The first season of Star Trek: Prodigy was a wonderful surprise. The animated kids’ show, which intentionally didn’t feel very much like Star Trek in its premiere, quickly became my favourite entry in the franchise in many years, feeling like a bold step forward while also capturing the essence and core ideals of Trek. I absolutely love that first season. It’s not only the best first season of any Star Trek show since the original series (infamously the shows take a while to get good) but I also think its one of the strongest seasons of the entire franchise. It’s perhaps not a surprise then that the second season felt like a disappointment. Prodigy suffers a sophomore slump, at least in my eyes, but despite the decline in quality, the show still remains the best instalment of modern Star Trek.
The second season commits to the one narrative device I was begging it not to: time travel. I know, I know, the franchise has a long storied history with time travel plots but personally I need a break from them. Time travel is so overdone at this point. Every series has time-breaking wormholes and paradoxes and altered timelines. The fresh take on the storytelling in the first season gave way to more tired and well-trodden ground in the second. The big wormhole portal, with a mysterious message not explained until later in the season, made me think of season 2 of Star Trek: Picard. And I never want to be reminded of that season ever again.
With twenty episodes of time travel chicanery, the plot became too convoluted. Prodigy decided to build atop the narrative of the first season, adding more and more plot to the existing serialised story and that framework struggled to support it all. The first season offered a intricate and complex time travel story (especially for a “kids’ show”, although it’s so much more than that) but the second makes it messier and close to impenetrable. The show knows that it gets complicated, and makes jokes about it, but that doesn’t excuse it. I know certain storylines were set up in the first season but I would have preferred the second to have had a reset and begin a new ongoing story. But alas, I had to constantly consult my copy of Temporal Mechanics 101 throughout the 20 episodes.
Season 2 was also much more heavily serialised. I prefer the standalone feel instead, with most episodes telling their own little story and the ongoing narrative contained to a some scenes throughout and a few two-parters. That was the case for the first season, it nailed the balance I wanted, while the second has few true anthology format episodes. The ones we did get I enjoyed a lot. My favourites were Imposter Syndrome, with the holographic doppelgängers, Is There in Beauty No Truth? with the non-corporeals obtaining physical bodies, and even A Tribble Called Quest was good fun. But even if I struggle to get invested in the plot, Prodigy always keeps me invested in the well-defined characters.
The first season ended in a very different place from where it began, as too did its characters. The show grew over 20 episodes, going from feeling like a generic sci-fi show and evolving into Star Trek as the galaxy opened up and the characters learned what it means to be Starfleet. Both personal growth and increased storytelling scale as the season progressed across the galaxy. The second season doesn’t feel like such a grand odyssey. The time travel conflict with Solum is where the season begins and ends. The story is told in fits and starts and rewinds and returns. The characterisation feels that way too, matching the structure of the season like the first season did. Not exactly long plot and character threads traceable from a beginning to an end, stretching a quadrant, but a Gordian knot tangled in the same confined space.
I like the whole cast but not all the characters got the focus I wanted. Despite beginning the season attempting new outlooks, Rok and Jankom get little to do as the story progresses. I wish Murf continued evolving but he’s fairly stagnant other than the one episode he enters the whale pool. Jankom attempting to act more proper while in Starfleet is good fun but he soon comes to simply aid Zero’s story rather than have one of his own. But if there is a crowning character arc it is Zero and I loved the journey they went on in season 2. Zero tired of his physical limitations as a non-corporeal entity, getting a body and experiencing the joys and horrors that can bring, and ending up with the best of both worlds is a great arc. I also liked the addition of Maj’el. Vulcan storytelling in the franchise is becoming exhausted and mishandled in my opinion but she was great and a teenage Vulcan feels like a fresh take. Dal gets a decent humbling arc but it didn’t land as strongly as I wanted, but Gwyn is fantastic and a character with real stakes and drama.
But the season’s crowning glory is managing to make me like Wesley Crusher. In that respect, Prodigy achieved the impossible. The much-despised character from The Next Generation had a surprise recurring role. I’m still not a fan of Wil Wheaton’s performance but the character is a huge improvement and reinvention. As a Traveller, the writers essentially make him the Star Trek version of the Doctor from Doctor Who. He’s knowledgeable yet abstract and aloof in a way that manages to be mostly charming. And I also like his growth throughout the season, having to embrace his humanity (and literally his mother) again in the final episodes. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I hope we see more Wesley Crusher in the future.
Chakotay is also much improved and becomes essentially a series regular after his brief cameo in the first season. I prefer him here than in Voyager, where he’s a fairly lame character who doesn’t live up his potential. Even more than the first, the second season of Prodigy embraces becoming a sequel to Star Trek: Voyager. I don’t particularly care for that show yet Prodigy works for me, fixing some of the characterisation woes of that series. Chakotay is now more likable and headstrong, and Janeway feels more consistent. After beginning very detached, Prodigy now fits effortlessly into the Star Trek timeline. The writers have to be praised for integrating it so well and naturally: no cameo or reference feels forced, it’s simply part of the greater tapestry.
Yet as well as other Star Trek shows, Prodigy’s second season also borrows from other franchises, perhaps a little too blatantly. This season wears its influences on its sleeve more so than the first. Not only is Wesley Crusher like the Doctor but the villainous Loom also feel very Doctor Who, resembling the Reapers from that show. The discussion of them pruning rogue timelines also reminded me of Loki. And, of course, the show is essentially Star Trek’s answer to the animated Star Wars shows, and that influence was felt more than ever. The great two-parter Last Flight of the Protostar not only had Chakotay delivering his best Luke in The Last Jedi impression but the whole set-up was similar to the Rebels episodes with Rex on the old AT-TE in the desert, fishing for worms. But despite the many influences, Prodigy maintains the Star Trek mindset. The messaging, themes, and core tenets remain.
It feels unfair to judge some aspects of Prodigy season 2. It’s an expansive season, building off the first, setting out the show as it means to go on, but the show’s been cancelled and now it’s the final season. What was merely the next step has become the final step. The last two episodes of the season are strong and, after my interest waning before then, it struck me how much I’ll miss this show while watching them. It may be a weaker second outing but it’s still a watchable, enjoyable season of a Star Trek show, better than other modern efforts.
In the finale Wesley offers a tease for the future: “Things yet to come. Wonderous and terrible things. But you’ll have to wait and see.” Now we never will see them. I don’t think Prodigy will get picked up for a third season by another network or service. I think it’s remarkable that the second was even released considering the dire circumstances of the streaming model.
With the long, convoluted time travel story finally over (hopefully) I would have loved a third season with a new ongoing story, continuing the adventures of these wonderful characters. They could have been the light in a dark period for Starfleet after the Mars attack, in an almost meta way as the show itself is a light in the franchise’s dark period. Yet I liked the ending as a series finale well enough, it still managed to make the point that the third season would have explored further. Prodigy was new and fresh yet also a revival of the Star Trek spirit when the other shows have struggled with it, and even a weaker second season still shone brightly.
