Lower Decks Pokes Fun At Picard With Ransom’s New Catchphrase

Warning: this article contains spoilers for the final episodes of “Star Trek: Picard” and “Star Trek: Lower Decks.”

During the epilogue of “Star Trek: Picard,” Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) has been promoted to Captain and takes command of the newly-christened U.S.S. Enterprise-G, eager to start a new mission of exploration. As she sits in her captain’s chair for the first time, Seven prepares to give the order to take her ship into warp. The bridge crew all lean in, full of anticipation, eager to see what she will say. It seems that Starfleet captains all have a different “catchphrase” when they order that the warp engines be engaged, and Seven is about to declare her identity to the crew by selecting her own. In an all-too-precious twist, though, the series cuts to black before Seven can say anything.

The idea that a starship captain needs a “go to warp catchphrase” is a new notion brought on by fans who recognized that Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart), back in the days of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” tended to declare the word “Engage.” This was, in the context of the show, a reasonable thing to say, as the warp engines were being engaged. Other characters also said “engage” when seated in the captain’s chair, but “Star Trek: Picard” made the word into something that belonged to Picard exclusively. “Star Trek: Picard” took an incidental moment and made it into a “thing.”

At the end of “Star Trek: Lower Decks” (here’s our review of the show’s fifth and final season at large), a similar moment hangs over the newly promoted Captain Ransom (Jerry O’Connell). He actually announces out loud that he needs his own warp engines catchphrase. The writers of “Lower Decks,” however, seem to feel that Seven’s “select a catchphrase” moment from “Picard” was a little forced and mawkish. This is clear, given the exasperated response Ransom gets from Lieutenants Boimler (Jack Quaid) and Mariner (Tawny Newsome). As they point out, one can’t really “choose” a catchphrase. It would be better to let it happen organically.

Throughout “Star Trek,” other captains have said more colloquial phrases to bring their ships to warp, including “Hit it” and “Let’s punch it.” The latter of those phases was used by Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood) in the 2009 “Star Trek” movie, and it was perhaps the first time that a Starfleet captain seemed to “claim” an engine order phrase of their own. As the years passed, some Trekkies began to feel that “Engage” was Picard’s personal line, and that other captains would want to give the same order in their own idiom. “Engage” never belonged to Picard exclusively, but the word became so closely associated with the character in the minds of fans that other captains were (unofficially) banned from using it.

Hence the concerted effort by the “Picard” writers to give Seven of Nine her own catchphrase.

The problem with the scene is that it feels a little ham-fisted. Picard never expressly selected “Engage.” It just sort of happened organically during the course of his command. Picard never, in any kind of self-aware fashion, said that “engage” was going to be his identity-making colloquialism. Again, it just happened.

As such, when Captain Ransom says he wants a colloquialism of his own, Boimler and Mariner roll their eyes. “I think it’ll happen naturally over time,” Mariner notes. “Yeah. You don’t want it to sound forced,” Boimler adds. Ransom, however, being a brash and noisy character, does indeed select a phrase of his own. Naturally, Boimler and Mariner utterly hate his choice.

One suspects the writers of “Lower Decks” aren’t very fond of the Seven of Nine scene at the end of “Picard,” or at the very least thought that the moment was a little corny. Captains are formal beings who give orders and expect them to be followed. They’re often unconcerned with how “cool” they look when they want to engage their ship’s warp engines. One cannot select a nickname for one’s self, and one shouldn’t force an “engage” into being. Just let it happen. Let it spring from the character.

“Star Trek: Lower Decks” is now streaming in its entirety on Paramount+.