Hey nerds, I'm Wil Wheaton, and this is "The Ready Room,"
your official behind-the-scenes hub
for all things Star Trek Universe.
This week, we're diving into the latest episodes
of Star Trek: Lower Decks,
so insert spoiler alert here,
go watch Episodes 1 through 6 before you watch us.
Mainly because I need Badgey to haunt other people's dreams
and give mine a break.
I'm gonna rip your eyes out.
Now today, I am delighted
to be speaking with the voice cast of Lower Decks,
specifically the lower deckers themselves,
Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid, Noel Wells, and Eugene Cordero.
You're not gonna wanna miss it.
Then, as always, we have a brand new clip
from next week's episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks.
But before we get into any of that,
we have the animated series' showrunner, Mike McMahan,
to tell us more about what goes into making
an episode of Lower Decks from start to finish.
Ready?
Control room, they're ready.
Engage.
Hi, can I teach you a lesson?
Aw, well who's this little guy?
This is Badgey.
He's a virtual tutor who can walk you through
any Starfleet exercise you can imagine.
Hi, I'm Mike McMahan, creator and showrunner
of Star Trek: Lower Decks.
I am not an animator and I can't draw,
but I work with a lot of amazing people,
a lot of amazing artists, who can not only draw,
but just make amazing magic stuff come to life.
I've been around it a lot,
and even though I can't draw,
I think I can walk you through some of the stuff we do
that takes us from nothing
to a full Star Trek animated episode.
So the writing process of Lower Decks
usually starts with a discussion of our ensign characters.
What do they want?
What do they think they want?
What are challenges in their lives?
And when we've come up with a couple emotional stories,
then we start talking about what sci-fi can illuminate that?
For Badgey, I remember one of the first things I did was
I drew the character of Badgey on one of our glass doors
in the writer's room,
and they were like, "What's he like?"
And I was like, "Ah,
I think he's like a Moriarty on the holodeck."
And then we started talking about
what role does Moriarty fill in TNG?
And what job could Badgey,
what kind of stories can revolve around this character?
Rutherford is great at Starfleet tech,
but he's not exactly perfect.
So he's created this Badgey character
that he's been working on on the holodeck
that he's trying to use as a training program.
And it's not quite working out.
Once we had the Badgey episode written and cast,
we record the voice actors,
and a audio engineer stitches
together their audio
into basically like an old timey radio play
version of the episode,
to kind of visualize it in your head
while you're listening to it.
[Badgey] Looks like you wanna to recover lost cargo.
Did I get that right?
[Rutherford] Yeah, almost forgot.
[Badgey] Comin' right up.
That radio play goes to the board teams,
which is a group of artists who, in black and white,
do a rough version of what you see on screen at the end,
except it's very low detail.
Eventually it all comes together into an animatic.
[Rutherford] Come on, you stupid glitch.
We're back in business.
[Mike] The animatic is kind of the template
that we work off of
to individually, shot by shot,
add the character designs
and the color backgrounds and everything.
When we get the rough color in,
the episode's almost ready for air,
but that's when everything has to be refined.
That is where we go through and we add beaming effects.
We add reflective light.
We're also going in, we're adding special sound effects.
We have one sound engineer whose whole job
is to make sure that the soundscape and the footsteps,
the way the computer's responding
to somebody saying-
Computer, load Bajoran Marketplace.
On top of that,
our composer is creating an all new original score for us
that sounds like Star Trek,
but fits into this 20-something minute,
super fast-paced, comedic version of it.
And then after all of that is done, we take it to a mixer.
We make sure that all the levels are right,
that you can hear everything.
It really takes an army to put one of these things together.
You just want to make sure it's exactly right
before it ends up on somebody's screen.
So when LA went into lockdown,
we were still in the middle of working on
Season 1 of Star Trek: Lower Decks,
and it took us about a day
to make sure that we got everybody moved
into remote workspaces in their homes.
The nice thing about animation
is we don't have a live action set.
Our biggest challenges have been,
how do we safely record our actors?
Now, luckily, a voiceover actor can work
in a closet if it's correctly set up.
In addition to animating
and recording our voice actors remotely,
Lower Decks has a live orchestra for its amazing music.
And originally that was supposed to be
60 people in an orchestra playing in a room,
but because of LA's lockdown,
we had to come up with a way to have our composer
record the musicians individually,
and then stitch everything together.
I think it sounds great.
Not only have we finished doing post on Season 1 remotely,
but we have written the entirety of Season 2
with the writer's room over Zoom while we've been doing it.
Some of our new writers have never met in person
some of the writers from first season,
but hopefully this world is getting back
to a state of normalcy soon enough
and we'll be able to see you at a Star Trek convention.
And we all will be able to talk about
where did Dr. T'Ana's tail go?
And what's the deal with Boimler's purple hair
and all the stuff that we like to talk about, too.
I am now joined by Lower Decks' own ensign odd couple,
Tawny Newsome as Beckett Mariner
and Jack Quaid as Brad Boimler.
You guys, thank you so much
for hopping on screen for this chat.
Let's talk a little bit about Star Trek,
starting with how you came to be part
of the Star Trek Universe.
I would love to know what it was like when you got the call,
what your audition process was like,
and how you felt when you got the booking.
So the audition was wild, right?
Because it was,
they didn't release the script ahead of time or the sides.
Everything's very secretive with Star Trek,
which is cool so that there's no leaks,
but as an actor it is wild
to try and come into an audition where they're like,
"Hey, so, you can't read anything.
It's Star Trek."
Well, actually there was like a code name for the project.
So it was like, "This is this thing called
what's-a-doodle, whatever,
but come in here like 45, an hour before,
and you can read through the whole script
and get familiar with it."
But it was like,
I feel like it was like in the middle of like
a day full of crazy auditions.
So I'm going like back to back to back.
So I had like 28 minutes with the script
and I'm just sitting in a waiting room,
flipping through.
All the code names were different.
So I didn't know what part I was reading.
It's a miracle I got the job
because I had no idea that Mariner was such a big part.
I literally thought she was like the sidekick.
It wasn't until the table read.
-: Literally the table read-- -: I thought the same thing.
When our scripts were in the center,
it was like, me, you, and then like Dawnn Lewis
-: was on the other side.
I looked at the table and I was like,
I'm in the center of the table.
What?
-: I'm so happy. -: That's amazing.
I actually did not know that you felt the same way
because I had the exact same experience on the table read
because I came into the audition, and I,
I originally auditioned for Ransom out of all people,
which is hilarious now at this point.
But then they were like, "Okay,
come in for this other character."
So I thought like, "Okay,
I missed out on that character,
they're gonna kind of relegate me
to one of the side characters or something."
And then, I got the job.
I was very excited about that.
The audition was nerve-racking, but Mike was so great.
And like, you, Tawny,
I was just in the other room speed reading the scene.
It was like a long scene with like a lot of,
yeah, I think it's the scene where
at the end of the first episode
where you're basically forcing yourself to be my mentor,
which I loved so much.
But once I got to the table read I'm like,
"My chair's in the center.
What's goin' on?
Nice to meet you, Tawny."
-: Yes, nice to meet you- -: I guess we are,
I guess we are the, as you said, Wil,
like the odd couple of this universe,
and it was a lot for one day,
but it was all very exciting.
So through that whole process,
you never knew you were going to be
number one and number two on the call sheet?
-: That's crazy. -: Absolutely not.
-: Oh, absolutely not. -: No.
No, and especially, I mean, as a Black woman,
you're relegated to the sidekicks so much,
and it's not always a bad thing.
You're just like a little bit used to it,
but it's just great when the writing can be good and fun.
And it's exciting to represent
such well-rounded, three-dimensional characters
like Captain Freeman and Mariner are.
They get to be full people.
And that really reminds me of
when I was a kid growing up and watching the relationship
between Ben and Jake Sisko.
I mean, first of all, those actors,
Avery Brooks, Cirroc Lofton,
that relationship together was so dynamic.
And especially for the '90s to see a Black parent
with a Black child and not have their stories
have to revolve around blackness,
but know that that was infused in everything they did.
And to get them just,
get to see them just play fully fleshed out people.
So, I mean, if I can continue that legacy on, in any way,
even with dumb bat'leth jokes and bits,
that's pretty cool to me.
My friend Jerry plays Ransom,
and we were talking about Mike,
and he says, "Mike McMahan is like the real deal.
Like this guy loves Star Trek.
And he's just so fun to work with."
It sounds to me like it's more inspiring than intimidating
that he knows so much?
Oh yeah, oh absolutely.
Like he is not trying to, he's not one of those,
he's a nerd and we're all nerds about something,
but he's a nerd about Star Trek,
but he's not one of those nerds that's like,
"I know everything and you don't know this.
-: You are lesser than." -: Yeah, he's not
a gatekeeper.
He's not a gatekeeper.
So he's very inclusive.
He definitely held my hand
and was able to navigate me through this world,
while also simultaneously making sure that
we were getting a performance that felt
like the character,
didn't feel...like, he encouraged me to improv a lot,
both of us.
Most of the time for the first season,
or at least half the time I was in the booth,
I was with Tawny,
and we were able to go back and forth with each other.
And I think that that made
the chemistry between those two characters
feel even more organic
because we were just able to be in the room
and bounce off each other.
And he facilitates such a great environment to do that.
I bet it makes a real difference
that you get to be in the booth together.
I don't know if you guys know this,
but the world is on fire at the moment.
And we can't really go places to do recording
like we normally do.
So a lot of us are doing our recordings from home.
I understand that you guys have been asked
to do some ADR from home,
and I'm just curious,
my home ADR studio set up is
an empty Amazon prime box full of towels
that I stick my head in when I do my recordings.
I'm wondering what your home setup is like
and what it has been like to do ADR
for Lower Decks from your home during quarantine.
Yeah, so I'm a musician, and I bought a home last year,
and I had been building a music studio
and a recording studio
-: in that home. -: Oh cool.
It's been a lifelong thing.
I mean, you may never get me in a regular studio again.
-: It's way easier -: Right?
to just do it from home.
Right?
Yeah, I'm about to go work on a,
I'm about to go into a big project,
and I'm like could we maybe record at my house instead?
'Cause it's just like, who wants to go anywhere?
I don't wanna put on pants to go to work.
No, pants are done, pants are over.
Pants are over, hard pants are over.
Soft pants all day.
And Wil, if you, I'm telling you,
YouTube taught me how to engineer completely.
Like I've recorded fans,
completely YouTube university.
Great, I'm into it.
If you just learn to engineer yourself,
tell the project, hey,
you don't have to spend money on a studio.
You don't have to spend money on an engineer.
Sorry to the engineers out there.
But like, I mean, pitch it as like a money-saving thing
and stay your ass at home.
Yeah, if the "I don't wanna wear pants" pitch doesn't land,
maybe the "I can save you money" pitch will land.
I gotta take a pointer from both of you
because that is my home studio.
-: Oh yeah. -: That-
This is a closet.
Look, I'm wearing interesting shorts,
but I'm just gonna go back here.
All right.
-: This is it- -: Look at that,
we're lookin' behind the curtain.
Look at this.
I don't know if you can hear me at this point,
so I'm shouting.
But that's it. And oh, here we go.
This is nice.
Shorts.
I already got some foam.
Shorts on camera.
-: I want the world to see that -: Shorts on camera!
I wore pants.
I wore full pants.
'Cause I have respect
-: for you, Wil. -: I'm proud of you.
And I have respect for the Star Trek franchise.
I wanna maintain the fiction that I'm not wearing pants,
even though I'm wearing pants.
Oh my God. I'm the guy?
It's me?
-: I'm sorry. -: Pretty rude Jack.
Sorry everyone,
-: I'm rude. -: You know what, Jack?
We're not gonna tell anybody.
No one will know.
I wanna talk a little bit about the relationship
between Boimler and Mariner.
Their relationship is so much fun.
And you touched on it earlier,
Mariner has just appointed herself to be Boimler's mentor,
even though they are exactly the same rank.
And I love that.
That dynamic is hilarious.
Guess what? I'm your new mentor!
Boom, surprise, bitch, it's done.
How does it feel?
No, you can't just decide.
You know, it feels to me
like Boimler went to West Point
and showed up in the middle of the war,
and Mariner has been
on the frontline since day one.
They're the same rank,
but she feels to me
more like a character
who has more real world experience than Boimler has.
I think part of her getting demoted,
she has seen a little bit of rank before
and gotten knocked down, adds to that feeling.
Also, they don't explicitly play with this,
but there is a little sense of,
I think in Episode 2, Boimler says to her,
when she's with General K'orin, the Klingon.
Boimler says to her, "Back in what day?
How old are you?"
'Cause she's like, "Yeah, we did some black ops stuff
back in the day."
It's like, there's almost an idea that she's like a,
a weird time traveler, or she's ageless or something.
She's just had this life beyond her years.
There is, in Episode 4,
she gets promoted to lieutenant
and
I think that the average ensign would be like,
"Sweet! Lieutenant!"
And she hates it.
What?
-: No. -: Ensign Beckett Mariner.
-: No, no, no, no, no. -: I am pleased to grant you
a promotion.
No.
And that promotion is like,
is there anything worse that could happen to her than that?
I don't think so.
You saw the captain scatting.
I mean, would you want to sit through that?
No, no, I don't need that.
And I certainly don't need that on the Enterprise.
I'll tell you that right now.
Thank you.
Yeah, how did you feel when young Wesley got promoted?
You must've been jazzed.
I was beside myself because it meant that I,
it meant that I didn't have to wear
ugly, weird sweaters anymore.
It meant that I got to wear a,
it meant that I got to wear a Starfleet uniform.
And what's so funny is that
for the other actors in the show,
they are wearing their costume.
Not me.
I'm wearing a uniform.
And like, I really, deeply care about my uniform.
Like I was such a huge nerd.
I was,
this is kind of leading into my next question,
is that did you have to do anything special
to develop these characters?
To be those ensigns
who aspire to a job
on the upper decks of the ship?
Did you have to do anything special to prep for that?
For me, I think it was in the text.
There's that first scene,
or the last scene of the first episode
-: again, it was in our auditions --
where Mariner's saying to him,
"Have you heard of Kirk?
Have you heard of Spock?"
And it's like, "Yeah, of course I've heard of these people."
So what I like about that is much like,
much like a Star Trek fan in our world
would appreciate those people,
the ensigns in this universe know of them from legends
and obviously it's been recorded,
and they're famous within Starfleet.
So it was easy to kind of aspire to be these people,
because I already knew who those characters were.
And I think that they're awesome anyway,
so it was, yeah, it was a cool little thing
that Mike put into the,
and the writers put into the script
that the people that we all know,
all the officers that we know,
are people that are famous in their way in this universe.
So I thought that was really interesting.
My last question is my last question for everyone.
I've been part of Star Trek for 35 years,
and I know what that means, and Tawny,
I know that you're a fan.
Jack, I know that this is brand new for you.
I would love for you to talk about
what it means to each of you to now be
part of the Star Trek family for the rest of your lives.
I'll give Jack a minute.
I'll be very quick.
There is not a franchise in existence
that you could have told me,
"Hey, you get to be part of this,"
that I would have been more excited than this one.
And it's because I was such a fan,
it's because both of my parents,
who are the two most different people in the world,
they both had a love of Star Trek.
One was DS9, one was Voyager,
We all came together for TNG.
There has been nothing entertainment-wise
that has been more consistent throughout my entire life.
So really, it's probably shaped me the most.
So getting to be a part of it is just,
I mean, it's insane.
That's so cool.
Oh man, I think you said everything so well.
I dunno what I can add to that other than-
We can be different people, Jack.
-: We're different people. -: We're different people.
You're allowed to have your own experience
and everyone's individual experience is valid.
I think I just feel super lucky to be a part of this.
I really do.
It's something that I take incredibly seriously,
because I know it means so much to so many people.
And I take this seriously.
I'm not gonna let any of you guys down
or I will try my best not to.
And I'm just, thank you for letting me into your world.
As a peer and as a fan, like, you both nailed it.
The whole cast nails it.
The show's great.
-: Show's great. -: Cast is incredible.
Big ups to Mike for that.
I'm really grateful to both of you
for spending time with us today.
Thank you.
Thank you, Wil.
This was so, so much fun,
and Tawny just, good to see you.
-: Good to see you too, man. -: In general.
Yeah, yeah, nice hanging out!
Ensign Fletcher wasn't the only Starfleet officer
to hook his brain up to a starship's computer.
Which lieutenant infamously tried the same thing?
William Chapman, Julian Bashir,
Kevin Riley, Reginald Barkley.
Don't boldly go anywhere.
Stay tuned for the answer.
My next guests are the voices
of Ensigns Tendi and Rutherford.
For my money, the most adorable officers on the Cerritos,
Noel Wells and Eugene Cordero are here.
Y'all, thank you so, so much for joining us today.
Let's dive right in.
I wanna start out with three beats from you.
I would love to know when you got the call
to audition for Lower Decks,
what your audition experience was like,
and what went through your heads
when you found out you'd booked the job.
Either one of you can start.
Well, the way that it works these days is you get emails.
No one really calls you unless it's really good news.
So you just get emails and you hope it doesn't go to spam.
So I got an email, but it was very mysterious.
It didn't have exactly what it was for.
It was, it had a different title.
All the characters were named very differently,
but when I got there, I was like, "Oh, this is like,
this is for Star Trek."
And I auditioned for one role
and then they gave me sides for Tendi,
and it was a lot of science dialogue.
And I looked at it once,
and I then did the read and I nailed it,
like in a way that didn't make any sense.
'Cause it was like very-
Amazing.
It was like I knew all these words I never knew,
like I've never said out loud before,
and then they're like, "That was incredible.
Can you do it again?"
And then I tried and nothing came out right.
So I was like, "I hope you recorded that first one."
And then I guess it was, I got a call when I got it.
And I was just very excited.
And you know, what was even more exciting
is that when they announced it,
my debate teacher from high school contacted me
and was so, so excited.
And he's never,
the only other thing he's ever contacted me about
was when I got cast on SNL,
and he was more excited about this, so.
That's amazing.
How gratifying and wonderful.
-: Yeah. -: That's so awesome.
Eugene, what was your experience like?
When I went in, they had already got Noel,
they already had Jack, already had Tawny.
So I think they were just having a little bit
of a harder time finding the Rutherford character,
when I went in. And so then I read for it,
and again, it was also very mathy
and of a lot of words that I didn't know.
And, I am, I mean, you'll find out through this interview
that there are a lot of words I will get wrong.
And these are just like human words that we speak regularly.
So I was, I was nervous,
but you know, I was just like,
oh, I'm just gonna try to do it the best that I can.
And in a vibe that feels right.
And the thing that I think I connected with
with the character was just that he's
totally excited about everything.
And I'm like, "Great.
I'm excited and totally down to do everything and anything."
And so, you know, I did the read.
They had notes for me.
They wanted me to do it faster.
And these are all the words that I didn't know.
And they were like, "Can you, can you like
quicken that up?"
I'm like, "Quicken what up?
These words are not words."
I have,
we're gonna talk about the technobabble in a minute
because I love the way both of you guys deliver that.
But you just said that you
played him excited.
And that is actually one of the things
that I absolutely love
about both of your characters and their relationship.
They are so incredibly excited
and so enthusiastic about absolutely everything.
And that is exactly the way I would imagine
young Starfleet ensigns would feel,
being kind of out on duty for maybe the first time.
And I sort of know from personal experience what it's like
to play an ensign on Star Trek.
And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit,
both of you, about developing those voices
and bringing that perspective.
Noel, I get it,
so it is so clear in your performance.
It just, that enthusiasm just comes through
in every single word.
And I wonder if you worked at all on
this is what ensigns are like,
or if you're just bringing
your interpretation of the material
and it's just shining that way.
Like I said, when I auditioned,
the first read it was almost like the character was there.
And then the second I started thinking about it,
you lose her.
So I think, as an actor,
now this is like actor speak.
We all love when actors talk about their process,
but I like--
I really, really love it
when actors talk about process,
and I'm the host of the show,
so I get to give you permission to talk about process.
-: Please go. -: Okay, great.
Okay, well I've been waiting for this moment
for such a long time, but--
Great.
But basically, what's so great about animation
is that there is an image that's been drawn
that represents the character.
So the writers have an idea of what that person is.
And I oftentimes will just look at the character
and think what's it like to be that character?
And then the dialogue takes care of the rest.
One of the things I'm actually surprised about
when watching the episodes is that
she sounds a little bit younger than I am.
And I always thought that I was just doing my voice,
but she's, she's definitely, she's different.
She's definitely different than me.
So sometimes I, yeah,
sometimes I'm like, am I even doing a character?
But then I watch it.
I'm like, that doesn't sound...
I don't believe it sounds very much like how I am
in my day-to-day life.
So there's a little bit of magic and mystery.
And it's...a team of people came together,
wrote this character, drew this character,
and then I interpreted.
But is there a lot of thought?
Not exactly.
I'm not supposed to have a favorite
because I'm supposed to be neutral,
but Tendi is 100% my favorite character on the show
by far and away.
I relate to her.
She reminds me of Wesley.
Eugene, Rutherford reminds me of Wesley, too.
He's such a tech nerd.
He's so into gadgets and gizmos,
and he loves it so much
he's augmented himself with a Vulcan implant.
And as a result of that,
it's time to talk about technobabble.
He is constantly technobabbling.
How do you feel about that?
We on Next Generation had a really clear point of view
about technobabble, and I'm just wondering
what is your point of view about the technobabble?
I mean, before each of those records,
when I look at 'em, I start sweating immediately.
Of course.
So I get in that mind of like, "Okay, okay,
if I can get it,
if I can get the flow of it,
but not the actual words of it."
It's like, "Oh, okay, then I can."
But I watched you guys do technobabble,
and see how natural it can sound
so that I can be like, "Oh, okay.
'Cause I'm like, "There's no way
these guys knew these words either."
So I would listen to it, and it is.
It's like somebody talking about a sport you don't know.
They're so passionate about it.
That's a great way to look at it.
Yeah, so that's what I was really focused in on,
was kind of having that mentality.
It's that kind of energy that gets me through
some of the technobabble.
'Cause I know that it's gonna end with that energy.
So if it leads to that, then it feels more natural.
If I was just sitting there
and somebody was like,
even in a scene, like Rutherford,
"tell us what's happening."
I don't think that kind of technobabble I could do.
How much of yourselves do
each of you bring to your characters?
How much overlap is there in that Venn diagram?
I mean, I feel I bring a lot to myself
into the Rutherford character just because
I have that energy of,
anytime I get to work on something that I'm excited about,
that I try to take it all in,
and I'm not afraid to be excited about
the things that are new to me
or the things that I've dreamt about.
I mean, we're lucky enough to be in a business
and be working in that business.
So like, anytime,
I remember as a kid being like,
"Could you imagine if I ever got to be in a cartoon?"
And then there were times where it's like
"Could you imagine if I ever got to do anything Star Trek?"
And the fact that both of those are happening.
So when they're like,
"Hey, Eugene, be excited as Rutherford,"
I'm like, "Bro, have you not heard that already?
I'm doing it as I'm talking to you."
I don't know.
I can only really play characters
that I relate to on a level.
And I have to also to be able to live with those characters.
I don't wanna be playing characters that I don't like,
it's actually quite stressful and painful
to be saying things that don't feel like me
or something that I would align with.
And so, fortunately,
Tendi represents, like, the...
probably one of the better sides of my personality.
Like the best version of who I am, which is,
when I'm exuberant and happy and ready to learn
and support people and make the best of a situation.
I feel like that that's me at my best.
I'm not always that person,
but maybe we'll start seeing other sides of Tendi
as the show goes on.
My final question for each of you
goes like this.
I've been part of Star Trek for about 35 years.
When I started it, I knew what it was.
I'm a Star Trek fan.
I've loved it my whole life.
I knew what was coming.
I'm gonna be part of Star Trek for the rest of my lives.
And so are you.
This is brand new for y'all,
but people are gonna cosplay as your characters,
that's gonna happen.
You're gonna get invited to Star Trek conventions,
and you're gonna meet people who love this stuff
in ways that you can only imagine.
Has anybody kinda prepared you for that?
And how do you feel about it?
When you just said that is the first time
I think I've ever actually registered it.
Sorry about that.
No, no, but I feel like it's because
it's coming from somebody who's experienced it.
So even the way that you said it,
it was like, "Do you realize?"
When you said "realize" made me go like,
"I guess I didn't realize it."
-: I'm terrified. -: Have you
thought about this at all, Noel?
I'm terrified.
Don't be terrified, it's cool.
I know it's cool.
But here's a true thing.
I've been looking for community my whole life.
It's always like a constant struggle,
and then there's this,
there's two sides.
It was like, "Now I got one. Ha, ha, ha, ha!
I have one!"
You sure do.
I just really wanna thank you for making time today
to talk with me about this.
If I have not made it clear, I'm an enormous fan.
I admire both of your work so very much,
and it really is
an honor and a pleasure
to
officially, on behalf of Star Trek, to say
welcome to the family.
-: Yay, oh man. -: Thank you, yay.
It means a lot that it's coming from you
and that we get to do this, yeah, it's awesome.
Ensign Fletcher wasn't the only Starfleet officer
to hook his brain up to a starship's computer.
Which lieutenant infamously tried the same thing?
The answer is D, Reginald Barclay.
Under the influence of a Cytherian probe,
Barclay directly interfaced
with the U.S.S. Enterprise computer
in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode,
"The Nth Degree."
Lieutenant Barclay was given the hilarious
and timeless nickname "Broccoli"
by young acting Ensign Wesley Crusher,
the coolest dude to ever wear a Starfleet uniform.
Now I wouldn't be a very good host
if I didn't give you guys a sneak peek
at next week's episode.
So here's a sneak peek at next week's episode.
It is Episode 7, called "Much Ado About Boimler."
Let's watch.
Who knew repairing the station grid
would involve so much sprinting?
No talk, sleep.
[dog barking]
I did it, I updated the dog.
What does that even mean? Hey!
In medical, they encourage us to do side projects.
So I took a bunch of inert carbon
and built myself a fluffy friend from scratch.
He's supposed to look like a dog.
You know? From Earth?
Tendi, please get it out of here.
Oh, of course.
Come here, come here.
She's 5% faster and 6% smarter.
You know, I hand edited all six billion sequences.
It was really fun.
When did you even find time for that?
Sometimes when I say that I'm going to the bathroom,
I'm really recoding her DNA.
This little lady's protein bonds
totally accepted the Cas9 snipping
without any cellular degradation.
Who has malleable protein bonds?
You do.
Yes, you do.
I don't get it.
You could have built any life form at all and you did this?
It just looks like a normal dog.
That's exactly what I was going for.
I'll go grab my notes so I can read you the juicy parts.
You're going to love how I reorganized her mitochondria.
No spoilers, but it's super funny.
Just to be clear, this is a normal dog,
and she's messing with us.
[dog snarling and growling]
Oh God, not a normal dog.
Wake me up if it turns into something
I need to care about.
Thank you so much
for joining me here this week in "The Ready Room."
We'll be back in a few weeks to discuss
the Lower Decks season finale
when it drops on viewscreens everywhere, October 8th.
We have some very cool surprises planned for you
that I cannot wait for you all to see.
Until then, I'm Wil Wheaton.
Live long and prosper.
[upbeat music]