CBS All Access today released the first trailer for Star Trek: Lower Decks. After a production cycle that has included working from home throughout the coronavirus pandemic, fans finally have their first look at the first Star Trek animated comedy in action. The series debuts its 10-episode first season on August 6th, with new episodes arriving weekly on Thursdays on CBS All Access. Emmy Award-winner Mike McMahan (Rick and Morty, Solar Opposites) developed Star Trek: Lower Decks. The series follows the support crew serving aboard one of Starfleet’s least important ships, the USS Cerritos, in the year 2380, just after Star Trek: Nemesis. Ensigns Mariner, Boimler, Rutherford, and Tendi have to keep up with their duties and social lives, often at the same time as sci-fi shenanigans rock the ship.
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The Starfleet crew residing in the “lower decks” of the USS Cerritos includes “Ensign Beckett Mariner,” voiced by Tawny Newsome, “Ensign Brad Boimler,” voiced by Jack Quaid, “Ensign Tendi,” voiced by Noël Wells and “Ensign Rutherford,” voiced by Eugene Cordero. The Starfleet characters that comprise the ship’s bridge crew include “Captain Carol Freeman,” voiced by Dawnn Lewis, “Commander Jack Ransom,” voiced by Jerry O’Connell, “Lieutenant Shaxs,” voiced by Fred Tatasciore and “Doctor T’Ana,” voiced by Gillian Vigman.
“A big thing that was important to me was figuring out how do we comedically access these characters,” McMahan said of the series in a past interview. “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.”
CBS’s Eye Animation Productions, CBS Television Studios’ new animation arm, produces Star Trek: Lower Decks, along with Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment. Secret Hideout’s Alex Kurtzman and Heather Kadin and Roddenberry Entertainment’s Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth, and Katie Krentz (219 Productions) are executive producers alongside creator and showrunner Mike McMahan. Aaron Baiers (Secret Hideout) serves as a co-executive producer. Titmouse, the Emmy Award-winning independent animation production company behind Big Mouth, serves as the animation studio for the series.
Star Trek: Lower Decks is the first animated series to join the expanding Star Trek franchise on CBS All Access, which also includes the original series Star Trek: Picard; Star Trek: Discovery, returning for its season three later this year; the recently announced USS Enterprise set series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, featuring Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, and Ethan Peck; and the development of a Section 31-based series with Michelle Yeoh. A CG-animated Star Trek series for younger audiences is also in the works for Nickelodeon.
