First rule of new Star Trek comedy: Don’t mock Star Trek

Star Trek: Lower Decks is a parody of the long-running franchise, but Rick and Morty writer Mike McMahan is making sure it’s not mean-spirited about it.

Star Trek: Lower Decks is a new Star Trek parody show coming from Mike McMahan, a writer on Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty. Like that show, Lower Decks has an anarchic spirit. Watching the trailer, you know this isn’t your standard-issue mannered Trek show the second one of the ship’s worker bees drunkenly disembowels a coworker with a Klingon bat’leth.

So it might surprise you to learn that the number one rule McMahan has when writing the show is, “Don’t punch down on Star Trek.” This is an irreverent comedy that explores what the Starfleet drones are doing while the captains make their big decisions, but it’s clear that McMahan has a deep respect and love for the series.

You can tell that in how he talks about the show to CNET, where he explained why he decided to set the show during the Next Generation era of the franchise. “I remember watching Data and Geordi, like, these are my guys,” he said of his days as a young Trekkie. “With Voyager and Deep Space Nine, it became like a genre. The TNG era is kind of a genre of Star Trek, and [for creators] it’s just a playground.”

“Second Contact” — Pictured (L-R) Jack Quaid as Ensign Brad Boimler, Nol Wells as Ensign Tendi and Tawny Newsome as Ensign Beckett Mariner of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS. Photo Cr: Best Possible Screen Grab CBS 2020 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Of course, making an animated show isn’t quite the same thing as doing something live-action. “[B]eaming in a cartoon doesn’t quite look as magical as it does in live action. But then you can meet alien races that don’t have to have an actor sit for 13 hours to apply a prosthesis.” You win some, you lose some.

And while Lower Decks looks like it’s going to take a gentler tone than Rick and Morty, the shows will have some similarities. “Rick and Morty and Lower Decks [episodes] both start in a very sci-fi place and then they spiral off from there,” McMahan said.

That said, Rick and Morty is the harder show to write. “Every episode has to be, y’know, the most brain-twisting mind-fucking episode ever…[And on top of that] Rick has a portal gun that can take him anywhere so you’re always trying to figure out reasons he left it on the toilet.”

Star Trek: Lower Decks kicks off on CBS All Access this Thursday, August 6!

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