star trek moopsy

A moopsy drinking Narj's bones

The moopsy was a small predatory animal known for "drinking" bones . Belying its cute and harmless appearance, it was capable of launching itself at high speed towards much larger prey and draining it of its bones in seconds. Though it normally had a slow, waddling gait, the moopsy had a voracious appetite and pursued food relentlessly. When it attacked, its apparently small mouth stretched considerably to reveal large fangs . Its name reflected the sound of its vocalizations.

A moopsy was among the lifeforms kept within Narj's Miraculous Menagerarium . In 2381 , it was released by two Humans who had been accidentally put on display, in the hopes that it would kill Narj and give them ownership of his menagerie . The moopsy devoured two Pyrithian swamp gobblers and Narj, and almost caused the menagerie to fall out of orbit by clambering onto the consoles in the main control room . Lieutenant jg Beckett Mariner and Commander Jack Ransom managed to entice the moopsy back into its enclosure with a trail of teeth , which Mariner had punched out of Ransom's mouth at his suggestion. ( LD : " I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee ")

The moopsy's utterances were provided by Roan K. Lai .

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What Is Moopsy: The Star Trek Alien Way More Terrifying Than Alien Facehuggers

"Star Trek" has introduced fans to all kinds of terrifying aliens and monsters. But few hold a candle to the dreaded Moopsy, introduced in "Star Trek: Lower Decks" Season 4, Episode 2 — "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee."

"Lower Decks" may be an animated comedy, but the creative team designed a creature that's equal parts adorable and horrific. When it's first introduced, it looks utterly harmless despite being kept in Narj's (Carl Clemons-Hopkins) Miraculous Menagerarium. It's pretty much a sentient marshmallow that says its own name like a Pokémon. Even the way it moves looks innocuous as it flops around, but when it gets into an enclosure containing two Pyrithian swamp gobblers, it shows what it's capable of.

Moopsy in "Star Trek"  drinks bones. It latches onto its victim and slurps up bones somehow until the host is nothing but a skin sack. The crew of the USS Cerritos realizes the danger they're in and concoct a plan to get Moopsy back in its pen, namely by leaving behind a trail of teeth for the creature to eat to lure it back. Science fiction is no stranger to terrifying aliens, such as the xenomorphs in the "Alien" franchise that lay eggs in humans that the young will eventually burst out from. But there's something about the imagery of a creature drinking bones that puts Moopsy among the all-time terrifying sci-fi creatures .

Tremble before Moopsy

Moopsy from "Star Trek: Lower Decks" would be a formidable opponent regardless of whatever science-fiction creature it was up against. A xenomorph from "Alien" may have corrosive blood, but it's not going to do much good without any bones. And even though a xenomorph's biology doesn't make a ton of sense , they do appear to have bones if "Predator 2" is any indication, as the skull of a xenomorph can be found on the aliens' ship. 

Perhaps it would be more fair to put Moopsy up against a similar entity from the same franchise, namely the tribbles from "Star Trek: The Original Series." Tribbles can be thought of as an early variant of Moopsy from the 1960s. They aren't quite as unsettling since they don't drink bones, but they're plenty dangerous without that skill. Instead, the tribbles aim to eat and reproduce ad infinitum. When it comes to cuteness, Moopsy probably has the advantage because it has an expressive face. 

Moopsy could also probably wipe the floor with the tribbles in a battle of brawn. Tribbles can multiply and take over a spaceship quickly if one's not careful. But again, and this can't be repeated enough, Moopsy drinks bones . As rodents, tribbles are likely filled with bones, so assuming Moopsy is particularly hungry, it could get through dozens of tribbles faster than they can reproduce. While we'd like to say we hope we see Moopsy again because it's so darn cute, it very well could haunt our nightmares with the way it slurps up bones like pho.

Moopsy in Star Trek Lower Decks, explained

Star Trek Lower Decks season 4 has arrived on Paramount Plus, and it's introduced audiences to one of the cutest and most terrifying aliens ever. The Moopsy.

James Osborne

Published: Sep 7, 2023

What is the Moopsy in Star Trek Lower Decks, and have we seen it before? Lower Decks loves contradictions, because contradictions can be funny. The incompetent Pakleds as wannabe warmongers? Highly intelligent and capable crew members who are too awkward and chaotic to really make it?

This is Star Trek Lower Decks’ bread and butter. Now, in the animated Star Trek series second episode of its fourth season (which is new on Paramount Plus now) we’ve got another walking contradiction. An extremely cute little alien, who is also horrifically terrifying. The show’s Star Trek characters come face to face with the Moopsy while visiting a galactic menagerie and we’re desperate to learn more. Here’s everything we know about the Moopsy , including its origins and if we’ve seen it before.

What is the Moopsy in Star Trek Lower Decks?

The Moopsy is a small, quadrupedal alien with white fur and large round eyes. Introduced into Star Trek in Lower Decks season 4 episode 2, the Moopsy is kept in a menagerie owned by an individual named Narj. It was freed from its cage and unleashed by a pair of humans who wanted to take the station over for themselves.

It is an incredibly cute, and incredibly dangerous creature which can drink the bones of other aliens (including the Pyrithian Swamp Gobblers) by plunging its large, sharp teeth into them, turning them into a boneless sack of flesh. The Moopsy is also extremely intelligent, and is able to operate the station’s control room. We don’t know what planet the Moopsy comes from, but it’s probably the apex predator with its horrific power.

What we do know is that we’re now desperate for a Moopsy plush doll, or something similar, and we’d love to see the creature come back to Star Trek in some form. Perhaps SNW might be the ones who discover the Moopsy planet?

For more on Star Trek, check out our guide to the  Strange New Worlds season 3 release date . You can also see the best way to watch the  Star Trek movies in order , and our complete breakdown of the  Star Trek timeline . Or, see who we think is the best Star Trek captain , before checking out our ranking of the best TV series .

James Osborne After graduating from the University of York with a degree in archaeology (inspired by Captain Picard), James worked with the news team at Screen Rant while contributing features to Vulture, The AV Club, Digital Spy, FANDOM, and the official Star Trek website. Now, he writes about all things sci-fi and fantasy at The Digital Fix with an 'Enterprise-D ambiance' playlist on loop. He's a seasoned expert on all things Star Trek , Lord of the Rings , Star Wars , and Yellowstone , and is more than willing to share his hot takes on TNG which he believes is the greatest series ever made.

Meet Moopsy, The Cutest Murder Alien On Star Trek: Lower Decks

The second episode of the fourth season of "Star Trek: Lower Decks" is called "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee," which is a fun reference to Harlan Ellison's 1967 post-apocalyptic short story "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream." The plot sees Lieutenant Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Commander Ransom (Jarry O'Connell), and a traditional "Star Trek" Redshirt trekking to a distant alien zoo where a pair of humans have accidentally been put on display. Mariner notes that this sort of thing happens all the time and that rescuing humans from alien zoos is a regular occurrence in Starfleet. 

The alien zoo in question is overseen by a sentient humanoid root vegetable named Narj. Narj, a mild-mannered figure, explains that imprisoning humans was a mere accident and that the animals in his menagerie are all happy in their respective artificial biomes. This is a peaceful place, and Narj even abides by a no-weapons policy in the zoo.

This policy proves to be a terrible idea when the Cerritos crew members are introduced to Moopsy, a cute, toyetic, marshmallow-like critter that isn't too many steps removed from a Pokémon. Because of its appearance, Mariner and co. assume Moopsy to be harmless and cuddly, which is, of course, incorrect. It seems Moopsy is a vicious predator that can "drink your bones." The animal can sprout massive fangs, puncture its prey, and biologically liquefy any bone matter therein before slurping it down. It literally drinks bones. Moopsy will drink many bones before the episode's end. 

Also like a Pokémon, Moopsy can only say its own name. 

Heck. I'm calling it now: Pokémon exist in "Star Trek."

Moopsy, Space Tyrant?

Moopsy may also be more than a mere creature of animal intelligence. When Moopsy escapes from its enclosure — perhaps an inevitable plot detail — it makes its way to the space-bound zoo's central control room, attempting to take control. It can only say "Moopsy," but Moopsy is clearly thinking deeply, hatching some kind of scheme.

Of course, the "animal that appears cute but is actually a vicious predator" is not a new gag. One might think of the killer rabbit from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," Nibbler from "Futurama," the blue-skinned aliens from "Galaxy Quest," Goose the flerkin from "Captain Marvel," Stitch from "Lilo & Stitch," the adipose creatures from "Doctor Who," Pooka from "Pooka," or the Nubbins in "Sanctuary" for precedents. Moopsy probably owes its biggest debt to Deborah Howe's and James Howe's 1979 children's novel "Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery," a book about a vampire rabbit that may be savaging the household vegetables. 

"Star Trek" even had its own version of the "killer cutie" back in the 1960s in the form of the tribbles. Tribbles, one might recall, were harmless balls of fur whose cooing seemed to pacify and sedate most humanoids. The tribbles weren't vicious, but they were dangerous vermin; they bred quickly and could wipe out massive food supplies in a matter of days. On an episode of "Short Treks," it was also revealed that tribbles could multiply so quickly, that they could fill and explode an entire starship. It wouldn't be until "Star Trek: Picard" that audiences would be introduced to the vicious, fanged Attack Tribble. 

Little else is revealed about Moopsy apart from its predatory streak and unusual intelligence, but knowing the way the "Lower Decks" writers' minds operate, audiences haven't seen the last of it. 

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‘Star Trek: Lower Decks:’ How Does Moopsy Rank Against Every Cute Thing That’s Ever Existed?

Last week, Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4, episode 2, “I Have No Bones, Yet I Must Flee,” unveiled its newest lovable abomination: Moopsy, a living marshmallow that flops around, chirps its adorable name and catch phrase (“Moopsy!”) and sucks the bones out of every living thing it encounters.

You can tell that a lot of thought went into making Moopsy as cute as possible. That floppy, roly-poly locomotion! That butt-waggle just before it feeds! That incredible voice! It’s so cute !

But how cute? Cuteness is a competitive industry. How does Moopsy rank against all the other cute things in this big ol’ universe?

I made it my mission to find out.

Moopsy versus tribbles

Tribbles are sort of the ur-Moopsy: they’re a Star Trek creation that ramped up the cuteness to a thousand percent, only to stun audiences with a hideous dark side. (In the case of tribbles, they don’t drink bones, they just have a zillion babies.) The problem with tribbles, though—aside from the breeding—is that they don’t have visible faces. You can be adorable without a face, but that body type will only take you so far. Moopsy has a sweet lil’ punim you just want to squish, so Moopsy wins.

Moopsy versus Pikachu

Pikachu has always been pretty cute, but never terrifyingly cute. Like, Pikachu’s cute enough that you want to give him an ear scritch, but not so mind-blowingly cute that you want to stuff him in your mouth. That’s why they had to introduce Pichu as an even cuter version of Pikachu. It’s still no contest, though—Moopsy’s cuter than Pikachu and Pichu combined.

Moopsy versus Data’s cat Spot

My chief complaint about Star Trek: The Next Generation is that we never saw enough of Spot, Data’s orange tabby. Remember that scene where Worf has to take care of Spot, and Data’s like, “You must tell him he’s a pretty cat. And a good cat.” We should have had at least seven minutes of that kind of Spot-focused content per episode. Aww, and remember in Picard when Data said that Spot was “the best” of him? Oh, and the poem he wrote about Spot! And when Data thought Spot was dead but Spot survived and Data started crying ? Spot and Moopsy are tied.

Moopsy versus Worf’s pet Targ

A targ is a kind of unicorn pig. Like, a boar with a shaggy mane-thing and a big rhinoceros horn sticking out of its forehead. In The Next Generation , we find out that Worf had a pet targ as a kid, when an illusion of it appears on the Enterprise due to space weirdness. The targ was played by a Russian wild boar named Emmy-Lou. Isn’t that the most amazing thing you’ve ever heard? Sorry, Moopsy, but Worf’s targ is cuter.

Moopsy versus Boo the Dog

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Buddy + Boo (@buddyboowaggytails)

Oh, Boo. You always brightened up my timeline on a gray, hopeless day. Boo was a famous Pomeranian influencer pup who lived with his brother Buddy, until he passed away in 2019. Boo wasn’t just cute—he was rivetingly cute. Like, my hand would stop scrolling and time would dilate while I stared, mesmerized, at his adorable little nose. Moopsy’s pretty great, but Boo takes this round.

Moopsy versus Jorts the Cat

I can’t answer your call at this time because I’m busy being a silly guy. Leave a message if you want beeeep pic.twitter.com/L7oZYwWNZZ — Jorts (and Jean) (@JortsTheCat) August 31, 2023

I love Jorts the cat. I love his silliness, I love his chaotic personality, I love his human’s photography skills, and I love his commitment to union organizing. If this were an all-around personality contest, I’d pick the sharp-witted labor champion over the bone drinker, but when it comes to pure cuteness? Jorts is too badass and impressive, even when he’s being a silly guy. This one has to go to Moopsy.

Moopsy versus Pusheen

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Pusheen (@pusheen)

Moopsy and Pusheen are cut from the same cloth: squishy, cheerful blobs who just want a lil’ snack. But has the media landscape become over-saturated with Pusheen? Have Pusheen and all her friends started to lose their luster? I don’t know, but when it comes to cute things that I just want to stare at forever, I’m going to have to go with Moopsy.

Moopsy versus Badgey

Why exactly is Badgey on this list? I don’t know, but I felt compelled to include him. Badgey is meant to be cute in the same way that Microsoft’s Clippy is meant to be cute: he contains all the elements of cuteness, but in the end, they don’t add up to something that’s objectively cute. Anyway, when it comes to pint-sized homicidal Lower Decks beings, Moopsy wins by a mile.

Moopsy versus my cats

Look at these cutie patooties!! Are they not the fuzziest little fuzz faces you’ve ever seen?? Instead of sucking bones, they like sucking churu out of my humble, beseeching hands. It’s almost unfair of me to compare Moopsy to Layla and Luna, the cutest cuties who ever cuted, but this list is meant to be exhaustive. Sorry, Moopsy, my kitties are way cuter than you, especially when they come to me for snuggles.

Moopsy versus every other cute thing that’s ever existed

I’m now realizing that there are a lot of cute things out there. Maybe I won’t get to every single cute thing in the whole of existence? Someone just walked by my window with a bulldog. The other day, I saw one of those “hang in there” posters featuring a kitten. Whenever I pick up cat food, I have to stop and look at the dwarf hamsters.

Eh, let’s call it a tie.

(featured image: Paramount+/CBS/Pusheen the Cat/The Pokemon Company)

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Star Trek: Lower Decks - Moopsy

Can't be worse than the swamp gobblers...

SPOILER WARNING: This clip contains spoilers for Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 4's second episode, "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee"!

In Star Trek: Lower Decks ' fourth-season second episode, "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee," Ransom and Mariner get a rough lesson on how the cuddly yet horrifically dangerous Moopsy can drink your bones!

Star Trek: Lower Decks streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. and is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution. In Canada, it airs on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel. The series will also be available to stream on Paramount+ in the UK, Canada, Latin America, Australia, Italy, France, the Caribbean, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Ireland and South Korea.

Stay tuned to StarTrek.com for more details! And be sure to follow @StarTrek on TikTok , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube , and Twitter .

The Adorably Murderous Moopsy From 'Star Trek: Lower Decks' Now Comes in Plush Form

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The Big Picture

• The Moopsy plush from Star Trek: Lower Decks is finally available for pre-order and is $24.99 USD.
• The bone-drinking alien Moopsy made its debut in season four's second episode of Lower Decks .
• Lower Decks director Barry Kelly joked the plush Moopsy was a top priority for Paramount's marketing.

Moopsy, the adorable, deadly alien introduced in last year's fourth season of Star Trek: Lower Decks , can now be yours in plush form, courtesy of Master Replicas . Although it looks cute and cuddly, and moves like a heavily-sedated guinea pig, the Moopsy kills its prey by drinking its bones - thankfully, not an attribute shared by the plush version. The stuffed creature will measure 10 inches by 5.5 inches, and accurately captures the cuddliness of the Moopsy's on-screen design. The Moopsy plush will retail for $24.99 USD, and will be released in early May; it can be pre-ordered now from MasterReplicas.com .

Debuting in season four's second episode, "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee", a plush Moopsy has been a long time coming. Fans have been clamoring for a plush version of the bone-drinking creature since it first appeared in the fourth season's trailer , and Lower Decks director Barry Kelly agrees. In an interview with Collider's Samantha Coley , the two agreed that a plush Moopsy needed to be a top priority for Paramount's marketing department, saying "Keep saying it! We need plushies. I want a Kayshon puppet, I want Peanut Hamper toys, I want everything. Say you want it so we can get it!"

Kelly also noted that Moopsy was his favorite character design on the show: "When we get the Moopsy up close, we get to do those cute little highlights, and it's got a little mouth, and they've got little cheeks that we animate. It's got the cutest voice since it's one of our editor’s sons, and he's adorable. I am so glad he got to do the voice for it. Moopsy is, by far, my favorite character design in this season. It's super adorable, and I love it."

What is the Moopsy?

The crew of the USS Cerritos encounter the Moopsy when they travel to an alien zoo (a long-established Star Trek trope, dating back to its original unaired pilot ) to retrieve two humans who had been put on display there. Soon after their arrival, the Moopsy escapes, and demonstrates its ability to drink its prey's bones in seconds as it devours the zookeeper and many of the zoo's other creatures. Eventually, Beckett Mariner ( Tawny Newsome ) is able to lure the creature back to its enclosure with a trail of teeth knocked out of Jack Ransom ( Jerry O'Connell ); it eventually turned out that the two human "exhibits" had freed the creature in the hopes of taking over the zoo themselves.

A hit with critics and Star Trek fans alike, Star Trek: Lower Decks is a half-hour animated comedy exploring the less-glamorous aspects of living in the Star Trek universe. A fifth season of the series is now in production, and is slated to be released later this year.Master Replicas' Moopsy plush will retail for $24.99 USD, and is available for preorder now. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates, and watch the Moopsy in action in the Star Trek: Lower Decks clip below.

Star Trek: Lower Decks

Behind every great captain, is a crew keeping the ship from falling to pieces. These are the hilarious stories of the U.S.S. Cerritos.

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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekLowerDecksS4E02IHaveNoBonesYetIMustFlee

Star Trek: Lower Decks S4E02 "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee" » Recap

Somewhere in space, a Romulan Bird of Prey coasts through the stars. Inside, two crewmen clean up what remains of a Reman who was tortured to death by Subcommander Vrek. They pass the time by arguing over which of them will be the first to betray their commander, until they are saved from their janitorial duties by a ship-wide alert. As they arrive on the bridge, one of the officers reports a ship in their path... the same ship which, unbeknownst to the Romulans, destroyed the IKS Che'Ta' in the previous episode . Vrek orders the ship destroyed, but the crew finds that all systems have suddenly become unresponsive. The mysterious ship turns to face them. Vrek barely has time to gasp before he and his crew are sent to the same fate as the Klingons...

All is well aboard the Cerritos , however. Ransom and Shaxs are helping each other with some therapeutic stretching exercises in the gym and sharing some gossip. Mariner is about to enter when she overhears Shaxs asking about the newly-promoted batch of Lieutenants. Ransom's only comment is about Mariner, whom he says, somewhat ominously, "won't be my problem for long." Mariner leaves with a quiet grumble as she ponders the implications of this statement.

The rest of the former Ensigns are packing up their things for their move to better quarters, reminiscing about the stage of their lives they are preparing to leave behind. Mariner, however, decides she might as well stay put if Ransom is just going to bust her back down to Ensign. The rest of her friends are puzzled when they learn about the exchange she overheard. They all thought Ransom was earnest about giving Mariner a chance, especially since she has so far risen to the challenge. Mariner decides that, if he's just messing with her after all, she might as well go back to her old insubordinate self .

Tendi and Boimler are excited to go check out their new digs, until they remember that Rutherford isn't coming with them. They lament that he was the only member of the posse who didn't get a promotion, particularly when he's done so much to deserve one, but Rutherford keeps a positive attitude and says he'll just have to work extra hard to make it happen so they can keep the band together.

Boimler: Oof. What I would give for his confidence!

Mariner reports to the shuttle bay for an assignment with Commander Ransom and a new officer, Ensign Gary. Ransom is clearly displeased that Mariner is out of uniform and acting more flippant than usual, but decides not to comment on it, instead asking her to fill Gary in on their mission. The three of them are visiting an orbital space menagerie specializing in exotic alien creatures to retrieve a pair of humans who were picked up and made into an exhibit by accident.

Boimler, meanwhile, approaches his new quarters with eager anticipation. As soon as he enters, though, his eyes are assaulted by the bright, lurid red glow of the port bussard collector. He attempts to reassure himself that it'll just take some getting used to, even as his pupils shrink into pinholes.

The away team's shuttle approaches the menagerie. Mariner suddenly decides to launch them into an aggressively high-speed landing that causes Ensign Gary a Brown Alert , but is disappointed when Ransom decides to yet again ignore her flagrant breach of protocol. Disembarking, they are politely greeted by the station's curator, a humanoid plant named Narj, who apologizes for the mix-up with the humans and is happy to release them to Starfleet. Mariner continues her provocations, being passive-aggressively judgmental towards Narj about his zoo, including his favorite animal, a chubby little furball called a Moopsy. To her frustration, Ransom consistently refuses to take the bait, leaving her convinced as ever that he's playing a twisted mind game to set her up for eventual humiliation.

Rutherford's first attempt to get a promotion from Billups is to pull out an engineering project he's been working on to reduce the ship's warp manifold vibration. Billups is pleased as always by Rutherford's enthusiasm, but tells him engineering's new wunderkind, Ensign Livik, already found a way to reduce it even further. Rutherford grimaces angrily as Livik gives him a smug smirk from across the room.

Billups puts the engine improvement into action. The glow of the nacelles reaches a new intensity. Tragically for Boimler, the visor he just found to filter the light in his new quaters is completely inadequate for the job now.

Back on the station, Narj is getting ready to release the humans to Ransom's custody. As he absent-mindedly flips through his keychain, a tiny cry of "Moopsy" comes from behind them. It takes a moment for this to register with Narj, but when it does, he suddenly turns around and lets out a terrified expletive to see the Moopsy walking free of its enclosure. The others don't understand his reaction to the cute critter, but Narj explains that everything in his menagerie is dangerous, especially the Moopsy, which drinks the bones of other animals. Mariner scoffs at the ridiculousness of this idea, until she sees it emerge from a ventilation duct inside the Pyrithian swamp gobbler enclosure. Despite their menacing size and appearance, the swamp gobblers cower in fear of the tiny osteovore. It sinks its long fangs into the back of the closest one and slurps it empty within a second.

Mariner: HOLY [bleep ] !! Narj : RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!

Meanwhile, back on the Cerritos , Rutherford's efforts to get a promotion continue to be stymied by Ensign Livik. Though Rutherford has found a way to increase the performance of the Tucker tubes in engineering, Livik has outdone him again by adding an additional one (and renamed them Billups tubes for extra ass-kissing points). Rutherford storms out in frustration.

Boimler's own woes also continue. Shaxs has just helped him move to new quarters without any light pollution problems, conveniently located next to the holodeck. Unfortunately, these quarters have problems of their own. The soundproofing in the walls leaves much to be desired, and Boimler can't help but overhear T'Ana brutalizing a holographic Robin Hood next door. He moves his bed to the other side of the room, but that wall is next to a holodeck, too. One currently occupied by Captain Freeman noisily scat singing.

Boimler: Why is there a room between two holodecks??

As for the away team, the Moopsy has waddled them into a dead-end corridor, but they find safety in the room at the end. Ransom takes this opportunity to call Mariner out on her behavior, believing that she must have been the one to let the Moopsy out after the objections she raised earlier. Mariner admits her insubordination was intentional, retribution for her impending demotion, but Ransom doesn't know what she's talking about. When he finds out Mariner overheard him in the gym earlier, he contextualizes what he said about her "not being his problem anymore". He understands now that Mariner's constant demotions aren't from malice or incompetence, but because she habitually self-sabotages by manipulating her commanding officers: something Ransom has resolved to not let her do with him. Mariner tries to argue, but realizes she has no good answer when confronted with her past behavior. But that's a question she'll need to sort out for herself later. Mariner tells Ransom that she had nothing to do with the Moopsy's escape, and he takes her at her word.

But that means they still have no idea who is responsible. Ensign Gary points the finger at Narj, suggesting that he might have wanted it to kill them so he wouldn't have to give up his pet humans. He's a plant, after all, and wouldn't be prey for the Moopsy. Or so they think...

A metal grate falls on them from the ventilation duct overhead. They look up and see the adorable Moopsy staring back. It drops onto Narj's shoulder, clamps down, and vacuums him up entirely, leaving nothing but clothes behind. The three officers flee the room, locking the door behind them. It seems they're finally safe and no longer cornered, until they look back through the window and see that the room they just left was the station's navigation control. The Moopsy carelessly waddles over the panels, pressing random buttons. Alarms wail as the station starts to deorbit.

Back on the Cerritos , Boimler has set up a makeshift bunk in one of the Jefferies tubes, trying to convince himself through his insomnia that this is all a-ok. Before he can get any sleep, Rutherford stumbles across him, pursuing his latest promotion-bait project. Boimler mentions that some other ensign named Livik already came by doing the same thing. Looks like today isn't going well for either Boimler or Rutherford.

As the menagerie starts to enter the planet's atmosphere, Mariner decides the only solution is for her to bait the Moopsy out of the control room so the others can stabilize the station, but Ransom doesn't like how much danger that will put her in. Mariner says they don't have time to argue — even if it works, they'll only escape destruction by the skin of their teeth. That last word gives Ransom an idea ! To Mariner's confusion, he orders her to punch him in the face as hard as she can! She does, and Ransom pulls out a tooth loosened by the impact and holds it up triumphantly. He has an entire mouth full of Delicious Distractions for their little predator, which stares at the tooth through the porthole with lust in its eyes.

Tendi is starting to worry about Rutherford's state of mind. He continues to obsess over engineering improvements in pursuit of a Lieutenant's promotion in spite of his growing stress and fatigue. He approaches Billups with his latest idea, but the Chief Engineer tells him to save it for later: he's about to give Livik a new rank pip. Dejected, Rutherford walks back to Tendi and apologizes for disappointing her. To his surprise, Tendi orders Rutherford to attention in her most authoritative voice. She tells him rank doesn't matter between them, and that they'll continue to be friends and spend time together no matter what happens, and That's an Order!

Then Tendi drops the act and giggles with the excitement of giving her first order. The two share a hug, and that's when Rutherford casually drops an unexpected bombshell. As it turns out, all of the promotion-worthy feats he's done for the Cerritos recently did actually earn him promotions, but he kept declining them because he wanted to stay close to Tendi in the ensigns' quarters. Tendi asks why he can't just cash in on one of those promotions now , but Rutherford explains it doesn't work like that in Engineering. There's a very specific—

Tendi: Hey, Billups! Can Rutherford have his promotion for that time he removed the hull? Billups: Oh, sure. Ah, sorry, Livik, maybe next time.

And just like that, Billups tosses Rutherford his new pip. The whole engineering team cheers for him! (Except for Livik.)

In the menagerie, Mariner uses Ransom's knocked-out teeth like breadcrumbs to lure the Moopsy back into its cell. Slurring through his toothless mouth, Ransom reports that they've corrected the station's orbit. They still don't know how the Moopsy got out, but at least the danger has passed. That's when Mariner notices something odd about the captive humans' enclosure next door. A section of the wall decoration is upside-down. One of them tries to hastily conceal it, but it's clear from the wiring behind that they were the ones who overrode the door on the adjoining Moopsy's room... especially when Mariner has to hurriedly close said door lest the emergency they just went through repeat itself. It was all a plot to take over the menagerie by arranging an "accident" for Narj. The Cerritos decides to leave the imprisoned humans behind and let them wait to be rescued by someone else... which Mariner notes could be a while.

Dr. T'Ana sets Ransom up with a flashy new set of teeth. Mariner takes a few moments apologize to him for misjudging his intentions and creating more conflict between them, and Ransom reaffirms his confidence in her potential as a leader.

With Rutherford now a Lieutenant JG, he and Boimler decide to room it up together. They enter their new quarters, and Boimler reels in horror as he sees it is filled with the same painfully bright red light as his first quarters. Rutherford nonchalantly taps a few buttons on the control panel to polarize the windows, which brings everything back to normal. Once he comes down from his panic attack, Boimler cheers up, saying their new room already feels like home.

• Admiring the Abomination : Narj says that the moopsy is his favorite exhibit — as long as it's in its enclosure. When it gets loose, he damn near shits himself.
• Always Someone Better : Livik is always one step ahead of any attempts from Rutherford to impress Billups, and always manages to do it slightly better.
• Bait-and-Switch : Context clues imply that Mariner released the Moopsy, an adorable looking yet deadly creature, from captivity and nearly killed everyone present. She didn't, the humans that she was sent to rescue did.
• Black Comedy : Much fun is had during the menagerie subplot with the fact our characters are fleeing in terror from an adorable little Cartoon Creature , even if it is dangerous.
• Black-Hole Belly : The moopsy can seemingly drink a limitless amount of bones without growing visibly larger, even though everything it attacks should possess more mass in bones than the moopsy could hold.
• Blinded by the Light : When Boimler enters his first quarters, he's immediately blinded by the red lights of the Cerritos ' nacelles, damaging his eyes with intense light. Boimler puts on visors to help him deal with the light, which works until Billups made the lights brighter after implementing Livek's improvements to the nacelles, making Boimer's visors useless. At the end of the episode, where Boimler decides to be roommates with Rutherford, their new quarters is by the nacelles again, but Rutherford easily deals with the situation by adjusting the settings in his quarters to block out the lights.
• Brick Joke : Boimler admires a dent on the ceiling of his bed from all the times he was startled by a Red Alert. After he and Rutherford end up sharing a room, he ends up making a new dent in the similarly-sized bed and feels a little more at home.
• Bring My Brown Pants : Ensign Gary ruins two pairs of pants, one during Mariner's Coming in Hot landing and one while fleeing the moopsy.
• In their opening conversation while they stretch, Ransom and Shaxs are wearing the same leotards that Dr. Crusher and Counselor Troi wore in TNG : " The Price ." (The originals are featured in the Recap picture.)
• The idea of being an outpost scientist as an alternative to a Starfleet career is brought up again. When it was first brought up in " Envoys ", Boimler used it to indulge in some Biting-the-Hand Humor about how that career would likely end with him being mysteriously killed, and Starfleet would need to piece together what happened from his logs; Mariner told him not to even joke about the possibility. This time, it's Ensign Gary's turn to contemplate a career change- and he actually considers it, because outpost scientists don't often see their commanders ordering people to knock their teeth out .
• Rutherford's belief that he can't just ask Billips about getting a promotion he's already turned down calls back to his inexplicable first season conviction that Billips is some kind of martinet who runs a tight ship, rather than one of the most easygoing officers on the ship.
• Mariner angrily reminds Ransom of the time that he stabbed her in the foot with a battle blade , the time that he turned into a giant head and tried to eat the ship , and the time that he tried to trick her into disobeying his orders on a space elevator note  "It was an orbital lift." .
• Captain's Log : Mariner records her first log entry as a lieutenant (j.g.) before deciding that her new rank just sounds weird. "Lieutenant Junior Grade's Log...Nope, no, too weird. Uh, let's go with "Mariner's Log". So, yeah, of course it was the humans in the menagerie that set the moopsy free. They'd seen how profitable they were as an attraction, so they wanted to kill Narj and keep the station for themselves. Humans... we really are the worst. (laughs) So, anyway, instead of bringing them to the Cerritos , we left them in the menagerie until somebody else has time to pick them up. Could take a while. As for Ransom, it took some doing, but Dr. T'Ana was able to fix him up with a new set of chompers."
• Card-Carrying Villain : Both Romulan ensigns are openly plotting to betray the subcommander of their ship, and he himself is aware and completely unconcerned by their plotting—he just wants them to fix the problem so he can "go back to being suspicious."
• Canon Immigrant : Of a sort: the Romulan ship seen in the Cold Open is based on the original design of the D’Deridex from Star Trek: The Next Generation (more specifically, a Next Generation -related calendar image).
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder : Everyone on the Romulan ship wants their Commander dead, and he knows it. Just don't let it interfere with the mission.
• Colony Drop : The moopsy accidentally sends the Menagerie hurtling towards the planet below, but thankfully, Ransom and the new guy stop it.
• The "Ad Astra" Starfleet recruitment poster from " Those Old Scientists " is visible among Boimler's stuff.
• Rutherford's multiple promotion-worthy accomplishments and ideas are brought up, when Tendi comes up with the idea of him accepting a previously turned-down promotion.
• Boimler is able to call in a favor with Shaxs, who addresses him as "Baby Bear", indicating that he's holding true to his promise back in " The Stars At Night " to take him under his wing.
• As shown in Star Trek The Next Generation S 7 E 14 Lower Decks , as described by Ensign (soon Lt. jg.) Sam Lavalle, getting promoted from Ensign to Lieutenant Junior Grade awards you better quarters aboard a starship (though with what Boimler is going through to find quarters that doesn't cause him problems, "better" is relative).
• Boimler's whole dilemma is created by him not realizing he could adjust the settings in his quarters to block out the lights from the Bussard Ramscoops , till Rutherford shows him later on when they move into their shared quarters.
• Rutherford has turned down plenty of promotions, and never considered simply asking for one of them until Tendi does it for him.
• Cruel Mercy : Mariner and Ransom decide to leave the humans at the zoo until someone else can be bothered to pick them up.
• Curb-Stomp Battle : The mystery ship from last episode one-shots a Romulan ship as easily as it did the Che'Ta .
• Cute Approaches Camera : The moopsy approaches the camera in all its deadly cuteness.
• Deceptively Cute Critter : The moopsy is an adorable alien creature that resembles a quadruped land-based axolotl that invokes Pokémon Speak , only saying its name. It's also a vicious bone-sucking (literally) predator. When it gets out of its cage, Mariner dismisses it as harmless until she and everyone there watches it do its work in which case, they all run for the hills.
• Didn't Think This Through : The entire plan by the two human prisoners to take over Narj's menagerie for profit involves setting a predatory osteovore loose and having it consume Narj. The osteovore also destroyed the menagerie's most valuable exhibits and caused the station's orbit to decay, almost resulting in its destruction by planetary reentry.
• Dissonant Serenity : The moopsy still has the same cute smile and voice after sucking out the bones of two creatures and while chasing the Cerritos away team.
• Drives Like Crazy : Rather than take the shuttle into the starbase "nice and easy" like Ransom wants, Mariner flies in at full speed and screeches to a stop just before hitting the back wall of the hangar.
• "Eureka!" Moment : When Mariner plans to sacrifice herself to lure away the moopsy from the station's main control room so Ransom and Gary can stop the station from plummeting into the planet but Ransom stops her, Mariner tells him if her plan works then they'll only stop the station's re-entry by the skin of their teeth. Ransom hearing "teeth" gives him the idea to have Mariner punch his teeth out from his mouth so they can use it to lure the moopsy out from the control room and back into its cage.
• Even Evil Has Standards : Played for comedy as the Romulan Commander suspects an underling of sabotaging the cloaking field, who denies it claiming that he wouldn't do that just to betray his commander.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap! : After Ransom's team confines the moopsy in the room where they were just hiding. Mariner: Phew, no ladders. Now it can't get back through those vents. Gary: Yeah. Now it's trapped in the... station's main control room! (the moopsy hits a control that sends the station falling out of orbit)
• "Fawlty Towers" Plot : Ransom knew Mariner's history of acting out to get demoted, so he knew he had to weather out her bad behavior and not fall for it like previous senior officers. Mariner overheard and misunderstood a conversation he had with Shaxs, thinking he was setting her up as a power play to later demote her. So she was even more overt in efforts to be demoted on her own terms and he was allowing a lot to slip by. He eventually explains what he was trying to accomplish, which caused her a real moment of reflection on her self-sabotage.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing : Narj's fear of the moopsy is backed up by its first two victims trembling before it breaks into their cage.
• Fluffy the Terrible : Moopsy may look cute and say its own name in a form of Pokémon Speak , but is actually very dangerous and sucks up the bones of much more intimidating animals.
• When Mariner takes a close up look at the moopsy in its enclosure, it crouches its front and rears up its hindquarters for a wiggle. This isn't just generically cutesy behavior, people familiar with cats (big and small) will recognize this as preparing for a pounce at prey.
• In the scene where Narj first notices the moopsy escaped, one of the wall panels in the human enclosure is upside down and the girl is always leaning on it; at the end we find out they sabotaged the moopsy enclosure by using controls hidden behind the wall panel. And before that, when Narj is saying the line, "I've given these sweet creatures a safe home", the two humans are looking at something off-screen in their cage which also happens to be in the direction of the moopsy's cage, and it's later revealed to be the controls.
• When Narj states "Everything here is incredibly dangerous!", that also includes the two humans in the zoo who freed the moopsy in order to kill Narj so they could take over his Menagerie.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip : Mentioned as the crew are reminiscing about what they've been through in their bunks. Evidently they were body-swapped by cosmic rays offscreen at some point, which resulted in them 'learning way too much about each other.'
• From Bad to Worse : After the moopsy chows down on Narj, Mariner notes that it lacks the means to crawl back out of the room it just jumped into and which it can't open by itself. Unfortunately, the room is in fact the main control room , and the little beast ignorantly crawling over the controls causes the station to de-orbit. Now they're faced with death by reentry if they do nothing, or death by bone-drinking monster if they open the door to solve the problem.
• Funny Background Event : When Mariner starts punching Ransom's teeth out, the moopsy's eyes light up and it presses its wide-open mouth against the glass.
• Furry Reminder : Shaxs is having relationship problems with T'Ana, saying that she's been crawling under the bed when mad. Ransom recommends scratching the bed and going "psp-psp-psp-psp," which Shaxs already did.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs : Ransom: (to Narj) We'll be out of your leaves * hair lickety-split.
• Horrifying the Horror : Even the swamp gobblers are terrified of the moopsy... and with good reason, given it slips into their enclosure and sucks their bones out.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters : Played for Laughs . After the moopsy is successfully put back into containment, the new ensign expresses relief that the trouble wasn't caused by the human residents of the Menagerie like one would expect. He's disappointed to learn that they are actually responsible for letting the moopsy out, scheming to take control of the facility from Narj for the money.
• Hungry Menace : Or thirsty menace, the moopsy is relentless in pursuit of its next victim.
• Impending Doom P.O.V. : As Narj and the Starfleet officers flee into the station's control center, the camera briefly shows them through the eyes of the moopsy as it relentlessly waddles closer.
• Killer Rabbit : The moopsy is an adorable pink ball of cuteness that purrs... and sucks your bones out!
• Laser-Guided Karma : The humans who set the moopsy free end up telling on themselves by putting the panel back on upside-down, leading to the away team discovering what they did. This gets them abandoned on the station as punishment, leaving them with a long wait for another ship, whose crew will be aware that they're murderers, to have time to pick them up.
• Monster Menagerie : Mariner and Ransom visit a space station menagerie that houses various alien creatures to pick up two unwittingly captured humans (as the Federation forbids placing people there). However, they're chased by a Moopsy, a bone-sucking cuddly creature that the humans released from its cage so that they could kill the owner and take over the menagerie.
• Mythology Gag : When Ransom and Shaxs are in the rec room, their stretching poses and leotard outfits resemble a similar scene between Troi and Crusher in TNG.
• New Meat : A new ensign named Gary accompanies Ransom and Mariner to the menagerie, only to witness some of Mariner's extreme behaviors first-hand while almost getting killed by a bone-drinking marshmallow.
• Nice Guy : Narj is very polite to others and caring of the creatures in his Menaje. He also has a policy against keeping sentient beings; he's genuinely apologetic about accidentally capturing two humans and happy to release them to Starfleet.
• Boimler's first new quarters has an unfiltered view of one of the Cerritos ' nacelles, damaging his eyes with intense light. He eventually learns from Rutherford that the windows can be dimmed, but the fact that this is not the default setting (or that quarters with windows are even located there at all) is still a problem.
• Boimler's second new quarters are not in sight of the bussard collectors of the Cerritos , but they are sandwiched between two holodecks, for some reason, and there is insufficient soundproofing that you can hear the holodeck simulations within the quarters, when they are active.
• Not Me This Time : Despite one scene suggesting it, Mariner is not behind the moopsy escaping, and Ransom believes her once she comes clean about why she's been acting out. It was actually the human prisoners.
• Narj is terrified when he sees the moopsy out of its cage. The others don't understand why until they see it drink the bones of two Pyrithian swamp gobblers. Moopsy: (standing outside the swamp habitat as the gobblers recoil in fear) Moopsy. Narj: Hmm? (sees the moopsy outside its cage and does a Double Take ) OH [BLEEP]! THE MOOPSY IS FREE! Mariner: Oh, no, your cuddliest prisoner is loose. Whatever shall we do? Narj: You don't understand! Everything here is incredibly dangerous! Moopsy: (crawls into a floor vent) Moopsy. (emerges in the swamp habitat) Ransom: Can't be worse than the Swamp Gobblers. Narj: Of course it's worse! They only gobble you. The moopsy drinks your bones ! Mariner: How does something drink bones? (The moopsy jumps onto a swamp gobbler and sucks out its bones) Mariner: HOLY [BLEEP]! Narj: (running away as the moopsy kills the other gobbler) RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! (everyone else runs out of the room) Moopsy: (waddles away from the swamp) Moopsy.
• If you watch the Pyrithian swamp gobblers when they first see the moopsy, they back up defensively and their legs are shaking , indicating they already know the danger the moopsy is to them.
• "Oh, Crap!" Smile : The male human exhibit does this when Mariner notices an upside-down umbrella painting, followed by the female exhibit when she has to stop the panel in question from falling off the wall, causing the moopsy enclosure to open again.
• Out-of-Context Eavesdropping : Mariner overhears Ransom telling Shaxs that Mariner "won't be my problem for long" and concludes that he's going to demote her back to Ensign. What Ransom really meant was that he had made the opposite decision: to no longer give in to her habitual self-sabotaging attempts so that she can finally mature into the capable leader he knows she can be.
• Plant Aliens : Narj, the curator of the Menagerie, is a mobile plant-based organism (he basically looks like a corn cob without the kernels) whose physiology is completely ossified, meaning there is No Body Left Behind when the moopsy sinks its fangs into him.
• Pokémon Speak : The moopsy's only dialogue is its name.
• Poor Communication Kills : This episode suggests this has been Mariner’s problem the entire time, at least in part: whenever she gets promoted, she becomes convinced they're looking for a reason to bust her back down and decides to give it to them. Ransom, having figured this out, refuses to take the bait and explains as much to her, which allows Mariner to suffer a Jerkass Realization . That said, this only scratches the surface of her issues, not explaining the underlying paranoia.
• Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title : The title is based off of Harlan Ellison 's I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream .
• Precision F-Strike : Two back-to-back examples. Narj's first, when when he realizes moopsy has broken out of its cage. Then, Mariner's next after seeing moopsy eating one of the Swamp Gobblers.
• Prop Recycling : The Most Important Device In The Universe makes an appearance here, and is revealed to be known in-universe as the "Tucker Tubes" (presumably after Trip Tucker ). Livik figures out how to add a third tube without triggering a Heisenberg collapse , and names the result the " Billups Tubes ", much to Rutherford's annoyance. Billups isn't even sure what they actually do.
• Rank Up : Rutherford gets promoted to lieutenant junior grade, just like his fellow Lower Deckers last episode.
• Redshirt : Subverted. While Gary doesn't contribute significantly to the resolution, Mariner and Ransom treat his potential death as unacceptable, and he survives the episode.
• When Narj first notices that the moopsy has escaped, Mariner dismissively refers to it as "your cuddliest prisoner," giving the impression that she might have thought it harmless enough to release as part of her campaign of insubordination. While Mariner was being Genre Blind about the moopsy, she had nothing to do with its escape .
• Implied with Ensign Gary, who no-one in the episode suspected but was seen as a likely candidate for releasing the moopsy by some of the audience due to them being Beneath Suspicion .
• Refuse to Rescue the Disliked : After realising the humans they were sent to rescue on the menagerie let the moopsy out of its enclosure and nearly got them killed, Mariner and Ransom opt to leave them on the station until Starfleet can send another pick-up crew.
• Rewatch Bonus : At the end of the episode, Mariner realizes the cell the humans are in has the umbrella panel upside down, meaning they were the ones who let the moopsy loose. Going back to their first appearance, you can see it's been that way since that point, foreshadowing their guilt.
• Right Through the Wall : Boimler's second choice for a cabin is right between two holodecks, and the walls are so thin that he can hear what happens in each one— Shaxs and T'Ana roleplaying as Robin Hood in one, Freeman playing out her fantasy of being named "President of Starfleet" and performing "inaugural scatting" as part of her acceptance speech in the other.
• Screams Like a Little Girl : Narj's screams while running away from the moopsy are high-pitched and rather undignified.
• Boimler's quarters having a window facing a source of blinding red light is an obvious reference to Kramer's problem with the neon Kenny Rogers sign in "The Chicken Roaster".
• Rutherford bitterly cursing the name of his new Sitcom Arch-Nemesis evokes Jerry Seinfeld often doing the same to his nemesis, Newman.
• The moopsy is basically the Star Trek equivalent of a Pokémon . It only says its name , and its cute appearance belies its incredibly dangerous nature.
• Save for the color of its eyes, its face is near-identical to that of Kyubey , another cute and cuddly creature that's far more dangerous than it appears to be .
• The BGM when everyone flees the moopsy is similar to that from Jurassic Park (1993) when people are fleeing the Velociraptors .
• In the final scene when Rutherford and Boimler start settling into their new shared quarters, Rutherford starts to tinker with a project using a sonic screwdriver , specifically the one used by the Ninth and Tenth Doctors. It even has the same sound effect.
• Sitcom Archnemesis : Livik keeps beating Rutherford to ways to marginally improve the ship's performance. They even curse each other's name akin to Seinfeld and Newman .
• Spanner in the Works : The upside down umbrella panel. Had Mariner not spotted it, the humans might have won.
• Spotting the Thread : When the away team goes to rescue the humans: Mariner : Hey, that umbrella is upside down, yeah? [The panel Mariner notices starts to come loose, and the woman in the exhibit hurriedly stops it. This results in the moopsy enclosure opening again.] Mariner : [hurriedly closes the moopsy's door] Did you [bleep]ers rewire the moopsy door?! You could've got us all killed!
• Boimler's first quarters was right next to the nacelle and was bathed in a blinding red glow. This inspired him to search for other available quarters, all of which had other problems. He then bunks with Rutherford only to find the same nacelle flood light problem... and Rutherford casually fixes the problem with window filter controls.
• Rutherford decides to actively seek a promotion and starts looking into miniscule efficiency improvements to catch Billups' attention. After an entire episode of getting one-upped by Ensign Livik, he mentions to Tendi that he was actually offered several promotions in the past due to saving the day several times (stopping the Pakled attack, removing the hull plating) but rejected them to stay the same rank as his friends. Tendi suggests just asking for a promotion based on having one in the bank anyway, which works.
• Status Quo Is God : Subverted; the episode begins with the Beta Shifters leaving the bunks they lived in for the first three seasons, and a sad moment is shown as the lights go out one last time. In an earlier season, Mariner’s antics get her demoted, Rutherford gives up, Tendi joins him, and Boimler returns in defeat; instead, Mariner is convinced to keep going, Tendi gets Rutherford his promotion, and the boys bunk together, showcasing the Nothing Is the Same Anymore of this season.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome : With Rutherford's multiple brilliant and life-saving feats of engineering genius meriting him promotion by now, it was a surprise that he wasn't promoted with the others in the previous episode; turns out this was because he had been promoted, multiple times , but he always turned them down in order to continue serving alongside Tendi.
• Teeth Flying : Ransom orders Mariner to punch his teeth out so they can use them to bait the moopsy. Gary is disturbed and remarks that he should have been an outpost scientist.
• Ransom orders Mariner to punch his teeth out so he can use them to lead the moopsy back to its cage.
• When Rutherford becomes despondent over being unable to rank up and thus remain friends with Tendi and the other lower deckers, Tendi makes it an order that they will continue to remain friends, which both get a laugh out of after he affirms the order. Tendi: Mr. Rutherford, stand at attention! Rutherford: What? Tendi: I am your superior, Ensign. Do it! (Rutherford stands at attention) Tendi: We'll be friends no matter what our ranks are. We're going to spend tons of time hanging out and talking about science and telling jokes and, you know, do all the things we used to do. And that's an order! Rutherford: Yes, ma'am! (both laugh) Tendi: Oh, my gosh, I just gave my first order.
• Then Let Me Be Evil : After overhearing Ransom talking about her, Mariner concludes (mistakenly) that he is planning to demote her back to Ensign, despite all the hard work she has done to reform herself to Starfleet standards. Mariner decides, if her scarlet letter refuses to go away no matter what she does, that she might as well go back to her insubordinate ways and get demoted on her own terms.
• Third-Person Person : Narj always calls himself "Narj." The moopsy always calls itself "moopsy," though given Pokémon Speak this might not signify anything.
• The Unsmile : The "new set of chompers" Ransom gets at the end is a couple of sizes too big for his mouth, making his encouraging speech to Mariner seem off.
• Trapped with the Therapy Session : The conflict between Ransom and Mariner is so hard to ignore that at one point Narj and Ensign Gary head over to check whether the moopsy is breaking in just to distance themselves from the argument.
• Underestimating Badassery : Nobody except for Narj takes the moopsy seriously as a threat (understandable, given how cute and harmless it looks) until it jumps onto a swamp gobbler and sucks out its bones.
• Uniqueness Decay : Menageries have become quite commonplace, with Narj even saying he maintains his according to Federation code. The main limitation is to not collect sentient aliens like humans.
• Wham Episode : After being passed up for a promotion last episode, Rutherford is promoted to Lieutenant Jr Grade after accepting one of the many promotions he has turned down over the years. This allows him to move out of the bunk quarters along with the rest of the main cast and into sharing a room with Boimler.
• While You Were in Diapers : The Romulan Commander tells a subordinate who he suspects of plotting against him that, "I've been stabbing commanders in the back since before your mother killed her first traitor."
• Also Parodied when we see Ransom and Shax re-enacting the infamous Dr Crusher and Counselor Troi yoga scene from TNG with matching outfits.

Video Example(s):

Trail of Teeth

After hearing Mariner say they'll be able to stop the station from plummeting by the skin of their teeth, Ransom orders her to punch his teeth out so they can use them to lure the moopsy out from the station's main control room.

Example of: "Eureka!" Moment

The Humans Did ...

Ensign Livek

Between Two Hol...

• Star Trek: Lower Decks S4E01 "Twovix"
• Recap/Star Trek: Lower Decks
• Star Trek: Lower Decks S4E03 "In the Cradle of Vexilon"

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Q: Why do you feel like you need to make monsters like Moopsy so cute?

MIKE MCMAHAN: (Laughs)  Well, we’re playing it for comedy, right? And inherently, it’s hard to draw something really scary in the Lower Decks animation style. It’s almost easier to draw something cute, and then have it drink your bones!

That bone-drinking thing, actually, came from a movie I saw in high school called Deep Rising with Treat Williams and Famke Jansen, and the tagline in the trailer was like “It drinks you!” or something. So I always wanted to do a creature that drinks you.

But it’s harder to get something that looks scary – but if you go back to “ wej duj ,” the Klingons look intense and scary, which is awesome work from the animators, artists, and character designers.

McMahan shares that #LowerDecks will return to the Orion homeworld in Season 5. #StarTrek #NYCC pic.twitter.com/O3yPWvTfNV — TrekCore.com 🖖 (@TrekCore) October 14, 2023

Q: What kind of challenges do you face when you set out to explore some of the lesser-known areas of Star Trek that the other shows may have barely covered — like the visit to Orion this season?

MCMAHAN: My first question is always, “What have other people done?” And the answer is always, “Way less than you think!” Imagine a sketch that’s unfinished, where you can almost connect the dots and fill in the blanks… there was zero Orion. Like, I couldn’t believe it; we had nothing to work from.

With Ferenginar, Deep Space Nine did so much that we could just go have a blast, and then just edge things slowly forward. Rom has probably heard from Nog about just how much he loves Starfleet, so I can understand why Ferenginar would be moving in that direction. That all made sense to me.

I like to take monocultures and build them out so it’s all less ‘mono.’ I try to honor what’s there before, and then logically expand it to where it might go in a way that surprises. But for Orion, we had to make this all whole-cloth, which is crazy… and I’m NOT making it about a bunch of people who control men with pheromones, because that’s frickin’ weird!

The other part was that we needed to figure out how a visit to Orion would tell us about Tendi. My wife’s favorite movie is Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing , so we made Tendi’s family house that castle from Florence and built things out from there.

They’re space pirates — but at home, they have a code; they have honor systems; they’re matriarchal. I loved all that. I loved the groom being walked down the aisle… so I tried to honor the stuff we had seen before about powerful women, but make it less of a sexual thing. Less about control; less “episodic,” in a way.

Q: You made a decision about Tuvix a few weeks ago —

MCMAHAN: Oh, Janeway made the decision!

Q: You called her a monster!

MCMAHAN: Well, sometimes, when you’re stuck in The Iliad , you need to be a monster to preserve characters that you have TV season deals with. [Laughs] Tuvix is so funny, and I think I’ve thought about Tuvix more than I’ve seen the episode. But that’s the power of Star Trek , it sticks with you even if you don’t agree with it.

But once she got rid of Tuvix, I was like, “All right, I can breath again. This is great.” I didn’t want that motherfucker sticking around! I was going to have to tune in every week to see Tuvix learning about pie, and shit like that? That guy was going to be the new Data, but he’s fuckin’ Tuvix?

And they made him weirdly likable! You didn’t have to do that, you didn’t have to make Tuvix likeable if you knew where the story was going! It was like, “Hey everybody, it’s Tuvix! Tuvix is so cool, Tuvix can do a kick-flip!” You know what I mean? No, no, why are we doing this? I don’t like Tuvix!

I was happy Janeway killed Tuvix just because I didn’t want to see his ass anymore. But I love that we’re still arguing about Tuvix. That’s real Star Trek shit! I see why people hate it, but get Tuvix the fuck outta here. Oh, you don’t like what happened to Tuvix? Show “The Tuvix Show.” You wanted to see more Tuvix? Get the hell outta here. (Laughs)

Q: It seems like there are a few new names in the credits this year. Can you talk about some of the newcomers to the Season 4 writers room?

MCMAHAN: Well, I’m working on Season 5 right now where we’ve also mixed things up a little — but I’ll tell you, I’ll have people come in on shows, and sometimes they’re great at everything, and sometimes they’re like, “I’ve never seen Star Trek , but I have a crazy relationship with my mom,” so I’ll have them work on those Mariner-Freeman scenes and make them better.

You never know what the kind of match will be for each season… and also, writing Lower Decks is incredibly hard! You have to not only match the tone of Star Trek , but also the tone of Lower Decks which is something nobody ever did before us. The comedy of it, you know, is really specific.

I used to work at Second City as the guy who would clean up at the end of the day, and Second City would do jokes that were very Chicago-specific, but people still got them because most of the crowd would be from the surrounding areas. That’s what you have to do in Lower Decks , but for Star Trek. You know what I mean? Like, you can’t leave “the Chicagoland area” of Star Trek .

There’s never been a “crisis” on Lower Decks – it just takes a long time to write. Sometimes writers are moving on to better stuff, sometimes they’re selling shows. Sometimes people move to live-action work to make a bunch more money, and I’m like “Bye, have fun!”

There’s a little more turnover on Lower Decks just because it’s really hard, but we’re always trying to keep it fresh.

McMahan shares that they originally planned to promote the #LowerDecks gang at the end of S4, but didn’t want to wait to tell that story and explore the impact on the characters #StarTrek #NYCC pic.twitter.com/x8aWHps0Ny — TrekCore.com 🖖 (@TrekCore) October 14, 2023

Q: Have we seen the last of Jennifer, Mariner’s Andorian ex-girlfriend?

MCMAHAN: I thought I had resolved the Mariner-Jennifer relationship in a way that had spoken to me, because I had never liked their relationship. I thought Jennifer liked Mariner for the wrong reasons, like how she utilizes her with her group of friends (in “Hear All, Trust Nothing”), I thought, was not from a loving place.

They also met each other and had a romance start in chaos, and not in the calmness that I find in relationships that grow and come form a place of support. Mariner’s worst tendencies were being magnified by Jennifer, in a way, and Jennifer kept her from going to visit Deep Space 9 .

I thought people would hate Jennifer for that – but unfortunately she’s so funny and fun, and you love seeing them together, that my resolution of having Jennifer react exactly wrong to Mariner getting kicked off the Cerritos (in “Trusted Sources”)… in hindsight, we needed another episode for them.

That should have been in episode seven, have Mariner be gone in episode eight, and we should have had a tougher resolution at the end of the season. These are things you only learn in hindsight, but knowing it now — and I had a long conversation with Jessie Gender about this -– I see the audience’s reaction and their opinion, and I respect it.

So there is a better resolution to Mariner and Jennifer coming in Season 5.

Q: But will they sit weird in chairs together?

MCMAHAN: (Laughs) Mariner canonically sits weird in chairs because I had a long conversation with Andi from Women at Warp back at the Mission: Chicago convention, who told me that there is a meme about bisexual women sitting weird in chairs, so I made sure to have Mariner reference that on-screen for her — and if you didn’t know what that meant, you’d just think she was making a Riker joke.

Q: When originally developing the Cerritos crew, were Mariner and Freeman planned as Black characters, or was that based upon the casting of Tawny Newsome and Dawnn Lewis?

MCMAHAN: I didn’t know who would be playing Mariner, so I didn’t have a particular casting idea in mind. We met with tons of people when we were casting, and Brad Winters — our producer who Brad Boimler is named for — said, “I just listened to this podcast, and you’ve got to hear this girl.”

Tawny came in, and her name got added to the casting list. Like, hand-written onto the printed list of names. I had maybe heard 500 auditions, and when I heard her I sat back and thought, “This is her, this is it.” That moment you hear about, you know? “Tawny has to play this character. I’m going to make sure this character utilizes Tawny’s performance.”

Then at the end of her audition, I asked her to just ramble on about Star Trek . “Just keep the scene going and improvise!” And that’s when I knew that she’s as big of a nerd as I am, and even though she doesn’t seem like it — since she’s so cool — but when she started going… I changed the ending of the Lower Decks pilot to match her rambling from that audition because I wanted that to become a permanent part of the show! Then, once I knew Mariner was going to be Tawny, that’s when I thought of the idea that the captain could be Mariner’s mom. I hadn’t even decided that yet.

And Dawnn Lewis is just, like, a force. She’s an amazing voice actor; I love her on Futurama … it was such a no-brainer to cast her. I think we utilize Tawny really well, but Dawnn is so great that I don’t know if we’ve ever fully unlocked everything with Freeman — because she has to keep it a little locked down as the captain.

But Dawnn brought her mom to the first Lower Decks table read, because she was just so proud to be a Star Trek captain! From that moment on, I just knew I was going to love Captain Freeman so much.

Kid Cudi shows off his #StarTrek varsity jacket, complete with “dope embroidery”. #NYCC pic.twitter.com/SV3DM1wzHj — TrekCore.com 🖖 (@TrekCore) October 14, 2023

Q: This collaboration Star Trek is doing with Kid Cudi —

MCMAHAN: Yeah, I never get a collab!

Q: So if you got a Lower Decks collab, who would it be with?

MCMAHAN: (Long pause) Mattel! (Laughs)

Q: Yeah, where are those action figures, man? [Laughs]

MCMAHAN: I don’t know! I mean, I would love there to be so much Lower Decks stuff, so much that it becomes a problem, you know? But if we had a collab, that’s an interesting question. Let’s collab with Sufjan Stevens, like, a real chill one.

I love the Kid Cudi thing though, because he did Entergalactic … like, I get liking sci-fi so much that it fucks up your other shit. Right? That you like it SO MUCH that even when you have a big career, you keep doing sci-fi because that’s what I LOVE.

Q: What are your controversial ‘hot takes’ about Star Trek ?

MCMAHAN: I think the skants should still be worn all the time. There are far too few skants — they look comfortable, and it’s probably super easy to go to the bathroom wearing one.

I think Oberth -class ships are tight. I think they’re great — and actually, I think that the cooler a Star Trek ship looks, the less I like it. Like, if you have a really, really cool ship, I’m like, give me the goofy medical ship with the big ball in the front.

Give me the ship nobody else at the pound is adopting because it’s got just one eye, you know what I mean? I mean, look at the Cerritos . I went through a lot of designs saying, “No, that looks too cool.” Like we all love the Enterprise -D, but when they went into the movies with the Sovereign -class… it’s just too fancy.

I’m with Captain Freeman on that one! (Laughs)

Q: Have you ever been restricted from using certain parts of the Star Trek story in Lower Decks — like, “You can do a lot, but you can’t touch Sisko” or something like that?

MCMAHAN: Oh, no, nothing like that. I mean, I’d work with Avery in a second! But I do try to be really respectful — like, if I run into a legacy Star Trek actor at an event, I mention Lower Decks , and if they get excited I ask if they’re open to talking. I don’t want to just pounce on them.

The only real boundaries I get is to keep Lower Decks from stepping on the other Star Trek shows. I can’t give away anything about Prodigy , but there are characters and some Delta Quadrant stuff in that show that I really wish I had been able to call dibs on. But people are going to love that stuff in Prodigy !

The same thing is happening a little bit with the Starfleet Academy show — we bump up against them, narratively, because like Lower Decks those characters will be people who aren’t at their best just yet, and are still learning. But because Tawny is in the Academy writers’ room, and she knows so much about Lower Decks , she can help make sure that our two shows aren’t showing viewers the same thing twice.

Q: Speaking of Prodigy — that show’s story is just a few years ahead of Lower Decks in the Star Trek timeline; Picard was twenty-something years down the line. Do you know how the Lower Decks characters have progressed during those time periods?

MCMAHAN: …I do know. [Laughs] I’m being very careful!

Q: The Strange New Worlds crossover was fantastic. Would you like to do any more live-action crossover stories?

MCMAHAN: Sign me up! I mean, let’s “Oops, All Berries!” the crossovers, because we need to get the rest of the Lower Decks crew into live-action!

Seriously, though — this was so important to me, and Tawny and Jack Quaid were so excited to do it — but I’ve always struggled with the “live action versus animation” thing. Like, Futurama is a really big comfort show for me, and I wanted Lower Decks to be a comfort show like that, so I was really glad that “Those Old Scientists” began in animation, became live-action, and then ended with animation again, even for the Strange New Worlds crew.

It’s a different medium, but it’s supposed to spark this joy, right? So part of me is like, “Yeah, let’s go!” I want to do more live-action… but another part of me is like, “Folks, please go watch Lower Decks . It’s special, too!” You know what I mean? I don’t want people to feel like, “Yeah, but we could have this other thing.”

It kind of feels like when the band splits up and people go off to do solo projects – because as much as I love the crossover, we need Tendi and Rutherford and T’Lyn there, too. And I love Strange New Worlds … but that’s their show. I don’t want to take away from Uhura and Spock and everybody else, because then you’re competing for emotional storytelling at the same time.

So I would always love to do more live-action – our cast would freaking kill it – but at the same time, I love Lower Decks and don’t want that to go away.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Star Trek: Lower Decks returns on Thursday, October 19 with “Caves” on Paramount+.

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Mike McMahan Talks “Ultimate Star Trek” Season 4 Finale, T’Lyn, Moopsy, And ‘Lower Decks ‘ Season 5

| October 16, 2023 | By: Laurie Ulster 20 comments so far

Before Alex Kurtzman gave his update on upcoming Star Trek projects , the highlight for the crowd attending the Star Trek Universe panel was being able to see the next episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks (titled “Caves”) before its debut on Paramount+ this Thursday. Creator and showrunner Mike McMahan appeared after the episode aired to talk about season 4 and give an update on how work is going for season 5.

Final episodes of season 4 are “ultimate Lower Decks “

Episodes 1-8 were released to the media for reviews before the season even began, McMahan revealed they deliberately held back the final two episodes to avoid any possible leaks:

“The last couple of episodes for this season are a big swing and I am really proud of them and I cannot wait for you to see them. We held them off [from the press] because I don’t even want a breath of what happens in them to get out. And it just feels like the ultimate Star Trek, the ultimate Lower Decks . I hope you guys really like it. I don’t want to say anything. It’s so tempting. All I will say is there has been a season-long runner with a ship that has been attacking other non-Federation ships in the quadrant that pays off in the last two episodes. Some people on Reddit have gotten close, but they are not there yet. So even they will be fed.”

There was a hint that one of the big things they are keeping under wraps was the inclusion of a legacy character (or characters). McMahan hinted at that earlier in the panel, when he was speaking more broadly about how they handle legacy characters:

“When we have characters from other Star Trek show up, that’s always a huge deal because if they’re going to be on screen, there’s such a gravitational pull of emotion and attention that we have to be honoring them. But we also have to be building and respecting what they created before. And it’s in a comedy environment that we can never punch down. I never want to make fun of these performers. I love their work and you you want them to be able to be a part of the fun. You don’t want them to be like Superintendent Chalmers showing up and being like, “What’s all this fun in Star Trek!” Because they are fun too. There’s a couple episodes of season 4 that we have not released to the press because there’s some really cool stuff coming.”

Season 5 writing almost done: more homeworlds and T’Lyn, no Peanut Hamper

McMahan’s update on the progress of season 5 was specific and optimistic:

“I’m writing the finale of season five right now. And next year is going to be awesome.”

In response to a question about visiting homeworlds (like Orion in season 4), McMahan indicated there’s more of that on the way:

We do have plans [to visit more homeworlds]. I love in Lower Decks going to monocultures and making them less monocultural and getting to see more. I loved doing that on Orion as well. I couldn’t believe [we hadn’t visited Orion before] with Orions being as iconic as they are. I love how Tendi isn’t like other how other Orions had been depicted. And we do a lot more on Orion in season 5, actually. So, I love being on Orion. Ferenginar was a real Deep Space Nine thing, we were honoring Deep Space Nine . They’d done a good job, but I really wanted to see sort of what the initial steps of Rom and Leeta’s leadership was. And I love Chase Masterson. That was kind of the impetus. Getting the work of Chase was why we went to Ferenginar. But yes, I would love to very carefully—if the planet is one you didn’t think we were going to dive into, those are the ones I want to go to.”

Season 4 brought Vulcan officer T’Lyn (voiced by Gabrielle Ruiz and based on Lower Decks writer Kathryn Lyn, who cosplays as a Vulcan) aboard the Cerritos. McMahan is happy fans like T’Lyn and gives credit to Gene Roddenberry and Leonard Nimoy for creating aliens that are still relatable. He talked about developing her character and why she’s been such a great fit:

“… we wanted a Vulcan Mariner … that’s kind of how we were calling it like, what is a Vulcan who doesn’t fit in with other Vulcans like? What does a Vulcan seem like when she shoots from the hip? Adding her to Lower Decks is something I had wanted for a really long time. Gabrielle Ruiz plays T’Lyn so deadpan and so perfectly that it feels like something that just fits into Star Trek and a comedy at the same time. And she said genuine and fun to watch. Writing T’Lyn lines is the best because you write it and then you go back and you’re like, ‘How can I make this even drier? I got to dry this out until everything else is lugubrious and this is just sand.’ We love T’Lyn and we love that you love T’Lyn and there’s lots more fun stuff in this season and in season 5 that been writing. Thank god you love T’Lyn, because she’s sticking around.”

Responding to a fan saying how much they liked Peanut Hamper, McMahan got into how they developed the character  but indicated she isn’t part of season 5:

“People hate Peanut Hamper but they don’t realize yet you have to love to hate Peanut Hamper. I love Kether Donohue, who plays Peanut Hamper. What I wanted to see was, every once in a while we put in a heel—you know the wrestling term of a ‘heel.’  I think the reason that Peanut Hamper stands out so much is it’s so weird to have a heel in Star Trek. But it really magnifies the goodness and the capability of the other characters around them. Plus, I like seeing a heel slowly go and transform into being a hero. It’s just a classic story… We just finished the Peanut Hamper trilogy, so to speak. I don’t have plans to bring her back yet. But just like how the Pakleds came back in Lower Decks , nobody is ever gone in Lower Decks . They live in my brain, like it’s a living world and I love working with Kether, so someday she might show up again.”

T’Lyn, Mariner, and Tendi visit the Orion homeworld (Paramount+)

On promotions and Moopsy

McMahan also dug into season 4 a little, explaining why the lower decks ensigns got promoted right out of the gate:

“We weren’t originally going to promote them this soon. When we started talking about season 4, I was like, ‘Let’s end the season with them getting promoted. I have a bunch of fun ideas.’ And then it was like, if I already have fun ideas, and it is hard to write a show, why don’t we just do it at the beginning of the season and not delay it? So doing it at the end of the first episode, it opened up all these storytelling opportunities. But they’re still lower decks. They’re Lieutenant Junior Grade . The word ‘junior’ is in their title. Lower Decks is all based on being in your 20s and early 30s. You’re getting your first jobs. You’re meeting your best friends you didn’t know you were going to meet. You’re still yourself and you’re learning about yourself at the same time and having the responsibilities… All this season is examining what it’s like when you are still lower decks but you are moving forward and what are the challenges that creates and what comedy does that create and what crazy sci fi adventures come from that?”

The second episode of season 4 featured the cute but terrifying little monster named “Moopsy,” who became an instant hit with fans. McMahan talked about what it was like seeing the fans’ enthusiasm and offered some insight into the making of the Moopsy:

“We never know what you are going to love… Watching the meme happen live, I think it’s the voice. It’s the little kid voice coming out of such a scary creature. It’s also the way the artist animated the movement the Moopsy… It’s an adorable little kind of baby arctic seal creature that drinks bones… and what does drinking bones look like? I told the artists, ‘Make it look like a kid going to town on a Capri Sun.’ And they nailed it. And when it came, people were like, ‘I like Lower Decks , but I love the Moopsy.’ I love to watch it grow beyond the power of what it was… I love that people are enjoying the show and love it so much that they’re finding these things they want to celebrate… When something like that lands, it feels really great and everyone on the production feels it and it’s just awesome.”

Moopsy! (Paramount+)

Wants another live-action crossover

The most recent season of  Star Trek: Strange New Worlds saw a live-action crossover episode when Lower Decks  characters Mariner and Boimler arrived on the USS Enterprise, played by Lower Decks actors Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome. McMahan worked closely with the Strange New Worlds team on that episode and thanked them “for letting me goof around with you guys so much.” He also said it was very “meaningful” to the Lower Decks team to see Boimler and Mariner interacting with the iconic characters from Strange New Worlds . McMahan’s biggest regret was that due to a COVID scare, he couldn’t be on set during filming. He was quite “jealous” seeing all the pictures sent to him as it was happening and hearing about all the fun everyone was having with director Jonathan Frakes. On stage at NYCC, he suggested to Alex Kurtzman that they do it again with the following exchange…

McMahan: Can we do one more crossover so I can come? Kurtzman: Yeah, absolutely. McMahan: I’m going to keep pushing so I can be on set.

Tawny Newsome as Mariner and Jack Quaid as Boimler in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+)

More from NYCC

Check out our earlier coverage of Alex Kurtzman’s comments during the panel . We will have more coverage of Star Trek points of interest from NYCC 2023, including the Kid Cudi partnership and an update from IDW on Star Trek comics.

Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com .

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Mike McMahan is wonderful! Everything I see and read about him makes him even more endearing.

tbh I think the Titan is showing back up and the legacy character is going to be Riker again

Would McMahan make this be so cryptically since he was already in several LD episodes (AND on Picard obviously)? My money is on some VOY or DS9 character which hasn’t appeared since 1999/2001 (Bashir, Torres, Ezri)?

Would that make sense in the context of the storyline though? Also spoiler culture would take the most obvious and make it all cryptic.

Maybe after canonizing the Titan they now show us the Aventine with Ezri in command…

Just a thought, but Lower Decks might be the best vehicle to try and bring back Jadzia Dax

“When we have characters from other Star Trek show up, that’s always a huge deal because if they’re going to be on screen, there’s such a gravitational pull of emotion and attention that we have to be honoring them. But we also have to be building and respecting what they created before.”

This is why I’m a fan of LDS. He respects the legacy but brings a new twist.

Agreed. I remember people saying if Star Trek is to continue it has to do something different and not rely on what we got in the past 50 years. The irony is it found a way to do both, be something completely original and definitely different lol but still feel completely canon to everything that has come before while honoring the franchise as a whole.

Disagree. This is a huge part of why the show isn’t funny. I’m sure many of the actors would have no problem poking some fun at their characters. Many of done it before. But Mike is far too scared to do anything edgy. It’s why the show is so very bland. The show needs a leader who is willing to cross lines. Not keep them a mile away.

I don’t want edgy Lower Decks.

Fine. But it would sure be good to have a FUNNY Lower Decks. Hard for writers to do that if the writers are afraid to try things.

Man I love every time McMahan speaks. You can tell how passionate he is for both Star Trek as a whole and his show. It was a great idea to promote them this season and we got to see another side of them and how they handle leadership but still at the bottom basically. And I’m really excited to see what happens in the last two episodes now. And I’m happy we will see more T’Lyn in season 5. She has truly been a great addition and would love to see her in live action some day.

And they would be crazy not to do more live action crossover stories seeing how great TOS came off. It could’ve been a total disaster but it’s probably my favorite SNW episodes period and one of the best this year.It would make sense to do it with the possible Legacy show or any show that takes place in the 25th century next.

It’s like listening to Terry Matalas, without the pandering!

The Moopsy is an excellent, creative addition. Not kidding either; it’s very clever.

Bro my girlfriend laughed so hard over Moopsy that she watched the episode twice and she’s not even a big fan of the show but the little guy is adorable when he’s not drinking your bones.

I hope LD gets 10 seasons, it’s like the version of Star Trek that lived in my head for the past 30 yrs brought to life. Every episode leaves a smile on my face.

Against my better judgement I read the article and the main takeaway I got was that there was perhaps only one time where he referenced trying to have funny gags. And it was in reference to how limited he feels doing it. That is the problem with the show right there. Not just that he seems to see his show as more of an opportunity for him to stick in his Trek ideas more than anything else, but that comedy should NEVER be limited. That’s part of why comedy is dying today. Very few are willing to take comedic risks like in the past. The show isn’t funny because he fears do to what funny people used to do. Push boundaries. Take risks. Sure, sometimes you can overstep but talented people are usually able to do it successfully.

He’s already won awards for Rick and Morty, he knows how to push the envelope when it’s actually called for. This is Star Trek, not It’s Always Sunny. It doesn’t need to be edgy, and humor is such a subjective and broad space to work in, they can do plenty without having to “push boundaries.” That doesn’t make the show stale, merely confident of its tone.

When they really do another live action crossover they better include Tendi and Rutherford too!!

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The Moopsy is one of the cuddliest creatures in the Galaxy but watch out -  this little ball of cuteness is an alien murderer that will drink your bones.

Moopsy is a fan-favorite alien from Star Trek: Lower Decks. It looks friendly but it can move at lightning-fast speeds and, once it sinks its fangs into its prey, it can drink its bones in seconds.

When it escaped from Narj’s Miraculous Menagerarium it killed Narj and two Pyrithian swamp gobblers before Ransom and Mariner lured it back into it's cage. Handle with care!

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Star Trek: Lower Decks

The support crew serving on one of Starfleet's least important ships, the U.S.S. Cerritos, have to keep up with their duties, often while the ship is being rocked by a multitude of sci-fi an... Read all The support crew serving on one of Starfleet's least important ships, the U.S.S. Cerritos, have to keep up with their duties, often while the ship is being rocked by a multitude of sci-fi anomalies. The support crew serving on one of Starfleet's least important ships, the U.S.S. Cerritos, have to keep up with their duties, often while the ship is being rocked by a multitude of sci-fi anomalies.

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• Trivia Tawny Newsome said in an interview with Wil Wheaton that one of the few things her parents had in common was Star Trek and because of her childhood experiences with the series, there was no other franchise she'd rather be a part of. She was also influenced by the positive portrayal of the black father and son on screen in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) .
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Is star trek’s scotty really a miracle worker how uss enterprise’s engineer got his famous nickname.

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Scotty Has His Old Star Trek: TOS Job In Strange New Worlds Season 3

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Star Trek 's most iconic engineer was often labeled a "miracle worker," but does Chief Engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (James Doohan, Simon Pegg, Martin Quinn) actually deserve such a title? As far back as Star Trek: The Original Series , characters throughout the entire Star Trek timeline have referred to Scotty as a miracle worker. He was an engineer capable of doing whatever his commanding officer asked, even when faced with the impossible. These miracles usually involved getting a badly damaged warp core up and running in record time or ensuring an incapacitated Enterprise had weapons at the ready in dire situations.

Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott was the Chief Engineer aboard several versions of the Starship Enterprise commanded by Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner, Chris Pine, Paul Wesley). By the time Star Trek: The Original Series ended, Scotty was the standard to which every engineer in Star Trek was held. Other Starfleet engineers, like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney) and Star Trek: The Next Generation 's Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton), are compared to Scotty because of the many "miracles" he performed. However, the real history behind Scotty's "miracle worker" title is a little more complicated.

Is Star Trek’s Scotty Really A Miracle Worker?

Montgomery scott is undoubtedly one of starfleet's most talented engineers.

Every version of Scotty in Star Trek has the same ability to somehow overcome extreme hardships and do the impossible. This trend continues in modern depictions and can be seen as recently as Martin Quinn's portrayal of the Scotsman, who aids the cast of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds during a conflict with the Gorn. In many episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series and its subsequent films, Scotty is depicted as saving the day with surprising solutions in difficult positions. Despite Scotty's impressive engineering skills and commendable ability to work well under pressure, the Enterprise's Chief Engineer isn't perfect.

The first clip of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 shows that newly minted series regular Scotty has his old TOS job back on the Enterprise.

Despite earning the reputation as a miracle worker and never denying it, Scotty has a good reason his work is so acclaimed. Instead of giving Captain Kirk an accurate estimation of the time it would take to complete a task, Lt. Commander Scott would quadruple that timeframe. So, instead of taking the actual two days, Scotty would claim the repair would take a week or more. When he completed the task early, usually just in time to stop the USS Enterprise from being destroyed , Scotty appeared to be a miracle worker to everyone on board, including the captain.

How & When Scotty Got His Miracle Worker Nickname

Scotty took creative liberties when it came to his stellar reputation.

When working alongside Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation , Scotty reveals his overestimation trick to a surprised La Forge, who claims to have never known about it. The same technique is used in Star Trek: Lower Decks , where it's referred to as "buffer time." By the time the events of Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock take place, Captain Kirk is at least partially aware of his chief engineer's trick. He asks if Scotty has "always multiplied your repair estimates by four," and Scotty responds, "How else can I keep my reputation as a miracle worker?"

Scotty was first referred to as the doer of miracles in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Doomsday Machine," and he has continued to receive that compliment ever since. Each version of Scotty, including the 3-film portrayal by Simon Pegg, has added to the character's impressive and innovative repertoire. While it may just be a deception, Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott solidified his place in both Starfleet and Star Trek history by ensuring he had ample time to make repairs that saved countless lives over the course of his service on the USS Enterprise.

Star Trek: The Original Series

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