Star Trek Comic-Con Panel Showcases New Shows & Diversity

The power and importance of diversity and representation was the common theme to emerge from the Star Trek Universe panel on Thursday for the virtual fan convention Comic-Con@Home. While the nearly 80-minute pre-recorded super-panel was light on actual news, the casts of the CBS All Access series Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard used the opportunity to drive home how the Star Trek theme of infinite diversity in various combinations is as relevant in 2020 as it was when Gene Roddenberry’s show first premiered in 1966. To that end, the panel promoted the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, to which CBS All Access made a sizable donation.

The only significant piece of news arrived during the panel’s introduction from Alex Kurtzman and Heather Kadin, executive producers of all three Trek shows. Kadin revealed that the animated Trek series for kids currently in development at Nickelodeon with producers Kevin and Dan Hageman would be titled Star Trek: Prodigy. Kadin also introduced the logo for the new series. In a release, Nickelodeon revealed that the show would follow “a group of lawless teens who discover a derelict Starfleet ship and use it to search for adventure, meaning, and salvation.” The show will debut in 2021.

Another Star Trek Animated Series Makes Its Debut

Star Trek: Lower Decks made its debut during the panel. The animated series is set in 2380, just after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis, but well before the events of Star Trek: Picard. Rather than focus on the senior officers commanding a leading starship, the series centers on the junior officers stuck doing the grunt work on the less-than-stellar USS Cerritos. The show’s title even comes from the title of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which focused on the stories of junior officers on the USS Enterprise.

Other than that, no big announcements came out of the panel. The premiere date for season 3 of Discovery, which wrapped production well before the COVID-19 pandemic, remains vaguely in the latter half of 2020. The cast of Picard barely talked about what to expect from season 2 of the show, which has yet to go into production. 

What are you excited to watch?

Source: www.reeltalkinc.com