Posted in: Paramount+, Star Trek, streaming, TV | Tagged: Mike McMahan, noel wells, paramount, star trek: Lower Decks, Tawny Newsome

Star Trek: Lower Decks: Mike McMahan Teases Season 5 Twists & More

Mike McMahan discusses what's ahead for season five of Star Trek: Lower Decks, D'Vanta Tendi's shocking season 4 twist, cameos, and more.

Star Trek: Discovery might be wrapping up its run after five seasons, but Lower Decks has plenty left in the tank as it also enters its fifth season, and creator Mike McMahan has plenty to say about what's to come. When we last left our heroes, the lower deckers were barely able to enjoy their promotions to lieutenant junior grade when one of their own, Lt. D'Vana Tendi (Noël Wells), announced her resignation from Starfleet to return to her Orion homeworld as Mistress of the Winter Constellation in the season four finale "Old Friends, New Planets." McMahan offered what we could on what to expect from season five.

Star Trek: Lower Decks: Mike McMahan Recaps Season 4 and What It Means for Season 5

"Season 5 is awesome. We're working on it right now. I can tell you there's some really cool stuff on Orion," McMahan told TrekCulture. "That last shot of Tendi being forced to go home but then owning it and being like, 'I've got this'… I love Tendi. I love the stuff we do with her on Orion… That's all I'll say about that. I think fans of the original animated series will love what we're doing on Orion." Lower Decks has a knack of pulling off the most random of cameos from every era of Star Trek, with all past shows' represented except for Enterprise. "We've got some amazing cameos. I think we really outdid ourselves this season. Stuff nobody could expect. Stuff that was very difficult to lock everybody into and involved me writing personal letters and calling in favors. And this is me saying that after how hard it was to track down Shannon Fill, who I love…"

Fill reprised her role as Sito Jaxa from The Next Generation in the season finale along with Voyager alum Robert Duncan McNeill, who originally played disgraced cadet Nick Locarno before playing Lt. Tom Paris on the UPN series. In Lower Decks, we discover he's the season four villain looking to restore the glory of Nova Squad in an over-the-top scheme. Joining them was also Wil Wheaton, who reprised his role as Wesley Crusher for the second time in the Paramount+ era. All their scenes in the animated series took place in flashbacks that reveal Tawny Newsome's Beckett Mariner was involved in their group as Sito was killed in her character's second TNG episode, "Lower Decks."

McMahan ups the ante for the Star Trek animated series and its possibilities, "Season 5's gonna be awesome. We've got some amazing stuff happening. We've got some really funny episodes that are inspired by other episodes in Trek," he said. "We've got some wholly new stuff that you guys aren't gonna see coming. We've changed the format of the show again because we never do the same thing twice, so there isn't a season-long big bad… We self-contained that… Oh! We go to a place that I've been wanting to go to in the show. It's so fun." Season five is still in production as there's no set date for season five yet. Star Trek: Lower Decks is available to stream on Paramount+.

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