Looks like Captain Janeway isn’t the only Voyager crew member joining in on animated Star Trek action. The trailer for Star Trek: Lower Decks season 2 reveals that Tom Paris, Voyager’s bad boy hot shot pilot, will be making a cameo — as a plate — alongside a host of other references to the series that we’ve not come to expect from the cartoon.
The first season of Star Trek: Lower Decks was surprisingly funny and basically crammed full of references and cameos from previous Trek shows. As the Star Trek: Lower Decks season 2 trailer shows, it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. With Boimler off the USS Cerritos to serve under Captain Riker, it seems Starfleet’s least important ship is still getting into plenty of trouble. Clearly, Boimler is going to return somehow to the Cerritos, but who knows how? More importantly, there is a Tamarian crew member introduced, which is just a wealth of comedy to be mined from one of The Next Generation‘s best episodes.
During the Comic-Con@Home panel that introduced the trailer, Mike McMahan said the second season will be “bigger” and “funnier” and strike an even better balance between the serious and funny sides the first season showed. Despite often bending (or even breaking) Star Trek canon, the show’s humor is what drove it and allowed a likable cast to work. All of that cast will be returning with Tawny Newsome (Ensign Mariner), Jack Quaid (Ensign Boimler), Eugene Cordero (Ensign Rutherford), Noël Wells (Ensign Tendi), Jerry O’Connell (Commander Jack Ransom), and more coming back.
As the trailer notes, Star Trek: Lower Decks season 2 will arrive on Paramount+ on August 12, 2021.
