Prodigy, Season 1: A Moral Star, Part 2

Prodigy, Season 1
A Moral Star, Part 2
Airdate: February 3, 2022
9 of 20 produced
9 of 20 aired

Introduction

Dal and friends are in a tight spot as they're left floating on Tars Lamora with a seemingly impossible task of not only surviving, but getting back the Protostar.

This is not Janeway's happy face. Think happy thoughts! THINK HAPPY THOUGHTS!

 

 

Beth's Thoughts:

First off, I'l like to apologize for taking so long to write this review. This show aired back at the beginning of February. I think the subconcsious reason for the delay in writing this was that I wanted to be able to watch a new episode right away. Here we are in the latter half of August, and I can't find any information on when the second half of this season airs! That's just frustrating!

To have this episode fresh in my mind, I just finished rewatching it. Overall it's an engaging episode. 

However, the reveal that the Diviner has traveled back in time 50 years to save his home planet from first contact with Starfleet seems like a trope that's been done before. I'm specifically thinking of "Friendship One" in ST:VOY and "Terra Nova" from ST:ENT. 

Obviously it's a relief that Gwyn doesn't share her father's feelings about Starfleet's responsibility, and she wants to prevent the Protostar from reaching Starfleet, due to the Diviner booby trapping it in some way. BUT, that brings me to another minor quibble about the story choice to have Gwyn forget her warning because she saw Zero's reflection in Dal's Starfleet communicator badge. Amnesia as a plot device can be a bit of a cop out, and it's perhaps not the only way to have the danger within the Protostar masked from the crew.

Those minor quibbles aside, the animation and voicework is stellar as usual. The story is very well paced and fun. The introduction of Admiral Janeway and her quest to find out what happened to Chakotay and his crew has set up the second of the season in a great way. If only Paramount would finally air those episodes!

This is definitely an episode that falls within the "average" grade. I give it a 3.

Matthew's Thoughts

I don't think you need to apologize for delaying this review, given that Paramount has delayed the second half of this season to such a degree that I have literally had to re-watch the first half in its entirety to remember what went on.

Having done so, I think this is a good culmination of the first half's overall story. I agree that Dal, and the crew in general, pay off the questions and development about their fitness and ethical commitments. I liked their planning montage, and the twists and turns of that plan as they played out in the episode.

So, with respect to the Diviner/Vau N'Akat reveal - I like the story idea generally, but think it wasn't given enough development here. Even one or two more minutes would have allowed the Diviner to make his case a little better, giving us a classic "villain who disagrees" as opposed to a "villain who is evil." I don't expect to come around to his position - but I don't really know what it is. Maybe it will be revealed in future episodes, but this would really have been the time for it.

The climax with Zero revealing their true Medusan form was well done, and provided a nice "oh no" for the future stories, with the threat of some sort of computer virus contained in the Protostar's computer. And I loved seeing the Dauntless. Why is it the Dauntless? Wasn't the Dauntless a fake ship created by Arturis? Who cares. It's a cool-ass call-back to Voyager, and I trust this writing staff to get it right (something I have not said since 2009, or perhaps even 2005, with respect to Star Trek). Visually, the Vau N'Akat city and Zero scenes stood out as particularly excellent, and nothing was even below average.

I'm at a 4 on this, for a total of 7. I wanted more meat on the time travel story. But as a character story, this worked really well.