Monday, October 11, 2021

Star Trek: Prodigy Announces New Voice Talent During NYCC; Unveils New Sneak Peek

Star Trek: Prodigy Announces New Voice Talent During NYCC

Attendees also saw the first episode of the series


Paramount+, the streaming service from ViacomCBS, today debuted a first-look clip featuring Hologram Kathryn Janeway, from the upcoming all-new animated kids series Star Trek: Prodigy. The new clip featuring the return of the iconic Star Trek character of Janeway, voiced by Kate Mulgrew in the new series, was released following the official premiere screening and cast and producer panel at New York Comic Con.

In addition, it was revealed during today’s Star Trek: Prodigy New York Comic Con panel that Daveed Diggs (Hamilton), Jameela Jamil (The Good Place), Jason Alexander (Seinfeld), and Robert Beltran have joined the season one voice cast with recurring roles. Diggs will voice Commander Tysess, Jamil will voice Ensign Asencia, Alexander will voice Doctor Noum and Beltran will reprise his Star Trek: Voyager role as Captain Chakotay.


Star Trek: Prodigy will premiere on Thursday, Oct. 28 with a one-hour premiere episode, exclusively for Paramount+ subscribers in the U.S. The series will also be available to stream on Paramount+ in international territories including Latin America, the Nordics and Australia.

In the one-hour series premiere which premiered during the panel for attendees, titled “Lost & Found,” a group of lawless teens, exiled on a mining colony outside Federation space, discover a derelict Starfleet ship. Dal must gather an unlikely crew for their newfound ship if they are going to escape Tars Lamora, but the Diviner and his daughter Gwyn have other plans.

To celebrate today's NYCC screening, Nickelodeon and Paramount+ also released a new sneak peek from the series!:


The Star Trek: Prodigy New York Comic Con panel featured a conversation with series voice cast members Kate Mulgrew (Hologram Kathryn Janeway), Brett Gray (Dal), Rylee Alazraqui (Rok-Tahk), Dee Bradley Baker (Murf), executive producers Kevin and Dan Hageman, director and co-executive producer Ben Hibon, and Ramsey Naito, President, Animation & Development, Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Animation. The panel was moderated by actress Dawnn Lewis, who voices Captain Carol Freeman on Paramount+’s Star Trek: Lower Decks.

Star Trek: Prodigy is produced by the Nickelodeon Animation Studio and CBS Studios’ Eye Animation Production.

Developed by Emmy Award winners Kevin and Dan Hageman (Trollhunters and Ninjago), the CG-animated series Star Trek: Prodigy is the first Star Trek series aimed at younger audiences, and will follow a motley crew of young aliens who must figure out how to work together while navigating a greater galaxy, in search of a better future. These six young outcasts know nothing about the ship they have commandeered – a first in the history of the Star Trek franchise – but over the course of their adventures together, they will each be introduced to Starfleet and the ideals it represents.


Star Trek: Prodigy is from CBS’ Eye Animation Productions, CBS Studios’ new animation arm; Nickelodeon Animation Studio, led by President of Animation Ramsey Naito; Secret Hideout; and Roddenberry Entertainment. Alex Kurtzman, Heather Kadin, Aaron Baiers, Katie Krentz, Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth serve as executive producers alongside co-showrunners Kevin and Dan Hageman. Ben Hibon directs, co-executive produces and serves as the creative lead of the all-new animated series. Claudia Spinelli is Nickelodeon’s Head of Animation Development with Kelley Gardner serving as Executive in Charge of production on Star Trek: Prodigy for Nickelodeon. Alec Botnick is Head of Animation for CBS Studios and Stephanie Groves is the Executive Vice President of Streaming and Cable Series and overseeing the series for CBS Studios. Star Trek: Prodigy is distributed by ViacomCBS Global Distribution Group.

Star Trek: Prodigy will stream exclusively on Paramount+ in the United States and across Latin America, the Nordics and Australia, and will air on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel and stream on Crave in Canada.

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It was revealed during Star Trek: Prodigy's NYCC 2021 panel that Commander Chakotay has been promoted to Captain in the Star Trek timeline.

The Captain Kathryn Janeway hologram clearly expected to find a Federation crew to train. Instead, she finds six aliens who’ve never even heard of the Alpha Quadrant. And yet here they are, in charge of the USS Protostar. While the hologram must also control the necessary ship’s functions for survival, can she also train a small group of kids to become a great crew? Watch Star Trek Prodigy‘s Hologram Janeway assess the situation in the clip above.

In the past, Mulgrew has talked about how returning to her classic sci-fi character was partially to pass the franchise off to a new generation of fans, and her digital counterpart would seem to agree. “I’m only here to offer advice,” Janeway warns the teens, in addition to keeping the ship running. “Everything else is up to your crew.” Even as a hologram, she knows the teens are hiding something, particularly when Dal (Brett Grey) tries to assert himself as the captain over Gwyn (Ella Purnell). What she doesn’t know yet is that the Protostar is in danger — Gwyn’s father, the Diviner (John Noble) wants the ship for his own means. Evading his clutches will be the main goal of the teens, who used to serve as slaves under his rule, but exploring the Delta Quadrant after years on one planet is a good side benefit.

The holographic Captain Janeway who serves as a guide to the motley crew on Nickelodeon’s animated series Star Trek: Prodigy is so much more than an easter egg. The character is also there to help usher in younger audiences less familiar with Star Trek. That’s the goal of Star Trek: Prodigy, according to the cast and crew who appeared at 2021 New York Comic Con and debuted the first episode along with some other first looks and details.

The characters may find themselves piloting a Federation ship, but they’re learning about the Federation from episode to episode. While Star Trek has delved into the animated space on more than one occasion, recently with Lower Decks, this is one of the first times that a Star Trek series has been specifically geared towards kids. “We have overlooked, in all of prescience, a very important demographic,” Mulgrew said of the Star Trek franchise. “Children, who in many ways are far more astute than their elders.”

In the pilot episode we meet our protagonist Dal (Brett Gray), a prisoner on a mining colony in the Delta Quadrant who’s always looking for an escape. Without giving too much away, he finds the abandoned USS Protostar and high tails it into deep space with a crew made up of new friends and old enemies. There’s the engineer, Jankom Pog (Jason Mantzoukas); a minor miner named Rok-Tahk (Rylee Alazraqui); Dal’s former friend with whom he shares a kind of screwball comedy dynamic and budding antihero, Gwyn (Ella Purnell); a noncorporeal genderless telepath named Zero (Angus Imrie); and a blob named Murf voiced by none other than Dee Bradley Baker.

Dal and his crew may live in the Star Trek universe, but they don’t know the Prime Directive from the Kobayashi Maru. “We wanted a way in,” executive producer Kevin Hageman explained at the panel. “We wanted a bunch of new characters that knew nothing about Star Trek just like our young audience.” They meet Janeway via hologram at the end of the first episode. “We get to have so much fun taking our time and introducing everything we love about Star Trek.”

Kevin and his brother, Dan Hageman, also announced at the panel four upcoming guest stars that will appeal more to the adults in the audience: Jason Alexander (Seinfeld), Daveed Diggs (Hamilton), Jameela Jamil (The Good Place), as well as Robert Beltran as an animated version of Captain Chakotay from Star Trek Voyager.

But here’s nothing stopping older audience members from dropping in on Star Trek: Prodigy — especially if you’re new to the franchise and its breadth. “It’s not just for young people,” said Dan Hageman. “There are a lot of people out there who are curious about Star Trek but they may be intimidated. There’s a lot of Star Trek out there. Where do we start? How do we know the difference between a Romulan and a Vulcan? This is a show that’s going to help anyone. Not only a new generation but people are curious about Star Trek and want to jump in. This will guide ‘em right into the franchise.”

Mulgrew recounted during the panel that she herself was new to the Star Trek franchise when she first signed on to become the first female captain. “The philosophy behind [Star Trek: Prodigy] will reverberate in infinity,” said Mulgrew. “It is a wonderful idea that [Gene] Roddenberry had about the human spirit, about transcendence of all kinds of obstacles.”.



Originally published: October 10, 2021 at 22:46 BST.

H/T: Editorials 99; Additional sources: Deadline, Gizmodo, Polygon, Superherohype, IGN.
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