Warning: This Interview Contains SPOILERS For Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2

Robert Picardo returns as The Doctor in Star Trek: Prodigy season 2. The holographic Chief Medical Officer of the USS Voyager-A once again joins Admiral Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) on a new mission to rescue Captain Chakotay (Robert Beltran) and save the galaxy.

The Doctor’s comeback over 20 years after Star Trek: Voyager ended was one of Star Trek: Prodigy season 2’s biggest draws when the animated series jumped to Netflix, its new streaming home. In Star Trek: Prodigy season 2, The Doctor takes a holographic hand in mentoring the young Starfleet hopefuls of the USS Protostar. In addition, The Doctor delivers delightful comic relief as the proud author of several romantic holo-novels.

Screen Rant had the pleasure of chatting with Robert Picardo about The Doctor’s evolution in Star Trek: Prodigy season 2, why Netflix should greenlight Star Trek: Prodigy season 3, and the possibility of a Star Trek: Voyager live-action reunion movie.

Star Trek: Prodigy Revealed The Doctor’s Season 2 Return At Star Trek Las Vegas 2023

Screen Rant: Last year’s Star Trek Las Vegas was the weird con where we weren’t allowed to say Star Trek [because of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes]. Except for Star Trek: Prodigy. The producers brought in four minutes of season 2 footage and your big return as The Doctor was the biggest news of the day.

Robert Picardo: Well, of course, there’s a different contract for animation. The reason I couldn’t personally participate, because I would love to have been on the panel, was in observation of the strike’s rules. So the reason they could do it is because animation, I believe non-prime time animation, meaning animation for Nickelodeon and all that, they were not violating the strike protocols, the Hagermans, the writers, or anybody there. I just couldn’t join in.

But I was obviously delighted to hear that the cat would be out of the bag. It certainly took a long time. Other than seeing me in the trailer, you had to wait from early August of 2023 to July of 2024 to finally have the episodes aired. Although I heard there was some sort of glitch and they aired in France first earlier this year, for like three or four months. So I was in Europe at a convention, and I talked to a number of people. It was a convention in Germany a couple of months ago. But they had already seen Prodigy, I think, dubbed into French. So anyway, I’m glad the cat is finally out of the bag. With animation. as you know, the lead time is forever. So most of the recording I did two and a half, three years ago.

As you said, 11 months after they announced The Doctor was back, how have you enjoyed the reception to Star Trek: Prodigy season 2?

Robert Picardo: It’s been fun to watch the show. I haven’t seen all of them because they all dropped at once. But the fan response has been very gratifying. I see a lot of stuff on social media, Instagram and Facebook – I’m not a TikTok guy, but Instagram, Facebook, and X – just talking about how fans are personally delighted or little news items from StarTrek.com or Screen Rant, that make mention the fact that the fans are happy to have the character back.

How The Doctor Has Changed 20 Years After Star Trek: Voyager Ended

You played a virtual Doctor for seven years on Voyager. And now you are playing The Doctor virtually Would you say that’s poetic?

Robert Picardo: (laughs) I would say it’s very poetic. Practically, for me, it was just taking my voice, which feels like it’s lowered about an octave since I did Voyager, and trying to capture and trying to pitch it back up to The Doctor’s. Especially when The Doctor was excited. When he was on the track of a solution to a problem, medical or otherwise, he could get quite breathless and high-pace. So I wanted to keep that sense, because as we know, holograms do not age, which is a very admirable quality that I wish I could say I shared.

But The Doctor’s features were a snapshot of the moment Lewis Zimmerman, his programmer, scanned himself on one particular day during the development of the program. And so, that was always the challenge on Voyager. The doctor was supposed to look exactly the same over seven years. I guess in the same way that Data was never supposed to change. But fortunately, the fans have been understanding about how difficult it is to fulfill that particular aspect of playing the character.

When you joined Star Trek: Prodigy, as you said, years ago now, did you give input about where The Doctor is at this point in his life? Or was it already in the scripts?

Robert Picardo: It was basically what was in the script. But I always joked, because we get asked that at conventions – What would The Doctor be doing after Voyager? – that he became a teacher at Starfleet Academy. Now, of course, you have older cadets than the cadet hopefuls in Prodigy, but I’ve always thought that that would be a likely career for him. In addition, of course, to doing guest appearances with the San Francisco Opera on amateur night or something like that. So I think that it made sense. And on Voyager, if you recall, the doctor had a very nice mentoring relationship with Naomi Wildman, who was one of the only young crew members because she was born aboard Voyager.

So I think there were certain hints that The Doctor liked mentoring younger organics. So it just seemed to make sense. I thought it was fun that they picked up a lot of The Doctor’s interest, which was created late in Voyager’s seven-year run, in becoming a holo-novel writer. But that makes sense. Because, you know, first of all, it was great comic fodder the first time he wrote something. The Doctor has a very healthy ego and sense of self-love. So it makes sense that he would become totally absorbed in his newest hobbies. It seems that writing holo-novels was more important to him than singing opera during Prodigy, but that’s probably just as well, because it would have been scary if they had me singing opera. I think.

You did have one of the best lines in the entire season when you said something like, “I’ve been betrayed by my own genius.”

Robert Picardo: I wish I could take credit for that one. But those were the writers. The writers were very nice in letting me, if I had a little joke or ad lib, they let me record it. And I think little bits of them got in, but that jam was definitely theirs.

Robert Picardo’s Take On Janeway and Chakotay’s Romance

What is your take on Chakotay’s romance with Janeway in season 2? As opposed to how Chakotay was with Seven of Nine at the end of Voyager. Because I remember The Doctor had his own interest in Seven at one point.

Robert Picardo: Well, there’s certainly no reference to Seven in Prodigy. But early on in Voyager there were hints. There’s certainly fan hope and expectation that there might be a [Janeway and Chakotay] romance. And there was a lot of discussion, I know back then, with the producers [about] how an audience would accept it back in the 90s. First of all, the audience is accepting their first female Starfleet captain. So I think that it was very tentative and only hinted at the attraction between the two of them, and nothing ever happened.

Now, there’s a different sensibility. If you look at Star Trek Discovery, Michael Burnham is allowed to have a love affair, as in to be a rounded human being and to be an extremely successful female captain. But also to have a relationship, and a complicated one. And so, I think [Janeway and Chakotay] is more hinted at [with] the relationship because… I don’t recall specifically how far that goes in Prodigy. Is it still mostly just flirtation?

Yeah, it’s more unspoken, really. But it’s there.

Robert Picardo: That’s what I thought. First of all, we have a younger audience we’re talking to and we don’t want to represent any fraternization in the workplace. Especially in Starfleet, which is, of course… Would you call it a military organism? They certainly are armed. But of course, Starfleet is as much science and exploration, and its military wing is almost always defensive or assisting another alien culture that asks for help. So I think that the fact that [Janewat and Chakotay] still hinted at [in Prodigy] is completely appropriate. And you have to remember that Chakotay and Seven of Nine getting married was in an alternate reality, a possible future at the end of Voyager. So she could easily have ended up with The Doctor. Although I doubt it. I think we would have heard about it. (laughs)

Robert Picardo Wants Netflix To Greenlight Star Trek: Prodigy Season 3

I understand you didn’t get to record with the other actors because of COVID at the time. That’s something I hope you get to do if Star Trek: Prodigy season 3 happens.

Robert Picardo: I hope so too. I really hope that Netflix… I don’t know how expensive the show is to make. But hopefully, Netflix will take a lesson from my friend Bryan Cranston’s show, Your Honor, which was a modest hit on network TV and then moved over, and it’s become a huge hit on Netflix. There’s an example of a show, like Prodigy, that started elsewhere. They picked it up. And if they recognize [Prodigy’s] potential, I think it should definitely get a season three and hopefully more. But it’ll depend on not only viewership but re-viewership. So I hope that young viewers, once they make it through season two, will go back and watch them all again.

Robert Picardo On A Live-Action Star Trek: Voyager Reunion Movie

What about a live-action Star Trek: Voyager movie? A reunion. Would you want to get the band back together?

Robert Picardo: You know, of course, that would be great. I think it’s unlikely, considering the cost and the lead time for those projects. It’s unlikely, but anything’s possible in the world of Star Trek. And it was so successful with the Next Gen cast and who knows? Maybe we’ll get the shot.

About Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2

In Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2, these six young outcasts who make up the Prodigy crew are assigned a new mission aboard the USS Voyager-A to rescue Captain Chakotay (voiced by Robert Beltran) and bring peace to Gwyn’s (voiced by Ella Purnell) home world. However, when their plan goes astray, it creates a time paradox that jeopardizes both their future and past.