CBS
Kathryn Janeway is tying her hair in a bun and donning the Starfleet uniform once again. The captain of the USS Voyager will return for the upcoming Star Trek cartoon series Star Trek: Prodigy.
Kate Mulgrew, star of the TV series Star Trek: Voyager from 1995 to 2001, will voice the role in the new Nickelodeon animated series that will debut in 2021. Her part in the action has yet to be revealed, but we know the show will follow a group of “lawless teens” who steal a derelict Starfleet starship.
“I have invested every scintilla of my being in Captain Janeway,” Mulgrew said in a statement, “and I can’t wait to endow her with nuance that I never did before in Star Trek: Prodigy… To be at the helm again is going to be deeply gratifying in a new way for me.”
The casting news was revealed at a Star Trek Universe panel Thursday as part of the online version of New York Comic Con. The title and plot of the series were previously revealed during an earlier panel atComic-Con 2020in July.
“Captain Janeway was held to a different standard than her predecessors,” muses Star Trek: Prodigy Executive Producer Alex Kurtzman. “She was asked to embody an inhuman level of perfection in order to be accepted as ‘good enough’ by the doubters, but showed them all what it means to be truly outstanding. We can think of no better captain to inspire the next generation of dreamers on Nickelodeon.”
Star Trek: Prodigy has been developed by Kevin and Dan Hageman, two of the Emmy Award-winning creators behind Trollhunters and Lego Ninjago. The series is aimed at a younger audience, hence its appearance on Nickelodeon. The other animated series, Star Trek: Lower Decks, premieres its season finale on streaming service CBS All Access Thursday — with an old-school Trek cameo of its own. (Disclosure: CNET is part of ViacomCBS).
Captain Kirk led a cartoon crew in the much-loved Star Trek: The Animated Series in the early 1970s, and spin-off The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager followed in the ’80s and ’90s. Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard are currently available on CBS All Access (or Netflix and Amazon outside the US). They’ll soon be joined by a show following Mr Spock’s early days aboard the Enterprise in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, as well as a series spotlighting Starfleet’s black ops team Section 31 starring Michelle Yeoh.
