Prodigy: Let Sleeping Borg Lie

Each of the modern Star Trek television series strikes its own tone, offering its own "on ramp" to viewers who might not be life-long Star Trek fans. Star Trek: Prodigy in particular is the show that Trekker parents should watch with their children, bringing them into the fandom they love so much. In this gateway capacity, this week's episode introduced the young audience to the apex villain of the franchise, the Borg.

The Protostar crew discovers the unknown weapon embedded in their ship, but are unable to remove it. When they then encounter a Borg cube, they see an opportunity to learn some advanced science that might help the situation... despite Holo-Janeway's warning to avoid the Borg. Elsewhere, Admiral Janeway continues her search for Chakotay, as the Diviner recovers aboard her ship.

I'll just come straight out and say it: I think it was a mistake for Star Trek: Prodigy to feature the Borg. The series was not able to do them justice, and I believe it would not have been possible for them to do so.

I've written about Lower Decks that the Pakleds seemed like the perfect adversary for that series. The writers can maintain the light tone while introducing some jeopardy, and when the Cerritos crew overcomes their adversary, it doesn't feel like they've undermined any critical sense of menace (since the Pakleds aren't threatening to begin with).

The Borg are badass -- even after the later seasons of Star Trek: Voyager chiseled away at their threat level. To feature the Borg in a story where children must overcome them in the end? There's simply no way to do that and have the Borg behave like Borg. Which is why in this episode they capture the Protostar crew without assimilating them right away. They're also generally tame because of other children to think about here: the children in the audience. The Borg are about as close as Star Trek comes to depicting horror, and there's only so much horror genre you can inflict on a young audience. It's okay to show kids scary things... but not too scary.

Another problem in the episode is the breakneck pace. There's a lot of plot being stuffed in here, and so a fair bit of it is confusing. At the beginning of the episode, is Gwyn using the holodeck to recover her own memories by watching some sort of saved "diary" -- or has she reconstructed a recently recovered memory so that she can share it with her friends? If the Borg cube was dormant when the Protostar first encounters it, where did it even come from -- was the ship on autopilot and just happened to come upon it? There's just not enough time to make these elements clear.

Sure, let a group of kids get the drop on the Kazon. But the Borg? Not my favorite moment for Prodigy, and maybe a sign that I should draft a niece or nephew into watching the show with me to properly enjoy it. Without that, this episode was a C- for me.