Star Trek: Lower Decks to feature ‘legacy’ characters

Rumors of Star Trek: Lower Decks including legacy characters had persisted since the show was announced and now it’s been fully confirmed.

Since the show was announced, rumors of past Star Trek characters have been linked to the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks. Now, thanks to series creator Mike McMahan and Inverse, the rumor has been confirmed. The series creator of Lower Decks, McMahan told Inverse that existing “legacy” characters will be apart of the new series.

"That’s interesting because we do have legacy actors who show up in the first season of Lower Decks and we have gotten to have a little bit of where are they now sort of vibe through a Lower Decks lens."

This goes back to a rumor from June that stated that Next Generation characters could show up in the series in some form. The series is set just one year after Star Trek: Nemesis, which means plenty of characters can come back and lend their voices to the series without having to explain away twenty years of aging. Actors also won’t have to sit in chairs for hours on end just to be able to look like an alien, which also opens up to plenty of potential returns for the franchise.

Names like Michael Dorn and LeVar Burton leap out, as both men had some of the hardest prosthetics to deal with in the series. For Dorn, he had to sit in the chair for hours to be turned into the Klingon warrior Worf, who served proudly in Starfleet. Then there is Buton’s Geordi La Forge, who was famous for his visor; which was eventually taken away in the films. According to Burton, the visor which gave the blind La Forge sight in the series actually hindered Burton’s in real life.

You could also do a younger Jean-Luc Picard, played by Patrick Stewart. Stewart has had plenty of experience doing voice-over work, as he does the voice work of Harvey Bullock on American Dad.  The possibilities are endless. The most obvious name who should show up, however, is Q. The more comical character would be right at home in a series built around comedy.