Can ‘Lower Decks’ Be Saved?
In a fandom literally built on saving the series we love, optimism never dies
Say what you want, but don’t ever accuse the fans and everyone in and around Star Trek of not being an incredibly hopeful lot.
We’re a franchise in which one of the most persistently popular recent properties is a TV series that will, in all likelihood, never get made.
Hell, Star Trek fandom itself was born of fighting to save the original series back in the 1960s.
So it probably should come as no surprise that in their stages of grief over the cancellation of a given Star Trek series, fans have replaced “bargaining” with “#SaveStarTrek.”
And when we got hit with the news that Paramount was cancelling Star Trek: Lower Decks, we were simultaneously walloped with another of our unique grief cycles.
After we made our way through our anger, we immediately swung into the #SaveLowerDecks stage of grief. (Do fans ever really make it to the “acceptance” phase?)
#SaveLowerDecks has been splashed across social media, and fans have opened an online petition.
(Regrettably, more than a week after the cancellation news broke, the petition has yet to reach its initial goal of even just 7,500 signatures.)
Is the hope that there may be any future for the starship Cerritos and our lower deckers nothing more than the product of the healthy imaginations we fans possess? Or is it yet possible that the first animated series in the franchise since Star Trek: The Animated Series in the ’70s could yet live on?
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Certainly, we have a concrete reason for optimism given the sudden revival of Star Trek: Prodigy over on Netflix.
Of course, Prodigy is a somewhat unique case considering that it was always a joint production with kids’ network Nickelodeon.
But no less a creature of Hollywood than Lower Decks co-star Jack Quaid pointedly did not dismiss the potential for a comeback. (And as the son of blockbuster performers Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan, Jack Quaid surely would know when a project is totally a lost cause.)
“I could play Boimler for 17 more seasons. No joke. I’m serious. I love that purple-haired nerd. Hopefully we find a new home, but until then please look forward to an amazing season five,” he posted.
So the truth is that nobody knows.
The reality might be that to sell-off Lower Decks might require Paramount to really pull apart the franchise into parts which its executives might not want to do.
But then, no one knew back in 1968 that they'd be able to save Star Trek, either.
So let’s out there, sign the online petition, and #SaveLowerDecks!
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