‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Cast Beams Up Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid

At one of the many buzzworthy Comic-Con panels this weekend, CBS All Access revealed the quality voice cast for upcoming animated sci-fi comedy series Star Trek: Lower Decks — “the Downton Abbey of Star Trek,” according to panel moderator Jerry O’Connell.

Executive producers Alex Kurtzman, Heather Kadin and show creator/EP Mike McMahan (head writer on Rick and Morty) where joined on stage in Hall H by voicers Tawny Newsome (Bajillion Dollar Propertie$, The Comedy Get Down) and Jack Quaid (The Hunger Games, Harvey Girls Forever!).

Newsome will play “Mariner,” a no-nonsense engineer who gets the job done and does it well — but really doesn’t care. Quaid voices “Boimler,” a by-the-book ensign who gets his own way. Being polar opposites, these two frequently clash, opening up plenty of character comedy opportunities.

It was also revealed that Noel Wells (Master of None, Craig of the Creek) will play Starfleet mega-fan, ensign Tendi; Eugene Cordero (The Good Place, Steven Universe) is ensign Rutherford, a brilliant engineer who nevertheless rarely solves the problem by the end of the episode; and the cast is rounded out with Fred Tatasciore as Lt. Shaxs, Dawnn Lewis as Captain Freeman, and Gillian Vigman as Dr. T’ana.

McMahan also gave a wee preview of the ship, Cerritos, which belongs to a new Starfleet “California” class.

Star Trek: Lower Decks will be produced by CBS’ Eye Animation Productions, Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment. Secret Hideout’s Kurtzman and Kadin, Roddenberry Ent.’s Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth, Katie Krentz and McMahan are exec producers. Aaron Baiers (Secret Hideout), who brought on McMahan, is co-EP.

The show will premiere in 2020 and stream exclusively on CBS All Access in the U.S., and will be distributed internationally by CBS Studios International.

Being in Starfleet isn't all serious business. The #StarTrekLowerDecks creator and cast talk about comedy in Star Trek. pic.twitter.com/kq4sSC7pG8

— Star Trek on CBS All Access (@startrekcbs) July 21, 2019

[Source: Deadline]

Jack Quaid