STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS Animated Series Comedic Tone and Character Details

Mike McMahan, the writer and producer of Rick and Morty, has been developing an animated Star Trek series titled Star Trek: Lower Decks. It follows a support crew serving on one of Starfleet’s least important ships in the fleet. It was also described as being like Downton Abbey in space.

During an interview with /Film, McMahan shared some additional information on the series and what we can expect from it. He offered some insight into the comedic tone and also shared some details on the characters of the series:

"A big thing that was important to me was figuring out how do we comedically access these characters. How can these characters be funny and not break Star Trek? You can't have a Morty in Star Trek. You can't just have a stupid person in Starfleet, otherwise it breaks the aspirational paradigm of what humanity is like in Starfleet. So our leads are foils for each other, but they're very much ingrained in Star Trek."

McMahan went on to dive into more specific details about the crew that fills the USS Cerritos:

"You have Ensign Beckett Mariner, who is sort of like our Tom Cruise/Maverick, where she's amazing at Starfleet stuff, and she's incredibly knowledgeable, but she just hates following the rules and she bristles at the military structure. She wants to do whatever she wants. She's kind of like Captain Kirk if Kirk wasn't a captain and didn't have the power. Kirk would follow his gut, and she followers her gut.

"Then, Ensign Brad Boimler also knows everything about sci-fi stuff, and is also an amazing Starfleet crew member, but he's so by-the-book and so burdened by following the rules that he can't follow his gut. So the comedic friction there is that they both want the same thing, they're both good at this stuff, but emotionally and from a human level, they're completely different about how they do it."

McMahan also addressed the fans who have expressed concerns that a comedy series doesn't really fit into the Star Trek franchise, saying:

"Star Trek has always had comedy in it. Every series of Star Trek has funny characters, funny episodes, and those always live in the B-stories for the most part. That, to me, is what I love about Star Trek. So it's really taking that aspect of it and letting that shine. I can't wait for you guys to see it, because it's one of my favorite things I've ever made. It feels like it fell out of another dimension in the 90s where they were making a funny Next Generation era show."

When previously talking about the show, the creator revealed that the series takes place during The Next Generation era. The story is set on a ship that feels like it’s always existed there and the bridge crew is dealing with big, never before seen Starfleet Star Trek type stories. He goes on to say:

"It was important to me that if you know everything about Star Trek and you watch this show then it fits into Canon and doesn't break Star Trek. In fact, it grows it. And if you know nothing about Star Trek, then all of the canon in Lower Decks feels like mythological, broad understandable sci-fi stuff. So you can still enjoy Lower Decks even if it's your first Star Trek show. I used to have a Twitter account called TNG Season 8 that imagined fake episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. This sort of it walks an even finer line than that Twitter did where its stories feel very Star Trekky, but you're having a good time while you're watching it. And it's half the length of a regular Star Trek and takes place in '90s Star Trek. It's sort of like a love letter to people that love Star Trek, but it's also a funny show for people who have never seen it."

McMahan also offered some other details about Lower Decks and why he wanted to set it during TNG, saying:

“I was a [Star Trek: The Next Generation] guy and when I grew up, that was the Star Trek I really loved. I like all Star Trek, but that's the one that feels most like home to me. I wanted to choose a year that was kind of untouched, was kind of blank slate, that didn't touch on anything that they might be doing for whenever Picard takes place but also doesn't get in the middle of anything that was like, ‘Oh, this was happening during the Dominion War.’ Or, you know, ‘This would be happening during [Star Trek: First Contact].'

“For me, it was like what was a little spot where our characters on a less important ship could be having adventures and doing their thing that wouldn't break anybody else's favorite show. Everybody else, there's so many fans. There are people who are huge fans of Deep Space Nine. I love Voyager and Enterprise and everything that came around there, those shows are all amazing. I didn't want anybody to feel like I was trying to subvert their favorite show by what we were doing. Also, because it was my favorite era, I was like, ‘I'm going to slip in at the very end and get to do just one more little piece of that era. Just one more little growing of the world, just in this different format.’”

I really do love the concept of this series! Since McMahan was a writer on Rick and Morty, a lot of fans wonder how much the Lower Decks series will be like Rick and Morty, but when comparing the two, he said his show has little in common with Rick and Morty.

“It is very dissimilar to Rick and Morty. I'd say that the only thing that it has a similarity to of Rick and Morty's writing style is that the characters we're allowed to be funny people. I love how many jokes are in Rick and Morty per minute. Some people on the Internet try to count them. We're trying to fit a whole Star Trek episode into a 20-to-23-minute format that involves a whole macro sci-fi story and two emotional stories that we're tracking with our leads all throughout. So we do have the accelerated pace of a Rick and Morty. I'd say that Star Trek: Lower Decks is going to feel like the one act of another Star Trek show where everything is happening, and stuff is really moving. That's like us from the first scene until the last scene.”

The cast for the series includes Tawny Newsome (Brockmire), Noël Wells (Master of None), Eugene Cordero (The Good Place), Jack Quaid (Rampage, Logan Lucky), Dawnn Lewis (Veronica Mars), Jerry O’Connell (Jerry Maguire), Fred Tatasciore (American Dad!), and Gillian Vigman (The Hangover).

Are you looking forward to watching this Star Trek: Lower Decks project?