Original subtitles

Hello, this is Mike McMahan, creator of Star Trek.. Lower Decks.

I am here with Barry Kelly, producer and supervising director of Lower Decks.

Hello.

And I'm here with Kether Donohue, the voice of Peanut Hamper.

Hello.

Oh, hi, guys. It's so nice to commentary with you both.

Oh, well, hello!

I had to match Barry's hello.

Thank you.

I know. Barry's very stoic.

You're welcome.

Now, if Adele was on it, she'd be like, "Hello."

Well, you've ruined our surprise guest.

Adele's coming in later. No! Here we are, looking at--

A bigger surprise for the audience is

we're catching up on season 1's Peanut Hamper moment here.

Hey, Kether, what do you like playing this old robot?

You like being Peanut Hamper?

Oh, my gosh! I--

Honestly, it's one of the funnest things I've ever done in my life.

I'm not joking. It really is. Like, I--

Oh, wait. I'm trying to--

Sorry, I'm trying to watch it as I'm speaking.

This is a new experience to do this.

-It's so cool. -I know.

It's usually rude to talk over something while you watch it,

but now they want us to do it.

I know. Now I get a free pass to be rude.

I love this.

Anyway.

But, yeah, to go back to the question,

I loved playing Peanut Hamper

because I still don't know who she is.

Like, I love playing--

I love playing characters that keep me on my toes

and surprise me as I'm playing her.

She's fun.

Yeah, I get that. I think that's a valid--

She's Starfleet, but she also betrays everybody.

And then Barry, what do you like about directing and drawing Peanut Hamper?

Well, in this sequence, I mean, it's funny directing--

I don't get to draw a lot.

You draw a lot of notes, but since this was the flashback--

I think it's our first flashback--

I was like, "I should handle this."

Barry, wait! Can Barry have his own animation and just do that voice?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Can you be smoky, Barry?

Yeah.

My voice is very hard to listen to.

Wait, Barry, did I get in trouble

for asking for you guys to do a new opening credits for this?

-We've never done that before. -No.

But it was like an additional minute of animation for you guys.

A little bit. I mean, I think we made it twice as long before.

I tried to think of the most majestic Peanut Hamper floating shots as I could

amongst debris,

and I think we did it to that somber version of the Lower Decks.

Yeah, Chris did a good job on that.

It turned out to be only three or four long shots.

We used to have her, like, searching with a flashlight, I think, looking at stuff.

Oh, right, yeah.

And I think I wanted it to just like-- She's just floating like trash, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Wait, this is fun for me 'cause I'm learning new information.

I have no idea about that side of things.

Voice actors just come in, we say our line. You know what I mean?

Like, to me, it's cool to even hear how much goes into...

Yeah.

...organizing the opening sequence like that.

I mean, I've been working in animation for, like, 16, 17 years now,

and I always have this kind of same...

-Wait. -...experience, where I think--

-Barry. -Yeah?

Do you remember how we got the design of this rough nacelle that she--

This warp nacelle she's put together?

There's one drawing from Mike a season, and it's my favorite drawing every season.

That's a nacelle. There's a crude one.

We gotta make T-shirts of 'em or something.

Oh, yes! A T-shirt!

There's, like, a cute nacelle that Mike drew.

It's pretty much exactly what you drew.

It looks just like this.

It's a little-- This looks like the better--

-This is the well-drawn version. -Sure.

I love-- Our show does the warp rainbow stars as they pass by.

A lot of the Star Treks don't do that.

-I actually have a question. -Good scream, Kether. Yeah.

Barry, when you were doing the opening sequence,

did you also do the coloring of it?

-A little bit. -Like the blue-- It's like a bluish hue.

If we show the boards, there's a little bit of color in it.

-But it's usually-- -Yeah.

We try to keep it black and white just so we're not, like...

So, I overthink everything, so, like, yeah, I'll start adding color.

It's really easy. Then I start adding color and I overdo it.

I should try to keep the stuff black and white.

But yeah, there's a bit of color in the boards when I do 'em.

Here's the Areore bird aliens

who writer Ann Kim once told us that she thought

that big, hunky bird men in video games were really hot.

So we intentionally set this episode on a planet of hunky bird men.

'Cause she wrote this one, so...

Shout-out to Ann and Jason at this juncture of the...

-I saw their credits just came up. -Oh, yeah.

We modeled this episode off of, like,

Dances With Wolves, Avatar, The Last Samurai.

Any of those, like, outsider comes into a culture.

John Carter.

Kind of a classic, like, sort of American, cowboy, sort of western tale a little bit.

Except with a emotionless-- or like a non-emoting robot,

which I thought was very funny.

I also love that he has a ponytail in the front of his beard.

Yeah, that's how you know he's wise.

I mean, that's what was kind of bold about this episode

is, like, we don't show them to our Lower Deckers for, like, two acts or so.

And we're spending all our time on this new planet, and, like...

It's a big thing to create a whole new planet

or a whole new location just for one episode,

-but it's like... -Yeah.

Once we got the idea, like, it's like that John Carter, Avatar thing,

all the artists were all about it.

They were all in.

Yeah. I think it looks amazing. I think they did a great job.

And it's funny 'cause, like,

the original idea behind this episode was,

what if we did an episode like the Lower Decks episode of TNG

that inspired the series, but we did it our style,

so it's away from everybody else?

And it really split the fandom.

I, like, woke up the next day, and I had all these tweets

where half the people were like,

"Burn Lower Decks at the stakes for making us watch the bird people."

And then the other half were like,

"This is the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life."

Which is-- I guess means we're doing our job right. Right?

Hot bird men.

I was saying, before we hopped on this commentary--

By the way, to the people listening to this commentary:

I wish you heard our conversation in the pre-commentary.

I think that was-- I wish that was incorporated here.

-But I was saying-- -Don't tease them that they can't--

Sorry! I'm gonna let-- I'm gonna tell them what we said.

Guys, whoever is listening who love this episode,

I just want to tell you it was like Christmas morning on my Twitter.

-Yeah. -Thank you for all the notifications.

And I am someone that normally hates Twitter,

and I wasn't on Twitter for years,

and you guys made me come back on Twitter.

-And-- - Trek fans are the best.

If you see Kether Donohue, you tell her you love her as Peanut Hamper.

She wants to hear it. She loves it.

I love that. I love that they were polarized.

Man, there was something I just wanted to say about this episode that's so silly.

People were divided on it. They were like--

Oh, I wanted to ask,

Kether, did we make Peanut Hamper's boyfriend here hot enough?

On a scale of one to ten, how hot is this bird?

Oh, well, now he has a man bun.

-So that makes him hotter. -Yeah, this is the son.

He's pretty hot with the man bun, right?

To be honest, I think you made him hot.

-I'm impressed. -Okay.

-Yeah. -It does it for me.

-It does it for me. -Okay.

And if it does it for me, it does it for P.H.

There's not a lot of obliques.

You're not seeing a lot of exposed oblique muscles in Star Trek.

We need to push that agenda more often.

-Oh, yeah. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, Rawda has not a lot of obliques.

I think that would've been a muscle too far if we had added that.

Yeah, and you gave him just enough oblique,

but it didn't hit that, like, pelvic section.

You know when, like, those obliques come in.

Yeah, CBS doesn't allow pelvic obliques.

-Right. -That's not a CBS thing.

There is the belt. The belt then comes when the pelvic obliques come in.

Barry, I made you put wings on everything in this episode.

Wings on everything.

And then we kinda reversed-- well, later-- the turtle doves.

I don't know what we call them. Turtle pigeons?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, wait. Did we not put wings on the turtles?

-No, we did. We did. -Okay, good. Phew.

I was trying to think if there's anything we did not put wings on.

Do you enjoy directing better, or animating?

I like directing. Very stressful.

But every chance I get to, like, just draw a little bit, like board it--

I boarded a little bit of this episode--

That's always fun. It's like--

-You board a little every episode. -I do. A little bit.

It's the big ones.

It's the bigger ones where we got a little bit more drama.

I boarded-- I've also--

When we get to it,

I made us over-board a little bit on the lovemaking.

-That'll be-- -Lovemaking is a beautiful part.

Star Trek is about love.

I like that-- I kind of--

I think I took a swing on this that her little nozzle has a replicator on it.

-I think we saw that in the original... -Yeah.

...the original exocomp episode.

And I'm like, "It must be nice to carry a little replicator around."

Oh, look, Kether, you got a purse.

-The music is so good. -Oh, yeah, I love this one.

And that, "Top of the morning to ya!"

This music is so good in this sequence.

Chris does amazing, like,

fantasy-esque, big...

Yeah.

...sort of like farmer, epic score.

-You know what I mean? -Yeah.

Yeah, it's great.

It belongs to this, like, bird man love movie

that is happening off screen.

Yeah, it feels like the episode's bigger.

The music and the art really make the episode feel huge.

This used to be a much longer sequence, by the way, with the birds and...

I trimmed, like, two minutes out of this sequence. Do you remember that?

Yeah. I forget what we lost.

I don't know what we thought we needed in it, you know?

And then here's the Aladdin.

This was my fa-- Actually, out of the whole episode,

besides the you-know-what that comes later,

this was actually my favorite to film, the one in the air.

And I love at the end, the punch line.

Yeah, that he's just, like, screaming incoherently,

-and you're like, "Okay, pal." -This part.

Everybody always laughs at the real bird noises.

Yeah.

We were doing interviews, promoting this episode--

I was trying to tell everybody

how much I love when we're actually in the booth,

how many takes we do.

-Like, we did a lot. -Oh, yeah, we did a ton.

I liked that we did a lot of different

trying out of the comedic beats

of, especially, that scene in the air.

Because there's so many different ways it could've ended.

Yeah. You also give us so many--

You're, like, very improv-friendly.

We'll let you just go wild for a while.

We'll get it straight, and then we'll let you goof around,

which is always really fun to find, when we're editing it,

and be like, "Oh, she says something really funny here."

Because you also know the character well enough,

that she's a little bit of a stinker.

-You know what I mean? -Yeah.

You have fun with that.

It's so hard to choose takes. They're so good.

So when you ask me what I love about Peanut Hamper,

my favorite parts of voice-over

is when I picture it being live action instead of animation.

Yeah.

So when we were recording it, I felt like...

That's so romantic.

What's that bird doing there, Barry?

I remember asking, like, if you pan up to the moon,

like, the love scene's happening off screen.

But they just panned back down and showed the lovemaking.

And they boarded out a ton of lovemaking that we ended up cutting.

We have a lot for the drawing room floor. Maybe we'll put it on the DVD.

Man, Star Trek fans, they will see--

You can blow ships up, you can kill people,

there can be, like, planets that are dying,

but if you show a robot implied off screen fellating a bird alien,

oh, does that set them off.

I love this stuff. It's very Moana, the tour through the innermost cavern,

with, like, the ancient--

Remember we originally had them fighting Klingon war birds here, Barry?

-Like ancient Klingon war birds. -Yeah.

And then we realized it was, like, too far back for that.

Like, Brad had a note about, like, the timing got messed up.

-But I think this is all beautiful stuff. -Yeah.

But I was just like, "You could picture this a live-action movie."

Yeah, it's beautiful.

When I watch this, I feel like I'm watching

a hundred-million-dollar, like, studio movie.

-Live action. -Good.

And it's because of this particulate somebody added in the light, right?

A little dust.

Like, that's a hundred-million-dollar particulate.

-Yeah. -That's cool though.

That's a few extra dollar signs, you know what I mean?

Now we're shining a light on his obliques.

I like the two that--

We keep focusing on this part of Peanut Hamper

where the Starfleet Delta used to be.

And it's sort of metaphorical that she's here

and doesn't feel like she's part of Starfleet anymore,

and then later, she adds it back onto herself

when she has her supposed hero turn.

And I like that we have that angle of her for a lot of it, Barry.

That was really cool.

Do you remember when we got the animatic,

you guys were, like, making her, like, feet wiggle around--

Oh, my gosh, yeah.

That's one of the hardest things with her, is that we make her move too much.

She's wiggling and moving her feet.

You have to be, like--

You have to remind us if she moves too much,

it makes it less dumb-looking.

Well, what's fascinating to me

is how she doesn't have a face,

and even little movements contribute to how we perceive her personality.

Yeah.

Like, even if I wasn't voicing her, even if she didn't have a voice,

just her moving around, she still has a personality.

It's, like, I can't wrap my head around it.

Well, there are great little designs from TNG,

and she's cute, but also, like,

there's something about her hovering that's very evocative.

I like her character design a lot.

I like these, like, tough birds too that just show up out of nowhere.

Yeah, I remember we had to add those a lot in the beginning

'cause they showed up here just alone.

It was like, "Wait. Are those bad guys?

Oh, yeah, we gotta add them earlier so you don't think they're part of the bad guys."

And you and I argued a hundred times

over how high to put the big bad guy ship too.

I was like, "Put them in space."

You were like, "That doesn't make any sense!"

"How are we gonna see 'em?"

And I kept drawing, like, "They're gonna be like a Snicker bar up there."

I was like, "Who cares? Just get close." And you were like, "No!"

-Yeah. -I think we got a happy medium here.

I like these guys, the Drookmani from season 1. They're back.

Trash collectors. That's--

I think that's J.G. Hertzler playing...

-Yeah, yeah, yeah. -...the lead guy too.

And the color on their ship is cool.

Like, the design you guys do of every new species

is always so thought out.

Yeah, art director Nollan.

Yeah, Nollan Obena, who the Obena class is named after.

We keep him real busy.

Didn't we talk a lot about the tractor beam color too?

Theirs is green and Federation's are blue.

Yeah, 'cause we made it different just in that first season episode.

It was just that you knew which tractor beam was the Cerritos one

and which one was the Drookmani one.

So we're keeping it consist.

A blue tractor beam looks nicer than a green one in the theater.

She even has an attitude, the way she sways in the air, floats in the air.

Yeah.

Well, that's 'cause she, like--

They used to--

The exocomps used to dangle from fishing wire in the live-action versions,

so we tried to keep that in there a little bit.

Now, I may sound really just dumb asking this,

but, no, actually, I'll be transparent about my ignorance.

Remember, I said to you in the EPK, I was like, "Hey, what is an exocomp?"

Yeah.

But a lot of Star Trek fans wouldn't know, 'cause they were from one episode

from seven seasons with 20-something episodes a season

-from the '90s. -Yeah.

So that's my question that I'm a little afraid to ask,

-but I have to ask it. -Yeah.

-In the live-action Star Trek... -Yes.

...was there a Peanut Hamper or just exocomps?

No. There were exocomps, and they didn't speak.

We changed it so one could speak,

because we based it on--

So Klingons used to be the bad guys in Star Trek,

but then in TNG, they were kind of like not quite as bad,

and there was one serving on the Enterprise now named Worf.

So I wanted to take an exocomp, which was a side character from TNG,

and in Lower Decks, see that one of them had evolved enough

and gone to Starfleet Academy

and had been able to become an ensign in Starfleet like that.

So, like, it's kind of a practiced Star Trek tradition,

but you're the first and only talking exocomp.

Like, what was the origin of you guys even coming up with Peanut Hamper

in the writers' room?

Like, what was that?

Well, we wanted somebody to come on and be cute for Tendi to be a guide for

that eventually turns on her.

And I wanted to use an exocomp because I just love exocomps.

Yeah.

And then when I pitched the name "Peanut Hamper,"

everybody told me I was an idiot.

They were like, "Do not call this character Peanut Hamper."

And I was like, "I want a name a robot would think is cool that isn't cool."

And then everybody begged me not to do it.

How did you come up with "Peanut Hamper" though?

-How did that even come in your mind? -I'm an idiot!

I'm just a moron. I don't know.

It's just two funny words.

This has to be unpacked. We can't just--

You know, this is what I'm trying to say, guys.

We just come into it as though it's already established.

"Oh, yeah. Peanut Hamper." I wanna unpack how it even happened!

I think it's 'cause in--

I think it's 'cause in Donnie Darko or there was something where they were like,

"Cellar door is the most beautiful English phrase."

And I was like, "That's stupid. How about 'peanut hamper'?"

I was just trying to think of a thing that wasn't a beautiful phrase.

-And-- -Yeah, yeah.

Now I like it. I like that they call her-- I like Rawda calls her "Peanut."

-I love it. -So cute.

It's like--

Certain things that are like, "How did I live without this the whole time?"

Now, I think the fans got upset at this, by the way.

Because it really does seem like, with the music and how we staged it,

that Peanut Hamper really did learn a lesson here.

-Oh, yes. Yeah. -Like the episode really meant something.

Yes.

And then we do the heel turn in a second and reveal that she's--

The feet are still a little gummy here, Barry.

But then it reveals that this was all a big con, a scam.

And that turn-- that heel turn that made a lot of audiences feel betrayed

was what, I think, the other audience thought was hilarious

because we've seen Dances With Wolves, we've seen these kind of stories before.

We've never seen a double double cross in one of them, which made me laugh.

-So funny. -Yeah, yeah.

I liked reading that when I read the script for the first time.

Like, "Is she gonna really?"

I'm lucky 'cause I get to be the first audience member, in a way,

when I get to read those.

Well, that's what I'm saying.

Even in the booth,

I was, like, surprised even as I was doing it.

Yeah.

Also, Barry, we get a huge, cool space battle here.

Like, this is a huge-- You guys must've just been like--

Has anybody ever threatened to quit when one of these episodes comes in?

They're like, "I don't wanna work on this show anymore."

Oh, sure. I don't know.

If they do, I don't know about it.

-It's a good episode though. -Everyone's down.

Everyone's, like, once they get on board and they're into what the script is about,

you know, like,

everyone's all about making it 100% what it is, taking it seriously.

Megan Levens is always like, "Why isn't this episode huge?"

I'm like, "Nobody else wants that."

Yeah. "How come I get stuck with the small ones?"

-I'm like, "What are you talking about?" -What are you talking about?

There is no small ones on Lower Decks.

So now Rawda's betrayed.

Peanut Hamper. Her feet got so big.

It is nice seeing our Lower Decks crew show up.

It's like, "There's our friends," right?

Like, I'm so used to them this many episodes in,

27 something, 28 maybe.

Like, it's just refreshing to see them and--

Kether, you got a dirty mouth as a robot. What are you doing? We didn't write that.

I don't-- Wait, was that improv'd or was that in the script?

I don't know. I'm just teasing.

Chances are it was me if I had to put my money on it.

Well, this is wrapping pretty soon,

so I wanted to just get something out here

that we can't say specifically,

but I think I will just give a little spoiler alert

for season 4

that we're working on right now,

that Peanut Hamper will return.

-No. -Pretty exciting.

I will continue to be employed.

That's right.

I continue to have a job, which is exciting.

And we don't wanna give away what happens,

but this isn't the last we'll see.

So if you loved Peanut Hamper, you're gonna get a little more.

If you hated Peanut Hamper,

then you can see a little bit more of Peanut Hamper.

No, but I think even the people that hated Peanut Hamper,

they loved to hate her, I think.

-Yeah. -I think they'll love to hate--

Yeah. And I think the next story we tell with her is really fun too.

I don't wanna give away too much again, but--

-I love this shot, Barry. -Look at that cool shot.

Yeah.

Whoa, computer those Areores.

Very pastel-- Very pink. I like this.

Yeah.

I like the laser beams don't look like phaser beams too, is cool.

That guy has, like, a permanent five-o'clock shadow.

Yeah. Ransom's?

-Yeah. -Yeah. Ransom, yeah.

It never looks like him if we don't draw it.

If we miss it, everyone's like, "Who's that guy?"

Put the line under his nose so that we know who it is, please.

Weirdly, it's like Homer Simpson. If you leave that...

-Yes. Yes. -Yeah.

They just have different-shaped heads.

He's like a very rectangle face.

Yeah, he's got a strong jaw.

The lighting in this is really good.

Wait, now I wanna work behind the scenes too now.

Let's do it. You're hired.

Barry, can I intern with you?

-Yes, you can. -Yes.

We only have, like, a dozen two-hour meetings a week

where we talk about the shape of Star Trek shoes.

I think you'd love it.

I wanna be a part of it.

I would love that.

Well, are you gonna betray us though?

Like Peanut Hamper?

Well, you'll have to--

You could write my lines, "Kether" too, so you decide.

-You decide. -Okay. All right.

But Kether, as a human, I'm loyal. I don't betray.

Kether, what do you like recording more,

Star Trek: Lower Decks or the many anime that you did voice acting for in college?

Great question.

-Peanut Hamper is my favorite. -Why are you thinking about it?

Peanut Hamper's my favorite!

-No, Peanut Hamper's my favorite. -Okay.

Okay, good. All right, I'll accept that.

And if you're on a commentary for one of those animes, I'll let you switch.

I'll let you switch your opinion. That's fine.

No, no, no.

Then that would be negating my previous comment where I said I'm loyal.

Well, here she is locked up

in the self-aware megalomaniacal computer storage in the Daystrom Institute.

And right next to her is AGIMUS,

our other nefarious computer from season 2.

And who knows what these two could get up to.

I love the evil laugh.

We've also hidden some little Easter eggs among the computers in here.

Some in the walls.

Yeah, there's a CBS logo. There's a-- There's a--

I'm afraid to say some of them.

-I know there's a suggestion of something. -I'll get scolded.

-Oh, no! It's over! -We did it.

-Oh, no! -That was it.

-Wait! -Thank you for listening.

Please tweet at Kether, and Barry's not on Twitter.

Don't talk to me.

We love you guys.

Nollan!

That beautiful blue font.

We love everybody who worked on this.

-We love everybody who-- -Love using the TNG font.

You know what, I'm giving special blessings, Mike McMahan blessings,

to anybody who's listening this far into the commentary.

You are the true fans. Saying it here.

You guys are loyal.

-Devotion. -Yeah.

Except for one of you,

who is waking up right now and realizing it's playing.

Yeah, who fell asleep.

The next commentary,

I'm gonna be interviewed with Barry,

as I'm also part of the drawing team as well.

Yes! All right, we're on it.

Bye, everybody!

-Bye! -Bye!

-Goodbye. -Bye.

Goodbye.