Star Trek: Lower Decks tries to play itself as Star Trek’s answer to Rick and Morty.
Whether you like Rick and Morty or not isn’t the topic of this conversation. Whether or not Rick and Morty influenced Star Trek: Lower Decks is, and the answer is obviously yes. The first trailer for the animated series released on July 12 and it was met with…reactions.
The series will follow a group of characters that reside on the lowest decks of the ship, usually in an area of the ship not seen often in Star Trek media, save for the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Good Shepherd” and the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode entitled “Lower Decks”. The series will take a comedic twist to those episodes and show you the day in the life of the crew.
That said, the trailer makes you think you’re going to watch a series made in the vein of Rick and Morty, only to be reminded that it’ll be made without the creative minds that make Rick and Morty so popular in the first place. In the trailer you see Starfleet officers squeezing organs to keep someone alive, fart jokes, someone getting eaten by a large gross alien, and full-frontal male nudity.
Also known as Gene Roddenberry’s worst nightmare.
The trailer comes off as someone who doesn’t understand why a series like Rick and Morty works, trying to write jokes to make you feel like you’re watching Rick and Morty; but in Starfleet. The concerning part is that the trailer didn’t do a good job establishing the show’s identity outside of it being an obvious clone of a potentially better and far more established series.
The situational comedy that the series show isn’t the only thing that resonates strong vibes of another series, but the animation does as well. If you change the Starfleet insignias, you’d swear this was a Rick and Morty sequel series or spin-off.
The show’s identity is already tied to another adult-oriented comedy and that’s not a strong sign. Fans were so turned off by the trailer that the comment section and like/dislike bar on the trailers YouTube video has already been turned off. The series had an even 2.4k likes and dislikes, with comments after comments slamming the trailer.
The series looks awful, with unlikeable characters, and stands to truly ding the Star Trek reputation. Truly a series that has gone to where no other Trek series has gone before; straight to a single season cancellation (hopefully).