#pie211-prodigy

[doopcafe]

TV Recap! (Part 3) 

No Spoilers! 

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance: E1–5 or so

When creators care enough about their content that they take the time and expense to tell their story with puppets, it adds a certain refreshing quality and elevates their content beyond mere “thwack something together because the studio paid us.” It really makes things enjoyable to watch. That said, the story itself is a bit simplistic, the overall experience a bit hollow, and it’s littered with de-immersive scenes where it's clear these are puppets. Despite that, it’s a shame this was canceled because this level of dedication should be praised and promoted. 

My enjoyment: 4/5 

Star Trek: Prodigy S1

Akina and I finished watching all of it. Overall this was fairly competent and—despite its flaws—was nevertheless an enjoyable watch. It’s obviously not “Star Trek” to me, but as a kid’s action/adventure show, it did what it needed to and I have no significant criticisms in that regard.

My enjoyment: 3/5 

Star Wars: The Dad Batch S2E1 and S2E2:

I properly “reviewed” S2E3, but for completion here’s a note on the first two E’s of the S. These two were essentially a two-parter split by a proper cliffhanger and involve the Dad Batch—together with a more tolerable, mature Omega—on a mission to steal a crate of Count Dooku’s gold. Fun shenanigans and action ensue. I really have no serious complaints so far and there’s plenty more positives than negatives. I plan on posting “reviews” of individual episodes as I watch them. 

My enjoyment: 4/5 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: S1 

Speaking of “not Star Trek”... It took years, but I can now articulate a main gripe I have with “new trek” content. It comes down to the writing of the characters. The people in “old trek” were always portrayed as mature and intelligent. They behaved with poise and acted like professional adults. Growing up with that, it was a huge influence on me and many of my personal role models came from Star Trek, shaping me as an adult, grounding my morality, and influencing my career choices. So when “new trek” shits all over those characters (my role models), it’s unpleasant in a deeply personal way. But even when it makes its own (new) characters, the new creations act like immature teenagers rather than professional adults. It’s uncomfortable to listen to them sharing personal feelings, making snarky quips, or spouting insubordination to superior officers without repercussion. Anyways, regarding the show itself, it’s not atrociously bad. There’s at least some funny bits and it benefits tremendously from its episodic nature.

My enjoyment: 2/5 

Johnny Quest, S1, E1 and E2

In the first episode, the Quests discover a mad scientist with a laser ray in the Sargasso Sea who intends to use it to destroy the launch of the first space shuttle. In the second episode, the Quests bring along a racist stereotype to the Arctic to recover a lost missile. There’s some seriously creepy vibes here between Race Bannon and Johnny, akin to the cockpit scene in Airplane. (“Joey. You like movies about gladiators?”) Aside from that, Bandit (the dog) is fucking annoying and distracts from everything happening. Go away, you ceaselessly yapping piece of shit. Hadji should smother it with his turban. 

My enjoyment: 1/5 

[doopcafe]

Star Trek Prodigy: First Con-tact (1x07)

Summary: The crew messes up first contact; there’s a Ferengi lady.

Comments: The more AQ aliens that appear, the more I’m inclined to just ignore any mystery they may be generating. I’m worried it’s never going to be explained. Here, the crew meets Nandi, a Ferengi woman who was Dal’s foster mom (or something) before she sold him to The Diviner. 

Skipping over why there’s a Ferengi woman over here in the DQ, this is the first Ferengi character we’ve gotten in Prodigy (not that we needed one) and so I want to talk about that since the Ferengi are one of the more interesting alien species of the Star Trek franchise for me. They were introduced as fresh adversaries for the TNG crew in The Last Outpost, but were a resounding flop and only appeared sporadically throughout the early seasons as weak antagonists. By later seasons of TNG, they essentially only served the role of gag villains (e.g., The Price and Ménage à Troi). 

So their rebirth over the course of DS9 through the hard work of Ira Steven Behr (from The Nagus all the way to The Magnificent Ferengi) was simply fascinating to watch, a solid study of how to develop characters beyond stock status. Of course, as Star Trek Vanilla Lite, Voyager regressed to their earlier portrayal in episodes like False Profits (a pair of Ferengi pretend to be gods to swindle people) and Inside Man (a pair of Ferengi hijack a hologram to swindle people), and that’s the flavor of Ferengi we get here: a Ferengi woman lies and pulls on heart strings to swindle people. 

I didn’t take any notes on this episode, and I watched it over a week ago now, but Nandi explains she needs Dal’s help because “a Federation ship can open doors” (or something). This, from what I remember, never actually comes up: the planet they land on has had no prior contact with other species (it’s a first contact mission), so the fact that the Protostar is—at least in appearance—a Federation vessel has no relevance. Besides, there’s no “door” that needs to be opened: they land the ship on the planet and then walk around (after Gwyn saves them). It’s also a strange thing to say in the DQ since (1) the expectation is that no one would know what the Federation even is and (2) if they did, their experience would likely have been negative (based on the events of Voyager). Also, if this is a first-contact planet, and the McGuffin crystals are deep inside the inhabitant’s sanctuary place, how would Nandi have known those crystals even existed, much less where to find them? These are just details...

Anyways, breaking the Prime Directive should really result in stricter consequences beyond “Holo!Janeway is upset with you,” which itself doesn’t have any much bite since Janeway herself has broken it on at least a couple occasions (arguably).

Oh, we learn that the Protostar was boarded by the scary robot guy that works for The Diviner. So... that central mystery plot is really driving this show for me still. If The Diviner already had the ship, how did he lose it? And what did they do with Chakotay (not that I care)? Is he back on the asteroid breaking apart rocks? Wait, now that they know the Protostar isn’t in the mines, are the slaves still back there breaking apart rocks?

My enjoyment: 2/5

[doopcafe]

Star Trek Prodigy: Kobayashi

Summary: Dal tries to beat the Kobayashi Maru test while the others uncover a new mystery.

Comments: Welp, this was absolutely awful for me, but lemme at least talk about the positives first.

I like that Gwyn sulks around Sick Bay despite being physically sound. Showing repercussions from her father’s betrayal for a little continuity is nice and makes her integration/acceptance into the crew more believable.

I also enjoyed the new elements to the overall mystery. In this episode, we learn that the Protostar was previously captained by Captain Chakotay. Holo!Janeway does not have access to parts of her database because they’re encrypted in a language that only Gwyn and her father would know. That’s... weird and throws a new wrench into some previously formed theories. I’ve made enough guesses, so for now I’m just gonna go along for the ride. I just hope all these mysteries are resolved to satisfaction and there’s a rewarding payoff by the end.

Okay, okay, that’s fair, I should know better, but I can at least hope, can’t I? 

All right, so let’s talk about Dal and that Kobayashi Maru nonsense, shall we? Dal finds the holodeck and uses it to take the Kobayashi Maru test (from The Wrath of Khan). Without knowing it’s a no-win scenario, Dal obsessively retakes the test trying different approaches. This joke was already done on Lower Decks (Boimler’s Borg simulation), where it was much funnier, better executed, and made a lot more sense in the context of Boimler’s character, but we get it again here.

As an aside, the sound editing and dialogue in the Kobayashi sequence were absolutely atrocious. I worry sometimes that I overuse exaggerated vocabulary to the point of being unable to convincingly express when something is truly very poorly done, but the sound quality and forced dialogue was abhorrent and awful. They seem to have just taken unedited sound clips from original episodes and put them into the show with surrounding dialogue that made them seem clearly out of place. I mean, you could literally hear the static and background noises when they spoke! 

Anyways, my main point is that using source material without understanding it is embarrassing and uncomfortable. The Wrath of Khan is a story about growing old, past one’s prime, and about Kirk confronting a no-win scenario—something he’s never had to deal with. It is not a story about starships shooting lasers at each other or any of the other things that visually happen on screen. The Kobayashi Maru is not “a test that Starfleet captains must take”—it’s just a narrative tool, created specifically for Kirk’s character development. It is a storytelling device used to illustrate that Kirk would rather alter the test’s parameters (i.e., cheat) than admit defeat or face a no-win scenario. It could have just as easily been another test, or not even a test at all and it could have fulfilled the same character function.

So why is Kirk’s narrative tool being applied to Dal? Is Dal growing past his prime, worried about growing old? Does Dal’s character struggle with confronting defeat? Do the writers understand the source material at all? There’s no rule saying you must faithfully recreate source material when you copy it; but using it without understanding it is amateurish and embarrassing. Besides, why not test Dal with a method that’s unique to Prodigy and/or to Dal himself? Why not create unique, memorable content?

Also, certain segments of the Star Trek fandom place value on the moral lessons and messages to be derived from the stories in the franchise. They find value in the idea that—at the very least—Star Trek should take itself seriously and present a message that resonates with any thinking person. To not do that—to take the phasers and the warp drive and the transporter and all the familiar visual trappings of “Star Trek” and use them as they are (not as tools to tell a meaningful story, but as a ends in and of themselves)—is to ignore the very core of what makes Star Trek Star Trek. It takes those familiar elements and uses them to reduce Star Trek to mockery, an object of ridicule to be laughed at.

Star Trek Prodigy has been enjoyable thus far as a kids action show. Its strengths lie in that direction. There’s little reason to disgracefully shovel fan-service garbage onto the screen under the guise of introducing children to “Star Trek.”

My enjoyment: 0/5

[doopcafe]

Star Trek Prodigy: Starstruck (1x03)

Summary: The protagonist makes bad decisions and Janeway teaches them how to fly the ship.

Comments: I personally hate “protagonist makes bad decisions to propel the plot” type of stories (comedy of errors, etc.). There was some resolution and “growth” here (the main character maybe learned something), but I’m liking him a lot less now. He’s kinda an impulsive idiot? 

But we got some fun interaction between Janeway and the crew, whose characters had a little more development. However, the juxtaposition of Janeway with a bunch of non-Star Trek kids is very strange to me; as if Janeway has wandered into this science fantasy universe in someone’s fanfic. 

The animators must have watched at least a few episodes of Voyager because they got some of Mulgrew’s traits down: her raised eyebrow, her quiet look of amusement, and even that special way she sips her coffee as people are dying around her.

My enjoyment: 2/5

[doopcafe]

Star Trek Prodigy: Dreamcatcher (1x04)

Summary: The crew lands on a hostile alien world and (possibly) gets stranded there.

Comments: We get confirmation that this show is happening in the Delta Quadrant with Janeway’s exposition of the Class-M planet being in the “Hirogen system.” I am simultaneously worried and excited by the prospect of seeing more Hirogen.

With this insight, the questions then shift to why this Federation ship is in the DQ (I’m gonna call it that) and why there’s an AQ alien (the Tellarite engineer) over here in the DQ. These are interesting mysteries couched in the greater Star Trek galaxy and are a core driver of my interest in the show at this point. 

During her hallucination, the robot lady sees the weird “engine” thing that’s in engineering and calls it “the Protostar’s additional warp engine” (or something similar), implying she knows something we don’t, namely, that it is an engine (as opposed to, say, a prototype cloaking device or an incubation chamber for gagh). If it wasn’t obvious before, this thing is undoubtedly the reason the Diviner wants the ship, but more importantly, may go far in explaining why there’s a Federation ship over here in the DQ with a Janeway hologram aboard.

Even if this engine has the same function as, say, a spore drive (i.e., teleports a ship quickly over great distances), it would still leave open the question of why there’s a Tellarite kid here. Two theories: (1) The Diviner is a sort of Caretaker-like being that’s collecting species from around the galaxy and/or (2) this is very far into the future to the point where species are all over and mixing together. The fancy tech (namely the tricorder and phaser designs) support the latter idea but the fact there’s an undiscovered planet is evidence against it. There’s also the question of why the Kazon brought a child to the baddies at the beginning, which could be an explanation had the Caretaker not died in VOY’s pilot. I should note that “Diviner wants prisoners that can’t talk to each other” is a weak justification for bringing a single child all the way from the AQ and so I’m “having faith” that the writers have a better explanation in store than what was suggested in the pilot. 

Anyways, about the episode itself, Dell (?)* was dumb at first, but recovered by the end of this episode, being the only one that recognized something was off and subsequently rescuing everyone else. I liked this since it’s more in line with what I’d expect from his character as introduced in the pilot (a smart, resourceful kid).

* I think his name is “Dell,” but when the robot lady says it, it sounds more like “Dole” or “Dall” or “Dull” or something. My rule for watching any new show is to strictly avoid the intake of material outside that which is presented by the show itself, since it should never be the responsibility of the audience to seek out explanations beyond what the creators have put onto the screen. That said, I’m seriously considering looking this one up, but for now I’m going with “Dell” since that’s what I hear most clearly most of the time.

Skipping over the fart joke and the stupid-ass dune buggy (seriously, after Nemesis someone still thought that’d be cool to show?) the girl was able to escape from the brig with the use of her super powerful sword thing, which was neat. I’m unclear about how the engineer guy could smell the soup through his space suit, beyond “the planet made him hallucinate the smell” since later in the episode, I could have sworn someone explained that the planet gets inside your head via physical spores that you breathe in?

I guess I should comment on Janeway. Her characterization here continues to be a facet of her “scientist” personality from Season 1 of Voyager where she excitedly exchanges techno-babble with Torres or seemed excited by strange worlds like those in Parallax or Heroes and Demons (or here with this Class-M Hirogen planet). Personally, this is welcome, as the “scientist” persona was always my favorite version of Janeway’s notoriously hard-to-define character, one best suited to Mulgrew’s talents as an actress.

Anyways, this was a nice “planet of the week” episode with a sufficiently novel alien premise and mystery plot to be enjoyable.

My enjoyment: 4/5

[doopcafe]

Star Trek Prodigy: Lost and Found (1x01 and 1x02)

Summary: The main character (Dell?) meets the pink rock girl, they find the ship, and they escape from prison. Janeway appears.

Comments: Someone seriously needs to tell Paramount that Star Trek is not an action movie. I’m pretty sure none of the New Trek writers have ever actually watched TOS or TNG (or even DS9 or VOY). They probably just sat through the heap of trash collectively referred to as “the TNG movies” and formed an impression solely on lackluster content glossed in action movie nonsense. Hey, remember when Action Movie Picard swung around in front of a blue screen they ran out of money to use with a rifle slung over his back as he punched an alien monster in the face before explosions happened like it was a f—ing Die Hard movie? 

“Action” and “adventure” are two words I would not associate with original Star Trek and yet that’s purely what’s being shown here. But, since this show is like 0% Star Trek, I guess I can consider it on its merits as an action/adventure kids show? On that note, this was pretty fun and watchable. The plot was clear and I don’t really have any questions beyond what the writers probably want the audience to have at this point. For example: how did the ship get there? what part of the galaxy are they in? how’s this fit into the larger Star Trek universe?

Oh wait, Janeway shows up at the end as a hologram, which... I dunno, but if you wanna milk the franchise for content and namedrop some former characters to get people interested in your show, Janeway should be dead last on your list. I can’t imagine teenagers (or pre-teens or whatever group this is intended for) would even know who Janeway was. That ending had to have fallen completely flat to the bulk of the audience, right? 

Besides, the other two references I noticed were the existence of a Tellarite (an Alpha Quadrant alien) and a Kazon (a Delta Quadrant alien), which leads to some interesting questions about how those two can be in the same place at the same time, but more importantly, why — out of all possible Star Trek species — would you remind people about the racially charged nightmare of television encapsulated by the Kazon? It’s not doing your show (or the franchise) any favors by acknowledging their existence.

Regarding Janeway, I like how she introduces herself as some sort of teacher that’s going to train them to like, explore the galaxy (or whatever). 

Janeway 101: Week 1: How to Violate the Prime Directive Week 2: Dealing With Loss: Enjoying Your Morning Coffee atop the Lukewarm Corpses of Your Crew Week 3: Mass Murder: Is There Really Ever a Time When It’s NOT Justified? A Primer.

"Exploration” and “Teaching” are two traits I would not associate with the character of Janeway. Kirk was the explorer (and adventurer, much better suited to this show). Within the sloppy mess of inconsistent characterization that composed Janeway’s seven seasons of “character development”, I could see something like “scientist” or “stone-cold boss” or “obsessive captain”, but certainly not “friendly teacher here to show children the wonders of the universe.” 

Did I say I didn’t really have any questions? Sorry, I misspoke. Is the little cat girl the same species as the girl and her father? Why was the girl nice to her? Why couldn’t they just scan for the location of the ship? How did they know the ship was there in the first place? Why not just tell your daughter about the existence of the ship? The main baddies are hiding it like it’s some dark secret, but like... it’s just a ship? (Oh, I guess it has that special warp core thing in it). Is slave labor really the most efficient means of finding it? I dunno what century this is, but it’s gotta be at least Janeway’s time, but nah, just go ahead and Temple of Doom that shit, I guess? Mindlessly break apart rocks, that’ll do the trick. How did the ship fly out so easily? The fact that the ship could be flown out suggests the baddies didn’t need to dig for it, they just needed some people to walk around the well-lit caves and look for it. 

I like how the ship could be repaired by (1) hitting it with a hammer and (2) sticking a glowy tube into an empty slot. Sticking a battery into a wireless mouse is not “fixing” the mouse, but what do I know? When the baddies found the kids stealing the ship---remember, the ship they have spent extensive resources and time searching for---why didn’t they just murder all of the children Anakin-style instead of taking them all prisoner? I don’t personally know, but I guess taking over a ship from corpses would be pretty easy? 

Wow, I have a lot more notes on this, but whatever, was this long enough? In short, I liked it, it was fun. Akina liked it enough to watch a second episode. 

My enjoyment: 4/5 

[doopcafe]

Star Trek Prodigy: Terror Firma (1x05)

Summary: Gwyn becomes a part of the crew and they escape from the main bad guy using the ship’s protostar device.

Comments: Well, my first comment has little to do with the show itself.

There’s a scene in this episode where the scary robot guy is searching for the crew, so they take refuge beneath some tree roots on the side of the road. Robot guy gets to his knees and looks around just above their hiding place. This was nearly a shot-for-shot reproduction of the scene in Fellowship when the Ringwraith is sniffing around for Frodo and the Hobbits. 

There’s a second scene in this episode where the crew is fleeing from the Murder Planet, warping away in the Protostar. Someone announces the villain guy (sorry, forgot his name... The Diviner?) is is pursuit and is catching up. There’s an external shot showing the comparatively tiny Protostar struggling along, bouncing around a corridor-looking thing as The Diviner’s massive, scary ship closes in looking like it’s going to eat them. Again, the visuals here parallel those from the first J.J. Abbrams New Trek movie (whatever it’s called). 

I might be at a point in my life where the frequency of seeing new, original content is being outpaced by the frequency of seeing copies of things that have been done before. On one hand, it’s inspiring to know that there’s people watching this show that have no idea what I’m talking about in the above. A show or movie’s creators could literally copy anything from anywhere and there’s people who interpret it as original (and they’d be right because, to them, it is original). That’s a powerful thought since it allows creators to reuse content with minimal (or no) changes and successfully pass it off to an audience that doesn’t know any better. From the audience’s perspective, it doesn’t matter: that original content was good for a reason, so whether you’re watching the original, or its copy, the effect is the same: enjoyable entertainment. 

Anyways, regarding the episode, the crew find Murf and an injured Gwyn and then spend the episode attempting to return to the ship. At some point they find a wrecked Klingon ship. What’s that doing in the DQ? How’d it get here? How does Gwyn know what a Klingon is? The Tellarite engineer mentions the Klingon rations taste just like food “on the sleeper ship,” which goes far in explaining how he got here (TOS Khan-style, baby), but certainly not the Medusan (the robot lady). [Edit: There’s a line in the following episode where the robot lady says the Diviner took her from the Medusan “hive mind,” suggesting the Diviner went to the AQ and brought her back to the DQ. Why? Because he wanted people for his prison planet that couldn’t talk to one another?] Guess I’ll just have to keep watching and find out.

The bit where Dal uses the robot lady like a flashlight was the funniest thing I’ve seen on this show. “I’m unsure how to feel about this at the moment, but I am glad I can help.” Comedic gold.

My enjoyment: 3/5