SDCC Star Trek: Prodigy panel details, news about other Trek series

The Comic Con at Home panel for Star Trek: Prodigy—the CBS/Paramount+ and Nickelodeon jointly produced animated series—put the focus on youth. Panel moderator Jerry O’Connell described the new show as “the first Star Trek series aimed at younger audiences.”

Kate Mulgrew—returning to her beloved character Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway, but now in hologram form—pointed out later in the panel, how after being part of the Trek lexicon for “upwards of 25 years,” she is thrilled to hand it over to a new generation, which she likened to the “hope” and “promise” that Star Trek represents.

O’Connell put his best poker face on throughout the funny panel, where he was made fun of for a variety of reasons by the full cast who participated, including “motley crew” members Gwyn (Ella Purnell), Rok-Tahk (Rylee Alazraqui), Dal (Brett Gray), Murf (Dee Bradley Baker), Zero (Angus Imrie), and the always-hilarious Jason Mantzoukas as Jankom Pog, who especially enjoyed teasing O’Connell.

First there were the constant references to his own show, Star Trek: Lower Decks, where O’Connell voices Commander Jack Ransom. “Here we go again,” said Mantzoukas at one point, all in good fun.

The cast was also joined by Prodigy executive producers Kevin Hageman and Dan Hageman as well as director and co-executive producer Ben Hibon.

Worst of all was the incorrect announcement of Vice ADMIRAL Janeway’s title, who O’Connell introduced as “Vice Lieutenant.” Ooops. Never one to miss a beat, Mantzoukas quipped that maybe O’Connell’s children held that title, who were also seen in the background (so Zoom!) and subsequently kicked out in the middle of the panel. O’Connell’s wife, Rebecca Romijn (No. 1 on that other Star Trek series coming out, Strange New Worlds) also crashed the panel, alongside young Spock himself, Ethan Peck!

As a moderator, O’Connell barely had control over the situation, which made for captivating chaos. Also, he couldn’t stop apologizing for botching Janeway’s title: “I’m so embarrassed,” he admitted. I believe he sincerely meant it (and should be!)

You can watch the entire panel here.

But let’s get to the reveals.

Star Trek: Prodigy teaser trailer and other details

Not only is Star Trek: Prodigy hoping to connect with a younger audience, it is also the first Trek series to feature a non-Starfleet alien group center stage.

Series creators hope to share with the audience a Trek world “through the eyes of non-Starfleet outsiders,” Executive Producer Kevin Hageman said.

And we got a teaser trailer!

Set in the year 2393—four years after the Star Trek: Nemesis movie and three years after Lower Decks season 1—the trailer revealed the rebellious crew stumbling upon a defunct Federation starship as their means of escape. But more importantly, they come across a hologram Captain/Vice Admiral (not Vice Ltn., thank you!) Janeway who will serve as their guide in this journey.

The panel participants also discussed character details: Purnell talked about her mysterious Gwyn while Mantzoukas joked that the casting process for his character Pog was one where the creators felt “pressured to cast a stone-cold hunk.”

Speaking of mysterious characters, Imrie got to spill the beans about portraying the enigmatic Zero, a Medusan, who is “not a robot.” Medusans have been explored before in Trek lore, but “never been developed like in [this] show,” Imrie explained. He also discussed the challenge of “finding a voice for a character that doesn’t have a body.”

Not to be outdone, famed voice actor Dee Bradley Baker (the guy’s in, like, everything!) gave us a “taste of Murf,” which was basically a series of unintelligible gurgling sounds that were fascinatingly diverse. Really, it was fun just watching the process here. Even funner? Watching O’Connell attempt at imitating Murf as throughout.

So, did we get a drop date for the series premiere? Sadly, no, but what we do know is that it will air sometime in Fall of 2021, which is better than no news at all!

What about everything else Star Trek?

While it was wonderful to see a focus on the animated series—which also made sense since theirs are the premiere dates coming up the soonest—Star Trek has five (FIVE!) shows in the hopper. Left off the panels was any news surrounding Picard, Strange New Worlds (super excited about this one, although we did get those cameos crashing the Prodigy panel), and Discovery this go around.

We’re super excited about Q making a huge splash on Picard, being heavily featured in the promos and likely having a heavy hand in that messed up timeline Jean-Luc will now have to grapple with in the second season. John de Lancie’s been dropping hints about the omniscient character’s perhaps swan song (and maybe more serious nature?) in the second installment of ST Picard. He’s also divulged some interesting hints about the character Brent Spiner is player, whether it’s Data or not (probably not, in my opinion). You can comb through the details on Trekmovie.com to see what you conclude.

Picard has also potentially been greenlit for three more seasons, with S2 and 3 filming back-to-back.

O’Connell described Romijn and Peck dropping by because they were working on Strange New Worlds, the highly anticipated series is currently filming, centering around the Enterprise’s adventures with Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and the young Spock. While production hasn’t encountered any COVID problems since filming began earlier this year, like Picard, Strange New Worlds won’t drop until 2022.

You’ll have to wait for those two exciting series. However, paramount + is still sticking as late 2021 for the premiere of season 4 of Star Trek: Discovery, despite delays onset due to COVID restrictions. Nothing came out of the SDCC panels about Discovery, which was surprising, so perhaps we shouldn’t hold our breath on that one. But if there’s one thing that Star Trek has always shown us is hope about the future.

And what about Star Trek: Section 31, the series set to follow the adventures of Emperor Philippa Georgiou? It seems like it’s been shelved for now, according to Gizmodo. It’s too bad, we were really looking forward to that one.

In the meantime, keep those phasers locked on stun and get set for a lot of laughs and adventures as Lower Decks and Prodigy come our way, which should keep us occupied with plenty of silly adventures across the multiverse for now.

Live long and prosper.