“I want to see Commander Data level work, people! Those isolinear chips better be a blur!”

There is no reason that a show like Star Trek: Lower Decks works as well as it does — unless you confess that it is put together by people who both deeply understand and love this franchise. That’s not a given as we look around at many of the other Star Trek shows on the air today.

Each of these 10-episode seasons are a gift to lifelong Trekkies who want new adventures that honor the past… even if it tweaks the tropes and silliness that Trek sometimes produces.

Things are grim at the start of Season 3: Captain Freeman is under arrest for the alleged bombing of the Pakled planet and the Cerritos is impounded. A bold rescue plan by Freeman’s daughter Beckett and her fellow “lower deckers” is almost instantly subverted as the justice system prevails and rash ship-stealing is condemned. This first episode is a good reminder that the makers of Lower Decks know Trek just as well (if not more) than you do and are going to use your familiarity and expectations against you.

From there we launch into an incredible season of twists, turns, and surprises. We get to visit Deep Space 9 (where it’s important to appear impressed with the pylons in extended flyby sequences) with some of the original cast of that show, we visit the true innards of the California-class starships (which includes a swamp for some reason?), we go on yet another bizarre holodeck adventure, and we find ourselves embroiled in a great conspiracy that cuts to the core of Starfleet.

One thing I noticed is that Season 3 is much more focused and narratively driven than the two previous stretches (which also had their ongoing threads). Each of the four lower deckers have their own arcs: Beckett takes a mentor in Ransom, Tendi works to become bridge-ready, Boimler throws caution to the wind to be more bold, and Rutherford goes on a journey to discover the dark truth behind his cyborg implants. These all develop over the course of the season and (mostly) come to a head in the two-part finale, which contains some of the most thrilling moments of the series to date.

I really do love seeing the characters grow and mature as this show continues — and how their relationships grow. Seeing the core four playing a VCR-like board game with a Klingon virtual host or plotting to get a suite of rooms that are near each other on the upper decks reminded me of how friendships really are at the heart of Star Trek.

Respect for past shows and the ongoing continuity of this one make Lower Decks more than a joke machine. In fact, I’d argue that it’s overall less funny than, say, season 1, but it’s still plenty humorous and apt at shocking barks of laughter out of me. My favorite moment came early on when the lower deckers in their bunks observe Captain Freeman floating down the hallway, possessed by an alien mask and transforming the ship into a temple. The confidence to draw this moment from one of the more obscure and reviled Star Trek: The Next Generation season 7 episodes and then show the aftermath of the crew having to “de-temple” the ship was amazing to me.

The extended cast is absolutely superb, and I am so impressed that we’ve gotten to know a good chunk of the Cerritos crew beyond the lower deck. Shout outs for a few favorites this season: Bajoran security officer Shaxs who refers to his team as “the bear pack,” acerbic cat doctor T’Ana (who is also dating Shaxs), the beluga whales working in Cetacean Ops, and Dcotor Migleemo, the bird counselor who is as useless as certain other Star Trek counselors we could name.

(Seriously, the moment when Migleemo finally got to take the con and used the moment to call his mom to boast… only to have his call interrupted by the captain running back because of a Breen battle had me spitting my drink out in laughter).

Really, the only episode this season that felt weak almost exclusively focused on a minor character from a previous season, an exocomp named Peanut Hamper who goes on an extended adventure on a primitive planet. That one was kind of a dud that went nowhere in the end.

This is such a great show, and I don’t have enough words to praise it properly. Season 3 might’ve been another short run, but it was masterfully executed and endlessly entertaining for Trekkies and non-Trekkies alike.