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Dec 05, 2025 By Steve King

A few years ago I made a ranking of Star Trek shows for this site. Some readers had complaints about Lower Decks not being included in that list. I was aware of the show and had been introduced to it by friends, but I admittedly didn’t take it seriously at the time. I was wrong. After spending the majority of the last few years locked away, constantly watching Trek, I’m ready to correct that prior mistake. Star Trek: Lower Decks is the greatest show in the franchise. And it’s not even close.

Before we begin I have to acknowledge my previous ranking of the best Trek show. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine remains the best live action series in franchise history, but it does get a little dreary, and while it’s primarily about exploring inner space, Lower Decks is about exploring inner AND outer space. So it kind of towers over all of them. I was aware of Lower Decks and had watched some of it, but it wasn’t until the Strange New Worlds crossover episode “Those Old Scientists” that I became a true lower decker. And of course that episode was directed by Johnny Frakes!

I am a hardcore Trekkie. I was a contributor to the crowdfunded DS9 documentary. I bought the Picard art by Data and all of the series-accurate Trek wines. I have the Tom Paris plate. I still have Andy Robinson’s Garak book that came out in 2000, and a friend took it to Vegas, and got it signed. My wife now knows Trek better than I do, and we have a spotted cat named Ezri. We fully plan to get the talking Moopsy toy.

For the purposes of brevity, Lower Decks will be further be affectionately referred to here as LD, which Trekkies already call it. Premiering in 2020, Lower Decks was part of the New Golden Age of Trek and spearheaded by Robert Kurtzman. It all started in 2017 with Star Trek: Discovery and has not yet come to an end.

Paramount’s acquisition by Skydance has thrown the future of Trek into doubt and uncertainty, but for now, it is still going strong and has been the most successful and innovative since the Berman Era in the ’90s. All fandoms love to complain about the bosses, but the Kurtzman Era is beyond dispute, the best. So it’s a little too emo and into its feelings, whatever. So it’s queer as hell, get the fuck over yourselves, dorks!

As much as LD is about taking the piss out of Trek, it’s also about the low-level jobs that make Starfleet what it is. While it’s a love letter to the Berman Era, it has a deep appreciation of both old and new Trek. There are deep cuts to the Original Series and the Animated Series but it ultimately treads its own path. They curse with abandon and creativity but it’s super queer and accessible as hell. There are hijab-wearing and visibly disabled crewmembers. The cast itself is packed to the gills with multi-talented performers.

Rather than just using voice-actors for the show, they have real performers. They can sing, many are standup comedians, most are legit working actors. I mean, Ensign Brad Boimler is played by Jack Quaid, a legit good actor and nepo baby supreme of Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid. He is probably the best of the nepo babies. He has carved out a path all his own and seems like a genuinely delightful person. I love him like a member of the family, and there are two references to the best RomCom ever, Plus One.

Ensign Beckett Mariner, the real main character, is played by Tawny Newsome. Actor, singer, baddie, and again, another seemingly lovely human being who just so happens to have an encyclopedic knowledge of Trek. Is a pattern beginning to form here? It’s almost like everyone involved with LD is a lot of fun to be around!

The Core Four are then rounded out by SNL alum and artist/musician Noel Wells’ Ensign D’Vana Tendi (Orion, lowkey stacked and bangin, pirate-adjacent intrepid science office who is always right, especially when people aren’t listening to her) and has never done anything wrong in her life) and Ensign Samanthan “Ruthie” Rutherford, played by actor/comedian Eugene Cordero. Doctor T’ana and Lt. Commander Shaxx had insane holodeck sexplay. LD has the first Black woman captain to start a Trek show. There are a lot of others in the recurring cast who are multi-talented and incredible people in general but an editor has to save time when they can. Suffice it to say, LD is one of those blessed productions that’s gushing with talent and good vibes. The bench is very deep. And that’s not even getting into the supporting cast and other old school Trek alums.

While much of the Kurtzman Era of Trek has seemed to focus on moving Trek into the far future (Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy), LD has been the true last show of the Berman Era, essentially covering the time between Star Trek: Nemesis and Star Trek: Picard. It is firmly rooted in the late 24th century, right after the Dominion War but just before the Romulan supernova.

With Disco, Strange New Worlds, and LD, the new normal for the series isn’t the Berman Era seven seasons run; it has been reduced to the classic five-year journey. The reason for this is obvious. It’s mostly the bottom line, as these shows cost a lot of money to make and in the time of streaming, the returns are nearly always diminishing. But if any of the New Trek shows deserved seven seasons and a movie, it was LD.

So much of New Trek is stuck in its feelings (looking at you, Disco). LD has its share of complicated emotional issues, but it’s fun, and it LIKES to have fun. I mean, outside of Data, have we seen the bridge crew cheering after a space battle? That kind of thing only happens in Star Wars! And the show’s major ship, the Cerritos, is the “statistically horniest and least romantically committed crew in Starfleet.” There are even Pyrithian bats and Swamp Gobblers!

The entire cast, even down to its guests, are constant and creative pioneers of curse words and dirty jokes. I’m talking rapid-fire jokes. The kind of comedy that makes you have to go back because while you were laughing at one joke, they had already cracked a few more. It requires multiple viewings in order to mentally catalog all of the jokes. How many other Trek shows have made a carpet matches the drapes reference, or referred to the Enterprise as the “purple D,” or talked about “the firm hot pulse of a joystick in your hand?” What other Star Trek show has ever used the term rawdog?? But this is the show snuck a sativa and indica joke into the dialogue. There was even a Gumato(sic?) three-way cuck scene in one episode that was particularly dirty. The nastiest joke, in my opinion, was that some Hysperian royal guards were “trained from birth to skip foreplay.” Follow that line to its literal conclusion and it’s truly equal parts terrible and funny. When Boilmer and Rutherford are being twin Twains in the holodeck, Rutherford, says, “Well, I’ll be happier than a milkman’s horse.” Think about it.

The show has a big emphasis on self-confidence. Technically first referenced by Scotty in the Next Gen crossover episode “Relics,” the term “Buffer Time” is not just a way to work, but also a way of life. No show in Trek history has given more information and context to Orion culture either. The Ritos shirts are in the same style and font as the Disco shirts. Trek has always had a lot of Frasier crossover, actor-wise, but the inclusion of Captain Morgan Bateson was awesome. There’s a “Night Bird” reference. There was even a reference to one of the best Trek episodes ever, “Subspace Rhapsody!” Nick Locarno, Sonya Gomez, Sito Jaxa, Grand Negus Rom (Max Grodénchik), and now First Clerk Leeta (Chase Masterson) and Shut Up(!) Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) all appear and are played by their original actors.

The Koala shows up in the credit sequence. There are scratches and spots on the lens in the “Crisis Point” episodes in the holodeck. It even changes the aspect ratio. Gary Cole cameos for just a few lines are holo-da Vinci, and there are a few sly references to the Enterprise finale and Nemesis. The space battles are truly something to behold in 4K. You can see all of the hard work that went into the scratches and imperfections in the ships’ hulls. There’s pinkish red/purple Klingon blood! Kayshon (played by Carl Tart, another SNL talent) says something to the effect of “Zendaya’s eyes red” multiple times. The captain scats. Boimler screams a lot.

Aside from the insane jokes, callbacks, and easter eggs, there are the legacy Trek cameos… LD was able to pull off from a lot of actors revisiting their old roles. LD was able to get JG Hertzler as a holo-Martok, a hallucination of George Takei as a Nexus-adjacent and retired Sulu, and Nana Visitor as Kira Nerys, still watching over Deep Space Nine, with the help of forever entrepreneur Quark (Arim Shimerman). They even got a holo James Cromwell on the Phoenix ride, accompanied by the statue of Zefram Cochrane first mentioned in Star Trek: First Contact. Both Riker and Troi (Johnny Frakes and Marina Sirtis) show up a couple times. Alice Krige came back as the Borg Queen in the holodeck. Brent Spiner showed up, yet again, as another Data. They even got Kurtwood Smith! And Jeffrey goddamn Combs! But in classic LD fashion they saved the best for last. For all of the public’s and Boimler’s own dissatisfaction with the idea of the Multiverse, they did it very well at the end of the series run.

The end of the show was stuffed with insane cameos and characters that we hadn’t seen in a long time. It even gave a happy ending, of a sort, to the deeply-loved and done-dirty Trip Tucker. There apparently is another reality in which Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) ranked up. Lily Sloane (Alfre Woodard, adopted godmother to Johnathan Frakes in real life, yes I’m serious, listen to the First Contact commentary) is a captain and she’s in the Enterprise jumpsuit while also piloting a ship called the Beagle (we miss you, Porthos). Another insane inclusion was finally(!) variants of Dr. Bashir and Garak from DS9 together as the gay couple many of us always wanted them to be, and they were even bathed in a rainbow light backdrop. So much fan service was done in LD‘s grand finale, with the biggest being the return of Jolene Blalock’s T’Pol. To get Jolene, after such a long time away not only from the fanbase and show business in general, will live on in Trek history forever. It wasn’t fan service. It was more than wish fulfillment. It was a wishlist of the Berman Era. And it was all on a NX Defiant class ship.

There may be questions we all have about LD and its characters that we may never get answers to. Such is Trek, but the new Starfleet Academy show looks like it has a few clues about some of our favorite lower deckers. And who knows, Strange New Worlds will hopefully have another crossover episode. I mean, we all want Ruthie and Tendi to get together and for Mariner and Ransom to bone. And what was the deal with that last name?! We can all suspect the Voyager connection. Come on! Is Jennifer a descendant of Shran?!

LD, dare I say it, is a better tribute to the Berman Era than Picard was. The final season of Picard did have the reunion, and the Enterprise D, as contrived as it was, but compared the overall Picard bleakness to LD and it’s really no contest. Normal Berman Era Trek had seven seasons and should have resulted in many more movies. Considering Strange New Worlds is coming to an end in the next few years, that the Section 31 film was so unfortunate, and how ill-fated and mismanaged Star Trek: Prodigy was, we, the fans, deserve a Lower Decks movie. With the absence of seasons six and seven, I don’t think one LD movie is too much to ask for. It deserves a film.

Modern politics being what it is, and the almost complete capitulation to the 80-year-old president with heart disease by corporate America, the Paramount/Skydance merger has thrown a lot of what we know of Trek and this new Golden Age into a lot of doubt. There are rumors of Robert Kurtzman’s imminent firing as current Trek boss and the return of Trek to the big screen. Hey, we all want more movies, but not at the expense of the shows. Trek was doing cross platform storytelling long before the MCU.

At its heart Lower Decks is about friendship. It’s not just about the Core Four, but the whole crew, with all of their eccentricities and imperfections. Lower Decks is about many things, some that have already happened, others that are yet to come, but it has always been about something to look forward to and limitless potential.

www.paramountplus.com/shows/star-trek-lower-decks

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