritated by having two time travelers on his ship, eventually realized that they had done some good along with the chaos they caused. Commander Una (Rebecca Romijn) gets to learn that she's on the Starfleet recruitment poster in the future, Uhura learns how to relax a little bit, and Pike spends some time with friends at his birthday party instead of sitting in an ice fishing shack with a bottle of whiskey by himself. Oh, and they realize that they're all fans, too.
'Do we sound like them?'
The big conflict in the episode is that there isn't enough of the substance heronium to send the two time travelers back to their own time, but the lower deckers remember that the original Enterprise, commanded by Captain Archer (Scott Bakula), had a hull made of heronium. Since it's Starfleet tradition to put a piece of the original ship on every new ship commissioned with the same name, that means there's a piece of heronium somewhere on Pike's Enterprise. When they find it, Uhura and Lieutenant Ortegas (Melissa Navia) start geeking out over seeing a piece of history. It turns out that Uhura wrote three papers about the original Enterprise linguist Hoshi Sato (Linda Park), while Ortegas is a huge fan of Enterprise NX-01 pilot Travis Mayweather (Anthony Montgomery). As they totally nerd out over their respective favorites, they realize that they're just as big of geeks as Mariner and Boimler. Being a nerd about Starfleet in some way seems like it's the pathway to becoming a Starfleet officer, and the episode highlights how that love and fandom goes from generation to generation and from series to series.
The love these characters have for Starfleet and for the heroes who have come before mirrors the love fans have for the series and the characters themselves. Every "Star Trek" fan's story is different, but the franchise has had a huge impact in my own life, and seeing some of my favorite characters geek out the way I do was deeply satisfying.
Meeting my own Starfleet hero — no time travel necessary!
"Star Trek: Lower Decks" not only gave Mariner and Boimler the chance to meet their heroes, but it gave me the chance to talk to one of mine. In season 3 of the animated series, the crew of the U.S.S. Cerritos visit the space station Deep Space Nine, commanded by the "Star Trek" character who means the most to me: Kira Nerys, played by Nana Visitor. As a "Star Trek" loving child who would steal my mother's headbands to wear as Geordi's (LeVar Burton) visor and practiced my Vulcan hand signs almost daily, watching the butt-kicking and passionate but complicated Kira was super inspiring. When rewatching the series for the first time as an adult with my husband, he noted the ways in which I had clearly modeled some of my behavior after the character, most of which were completely unintentional.
Not only was Kira my hero, but Visitor was as well. Visitor has PTSD resulting from a traumatic event that happened to her during the time of filming "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," and she channeled her experiences into the character's own PTSD. I suffer from the same diagnosis, but Kira and Visitor have both shown me that it is possible to move on after trauma.
I was able to interview Visitor for the "Lower Decks" episode, and I probably geeked out just as bad as Mariner and Boims, but she handled it with grace and humor. Getting to talk to her felt as impossible at one time as finding a time portal, so the experience is something I will never forget.
The secret ingredient
What is it, exactly, that makes "Star Trek" and its fandom so special? Whether it's fictional characters getting excited to meet their fictional heroes, real-life fans getting to meet the actors behind their favorite characters, or just the love fans express at conventions, in fan art, and more, there's something about "Star Trek" that seems to set it apart. That magical secret ingredient is hope. Roddenberry's idealistic, progressive view of the future mixed with the big crews who become found family make all of the "Star Trek" shows hopeful about the future, showing us a universe in which humanity has overcome its worst instincts. Not only that, but because of the franchise's lengthy history, many "Star Trek" actors are big fans of the franchise, bringing that fun fan energy to their characters. (The biggest "Star Trek" nerd is probably Newsome, whose love for "Deep Space Nine" was so strong that it forced the writers of "Lower Decks" to rewrite an episode!)
There are lots of big, wonderful fandoms out there, but the utopian hope of "Star Trek" mixed with its longevity and behind-the-scenes superfans makes the "Star Trek" fandom something really special. May this franchise live long and prosper.
New episodes of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" premiere Thursdays on Paramount+.