With the second season of Star Trek: Lower Decks now wrapped up, leaving us all on the edge of our seat pulling a twist that I’m sure none of us saw coming, we gotta play the waiting game to see where the show’s third season will go, but while we all speculate on just what might be going on regarding that finale, one thing that’s going through my mind is who might appear in the realm of legacy characters next season.
It’s inevitable that it will happen. Season 1 gave the fans a thrilling reveal of the USS Titan, with Captain William T. Riker, and Commander Deanna Troi both present on the bridge, alongside a fun appearance by Q, and Season 2 did even more, with Tom Paris visiting the Cerritos, and even giving brief, albeit non-speaking appearances by Captain Elizabeth Shelby, and even Okana of all people.
If that wasn’t enough, the finale did a wonderful job of featuring former ensign, now captain, Sonya Gomez in a role that feels surprisingly wholesome for the show, showing us a former lower decker we likely forgot about after the two episodes she briefly appeared in, now running her own ship. That is the true spirit of the show if you ask me.
But all that said, in terms of Season 3, I do have a few hopes for who we might see, and while some of this might be reaching, with a show like Lower Decks, anything is possible. So while we wait for the show’s third season, and get ready for Star Trek: Prodigy next week (which will be showcasing both the return of Kathryn Janeway, and Chakotay), here’s a small “wish list” of legacy characters I personally hope we see in the upcoming season of Lower Decks (and five I hope they steer clear from).
WARNING: SPOILERS WILL BE TALKED ABOUT…
10. Harry Kim
Having Harry Kim make an appearance in Lower Decks might be a bit too perfect an opportunity to pass up. With this show being centred on four ensigns who struggle with the daily dirty work that is often overlooked by most, why wouldn’t Harry Kim, who criminally spent all seven years of Star Trek: Voyager as an ensign want to appear in this show?
The running gag of Harry Kim constantly being seen as an ensign on Voyager did get a little grating to the point where I would hope Lower Decks would avoid the cheap shot, but at the same time, I feel like everyone would probably laugh if he appeared on the show without his coveted promotion. But regardless, seeing our lower deckers potentially meeting the man who knows how hard the life of an ensign can be (even if he himself was a bridge officer) might be really cool to see.
9. Worf
I’ll be perfectly honest: the main reason Worf is on this list is that as much as I love the character, I do believe that Michael Dorn has been trying a little too hard to return to the Star Trek universe. This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think the idea of a Captain Worf Star Trek show is pretty dull, and I don’t think the character has aged all that well in terms of being a deep, or interesting character.
Please note that I’m not saying Worf is a bad character. I’m just saying that the character has gotten a bit stale. So I think it would be a little fun to see Worf somehow finding his way onto a show centred on an unimportant ship, run by an unimportant Starfleet crew. I’d have a small laugh at it. But if you want a more serious answer, with Klingons getting involved in a pretty big way towards the end of Season 2, with extremists collaborating with the Pakleds, and maybe even being responsible for the destruction of their homeworld, seeing Worf, or even Martok coming in next season doesn’t feel impossible. I’m almost willing to bet that we will see one of these two next season.
8. Raffaela Musiker
While Raffi may not be a “true” legacy character, having only been introduced in Star Trek: Picard, getting a look into her Starfleet career before it went awry is a door for some really cool potential. Musiker is easily one of the more interesting characters of Picard, and the show gave us bits and pieces of what her life was like in Starfleet before the Utopian Planitia Shipyards were destroyed. The IDW comic, Picard: Countdown also gave us a small look into her Starfleet career, serving as Picard’s XO aboard the USS Verity, but it was still very brief.
I for one believe that seeing Musiker appear in Lower Decks, still, an officer, maybe not working with Picard quite yet, would give us a better insight into an already interesting character. I have no doubt we will learn more about her in the new season of Picard, but I would love to see if, in her earlier years, she was as conspiracy prone as she is after everything hit the fan.
7. Ro Laren
The last time we saw Ro Laren in Star Trek, she was ditching Starfleet, holding Riker at phaser-point, and throwing her lot in with the Maquis. It’s a bittersweet farewell to the character in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and a criminally underrated episode, but we never see the character again. Plus we all know what happens to the Maquis in DS9… Ro’s fate after the Dominion exterminates the Maquis is unknown and left entirely to speculation.
While the Maquis is no more, we do know that there were survivors outside Chakotay’s crew, and it isn’t impossible that Ro could still be alive. Plenty of novels actually tackled her fate, and wrote about her rejoining Starfleet, but honestly, I never liked this idea. It felt like such a 180 for the character that just didn’t fit. I could see her joining the Fenris Rangers with Seven of Nine more than Starfleet, but I am hoping that the fate of this character will finally be revealed soon. Is she dead? Is she alive? I hope we get an answer.
6. Miles O’Brien and/or Julian Bashir
I’m not trying to cheat on this entry, the main reason it’s a split entry mainly is that Season 1 did include a brief easter egg reference to Miles O’Brien being “the most important figure” in Starfleet history. That’s the main reason I hope we get the real deal in the show because the most important figure of Starfleet gracing us with his presence in Lower Decks might be too fun.
However, in regards to Julian Bashir, the reasoning is a bit more serious, and ties into what he goes through in later DS9, and how he is seen in the hypothetical Season 8 premiere episode that we saw in the recent DS9 documentary, What We Left Behind. In this premiere, Bashir is seen as the new head of Section 31, and honestly, I don’t think that’s an unlikely scenario for Bashir to find himself in. I think it would be really cool to see Bashir assume this role for real, and with all the theories out there connecting the destruction of Pakled Planet to Section 31, maybe Bashir appearing here as the head of Section 31 might be a cool reveal. Though if we’re being bluntly honest…, I don’t think Section 31 is behind this at all. But that’s for another day.
5. Katherine Pulaski
It is absolutely criminal that Katherine Pulaski’s final episode of Star Trek was a terrible clip show. I get that Pulaski’s reception among the fanbase is divided at best, but I always preferred her to Crusher as the doctor on TNG, and I hate that she never got a proper sendoff. Even Wesley Crusher got one of those. After that clip show, Pulaski is never even mentioned again, and that’s just criminal. Now BTS drama aside, I think it would be absolutely awesome to bring Pulaski in one last time. It’s long past overdue that she got a decent finale that isn’t one of the most hated episodes of the franchise.
4. Rom
It’s such a damn shame that we will likely never see Nog’s character again in Star Trek after the sad passing of Aaron Eisenberg a couple of years ago, but Nog wasn’t the only great Ferengi character of DS9, and Nog’s father, Rom, would be right at home in Lower Decks. When we last saw him in DS9, he was just anointed the new Grand Nagus of the Ferengi Alliance and was going to help bring about a new era of change for the Ferengi in more ways than one. These changes have subtly been hinted at in Lower Decks, with Mariner talking to her Ferengi friend, Quimp, when he tells her that he’s taking his wife to Risa. If you recall, in DS9, Ferengi women are heavily restricted in what they are allowed to do, and travelling off-world is something they are forbidden to do (among other things).
So seeing Quimp taking his wife to Risa for a vacation hints that the changes that Rom is helping bring about are very much happening. Seeing Rom appear, maybe still married to Leeta, might help showcase even more that has happened since the conclusion of DS9. The show has given multiple mentions and references to Quark, who has seemingly branched out from his bar at DS9, and I’m fairly certain that this is mainly due to the help he’s likely gotten from Rom. Wouldn’t it be fun to explore?
3. Philippa Georgiou
Hear me out… Georgiou’s inclusion might feel a bit stretched at first, but I don’t think it’s impossible. We know after the events of “Terra Firma” in the third season of Star Trek: Discovery that Georgiou is returning to the past, and we know that she will be getting her own show in the future, in which she will be working in Section 31. What we don’t know is precisely when this show will be taking place.
It could be the 23rd century, the 24th century, hell, it might be sooner or later. All we know is that she’s going back to the past somewhere. I once again refer you to the Section 31 theories currently out there with the destruction of Pakled Planet. A crossover with Georgiou here might be really fun. I love when Lower Decks bathes in the nostalgic easter eggs, but I would like it to give a little more love to some of the more current Star Trek shows as well, and this might be a cool opportunity to do that. Is it reaching a bit? Yeah. I highly doubt that Georgiou’s destination from the Guardian of Forever would be revealed in this show, but I don’t think it’s impossible for her to appear here in some form.
2. Elim Garak
If Garak appears in Lower Decks, I’m fairly certain that this show will always be my second favorite Star Trek show out there. Again, with that big twist in the finale, it might be a ripe opportunity to bring in plain, simple Garak to help shed more light on this mystery, but it might also present a fun opportunity to bring Bashir in as well. Now, I’m not going to get my hopes up, and I’m not going to make expectations, because again, I think the mystery behind the destruction of Pakled Planet is not nearly as complex as some seem to think it is, but hey… if Garak appears, I will have one hell of a geek-out.
1. Ezri Dax
Of all the characters here, there is no one more deserving of an appearance here than Ezri Dax. It is very unfortunate that Ezri’s only appearance in Star Trek was during DS9’s final season, because it wasn’t nearly enough to fully flesh out this character. Ezri kinda got the short end of the stick a lot of the time, so seeing her in Lower Decks might give some much-needed development, and justice to her. I for one would love to see her status as Captain of the USS Aventine cemented in canon. We saw the Luna-class Titan canonized in Season 1, why not give the same treatment to the awesome Vesta-class later on? I am begging for this pretty much. I really hope they can make this happen at some point.
And… for a bonus, here’s five characters I hope we don’t see…
5. Jean-Luc Picard
I have absolutely nothing against Jean-Luc Picard as a character, but as awesome as seeing him in this show would be, he is currently front and centre of his own show right now, and off doing his own thing. I think that’s working out just fine for him. Plus, I think including Picard in this show would be rather unnatural. Why would one of the most prominent officers of Starfleet visit a ship as insignificant as the Cerritos?
4. The Doctor
I am admittedly kinda 50/50 on this one. I would welcome an appearance from Voyager’s EMH, but… I really can’t think of a major reason to include him. As fun as seeing Tom Paris was this last season, his appearance did kinda come up short for me personally, because it was little more than an appearance for the sake of fan service. When fan service is the sole reason for making a character appear, I just don’t really get that excited.
Would I like to see the Doctor on Lower Decks? Would it be cool to see if maybe he’s fighting for holographic rights, or if he decided to name himself Joe on Lower Decks? Sure. But I can’t really think of a solid reason for the Cerritos to cross his path in this way. Most reasons I think of for inclusion amount to little more than fan service, and I think that’s just a wasted opportunity. I’m confident that the writers can think of something though,
so… I leave it in their capable hands if this is in the future.
3. Wesley Crusher
I don’t hate this character as much as I once did admittedly, but if I’m being honest, the interest for him to return in any way is not there. I feel that TNG squandered the most interesting potential that Wesley Crusher had as a character, and I just never cared about his gig with the Traveler.
Wil Wheaton has a good gig going for him as the host of the Ready Room special after each Star Trek episode currently. Leave him there, and let Wesley Crusher continue his whimsical journey with the space wizard, or whatever the hell the Traveler is.
2. Data/B-4/Lore
If they force any of these characters into the story, I will put my head in my hands. Brent Spiner’s talents are notable, but Data got a beautiful sendoff in Picard, B-4 is absolutely annoying to the point where I’d prefer to think of him as disassembled in that drawer for the rest of time, and Lore’s potential to be an interesting antagonist was squandered in TNG. There’s closure there, and while it wasn’t exactly the best, I’d prefer that they don’t try to force him back in. Now, I would be open to Brent Spiner coming in to voice any character in this show, or even voicing Data maybe in a fun holodeck episode, but outside this, I really hope they leave these three characters alone.
1. Benjamin Sisko
I may love DS9, but I love it in such a way that they need to steer clear of touching Benjamin Sisko. Every now and then, I hear people yearning for some show to bring Sisko back from the prophets or whatnot, and I am just sitting here thinking to myself, “Why?” There is no need to bring Sisko back.
There is no need to potentially botch the great closure that the character got at the end of DS9. Remember how great the closure for Kirk and his crew was in Star Trek VI? Remember how Star Trek: Generations kinda messed with that? I’d rather avoid that kind of thing with Sisko. The same goes for other major DS9 characters that got good closure, like Kira Nerys, or Odo. As great as it would be to see them again, the way DS9 ended was almost perfect for so many of its characters, and honestly… I would rather Lower Decks bring in characters that were robbed of development or closure.
My Conclusion…
But that’s just my take here. I know that my opinions as a fan can be pretty different from what the majority seem to think, but that’s what makes the Trekkie fandom so fun. So I will close this article out with me asking you who you hope to see next season in Lower Decks.
Do you agree with my picks? Disagree? Regardless, I am sure that we will not be disappointed in who returns next season…
