Matt Wright (of Shuttle Pod fame) fills in for Tony this week as the TrekMovie team returns from The 56-Year Mission in Las Vegas and starts their recap, covering comments from TNG’s Denise Crosby about Star Trek: Picard, ideas for the future of Dax and stories from her Deep Space Nine past from Terry Farrell, and laments from a justifiably disappointed Anthony Montgomery about his lack of development on Enterprise. Matt and Laurie also recap some of their favorite moments, from a panel featuring Ande Kindryd (assistant to Gene Coon during TOS), to a Nichelle Nichols tribute, and other highlights, including the TrekMovie panel itself.
Then they cover the news: the loss of director Matt Shakman from the upcoming (?) Star Trek movie, the schedule and special events planned for Star Trek Day on September 8, the upcoming launch of Nichelle Nichols’ ashes into space, and the Picard season 2 Blu-ray/DVD coming out next month. After that, they review the latest episode of Lower Decks, “The Least Dangerous Game.” They wrap up with a sneak preview of the TOS movie collection in 4K and a talented trumpeter who takes on the TNG theme.
Links:
Denise Crosby Hints Tasha Yar Will Appear In ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 3
Terry Farrell Wants To Return To Star Trek, Says Resurrecting Jadzia Is “No Big F-ing Deal”
Anthony Montgomery Laments To Garrett Wang About Becoming The Harry Kim Of ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’
TrekMovie panel on The State of Star Trek
‘Star Trek 4’ Loses Director, Paramount Still Moving Forward With The Project
Nichelle Nichols’ Ashes Headed To Space, Joining Star Trek Legends On “Enterprise” Memorial Launch
Watch: Trailer For ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 2 Blu-Ray/DVD With First Look At Special Features
Trekbits:
Matt: 4K reviews coming soon!
Laurie: Star Trek: The Next Generation theme for trumpets and euphonium
Let us know what you think of the episode in the comments, and should you be so inclined, please review us on Apple.
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Wasn’t a man one of the people trying to seduce Billups last season, or am I remembering wrong?
Huh?
I seem to recall a male being part of the orgies that threatened Billips.
Ah, yeah, thanks.
Yeah, he had two “assistants/attendants”, one male, one female
Yes there was. But that doesn’t really change Laurie’s point about having two really stereotypical ’80s/’90s sitcom bits around “hot babes” in both episodes so far this season.
That’s true. I should have been more clear. I wasn’t trying to say that that meant that there shouldn’t have been any hot dudes in the episode. I was just pointing out that Lower Decks hasn’t entirely shied away from showing gay/bi men.
Yeah, you’re totally right! I’d forgotten. So that’s good! And honestly, it wouldn’t even have to be men; it could be an alien too!
Something I remember about the Mayweather character that I always thought was cool was the idea of him being a “boomer.” The NX-01 really wasn’t the “first” ship out there – there were in fact a lot roving about by the time it launched, including established colonies. That seems like extremely fast progress, to go from WW3 to Terra Nova. I feel like that would be the true “frontier” of Trek exploration, the pioneering of the first planets, maybe even starting with Mars. I think that would be a great TV series pitch: the first people from Earth to step foot on another world like theirs. The wonder in their eyes as they see this glowing blue-green orb from the windows of their tiny tin can in space, the place they will live and die and build their lives – it could be epic, gritty, just a group of settlers conquering mankind’s first home away from home, learning to hunt, building a community, dealing with in-fighting. I feel like that would be a much more “down to earth” premise than what Enterprise ended up being, but I at least appreciated that Travis was the tiny glimpse into that life. Honestly, by the time Enterprise launched, space travel seemed pretty ho-hum and routine. It would be nice to see a time in Trek history when that actually wasn’t the case – and tie into and mirror the current exciting space race we’re witnessing unfold.
PS – GOOD LUCK ARTEMIS 1 TOMORROW 🚀🤞
Great podcast as usual!
Even though there was no big news out of it, the Las Vegas convention sound like it was a great time and to have so many of the actors back from all the various shows must have been a treat. It sounds like the first true convention since the pandemic.
For the next Kelvin movie, it sounds like we have, once again, another lemon on our hands. They not only lost the director, it’s been reported none of the cast is signed on (which they all basically said it themselves since they know nothing) and that they can’t even agree on the next story. I think if this movie is cancelled which will surprise no one at this point, it will be time to move on to something new. Put the movies on the back burner for a few years until they find both a concept and a budget they can agree on. If the studio has no confidence or motivation to make another Kelvin movie 6 years on, what’s the point of trying? They had their time and the Prime universe and those characters is what most fans really want anyway.
As far as the prime universe, it’s crazy with so many new shows we could be tapping into legacy characters and actors for the next decade. It was so great for James Cromwell to do Zefram Cochrane again in LDS! That episode is already an instant classic for me because he was back. I’m happy to hear Tim Russ is talking to the LDS producers and I thought showing Tuvok in the premiere was kind of foreshadowing the character returning in a bigger role so fingers crossed.
I’m just happy we have such a big return to the Berman era and with the three current post-Nemesis shows on and a potential new 25th century show, they can really bring in a lot more legacy actors. I also have a feeling we are going to get some surprises on Star Trek day of other legacy actors who will be in season 3 of Picard and maybe LDS and PRO as well!
Even though I don’t love all the new shows, I’m still excited about the future! Only a few more days for Star Trek day! :)
I’ve been concerned that the drive to make a tentpole movie has been blocking Paramount+ from experimenting with other formats in streaming.
Limited streaming series, anthologies and made-for-streaming movies seem an obvious next step and a good fit for Trek. Disney is doing well with this approach, especially for Marvel. But since the merger and the repeated announcements and failures on the cinematic side, Trek seems locked into ongoing streaming series.
With the apparent unannounced death of Short Treks (which had licensing challenges due to sales to other streamers of the main shows), Kurtzman and ViacomCBS executives have stopped talking about experimenting in formats at all. Even though Paramount+ is trying to put out made for streaming movies at a fast clip.
Making a cinematic feature makes top level strategic sense however, and Paramount has been able to deliver on other franchises like MI and Top Gun, so something else seems to be a factor in the failures on that side.
One has to wonder if the contract with JJ Abrams is still constraining them somehow – he has first dibs on making certain types of productions until the contract expires. With the merger, that could affect the streaming side too.
Anyway, the continuing sub rational decision making around any kind of Trek feature, despite the changes in organization and executives at Paramount bear all the markers of being hamstrung by bad contractual provisions with a non performing production company
NA
I definitely agree it would be nice to see different Trek formats on P+. Like you said, D+ is doing a lot of different things with both Star Wars and Marvel from their own short stories to anthologies among others. But to be fair they haven’t put out any streaming movies either, mostly focused on mostly shows as well.
But yeah I wish they could do a little more with Trek that we see Star Wars and Marvel are doing. Short Treks were definitely experimental and different but the reality is they were only made to be a stop gap to stop people from cancelling the service between seasons or give them a reason to subscribe again. And I think it just didn’t really work. I’m guessing the overwhelming amount of fans never re-subscribed until another show started and just watched them then. And now that we have so many shows on all year it’s even less of an incentive to do.
And you may have a point about the contract issues with Bad Robot and why they keep even tying to make another big tentpole movie. I don’t know anything about the contract but many people were convinced it was finally ending a few years ago and obviously that’s not the case. The ONLY theory I have is they probably renewed the contract thanks mostly to the MI movies and Star Trek was still part of that. But as we can see, they have no issues making more MI movies and have made 3 of these films since Beyond premiered which tells you EVERYTHING.
I always say this, when a studio really wants to make something, it finds a way. They were making MI 7 and 8 in the middle of the pandemic. They have pushed the dates the films were suppose to premiere (MI 7 was suppose to be the film that opened this summer, not Maverick) but they have done everything possible to keep those productions going, even when they had to shut down multiple times.
Meanwhile with Star Trek, they can’t even get passed the script stage and/or don’t have the motivation to throw real money into the project. Phil says it a lot, hiring someone to write a script is pretty common and cheap to do for a studio. It’s going beyond that that seems to be an issue over and over again.
But it’s pretty obvious now Paramount is either too afraid or lacks any real motivation to make another movie, at least one probably passed a certain budget. And they probably have a cast that is prohibitively too expensive to make another one with and fear it will bomb again.
And the thing is I totally get that. I think the problem is obvious and why they are so afraid to throw the dice. A MI movie is going to make $7-800 million minimum and probably more now with Cruise’s hot streak back. The next Star Trek film could make just half of that because the Kelvin movies just has no real fan enthusiasm anymore. This is just my opinion, but I think more fans want an Enterprise revival show instead of another Kelvin movie. OK, I definitely do lol.
So you have to wonder, why do they keep announcing movies they are not confident or even assured to make? It feels more like a cynical business ploy at this point but I have no idea what it remotely gains either??
But I suspect if a movie actually gets made in another few years but under performs as well, then the Kelvin film time is over and they will do something cheaper for P+. But who knows, if the next film just ends up being cancelled, that may happen sooner than later.
I also loved the experimental style of Short Treks and felt the hits were worth the misses. But yes… it was a stopgap between series and they don’t have that issue anymore. I think they are trying to move some of that thinking over to Strange New Worlds, taking advantage of the episodic nature of the show to play with genres and styles. It’s why Anson Mount keeps using the phrase “big swings,” and I’m glad they’re doing it… again, the hits are worth the misses.
Oh yeah, I did like Short Treks. Not every one was great but I actually liked most of them. And it was cool to see things like the animated shorts in season 2. If they kept going I imagine we would’ve gotten some very interesting and unique stories.
It is funny that SNW is considered somewhat experimental when in reality it’s basically just returning to the type of format and genres we saw in all the classic Star Trek shows TOS-ENT! But yes I guess for today it kind of is lol.
I think out of all the new shows LDS is also very experimental. It is the first animated comedy in Star Trek and like SNW was a return to the episodic format. So far it took the biggest swing in all the new shows because Star Trek isn’t known for being a broad comedy but fortunately hit a home run! :)
I’d add Prodigy to the experimental list, then!
Oh yeah, so would I. The first Star Trek show that isn’t about an actual Starfleet crew but instead a group of kids and completely outside of Federation space in the Delta Quadrant.
Out of all the shows, their story is the most interesting so far because it sounds like they are going to do a lot of crazy twists and turns with it based on what we know so far.
Great podcast as always! Love hearing from Matt and Laurie. As someone who had the great fortune to attend STLV this year, it was exciting to see the TrekMovie crew roaming about. I have to say that I was looking forward to Ballys since it is on The Strip. However, I came away with a deeper appreciation of The Rio. Trek on The Strip feels like a little fish in a big pond. While fun, it ultimately felt rather cramped and marginalized. Turns out I much prefer the Big Fish, Little Pond atmosphere provided by The Rio. I last attended STLV in 2019 and in retrospect The Rio felt grand, open, and vibrant compared to the experience at Ballys. I’m glad I went, and had a great time, but am surprise to come away thankful that STLV will be returning to Rio next year. As Spock would say, “‘having’ is not so pleasing a thing after all as ‘wanting.’ It is not logical, but it is often true.” Hooray for returning to The Rio! I look forward to hearing Tony’s take on the convention as a whole. Hope he wasn’t sidelined by COVID like I was this week!
My only experience at the Rio was last year, and we didn’t stay at the hotel. I have to say, I liked all the restaurants and options at Ballys, that part was great. The crowded hallways weren’t terrific, and cramming all the autograph lines into the vendors’ room was pretty nuts. Our team was somewhat split on the Ballys vs. Rio experience! We’ll get Tony’s take on it this week on the podcast.
Agreed on the restaurant options being so much better this year. Being adjacent Paris with its shopping and restaurants was a major plus. Ballys as a program venue wasn’t so hot, but it’s proximity to the Strip and other hotels was a real benefit.
Thank you for sharing about Andreea Kindryd. It’s so cool that there is still some untold stories and perspectives on trek history. I’m definitely buying an autographed copy of her book.
LLAP
I still wish I’d seen her whole panel, but catching the end was great and getting to talk to her as she signed my book (and get some pics of her with Little Riker) was priceless! She took time with each and every person.