Star Trek: Prodigy
Entry updated 14 August 2023. Tagged: TV.
US animated tv series (2021-current). Brothers Hageman Productions, CBS Eye Animation Productions, Nickelodeon Animation Studio, Roddenberry Entertainment, Secret Hideout. Created by Kevin and Dan Hageman, based on Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry. Directors include Steve Ahn, Ben Hibon and Sung Shin. Writers include Julie Benson, Shawna Benson, Lisa Schultz Boyd, Dan Hageman, Kevin Hageman, Nikhil S Jayaram, Diandra Pendleton-Thompson, Chad Quandt and Aaron Waltke. Voice cast includes Rylee Alazraqui, Dee Bradley Baker, Brett Gray, Angus Imrie, Jason Mantzoukas, John Noble, Kate Mulgrew and Ella Purnell. Twenty 23-minute episodes. Colour.
In 2383, six youngsters flee the Tars Lamora Labor Camp in the Federation Starship they found buried in its mines. Fortunately, the ship's AI hologram of Captain Janeway (Mulgrew) was designed as a training adviser for cadets and teaches them how to fly the USS Protostar; unfortunately, they discover the ship is designed to infect Starfleet technology, so their plan to claim asylum in the Federation turns into trying to avoid any contact whatsoever with them. Because the real, now Vice Admiral, Janeway (Mulgrew) is pursuing them this proves difficult; and though an Identity Exchange eventually enables them to explain the situation to her, someone on her ship has their own plans.
Four of the youngsters had been slaves (see Slavery) at the camp: Dal R'El (Gray), 17, an augmented human hybrid blended with 26 Alien species (see Genetic Engineering); Jankom Pog (Mantzoukas), 16, a cheerfully contrary Tellarite engineer; Zero (Imrie), an incorporeal, genderless Medusan who is housed in a Robot body because their appearance causes insanity; and Rok-Tahk (Alazraqui), a large and formidable looking Brikar, but actually aged 8, and fascinated by science. Her pet, Murf (Baker), is an indestructible Mellanoid slime worm that is its species' larval stage: later they become more humanoid. The sixth crew member is Gwyn (Purnell), daughter of The Diviner (Noble).
Further into the future the inhabitants of the planet Solum thought themselves the only intelligent life in the universe, until the Federation made First Contact. Conflicting responses to this resulted in a civil War that destroyed their civilization, with the Federation following its policy of non-interference. The survivors decide to save their world by destroying the Federation before they made contact; a temporal anomaly conveniently provided them with the USS Protostar, on which they loaded their Weapon – a virus to infect Starfleet Computers – but its original crew managed to return it to the present before the Solum crew could board it. Solum sent many agents, including The Diviner, into their past (see Time Travel) to locate it and enact their plan. When given the apparent choice between saving the USS Protostar or his daughter, he feels bound to choose the former, resulting in Gwyn siding with Dal and friends.
At the end of season another Solum agent – aboard Vice Admiral Janeway's ship – succeeds in broadcasting the USS Protostar's virus, wreaking havoc on Starfleet's nearby vessels, but it is stopped by Dal and friends blowing up the USS Protostar through the sacrifice of the Captain Janeway hologram. At the close, Gwyn will journey to Solum to be the one telling them of the wider Universe and so hopefully avoid civil war; the others will join Vice Admiral Janeway in seeking her friend, the original captain of the USS Protostar. An exciting, enjoyable show whose 3D animation provides suitably large scale science fiction settings and effects, Star Trek: Prodigy is intended to attract a younger audience to the franchise – ironically, Captain Janeway's extolling of Starfleet and the Federation's virtues is a little reminiscent of cultist propaganda. [SP]
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