The most recent episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 3, "Room for Growth," was released for streaming on Thursday, September 22, 2022. Along with the new episode of Lower Decks, there was also a fresh entry in the ongoing Star Trek aftershow, The Ready Room, hosted by Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation), released. In the episode, Ready Room guest star Tawny Newsome, who plays Ensign Beckett Mariner of the U.S.S. Cerritos, revealed that during production for "Room for Growth," Lower Decks series creator Mike McMahan was inspired by Rob Reiner's adaptation of a Stephen King novella, Stand by Me.

Stand by Me is the 1986 movie adaptation of King’s novella The Body, published in the 1982 collection Different Seasons. Set in Castle Rock, Maine, a recurring fictional location in King’s work, the story follows a quartet of boys who undertake a journey to locate the corpse of a fifth boy.

The big screen adaptation, directed by Reiner, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Wheaton co-starred in the movie as Gordon “Gordie” LaChance, the twelve-year-old version of the character who serves as the story’s narrator. Interestingly, one of the other four boys, Vern Tessio, was played by Jerry O’Connell, an actor who now appears on Lower Decks as Commander Jack Ransom, part of the Cerritos command crew.

Rounding out the cast of the movie was Corey Feldman as Teddy Duchamp and the late River Phoenix as Chris Chambers. Meanwhile, Kiefer Sutherland portrayed the teenage version of John “Ace” Merrill, a local bully, and John Cusack played Dennis “Denny” LaChance, older brother to Gordie.

The 'Stand by Me Episode'

In the Lower Decks episode “Room for Growth,” the circumstances for the journey undertaken by three of the four beta shifters are considerably less macabre than the motivation shared by the boys in Stand by Me. Ensigns Mariner, Bradward Boimler (Jack Quaid), and D’Vana Tendi (Noël Wells) are not attempting to locate a corpse – this isn’t Star Trek III, after all. Instead, they’re attempting to enter their names into a computer to ensure they will be successful in an upcoming room lottery.

However, just as a rival gang pursues the protagonists in Stand by Me, the beta shifters have competition in Lower Decks as they attempt to reach the object of their quest: delta shift! These rivals were introduced in Lower Decks season 1’s “Terminal Provocations.”

New episodes of Lower Decks are available for streaming Thursdays on Paramount+.