Prodigy: Terror Firma

For the first time in more than two decades, last week gave us new episodes of two different Star Trek television series in the same week: as Discovery began season four, Prodigy headed into a mid-season break.

Still trapped on "murder planet," the crew of the Protostar tries to reach their ship. Dal and Gwyn's adversarial relationship begins to soften. Holographic Janeway struggles to keep the ship intact on her own. And the Diviner arrives to threaten them all.

On the one hand, part two of this adventure on planet "Larry" (as Roh-Tahk would call it) was less sophisticated than what we saw in part one. We were getting insight into the hopes and fears of each of the show's characters; now they basically spent an episode running from vines. On the other hand, having already done the more introspective thing, it's good that part two of the story didn't just give us more of the same.

Besides, the episode still found a few moments to highlight character amid the vine-fleeing. It isn't surprising, of course, that Dal and Gwyn were going to stop being at each other's throats at some point. Still, it was satisfying to actually have them drop their guards -- a relief, even, that the show isn't going to continue to draw things out when we all know where it's going ("friendship" perhaps being the kids' show version of "will they, won't they?").

Other characters were still illuminated too, in the group's big fireside chat. I'm particularly enjoying Rok-Tahk's childlike innocence. It seems to me that with Dal around to take some of the flak (deliberately written in some of the ways that early Next Gen writers made some fans hate Wesley Crusher), it clears the way for Prodigy to really let Rok-Tahk be a kid -- not precocious like Naomi Wildman, tortured like Icheb, or often without anything to do like Jake Sisko.

Prodigy ends on a mild cliffhanger of "where did they go?" -- but the larger feeling is that the "prologue" of the series is now essentially complete. The crew has their ship, they've learned one of its major mysteries, and they've united more with one another. The table is set for new adventures when the series returns in January.

Still, it remains the new Star Trek series I'm least engaged with. But it continues to give me just enough to keep watching anyway: I'll probably be there when the show returns. I'd give "Terror Firma" a B-.