The party is just getting started
on the lower decks of the U.S.S. Cerritos,
which is why we are now turning our attention
to the lighter side of Star Trek.
Please welcome to the viewscreen
Star Trek: Lower Decks' voice cast: Tawny Newsome,
Jack Quaid, Eugene Cordero, and Noel Wells,
as well as the show's Creator, Executive Producer,
and Showrunner--whew, lot of titles--Mike McMahan.
Thank you guys for joining me.
Hey Mica, yay, whoo!
But before we get into it,
I wanna remind everyone that Star Trek: Lower Decks
is now streaming on CBS All Access in the United States,
and in Canada, it airs on Bell Media's CTV Sci-Fi Channel,
and it streams on Crave.
So if you haven't watched the show yet,
you should definitely go check it out.
It's pretty awesome.
And now with that, hey guys.
Thank you guys so much for hopping on with me.
Happy Star Trek Day.
Happy Star Trek Day to all of you.
Hey, happy Star Trek Day to all of you as well.
Hey, hey Eugene, happy Star Trek Day to just you.
Oh my God, thank you so much.
Hey, Noel?
Yeah?
Hey, happy Star Trek Day to just you.
Whoa, thank you.
And I'm just gonna keep it.
[EUGENE] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Is nobody gonna wish a happy Star Trek Day to me?
- Nope, no. - We got it.
What are you doing?
Well, for all of you guys, quick question.
So we're halfway through Season 1 of Lower Decks,
and fans have a good sense of what the show is,
who the characters are, what's going on.
So what has it been like as an active member
of the Star Trek community since the show has debuted?
I can't speak for these guys, but I've been on shows
where I've obsessed and watched everything,
and on Lower Decks, I'm kind of letting stuff
just kind of come to me
instead of digging through the whole internet.
And it's been awesome.
It's interesting watching the fans
grow to love the characters,
'cause we all know where they go across the season.
And so experiencing it through Star Trek fandom
and getting to see them take first steps into the season,
I mean, it's just been awesome.
Like they're catching every little thing we put in the show.
It's just been wild to see it happen.
I think I worked on something one time
where I read everything.
And even if it was, not even negative,
just like something I wasn't expecting, I was like,
"They don't get it, and I messed up everything."
So I think I'm just done doing that.
And yeah, like Mike, I'm kind of letting things
trickle up to me, and I've been blown away with,
like some people have made some amazing fan art.
I've seen some people cosplay as us already
in quarantine, which is insane.
And a huge honor considering the circumstances.
And it's just been awesome.
I like to browse.
I like to browse the hashtag.
And like Mike, I get really giddy
seeing when people are like,
"Aw, I'm not really feeling this,"
and then I'll see the same person
two episodes later be like, "Okay, now I'm sold.
This is great."
I love seeing the arc.
I'm reading Twitter right now.
What do you got, what do you got?
Good stuff?
There's an infinite amount of information
and an infinite amount of opinions.
But fortunately, the show's great,
and so I just see great stuff.
I hope that's everybody else's.
You know, it's one of those things
where I guess I'm getting a little cocky about it,
where I'm just like, "I don't care what you guys think.
I think it's great and I'm gonna enjoy it."
And then I prance around my house with my shoulders up.
I don't know if you guys are seeing this,
but every time somebody likes the show,
they're like, "I liked it the first time I watched it.
Then I really liked it the second time I watched it.
The third, fourth and fifth times
I really started to get it.
And then I watched it with my family."
I'm like, "Okay, I think people like this show."
Well, it's so great to hear
that there's such an amazing reception to this show.
And since the show is halfway through the season,
I gotta know for all of you,
what's been your favorite storyline so far?
'Cause in the last episode, fans just watched, for instance,
we were introduced to Boimler's girlfriend,
which--freaking hilarious.
So if that's your favorite moment so far, that is valid,
but I wanna hear from all of you.
My favorite happened pretty early on,
which was just the idea of being able to try
the different jobs, like that Rutherford
goes through all of the different jobs
and tries a bunch of things and is not horrible,
but not great at anything.
And it's just kind of perfect.
Also, being able to do different angry voices at times
and then accents at other times.
I mean, I just enjoy being a goof.
I like Episode 3 a lot.
I like kind of all the storylines in that.
I really love seeing Boimler get such a huge win,
you know, when he's able to level with the captain.
And when she finally smiles at him at the end,
it's just this, he has the cutest look
and it's so heartwarming 'cause he's maybe
really the only character besides Tendi that would get
that excited from just an approving look from a captain.
It's such a small moment, but it means everything to him.
And then I'm still mad at Mike.
I'm mad at you for drawing Ransom so hot
because it's confusing and strange for me
- as an adult human woman - It's disturbing.
in the 3D world.
I don't like it.
I don't like the ego trip that it gives Jerry O'Connell.
I don't think it's healthy for him or us.
So beautiful job, animators.
Please dial it back in the second season.
One of my favorite moments in the show
is when Mariner gets promoted and she hates it.
I just love seeing all the kind of menial, boring things
that the bridge crew does when no one's looking.
I love that they have a talent show.
The entire talent show is great.
[TAWNY] That poker game.
That boring ass poker game kills me every time.
[MIKE] They all fold!
They all fold, you dull, dull pieces of trash.
I love in Episode 2,
I think that's when you really start to understand
not the fully fleshed-out versions of all the characters,
but why the lower deckers are such friends.
And I think that it's partially about how good
you have to be to be in Starfleet and to be in Star Trek.
Like how good at your core.
That episode really landed for me when we were writing it
and the way it came together,
that these are really wonderful characters to write.
And they're really, really good friends,
and that feels really good.
So that's my cheater answer for favorite part.
The other thing I like is that,
and this is another cheat
because it's not about any of these guys.
It's something on top of it.
I love that opening sequence.
I love seeing the ship for a second.
The music is beautiful.
The effects are amazing.
You've got that classic TNG-style kind of credit font
and seeing all these guys' names up there.
It just warms my heart.
I'm really proud of this show, and I get to see that
at the top of every episode, and it's just awesome.
Yeah, I like seeing my name up there, too.
That's my favorite part.
Well, you don't expect that with a cartoon, but it's such a,
it happens in every Star Trek show.
So I don't know.
I was very--even though it makes total sense
that our names would be up there
'cause they have been in every other Star Trek intro.
When I first saw my name up there,
I was like, "Oh. Well, okay."
I don't know.
I have never seen cartoons
with opening credits for the actors.
I think it was the ship and the font and everything
that Mike is talking about that made us feel
like, "Wait a minute, are we part of something?"
Yeah.
Like, "I hope I did it okay."
You know, it's crazy, yeah.
You spoke on it a little bit before,
but I wanna feel all of your detailed reactions.
How did you feel when you first saw
the final, final product of Episode 1?
You saw your names in the Star Trek font.
It was real.
What was going through your mind?
I mean, I'll tell you guys, I felt super relieved
because we were not done
with any of it when we went into lockdown.
You know our priority number one was keeping everybody safe
and priority number two
was if we're gonna keep making the show,
it's gotta be as good as if we did it without a quarantine.
You know, it's gotta be great.
And you know, there's some stuff that was hard.
These guys can tell you, we've been doing ADR like this.
We've been doing lines in our closets.
And you know, we've been doing, yep.
Jack's pointing at his home studio now.
You know the music
was completely recorded during quarantine.
Individual musicians that were--we had to stitch together.
I think every show has unexpected difficulties.
And I think this one was a big one.
But you know, when it finally all came together,
and you can just sit back and actually look at it,
it really blows you away.
It's really awesome and it's really funny.
And it comes at you fast,
and it's all the good Star Trek you want,
but also all this stuff that you never knew you wanted.
So, a huge relief, and I'm really proud of it.
I think the score really set the tone
for me of how epic it is.
I'm just so impressed about how many people came together
to make this and how it's such a seamless product.
It's such a seamless show.
It feels like real people.
That's how lived-in the animation feels in the space
and the amount of work
that goes into creating something from nothing.
Literally, we don't have even objects
and somebody's drawing that and giving it its physicality
and a realness that makes it bigger than an animated show.
It doesn't feel like a cartoon.
It feels like a show, you know?
I didn't realize how comforting
all the TNG era set and stuff was going to be.
I didn't realize that I had been missing that
because as I've been enjoying Discovery and Picard,
they look very different.
And I never thought,
you know, I just thought of them as different series
and I hadn't really dealt with it in my mind
that I was missing the LCARS
and just the weird hushed carpeted hallway
and the scoop archway.
Why is every wall somehow curved, but also has corners?
All over the ship, it's just this conundrum.
And so seeing that and feeling like that TNG era,
yeah, setting was just so weirdly--it's like a balm.
It's just very calming to me.
I love it.
And because it lives in that TNG world,
it's like, "Oh, I'm part of something that's already,
it felt like it was already in there the whole time."
Even though it's new, it didn't feel new.
It felt like it was just kind of wedged in.
It's just something you didn't see within, you know,
the scope of the world.
And it's just like, "Oh, you forgot about this."
And it's like, "Oh yeah, that's been there the whole time."
And you're like, "Oh wait, am I part of something
that's been here the whole time?"
And then, you know, my mind goes crazy.
And then I watched all of the opening stuff.
And then once you start watching the actual episodes,
and because we've been recording either by ourselves
in our closets or when we were recording in the studio,
it would be like maybe one other person and everything.
You forget that there's still gonna be drawn
all the other people on the ship.
And you're like, "Wow, there's so many people on this."
Tawny, you and I have talked about this,
that you and I didn't realize
that we were some of the main characters on this show
until we got to the table read.
Because everything was just kind of in hushed tones,
and the project was very secretive.
So I got to that table read and I'm like,
"Oh, this character Boimler
has a lot of lines in this thing."
And so this has just kind of been a series
of very pleasant surprises for me of just like, whoa,
I get to be a part of this thing.
And I'm one of the four main characters, that's insane.
Then to see it actually realized
is just absolutely nuts and surreal.
There was a moment during the virtual premiere
where--it's the scene where Boimler and Mariner
are in their underwear hiding from a giant spider.
And my girlfriend looked at me and said, "He has your body."
And I hated that so much.
So, so, so much.
Jack, you texted me that, and I told you
what my good friend said.
My good friend Prina Patel goes,
"Hey, honey, they upgraded you."
Ooh.
In all fairness, I do have three purple hairs right here.
Tiny purple hairs.
Oh, my God.
For the whole cast, this show has been filled
with a bunch of references of other Star Trek shows,
which is super awesome.
And I wanna know, did you guys get a list of episodes
from Mike to watch ahead of time so you guys
could talk about it and kind of know what's going on?
Or were you just like sure, yeah, this joke?
No, but that's a good idea for Season 2.
I'm being serious.
I would love, 'cause I think I've seen everything
except for all of TOS.
At least once in my life I've seen everything else.
But I would love a list of reference episodes
to just go back and rewatch.
That'd be really cool.
Yeah, I can give you that actually right now.
You go to Wikipedia and you type in Star Trek.
You know, to speak to what Eugene was saying,
it is crazy that we're doing kind of like the last '90s era
TNG show, 'cause we all grew up with this stuff
being on our screens and now we're doing like one more.
So it's kind of wild.
And it's so available on so many,
it's all on CBS All Access.
You can just jump in and watch the entirety of Star Trek.
So I know that, I mean, I haven't made you guys watch it,
but it might be because I rewatch it
over and over and over again.
And I just want you to come in
and just think about your characters
and not be trying to you know, literally emulate anybody
that's already been on Star Trek.
But, you know, I do like that when we're talking
about Star Trek, it always seems like you guys
have a real love for it, too.
I think, especially now, I would love
for you to recommend episodes to us
because I think, like the thing you were saying earlier
about emulating characters that you see,
I think the danger for that is passed.
I think we've all like, we've had a season in.
We kind of know who we are now.
Now I wanna know literally everything you want me
to watch because you and Tawny recommended a ton of stuff
to me when we started to record for the first time.
And it was just great.
It really did help just knowing the world.
'Cause I came in, I don't think I was,
I'd seen a few of the movies
and a few episodes of the original series,
but not a ton of Next Generation.
And I really needed to steep myself
in the lore of the world.
It was just super helpful.
So the more the merrier, keep 'em coming.
All right guys, you heard it here.
Jack is getting you homework.
I'm gonna give you a list of episodes you have to watch.
No, no, no.
Thanks a lot, Jack.
That was unintentionally the most Boimler move
I could have pulled on this Zoom.
For Mike, I understand that we will be seeing
some really cool cameos from some legacy talent
in the next few episodes.
So are you able to share any of those with us pretty please?
This is when we're actually asking for spoilers.
Okay, all right, spoilers.
If you don't wanna hear these, please just go read a book.
Dang!
Go read a book.
Wow, wow.
Read a book.
So coming up in an episode,
we do have John de Lancie joins us,
and he is playing Q in a small part.
Dope.
The whole episode isn't about him,
but it's hard to make a TNG era show and not have Q show up.
So I think an eagle-eyed viewer
will be able to catch his appearance.
In the same episode, Kurtwood Smith plays a tough alien
named Clar, who, I don't want to reveal too much
about what he does, but Kurtwood originally played
the President of the Federation
in Undiscovered Country in Star Trek VI.
So, you know we try to cast some legacy Star Trek voices
not just in the roles they originally played,
but in stuff that just sort of--
they're the perfect voice for even though it's a new role.
So you can see both of them coming up very soon.
And as well as some legacy Star Trek cast,
you guys have some amazing guest voice stars,
particularly comedians playing a few different characters.
So are there any you wanna shout out?
Once again, spoilers are welcome.
Okay, so you guys just saw Gillian Jacobs
playing Barbara Brinson, Brad Boimler's girlfriend.
Which I don't know why it's so funny to me,
Barbara Brinson and Brad Boimler,
like just very insufferable couple name.
You've also seen Sam Richardson plays
our resident Bolian, Vendome,
who we would love to have more of.
He's kind of just been popping in a little bit.
Matt Walsh, he played Ron Docent.
Not the world's best Starfleet officer.
We've got Jack McBrayer showing up as a very funny character
that I don't want to say too much about.
You're also gonna see Tim Robinson, who is incredibly funny.
Shows up as kind of a little bit of our show's Barclay,
I can say.
I want to shout out Haley Joel Osment, too,
as ascension guy.
Oh yeah.
He was so good.
For Mike, I have one super important,
big question for you.
What else can you tease about the back half of Season 1?
The back half of Season 1 rules.
Every episode is my favorite.
I can't choose.
And instead of me trying to tease it,
I think instead we've put together a little clip package
to give you guys a little tease of its own.
So, I think we should just show them that
instead of me talking about it.
I think that sounds great.
She never fails to take my breath away.
I wish I could kiss her and squeeze her.
Excuse me?
Ah, the Cerritos is a handsome lady.
You're damn right about that.
Warp me!
I updated The Dog.
It just looks like a normal dog.
[GASPING]
Wake me up if it turns into something
I need to care about.
Intruders beaming in!
Looks like we'll have to repel them
the old fashioned way.
Setting my fists to stun, and my kicks to kill.
You just instigate chaos.
It's helpful, character-building chaos.
I rode with my best friends.
Look at this new button!
Sexy mode? Mm, don't mind if I do.
I would never put anyone in danger.
Mariner, in case we don't make it.
We're making it.
Voila!
Anyway.
Awesome, and on that note, I wanna thank you guys
so much for hanging out with me today.
I am so stoked to see the rest of Season 1,
which again, Star Trek: Lower Decks is streaming
on CBS All Access in the U.S.
and in Canada airs on Bell Media's CTV Sci-Fi Channel
and streams on Crave.
So definitely check it out.
And one more time for the cheap seats
and everybody way in the back, today on Star Trek Day
you can support our Star Trek United campaign
by tweeting #StarTrekUnitedGives.
And for every person that does, CBS All Access
will donate $1 to the organizations
who do the real world work of championing equality,
social justice, and the pursuit of scientific advancements.
All things Star Trek essentially.
So Mike, Tawny, Jack, Eugene, and Noel,
I hope you guys have a great Star Trek Day
and hopefully we'll talk again soon.
Happy Star Trek Day!
Jack, that is not to you.
Not happy Star Trek Day to you.
Just before we go, can someone, just one person?
- No absolutely not. - Not Jack, everyone but Jack.
All right.
Hey, actually Tawny, before you head out,
I heard from a little birdie
that you are working on a fun side project.
So is there something that you wanna share
with all the people watching at home for Star Trek Day?
Yes, and Mica, you have good sources.
You've had all the scoops.
All the scoops today.
Yeah, so you guys might know
that in addition to Lower Decks,
I'm also the proud host of the official Star Trek podcast,
The Pod Directive.
But what you don't know,
what I'm super excited to announce today
is that I will be joined in my hosting duties
by just the premier king of podcasting,
incredible comedian, actor, my dear friend,
Paul F. Tompkins.
So exciting.
Whoa, that is some confetti-worthy,
awesome air horn, excited announcement.
That's awesome, I can't wait to listen.
I mean, should we just do it?
Like [AIRHORN IMITATION].
We need like a variety of like pitches.
[AIRHORN IMITATION]
Yeah, so that is gonna be soon.
You're not going to have to wait too long to hear it.
I mean, you don't have to wait at all actually.
We have a little promo clip thing
if you wanna hear it right now.
I mean, I wanna hear it.
I'm sure everybody else wants to hear it. So let's do that.
Let's do it.
[TAWNY] Hi, I'm Tawny Newsome.
[PAUL] And I'm Paul F. Tompkins.
[TAWNY] And we are hosting
the official Star Trek podcast,
Star Trek: The Pod Directive.
[PAUL] It is official.
We are huge Star Trek fans
talking to other huge Star Trek fans
who just happen to be award-winning actors,
writers, politicians.
[TAWNY] We even got a real life astronaut
in there and more.
We're talking to them all about their love of Star Trek,
how it influences their everyday lives,
and how it continues to impact them
and the world around them.
[PAUL] Subscribe now to Star Trek: The Pod Directive
on Apple Podcasts.
[TAWNY] Live long and prosper.
[PAUL] Engage. [TAWNY] No.
[PAUL] What do you mean no?
[LAUGHING]