Star Trek Luminaries Including Patrick Stewart And Scott Bakula Assemble For Franchise Peabody Award

On Sunday night, a mix of stars and producers of Star Trek gathered for the Peabody Awards, where the franchise was being honored this year by the prestigious institution.

Peabody Trek

The 2024 Peabody Awards ceremony was held Sunday night, June 9, at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, where Star Trek was presented with the Institutional Award, an honor which has previously been given to other groundbreaking media institutions like The Simpsons, 60 Minutes, Sesame Street, FRONTLINE, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

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A number of Star Trek stars (past, present, and future) were on hand for the event, including Scott Bakula (Enterprise) Patrick Stewart (TNG, Picard), Jeri Ryan (Voyager, Picard), LeVar Burton (TNG, Picard), Tawny Newsome (Lower Decks), Anson Mount (Strange New Worlds), Ethan Peck (Strange New Worlds), Rebecca Romijn (Strange New Worlds), Wilson Cruz (Discovery), Doug Jones (Discovery), and Sam Richardson (Section 31). Also on hand were a number of producers, including J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, Terry Matalas, Olatunde Osunsanmi, Akiva Goldsman, Jenny Lumet, Michelle Paradise, Noga Landau, and Trevor Roth.

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The Institutional Award was the final presentation of the night, where many of the above accepted the award on stage after Abrams introduced the award and Alex Kurtzman, who oversees the Star Trek television franchise for Paramount, accepted the award on behalf of the franchise. Kurtzman spoke in part  of Star Trek creator Gene Roddberry’s enduring vision of “hope that our better angels will lead us across the frontiers of space and ourselves with modesty, dignity and respect” and the conviction that “we are all made of the same stardust.”

You can see parts of Abrams and Kurtzman speaking below…

During the event host Kumail Nanjiani went into the audience to hear from Sir Patrick Stewart at one of the Star Trek tables. The actor spoke about how honored he felt being there, “unlike any award ceremony I have ever imagined.” You can watch his comments below …

In a nod to fans, Paramount invited Bjo Trimble to the event. She, along with her recently passed husband John Trimble, were instrumental in the campaign to save the original Star Trek from cancellation. Trimble joined Kurzman and the award for a special portrait as well (see below).

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More photos

Here are more photos from the Peabody Awards show (via Getty images).

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And here are more official portraits (also via Getty).

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Official Peabody Award announcement

In case you missed it, here is the original release from the Peabody Awards from May on why Star Trek was being bestowed with the Institutional Award this year.

Here is the full text of the announcement for Star Trek:

The Institutional Award – Star Trek

The original Star Trek television series aired on NBC for only three seasons, from September 1966 to June 1969. It was fresh, prescient, and so ahead of its time that it couldn’t quite capture the mainstream audience required for hits during a particularly insipid time in television. But fast forward nearly 60 years, and creator Gene Roddenberry’s vision is alive and well, having spawned a media franchise of 13 feature films, 11 television series, and numerous books and comics, with a legendary fan following. Today Star Trek is more vibrant, imaginative, funny, entertaining, and progressive than ever. And these days, we’ve got the special effects to make it look stellar.

The original science-fiction series was set aboard a starship, Enterprise, whose mostly human crew encountered alien life as they traversed the stars, led by the iconic Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner). It was groundbreaking for its diverse cast and for its unapologetically progressive values—exploration over colonialism, cooperation over violence. Its fandom grew over time, and the successors to the original series have updated the franchise without losing its moral core—the dream of a future free from human destruction, poverty, and bigotry. Subsequent captains have served as models of ethical and diverse leadership: The Next Generation’s Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), Deep Space Nine’s Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), and Voyager’s Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) among them.

With every passing decade, new versions have proliferated, attracting new generations of fans. Film reboots directed by J.J. Abrams and Justin Lin revived Kirk and his crew with new, young actors, zippier dialogue, and vastly improved effects in the 2000s and 2010s. The Streaming Era has brought a raft of reimaginings with a variety of sensibilities, from the dark and complicated Star Trek: Discovery to the crowd-pleasing prequel Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (featuring a young Spock!) to the hilariously meta cartoon Star Trek: Lower Decks. As the latest versions of Star Trek invite in a new generation of viewers, the interstellar travelers still encounter danger and difficulty, of course. But the Starfleet crew always comes out on top— and without sacrificing essential values that seem quintessentially human: valor, self-sacrifice, curiosity, compassion, broadmindedness.

“From a groundbreaking television series to an expansive collection of films, novels, comic books and so much more, Star Trek has been delivering joy, wonder, and thought-provoking stories since the 1960s,” said Jones. “With powerful anti-war and anti-discrimination messages, it has blazed trails for all science fiction franchises while winning over passionate fans across the globe. We’re proud to honor Star Trek with Peabody’s Institutional Award.”

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