Tawny Newsome had Mike McMahon change her involvement with the Star Trek: Lower Decks arrival on Deep Space Nine.
Star Trek: Lower Decks is getting ready to arrive at Deep Space Nine later in its third season. It’s one of the biggest moments in the series’ young history and fans are getting very excited about it. Not just fans who are watching the show, either. No, we’re talking about the fans who also double as the talent on these shows.
For Tawny Newsome, playing Becket Mariner isn’t just a job but a dream come true. Newsome grew up a fan of Deep Space Nine, and her involvement with Star Trek is a combination of a lifetime of hard work and a life-long love of the franchise.
So it isn’t surprising that Newsome had some words with series showrunner Mike McMahon when she saw how she was used in the upcoming DS9 episode of Lower Decks. She spoke to TrekMovie.com about that very situation;
"Look, I’m not proud of a lot of things in my career, but I am proud of that. Because I was right. Yeah. So he wrote the DS9 episode and he wrote it with Mariner on like a side mission or like on a different storyline. And I read it and I got really sad for myself, Tawny, because I’m a huge Deep Space Nine fan and I really wanted to play in that world. So he logged on to the Zoom and I gave him some serious shit for it. I was like, “How are you denying me this as a fan?” And he was like, “Tawny, we’re making a TV show. This isn’t about your wants and dreams.” But I think he ultimately heard the wisdom and what I was saying. And then he did rewrite the ending for me."
Lower Decks should give Deep Space Nine the sequel it deserves
I’m not a big fan of revisiting the past or doing perpetual callbacks as the basis of a show. That’s all Lower Decks is one constant call back to better examples of Star Trek. That said, a show like that may be the perfect place for Deep Space Nine to be revisited.
There will be attention and care there for Deep Space Nine that may not have been as obvious in a series like Picard or another spinoff show.
So getting Lower Decks, a show primed and focused on paying respect to past events, is the best scenario for getting a great look at Deep Space Nine all these years later. The animated format of the show should help us not see the proverbial and literal wrinkles of our favorite stars, considering this is supposed to be in line with the frame of the TNG films.