John de Lancie is returning to Star Trek, and in just the right medium for more Continuum shenanigans.
During yesterday’s Star Trek day celebrations — which gave us, among other things, a new Discovery trailer and very important images of David Ajala wearing a cat like it’s the fall’s hottest new look — the crew behind Star Trek: Lower Decks came together to reflect on reaction to the show so far, and tease what’s to come in the back half of the series.
[referenced id=”1424013″ url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2020/09/meet-the-next-legendary-star-trek-pet-grudge-the-cat/” thumb=”https://gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/09/gxvg0cjos5yit0enx9tz-300×169.jpg” title=”Meet the Next Legendary Star Trek Pet: Grudge the Cat” excerpt=”We have breaking news. The upcoming season of Star Trek: Discovery is going to be the best one ever. We know this, for a fact, because it’ll be the first with Grudge the cat.”]
Turns out, it’s a lot of the same kind of weird, earnest fun we’ve had so far, by the looks of this new trailer:
And yes, as the end briefly teased, Lower Decks’ first major voice cameo — we already had the most important Star Trek character cameo already, of course — is none other than everyone’s favourite interstellar godlike arsehole, Q. He’s voiced once again by the wonderful John de Lancie, reprising his role from The Next Generation, Voyager, and Deep Space Nine for the first time since 2001.
“So, coming up in an episode we do have John de Lancie joining us, and he is playing Q in a small part” showrunner Mike McMahan confirmed in the Lower Decks panel. But don’t expect Q to be a major player in the lower deckers’ adventures. “The whole episode isn’t about him, but it’s hard to make a TNG-era show and not have Q show up, so I think an eagle-eyed viewer will be able to catch his appearance.”
Judging by the trailer, it’d be hard not to miss Q, all done up in his extra-as-hell robes from TNG rather than his more demure penchant for showing up aboard Voyager in a Starfleet uniform more often than not. But McMahan’s right: while it would be nice to see Q appear in Discovery or Picard for old times’ sake, Lower Decks is in the perfect timeframe for the character to actually make sense showing up beyond nostalgia purposes. Plus, given the series’ love of playfully poking holes into Trek tropes, Q is the perfect kind of chaos to throw into Lower Decks’ mix.
[referenced id=”1267407″ url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2020/08/lets-talk-about-that-star-trek-lower-decks-ending/” thumb=”https://gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/21/pkscrejs1hcwseqbvnzq-300×169.png” title=”Let’s Talk About That Star Trek: Lower Decks Ending” excerpt=”Star Trek: Lower Decks isn’t the sort of show for big, shocking reveals. But ever since I saw this week’s episode “Temporal Edict,” I have been unable to stop thing about the delightful thing that happens at the end.”]
Star Trek: Lower Decks’ first season is currently airing on CBS All Access in the U.S. It does not have a confirmed Australian release.