DVD Review: Star Trek: Lower Decks Season Three

When Star Trek: Lower Decks season four premieres on Paramount+ in Summer 2023, it will be the longest-running Paramount adult animated franchise since Crank Yankers which last wrapped its sixth season August 2022 (and technically THAT series took several years off). I don’t think that’s a coincidence and I think moreso it has less to do with the fact that this is a Star Trek series and more having to do with the fact that Mike McMahan has learned from his years working on some of the biggest animated series of all-time including South Park and Rick and Morty.

I bring that up because this new 2-disc DVD perfectly exemplifies those lessons learned. South Park and Rick and Morty routinely put out some of the better home releases year in and year out chock-full of special features, episode commentaries, and more. There are a couple of lessons that Mike still needs to learn in producing the home releases which I’ll get to in a bit, but overall Star Trek: Lower Decks season three on DVD is a great get. Add in the fact that streaming services are increasingly deleting TV shows and movies from their streamers, the value of THIS DVD (even at a hefty $23) is pretty good for austerity purposes.

The special commentaries are great, the short docs are excellent, but overall I do think we should get more added special features from the Titmouse producers. Star Trek: Lower Decks season three had some of the craziest animated action sequences I’ve ever seen, and it would’ve been great to glean more insight on how those sequences were done, perhaps some commentaries over animatics would have been a welcome effort. Moreover, the episodes presented are still censored from Paramount+, I would’ve preferred that if we’re going to censor language and whatnot on a streaming platform that isn’t monitored by any government body (still bizarre), then why not unlock the gates on the home release? The aforementioned Rick and Morty and South Park are excellent examples that a show’s value goes up when the uncensored release comes to pass, Star Trek: Lower Decks should do the same.

That said, we still get a pretty good effort in providing enough value that fans of the franchise should be happy with the final effort. Between special guest appearances by Nana Visitor (“Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”) and Armin Shimerman (“Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”), that’s enough for me to want to keep hold of this one…you never know when you might need it.