'Star Trek: Lower Decks' Producer Barry Kelly Talks Season 4
Images: Paramount+/Titmouse.
SEPTEMBER 13, 2023 - To kick off the launch of Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4, TrekMovie interviewed Barry Kelly, producer and supervising director for Lower Decks.
In the interview, Kelly hints at an overarching plot coming for season 4. In the past, Lower Decks has stuck to an episode-by-episode format like many other Star Trek Shows. However, Kelly implied that this is about to change. In the interview with TrekMovie, he hinted at this saying, “There’s a little bit more of an overhanging threat that our lower deckers don’t know about just yet. And we’ll see how it meets up with them later.”
Kelly also spoke about the new recurring character T’Lyn. Kelly says that he loves T’Lyn because having her present makes the show “10% funnier.” I definitely agree. I found T’Lyn’s short, somewhat snarky comments and her absolutely deadpan expression bring out even more humor in every scene. Plus, her contrast with Tendi’s bubbly personality works perfectly.
Something really cool that will be coming up is that this season will be the first in the franchise to visit Orion. So, Kelly and his crew were tasked with creating the planet from scratch. Kelly talks about how, just like on Earth, “Florida doesn’t look like Nebraska,” no two places on Orion will look exactly the same. Evidently, we will get to see many places on Orion, even ones we wouldn’t expect. Here’s what Kelly had to say about that:
I feel like even the first time you see where we go on Orion, maybe it’s not exactly what you thought it was, maybe it looks like farmland or something, but then we still show that they go to a bustling Blade Runner-feeling city. And it feels like all these places can exist on one planet because the planet is diverse. On the live-action shows, the pirate theme is clear. But pirates and drug lords get pretty snazzy homes. They live on island resorts that do not look like a pirate ship or anything like that.
Finally, Kelly talked about what’s coming up in Season 5. He said that work has begun on Season 5 and that it will be very very funny.
You can stream Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4 on Paramount+.
Aster is a fresh face to Daily Star Trek News, joining the ranks as a contributing writer. Though he may be young, he self-describes as a hardcore nerd, lover of cheese sticks and niche internet discourse. Outside of his long-time obsession with Star Trek, Aster is an avid cosplayer, crocheter, and Catan enthusiast who is attending school for technical theater and design. He's very excited to debut in his "professional nerd career" and finally put all his obscure nerd facts to good use.
