Comic-Con@Home 2021: Paramount+ Peak Animation Highlights ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’
by Erik Amaya
Star Trek: Lower Deck voice actor Jerry O’Connell opened Comic-Con@Home on Friday with a high-energy performance as the first moderator of the “Paramount+: Peak Animaton” panel. The actor spoke to the cast of the upcoming Star Trek: Prodigy and the returning Lower Decks, while Damian Holbrook took a look at the new series The Harper House and the stalwart Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out The News.
“[It’s] the first Star Trek series through the eyes of characters who are outside of Starfleet,” said executive producer Dan Hageman of Prodigy. The plot revolves around a group of non-human characters escaping an oppressive regime in an abandoned starship far from Starfleet or the United Federation of Planets. Aiding them, though, is a holographic version of former U.S.S. Voyager captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew). Though directed a younger demo, the fully 3D animated Trek series will still appeal to fans of Star Trek as a whole. “You just tell a good story from a place of heart,” Hageman explained. The cast also discussed their not-Starfleet characters, a group of young people setting off for an amazing adventure.
The producers also unleashed a teaser trailer which suggests a tone more like Star Wars Rebels than a more obvious kid’s cartoon. It will debut on Paramount+ later this year.
O’Connell also made time for his Lower Decks compadres with Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid, Eugene Cordero, and executive producer Mike McMahan teasing the upcoming second season. They also discovered that miming the beaming effect is really a form of “inside jazz hands.” They also debuted a trailer for the season which includes some more Star Trek deep pulls and a Tom Paris commemorative plate. Star Trek: Lower Deck returns August 12th.
The other two shows also skew toward an older audience, but seem appealing in their own ways. The Harper House trailer, in particular, has a Comedy Central feel to it. The program debuts September 16th.