00x01 - Creator and Cast Talk Season 1

[bunniefuu]

Hey,

welcome to the "Star
Trek: Lower Decks" portion

of San Diego Comic-Con@Home.

I'm Mike McMahan,

I'm the Creator and EP of
"Star Trek: Lower Decks"

and I'm so proud to be a
part of this Star Trek family

with all the stuff you guys
are seeing, you know.

What you're about to see
is people talking about

a show that takes place in ,

it's in the TNG era,

it's right after the events
of "Star Trek: Nemesis",

but it's way before the
events of "Star Trek: Picard".

The TNG era is what I
feel most comfortable in.

Today, we're gonna be joined by

the voice talent of Lower Decks

so that they can talk to you as well

about what it feels like
to be in a Star Trek

and to tell you a little
bit about the show

and to start off with,

we'll be showing you a clip of a scene

from the first episode

that just gives you a
little bit of a taste

of what the show feels and looks like.

We tried to fit it into canon

so that it doesn't break anything,

but we tried to do something
new with it at the same time.

We tried to keep it exciting,

but we also tried to keep
all of the ethical sci-fi

sort of stuff that makes
Star Trek Star Trek

without breaking it

and I think we've come up with something

that a lot of people
are gonna really enjoy.

So, just to start off,
let's watch this clip

and then we will introduce

the voice talent of
"Star Trek: Lower Decks".

Captain's log.

Stardate . .

The Cerritos is docked
at Douglas Station

for routine maintenance and resupply.

We will soon set course for

the capital planet on the Galar System

where we're scheduled
to make second contact

with the Galardonian High Council.

First contact is a delicate,

high-stakes operation of diplomacy.

One must be ready for anything

when humanity is interacting

with an alien race for the first time.

But we don't do that.

Our specialty is second contact.

Still pretty important, we
get all the paperwork signed,

make sure we're spelling the
name of the planet right,

get to know all the good places to eat.

Oh my God.

- What are you doing?
- Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

Are you pretending
to do a captain's log?

We're all supposed to keep logs.

Okay, let me listen to it.

No, go away, leave me alone!

I can't believe you're wasting
your shore leave on this!

- Privacy, please!
- Time to go, come on,

- get out of the closet.
- Privacy.

- Are you drunk?
- Yeah, dude, you should be too!

I mean, this station is amazing

and they have Romulan whiskey

and I bet you thought
it was gonna be green,

but it is actually blue, it's
this very beautiful color.

Romulan whiskey is against regulation.

Yeah, 'cause it's awesome!

Oh, man, they got all
sorts of great stuff.

Oh, oh! Come on, check this out.

- Be careful with that!
- Pretty sweet, right?

Yeah, it's a Klingon
bat, um, bat, uh, bat,

I don't know, I'm not a scientist,
it doesn't matter, shut up.

I got it from an old
guy with an eye patch.

- Come spar with me, come on!
- No, come on, hey!

Oh, we could be Klingons,

we could have crimped hair
and wrinkled foreheads.

- w*r, w*r, w*r!
- It's got crusted blood on it!

I love honor, I demand honor!

[SCREAMING]

Listen, I promise you, people do not

get chopped in the leg by
a bat'leth every episode,

but it is always a possibility

when you're serving on a Starfleet ship.

All right, now, let's meet
some of our voice talent

from "Star Trek: Lower Decks".

Tawny Newsome, thank you
so much for joining us.

Oh, thank you, I can feel
the virtual throngs of people

crushing my body as I
push through the crowd.

[MIKE] Hey, Jack Quaid!

Hey!

[MIKE] Thanks for joining us.

Eugene Cordero, glad we got
to do this, this is cool.

Me too, me too.

[MIKE] All right, so we
have Noël Wells here.

Hi!

[MIKE] Dawnn Lewis. I wish
I could see you in person,

but we will be together
again soon, I'm sure.

I'm looking forward to it.

[MIKE] Jerry O'Connell,
thank you for joining us

from what appears to be
a beautiful verdant hill.

It's just, no, it's a green screen,

I'm actually in my basement.

Oh, that's, yeah, so am I.

Hey, Fred!

Thank you so much for having me, Mike.

[MIKE] Gillian Vigman,
thank you for joining us!

Oh, it is my pleasure to be here, Mike.

So, there are all kinds
of officers in Starfleet.

There's engineers, there's scientists

and there's all sorts of
different commanders

and then, even in those ranks,

you never know what you're gonna get.

What kind of Starfleet
officer is your character?

I've joked before that she's
not very different from me

and that is a testament to you, Mike,

for liking my personality, I guess,

and just kind of writing it
into a cool Starfleet officer.

But yeah, you know, she's a little,

I don't know, she doesn't
always play by the rules,

even though she could,
'cause she's good at things.

It's kind of like when
you're the class clown

because you are ahead
of the lesson in school

type of a thing.

A lot about Star Trek
is about the humanity

in the characters that are on the ship.

They can be spouting all
this technological stuff,

but you really, you wanna
care about the characters

and you really make that character fun.

Thanks, man, it's a team effort.

Yeah, Ensign Brad Boimler

is the ultimate Starfleet nerd.

He's a complete fanboy for

all the captains and the first officers,

basically anyone who works on the bridge

and he wants to be like them so bad,

that he's obsessed with
rank and ranking up

and he figures the best way to do that

is to go as by the book as possible,

so he follows every
Starfleet rule to a tee,

he has no demerits at all,

he logs even when he's
really not supposed to

because he's an ensign.

- But he means well.
- He means so well

and honestly, it's just a
guy talking to his friends

that are giving him a lot of guff.

I like that Tawny calls you Boimler,

or she calls you Boims
on Twitter, it's so cute.

Ensign Tendi is the fresh
eyes on the Cerritos.

She's excited by everything,
she's unflappable,

even if there's weird things happening,

she somehow turns it into
this optimistic point of view.

So, she's just very excited.

Ensign Rutherford is the
cyborg but I mean, I guess,

he loves the fact that
he is half-mechanics

'cause he loves the mechanics.

He's an engineer guy, he's
all about the tech talk.

He's the guy you want on
your trivia team talking about

every single ship that's
ever been in the galaxy,

or beyond, yeah.

So, Dr. T'Ana, who is, I would say she's

the head medical officer on the Cerritos

and because of that, she has
an extreme responsibility

to take care of basically
everybody on board.

Dr. T'Ana, she might be great

at solving space medical mysteries,

but she's also a scary,
crusty alley cat,

which is why we love her.

Dr. T'Ana may have the
gruffest bedside manner,

but she loves to dig in
and get to the problem.

[HISSES]

- Lieutenant Shaxs.
- Yes.

What kind of Starfleet officer is he?

Well, he is a definite sh**t
first, ask questions later.

He is no-nonsense.

He is a Bajoran that's got
a chip on his shoulder,

as he should.

He's hard-core,

but in some ways, terrible for security

because he's just like,

"Oh, someone's hailing?

Fire! I suggest we hail fire on them!"

You know, and it's like, and you know,

but at the same time, he kicks ass

and he gets the job done.

My character, Ransom,

as a number one, has
a pretty short fuse.

I don't think he's the
easiest person to work for,

but he does deeply care about Starfleet,

he just does and says things

that I'm not sure we could get away with

on other Star Trek franchises.

Since we're the first comedy
Star Trek, we figured,

we're not on the most
important ship in the fleet,

so why not have them really be people?

'Cause Star Trek is always about

- people who are...
- Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Whoa, easy.

The Cerritos is super important
to Starfleet, come on now.

- [MIKE LAUGHS]
- Everybody knows that.

[MIKE] Alright, I'm sorry, I know.

And you know, it's funny,

as the Captain, I never feel confident

and I never feel in command,

I always feel like I'm
talking for talk's sake

and people are just gonna do

whatever they're gonna do anyway,

but I take myself very, very seriously.

Captain Freeman is
vital, she's important,

and she is in control and in charge

and the Cerritos and our
mission to do second contact,

which is almost more
important than first contact,

because first contact, no
one knows you're there.

Second contact, we make sure
things are running smoothly,

things are running right

and Captain Freeman, she's in charge

and she's gonna make sure

everybody knows that she's in charge.

- Okay?
- Whoa, listen,

alright, alright, I shouldn't
have made it sound

like you guys weren't
the most important,

the unsung heroes are still heroes.

Thank you!

So, fans of Star Trek have always

dreamed about serving
on a Starfleet ship,

and now you kind of have done
that through your character.

What would you say is one
of the most fun things

about serving on a Starfleet ship?

I think I would be a bit more

of a nerd, even, than Mariner

and I think I'd be really
focused on ascending rank,

'cause I just would wanna get
to that sweet, sweet bridge.

I don't need to be the
captain, but I just wanna be,

I just wanna be someone on the bridge

who's in charge of
something medium-important,

'cause I want enough responsibility

so that I can have an ego,

but not enough to where, if
something crashes or burns

or people die, it's my fault.

I'd say maybe the most fun thing

would probably be the Holodeck

and I know we got a lot of

cool mileage out of
that during our season.

Well, we did, but people don't know yet,

but I guess this is a,

- Jack Quaid has promised fans...
- No!

You'll be seeing some stuff
happen on the Holodeck.

It's fine, what else would we tell them?

The leaks are real!

[MIKE] But now they
know we turned it on.

Huge drops for Comic-Con.

It's crazy and it works.

What?

Well, most of the time.

Hey, so, was there a moment
Season that you loved

that you think you can tell

the San Diego @Home Comic-Conners today?

My favorite thing that Rutherford does

is when the [BEEP]

and all of that, and it
was just going and [BEEP]

couldn't get it quite right, [BEEP]

for what was happening.

Mariner, who is always such a screw-up,

always trying to undermine me

and trying to see what
she can get away with,

I am constantly, as Captain Freeman,

trying to come up with ways
to get her back in line

and I realize the most
fun episode for me

was that episode where
I came up with this plan,

you know what?

Instead of continuing to
cut her off at the knees,

promote her.

That's the last thing she
wants to do, is work.

There are many and I don't
wanna blow too much of it,

I just loved how he just comes in

at full-force, no matter what.

"You're too loud!

Captain says you're too loud!"

Breaking instruments.

Stop me if I'm giving away
too much about this episode,

but there's an episode where
we meet Boimler's girlfriend

and that was maybe my
favorite episode to record

because this guy in any
kind of romantic scenario

is just hilarious to me.

But this is really a whole
cast, this is an all-skate.

I love Episode , [BEEP], so much.

It is maybe, I don't wanna pick
favorites,

but it really grabbed all the
things that I love about Trek

and then all the absurdity

that you've injected into this world,

with, [BEEP] what happens at the end.

This is the greatest thing
I could be a part of.

One, you guys let me be
crusty, curmudgeon-y, bitter

and yet filled with sort of this

excitement and curiosity for learning.

My favorite part of the
first season I would say

is when Ransom gets into a
pretty vicious fight with [BEEP].

It's pretty gory, it's not
for the faint of heart.

You have a very unique
situation in your household,

because the last time I checked,

usually there's not two number ones,

second in commands, under one roof.

So, I play Ransom, the
number one in Lower Decks.

My wife is the number one

on the recently-announced
Strange New Worlds.

So, my wife is a number one.

We're also very, very good
friends with Jonathan Frakes,

who's also a number one.

So, man, when the three
of us get together,

I just, I mean,

I really should livestream
it for everybody.

What would be your pitch for people who

maybe aren't Trekkies,

do you think that people
who aren't Trekkies

are gonna like Lower Decks?

Yeah, I think that that's what's
so great about the show.

Obviously, it's gonna be exciting

for people that are Trekkies,

but the show is a totally
different perspective

and has this comedic bent
that we haven't seen before,

so if you are into animation,

if you like dark comedic comedies,

there's plenty for everybody!

I think you're right, I think
that people who like Trek

will find a lot to love in this,

and people who have
never seen Star Trek,

it might be the first thing
that makes them go,

"Wait, maybe I like Star Trek".

All right, and that's it.

Thank you, everybody, for joining us

and letting us talk to you about
"Star Trek: Lower Decks".

We can't wait for you to see the season,

which, again, premieres on
CBS All Access on August th

and just personally, I
know this is tough times

and I know that we're all looking for

a way to kind of get through it

and I know that we can,

just hang in there,
take care of each other

and watch as many cartoons as possible.

Thank you, everybody.

Live long and prosper.

And now I want you to get in that car

and I wanna see you do
a flip right over that hill.

- Watch this.
- Oh, God, Jerry, no!

[LAUGHS]