News Star Trek Prodigy Cancelled, Season 2 to be shopped around

[tomalak301]

How I'm feeling right now is the same as how I felt in 2005 when Enterprise was Cancelled, just shock and disappointment. In fact, this might be worse because at the time I didn't actually watch ENT Season 4 when it originally aired. With Prodigy, I was shocked on how much I loved this little show for kids and now not only is that it, the series is going to get memory holed into oblivion.

 

[Yistaan]

I wonder if it vanishes from streaming entirely it will still be considered part of Trek canon? I mean, that's Paramount essentially erasing it from existing anywhere.

The blu-ray for Season 1 exists, meaning season 1 at least should still be canon: https://trekmovie.com/2023/02/07/re...1-volume-1-blu-ray-looks-and-sounds-stunning/

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Wasn't that news earlier this year that Prodigy was renewed for a second season though? It's one thing to be cancelled, but to remove the series on a streamer for "Everything Trek" doesn't make sense to me.

Yes, it was renewed for a second season. They will finish production on it and try to find a new home for it.

 

[cardinal biggles]

The blu-ray for Season 1 exists, meaning season 1 at least should still be canon: https://trekmovie.com/2023/02/07/re...1-volume-1-blu-ray-looks-and-sounds-stunning/

It's only the first half of Season 1, though. They haven't released the second half yet. Since those releases are usually timed to coincide with a new season starting, who knows when it'll happen now.

 

[JoseNoodles]

Also the powers that be made a huge mistake going with Academy and not Legacy. I just don't think young adults will watch Academy just like kids didn't watch Prodigy.

I felt Star Trek Academy was not the best idea even before Season 3 of Picard, but even if Legacy had been greetlit, it wouldn't get a chance to take off before Paramount+ goes bye-bye. Much like I don't have high hopes for Academy or the Section 31 on P+ now either. Shit I don't even know if we will see the last season of Discovery.

 

[tomalak301]

Yes, it was renewed for a second season. They will finish production on it and try to find a new home for it.

Who will take it. If it didn't get the audience for P+, it's not going to get the audience anywhere else. This is where the whole streaming thing is confusing to me. I get it costs bandwidth, but it's their own streaming service. Does deleting series from their own streaming service really save that much bandwidth and money? I don't really know how any of that works. I just know with this story and what has been happening at Max, physical Media might be more important than ever now.

 

[Mr. Patient]

I don't understand why the existence of the show on disc or a streaming service would have any bearing on its canonicity. It happened.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

It's only the first half of Season 1, though. They haven't released the second half yet. Since those releases are usually timed to coincide with a new season starting, who knows when it'll happen now.

It’ll probably be released as a MOD like Lower decks season 3 was.

 

[cooleddie74]

It's not being decanonized. It all happens in that universe. The "decanonization" argument makes no sense at all.

Sure, it's been cancelled. But so what? So were TOS and ENT and they're both firmly canon in the Trek universe.

 

[ananta]

Much like I don't have high hopes for Academy or the Section 31 on P+ now either. Shit I don't even know if we will see the last season of Discovery.

Maybe they’ll put their tails between their legs and try to get Netflix to take it back after (internationally) yanking it off Netflix a few days before the s4 premiere.

 

[JoseNoodles]

Who will take it. If it didn't get the audience for P+, it's not going to get the audience anywhere else. This is where the whole streaming thing is confusing to me. I get it costs bandwidth, but it's their own streaming service. Does deleting series from their own streaming service really save that much bandwidth and money? I don't really know how any of that works. I just know with this story and what has been happening at Max, physical Media might be more important than ever now.

And piracy...

 

[fireproof78]

I mean will Paramount+ be around long enough to host the entirety of Season 2, it seems like it might be shuttered soon and the shows shipped off to somewhere else.

And Hollywood never learns, they're still making superhero movies even though The Flash bombed and the MCU is losing its luster.

True enough.

Oh well.

 

[Yistaan]

I don't understand why the existence of the show on disc or a streaming service would have any bearing on its canonicity. It happened.

We're actually in an interesting situation with Willow as the Chris Claremont novel trilogy, which the canceled Willow tv series outright contradicted, can still be bought legally from secondhand stores or ebay while there is now no legal way to watch the Willow tv show, having been removed from Disney Plus and no physical releases (the physical releases seen on ebay etc. are bootlegs).

One can argue then that this is Disney saying the Willow tv show was now never canon and that the Claremont novel trilogy is canon again.

 

[eschaton]

I felt Star Trek Academy was not the best idea even before Season 3 of Picard, but even if Legacy had been greetlit, it wouldn't get a chance to take off before Paramount+ goes bye-bye. Much like I don't have high hopes for Academy or the Section 31 on P+ now either. Shit I don't even know if we will see the last season of Discovery.

I feel like at the end of this, we'll end up with:

• Netflix surviving
• Disney+ surviving (having integrated Hulu fully)
• Amazon Prime buying someone else out
• Apple uses its deep pockets to buy someone else out, making Apple TV+ finally relevant.

Paramount+ and Peacock are going to fold into someone else. The big question is whether Max will be able to survive. In terms of raw subscribers, they're #3 right now of the U.S.-based streamers, but they've screwed up so badly and are taking an axe to the service.

 

[tomalak301]

And piracy...

Yeah. I know we're not supposed to talk about it on this forum, but just generally, people are going to go back to piracy if they can't get something through a streaming service they actually paid for, not to mention those costs for the streamers are going up. You're getting less content for more money. It's 2000-2003 all over again.

 

[DarkHorizon]

Such a shame. The show brought out the concepts and values of Trek in a way which no other series had previously. I really enjoyed it, and wanted to see where it would go next.

But if all of the other streaming services are dumping their own material down the drain to "save money", how likely is it that someone will want to pick the show up, even if it is finished? Seems a slim hope to me.

 

[Relayer1]

I suspect Lower Decks is next for the chopping block

I doubt it - Its (unfathomably to me) really popular.

I'd rather they kept Prodigy.

 

[Yistaan]

I find it hilarious especially considering how hated the character can be that Chakotay's canonical fate may now be dying alone in some evil alternate timeline. Of course, the same happened to Spock...

Raffi: Seven, did anyone ever get around to rescuing Chakotay from the bad future he found himself in?

Seven: Who?

 

[eschaton]

Who will take it. If it didn't get the audience for P+, it's not going to get the audience anywhere else. This is where the whole streaming thing is confusing to me. I get it costs bandwidth, but it's their own streaming service. Does deleting series from their own streaming service really save that much bandwidth and money? I don't really know how any of that works. I just know with this story and what has been happening at Max, physical Media might be more important than ever now.

Every time someone watches a show, residuals have to be paid to the creator. Expunging it entirely from the service means there are zero ongoing costs related to it after it's written off as a loss.

 

[cooleddie74]

There was a time that I'd hope the SyFy Channel would pick up a cancelled Trek show and air new episodes but that hope evaporated in 2005. If SyFy at the peak of basic cable sci-fi programming wouldn't touch a cancelled Trek series then it won't now.