A Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5 Voice Cameo Brings Back A Fan-Favorite

Beam us up and away from spoilers. This article discusses major plot developments from the latest episode of "Star Trek: Lower Decks."

"Lower Decks" has been getting a whole lot of mileage out of alternate universe antics during its fifth and final season, starting with the premiere episode that threw our Cerritos crewmembers alongside their mirror selves and kickstarted Ensign Boimler's (Jack Quaid) obsession with growing out that fugly-looking facial hair. That pattern continues in episode 7, titled "Fully Dilated." The action kicks off when Boimler and Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) clumsily drop their obnoxious martinis all over the delicate transporter controls, dooming the away team to months (if not years) on the surface of a nearby planet currently undergoing severe time dilation. While Ensigns Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Tendi (Noël Wells), and T'Lyn (Gabrielle Ruiz) are trapped indefinitely, they continue to investigate the reason they embarked on the mission in the first place: a purple-colored, alternate universe version of the Enterprise-D crossed over into this reality, inadvertently left behind some mysterious tech, and returned through the space-time fissure.

It's here where our team encounters perhaps the biggest cameo in all of "Lower Decks" — Brent Spiner reprising his fan-favorite role as the android Data. This return is hardly a monumental one when looking at the big picture of the franchise, considering that the actor played Data as recently as the final season of "Picard," but it's certainly a big deal that the animated series remains committed to going out with a bang. And, of course, Trekkies always tend to respond enthusiastically every time a beloved cast member decides to lend their talents to another iteration of "Trek."

This time, fans will inevitably be abuzz over the return of Spiner as Data — alternate universe, purple, and disembodied though he may be.

Thank goodness for space-time fissures. "Star Trek" has returned to this sci-fi well countless times over the course of the franchise to make way for all sorts of alternate universe hijinks, and "Lower Decks" lampoons this trope one more time for good measure. The end result, after handwaving away the particulars of exactly how a purple-colored Enterprise-D appeared in their universe in the first place (it has something to do with Tasha Yar and evil clones, apparently), is a cameo appearance by Data and the latest crossover between the animated series and one of the most popular "Trek" shows ever.

And, as always, Data's mere presence adds plenty of logic and humor to the episode. The shuttlecraft crash that stranded Data on this planet has also left him without a functioning body, kind of like Michael Fassbender's synthetic David in the final act of "Prometheus." Luckily, Tendi finds him buried in the wreckage and promptly takes him back to their hideout to see if she can bring him back to life. When she finally wakes him up, he quickly adjusts to his unusual situation (this isn't the first time he's only been just a head before, a sly reference to the "Next Generation" episode "Time's Arrow") and offers his help to Tendi for her desired promotion to science officer — a noble ambition that Data is well familiar with himself.

It's just the latest example of the "Lower Decks" writers finding a neat and wholesome way to bring in immensely popular figures from "Trek" canon and have them influence these newer characters. On any given week, we just never know who might pop up next — from making jokes about Robert Duncan McNeill as Tom Paris/Nick Locarno to canonizing Miles O'Brien (Colm Meany) as the most important person in history. And, for one more episode, the series gave viewers another enjoyable adventure with Brent Spiner and Data.

New episodes of "Star Trek: Lower Decks" premiere Thursdays on Paramount+.