‘Star Trek Lower Decks’ — Orion Was Inspired by ‘Much Ado About Nothing’

Star Trek: Lower Decks creator Mike McMahan took inspiration from an unlikely source to create the planet Orion; Kenneth Branagh‘s 1993 adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. He outlines the process behind creating a new planet in a new interview. In a new interview with TrekCore.com, McMahan talks about the process behind depicting the Orion homeworld; although they were one of the first alien races to appear on Star Trek: The Original Series, their planet had never been seen until now. He didn’t have much to work with, as the species had only appeared intermittently across the franchise before Lower Decks introduced enthusiastic Orion ensign D’Vana Tendi (Noël Wells). Says McMahan, “We needed to figure out how a visit to Orion would tell us about Tendi. My wife’s favorite movie is Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing, so we made Tendi’s family house that castle from Florence, and built things out from there.”

McMahan also wanted to get away from earlier series Star Trek: Enterprise‘s over-sexualized depiction of the race as a matriarchy that keeps its males in line with pheromones; “I tried to honor the stuff we had seen before about powerful women, but make it less of a sexual thing.” Tendi has had quite a spotlight this season, as it has also explored her complicated relationship with crewmate Sam Rutherford, as discussed in McMahan’s interview with Collider’s Samantha Coley.

Who Are The Orions?

First introduced in the unaired 1966 Star Trek pilot, the Orions were depicted as nubile, green-skinned seductresses. They later made more substantial appearances in Star Trek: The Animated Series, which revealed the Orions were infamous across the galaxy as space pirates. The Orion Syndicate criminal organization came up frequently in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but no Orions ever appeared on-screen. The prequel series Enterprise featured the Orions in live-action for the first time in over thirty years and introduced the concept of the planet’s so-called “slave girls” actually controlling the male members of the species with their pheromones. Lower Decks has slowly teased out Tendi’s backstory over its four seasons; although her upbeat, cheery attitude initially seems at odds with her species’ reputation, the series eventually reveals that she’s left her family tradition of piracy behind to join Starfleet.

Star Trek: Lower Decks‘ fourth season is currently airing on Paramount Plus. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates, and watch the Season 4 trailer for Lower Decks below.