| Season Number: | 5 |
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| Showrunner: | Mike McMahan |
| Network: | Paramount+ |
| Episode List: | List of Star Trek: Lower Decks episodes |
The fifth and final season of the American adult animated television series is set in the 24th century and follows the adventures of the low-ranking officers with menial jobs on the starship Cerritos, one of Starfleet's least important starships. The season is produced by CBS Eye Animation Productions in association with Secret Hideout, Important Science, Roddenberry Entertainment, and animation studio Titmouse, with Mike McMahan serving as showrunner and Barry J. Kelly as supervising director.
Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid, Noël Wells, and Eugene Cordero voice the lower decks crew members of the Cerritos, with Dawnn Lewis, Jerry O'Connell, Fred Tatasciore, and Gillian Vigman providing voices for the ship's senior officers. A fifth season of Lower Decks was ordered in March 2023. Writing had begun by then and was nearly complete that October, when McMahan said it was possible that this could be the last season of the series. Voice recording was delayed by 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike and mostly took place between November 2023 and February 2024. In April, Paramount+ confirmed that the fifth season would be the last.
The season is scheduled to premiere on the streaming service Paramount+ on October 24, 2024, with its first two episodes. The rest of the 10-episode run will be released weekly until December 19.
Paramount+ ordered a 10-episode fifth season of in March 2023. Creator and showrunner Mike McMahan said writing had begun by then, and he was writing the season finale that October. McMahan said further seasons beyond the fifth were not guaranteed, particularly after Paramount+ cancelled fellow animated series and confirmed the final seasons of and . Despite this, he was not writing the season finale to also serve as a series finale because he did not want to give the characters a definitive ending. In April 2024, Paramount+ confirmed that the fifth season would be the last.
The series stars a group of ensigns that serve in the lower decks of the Cerritos: Tawny Newsome as Beckett Mariner, Jack Quaid as Brad Boimler, Noël Wells as D'Vana Tendi, and Eugene Cordero as Sam Rutherford. The ship's bridge crew, who have supporting roles, include Dawnn Lewis as Captain Carol Freeman, Jerry O'Connell as first officer Commander Jack Ransom, Fred Tatasciore as security chief Lieutenant Shaxs, and Gillian Vigman as chief medical officer Dr. T'Ana. In July 2023, shortly after voice recording for the season started, the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike began. Though the animated series were not covered by the strike and the cast were allowed to continue recording, they chose not to out of solidarity for actors on live-action series. Recording for the season resumed after the strike ended in November, and Newsome had finished her work, except for some additional dialogue recording (ADR), by February 2024. She said the recording delays should not impact the overall production schedule for the season because they had been ahead of schedule when the strike began.
In October 2022, McMahan said he had been looking for a way to bring some of the characters from the series into Lower Decks. He acknowledged that this was difficult due to Enterprise being set so much earlier in the Star Trek timeline than Lower Decks is, but he found a way to do it in the fifth season and was in early negotiations with some actors from that series to reprise their roles in the season by October 2023. Gabrielle Ruiz returns from previous seasons as T'Lyn.
Independent animation studio Titmouse provides the animation for the series, with Barry J. Kelly serving as supervising director. The animation style reflects the look of "prime time animated comedy" series such as The Simpsons, but with more detailed backgrounds and environments than is traditional for prime time animation.
Newsome, Cordero, and Ruiz held a panel for the series on Star Trek: The Cruise, a multi-day ship cruise featuring cast and crew from various Star Trek projects in February 2024. They discussed the series in general and teased the fifth season during the panel. Newsome, Cordero, and Lewis also teased the season during a similar panel at the ST-SF convention in San Francisco the next month. Kurtzman, McMahan, Newsome, Quaid, Wells, and O'Connell promoted the season during a "Star Trek Universe" panel at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2024. A trailer for the season was released during the event, which Adam B. Vary at Variety said was "filled with a litany of jokes with very little context behind them" which aligned with previous trailers for the series. Tasha Robinson at Polygon noted that the trailer is primarily a "sentimental celebration" of the previous seasons.
The season is scheduled to premiere on Paramount+ in the United States on October 24, 2024, with its first two episodes. The rest of its 10-episode run will be released weekly. Each episode is broadcast in Canada on the CTV Sci-Fi Channel.