Star Trek: Lower Decks – Watch The First Episode Begin

Star Trek: Lower Decks will focus on crew members on the lower decks.

By Rick Gonzales and Josh Tyler

This article is more than 2 years old

Space: the final frontier… Those famous four words have carried fans through many iterations of Star Trek, including the 1975 Emmy-winning first and only animated series in the Star Trek canon, Star Trek: The Animated Series. Its title of first and only is soon to go away as Star Trek: Lower Decks is coming from CBS All Access.

The very first, opening scene from the show has been released and it starts with an incredible shot of a Starbase. Take a look…

CBS has released images from every episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks to give you a feel for what you’ll be seeing on an episode by episode basis. Here they are…

The first ever trailer for Star Trek: Lower Decks has arrived and you can watch it below…

THE U.S.S. CERRITOS

The crew of Star Trek: Lower Decks lives and works aboard a starship called the U.S.S. Cerritos and CBS just gave us our first look at it, in the form of a poster. Here it is…

The poster comes with this description: ” STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS focuses on the support crew serving on one of Starfleet’s least important ships, the U.S.S. Cerritos, in 2380. Ensigns Mariner, Boimler, Rutherford, and Tendi have to keep up with their duties and their social lives, often while the ship is being rocked by a multitude of sci-fi anomalies.”

The U.S.S. Cerritos is described as a “second contact” ship. Basically that means a more important ship like the U.S.S. Enterprise would warp in and make first contact with a new planet, and then after they handle any big problems they’d send in a ship like the Cerritos to do cleanup.

The ship itself is odd, it seems like they’re trying to do a Star Trek: The Next Generation era version of the Oberth class vessel which was first seen in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock…

Like the Oberth, the Cerritos has that problem where it’s not clear how anyone would get down from the saucer section to the lower part of the ship. Unlike the Oberth, the Cerritos has support pylons which are way too long and throw the whole thing out of proportion.

Sure the Cerritos is ugly, but at least it’s instantly recognizable as a Federation starship from the era of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which is the era in which Star Trek: Lower Decks is set. It’s a step in the right direction after the bland, half-effort ship designs from Star Trek: Picard.

Also in case you’re wondering, the lines in the image which make it look like a poster that has been folded are intentional. They’re trying to riff on this poster from the first ever Trek movie, Star Trek: The Motion Picture…

FAN REACTION

Fan reaction to these images, and pretty every much about Star Trek: Lower Decks, has so far been terrible. Everyone seems to hate it and they’re begging CBS to cancel it before it even debuts. Or at least that seemed to be how things were going at first. Now you may see a lot less negative reaction to Star Trek: Lower Decks because some believe CBS is censoring negative opinions of the show.

The accusation comes from popular geek YouTubers Grace Randolph and That Star Wars Girl. Both allege that when they tried to post negative reactions to the Lower Decks trailer, CBS filed illegitimate copyright claims against their videos and had YouTube take them down.

Here’s That Star Wars Girls’ video in which she explains what CBS did to her…

She explains, “So I was going to release by Star Trek reaction review video for the new animated series Lower Decks, but I had finished filming, finished editing, uploaded it to YouTube… I set mine to unmonetized because CBS is really shady… I didn’t want my video getting blocked or anything but even with all the precautions that I took, it still got blocked. CBS blocked my video worldwide right before I was about to premiere it.”

Here’s a sampling of just some of the fan reactions to Star Trek: Lower Decks that haven’t been censored yet…

“Kill it with fire.” – @DJ_Zephyr102
“More Woke crap.” – @ModeratelyTree
“Of course the only character that looks remotely appealing is the furry.” – @metaldeersolid_
“Another crappy show piggy backing on a well known franchise cause if it was something on its own itd be canceled in a week. Well this might to but wouldn’t be a stain on the shows history” – @GravesMage
“That’s a “no” from me, dawg.” – @That_Bomb_Cat
“It’s for small children? competition for the Teletubbies for sure”- @patmcljr
“Just when you think they can’t do worse, here comes star trek.” – @Marco16750690
“Vomit.” – @OryonTheRaging
“Do they know they’re allowed to take more than 5 minutes to animate an episode? It’s not a race.” – @Hiny_Rugburn
“I’ve never been less excited” – @Briang1001·
“Any excitement for new Star Trek has been killed by CBS. Let me know when they sell the IP.” – @Supafunkadunka
“About as excited as I would be about surgery without anesthesia.” – @EmberStudio1

Think Star Trek: Lower Decks looks terrible? Let CBS know by simply CLICKING HERE.

What do you think of what we've seen from Star Trek: Lower Decks so far?
— GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT (@GFRobot) June 19, 2020

STAYING ON THE LOWER DECKS

Lower Decks? Yes, exactly what the title suggests is what the series will focus on. Star Trek: Lower Decks will focus on crew members on the lower decks. To be more precise, the stories will revolve around lower decks support crew who are based on the very unimportant Starfleet ship the U.S.S. Cerritos. So instead of following around the Captain Kirk’s, fans are going to get a humorous look at what goes on beneath.

Mike McMahan, the former Rick and Morty writer, is serving as showrunner for Star Trek: Lower Decks and explained to Comicbook.com what to expect, “It’s on a ship that feels like it’s always existed there and the bridge crew is dealing with big, never before seen Starfleet Star Trek type stories. So every episode has a thing like that happening in it. And then, on top of that, we’ve got A stories and B stories that are emotionally driven from the point of view of the lower deckers on the ships. So it was an area of storytelling that people had covered every once in a while on Star Trek, but never built a show around.”

WHEN STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS IS SET

Star Trek: Lower Decks is set in a specific Star Trek time period. McMahan has informed fans, “Within Lower Decks, there is a proper in-canon Star Trek show. It takes place during the TNG era.” So this series takes place during the early Picard years of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

NEW CHARACTERS AND OLD

With Lower Decks running parallel to TNG, does this mean TNG characters will be involved? When asked about cameos from famous characters by EW, showrunner McMahan had this to say: “Next Gen is my favorite era. And as a huge Trek fan, I would definitely want to try to use some of them so that I could not only build out the world, but also work with some of my heroes. But I can’t get more specific than that. You’ll have to wait and see.”

What we do know is that a whole new cast will be featured. Those lending their voices to the series include

Tawny Newsome (upcoming Space Force) as Beckett Mariner, an ensign who seemingly has no care seeing as that she’s been demoted on more than one occasion.

Jack Quaid (The Boys) is Brad Boimier, a complete stickler for the rules.

Noël Wells is Tendi, an ensign in the medical bay who happens to be a huge fan of Starfleet.

Eugene Cordero voices a cybernetically enhanced Ensign Rutherford.

Also on board lending their voices are Jerry O’Connell,Dawnn Lewis, Fred Tatasciore, and Gillian Vigman.

THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE SCENES

The aforementioned Mike McMahan serves as the main driver on Lower Decks but in the bigger picture, this series is brought to you by none other than executive producer Alex Kurtzman. To the chagrin of many, Kurtzman has taken on the mantle of expanding the Star Trek universe and has been doing a job that CBS seems happy with.

FOR ADULTS ONLY

Every description of Lower Decks always begins with “the adult-oriented Star Trek: Lower Decks.” So the question begs, just how “adult-oriented” will Lower Decks be?

While no definitive answer has been given by Kurtzman, the simple fact that McMahan comes over from Rick and Morty is probably all you need to know. Rick and Morty is about as adult oriented an animated comedy as there is.

However, McMahan also said it is not a Rick and Morty-type show, “You’re not really getting the same type of Rick and Morty jokes because we’re really writing towards our characters and our characters are Starfleet. There aren’t any Starfleet characters in Rick and Morty. It’s kind of hard to describe. I think once people see it, the tone will immediately so clearly be a loving part of Starfleet, and not making fun of Star Trek, but being about characters who are funny, who happen to also be in Starfleet.”

Still, expect the laughs in Star Trek: Lower Decks to be aimed at adults, hence “adult-oriented” but not enough to turn off fans of Star Trek. McMahan also wanted fans to know that while the show will have its humor and takes its roots firmly in the Star Trek canon, new viewers will easily be able to get into the show.

McMahon says, “It was important to me that if you know everything about Star Trek and you watch this show then it fits into Canon and doesn’t break Star Trek. In fact, it grows it. And if you know nothing about Star Trek, then all of the canon in Lower Decks feels like mythological, broad understandable sci-fi stuff. So you can still enjoy Lower Decks even if it’s your first Star Trek show… It’s sort of like a love letter to people that love Star Trek, but it’s also a funny show for people who have never seen it.”

WHEN AND WHERE TO WATCH STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS

Star Trek: Lower Decks will premiere on CBS All-Access on August 6, 2020 as their very first animated show. Production on the series has been on-going throughout the Coronavirus pandemic lockdown.

THE EXPANDING STAR TREK UNIVERSE

It also seems Kurtzman is not done with Star Trek expansion nor animated Star Trek. When Star Trek: Lower Decks was announced to cover the adults in the room, it was also announced that Kurtzman will be bringing an animated Star Trek series for the younger group to Nickelodeon. This series also does not have a premiere date but it looks like we will definitely be boldly going where no man, woman, or child has gone before.