Author Chris Farnell perfectly captures the style and humor of Star Trek: Lower Decks in his new book, Star Trek: Lower Decks – Crew Handbook. It’s available to buy at Amazon or wherever books are sold.
Farnell worked closely with Star Trek: Lower Decks showrunner Mike McMahan and his team to bring the definitive guide to life on the USS Cerritos to fans in the 21st century. “Written by” Lt. Bradward Boimler (Jack Quaid), with a lot of unsolicited help from Lt. Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome), the Star Trek: Lower Decks – Crew Handbook is designed to be everything you’d need to know if you were a brand-new Starfleet Ensign assigned to the Cerritos.
Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 4 Ending Explained (In Detail)
Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4 had an explosive finale pitting Lt. Mariner against her former Starfleet Academy classmate Nicholas Locarno.
Screen Rant had the pleasure of chatting with Chris Farnell about the craft and comedy of writing Star Trek: Lower Decks – Crew Handbook, Admiral Picard’s contribution (sort-of) to the book, and what role Farnell would have if he was serving on the USS Cerritos.
Chris Farnell On Star Trek: Lower Decks – Crew Handbook Matching The Show’s Comedy
Screen Rant: What I love about the Star Trek: Lower Decks – Crew Handbook is it’s part comedy, it’s part download of Star Trek canon, but also like a mini-episode of Lower Decks. It really captures the flavor of the show. How do you even approach writing a book like this?
Chris Farnell: Well, I think the first thing that everyone wanted going into this was to make sure that we were making something that could exist in the show. That felt like something they’d hand you on your welcome pack when you stepped off the shuttle. And then you’d probably put it under your bunk and forget about it. I think with Lower Decks, the main thing with the structure is you have the proper Star Trek episode that’s going on with the senior officers. And then you have the lower decks stuff going on behind the scenes. It’s a whole sort of Downton Abbey structure, really. So it was just trying to bring that into it.
And very early on, we decided we wanted to have this main storyline, that was the actual stuff going into the book. And then the track changes and there are notes and comments all over it, some of which was supposed to be there, some of which might not be supposed to be there. If you’re writing Lower Decks, you want to write the characters, and you want to write the characters interacting with each other, because that’s what makes the show great. So having that structure of the official narrative, and then the annotated version on top of that, allowed us to have those relationships, and yes, to weave a story through it as well.
It was really brilliant. It was like the funny version of the old Star Trek Technical Manuals with the total Lower Decks flavor. How involved was Mike McMahon and the team from Titmouse in putting the Crew Handbook together?
Chris Farnell: We talked with Mike and we had a couple of meetings with him. And everything we wrote got sent over and annotated by him. So there was a draft that was the official narrative, and then all the Lower Decks characters commenting on that. And then Mike McMahon and various other people commenting on the comments on the comments by the time we got to the end. So we were able to come up with something that fit Mike’s ideas of what the show was and what the book should be.
I think we were all coming from a fairly similar place, because, well, frankly, we’d all seen the show. Lower Decks has a very, very specific flavor. It’s not just a sort of Star Trek parody. It is very much a sincere bit of real Star Trek. And then there’s conflict and humor in that. But conflict and humor have always been parts of Star Trek all the way back. So you just have to find that tone of allowing the characters to be snarky and argue and not always agree with what their bosses tell them. But also, they all want to be here. They all have a really sincere love of what they’re doing in Starfleet.
You wrote the whole book, which is super impressive because you wrote every character and you perfectly captured every character’s voice. How much Lower Decks did you watch to capture that?
Chris Farnell: A lot. Long before we’d signed up for this, Lower Decks was the go-to comfort watch in our house. And I rewatched a lot of it while writing. Sometimes just to make sure I was getting references right or, to get the right cadence of someone’s voice. And sometimes just because it’s good stuff to watch, it’s good to have on in the background and, just as you get that feel the Cerritos locked into your head.
I love the narrative thread of Boimler trying to edit the book, and Mariner making it difficult by just being herself. I thought that was a beautiful way to play the two main characters’ personalities within the context of the book’s story within the story. It just worked on so many levels.
Chris Farnell: Mariner, I think, is the perfect distillation of the reason anyone who ever wrote Star Trek would bang their head on the wall. Because I think there are these two wolves in every Star Trek writer: what Gene Roddenberry said, and what Gene Roddenberry did. Because you need both of them. What he said is, okay, we have got humans who advanced beyond all the reasons we make life hell for each other. They’re diverse and progressive. And that is great. You need that. That’s the reason we love Star Trek, that idea that the future might actually get better. But also, Star Trek, The Original Series was about three people who were in constant personal conflict with each other, who all have absolutely massive personal flaws that we’re constantly crashing into each other.
I think Mariner is what you get if you just sort of simmer that for 50-odd years, because she wants to be this slacker and this rebel. But she has chosen the hardest possible career in a civilization where you don’t actually need to get a job. And she has done it by signing up with an organization whose aims she completely agrees with. So she’s constantly struggling between the rebel and the slacker she wants to be, and that she really cares about and works hard at her job.
Yeah, that was actually in the book, which I thought was a very profound revelation. That was a beautiful way to distill Mariner’s personality and just the innate conflict within her based on who she is, what she wants to do, but also, how she wants to live her life. Who was your favorite character to write for? It’s a massive, massive cast.
Chris Farnell: That’s a hard one. And I think I’m gonna get asked it a lot and end up giving a different answer every time. I’m gonna go with Dr. T’Ana today. Yeah, just getting to be grumpy about everything. It’s just so easy and fun to write just the enormous grouch that she has in all directions.
And the way the Caitians swear, which can’t be quantified by the universal translator. That was really clever. I don’t want to spoil, but along with TOS meaning “Those Old Scientists,” I love Mariner’s new meanings for TNG and ENT. I thought that was just brilliant and really funny.
Chris Farnell: In an earlier draft, there was a reference to how there was also a period where everyone in Starfleet got really into disco. But Lower Decks isn’t allowed to know about Discovery.
The book is up-to-date to season 4 since the Lower Deckers are all lieutenants in the book and T’Lyn is aboard the Cerritos. How far ahead did you know what happens in season 4 while you were writing the book?
Chris Farnell: The first draft we were writing, we were pretty much operating on the first three seasons. And then as we were getting towards the end of that, we got the big stack of scripts for season four. And read through all of those and realized everyone’s gonna be a Lieutenant junior now, and we’re gonna have to change all that. But we just sort of went through and worked in the parts of season four that we thought would fit. There were things to do with the Ferengi that happened to fit with what we were already doing. And so we just kind of laid the season four stuff in with what we already had going on.
Is there stuff from season 4 that you wanted to put in the book but couldn’t squeeze it in for whatever reason?
Chris Farnell: Yes, yes, there is. The anomaly consolidation room. I really, really wanted to just have a whole list of index cards for the anomaly consolidation room, but we didn’t quite have space to get that stuff in there.
I have to admit, as I was reading the book, once he was teased at the beginning, I was anxiously anticipating Admiral Picard’s chapter about the Prime Directive…
Chris Farnell: (laughs) You know, this might be my one shot at writing Star Trek. I wanted to get a bit of Picard in there because he was my first captain, he was what brought me in. But also, it’s Lower Decks. So you can’t really have that kind of big character come into the show without massively overshadowing everything else. And so I quite liked the idea of having him almost in there, and then events conspire.
I also liked how you worked in the fact that Boimler does know Riker. But also, you cleverly worked in the William Boimler situation, as well, at the end of Lower Decks season 3. That was really good stuff.
Chris Farnell: That was one of those points where, when we’re doing the first draft, we were quite nervous about it, because we didn’t know if William Boimler would be coming back in season four. But yeah, we managed to stay all status quo-ish for now.
I also liked the idea that Boimler was excited that Picard knew his name, but then I thought, Picard probably just forgot his name instantly after that.
Chris Farnell: Oh absolutely. I just quite like the idea that Picard, when he actually has to write a speech down, it’s just dull. Because in The Next Generation, whenever there is a spur-of-the-moment chance to moralize, he’s just doing Shakespeare. But then you hear him practicing his archeological talks, and it’s just no. The man needs the spur of the moment.
One of my favorite things in the book also was the couple of appearances of Badgey. I love the sort of choose-your-own-adventure stuff you did with Badgey.
Chris Farnell: I love Choose Your Own Adventures. And also, one of the things I love about Star Trek is the way they’re encountering this sort of stuff beyond human imagination and experience, but also, it’s routine. And it’s the job. Particularly in Lower Decks, but throughout all of Star Trek, there are certain things that start popping up often enough that you pretty much have a cheat sheet for what to do when you’ve landed on a planet that weirdly looks a lot like Earth’s history. So I just liked the idea of writing down the procedure for those circumstances.
It makes perfect sense, especially when, in the context of the show at this point in the 24th century, they have hundreds of encounters now. They just know what to do when all these weird things pop up. Whereas for Kirk, it was brand-new a hundred and fifty years prior.
Chris Farnell: Exactly. Nowadays, it’s like a glowy light appears and starts talking to you, and it’s ‘Oh, they’ve evolved to the point where they’ve transcended their physical form.’ Oh, well.
I love that the book also really helps you understand what life on the Cerritos is like, and what late 24th century life in Starfleet is like. If you were in Cerritos, what would you want to be?
Chris Farnell: Oh, I think Science Officer is always the go-to because they get to scan the anomalies. But I don’t know. I think I’d probably be in engineering or maybe even ops, just doing the grunt work. You know, reversing positron flows, all of that stuff.
With the different tricorders, the ones with the red stripe versus the green stripe.
Chris Farnell: Yes! I enjoyed doing the tricorders.
About Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 4
Star Trek: Lower Decks focuses on the support crew serving on one of Starfleet’s least important ships, the USS Cerritos. In season 4, Ensigns Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, and Rutherford are joined by a new Lower Decker, T’Lyn. They face the challenges of being promoted by Starfleet and a mysterious new threat to the galaxy.
Check out our other Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4 interviews:
- Tawny Newsome
- Showrunner Mike McMahan
- Supervising Director Barry J. Kelly
Star Trek Lower Decks
The animated comedy series Star Trek: Lower Decks follows the support crew on one of Starfleet’s least significant ships, the U.S.S. Cerritos, in 2380. Ensigns Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Boimler (Jack Quaid), Rutherford (Eugene Cordero), and Tendi (Noël Wells) have to keep up with their duties and their social lives often. At the same time, the ship is being rocked by a multitude of sci-fi anomalies.
- Release Date
- August 6, 2020
- Cast
- Jack Quaid , Gillian Vigman , dawnn lewis , Noel Wells , Eugene Cordero , Fred Tatasciore , Jerry O’Connell , Tawny Newsome
- Genres
- Animation , Adventure , Action
- Seasons
- 3
- Season List
- Star Trek Lower Decks – Season 1 , Star Trek Lower Decks – Season 2 , Star Trek Lower Decks – Season 3 , Star Trek Lower Decks – Season 4
- Story By
- gene roddenbury
- Writers
- Gene Roddenberry
- Network
- Paramount
- Streaming Service(s)
- Paramount+
- Franchise(s)
- Star Trek
