Star Trek Characters That Must Return (2026)
9. The Lower Deckers
Come on, we can't just leave it there, can we? We've done our stretches, we've engaged our cores, now where do we go from here? Those wonderful lower deckers have to return, pointed ears and all! Boimler, Mariner, T'Lynn, Tendi, and Rutherford are all as necessary to the future of Star Trek as they have been to the past.
With Tawny Newsome still cooking up a storm with Starfleet Academy (and there will be more on this later), as well as Those Old Scientists' proof of concept in bringing Boimler and Mariner into live-action, the stage is set to bring this chaotic fivesome back to the screen.
Noël Wells, Eugene Corderro and Gabrielle Ruiz have not yet had the chance to don live-action variants of their uniforms, and we say it's more than time for that to happen. While the characters they play may not strictly be designed around those actors playing them, there's also not much of a stretch in seeing their real-life counterparts step up to the limelight.
Star Trek: Lower Decks may not have appealed to everyone, which is perfectly fine, but it brought with it a sense of fun and silliness that Trek didn't know it needed. This is still the franchise that saw Kirk pretending to be a horse, Picard doing a hop and skip across the bridge, and Janeway turned into a giant salamander.
Honestly, that we've waited this long for a full live-action version of Lower Decks feels like an oversight on the franchise holders' parts, but never say never. Warp me!