The lower decks end with a new beginning

Spoilers for The New Next Generation.

When Starfleet said it had sent the Enterprise to help the Serritos close the rift, I was worried. has spent the last four years emerging from the shadow of its more famous predecessor. Its grand finale needed no episodic focus extraction from either Next generation cast (or even fin ). Fortunately, no one came and we got one last chance to spend half an hour with the Cerritos crew on their last trip. At least for now.

The length of Earlier on… the sequence was clue enough that this was going to be a cluttered episode. In fact, it felt like creator Mike McMahon made it his mission to resolve every storyline in one episode. You can imagine that some of these would have been addressed in a future episode if the show hadn’t been canceled. But even with a slightly longer runtime, the episode moves too quickly for you to really enjoy it.

As usual, the Cerritos is the only ship close enough to him . On the way to close the rift, the crew meets and Malor fleeing a fleet of Klingon warships led by Relga, and sister. The fleet pursues Cerritos to the rift, which pumps waves of dimension-hopping uncertainty. This sets up a wonderful scene where the Cerritos is remade into different classes of ships as it moves towards the center of the rift.

All of this unfolds as Rutherford struggles with both his implant and his general dislike of Cerritos. Tandy and T’Lin ​​battle for supremacy as the ship’s senior science officer, and Beumler still uses his alternate self’s journal to advance his career. A normal half-hour show might accommodate story A and story B; here we are at least next to G or H. Given that a lot of the fun of this show is just inside spending time with these charactersit’s a shame that their farewell is shaken up like a tick on the bucket list.

There are many wonderful moments, such as when Mariner and Beumler go to Freeman and immediately believe them. In-universe, the characters have gained enough credibility to be taken at their word, and that’s touching. It’s also a sign of how far we’ve come compared to, say, the days of “.” Or when Rutherford realizes what’s wrong and is able to solve the problem by remembering that the Californian class is the Swiss Army knife of Starfleet. Or when Beumler breaks his pad to protect Mariner because their friendship is more important than his career.

The episode ends with the rift stabilizing, creating a permanent interdimensional wormhole to the multiverse. Starfleet tows Starbase 80 there, with William Beumler tasked with exploring the various dimensions there. But such a high-profile assignment needs an experienced leader, and so Captain Freeman is appointed to take command of Starbase 80. This means that Mariner must say goodbye to her mother, and Freeman must say goodbye to her devoted team of misfits.

Ransom takes command of the Cerritos, with Mariner and Boimler acting as joint first officers, at least for now. Rutherford has his implant removed, and it suddenly becomes clear to everyone how much he’s been in love with Tendi all this time. T’Lyn and Tendi are now happy best friends in science, sharing the role as the Cerritos head off to explore new parts of the galaxy. And Ransom’s choice of phrase for his warp command is completely in line with his love of exercise, and no, I won’t share it here.

You can never completely escape Star Trek once it’s on your CV, and I’ve said before that this isn’t the last we’ll see of the Cerritos crew. Animation doesn’t need your actors to stay the same age, and we could easily see a revival in a few years. McMehan was clear that season five is also being used to set up potential spin-off ideas, so there’s plenty of room for more. That’s why I won’t write an obituary for Lower decksno need for one.

Still, it’s crazy to think how things have changed since then Lower decks debuted as the wacky wildcard alongside its more august siblings. Discovery and Picard are meant to be reputable shows with Lower decks little more than the class clown for die-hard fans. Both turned out to be much less than the sum of their parts, while Lower decks kept the spirit of Star Trek much more effectively than the so-called better ones. It was the only one of that trio to emerge with anything close to a coherent legacy and genuine fan affection.

Lower decks knows this and ends his episode celebrating Cerritos and Star Trek in general. The show exists as a celebration of the everyday work that would never be admired in these brash, flashier, striker Tracks. The USS Cerritos is an island of misfit toys who have come together to make themselves and each other a little better. Hell, this might be a comment on Star Trek or Star Trek fans in general, but it’s cool to be one of those misfit toys.

Cerritos Strong!