Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2
SPOILERS TOTAL. You've been warned.
201: Into the Breach, Part 1 2024 July 1
(First watched 2024-07-01)
202: Into the Breach, Part 2 2024 July 1
(First watched 2024-07-01) (Combined thoughts) So it's about a half year since the big battle at the end of season 1. The main characters are doing well in their own various ways. Being brought on Voyager-A, them finding their new spots seems almost like the start of a new Lower Decks, with them "ranking" even lower than the actual cadets on board.
Of course by shenanigans they learn of a possible secret mission, though they got the clues in such a clumsy fashion I wondered at first if it was intentional. Our Protostar crew members are also very clumsy about keeping a secret, though, and end up involving the cadets. Interestingly, they then get split up so both the group accidentally going through with the mission to the future and the group left behind consist of ex-Protostar and the cadets. Who in their early interactions were a bit adversarial, but I suppose now will be forced to work together.
The stuff on Solum was pretty interesting, too. Gwyn tries to make a less harmful first contact... but is too late because Asencia beat her there. Their people must live pretty long lives, because the future and present Asencias look more or less the same even though they're supposed to be 50+ years different in age. We also see the young "The Diviner", who as might be expected seems like a completely different character, not being put through the events that forced him into his mission last season. An astronomer, even, who dreams about other worlds.
So there's a Big Mysterious Thing that sends short messages to Voyager a couple times in the episode. Didn't exactly try playing with the voice to detect familiarity, but wouldn't be surprised if that's sent by one of our familiar characters later in the season.
(First watched 2024-07-03)
(First watched 2024-07-03) (Combined thoughts) More strange messages and assistance from an unknown source which I'm still guessing is our characters. The Chakotay situation is a bit weird... were they or weren't they part of a loop there? Because if they were, it should've gone the same way as before. But if they weren't, it seems like it would've been even more different. Chakotay and birdman sure didn't seem to have a solid way out of their cell without help. But I guess loops can be pretty complicated. Loops within loops.
Who is Murf talking to? More of his kind? The presentation was kind of like Enterprise's Future Guy.
Was the Vulcan named Majel? *checks* Yup, Maj'el.
(First watched 2024-07-04)
(First watched 2024-07-04) (Combined thoughts) Ahh, so mystery entity is Chakotay... maybe.
It does seem strange that they could go this far with not understanding Murf. I mean, putting someone in a Starfleet mentorship program when your only communication with them is loose gesturing?
The holodouble trouble with too-good copies not understanding they're the copies was well done, and the mixup with them at the end seems like fun shenanigans.
Good line from the Doctor about our characters: "I haven't seen a crew this dysfunctional since the Cerritos."
Not specifically about these episodes, but it feels like this season should've had a different opening sequences and it was just something that had to fall between the cracks when they were semi-cancelled. The intro is still all about the Protostar, which is not the hero ship of this season, and still includes Hologram Janeway from last season too.
(First watched 2024-07-05) This is the first time I've watched two episodes and they didn't flow together so much I just wrote about them together.
I get that there was some worry about using the old Borg tech, but... did they really have a choice? They have a person whose existence relies on a timeline which is currently busted, traveling for months doesn't really seem like an option.
Though the trouble they ran into was not Borg, it felt pretty Borg-like in the end. An AI controlling humanoids to try and make them more perfect. Felt like something else that would go into the collection of megalomaniacal AIs seen on Lower Decks.
(First watched 2024-07-05) Kind of a dick move on the part of the people on the planet to not explain the pros and cons to Zero before building a body for them. But I was surprised that it didn't end with a total reversion to the status quo. They say the body could only be maintained on that planet, so what does that mean? Is Zero going to start like falling apart as they go on? Will they eventually be forced to go back into their old containment unit or replacement? Will some workaround be found, as with the Doctor's mobile emitter or Gwynn's it'-OK-I-wasn't-created armband?