The actor who has immortalized a key character on “Star Trek” is the guest on the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s “Freethought Matters” TV show this Sunday.
Actor, director, writer and producer John de Lancie is best known for portraying Q, beginning in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and continuing to the current “Star Trek: Picard.” He’s appeared in numerous other TV shows, including “Breaking Bad,” “Torchwood” and “West Wing,” and in a number of films. He has performed as a narrator with major symphony orchestras and has directed operas himself. De Lancie is a nonbeliever and humanist, and an “After-Life” member of FFRF who was awarded FFRF’s debut Clarence Darrow Award for helping to dedicate our statue to Clarence Darrow in Dayton, Tenn. In fact, he portrayed Darrow in a long-running production called “Great Tennessee Monkey Trial” opposite Ed Asner (another Clarence Darrow Award winner), who played William Jennings Bryan.
“I just came back from Japan, where I had a very interesting talk with an ambassador for the U.S. State Department who’s a huge ‘Star Trek’ fan, and she teaches the precepts of ‘Star Trek’ as a way to inclusion and for collaboration or for leadership and all that type of stuff,” de Lancie tells “Freethought Matters” co-hosts Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor. “So, it has moved out horizontally into our culture. And a lot of people derive a lot from it, including humanism.”
If you don’t live in the quarter-plus of the nation where the show broadcasts on Sunday, you can watch the interview on FFRF’s YouTube channel. New shows go up every Thursday. You can also receive notifications when we post new episodes of “Freethought Matters” by subscribing to the playlist on FFRF’s YouTube channel.
Upcoming shows will feature the ACLU’s Dan Mach and best-selling award-winning novelist John Irving (The World According to Garp). This fall season already contains must-see interviews with acclaimed thinker Professor Daniel Dennett, Texas iconoclast Jim Hightower (who received FFRF’s 2022 Clarence Darrow Award at its recent convention), leading constitutional abortion rights expert Professor Geoffrey Stone, Professor Anthea Butler and Katherine Stewart, incisive commentators on white Christian nationalism, and atheist Washington Post columnist Kate Cohen.
“Freethought Matters” airs in:
- Chicago, WPWR-CW (Ch. 50), Sundays at 9 a.m.
- Denver, KWGN-CW (Ch. 2), Sundays at 7 a.m.
- Houston, KIAH-CW (Ch. 39), Sundays at 11 a.m.
- Los Angeles, KCOP-MY (Ch. 13), Sundays at 8:30 a.m.
- Madison, Wis., WISC-TV (Ch. 3), Sundays at 11 p.m.
- Minneapolis, WFTC-29, Sundays at 7:30 a.m.
- New York City, WPIX-IND (Ch. 11), Sundays at 8:30 a.m.
- Phoenix, KASW-CW (Ch. 61, or 6 or 1006 for HD), Sundays at 8:30 a.m.
- Portland, Ore., KRCW-CW (Ch. 32), Sundays at 9 a.m. Comcast channel 703 for High Def, or Channel 3.
- Sacramento, KQCA-MY (Ch. 58), Sundays at 8:30 a.m.
- San Francisco, KICU-IND (Ch. 36), Sundays at 10 a.m.
- Seattle, KONG-IND (Ch. 16 or Ch. 106 on Comcast). Sundays at 8 a.m.
- Washington, D.C., WDCW-CW (Ch. 50 or Ch. 23 or Ch. 3), Sundays at 8 a.m.
You can catch interviews from past seasons here, including with Gloria Steinem, Ron Reagan, Julia Sweeney and Reps. Jared Huffman, Jamie Raskin, Hank Johnson and Eleanor Holmes Norton.
Please tune in to “Freethought Matters” . . . because freethought matters.
P.S. Please tune in or record according to the times given above regardless of what is listed in your TV guide (it may be listed simply as “paid programming” or even be misidentified). To set up an automatic weekly recording, try taping manually by time or channel. And spread the word to freethinking friends, family or colleagues about a TV show, finally, that is dedicated to providing programming for freethinkers — your antidote to religion on Sunday morning!
