New Animated Star Trek Comedy Show Coming

It looks like it’s official and not just one of those crazy internet rumours like Noel Fielding is going to present GBBO (yeah right). Apparently, the guardians of the franchise CBS have approached Rick and Morty writer Mike McMahan to pen a new animated series called Star Trek: Lower Decks according to reports from Deadline Hollywood.

McMahan, a lifelong Trekkie, is no stranger for writing Trek stories including setting up the amazingly funny @TNG_S8 Twitter feed in which he laid out ridiculous plots for a fantasy season 8 of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

“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,” said McMahan. “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.”

Lower Decks, which incidentally takes its name from a season 7 TNG episode, is not the first foray into animation for the Trek universe. In the early 70’s, just a few years after the cancellation of The Original Series, Shatner, Nimoy and co (except Walter Koenig, who wasn’t invited back for budget reasons) returned to a Saturday morning cartoon show known to fans as The Animated Series.

With its schlocky copy and paste animation and questionable canonical content, TAS still holds a special place in fans hearts as it was a way for the saga to continue with all the actors and writers on board. Once you get past the roughness of it TAS actually holds up as good solid Trek storytelling.

Star Trek: Lower Decks’ release date has yet to be confirmed.