New York Comic Con audiences were treated to the first ever look at the upcoming animated Star Trek series helmed by Star Trek: Voyager’s Kate Mulgrew, Star Trek: Prodigy, before it’s cast and crew panel on Sunday. Attendees saw a full screening of the 1-hour first episode and a short clip from Episode 2.
Prodigy begins in a very unfamiliar setting for Trek fans, and for much of the the pilot’s runtime, it feels more like a Star Wars-type story of a ragtag team of 6 misfits planning an escape from the a prison colony. A brief appearance of a Kazon character early on signals to longtime Trekkers that we’re perhaps in the Delta Quadrant. But the timeless Trek themes of cooperation remain intact. Initially, many of the main characters can’t even understand each other at all due to a language barrier.
It isn’t until about halfway through the premiere with the discovery of a mysterious ship that we see start to see familiar designs that are unmistakably Star Trek. Mulgrew’s entrance — not as Captain Kathryn Janeway herself but as a holographic guide on the USS Protostar — comes late in the episode, giving over most of the story to the new characters.
Most of the cast of Prodigy leans younger than your typical Star Trek spinoff, and none younger than 8-year-old Rylee Alazraqui, who portrays Rok-Tahk, a sweet, lovable rock creature with a voice that sounds, well, like an 8-year-old girl. The Comic Con crowd seemed to fall in love with the well-spoken young Alazraqui as she admitted to not having seen any Star Trek and not coming from a family of Trek fans. She says she sees herself in Rok-Tahk through his kind-hearted, animal-loving interior.
The producers were sparse on details about what to expect in upcoming episodes but did reveal some big casting news. Daveed Diggs (Hamilton, Snowpiercer) and Jameela Jamil (The Good Place) have been cast as well as Jason Alexander (Seinfeld) and Robert Beltran reprising his Voyager role of Chakotay, now Captain Chakotay.
“We wanted the show to have great scope and the immense and fantastical,” says Ben Hibon, who’s a producer as well as the pilot’s Director.
Star Trek: Prodigy premieres Thursday, Oct. 28, on Paramount+.
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