As the Dauntless closes in on the Protostar, an odd confluence of events causes Dal and Admiral Janeway to switch bodies. Aboard the Protostar, Janeway helps her holographic counterpart, and finally learns the reasons for the strange behavior of the Protostar children. But aboard the Dauntless, Dal struggles to allay suspicion... and the Diviner and the Vindicator are both still on the loose.
Body swapping is a time-honored Star Trek staple, and I feel like the results are usually good. Strange New Worlds just did its version, and the "hijinks" made for perhaps the greatest episode in a great season. And even if that was quite recent, I'm happy for Prodigy to serve up its own take.
I feel like it's best to lay as little track as possible when setting up a Freaky Friday; how it happens usually isn't very important, and some hand waving is welcome to get to the meat of the story. That said, I feel like this episode maybe goes a bit far in that respect. The set of coincidences here, involving Dal's DNA and a phaser blast, are fast but also so weirdly specific and detailed that you can't help but get stuck on it -- especially when resolving the situation requires you to keep thinking about how wild this scenario is. Quite simply: this is not my favorite of Star Trek's body swap setups.
Although, once the premise kicks off, it pays all the expected dividends. The animators have a lot of fun depicting Janeway-as-Dal and Dal-as-Janeway. Actors Brett Gray and Kate Mulgrew both give great vocal performances in the opposite roles. As a bonus, Mulgrew also acts opposite herself, in a pivotal scene between Admiral Janeway and Hologram Janeway.
We get key plot points in the ongoing story. We get a hilarious shout-out to one of the worst Star Trek: Voyager episodes ever made. The comedic tone spills over to other characters besides Dal and Janeway; even the villains get a light moment. So yeah, overall, this is a really fun episode. But it really asks you to turn your brain off and go along for the ride. I was only partial successful in that, and so I'd give "Mindwalk" a B. But I'm guessing it went over great for the primary, younger audience.
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