467 – Superman, Sansar, and Andrew Looney | Priority One: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast

This week on Episode 467 of Priority One — We ‘Trek Out’ Picard’s meeting with Superman, Sir Patrick’s activism, Dr. Crusher’s possible return, and the death of a Captain’s log. In Star Trek gaming, we talk Timelines “Someone Like Me” event, A Roddenberry Recovery Mission in Sansar, and Andrew Looney of LooneyLabs to talk about updates to the game Star Trek: Fluxx.

Of course, as always, before we wrap up the show, we’ll open hailing frequencies for your incoming messages

Let us know on social media like Facebook, Twitter, or by visiting our website!

This Weeks Community Question Is:

CQ:  Do you want to see Picard rekindle his romance with Dr. Crusher?

TREK IT OUT

by Jake Morgan

The Captain and Superman Discuss Careers

I’m about to get controversial, so buckle up. Star Trek is the best Sci-Fi Franchise – and Superman is the best Superhero. Better than Captain America, Spider-man, Wonder Woman, The Flash, and even Batman. Now I, the writer of this segment – Jake Morgan – know that Elio is not going to read that. But I tried. Anywho, imagine our excitement when we learned that Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Kal-El would sit down to interview one another!

This week, on Variety’s “Actors on Actors”, Sir Patrick Stewart and Henry Cavill met through the magic of modern technology to talk about their lives, careers, and Cavill’s first time meeting the legendary thespian. The pair discussed their love of being on-stage, playing someone other than themselves, and Stewart recounted how his early experiences at the Bristol Old Vic Theater school  translated into the ensemble elements of Star Trek: The Next Generation ”I had been thought of as being a bit weird where I was growing up because I wanted to act. To my friends, it was just I was a show off and that was all. And it wasn’t true, there were other reasons. But then to find a whole community – a society of people who felt just like me. And I think it’s one of the reasons why I’ve come to love companies so much. Whether it’s on stage, or doing a show like Picard or Next Generation. We were a company. I continually insisted that we should think of ourselves as an ensemble. There wasn’t just Jean-Luc Picard sitting in the Captain’s chair, but we were a group who were all united in doing one thing.”

Stewart discussed his role of Co-Executive Producer on Star Trek: Picard, and after admitting he wasn’t a writer, did give Cavill some insight on how he contributed to Picard. ”I loved being in that room. I wish that I could have recorded every moment that I sat with our writers. But the only things I think that I actually contributed in terms of dialogue were jokes. We had a piece about one of the other characters, he’s reading a very famous – I think an Asimov book. A Science Fiction book. And I said ‘you know I can never really get into Science Fiction, it didn’t mean anything to me.’ To have Captain Picard talking about Science Fiction as though it was an alien concept was something which I really enjoyed. And ‘Tea, Earl Grey, Decaf was my idea as well, because I thought it was time to have some jokes from the Captain.”

The conversation is a little over an hour, and covers Stewarts praise for his Picard co-stars, strolls down memory lane, and his love for Sir Ian Mckellen. If you didn’t love Henry Cavill and Sir Patrick before the video, you certainly will after. We highly suggest giving it a watch!

Stewart Talks to TV Guide

Sir Patrick was busy this week. On June 24th, the 79 year old Picard-Portrayer spoke with TV Guide about Star Trek, naughty words, and the importance of activism.

Stewart talked about the use of profanity in Star Trek’s newest offerings, and his reaction to first reading the vulgarity in Picard’s script ’I think that Picard had actually taken an active decision not to abuse language that would be unpleasant for people to hear whether it is abusive or offensive in some way, and he stuck to it. Even if he wanted to say, “Damn, blast,” or whatever, he would, for the most part, manage to deny himself that pleasure. When I came across the first swear word in the first script, I can honestly tell you, I was deeply shocked. I grew up in a family where swearing was second nature. Every other word was a swear word, and yet when I read… it might have been the F-word that I read and I was shocked and unsettled by it. I think I did have a conversation with Michael [Chabon] about this use of language and how comfortable were we with it. It was something that had never been a part of previous Star Trek.“’

Stewart moved on to more important issues, discussing the necessity of youth activism and the heroism of those involved. ”there are so many ways in which we’ve recently seen this illustrated. The young woman, the teenager, who held her telephone camera up long enough so that the horror of what was being done to that poor man [George Floyd] whose neck was being knelt on. It was a young woman [Darnella Frazier] who brought that to us.  Our world environmental hero is a young woman [Greta Thunberg], at the moment, and that is going to continue as well. […] we are seeing examples of social commitment and of opposition to all forms of racism. It is one of the few things that I do find encouraging about our society today.”

Gates McFadden Coming to Picard?

Wherefore art thou, Doctor Beverly Crusher? The Enterprise’s Chief Medical Officer and on-again-off-again love interest of Captain Jean-Luc Picard was a glaring omission in Picards first season. According to Dr. Crusher, or should we say Gates McFadden, that may change!

Speaking with Trekmovie.com on Monday June 29th, McFadden not-so-coyly indicated that she may reprise her role in Picard season 2, saying ”Well, I don’t know. There’s a good chance, let’s put it that way. But I have no contract signed.”

McFadden also talked about Crusher’s aforementioned relationship with Picard, recalling ”The character [had] become matron-like, and it was just weird. I was no longer really the love interest of Picard and that was one of the primary things—I was hired by Gene [Roddenberry] himself as the love interest of Picard. That got changed. And that wasn’t changed by me.”. But could we see Gene’s vision of a Picard-Crusher ‘ship’ come back?  McFadden isn’t so sure  ”I think that Patrick made a decision at some point that he was opening it up to other relationships in our show, and in the movies, certainly. So I can’t imagine that it’s suddenly going to be different, but it doesn’t mean that there’s not a relationship there. Obviously, from all of our scenes, there is a relationship and that’s great. So who knows? I have no clue, but it would be lovely.”

Shatner Ends 100 Day Captain’s Logs

Way back on March 18th, William Shatner shared a very Star Trek tweet with the world – a Captain’s log. After One Hundred days of logs, Shatner decided to call off the popular thread in a very – familiar way.

On June 27th, the Twitter mainstay posted.

If you’ll recall, that was a reasonable facsimile of the line uttered by Captain James T. Kirk following his untimely demise in Star Trek: Generations. Rest assured, there haven’t been any reports of Shatner being crushed by a bridge…we checked just to be sure!

Star Trek Gaming News

by Shane Hoover and Thomas Reynolds

It’s been three weeks since our call to action and Cryptic Studios has not yet responded in any way. Until that time, we cannot, in good conscience, continue to endorse a company that holds a Star Trek license and has endeavored to support other worthy causes in the past but, will not commit to actionable goals towards inclusivity, equitability, and social justice.

Star Trek Timelines Event: “Someone Like Me”

Star Trek Timelines’ “Ripples & Waves” Mega-Event comes to a close with “Someone Like Me,” running from July 2nd to July 9th. This Hybrid Galaxy/Skirmish Event will give the returning 5-star Desert Archer as its Ranked Reward crewmember. Event crew includes last week’s 5-star Krenim Guest Chakotay, the new 5-star Ocampa Tanis as seen in the Voyager episode “Cold Fire,” and existing 4-star/7-year-ensign Rogue Harry Kim. Look for Chakotay variants, Kim variants, and Warp Theorist or Caregiver crew members to give small bonuses during the event’s Galaxy phase. They’ll then return medium bonuses in the Skirmish phase, featuring the new 5-star Krenim Weapon Ship, the returning 4-star USS Voyager, and the 2-star Madeleine…no wait, it’s the 2-star Val Jean.

A Roddenberry Recovery Mission

If you’re a veteran listener to our show, you’ve heard us mention the Roddenberry Nexus before. It’s a Star Trek focused world within the Sansar virtual reality social platform. They’ve done great events like virtual fan engagements with insiders like Doug Drexler and Rod Roddenberry. They have an amazing, interactive Star Trek museum. Wait, there’s a problem there, actually. Because according to a contest announcement we’ve just received, the Roddenberry Museum in Sansar has been a victim of a Rodden-Rob’erry! Here’s what we’re told:

“An unidentified group broke into the Roddenberry Museum in Nexus and stole some of the items in our exhibit. We are not sure who did this or why. Our initial investigation has determined that they have hidden all of the items throughout the various worlds in Sansar.

We are turning to you to aid us in the recovery of our collection. Considering the knowledge and talents of Roddenberry fans, we are confident that your abilities can help us return all the items to our museum where they belong.”

How do we help, you ask? What’s in it for me, you ask? I don’t even own a VR system, you say?

Well, let me stop you right there. For starters, you don’t NEED VR to experience Sansar. Just head over to sansar.com, and download the Desktop Mode client. Then, stay tuned to Sansar and Roddenberry’s social media outlets for clues! Each clue will guide you to a different world within Sansar, where the stolen items can be recovered. For the first three participants who find every stolen item, Roddenberry has some great prizes.

So Captains, maybe brush up on your detective skills with “Elementary, Dear Data” and then get busy solving the case for Roddenberry!

NOTE: The launch date for the event has been delayed but, be sure to follow @sansarofficial & @roddenberry for more information and upcoming announcements.

Tagged as: Looney Labs, stewart, Andrew Looney, ViacomCBS, Event, Roddenberry, BLM, CBS, Fleet Command, Superman, Star Trek, Cavill, Shatner, Crusher, Timelines, McFadden, fluxx, TV Guide, picard.