Star Trek: Lower Decks – Growing Up a Little in its Final Season

By John Kirk

Rating: A-

Attention all decks: Brace for unhappy Trek fans!

Despite the consistent level of funny that Star Trek: Lower Decks has delivered, the end is near, and it will be sad to say goodbye to the most irreverent show in the Trek franchise.

But the final season may hold some more thoughtful moments that will make the goodbye more poignant than one may think.

Read our interviews with Star Trek: Lower Decks Cast Members

Star Trek: Lower Decks is a successful addition to the franchise. It may not have added a great deal of canonical material, but that wasn’t its intended purpose. And for fans, not every new series has to advance the narrative. Sometimes, it’s just a new perspective.

Star Trek: Lower Decks crew moves up in the universe, as it moves on.

Of course, there are those die-hard, extreme fans who say that this animated series “isn’t really Star Trek.” But if you’re measuring the success of a show on the basis of a comparison to a complete franchise from 1966 to the present, then as William Shatner says: get a life.

Imagine this scenario: you’re out for the night at a social gathering. You don’t know anyone and it’s difficult to make small-talk. Then, you meet someone who drops a catch-phrase like, “Beam me up, Mr. Scott.” You’re a Star Trek fan and you’re in the minority, but the cavalry has arrived and just like that, you’ve found your people.

That’s the value Star Trek: Lower Decks brought: finding your people who you can laugh with about your favourite fandom, and damn, it feels good. Watching Lower Decks is like belonging to a certain club who can appreciate the show for its Trek heritage alone. It’s whimsical, fun and you can enjoy it with fellow fans who understand how to laugh at what one loves. That’s what will be missed.  

But ironically, there’s a maturity this show offers to fans that is realized in Season Five.

After all, Trek isn’t a religion. It does have an ethos of positivity for the future that fans maintain as a major reason for its appeal. But at the end of the day, it’s a television series with a supporting film franchise. Sometimes fans can lose sight of this in the defence of their fandom, but Lower Decks reminds us of its origins with humour that only fans can understand.   

In that spirit, while Season Five is supposed to be a swansong, it’s pretty much like the last four with a few more serious notes. The season doesn’t harp on the show’s ending, in fact, it does the opposite. There’s no theme, or indication that “this is it.” It’s fairly routine, in fact. The season is touted as having a lot of story diversity as the Lower Deckers (now promoted to Lieutenants) have to contend with issues like “an Orion war, furious Klingons, diplomatic catastrophes, murder mysteries and scariest of all: their own career aspirations.”

So, it’s pretty much business as usual for the final season. Of course, there are still jokes and what will happen in the final episode is anyone’s guess.

It's been a tradition that each Star Trek incarnation gets its own unique farewell episode. Voyager got its magnificent victory over the Borg which paved for its way home; Deep Space Nine saw the spiritual elevation of Captain Sisko to near godhood. Of course, who could forget TNG’s final scene with Picard sharing a special moment of family bonding with the bridge crew after saving the galaxy in three different time periods?

Hopefully, Lower Decks will go out with a comedy bang that will not only provide a multitude of laughs, but will also follow this tradition and pay respectful homage to the franchise that gave it life.

I’m pleased to see the serious note of character growth in the Lower Deckers. In the last four seasons, we’ve seen Mariner (Tawny Newsome) realize the pointlessness of continuously being the rebel and has settled into a career, while realizing that orders don’t have to be followed blindly. Boimler (Jack Quaid) has developed confidence and learned how to better manage the responsibilities of being an officer. The friendship between Tendi (Noël Wells) and Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) has become comparable to legendary friendships we have seen in other Trek series.

Season Five gives Lower Decks a chance to grow up … a little. It can’t be totally serious – after all, its niche Trek humour was its appeal. But it does allow fans to see the happiness it offered fans.

Show creator Mike McMahan once said to me: “Star Trek doesn’t have to be self-important. It doesn’t have to broadcast all of the things that make it Star Trek at all times.”

That’s the key to understanding this series. It’s the type of funny that only fans will get. At times it may mock the franchise, but the franchise is strong enough to take a few jokes. Season Five shows that resilience and the growth of not just the individual characters, but the series itself.

Maybe that’s the fitting homage it’ll pay to the franchise.

Star Trek: Lower Decks - Season 5. Cast: Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid, Eugene Cordero, Noël Wells, Dawnn Lewis, Jerry O’Connell, Fred Tatasciore and Gillian Vigman

Star Trek: Lower Decks Season Five streams two episodes on Paramount Plus and also on CTV’s Sci-Fi Channel, October 24.