Review Text
Pending my review, the comments section is open.
Previous episode: Imposter Syndrome
Next episode: Is There in Beauty No Truth?
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Star Trek: Prodigy
Air date: 7/1/2024
Written by Erin McNamara
Directed by Sung Shin & Sean Bishop
Pending my review, the comments section is open.
Previous episode: Imposter Syndrome
Next episode: Is There in Beauty No Truth?
Like this site? Support it by buying Jammer a coffee.
5 comments on this post
Karl Zimmerman
This episode, even more than the last, marks a transition from the highly serialized start of the season into something more approaching the semi-episodic adventures of most of the first season. The kids have a destination in mind; they get sidetracked, and mishaps ensue. It feels even more like a first-season throwback because the antagonist is (it seems at first) a Kazon.
Fortunately, there is a twist, but that twist comes quite late into the episode. Altogether, too much of the runtime here was spent on the race section in the middle. In an hour-long episode, a protracted action sequence like this would be forgivable, but it feels like precious minutes wasted on empty drama here.
Overall, this was a lightweight, empty episode—easily the most mediocre (I'm not going to say bad) of the bunch. It didn't do it for me because it revealed nothing about the characters themselves other than the broad strokes established early last season. I like that Zero's suit got ruined at the end, which means that even if it's a throwaway episodic plot, there was at least some consequence here.
Oh, and it stretches credulity way past what I'm comfortable with that the holo-imposters weren't discovered immediately, given the fuckup in their voices/personalities. That said, I'll chalk this up to being a kids' show.
Brandon
"The sonic toilet is...out of order."
I laughed louder and longer than I have at Star Trek in quite a while. Good timing.
Jeffrey's Tube
Filler episode? Yeah. Still entertaining as hell? Yeah!
I want to know more about the weird-ass Borg AI chair thingy that's hanging out in the transwarp conduit, but I also know it works better if we don't know. We know what we need to.
. . .
If I had to wait a week after the previous episode only to get this episode, and then have to wait another week for the next episode, I would probably be a bit annoyed by this episode. But I don't. The binge model makes an episode like this a much more enjoyable experience.
Sorry to keep comparing Prodigy to Discovery, but the awful S5 of Discovery is still fresh in my mind. Would a binge release model have saved, say, the ISS Enterprise space sphincter episode and made it into a more enjoyable watch? You know, I don't think so. No, it wouldn't. So . . . what's my conclusion here? Binge model is good at smoothing out bumps in a serialized show but you've still got to make a good show? Great, very helpful insight, Jeffrey's Tube. Ha!
Chris W
@Jeffrey's Tube: I agree, I don't think a binge model would have helped DSC's s05. It probably would have made it worse if someone felt compelled to binge it for the sake of binge-ing.
Daya
This was a very good episode, a throw back to Star Trek TOS, with a twist. Kids do get hyper-competitive, losing sight of the bigger picture. Adults too. This was shown wonderfully through the medium of Dal, who realizes he got carried away, and the change in him is palpable at the end.
The TOS-patented berserk computer is a stand in for hypercompetitive society gone mad, with no one at the controls. A novel use of an old trope.
Well, what do you know? A kid's show that shows kids how to be better kids. And hopefully grow into better adults. Four blue stars.
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