Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 4 Brings Back The Show's Most Surreal Joke
This article contains spoilers for the latest episode of "Star Trek: Lower Decks."
The koala is something of a running gag on "Lower Decks," going back to the first season episode "Moist Vessel" (August 27, 2020). In that episode, an officer named Lieutenant O'Connor (Haley Joel Osment) invites Ensign Tendi (Noël Wells) to witness the end of a years-long spiritual journey and see him ascend into a higher being. Sadly, Tendi drops O'Connor's ritual gong during his crucial, final ritual and ruins his mandala to catch it. His ascension is stymied. Tendi will spend the bulk of the episode attempting to get back into O'Connor's good graces, something that annoys him immensely. He wanted to be seen as the only "spirituality guy" on the ship, and now that status is ruined.
Later on in the episode, however, O'Connor does end up ascending in the middle of a crisis and somewhat by accident. In a corridor, he suddenly becomes a being of pure light. Arcane symbols appear in the air around him as he transforms. A portal opens up in front of him, and O'Connor sees the face of God.
God is a koala. "Why is it a koala?" he screams in spiritual agony/ecstasy.
"Star Trek" has seen its share of gods in the past — Trelane, Q, Kukulkan, Apollo — but the humanist characters often explain to the grumpy deities that humans no longer need God in its utopian future. More than one god in "Star Trek" has been slapped or punched in the face. "Star Trek," generally speaking, takes place in a post-religious world, at least as far as humans are concerned.
The koala might well be the One True God — one that Boimler briefly sees in the latest episode, "In the Cradle of Vexilon."
Why did the ghost cross the road? To get to The Other Side
In "In the Cradle of Vexilon," the crew of the U.S.S. Cerritos is assigned to improve and upgrade a massive sentient computer, Vexilon, that controls the weather and living conditions of a massive spatial superstructure. The inhabitants of the structure ordinarily devote their lives to aesthetics and art, but their failing computer is interrupting their idyll. While Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) works on debugging the millennia-old machine, Lieutenant Boimler (Jack Quaid) learns important lessons about leading his first away mission.
Without giving too much away, Boimler will find himself in close proximity to a fiery explosion. While presumably dead, Boimler finds himself in a small room with little furniture. Then it appears on a chair. The koala! This is only further evidence that not only is there a God in "Star Trek," but that It looks like a cuddly koala. This also backs up a line of dialogue from the episode "First First Contact" (October 14, 2021) when Boimler nearly drowns and claims to have briefly seen a koala while dead.
Additionally, a character named Lieutenant Commander Steve Stevens (Ben Rodgers) briefly dies in "Mining the Mind's Mines" (September 8, 2022), and emerges from his death state claiming he, too, saw a koala. This is now a shared experience. There are a few other references to koalas besides, as when a street preacher bids the koala smile down on others.
The makers of "Lower Decks" are clearly making a cute joke, reducing the Divine into the body of a harmless marsupial that sleeps 18 to 20 hours a day. But at the same time, they are doing something deeply profound. They have transformed "Star Trek" from an atheist universe into one overseen by Providence.
Star Trek and God
As noted above, when "Star Trek" runs into gods, Starfleet officers tend to be dismissive. Kirk explains to Kukulkan in the "Star Trek: The Animated Series" episode "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth" (October 5, 1974) that humanity has outgrown its need to worship, with Apollo resents having been discarded in the "Original Series" episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?" (September 22, 1967). Other species engage in spiritual practices — the Klingons and the Bajorans have robust spiritual lives — but humans appear to be largely without religion in the future.
Indeed, there is an episode of "Star Trek: Voyager" that is, one might say, explicitly atheist. Neelix (Ethan Phillips) dies in the episode "Mortal Coil" (December 17, 1997), and remains dead for an extended period. Thanks to Borg nanotechnology, however, he is resurrected. Neelix is horrified to learn that he experienced no spiritual visions, and did not meet his loved ones in the afterlife. He becomes despondent over his loss of faith but eventually learns that living is more important. The episode argues that a life without God is better than a death with Him. Heavy stuff.
Of course, this is contradicted by other "Voyager" episodes, such as when B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson) found herself in the Klingon afterlife, or when Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) becomes involved in the thanatological practices of another alien world.
The makers of "Lower Decks" seem to want to keep the spiritual door cracked open, suggesting that the koala — or perhaps Koala — is the Supreme Being waiting on the Other Side. Just like when Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) was asked if he adheres to any faith. Archer smiled and merely said, "I like to keep an open mind."
New episodes of "Star Trek: Lower Decks" premiere Thursdays on Paramount+.