Posted in: Paramount+, TV | Tagged: lower decks, star trek

Star Trek Lower Decks Cast, Creator Discuss Season 5, Harry Kim & More

Star Trek: Lower Decks creator Mike McMahan and stars Tawny Newsome, Noël Wells, and Eugene Cordero on Voyager's Garrett Wang and more cameos.

Barring a last-minute change of heart from Paramount, where we see Star Trek: Lower Decks get another season or are granted to shop for a new home like Prodigy, the Mike McMahan animated comedy series plans to go out with a bang. McMahan's brought some friends along for the ride as he and cast members Tawny Newsome (Mariner), Noël Wells (Tendi), and Eugene Cordero (Rutherford) tease who we might see in the fifth and final season as they spoke to Entertainment Weekly and People about what we could expect to come.

Star Trek: Lower Decks Creator Mike McMahan and Company Tease Special Surprises Ahead for Final Season

In the season five trailer, we saw another Star Trek return in the form of Garrett Wang, who reprises his role as Harry Kim from Voyager with one major difference, a second pip on his uniform. How can this be?! He's finally a lieutenant! I mean, given everything he's done for Janeway and company for seven years, I think the former ensign at least deserves "lieutenant commander" status, but that's a rant for another day. "When I learned this was going to be our final season, I made sure to ask some of my favorites to be in the show," McMahan said before adding on the series' future, "You'll have to wait and see."

About Wang's return, "Every episode of season 5 builds on inspiration from classic Trek. We have some fun Legacy Trek characters who make an appearance — we've already let slip that Harry Kim, played by Garrett Wang, has a really funny episode where he has to deal with the multiple versions of himself," McMahan said. The running gag is that most of the ranked cast members eventually saw an eventual promotion in The Original Series and The Next Generation. On Deep Space Nine, star Avery Brooks, who played Benjamin Sisko, went from commander to captain.

Voyager star Kate Mulgrew saw Kathryn Janeway promoted to vice admiral from captain. Cmdr Chakotay (Robert Beltran) and Lt. Tuvok (Tim Russ) achieved the rank of captain as revealed on Prodigy and Picard. Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), who was a provisional crew member on the U.S.S. Voyager, finally got into Starfleet, starting as a commander and promoted to captain by the end of Picard. Within Voyager, we saw Robert Duncan McNeill's Tom Paris demoted from lieutenant to ensign and back to lieutenant. Meanwhile, Wang's Kim remained ensign throughout the UPN series run, which sadly became a running gag within the Star Trek community.

Lower Decks season five trailer finally gave Kim fans what they wanted and a little chaos to boot as we saw multiple incarnations of him. "What I can tell you is that Garrett Wang has so much personality and energy, and he is such a vibe as Harry Kim that we couldn't have just one," Newsome said. "So we had to find a way to have multiple Garretts, multiple Harrys because [of] the fans and we've been waiting for so long to see Harry." "The payoff of it is amazing that it's worth the wait," Cordero adds, calling Wang's return "an unbelievable cameo" that "feels like more than a cameo."

While Picard served the legacies of TNG and Voyager well, Lower Decks made sure all the legacy series from TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise got some love in some form with appearances from TOS star George Takei (Sulu); TNG stars Jonathan Frakes (Riker), Marina Sirtis (Troi), and Wil Wheaton (Wesley); DS9's Nana Visitor (Kira), Armin Shimerman (Quark), Chase Masterson (Leeta), Max Grodénchik (Rom); and Voyager's McNeill.

"There might be other cameos. Who knows?" Newsome teases. "It's not Lower Decks if something's not blowing up. You can put that on a billboard." "Yes, season 5 is supposed to be called' Lower Decks Season 5: Explosions,'" Cordero adds. New episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks stream on Thursdays on Paramount+.

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