In the next article, we will discuss the fifth season of Star Trek: Lower Decks and old Treks.
There is no such thing as “dead” in Star Trek. Star Trek, in spite of itself, is a vast and timeless work that has thrived for almost 60 years. What started as a cornball spaceship and punch fight show for atomic age kids and their parents has become something like this. So I’m not going to write too much of an obituary about Star Trek: Lower Decks, even though the fifth season is its final season. Given Paramount’s current fluid leadership, it’s easy to imagine that decision being reversed in the future. So this is more of a farewell for now than a farewell.
The fifth season of Lower Decks resumed shortly after the end of the fourth, with Tendi still paying off his debt to the Orions. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to suggest that the status quo will soon be reaffirmed, as this has happened in all other cases. The Cerritos crew then gets into the usual highbrow, lowbrow, but heartfelt shenanigans we’ve come to expect. Naturally, I’m Sworn to Secrecy, but the highlight is episode 5, whose title alone is a major spoiler.
I watched the first five episodes of the season, and like any sitcom, there were a few misses in between the hits. One episode in particular tries to arrive at a classic Frasier plotline, but it falls flat given the thinness of the characters in question. Thankfully, Lower Decks is able to carry a weaker show thanks to the charm of its core cast. Sadly, in an attempt to give everyone grace notes, some characters who would have been expected to receive more attention are instead relegated to the periphery.
You can also feel Lower Decks straining against its premise. A show about people on the lowest rung of the ladder can’t rise to a rung too high. As a fix, both Marriner and Boimler are using this year as an opportunity to mature and grow. I won’t spoil the best running gag of the season, but their growth happens in very different ways. If there’s a downside, it’s that the show relies too much on energy-draining action sequences to resolve the episode.
But that’s a small complaint for a show that has grown from the Trek universe’s top-notch wannabe clowns to its most entertaining interpretation of its ethos. I’ve always loved how, when the chips are down, lower decks rejoice in bits that many new Treks would rather ignore. The show was and still is fun to watch, and it serves as a goal for the rest of the series as well.
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I’ve been looking for a way to describe Lower Decks’ target audience for years, and only now have I thought of it. This is a show written by and for people who grew up watching Star Trek in the VHS era. Creator Mike McMahan is only four years older than me and was still a teenager when The Next Generation finished airing. So he saw Deep Space Nine and Voyager at their premieres, but everything else was discovered through re-screenings and tapes.
As Lower Decks expands the scope of its accomplishments each year, you can pretty much track the timeline of its discoveries. Of course, the first season featured parodies of the first two Trek movies. Both were often shown on Saturday afternoon TV when I was a kid. But it’s not until the third season that we get a nod to First Contact. When the Enterprise runs out of gas, you can feel the McMahans delving into behind-the-scenes lore and conventional gossip about later series.
If you’ve seen the series 5 trailer, you’ll notice a gag about Harry Kim’s promotion, but this character was never featured in Voyager. If you’re familiar with Trek’s behind-the-scenes drama, you’ll understand some of the reasons for that, and why it’s interesting to nod to it now. But this isn’t the only subtle gag on the series’ creative team that involves a sharp elbow in the ribs of a key figure. Even if you can’t find them all, Reddit will probably have a master list 30 minutes after each episode hits Paramount+.
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I’m not going to theorize about why a popular and successful show like Lower Decks ends (it’s about money, it’s always about money). But as we’ve seen many times before, it doesn’t have to be difficult to revive a successful animated show if some smart minds prevail. Heck, even McMahan is ready for it, telling TrekMovie that he has some spin-off ideas in the works. But for now, let’s toast to Lower Decks, the animated comedy that became the foundation of modern Star Trek.
The first two episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5 will arrive on Paramount+ on Thursday, October 24th, with additional episodes arriving weekly for eight weeks. The series and season finale will air on December 19th.
