This interview contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 4. It was also conducted during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes and without the labor of all creative teams involved, this series would not exist.

Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 4 has returned at long last, and the crew of the USS Cerritos is tackling some of their biggest adventures yet. In the first two episodes, which are now available on Paramount+, Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Boimler (Jack Quaid), Tendi (Noël Wells), and Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) receive promotions that have them climbing the ranks of the Cerritos. Don’t worry, though, they’re still getting into as many — if not more — shenanigans than ever as junior-grade lieutenants. Season 4 kicks off with an epic love letter to Star Trek: Voyager that runs through countless references to the many adventures of Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and her crew during their time in the Delta Quadrant. And that’s only the jumping-off point for an entire season filled with even more wacky adventures that set Lower Decks on its own bold path.

Ahead of the two-episode Season 4 premiere, I sat down with Supervising Director Barry J. Kelly to chat about the latest wild ride for our favorite lower-deckers. During our conversation, we discussed how they managed to squeeze so many Voyager references into a 22-minute episode and unpacked the moral quandary of “Twovix.” Kelly also spoke about how they set up a season-long mystery, designing those increasingly outrageous character combinations in the opening episode, and how they’re able to push the boundaries of Star Trek even further through the use of animation. We both agree that every Lower Decks fan needs a Moopsie plushie, and Kelly even shared his dream crossover characters for the series.

COLLIDER: The first episode of this season is a huge, huge love letter to Voyager fans, and I loved it so much. There are so many Easter eggs, and I’m sure that I haven’t even spotted them all yet. What was it like crafting that opening episode, not only in terms of all the references in the ship but creating all the new hybrids and those new character designs as well?

BARRY KELLY: Of course, the episode title kind of gives you a little lead of what’s going on, “Twovix.” “Tuvix” is a classic episode that is kind of horrific at the same time, but it’s also a huge moral dilemma for Janeway. The beauty of Star Trek is that I find myself empathizing with all angles of that situation, and it’s a fucked up thing she did, you know? Justice for Tuvix, you know what I mean? That’s what something Mike [McMahan] likes to say, “Justice for Tuvix.” It was just a super fun B story to happen. What’s great is that’s the Cerritos story. What’s interesting is we have this whole Voyager story where I was hoping we’d get the theme music because that, in itself, just being able to put something to that theme, is like a love letter to Voyager. It’s such a classic.

Those hybrids, we went back and forth on those a lot because Tuvix himself, it’s such a specific mix of Neelix and Tuvok. The reason why his uniform looks the way it does is because Neelix has these crazy patterns and all those textures, but we just wanted to hit the reference, right? So, we did more texture, probably, than– There’s some Neelix texture in there because it was Billups and T’ana, which is like, what two characters would make a great combo that couldn’t be more opposite? And we have Freeman and Migleemo, a bird lady, you know, we could go to town. It was super funny just to figure out, like, what patterns work for who. “Wait, does she have a beak nose now? Nah, she should have a real nose but a beak mouth.” It’s super fun. That’s where their character designers get to have a blast. If I could go back and look at the character designs, I should, just to be like, “Where did we go? How did we land on this?” Because, you know, “Should we make her green? Should we make her brown? Maybe make the feathers brown,” or whatever. The decisions we make, sometimes it’s like, “I can’t believe I work on this show! These are the decisions I have to make? Whether or not it’s green feathers or a beak nose?” It’s super fun.

But yeah, you said it correctly. It’s a love letter to Voyager. We love Voyager. We’re trying to capture the most classic moments. We have 22 minutes; we can’t fit everything that we love about Voyager, but hopefully, we were able to get enough love in there that if you love Voyager, too, it’s an episode that you’ll feel right at home with.

Image via Paramoutn+

There’s a running gag that’s set up in that first episode where we get to see into the lower decks of another ship. What was it like to animate those little vignettes and to go inside those other unexplored corners of the Star Trek universe?

KELLY: It’s liberating because it shows that you can have a lower deck show in any ship. You can find the aspects of all those different species in all the different spaceships. You can find interesting characters in any place. I think our episode, “wej Duj,” the first time we explored that was with the Vulcan and with Mach or Klingon, and we’re getting a little bit more of that. We were expanding on that idea. We’re like, “Let’s see what life on other ships might be like.” I hope it looks like this season [you’ll] look forward to it, like, “Oh, I wonder what lower decks we’re gonna see this season, or this episode.” Because after Episode 2, you’re gonna be like, “Oh, these are victims.” [Laughs] You know that this mystery ship’s coming in, you don’t know who it is, it’s got this weird organic shape to it, it looks alien, it’s not Starfleet, and it blasts them away.

Hopefully, the fun becomes, like, “What’s the take when we see other lower decks?” The Romulans is a good one just because it’s like, “Oh gosh, they’re all conniving and annoying weirdos that are just looking to find joy in being a villain?” But it’s such a fun take on it. So I’m hoping that that comes through that. You really get to channel what that species is like, what their means are, and what their motivations are, and we can push that a little bit and have fun with it.

Exactly. That was so much fun. Every time a new one would pop up, I was excited to see all the little details.

KELLY: Good!

Image via Paramoutn+

I feel like Lower Decks, more than most of the other Star Trek series, really has the ability to push boundaries about what’s possible in this universe, and in a really unique way. Is there anything from this season that you look back on where you’re like, “Wow, I can’t believe we got away with that?”

KELLY: I’m always amazed—this is pretty far down the line, what I’m talking about, so not to be too spoilery — when we can have a character — okay, in Season 3, we had Peanut Hamper. We completely took a risk and went off format and did a whole episode where, like, three-quarters of it doesn’t involve any Lower Deckers – it’s all Peanut Hamper. So, I’m always amazed at what we can do with a talking box essentially. It’s a talking computer. They don’t animate, they don’t really move, and they are some of the funniest freaking characters on the show.

Again, with animation, we can push stuff horrific, we can push stuff more lighthearted, we’re super flexible. We’re far more flexible than most shows, and I wish that audience members would realize that. I feel like sometimes animation can get dismissed because, “Oh, it’s for kids,” like cartoons, but there’s a certain freedom and flexibility that we have that the other shows can’t that really shows where we can go. And with characters like Peanut Hamper and our AI villains that are essentially talking boxes, I’m always amazed how much character comes out of something that doesn’t move. With characters like that and T’Lyn, we have these characters that instantly aren’t reacting, or if a joke is said and you see a shot full of characters reacting, and there’s one person that’s not, it makes it so much funnier. Like, T’Lyn not reacting to something, or a computer that just blinks or something, for some reason, just that absurdity of adding that one element immediately adds a texture and context to our show that makes it super fun. So, I’m excited for fans to see that.

With that particular episode, we were going pretty crazy with a returning villain. I think it’s always that character that comes back — it would be awesome to see him in live-action, but I don’t think a live-action show can do that character, you know? It’s where our medium is our strength, is in characters like Badgey and like Peanut Hamper, where it’s almost like we have to over-animate a certain character and certain characters we have to completely reduce. It’s over-exaggerating but in two different directions. It’s like, “This one needs to do way less, and this one needs to do way more than any other character on the show.” I don’t think any other show can do that. That’s the beauty of animation.

Image via Paramoutn+

There’s a solid new mix of aliens, as well as bringing back some other aliens this year. What’s your favorite character design from this season that you’re most proud of?

KELLY: Oh my gosh, this is a hard one… Episode 2, it’s a “Menagerie” episode, a classic Star Trek “Menagerie” episode. There are humans in the cage that were wrongfully put there that Mariner, Ransom, and our new ensign, Gary, have to get out. That’s their Starfleet mission. Right when they get there, the cutest, adorable little fluff ball of a creature gets out. It should not be threatening at all, and it’s the most dangerous creature in the station. It’s the Moopsie. I hope we can make pillows of Moopsies. There’s so much room to expand on a fluff-ball cute character. We don’t really get to do that too often.

What’s fun about the Moopsie character is—what I always love doing in animation—when you animate something wide, and you get to make stuff small versions of stuff, you make a really reduced version of it, that’s really cute and maybe it doesn’t have all the details, and then when you get really close up, you get to add all these extra details. It’s a classic animation thing; the closer you get, the more detail you show. When we get the Moopsie 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. Moopsie is, by far, my favorite character design in this season. It’s super adorable, and I love it.

I was hoping you would say that. After watching that, I was like, “I need a Moopsie plushie so bad.”

KELLY: 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!

If you could bring in any other character from any other Star Trek show that hasn’t already appeared on Lower Decks, who would it be?

KELLY: This is not an opinion of the show, this is just me: I love Data and Geordi. When I watched TNG — with streaming and bingeing, I’ve watched Star Trek so much now that it’s on while I work. It’s a great background. The show is written so well I know what’s going on with it without really watching it. But Geordi and Data, their relationship is so great, and sometimes they feel like—not in a sad nerdy way—they’re like my friends. I know who they are. I wanna hang out with them. I wish I worked with them. I wish they were my coworkers, you know, things like that. Geordi and Data, seeing them in Picard Season 3 was… you never thought you’d see those characters again working together, and it’s like, “Oh, I missed this,” you know? I would love a Geordi/Data episode. Maybe, if not them both, one or the other.

Getting [George] Takei was already a heart moment. I got the feels for Takei when we had him because I’ve been such a fan. He’s had so many iterations of his career and persona, and I love Howard Stern, and he was like a regular Howard Stern guest, so I’m like, “Oh my god, we get to see George Takei. We get to animate to his voice!” His voice sounded wholesome, and it sounded like George Takei, and just getting to animate a very heartfelt moment with him was a dream, too.

The first two episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 4 are now available on Paramount+, with the remaining episodes arriving every Thursday.