When it came to establishing Star Trek: Lower Decks, series creator Mike McMahan originally thought of it as a dream project that would never see the light of day. The director sat with The Hollywood Reporter to talk about the series and brought up the creation of the show. McMahan, an old Trekkie, had always wanted to do a show set in the world of the cultural phenomenon. But he regarded it as ‘the dream he never thought possible’.
“When I got a call to pitch an animated show for Alex Kurtzman in Secret Hideout, Aaron Baiers brought me in and we were assistants at 20th Century together in 2008 when I was writing a Star Trek Twitter (about a fictional 8th season of Next Generation.)… (And) I said to him as I went in, ‘I’m going to pitch the only Star Trek show I can make, but you’ll never make it. So apologies in advance.’ And he said, ‘Shut up, just come in and pitch.’ It wasn’t even a pitch. It was just an appointment to talk to Alex. And Alex just asked me, ‘what would your dream be Star Trek?’ And I literally explained exactly what Lower Decks was off my mind, not even the prep. Just go in and say, ‘I wish it was on the lower decks and I wish it was in the Next Generation era. I wish it would feel that way, with this kind of art.’ And he turned to one of his executives and said, ‘Well, I think we have another Star Trek show, because we have to make it.’”
Star Trek: Lower Decks is an adult animated series that is distinct from other previous shows in the franchise. While most shows follow a brave captain and their crew on the starship’s bridge, Lower Decks follows a group of crew members occupying the ship’s lower decks doing the dirty and menial work. Meanwhile, the captain and senior staff are delegated to the supporting cast.
Life to Star Command
When Lower decks made its big premiere in 2020, fans were initially divided on the idea. While it wasn’t the first Star Trek animated series, its more comedic tone caused a stir among certain fans. McMahan spoke about those concerns with The Hollywood Reporter.
“I think Star Trek fans are so protective of this thing they love that whenever something new pops up, instinctively, we think, ‘What’s this?’ We have aired 20 episodes and now 10 more are scheduled. And in just 20 episodes I’ve seen people go, ‘Oh no, a funny one’ Star Trek cartoon, that makes me sad,” to say, “Oh, my comfort show! The thing that made me feel better during the pandemic, the thing that makes me so happy.’ All of us on the show are here to give people that feeling – to make you laugh, to make you talk about the episode, to quote it, to cosplay it. We try to do something that people love. And it feels like we’ve gone from ‘Oh no, what’s this?’ to ‘This is one of my favorites’ Star Treks.'”
Star Trek: Lower Decks is currently on its third season, with a fourth ordered by Paramount. The characters from Lower decks are set to cross over to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds in an upcoming episode, in which Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid played live-action versions of their characters, Beckett Marinier and Brad Boimler McMahan expressed their excitement for the upcoming episode, saying that although the schedules didn’t allow him to visit the set, he was able to “pimp the script” and make sure the episode “felt like” Lower decks.” The show is currently streaming on Paramount+ with new episodes premiering every Thursday.