Star Trek Fans Just Got The Lower Decks Cameos They’ve Been Waiting For
Star Trek: Lower Decks just aired its season finale and it came with a huge surprise appearance from two of the most beloved Star Trek characters of all time.
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Star Trek: Lower Decks just aired its season finale and it came with a huge surprise appearance from two of the most beloved Star Trek characters of all time. It also fulfilled a dream Star Trek fans have had for decades, giving them the one thing they’ve wanted most but never gotten.
We’re going to tell you all about it, but that means what you’re about to read is filled with spoilers. Read no further if you don’t want spoilers for the Star Trek: Lower Decks season one finale.
STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS FINALE SPOILERS FOLLOW
Star Trek: Lower Decks not only gave us an appearance by Will Riker and Deanna Troi (voiced by Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis) it showed them at work on the Titan. The Titan is the ship that Will Riker becomes Captain of after he leaves the Enterprise, only we’ve never actually seen it on screen before. But now we have.
The USS Titan was first referenced in the original script for Star Trek: Nemesis. In a scene we didn’t get to see on screen, Wesley Crusher explains that he’s been assigned to serve on the USS Titan under the command of newly minted captain William T. Riker.
Though that scene was never filmed the Titan became canon and has been referenced and shown in numerous Star Trek ancillary materials detailing Will Riker’s time as her Captain. She’s a legendary ship and one we’ve never seen, until now.
The Titan swooped in at the last minute and saved the Cerritos from certain destruction. She’s a behemoth of a vessel, a Luna class starship with “double refracting warp core matrix with twin intermix chambers.” A Luna class starship isn’t quite as powerful as a Sovereign class like the Enterprise, but she’s the next best thing. More than enough to deal with a bunch of jumped up Pakleds.
Captain Will Riker’s Titan is 450 meters long, which puts it at a size a bit smaller than either the Sovereign class USS Enterprise or the Galaxy class Enterprise D. It’s a little bigger than the Intrepid class, which is what the USS Voyager is.
The design used for the Titan on Star Trek: Lower Decks’ season finale is the one that a fan came up with in a contest held by Pocket Books. Pocket Books released a series of novels focused on the adventures of Will Riker, Deanna Troi, and the crew of the Titan. For the cover, they asked fans to design a ship. The design you saw on screen in the Star Trek: Lower Decks finale is the winning one.
Here’s a bevy of detailed beauty shots of the Titan given to us by the brilliant team at Star Trek: Lower Decks…
Perhaps the best thing about the Star Trek cameos Lower Decks gave us is that they weren’t really cameos. Instead Riker, Deanna Troi, and the crew of the Titan were an integral part of the episode. They swooped in, saved the day and then stayed to have a drink. Then Boimler even joined their crew! Expect to see the Titan crew back for Star Trek: Lower Decks season 2 because they have to get Boimler back to the Cerritos somehow.
The appearance by Riker and Troi stands in stark contrast to the disappointing way they were used in the Star Trek: Picard finale. There, Riker swooped in to save the day (without Troi) on a half-baked, lame ship which they copy/pasted all over the screen. They he left without ever leaving his chair on the bridge. It was barely a cameo at all. Meanwhile Star Trek: Lower Decks, for one episode, made Captain Will Riker and Commander Troi a full on part of the cast.
Now the Titan and Will Riker’s adventures as her Captain aren’t just a fan fantasy, they are canon. Star Trek: Lower Decks has done what Star Trek has avoided doing for a long, long time and that’s giving Star Trek fans what they actually want.
Thank you Mike McMahan. If you want to say “thank you” too, CLICK HERE.
