Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Lower Decks Finale – “The Next Generation”Star Trek: Lower Decks creator and showrunner Mike McMahan ended his beloved animated series on Paramount+ in style. After five seasons, McMahan closes a chapter in the travels of the USS Cerritospreparing future adventures for Lieutenant Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) and her friends.
In Star Trek: Lower Decks' series finale, 'The New Next Generation', the USS Cerritos is the only Starfleet ship that can save the universe. Working together while pursued by Klingons, the Cerritos crew stabilizes a quantum rift in reality. In the end, a new gateway to Star Trekthe vast multiverse is open to be explored while the USS Cerritos gains a new command structurewith Mariner and Lieutenant Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) becoming co-first officers under the new captain, Jack Ransom (Jerry O'Connell).
TelaRant I had the pleasure of speaking with Mike McMahan about the challenge of closing this phase of Star Trek: Lower Deckshow did he get it Star Trek: EnterpriseJolene Blalock will reprise T'Pol for the first time in 19 years, and what fans can do to bring Star Trek: Lower Decks to go back.
Mike McMahan on Writing Star Trek: Lower Decks' Finale
“I think it's the best series. What do you think of it?”
ScreenRant: Mike, I thought the ending was amazing. Congratulations on a great season. I feel like at the end of every season I say the same thing to you: “This was the best season.” But I think this was the best season.
MIke McMahan: I think it's the best show. What do you think of this? I was telling someone we have big action episodes, we have big comedy episodes, we have legacy character episodes. But if you take any episode of Lower Decks, if you just watch “The Inner Fight” or something like that, that's not what the show is like. The show is all combined. It's all these surprises. It's all that balance. And so, this is the last season. It definitely feels like we did it again. We did a good job doing Lower Decks, at least.
Take me through your process of writing the ending and closing this chapter of the Cerritos. I love the title, “The New, Next Generation.” I feel that the Cerritos inherit the TNG cloak at the end, and the DS9 cloak too.
Mike McMahan: The title really tells me that if we did more Lower Decks, you'd have something new and at the same time get what you love about the show. And I think TNG did a good job of that. This would be a different version of that, like doing our version of Deep Space Nine, but exploring the multiverse. And what are the themes of this? And what's interesting about this, to me, is that Mariner and Boimler are also in this series. It's just one engineer and the other captain. And the idea is that we're moving forward with the Cerritos, and now Mariner and Boimler are first officers, and Tendi and T'Lyn are science officers, and Rutherford doesn't have his implant, and Ransom is the captain.
I have stories I want to tell about all of this. Funny, dramatic and cool, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to tell these stories. But it was important to me that this season felt like everything you love about Lower Decks in the first half and then a bit of an accelerated 'Wow. What a party. What a way to go out. These characters are still experiencing stories and there's more to do, but even if we don't do that, you'll get a taste of how amazing this world is.
I thought it was really brilliant how 508 and 509 didn't focus on Warp Core Five, and then you brought it all back, not just to them, but to all of Cerritos, in the end. And they saved the universe. I thought it was a great arc for all three episodes.
MIke McMahan: I think over time, people will realize that 509 is also a great Mariner and Boimler story. So we're a long way from Tend, Rutherford, and T'Lyn, but 509, in many ways, is the resolution of the season one finale, where Boimler goes to the Titan and then splits. We're seeing where Boimler ends up on this. And his friendship with Mariner saves his belief in himself. And his friendship with Mariner literally saves his existence. Do you know what I mean?
But yes, we definitely packed our bags at the end of the season and the finale had to be a celebration of the Cerritos, of the ship, of the characters, a celebration of all of our protagonists, a celebration of the rest of the crew, a celebration of what constitutes a good Star Trek episode, with Klingons and mysteries, and science fiction phenomenon, and then having the fun of seeing the Cerritos change into all these different versions of the Cerritos. And that cool shot of the Klingons floating on their barge in the nebula, and all that stuff.
And then, at the very end, that speech from the Mariner, walking around the ship, tugging at your heartstrings and saying, 'Man, we had an amazing run.' This is a thank you speech. That was the last thing I wrote for the episode. We watched the animatic and thought, 'Something's missing here.' And writing that, and adding those scenes, that moment of peace like, 'Man, we loved doing this show.' And we love that it exists, we love the koala, we love Twaining and we love having fun with you. That really sums up the whole season for me, that Mariner walk does. And she kicked the computer.
And she set fire to his bed.
Mike McMahan: (laughs) And she set the bed on fire.
Mike McMahan on Doing Two Star Trek Crossovers With Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid
Mariner and Boimler are at the center of strange new worlds and Lower Deck crossovers
Image via Paramount+
I want to give you, Tawny and Jack their due. The three of you together are fundamental to the two greatest Star Trek crossovers of all time, live-action and animation. And I know you punched the Strange new worlds crossover, and then you went bigger and topped it with your own. Simply incredible.
Mike McMahan; I love the Strange New Worlds crossover. One of my writers was the co-author of this, Kathryn Lyn. [Jonathan] Frakes and everyone at Strange New Worlds are such huge fans of Lower Decks that we really had to get involved in it all the way through to editing. I have to sit in on the editing. But really, it's Tawny and Jack who are shining there. I can't take it away from then on. We gave them material to work with and they took it forward.
And so for our crossover episode, this was a thank you to the fans, because the first thing fans say they don't want to do is retread old things, and the first thing they want to do is celebrate old things. And it's a very difficult thing to do, to give them something that surprising without ruining it. This episode was a lot of work. It took a lot of thinking. And my number one rule for this, which made it so difficult, was that we have to be packed with legacy people, but none of them can be a facade. They all need to have a story. They all need to have funny moments. They all need to have dramatic moments. And that's going to make this episode very difficult. We don't have room for a B story in this. It's a movie all the time and I'm very proud of it. Like, I just think we did something really special.
Mike McMahan Explains How Jolene Blalock Returned as T'Pol in Star Trek: Lower Decks
Jolene hadn't played T'Pol in 19 years
Image via Paramount+
It's one of the best Star Trek episodes ever. I'm officially saying it. I want to come back to this and talk about T'Pol, which is my biggest dream that you made this season come true. How did you get Jolene and get the impression she would be interested in doing more Star Trek, just because of the experience she had with you?
Mike McMahan: I didn't ask her about doing more Star Trek. I was so surprised that she did [Lower Decks]because we were told she had told other shows she was out [of Star Trek]. She was just being a mom and doing her thing. I think she does charitable things. And so, I wrote her a note, sent her the script and she watched some of the show. And she literally said, 'Yeah, that's fun. I want to do this. I like this show. She came in and was really good about getting back to T'Pol. Like, crazy, good at that. It was surprising. And I was asking her to do something like 'faster T'Pol and a little more ironic T'Pol'. But always saying: Can we find this together?
Because she, like T'Pol, defined so many Vulcan attitudes with T'Lyn and everything you saw in “wej Duj”. And then hearing how much fun she had and how much she loved Bakula… We have all these snippets of that sentence where she calls him a big Starfleet nerd. And we were like, 'What else would you call Bakula?' There are a lot of funny scenes from this. You could tell she had fun with him on that show.
And here's the thing: I think Jolene can do whatever she wants. If someone from Star Trek came up to her and said, 'What do you want to do? And then putting together something even better than what she wanted, that's how I think you could bring any legacy back to Star Trek. You want them to feel like they are doing something new. They've all done so many episodes of these characters, and they love them too, but I think you want to push them, but you don't want to change it and make it different. I don't know. I'm just guessing now. She was incredible.
Yes, she was fantastic. Like you said, her cadences, everything was perfect. Like it's 2001 all over again.
Mike McMahan: Just like emulating with T'Lyn. And it was so weird directing it. I worked with Gabrielle [Ruiz] do T'Lyn for a few years and then have Jolene? This is incredible.
Jerry O'Connell Got His Star Trek: Lower Decks Finale Wish
I love that in the end Ransom becomes Captain of the Cerritos. It's the passing of the torch that TNG I never did with Riker. When I talked to Jerry a few weeks ago, he told me that all he wanted was for Ransom to become captain before Una. [Rebecca Romijn]. And then you did it. I think you completely brought down the O'Connell and Romijn family.
Mike McMahan: (laughs) I think so too. Jerry is probably strutting his stuff. I loved how we started the first episode by making sure the audience despised Ransom. And then, throughout the series, they fell in love with him, because Jerry is so adorable. I worked hard to show why Ransom was a good officer and a good Starfleet officer over these five seasons. So to have him become captain at the end, and knowing that he's going to drive Mariner and Boimler crazy, and they're going to drive him crazy, but they're still going to be good Starfleet officers… It felt really right. It felt really good to do that in the end.
Mike McMahan Explains How Fans Can Help Bring Back Star Trek: Lower Decks
Go on a spree and talk about how much you love Lower Decks online, but be respectful
Image via Paramount+
We all want more. Is there a way to get the show on another streaming service? What can we do to make this happen?
Mike McMahan: I would say just be honest about it, but very respectful. What I don't want anyone to do is say things like, 'Whoever canceled this is an idiot.' Programs are chosen because of enthusiasm and joy, not bitterness and [being] demanding. I think when the end comes, finding a way to celebrate and ask for more will always be better than demanding and being upset that you're not getting what you want.
And then I'll say anything that the fandom can do that will help me point that out and say, 'Look at these baskets of peanuts they sent, or look at these postcards they wrote.' I'll definitely be working behind the scenes, not just trying to navigate this time, but it's hard to make anything happen right now. But also, I'll be working behind the scenes to try to figure out the exact timing to get more Lower Decks done. I don't know how long this will take, but I certainly won't give up. And at the same time, I'm always writing ideas for Lower Decks. So it's not like I stopped thinking about the show and thinking about things. So the second they say yes, I'll be ready to hit the ground running and do more amazing things.
More about Star Trek: Lower Decks, season 5
In season 5 of Star Trek: Lower Decks, the crew of the USS Cerritos are tasked with closing “space holes” – subspace rifts that are causing chaos in the Alpha Quadrant. Hole duty would be easy for junior officers Mariner, Boimler, Tendi and Rutherford… if they didn't also have to deal with an Orion war, angry Klingons, diplomatic catastrophes, murder mysteries and most frightening of all: the your own career aspirations. This upcoming season on Paramount+ is a celebration of this downtrodden crew who are dangerously close to being promoted from the lower decks to strange new roles in Starfleet.
Check out our others Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5 interviews here: