Star Trek: Lower Decks season two premieres Aug. 12 on Paramount+. Below is a spoiler-free review of the first five episodes.
When Star Trek: Lower Decks dropped last year, there was no question that the series was lovingly brought to life by people who know their Trek inside and out. Where it faltered was thinking hyper-fast delivery and overly busy episodes was a fun, sustainable watch. Gratefully, creator Mike McMahan (Solar Opposites) allowed the show to mellow out by the end of its first season, giving us a lot more depth for both the stories and characters who live and work in the bowels of the U.S.S. Cerritos. In season two, Lower Decks continues that balanced groove with even more confidence in mixing comedy with away mission hijinks and character progression.
In particular, Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) is more fun to be around this season because she’s not just dragging crewmates Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid), D'Vana Tendi (Noël Wells), and Sam Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) into an endless string of ill-considered adventures. She’s still a purposefully rebellious screw-up who leaps before thinking, but the new episodes also give us more quiet moments where she reveals what her abrasive walls are really all about.
Speaking of Boimler, the season opens with Mariner stewing with mighty resentment after he abruptly left to accept a promotion on Captain William Riker’s (Jonathan Frakes) U.S.S. Titan. How he’s doing in his new gig, and the physical and emotional hole he left behind is played to great effect in the first half of the season. It says a lot about the writing maturity of the series to have choices like the one he made have real stakes, and then play out as such when many comedies would just blow past anything that messy.
But a big benefit of Boimler’s absence is that it leaves a lot of room for Tendi and Rutherford to get fleshed out with storylines that focus more on their vulnerabilities. Rutherford struggles with the repercussions of his cyborg implant and the ghost of his former self, while Tendi’s need to please is challenged on all fronts. Plus, the season’s early Boimler vacuum allows the unhealthy mother/daughter work dynamic between Mariner and Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) to be addressed in the season premiere for the disaster it’s become.
When Boimler does return, it proves how far this ensemble has come in truly endearing itself to us. Still a big ball of anxiety, he clearly tames Mariner’s boundless energy and impulsiveness. And he’s also the perfect nerd compliment to good kids Tendi and Rutherford. Together, they tease, challenge and better one another, which makes even their dumbest screw-ups fun to watch. They’re also true believers in the goals of the Federation, which is endearing, hopeful and would certainly make Gene Roddenberry proud.
As for this season’s overall story scope, in the five episodes provided, Lower Decks remains a standalone adventure show that isn’t shy about mining a tremendous amount of Original Trek and The Next Generation Trek mythology to build episodes around. Whether it’s featuring very familiar races or creatures, or even namechecking characters like Data, Thomas Riker, and Gary Mitchell, the season is packed with callbacks, deep cuts, and visual references galore. And frankly, it’s too much at times. Every episode is so densely packed with nostalgia hat tips, there’s almost no story real estate to create original Lower Decks mythology. But when Lower Decks does venture into making its own lore, like episode five’s hilarious replicating race, the Dooplers, it proves the show is more than capable of adding plenty to the Trek pantheon. Hopefully, the third season (or the latter half of the second) is where McMahan and his writers gift themselves, and us, with more of what we haven’t seen before.