Caught up again, but only because of a bit of a hiatus.
A good season of parts, with an underwhelming through-plot. Honestly, the earlier appearances did nothing other than signal ‘hey, there’s going to be a finale that explains this stuff’. Still, enough enjoyable episodes to be in the upper brackets of Trek seasons.
Looking through the episodes though, not one of them really blew me away. The finale two-parter was probably the strongest, but even that is just a fair way from where this series has been in the past. No stinkers, which is a relief when there’s only 10 episodes to consider, but nothing that is going to be a ‘much watch’ for me in the future.
I feel like when I compare to the potential I saw in the show back in Season 1 they just haven’t been fully delivering. The Star Trek universe feels more like a source of references for the most part, rather than a story. I do think the references are getting better balanced, able to stay in the background when needed, promoted to the foreground when needed for the plot. A change from the heavy handedness of early days.
Am I grading too hard on a curve? Perhaps, but there’s no question for me that this is the weakest of Lower Decks seasons to date. I think they need to settle on what stories they want to tell. Overall, I think I’d rather watch the first season of Discovery, so we’ll slot this just in below that.
That takes the rankings to:
The very best of Trek (top 7):
- SNW Season 1
- PIC Season 3
- PIC Season 1
- SNW Season 2
- TNG Season 6
- DS9 Season 2
- PIC Season 2
Strong performers (next 10):
- PRO Season 1
- LD Season 1
- DS9 Season 5
- TNG Season 3
- TNG Season 5
- TOS Season 2
- DIS Season 2
- ENT Season 3
- TNG Season 4
- VOY Season 4
Mixed bag (middle 15):
- TOS Season 1
- DS9 Season 4
- LD Season 3
- LD Season 2
- DIS Season 1
- LD Season 4
- ST Season 2
- DS9 Season 1
- ENT Season 4
- DIS Season 3
- ST Season 1
- VOY Season 5
- ENT Season 1
- VOY Season 1
- TNG Season 7
Not good (second worst 8):
- DS9 Season 3
- DS9 Season 6
- DIS Season 4
- VOY Season 6
- VOY Season 3
- TNG Season 2
- ENT Season 2
- TAS Season 1
Really just awful (the bottom 6):
- VOY Season 7
- VOY Season 2
- DS9 Season 7
- TOS Season 3
- TAS Season 2
- TNG Season 1
46 seasons down. And now a rest.