Prodigy: All the World's a Stage

The writers of Star Trek: Prodigy clearly know their core audience, focusing each episode on the children they hope will be watching. But they know Trekker adults will be watching too -- and it's for them that the latest episode, "All the World's a Stage," was clearly targeted.

The Protostar crew arrives at a planet who has previously met someone from Starfleet -- an encounter which had a profound impact both sociologically and in the form of a poison corrupting their land. Meanwhile, the Dauntless continues its search for Chakotay... and now, for the people who they believe destroyed a Federation relay station.

Star Trek has done its share of "society polluted by Starfleet contact" episodes (with Star Trek: Voyager in particular doing one with similar plot points to this). Still, I don't believe the telling of this particular story line has ever embraced comedy as fully as this episode of Prodigy, which served up a buffet of delightful references for Star Trek fans. From "James'T" and his exaggerated Shatnerian delivery to "Sool'U" exclaiming "my my" to the phrase "live logs and proper," this episode kept a near perpetual smile on my face.

The way in which the fun serviced a greater theme was quite well done too; the Protostar crew (and Dal most keenly) is feeling a crisis of confidence over not being "Starfleet material," and now through their interactions with these "Enderprizians," they learn that Starfleet is more a way you choose to act than a status someone else bestows on you. Sure -- the revelation was a bit direct, but... kids' show, 22 minutes, you know.

But I did find it a little odd what specific bit of original Star Trek writer Aaron Waltke chose to focus on here. My husband asked me early on: "is this talking about a specific original series episode?" And I really wasn't sure. By the time the shuttlecraft Galileo was revealed, I was rifling mentally through the plotline of the classic "The Galileo Seven," trying to figure out how this could possibly fit. It turns out that Waltke is an even deeper fan of Star Trek than I. (I guess you want some people like that on a Star Trek writing team.)

Ensign Garrovick was featured in the classic Star Trek episode "Obsession," but his fate was not open-ended in any way that sets up this Prodigy episode. Waltke himself has said that he was just inspired that one redshirt in particular had such an important role in one episode of the show, only to never be seen again. He wanted to give the character a big send-off, an "explanation" for why we never saw him again. (As for the shuttle, there were multiple shuttlecrafts name Galileo on the original series anyway; what's one more?) It's fun that a true Star Trek fan got to explore a real bit of minutia now that he writes for the franchise... but it also struck me as weird to essentially do a "sequel" to an episode that wasn't really an episode. (I mean, "A Piece of the Action" is sitting right there -- a lightning rod for fan fiction for more than five decades.)

Still, my big takeaway from the episode was simply that I had fun. I give "All the World's a Stage" a B+. Just when I'm starting to think that maybe I don't need to watch Star Trek: Prodigy, an episode like this makes me glad that I am.