Director: Mike McMahan
Not every starship gets to save the galaxy — some just try to survive the paperwork, and that is exactly the joke at the heart of this animated comedy following the lowest-ranked crew on Starfleet's least glamorous ship.
What is Star Trek: Lower Decks about?
Set aboard the U.S.S. Cerritos in 2380, the show follows four junior officers — Mariner, Boimler, Rutherford, and Tendi — who handle the unglamorous grunt work that never makes it into the captain's log. Their ship isn't built for headline missions; it exists to do the second-contact cleanup, paperwork, and maintenance runs that come after the famous crews move on. That doesn't stop the Cerritos from being pulled into its own share of sci-fi chaos, from unstable anomalies to alien creatures loose in the corridors, usually while the ensigns are also trying to manage roommates, career ambitions, and each other's bad decisions. The humor leans on affectionate parody of the wider franchise's tropes — transporter mishaps, away-team clichés, bureaucratic Starfleet regulations — filtered through the perspective of the people who actually have to clean up after the heroes.
Cast & crew
Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid voice Mariner and Boimler, the two ensigns whose clashing approaches to Starfleet life drive most of the show's momentum, alongside Noël Wells and Eugene Cordero as Tendi and Rutherford. Dawnn Lewis, Gillian Vigman, Jerry O'Connell, and Fred Tatasciore round out the senior officers and recurring supporting cast.
Context & significance
The series comes from Mike McMahan, whose background in animated comedy shapes its rapid-fire, joke-dense style, and it sits within a franchise that has run continuously since the 1960s. Rather than competing with the more dramatic corners of that universe, the show carves out space for a workplace-comedy take on space exploration, aimed at longtime followers who know the reference points and newcomers who just want a fast, funny hour.
Where & how to watch
This season streams on K-Time with a Farsi interface built for Persian-speaking viewers. Anyone can read the episode guide, cast details, and FAQs on this page without an account — watching the episodes themselves just requires logging into a free K-Time account first.