Star Trek: Prodigy

There are two separate answers here, based on who you are.

If you’ve never watched Star Trek, this is a delightful entry point into the franchise that requires absolutely nothing from you. You don’t have to know anything about Star Trek, or the Federation, or Starfleet, or any existing characters or species. Everything that’s familiar to Trekkies will be completely new to the characters on the show, so as they learn, you learn.

If you’re a big Star Trek fan, then you already know the big news: Janeway is back! Hologram schmologram, it’s still a thrill to hear that voice again. In the gajillion interviews going around about the show, Mulgrew says that despite being a hologram there to help teach the kids, she has agency, she has preferences, and she’s a full, rich, lively character. Fans are also getting another Voyager star, as first officer Chakotay will be turning up, and the show creators, Dan and Kevin Hageman, have promised lots of legacy characters along the journey. There are already a few familiar species, including Tellarites and Medusans, plus one (a Brikarian) from the non-canon novels.

Okay, now let’s get into the good stuff: This show is gorgeous. The Hagemans were both heavily influenced by Star Trek movies and chose a cinematic look for the show, so it’s big in scope and beautiful to look at. The characters are almost all kids, a first for a franchise that didn’t always do kids very well (with the delightful exception of Voyager’s Naomi Wildman). Remember when you were a kid and you’d watch TV and it was hard to find a character to identify with? That’s not going to happen on this one, because they’ve given us an incredible variety. Dal is the act-first-think-later kid of an unknown species whose drive to escape set the whole story in motion. Just when you get frustrated with his impulsive behavior, you find out that he had the right idea all long. Gwyn, daughter of our villain, is intriguing from the first moment we meet her, as she speaks countless languages and even in the pilot shows her compassion… a trait her father doesn’t share. Rok-Tahk is an eight-year-old girl with the body of a rocky beast, Zero is a noncorporeal Medusan who’s still learning how to behave around others (he keeps reading everyone’s mind), Jankom Pogg is a handy but polemical mechanic, and Murf is a squishy blob who quickly becomes a favorite of the animal-loving Rok-Tahk (and Twitter users across the country).

And for ship nerds, the Protostar provides plenty of intrigue. It’s an experimental ship, so it will have capabilities we haven’t seen before, plus there’s the whole mystery of why it was sent so far away from home in the first place.

The score is beautiful, the show is epic in scope, and somehow manages to be dark and light at the same time. There’s no pandering, but there’s lots of silliness mixed in with the high-stakes drama.