Ep: 040 "Farewell Cerritos" Interview with Mike McMahan

[00:00:00] I think I'm saying that we struggle all our lives to answer it. That it's the struggle that is important. That's what helps us to define our place in the universe.

[00:00:10] This is, uh, Beverly. Dr. Beverly. Dr. Dr. Beverly Crusher.

[00:00:15] Honest. Forceful. Trusting. Brilliant. Strong. And adventurous. And this is Crusher Convo.

[00:00:29] And welcome to Crusher Convo where we're crushing the conversation one episode at a time. I had the amazing opportunity to sit down with Mike McMahon, the creator of Star Trek Lower Decks. And not only did we gush about the show, but we also gushed about the crushers. So here's my interview with Mike. I hope you enjoy.

[00:00:47] Hi, Mike. I'm Jessi from Crusher Convo Podcast, where I deep dive Star Trek through the eyes of Dr. Beverly Crusher.

[00:00:54] Love it.

[00:00:54] And first off, I wanted to thank you because not only did we get Wesley Crusher last season, but you made Boimler a Bev head. So I'm very grateful for that.

[00:01:01] Oh, a huge, how could you not be? You know?

[00:01:04] Right? Exactly. I got super excited. I was like, he's a Bev head. This is perfect. And of course it's Boimler, right?

[00:01:11] Of course. He's dreaming about it.

[00:01:13] Exactly. Yeah, to tap dance. Well, my first question actually is when we saw, we saw a lot of growth with these characters last season with Mariner story coming full circle about Seto, even Tendi dealing with their family. So how does that play a part in this final season?

[00:01:27] Mariner is freed. Mariner is freed to be with not fighting her own demons in a way, you know? And what I really liked about this season is that when you reach a place where you're okay with yourself, it doesn't make you a losing.

[00:01:47] That doesn't make you less of who you are. It makes you more of who you are, you know? And so seeing Mariner be funny and chaotic, but not with that, that, that burden makes her a better officer, makes her a better friend, makes her like, like, it feels good to see Mariner like herself more.

[00:02:05] And it honestly, it doesn't hugely change the show because her friends and her mom and Ransom and everybody around her kind of really, you know, managed to not let her toxicity fully destroy their relationships.

[00:02:27] Like they kind of saw her for who she could be and who they knew she was without it. And like, yeah, she went to the brig and got kicked off the ship every once in a while.

[00:02:35] But like, you know, it just feels, it feels like this season could have been the first season and the story of Mariner dealing with the stuff with Seto could have been prologue if, if we had told it like that.

[00:02:47] So like, right. It's nice. It's nice to see Mariner being funny and Star Trek and Starfleet without the kind of like self-destructiveness.

[00:02:59] Right. Right. Now, was there anything in the season or in the series in general that you didn't get to do that you wish you had?

[00:03:06] Yes. Hundreds of episodes, but we got to do, I got to have a ton of fun.

[00:03:11] I got 50 episodes to get to have fun. And I think if you go back and watch from first season, I was having fun from the first episode. You know what I mean?

[00:03:20] So like, I never, I, I obviously would love to do more, but I'm also like, I'm not dumb enough to not appreciate how cool it is that I got to do what I did, you know?

[00:03:33] And this season I'm really proud of too. And I, I don't know, like I went from being a guy who just absolutely to his core was confident that I would never get to make a Star Trek to getting to do 50 animated Star Treks and a short Trek.

[00:03:51] You know what I mean? So like, I, I can't, I can't be too upset about it, but I am a greedy little baby.

[00:03:58] I do want to do more, but like, we're all greedy as Trek fans. Cause I'm like, we want more.

[00:04:04] Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to do movies and I'd love to do spinoffs and more animated stuff and maybe live action.

[00:04:09] But like, it's, you know, I, I can't, that doesn't diminish what we did and how much I love it. You know?

[00:04:17] Yeah. Now I've, I actually just joined Trek in 2022.

[00:04:23] Oh, nice.

[00:04:24] So I never grew up with Star Trek or anything. I kind of got in in 2022 cause my husband's a huge fan and I was pretty spoiled because then Picard was coming out.

[00:04:34] There was lower decks. There's this guy and I was like, there's all this new Trek that I could just eat up.

[00:04:39] Was, was TNG your Trek or was it like.

[00:04:43] Yeah. TNG was my Trek and then Voyager.

[00:04:45] And then later in life watched all of TOS, like watch the rest of it.

[00:04:51] I also saw from Star Trek six on, I saw every movie in theaters, you know?

[00:04:55] So like that was great for me.

[00:04:57] And the, you know, I think like,

[00:05:01] it's kind of like reading an old book again,

[00:05:03] when you get a little bit older, you get different stuff out of it.

[00:05:06] That like Deep Space Nine now is very different for me than Deep Space Nine when I was younger.

[00:05:10] And when I went to college, I had no TV and I was born in the eighties.

[00:05:15] So a shocker internet video didn't exist yet, kids.

[00:05:19] So I, uh, uh, I didn't see Enterprise until it was wrapped.

[00:05:25] And I went back and saw the whole thing cause it was airing when I was in college.

[00:05:28] So like, um, getting to experience that was a huge, I'm a big Enterprise fan because of that,

[00:05:34] because it was like, oh my God, one extra Star Trek for me that I didn't get to see, you know?

[00:05:38] Yeah.

[00:05:39] HD, which was really cool at the time.

[00:05:41] Um, but yeah, so yeah, TNG was my main, that's the one I kind of grew up on.

[00:05:46] And then Voyager was the one like right before I graduated high school.

[00:05:50] Awesome. Awesome.

[00:05:51] Yeah. I just finished Voyager actually.

[00:05:53] Cause I was trying to go in order and I'm into Enterprise, but then I was like,

[00:05:57] I'm just going to go ahead and jump.

[00:05:59] And I saw already strange new worlds and vortex and prodigy.

[00:06:02] I was like, I'm not going to miss that, but I'll go, I'll go back to the original soon.

[00:06:06] Now in New York comic con that you get, you were just at,

[00:06:10] you said that an animated or live action movie could be possible, which is great because I think

[00:06:16] that those old scientists from strange new worlds is like literally one of the best Trek ever in

[00:06:23] history. And so if you had that opportunity, would you want to bring in other legacy characters,

[00:06:30] a certain doctor perhaps?

[00:06:33] Oh man. I, one time I went to comic con and Gates came running up to me and put her hands on my

[00:06:39] shoulders. I was like, Mike, your show is brilliant. Please, please put Beverly Crusher in it.

[00:06:45] And I definitely wanted to, but it was right when Picard season three was starting to be written

[00:06:51] and I knew how much they had planned for her. So I didn't want to say anything with that character.

[00:06:55] I wanted that. I wanted Beverly to have that without like doing comedy stuff with her just yet.

[00:07:02] Right. And then I thought I was going to get more seasons, but I definitely wanted to pull her in.

[00:07:07] And then I didn't get to, which was annoying, but not tragic, obviously.

[00:07:13] Right.

[00:07:14] The, for a movie, it's so funny because it's like, as a show creator, I would love to do

[00:07:21] a live action movie with an all new cast that, that our guys are a part of, but they're not maybe the

[00:07:26] highlight of, but they are like, you know, cause I want to build out that world and the, the, the kind

[00:07:32] of like character lexicon of Trek. There's also a part of me that's like, I'd love just to do a live

[00:07:37] action movie with all of our cast, you know, live action series with all of our cast or a limited

[00:07:42] series at the same time. Like these characters, these characters have always existed in animated form

[00:07:48] for me. And it's not just Tanya and Jack and Eugene and Noel and everybody, but it's also,

[00:07:53] you know, Barry Kelly, our supervising director and the character designers and all of the,

[00:07:59] Nolan Obena are our, our lead artists, like our art director, like this show really is like,

[00:08:06] I know the live action episode worked really, really well. And it was awesome. Like for me and it's very

[00:08:11] DNA, all of these brains making it and all of these talented artists making it is so

[00:08:17] important to lower decks and the characters that like a really cool, big 2d animated, but still

[00:08:26] expensive, like long form animated movie. Like my pitch for that is look at our movie episodes.

[00:08:33] Like we have a blast in those. Imagine if we had the budget and the time and the support to do a full

[00:08:39] big animated lower decks movie. That'd be awesome.

[00:08:41] Oh, absolutely. No, that I think everyone would jump to that. And I know Gates would be like,

[00:08:46] I'm in. She'll be the first one to sign up.

[00:08:50] She's so funny. She and Tanya are such pals. Like seriously, they love hanging out. It's so cute.

[00:08:59] They are friendship goals. Like it literally, it used to be Sir Patrick Stewart or in Sir Ian

[00:09:06] McKellen and they took over.

[00:09:08] Yes.

[00:09:08] Like I think Gates and Tanya took over.

[00:09:10] The new Stuart McKellen.

[00:09:11] Exactly.

[00:09:12] Newsome.

[00:09:13] Yeah.

[00:09:15] Yes. I mean, it cracks up. I have a quick little story. I was at Vegas last year when I was waiting

[00:09:21] in line for Franks and here comes Tanya. You know, those Osanis had just come out. She's coming to

[00:09:29] come and say hi. Well, Gates saw her and she just bolted from her table, ran over. She's like,

[00:09:33] uh-uh, she's mine. And then all of a sudden Franks and Gates were arguing like, who's the better

[00:09:37] friend for Tanya? And I'm like two feet from, I'm like, this is awesome. Like my own show.

[00:09:44] Franks gruffles what I, what I almost have to call hair and calls me Mikey. And I'm like,

[00:09:50] nobody in the world, I wouldn't let anybody in the world do that except John and Franks. You know

[00:09:54] what I mean?

[00:09:55] Exactly.

[00:09:56] It's so cute. And he's so generous. He's referred to me to other,

[00:10:00] like we were hanging out with some other Star Trek folks the other day and he referred to me as his

[00:10:03] co-director of the crossover episode. And I was like, no, no, no, don't do that. Like,

[00:10:09] he's like, yeah, because the animated stuff. And I was like, don't call me. You were the director

[00:10:12] of that episode. You know what I mean?

[00:10:13] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, just that episode alone, it was just such a great balance

[00:10:18] between the animation and the live action. It was just so brilliant. But I loved that you threw in

[00:10:23] those Beverly Crusher mode, the remember me. And then there was just other stuff that you got,

[00:10:28] that we're throwing in that it was just so perfect. And like I said, Boimler being a Bev head,

[00:10:32] of course, of course he is.

[00:10:33] So also Beverly's coat being on Dr. Tana, you know what I mean? Like Dr. Tana is very not

[00:10:40] Beverly Crusher. You keep Beverly Crusher in mind to make sure to counter and write Tana as like

[00:10:46] some sort of synthesis of like a hyper version of Pulaski and bones kind of, you know,

[00:10:55] Starfleet Medical is fun. You know, it's fun to write.

[00:10:58] Oh yeah.

[00:10:59] And it's fun to see.

[00:11:01] And I love that also, you know, she's an orange cat, you know, and Beverly had the red hair.

[00:11:07] And I was like, this is totally an homage to Beverly Crusher.

[00:11:14] To Emress from, from the original animated series, the cat.

[00:11:18] Oh yeah. That's right. That's right. I actually haven't seen TAS yet.

[00:11:24] I saw two of them. Yeah, I know. I know. It's just.

[00:11:28] There's a lot.

[00:11:29] I know there's so much. I was like, there's only 900 episodes.

[00:11:32] I'll give you.

[00:11:32] Yeah. Hardly.

[00:11:33] No big deal.

[00:11:34] Plus then you're going to have to watch all of Stargate and then Stargate Atlantis.

[00:11:38] Stargate Atlantis and then Stargate.

[00:11:41] No, trust me. I already have a friend that is all like, okay, next we're going to be doing this.

[00:11:44] I was like, can I get through Trek first, please?

[00:11:48] We had all of it like we had in the nineties. We had all of it at work.

[00:11:52] I missed it. I'm 30 years behind, unfortunately.

[00:11:57] But then there's me just re-watching TNG over and over again.

[00:12:01] It's hard not to. It's hard not to.

[00:12:03] It's hard not to. It isn't.

[00:12:04] So I actually have one final question for you.

[00:12:07] So what one word can you describe your time creating Lower Decks?

[00:12:13] One word.

[00:12:20] Challenging-esque.

[00:12:23] And I would say it's challenging-esque because to fit a whole 40-minute Star Trek

[00:12:29] into an animated format of 22 minutes and be funny and have a fully realized ship

[00:12:35] and episodes that both honored but also bent, you know, what came before us is really, really,

[00:12:44] really, really hard.

[00:12:45] But the ask is because it was also awesome and I can't complain.

[00:12:50] But like sometimes the challenge is part of the reward of it.

[00:12:54] You know, like I, there's a, you know, I'm kind of mourning a little bit.

[00:12:59] Like I'm working on lots of other stuff.

[00:13:00] I'm writing all the time.

[00:13:01] But when I sit down and start writing on Lower Decks and I'm on a Starfleet ship, I'm there.

[00:13:07] And there is nobody I can imagine who's written Star Trek that doesn't feel good to emotionally

[00:13:14] and mentally be on a Starfleet ship while they're telling stories there and live in that world

[00:13:18] in your mind.

[00:13:19] So, and be with those characters.

[00:13:21] So like super freaking hard, but also so freaking rewarding.

[00:13:28] So challenging-esque is what I would say.

[00:13:30] Yeah.

[00:13:30] That's a perfect word for it.

[00:13:32] I had an interview with Aaron Walkie after Prodigy had come out.

[00:13:37] And I think what's been amazing with you guys, you know, at the helm of these new Trek shows

[00:13:43] is that you guys are fans and you understand the assignment, right?

[00:13:47] You understand just what, you know, we've, we've wanted all of these years and, you know,

[00:13:53] the older tracks are special to us for all different reasons, but you guys are bringing

[00:13:57] it to life and it's more than just nostalgia, but it's a part of the story.

[00:14:01] Yeah.

[00:14:01] You know, as, as much as I wished Beverly Crusher showed up, I was like, I think at this time

[00:14:06] she's either pregnant with Jack or hiding with the baby.

[00:14:09] She's not officially in Starfleet anymore.

[00:14:10] I think she's like on her own doing like, yeah.

[00:14:13] Cause I was, yeah.

[00:14:14] It's pretty important to me that we set everything and that the other show's timelines

[00:14:17] that it all made sense, you know?

[00:14:19] So yeah.

[00:14:20] Yeah.

[00:14:20] But yeah, you're right.

[00:14:21] It would have been a little hard for her to like to show up and there's a baby, you know,

[00:14:25] and I don't know.

[00:14:26] It would have spoiled some stuff.

[00:14:27] Yeah.

[00:14:28] Exactly.

[00:14:28] That would have been, and they can't keep a secret probably.

[00:14:31] Right.

[00:14:31] They've been freaking out, especially Boimler.

[00:14:35] But you know what?

[00:14:35] I want to thank you, Mike.

[00:14:37] You know, this series is truly a magical show and one of the best out there.

[00:14:41] I think, I mean, my daughter can, does not like Star Trek and she watched Lower Decks.

[00:14:47] Really?

[00:14:47] Mine did.

[00:14:48] My son watched it too.

[00:14:49] He's 10 and he's like, never watched another Star Trek.

[00:14:52] And he's like, oh, I love this.

[00:14:53] I like Star Trek.

[00:14:54] I'm a Star Trek fan.

[00:14:56] Yeah.

[00:14:56] And she, she has a Geordi bear.

[00:14:58] Like that's.

[00:14:58] Oh, that's so cute.

[00:15:00] So she was all like, I was.

[00:15:02] You know what?

[00:15:03] You guys don't have those.

[00:15:04] I have Puppet K-Shawn.

[00:15:05] Oh, I never got to see him.

[00:15:09] I just saw that there was like a few left online.

[00:15:11] I was like, I'm buying one.

[00:15:12] And she was so excited.

[00:15:13] It's in her room.

[00:15:14] But like, that's literally the only Trek.

[00:15:15] If I talk about anything now, she's like, no, mom, I'm good.

[00:15:18] That's cool though.

[00:15:19] Everybody's allowed to have her on track.

[00:15:21] I love that.

[00:15:21] Exactly.

[00:15:22] Yeah.

[00:15:22] I said hi and I said thank you.

[00:15:25] I will.

[00:15:26] And you know, we just appreciate everything from, you know, the casting crew and everything

[00:15:30] you did for us.

[00:15:30] So, and thank you for taking your time with me today.

[00:15:33] I really appreciate it.

[00:15:34] It was nice.

[00:15:35] I love talking about the show.

[00:15:36] I love talking to people who love the show.

[00:15:37] So thank you so much for watching and, and for Crusher, a Crusher Convoy.

[00:15:43] Yeah.

[00:15:43] We crushed the conversation is how I say it.

[00:15:47] Perfect.

[00:15:48] There it is guys.

[00:15:49] As Mike said, it's so nice to talk to others about Star Trek and our love for the franchise.

[00:15:57] As you know, Lower Decks is not a typical Star Trek show, but in my opinion, it's one of

[00:16:02] the best out there.

[00:16:03] And of course, don't forget that I will be doing a react and review of the final season

[00:16:11] of Lower Decks.

[00:16:12] So don't forget to like, and subscribe on my YouTube channel and meet me every Friday

[00:16:20] at 5 PM Pacific standard time.

[00:16:23] Also, and don't forget that Trek Talks is coming.

[00:16:27] And don't forget that Trek Talks is coming.

[00:16:27] That benefits the Hollywood Food Coalition.

[00:16:30] It's on January 18th.

[00:16:31] And you can get all their information at trektalks.net.

[00:16:36] Follow them on the socials at at Trek underscore talks.

[00:16:40] And their YouTube channel is now at Trek Talks Telethon.

[00:16:44] And of course, you can buy Crusher Convo merch at Tee Public.

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[00:16:57] You can be a Patreon member for as low as $3 a month.

[00:17:01] You can buy me a coffee by scanning that code on the top right corner.

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[00:17:12] Well, guys, I had loads of fun talking with Mike.

[00:17:15] I hope you join me on Fridays while I deep dive the final season.

[00:17:20] And I hope to see you guys around.

[00:17:22] Live long and prosper.