10 Times Star Trek Hit The Reset Button
2. Star Trek Succeeds At Animation
Star Trek: The Animated Series was the franchise's first attempt at bringing the show to a younger audience, targeting the Saturday morning cartoon crowds. While the episodes were still very much in the same vein as the Original Series, the style was not fully embraced by fans at large. While it has aged a little better than one who viewed it in 1973 might believe, it still rarely ranks highly on most countdowns of Star Trek.
Mike McMahon saw this and said no more!
It is hard to quantify just how good Star Trek: Lower Decks is. While it undoubtedly benefited from the low expectations that were a hangover from Trek's earlier animated effort, there was still a lot riding on it as 2020's second new Star Trek series. Frankly, the world needed a laugh. And Lower Decks delivered.
It is a very tongue in cheek veer away from the ultra-serious tones of Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Discovery, recapturing some of the episodic magic of The Next Generation, while still cramming enough jokes into every episode to get a belly laugh out of young and older audiences. There are enough references for long-time fans to keep screen-pausers busy for days, as this is a lovingly crafted tribute to Trek.
In a year when positive feeling was sorely needed, Star Trek: Lower Decks took the franchise back to that optimistic tone of earlier years.