Star Trek: Lower Decks (season 4)

The fourth season of the American adult animated television series Star Trek: Lower Decks is set in the 24th century and follows the adventures of the "lower deckers" (low-ranking officers with menial jobs) on the starship Cerritos, one of Starfleet's least important starships. The season is produced by CBS Eye Animation Productions in association with Secret Hideout, Important Science, Roddenberry Entertainment, and animation studio Titmouse, with Mike McMahan serving as showrunner and Barry J. Kelly as supervising director.

Star Trek: Lower Decks
Season 4
Promotional poster
Starring
Country of originUnited States
No. of episodes9
Release
Original networkParamount+
Original releaseSeptember 7, 2023 (2023-09-07) –
present
Season chronology

Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid, Noël Wells, and Eugene Cordero voice the lower decks crew members of the Cerritos, with Dawnn Lewis, Jerry O'Connell, Fred Tatasciore, and Gillian Vigman providing voices for the ship's senior officers. A fourth season of Lower Decks was ordered in January 2022. Writing began by that April, and voice recording started by June.

The season premiered on the streaming service Paramount+ on September 7, 2023, with its first two episodes. The rest of the 10-episode run will be released weekly. A fifth season was ordered in March 2023.[1]

Episodes
Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4 episodes
No.
overall		No. in
season		TitleDirected byWritten byOriginal release date
311"Twovix"
  • Barry J. Kelly
  • Jason Zurek
Mike McMahanSeptember 7, 2023 (2023-09-07)
Ensign Boimler learns that he is due to be promoted, while the Cerritos escorts the decommissioned starship Voyager to Earth to become a museum displaying exhibits about its adventures in the Delta Quadrant. When a dormant Delta Quadrant "macrovirus" is awakened, Boimler's distraction allows it to combine with Borg technology, contaminate the other exhibits, and take control of the ship. After encouraging words from Ensign Mariner, Boimler enlists Ensign Rutherford's aid to disable the ship's systems with a sample of homemade cheese that once infected Voyager. Meanwhile, on the Cerritos, a stray Delta Quadrant flower petal causes a transporter accident that merges Dr. T'Ana and chief engineer Billups into one person, "T'illups". Captain Freeman learns that when this happened on Voyager, Captain Janeway killed the merged person, Tuvix, to restore the original two individuals. Not wanting to suffer the same fate, T'illups begins "Tuvixing" other members of the Cerritos crew. Ensigns Tendi and T'Lyn end up merging all the Tuvixed individuals into a huge ball of flesh before separating them out again. Once the chaos is over, Boimler, Tendi, T'Lyn, and Mariner all receive promotions to lieutenant (junior grade). Meanwhile, the Klingon ship Che'Ta is attacked by an unknown vessel.
322"I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee"Megan LloydAaron BurdetteSeptember 7, 2023 (2023-09-07)
A Romulan vessel is attacked by the same vessel encountered by the Che'Ta. Mariner thinks she overhears Ransom saying that she will inevitably be demoted to ensign again, and resolves to act insubordinate to speed up the process. On a mission to rescue humans from an alien menagerie, Mariner's behavior is irreverent and undisciplined. When a dangerous creature, Moopsy, escapes from its cage, Ransom accuses Mariner of releasing it in order to get demoted, but he tells her he has faith in her and refuses to let her sabotage her own career. The two collaborate to return Moopsy to its cage, and discover that the humans in the menagerie freed Moopsy themselves. Meanwhile, Rutherford is anxious that Tendi's promotion will ruin their friendship. He spends the day trying to impress Billups with his engineering skill in order to earn his own promotion, only to be outdone at every turn by the new Ensign Livik. Tendi eventually assures him that they will remain friends no matter what. Learning that Rutherford has turned down promotions for heroic achievements in the past, Tendi simply asks Billups to give him the promotion he is due, which Billups immediately grants.
333"In the Cradle of Vexilon"Brandon WilliamsBen WallerSeptember 14, 2023 (2023-09-14)
The Cerritos visits Corazonia, an idyllic space habitat controlled by Vexilon, an ancient computer system whose performance is deteriorating. Freeman's attempts to repair Vexilon cause it to shut down, creating chaos in Corazonia's ecosystem. Meanwhile, Boimler is leading his first away mission to upgrade a power plant; he struggles to trust his subordinates and insists on doing all the work himself. When Freeman needs the plant reactivated, T'Lyn persuades Boimler to trust his ensigns; they work together and restart the machinery, allowing Freeman to reset Vexilon. The plant overheats, and Boimler orders his team to leave; he is killed deactivating it, but later revived by Dr.T'Ana. Meanwhile, on the Cerritos, Mariner, Tendi, and Rutherford are tasked by Lt. Dirk to scan thousands of computer chips to find one broken one. Suspecting he is hazing them, they retaliate by planting in his quarters a game of Chula, which traps players in a simulated world. Dirk impresses on them the importance of their task, and tells them he was traumatized by Chula as a child. Convinced Dirk is not hazing them, Mariner distracts him while Rutherford removes the game from his quarters (after being forced to play through it) and Tendi finds the broken chip. Later, Dirk and Ransom celebrate their successful hazing.
344"Something Borrowed, Something Green"Bob SuarezGrace Parra JanneySeptember 21, 2023 (2023-09-21)
After an Orion supply ship is assaulted by the same unknown vessel from previous episodes, Starfleet pressures the reluctant Lt. Tendi into attending her sister D'Erika’s wedding to demonstrate interstellar goodwill. Mariner and T'Lyn accompany her to Orion, where the Tendi family is one of the most rich, powerful, and feared on the planet. The bride has been kidnapped, and it is Tendi's customary responsibility to rescue her. They track D'Erika to an abandoned spaceship yard, where Tendi confesses that she was trained to be an elite assassin before running away to join Starfleet. D'Erika, who staged her own kidnapping, ambushes Tendi in revenge for abandoning her. The sisters reconcile and the wedding occurs as planned. On the Cerritos, Boimler and Rutherford have become annoyingly close as roommates, but argue over watering their bonsai tree. Their conflict continues on the holodeck when they both appear as Mark Twain, but they resolve their disagreement by acting in character. They recommend the same holodeck activity when Capt. Freeman and an aggressive Chalnoth captain fail to negotiate, but it devolves into a brawl. The Chalnoth expresses curiosity about the bonsai; when he is brought to see it, he immediately eats the tree. Suddenly content, he is now willing to reach an agreement with Freeman.
355"Empathological Fallacies"Megan LloydJamie LoftusSeptember 28, 2023 (2023-09-28)
The Cerritos escorts three boisterous Betazoid diplomats. T'Lyn finds their behavior, and her time on the ship, distasteful, and drafts a message requesting to be allowed to return to her former ship. The Cerritos crew begin behaving in an unhinged manner, and Freeman suspects the Betazoids have Zanthi fever, a telepathic disease that affects others' emotions. The Betazoids, objecting to Freeman's treatment of them, reveal themselves as undercover intelligence officers and seize control of the ship. T'Lyn realizes that her conflicting emotions over her transfer are being telepathically projected to the ship, which further convinces her that she is a failure as a Vulcan. Mariner helps restore her self-confidence, which helps T'Lyn quell her emotions and return the crew to normal; she does not send her message. Meanwhile, an overtaxed Boimler goes to train with the Security team, but finds their activities to be silly recreational games. He later witnesses the Security crew easily handle the Betazoid threat; Shaxs tells Boimler they were trying to help him relax, since being a protector also means protecting the crew's mental state. Before leaving, the Betazoid agents share an image of the mysterious vessel that has been attacking other ships.
366"Parth Ferengi's Heart Place"Brandon WilliamsCullen CrawfordOctober 5, 2023 (2023-10-05)
A Ferengi ship is attacked by the mysterious vessel, as planned by one of its unfortunate crew, who is also caught in the blast. Meanwhile, Captain Freeman is tasked with aiding a Starfleet admiral with formalizing the agreement to approve the Ferengi joining the Federation, but is ignored when she senses that Grand Nagus Rom and First Clerk Leeta are conning them. As the admiral falls deeper into the altered terms of their agreement, Freeman cons them back with an impossible deal, which garners their respect. Rom and Leeta agree to the original terms of the Federation, earning the admiral's thanks. Meanwhile, Ransom assigns the group travel guide duty, allowing them to enjoy the pleasures of Ferenginar, but Mariner is irritated by his unflagging support. Meeting up with her friend Quimp, she gets drunk and causes senseless fights until Quimp calls her out on her tantrum, telling her that she should accept being in a good place for once in her career. Boimler plans an ambitious sightseeing agenda, but becomes entranced by Ferengi television. Tendi and Rutherford are asked to pose as a married couple as part of their assignment, but find the romantic experience awkwardly too close to home.
377"A Few Badgeys More"Bob SuarezEdgar MomplaisirOctober 12, 2023 (2023-10-12)
Badgey overrides a Drookmani ship before encountering Bynar ship remains from an earlier attack by the mysterious vessel. The Cerritos answers the Bynar distress call, and Badgey attacks them. Rutherford and Mariner beam aboard the ship. Rutherford apologizes to Badgey. Badgey's cognitive dissonance over his love for Rutherford causes him to keep his vengeful code and shunt his "good" code into another version, "Goodgey". Badgey then relays his code to every ship in the Federation, planning to destroy everything, but the process makes him omniscient and he realizes the petulance of his anger, apologizing before ascending to a higher state of being. Rutherford incorporates Goodgey into a Federation guidance system. Meanwhile, Tendi and Boimler go to the Daystrom Institute to oversee Peanut Hamper's rehabilitation and to gather AGIMUS's alleged intelligence on the mysterious vessel. Peanut Hamper and AGIMUS secretly plot their escape using these ruses, but AGIMUS realizes upon his escape that Peanut Hamper has abandoned him. He locates her on a service vessel, where she reveals she really has reformed, and only plotted with AGIMUS because she enjoyed their friendship. AGIMUS resolves to truly reform at the institute so he can later join her. He gives Boimler intel showing that the attacked ships have not been destroyed: they were stolen.
388"Caves"Megan LloydBen RodgersOctober 19, 2023 (2023-10-19)
Boimler, Mariner, Tendi, and Rutherford are trapped in a collapsed cave while on an away mission to study aggressively growing moss. With communications blocked, they await rescue and recount tales of previous experiences trapped in caves: Boimler was trapped with conspiracy theorist Lieutenant Levy on Kyron 4, but bonds with him when his theory that the cave is a test by the mysterious Vendorians proves correct. Rutherford recounts how he and Dr. T'ana were trapped on Balkus 9, and he gave birth to an alien baby, whom he and T'ana raise together while searching for a cave exit. Mariner was trapped after leading an away mission with Delta Shift on Glish. Though initially oppositional with each other, their teamwork allows them to signal for rescue. Afterward, worrying that their stories show their social groups may be changing, they begin arguing. The moss, revealing itself to be sentient, demands to hear Tendi's story: After partying following Tendi's first day, all four of them were trapped in a lift, but it resulted in them becoming friends. Tendi assures them that they will always be friends, even if their social circles grow. The moss is touched and they continue recounting stories to it. Secretly, the blocked communications are revealed to be caused by the Vendorians to test their friendship.
399"The Inner Fight"Brandon WilliamsMike McMahanOctober 26, 2023 (2023-10-26)
Learning that the mysterious vessel is now attacking former Starfleet officers, the Cerritos is assigned to locate former cadet Nick Locarno, who now works as a pilot for hire. Captain Freeman, Shaxs, and Rutherford head to New Axton to locate Locarno, and, noticing that Mariner has been recklessly endangering herself lately, Freeman assigns her, Tendi, T'Lyn, and Boimler to a safe buoy repair job near Sherbal V. When they finish, the Che'Ta, now working with the mysterious vessel, appears and destroys their ship, forcing them to beam onto the planet. They encounter the captains of the other missing ships, including Ma'ah, all stranded as victims of mutiny. While the others convert the buoy's monitoring station into a distress beacon, Mariner gets into a fight with Ma'ah. She admits that she was acting out over disillusionment that her new responsibilities may mean complicity with Starfleet's military aspects. Ma'ah helps bolster Mariner's belief in herself and Starfleet. She convinces the other captains to work together, but is suddenly beamed away. Ma'ah and the others use the distress beacon to lure the Che'Ta down to the surface, overtaking it. Meanwhile, Freeman locates Locarno's residence, but discovers the mysterious vessel's schematics therein. Mariner awakens aboard the vessel, greeted by Locarno.

Cast and characters
Main article: List of Star Trek: Lower Decks characters

Main

Notable guests

Production

Development and writing

Paramount+ ordered a 10-episode fourth season of Star Trek: Lower Decks in January 2022, when it also announced season renewals for the other Star Trek Universe series.[4] Writing for the season began by that April,[5] and was mostly completed by September.[6]

After the success of the second-season episode "wej Duj", which had a different format than previous episodes of the series, McMahan said the writers were trying to bring those types of ideas to the whole fourth season.[7] He later said the season would have an episode that continued from the third-season episode "A Mathematically Perfect Redemption", in which the narcissistic exocomp Peanut Hamper met the evil computer AGIMUS,[8][9] but said there would not be a standalone Peanut Hamper episode in the season like that episode was. McMahan added that there would be an episode set on the planet Orion, a romantic episode, and a wedding.[10]

Casting and voice recording

The series stars a group of ensigns serving 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—and the ship's bridge crew who believe "the show is about them, but it's not"—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.[2][3] Newsome had begun recording voice overs for the season by June 2022, when she was also doing additional dialogue recording (ADR) for the third season.[11]

McMahan did not anticipate the positive fan reaction to second-season guest star Gabrielle Ruiz's T'Lyn when working on the third season, so she only has a small role there, but he hoped to explore her further in future seasons;[12][13] he later described the fourth season as going "to T'Lyn town. I want to know what she's up to."[7] T'Lyn is a "provisional ensign" aboard the Cerritos in the fourth season.[3]

Animation and design

Independent animation studio Titmouse provides the animation for the series,[14] with Barry J. Kelly serving as supervising director for the season. The art team was about to begin work on the season in mid-July 2022.[7] 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.[15]

Marketing

A trailer and the key art poster for the season were revealed at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2023, when the season's premiere date was also announced. The poster continues the series' theme of referencing the posters of the Star Trek films, with this one being an homage to the Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) poster.[3]

Release

The season premiered on Paramount+ in the United States and Latin America on September 7, 2023, with its first two episodes.[3] The rest of its 10-episode run will be released weekly.[1] Each episode is broadcast in Canada on the CTV Sci-Fi Channel, and will be made available on Paramount+ in the U.K., Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and South Korea later in 2023.[3]

Reception

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval score with an average rating of 8.7/10 based on 11 reviews.[16]

References
  1. Otterson, Joe (March 28, 2023). "'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,' 'Lower Decks' Renewed at Paramount+, Set Summer Premieres". Variety. Archived from the original on March 28, 2023. Retrieved April 22, 2023.
  2. "Comic-Con 2019: 'Star Trek: Lower Decks' Characters and Voice Cast Revealed". TrekMovie.com. July 20, 2019. Archived from the original on July 21, 2019. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  3. Milligan, Mercedes (July 22, 2023). "SDCC: 'Star Trek' Universe Panel Reveals 'Lower Decks' S4 Trailer & Premiere Date". Animation Magazine. Archived from the original on July 22, 2023. Retrieved July 23, 2023.
  4. Andreeva, Nellie (January 18, 2022). "'Star Trek' Universe News: 'Discovery', 'Strange New Worlds' & 'Lower Decks' Renewed, 'Picard' Gets Season 2 Premiere Date". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on January 19, 2022. Retrieved January 19, 2022.
  5. McMahan, Mike [@MikeMcMahanTM] (April 5, 2022). "the more Trek news the better! We're having a blast finishing season 3 and writing season 4 right now :)" (Tweet). Archived from the original on April 5, 2022. Retrieved April 26, 2022 – via Twitter.
  6. Pascale, Anthony (September 8, 2022). "Interview: Mike McMahan On "Big" Season 3 Finale And The Future Of 'Star Trek: Lower Decks'". TrekMovie.com. Archived from the original on September 28, 2022. Retrieved October 9, 2022.
  7. Bennett, Tara (July 11, 2022). "Star Trek: Lower Decks Creator Mike McMahan on Season 2 Triumphs, Teases Seasons 3 and 4". IGN. Archived from the original on July 11, 2022. Retrieved July 18, 2022.
  8. Cecchini, Mike (October 6, 2022). "Star Trek: Lower Decks - Why Peanut Hamper's Return Matters". Den of Geek. Archived from the original on October 6, 2022. Retrieved October 8, 2022.
  9. Pascale, Anthony (October 6, 2022). "Recap/Review: 'Star Trek: Lower Decks' Soars In The Strange "A Mathematically Perfect Redemption"". TrekMovie.com. Archived from the original on October 6, 2022. Retrieved October 8, 2022.
  10. "Mike McMahan Teases 'Star Trek: Lower Decks' Season 4 Wedding, Visit To Orion & More Peanut Hamper". TrekMovie.com. January 17, 2023. Archived from the original on January 17, 2023. Retrieved March 4, 2023.
  11. Ryan, Danielle (June 28, 2022). "Star Trek: Lower Decks Star Tawny Newsome Is Stoked About Replicator Nachos [Interview]". /Film. Archived from the original on June 28, 2022. Retrieved June 30, 2022.
  12. Orquiola, John (October 14, 2021). "Mike McMahan Interview: Star Trek Lower Decks S2 Finale". Screen Rant. Archived from the original on October 14, 2021. Retrieved January 2, 2022.
  13. Kaplan, Rebecca (December 15, 2021). "Mike McMahan Dishes on Star Trek: Lower Decks and Cali-Class Cuisine". Geek Girl Authority. Archived from the original on December 15, 2021. Retrieved January 2, 2022.
  14. "Breaking News - Paramount+ Announces Premiere Dates and Additional Seasons for "Star Trek" Universe Series". The Futon Critic. January 18, 2022. Archived from the original on June 30, 2022. Retrieved July 1, 2022.
  15. Reilly, Ken (August 15, 2020). "Interview: Mike McMahan on Star Trek: Lower Decks' Animation Design, Balancing Canon and Creativity, and "Good People Doing Good Things" in Starfleet". TrekCore.com. Archived from the original on August 20, 2020. Retrieved April 25, 2022.
  16. "Star Trek: Lower Decks". rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved September 7, 2023.
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