Now I really want Star Trek to do a series like Marvel's What If...?

In its fifth and final season on Paramount+ Star Trek: Lower Decks took over the multiverse, giving Star Trek the opportunity to do a show like Marvel And if...?. As Star Trek: Lower decks Season 5 has come to an end, Captain Carol Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) and the crew of the USS Cerritos saved Star Trek the entire Early Universe, stabilizing a massive wormhole to multiple quantum realities. Starfleet then moved Starbase 80 to the wormhole entrance and placed Captain Freeman in command of the missions sent to investigate these realities.

While Star Trek have no plans for any Lower decks spin-offs, creating a portal to the multiverse gives the franchise the opportunity to make its own version of Marvel's And if...?. With almost 60 years of history, Star Trek has hundreds of characters and stories to explore. Based on the appearance of Star Trek legacy characters like T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) and Curzon (Fred Tatasciore) in Star Trek: Lower Deck penultimate episode, some of the quantum universes occur at different points in the Star Trek timeline. This means that characters from any century can appear in stories from the multiverse.

The series finale of Lower Decks means Star Trek should do its own version of What If...?

Star Trek Should Boldly Explore the Multiverse

With the new portal to the multiverse, the Star Trek: Lower Decks the series finale provides the perfect setup for a show like Marvel's And if...?. A show like this could be framed with Captain Freeman overseeing missions through the wormhole, or it could simply appear in multiple universes. Star Trek has already established several universes, including the Mirror Universe and the Kelvin Universe, and suggested many others. ONE And if...? style show would also allow Star Trek dive into completely new universes and potentially explore things that Walk fans have long been asking for it.

For example, Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5 Episode 9, "Fissure Quest," showed Captain William Boimler (Jack Quaid) and his crew of "interdimensional castaways" composed of iconic Star Trek legacy characters. Among the Anaximander's crew were Garak (Andrew Robinson) and an emergency medical hologram of Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig)who lived as a happy couple. Some Walk fans have been clamoring for Garak and Bashir to be a couple since Star Trek: Deep Space Nine aired, and Andrew Robinson himself even spoke in support of the idea. ONE And if...? style Star Trek show would allow the franchise to continue exploring stories like this without contradicting established canon.

An animated Star Trek multiverse show would allow any legacy character to appear

Star Trek has already proven that it can excel in animation

Star Trek: Lower Decks has already proven how much fun the franchise can have with the multiverse, especially in an animated series. With animation, any Walk actors who wanted could return to reprise their roles, regardless of age, while new voice actors could be hired to voice characters whose actors have passed away. Between Lower decks and Star Trek: Prodigy, Star Trek animators produced truly spectacular animations, and a And if...? style show would allow for even more visual experimentation. With a universe as vast as Star Trek, the possibilities are truly endless.

ONE Star Trek multiverse show could have an entirely purple episode set in the purple universe introduced in Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5, Episode 7, 'Fully Dilated'. It could show a universe where Spock (Leonard Nimoy) chose to attend the Vulcan Academy of Sciences instead of joining Starfleet. Or a universe where Q (John de Lancie) is in command of the USS Enterprise-D, and Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) is his omnipotent rival. With its incredible series finale, Star Trek: Lower Decks truly opened up a whole new multiverse of possibilities for the Star Trek franchise.