Rick and Morty head writer Mike McMahan has confirmed he is working on a new Star Trek animated comedy series called Star Trek: Lower Deck.
McMahan is a devoted Trekkie. He created the popular parody Twitter account @TNG_S8 which posts hypothetical storylines behind the eighth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. On the back of the account, the writer published the 2015 official book Warped: An Engaging Guide to the Never-Aired 8th Season.
Star Trek: Lower Deck will focus on “the support crew serving on one of Starfleet’s least-important ships”, according to CBS All Access, a US streaming service. Hopefully news of a UK release will be announced soon.
Mike McMahan posted the announcement on Twitter in a typically Trekkie fashion – with the Vulcan salute emoji.
— Mike McMahan (@MikeMcMahanTM) October 25, 2018
“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,” McMahan said in a press release. “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.”
Executive producer Alex Kurtzman explained why McMahan was an easy choice: “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’.
Kurtzman also revealed that not only is the writer’s cat is named after Star Trek: The Next Generation character Riker, but his son is named Sagan as a nod to Nick Sagan, who wrote episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager.
“The man is committed. He’s brilliantly funny and knows every inch of every Trek episode,” Kurtzman said. ” 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 August, it was revealed that Patrick Stewart is to return to his role as Jean-Luc Picard in a new TV series of Star Trek.
The new CBS All Access series will chronicle Picard’s adventures after Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the original series which ran between 1987 and 1994, Stewart played Picard in 178 episodes across seven series.
Meanwhile, the second series of Star Trek: Discovery, which stars Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones and Anthony Rapp, will return in January 2019.