Hello and welcome back to Subspace Radio. One last time for this run of Star Trek Prodigy Season 2. I'm Kevin, and with me as always,
I'm Rob, Rob Lloyd, here to chat to you about all things Star Trek and Prodigy as we say goodbye to Season 2.
And potentially for this series as well. Like the cast led by Kate Mulgrew herself are doing a great job championing the cause of a third season of Prodigy. And we'll talk about whether that's something you and I would like to see, but I, I don't know. I fear the money just is not there.
The money's not there and, you know, Netflix is notorious for, uh, buy buy buying and creating creating creating, but unless there is some heavy numbers and heavy viewership on a regular basis, they will cut you. They will cut you like a bad, bad donkey.
So I think that's how we're going to be treating it here this week, is this is the series finale of Prodigy. If it surprises us and it comes back, great. We'll do it again sometime. But, uh, but I think this is our farewell to these characters, at least for now.
Yeah. I think that's a good way to look at it. That's good to, you know, be realistic when it comes to our, uh, our views of Star Trek on, uh, in the new, digital age of streaming.
And as the first series centering around a group of kids, Rob, you suggested that our final topic for the season be kids in Star Trek. There's several angles on that. We'll figure out, like, which one we want to take.
It's been a contentious issue, especially the fact that Prodigy exists has caused quite a lot of contention within the world of Star Trek about, you know, whether a show primarily directed at a youth market is in some way underselling Star Trek or, devaluing it as a commodity. But how does the characters, you know, or the role of children play within the show over, you know, 60 years of existence?
Well, those are a couple of different questions, I feel like. So yeah, we'll get into that in the second half of this episode. But first, as always, we, uh, we're going to take a run through these last five episodes of the season. I've prepared a summary of each one, and then we can, uh, talk about the block as a whole.
So yeah, DJ Yank, spin that wheel.
In Star Trek Prodigy, season two, episode 16, Ascension Part II, Voyager is struck by a temporal radiation torpedo. The Protostar, the Nova Squadron cadets and Zero work together to extract it lured away, and uh destroy Asencia's battle ship with a Boothby Supernova. Jankom delivers a new body for Zero just in time. In episode 17, Brink, Gwyn and the team infiltrates Asencia's operation on Solum and rescues her father with a couple of gadgets. Gwyn splits the party to rescue Wesley and Ilthuran.
Wesley reveals he planned his own capture so that Asencia would create the wormhole needed to send the Protostar back in time. But he was betting on the team staying together. Wesley and Ilthuran escape, but the Protostar crew are captured by Asencia. In episode 18, Touch of Grey, Admiral Janeway and Wesley Crusher mount a rescue mission, risking Starfleet's direct involvement in Solum. Asencia stages an execution of the crew by Loom.
The Doctor poses as Admiral Janeway, Asencia just long enough for the rest of the team to free the Loom and rescue the Protostar crew. In episode 19, Ouroboros, Part I. Asencia opens a bunch of wormholes to attack the Federation. Voyager attacks the ships in Solum orbit, while the Protostar crew and Wesley blend science and fistfights to create the wormhole they need to get the Protostar back to where it belongs.
Gwyn overpowers Asencia using the combined will of her people, and the wormholes are merged, but the Loom show up to spoil the party. And in episode 20 Ouroboros, Part II, Chakotay pilots the Protostar through the swarm, Hologram Janeway finds a big enough backup drive this time, the Protostar is returned to the beginning, Wes visits his mom and his baby brother Jack, Admiral Janeway takes a well earned retirement, until the synth attack on Utopia Planitia.
She pulls some strings and Maj'el officially joins the crew, which gets a ship, the USS Prodigy, and Gwyn as her captain. The end.
Well done, and I've thoroughly enjoyed your, uh, summarization of each of the episodes in the five episode blocks.
Yeah, it's, uh, these are short episodes, so on, on rewatch, they're actually pretty easy to summarize in a couple of sentences, and it's, it's oddly satisfying to do that.
Yeah, it's some two parters, uh, some standalones there, so how did you find overall our tail end, our final five episodes of, uh, of Prodigy Season 2.
I think it was less twisty turny than I was expected based on our experience of the season so far. It felt like a pretty, a pretty straightforward downslope to the finish line here, which isn't to say it was unsatisfying. I thought it was good, like everything that they had set up in the season so far, these five episodes were about fulfilling those promises one by one. And, I think the one big twist was that this was Wesley's plan all along, which I guess was inevitable.
We talked about that earlier in the, in the season that he said he had put us on the most, the one path that would work. And so we were expecting some improbable events and there were a few of those. There was some good, uh, I almost died. The operative word is almost. You see, everything's going as it should.
And um, Will Wheaton did give us one of the best cliffhanger acting performances ever. Where he said, I have no idea what's happening next. You just go, oh yeah, that's what you train for. To be in a genre TV show where you can have a cliffhanger ending line like that.
Yeah. And he also gave the, I thought, somewhat cringey line on the bridge going, Oh, yeah, none of this is the big thing that you need to be together for. There are more terrible and awesome things to come in a future season that you'll just have to find out for yourself.
Ha ha ha. I did like the line where they said, you know, they have to stick together. And he goes, well, we thought you meant it as a metaphor where we're, he goes, no, you literally need to be in the same space altogether. That was funny.
Say what you mean, Wesley Crusher, say what you mean. Yeah, but uh, overall, uh, I thought, straightforward but satisfying for this last block.
Very much so. It was a little bit paint by numbers. They did build it up to the point where there seemed to be insurmountable odds. So, you know, they had the big ships that could telegraph everything because of Wesley. And then, everything worked out, but then Asencia then going, oh no, that was the plan all along to find out they don't actually have any help coming, so that means this.
All that usual, uh, narrative stuff that's come out of quite recently within the, you know, when the Dark Knight first came out, where the villain was far too clever for its own good. And then that happened in Skyfall, and this, this common trait of going, the villain knows everything and is second guessing, triple guessing, and putting everything in play so every decision will be covered. There was an element of that.
Asensia was definitely played as like mustache twirling evil by the end. Not even by the end, pretty much from, from the word go this entire season. She was
much.
Evil villain English accent incarnate.
Yeah, no real, you know, motivation behind it other than they
it
this to happen.
It was strange that moment when she was, um, face to face with Gwyn and the, the will of the people shifted and Gwyn got the blue glowy power and Asencia lost it and, at the start of the next episode, when the Loom descended on the planet, and she was now freed of her, like, power madness, she said, What have I done? And it's a little unclear to me, just, what was in possession of her?
Was it, were we just supposed to go, oh, this is absolute power corrupts absolutely, in science fiction form that, that, uh, once she lost, she lost the will to be evil. It wasn't super clear there, like, what was, was that character ultimately redeemable and under some influence? Or was she irredeemable? It's like it wanted to have it both ways at the end there.
Yeah, it did seem like like her main motivation was to save her planet and so that sense of what she had planned to save her planet was ultimately going to be destroying her planet so is that realization of all the work that she had put in, um, was, you know, she was hoisted by her own petard as they say.
Yeah. How do you feel about Maj'el? Um, I felt like the season could have worked just as well without her and like she wasn't unwelcome by the end, but I think I was waiting for that puzzle piece to fall into place of, Oh, that's why that character was written. That's the story she was created to tell. And I didn't really get that.
No, it did seem to be a case of she needs to be there because she needs to be there. I mean she was, you know, very intelligent, very capable, very skilled as a leader and as a creative thinker and all that type of
she got some good, like, logical Vulcan comedy lines of, like, that, that certainly is a title, uh, and stuff like that, so, like, I liked her moment to moment, but I was missing, I was expecting there to be a purpose for her.
Yeah, it does seem a little short changed in that purpose, as opposed to her just being, you know, good at what she does. Which is amazing, but, you know, there's what's specifically about her, and we never really got any deeper than that, just surface level, um, understanding of her as a character.
Uh, Zero's back in a sphere with legs, which I liked. I was like, yay, that's the Zero I like, and, you know,
Now with extra feeling.
know! I'm on board with that. Uh, like, the path to get there was a little twisty, but I liked our Zero in final form. That
Yeah, very much so. That's what made him so unique. And what we've been talking, talking about all this season, sort of like shifting him away from that and putting him more into a pigeonhole of a physical form. Whereas, uh, the joy of him comes out of how odd, unique, and, um, you know, how challenging he is to write for. And that's where some sparks of real brilliance has come from.
So long as we're going around the characters, uh, Dal, I thought they brought that character around at the end. The, the fact that for those last few episodes, he decided, Gwyn, I'm better taking orders from you. You're making the decisions on this mission, and then ultimately, you're a more prepared captain than I am. I'll be your first officer. That turned the character around for me. I found him enjoyable, charming, and I loved the character by the end, uh, thanks to that change.
It is that, yeah, that realization, you know, he had that prediction, or that, uh, you know, that insight into the future where he would never get what he had so wanted. And in many ways, in the early seasons, seemed like he was entitled to,
Or felt entitled to anyway.
Yeah, yeah, he felt it, very much felt entitled to that he, that for whatever reason, it was just, you know, he belonged there, and he owned it in his own mind, so therefore he should get it. But that realization of how easy he trusts Gwyn, and how natural she is in that position of leadership, even though she's challenged and been having internal battles with that. That was a wonderful shift of him going, I'm not fighting this anymore, I'm embracing this.
And I think for the intended audience of the show, that is a particularly powerful message that so many of these like for young adults adventure series have a protagonist who, you know, is the chosen one who is special by definition. And therefore, is entitled to everything they achieve. Whereas by the end of this series, Dal, who started in that place, recognized that there is a, there is a learning process. And yes, I still want to be in the command program.
I still want to be a captain one day, but I'm not a captain yet. And a great way to become a captain one day is to learn from someone who's a captain today. Um, I don't see characters destined for greatness going through the hard process of learning skills in fiction for young adults much these days. And I really enjoyed it here. I'm glad that was the final beat for Dal.
Well yeah, it's, it's, it's Storytelling 101, isn't it, you know? Your lead character needs to change by the end of that story. They cannot be the same person they are. And even within the confines of a television format that works against what a good, solid character narrative is, you know.
Especially, you know, was it Rick Berman was solely focused on resetting Star Trek Next Generation so there was no story arcs, no evolution sort of like you can come in to Next Generation at any point and you don't need to have any homework. It was a big trait of 70s and 80s television before, you know, shows like Homicide, Life on the Street, Twin Peaks came in in the early 90s to revolutionize that storytelling. And now it's commonplace.
But to have that arc of Dal of going, I deserve this, to going, actually, I need to earn this, and I'm not ready yet, and Gwyn's cycle as well of going, I'm not a part of this, I am a part of this now, and I have to redeem myself within my family's, you know, atrocities, and then finding a place in leadership that she wasn't sure she deserved, or whether she has a right to.
It's, it's a beautiful arc for the two of them to find their way, and they've pushed so hard on them, the two of them, Dal and Gwyn, as a connection. Whether it's romantic, whether it's just friendship, whether it's deeper. And that kind of mirrors how they've pushed Chakotay and Janeway as well this season. Um, and I think they've balanced it out really nicely, that they didn't give us any answers, uh, either, you know, for the affirmative or the, or the negative.
No, but there's something going on with Holo Janeway and the Doctor.
Whee! Well, there's stuff going on with Holo Janeway and Chakotay, then real Janeway and Chakotay, and then Hologram Janeway and getting all flustered around, um, hologram, uh, Doctor.
Yes. It makes a funny kind of sense, but it's, it's certainly felt weird. If nothing else, it served to divide those two characters, that it's not just two instances of Janeway on our screen, that they are kind of independent personalities with different goals in life. And that was, that was a nice, nice twist to be reminded of that.
And Hologram Janeway isn't defined by her, you know, holographic state, but it definitely creates how she perceives the world and how she perceives relationships and how she interacts with people. So of course she'd be drawn to the doctor who's lived this life of hologrammatic existence far beyond what he is programmed to do, whereas Janeway still in some way real Janeway still sees him as the Doctor figure that's built a trust and a friendship.
But yeah good to have those levels within um Hologram Janeway, real Janeway
Those beats of Holo Janeway, like fearing for her fate as she feels she'll have to be reset in order for closing the time loop to work and, and then ultimately being rescued by the Doctor's backup drive. It was, it felt like it just barely fit in the season. Like it was pretty crowbarred in there in just two or three sentences.
Yeah, right near the end just going, oh, and this as well.
Yes. But I'm glad it was there that, especially if I went back and watched season one and how that character ended, if we did not have something like that here, it would've, been doing a disservice to that character.
Yeah, and sci fi does look on that as, you know, who are we as a person, or as a soul, or an existence, a personality, a life in this world. Um, we are, we are our memories. We are the events of, that has made us who we are. And only through sci fi can it be explored in a poignant, well it can be explored in many different ways, but in sci fi there's a particularly poignant way of doing that.
And even if it's crowbarred in at the end, it's that beautiful thought of, this is all who I am, is my thoughts and my memories.
For, for it to feel less weird. I think what it would've taken was like one extra scene back when we were meeting Chakotay and Janeway on the crashed Protostar ten years into their time together. And, like, I, I said how much I loved seeing Hologram Janeway in those scenes and the way they used her. But the way they used her was almost a, a ghostly presence. Uh, there was a, there was not At least to me on screen, a sense of a relationship between the two of them.
It felt like Chakotay treated her as a piece of the furniture or a piece of equipment on the ship. And, um, I don't know if there was a scene and it just didn't fit in a show for kids, or if I just interpret it differently from the writer's intent there, but if, if those couple of episodes of the last flight of the Protostar had established that bond between Holo Janeway and, um, Chakotay stronger, then this would have been less of a out of left field plot element here at the end of the series.
Definitely, definitely. It was a case of they had to play catch up because especially that first episode appearance of Chakotay was his journey of his depression and how he had got to that, you know, the mundanity of his life and the acceptance of that. Um, and adding in that other layer of how that relates to Hologram Janeway sort of like complicates it.
They need to keep it pure and focused on that, but at the expense of finding out that how that connection has been changed, which is a, you know, could have been a really juicy source of character
Yeah. And I think just the, the audience, the intended audience of the show fights against that storyline being done its due. Because I feel like that is a, that is kind of an adult idea of, you know, you're a man, you're stranded for ten years on your own with no hope of rescue, uh, with the holographic recreation of someone with whom you have a very close bond.
And a version of them at their prime,
Yeah. Yeah. And what does that do to the relationship that evolves in that vacuum? Like, that could be a very adult, very mature, mature story. Not, not in a, in a sexual sense, but just in a, like, a 14 year old kid is not interested in that story. Uh, so, so it didn't really fit in this series, but gosh, there's room for a novel there of, you know, the lost decade of Chakotay.
That's a whole, yeah, that's a whole other, like, B plot of a season, of a character being stranded, and how they explore that, but to have it, you know, condense down into a 20 minute episode, there's a lot of stuff that was skipped. Yeah.
Is there anything you wanted to call out from these episodes?
Just that massive lean in, especially, they've always had those nuggets of, people call it fan service or connection to the wider franchise. Um, uh, but especially right at the end, they're bringing it in hardcore.
Picard season one, Utopia Planitia attack. Gosh.
Yep. Yep. Bringing in the synth attack. Okay. We, we're leaning into that. Mention of Picard working with the Romulans. Um, you've got Wesley finally, you know, having that reunion. Yeah. Meeting Jack and, and, and there with, with Dr. Bev. But yeah, just to have that satisfying connection that hasn't been done in any of the live action series of putting Beverly Crusher and Wesley Crusher back in the same room.
Uh, well done, Prodigy. Um, I did feel like it ended very much, leaned heavily into, you know, we're a Nickelodeon kid show of going, you've got your own ship, they're all young crew, you're all your own captains now. Um, And you've got your hologram and you're going off on a, on a ship named after your
Yeah, that is the challenge of this entire series. I feel like it was, and it was especially potent right here at the end is this, this clash of Drawing connections to these mature stories that have been told in the past for adults where, where it's gritty realism and, and we're trying to bring those connections in here at the same time as, Oh, wow, the Federation's just been attacked. It's an existential threat. What are we going to do?
Janeway's going to pull a few strings and give this group of six kids a ship of their own. Um, and, and, it's just like, whoa, the, the whiplash between the, the realism and the fantasy is, it, it barely holds together. But I think for a willing audience like myself, it rewards you buying into the ridiculous fantasy with a fun story and good characters and so, like, all the while going, this doesn't make sense, but I'm here for it anyway, was the feeling I had going through it.
Yeah. Same here. We have, you know, this dark moment happening, but go off on your adventures. So would that be intercut in season three of going, you know, synth attack and the existential crisis of what we're, what the Federation means and what humanity means and all that type of stuff. But hey, kids are getting into scrapes.
Yeah. Uh, a couple of other little details that stood out. Um, Janeway using her comm badge as an explosive to blow open a door that the phaser couldn't get through. It was like, um, I saw someone online call it a Starfleet standard issue bomb badge. It's not a comm badge. It's a bomb badge.
It's a bomb badge. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, the Doctor, this is something that's been going on all season, but I didn't notice it until the Doctor was posing as Janeway and got shot. And then after he was revealed, he disappeared. Like, he basically seemed to teleport himself using his mobile emitter, which is not how the mobile emitter has worked in previous versions of the Doctor. Like, if the Doctor turned himself off, the mobile emitter would fall, clatter to the ground, and someone would pick it up and go, well, you're stuck now.
In this episode, he, he like, disappears, and then reappears outside with the rest of the crew going, hey, our plan worked, let's go. And then, I realized, thinking back, throughout this season, the Doctor has been winking into the middle of a corridor out of nowhere, presumably thanks to his mobile emitter that he's always wearing. And so I guess without us being explicitly told, we are being asked to accept that the mobile emitter now includes a site to site transport function of some kind.
It is definitely sticking very true with how we get to when we get to like the 34th century or wherever they were in Discovery where pretty much science is magic. So this is the next phase of, uh, this is the early stages of science becoming magic, where now all the restrictions that were established in Voyager can easily be hand waved away by going, eh, now you can teleport with it.
Yeah. The scene where they worked out the science to figure out what wormhole they needed to create to get the Protostar back where it belonged was some knee deep technobabble. Actually, I'll say neck deep technobabble. It was technobabble on top of technobabble. There was like, we can thread the needle just like the needle in the haystack. Like they were, they were piling every metaphor they had introduced all on of each other and then going, trust us.
Like. Please accept all of these concepts explain it in our world. And both times I watched it, I kinda gritted my teeth through that scene.
We're saying it with enough conviction, so you can believe us, trust us. Look
Yeah. Like, there was something there that I think it felt like, for me, someone who's, you know, got an engineering degree and thinks about maths a fair bit in my job day to day, I saw something there that felt like algebra. That if you If you accept that ultimately the universe needs to be in balance, and there've been a lot of these destabilizing wormholes, and there's one unknown wormhole, it's basically algebra.
You solve for the unknown variable, you for X, you add up all of these other things, and, uh, they equal the, the thing that you don't know. But I'm pretty sure they could not have said, it's algebra, uh, on screen and had it be, uh, entertaining and satisfying to a young audience. So instead they piled all of these technobabble metaphors and it was ridiculous. But I gotta say, Rob, I still liked it better than the stupid triangle puzzle at the end of Discovery.
Oh, look, you're preaching to the converted right Kevin. That's low hanging fruit for me right there.
Yeah,
But yeah, I mean, you explained it better than they did in Prodigy, but you just needed a couple more metaphors if could. If you could have said, you know, we play a game of two halves, or she's good horse, she'll go all day, or something like that.
Uh, and like in any other show, if it was, like, an adult centric, adult centric, I'm doing that in inverted commas, episode of Star Trek, and they throw in the line, it's algebra, then they'd go, okay, that's alright, but because it's based at kids, they're afraid the kids will go, wait a minute, you're trying to educate me. Get hell out of here. Whereas adult Star Trek fans will be going, educate us! Educate us! Come on.
Speaking of fan service, that last, uh, log entry by Janeway, she quotes what I have gone back and looked it up and discovered is a deleted scene from Star Trek: Nemesis. She says, an old friend once said, we do not feel the passage of time, but the presence of time within us. We grow from what we leave behind as we reach for what lies ahead.
She is basically half quoting Captain Picard in a deleted scene from Star Trek Nemesis where he and Data are talking about people leaving the ship, Riker and Troi getting married and going off to the Titan and like things that have not changed for so long now changing, reminding us of our mortality. It is a too long scene, having watched it today. It didn't need to be in that movie that was already kind of flabby at the edges. But, um, yeah, fun, fun to bring it back for the fans here.
So, I asked you last episode, at the end of this season, what is the balance going to be between too much fan service and just enough, like, fresh accessibility for a new audience? What's your assessment of this series after, you know, two seasons and a very clear finish line? Did Prodigy provide the on ramp for Star Trek that it set out to do, or was it doing too much fan service this season?
I felt they got the balance, uh, the balance was quite good in season one, and for the most part it's been, um, quite good for me in season two.
They've been definitely pushing the more obscure references, and especially trying to tie it now more to, uh, modern Star Trek continuity as well with like Picard stuff set up and all that type of stuff so that's where it can get quite dense and it seemed like there was a shopping list as opposed to, and especially because it came after the natural end of the season with sort of like the villain had been defeated and the timeline had gone back on track and that montage of celebrating itself.
It's a it's a funny situation where we haven't had a 20 episode series of Star Trek for so long and now we've got two seasons, so 40 episodes of Prodigy which is more episodes than most streaming shows get.
Yeah. It's, it's as much Star Trek Lower Decks as we've had.
Exactly. But it's that case of, it has a montage at the end celebrating its first season, and it felt nostalgic, but at the same time, uh, too soon.
Yes. I agree. Yeah. I felt both those things.
Yeah, and then to then go do a postscript very much in the way of Lord of the Rings of another ending, then another ending, then another ending, and those endings ties to this part of Star Trek lore and this part of Star Trek lore. That felt seen very tacked on.
I just wanted to go straight from the ending to the kids getting their own ship, but, um, it was a brave move, interesting move to go, no, let's start tying not only 90s Star Trek and hints of those old scientists Star Trek, but let's tie it in with, uh, contemporary Star Trek now, because that's been, that was a big gap within Star Trek for such a long time. 90s connected with the 60s in some way, the movies connected with each other and tied itself back, even in a fleeting way, to each other.
So everything was kind of self contained, but then from Enterprise and then the big gap, and then modern Star Trek has been very hesitant to tie itself back to what was, in the 90s and before, but now Prodigy and Lower Decks seem to be carrying this mantle of going, we have to tie everything together, um, more so than, you know, Strange New Worlds or Discovery really did.
I feel like they were trying to do two things at once with this series in the same way that, you know, the best Pixar movies are said to be, they are a great kids film, and there's a lot for the parents in the audience to watch that sails straight over the heads of the kids. But it's deftly done so that the fact that it's sailing over their heads does not distract the kids from enjoying the kids movie.
And I feel like that's what they were shooting for here, is that the canon connections, the payoffs, the fan service, is there for the longtime Star Trek fans who will be sitting with their, their young child watching this show and that there's something for both of them. And that hopefully the kids go along with the things they don't understand and are largely oblivious to them, enjoying the adventure and the characters, uh, that they, that, that are written for them.
But the adults are sitting there going, there's something for me here as well. Uh, I'm not sure it's quite as successful a balance as we get in, in like a typical Toy Story movie or something like that, but it was close. What I would hate is that this was to its detriment. That ultimately, if we see this series stopping after two seasons as a failure, which I think is debatable, you could say it's a very fulfilling 40 episodes and that's how long it was supposed to be,
yeah.
and it's successful for that. But if we do see it as like they are wanting to tell more stories, clearly, and they may not get the opportunity, I would hate to think that the reason they don't get the opportunity is because they spent too much time thinking about the existing Star Trek fans and not enough time writing for the new Star Trek fans.
Yeah. Unlike, uh, you know movies that come out and they have that bait at the end to establish sort of like the beginning of a franchise, um, which never really works, you know, create a self contained movie, and any films that try and have that moment at the end of going, this will lead into something else, they're always doomed to fail. And they have in many much recent times.
But for this it didn't seem like, it seemed very much like Picard Season 3 at the ending, where all the fans were going, this is a setup for Star Trek Legacy, let's get Star Trek Legacy happening, but it didn't seem like that within the reality of watching season three of Picard. It seemed very much a great send off of hope going, the journey continues, the stories continue, this world continues, as opposed to going, this is the show, this is the format, this is where we want to go next, please.
You know, subscribe and support us. And that's what I felt like with Prodigy as well. It seemed like this is the world that's going to carry on, whether we have a season three or not. And it seemed to bring that sense of hope, um, which I really appreciated. I could see it ending at season two and going, you know, all the adventures that they're going to have that could be, you know, in our imagination. It could in, you know, novels or comic books or whatever, or just how we discuss it.
I love that future springboard of going leave it open ended as opposed to teasing for, um, something tangible.
I'm not sure which one I read it as. It, at times I look at it and it feels like the, the hopeful, please renew us to be continued. And then, I can also see it the way you describe it, as the, the open ending that promises these characters have a future, even if we have to make it up for ourselves in our heads.
It did seem very much like another franchise with Star Wars, especially with such modern, uh, annoyance with and controversy about Star Wars with the, uh, sequel trilogy and this 30 year gap within continuity, and it's been left to, left I do in inverted commas, You know, we haven't had a Star Wars film since 2019, but we've had a crap load of Star Wars TV shows, and those TV shows have been left to carry the burden of filling in the gaps of that 30 year narrative continuity
from the franchise, and it seems like Prodigy and Lower Decks have taken that on as well going, you know, Strange New Worlds is staying within its own, you know, world and doing little tidbits of connections to the original series. Discovery did little bits whenever it wanted to, but it was the Michael Burnham journey.
Whereas Lower Decks and Prodigy have gone, well, let's fill in those gaps so that, that legitimizes in some ways, which I do in inverted commas, Picard, and it legitimizes all these other continuity points that have come from modern,
Yeah, it's a bit of animated, here's what you missed. Like, Star Trek's been off our TV screens for 30 years, let's tell you the stories that we missed during that
Let's pave it over, let's fill the, get the Selleys Gaps to fill them all together and that's all one big tapestry.
Which I guess goes back to Legacy and the fact that Legacy is the opportunity to not repeat that mistake, but to go, well, now in real time at the real ages of the actors that are still alive to tell the stories, more or less, um, this is where we can continue the present day of our future.
But seems like that is not going to happen because the present day of our future that they want to invest in telling is the far future, uh, after Discovery Season 5, which is where, uh, Starfleet Academy is being placed. I really wish Starfleet Academy was being placed in the Star Trek Legacy timeframe. I tell what, I can't say why other than I feel nostalgic for that time period, irrationally, uh, more than I do for the 32nd century.
Well, cause for such a long period of time, or over a decade or so, the furthest possible point in that, fictionalized future was, um, Voyager. And then for such a long time, every, you know, Enterprise went back in time. Um, the Christopher Pine movies, the Kelvin movies went, retold the original series, then everything has been pushing back.
Even Discovery went back to before the original series and now Strange New Worlds, um, it's that case of we had such a long period of time where we didn't get to experience that future within the future and now they've gone even further,
Yeah. Starfleet Academy is going to be the future now, but they have skipped over those 900 whatever years along the way.
and that'll be left to the next animated Star Trek show to fill in those gaps.
That's a lot of time to fill. Well, let's talk, let's talk about kids. Above all else, Star Trek Prodigy was a show about kids in the Star Trek universe, and we have had stories like that before. Is that what you want to talk about, Rob? Is like characters in Star Trek series of the past who were kids? Or do you want stories about kids? Because to me, they're two different things.
Yeah. I was interested to see where you were going by. I was sort of like looking at how have, you know, kid characters been represented within the Star Trek world, but I know there's been certain episodes where it's, you know, how children characters play a part of a plot. Um, I can't remember the name of it, but there's, you know, a classic original series episode about kids, which is known as one of the worst episodes of Trek ever.
There's a couple, and there's a really good one and there's a really bad one. I did watch them as research for this, but I'm going to skim over them because I think like yourself, I'm interested in the ongoing characters who were the, who brought the, the, the non adult perspective to this universe.
Yeah.
For completeness sake, uh, the original series in, uh, season one had episode 11, Miri, which to me is an all time classic. The girl Miri, who the, the episode is named after it is a plot point that she is on the verge of puberty and on her planet the kids, are, live for centuries, but the moment they reach puberty, they die because of a, uh, genetic manipulation experiment that took place on the planet.
It is good hearted and really solid science fiction, um, some great Spock McCoy stuff as they race against time to find a cure, and it had as guest stars, it had both the middle child and oldest child of William Shatner guest starring as, as non speaking parts and, um, the actress who played Janice Rand, her two kids played non speaking roles, uh, as little, um, little urchins who came out of, uh, uh, a, a air vent to steal the communicators from out of the lab.
So, uh, it was, it was an interesting production as well because some of the actors got their kids involved in the show too. So Miri, if you've not seen it, highly recommended. That's a top 10 episode of Star Trek, the original series for me. And then at the other end of the spectrum, season three, episode five, And the Children Shall Lead, which is one you were thinking of.
And that is like, group of children, the parents have died under mysterious circumstances and they don't seem to care at all. All they do is, is chant and, uh, and do magic by punching their fists in the air and, and they, they take over the ship with their mind control provided by this alien. Uh, ultimately, uh, Kirk talks them down by showing them video of their parents and making them cry. The end. You know, it's, it's not great. Uh, it's not even a very well produced episode of Star Trek.
Famously, the alien was played by someone who apparently at the time was well known in pop culture as a real life lawyer, but they brought him in as a guest star as a like stunt casting. And then he couldn't act surprise, surprise. So they covered him with special effects. So you couldn't see him failing to act.
Fantastic. That's what sci fi is for.
Not a great one. But I feel like Star Trek, the original series largely treated children that way as, as an other, a mysterious force or a uncontrollable force. They were the, the wild ones. Like Star Trek at the time, the Enterprise at the time was a submarine. There was no place for regular kid characters in those stories. So when they did come in, they were a, an intentionally volatile element.
Whereas later on, you know, with Next Generation onwards, the, the ships and the vessels were houses to families, civilians.
Not all of them, certainly Next Gen leaned into that
Yeah, and, and uh, Deep Space Nine as well especially, whereas Voyager went back to that more submarine type thing and,
Yes. And I'm looking forward to talking about Voyager. Uh, Next Generation, if we're looking for a sample episode about how kids were treated in Next Generation, I chose season one, episode 16, When the Bough Breaks, where a planet of aliens who can no longer have children of their own abduct a group of children from the Enterprise and try to negotiate fair payment for the, the children. And, uh, Wesley Crusher is abducted along with that group and, and kind of acts as the leader of the kids.
And Wesley Crusher is worth a whole conversation in, in this context. Is he kid? Is he written as a kid? Very debatable, I think, but the other kids in this episode are recognizably children who, who are dependent on their parents to, to find their way in the world, and when removed from their parents are surprisingly adaptable.
Like, the kids are, apart from Wesley, the kids are mostly very quickly adapting to their new home and that is like the tragedy of this, that the parents are helpless and kind of in their gut know that as long as they're cared for and looked after, their kids will be okay without them, and that is, that is what makes it all the more desperate that they want to get them back, um, before it's too late, um, uh, kind of the unwritten implication there.
But, but Wesley has grown up enough to actively work for his own, uh, release, and he stages kind of a, a sit in, passive, hunger strike for the kids. So yeah, When the Bow Breaks is, is an interesting one. It, uh, it's one of the few episodes where I feel you feel you see real children on board the Enterprise. What do you think? Is Wesley a kid? Is Wesley effectively written as a kid in the Next Generation of what you've seen?
It's always a big debating point when it comes to specifically the genre of science fiction about children in a sci fi show. And the instinct from producers or creative types are always the justification of why they bring a child character in is for someone, and they do this in inverted commas, for the young viewers to associate with. They're the same age as me, therefore I will live vicariously through them. But through most cases, most cases, It never works out.
So, you know, bringing in young Anakin Skywalker in, um, Phantom Menace
Hmm.
was a detriment to the actual legacy of that character, and they had a lot of, an uphill battle to, you know, to get to some point of connecting with him later on, um. Uh, in Doctor Who there was a character in the 80s called Adrick who was a mathematical genius who travelled along with the Doctor. It didn't help that the actor who played him wasn't really an actor. He just like, he, he performed like he just walked onto set and they just kept on going.
Um, there's always those cases of do we connect with them because they're children?
Well the characters you've named all have one thing in common, is that they weren't just kids in the reality of the world, they were exceptional in their abilities. They were special kids.
And Wesley is as well. Yeah, they do make that mistake of going, if you're gonna have a kid, they have to be
They have to be a power fantasy for children of that age.
Yeah, so that was always hard for me to connect with not only because, as a kid, you don't connect with, yeah, it seems to be only adults think that kids connect with kids. I mean, I connected with Luke Skywalker because I saw him as a grown up, despite the fact that he was played, you know, he was a 16 year old character played by a 21 year old. But for me, as a five, six year old, he was a grown up. Um, And so you connect with the adults because you're there going, that's where I want to be.
I want to have that freedom to do all that stuff as opposed to a kid where you have to go with the realities of, oh, I have to be in bed by nine. I don't want to be in bed by nine. I'm on a spaceship, goddammit. Um, so, never really connected with Wesley in that sense because he was, he was, we were told he was exceptional to begin with, whereas when you go to, you know, my show, Deep Space Nine, not only do you have, um, Jake, but you also have Nog, as well.
So, and, the great thing about Deep Space Nine as a ship, it's not purposely built as a ship. Um, like, it's not a ship, it's a space station, so the promenade,
There a natural place for those characters and the stories that they naturally inhabit.
It's a living environment, it's a social environment, it's not, you know, on the bridge, or down corridors that seem like a, uh, a submarine, as you said. And Jake not taking the path of falling into Federation. He's wanting to be anything, he wants to be a civilian within the Federation world, which is an incredible sight to see. We'd never see that. We only have civilians come and go, but our stories are always told from the perspective of people within Federation. Nog as well.
Him going against his culture and his upbringing to go into a, a line of work which doesn't really accept, be the first of his kind and how those characters evolve over seven years. They grow up, we literally see them grow up and they stayed with the show for that entire time whereas Wil was only there for what, the first four
Yeah. That sounds about right. And then, and then became a recurring guest star. I would say Wesley became interesting when he became, when he went to Starfleet Academy.
Yeah.
And he kind of entered the, entered relevance in his age for the military organization that is Starfleet. Like the moment someone has a place in stories about Starfleet is when they join Starfleet Academy and like become a cadet. And that is when it felt like Wesley finally fit. He had a place in this, this world and these stories. And up until that point, I don't think the problem was that they were on a starship.
I think I can accept and buy into the reality that the Enterprise D was a ship with places for families and children. We got hints of that with Alexander, like Worf's son Alexander, being in school.
Poor Alexander!
Poor Alexander, yes, he needed a better father, that Alexander. But I have much stronger memories of Alexander being a kid in stories about kids in kid situations than I do of Wesley, even though there's some crossover in their age. We saw, we saw Alexander at around the same age as we saw Wesley earlier in the series, but early in the series, they just either were unwilling or had not yet figured out how to tell stories about that period in life.
hmm,
And by Deep Space Nine and arguably by late Next Generation with Alexander, they had started to figure that out. The writers had created space in their creative universe for those, those kinds of stories of, of kids and young adults, and the proof for me in that is Naomi Wildman in Star Trek Voyager.
I was gonna bring up Naomi.
She is freaking awesome as a character and in research for this episode, I watched every single appearance of Naomi Wildman in Star Trek Voyager. She's in 19 episodes of that season, so I have been watching a lot of Star Trek Voyager on, on double speed this
19!
Yeah.
Same actress, for…?
She appears first as a, as a baby, like in her birth. There is one episode where she is a, a toddler, where, uh, her function in the story is to be put to bed by Neelix, and Neelix is going through some stuff, and it affects him as he's trying to tell her bedtime stories. But, uh, well cast, uh, very good actress, and then from her third, from the character's third appearance, it's the same actor all the way through.
And is that third appearance, like when she is introduced to Seven of Nine? I seem to remember. It's pretty much when that new actress starts, she's introduced to Seven of Nine and that connection stays. I don't know if that's correct or not.
Yeah, that's right. It's, uh, it's an episode called Once Upon a Time, Season 5, Episode 5, and there's a, there's a lot of, uh, Naomi watching storybooks in the holodeck about, about Flotter and Trevis, and these are like, these are holo novels for kids that we get the impression all the Starfleet crew watched the same stories growing up because they all know the stories and it's really fun.
But there's this, this scene in the mess hall where she is talking to Neelix, who is her godfather, and Seven of Nine enters the room and she freezes and she's like terrified of the Borg drone. Uh, it, and it's great. Like, that is, from her very first appearance, that actor was nailing it. Whoever cast that young girl as, as Naomi Wildman, masterstroke they, whoever found that girl.
Watching Voyager, the connections that Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine has with the crew members depends on their success. Like her connection with Paris, eh, her connection with, um, B'Elanna, eh, but her connection with the Doctor, incredible, her connection with Janeway, incredible.
But the most powerful connection is I always went, oh, Seven of Nine and the Doctor, great, that's it, that's it, but that relationship, that was a happy surprise for me, Naomi, Naomi Wildman and, uh, and Seven of Nine, that connection, man, that was, that was it, that was
the,
Voyager really started to fly.
In that episode, Seven of Nine kind of walks up to the table and asks if she can sit down at Neelix's empty seat, because Neelix has gotten up, and Naomi goes, yes, no, uh, the seat's taken, you can't sit here, and, and she leaves, so they, they are barely introduced. Two episodes later is when, uh, she is following, uh, Seven through the corridors and Seven turns around and says, Naomi Wildman, subunit of Ensign Samantha Wildman. And it's just the, the, the relationship is there from that
Yes,
It's so good
Jeri Ryan saying the full name of Naomi Wildman is, is music to ears.
Great supercut that has on YouTube that has every, every time Seven of Nine said Naomi Wildman back to back, and it's surprisingly long. Um, But it's a good watch. Um, yeah, her connections are basically to her mother, which, uh, who is a guest star of her own. We see her a few episodes before, um, Naomi is born and she comes and goes throughout the series. She is less present than Naomi herself.
Um, Naomi is usually in stories with Neelix, who's her godfather with Seven of Nine, as we just spoke about. Uh, and that's pretty much it. She's like. Pretty quickly becomes this character for Neelix and Seven of Nine to bounce off of in different storylines. And, and Naomi, what she wants more than anything in the world is to eventually become the captain's assistant. So she looks up to Captain, she, she wants to be a Janeway someday. Like so many young girls who are watching this show.
And in that sense, I feel like they wrote a realistic character, with realistic stories about themselves at that age in this world, which is what they failed to do in Wesley. If they had, had the skill or foresight or wherewithal at the time to write Wesley as someone young who looked up to Captain Picard, but, as we know, Captain Picard didn't have any time for the kids. That would have been an interesting dynamic.
But instead, they kind of, for whatever reason, they were not in a position to tell stories of someone that age in Next Gen, but they, they proved they could do it, uh, all these years later in Naomi Wildman.
It's always a bit of a handicap as well if you lead with the fact that this character is super special and super smart, whereas the best way to connect with a character is just to show them as unassuming as possible, and then you find out what's so extraordinary about them, as opposed to being told. You're pretty much told straight away, Wesley is smart, he's a super genius, all right? And you go, well, I don't care.
Whereas with Naomi, She's just, you know, an ordinary kid and that makes her so much more endearing because there's no pressure put upon her, no handicap in any way of just, you know, let's just see her for who she is and then we can find what makes her so special.
There was a note on, uh, Memory Alpha about Naomi Wildman that reminded me of something. And I'm just gonna read this, so all credit to the contributors to Memory Alpha here: As with other child characters in Star Trek, Naomi Wildman appears to age rather quickly. She's seen at age 2 in 2374, appearing to look about 6 years old, and then later seen from 2375-2378 at ages 3 to 6 to look about 10 years old. However, unlike other such characters, an on screen explanation was provided.
Her Katarian heritage caused her to age more rapidly than a human child. And I was like, huh, well, that is interesting. But what other child characters were they talking about? And I went looking and I discovered Molly O'Brien. What are your thoughts Molly O'Brien?
I am looking at an image of Molly right now, um, cause all the work that they did with Jake and Nog, they kind of skipped for poor old Molly. They gave her one episode where she goes and ages incredibly quickly, um, and then she's taken away. So Molly is dear, dear old afterthought, O'Brien.
Poor Molly. Um, quoting from Memory Alpha again here, Molly O'Brien was mainly seen on screen as a baby during the fifth season of The Next Generation, but inexplicably was old enough to talk when recast with Hana Hatae during the sixth season. Later that year, Benjamin Sisko stated that she was three years old in The Negus.
By the second season of Deep Space Nine, which aired simultaneously with seventh season of The Next Generation, her age was explicitly stated to be four, and towards the end of the season, five. By the sixth season of Deep Space Nine, Kira Nerys said she is eight years old. Molly's age appears to be an example of a continuity error known as soap opera rapid aging syndrome. That, uh, writers really love to tell stories about adults having a child.
And then they really want to rush to being able to tell stories about that child experiencing teenage angst. And so they really rush those kids through the boring childhood years.
Yeah, It's a regular thing on TV, like we've talked about. There's, you know, Modern Family is a show that I absolutely adore, and the first two seasons, uh, uh, Mitch and Cam, uh, of course, adopted a child from overseas, uh, Lily, and so for the first two seasons, it's a baby, and then the producers go, well, we can't do anything with this baby, we can't have it age naturally, so the next season, boom, without any explanation, without any talk, she's like, seven or eight. Ha, ha, ha.
So, well, now we can have her talking, now we can do some interesting stories that way. We don't have the time to actually see her age, you know, in real life, so let's jump ahead. And Molly is again one of those, well, we don't want her as a baby all the time. Let's make her interesting.
Molly O'Brien really isn't a character. She's, she's mainly there to affect her parents.
Yeah, and I mean, there's, the actress who played her later on, uh, she's been interviewed, I think she was interviewed from, uh, for the documentary that was done. An she speaks about it so highly and she loved being on the show and she was treated so beautifully by Colm Meaney and Rosalind Chao. Treated her so beautifully and she had such a great time being on the show as a child actor, which was great, but, yeah, they, they didn't do anything with her as a character.
Like you said, she was there just to serve a purpose for the O'Briens, whereas Jake and Nog had their own journeys and we saw them grow when we saw them go from children to know young adults, which was all the more powerful
The thing I, I rediscovered about Star Trek this week was Voyager often gets flack for being just more Next Gen at a time where the, the franchise was running out of fresh creative ideas that it hadn't done before, and I think what, one of the things that Voyager does not get enough credit for is the creation of an interesting, charming, uh, fully realized, young person character on a starship and Naomi Wildman is awesome.
I really enjoyed my time with the unreleased Naomi Wildman box set this week. I recommend it highly.
Oh, I could go back and just do a supercut like when uh, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was about to come out as a movie, I re read the book, but only read the Harry and, uh, Ginny chapters. Cuz that was the best part of, yeah, cause it's an incredible book. I hate the, the film version of it. But the relationship between Harry and Ginny and how it develops in that is great. So, doing a, um, Naomi Wildman cut of Voyager.
I think it was, yeah, it's always a show that was compromised by, what came before and how it wanted to get back to a, it tried to be daring and bold, but was always hamstrung by them being, playing it too safe. But there are moments of genius. So with Seven of Nine, with Naomi Wildman, with some of those episodes, like we talked about Equinox, where they do seep through and lean into the arc structure of what the story could do of returning to these characters. Um, that's where.
Voyager can be remembered fondly and actually, you know, be praised for doing something that no other Star Trek has done.
Well, Rob, if there's one thing that you criticize again and again, whenever we talk about Voyager is the fact that it did not take the opportunity to have the longer story payoff and be affected by the smaller week to week stories.
And, I have to say that one place where they couldn't escape doing that was by casting this young person as Naomi Wildman, because over the course of the, uh, four years that she was on the show, that actor visibly aged, and so looking, looking at her in her first episode and her last episode, it is obvious she has grown up, it is obvious she has been changed by her time on the ship, and it is so satisfying because there was so little of that in the rest of Voyager.
Yes.
We even get to see a grown up Naomi Wildman in that episode, Shattered,
Which we talked about before.
Yeah, where Chakotay is, is navigating the ship that is split across multiple time frames, and one of those time frames has a grown up Icheb, speaking of child characters, we could talk about those Borg children as well, I think we can just agree that poor, poor Icheb was done a dirty by, Picard season one.
Hashtag justice for Icheb.
Yeah, but we get to see grown up Icheb in a, in a happier future for him on board the, the, uh, Voyager that, that didn't make it home. uh, and Naomi Wildman.
Um, yeah, that was, when I went into watching Voyager for the first time, obviously there was a lot of negativity that would come towards it, especially when I first watched it years ago. It's got a new renaissance now, which I'm grateful for, but those things came up going, oh, it's dull at the start, it doesn't really kick off until Seven of Nine there.
But no one told me about Naomi Wildman, so when she showed up, that was a revelation, that was the best surprise I ever got, going nobody ever told me this, why aren't more people talking about Naomi Wildman? She, yeah, she should be talked about on, you know, on the same level as some other, you know, supporting characters within the show. Like you said, 19 appearances, and we've seen that journey grow, especially once they cast that young actress and she stayed with it for so long.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, there you go. I think those are, those are the main kids that I could think of in Star Trek.
Yeah, there are other little, you know, the children of Tom and B'Elanna and, um, and, uh, other, you know, we talked a little bit about Alexander, but when it comes to, you know, fully developed children characters, um, they are few and far between, but I'm glad we've been able to shine a light on, um, you know, particularly, I was hoping we would turn into, uh, our appreciation post of Naomi Wildman, and it certainly did.
She is the best kid in Star Trek. I think we can agree.
I will agree with you on that. Naomi Wildman is the best kid in Star Trek, period.
Where's Naomi Wildman in season two of Prodigy?
Exactly!
She would've fit right in! in
Yeah, where's, you know, if they ever, you know, they'll never do it because, um, Matalas has moved on to be signed up with Marvel. But yeah, if they ever did Star Trek Legacy with, uh, Captain Seven of Nine, come on Naomi.
Yeah. No longer captain's assistant. Make her a captain.
And if that actress is still around, I mean, they did it with Lower Decks, they brought back the actress to do the voice of the character she did in the original Lower Decks, they can find the original Nomi Wildman and she'd be awesome.
She would be awesome. All right. Well, that is my hope for the, uh, hope against hope for season three of Prodigy that, uh, it might be an excuse to bring back Naomi Wildman.
Let's bring on the Wildman! Thank you for this, this has been a joy.
Yeah, well, we're gonna take a break now for a little bit. I don't know, we may come up with some idea for some, some episode in the meantime while we wait for our next, uh, influx of new Trek, but if not, uh, we'll see you later in the year for Lower Decks season five.
Bringing it home.
Yeah.
We seem to be saying goodbye to so many Star Trek shows.
I just hope Starfleet Academy is good. It's got, it's a good start. I think the signs are good, but, uh, you never know.
photo?
Yeah. The cast photo? Yeah. Kicking
at, uh, Paramount Studios? With, uh, Paul Giamatti as the villain up the back, giving us the rock and roll devil horns.
Yeah. I hope it's good.
And he's right next to Robert Picardo. I'm going, course, Picardo and Giamatti would just find each other and go, we are going to be friends forever.
The photo looks like a bunch of, um, you know, a bunch of fresh faces to Star Trek. They're a bunch of nobodies to me at this point, but I look forward to meeting their characters and I hope, I hope they, uh, they are yet another addition to this universe that keeps bringing me back.
There's been, they've been wanting to do a Starfleet series like for 40 years.
The they've tried and failed again and again is the only thing that has me worried about this series. Is that apparently the difficulty level is high, and it's failed before, so how is this one going to overcome whatever challenges have, uh, sunk those past attempts? Um, but the pedigree is good. I, uh, I just, I hope they can pull it off.
Yeah, when you've got Picardo, you've got Giamatti, and you have Academy Award winner Holly Hunter. That's a, that's a good starting lineup.
Let alone a, a, a stacked writing room.
That's right.
Alright, well, see you around the galaxy, Rob.
Thanks so much for your time, Kevin. You keep out of trouble and we'll see you soon.