3. Season 3
Season 3 of Star Trek: Lower Decks is a good example of a “middle season.” It doesn’t really have any abjectly terrible episodes, but it also doesn’t have many that stand out in my memory as being incredible.
Yes, there are fun episodes, like “Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus” and the return to Deep Space 9 in “Hear All, Trust Nothing,” but even those don’t really stand out beyond their basic concepts. At the same time, though, there also aren’t any episodes that stand out as utterly awful. Each episode of this season is simply a good, serviceable episode of Lower Decks.
The larger story arc of Season 3 is also neither brilliant nor terrible. Being about the AI-operated Texas-class starships, it goes for the standard sci-fi trope of AI turning evil and attacking people. This doesn’t address some of the nuances of AI-related anxieties, though, especially as they have become more of a reality in recent years.
Granted, Season 3 of Lower Decks aired in 2022 before the AI craze had completely taken off, but given that an original Star Trek episode, “The Ultimate Computer” (which this season references), offered some deeper insights into how AI affects people in 1968, this is not a wholly compelling excuse. Not all AI in fiction needs to be like HAL 9000 or Cylons to be a problem for people.
All that being said, Lower Decks Season 3 is a perfectly fine set of 10 episodes. None of the episodes are bad, and while the season-long arc isn’t very adventurous, it is reasonably entertaining. Being a decent season of television is not a reason to be overly critiqued. Thus, this season in the middle of the series is also in the middle of the ranks.