July 29, 2025 • 35 mins
SDCC 2025 has hit, and it has brough some trailers and teasers, maman! We got thoughts! Here's what we're talking about:
Khan
Starfleet Academy
David C. Roberson
Matthew Carroll
Note: This episode of Star Trek Universe continues Dave and Matt's ongoing journey discussing Star Trek as they have since the late1980s.
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Khan
- ‘Star Trek: Khan’ Audio Series To Feature George Takei As Sulu And Tim Russ As Tuvok
- Khan Trailer: https://youtu.be/D71evfU4E1M
- Showrunners Have A Name For Follow-Up Star Trek Series Set On Kirk’s Enterprise
- Showrunners Begging Fans to Write in to Paramount to Make Star Trek: Year One
- 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Season 4 Teaser (Stupid Puppets) https://youtu.be/Az-cm8gmKSM
Starfleet Academy
- First Trailer: https://youtu.be/VkBU8lvXm7M
David C. Roberson
Matthew Carroll
Note: This episode of Star Trek Universe continues Dave and Matt's ongoing journey discussing Star Trek as they have since the late1980s.
Join Us:
Site: http://startrekucast.com
Apple: http://bit.ly/StuCast
Spotify: http://bit.ly/StarTrekUCast
Spreaker: http://bit.ly/StuCastSpreaker
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On this episode of Star Trek Universe, a whole bunch
of news from San Diego Comic Con start for the
Academy Strange New Worlds and con. Right after these words
from our mystery sponsors.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome to Star Trek Universe podcast, where you listening in
on two lifelong friends sitting chatting about Star Trek. My
name is Matthew Carrol. I'm David c. Robertson. Dave, you
tell me there's news. Let's talk about the news. What
do you What are we doing? What are we talking about?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Yes, sir, Well, they put out this this trailer for
the Star Trek Con audio series. Yeah, I saw that,
and they dropped this news that George sha Kay is
going to be playing Zulu.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Tim Russ is going to be Tuvak.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah, and as we've previously talked about, we've gotten Avien
Andrews from Lost playing con.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I will post.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
The YouTube trailer the trailer from YouTube in our show notes.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
But you know I am not feeling this. Yeah, No,
it seems super cheesy. For whatever reason. I've listened to
a lot of audio books, and you know, audiobooks have
a certain cheesiness about them, and it just this feels
it's got good people. You know, it's got the people.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
But like scott rynch Schmidt from For All Mankind as
Marlon mcgivers.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
That's cool, it's cool, and maybe in context these things
won't feel so stilted. But just the trailer itself, it
just didn't do much for me. And uh, the guy
being like I am cod Like, you don't have to scream.
He doesn't scream con you know, like that's like Kirk
screamed con once, Like that's the that's the thing, And
it's just it feels like they're intentionally having I get
(01:45):
why they would try to like do that to like
remind people of that, but like, yeah, no, it may
be great. And I've listened to a lot of Start
Trek audiobooks type situations and I've enjoyed a lot of them,
and a lot of them have been cheesy like this,
and I still enjoy them, but yeah, this one, the
trailer did not make me. It didn't. It didn't get
(02:08):
these nipples going, right.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, No, it seems to be for focused on Look
who we got to come back and play characters, And
I'm kind of like, well, I don't know why Captain
Sulu and instant tu Vak would be digging into what
happened with Kahn. I don't what are what's the purpose here?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
And not?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
It just feels loose and it feels very thin, and yeah,
a lot of the acting feels like, oh, we're doing
Star Trek. I will do a strange, just jointed voice.
I'm not digging it. I'm just not digging it so far.
I'll listen to the damn thing. I like Yes Meyer,
I like Kristin Bayer, I like David mack Well.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
That's the thing. I think that's why they're trying to
get the good actors playing actual characters from Star Trek series,
because they did spend money to get these this this
con thing written and produced, you know, like like originally
going to be a series and then they had to
cut it off and turn into this. And the weird
thing is, I don't know from what I remember when
(03:11):
we were talking about it years ago, when it was
first announced, it was gonna be the con series of
like what happened to them on the planet. Right, So
in the trailer, they do this thing where they're talking
about it like we're trying to discover what happened on
the Planet. I thought it was just gonna be like, hey,
it almost has that Enterprise last episode of Enterprise feel,
where you're like, hey, it's gonna be someone listening to
(03:34):
the audio tapes of what happened, or like whatever of
what happened on SETI OFFA five would have m h
this didn't excite me, so whatever, Yeah it didn't.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
It didn't get me going. I'll give it a shot though.
Over to Strange New Worlds. Yeah, the showrunners are basically
begging now. They say they have a follow up series
for Strange New Worlds. Uh huh, and they want They
(04:04):
were doing the comic Con and they were like, oh,
we're gonna We started having this idea of those great
lost years that exist in all of our head cannon
and ancillary cannon but had never really gotten much of
a chance to be on screen. So what we've tried
to do is try to reach back to Pike's Enterprise
and instill it in the kind of storytelling values we
have today and bring us right up to Kirk's first.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Day on the job.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
And that is our hope, and that is our plan,
and we plan to get you there. And if you
like us enough, you just write dear Sky Dance and Paramount,
we know you still have the sets. Don't you want
to make Star Trek Year one? They want to do
a show. They want to do a show that's Kirk's crew.
(04:47):
The year one, as they pointed out, where no man
has gone before, is like the earliest of the timeline
we have with Kirk, and it's not his first mission,
nor does it feel at Kirk's second mission. In an
interview with Entertainment Weekly, Henry Alonzo, Myers said nothing would
make us happier than to be able to continue telling
the stories of how Pike's crew transitions to Kirk's crew,
(05:09):
and how Kirk's crew sets off. Obviously when we come
into cos it's not the first day of the job,
et cetera, et cetera. I don't want this. I can
I write and say no.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, I mean you can. I I you know, if
they made it, I'd probably watch it. I just watch.
I'm on record many many times as saying I'd much
rather than just go forward and tell these stories that
Kirk and crew are obviously incredibly important to the franchise
and to the vibe of Trek, but uh, I don't
(05:43):
really need their story told over and over again. I
need new stories, new characters, new things to care about,
and it's it feels like it's been a a while
since I've gotten that. Even Disco was so like the
early seasons were so drenched, and you know, Spock Lower
and stuff. It just yeah, they they said, they said
(06:04):
all this stuff to be immediate prequels, and you know
that it's feeling like the prequels mm hmm, and they did.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
They also put a trailer for a for season four.
It's a season four teaser and it's just a puppet
of Captain Pike on the bridge, yeah, saying hit it
and then coming back and saying, oh.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Did you guys go to season four without me? It's dumb?
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Uh, don't sure.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I would probably feel similar to you, except those of
you who don't know. There's a beautiful Angel episode that
is a puppet episode, and I would have thought that
was dumb too, But it is the thing that turned
me onto that show, and it turned into my entire
(06:49):
love for Buffy, Angel Firefly, like like all the way through,
Like I would not have had my love for all
the Joss Whedon cannon that I do if like it
hadn't been for that episode, and so I can't hate
on a puppet episode until I see it, like we'll see.
I thought the singing episode would be dumb because it's like,
why are you singing? But they did it. They pulled
(07:11):
it off. In my opinion, I liked it.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
I don't think I did.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah I did. I will say I haven't rewatched it,
which with a musical episode is something you generally feel
like you can do. Their very musical episodes are rewatchable.
I've watched once more with feeling the Buffy musical episode. Yeah,
fifteen times. Yeah, But so I can't say that I've
gone back and rewatched it. Whatever. But I liked it
(07:37):
way more than other musical episodes of things and the
conceit worked for me. So it's same sort of thing.
They're doing tons of stuff on Strange New Worlds that
is just like I don't even want to say pandering.
They're just going for weird places and I'm kind of
digging it, which is an episode we're gonna talk about
on the next episode of this podcast. You know. This
(07:58):
week's Strange New Worlds also did similar like let's do
a thing in Star Trek that is you know.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, I mean whatever, working with Jim Henson's creature shop,
and that's fine.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
That's cool.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
You know.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I love Smile Time.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
And I love Ben Edlund who directed that episode, and
I think wrote it maybe uh of Angel and uh,
you know there was magic involved.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
I don't know what they're gonna do here to make
this makes sense. Well, it lasts last time we had
it could do anything as simple as like you know,
Scrubs used a person had something wrong with them mentally
that was making them see yeah, you know the musical. Uh,
Buffy obviously did Angel Buffy and Angel of the magic
(08:41):
for these types of episodes, Star Trek. You know, they
used some sort of weird quantum field or whatever singing
field causes. Then they can they can. They can give
me some handwavy science to make it work or put
it in someone's brain or whatever. Yeah, they can do that.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
It just also doesn't mean that I'm gonna like it.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
No.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
I also just kind of feel like, all right, you
did a musical like Buffy, now you're doing a puppet
thing like Angel, Like how about you just make good
Star Trek. Yeah, that seems to be outside of their
grasp though.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Hmmm. I don't know about that, but they they are.
It does feel more in season two and three, like
there's more episodes that are gimmicky. I'll put that. It's
just lots of they're using lots of gimmicks. It's really
hard to I know, we're just doing the news, but
it's really hard to talk about this about talking about
the episode we're going to talk about tomorrow then on
this podcast they did it, just did Starting New Worlds.
(09:38):
I guess spoiler alert. They just did the zombie episode right,
and Zombie Star Trek, you know, zombies versus Klingons. I mean,
it's fun. It's for the kind of thing I would
really have fun talking about or writing a or you know,
thinking up a screenplay about or whatever. But like actually
putting it on the show is is is you know interesting.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
We'll talk about it tomorrow, but yeah, all right, And
finally we got Starfleet Academy. They put out a first
trailer for it. How are you feeling about this?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Man, I'm surprised you saved it for third because I
feel like it's the most meaty thing we've got. I uh,
I really, I'm just in such a place with Star
Trek where I'm just kind of like, okay, show me,
so me what you got, like I I.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Have.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I have never hated anything they've done, but the last
few years have not felt the hits are not as
common as the the mas, and there are still hits
Strange New Worlds. I think it's the one that's really
hit the most. But Academy some great people on there.
(10:48):
I think it could be great, but I don't. I
don't really know what's going on. I don't really know
why I care. Like I read I remember when I
was a teenager, I read Star Trek Academy books, Starfleet
Academy books, and I was like, oh, yeah, let's start
Fleet Academy. It's these kids when they're younger and.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Written by the great, uh the light great Peter David.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
He just passed. Yeah, yeah, oh wow. I didn't knowize that.
I'm well, I enjoyed those, but they felt like, like
why do I care about what's going on? It kind
of feels it's like the Harry Potter stuff doesn't work
for me really well until they get out of the school,
(11:29):
you know what I mean, Like they're at Hogwarts. It's
like your students learning to do the thing instead of
the people doing the thing.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
And I dude, I skipped a lot of like the
little press conference ship where they were just talking about
like what this is and like how they were building.
It was like, this is like Hogwarts in space.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Oof oof. Yeah, I don't. I mean people love Hogwarts,
people love Harry Potter, and uh, it could turn out great,
but it's also a weird age. It's one thing that
these like, it's they just did. Uh still, Skeleton Crew.
Star Wars just did Skeleton Crew. Did you see any
of that or do you know about it? Yeah? I
thought it was really good.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
But I saw it.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, I I did too. Thought it was great, and
it is. The charm of Hogwarts is its kids, and
Skeleton Crew did that and they did a great job
with it. It's kids dealing with space for the first time,
you know, and dealing with the dangers of the Star
Wars universe. This isn't kids. This is like young adults.
(12:28):
And I don't mean fourteen year olds. I mean, like
these people are in their twenties. It looks like they
just look late, really like nineteen to twenty one that age,
and then that just doesn't feel doesn't feel young enough
to be novel like those types of stories. Doesn't feel
like it'll be whimsical like Harry Potter or Skeleton Crew.
It feels like it's gonna be you know, a teen
(12:52):
soap opera drama. Just looking at.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
It, yeah, I don't know what to think, Like I
didn't see anything that really made me interested in watching
the show, Like it was a lot of and this
is you know, it's a first look trailer. Yeah, and
I'm looking at like, okay, yeah, there's there's Robert Piccardo
as the doctor.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Cool and that's the thing that hooked me. Is it
Robert Paccardo? I will return for for seeing what that
care who that character is now?
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah, I like taking Nataro okay, and then it's just
a bunch of characters I don't care about hm hm
And one of the things that annoyed me, and you
would think that it wouldn't annoy me, but I have
a feeling about it, Like you have one character walking
up to a screen that says, confronting the unexplainable, the
(13:40):
fate of Benjamin Cisco, emissary of the Prophets, Captain Cisco's
fate Did he die in the fire caves of beijor
did he live on in the celestial Temple? And I
feel like that is just like blatantly like that is
the only thing they're ever going to say about it,
Like they are just gonna put that there and have
like a fucking montage of a cadet look that and
(14:01):
like as like a you know, this is like no
different than all of the names. I don't know if
you saw the names on the wall behind them, if
you pause it, it's mostly just old Enterprise people. It's
like crushers and bikers and shit, it's like just a
bunch of it's like everybody on the Enterprise.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Ever. Yeah, I didn't see that, but no, I'm not surprised. Uh.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I don't believe they're gonna do anything with Captain Cisco.
I think they put that there to make people like
me go, oh, holy shit, I need to watch the
show because they're going to tackle Cisco.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
They're they're gonna bring in a Voyager cast member, you know,
Voyager character and that to get the Voyager folks, and
then they're gonna put in a DS nine Easter egg
to make us think they're gonna do something. But you
mentioned being annoyed. I feel like you tend to be
annoyed by sort of like young I don't know, energetic,
(14:53):
youthful characters in Star Trek. I think in general, I
don't know or in general, and I think when I
talk to you about a lot of times, you just
don't like the ones that are sort of youthful and
don't have a lot of seriousness about them. And I
feel like this show is gonna be full of that,
like sort of youthful inexperience and whatever.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
It's not necessarily the youth part of it or the
energetic part of it. You hate the young, I hate
the old as well. No, no, I it's it's when
they go out of their way to make them as.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Star Trek as of late, has gotten into a real
habit of taking that which used to be annoying to
the fans, like a Wesley crusher, and then perpetuating like
just taking that and copying and pasting that like what
they are perceiving as a neurodivergent stand in because they
(15:55):
think that's what they're doing, and they just make the
most intelligent but obnoxious carecharacter they can make, okay, And
I feel like that's what they do, like They're just
make them as cringe as hell, and then they throw
like three of them in the room together and that's
like the entire crew some some episodes, and you're just
like they're all like making little weird Quippi jokes and
(16:15):
they're all like rabbit trailing, and I'm like, you know,
they should have adderall in this century. Like, you know,
I just as a neurodivergent person, I am aggravated watching.
I'm like, I feel like I'm watching uh you know,
like a parody of neurodivergency.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
You know. Yeah, yeah, I get that, I really do.
And I I just, yeah, I think you generally don't
like people that are overly affected or whatever too much,
too much weird affect to their to their personality. It
just starts to feel gimmicky. Yeah, totally, I see. I
(16:56):
see that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
I I generally feel like most Starfleet officers should have
their shit together, right, Which.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
That's why I wonder how you feel at this because
is at least there's the plausible deniability, to lack of
a better term, of like they are academy students, you
know what I mean, Like they they if they're a
little more emotionally unmoored a little best, less fitting into
the chain of command. Some of them may not make
it through the academy, you know, some of them may
(17:27):
wash out. They may be the characters that were like, oh,
that guy doesn't belong in Starfleet. You're like two seasons later, right,
because he's not in Starfleet anymore, you know, like right,
there might be room for playing with that, at least
making it more less cognitive dissonance when you look at
those things.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Well, one of the things that I've always that I've had,
specifically with Discovery, I think one of my problems with
those characters has been that they just they would introduce
these characters and then not know what to do with
them and not give them a real purpose or an arc. Yeah,
and uh, you know, Tilly had an arc to some degree,
(18:03):
but she was definitely in that category, I think. But
you know, I have some hope that Starfleet Academy is
supposed to be about them. But I suspect just by
virtue of having General Vance and the Holly Hunter and
the Doctor, I'm like, y'all gonna give them more meat,
ain't you? And these kids are just gonna be real annoying.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Well, that's The thing that worries me, it's this This
trailer feels very much focused on these young characters, which
like it's the Academy Show it should be, But I
am just excited about the only people I'm excited about
are there and are the older, older actors that are returning.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
I saw a real quick cut of Maslani Oh really
I missed that.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah, she looks like she was sitting by a window
with it looked like a kid was in her lap
or something.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Oh interesting, Yeah, there's a there's a kid in the
cast on IMDb. I was just looking at Yeah, I
h I that's the thing to tow him is Lonnie
Holly Hunter, you know, Paul Giamatti, Like, those are the
names that I'm like, Yeah, this is all gonna be that,
I'm gonna be Robert Riccardo. I'm really distracted by that.
And you know, if you're talking about Hogwarts, let's say, uh,
(19:14):
that is a lot of what what what the Harry
Potter world is. It's like you deal a lot with
the teachers of Harry. Yeah, and they they really are
big characters in the books. So maybe maybe they will
find that balance that will work for us.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Yeah, and we got Holly Hunter playing this Chancellor of
Starfleet Academy and the captain of the Athena, which is
the school and the ship it just ports at in
San Francisco and then just like flies up and goes
off into space when they need to do that.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
That's neat.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
So I don't know, like, what did you think of this,
uh half klingon half tell awrte character Giamatti is playing,
who's like walking down the halls and whistling the star
Trek theme.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
You know, I uh, we'll see what that how that
is in context, but like it is weird to have
diegetic sound inside of the Star Trek playing Star Trek
theme of any time.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, I've seen a lot of fans melting down over
it and saying that they're making the Alexander Courage theme
into a joke. But then I am on the side
of as much as I've just liked this trailer, I'm
on the side of hey, back in the original series,
like they would have Starfleet parties and you could hear
the theme playing in the background, Like I think the
theme that d.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
That kind of shiit, uh.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Huh, And the original Alexander Courage theme dude, they play
that in parties and ship Like. I think that thing
that he was whistling was probably like I could say,
it might be a you know, Starfleet recruitment tune or something.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Sure, sure, sure absolutely would.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Sorry now I'm over to Starship Troopers.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, yeah, I that that. That totally makes sense to me.
Could be that, like I I and I think it
could work. I don't really have a problem with it,
but it is a is weird. Yeah, it's weird. It's weird.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
It's the.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Look at what looks like the villain, likely of the thing.
I think he's been announce as the villain. Yeah, so
that's uh, it's weird.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, and he's got some he has some connection, they said,
to one of the cadets, an ominous past connection to
one of the cadets. So we've got They talked about
some of the characters. Here Sanyel Rosta as Caleb Mirr,
an orphan with a troubled past, an unlikely Starfleet cadet.
(21:36):
These are the cadets, by the way. Kriem Diane Jaden
Cragg a Klingon cadet who dreams of becoming a medical officer.
Caris Brooks is series Acclamation Mill aka Sam the first
kind to ever attend Starfleet Academy.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
I don't want to rupt you bad, but you said
that first character is this orphan character. And I am
looking at this this shot of toadown is Lonnie, and
it's her on some other world. It looks like holding
a child and looking up at the stars. And so
just immediately I think that she's gonna die in the
first episode, and she's gonna be that orphan's mom.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, like like like she's gonna die, and that's gonna
black to orphan mom.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yep, exactly, She's gonna she's gonna be the orphan mom,
and like that's that's so we're not gonna get much
of her in the show, and it's gonna be whatever.
She's just gonna be part of the backstory of whoever
that kid is.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, I mean she still might be in flashbacks like
Teacher and Ship.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I just I just love her and
I want her as much as possible. She's gonna show
up in Star Trek. I want her to be there.
I get it.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
I like her a whole lot. George Hawkins is uh
Darren Ray me an aspiring captain from a wealthy home world.
Bella Shepherd is Genesis live, an admiral's daughter determined to
make her own name and starfleet. And we have non
codect characters Zoey Steiner as Tema Sadal, a betazoid and
daughter of the President of Beta Z Robert Paccardo. Of course,
(23:06):
tak Nataro oded fair playing Admiral vance Uh recurring guest star,
Gina Yashir as Commander Lura Thock a Klingon Jim Haddar
hybrid who was the Chancellor's first officer and cadet master. Yeah,
recurring guest star an Academy Award nominee Apology Amani as
part kling On, part teller Right, nus Braka season's villain
(23:30):
with an ominous pass collected to connected to one of
our cadets.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
I'm guessing he killed Mislani. Maybe it's just my quick yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
I like it turning into the chit.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Oh yeah yeah, oh back to it.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Now we Yeah, I mean that's a good theory, dude,
that's a good theory. He killed Maslani and he was
the reason that.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Kid is an orphan. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, Yeah, that's
what I was thinking. Yeah, that's what made me think
of it when you were talking about the orphan with
the past connected to Giamani.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
No, no, no, he It just says that he has
an ominous pass connected to one of the cadets, the
GMATI does. It doesn't say that any of the cadets
specifically which one.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Oh, okay, yeah, I just I just I may blended
them all together. But I think that's it's a pretty good, uh,
pretty good theory. M hm.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
But the merger has been approved paramount and CBS R
or one yep, And uh, I don't know what that means.
I continue to not know. My guess is a Starford
Academy might get canceled before it actually gets to do
season two. I don't trust that these people are gonna
(24:48):
keep Star Trek going. Yeah, And I kind of I'm
okay with that based on what I'm seeing.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Mmm, I don't know. I'm not I'm not. I don't like, yeah,
the world not having Star Trek, but I do think
that like, the world will always have Star Trek. We
have it, it exists, and I do think that I
don't really want to water down Star Trek. I know
there's a lot of people that want exactly that, like
(25:14):
a politically watered down Star Trek. And I'm really worried
about CBS. I'm pissed at CBS. Just just pissed the
Colbert Report being canceled after getting pressure from Donald Trump
and this lawsuit and after he criticized them. I think
(25:34):
it just spells terrible things for the future of the country.
And this is the kind of stuff that happens in
a you know whatever, like authoritarian governments that like, oh,
you criticize the government, we can't have that on TV.
And I know that's you know, we're not there yet.
There's lots of other shows criticizing the government.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Did you see j Leno talking about how late night
comedians need to stop being so political because they're favoring
one side and why off half your audience?
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Yeah, I'm sure Jay Leno.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
You freaking like it doesn't matter how many years past,
it's just fuck Jay Leno.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yeah, fuck Jay Leno. Yeah, I uh yeah, I mean,
I'm I'm obviously a very partisan at this point. I
wasn't always, but Donald Trump came on the scene and
is lie lies with every breath he speaks. Uh, And
so it is fascism it is pure fascism, and he
is now controlling the media through that we are allowed
(26:29):
to consume. And he's about to destroy one of my
favorite franchises one way or another, either by shutting it
down or by causing it to be politically uh chained.
And I don't care if Star Trek is uh.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
I don't think it'll be silence, but in I don't
think it's gonna be a politically changed chained thing. I
think it's a it's not profitable for paramount thing like
this billionaire who just took over. I think that's all
it is. Like he's gonna come in and go like, yes,
this is the biggest thing we own.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
It's not missed.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
It impossible, but it also costs more than anything else
to make right.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Sure, they might, they might, but it's that Jay Leno
thing of like we need to well, well, let's bring
Star Trek back, but let's make it a little less,
a little less about the space socialism and a little
more about zip zip bang bang, and let's get back
and gets to get the right wingers back into it,
bring out the laser guns, Like that's what I'm expecting.
I'm not expecting them to be like Star Trek is
(27:26):
right wing. Now I'm expecting them to like, let's let's
soften all the edges of the political discourse, and you know,
let's sanitize this show so that it protects the billionaires
that own it, And that fucking sucks.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
You know. There is an argument that when Star Trek
was at its best, it was in a much more
censored politically middle zone where the creators had to be
creative about the liberal socialist propaganda they were spewing. Sure,
(28:03):
and I feel like it was a more creative time.
I feel like they did a much better job of
it when they were being creative about how they were saying.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Well, that's fun and interesting. What I'm what I'm getting
at is the idea that these if the wrong people
own the content and they break down the stories that
challenge power, then it sucks. And that's and that's all
I'm getting. I just think that I don't disagree with you,
(28:35):
and I don't even I was trying to say this
a minute ago. I don't even mind the idea of
Star Trek being less overtly political. I think that Star
Trek has always a lot of times in the old
original series it's like, you know, McCoy and Spock are arguing,
and they're on two opposite sides of this debate, and
they both have a point, and that's interesting. I don't
(28:56):
like Star Trek that is so homogenized to the point
that it's like theyre aren't having interesting ethical discussions. So
that's not what I'm getting at. I'm getting at a
Star Trek that starts to dumb it down to the
point where like, well, we can't challenge people's ideas, we
can't challenge people's politics. Let's just make a space show
with the iconography of Star Trek that's just about lasers
(29:18):
and stuff.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
I think that's where they've been though since Paramount was
this discovery started. Though they barely talk. It's like they
don't want to even have a character on there who
might be considered still a good guy and a little
right wing, so we're not gonna have like a McCoy
and spot conversation. Like most of the time, they stick
to the agreed upon political stance of the franchise, and
(29:45):
they have just evolved into zip zip boom boom pew pew.
A lot of the times.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
I agree with you. Yeah, I'm not saying that that
that's not the case now, like that is that is
somewhat the case, But that's what I freaking hate. Yeah,
and that's my least favorite stuff. And I'm always looking
for those shining moments where they do something truly interesting
and truly explore something ethical, truly explore different sides of
(30:09):
an issue and like really give me something and you
know so so yeah, like I'm I'm I'm in a
place where I I'm not I'm not wanting the show
to end by any means, but I am like, I
don't think that a billionaire who has completely different interests
than spreading what I think are the ideals of Star Trek,
(30:30):
which is like cooperation and help literally socialism and like
making sure that all people are taken care of, I
don't really think that, you know, it's it's gonna be
great if they're if they're I think that Donald Trump
is about as far from the Star Trek ideal as
(30:50):
you can get. Uh sure, Like the to me, the
thing that Star Trek taught me the thing that I
care most about, and I think the thing that pushed
me so politically far away from right and the way
that is the way that they kowtowed to Trump as
a absolute liar. And because Star Trek taught me. I
grew up on this ship, and it taught me that
the truth is the most important thing, even if it's
(31:13):
politically like not what would you would think? Or or
like if if it's if it's question, if it's making
you question your ideals, the truth, finding out the truth
of a thing is what's important. Like so much of
early Star Trek is about like you gotta actually, you
gotta actually investigate and discover what's true, and that that's
gotta be your guiding star before you can make any
(31:35):
other decisions. And Donald Trump and his entire ilk have
lied to the point that our entire society is split
into two. And I'm not saying there aren't liars on
the other side, but it is not close like to
who's lying more, and that the the type of lies
(31:56):
and the the changing, the gas lighting and the change
of our entire like way we can think because we
don't have the truth, half of our country doesn't have
the truth, and like they just they aren't. They either
don't cover stories, they're critical of Trump or in that silo,
(32:17):
or they have a completely different take on what these
stories mean even when it's completely illogical and the facts
are left out, they don't look at data. It is
it is dark and like, to me, Star Trek above
all is about that truth and like finding the right
answer and like working together to find a good answer,
(32:38):
even if we all have disagreements about who believes the
right thing to do is the Captain's supposed to take
in all that information and then come up with the
best answer to help the most people, you know. And
that's just the worst, just the furthest away from what
we have right now. And so people that are cow
telling to Trump owning Star Trek, this is me the
(33:00):
funk off.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, I don't have anything to add. I'm just like, yep,
I'm gearing up for my King of the Hill, like
for it dropping.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yeah, oh man, we were we were on a Multiverse
news a few weeks ago. We had a King of
the Hill story and uh, you know, I read them
and then they're supposed to like shout out their name.
We're doing like a lightning round And so I read
a story and that they're supposed to shout out their name,
and instead of a lady waiting allowing them to wait
to shutut their name. I was like, and Jay Scotty
will take this in his best boom hour like with
(33:38):
that warning. And Jay Scotty was like, all right, Dangle man.
I tried it. It was really it was pretty good.
Scotty did a pretty much job. Yeah, I know you
used to do it all the time.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Oh yeah, I still do. You know you bugging Bethany
with it. I've been rewatching.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
You. What manam left? Dangle? All right? What else we got?
That's it? Elis that you sent me those three or
four news stories and I thought that was like just
some of them, you know what I mean? No, No,
A lot of times you'll have like weird interview content
to bring and I'm like, okay, we go through a
lot of stuff, but that's great. Well, we're gonna get
(34:14):
out of here because we're actually gonna try to record
our next episode, the Zombie Star Trek episode after this,
so join us for that tomorrow. We'll probably drop into
tomorrow or Wednesday, and we'll be back very soon on
Star Trek Universe. Joelne True Live Along and Prosper thank
you for listening to the Star Trek Universe podcast. A
(34:35):
Stranded Panda production if you'd like to hear more from
David C. Robertson, check out the DC on Screen podcast
or malage us to dot tv for his web videos.
If you'd like to hear more from Matthew Carroll, check
out the Marvel Cinematic Universe podcast or listen to his music.
Just search for Matthew Carroll anywhere you get music
On this episode of Star Trek Universe, a whole bunch
of news from San Diego Comic Con start for the
Academy Strange New Worlds and con. Right after these words
from our mystery sponsors.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome to Star Trek Universe podcast, where you listening in
on two lifelong friends sitting chatting about Star Trek. My
name is Matthew Carrol. I'm David c. Robertson. Dave, you
tell me there's news. Let's talk about the news. What
do you What are we doing? What are we talking about?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Yes, sir, Well, they put out this this trailer for
the Star Trek Con audio series. Yeah, I saw that,
and they dropped this news that George sha Kay is
going to be playing Zulu.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Tim Russ is going to be Tuvak.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah, and as we've previously talked about, we've gotten Avien
Andrews from Lost playing con.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I will post.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
The YouTube trailer the trailer from YouTube in our show notes.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
But you know I am not feeling this. Yeah, No,
it seems super cheesy. For whatever reason. I've listened to
a lot of audio books, and you know, audiobooks have
a certain cheesiness about them, and it just this feels
it's got good people. You know, it's got the people.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
But like scott rynch Schmidt from For All Mankind as
Marlon mcgivers.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
That's cool, it's cool, and maybe in context these things
won't feel so stilted. But just the trailer itself, it
just didn't do much for me. And uh, the guy
being like I am cod Like, you don't have to scream.
He doesn't scream con you know, like that's like Kirk
screamed con once, Like that's the that's the thing, And
it's just it feels like they're intentionally having I get
(01:45):
why they would try to like do that to like
remind people of that, but like, yeah, no, it may
be great. And I've listened to a lot of Start
Trek audiobooks type situations and I've enjoyed a lot of them,
and a lot of them have been cheesy like this,
and I still enjoy them, but yeah, this one, the
trailer did not make me. It didn't. It didn't get
(02:08):
these nipples going, right.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, No, it seems to be for focused on Look
who we got to come back and play characters, And
I'm kind of like, well, I don't know why Captain
Sulu and instant tu Vak would be digging into what
happened with Kahn. I don't what are what's the purpose here?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
And not?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
It just feels loose and it feels very thin, and yeah,
a lot of the acting feels like, oh, we're doing
Star Trek. I will do a strange, just jointed voice.
I'm not digging it. I'm just not digging it so far.
I'll listen to the damn thing. I like Yes Meyer,
I like Kristin Bayer, I like David mack Well.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
That's the thing. I think that's why they're trying to
get the good actors playing actual characters from Star Trek series,
because they did spend money to get these this this
con thing written and produced, you know, like like originally
going to be a series and then they had to
cut it off and turn into this. And the weird
thing is, I don't know from what I remember when
(03:11):
we were talking about it years ago, when it was
first announced, it was gonna be the con series of
like what happened to them on the planet. Right, So
in the trailer, they do this thing where they're talking
about it like we're trying to discover what happened on
the Planet. I thought it was just gonna be like, hey,
it almost has that Enterprise last episode of Enterprise feel,
where you're like, hey, it's gonna be someone listening to
(03:34):
the audio tapes of what happened, or like whatever of
what happened on SETI OFFA five would have m h
this didn't excite me, so whatever, Yeah it didn't.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
It didn't get me going. I'll give it a shot though.
Over to Strange New Worlds. Yeah, the showrunners are basically
begging now. They say they have a follow up series
for Strange New Worlds. Uh huh, and they want They
(04:04):
were doing the comic Con and they were like, oh,
we're gonna We started having this idea of those great
lost years that exist in all of our head cannon
and ancillary cannon but had never really gotten much of
a chance to be on screen. So what we've tried
to do is try to reach back to Pike's Enterprise
and instill it in the kind of storytelling values we
have today and bring us right up to Kirk's first.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Day on the job.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
And that is our hope, and that is our plan,
and we plan to get you there. And if you
like us enough, you just write dear Sky Dance and Paramount,
we know you still have the sets. Don't you want
to make Star Trek Year one? They want to do
a show. They want to do a show that's Kirk's crew.
(04:47):
The year one, as they pointed out, where no man
has gone before, is like the earliest of the timeline
we have with Kirk, and it's not his first mission,
nor does it feel at Kirk's second mission. In an
interview with Entertainment Weekly, Henry Alonzo, Myers said nothing would
make us happier than to be able to continue telling
the stories of how Pike's crew transitions to Kirk's crew,
(05:09):
and how Kirk's crew sets off. Obviously when we come
into cos it's not the first day of the job,
et cetera, et cetera. I don't want this. I can
I write and say no.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, I mean you can. I I you know, if
they made it, I'd probably watch it. I just watch.
I'm on record many many times as saying I'd much
rather than just go forward and tell these stories that
Kirk and crew are obviously incredibly important to the franchise
and to the vibe of Trek, but uh, I don't
(05:43):
really need their story told over and over again. I
need new stories, new characters, new things to care about,
and it's it feels like it's been a a while
since I've gotten that. Even Disco was so like the
early seasons were so drenched, and you know, Spock Lower
and stuff. It just yeah, they they said, they said
(06:04):
all this stuff to be immediate prequels, and you know
that it's feeling like the prequels mm hmm, and they did.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
They also put a trailer for a for season four.
It's a season four teaser and it's just a puppet
of Captain Pike on the bridge, yeah, saying hit it
and then coming back and saying, oh.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Did you guys go to season four without me? It's dumb?
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Uh, don't sure.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I would probably feel similar to you, except those of
you who don't know. There's a beautiful Angel episode that
is a puppet episode, and I would have thought that
was dumb too, But it is the thing that turned
me onto that show, and it turned into my entire
(06:49):
love for Buffy, Angel Firefly, like like all the way through,
Like I would not have had my love for all
the Joss Whedon cannon that I do if like it
hadn't been for that episode, and so I can't hate
on a puppet episode until I see it, like we'll see.
I thought the singing episode would be dumb because it's like,
why are you singing? But they did it. They pulled
(07:11):
it off. In my opinion, I liked it.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
I don't think I did.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah I did. I will say I haven't rewatched it,
which with a musical episode is something you generally feel
like you can do. Their very musical episodes are rewatchable.
I've watched once more with feeling the Buffy musical episode. Yeah,
fifteen times. Yeah, But so I can't say that I've
gone back and rewatched it. Whatever. But I liked it
(07:37):
way more than other musical episodes of things and the
conceit worked for me. So it's same sort of thing.
They're doing tons of stuff on Strange New Worlds that
is just like I don't even want to say pandering.
They're just going for weird places and I'm kind of
digging it, which is an episode we're gonna talk about
on the next episode of this podcast. You know. This
(07:58):
week's Strange New Worlds also did similar like let's do
a thing in Star Trek that is you know.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, I mean whatever, working with Jim Henson's creature shop,
and that's fine.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
That's cool.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
You know.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I love Smile Time.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
And I love Ben Edlund who directed that episode, and
I think wrote it maybe uh of Angel and uh,
you know there was magic involved.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
I don't know what they're gonna do here to make
this makes sense. Well, it lasts last time we had
it could do anything as simple as like you know,
Scrubs used a person had something wrong with them mentally
that was making them see yeah, you know the musical. Uh,
Buffy obviously did Angel Buffy and Angel of the magic
(08:41):
for these types of episodes, Star Trek. You know, they
used some sort of weird quantum field or whatever singing
field causes. Then they can they can. They can give
me some handwavy science to make it work or put
it in someone's brain or whatever. Yeah, they can do that.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
It just also doesn't mean that I'm gonna like it.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
No.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
I also just kind of feel like, all right, you
did a musical like Buffy, now you're doing a puppet
thing like Angel, Like how about you just make good
Star Trek. Yeah, that seems to be outside of their
grasp though.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Hmmm. I don't know about that, but they they are.
It does feel more in season two and three, like
there's more episodes that are gimmicky. I'll put that. It's
just lots of they're using lots of gimmicks. It's really
hard to I know, we're just doing the news, but
it's really hard to talk about this about talking about
the episode we're going to talk about tomorrow then on
this podcast they did it, just did Starting New Worlds.
(09:38):
I guess spoiler alert. They just did the zombie episode right,
and Zombie Star Trek, you know, zombies versus Klingons. I mean,
it's fun. It's for the kind of thing I would
really have fun talking about or writing a or you know,
thinking up a screenplay about or whatever. But like actually
putting it on the show is is is you know interesting.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
We'll talk about it tomorrow, but yeah, all right, And
finally we got Starfleet Academy. They put out a first
trailer for it. How are you feeling about this?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Man, I'm surprised you saved it for third because I
feel like it's the most meaty thing we've got. I uh,
I really, I'm just in such a place with Star
Trek where I'm just kind of like, okay, show me,
so me what you got, like I I.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Have.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I have never hated anything they've done, but the last
few years have not felt the hits are not as
common as the the mas, and there are still hits
Strange New Worlds. I think it's the one that's really
hit the most. But Academy some great people on there.
(10:48):
I think it could be great, but I don't. I
don't really know what's going on. I don't really know
why I care. Like I read I remember when I
was a teenager, I read Star Trek Academy books, Starfleet
Academy books, and I was like, oh, yeah, let's start
Fleet Academy. It's these kids when they're younger and.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Written by the great, uh the light great Peter David.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
He just passed. Yeah, yeah, oh wow. I didn't knowize that.
I'm well, I enjoyed those, but they felt like, like
why do I care about what's going on? It kind
of feels it's like the Harry Potter stuff doesn't work
for me really well until they get out of the school,
(11:29):
you know what I mean, Like they're at Hogwarts. It's
like your students learning to do the thing instead of
the people doing the thing.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
And I dude, I skipped a lot of like the
little press conference ship where they were just talking about
like what this is and like how they were building.
It was like, this is like Hogwarts in space.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Oof oof. Yeah, I don't. I mean people love Hogwarts,
people love Harry Potter, and uh, it could turn out great,
but it's also a weird age. It's one thing that
these like, it's they just did. Uh still, Skeleton Crew.
Star Wars just did Skeleton Crew. Did you see any
of that or do you know about it? Yeah? I
thought it was really good.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
But I saw it.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, I I did too. Thought it was great, and
it is. The charm of Hogwarts is its kids, and
Skeleton Crew did that and they did a great job
with it. It's kids dealing with space for the first time,
you know, and dealing with the dangers of the Star
Wars universe. This isn't kids. This is like young adults.
(12:28):
And I don't mean fourteen year olds. I mean, like
these people are in their twenties. It looks like they
just look late, really like nineteen to twenty one that age,
and then that just doesn't feel doesn't feel young enough
to be novel like those types of stories. Doesn't feel
like it'll be whimsical like Harry Potter or Skeleton Crew.
It feels like it's gonna be you know, a teen
(12:52):
soap opera drama. Just looking at.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
It, yeah, I don't know what to think, Like I
didn't see anything that really made me interested in watching
the show, Like it was a lot of and this
is you know, it's a first look trailer. Yeah, and
I'm looking at like, okay, yeah, there's there's Robert Piccardo
as the doctor.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Cool and that's the thing that hooked me. Is it
Robert Paccardo? I will return for for seeing what that
care who that character is now?
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah, I like taking Nataro okay, and then it's just
a bunch of characters I don't care about hm hm
And one of the things that annoyed me, and you
would think that it wouldn't annoy me, but I have
a feeling about it, Like you have one character walking
up to a screen that says, confronting the unexplainable, the
(13:40):
fate of Benjamin Cisco, emissary of the Prophets, Captain Cisco's
fate Did he die in the fire caves of beijor
did he live on in the celestial Temple? And I
feel like that is just like blatantly like that is
the only thing they're ever going to say about it,
Like they are just gonna put that there and have
like a fucking montage of a cadet look that and
(14:01):
like as like a you know, this is like no
different than all of the names. I don't know if
you saw the names on the wall behind them, if
you pause it, it's mostly just old Enterprise people. It's
like crushers and bikers and shit, it's like just a
bunch of it's like everybody on the Enterprise.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Ever. Yeah, I didn't see that, but no, I'm not surprised. Uh.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I don't believe they're gonna do anything with Captain Cisco.
I think they put that there to make people like
me go, oh, holy shit, I need to watch the
show because they're going to tackle Cisco.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
They're they're gonna bring in a Voyager cast member, you know,
Voyager character and that to get the Voyager folks, and
then they're gonna put in a DS nine Easter egg
to make us think they're gonna do something. But you
mentioned being annoyed. I feel like you tend to be
annoyed by sort of like young I don't know, energetic,
(14:53):
youthful characters in Star Trek. I think in general, I
don't know or in general, and I think when I
talk to you about a lot of times, you just
don't like the ones that are sort of youthful and
don't have a lot of seriousness about them. And I
feel like this show is gonna be full of that,
like sort of youthful inexperience and whatever.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
It's not necessarily the youth part of it or the
energetic part of it. You hate the young, I hate
the old as well. No, no, I it's it's when
they go out of their way to make them as.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Star Trek as of late, has gotten into a real
habit of taking that which used to be annoying to
the fans, like a Wesley crusher, and then perpetuating like
just taking that and copying and pasting that like what
they are perceiving as a neurodivergent stand in because they
(15:55):
think that's what they're doing, and they just make the
most intelligent but obnoxious carecharacter they can make, okay, And
I feel like that's what they do, like They're just
make them as cringe as hell, and then they throw
like three of them in the room together and that's
like the entire crew some some episodes, and you're just
like they're all like making little weird Quippi jokes and
(16:15):
they're all like rabbit trailing, and I'm like, you know,
they should have adderall in this century. Like, you know,
I just as a neurodivergent person, I am aggravated watching.
I'm like, I feel like I'm watching uh you know,
like a parody of neurodivergency.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
You know. Yeah, yeah, I get that, I really do.
And I I just, yeah, I think you generally don't
like people that are overly affected or whatever too much,
too much weird affect to their to their personality. It
just starts to feel gimmicky. Yeah, totally, I see. I
(16:56):
see that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
I I generally feel like most Starfleet officers should have
their shit together, right, Which.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
That's why I wonder how you feel at this because
is at least there's the plausible deniability, to lack of
a better term, of like they are academy students, you
know what I mean, Like they they if they're a
little more emotionally unmoored a little best, less fitting into
the chain of command. Some of them may not make
it through the academy, you know, some of them may
(17:27):
wash out. They may be the characters that were like, oh,
that guy doesn't belong in Starfleet. You're like two seasons later, right,
because he's not in Starfleet anymore, you know, like right,
there might be room for playing with that, at least
making it more less cognitive dissonance when you look at
those things.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Well, one of the things that I've always that I've had,
specifically with Discovery, I think one of my problems with
those characters has been that they just they would introduce
these characters and then not know what to do with
them and not give them a real purpose or an arc. Yeah,
and uh, you know, Tilly had an arc to some degree,
(18:03):
but she was definitely in that category, I think. But
you know, I have some hope that Starfleet Academy is
supposed to be about them. But I suspect just by
virtue of having General Vance and the Holly Hunter and
the Doctor, I'm like, y'all gonna give them more meat,
ain't you? And these kids are just gonna be real annoying.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Well, that's The thing that worries me, it's this This
trailer feels very much focused on these young characters, which
like it's the Academy Show it should be, But I
am just excited about the only people I'm excited about
are there and are the older, older actors that are returning.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
I saw a real quick cut of Maslani Oh really
I missed that.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah, she looks like she was sitting by a window
with it looked like a kid was in her lap
or something.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Oh interesting, Yeah, there's a there's a kid in the
cast on IMDb. I was just looking at Yeah, I
h I that's the thing to tow him is Lonnie
Holly Hunter, you know, Paul Giamatti, Like, those are the
names that I'm like, Yeah, this is all gonna be that,
I'm gonna be Robert Riccardo. I'm really distracted by that.
And you know, if you're talking about Hogwarts, let's say, uh,
(19:14):
that is a lot of what what what the Harry
Potter world is. It's like you deal a lot with
the teachers of Harry. Yeah, and they they really are
big characters in the books. So maybe maybe they will
find that balance that will work for us.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Yeah, and we got Holly Hunter playing this Chancellor of
Starfleet Academy and the captain of the Athena, which is
the school and the ship it just ports at in
San Francisco and then just like flies up and goes
off into space when they need to do that.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
That's neat.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
So I don't know, like, what did you think of this,
uh half klingon half tell awrte character Giamatti is playing,
who's like walking down the halls and whistling the star
Trek theme.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
You know, I uh, we'll see what that how that
is in context, but like it is weird to have
diegetic sound inside of the Star Trek playing Star Trek
theme of any time.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, I've seen a lot of fans melting down over
it and saying that they're making the Alexander Courage theme
into a joke. But then I am on the side
of as much as I've just liked this trailer, I'm
on the side of hey, back in the original series,
like they would have Starfleet parties and you could hear
the theme playing in the background, Like I think the
theme that d.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
That kind of shiit, uh.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Huh, And the original Alexander Courage theme dude, they play
that in parties and ship Like. I think that thing
that he was whistling was probably like I could say,
it might be a you know, Starfleet recruitment tune or something.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Sure, sure, sure absolutely would.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Sorry now I'm over to Starship Troopers.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, yeah, I that that. That totally makes sense to me.
Could be that, like I I and I think it
could work. I don't really have a problem with it,
but it is a is weird. Yeah, it's weird. It's weird.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
It's the.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Look at what looks like the villain, likely of the thing.
I think he's been announce as the villain. Yeah, so
that's uh, it's weird.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, and he's got some he has some connection, they said,
to one of the cadets, an ominous past connection to
one of the cadets. So we've got They talked about
some of the characters. Here Sanyel Rosta as Caleb Mirr,
an orphan with a troubled past, an unlikely Starfleet cadet.
(21:36):
These are the cadets, by the way. Kriem Diane Jaden
Cragg a Klingon cadet who dreams of becoming a medical officer.
Caris Brooks is series Acclamation Mill aka Sam the first
kind to ever attend Starfleet Academy.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
I don't want to rupt you bad, but you said
that first character is this orphan character. And I am
looking at this this shot of toadown is Lonnie, and
it's her on some other world. It looks like holding
a child and looking up at the stars. And so
just immediately I think that she's gonna die in the
first episode, and she's gonna be that orphan's mom.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, like like like she's gonna die, and that's gonna
black to orphan mom.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yep, exactly, She's gonna she's gonna be the orphan mom,
and like that's that's so we're not gonna get much
of her in the show, and it's gonna be whatever.
She's just gonna be part of the backstory of whoever
that kid is.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, I mean she still might be in flashbacks like
Teacher and Ship.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I just I just love her and
I want her as much as possible. She's gonna show
up in Star Trek. I want her to be there.
I get it.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
I like her a whole lot. George Hawkins is uh
Darren Ray me an aspiring captain from a wealthy home world.
Bella Shepherd is Genesis live, an admiral's daughter determined to
make her own name and starfleet. And we have non
codect characters Zoey Steiner as Tema Sadal, a betazoid and
daughter of the President of Beta Z Robert Paccardo. Of course,
(23:06):
tak Nataro oded fair playing Admiral vance Uh recurring guest star,
Gina Yashir as Commander Lura Thock a Klingon Jim Haddar
hybrid who was the Chancellor's first officer and cadet master. Yeah,
recurring guest star an Academy Award nominee Apology Amani as
part kling On, part teller Right, nus Braka season's villain
(23:30):
with an ominous pass collected to connected to one of
our cadets.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
I'm guessing he killed Mislani. Maybe it's just my quick yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
I like it turning into the chit.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Oh yeah yeah, oh back to it.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Now we Yeah, I mean that's a good theory, dude,
that's a good theory. He killed Maslani and he was
the reason that.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Kid is an orphan. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, Yeah, that's
what I was thinking. Yeah, that's what made me think
of it when you were talking about the orphan with
the past connected to Giamani.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
No, no, no, he It just says that he has
an ominous pass connected to one of the cadets, the
GMATI does. It doesn't say that any of the cadets
specifically which one.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Oh, okay, yeah, I just I just I may blended
them all together. But I think that's it's a pretty good, uh,
pretty good theory. M hm.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
But the merger has been approved paramount and CBS R
or one yep, And uh, I don't know what that means.
I continue to not know. My guess is a Starford
Academy might get canceled before it actually gets to do
season two. I don't trust that these people are gonna
(24:48):
keep Star Trek going. Yeah, And I kind of I'm
okay with that based on what I'm seeing.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Mmm, I don't know. I'm not I'm not. I don't like, yeah,
the world not having Star Trek, but I do think
that like, the world will always have Star Trek. We
have it, it exists, and I do think that I
don't really want to water down Star Trek. I know
there's a lot of people that want exactly that, like
(25:14):
a politically watered down Star Trek. And I'm really worried
about CBS. I'm pissed at CBS. Just just pissed the
Colbert Report being canceled after getting pressure from Donald Trump
and this lawsuit and after he criticized them. I think
(25:34):
it just spells terrible things for the future of the country.
And this is the kind of stuff that happens in
a you know whatever, like authoritarian governments that like, oh,
you criticize the government, we can't have that on TV.
And I know that's you know, we're not there yet.
There's lots of other shows criticizing the government.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Did you see j Leno talking about how late night
comedians need to stop being so political because they're favoring
one side and why off half your audience?
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Yeah, I'm sure Jay Leno.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
You freaking like it doesn't matter how many years past,
it's just fuck Jay Leno.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yeah, fuck Jay Leno. Yeah, I uh yeah, I mean,
I'm I'm obviously a very partisan at this point. I
wasn't always, but Donald Trump came on the scene and
is lie lies with every breath he speaks. Uh, And
so it is fascism it is pure fascism, and he
is now controlling the media through that we are allowed
(26:29):
to consume. And he's about to destroy one of my
favorite franchises one way or another, either by shutting it
down or by causing it to be politically uh chained.
And I don't care if Star Trek is uh.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
I don't think it'll be silence, but in I don't
think it's gonna be a politically changed chained thing. I
think it's a it's not profitable for paramount thing like
this billionaire who just took over. I think that's all
it is. Like he's gonna come in and go like, yes,
this is the biggest thing we own.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
It's not missed.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
It impossible, but it also costs more than anything else
to make right.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Sure, they might, they might, but it's that Jay Leno
thing of like we need to well, well, let's bring
Star Trek back, but let's make it a little less,
a little less about the space socialism and a little
more about zip zip bang bang, and let's get back
and gets to get the right wingers back into it,
bring out the laser guns, Like that's what I'm expecting.
I'm not expecting them to be like Star Trek is
(27:26):
right wing. Now I'm expecting them to like, let's let's
soften all the edges of the political discourse, and you know,
let's sanitize this show so that it protects the billionaires
that own it, And that fucking sucks.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
You know. There is an argument that when Star Trek
was at its best, it was in a much more
censored politically middle zone where the creators had to be
creative about the liberal socialist propaganda they were spewing. Sure,
(28:03):
and I feel like it was a more creative time.
I feel like they did a much better job of
it when they were being creative about how they were saying.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Well, that's fun and interesting. What I'm what I'm getting
at is the idea that these if the wrong people
own the content and they break down the stories that
challenge power, then it sucks. And that's and that's all
I'm getting. I just think that I don't disagree with you,
(28:35):
and I don't even I was trying to say this
a minute ago. I don't even mind the idea of
Star Trek being less overtly political. I think that Star
Trek has always a lot of times in the old
original series it's like, you know, McCoy and Spock are arguing,
and they're on two opposite sides of this debate, and
they both have a point, and that's interesting. I don't
(28:56):
like Star Trek that is so homogenized to the point
that it's like theyre aren't having interesting ethical discussions. So
that's not what I'm getting at. I'm getting at a
Star Trek that starts to dumb it down to the
point where like, well, we can't challenge people's ideas, we
can't challenge people's politics. Let's just make a space show
with the iconography of Star Trek that's just about lasers
(29:18):
and stuff.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
I think that's where they've been though since Paramount was
this discovery started. Though they barely talk. It's like they
don't want to even have a character on there who
might be considered still a good guy and a little
right wing, so we're not gonna have like a McCoy
and spot conversation. Like most of the time, they stick
to the agreed upon political stance of the franchise, and
(29:45):
they have just evolved into zip zip boom boom pew pew.
A lot of the times.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
I agree with you. Yeah, I'm not saying that that
that's not the case now, like that is that is
somewhat the case, But that's what I freaking hate. Yeah,
and that's my least favorite stuff. And I'm always looking
for those shining moments where they do something truly interesting
and truly explore something ethical, truly explore different sides of
(30:09):
an issue and like really give me something and you
know so so yeah, like I'm I'm I'm in a
place where I I'm not I'm not wanting the show
to end by any means, but I am like, I
don't think that a billionaire who has completely different interests
than spreading what I think are the ideals of Star Trek,
(30:30):
which is like cooperation and help literally socialism and like
making sure that all people are taken care of, I
don't really think that, you know, it's it's gonna be
great if they're if they're I think that Donald Trump
is about as far from the Star Trek ideal as
(30:50):
you can get. Uh sure, Like the to me, the
thing that Star Trek taught me the thing that I
care most about, and I think the thing that pushed
me so politically far away from right and the way
that is the way that they kowtowed to Trump as
a absolute liar. And because Star Trek taught me. I
grew up on this ship, and it taught me that
the truth is the most important thing, even if it's
(31:13):
politically like not what would you would think? Or or
like if if it's if it's question, if it's making
you question your ideals, the truth, finding out the truth
of a thing is what's important. Like so much of
early Star Trek is about like you gotta actually, you
gotta actually investigate and discover what's true, and that that's
gotta be your guiding star before you can make any
(31:35):
other decisions. And Donald Trump and his entire ilk have
lied to the point that our entire society is split
into two. And I'm not saying there aren't liars on
the other side, but it is not close like to
who's lying more, and that the the type of lies
(31:56):
and the the changing, the gas lighting and the change
of our entire like way we can think because we
don't have the truth, half of our country doesn't have
the truth, and like they just they aren't. They either
don't cover stories, they're critical of Trump or in that silo,
(32:17):
or they have a completely different take on what these
stories mean even when it's completely illogical and the facts
are left out, they don't look at data. It is
it is dark and like, to me, Star Trek above
all is about that truth and like finding the right
answer and like working together to find a good answer,
(32:38):
even if we all have disagreements about who believes the
right thing to do is the Captain's supposed to take
in all that information and then come up with the
best answer to help the most people, you know. And
that's just the worst, just the furthest away from what
we have right now. And so people that are cow
telling to Trump owning Star Trek, this is me the
(33:00):
funk off.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, I don't have anything to add. I'm just like, yep,
I'm gearing up for my King of the Hill, like
for it dropping.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yeah, oh man, we were we were on a Multiverse
news a few weeks ago. We had a King of
the Hill story and uh, you know, I read them
and then they're supposed to like shout out their name.
We're doing like a lightning round And so I read
a story and that they're supposed to shout out their name,
and instead of a lady waiting allowing them to wait
to shutut their name. I was like, and Jay Scotty
will take this in his best boom hour like with
(33:38):
that warning. And Jay Scotty was like, all right, Dangle man.
I tried it. It was really it was pretty good.
Scotty did a pretty much job. Yeah, I know you
used to do it all the time.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Oh yeah, I still do. You know you bugging Bethany
with it. I've been rewatching.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
You. What manam left? Dangle? All right? What else we got?
That's it? Elis that you sent me those three or
four news stories and I thought that was like just
some of them, you know what I mean? No, No,
A lot of times you'll have like weird interview content
to bring and I'm like, okay, we go through a
lot of stuff, but that's great. Well, we're gonna get
(34:14):
out of here because we're actually gonna try to record
our next episode, the Zombie Star Trek episode after this,
so join us for that tomorrow. We'll probably drop into
tomorrow or Wednesday, and we'll be back very soon on
Star Trek Universe. Joelne True Live Along and Prosper thank
you for listening to the Star Trek Universe podcast. A
(34:35):
Stranded Panda production if you'd like to hear more from
David C. Robertson, check out the DC on Screen podcast
or malage us to dot tv for his web videos.
If you'd like to hear more from Matthew Carroll, check
out the Marvel Cinematic Universe podcast or listen to his music.
Just search for Matthew Carroll anywhere you get music
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