TV REVIEW: We can't get enough STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS season 4

While this text avoids spoilers, eight episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4 had been watched for evaluate.

Jerry O'Connell as Commander Jack Random and Tawny Newsome as Ensign Beckett Mariner appearing in episode 2, season 4 of Lower Decks streaming on Paramount+, 2023. — Photos: Paramount+.

In Lower Decks season 4, the crew of the California Class USS Cerritos return for a fourth batch of adventures. Yet despite the truth that the sequence has confirmed its core idea 3 times over, Lower Decks season 4 shouldn’t be content material to relaxation on its narrative haunches, as an alternative pushing additional into sequence (and Franchise) themes and digging deeper progressively deeper into each Trek and Lower Decker lore.

Beyond Bold Boimler

In Lower Decks season 3, Ensign Bradward Boimler (Jack Quaid) pushed himself to be extra “bold.” In Lower Decks season 4, there’s a transparent effort by the sequence to increase its boundaries in the same approach.

While Lower Decks season 2 concluded with a cliffhanger, Lower Decks season 3 closed on a comparatively steady state of affairs. This included Ensign Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) rejoining the crew of the Cerritos on the conclusion of the season finale, “The Stars At Night.” Furthermore, whereas Ensign Samanthan Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) confronted the true origins of his implant over the course of the third season, he elected to retain it in “The Stars At Night.”

By opening on these comparatively steady character conditions, Lower Decks season 4 is free to launch Beta Shift and the Cerritos crew at massive into unusual, new conditions. Building on the primary three seasons, the present is ready to confidently throw its characters into some unusually weird conditions (even by Star Trek requirements). This yields memorable, participating, and entertaining outcomes.

Far Beyond the Cartoons

Lower Decks season 4 additionally continues a pattern the sequence has been leaning into since its first season finale: the unabashed integration and exploration of beforehand established Star Trek canon. This consists of visitor stars and episode plots that closely draw upon earlier exhibits, falling into the vein of episodes like season 3’s Star Trek: Deep Space Nine crossover, “Hear All, Trust Nothing.”

There’s additionally a continued exploration of one among Trek’s oldest-yet-arguably-least-developed alien species, the Orion. As one of many first Orion officers in Starfleet, Ensign D’Vana Tendi (Noël Wells) has supplied an more and more complicated depiction of a person who’s working towards folks’s preconceived notions. This has afforded Lower Decks the chance to extra absolutely flesh out the Orion, with implausible thematic outcomes.

The growth of established Star Trek aliens can be current by way of the inclusion of Provisional Ensign T’Lyn (Gabrielle Ruiz). Lower Decks followers already fell in love with T’Lyn when she appeared in season 2’s “wej Duj,” and her switch to the Cerritos in “The Stars At Night” supplies one other narrative springboard for the sequence to launch off as quickly as season 4 begins. Previous glimpses of Vulcan characters on Lower Decks have already confirmed to be extremely entertaining, and T’Lyn’s extra outstanding presence solely permits for these to extend.

Finally, along with mining the broader Trek canon, Lower Decks season 4 additionally digs deep into its personal continuity. This consists of components starting from particular person characters (as revealed by the season 3 commentaries and season 4 trailer) to the return of Trek species first launched by the sequence. Not solely do these present narrative fodder as fertile as the opposite included Trek components, however they are going to depart the viewer wanting ahead to what’s going to hopefully be many further seasons of Lower Decks, in order to discover these components additional nonetheless.

Lower Decks season 4

The performances of each actor concerned on this season are glorious and embrace impeccable and surprising deliveries of many strains destined to change into well-quoted classics. In addition to the Beta Shifters talked about above, the Cerritos bridge crew continues to steal the present.

This consists of the unimpeachable Captain Carol Freeman (Dawnn Lewis), the underrated First Officer Jack Ransom (Jerry O’Connell), the hilarious Shax (Fred Tatasciore) and Doctor T’Ana (Gillian Vigman), the quotable Kayshon (Carl Tart), head engineer Andy Billups (Paul Scheer) and ship counselor Doctor Migleemo (Paul F. Tompkins).

And in fact, there are additionally many further Cerritos crewmembers that seem over the course of the season. As befits its long-standing central idea, each character in Lower Decks season 4 feels fleshed out, even when they solely converse a number of strains.

This is one other batch of top-notch character-based sci-fi tales. It’s no surprise Trekkies can’t get enough Lower Decks.

The fourth season of Lower Decks premieres on Paramount+ on Thursday, September seventh, 2023.

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