Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 4 Finale – "Old Friends, New Planets"
Summary
- In the season 4 finale of Star Trek: Lower Decks, the Captain's Yacht makes its second appearance in the franchise, proving to be a crucial tool in the rescue mission of Lieutenant Mariner.
- The Captain's Yacht is a small warp-capable spacecraft that operates independently from the starship it belongs to, with its own engines, transporters, and weapons systems.
- Lower Decks also brings back another forgotten Star Trek vehicle, the Argo, which originally appeared in Star Trek: Nemesis. The Argo is a rugged all-terrain buggy designed for travel over difficult terrain.
Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4's thrilling finale remembers a starship captain's perk that's often forgotten by using it to heroic effect. In "Old Friends, New Planets", Lieutenant Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) flees the base of disgraced Starfleet Academy cadet Nick Locarno (Robert Duncan McNeill), only to find that her stolen getaway ship is trapped by Locarno's Trynar Shield. Captain Carol Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) obtains an enormous Orion battleship from D'Erika Tendi (Ariel Winter) to blow through the barrier, but the derelict ship is only useful as far as it can be thrown since its sheer mass is enough to punch the requisite hole that allows for passage.
Unexpectedly, it's not the Cerritos that takes advantage of the new hole in the Trynar Shield, but a secret third vessel that deftly maneuvers through the fight to get in transporter range of Mariner's commandeered starship, the USS Passaro. With this little ship, Freeman beams her daughter Mariner aboard right before the detonation of Locarno's stolen Genesis Device and gets away fast enough to avoid being caught up in the resulting planetary formation. Despite being part of Star Trek since Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lower Decks marks the second time this specialized vehicle is even used on screen.
