Small Details You Missed In The Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 2 Teaser
Star Trek: Lower Decks is the show virtually every Star Trek fan wanted, but thought wouldn't be made. Instead of following the upper echelons of a Federation starship's command ladder, the show takes a comedic and animated (pun intended) look at the ensigns and other low-ranked officers who grease the ship's figurative and literal wheels. The show celebrates and mocks everything that audiences love and hate about Star Trek, a formula that won over many critics. A second season was less of an "if" and more of a "when," and thankfully, Paramount has confirmed the show will continue its mission.
To celebrate the day in Star Trek lore that humans canonically made first contact with Vulcans, First Contact Day (April 5), Paramount revealed trailers and news for upcoming Star Trek shows, including Star Trek: Picard season 2 and Star Trek: Lower Decks season 2. When the first Star Trek: Lower Decks season 1 trailer aired, the video included small details of the jokes and references to come, and the season 2 trailer does not abandon that proud tradition. The new video features plenty of little details that audiences can look forward to from Star Trek's funniest frontier.
Here is a list of the jokes and references you might have missed.
Anbo-jyutsu is alive and well
Star Trek has several iconic weapons, most of which are ranged, laser-based firearms. The series takes place in the future, after all; what does a gunslinger need with martial arts? Well, Star Trek shows have more than a few melee fights, and one of the more classic renditions will return in Star Trek: Lower Decks season 2.
At the six-second mark in the trailer, Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) dons a padded red outfit, and spins a large baton that looks like it was borrowed from the set of American Gladiator. The getup is so important, that it made the cut for the video's thumbnail. Depending on your familiarity with Star Trek: The Next Generation, you might recognize it as the attire William Riker and his father, Kyle Riker, wore in the episode "The Icarus Factor" during a friendly match of Anbo-jyutsu.
As of the 24th century in Star Trek canon, Anbo-jyutsu was considered "the ultimate form of Human martial arts," although it only appears in one episode of The Next Generation. It looks like Star Trek: Lower Decks season 2 will mark the martial art's second canonical appearance.
That's one big Mugato
Star Trek, especially in its early days, had an infamous (but well-deserved) reputation of making alien designs on the cheap. Need to produce a race of intelligent humanoids? Just wear some elf ears and you've got Vulcans. What about alien wildlife? Slap some fake fur and spikes onto a pig, and call it a Targ. Even though Star Trek: Lower Decks isn't bound by the same Oulipian constraint, it still honors these campy designs, because once a species is developed, it remains canon no matter how cheap it looks.
At 0:05 in the trailer, right before Beckett Mariner dons the Anbo-jyutsu uniform, the video shows a giant ape with a single, large horn on its head. This creature is, in fact, a Mugato, a species of carnivorous gorilla-like aliens native to the planet Neural. Canonically, Mugato only appear in the original Star Trek series, in an episode entitled "A Private Little War." However, the apocryphal Star Trek novel series New Frontier also features a Mugato, albeit a genetically engineered one with increased intelligence.
Furthermore, the Mugato in the Star Trek: Lower Decks season 2 trailer is far larger than the one we've seen before. Canonically, Mugato are only six-feet tall, so why is the one in the trailer King Kong-sized? We can't wait to find out.
Keeping up with the Cardassians
Since Star Trek: Lower Decks calls back to everything Star Trek, the first season featured a variety of species. You had standard show fodder such as Vulcans, Klingons, Ferengi, and Orions, as well as lesser-known species such as Caitians and Endosians. No Cardassians, however. Their absence was conspicuous, and it looks like season 2 aims to fix it.
In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment at 0:08, the trailer features Beckett Mariner fighting off several Cardassians. She's got one in a headlock and knocks out several others with various projectile implements. So, they're up to their old antagonistic selves, right? The trailer actually goes deeper than that.
If you pause the video during the Mariner-Cardassian fight, you might realize the room is lit up by numerous pinprick holes in the walls, as well as four hanging lights. Or is it three lights? No, as Jean-Luc Picard would tell you, it's definitely four, since the room is an exact recreation (or almost exact) of the prison he was held in during the Next Generation episode "Chain of Command."
Knowing Lower Deck's style of comedy, the Cardassians will probably try to mentally break Mariner in season 2 by asking her how many lights she sees, and Mariner will likely give a different answer every time just to mess with them.
Wait, they're still using Miranda-class ships?
The USS Enterprises are easily the most iconic ship designs in all of Star Trek, if not science fiction full stop. The original series' Enterprise, as well as The Next Generation's Enterprise 1701-D, sport similar shapes, and are classified as Constitution-class and Galaxy-class vessels, respectively. Many other ships take after these designs, such as the Intrepid-class U.S.S. Voyager and Luna-class USS Titan, but others break the mold. Case-in-point: Star Trek: Lower Decks' California-class USS Cerritos, and a new ship that will be introduced in season 2, the USS Macduff.
Right after the season 2 trailer starts, audiences see a strange Starfleet vessel that is approximately 90% saucer section. This Starfleet ship is the aforementioned USS Macduff, likely named after the Macbeth character of the same name who — spoiler alert — kills the titular Thane of Cawdor in Shakespeare's unluckiest play. Depending on your level of Star Trek knowledge, you might recognize the USS Macduff as a Miranda-class ship, a design which first appeared during the original season of Star Trek, and has flown in the movies The Wrath of Khan and The Voyage Home.
Despite being manufactured during the Kirk era, Miranda-class ships apparently proved resilient, since some are still in service hundreds of years later (one shows up in the Voyager episode "Endgame"). While we don't know the role the USS Macduff will play in Star Trek: Lower Decks season 2, we know for certain the show isn't afraid to lean into the age-old Star Trek tradition of recycling old ship designs.
You don't mess with Pakleds
Star Trek has an unfortunate tendency to produce monoculture societies. Vulcans are logical; Klingons are honorable; Ferengi are greedy. Pakleds both follow and break this tradition, because when they were introduced in the "Samaritan Snare," they were, for lack of a better term, a race of idiots.
But that was all a milk snake ruse since Pakleds, while not smart enough to produce warp engines, were smart enough to steal engines from other races and implement them into their own ships, usually with the help of kidnapped engineers. That's how they were portrayed up until the Star Trek: Lower Decks season 1 finale, at least. That episode reveals the Pakleds used the same schtick so many times, they had amassed enough stolen tech to frankenstein together a fleet of dreadnaughts. Pakleds might be up to those tricks once again in season 2. Probably.
At the eight-second mark in the season 2 trailer, a small group of humans, including what looks like Bradward Boimler (Jack Quaid), fends off a group of heavyset aliens. While these aliens might not be Pakleds, they share the Pakled body type and the uniforms from the Lower Decks season 1 finale — right down to the helmets. Moreover, the trailer features two instances of Federation ships being attacked by a swarm of small, triangle-shaped fighters. While it's difficult to get a good look at them, the ships bear more than a few resemblances to the Pakled Mondor-type ship. Although, for all we know, they're actually Cardassian fighters, since Pakled and Cardassian ships share similar angular designs and gold color schemes. We already know both races are hostile toward the Federation, but Star Trek: Lower Decks season 2 will probably answer which race poses the bigger threat.
Ransom is the new Gary Mitchell
While most of Star Trek tries to keep its races bound to universal laws, the show occasionally throws a monkey wrench into its own rules by introducing god-like aliens that treat reality like a ball of clay, molding it as they see fit. Q (John de Lancie) is the most famous example, but even these reality-defying races follow certain rules, since their powers are built into their biologies. Once in a blue Andorian moon, however, a mortal is granted phenomenal cosmic power in the Star Trek universe.
For a split second at 0:07 during the Star Trek: Lower Decks season 2 trailer, Commander Jack Ransom (Jerry O'Connell) starts levitating and shoots rainbows out of his hands. Either he is about to turn into a unicorn, or he is following in the footsteps of other Starfleet officers who have (temporarily) obtained god-like power. Yes, this isn't a one-off event unique to Lower Decks.
In the Next Generation episode "Hide and Q," Q used his power to warp reality to give Riker the power of a Q (yes, Q is both the name of the race and its individual members, all six of them). Even before Q existed in Star Trek canon, helmsman Gary Mitchell received similar, god-like powers, when he passed through the rim of the Milky Way Galaxy. If you don't remember the character, that's because he only appeared in the original series' first episode, "Where No Man Has Gone Before."
How and why will Commander Ransom gain magical powers in Lower Decks season 2? That's the million-Latinum question, isn't it?