It's not because I dislike Lower Decks; far from it. But I do feel it would be hard to take some of what happens in Lower Decks seriously in the same universe as the other Trek series; in much the same way as finding out that Scrubs and House exist in the same universe would be quite difficult to reconcile.
Why? I'm not aware of any particular reason Scrubs and House, M.D. couldn't take place in the same universe. I don't see why two different series being two different formats should preclude them from taking place in the same fictional universe -- it just means that the shared continuity can encompass storytelling using different styles.
Also, heck, Lou Grant and The Mary Tyler Moore Show took place in the same universe -- the latter was a sitcom and the former was a hard-hitting drama!
That’s true, it’s rare, but it’s happened a few times here and there.
I immediately thought of the medical drama
Trapper John, M.D., a spin off of the military/medical sitcom
M*A*S*H (coincidentally, I’m wearing a
M*A*S*H t-shirt at this very moment).
A much more obscure example is the shortlived, and perhaps ill-conceived , P.I. sitcom
Beverly Hills Buntz starring Dennis Franz as the eponymous hero, spinning out of the police drama
Hill Street Blues.
edited to add: Oh! I just remembered another, *
weird* example. The hour long legal procedural dramedy
Ally McBeal was equal parts about her personal life and the law firm she worked at, and featured a case a week as most shows in its genre would. Early on in the show’s very successful run someone said “hey, let’s recut the episodes we have, use scenes that didn’t make the original episodes, and remove all the scenes in the court room, and working on cases, and the more serious relationship stuff, and make a half hour sitcom out of it,” and they did. And they called it
Ally. It didn’t even make it a full season, but it wasn’t really a sitcom spin-off of a procedural legal dramedy, it was a crass cash grab, and not a full show.
For me, I have no issue with Lower Decks being both lighter comedic fare, and existing in the same canonical universe as the rest of Star Trek.
The Janeway-Paris warp lizard baby litter, Space Lincoln, these are as absurd as anything in Lower Decks. And from Spock and Kirk’s back and forth in The Voyage Home about liking/not liking Italian food, to Jake Sisko and Nog trying to find his dad a baseball card, Trek has always had sitcom-y moments and plots sprinkled in everything else we love about it.
The real world is both absurd and tragic, silly and serious, at the same time, so I see no reason to cordon off fictional worlds to prevent the same variety of stories from existing in a shared space. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, and all that.
Circling back to the thread’s original question, not me, personally, no. I take comedy fairly seriously, in spite of its silliness. It’s something I care about, and seeing a franchise I love like Trek embrace the potential they have making shows within a comedy framework is something I really enjoy, and I think strengthens both the brand and the universe in the long run.
