Spoilers Star Trek: Prodigy General Discussion Thread

[Danja]

Best thing to do about TAS is skip it.

"But it's CANON!"

 

[Tuskin38]

Best thing to do about TAS is skip it.

It has good episodes.

 

[Mudd]

A lot of canon sucks and should be ignored.

 

[Nerys Myk]

A lot of canon sucks and should be ignored.

 

[brandnewfan]

A lot of canon sucks and should be ignored.

Take it back!

 

[fireproof78]

A lot of canon sucks and should be ignored.

Indeed.

 

[SpocksOddSocks]

A lot of canon sucks and should be ignored.

That's true, but I personally think TAS has a lower dud rate than TOS.

 

[Mudd]

That's true, but I personally think TAS has a lower dud rate than TOS.

Nah, it had like one and a half non-duds.

Plus, it never aimed nearly as high.

 

[Nightowl1701]

So let me see if I've got this straight: A bunch of runaway teens find an old abandoned Starfleet vessel, fix it up and go joyriding on adventures throughout the galaxy. Time setting not given, but likely post-Federation since Starfleet'd be in hot pursuit of them otherwise. Ship has to be big enough to handle most anything thrown at it, yet small enough for maybe a half-dozen kids to fly and comfortably live in it. So smaller than an Excelsior, bigger than a runabout, and capable of automation...

Oh hell.

They're going to be flying the Enterprise-A, aren't they? Just like those kids in the Ghostbusters Afterlife trailer with the Ecto-1. It'll be floating in the long-forgotten Starfleet Museum, keys in the figurative ignition...

 

[Nerys Myk]

So let me see if I've got this straight: A bunch of runaway teens find an old abandoned Starfleet vessel, fix it up and go joyriding on adventures throughout the galaxy.

Isn't that the plot of "The Way To Eden"?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Isn't that the plot of "The Way To Eden"?

No, they commandeered a fully crewed and operational front line Federation Starship. That's infinitely worse

 

[Nerys Myk]

No, they commandeered a fully crewed and operational front line Federation Starship. That's infinitely worse

Another Security Chief bits the dust.

 

[Ometiklan]

...Oh hell.

They're going to be flying the Enterprise-A, aren't they? Just like those kids in the Ghostbusters Afterlife trailer with the Ecto-1. It'll be floating in the long-forgotten Starfleet Museum, keys in the figurative ignition...

What about "Star Trek: Valiant - The Series (but done a little better)"

 

[Dukhat]

So let me see if I've got this straight: A bunch of runaway teens find an old abandoned Starfleet vessel, fix it up and go joyriding on adventures throughout the galaxy. Time setting not given, but likely post-Federation since Starfleet'd be in hot pursuit of them otherwise. Ship has to be big enough to handle most anything thrown at it, yet small enough for maybe a half-dozen kids to fly and comfortably live in it. So smaller than an Excelsior, bigger than a runabout, and capable of automation...

Oh hell.

They're going to be flying the Enterprise-A, aren't they? Just like those kids in the Ghostbusters Afterlife trailer with the Ecto-1. It'll be floating in the long-forgotten Starfleet Museum, keys in the figurative ignition...

Actually, I would love that. It would finally explain the fate of the Enterprise-A, since we know nothing about what happened to it after TUC other than that it had been decommissioned.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

If anything, while TAS did have to tone down the sex and violence somewhat for Saturday mornings, it mostly did not try to write the show any differently than TOS. It had none of the tropes that were typical of kids' cartoons at the time -- the characters didn't turn to the camera at the end to lecture the audience on the moral of the story, they didn't have teen sidekicks or cute animal mascots, they didn't form a garage band and perform pop songs, etc.

True, a lot of its episodes did follow the Filmation pattern where the problems were solved with talking and understanding rather than violence -- but then you got "The Slaver Weapon," the only TAS episode and one of the very few Filmation episodes ever where characters actually died violently onscreen, with no effort being made by the protagonists to talk or reason or negotiate. It's a startlingly ruthless, amoral ending both for Saturday morning TV and for Star Trek in general. I think that would've been a better Star Trek episode if it hadn't been so slavish an adaptation of the original "Known Space" story -- if instead of just letting the Kzinti mishandle the weapon and get themselves killed, Spock et al. had warned them of the danger, saved their lives, and paved the way to a peaceful resolution.

If "The Slaver Weapon" had ended that way, it would have been incredibly lame, and thereby dumbing things down for a supposedly kid-friendly ending complete with an implicit moral would have unambiguously represented an instance of a trope "typical of kids' cartoons at the time." Not to mention, it would have been totally implausible for Spock and his party to risk the entire Federation by in effect handing the Kzinti the total conversion weapon on a proverbial silver platter, in the hopes that they would then do "the right thing" by returning the favor of sparing their lives.

 

[CuriousCaitian]

If "The Slaver Weapon" had ended that way, it would have been incredibly lame, and thereby dumbing things down for a supposedly kid-friendly ending complete with an implicit moral would have unambiguously represented an instance of a trope "typical of kids' cartoons at the time." Not to mention, it would have been totally implausible for Spock and his party to risk the entire Federation by in effect handing the Kzinti the total conversion weapon on a proverbial silver platter, in the hopes that they would then do "the right thing" by returning the favor of sparing their lives.

You're making a lot of assumptions there, not least that a peaceful resolution would inevitably hand the Kzinti the weapon. There are many ways it could have ended without the deaths, that would fit in more with the tone of the rest of the series, as, to my recollection, they weren't completely immune to reason, completely unwilling to listen. It could even be an uneasy resolution, a tentative truce, no more than hopeful, positive possibilities.

Personally, one of the things I like so much about TAS is that it could come up with good peaceful resolutions, ones that were earned, rather than tacked on just because. If anything, TOS was more guitly of tonally awkward 'happy' endings, the infamous 'tease the Vulcan after lots of people have died horribly' conclusions. Heck, even TNG did it with First Contact.

TAS captured, particularly well, the things I personally loved about Trek, things I believe are lacking in the current TV incarnation, and if the Nick show can recapture some of that, I for one will be content.

 

[captainkirk]

So let me see if I've got this straight: A bunch of runaway teens find an old abandoned Starfleet vessel, fix it up and go joyriding on adventures throughout the galaxy. Time setting not given, but likely post-Federation since Starfleet'd be in hot pursuit of them otherwise. Ship has to be big enough to handle most anything thrown at it, yet small enough for maybe a half-dozen kids to fly and comfortably live in it. So smaller than an Excelsior, bigger than a runabout, and capable of automation...

Oh hell.

They're going to be flying the Enterprise-A, aren't they? Just like those kids in the Ghostbusters Afterlife trailer with the Ecto-1. It'll be floating in the long-forgotten Starfleet Museum, keys in the figurative ignition...

What about a post-Calypso Discovery? I know that's probably going to be ignored in season 3 and was setting up an earlier plan for getting the crew into the future, but if we still accept it as something yet to come then it's always a possibility.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

You're making a lot of assumptions there, not least that a peaceful resolution would inevitably hand the Kzinti the weapon. There are many ways it could have ended without the deaths, that would fit in more with the tone of the rest of the series, as, to my recollection, they weren't completely immune to reason, completely unwilling to listen. It could even be an uneasy resolution, a tentative truce, no more than hopeful, positive possibilities.

Personally, one of the things I like so much about TAS is that it could come up with good peaceful resolutions, ones that were earned, rather than tacked on just because. If anything, TOS was more guitly of tonally awkward 'happy' endings, the infamous 'tease the Vulcan after lots of people have died horribly' conclusions. Heck, even TNG did it with First Contact.

TAS captured, particularly well, the things I personally loved about Trek, things I believe are lacking in the current TV incarnation, and if the Nick show can recapture some of that, I for one will be content.

It was Christopher's assumption that the weapon was in the possession of the Kzinti at that point in the story.

 

[137th Gebirg]

So let me see if I've got this straight: A bunch of runaway teens find an old abandoned Starfleet vessel, fix it up and go joyriding on adventures throughout the galaxy. Time setting not given, but likely post-Federation since Starfleet'd be in hot pursuit of them otherwise.

Not necessarily. There are probably a bunch of semi-functional derelicts out there that Starfleet forgot about. Then there's also the Qualor II surplus depot, which looked like they had a bunch of potentially functional ships that hadn't had all the good bits taken out of them yet. Dominion War & Wolf 359 graveyards may also have a few functional vessels which are untouched, likely due to "memorial" status.

They're going to be flying the Enterprise-A, aren't they?

FFS, I hope not...

 

[Danja]

"An American Pickle" composer to score "Prodigy":

https://filmmusicreporter.com/2020/10/20/nami-melumad-to-score-nickelodeons-star-trek-prodigy/