This week on Episode 522 of Priority One: Happy Star Trek Day! New trailers for Picard, Prodigy and Lower Decks, and a formal introduction to the Enterprise crew voyaging to Strange New Worlds. In gaming news, the Mirror Universe inspires a new TFO in “Operation: Wolf,” new gear on the way inspired by Lower Decks, and some good old Trek games get a PC refresh.  

TREK IT OUT

Edited by Thomas Reynolds

55 Years Of Trekking Across The Universe

By Cat Hough

This week marks the 55th anniversary of the airing of the first episode of Star Trek and, according to all the memes going around, the world has never been the same. But when you think about it...that’s a pretty accurate statement. Without the vision of Gene Roddenberry and the production of the original series, we would not even have this podcast. So let’s just take this opportunity to appreciate the reason we are even here today. 

Fresh New Faces For Strange New Worlds

By Rosco McQueen

There’s no trailer yet, but we were treated to an introduction to the crew of the Enterprise under Captain Pike, with some new faces and some familiar ones as well. We are reintroduced to Anson Mount, Ethan Peck and Rebecca Romijn who reprise their roles as Captain Pike, Mr Spock and Number One.  From there we meet the new actors taking on classic characters, with:

• Celia Rose Gooding as Cadet Nyota Uhura,
• Jess Bush as Nurse Christine Chapel,
• And Babs Olusanmokun as Dr. M’Benga.

New characters then come our way:

• Bruce Horak as Hemmer, 
• Christina Chong as La’an Noonien-Singh,
• And Melissa Navia as Lt. Erica Ortegas

Shadows Of Things That Will Be

By Cat Hough

Let’s break down the Picard Season Two trailer. We see Q snap his fingers and send everyone into an alternate reality where Earth has descended into a totalitarian state. But only Jean-Luc Picard and his new crew (maybe with Guinan’s help?) know that time has been altered. Then they decide to travel back to modern day Los Angeles in order to get things sorted. To get there, however, they need the assistance of the Borg Queen, played by Annie Wersching--who, in this alternate reality, appears to be a captive on Earth. What else is in store for Picard? We don’t know yet, but we do know he’ll be back in February 2022; it was also confirmed that Picard was renewed for Season 3.

But Will We Learn The Janeway Maneuver?

By Cat Hough

We also got a first real look at Prodigy as the first official trailer was introduced by Kate Mulgrew. This panel also included a pleasant surprise: the show will premiere on October 28 and the first episode is an hour long. The trailer shows us the crew of young aliens who happen to find an experimental Federation starship named the U.S.S. Protostar, but they’ve never heard of Starfleet or the Federation. So it’s up to Janeway’s hologram to teach them how to use the ship to navigate the cosmos, while the Diviner (John Noble) and Drednok (Jimmi Simpson) pursue the crew to get ahold of the ship.

Lower Decks Hits The Halfway Mark

By Cat Hough

After a hilarious and thoroughly enjoyable first half of the season, Lower Decks continues it’s second season with more adventure, more exploration, and lots more sci-fi stuff. The second-season trailer (that series creator Mike McMahon says he edited to remove spoilers) gives us glimpses of Rutherford vs "fricking radiation," Tendi as a giant bug, and Mariner and Boimler on an away mission that goes sideways [...so like every other away mission, then---Ed.].

Looking Four-ward To Discovery

By Cat Hough

The fourth season of Star Trek: Discovery premieres Thursday, Nov. 18, on Paramount+. The first image from the upcoming season was released during Star Trek Day. We also got to watch a panel featuring season four cast members Wilson Cruz (Dr. Hugh Culber), Blu del Barrio (Adira), Ian Alexander (Gray), and showrunner and executive producer Michelle Paradise. The panel of mutual love and discussion of found family was moderated by Wil Wheaton.

Most advanced ship in the fleet, and they couldn't even spring for seat warmers? Image: ViacomCBS.

Taking Trek Back To School

By Thomas Reynolds and Rosco McQueen

With Labor Day on rearview sensors, the American student body is headed back to school–and so is the Trek franchise, if Kurtzman has his way. Back in Episode 519, we mentioned that a Starfleet Academy-situated series “aimed at younger audiences” was in the works. Since then, Eric Pesola at Heavy suggested that the new series concept is far older than it appears.

Don't worry, it's safe for them to wear red shirts because they're named characters. Image: IDW Comics, via Heavy.com.

Pesola draws parallels between JJ’s franchise “revival” in 2009, and Harve Bennett turning it around after The Motion Picture almost torpedoed it thirty years prior. Bennett helmed the next three series entries and more-or-less put Trek’s fortunes on the up-and-up. That said, after his Final Frontier almost finished it for good, Bennett pitched one more idea: a prequel film set at Starfleet Academy, with Ethan Hawke as Kirk and John Cusack as Spock.