What a night! Seriously this was an amazing experience both as a fan of Star Trek and as a video producer. Everything went well, our guests were amazing, the community was incredibly generous with their donations! I have nothing but thanks to everyone involved including our amazing co-hosts. And with a total of over $3000 raised for the International Rescue Foundation, I couldn't be more happy with how this all turned out. Now about a recap (with video!) of the night!
Brent Black Interview
For those who don't know our wonderful host Shyaporn is a known TV/Theatre actor, having starred in episodes of The Flight Attendant and the Power III: The Book Of Kanan. He recently got the part of Captain Kirk in a stage production of Khan!! A Star Trek Musical. This is so incredibly fitting for our good friend who is an excellent Kirk impressionist, well impressionist isn't the right word as he can literally embody the character. A few weeks before the show he reached out to the musical director Brent Black (who some of you may know as Brentalfloss from YouTube) to come on and give us a brief interview at the top of the show. Brent was incredibly personable, enthusiastic and an absolute wonder to talk to! His love of Trek and personal experiences producing music is full on show and I cannot wait to see what comes out of the production!
Aaron Waltke/Bonnie Gordon Interview
I've become the fast fan of Star Trek: Prodigy's debut season. So when given the chance to interview some of the cast and crew I couldn't say no! Aaron Waltke is the main producer for the series and honestly, this francise couldn't be in better hands. Effortlessly riffing off deep Star Trek lore from the top of his head and showing how he caringly applied it to the series puts him at the top of my list for people I want to stay in the Trek Universe. Bonnie Gordon is an absolute delight, playing the part of the Computer in Prodigy (and also a Brunali ensign) she brings a great energy to the production. She talks about her new album "Con Artist" (check it out here) and her journey from being a tour guide at the Star Trek: Experience to becoming part of the universe she loves today.
Starship Designers Interview
This one was a personal highlight of mine and an absolute pleasure to talk to these titans of the Starship design world. First up we have Bill Krause, a life long Starship modeler and designer of the USS Titan-A from Star Trek: Picard series 3. His experiences working on the design for the ship and liaising with the Picard production team are brilliant for insights into how the Titan got developed. Sean Tourengeau is the designer of the Luna Class USS Titan, who won the design competition back in 2005 for Pocket Books and whose design got canonised with the Titan's official appearance in Lower Decks. He has a great wealth of detail about how to approach designing ships and his own experiences into incorperating his starships into the main series. Thomas Marrone is the Art Director for Star Trek Online and designer of many amazing Starships, some of which have been incorperated into canon. Honestly Thomas has the best depth of knowledge for anything Starship related, but not just that. He has a deep respect for the process and it shows in the way he describes each facet of the starship design process.
Dixon Hill: The Studio Script Swipe
You know sometimes you just have to have fun. And the Star Trek Adventures series from Modiphius has long been a mainstay of our channel. Similar to last year I asked Stars to produce us a one shot fun segment for this years show and he delivered! Pretending to be rough-and-tumble gangster wannabies in a 1920s world of crime inspired by Captain Picard's favourite adventures is a lot of fun. And as always Shyaporn brings his best costuming accumen to show. Now who loves a Redblock-off, or is that a Roadblock-off? Either way this was hilarious to take part in!
Prose And Khans: Big V Frank
If it pleases the court! Yes another new fun section we debuted for the first time this year made it's way into the charity show. Our debate, what was a singular episode of Star Trek that most defines the genre. Our two contestants Big and Frank brought some original and unexpected answers to the plate. If you like fake courtroom scenes, objections that make no sense and a host who forgot to turn on the right audio channel, then enjoy this great section where the scoring is completely fair and the court is completely equitable.
Trekspertsquiz Challenges Trek Time
Big thanks to the amazing Davey from Trekspertsquiz for coming on, heavily jet lagged and tired, and challenging our team to a definitive quiz to decide who's the biggest Trek fan amongst all us nerds. The final result may surprise you. Featuring Stars as the scorer and Cranky, one of our moderators, also joins us. Check out the Trekspertsquiz here!
Table Readings
No charity show can go by without our amateur production of any Star Trek scene we feel like. We are of course lead by the prolific stage actor Shyaporn who gives us an amazing rendition of Kirk's "Risk Is Our Business" scene. Auto gives his best Picard to chastise Frank's Data in creating life. Speaking of Frank he takes the role of Sybok in helping Shyaporn's McCoy dealing with the pain of his father's passing. And Idol does his best Garak to Auto's Sisko in a recreation of the subliminal In A Pale Moonlight. And many other great scenes, so if you like watching people butcher your favourite moments of Star Trek, watch along, we have fun...promise!
Interview with Ben from WRG
Hey look who's back, it's our favourite Wicked Realm Games producer Ben! Back once again to grace our stream and give an honest talk about some of the events that have happened to Star Trek: Timelines. Plus a look into what's upcoming to the game and as always, what he's been drinking lately. Is that a crushable IPA he's holding, watch to find out!
Star Trek Podcast Roundtable
One idea I had floating about early on in producing the charity show was to have other podcast hosts on talking about what it's like to produce a Star Trek podcast in 2023. We were joined by Julian from Strange New Pod, a Star Trek review and interview series who were kind enough to invite us onto their Captain Picard Week series earlier in the year. Rhianna from The Duras Sisters Podcast, a indepth look at specific topics in the Star Trek Universe including a series on The Holodeck and other concepts. And finally Dan from the It'sGotStarTrek podcast, a personal favourite of mine and goes over some of the production steps they use to make their series. This was a delight to host and I couldn't have asked for better guests.
What The Dub Trek Finale
Another mainstay of our show, What The Dub has been our usual way to chill off after a long night of talking utter rubbish to each other, to then putting that rubbish into productive form in this mad-libs style gameshow. This is always a ton of fun, especially when Chat get involved in the voting. And as per usual we had to put a ban on Klingon two dick jokes and how many varieties of tomato soup can Tom Paris eat. Lots of fun and a fitting finale to the nights antics
So after 10 hours of streaming, we raised over $3000 for the International Rescue Committee which overshadows our previous years quite a bit! It was a stunning night with great guests and a brilliant community who I can't thank enough for their generosity. Now we can start thinking about next year! I'm going to resist the temptation to "Make It Bigger And Better" because that's an easy way to just get incredibly stressed out. But rest assured it will be a fun night for everyone, and I cannot wait!