With Star Trek: Lower Decks, creator and executive producer Mike McMahan delivered the first half-hour Star Trek animated comedy series. Renewed for seasons 2 and 3 on Paramount+, Star Trek: Lower Decks' acclaimed first season arrives on Blu-ray, DVD, and limited edition steelbook on May 18.

Containing all 10 Star Trek: Lower Decks season 1 episodes, the DVD and Blu-ray set is packed with bonus features, including the Lower Decktionary exploring the secrets of all 10 season 1 episodes, the trailer for Crisis Point: The Rise of Vindicta, Faces of the Fleet: a deep-dive into the crew of the USS Cerritos, and Hiding in Plain Sight, an inside look at the canon and Easter eggs hidden throughout the series.

Related: Star Trek: Lower Decks Finale Reveals Huge TNG Surprise Cameos

Mike McMahan spoke with Screen Rant about what's on deck for season 2, working with Jonathan Frakes to bring his hilarious portrayal of Captain Will Riker to Lower Decks, the mysteries of Ensign Beckett Mariner, and what the odds are of Jean-Luc Picard himself appearing in the animated comedy.

Screen Rant: Thank you for Boiming me up. With season 1 you had to prove that an animated Star Trek half-hour comedy could work and still be Star Trek. Mission accomplished. I’m sure you’ve heard, and I agree, that Lower Decks had the best season 1 of any Star Trek series. What are your goals for season 2?

Mike McMahan. Oh my gosh, thank you. For season 2... I like to write for the streaming era. I like to write show assuming that you're going to watch season 1 and go right into season 2 so we wanted to keep the energy from the end of season 1 - those last 3 episodes, the trial, the movie, the big finale - and then propel you right into season 2 knowing that it's at your fingertips. We're not just airing it on a network and hoping you catch it on VHS like I had to do it in the '90s.

We have a lot of bills to pay. We've got Rutherford's memory issues, we've got Mariner and her mom working together, we've got the Pakleds being a real threat out in the world, we've got Tendi worried about her friends not remembering her from the first season and what does that mean for their friendship. And we've got Boimler on the Titan! That's not the Cerritos. The Titan is a whole different beast and what does that mean for our Boimy Boims? You know, he's not with Mariner or Rutherford or Tendi and what is that new group like over there? How is he experiencing it and how are our other Lower Deckers experiencing him not being there?

All that stuff is how we wrote season 2. It's very funny. There are some amazing legacy cameos, there's some great standalone storytelling mixed with some seasonlong character arcs. I'm really proud. We're in the color phase right now. We're airing in August and I'm just seeing Chris Westlake's score being added, and it really adds to the kind of cinematic nature of the emotion of the storytelling. I'm really proud of season 2.

And we're writing season 3 right now! So we know where season 2 goes and I know where half of season 3 goes. So I'm living in the animation future but the headline is if you enjoyed season 1, I think you're gonna love season 2.

Screen Rant: One of the best surprises in season 1 was the fact that you brought in Will Riker, Deanna Troi, and the Titan. I love the wildman version of Will Riker on Lower Decks.

Mike McMahan: (laughs) Thank you, I do too.

Screen Rant: What was Jonathan Frakes like to work with? Was he into it?

Mike McMahan: He was so into it. I had met him when he was directing an episode of Discovery. I was on set for the Short Trek I wrote that Rainn Wilson was starring in and directing and I ended up having dinner with Frakes in Toronto because we were just at the same hotel. And I was telling him, "So I'm developing this show and we're hoping it's going to get made" and he just totally geeked out. He completely got it just from the pitch art and he made me promise to have him in it. And I was just reeling because I was like, "Are you kidding?" I thought I was gonna have to beg to have him in it because he's such a great voice actor. He was all over Gargoyles. All of the TNG folks are really confident voice actors, which is hard to find a lot of the time.

And so knowing he was game and getting the same from Marina, and knowing we needed to use them as a really important and special part of the show, but also knowing we needed to exaggerate them and find, "What is the Lower Decks version of them?". And really, that version of them is: When I'm joking around about them in a bar with my other Trek friends, how do I express them in those situations? That's what I wanted to see on-screen. Also, my father-in-law is a blues jazz musician, so talking with him, as you see in the second season trailer, Riker says, "There's too many licks and not enough comp!" That's something my father-in-law said and it's so funny that Boimler doesn't know what he's talking about, I don't know what he's talking about, everything's jazz-related -- it's just the perfect geekout for me.

Lower Decks Riker

Screen Rant: Lower Decks is patterned after the TNG episode “Lower Decks”, which is one of my favorite episodes. Has there been any thought about following up on those characters and seeing where they are at now? I imagine Sam Lavelle and Taurik are Commanders or Captains now. 

Mike McMahan: I would love to. I mean, what a sad episode. That's probably why we've danced around it a little bit. You can see echoes of that episode along with other Lower Decks-style episodes, but that's probably my favorite episode of TNG. It's tough because with Ensign Sito, how do you tell a funny story with that which still respectfully ties into it without being a big bummer parade, you know what I mean? But I would like to have those guys back for sure.

Screen Rant: Mariner is an extraordinary character but there’s a running gag about how much she’s seen and done compared to how old she’s supposed to be. Are we going to find out more about Mariner’s Starfleet past?

Mike McMahon: Yes. I mean, I know everything about Mariner. Remember, you grow up and you go to [Starfleet] Academy and you get on ships, and you could be reading about and watching holo vids of Starfleet stuff your whole life, but there's a backstory to Mariner that we don't want to mine so quickly and just have everybody know. Because Mariner is also cagey about it a little bit. But there are a lot of hints that we're dropping that I'm seeing some people online kind of gathering them. If you're trying hard enough, you can sort of figure it out.

Remember, if you're worried about Mariner's age, think about how much Wesley could do at his age, you know what I mean? It's not like I'm saying she's a slow-aging species or anything but all I'll say is that in the era she's in, sometimes you have to grow up fast. We're seeing her in 2380 at the end of some turbulent stuff. You've got her obviously being an extremely capable officer but there's kind of a motivation issue and an issue of, "What do I want to be? How do I want to wield all this stuff that I've got?" And that's a lot of the exploration of character that we're doing and that Mariner herself is doing in the show.

Star Trek Lower Decks Second Contact

Screen Rant: Since Lower Decks is an animated show, I would think “sky’s the limit” (to quote Picard) on potential guest voices. Do you have a wish list and can you tease any possible guest stars?

Mike McMahan: Oh my God, everybody's on my wish list! I can't go into my wish list too much because I don't want my wish list to turn into a spoiler list. There's obviously people that come to your mind immediately but then, on every series, there's also my personal favorites. Who am I geeking out about? And they're at the top of the list.

Look, would I love to work with Sir Patrick [Stewart]? Obviously! But is there any reason he would ever meet our Lower Deckers aboard the Cerritos? Not really. And so, it's kind of like, how do you navigate those in-canon things versus me just kind of doing whatever I want. I find that if I utilize people that you don't expect to have on the show it ends up feeling more earned, more fun, more surprising. So there are some legacy guest roles in the second season and in the third season as well but I think it's people you're not going to expect when you get them.

I can't wait for you to see season 2. We're airing in August and I'm really, really proud of what we've done. I can't wait to see what [the fans] think.

Next: Star Trek Theory: Lower Decks' Mariner Served On The Enterprise With Riker