Creator McMahan: Star Trek: Lower Decks is doing “covers of the greatest hits”

Ensigns Tendi (Noël Wells), Mariner (Tawny Newsome) and Boimler (Jack Quaid) perform on the U.S.S. Cerritos in Star Trek: Lower Decks

Last week, the makers of Star Trek: Lower Decks took part in a virtual Q&A at ReedPop’s Metaverse Con. Series creator Mike McMahan, supervising director Barry Kelly, writer M. Willis and character designer Marisa Livingston were all on hand for the event, and the team over at TrekMovie helpfully gathered some of the more pertinent points of the talk. TrekMovie’s coverage focused on two areas of the talk: Lower Decks’ humor, and teasers for the remainder of season one.

When it comes to humor, Lower Decks takes its material seriously, but still tries to keep the tone light. And it’s the characters who drive the humor. Director Kelly indicated his approach to the show’s sci-fi content, saying “it’s only going to make the comedy funnier the more serious I take the sci-fi.” McMahan echoed the sentiment when talking about the music, saying, “The music doesn’t get to think it’s a comedy. The music thinks this is a 40-minute dramatic episode of Star Trek. The characters end up doing funny things.”

TrekMovie also noted a few upcoming teasers for the rest of season one, as per McMahan, including a holodeck malfunction, a trial episode, lots of action, and as he says, they’re doing their “covers of the greatest hits”.

Head over to TrekMovie’s site for their full coverage of the Q&A session, including the panel video, which includes a sneak preview of the cold open of Star Trek: Lower Decks episode three, “Temporal Edict”.