It is not my intention to ignite an EMACS/vim war; I will say that I find it baffling that Lower Decks is ending while Strange New Worlds is being continued. I like Strange New Worlds, despite disagreeing with some of the artistic licenses being taken. But if I had to choose between the two shows, itโd be no contest. Not only as a viewer do I prefer LD, but it has to be the cheaper show to produce. The fact that next season is the last (both by design, it only being contracted for 5 years; and announcement) is sad and incomprehensible in the same way the cancelation of Firefly was - except LD is popular and successful, whereas Firefly merely had a fanatical (๐๏ธ) fan base.
I donโt understand it. Yes, you want to end on a high note. Maybe the writers are running out of plot ideas. Perhaps, given an initial life span of 5 years, the actors have all made other arrangements and arenโt available. But I just canโt believe the One Big Plot Arc thatโs been building would necessitate ending the series by its resolution.
LD is a strong show. Itโs lighthearted. Itโs a breath of fresh air after the more decidedly darker, ethically challenging, and emotionally straining runs of TNG, Voyager, DS9. And Strange New Worldsโฆ the Gorn are basically Xenomorphs from the Alien franchise.Who, despite being the existential threat of the show, somehow get entirely forgotten about by the time in TOS.
But I digress. Iโm going to miss Lower Decks, badly. How can this happen? And why?
I barely just got to watch the first season on Amazon Video as a Prime member. Someday Iโm hoping the rest of the seasons will be included in Prime, because Iโm not subscribing to Paramount.
My objection is that this will cap LD at five seasons. Itโs seven for a trek series dammit.
i love both shows but i donโt think theyโre really comparable. LD is a very very very good spinoff but it canโt be the tentpole Trek series, whereas SNW was more or less engineered to be that for this generation
I agree. Lower Decks is a great show in itโs own rights and I know lots of people who like it without any previous experience in Star Trek, but it is very much a love letter to the series.
SNW is an outstanding show for first timers and a younger crowd. In a lot of ways, I kind of wish I could experience Trek with SNW as my first show.
whereas Firefly merely had a fanatical (๐๏ธ) fan base
Whereas if Fox hadnโt royally screwed up Fireflyโs production and release, it would easily have been โpopular and successfulโ. Feels like apples and oranges to me.
However, I do agree that Lower Decks is a great show and cancellation makes little sense to me as well. But Strange New Worlds also is a great show, including the artistic license (which Iโll be the one to say โSubspace Rhapsodyโ was amazing, I donโt care what anyone says) and Iโm happy it is continuing.
I just thought Subspace Rhapsody was a bit boring, with too much โLook, itโs this character, but singing!โ and not enough actual Star Trek plot. When we only get 10 episodes a season, the plot of each one is very important, imo.
Other than that, Iโve mostly loved Strange New Worlds. The Lower Decks crossover especially. I love grapplers.
I havenโt seen strange new worlds, but thereโs an entire episode in voyager dedicated to the doctor singing. Not my favorite episode, but I didnโt hate it either.
Iโm going to miss LD, but Iโd rather a show go out strong than with a whimper.
I agree. I just fell like there were still places they could have gone with it. Apparently, even with promotions. Getting a half pip, or even a full one, doesnโt necessarily automatically get you out of lower decksโฆ and how fast do promotions come? Once every year or two - no faster, certainly.
And if we can have shows about the bridge crew, and shows about lower decks, we could certainly have shows about the in-between strata. An (original) Enterprise class had a crew of CA 400 people. Most of this didnโt spend any time on the bridge; bridge crew was, what, 3 dozen people, max? The Ceritos is a California class; Iโve seen estimates of a crew compliment of 160. If we assume a max of 40 bridge crew (on rotation, with alternates), that leaves 120 people in other categories. Plenty of room for new assignments, duties, experiences; hell, except for re-assignments to other ships, they could drag the show out indefinitely. The bridge crew characters would take the most attrition.
