Showrunner Mike McMahan on Star Trek: Lower Decks season two: “The training wheels are off”

"Star Trek: Lower Decks Season Two Special Screening & Block Party" -- Mike McMahan celebrates with the cast and crew of Star Trek: Lower Decks, who gathered on August 4, 2021 at the CBS Studio Center in Los Angeles, CA., for the Star Trek: Lower Decks Season Two Special Screening & Block Party. Photo: Sarah Coulter/Paramount+©2021 Paramount+. All Rights Reserved.

AUGUST 12, 2021 -  Have we mentioned there’s new Star Trek today? I think we have, but just in case...there’s new Star Trek today! Season two of Star Trek: Lower Decks has already left spacedock by the time you read this, and series Showrunner Mike McMahan has thoughts on the journey so far and where it’s headed.

McMahan spoke with TrekMovie at the Lower Decks premiere last weekend, and he reflected on how the series has moved from a mix of explanation and comedy to being able to, as he says, “let our hair down a little bit” by being able to focus more on story and characters without as much “Star Trek 101.” With season two, McMahan said there is no more “hand-holding,” and we can expect weirder planets and deeper cuts in a more unleashed season.

Looking even farther ahead to season three (which is already in production), McMahan sees the show as eventually starting to look at what happens to our cast when they stop being “lower deckers” and start moving up in rank. And he’s confident that by then, it’ll be the story that keeps you coming back. He said, “There’s a way to end an episode that’s like, ‘Hey, that was an amazing time. If you want another amazing time you can’t predict, you should come back.’ I think season three is that.”

Encouragingly, McMahan says that he has a million ideas for what he wants to do with Lower Decks and says that he “would do this show forever.”

For more from Mike McMahan, you can read the full interview at TrekMovie.com.

Star Trek: Lower Decks season two premieres today on Paramount+ in the US and on Canada’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel. International audiences will get it tomorrow on Amazon Prime Video, though Latin America will have to wait until September.