McMahan touched on those concerns with The Hollywood Reporter. While it wasn’t the first Star Trek animated series, the more comedic tone caused a stir among certain fans. When Lower Decks made its grand premiere in 2020, fans were initially split on the idea. Meanwhile, the captain and senior staff are delegated to the supporting cast. While most shows follow a brave captain and their crew on the bridge of the starship, Lower Decks follows a group of crew members that occupy the ship’s lower decks and do the dirty and menial jobs. Star Trek: Lower Decks is an adult animated series that sets itself apart from other previous shows in the franchise.

I would want it to feel like this, with this type of art.’ And he turned to one of his executives and said, ‘Well, I guess we have another Star Trek show because we have to make that.’” Just going in and being like, well, ‘I’d want it to be about the lower decks and I’d want it be in the Next Generation era. And Alex just asked me, ‘what would your dream Star Trek be?’ And I literally just laid out exactly what Lower Decks was off the top of my head, not even preparing. So, apologies in advance.’ And he was like, ‘Shut up, just come in and pitch.’ It wasn’t even a pitch. “When I got a call to go in and pitch an animated show to Alex Kurtzman at Secret Hideout, Aaron Baiers brought me in and we had been assistants at 20th Century together back in 2008 when I was writing a Star Trek Twitter (about a fictional 8th season of Next Generation.)… (And) I told him going in, ‘I’m going to come in and pitch the only Star Trek show that I have the skill set to make, but you will never make it. But he considered it “the dream he didn’t think was possible.”

McMahan, a longtime Trekkie, had always wanted to do a show set in the world of the cultural phenomenon. The director sat with The Hollywood Reporter to talk about the series and brought up the show’s creation. When it came to the creation of Star Trek: Lower Decks, series creator Mike McMahan originally considered it a dream project that would never see the light of day.

Brave animated series comic