Star Trek: Lower Decks, season 3

Production

Development and writing

When announcing the premiere date for the second season of Star Trek: Lower Decks in April 2021, Paramount+ also officially ordered a 10-episode third season of the series. Writing for the third season had begun by late May, with creator and showrunner Mike McMahan knowing the direction for half of the season's episodes at that point. All of the scripts for the season were completed by mid-September.

The series focuses on the low-ranking support crew, or "lower deckers", of the USS Cerritos. By the end of the second season, McMahan came to feel that the ship's senior officers should be explored more in the series because they are "the top of the USS Cerritos but they're one of the bottoms of the fleet. That makes the Cerritos itself a lower decker." Following the second season's cliffhanger ending, McMahan said the third season would depict Captain Freeman's trial for allegedly bombing the Pakled homeworld. The third season also explores the new relationship between Beckett Mariner and Jennifer Sh'reyan, but the focus for Mariner's character remains her friendships and her relationship with her mother, Captain Freeman. McMahan said Mariner and Freeman had grown closer in the second season and the latter's arrest would lead to a new dynamic, with Mariner using her energy in non-constructive ways. Freeman's trial is resolved quickly in the season premiere, during a montage of events that the main characters were not involved in featuring the well-known characters Morgan Bateson and Tuvok from previous Star Trek series. McMahan said there was an "amazing episode" of Star Trek happening in the background of the premiere which the main characters were not aware of because they work in the lower decks, aligning with executive producer Alex Kurtzman's description of the series as having the "A story" of a typical Star Trek episode taking place in the background of each Lower Decks episode.

McMahan said the third season would take the first steps towards moving the central lower deckers up in rank, showing each take a different path to become the people that he planned for them to be at the end of the series. These new personal missions for the main characters are introduced across the first few episodes of the season: Mariner has to navigate answering to first officer Jack Ransom rather than her mother; Brad Boimler decides to be less cautious than in the first two seasons which leads him into some dangerous situations; D'Vana Tendi starts a new job in the sciences division after McMahan felt there was no room for her to grow in the medical division; and Sam Rutherford discovers the secrets behind his mysterious cyborg implant. The friendships between the main characters are further explored in "Room for Growth", which was inspired by the room lottery system at McMahan's college. He wanted the episode to be about the journey rather than the destination, similar to the 1986 coming-of-age film Stand by Me, and based several of the episode's locations on scenes from that film.

Casting and voice recording

The series stars a group of ensigns that serve in the lower decks of the Cerritos: Tawny Newsome as Beckett Mariner, Jack Quaid as Brad Boimler, Noël Wells as D'Vana Tendi, and Eugene Cordero as Sam Rutherford. The ship's bridge crew, who have supporting roles, include Dawnn Lewis as Captain Carol Freeman, Jerry O'Connell as first officer Commander Jack Ransom, Fred Tatasciore as security chief Lieutenant Shaxs, and Gillian Vigman as chief medical officer Dr. T'Ana. Newsome began recording voice overs for the season in early June 2021. She was able to work in a recording studio for the season, which was not possible on the previous season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, she was still unable to record with Quaid, as she did on the first season, due to his commitments filming the series The Boys. Newsome said she had finished recording for the season by March 2022, and Cordero said in June that recording was mostly complete. Newsome was doing additional dialogue recording (ADR) for the season later that month at the same time as she was recording the fourth season.

McMahan stated in May 2021 that there would be guest stars in the season who reprise their roles from previous Star Trek series, and they would be "people you're not going to expect when you get them" which he felt was more surprising and satisfying for fans than just bringing back the main cast of previous series. In April 2022, J.G. Hertzler was revealed to be reprising his role as Klingon Chancellor Martok from Deep Space Nine, though this is a virtual version of the character that is part of the tabletop game Bat'leths & BIHnuchs, a Klingon version of the real-world game Dungeons & Dragons. Hertzler also reprises his role as the Drookmani captain from the first season of Lower Decks. Similar to Hertzler's return as Martok, James Cromwell voices a holographic version of Zefram Cochrane, his character from Star Trek: First Contact (1996); Susan Gibney reprises her role as Dr. Leah Brahms from The Next Generation, who appears as a fantasy created by psychic objects; and George Takei reprises his original Star Trek role of Hikaru Sulu in a hallucination that Boimler has. Cromwell recorded his lines at home over Zoom, working around his filming commitments for the series Succession. Armin Shimerman and Nana Visitor reprise their respective Deep Space Nine roles as Quark and Kira Nerys for "Hear All, Trust Nothing". When recording the episode, Shimerman used the same prosthetic teeth that he wore during filming for that series to ensure that Lower Decks's Quark sounded the same.

Returning from earlier seasons are Phil LaMarr as Mariner's father, Admiral Alonzo Freeman; Nolan North as transporter chief Lars Lundy; Paul Scheer as chief engineer Andy Billups; Lauren Lapkus as Jennifer Sh'reyan, Mariner's Andorian girlfriend; writer Ben Rodgers as Lieutenant Steve Stevens; Carl Tart as Kayshon; Paul F. Tompkins as Dr. Migleemo; Jessica McKenna as Ensign Barnes as well as the Cerritos computer; Jeffrey Combs as the evil computer AGIMUS; Kether Donohue as the narcissistic exocomp Peanut Hamper; Michelle Wong as Admiral Wong; and Asif Ali, Mary Holland, and Artemis Pebdani as Delta Shift members Asif, Moxy, and Karavitus. Voicing other California-class captains in the season are the returning Sam Richardson as Vendome of the USS Inglewood and Al Rodrigo as Durango of the USS Merced, as well as new character Maier of the USS Carlsbad who is voiced by Baron Vaughn. Also introduced in the season is Admiral Les Buenamigo who is voiced by Carlos Alazraqui, the father of Star Trek: Prodigy star Rylee Alazraqui; and Georgia King's Petra Aberdeen, an archaeologist similar to the Next Generation character Vash who McMahan called "a cool, female, space Indiana Jones" and an appealing alternative to Starfleet for Mariner. Additionally, Gabrielle Ruiz briefly reprises her role as T'Lyn from the second season. When the third season was written, McMahan had not seen the positive fan reaction to the character and said he would have given her a bigger role in the season if he had. T'Lyn has a bigger role in future seasons.

Animation and design

Independent animation studio Titmouse provides the animation for the series, with Barry J. Kelly serving as supervising director. Animatics were produced by mid-October 2021, and the season was completed by mid-July 2022. The animation style reflects the look of "prime time animated comedy" series such as The Simpsons, but with more detailed backgrounds and environments than is traditional for prime time animation.

The character K'ranch, a new alien created for the series who is a weapons-loving Kromsapiod, was inspired by the Deep Space Nine character Tosk. K'ranch was created because the animation team wanted to make a new character that fit within the Star Trek franchise but also took advantage of the series' animated format more than alien species that were created for live-action do. His name is a combination of ketchup and ranch dressing. The season premiere recreates scenes and locations from Star Trek: First Contact as part of a tourist destination dedicated to the events of that film. McMahan explained that those events were logged by the crew of the Enterprise following the film which allowed Starfleet to accurately recreate them. "Mining the Mind's Mines" was inspired by "classic 'trapped-in-a-cave' planetary episode[s]" from previous Star Trek series which were often filmed on Stage 16 of the Paramount Pictures studio lot in Los Angeles. McMahan also took inspiration for the episode's setting from the muted colors of Star Trek comic books published by Gold Key Comics in the 1960s and 1970s. The opening of "Hear All, Trust Nothing" recreates the title sequence from Deep Space Nine by having the Cerritos slowly circle the space station. Each California-class ship in the finale is painted differently and the animators specifically did not want it to look like they used the same model for all of them, despite each ship having general design.

Music

Composer Chris Westlake chose not to create musical themes for individual characters in the series because of its themes of characters working together. Key scenes for him in the season included the arrival of the California-class ships and the embrace between Mariner and Freeman in the finale. For the First Contact homages in the season premiere, Jerry Goldsmith's main theme from that film can be heard along with the song "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf, which was also used in the film. The main title theme from Deep Space Nine, composed by Dennis McCarthy, is heard when the Cerritos arrives at Deep Space 9 in "Hear All, Trust Nothing".

Marketing

A teaser and first key art for the season were released during a panel for the series at the Star Trek: Mission Chicago convention in April 2022, part of a week of celebrations for "First Contact Day", marking the fictional holiday of April 5 when first contact between humans and aliens was made in the Star Trek universe. The panel included Newsome, Quaid, Wells, and O'Connell all in cosplay as their characters, as well as McMahan, and the cold open and first scene of a season three episode was also shown to the audience. Discussing the teaser that was released at the panel, Arezou Amin of Collider said it was vague but promised "more of the comedy the show has become known for" along with increased stakes from the previous seasons. Dylan Kelly at Yahoo! said it "offers a myriad of new challenges" for the main characters, including a "chaotic USS Cerritos hijacking".

The final key art was revealed in mid-July, along with the season premiere date, and continued a theme for the series of replicating classic Star Trek film posters. This poster pays homage to the one for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), with Rutherford's head taking the place of Spock's on the poster. McMahan said this poster was chosen because Rutherford's storyline for the season aligned with The Search for Spock's themes of loss and memories. Later that month, the season was discussed by cast and crew during the Star Trek Universe panel at San Diego Comic-Con, where a full trailer was revealed. Gizmodo's James Whitbrook called it a "delightful new trailer [that] teases a ton of weird and wonderful adventures", including "Romulans! Glistening abs! Klingons! Nightmare Klingons in clown makeup with bat'leths for arms! [And] an entire, extended gag" about the Deep Space Nine opening titles. Adam Bankhurst of IGN highlighted the Deep Space Nine references, as did Ross A. Lincoln at TheWrap who said the trailer "really panders hard to Deep Space Nine fans" by combing the "great tastes" of that series and Lower Decks. Witney Seibold, writing for /Film, noted the Deep Space Nine references and other jokes. He concluded, "We can't wait to spend more time with these goofballs". As they did with the previous seasons, animation studio Titmouse released a shirt with a unique design on it alongside each episode. The designs were available for one week each, and fans who bought all ten received a bonus eleventh shirt.

Release

Streaming and broadcast

The season premiered on Paramount+ in the United States on August 25, 2022, and ran for 10 episodes. Each episode was broadcast in Canada on the same day as the U.S. release by Bell Media on specialty channel CTV Sci-Fi Channel before streaming on Crave. Amazon Prime Video has the streaming rights for several other territories, including Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and India. In February 2023, Paramount made a new deal with Prime Video for the series' international streaming rights. This allowed the season to be added to Paramount+ in some other countries in addition to remaining on Prime Video. In July 2023, Bell Media announced that the series would be leaving Crave over the following month. It would continue to be broadcast on CTV Sci-Fi and past seasons would remain available on CTV.ca and the CTV app. The season was made available for free in the U.S. for a limited time on YouTube, Prime Video, and Pluto TV in September 2023, coinciding with the fourth season's release. The Funny AF channel also ran a third-season marathon on September 8, which is Star Trek Day.

Home media

The season was released on DVD and Blu-Ray in the U.S. on April 25, 2023. The release includes bonus features, including a round-up of the references and Easter eggs to other Star Trek series in each episode, a featurette about the visit to Deep Space 9 in the episode "Hear All, Trust Nothing", and audio commentaries with cast and crew for several of the episodes.

Reception

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes reported 100% approval with an average rating of 8.00/10 based on 6 reviews.

Accolades

Writers for Ars Technica and CNET included Lower Decks on their lists of best television series for 2022.