My Review of "Lower Decks: Season 5"

Lower Decks: Season 5 has finally come and gone. As a fan of the series, I was really sad to see it go but I loved the way they wrapped it up. This season is probably everything fans of the series was looking for. It rewards you for being a fan and rewards you even more if you know the franchise in general. This is probably one of the most inaccessible seasons of all the seasons but in a good way.

The season starts out with the two Cerritos universes. Right away it gets a little jumbled for us that are kind of oversaturated with this multiverse stuff. I promise you the payoff at the end of this season makes up for the confusion that you'll experience in the first part of this season.

Basically, Boimler, Mariner and the crew see themselves in an alternate reality. They have somewhat of an existential crisis because of it, especially Boimler. We actually have a Boimler that's cool in this alternate reality and he's got a beard! Before the end of that episode, the cool Boimler gives his information tablet to the Boimler we know and love. This kickstarts a weird and fun journey for him.

Afterwards, the rest of the episodes are quite episodic in appearance. It doesn't seem that there's a recurring theme. With the exception of Boimler trying to grow a beard and obsessing over the alternate reality version of himself.

We get introduced to new lower deck members of the crew and get into some wild antics. Oddly enough, they reward you for paying attention to these supposedly episodic episodes. They call back to them just like they did in the previous seasons.

I have the memory of a goldfish sometimes and they do reference a lot of stuff from the older seasons. So this basically rewards many of you that are big fans of the show. Newcomers will still understand what's going on and still have fun. I think this might be the most inaccessible of the seasons because there's a lot of references. Even I was kind of thrown off sometimes because I didn't remember some of the instances. Fans of the show will appreciate these call backs though. They're really showing their love for their fans.

Like in previous seasons, they also make a ton of references to previous Star Trek franchises. There were a number of references that just flew over my head because I don't know anything about those TV series'. Fortunately, I was able to still enjoy the show despite the deep dives into these other franchises. The themes are fairly simple so all of us can still keep up despite the fact we don't know what the references are about.

Everyone still has their wonderful charm and wit to them. I thought what they did with Rutherford on the last episode was kind of weird. Though the whole final episode kind of makes sense in a way too. It was a 5 year mission that had to eventually end and this core crew would not be members of lower decks forever. This ends in a way where they can have a spin off or continue the series but in a different way. It's all nicely done and complete with a bow. One of the better ways of sending off a good show.

Overall, I'm a big fan of this series and I really liked this season. If you've been a fan of the series then nothing I will say will prevent you from watching it. You're all going to love it no matter what I say. This series is just that good. As a season I thought it was cleverly written and well done. I have to give it a 7.5 out of 10.