Star Trek made its presence known at New York Comic Con Saturday afternoon.
On a panel moderated by Josh Horowitz, Alex Kurtzman took the stage and first thing pronounced, ”To address the elephant in the room: Star Trek: Prodigy is back, and it is because of you,” Specifically citing the nearly 35,000 signature petition and banner flown over Los Angeles. He later added, “I always said Star Trek belongs to two people: Gene Roddenberry and the fans.”
With the news of Prodigy exciting the audience, the discussion turned to the collaboration with Kid Cudi. The capacity crowd in the Empire Stage was treated with a behind-the-scenes video about the collaboration, showing the creation of Mirror Mayhem, the Fortnite gaming experience starring Cudi’s Starfleet self, Captain Skyles.
Cudi joined Horowitz and Kurtzman on the panel to discuss the collaboration. He said that Star Trek was a natural fit for him, as he had shared Star Trek with his father, whom Captain Skyles is named in honor of. Cudi’s love of science and space made Trek a natural fit for him.
On the topic of fathers and sons, Kurtzman added that his son was a huge Kid Cudi fan. Cudi was calling Kurtzman a lot about the collaboration, and Kurtzman’s son always seemed to be in the room at the time. Kurtzman managed to get a lot of cool dad points from it. Other than impressing his kid, Kurtzman said that Kid Cudi embodies Trek, as he talks about issues that are important to Trek, striving to be a better version of yourself and helping the world.
With the collaboration– particularly the song “Heaven’s Galaxy”-- Cudi managed to capture the essence of Star Trek but still be incredible on brand for Cudi.
They then discussed Cudi’s Star Trek-inspired clothing line, focusing on the brightly colored varsity jacket featuring patches of Kirk, Spock, the Enterprise, and the Ta’al hand gesture. Cudi loves Varsity jackets and wanted collaboration merchandise that was his style.
Cudi left the stage, and Horowitz and Kurtzman gave the audience a huge treat: a screening of Lower Decks season four, episode eight. We were asked not to spoil the episode… Not that we ever would anyway! You can hear our thoughts on the episode this Thursday at 9:30 EST on our YouTube Channel. But it was a great treat to experience an episode of Lower Decks amongst a crowd of Star Trek fans. This sentiment was shared by Kurtzman and Mike McMahan, who slipped into the audience to watch the episode along with them.
After the screener was completed, Kurtzman again took the stage, joined by Lower Decks creator Mike McMahan. McMahan said he’d never had the chance to watch Lower Decks with such a crowd before, and he loved it and would like to just watch all Star Trek episodes in such a way.
But instead of watching more Trek, the discussion turned to Lower Decks. The first business to discuss was the massive plot shift in the season, with the characters ranking up to Lieutenant J.G. McMahan said that initially, he’d planned to promote them at the end of season three, but that promoting them opened up so many opportunities that he was glad he did it at the beginning and that it has been a boon of storylines.
Horowitz then brought up the incomparable Moopsy and its impact, saying it had become quite the meme in Star Trek (something I am very proud to have contributed to). McMahan attributed the success of Moopsy to the adorable voice. He also praised the animators for nailing the directive of Moopsy’s bone-drinking resembling “a kid going to town on a Capri Sun.”
The next major character discussed was T’Lyn, with McMahan discussing how the character was based on writer Kathryn Lyn’s convention character. He said that so much of T’Lyn’s success comes from the basis of Vulcan characters, all stemming from Nimoy’s excellent portrayal in The Original Series. He also praised voice actress Gabrielle Ruiz for her deadpanned delivery. He also gave full-throated support to the SAG-AFTRA strike.
McMahan talked about the genesis of Lower Decks, coming from a “place of love” of the franchise, wanting to poke fun at it. But that the series is about found family, as is all of Star Trek. Specifically, Lower Decks is about being a young adult in your first job, trying to really figure yourself out and make your lifelong friends.
When the conversation turned to the crossover between Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds, Strange New Worlds showrunner Akiva Goldsman surprised everyone by standing up to answer the question. He explained that to coordinate between all of the shows, all the showrunners had a monthly Zoom call where they “not only explained why they should have Wesley Crusher but explained why no one else should.” During the Zoom calls, the showrunners realized they liked each other and wanted to collaborate.
McMahan lamented being unable to go to the filming of the Strange New Worlds crossover due to a COVID scare. Tawny Newsome and Jack Quaid shared copious numbers of photos with him out of pure spite. McMahan would love to do another crossover to visit the set this time, something Kurtzman seemed quite keen to do.
Quick updates were given to the other Trek shows. Discovery is finished, and Kurtzman feels it is a satisfying conclusion and that Sonequa Martin-Green gives the performance of a lifetime. No date was given other than early 2024.
With the WGA Strike settled, the writer’s room for Starfleet Academy is back up and running as of this week. Tawny Newsome is having the time of her life working on the series. Filming will begin next year.
Section 31 is also being written with the strike over. Kurtzman attributed the movie entirely to Michelle Yeoh. As an Oscar Winner, she had her choice of roles to move forward on post-Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, but was adamant about wanting to revisit Georgiou.
To wrap up the main conversation about the franchise, Kurtzman assured everyone that Paramount is incredibly serious about Star Trek and that the franchise will continue, with many nascent projects being discussed.
In the brief Q&A, McMahan said that episodes 9 & 10 of season four are “huge swings” for Lower Decks, and they’ve been concealed from the press specifically because of how huge they are. He also admitted that he doesn’t watch Easter Egg videos or individual episode reviews (but he does watch season reviews) and said that his favorite Easter Egg is Mariner saying in "Crisis Point", “You were kind of a Xon” because it was such a niche reference to something that never actually make it to screen, the character of Xon from Star Trek: Phase II.
On the topic of lesser-scene worlds like Ferenginar, McMahan said he loved to have seldom seen planets appear. He said that Orion– seen for the first time in "Something Borrowed, Something Green" this season– would reappear in season five.
On the reappearance of Peanut Hamper in season four, he said that he loved Peanut Hamper because of his affection for voice actress Kether Donohue. And that Star Trek lacks good “heel” characters, which is what Peanut Hamper is, and you love to hate her. While there is no plan to bring her back, no one is ever truly gone from Star Trek.
With that, the panel ran out of time. All in all, fans were left incredibly teased for the future but giving a bit of satiation with the screening of episode eight and some tantalizing hints as to where the future of Star Trek lay.
And to stay up to date on all those tantalizing hints, make sure you keep it locked on both the SNP blog and YouTube channel!
