Last fall CBS announced a two-season order for an adult animated comedy for CBS All Access titled Star Trek: Lower Decks, to be developed by Rick and Morty writer/producer Mike McMahan. Not much has emerged since, but today the show took a significant step forward.

Lower Decks has first table read

This morning Mike McMahan took to Twitter to reveal that the first table read for the first episode of the show is today. He also showed a picture of an empty room, indicating he got there early.

ST: LD ep 101 table read today. I got here a little early. pic.twitter.com/oHJBzp3fw7 — Mike McMahan (@MikeMcMahanTM) May 7, 2019

A table read is when cast and crew get together to read the script as the episode is in pre-production. This is a significant milestone for Star Trek: Lower Decks and indicates that the premise for the show has been locked down and at least the first script has been written. More significantly, it implies that the show has been cast with voice actors. To date, there have been no announcements or revelations about a cast for the show, but that’s fairly typical for an animated series.

While the first script reading is a big step, there is still a ways to go before episodes can be completed. Typically for animated shows and movies, the voice work is recorded before the animation process begins. In March, executive producer Alex Kurtzman talked to TrekMovie about Lower Decks (and the more kid-oriented Nickelodeon animated Trek series), setting expectations:

So, the animation takes about a year to turn around, it’s a very long process. Both of those shows are moving forward now, and have series orders and we will drop them when they are ready, but I would say 2021 or ’22.

Set phasers to hilarious

As of now, there are few details known about the show except that it will be a half-hour comedy focused on the support crew serving on “one of Starfleet’s least important ships.” In the original announcement McMahan stated: “As a life-long Trekkie, it’s a surreal and wonderful dream come true to be a part of this new era of Star Trek. While Star Trek: Lower Decks is a half-hour, animated show at its core, it’s undeniably ‘Trek’ – and I promise not to add an episode at the very end that reveals the whole thing took place in a training program.”

While it hasn’t been confirmed in what era the show will take place, it would not be surprising if it was the Star Trek: The Next Generation era as Mike McMahan is the author of Warped: An Engaging Guide to the Never-Aired 8th Season, which arose from his popular parody Twitter account @tng_s8 t about an imagined eighth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The show also already has a fan in TNG star Jonathan Frakes who has said he saw some early work on the development of the show and called it “hilarious.”

Keep up with all the upcoming Star Trek TV projects here at TrekMovie.com.