How Star Trek: Prodigy broke the modern trope and actually made a show kids and adults can enjoy.
I’m a Trekkie. My father introduced me to The Original Series when I was quite young, as it was about the only thing his family always agreed on when he was growing up. We watched the premiere of The Next Generation together, and even used the Saturdays when it was on Q13 in Seattle to have a homemade pizza, and enjoy being together, him, my mother, and myself.
When Deep Space Nine premiered, he watched it on occasion, but the show wasn’t really for him. I don’t believe he ever watched many, if any, episodes of Voyager or Enterprise. We did watch the TNG movies, and the Kelvinverse films, and he enjoyed them. When Star Trek Discovery premiered, we watched it again, as a family. He wasn’t blown away by it, and didn’t continue. I never tried to get him to watch Short Treks, Picard, or Lower Decks. I knew that these shows, especially with their pacing and semi-serialized nature (or fully, stubbornly serialized nature of Discovery), would not be to his liking. I’m still hoping he’ll like Strange New Worlds.
Unfortunately, the other drawback to the modern series was that because they weren’t being broadcast in the US, but were streaming, they didn’t have to adhere to the FCC’s arbitrary rules for decency and language. As a result, aside from maybe, Strange New Worlds, none of them were suited for children. So I was quite please when Prodigy was announced. I was expecting some sort of rubberized Star Trek. Something that was lighthearted and cheerful, similar to many modern cartoons aimed at kids. What we got blew me away. This was classic animation, aimed at children, but containing those difficult subjects that I recall being exposed to by the cartoons, and other children’s entertainment of my youth. It doesn’t pull punches, but it does present things is way that are acceptable and accessible.
While I don’t have kids of my own, I do have 3 children that are often in my care, courtesy of my cousin. These kids have grown up being constantly inundated with Star Wars series and iconography, and completely uninterested in Star Trek, or most things that aren’t “pew-pew” or related to Video Games. So I decided to show them the first few episodes of the series.
I was pleasantly surprised that they were as enthusiastic about it as I was. They were enthralled by the story, they were asking questions about the show, characters, Star Trek in general. Things I never thought I’d hear them ask.
For a show “aimed” at kids, it is incredibly well written. The animation is stylistic, but perfect for the medium. It uses DS9 style serialization, be it that each episode is self contained, but connected to an ongoing thread. The story is smart, logical, and well presented. I cannot wait for season 2, and hope the quality continues into the future.