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, it’d 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 (🖐️) fan base.
I don’t 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 aren’t available. But I just can’t believe the One Big Plot Arc that’s been building would necessitate ending the series by its resolution.
LD is a strong show. It’s lighthearted. It’s a breath of fresh air after the more decidedly darker, ethically challenging, and emotionally straining runs of TNG, Voyager, DS9. And Strange New Worlds… 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. I’m going to miss Lower Decks, badly. How can this happen? And why?
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, doesn’t necessarily automatically get you out of lower decks… 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 didn’t spend any time on the bridge; bridge crew was, what, 3 dozen people, max? The Ceritos is a California class; I’ve 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.