Part of what has makes Star Trek: Lower Decks so popular across its five-season run is the loving attention it pays to all the Star Trek that's come before. Star Trek: Lower Decks brings back characters whose shows ended years ago and references popular fan theories in almost every episode. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, in particular, has been referenced several times on Lower Decks. Years before Lieutenants Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) and Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Deep Space Nine also took an episode to give its low-ranked officers a moment in the spotlight.
“Empok Nor” Is A Star Trek: DS9 Lower Decks Episode
Junior Officers Are Tested, With A Twist
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 5, episode 24, "Empok Nor" is essentially DS9's version of "Lower Decks." In "Empok Nor," Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney), Nog (Aron Eisenberg), Elim Garak (Andrew Robinson), and four engineering crewmen from Deep Space Nine go on a salvage mission to the abandoned Cardassian station, Empok Nor. By focusing on an away mission of mostly low-ranked personnel, "Empok Nor" tests a group of crewmen who might otherwise have remained anonymous. This is the same classic formula that made "Lower Decks" work on TNG and set up all of Star Trek: Lower Decks for success.
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Of course, things do not go smoothly for Chief O'Brien's lower deckers in "Empok Nor." Most of the time, when Star Trek turns the spotlight on the crewmen who work behind the scenes, they grow and succeed over the course of their episodes or seasons. In "Empok Nor," they die. Of the eight-person-away missions that flew away from Deep Space Nine, only Chief O'Brien, Garak, and Nog live to return. Although junior officers die all the time in Trek, those deaths hit ten times harder in "Empok Nor" because crewmen who die are all full characters with names, goals, and personalities.
"Lower Decks" and Star Trek: Lower Decks work because they show the hidden potentials of the entire crews of Federation vessels...
Because most of DS9's lower deckers die, Nog's survival, in particular, seems all the more important. The fact that the wily Ferengi was able to out-maneuver Garak on a drug-induced murder spree makes Cadet Nog's position in Starfleet Academy all the more earned. Both "Lower Decks" and Star Trek: Lower Decks work because they show the hidden potentials of the entire crews of Federation vessels; "Empok Nor" works because it shows that same hidden potential in a character who began as a civilian.
Star Trek: Lower Decks Has 2 Big DS9 Connections
Both Mariner And Shaxs Know Deep Space Nine Well
Even beyond the parallel structure and focus between "Empok Nor” and Mike McMahan's animated comedy, Star Trek: Lower Decks and Deep Space Nine have other important connections. As early as Star Trek: Lower Decks season 2, Ensign Mariner reveals that she served on Deep Space Nine in the past. In Lower Decks season 3, Colonel Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) recognizes Mariner and asks if she has been swapping war stories with Quark (Armin Shimerman). These anecdotes reveal that Mariner served on Deep Space Nine during the Dominion War, and her experiences with that conflict are an essential part of her self-sabotage in later seasons.
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Beckett Mariner is not the only member of the USS Cerritos crew with Deep Space Nine connections. Lieutenant Shaxs (Fred Tatasciore) is a personal friend of Colonel Kira. Shaxs and Kira served together in the Bajoran Militia, and they have both saved each other's lives numerous times. The interpersonal connections that link Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Lower Decks make the universe of Star Trek feel fuller, and they sell the notion that every background officer in the Federation is only a few degrees of separation from the most beloved characters in Star Trek.
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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, also known as DS9, is the fourth series in the long-running Sci-Fi franchise, Star Trek. DS9 was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, and stars Avery Brooks, René Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, and Cirroc Lofton. This particular series follows a group of individuals in a space station near a planet called Bajor.
Release Date
January 3, 1993
Seasons
7
Writers
Rick Berman
, Michael Piller
Showrunner
Michael Piller
, Ira Steven Behr
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The animated comedy series Star Trek: Lower Decks follows the support crew on one of Starfleet’s least significant ships, the U.S.S. Cerritos, in 2380. Ensigns Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Boimler (Jack Quaid), Rutherford (Eugene Cordero), and Tendi (Noël Wells) have to keep up with their duties and their social lives often. At the same time, the ship is being rocked by a multitude of sci-fi anomalies.
Release Date
August 6, 2020
Seasons
4
Writers
Gene Roddenberry
Custom Image By Yailin Chacon
English (US) ·