[Interview starts at 23:32]
Tony and Laurie talk about the WGA strike, including the impact on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. They then take a look at the brand-new trailer for Strange New Worlds season 2, which has the first clip from the show’s crossover with Lower Decks and the first bit of dialogue from Carol Kane. They discuss Star Trek: Picard‘s success on the Neilson streaming top 10 chart, Laurie’s interview with Cirroc Lofton and Denise Crosby, and Tony’s review of the Star Trek: Resurgence game.
The podcasters then bring in this week’s guest, Prodigy co-EP Aaron Waltke. Aaron talks about the writers’ strike, the epic day when Star Trek creatives from across the franchise united on the picketing pavement, and what’s heading our way in season 2 of Prodigy. Then Tony and Laurie help him channel his own fandom by taking our new Star Trek questionnaire, getting his thoughts on everything from underrated Star Trek episodes to what position he’d have if he served on a starship and who his Trek crush is.
The podcast wraps up with a look at a new book about composer Jerry Goldsmith and some Trek celebs playing D&D in Todd Stashwick’s game room.
Links:
Star Trek Actors Join Writers On Trek-Themed Picket Lines In LA And NYC
Strange New Worlds’ Showrunner Talks Lieutenant Kirk In Season 2 And “Bending” Star Trek
IDW Launching New ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Mini-Series In August
‘Star Trek: Picard’ Climbs Streaming Top 10 Chart; ‘Legacy’ Petition Passes 50,000
Interview: Cirroc Lofton And Denise Crosby On Watching And Podcasting ‘Star Trek: TNG’ Season 1
The 7th Rule podcast on YouTube
Review: ‘Star Trek: Resurgence’ Immerses You In A Fascinating TNG-Era Story
Aaron Waltke runs into Robert Hewitt Wolfe on the picket line [Twitter]
The Kids in the Hall “The Eradicator”
The Caitian on Star Trek: Prodigy
Enderprizian cosplay [Twitter]
Jeri Taylor describes negative feedback about da Vinci on Voyager
Nick Locarno photo on Admiral Paris’ desk in Star Trek: Voyager‘s “Pathfinder”
Dark ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Theory About Zero Connects The Borg From ‘Voyager’ To ‘Picard’ And Beyond
Neil Shurley’s Star Trekking newsletter with Trek Q&A
Connor Trinneer tells Laurie’s son D&D is nerdier than Star Trek (in 2017)
Bits:
Laurie: Playing D&D: Todd Stashwick, Jeri Ryan, Matt Okumura, Terry Matalas [Twitter]
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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It’s very funny to me (a clown) that every person involved in making Star Trek today finds the premise of the world of Star Trek so hard to believe that they just decide to make every show “today, but shinier.” Seems like a good guy, though, and obviously more successful than any of us will ever be and obviously, we live in a world teetering on the brink of oblivion and the future vision of Star Trek has been dead since 9/11, just darkly funny to me (again, a clown) to hear from literally everybody producing Trek today, as though nihilism is a prerequisite for being hired.
Hi, Aaron here. I am not a nihilist, nor did I purport to be! If anything, the point I was trying to make was the importance of choosing to believe in the possibility of a better future in spite of what we see today.
Thanks for engaging! Fun show, keep up the great work! Prodigy is definitely capturing hearts and minds in my little corner of the universe.
Wow I’m happy just to see you here Aaron! :)
I haven’t listened to the interview yet but plan to once I finish working. But absolutely love Prodigy and it’s my favorite of the new Trek shows. Can’t wait for season 2! :)
I enjoyed the way you had these questions for your guest. As you had said, I don’t think every guest would be appropriate for these questions, but some definitely would engage with these questions like in this interview. Some of the showrunners would be good to pose these to.
If you have any interest in exploring the areas where gaming and Star Trek bump in to each other, watch Wil Wheaton’s TableTop episodes where they do Star Trek themed games. He had Jeri on an episode where they played Star Trek Cataan that’s really good.
I need to listen to this one. I wanna know: was anything said about whether or not the Dauntless crew will be in the next season too
Awww boo nothing was said about that. also I really liked the questions you asked him.
Yeah the questions were great! :)
Sadly no specific details about that or anything about season 2 was given Gritizens.
😔 I just wanna know if Tysess will be back or if he was just in the one season. Because wow what a waste of Daveed Diggs if he was just in one season.
If I answered the questions he was asked…
Most embarrassing piece of merchandise: I don’t have any there, ha. I just have two eaglemoss ships (the Enterprise from TOS and the Andorian ship from ENT) and two action figures from the 90s (Scotty and Geordi.) My next goal is to get a Barclay action figure. [Can you tell I like engineers too?]
I really liked Move Along Home. But then I’ve been vocal about how I love the silly and goofy episodes. I don’t think I have any episodes that I can say are underrated because idk enough about what the fandom thinks of my favorites. My favorite episodes though…. In no particular order: Move Along Home, Treachery Faith and the Great River (what a surprise [sarcasm]), In the Cards, To the Death, Magnificent Ferengi, Who Mourns for Morn, Rascals, there’s more I’m forgetting.
My favorite fan theory. I don’t really have any that aren’t my own and I’m not saying my own are my favorites.
My biggest Trek crush is Weyoun. To the surprise of absolutely no one.
I’m kind of a shipper. As far as Voyager specifically goes, I’m a J/7 guy. My most controversial ship is probably the polyamorous one of: Kira Nerys, Jadzia Dax, Odo, Worf and Quark. Although Brad Boimler and agimus is probably up there too.
I have always liked Move Along Home! Not even in a guilty pleasure way. I genuinely like it and think it’s a good episode. Rascals is also a big favorite, especially since it’s the only Star Trek episode my youngest kid would ever watch.
I’ve never understood the negativity on Move Along Home.
It was more like a TOS than TNG concept. The tongue-in-cheek silliness giving way to recognition of a deadly threat was well done. It was a contrast to TNG’s midrun seriousness, but a precursor to DS9s ability to use humour and outright comedy to balance its darker tone. Or to have a serious heart even in silliness.
Importantly, was the key turning point in understanding how Quark had limits on how far he would put his own benefit above the social good.
Rascals took a psychological therapeutic practice of reimagining childhood experience and made it literally a real lived experience for the characters. It was one of the few episodes that made Troi do real work as a therapist onscreen. Given how often people experienced trauma on that ship, it was overdue.
It does speak to some fans’ discomfort in changes in tone within a show. It likely very healthy for the franchise that SNW is very deliberately pushing the envelope with different tones.
Rascals was also saved by very strong performances from all 4 of the kid guest stars. Imagine if they’d been bad! They really sold the whole thing beautifully. Adam Nimoy’s first directing job! He did great.
Yes, the child actors were fantastic as well as truly looking like the adults they represented.
But the writing was also great, and one of the few times the TNG writers seemed to do very well with kids. I’d argue that the episodes with Alexander Rozshenko living on ship were also well done.
I’m thinking that there is a significant contingent of fans who (and writers) who’d like to believe that sentient adults spring up fully formed from the ground. Glad Prodigy is challenging this.
Rascals gets a bad rap; it presents some interesting food for thought alongside some really underrated comedic moments. I still get a laugh out of “He’s my number one Dad!”
If I remember correctly the Hagemans have said that there will be more Daveed Diggs in season 2.
Oh good, thank you.
This was such a fun interview. A little disappointed we didn’t get any details about season 2, but didn’t expect any either.
But it’s very obvious that Aaron is a huge Trek fan. The way he answered all those very detailed questions is how any fanboy here would. And I totally agree with him about the Trip/Section 31 theory and sticking to it. ;)
I have to say every time he talks or frankly any of these new show runners talk about their shows today like McMahan, Matalas, Goldsman and Alonso Myers, it’s obvious why these shows just feel so much more in turned to classic Star Trek because they basically hired fanboys to run them. There are still canon issues for SNW (prequels…) and the complaints all the shows are too reliant on legacy characters will probably stay an endless debate but it’s obvious all of them are being made with pure love and attention to detail. They are all very passionate about it in a way we haven’t seen in decades and it’s really resonating with the fan base!
Please keep it up! :)
I really enjoyed the interview, and the Star Trek Questionnaire! Looking forward to Season 2!
I’ve been really enjoying the addition of interviews to the podcast.
More please.
I think the questions asked of Aaron would be great for other writers and showrunners. Some others that I would like to hear an interview with beyond McMahan, and Matalas would be Kirsten Beyer and Henry Alonso Myers.
That said, I think it would be very cool to have some interviews with the production side creatives on the new shows.
Bill Blass and Mike Okuda have been fairly vocal about their vision of a recreated future history for the early 25th century. While personally I think they took things too far because I would have expected more changes in design language over 60 years and across a diversity of species and cultures, they have views that would be interesting to hear.
We heard a great deal about makeup, and there was much controversy in the first seasons of Discovery. It would be good to have some of the prosthetic folks talk about what they have found interesting and cool, what favourites they have.
But what’s really missing are interviews with the costume designers and production designers in Toronto.
We have seen some interviews and clips from local events, including with the Canadian guilds in Ontario, but in the US and internationally, their exposure is really just the StarTrek.com featurettes.
I recently saw a set of photos that showed how the set of the Shenghzhou bridge became the S31 ship, then 32nd century Starfleet headquarters and now the courtroom for Una’s court martial. We also see in the courtroom scene how the detailing on dress uniforms from TOS has been recaptured for a new version. There are some cool stories and behind much of this that would be great to probe.
Not sure if this thread is getting traffic now, but I just happened across a stat on the franchise that seems relevant to the discussion about how much Paramount will push to get new Star Trek content out after the strike(s).
About two weeks ago, The Wrap cited a Parrot Analytic report that for 2022 Star Trek and the Yellowstone franchise accounted for about half of Paramount+ viewership demand.
That’s even before the most recent quarter where 1923, Mayor of Kingstown, Picard S3 and the Teen Wolf movie were major subscriber draws in the most recent quarter.
What this says to me is that Paramount is still relying heavily on Trek as a foundation in its stated 3Fs strategy of ‘fandoms, franchises, and familiar faces’. Without new Trek content its base would be severely undercut.
So, I suspect the worries about pullback in Trek production are overblown assuming Paramount is planning to stay competitive in streaming.
What it does say though is that they have to manage the IP well through its next phase. Paramount can’t afford Trek to start showing a Marvel-like drop in demand – at least until it establishes more franchises.
Great podcast. I hope you continue to do the fun questions bit at the end for future guests!
Aaron has an impressive vocabulary and seems to have “the gift of gab,” I hope he continues to get more work, I’d love to hear him in more podcasts.
It wouldn’t work for everyone, but when it does and we have time, we will do it. I think he had fun answering, too.
Yes, yes, keep the questionnaire!!
I was kinda hoping Mr. Waltke was going to toss a couple of movies onto the ‘hidden gems’ list….