Into the Multiverse

This is it, the end of a series. Having just finally finished season five of Star Trek: Discovery, it’s interesting to then come into this season (which just recently wrapped up) and see how two very different shows handle their conclusions. For Discovery, it had to be a big deal, had to be the cap to a long, serialized storyline for its main hero. For Star Trek: Lower Decks, though, it’s really just another day. An adventure is settled, crew move around, the ship goes on. Just another adventure for the U.S.S. Cerritos.

Naturally, some of that is because the cast and crew didn’t realize Lower Decks was ending until their season was already written and they were doing a second pass on their lines. Things could be tweaked, some scenes adjusted, but nothing could be massively changed to reflect the fact this was now a series finale and not just a season finale. And yet, interestingly, this kind of end is far more fitting for a Star TrekOriginally conceived as "Wagon Train in Space", Star Trek was released during the height of the Hollywood Western film and TV boom. While the concept CBS originally asked for had a western vibe, it was the smart, intellectual stories set in a future utopia of science and exploration that proved vital to the series' long impact on popular culture. show. Crew move on, captains take over, but the ship itself, its stories and its adventures, continue onwards even when we’re not watching it. That’s the kind of ending we actually expect from Star Trek, that our heroes just go on, and that’s the way it worked in this (far better) series as well.

We do have to address the fact, of course, that the cancellation of Lower Decks came as a shock, not just to the people working on it but also to fans and even some studio heads. The show was actually pretty cheap to produce, far from the most expensive Star Trek show being made at the time, and plenty of fans enjoyed the series and would tune in week to week. The cancellation wasn’t mandated by anyone other than one guy, reportedly: Alex Kurtzman, current chief of the Star Trek franchise and apparently no fans of this series. He hated it, and when he had the chance to get rid of it, he did. It does feel like a bit of a shit move to do, and one you know the show would have mocked if they could have had a little time to make a proper series finale.

Still, even if the end of the series came as a surprise, that doesn’t alter the fact that this fifth season is yet another solid, enjoyable season of the show. The series has done a good job of growing the lead characters of Lower Decks – Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid), D'Vana Tendi (Noël Wells), Sam Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) – letting them push past who they were at the start of the series and find their way to be better, more interesting officers by the time the series came to an end. If it had two more seasons, like other classic Star Trek shows, who knows where these characters could have gone.

The main focus of the season (through little snippets here and there before focusing on the plot for the last two episodes) is a strange force opening up rifts in space. These rifts create breaches to other dimensions, various other versions of our universe but where things are very slightly different. Maybe everything is slightly more purple, or the ships are all very tiny, or perhaps it’s a universe where that version of the Cerritos is led not by Captain Carol Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) but by Captain Beckett Mariner.

While exploring these universes would be interesting, the breaches in space also could weaken the fabric of reality. If enough of them were opened, the universe itself could collapse. Naturally, the Cerritos is set to keep an eye on these rifts and report back if they see the person (or persons) responsible for opening them, all while still attending to their normal duties. But another ship might just be out there, keeping a closer eye on the trouble, and the reason these rifts are opening, and what might be going on, is even stranger than anyone could possibly imagine.

At its core, Lower Decks has always been a goofy, strange show. Created by Mike McMahan, who worked on Drawn Together, South Park, and, most recently, Rick and Morty before coming on to lead Lower Decks. He brings those clear sensibilities with him for this series, enjoying the weird and the silly and letting the characters explore these ideas without having to comment on how weird or silly it is. This has also allowed the series to lovingly reference all the strange things that have happened in the franchise, such as Giant Spock (which is called out again in this fifth season), multiple Lt. Kims, and so much more. The series has never shied away from getting goofy, and a season all about the Multiverse certainly allows the series to stretch its creative ideas.

But that doesn’t change the fact that this is still a Star Trek show, and the series has always kept the core philosophies of the franchise at its heart. You can see that in the episode where Beckett and Brad have to help a Klingon warrior they met in a previous season regain his rank and honor in the Empire. Or in the episode where D’Vana, working as part of her Orion syndicate, tries to find a way to do right by her pirate family while also honoring the traditions and morals of the Federation. It’s even in the first of the two-part finale where we get a true exploration of the Multiverse, with variants of beloved characters from the franchise coming together to try and fight the existential threat. They do it because that’s the right thing to do, the Federation thing to do.

It’s also interesting to see just how much the series has grown its core four. When the series started, Beckett didn’t want to be an officer. Hell, she barely wanted to be an ensign. She was headstrong and crazy, throwing herself into danger because she knew she could handle it, but she very often ignored orders and caused many problems, too. But by the end of this season she’s found herself acting as leader for other ensigns, even taking a supposed troublemaker under her wing and giving her guidance, seeing a bit of herself in this newcomer.

Boimler also has a lot of growth, going from unsure and afraid ensign in season one to a far stronger and more assured commander. You could see him taking control of the ship by the time the series concludes, and it’s not hard to think that, in a different version of the series which went on for another two or more seasons, he might very well have become captain. He gets this power when he least expects it, looking to just improve himself and his standing among the crew instead of lusting after being a captain, so that is, of course, when things start going his way.

D’Vana has her growth at the start of the season, finally breaking free of all commitments to her family’s syndicate and getting to be the officer she always wanted to be. But, teamed up with T'Lyn (Gabrielle Ruiz), the Vulcan science officer who transferred to the Cerritos in season three, she finds a teammate she can compete with, giving her drive to do even better… and even become a co-science lead for the ship. That’s a huge step for an Orion when most just want to steal and plunder.

Finally we have Rutherford, the engineer. He’s struggled for many seasons to find the balance in his life after getting injured and having a cybernetic implant put on his face. Over time he’s found that he struggles to enjoy engineering like he used to, like his desire to be the best has faded. For him, the growth he needs comes from realizing he doesn’t need to rely on his implant’s abilities for everything, while also learning to love engineering again. Plus, maybe he can finally realize that he and D’Vana have something special together…

What’s so interesting here is that Lower Decks is willing to take its characters and push them and force them to grow. When you contrast it against Discovery, a show so dedicated to one character, Michael Burnham, that it basically ignored the character growth for anyone else, it’s wonderful to see a real show do things so well. Character growth, team work, people relying on each other to get things done for the greater good. Watching Lower Decks, you get the sense of what makes the Federation great, why this is the ideal the show always strives for. Where Discovery was the adventures of the perfect captain who could do no wrong, Lower Decks was about real people making mistakes and then doing things better, as humans do.

Ironic that the show that felt more “real” was the one that was fully animated. But that was the power of Lower Decks: it made you laugh but it also made you care. This was the silliest of the shows to come out of the Paramount+ boom, where Star Trek was suddenly alive and active with five shows at once, but it was also the one, in many ways, with the most heart. Lower Decks could get away with a lot because it was the scrappy little animated show with the big jokes, but because of that it also became the best of the franchise. It surely will be missed.