Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 4 - Is it Time for the Haters to Lighten Up Yet?

By John Kirk

Rating: A

Friends forever. Fans? Not so much.

Yeah – I know it sounds cheesy. But to be honest, with all the stress and hubbub of the outside worlds, isn’t it great to just relax, laugh and enjoy some light humour about a favourite fandom?

With friends.

Star Trek: Lower Decks isn’t ever going to be a show that everyone likes. In fact, among some fans, it’s a bit of an underdog and to be honest, I have a hard time understanding that. It’s been dismissed as wacky, superficial and too silly to have actual relationship to the canon of Star Trek.

However, there’s more canon in this show than in any other show in the franchise, if you think about it. Also, to have a shared subject that you can joke about with like-minded people is not only invaluable in today’s day and age of community building and mental health concerns, but it’s desperately needed.

If you’ve ever read showrunner ’s Star Trek: TNG Warped – An Engaging Guide to the Never-Aired 8th Season, you understand where this humour is coming from. The book is meticulously referenced with the specific details in Star Trek: The Next Generation. But Star Trek: Lower Decks has everything that a devoted Star Trek fan would want to joke about. If you haven’t read it, that’s okay; it’s the type of book only a fan would pick up to have fun with.

But why can’t fans do that once a week for 22 minutes?

Mike McMahan and I spoke about this before the third season was released. Our conversations, while interview-based, were pretty easy-going and the type of chat two fans of the franchise would have, while having a good laugh at it at the same time. Season Four promises that same sort of easy-to-appreciate humour. But while this is a show that non-fans won’t watch, why is it so hard for fans to appreciate the show and get the humour?

Because of the pedestal factor.

Fandoms don’t fit on pedestals, but fans are eager to place their fan-objects there, especially a long-lived franchise like Star Trek. They record and recount the canonical details with a precision that would place an accountant to shame.

But we see that same attention to detail in this show, and particularly in Season Four with its call-backs to historical events (in Star Trek: Voyager), its welcoming of previous characters from franchises like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and its awareness of the cultural aspects of the various races from all of those franchise iterations that’s made Star Trek such a rich and vibrant phenomenon for more than fifty years.

This is shared by the cast as well. While Brad Boimler’s (Jack Quaid) high-pitched screams that reek of an anxiety that’s completely unexpected in Starfleet; not to mention Beckett Mariner’s (Tawny Newsome) flagrant disregard for authority, these characters have demonstrated a thorough knowledge of Star Trek history that the audience can completely relate to.

In fact, I think it gives a greater service to Trek in that we can laugh and have fun with the show, but it brings out all of those previous Trek moments and encyclopedically preserves them in one of the best ways to remember them: humour.

And yeah – they reference the recent crossover with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds as well!

But this season sees the characters (and the show) grow up a bit as they receive their junior-grade Lieutenant promotions. In all things, there is a sense of progression. And Star Trek: Lower Decks is really no different in that, while it runs the line of fandom and fan-frolic, it still pays greater homage to the Trek that went before it in obvious ways. Previous seasons saw a lot of homage Easter eggs, but in Season Four, the homage is the plot.

D'Vana Tendi (Noël Wells) gets to divulge more about her Orion heritage and develop her friendship with Samanthan Rutherford (Eugene Cordero), who also gets more of the spotlight as well. The Lower Deckers are more than just a bunch of clowns. There’s a real note of friendship in this group that Star Trek fans would bite at the bit to be a part of. Let’s face it: they live Trek history; they use that history in their own antics in a more involved way than any other Star Trek show, and they provide a relaxed perspective on Trek that’s a chance to just have fun.

While there are the fans who dismiss the show as a simple parody, there are still those who have made several recurring characters fan-faves. Of course, to name them would be giving away spoilers, but if you are someone who appreciates the funny in this show, then you’ll be able to guess who those returning characters are. Of course, they share in this growth too and Season Four really allows them to shine.

If you can’t laugh about something for fear of reducing its integrity then it wasn’t that strong enough on its own to begin with. Actually, I think that’s a very Klingon perspective that would apply to the fans who bring this refreshing and playful bit of Trek down.

K’plah, all you haters and let’s look forward to Season Five!

Star Trek: Lower Decks, Season Four. Voice cast: Tawny Newsome. Jack Quaid, Noel Wells, Eugene Cordero, Jerry O’Connell, Dawnn Lewis, Gillian Vigman, Fred Tatasciore. Streams on Paramount+ and airs on CTV Sci-Fi Channel starting Thursday, Sept. 7 at 9 p.m.