The second and, alas, last season of the animated series Prodigy is a breathtaking document of the Trek establishment's mixed-up priorities. This show should have been the one that kept going for years and years. It is, in my opinion, the best recent Star Trek series – my dad, who's been a Trekkie since the original series first aired, is of the same opinion. And it's definitely, hands down, the best animated Trek show ever. But it got canceled after only one season, and Season 2 only exists because it was in post-production at the time and there were contractual commitments, etc., etc. So, at least we got this. It's not perfect, but it's darn close.
The show continues the adventures of a group of misfit kids who, in Season 1, escaped from a slave planet on board a time-displaced Starfleet ship that they found deep in the mines. You may recall how they ended up becoming Starfleet cadets after saving the Federation from a disaster partly of their inadvertent making. Now we find cocky would-be captain Dal, science genius Rok Tahk, "percussive maintenance" specialist Jankom Pog, noncorporeal alien in a mechanical suit Zero and indestructible, verbally incomprehensible but increasingly anthropomorphic blob Murf joining a mission on Admiral Janeway's crew on a souped-up Starship Voyager, on a secret mission to find the missing Chakotay, while Gwyn tries to convince her people, the xenophobic Vau N'Akat of the planet Solum, to be open to first contact with aliens.
Naturally, everything goes disastrously wrong. In the season's two-part premiere, "Into the Breach," the meddling cadets prematurely take a ship through a time wormhole, inserting themselves into the wrong page of history. And though Gwyn connects with a kinder, gentler version of her Diviner dad, named Ilthuran, she faces a relentless enemy in the treacherous Ascentia, who is willing to mess with the fabric of reality to achieve her fanatic aims.
The season continues with "Who Saves the Saviors," in which Gwyn faces Ascencia in a ritual contest while the other cadets meet Chakotay in the Diviner's jail, inadvertently letting him escape in the Protostar in a way that disrupts the whole timeline and threatens Gwyn's very existence. "Temporal Mechanics 101" is about the cadets' efforts to rescue Gwyn, turning their ship into a time machine and taking her back to the Voyager. "Observer's Paradox" finds the kids struggling to understand mysterious messages telling them to stay together and "find me." In "Imposter Syndrome," they create holographic copies of themselves to cover for them while they sneak off on another ill-advised mission. Hilarity ensues. In "The Fast and the Curious," the kids are taken captive by a sentient computer that forces them to compete in a dangerous race, an encounter that leads to Zero's containment suit being disabled.
"Is There in Beauty No Truth?" introduces a planet of Medusans (Zero's people) who have found a way to assume bodily form. They offer Zero a chance to experience physical senses, but the gift comes with strings attached – like, his body will die if he ever leaves the planet. In the two-part episode "The Devourer of All Things," the kids learn that the sender of those mysterious messages was spacetime Traveler Wesley Crusher, and that their entire reality is threatened by terrifying monsters called the Loom who devour anything displaced in time. In another two-parter called "Last Flight of the Protostar," the kids find Chakotay marooned on a very strange planet with the Protostar, minus its warp core, and they work out a way to get it flying again.
"A Tribble Called Quest" finds the kids looking for a warp core ingredient on a planet infested with giant, carnivorous tribbles. In "Cracked Mirror," they find their way back to the Voyager, only to find it split between multiple, alternate timelines – including a Mirror Universe where Janeway and Chakotay are evil. In the two-parter "Ascension," Ascencia attacks Protostar and Voyager and is revealed to be holding Wesley captive, torturing temporal technology out of him to prepare a final attack on Starfleet. "Brink" is about a rescue mission to save both Wes and Ilthuran from Ascencia's clutches. "Touch of Grey" finds the kids threatened by a Loom that Ascencia has captured and enslaved. And the two-part episode "Ouroboros" ends the season, and the series, with the climactic struggle between Ascencia and everybody else, always with the Loom threatening to erase their entire reality.
That's super-oversimplified, but I highly recommend watching the whole season. There are frustrating bits where the characters, particularly Dal, seem to be letting you down, but bear in mind that in a half-hour episode format, all this is part of a larger, serialized story and the characters show real growth. Cast members include everybody from Season 1, plus (increasingly) Robert Beltran returning as Chakotay, Robert Picardo as the Doctor (from Voyager), Jason Alexander and Daveed Diggs as Janeway's bridge officers, Michaela Dietz as Vulcan cadet Maj'el, Ronny Cox as Admiral Jellico (reprising his Next Generation role), Gates McFadden as Beverly Crusher, Billy Campbell as one-time TNG character Okona, Eric Menyuk as two-time TNG guest The Traveler, and real-life science educator Erin Macdonald as a holographic version of herself.
It's tragic, I say, that this show didn't get the recognition it deserved as the strongest of the past decade's crop of Trek series, and that it couldn't go on longer. The characters' growth and chemistry together is lovely to witness. The dialogue is good. The stories are excellent. It's top-quality science fiction, structured for a Nickelodeon, kids' network audience but, perhaps as a consequence of that, highly satisfying for viewers of all ages. It's full of the optimism for the future that glows through the classic era of Trek, from the original series through Enterprise, and it makes good use of legacy characters without taking away from the hero kids' role in the forefront of the cast.
It has terrifying monsters, fiendish villains, rogues, creepy-crawlies and breathtaking, alien vistas. The Loom! The eels and leviathans on that sand planet with the vapor seas! Those bitey tribbles! That good-for-nothing Okona! That sentient computer with its deadly race course! Not to mention the Kazon and of course, Ascencia. It has characters who come to a tragic end, characters who suffer unimaginable agony, characters seen at their worst (such as the Bizarro versions of Janeway and Chakotay) ... but it also has people of all colors (including purple), sexes (including none) and body shapes (including none) aspiring to make the universe a better place for everybody. It's funny. It's a bit mind-bending, with all that temporal mechanics stuff. And it's a thrill ride from start to finish.
To put a point on it, here are Three Things That Made It For Me: (1) Putting life back into Chakotay after he's spent years marooned on an eel-infested sandbar. (2) Zero's heartbreaking taste of corporeal existence and what it costs him to sacrifice it for his friends. (3) Hard as it may be to believe, Wesley Crusher's role, suggesting some pretty interesting adventures he must have had since becoming one of those nearly omnipotent Travelers. Once again, this two-season series has my full endorsement.
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