Tag Archives: Star Trek: Prodigy

Thoughts on Star Trek: Prodigy’s Second Season

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I recently got done watching the second season of Star Trek: Prodigy, the franchise’s entry into the realm of children’s cartoons. Despite my ambivalence towards kids’ media and disdain for the current direction of the franchise, the first season blew me away, and I was glad to see the show saved by Netflix after it was axed by Paramount. Given Netflix’s recent history, I’m assuming this will be the show’s final season, but we’ll see.

Promotional art for Star Trek: Prodigy season two.Unfortunately I was a bit disappointed by this season. It’s still more good than bad to be sure, but it’s definitely a more uneven experience than season one.

My biggest issue is that they went all-in on fan service this season, to a really excessive degree. To be clear, I think playing to nostalgia is a perfectly fine thing for a story to do — I’ve sunk thousands of hours into World of Warcraft almost entirely on the basis of Warcraft III nostalgia — but it has to be done the right, and anything can be toxic when taken to excess.

Prodigy’s tie-ins to other Trek shows this season are problematic both because there’s so many of them, to the point of crowding out Prodigy’s own stories, and because a lot of it feels unnecessary.

I’m a huge fan of the Doctor, so I was super hyped when I heard Robert Picardo was coming back to reprise the role, but to be honest… he didn’t really need to be there. The Doctor is clearly just there for the sake of nostalgia bait, and in nearly all of his scenes he could be replaced with any other random Starfleet officer without changing the plot in any meaningful way. There are only a handful of exceptions, such as a lovely but all too brief scene in which he bonds with Zero over their shared experiences as beings of pure energy.

Robert Picardo's The Doctor in Star Trek: Prodigy season two.By comparison, I was never that big a fan of Janeway or Chakotay, but because they’ve been woven into Prodigy’s story from the start, their presence feels earned and natural, and I ended up loving all the stories with them this season. That’s an example of nostalgia bait done the right way.

But my biggest complaint is definitely the extent to which throwbacks to the past left so little room for new stories to flourish. Given how much of the season revolves around Solum, the homeworld of the Vau N’Akat, I was super excited to learn to more about their history and culture… and we got almost none of that.

Instead it felt like fully a quarter of the season was devoted to bringing back an old face from the past that I don’t think many fans even wanted to see again. It bothers me that two seasons in we know almost nothing about Gwyn’s people and even less about Rok’s people, but they found time to devote multiple episodes to one of the franchise’s least popular characters.

I know the (star)ship sailed on this before the first season even finished, and it may not be the most popular opinion, but I think having the crew join up with the Federation so early in the series was a mistake. I loved the angle of a crew who isn’t under the direct guidance of Starfleet but is trying to live by their principles anyway because they see it’s a better way to live. It was such a great way of taking the franchise in a new direction while staying true to its roots, and I wish that had continued for longer.

A shot of the crew in Star Trek: Prodigy season two.There’s also a lot of plot holes and sloppy writing this season, both on an individual episode level and a big picture level. Bluntly, the meta plot for this season makes no sense at all. Time travel can always be a bit messy, and it’s never had a totally consistent portrayal in Star Trek, but this season manages to contradict all we’ve seen before while failing to adhere to even the most basic kind of logic.

That said, I do find this a lot more forgivable from Prodigy than it might otherwise be, thanks to the generally light-hearted tone of the show. I’ve said in the past that the problem with modern Trek is not so much that it’s super dumb, but that it doesn’t know it’s super dumb. The most ridiculous, nonsensical plots are treated with such breathless gravitas.

Prodigy doesn’t fall into that trap. It’s not pretending to be anything more than it is: a goofy pulp adventure story. So while I’d prefer something closer to the cerebral Trek of yesteryear, Prodigy failing to live up to that is merely a hiccup, not a fatal flaw.

And there are plenty of other things to like about this season. The core cast remains a delight. I love how Rok-Tahk is the living embodiment of Star Trek’s wholesomeness, and I love how Zero exemplifies the wisdom of, “Beware the just anger of a gentle heart.” There’s also a great new addition to the cast in the form of the Vulcan cadet Maj’el, and I enjoyed seeing her grow into part of the team.

Cadet Maj'el in Star Trek: Prodigy season two.Most importantly, Prodigy remains a show built on the optimism and sense of wonder at the heart of Star Trek. It is not burdened by the depressing cynicism that has defined all other modern incarnations of the franchise. Whatever other flaws it may have, this is the kind of Star Trek I loved growing up.

My favourite episode this season involved the crew setting literal sail across an alien cloud sea. It was whimsical, exciting, and just plain fun — joyful sci-fi adventure at its very best. That’s the spirit of exploration that Trek is all too often missing, especially these days, but Prodigy hasn’t forgotten what it means to boldly go.

Ultimately my complaint is not that the second season wasn’t good, but simply that it missed a lot of opportunities to be better.

Gaming Round-Up: Summer Sale Aftermath

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Thanks to the recent Steam sale, I’ve blitzed through quite a few games recently. I’ll just go through them all real quick… or as quick as someone as long-winded as me is gonna get, anyway.

The Aspiration Truth in Harmony: The Fall of Reverie.Harmony: The Fall of Reverie

This one was not actually a sale purchase but a birthday gift from a friend. As a Dontnod fanboy, it’s been on my wishlist pretty much from the moment I heard about it.

In practice, it was an odd, inconsistent game. Fall of Reverie’s events take place across two realms: A near future version of our world, and Reverie, the world of dreams, where dwell humanity’s personified Aspirations.

The story in the human world never really came together for me. All of the characters are too faultlessly nice to be believable… except one, but there was never an opportunity to truly take them to task for how awful they were. It felt just a bit too saccharine.

On the other hand, I did really enjoy all the stuff with the Aspirations. The game pushes you to choose one Aspiration to champion, and I think they did a really good job of making them all seem like valid choices with pros and cons, with none of them being obviously good or bad choices. A lot of narrative games try for stuff like this, but rarely is it executed so well — there usually seems to be at least one or two no-brainer choices.

Conversing with Bond in Harmony: The Fall of Reverie.I chose Truth to champion, with Bond and Power roughly tied for second place. I wasn’t expecting to like Power at all, but his direct, uncompromising approach to morality proved very appealing. I’m not sure if I’ll replay the game, but if I do, I will almost certainly side with Power.

The game’s other gimmick — the limited ability to see the consequences of your actions before you take them — was interesting to do once, but I don’t see it as the future of narrative games or anything. I also found that the way the consequences of my choices came together made for a very disjointed final chapter, but I think that was just bad luck.

So it was definitely a flawed game, but I think it was a unique and interesting enough experience to be worthwhile.

Oxenfree II: Lost Signals

I had no idea Oxenfree was even getting a sequel, but then I just stumbled across it on Steam’s front page one day. I loved the original, so it was an instant buy.

A shot from Oxenfree II: Lost Signals.That said, I can’t say I ever felt Oxenfree was a game that needed a sequel, and at times Lost Signals did feel a bit unnecessary. The first half of the game felt like it was just rehashing the first without bringing anything new to the table.

Things got a lot better in the latter half of the game, though, and it did do a much better job of providing a conclusive ending to the story than the half-hearted new game plus mode for the original did.

So I don’t think Oxenfree II was nearly as good as the original, but it still felt worth it in the end. Mostly the problem is the first one was such a classic that you can’t really make lightning strike twice.

Star Trek Prodigy: Supernova

Among the news of Star Trek: Prodigy’s shocking and unjust cancellation, I was reminded there is a video game spin-off, Supernova.

Gwyn and Dal explore an alien world in Star Trek Prodigy: Supernova.I really want to like this game. It’s got the full original voice cast of Prodigy, so as far as the story goes it’s basically just an extra couple episodes of Prodigy, which I’m all for.

But I have to be honest that I’m really struggling to get through the gameplay. It’s not horrible or anything, but it’s clearly designed for young children, so it’s very basic and very shallow.

I’m thinking I might just watch the rest of the game on YouTube.

Blacktail

Of the games I’ve played recently, this was probably my favourite. Blacktail is an open world game loosely inspired by the myth of the witch Baba Yaga. It’s got a dark fairytale vibe that is both twisted and whimsical.

It’s still got a few rough edges — it could have really used a more traditional fast travel system, and the ending is mildly confusing — but overall it was a good time. The story is pretty engaging, it’s paced well for an open world game, the voice acting is stellar, and the music is lovely.

The witch Baba in Blacktail.It’s also one of the few games I’ve seen that does side quests well. There aren’t that many of them, and most are lengthy, compelling stories in their own right. They’re not just checklists of chores used to pad out the runtime of the game.

This is one I wouldn’t mind seeing a sequel to.