Star Trek: Lower Decks creator reveals which Trek cast he wants to work with the most

Star Trek: Lower Decks creator Mike McMahan has a rather surprising Trek cast he’d like to work with.

Star Trek: Lower Decks is the ultimate meta-fan show. For that reason alone, it’s either everyone’s least favorite or most favorite show. Some of us prefer Trek to be about advancing the plot, exploring new questions and laying into the debate format that made the show so fun and intriguing.

Lower Decks bucks the trend and doesn’t challenge any conceptions or preconceived notions and instead just makes light-hearted, if predictable jokes, and spam that constantly until the episode is over. Some love it, some don’t. What can’t be denied however is that the show is for Star Trek fans. The in-jokes, the call-backs, the references, and the cameos are all for long-time fans. It’s built on and survives on nostalgia.

Which is the issue, as it feels too much like pandering than anything consequential. That said, creator Mike McMahan wants to work with a Star Trek cast that may get even the most jaded among us interested.

Star Trek: Lower Decks creator has faith in the heart

McMahan wants to work with the cast of Star Trek: Enterprise, telling the Hollywood Reporter;

"I’m a huge fan of [Star Trek: Enterprise], and I would love to work with as much of that cast as possible. I’ve been trying to figure out a respectful, cool, funny, surprising way to celebrate that show with Lower Decks and, you know, we’ve had 30 episodes. We haven’t gotten there yet."

McMahan’s desire to work with the Enterprise cast is something that should interest everyone. The problem with Enterprise has little to do with its quality and the situation it was put into. It was a prequel, telling the story of how the Federation and Starfleet came to be. It reset the story expectations by going backward, now forwards.

It also capped off nearly 20 years, and over 600 episodes of Star Trek, alongside six feature-length films and hundreds of millions of dollars of assorted merchandise. It was a lot. The show is really good, actually, and despite some claims, it doesn’t start off slow.

Fans just needed time to get used to it. In a vacuum, 21 years later, the show holds up exceptionally and starts off with one of the better Trek pilot episodes yet. To bring in Enterprise to celebrate the show would be a great thing for Lower Decks.

I just wish they didn’t build their entire show around that idea.