I Just Watched Prodigy...

[Albertese]

I liked it!

It was tough to get in to. I tried to watch it when it first came out, but something about it wore on me. I'm in my 40s and I have a son who likes sci-fi animation aimed at kids, so I was used to the often frantic pace and video-gamey design on current shows in the genre. But at first it just felt a bit to kidsy for Star Trek, to my taste anyhow. And the frequent ads that played (at much higher volume) aimed at kids were just too much for my old man brain to handle and I bailed out after a few episodes.

Recently Steve Shives did a YouTube review of the show which made it sound interesting and I noticed it was on Netlix now so I could watch it ad-free. So I gave it another shot.

Wow!

While some of the stories were snoozers that I won't remember (par for the course on any Trek show) there was a lot to enjoy here. The young main cast were all interesting and compelling characters, and the returning Legacy characters were all beautifully handed. I enjoyed the Chakotay story and honestly like Janeway better in this show than I ever did in classic Voyager. And Wesley Crusher: Traveler is tremendous fun.

I hope this show gets a season 3 and I hope they keep Beltran and Wheaton as regular cast members.

Much of this show felt like Trek's answer to Doctor Who and I mean that in a good way. I hope future stories lean into the ideas set up regarding Wesley as a Traveler keeping tabs on the timelines and maybe learning more about the Supervisors. Let's have this show explore timelines and parallel universes! Timeline of the week instead of world of the week. What a great series format that would be.

Here's hoping for more!

--Alex

 

[NCC-73515]

There's a big spoiler in your post

 

[The Old Mixer]

Technically, the spoiler rules only apply in the show's forum for two weeks after release.

 

[Albertese]

There's a big spoiler in your post

Sorry, I don't know how to use spoiler tag. I tried to keep things vague enough to not give much away but post why I found the show interesting.

--Alex

 

[AntonyF]

Technically, the spoiler rules only apply in the show's forum for two weeks after release.

TWO WEEKS?

 

[The Old Mixer]

Know ye these, the hallowed rules of Trek BBS!

The Trek BBS-wide rules can be found here: https://www.trekbbs.com/rules/ _______ Star Trek: Prodigy forum spoiler policy For the purposes of discussing Star Trek: Prodigy in this forum, the spoiler threshold will be reduced to two weeks. That means that plot details for new installments...

www.trekbbs.com

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

I liked it!

It was tough to get in to. I tried to watch it when it first came out, but something about it wore on me. I'm in my 40s and I have a son who likes sci-fi animation aimed at kids, so I was used to the often frantic pace and video-gamey design on current shows in the genre. But at first it just felt a bit to kidsy for Star Trek, to my taste anyhow. And the frequent ads that played (at much higher volume) aimed at kids were just too much for my old man brain to handle and I bailed out after a few episodes.

Recently Steve Shives did a YouTube review of the show which made it sound interesting and I noticed it was on Netlix now so I could watch it ad-free. So I gave it another shot.

Wow!

While some of the stories were snoozers that I won't remember (par for the course on any Trek show) there was a lot to enjoy here. The young main cast were all interesting and compelling characters, and the returning Legacy characters were all beautifully handed. I enjoyed the Chakotay story and honestly like Janeway better in this show than I ever did in classic Voyager. And Wesley Crusher: Traveler is tremendous fun.

I hope this show gets a season 3 and I hope they keep Beltran and Wheaton as regular cast members.

Much of this show felt like Trek's answer to Doctor Who and I mean that in a good way. I hope future stories lean into the ideas set up regarding Wesley as a Traveler keeping tabs on the timelines and maybe learning more about the Supervisors. Let's have this show explore timelines and parallel universes! Timeline of the week instead of world of the week. What a great series format that would be.

Here's hoping for more!

--Alex

I'm glad you enjoyed the show. There's a lot of good animated films and series out there that you can watch with your so. Maybe he can pick out shows and films for you two to watch together. Have you seen Lower Decks yet?

 

[Albertese]

Have you seen Lower Decks yet?

I love Lower Decks! It's my wife's favorite Star Trek. I especially enjoy how they've fleshed out the Orions. Great stuff.

--Alex

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

I love Lower Decks! It's my wife's favorite Star Trek. I especially enjoy how they've fleshed out the Orions. Great stuff.

--Alex

I'm revisiting S1-2, S3-5 will be first watch. Great series. I hope the later seasons hold up.

 

[AntonyF]

I'd be curious on the cast setup of Lower Decks vs Prodigy. Whether it's professional voice actors or not, primarily.

Lower Decks I can't make it through one episode due to all the shouting. Prodigy, the cast sound great (with the exception of Mulgrew phoning in her lines... but also in fairness voice acting is not her main career).

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

I'd be curious on the cast setup of Lower Decks vs Prodigy. Whether it's professional voice actors or not, primarily.

Lower Decks I can't make it through one episode due to all the shouting. Prodigy, the cast sound great (with the exception of Mulgrew phoning in her lines... but also in fairness voice acting is not her main career).

I'd assume professional voice acting on both shows, but it's a difference of tone.
Lower Decks is an animated comedy borrowing the tone of Rick and Morty.
Prodigy is more of an emotionally driven and character driven animated series about a group of people who found each other and found a new home. It's why they clung on to the Protostar so hard.

 

[AntonyF]

I just finished it. I can't say I 100% paid attention to every episode, but on the whole I thought it was very competent. Nice cast of characters, nice cast of voice actors. Amazing how they could reference so much of past Trek and STILL look far more restrained than Picard.

I never felt really into the Vau N'Akat story, which is of course a large part of it. I liked it when they wandered off and did other stuff.

At times it did feel very much emergency, fix it, emergency fix it... when you run at that level all the time it becomes a bit samey. I don't know if that's the nature of a kid's show, or just TV generally. I gave up on Lost in Space for that reason - the cast would solve one issue, then fall down a hole and start another one.

I'm also not the target audience!

But overall very well done, it had a lot of heart and the ending was lovely. I hope there's some kids somewhere that have gotten into this and have optimism for the future, as the current Trek writers are like selfish adults who want to keep Trek for themselves rather than being accessible.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I hope there's some kids somewhere that have gotten into this and have optimism for the future,

Nice.

as the current Trek writers are like selfish adults who want to keep Trek for themselves rather than being accessible.

Nonsense.

 

[AntonyF]

Nonsense.

Picard, Discovery and Strange New Worlds are all rated 15. It's a fucking FACT.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I loved Prodigy enough to get physical copies. And I’m still asking whose dumb idea it was not to make a Rok-Takh plushie!!