Home TV News CBS All Access Orders ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Animated Comedy Series

CBS All Access Orders ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Animated Comedy Series

by Dave Elliott
CBS All Access Orders 'Star Trek: Lower Decks' Animated Comedy Series

CBS All Access Orders ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Animated Comedy Series

CBS All Access has announced they have handed a two-season order for Star Trek: Lower Decks, a new half-hour animated comedy series developed by Emmy Award-winning ‘Rick and Morty’ writer Mike McMahan. The series will focus on the support crew serving on one of Starfleet’s least important ships.

“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,’ comments exec producer (and head of all things ‘Trek’ at CBS) Alex Kurtzman. “His cat’s name is Riker. His son’s name is Sagan. The man is committed. He is 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.”

The show will be produced by CBS Eye Animation Productions, CBS Television Studios’ new animation arm, Secret Hideout, and Roddenberry Entertainment. Kurtzman and Heather Kadin for Secret Hideout will serve as exec producers, with Roddenberry Entertainment’s Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth and Katie Krentz alongside McMahan. Aaron Baiers, who brought McMahan to the project, will serve as a co-executive producer.

“As a life-long Trekkie, it’s a surreal and wonderful dream come true to be a part of this new era of ‘Star Trek,’” adds creator Mike McMahan. “While ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ is a half-hour, animated show at its core, it’s undeniably ‘Trek’ – and I promise not to add an episode at the very end that reveals the whole thing took place in a training program.”

Mike McMahan has worked on a number of animated series including ‘Rick and Morty’, ‘South Park’ and ‘Solar Opposites’. It’s not his first ‘Trek’ project either. As a long-time fan of the series, in 2011 McMahan started a Twitter account where he posted episode plots to a fake season of ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’. They were such a hit that Simon & Schuster 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’.

When Kurtzman took over the captain’s chair at CBS for all things ‘Trek’ related, they announced they were looking at a number of new projects. We currently have a 2nd Season of Star Trek: Discovery arriving in January 2019, the Discovery-related ‘Star Trek: Short Treks’ (which still don’t have a UK home… grrr…), and a new series which sees Sir Patrick Stewart reprising his iconic role as Jean-Luc Picard. There was also talk of more to come.

“We couldn’t have imagined a better creative team to work with on CBS All Access’ first original animated series than Mike McMahan, Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment,” said Julie McNamara, Executive Vice President, Original Content, CBS All Access. “‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ is a fantastic complement to our growing lineup of original series and our ongoing expansion of the ‘Star Trek’ universe on CBS All Access.”

Star Trek: Lower Decks will air on CBS All Access in the US. Hopefully, someone will nudge Netflix UK into picking it up, but we’ll have to wait and see.

 

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