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Star Trek: Lower Decks to Conclude with Fifth and Final Season
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this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2024
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The Tilly part is just being assumed at this point, but it would be the obvious choice. I predict suckage regardless.
Edit: Now confirmed to be in the 32nd century, Tilly still a maybe. https://trekmovie.com/2024/04/10/mary-wiseman-really-doesnt-want-to-talk-about-tilly-returning-on-star-trek-starfleet-academy/
I find this to be an incredibly reductive stance. To just anticipate it's going to suck and act negative towards the thing before there's anything even done for it. I don't understand it. In a franchise that pushes so frequently for the forefront of hope and positivity it just blows my mind that people are so angry about something that they might not like made for people other than them.
As I said below, it feels like a money saver and a way to appeal to an untapped demographic, not a way to make good Star Trek. If it's good despite that, great. But I don't think it will be. I don't even blame anyone involved with the actual production. This is Paramount killing its own brand because they think it will get younger people to sign up for Paramount+.
And that's what I mean by gatekeepy comments. 'Good Star Trek' is completely subjective, not objective. It does not fit one specific mold or one specific criteria. Just because it's not for you doesn't mean that it's bad Star Trek. Just because it's for a different demographic doesn't mean that it's bad Star Trek. More over, It has not been released yet. You are basing this entirely off of concepts and theories thrown around not even the content itself and holding up to a personal card as to what Star Trek is. There's no allowance for evolution or even leeway when the show isn't released. It isn't "killing its own brand" to introduce people to the franchise who aren't you or the same demographic that's been appealed to for the past 60 years.
This is a really dangerous and negative mindset to have and one of the reasons why I have avoided Star Trek fanbases for so long. Why so many people I know avoid the fanbase. Because we're tired of seeing people act like they're the arbiter of Trek and like there's some golden framing that Star Trek fits into and has never stepped outside of. It's also the exact same mindset that went after TNG when it was released for not being like TOS, after DS9 for not being like TNG or TOS, Voyager for not being like everything else, Enterprise, Discovery, Lower Decks, Strange New Worlds, etc. It's just another in a long line of really negative behavior and one that I genuinely never expected from you.
I think you're missing what I'm saying here. As I said, if it's good despite that, that's great. I'm just not optimistic about it because Paramount is going down the same road as Max. It's really not about the people behind Star Trek. It's about the people behind Paramount.
If Goldsman and the others can take Paramount trying to screw them over, and that's what I believe Paramount is doing, and turn it into something good, I hope they can. I just am not optimistic about it because this sounds to me in every way like executives saying "find a way to get young people into it without costing us too much money" and not producers and showrunners saying "let's make a really good show."
As you know, this is an industry I have a lot of experience with. Executive meddling is something I can smell. This is totally executive meddling.
Can good things come out of executive meddling? Yes. But much more often no. And that isn't the fault of Akiva Goldsman or the Roddenberry family or anyone who actually likes Star Trek.
That is my issue. That these decisions are not coming from people who like Star Trek, they're coming from people who want to use Star Trek for the most greedy reasons.
Edit: You brought up Discovery already. Discovery was not meddled with, at least not at first. The showrunners were given a huge amount of creative freedom because it was a free-for-all at that point and they were able to do all sorts of things executives might have turned down otherwise. The entire media landscape has changed since then.
So TNG. And DS9. And Voyager. And Enterprise. And the Kelvinverse. Literally every show/movie ever made in Trek has been with money at the forefront and none of them have been made with "lets make a really good show" as the core concept. No show in history has been made with that as the core concept with maybe the exception of Mr Rogers. There are no bright eyed idealists who sit at Star Trek meetings and invent the show. Every single one of them has been calculated and tested and based 100% off of profit figures. This isn't a new concept. Berman controlled Trek longer than anyone else and none of those shows were made with 'Good Star Trek' in mind which is proven from behind the scenes stories from every cast member of every single show. TNG had problems with Berman on making certain episodes to the point that they became famous for never being made as well as the casting/contract negotiations for the women who were put through hell. DS9 was a story that was outright stolen from another and creator after he pitched the idea to CBS and was meddled with so much by Berman and production that the show runner had to actively lie to producers and keep things from them to make good Trek. Voyager was largely left alone but only due to the testament of Kate Mulgrew being awful enough on set. Enterprise was purely a creation of Berman and is demonstrated through every gross decontamination shower. The Kelvinverse is largely hated by people for many reasons but not least of which being the JJ Daily Show line of him not liking Star Trek and wanting to make Trek for people outside of the core group.
This is actually the opposite of what happened. Discovery came in originally as an anthology series to follow individual crews across individual ships per season. It was also set to have a darker and spookier theme from the show than was in other shows. Bryan Fuller actively said that he was trying to make the 'Star Trek answer to American Horror Story' and literally none of that DNA is left in the show. The studio then kept pressing more and more until the only thing that was left was a darker tone and 1031 being left as the registry. That ID chosen specifically because it is the date of Halloween and was supposed to reflect spookiness. The only other thing Bryan had his foot down on that didn't shake was the lead actress. He wanted a woman of color as the role and Sonequa was his first choice but it would have required waiting for her contract with AMC to be up which led to tensions with CBS execs to the point that they asked him to step down as a showrunner. They then replaced him with two other people who were already working on the show and both of them were fired in the second season. Kurtzman then took over until Michelle Paradise (a writer on the show up until this point and a lesbian) became co-show runner in Season 3 onwards. She's the reason why got so much more LGBTQ representation on the show in Season 3.
Discovery was heavily meddled with at first to the point that the show isn't reflective of the original pitch and the show runners were fired. From then the show has been able to do basically whatever it wants. Helps that Kurtzman is a co-showrunner in that regard so more weight but the show is blatantly not swaying to company interests when it pisses people off to no end. Discovery gets far more negative press coverage than positive press coverage. Discovery barely got any coverage at all from Paramount themselves in the lead up to the final season of the show.
But that being said, my issue with your comments is exclusively the demographics bit. Nothing in this comment I particularly disagree with. But I'm reading your responses in other comments and will address that there. Sorry.
Well, again, I have no issue with the demographics thing in a specific show. I had no criticisms of Prodigy's being a Star Trek show catered for a specific demographic. It's that it's looking like it will be the only show.
And, I admit, I'm suspicious of what the executives will do with this project.
No dude, it isn't. You keep saying this but it's not true. They're currently working on Season 3 of SNW and the concept of it ending after 5 seasons is pure speculation. They're also currently working on two different Star Trek movies. They also were working on SNW long before it was announced because it takes time behind the scenes to write out the concept for a show, work on the idea, figure out the cast/crew and what not. The push for Legacy by fans is as intense as SNW but it took them almost two years to announce SNW because they had to make sure everything behind the scenes lined up.
There's no reason to believe that it's going to be the only show.
I already said I was speculating. But I my speculation is based on the fact that every new Trek show so far has gotten five seasons or fewer. I don't know that SNW would be an exception to that.
It's teen drama. It's not my cup of tea no matter how good. I understand Dawson's Creek was very popular. I didn't like it.
Okay. Doesn't change a single thing about what I said though. You aren't every Star Trek fan and not every Star Trek show has to appeal to you. If you don't like it, don't watch it.
While there is nothing wrong with trying something new, the point of using a franchise is to leverage the existing fanbase.
If you can't get the fanbase enthusiastic you have a problem. Since you aren't leveraging the existing fan base and the franchise will alienate some of your new target fan base.
Replying to every comment that expresses an ambivalent or pessimistic view about a new show doesn't change that. It just makes this space seem hostile to discussion.
That's... Not the point of a franchise. The point of a franchise is to continue a story or path in a world from perspectives beyond that of our originating characters. The only criteria of a franchise is that it must take place in the same world. There is nothing about a franchise that's specifically built to cater to the same fans endlessly. Defining a franchise as "Something to leverage existing fans" is just strange.
If you wanna be negative or pessimistic that's fine. My issue comes with the outright gatekeeping that is going on here. If you don't wanna like the show, fine, but just because you don't like it doesn't make it bad. Just because it's for a different demographic than normal doesn't make it bad. And just because one demographic might not like it when they've had every other piece of Trek catered to them doesn't make it bad. Every single complaint I've responded to has used demographics as the core argument by saying that its alienating the core fan base but that doesn't matter. Not everything has to be made for that core fan base. Acting like it's a problem if something isn't made for them and is made for a new group of people is outright gatekeeping.
That's a bold claim to make, and it's not unreasonable that someone would disagree with you on it. The point of an established universe is obviously the background that the universe brings. Otherwise you may as well just create an entirely new universe. And given that the background is the value of the universe, there is a limitation to how far you can reasonably expect to bend it before the interpretation of the universe shifts from "fresh" to "hostile".
For example, I'm not a particularly big fan of the Avatar movies, but they're clearly pushing a naturalistic, shamanistic anti-corporate utopian vision. It's not my cup of tea, but that is what the universe IS. If the next movie comes out and the Nav'i create planet-wide Walmart franchise and spend two hours boosting their stock price, it is absolutely reasonable to look at that at the VERY least as a wasteful use of the franchise, and it is not negativity for fans of the franchise to complain that it is not what they signed up for.
Now, we can argue all day about where that line is, but to suggest there ISN'T one at all is extreme.
We're talking about two different things here. You're talking about lore accuracy and new shows needing to stick to that and not hard countersteer into a new behavior/world building/etc that doesn't make sense with what's been previously established.
I am saying that there is no part of a franchise that is supposed to bow to the whims of older fans, fans that have been around longer, or a specific core demographic. That you can show stuff to other demographics and people that do not violate established lore/world building in any way. That it's just a new view and that not everything has to be about that same core demographic over and over and over again.
They are two very different things. there isn't an argument to be had here.
There's more to an established universe than just the lore and plot. The tone, setting, and ethos of the world are every bit as important as the factual nature of what's already happened. I'm not going to make a claim that the idea of a teen drama in the Star Trek universe is inconsistent with reality of the Star Trek franchise's universe, but it is fair to say it is inconsistent with the established tone. I'm not making the claim that's going to mean it's bad, but it is completely fair and valid for existing fans to voice concern about that tonal shift. The tone is no less important to a series than the events that take place within them. If Luke's hand being sliced off in Empire Strikes Back was played as a comic, silly moment, even though the events are consistent with the established universe, and in fact exactly the same, the nature of the scene and the franchise in which it happens are altered. These are not trivial concerns.
Ignore the previous deleted comment. I was copying part of your comment to quote and hit enter while hovering over the post button. Apparently that's a thing with my browser or something. Sorry. To the response.
Edit: I had to edit this comment because the same thing happened AGAIN.
I disagree. We've seen episodes that focus on periods during Starfleet Academy for specific characters, we've had the episode with Wesley in TNG, the slew of stuff in Discovery that is comparative between Tilly and the crew as well as the entirety of Prodigy. Then there's Star Trek The Animated Series and Lower Decks which are also a pretty big tonal shift but is no less consistent than anything else with how they fit into the world.
Even if that tone wasn't pre-established in the world, the world itself still allows for it. We've seen the tone shift when we focus on Klingons or on Ferengi or on Vulcans or on Romulans. Entire episodes and sections of movies are spent on them. That's a pretty heavy tonal shift but it's done because Star Treks whole thing is the exploration of new worlds, new peoples, new views and new tones. I'm just not sure why everything else in the galaxy gets a complete pass but focusing on young adults who are learning the ideals of Starfleet (which, again, is pretty similar to Prodigy) at an academy in the future is suddenly a huge problem.
There is a difference between showing concern and outright gatekeeping which is what I was responding to originally.
This is a flagrantly disingenuous comparison. The creation of Starfleet Academy and focusing on a new view with new characters in an area that we know deals with these things is no where close to taking a pre-established moment and playing it in a different tone completely. The existence of this show does not undermine or overwrite the tone of any other show like you're suggesting with that comparison. This is a new show with new characters showing a new side of the same coin. It is not rewriting anything or relighting anything.
It's possible I wasn't clear here. I'm not suggesting changing the tone of it as it already exists, but that if its original tone had been different the entire tone of the film and the universe would have been completely different as well. And while I agree that Star Trek has often had many different tones over the course of all the series and media, it's one thing to have a tone for a particular episode or two parter, and another to have such a drastically different tone for an entire series. Additionally, while we DO explore Wesley's situation at Starfleet academy, and other aspects of younger Starfleet cadets in episodes like the DS9 episode where a ship is entirely staffed by cadets, it's still usually viewed not primarily through their eyes, but through the eyes of the established crew, keeping the tone of the series consistent overall. This is very different than say, hypothetically, changing gears in season 6 of TNG and deciding to make Wesley the main character.
That said, the TNG episode Lower Decks handles this idea extraordinarily well, so it's entirely possible the entire thing will work and be fine. But it's also equally possible it could be such a drastic tonal shift that it does not. I don't see it as unreasonable or overreacting for longtime fans to, sight unseen given the scant information we DO know, view it with wariness.
Ah okay, my mistake there and I apologize for misunderstanding. I agree on that end but my response would be just reiterating what I said earlier in my comment so I won't annoy you with just repeating myself for no reason.
Again, I disagree with this pretty heavily. Every Trek show (with maybe the exception of Voyager) has set it's own very distinct and individual tone. TOS and TAS are leagues apart but so are both of them from TNG. DS9 took on a darker tone. VOY, as much as I love it, strikes a very similar tone to just a combo of DS9 and TNG. ENT went out of their way to set a tone so hated that it nearly killed the franchise. DSC came back with it's own very distinct tone that is darker and more action oriented than the other series before it. LD then sets it's own extremely specific comedic tone and Prodigy sets another that's focused on kids themselves. SNW doesn't so much set it's own tone as update and revamp the tone from TOS. But like I said, why do all of those other shows get a pass but suddenly Starfleet Academy is such a problem? As mentioned with Prodigy, it's not even a first for a series to be focused on younger audience in the Trek universe and it was so beloved that a fanpush got it taken over to Netflix to continue its story.
Again, the person I was originally responding to was not showing a basic concern. It was outright gatekeeping and a very different thing than what we're currently discussing.
I don't know if it's necessarily that they get a pass. As you said, Enterprise was very poorly received by many fans, and that's more or less directly attributable at least in part to its different tone. The other series have their naysayers too, although not necessarily on a tonal basis. It's easy for us to look back now with the benefit of hindsight and say what worked and what didn't. So I guess the question is, we live in an era now where we get more information about what is coming that we have ever had before. When Enterprise launched, it was more or less a black box to the fans until it was actually on the air. If we had known in advance the writers/directors' intent about Enterprise's tone while it was in production, and voiced concern, could the final product have been altered into a version of the show that would've succeeded better? We can't know now, of course, but we're in this situation with Starfleet Academy, and if there's enough gut feeling that there's potential for it to be handled badly, a cautious approach might be warranted. Being left in the production's hands WITHOUT fan feedback on potential tonal shifts HAS backfired on trek shows before.
Fair enough.
I get being concerned about a potential tone conflict but this is for an entirely different group of people and demographic. I'm just not sure that the weight of adult fans get to have on a show for teenagers. That's my concern with all of this. A lot of the complaints have just been a bunch of adults saying that the tone of the show is too far from what they're used to. Well, yeah. Because it's not for them. Enterprise had it's naysayers but it also has plenty of people who are for it. Because there are some naysayers who don't like it, does that mean that their opinion suddenly have more weight than the people who like it? The people who don't like it, well, they can stop watching it. Do they have the right to say "Stop making a thing I don't like for people who aren't me"?
A totally valid point of view.
But it's also a valid point of view to point out that in spite of its fans, Enterprise was still canceled. And shows in the franchise being killed off frequently due to unsustainable interest is ultimately not good for the franchise as a whole, regardless of individual interest in particular iterations. The ultimate fear is that such a wide range of tones attempting to capture different audiences ultimately results in none of them capturing enough of an audience to justify their existence, and then the whole franchise gets written off for another dry spell like we had post-Enterprise. That's not good for anyone.
That's a gatekeepers argument. It's not an argument for the strength of the show itself, it's fear of something new and to shun that new thing because it might shake the status quo. It's nonsense. Especially when we're talking about a franchise like Star Trek which is specifically dedicated to the idea of representing different audiences and peoples. The idea that the series is being "too diverse" is just ridiculous. That's literally the point of everything in the shows. To show diversity and inclusion through that strength. There are numerous quotes from the shows specifically saying that.
I also still am not giving any weight to what you're saying here because you're not part of that demographic. At no point in this conversation have you ever considered them. Every single retort of yours has just been "Yeah but it might make things worse for me and other older fans. Who cares about the new ones?"
Fear of the unknown, fear of something knew, and hiding behind tradition is the exact type of shit that Star Trek goes out of its way to say is a terrible thing to hold onto. Especially, again considering you have repeatedly ignored me saying this, every single show has had a radically different tone to varying degrees of success. Fearing that this new tone is going to break it is just the same argument that's been made since TNG was released and I'm not entertaining this nonsense any longer.
Goodbye.
I'm not saying that IS what's going to happen. Please don't put words in my mouth. But to say there is ZERO concern that it CAN happen is to ignore a very realistic scenario.
You're right, I'm not a part of the target demographic. But that's not point. The point is if that demographic wants what is being offered. Sure, this is targeted at them, but is their audience out there asking for this? If there is an audience, absolutely, they should have the show they want.
I'm not ignoring that there have been varied tones in various Trek shows. I am however, pointing out that not all of those tones have been successful, and that's a cause for concern. Star Trek isn't some public domain franchise that can be picked up at any time by anyone, Paramount's begrudging allowance for fan projects not withstanding. The success of the franchise and the ability to keep new Trek coming depends on the success of the series that are produced. If a series cannot sustain an audience, it hurts the viability of the franchise as a whole in the eyes of the people who fund production, and that is a legitimate concern.
But while I don't know that there is a teenage Star Trek audience looking for a show targeted at them, I KNOW there is an audience looking for the tone of the older Star Trek show tones because they are vocally and visibly looking for it right now.
I'm not arguing a Star Trek show targeted to teenagers shouldn't exist because I don't want it. That's a nonsense argument. I'm arguing the simple reality that there are limited resources for producing these shows, and Paramount is the only company that gets to make them. This is not some projected negativity - this is simple reality. And for all the idealized, lofty goals there are, if they don't establish and keep an audience, Paramount will shut them down. It's not gatekeeping to suggest building an audience where one doesn't exist yet is harder than keeping an existing one, and it's a gamble with the future of the franchise to paint such a wide target, particularly without an anchor series that you can point to and say "This is the secure flagship series we're building these other series around." That doesn't exist. Every single one of the current series is in a precarious position. That is a cause for concern.
Also, on a side note, I would like to point out that many of us became Star Trek fans during the TNG/DS9/Voyager era, and we were teenagers then. Those shows were not specifically targeted at us, but they still captured our imagination and won us over. A show doesn't have to be about teenagers to appeal to teenagers. Again, this is not to say this SHOULDN'T exist, but you are making it sound like the idea that thinking Paramount could focus their efforts elsewhere instead is somehow an attack on teenagers, and some form of discrimination. I assure you, that is not my intent, and I don't think it's anybody else's either. There are lots of reasons to be concerned this is not the right path, or that it might not succeed, other than having some kind of agenda against the young.
I see your last response to me as a bit of an overreaction, but regardless, it's your opinion and you're entitled to it. I apologize for allowing it to overcome me and overreacting myself to make this response seem overly hostile, but at the end of the day it certainly sounds like there is no argument that could be made to you that would legitimize someone's concern that Starfleet Academy might not be the right path for the franchise to take, and if that's the case, you're right that there's no point in continuing the discussion. I hope you continue to enjoy the franchise we love and wish you the best, regardless.
Goodbye.