WARP FIVE: Tawny Newsome Reflects on Five Seasons with Mariner and the Cerritos Crew

Welcome to Warp Five, StarTrek.com's five question post-mortem with your favorite featured talent from the latest Star Trek episodes.

Star Trek: Lower Decks' five year mission is officially wrapped. In the series' fifth season, the crew of the U.S.S. Cerritos had been tasked with cleaning up subspace rifts opening up all over the Alpha Quadrant.

This season, Lieutenant j.g. Beckett Mariner faced an alternate version of herself, went through a breakup a second time around, endured several Klingon rites, witnessed the Starbase 80 curse, went undercover in a pre-warp society, and still found time to carve pumpkins with her friends.

StarTrek.com had the opportunity to talk with Tawny Newsome about the Cerritos' crew, quantum realities, and more!

On "Fissure Quest"

In "," an alternate Engineering Mariner ends up on Captain William Boimler's U.S.S. Anaximander, manned by an assortment of "interdimensional castaways" comprised of T'Pol, Curzon Dax, Elim Garak, numerous Harry Kims, and a EMH Dr. Bashir.

On getting to share the screen with some of Star Trek's legends, Tawny Newsome states, "It was a dream come true. I feel like Mike McMahan and the writers chose literally some of my favorite characters from throughout canon. I'm obsessed with Garak and Bashir. I love that we got to see an alternate version of what a relationship could look like because it doesn't change our prime timeline of Garak and Bashir, but it gives the fans that taste of that romance that a lot of fans had believed was hinted at in ."

"Getting to have screen time with Lily Sloane, that's everything," adds Newsome. " is my favorite Trek movie in large part due to her. Her position in the franchise, that character is so special to me as an outsider, but also she's this cool whip smart engineer. She just represented so many things that I didn't often get to see growing up. So hats off to Alfre Woodard for that."

"And then T'Pol, a queen, an icon," continues Newsome. "And then I've always been dying to see more of Curzon Dax. The most we ever saw Curzon was when René Auberjonois played him in Deep Space Nine. So we just haven't seen him be fully him, and I am constantly looking for more Curzon. He's such a fascinating character. So yeah, I really feel like Mike just mined my brain and said, what does Tawny want to see in this episode? And just put all my faves up there."

On the Series' Overall Objective

Lily Sloane tells William Boimler, in "Fissure Quest," that his friendship with Mariner "transcends realities." Then, in "," Mariner remarks, "You know why Boimler's weird, death-faking clone sent that cosmic wave at us? Because he knew we'd kick ass. And I'm not just talking about the five of us. The whole Cerritos crew is stacked with amazing officers."

"This show has done such a good job of, in a not trite way, really examining the power of friendship and the power of community," says Newsome. "Because it's not just friendship. It's not just, 'Yay, we love to hang out.' It really is chosen family and community. When we talk about this optimistic vision, this utopian vision for the future of what Star Trek is, for me, it's exploring different ways of having community in order to increase our happiness. Studies show that it improves your stress levels, improves your health to have true community and to have true loving familial type friendships. And so I think it's so special that our 22-minute cartoon was able to talk about things that are that human and important."

Newsome's perspective echoes Sloane's directive in exploring other quantum realities, "I'm learning about what humans can be, mapping our potential. So far, it's limitless."

On the Expansion of Different Alien Cultures This Season

This season, we see the return of the Klingon Ma'ah in "" and "The New Next Generation," as well as a further look into Orion culture in "" and "."

"I love that constantly in Trek, especially nowadays, all of the writers, we work really hard to make sure that no cultures are monoliths," explains Newsome. "And I think Lower Decks has done a great job of that, especially with the Tendi storyline, exploring Orion culture."

Newsome continues, "But to really say, 'Yes, there are cultural traits that get passed down. There are environmental traits that get shared among cultural groups and among species, but there are true individuals who walk their own paths.' Everyone is an individual. And I think the more modern Trek can explore that, the richer the storylines will become."

On Being Charmingly Insubordinate to Ensign Olly's Advocate

When Captain Freeman and Commander Ransom decide to relieve Ensign Olly from duty in "," Mariner steps in to prove the junior officer can be Cerritos-material, not wanting to see someone like herself out of Starfleet. After all, fans have been on a journey with Beckett Mariner as she shunned responsibilities and opportunities for promotions across several seasons.

Newsome sees this mirroring her own personal life, revealing, "I really resonate with [this storyline]. I've always been kind of a loudmouth, squeaky wheel, shake my fist at authority person."

"And as I've aged and as I've been given more responsibilities and just matured, I've learned to take the spirit of that, but to kind of wield that power and influence in more responsible ways," notes Newsome. "And often that means taking on more responsibility and being more of a leader as opposed to just a rabble rouser. So, watching Mariner learn that too, I was like, 'Ooh, we're all learning some things together.' Art imitating life for sure."

On The Different Iterations of Mariner

Mariner sees a different path set out for her in the former of Becky Freeman, Captain of the U.S.S. Cerritos, in "Dos Cerritos," had she made different choices, while viewers saw Engineering Mariner in "Fissure Quest," who isn't a fan of danger or away missions.

On embodying these extreme versions of Mariner, Newsome shares, "It felt interesting to wonder about what kind of environmental changes in those other universes could cause Mariner to not be so exactly Mariner."

"And I thought it was a really cool way to examine parts of her personality that we may not have seen if we were just watching Prime Timeline Mariner," continues Newsome. "And so getting to see these other versions, it's like, oh yeah, she does have those parts of her. They're just not at the forefront. They're not what she leads with. They're not what she leans on. But it's a cool way to really, really examine and make my character even that much more well-rounded."