Decrease Decks’ third season introduced with it a number of nice laughs, and a honest, loving view of the Star Trek reveals that got here earlier than it. However one thing felt off: its characters by and enormous stagnated, rehashing arcs they’d already gone on to succeed in a conclusion that was extra of a reset than an evolution. Fortunately, season 4 is a pleasant course right.
From the soar, Decrease Decks’ newest collection of adventures looks like a powerful response to that feeling of its heroes being caught in a figurative rut. There are some good shake-ups that permit the collection develop into the boldness it has discovered creatively over the previous few years, whereas not dropping the essence of what makes the collection work within the first place: Trek by way of the lens of the little man.
This all hinges on essential occasions within the season’s premiere, however over the course of the eight episodes Paramount supplied for evaluate, Decrease Decks continually seeks to push its major heroes—Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid), Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome), D’Vana Tendi (Noël Wells), and Sam Rutherford (Eugene Cordero)—into new territory, and throw in new tweaks to their dynamics as a unit of mates and among the many crew of the Cerritos at massive. They nonetheless really feel just like the characters they’ve all the time been, however crucially not solely are a number of the extra uncared for members of the forged allowed to develop in flip—particularly Rutherford and Tendi, who’ve all the time taken a again seat to Boimler and Mariner—they really really feel like individuals studying and rising from the adventures they’ve been on to date, a passage of time that lastly has an impression on the collection as a lot because it does the viewers.
Among the best modifications to this dynamic is the addition of a brand new face to the staff: T’Lyn, the Vulcan officer from season two’s unimaginable episode “wej Duj,” performed by Gabrielle Ruiz. She’s been ostracized from her personal individuals’s navy and assigned to Starfleet duties as punishment. T’Lyn is an ideal addition to the combo of our acquainted heroes, the comedic straight man that lets the collection each touch upon the altering attitudes of its most important heroes, and supply a extra self-serious foil to the antics aboard the Cerritos within the conventional Vulcan method. However simply as importantly as she fulfills that position within the present’s new dynamic, T’Lyn will get to be as narratively essential to the season as the remainder of Decrease Decks’ most important characters, with perception and time spent together with her in ways in which flesh her out as each a person and the methods she interacts with totally different members of the forged.
That acknowledgement of the passage of time makes Decrease Decks really feel much less like a comedy Trek present this season and a Trek present that occurs to be comedic, particularly within the mild of its irritating lack of development to the established order final season. Every part about season 4 feels phaser-focused on addressing a number of the largest weaknesses of the present to date, from that lack of evolution to the dearth of concentrate on characters exterior of the attitude of Boimler and Mariner particularly. In doing so, it features a number of power in having the ability to push and poke at our heroes, and lends a weight to all the things that got here earlier than it—Decrease Decks now feels much less like a collection that’s one-off gaffes and adventures you sweep your self off from and go onto the following, however a present that’s extra historically interconnected over weeks and seasons.
There’s an ongoing subplot all through the season that feels impactful over the course of a number of episodes, as an alternative of simply elevating its head in time for the finale like in prior seasons. And that significance of prior tales contains, fairly touchingly, the present’s current crossover with Star Trek: Unusual New Worlds. There’s just one direct nod to it, a gag within the season premiere included in the present’s trailer, however for followers who checked in over on the USS Enterprise and have been handled to a heartfelt episode about realizing that individuals, even your heroes, are all on their very own journeys of development? It feels particularly resonant this season because the Decrease Deckers all start to reckon with their very own journeys.
All this self-seriousness and dramatic development may sound regarding to Decrease Decks followers afeared it’d imply a much less humorous present, so it’s excellent news as nicely that Decrease Decks stays constantly hilarious on prime of all these enhancements elsewhere. However simply as its characters have grown, its humorousness has as nicely—there’s fewer episodes this season the place the joke is pointing at a Star Trek trope and going “Look! It’s a Star Trek trope!”, and extra the place these tropes and comedic set ups are performed with in fascinating, humorous methods. A traditional cave episode offers approach to some heartfelt character beats, and never one, however two episodes about Trek’s penchant for evil computer systems tackles the concept from totally different views in some enjoyable methods. And there’s nonetheless loads of nice gags about previous Star Trek usually, particularly the premiere itself, a full-on love letter to the wackier hijinks of Star Trek: Voyager that feels sadly touchingly nicely timed given the unlucky scenario with Decrease Decks’ animated sibling Prodigy.
In all, by way of some good modifications to its established order and an acknowledgement of its personal passage of time, Decrease Decks feels extra assured and thrilling than ever earlier than in its fourth season. These prior fears of stagnation are firmly put to mattress nearly from the get-go with good selections that ship extra time with these characters past the floor degree, extra time exploring the world they inhabit, and simply as crucially, extra time in letting them have enjoyable in recent and fascinating methods as an alternative of counting on the identical simple humor. It’s nonetheless the Star Trek: Decrease Decks that made it a shocking hit within the first place, but it surely’s just a little older, just a little wiser, and nonetheless simply as humorous as ever.
Star Trek: Decrease Decks season 4 begins streaming on Paramount+ September 7.
Need extra io9 information? Take a look at when to count on the newest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on movie and TV, and all the things it’s good to find out about the way forward for Physician Who.
