Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Prodigy: Ascension, Part I

Star Trek: Prodigy headed into the final act of its season two story with another two-part episode. First up, "Ascension, Part I."

Reunions have come at last -- Janeway and Chakotay, Voyager and the Protostar. But it's not all happy. The ships have been ordered back to Starfleet Command for a sure-to-be-contentious debriefing. The timeline is still damaged. And now, Asencia has somehow taken control over her planet using advanced technology, and threatens our heroes with a massive warship.

If you rewind back to the very beginning of the season, Asencia was the main villain of the story, wresting control of the planet Solum before Gwyn could persuade them to follow a more peaceful path. I thought all of that played well. But now, escalating her into a menace that threatens all of Starfleet (and really, all of reality)? I just can't traverse the distance between A and B.

Part of it is that Asencia's vendetta with Starfleet doesn't make a lot of sense to me. There has been some track laid here going back to season one, stemming from the Diviner's hatred of Starfleet and blaming them for... something. But Asencia's anger feels greater and more particular, without (that I recall) us ever getting a real explanation why. If she hates Starfleet this much, could she even stay undercover with them for long without giving herself away? Did Starfleet values not rub off on her in any way? This might all be stuff beyond the scope of a half-hour kids' show to explain, but the absence of it just leaves Asencia a generic mustache-twirling villain.

How exactly she wields so much power is inexplicable too. By the end of the episode, you get a hint of how this might be -- she has captured Wesley Crusher, and perhaps she has extracted some sort of advanced temporal knowledge from him. Though there's a bit of a paradox implied here too. How did she get advanced technology that would allow her to capture Wesley in the first place to then extract advanced technology? Perhaps future episodes will address this (this is, after all, part one of two)... but leaving this unanswered for so long, combined with her already generic villainy, really just feels like it's asking a lot of the audience. Asencia's just the Big Bad now. Go with it.

I suppose at least Asencia does twirl good mustache. Jameela Jamil certainly leans into the vocal performance, relishing all the eeeeevill dialogue and claiming a worthy star in the constellation of Big Bads with powerful ships. (Chang from Star Trek VI looms large; Shinzon from Nemesis is a far dimmer star easily outshone here.) And certainly, Prodigy takes full advantage of its format, serving up nearly 20 solid minutes of action featuring two starships, a squadron of fighters, and all the wild maneuvering you could ever ask for.

But I found it all kind of aimless, and I'm really hoping for more out of part two. I give "Ascension, Part I" a C+.

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