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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds/Lower Decks Team Talk Crossover Episode

Lower Decks stars Tawny Newsome & Jack Quaid and the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds cast discuss their upcoming crossover episode.

There are instances within Star Trek temporal crossovers are possible, but it can get especially tricky when it involves shows that take place within different eras. While The Original Series star DeForest Kelley reprised his role as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in the premiere episode of The Next Generation, the character was at an extremely old age. A similar approach was used but far less makeup on Leonard Nimoy as the human-Vulcan Spock, which Vulcan physiology allows them to age far longer than humans. For Kirk (William Shatner) and Scotty (James Doohan), the Nexus and a transporter hack allowed them to retain their natural ages in the TNG timeline. While the most recent examples in the Paramount+ era is the time-jumping Discovery, the upcoming episode of Strange New Worlds sees animated characters of Lower Decks travel from the future in Tawny Newsome's Beckett Mariner and Jack Quaid's Brad Boimler, the wayward ensigns making their live-action debuts who will try not to destroy the timeline in their latest adventure. The cast and director Jonathan Frakes opened up on filming "Those Old Scientists" with Entertainment Weekly in an interview that took place prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike.

"Tawny broke a lot of buttons and knobs and little things on the ship because she just couldn't stop touching things," Quaid said. "I would see her just fiddling around. She's been a Star Trek fan since she was a kid, so that was insane for her to actually be on the Enterprise." "Here I am, just saying glowing things about my friends, and he's over here blowing up my spot, talking about how I broke s—," Newsome adds, feigning shock. "He's right, though. I did. I broke so many things. Literally, on my first day, we were in deep background, not even in the foreground of the shot, and I leaned on a panel and put my elbow through it. Immediately a props person had to come up and fix it. I think that the Enterprise is a real place, and I thought that every button was there for me to push."

Ethan Peck, who plays Spock on Strange New Worlds, reveals there was a bit of self-awareness on both sides, given the scale of the Star Trek franchise. "There were definitely moments of fanboying, but I have the same feeling, too," he said. "I can't believe that I get to be booping these buttons on the bridge of the Enterprise." As far as how Mariner and Boimler describe themselves going in, Newsome calls themselves a "chaos bomb" to describe the dynamic. "Our characters are complete agents of chaos on that show," Quaid adds.

Written by Kathryn Lyn and Bill Wolkoff, the animated Boimler finds himself inadvertently thrown back in time at the doorstep of the U.S.S. Enterprise and now in live-action form. "Then just as we've milked all the fish-out-of-water elements, in comes Mariner, and the stakes get higher because she brings a brand-new energy to the room," Frakes explained. For more, including Quaid and Peck's Hollywood lineage, how the SNW and Lower Decks crossover story developed, Mariner bonding with Celia Rose Gooding's Uhura, mannerisms, and creating the live-action look for Mariner and Boimler for Newsome and Quaid, you can check out the piece here. You can also check out our interview with costume designer Bernadette Croft, which also touches upon this episode. Strange New Worlds streams Thursdays on Paramount+.

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