Lower Decks cast and crew want show to continue, LeVar Burton wants Star Trek: Legacy

As a seasoned Starfleet Academy graduate and lifelong Trekkie, I’ve seen my fair share of warp drives and Klingon battles. But let me tell you, folks, Paramount+ has outdone themselves with the fifth and final season of Star Trek: Lower Decks. This animated comedy has been a breath of fresh air in the vast expanse of space that is the Star Trek universe.

For quite some time now, Paramount has been consistently producing a multitude of new “Star Trek” series, such as “Discovery”, “Strange New Worlds”, “Prodigy” and “Picard”. Not long ago, episodes for the animated comedy series “Star Trek: Lower Decks”, which takes place during the era of “The Next Generation”, started airing on Paramount+. This fifth and final season is said to be the best one by showrunner Mike McMahan.

“After watching a few seasons of ‘Star Trek’, McMahan said, you suddenly understand the show. It’s like they started growing their character’s beard, symbolizing development. This season feels like the perfect conclusion to what we’ve been building up until now,” McMahan told StarTrek.com.

McMahan expresses strong assurance, even going as far as guaranteeing that the final episode will stir emotions deeply within many viewers, causing them to shed tears.

[T]he finale is bonkers…[I]t’s a series ender and it’s a season ender, and it’s a love letter, and it’s a thank you to Star Trek and a thank you to fans and a thank you to Tawny and Jack and Noël and Eugene and everybody but it’s also…not the end, right?…The show is an era for these characters, and we got to experience an era from beginning to end.
…the way the show ends, while it does feel final, it also blooms into all these other opportunities that we could either make shows, or we could do comics or write books, or fans could just very fully imagine that these characters are still doing awesome Star Trek stuff, and it’s different. We end with them in a different place, but there’s no betrayals. Nobody’s gonna feel like we pulled the rug out from under them. You’re gonna be really happy, I think, at the end of it.

As a dedicated movie enthusiast, I can feel that McMahan isn’t ready to let go of these characters and this captivating universe. In fact, Eugene Cordero (Sam Rutherford) shared with RadioTimes.com that we’ll keep this show going until we’ve turned into the very earth beneath us. Tawny Newsome (Mariner), on the other hand, seems to be brimming with untapped energy, suggesting she’s far from running out of steam.

Mike [McMahan] has re-written 5:10 [ the finale episode] so many times, and I feel like it gets longer and longer, and it’s great but you will feel the hanging on that he and we are all doing, like, ‘We could keep making this! Let’s keep making this.’

Previously noted, Paramount has dedicated considerable effort and funds into producing “Star Trek” shows. Given this investment, one might expect the franchise to persist indefinitely. However, five seasons is a significant duration for any television series, particularly in today’s landscape. Therefore, it’s premature to suggest that “Lower Decks” is being canceled prematurely. Instead, it’s wiser for the show to end while still at its peak rather than continuing until it loses its charm.

LeVar Burton is still holding out hope for Star Trek: Legacy

Regarding the upcoming season, McMahan hints at cameos by actors from the extensive Star Trek timeline. He commented, “We’ve managed to secure some dream cast members for this season, but you’ll have to stay tuned to find out. The storyline for this season includes a continuous thread that enables us to bring in people who might otherwise be difficult to fit into this particular era of the show without time travel. As a result, we got to collaborate with some fascinating individuals. I must admit, I was quite surprised by who we were able to secure.

It’s possible that the veteran actor LeVar Burton, renowned for his role as Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation, might be part of the legacy talent. Notably, he reprised his role for the last season of Star Trek: Picard, along with many other cast members from The Next Generation. In an interview with TV Line, Burton hinted that he still has more to offer. More intriguingly, he expresses a desire for the original cast members to come together for a potential series named Star Trek: Legacy, a concept that has been widely speculated about in fan circles.

[T]he audience, two years on, seem to be just as interested in the idea of Legacy as when Picard was just airing. I’m not close to the brain trust over there, but I see that they are all in on Starfleet Academy. And in this age of cutting back and retrenching in the entertainment space, I imagine they’re going to focus on that until they feel like they might be able to focus on something else. And I would think that given the opportunity and the resources, that they would want to do this. It makes so much sense… It makes so much sense.

Starfleet Academy represents another upcoming addition to the Star Trek universe, expected within the following couple of years. Given Paramount’s enthusiasm for creating Star Trek series, it wouldn’t shock me if we witness both Legacy and a spin-off from Lower Decks in the coming years. For now, fresh episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks are available every Thursday on Paramount+.

2024-10-28 22:41