Have you been keeping up with the Star Trek: Lower Decks comic from IDW? On May 14, 2025, Star Trek: Lower Decks #7 will beam into your local comic shop. The issue is written by Tim Sheridan with art, colors and a main cover by Robby Cook. Final Order Cutoff for Lower Decks #7 is on Monday, April 7, 2025, so be sure and tell your LCS you want a copy ASAP!
Here’s the description of the issue from the publisher:
“There’s nothing quite like a mother-daughter relationship. There’s also nothing quite like finding out your monolith of a captain used to be a carefree ensign who accidentally vanished her whole crew in an experiment gone wrong. Lucky for Beckett Mariner, she gets to soak up both experiences all on the same day as her mother, Captain Freeman, regales her with a throwback tale of how she was ‘just like you when she was young,’ and ‘mistakes help us grow, blah, blah.’ Meanwhile, all Mariner wants to know is how could Freeman let Pulaski get away with hair like that?”
In advance of the issue’s arrival, Comics Beat got the chance to chat with Sheridan over email. We asked about his history with Star Trek, about balancing sci-fi and comedy in Lower Decks and (of course) about what he’d order from the food replicator. In addition, The Beat is proud to present two exclusive preview pages from the issue alongside the interview!
AVERY KAPLAN: Do you have a personal history with Star Trek, including Star Trek: Lower Decks? What makes the Franchise special?
TIM SHERIDAN: I’m a lifelong Trekker! I grew up deep in the woods in 1980s Rhode Island. We had three tv stations on the VHF dial and one or two would occasionally have good reception on the UHF dial (this is really how people lived… look it up and be horrified). So with far fewer options than we have today, you just watched whatever was on and hoped it was good.
Thankfully Star Trek was in movie theaters during this period because it meant that at least one of the channels we got would show reruns of the original series… and I was hooked from the very start. Then Star Trek: The Next Generation happened and it was a whole new level. I started reading all the DC monthly comics before going to my first convention when I was 11, not believing I was actually meeting Nichelle Nichols.
Then, as a teen, when everyone else was playing sports and dating, I was reading every Trek novel I could get my hands on. This franchise has been such a huge part of my life and work, all the way up to the Lower Decks show, which was, for me, the most perfect love letter Star Trek could ever hope to get.
If you want to understand how good Lower Decks really is, my husband (who, despite my best efforts, is not a Trekker, nor does he have much interest in Trek – I know!) LOVES the show and demanded I accept the assignment when Star Trek Group Editor Heather Antos and IDW came calling.
KAPLAN: How did you come to be involved with the IDW Lower Decks comics?
SHERIDAN: I’m a huge fan of the IDW Trek comics and I have some friends who’ve contributed to that canon. They all speak highly, practically in Borg-like unison, of the experience – especially working with Heather and her team.
So when I met Heather at a convention we were both appearing at and she asked me what my favorite era of Star Trek is (like choosing a favorite child, but fine whatevs), I simply told her that I think Lower Decks is subversively the Trekkiest Trek that ever Trekked. I watched her file this information away behind a Cheshire cat grin and didn’t speak to her again until she pulled me from my table at San Diego Comic-Con last year for a chat where she asked if I’d be interested in writing some Lower Decks.
You’d have to ask her, but I imagine she considered not only my Trek fandom, but my years of work in animation as well as comics and figured I might be stupid enough to follow the amazing Ryan North. At a time when I’m mostly getting hired to write kind of intense, dramatic stuff like the animated Batman: The Long Halloween movies and Alan Scott: The Green Lantern comics, Heather took a chance on me and my stupidity and I’m extremely grateful for that. (By the way, my friends were right—working with this editorial team has been a total joy from Day One.)
KAPLAN: Lower Decks is serious Star Trek, but it’s also seriously funny. How did you balance the comedy with the scifi?
SHERIDAN: I don’t. Meaning that I’m still trying to find that balance. I once asked animation great Lauren Faust if there’s anything I could be better at with my writing and (thank goodness for her honesty) she said I have a tendency to go for a joke at the expense of the heart. No one’s ever gotten me so right so fast!
So it’s tough when there’s an irresistible gag I really want to put in, but it may need resisting because we have to get back to the plot or because, as funny as it may be, it “cartoons” the characters too much. The great thing about Lower Decks is that there’s a perfect blueprint sitting on Paramount+ I can look to whenever I get lost. Mike McMahon and his team always found the perfect balance of jokes and stakes, so I’ll just keep looking to them and their work and hoping that some of it rubs off.
KAPLAN: What kind of research went into Lower Decks #7? Did you have any legacy episodes you consulted for the issue?
SHERIDAN: SO much. First, the story is a direct response to a scene in episode 4 of Lower Decks, so I started of course by rewatching that. Then knowing we were telling a flashback story set 15 years before Lower Decks, putting us somewhere between seasons 2 and 3 of The Next Generation, I felt like it was important to go back and rewatch some of those season 2 episodes.
Something the Lower Decks show did so well was to involve important characters and cast members from throughout the franchise and I really wanted to keep that tradition alive, so it made sense to bring in a character from that era. Now let me be clear that I feel Dr. Pulaski has ALWAYS been underrated, and I was reminded during my rewatch of just how good Diana Muldaur was in the role. I’m a big Muldaur-head, going back to her appearances in Star Trek: The Original Series, and don’t get me started on LA Law.
We didn’t get to really know Pulaski during her short time on TV, so I felt like that gave us a bit of license to have fun with her – so she definitely goes to some strange places in this story. In the end, though, we put her feet back on the ground and I hope we’ve given you a couple of new reasons to love her.
Ultimately, though, this is a story about Carol Freeman–which was a whole other thing! I had a LOT of questions about Carol’s history that I had to get answered before I could dig in on the writing. Her age and rank and Beckett’s age and rank, plus the fact that she was serving on the Illinois 15 years ago, brought up questions that nearly made my head explode with possibilities. Thank you, Mike and Paramount for helping us navigate those waters. So in issues 7 and 8, you’ll not only see some new sides to Pulaski, but to Freeman as well.
KAPLAN: In case we have any misguided readers who haven’t picked up an issue of Lower Decks yet, can you give us an idea of why this is the issue that should get them to their local comic shop?
SHERIDAN: You certainly don’t NEED to have read issues 1-6 to jump in on #7 – but with the tv show having wrapped, what are you waiting for? It’s MORE LOWER DECKS for goodness’ sake! But, fine—for the sake of the argument, let’s say you DID read issues 1-6, but your memories have been erased by the Paxans in an effort to keep their world hidden–so it FEELS like you’re starting at issue 7.
In that case, I’d tell you that, as the TNG nerd I know you are, you’re gonna love spending some time on the Illinois with Ensign Freeman and her fellow lower deckers in their old Starfleet one-piece jumpsuits as they contend with the newly resurfaced Romulan Star Empire… AKA “the good old days.” If you’re like me and you think Freeman is awesome, but it’s kinda weird how different Mariner is from her mom… buckle up, because it wasn’t always so.
KAPLAN: If you could order anything from the food replicator, what would you get?
SHERIDAN: Anything my mom used to make. Literally anything. She was no fancy-pants chef, but, man, whatever she cooked tasted like love and home to me—and if something could replicate that feeling, you better believe it’s all I’d ever order.
Star Trek: Lower Decks #7 will arrive at your LCS on May 14, 2025. The FOC is Monday, April 7, 2025.
Keep up with all of The Beat’s Star Trek coverage by clicking here.
