RTR Blog: What Matt Hopes to See From Star Trek: Lower Decks

When the slew of new Star Trek series were announced over the past 18 months, the one that was most intriguing to me was Star Trek Lower Decks. This was partly because the concept of seeing the Star Trek universe through the eyes of lower ranked officers alone has an appeal and partly because it was going to be a comedic animated series. I love comedy. As much as I love Star Trek, Seinfeld will probably remain my favourite show of all time with The Simpsons also ranking very highly. The thought of an animated comedy Star Trek series is something that is of great interest to me. Star Trek has done its share of comedy episodes, but this is the first series that will purposefully put a comedic spin on Star Trek.

With the series premiere now only one day away(!!), here are some things I'm hoping to see as Star Trek Lower Decks journeys into the universe of the comedic:

First, and perhaps most obviously, I hope the animation is good. The trailer gives me high hopes that we won't get any weirdo animation style or attempts to be cutting edge. It appears that we're going to get an animation style in a similar vein to Futurama/Simpsons which is fine by me. Realistic enough but with little doubt that it is a cartoon and not a CGI faux-realistic show. It's a solid and tested style that I think will work really well with a comedic science fiction show.

It's an animated series, which means the reins of what can realistically be filmed in a live action series are completely gone. I hope the writers and producers take full advantage of this. When Andrew and I reviewed the TAS episode “The Infinite Vulcan”, we talked about the Phylosians, aliens that were sentient plants. I loved this idea. I hope we get to see all sorts of zany and wild aliens that would be virtually impossible to do in a live action series. The writers and animators are really limited by their own imagination rather than budgets or special effects technology. With this sort of limitation lifted, I'd love to see the writers and producers go completely wild with weird aliens and even spatial anomalies. There's no reason not to.

Being an animated comedy series, one fear I do have is that the show won't take itself seriously enough. I get that being a comedy and a cartoon, this isn't a show that should be taken quite as seriously as the live action shows, but I hope that this series isn't a full on farce. Parodies are fun and all but I think there are enough interesting possibilities with this concept that the writers don't need to make this a let's-poke-fun-at-Star-Trek kind of show.

One thing that I always look for in a comedy show is genuinely funny, intelligent humour. The Simpsons mastered this, particularly in the first ten or so seasons. I'm hopeful that the writers are able to make me laugh without resorting to low brow cheap laughs. I'm not necessarily talking about jokes that only die hard Star Trek fans will get or deep cuts into trivia, but rather funny things that require some level of thought. I'm sure they'll throw in some cheesy stuff here and there just because but I'm hoping the intelligent humour takes center stage. Afterall, Trek fans are supposed to be smart, right?

Finally, I hope that behind the humour we don't lose the essence of what Star Trek is. I've always regarded Star Trek as a positive vision of what humanity could be in the future. This central theme is what keeps drawing me back to the franchise, especially as I've gotten older. I hope that we don't lose that even in an adult comedy series. Sure I want to laugh, hear and see some good jokes, but I also want to see this key pillar of Star Trek on full display.

I'm very intrigued to see what Lower Decks has in store for us being only the second animated Star Trek series and the first full out comedy. There are certainly some interesting possibilities and different directions this show could take. I'm very eager to tune in and see what we get from Star Trek Lower Decks.