Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5 will be its final season on Paramount+, but it still doesn't make sense why. Created by Mike McMahan, Star Trek: Lower Decks premiered in 2020 as the first animated Star Trek half-hour comedy. Lower Decks borrows its title and inspiration from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode of the same name. Star Trek: Lower Decks was originally about the hardworking and unsung Ensigns of the USS Cerritos, although they rose up the ranks and became junior grade Lieutenants at the start of Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4.

Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4 ended with a big shift in the USS Cerritos' ranks following Lt. Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) saving the galaxy from disgraced ex-Starfleet cadet Nicholas Locarno (Robert Duncan McNeill) and his doomsday Genesis Device. Lt. D'Vana Tendi (Noel Wells) left Starfleet and returned to the Orions to fulfill a bargain made for the Orions' help to rescue Mariner. Even without Tendi, the USS Cerritos' mission of Second continues in Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5, which Paramount+ inexplicably announced is the final season on the streamer.

Star Trek: Lower Decks Is Relatively Inexpensive To Produce

Lower Decks costs less than a live-action Star Trek show

Star Trek: Lower Decks ending on Paramount+ may have to do with the streamer's finances, but Mike McMahan's animated comedy is relatively inexpensive to produce compared to Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard. Titmouse, Inc. handles Star Trek: Lower Decks' animation, but whatever their budget is, it is still a fraction of what a live-action Star Trek series costs. After all, there are no sets to build and maintain, no costumes or props to make, and far less overhead overall. Perhaps the biggest expense is Star Trek: Lower Decks' voice actors, but even then, there is a big financial difference between recording their voices and actors performing in live-action on set.

Given the relatively low cost of Star Trek: Lower Decks compared to every live-action Star Trek series produced for Paramount+, Mike McMahan's show ought to run for many more seasons. Perhaps Star Trek: Lower Decks ending is due to its streaming performance on Paramount+, and, indeed, McMahan and Lower Decks' cast are encouraging audiences to binge old and new episodes of the series as much as possible to boost Lower Decks' numbers. But Lower Decks is also popular with Star Trek fans and has earned its stripes and recognition as genuine Star Trek, so why drop a series that has accumulated so much intrinsic Star Trek value?

Lower Decks’ Cast & Creators Want To Continue The Show

Everyone who makes Lower Decks loves the show

Series creator Mike McMahan. voice actors Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid, Noel Wells, Eugene Cordero, Dawnn Lewis, Jerry O'Connell, and others have publicly expressed their desire to continue Star Trek: Lower Decks. Newsome has gone on record that playing Mariner on Lower Decks is her favorite job she's ever had. As busy as Quaid is as a major Hollywood star juggling multiple movie and TV projects, he is loyal to Star Trek, and Jack also wants to keep playing Lt. Brad Boimler. Further, Lower Decks is McMahan's dream Star Trek project, and he would be happy to keep making his show for years to come.

Star Trek: Lower Decks is not a show with its best days behind it, nor is it running out of steam. If anything, Star Trek: Lower Decks has continuously gotten better as Mike McMahan and his writing team quickly figured out what the show is about and capable of. Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4, especially, was perhaps the richest in characterization and backstory, and McMahan promises even more depth in Lower Decks season 5. While the Lower Deckers' promotions to Lieutenants could be framed as the beginning of their end as 'Lower Deckers,' there is no set time frame to explore Mariner and friends having two pips, and there is still vast story potential for the 'Warp Core Five.'

Star Trek’s Popular 24th Century Ends With Lower Decks

TNG's era will grind to a halt

Another tragedy of Star Trek: Lower Decks ending on Paramount+ is that it grounds the 24th century era of Star Trek to a halt. Before Lower Decks premiered in 2020, the beloved 24th century that began with Star Trek: The Next Generation was last seen in 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis, besides fleeting glimpses in Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek: Picard season 1. Lower Decks brought back TNG's aesthetic and all of its enduringly cool aspects, and even finally showed divisions like Cetacean Ops that Star Trek: The Next Generation only hinted at. Without Star Trek: Lower Decks, and the potential non-renewal of Star Trek: Prodigy by Netflix, the 24th century shuts down yet again.

Star Trek: Lower Decks is a show built to run far beyond five seasons on Paramount+, and it proved, along with Star Trek: Prodigy, that animated Star Trek is on equal par with live-action. The USS Cerritos' voyages encom every fun, weird, cool, nerdy, and enduring aspect of Star Trek. Lower Decks proved Star Trek can be riotously funny, especially because Mike McMahan's series celebrates Trek out of genuine reverence rather than mocking it for cheap laughs. Star Trek: Lower Decks isn't dead yet, and season 5 is only the final season on Paramount+. Hopefully, Mariner, Boimler, and the USS Cerritos can find another streaming home. But either way, Star Trek: Lower Decks ending on Paramount+ at all just doesn't make sense.