By Joshua Tyler
| Updated
Star Trek: Lower Decks had its big finale this week, and in the process of ending the show, they fixed one of the worst problems Star Trek has ever had. That problem is named Star Trek: Discovery, and thankfully, it is no longer part of the official, prime timeline Star Trek canon.
Lower Decks has always taken full advantage of its animated format to fix some of the franchise’s nagging questions and biggest mistakes. They’ve smoothed a lot of things over, but the one thing that seemed impossible to smooth over was the way Star Trek: Discovery trashed the entire Star Trek universe.
The Damage Discovery Did To Star Trek
For those who’ve forgotten, when Star Trek: Discovery first debuted, the show existed in the past for the first couple of seasons. It took place in a time between Archer’s Enterprise and Kirk’s Enterprise and began by starting a war with the Klingons.
The problem is they made the Klingons look like this…
And in all the rest of Star Trek, since the days of the original series and limited makeup, Klingons look like this…
That was just the start of the mess Discovery tried to make of the Trek universe. The show was made with the goal of erasing all Trek that had gone before, and it set out to do that pretty quickly.
By season two, however, the people at Paramount realized this was a horrible idea and not what anyone wanted. So, they came up with an excuse to send the show so far into the future that it couldn’t do any more damage.
By then, they’d already done a lot. Luckily, now it doesn’t matter because the Star Trek: Lower Decks finale confirmed that the events of Discovery take place in an alternate reality.
How Star Trek: Lower Decks Removed Discovery From Canon
Paramount has been clear since the show started that, though it’s animated, Star Trek: Lower Decks is full canon and takes place in the prime timeline of the Star Trek universe. So, what happens in Lower Decks isn’t fan fiction or an alternate universe.
In the show’s finale, a group of Klingon ships encounters a phenomenon that transforms things into alternate-reality versions of themselves. When a Klingon ship hits one of those transformation rays, it transforms into a big, ugly Discovery-style Klingon ship.
Then one of the crewmembers transforms into a Discovery-style Klingon.
This couldn’t have happened if those weird Discovery Klingons had ever existed in the prime Star Trek timeline. It means that Discovery and its Klingons, just like the J.J. Abrams Star Trek movies, happened in an alternate universe. One that has nothing to do with the rest of Star Trek.
Strange New Worlds Is Still Prime Timeline
You might be wondering if this means Star Trek: Strange New Worlds also exists in that same universe since the series was a spinoff of Discovery. Luckily, the answer is absolutely not.
The only Klingons we ever see in Strange New Worlds look exactly like the Klingons we’re used to seeing since Worf stepped onto the bridge of The Next Generation. There’s never been any solid explanation for why they look so different from the Discovery Klingons, but now we have one.
The Enterprise we saw on Star Trek: Discovery is not the same one we follow on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. That previous Enterprise (which, by the way, looks slightly different from the one on Strange New Worlds) is off having continued adventures in the same alternate reality Star Trek: Discovery took place in.
Goodbye To Lower Decks And Thanks
No one wanted Star Trek: Lower Decks to end. It’s the best thing Trek has done since Archer’s Enterprise. Now it has solidified that status by giving us a gift. On its way out the door, Lower Decks fixed the entire Star Trek universe.
Take a moment to thank Star Trek: Lower Decks showrunner Mike McMahan. If we’re lucky, maybe someday Paramount will wise up and bring Lower Decks back for another franchise-fixing adventure.
