The Lower Decks are bowing to business as usual

The following article discusses the fifth season of Star Trek: Lower Decks and old Treks.

There is no such thing as “dead” in Star Trek, a sprawling, timeless opus that thrives despite all of sixty years. What started out as cornball spaceships and punch-fights showing atomic-age kids and their parents has become (gesture) all this. So I don’t write obituaries much Star Trek: The Lower Decks despite the fact that its fifth season was its last. Given Paramount’s fluid leadership right now, I can easily imagine that decision being reversed in the future. So this isn’t so much a goodbye as a goodbye yet.

Lower Decks’ The fifth season will begin shortly after the end of the fourth, with Tendi paying off his debt to the Orions. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to suggest that the status quo confirms itself so soon after given, you know, all the other times this has happened. The Cerritos team is then thrown into the usual kind of high-minded, low-key brownie but full of heart loops that we’ve come to expect. Naturally, I’m sworn to secrecy, but episode five — whose title alone is a major spoiler — is a highlight.

I’ve seen the first five episodes of the season and like any sitcom, there are a few misses among the hits. One episode in particular tries to reach out old school Frasier plotline, but it falls flat given the small cast of characters in question. Thank you, Lower Decks manages to manage a weak show behind the charm of its central characters. Sadly, as much as it tries to give everyone a kind note, some of the characters you might expect to get more focus are instead relegated to the margins.

Don’t feel it Lower Decks working against its foundation, too. A show about people on the lowest rung of the ladder can’t get much higher. As a fix, both Mariner and Boimler are using this year as an opportunity to mature and grow. I won’t spoil the season’s brilliant running gag, but their growth comes in very different ways. If there’s a downside, it’s that the system still relies heavily on energy-efficient action sequences to solve its puzzles.

But that’s a minor gripe for a show that grew from a would-be Trek world class comedy to a very entertaining interpretation of its ethos. I’ve always loved how, when the chips are down, Lower Decks he enjoys most of the new Treks pieces he can ignore. The show, and it was fun to watch, and something that every franchise could wish for.

I have been looking for a way to explain Lower Decks’ target audience for years, but now it has come to me. It’s a show written by, and people who grew up watching Star Trek in the VHS era. Creator Mike McMahan is four years older than me, he’s not a kid anymore The Next Generation he walked in the air. So when he met Deep Space Nine again Voyager like the first run, everything else would be available via re-runs and tapes.

You can probably track that discovery timeline as Lower Decks expands its range of hat tips each year it runs. That’s right we got a parody of the first two Trek movies in the first season – both of which were on Saturday afternoon TV when I was a kid – but it wasn’t until the third that we got the nod First Contact. As Business out of gas, you can hear McMahan and his colleagues delve into the behind-the-scenes story and conference gossip about that latest series.

If you’ve seen it, you’ll see a gag about Harry Kim’s promotion, something the actor has never had Voyager. If you’re familiar with Trek’s behind-the-scenes drama you’ll know a few reasons why, and why it’s funny to nod to that now. But that’s not the only subtle gag that points a pointed elbow in the ribs to the main characters from the series’ creative team. I’m sure if you haven’t seen them all, Reddit will have put together a master list half an hour after each episode hits Paramount+.

I will not indulge in explaining why the popular and successful program is the same Lower Decks it ends (it’s money, it’s always money). But, as we’ve seen countless times before, it’s not as if it’s hard to revive a successful animated show when smart heads prevail. Hell, even McMahan told prepared for that, and has other ideas coming up in the works. But for now, let’s raise a toast to Lower Decks, an animated sitcom that became the basis for modern Star Trek.

The first two episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks season five will arrive on Paramount+, Thursday, October 24, with an additional episode airing each week for eight consecutive weeks. The series and season finale will air on December 19.