While the franchise’s film fortunes continue to fumble, Star Trek is going strong as ever over in television—something borne out by it taking pride of place in Comic-Con’s Hall H today for a massive panel covering several of the franchise’s extant and upcoming series. Front and center: Delightful throwback Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, with stars Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, and Ethan Peck taking the stage (alongside producers Alex Kurtzman, Akiva Goldsman, and Henry Alonso Myers) to tease out the show’s third season, currently set for 2025.Among other things, the panelists confirmed that the upcoming season will feature more of Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, with Martin Quinn becoming a regular cast member as the legendary engineer. Goldsman also revealed at least one hiccough for what he referred to as the show's "secret love stories in space," noting that the new season would introduce the character of Dr. Roger Korby (Cillian O'Sullivan), who, in the original Star Trek, was the fiancée of Jess Bush's Christine Chapel. The crew also teased footage of an upcoming third season episode in which Peck's version of Spock injects his crewmates with something that turns them all into Vulcans. (In a funny way.) The producers also emphasized their desire to keep switching up genres a la the recent musical episode (including the upcoming murder mystery previously revealed by Jonathan Frakes): "We're trying to find a genre the cast can't do and so far we haven't found it." Goldsman also suggested that a stage version of said musical might be low-key in the works.Next up, the animated crew also got to show up in person, for once, with Star Trek: Lower Decks stars Jack Quaid, Tawny Newsome, Noël Wells, and Jerry O’Connell, plus series creator Mike McMahan, talking through its final season, set to air later this year. (The crew encouraged fans to boo at this reminder that the show was ending.) Teasing that this final season will be a celebration of everything that makes the (very funny) show what it is, the crew then rolled out a new teaser trailer for that last season, including a release date for that final season: October 24.Although the cast was sworn to secrecy on plot developments, they did promise "Grade A hijinks" (actual quote), and O'Connell said he got "a little teary eyed" working on the final season. McMahan, meanwhile, promised "Legacy guest stars that get to party with these guys."The panel then moved on to new business, with Kurtzman sticking around to introduce the upcoming Starfleet Academy, which Newsome serves as a writer for. (Newsome's apparently also got a new show in the works with panel moderator/Dear White People creator Justin Simien. Tawny Newsome: Busy!) Kurtzman brought out co-showrunner Noga Landau to talk up the new series. The pair revealed a couple of big names who'll be appearing on the series—most notably Paul Giamatti, who apparently cried when told he was going to get to be in Trek. (Please take this as your reminder that no man on Earth loves putting on weird prosthetics more than Paul Giamatti.) Kurtzman and Landau also revealed a few legacy cast appearances, including Tig Notaro, Oded Fehr, and Mary Wiseman from Discovery, plus Voyager's Robert Picardo.Finally, we got a further look at the flashiest entry on the roster: The upcoming Section 31 TV movie, starring Michelle Yeoh. Who (despite not being at the Con) popped up on video to show off the below teaser which, we're just gonna say, is kind of stylish as fuck.The actual panel included appearances from co-stars Omari Hardwick, Sam Richardson, and Kacey Rohl, plus director Olatunde Osunami, who took time out to state the obvious, i.e., Michelle Yeoh kicks ass. Hardwick also called the film "Guardians Of The Galaxy on steroids." We also got one little nerd tidbit: Rohl is apparently playing a younger version of Captain Rachel Garrett, from the classic Next Generation episode "Yesterday's Enterprise"; we have no idea what that means for already-convoluted timeline shenanigans—reminder that Yeoh's character is already a renegade from Trek's infamous Mirror Universe—but it is certainly eye-catching.There might have been worries, in some corners, that the end of Star Trek: Discovery—which single-show-edly kicked off this Star Trek renaissance on TV—or Picard (which helped nail in the nostalgia factor) might have short-circuited the franchise’s momentum. But if its appearance at Hall H today was anything to go off, it’s still (insert Star Trek idiom about making spaceships go very quickly here).
