Without a doubt, one of the best episodes in the entire run of Star Trek: The Next Generation is the sweet Season 7 episode, “Lower Decks.” This quieter story shifted the focus away from the primary bridge crew of the USS Enterprise and explored how the junior officers experienced life aboard a starship. This notion expanded our perception of the Star Trek universe, and continued with a theme that TNG had been exploring, arguably, since the episode “The Bonding” in Season 3; that idea being that in this version of Star Trek, the lives of the expendable “red shirt” characters mattered too.
Of course, today, the phrase “Lower Decks” doesn’t just evoke this classic TNG episode. Now, there’s an entire animated comedy series, Star Trek: Lower Decks, that’s taken the ethos of this episode and expanded it into a sort of spiritual sequel to The Next Generation. And as Lower Decks heads into its final season, it has metafictionally remade the original “Lower Decks” with the new episode “Upper Decks.” If your head is spinning, that’s okay. Inverse caught up with Jerry O’Connell, who plays Commander Ransom on Lower Decks, to get a sense of this episode’s relevance, and how it continues to explore all the facets of the Trek continuum.
