A big surprise for the Star Trek Universe panel at New York Comic Con earlier this month was the announcement that CBS late night host Stephen Colbert had joined the series, providing his voice for “morning announcements” at the Academy. Last night Starfleet Academy regular Tig Notaro (reprising her Discovery role as Commander Jett Reno) was a guest on CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and their Trek connection came up.
Stephen asks for advice joining Star Trek
Notaro was on Colbert’s show to promote her new documentary film Come See Me in the Good Light about her friend, poet and activist Andrea Gibson. But before that, the pair talked about being Starfleet Academy “co-workers.” They both joked around about not knowing what they are doing, with Notaro admitting she doesn’t understand most of what her engineer character is talking about. Colbert asked for advice, indicating he may not have recorded his dialog yet. You can watch the exchange below
Colbert knows his job…
Notaro ribbed Colbert after some confusion describing his role, saying “you sound like you don’t really know what your job is.” He defended himself saying:
“I know I am the voice, I’m like the voice of the computer on the ship at the Academy… I know what I’m doing.”
At NYCC, Colbert was described as the “Digital Dean of Students.” And the official announcement described his role as “giving daily announcements to the students and alerting them of anything that needs their immediate attention.” So his suggestion that he is playing the voice of the computer on the ship (the USS Athena) could just have been some talk show banter or confusion. But the nature of how the Athena is integrated into the Academy gives other characters dual roles including Holly Hunter as chancellor of the Academy and captain of the USS Athena. And Gina Yeshere plays the ship’s first officer Lura Throk, who is also the “cadet master” of the Academy.
Here is the official announcement video Colbert made for NYCC where he described one of his morning announcements.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy debuts on Thursday, January 15 with a 2-episode premiere. The 10-episode fist season will run exclusively on Paramount+ through March. The second season is currently in production in Canada.
