We are heading into awards season, and things are kicking off for Star Trek with the final seasons of two shows picking up Saturn Awards nominations. While Discovery and Lower Decks are being recognized, the franchise isn’t getting the kind of love from the Saturns it has had in previous years.
2 Saturn noms for Star Trek in 2024
The nominations for the 52nd Annual Saturn Awards were announced today by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. Since 1972, the Saturn Awards have been recognizing “extraordinary programming, performances and special effects in genre entertainment.” This year, Star Trek brought in two nominations.
Star Trek: Discovery was nominated for its fifth and final season for Best Science Fiction Television Series. It is going up against 3 Body Problem, Ahsoka, The Ark, Dark Matter, and Fallout. Last year, the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard won this award plus several others. All four previous seasons of Discovery were nominated for Best Streaming Media Television Series (prior to last year, the Academy split broadcast/cable and streaming into different categories), and the first two seasons won.
L-R Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham and Callum Keith Rennie as Rayner in Star Trek: Discovery, episode 2, season 5, streaming on Paramount+, 2023. Photo Credit: Marni Grossman /Paramount+
Star Trek: Lower Decks was nominated for Best Animated Television Series for its fifth and final season. It is competing with Batman: Caped Crusader, Gremlins: The Wild Batch, Kaiju No. 8, Star Wars: The Bad Batch, and X-Men ’97. Lower Decks was nominated last year as well, but lost out to Bad Batch.
L-R: Gabrielle Ruiz as T’Lyn, Lauren Lapkus as Jennifer, Tawny Newsome as Beckett Mariner, NoÎl Wells as DíVana Tendi, and Eugene Cordero as Rutherford in episode 3, season 5 of Lower Decks streaming on Paramount+, 2024. Photo Credit: Paramount+
There were no other nominations for Trek this year. Last year, the franchise picked up 15 nominations across Picard, Lower Decks, Strange New Worlds, and home media. Two total nominations is the fewest for the franchise during the new Paramount+ Star Trek TV era, starting in 2018 when Discovery picked up six nominations for its first season (winning two).
Doug Jones winning Best Supporting Actor Saturn Award for Discovery in 2019
The Saturn Awards ceremony will be held on February 2, 2025, at The Hilton Universal City Hotel. It will be streamed live on on Electric Entertainment’s ElectricNOW platform and on The Roku Channel.
Find more news and analysis on Star Trek Universe TV shows at TrekMovie.com.
Lower Decks makes a lot of sense to me. But I felt DISCO’s fifth season was its weakest, so the nomination surprises me.
Personally I liked the last season the most, and felt that overall the show got better each season.
The extended finale felt like a small movie, with some fan-service.
The final episode also found a great balance between stand-alone stories, connected by an overall plot.
I’m glad you enjoyed it and I truly wish I could say the same. After season three, though, I thought the show tanked. Also, I felt Disco’s finale was the worst one in Trek history. The villains for season five were major duds for me, and the ending was abrupt, tacked-on, and unsatisfying–for me. :)
I also really enjoyed the ending. I actually cried during the coda because after a life of struggle Burnham had a good life free from her traumatic burdens. Also, despite her childhood trauma and emotionally negligent parenting she didn’t pass on any of that to her child with whom she’s warm and affectionate. Life itself being enough… it really resonated with me.
Maybe I’m just a sucker because I also cried at the end of Prodigy S1 and when Picard chooses to stay with his son in Picard S3. Growing up with ’90s trek I always felt more in my head than in my heart and it’s a bit more inverted in this new era.
The new era doesn’t have enough, if any depth to make me feel much. I used to blame the limited number of episodes for that, but other streaming shows that aren’t Star Trek have proven that to be false. Must be other factors.
I hear you. I remember watching the end of DISCO S3 and thinking WTF was that? In my case I ended up doing a lot of EMDR and IFA therapy and realized how closed off I was. Rewatched the show later on and had a completely opposite reaction. It resonated for me so much emotionally. Not saying Star Trek hasn’t changed, but I think it’s for the better. It’s more compassionate and in my case I had a lot of growing to do. Not saying that’s it’s same for you, but sometimes things can’t be the same because we’re not the same.
It exhibited a bunch of the problems the show’s had, especially in seasons 3-4. But the quest arc helped, and they had some episodes I genuinely enjoyed.
Lower Decks definitely deserves its nod, though.
Congrats to both. Any attention Star Trek gets is good with me.
Congrats to both! Always happy to see a Trek show nominated for something.
I can understand Lower Decks, but honestly, why Discovery? Other than decent visuals, the odd good episode (5×4, “Face the Strange”) and Callum Keith Rennie as Rayner, the season was pretty bad. Especially in regards to the writing and conclusion. I guess it must be slim pickings in the world of sci-fi/fantasy live action media.
That’s why it surprised me, too. Season five was some of the blandest Star Trek we’ve had in years, especially following Picard season three and the recent seasons of Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds, all of which have been much better.
Well deserved for BOTH! Good luck to the creatives!!
Congrats to both, but boy they’ve got stiff competition…Fallout, 3 Body Problem, X-Men ’97, Batman Caped Crusader…
Discovery is so big budget that it was always going to get nominated. The fact that Picard season 3’s final episode actually won *awards* is so utterly ridiculous that I kinda just roll my eyes at the whole thing now.
Picard’s final episode was fantastic.
Agreed
Same
Loved it.