Fan of Star Trek’s humor? Buckle your launch chairs for Star Trek: Lower Decks. CBS All Access announced on October 25, 2018, that they gave a two-season commitment to Star Trek: Lower Decks, an animated comedy from Emmy Award-winner Mike McMahan. McMahan is best known for Rick and Morty and has written the upcoming Harry Mudd-centric installment of Star Trek: Short Treks.
The show will be produced by CBS Eye Animation Productions, Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment. Star Trek: Lower Decks will follow the support crew serving on one of Starfleet’s least-important ships. A bit of Upstairs/Downstairs (or Downtown Abbey) in space.
McMahan will be joined by Alex Kurtzman and Heather Kadin of Secret Hideout and Rod Roddenberry, Trevor Roth and Katie Krentz of Roddenberry Entertainment as executive producers. Aaron Baiers, who brought McMahan to the project, will serve as a co-executive producer.
Kurtzman shared in Star Trek coverage from CBS that “Mike won our hearts with his first sentence: ‘I want to do a show about the people who put the yellow cartridge in the food replicator so a banana can come out the other end. His cat’s name is Riker. His son’s name is Sagan. The man is committed. He’s brilliantly funny and knows every inch of every Trek episode, and that’s his secret sauce: he writes with the pure, joyful heart of a true fan. As we broaden the world of Trek to fans of all ages, we’re so excited to include Mike’s extraordinary voice.”
In 2011 McMahan started tweeting plots to a fake season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Simon & Schuster then hired him to write a readers’ guide to a fictitious eighth season of TNG titled Star Trek: The Next Generation: Warped: An Engaging Guide to the Never-Aired 8th Season. McMahan recently served as head writer and executive producer on Adult Swim’s animated series, Rick and Morty. He also co-created Hulu’s animated alien family show, Solar Opposites.
With Star Trek: Lower Decks CBS All Access moves into animation. It also expands the Star Trek universe on CBS All Access, also currently includes Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Short Treks. CBS All Access also recently announced plans for a new Star Trek series featuring Sir Patrick Stewart reprising his iconic role as Jean-Luc Picard.
Star Trek: Discovery, returns with season two on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019. No date has been announced for the new animated series.