We’ve had glimpses and teases over the past year or so of what Prodigy wants to bring to the Star Trek franchise, but now, we’ve finally got a glimpse of it in motion: teasing the future of Star Trek can be found in some bright young things… with a little help from a familiar face.
Revealed at Paramount+’s Trek-tacular San Diego Comic-Con @ Home panel, providing animated insights into the debuts of Prodigy and the second season of Star Trek: Lower Decks, the teaser introduces us to the unlikely alien heroes of the show, who discover the abandoned experimental ship U.S.S. Protostar in the Delta quadrant and decide to take it as their own way to explore the stars. But when the ship’s training hologram, a replica of iconic Voyager captain Kathryn Janeway (voiced by the returning Kate Mulgrew) is activated, our young bridge crew find themselves being shaped by Starfleet’s ideals as they learn how to work together not to just survive owning their own starship, but using it to see the wonders—and dangers—among the stars. Check out the trailer below—international viewers can see it here.
“She’s Janeway at her best. She’s there to help this motley crew… get this defunct ship working. And she does. She is the essential Captain Janeway,” Mulgrew said during the series’ join panel appearance with Star Trek: Lower Decks. “She’s full of, I think, warmth. She’s going to help these kids. She’s determined to help them get off this very, very dangerous and dark planet and into a much better place. A different galaxy. So she brings to bear on this task all of her skills and most of them are deeply human.”
But Prodigy is about more than just Janeway. Alongside Mulgrew’s return as one of Trek’s finest captains (albeit in holographic form), Star Trek: Prodigy stars Brett Gray, Ella Purnell, Rylee Alazraqui, Dee Bradley Baker, Angus Imrie, and Jason Mantzoukas as the alien teen protagonists: Dal (of an unknown species), Gwyn (a new-to-Trek Vau N’Kat), Rok-Tahk (a Brikar from the TNG novels), Murf (an unknown blob-like being), Zero (a non-binary Medusan), and Jankom Pog (a Tellarite), respectively. It’s a new generation of Star Trek characters to introduce kids and newcomers to the franchise alike to what the series has always been about.
“I’ve been a part of it for upwards of 25 years and the Hagemans are well aware of the fact that it has changed my life. So when this was proposed to me sometime ago, after a moment’s deliberation, I thought ‘what could be better than possibly handing this to the next generation?’ To a demographic that heretofore has not known anything about Star Trek,” Mulgrew continued. “The beauty of it. The philosophy of it. The hope and the promise of it. And if there’s any age group that’s going to take this thing and embrace it with a whole-heartedness not seen before, it’s the young kids.”
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The series, originally set to debut on Nickelodeon, will now premiere later this Fall on Paramount+, before heading to the children’s network after Prodigy concludes on streaming.
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