The One Star Trek Plotline Lower Decks Will Never Do

There was a brief moment, only just a few years ago, when it seemed that there were six "Star Trek" shows running simultaneously. CBS All Access, later Paramount+, debuted with "Star Trek: Discovery" in 2017, and padded out their Trek schedule shortly thereafter with "Short Treks," a monthly series clearly made to keep Trekkies hooked on subscriptions. Then, in 2020, both "Star Trek: Picard," and "Star Trek: Lower Decks" debuted. In 2021, the Nickelodeon series "Star Trek: Prodigy" started up, and in 2022, we got "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds." Every one of these shows was, for a moment, active. 

Recent months have, however, seen a contraction of that initial glut. "Short Treks" is an every-once-in-a-while thing rather than a regular series, "Picard" came to an end, and both "Discovery" and "Prodigy" will end after their next seasons. And then there were two. 

With all those shows running simultaneously, though, the various showrunners likely had to coordinate very carefully as to not step on each other's toes. It would have been good manners to ensure no one was repeating stories, changing fundamental premises, or killing off characters. It helped that the shows all took place in separate time frames, all but assuring the characters couldn't easily interact. "Strange New Worlds" takes place before the original "Star Trek," while "Lower Decks" and "Prodigy" take place after the events of "Voyager." "Picard" takes place another 20 years beyond that, and "Discovery" swept forward to the following millennium. Let's not step on each other's toes. 

In a recent interview with Inverse, "Lower Decks" supervising director Barry Kelly talked about that aspect of showrunning, and thanks to what's happening currently on "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," he will never touch the Gorn. 

The Gorn have played a large part in "Strange New Worlds," serving as the series' most revisited villains. The Gorn have attacked the U.S.S. Enterprise from space, have implanted eggs inside the abdomens of certain members of the Enterprise crew, and, in the finale of the show's second season, are poised to destroy a human colony and eat its inhabitants. Characters talk about the Gorn in hushed tones, terrified of the threat they pose. In order to stay in line with dialogue from the original "Star Trek" series, few people in Starfleet have actually seen a Gorn up close. 

After the original series episode "Arena, which aired in 1967, the Gorn became an official part of Trek canon. Likely because of the Gorn mask worn by the on-screen actors and stuntmen, however, Trek has been reluctant to bring them back too often; the Gorn wouldn't reappear until "Star Trek: Enterprise" in the early 2000s. "Lower Decks" might easily have had an all-Gorn episode, and there could easily be passing references to the Gorn ("Lower Decks" is lousy with deep-cut Trek references), but Kelly didn't dare steal any of "Strange New Worlds'" thunder. 

In brief, he merely said, "We would never do the Gorn." 

This is, one might imagine, a promise made after the first season episode "Veritas," wherein Ensign Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) recalled, via his cranial implant, that he once stumbled into a Gorn wedding. Upset at the interruption, the Gorn all leap out of their seats and savage Rutherford. Luckily, he seems to have escaped with his life intact. Beyond that, a passing line of dialogue, or a background detail, it seems that the Gorn will not return. Kelly is politely leaving Gorn stories to the "Strange New Worlds" writers.