This week on Episode 525 of Priority One: Jeffrey Combs speaks in evil robot about his appearance on Lower Decks, Prodigy showrunners drop some details about the series a month out from the premiere, and it’s confirmed - the TNG cast really are one big happy family.  In gaming news, a new T6 remaster of a classic workhorse starship comes to Star Trek Online, and finally we enter the holo-pod and look at the latest episode of Lower Decks “I, Excretus”.  

This week’s Community Question is:

 “Would you still play Star Trek Online if it wasn’t Star Trek?”

Let us know on social media like Facebook, Twitter, or by visiting our website!

TREK IT OUT

Edited by Jake Morgan

Weyooops...Jeffery Combs With i09

By Jake Morgan

A great actor makes you feel. Whether joy, anger, love, hate - a truly gifted thespian makes you ache for their presence - be it revered or reviled. We Star Trek fans are graced with many such actors and characters. Nimoy’s Spock. Whoopie’s Guinan. Comb’s Weyoun. Comb’s Brunt. Comb’s Penk. Comb’s Shran. Comb’s...well, you get the picture. This week, i09 sat down with the prolific Star Trek trouper Jeffery Combs to talk about our latest favorite Comb’s role - the devious supercomputer Agimus!

Comb’s had glowing things to say about the writing staff of Star Trek: Lower Decks, explaining to James Whitbrook of i09 what drew him to the show. ”I liked the script a lot and I’m really happy with how it turned out. I find it—the show—just to be really... witty. Rapid-fire. The joke is past you before you go, “Wh-wh-wha?” A different tone from any other Star Trek I’ve ever done. And I kind of like that. It’s refreshing. It doesn’t take itself quite so seriously as some of the other iterations.”

While Combs was complimentary of Lower Decks, he wasn’t shy about his feelings towards the entertainment industry. When asked whether he’d return to a LIVE-Action version of the franchise, Comb’s said ”You have to be asked to dance. You have to be invited. It’s really not up to me. But I kind of feel I still have some gas in the tank. But you know, when it comes to commerce and entertainment it’s just like cereal: “New and improved!” [...]. So, I don’t really know what goes through decision-makers’ minds, but there always seems to be some sort of a disconnect between what the fans would enjoy and what they wind up doing. Not always. Not always.”

To find out how Comb’s felt about playing an antagonist, his thoughts on Voice Acting, and much more, be sure to follow the link in our show notes at priorityonepodcast.com!

One big happy TNG family

By Rosco McQueen

Some news that as Star Trek fans we’ve all known for a while, but is heartwarming to see it confirmed.  Yes, the cast of The Next Generation really do all like each other.  In fact, they’re all incredibly close.

In an interview with The Express in the UK, Marina Sirtis confirmed that the cast do indeed see themselves as a family.  They’ve been friends since the early days of the series… and the producers hated it.

"They hate when the cast like each other because they talk. Producers don't want you talking. They want us all hating each other and being competitive with each other, so that they can lie to you."

Sirtis explains how after the death of her husband, it was the crew who were there for her soon after. Lavar Burton, Brent Spiner and Michael Dorn all immediately visited with Sirtis on the day her husband, Michael Lamper, died. She also spoke about the support she received from Gates McFadden.

Akiva gets his Wish

By Cat Hough

Akiva Goldsman has been extremely busy of late, acting as executive producer and co-showrunner for both Star Trek: Picard and the upcoming series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. If those two roles weren’t busy enough he also wrote and directed the pilot episode of Strange New Worlds. Goldsman told Trekmovie.com that it was really important to him to set the tone and style of the show, saying “I really wanted to make a show that would have appealed to the 12-year old me that went to that Star Trek convention in 1974. And it felt like the best way to do that would be to kind of help set the tone visually, and really more in storytelling.” 

He also notes that the audience will notice some changes in the uniforms and sets from how they appeared in Discovery, since he wanted it to look more in line with the Original Series.

As we have mentioned in previous episodes, Strange New Worlds will be episodic, and Goldsman expounds on that, saying “Our characters will carry with them what they suffer from, or what they learned, from episode to episode. But the stories are episodic.” 

In addition to the show being episodic, Goldsman says that the show is meant to be an ensemble piece - so it won’t just be ‘The Pike Show’ and while it won’t go into every character’s backstory each episode, there will be a “focus” on different characters as the show goes on. 

Starfleet snippets from Prodigy showrunners

By Rosco McQueen

Star Trek: Prodigy is a month away from its debut, and the showrunners are dropping some tiny trek nuggets in interviews.  In a chat with TrekMovie, Prodigy executive producers Kevin and Dan Hageman and co-executive producer/director Ben Hibon reinforced the idea that this new series, specifically for kids, is an entry point to the franchise.  

Kevin Hagemen said “While these are kids in our show, they’re in the adult world of Trek. And they’re gonna slowly discover it, and have their falls, and their victories and stuff. It really is a show for people who have not experienced Trek before.”

The journey of the Prodigy crew starts in the Delta Quadrant, with many familiar races that Voyager came across. In the interview the producers mention there are very well thought out reasons why we will see so many Alpha species in the Delta Quadrant, but that no one has really got it yet. They also mention that the USS Protostar was launched after Voyager returned home, but then quickly halt the conversation around the prototype’s secret origins.  The show takes place in 2383, five years after Voyager returned home.

Quick News Roundup

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