Aaron Waltke talks Star Trek: Prodigy

1:28 Well, good evening trek e's and trekkers around the globe. It is Thursday, October seventeenth, twenty twenty four. It is four thirty pm Pacific time, which makes it seven thirty pm Eastern Time, which means we are live. So you can let your fingers do the walking and call truck talking right now. Our phone number here is six four six six six eight two four three three, and you're definitely gonna want to start dialing now. You may have noticed that I skipped our traditional opening to play the Prodigy theme song. That's because we have the one, the only mister Prodigy himself live on the line with us. That's right, Aaron Walke is here to talk about Prodigy and take your questions. So give us a call at six four six six six eight two four three three.

2:16 You can just call and say hello. You can call and tell him how awesome Prodigy is and how much you love it. Just give us a call six four six sixty six eight two four three three. And before we go too far, I want to introduce you guys to my awesome Trench Sperts and we're gonna start off with Eric. Eric is out in Portland. How you doing tonight, Eric, You know. Jim, I am doing pretty good. In fact, I'm doing probably the best I've been doing all week. I actually was pretty sick at the start of the week, which is rare for me. I get sick about once a year and I put me down for the count for a couple of days. But I'm feeling strong and very excited to be talking to Aaron tonight. Absolutely absolutely. We also have with us Paul. Paul's out in Portland as well.

2:59 How you doing, Paul, Hey man, I'm good, doing good, Uncle Jim. I I feel as frisky as as jenkin pog with a new hand attachment. I'm ready to handle whatever may come my way. I feel pretty pretty frisky today, so I think, and uh delighted to be able to interact with our guests. Man, so pretty pretty fantastic. So it's gonna be a good night to fly the fly the coop like bird brain. Huh. Hey, show some respect, man, come on, some respect. And also from Portland, we have David. How you doing tonight, David. I'm pretty tired, but I'm doing okay.

3:40 Excited to hear you guys talk about all this. I can't wait. It's definitely gonna be Fun's gonna be fun. And last, but definitely not least from Las Vegas. We have our very own Charls. How you're doing tonight, Charles, I'm doing all right. Came back to Vegas. So things are. Looking up excellent. Good to hear it, Good to hear it. Before we get too far, I want to let you guys know that you can find all of our shows at Trek Talking dot com. You can go there and we have six hundred and nine episodes there that you can listen to. You can also link over to our Facebook page from Trek Talking dot com, so check it out.

4:23 Next week, which which is going to be October twenty fourth, we're going to be talking to John Simpson, who was Young Sarah in Star Trek five The Final Frontier. As you guys know, Star Trek five the Final Frontier is my favorite Star Trek movie and anytime I get an opportunity to talk to somebody from Star Trek five, I'm all over that. So John Simpson, who played Young Sarah in the Dream Sequence with Cyboch, is going to be with us to talk about Star Trek five. So give us a call, give us a listen. That'll be next week and then on Halloween, Happy Halloween, Trick or Treat. Lower Decks is back. We're gonna have two episodes to talk about on Halloween. So if that's our schedule, that's what's going on this week. And you may have noticed we played the Prodigy theme song, and that's because we have with us right now mister Prodigy himself. Aaron Walke, How you doing tonight?

5:18 Erin great glad to be here, Liz Logs and Prepper. Welcome to the podcast. So we just finished up. We've been, uh, we've been watching Prodigy. We've been trying to do two episodes a week is what we've been trying to do, and we just finished it. Upon, Yes, we did, so, we just finished it up, and we are really excited to talk to you about Star Trek Prodigy. We thought it was great and we're really we're really excited and psyched to have you with us tonight because last time we had you on, you couldn't say much about season two because you know it had been moving from Paramount Plus to Netflix. So but now I assume everything is on the table, right we can talk about all of it now, or is there anything, we have to stay away now.

6:19 Yeah, it's all all twenty all forty episodes are available on Netflix now in most countries and SKYS, show Time and the rest. So pretty much everything that's been aired is fair. Gay, all right, excellent. So on our Facebook page every week we like to do polls and get what the fans opinions on things. And because we were having you on the show this week, I wanted to do some Prodigy Central polls to give us something to talk about here. And but guess what, before I do that, I can't forget this. I should have cued it up beforehand, but I was too too nervous and didn't do it. Where did they put it? So? Where is it? Where is it?

7:07 Where is there? It is? Every week we ask polls on our Facebook page, and Eric has done up a brand new pole theme song for us, and we're gonna premiere it right here, right now. This is this is it, guys, This is our our brand new poll song. Linn you know me like the wind? What you thought about the show. Then we try. To share your opinions with all of our minions out there because they listen worldwide.

7:49 Tell us just what you think. Get together, we will all tern Gnar and robbylin An. There we go, there's our pull. Oh where do you guys? What do you say? Truly hit another record contract your way? Clearly? Yeah, they're pouring in there. Let me tell you. Yeah, there's incredible Thank you. That means a. Lot, thank you. All right, So that's that's our new Poland song. And whenever you hear that, you know we're going to be talking about some great stuff and we're going to be hearing from you guys are fans. Because we have Aaron on and it's a Prodigy show, I asked some Prodigy questions. So the first question that I asked you guys on our Facebook page was Netflix dropped all twenty episodes of Star Trek Prodigy Season two at once.

8:48 Did you like it that way or do you prefer it weekly? Now, before I say what our fans thought, as a podcaster myself, I didn't like twenty at once because it put a lot of pressure on us to review episodes and not take time to properly digest them and discuss them because we had to kick out so many episodes so quick to try to stay relevant. So personally, I preferred if they were weekly, how about you, Paul. Well, I think it's the nature of the game though, man. I mean it's just like it's it's like saying, I you know, gosh, I really missed the old you know, maytag repairman commercials. Right, I mean the world has moved on, right, I mean it really has. I mean it's just it's so often now. I mean it's it's more fifty to fifty.

9:37 Right. You've got some shows like HBO shows at least pick something like The Penguin for example, right, and they drop it one week at a time, old school, right, I mean you just basically there you go. I mean I think Game of Thrones that's their model over there on HBO, Right, one week at a time. But you know Netflix has always given you a whole enchilada, all the ones pretty much, right. I mean that's how they did it for you know, everything I can think of, for the most part, in the last couple of years. So it's just kind of their model, right, And people can choose what's best for them. I think the hardest thing is is, given how rabid defan community is, right, if you are kind of taking a slower approach like we did, man, it's hard to avoid spoilers in this day and age and still engage on social media, so you have to kind of, you know, be nefarious to avoid getting too much spoiled for you, right, But yeah, yeah, I see, I see both sides of it.

10:29 To be frank though, it's a I do love the idea that they're all there because to me, it's incentive to have a couple of binges, right to sit down and go, okay, loved ones, Let's crank through like three or four of these and and you know, do it in like little surges. Right, So I don't know, it's it's a tough thing, but I mean I think more and more shows are going that way, right. I think it's it's something we have to get used to and evolved with. Well, when they did Cobra Kai, they dropped them and block the five do the whole season at once, But that's a different conversation. How about you, What did you think, Eric, did you like all twenty at once? Or well, you know, I think either way, I'm going to watch them more on a weekly basis. Myself, my TV watching habits are that I watch many shows at the same time, and I very rarely watch more than like one or two in a night. So I'm just I'm just not really a binger as a podcaster. I agree with you, Jim. It was kind of tough to have them all drop and then you know, have to avoid social media and that sort of stuff. So you know, Paul's right though, it is it is the new world, so here we are. But my preference would be to have them come out maybe a little more slowly they could.

11:40 Yeah, yeah, because I like to for the podcast. I like to have an honest opinion of the episode and not know what's coming next. And like Paul said, it's hard to stay away from spoilers when they when twenty of them are all out there. But I think we had a good job. We did. We did a great joit. We did. We did a good job not spoiling it. So I mean, yeah, well, I was surprised that some of the stuff that some of the surprisers we saw on the show, we knew I missed on social media completely. But that's not a bad thing. That's kind of a good thing.

12:26 So what I wanted that I tripped over with it was just so hard to avoid was was Crusher? Was Wesley Crusher? That was you know, I wish, I wish I had not known that, but it was really. Hard to avoid. It's kind of hard to avoid those spoilers. But I will say working on the show, it was really hard to avoid spoiling that ourselves because we had to hold on that secrets for over two and a half years. Wow, oh wow, you know how much? How much espresso did you give? Will Wheaton on like a recording basis? Man? I mean, he was just so amped up. It was just wild. He was so entertaining. Yeah, yeah, I mean that was all Will. You know, he he had an idea of where his character went after the you know, he was swept up into the Traveler organization, so he had his head and writting short stories about it. And so when we told him we were wanting to explore what the Travelers were like, and and you talked about how it was being tied into Picard with Gary seven, which already had sort of like old school doctor who vibes. And as soon as we explained all of that to Will Wheaton, he was completely all about it, and he just dove in and did it exactly as you as you heard. You know, he had some opinions about which doctor he wanted to channel.

13:56 I think he was like, I wanted to be less than ninth, less of the ninth doctor, more of the eleventh or twelve factors, he said. Totally excellent. It was just incredibly fun and entertaining though, and just I mean having him be such a big plot driver, right, I mean, it's just like you just never knew what was going to happen next week. It's like you think you know what's going to happen, and you think that Wesley's plan is, you know, become clearer, and then all of a sudden it be a hard left turn, you go off road, and it's like, oh, oh we didn't count yes, And it was just great, so super fun. Yeah, he was. He was. Definitely It's hard. It's definitely hard to plot a season that has surprises in it when you have a character that can osensibly predict the future, so you have to keep him in that that sort of soothsayer character guessing. So I'm glad that it worked out that people were surprised by the times we took.

14:51 It was excellent. And just to let you know, seventy nine percent of our Facebook fans prefer it being dropped all at once, so I'm in the minority. Yeah, so fans, I. Certainly feel for you and the podcasters who have to cover this so weekly because it is twenty episodes. Is no joke for sure. But I think for this season in particular, because there it was such a serialized season with set up some payoffs that were sometimes spanning five, ten, fifteen, twenty episodes, I think it worked out this season that people could just watch at their own pace, and I feel like Star Trek fans were pretty good about preventing spoilers, at least for the first month or so, but You're Ryan, at a certain point, it becomes all they talk about.

15:45 Yeah, it was. We enjoyed it. We had a really good time talking about and there was a lot of two parters too, which made it easier for us because we could talk about both parts that once, which I thought was really cool that the skill dule fell that way. So that was a lot of fun. And I put this poll together before Wesley showed up, So Wesley does not show up on this particular poll because he wasn't a major character at that time. But I asked our Facebook page, what is aren't your favorite Prodigy character, and the favorite Prodigy character was Gwendala with nineteen percent of the vote. Does that surprise you, eron?

16:35 No, you know what, not really, because I personally love Gwendala as a character, and she certainly had a pretty dynamic arc of her own this season, starting from a sort of deposed diplomat or emissary sent to her home planet to try to prevent it self destruction all the way up to spoiler alert, becoming the acting captain of the USS Prodigy. You know, that's who doesn't want to see that? That journey with her and Ella Purnell the actress is phenomenal. You know, she's had quite a couple of years herself, starting in like three out of the ten top shows of last year, you know, Yellow Jackets, Arcane Fallout and our show.

17:26 Yeah, gwendalas had definitely had a great arc, and coming in second place with fourteen percent of the vote was zero one of my characters that I really like a lot, Your Nique character and A followed with twelve percently Ad Jacob Pog and then tied with rock Talk and then one of my favorite favorite characters, and I'm so glad you Editor was Migell with ten percent of the vote. And she's just an I love her character. She isn't by far my favorite character from the second season. She's phenomenal. Yeah, we really enjoyed writing We enjoyed writing Mogelle for the as the kind of foil to the rambunctious hyjinks that are sort of unruly cute crew tends to get into.

18:16 We wanted somebody who is the best of the best cure Starfleet to be, to be sort of the counter le lever to that energy that the Prodigy crew typically brings and you know, level them out a little bit, but also call them out as someone who would did go to Starfleet Academy would be completely flabbergasted, I think, but by some of their medments, So that we really end writing for her and giving her an arc of her own and for kind of expanding her own her view of what makes a good Starfleet officer and not being so rigid in by the books. So it was it was really fun to integrate her. Yeah, and I think I think she shook up the dynamic of the crew by putting her in there, because the relationship that she had with Zero and the dynamic between her and Gwendala. She was a great character to put in there to shake things up a little bit.

19:12 She was marvelous. I hope we see more of her in season three. And yeah, she was on the ship. That's right, she was there. And then Janeway came in next with ten percent of the vote, and surprisingly dal only got seven percent of the vote, which is surprising seeing how he's one of the major characters of the show. I don't know why he's so far down the list of popularity. That's odd. Well, they're I mean they're all uh, they're all pretty close, within like ten percentage points. So that's that's not too bad.

19:54 Yeah. No, you know who's not listed though, who's not lifted on your pole? But I got to put a vote for No. No. Man. I was a huge fan of a drink on this this this season, I thought a Drake was so badass. Man, he was so cool. He didn't have a ton of screen time, but man, he really he cast a real shadow. I mean, I think one of my favorite you know, Arcs season for me was the whole two parts last flight of the proto Star right and just the way Jakote is just you know, hopeful but kind of broken up man, and he's just kind of haunted by his absence, and you could just get a sense of that friendship that they had been through a lot. He was a cool character, man, really really cool. How did you decide to to come up with that? What was the genesis of that character? Because I think he was great.

20:56 Well, we had had a lot of conversations about what Chakota's prior crew was when he first captained the USS proto Star and obviously every every crew has a great first officer. And uh, you see him very briefly in some flashbacks in season one h when we find out what happened to the Protostar originally, and we we wanted him to be in an Aurelian as sort of an homage to the original animated series, which of course has a bird person on the on the crew as well, and we when it came time to actually getting to write him, we thought, wouldn't it be cool to have him be sort of a badass Number one. I believe we based him very loosely on Snap Snake Pliskin from initially that's awesome, but just like that guy who's just like he gets the job done, but you don't want to mess with him. And having that energy kind of bounce off of you know, our young crew of brats gallions was very fun too.

22:15 That's great call me bird exactly, and I mean the avalanche of great jankom pug bird puns that came as a result of him. Oh my god, that was just we got a lot of mileage out of that. That was absolutely that was That was absolutely great for sure. I also like the Andrian Tyree Tsive. I thought he was great. I have to tell you I connected with that guy very strongly because back in the day when the Star trek uh Uh role playing game came out, I played an Andorian first officer and there you go, and he was very much like him in so many ways. He was a great XO, was like on top of things, listening to the captain, like making things happen. I really liked his character and he was smart, and you know, there were a couple of we didn't get to really like explore the fact that he was an Andorian at all, but I thought that was okay because he was kind of all business, which I is how I always imagine them to be.

23:31 That digs too man a guest yet God. Yeah, I think we figured if we were getting the v gigs, we should definitely write a good character for him, and now that we had the second season, we'd have the time to really explore who he was and give him some cool moments in the show. And he You know, we all loved Andrian's on in the writer's room, especially some of the depictions you saw in later series, like like Enterprise. Flawn I think was our room favorite, and we thought it would be fun to create a character there was like a little bit more disciplines, but definitely had a little bit of that roguishness that Traun did an Enterprise.

24:12 Did you sort of develop that character's personality and then fit a race to it, or did you say we want an Andorian and so therefore we will write an Andorian. I think it started with this just fun idea that the Janeway's Bridge crew would be have representatives from the other founding members of the Federation. Yeah, there we are. So that's why you have That's why you know, who's a tellwright. Yep. And the only one we didn't have was a Vulcan. But we did see Vulcans in the background, but didn't happens, but we uh yeah, we wanted to represent some of the less represented founding fathers of the of the Federation.

24:53 Well that that. Fact was not lost on viewers. I think that you had an Andorian, a Tellwrighte, and a human all on the same bridge. I think that made a lot of sense. Yeah, well to have a tailor, right, and and Dorian on the bridge together. Yeah, those are well known petition optitional optition against each other, so it's interesting to see together. Mm hmm. Yeah, we wanted to show that maybe the things that evolved a little bit since their their early days, back when Archer was trying to get them to stop killing each other.

25:36 Yeah, that was great. And obviously you guys in the writing room have a ton of Star Trek knowledge. I can't we watched all twenty and the references that you have and the easter eggs to other episodes, and its phenomenal. I mean, you you guys really really uh know what you're doing there. I wish some of the other Star Trek shows would tie stuff together as well as you guys do on Prodigy. It's incredible. Well, I mean we had. To benefit for the writer's room of Prodigy, that there were a lot of super fans that had been thinking about a lot of the things we tied together for you know, thirty or forty years. So we finally got to make our head canon's cannon.

26:23 Who decided to name who decided to name the whale first of all? Who decided to have the whale ocation? And then who decided to name it Dollian? You know. So I've been a proponent of citation ops for a very long time. I had I had a Twitter thread that went viral a few years ago, I think before Prodigy had even been announced that as it got thousands of likes and retweets, and it was just talking about all the ways the citation ops had been hidden right under our noses on I was like tng and and whatnot, but I it was I saw it was definitely my idea to work it in there, and lower decks kind of paid the way, I think for people and people to be okay with with us making it explicitly canon rather than just casually referenced by a FERENGHI passing by on the Enterprise D and then and then I think the name of Gillian was it was come up with together with with Jim Murrow, one of our season two writer producers, who is a huge PG fan, but she also loves the Vitos movies as much as I do.

27:45 And so as soon as somebody said so guests to Jillian, I was like, yeah, absolutely, it have to be Jillian Why not? Because this these whales offensively would be the children and grandchildren of George and Gracie from Star Trek four, So why not have a name that's sort of an homage to the scientists who help them. And when they go into the Mirror universe and they're running through the tunnel and Jacob posis even the whales are evil? I lost it. I was like, wow, yea, even whales. Are Those are my favorite aspects of Star Trek. I think where you you you set up all of the dominoes for an interesting sought experiment, and then when you're actually writing the episode, it can take you to some very strange and surprising places. And as soon as we realized that that Jillian Us would in theory have her own Mirror Dark counterpart, we couldn't not find a way to work her in.

28:52 It was great. It was great and something that we always joke about on the show, which I thought was great that you did in a pro was in the Mirror Universe. Eric. What makes the Mirror Universe people so distinguished to us that we always talk about on. The show, Uh, the beard situation, the Beyeah and when when you put the little beard on Chakota and Bo's Mirror. Universe instantly and or if he cut off the sleeves, which I believe was another aesthetic choice that I loved because that branches right out of some of the id W comics that we've reviewed with the Tangi Mirror crew who have those nice cutoff sleeves and super buff biceps and stuff.

29:39 Yeah. Absolutely, And we figured that after the events of Deep State nine, which was the last time we saw them in the timeline. Uh, you know, the Mirror Universe Human Alliance had overthrown mclingon Cardassian oppressors. Uh, And we figured as they were rebuilding, they were probab be a little bit of fracturing and some of them, knowing that Mirror Stock trying to reform the Terran Empire and make it nice is what led to their downfall. That's We'll be like, you know what, actually, let's go back to the old ways. Let's go old school, and that's where the New Terran Armada and Mirror Janeway and such were born.

30:21 So do you, guys, when you're doing the writing for episodes, you know, like that or any other episode, do you ever kind of branch into beta canon sources like comic books or any of that sort of stuff and borrow ideas or you know, be inspired by things or anything like that. Yeah. Absolutely. Whenever we're exploring an idea, we first will obviously search the television and film canon to see if there's any precedent or anything we should keep in mind. But sometimes when we're going into territory that is kind of untread snow, so to speak, we will reference beta canon, and you rightfully reference both the T ANDNG Mirror Universe comics.

31:05 And also we took some inspiration from Star Trek Online, which which features Mirror Janeway as a few years after the time period that we're in. But that's that's where we got the idea for her having a borgin plant that was similar to Seven of Nines. Whether it's a trophy or whether the Karen Empire tried to use borg technology to their advantage, that's a story for someone else's head canon. But those are definitely elements that we We always said, if it works for our show, and it happens to be in beta canon, there's no reason for us not to use it, because obviously these other Star Trek fans have been thinking long and hard about this too, So why not canonize it if it makes sense.

31:55 And you hear squeals of joy over the entire country when you do things like that, I. Thought, which is pretty cool. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah. I also liked being a Quingon fan when you when you mentioned Chancellor Martok and the Great Trible War. Yes, and we see a Klingon stranded on this planet with these giant man eating Klingon I mean Tribles. I thought that was outstanding that we finally got to see Pribbles in that time frame. Yeah, they were kind of hinted in I believe Trials and Triblations the Deep Stay Sign episodes that Tribles were accidentally brought back from extinction. When are you know the crew of the Stay Sign was transported back in time to the original cos Enterprise. You know, we're in the background of the Trouble of Tribles and then accidentally brought a couple back with them to the present and then they kind of sort of repopulating in the universe. So they wanted to uh subtly see the aftermath of that, and in a way.

33:05 It was sort of a. Cold war that the Koyons were waging to try to stop the spread of their their ancient blood enemy, the Triples. It was great it was to hear general. To hear ransfor Martok's name drop kind of gave me goosebumps because after Deep Space nine, we don't really know what happened. That's the whole area where we don't really know. So now we know that he sent out a bunch of ships to hunt down the Tribles, among others, yes, you know, which is pretty neat when you think about it. And the Triples themselves were meat eating tribles, right, they were carnivores, these guys, right, they had.

33:52 They had been genetically modified. Yeah, they've been genetically modified by accident by by doctor career bang try as he was trying to stop their reproduction. Instead, you know, triggered some hidden genetic chromosome that allowed them to grow massive in size and become carnivorous and in turn you know that genetic variance eventually led to what we saw were the attack triples that show up in Star Trek to Card season three. Interesting. Interesting, this as the homo erectus on the way to the Homo sapien it we see in the card, right.

34:34 Yeah, exactly? Yeah? And then whose idea was it to make Prodigy to end it with the Children of Mars short Trek episode where we actually get to find out what happened when the synse went crazy? I was that always planned to end that way? Or was that? Did you just side? You know, this makes sense, let's do it. We had always planned to go there at some point or another because one of our staff writers that was there all the way from season one was a fine writer named DeAndre Pendleton Thompson who happened to be the writer's assistant on Star Trek the Cards season one. So we knew all of that was happening as we were writing our show, and so we knew that that's, you know, our show beginning towards the end of twenty three eighty three.

35:38 It was not that far away from twenty three eighty five and the synth attack and everything that went wrong with the more romulan evacuation and such. But rather than just shying away from that and saying we're never going to deal with that or not going to reference it, our instinct as writers tends to be go where the danger is and see what interesting stories we can carve out for that as it pertains to our characters, and especially with the children of Mars, and it was pretty clear that this was sort of their version of sort of a nine to eleven or some great galactic tragedy that as someone who was about the age of the Prodigy folks when that happened, I felt, I felt like it was important for us to tackle that, not the least of which to show younger viewers that you know, tragedy and conflict and scary things are going to happen, and it's not about shielding yourself from them, but rather, you know, looking for the helpers and understanding that you can get through anything as long as you have each other.

36:49 And so that's kind of we knew that was coming, and when it became obvious to us that season two, it made sense for us to address it at the end of the season. We were writing towards it pretty much from the beginning. Whose idea was it to bring back Ronnie Cox as Jellico. So originally we were looking for not a aadmiral per se, but just a tough as nails admiral who would make for a good foil against the headstrong and tough Janeway. And I believe it was David mack. Mack when on a calls that. If you know David Mack, he was a writer for a number of Star Trek novels, excellent writer.

37:37 He also wrote for Deep Stace nine. But on a phone call with him, he suggested, why don't you, why don't you bring back Jellico. He's he definitely served that role in TNG, and as soon as he said it, we were all like, yes, it needs to be Jellico, but will Ronnie Cox do it? And as soon as we reached out to him, he was so excited because you know, he had come to realize how much fans really latched onto his character in TNG. Even though he was only there for two episodes and never really referenced again, he left the lasting impression on the Star Trek community, and so when we gave him the option to reprise his role, he jumped on it and was so excited and was happy to do everything that he could to be a part of our show.

38:24 It was an excellent addition for sure. Absolutely, we really enjoyed getting to discuss his character on the podcast. For sure. Question he was so excited. I know you're it's to jump in here, did you say me, Jim, Yeah, I don't want to take up all the time? No, no, no, I think we've been banging around great, right. I just think this is again, just a really terrific second season. And I'm sure there's not a lot you can tell us at the stage. Man, we're all hoping there's more, really hoping that the gods convened to give us a third season at some point. I mean, is there any inkling? I mean, it seems like streaming numbers have been pretty high from what I have been hearing.

39:15 Yeah, the short answer is it's all in the almighty algorithm's hands right now. You're right that the numbers were actually quite good. I think Netflix released their numbers for the end of twenty twenty three and the first six months of this year, and I think in total we had something like twelve million hours watch, which is pretty good. That's you know, for just the first season, you know, the first twenty That was just for the first twenty episodes because the season two didn't drop until the second half of this year, so they're still collecting that data.

39:58 So as far as I tell it does seem to be getting watched and more people are seeing it on Netflix they than they ever did on Paramount Plus previously. So fingers crossed, just keep watching. Like the Netflix is still collecting their data now for the and they analyze it in six months increments. So that's why we're spreading the word. Find two or three friends who've been meaning to check it out and encourage them to just give it a binge watch what man be sure to watch all twenty episodes to completion, because that's very important as well. But I think when you have a show that as well as well received as ours has been, there's always hope for more in some form, and I think the question is what form will that take? Or would be another season going to be a movie like they're doing the section thirty one. Who knows? Truly the horizons are wide open.

40:58 I'm kind of find it myself ready for a Captain Chicote outing. I mean, Beltrand was just so freaking good in this He was just really he just had so many different emotional corners to explore with the character, and just I just felt that he took Chakota to a lot of different places. He was mentoring people while still dealing with his own you know, personal lack of you know, put in some things, and then getting that connection again with not just one Jane Way, but two. I mean, it was just so fantastic. Yeah, their charisma is just so strong together. I mean, they were just both of them. We were all We said this every week practically on the show. It's just like, Man, their performances, Kate Wilgrew and Robert Beltran, they're just off the chain. They were so good. They just they must just have been thrilled to have this opportunity.

41:48 Paul absolutely. Robert and Kate both have told us how happy they were with the with the material we gave them, and it's a big reason why they came back to surprise these characters for us show. They saw they saw the scripts and realized that we were treating them with the utmost and respect and wanted to continue their journey how we could. And obviously the chemistry between those those two actors and characters has been the subject of considerable interests by the fans for some time, and we certainly didn't want to ignore that in our show. You know, I think I think there is a world where where their bond is so strong and it does almost feel like uh, you know Starcross lovers or something like how how they're speculating on what could have been and what could be. It was very rich in terms of storytelling, uh, and that we wanted to explore with them.

42:44 Well, it was just a delight. I mean, it's like the you know, I mean, it's become the thing everyone says, right, it's like the hidden extra season of Voyager. Right, this is what we kind of got out of this. Yeah, just so so wonderful and just and just a couple of things else and I swear I passed over to someone else, but just I have to really just comment on what a visually striking show this is. The design aesthetics are just incredible. The folks who are you know, on the home planet, they're like the guards. When they're you know, uh, when pronouncements sort of being made to Gwin there, they have their faces kind of covered in masks, I'm not sure what the exact character names were. Man, that is it's like whole Middle Earth level, you know, elf design. I mean, it was just we're just so cool looking. I mean, but everything is so well designed to ships and just the way the environments that the planets are rendered and just really really incredibly striking.

43:46 Yeah. I think especially when it came to having the opportunity to design our own home world, which is a tremendous rite of passage, I think for any Star Trek show, we wanted to seize that opportunity as best we could. And especially since we started top down with sort of the culture of solom being somewhat isolationist with elements of zelotry mixed with high technology. I think the description we gave our artists to play with was like, imagine sort of almost like a medieval going into the Renaissance era, or perhaps like Galileo's time when he had just instead of he instead of discovering that the Earth revolves around the sun, he discovered warp drive, you know. And and so that that's sort of almost inherent contradiction of of a sort of of a culture resistant to change suddenly being thrown open to the wider universe and the irrepressible knowledge that they are not alone in it made for some really interesting drama in a way that I don't think we had seen explored very thoroughly on Star Trek.

45:03 We've obviously seen first contact episodes, but I don't know if we've seen first contact episodes where they are so technologically advanced but just culturally had no interest in exploring outside of, you know, their own world. And so we wanted to dive headfirst into that world building and make it seem like a beautiful but dangerous place that Gwyn was having a certain homecoming too. Well, there's just it's wonderful environments and just such great characters and the casting of the show, I mean, just to get you know, great legendary folks like cat Will Grew and Robert Bealtron and and Pricardo Back and Will Wheaton, and then you're peppering it with folks like Davey diggs Man and John Noble, so incredible. And of all of these people, the one that I think he kind of is like the stealth weapon.

45:56 Right. You don't even a lot of times when I tell people, they're like, he's on that show what is Jason Alexander? Right? How did that come to be? Because it's just he's not playing a character I would think, well, that's clearly a Jason Alexander bart right, Yeah, it's all right. I love to know how that. Came to pass well. For Jason Alexander in particular, we wanted to find an actor who we knew would be able to go toe to toe with the intransigence of jankom Pog and that sort of stubbornness and brusqueness. And obviously Jason Alexander has made a whole career playing characters like that, like George Castanza and whatnot. But also we knew that Jason was a huge Star Trek fan and had in fact, you know, obviously he had been on Star Trek before as a member of that the name is Escaping the Mind the Fate Tank episode of Voyager where he but he played a very different person from George Costanza, and so when we brought him into the booth, he's like, you just want me to do George and and we were like, no, we want you to find something interesting. And that's where how he came about for this character of Doctor Noam and it. Actually, I think he does such a good job immediately recognize that it's that it's Jason Alexander, because he's so thoroughly created this kind of new character. It's sort of their stoic but equally imposing and and uh has has kind of like an odd sense of humor.

47:26 But will will gladly point out why you're stupid, which obviously evokes bones. You know you you you pointy eared bastards, that sort of stuff. And you expect to tell her right to just be always aggressive, and he almost never is right. He's just kind of you know, refined and more intellectual and and and a little calmer. Yeah, he's he's a little taller, but everything he says is like it's almost like, as you're walking away, you're like, wait a second, he was insulting. Everything's gonna talkulate. I won't be aggressive. I'll be passive aggressive exactly. It's the ultimate passive aggressive teller ride.

48:07 That's great, well, just a delightful you know, Cornya Kopia have wonderful episodes, man, and just I just we just sort of throw such big fans of the show here on the podcast, and I hope we're lucky enough to get more. But this was just a phenomenal, phenomenal run, and I'm just excited to see what comes next and really appreciate the chance to chat about this. So I'm going to my bouquet of podcast flowers over my shoulder and see which one of the other texperts will catch us. Who will it be? Who? Me? Me?

48:47 Thank Paul, and you were looking at me outside. I thank you very much, appreciate that, Aaron. I have two quick topics I want to cover. One is like a plot based one, and one is a character based one. Actually character based on men have multiple parts, So let's start with the characters. Let's start with the character stuff. So I just wanted to say off the bat that one of my favorite parts of this show is that it is It's clearly a show that a family can watch together, and there's not a ton of Star Trek out there that that does that. I think that you could argue that you know, you can get maybe like teenagers to watch TG with you or whatever, but I will tell you as as the dad of now a fifteen year old, but like I've tried to get her to watch Star Trek for years, Prodigy is a show that that seems to be made for families, and so to me it seems sort of unique in the in the fact that when you're creating this thing, you're thinking about multiple audiences at a time, And I just wanted to ask you about that, like, how much of the time do you, you know, spend thinking gosh, is this appropriate for kids, or gosh is this going to be interesting to adults or those sorts of questions.

50:08 Yeah, it's definitely you have to hold a lot of different audiences in your head at the same time. But that being said, we tried to make it a point never to talk down to children. Yeah, we always just tried to We always would start on a place of what makes for a good story that just happens to be about young people who are coming of age in this in the Greater Starfleet or Federation. And there were occasionally moments where we had to at least stop and ask like, is this too intense for younger audiences, or can we make this dynamic enough that they'll they won't get bored with this observation lounge debriefing scenes thing. Sure, but we always try to just tell a story that we would like as star Trek fans and as storytellers, and then made sure there was a thread that was at least relatable for younger people as well. But and in that way, I think we were able to strike that balance between shows that that were accessible by younger viewers, but we're entertaining to everybody, And you know, it's it's it's a delicate type rope to walk, for sure, and sometimes we kilt a little bit one way and sometimes we killed the other. But thankfully, Star Trek itself has always been a pretty big tenth franchise where even down

51:38 to episode by episode, one episode you might have like a submarine, you know, thriller like Balance of Terror, and the next episode you might have a comedy like Trouble with Tripples, or the next one might be a western like if it's full of datas like you can you can go to all of these like intense or silly or fun or scary places and you could always come back to home of the starship that you're following. And so because of that, we felt like we had plenty of of a mandate to be able to be pustible off with our storytelling, to make it enjoyable by everybody. Yeah, I think that idea of just making good stories really comes through in the writing. One of my favorite parts is that I feel like in season two, each one of the characters, the major characters, feels like they have their own individual arcs that sort of become resolved.

52:33 You know. It really feels like in this season, you know, Dall finally learns humility, and Gwen finally figures out how to be the leader that she was born to be, and you know, Jenkam finds out how to be like happy and useful all the time, which is really all he ever wants to do. Obviously, Rock is that a master scientists. They can figure anything out. And then we have and then we have Zero, And I think that Zero went through a very unique of a throughout this season. We have what I'll call the body swapping going on, and I just wanted to dig into that just. A little bit. So so Zero starts out with their kind of like Season one body and some stuff goes down, and they go to this planet and they get a new kind of humanoid body on this planet that everybody understands at the end of that episode is eventually going to decay.

53:31 But it's a body that finally allows Zero to become kind of who they want to be, which is a which is an entity that feels things right, whether it's like taste or like the touch of a person or a smell or that sort of stuff. Because as cool as being a cloud might be, sometimes it's not so cool, right, So right, so, yeah, can you just talk just a little bit about the like, was this an idea Zero way from back in the day, or did this come up this season or can you just talk more about that. I'm super interested. Yeah, So, the seeds of Zero's journey were indeed planted all the way back in season one. You thought it was really interesting to have a non choreal character as a main cast member who would have to exist alongside and find a way to coexist with other creatures that had humanoid flesh and blood bodies. But we realized as you were exploring that with Zero that that also provides a bit of an emotional distance in a way, because you are sort of a stranger in a strange land in that regard, and even as you hear all of their thoughts, as Maducins are telepaths, you never quite know what it's like to be then and feel what they feel, and so we thought that that that sort of outsider

55:01 ness for Zero and that belonging of theirs was something that was only going to grow as we moved into season two, and especially once we settled on the idea of doing something which you don't really see that often in Star Trek, which is, rather than ascending to some higher non corporeal form like you see in the TNG episode of Transfigurations or whatever, having having one of those non corporeal characters long to know what it was like or what it is like to taste and test, touch and feel, which is obviously the Pinocchio story that is ever Green and Star Trek. We saw it with with Fox back in cos wanting to embrace and learn more about his find his place between the foot volt in his human world. We definitely see it with Data wanting to become a human and Odo wanting to be a solid or know or have a relationship with solids at least despite the fact that he was a changeling, and we wanted to continue that that kind of tradition was Zero's journey, and you know it was. It was a difficult story to tell because obviously there are a lot of a lot of socially relevant things about body of tautonomy that are certainly still very much in the headlines today.

56:37 But again, we didn't want to shy away from that sort of storytelling because that I felt that the best Star Trek often comes from taking sort of higher level ideas that are that are deeply rooted in social issues today and exploring them through the metaphor of science fiction. And we felt that the emotional truth of Zero finding a body that they felt comfortable with and having agency over that body was a story that we could tell, even if it was somewhat abstract as a non grporeal and ultimately, though they did go through considerable trial and tribulations, they did find a way through their own agency to create a body that both looked like the one that they designed for themselves back in season one, but had the ability to feel and to touch, which is the next step of their journey. And part of that I think also functioned as a kind of analog to being a teenager and growing up, and obviously teenagers experienced a lot of new, strange, new feelings, especially when it comes to relationships and how they perceive themselves in relation to other people, and so the relationship with Magelle felt like a nice icing on the cake for both of their characters, especially since the first and only other episode of Star Trek outside of our show that deals with the Dousins

58:08 has the stock and the leader's name was Colos the Reduce in the original series, having this sort of mind meld gone wrong and a really intense sort of psychic connection, and we thought wouldn't be interesting to explore that in terms of kind of young love or infatuation, and so that's that's where that relationship was born out of. Well, their relationship definitely read through as something that started because they were both sort of science y types, you know, and they kind of had a natural connection with just like talking about stuff that they were both interested in. And then it sort of slowly developed and it was It was great because it wasn't like, oh, all of a sudden, they're interested in each other. It kind of slowly happened over the season, which I just really appreciated.

58:59 And I tell you, these guys all know, when they did the finger thing and the finale, I out lost my ship because I was, like I was I was literally hoping all season that that was gonna be a thing that we saw in the finale and then we. Got to see it. So I just you know, I'm a kind of a sucker for Star Trek relationships. I love the Serru Tarina thing in Discovery, and so Zero and Michelle's relationship in the way that it's grown over this season has just been has just been great. So thank you for that. Yeah, absolutely, that was That was something we loved to exploring on the show. When it comes to designing characters like Michelle. So she's got you know, she's got probably the coolest haircut of any Vulcan we've seen. Like, did you guys just say, you know what, scrit We're done with just the straight across the front to Paul, Look, we want something with a little more flair.

59:55 Was that? How was that decision made? Yeah, well she still has a little bit of that vulcanus, right, but we don't Yes, so we don't see that many young Vulcans in Star Trek. There's a few, but usually when we've seen them, it was like when you see a flashback of Tubac and you you find out that he had, you know, severe difficulty controlling his emotions and that sort of thing. So it's sort of a rebellious scene, I guess, but we wanted to explore, like what other ways, you know, young Vulcans might might be depicted, and we realized that when you go all the way back to a muck Time of the original series episode Uh, there's a character named te Poo who is described as as all vulcan wrapped up into one yes, and if you look at that, she's wearing a headdress and cooking out of the headdress are braids of hair and there are two streaks of white hair braided into that. And we thought that was really interesting because we wanted Magelle to represent in many ways, you know, to be the vulcanist Vulcan and to be like the epidity of Starfleet and no nonsense by the books kind of officer in training, and we thought would be cool if if we had a callback to that variation and suggests, however, tangentially that

1:01:30 maybe she was part of that same house that was among the rulership ruled the ruling class of Vulcan back in the day, like to Pow And so that was kind of how we arrived at that and also been Ybonn and Alex Alexei Alessandro Taini both wanted to try something new and so that we had a little back and forth and and that's that was the design we arrived on, of having those sort of frosted tips to be an homage to pe pal back in pos Well. That was not lost on us, I think either. I think the pow was the first one that came to mind with the longside burns, and then I was like, but maybe Mogelle is just a little bit punk rock too, because she's got to light that also, Yeah, I.

1:02:14 Kind of like, what does that look like at two hundred years later? Totally yeah, And I kind of always knew that, you know, she was of course going to be on the cruise team, right like she sort of starts out as part of this what is it Nova squadron, she's in the Nova squad and then she sort of becomes part of, you know, our main cruise team. And that transition I think was really smooth because it incorporated not only like friendship and logic and all of the sort of things that you would expect from the show, but then there was like the little extra zero part of it too, which made her a little bit more interesting. So just multiple layers there of how Migelle was able to join the team.

1:02:55 I appreciated. The cool I'm. Gonna pass this on to Charles here in a second, but I have to ask you one last question before I go. What's your favorite Star Trek movie? Gosh, I bounce around. When I was young, it was First Contact, but lately I find myself going towards Voyage Foam, the one with the whales. Love it, love it, great choices. Thank you Eron for talking to me so much. Charles. I'm gonna pass the mic over to you, buddy, all right, Thank you Eric. Well, our friend David asked a question first, I'm gonna throw it out. He was curious about the origin.

1:03:36 Of the loom. Sure, so obviously for season two we didn't want to just have another kind of obsessed mad man with a point. You know, there's obviously a long history of Captain ahab asked characters in Star Trek con being chief among them. You know, that's sort of obsessive captain who goes awry at some point. So we wanted to kind of zoom out and look at what other adversaries you faced in Star Trek, and I think we realized that with the Borg essentially defeated during this timeframe, we wanted to look at the possibility of inventing a new existential threat that would be scary and feel like a genuine, insurmountable opponent the way that the Borg felt when we first encountered them back and I think it was Q who when Q snaps their stats as Fingers launches the enterprise game of the Delta quadri and all of their weapons are useless and they start boarding and trying to assimilate people, and they're like, get us out of here, and you feel so helpless and overwhelmed that you understand how terrifying the board were because they were unknowable and insurmountable, and so we wanted to We began to kind of look

1:05:08 at what creatures were already out there, like Species eight four seven two and the Board, and then then we started to think about the context of our second season, which is obviously that time is getting manipulated and starting to unravel, and that then that opened up the question of, well, if time is unraveling, if and there's these holes in the universe, then what could slip through? And you know, we we love all science fiction. Uh, and there's a lot of examples of extra dimensional beings in science fiction that that eats time, or eat eat paradoxes or or whatnot.

1:05:53 There's like the Langaliers and the I think they're called the weavers in Doctor Who. There's a whole TV Tropes article about them. I think they're called clock roaches. And so we thought, well, let's put our own spin on that. And as we're trying to tie together as best we could all the many seemingly contradictory ways that time travel has been depicted in Star Trek, maybe that there's just each of those ways that time travel has been seen is just variations of different circumstances of this greater multiverse that we've already seen glimpses of and episodes like Parallels, And even when the traveler first shows up, he says like, I came from a different time and a different dimension, and I'm just passing through. And so obviously when we talked about bringing Wesley Crusher in, we wanted to say, well, what would a traveler fear? Somebody who can traverse all these space, time and dimensions. And we realized that, oh, it would be another race that has all the abilities that a traveler does, but is more sort of I guess, fimal, and doesn't necessarily have the moral qualms or obligations that they do, and simply are scavengers, are carrying birds of the universe that if you screw up time, they're gonna come eat you. And that's that like a truly a force of nature in the literal sense. And so that's

1:07:25 kind of how we arrived at the Loom such as they are, and it seems like we did a good job with it because a lot of people said they were really freaked out by them. In fact, the day I saw the episode that first time I saw the Loom, I immediately thought about limit Doctor Who. We have the same creatures who come in swooping down taking people. It's like, okay, that's exactly what the Loom do. And I just loved how I kind of got that feeling of that Doctor Who feeling with that the creation of them. Well in Charles, between that and the Wesley thing channeling the Eleventh Doctor, I think we were both very satisfied with the sort of Doctor Who nas of season two of Prodigy.

1:08:13 Yeah, definitely, sure, Yeah, there's there was also even in in TNG there are creatures that eat paradox time I believe it called the Davidians that you see in Time zero, which is one of my personal favorite episodes. So we kind of just mushed it all together and found, you know, this, this whole other wing of the Travelers and their and their mortal foes. Well, speaking speaking of who came up with the assignment Earth Office. I think that might have been me. I. I definitely was a writer on those that two partner, and I think I realized when we were going there, like especially when when we had some conversations with the Kiva, Goldsman and UH and and then eventually Terry Metalis about UH their their integration of the Travelers as well as UH the Supervisors and whatnot into into Picard.

1:09:20 Uh. I was like, I I was pretty insistent, but it's like, if we're going there, let's do it like they they are all of one flow. So if we're answering the question who sent Gary seven to Earth to you know, help that that spaceship last, let's make it clear it was the travelers. And once we got once we had the opportunity to go to the traveler whole world it seemed obvious to us, like why not show that there are wings to this trans dimensional time ziggurat that are straight up just where Gary seven got trained. And I love those bold swings and are my favorite parts of our show. Where we're we have like perhaps the audacity to work in a reference to a you know, a random episode of cos that I don't think anybody expected to see again, let alone recreate the office with such fidelity that people immediately knew it who understood the assignment?

1:10:27 Oh definitely. I was curious how it was working with Gates McFadden and finally bringing Beverly back. Yeah, well, Gates has always been a great friend to our show. If you remember, way even way back in season in episode one or episode six of season one, uh, in the the Kobayashi episode, we were lucky enough to have Gates come in and record some original lines for our for that Holodeck program to help tie it all together. And so when it became obvious that we were telling the story of Wesley by extension, we realized we were really telling the story of the Crushers, and especially talking with Terry mettallis uh uh and what they were able to do and what didn't have time to do in Picard, we realized it was it was the perfect opportunity to dovetail those our shows together, so it would tell one one story across both of them. And you know, Wesley's journey with his family is sort of like so indelible to his arc, where he's a little bit like how some captains are married to the sea, Wesley is married to the cosmos. But in going so far afield to us sensibly protect the ones he loves, he kind of forgot what it meant to be connected to that very

1:12:00 family was that he had left behind, and so our young, our young crew kind of reminds him of that and helps him, and his journey with them helps him realize that he doesn't have to completely abandon his previous life just because he himself has moved on. And so Gates loved the idea that we would have an opportunity for her to reconnect with his son, but she also really wanted to make sure that we remained bittersweet, because so much of her character as we see her in the card season three, is someone who who did perhaps have a bitter sweet farewell with Lesley and had not seen him for fifteen years, and so we were trying to find a way to kind of bring closure but also acknowledge that this is a scar, but at least there is a chance to heal. And that's and that that is very much something we worked on with Gates and with Will and with Terry to make sure that all of that connected in a very beautiful moment. And I love their performance in that scene. It's beautiful.

1:13:12 Yes, I love that, And I love how you tied the brother in and we could tie that into the car season three. That was that was great. Yeah, once you realize the timeline lined up for that, Yeah, we had to do it. I know a lot of our fans really would love to have a third season of Prodigy. I was curious with if if you were to, if they were to give you the green light to do it, would you stick with the serial format or move to an episodic format. Well, if you you know, if you really.

1:13:53 Pay attention to the last episode of season two, we set up the series to effectively be following a training ship, which by all accounts is an official Starfleet ship that is out venturing out into the Cosmos to do Starfleet stuff. So you know, we we've we effectively wrapped up the chapters we had on UH dealing with the crew finding their way to start Fleet and finding their place in it, and now they finally have the chance to to be those Starfleet officers they so desperately wanted, so effectively that we've set set up our series to be just pure Star Trek through and through and be a little bit more anthological or episodic in a way that our our heavily serialized story UH didn't allow us to do as much, which is totally fine. You know, there's there's shows like Deep Based nine that did heavily serialized Star Trek beautifully.

1:14:59 But I think we're we're excited to explore more episodes of the Week certainly. Yeah, I think I would be great because I think it was nice to see. We love Discovery with the serial story. We also love. The I can in the new one where were. Like the world going too. Yeah. Yeah, for sure, I love All Star Trek. So I'm excited to vote to tell a lot more episodes of the Weeks for sure. Okay, we're gonna pass it back, but I think Eric's got a question. Then I think I'm gonna also after Eric's question, I'm going to throw a new question at you.

1:15:44 Well, I don't really have a question I have I you know, I've been reading the Internet and people are just talking about different shows that they'd love to see, and I'm curious, do you do you know, do you have any other ideas for shows that you would love to see come to fruition at some. Point, shows like Star Trek shows, shows and shows. Specifically specifically Star Trek shows. Yeah, yeah, I do. Yes, I have an idea for a show actually that I would love to pitch when the time is right. You know, at the moment, there's obviously Paramount is in the process as a big merger and and everyone is scaling back and Paramount pluses figuring out it's slate and stuff. So I'm probably gonna have to wait a little bit to pitch it. But I do have a Star Trek idea that I think would be very exciting, very anthological, and could go any place anytime in a way that hard for Star Trek fans and brand new fans who just love good sci fi would enjoy. I don't want to say too much more about it because I want to pitch the show, of course, of course, but I definitely have some ideas.

1:17:06 I love it. You know, we we're always talking about alternative style shows here, and two ideas that have come up around here have been a thiss old house style show where we actually get to get to see how Jordi restored the Enterprise d along the way, you know, or or even another show starring Jordi where he takes us on tours of all of the cool ships that he has at the at the Starfleet Museum there. So those are our ideas. I mean those honestly that they are always looking for out of the box ideas, so who knows there might there may be a place for that in the Star Trek universe.

1:17:51 I would totally watch either one of those shows. Thanks all right, I want to I wanted to jump back and a little bit and talk about when Star Trek did their one of their anniversaries and it tied to create this little theory. It is called very Short Treks. And we kind of happened hard at some of them. Well, we got to like the one episode we found out that Wilkie was involved with. I would love yeah story about that one. Well, Very Short Treks is an interesting experience because it all went very quickly. Essentially, Secret Hideout called me and said, hey, we wanted to make some a few animated short sulmost like some comedy sketches that were set in the Star Trek universe that would be animated in the style of the animated the original seventies animated series as this kind of celebration of Star Trek uh for the to the anniversary.

1:18:59 Would you be interested? And before they even finished, I was like, yeah, I'm in. So I founded like a lot of fun. So essentially I just I came up with four or five ideas so what I thought could be fun sort of humorous Star Trek sketches and pitched them to the to the showrunner Casper, and he he picked one. Actually he picked two that he liked, and I wrote the scripts and then we wound up. Of those two, they went to Alex Kirtzman and he picked one to animate. I think the other one that I that I wrote that that didn't get picked, but that was quite funny was that the premise of it was that Starfleet had finally Starfleet had finally updated their security systems so they wouldn't get hacked so easily. Uh So then Riker is on the on the Titan and there's like a rogue borg invasion or something. But then suddenly the as he's trying to activate the weapon systems, a like a Google capture shows up that says like are you a human? And he has to select piles on the things like please find no the bulkans. I was like, why are there focus then Rodulin on this they all forty years and as he's trying to do this Google capture in order to unlock the weapon systems would get

1:20:30 blown up. So that's that was the other idea that I thought was kind of funny, But yes, the one that was chosen the holograms all the way down. You know, obviously I was poking gentle fun at at these are the voyages the notorious series finale of Certric Enterprise, and I kind of wanted to just take that to its its logical kind of obserre conclusion of Starfleet officers would watch holograms of other Star Trek episodes and be in in no matter how tragic they were, just in order to hear their head.

1:21:14 Or something. And uh so it was it was really fun, and I was like, well, let's let's just go like Fule Scanner darkly or something with it, you know, where you have no idea what's real and what's not. Uh yeah, very Philip K. Dick because comedy sketch and uh. And I kept writing in writing in these different Hologram programs within Hologram programs, and they kept not saying no, And so I said, I was like, you know what, I'll just go all the way and try to represent every single theories or crew if I can. And I did, and and they managed to find actors from every every series you were willing to come back and then tries their roles for it.

1:22:01 Yeah. That was It was very fun, very silly. Uh. And I'm I'm grateful that people enjoyed my episode as much as they did. Oh, thank you very much. Got past to the gym, Yeah, thank you. Charles Aaron. Whose idea was it to have Wesley were the sweaters? I think I think it was might have been the Hagemans, or maybe it was us. I don't totally remember, but I remember we felt like, well, he's not in Starfleet anymore, and what better way to show that he finally has kind of grown into himself and who he was in to be than to take one of his old sweaters and.

1:22:50 Him He's like, damn it, I want to wear this sweater because I love this sweater. Yeah, And and so we took the notorious pump in Sweaters as I think Will referred to it as, and we put it on him as an adult, and we told our artists, like, at first there, I was like, do we have to put him in a sweater? It was like, yes, he has to be in a sweater, but just make it look bad ass. And so then we we we had our artists lock up with design and then we showed it. We showed it to Will Wheaton, you know, unsure what he would think about it, and he was like and he immediately responded, I love this And he's like, I love that you took the the ugliest, worst sweater imaginable and he it's come back around to actually being cool again. And his one suggestion was that he wanted him to wear like sort of punk rock boots, and you know, we were happy to oblige. And so that was that was that was how Sweater Traveler Wesley came to be. And if you remember the last time we saw Wesley on TNG, The last that his mother, Gates h. Beverly said to him was, you know, make sure to pack a sweater so you don't get cold.

1:24:07 And he listened to his mother's advice. Yeah. That that was great seeing uh being Wesley in the sweater, especially that orange like you're calling pumpkin sweater. That was great. Oh. When you decided to make Prodigy season two kind of a Voyager sequel, Uh, my question for you is what happened to Harry Kim? Did he ever get promoted? Well, if you. If you watch the spoiler alert, if you watch the trailer for Lower Decks, uh, season five, you will have your answer. I did see that, actually, but he's not he's not mentioned.

1:24:50 He's not mentioned at all on Prodigy, and he was one of the main crew. Well, I think, I think what when it comes to introducing new characters to Prodigy, it was hard for us to squeeze in references the way that a comedy like Lower Decks might without it feeling kind of shoehorned in. And you know, if we had an occasion to bring Harry Kim back, which you know, we had toyed with the idea of maybe having Harry on on the Voyager A on the rescue mission, but we realized it would it would wind up sidelining some of the crew that we had already established, like Tysis and know them in a way that wasn't necessary or helpful, So we ultimately let let left it to lower depths to explore what happened with Ensign kN but we were totally open to that. Also, I think they were. There was a cameo for Captain Kim that was going to be in Pocard season three that they wound up removing due to I think time and budget. So we also didn't want to like overstep our bounds for there, and it wound up out appearing at the card And then everybody was asking why isn't it a Prodigy And we were like, well, just wait for Laura X. If we're going to bring into a

1:26:23 character a classic character in we want to give them like an arc and a reason to be there, and we just didn't quite have them for Harry. So now that Prodigy is part of the Netflix family, how assuming that you get a green light for season three, are you guys still talking with the producers and the people working on the shows on Paramount Plus to make sure that they're that they mesh and get things together, or or is Prodigy kind of being done by Netflix independently of what Paramount Plus is doing with their Star Trek. Well, I mean they're all still produced by CBS Studios who own the copyright under the Paramount Global umbrella, So we would all still correspond and work together, just the same way that all the other Burman era Star Trek shows were technically on different networks, you know, even you know the original series was NBC, that it was, that it was in syndication, that it was on the upn but they all referenced each other, they all corresponded, all the timelines wind up, So this is this would not be any different. We would still we would still be work in tandem, I would assume with with Paramount itself.

1:27:40 And I think the the idea of everything being siloed to just being on one one streaming service is not necessarily the way things are going anymore. You know. I think all of the streamers, Paramount included with our show and other shows, are open to licensing out their show, producing them and then having other networks help pay for them. So but in a way, it's it's a return to form the old studio network model in days of old, which was a much healthier financially speaking, because then you wouldn't be taking on the complete costs by yourself and hoping that you make it back with subscribers.

1:28:22 Now when you were when you were working on season two, who designed the Voyager? Who who came up with that Voyager design? I believe it was all Benny boung, our supervising director and executive producer. He asked for a little bit of feedback from me just to help it feel like it was its own sort of distinct hit that felt like it could be a successor to Voyager in some ways, but actually seeing in all of Star Trek the Enterprise that the first Enterprise looks much different from the Enterprise D, which looks different from the Enterprise F, and so we had a little bit of leeway for it to be a different class ship. But there are a few little touches that still make it feel like Boyanture, especially the really long stretched out primary hall, the the sensor array notch in the front, the U and the Flextra dish on the bottom. These are all things and the command module on the very top were all things that we added, as well as some gold trim as we've seen in the original Intrepid class, to make sure that it felt like there was a little bit of a lineage there, even if it was, uh, you know, kind of redesigned with all of the incredible technology from the Delta Quadrant.

1:29:44 That that that what the original Voyager brought back. Now, when they ask you, what did Worth do to the Enterprise, I'm just curious. We we have not. We have not officially answered that in Star Trek canon, but there are a few things that we do know. We do know that that Captain Picard now Admiral Picard, stepped down from captaining the Enterprise sometime around twenty three to eighty or eighty one. We also know that that Wharf was somehow involved with the Enterprise.

1:30:29 It's implied that maybe he was captain, which I think is also said as much in some of the novels of the Enterprise for some time before retiring and then becoming sort of a secret ops fighting changelings and the lead up to Star Trek Picard season three. And we also know that a number of Sovereign class ships, including one that looked suspiciously like the Enterprise E was taken over along with the Defiant and heavily damaged, if not destroyed, in the battle with the Living Construct at the end of season one. So you can take all of those with a grain of salt. But those are all facts that some auspicious fans have put together to suggest the timeline that maybe Wharf wasn't at fault when the Enterprise E was destroyed around twenty three eighty four.

1:31:26 Okay, that that sounds good to me. So Aaron a little bit off of The Prodigy for a second. With all the new Star Trek that's coming out that Kawni Newsom is working on, I knew, I don't know what. They called it, a civilian half hour Star Trek. Yeah, civilian comedy. And of course we have Starfleet Academy and Section thirty one. Strange New World is coming back as well. What are you most looking forward to. Man, I'm I'm looking forward to all of it. I'm a pretty omnivorous Star Trek fan, to be honest. I will watch all of it. You know, there was a brief period of time before Star Trek Prodigy had come out where I was the one of the few people, if not the one person in the world who had seen more Star Trek than anyone else outside of perhaps Secret Eyed Out and so I feel like I need to live up to that reputation.

1:32:29 Yeah. Star Trek's got a really good future. There's a lot of great stuff coming out and we're all looking forward to it. So I guess we've Unless anybody else has any other questions for Aaron, we've kind of gone over with We've gone over our time a little bit. You guys have any other questions for Aaron? No, I just want to thank you Aaron for being such a gracious guest giving us lots of info. This has been really fun to talk to you again. Hey, absolutely, my pleasure this is this is always a blast to talk with you guys. You can Uh, yeah, it's it's always fun. So what are your what are your feelings? Uh, you're unofficial? Do you feel pretty good that we that the numbers are good enough to warrant coming to you guys for season three?

1:33:26 Where are we still a little waves off for that determination? What does your gut tell you? My gut tells me we're gonna have to wait and see how season two does. So right now, it's critical for people to keep watching and keep getting those numbers up so that by at the end of the year, when they kind of assess all that data, they can see the Star Trek Prodigies right there at the top of the list and ready to be renewed. So so your end is the is the timeline. So watch as much as you can before December thirty first, so to seek. That that is when they will officially assess, like they assess their data in six month inclements, So that's why it will. The tap is so find three friends, tell them about it, encourage them if they've been waiting to just binge it, watch, watch, watch all the episodes and have a ball.

1:34:20 Now, how does that work? Uh? With Netflix and Paramount? If Netflix decides they want to green light another season, does Paramount have any involvement in that? Like, can Paramount step in and say, well, no, we don't want to do that, or is that all up to Netflix? I mean, I don't think Paramount. If Netflix says we want to buy another season, I think Paramount would certainly would would then entertain that and find if there's a way to make it work financially. You know, it's like any TV show, So but Netflix would would want to what has the lif since to produce more episodes, so that would be up to them, I suppose.

1:35:04 So I'm kind of so Paramount doesn't have to say doesn't have any say on what Netflix wants to do with Star Trek Prodigy. I think it would be a negotiation in so far as Netflix would say how much would it cost to make another season, and then Paramount would say it would be as much. You know, that's you're all televisions. Yeah that makes sense, Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, that does all right. Eron, Well, we went over just a little bit, and I apologize for that, but we were having fun talking about Star Trek, So yeah, for sure.

1:35:46 Well thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it, And for all anybody listening at home, just remember a Star Trek Prodigy. Both seasons forty episodes in Star Trek are available on Netflix in most countries and Sky Showtime and others. You can also pre order the Blu ray and DVDs UH for season two that are coming out I think in a few weeks, and those have some bonus materials on them from from US producers uh, and they they look gorgeous in Blu Ray and we also just officially announced today that fan Home, the people that have the license to produce starship models, are coming out with a USS proto star a USS Floyd der A and a USS Scotless from soccer. Prodigy is starting next year, so keep an eye out at fan Home. I believe there's going to be some really high quality models. They even do like the Excel models, so they're big, chunky boys and you know, anything you could do to support the show, so spreading the word to buying the merch is going to be huge helping us see further adventures of the USS Prodigy, so you know, be sure to check it out and buy that stuff.

1:37:15 Excellent. Well, thank you very much for hanging out and trek talking with us tonight, Aaron. We really appreciate it and we look forward to having you back when season three wraps up as well. Absolutely, thank you so much. Good night by all right guy, Thank you. That was Aaron Walke, the man behind Prodigy, So thank you so much for having him with us, and I hope you guys had a good time. And uh yeah, that pretty much wraps up our show for the night. I just I want to say thank you so much to Eric for hanging out and trek talking with us and of course talking with erin Thank you so much. Eric.

1:37:55 Of course, Aaron is an amazing guest. He has such great and I will say that I think our tre experts were on point tonight. We asked a lot of good questions guys, So thank you all for doing your homework and like figuring out really cool things to ask him, because I think it worked out. It was a great interview. It was fun. It was a lot of fun. And thank you so much to Paul for hanging out in trek talking with us as well. Thank you so much, Paul. What a treat man. He's great. Know it's just so much, just a tuisient guest. So again, just let's hope we get more. It's great. We'll see you guys in the future. Absolutely for season three of Prodigy. We hope and I hope that David is feeling better. I know he wasn't able to join us, but thank you so much for being part of the team at any rate, David. And thank you so much to our very own Charles out in Las Vegas for hanging out and trek talking with us.

1:38:49 Thank you so much, Charles, thank you. Thank you. I would just go on to the fact that I didn't really have any question to ask as we got going a thing. It's like, oh man, I want. To ask you about this. I want to ask him about this. It's like, oh, I just started list of the questions on notes, just like, Okay, what do I want to ask him? Because there was just so much. And I love the idea that we mike in serial series out of it with season three. Yeah, we'll have to, like you said, you gotta you gotta go to Netflix. You got to put Prodigy on the walk Away, just let it run and run, well, you know. And Jim, I'm so excited because i just went to fan home dot com and I'm looking at this voyager a and I'm about to, like, you know, lose my mic situation.

1:39:42 Well now, no access figures yet though no access figures I know. Oh man, I wish we could get those. Oh there could be be you, there might be so any guys. I want to make sure you join us next week because we're going to be talking to Young Sarah himself from Star Trek five the Final Front. You know, I was when you asked him what his favorite movie was. I was waiting for him to say Star Trek five the final question. You know what, Jim, I love that hope of yours.

1:40:24 Let me ask you, guys, what did you think about the Star Trek five the final frontier poster for Lower Deck season five? Oh my god. So when you take what Jim, respectfully many people consider not the best Star Trek movie, and you turn the poster around graphically and make it into a thing that's super cool, that to me gives cult status to Star Trek five as a good movie. So I think that you, sir, are on the leading edge of Star Trek fans thinking that Star Trek five is the best movie because it is now a cult classic thanks to Lower Decks.

1:41:05 I thought they did the poster job. I saw that post that I was taking a wait a minute, we're going back and rehashing Star Trek five. We're going back and rehashing Star Trek five, and sad I looked at wait a minute, that. Said Lower Decks like, oh, fet felt I like that. I like, I thought it was felt into it. That was that's creative. That showed you how much I'm not sure I'm not I'm not sure that I will ever agree that Star Trek five is the best Star Trek movie, Jim. But what I will tell you is that I completely respect your opinion, and I love the fact that there are elements of society that are sort of coming around to your point of view. I just think that's hilarious.

1:41:54 I'm on the free I'm on the free. Classic. It's like the leading Nick advenger Man. Here we go. Yeah, I'm on the fringe. But I wasn't sure. I did love that. When I saw that poster, I was like, Wow, that is cool. I thought that was cool. So I had to put it up on our Facebook page because that's the same poster that I sent to Laurence Fluckinbille that he signed for me after we had him on the podcast. So still one of our best I mean, that show was amazing, so I thought that was great. So we are going to be talking about Star Trek five next week with Young Sarah himself. So if you guys want to call, or if you want to tune in, if you want to you want to call and tell me why Star Trek five is the greatest Star Trek movie.

1:42:41 I would love to hear from you. The courses eight, two, four, three, three, But. We also love to hear anybody I. Have a different opinion. We'd love to hear that too, So just a call. Yeah, the show, yeah, pecutable facts backed. Up, but yeah, long years is believe you. Yeah, we we want to hear from you. So at any rate, guys, I had a great time and I look forward to talking to you guys next week about Star Trek five and Young Sarah. Probably going to be a short show since he was only in the movie for thirty two seconds, so it would be pretty quick.

1:43:29 Yes, but we have birthdays, we have shout outs, we have all sorts of stories all cued up for you people, So do not think that that's gonna be any slouch of a show. There's tons of content we're gonna blast your brains with. Yeah, we we've had we've we've actually had weeks without any of that stuff. A lot. I'm gonna shoot lot. Yeah, Yeah, we're gonna have a lot. Be great. So with any with any uh, without any delay, guys. I just want to let you know that Star Trek fans are the best fans and you better bel that. And please everybody stay safe and be good to each other. Hailing frequencies are closed. Good night everybody. You know you all live long and prosper nail.

1:44:15 Let's see what's out there. Engage Hello, you have reached the Q continuum. We are unable to get to the phone right now because we are busy living in a plane of existence. Your feeble mortal minds cannot possibly comprehend. Furthermore, it's pointless to leave a message, because we, of course already knew that you would call, and we simply do not care. Have a nice day.

1:44:57 A strange force has entered the gallant see the future of mankind is at stake. It could only mean one thing, Prettiest, Captain Spock, I do not think you realize the gravity of your situation. The vacation is over. Now the crew of the starship Enterprise. Enterprise, are you ready? He is taking a venture where it has never gone before. Sun You don't know what jail break when you see. One from the mind of a madman. Hustle force has taken control of our vessel forehead through the center of the galaxy.

1:45:41 You know we'll never make it for the great Barrier to the final frontiers. Fascinating. How often have you done this. Actually it's my first attempt fire. The rocket. Never cease to amaze me, nor i'm myself. This is the po this track of all four feet now Star track five, the final front pier. This is Guy's are amazing. I don't nothing amazing about us. I didn't know this ship like the back of my ass.