One of the great joys of parenthood is sharing the stuff you love with your children. As a mom myself, I’ve stacked our shelves at home with all things Ghostbusters, Marvel, Star Wars, and assorted other fandoms (yes, my son is going as Grogu for Halloween). And I’m not alone: fellow nerdy parents are quick to plunge their kids into their favorite pop culture, hoping to raise little nerdlets of their own. Of course, we joke that this will somehow backfire, resulting in a generation of kids who just want to play football and cheerlead and hate all things genre. But what are you going to do? NOT cosplay as a family? Impossible.
Naturally, there’s no shortage of kids content that connects to the franchises we love, but it’s surprising that we have yet to see a Star Trek series for little kids. Given the decades of spinoffs and offshoots of Gene Roddenberry’s brainchild, it’s a glaring absence. But Paramount+ looks to fix that with their new animated series Star Trek: Prodigy.
Prodigy (which will be the first full CG Star Trek series to date), was created by by Kevin and Dan Hageman (Trollhunters, Hotel Transylvania) and follows teenagers who discover an abandoned Starfleet starship, the U.S.S. Protostar, and begin to go on adventures.
The motley crew of aliens will be guided by a hologram of Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew, reprising her iconic role) who will dispense wisdom to the explorers. “Why wouldn’t I want to return to this magnificent franchise?”, said Mulgrew during the panel. She’ll be joined by the voices of Daveed Diggs, Jameela Jamil, Jason Alexander, Robert Beltran (aka Star Trek: Voyager‘s Captain Chakotay), Brett Gray, Rylee Alazraqui, and Dee Bradley Baker.
The one-hour series premiere was played for fans at the NYCC panel. The first episode introduces the group of lawless teens, exiled on a mining colony outside Federation space, where they discover an abandoned old Starfleet ship. Dal (Brett Gray) must gather an unlikely crew for their vessel if they are going to escape Tars Lamora, but the Diviner (John Noble) and his daughter Gwyn (Ella Purnell) have different plans.
Mulgrew said of returning to the role, “I have invested every scintilla of my being in Captain Janeway, and I can’t wait to endow her with nuance that I never did before in Star Trek: Prodigy. How thrilling to be able to introduce to these young minds an idea that has elevated the world for decades. To be at the helm again is going to be deeply gratifying in a new way for me.”
The Hageman brothers described the series as a perfect launch point into the world of Star Trek, saying “There’s a lot of Star Trek out there, where do we start? … This is the show that’s going to help. This will guide them right into the franchise.”
Star Trek: Prodigy premieres on Paramount+ on October 28. After it completes its run, the series will air on Nickelodeon.
(image: Paramount+)
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