Mike McMahan, ‘Star Trek’ super fan and the head writer and executive producer of the Emmy Award-winning ‘Rick and Morty’, has been tapped to create ‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’, an adult-targeted comedy animated series for CBS All Access. ‘Lower Decks’ will “focus on the support crew serving on one of Starfleet’s least important ships.” This marks the first original animated series for CBS All Access and the first program from the recently created CBS Eye Animation Productions.
Alex Kurtzman, founder of the CBS TV Studios-based Secret Hideout production studio stated:
“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.”
McMahon noted:
“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. 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.”
McMahon is also writing for All Access/CBS TV Studios’ ‘Star Trek: Short Treks’ shorts, which are based on All Access’ flagship series ‘Star Trek: Discovery’. The service also has a program based on Patrick Stewart‘s ‘Next Generation’ character Jean-Luc Picard in the works.
In 2011, McMahon created a Twitter account to which he posted episode descriptions for a fake season of ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’, which proved to be so popular that Simon & Schuster decided to publish it as a book– ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation: Warped: An Engaging Guide to the Never-Aired 8th Season’.
He and ‘Rick and Morty’ co-creator/executive producer Justin Roiland just had another new animated series, ‘Solar Opposites’ picked up for two seasons on Hulu.
This marks the second ‘Star Trek’ animated series, following the 1973 Saturday morning cartoon, created by Filmation.
Source: Deadline
