Star Trek: Strange New Worlds debuted a musical episode, "Subspace Rhapsody" in its second season. Not only was the episode well-received, it showed off the additional talents of several cast members. Now that the series has pulled off the first musical episode in the franchise, Star Trek: Lower Decks' star Tawny Newsome is hoping the animated series can follow suit.
Newsome, along with Dawnn Lewis and Eugene Cordero, were at the Star Trek San Francisco convention recently [via Trekmovie}, and the question of whether Lower Decks would do a musical episode came up. Newsome responded that she had been pitching such an episode for years, but series creator Mike McMaan has always said no one can top the Buffy: the Vampire Slayer musical, "Once More with Feeling."
"“It’s hard to top [‘Subspace Rhapsody’]. I’ve been saying it to [showrunner] Mike [McMahan] for years: Do a musical, do a musical! And he has always said no one has done the musical episode better than Buffy. He’s like, ‘We can’t touch it.’ It’s true. Well, and then ‘Subspace Rhapsody’ came out and I love that one. I do think that ours would be funnier because of the tone of our show. They weren’t trying to be funny, so that’s not a slam, they are an hour-long space drama and we are a 22-minute cartoon. I was like, ‘Look they did it so well that we could do the funny version of that.’ I will tell you, there is not one in season 5. So, if you want one, tell Paramount. We’ll see.”"Tawny Newsome
That episode succeeded massively, spawning a soundtrack release in September 2002 that reached number three on the US Billboard Top Soundtracks, and the songs remain popular to this day. So it's no wonder McMahan has been hesitant to tackle a similar episode. But with Strange New Worlds pulling off what everyone thought was impossible, fan call for a musical episode from Lower Decks began, with many believing the cast could pull it off.
Newsome maintains that Strange New Worlds "did it so well" that Lower Decks could make a funnier episode and urged fans to tell Paramount if that's what they want. She did add that there was not such an episode in the fifth season for which voicework has already been completed.