How Scared Should the Characters in STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS Really Be? Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome Talk Terror as Season 2 Begins

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede There’s a running joke about the employment status of Ensign Brad Boimler, voiced by Jack Quaid, early in Season 2 of the animated comedy STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS, which debuts Thursday, Aug. 12 on Crave and CTV Sci-Fi Channel. The story picks up where Season 1 left off, with Boimler having jumped ship, so to speak. Leaving behind his pals on the USS Cerritos, the book-smart but street-unwise Boimler has accepted a position on the USS Titan, which is a far more important vessel in the hierarchy of Starfleet. So more than once on the Cerritos, one of the characters will wistfully muse, “Boimler must be having the time of his life,” or, “I’ll bet Boimler is living the dream.” And then, of course, the scene cuts to Boimler on the Titan, screaming his head off in terror, as the vessel embarks upon something far more dangerous than the Cerritos would ever be assigned to do. This repeated scenario prompted a question for Quaid and castmate Tawny Newsome, who voices Ensign Beckett Mariner, during a recent tandem virtual interview: Shouldn’t all the characters be terrified pretty much all the time in every STAR TREK series? Is Boimler actually the only one who’s thinking straight? “I like this question a lot,” Quaid replied. “Because I think Boimler is thinking straight. It’s terrifying out there in space. Everything wants to kill you … Tawny?” “Yeah, a friend of mine who just started a rewatch of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION asked me, ‘I know this has probably been rehashed, but why aren’t there seatbelts on the bridge?’ ” Newsome said. “Like, there should be seatbelts. We should be screaming. This is all scary. I think Boimler is in his right mind. I would not do well in space. I’d be a screaming mess. And I’d be looking for the seatbelt.” Quaid expressed some mild surprise at those comments from Newsome, considering that STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS is not her only TV trip into space. She also has a live-action role in the series SPACE FORCE. “Yeah, I know, but I could never go in real life,” Newsome said. “I’ve worn the suit. I got on the wire, so I experienced weightlessness. I love to play pretend. But if someone offered me the chance to do, like, a Bezos (referring to Jeff Bezos, the billionaire who recently financed his own space trip), and go up – well, first of all, I would distribute that wealth, and not do a Bezos – but if someone offered me the chance to go up for free somehow, I would say no. I’m an actor. I basically went to clown school. I’m not equipped to go into space.” “Or,” Quaid countered, “are you the most equipped person ever, using the power of clowning?” Well, there’s certainly plenty of clowning around on STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS, which was developed by EMMY® Award winner Mike McMahan. Season 2 continues to follow Ensigns Mariner, Boimler, Rutherford (voiced by Eugene Cordero) and Tendi (voiced by Noël Wells) as they face new challenges and threats to the tight little friendship unit that they formed in Season 1 (which is available on Crave). Season 3, by the way, is already being recorded. “Jack and I were actually just texting about this – we just watched the first five episodes of Season 2, and we feel like the show was confident last year, but this year it’s just so sure of itself,” Newsome said. “It’s so sure of its sense of humour. I feel like all of us, all the performances, all the writing, we’re like, yes, we know this is funny. We know this is great STAR TREK. There are zero apologies for it. And I love it.” Quaid agreed, adding, “Yeah, I love it, too – and it’s not that we weren’t confident last season, but this season we already got all the setup out of the way, you know? We don’t have to set up the world, and the ship, and these characters. We just take you to insane places.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv