TREK REVIEW: Prodigy 2-3 & 2-4

2.3 - Who Saves the Saviours? 

2.4 - Temporal Mechanics 101

A solid couple of episodes which kick off the main storyline for the season, as Starfleet's youngest accidentally pervert the flow of history. The time travel rules are either very complicated or very shaky on this show. These episodes occur in the same place in two different time periods, with Gwyn on the planet Solum 52 years before Dal and co. get there, stumbling across Chakotay and his first officer, Adreek-hu. 

It seems that all this criss-crossing in time has tied history up in knots. While they work together and try to maintain the timeline like Starfleet officers should, Dal and his pals end up altering history so that Chakotay and Adreek-hu are successful in their escape from Solum abord the Protostar. This means that the ship never ends up on Tars Lamora, so that the kids never find it in the first place and reach Starfleet. Indeed, the Diviner never goes to Tars Lamora to track the ship down, never buys the orphans to use as labour, and never creates Gwyn in the first place. Even though the events are in the future, changing them has altered the past.

All very well, except that the whole point of Gwyn going to Solum in the present was to stop the devastation it faces in the future. So how does Dal and his friends' accidental alteration of future events cause such a drastic change to the timeline? Surely, if Gwyn had been successful and prevented the war on Solum, the distruption would have been even worse? And if Dal's deduction that they were always meant to be in the future to help Chakotay launch the Protostar is correct, how did things end up going so wrong at all?

It's probably best not to think too much on it, just like it's best not to think too much on how Gwyn is slowly fading from existence, "in superposition between two quantum realities," and doesn't just wink out of existence straight away. For that matter, why are the rest of the kids still there, and not wherever they would have grown up if it weren't for the Diviner? Lawd knows.

There's a lot to enjoy here, from Dal's natural leadership to Ma'jel's softening on the team and helping them try to fix things. Jankon ditching his attempt at politeness and embracing his Tellarite crabbiness, while proving again what an amazing engineer he is, is another highlight. The time travel shenanigans work dramatically, even if they don't quite make sense. The bird puns are dreadful, but in the best way.

However, some parts work less well. Having the ritual to prove Gwyn's true Vau'Nakat-ness be just another big fight is visually fun, but a bit of a let down, and something of a Trek cliché. Dr. Erin MacDonald is a real science advisor and is apparently a big deal, so having her play a future version of herself (a descendant?) is fun, but I found her a bit annoying. And, well, Chakotay is back. I realise we didn't know what a dickhead Robert Beltran was when they were recording this, but no one really liked Chakotay first time round anyway. So a series revolving around tracking him down doesn't exactly grip me.

Overall, this is a fun adventure with some high stakes, with Gwyn's very existence hanging in the balance and some great performances from Brett Gray and Ella Purnell. Plus, we have the mystery of who is speaking to the crew from the future (my initial assumption that it was an evolved future version of Zero was way off, though).

Links and references:

• "We're hurtling through a time hole!" After paraphrasing Doctor Who last week, now Dal's throwing around Red Dwarf references. Janon turning his mechanical hand into a spider-like helper might be a nod to Kryten's similar gambit in "Terrorform," but probably not.
• Ma'jel refers to the Bell Riots from DS9 "Past Tense" (set this year, fact fans) and Cochrane's first warp test in Star Trek: First Contact when explaining causal loops.
• MacDonald's Temporal Mechanics lesson refers to the USS Enterprise and Bounty's slingshot time trips, and Q's temporal trickery.
• The USS Voyager-A has temporal shielding, probably in case they run into any Krenim while they're messing about near the Delta Quadrant.
• Adreek-hu is an Aurelian, a species that first appeared in Star Trek: The Animated Series. Giving Chakotay an eagle as a first officer is a bit on the nose.

 

Cliché count: "I'm a doctor, not an exorcist!" That's two in four episodes.

Best line: "Over here! Look how distracting I am!"