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Star Trek: Lower Decks’ fourth season has completed with a fifth season at least for now still confirmed. As per usual we get a mix of overtly silly, overtly serious, and small and big changes along the way. The inclusion of Vulcan T’Lyn is a burst of anti-energy the show needed from the last season, and her deadpan lines always bring a laugh — and her season-long arc of wanting to leave Starfleet to preferring to stay is one of the better ones.
In terms of the rest of the team, Mariner’s arc was a little shaky and regressed a touch at times — she had multiple conversations with people about her self-destructive path after all — but the final acceptance and saving the day by repudiating her anti-Starfleet reputation did work pretty well. Tendi’s was far more interesting, getting a real look into the Orion society and her own connections with her family. Naturally this made the final cliffhanger more impactful, as she accepted going back to work for her sister and the crime family she was from but with a clear plan in mind — she was also the real standout in the ‘Caves’ episode as the friendly glue that connected everyone together.
Rutherford was really more tied into his connection to Tendi instead of his own arc, although we got a few little bits here and there — in general he was relegated to a background storyline (although the Mark Twain stuff was consistently funny), and his Badgey story was decent enough. As for Boimler, he was mostly in jokey storylines but on the upward trajectory of accepting leadership responsibilities and competence, leading to a nice moment in the finale where he performs as acting captain in a way that isn’t a joke at all.
The season-long storyline about ships getting seemingly destroyed almost made sense, but there were some things about the resolution that were a little muddled — the so-called ‘independent’ fleet of Lucarno’s wasn’t exactly big enough to be a real threat, and it was all about the Ferengi-made Genesis device (although that final joke about a bomb being behind a paywall was perfect).
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It was nice to see the folks from that TNG episode back again, with Robert Duncan McNeill back in the role of Nick Lucarno before he was cast on Voyager as Tom Paris (who has also appeared on Lower Decks), Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher in a non-annoying cameo, and the now-retired from acting Shannon Fill as Ensign Sito who was in the TNG episode ‘Lower Decks’ way back in the day.
The show’s love of Trek throughout the years and respect for what’s come before still comes through even through the less successful episodes, and the best ones like ‘Caves’, combine very funny commentary, character building, and actual emotional catharsis. Perhaps now Strange New Worlds beats out Lower Decks for best quality overall, but it’s a strong second place and a worthy pillar for the modern era — easily over the hamfisted nostalgia of Picard or overly complicated confusion of Discovery (neither of which I dislike per se, but I don’t love them either).
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But one of the very strong things about this season was the legitimate arc of competence and responsibility by our crew — not ensigns any longer but people with real leadership roles and having to work harder than before. And we even saw real competence from Captain Freeman and the command staff, which was one of the issues that kept things a little annoying in seasons past — they even trolled us when she pretended to be incompetent in ‘The Inner Fight’.
Thankfully there aren’t any duds in the season, but there are some shaky moments — but I suppose any iteration of Trek can’t avoid that given enough time, and the foundations of this show remain strong. If it does end after season five, it’ll be a shame, but it’s still great to see a show once derided before it was released as ‘Fake Rick and Morty Trek lite’ able to deliver stories about characters we care about and give us cameos from Voyager and DS9 to satisfy the nostalgic itch in Trek old school fans. And as always, showing the importance of great voice acting, from top to bottom — and maybe next season we can see more people in live action, because we can always dream?
All episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks are streaming on Paramount Plus. Use Hotchka’s affiliate link to subscribe.
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