EXCLUSIVE: Proudly “boldly going where no Star Trek series has gone before,” as its trailer says, Star Trek: Lower Decks has now brought Paul Scheer on board to the animated CBS All Access series.
Set to debut on August 6 on the ViacomCBS-owned streamer, the first comedy in the Trekverrse will see the Black Monday alum portraying Lt. Commander Andy Billups, the chief engineer on the USS Cerritos. In the voice over role, Scheer will be a recurring guest on the 10-episode first season of the Mike McMahan showrun Lower Decks. To be specific for your Trekkies, his Billups character is the direct boss of the Eugene Cordero played Ensign Rutherford.
The third series in the ever expanding Trekverse overseen by Secret Hideout’s Alex Kurtzman and Heather Kadin, Lower Decks is exactly as advertised – spotlight the Starfleet staffers and personnel who do the real grunt work far from the Captain’s chair on the bridge.
Besides Cordero, there crew residing in the bowels of the Cerritos also includes Tawney Newsome as Ensign Beckett Mariner, Jack Quaid as Ensign Brad Boimler, and Noël Wells as Ensign Tendi. The Starfleet characters that comprise the ship’s bridge crew include Captain Carol Freeman, voiced by Dawnn Lewis, Commander Jack Ransom, voiced by Jerry O’Connell, Lieutenant Shaxs, voiced by Fred Tatasciore and Doctor T’Ana, voiced by Gillian Vigman.
Kurtzman and Kadin and Roddenberry Entertainment’s Rod Roddenberry serve as EPs on Lower Decks, along with Trevor Roth and Katie Krentz (219 Productions), and creator and showrunner McMahan, of Rick and Morty and Solar Opposites too. Secret Hideout’s Aaron Baiers, who brought McMahan to the project, serves as a co-EP. Titmouse (Big Mouth), the Emmy Award-winning independent animation production company, serves as the animation studio for the series
Produced by CBS’ Eye Animation Productions, CBS Television Studios’ new animation arm; Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment, Lower Decks joins the already successfully launched Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Discovery, returning for a third season later this year.
As Deadline exclusively revealed on July 9, both live action Trek series and their casts will be a part of this week’s Comic-Con@Home along with Lower Decks.
Coming soon-ish to further enlarge the franchise there’s also the May 15 announced USS Enterprise set series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, featuring Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn and Ethan Peck; and the development of a Section 31-based series with Michelle Yeoh in the pipeline. Plus, a yet unnamed CG-animated Star Trek series aimed at younger audiences is also in the works for Nickelodeon.
Scheer is repped by UTA and law firm Schreck Rose Dapello Adams Berlin & Dunham