This makes me wish even more for a Star Trek spinoff about the lowest-ranked people on a starship.
Even aside from its cartoonish style and stories, the characters in Lower Decks are too high ranking and too involved. They’re ensigns, and they often interact with the captain. They’re almost never in the dark about what’s happening, and often they’re instigating things.
What I want to see are the non-commissioned people, like Chief O’Brien in his TNG days. It would be really interesting to see things from the PoV of a character who had no say in what was happening, who didn’t really know what was happening except in rumours, and the only time they heard from the top-ranking officers was in ship-wide announcements and so-on.
I’d especially like to see a security team of literal red-shirts beaming down to a hostile planet. Not as part of a standard away team involving the highest ranking officers on the ship. I want a squad of NCOs who are expendable to go down to secure a site so that it’s safe enough that the first officer and doctor can beam down. So many of Star Trek’s episodes are about politics, espionage, secret deals, etc. I’d love to see things from the PoV of a red-shirt security NCO who isn’t cleared to know any of that, but is just told to beam down and secure the landing zone / beam-in zone. Or, better yet, is part of a team that’s sent out in a shuttlecraft weeks ahead, and has to set up a stealthy observation post and camp out, waiting for the Enterprise to arrive. I want NCOs in dirty work gear, not clean uniforms, camping out on a lonely planet not because they’re stranded, just because they have orders to set up the site and wait for the ship.