2024-10-19 22:00:17| Engadget
The following article discusses the fifth season of Star Trek: Lower Decks and older Treks.
Theres no such thing as dead in Star Trek, the sprawling, perpetual opus that has thrived in spite of itself for almost sixty years. What started as a cornball space-ships and punch-fights show for atomic-age kids and their parents has become (gestures around) all this. So Im not writing too much of an obituary for Star Trek: Lower Decks despite its fifth season being its last. Given Paramounts fluid leadership right now, I can easily imagine that decision being reversed in the future. So this isnt so much of a goodbye as a farewell for now.
Lower Decks fifth season picks up not long after the fourth left off, with Tendi still repaying her debt to the Orions. I dont think its a spoiler to suggest the status-quo reasserts itself soon after given, you know, all the other times this has happened. The crew of the Cerritos is then thrust into the usual sort of high-minded, lowbrow yet full of heart hijinks that weve come to expect. Naturally, Im sworn to secrecy, but the fifth episode where its title alone is a big spoiler is a highlight.
Ive seen the first five episodes of the season and as with any sitcom, there are a few misses in between the hits. One episode in particular is trying to reach for an old-school Frasier plotline, but it falls flat given the thinness of the characters in question. Thankfully, Lower Decks is able to carry a weak show on the back of its central casts charm. Sadly, as it tries to give everyone a grace note, some characters youd expect would get more focus are instead shunted to the periphery.
You can feel Lower Decks straining against its own premise, too. A show about people on the lowest rung of the ladder cant get too high. As a corrective, both Mariner and Boimler use this year as an opportunity to mature and grow. I wont spoil the most glorious running gag of the season, but their growth comes in very different ways. If theres a downside, its that the show still relies too much on energy-sapping action sequences to resolve its episodes.
But thats a minor gripe for a show that grew from the would-be class clown of the Trek world to the most joyful interpretation of its ethos. Ive always loved how, when the chips are down, Lower Decks delights in the bits plenty of newer Treks would rather ignore. The show is, and has been, a delight to watch and something for the rest of the franchise to aspire toward.
Paramount+
Ive been looking for a way to describe Lower Decks target audience for years, but only now has it hit me. Its a show written by, and for, the people who grew up watching Star Trek in the VHS era. Creator Mike McMahan is just four years older than me, barely a teenager when The Next Generation went off-air. So while hed have encountered Deep Space Nine and Voyager as first-run, everything else would have been discovered through re-runs and tapes.
You can almost track that timeline of discovery as Lower Decks broadened its range of hat-tips each year it ran. Of course we got a parody of the first two Trek films in the first season both were ever-present on Saturday afternoon TV when I was a kid but its not until the third that we get a nod to First Contact. As Enterprise ran out of gas, you can feel McMahan and cos delving into the behind-the-scenes lore and convention gossip about those later series.
If youve seen the series five trailer, youll spot the gag about Harry Kims promotion, something the character never got on Voyager. If youre fluent with Treks behind-the-scenes drama youll know the handful of reasons why, and why its funny to nod toward that now. But thats not the only subtle gag that points a sharpened elbow into the ribs of major figures from the series creative team. Im sure if you dont spot them all, Reddit will have assembled a master list half an hour after each episode lands on Paramount+.
Paramount+
I wont indulge in theorizing as to why a popular and successful show like Lower Decks is ending (its money, its always money). But, as weve seen countless times before, its not as if its hard to revive a successful animated show when wiser heads prevail. Hell, even McMahan told TrekMovie hes prepared for that, and even has some spin-off ideas in the works. But for now, lets raise a toast to Lower Decks, the animated sitcom that became the cornerstone of 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 landing each week for the successive eight weeks. The series and season finale will air on December 19.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/star-trek-lower-decks-bows-out-on-business-as-usual-200017641.html?src=rss
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