[Lower Decks 505 reviews start at 34:05] Anthony and Laurie have a lot of news to cover this week! They talk about Strange New Worlds, drop a few tidbits about Starfleet Academy, and round up the latest intel on Section 31. They discuss Jeri Ryan’s description of a Captain Seven show she turned down and LeVar Burton’s thoughts on a legacy show, the Prodigy season 2 release on physical media, and the latest on the greenlit Star Trek movie and the one waiting in the wings. They also have updates on season 3 of Gates McFadden’s podcast, share the sad news that Tony Todd has died, and talk about the regional Creation cons happening around the country. With all that done, they review the latest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, “Starbase 80?!,” covering the Enterprise tribute, excellent guest stars, and more. They wrap up the podcast with some tales from their separate event screenings of To The Journey, the documentary about Star Trek: Voyager.

Anthony and Laurie skip the news this week to review two Star Trek: Lover Decks episodes, “The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel” and “A Farewell to Farms.” We also hear a bit from showrunner Mike McMahan from New York Comic Con talking about Boimler’s “growing” arc this season.

Tony and Laurie will be reviewing the latest episode of Lower Decks (“The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel”) on next week’s episode along with episode 4. This week we present our season 5 interviews starting with Tony’s chat with T’lyn voice actress Gabrielle Ruiz focusing on this week’s latest episode. The former Broadway and Crazy Ex Girlfriend star talks about taking on the role of a Vulcan and how “The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel” was a perfect fit for her. Up next is Tony participating in a NYCC remote roundtable interview with other media outlets with Lower Decks voice actors Tawny Newsome (Mariner), Jack Quaid (Boimler), Noël Wells (Tendi), and Eugene Cordero (Rutherford). The cast talks about season 5, emphasizing how much they don’t see it as the end of the stories for their characters. The pod wraps up with Laurie in a  roundtable interview with series creator/showrunner Mike McMahan, conducted in the press room at NYCC, so apologies for the background noise. Mike breaks down how he approached season 5 differently, dropping some hints on what we can expect for the rest of the season. Tony and Laurie will be back next week on November 8th to review Lower Decks season 5, episode 3 (“The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel”) and episode 4.  

Anthony and Laurie have two new episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks to review! Season 5 has finally begun with “Dos Cerritos” and “Shades of Green.” Before they can do that, they talk through all the news from the panels and our interviews at New York Comic Con about the streaming Section 31 movie, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Strange New Worlds season 3, and Lower Decks. They wrap up with a way to have a Star Trek experience on the Enterprise-D bridge built for Picard season 3 and LeVar Burton’s latest and much-deserved honor at the White House.

It’s the 200th episode of All Access Star Trek, so Anthony and Laurie asked Star Trek: The Next Generation legend Jonathan Frakes to come by and talk about Next Gen, Picard, directing Trek films and TV past and present, his early career, and a whole lot more. The chat spans his career from auditioning for Welcome Back Kotter through to his latest directing gigs, including for upcoming Star Trek shows and more. We also asked him if he thinks he will ever play William Riker again.

Thanks for sending in your questions! Anthony and Laurie asked Star Trek: Prodigy co-executive producer Aaron Waltke our listeners’ burning questions and squeezed in some of our own. He talked about time travel, Gwyn’s hair, convincing Star Trek actors to join the cast (and the ones who passed), connecting the show to the others in the Star Trek Universe, the show’s performance on Netflix, and much more. The podcasters wrapped things up after Aaron left by sharing Seth Meyers’ speculation on the redacted Star Trek comments in the January 6th court filing, Kate Mulgrew’s play in NYC, and Laurie’s upcoming appearance at Parthenon Books in Syracuse, NY, to promote her Gilmore Girls book.

Anthony and Laurie haven’t talked about Star Trek news in a while, so this week is a big news roundup. They talk about the plans for the Star Trek Universe panel at New York Comic-Con, a Strange New Worlds production update, the new Lower Decks clip, and the arrival of the show’s season 4 on YouTube & Pluto. They discuss comments from Michael Dorn about being offered a role on Discovery and why he said “yes” to Picard,  Zachary Quinto’s thoughts on playing Spock again, James McAvoy’s revelation that he was offered a role in a J.J. Abrams Trek movie, and Scott Bakula’s opinion on the wo sides of Star Trek fandom. They round up the recent political efforts by Star Trek celebs and dig into some of the details from Laurie’s interview with Jonathan Del Arco. They lament the end of Star Trek Explorer magazine and sing the praises of Nana Visitor’s new book. The podcasters wrap up with Star Trek references in The Simpsons season premiere, a redacted section from a Jan. 6th court filing, and a Beverly Crusher cocktail.

Listen to the full audio of Laurie’s interview with Jonathan Del Arco who played the Borg Hugh on Star Trek: The Next Generation and returned for Star Trek: Picard. They start off talking about the Vote Save America fundraiser and live show in support of the Harris/Walz campaign and then pivots to a frank discussion about his time with Star Trek including revealing some new things about the development of ‘Picard.’ Fore more on Trek The Vote visit votesaveamerica.com/trek.

This week, listen to our full interviews with Star Trek: Discovery‘s Doug Jones (Saru), Elias Toufexis (L’ak), and Wilson Cruz (Dr. Hugh Culber) talking about the fifth and final season of the series, now available on DVD and Blu-ray.

Anthony and Laurie start with the news that the Skydance/Paramount merger is moving forward. They share the sad news that Deep Space Nine‘s James Darren has died and talk about his eclectic career, then shift to discuss the plans for Star Trek Day this year, which are are all about charity campaigns. Production has begun on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, actor Sam Richardson drops a tidbit about his role on Section 31, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez namedrops Janeway (and gets thanked by Kate Mulgrew), Nicholas Meyer talks The Wrath of Khan ad Elias Toufexis talks L’ak on Star Trek: Discovery.  [25:07] Then they get into this week’s interview, where writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe talks about his original pitch (at TNG) for DS9‘s “Past Tense,” the inspiration for the Bell Riots and the society they took place in, the shot they couldn’t get, the current Star Trek shows, and more. [1:22:25] They wrap up with Gene Roddenberry doing Star Trek cosplaying in 1966 and memories of Leonard Nimoy from Tom Selleck and Ted Danson.

One year ago last August, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds made history with “Subspace Rhapsody,” the franchise’s first musical episode. To celebrate the milestone Anthony and Laurie are joined by musicians Tom Polce and Kay Hanley, who wrote all the songs for the episode (and Laurie can hardly contain herself). They talk about what the songwriters were asked to do, how it changed along the way, and get into the details on each of the individual songs. Kay and Tom also talk about working with the actors, squeezing technobabble into song lyrics, and play a bit of an early demo. They answer burning questions like “Is Akiva serious when he says he wants to bring ‘Subspace Rhapsody’ to Broadway?” and “Who was the most nervous about doing a musical episode?”