Our heroic cadets arrive at the strange planet that's the source of the signal from Chakotay. Except... the message turns out not to be from Chakotay, but from a surprising source. They soon learn that the temporal paradox they're caught in is a threat to the entire universe, and if they cannot repair it, strange time-stopping entities known as The Loom will devour their entire reality.
There's a bit of Stephen King's The Langoliers in the mix here: mess with time travel and you'll come at risk from omnivorous monsters that will swallow you and the world itself whole. Needless to say, CG has come a long way since the goofy-looking TV adaptation of The Langoliers made decades ago. Here, the Loom look as terrifying as anything that would ever be allowed on a kids' show, and the danger to our heroes feels real. (Not so much in a "someone might die" kind of way -- this isn't that show. But in a "they're right to run for their lives" way.)
But then, the kids do find an unexpected ally in this episode. (And I have to get spoilery here, so you can jump down to the last paragraph now if you haven't watched the episode yourself.) Star Trek: Prodigy has been using animation to bring back all sorts of characters from Star Trek history, and now we get a second "new Trek" appearance by Wesley Crusher in his "Traveler" persona.
This is a wild performance. Wesley Crusher was already far from the character we knew on The Next Generation; when he appeared in the season two finale of Star Trek: Picard, Wheaton was already allowed to portray something much closer to himself: the effusive, bubbly personality he displays in the "Ready Room" recap shows he hosts. But here, Wesley and Wheaton both go full cartoon, infusing that core persona with inexhaustible energy.
Granted, we've only ever seen one other Traveler, and by no means should assume that all such entities have that guy's morose and constrained mood, Traveler Wesley is basically playing the Doctor here. (Not Robert Picardo; Doctor Who.) He's talking a mile a minute and spewing babble about timey-wimey-ness, a sort of motormouth magician who doesn't feel to me like he really belongs on Star Trek. But... you know, in small doses like this (and a two-part episode of a half-hour show is basically just a regular episode of most Star Trek -- that's just math), I suppose I can accept it.
I may be uncertain about that aspect of the episode, but I'm totally down with the genuine scariness on display here. Not to mention, we get a lot of answers in the season-long story arc we've been following. So overall, I'm going to give "The Devourer of All Things, Part I" a B.
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