Star Trek sets crossover event with animated Lower Decks and live-action Strange New Worlds
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Star Trek is boldly going where... to be honest, many franchises have gone before. But it's still exciting for fans.
Star Trek: Lower Decks stars Tawny Newsome (Ensign Beckett Mariner) and Jack Quaid (Ensign Brad Boimler) crashed Anson Mount and his fellow actors' portion of the Trek Comic-Con panel on Saturday to announce their show will be crossing over with Strange New Worlds in a major event.
An episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 will welcome Newsome and Quaid's animated characters from Lower Decks aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise. We don't know which episode just yet, but we know it will feature both live-action and animation, according to a press release, and it will be directed by Trek veteran Jonathan Frakes (Commander William Riker). The actors will make their appearances in live action, they said at the panel.
"We're gonna stress them out," Newsome exclaimed of their characters coming into contact with the Strange New Worlds crew. "We'll see you guys in outer space," she added.
PARAMOUNT+ ; Marni Grossman/Paramount+ 'Star Trek: Lower Decks' is crossing over with 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.'
According to Strange New Worlds showrunner Henry Alonso Myers, David Reed, a writer on the show, also works with Quaid on The Boys and got to talking with the actor about crossing over his Lower Decks character with the live-action series.
"We were in the room and we started talking about it, and we were like, 'What if we could get more than one person from the Lower Decks show?'" Myers said. "The crazy thing is I get a call from Alex, completely separate, and he says, 'Hey, you guys should think about doing a crossover with Lower Decks.'"
A premiere date for Strange New Worlds season 2 isn't yet known, but this is the second surprise addition after it was revealed that Paul Wesley will be playing a younger version of Captain Kirk in the forthcoming episodes. Wesley made his debut as the character in the season 1 finale, which dropped on Paramount+ earlier this month.
This is undoubtedly a big moment for Lower Decks creator Mike McMahan. Speaking to EW a few weeks prior to the panel, he expressed his dream to see some of his animated creations crossover into the live-action Trek space in some form. And perhaps he was subtly teasing the big news that would come at Comic-Con.
"I would flip out," he said at the time. "I already saw that the bunks that we have set up on the Cerritos [in Lower Decks] seem to inspire the bunks that they use in Strange New Worlds for the cadets, which, like, ah, my heart. It just makes me so happy. I love that stuff crossing over. I would love some of our characters to show up even in the backgrounds to build it out and make it feel even more unified. I have talked to some of the other [Trek] showrunners about that, but at the end of the day, they're juggling so much stuff and we have so many different time periods that it starts to get a little complex." Well, look at them now!
The Trek panel in Hall H of the San Diego Convention Center — featuring Picard, Lower Decks, and Strange New Worlds — also released the official trailer for Lower Decks season 3, premiering Thursday, Aug. 25.
The season 2 finale saw Captain Freeman being taken into custody, and now the Lower Decks gang, particularly Freeman's daughter Mariner, is plotting a mission to save her.
EW previously revealed a new alien coming in season 3, the Kromsapiod named K'ranch, who pops up in the footage.
Watch in the trailer above.
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
Related content:
