First Image From Star Trek’s New Series, Prodigy
We have our first glimpse of the latest Star Trek offering. It's the animated crew of Star Trek: Prodigy. It's a new look for the franchise.
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Star Trek: Prodigy is set to boldly take on a group that the franchise hasn’t focused on in quite some time: kids. That’s the case with this new animated show that will air at some point in 2021. It’s a great new path for the well-established franchise, working in a new demographic around some of the same themes we’ve seen in other shows. And now, we’ve been treated to our first glimpse of the Prodigy “crew” with images of the group being released as part of a bigger promotional package. Check out the teaser video from Paramount Plus:
The animated show, Star Trek Prodigy, will feature a cast of kids (from a variety of intergalactic races) that come about the franchise a little differently than we’ve seen in previous iterations. Instead of going through Starfleet training and moving up the ranks, this group stumbles on an abandoned ship and takes it for their own use. It sets off a series of adventures that will land them in the middle of the Star Trek universe. And unlike other iterations of the show, this latest will be the first to not include any human characters as part of the central cast.
The characters featured in the first image of Star Trek: Prodigy came about as part of a promotional video for the Star Trek franchise. The original plan had been to put Prodigy, which is decidedly geared towards a younger audience, on Nickelodeon. But that plan has changed, and now all Star Trek shows will be on Paramount Plus which is the planned pivot for CBS All Access.
According to Paramount head Julie McNamara, this plan to move Star Trek: Prodigy off of Nickelodeon and on to Paramount was a data play. Analytics showed that fans of different Star Trek entities also were fans of Nickelodeon’s Legends of Korra. This led the studio to believe they already had a built-in audience on the streaming platform and didn’t need to head over the kids’ market right away. The plan is to eventually run it on Nickelodeon but they will start by streaming at the outset.
Joining Star Trek: Prodigy in the animated realm is, the already running, Star Trek: Lower Decks. That show has already aired for a full season on CBS All Access and is about the unseen crew of a Starship, the folks that keep the place running off the deck. Though animated, it was still geared towards a much more adult audience in both its tone and humor. This latest animated show will be a shift away from the older generation of Star Trek fans and begin to work a new demographic into the mix.
Other shows joining Star Trek: Prodigy as part of this franchise push will be the already running Picard and Discovery which have been met with rave reviews. But there’s also a plan for Brave New Worlds which will reprise Anson Mount in the role of Captain Pike and Ethan Peck as Spock.
We know that, along with this new set of Star Trek: Prodigy characters, there’s also a plan to bring back some old “faces” (voices) with Kate Mulgrew as Kathryn Janeway and Billy Campbell as Okona. It’s an exciting time for the franchise for fans of all ages. Star Trek: Prodigy will release later in 2021.
