So, unlike Discovery, this show is a lot more serialized, which is much more Trek-like honestly. There is some loose callbacks within the seasons, mostly at the end of the seasons, but otherwise, each episode is mostly just its own mission or activity. Or more often, several missions or activities.
Unlike most Trek shows, this one follows the “lower decks” crew. As the name would suggest. There is a bridge crew that shows up, but they are not the focus. Instead, it’s, all those people running around in the background shots of every episode, doing God knows what, keeping the ship running. At least that’s the pitch, but the command crew gets quite a bit of screen time and characterization as well, particularly the Captain.
The show in general is kind of a huge love letter to Trek fans. It makes fun of a lot of Trek Tropes, but it does so in a very tongue-in-cheek way that makes it feel like it’s meant in a good way. Like, “We all know this is kind of dumb, but we are just going to not be serious about it.”. There are a lot of moments where the main 4 are literally stating, “We don’t know what is happening, that’s the senior officer’s job.”
The characters are all pretty likable as well. The two core heroes are Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler. They are basically your traditional odd couple type, and best friends on the ship. Mariner is highly able and experienced but has a massive history of avoiding the rules and general self-sabotage, while Boimler is an overachiever who can’t really get anywhere because he constantly gets in his own way. The secondary pair of heroes are D’Vana Tendi, an overly eager Orion medical ensign and Sam Rutherford, an obsessed with his work Engineer.
In addition to all the nods and jabs at Trek over the years, the show also does a good sort of deconstruction of the “lower tier life” of any large personnel outfit. They do their job well, but they also get annoyed by all the going-in-blind nonsense that the people up top push down on them. It’s almost like “The Office in Space” in that sense. Though the leadership isn’t completely incompetent on Lower Decks.
The crew is part of the USS Cerritos (another joke because it’s named after a boring small California Town). They go around doing primarily “2nd Contact” jobs. Once Starfleet has met with an alien planet for First Contact, the Cerritos is part of a group that comes in and helps them get things set up. They also do a lot of standard “scan this rock” style missions as well, and getting into other trouble.
There are a ton of references to previous Trek Material ranging from straight full plot parody to random nods here and there. There have also been episodes devoted to basically every one of the original Treks, though the TOS now was technically part of Strange New Worlds. A lot of the popular main characters have made cameos as well, voiced by their original actors.
The show has its own running gags and plots too though. The Pakleds are the pseudo-regular villains for the Cerritos, for example. The Pakleds themselves are kind of a ridiculous joke of an enemy, mostly known for being absolutely dead stupid. There is an entire regular subplot about how Mariner is very capable but just doesn’t want to move up in the ranks at all and keeps self-sabotaging herself. Also, despite that the Cerritos is supposed to kind of be a screw up ship, they always manage to save the day like the “big boys”.
It fills a nice hole in the Trek world right now, which feels like it’s trying to do a variety of things to appeal to everyone. Discovery has its single-character deep drama. Strange New Worlds is more “traditional Trek” but still a bit more lighter in nature, Lower Decks is a full-on comedy, that still does a good job of making things feel appropriate for the in-universe world. Granted, it has its exaggerations, Riker’s cameo in particular kind of felt a little too exaggerated. But overall, it’s a good show.
