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!"

TREK REVIEW: Prodigy 2-1 & 2-2 - "Into the Breach"

Star Trek: Prodigy is back and, while I haven't been able to devote much time to reviews lately, I'm now going to get back onto it and work my way through the second season. Seeing as the entire run was made available on Netflix all at once, it made sense to leave it a while and tackle it in a big chunk. 

The first season of Prodigy was one of the best of modern Trek, and while it was unfairly written off by some fans at the beginning due to being a kids' show, it proved to be perhaps the most true to classic Trek of all the shows that have launched since 2017. Season two was in the bag when Paramount decided to bin the entire thing, cancelling it before release in an obvious Warner Bros-style tax write-off. This was a kick in the teeth to everyone who worked on it, and just the first shot in the foot of Paramount's ever-crashing relationship with its audience. But no matter, because Netflix jumped in an picked it up. Seriously Paramount, when Netflix looks like the one with sound judgment, you've messed up.

So, to kick us off, it's "Into the Breach," our opening two-parter. Spoilers from here on out.

Season one ended with the Federation saved (again) and the runaway kids preparing for Starfleet Academy, except for Gwyn, who went off on a special mission to her home planet Solum to try to save it from the upcoming civil war. We catch up with the main gang in San Francisco, where we learn that they're not actually cadets, but in a sort of prep school programme, getting ready for induction. (Presumably their too young for the Academy itself, plus none of them have had a formal education before.) 

Vice Admiral Janeway takes them aboard the new USS Voyager as her own special training project, although she assigns the Doctor to be their mentor. It's wonderful to hear Robert Picardo back - interestingly after he turned down an appearance on Star Trek:Picard - and he's every bit the clucking hen we remember. Kate Mulgrew is very good as Janeway, and while she doesn't have my favourite voice in the world, she is an old hand at voice work and really brings Janeway to life (somewhat better than some of the other officer actors). 

The kids are as entertaining and likeable as ever, with the core cast giving great performances, as we might expect. It's fun to see their progression over the last few months: Dal is, predictably, frustrated and impatient; Rok-Tahk is absolutely loving the learning; Jankom is trying to learn to be polite (not very culturally aware of the Academy - let the Tellarite be a Tellarite); and Zero, interestingly, is longing for a physical form. Oh, and Murf is Murf, not really making much sense to be honest. He still seems somewhere between pet, mascot and full-fledged team member, as if the writers aren't quite sure what to do with him.

We might wonder why Janeway decides it's a good idea to take a bunch of pre-cadets on a top secret mission, one that they (and apparently most of the crew) aren't supposed to know about. Surely she realised this was asking or trouble? Of course, they have a personal link to the mission, as it's tied up in their own story aboard the Protostar, but since they aren't allowed to know about it, why does that matter? It's satisfying that this season leads on from the previous one so closely (unlike, say, Picard, which basically ignored previous events each season). Voyager is out in the depths of space to find Chakotay, thanks to the swirling wormhole that was left at the end of the last run. I like that time is running on both sides, meaning that timing is everything if they're going to pull this off without disrupting history. Whatever could go wrong?

There's also Nova Squadron to worry about. While they share their name with the daring flight team from TNG's "The First Duty," they're more like those arseholes in Red Squad on DS9 (those cocky idiots who ended up on the Valiant). At least there's only three of them. Ma'jel is obviously a major new character from the amount of focus she gets; thankfully, Michaela Dietz gives a brilliant turn as a young Vulcan, in spite of being forty in real life (she also voices Grom, the Lurian Squad member). Ma'jel doesn't seem that logical, storming in with her Squad buddies and causing trouble instead of trying to find out what our gang is up to. So frankly it's her fault the Infinity is launched prematurely.

Meanwhile, Gwyn goes to Solum and has a terrible time. Ascencia (a fun turn, as always, by Jameela Jamil, who is great at playing villains) has got their first, and has already turned the Vau'Nakat against her. It seems pretty likely that the schism that tears Solum society apart after first contact has its roots here, as we see factions alredy starting to form based on whether or not to trust aliens. It looks like Gwyn and Ascencia's travelling back has caused the whole problem in the first place, although how this squares with the future on the othe side of the wormhole apparently being an alternative future, I don't know. John Noble gives a truly excellent performance as the younger version of the Diviner - named Ilthuran, we discover - who is recognisable but a very different man to his possible future self.

There's an awful lot going on in these episodes, but they make for a gripping and impressive start to the season.

Placement: It's been a few months since the end of season one, and the Romulan evacuation is underway, meaning it's either 2384 or '85. Memory Alpha goes with 2384, and who am I to argue? This would place the future period in which Chakotay is stranded in 2436.

Starships and stations: 

• The new USS Voyager NCC-74656-A is a Lamarr-class ship. According to behind the scenes info, the class is named after the legendary Hedy Lamarr. 
• The original Voyager is said to be a floating museum. We saw it being taken there in the latest season on Lower Decks, set a couple of years earlier, and saw it displayed in the Fleet Museum in the final season of Picard, set about seventeen years later.  
• I love that, while Voyager-A looks all fancy and swish, the Infinity is just a functional. boxy wagon.

Links and observations:

• Ma'jel is named, of course, for Majel Barrett, the first lady of Star Trek.
• Rok-Tahk gives a presentation on the ill-fated tribble experiment from the Short Trek "The Trouble with Edward."
• However, the scientific name she gives, Polygeminus grex, is the classic one from tie-in material, not the one used in that episode.
• The Doctor is still writing holonovels in his spare time.
• The Infinity has a cloaking device, which is still illegal thanks to the treaty with the Romulans, as well as temporal shielding.

Cliché count: "I'm a doctor, not a butler!" Our first McCoyism of the season.

Trek Trailer Treats

 Blimey, it's been a fortnight since First Contact Day and I've finally gotten round to posting my thoughts on the new trailers and info. Better late than never, I guess.

DISCOVERY SEASON 4

Discovery season four sees the crew, now under the command of Captain Michael Burnham, confronted with some kind of gravitational disaster that is threatening everyone and everything. They've only just solved the mystery of the Burn and now they're dealing with another cosmic crisis that threatens the whole galaxy – give these poor people a week off! It seems that S4 will carry on in much the same vein as S3, trying to rebuild the Federation while space travel, even space itself, is falling apart. I'd hoped for a bit more, well, discovery in this season, and we might still get that, but the trailer makes it look like we'll mostly be seeing places and people we recognise. 

I'm loving the colourful new uniforms, much better than the dreary grey ones the Disconauts ended up at the end of last season, although it reinforces the impression that Starfleet spends most of its time designing clothes for its officers. Clearly Book and Saru are to remain important in the series. Detmer also gets a bit of focus in the trailer, but that might just be because she's so hot. We see some hints here that the Vulcans are mending their relationship with the Federation, with the President of Ni'Var making some positive speeches, and we also see someone in authority in the Federation itself – perhaps the Federation President, oft-mentioned but unseen in S3? She appears to be part-Cardassian, which hints again that the Cardassians joined the UFP at some point between the 24th and 32nd centuries.

PICARD SEASON 2

   

The Picard teaser really is just that, just enough to tell us that Q is back. Initially released without the interview, this was a nice surprise – well, not a huge surprise, but a nice revelation. I can't wait to see how Picard and Q interact in this new era, with Picard's age, more cynical attitude and new status as an artificial being surely changing the dynamic. (I presume that John de Lancie's physical age will be explained as a conceit for Picard, or perhaps a mockery.) 

Picard S2 has a lot to cover. The first season gave us the rights of artificial life forms, the repurcussions of the Romulan supernova, the fallout of the Borg incursion into known space, and didn't always manage to balance it all. S2 has to follow up on all this, plus Picard's new incarnation and the return of Q. That's a lot to fit in (and I still want to see them explore the rights of holograms in this era, and how it relates to the ban on artificial life). It's good to read that the showrunners have accepted there were pacing and writing issues in the first season, and that they have planned out more fully were the story is going this year. I'm ultimately just glad we're seeing the series return, especially seeing how production was stopped for a while due to COVID (Patrick Stewart being an elderly man, after all). 

We also know that Whoopi Goldberg is back as Guinan (and with Q as well – will we learn about their mysterious past encounters?), and there are persistent rumours of Robert Picardo joining as the Doctor. One interesting aside from the teaser is the inclusion of a sacred Bajoran relic among Picard's collection of cool galactic stuff – just a reused bit of set dressing, or a hint at something more intriguing?

LOWER DECKS SEASON 2

 

Life seems to be carrying on as normal for Lower Decks, which is to say, utter chaos and monsters (there's a mugato! Sweet!) A well as a bunch of new bizarre creatures, we're meeting both the Cardassians and Denobulans again (about time). Plenty more references to the franchise, as expected – a Miranda-class starship like the classic Reliant, seemingly plucked from the 23^rd century; Mariner picking up Riker's ultimate martial arts skills, Riker banging on about jazz as always. It looks like life's more stressful than ever for Bradward Boimler, as we might have predicted. And we only have until August to see it!

STRANGE NEW WORLDS

Strangely, we haven't had any footage from either Strange New Worlds or Prodigy, even though the former has begun filming in earnest and the latter is supposedly landing later this year. A general trailer released about a month ago recycled footage from Discovery S2 and Short Treks to represent SNW, while all we'e had from Prodigy is some artwork of the characters. Still, what we've seen and heard is intriguing.

I'm relieved to read that showrunner Akiva Goldsman is making SNW more episodic than the other series he's overseeing. Not because I dislike the serialised structure, but because it's something a little different, and suggests we'll be doing more standalone adventures on those strange new worlds of the title. He's particularly spoken about having tonally different episodes following each other, which will be a refreshing change from the more holistically styled series we've had recently. It sounds like the series is deliberately being set up to be more like classic Trek and there's nothing wrong with a bit of that amongst today's modern storytelling.

PRODIGY

Prodigy is sounding more interesting the more we hear about it. Given that it's designed for younger viewers, new to the franchise, I expected it to be very standalone. From the sounds of it, it both is and isn't. The main characters (bar one) appear to be entirely new alien species (there's one who might be a Talaxian, but it's hard to be sure with the art style). Yet it's being positioned as a follow-up to Voyager: set in the Delta Quadrant in 2383 (five years after Voyager finished, three years on from Lower Decks and four years before Romulus gets destroyed, fact fans), it features an Emergency Training Hologram based on Captain Janeway.

This is a really interesting way to bring back her character, rather than simply having an older Admiral Janeway getting involved. I'm also glad to hear that Kate Mulgrew asked the artists to tone down the prettiness of her holographic image. She's still quite prettified, which makes me imagine the original design must have been like something out of a Disney film. But look at those aliens! One of them is a blob! A proper blob monster like Yaphet on The Orville. I'm stoked for a modern kids' adventure series take on Trek, and having a whole bunch of new aliens as main characters is the icing on the cake.

STAR TREK 4/STAR TREK 14?

And finally... Paramount have confirmed that there's going to be a new Star Trek film in 2023. I mean, don't hold your breath for them to actually make that date, what with all the to-ing nad fro-ing on the movie front the last few years, but it's still encouraging. It's stated it'll be produced by J.J. Abrams, so I would expect it'll be another Kelvin Timeline film, but frankly, who can be sure? Kurtzam has also said that the line between the film and TV franchises is now gone (thanks to CBS and Paramount now making friends again), but given they were literally in separate universes before it's a mystery how this will actually work.