Star Trek has always had the ability to cater to entire families with a single episode. While always a mature show, it was hardly, if ever, for adults only. Star Trek: Lower Decks has become just one of the few new shows to test that idea. More and more shows from Trek have focused on more intense action, more gruesome injuries, and more salacious behaviors.
Which includes, but isn't limited to a more free use of the tongue. The amount of swearing in Star Trek has gone up considerably. Before, you could watch a whole season of Star Trek without worrying about anything more damning than 'crap'. Now, that's no longer the case.
Discovery and Picard really leaned into that, and Lower Decks has done its best to follow suit. Yet, unlike other shows, in Lower Decks, when a character swears, it gets bleeped out. While I'm opposed to such words being used in Star Trek, so that it may maintain its 'for-all' mindset, I can't help but be annoyed at the constant "bleeping" that goes on whenever a character swears on Lower Decks.
The minute they say anything that may run afoul with higher-ups, you hear the obnoxious "beep" that drowns out the word. This is odd, as why are they even using the word if they know it's going to be censored? After five seasons, you know which words you can use and which ones you can't. So why continue to use them and write them into the script, only for the censors to add that obnoxious sound effect?
If you know the words are going to be bleeped out, don't use them.
It's not a hard concept. Moreover, that type of word choice isn't even necessary in entertainment. Especially in a cartoon. It feels more like they're trying to be edgy with their humor, but in the same way a 12-year-old is. It comes off as juvenile and lacking any maturity. Then you add the obnoxious sound effect that just takes you out of the scene and you have a recipe of annoyance.
Lower Decks has its moments, but it has and still remains a show that is more interesting in being Rick and Morty than its own thing. And that's why its reputation will never expand past the core fandom they have found currently. It's a show that is specifically coded in the 2019-2024 sense of humor and that isn't a compliment.
It's too late for Lower Decks to change, but hopefully, the next show that comes along can be humorous without the need for choice words and awful sound effects to drown those words out.