Lower Decks season 5

[stryke]

It's out, woo! Lower decks! Lower Decks!

...okay I am a bit let down by the Tendi arc. Other than that though I'm really glad it's back.

[Thebestoftherest]

Heard they might make a movie.

[clearspira]

I did a lot of moaning about LD - I know i did. And i'm sorry for it. But over time I came to realise that it is the best Star Trek show since VOY. It ''gets'' Star Trek in a way that nothing in the New Era has done.

Absolutely incredible to me that LD gets cancelled when SNW and PIC continues and they are threatening to still make Section 31. I cannot possibly believe that those shows are more popular than LD. I just can't.

[Thebestoftherest]

It could be, animation is expensive, and five seasons is a lot these days.

[hammerofglass]

LD always had the built-in problem that a ton of people don't watch anything animated just out of principle. I don't really understand why, I love animation personally, but every mixed media fandom has people who are weirdly proud of never watching the animated parts for reasons they seem to think are self-evident.

[CharlesPhipps]

LD always had the built-in problem that a ton of people don't watch anything animated just out of principle. I don't really understand why, I love animation personally, but every mixed media fandom has people who are weirdly proud of never watching the animated parts for reasons they seem to think are self-evident.

Because it would terrify them to admit that elements of Star Trek are....childish.

They've made it an identity.

[clearspira]

LD always had the built-in problem that a ton of people don't watch anything animated just out of principle. I don't really understand why, I love animation personally, but every mixed media fandom has people who are weirdly proud of never watching the animated parts for reasons they seem to think are self-evident.

Because it would terrify them to admit that elements of Star Trek are....childish.

They've made it an identity.

Speaking for myself, because I am a classic test case for this, it is a generational thing. The childish nature of Trek has always been there and I can see that now looking back... but... at the time it did not feel like it was.

When I was a kid there was TOS, TNG and some movies. Movies about a mid-life crisis. Movies about the fall of the Soviet Union. Movies about Revenge. Movies about loss. Movies about green issues back before that was a THING. Nothing else was doing whale extinction back then. And that footage of whales being gutted with all of the blood? That stuck with me for a long time. Surprised they got away with it actually.

And then DS9 came along. A show about terrorism, war, betrayal, PTSD, organised religion, fascism. Again, this really was not the done thing on television back then, B5 excluded. There is a reason why this show was deeply controversial amongst the fandom and despite what some may say, it didn't really have anything to do with it being on a station. But the show's terrific writing meant that it still felt like TOS and TNG despite all of these things and I think that is why the show is now held up by many as the best of Trek - including me.

It is only really once we got into the TNG movies, VOY and ENT that the series started feeling more like kids shows with adult elements. Which was ironic given the ''sex, boobs, swearing'' mantra of ENT which was taken to the extreme with PIC along with needless violence. There is nothing truly adult about ''sex, boobs, swearing'' because it is very easy to make it feel as though a teenager wrote it. STD was just straight up rubbish and SNW is straight up a kids show. None of the episodes i've seen can hold a candle to the heights of TNG or DS9.

And of course, no examination is complete without mentioning Abrams Trek. Three films that used the iconography of Trek, its names, its stories, and gutted them into a Star Wars clone that nevertheless made ridiculous money (at least to begin with) and probably is what led to trek's renewal. This more than any other is probably where the divide between old and new fans truly began. Those who come more for the action than for a philosophical debate between Dr Mengele and the Bajoran IRA.

All of this is anecdotal from one old long time fan. And as I say, my views have changed a lot in recent years, I am more willing to embrace the flaws. But when people like me talk of things like tone, feel, soul - this is pretty much what we mean. It is the rose-tinted goggles of a time when the profound and the ridiculous of Star Trek were far more in balance. You could have Quark in drag in the same season as Sisko committing manslaughter. It just worked.

[hammerofglass]

LD always had the built-in problem that a ton of people don't watch anything animated just out of principle. I don't really understand why, I love animation personally, but every mixed media fandom has people who are weirdly proud of never watching the animated parts for reasons they seem to think are self-evident.

Because it would terrify them to admit that elements of Star Trek are....childish.

They've made it an identity.

It's even weirder when it's Star Wars and DC/Marvel. Like these are literally properties made for children dude, relax.

[stryke]

To play Devil's Advocate I think it's worth noting that Lower Decks really did not make a good case for it's existence starting out. That first episode especially, and to a lesser extent the ones that followed it were exactly what people feared they would be. A shameless Rick and Morty knock off that cheapened the whole universe. I've since lightened on that opininon a bit as I've seen Final Space since which is even more shameless (a show what would also significantly improve) but it still wasn't a good look.

If I hadn't really been in need for something for to binge at the time, I'm really not sure I'd have made it past the first half of the season, and would have likely been incredibly dismissive of the show based on what I'd seen. Thankfully I stuck with it and somehow the show pulled off the usual s1-s3 Trek quality glow up, growing the beard what ever you want to call it, and they did it in record time by the end of the first season.

[CharlesPhipps]

My theory until proven otherwise is it was sold as RICK AND MORTY in Star Trek but they never wanted to do it and just made the pilot to sell it to the network.