NYCC: Star Trek: Prodigy Panel on Mulgrew’s Return to Trek, Dal’s Origin, and More Legacy Characters on the Way

Billy Campbell as Thadiun Okona, Jason Mantzoukas as Jankom Pog, and Brett Gray as Dal in STAR TREK: PRODIGY. Image: Nickelodeon/Paramount+.

OCTOBER 9, 2022 - This weekend is New York Comic Con and DSTN was there on Saturday for the Star Trek Universe panel. Part two of the panel featured Star Trek: Prodigy, with Executive Producers Alex Kurtzman, Rod Roddenberry, Kevin and Dan Hageman (who also created the show) and Ben Hibon (who also directs some of the episodes); Brett Gray (Dal); Jameela Jamil (Asencia); and Kate Mulgrew (Janeway). The show took a break after the first 10 episodes of the season and Kevin Hageman opened by introducing the mid-season trailer.

Of her return to Star Trek, Mulgrew said, “It feels absolutely terrific. And I didn’t think it could get much better than Voyager., being the first female captain. But we’re targeting a demographic that we have somehow missed all of these years that is most appreciative of the ideology of Star Trek. And that’s children. And it will begin a coss-generational conversation the likes of which we’ve never seen before in Star Trek.”

Hibon spoke a bit about the “legacy aliens” we’ll be seeing in PRO. “The Borg, Romulans, Klingons, we’re going to see them all, which is a gift that keeps on giving, I think, for us and the crew. We love these characters, we love their designs, what they represent, how they’ve been approached in prior shows. And we’re just loving iterating on them and just respecting them basic, just adding a little Prodigy twist to them.”

The trailer makes it appear that we’re going to learn more about Dal’s background in the second half of the season. “I can’t reveal it,” Gray said of the revelation of where (or who) his character is from. “But I can say it’s going to be epic and there may be more questions than answers. It’s really awesome to see, sort of, his growth, because, I mean, Dal hasn’t known who he is or what his purpose is since the very beginning of the series. So although he’s learned a lot, and been through a lot, it’s only just beginning, really.”

Jameela Jamil is new to the Trek universe, and she is thrilled. “I’ve been watching Star Trek since I was like, four years old with my brothers, so when the email came in, offering me the role, I didn’t ask how much money, I didn’t ask to read a script, I wrote a screaming “YES,” I think, in caps locks, probably. I was over the moon.”

“My son is a huge fan,” Roddenberry said of the show. “When I first was going to watch it with him, I was going to watch it for him, because it was billed as a kid’s show. But this is not a kid’s show, people…it is Star Trek through and through. And I love the fact that all the shows are so different.

“Just recently,” he continued, “he [his son] got mad at me because, of course, he finished the first half of the season. And he looks at me and he’s like, ‘I wanna see the next one.’ And I said, ‘You’re gonna have to wait.’ And he’s like, ‘Can’t you do something?’”

We’ve known for several months that Billy Campbell will be returning as Thadiun Okona, first seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “The Outrageous Okona” and then in a surprise cameo in Star Trek: Lower Decks’ “An Embarrassment of Dooplers.” But Okona’s not the only legacy character coming to PRO.

“For those of you who don’t know,” Dan Hageman said, “there’s a fellow named Ronny Cox who plays Admiral Jellico.” Fans will remember Jellico as that polarizing character who was given command of the Enterprise when Captain Picard was sent on a secret mission in "TNG’s “Chain of Command, Parts I and II.”

“Admiral Janeway needs to have a foil,” Kevin added. “Someone who’s going to make things hard for her. So who better than Admiral Jellico?…There’s going to be so many more [legacy characters]. Our characters are now venturing closer to Federation space and we promise you, there ae going to be some really wild, fun, legendary characters coming back in Prodicgy.”

Star Tek: Prodigy season 1 will return on October 27. In the meantime, you can catch up on all the adventures on Paramount+.

DSTN was invited to take part in a press roundtable with the stars and creators of Star Trek: Prodigy. We’ll be rolling those interviews out all this week, so stay tuned.