Star Trek Lower Decks: Every Easter Egg & Hidden Reference From 'Second Contact'
It's very complicated, thank you.
Three years into the CBS All Access era and we have our fourth Star Trek spinoff – yes Short Treks is its own show, not just "Trailers & More", Netflix – and the first animated series since 1973's aptly titled Star Trek: The Animated Series.
Inspired by the Star Trek: The Next Generation seventh season classic episode "Lower Decks", the show follows four scrappy underdog ensigns, Beckett Mariner, Brad Boimler, D'Vana Tendi, and Sam Rutherford, doing grunt work in the bowels of the USS Cerritos and milling around in the background on away missions.
Despite what you may have read in the comments section, this show is as saturated in Star Trek iconography and steeped in the themes and spirt of the franchise as any of the series that came before it – it just happens to be drawn and include giant butt-webbing spiders and occasional, casual nudity.
So let's do what you should always do with a comedy, over analyze the hell out of this thing and try and identify the many, (*exasperated*) many easter eggs, references, connections, and details in Star Trek: Lower Decks: "Second Contact".
21. Douglas Station
"Second Contact" begins with the USS Cerritos docked at Douglas Station and the first image of Star Trek: Lower Decks is a reference to classic Trek iconography.
Douglas Station is an Earth Spacedock-type station, which first appeared in orbit of Earth in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock before going on to appear in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, often as stock footage. That stock footage would go on, of course, to be repurposed in Star Trek: The Next Generation to represent Starbase 74 in "11001001", Starbase 133 in "Remember Me", Lya Station Alpha in "Ensign Ro", and Starbase 84 in "Phantasms".
The Earth Spacedock-type station also appeared, under construction, in Star Trek: Discovery's first season finale "Will You Take My Hand?"
Notably, there are three Federation starships flying around outside and seen entering Douglas Station, all are new configurations – though two are actually the same design, but one is simply flipped upside down. ...You could probably call another classic trope: Reusing ships with minor modifications to fill out the fleet.