TL;DR – I am sad that our time with Lower Decks is over. However, I am glad that it went out on such a high note.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+ streaming service that viewed this episode. 

Star Trek: Lower Decks Review –

One of the many wild swings this new era of Star Trek undertook was jumping back into the animated world with a show that would be more farcical and self-referential than ever before. Playing off one of the most famous episodes of The Next Generation, Lower Decks rode the line between being a love letter to Star Trek fans and telling a good story in its own right. Now we have come to its final episode, and the question is: did they stick the final landing?

So, to set the scene, after William (Jack Quaid) poured all the rift energy into his universe, our Prime-Star Trek world, there was only one chance to stop it. Well, after Boimler (Jack Quaid) has had an acceptable freakout, he lets Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) know, and while Starfleet Command would have preferred any ship but the Cali-Class USS Cerritos to be the ones to fix it, time is not on their side, and the Cerritos is already near the Klingon border. The only problem is that The Federation might not be the first one to find the rift. We will be looking at the episode, season, and probably series as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

For a finale episode, and from the ending, it did feel like they might have known about the cancellation before writing it. I think this episode does a good job of tying all the loose ends of the season together. The Klingons are back from A Farewell to Farms. The rifts that we have been playing with all season, like in Fully Dilated, come to a head. All the growth from Upper Decks is there, and even Starbase 80 shows up at the end. So, while the main villains for this episode do feel more than a little tacked on, that didn’t matter as much because all the other pieces did lock together.

While the potential was there with the Schrodinger Field, we didn’t get any big stand-out moments like we did in last week’s Fissure Quest. It was fun watching the USS Cerritos jump into being a Freedom Class, Terran Battle Cruiser, and Sovereign Class. It was the opening interactions with the Klingons that I found the most interesting. Because was it saying that the events of Star Trek Discovery happened in another universe? But then Lower Decks had a cross-over episode with Strange New Worlds with Those Old Scientists, and Strange New Worlds is an explicit continuance of Discovery. Or did it merge to a place where the Discovery-era aesthetics remained the prominent design choice in that Empire, where it was jettisoned sometime during The Original Series era in the prime realm? To be honest, I may have thought about this too much.   

One thing that I liked was that everyone got a moment to shine this week, even if it was just in the montage sequences at the end. The real throughline of the season has been Boimler and Mariner’s (Tawny Newsome) friendship, and I absolutely bought their Vulcan salute high-five. Also, that Mariner hates how much Boimler’s beard works. It was fun to have one last stop in Cetacean Ops or get to see the Engineering crew work together to hodgepodge a solution together. It was nice to see Ransom (Jerry O’Connell) come into his own with command, and having his signature warp sign off being a workout reference was the one belly laugh for me this week. They also finally made Mariner’s arc stick, for which I am grateful.

I felt a bit frustrated with Rutherford’s (Eugene Cordero) very sudden plot choice with his implant, which made me feel very rushed. I would have more of an issue with it had they not nailed his big moment in the warp core. The same could be said for the Science Besties. However, I do think they nailed the ending. Stabilizing the rift rather than destroying it was a very Star Trek answer to a problem. Almost creating a new DS9 situation. Freeman picking that moment to move to a different command felt like a poignant moment for the show for both characters and also because it allowed the finale arc for all our crew from the Lower Decks to be prime bridge officers.

When we look back at the season as a whole, it did feel a bit hit-and-miss at times. While I think by the season finale, they understood that they needed to potentially close things off, while still leaving room for the future. But I am not sure that was the case throughout the season, and there did feel like some missed opportunities. A lot of the start of the season was tying up the Orion Arc from Season Four, which felt like it was holding things back. While the front half of the season still had solid episodes, it didn’t feel like things properly coalesced until A Farewell to Farms. But by then, half a season had gone by.

I am glad we got three powerhouse episodes to end the season and that all expanded on our time with the crew or in the greater Star Trek world. I think those episodes both showed the best of Lower Decks but also the promise of what only it could really accomplish. You can do fan service till the cows come home, and Lower Decks has not always gotten that right. But it takes a team that understands Star Trek so well that they can pull off the deep cuts like Garak and Bashir and make it feel genuine and not pandering. It took some time to find its own voice away from the Rick and Morty and Solar Opposites vibe that was there at times. But once it did, it exploded forward like nothing else. Though I do feel a little sorry for the poor archivists over at Memory Alpha at times when you saw a single still from the show filled nearly to the brim with references. I mean, I feel sorry thinking just how they are going to classify all those different ships the USS Cerritos turned into.   

In the end, do we recommend Star Trek: Lower Decks: The New Next Generation? Yes, we would. I am sad that our time with Lower Decks is over. However, I am glad that it went out on such a high note. In my gut, I have a feeling that this won’t be the last time we will see this crew, and I hope that is more than just wishful thinking. Either way, I am thankful for the times we have had and hoping for the times yet to come.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Star Trek: Lower Decks yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Star Trek: Lower Decks
Directed by – Megan Lloyd, Brandon Williams & Bob Suarez
Written by – Mike McMahan, Keith Foglesong, Stephanie Amante-Ritter, Diana Tay, May Darmon, Aaron Burdette, Andrew Mueth, Cullen Crawford & Lauren McGuire
Created by – Mike McMahan
Based Upon – Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry
Production/Distribution Companies – Secret Hideout, Titmouse, CBS Studios & Paramount+.
Starring – Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid, Noël Wells, Eugene Cordero, Dawnn Lewis, Jerry O’Connell, Fred Tatasciore, Gillian Vigman & Gabrielle Ruiz with Nicole Byer, Phil LaMarr, Paul Scheer, Carl Tart, Mary Chieffo, Brent Spiner, Jolene, Andrew Robinson, Alexander Siddig, Garrett Wang, Alfie Woodard & Paul F. Tompkins and Jon Curry, Saba Homayoon, Jessica McKenna, Charlotte Nicdao, Nolan North, Roxana Ortega, Sam Witwer, Kari Wahlgren, Jon Barinholtz, Vanessa Marshall, Debra Wilson, Toby Huss, Lauren Lapkus, Colton Dunn, Jess Harnell, Dulcé Sloan, Oscar Montoya, Mary Holland, Artemis Pebdani, James Sie, Eric Bauza, Liam McIntyre, Stephen Root, Ariel Winter, Marcus Henderson & Roan Lai
Episodes Covered – Dos Cerrito, Shades of Green, The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel, A Farewell to Farms, Starbase 80?!, Of Gods and Angles, Fully Dilated, Fissure Quest & The New Next Generation