Everyone’s favourite California-class starship is back! The USS Cerritos blazes onto DVD from Paramount Pictures this week coming in an extras-packed double disc set. Filled with plenty of laughs as well as true Star Trek stories, Lower Decks has garnered a following that loves the jokes and stays for the characters, and season three is absolutely no different.

In fact, it could be argued that this series just gets better and better as it goes along.

With character arcs for all of our regular characters, we join Boimler (Jack Quaid), Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Tendi (Noel Wells) and Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) on another action-packed season. Ten episodes take us from adventures on Earth to Deep Space Nine and beyond.

The story picks up with the cliffhanger ending that saw Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) arrested for the Pakled Incident, and Mariner is determined to do everything she can to save her mother, including stealing a starship (shades of Trek III!).

From there the characters go on a variety of journeys, concluding Bold Boimler, Tendi beginning to think about where her career is going to take her, and the mystery of Rutherford’s forgotten past, and what it did to him.

The characters have always embraced their love for Trek, and that continues to show in the dialogue as we are given some broad and deep-cut nods to all things Trek, and whether you know Star Trek or not, you can still enjoy this show.

Five of the episodes feature commentaries with writers, actors, and showrunner Mike McMahan, who always lets his Trek flag fly.

There’s also a fifteen-minute look at bringing the iconic Deep Space Nine station to life in an animated way that was still faithful to the look and feel of the live-action series and a half-hour behind-the-scenes featurette that explores season and character arcs, interviews with all of the cast, and a look at the amount of love that goes into each episode.

Don’t ever get distracted by the fact that Lower Decks, or Prodigy, or The Animated Series are cartoons, they are still very much Star Trek. There is the exploration fo humanity, striving to be better, and in the case of Lower Decks, lots of well-referenced and very relatable laughs along the way.

Star Trek: Lower Decks was a joyous surprise from its premiere and it has since gone on to build its characters, layer its universe, and tell engaging stories that are faithful to the universe they are set in, while also giving life-long fans and trivia buffs the in-jokes and nods that we enjoy so much. And they’re all here, visual nods, designs, name drops, and more.

Star Trek: Lower Decks is a fan’s dream, and it is a joy to watch, and a must have for any Star Trek collection.

Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season Three is available on DVD from Paramount Canada today. Boldly go…