Star Trek: Prodigy Rescued By Netflix Following Unceremonious Paramount+ Cancelation
On June 23, 2023, Paramount announced that it was going to remove several shows from its streaming service Paramount+ and cancel its animated Nickelodeon series "Star Trek: Prodigy" after the conclusion of its second season, due out in 2024. This announcement incurred the ire of Trekkies everywhere, as "Prodigy" would be left wholly unavailable to anyone who hadn't purchased a Blu-ray or DVD of the series. For a few days after the announcement, hard copies of "Star Trek: Prodigy" were in short supply, as panicked media collectors wanted to get their hands on a "Star Trek" show before it was seemingly erased from history completely.
A recent press release, however, has revealed a reprieve. Netflix has announced that it will be handling the presentation of "Star Trek: Prodigy" going forward.
Many Trekkies, knowing the value of the franchise, were a little baffled as to why Paramount would be so hasty to drop a "Star Trek" show, even if it was the least talked-about in a recent spate of new "Star Trek" series. "Prodigy," many felt, deserved to be treated more kindly than an abrupt cancelation and complete erasure from the Paramount streaming archive. Netflix, however, seems to have seen the value in "Prodigy" and will continue its legacy, even as Paramount flounders.
This is mere postulation, but the cancelation of "Prodigy" likely had a lot to do with the glut-forward streaming model that is designed to increase company value rather than attract viewers. Companies debut new shows to impress shareholders and don't care if audiences actually watch them. This model leaves beloved shows in the corporate dust. Happily, another company was savvy enough to recognize that "Prodigy" had an audience.
Prodigy boldly goes to Netflix
According to Netflix's press release, the first season of "Prodigy" will be made available on their service sometime in 2023. The upcoming second season will also be released on Netflix, starting in 2024. It will no longer be a Paramount+ exclusive.
Netflix announced no new details about what might happen in the show's second season, nor did it make any announcements about cast changes, new characters, or any of the "fun stuff." Additionally, Netflix has made no indication that it will be producing or funding any new seasons of "Prodigy" beyond its already-complete second season. This is not an announcement of the show's continued life or presumed immortality. This is merely an announcement to say that Netflix will be picking up what Paramount+ dropped.
Netflix, of course, isn't exactly notorious for letting its shows run for extended periods. Only a few of its bigger hits — "House of Cards," "Stranger Things" — have been granted multiple seasons. The vast bulk of its programs, no matter how beloved, tend to be canned after only a season or two. While the promise of a "Prodigy" season 3 may appear to be embedded in its Netflix shift, there is nothing in the press release to suggest it.
The adventures of the U.S.S. Protostar's crew continue
The premise of "Prodigy" is unusual for "Star Trek." A group of teenage aliens, in a distant part of the galaxy, are enslaved in a mining colony. There's the hot-headed Dal (Brett Gray), the sensitive but short-tempered Gwyn (Ella Purnell), the innocent Rok-Tahk (Rylee Alazraqui), the fast-talking slob Jankom Pog (Jason Mantzoukas), the curious non-corporeal Zero (Angus Imrie), and the shape-shifting critter Murf (Dee Bradley Baker). These characters manage to escape bondage and happen upon an abandoned Starfleet vessel called the U.S.S. Protostar. However, the show's heroes had no knowledge of Starfleet or of the Federation, so the Protostar was wholly alien to them.
Luckily, the Protostar was equipped with an emergency command hologram that looked and sounded like Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) from "Star Trek: Voyager." The Janeway hologram, taking the teens for Starfleet cadets, teaches them how to fly the ship, but also how to get along and behave more like a proper starship crew. Dal and company are on the run from their former taskmaster, the Divine (John Noble), and have to make their way back to Federation space. By the end of the first season, the characters are in uniform, taken by the egalitarian Starfleet philosophy of helpfulness and unity. The animated series is a unique blend of "Star Trek" tech and gentle proselytizing with "Star Wars"-style adventure storytelling.
The season ended with the main characters joining Starfleet, a meeting with the real-life Janeway, and their potential assignment on board the brand new U.S.S. Voyager-A. It was left with a great promise.
The glut of Star Trek
Since 2017, "Star Trek" has seen both a boom and a bust. CBS All Access, now Paramount+, launched with "Star Trek: Discovery" and quickly added "Star Trek: Short Treks," "Star Trek: Picard," "Star Trek: Lower Decks," "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," and "Star Strek: Prodigy" all within the next few years. There were also plans to launch a "Star Trek" spy series called "Section 31," and it was recently announced that Paramount is developing a series titled "Star Trek: Starfleet Academy."
Over the last year, however, a lot of that has come to an end. "Short Treks" mutated into an occasional side-hustle, currently in the form of the animated "Very Short Treks." "Picard" came to an end after its third season, and "Discovery" will end after its fifth in 2024. "Section 31" was shortened from a series into a single TV movie, and, of course, "Prodigy" was put on the chopping block. Come 2023, it looked as though only three "Star Trek" shows would remain, and even those didn't seem to be guaranteed.
Netflix's presentation of "Prodigy" is the first time in the recent "Star Trek" glut that a series will have been rescued or revived. As the streaming landscape remains imminently unstable, these sorts of business-minded property transfers can be a great relief to fans, with this one being of particular note to Trekkies happy for the overwhelming amount of new "Star Trek" hours to consume.
Know that "Star Trek" has long remained nimble in terms of syndication and streaming proliferation. It seems that the franchise may not be gathered exclusively under the Paramount+ umbrella after all. It may remain eternally accessible as long as at least one streaming service is left standing.