The Protostar cadets have come up with a secret plan to steal a shuttle (that's about to be destroyed anyway) and use it to go after Chakotay. But once they're gone, they fear, their absence will be noticed. To cover for this, they decide to create holographic duplicates to take their places. But when the duplicates are programmed so well that they think themselves to be the "real deal," a struggle ensues.
Sometimes, the fact that the main characters of Prodigy are children has been a hurdle for the writers to jump over. Here, it's actually an asset. There are any number of points in this episode where the sensible thing to do would be to "tell someone else what's going on." Tell Janeway that you've found a clue that may lead to Chakotay. Get someone else (Maj'el, perhaps) to help you with your "escaped holograms" problem. But no, kids are gonna kid here -- they can't see any other option but to pursue the plan they've come up with. They've decided they have to hide what they're doing, and that's just the end of it.
And so the stage is set for some fun hijinks with a double dose of each character. Two Dals are as toxic as you'd expect, two Jankom Pogs as boisterous, two Rok-Tahks as brilliant, and so forth -- it's a fun format to deliver a lot of great little moments. Plus, the half hour format of Prodigy is ideal here for a story that arguably has limited potential beyond these little moments.
Yeah, I've said before that I'm tired of the "24 hours earlier" trope. But I suppose allowance must be made for the fact that this series' core young audience has probably never seen that trope before. Is the Doctor still unbelievably clueless, and Admiral Janeway downright lazy about keeping up with what's going on aboard her ship? Sure, but as always, the animated format makes this lighter Star Trek easier to swallow.
I give "Imposter Syndrome" a B. It's savvy about playing to Star Trek: Prodigy's strengths, and a fun watch for it.
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