Thursday 9 September 2021

Star Trek Day brings trailers, release dates, casting updates and more for SNW, Picard, Discovery, Prodigy, and Lower Decks

At today's Star Trek Day event Paramount+ announced lots and lots of new Star Trek TV news (and a little movie update too even), including very exciting casting/character news from Strange New Worlds, an exhilarating new trailer and keyart for Prodigy, plus a new trailers for both Picard and Lower Decks too, a release date for the next season of Discovery, a tease for the Starfleet Academy series, and a little preview from the remastered edition of The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition. Continue below to check out all the news!

First up let's look at Strange New Worlds, with the exciting news of the extended cast beyond Captain Pike, Number One (whose full name we now know is Una Chin-Riley), and Spock. Here's a little casting announcement video:


Wowie right? Classic characters reborn are:
  • Cadet Nyota Uhura, played by Celia Rose Gooding
  • Nurse Christine Chapel, played by Jess Bush
  • Dr. M’Benga, played by Babs Olusanmokun



Joined by 
  • Christina Chong as La’an Noonien-Singh (I khan't believe that surname is a coincidence)
  • Melissa Navia as Lieutenant Erica Ortegas
  • Bruce Horak as Hemmer, an Andorian, and an Aenar no less, the blind sub-species appropriately played by a partially-sighted actor.



Plus of course, sporting some new looks along with the neat new uniforms:

  • Captain Christopher Pike, played by Anson Mount 
  • Una Chin-Riley, aka Number One, played by Rebecca Romijn
  • Spock played by Ethan Peck




Speaking at the Star Trek Day panel, series co-creator, writer, and executive producer Akiva Goldsman laid so heavy hints at what the cast of returning characters might mean for the series:
There were a couple of things that were really delightful to play with, as we were re-making it up. One was the hints of relationships that we imagined we saw, or knew we saw, that were never quite fulfilled - Attractions, potential connections made or missed - That was super delightful, because The Original Series was filled with those, and we never got to really play them through. So we constantly trying to imagine we were responding to promises that we thought were made...
Also first seen in the trailers for Star Trek Day, we have a title treatment for the series. Might not be final some months ahead of release, but looks cool with the command division letter-O!



From Picard we got confirmation that season three is in production, and a new trailer for season two, featuring among other things our first look at the new extra-creepy looking Borg Queen, recently announced to be played by Annie Wersching (also viewable on StarTrek.com if you prefer to the embedded version via Twitter).
Here are a few key moments. The new Borg Queen:






Q in a curious "Europa" costume:


Is this young Picard and his mum?


A spooky quest:




21st century shenanigans following an attempt to fix the future by time travel:








Tragedy for Raffi:



The dark (red) future:











Lots of curious stuff! Looks like a heavy story for Seven, dealing with seemingly being un-Borged and the Borg Queen, Soji's role in this season remains very ambiguous, Picard's childhood seems to be a source of trouble, the framing of trailer seems to imply Picard and co are using the Borg Queen to enable time travel somehow, and what is Q's game here? 

Stepping outside the universe, setting up a fascistic future seems ripe for commentary on the political direction many parts of the present day world seem to be heading towards. I'm curious how this save-the-good-timeline story will also reflect on the slightly darker more introspective version of the Federation season one of Picard set up, and what in turn that makes the allegorical heft of this season all about.


Finally from the live-action series we have a release date for Discovery season four: 18th November, this year! Here's a snazzy take on a delta to mark the date:


And a new image of Captain Burnham ready to lead us into the future:


Surprisingly given the not-so-far-away release date there wasn't a new trailer. But there was one released on First Contact Day back in April if you want to get yourself in the mood.


From the animated series, we got confirmation Prodigy is set to launch from the 28th of October, which means for the end of the year we'll be treated to double weekly Trek releases with Discovery coming then too. For Prodigy there is an exciting new trailer, giving us a look inside the ship, lots of hints at how the story gets going, and a greater sense of who all the characters are (also viewable on StarTrek.com if you prefer):
They've also released a some lovely new keyart, which once again really shows off the USS Protostar, now in glorious high res detail!


From the trailer, for all the cool new stuff and beautiful animation, what jumped out to me most was: The Kazon are back! Of all the Voyager species to bring back, we're getting Kazon!


Anywho, check out these beautiful landscapes:





More views of the USS Protostar, including what appears to be a single big landing foot:








The bridge!








Holo-Captain Janeway:




Who I suspect might be activated by this seemingly significant Starfleet delta:



The bad guys:






A huge ground vehicle, maybe attached to the Protostar?



And getting to know our new crew:















We also got a new mid-season trailer for Lower Decks season two (also up on StarTrek.com):
This trailer is pretty cagey about story details. But we can see some moments coming up. Including Boimler and Mariner marooned:


Mirror universe!


Visit to a Constitution class (refit):



Borg!



And a runabout!


Crystalline entity:



Pandronian problems:


Whatever the heck this is!


Tarzan-style Pakleds!


And assorted other hijinks:








There was one other Trek TV update. Executive producer and general person-in-charge-of-Trek Alex Kurtzman made a brief but interesting mention of the Starfleet Academy series, which has been in planning for some years now:
I know there's been a lot of conversation about Starfleet Academy, which we are very excited about. When we talked about, there's this new generation that's going to come it's going to inherit the problems of the older generation, and what are they going to do to make the world better, to solve it; how are we going to avoid the mistakes of our elders, and how are we going to learn from the wisdom of our elders.
As a thematic starting point for a series focused on younger characters that sounds very promising to me, especially considering the state of the world the young people of today are inheriting. Makes me wonder when it might be set in-universe; my mind immediately jumps to a young generation post-Picard seeking to make the Federation a bit more open once more. But then we don't know where Picard is about to take us in that regard! 


Finally there was one other update, from the movies. It was announced a couple of months ago that The Director's Edition of The Motion Picture, which was made for standard definition DVD release first time around in 2001, is getting a 4K remastering. That means any of the new effects shots created for it will need to be remade to the much higher resolution. A very brief clip of one of those newly upgraded shots was also released today:
When it's released next year, the restored 4K version of the film will initially be offered on Paramount+.


And that's all the news from Star Trek Day! But there was more, the live event includes lots of music performed by an orchestra, and numerous Star Trek cast and crew discussing series old and new. You should be able to rewatch it all on StarTrek.com (although at the time of writing they hadn't been uploaded following the live event yet).


You can find all of Star Trek TV in the US on Paramount+(ad), and in Canada on Bell Media services, including each of the new series/seasons as they arrive. For the rest of the world it gets rather more complicated; you'll find Discovery on Netflix in all but the few countries it doesn't operate in. Lower Decks and Picard meanwhile are found on Amazon Prime Video(ad), unless you're in Latin America where there is a local version of Paramount+ that includes Lower Decks instead. In some parts of Europe Prodigy will also be offered on a local version of Paramount+, but that doesn't launch until 2022, so Europeans it seems wont see the series this year. Prodigy's release in the rest of the world remains unknown. Strange New Worlds' distribution outside the US and Latin America (Paramount+), and Canada (Bell Media) is also a mystery right now!

To keep track of all the latest Trek TV updates, check back through my TV tag, or those for each of the current series: Strange New Worlds, Picard, Discovery, Prodigy, and Lower Decks. 





at 06:41
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