ICYMI: Our Father's Day Podcast with LeVar and Mica Burton
Image: Paramount+.
JUNE 21, 2023 – In case you missed it amidst the other celebrations or whatever else you happened to be doing on Father’s Day last Sunday, our own T. Rick Jones dropped his latest conversation with Star Trek notables. In this case, he chatted with LeVar Burton and his daughter, Mica Burton.
To quote the intro to this latest Daily Star Trek News podcast, “You know LeVar Burton as Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge of the USS Enterprise-D and more recently as a Commodore and curator of the Fleet Museum. His daughter Mica is known as a professional cosplayer, a video game enthusiast, and Commodore La Forge’s daughter Alandra. But what was it like for this father-daughter team to work together on Star Trek: Picard’s final season?”
While many are aware that LeVar is serious about reading and literacy as a “civil right,” it turns out as the conversation began that Mica is also a voracious reader, did multiple AP English classes in school, and defends the value of fan fiction, especially that written by English educators who are also nerds.
Mica also fills us in on her professional cosplay, from which she is now retired, and talks about her experience auditioning for (proudly not having the role handed to her) and playing Alandra on Star Trek: Picard. For LeVar, it was like an extended version of “Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.” He says, “I just wanted to soak up as much of it as I could. Knowing what I do at this stage of my life, there’s no guarantee that this opportunity would come around again.”
Having one actual and two fictional daughters on Picard’s final season, LeVar and showrunner Terry Matalas worked on what LeVar calls “rehabilitating Geordi’s canon around relationships,” which meant, in part, heading off the death of Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut’s character, Geordi’s daughter Sidney. And everyone talks about how natural the relationships felt among Geordi, Alandra, and Sidney.
For lots more father-daughter and other good stuff from LeVar Burton and Mica Burton, check out the full podcast at Daily Star Trek News.
David is a contributing writer for Daily Star Trek News on the Roddenberry Podcast Network. He is a librarian, baseball fan, and book and movie buff. He has also written for American Libraries and Skeptical Inquirer. David also enjoys diverse music, but leans toward classical and jazz. He plays a mean radio.
