Prodigy
When we hit Lower Decks in the chronological binge, we’re also reaching the endgame. Lower Decks leads directly into Prodigy, and the Short Trek “The Children of Mars,” which invokes bad memories of 9/11, overlaps Prodigy‘s second-season finale, placing it in 2385. The Kelvin movies are next. Despite going all the way back to Kirk’s birth and ending just shy of TOS‘s beginnings, the events are a direct consequence of the events of Nemesis, Lower Decks, and especially Prodigy and “The Children of Mars.” So let’s dig in.
Like Discovery before it, Prodigy tries to be a different kind of Trek. Whereas Lower Decks is a twist on the usual crew and ship told from the lower deckers’ point of view, Prodigy doesn’t even start out on its featured ship, the Protostar. One of the main cast is a villain for the first few episodes. Oh, and the crew is a bunch of kids who steal the Protostar, accidentally activate Hologram Janeway (providing a much-welcome return for Kate Mulgrew and opening the door for this to be an informal continuation of Voyager), and decide this Federation thing over in the Alpha Quadrant sounds pretty cool.
Only, why is the Protostar in the Delta Quadrant? They don’t care. The kids of various species just want to get away from a slave master known as the Diviner. The Diviner is from fifty years in the future, after first contact with the Federation plunged his xenophobic species into a devastating civil war. So he’s sabotaged the Protostar with a device that will cause Starfleet vessels to fire on each other and destroy the Federation from within.
Of course, our kids and Janeway’s hologram don’t know that. In fact, Hologram Janeway believes the kids are really cadets assigned to learn by running the Protostar. Like the Doctor, she’s very much her own person, almost the real Janeway, but not quite. When they reach the Alpha Quadrant using the Protostar‘s rather fast drive, they find out they are fugitives. Vice Admiral Janeway is looking for Chakotay, who was lost with the ship in the Delta Quadrant. Only in the end do they manage to convince the real Janeway of their predicament. And it’s Gwyndala, daughter of the season’s main antagonist the Diviner, who hits on asking the Klingons and the Ferengi for help. The Gorn and Tholians chip in because, hey, who needs another Dominion War in this quadrant. The Protostar ends up destroyed, and our heroes join Starfleet Academy under the real Janeway’s tutelage.
Season 2 is like The Godfather, Part II, where the sequel is better than the original. The kids are brought aboard the new USS Voyager (the original turned into a museum during a hilarious episode of Lower Decks, which further confuses the Tuvix conundrum. ‘Cuz, of course, nothing is that simple aboard the Cerritos.) The show is equal parts new Prodigy story arc and continuation of Voyager, with the Doctor and Chakotay returning as part of the cast, along with a surprise stand-in for Doctor Who–Wesley Crusher. Yes, we not only get to see Wesley in action as a Traveler, but his actions and personality make Wil Wheaton an excellent candidate for an American Doctor (though my vote still goes for Bruce Campbell. I mean, Bruce Campbell. It’d be like bringing back Capaldi with a Midwestern accent. I digress.)
Prodigy was originally a Nickelodeon show, which screams “kids’ show!” That may explain the low ratings on Paramount+ and its sudden cancellation. The move to Netflix (which should host future Trek should Paramount+ disappear.) reveals Prodigy is aimed at kids, but it doesn’t skimp on the adult darkness. People die. Janeway and Chakotay are an obvious couple without hitting us over the head. Wheaton is absolutely brilliant as an older Crusher juggling all this wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. Even Ronny Cox’s Jellico gets a few edges softened. He’s a hard-ass because he sees it as part of the job. (And now I wish he were fleet admiral in part of Picard. The man is obviously unhappy with Starfleet rolling back its exploratory mission.) And Season 2 brings us the return of the Doctor. Robert Picardo is equal parts comic relief, wise sage (esp. to Admiral Janeway), and the show’s resident “Spock” character.
And the Voyager-A is gorgeous! A variation on the Sovereign-class, she has the same clean lines. Her crew, Janeway’s Andorian XO Tysess could lead a Trek series of his own. And Jason Alexander shines as Janeway’s Tellarite CMO (Season 1) and Counselor (Season 2) Noum, who elevates sarcasm to an art form.
But the main cast succeeds where Discovery needed work. Dal R’El (Brett Gray) is the series’ protagonist, a street kid convinced he can get by on his wits, even after joining Starfleet. He is tempered by antagonist/foil/eventual best friend, Gwyndala, who slowly realizes her father is mad with revenge. The brains of the group is Zero (Angus Imrie), a Medusan contained in a spherical mech. They live in terror of someone seeing their true form as Medusan’s true appearance will drive most insane. Rock (Rylee Alazraqui), a giant…Well, she looks like a rock creature, is the group’s science nerd. She communicates in death metal-like grunts, but the translator renders her sounding like an eight-year-old girl. She is the soul sister of Lower Decks‘ Tendi. Then there is Jankom Pog (Jason Mantzoukas), a diminuitive Tellarite who refers to himself constantly in third person. Despite his extreme youth, Jankom is a mechanical genius who drools over every new gadget or system he runs across. A refugee from a sleeper ship, he learns Tellarites helped create the Federation. So he spends most of Season 1 believing he is royalty. (The Academy disabuses him of that and introduces him to the sonic showers.)
But the real arc through all over this is The Diviner/Ilthuran. When he meet him, he is from the future, angry and ruthless, believing his world, Solum was destroyed by Federation first contact. He has a partner hiding out on Janeway’s first ship, the Dauntless. Her name is Acensia, and she poses as a Bajoran officer until a Medusan-addled Diviner is rescued by the Dauntless. He created Gwyndala (“my progeny”) to carry on his mission as he is getting old. Janeway’s kindness convinces him to soften his stance, but Acensia, like any good nationalist, kills him for being too weak.
As Janeway and the crew attempt to save Chakotay (Robert Beltran) in Season 2, we meet a younger Diviner, only he is a soft-spoken, alien-seeking astronomer named Ilthuran. Gwyndala tells him the truth, and his villainous self horrifies him. He will actively assist the kids, Janeway, and eventually, Wesley Crusher. Acensia, however, is hell-bent on keeping the timeline that destroys Solum intact as it will allow her to strike back at the Federation. Acensia is the one sour note in this series. She’s a one-note wonder, constantly snarling with no redeeming qualities.
But the arc this season is Dal’s. Convinced he’s the captain, he meets Chakotay and slowly learns he’s not even ready, despite beating the Kobayashi Maru test (before wrecking the simulation.) At the end, the kids are given a new Protostar-class ship, the Prodigy, where Dal informs Gwyndala she’s the captain. He is better suited to be her Number One.
The cast of Prodigy shines, making this ragtag group as familiar as Kirk’s, Picard’s, Sisko’s, or Janeway’s crew. Netflix has proven to be a better home for this show as it’s more tightly wedded to a long story arc, better for binging than, say, Strange New Worlds or any of the legacy Treks. But kudos must be given to Prodigy for giving Beltran, Wheaton, and even Ronny Cox more to do. Chakotay has more meat to his role, and you can hear in Beltran’s voice that he’s sunk his teeth into it. Wheaton, who wrote a bunch of Doctor Who-like stories since TNG just to get a handle on Wesley, has recreated the character as an unofficial Time Lord for Trek. And Jellico returns as his usual snarling, by-the-book self, but as time goes by, you can tell even Jellico is tired of playing the part. When a retired Janway is recalled to duty, he is almost apologetic when he informs her Starfleet is cutting back on its exploratory efforts after the synth uprising destroys Mars. One suspects he brought Janeway back because she would (and does) fight the decision. Jellico is of Picard’s generation, and it’s pretty clear he’s just as unhappy with Starfleet’s sudden timidity as Picard was when he resigned.
Paramount
“The Children of Mars”
This Short Trek was meant to be a teaser for Picard, which starts fourteen years later. Two school girls on Earth, Kima and Lil, are introduced at the beginning, both with parents working on the Romulan evacuation effort on Mars. A slow, sad version of “We Could Be Heroes” plays almost like a hymn as we watch one of the girls bumps the other, making her late. She retaliates by starting a prank war that escalates over the course of a day into a fist fight. Separated and waiting for their schoolmaster, punishment is prevented when the schoolmaster, a Vulcan, loses his cool as he looks at a PADD. Something bad has just happened, and we’re treated to news scenes of Mars on fire, explosions on the surface. It ends with the two stunned girls staring at the news. They hold hands as they watch, realizing they’ve both lost at least one parent.
It’s a 9/11 sucker punch that sets up a Starfleet many of us don’t like. (Despite Shelby’s grandstanding in Picard Season 3, the disastrous Founders Day display is meant to show the Federation that Starfleet is back. And it sort of is, just not the way they expected. That’s a good thing if they ever green-light Legacy.)