Star Trek: 8 Easter Eggs From The Lower Decks Season 2 Trailer
1. Much Ado About Riker
Finally, Tendi notes that Boimler is missing from all the cool sci-fi stuff, but he must be having the time of his life in his new role as a lieutenant (junior grade) aboard the USS Titan.
In an interview with Inverse last year, Mike McMahan hinted that Boimler's big break aboard the Titan wasn't going to end up exactly how he wanted it to and we get our first look at that at the end of this trailer.
The USS Titan is engaged in battle with several smaller ships and Captain Riker is... well he's making jazz riffs.
It's worth noting that these few shots of the bridge of the Titan (the same design as last season) really show the differences between Starfleet's thankless California-class starships and the fancy Luna-class. The Titan's bridge is highly reminiscent of the bridge of the USS Enterprise-E from the TNG movies, down to the intricate ceiling detail, and Boimler and Riker both sport the TNG movie / late-series Deep Space Nine uniforms.
According to Jonathan Frakes during the Star Trek First Contact Day panel on comedy, this looser, wilder Riker is entirely a creation of Mike McMahan for Lower Decks:
I hate to give Mike more credit than he's already gotten, but he created the Lower Decks Riker out of whole cloth. I never thought of that character being quite that nuts...